Middlemarch By George Eliot

snuff-box. Fred had overheard Mr. Jonah suggesting something about a
"love-child," and with this thought in his mind, the stranger's face,
which happened to be opposite him, affected him too ludicrously.
Mary Garth, discerning his distress in the twitchings of his mouth,
and his recourse to a cough, came cleverly to his rescue by asking
him to change seats with her, so that he got into a shadowy corner.
Fred was feeling as good-naturedly as possible towards everybody,
including Rigg; and having some relenting towards all these people
who were less lucky than he was aware of being himself, he would
not for the world have behaved amiss; still, it was particularly easy
to laugh.
But the entrance of the lawyer and the two brothers drew every
one's attention. The lawyer was Mr. Standish, and he had come
to Stone Court this morning believing that he knew thoroughly well
who would be pleased and who disappointed before the day was over.
The will he expected to read was the last of three which he
had drawn up for Mr. Featherstone. Mr. Standish was not a man
who varied his manners: he behaved with the same deep-voiced,
off-hand civility to everybody, as if he saw no difference in them,
and talked chiefly of the hay-crop, which would be "very fine,
by God!" of the last bulletins concerning the King, and of the Duke
of Clarence, who was a sailor every inch of him, and just the man
to rule over an island like Britain.
Old Featherstone had often reflected as he sat looking at the fire
that Standish would be surprised some day: it is true that if he
had done as he liked at the last, and burnt the will drawn up
by another lawyer, he would not have secured that minor end;
still he had had his pleasure in ruminating on it. And certainly
Mr. Standish was surprised, but not at all sorry; on the contrary,
he rather enjoyed the zest of a little curiosity in his own mind,
which the discovery of a second will added to the prospective amazement
on the part of the Featherstone family.
As to the sentiments of Solomon and Jonah, they were held in
utter suspense: it seemed to them that the old will would have
a certain validity, and that there might be such an interlacement
of poor Peter's former and latter intentions as to create endless
"lawing" before anybody came by their own--an inconvenience which
would have at least the advantage of going all round. Hence the
brothers showed a thoroughly neutral gravity as they re-entered
with Mr. Standish; but Solomon took out his white handkerchief again
with a sense that in any case there would be affecting passages,
and crying at funerals, however dry, was customarily served up in lawn.
Perhaps the person who felt the most throbbing excitement at this
moment was Mary Garth, in the consciousness that it was she
who had virtually determined the production of this second will,
which might have momentous effects on the lot of some persons present.
No soul except herself knew what had passed on that final night.
"The will I hold in my hand," said Mr. Standish, who, seated at
the table in the middle of the room, took his time about everything,
including the coughs with which he showed a disposition to clear
his voice, "was drawn up by myself and executed by our deceased
friend on the 9th of August, 1825. But I find that there is
a subsequent instrument hitherto unknown to me, bearing date the
20th of July, 1826, hardly a year later than the previous one.
And there is farther, I see"--Mr. Standish was cautiously travelling
over the document with his spectacles--"a codicil to this latter will,
bearing date March 1, 1828."
"Dear, dear!" said sister Martha, not meaning to be audible,
but driven to some articulation under this pressure of dates.
"I shall begin by reading the earlier will," continued Mr. Standish,
"since such, as appears by his not having destroyed the document,
was the intention of deceased."
The preamble was felt to be rather long, and several besides
Solomon shook their heads pathetically, looking on the ground:
all eyes avoided meeting other eyes, and were chiefly fixed either
on the spots in the table-cloth or on Mr. Standish's bald head;
excepting Mary Garth's. When all the rest were trying to look
nowhere in particular, it was safe for her to look at them.
And at the sound of the first "give and bequeath" she could see all
complexions changing subtly, as if some faint vibration were passing
through them, save that of Mr. Rigg. He sat in unaltered calm, and,
in fact, the company, preoccupied with more important problems,
and with the complication of listening to bequests which might or
might not be revoked, had ceased to think of him. Fred blushed,
and Mr. Vincy found it impossible to do without his snuff-box in
his hand, though he kept it closed.
The small bequests came first, and even the recollection that there
was another will and that poor Peter might have thought better of it,
could not quell the rising disgust and indignation. One likes
to be done well by in every tense, past, present, and future.
And here was Peter capable five years ago of leaving only two hundred
apiece to his own brothers and sisters, and only a hundred apiece
to his own nephews and nieces: the Garths were not mentioned,
but Mrs. Vincy and Rosamond were each to have a hundred.
Mr. Trumbull was to have the gold-headed cane and fifty pounds;
the other second cousins and the cousins present were each to have
the like handsome sum, which, as the saturnine cousin observed,
was a sort of legacy that left a man nowhere; and there was much
more of such offensive dribbling in favor of persons not present--
problematical, and, it was to be feared, low connections.
Altogether, reckoning hastily, here were about three thousand
disposed of. Where then had Peter meant the rest of the money to go--
and where the land? and what was revoked and what not revoked--
and was the revocation for better or for worse? All emotion
must be conditional, and might turn out to be the wrong thing.
The men were strong enough to bear up and keep quiet under this
confused suspense; some letting their lower lip fall, others pursing
it up, according to the habit of their muscles. But Jane and Martha
sank under the rush of questions, and began to cry; poor Mrs. Cranch
being half moved with the consolation of getting any hundreds at all
without working for them, and half aware that her share was scanty;
whereas Mrs. Waule's mind was entirely flooded with the sense
of being an own sister and getting little, while somebody else
was to have much. The general expectation now was that the "much"
would fall to Fred Vincy, but the Vincys themselves were surprised
when ten thousand pounds in specified investments were declared to be
bequeathed to him:--was the land coming too? Fred bit his lips:
it was difficult to help smiling, and Mrs. Vincy felt herself
the happiest of women--possible revocation shrinking out of sight
in this dazzling vision.
There was still a residue of personal property as well as the land,
but the whole was left to one person, and that person was--
O possibilities! O expectations founded on the favor of "close"
old gentlemen! O endless vocatives that would still leave
expression slipping helpless from the measurement of mortal folly!--
that residuary legatee was Joshua Rigg, who was also sole executor,
and who was to take thenceforth the name of Featherstone.
There was a rustling which seemed like a shudder running round
the room. Every one stared afresh at Mr. Rigg, who apparently
experienced no surprise.
"A most singular testamentary disposition!" exclaimed Mr. Trumbull,
preferring for once that he should be considered ignorant in the past.
"But there is a second will--there is a further document. We have
not yet heard the final wishes of the deceased."
Mary Garth was feeling that what they had yet to hear were not the
final wishes. The second will revoked everything except the legacies
to the low persons before mentioned (some alterations in these being
the occasion of the codicil), and the bequest of all the land
lying in Lowick parish with all the stock and household furniture,
to Joshua Rigg. The residue of the property was to be devoted to
the erection and endowment of almshouses for old men, to be called
Featherstone's Alms-Houses, and to be built on a piece of land
near Middlemarch already bought for the purpose by the testator,
he wishing--so the document declared--to please God Almighty.
Nobody present had a farthing; but Mr. Trumbull had the gold-headed cane.
It took some time for the company to recover the power of expression.
Mary dared not look at Fred.
Mr. Vincy was the first to speak--after using his snuffbox
energetically--and he spoke with loud indignation.
"The most unaccountable will I ever heard! I should say
he was not in his right mind when he made it. I should
say this last will was void," added Mr. Vincy, feeling
that this expression put the thing in the true light. "Eh Standish?"
"Our deceased friend always knew what he was about, I think,"
said Mr. Standish. "Everything is quite regular. Here is a letter
from Clemmens of Brassing tied with the will. He drew it up.
A very respectable solicitor."
"I never noticed any alienation of mind--any aberration of intellect
in the late Mr. Featherstone," said Borthrop Trumbull, "but I call this
will eccentric. I was always willingly of service to the old soul;
and he intimated pretty plainly a sense of obligation which would show
itself in his will. The gold-headed cane is farcical considered as
an acknowledgment to me; but happily I am above mercenary considerations."
"There's nothing very surprising in the matter that I can see,"
said Caleb Garth. "Anybody might have had more reason for wondering
if the will had been what you might expect from an open-minded
straightforward man. For my part, I wish there was no such thing
as a will."
"That's a strange sentiment to come from a Christian man, by God!"
said the lawyer. "I should like to know how you will back
that up, Garth!"
"Oh," said Caleb, leaning forward, adjusting his finger-tips
with nicety and looking meditatively on the ground. It always
seemed to him that words were the hardest part of "business."
But here Mr. Jonah Featherstone made himself heard. "Well,
he always was a fine hypocrite, was my brother Peter. But this
will cuts out everything. If I'd known, a wagon and six horses
shouldn't have drawn me from Brassing. I'll put a white hat
and drab coat on to-morrow."
"Dear, dear," wept Mrs. Cranch, "and we've been at the expense
of travelling, and that poor lad sitting idle here so long!
It's the first time I ever heard my brother Peter was so wishful
to please God Almighty; but if I was to be struck helpless I must
say it's hard--I can think no other."
"It'll do him no good where he's gone, that's my belief,"
said Solomon, with a bitterness which was remarkably genuine,
though his tone could not help being sly. "Peter was a bad liver,
and almshouses won't cover it, when he's had the impudence to show
it at the last."
"And all the while had got his own lawful family--brothers and sisters
and nephews and nieces--and has sat in church with 'em whenever
he thought well to come," said Mrs. Waule. "And might have left
his property so respectable, to them that's never been used to
extravagance or unsteadiness in no manner of way--and not so poor
but what they could have saved every penny and made more of it.
And me--the trouble I've been at, times and times, to come here
and be sisterly--and him with things on his mind all the while that
might make anybody's flesh creep. But if the Almighty's allowed it,
he means to punish him for it. Brother Solomon, I shall be going,
if you'll drive me."
"I've no desire to put my foot on the premises again," said Solomon.
"I've got land of my own and property of my own to will away."
"It's a poor tale how luck goes in the world," said Jonah.
"It never answers to have a bit of spirit in you. You'd better be
a dog in the manger. But those above ground might learn a lesson.
One fool's will is enough in a family."
"There's more ways than one of being a fool," said Solomon.
"I shan't leave my money to be poured down the sink, and I shan't
leave it to foundlings from Africay. I like Feather, stones that
were brewed such, and not turned Featherstones with sticking
the name on 'em."
Solomon addressed these remarks in a loud aside to Mrs. Waule
as he rose to accompany her. Brother Jonah felt himself capable
of much more stinging wit than this, but he reflected that there
was no use in offending the new proprietor of Stone Court, until you
were certain that he was quite without intentions of hospitality
towards witty men whose name he was about to bear.
Mr. Joshua Rigg, in fact, appeared to trouble himself little
about any innuendoes, but showed a notable change of manner,
walking coolly up to Mr. Standish and putting business questions
with much coolness. He had a high chirping voice and a vile accent.
Fred, whom he no longer moved to laughter, thought him the lowest
monster he had ever seen. But Fred was feeling rather sick.
The Middlemarch mercer waited for an opportunity of engaging
Mr. Rigg in conversation: there was no knowing how many pairs
of legs the new proprietor might require hose for, and profits
were more to be relied on than legacies. Also, the mercer,
as a second cousin, was dispassionate enough to feel curiosity.
Mr. Vincy, after his one outburst, had remained proudly silent,
though too much preoccupied with unpleasant feelings to think
of moving, till he observed that his wife had gone to Fred's
side and was crying silently while she held her darling's hand.
He rose immediately, and turning his back on the company while he
said to her in an undertone,--"Don't give way, Lucy; don't make
a fool of yourself, my dear, before these people," he added in his
usual loud voice--"Go and order the phaeton, Fred; I have no time
to waste."
Mary Garth had before this been getting ready to go home with her father.
She met Fred in the hall, and now for the first time had the courage
to look at him He had that withered sort of paleness which will
sometimes come on young faces, and his hand was very cold when she
shook it. Mary too was agitated; she was conscious that fatally,
without will of her own, she had perhaps made a great difference
to Fred's lot.
"Good-by," she said, with affectionate sadness. "Be brave, Fred.
I do believe you are better without the money. What was the good
of it to Mr. Featherstone?"
"That's all very fine," said Fred, pettishly. "What is a fellow
to do? I must go into the Church now." (He knew that this would
vex Mary: very well; then she must tell him what else he could do.)
"And I thought I should be able to pay your father at once and make
everything right. And you have not even a hundred pounds left you.
What shall you do now, Mary?"
"Take another situation, of course, as soon as I can get one.
My father has enough to do to keep the rest, without me. Good-by."
In a very short time Stone Court was cleared of well-brewed Featherstones
and other long-accustomed visitors. Another stranger had been
brought to settle in the neighborhood of Middlemarch, but in the case
of Mr. Rigg Featherstone there was more discontent with immediate
visible consequences than speculation as to the effect which his
presence might have in the future. No soul was prophetic enough to
have any foreboding as to what might appear on the trial of Joshua Rigg.
And here I am naturally led to reflect on the means of elevating
a low subject. Historical parallels are remarkably efficient in
this way. The chief objection to them is, that the diligent narrator
may lack space, or (what is often the same thing) may not be able
to think of them with any degree of particularity, though he may have
a philosophical confidence that if known they would be illustrative.
It seems an easier and shorter way to dignity, to observe that--
since there never was a true story which could not be told in parables,
where you might put a monkey for a margrave, and vice versa--
whatever has been or is to be narrated by me about low people,
may be ennobled by being considered a parable; so that if any bad
habits and ugly consequences are brought into view, the reader may have
the relief of regarding them as not more than figuratively ungenteel,
and may feel himself virtually in company with persons of some style.
Thus while I tell the truth about loobies, my reader's imagination
need not be entirely excluded from an occupation with lords;
and the petty sums which any bankrupt of high standing would be
sorry to retire upon, may be lifted to the level of high commercial
transactions by the inexpensive addition of proportional ciphers.
As to any provincial history in which the agents are all of high
moral rank, that must be of a date long posterior to the first
Reform Bill, and Peter Featherstone, you perceive, was dead
and buried some months before Lord Grey came into office.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
"'Tis strange to see the humors of these men,
These great aspiring spirits, that should be wise:
. . . . . . . .
For being the nature of great spirits to love
To be where they may be most eminent;
They, rating of themselves so farre above
Us in conceit, with whom they do frequent,
Imagine how we wonder and esteeme
All that they do or say; which makes them strive
To make our admiration more extreme,
Which they suppose they cannot, 'less they give
Notice of their extreme and highest thoughts.
--DANIEL: Tragedy of Philotas.
Mr. Vincy went home from the reading of the will with his point
of view considerably changed in relation to many subjects. He was an
open-minded man, but given to indirect modes of expressing himself:
when he was disappointed in a market for his silk braids, he swore
at the groom; when his brother-in-law Bulstrode had vexed him,
he made cutting remarks on Methodism; and it was now apparent that
he regarded Fred's idleness with a sudden increase of severity,
by his throwing an embroidered cap out of the smoking-room on to
the hall-floor.
"Well, sir," he observed, when that young gentleman was moving off
to bed, "I hope you've made up your mind now to go up next term
and pass your examination. I've taken my resolution, so I advise
you to lose no time in taking yours."
Fred made no answer: he was too utterly depressed. Twenty-four hours
ago he had thought that instead of needing to know what he should do,
he should by this time know that he needed to do nothing: that he
should hunt in pink, have a first-rate hunter, ride to cover on a
fine hack, and be generally respected for doing so; moreover, that he
should be able at once to pay Mr. Garth, and that Mary could no longer
have any reason for not marrying him. And all this was to have come
without study or other inconvenience, purely by the favor of providence
in the shape of an old gentleman's caprice. But now, at the end
of the twenty-four hours, all those firm expectations were upset.
It was "rather hard lines" that while he was smarting under this
disappointment he should be treated as if he could have helped it.
But he went away silently and his mother pleaded for him.
"Don't be hard on the poor boy, Vincy. He'll turn out well yet,
though that wicked man has deceived him. I feel as sure as I
sit here, Fred will turn out well--else why was he brought back
from the brink of the grave? And I call it a robbery: it was
like giving him the land, to promise it; and what is promising,
if making everybody believe is not promising? And you see he did
leave him ten thousand pounds, and then took it away again."
"Took it away again!" said Mr. Vincy, pettishly. "I tell you
the lad's an unlucky lad, Lucy. And you've always spoiled him."
"Well, Vincy, he was my first, and you made a fine fuss with him
when he came. You were as proud as proud," said Mrs. Vincy,
easily recovering her cheerful smile.
"Who knows what babies will turn to? I was fool enough, I dare say,"
said the husband--more mildly, however.
"But who has handsomer, better children than ours? Fred is far
beyond other people's sons: you may hear it in his speech, that he
has kept college company. And Rosamond--where is there a girl
like her? She might stand beside any lady in the land, and only
look the better for it. You see--Mr. Lydgate has kept the highest
company and been everywhere, and he fell in love with her at once.
Not but what I could have wished Rosamond had not engaged herself.
She might have met somebody on a visit who would have been a far
better match; I mean at her schoolfellow Miss Willoughby's. There are
relations in that family quite as high as Mr. Lydgate's."
"Damn relations!" said Mr. Vincy; "I've had enough of them.
I don't want a son-in-law who has got nothing but his relations
to recommend him."
"Why, my dear," said Mrs. Vincy, "you seemed as pleased as could
be about it. It's true, I wasn't at home; but Rosamond told me you
hadn't a word to say against the engagement. And she has begun
to buy in the best linen and cambric for her underclothing."
"Not by my will," said Mr. Vincy. "I shall have enough to do this year,
with an idle scamp of a son, without paying for wedding-clothes.
The times are as tight as can be; everybody is being ruined;
and I don't believe Lydgate has got a farthing. I shan't give
my consent to their marrying. Let 'em wait, as their elders
have done before 'em."
"Rosamond will take it hard, Vincy, and you know you never could
bear to cross her."
"Yes, I could. The sooner the engagement's off, the better.
I don't believe he'll ever make an income, the way he goes on.
He makes enemies; that's all I hear of his making."
"But he stands very high with Mr. Bulstrode, my dear. The marriage
would please HIM, I should think."
"Please the deuce!" said Mr. Vincy. "Bulstrode won't pay for
their keep. And if Lydgate thinks I'm going to give money for them
to set up housekeeping, he's mistaken, that's all. I expect I shall
have to put down my horses soon. You'd better tell Rosy what I say."
This was a not infrequent procedure with Mr. Vincy--to be rash
in jovial assent, and on becoming subsequently conscious that he had
been rash, to employ others in making the offensive retractation.
However, Mrs. Vincy, who never willingly opposed her husband,
lost no time the next morning in letting Rosamond know what he
had said. Rosamond, examining some muslin-work, listened in silence,
and at the end gave a certain turn of her graceful neck, of which
only long experience could teach you that it meant perfect obstinacy.
"What do you say, my dear?" said her mother, with affectionate deference.
"Papa does not mean anything of the kind," said Rosamond, quite calmly.
"He has always said that he wished me to marry the man I loved.
And I shall marry Mr. Lydgate. It is seven weeks now since papa gave
his consent. And I hope we shall have Mrs. Bretton's house."
"Well, my dear, I shall leave you to manage your papa. You always
do manage everybody. But if we ever do go and get damask,
Sadler's is the place--far better than Hopkins's. Mrs. Bretton's
is very large, though: I should love you to have such a house;
but it will take a great deal of furniture--carpeting and everything,
besides plate and glass. And you hear, your papa says he will give
no money. Do you think Mr. Lydgate expects it?"
"You cannot imagine that I should ask him, mamma. Of course he
understands his own affairs."
"But he may have been looking for money, my dear, and we all thought
of your having a pretty legacy as well as Fred;--and now everything
is so dreadful--there's no pleasure in thinking of anything,
with that poor boy disappointed as he is."
"That has nothing to do with my marriage, mamma. Fred must leave off
being idle. I am going up-stairs to take this work to Miss Morgan:
she does the open hemming very well. Mary Garth might do some work
for me now, I should think. Her sewing is exquisite; it is the nicest
thing I know about Mary. I should so like to have all my cambric
frilling double-hemmed. And it takes a long time."
Mrs. Vincy's belief that Rosamond could manage her papa was
well founded. Apart from his dinners and his coursing, Mr. Vincy,
blustering as he was, had as little of his own way as if he had
been a prime minister: the force of circumstances was easily
too much for him, as it is for most pleasure-loving florid men;
and the circumstance called Rosamond was particularly forcible
by means of that mild persistence which, as we know, enables a white
soft living substance to make its way in spite of opposing rock.
Papa was not a rock: he had no other fixity than that fixity of
alternating impulses sometimes called habit, and this was altogether
unfavorable to his taking the only decisive line of conduct in relation
to his daughter's engagement--namely, to inquire thoroughly into
Lydgate's circumstances, declare his own inability to furnish money,
and forbid alike either a speedy marriage or an engagement which must
be too lengthy. That seems very simple and easy in the statement;
but a disagreeable resolve formed in the chill hours of the morning
had as many conditions against it as the early frost, and rarely
persisted under the warming influences of the day. The indirect
though emphatic expression of opinion to which Mr. Vincy was prone
suffered much restraint in this case: Lydgate was a proud man
towards whom innuendoes were obviously unsafe, and throwing his hat
on the floor was out of the question. Mr. Vincy was a little in awe
of him, a little vain that he wanted to marry Rosamond, a little
indisposed to raise a question of money in which his own position
was not advantageous, a little afraid of being worsted in dialogue
with a man better educated and more highly bred than himself,
and a little afraid of doing what his daughter would not like.
The part Mr. Vincy preferred playing was that of the generous host
whom nobody criticises. In the earlier half of the day there was
business to hinder any formal communication of an adverse resolve;
in the later there was dinner, wine, whist, and general satisfaction.
And in the mean while the hours were each leaving their little
deposit and gradually forming the final reason for inaction, namely,
that action was too late. The accepted lover spent most of his
evenings in Lowick Gate, and a love-making not at all dependent
on money-advances from fathers-in-law, or prospective income from
a profession, went on flourishingly under Mr. Vincy's own eyes.
Young love-making--that gossamer web! Even the points it
clings to--the things whence its subtle interlacings are swung--
are scarcely perceptible: momentary touches of fingertips,
meetings of rays from blue and dark orbs, unfinished phrases,
lightest changes of cheek and lip, faintest tremors. The web itself
is made of spontaneous beliefs and indefinable joys, yearnings of one
life towards another, visions of completeness, indefinite trust.
And Lydgate fell to spinning that web from his inward self with
wonderful rapidity, in spite of experience supposed to be finished
off with the drama of Laure--in spite too of medicine and biology;
for the inspection of macerated muscle or of eyes presented in a dish
(like Santa Lucia's), and other incidents of scientific inquiry,
are observed to be less incompatible with poetic love than a native
dulness or a lively addiction to the lowest prose. As for Rosamond,
she was in the water-lily's expanding wonderment at its own fuller life,
and she too was spinning industriously at the mutual web. All this
went on in the corner of the drawing-room where the piano stood,
and subtle as it was, the light made it a sort of rainbow visible
to many observers besides Mr. Farebrother. The certainty that Miss
Vincy and Mr. Lydgate were engaged became general in Middlemarch
without the aid of formal announcement.
Aunt Bulstrode was again stirred to anxiety; but this time she
addressed herself to her brother, going to the warehouse expressly
to avoid Mrs. Vincy's volatility. His replies were not satisfactory.
"Walter, you never mean to tell me that you have allowed all
this to go on without inquiry into Mr. Lydgate's prospects?"
said Mrs. Bulstrode, opening her eyes with wider gravity at her brother,
who was in his peevish warehouse humor. "Think of this girl
brought up in luxury--in too worldly a way, I am sorry to say--
what will she do on a small income?"
"Oh, confound it, Harriet I what can I do when men come into
the town without any asking of mine? Did you shut your house up
against Lydgate? Bulstrode has pushed him forward more than anybody.
I never made any fuss about the young fellow. You should go
and talk to your husband about it, not me."
"Well, really, Walter, how can Mr. Bulstrode be to blame?
I am sure he did not wish for the engagement."
"Oh, if Bulstrode had not taken him by the hand, I should never
have invited him."
"But you called him in to attend on Fred, and I am sure that was
a mercy," said Mrs. Bulstrode, losing her clew in the intricacies
of the subject.
"I don't know about mercy," said Mr. Vincy, testily. "I know I
am worried more than I like with my family. I was a good brother
to you, Harriet, before you married Bulstrode, and I must say he
doesn't always show that friendly spirit towards your family that might
have been expected of him." Mr. Vincy was very little like a Jesuit,
but no accomplished Jesuit could have turned a question more adroitly.
Harriet had to defend her husband instead of blaming her brother,
and the conversation ended at a point as far from the beginning as
some recent sparring between the brothers-in-law at a vestry meeting.
Mrs. Bulstrode did not repeat her brother's complaints to her husband,
but in the evening she spoke to him of Lydgate and Rosamond.
He did not share her warm interest, however; and only spoke with
resignation of the risks attendant on the beginning of medical
practice and the desirability of prudence.
"I am sure we are bound to pray for that thoughtless girl--
brought up as she has been," said Mrs. Bulstrode, wishing to rouse
her husband's feelings.
"Truly, my dear," said Mr. Bulstrode, assentingly. "Those who are
not of this world can do little else to arrest the errors of the
obstinately worldly. That is what we must accustom ourselves to
recognize with regard to your brother's family. I could have wished
that Mr. Lydgate had not entered into such a union; but my relations
with him are limited to that use of his gifts for God's purposes
which is taught us by the divine government under each dispensation."
Mrs. Bulstrode said no more, attributing some dissatisfaction which she
felt to her own want of spirituality. She believed that her husband
was one of those men whose memoirs should be written when they died.
As to Lydgate himself, having been accepted, he was prepared to
accept all the consequences which he believed himself to foresee
with perfect clearness. Of course he must be married in a year--
perhaps even in half a year. This was not what he had intended;
but other schemes would not be hindered: they would simply
adjust themselves anew. Marriage, of course, must be prepared
for in the usual way. A house must be taken instead of the rooms
he at present occupied; and Lydgate, having heard Rosamond speak
with admiration of old Mrs. Bretton's house (situated in Lowick
Gate), took notice when it fell vacant after the old lady's death,
and immediately entered into treaty for it.
He did this in an episodic way, very much as he gave orders to his
tailor for every requisite of perfect dress, without any notion
of being extravagant. On the contrary, he would have despised any
ostentation of expense; his profession had familiarized him with all
grades of poverty, and he cared much for those who suffered hardships.
He would have behaved perfectly at a table where the sauce was served
in a jug with the handle off, and he would have remembered nothing
about a grand dinner except that a man was there who talked well.
But it had never occurred to him that he should live in any other
than what he would have called an ordinary way, with green glasses
for hock, and excellent waiting at table. In warming himself at
French social theories he had brought away no smell of scorching.
We may handle even extreme opinions with impunity while our furniture,
our dinner-giving, and preference for armorial bearings in our
own ease, link us indissolubly with the established order.
And Lydgate's tendency was not towards extreme opinions: he would
have liked no barefooted doctrines, being particular about his boots:
he was no radical in relation to anything but medical reform
and the prosecution of discovery. In the rest of practical life
he walked by hereditary habit; half from that personal pride
and unreflecting egoism which I have already called commonness,
and half from that naivete which belonged to preoccupation
with favorite ideas.
Any inward debate Lydgate had as to the consequences of this
engagement which had stolen upon him, turned on the paucity of time
rather than of money. Certainly, being in love and being expected
continually by some one who always turned out to be prettier
than memory could represent her to be, did interfere with the
diligent use of spare hours which might serve some "plodding
fellow of a German" to make the great, imminent discovery.
This was really an argument for not deferring the marriage too long,
as he implied to Mr. Farebrother, one day that the Vicar came
to his room with some pond-products which he wanted to examine
under a better microscope than his own, and, finding Lydgate's
tableful of apparatus and specimens in confusion, said sarcastically--
"Eros has degenerated; he began by introducing order and harmony,
and now he brings back chaos."
"Yes, at some stages," said Lydgate, lifting his brows and smiling,
while he began to arrange his microscope. "But a better order will
begin after."
"Soon?" said the Vicar.
"I hope so, really. This unsettled state of affairs uses up the time,
and when one has notions in science, every moment is an opportunity.
I feel sure that marriage must be the best thing for a man who wants
to work steadily. He has everything at home then--no teasing with
personal speculations--he can get calmness and freedom."
"You are an enviable dog," said the Vicar, "to have such a prospect--
Rosamond, calmness and freedom, all to your share. Here am
I with nothing but my pipe and pond-animalcules. Now, are you ready?"
Lydgate did not mention to the Vicar another reason he had
for wishing to shorten the period of courtship. It was rather
irritating to him, even with the wine of love in his veins, to be
obliged to mingle so often with the family party at the Vincys',
and to enter so much into Middlemarch gossip, protracted good cheer,
whist-playing, and general futility. He had to be deferential
when Mr. Vincy decided questions with trenchant ignorance,
especially as to those liquors which were the best inward pickle,
preserving you from the effects of bad air. Mrs. Vincy's openness
and simplicity were quite unstreaked with suspicion as to the subtle
offence she might give to the taste of her intended son-in-law;
and altogether Lydgate had to confess to himself that he was
descending a little in relation to Rosamond's family. But that
exquisite creature herself suffered in the same sort of way:--
it was at least one delightful thought that in marrying her,
he could give her a much-needed transplantation.
"Dear!" he said to her one evening, in his gentlest tone, as he
sat down by her and looked closely at her face--
But I must first say that he had found her alone in the drawing-room,
where the great old-fashioned window, almost as large as the side
of the room, was opened to the summer scents of the garden at the
back of the house. Her father and mother were gone to a party,
and the rest were all out with the butterflies.
"Dear! your eyelids are red."
"Are they?" said Rosamond. "I wonder why." It was not in her
nature to pour forth wishes or grievances. They only came forth
gracefully on solicitation.
"As if you could hide it from me!"? said Lydgate, laying his hand tenderly
on both of hers. "Don't I see a tiny drop on one of the lashes?
Things trouble you, and you don't tell me. That is unloving."
"Why should I tell you what you cannot alter? They are
every-day things:--perhaps they have been a little worse lately."
"Family annoyances. Don't fear speaking. I guess them."
"Papa has been more irritable lately. Fred makes him angry, and this
morning there was a fresh quarrel because Fred threatens to throw
his whole education away, and do something quite beneath him.
And besides--"
Rosamond hesitated, and her cheeks were gathering a slight flush.
Lydgate had never seen her in trouble since the morning of
their engagement, and he had never felt so passionately towards
her as at this moment. He kissed the hesitating lips gently,
as if to encourage them.
"I feel that papa is not quite pleased about our engagement,"
Rosamond continued, almost in a whisper; "and he said last night
that he should certainly speak to you and say it must be given up."
"Will you give it up?" said Lydgate, with quick energy--almost angrily.
"I never give up anything that I choose to do," said Rosamond,
recovering her calmness at the touching of this chord.
"God bless you!" said Lydgate, kissing her again. This constancy
of purpose in the right place was adorable. He went on:--
"It is too late now for your father to say that our engagement
must be given up. You are of age, and I claim you as mine.
If anything is done to make you unhappy,--that is a reason for
hastening our marriage."
An unmistakable delight shone forth from the blue eyes that met his,
and the radiance seemed to light up all his future with mild sunshine.
Ideal happiness (of the kind known in the Arabian Nights, in which you
are invited to step from the labor and discord of the street into
a paradise where everything is given to you and nothing claimed)
seemed to be an affair of a few weeks' waiting, more or less.
"Why should we defer it?" he said, with ardent insistence.
"I have taken the house now: everything else can soon be got ready--
can it not? You will not mind about new clothes. Those can be
bought afterwards."
"What original notions you clever men have!" said Rosamond, dimpling with
more thorough laughter than usual at this humorous incongruity.
"This is the first time I ever heard of wedding-clothes being
bought after marriage."
"But you don't mean to say you would insist on my waiting months
for the sake of clothes?" said Lydgate, half thinking that Rosamond
was tormenting him prettily, and half fearing that she really shrank
from speedy marriage. "Remember, we are looking forward to a better
sort of happiness even than this--being continually together,
independent of others, and ordering our lives as we will.
Come, dear, tell me how soon you can be altogether mine."
There was a serious pleading in Lydgate's tone, as if he felt that
she would be injuring him by any fantastic delays. Rosamond became
serious too, and slightly meditative; in fact, she was going through
many intricacies of lace-edging and hosiery and petticoat-tucking,
in order to give an answer that would at least be approximative.
"Six weeks would be ample--say so, Rosamond," insisted Lydgate,
releasing her hands to put his arm gently round her.
One little hand immediately went to pat her hair, while she gave
her neck a meditative turn, and then said seriously--
"There would be the house-linen and the furniture to be prepared.
Still, mamma could see to those while we were away."
"Yes, to be sure. We must be away a week or so."
"Oh, more than that!" said Rosamond, earnestly. She was thinking
of her evening dresses for the visit to Sir Godwin Lydgate's, which
she had long been secretly hoping for as a delightful employment
of at least one quarter of the honeymoon, even if she deferred
her introduction to the uncle who was a doctor of divinity (also
a pleasing though sober kind of rank, when sustained by blood). She
looked at her lover with some wondering remonstrance as she spoke,
and he readily understood that she might wish to lengthen the sweet
time of double solitude.
"Whatever you wish, my darling, when the day is fixed. But let
us take a decided course, and put an end to any discomfort you
may be suffering. Six weeks!--I am sure they would be ample."
"I could certainly hasten the work," said Rosamond. "Will you, then,
mention it to papa?--I think it would be better to write to him."
She blushed and looked at him as the garden flowers look at us when we
walk forth happily among them in the transcendent evening light:
is there not a soul beyond utterance, half nymph, half child,
in those delicate petals which glow and breathe about the centres
of deep color?
He touched her ear and a little bit of neck under it with his lips,
and they sat quite still for many minutes which flowed by them
like a small gurgling brook with the kisses of the sun upon it.
Rosamond thought that no one could be more in love than she was;
and Lydgate thought that after all his wild mistakes and absurd credulity,
he had found perfect womanhood--felt as If already breathed upon
by exquisite wedded affection such as would be bestowed by an
accomplished creature who venerated his high musings and momentous
labors and would never interfere with them; who would create order
in the home and accounts with still magic, yet keep her fingers ready
to touch the lute and transform life into romance at any moment;
who was instructed to the true womanly limit and not a hair'sbreadth
beyond--docile, therefore, and ready to carry out behests
which came from that limit. It was plainer now than ever that his
notion of remaining much longer a bachelor had been a mistake:
marriage would not be an obstruction but a furtherance.
And happening the next day to accompany a patient to Brassing,
he saw a dinner-service there which struck him as so exactly the right
thing that he bought it at once. It saved time to do these things
just when you thought of them, and Lydgate hated ugly crockery.
The dinner-service in question was expensive, but that might be in
the nature of dinner-services. Furnishing was necessarily expensive;
but then it had to be done only once.
"It must be lovely," said Mrs. Vincy, when Lydgate mentioned his
purchase with some descriptive touches. "Just what Rosy ought
to have. I trust in heaven it won't be broken!"
"One must hire servants who will not break things," said Lydgate.
(Certainly, this was reasoning with an imperfect vision of sequences.
But at that period there was no sort of reasoning which was not more
or less sanctioned by men of science.)
Of course it was unnecessary to defer the mention of anything
to mamma, who did not readily take views that were not cheerful,
and being a happy wife herself, had hardly any feeling but pride
in her daughter's marriage. But Rosamond had good reasons for
suggesting to Lydgate that papa should be appealed to in writing.
She prepared for the arrival of the letter by walking with her papa
to the warehouse the next morning, and telling him on the way that
Mr. Lydgate wished to be married soon.
"Nonsense, my dear!" said Mr. Vincy. "What has he got to marry on?
You'd much better give up the engagement. I've told you so pretty
plainly before this. What have you had such an education for,
if you are to go and marry a poor man? It's a cruel thing for a father
to see."
"Mr. Lydgate is not poor, papa. He bought Mr. Peacock's practice,
which, they say, is worth eight or nine hundred a-year."
"Stuff and nonsense! What's buying a practice? He might as well
buy next year's swallows. It'll all slip through his fingers."
"On the contrary, papa, he will increase the practice. See how he
has been called in by the Chettams and Casaubons."
"I hope he knows I shan't give anything--with this disappointment
about Fred, and Parliament going to be dissolved, and machine-breaking
everywhere, and an election coming on--"
"Dear papa! what can that have to do with my marriage?"
"A pretty deal to do with it! We may all be ruined for what I know--
the country's in that state! Some say it's the end of the world,
and be hanged if I don't think it looks like it! Anyhow, it's not
a time for me to be drawing money out of my business, and I should
wish Lydgate to know that."
"I am sure he expects nothing, papa. And he has such very
high connections: he is sure to rise in one way or another.
He is engaged in making scientific discoveries."
Mr. Vincy was silent.
"I cannot give up my only prospect of happiness, papa Mr. Lydgate
is a gentleman. I could never love any one who was not a
perfect gentleman. You would not like me to go into a consumption,
as Arabella Hawley did. And you know that I never change my mind."
Again papa was silent.
"Promise me, papa, that you will consent to what we wish.
We shall never give each other up; and you know that you have always
objected to long courtships and late marriages."
There was a little more urgency of this kind, till Mr. Vincy said,
"Well, well, child, he must write to me first before I car answer him,"--
and Rosamond was certain that she had gained her point.
Mr. Vincy's answer consisted chiefly in a demand that Lydgate
should insure his life--a demand immediately conceded. This was
a delightfully reassuring idea supposing that Lydgate died,
but in the mean time not a self-supporting idea. However, it
seemed to make everything comfortable about Rosamond's marriage;
and the necessary purchases went on with much spirit. Not without
prudential considerations, however. A bride (who is going to visit
at a baronet's) must have a few first-rate pocket-handkerchiefs;
but beyond the absolutely necessary half-dozen, Rosamond contented
herself without the very highest style of embroidery and Valenciennes.
Lydgate also, finding that his sum of eight hundred pounds had been
considerably reduced since he had come to Middlemarch, restrained his
inclination for some plate of an old pattern which was shown to him
when he went into Kibble's establishment at Brassing to buy forks
and spoons. He was too proud to act as if he presupposed that
Mr. Vincy would advance money to provide furniture-; and though,
since it would not be necessary to pay for everything at once,
some bills would be left standing over, he did not waste time in
conjecturing how much his father-in-law would give in the form of dowry,
to make payment easy. He was not going to do anything extravagant,
but the requisite things must be bought, and it would be bad economy
to buy them of a poor quality. All these matters were by the bye.
Lydgate foresaw that science and his profession were the objects
he should alone pursue enthusiastically; but he could not imagine
himself pursuing them in such a home as Wrench had--the doors
all open, the oil-cloth worn, the children in soiled pinafores,
and lunch lingering in the form of bones, black-handled knives,
and willow-pattern. But Wrench had a wretched lymphatic wife
who made a mummy of herself indoors in a large shawl; and he must
have altogether begun with an ill-chosen domestic apparatus.
Rosamond, however, was on her side much occupied with conjectures,
though her quick imitative perception warned her against betraying
them too crudely.
"I shall like so much to know your family," she said one day,
when the wedding journey was being discussed. "We might perhaps
take a direction that would allow us to see them as we returned.
Which of your uncles do you like best?"
"Oh,--my uncle Godwin, I think. He is a good-natured old fellow."
"You were constantly at his house at Quallingham, when you were a boy,
were you not? I should so like to see the old spot and everything
you were used to. Does he know you are going to be married?"
"No," said Lydgate, carelessly, turning in his chair and rubbing
his hair up.
"Do send him word of it, you naughty undutiful nephew. He will
perhaps ask you to take me to Quallingham; and then you could show
me about the grounds, and I could imagine you there when you were
a boy. Remember, you see me in my home, just as it has been since I
was a child. It is not fair that I should be so ignorant of yours.
But perhaps you would be a little ashamed of me. I forgot that."
Lydgate smiled at her tenderly, and really accepted the suggestion
that the proud pleasure of showing so charming a bride was worth
some trouble. And now he came to think of it, he would like to see
the old spots with Rosamond.
"I will write to him, then. But my cousins are bores."
It seemed magnificent to Rosamond to be able to speak so slightingly
of a baronet's family, and she felt much contentment in the prospect
of being able to estimate them contemptuously on her own account.
But mamma was near spoiling all, a day or two later, by saying--
"I hope your uncle Sir Godwin will not look down on Rosy, Mr. Lydgate.
I should think he would do something handsome. A thousand or two
can be nothing to a baronet."
"Mamma!" said Rosamond, blushing deeply; and Lydgate pitied her so
much that he remained silent and went to the other end of the room
to examine a print curiously, as if he had been absent-minded. Mamma
had a little filial lecture afterwards, and was docile as usual.
But Rosamond reflected that if any of those high-bred cousins
who were bores, should be induced to visit Middlemarch, they would
see many things in her own family which might shock them. Hence it
seemed desirable that Lydgate should by-and-by get some first-rate
position elsewhere than in Middlemarch; and this could hardly be
difficult in the case of a man who had a titled uncle and could
make discoveries. Lydgate, you perceive, had talked fervidly to Rosamond
of his hopes as to the highest uses of his life, and had found it
delightful to be listened to by a creature who would bring him the
sweet furtherance of satisfying affection--beauty--repose--such help
as our thoughts get from the summer sky and the flower-fringed meadows.
Lydgate relied much on the psychological difference between
what for the sake of variety I will call goose and gander:
especially on the innate submissiveness of the goose as beautifully
corresponding to the strength of the gander.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
"Thrice happy she that is so well assured
Unto herself and settled so in heart
That neither will for better be allured
Ne fears to worse with any chance to start,
But like a steddy ship doth strongly part
The raging waves and keeps her course aright;
Ne aught for tempest doth from it depart,
Ne aught for fairer weather's false delight.
Such self-assurance need not fear the spight
Of grudging foes; ne favour seek of friends;
But in the stay of her own stedfast might
Neither to one herself nor other bends.
Most happy she that most assured doth rest,
But he most happy who such one loves best."
--SPENSER.
The doubt hinted by Mr. Vincy whether it were only the general
election or the end of the world that was coming on, now that George
the Fourth was dead, Parliament dissolved, Wellington and Peel
generally depreciated and the new King apologetic, was a feeble
type of the uncertainties in provincial opinion at that time.
With the glow-worm lights of country places, how could men see
which were their own thoughts in the confusion of a Tory Ministry
passing Liberal measures, of Tory nobles and electors being anxious
to return Liberals rather than friends of the recreant Ministers,
and of outcries for remedies which seemed to have a mysteriously remote
bearing on private interest, and were made suspicious by the advocacy
of disagreeable neighbors? Buyers of the Middlemarch newspapers
found themselves in an anomalous position: during the agitation
on the Catholic Question many had given up the "Pioneer"--which had
a motto from Charles James Fox and was in the van of progress--
because it had taken Peel's side about the Papists, and had thus
blotted its Liberalism with a toleration of Jesuitry and Baal;
but they were illsatisfied with the "Trumpet," which--since its
blasts against Rome, and in the general flaccidity of the public
mind (nobody knowing who would support whom)--had become feeble
in its blowing.
It was a time, according to a noticeable article in the "Pioneer,"
when the crying needs of the country might well counteract a reluctance
to public action on the part of men whose minds had from long
experience acquired breadth as well as concentration, decision of
judgment as well as tolerance, dispassionateness as well as energy--
in fact, all those qualities which in the melancholy experience
of mankind have been the least disposed to share lodgings.
Mr. Hackbutt, whose fluent speech was at that time floating more widely
than usual, and leaving much uncertainty as to its ultimate channel,
was heard to say in Mr. Hawley's office that the article in question
"emanated" from Brooke of Tipton, and that Brooke had secretly
bought the "Pioneer" some months ago.
"That means mischief, eh?" said Mr. Hawley. "He's got the freak of
being a popular man now, after dangling about like a stray tortoise.
So much the worse for him. I've had my eye on him for some time.
He shall be prettily pumped upon. He's a damned bad landlord.
What business has an old county man to come currying favor with a low
set of dark-blue freemen? As to his paper, I only hope he may do the
writing himself. It would be worth our paying for."
"I understand he has got a very brilliant young fellow to edit it,
who can write the highest style of leading article, quite equal
to anything in the London papers. And he means to take very high
ground on Reform."
"Let Brooke reform his rent-roll. He's a cursed old screw,
and the buildings all over his estate are going to rack.
I sup pose this young fellow is some loose fish from London."
"His name is Ladislaw. He is said to be of foreign extraction."
"I know the sort," said Mr. Hawley; "some emissary. He'll begin with
flourishing about the Rights of Man and end with murdering a wench.
That's the style."
"You must concede that there are abuses, Hawley," said Mr. Hackbutt,
foreseeing some political disagreement with his family lawyer.
"I myself should never favor immoderate views--in fact I take my
stand with Huskisson--but I cannot blind myself to the consideration
that the non-representation of large towns--"
"Large towns be damned!" said Mr. Hawley, impatient of exposition.
"I know a little too much about Middlemarch elections. Let 'em
quash every pocket borough to-morrow, and bring in every mushroom
town in the kingdom--they'll only increase the expense of getting
into Parliament. I go upon facts."
Mr. Hawley's disgust at the notion of the "Pioneer" being edited
by an emissary, and of Brooke becoming actively political--
as if a tortoise of desultory pursuits should protrude its small
head ambitiously and become rampant--was hardly equal to the
annoyance felt by some members of Mr. Brooke's own family.
The result had oozed forth gradually, like the discovery that your
neighbor has set up an unpleasant kind of manufacture which will be
permanently under your nostrils without legal remedy. The "Pioneer"
had been secretly bought even before Will Ladislaw's arrival,
the expected opportunity having offered itself in the readiness
of the proprietor to part with a valuable property which did not pay;
and in the interval since Mr. Brooke had written his invitation,
those germinal ideas of making his mind tell upon the world at
large which had been present in him from his younger years, but had
hitherto lain in some obstruction, had been sprouting under cover.
The development was much furthered by a delight in his guest which
proved greater even than he had anticipated. For it seemed that Will
was not only at home in all those artistic and literary subjects
which Mr. Brooke had gone into at one time, but that he was strikingly
ready at seizing the points of the political situation, and dealing
with them in that large spirit which, aided by adequate memory,
lends itself to quotation and general effectiveness of treatment.
"He seems to me a kind of Shelley, you know," Mr. Brooke took
an opportunity of saying, for the gratification of Mr. Casaubon.
"I don't mean as to anything objectionable--laxities or atheism,
or anything of that kind, you know--Ladislaw's sentiments in every
way I am sure are good--indeed, we were talking a great deal
together last night. But he has the same sort of enthusiasm
for liberty, freedom, emancipation--a fine thing under guidance--
under guidance, you know. I think I shall be able to put him on
the right tack; and I am the more pleased because he is a relation
of yours, Casaubon."
If the right tack implied anything more precise than the rest
of Mr. Brooke's speech, Mr. Casaubon silently hoped that it
referred to some occupation at a great distance from Lowick.
He had disliked Will while he helped him, but he had begun to dislike
him still more now that Will had declined his help. That is the
way with us when we have any uneasy jealousy in our disposition:
if our talents are chiefly of the burrowing kind, our honey-sipping
cousin (whom we have grave reasons for objecting to) is likely
to have a secret contempt for us, and any one who admires him
passes an oblique criticism on ourselves. Having the scruples of
rectitude in our souls, we are above the meanness of injuring him--
rather we meet all his claims on us by active benefits; and the drawing
of cheeks for him, being a superiority which he must recognize,
gives our bitterness a milder infusion. Now Mr. Casaubon had been
deprived of that superiority (as anything more than a remembrance)
in a sudden, capricious manner. His antipathy to Will did
not spring from the common jealousy of a winter-worn husband:
it was something deeper, bred by his lifelong claims and discontents;
but Dorothea, now that she was present--Dorothea, as a young
wife who herself had shown an offensive capability of criticism,
necessarily gave concentration to the uneasiness which had before
been vague.
Will Ladislaw on his side felt that his dislike was flourishing
at the expense of his gratitude, and spent much inward discourse in
justifying the dislike. Casaubon hated him--he knew that very well;
on his first entrance he could discern a bitterness in the mouth
and a venom in the glance which would almost justify declaring war
in spite of past benefits. He was much obliged to Casaubon in the past,
but really the act of marrying this wife was a set-off against
the obligation It was a question whether gratitude which refers
to what is done for one's self ought not to give way to indignation
at what is done against another. And Casaubon had done a wrong
to Dorothea in marrying her. A man was bound to know himself better
than that, and if he chose to grow gray crunching bones in a cavern,
he had no business to be luring a girl into his companionship.
"It is the most horrible of virgin-sacrifices," said Will; and he
painted to himself what were Dorothea's inward sorrows as if he had
been writing a choric wail. But he would never lose sight of her:
he would watch over her--if he gave up everything else in life
he would watch over her, and she should know that she had one
slave in the world, Will had--to use Sir Thomas Browne's phrase--
a "passionate prodigality" of statement both to himself and others.
The simple truth was that nothing then invited him so strongly as the
presence of Dorothea.
Invitations of the formal kind had been wanting, however, for Will
had never been asked to go to Lowick. Mr. Brooke, indeed, confident of
doing everything agreeable which Casaubon, poor fellow, was too much
absorbed to think of, had arranged to bring Ladislaw to Lowick
several times (not neglecting meanwhile to introduce him elsewhere
on every opportunity as "a young relative of Casaubon's"). And
though Will had not seen Dorothea alone, their interviews had been
enough to restore her former sense of young companionship with one
who was cleverer than herself, yet seemed ready to be swayed by her.
Poor Dorothea before her marriage had never found much room
in other minds for what she cared most to say; and she had not,
as we know, enjoyed her husband's superior instruction so much
as she had expected. If she spoke with any keenness of interest
to Mr. Casaubon, he heard her with an air of patience as if she
had given a quotation from the Delectus familiar to him from his
tender years, and sometimes mentioned curtly what ancient sects
or personages had held similar ideas, as if there were too much
of that sort in stock already; at other times he would inform
her that she was mistaken, and reassert what her remark had questioned.
But Will Ladislaw always seemed to see more in what she said than she
herself saw. Dorothea had little vanity, but she had the ardent
woman's need to rule beneficently by making the joy of another soul.
Hence the mere chance of seeing Will occasionally was like a lunette
opened in the wall of her prison, giving her a glimpse of the sunny air;
and this pleasure began to nullify her original alarm at what her husband
might think about the introduction of Will as her uncle's guest.
On this subject Mr. Casaubon had remained dumb.
But Will wanted to talk with Dorothea alone, and was impatient
of slow circumstance. However slight the terrestrial intercourse
between Dante and Beatrice or Petrarch and Laura, time changes
the proportion of things, and in later days it is preferable to have
fewer sonnets and more conversation. Necessity excused stratagem,
but stratagem was limited by the dread of offending Dorothea.
He found out at last that he wanted to take a particular sketch
at Lowick; and one morning when Mr. Brooke had to drive along
the Lowick road on his way to the county town, Will asked to be set
down with his sketch-book and camp-stool at Lowick, and without
announcing himself at the Manor settled himself to sketch in a
position where he must see Dorothea if she came out to walk--
and he knew that she usually walked an hour in the morning.
But the stratagem was defeated by the weather. Clouds gathered with
treacherous quickness, the rain came down, and Will was obliged to take
shelter in the house. He intended, on the strength of relationship,
to go into the drawing-room and wait there without being announced;
and seeing his old acquaintance the butler in the hall, he said,
"Don't mention that I am here, Pratt; I will wait till luncheon;
I know Mr. Casaubon does not like to be disturbed when he is in
the library."
"Master is out, sir; there's only Mrs. Casaubon in the library.
I'd better tell her you're here, sir," said Pratt, a red-cheeked
man given to lively converse with Tantripp, and often agreeing with
her that it must be dull for Madam.
"Oh, very well; this confounded rain has hindered me from sketching,"
said Will, feeling so happy that he affected indifference with
delightful ease.
In another minute he was in the library, and Dorothea was meeting
him with her sweet unconstrained smile.
"Mr. Casaubon has gone to the Archdeacon's," she said, at once.
"I don't know whether he will be at home again long before dinner.
He was uncertain how long he should be. Did you want to say anything
particular to him?"
"No; I came to sketch, but the rain drove me in. Else I would
not have disturbed you yet. I supposed that Mr. Casaubon was here,
and I know he dislikes interruption at this hour."
"I am indebted to the rain, then. I am so glad to see you."
Dorothea uttered these common words with the simple sincerity of an
unhappy child, visited at school.
"I really came for the chance of seeing you alone," said Will,
mysteriously forced to be just as simple as she was. He could
not stay to ask himself, why not? "I wanted to talk about things,
as we did in Rome. It always makes a difference when other people
are present."
"Yes," said Dorothea, in her clear full tone of assent. "Sit down."
She seated herself on a dark ottoman with the brown books behind her,
looking in her plain dress of some thin woollen-white material,
without a single ornament on her besides her wedding-ring,
as if she were under a vow to be different from all other women;
and Will sat down opposite her at two yards' distance, the light
falling on his bright curls and delicate but rather petulant profile,
with its defiant curves of lip and chin. Each looked at the other
as if they had been two flowers which had opened then and there.
Dorothea for the moment forgot her husband's mysterious irritation
against Will: it seemed fresh water at her thirsty lips to speak
without fear to the one person whom she had found receptive; for in
looking backward through sadness she exaggerated a past solace.
"I have often thought that I should like to talk to you again,"
she said, immediately. "It seems strange to me how many things I
said to you."
"I remember them all," said Will, with the unspeakable content
in his soul of feeling that he was in the presence of a creature
worthy to be perfectly loved. I think his own feelings at that
moment were perfect, for we mortals have our divine moments,
when love is satisfied in the completeness the beloved object.
"I have tried to learn a great deal since we were in Rome,"
said Dorothea. "I can read Latin a little, and I am beginning to
understand just a little Greek. I can help Mr. Casaubon better now.
I can find out references for him and save his eyes in many ways.
But it is very difficult to be learned; it seems as if people were
worn out on the way to great thoughts, and can never enjoy them
because they are too tired."
"If a man has a capacity for great thoughts, he is likely to overtake
them before he is decrepit," said Will, with irrepressible quickness.
But through certain sensibilities Dorothea was as quick as he,
and seeing her face change, he added, immediately, "But it is quite
true that the best minds have been sometimes overstrained in working
out their ideas."
"You correct me," said Dorothea. "I expressed myself ill.
I should have said that those who have great thoughts get too much
worn in working them out. I used to feel about that, even when I
was a little girl; and it always seemed to me that the use I should
like to make of my life would be to help some one who did great works,
so that his burthen might be lighter."
Dorothea was led on to this bit of autobiography without any
sense of making a revelation. But she had never before said
anything to Will which threw so strong a light on her marriage.
He did not shrug his shoulders; and for want of that muscular
outlet he thought the more irritably of beautiful lips kissing
holy skulls and other emptinesses ecclesiastically enshrined.
Also he had to take care that his speech should not betray that thought.
"But you may easily carry the help too far," he said, "and get
over-wrought yourself. Are you not too much shut up? You already
look paler. It would be better for Mr. Casaubon to have a secretary;
he could easily get a man who would do half his work for him.
It would save him more effectually, and you need only help him in
lighter ways."
"How can you think of that?" said Dorothea, in a tone of
earnest remonstrance. "I should have no happiness if I did not
help him in his work. What could I do? There is no good to be
done in Lowick. The only thing I desire is to help him more.
And he objects to a secretary: please not to mention that again."
"Certainly not, now I know your feeling. But I have heard both
Mr. Brooke and Sir James Chettam express the same wish."
"Yes?" said Dorothea, "but they don't understand--they want me
to be a great deal on horseback, and have the garden altered and
new conservatories, to fill up my days. I thought you could understand
that one's mind has other wants," she added, rather impatiently--
"besides, Mr. Casaubon cannot bear to hear of a secretary."
"My mistake is excusable," said Will. "In old days I used to hear
Mr. Casaubon speak as if he looked forward to having a secretary.
Indeed he held out the prospect of that office to me. But I turned
out to be--not good enough for it."
Dorothea was trying to extract out of this an excuse for her
husband's evident repulsion, as she said, with a playful smile,
"You were not a steady worker enough."
"No," said Will, shaking his head backward somewhat after the manner
of a-spirited horse. And then, the old irritable demon prompting him
to give another good pinch at the moth-wings of poor Mr. Casaubon's
glory, he went on, "And I have seen since that Mr. Casaubon does
not like any one to overlook his work. and know thoroughly what he
is doing. He is too doubtful--too uncertain of himself. I may
not be good for much, but he dislikes me because I disagree with him."
Will was not without his intentions to be always generous,
but our tongues are little triggers which have usually been pulled
before general intentions can be brought to bear. And it was too
intolerable that Casaubon's dislike of him should not be fairly
accounted for to Dorothea. Yet when he had spoken he was rather
uneasy as to the effect on her.
But Dorothea was strangely quiet--not immediately indignant,
as she had been on a like occasion in Rome. And the cause lay deep.
She was no longer struggling against the perception of facts,
but adjusting herself to their clearest perception; and now when she
looked steadily at her husband's failure, still more at his possible
consciousness of failure, she seemed to be looking along the one
tract where duty became tenderness. Will's want of reticence
might have been met with more severity, if he had not already been
recommended to her mercy by her husband's dislike, which must seem
hard to her till she saw better reason for it.
She did not answer at once, but after looking down ruminatingly
she said, with some earnestness, "Mr. Casaubon must have overcome
his dislike of you so far as his actions were concerned:
and that is admirable."
"Yes; he has shown a sense of justice in family matters.
It was an abominable thing that my grandmother should have been
disinherited because she made what they called a mesalliance,
though there was nothing to be said against her husband except
that he was a Polish refugee who gave lessons for his bread."
"I wish I knew all about her!" said Dorothea. "I wonder how she
bore the change from wealth to poverty: I wonder whether she
was happy with her husband! Do you know much about them?"
"No; only that my grandfather was a patriot--a bright fellow--
could speak many languages--musical--got his bread by teaching
all sorts of things. They both died rather early. And I never
knew much of my father, beyond what my mother told me; but he
inherited the musical talents. I remember his slow walk and his
long thin hands; and one day remains with me when he was lying ill,
and I was very hungry, and had only a little bit of bread."
"Ah, what a different life from mine!" said Dorothea,
with keen interest, clasping her hands on her lap. "I have
always had too much of everything. But tell me how it was--
Mr. Casaubon could not have known about you then."
"No; but my father had made himself known to Mr. Casaubon,
and that was my last hungry day. My father died soon after,
and my mother and I were well taken care of. Mr. Casaubon always
expressly recognized it as his duty to take care of us because of
the harsh injustice which had been shown to his mother's sister.
But now I am telling you what is not new to you."
In his inmost soul Will was conscious of wishing to tell Dorothea
what was rather new even in his own construction of things--
namely, that Mr. Casaubon had never done more than pay a debt
towards him. Will was much too good a fellow to be easy under
the sense of being ungrateful. And when gratitude has become
a matter of reasoning there are many ways of escaping from its bonds.
"No," answered Dorothea; "Mr. Casaubon has always avoided dwelling
on his own honorable actions." She did not feel that her husband's
conduct was depreciated; but this notion of what justice had required
in his relations with Will Ladislaw took strong hold on her mind.
After a moment's pause, she added, "He had never told me that he
supported your mother. Is she still living?"
"No; she died by an accident--a fall--four years ago. It is curious
that my mother, too, ran away from her family, but not for the sake
of her husband. She never would tell me anything about her family,
except that she forsook them to get her own living--went on the stage,
in fact. She was a dark-eyed creature, with crisp ringlets,
and never seemed to be getting old. You see I come of rebellious
blood on both sides," Will ended, smiling brightly at Dorothea,
while she was still looking with serious intentness before her,
like a child seeing a drama for the first time.
But her face, too, broke into a smile as she said, "That is
your apology, I suppose, for having yourself been rather rebellious;
I mean, to Mr. Casaubon's wishes. You must remember that you have
not done what he thought best for you. And if he dislikes you--
you were speaking of dislike a little while ago--but I should
rather say, if he has shown any painful feelings towards you,
you must consider how sensitive he has become from the wearing effect
of study. Perhaps," she continued, getting into a pleading tone,
"my uncle has not told you how serious Mr. Casaubon's illness was.
It would be very petty of us who are well and can bear things,
to think much of small offences from those who carry a weight
of trial."
"You teach me better," said Will. "I will never grumble on that
subject again." There was a gentleness in his tone which came from
the unutterable contentment of perceiving--what Dorothea was hardly
conscious of--that she was travelling into the remoteness of pure
pity and loyalty towards her husband. Will was ready to adore
her pity and loyalty, if she would associate himself with her in
manifesting them. "I have really sometimes been a perverse fellow,"
he went on, "but I will never again, if I can help it, do or say
what you would disapprove."
"That is very good of you," said Dorothea, with another open smile.
"I shall have a little kingdom then, where I shall give laws.
But you will soon go away, out of my rule, I imagine. You will soon
be tired of staying at the Grange."
"That is a point I wanted to mention to you--one of the reasons why I
wished to speak to you alone. Mr. Brooke proposes that I should stay
in this neighborhood. He has bought one of the Middlemarch newspapers,
and he wishes me to conduct that, and also to help him in other ways."
"Would not that be a sacrifice of higher prospects for you?"
said Dorothea.
"Perhaps; but I have always been blamed for thinking of prospects,
and not settling to anything. And here is something offered to me.
If you would not like me to accept it, I will give it up.
Otherwise I would rather stay in this part of the country than go away.
I belong to nobody anywhere else."
"I should like you to stay very much," said Dorothea, at once,
as simply and readily as she had spoken at Rome. There was not
the shadow of a reason in her mind at the moment why she should
not say so.
"Then I WILL stay," said Ladislaw, shaking his head backward,
rising and going towards the window, as if to see whether the rain
had ceased.
But the next moment, Dorothea, according to a habit which was
getting continually stronger, began to reflect that her husband felt
differently from herself, and she colored deeply under the double
embarrassment of having expressed what might be in opposition to her
husband's feeling, and of having to suggest this opposition to Will.
If is face was not turned towards her, and this made it easier to say--
"But my opinion is of little consequence on such a subject.
I think you should be guided by Mr. Casaubon. I spoke without
thinking of anything else than my own feeling, which has
nothing to do with the real question. But it now occurs to me--
perhaps Mr. Casaubon might see that the proposal was not wise.
Can you not wait now and mention it to him?"
"I can't wait to-day," said Will, inwardly seared by the possibility
that Mr. Casaubon would enter. "The rain is quite over now. I told
Mr. Brooke not to call for me: I would rather walk the five miles.
I shall strike across Halsell Common, and see the gleams on the
wet grass. I like that."
He approached her to shake hands quite hurriedly, longing but not
daring to say, "Don't mention the subject to Mr. Casaubon."
No, he dared not, could not say it. To ask her to be less simple
and direct would be like breathing on the crystal that you want to
see the light through. And there was always the other great dread--
of himself becoming dimmed and forever ray-shorn in her eyes.
"I wish you could have stayed," said Dorothea, with a touch
of mournfulness, as she rose and put out her hand. She also had
her thought which she did not like to express:--Will certainly
ought to lose no time in consulting Mr. Casaubon's wishes,
but for her to urge this might seem an undue dictation.
So they only said "Good-by," and Will quitted the house,
striking across the fields so as not to run any risk of encountering
Mr. Casaubon's carriage, which, however, did not appear at the gate
until four o'clock. That was an unpropitious hour for coming home:
it was too early to gain the moral support under ennui of dressing
his person for dinner, and too late to undress his mind of the day's
frivolous ceremony and affairs, so as to be prepared for a good
plunge into the serious business of study. On such occasions he
usually threw into an easy-chair in the library, and allowed Dorothea
to read the London papers to him, closing his eyes the while.
To-day, however, he declined that relief, observing that he had
already had too many public details urged upon him; but he spoke
more cheerfully than usual, when Dorothea asked about his fatigue,
and added with that air of formal effort which never forsook
him even when he spoke without his waistcoat and cravat--
"I have had the gratification of meeting my former acquaintance,
Dr. Spanning, to-day, and of being praised by one who is himself
a worthy recipient of praise. He spoke very handsomely of my late
tractate on the Egyptian Mysteries,--using, in fact, terms which it
would not become me to repeat." In uttering the last clause,
Mr. Casaubon leaned over the elbow of his chair, and swayed his
head up and down, apparently as a muscular outlet instead of that
recapitulation which would not have been becoming.
"I am very glad you have had that pleasure," said Dorothea,
delighted to see her husband less weary than usual at this hour.
"Before you came I had been regretting that you happened to be
out to-day."
"Why so, my dear?" said Mr. Casaubon, throwing himself backward again.
"Because Mr. Ladislaw has been here; and he has mentioned a proposal
of my uncle's which I should like to know your opinion of."
Her husband she felt was really concerned in this question.
Even with her ignorance of the world she had a vague impression
that the position offered to Will was out of keeping with his family
connections, and certainly Mr. Casaubon had a claim to be consulted.
He did not speak, but merely bowed.
"Dear uncle, you know, has many projects. It appears that he
has bought one of the Middlemarch newspapers, and he has asked
Mr. Ladislaw to stay in this neighborhood and conduct the paper
for him, besides helping him in other ways."
Dorothea looked at her husband while she spoke, but he had at
first blinked and finally closed his eyes, as if to save them;
while his lips became more tense. "What is your opinion?" she added,
rather timidly, after a slight pause.
"Did Mr. Ladislaw come on purpose to ask my opinion?" said Mr. Casaubon,
opening his eyes narrowly with a knife-edged look at Dorothea.
She was really uncomfortable on the point he inquired about, but she
only became a little more serious, and her eyes did not swerve.
"No," she answered immediately, "he did not say that he came to ask
your opinion. But when he mentioned the proposal, he of course
expected me to tell you of it."
Mr. Casaubon was silent.
"I feared that you might feel some objection. But certainly
a young man with so much talent might be very useful to my uncle--
might help him to do good in a better way. And Mr. Ladislaw wishes
to have some fixed occupation. He has been blamed, he says,
for not seeking something of that kind, and he would like to stay
in this neighborhood because no one cares for him elsewhere."
Dorothea felt that this was a consideration to soften her husband.
However, he did not speak, and she presently recurred to Dr. Spanning
and the Archdeacon's breakfast. But there was no longer sunshine
on these subjects.
The next morning, without Dorothea's knowledge, Mr. Casaubon
despatched the following letter, beginning "Dear Mr. Ladislaw"
(he had always before addressed him as "Will"):--
"Mrs. Casaubon informs me that a proposal has been made to you,
and (according to an inference by no means stretched) has on your
part been in some degree entertained, which involves your residence
in this neighborhood in a capacity which I am justified in saying
touches my own position in such a way as renders it not only natural
and warrantable IN me when that effect is viewed under the
influence of legitimate feeling, but incumbent on me when the same
effect is considered in the light of my responsibilities, to state
at once that your acceptance of the proposal above indicated would
be highly offensive to me. That I have some claim to the exercise
of a veto here, would not, I believe, be denied by any reasonable
person cognizant of the relations between us: relations which,
though thrown into the past by your recent procedure, are not
thereby annulled in their character of determining antecedents.
I will not here make reflections on any person's judgment.
It is enough for me to point out to yourself that there are certain
social fitnesses and proprieties which should hinder a somewhat
near relative of mine from becoming any wise conspicuous in this
vicinity in a status not only much beneath my own, but associated
at best with the sciolism of literary or political adventurers.
At any rate, the contrary issue must exclude you from further
reception at my house.
Yours faithfully,
"EDWARD CASAUBON."
Meanwhile Dorothea's mind was innocently at work towards the further
embitterment of her husband; dwelling, with a sympathy that grew to
agitation, on what Will had told her about his parents and grandparents.
Any private hours in her day were usually spent in her blue-green
boudoir, and she had come to be very fond of its pallid quaintness.
Nothing had been outwardly altered there; but while the summer had
gradually advanced over the western fields beyond the avenue of elms,
the bare room had gathered within it those memories of an inward life
which fill the air as with a cloud of good or had angels, the invisible
yet active forms of our spiritual triumphs or our spiritual falls.
She had been so used to struggle for and to find resolve in looking
along the avenue towards the arch of western light that the vision
itself had gained a communicating power. Even the pale stag seemed
to have reminding glances and to mean mutely, "Yes, we know."
And the group of delicately touched miniatures had made an audience
as of beings no longer disturbed about their own earthly lot,
but still humanly interested. Especially the mysterious "Aunt Julia"
about whom Dorothea had never found it easy to question her husband.
And now, since her conversation with Will, many fresh images
had gathered round that Aunt Julia who was Will's grandmother;
the presence of that delicate miniature, so like a living face
that she knew, helping to concentrate her feelings. What a wrong,
to cut off the girl from the family protection and inheritance only
because she had chosen a man who was poor! Dorothea, early troubling
her elders with questions about the facts around her, had wrought
herself into some independent clearness as to the historical,
political reasons why eldest sons had superior rights, and why land
should be entailed: those reasons, impressing her with a certain awe,
might be weightier than she knew, but here was a question of ties
which left them uninfringed. Here was a daughter whose child--
even according to the ordinary aping of aristocratic institutions
by people who are no more aristocratic than retired grocers,
and who have no more land to "keep together" than a lawn and a paddock--
would have a prior claim. Was inheritance a question of liking
or of responsibility? All the energy of Dorothea's nature went on
the side of responsibility--the fulfilment of claims founded on our
own deeds, such as marriage and parentage.
It was true, she said to herself, that Mr. Casaubon had a debt
to the Ladislaws--that he had to pay back what the Ladislaws had
been wronged of. And now she began to think of her husband's will,
which had been made at the time of their marriage, leaving the bulk
of his property to her, with proviso in case of her having children.
That ought to be altered; and no time ought to be lost. This very
question which had just arisen about Will Ladislaw's occupation,
was the occasion for placing things on a new, right footing.
Her husband, she felt sure, according to all his previous conduct,
would be ready to take the just view, if she proposed it--she, in whose
interest an unfair concentration of the property had been urged.
His sense of right had surmounted and would continue to surmount
anything that might be called antipathy. She suspected that her
uncle's scheme was disapproved by Mr. Casaubon, and this made it seem
all the more opportune that a fresh understanding should be begun,
so that instead of Will's starting penniless and accepting the first
function that offered itself, he should find himself in possession
of a rightful income which should be paid by her husband during
his life, and, by an immediate alteration of the will, should
be secured at his death. The vision of all this as what ought
to be done seemed to Dorothea like a sudden letting in of daylight,
waking her from her previous stupidity and incurious self-absorbed
ignorance about her husband's relation to others. Will Ladislaw
had refused Mr. Casaubon's future aid on a ground that no longer
appeared right to her; and Mr. Casaubon had never himself seen
fully what was the claim upon him. "But he will!" said Dorothea.
"The great strength of his character lies here. And what are we
doing with our money? We make no use of half of our income. My own
money buys me nothing but an uneasy conscience."
There was a peculiar fascination for Dorothea in this division of
property intended for herself, and always regarded by her as excessive.
She was blind, you see, to many things obvious to others--
likely to tread in the wrong places, as Celia had warned her;
yet her blindness to whatever did not lie in her own pure purpose
carried her safely by the side of precipices where vision would
have been perilous with fear.
The thoughts which had gathered vividness in the solitude of her
boudoir occupied her incessantly through the day on which Mr. Casaubon
had sent his letter to Will. Everything seemed hindrance to her till
she could find an opportunity of opening her heart to her husband.
To his preoccupied mind all subjects were to be approached gently,
and she had never since his illness lost from her consciousness
the dread of agitating him. Bat when young ardor is set brooding
over the conception of a prompt deed, the deed itself seems
to start forth with independent life, mastering ideal obstacles.
The day passed in a sombre fashion, not unusual, though Mr. Casaubon
was perhaps unusually silent; but there were hours of the night which
might be counted on as opportunities of conversation; for Dorothea,
when aware of her husband's sleeplessness, had established a habit
of rising, lighting a candle, and reading him to sleep again. And this
night she was from the beginning sleepless, excited by resolves.
He slept as usual for a few hours, but she had risen softly and had
sat in the darkness for nearly an hour before he said--
"Dorothea, since you are up, will you light a candle?"
"Do you feel ill, dear?" was her first question, as she obeyed him.
"No, not at all; but I shall be obliged, since you are up, if you
will read me a few pages of Lowth."
"May I talk to you a little instead?" said Dorothea.
"Certainly."
"I have been thinking about money all day--that I have always
had too much, and especially the prospect of too much."
"These, my dear Dorothea, are providential arrangements."
"But if one has too much in consequence of others being wronged,
it seems to me that the divine voice which tells us to set that wrong
right must be obeyed."
"What, my love, is the bearing of your remark?"
"That you have been too liberal in arrangements for me--I mean,
with regard to property; and that makes me unhappy."
"How so? I have none but comparatively distant connections."
"I have been led to think about your aunt Julia, and how she was left
in poverty only because she married a poor man, an act which was
not disgraceful, since he was not unworthy. It was on that ground,
I know, that you educated Mr. Ladislaw and provided for his mother."
Dorothea waited a few moments for some answer that would help her onward.
None came, and her next words seemed the more forcible to her,
falling clear upon the dark silence.
"But surely we should regard his claim as a much greater one, even to
the half of that property which I know that you have destined for me.
And I think he ought at once to be provided for on that understanding.
It is not right that he should be in the dependence of poverty
while we are rich. And if there is any objection to the proposal
he mentioned, the giving him his true place and his true share
would set aside any motive for his accepting it."
"Mr. Ladislaw has probably been speaking to you on this subject?"
said Mr. Casaubon, with a certain biting quickness not habitual
to him.
"Indeed, no!" said Dorothea, earnestly. "How can you imagine it,
since he has so lately declined everything from you? I fear you
think too hardly of him, dear. He only told me a little about his
parents and grandparents, and almost all in answer to my questions.
You are so good, so just--you have done everything you thought
to be right. But it seems to me clear that more than that is right;
and I must speak about it, since I am the person who would get what is
called benefit by that `more' not being done."
There was a perceptible pause before Mr. Casaubon replied,
not quickly as before, but with a still more biting emphasis.
"Dorothea, my love, this is not the first occasion, but it were well
that it should be the last, on which you have assumed a judgment
on subjects beyond your scope. Into the question how far conduct,
especially in the matter of alliances, constitutes a forfeiture
of family claims, I do not now enter. Suffice it, that you
are not here qualified to discriminate. What I now wish you to
understand is, that I accept no revision, still less dictation within
that range of affairs which I have deliberated upon as distinctly
and properly mine. It is not for you to interfere between me
and Mr. Ladislaw, and still less to encourage communications
from him to you which constitute a criticism on my procedure."
Poor Dorothea, shrouded in the darkness, was in a tumult of
conflicting emotions. Alarm at the possible effect on himself of her
husband's strongly manifested anger, would have checked any expression
of her own resentment, even if she had been quite free from doubt
and compunction under the consciousness that there might be some
justice in his last insinuation. Hearing him breathe quickly after
he had spoken, she sat listening, frightened, wretched--with a dumb
inward cry for help to bear this nightmare of a life in which every
energy was arrested by dread. But nothing else happened, except
that they both remained a long while sleepless, without speaking again.
The next day, Mr. Casaubon received the following answer from
Will Ladislaw:--
"DEAR MR. CASAUBON,--I have given all due consideration to your letter
of yesterday, but I am unable to take precisely your view of our
mutual position. With the fullest acknowledgment of your generous
conduct to me in the past, I must still maintain that an obligation
of this kind cannot fairly fetter me as you appear to expect that
it should. Granted that a benefactor's wishes may constitute a claim;
there must always be a reservation as to the quality of those wishes.
They may possibly clash with more imperative considerations.
Or a benefactor's veto might impose such a negation on a man's life
that the consequent blank might be more cruel than the benefaction
was generous. I am merely using strong illustrations. In the present
case I am unable to take your view of the bearing which my acceptance
of occupation--not enriching certainly, but not dishonorable--
will have on your own position which seems to me too substantial
to be affected in that shadowy manner. And though I do not believe
that any change in our relations will occur (certainly none has
yet occurred) which can nullify the obligations imposed on me
by the past, pardon me for not seeing that those obligations should
restrain me from using the ordinary freedom of living where I choose,
and maintaining myself by any lawful occupation I may choose.
Regretting that there exists this difference between us as to a relation
in which the conferring of benefits has been entirely on your side--
I remain, yours with persistent obligation,
WILL LADISLAW."
Poor Mr. Casaubon felt (and must not we, being impartial, feel with him
a little?) that no man had juster cause for disgust and suspicion
than he. Young Ladislaw, he was sure, meant to defy and annoy him,
meant to win Dorothea's confidence and sow her mind with disrespect,
and perhaps aversion, towards her husband. Some motive beneath
the surface had been needed to account for Will's sudden change
of in rejecting Mr. Casaubon's aid and quitting his travels;
and this defiant determination to fix himself in the neighborhood
by taking up something so much at variance with his former choice
as Mr. Brooke's Middlemarch projects, revealed clearly enough that
the undeclared motive had relation to Dorothea. Not for one moment
did Mr. Casaubon suspect Dorothea of any doubleness: he had no
suspicions of her, but he had (what was little less uncomfortable)
the positive knowledge that her tendency to form opinions about
her husband's conduct was accompanied with a disposition to regard
Will Ladislaw favorably and be influenced by what he said.
His own proud reticence had prevented him from ever being undeceived
in the supposition that Dorothea had originally asked her uncle
to invite Will to his house.
And now, on receiving Will's letter, Mr. Casaubon had to consider
his duty. He would never have been easy to call his action anything
else than duty; but in this case, contending motives thrust him
back into negations.
Should he apply directly to Mr. Brooke, and demand of that troublesome
gentleman to revoke his proposal? Or should he consult Sir James Chettam,
and get him to concur in remonstrance against a step which touched
the whole family? In either case Mr. Casaubon was aware that failure
was just as probable as success. It was impossible for him to mention
Dorothea's name in the matter, and without some alarming urgency
Mr. Brooke was as likely as not, after meeting all representations
with apparent assent, to wind up by saying, "Never fear, Casaubon!
Depend upon it, young Ladislaw will do you credit. Depend upon it,
I have put my finger on the right thing." And Mr. Casaubon shrank
nervously from communicating on the subject with Sir James Chettam,
between whom and himself there had never been any cordiality,
and who would immediately think of Dorothea without any mention of her.
Poor Mr. Casaubon was distrustful of everybody's feeling towards him,
especially as a husband. To let any one suppose that he was jealous
would be to admit their (suspected) view of his disadvantages:
to let them know that he did not find marriage particularly blissful
would imply his conversion to their (probably) earlier disapproval.
It would be as bad as letting Carp, and Brasenose generally,
know how backward he was in organizing the matter for his
"Key to all Mythologies." All through his life Mr. Casaubon had been
trying not to admit even to himself the inward sores of self-doubt
and jealousy. And on the most delicate of all personal subjects,
the habit of proud suspicious reticence told doubly.
Thus Mr. Casaubon remained proudly, bitterly silent. But he
had forbidden Will to come to Lowick Manor, and he was mentally
preparing other measures of frustration.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
"C'est beaucoup que le jugement des hommes sur les actions humaines;
tot ou tard il devient efficace."--GUIZOT.
Sir James Chettam could not look with any satisfaction on Mr. Brooke's
new courses; but it was easier to object than to hinder.
Sir James accounted for his having come in alone one day to lunch
with the Cadwalladers by saying--
"I can't talk to you as I want, before Celia: it might hurt her.
Indeed, it would not be right."
"I know what you mean--the `Pioneer' at the Grange!" darted in
Mrs. Cadwallader, almost before the last word was off her friend's
tongue. "It is frightful--this taking to buying whistles and blowing
them in everybody's hearing. Lying in bed all day and playing
at dominoes, like poor Lord Plessy, would be more private and bearable."
"I see they are beginning to attack our friend Brooke in the `Trumpet,'"
said the Rector, lounging back and smiling easily, as he would
have done if he had been attacked himself. "There are tremendous
sarcasms against a landlord not a hundred miles from Middlemarch,
who receives his own rents, and makes no returns."
"I do wish Brooke would leave that off," said Sir James, with his
little frown of annoyance.
"Is he really going to be put in nomination, though?"
said Mr. Cadwallader. "I saw Farebrother yesterday--
he's Whiggish himself, hoists Brougham and Useful Knowledge;
that's the worst I know of him;--and he says that Brooke is
getting up a pretty strong party. Bulstrode, the banker, is his
foremost man. But he thinks Brooke would come off badly at a nomination."
"Exactly," said Sir James, with earnestness. "I have been inquiring
into the thing, for I've never known anything about Middlemarch
politics before--the county being my business. What Brooke trusts to,
is that they are going to turn out Oliver because he is a Peelite.
But Hawley tells me that if they send up a Whig at all it is sure to
be Bagster, one of those candidates who come from heaven knows where,
but dead against Ministers, and an experienced Parliamentary man.
Hawley's rather rough: he forgot that he was speaking to me.
He said if Brooke wanted a pelting, he could get it cheaper than
by going to the hustings."
"I warned you all of it," said Mrs. Cadwallader, waving her
hands outward. "I said to Humphrey long ago, Mr. Brooke is going
to make a splash in the mud. And now he has done it."
"Well, he might have taken it into his head to marry," said the Rector.
"That would have been a graver mess than a little flirtation
with politics."
"He may do that afterwards," said Mrs. Cadwallader--"when he has
come out on the other side of the mud with an ague."
"What I care for most is his own dignity," said Sir James.
"Of course I care the more because of the family. But he's getting
on in life now, and I don't like to think of his exposing himself.
They will be raking up everything against him."
"I suppose it's no use trying any persuasion," said the Rector.
"There's such an odd mixture of obstinacy and changeableness in Brooke.
Have you tried him on the subject?"
"Well, no," said Sir James; "I feel a delicacy in appearing to dictate.
But I have been talking to this young Ladislaw that Brooke is
making a factotum of. Ladislaw seems clever enough for anything.
I thought it as well to hear what he had to say; and he is against
Brooke's standing this time. I think he'll turn him round:
I think the nomination may be staved off."
"I know," said Mrs. Cadwallader, nodding. "The independent member
hasn't got his speeches well enough by heart."
"But this Ladislaw--there again is a vexatious business,"
said Sir James. "We have had him two or three times to dine at
the Hall (you have met him, by the bye) as Brooke's guest and a
relation of Casaubon's, thinking he was only on a flying visit.
And now I find he's in everybody's mouth in Middlemarch as the editor
of the `Pioneer.' There are stories going about him as a quill-driving
alien, a foreign emissary, and what not."
"Casaubon won't like that," said the Rector.
"There IS some foreign blood in Ladislaw," returned Sir James.
"I hope he won't go into extreme opinions and carry Brooke on."
"Oh, he's a dangerous young sprig, that Mr. Ladislaw,"
said Mrs. Cadwallader, "with his opera songs and his ready tongue.
A sort of Byronic hero--an amorous conspirator, it strikes me.
And Thomas Aquinas is not fond of him. I could see that, the day
the picture was brought."
"I don't like to begin on the subject with Casaubon," said Sir James.
"He has more right to interfere than I. But it's a disagreeable
affair all round. What a character for anybody with decent
connections to show himself in!--one of those newspaper fellows!
You have only to look at Keck, who manages the `Trumpet.'
I saw him the other day with Hawley. His writing is sound enough,
I believe, but he's such a low fellow, that I wished he had been on
the wrong side."
"What can you expect with these peddling Middlemarch papers?"
said the Rector. "I don't suppose you could get a high style of man
anywhere to be writing up interests he doesn't really care about,
and for pay that hardly keeps him in at elbows."
"Exactly: that makes it so annoying that Brooke should have put
a man who has a sort of connection with the family in a position
of that kind. For my part, I think Ladislaw is rather a fool
for accepting."
"It is Aquinas's fault," said Mrs. Cadwallader. "Why didn't he use
his interest to get Ladislaw made an attache or sent to India?
That is how families get rid of troublesome sprigs."
"There is no knowing to what lengths the mischief may go,"
said Sir James, anxiously. "But if Casaubon says nothing, what can
I do?"
"Oh my dear Sir James," said the Rector, "don't let us make too
much of all this. It is likely enough to end in mere smoke.
After a month or two Brooke and this Master Ladislaw will get
tired of each other; Ladislaw will take wing; Brooke will sell
the `Pioneer,' and everything will settle down again as usual."
"There is one good chance--that he will not like to feel his money
oozing away," said Mrs. Cadwallader. "If I knew the items of election
expenses I could scare him. It's no use plying him with wide words
like Expenditure: I wouldn't talk of phlebotomy, I would empty
a pot of leeches upon him. What we good stingy people don't like,
is having our sixpences sucked away from us."
"And he will not like having things raked up against him,"
said Sir James. "There is the management of his estate. they have
begun upon that already. And it really is painful for me to see.
It is a nuisance under one's very nose. I do think one is bound
to do the best for one's land and tenants, especially in these
hard times."
"Perhaps the `Trumpet' may rouse him to make a change, and some good
may come of it all," said the Rector. "I know I should be glad.
I should hear less grumbling when my tithe is paid. I don't know
what I should do if there were not a modus in Tipton."
"I want him to have a proper man to look after things--I want him
to take on Garth again," said Sir James. "He got rid of Garth
twelve years ago, and everything has been going wrong since.
I think of getting Garth to manage for me--he has made such a capital
plan for my buildings; and Lovegood is hardly up to the mark.
But Garth would not undertake the Tipton estate again unless Brooke
left it entirely to him."
"In the right of it too," said the Rector. "Garth is an
independent fellow: an original, simple-minded fellow. One day,
when he was doing some valuation for me, he told me point-blank
that clergymen seldom understood anything about business, and did
mischief when they meddled; but he said it as quietly and respectfully
as if he had been talking to me about sailors. He would make
a different parish of Tipton, if Brooke would let him manage.
I wish, by the help of the `Trumpet,' you could bring that round."
"If Dorothea had kept near her uncle, there would have been
some chance," said Sir James. "She might have got some power
over him in time, and she was always uneasy about the estate.
She had wonderfully good notions about such things. But now
Casaubon takes her up entirely. Celia complains a good deal.
We can hardly get her to dine with us, since he had that fit."
Sir James ended with a look of pitying disgust, and Mrs. Cadwallader
shrugged her shoulders as much as to say that SHE was not likely
to see anything new in that direction.
"Poor Casaubon!" the Rector said. "That was a nasty attack.
I thought he looked shattered the other day at the Archdeacon's."
"In point of fact," resumed Sir James, not choosing to dwell on
"fits," "Brooke doesn't mean badly by his tenants or any one else,
but he has got that way of paring and clipping at expenses."
"Come, that's a blessing," said Mrs. Cadwallader. "That helps him
to find himself in a morning. He may not know his own opinions,
but he does know his own pocket."
"I don't believe a man is in pocket by stinginess on his land,"
said Sir James.
"Oh, stinginess may be abused like other virtues: it will not do
to keep one's own pigs lean," said Mrs. Cadwallader, who had risen
to look out of the window. "But talk of an independent politician
and he will appear."
"What! Brooke?" said her husband.
"Yes. Now, you ply him with the `Trumpet,' Humphrey; and I will
put the leeches on him. What will you do, Sir James?"
"The fact is, I don't like to begin about it with Brooke, in our
mutual position; the whole thing is so unpleasant. I do wish people
would behave like gentlemen," said the good baronet, feeling that
this was a simple and comprehensive programme for social well-being.
"Here you all are, eh?" said Mr. Brooke, shuffling round and
shaking hands. "I was going up to the Hall by-and-by, Chettam.
But it's pleasant to find everybody, you know. Well, what do
you think of things?--going on a little fast! It was true enough,
what Lafitte said--`Since yesterday, a century has passed away:'--
they're in the next century, you know, on the other side of the water.
Going on faster than we are."
"Why, yes," said the Rector, taking up the newspaper. "Here is
the `Trumpet' accusing you of lagging behind--did you see?"
"Eh? no," said Mr. Brooke, dropping his gloves into his hat
and hastily adjusting his eye-glass. But Mr. Cadwallader kept
the paper in his hand, saying, with a smile in his eyes--
"Look here! all this is about a landlord not a hundred
miles from Middlemarch, who receives his own rents.
They say he is the most retrogressive man in the county.
I think you must have taught them that word in the `Pioneer.'"
"Oh, that is Keek--an illiterate fellow, you know. Retrogressive, now!
Come, that's capital. He thinks it means destructive: they want
to make me out a destructive, you know," said Mr. Brooke, with
that cheerfulness which is usually sustained by an adversary's ignorance.
"I think he knows the meaning of the word. Here is a sharp stroke
or two. If we had to describe a man who is retrogressive in the
most evil sense of the word--we should say, he is one who would
dub himself a reformer of our constitution, while every interest
for which he is immediately responsible is going to decay:
a philanthropist who cannot bear one rogue to be hanged, but does
not mind five honest tenants being half-starved: a man who shrieks
at corruption, and keeps his farms at rack-rent: who roars himself
red at rotten boroughs, and does not mind if every field on his farms
has a rotten gate: a man very open-hearted to Leeds and Manchester,
no doubt; he would give any number of representatives who will pay
for their seats out of their own pockets: what he objects to giving,
is a little return on rent-days to help a tenant to buy stock,
or an outlay on repairs to keep the weather out at a tenant's barn-door
or make his house look a little less like an Irish cottier's. But
we all know the wag's definition of a philanthropist: a man whose
charity increases directly as the square of the distance. And so on.
All the rest is to show what sort of legislator a philanthropist
is likely to make," ended the Rector, throwing down the paper,
and clasping his hands at the back of his head, while he looked at
Mr. Brooke with an air of amused neutrality.
"Come, that's rather good, you know," said Mr. Brooke, taking up
the paper and trying to bear the attack as easily as his neighbor did,
but coloring and smiling rather nervously; "that about roaring himself
red at rotten boroughs--I never made a speech about rotten boroughs
in my life. And as to roaring myself red and that kind of thing--
these men never understand what is good satire. Satire, you know,
should be true up to a certain point. I recollect they said that in
`The Edinburgh' somewhere--it must be true up to a certain point."
"Well, that is really a hit about the gates," said Sir James,
anxious to tread carefully. "Dagley complained to me the other day
that he hadn't got a decent gate on his farm. Garth has invented
a new pattern of gate--I wish you would try it. One ought to use
some of one's timber in that way."
"You go in for fancy farming, you know, Chettam," said Mr. Brooke,
appearing to glance over the columns of the "Trumpet."
"That's your hobby, and you don't mind the expense."
"I thought the most expensive hobby in the world was standing
for Parliament," said Mrs. Cadwallader. "They said the last
unsuccessful candidate at Middlemarch--Giles, wasn't his name?--
spent ten thousand pounds and failed because he did not bribe enough.
What a bitter reflection for a man!"
"Somebody was saying," said the Rector, laughingly, "that East
Retford was nothing to Middlemarch, for bribery."
"Nothing of the kind," said Mr. Brooke. "The Tories bribe,
you know: Hawley and his set bribe with treating, hot codlings,
and that sort of thing; and they bring the voters drunk to the poll.
But they are not going to have it their own way in future--
not in future, you know. Middlemarch is a little backward, I admit--
the freemen are a little backward. But we shall educate them--
we shall bring them on, you know. The best people there are on
our side."
"Hawley says you have men on your side who will do you harm,"
remarked Sir James. "He says Bulstrode the banker will do you harm."
"And that if you got pelted," interposed Mrs. Cadwallader, "half the
rotten eggs would mean hatred of your committee-man. Good heavens!
Think what it must be to be pelted for wrong opinions. And I seem
to remember a story of a man they pretended to chair and let him
fall into a dust-heap on purpose!"
"Pelting is nothing to their finding holes in one's coat,"
said the Rector. "I confess that's what I should be afraid of,
if we parsons had to stand at the hustings for preferment.
I should be afraid of their reckoning up all my fishing days.
Upon my word, I think the truth is the hardest missile one can be
pelted with."
"The fact is," said Sir James, "if a man goes into public life he
must be prepared for the consequences. He must make himself proof
against calumny."
"My dear Chettam, that is all very fine, you know," said Mr. Brooke.
"But how will you make yourself proof against calumny? You should
read history--look at ostracism, persecution, martyrdom, and that
kind of thing. They always happen to the best men, you know.
But what is that in Horace?--'fiat justitia, ruat . . .
something or other."
"Exactly," said Sir James, with a little more heat than usual.
"What I mean by being proof against calumny is being able to point
to the fact as a contradiction."
"And it is not martyrdom to pay bills that one has run into one's self,"
said Mrs. Cadwallader.
But it was Sir James's evident annoyance that most stirred Mr. Brooke.
"Well, you know, Chettam," he said, rising, taking up his hat
and leaning on his stick, "you and I have a different system.
You are all for outlay with your farms. I don't want to make out that
my system is good under all circumstances--under all circumstances,
you know."
"There ought to be a new valuation made from time to time,"
said Sir James. "Returns are very well occasionally, but I
like a fair valuation. What do you say, Cadwallader?"
"I agree with you. If I were Brooke, I would choke the `Trumpet'
at once by getting Garth to make a new valuation of the farms,
and giving him carte blanche about gates and repairs:
that's my view of the political situation," said the Rector,
broadening himself by sticking his thumbs in his armholes,
and laughing towards Mr. Brooke.
"That's a showy sort of thing to do, you know," said Mr. Brooke.
"But I should like you to tell me of another landlord who has
distressed his tenants for arrears as little as I have. I let
the old tenants stay on. I'm uncommonly easy, let me tell you,
uncommonly easy. I have my own ideas, and I take my stand on them,
you know. A man who does that is always charged with eccentricity,
inconsistency, and that kind of thing. When I change my line of action,
I shall follow my own ideas."
After that, Mr. Brooke remembered that there was a packet which he
had omitted to send off from the Grange, and he bade everybody
hurriedly good-by.
"I didn't want to take a liberty with Brooke," said Sir James;
"I see he is nettled. But as to what he says about old tenants,
in point of fact no new tenant would take the farms on the
present terms."
"I have a notion that he will be brought round in time,"
said the Rector. "But you were pulling one way, Elinor, and we
were pulling another. You wanted to frighten him away from expense,
and we want to frighten him into it. Better let him try to be
popular and see that his character as a landlord stands in his way.
I don't think it signifies two straws about the `Pioneer,'
or Ladislaw, or Brooke's speechifying to the Middlemarchers.
But it does signify about the parishioners in Tipton being comfortable."
"Excuse me, it is you two who are on the wrong tack,"
said Mrs. Cadwallader. "You should have proved to him that he loses
money by bad management, and then we should all have pulled together.
If you put him a-horseback on politics, I warn you of the consequences.
It was all very well to ride on sticks at home and call them ideas."
CHAPTER XXXIX.
"If, as I have, you also doe,
Vertue attired in woman see,
And dare love that, and say so too,
And forget the He and She;
And if this love, though placed so,
From prophane men you hide,
Which will no faith on this bestow,
Or, if they doe, deride:
Then you have done a braver thing
Than all the Worthies did,
And a braver thence will spring,
Which is, to keep that hid."
--DR. DONNE.
Sir James Chettam's mind was not fruitful ill devices, but his growing
anxiety to "act on Brooke," once brought close to his constant
belief in Dorothea's capacity for influence, became formative,
and issued in a little plan; namely, to plead Celia's indisposition
as a reason for fetching Dorothea by herself to the Hall, and to
leave her at the Grange with the carriage on the way, after making
her fully aware of the situation concerning the management of the estate.
In this way it happened that one day near four o'clock, when
Mr. Brooke and Ladislaw were seated in the library, the door
opened and Mrs. Casaubon was announced.
Will, the moment before, had been low in the depths of boredom, and,
obliged to help Mr. Brooke in arranging "documents" about hanging
sheep-stealers, was exemplifying the power our minds have of riding
several horses at once by inwardly arranging measures towards getting
a lodging for himself in Middlemarch and cutting short his constant
residence at the Grange; while there flitted through all these steadier
images a tickling vision of a sheep-stealing epic written with
Homeric particularity. When Mrs. Casaubon was announced he started
up as from an electric shock, and felt a tingling at his finger-ends.
Any one observing him would have seen a change in his complexion,
in the adjustment of his facial muscles, in the vividness of his glance,
which might have made them imagine that every molecule in his
body had passed the message of a magic touch. And so it had.
For effective magic is transcendent nature; and who shall measure
the subtlety of those touches which convey the quality of soul
as well as body, and make a man's passion for one woman differ from
his passion for another as joy in the morning light over valley and
river and white mountain-top differs from joy among Chinese lanterns
and glass panels? Will, too, was made of very impressible stuff.
The bow of a violin drawn near him cleverly, would at one stroke
change the aspect of the world for him, and his point of view shifted--
as easily as his mood. Dorothea's entrance was the freshness of morning.
"Well, my dear, this is pleasant, now," said Mr. Brooke, meeting and
kissing her. "You have left Casaubon with his books, I suppose.
That's right. We must not have you getting too learned for a woman,
you know."
"There is no fear of that, uncle," said Dorothea, turning to Will
and shaking hands with open cheerfulness, while she made no other form
of greeting, but went on answering her uncle. "I am very slow.
When I want to be busy with books, I am often playing truant among
my thoughts. I find it is not so easy to be learned as to plan cottages."
She seated herself beside her uncle opposite to Will, and was evidently
preoccupied with something that made her almost unmindful of him.
He was ridiculously disappointed, as if he had imagined that her
coming had anything to do with him.
"Why, yes, my dear, it was quite your hobby to draw plans.
But it was good to break that off a little. Hobbies are apt
to ran away with us, you know; it doesn't do to be run away with.
We must keep the reins. I have never let myself be run away with;
I always pulled up. That is what I tell Ladislaw. He and I
are alike, you know: he likes to go into everything. We are
working at capital punishment. We shall do a great deal together,
Ladislaw and I."
"Yes," said Dorothea, with characteristic directness, "Sir James has
been telling me that he is in hope of seeing a great change made soon
in your management of the estate--that you are thinking of having
the farms valued, and repairs made, and the cottages improved,
so that Tipton may look quite another place. Oh, how happy!"--
she went on, clasping her hands, with a return to that more childlike
impetuous manner, which had been subdued since her marriage.
"If I were at home still, I should take to riding again, that I might
go about with you and see all that! And you are going to engage
Mr. Garth, who praised my cottages, Sir James says."
"Chettam is a little hasty, my dear," said Mr. Brooke, coloring slightly;
"a little hasty, you know. I never said I should do anything
of the kind. I never said I should NOT do it, you know."
"He only feels confident that you will do it," said Dorothea,
in a voice as clear and unhesitating as that of a young chorister
chanting a credo, "because you mean to enter Parliament as a member
who cares for the improvement of the people, and one of the first
things to be made better is the state of the land and the laborers.
Think of Kit Downes, uncle, who lives with his wife and seven children
in a house with one sitting room and one bedroom hardly larger than
this table!--and those poor Dagleys, in their tumble-down farmhouse,
where they live in the back kitchen and leave the other rooms to
the rats! That is one reason why I did not like the pictures here,
dear uncle--which you think me stupid about. I used to come from the
village with all that dirt and coarse ugliness like a pain within me,
and the simpering pictures in the drawing-room seemed to me like a
wicked attempt to find delight in what is false, while we don't
mind how hard the truth is for the neighbors outside our walls.
I think we have no right to come forward and urge wider changes
for good, until we have tried to alter the evils which lie under
our own hands."
Dorothea had gathered emotion as she went on, and had forgotten
everything except the relief of pouring forth her feelings, unchecked:
an experience once habitual with her, but hardly ever present since
her marriage, which had been a perpetual struggle of energy with fear.
For the moment, Will's admiration was accompanied with a chilling
sense of remoteness. A man is seldom ashamed of feeling that he
cannot love a woman so well when he sees a certain greatness in her:
nature having intended greatness for men. But nature has sometimes
made sad oversights in carrying out her intention; as in the case
of good Mr. Brooke, whose masculine consciousness was at this moment
in rather a stammering condition under the eloquence of his niece.
He could not immediately find any other mode of expressing himself
than that of rising, fixing his eye-glass, and fingering the papers
before him. At last he said--
"There is something in what you say, my dear, something in
what you say--but not everything--eh, Ladislaw? You and I
don't like our pictures and statues being found fault with.
Young ladies are a little ardent, you know--a little one-sided,
my dear. Fine art, poetry, that kind of thing, elevates a nation--
emollit mores--you understand a little Latin now. But--eh? what?"
These interrogatives were addressed to the footman who had
come in to say that the keeper had found one of Dagley's
boys with a leveret in his hand just killed.
"I'll come, I'll come. I shall let him off easily, you know,"
said Mr. Brooke aside to Dorothea, shuffling away very cheerfully.
"I hope you feel how right this change is that I--that Sir James
wishes for," said Dorothea to Will, as soon as her uncle was gone.
"I do, now I have heard you speak about it. I shall not forget what
you have said. But can you think of something else at this moment?
I may not have another opportunity of speaking to you about what
has occurred," said Will, rising with a movement of impatience,
and holding the back of his chair with both hands.
"Pray tell me what it is," said Dorothea, anxiously, also rising
and going to the open window, where Monk was looking in,
panting and wagging his tail. She leaned her back against the
window-frame, and laid her hand on the dog's head; for though,
as we know, she was not fond of pets that must be held in the hands
or trodden on, she was always attentive to the feelings of dogs,
and very polite if she had to decline their advances.
Will followed her only with his eyes and said, "I presume you know
that Mr. Casaubon has forbidden me to go to his house."
"No, I did not," said Dorothea, after a moment's pause. She was
evidently much moved. "I am very, very sorry," she added, mournfully.
She was thinking of what Will had no knowledge of--the conversation
between her and her husband in the darkness; and she was anew smitten
with hopelessness that she could influence Mr. Casaubon's action.
But the marked expression of her sorrow convinced Will that it
was not all given to him personally, and that Dorothea had not been
visited by the idea that Mr. Casaubon's dislike and jealousy of him
turned upon herself. He felt an odd mixture of delight and vexation:
of delight that he could dwell and be cherished in her thought as in
a pure home, without suspicion and without stint--of vexation because
he was of too little account with her, was not formidable enough,
was treated with an unhesitating benevolence which did not flatter him.
But his dread of any change in Dorothea was stronger than his discontent,
and he began to speak again in a tone of mere explanation.
"Mr. Casaubon's reason is, his displeasure at my taking a position
here which he considers unsuited to my rank as his cousin.
I have told him that I cannot give way on this point. It is a little
too hard on me to expect that my course in life is to be hampered
by prejudices which I think ridiculous. Obligation may be stretched
till it is no better than a brand of slavery stamped on us when we
were too young to know its meaning. I would not have accepted
the position if I had not meant to make it useful and honorable.
I am not bound to regard family dignity in any other light."
Dorothea felt wretched. She thought her husband altogether
in the wrong, on more grounds than Will had mentioned.
"It is better for us not to speak on the subject," she said,
with a tremulousness not common in her voice, "since you and
Mr. Casaubon disagree. You intend to remain?" She was looking
out on the lawn, with melancholy meditation.
"Yes; but I shall hardly ever see you now," said Will, in a tone
of almost boyish complaint.
"No," said Dorothea, turning her eyes full upon him, "hardly ever.
But I shall hear of you. I shall know what you are doing for
my uncle."
"I shall know hardly anything about you," said Will. "No one
will tell me anything."
"Oh, my life is very simple," said Dorothea, her lips curling
with an exquisite smile, which irradiated her melancholy.
"I am always at Lowick."
"That is a dreadful imprisonment," said Will, impetuously.
"No, don't think that," said Dorothea. "I have no longings."
He did not speak, but she replied to some change in his expression.
"I mean, for myself. Except that I should like not to have so much
more than my share without doing anything for others. But I have
a belief of my own, and it comforts me."
"What is that?" said Will, rather jealous of the belief.
"That by desiring what is perfectly good, even when we don't
quite know what it is and cannot do what we would, we are part
of the divine power against evil--widening the skirts of light
and making the struggle with darkness narrower."
"That is a beautiful mysticism--it is a--"
"Please not to call it by any name," said Dorothea, putting out
her hands entreatingly. "You will say it is Persian, or something
else geographical. It is my life. I have found it out, and cannot
part with it. I have always been finding out my religion since I
was a little girl. I used to pray so much--now I hardly ever pray.
I try not to have desires merely for myself, because they may not
be good for others, and I have too much already. I only told you,
that you might know quite well how my days go at Lowick."
"God bless you for telling me!" said Will, ardently, and rather
wondering at himself. They were looking at each other like two
fond children who were talking confidentially of birds.
"What is YOUR religion?" said Dorothea. "I mean--not what you
know about religion, but the belief that helps you most?"
"To love what is good and beautiful when I see it," said Will.
"But I am a rebel: I don't feel bound, as you do, to submit to what I
don't like."
"But if you like what is good, that comes to the same thing,"
said Dorothea, smiling.
"Now you are subtle," said Will.
"Yes; Mr. Casaubon often says I am too subtle. I don't feel as if I
were subtle," said Dorothea, playfully. "But how long my uncle is!
I must go and look for him. I must really go on to the Hall.
Celia is expecting me."
Will offered to tell Mr. Brooke, who presently came and said
that he would step into the carriage and go with Dorothea as far
as Dagley's, to speak about the small delinquent who had been caught
with the Ieveret. Dorothea renewed the subject of the estate
as they drove along, but Mr. Brooke, not being taken unawares,
got the talk under his own control.
"Chettam, now," he replied; "he finds fault with me, my dear;
but I should not preserve my game if it were not for Chettam,
and he can't say that that expense is for the sake of the tenants,
you know. It's a little against my feeling:--poaching, now, if you
come to look into it--I have often thought of getting up the subject.
Not long ago, Flavell, the Methodist preacher, was brought up for
knocking down a hare that came across his path when he and his wife
were walking out together. He was pretty quick, and knocked it on
the neck."
"That was very brutal, I think," said Dorothea
"Well, now, it seemed rather black to me, I confess, in a
Methodist preacher, you know. And Johnson said, `You may judge
what a hypoCRITE he is.' And upon my word, I thought
Flavell looked very little like `the highest style of man'--
as somebody calls the Christian--Young, the poet Young, I think--
you know Young? Well, now, Flavell in his shabby black gaiters,
pleading that he thought the Lord had sent him and his wife a good dinner,
and he had a right to knock it down, though not a mighty hunter
before the Lord, as Nimrod was--I assure you it was rather comic:
Fielding would have made something of it--or Scott, now--Scott might
have worked it up. But really, when I came to think of it,
I couldn't help liking that the fellow should have a bit of hare
to say grace over. It's all a matter of prejudice--prejudice with
the law on its side, you know--about the stick and the gaiters,
and so on. However, it doesn't do to reason about things; and law
is law. But I got Johnson to be quiet, and I hushed the matter up.
I doubt whether Chettam would not have been more severe, and yet
he comes down on me as if I were the hardest man in the county.
But here we are at Dagley's."
Mr. Brooke got down at a farmyard-gate, and Dorothea drove on.
It is wonderful how much uglier things will look when we only suspect
that we are blamed for them. Even our own persons in the glass
are apt to change their aspect for us after we have heard some frank
remark on their less admirable points; and on the other hand it
is astonishing how pleasantly conscience takes our encroachments
on those who never complain or have nobody to complain for them.
Dagley's homestead never before looked so dismal to Mr. Brooke as it
did today, with his mind thus sore about the fault-finding of the
"Trumpet," echoed by Sir James.
It is true that an observer, under that softening influence of
the fine arts which makes other people's hardships picturesque,
might have been delighted with this homestead called Freeman's End:
the old house had dormer-windows in the dark red roof, two of
the chimneys were choked with ivy, the large porch was blocked
up with bundles of sticks, and half the windows were closed
with gray worm-eaten shutters about which the jasmine-boughs grew
in wild luxuriance; the mouldering garden wall with hollyhocks
peeping over it was a perfect study of highly mingled subdued color,
and there was an aged goat (kept doubtless on interesting
superstitious grounds) lying against the open back-kitchen door.
The mossy thatch of the cow-shed, the broken gray barn-doors,
the pauper laborers in ragged breeches who had nearly finished
unloading a wagon of corn into the barn ready for early thrashing;
the scanty dairy of cows being tethered for milking and leaving
one half of the shed in brown emptiness; the very pigs and white
ducks seeming to wander about the uneven neglected yard as if in
low spirits from feeding on a too meagre quality of rinsings,--
all these objects under the quiet light of a sky marbled with high
clouds would have made a sort of picture which we have all paused
over as a "charming bit," touching other sensibilities than those
which are stirred by the depression of the agricultural interest,
with the sad lack of farming capital, as seen constantly in the
newspapers of that time. But these troublesome associations were
just now strongly present to Mr. Brooke, and spoiled the scene
for him. Mr. Dagley himself made a figure in the landscape,
carrying a pitchfork and wearing his milking-hat--a very old beaver
flattened in front. His coat and breeches were the best he had,
and he would not have been wearing them on this weekday occasion
if he had not been to market and returned later than usual,
having given himself the rare treat of dining at the public table
of the Blue Bull. How he came to fall into this extravagance
would perhaps be matter of wonderment to himself on the morrow;
but before dinner something in the state of the country, a slight
pause in the harvest before the Far Dips were cut, the stories about
the new King and the numerous handbills on the walls, had seemed
to warrant a little recklessness. It was a maxim about Middlemarch,
and regarded as self-evident, that good meat should have good drink,
which last Dagley interpreted as plenty of table ale well followed
up by rum-and-water. These liquors have so far truth in them
that they were not false enough to make poor Dagley seem merry:
they only made his discontent less tongue-tied than usual.
He had also taken too much in the shape of muddy political talk,
a stimulant dangerously disturbing to his farming conservatism,
which consisted in holding that whatever is, is bad, and any change
is likely to be worse. He was flushed, and his eyes had a decidedly
quarrelsome stare as he stood still grasping his pitchfork,
while the landlord approached with his easy shuffling walk,
one hand in his trouser-pocket and the other swinging round a thin
walking-stick.
"Dagley, my good fellow," began Mr. Brooke, conscious that he
was going to be very friendly about the boy.
"Oh, ay, I'm a good feller, am I? Thank ye, sir, thank ye,"
said Dagley, with a loud snarling irony which made Fag the sheep-dog
stir from his seat and prick his ears; but seeing Monk enter
the yard after some outside loitering, Fag seated himself again
in an attitude of observation. "I'm glad to hear I'm a good feller."
Mr. Brooke reflected that it was market-day, and that his worthy
tenant had probably been dining, but saw no reason why he should
not go on, since he could take the precaution of repeating what he
had to say to Mrs. Dagley.
"Your little lad Jacob has been caught killing a leveret, Dagley:
I have told Johnson to lock him up in the empty stable an hour
or two, just to frighten him, you know. But he will be brought
home by-and-by, before night: and you'll just look after him,
will you, and give him a reprimand, you know?"
"No, I woon't: I'll be dee'd if I'll leather my boy to please
you or anybody else, not if you was twenty landlords istid o'
one, and that a bad un."
Dagley's words were loud enough to summon his wife to the
back-kitchen door--the only entrance ever used, and one always
open except in bad weather--and Mr. Brooke, saying soothingly,
"Well, well, I'll speak to your wife--I didn't mean beating, you know,"
turned to walk to the house. But Dagley, only the more inclined
to "have his say" with a gentleman who walked away from him,
followed at once, with Fag slouching at his heels and sullenly
evading some small and probably charitable advances on the part of Monk.
"How do you do, Mrs. Dagley?" said Mr. Brooke, making some haste.
"I came to tell you about your boy: I don't want you to give
him the stick, you know." He was careful to speak quite plainly
this time.
Overworked Mrs. Dagley--a thin, worn woman, from whose life
pleasure had so entirely vanished that she had not even any Sunday
clothes which could give her satisfaction in preparing for church--
had already had a misunderstanding with her husband since he
had come home, and was in low spirits, expecting the worst.
But her husband was beforehand in answering.
"No, nor he woon't hev the stick, whether you want it or no,"
pursued Dagley, throwing out his voice, as if he wanted it to hit hard.
"You've got no call to come an' talk about sticks o' these primises,
as you woon't give a stick tow'rt mending. Go to Middlemarch to ax
for YOUR charrickter."
"You'd far better hold your tongue, Dagley," said the wife,
"and not kick your own trough over. When a man as is father
of a family has been an' spent money at market and made himself
the worse for liquor, he's done enough mischief for one day.
But I should like to know what my boy's done, sir."
"Niver do you mind what he's done," said Dagley, more fiercely,
"it's my business to speak, an' not yourn. An' I wull speak, too.
I'll hev my say--supper or no. An' what I say is, as I've lived upo'
your ground from my father and grandfather afore me, an' hev dropped
our money into't, an' me an' my children might lie an' rot on
the ground for top-dressin' as we can't find the money to buy,
if the King wasn't to put a stop."
"My good fellow, you're drunk, you know," said Mr. Brooke,
confidentially but not judiciously. "Another day, another day,"
he added, turning as if to go.
But Dagley immediately fronted him, and Fag at his heels growled low,
as his master's voice grew louder and more insulting, while Monk
also drew close in silent dignified watch. The laborers on the wagon
were pausing to listen, and it seemed wiser to be quite passive
than to attempt a ridiculous flight pursued by a bawling man.
"I'm no more drunk nor you are, nor so much," said Dagley.
"I can carry my liquor, an' I know what I meean. An' I meean
as the King 'ull put a stop to 't, for them say it as knows it,
as there's to be a Rinform, and them landlords as never done
the right thing by their tenants 'ull be treated i' that way as
they'll hev to scuttle off. An' there's them i' Middlemarch knows
what the Rinform is--an' as knows who'll hev to scuttle. Says they,
`I know who YOUR landlord is.' An' says I, `I hope you're
the better for knowin' him, I arn't.' Says they, `He's a close-fisted un.'
`Ay ay,' says I. `He's a man for the Rinform,' says they.
That's what they says. An' I made out what the Rinform were--
an' it were to send you an' your likes a-scuttlin'
an' wi' pretty strong-smellin' things too. An' you may do as you
like now, for I'm none afeard on you. An' you'd better let
my boy aloan, an' look to yoursen, afore the Rinform has got upo'
your back. That's what I'n got to say," concluded Mr. Dagley,
striking his fork into the ground with a firmness which proved
inconvenient as he tried to draw it up again.
At this last action Monk began to bark loudly, and it was a moment
for Mr. Brooke to escape. He walked out of the yard as quickly
as he could, in some amazement at the novelty of his situation.
He had never been insulted on his own land before, and had been inclined
to regard himself as a general favorite (we are all apt to do so,
when we think of our own amiability more than of what other people
are likely to want of us). When he had quarrelled with Caleb Garth
twelve years before he had thought that the tenants would be pleased
at the landlord's taking everything into his own hands.
Some who follow the narrative of his experience may wonder at the
midnight darkness of Mr. Dagley; but nothing was easier in those
times than for an hereditary farmer of his grade to be ignorant,
in spite somehow of having a rector in the twin parish who was a
gentleman to the backbone, a curate nearer at hand who preached more
learnedly than the rector, a landlord who had gone into everything,
especially fine art and social improvement, and all the lights
of Middlemarch only three miles off. As to the facility with
which mortals escape knowledge, try an average acquaintance in
the intellectual blaze of London, and consider what that eligible
person for a dinner-party would have been if he had learned scant
skill in "summing" from the parish-clerk of Tipton, and read
a chapter in the Bible with immense difficulty, because such names
as Isaiah or Apollos remained unmanageable after twice spelling.
Poor Dagley read a few verses sometimes on a Sunday evening,
and the world was at least not darker to him than it had been before.
Some things he knew thoroughly, namely, the slovenly habits of farming,
and the awkwardness of weather, stock and crops, at Freeman's End--
so called apparently by way of sarcasm, to imply that a man was free
to quit it if he chose, but that there was no earthly "beyond"
open to him.
CHAPTER XL.
Wise in his daily work was he:
To fruits of diligence,
And not to faiths or polity,
He plied his utmost sense.
These perfect in their little parts,
Whose work is all their prize--
Without them how could laws, or arts,
Or towered cities rise?
In watching effects, if only of an electric battery, it is often
necessary to change our place and examine a particular mixture
or group at some distance from the point where the movement we
are interested in was set up. The group I am moving towards is
at Caleb Garth's breakfast-table in the large parlor where the
maps and desk were: father, mother, and five of the children.
Mary was just now at home waiting for a situation, while Christy,
the boy next to her, was getting cheap learning and cheap fare
in Scotland, having to his father's disappointment taken to books
instead of that sacred calling "business."
The letters had come--nine costly letters, for which the postman had
been paid three and twopence, and Mr. Garth was forgetting his tea
and toast while he read his letters and laid them open one above
the other, sometimes swaying his head slowly, sometimes screwing up
his mouth in inward debate, but not forgetting to cut off a large
red seal unbroken, which Letty snatched up like an eager terrier.
The talk among the rest went on unrestrainedly, for nothing disturbed
Caleb's absorption except shaking the table when he was writing.
Two letters of the nine had been for Mary. After reading them,
she had passed them to her mother, and sat playing with her
tea-spoon absently, till with a sudden recollection she returned
to her sewing, which she had kept on her lap during breakfast.
"Oh, don't sew, Mary!" said Ben, pulling her arm down. "Make me
a peacock with this bread-crumb." He had been kneading a small mass
for the purpose.
"No, no, Mischief!" said Mary, good-humoredly, while she pricked
his hand lightly with her needle. "Try and mould it yourself:
you have seen me do it often enough. I must get this sewing done.
It is for Rosamond Vincy: she is to be married next week, and she
can't be married without this handkerchief." Mary ended merrily,
amused with the last notion.
"Why can't she, Mary?" said Letty, seriously interested in this mystery,
and pushing her head so close to her sister that Mary now turned
the threatening needle towards Letty's nose.
"Because this is one of a dozen, and without it there would
only be eleven," said Mary, with a grave air of explanation,
so that Letty sank back with a sense of knowledge.
"Have you made up your mind, my dear?" said Mrs. Garth, laying the
letters down.
"I shall go to the school at York," said Mary. "I am less unfit
to teach in a school than in a family. I like to teach classes best.
And, you see, I must teach: there is nothing else to be done."
"Teaching seems to me the most delightful work in the world,"
said Mrs. Garth, with a touch of rebuke in her tone. "I could
understand your objection to it if you had not knowledge enough,
Mary, or if you disliked children."
"I suppose we never quite understand why another dislikes
what we like, mother," said Mary, rather curtly. "I am
not fond of a schoolroom: I like the outside world better.
It is a very inconvenient fault of mine."
"It must be very stupid to be always in a girls' school," said Alfred.
"Such a set of nincompoops, like Mrs. Ballard's pupils walking two
and two."
"And they have no games worth playing at," said Jim. "They can
neither throw nor leap. I don't wonder at Mary's not liking it."
"What is that Mary doesn't like, eh?" said the father, looking over
his spectacles and pausing before he opened his next letter.
"Being among a lot of nincompoop girls," said Alfred.
"Is it the situation you had heard of, Mary?" said Caleb, gently,
looking at his daughter.
"Yes, father: the school at York. I have determined to take it.
It is quite the best. Thirty-five pounds a-year, and extra pay for
teaching the smallest strummers at the piano."
"Poor child! I wish she could stay at home with us, Susan," said Caleb,
looking plaintively at his wife.
"Mary would not be happy without doing her duty," said Mrs. Garth,
magisterially, conscious of having done her own.
"It wouldn't make me happy to do such a nasty duty as that,"
said Alfred--at which Mary and her father laughed silently,
but Mrs. Garth said, gravely--
"Do find a fitter word than nasty, my dear Alfred, for everything
that you think disagreeable. And suppose that Mary could help you
to go to Mr. Hanmer's with the money she gets?"
"That seems to me a great shame. But she's an old brick," said Alfred,
rising from his chair, and pulling Mary's head backward to kiss her.
Mary colored and laughed, but could not conceal that the tears
were coming. Caleb, looking on over his spectacles, with the
angles of his eyebrows falling, had an expression of mingled
delight and sorrow as he returned to the opening of his letter;
and even Mrs. Garth, her lips curling with a calm contentment,
allowed that inappropriate language to pass without correction,
although Ben immediately took it up, and sang, "She's an old brick,
old brick, old brick!" to a cantering measure, which he beat out
with his fist on Mary's arm.
But Mrs. Garth's eyes were now drawn towards her husband,
who was already deep in the letter he was reading. His face
had an expression of grave surprise, which alarmed her a little,
but he did not like to be questioned while he was reading, and she
remained anxiously watching till she saw him suddenly shaken by a
little joyous laugh as he turned back to the beginning of the letter,
and looking at her above his spectacles, said, in a low tone,
"What do you think, Susan?"
She went and stood behind him, putting her hand on his shoulder,
while they read the letter together. It was from Sir James Chettam,
offering to Mr. Garth the management of the family estates at Freshitt
and elsewhere, and adding that Sir James had been requested by
Mr. Brooke of Tipton to ascertain whether Mr. Garth would be disposed
at the same time to resume the agency of the Tipton property.
The Baronet added in very obliging words that he himself was
particularly desirous of seeing the Freshitt and Tipton estates under
the same management, and he hoped to be able to show that the double
agency might be held on terms agreeable to Mr. Garth, whom he would
be glad to see at the Hall at twelve o'clock on the following day.
"He writes handsomely, doesn't he, Susan?" said Caleb, turning his
eyes upward to his wife, who raised her hand from his shoulder
to his ear, while she rested her chin on his head. "Brooke didn't
like to ask me himself, I can see," he continued, laughing silently.
"Here is an honor to your father, children," said Mrs. Garth,
looking round at the five pair of eyes, all fixed on the parents.
"He is asked to take a post again by those who dismissed him long ago.
That shows that he did his work well, so that they feel the want
of him."
"Like Cincinnatus--hooray!" said Ben, riding on his chair,
with a pleasant confidence that discipline was relaxed.
"Will they come to fetch him, mother?" said Letty, thinking of
the Mayor and Corporation in their robes.
Mrs. Garth patted Letty's head and smiled, but seeing that her
husband was gathering up his letters and likely soon to be out
of reach in that sanctuary "business," she pressed his shoulder
and said emphatically--
"Now, mind you ask fair pay, Caleb."
"Oh yes," said Caleb, in a deep voice of assent, as if it would be
unreasonable to suppose anything else of him. "It'll come to between
four and five hundred, the two together." Then with a little start
of remembrance he said, "Mary, write and give up that school.
Stay and help your mother. I'm as pleased as Punch, now I've
thought of that."
No manner could have been less like that of Punch triumphant
than Caleb's, but his talents did not lie in finding phrases,
though he was very particular about his letter-writing, and regarded
his wife as a treasury of correct language.
There was almost an uproar among the children now, and Mary held
up the cambric embroidery towards her mother entreatingly, that it
might be put out of reach while the boys dragged her into a dance.
Mrs. Garth, in placid joy, began to put the cups and plates together,
while Caleb pushing his chair from the table, as if he were going
to move to the desk, still sat holding his letters in his hand
and looking on the ground meditatively, stretching out the fingers
of his left hand, according to a mute language of his own. At last
he said--
"It's a thousand pities Christy didn't take to business, Susan.
I shall want help by-and-by. And Alfred must go off to the engineering--
I've made up my mind to that." He fell into meditation and
finger-rhetoric again for a little while, and then continued:
"I shall make Brooke have new agreements with the tenants, and I shall
draw up a rotation of crops. And I'll lay a wager we can get fine
bricks out of the clay at Bott's corner. I must look into that:
it would cheapen the repairs. It's a fine bit of work, Susan!
A man without a family would be glad to do it for nothing."
"Mind you don't, though," said his wife, lifting up her finger.
"No, no; but it's a fine thing to come to a man when he's seen
into the nature of business: to have the chance of getting a bit
of the country into good fettle, as they say, and putting men into
the right way with their farming, and getting a bit of good contriving
and solid building done--that those who are living and those who come
after will be the better for. I'd sooner have it than a fortune.
I hold it the most honorable work that is." Here Caleb laid down
his letters, thrust his fingers between the buttons of his waistcoat,
and sat upright, but presently proceeded with some awe in his voice
and moving his head slowly aside--"It's a great gift of God, Susan."
"That it is, Caleb," said his wife, with answering fervor.
"And it will be a blessing to your children to have had a father
who did such work: a father whose good work remains though his name
may be forgotten." She could not say any more to him then about
the pay.
In the evening, when Caleb, rather tired with his day's work,
was seated in silence with his pocket-book open on his knee,
while Mrs. Garth and Mary were at their sewing, and Letty in a corner
was whispering a dialogue with her doll, Mr. Farebrother came up
the orchard walk, dividing the bright August lights and shadows
with the tufted grass and the apple-tree boughs. We know that he
was fond of his parishioners the Garths, and had thought Mary worth
mentioning to Lydgate. He used to the full the clergyman's privilege
of disregarding the Middlemarch discrimination of ranks, and always
told his mother that Mrs. Garth was more of a lady than any matron
in the town. Still, you see, he spent his evenings at the Vincys',
where the matron, though less of a lady, presided over a well-lit
drawing-room and whist. In those days human intercourse was not
determined solely by respect. But the Vicar did heartily respect
the Garths, and a visit from him was no surprise to that family.
Nevertheless he accounted for it even while he was shaking hands,
by saying, "I come as an envoy, Mrs. Garth: I have something
to say to you and Garth on behalf of Fred Vincy. The fact is,
poor fellow," he continued, as he seated himself and looked round
with his bright glance at the three who were listening to him,
"he has taken me into his confidence."
Mary's heart beat rather quickly: she wondered how far Fred's
confidence had gone.
"We haven't seen the lad for months," said Caleb. "I couldn't
think what was become of him."
"He has been away on a visit," said the Vicar, "because home was
a little too hot for him, and Lydgate told his mother that the poor
fellow must not begin to study yet. But yesterday he came and poured
himself out to me. I am very glad he did, because I have seen him
grow up from a youngster of fourteen, and I am so much at home
in the house that the children are like nephews and nieces to me.
But it is a difficult case to advise upon. However, he has
asked me to come and tell you that he is going away, and that he
is so miserable about his debt to you, and his inability to pay,
that he can't bear to come himself even to bid you good by."
"Tell him it doesn't signify a farthing," said Caleb, waving his hand.
"We've had the pinch and have got over it. And now I'm going to be
as rich as a Jew."
"Which means," said Mrs. Garth, smiling at the Vicar, "that we
are going to have enough to bring up the boys well and to keep
Mary at home."
"What is the treasure-trove?" said Mr. Farebrother.
"I'm going to be agent for two estates, Freshitt and Tipton;
and perhaps for a pretty little bit of land in Lowick besides:
it's all the same family connection, and employment spreads like water
if it's once set going. It makes me very happy, Mr. Farebrother"--
here Caleb threw back his head a little, and spread his arms on the elbows
of his chair--"that I've got an opportunity again with the letting
of the land, and carrying out a notion or two with improvements.
It's a most uncommonly cramping thing, as I've often told Susan,
to sit on horseback and look over the hedges at the wrong thing,
and not be able to put your hand to it to make it right. What people
do who go into politics I can't think: it drives me almost mad
to see mismanagement over only a few hundred acres."
It was seldom that Caleb volunteered so long a speech, but his
happiness had the effect of mountain air: his eyes were bright,
and the words came without effort.
"I congratulate you heartily, Garth," said the Vicar. "This is
the best sort of news I could have had to carry to Fred Vincy,
for he dwelt a good deal on the injury he had done you in causing
you to part with money--robbing you of it, he said--which you wanted
for other purposes. I wish Fred were not such an idle dog; he has
some very good points, and his father is a little hard upon him."
"Where is he going?" said Mrs. Garth, rather coldly.
"He means to try again for his degree, and he is going up to study
before term. I have advised him to do that. I don't urge him to
enter the Church--on the contrary. But if he will go and work so as
to pass, that will be some guarantee that he has energy and a will;
and he is quite at sea; he doesn't know what else to do. So far he
will please his father, and I have promised in the mean time to try
and reconcile Vincy to his son's adopting some other line of life.
Fred says frankly he is not fit for a clergyman, and I would do
anything I could to hinder a man from the fatal step of choosing
the wrong profession. He quoted to me what you said, Miss Garth--
do you remember it?" (Mr. Farebrother used to say "Mary" instead
of "Miss Garth," but it was part of his delicacy to treat her
with the more deference because, according to Mrs. Vincy's phrase,
she worked for her bread.)
Mary felt uncomfortable, but, determined to take the matter lightly,
answered at once, "I have said so many impertinent things to Fred--
we are such old playfellows."
"You said, according to him, that he would be one of those
ridiculous clergymen who help to make the whole clergy ridiculous.
Really, that was so cutting that I felt a little cut myself."
Caleb laughed. "She gets her tongue from you, Susan," he said,
with some enjoyment.
"Not its flippancy, father," said Mary, quickly, fearing that her
mother would be displeased. "It is rather too bad of Fred to repeat
my flippant speeches to Mr. Farebrother."
"It was certainly a hasty speech, my dear," said Mrs. Garth,
with whom speaking evil of dignities was a high misdemeanor.
"We should not value our Vicar the less because there was a ridiculous
curate in the next parish."
"There's something in what she says, though," said Caleb, not disposed
to have Mary's sharpness undervalued. "A bad workman of any sort
makes his fellows mistrusted. Things hang together," he added,
looking on the floor and moving his feet uneasily with a sense
that words were scantier than thoughts.
"Clearly," said the Vicar, amused. "By being contemptible we set
men's minds, to the tune of contempt. I certainly agree with Miss
Garth's view of the matter, whether I am condemned by it or not.
But as to Fred Vincy, it is only fair he should be excused a little:
old Featherstone's delusive behavior did help to spoil him.
There was something quite diabolical in not leaving him a farthing
after all. But Fred has the good taste not to dwell on that.
And what he cares most about is having offended you, Mrs. Garth;
he supposes you will never think well of him again."
"I have been disappointed in Fred," said Mrs. Garth, with decision.
"But I shall be ready to think well of him again when he gives me
good reason to do so."
At this point Mary went out of the room, taking Letty with her.
"Oh, we must forgive young people when they're sorry," said Caleb,
watching Mary close the door. "And as you say, Mr. Farebrother,
there was the very devil in that old man."
Now Mary's gone out, I must tell you a thing--it's only known
to Susan and me, and you'll not tell it again. The old scoundrel
wanted Mary to burn one of the wills the very night he died,
when she was sitting up with him by herself, and he offered her
a sum of money that he had in the box by him if she would do it.
But Mary, you understand, could do no such thing--would not be handling
his iron chest, and so on. Now, you see, the will he wanted burnt
was this last, so that if Mary had done what he wanted, Fred Vincy
would have had ten thousand pounds. The old man did turn to him
at the last. That touches poor Mary close; she couldn't help it--
she was in the right to do what she did, but she feels, as she says,
much as if she had knocked down somebody's property and broken it
against her will, when she was rightfully defending herself. I feel
with her, somehow, and if I could make any amends to the poor lad,
instead of bearing him a grudge for the harm he did us, I should
be glad to do it. Now, what is your opinion, sir? Susan doesn't
agree with me. She says--tell what you say, Susan."
"Mary could not have acted otherwise, even if she had known what would
be the effect on Fred," said Mrs. Garth, pausing from her work,
and looking at Mr. Farebrother.
"And she was quite ignorant of it. It seems to me, a loss which falls
on another because we have done right is not to lie upon our conscience."
The Vicar did not answer immediately, and Caleb said, "It's the feeling.
The child feels in that way, and I feel with her. You don't mean
your horse to tread on a dog when you're backing out of the way;
but it goes through you, when it's done."
"I am sure Mrs. Garth would agree with you there," said Mr. Farebrother,
who for some reason seemed more inclined to ruminate than to speak.
"One could hardly say that the feeling you mention about Fred
is wrong--or rather, mistaken--though no man ought to make a claim
on such feeling."
"Well, well," said Caleb, "it's a secret. You will not tell Fred."
"Certainly not. But I shall carry the other good news--that you
can afford the loss he caused you."
Mr. Farebrother left the house soon after, and seeing Mary in the
orchard with Letty, went to say good-by to her. They made a pretty
picture in the western light which brought out the brightness of the
apples on the old scant-leaved boughs--Mary in her lavender gingham
and black ribbons holding a basket, while Letty in her well-worn
nankin picked up the fallen apples. If you want to know more
particularly how Mary looked, ten to one you will see a face like hers
in the crowded street to-morrow, if you are there on the watch:
she will not be among those daughters of Zion who are haughty,
and walk with stretched-out necks and wanton eyes, mincing as they go:
let all those pass, and fix your eyes on some small plump brownish
person of firm but quiet carriage, who looks about her, but does
not suppose that anybody is looking at her. If she has a broad
face and square brow, well-marked eyebrows and curly dark hair,
a certain expression of amusement in her glance which her mouth keeps
the secret of, and for the rest features entirely insignificant--
take that ordinary but not disagreeable person for a portrait
of Mary Garth. If you made her smile, she would show you perfect
little teeth; if you made her angry, she would not raise her voice,
but would probably say one of the bitterest things you have ever tasted
the flavor of; if you did her a kindness, she would never forget it.
Mary admired the keen-faced handsome little Vicar in his well-brushed
threadbare clothes more than any man she had had the opportunity
of knowing. She had never heard him say a foolish thing, though she
knew that he did unwise ones; and perhaps foolish sayings were more
objectionable to her than any of Mr. Farebrother's unwise doings.
At least, it was remarkable that the actual imperfections of the
Vicar's clerical character never seemed to call forth the same
scorn and dislike which she showed beforehand for the predicted
imperfections of the clerical character sustained by Fred Vincy.
These irregularities of judgment, I imagine, are found even in riper
minds than Mary Garth's: our impartiality is kept for abstract
merit and demerit, which none of us ever saw. Will any one guess
towards which of those widely different men Mary had the peculiar
woman's tenderness?--the one she was most inclined to be severe on,
or the contrary?
"Have you any message for your old playfellow, Miss Garth?"
said the Vicar, as he took a fragrant apple from the basket which she
held towards him, and put it in his pocket. "Something to soften
down that harsh judgment? I am going straight to see him."
"No," said Mary, shaking her head, and smiling. "If I were to say
that he would not be ridiculous as a clergyman, I must say that he
would be something worse than ridiculous. But I am very glad
to hear that he is going away to work."
"On the other hand, I am very glad to hear that YOU are not
going away to work. My mother, I am sure, will be all the happier
if you will come to see her at the vicarage: you know she is fond
of having young people to talk to, and she has a great deal to tell
about old times. You will really be doing a kindness."
"I should like it very much, if I may," said Mary. "Everything
seems too happy for me all at once. I thought it would always
be part of my life to long for home, and losing that grievance
makes me feel rather empty: I suppose it served instead of sense
to fill up my mind?"
"May I go with you, Mary?" whispered Letty--a most inconvenient child,
who listened to everything. But she was made exultant by having
her chin pinched and her cheek kissed by Mr. Farebrother--
an incident which she narrated to her mother and father.
As the Vicar walked to Lowick, any one watching him closely might
have seen him twice shrug his shoulders. I think that the rare
Englishmen who have this gesture are never of the heavy type--
for fear of any lumbering instance to the contrary, I will say,
hardly ever; they have usually a fine temperament and much tolerance
towards the smaller errors of men (themselves inclusive). The Vicar
was holding an inward dialogue in which he told himself that there
was probably something more between Fred and Mary Garth than the
regard of old playfellows, and replied with a question whether
that bit of womanhood were not a great deal too choice for that
crude young gentleman. The rejoinder to this was the first shrug.
Then he laughed at himself for being likely to have felt jealous,
as if he had been a man able to marry, which, added he, it is
as clear as any balance-sheet that I am not. Whereupon followed
the second shrug.
What could two men, so different from each other, see in this
"brown patch," as Mary called herself? It was certainly not her
plainness that attracted them (and let all plain young ladies be
warned against the dangerous encouragement given them by Society
to confide in their want of beauty). A human being in this aged
nation of ours is a very wonderful whole, the slow creation of long
interchanging influences: and charm is a result of two such wholes,
the one loving and the one loved.
When Mr. and Mrs. Garth were sitting alone, Caleb said, "Susan, guess
what I'm thinking of."
"The rotation of crops," said Mrs. Garth, smiling at him,
above her knitting, "or else the back-doors of the Tipton cottages."
"No," said Caleb, gravely; "I am thinking that I could do a great
turn for Fred Vincy. Christy's gone, Alfred will be gone soon,
and it will be five years before Jim is ready to take to business.
I shall want help, and Fred might come in and learn the nature
of things and act under me, and it might be the making of him into
a useful man, if he gives up being a parson. What do you think?"
"I think, there is hardly anything honest that his family would
object to more," said Mrs. Garth, decidedly.
"What care I about their objecting?" said Caleb, with a sturdiness
which he was apt to show when he had an opinion. "The lad is of age
and must get his bread. He has sense enough and quickness enough;
he likes being on the land, and it's my belief that he could learn
business well if he gave his mind to it."
"But would he? His father and mother wanted him to be a fine
gentleman, and I think he has the same sort of feeling himself.
They all think us beneath them. And if the proposal came from you,
I am sure Mrs. Vincy would say that we wanted Fred for Mary."
"Life is a poor tale, if it is to be settled by nonsense of that sort,"
said Caleb, with disgust.
"Yes, but there is a certain pride which is proper, Caleb."
"I call it improper pride to let fools' notions hinder you from doing
a good action. There's no sort of work," said Caleb, with fervor,
putting out his hand and moving it up and down to mark his emphasis,
"that could ever be done well, if you minded what fools say.
You must have it inside you that your plan is right, and that plan you
must follow."
"I will not oppose any plan you have set your mind on, Caleb,"
said Mrs. Garth, who was a firm woman, but knew that there
were some points on which her mild husband was yet firmer.
"Still, it seems to be fixed that Fred is to go back to college:
will it not be better to wait and see what he will choose to do
after that? It is not easy to keep people against their will.
And you are not yet quite sure enough of your own position,
or what you will want."
"Well, it may be better to wait a bit. But as to my getting
plenty of work for two, I'm pretty sure of that. I've always had
my hands full with scattered things, and there's always something
fresh turning up. Why, only yesterday--bless me, I don't think I
told you!--it was rather odd that two men should have been at me
on different sides to do the same bit of valuing. And who do you
think they were?" said Caleb, taking a pinch of snuff and holding
it up between his fingers, as if it were a part of his exposition.
He was fond of a pinch when it occurred to him, but he usually
forgot that this indulgence was at his command.
His wife held down her knitting and looked attentive.
"Why, that Rigg, or Rigg Featherstone, was one. But Bulstrode
was before him, so I'm going to do it for Bulstrode. Whether it's
mortgage or purchase they're going for, I can't tell yet."
"Can that man be going to sell the land just left him--which he
has taken the name for?" said Mrs. Garth.
"Deuce knows," said Caleb, who never referred the knowledge
of discreditable doings to any higher power than the deuce.
"But Bulstrode has long been wanting to get a handsome bit of land
under his fingers--that I know. And it's a difficult matter to get,
in this part of the country."
Caleb scattered his snuff carefully instead of taking it,
and then added, "The ins and outs of things are curious.
Here is the land they've been all along expecting for Fred,
which it seems the old man never meant to leave him a foot of,
but left it to this side-slip of a son that he kept in the dark,
and thought of his sticking there and vexing everybody as well as he
could have vexed 'em himself if he could have kept alive. I say,
it would be curious if it got into Bulstrode's hands after all.
The old man hated him, and never would bank with him."
"What reason could the miserable creature have for hating a man
whom he had nothing to do with?" said Mrs. Garth.
"Pooh! where's the use of asking for such fellows' reasons? The soul
of man," said Caleb, with the deep tone and grave shake of the head
which always came when he used this phrase--"The soul of man,
when it gets fairly rotten, will bear you all sorts of poisonous
toad-stools, and no eye can see whence came the seed thereof."
It was one of Caleb's quaintnesses, that in his difficulty of finding
speech for his thought, he caught, as it were, snatches of diction
which he associated with various points of view or states of mind;
and whenever he had a feeling of awe, he was haunted by a sense
of Biblical phraseology, though he could hardly have given
a strict quotation.
CHAPTER XLI.
"By swaggering could I never thrive,
For the rain it raineth every day.
--Twelfth Night
The transactions referred to by Caleb Garth as having gone forward
between Mr. Bulstrode and Mr. Joshua Rigg Featherstone concerning
the land attached to Stone Court, had occasioned the interchange
of a letter or two between these personages.
Who shall tell what may be the effect of writing? If it happens
to have been cut in stone, though it lie face down-most for ages
on a forsaken beach, or "rest quietly under the drums and tramplings
of many conquests," it may end by letting us into the secret of
usurpations and other scandals gossiped about long empires ago:--
this world being apparently a huge whispering-gallery. Such conditions
are often minutely represented in our petty lifetimes. As the stone
which has been kicked by generations of clowns may come by curious
little links of effect under the eyes of a scholar, through whose
labors it may at last fix the date of invasions and unlock religions,
so a bit of ink and paper which has long been an innocent wrapping
or stop-gap may at last be laid open under the one pair of eyes which
have knowledge enough to turn it into the opening of a catastrophe.
To Uriel watching the progress of planetary history from the sun,
the one result would be just as much of a coincidence as the other.
Having made this rather lofty comparison I am less uneasy in calling
attention to the existence of low people by whose interference,
however little we may like it, the course of the world is very
much determined. It would be well, certainly, if we could help
to reduce their number, and something might perhaps be done by not
lightly giving occasion to their existence. Socially speaking,
Joshua Rigg would have been generally pronounced a superfluity.
But those who like Peter Featherstone never had a copy of
themselves demanded, are the very last to wait for such a request
either in prose or verse. The copy in this case bore more of
outside resemblance to the mother, in whose sex frog-features,
accompanied with fresh-colored cheeks and a well-rounded figure,
are compatible with much charm for a certain order of admirers.
The result is sometimes a frog-faced male, desirable, surely,
to no order of intelligent beings. Especially when he is suddenly
brought into evidence to frustrate other people's expectations--
the very lowest aspect in which a social superfluity can present himself.
But Mr. Rigg Featherstone's low characteristics were all of the sober,
water-drinking kind. From the earliest to the latest hour of the day
he was always as sleek, neat, and cool as the frog he resembled,
and old Peter had secretly chuckled over an offshoot almost more
calculating, and far more imperturbable, than himself. I will add
that his finger-nails were scrupulously attended to, and that he
meant to marry a well-educated young lady (as yet unspecified)
whose person was good, and whose connections, in a solid middle-class
way, were undeniable. Thus his nails and modesty were comparable
to those of most gentlemen; though his ambition had been educated
only by the opportunities of a clerk and accountant in the smaller
commercial houses of a seaport. He thought the rural Featherstones
very simple absurd people, and they in their turn regarded his
"bringing up" in a seaport town as an exaggeration of the monstrosity
that their brother Peter, and still more Peter's property, should
have had such belongings.
The garden and gravel approach, as seen from the two windows of the
wainscoted parlor at Stone Court, were never in better trim than now,
when Mr. Rigg Featherstone stood, with his hands behind him,
looking out on these grounds as their master. But it seemed doubtful
whether he looked out for the sake of contemplation or of turning his
back to a person who stood in the middle of the room, with his legs
considerably apart and his hands in his trouser-pockets: a person
in all respects a contrast to the sleek and cool Rigg. He was a man
obviously on the way towards sixty, very florid and hairy, with much
gray in his bushy whiskers and thick curly hair, a stoutish body
which showed to disadvantage the somewhat worn joinings of his clothes,
and the air of a swaggerer, who would aim at being noticeable even at
a show of fireworks, regarding his own remarks on any other person's
performance as likely to be more interesting than the performance itself.
His name was John Raffles, and he sometimes wrote jocosely W.A.G.
after his signature, observing when he did so, that he was once
taught by Leonard Lamb of Finsbury who wrote B.A. after his name,
and that he, Raffles, originated the witticism of calling that
celebrated principal Ba-Lamb. Such were the appearance and mental
flavor of Mr. Raffles, both of which seemed to have a stale odor
of travellers' rooms in the commercial hotels of that period.
"Come, now, Josh," he was saying, in a full rumbling tone, "look at it
in this light: here is your poor mother going into the vale of years,
and you could afford something handsome now to make her comfortable."
"Not while you live. Nothing would make her comfortable while
you live," returned Rigg, in his cool high voice. "What I give her,
you'll take."
"You bear me a grudge, Josh, that I know. But come, now--as between
man and man--without humbug--a little capital might enable me to make
a first-rate thing of the shop. The tobacco trade is growing.
I should cut my own nose off in not doing the best I could at it.
I should stick to it like a flea to a fleece for my own sake.
I should always be on the spot. And nothing would make your
poor mother so happy. I've pretty well done with my wild oats--
turned fifty-five. I want to settle down in my chimney-corner. And
if I once buckled to the tobacco trade, I could bring an amount
of brains and experience to bear on it that would not be found
elsewhere in a hurry. I don't want to be bothering you one time
after another, but to get things once for all into the right channel.
Consider that, Josh--as between man and man--and with your poor mother
to be made easy for her life. I was always fond of the old woman,
by Jove!"
"Have you done?" said Mr. Rigg, quietly, without looking away
from the window.
"Yes, I've done," said Raffles, taking hold of his hat which stood
before him on the table, and giving it a sort of oratorical push.
"Then just listen to me. The more you say anything, the less I shall
believe it. The more you want me to do a thing, the more reason I
shall have for never doing it. Do you think I mean to forget your
kicking me when I was a lad, and eating all the best victual away
from me and my mother? Do you think I forget your always coming
home to sell and pocket everything, and going off again leaving us
in the lurch? I should be glad to see you whipped at the cart-tail.
My mother was a fool to you: she'd no right to give me a father-in-law,
and she's been punished for it. She shall have her weekly allowance
paid and no more: and that shall be stopped if you dare to come
on to these premises again, or to come into this country after
me again. The next time you show yourself inside the gates here,
you shall be driven off with the dogs and the wagoner's whip."
As Rigg pronounced the last words he turned round and looked
at Raffles with his prominent frozen eyes. The contrast
was as striking as it could have been eighteen years before,
when Rigg was a most unengaging kickable boy, and Raffles was
the rather thick-set Adonis of bar-rooms and back-parlors. But
the advantage now was on the side of Rigg, and auditors of this
conversation might probably have expected that Raffles would retire
with the air of a defeated dog. Not at all. He made a grimace
which was habitual with him whenever he was "out" in a game;
then subsided into a laugh, and drew a brandy-flask from his pocket.
"Come, Josh," he said, in a cajoling tone, "give us a spoonful of brandy,
and a sovereign to pay the way back, and I'll go. Honor bright!
I'll go like a bullet, BY Jove!"
"Mind," said Rigg, drawing out a bunch of keys, "if I ever see you again,
I shan't speak to you. I don't own you any more than if I saw a crow;
and if you want to own me you'll get nothing by it but a character
for being what you are--a spiteful, brassy, bullying rogue."
"That's a pity, now, Josh," said Raffles, affecting to scratch
his head and wrinkle his brows upward as if he were nonplussed.
"I'm very fond of you; BY Jove, I am! There's nothing I like
better than plaguing you--you're so like your mother, and I must
do without it. But the brandy and the sovereign's a bargain."
He jerked forward the flask and Rigg went to a fine old oaken
bureau with his keys. But Raffles had reminded himself by his
movement with the flask that it had become dangerously loose
from its leather covering, and catching sight of a folded paper
which had fallen within the fender, he took it up and shoved
it under the leather so as to make the glass firm.
By that time Rigg came forward with a brandy-bottle, filled
the flask, and handed Raffles a sovereign, neither looking at him
nor speaking to him. After locking up the bureau again, he walked
to the window and gazed out as impassibly as he had done at the
beginning of the interview, while Raffles took a small allowance
from the flask, screwed it up, and deposited it in his side-pocket,
with provoking slowness, making a grimace at his stepson's back.
"Farewell, Josh--and if forever!" said Raffles, turning back his
head as he opened the door.
Rigg saw him leave the grounds and enter the lane. The gray day
had turned to a light drizzling rain, which freshened the hedgerows
and the grassy borders of the by-roads, and hastened the laborers
who were loading the last shocks of corn. Raffles, walking with
the uneasy gait of a town loiterer obliged to do a bit of country
journeying on foot, looked as incongruous amid this moist rural quiet
and industry as if he had been a baboon escaped from a menagerie.
But there were none to stare at him except the long-weaned calves,
and none to show dislike of his appearance except the little
water-rats which rustled away at his approach.
He was fortunate enough when he got on to the highroad to be overtaken
by the stage-coach, which carried him to Brassing; and there he took
the new-made railway, observing to his fellow-passengers that he
considered it pretty well seasoned now it had done for Huskisson.
Mr. Raffles on most occasions kept up the sense of having been
educated at an academy, and being able, if he chose, to pass
well everywhere; indeed, there was not one of his fellow-men whom
he did not feel himself in a position to ridicule and torment,
confident of the entertainment which he thus gave to all the rest
of the company.
He played this part now with as much spirit as if his journey had been
entirely successful, resorting at frequent intervals to his flask.
The paper with which he had wedged it was a letter signed
Nicholas Bulstrode, but Raffles was not likely to disturb it
from its present useful position.
CHAPTER XLII.
"How much, methinks, I could despise this man
Were I not bound in charity against it!
--SHAKESPEARE: Henry VIII.
One of the professional calls made by Lydgate soon after his return
from his wedding-journey was to Lowick Manor, in consequence
of a letter which had requested him to fix a time for his visit.
Mr. Casaubon had never put any question concerning the nature
of his illness to Lydgate, nor had he even to Dorothea betrayed
any anxiety as to how far it might be likely to cut short his
labors or his life. On this point, as on all others, he shrank
from pity; and if the suspicion of being pitied for anything
in his lot surmised or known in spite of himself was embittering,
the idea of calling forth a show of compassion by frankly admitting
an alarm or a sorrow was necessarily intolerable to him.
Every proud mind knows something of this experience, and perhaps
it is only to be overcome by a sense of fellowship deep enough
to make all efforts at isolation seem mean and petty instead of exalting.
But Mr. Casaubon was now brooding over something through which the
question of his health and life haunted his silence with a more
harassing importunity even than through the autumnal unripeness
of his authorship. It is true that this last might be called his
central ambition; but there are some kinds of authorship in which
by far the largest result is the uneasy susceptibility accumulated
in the consciousness of the author one knows of the river by a
few streaks amid a long-gathered deposit of uncomfortable mud.
That was the way with Mr. Casaubon's hard intellectual labors.
Their most characteristic result was not the "Key to all Mythologies,"
but a morbid consciousness that others did not give him the place
which he had not demonstrably merited--a perpetual suspicious
conjecture that the views entertained of him were not to his advantage--
a melancholy absence of passion in his efforts at achievement, and a
passionate resistance to the confession that he had achieved nothing.
Thus his intellectual ambition which seemed to others to have
absorbed and dried him, was really no security against wounds,
least of all against those which came from Dorothea. And he had
begun now to frame possibilities for the future which were somehow
more embittering to him than anything his mind had dwelt on before.
Against certain facts he was helpless: against Will Ladislaw's
existence his defiant stay in the neighborhood of Lowick, and his
flippant state of mind with regard to the possessors of authentic,
well-stamped erudition: against Dorothea's nature, always taking on
some new shape of ardent activity, and even in submission and silence
covering fervid reasons which it was an irritation to think of:
against certain notions and likings which had taken possession of
her mind in relation to subjects that he could not possibly discuss
with her. "There was no denying that Dorothea was as virtuous
and lovely a young lady as he could have obtained for a wife;
but a young lady turned out to be something more troublesome than he
had conceived. She nursed him, she read to him, she anticipated
his wants, and was solicitous about his feelings; but there had
entered into the husband's mind the certainty that she judged him,
and that her wifely devotedness was like a penitential expiation
of unbelieving thoughts--was accompanied with a power of comparison
by which himself and his doings were seen too luminously as a part
of things in general. His discontent passed vapor-like through all
her gentle loving manifestations, and clung to that inappreciative
world which she had only brought nearer to him.
Poor Mr. Casaubon! This suffering was the harder to bear because it
seemed like a betrayal: the young creature who had worshipped
him with perfect trust had quickly turned into the critical wife;
and early instances of criticism and resentment had made an impression
which no tenderness and submission afterwards could remove.
To his suspicious interpretation Dorothea's silence now was
a suppressed rebellion; a remark from her which he had not in
any way anticipated was an assertion of conscious superiority;
her gentle answers had an irritating cautiousness in them;
and when she acquiesced it was a self-approved effort of forbearance.
The tenacity with which he strove to hide this inward drama made it
the more vivid for him; as we hear with the more keenness what we
wish others not to hear.
Instead of wondering at this result of misery in Mr. Casaubon,
I think it quite ordinary. Will not a tiny speck very close to our
vision blot out the glory of the world, and leave only a margin
by which we see the blot? I know no speck so troublesome as self.
And who, if Mr. Casaubon had chosen to expound his discontents--
his suspicions that he was not any longer adored without criticism--
could have denied that they were founded on good reasons?
On the contrary, there was a strong reason to be added, which he
had not himself taken explicitly into account--namely, that he was
not unmixedly adorable. He suspected this, however, as he suspected
other things, without confessing it, and like the rest of us,
felt how soothing it would have been to have a co pan ion who would
never find it out.
This sore susceptibility in relation to Dorothea was thoroughly
prepared before Will Ladislaw had returned to Lowick, and what had
occurred since then had brought Mr. Casaubon's power of suspicious
construction into exasperated activity. To all the facts which he knew,
he added imaginary facts both present and future which become more
real to him than those because they called up a stronger dislike,
a more predominating bitterness. Suspicion and jealousy of Will
Ladislaw's intentions, suspicion and jealousy of Dorothea's impressions,
were constantly at their weaving work. It would be quite unjust
to him to suppose that he could have entered into any coarse
misinterpretation of Dorothea: his own habits of mind and conduct,
quite as much as the open elevation of her nature, saved him
from any such mistake. What he was jealous of was her opinion,
the sway that might be given to her ardent mind in its judgments,
and the future possibilities to which these might lead her.
As to Will, though until his last defiant letter he had nothing definite
which he would choose formally to allege against him, he felt himself
warranted in believing that he was capable of any design which could
fascinate a rebellious temper and an undisciplined impulsiveness.
He was quite sure that Dorothea was the cause of Will's return
from Rome, and his determination to settle in the neighborhood;
and he was penetrating enough to imagine that Dorothea had innocently
encouraged this course. It was as clear as possible that she was
ready to be attached to Will and to be pliant to his suggestions:
they had never had a tete-a-tete without her bringing away from
it some new troublesome impression, and the last interview that
Mr. Casaubon was aware of (Dorothea, on returning from Freshitt Hall,
had for the first time been silent about having seen Will) had led
to a scene which roused an angrier feeling against them both than
he had ever known before. Dorothea's outpouring of her notions
about money, in the darkness of the night, had done nothing but bring
a mixture of more odious foreboding into her husband's mind.
And there was the shock lately given to his health always sadly
present with him. He was certainly much revived; he had recovered
all his usual power of work: the illness might have been mere fatigue,
and there might still be twenty years of achievement before him,
which would justify the thirty years of preparation. That prospect
was made the sweeter by a flavor of vengeance against the hasty
sneers of Carp & Company; for even when Mr. Casaubon was carrying
his taper among the tombs of the past, those modern figures came
athwart the dim light, and interrupted his diligent exploration.
To convince Carp of his mistake, so that he would have to eat his
own words with a good deal of indigestion, would be an agreeable
accident of triumphant authorship, which the prospect of living to
future ages on earth and to all eternity in heaven could not exclude
from contemplation. Since, thus, the prevision of his own unending
bliss could not nullify the bitter savors of irritated jealousy
and vindictiveness, it is the less surprising that the probability
of a transient earthly bliss for other persons, when he himself
should have entered into glory, had not a potently sweetening effect.
If the truth should be that some undermining disease was at work
within him, there might be large opportunity for some people to be
the happier when he was gone; and if one of those people should be
Will Ladislaw, Mr. Casaubon objected so strongly that it seemed
as if the annoyance would make part of his disembodied existence.
This is a very bare and therefore a very incomplete way of putting
the case. The human soul moves in many channels, and Mr. Casaubon,
we know, had a sense of rectitude and an honorable pride in satisfying
the requirements of honor, which compelled him to find other
reasons for his conduct than those of jealousy and vindictiveness.
The way in which Mr. Casaubon put the case was this:--"In marrying
Dorothea Brooke I had to care for her well-being in case of my death.
But well-being is not to be secured by ample, independent possession
of property; on the contrary, occasions might arise in which such
possession might expose her to the more danger. She is ready prey
to any man who knows how to play adroitly either on her affectionate
ardor or her Quixotic enthusiasm; and a man stands by with that
very intention in his mind--a man with no other principle than
transient caprice, and who has a personal animosity towards me--
I am sure of it--an animosity which is fed by the consciousness
of his ingratitude, and which he has constantly vented in ridicule
of which I am as well assured as if I had heard it. Even if I
live I shall not be without uneasiness as to what he may attempt
through indirect influence. This man has gained Dorothea's ear:
he has fascinated her attention; he has evidently tried to impress
her mind with the notion that he has claims beyond anything I have done
for him. If I die--and he is waiting here on the watch for that--
he will persuade her to marry him. That would be calamity for
her and success for him. SHE would not think it calamity:
he would make her believe anything; she has a tendency to
immoderate attachment which she inwardly reproaches me for not
responding to, and already her mind is occupied with his fortunes.
He thinks of an easy conquest and of entering into my nest.
That I will hinder! Such a marriage would be fatal to Dorothea.
Has he ever persisted in anything except from contradiction?
In knowledge he has always tried to be showy at small cost.
In religion he could be, as long as it suited him, the facile echo of
Dorothea's vagaries. When was sciolism ever dissociated from laxity?
I utterly distrust his morals, and it is my duty to hinder to the
utmost the fulfilment of his designs."
The arrangements made by Mr. Casaubon on his marriage left strong
measures open to him, but in ruminating on them his mind inevitably
dwelt so much on the probabilities of his own life that the longing
to get the nearest possible calculation had at last overcome his
proud reticence, and had determined him to ask Lydgate's opinion
as to the nature of his illness.
He had mentioned to Dorothea that Lydgate was coming by appointment
at half-past three, and in answer to her anxious question, whether he
had felt ill, replied,--"No, I merely wish to have his opinion
concerning some habitual symptoms. You need not see him, my dear.
I shall give orders that he may be sent to me in the Yew-tree Walk,
where I shall be taking my usual exercise."
When Lydgate entered the Yew-tree Walk he saw Mr. Casaubon slowly
receding with his hands behind him according to his habit,
and his head bent forward. It was a lovely afternoon; the leaves
from the lofty limes were falling silently across the sombre
evergreens, while the lights and shadows slept side by side:
there was no sound but the cawing of the rooks, which to the
accustomed ear is a lullaby, or that last solemn lullaby, a dirge.
Lydgate, conscious of an energetic frame in its prime, felt some
compassion when the figure which he was likely soon to overtake
turned round, and in advancing towards him showed more markedly
than ever the signs of premature age--the student's bent shoulders,
the emaciated limbs, and the melancholy lines of the mouth.
"Poor fellow," he thought, "some men with his years are like lions;
one can tell nothing of their age except that they are full grown."
"Mr. Lydgate," said Mr. Casaubon, with his invariably po lite air,
"I am exceedingly obliged to you for your punctuality. We will,
if you please, carry on our conversation in walking to and fro."
"I hope your wish to see me is not due to the return
of unpleasant symptoms," said Lydgate, filling up a pause.
"Not immediately--no. In order to account for that wish I must mention--
what it were otherwise needless to refer to--that my life,
on all collateral accounts insignificant, derives a possible
importance from the incompleteness of labors which have extended
through all its best years. In short, I have long had on hand
a work which I would fain leave behind me in such a state, at least,
that it might be committed to the press by--others. Were I assured
that this is the utmost I can reasonably expect, that assurance
would be a useful circumscription of my attempts, and a guide
in both the positive and negative determination of my course."
Here Mr. Casaubon paused, removed one hand from his back and thrust
it between the buttons of his single-breasted coat. To a mind
largely instructed in the human destiny hardly anything could be
more interesting than the inward conflict implied in his formal
measured address, delivered with the usual sing-song and motion
of the head. Nay, are there many situations more sublimely tragic
than the struggle of the soul with the demand to renounce a work
which has been all the significance of its life--a significance
which is to vanish as the waters which come and go where no man has
need of them? But there was nothing to strike others as sublime
about Mr. Casaubon, and Lydgate, who had some contempt at hand for
futile scholarship, felt a little amusement mingling with his pity.
He was at present too ill acquainted with disaster to enter into
the pathos of a lot where everything is below the level of tragedy
except the passionate egoism of the sufferer.
"You refer to the possible hindrances from want of health?" he said,
wishing to help forward Mr. Casaubon's purpose, which seemed to be
clogged by some hesitation.
"I do. You have not implied to me that the symptoms which--
I am bound to testify--you watched with scrupulous care,
were those of a fatal disease. But were it so, Mr. Lydgate,
I should desire to know the truth without reservation, and I
appeal to you for an exact statement of your conclusions:
I request it as a friendly service. If you can tell me that my
life is not threatened by anything else than ordinary casualties,
I shall rejoice, on grounds which I have already indicated.
If not, knowledge of the truth is even more important to me."
"Then I can no longer hesitate as to my course," said Lydgate;
"but the first thing I must impress on you is that my conclusions
are doubly uncertain--uncertain not only because of my fallibility,
but because diseases of the heart are eminently difficult to found
predictions on. In any ease, one can hardly increase appreciably
the tremendous uncertainty of life."
Mr. Casaubon winced perceptibly, but bowed.
"I believe that you are suffering from what is called fatty
degeneration of the heart, a disease which was first divined
and explored by Laennec, the man who gave us the stethoscope,
not so very many years ago. A good deal of experience--a more
lengthened observation--is wanting on the subject. But after
what you have said, it is my duty to tell you that death from this
disease is often sudden. At the same time, no such result can
be predicted. Your condition may be consistent with a tolerably
comfortable life for another fifteen years, or even more. I could
add no information to this beyond anatomical or medical details,
which would leave expectation at precisely the same point."
Lydgate's instinct was fine enough to tell him that plain speech,
quite free from ostentatious caution, would be felt by Mr. Casaubon
as a tribute of respect.
"I thank you, Mr. Lydgate," said Mr. Casaubon, after a moment's pause.
"One thing more I have still to ask: did you communicate what you
have now told me to Mrs. Casaubon?"
"Partly--I mean, as to the possible issues." Lydgate was going
to explain why he had told Dorothea, but Mr. Casaubon, with an
unmistakable desire to end the conversation, waved his hand slightly,
and said again, "I thank you," proceeding to remark on the rare
beauty of the day.
Lydgate, certain that his patient wished to be alone, soon left him;
and the black figure with hands behind and head bent forward
continued to pace the walk where the dark yew-trees gave him
a mute companionship in melancholy, and the little shadows of bird
or leaf that fleeted across the isles of sunlight, stole along
in silence as in the presence of a sorrow. Here was a man who now
for the first time found himself looking into the eyes of death--
who was passing through one of those rare moments of experience
when we feel the truth of a commonplace, which is as different from
what we call knowing it, as the vision of waters upon the earth is
different from the delirious vision of the water which cannot be had
to cool the burning tongue. When the commonplace "We must all die"
transforms itself suddenly into the acute consciousness "I must die--
and soon," then death grapples us, and his fingers are cruel;
afterwards, he may come to fold us in his arms as our mother did,
and our last moment of dim earthly discerning may be like the first.
To Mr. Casaubon now, it was as if he suddenly found himself on
the dark river-brink and heard the plash of the oncoming oar,
not discerning the forms, but expecting the summons. In such an
hour the mind does not change its lifelong bias, but carries it
onward in imagination to the other side of death, gazing backward--
perhaps with the divine calm of beneficence, perhaps with the petty
anxieties of self-assertion. What was Mr. Casaubon's bias his acts
will give us a clew to. He held himself to be, with some private
scholarly reservations, a believing Christian, as to estimates of
the present and hopes of the future. But what we strive to gratify,
though we may call it a distant hope, is an immediate desire:
the future estate for which men drudge up city alleys exists already
in their imagination and love. And Mr. Casaubon's immediate desire
was not for divine communion and light divested of earthly conditions;
his passionate longings, poor man, clung low and mist-like in very
shady places.
Dorothea had been aware when Lydgate had ridden away, and she had
stepped into the garden, with the impulse to go at once to her husband.
But she hesitated, fearing to offend him by obtruding herself;
for her ardor, continually repulsed, served, with her intense memory,
to heighten her dread, as thwarted energy subsides into a shudder;
and she wandered slowly round the nearer clumps of trees until
she saw him advancing. Then she went towards him, and might have
represented a heaven-sent angel coming with a promise that the
short hours remaining should yet be filled with that faithful
love which clings the closer to a comprehended grief. His glance
in reply to hers was so chill that she felt her timidity increased;
yet she turned and passed her hand through his arm.
Mr. Casaubon kept his hands behind him and allowed her pliant arm
to cling with difficulty against his rigid arm.
There was something horrible to Dorothea in the sensation which this
unresponsive hardness inflicted on her. That is a strong word,
but not too strong: it is in these acts called trivialities that
the seeds of joy are forever wasted, until men and women look round
with haggard faces at the devastation their own waste has made,
and say, the earth bears no harvest of sweetness--calling their
denial knowledge. You may ask why, in the name of manliness,
Mr. Casaubon should have behaved in that way. Consider that his
was a mind which shrank from pity: have you ever watched in such
a mind the effect of a suspicion that what is pressing it as a grief
may be really a source of contentment, either actual or future,
to the being who already offends by pitying? Besides, he knew
little of Dorothea's sensations, and had not reflected that on
such an occasion as the present they were comparable in strength
to his own sensibilities about Carp's criticisms.
Dorothea did not withdraw her arm, but she could not venture to speak.
Mr. Casaubon did not say, "I wish to be alone," but he directed his
steps in silence towards the house, and as they entered by the glass
door on this eastern side, Dorothea withdrew her arm and lingered
on the matting, that she might leave her husband quite free.
He entered the library and shut himself in, alone with his sorrow.
She went up to her boudoir. The open bow-window let in the serene
glory of the afternoon lying in the avenue, where the lime-trees
east long shadows. But Dorothea knew nothing of the scene.
She threw herself on a chair, not heeding that she was in the
dazzling sun-rays: if there were discomfort in that, how could
she tell that it was not part of her inward misery?
She was in the reaction of a rebellious anger stronger than any she
had felt since her marriage. Instead of tears there came words:--
"What have I done--what am I--that he should treat me so?
He never knows what is in my mind--he never cares. What is the use
of anything I do? He wishes he had never married me."
She began to hear herself, and was checked into stillness. Like one
who has lost his way and is weary, she sat and saw as in one glance
all the paths of her young hope which she should never find again.
And just as clearly in the miserable light she saw her own and her
husband's solitude--how they walked apart so that she was obliged
to survey him. If he had drawn her towards him, she would never have
surveyed him--never have said, "Is he worth living for?" but would
have felt him simply a part of her own life. Now she said bitterly,
"It is his fault, not mine." In the jar of her whole being,
Pity was overthrown. Was it her fault that she had believed in him--
had believed in his worthiness?--And what, exactly, was he?--
She was able enough to estimate him--she who waited on his glances
with trembling, and shut her best soul in prison, paying it only
hidden visits, that she might be petty enough to please him.
In such a crisis as this, some women begin to hate.
The sun was low when Dorothea was thinking that she would not go
down again, but would send a message to her husband saying that she
was not well and preferred remaining up-stairs. She had never
deliberately allowed her resentment to govern her in this way before,
but she believed now that she could not see him again without
telling him the truth about her feeling, and she must wait till
she could do it without interruption. He might wonder and be hurt
at her message. It was good that he should wonder and be hurt.
Her anger said, as anger is apt to say, that God was with her--
that all heaven, though it were crowded with spirits watching them,
must be on her side. She had determined to ring her bell, when there
came a rap at the door.
Mr. Casaubon had sent to say that he would have his dinner
in the library. He wished to be quite alone this evening,
being much occupied.
"I shall not dine, then, Tantripp."
"Oh, madam, let me bring you a little something?"
"No; I am not well. Get everything ready in my dressing room,
but pray do not disturb me again."
Dorothea sat almost motionless in her meditative struggle,
while the evening slowly deepened into night. But the struggle
changed continually, as that of a man who begins with a movement
towards striking and ends with conquering his desire to strike.
The energy that would animate a crime is not more than is wanted
to inspire a resolved, submission, when the noble habit of the soul
reasserts itself. That thought with which Dorothea had gone
out to meet her husband--her conviction that he had been asking
about the possible arrest of all his work, and that the answer
must have wrung his heart, could not be long without rising beside
the image of him, like a shadowy monitor looking at her anger
with sad remonstrance. It cost her a litany of pictured sorrows
and of silent cries that she might be the mercy for those sorrows--
but the resolved submission did come; and when the house was still,
and she knew that it was near the time when Mr. Casaubon habitually
went to rest, she opened her door gently and stood outside in the
darkness waiting for his coming up-stairs with a light in his hand.
If he did not come soon she thought that she would go down and even risk
incurring another pang. She would never again expect anything else.
But she did hear the library door open, and slowly the light advanced
up the staircase without noise from the footsteps on the carpet.
When her husband stood opposite to her, she saw that his face was
more haggard. He started slightly on seeing her, and she looked up
at him beseechingly, without speaking.
"Dorothea!" he said, with a gentle surprise in his tone. "Were you
waiting for me?"
"Yes, I did not like to disturb you."
"Come, my dear, come. You are young, and need not to extend your
life by watching."
When the kind quiet melancholy of that speech fell on Dorothea's ears,
she felt something like the thankfulness that might well up
in us if we had narrowly escaped hurting a lamed creature.
She put her hand into her husband's, and they went along the broad
corridor together.
BOOK V.
THE DEAD HAND.
CHAPTER XLIII.
This figure hath high price: 't was wrought with love
Ages ago in finest ivory;
Nought modish in it, pure and noble lines
Of generous womanhood that fits all time
That too is costly ware; majolica
Of deft design, to please a lordly eye:
The smile, you see, is perfect--wonderful
As mere Faience! a table ornament
To suit the richest mounting."
Dorothea seldom left home without her husband, but she did occasionally
drive into Middlemarch alone, on little errands of shopping or charity
such as occur to every lady of any wealth when she lives within three
miles of a town. Two days after that scene in the Yew-tree Walk,
she determined to use such an opportunity in order if possible to
see Lydgate, and learn from him whether her husband had really felt
any depressing change of symptoms which he was concealing from her,
and whether he had insisted on knowing the utmost about himself.
She felt almost guilty in asking for knowledge about him from another,
but the dread of being without it--the dread of that ignorance
which would make her unjust or hard--overcame every scruple.
That there had been some crisis in her husband's mind she was certain:
he had the very next day begun a new method of arranging his notes,
and had associated her quite newly in carrying out his plan.
Poor Dorothea needed to lay up stores of patience.
It was about four o'clock when she drove to Lydgate's house in
Lowick Gate, wishing, in her immediate doubt of finding him at home,
that she had written beforehand. And he was not at home.
"Is Mrs. Lydgate at home?" said Dorothea, who had never, that she
knew of, seen Rosamond, but now remembered the fact of the marriage.
Yes, Mrs. Lydgate was at home.
"I will go in and speak to her, if she will allow me. Will you
ask her if she can see me--see Mrs. Casaubon, for a few minutes?"
When the servant had gone to deliver that message, Dorothea could
hear sounds of music through an open window--a few notes
from a man's voice and then a piano bursting into roulades.
But the roulades broke off suddenly, and then the servant came
back saying that Mrs. Lydgate would be happy to see Mrs. Casaubon.
When the drawing-room door opened and Dorothea entered, there was
a sort of contrast not infrequent in country life when the habits
of the different ranks were less blent than now. Let those who know,
tell us exactly what stuff it was that Dorothea wore in those days
of mild autumn--that thin white woollen stuff soft to the touch
and soft to the eye. It always seemed to have been lately washed,
and to smell of the sweet hedges--was always in the shape of a
pelisse with sleeves hanging all out of the fashion. Yet if she
had entered before a still audience as Imogene or Cato's daughter,
the dress might have seemed right enough: the grace and dignity were
in her limbs and neck; and about her simply parted hair and candid
eyes the large round poke which was then in the fate of women,
seemed no more odd as a head-dress than the gold trencher we call
a halo. By the present audience of two persons, no dramatic heroine
could have been expected with more interest than Mrs. Casaubon.
To Rosamond she was one of those county divinities not mixing with
Middlemarch mortality, whose slightest marks of manner or appearance
were worthy of her study; moreover, Rosamond was not without satisfaction
that Mrs. Casaubon should have an opportunity of studying HER.
What is the use of being exquisite if you are not seen by the best
judges? and since Rosamond had received the highest compliments
at Sir Godwin Lydgate's, she felt quite confident of the impression
she must make on people of good birth. Dorothea put out her hand
with her usual simple kindness, and looked admiringly at Lydgate's
lovely bride--aware that there was a gentleman standing at a distance,
but seeing him merely as a coated figure at a wide angle.
The gentleman was too much occupied with the presence of the one woman
to reflect on the contrast between the two--a contrast that would
certainly have been striking to a calm observer. They were both tall,
and their eyes were on a level; but imagine Rosamond's infantine
blondness and wondrous crown of hair-plaits, with her pale-blue
dress of a fit and fashion so perfect that no dressmaker could look
at it without emotion, a large embroidered collar which it was
to be hoped all beholders would know the price of, her small hands
duly set off with rings, and that controlled self-consciousness
of manner which is the expensive substitute for simplicity.
"Thank you very much for allowing me to interrupt you,"
said Dorothea, immediately. "I am anxious to see Mr. Lydgate,
if possible, before I go home, and I hoped that you might possibly
tell me where I could find him, or even allow me to wait for him,
if you expect him soon."
"He is at the New Hospital," said Rosamond; "I am not sure how soon
he will come home. But I can send for him,"
"Will you let me go and fetch him?" said Will Ladislaw, coming forward.
He had already taken up his hat before Dorothea entered.
She colored with surprise, but put out her hand with a smile
of unmistakable pleasure, saying--
"I did not know it was you: I had no thought of seeing you here."
"May I go to the Hospital and tell Mr. Lydgate that you wish
to see him?" said Will.
"It would be quicker to send the carriage for him," said Dorothea,
"if you will be kind enough to give the message to the coachman."
Will was moving to the door when Dorothea, whose mind had flashed
in an instant over many connected memories, turned quickly and said,
"I will go myself, thank you. I wish to lose no time before getting
home again. I will drive to the Hospital and see Mr. Lydgate there.
Pray excuse me, Mrs. Lydgate. I am very much obliged to you."
Her mind was evidently arrested by some sudden thought, and she
left the room hardly conscious of what was immediately around her--
hardly conscious that Will opened the door for her and offered her his
arm to lead her to the carriage. She took the arm but said nothing.
Will was feeling rather vexed and miserable, and found nothing
to say on his side. He handed her into the carriage in silence,
they said good-by, and Dorothea drove away.
In the five minutes' drive to the Hospital she had time for some
reflections that were quite new to her. Her decision to go, and her
preoccupation in leaving the room, had come from the sudden sense
that there would be a sort of deception in her voluntarily allowing
any further intercourse between herself and Will which she was unable
to mention to her husband, and already her errand in seeking Lydgate
was a matter of concealment. That was all that had been explicitly
in her mind; but she had been urged also by a vague discomfort.
Now that she was alone in her drive, she heard the notes of the man's
voice and the accompanying piano, which she had not noted much
at the time, returning on her inward sense; and she found herself
thinking with some wonder that Will Ladislaw was passing his time
with Mrs. Lydgate in her husband's absence. And then she could
not help remembering that he had passed some time with her under
like circumstances, so why should there be any unfitness in the fact?
But Will was Mr. Casaubon's relative, and one towards whom she was
bound to show kindness. Still there had been signs which perhaps
she ought to have understood as implying that Mr. Casaubon did
not like his cousin's visits during his own absence. "Perhaps I
have been mistaken in many things," said poor Dorothea to herself,
while the tears came rolling and she had to dry them quickly.
She felt confusedly unhappy, and the image of Will which had been
so clear to her before was mysteriously spoiled. But the carriage
stopped at the gate of the Hospital. She was soon walking round
the grass plots with Lydgate, and her feelings recovered the strong
bent which had made her seek for this interview.
Will Ladislaw, meanwhile, was mortified, and knew the reason
of it clearly enough. His chances of meeting Dorothea were rare;
and here for the first time there had come a chance which had set
him at a disadvantage. It was not only, as it had been hitherto,
that she was not supremely occupied with him, but that she had seen
him under circumstances in which he might appear not to be supremely
occupied with her. He felt thrust to a new distance from her,
amongst the circles of Middlemarchers who made no part of her life.
But that was not his fault: of course, since he had taken his lodgings
in the town, he had been making as many acquaintances as he could,
his position requiring that he should know everybody and everything.
Lydgate was really better worth knowing than any one else in
the neighborhood, and he happened to have a wife who was musical
and altogether worth calling upon. Here was the whole history
of the situation in which Diana had descended too unexpectedly on
her worshipper. It was mortifying. Will was conscious that he should
not have been at Middlemarch but for Dorothea; and yet his position
there was threatening to divide him from her with those barriers
of habitual sentiment which are more fatal to the persistence
of mutual interest than all the distance between Rome and Britain.
Prejudices about rank and status were easy enough to defy in the
form of a tyrannical letter from Mr. Casaubon; but prejudices,
like odorous bodies, have a double existence both solid and subtle--
solid as the pyramids, subtle as the twentieth echo of an echo,
or as the memory of hyacinths which once scented the darkness.
And Will was of a temperament to feel keenly the presence
of subtleties: a man of clumsier perceptions would not have felt,
as he did, that for the first time some sense of unfitness
in perfect freedom with him had sprung up in Dorothea's mind,
and that their silence, as he conducted her to the carriage,
had had a chill in it. Perhaps Casaubon, in his hatred and jealousy,
had been insisting to Dorothea that Will had slid below her socially.
Confound Casaubon!
Will re-entered the drawing-room, took up his hat, and looking
irritated as he advanced towards Mrs. Lydgate, who had seated
herself at her work-table, said--
"It is always fatal to have music or poetry interrupted. May I
come another day and just finish about the rendering of `Lungi dal
caro bene'?"
"I shall be happy to be taught," said Rosamond. "But I am sure
you admit that the interruption was a very beautiful one. I quite
envy your acquaintance with Mrs. Casaubon. Is she very clever?
She looks as if she were."
"Really, I never thought about it," said Will, sulkily.
"That is just the answer Tertius gave me, when I first asked him
if she were handsome. What is it that you gentlemen are thinking
of when you are with Mrs. Casaubon?"
"Herself," said Will, not indisposed to provoke the charming
Mrs. Lydgate. "When one sees a perfect woman, one never thinks
of her attributes--one is conscious of her presence."
"I shall be jealous when Tertius goes to Lowick," said Rosamond,
dimpling, and speaking with aery lightness. "He will come back
and think nothing of me."
"That does not seem to have been the effect on Lydgate hitherto.
Mrs. Casaubon is too unlike other women for them to be compared
with her."
"You are a devout worshipper, I perceive. You often see her,
I suppose."
"No," said Will, almost pettishly. "Worship is usually a matter
of theory rather than of practice. But I am practising it to excess
just at this moment--I must really tear myself away.
"Pray come again some evening: Mr. Lydgate will like to hear
the music, and I cannot enjoy it so well without him."
When her husband was at home again, Rosamond said, standing in
front of him and holding his coat-collar with both her hands,
"Mr. Ladislaw was here singing with me when Mrs. Casaubon came in.
He seemed vexed. Do you think he disliked her seeing him at our house?
Surely your position is more than equal to his--whatever may be his
relation to the Casaubons."
"No, no; it must be something else if he were really vexed,
Ladislaw is a sort of gypsy; he thinks nothing of leather and prunella."
"Music apart, he is not always very agreeable. Do you like him?"
"Yes: I think he is a good fellow: rather miscellaneous and
bric-a-brac, but likable."
"Do you know, I think he adores Mrs. Casaubon."
"Poor devil!" said Lydgate, smiling and pinching his wife's ears.
Rosamond felt herself beginning to know a great deal of the world,
especially in discovering what when she was in her unmarried girlhood
had been inconceivable to her except as a dim tragedy in by-gone costumes--
that women, even after marriage, might make conquests and enslave men.
At that time young ladies in the country, even when educated at
Mrs. Lemon's, read little French literature later than Racine,
and public prints had not cast their present magnificent illumination
over the scandals of life. Still, vanity, with a woman's whole
mind and day to work in, can construct abundantly on slight hints,
especially on such a hint as the possibility of indefinite conquests.
How delightful to make captives from the throne of marriage with a
husband as crown-prince by your side--himself in fact a subject--
while the captives look up forever hopeless, losing their rest probably,
and if their appetite too, so much the better! But Rosamond's romance
turned at present chiefly on her crown-prince, and it was enough
to enjoy his assured subjection. When he said, "Poor devil I"
she asked, with playful curiosity--
"Why so?"
"Why, what can a man do when he takes to adoring one of you mermaids?
He only neglects his work and runs up bills."
"I am sure you do not neglect your work. You are always at the Hospital,
or seeing poor patients, or thinking about some doctor's quarrel;
and then at home you always want to pore over your microscope
and phials. Confess you like those things better than me."
"Haven't you ambition enough to wish that your husband should
be something better than a Middlemarch doctor?" said Lydgate,
letting his hands fall on to his wife's shoulders, and looking
at her with affectionate gravity. "I shall make you learn
my favorite bit from an old poet--
`Why should our pride make such a stir to be
And be forgot? What good is like to this,
To do worthy the writing, and to write
Worthy the reading and the worlds delight?'
What I want, Rosy, is to do worthy the writing,--and to write out
myself what I have done. A man must work, to do that, my pet."
"Of course, I wish you to make discoveries: no one could more wish
you to attain a high position in some better place than Middlemarch.
You cannot say that I have ever tried to hinder you from working.
But we cannot live like hermits. You are not discontented
with me, Tertius?"
"No, dear, no. I am too entirely contented."
"But what did Mrs. Casaubon want to say to you?"
"Merely to ask about her husband's health. But I think she is
going to be splendid to our New Hospital: I think she will give
us two hundred a-year."
CHAPTER XLIV.
I would not creep along the coast but steer
Out in mid-sea, by guidance of the stars.
When Dorothea, walking round the laurel-planted plots of the New
Hospital with Lydgate, had learned from him that there were no signs
of change in Mr. Casaubon's bodily condition beyond the mental
sign of anxiety to know the truth about his illness, she was
silent for a few moments, wondering whether she had said or done
anything to rouse this new anxiety. Lydgate, not willing to let
slip an opportunity of furthering a favorite purpose, ventured to say--
"I don't know whether your or Mr.--Casaubon's attention has been drawn
to the needs of our New Hospital. Circumstances have made it seem
rather egotistic in me to urge the subject; but that is not my fault:
it is because there is a fight being made against it by the other
medical men. I think you are generally interested in such things,
for I remember that when I first had the pleasure of seeing you
at Tipton Grange before your marriage, you were asking me some
questions about the way in which the health of the poor was affected
by their miserable housing."
"Yes, indeed," said Dorothea, brightening. "I shall be quite
grateful to you if you will tell me how I can help to make things
a little better. Everything of that sort has slipped away from me
since I have been married. I mean," she said, after a moment's
hesitation, "that the people in our village are tolerably comfortable,
and my mind has been too much taken up for me to inquire further.
But here--in such a place as Middlemarch--there must be a great
deal to be done."
"There is everything to be done," said Lydgate, with abrupt energy.
"And this Hospital is a capital piece of work, due entirely to
Mr. Bulstrode's exertions, and in a great degree to his money.
But one man can't do everything in a scheme of this sort. Of course
he looked forward to help. And now there's a mean, petty feud
set up against the thing in the town, by certain persons who want
to make it a failure."
"What can be their reasons?" said Dorothea, with naive surprise.
"Chiefly Mr. Bulstrode's unpopularity, to begin with. Half the
town would almost take trouble for the sake of thwarting him.
In this stupid world most people never consider that a thing is good
to be done unless it is done by their own set. I had no connection
with Bulstrode before I came here. I look at him quite impartially,
and I see that he has some notions--that he has set things on foot--
which I can turn to good public purpose. If a fair number of the better
educated men went to work with the belief that their observations
might contribute to the reform of medical doctrine and practice,
we should soon see a change for the better. That's my point of view.
I hold that by refusing to work with Mr. Bulstrode I should be
turning my back on an opportunity of making my profession more
generally serviceable."
"I quite agree with you," said Dorothea, at once fascinated by
the situation sketched in Lydgate's words. "But what is there
against Mr. Bulstrode? I know that my uncle is friendly with him."
"People don't like his religious tone," said Lydgate, breaking off there.
"That is all the stronger reason for despising such an opposition,"
said Dorothea, looking at the affairs of Middlemarch by the light
of the great persecutions.
"To put the matter quite fairly, they have other objections to him:--
he is masterful and rather unsociable, and he is concerned with trade,
which has complaints of its own that I know nothing about.
But what has that to do with the question whether it would not be
a fine thing to establish here a more valuable hospital than any
they have in the county? The immediate motive to the opposition,
however, is the fact that Bulstrode has put the medical direction
into my hands. Of course I am glad of that. It gives me an
opportunity of doing some good work,--and I am aware that I have
to justify his choice of me. But the consequence is, that the
whole profession in Middlemarch have set themselves tooth and nail
against the Hospital, and not only refuse to cooperate themselves,
but try to blacken the whole affair and hinder subscriptions."
"How very petty!" exclaimed Dorothea, indignantly.
"I suppose one must expect to fight one's way: there is hardly
anything to be done without it. And the ignorance of people about
here is stupendous. I don't lay claim to anything else than having
used some opportunities which have not come within everybody's reach;
but there is no stifling the offence of being young, and a new-comer,
and happening to know something more than the old inhabitants.
Still, if I believe that I can set going a better method of treatment--
if I believe that I can pursue certain observations and inquiries
which may be a lasting benefit to medical practice, I should be
a base truckler if I allowed any consideration of personal comfort
to hinder me. And the course is all the clearer from there being
no salary in question to put my persistence in an equivocal light."
"I am glad you have told me this, Mr. Lydgate," said Dorothea, cordially.
"I feel sure I can help a little. I have some money, and don't know
what to do with it--that is often an uncomfortable thought to me.
I am sure I can spare two hundred a-year for a grand purpose like this.
How happy you must be, to know things that you feel sure will do
great good! I wish I could awake with that knowledge every morning.
There seems to be so much trouble taken that one can hardly see
the good of!"
There was a melancholy cadence in Dorothea's voice as she spoke
these last words. But she presently added, more cheerfully,
"Pray come to Lowick and tell us more of this. I will mention
the subject to Mr. Casaubon. I must hasten home now."
She did mention it that evening, and said that she should like to
subscribe two hundred a-year--she had seven hundred a-year as the
equivalent of her own fortune, settled on her at her marriage.
Mr. Casaubon made no objection beyond a passing remark that the
sum might be disproportionate in relation to other good objects,
but when Dorothea in her ignorance resisted that suggestion,
he acquiesced. He did not care himself about spending money,
and was not reluctant to give it. If he ever felt keenly any question
of money it was through the medium of another passion than the love
of material property.
Dorothea told him that she had seen Lydgate, and recited the gist
of her conversation with him about the Hospital. Mr. Casaubon did
not question her further, but he felt sure that she had wished to know
what had passed between Lydgate and himself "She knows that I know,"
said the ever-restless voice within; but that increase of tacit
knowledge only thrust further off any confidence between them.
He distrusted her affection; and what loneliness is more lonely
than distrust?
CHAPTER XLV.
It is the humor of many heads to extol the days of their forefathers,
and declaim against the wickedness of times present. Which
notwithstanding they cannot handsomely do, without the borrowed help
and satire of times past; condemning the vices of their own times,
by the expressions of vices in times which they commend, which cannot
but argue the community of vice in both. Horace, therefore, Juvenal,
and Persius, were no prophets, although their lines did seem to indigitate
and point at our times.--SIR THOMAS BROWNE: Pseudodoxia Epidemica.
That opposition to the New Fever Hospital which Lydgate had sketched
to Dorothea was, like other oppositions, to be viewed in many
different lights. He regarded it as a mixture of jealousy and
dunderheaded prejudice. Mr. Bulstrode saw in it not only medical
jealousy but a determination to thwart himself, prompted mainly
by a hatred of that vital religion of which he had striven to be
an effectual lay representative--a hatred which certainly found
pretexts apart from religion such as were only too easy to find
in the entanglements of human action. These might be called the
ministerial views. But oppositions have the illimitable range of
objections at command, which need never stop short at the boundary
of knowledge, but can draw forever on the vasts of ignorance.
What the opposition in Middlemarch said about the New Hospital
and its administration had certainly a great deal of echo in it,
for heaven has taken care that everybody shall not be an originator;
but there were differences which represented every social shade
between the polished moderation of Dr. Minchin and the trenchant
assertion of Mrs. Dollop, the landlady of the Tankard in Slaughter Lane.
Mrs. Dollop became more and more convinced by her own asseveration,
that Dr. Lydgate meant to let the people die in the Hospital,
if not to poison them, for the sake of cutting them up without
saying by your leave or with your leave; for it was a known "fac"
that he had wanted to cut up Mrs. Goby, as respectable a woman
as any in Parley Street, who had money in trust before her marriage--
a poor tale for a doctor, who if he was good for anything should know
what was the matter with you before you died, and not want to pry
into your inside after you were gone. If that was not reason,
Mrs. Dollop wished to know what was; but there was a prevalent feeling
in her audience that her opinion was a bulwark, and that if it were
overthrown there would be no limits to the cutting-up of bodies,
as had been well seen in Burke and Hare with their pitch-plaisters--
such a hanging business as that was not wanted in Middlemarch!
And let it not be supposed that opinion at the Tankard in Slaughter
Lane was unimportant to the medical profession: that old authentic
public-house--the original Tankard, known by the name of Dollop's--
was the resort of a great Benefit Club, which had some months before put
to the vote whether its long-standing medical man, "Doctor Gambit,"
should not be cashiered in favor of "this Doctor Lydgate," who was
capable of performing the most astonishing cures, and rescuing people
altogether given up by other practitioners. But the balance had been
turned against Lydgate by two members, who for some private reasons
held that this power of resuscitating persons as good as dead was an
equivocal recommendation, and might interfere with providential favors.
In the course of the year, however, there had been a change
in the public sentiment, of which the unanimity at Dollop's was an index
A good deal more than a year ago, before anything was known of
Lydgate's skill, the judgments on it had naturally been divided,
depending on a sense of likelihood, situated perhaps in the pit
of the stomach or in the pineal gland, and differing in its verdicts,
but not the less valuable as a guide in the total deficit of evidence.
Patients who had chronic diseases or whose lives had long been
worn threadbare, like old Featherstone's, had been at once inclined
to try him; also, many who did not like paying their doctor's bills,
thought agreeably of opening an account with a new doctor and
sending for him without stint if the children's temper wanted
a dose, occasions when the old practitioners were often crusty;
and all persons thus inclined to employ Lydgate held it likely
that he was clever. Some considered that he might do more than
others "where there was liver;"--at least there would be no harm
in getting a few bottles of "stuff" from him, since if these proved
useless it would still be possible to return to the Purifying Pills,
which kept you alive if they did not remove the yellowness.
But these were people of minor importance. Good Middlemarch families
were of course not going to change their doctor without reason shown;
and everybody who had employed Mr. Peacock did not feel obliged
to accept a new man merely in the character of his successor,
objecting that he was "not likely to be equal to Peacock."
But Lydgate had not been long in the town before there were
particulars enough reported of him to breed much more specific
expectations and to intensify differences into partisanship;
some of the particulars being of that impressive order of which the
significance is entirely hidden, like a statistical amount without
a standard of comparison, but with a note of exclamation at the end.
The cubic feet of oxygen yearly swallowed by a full-grown man--
what a shudder they might have created in some Middlemarch circles!
"Oxygen! nobody knows what that may be--is it any wonder the cholera
has got to Dantzic? And yet there are people who say quarantine is
no good!"
One of the facts quickly rumored was that Lydgate did not dispense drugs.
This was offensive both to the physicians whose exclusive distinction
seemed infringed on, and to the surgeon-apothecaries with whom he
ranged himself; and only a little while before, they might have counted
on having the law on their side against a man who without calling
himself a London-made M.D. dared to ask for pay except as a charge
on drugs. But Lydgate had not been experienced enough to foresee
that his new course would be even more offensive to the laity;
and to Mr. Mawmsey, an important grocer in the Top Market, who,
though not one of his patients, questioned him in an affable manner
on the subject, he was injudicious enough to give a hasty popular
explanation of his reasons, pointing out to Mr. Mawmsey that it
must lower the character of practitioners, and be a constant injury
to the public, if their only mode of getting paid for their work
was by their making out long bills for draughts, boluses, and mixtures.
"It is in that way that hard-working medical men may come to be almost
as mischievous as quacks," said Lydgate, rather thoughtlessly.
"To get their own bread they must overdose the king's lieges;
and that's a bad sort of treason, Mr. Mawmsey--undermines the
constitution in a fatal way."
Mr. Mawmsey was not only an overseer (it was about a question of
outdoor pay that he was having an interview with Lydgate), he was
also asthmatic and had an increasing family: thus, from a medical
point of view, as well as from his own, he was an important man;
indeed, an exceptional grocer, whose hair was arranged in a
flame-like pyramid, and whose retail deference was of the cordial,
encouraging kind--jocosely complimentary, and with a certain
considerate abstinence from letting out the full force of his mind.
It was Mr. Mawmsey's friendly jocoseness in questioning him which
had set the tone of Lydgate's reply. But let the wise be warned
against too great readiness at explanation: it multiplies the
sources of mistake, lengthening the sum for reckoners sure to go wrong.
Lydgate smiled as he ended his speech, putting his foot into
the stirrup, and Mr. Mawmsey laughed more than he would have
done if he had known who the king's lieges were, giving his
"Good morning, sir, good-morning, sir," with the air of one who saw
everything clearly enough. But in truth his views were perturbed.
For years he had been paying bills with strictly made items,
so that for every half-crown and eighteen-pence he was certain
something measurable had been delivered. He had done this with
satisfaction, including it among his responsibilities as a husband
and father, and regarding a longer bill than usual as a dignity
worth mentioning. Moreover, in addition to the massive benefit
of the drugs to "self and family," he had enjoyed the pleasure
of forming an acute judgment as to their immediate effects, so as
to give an intelligent statement for the guidance of Mr. Gambit--
a practitioner just a little lower in status than Wrench or Toller,
and especially esteemed as an accoucheur, of whose ability Mr. Mawmsey
had the poorest opinion on all other points, but in doctoring,
he was wont to say in an undertone, he placed Gambit above any of them.
Here were deeper reasons than the superficial talk of a new man,
which appeared still flimsier in the drawing-room over the shop,
when they were recited to Mrs. Mawmsey, a woman accustomed to be
made much of as a fertile mother,--generally under attendance more
or less frequent from Mr. Gambit, and occasionally having attacks
which required Dr. Minchin.
"Does this Mr. Lydgate mean to say there is no use in taking medicine?"
said Mrs. Mawmsey, who was slightly given to drawling. "I should
like him to tell me how I could bear up at Fair time, if I didn't
take strengthening medicine for a month beforehand. Think of what I
have to provide for calling customers, my dear!"--here Mrs. Mawmsey
turned to an intimate female friend who sat by--"a large veal pie--
a stuffed fillet--a round of beef--ham, tongue, et cetera,
et cetera! But what keeps me up best is the pink mixture,
not the brown. I wonder, Mr. Mawmsey, with your experience,
you could have patience to listen. I should have told him at once
that I knew a little better than that."
"No, no, no," said Mr. Mawmsey; "I was not going to tell him
my opinion. Hear everything and judge for yourself is my motto.
But he didn't know who he was talking to. I was not to be turned
on HIS finger. People often pretend to tell me things, when they
might as well say, `Mawmsey, you're a fool.' But I smile at it:
I humor everybody's weak place. If physic had done harm to self
and family, I should have found it out by this time."
The next day Mr. Gambit was told that Lydgate went about saying
physic was of no use.
"Indeed!" said he, lifting his eyebrows with cautious surprise.
(He was a stout husky man with a large ring on his fourth finger.)
"How will he cure his patients, then?"
"That is what I say," returned Mrs. Mawmsey, who habitually gave
weight to her speech by loading her pronouns. "Does HE suppose
that people will pay him only to come and sit with them and go
away again?"
Mrs. Mawmsey had had a great deal of sitting from Mr. Gambit,
including very full accounts of his own habits of body and other affairs;
but of course he knew there was no innuendo in her remark, since his
spare time and personal narrative had never been charged for.
So he replied, humorously--
"Well, Lydgate is a good-looking young fellow, you know."
"Not one that I would employ," said Mrs. Mawmsey. "OTHERS
may do as they please."
Hence Mr. Gambit could go away from the chief grocer's without
fear of rivalry, but not without a sense that Lydgate was one
of those hypocrites who try to discredit others by advertising
their own honesty, and that it might be worth some people's while
to show him up. Mr. Gambit, however, had a satisfactory practice,
much pervaded by the smells of retail trading which suggested
the reduction of cash payments to a balance. And he did not
think it worth his while to show Lydgate up until he knew how.
He had not indeed great resources of education, and had had to work
his own way against a good deal of professional contempt; but he made
none the worse accoucheur for calling the breathing apparatus "longs."
Other medical men felt themselves more capable. Mr. Toller shared the
highest practice in the town and belonged to an old Middlemarch family:
there were Tollers in the law and everything else above the line
of retail trade. Unlike our irascible friend Wrench, he had the
easiest way in the world of taking things which might be supposed
to annoy him, being a well-bred, quietly facetious man, who kept
a good house, was very fond of a little sporting when he could get it,
very friendly with Mr. Hawley, and hostile to Mr. Bulstrode.
It may seem odd that with such pleasant habits he should hare been
given to the heroic treatment, bleeding and blistering and starving
his patients, with a dispassionate disregard to his personal example;
but the incongruity favored the opinion of his ability among
his patients, who commonly observed that Mr. Toller had lazy manners,
but his treatment was as active as you could desire: no man,
said they, carried more seriousness into his profession: he was
a little slow in coming, but when he came, he DID something.
He was a great favorite in his own circle, and whatever he implied
to any one's disadvantage told doubly from his careless ironical tone.
He naturally got tired of smiling and saying, "Ah!" when he was told
that Mr. Peacock's successor did not mean to dispense medicines;
and Mr. Hackbutt one day mentioning it over the wine at a dinner-party,
Mr. Toller said, laughingly, "Dibbitts will get rid of his
stale drugs, then. I'm fond of little Dibbitts--I'm glad he's in luck."
"I see your meaning, Toller," said Mr. Hackbutt, "and I am entirely
of your opinion. I shall take an opportunity of expressing myself
to that effect. A medical man should be responsible for the
quality of the drugs consumed by his patients. That is the rationale
of the system of charging which has hitherto obtained;
and nothing is more offensive than this ostentation of reform,
where there is no real amelioration."
"Ostentation, Hackbutt?" said Mr. Toller, ironically. "I don't
see that. A man can't very well be ostentatious of what nobody
believes in. There's no reform in the matter: the question is,
whether the profit on the drugs is paid to the medical man by the
druggist or by the patient, and whether there shall be extra pay
under the name of attendance."
"Ah, to be sure; one of your damned new versions of old humbug,"
said Mr. Hawley, passing the decanter to Mr. Wrench.
Mr. Wrench, generally abstemious, often drank wine rather freely
at a party, getting the more irritable in consequence.
"As to humbug, Hawley," he said, "that's a word easy to fling about.
But what I contend against is the way medical men are fouling their
own nest, and setting up a cry about the country as if a general
practitioner who dispenses drugs couldn't be a gentleman. I throw
back the imputation with scorn. I say, the most ungentlemanly trick
a man can be guilty of is to come among the members of his profession
with innovations which are a libel on their time-honored procedure.
That is my opinion, and I am ready to maintain it against any one who
contradicts me." Mr. Wrench's voice had become exceedingly sharp.
"I can't oblige you there, Wrench," said Mr. Hawley, thrusting his
hands into his trouser-pockets.
"My dear fellow," said Mr. Toller, striking in pacifically! and
looking at Mr. Wrench, "the physicians have their toes trodden
on more than we have. If you come to dignity it is a question
for Minchin and Sprague."
"Does medical jurisprudence provide nothing against these infringements?"
said Mr. Hackbutt, with a disinterested desire to offer his lights.
"How does the law stand, eh, Hawley?"
"Nothing to be done there," said Mr. Hawley. "I looked into
it for Sprague. You'd only break your nose against a damned
judge's decision."
"Pooh! no need of law," said Mr. Toller. "So far as practice is
concerned the attempt is an absurdity. No patient will like it--
certainly not Peacock's, who have been used to depletion.
Pass the wine."
Mr. Toller's prediction was partly verified. If Mr. and Mrs. Mawmsey,
who had no idea of employing Lydgate, were made uneasy by his supposed
declaration against drugs, it was inevitable that those who called
him in should watch a little anxiously to see whether he did "use
all the means he might use" in the case. Even good Mr. Powderell,
who in his constant charity of interpretation was inclined to
esteem Lydgate the more for what seemed a conscientious pursuit
of a better plan, had his mind disturbed with doubts during his
wife's attack of erysipelas, and could not abstain from mentioning
to Lydgate that Mr. Peacock on a similar occasion had administered
a series of boluses which were not otherwise definable than by their
remarkable effect in bringing Mrs. Powderell round before Michaelmas
from an illness which had begun in a remarkably hot August.
At last, indeed, in the conflict between his desire not to hurt
Lydgate and his anxiety that no "means" should be lacking,
he induced his wife privately to take Widgeon's Purifying Bills,
an esteemed Middlemarch medicine, which arrested every disease
at the fountain by setting to work at once upon the blood.
This co-operative measure was not to be mentioned to Lydgate,
and Mr. Powderell himself had no certain reliance on it,
only hoping that it might be attended with a blessing.
But in this doubtful stage of Lydgate's introduction he was helped
by what we mortals rashly call good fortune. I suppose no doctor ever
came newly to a place without making cures that surprised somebody--
cures which may be called fortune's testimonials, and deserve as
much credit as the ten or printed kind. Various patients got well
while Lydgate was attending them, some even of dangerous illnesses;
and it was remarked that the new doctor with his new ways had at
least the merit of bringing people back from the brink of death.
The trash talked on such occasions was the more vexatious to Lydgate,
because it gave precisely the sort of prestige which an incompetent
and unscrupulous man would desire, and was sure to be imputed to him
by the simmering dislike of the other medical men as an encouragement
on his own part of ignorant puffing. But even his proud outspokenness
was checked by the discernment that it was as useless to fight
against the interpretations of ignorance as to whip the fog;
and "good fortune" insisted on using those interpretations.
Mrs. Larcher having just become charitably concerned about alarming
symptoms in her charwoman, when Dr. Minchin called, asked him to see
her then and there, and to give her a certificate for the Infirmary;
whereupon after examination he wrote a statement of the case as one
of tumor, and recommended the bearer Nancy Nash as an out-patient. Nancy,
calling at home on her way to the Infirmary, allowed the stay maker
and his wife, in whose attic she lodged, to read Dr. Minchin's paper,
and by this means became a subject of compassionate conversation
in the neighboring shops of Churchyard Lane as being afflicted with
a tumor at first declared to be as large and hard as a duck's egg,
but later in the day to be about the size of "your fist."
Most hearers agreed that it would have to be cut out, but one had
known of oil and another of "squitchineal" as adequate to soften
and reduce any lump in the body when taken enough of into the inside--
the oil by gradually "soopling," the squitchineal by eating away.
Meanwhile when Nancy presented herself at the Infirmary, it happened
to be one of Lydgate's days there. After questioning and examining her,
Lydgate said to the house-surgeon in an undertone, "It's not tumor:
it's cramp." He ordered her a blister and some steel mixture,
and told her to go home and rest, giving her at the same time a note
to Mrs. Larcher, who, she said, was her best employer, to testify
that she was in need of good food.
But by-and-by Nancy, in her attic, became portentously worse,
the supposed tumor having indeed given way to the blister, but only
wandered to another region with angrier pain. The staymaker's wife
went to fetch Lydgate, and he continued for a fortnight to attend Nancy
in her own home, until under his treatment she got quite well and went
to work again. But the case continued to be described as one of tumor
in Churchyard Lane and other streets--nay, by Mrs. Larcher also;
for when Lydgate's remarkable cure was mentioned to Dr. Minchin,
he naturally did not like to say, "The case was not one of tumor,
and I was mistaken in describing it as such," but answered,
"Indeed! ah! I saw it was a surgical case, not of a fatal kind."
He had been inwardly annoyed, however, when he had asked at the
Infirmary about the woman he had recommended two days before,
to hear from the house-surgeon, a youngster who was not sorry
to vex Minchin with impunity, exactly what had occurred:
he privately pronounced that it was indecent in a general practitioner
to contradict a physician's diagnosis in that open manner,
and afterwards agreed with Wrench that Lydgate was disagreeably
inattentive to etiquette. Lydgate did not make the affair a ground
for valuing himself or (very particularly) despising Minchin,
such rectification of misjudgments often happening among men
of equal qualifications. But report took up this amazing case
of tumor, not clearly distinguished from cancer, and considered
the more awful for being of the wandering sort; till much prejudice
against Lydgate's method as to drugs was overcome by the proof
of his marvellous skill in the speedy restoration of Nancy Nash
after she had been rolling and rolling in agonies from the presence
of a tumor both hard and obstinate, but nevertheless compelled to yield.
How could Lydgate help himself? It is offensive to tell a lady
when she is expressing her amazement at your skill, that she is
altogether mistaken and rather foolish in her amazement. And to have
entered into the nature of diseases would only have added to his
breaches of medical propriety. Thus he had to wince under a promise
of success given by that ignorant praise which misses every valid quality.
In the case of a more conspicuous patient, Mr. Borthrop Trumbull,
Lydgate was conscious of having shown himself something better than
an every-day doctor, though here too it was an equivocal advantage
that he won. The eloquent auctioneer was seized with pneumonia,
and having been a patient of Mr. Peacock's, sent for Lydgate,
whom he had expressed his intention to patronize. Mr Trumbull was
a robust man, a good subject for trying the expectant theory upon--
watching the course of an interesting disease when left as much
as possible to itself, so that the stages might be noted for future
guidance; and from the air with which he described his sensations
Lydgate surmised that he would like to be taken into his medical
man's confidence, and be represented as a partner in his own cure.
The auctioneer heard, without much surprise, that his was a
constitution which (always with due watching) might be left to itself,
so as to offer a beautiful example of a disease with all its phases
seen in clear delineation, and that he probably had the rare strength
of mind voluntarily to become the test of a rational procedure,
and thus make the disorder of his pulmonary functions a general
benefit to society.
Mr. Trumbull acquiesced at once, and entered strongly into the view
that an illness of his was no ordinary occasion for medical science.
"Never fear, sir; you are not speaking to one who is altogether ignorant
of the vis medicatrix," said he, with his usual superiority
of expression, made rather pathetic by difficulty of breathing.
And he went without shrinking through his abstinence from drugs,
much sustained by application of the thermometer which implied
the importance of his temperature, by the sense that he furnished
objects for the microscope, and by learning many new words which
seemed suited to the dignity of his secretions. For Lydgate
was acute enough to indulge him with a little technical talk.
It may be imagined that Mr. Trumbull rose from his couch with a
disposition to speak of an illness in which he had manifested the
strength of his mind as well as constitution; and he was not backward
in awarding credit to the medical man who had discerned the quality of
patient he had to deal with. The auctioneer was not an ungenerous man,
and liked to give others their due, feeling that he could afford it.
He had caught the words "expectant method," and rang chimes on this
and other learned phrases to accompany the assurance that Lydgate "knew
a thing or two more than the rest of the doctors--was far better versed
in the secrets of his profession than the majority of his compeers."
This had happened before the affair of Fred Vincy's illness had given
to Mr. Wrench's enmity towards Lydgate more definite personal ground.
The new-comer already threatened to be a nuisance in the shape
of rivalry, and was certainly a nuisance in the shape of practical
criticism or reflections on his hard-driven elders, who had had
something else to do than to busy themselves with untried notions.
His practice had spread in one or two quarters, and from the
first the report of his high family had led to his being pretty
generally invited, so that the other medical men had to meet him
at dinner in the best houses; and having to meet a man whom you
dislike is not observed always to end in a mutual attachment.
There was hardly ever so much unanimity among them as in the opinion
that Lydgate was an arrogant young fellow, and yet ready for the
sake of ultimately predominating to show a crawling subservience
to Bulstrode. That Mr. Farebrother, whose name was a chief flag of the
anti-Bulstrode party, always defended Lydgate and made a friend of him,
was referred to Farebrother's unaccountable way of fighting on both sides.
Here was plenty of preparation for the outburst of professional
disgust at the announcement of the laws Mr. Bulstrode was laying
down for the direction of the New Hospital, which were the more
exasperating because there was no present possibility of interfering
with his will and pleasure, everybody except Lord Medlicote
having refused help towards the building, on the ground that they
preferred giving to the Old Infirmary. Mr. Bulstrode met all
the expenses, and had ceased to be sorry that he was purchasing
the right to carry out his notions of improvement without hindrance
from prejudiced coadjutors; but he had had to spend large sums,
and the building had lingered. Caleb Garth had undertaken it,
had failed during its progress, and before the interior fittings
were begun had retired from the management of the business;
and when referring to the Hospital he often said that however
Bulstrode might ring if you tried him, he liked good solid carpentry
and masonry, and had a notion both of drains and chimneys. In fact,
the Hospital had become an object of intense interest to Bulstrode,
and he would willingly have continued to spare a large yearly sum that
he might rule it dictatorially without any Board; but he had another
favorite object which also required money for its accomplishment:
he wished to bay some land in the neighborhood of Middlemarch,
and therefore he wished to get considerable contributions towards
maintaining the Hospital. Meanwhile he framed his plan of management.
The Hospital was to be reserved for fever in all its forms;
Lydgate was to be chief medical superintendent, that he might have free
authority to pursue all comparative investigations which his studies,
particularly in Paris, had shown him the importance of, the other
medical visitors having a consultative influence, but no power to
contravene Lydgate's ultimate decisions; and the general management
was to be lodged exclusively in the hands of five directors associated
with Mr. Bulstrode, who were to have votes in the ratio of their
contributions, the Board itself filling up any vacancy in its numbers,
and no mob of small contributors being admitted to a share of government.
There was an immediate refusal on the part of every medical man
in the town to become a visitor at the Fever Hospital.
"Very well," said Lydgate to Mr. Bulstrode, "we have a capital
house-surgeon and dispenser, a clear-headed, neat-handed fellow;
we'll get Webbe from Crabsley, as good a country practitioner
as any of them, to come over twice a-week, and in case of any
exceptional operation, Protheroe will come from Brassing.
I must work the harder, that's all, and I have given up my post
at the Infirmary. The plan will flourish in spite of them,
and then they'll be glad to come in. Things can't last as they are:
there must be all sorts of reform soon, and then young fellows may
be glad to come and study here." Lydgate was in high spirits.
"I shall not flinch, you may depend upon it, Mr. Lydgate,"
said Mr. Bulstrode. "While I see you carrying out high intentions
with vigor, you shall have my unfailing support. And I have humble
confidence that the blessing which has hitherto attended my efforts
against the spirit of evil in this town will not be withdrawn.
Suitable directors to assist me I have no doubt of securing.
Mr. Brooke of Tipton has already given me his concurrence,
and a pledge to contribute yearly: he has not specified the sum--
probably not a great one. But he will be a useful member of
the board."
A useful member was perhaps to be defined as one who would
originate nothing, and always vote with Mr. Bulstrode.
The medical aversion to Lydgate was hardly disguised now. Neither
Dr. Sprague nor Dr. Minchin said that he disliked Lydgate's knowledge,
or his disposition to improve treatment: what they disliked was
his arrogance, which nobody felt to be altogether deniable. They implied
that he was insolent, pretentious, and given to that reckless innovation
for the sake of noise and show which was the essence of the charlatan.
The word charlatan once thrown on the air could not be let drop.
In those days the world was agitated about the wondrous doings of
Mr. St. John Long, "noblemen and gentlemen" attesting his extraction
of a fluid like mercury from the temples of a patient.
Mr. Toller remarked one day, smilingly, to Mrs. Taft, that "Bulstrode
had found a man to suit him in Lydgate; a charlatan in religion
is sure to like other sorts of charlatans."
"Yes, indeed, I can imagine," said Mrs. Taft, keeping the number
of thirty stitches carefully in her mind all the while; "there are
so many of that sort. I remember Mr. Cheshire, with his irons,
trying to make people straight when the Almighty had made them crooked."
"No, no," said Mr. Toller, "Cheshire was all right--all fair
and above board. But there's St. John Long--that's the kind of
fellow we call a charlatan, advertising cures in ways nobody knows
anything about: a fellow who wants to make a noise by pretending
to go deeper than other people. The other day he was pretending
to tap a man's brain and get quicksilver out of it."
"Good gracious! what dreadful trifling with people's constitutions!"
said Mrs. Taft.
After this, it came to be held in various quarters that Lydgate
played even with respectable constitutions for his own purposes,
and how much more likely that in his flighty experimenting he
should make sixes and sevens of hospital patients. Especially it
was to be expected, as the landlady of the Tankard had said,
that he would recklessly cut up their dead bodies. For Lydgate
having attended Mrs. Goby, who died apparently of a heart-disease
not very clearly expressed in the symptoms, too daringly asked
leave of her relatives to open the body, and thus gave an offence
quickly spreading beyond Parley Street, where that lady had long
resided on an income such as made this association of her body
with the victims of Burke and Hare a flagrant insult to her memory.
Affairs were in this stage when Lydgate opened the subject of the
Hospital to Dorothea. We see that be was bearing enmity and silly
misconception with much spirit, aware that they were partly created
by his good share of success.
"They will not drive me away," he said, talking confidentially
in Mr. Farebrother's study. "I have got a good opportunity here,
for the ends I care most about; and I am pretty sure to get
income enough for our wants. By-and-by I shall go on as quietly
as possible: I have no seductions now away from home and work.
And I am more and more convinced that it will be possible to
demonstrate the homogeneous origin of all the tissues. Raspail and
others are on the same track, and I have been losing time."
"I have no power of prophecy there," said Mr. Farebrother,
who had been puffing at his pipe thoughtfully while Lydgate talked;
"but as to the hostility in the town, you'll weather it if you
are prudent."
"How am I to be prudent?" said Lydgate, "I just do what comes
before me to do. I can't help people's ignorance and spite,
any more than Vesalius could. It isn't possible to square one's
conduct to silly conclusions which nobody can foresee."
"Quite true; I didn't mean that. I meant only two things. One is,
keep yourself as separable from Bulstrode as you can: of course,
you can go on doing good work of your own by his help; but don't
get tied. Perhaps it seems like personal feeling in me to say so--
and there's a good deal of that, I own--but personal feeling is not
always in the wrong if you boil it down to the impressions which make
it simply an opinion."
"Bulstrode is nothing to me," said Lydgate, carelessly, "except on
public grounds. As to getting very closely united to him, I am not
fond enough of him for that. But what was the other thing you meant?"
said Lydgate, who was nursing his leg as comfortably as possible,
and feeling in no great need of advice.
"Why, this. Take care--experto crede--take care not to get
hampered about money matters. I know, by a word you let fall one day,
that you don't like my playing at cards so much for money. You are
right enough there. But try and keep clear of wanting small sums
that you haven't got. I am perhaps talking rather superfluously;
but a man likes to assume superiority over himself, by holding up
his bad example and sermonizing on it."
Lydgate took Mr. Farebrother's hints very cordially, though he
would hardly have borne them from another man. He could not help
remembering that he had lately made some debts, but these had
seemed inevitable, and he had no intention now to do more than
keep house in a simple way. The furniture for which he owed
would not want renewing; nor even the stock of wine for a long while.
Many thoughts cheered him at that time--and justly. A man
conscious of enthusiasm for worthy aims is sustained under petty
hostilities by the memory of great workers who had to fight their
way not without wounds, and who hover in his mind as patron saints,
invisibly helping. At home, that same evening when he had been
chatting with Mr. Farebrother, he had his long legs stretched
on the sofa, his head thrown back, and his hands clasped behind
it according to his favorite ruminating attitude, while Rosamond
sat at the piano, and played one tune after another, of which her
husband only knew (like the emotional elephant he was!) that they
fell in with his mood as if they had been melodious sea-breezes.
There was something very fine in Lydgate's look just then,
and any one might have been encouraged to bet on his achievement.
In his dark eyes and on his mouth and brow there was that placidity
which comes from the fulness of contemplative thought--the mind
not searching, but beholding, and the glance seeming to be filled
with what is behind it.
Presently Rosamond left the piano and seated herself on a chair
close to the sofa and opposite her husband's face.
"Is that enough music for you, my lord?" she said, folding her hands
before her and putting on a little air of meekness.
"Yes, dear, if you are tired," said Lydgate, gently, turning his
eyes and resting them on her, but not otherwise moving.
Rosamond's presence at that moment was perhaps no more than a spoonful
brought to the lake, and her woman's instinct in this matter was not dull.
"What is absorbing you?" she said, leaning forward and bringing
her face nearer to his.
He moved his hands and placed them gently behind her shoulders.
"I am thinking of a great fellow, who was about as old as I am
three hundred years ago, and had already begun a new era in anatomy."
"I can't guess," said Rosamond, shaking her head. "We used to play
at guessing historical characters at Mrs. Lemon's, but not anatomists."
"I'll tell you. His name was Vesalius. And the only way he could get
to know anatomy as he did, was by going to snatch bodies at night,
from graveyards and places of execution."
"Oh!" said Rosamond, with a look of disgust on her pretty face,
"I am very glad you are not Vesalius. I should have thought he
might find some less horrible way than that."
"No, he couldn't," said Lydgate, going on too earnestly to take
much notice of her answer. "He could only get a complete skeleton
by snatching the whitened bones of a criminal from the gallows,
and burying them, and fetching them away by bits secretly, in the
dead of night."
"I hope he is not one of your great heroes," said Rosamond,
half playfully, half anxiously, "else I shall have you getting up
in the night to go to St. Peter's churchyard. You know how angry
you told me the people were about Mrs. Goby. You have enemies
enough already."
"So had Vesalius, Rosy. No wonder the medical fogies in Middlemarch
are jealous, when some of the greatest doctors living were fierce
upon Vesalius because they had believed in Galen, and he showed
that Galen was wrong. They called him a liar and a poisonous monster.
But the facts of the human frame were on his side; and so he got
the better of them."
"And what happened to him afterwards?" said Rosamond, with some interest.
"Oh, he had a good deal of fighting to the last. And they did
exasperate him enough at one time to make him burn a good deal
of his work. Then he got shipwrecked just as he was coming from
Jerusalem to take a great chair at Padua. He died rather miserably."
There was a moment's pause before Rosamond said, "Do you know,
Tertius, I often wish you had not been a medical man."
"Nay, Rosy, don't say that," said Lydgate, drawing her closer to him.
"That is like saying you wish you had married another man."
"Not at all; you are clever enough for anything: you might easily
have been something else. And your cousins at Quallingham all think
that you have sunk below them in your choice of a profession."
"The cousins at Quallingham may go to the devil!" said Lydgate,
with scorn. "It was like their impudence if they said anything
of the sort to you."
"Still," said Rosamond, "I do NOT think it is a nice profession,
dear." We know that she had much quiet perseverance in her opinion.
"It is the grandest profession in the world, Rosamond," said Lydgate,
gravely. "And to say that you love me without loving the medical man
in me, is the same sort of thing as to say that you like eating a peach
but don't like its flavor. Don't say that again, dear, it pains me."
"Very well, Doctor Grave-face," said Rosy, dimpling, "I will declare
in future that I dote on skeletons, and body-snatchers, and bits
of things in phials, and quarrels with everybody, that end in your
dying miserably."
"No, no, not so bad as that," said Lydgate, giving up remonstrance
and petting her resignedly.
CHAPTER XLVI.
Pues no podemos haber aquello que queremos, queramos aquello
que podremos.
Since we cannot get what we like, let us like what we can get.
--Spanish Proverb.
While Lydgate, safely married and with the Hospital under his command,
felt himself struggling for Medical Reform against Middlemarch,
Middlemarch was becoming more and more conscious of the national
struggle for another kind of Reform.
By the time that Lord John Russell's measure was being debated
in the House of Commons, there was a new political animation
in Middlemarch, and a new definition of parties which might show
a decided change of balance if a new election came. And there
were some who already predicted this event, declaring that a
Reform Bill would never be carried by the actual Parliament.
This was what Will Ladislaw dwelt on to Mr. Brooke as a reason
for congratulation that he had not yet tried his strength at the hustings.
"Things will grow and ripen as if it were a comet year," said Will.
"The public temper will soon get to a cometary heat, now the question
of Reform has set in. There is likely to be another election before long,
and by that time Middlemarch will have got more ideas into its head.
What we have to work at now is the `Pioneer' and political meetings."
"Quite right, Ladislaw; we shall make a new thing of opinion here,"
said Mr. Brooke. "Only I want to keep myself independent
about Reform, you know; I don't want to go too far. I want
to take up. Wilberforce's and Romilly's line, you know,
and work at Negro Emancipation, Criminal Law--that kind of thing.
But of course I should support Grey."
"If you go in for the principle of Reform, you must be prepared
to take what the situation offers," said Will. "If everybody
pulled for his own bit against everybody else, the whole question
would go to tatters."
"Yes, yes, I agree with you--I quite take that point of view.
I should put it in that light. I should support Grey, you know.
But I don't want to change the balance of the constitution, and I don't
think Grey would."
"But that is what the country wants,"-said Will. "Else there would
be no meaning in political unions or any other movement that knows
what it's about. It wants to have a House of Commons which is not
weighted with nominees of the landed class, but with representatives
of the other interests. And as to contending for a reform short
of that, it is like asking for a bit of an avalanche which has
already begun to thunder."
"That is fine, Ladislaw: that is the way to put it. Write that
down, now. We must begin to get documents about the feeling
of the country, as well as the machine-breaking and general distress."
"As to documents," said Will, "a two-inch card will hold plenty.
A few rows of figures are enough to deduce misery from, and a few
more will show the rate at which the political determination of the
people is growing."
"Good: draw that out a little more at length, Ladislaw. That is
an idea, now: write it out in the `Pioneer.' Put the figures and
deduce the misery, you know; and put the other figures and deduce--
and so on. You have a way of putting things. Burke, now:--when I
think of Burke, I can't help wishing somebody had a pocket-borough
to give you, Ladislaw. You'd never get elected, you know.
And we shall always want talent in the House: reform as we will,
we shall always want talent. That avalanche and the thunder, now,
was really a little like Burke. I want that sort of thing--not ideas,
you know, but a way of putting them."
"Pocket-boroughs would be a fine thing," said Ladislaw, "if they
were always in the right pocket, and there were always a Burke
at hand."
Will was not displeased with that complimentary comparison,
even from Mr. Brooke; for it is a little too trying to human flesh
to be conscious of expressing one's self better than others and
never to have it noticed, and in the general dearth of admiration
for the right thing, even a chance bray of applause falling
exactly in time is rather fortifying. Will felt that his literary
refinements were usually beyond the limits of Middlemarch perception;
nevertheless, he was beginning thoroughly to like the work
of which when he began he had said to himself rather languidly,
"Why not?"--and he studied the political situation with as ardent
an interest as he had ever given to poetic metres or mediaevalism.
It is undeniable that but for the desire to be where Dorothea was,
and perhaps the want of knowing what else to do, Will would not
at this time have been meditating on the needs of the English
people or criticising English statesmanship: he would probably
have been rambling in Italy sketching plans for several dramas,
trying prose and finding it too jejune, trying verse and finding
it too artificial, beginning to copy "bits" from old pictures,
leaving off because they were "no good," and observing that, after all,
self-culture was the principal point; while in politics he would
have been sympathizing warmly with liberty and progress in general.
Our sense of duty must often wait for some work which shall take
the place of dilettanteism and make us feel that the quality
of our action is not a matter of indifference.
Ladislaw had now accepted his bit of work, though it was not that
indeterminate loftiest thing which he had once dreamed of as alone
worthy of continuous effort. His nature warmed easily in the presence
of subjects which were visibly mixed with life and action, and the
easily stirred rebellion in him helped the glow of public spirit.
In spite of Mr. Casaubon and the banishment from Lowick, he was
rather happy; getting a great deal of fresh knowledge in a vivid
way and for practical purposes, and making the "Pioneer" celebrated
as far as Brassing (never mind the smallness of the area; the writing
was not worse than much that reaches the four corners of the earth).
Mr. Brooke was occasionally irritating; but Will's impatience was
relieved by the division of his time between visits to the Grange
and retreats to his Middlemarch lodgings, which gave variety
to his life.
"Shift the pegs a little," he said to himself, "and Mr. Brooke
might be in the Cabinet, while I was Under-Secretary. That is
the common order of things: the little waves make the large ones
and are of the same pattern. I am better here than in the sort
of life Mr. Casaubon would have trained me for, where the doing would
be all laid down by a precedent too rigid for me to react upon.
I don't care for prestige or high pay."
As Lydgate had said of him, he was a sort of gypsy, rather enjoying
the sense of belonging to no class; he had a feeling of romance
in his position, and a pleasant consciousness of creating a little
surprise wherever he went. That sort of enjoyment had been disturbed
when he had felt some new distance between himself and Dorothea
in their accidental meeting at Lydgate's, and his irritation had gone
out towards Mr. Casaubon, who had declared beforehand that Will
would lose caste. "I never had any caste," he would have said,
if that prophecy had been uttered to him, and the quick blood
would have come and gone like breath in his transparent skin.
But it is one thing to like defiance, and another thing to like
its consequences.
Meanwhile, the town opinion about the new editor of the "Pioneer"
was tending to confirm Mr. Casaubon's view. Will's relationship in
that distinguished quarter did not, like Lydgate's high connections,
serve as an advantageous introduction: if it was rumored that young
Ladislaw was Mr. Casaubon's nephew or cousin, it was also rumored
that "Mr. Casaubon would have nothing to do with him."
"Brooke has taken him up," said Mr. Hawley, "because that is what
no man in his senses could have expected. Casaubon has devilish
good reasons, you may be sure, for turning the cold shoulder on
a young fellow whose bringing-up he paid for. Just like Brooke--
one of those fellows who would praise a cat to sell a horse."
And some oddities of Will's, more or less poetical, appeared to support
Mr. Keck, the editor of the "Trumpet," in asserting that Ladislaw,
if the truth were known, was not only a Polish emissary but crack-brained,
which accounted for the preternatural quickness and glibness of his
speech when he got on to a platform--as he did whenever he had
an opportunity, speaking with a facility which cast reflections on
solid Englishmen generally. It was disgusting to Keck to see a strip
of a fellow, with light curls round his head, get up and speechify
by the hour against institutions "which had existed when he was
in his cradle." And in a leading article of the "Trumpet," Keck
characterized Ladislaw's speech at a Reform meeting as "the violence
of an energumen--a miserable effort to shroud in the brilliancy
of fireworks the daring of irresponsible statements and the poverty
of a knowledge which was of the cheapest and most recent description."
"That was a rattling article yesterday, Keck," said Dr. Sprague,
with sarcastic intentions. "But what is an energumen?"
"Oh, a term that came up in the French Revolution," said Keck.
This dangerous aspect of Ladislaw was strangely contrasted with
other habits which became matter of remark. He had a fondness,
half artistic, half affectionate, for little children--the smaller
they were on tolerably active legs, and the funnier their clothing,
the better Will liked to surprise and please them. We know
that in Rome he was given to ramble about among the poor people,
and the taste did not quit him in Middlemarch.
He had somehow picked up a troop of droll children, little hatless
boys with their galligaskins much worn and scant shirting to hang out,
little girls who tossed their hair out of their eyes to look at him,
and guardian brothers at the mature age of seven. This troop he
had led out on gypsy excursions to Halsell Wood at nutting-time,
and since the cold weather had set in he had taken them on a clear
day to gather sticks for a bonfire in the hollow of a hillside,
where he drew out a small feast of gingerbread for them, and improvised
a Punch-and-Judy drama with some private home-made puppets.
Here was one oddity. Another was, that in houses where he
got friendly, he was given to stretch himself at full length on the
rug while he talked, and was apt to be discovered in this attitude
by occasional callers for whom such an irregularity was likely
to confirm the notions of his dangerously mixed blood and general laxity.
But Will's articles and speeches naturally recommended him in
families which the new strictness of party division had marked
off on the side of Reform. He was invited to Mr. Bulstrode's;
but here he could not lie down on the rug, and Mrs. Bulstrode felt
that his mode of talking about Catholic countries, as if there
were any truce with Antichrist, illustrated the usual tendency
to unsoundness in intellectual men.
At Mr. Farebrother's, however, whom the irony of events had brought
on the same side with Bulstrode in the national movement, Will became
a favorite with the ladies; especially with little Miss Noble,
whom it was one of his oddities to escort when he met her in the
street with her little basket, giving her his arm in the eyes of
the town, and insisting on going with her to pay some call where she
distributed her small filchings from her own share of sweet things.
But the house where he visited oftenest and lay most on the rug
was Lydgate's. The two men were not at all alike, but they
agreed none the worse. Lydgate was abrupt but not irritable,
taking little notice of megrims in healthy people; and Ladislaw
did not usually throw away his susceptibilities on those who took
no notice of them. With Rosamond, on the other hand, he pouted and
was wayward--nay, often uncomplimentary, much to her inward surprise;
nevertheless he was gradually becoming necessary to her entertainment
by his companionship in her music, his varied talk, and his
freedom from the grave preoccupation which, with all her husband's
tenderness and indulgence, often made his manners unsatisfactory
to her, and confirmed her dislike of the medical profession.
Lydgate, inclined to be sarcastic on the superstitious faith of the people
in the efficacy of "the bill," while nobody cared about the low state
of pathology, sometimes assailed Will with troublesome questions.
One evening in March, Rosamond in her cherry-colored dress with
swansdown trimming about the throat sat at the tea-table; Lydgate,
lately come in tired from his outdoor work, was seated sideways
on an easy-chair by the fire with one leg over the elbow, his brow
looking a little troubled as his eyes rambled over the columns of
the "Pioneer," while Rosamond, having noticed that he was perturbed,
avoided looking at him, and inwardly thanked heaven that she herself
had not a moody disposition. Will Ladislaw was stretched on the rug
contemplating the curtain-pole abstractedly, and humming very low
the notes of "When first I saw thy face;" while the house spaniel,
also stretched out with small choice of room, looked from between
his paws at the usurper of the rug with silent but strong objection.
Rosamond bringing Lydgate his cup of tea, he threw down the paper,
and said to Will, who had started up and gone to the table--
"It's no use your puffing Brooke as a reforming landlord, Ladislaw:
they only pick the more holes in his coat in the `Trumpet.'"
"No matter; those who read the `Pioneer' don't read the `Trumpet,'"
said Will, swallowing his tea and walking about. "Do you suppose the
public reads with a view to its own conversion? We should have a witches'
brewing with a vengeance then--`Mingle, mingle, mingle, mingle, You
that mingle may'--and nobody would know which side he was going to take."
"Farebrother says, he doesn't believe Brooke would get elected
if the opportunity came: the very men who profess to be for him
would bring another member out of the bag at the right moment."
"There's no harm in trying. It's good to have resident members."
"Why?" said Lydgate, who was much given to use that inconvenient
word in a curt tone.
"They represent the local stupidity better," said Will,
laughing, and shaking his curls; "and they are kept
on their best behavior in the neighborhood. Brooke is
not a bad fellow, but he has done some good things on
his estate that he never would have done but for this Parliamentary bite."
"He's not fitted to be a public man," said Lydgate,
with contemptuous decision. "He would disappoint everybody
who counted on him: I can see that at the Hospital.
Only, there Bulstrode holds the reins and drives him."
"That depends on how you fix your standard of public men," said Will.
"He's good enough for the occasion: when the people have made up
their mind as they are making it up now, they don't want a man--
they only want a vote."
"That is the way with you political writers, Ladislaw--crying up
a measure as if it were a universal cure, and crying up men
who are a part of the very disease that wants curing."
"Why not? Men may help to cure themselves off the face of the land
without knowing it," said Will, who could find reasons impromptu,
when he had not thought of a question beforehand.
"That is no excuse for encouraging the superstitious exaggeration
of hopes about this particular measure, helping the cry to swallow
it whole and to send up voting popinjays who are good for nothing
but to carry it. You go against rottenness, and there is nothing
more thoroughly rotten than making people believe that society can
be cured by a political hocus-pocus."
"That's very fine, my dear fellow. But your cure must begin somewhere,
and put it that a thousand things which debase a population can
never be reformed without this particular reform to begin with.
Look what Stanley said the other day--that the House had been
tinkering long enough at small questions of bribery, inquiring whether
this or that voter has had a guinea when everybody knows that the
seats have been sold wholesale. Wait for wisdom and conscience
in public agents--fiddlestick! The only conscience we can trust
to is the massive sense of wrong in a class, and the best wisdom
that will work is the wisdom of balancing claims. That's my text--
which side is injured? I support the man who supports their claims;
not the virtuous upholder of the wrong."
"That general talk about a particular case is mere question
begging, Ladislaw. When I say, I go in for the dose that cures,
it doesn't follow that I go in for opium in a given case of gout."
"I am not begging the question we are upon--whether we are
to try for nothing till we find immaculate men to work with.
Should you go on that plan? If there were one man who would carry
you a medical reform and another who would oppose it, should you
inquire which had the better motives or even the better brains?"
"Oh, of course," said Lydgate, seeing himself checkmated by a move
which he had often used himself, "if one did not work with such men
as are at hand, things must come to a dead-lock. Suppose the worst
opinion in the town about Bulstrode were a true one, that would
not make it less true that he has the sense and the resolution
to do what I think ought to be done in the matters I know and care
most about; but that is the only ground on which I go with him,"
Lydgate added rather proudly, bearing in mind Mr. Farebrother's remarks.
"He is nothing to me otherwise; I would not cry him up on any
personal ground--I would keep clear of that."
"Do you mean that I cry up Brooke on any personal ground?" said Will
Ladislaw, nettled, and turning sharp round. For the first time he felt
offended with Lydgate; not the less so, perhaps, because he would have
declined any close inquiry into the growth of his relation to Mr. Brooke.
"Not at all," said Lydgate, "I was simply explaining my own action.
I meant that a man may work for a special end with others whose
motives and general course are equivocal, if he is quite sure
of his personal independence, and that he is not working for his
private interest--either place or money."
"Then, why don't you extend your liberality to others?" said Will,
still nettled. "My personal independence is as important to me as yours
is to you. You have no more reason to imagine that I have personal
expectations from Brooke, than I have to imagine that you have personal
expectations from Bulstrode. Motives are points of honor, I suppose--
nobody can prove them. But as to money and place in the world."
Will ended, tossing back his head, "I think it is pretty clear
that I am not determined by considerations of that sort."
"You quite mistake me, Ladislaw," said Lydgate, surprised. He had
been preoccupied with his own vindication, and had been blind
to what Ladislaw might infer on his own account. "I beg your
pardon for unintentionally annoying you. In fact, I should rather
attribute to you a romantic disregard of your own worldly interests.
On the political question, I referred simply to intellectual bias."
"How very unpleasant you both are this evening!" said Rosamond.
"I cannot conceive why money should have been referred to.
Polities and Medicine are sufficiently disagreeable to quarrel upon.
You can both of you go on quarrelling with all the world and with each
other on those two topics."
Rosamond looked mildly neutral as she said this, rising to ring
the bell, and then crossing to her work-table.
"Poor Rosy!" said Lydgate, putting out his hand to her as she
was passing him. "Disputation is not amusing to cherubs.
Have some music. Ask Ladislaw to sing with you."
When Will was gone Rosamond said to her husband, "What put you
out of temper this evening, Tertius?"
"Me? It was Ladislaw who was out of temper. He is like a bit
of tinder."
"But I mean, before that. Something had vexed you before you came in,
you looked cross. And that made you begin to dispute with Mr. Ladislaw.
You hurt me very much when you look so, Tertius."
"Do I? Then I am a brute," said Lydgate, caressing her penitently.
"What vexed you?"
"Oh, outdoor things--business." It was really a letter insisting
on the payment of a bill for furniture. But Rosamond was expecting
to have a baby, and Lydgate wished to save her from any perturbation.
CHAPTER XLVII.
Was never true love loved in vain,
For truest love is highest gain.
No art can make it: it must spring
Where elements are fostering.
So in heaven's spot and hour
Springs the little native flower,
Downward root and upward eye,
Shapen by the earth and sky.
It happened to be on a Saturday evening that Will Ladislaw had that
little discussion with Lydgate. Its effect when he went to his own
rooms was to make him sit up half the night, thinking over again,
under a new irritation, all that he had before thought of his having
settled in Middlemarch and harnessed himself with Mr. Brooke.
Hesitations before he had taken the step had since turned into
susceptibility to every hint that he would have been wiser not
to take it; and hence came his heat towards Lydgate--a heat which
still kept him restless. Was he not making a fool of himself?--
and at a time when he was more than ever conscious of being something
better than a fool? And for what end?
Well, for no definite end. True, he had dreamy visions of possibilities:
there is no human being who having both passions and thoughts does
not think in consequence of his passions--does not find images rising
in his mind which soothe the passion with hope or sting it with dread.
But this, which happens to us all, happens to some with a wide difference;
and Will was not one of those whose wit "keeps the roadway:"
he had his bypaths where there were little joys of his own choosing,
such as gentlemen cantering on the highroad might have thought
rather idiotic. The way in which he made a sort of happiness for
himself out of his feeling for Dorothea was an example of this.
It may seem strange, but it is the fact, that the ordinary vulgar
vision of which Mr. Casaubon suspected him--namely, that Dorothea
might become a widow, and that the interest he had established
in her mind might turn into acceptance of him as a husband--
had no tempting, arresting power over him; he did not live
in the scenery of such an event, and follow it out, as we all do
with that imagined "otherwise" which is our practical heaven.
It was not only that he was unwilling to entertain thoughts which
could be accused of baseness, and was already uneasy in the sense
that he had to justify himself from the charge of ingratitude--
the latent consciousness of many other barriers between himself
and Dorothea besides the existence of her husband, had helped
to turn away his imagination from speculating on what might befall
Mr. Casaubon. And there were yet other reasons. Will, we know,
could not bear the thought of any flaw appearing in his crystal:
he was at once exasperated and delighted by the calm freedom
with which Dorothea looked at him and spoke to him, and there
was something so exquisite in thinking of her just as she was,
that he could not long for a change which must somehow change her.
Do we not shun the street version of a fine melody?--or shrink from
the news that the rarity--some bit of chiselling or engraving perhaps--
which we have dwelt on even with exultation in the trouble it has
cost us to snatch glimpses of it, is really not an uncommon thing,
and may be obtained as an every-day possession? Our good depends
on the quality and breadth of our emotion; and to Will, a creature
who cared little for what are called the solid things of life and
greatly for its subtler influences, to have within him such a feeling
as he had towards Dorothea, was like the inheritance of a fortune.
What others might have called the futility of his passion, made an
additional delight for his imagination: he was conscious of a
generous movement, and of verifying in his own experience that higher
love-poetry which had charmed his fancy. Dorothea, he said to himself,
was forever enthroned in his soul: no other woman could sit higher
than her footstool; and if he could have written out in immortal
syllables the effect she wrought within him, he might have boasted
after the example of old Drayton, that,--
"Queens hereafter might be glad to live
Upon the alms of her superfluous praise."
But this result was questionable. And what else could he do
for Dorothea? What was his devotion worth to her? It was impossible
to tell. He would not go out of her reach. He saw no creature among
her friends to whom he could believe that she spoke with the same simple
confidence as to him. She had once said that she would like him to stay;
and stay he would, whatever fire-breathing dragons might hiss around her.
This had always been the conclusion of Will's hesitations.
But he was not without contradictoriness and rebellion even towards
his own resolve. He had often got irritated, as he was on this
particular night, by some outside demonstration that his public
exertions with Mr. Brooke as a chief could not seem as heroic
as he would like them to be, and this was always associated with
the other ground of irritation--that notwithstanding his sacrifice
of dignity for Dorothea's sake, he could hardly ever see her.
Whereupon, not being able to contradict these unpleasant facts,
he contradicted his own strongest bias and said, "I am a fool."
Nevertheless, since the inward debate necessarily turned on Dorothea,
he ended, as he had done before, only by getting a livelier sense
of what her presence would be to him; and suddenly reflecting that
the morrow would be Sunday, he determined to go to Lowick Church
and see her. He slept upon that idea, but when he was dressing
in the rational morning light, Objection said--
"That will be a virtual defiance of Mr. Casaubon's prohibition
to visit Lowick, and Dorothea will be displeased."
"Nonsense!" argued Inclination, "it would be too monstrous
for him to hinder me from going out to a pretty country church
on a spring morning. And Dorothea will be glad."
"It will be clear to Mr. Casaubon that you have come either to annoy
him or to see Dorothea."
"It is not true that I go to annoy him, and why should I not go
to see Dorothea? Is he to have everything to himself and be
always comfortable? Let him smart a little, as other people are
obliged to do. I have always liked the quaintness of the church and
congregation; besides, I know the Tuckers: I shall go into their pew."
Having silenced Objection by force of unreason, Will walked to
Lowick as if he had been on the way to Paradise, crossing Halsell
Common and skirting the wood, where the sunlight fell broadly under
the budding boughs, bringing out the beauties of moss and lichen,
and fresh green growths piercing the brown. Everything seemed to know
that it was Sunday, and to approve of his going to Lowick Church.
Will easily felt happy when nothing crossed his humor, and by this
time the thought of vexing Mr. Casaubon had become rather amusing
to him, making his face break into its merry smile, pleasant to see
as the breaking of sunshine on the water--though the occasion was
not exemplary. But most of us are apt to settle within ourselves
that the man who blocks our way is odious, and not to mind
causing him a little of the disgust which his personality excites
in ourselves. Will went along with a small book under his arm and
a hand in each side-pocket, never reading, but chanting a little,
as he made scenes of what would happen in church and coming out.
He was experimenting in tunes to suit some words of his own,
sometimes trying a ready-made melody, sometimes improvising.
The words were not exactly a hymn, but they certainly fitted his
Sunday experience:--
"O me, O me, what frugal cheer
My love doth feed upon!
A touch, a ray, that is not here,
A shadow that is gone:
"A dream of breath that might be near,
An inly-echoed tone,
The thought that one may think me dear,
The place where one was known,
"The tremor of a banished fear,
An ill that was not done--
O me, O me, what frugal cheer
My love doth feed upon!"
Sometimes, when he took off his hat, shaking his head backward,
and showing his delicate throat as he sang, he looked like an incarnation
of the spring whose spirit filled the air--a bright creature,
abundant in uncertain promises.
The bells were still ringing when he got to Lowick, and he went into
the curate's pew before any one else arrived there. But he was still
left alone in it when the congregation had assembled. The curate's
pew was opposite the rector's at the entrance of the small chancel,
and Will had time to fear that Dorothea might not come while he
looked round at the group of rural faces which made the congregation
from year to year within the white-washed walls and dark old pews,
hardly with more change than we see in the boughs of a tree
which breaks here and there with age, but yet has young shoots.
Mr. Rigg's frog-face was something alien and unaccountable,
but notwithstanding this shock to the order of things, there were
still the Waules and the rural stock of the Powderells in their
pews side by side; brother Samuel's cheek had the same purple
round as ever, and the three generations of decent cottagers
came as of old with a sense of duty to their betters generally--
the smaller children regarding Mr. Casaubon, who wore the black gown
and mounted to the highest box, as probably the chief of all betters,
and the one most awful if offended. Even in 1831 Lowick was
at peace, not more agitated by Reform than by the solemn tenor
of the Sunday sermon. The congregation had been used to seeing
Will at church in former days, and no one took much note of him
except the choir, who expected him to make a figure in the singing.
Dorothea did at last appear on this quaint background, walking up
the short aisle in her white beaver bonnet and gray cloak--the same
she had worn in the Vatican. Her face being, from her entrance,
towards the chancel, even her shortsighted eyes soon discerned Will,
but there was no outward show of her feeling except a slight
paleness and a grave bow as she passed him. To his own surprise
Will felt suddenly uncomfortable, and dared not look at her after
they had bowed to each other. Two minutes later, when Mr. Casaubon
came out of the vestry, and, entering the pew, seated himself
in face of Dorothea, Will felt his paralysis more complete.
He could look nowhere except at the choir in the little gallery
over the vestry-door: Dorothea was perhaps pained, and he had made
a wretched blunder. It was no longer amusing to vex Mr. Casaubon,
who had the advantage probably of watching him and seeing that he
dared not turn his head. Why had he not imagined this beforehand?--
but he could not expect that he should sit in that square
pew alone, unrelieved by any Tuckers, who had apparently departed
from Lowick altogether, for a new clergyman was in the desk.
Still he called himself stupid now for not foreseeing that it would
be impossible for him to look towards Dorothea--nay, that she
might feel his coming an impertinence. There was no delivering
himself from his cage, however; and Will found his places and looked
at his book as if he had been a school-mistress, feeling that
the morning service had never been so immeasurably long before,
that he was utterly ridiculous, out of temper, and miserable.
This was what a man got by worshipping the sight of a woman!
The clerk observed with surprise that Mr. Ladislaw did not join in
the tune of Hanover, and reflected that he might have a cold.
Mr. Casaubon did not preach that morning, and there was no change
in Will's situation until the blessing had been pronounced and
every one rose. It was the fashion at Lowick for "the betters"
to go out first. With a sudden determination to break the spell
that was upon him, Will looked straight at Mr. Casaubon. But that
gentleman's eyes were on the button of the pew-door, which he opened,
allowing Dorothea to pass, and following her immediately without
raising his eyelids. Will's glance had caught Dorothea's as she
turned out of the pew, and again she bowed, but this time with a
look of agitation, as if she were repressing tears. Will walked
out after them, but they went on towards the little gate leading
out of the churchyard into the shrubbery, never looking round.
It was impossible for him to follow them, and he could only walk
back sadly at mid-day along the same road which he had trodden
hopefully in the morning. The lights were all changed for him
both without and within.
CHAPTER XLVIII
Surely the golden hours are turning gray
And dance no more, and vainly strive to run:
I see their white locks streaming in the wind--
Each face is haggard as it looks at me,
Slow turning in the constant clasping round
Storm-driven.
Dorothea's distress when she was leaving the church came chiefly
from the perception that Mr. Casaubon was determined not to speak
to his cousin, and that Will's presence at church had served
to mark more strongly the alienation between them. Will's coming
seemed to her quite excusable, nay, she thought it an amiable
movement in him towards a reconciliation which she herself had been
constantly wishing for. He had probably imagined, as she had,
that if Mr. Casaubon and he could meet easily, they would shake
hands and friendly intercourse might return. But now Dorothea felt
quite robbed of that hope. Will was banished further than ever,
for Mr. Casaubon must have been newly embittered by this thrusting
upon him of a presence which he refused to recognize.
He had not been very well that morning, suffering from some
difficulty in breathing, and had not preached in consequence;
she was not surprised, therefore, that he was nearly silent
at luncheon, still less that he made no allusion to Will Ladislaw.
For her own part she felt that she could never again introduce
that subject. They usually spent apart the hours between luncheon
and dinner on a Sunday; Mr. Casaubon in the library dozing chiefly,
and Dorothea in her boudoir, where she was wont to occupy
herself with some of her favorite books. There was a little
heap of them on the table in the bow-window--of various sorts,
from Herodotus, which she was learning to read with Mr. Casaubon,
to her old companion Pascal, and Keble's "Christian Year."
But to-day opened one after another, and could read none of them.
Everything seemed dreary: the portents before the birth of Cyrus--
Jewish antiquities--oh dear!--devout epigrams--the sacred chime
of favorite hymns--all alike were as flat as tunes beaten on wood:
even the spring flowers and the grass had a dull shiver in them
under the afternoon clouds that hid the sun fitfully; even the
sustaining thoughts which had become habits seemed to have in them
the weariness of long future days in which she would still live
with them for her sole companions. It was another or rather a
fuller sort of companionship that poor Dorothea was hungering for,
and the hunger had grown from the perpetual effort demanded by her
married life. She was always trying to be what her husband wished,
and never able to repose on his delight in what she was. The thing
that she liked, that she spontaneously cared to have, seemed to be
always excluded from her life; for if it was only granted and not
shared by her husband it might as well have been denied. About Will
Ladislaw there had been a difference between them from the first,
and it had ended, since Mr. Casaubon had so severely repulsed
Dorothea's strong feeling about his claims on the family property,
by her being convinced that she was in the right and her husband
in the wrong, but that she was helpless. This afternoon the
helplessness was more wretchedly benumbing than ever: she longed
for objects who could be dear to her, and to whom she could be dear.
She longed for work which would be directly beneficent like the
sunshine and the rain, and now it appeared that she was to live
more and more in a virtual tomb, where there was the apparatus
of a ghastly labor producing what would never see the light.
Today she had stood at the door of the tomb and seen Will Ladislaw
receding into the distant world of warm activity and fellowship--
turning his face towards her as he went.
Books were of no use. Thinking was of no use. It was Sunday, and she
could not have the carriage to go to Celia, who had lately had a baby.
There was no refuge now from spiritual emptiness and discontent,
and Dorothea had to bear her bad mood, as she would have borne
a headache.
After dinner, at the hour when she usually began to read aloud,
Mr. Casaubon proposed that they should go into the library, where,
he said, he had ordered a fire and lights. He seemed to have revived,
and to be thinking intently.
In the library Dorothea observed that he had newly arranged a row
of his note-books on a table, and now he took up and put into her hand
a well-known volume, which was a table of contents to all the others.
"You will oblige me, my dear," he said, seating himself, "if instead
of other reading this evening, you will go through this aloud,
pencil in hand, and at each point where I say `mark,' will make a
cross with your pencil. This is the first step in a sifting process
which I have long had in view, and as we go on I shall be able
to indicate to you certain principles of selection whereby you will,
I trust, have an intelligent participation in my purpose."
This proposal was only one more sign added to many since his
memorable interview with Lydgate, that Mr. Casaubon's original
reluctance to let Dorothea work with him had given place to the
contrary disposition, namely, to demand much interest and labor from her.
After she had read and marked for two hours, he said, "We will
take the volume up-stairs--and the pencil, if you please--
and in case of reading in the night, we can pursue this task.
It is not wearisome to you, I trust, Dorothea?"
"I prefer always reading what you like best to hear," said Dorothea,
who told the simple truth; for what she dreaded was to exert herself
in reading or anything else which left him as joyless as ever.
It was a proof of the force with which certain characteristics
in Dorothea impressed those around her, that her husband,
with all his jealousy and suspicion, had gathered implicit trust
in the integrity of her promises, and her power of devoting herself
to her idea of the right and best. Of late he had begun to feel
that these qualities were a peculiar possession for himself,
and he wanted to engross them.
The reading in the night did come. Dorothea in her young weariness
had slept soon and fast: she was awakened by a sense of light,
which seemed to her at first like a sudden vision of sunset after
she had climbed a steep hill: she opened her eyes and saw her
husband wrapped in his warm gown seating himself in the arm-chair
near the fire-place where the embers were still glowing.
He had lit two candles, expecting that Dorothea would awake,
but not liking to rouse her by more direct means.
"Are you ill, Edward?" she said, rising immediately.
"I felt some uneasiness in a reclining posture. I will sit here
for a time." She threw wood on the fire, wrapped herself up,
and said, "You would like me to read to you?"
"You would oblige me greatly by doing so, Dorothea," said Mr. Casaubon,
with a shade more meekness than usual in his polite manner.
"I am wakeful: my mind is remarkably lucid."
"I fear that the excitement may be too great for you," said Dorothea,
remembering Lydgate's cautions.
"No, I am not conscious of undue excitement. Thought is easy."
Dorothea dared not insist, and she read for an hour or more on
the same plan as she had done in the evening, but getting over
the pages with more quickness. Mr. Casaubon's mind was more alert,
and he seemed to anticipate what was coming after a very slight
verbal indication, saying, "That will do--mark that"--or "Pass
on to the next head--I omit the second excursus on Crete."
Dorothea was amazed to think of the bird-like speed with which his
mind was surveying the ground where it had been creeping for years.
At last he said--
"Close the book now, my dear. We will resume our work to-morrow.
I have deferred it too long, and would gladly see it completed.
But you observe that the principle on which my selection is made,
is to give adequate, and not disproportionate illustration to each
of the theses enumerated in my introduction, as at present sketched.
You have perceived that distinctly, Dorothea?"
"Yes," said Dorothea, rather tremulously. She felt sick at heart.
"And now I think that I can take some repose," said Mr. Casaubon.
He laid down again and begged her to put out the lights. When she
had lain down too, and there was a darkness only broken by a dull
glow on the hearth, he said--
"Before I sleep, I have a request to make, Dorothea."
"What is it?" said Dorothea, with dread in her mind.
"It is that you will let me know, deliberately, whether, in case
of my death, you will carry out my wishes: whether you will avoid
doing what I should deprecate, and apply yourself to do what I
should desire."
Dorothea was not taken by surprise: many incidents had been leading
her to the conjecture of some intention on her husband's part
which might make a new yoke for her. She did not answer immediately.
"You refuse?" said Mr. Casaubon, with more edge in his tone.
"No, I do not yet refuse," said Dorothea, in a clear voice, the need
of freedom asserting itself within her; "but it is too solemn--
I think it is not right--to make a promise when I am ignorant
what it will bind me to. Whatever affection prompted I would do
without promising."
"But you would use your own judgment: I ask you to obey mine;
you refuse."
"No, dear, no!" said Dorothea, beseechingly, crushed by opposing fears.
"But may I wait and reflect a little while? I desire with my whole soul
to do what will comfort you; but I cannot give any pledge suddenly--
still less a pledge to do I know not what."
"You cannot then confide in the nature of my wishes?"
"Grant me till to-morrow," said Dorothea, beseechingly.
"Till to-morrow then," said Mr. Casaubon.
Soon she could hear that he was sleeping, but there was no more
sleep for her. While she constrained herself to lie still lest she
should disturb him, her mind was carrying on a conflict in which
imagination ranged its forces first on one side and then on the other.
She had no presentiment that the power which her husband wished
to establish over her future action had relation to anything else
than his work. But it was clear enough to her that he would expect
her to devote herself to sifting those mixed heaps of material,
which were to be the doubtful illustration of principles still
more doubtful. The poor child had become altogether unbelieving
as to the trustworthiness of that Key which had made the ambition
and the labor of her husband's life. It was not wonderful that,
in spite of her small instruction, her judgment in this matter was
truer than his: for she looked with unbiassed comparison and
healthy sense at probabilities on which he had risked all his egoism.
And now she pictured to herself the days, and months, and years which
she must spend in sorting what might be called shattered mummies,
and fragments of a tradition which was itself a mosaic wrought from
crushed ruins--sorting them as food for a theory which was already
withered in the birth like an elfin child. Doubtless a vigorous
error vigorously pursued has kept the embryos of truth a-breathing:
the quest of gold being at the same time a questioning of substances,
the body of chemistry is prepared for its soul, and Lavoisier is born.
But Mr. Casaubon's theory of the elements which made the seed of all
tradition was not likely to bruise itself unawares against discoveries:
it floated among flexible conjectures no more solid than those
etymologies which seemed strong because of likeness in sound until
it was shown that likeness in sound made them impossible: it was
a method of interpretation which was not tested by the necessity
of forming anything which had sharper collisions than an elaborate
notion of Gog and Magog: it was as free from interruption as a
plan for threading the stars together. And Dorothea had so often
had to check her weariness and impatience over this questionable
riddle-guessing, as it revealed itself to her instead of the
fellowship in high knowledge which was to make life worthier!
She could understand well enough now why her husband had come
to cling to her, as possibly the only hope left that his labors
would ever take a shape in which they could be given to the world.
At first it had seemed that he wished to keep even her aloof from
any close knowledge of what he was doing; but gradually the terrible
stringency of human need--the prospect of a too speedy death--
And here Dorothea's pity turned from her own future to her
husband's past--nay, to his present hard struggle with a lot which had
grown out of that past: the lonely labor, the ambition breathing
hardly under the pressure of self-distrust; the goal receding,
and the heavier limbs; and now at last the sword visibly trembling
above him! And had she not wished to marry him that she might help
him in his life's labor?--But she had thought the work was to be
something greater, which she could serve in devoutly for its own sake.
Was it right, even to soothe his grief--would it be possible,
even if she promised--to work as in a treadmill fruitlessly?
And yet, could she deny him? Could she say, "I refuse to content
this pining hunger?" It would be refusing to do for him dead,
what she was almost sure to do for him living. If he lived
as Lydgate had said he might, for fifteen years or more, her life
would certainly be spent in helping him and obeying him.
Still, there was a deep difference between that devotion to the
living and that indefinite promise of devotion to the dead.
While he lived, he could claim nothing that she would not still
be free to remonstrate against, and even to refuse. But--
the thought passed through her mind more than once, though she
could not believe in it--might he not mean to demand something
more from her than she had been able to imagine, since he wanted
her pledge to carry out his wishes without telling her exactly
what they were? No; his heart was bound up in his work only:
that was the end for which his failing life was to be eked out by hers.
And now, if she were to say, "No! if you die, I will put no finger
to your work"--it seemed as if she would be crushing that bruised heart.
For four hours Dorothea lay in this conflict, till she felt ill
and bewildered, unable to resolve, praying mutely. Helpless as a
child which has sobbed and sought too long, she fell into a late
morning sleep, and when she waked Mr. Casaubon was already up.
Tantripp told her that he had read prayers, breakfasted, and was
in the library.
"I never saw you look so pale, madam," said Tantripp, a solid-figured
woman who had been with the sisters at Lausanne.
"Was I ever high-colored, Tantripp?" said Dorothea, smiling faintly.
"Well, not to say high-colored, but with a bloom like a Chiny rose.
But always smelling those leather books, what can be expected?
Do rest a little this morning, madam. Let me say you are ill and not
able to go into that close library."
"Oh no, no! let me make haste," said Dorothea. "Mr. Casaubon wants
me particularly."
When she went down she felt sure that she should promise to fulfil
his wishes; but that would be later in the day--not yet.
As Dorothea entered the library, Mr. Casaubon turned round from
the table where he had been placing some books, and said--
"I was waiting for your appearance, my dear. I had hoped
to set to work at once this morning, but I find myself under
some indisposition, probably from too much excitement yesterday.
I am going now to take a turn in the shrubbery, since the air is milder."
"I am glad to hear that," said Dorothea. "Your mind, I feared,
was too active last night."
"I would fain have it set at rest on the point
I last spoke of, Dorothea. You can now, I hope, give me an answer."
"May I come out to you in the garden presently?" said Dorothea,
winning a little breathing space in that way.
"I shall be in the Yew-tree Walk for the next half-hour,"
said Mr. Casaubon, and then he left her.
Dorothea, feeling very weary, rang and asked Tantripp to bring
her some wraps. She had been sitting still for a few minutes,
but not in any renewal of the former conflict: she simply felt
that she was going to say "Yes" to her own doom: she was too weak,
too full of dread at the thought of inflicting a keen-edged blow
on her husband, to do anything but submit completely. She sat still
and let Tantripp put on her bonnet and shawl, a passivity which was
unusual with her, for she liked to wait on herself.
"God bless you, madam!" said Tantripp, with an irrepressible movement
of love towards the beautiful, gentle creature for whom she felt
unable to do anything more, now that she had finished tying the bonnet.
This was too much for Dorothea's highly-strung feeling, and she
burst into tears, sobbing against Tantripp's arm. But soon she
checked herself, dried her eyes, and went out at the glass door
into the shrubbery.
"I wish every book in that library was built into a caticom for
your master," said Tantripp to Pratt, the butler, finding him in the
breakfast-room. She had been at Rome, and visited the antiquities,
as we know; and she always declined to call Mr. Casaubon anything
but "your master," when speaking to the other servants.
Pratt laughed. He liked his master very well, but he liked
Tantripp better.
When Dorothea was out on the gravel walks, she lingered among the
nearer clumps of trees, hesitating, as she had done once before,
though from a different cause. Then she had feared lest her effort
at fellowship should be unwelcome; now she dreaded going to the spot
where she foresaw that she must bind herself to a fellowship from
which she shrank. Neither law nor the world's opinion compelled
her to this--only her husband's nature and her own compassion,
only the ideal and not the real yoke of marriage. She saw clearly
enough the whole situation, yet she was fettered: she could not
smite the stricken soul that entreated hers. If that were weakness,
Dorothea was weak. But the half-hour was passing, and she must not
delay longer. When she entered the Yew-tree Walk she could not see
her husband; but the walk had bends, and she went, expecting to catch
sight of his figure wrapped in a blue cloak, which, with a warm
velvet cap, was his outer garment on chill days for the garden.
It occurred to her that he might be resting in the summer-house,
towards which the path diverged a little. Turning the angle,
she could see him seated on the bench, close to a stone table.
His arms were resting on the table, and his brow was bowed down on them,
the blue cloak being dragged forward and screening his face on
each side.
"He exhausted himself last night," Dorothea said to herself,
thinking at first that he was asleep, and that the summer-house was
too damp a place to rest in. But then she remembered that of late
she had seen him take that attitude when she was reading to him,
as if he found it easier than any other; and that he would
sometimes speak, as well as listen, with his face down in that way.
She went into the summerhouse and said, "I am come, Edward; I am ready."
He took no notice, and she thought that he must be fast asleep.
She laid her hand on his shoulder, and repeated, "I am ready!"
Still he was motionless; and with a sudden confused fear, she leaned
down to him, took off his velvet cap, and leaned her cheek close to
his head, crying in a distressed tone--
"Wake, dear, wake! Listen to me. I am come to answer."
But Dorothea never gave her answer.
Later in the day, Lydgate was seated by her bedside, and she was
talking deliriously, thinking aloud, and recalling what had gone
through her mind the night before. She knew him, and called him
by his name, but appeared to think it right that she should explain
everything to him; and again, and again, begged him to explain
everything to her husband.
"Tell him I shall go to him soon: I am ready to promise.
Only, thinking about it was so dreadful--it has made me ill.
Not very ill. I shall soon be better. Go and tell him."
But the silence in her husband's ear was never more to be broken.
CHAPTER XLIX.
A task too strong for wizard spells
This squire had brought about;
'T is easy dropping stones in wells,
But who shall get them out?"
"I wish to God we could hinder Dorothea from knowing this," said Sir
James Chettam, with a little frown on his brow, and an expression
of intense disgust about his mouth.
He was standing on the hearth-rug in the library at Lowick Grange,
and speaking to Mr. Brooke. It was the day after Mr. Casaubon had
been buried, and Dorothea was not yet able to leave her room.
"That would be difficult, you know, Chettam, as she is an executrix,
and she likes to go into these things--property, land, that kind
of thing. She has her notions, you know," said Mr. Brooke,
sticking his eye-glasses on nervously, and exploring the edges of a
folded paper which he held in his hand; "and she would like to act--
depend upon it, as an executrix Dorothea would want to act. And she
was twenty-one last December, you know. I can hinder nothing."
Sir James looked at the carpet for a minute in silence, and then
lifting his eyes suddenly fixed them on Mr. Brooke, saying, "I will
tell you what we can do. Until Dorothea is well, all business must
be kept from her, and as soon as she is able to be moved she must
come to us. Being with Celia and the baby will be the best thing
in the world for her, and will pass away the time. And meanwhile you
must get rid of Ladislaw: you must send him out of the country."
Here Sir James's look of disgust returned in all its intensity.
Mr. Brooke put his hands behind him, walked to the window
and straightened his back with a little shake before he replied.
"That is easily said, Chettam, easily said, you know."
"My dear sir," persisted Sir James, restraining his indignation
within respectful forms, "it was you who brought him here, and you
who keep him here--I mean by the occupation you give him."
"Yes, but I can't dismiss him in an instant without assigning reasons,
my dear Chettam. Ladislaw has been invaluable, most satisfactory.
I consider that I have done this part of the country a service by
bringing him--by bringing him, you know." Mr. Brooke ended with a nod,
turning round to give it.
"It's a pity this part of the country didn't do without him,
that's all I have to say about it. At any rate, as Dorothea's
brother-in-law, I feel warranted in objecting strongly to his being
kept here by any action on the part of her friends. You admit,
I hope, that I have a right to speak about what concerns the dignity
of my wife's sister?"
Sir James was getting warm.
"Of course, my dear Chettam, of course. But you and I have
different ideas--different--"
"Not about this action of Casaubon's, I should hope," interrupted
Sir James. "I say that he has most unfairly compromised Dorothea.
I say that there never was a meaner, more ungentlemanly action
than this--a codicil of this sort to a will which he made at the time
of his marriage with the knowledge and reliance of her family--
a positive insult to Dorothea!"
"Well, you know, Casaubon was a little twisted about Ladislaw.
Ladislaw has told me the reason--dislike of the bent he took, you know--
Ladislaw didn't think much of Casaubon's notions, Thoth and Dagon--
that sort of thing: and I fancy that Casaubon didn't like the
independent position Ladislaw had taken up. I saw the letters
between them, you know. Poor Casaubon was a little buried in books--
he didn't know the world."
"It's all very well for Ladislaw to put that color on it,"
said Sir James. "But I believe Casaubon was only jealous of him
on Dorothea's account, and the world will suppose that she
gave him some reason; and that is what makes it so abominable--
coupling her name with this young fellow's."
"My dear Chettam, it won't lead to anything, you know,"
said Mr. Brooke, seating himself and sticking on his eyeglass
again. "It's all of a piece with Casaubon's oddity.
This paper, now, `Synoptical Tabulation' and so on, `for the use
of Mrs. Casaubon,' it was locked up in the desk with the will.
I suppose he meant Dorothea to publish his researches, eh? and
she'll do it, you know; she has gone into his studies uncommonly."
"My dear sir," said Sir James, impatiently, "that is neither
here nor there. The question is, whether you don't see with me
the propriety of sending young Ladislaw away?"
"Well, no, not the urgency of the thing. By-and-by, perhaps,
it may come round. As to gossip, you know, sending him away won't
hinder gossip. People say what they like to say, not what they
have chapter and verse for," said Mr Brooke, becoming acute about
the truths that lay on the side of his own wishes. "I might get rid
of Ladislaw up to a certain point--take away the `Pioneer' from him,
and that sort of thing; but I couldn't send him out of the country
if he didn't choose to go--didn't choose, you know."
Mr. Brooke, persisting as quietly as if he were only discussing
the nature of last year's weather, and nodding at the end with his
usual amenity, was an exasperating form of obstinacy.
"Good God!" said Sir James, with as much passion as he ever showed,
"let us get him a post; let us spend money on him. If he could go
in the suite of some Colonial Governor! Grampus might take him--
and I could write to Fulke about it."
"But Ladislaw won't be shipped off like a head of cattle, my dear fellow;
Ladislaw has his ideas. It's my opinion that if he were to part
from me to-morrow, you'd only hear the more of him in the country.
With his talent for speaking and drawing up documents, there are
few men who could come up to him as an agitator--an agitator,
you know."
"Agitator!" said Sir James, with bitter emphasis, feeling that
the syllables of this word properly repeated were a sufficient
exposure of its hatefulness.
"But be reasonable, Chettam. Dorothea, now. As you say,
she had better go to Celia as soon as possible. She can stay under
your roof, and in the mean time things may come round quietly.
Don't let us be firing off our guns in a hurry, you know.
Standish will keep our counsel, and the news will be old before
it's known. Twenty things may happen to carry off Ladislaw--
without my doing anything, you know."
"Then I am to conclude that you decline to do anything?"
"Decline, Chettam?--no--I didn't say decline. But I really don't
see what I could do. Ladislaw is a gentleman."
"I am glad to hear It!" said Sir James, his irritation making him
forget himself a little. "I am sure Casaubon was not."
"Well, it would have been worse if he had made the codicil to hinder
her from marrying again at all, you know."
"I don't know that," said Sir James. "It would have been
less indelicate."
"One of poor Casaubon's freaks! That attack upset his brain a little.
It all goes for nothing. She doesn't WANT to marry Ladislaw."
"But this codicil is framed so as to make everybody believe that she did.
I don't believe anything of the sort about Dorothea," said Sir James--
then frowningly, "but I suspect Ladislaw. I tell you frankly,
I suspect Ladislaw."
"I couldn't take any immediate action on that ground, Chettam. In fact,
if it were possible to pack him off--send him to Norfolk Island--
that sort of thing--it would look all the worse for Dorothea to
those who knew about it. It would seem as if we distrusted her--
distrusted her, you know."
That Mr. Brooke had hit on an undeniable argument, did not tend
to soothe Sir James. He put out his hand to reach his hat,
implying that he did not mean to contend further, and said,
still with some heat--
"Well, I can only say that I think Dorothea was sacrificed once,
because her friends were too careless. I shall do what I can,
as her brother, to protect her now."
"You can't do better than get her to Freshitt as soon as possible,
Chettam. I approve that plan altogether," said Mr. Brooke, well pleased
that he had won the argument. It would have been highly inconvenient
to him to part with Ladislaw at that time, when a dissolution might
happen any day, and electors were to be convinced of the course by
which the interests of the country would be best served. Mr. Brooke
sincerely believed that this end could be secured by his own return
to Parliament: he offered the forces of his mind honestly to the nation.
CHAPTER L.
"`This Loller here wol precilen us somewhat.'
`Nay by my father's soule! that schal he nat,'
Sayde the Schipman, `here schal he not preche,
We schal no gospel glosen here ne teche.
We leven all in the gret God,' quod he.
He wolden sowen some diffcultee."
Canterbury Tales.
Dorothea had been safe at Freshitt Hall nearly a week before she had asked
any dangerous questions. Every morning now she sat with Celia in the
prettiest of up-stairs sitting-rooms, opening into a small conservatory--
Celia all in white and lavender like a bunch of mixed violets,
watching the remarkable acts of the baby, which were so dubious
to her inexperienced mind that all conversation was interrupted
by appeals for their interpretation made to the oracular nurse.
Dorothea sat by in her widow's dress, with an expression which rather
provoked Celia, as being much too sad; for not only was baby quite well,
but really when a husband had been so dull and troublesome while
he lived, and besides that had--well, well! Sir James, of course,
had told Celia everything, with a strong representation how important
it was that Dorothea should not know it sooner than was inevitable.
But Mr. Brooke had been right in predicting that Dorothea would not
long remain passive where action had been assigned to her; she knew
the purport of her husband's will made at the time of their marriage,
and her mind, as soon as she was clearly conscious of her position,
was silently occupied with what she ought to do as the owner
of Lowick Manor with the patronage of the living attached to it.
One morning when her uncle paid his usual visit, though with an unusual
alacrity in his manner which he accounted for by saying that it
was now pretty certain Parliament would be dissolved forthwith,
Dorothea said--
"Uncle, it is right now that I should consider who is to have
the living at Lowick. After Mr. Tucker had been provided for,
I never heard my husband say that he had any clergyman in his
mind as a successor to himself. I think I ought to have the
keys now and go to Lowick to examine all my husband's papers.
There may be something that would throw light on his wishes."
"No hurry, my dear," said Mr. Brooke, quietly. "By-and-by, you know,
you can go, if you like. But I cast my eyes over things in the
desks and drawers--there was nothing--nothing but deep subjects,
you know--besides the will. Everything can be done by-and-by. As
to the living, I have had an application for interest already--
I should say rather good. Mr. Tyke has been strongly recommended
to me--I had something to do with getting him an appointment before.
An apostolic man, I believe--the sort of thing that would suit you,
my dear."
"I should like to have fuller knowledge about him, uncle, and judge
for myself, if Mr. Casaubon has not left any expression of his wishes.
He has perhaps made some addition to his will--there may be some
instructions for me," said Dorothea, who had all the while had this
conjecture in her mind with relation to her husband's work.
"Nothing about the rectory, my dear--nothing," said Mr. Brooke,
rising to go away, and putting out his hand to his nieces:
"nor about his researches, you know. Nothing in the will."
Dorothea's lip quivered.
"Come, you must not think of these things yet, my dear.
By-and-by, you know."
"I am quite well now, uncle; I wish to exert myself."
"Well, well, we shall see. But I must run away now--I have no end
of work now--it's a crisis--a political crisis, you know. And here
is Celia and her little man--you are an aunt, you know, now, and I
am a sort of grandfather," said Mr. Brooke, with placid hurry,
anxious to get away and tell Chettam that it would not be his
(Mr. Brooke's) fault if Dorothea insisted on looking into everything.
Dorothea sank back in her chair when her uncle had left the room,
and cast her eyes down meditatively on her crossed hands.
"Look, Dodo! look at him! Did you ever see anything like that?"
said Celia, in her comfortable staccato.
"What, Kitty?" said Dorothea, lifting her eyes rather absently.
"What? why, his upper lip; see how he is drawing it down,
as if he meant to make a face. Isn't it wonderful! He may have
his little thoughts. I wish nurse were here. Do look at him."
A large tear which had been for some time gathering, rolled down
Dorothea's cheek as she looked up and tried to smile.
"Don't be sad, Dodo; kiss baby. What are you brooding over so?
I am sure you did everything, and a great deal too much. You should
be happy now."
"I wonder if Sir James would drive me to Lowick. I want to look
over everything--to see if there were any words written for me."
"You are not to go till Mr. Lydgate says you may go. And he
has not said so yet (here you are, nurse; take baby and walk
up and down the gallery). Besides, you have got a wrong notion
in your head as usual, Dodo--I can see that: it vexes me."
"Where am I wrong, Kitty?" said Dorothea, quite meekly. She was
almost ready now to think Celia wiser than herself, and was really
wondering with some fear what her wrong notion was. Celia felt
her advantage, and was determined to use it. None of them knew Dodo
as well as she did, or knew how to manage her. Since Celia's
baby was born, she had had a new sense of her mental solidity
and calm wisdom. It seemed clear that where there was a baby,
things were right enough, and that error, in general, was a mere
lack of that central poising force.
"I can see what you are thinking of as well as can be, Dodo,"
said Celia. "You are wanting to find out if there is anything
uncomfortable for you to do now, only because Mr. Casaubon wished it.
As if you had not been uncomfortable enough before. And he doesn't
deserve it, and you will find that out. He has behaved very badly.
James is as angry with him as can be. And I had better tell you,
to prepare you."
"Celia," said Dorothea, entreatingly, "you distress me.
Tell me at once what you mean." It glanced through her mind that'
Mr. Casaubon had left the property away from her--which would not
be so very distressing.
"Why, he has made a codicil to his will, to say the property was
all to go away from you if you married--I mean--"
"That is of no consequence," said Dorothea, breaking in impetuously.
"But if you married Mr. Ladislaw, not anybody else," Celia went
on with persevering quietude. "Of course that is of no consequence
in one way--you never WOULD marry Mr. Ladislaw; but that only
makes it worse of Mr. Casaubon."
The blood rushed to Dorothea's face and neck painfully. But Celia
was administering what she thought a sobering dose of fact.
It was taking up notions that had done Dodo's health so much harm.
So she went on in her neutral tone, as if she had been remarking on
baby's robes.
"James says so. He says it is abominable, and not like a gentleman.
And there never was a better judge than James. It is as if
Mr. Casaubon wanted to make people believe that you would wish
to marry Mr. Ladislaw--which is ridiculous. Only James says it
was to hinder Mr. Ladislaw from wanting to marry you for your money--
just as if he ever would think of making you an offer. Mrs. Cadwallader
said you might as well marry an Italian with white mice! But I
must just go and look at baby," Celia added, without the least
change of tone, throwing a light shawl over her, and tripping away.
Dorothea by this time had turned cold again, and now threw herself
back helplessly in her chair. She might have compared her experience
at that moment to the vague, alarmed consciousness that her life
was taking on a new form that she was undergoing a metamorphosis in
which memory would not adjust itself to the stirring of new organs.
Everything was changing its aspect: her husband's conduct,
her own duteous feeling towards him, every struggle between them--
and yet more, her whole relation to Will Ladislaw. Her world
was in a state of convulsive change; the only thing she could say
distinctly to herself was, that she must wait and think anew.
One change terrified her as if it had been a sin; it was a
violent shock of repulsion from her departed husband, who had had
hidden thoughts, perhaps perverting everything she said and did.
Then again she was conscious of another change which also made
her tremulous; it was a sudden strange yearning of heart towards
Will Ladislaw. It had never before entered her mind that he could,
under any circumstances, be her lover: conceive the effect of the
sudden revelation that another had thought of him in that light--
that perhaps he himself had been conscious of such a possibility,--
and this with the hurrying, crowding vision of unfitting conditions,
and questions not soon to be solved.
It seemed a long while--she did not know how long--before she heard
Celia saying, "That will do, nurse; he will be quiet on my lap now.
You can go to lunch, and let Garratt stay in the next room."
"What I think, Dodo," Celia went on, observing nothing more than that
Dorothea was leaning back in her chair, and likely to be passive,
"is that Mr. Casaubon was spiteful. I never did like him, and James
never did. I think the corners of his mouth were dreadfully spiteful.
And now he has behaved in this way, I am sure religion does not
require you to make yourself uncomfortable about him. If he has
been taken away, that is a mercy, and you ought to be grateful.
We should not grieve, should we, baby?" said Celia confidentially
to that unconscious centre and poise of the world, who had the most
remarkable fists all complete even to the nails, and hair enough,
really, when you took his cap off, to make--you didn't know what:--
in short, he was Bouddha in a Western form.
At this crisis Lydgate was announced, and one of the first things he
said was, "I fear you are not so well as you were, Mrs. Casaubon;
have you been agitated? allow me to feel your pulse." Dorothea's hand
was of a marble coldness.
"She wants to go to Lowick, to look over papers," said Celia.
"She ought not, ought she?"
Lydgate did not speak for a few moments. Then he said,
looking at Dorothea. "I hardly know. In my opinion Mrs. Casaubon
should do what would give her the most repose of mind.
That repose will not always come from being forbidden to act."
"Thank you;" said Dorothea, exerting herself, "I am sure that is wise.
There are so many things which I ought to attend to. Why should I sit
here idle?" Then, with an effort to recall subjects not connected with
her agitation, she added, abruptly, "You know every one in Middlemarch,
I think, Mr. Lydgate. I shall ask you to tell me a great deal.
I have serious things to do now. I have a living to give away.
You know Mr. Tyke and all the--" But Dorothea's effort was too much
for her; she broke off and burst into sobs. Lydgate made her drink
a dose of sal volatile.
"Let Mrs. Casaubon do as she likes," he said to Sir James, whom he
asked to see before quitting the house. "She wants perfect freedom,
I think, more than any other prescription."
His attendance on Dorothea while her brain was excited, had enabled
him to form some true conclusions concerning the trials of her life.
He felt sure that she had been suffering from the strain and
conflict of self-repression; and that she was likely now to feel
herself only in another sort of pinfold than that from which she
had been released.
Lydgate's advice was all the easier for Sir James to follow
when he found that Celia had already told Dorothea the unpleasant
fact about the will. There was no help for it now--no reason
for any further delay in the execution of necessary business.
And the next day Sir James complied at once with her request
that he would drive her to Lowick.
"I have no wish to stay there at present," said Dorothea;
"I could hardly bear it. I am much happier at Freshitt with Celia.
I shall be able to think better about what should be done at Lowick
by looking at it from a distance. And I should like to be at the
Grange a little while with my uncle, and go about in all the old
walks and among the people in the village."
"Not yet, I think. Your uncle is having political company,
and you are better out of the way of such doings," said Sir James,
who at that moment thought of the Grange chiefly as a haunt
of young Ladislaw's. But no word passed between him and Dorothea
about the objectionable part of the will; indeed, both of them
felt that the mention of it between them would be impossible.
Sir James was shy, even with men, about disagreeable subjects;
and the one thing that Dorothea would have chosen to say, if she
had spoken on the matter at all, was forbidden to her at present
because it seemed to be a further exposure of her husband's injustice.
Yet she did wish that Sir James could know what had passed between her
and her husband about Will Ladislaw's moral claim on the property:
it would then, she thought, be apparent to him as it was to her,
that her husband's strange indelicate proviso had been chiefly urged
by his bitter resistance to that idea of claim, and not merely
by personal feelings more difficult to talk about. Also, it must
be admitted, Dorothea wished that this could be known for Will's sake,
since her friends seemed to think of him as simply an object of
Mr. Casaubon's charity. Why should he be compared with an Italian
carrying white mice? That word quoted from Mrs. Cadwallader seemed
like a mocking travesty wrought in the dark by an impish finger.
At Lowick Dorothea searched desk and drawer--searched all her
husband's places of deposit for private writing, but found no paper
addressed especially to her, except that "Synoptical Tabulation,"
which was probably only the beginning of many intended directions
for her guidance. In carrying out this bequest of labor to Dorothea,
as in all else, Mr. Casaubon had been slow and hesitating, oppressed in
the plan of transmitting his work, as he had been in executing it,
by the sense of moving heavily in a dim and clogging medium:
distrust of Dorothea's competence to arrange what he had prepared
was subdued only by distrust of any other redactor. But he had come
at last to create a trust for himself out of Dorothea's nature:
she could do what she resolved to do: and he willingly imagined her
toiling under the fetters of a promise to erect a tomb with his name
upon it. (Not that Mr. Casaubon called the future volumes a tomb;
he called them the Key to all Mythologies.) But the months gained
on him and left his plans belated: he had only had time to ask
for that promise by which he sought to keep his cold grasp on
Dorothea's life.
The grasp had slipped away. Bound by a pledge given from the
depths of her pity, she would have been capable of undertaking
a toil which her judgment whispered was vain for all uses except
that consecration of faithfulness which is a supreme use. But now
her judgment, instead of being controlled by duteous devotion,
was made active by the imbittering discovery that in her past union
there had lurked the hidden alienation of secrecy and suspicion.
The living, suffering man was no longer before her to awaken
her pity: there remained only the retrospect of painful subjection
to a husband whose thoughts had been lower than she had believed,
whose exorbitant claims for himself had even blinded his scrupulous
care for his own character, and made him defeat his own pride by
shocking men of ordinary honor. As for the property which was the
sign of that broken tie, she would have been glad to be free from
it and have nothing more than her original fortune which had been
settled on her, if there had not been duties attached to ownership,
which she ought not to flinch from. About this property many
troublous questions insisted on rising: had she not been right
in thinking that the half of it ought to go to Will Ladislaw?--
but was it not impossible now for her to do that act of justice?
Mr. Casaubon had taken a cruelly effective means of hindering her:
even with indignation against him in her heart, any act that seemed a
triumphant eluding of his purpose revolted her.
After collecting papers of business which she wished to examine,
she locked up again the desks and drawers--all empty of personal
words for her--empty of any sign that in her husband's lonely
brooding his heart had gone out to her in excuse or explanation;
and she went back to Freshitt with the sense that around his last hard
demand and his last injurious assertion of his power, the silence
was unbroken.
Dorothea tried now to turn her thoughts towards immediate duties,
and one of these was of a kind which others were determined to remind
her of. Lydgate's ear had caught eagerly her mention of the living,
and as soon as he could, he reopened the subject, seeing here a
possibility of making amends for the casting-vote he had once given
with an ill-satisfied conscience. "Instead of telling you anything
about Mr. Tyke," he said, "I should like to speak of another man--
Mr. Farebrother, the Vicar of St. Botolph's. His living is a poor one,
and gives him a stinted provision for himself and his family.
His mother, aunt, and sister all live with him, and depend upon him.
I believe he has never married because of them. I never heard
such good preaching as his--such plain, easy eloquence. He would
have done to preach at St. Paul's Cross after old Latimer. His talk
is just as good about all subjects: original, simple, clear.
I think him a remarkable fellow: he ought to have done more than he
has done."
"Why has he not done more?" said Dorothea, interested now in all
who had slipped below their own intention.
"That's a hard question," said Lydgate. "I find myself that it's
uncommonly difficult to make the right thing work: there are so many
strings pulling at once. Farebrother often hints that he has got
into the wrong profession; he wants a wider range than that of a
poor clergyman, and I suppose he has no interest to help him on.
He is very fond of Natural History and various scientific matters,
and he is hampered in reconciling these tastes with his position.
He has no money to spare--hardly enough to use; and that has led
him into card-playing--Middlemarch is a great place for whist.
He does play for money, and he wins a good deal. Of course that
takes him into company a little beneath him, and makes him slack
about some things; and yet, with all that, looking at him as a whole,
I think he is one of the most blameless men I ever knew. He has
neither venom nor doubleness in him, and those often go with a more
correct outside."
"I wonder whether he suffers in his conscience because of that habit,"
said Dorothea; "I wonder whether he wishes he could leave it off."
"I have no doubt he would leave it off, if he were transplanted
into plenty: he would be glad of the time for other things."
"My uncle says that Mr. Tyke is spoken of as an apostolic man,"
said Dorothea, meditatively. She was wishing it were possible to restore
the times of primitive zeal, and yet thinking of Mr. Farebrother
with a strong desire to rescue him from his chance-gotten money.
"I don't pretend to say that Farebrother is apostolic," said Lydgate.
"His position is not quite like that of the Apostles: he is only a
parson among parishioners whose lives he has to try and make better.
Practically I find that what is called being apostolic now,
is an impatience of everything in which the parson doesn't cut
the principal figure. I see something of that in Mr. Tyke at
the Hospital: a good deal of his doctrine is a sort of pinching hard
to make people uncomfortably--aware of him. Besides, an apostolic
man at Lowick!--he ought to think, as St. Francis did, that it
is needful to preach to the birds."
"True," said Dorothea. "It is hard to imagine what sort of notions
our farmers and laborers get from their teaching. I have been
looking into a volume of sermons by Mr. Tyke: such sermons would
be of no use at Lowick--I mean, about imputed righteousness and
the prophecies in the Apocalypse. I have always been thinking
of the different ways in which Christianity is taught, and whenever
I find one way that makes it a wider blessing than any other,
I cling to that as the truest--I mean that which takes in the most
good of all kinds, and brings in the most people as sharers in it.
It is surely better to pardon too much, than to condemn too much.
But I should like to see Mr. Farebrother and hear him preach."
"Do," said Lydgate; "I trust to the effect of that. He is very
much beloved, but he has his enemies too: there are always
people who can't forgive an able man for differing from them.
And that money-winning business is really a blot. You don't,
of course, see many Middlemarch people: but Mr. Ladislaw, who is
constantly seeing Mr. Brooke, is a great friend of Mr. Farebrother's
old ladies, and would be glad to sing the Vicar's praises.
One of the old ladies--Miss Noble, the aunt--is a wonderfully
quaint picture of self-forgetful goodness, and Ladislaw gallants
her about sometimes. I met them one day in a back street:
you know Ladislaw's look--a sort of Daphnis in coat and waistcoat;
and this little old maid reaching up to his arm--they looked
like a couple dropped out of a romantic comedy. But the best
evidence about Farebrother is to see him and hear him."
Happily Dorothea was in her private sitting-room when this
conversation occurred, and there was no one present to make Lydgate's
innocent introduction of Ladislaw painful to her. As was usual
with him in matters of personal gossip, Lydgate had quite forgotten
Rosamond's remark that she thought Will adored Mrs. Casaubon.
At that moment he was only caring for what would recommend the
Farebrother family; and he had purposely given emphasis to the worst
that could be said about the Vicar, in order to forestall objections.
In the weeks. since Mr. Casaubon's death he had hardly seen
Ladislaw, and he had heard no rumor to warn him that Mr. Brooke's
confidential secretary was a dangerous subject with Mrs. Casaubon.
When he was gone, his picture of Ladislaw lingered in her mind
and disputed the ground with that question of the Lowick living.
What was Will Ladislaw thinking about her? Would he hear of
that fact which made her cheeks burn as they never used to do?
And how would he feel when he heard it?--But she could see
as well as possible how he smiled down at the little old maid.
An Italian with white mice!--on the contrary, he was a creature
who entered into every one's feelings, and could take the pressure
of their thought instead of urging his own with iron resistance.
CHAPTER LI.
Party is Nature too, and you shall see
By force of Logic how they both agree:
The Many in the One, the One in Many;
All is not Some, nor Some the same as Any:
Genus holds species, both are great or small;
One genus highest, one not high at all;
Each species has its differentia too,
This is not That, and He was never You,
Though this and that are AYES, and you and he
Are like as one to one, or three to three.
No gossip about Mr. Casaubon's will had yet reached Ladislaw:
the air seemed to be filled with the dissolution of Parliament
and the coming election, as the old wakes and fairs were filled
with the rival clatter of itinerant shows; and more private noises
were taken little notice of. The famous "dry election" was at hand,
in which the depths of public feeling might be measured by the low
flood-mark of drink. Will Ladislaw was one of the busiest at this time;
and though Dorothea's widowhood was continually in his thought,
he was so far from wishing to be spoken to on the subject,
that when Lydgate sought him out to tell him what had passed about
the Lowick living, he answered rather waspishly--
"Why should you bring me into the matter? I never see Mrs. Casaubon,
and am not likely to see her, since she is at Freshitt.
I never go there. It is Tory ground, where I and the `Pioneer'
are no more welcome than a poacher and his gun."
The fact was that Will had been made the more susceptible by
observing that Mr. Brooke, instead of wishing him, as before,
to come to the Grange oftener than was quite agreeable to himself,
seemed now to contrive that he should go there as little as possible.
This was a shuffling concession of Mr. Brooke's to Sir James
Chettam's indignant remonstrance; and Will, awake to the slightest
hint in this direction, concluded that he was to be kept away from
the Grange on Dorothea's account. Her friends, then, regarded him
with some suspicion? Their fears were quite superfluous: they were
very much mistaken if they imagined that he would put himself
forward as a needy adventurer trying to win the favor of a rich woman.
Until now Will had never fully seen the chasm between himself
and Dorothea--until now that he was come to the brink of it, and saw
her on the other side. He began, not without some inward rage,
to think of going away from the neighborhood: it would be impossible
for him to show any further interest in Dorothea without subjecting
himself to disagreeable imputations--perhaps even in her mind,
which others might try to poison.
"We are forever divided," said Will. "I might as well be at Rome;
she would be no farther from me." But what we call our despair
is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope. There were
plenty of reasons why he should not go--public reasons why he
should not quit his post at this crisis, leaving Mr. Brooke in the
lurch when he needed "coaching" for the election, and when there
was so much canvassing, direct and indirect, to be carried on.
Will could not like to leave his own chessmen in the heat of a game;
and any candidate on the right side, even if his brain and marrow
had been as soft as was consistent with a gentlemanly bearing,
might help to turn a majority. To coach Mr. Brooke and keep him
steadily to the idea that he must pledge himself to vote for the actual
Reform Bill, instead of insisting on his independence and power
of pulling up in time, was not an easy task. Mr. Farebrother's
prophecy of a fourth candidate "in the bag" had not yet been fulfilled,
neither the Parliamentary Candidate Society nor any other power
on the watch to secure a reforming majority seeing a worthy nodus
for interference while there was a second reforming candidate
like Mr. Brooke, who might be returned at his own expense;
and the fight lay entirely between Pinkerton the old Tory member,
Bagster the new Whig member returned at the last election, and Brooke
the future independent member, who was to fetter himself for this
occasion only. Mr. Hawley and his party would bend all their
forces to the return of Pinkerton, and Mr. Brooke's success must
depend either on plumpers which would leave Bagster in the rear,
or on the new minting of Tory votes into reforming votes.
The latter means, of course, would be preferable.
This prospect of converting votes was a dangerous distraction to
Mr. Brooke: his impression that waverers were likely to be allured
by wavering statements, and also the liability of his mind to stick
afresh at opposing arguments as they turned up in his memory,
gave Will Ladislaw much trouble.
"You know there are tactics in these things," said Mr. Brooke;
"meeting people half-way--tempering your ideas--saying, `Well now,
there's something in that,' and so on. I agree with you that this
is a peculiar occasion--the country with a will of its own--
political unions--that sort of thing--but we sometimes cut with rather
too sharp a knife, Ladislaw. These ten-pound householders, now:
why ten? Draw the line somewhere--yes: but why just at ten?
That's a difficult question, now, if you go into it."
"Of course it is," said Will, impatiently. "But if you are to wait
till we get a logical Bill, you must put yourself forward as
a revolutionist, and then Middlemarch would not elect you, I fancy.
As for trimming, this is not a time for trimming."
Mr. Brooke always ended by agreeing with Ladislaw, who still
appeared to him a sort of Burke with a leaven of Shelley; but after
an interval the wisdom of his own methods reasserted itself,
and he was again drawn into using them with much hopefulness.
At this stage of affairs he was in excellent spirits, which even
supported him under large advances of money; for his powers
of convincing and persuading had not yet been, tested by anything
more difficult than a chairman's speech introducing other orators,
or a dialogue with a Middlemarch voter, from which he came away
with a sense that he was a tactician by nature, and that it
was a pity he had not gone earlier into this kind of thing.
He was a little conscious of defeat, however, with Mr. Mawmsey,
a chief representative in Middlemarch of that great social power,
the retail trader, and naturally one of the most doubtful voters
in the borough--willing for his own part to supply an equal quality
of teas and sugars to reformer and anti-reformer, as well as to agree
impartially with both, and feeling like the burgesses of old that
this necessity of electing members was a great burthen to a town;
for even if there were no danger in holding out hopes to all
parties beforehand, there would be the painful necessity at last
of disappointing respectable people whose names were on his books.
He was accustomed to receive large orders from Mr. Brooke of Tipton;
but then, there were many of Pinkerton's committee whose opinions
had a great weight of grocery on their side. Mr. Mawmsey thinking
that Mr. Brooke, as not too "clever in his intellects," was the more
likely to forgive a grocer who gave a hostile vote under pressure,
had become confidential in his back parlor.
"As to Reform, sir, put it in a family light," he said, rattling the
small silver in his pocket, and smiling affably. "Will it support
Mrs. Mawmsey, and enable her to bring up six children when I am no more?
I put the question FICTIOUSLY, knowing what must be the answer.
Very well, sir. I ask you what, as a husband and a father, I am
to do when gentlemen come to me and say, `Do as you like, Mawmsey;
but if you vote against us, I shall get my groceries elsewhere:
when I sugar my liquor I like to feel that I am benefiting the country
by maintaining tradesmen of the right color.' Those very words have
been spoken to me, sir, in the very chair where you are now sitting.
I don't mean by your honorable self, Mr. Brooke."
"No, no, no--that's narrow, you know. Until my butler complains
to me of your goods, Mr. Mawmsey," said Mr. Brooke, soothingly,
"until I hear that you send bad sugars, spices--that sort of thing--
I shall never order him to go elsewhere."
"Sir, I am your humble servant, and greatly obliged," said Mr. Mawmsey,
feeling that politics were clearing up a little. "There would be some
pleasure in voting for a gentleman who speaks in that honorable manner."
"Well, you know, Mr. Mawmsey, you would find it the right thing to put
yourself on our side. This Reform will touch everybody by-and-by--
a thoroughly popular measure--a sort of A, B, C, you know,
that must come first before the rest can follow. I quite agree
with you that you've got to look at the thing in a family light:
but public spirit, now. We're all one family, you know--
it's all one cupboard. Such a thing as a vote, now: why, it may
help to make men's fortunes at the Cape--there's no knowing
what may be the effect of a vote," Mr. Brooke ended, with a sense
of being a little out at sea, though finding it still enjoyable.
But Mr. Mawmsey answered in a tone of decisive check.
"I beg your pardon, sir, but I can't afford that. When I give a vote
I must know what I am doing; I must look to what will be the effects
on my till and ledger, speaking respectfully. Prices, I'll admit,
are what nobody can know the merits of; and the sudden falls after
you've bought in currants, which are a goods that will not keep--
I've never; myself seen into the ins and outs there; which is a rebuke
to human pride. But as to one family, there's debtor and creditor,
I hope; they're not going to reform that away; else I should vote
for things staying as they are. Few men have less need to cry
for change than I have, personally speaking--that is, for self
and family. I am not one of those who have nothing to lose:
I mean as to respectability both in parish and private business,
and noways in respect of your honorable self and custom, which you
was good enough to say you would not withdraw from me, vote or no vote,
while the article sent in was satisfactory."
After this conversation Mr. Mawmsey went up and boasted to his wife
that he had been rather too many for Brooke of Tipton, and that he
didn't mind so much now about going to the poll.
Mr. Brooke on this occasion abstained from boasting of his tactics
to Ladislaw, who for his part was glad enough to persuade himself
that he had no concern with any canvassing except the purely
argumentative sort, and that he worked no meaner engine than knowledge.
Mr. Brooke, necessarily, had his agents, who understood the nature
of the Middlemarch voter and the means of enlisting his ignorance
on the side of the Bill--which were remarkably similar to the means
of enlisting it on the side against the Bill. Will stopped his ears.
Occasionally Parliament, like the rest of our lives, even to our
eating and apparel, could hardly go on if our imaginations were
too active about processes. There were plenty of dirty-handed men
in the world to do dirty business; and Will protested to himself
that his share in bringing Mr. Brooke through would be quite innocent.
But whether he should succeed in that mode of contributing
to the majority on the right side was very doubtful to him.
He had written out various speeches and memoranda for speeches,
but he had begun to perceive that Mr. Brooke's mind, if it had
the burthen of remembering any train of thought, would let it drop,
run away in search of it, and not easily come back again. To collect
documents is one mode of serving your country, and to remember
the contents of a document is another. No! the only way in which
Mr. Brooke could be coerced into thinking of the right arguments
at the right time was to be well plied with them till they took
up all the room in his brain. But here there was the difficulty
of finding room, so many things having been taken in beforehand.
Mr. Brooke himself observed that his ideas stood rather in his way
when he was speaking.
However, Ladislaw's coaching was forthwith to be put to the test,
for before the day of nomination Mr. Brooke was to explain himself to
the worthy electors of Middlemarch from the balcony of the White Hart,
which looked out advantageously at an angle of the market-place,
commanding a large area in front and two converging streets.
It was a fine May morning, and everything seemed hopeful:
there was some prospect of an understanding between Bagster's
committee and Brooke's, to which Mr. Bulstrode, Mr. Standish
as a Liberal lawyer, and such manufacturers as Mr. Plymdale and
Mr. Vincy, gave a solidity which almost counterbalanced Mr. Hawley
and his associates who sat for Pinkerton at the Green Dragon.
Mr. Brooke, conscious of having weakened the blasts of the "Trumpet"
against him, by his reforms as a landlord in the last half year,
and hearing himself cheered a little as he drove into the town,
felt his heart tolerably light under his buff-colored waistcoat.
But with regard to critical occasions, it often happens that all moments
seem comfortably remote until the last.
"This looks well, eh?" said Mr. Brooke as the crowd gathered.
"I shall have a good audience, at any rate. I like this, now--
this kind of public made up of one's own neighbors, you know."
The weavers and tanners of Middlemarch, unlike Mr. Mawmsey, had never
thought of Mr. Brooke as a neighbor, and were not more attached
to him than if he had been sent in a box from London. But they
listened without much disturbance to the speakers who introduced
the candidate, one of them--a political personage from Brassing,
who came to tell Middlemarch its duty--spoke so fully, that it was
alarming to think what the candidate could find to say after him.
Meanwhile the crowd became denser, and as the political personage
neared the end of his speech, Mr. Brooke felt a remarkable change
in his sensations while he still handled his eye-glass, trifled
with documents before him, and exchanged remarks with his committee,
as a man to whom the moment of summons was indifferent.
"I'll take another glass of sherry, Ladislaw," he said, with an
easy air, to Will, who was close behind him, and presently handed
him the supposed fortifier. It was ill-chosen; for Mr. Brooke
was an abstemious man, and to drink a second glass of sherry
quickly at no great interval from the first was a surprise
to his system which tended to scatter his energies instead of
collecting them Pray pity him: so many English gentlemen make
themselves miserable by speechifying on entirely private grounds!
whereas Mr. Brooke wished to serve his country by standing
for Parliament--which, indeed, may also be done on private grounds,
but being once undertaken does absolutely demand some speechifying.
It was not about the beginning of his speech that Mr. Brooke was at
all anxious; this, he felt sure, would be all right; he should have
it quite pat, cut out as neatly as a set of couplets from Pope.
Embarking would be easy, but the vision of open sea that might
come after was alarming. "And questions, now," hinted the demon
just waking up in his stomach, "somebody may put questions
about the schedules.--Ladislaw," he continued, aloud, "just hand
me the memorandum of the schedules."
When Mr. Brooke presented himself on the balcony, the cheers were
quite loud enough to counterbalance the yells, groans, brayings,
and other expressions of adverse theory, which were so moderate that
Mr. Standish (decidedly an old bird) observed in the ear next to him,
"This looks dangerous, by God! Hawley has got some deeper plan
than this." Still, the cheers were exhilarating, and no candidate
could look more amiable than Mr. Brooke, with the memorandum
in his breast-pocket, his left hand on the rail of the balcony,
and his right trifling with his eye-glass. The striking points
in his appearance were his buff waistcoat, short-clipped blond hair,
and neutral physiognomy. He began with some confidence.
"Gentlemen--Electors of Middlemarch!"
This was so much the right thing that a little pause after it
seemed natural.
"I'm uncommonly glad to be here--I was never so proud and happy
in my life--never so happy, you know."
This was a bold figure of speech, but not exactly the right thing;
for, unhappily, the pat opening had slipped away--even couplets
from Pope may be but "fallings from us, vanishings," when fear
clutches us, and a glass of sherry is hurrying like smoke among
our ideas. Ladislaw, who stood at the window behind the speaker,
thought, "it's all up now. The only chance is that, since the best
thing won't always do, floundering may answer for once." Mr. Brooke,
meanwhile, having lost other clews, fell back on himself and his
qualifications--always an appropriate graceful subject for a candidate.
"I am a close neighbor of yours, my good friends--you've known
me on the bench a good while--I've always gone a good deal into
public questions--machinery, now, and machine-breaking--you're many
of you concerned with machinery, and I've been going into that lately.
It won't do, you know, breaking machines: everything must go on--
trade, manufactures, commerce, interchange of staples--that kind
of thing--since Adam Smith, that must go on. We must look all over
the globe:--`Observation with extensive view,' must look everywhere,
`from China to Peru,' as somebody says--Johnson, I think, `The Rambler,'
you know. That is what I have done up to a certain point--not as far
as Peru; but I've not always stayed at home--I saw it wouldn't do.
I've been in the Levant, where some of your Middlemarch goods go--
and then, again, in the Baltic. The Baltic, now."
Plying among his recollections in this way, Mr. Brooke might have
got along, easily to himself, and would have come back from the
remotest seas without trouble; but a diabolical procedure had been set
up by the enemy. At one and the same moment there had risen above
the shoulders of the crowd, nearly opposite Mr. Brooke, and within
ten yards of him, the effigy of himself: buff-colored waistcoat,
eye-glass, and neutral physiognomy, painted on rag; and there
had arisen, apparently in the air, like the note of the cuckoo,
a parrot-like, Punch-voiced echo of his words. Everybody looked
up at the open windows in the houses at the opposite angles
of the converging streets; but they were either blank, or filled
by laughing listeners. The most innocent echo has an impish mockery
in it when it follows a gravely persistent speaker, and this echo
was not at all innocent; if it did not follow with the precision
of a natural echo, it had a wicked choice of the words it overtook.
By the time it said, "The Baltic, now," the laugh which had been
running through the audience became a general shout, and but for
the sobering effects of party and that great public cause which
the entanglement of things had identified with "Brooke of Tipton,"
the laugh might have caught his committee. Mr. Bulstrode asked,
reprehensively, what the new police was doing; but a voice could not
well be collared, and an attack on the effigy of the candidate would
have been too equivocal, since Hawley probably meant it to be pelted.
Mr. Brooke himself was not in a position to be quickly conscious
of anything except a general slipping away of ideas within himself:
he had even a little singing in the ears, and he was the only person
who had not yet taken distinct account of the echo or discerned the
image of himself. Few things hold the perceptions more thoroughly
captive than anxiety about what we have got to say. Mr. Brooke heard
the laughter; but he had expected some Tory efforts at disturbance,
and he was at this moment additionally excited by the tickling,
stinging sense that his lost exordium was coming back to fetch him
from the Baltic.
"That reminds me," he went on, thrusting a hand into his side-pocket,
with an easy air, "if I wanted a precedent, you know--but we never want
a precedent for the right thing--but there is Chatham, now; I can't
say I should have supported Chatham, or Pitt, the younger Pitt--
he was not a man of ideas, and we want ideas, you know."
"Blast your ideas! we want the Bill," said a loud rough voice
from the crowd below.
Immediately the invisible Punch, who had hitherto followed
Mr. Brooke, repeated, "Blast your ideas! we want the Bill."
The laugh was louder than ever, and for the first time Mr. Brooke
being himself silent, heard distinctly the mocking echo. But it
seemed to ridicule his interrupter, and in that light was encouraging;
so he replied with amenity--
"There is something in what you say, my good friend, and what do we
meet for but to speak our minds--freedom of opinion, freedom of
the press, liberty--that kind of thing? The Bill, now--you shall have
the Bill"--here Mr. Brooke paused a moment to fix on his eye-glass
and take the paper from his breast-pocket, with a sense of being
practical and coming to particulars. The invisible Punch followed:--
"You shall have the Bill, Mr. Brooke, per electioneering contest,
and a seat outside Parliament as delivered, five thousand pounds,
seven shillings, and fourpence."
Mr. Brooke, amid the roars of laughter, turned red, let his eye-glass
fall, and looking about him confusedly, saw the image of himself,
which had come nearer. The next moment he saw it dolorously
bespattered with eggs. His spirit rose a little, and his voice too.
"Buffoonery, tricks, ridicule the test of truth--all that is very
well"--here an unpleasant egg broke on Mr. Brooke's shoulder,
as the echo said, "All that is very well;" then came a hail of eggs,
chiefly aimed at the image, but occasionally hitting the original,
as if by chance. There was a stream of new men pushing among
the crowd; whistles, yells, bellowings, and fifes made all the greater
hubbub because there was shouting and struggling to put them down.
No voice would have had wing enough to rise above the uproar,
and Mr. Brooke, disagreeably anointed, stood his ground no longer.
The frustration would have been less exasperating if it had been
less gamesome and boyish: a serious assault of which the newspaper
reporter "can aver that it endangered the learned gentleman's ribs,"
or can respectfully bear witness to "the soles of that gentleman's boots
having been visible above the railing," has perhaps more consolations
attached to it.
Mr. Brooke re-entered the committee-room, saying, as carelessly
as he could, "This is a little too bad, you know. I should have got
the ear of the people by-and-by--but they didn't give me time.
I should have gone into the Bill by-and-by, you know," he added,
glancing at Ladislaw. "However, things will come all right at
the nomination."
But it was not resolved unanimously that things would come right;
on the contrary, the committee looked rather grim, and the political
personage from Brassing was writing busily, as if he were brewing
new devices.
"It was Bowyer who did it," said Mr. Standish, evasively. "I know
it as well as if he had been advertised. He's uncommonly good
at ventriloquism, and he did it uncommonly well, by God! Hawley has
been having him to dinner lately: there's a fund of talent in Bowyer."
"Well, you know, you never mentioned him to me, Standish, else I
would have invited him to dine," said poor Mr. Brooke, who had gone
through a great deal of inviting for the good of his country.
"There's not a more paltry fellow in Middlemarch than Bowyer,"
said Ladislaw, indignantly, "but it seems as if the paltry fellows
were always to turn the scale."
Will was thoroughly out of temper with himself as well as with his
"principal," and he went to shut himself in his rooms with a half-formed
resolve to throw up the "Pioneer" and Mr. Brooke together.
Why should he stay? If the impassable gulf between himself and
Dorothea were ever to be filled up, it must rather be by his going
away and getting into a thoroughly different position than by staying
here and slipping into deserved contempt as an understrapper of
Brooke's. Then came the young dream of wonders that he might do--
in five years, for example: political writing, political speaking,
would get a higher value now public life was going to be wider and
more national, and they might give him such distinction that he would
not seem to be asking Dorothea to step down to him. Five years:--
if he could only be sure that she cared for him more than for others;
if he could only make her aware that he stood aloof until he could
tell his love without lowering himself--then he could go away easily,
and begin a career which at five-and-twenty seemed probable enough
in the inward order of things, where talent brings fame, and fame
everything else which is delightful. He could speak and he could write;
he could master any subject if he chose, and he meant always to take
the side of reason and justice, on which he would carry all his ardor.
Why should he not one day be lifted above the shoulders of the crowd,
and feel that he had won that eminence well? Without doubt he would
leave Middlemarch, go to town, and make himself fit for celebrity
by "eating his dinners."
But not immediately: not until some kind of sign had passed between
him and Dorothea. He could not be satisfied until she knew why,
even if he were the man she would choose to marry, he would not
marry her. Hence he must keep his post and bear with Mr. Brooke
a little longer.
But he soon had reason to suspect that Mr. Brooke had
anticipated him in the wish to break up their connection.
Deputations without and voices within had concurred in inducing
that philanthropist to take a stronger measure than usual for the
good of mankind; namely, to withdraw in favor of another candidate,
to whom he left the advantages of his canvassing machinery.
He himself called this a strong measure, but observed that
his health was less capable of sustaining excitement than he had imagined.
"I have felt uneasy about the chest--it won't do to carry that too far,"
he said to Ladislaw in explaining the affair. "I must pull up.
Poor Casaubon was a warning, you know. I've made some heavy advances,
but I've dug a channel. It's rather coarse work--this electioneering,
eh, Ladislaw? dare say you are tired of it. However, we have dug
a channel with the `Pioneer'--put things in a track, and so on.
A more ordinary man than you might carry it on now--more ordinary,
you know."
"Do you wish me to give it up?" said Will, the quick color coming
in his face, as he rose from the writing-table, and took a turn
of three steps with his hands in his pockets. "I am ready to do
so whenever you wish it."
"As to wishing, my dear Ladislaw, I have the highest opinion of
your powers, you know. But about the `Pioneer,' I have been consulting
a little with some of the men on our side, and they are inclined to take
it into their hands--indemnify me to a certain extent--carry it on,
in fact. And under the circumstances, you might like to give up--
might find a better field. These people might not take that high view
of you which I have always taken, as an alter ego, a right hand--
though I always looked forward to your doing something else.
I think of having a run into France. But I'll write you any letters,
you know--to Althorpe and people of that kind. I've met Althorpe."
"I am exceedingly obliged to you," said Ladislaw, proudly. "Since you
are going to part with the `Pioneer,' I need not trouble you about
the steps I shall take. I may choose to continue here for the present."
After Mr. Brooke had left him Will said to himself, "The rest
of the family have been urging him to get rid of me, and he
doesn't care now about my going. I shall stay as long as I like.
I shall go of my own movements and not because they are afraid
of me."
CHAPTER LII.
"His heart
The lowliest duties on itself did lay."
--WORDSWORTH.
On that June evening when Mr. Farebrother knew that he was to have
the Lowick living, there was joy in the old fashioned parlor,
and even the portraits of the great lawyers seemed to look on
with satisfaction. His mother left her tea and toast untouched,
but sat with her usual pretty primness, only showing her emotion by
that flush in the cheeks and brightness in the eyes which give an old
woman a touching momentary identity with her far-off youthful self,
and saying decisively--
"The greatest comfort, Camden, is that you have deserved it."
"When a man gets a good berth, mother, half the deserving must
come after," said the son, brimful of pleasure, and not trying
to conceal it. The gladness in his face was of that active kind
which seems to have energy enough not only to flash outwardly,
but to light up busy vision within: one seemed to see thoughts,
as well as delight, in his glances.
"Now, aunt," he went on, rubbing his hands and looking at Miss Noble,
who was making tender little beaver-like noises, "There shall
be sugar-candy always on the table for you to steal and give
to the children, and you shall have a great many new stockings
to make presents of, and you shall darn your own more than ever!"
Miss Noble nodded at her nephew with a subdued half-frightened laugh,
conscious of having already dropped an additional lump of sugar
into her basket on the strength of the new preferment.
"As for you, Winny"--the Vicar went on--"I shall make no difficulty
about your marrying any Lowick bachelor--Mr. Solomon Featherstone,
for example, as soon as I find you are in love with him."
Miss Winifred, who had been looking at her brother all the while
and crying heartily, which was her way of rejoicing, smiled through
her tears and said, "You must set me the example, Cam: YOU
must marry now."
"With all my heart. But who is in love with me? I am a seedy
old fellow," said the Vicar, rising, pushing his chair away
and looking down at himself. "What do you say, mother?"
"You are a handsome man, Camden: though not so fine a figure
of a man as your father," said the old lady.
"I wish you would marry Miss Garth, brother," said Miss Winifred.
"She would make us so lively at Lowick."
"Very fine! You talk as if young women were tied up to be chosen,
like poultry at market; as if I had only to ask and everybody would
have me," said the Vicar, not caring to specify.
"We don't want everybody," said Miss Winifred. "But YOU would
like Miss Garth, mother, shouldn't you?"
"My son's choice shall be mine," said Mrs. Farebrother,
with majestic discretion, "and a wife would be most welcome,
Camden. You will want your whist at home when we go to Lowick,
and Henrietta Noble never was a whist-player." (Mrs. Farebrother
always called her tiny old sister by that magnificent name.)
"I shall do without whist now, mother."
"Why so, Camden? In my time whist was thought an undeniable
amusement for a good churchman," said Mrs. Farebrother, innocent of
the meaning that whist had for her son, and speaking rather sharply,
as at some dangerous countenancing of new doctrine.
"I shall be too busy for whist; I shall have two parishes,"
said the Vicar, preferring not to discuss the virtues of that game.
He had already said to Dorothea, "I don't feel bound to give
up St. Botolph's. It is protest enough against the pluralism
they want to reform if I give somebody else most of the money.
The stronger thing is not to give up power, but to use it well."
"I have thought of that," said Dorothea. "So far as self is concerned,
I think it would be easier to give up power and money than to keep them.
It seems very unfitting that I should have this patronage, yet I
felt that I ought not to let it be used by some one else instead
of me."
"It is I who am bound to act so that you will not regret your power,"
said Mr. Farebrother.
His was one of the natures in which conscience gets the more active
when the yoke of life ceases to gall them. He made no display
of humility on the subject, but in his heart he felt rather ashamed
that his conduct had shown laches which others who did not get
benefices were free from.
"I used often to wish I had been something else than a clergyman,"
he said to Lydgate, "but perhaps it will be better to try and
make as good a clergyman out of myself as I can. That is the
well-beneficed point of view, you perceive, from which difficulties
are much simplified," he ended, smiling.
The Vicar did feel then as if his share of duties would be easy.
But Duty has a trick of behaving unexpectedly--something like a heavy
friend whom we have amiably asked to visit us, and who breaks his leg
within our gates.
Hardly a week later, Duty presented itself in his study under
the disguise of Fred Vincy, now returned from Omnibus College
with his bachelor's degree.
"I am ashamed to trouble you, Mr. Farebrother," said Fred,
whose fair open face was propitiating, "but you are the only
friend I can consult. I told you everything once before,
and you were so good that I can't help coming to you again."
"Sit down, Fred, I'm ready to hear and do anything I can,"
said the Vicar, who was busy packing some small objects for removal,
and went on with his work.
"I wanted to tell you--" Fred hesitated an instant and then went
on plungingly, "I might go into the Church now; and really,
look where I may, I can't see anything else to do. I don't
like it, but I know it's uncommonly hard on my father to say so,
after he has spent a good deal of money in educating me for it."
Fred paused again an instant, and then repeated, "and I can't see
anything else to do."
"I did talk to your father about it, Fred, but I made little way
with him. He said it was too late. But you have got over one
bridge now: what are your other difficulties?"
"Merely that I don't like it. I don't like divinity, and preaching,
and feeling obliged to look serious. I like riding across country,
and doing as other men do. I don't mean that I want to be a bad
fellow in any way; but I've no taste for the sort of thing
people expect of a clergyman. And yet what else am I to do?
My father can't spare me any capital, else I might go into farming.
And he has no room for me in his trade. And of course I can't
begin to study for law or physic now, when my father wants me
to earn something. It's all very well to say I'm wrong to go into
the Church; but those who say so might as well tell me to go into
the backwoods."
Fred's voice had taken a tone of grumbling remonstrance,
and Mr. Farebrother might have been inclined to smile
if his mind had not been too busy in imagining more than Fred told him.
"Have you any difficulties about doctrines--about the Articles?"
he said, trying hard to think of the question simply for Fred's sake.
"No; I suppose the Articles are right. I am not prepared with any
arguments to disprove them, and much better, cleverer fellows than I
am go in for them entirely. I think it would be rather ridiculous
in me to urge scruples of that sort, as if I were a judge,"
said Fred, quite simply.
"I suppose, then, it has occurred to you that you might be a fair
parish priest without being much of a divine?"
"Of course, if I am obliged to be a clergyman, I shall try and do
my duty, though I mayn't like it. Do you think any body ought
to blame me?"
"For going into the Church under the circumstances? That depends
on your conscience, Fred--how far you have counted the cost,
and seen what your position will require of you. I can only tell
you about myself, that I have always been too lax, and have been
uneasy in consequence."
"But there is another hindrance," said Fred, coloring. "I did
not tell you before, though perhaps I may have said things
that made you guess it. There is somebody I am very fond of:
I have loved her ever since we were children."
"Miss Garth, I suppose?" said the Vicar, examining some labels
very closely.
"Yes. I shouldn't mind anything if she would have me. And I know
I could be a good fellow then."
"And you think she returns the feeling?"
"She never will say so; and a good while ago she made me promise not
to speak to her about it again. And she has set her mind especially
against my being a clergyman; I know that. But I can't give her up.
I do think she cares about me. I saw Mrs. Garth last night, and she
said that Mary was staying at Lowick Rectory with Miss Farebrother."
"Yes, she is very kindly helping my sister. Do you wish to go there?"
"No, I want to ask a great favor of you. I am ashamed to bother
you in this way; but Mary might listen to what you said, if you
mentioned the subject to her--I mean about my going into the Church."
"That is rather a delicate task, my dear Fred. I shall have to
presuppose your attachment to her; and to enter on the subject as you
wish me to do, will be asking her to tell me whether she returns it."
"That is what I want her to tell you," said Fred, bluntly. "I don't
know what to do, unless I can get at her feeling."
"You mean that you would be guided by that as to your going into
the Church?"
"If Mary said she would never have me I might as well go wrong
in one way as another."
"That is nonsense, Fred. Men outlive their love, but they don't
outlive the consequences of their recklessness."
"Not my sort of love: I have never been without loving Mary.
If I had to give her up, it would be like beginning to live on
wooden legs."
"Will she not be hurt at my intrusion?"
"No, I feel sure she will not. She respects you more than any one,
and she would not put you off with fun as she does me. Of course I
could not have told any one else, or asked any one else to speak to her,
but you. There is no one else who could be such a friend to both
of us." Fred paused a moment, and then said, rather complainingly,
"And she ought to acknowledge that I have worked in order to pass.
She ought to believe that I would exert myself for her sake."
There was a moment's silence before Mr. Farebrother laid down his work,
and putting out his hand to Fred said--
"Very well, my boy. I will do what you wish."
That very day Mr. Farebrother went to Lowick parsonage on the nag
which he had just set up. "Decidedly I am an old stalk," he thought,
"the young growths are pushing me aside."
He found Mary in the garden gathering roses and sprinkling the petals
on a sheet. The sun was low, and tall trees sent their shadows across
the grassy walks where Mary was moving without bonnet or parasol.
She did not observe Mr. Farebrother's approach along the grass,
and had just stooped down to lecture a small black-and-tan terrier,
which would persist in walking on the sheet and smelling at the
rose-leaves as Mary sprinkled them. She took his fore-paws in one hand,
and lifted up the forefinger of the other, while the dog wrinkled
his brows and looked embarrassed. "Fly, Fly, I am ashamed of you,"
Mary was saying in a grave contralto. "This is not becoming in a
sensible dog; anybody would think you were a silly young gentleman."
"You are unmerciful to young gentlemen, Miss Garth," said the Vicar,
within two yards of her.
Mary started up and blushed. "It always answers to reason with Fly,"
she said, laughingly.
"But not with young gentlemen?"
"Oh, with some, I suppose; since some of them turn into excellent men."
"I am glad of that admission, because I want at this very moment
to interest you in a young gentleman."
"Not a silly one, I hope," said Mary, beginning to pluck
the roses again, and feeling her heart beat uncomfortably.
"No; though perhaps wisdom is not his strong point,
but rather affection and sincerity. However, wisdom lies
more in those two qualities than people are apt to imagine.
I hope you know by those marks what young gentleman I mean."
"Yes, I think I do," said Mary, bravely, her face getting more serious,
and her hands cold; "it must be Fred Vincy."
"He has asked me to consult you about his going into the Church.
I hope you will not think that I consented to take a liberty in
promising to do so."
"On the contrary, Mr. Farebrother," said Mary, giving up the roses,
and folding her arms, but unable to look up, "whenever you have
anything to say to me I feel honored."
"But before I enter on that question, let me just touch a point on
which your father took me into confidence; by the way, it was that
very evening on which I once before fulfilled a mission from Fred,
just after he had gone to college. Mr. Garth told me what happened
on the night of Featherstone's death--how you refused to burn the will;
and he said that you had some heart-prickings on that subject,
because you had been the innocent means of hindering Fred from
getting his ten thousand pounds. I have kept that in mind,
and I have heard something that may relieve you on that score--
may show you that no sin-offering is demanded from you there.".
Mr. Farebrother paused a moment and looked at Mary. He meant
to give Fred his full advantage, but it would be well, he thought,
to clear her mind of any superstitions, such as women sometimes follow
when they do a man the wrong of marrying him as an act of atonement.
Mary's cheeks had begun to burn a little, and she was mute.
"I mean, that your action made no real difference to Fred's lot.
I find that the first will would not have been legally good after the
burning of the last; it would not have stood if it had been disputed,
and you may be sure it would have been disputed. So, on that score,
you may feel your mind free."
"Thank you, Mr. Farebrother," said Mary, earnestly. "I am grateful
to you for remembering my feelings."
"Well, now I may go on. Fred, you know, has taken his degree.
He has worked his way so far, and now the question is, what is
he to do? That question is so difficult that he is inclined to
follow his father's wishes and enter the Church, though you know
better than I do that he was quite set against that formerly.
I have questioned him on the subject, and I confess I see no
insuperable objection to his being a clergyman, as things go.
He says that he could turn his mind to doing his best in that vocation,
on one condition. If that condition were fulfilled I would do my
utmost in helping Fred on. After a time--not, of course, at first--
he might be with me as my curate, and he would have so much to do
that his stipend would be nearly what I used to get as vicar.
But I repeat that there is a condition without which all this good
cannot come to pass. He has opened his heart to me, Miss Garth,
and asked me to plead for him. The condition lies entirely in
your feeling."
Mary looked so much moved, that he said after a moment, "Let us
walk a little;" and when they were walking he added, "To speak
quite plainly, Fred will not take any course which would lessen the
chance that you would consent to be his wife; but with that prospect,
he will try his best at anything you approve."
"I cannot possibly say that I will ever be his wife, Mr. Farebrother:
but I certainly never will be his wife if he becomes a clergyman.
What you say is most generous and kind; I don't mean for a moment
to correct your judgment. It is only that I have my girlish,
mocking way of looking at things," said Mary, with a returning
sparkle of playfulness in her answer which only made its modesty
more charming.
"He wishes me to report exactly what you think," said Mr. Farebrother.
"I could not love a man who is ridiculous," said Mary, not choosing to
go deeper. "Fred has sense and knowledge enough to make him respectable,
if he likes, in some good worldly business, but I can never imagine
him preaching and exhorting, and pronouncing blessings, and praying
by the sick, without feeling as if I were looking at a caricature.
His being a clergyman would be only for gentility's sake, and I think
there is nothing more contemptible than such imbecile gentility.
I used to think that of Mr. Crowse, with his empty face and neat
umbrella, and mincing little speeches. What right have such men
to represent Christianity--as if it were an institution for getting up
idiots genteelly--as if--" Mary checked herself. She had been carried
along as if she had been speaking to Fred instead of Mr. Farebrother.
"Young women are severe: they don't feel the stress of action
as men do, though perhaps I ought to make you an exception there.
But you don't put Fred Vincy on so low a level as that?"
"No, indeed, he has plenty of sense, but I think he would not show
it as a clergyman. He would be a piece of professional affectation."
"Then the answer is quite decided. As a clergyman he could have
no hope?"
Mary shook her head.
"But if he braved all the difficulties of getting his bread
in some other way--will you give him the support of hope?
May he count on winning you?"
"I think Fred ought not to need telling again what I have already
said to him," Mary answered, with a slight resentment in her manner.
"I mean that he ought not to put such questions until he has done
something worthy, instead of saying that he could do it."
Mr. Farebrother was silent for a minute or more, and then, as they
turned and paused under the shadow of a maple at the end of a grassy
walk, said, "I understand that you resist any attempt to fetter you,
but either your feeling for Fred Vincy excludes your entertaining
another attachment, or it does not: either he may count on your
remaining single until he shall have earned your hand, or he may in any
case be disappointed. Pardon me, Mary--you know I used to catechise
you under that name--but when the state of a woman's affections
touches the happiness of another life--of more lives than one--I think
it would be the nobler course for her to be perfectly direct and open."
Mary in her turn was silent, wondering not at Mr. Farebrother's
manner but at his tone, which had a grave restrained emotion in it.
When the strange idea flashed across her that his words had reference
to himself, she was incredulous, and ashamed of entertaining it.
She had never thought that any man could love her except Fred,
who had espoused her with the umbrella ring, when she wore socks
and little strapped shoes; still less that she could be of any
importance to Mr. Farebrother, the cleverest man in her narrow circle.
She had only time to feel that all this was hazy and perhaps illusory;
but one thing was clear and determined--her answer.
"Since you think it my duty, Mr. Farebrother, I will tell you
that I have too strong a feeling for Fred to give him up for any
one else. I should never be quite happy if I thought he was
unhappy for the loss of me. It has taken such deep root in me--
my gratitude to him for always loving me best, and minding so much
if I hurt myself, from the time when we were very little. I cannot
imagine any new feeling coming to make that weaker. I should like
better than anything to see him worthy of every one's respect.
But please tell him I will not promise to marry him till then:
I should shame and grieve my father and mother. He is free to choose
some one else."
"Then I have fulfilled my commission thoroughly,"
said Mr. Farebrother, putting out his hand to Mary,
"and I shall ride back to Middlemarch forthwith. With this
prospect before him, we shall get Fred into the right niche
somehow, and I hope I shall live to join your hands. God bless you!"
"Oh, please stay, and let me give you some tea," said Mary.
Her eyes filled with tears, for something indefinable, something like
the resolute suppression of a pain in Mr. Farebrother's manner,
made her feel suddenly miserable, as she had once felt when she saw
her father's hands trembling in a moment of trouble.
"No, my dear, no. I must get back."
In three minutes the Vicar was on horseback again, having gone
magnanimously through a duty much harder than the renunciation
of whist, or even than the writing of penitential meditations.
CHAPTER LIII.
It is but a shallow haste which concludeth insincerity from what
outsiders call inconsistency--putting a dead mechanism of "ifs"
and "therefores" for the living myriad of hidden suckers whereby
the belief and the conduct are wrought into mutual sustainment.
Mr. Bulstrode, when he was hoping to acquire a new interest in Lowick,
had naturally had an especial wish that the new clergyman should be one
whom he thoroughly approved; and he believed it to be a chastisement
and admonition directed to his own shortcomings and those of the nation
at large, that just about the time when he came in possession of the
deeds which made him the proprietor of Stone Court, Mr. Farebrother
"read himself" into the quaint little church and preached his first
sermon to the congregation of farmers, laborers, and village artisans.
It was not that Mr. Bulstrode intended to frequent Lowick Church
or to reside at Stone Court for a good while to come: he had
bought the excellent farm and fine homestead simply as a retreat
which he might gradually enlarge as to the land and beautify as
to the dwelling, until it should be conducive to the divine glory
that he should enter on it as a residence, partially withdrawing
from his present exertions in the administration of business,
and throwing more conspicuously on the side of Gospel truth the weight
of local landed proprietorship, which Providence might increase by
unforeseen occasions of purchase. A strong leading in this direction
seemed to have been given in the surprising facility of getting
Stone Court, when every one had expected that Mr. Rigg Featherstone
would have clung to it as the Garden of Eden. That was what poor
old Peter himself had expected; having often, in imagination,
looked up through the sods above him, and, unobstructed by.
perspective, seen his frog-faced legatee enjoying the fine
old place to the perpetual surprise and disappointment of other survivors.
But how little we know what would make paradise for our neighbors!
We judge from our own desires, and our neighbors themselves
are not always open enough even to throw out a hint of theirs.
The cool and judicious Joshua Rigg had not allowed his parent
to perceive that Stone Court was anything less than the chief good
in his estimation, and he had certainly wished to call it his own.
But as Warren Hastings looked at gold and thought of buying Daylesford,
so Joshua Rigg looked at Stone Court and thought of buying gold.
He had a very distinct and intense vision of his chief good,
the vigorous greed which he had inherited having taken a special form
by dint of circumstance: and his chief good was to be a moneychanger.
From his earliest employment as an errand-boy in a seaport,
he had looked through the windows of the moneychangers as other
boys look through the windows of the pastry-cooks; the fascination
had wrought itself gradually into a deep special passion; he meant,
when he had property, to do many things, one of them being to marry
a genteel young person; but these were all accidents and joys that
imagination could dispense with. The one joy after which his soul
thirsted was to have a money-changer's shop on a much-frequented quay,
to have locks all round him of which he held the keys, and to look
sublimely cool as he handled the breeding coins of all nations,
while helpless Cupidity looked at him enviously from the other side
of an iron lattice. The strength of that passion had been a power
enabling him to master all the knowledge necessary to gratify it.
And when others were thinking that he had settled at Stone Court for life,
Joshua himself was thinking that the moment now was not far off when he
should settle on the North Quay with the best appointments in safes
and locks.
Enough. We are concerned with looking at Joshua Rigg's sale of his
land from Mr. Bulstrode's point of view, and he interpreted it
as a cheering dispensation conveying perhaps a sanction to a purpose
which he had for some time entertained without external encouragement;
he interpreted it thus, but not too confidently, offering up his
thanksgiving in guarded phraseology. His doubts did not arise from the
possible relations of the event to Joshua Rigg's destiny, which belonged
to the unmapped regions not taken under the providential government,
except perhaps in an imperfect colonial way; but they arose from
reflecting that this dispensation too might be a chastisement
for himself, as Mr. Farebrother's induction to the living clearly was.
This was not what Mr. Bulstrode said to any man for the sake of
deceiving him: it was what he said to himself--it was as genuinely
his mode of explaining events as any theory of yours may be,
if you happen to disagree with him. For the egoism which enters
into our theories does not affect their sincerity; rather, the more
our egoism is satisfied, the more robust is our belief.
However, whether for sanction or for chastisement, Mr. Bulstrode,
hardly fifteen months after the death of Peter Featherstone,
had become the proprietor of Stone Court, and what Peter would
say "if he were worthy to know," had become an inexhaustible and
consolatory subject of conversation to his disappointed relatives.
The tables were now turned on that dear brother departed,
and to contemplate the frustration of his cunning by the superior
cunning of things in general was a cud of delight to Solomon.
Mrs. Waule had a melancholy triumph in the proof that it did
not answer to make false Featherstones and cut off the genuine;
and Sister Martha receiving the news in the Chalky Flats said,
"Dear, dear! then the Almighty could have been none so pleased
with the almshouses after all."
Affectionate Mrs. Bulstrode was particularly glad of the advantage
which her husband's health was likely to get from the purchase of
Stone Court. Few days passed without his riding thither and looking
over some part of the farm with the bailiff, and the evenings were
delicious in that quiet spot, when the new hay-ricks lately set up were
sending forth odors to mingle with the breath of the rich old garden.
One evening, while the sun was still above the horizon and burning
in golden lamps among the great walnut boughs, Mr. Bulstrode was
pausing on horseback outside the front gate waiting for Caleb Garth,
who had met him by appointment to give an opinion on a question
of stable drainage, and was now advising the bailiff in the rick-yard.
Mr. Bulstrode was conscious of being in a good spiritual frame and more
than usually serene, under the influence of his innocent recreation.
He was doctrinally convinced that there was a total absence of merit
in himself; but that doctrinal conviction may be held without pain
when the sense of demerit does not take a distinct shape in memory
and revive the tingling of shame or the pang of remorse. Nay, it may
be held with intense satisfaction when the depth of our sinning
is but a measure for the depth of forgiveness, and a clenching
proof that we are peculiar instruments of the divine intention.
The memory has as many moods as the temper, and shifts its scenery
like a diorama. At this moment Mr. Bulstrode felt as if the
sunshine were all one with that of far-off evenings when he was
a very young man and used to go out preaching beyond Highbury.
And he would willingly have had that service of exhortation
in prospect now. The texts were there still, and so was his own
facility in expounding them. His brief reverie was interrupted
by the return of Caleb Garth, who also was on horseback,
and was just shaking his bridle before starting, when he exclaimed--
"Bless my heart! what's this fellow in black coming along the lane?
He's like one of those men one sees about after the races."
Mr. Bulstrode turned his horse and looked along the lane, but made
no reply. The comer was our slight acquaintance Mr. Raffles,
whose appearance presented no other change than such as was due
to a suit of black and a crape hat-band. He was within three yards
of the horseman now, and they could see the flash of recognition
in his face as he whirled his stick upward, looking all the while
at Mr. Bulstrode, and at last exclaiming:--
"By Jove, Nick, it's you! I couldn't be mistaken, though the
five-and-twenty years have played old Boguy with us both! How are you,
eh? you didn't expect to see ME here. Come, shake us by the hand."
To say that Mr. Raffles' manner was rather excited would be only
one mode of saying that it was evening. Caleb Garth could see
that there was a moment of struggle and hesitation in Mr. Bulstrode,
but it ended in his putting out his hand coldly to Raffles and saying--
"I did not indeed expect to see you in this remote country place."
"Well, it belongs to a stepson of mine," said Raffles, adjusting himself
in a swaggering attitude. "I came to see him here before. I'm not
so surprised at seeing you, old fellow, because I picked up a letter--
what you may call a providential thing. It's uncommonly fortunate
I met you, though; for I don't care about seeing my stepson:
he's not affectionate, and his poor mother's gone now. To tell
the truth, I came out of love to you, Nick: I came to get your
address, for--look here!" Raffles drew a crumpled paper from his pocket.
Almost any other man than Caleb Garth might have been tempted to
linger on the spot for the sake of hearing all he could about a man
whose acquaintance with Bulstrode seemed to imply passages in the
banker's life so unlike anything that was known of him in Middlemarch
that they must have the nature of a secret to pique curiosity.
But Caleb was peculiar: certain human tendencies which are commonly
strong were almost absent from his mind; and one of these was
curiosity about personal affairs. Especially if there was anything
discreditable to be found out concerning another man, Caleb preferred
not to know it; and if he had to tell anybody under him that his evil
doings were discovered, he was more embarrassed than the culprit.
He now spurred his horse, and saying, "I wish you good evening,
Mr. Bulstrode; I must be getting home," set off at a trot.
"You didn't put your full address to this letter," Raffles continued.
"That was not like the first-rate man of business you used to be.
`The Shrubs,'--they may be anywhere: you live near at hand, eh?--
have cut the London concern altogether--perhaps turned country squire--
have a rural mansion to invite me to. Lord, how many years it is ago!
The old lady must have been dead a pretty long while--gone to glory
without the pain of knowing how poor her daughter was, eh? But, by Jove!
you're very pale and pasty, Nick. Come, if you're going home,
I'll walk by your side."
Mr. Bulstrode's usual paleness had in fact taken an almost deathly hue.
Five minutes before, the expanse of his life had been submerged in its
evening sunshine which shone backward to its remembered morning:
sin seemed to be a question of doctrine and inward penitence,
humiliation an exercise of the closet, the bearing of his deeds a matter
of private vision adjusted solely by spiritual relations and conceptions
of the divine purposes. And now, as if by some hideous magic,
this loud red figure had risen before him in unmanageable solidity--
an incorporate past which had not entered into his imagination
of chastisements. But Mr. Bulstrode's thought was busy, and he
was not a man to act or speak rashly.
"I was going home," he said, "but I can defer my ride a little.
And you can, if you please, rest here."
"Thank you," said Raffles, making a grimace. "I don't care now
about seeing my stepson. I'd rather go home with you."
"Your stepson, if Mr. Rigg Featherstone was he, is here no longer.
I am master here now."
Raffles opened wide eyes, and gave a long whistle of surprise,
before he said, "Well then, I've no objection. I've had enough walking
from the coach-road. I never was much of a walker, or rider either.
What I like is a smart vehicle and a spirited cob. I was always
a little heavy in the saddle. What a pleasant surprise it must be
to you to see me, old fellow!" he continued, as they turned towards
the house. "You don't say so; but you never took your luck heartily--
you were always thinking of improving the occasion--you'd such a gift
for improving your luck."
Mr. Raffles seemed greatly to enjoy his own wit, and Swung his leg
in a swaggering manner which was rather too much for his companion's
judicious patience.
"If I remember rightly," Mr. Bulstrode observed, with chill anger,
"our acquaintance many years ago had not the sort of intimacy
which you are now assuming, Mr. Raffles. Any services you desire
of me will be the more readily rendered if you will avoid a tone
of familiarity which did not lie in our former intercourse, and can
hardly be warranted by more than twenty years of separation."
"You don't like being called Nick? Why, I always called you
Nick in my heart, and though lost to sight, to memory dear.
By Jove! my feelings have ripened for you like fine old cognac.
I hope you've got some in the house now. Josh filled my flask well
the last time."
Mr. Bulstrode had not yet fully learned that even the desire
for cognac was not stronger in Raffles than the desire to torment,
and that a hint of annoyance always served him as a fresh cue.
But it was at least clear that further objection was useless,
and Mr. Bulstrode, in giving orders to the housekeeper for the
accommodation of the guest, had a resolute air of quietude.
There was the comfort of thinking that this housekeeper had been in
the service of Rigg also, and might accept the idea that Mr. Bulstrode
entertained Raffles merely as a friend of her former master.
When there was food and drink spread before his visitor in the
wainscoted parlor, and no witness in the room, Mr. Bulstrode said--
"Your habits and mine are so different, Mr. Raffles, that we can
hardly enjoy each other's society. The wisest plan for both of us
will therefore be to part as soon as possible. Since you say
that you wished to meet me, you probably considered that you had
some business to transact with me. But under the circumstances I
will invite you to remain here for the night, and I will myself
ride over here early to-morrow morning--before breakfast, in fact,
when I can receive any Communication you have to make to me."
"With all my heart," said Raffles; "this is a comfortable place--
a little dull for a continuance; but I can put up with it for
a night, with this good liquor and the prospect of seeing you again
in the morning. You're a much better host than my stepson was;
but Josh owed me a bit of a grudge for marrying his mother;
and between you and me there was never anything but kindness."
Mr. Bulstrode, hoping that the peculiar mixture of joviality
and sneering in Raffles' manner was a good deal the effect
of drink, had determined to wait till he was quite sober before
he spent more words upon him. But he rode home with a terribly
lucid vision of the difficulty there would be in arranging
any result that could be permanently counted on with this man.
It was inevitable that he should wish to get rid of John Raffles,
though his reappearance could not be regarded as lying outside
the divine plan. The spirit of evil might have sent him to threaten
Mr. Bulstrode's subversion as an instrument of good; but the threat
must have been permitted, and was a chastisement of a new kind.
It was an hour of anguish for him very different from the hours
in which his struggle had been securely private, and which had
ended with a sense that his secret misdeeds were pardoned and his
services accepted. Those misdeeds even when committed--had they
not been half sanctified by the singleness of his desire to devote
himself and all he possessed to the furtherance of the divine scheme?
And was he after all to become a mere stone of stumbling and a
rock of offence? For who would understand the work within him?
Who would not, when there was the pretext of casting disgrace
upon him, confound his whole life and the truths he had espoused,
in one heap of obloquy?
In his closest meditations the life-long habit of Mr. Bulstrode's
mind clad his most egoistic terrors in doctrinal references
to superhuman ends. But even while we are talking and meditating
about the earth's orbit and the solar system, what we feel and
adjust our movements to is the stable earth and the changing day.
And now within all the automatic succession of theoretic phrases--
distinct and inmost as the shiver and the ache of oncoming fever
when we are discussing abstract pain, was the forecast of disgrace
in the presence of his neighbors and of his own wife. For the pain,
as well as the public estimate of disgrace, depends on the amount
of previous profession. To men who only aim at escaping felony,
nothing short of the prisoner's dock is disgrace. But Mr. Bulstrode
had aimed at being an eminent Christian.
It was not more than half-past seven in the morning when he again
reached Stone Court. The fine old place never looked more like a
delightful home than at that moment; the great white lilies were
in flower, the nasturtiums, their pretty leaves all silvered with dew,
were running away over the low stone wall; the very noises all
around had a heart of peace within them. But everything was spoiled
for the owner as he walked on the gravel in front and awaited
the descent of Mr. Raffles, with whom he was condemned to breakfast.
It was not long before they were seated together in the wainscoted
parlor over their tea and toast, which was as much as Raffles cared
to take at that early hour. The difference between his morning
and evening self was not so great as his companion had imagined
that it might be; the delight in tormenting was perhaps even the
stronger because his spirits were rather less highly pitched.
Certainly his manners seemed more disagreeable by the morning light.
"As I have little time to spare, Mr. Raffles," said the banker,
who could hardly do more than sip his tea and break his toast
without eating it, "I shall be obliged if you will mention at once
the ground on which you wished to meet with me. I presume that you
have a home elsewhere and will be glad to return to it."
"Why, if a man has got any heart, doesn't he want to see an
old friend, Nick?--I must call you Nick--we always did call you
young Nick when we knew you meant to marry the old widow. Some said
you had a handsome family likeness to old Nick, but that was your
mother's fault, calling you Nicholas. Aren't you glad to see me again?
I expected an invite to stay with you at some pretty place. My own
establishment is broken up now my wife's dead. I've no particular
attachment to any spot; I would as soon settle hereabout as anywhere."
"May I ask why you returned from America? I considered that the strong
wish you expressed to go there, when an adequate sum was furnished,
was tantamount to an engagement that you would remain there for life."
"Never knew that a wish to go to a place was the same thing as a
wish to stay. But I did stay a matter of ten years; it didn't
suit me to stay any longer. And I'm not going again, Nick."
Here Mr. Raffles winked slowly as he looked at Mr. Bulstrode.
"Do you wish to be settled in any business? What is your calling now?"
"Thank you, my calling is to enjoy myself as much as I can.
I don't care about working any more. If I did anything it would be
a little travelling in the tobacco line--or something of that sort,
which takes a man into agreeable company. But not without
an independence to fall back upon. That's what I want: I'm not
so strong as I was, Nick, though I've got more color than you.
I want an independence."
"That could be supplied to you, if you would engage to keep at
a distance," said Mr. Bulstrode, perhaps with a little too much
eagerness in his undertone.
"That must be as it suits my convenience," said Raffles coolly. "I see
no reason why I shouldn't make a few acquaintances hereabout. I'm not
ashamed of myself as company for anybody. I dropped my portmanteau at
the turnpike when I got down--change of linen--genuine--honor bright--
more than fronts and wristbands; and with this suit of mourning,
straps and everything, I should do you credit among the nobs here."
Mr. Raffles had pushed away hit chair and looked down at himself,
particularly at his straps His chief intention was to annoy Bulstrode,
but he really thought that his appearance now would produce
a good effect, and that he was not only handsome and witty,
but clad in a mourning style which implied solid connections.
"If you intend to rely on me in any way, Mr. Raffles," said Bulstrode,
after a moment's pause, "you will expect to meet my wishes."
"Ah, to be sure," said Raffles, with a mocking cordiality.
"Didn't I always do it? Lord, you made a pretty thing out of me,
and I got but little. I've often thought since, I might have done
better by telling the old woman that I'd found her daughter and
her grandchild: it would have suited my feelings better; I've got
a soft place in my heart. But you've buried the old lady by this time,
I suppose--it's all one to her now. And you've got your fortune
out of that profitable business which had such a blessing on it.
You've taken to being a nob, buying land, being a country bashaw.
Still in the Dissenting line, eh? Still godly? Or taken to the Church
as more genteel?"
This time Mr. Raffles' slow wink and slight protrusion of his
tongue was worse than a nightmare, because it held the certitude
that it was not a nightmare, but a waking misery. Mr. Bulstrode
felt a shuddering nausea, and did not speak, but was considering
diligently whether he should not leave Raffles to do as he would,
and simply defy him as a slanderer. The man would soon show
himself disreputable enough to make people disbelieve him.
"But not when he tells any ugly-looking truth about YOU,"
said discerning consciousness. And again: it seemed no wrong to keep
Raffles at a distance, but Mr. Bulstrode shrank from the direct
falsehood of denying true statements. It was one thing to look back on
forgiven sins, nay, to explain questionable conformity to lax customs,
and another to enter deliberately on the necessity of falsehood.
But since Bulstrode did not speak, Raffles ran on, by way of using
time to the utmost.
"I've not had such fine luck as you, by Jove! Things went
confoundedly with me in New York; those Yankees are cool hands,
and a man of gentlemanly feelings has no chance with them. I married
when I came back--a nice woman in the tobacco trade--very fond of me--
but the trade was restricted, as we say. She had been settled
there a good many years by a friend; but there was a son too much
in the case. Josh and I never hit it off. However, I made the most
of the position, and I've always taken my glass in good company.
It's been all on the square with me; I'm as open as the day.
You won't take it ill of me that I didn't look you up before.
I've got a complaint that makes me a little dilatory. I thought you were
trading and praying away in London still, and didn't find you there.
But you see I was sent to you, Nick--perhaps for a blessing to both
of us."
Mr. Raffles ended with a jocose snuffle: no man felt his intellect
more superior to religious cant. And if the cunning which calculates
on the meanest feelings in men could be, called intellect, he had
his share, for under the blurting rallying tone with which he
spoke to Bulstrode, there was an evident selection of statements,
as if they had been so many moves at chess. Meanwhile Bulstrode
had determined on his move, and he said, with gathered resolution--
"You will do well to reflect, Mr. Raffles, that it is possible for a
man to overreach himself in the effort to secure undue advantage.
Although I am not in any way bound to you, I am willing to supply
you with a regular annuity--in quarterly payments--so long as you
fulfil a promise to remain at a distance from this neighborhood.
It is in your power to choose. If you insist on remaining here,
even for a short time, you will get nothing from me. I shall decline
to know you."
"Ha, ha!" said Raffles, with an affected explosion, "that reminds
me of a droll dog of a thief who declined to know the constable."
"Your allusions are lost on me sir," said Bulstrode, with white heat;
"the law has no hold on me either through your agency or any other."
"You can't understand a joke, my good fellow. I only meant
that I should never decline to know you. But let us be serious.
Your quarterly payment won't quite suit me. I like my freedom."
Here Raffles rose and stalked once or twice up and down the room,
swinging his leg, and assuming an air of masterly meditation.
At last he stopped opposite Bulstrode, and said, "I'll tell
you what! Give us a couple of hundreds--come, that's modest--
and I'll go away--honor bright!--pick up my portmanteau and go away.
But I shall not give up my Liberty for a dirty annuity. I shall
come and go where I like. Perhaps it may suit me to stay away,
and correspond with a friend; perhaps not. Have you the money
with you?"
"No, I have one hundred," said Bulstrode, feeling the immediate riddance
too great a relief to be rejected on the ground of future uncertainties.
"I will forward you the other if you will mention an address."
"No, I'll wait here till you bring it," said Raffles. "I'll take
a stroll and have a snack, and you'll be back by that time."
Mr. Bulstrode's sickly body, shattered by the agitations he
had gone through since the last evening, made him feel abjectly
in the power of this loud invulnerable man. At that moment
he snatched at a temporary repose to be won on any terms.
He was rising to do what Raffles suggested, when the latter said,
lifting up his finger as if with a sudden recollection--
"I did have another look after Sarah again, though I didn't
tell you; I'd a tender conscience about that pretty young woman.
I didn't find her, but I found out her husband's name, and I made
a note of it. But hang it, I lost my pocketbook. However, if I
heard it, I should know it again. I've got my faculties as if I
was in my prime, but names wear out, by Jove! Sometimes I'm no
better than a confounded tax-paper before the names are filled in.
However, if I hear of her and her family, you shall know, Nick.
You'd like to do something for her, now she's your step-daughter."
"Doubtless," said Mr. Bulstrode, with the usual steady look of his
light-gray eyes; "though that might reduce my power of assisting you."
As he walked out of the room, Raffles winked slowly at his back,
and then turned towards the window to watch the banker riding away--
virtually at his command. His lips first curled with a smile and then
opened with a short triumphant laugh.
"But what the deuce was the name?" he presently said, half aloud,
scratching his head, and wrinkling his brows horizontally. He had
not really cared or thought about this point of forgetfulness until
it occurred to him in his invention of annoyances for Bulstrode.
"It began with L; it was almost all l's I fancy," he went on,
with a sense that he was getting hold of the slippery name.
But the hold was too slight, and he soon got tired of this mental chase;
for few men were more impatient of private occupation or more
in need of making themselves continually heard than Mr. Raffles.
He preferred using his time in pleasant conversation with the bailiff
and the housekeeper, from whom he gathered as much as he wanted to
know about Mr. Bulstrode's position in Middlemarch.
After all, however, there was a dull space of time which needed relieving
with bread and cheese and ale, and when he was seated alone with these
resources in the wainscoted parlor, he suddenly slapped his knee,
and exclaimed, "Ladislaw!" That action of memory which he had tried
to set going, and had abandoned in despair, had suddenly completed
itself without conscious effort--a common experience, agreeable as
a completed sneeze, even if the name remembered is of no value.
Raffles immediately took out his pocket-book, and wrote down the name,
not because he expected to use it, but merely for the sake of not
being at a loss if he ever did happen to want it. He was not going
to tell Bulstrode: there was no actual good in telling, and to
a mind like that of Mr. Raffles there is always probable good in a secret.
He was satisfied with his present success, and by three o'clock that day
he had taken up his portmanteau at the turnpike and mounted the coach,
relieving Mr. Bulstrode's eyes of an ugly black spot on the landscape
at Stone Court, but not relieving him of the dread that the black spot
might reappear and become inseparable even from the vision of his hearth.
BOOK VI.
THE WIDOW AND THE WIFE.
CHAPTER LIV.
"Negli occhi porta la mia donna Amore;
Per che si fa gentil eio ch'ella mira:
Ov'ella passa, ogni uom ver lei si gira,
E cui saluta fa tremar lo core.
Sicche, bassando il viso, tutto smore,
E d'ogni suo difetto allor sospira:
Fuggon dinanzi a lei Superbia ed Ira:
Aiutatemi, donne, a farle onore.
Ogni dolcezza, ogni pensiero umile
Nasee nel core a chi parlar la sente;
Ond' e beato chi prima la vide.
Quel ch'ella par quand' un poco sorride,
Non si pub dicer, ne tener a mente,
Si e nuovo miracolo gentile."
--DANTE: la Vita Nuova.
By that delightful morning when the hay-ricks at Stone Court were
scenting the air quite impartially, as if Mr. Raffles had been
a guest worthy of finest incense, Dorothea had again taken up
her abode at Lowick Manor. After three months Freshitt had become
rather oppressive: to sit like a model for Saint Catherine looking
rapturously at Celia's baby would not do for many hours in the day,
and to remain in that momentous babe's presence with persistent
disregard was a course that could not have been tolerated in a
childless sister. Dorothea would have been capable of carrying
baby joyfully for a mile if there had been need, and of loving
it the more tenderly for that labor; but to an aunt who does not
recognize her infant nephew as Bouddha, and has nothing to do for him but
to admire, his behavior is apt to appear monotonous, and the interest
of watching him exhaustible. This possibility was quite hidden
from Celia, who felt that Dorothea's childless widowhood fell in quite
prettily with the birth of little Arthur (baby was named after Mr. Brooke).
"Dodo is just the creature not to mind about having anything of her own--
children or anything!" said Celia to her husband. "And if she
had had a baby, it never could have been such a dear as Arthur.
Could it, James?
"Not if it had been like Casaubon," said Sir James, conscious of
some indirectness in his answer, and of holding a strictly private
opinion as to the perfections of his first-born.
"No! just imagine! Really it was a mercy," said Celia; "and I think
it is very nice for Dodo to be a widow. She can be just as fond
of our baby as if it were her own, and she can have as many notions
of her own as she likes."
"It is a pity she was not a queen," said the devout Sir James.
"But what should we have been then? We must have been something else,"
said Celia, objecting to so laborious a flight of imagination.
"I like her better as she is."
Hence, when she found that Dorothea was making arrangements for her final
departure to Lowick, Celia raised her eyebrows with disappointment,
and in her quiet unemphatic way shot a needle-arrow of sarcasm.
"What will you do at Lowick, Dodo? You say yourself there is
nothing to be done there: everybody is so clean and well off,
it makes you quite melancholy. And here you have been so happy
going all about Tipton with Mr. Garth into the worst backyards.
And now uncle is abroad, you and Mr. Garth can have it all your own way;
and I am sure James does everything you tell him."
"I shall often come here, and I shall see how baby grows all
the better," said Dorothea.
"But you will never see him washed," said Celia; "and that is quite
the best part of the day." She was almost pouting: it did seem
to her very hard in Dodo to go away from the baby when she might stay.
"Dear Kitty, I will come and stay all night on purpose,"
said Dorothea; "but I want to be alone now, and in my own home.
I wish to know the Farebrothers better, and to talk to Mr. Farebrother
about what there is to be done in Middlemarch."
Dorothea's native strength of will was no longer all converted into
resolute submission. She had a great yearning to be at Lowick,
and was simply determined to go, not feeling bound to tell all
her reasons. But every one around her disapproved. Sir James was
much pained, and offered that they should all migrate to Cheltenham
for a few months with the sacred ark, otherwise called a cradle:
at that period a man could hardly know what to propose if Cheltenham
were rejected.
The Dowager Lady Chettam, just returned from a visit to her daughter
in town, wished, at least, that Mrs. Vigo should be written to,
and invited to accept the office of companion to Mrs. Casaubon:
it was not credible that Dorothea as a young widow would think
of living alone in the house at Lowick. Mrs. Vigo had been reader
and secretary to royal personages, and in point of knowledge and
sentiments even Dorothea could have nothing to object to her.
Mrs. Cadwallader said, privately, "You will certainly go mad in
that house alone, my dear. You will see visions. We have all got
to exert ourselves a little to keep sane, and call things by the same
names as other people call them by. To be sure, for younger sons
and women who have no money, it is a sort of provision to go mad:
they are taken care of then. But you must not run into that.
I dare say you are a little bored here with our good dowager;
but think what a bore you might become yourself to your fellow-creatures
if you were always playing tragedy queen and taking things sublimely.
Sitting alone in that library at Lowick you may fancy yourself
ruling the weather; you must get a few people round you who wouldn't
believe you if you told them. That is a good lowering medicine."
"I never called everything by the same name that all the people
about me did," said Dorothea, stoutly.
"But I suppose you have found out your mistake, my dear,"
said Mrs. Cadwallader, "and that is a proof of sanity."
Dorothea was aware of the sting, but it did not hurt her.
"No," she said, "I still think that the greater part of the world
is mistaken about many things. Surely one may be sane and yet
think so, since the greater part of the world has often had to come
round from its opinion."
Mrs. Cadwallader said no more on that point to Dorothea, but to her
husband she remarked, "It will be well for her to marry again as soon
as it is proper, if one could get her among the right people.
Of course the Chettams would not wish it. But I see clearly
a husband is the best thing to keep her in order. If we were not
so poor I would invite Lord Triton. He will be marquis some day,
and there is no denying that she would make a good marchioness:
she looks handsomer than ever in her mourning."
"My dear Elinor, do let the poor woman alone. Such contrivances
are of no use," said the easy Rector.
"No use? How are matches made, except by bringing men and
women together? And it is a shame that her uncle should have run
away and shut up the Grange just now. There ought to be plenty
of eligible matches invited to Freshitt and the Grange. Lord Triton
is precisely the man: full of plans for making the people happy
in a soft-headed sort of way. That would just suit Mrs. Casaubon."
"Let Mrs. Casaubon choose for herself, Elinor."
"That is the nonsense you wise men talk! How can she choose
if she has no variety to choose from? A woman's choice usually
means taking the only man she can get. Mark my words, Humphrey.
If her friends don't exert themselves, there will be a worse
business than the Casaubon business yet."
"For heaven's sake don't touch on that topic, Elinor! It is a
very sore point with Sir James He would be deeply offended if you
entered on it to him unnecessarily."
"I have never entered on it," said Mrs Cadwallader, opening her hands.
"Celia told me all about the will at the beginning, without any
asking of mine."
"Yes, yes; but they want the thing hushed up, and I understand
that the young fellow is going out of the neighborhood."
Mrs. Cadwallader said nothing, but gave her husband three
significant nods, with a very sarcastic expression in her dark eyes.
Dorothea quietly persisted in spite of remonstrance and persuasion.
So by the end of June the shutters were all opened at Lowick Manor,
and the morning gazed calmly into the library, shining on the rows
of note-books as it shines on the weary waste planted with huge
stones, the mute memorial of a forgotten faith; and the evening
laden with roses entered silently into the blue-green boudoir
where Dorothea chose oftenest to sit. At first she walked into
every room, questioning the eighteen months of her married life,
and carrying on her thoughts as if they were a speech to be heard
by her husband. Then, she lingered in the library and could not
be at rest till she had carefully ranged all the note-books as she
imagined that he would wish to see them, in orderly sequence.
The pity which had been the restraining compelling motive in her life
with him still clung about his image, even while she remonstrated
with him in indignant thought and told him that he was unjust.
One little act of hers may perhaps be smiled at as superstitious.
The Synoptical Tabulation for the use of Mrs. Casaubon, she
carefully enclosed and sealed, writing within the envelope,
"I could not use it. Do you not see now that I could not submit
my soul to yours, by working hopelessly at what I have no belief
in--Dorothea?" Then she deposited the paper in her own desk.
That silent colloquy was perhaps only the more earnest because underneath
and through it all there was always the deep longing which had really
determined her to come to Lowick. The longing was to see Will Ladislaw.
She did not know any good that could come of their meeting:
she was helpless; her hands had been tied from making up to him
for any unfairness in his lot. But her soul thirsted to see him.
How could it be otherwise? If a princess in the days of enchantment
had seen a four-footed creature from among those which live in herds
come to her once and again with a human gaze which rested upon her
with choice and beseeching, what would she think of in her journeying,
what would she look for when the herds passed her? Surely for
the gaze which had found her, and which she would know again.
Life would be no better than candle-light tinsel and daylight
rubbish if our spirits were not touched by what has been, to issues
of longing and constancy. It was true that Dorothea wanted to know
the Farebrothers better, and especially to talk to the new rector,
but also true that remembering what Lydgate had told her about
Will Ladislaw and little Miss Noble, she counted on Will's coming
to Lowick to see the Farebrother family. The very first Sunday,
BEFORE she entered the church, she saw him as she had seen
him the last time she was there, alone in the clergyman's pew;
but WHEN she entered his figure was gone.
In the week-days when she went to see the ladies at the Rectory,
she listened in vain for some word that they might let fall about Will;
but it seemed to her that Mrs. Farebrother talked of every one else
in the neighborhood and out of it.
"Probably some of Mr. Farebrother's Middlemarch hearers may follow
him to Lowick sometimes. Do you not think so?" said Dorothea,
rather despising herself for having a secret motive in asking
the question.
"If they are wise they will, Mrs. Casaubon," said the old lady.
"I see that you set a right value on my son's preaching. His grandfather
on my side was an excellent clergyman, but his father was in the law:--
most exemplary and honest nevertheless, which is a reason for our
never being rich. They say Fortune is a woman and capricious.
But sometimes she is a good woman and gives to those who merit,
which has been the case with you, Mrs. Casaubon, who have given a
living to my son."
Mrs. Farebrother recurred to her knitting with a dignified satisfaction
in her neat little effort at oratory, but this was not what Dorothea
wanted to hear. Poor thing! she did not even know whether Will Ladislaw
was still at Middlemarch, and there was no one whom she dared to ask,
unless it were Lydgate. But just now she could not see Lydgate
without sending for him or going to seek him. Perhaps Will Ladislaw,
having heard of that strange ban against him left by Mr. Casaubon,
had felt it better that he and she should not meet again, and perhaps
she was wrong to wish for a meeting that others might find many good
reasons against. Still "I do wish it" came at the end of those
wise reflections as naturally as a sob after holding the breath.
And the meeting did happen, but in a formal way quite unexpected by her.
One morning, about eleven, Dorothea was seated in her boudoir with a
map of the land attached to the manor and other papers before her,
which were to help her in making an exact statement for herself
of her income and affairs. She had not yet applied herself
to her work, but was seated with her hands folded on her lap,
looking out along the avenue of limes to the distant fields.
Every leaf was at rest in the sunshine, the familiar scene
was changeless, and seemed to represent the prospect of her life,
full of motiveless ease--motiveless, if her own energy could not
seek out reasons for ardent action. The widow's cap of those times
made an oval frame for the face, and had a crown standing up;
the dress was an experiment in the utmost laying on of crape;
but this heavy solemnity of clothing made her face look all the younger,
with its recovered bloom, and the sweet, inquiring candor of her eyes.
Her reverie was broken by Tantripp, who came to say that Mr. Ladislaw
was below, and begged permission to see Madam if it were not too early.
"I will see him," said Dorothea, rising immediately. "Let him
be shown into the drawing-room."
The drawing-room was the most neutral room in the house to her--
the one least associated with the trials of her married life:
the damask matched the wood-work, which was all white and gold;
there were two tall mirrors and tables with nothing on them--
in brief, it was a room where you had no reason for sitting in one
place rather than in another. It was below the boudoir, and had
also a bow-window looking out on the avenue. But when Pratt showed
Will Ladislaw into it the window was open; and a winged visitor,
buzzing in and out now and then without minding the furniture,
made the room look less formal and uninhabited.
"Glad to see you here again, sir," said Pratt, lingering to adjust
a blind.
"I am only come to say good-by, Pratt," said Will, who wished even
the butler to know that he was too proud to hang about Mrs. Casaubon
now she was a rich widow.
"Very sorry to hear it, sir," said Pratt, retiring. Of course,
as a servant who was to be told nothing, he knew the fact of
which Ladislaw was still ignorant, and had drawn his inferences;
indeed, had not differed from his betrothed Tantripp when she said,
"Your master was as jealous as a fiend--and no reason.
Madam would look higher than Mr. Ladislaw, else I don't know her.
Mrs. Cadwallader's maid says there's a lord coming who is to marry
her when the mourning's over."
There were not many moments for Will to walk about with his hat
in his hand before Dorothea entered. The meeting was very different
from that first meeting in Rome when Will had been embarrassed
and Dorothea calm. This time he felt miserable but determined,
while she was in a state of agitation which could not be hidden.
Just outside the door she had felt that this longed-for meeting was
after all too difficult, and when she saw Will advancing towards her,
the deep blush which was rare in her came with painful suddenness.
Neither of them knew how it was, but neither of them spoke.
She gave her hand for a moment, and then they went to sit down
near the window, she on one settee and he on another opposite.
Will was peculiarly uneasy: it seemed to him not like Dorothea
that the mere fact of her being a widow should cause such a change
in her manner of receiving him; and he knew of no other condition
which could have affected their previous relation to each other--
except that, as his imagination at once told him, her friends
might have been poisoning her mind with their suspicions
of him.
"I hope I have not presumed too much in calling," said Will;
"I could not bear to leave the neighborhood and begin a new life
without seeing you to say good-by."
"Presumed? Surely not. I should have thought it unkind if you
had not wished to see me," said Dorothea, her habit of speaking
with perfect genuineness asserting itself through all her uncertainty
and agitation. "Are you going away immediately?"
"Very soon, I think. I intend to go to town and eat my dinners
as a barrister, since, they say, that is the preparation for all
public business. There will be a great deal of political work
to be done by-and-by, and I mean to try and do some of it.
Other men have managed to win an honorable position for themselves
without family or money."
"And that will make it all the more honorable," said Dorothea,
ardently. "Besides, you have so many talents. I have heard from
my uncle how well you speak in public, so that every one is sorry
when you leave off, and how clearly you can explain things.
And you care that justice should be done to every one. I am so glad.
When we were in Rome, I thought you only cared for poetry and art,
and the things that adorn life for us who are well off.
But now I know you think about the rest of the world."
While she was speaking Dorothea had lost her personal embarrassment,
and had become like her former self. She looked at Will with a
direct glance, full of delighted confidence.
"You approve of my going away for years, then, and never coming
here again till I have made myself of some mark in the world?"
said Will, trying hard to reconcile the utmost pride with the utmost
effort to get an expression of strong feeling from Dorothea.
She was not aware how long it was before she answered. She had
turned her head and was looking out of the window on the rose-bushes,
which seemed to have in them the summers of all the years when Will
would be away. This was not judicious behavior. But Dorothea never
thought of studying her manners: she thought only of bowing to a sad
necessity which divided her from Will. Those first words of his
about his intentions had seemed to make everything clear to her:
he knew, she supposed, all about Mr. Casaubon's final conduct in
relation to him, and it had come to him with the same sort of shock
as to herself. He had never felt more than friendship for her--
had never had anything in his mind to justify what she felt to be
her husband's outrage on the feelings of both: and that friendship
he still felt. Something which may be called an inward silent
sob had gone on in Dorothea before she said with a pure voice,
just trembling in the last words as if only from its liquid flexibility--
"Yes, it must be right for you to do as you say. I shall be
very happy when I hear that you have made your value felt.
But you must have patience. It will perhaps be a long while."
Will never quite knew how it was that he saved himself from falling
down at her feet, when the "long while" came forth with its
gentle tremor. He used to say that the horrible hue and surface
of her crape dress was most likely the sufficient controlling force.
He sat still, however, and only said--
"I shall never hear from you. And you will forget all about me."
"No," said Dorothea, "I shall never forget you. I have never
forgotten any one whom I once knew. My life has never been crowded,
and seems not likely to be so. And I have a great deal of space
for memory at Lowick, haven't I?" She smiled.
"Good God!" Will burst out passionately, rising, with his hat still
in his hand, and walking away to a marble table, where he suddenly
turned and leaned his back against it. The blood had mounted to his
face and neck, and he looked almost angry. It had seemed to him
as if they were like two creatures slowly turning to marble in each
other's presence, while their hearts were conscious and their eyes
were yearning. But there was no help for it. It should never be true
of him that in this meeting to which he had come with bitter resolution
he had ended by a confession which might be interpreted into asking
for her fortune. Moreover, it was actually true that he was fearful
of the effect which such confessions might have on Dorothea herself.
She looked at him from that distance in some trouble, imagining that
there might hate been an offence in her words. But all the while
there was a current of thought in her about his probable want
of money, and the impossibility of her helping him. If her uncle
had been at home, something might have been done through him!
It was this preoccupation with the hardship of Will's wanting money,
while she had what ought to have been his share, which led her to say,
seeing that he remained silent and looked away from her--
"I wonder whether you would like to have that miniature
which hangs up-stairs--I mean that beautiful miniature OF
your grandmother. I think it is not right for me to keep it,
if you would wish to have it. It is wonderfully like you."
"You are very good," said Will, irritably. "No; I don't mind
about it. It is not very consoling to have one's own likeness.
It would be more consoling if others wanted to have it."
"I thought you would like to cherish her memory--I thought--
"Dorothea broke off an instant, her imagination suddenly warning
her away from Aunt Julia's history--"you would surely like to have
the miniature as a family memorial."
"Why should I have that, when I have nothing else! A man with only
a portmanteau for his stowage must keep his memorials in his head."
Will spoke at random: he was merely venting his petulance;
it was a little too exasperating to have his grandmother's portrait
offered him at that moment. But to Dorothea's feeling his words
had a peculiar sting. She rose and said with a touch of indignation
as well as hauteur--
"You are much the happier of us two, Mr. Ladislaw, to have nothing."
Will was startled. Whatever the words might be, the tone seemed
like a dismissal; and quitting his leaning posture, he walked
a little way towards her. Their eyes met, but with a strange
questioning gravity. Something was keeping their minds aloof,
and each was left to conjecture what was in the other. Will had
really never thought of himself as having a claim of inheritance
on the property which was held by Dorothea, and would have required
a narrative to make him understand her present feeling.
"I never felt it a misfortune to have nothing till now," he said.
"But poverty may be as bad as leprosy, if it divides us from what we
most care for."
The words cut Dorothea to the heart, and made her relent.
She answered in a tone of sad fellowship.
"Sorrow comes in so many ways. Two years ago I had no notion of that--
I mean of the unexpected way in which trouble comes, and ties our hands,
and makes us silent when we long to speak. I used to despise women
a little for not shaping their lives more, and doing better things.
I was very fond of doing as I liked, but I have almost given it up,"
she ended, smiling playfully.
"I have not given up doing as I like, but I can very seldom do it,"
said Will. He was standing two yards from her with his mind full
of contradictory desires and resolves--desiring some unmistakable
proof that she loved him, and yet dreading the position into which
such a proof might bring him. "The thing one most longs for may
be surrounded with conditions that would be intolerable."
At this moment Pratt entered and said, "Sir James Chettam
is in the library, madam."
"Ask Sir James to come in here," said Dorothea, immediately. It was
as if the same electric shock had passed through her and Will.
Each of them felt proudly resistant, and neither looked at the other,
while they awaited Sir James's entrance.
After shaking hands with Dorothea, he bowed as slightly as possible
to Ladislaw, who repaid the slightness exactly, and then going
towards Dorothea, said--
"I must say good-by, Mrs. Casaubon; and probably for a long while."
Dorothea put out her hand and said her good-by cordially. The sense
that Sir James was depreciating Will, and behaving rudely to him,
roused her resolution and dignity-there was no touch of confusion
in her manner. And when Will had left the room, she looked with
such calm self-possession at Sir James, saying, "How is Celia?"
that he was obliged to behave as if nothing had annoyed him.
And what would be the use of behaving otherwise? Indeed, Sir James
shrank with so much dislike from the association even in thought
of Dorothea with Ladislaw as her possible lover, that he would himself
have wished to avoid an outward show of displeasure which would
have recognized the disagreeable possibility. If any one had asked
him why he shrank in that way, I am not sure that he would at first
have said anything fuller or more precise than "THAT Ladislaw!"--
though on reflection he might have urged that Mr. Casaubon's codicil,
barring Dorothea's marriage with Will, except under a penalty,
was enough to cast unfitness over any relation at all between them.
His aversion was all the stronger because he felt himself unable
to interfere.
But Sir James was a power in a way unguessed by himself. Entering
at that moment, he was an incorporation of the strongest reasons
through which Will's pride became a repellent force, keeping him
asunder from Dorothea
CHAPTER LV.
Hath she her faults? I would you had them too.
They are the fruity must of soundest wine;
Or say, they are regenerating fire
Such as hath turned the dense black element
Into a crystal pathway for the sun.
If youth is the season of hope, it is often so only in the sense
that our elders are hopeful about us; for no age is so apt as youth
to think its emotions, partings, and resolves are the last of
their kind. Each crisis seems final, simply because it is new.
We are told that the oldest inhabitants in Peru do not cease to be
agitated by the earthquakes, but they probably see beyond each shock,
and reflect that there are plenty more to come.
To Dorothea, still in that time of youth when the eyes with their long
full lashes look out after their rain of tears unsoiled and unwearied
as a freshly opened passion-flower, that morning's parting with Will
Ladislaw seemed to be the close of their personal relations.
He was going away into the distance of unknown years, and if ever he
came back he would be another man. The actual state of his mind--
his proud resolve to give the lie beforehand to any suspicion
that he would play the needy adventurer seeking a rich woman--
lay quite out of her imagination, and she had interpreted all his
behavior easily enough by her supposition that Mr. Casaubon's codicil
seemed to him, as it did to her, a gross and cruel interdict on
any active friendship between them. Their young delight in speaking
to each other, and saying what no one else would care to hear,
was forever ended, and become a treasure of the past. For this
very reason she dwelt on it without inward check. That unique
happiness too was dead, and in its shadowed silent chamber she
might vent the passionate grief which she herself wondered at.
For the first time she took down the miniature from the wall and kept
it before her, liking to blend the woman who had been too hardly
judged with the grandson whom her own heart and judgment defended.
Can any one who has rejoiced in woman's tenderness think it a reproach
to her that she took the little oval picture in her palm and made
a bed for it there, and leaned her cheek upon it, as if that would
soothe the creatures who had suffered unjust condemnation?
She did not know then that it was Love who had come to her briefly,
as in a dream before awaking, with the hues of morning on his wings--
that it was Love to whom she was sobbing her farewell as his image
was banished by the blameless rigor of irresistible day. She only
felt that there was something irrevocably amiss and lost in her lot,
and her thoughts about the future were the more readily shapen
into resolve. Ardent souls, ready to construct their coming lives,
are apt to commit themselves to the fulfilment of their own visions.
One day that she went to Freshitt to fulfil her promise of staying
all night and seeing baby washed, Mrs. Cadwallader came to dine,
the Rector being gone on a fishing excursion. It was a warm evening,
and even in the delightful drawing-room, where the fine old turf sloped
from the open window towards a lilied pool and well-planted mounds,
the heat was enough to make Celia in her white muslin and light curls
reflect with pity on what Dodo must feel in her black dress and
close cap. But this was not until some episodes with baby were over,
and had left her mind at leisure. She had seated herself and taken
up a fan for some time before she said, in her quiet guttural--
"Dear Dodo, do throw off that cap. I am sure your dress must make
you feel ill."
"I am so used to the cap--it has become a sort of shell,"
said Dorothea, smiling. "I feel rather bare and exposed when it
is off."
"I must see you without it; it makes us all warm," said Celia,
throwing down her fan, and going to Dorothea. It was a pretty picture
to see this little lady in white muslin unfastening the widow's
cap from her more majestic sister, and tossing it on to a chair.
Just as the coils and braids of dark-brown hair had been set free,
Sir James entered the room. He looked at the released head, and said,
"Ah!" in a tone of satisfaction.
"It was I who did it, James," said Celia. "Dodo need not make
such a slavery of her mourning; she need not wear that cap any
more among her friends."
"My dear Celia," said Lady Chettam, "a widow must wear her
mourning at least a year."
"Not if she marries again before the end of it," said Mrs. Cadwallader,
who had some pleasure in startling her good friend the Dowager.
Sir James was annoyed, and leaned forward to play with Celia's
Maltese dog.
"That is very rare, I hope," said Lady Chettam, in a tone intended
to guard against such events. "No friend of ours ever committed
herself in that way except Mrs. Beevor, and it was very painful to
Lord Grinsell when she did so. Her first husband was objectionable,
which made it the greater wonder. And severely she was punished
for it. They said Captain Beevor dragged her about by the hair,
and held up loaded pistols at her."
"Oh, if she took the wrong man!" said Mrs. Cadwallader, who was in a
decidedly wicked mood. "Marriage is always bad then, first or second.
Priority is a poor recommendation in a husband if he has got no other.
I would rather have a good second husband than an indifferent first."
"My dear, your clever tongue runs away with you," said Lady Chettam.
"I am sure you would be the last woman to marry again prematurely,
if our dear Rector were taken away."
"Oh, I make no vows; it might be a necessary economy. It is
lawful to marry again, I suppose; else we might as well be Hindoos
instead of Christians. Of course if a woman accepts the wrong man,
she must take the consequences, and one who does it twice over
deserves her fate. But if she can marry blood, beauty, and bravery--
the sooner the better."
"I think the subject of our conversation is very ill-chosen,"
said Sir James, with a look of disgust. "Suppose we change it."
"Not on my account, Sir James," said Dorothea, determined not to lose
the opportunity of freeing herself from certain oblique references
to excellent matches. "If you are speaking on my behalf, I can
assure you that no question can be more indifferent and impersonal
to me than second marriage. It is no more to me than if you talked
of women going fox-hunting: whether it is admirable in them or not,
I shall not follow them. Pray let Mrs. Cadwallader amuse herself
on that subject as much as on any other."
"My dear Mrs. Casaubon," said Lady Chettam, in her stateliest way,
"you do not, I hope, think there was any allusion to you in my
mentioning Mrs. Beevor. It was only an instance that occurred to me.
She was step-daughter to Lord Grinsell: he married Mrs. Teveroy
for his second wife. There could be no possible allusion to you."
"Oh no," said Celia. "Nobody chose the subject; it all came out
of Dodo's cap. Mrs. Cadwallader only said what was quite true.
A woman could not be married in a widow's cap, James."
"Hush, my dear!" said Mrs. Cadwallader. "I will not offend again.
I will not even refer to Dido or Zenobia. Only what are we to
talk about? I, for my part, object to the discussion of Human Nature,
because that is the nature of rectors' wives."
Later in the evening, after Mrs. Cadwallader was gone, Celia said
privately to Dorothea, "Really, Dodo, taking your cap off made
you like yourself again in more ways than one. You spoke up just
as you used to do, when anything was said to displease you. But I
could hardly make out whether it was James that you thought wrong,
or Mrs. Cadwallader."
"Neither," said Dorothea. "James spoke out of delicacy to me, but he
was mistaken in supposing that I minded what Mrs. Cadwallader said.
I should only mind if there were a law obliging me to take any piece
of blood and beauty that she or anybody else recommended."
"But you know, Dodo, if you ever did marry, it would be all the better
to have blood and beauty," said Celia, reflecting that Mr. Casaubon
had not been richly endowed with those gifts, and that it would
be well to caution Dorothea in time.
"Don't be anxious, Kitty; I have quite other thoughts about my life.
I shall never marry again," said Dorothea, touching her sister's chin,
and looking at her with indulgent affection. Celia was nursing
her baby, and Dorothea had come to say good-night to her.
"Really--quite?" said Celia. "Not anybody at all--if he were
very wonderful indeed?"
Dorothea shook her head slowly. "Not anybody at all. I have
delightful plans. I should like to take a great deal of land,
and drain it, and make a little colony, where everybody should work,
and all the work should be done well. I should know every one of the
people and be their friend. I am going to have great consultations
with Mr. Garth: he can tell me almost everything I want to know."
"Then you WILL be happy, if you have a plan, Dodo?" said Celia.
"Perhaps little Arthur will like plans when he grows up, and then he
can help you."
Sir James was informed that same night that Dorothea was really
quite set against marrying anybody at all, and was going to take
to "all sorts of plans," just like what she used to have.
Sir James made no remark. To his secret feeling there was something
repulsive in a woman's second marriage, and no match would prevent
him from feeling it a sort of desecration for Dorothea. He was
aware that the world would regard such a sentiment as preposterous,
especially in relation to a woman of one-and-twenty; the practice
of "the world" being to treat of a young widow's second marriage
as certain and probably near, and to smile with meaning if the widow
acts accordingly. But if Dorothea did choose to espouse her solitude,
he felt that the resolution would well become her.
CHAPTER LVI.
"How happy is he born and taught
That serveth not another's will;
Whose armor is his honest thought,
And simple truth his only skill!
. . . . . . .
This man is freed from servile bands
Of hope to rise or fear to fall;
Lord of himself though not of lands;
And having nothing yet hath all."
--SIR HENRY WOTTON.
Dorothea's confidence in Caleb Garth's knowledge, which had begun
on her hearing that he approved of her cottages, had grown fast
during her stay at Freshitt, Sir James having induced her to take
rides over the two estates in company with himself and Caleb,
who quite returned her admiration, and told his wife that Mrs. Casaubon
had a head for business most uncommon in a woman. It must be
remembered that by "business" Caleb never meant money transactions,
but the skilful application of labor.
"Most uncommon!" repeated Caleb. "She said a thing I often used
to think myself when I was a lad:--`Mr. Garth, I should like
to feel, if I lived to be old, that I had improved a great piece
of land and built a great many good cottages, because the work
is of a healthy kind while it is being done, and after it is done,
men are the better for it.' Those were the very words: she sees
into things in that way."
"But womanly, I hope," said Mrs. Garth, half suspecting that
Mrs. Casaubon might not hold the true principle of subordination.
"Oh, you can't think!" said Caleb, shaking his head. "You would
like to hear her speak, Susan. She speaks in such plain words,
and a voice like music. Bless me! it reminds me of bits in the
`Messiah'--`and straightway there appeared a multitude of the
heavenly host, praising God and saying;' it has a tone with it
that satisfies your ear."
Caleb was very fond of music, and when he could afford it went
to hear an oratorio that came within his reach, returning from it
with a profound reverence for this mighty structure of tones,
which made him sit meditatively, looking on the floor and throwing
much unutterable language into his outstretched hands.
With this good understanding between them, it was natural that Dorothea
asked Mr. Garth to undertake any business connected with the three
farms and the numerous tenements attached to Lowick Manor; indeed,
his expectation of getting work for two was being fast fulfilled.
As he said, "Business breeds." And one form of business which was
beginning to breed just then was the construction of railways.
A projected line was to run through Lowick parish where the
cattle had hitherto grazed in a peace unbroken by astonishment;
and thus it happened that the infant struggles of the railway system
entered into the affairs of Caleb Garth, and determined the course
of this history with regard to two persons who were dear to him.
The submarine railway may have its difficulties; but the bed of the
sea is not divided among various landed proprietors with claims
for damages not only measurable but sentimental. In the hundred
to which Middlemarch belonged railways were as exciting a topic as the
Reform Bill or the imminent horrors of Cholera, and those who held
the most decided views on the subject were women and landholders.
Women both old and young regarded travelling by steam as presumptuous
and dangerous, and argued against it by saying that nothing should
induce them to get into a railway carriage; while proprietors,
differing from each other in their arguments as much as Mr. Solomon
Featherstone differed from Lord Medlicote, were yet unanimous in the
opinion that in selling land, whether to the Enemy of mankind or to a
company obliged to purchase, these pernicious agencies must be made
to pay a very high price to landowners for permission to injure mankind.
But the slower wits, such as Mr. Solomon and Mrs. Waule,
who both occupied land of their own, took a long time to
arrive at this conclusion, their minds halting at the vivid
conception of what it would be to cut the Big Pasture in two,
and turn it into three-cornered bits, which would be "nohow;"
while accommodation-bridges and high payments were remote and incredible.
"The cows will all cast their calves, brother," said Mrs. Waule, in a
tone of deep melancholy, "if the railway comes across the Near Close;
and I shouldn't wonder at the mare too, if she was in foal.
It's a poor tale if a widow's property is to be spaded away,
and the law say nothing to it. What's to hinder 'em from cutting
right and left if they begin? It's well known, _I_ can't fight."
"The best way would be to say nothing, and set somebody on to send 'em
away with a flea in their ear, when they came spying and measuring,"
said Solomon. "Folks did that about Brassing, by what I can understand.
It's all a pretence, if the truth was known, about their being
forced to take one way. Let 'em go cutting in another parish.
And I don't believe in any pay to make amends for bringing a lot
of ruffians to trample your crops. Where's a company's pocket?"
"Brother Peter, God forgive him, got money out of a company,"
said Mrs. Waule. "But that was for the manganese. That wasn't
for railways to blow you to pieces right and left."
"Well, there's this to be said, Jane," Mr. Solomon concluded,
lowering his voice in a cautious manner--"the more spokes we put
in their wheel, the more they'll pay us to let 'em go on, if they
must come whether or not."
This reasoning of Mr. Solomon's was perhaps less thorough than
he imagined, his cunning bearing about the same relation to the course
of railways as the cunning of a diplomatist bears to the general
chill or catarrh of the solar system. But he set about acting on his
views in a thoroughly diplomatic manner, by stimulating suspicion.
His side of Lowick was the most remote from the village, and the
houses of the laboring people were either lone cottages or were
collected in a hamlet called Frick, where a water-mill and some
stone-pits made a little centre of slow, heavy-shouldered industry.
In the absence of any precise idea as to what railways were,
public opinion in Frick was against them; for the human mind in that
grassy corner had not the proverbial tendency to admire the unknown,
holding rather that it was likely to be against the poor man,
and that suspicion was the only wise attitude with regard to it.
Even the rumor of Reform had not yet excited any millennial expectations
in Frick, there being no definite promise in it, as of gratuitous
grains to fatten Hiram Ford's pig, or of a publican at the "Weights
and Scales" who would brew beer for nothing, or of an offer on the
part of the three neighboring farmers to raise wages during winter.
And without distinct good of this kind in its promises, Reform seemed
on a footing with the bragging of pedlers, which was a hint for
distrust to every knowing person. The men of Frick were not ill-fed,
and were less given to fanaticism than to a strong muscular suspicion;
less inclined to believe that they were peculiarly cared for by heaven,
than to regard heaven itself as rather disposed to take them in--
a disposition observable in the weather.
Thus the mind of Frick was exactly of the sort for Mr. Solomon
Featherstone to work upon, he having more plenteous ideas of the
same order, with a suspicion of heaven and earth which was better
fed and more entirely at leisure. Solomon was overseer of the
roads at that time, and on his slow-paced cob often took his
rounds by Frick to look at the workmen getting the stones there,
pausing with a mysterious deliberation, which might have misled
you into supposing that he had some other reason for staying
than the mere want of impulse to move. After looking for a long
while at any work that was going on, he would raise his eyes a
little and look at the horizon; finally he would shake his bridle,
touch his horse with the whip, and get it to move slowly onward.
The hour-hand of a clock was quick by comparison with Mr. Solomon,
who had an agreeable sense that he could afford to be slow.
He was in the habit of pausing for a cautious, vaguely designing chat
with every hedger or ditcher on his way, and was especially willing
to listen even to news which he had heard before, feeling himself
at an advantage over all narrators in partially disbelieving them.
One day, however, he got into a dialogue with Hiram Ford, a wagoner,
in which he himself contributed information. He wished to know whether
Hiram had seen fellows with staves and instruments spying about:
they called themselves railroad people, but there was no telling
what they were or what they meant to do. The least they pretended
was that they were going to cut Lowick Parish into sixes and sevens.
"Why, there'll be no stirrin' from one pla-ace to another,"
said Hiram, thinking of his wagon and horses.
"Not a bit," said Mr. Solomon. "And cutting up fine land such as
this parish! Let 'em go into Tipton, say I. But there's no knowing
what there is at the bottom of it. Traffic is what they put for'ard;
but it's to do harm to the land and the poor man in the long-run."
"Why, they're Lunnon chaps, I reckon," said Hiram, who had a dim
notion of London as a centre of hostility to the country.
"Ay, to be sure. And in some parts against Brassing, by what I've
heard say, the folks fell on 'em when they were spying, and broke
their peep-holes as they carry, and drove 'em away, so as they knew
better than come again."
"It war good foon, I'd be bound," said Hiram, whose fun was much
restricted by circumstances.
"Well, I wouldn't meddle with 'em myself," said Solomon.
"But some say this country's seen its best days, and the sign is,
as it's being overrun with these fellows trampling right and left,
and wanting to cut it up into railways; and all for the big traffic
to swallow up the little, so as there shan't be a team left on the land,
nor a whip to crack."
"I'll crack MY whip about their ear'n, afore they bring it
to that, though," said Hiram, while Mr. Solomon, shaking his bridle,
moved onward.
Nettle-seed needs no digging. The ruin of this countryside by
railroads was discussed, not only at the "Weights and Scales,"
but in the hay-field, where the muster of working hands gave
opportunities for talk such as were rarely had through the rural year.
One morning, not long after that interview between Mr. Farebrother
and Mary Garth, in which she confessed to him her feeling for
Fred Vincy, it happened that her father had some business which took
him to Yoddrell's farm in the direction of Frick: it was to measure
and value an outlying piece of land belonging to Lowick Manor,
which Caleb expected to dispose of advantageously for Dorothea (it
must be confessed that his bias was towards getting the best possible
terms from railroad companies). He put up his gig at Yoddrell's, and in
walking with his assistant and measuring-chain to the scene of his work,
he encountered the party of the company's agents, who were adjusting
their spirit-level. After a little chat he left them, observing that
by-and-by they would reach him again where he was going to measure.
It was one of those gray mornings after light rains, which become
delicious about twelve o'clock, when the clouds part a little,
and the scent of the earth is sweet along the lanes and by the hedgerows.
The scent would have been sweeter to Fred Vincy, who was coming
along the lanes on horseback, if his mind had not been worried
by unsuccessful efforts to imagine what he was to do, with his
father on one side expecting him straightway to enter the Church,
with Mary on the other threatening to forsake him if he did enter it,
and with the working-day world showing no eager need whatever
of a young gentleman without capital and generally unskilled.
It was the harder to Fred's disposition because his father,
satisfied that he was no longer rebellious, was in good humor with him,
and had sent him on this pleasant ride to see after some greyhounds.
Even when he had fixed on what he should do, there would be the task
of telling his father. But it must be admitted that the fixing,
which had to come first, was the more difficult task:--what secular
avocation on earth was there for a young man (whose friends could
not get him an "appointment") which was at once gentlemanly,
lucrative, and to be followed without special knowledge?
Riding along the lanes by Frick in this mood, and slackening
his pace while he reflected whether he should venture to go round
by Lowick Parsonage to call on Mary, he could see over the hedges
from one field to another. Suddenly a noise roused his attention,
and on the far side of a field on his left hand he could see six
or seven men in smock-frocks with hay-forks in their hands making
an offensive approach towards the four railway agents who were
facing them, while Caleb Garth and his assistant were hastening
across the field to join the threatened group. Fred, delayed a few
moments by having to find the gate, could not gallop up to the spot
before the party in smock-frocks, whose work of turning the hay
had not been too pressing after swallowing their mid-day beer,
were driving the men in coats before them with their hay-forks;
while Caleb Garth's assistant, a lad of seventeen, who had snatched
up the spirit-level at Caleb's order, had been knocked down and
seemed to be lying helpless. The coated men had the advantage
as runners, and Fred covered their retreat by getting in front
of the smock-frocks and charging them suddenly enough to throw
their chase into confusion. "What do you confounded fools mean?"
shouted Fred, pursuing the divided group in a zigzag, and cutting
right and left with his whip. "I'll swear to every one of you
before the magistrate. You've knocked the lad down and killed him,
for what I know. You'll every one of you be hanged at the next assizes,
if you don't mind," said Fred, who afterwards laughed heartily as he
remembered his own phrases.
The laborers had been driven through the gate-way into their
hay-field, and Fred had checked his horse, when Hiram Ford,
observing himself at a safe challenging distance, turned back
and shouted a defiance which he did not know to be Homeric.
"Yo're a coward, yo are. Yo git off your horse, young measter,
and I'll have a round wi' ye, I wull. Yo daredn't come on wi'out
your hoss an' whip. I'd soon knock the breath out on ye, I would."
"Wait a minute, and I'll come back presently, and have a round
with you all in turn, if you like," said Fred, who felt confidence
in his power of boxing with his dearly beloved brethren. But just
now he wanted to hasten back to Caleb and the prostrate youth.
The lad's ankle was strained, and he was in much pain from it,
but he was no further hurt, and Fred placed him on the horse that he
might ride to Yoddrell's and be taken care of there.
"Let them put the horse in the stable, and tell the surveyors they
can come back for their traps," said Fred. "The ground is clear now."
"No, no," said Caleb, "here's a breakage. They'll have to give up
for to-day, and it will be as well. Here, take the things before you
on the horse, Tom. They'll see you coming, and they'll turn back."
"I'm glad I happened to be here at the right moment, Mr. Garth,"
said Fred, as Tom rode away. "No knowing what might have happened
if the cavalry had not come up in time."
"Ay, ay, it was lucky," said Caleb, speaking rather absently,
and looking towards the spot where he had been at work at the moment
of interruption. "But--deuce take it--this is what comes of men
being fools--I'm hindered of my day's work. I can't get along
without somebody to help me with the measuring-chain. However!"
He was beginning to move towards the spot with a look of vexation,
as if he had forgotten Fred's presence, but suddenly he turned round
and said quickly, "What have you got to do to-day, young fellow?"
"Nothing, Mr. Garth. I'll help you with pleasure--can I?" said Fred,
with a sense that he should be courting Mary when he was helping
her father.
"Well, you mustn't mind stooping and getting hot."
"I don't mind anything. Only I want to go first and have a round
with that hulky fellow who turned to challenge me. It would
be a good lesson for him. I shall not be five minutes."
"Nonsense!" said Caleb, with his most peremptory intonation.
"I shall go and speak to the men myself. It's all ignorance.
Somebody has been telling them lies. The poor fools don't know
any better."
"I shall go with you, then," said Fred.
"No, no; stay where you are. I don't want your young blood.
I can take care of myself."
Caleb was a powerful man and knew little of any fear except the fear
of hurting others and the fear of having to speechify. But he felt
it his duty at this moment to try and give a little harangue.
There was a striking mixture in him--which came from his having
always been a hard-working man himself--of rigorous notions about
workmen and practical indulgence towards them. To do a good day's
work and to do it well, he held to be part of their welfare, as it
was the chief part of his own happiness; but he had a strong sense
of fellowship with them. When he advanced towards the laborers
they had not gone to work again, but were standing in that form
of rural grouping which consists in each turning a shoulder towards
the other, at a distance of two or three yards. They looked
rather sulkily at Caleb, who walked quickly with one hand in his
pocket and the other thrust between the buttons of his waistcoat,
and had his every-day mild air when he paused among them.
"Why, my lads, how's this?" he began, taking as usual to brief phrases,
which seemed pregnant to himself, because he had many thoughts lying
under them, like the abundant roots of a plant that just manages to
peep above the water. "How came you to make such a mistake as this?
Somebody has been telling you lies. You thought those men up there
wanted to do mischief."
"Aw!" was the answer, dropped at intervals by each according
to his degree of unreadiness.
"Nonsense! No such thing! They're looking out to see which way the
railroad is to take. Now, my lads, you can't hinder the railroad:
it will be made whether you like it or not. And if you go fighting
against it, you'll get yourselves into trouble. The law gives
those men leave to come here on the land. The owner has nothing
to say against it, and if you meddle with them you'll have to do
with the constable and Justice Blakesley, and with the handcuffs
and Middlemarch jail. And you might be in for it now, if anybody
informed against you."
Caleb paused here, and perhaps the greatest orator could not have
chosen either his pause or his images better for the occasion.
"But come, you didn't mean any harm. Somebody told you the railroad
was a bad thing. That was a lie. It may do a bit of harm here
and there, to this and to that; and so does the sun in heaven.
But the railway's a good thing."
"Aw! good for the big folks to make money out on," said old
Timothy Cooper, who had stayed behind turning his hay while
the others had been gone on their spree;--"I'n seen lots o'
things turn up sin' I war a young un--the war an' the peace,
and the canells, an' the oald King George, an' the Regen', an'
the new King George, an' the new un as has got a new ne-ame--an'
it's been all aloike to the poor mon. What's the canells been t' him?
They'n brought him neyther me-at nor be-acon, nor wage to lay by,
if he didn't save it wi' clemmin' his own inside. Times ha'
got wusser for him sin' I war a young un. An' so it'll be wi'
the railroads. They'll on'y leave the poor mon furder behind.
But them are fools as meddle, and so I told the chaps here.
This is the big folks's world, this is. But yo're for the big folks,
Muster Garth, yo are."
Timothy was a wiry old laborer, of a type lingering in those times--
who had his savings in a stocking-foot, lived in a lone cottage,
and was not to be wrought on by any oratory, having as little of
the feudal spirit, and believing as little, as if he had not been
totally unacquainted with the Age of Reason and the Rights of Man.
Caleb was in a difficulty known to any person attempting in dark
times and unassisted by miracle to reason with rustics who are in
possession of an undeniable truth which they know through a hard
process of feeling, and can let it fall like a giant's club on your
neatly carved argument for a social benefit which they do not feel.
Caleb had no cant at command, even if he could have chosen to use it;
and he had been accustomed to meet all such difficulties in no other
way than by doing his "business" faithfully. He answered--
"If you don't think well of me, Tim, never mind; that's neither here
nor there now. Things may be bad for the poor man--bad they are;
but I want the lads here not to do what will make things worse
for themselves. The cattle may have a heavy load, but it won't
help 'em to throw it over into the roadside pit, when it's partly
their own fodder."
"We war on'y for a bit o' foon," said Hiram, who was beginning
to see consequences. "That war all we war arter."
"Well, promise me not to meddle again, and I'll see that nobody
informs against you."
"I'n ne'er meddled, an' I'n no call to promise," said Timothy.
"No, but the rest. Come, I'm as hard at work as any of you
to-day, and I can't spare much time. Say you'll be quiet without
the constable."
"Aw, we wooant meddle--they may do as they loike for oos"--
were the forms in which Caleb got his pledges; and then he hastened
back to Fred, who had followed him, and watched him in the gateway.
They went to work, and Fred helped vigorously. His spirits had risen,
and he heartily enjoyed a good slip in the moist earth under
the hedgerow, which soiled his perfect summer trousers. Was it his
successful onset which had elated him, or the satisfaction of helping
Mary's father? Something more. The accidents of the morning had
helped his frustrated imagination to shape an employment for himself
which had several attractions. I am not sure that certain fibres
in Mr. Garth's mind had not resumed their old vibration towards
the very end which now revealed itself to Fred. For the effective
accident is but the touch of fire where there is oil and tow; and it
al ways appeared to Fred that the railway brought the needed touch.
But they went on in silence except when their business demanded speech.
At last, when they had finished and were walking away, Mr. Garth said--
"A young fellow needn't be a B. A. to do this sort of work, eh, Fred?"
"I wish I had taken to it before I had thought of being a B. A.,"
said Fred. He paused a moment, and then added, more hesitatingly,
"Do you think I am too old to learn your business, Mr. Garth?"
"My business is of many sorts, my boy," said Mr. Garth, smiling.
"A good deal of what I know can only come from experience:
you can't learn it off as you learn things out of a book.
But you are young enough to lay a foundation yet." Caleb pronounced
the last sentence emphatically, but paused in some uncertainty.
He had been under the impression lately that Fred had made up his mind
to enter the Church.
"You do think I could do some good at it, if I were to try?"
said Fred, more eagerly.
"That depends," said Caleb, turning his head on one side and lowering
his voice, with the air of a man who felt himself to be saying
something deeply religious. "You must be sure of two things:
you must love your work, and not be always looking over the edge
of it, wanting your play to begin. And the other is, you must not
be ashamed of your work, and think it would be more honorable to you
to be doing something else. You must have a pride in your own work
and in learning to do it well, and not be always saying, There's this
and there's that--if I had this or that to do, I might make something
of it. No matter what a man is--I wouldn't give twopence for him"--
here Caleb's mouth looked bitter, and he snapped his fingers--
"whether he was the prime minister or the rick-thatcher, if he
didn't do well what he undertook to do."
"I can never feel that I should do that in being a clergyman,"
said Fred, meaning to take a step in argument.
"Then let it alone, my boy," said Caleb, abruptly, "else you'll
never be easy. Or, if you ARE easy, you'll be a poor stick."
"That is very nearly what Mary thinks about it," said Fred, coloring.
"I think you must know what I feel for Mary, Mr. Garth: I hope
it does not displease you that I have always loved her better
than any one else, and that I shall never love any one as I love her."
The expression of Caleb's face was visibly softening while Fred spoke.
But he swung his head with a solemn slowness, and said--
"That makes things more serious, Fred, if you want to take Mary's
happiness into your keeping."
"I know that, Mr. Garth," said Fred, eagerly, "and I would do anything
for HER. She says she will never have me if I go into the Church;
and I shall be the most miserable devil in the world if I lose all hope
of Mary. Really, if I could get some other profession, business--
anything that I am at all fit for, I would work hard, I would deserve
your good opinion. I should like to have to do with outdoor things.
I know a good deal about land and cattle already. I used to believe,
you know--though you will think me rather foolish for it--that I
should have land of my own. I am sure knowledge of that sort would
come easily to me, especially if I could be under you in any way."
"Softly, my boy," said Caleb, having the image of "Susan" before
his eyes. "What have you said to your father about all this?"
"Nothing, yet; but I must tell him. I am only waiting to know
what I can do instead of entering the Church. I am very sorry to
disappoint him, but a man ought to be allowed to judge for himself
when he is four-and-twenty. How could I know when I was fifteen,
what it would be right for me to do now? My education was a mistake."
"But hearken to this, Fred," said Caleb. "Are you sure Mary
is fond of you, or would ever have you?"
"I asked Mr. Farebrother to talk to her, because she had forbidden me--
I didn't know what else to do," said Fred, apologetically. "And he
says that I have every reason to hope, if I can put myself in an
honorable position--I mean, out of the Church I dare say you think it
unwarrantable in me, Mr. Garth, to be troubling you and obtruding my
own wishes about Mary, before I have done anything at all for myself.
Of course I have not the least claim--indeed, I have already a debt
to you which will never be discharged, even when I have been,
able to pay it in the shape of money."
"Yes, my boy, you have a claim," said Caleb, with much feeling
in his voice. "The young ones have always a claim on the old to
help them forward. I was young myself once and had to do without
much help; but help would have been welcome to me, if it had been
only for the fellow-feeling's sake. But I must consider. Come to
me to-morrow at the office, at nine o'clock. At the office, mind."
Mr. Garth would take no important step without consulting Susan,
but it must be confessed that before he reached home he had
taken his resolution. With regard to a large number of matters
about which other men are decided or obstinate, he was the most
easily manageable man in the world. He never knew what meat
he would choose, and if Susan had said that they ought to live
in a four-roomed cottage, in order to save, he would have said,
"Let us go," without inquiring into details. But where Caleb's
feeling and judgment strongly pronounced, he was a ruler;
and in spite of his mildness and timidity in reproving, every one
about him knew that on the exceptional occasions when he chose,
he was absolute. He never, indeed, chose to be absolute except on
some one else's behalf. On ninety-nine points Mrs. Garth decided,
but on the hundredth she was often aware that she would have to perform
the singularly difficult task of carrying out her own principle,
and to make herself subordinate.
"It is come round as I thought, Susan," said Caleb, when they were
seated alone in the evening. He had already narrated the adventure
which had brought about Fred's sharing in his work, but had kept
back the further result. "The children ARE fond of each other--
I mean, Fred and Mary."
Mrs. Garth laid her work on her knee, and fixed her penetrating
eyes anxiously on her husband.
"After we'd done our work, Fred poured it all out to me. He can't
bear to be a clergyman, and Mary says she won't have him if he is one;
and the lad would like to be under me and give his mind to business.
And I've determined to take him and make a man of him."
"Caleb!" said Mrs. Garth, in a deep contralto, expressive of
resigned astonishment.
"It's a fine thing to do," said Mr. Garth, settling himself
firmly against the back of his chair, and grasping the elbows.
"I shall have trouble with him, but I think I shall carry
it through. The lad loves Mary, and a true love for a good
woman is a great thing, Susan. It shapes many a rough fellow."
"Has Mary spoken to you on the subject?" said Mrs Garth, secretly a
little hurt that she had to be informed on it herself.
"Not a word. I asked her about Fred once; I gave her a bit of a warning.
But she assured me she would never marry an idle self-indulgent man--
nothing since. But it seems Fred set on Mr. Farebrother to talk to her,
because she had forbidden him to speak himself, and Mr. Farebrother
has found out that she is fond of Fred, but says he must not be
a clergyman. Fred's heart is fixed on Mary, that I can see:
it gives me a good opinion of the lad--and we always liked him, Susan."
"It is a pity for Mary, I think," said Mrs. Garth.
"Why--a pity?"
"Because, Caleb, she might have had a man who is worth twenty
Fred Vincy's."
"Ah?" said Caleb, with surprise.
"I firmly believe that Mr. Farebrother is attached to her,
and meant to make her an offer; but of course, now that Fred has
used him as an envoy, there is an end to that better prospect."
There was a severe precision in Mrs. Garth's utterance. She was vexed
and disappointed, but she was bent on abstaining from useless words.
Caleb was silent a few moments under a conflict of feelings.
He looked at the floor and moved his head and hands in accompaniment
to some inward argumentation. At last he said--
"That would have made me very proud and happy, Susan, and I
should have been glad for your sake. I've always felt that your
belongings have never been on a level with you. But you took me,
though I was a plain man."
"I took the best and cleverest man I had ever known," said Mrs. Garth,
convinced that SHE would never have loved any one who came
short of that mark.
"Well, perhaps others thought you might have done better.
But it would have been worse for me. And that is what touches me
close about Fred. The lad is good at bottom, and clever enough
to do, if he's put in the right way; and he loves and honors my
daughter beyond anything, and she has given him a sort of promise
according to what he turns out. I say, that young man's soul is
in my hand; and I'll do the best I can for him, so help me God!
It's my duty, Susan."
Mrs. Garth was not given to tears, but there was a large one
rolling down her face before her husband had finished. It came
from the pressure of various feelings, in which there was much
affection and some vexation. She wiped it away quickly, saying--
"Few men besides you would think it a duty to add to their anxieties
in that way, Caleb."
"That signifies nothing--what other men would think. I've got
a clear feeling inside me, and that I shall follow; and I hope
your heart will go with me, Susan, in making everything as light
as can be to Mary, poor child."
Caleb, leaning back in his chair, looked with anxious appeal towards
his wife. She rose and kissed him, saying, "God bless you, Caleb!
Our children have a good father."
But she went out and had a hearty cry to make up for the suppression
of her words. She felt sure that her husband's conduct would
be misunderstood, and about Fred she was rational and unhopeful.
Which would turn out to have the more foresight in it--her rationality
or Caleb's ardent generosity?
When Fred went to the office the next morning, there was a test
to be gone through which he was not prepared for.
"Now Fred," said Caleb, "you will have some desk-work. I have always
done a good deal of writing myself, but I can't do without help,
and as I want you to understand the accounts and get the values into
your head, I mean to do without another clerk. So you must buckle to.
How are you at writing and arithmetic?"
Fred felt an awkward movement of the heart; he had not thought
of desk-work; but he was in a resolute mood, and not going to shrink.
"I'm not afraid of arithmetic, Mr. Garth: it always came easily to me.
I think you know my writing."
"Let us see," said Caleb, taking up a pen, examining it carefully
and handing it, well dipped, to Fred with a sheet of ruled paper.
"Copy me a line or two of that valuation, with the figures at
the end."
At that time the opinion existed that it was beneath a gentleman
to write legibly, or with a hand in the least suitable to a clerk.
Fred wrote the lines demanded in a hand as gentlemanly as that of any
viscount or bishop of the day: the vowels were all alike and the
consonants only distinguishable as turning up or down, the strokes
had a blotted solidity and the letters disdained to keep the line--
in short, it was a manuscript of that venerable kind easy to interpret
when you know beforehand what the writer means.
As Caleb looked on, his visage showed a growing depression,
but when Fred handed him the paper he gave something like a snarl,
and rapped the paper passionately with the back of his hand.
Bad work like this dispelled all Caleb's mildness.
"The deuce!" he exclaimed, snarlingly. "To think that this is
a country where a man's education may cost hundreds and hundreds,
and it turns you out this!" Then in a more pathetic tone,
pushing up his spectacles and looking at the unfortunate scribe,
"The Lord have mercy on us, Fred, I can't put up with this!"
"What can I do, Mr. Garth?" said Fred, whose spirits had sunk very low,
not only at the estimate of his handwriting, but at the vision
of himself as liable to be ranked with office clerks.
"Do? Why, you must learn to form your letters and keep the line.
What's the use of writing at all if nobody can understand it?"
asked Caleb, energetically, quite preoccupied with the bad quality
of the work. "Is there so little business in the world that you must
be sending puzzles over the country? But that's the way people are
brought up. I should lose no end of time with the letters some people
send me, if Susan did not make them out for me. It's disgusting."
Here Caleb tossed the paper from him.
Any stranger peeping into the office at that moment might have
wondered what was the drama between the indignant man of business,
and the fine-looking young fellow whose blond complexion was getting
rather patchy as he bit his lip with mortification. Fred was struggling
with many thoughts. Mr. Garth had been so kind and encouraging at
the beginning of their interview, that gratitude and hopefulness had
been at a high pitch, and the downfall was proportionate. He had not
thought of desk-work--in fact, like the majority of young gentlemen,
he wanted an occupation which should be free from disagreeables.
I cannot tell what might have been the consequences if he had not
distinctly promised himself that he would go to Lowick to see
Mary and tell her that he was engaged to work under her father.
He did not like to disappoint himself there.
"I am very sorry," were all the words that he could muster.
But Mr. Garth was already relenting.
"We must make the best of it, Fred," he began, with a return to his
usual quiet tone. "Every man can learn to write. I taught myself.
Go at it with a will, and sit up at night if the day-time isn't enough.
We'll be patient, my boy. Callum shall go on with the books
for a bit, while you are learning. But now I must be off,"
said Caleb, rising. "You must let your father know our agreement.
You'll save me Callum's salary, you know, when you can write;
and I can afford to give you eighty pounds for the first year,
and more after."
When Fred made the necessary disclosure to his parents, the relative
effect on the two was a surprise which entered very deeply into
his memory. He went straight from Mr. Garth's office to the warehouse,
rightly feeling that the most respectful way in which he could behave to
his father was to make the painful communication as gravely and formally
as possible. Moreover, the decision would be more certainly understood
to be final, if the interview took place in his father's gravest
hours, which were always those spent in his private room at the warehouse.
Fred entered on the subject directly, and declared briefly what he
had done and was resolved to do, expressing at the end his regret
that he should be the cause of disappointment to his father,
and taking the blame on his own deficiencies. The regret was genuine,
and inspired Fred with strong, simple words.
Mr. Vincy listened in profound surprise without uttering even
an exclamation, a silence which in his impatient temperament was a sign
of unusual emotion. He had not been in good spirits about trade
that morning, and the slight bitterness in his lips grew intense
as he listened. When Fred had ended, there was a pause of nearly
a minute, during which Mr. Vincy replaced a book in his desk and turned
the key emphatically. Then he looked at his son steadily, and said--
"So you've made up your mind at last, sir?"
"Yes, father."
"Very well; stick to it. I've no more to say. You've thrown away
your education, and gone down a step in life, when I had given you
the means of rising, that's all."
"I am very sorry that we differ, father. I think I can be quite
as much of a gentleman at the work I have undertaken, as if I had
been a curate. But I am grateful to you for wishing to do the best
for me."
"Very well; I have no more to say. I wash my hands of you.
I only hope, when you have a son of your own he will make a better
return for the pains you spend on him."
This was very cutting to Fred. His father was using that unfair
advantage possessed by us all when we are in a pathetic situation
and see our own past as if it were simply part of the pathos.
In reality, Mr. Vincy's wishes about his son had had a great deal
of pride, inconsiderateness, and egoistic folly in them. But still
the disappointed father held a strong lever; and Fred felt as if he
were being banished with a malediction.
"I hope you will not object to my remaining at home, sir?" he said,
after rising to go; "I shall have a sufficient salary to pay for
my board, as of course I should wish to do."
"Board be hanged!" said Mr. Vincy, recovering himself in his disgust
at the notion that Fred's keep would be missed at his table.
"Of course your mother will want you to stay. But I shall keep no
horse for you, you understand; and you will pay your own tailor.
You will do with a suit or two less, I fancy, when you have to pay
for 'em."
Fred lingered; there was still something to be said. At last it came.
"I hope you will shake hands with me, father, and forgive me
the vexation I have caused you."
Mr. Vincy from his chair threw a quick glance upward at his son,
who had advanced near to him, and then gave his hand, saying hurriedly,
"Yes, yes, let us say no more."
Fred went through much more narrative and explanation with his mother,
but she was inconsolable, having before her eyes what perhaps her husband
had never thought of, the certainty that Fred would marry Mary Garth,
that her life would henceforth be spoiled by a perpetual infusion
of Garths and their ways, and that her darling boy, with his beautiful
face and stylish air "beyond anybody else's son in Middlemarch,"
would be sure to get like that family in plainness of appearance
and carelessness about his clothes. To her it seemed that there
was a Garth conspiracy to get possession of the desirable Fred,
but she dared not enlarge on this opinion, because a slight hint
of it had made him "fly out" at her as he had never done before.
Her temper was too sweet for her to show any anger, but she felt
that her happiness had received a bruise, and for several days merely
to look at Fred made her cry a little as if he were the subject
of some baleful prophecy. Perhaps she was the slower to recover
her usual cheerfulness because Fred had warned her that she must
not reopen the sore question with his father, who had accepted
his decision and forgiven him. If her husband had been vehement
against Fred, she would have been urged into defence of her darling.
It was the end of the fourth day when Mr. Vincy said to her--
"Come, Lucy, my dear, don't be so down-hearted. You always have
spoiled the boy, and you must go on spoiling him."
"Nothing ever did cut me so before, Vincy," said the wife, her fair
throat and chin beginning to tremble again, "only his illness."
"Pooh, pooh, never mind! We must expect to have trouble with
our children. Don't make it worse by letting me see you out of spirits."
"Well, I won't," said Mrs. Vincy, roused by this appeal and
adjusting herself with a little shake as of a bird which lays
down its ruffled plumage.
"It won't do to begin making a fuss about one," said Mr. Vincy,
wishing to combine a little grumbling with domestic cheerfulness.
"There's Rosamond as well as Fred."
"Yes, poor thing. I'm sure I felt for her being disappointed
of her baby; but she got over it nicely."
"Baby, pooh! I can see Lydgate is making a mess of his practice,
and getting into debt too, by what I hear. I shall have Rosamond
coming to me with a pretty tale one of these days. But they'll
get no money from me, I know. Let HIS family help him.
I never did like that marriage. But it's no use talking. Ring the
bell for lemons, and don't look dull any more, Lucy. I'll drive you
and Louisa to Riverston to-morrow."
CHAPTER LVII.
They numbered scarce eight summers when a name
Rose on their souls and stirred such motions there
As thrill the buds and shape their hidden frame
At penetration of the quickening air:
His name who told of loyal Evan Dhu,
Of quaint Bradwardine, and Vich Ian Vor,
Making the little world their childhood knew
Large with a land of mountain lake and scaur,
And larger yet with wonder love belief
Toward Walter Scott who living far away
Sent them this wealth of joy and noble grief.
The book and they must part, but day by day,
In lines that thwart like portly spiders ran
They wrote the tale, from Tully Veolan.
The evening that Fred Vincy walked to Lowick parsonage (he
had begun to see that this was a world in which even a spirited
young man must sometimes walk for want of a horse to carry him)
he set out at five o'clock and called on Mrs. Garth by the way,
wishing to assure himself that she accepted their new relations willingly.
He found the family group, dogs and cats included, under the great
apple-tree in the orchard. It was a festival with Mrs. Garth,
for her eldest son, Christy, her peculiar joy and pride, had come
home for a short holiday--Christy, who held it the most desirable
thing in the world to be a tutor, to study all literatures and be a
regenerate Porson, and who was an incorporate criticism on poor Fred,
a sort of object-lesson given to him by the educational mother.
Christy himself, a square-browed, broad-shouldered masculine edition
of his mother not much higher than Fred's shoulder--which made it
the harder that he should be held superior--was always as simple
as possible, and thought no more of Fred's disinclination to scholarship
than of a giraffe's, wishing that he himself were more of the
same height. He was lying on the ground now by his mother's chair,
with his straw hat laid flat over his eyes, while Jim on the other
side was reading aloud from that beloved writer who has made
a chief part in the happiness of many young lives. The volume was
"Ivanhoe," and Jim was in the great archery scene at the tournament,
but suffered much interruption from Ben, who had fetched his own
old bow and arrows, and was making himself dreadfully disagreeable,
Letty thought, by begging all present to observe his random shots,
which no one wished to do except Brownie, the active-minded but
probably shallow mongrel, while the grizzled Newfoundland lying in
the sun looked on with the dull-eyed neutrality of extreme old age.
Letty herself, showing as to her mouth and pinafore some slight
signs that she had been assisting at the gathering of the cherries
which stood in a coral-heap on the tea-table, was now seated
on the grass, listening open-eyed to the reading.
But the centre of interest was changed for all by the arrival
of Fred Vincy. When, seating himself on a garden-stool, he said
that he was on his way to Lowick Parsonage, Ben, who had thrown
down his bow, and snatched up a reluctant half-grown kitten instead,
strode across Fred's outstretched leg, and said "Take me!"
"Oh, and me too," said Letty.
"You can't keep up with Fred and me," said Ben.
"Yes, I can. Mother, please say that I am to go," urged Letty,
whose life was much checkered by resistance to her depreciation
as a girl.
"I shall stay with Christy," observed Jim; as much as to say
that he had the advantage of those simpletons; whereupon Letty
put her hand up to her head and looked with jealous indecision
from the one to the other.
"Let us all go and see Mary," said Christy, opening his arms.
"No, my dear child, we must not go in a swarm to the parsonage.
And that old Glasgow suit of yours would never do. Besides, your
father will come home. We must let Fred go alone. He can tell
Mary that you are here, and she will come back to-morrow."
Christy glanced at his own threadbare knees, and then at Fred's
beautiful white trousers. Certainly Fred's tailoring suggested
the advantages of an English university, and he had a graceful way
even of looking warm and of pushing his hair back with his handkerchief.
"Children, run away," said Mrs. Garth; "it is too warm to hang
about your friends. Take your brother and show him the rabbits."
The eldest understood, and led off the children immediately.
Fred felt that Mrs. Garth wished to give him an opportunity of saying
anything he had to say, but he could only begin by observing--
"How glad you must be to have Christy here!"
"Yes; he has come sooner than I expected. He got down from the coach
at nine o'clock, just after his father went out. I am longing for
Caleb to come and hear what wonderful progress Christy is making.
He has paid his expenses for the last year by giving lessons,
carrying on hard study at the same time. He hopes soon to get
a private tutorship and go abroad."
"He is a great fellow," said Fred, to whom these cheerful
truths had a medicinal taste, "and no trouble to anybody."
After a slight pause, he added, "But I fear you will think
that I am going to be a great deal of trouble to Mr. Garth."
"Caleb likes taking trouble: he is one of those men who always
do more than any one would have thought of asking them to do,"
answered Mrs. Garth. She was knitting, and could either look at
Fred or not, as she chose--always an advantage when one is bent
on loading speech with salutary meaning; and though Mrs. Garth
intended to be duly reserved, she did wish to say something
that Fred might be the better for.
"I know you think me very undeserving, Mrs. Garth, and with good reason,"
said Fred, his spirit rising a little at the perception of something
like a disposition to lecture him. "I happen to have behaved just
the worst to the people I can't help wishing for the most from.
But while two men like Mr. Garth and Mr. Farebrother have not given
me up, I don't see why I should give myself up." Fred thought it
might be well to suggest these masculine examples to Mrs. Garth.
"Assuredly," said she, with gathering emphasis. "A young man
for whom two such elders had devoted themselves would indeed be
culpable if he threw himself away and made their sacrifices vain."
Fred wondered a little at this strong language, but only said,
"I hope it will not be so with me, Mrs. Garth, since I have some
encouragement to believe that I may win Mary. Mr. Garth has told
you about that? You were not surprised, I dare say?" Fred ended,
innocently referring only to his own love as probably evident enough.
"Not surprised that Mary has given you encouragement?"
returned Mrs. Garth, who thought it would be well for Fred to be
more alive to the fact that Mary's friends could not possibly
have wished this beforehand, whatever the Vincys might suppose.
"Yes, I confess I was surprised."
"She never did give me any--not the least in the world, when I
talked to her myself," said Fred, eager to vindicate Mary.
"But when I asked Mr. Farebrother to speak for me, she allowed him
to tell me there was a hope."
The power of admonition which had begun to stir in Mrs. Garth had
not yet discharged itself. It was a little too provoking even for
HER self-control that this blooming youngster should flourish
on the disappointments of sadder and wiser people--making a meal
of a nightingale and never knowing it--and that all the while his
family should suppose that hers was in eager need of this sprig;
and her vexation had fermented the more actively because of its total
repression towards her husband. Exemplary wives will sometimes
find scapegoats in this way. She now said with energetic decision,
"You made a great mistake, Fred, in asking Mr. Farebrother to speak
for you."
"Did I?" said Fred, reddening instantaneously. He was alarmed,
but at a loss to know what Mrs. Garth meant, and added,
in an apologetic tone, "Mr. Farebrother has always been such
a friend of ours; and Mary, I knew, would listen to him gravely;
and he took it on himself quite readily."
"Yes, young people are usually blind to everything but their own wishes,
and seldom imagine how much those wishes cost others," said Mrs. Garth
She did not mean to go beyond this salutary general doctrine,
and threw her indignation into a needless unwinding of her worsted,
knitting her brow at it with a grand air.
"I cannot conceive how it could be any pain to Mr. Farebrother,"
said Fred, who nevertheless felt that surprising conceptions were
beginning to form themselves.
"Precisely; you cannot conceive," said Mrs. Garth, cutting her words
as neatly as possible.
For a moment Fred looked at the horizon with a dismayed anxiety,
and then turning with a quick movement said almost sharply--
"Do you mean to say, Mrs. Garth, that Mr. Farebrother is in love
with Mary?"
"And if it were so, Fred, I think you are the last person who
ought to be surprised," returned Mrs. Garth, laying her knitting
down beside her and folding her arms. It was an unwonted sign
of emotion in her that she should put her work out of her hands.
In fact her feelings were divided between the satisfaction of giving
Fred his discipline and the sense of having gone a little too far.
Fred took his hat and stick and rose quickly.
"Then you think I am standing in his way, and in Mary's too?"
he said, in a tone which seemed to demand an answer.
Mrs. Garth could not speak immediately. She had brought herself into
the unpleasant position of being called on to say what she really felt,
yet what she knew there were strong reasons for concealing.
And to her the consciousness of having exceeded in words was
peculiarly mortifying. Besides, Fred had given out unexpected
electricity, and he now added, "Mr. Garth seemed pleased that
Mary should be attached to me. He could not have known anything of this."
Mrs. Garth felt a severe twinge at this mention of her husband, the fear
that Caleb might think her in the wrong not being easily endurable.
She answered, wanting to check unintended consequences--
"I spoke from inference only. I am not aware that Mary knows
anything of the matter."
But she hesitated to beg that he would keep entire silence on a
subject which she had herself unnecessarily mentioned, not being
used to stoop in that way; and while she was hesitating there
was already a rush of unintended consequences under the apple-tree
where the tea-things stood. Ben, bouncing across the grass with
Brownie at his heels, and seeing the kitten dragging the knitting
by a lengthening line of wool, shouted and clapped his hands;
Brownie barked, the kitten, desperate, jumped on the tea-table and
upset the milk, then jumped down again and swept half the cherries
with it; and Ben, snatching up the half-knitted sock-top, fitted
it over the kitten's head as a new source of madness, while Letty
arriving cried out to her mother against this cruelty--it was a
history as full of sensation as "This is the house that Jack built."
Mrs. Garth was obliged to interfere, the other young ones came up
and the tete-a-tete with Fred was ended. He got away as soon
as he could, and Mrs. Garth could only imply some retractation
of her severity by saying "God bless you" when she shook hands with him.
She was unpleasantly conscious that she had been on the verge
of speaking as "one of the foolish women speaketh"--telling first
and entreating silence after. But she had not entreated silence,
and to prevent Caleb's blame she determined to blame herself and
confess all to him that very night. It was curious what an awful
tribunal the mild Caleb's was to her, whenever he set it up.
But she meant to point out to him that the revelation might do Fred
Vincy a great deal of good.
No doubt it was having a strong effect on him as he walked to Lowick.
Fred's light hopeful nature had perhaps never had so much of a
bruise as from this suggestion that if he had been out of the way
Mary might have made a thoroughly good match. Also he was piqued
that he had been what he called such a stupid lout as to ask that
intervention from Mr. Farebrother. But it was not in a lover's nature--
it was not in Fred's, that the new anxiety raised about Mary's
feeling should not surmount every other. Notwithstanding his
trust in Mr. Farebrother's generosity, notwithstanding what Mary
had said to him, Fred could not help feeling that he had a rival:
it was a new consciousness, and he objected to it extremely,
not being in the least ready to give up Mary for her good, being ready
rather to fight for her with any man whatsoever. But the fighting
with Mr. Farebrother must be of a metaphorical kind, which was much
more difficult to Fred than the muscular. Certainly this experience
was a discipline for Fred hardly less sharp than his disappointment
about his uncle's will. The iron had not entered into his soul,
but he had begun to imagine what the sharp edge would be.
It did not once occur to Fred that Mrs. Garth might be mistaken
about Mr. Farebrother, but he suspected that she might be wrong
about Mary. Mary had been staying at the parsonage lately, and her
mother might know very little of what had been passing in her mind.
He did not feel easier when he found her looking cheerful with the
three ladies in the drawing-room. They were in animated discussion
on some subject which was dropped when he entered, and Mary
was copying the labels from a heap of shallow cabinet drawers,
in a minute handwriting which she was skilled in. Mr. Farebrother
was somewhere in the village, and the three ladies knew nothing
of Fred's peculiar relation to Mary: it was impossible for either
of them to propose that they should walk round the garden,
and Fred predicted to himself that he should have to go away without
saying a word to her in private. He told her first of Christy's
arrival and then of his own engagement with her father; and he
was comforted by seeing that this latter news touched her keenly.
She said hurriedly, "I am so glad," and then bent over her writing
to hinder any one from noticing her face. But here was a subject
which Mrs. Farebrother could not let pass.
"You don't mean, my dear Miss Garth, that you are glad to hear
of a young man giving up the Church for which he was educated:
you only mean that things being so, you are glad that he should be
under an excellent man like your father."
"No, really, Mrs. Farebrother, I am glad of both, I fear,"
said Mary, cleverly getting rid of one rebellious tear.
"I have a dreadfully secular mind. I never liked any clergyman
except the Vicar of Wakefield and Mr. Farebrother."
"Now why, my dear?" said Mrs. Farebrother, pausing on her large
wooden knitting-needles and looking at Mary. "You have always
a good reason for your opinions, but this astonishes me.
Of course I put out of the question those who preach new doctrine.
But why should you dislike clergymen?"
"Oh dear," said Mary, her face breaking into merriment as she
seemed to consider a moment, "I don't like their neckcloths."
"Why, you don't like Camden's, then," said Miss Winifred,
in some anxiety.
"Yes, I do," said Mary. "I don't like the other clergymen's neckcloths,
because it is they who wear them."
"How very puzzling!" said Miss Noble, feeling that her own intellect
was probably deficient.
"My dear, you are joking. You would have better reasons
than these for slighting so respectable a class of men,"
said Mrs. Farebrother, majestically.
"Miss Garth has such severe notions of what people should be that it
is difficult to satisfy her," said Fred.
"Well, I am glad at least that she makes an exception in favor
of my son," said the old lady.
Mary was wondering at Fred's piqued tone, when Mr. Farebrother came
in and had to hear the news about the engagement under Mr. Garth.
At the end he said with quiet satisfaction, "THAT is right;"
and then bent to look at Mary's labels and praise her handwriting.
Fred felt horribly jealous--was glad, of course, that Mr. Farebrother
was so estimable, but wished that he had been ugly and fat as men
at forty sometimes are. It was clear what the end would be,
since Mary openly placed Farebrother above everybody, and these
women were all evidently encouraging the affair. He, was feeling
sure that he should have no chance of speaking to Mary,
when Mr. Farebrother said--
"Fred, help me to carry these drawers back into my study--
you have never seen my fine new study. Pray come too, Miss Garth.
I want you to see a stupendous spider I found this morning."
Mary at once saw the Vicar's intention. He had never since the
memorable evening deviated from his old pastoral kindness towards her,
and her momentary wonder and doubt had quite gone to sleep.
Mary was accustomed to think rather rigorously of what was probable,
and if a belief flattered her vanity she felt warned to dismiss it
as ridiculous, having early had much exercise in such dismissals.
It was as she had foreseen: when Fred had been asked to admire the
fittings of the study, and she had been asked to admire the spider,
Mr. Farebrother said--
"Wait here a minute or two. I am going to look out an engraving
which Fred is tall enough to hang for me. I shall be back in a
few minutes." And then he went out. Nevertheless, the first
word Fred said to Mary was--
"It is of no use, whatever I do, Mary. You are sure to marry
Farebrother at last." There was some rage in his tone.
"What do you mean, Fred?" Mary exclaimed indignantly, blushing deeply,
and surprised out of all her readiness in reply.
"It is impossible that you should not see it all clearly enough--
you who see everything."
"I only see that you are behaving very ill, Fred, in speaking so
of Mr. Farebrother after he has pleaded your cause in every way.
How can you have taken up such an idea?"
Fred was rather deep, in spite of his irritation. If Mary
had really been unsuspicious, there was no good in telling
her what Mrs. Garth-had said.
"It follows as a matter of course," he replied. "When you are
continually seeing a man who beats me in everything, and whom
you set up above everybody, I can have no fair chance."
"You are very ungrateful, Fred," said Mary. "I wish I had never
told Mr. Farebrother that I cared for you in the least."
"No, I am not ungrateful; I should be the happiest fellow in the
world if it were not for this. I told your father everything,
and he was very kind; he treated me as if I were his son.
I could go at the work with a will, writing and everything, if it
were not for this."
"For this? for what?" said Mary, imagining now that something
specific must have been said or done.
"This dreadful certainty that I shall be bowled out by Farebrother."
Mary was appeased by her inclination to laugh.
"Fred," she said, peeping round to catch his eyes, which were
sulkily turned away from her, "you are too delightfully ridiculous.
If you were not such a charming simpleton, what a temptation
this would be to play the wicked coquette, and let you suppose
that somebody besides you has made love to me."
"Do you really like me best, Mary?" said Fred, turning eyes full
of affection on her, and trying to take her hand.
"I don't like you at all at this moment," said Mary, retreating,
and putting her hands behind her. "I only said that no mortal
ever made love to me besides you. And that is no argument
that a very wise man ever will," she ended, merrily.
"I wish you would tell me that you could not possibly ever think
of him," said Fred.
"Never dare to mention this any more to me, Fred," said Mary,
getting serious again. "I don't know whether it is more stupid
or ungenerous in you not to see that Mr: Farebrother has left us
together on purpose that we might speak freely. I am disappointed
that you should be so blind to his delicate feeling."
There was no time to say any more before Mr. Farebrother came back
with the engraving; and Fred had to return to the drawing-room still
with a jealous dread in his heart, but yet with comforting arguments
from Mary's words and manner. The result of the conversation was on
the whole more painful to Mary: inevitably her attention had taken
a new attitude, and she saw the possibility of new interpretations.
She was in a position in which she seemed to herself to be slighting
Mr. Farebrother, and this, in relation to a man who is much honored,
is always dangerous to the firmness of a grateful woman.
To have a reason for going home the next day was a relief, for Mary
earnestly desired to be always clear that she loved Fred best.
When a tender affection has been storing itself in us through many
of our years, the idea that we could accept any exchange for it
seems to be a cheapening of our lives. And we can set a watch over
our affections and our constancy as we can over other treasures.
"Fred has lost all his other expectations; he must keep this,"
Mary said to herself, with a smile curling her lips. It was
impossible to help fleeting visions of another kind--new dignities
and an acknowledged value of which she had often felt the absence.
But these things with Fred outside them, Fred forsaken and looking
sad for the want of her, could never tempt her deliberate thought.
CHAPTER LVIII.
"For there can live no hatred in thine eye,
Therefore in that I cannot know thy change:
In many's looks the false heart's history
Is writ in moods and frowns and wrinkles strange:
But Heaven in thy creation did decree
That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell:
Whate'er thy thoughts or thy heart's workings be
Thy looks should nothing thence but sweetness tell."
--SHAKESPEARE: Sonnets.
At the time when Mr. Vincy uttered that presentiment about Rosamond,
she herself had never had the idea that she should be driven to make
the sort of appeal which he foresaw. She had not yet had any
anxiety about ways and means, although her domestic life had been
expensive as well as eventful. Her baby had been born prematurely,
and all the embroidered robes and caps had to be laid by in darkness.
This misfortune was attributed entirely to her having persisted
in going out on horseback one day when her husband had desired her
not to do so; but it must not be supposed that she had shown temper
on the occasion, or rudely told him that she would do as she liked.
What led her particularly to desire horse-exercise was a visit from
Captain Lydgate, the baronet's third son, who, I am sorry to say,
was detested by our Tertius of that name as a vapid fop "parting
his hair from brow to nape in a despicable fashion" (not followed
by Tertius himself), and showing an ignorant security that he knew
the proper thing to say on every topic. Lydgate inwardly cursed his
own folly that he had drawn down this visit by consenting to go to his
uncle's on the wedding-tour, and he made himself rather disagreeable
to Rosamond by saying so in private. For to Rosamond this visit
was a source of unprecedented but gracefully concealed exultation.
She was so intensely conscious of having a cousin who was a baronet's
son staying in the house, that she imagined the knowledge of what
was implied by his presence to be diffused through all other minds;
and when she introduced Captain Lydgate to her guests, she had
a placid sense that his rank penetrated them as if it had been
an odor. The satisfaction was enough for the time to melt away
some disappointment in the conditions of marriage with a medical man
even of good birth: it seemed now that her marriage was visibly
as well as ideally floating her above the Middlemarch level, and the
future looked bright with letters and visits to and from Quallingham,
and vague advancement in consequence for Tertius. Especially as,
probably at the Captain's suggestion, his married sister, Mrs. Mengan,
had come with her maid, and stayed two nights on her way from town.
Hence it was clearly worth while for Rosamond to take pains with
her music and the careful selection of her lace.
As to Captain Lydgate himself, his low brow, his aquiline nose
bent on one side, and his rather heavy utterance, might have been
disadvantageous in any young gentleman who had not a military bearing
and mustache to give him what is doted on by some flower-like blond
heads as "style." He had, moreover, that sort of high-breeding
which consists in being free from the petty solicitudes of
middle-class gentility, and he was a great critic of feminine charms.
Rosamond delighted in his admiration now even more than she had
done at Quallingham, and he found it easy to spend several hours
of the day in flirting with her. The visit altogether was one
of the pleasantest larks he had ever had, not the less so perhaps
because he suspected that his queer cousin Tertius wished him away:
though Lydgate, who would rather (hyperbolically speaking) have died
than have failed in polite hospitality, suppressed his dislike,
and only pretended generally not to hear what the gallant officer said,
consigning the task of answering him to Rosamond. For he was not
at all a jealous husband, and preferred leaving a feather-headed
young gentleman alone with his wife to bearing him company.
"I wish you would talk more to the Captain at dinner, Tertius,"
said Rosamond, one evening when the important guest was gone
to Loamford to see some brother officers stationed there.
"You really look so absent sometimes--you seem to be seeing
through his head into something behind it, instead of looking at him."
"My dear Rosy, you don't expect me to talk much to such a conceited
ass as that, I hope," said Lydgate, brusquely. "If he got his
head broken, I might look at it with interest, not before."
"I cannot conceive why you should speak of your cousin so contemptuously,"
said Rosamond, her fingers moving at her work while she spoke
with a mild gravity which had a touch of disdain in it.
"Ask Ladislaw if he doesn't think your Captain the greatest bore he
ever met with. Ladislaw has almost forsaken the house since he came."
Rosamond thought she knew perfectly well why Mr. Ladislaw disliked
the Captain: he was jealous, and she liked his being jealous.
"It is impossible to say what will suit eccentric persons,"
she answered, "but in my opinion Captain Lydgate is a thorough
gentleman, and I think you ought not, out of respect to Sir Godwin,
to treat him with neglect."
"No, dear; but we have had dinners for him. And he comes in and
goes out as he likes. He doesn't want me"
"Still, when he is in the room, you might show him more attention.
He may not be a phoenix of cleverness in your sense; his profession
is different; but it would be all the better for you to talk a little
on his subjects. _I_ think his conversation is quite agreeable.
And he is anything but an unprincipled man."
"The fact is, you would wish me to be a little more like him,
Rosy," said Lydgate, in a sort of resigned murmur, with a
smile which was not exactly tender, and certainly not merry.
Rosamond was silent and did not smile again; but the lovely
curves of her face looked good-tempered enough without smiling.
Those words of Lydgate's were like a sad milestone marking how far
he had travelled from his old dreamland, in which Rosamond Vincy
appeared to be that perfect piece of womanhood who would reverence
her husband's mind after the fashion of an accomplished mermaid,
using her comb and looking-glass and singing her song for the
relaxation of his adored wisdom alone. He had begun to distinguish
between that imagined adoration and the attraction towards a man's
talent because it gives him prestige, and is like an order in his
button-hole or an Honorable before his name.
It might have been supposed that Rosamond had travelled too,
since she had found the pointless conversation of Mr. Ned Plymdale
perfectly wearisome; but to most mortals there is a stupidity
which is unendurable and a stupidity which is altogether acceptable--
else, indeed, what would become of social bonds? Captain Lydgate's
stupidity was delicately scented, carried itself with "style,"
talked with a good accent, and was closely related to Sir Godwin.
Rosamond found it quite agreeable and caught many of its phrases.
Therefore since Rosamond, as we know, was fond of horseback,
there were plenty of reasons why she should be tempted to resume
her riding when Captain Lydgate, who had ordered his man with
two horses to follow him and put up at the "Green Dragon,"
begged her to go out on the gray which he warranted to be gentle
and trained to carry a lady--indeed, he had bought it for his sister,
and was taking it to Quallingham. Rosamond went out the first time
without telling her husband, and came back before his return;
but the ride had been so thorough a success, and she declared
herself so much the better in consequence, that he was informed
of it with full reliance on his consent that she should go riding again.
On the contrary Lydgate was more than hurt--he was utterly
confounded that she had risked herself on a strange horse without
referring the matter to his wish. After the first almost
thundering exclamations of astonishment, which sufficiently
warned Rosamond of what was coming, he was silent for some moments.
"However, you have come back safely," he said, at last, in a
decisive tone. "You will not go again, Rosy; that is understood.
If it were the quietest, most familiar horse in the world,
there would always be the chance of accident. And you know very
well that I wished you to give up riding the roan on that account."
"But there is the chance of accident indoors, Tertius."
"My darling, don't talk nonsense," said Lydgate, in an imploring tone;
"surely I am the person to judge for you. I think it is enough
that I say you are not to go again."
Rosamond was arranging her hair before dinner, and the reflection
of her head in the glass showed no change in its loveliness except
a little turning aside of the long neck. Lydgate had been moving
about with his hands in his pockets, and now paused near her,
as if he awaited some assurance.
"I wish you would fasten up my plaits, dear," said Rosamond, letting her
arms fall with a little sigh, so as to make a husband ashamed of standing
there like a brute. Lydgate had often fastened the plaits before,
being among the deftest of men with his large finely formed fingers.
He swept up the soft festoons of plaits and fastened in the tall
comb (to such uses do men come!); and what could he do then but kiss
the exquisite nape which was shown in all its delicate curves?
But when we do what we have done before, it is often with a difference.
Lydgate was still angry, and had not forgotten his point.
"I shall tell the Captain that he ought to have known better than
offer you his horse," he said, as he moved away.
"I beg you will not do anything of the kind, Tertius," said Rosamond,
looking at him with something more marked than usual in her speech.
"It will be treating me as if I were a child. Promise that you will
leave the subject to me."
There did seem to be some truth in her objection. Lydgate said,
"Very well," with a surly obedience, and thus the discussion ended
with his promising Rosamond, and not with her promising him.
In fact, she had been determined not to promise. Rosamond had
that victorious obstinacy which never wastes its energy in
impetuous resistance. What she liked to do was to her the right thing,
and all her cleverness was directed to getting the means of doing it.
She meant to go out riding again on the gray, and she did go on
the next opportunity of her husband's absence, not intending that
he should know until it was late enough not to signify to her.
The temptation was certainly great: she was very fond of the exercise,
and the gratification of riding on a fine horse, with Captain Lydgate,
Sir Godwin's son, on another fine horse by her side, and of being met
in this position by any one but her husband, was something as good as
her dreams before marriage: moreover she was riveting the connection
with the family at Quallingham, which must be a wise thing to do.
But the gentle gray, unprepared for the crash of a tree that was
being felled on the edge of Halsell wood, took fright, and caused
a worse fright to Rosamond, leading finally to the loss of her baby.
Lydgate could not show his anger towards her, but he was rather
bearish to the Captain, whose visit naturally soon came to an end.
In all future conversations on the subject, Rosamond was mildly
certain that the ride had made no difference, and that if she had
stayed at home the same symptoms would have come on and would have
ended in the same way, because she had felt something like them before.
Lydgate could only say, "Poor, poor darling!"--but he secretly wondered
over the terrible tenacity of this mild creature. There was gathering
within him an amazed sense of his powerlessness over Rosamond.
His superior knowledge and mental force, instead of being, as he
had imagined, a shrine to consult on all occasions, was simply set
aside on every practical question. He had regarded Rosamond's
cleverness as precisely of the receptive kind which became a woman.
He was now beginning to find out what that cleverness was--what was
the shape into which it had run as into a close network aloof
and independent. No one quicker than Rosamond to see causes and
effects which lay within the track of her own tastes and interests:
she had seen clearly Lydgate's preeminence in Middlemarch society,
and could go on imaginatively tracing still more agreeable social
effects when his talent should have advanced him; but for her,
his professional and scientific ambition had no other relation
to these desirable effects than if they had been the fortunate
discovery of an ill-smelling oil. And that oil apart,
with which she had nothing to do, of course she believed in her own
opinion more than she did in his. Lydgate was astounded to find
in numberless trifling matters, as well as in this last serious
case of the riding, that affection did not make her compliant.
He had no doubt that the affection was there, and had no presentiment
that he had done anything to repel it. For his own part he said
to himself that he loved her as tenderly as ever, and could make up
his mind-to her negations; but--well! Lydgate was much worried,
and conscious of new elements in his life as noxious to him as an
inlet of mud to a creature that has been used to breathe and bathe
and dart after its illuminated prey in the clearest of waters.
Rosamond was soon looking lovelier than ever at her worktable,
enjoying drives in her father's phaeton and thinking it likely
that she might be invited to Quallingham. She knew that she
was a much more exquisite ornament to the drawing-room there than
any daughter of the family, and in reflecting that the gentlemen
were aware of that, did not perhaps sufficiently consider whether
the ladies would be eager to see themselves surpassed.
Lydgate, relieved from anxiety about her, relapsed into what she
inwardly called his moodiness--a name which to her covered
his thoughtful preoccupation with other subjects than herself,
as well as that uneasy look of the brow and distaste for all ordinary
things as if they were mixed with bitter herbs, which really
made a sort of weather-glass to his vexation and foreboding.
These latter states of mind had one cause amongst others, which he
had generously but mistakenly avoided mentioning to Rosamond,
lest it should affect her health and spirits. Between him and her
indeed there was that total missing of each other's mental track,
which is too evidently possible even between persons who are
continually thinking of each other. To Lydgate it seemed that he
had been spending month after month in sacrificing more than half
of his best intent and best power to his tenderness for Rosamond;
bearing her little claims and interruptions without impatience, and,
above all, bearing without betrayal of bitterness to look through
less and less of interfering illusion at the blank unreflecting
surface her mind presented to his ardor for the more impersonal
ends of his profession and his scientific study, an ardor which he
had fancied that the ideal wife must somehow worship as sublime,
though not in the least knowing why. But his endurance was mingled
with a self-discontent which, if we know how to be candid, we shall
confess to make more than half our bitterness under grievances,
wife or husband included. It always remains true that if we had
been greater, circumstance would have been less strong against us.
Lydgate was aware that his concessions to Rosamond were often
little more than the lapse of slackening resolution, the creeping
paralysis apt to seize an enthusiasm which is out of adjustment
to a constant portion of our lives. And on Lydgate's enthusiasm
there was constantly pressing not a simple weight of sorrow,
but the biting presence of a petty degrading care, such as casts
the blight of irony over all higher effort.
This was the care which he had hitherto abstained from mentioning
to Rosamond; and he believed, with some wonder, that it had never entered
her mind, though certainly no difficulty could be less mysterious.
It was an inference with a conspicuous handle to it, and had been
easily drawn by indifferent observers, that Lydgate was in debt;
and he could not succeed in keeping out of his mind for long together
that he was every day getting deeper into that swamp, which tempts
men towards it with such a pretty covering of flowers and verdure.
It is wonderful how soon a man gets up to his chin there--in a condition
in which, spite of himself, he is forced to think chiefly of release,
though he had a scheme of the universe in his soul.
Eighteen months ago Lydgate was poor, but had never known the eager
want of small sums, and felt rather a burning contempt for any one
who descended a step in order to gain them. He was now experiencing
something worse than a simple deficit: he was assailed by the
vulgar hateful trials of a man who has bought and used a great
many things which might have been done without, and which he
is unable to pay for, though the demand for payment has become pressing.
How this came about may be easily seen without much arithmetic or
knowledge of prices. When a man in setting up a house and preparing
for marriage finds that his furniture and other initial expenses
come to between four and five hundred pounds more than he has
capital to pay for; when at the end of a year it appears that his
household expenses, horses and et caeteras, amount to nearly a thousand,
while the proceeds of the practice reckoned from the old books
to be worth eight hundred per annum have sunk like a summer pond
and make hardly five hundred, chiefly in unpaid entries, the plain
inference is that, whether he minds it or not, he is in debt.
Those were less expensive times than our own, and provincial life
was comparatively modest; but the ease with which a medical man
who had lately bought a practice, who thought that he was obliged
to keep two horses, whose table was supplied without stint, and who
paid an insurance on his life and a high rent for house and garden,
might find his expenses doubling his receipts, can be conceived by
any one who does not think these details beneath his consideration.
Rosamond, accustomed from her to an extravagant household,
thought that good housekeeping consisted simply in ordering the
best of everything--nothing else "answered;" and Lydgate supposed
that "if things were done at all, they must be done properly"--
he did not see how they were to live otherwise. If each head
of household expenditure had been mentioned to him beforehand,
he would have probably observed that "it could hardly come to much,"
and if any one had suggested a saving on a particular article--
for example, the substitution of cheap fish for dear--
it would have appeared to him simply a penny-wise, mean notion.
Rosamond, even without such an occasion as Captain Lydgate's visit,
was fond of giving invitations, and Lydgate, though he often thought
the guests tiresome, did not interfere. This sociability seemed
a necessary part of professional prudence, and the entertainment
must be suitable. It is true Lydgate was constantly visiting
the homes of the poor and adjusting his prescriptions of diet
to their small means; but, dear me! has it not by this time ceased
to be remarkable--is it not rather that we expect in men, that they
should have numerous strands of experience lying side by side
and never compare them with each other? Expenditure--like ugliness
and errors--becomes a totally new thing when we attach our own
personality to it, and measure it by that wide difference which is
manifest (in our own sensations) between ourselves and others.
Lydgate believed himself to be careless about his dress, and he
despised a man who calculated the effects of his costume; it seemed
to him only a matter of course that he had abundance of fresh garments--
such things were naturally ordered in sheaves. It must be remembered
that he had never hitherto felt the check of importunate debt,
and he walked by habit, not by self-criticism. But the check had come.
Its novelty made it the more irritating. He was amazed,
disgusted that conditions so foreign to all his purposes, so hatefully
disconnected with the objects he cared to occupy himself with,
should have lain in ambush and clutched him when he was unaware.
And there was not only the actual debt; there was the certainty
that in his present position he must go on deepening it.
Two furnishing tradesmen at Brassing, whose bills had been incurred
before his marriage, and whom uncalculated current expenses had
ever since prevented him from paying, had repeatedly sent him
unpleasant letters which had forced themselves on his attention.
This could hardly have been more galling to any disposition than
to Lydgate's, with his intense pride--his dislike of asking a favor
or being under an obligation to any one. He had scorned even to form
conjectures about Mr. Vincy's intentions on money matters, and nothing
but extremity could have induced him to apply to his father-in-law,
even if he had not been made aware in various indirect ways since
his marriage that Mr. Vincy's own affairs were not flourishing,
and that the expectation of help from him would be resented.
Some men easily trust in the readiness of friends; it had never in
the former part of his life occurred to Lydgate that he should need
to do so: he had never thought what borrowing would be to him;
but now that the idea had entered his mind, he felt that he would
rather incur any other hardship. In the mean time he had no money
or prospects of money; and his practice was not getting more lucrative.
No wonder that Lydgate had been unable to suppress all signs
of inward trouble during the last few months, and now that
Rosamond was regaining brilliant health, he meditated taking her
entirely into confidence on his difficulties. New conversance
with tradesmen's bills had forced his reasoning into a new
channel of comparison: he had begun to consider from a new point
of view what was necessary and unnecessary in goods ordered,
and to see that there must be some change of habits. How could
such a change be made without Rosamond's concurrence? The immediate
occasion of opening the disagreeable fact to her was forced upon him.
Having no money, and having privately sought advice as to what security
could possibly be given by a man in his position, Lydgate had offered
the one good security in his power to the less peremptory creditor,
who was a silversmith and jeweller, and who consented to take on himself
the upholsterer's credit also, accepting interest for a given term.
The security necessary was a bill of sale on the furniture of his house,
which might make a creditor easy for a reasonable time about a debt
amounting to less than four hundred pounds; and the silversmith,
Mr. Dover, was willing to reduce it by taking back a portion
of the plate and any other article which was as good as new.
"Any other article" was a phrase delicately implying jewellery,
and more particularly some purple amethysts costing thirty pounds,
which Lydgate had bought as a bridal present.
Opinions may be divided as to his wisdom in making this present:
some may think that it was a graceful attention to be expected from
a man like Lydgate, and that the fault of any troublesome consequences
lay in the pinched narrowness of provincial life at that time,
which offered no conveniences for professional people whose fortune
was not proportioned to their tastes; also, in Lydgate's ridiculous
fastidiousness about asking his friends for money.
However, it had seemed a question of no moment to him on that fine
morning when he went to give a final order for plate: in the
presence of other jewels enormously expensive, and as an addition
to orders of which the amount had not been exactly calculated,
thirty pounds for ornaments so exquisitely suited to Rosamond's
neck and arms could hardly appear excessive when there was no ready
cash for it to exceed. But at this crisis Lydgate's imagination
could not help dwelling on the possibility of letting the amethysts
take their place again among Mr. Dover's stock, though he shrank
from the idea of proposing this to Rosamond. Having been roused to
discern consequences which he had never been in the habit of tracing,
he was preparing to act on this discernment with some of the rigor
(by no means all) that he would have applied in pursuing experiment.
He was nerving himself to this rigor as he rode from Brassing,
and meditated on the representations he must make to Rosamond.
It was evening when he got home. He was intensely miserable,
this strong man of nine-and-twenty and of many gifts. He was not
saying angrily within himself that he had made a profound mistake;
but the mistake was at work in him like a recognized chronic disease,
mingling its uneasy importunities with every prospect, and enfeebling
every thought. As he went along the passage to the drawing-room,
he heard the piano and singing. Of course, Ladislaw was there.
It was some weeks since Will had parted from Dorothea, yet he was
still at the old post in Middlemarch. Lydgate had no objection
in general to Ladislaw's coming, but just now he was annoyed that he
could not find his hearth free. When he opened the door the two
singers went on towards the key-note, raising their eyes and looking
at him indeed, but not regarding his entrance as an interruption.
To a man galled with his harness as poor Lydgate was, it is not
soothing to see two people warbling at him, as he comes in with the
sense that the painful day has still pains in store. His face,
already paler than usual, took on a scowl as he walked across the room
and flung himself into a chair.
The singers feeling themselves excused by the fact that they had
only three bars to sing, now turned round.
"How are you, Lydgate?" said Will, coming forward to shake hands.
Lydgate took his hand, but did not think it necessary to speak.
"Have you dined, Tertius? I expected you much earlier," said Rosamond,
who had already seen that her husband was in a "horrible humor."
She seated herself in her usual place as she spoke.
"I have dined. I should like some tea, please," said Lydgate,
curtly, still scowling and looking markedly at his legs stretched
out before him.
Will was too quick to need more. "I shall be off," he said,
reaching his hat.
"Tea is coming," said Rosamond; "pray don't go."
"Yes, Lydgate is bored," said Will, who had more comprehension
of Lydgate than Rosamond had, and was not offended by his manner,
easily imagining outdoor causes of annoyance.
"There is the more need for you to stay," said Rosamond, playfully,
and in her lightest accent; "he will not speak to me all the evening."
"Yes, Rosamond, I shall," said Lydgate, in his strong baritone.
"I have some serious business to speak to you about."
No introduction of the business could have been less like that
which Lydgate had intended; but her indifferent manner had been
too provoking.
"There! you see," said Will. "I'm going to the meeting about
the Mechanics' Institute. Good-by;" and he went quickly out of the room.
Rosamond did not look at her husband, but presently rose and took
her place before the tea-tray. She was thinking that she had never
seen him so disagreeable. Lydgate turned his dark eyes on her
and watched her as she delicately handled the tea-service with her
taper fingers, and looked at the objects immediately before her
with no curve in her face disturbed, and yet with an ineffable
protest in her air against all people with unpleasant manners.
For the moment he lost the sense of his wound in a sudden speculation
about this new form of feminine impassibility revealing itself
in the sylph-like frame which he had once interpreted as the sign
of a ready intelligent sensitiveness. His mind glancing back to Laure
while he looked at Rosamond, he said inwardly, "Would SHE kill me
because I wearied her?" and then, "It is the way with all women."
But this power of generalizing which gives men so much the superiority
in mistake over the dumb animals, was immediately thwarted by Lydgate's
memory of wondering impressions from the behavior of another woman--
from Dorothea's looks and tones of emotion about her husband
when Lydgate began to attend him--from her passionate cry to be
taught what would best comfort that man for whose sake it seemed
as if she must quell every impulse in her except the yearnings
of faithfulness and compassion. These revived impressions succeeded
each other quickly and dreamily in Lydgate's mind while the tea
was being brewed. He had shut his eyes in the last instant of
reverie while he heard Dorothea saying, "Advise me--think what I
can do--he has been all his life laboring and looking forward.
He minds about nothing else--and I mind about nothing else."
That voice of deep-souled womanhood had remained within him as the
enkindling conceptions of dead and sceptred genius had remained
within him (is there not a genius for feeling nobly which also
reigns over human spirits and their conclusions?); the tones were
a music from which he was falling away--he had really fallen into
a momentary doze, when Rosamond said in her silvery neutral way,
"Here is your tea, Tertius," setting it on the small table by
his side, and then moved back to her place without looking at him.
Lydgate was too hasty in attributing insensibility to her; after her
own fashion, she was sensitive enough, and took lasting impressions.
Her impression now was one of offence and repulsion. But then,
Rosamond had no scowls and had never raised her voice: she was
quite sure that no one could justly find fault with her.
Perhaps Lydgate and she had never felt so far off each other before;
but there were strong reasons for not deferring his revelation,
even if he had not already begun it by that abrupt announcement;
indeed some of the angry desire to rouse her into more sensibility
on his account which had prompted him to speak prematurely,
still mingled with his pain in the prospect of her pain.
But he waited till the tray was gone, the candles were lit,
and the evening quiet might be counted on: the interval had left
time for repelled tenderness to return into the old course.
He spoke kindly.
"Dear Rosy, lay down your work and come to sit by me," he said,
gently, pushing away the table, and stretching out his arm to draw
a chair near his own.
Rosamond obeyed. As she came towards him in her drapery of
transparent faintly tinted muslin, her slim yet round figure never
looked more graceful; as she sat down by him and laid one hand
on the elbow of his chair, at last looking at him and meeting
his eyes, her delicate neck and cheek and purely cut lips never had
more of that untarnished beauty which touches as in spring-time
and infancy and all sweet freshness. It touched Lydgate now,
and mingled the early moments of his love for her with all the
other memories which were stirred in this crisis of deep trouble.
He laid his ample hand softly on hers, saying--
"Dear!" with the lingering utterance which affection gives to
the word. Rosamond too was still under the power of that same past,
and her husband was still in part the Lydgate whose approval had
stirred delight. She put his hair lightly away from his forehead,
then laid her other hand on his, and was conscious of forgiving him.
"I am obliged to tell you what will hurt you, Rosy. But there
are things which husband and wife must think of together. I dare
say it has occurred to you already that I am short of money."
Lydgate paused; but Rosamond turned her neck and looked at a vase
on the mantel-piece.
"I was not able to pay for all the things we had to get before we
were married, and there have been expenses since which I have
been obliged to meet. The consequence is, there is a large debt
at Brassing--three hundred and eighty pounds--which has been pressing
on me a good while, and in fact we are getting deeper every day,
for people don't pay me the faster because others want the money.
I took pains to keep it from you while you were not well; but now we
must think together about it, and you must help me."
"What can--I--do, Tertius?" said Rosamond, turning her eyes on him again.
That little speech of four words, like so many others in all languages,
is capable by varied vocal inflections of expressing all states of mind
from helpless dimness to exhaustive argumentative perception, from the
completest self-devoting fellowship to the most neutral aloofness.
Rosamond's thin utterance threw into the words "What can--I--do!"
as much neutrality as they could hold. They fell like a mortal chill
on Lydgate's roused tenderness. He did not storm in indignation--
he felt too sad a sinking of the heart. And when he spoke again
it was more in the tone of a man who forces himself to fulfil a task.
"It is necessary for you to know, because I have to give security
for a time, and a man must come to make an inventory of the furniture."
Rosamond colored deeply. "Have you not asked papa for money?"
she said, as soon as she could speak.
"No."
"Then I must ask him!" she said, releasing her hands from Lydgate's,
and rising to stand at two yards' distance from him.
"No, Rosy," said Lydgate, decisively. "It is too late to do that.
The inventory will be begun to-morrow. Remember it is a mere security:
it will make no difference: it is a temporary affair. I insist upon
it that your father shall not know, unless I choose to tell him,"
added Lydgate, with a more peremptory emphasis.
This certainly was unkind, but Rosamond had thrown him back
on evil expectation as to what she would do in the way of quiet
steady disobedience. The unkindness seemed unpardonable to her:
she was not given to weeping and disliked it, but now her chin and
lips began to tremble and the tears welled up. Perhaps it was not
possible for Lydgate, under the double stress of outward material
difficulty and of his own proud resistance to humiliating consequences,
to imagine fully what this sudden trial was to a young creature
who had known nothing but indulgence, and whose dreams had all been
of new indulgence, more exactly to her taste. But he did wish to
spare her as much as he could, and her tears cut him to the heart.
He could not speak again immediately; but Rosamond did not go
on sobbing: she tried to conquer her agitation and wiped away
her tears, continuing to look before her at the mantel-piece.
"Try not to grieve, darling," said Lydgate, turning his eyes up
towards her. That she had chosen to move away from him in this
moment of her trouble made everything harder to say, but he must
absolutely go on. "We must brace ourselves to do what is necessary.
It is I who have been in fault: I ought to have seen that I
could not afford-to live in this way. But many things have told
against me in my practice, and it really just now has ebbed
to a low point. I may recover it, but in the mean time we must
pull up--we must change our way of living. We shall weather it.
When I have given this security I shall have time to look about me;
and you are so clever that if you turn your mind to managing you
will school me into carefulness. I have been a thoughtless rascal
about squaring prices--but come, dear, sit down and forgive me."
Lydgate was bowing his neck under the yoke like a creature
who had talons, but who had Reason too, which often reduces us
to meekness. When he had spoken the last words in an imploring tone,
Rosamond returned to the chair by his side. His self-blame gave
her some hope that he would attend to her opinion, and she said--
"Why can you not put off having the inventory made? You can send
the men away to-morrow when they come."
"I shall not send them away," said Lydgate, the peremptoriness
rising again. Was it of any use to explain?
"If we left Middlemarch? there would of course be a sale,
and that would do as well."
"But we are not going to leave Middlemarch."
"I am sure, Tertius, it would be much better to do so. Why can we
not go to London? Or near Durham, where your family is known?"
"We can go nowhere without money, Rosamond."
"Your friends would not wish you to be without money. And surely
these odious tradesmen might be made to understand that, and to wait,
if you would make proper representations to them."
"This is idle Rosamond," said Lydgate, angrily. "You must
learn to take my judgment on questions you don't understand.
I have made necessary arrangements, and they must be carried out.
As to friends, I have no expectations whatever from them, and shall
not ask them for anything."
Rosamond sat perfectly still. The thought in her mind was that if she
had known how Lydgate would behave, she would never have married him.
"We have no time to waste now on unnecessary words, dear,"
said Lydgate, trying to be gentle again. "There are some details
that I want to consider with you. Dover says he will take a good
deal of the plate back again, and any of the jewellery we like.
He really behaves very well."
"Are we to go without spoons and forks then?" said Rosamond, whose very
lips seemed to get thinner with the thinness of her utterance.
She was determined to make no further resistance or suggestions.
"Oh no, dear!" said Lydgate. "But look here," he continued,
drawing a paper from his pocket and opening it; "here is
Dover's account. See, I have marked a number of articles,
which if we returned them would reduce the amount by thirty pounds.
and more. I have not marked any of the jewellery." Lydgate had
really felt this point of the jewellery very bitter to himself;
but he had overcome the feeling by severe argument. He could not
propose to Rosamond that she should return any particular present
of his, but he had told himself that he was bound to put Dover's
offer before her, and her inward prompting might make the affair easy.
"It is useless for me to look, Tertius," said Rosamond, calmly;
"you will return what you please." She would not turn her eyes
on the paper, and Lydgate, flushing up to the roots of his hair,
drew it back and let it fall on his knee. Meanwhile Rosamond quietly
went out of the room, leaving Lydgate helpless and wondering.
Was she not coming back? It seemed that she had no more identified
herself with him than if they had been creatures of different species
and opposing interests. He tossed his head and thrust his hands deep
into his pockets with a sort of vengeance. There was still science--
there were still good objects to work for. He must give a tug still--
all the stronger because other satisfactions were going.
But the door opened and Rosamond re-entered. She carried the
leather box containing the amethysts, and a tiny ornamental basket
which contained other boxes, and laying them on the chair where
she had been sitting, she said, with perfect propriety in her air--
"This is all the jewellery you ever gave me. You can return what
you like of it, and of the plate also. You will not, of course,
expect me to stay at home to-morrow. I shall go to papa's."
To many women the look Lydgate cast at her would have been more
terrible than one of anger: it had in it a despairing acceptance
of the distance she was placing between them.
"And when shall you come back again?" he said, with a bitter edge
on his accent.
"Oh, in the evening. Of course I shall not mention the subject
to mamma." Rosamond was convinced that no woman could behave
more irreproachably than she was behaving; and she went to sit
down at her work-table. Lydgate sat meditating a minute or two,
and the result was that he said, with some of the old emotion
in his tone--
"Now we have been united, Rosy, you should not leave me to myself
in the first trouble that has come."
"Certainly not," said Rosamond; "I shall do everything it becomes
me to do."
"It is not right that the thing should be left to servants, or that I
should have to speak to them about it. And I shall be obliged
to go out--I don't know how early. I understand your shrinking
from the humiliation of these money affairs. But, my dear Rosamond,
as a question of pride, which I feel just as much as you can, it is
surely better to manage the thing ourselves, and let the servants
see as little of it as possible; and since you are my wife, there is
no hindering your share in my disgraces--if there were disgraces."
Rosamond did not answer immediately, but at last she said, "Very well,
I will stay at home."
"I shall not touch these jewels, Rosy. Take them away again.
But I will write out a list of plate that we may return, and that can
be packed up and sent at once."
"The servants will know THAT," said Rosamond, with the slightest
touch of sarcasm.
"Well, we must meet some disagreeables as necessities. Where is
the ink, I wonder?" said Lydgate, rising, and throwing the account
on the larger table where he meant to write.
Rosamond went to reach the inkstand, and after setting it on the table
was going to turn away, when Lydgate, who was standing close by,
put his arm round her and drew her towards him, saying--
"Come, darling, let us make the best of things. It will only be
for a time, I hope, that we shall have to be stingy and particular.
Kiss me."
His native warm-heartedness took a great deal of quenching,
and it is a part of manliness for a husband to feel keenly the fact
that an inexperienced girl has got into trouble by marrying him.
She received his kiss and returned it faintly, and in this way
an appearance of accord was recovered for the time. But Lydgate
could not help looking forward with dread to the inevitable future
discussions about expenditure and the necessity for a complete change
in their way of living.
CHAPTER LIX.
They said of old the Soul had human shape,
But smaller, subtler than the fleshly self,
So wandered forth for airing when it pleased.
And see! beside her cherub-face there floats
A pale-lipped form aerial whispering
Its promptings in that little shell her ear."
News is often dispersed as thoughtlessly and effectively as that
pollen which the bees carry off (having no idea how powdery they are)
when they are buzzing in search of their particular nectar.
This fine comparison has reference to Fred Vincy, who on that evening
at Lowick Parsonage heard a lively discussion among the ladies on
the news which their old servant had got from Tantripp concerning
Mr. Casaubon's strange mention of Mr. Ladislaw in a codicil to his will
made not long before his death. Miss Winifred was astounded to find
that her brother had known the fact before, and observed that Camden
was the most wonderful man for knowing things and not telling them;
whereupon Mary Garth said that the codicil had perhaps got mixed
up with the habits of spiders, which Miss Winifred never would
listen to. Mrs. Farebrother considered that the news had something
to do with their having only once seen Mr. Ladislaw at Lowick,
and Miss Noble made many small compassionate mewings.
Fred knew little and cared less about Ladislaw and the Casaubons,
and his mind never recurred to that discussion till one day calling
on Rosamond at his mother's request to deliver a message as he passed,
he happened to see Ladislaw going away. Fred and Rosamond had little
to say to each other now that marriage had removed her from collision
with the unpleasantness of brothers, and especially now that he had
taken what she held the stupid and even reprehensible step of giving
up the Church to take to such a business as Mr. Garth's. Hence
Fred talked by preference of what he considered indifferent news,
and "a propos of that young Ladislaw" mentioned what he had
heard at Lowick Parsonage.
Now Lydgate, like Mr. Farebrother, knew a great deal more than
he told, and when he had once been set thinking about the relation
between Will and Dorothea his conjectures had gone beyond the fact.
He imagined that there was a passionate attachment on both sides,
and this struck him as much too serious to gossip about.
He remembered Will's irritability when he had mentioned Mrs. Casaubon,
and was the more circumspect. On the whole his surmises, in addition
to what he knew of the fact, increased his friendliness and tolerance
towards Ladislaw, and made him understand the vacillation which kept
him at Middlemarch after he had said that he should go away.
It was significant of the separateness be tween Lydgate's mind and
Rosamond's that he had no impulse to speak to her on the subject;
indeed, he did not quite trust her reticence towards Will.
And he was right there; though he had no vision of the way
in which her mind would act in urging her to speak.
When she repeated Fred's news to Lydgate, he said, "Take care you
don't drop the faintest hint to Ladislaw, Rosy. He is likely to fly
out as if you insulted him. Of course it is a painful affair."
Rosamond turned her neck and patted her hair, looking the image
of placid indifference. But the next time Will came when Lydgate
was away, she spoke archly about his not going to London as he
had threatened.
"I know all about it. I have a confidential little bird," said she,
showing very pretty airs of her head over the bit of work held
high between her active fingers. "There is a powerful magnet
in this neighborhood."
"To be sure there is. Nobody knows that better than you," said Will,
with light gallantry, but inwardly prepared to be angry.
"It is really the most charming romance: Mr. Casaubon jealous,
and foreseeing that there was no one else whom Mrs. Casaubon would
so much like to marry, and no one who would so much like to marry
her as a certain gentleman; and then laying a plan to spoil all
by making her forfeit her property if she did marry that gentleman--
and then--and then--and then--oh, I have no doubt the end will be
thoroughly romantic."
"Great God! what do you mean?" said Will, flushing over face and ears,
his features seeming to change as if he had had a violent shake.
"Don't joke; tell me what you mean."
"You don't really know?" said Rosamond, no longer playful, and desiring
nothing better than to tell in order that she might evoke effects.
"No!" he returned, impatiently.
"Don't know that Mr. Casaubon has left it in his will that
if Mrs. Casaubon marries you she is to forfeit all her property?"
"How do you know that it is true?" said Will, eagerly.
"My brother Fred heard it from the Farebrothers." Will started up
from his chair and reached his hat.
"I dare say she likes you better than the property," said Rosamond,
looking at him from a distance.
"Pray don't say any more about it," said Will, in a hoarse undertone
extremely unlike his usual light voice. "It is a foul insult
to her and to me." Then he sat down absently, looking before him,
but seeing nothing.
"Now you are angry with ME," said Rosamond. "It is too bad
to bear ME malice. You ought to be obliged to me for telling you."
"So I am," said Will, abruptly, speaking with that kind of double
soul which belongs to dreamers who answer questions.
"I expect to hear of the marriage," said Rosamond, play. fully.
"Never! You will never hear of the marriage!"
With those words uttered impetuously, Will rose, put out his hand
to Rosamond, still with the air of a somnambulist, and went away.
When he was gone, Rosamond left her chair and walked to the other end
of the room, leaning when she got there against a chiffonniere,
and looking out of the window wearily. She was oppressed by ennui,
and by that dissatisfaction which in women's minds is continually
turning into a trivial jealousy, referring to no real claims,
springing from no deeper passion than the vague exactingness
of egoism, and yet capable of impelling action as well as speech.
"There really is nothing to care for much," said poor Rosamond inwardly,
thinking of the family at Quallingham, who did not write to her;
and that perhaps Tertius when he came home would tease her
about expenses. She had already secretly disobeyed him by asking
her father to help them, and he had ended decisively by saying,
"I am more likely to want help myself."
CHAPTER LX.
Good phrases are surely, and ever were, very commendable.
--Justice Shallow.
A few days afterwards--it was already the end of August--there was an
occasion which caused some excitement in Middlemarch: the public, if
it chose, was to have the advantage of buying, under the distinguished
auspices of Mr. Borthrop Trumbull, the furniture, books, and pictures
which anybody might see by the handbills to be the best in every kind,
belonging to Edwin Larcher, Esq. This was not one of the sales indicating
the depression of trade; on the contrary, it was due to Mr. Larcher's
great success in the carrying business, which warranted his purchase of a
mansion near Riverston already furnished in high style by an illustrious
Spa physician--furnished indeed with such large framefuls of expensive
flesh-painting in the dining-room, that Mrs. Larcher was nervous until
reassured by finding the subjects to be Scriptural. Hence the fine
opportunity to purchasers which was well pointed out in the handbills
of Mr. Borthrop Trumbull, whose acquaintance with the history of art
enabled him to state that the hall furniture, to be sold without reserve,
comprised a piece of carving by a contemporary of Gibbons.
At Middlemarch in those times a large sale was regarded as a kind
of festival. There was a table spread with the best cold eatables,
as at a superior funeral; and facilities were offered for that
generous-drinking of cheerful glasses which might lead to generous
and cheerful bidding for undesirable articles. Mr. Larcher's sale
was the more attractive in the fine weather because the house stood
just at the end of the town, with a garden and stables attached,
in that pleasant issue from Middlemarch called the London Road,
which was also the road to the New Hospital and to Mr. Bulstrode's
retired residence, known as the Shrubs. In short, the auction was
as good as a fair, and drew all classes with leisure at command:
to some, who risked making bids in order simply to raise prices,
it was almost equal to betting at the races. The second day,
when the best furniture was to be sold, "everybody" was there;
even Mr. Thesiger, the rector of St. Peter's, had looked in for a
short time, wishing to buy the carved table, and had rubbed elbows
with Mr. Bambridge and Mr. Horrock. There was a wreath of Middlemarch
ladies accommodated with seats round the large table in the dining-room,
where Mr. Borthrop Trumbull was mounted with desk and hammer;
but the rows chiefly of masculine faces behind were often varied
by incomings and outgoings both from the door and the large bow-window
opening on to the lawn.
"Everybody" that day did not include Mr. Bulstrode, whose health
could not well endure crowds and draughts. But Mrs. Bulstrode had
particularly wished to have a certain picture--a "Supper at Emmaus,"
attributed in the catalogue to Guido; and at the last moment
before the day of the sale Mr. Bulstrode had called at the office
of the "Pioneer," of which he was now one of the proprietors,
to beg of Mr. Ladislaw as a great favor that he would obligingly use
his remarkable knowledge of pictures on behalf of Mrs. Bulstrode,
and judge of the value of this particular painting--"if," added
the scrupulously polite banker, attendance at the sale would not
interfere with the arrangements for your departure, which I know
is imminent."
This proviso might have sounded rather satirically in Will's ear
if he had been in a mood to care about such satire. It referred
to an understanding entered into many weeks before with the
proprietors of the paper, that he should be at liberty any day
he pleased to hand over the management to the subeditor whom he
had been training; since he wished finally to quit Middlemarch.
But indefinite visions of ambition are weak against the ease of
doing what is habitual or beguilingly agreeable; and we all know
the difficulty of carrying out a resolve when we secretly long
that it may turn out to be unnecessary. In such states of mind
the most incredulous person has a private leaning towards miracle:
impossible to conceive how our wish could be fulfilled, still--
very wonderful things have happened! Will did not confess this
weakness to himself, but he lingered. What was the use of going
to London at that time of the year? The Rugby men who would remember
him were not there; and so far as political writing was concerned,
he would rather for a few weeks go on with the "Pioneer." At the
present moment, however, when Mr. Bulstrode was speaking to him,
he had both a strengthened resolve to go and an equally strong
resolve not to go till he had once more seen Dorothea. Hence he
replied that he had reasons for deferring his departure a little,
and would be happy to go to the sale.
Will was in a defiant mood, his consciousness being deeply stung
with the thought that the people who looked at him probably knew
a fact tantamount to an accusation against him as a fellow with low
designs which were to be frustrated by a disposal of property.
Like most people who assert their freedom with regard to conventional
distinction, he was prepared to be sudden and quick at quarrel with any
one who might hint that he had personal reasons for that assertion--
that there was anything in his blood, his bearing, or his character
to which he gave the mask of an opinion. When he was under an
irritating impression of this kind he would go about for days with a
defiant look, the color changing in his transparent skin as if he were
on the qui vive, watching for something which he had to dart upon.
This expression was peculiarly noticeable in him at the sale,
and those who had only seen him in his moods of gentle oddity
or of bright enjoyment would have been struck with a contrast.
He was not sorry to have this occasion for appearing in public
before the Middlemarch tribes of Toller, Hackbutt, and the rest,
who looked down on him as an adventurer, and were in a state
of brutal ignorance about Dante--who sneered at his Polish blood,
and were themselves of a breed very much in need of crossing.
He stood in a conspicuous place not far from the auctioneer,
with a fore-finger in each side-pocket and his head thrown backward,
not caring to speak to anybody, though he had been cordially welcomed
as a connoissURE by Mr. Trumbull, who was enjoying the utmost
activity of his great faculties.
And surely among all men whose vocation requires them to exhibit
their powers of speech, the happiest is a prosperous provincial
auctioneer keenly alive to his own jokes and sensible of his
encyclopedic knowledge. Some saturnine, sour-blooded persons
might object to be constantly insisting on the merits of all
articles from boot-jacks to "Berghems;" but Mr. Borthrop Trumbull
had a kindly liquid in his veins; he was an admirer by nature,
and would have liked to have the universe under his hammer,
feeling that it would go at a higher figure for his recommendation.
Meanwhile Mrs. Larcher's drawing-room furniture was enough for him.
When Will Ladislaw had come in, a second fender, said to have been
forgotten in its right place, suddenly claimed the auctioneer's
enthusiasm, which he distributed on the equitable principle of praising
those things most which were most in need of praise. The fender
was of polished steel, with much lancet-shaped open-work and a sharp edge
"Now, ladies," said he, "I shall appeal to you. Here is a fender
which at any other sale would hardly be offered with out reserve,
being, as I may say, for quality of steel and quaintness of design,
a kind of thing"--here Mr. Trumbull dropped his voice and became
slightly nasal, trimming his outlines with his left finger--
"that might not fall in with ordinary tastes. Allow me to tell
you that by-and-by this style of workmanship will be the only
one in vogue--half-a-crown, you said? thank you--going at
half-a-crown, this characteristic fender; and I have particular
information that the antique style is very much sought after
in high quarters. Three shillings--three-and-sixpence--hold it
well up, Joseph! Look, ladies, at the chastity of the design--
I have no doubt myself that it was turned out in the last century!
Four shillings, Mr. Mawmsey?--four shillings."
"It's not a thing I would put in MY drawing-room,"
said Mrs. Mawmsey, audibly, for the warning of the rash husband.
"I wonder AT Mrs. Larcher. Every blessed child's head
that fell against it would be cut in two. The edge is like a knife."
"Quite true," rejoined Mr. Trumbull, quickly, "and most uncommonly
useful to have a fender at hand that will cut, if you have a leather
shoe-tie or a bit of string that wants cutting and no knife at hand:
many a man has been left hanging because there was no knife to cut
him down. Gentlemen, here's a fender that if you had the misfortune
to hang yourselves would cut you down in no time--with astonishing
celerity--four-and-sixpence--five--five-and-sixpence--an appropriate
thing for a spare bedroom where there was a four-poster and a guest
a little out of his mind--six shillings--thank you, Mr. Clintup--
going at six shillings--going--gone!" The auctioneer's glance,
which had been searching round him with a preternatural susceptibility
to all signs of bidding, here dropped on the paper before him,
and his voice too dropped into a tone of indifferent despatch
as he said, "Mr. Clintup. Be handy, Joseph."
"It was worth six shillings to have a fender you could always tell
that joke on," said Mr. Clintup, laughing low and apologetically to his
next neighbor. He was a diffident though distinguished nurseryman,
and feared that the audience might regard his bid as a foolish one.
Meanwhile Joseph had brought a trayful of small articles.
"Now, ladies," said Mr. Trumbull, taking up one of the articles,
"this tray contains a very recherchy lot--a collection of trifles
for the drawing-room table--and trifles make the sum OF
human things--nothing more important than trifles--(yes, Mr. Ladislaw,
yes, by-and-by)--but pass the tray round, Joseph--these bijoux must
be examined, ladies. This I have in my hand is an ingenious contrivance--
a sort of practical rebus, I may call it: here, you see, it looks like
an elegant heart-shaped box, portable--for the pocket; there, again,
it becomes like a splendid double flower--an ornament for the table;
and now"--Mr. Trumbull allowed the flower to fall alarmingly into
strings of heart-shaped leaves--"a book of riddles! No less than
five hundred printed in a beautiful red. Gentlemen, if I had less
of a conscience, I should not wish you to bid high for this lot--
I have a longing for it myself. What can promote innocent mirth,
and I may say virtue, more than a good riddle?--it hinders profane
language, and attaches a man to the society of refined females.
This ingenious article itself, without the elegant domino-box,
card-basket, &c., ought alone to give a high price to the lot.
Carried in the pocket it might make an individual welcome in
any society. Four shillings, sir?--four shillings for this remarkable
collection of riddles with the et caeteras. Here is a sample:
`How must you spell honey to make it catch lady-birds? Answer--
money.' You hear?--lady-birds--honey money. This is an amusement
to sharpen the intellect; it has a sting--it has what we call
satire, and wit without indecency. Four-and-sixpence--five shillings."
The bidding ran on with warming rivalry. Mr. Bowyer was a bidder,
and this was too exasperating. Bowyer couldn't afford it,
and only wanted to hinder every other man from making a figure.
The current carried even Mr. Horrock with it, but this committal
of himself to an opinion fell from him with so little sacrifice
of his neutral expression, that the bid might not have been detected
as his but for the friendly oaths of Mr. Bambridge, who wanted to know
what Horrock would do with blasted stuff only fit for haberdashers
given over to that state of perdition which the horse-dealer
so cordially recognized in the majority of earthly existences.
The lot was finally knocked down at a guinea to Mr. Spilkins, a young
Slender of the neighborhood, who was reckless with his pocket-money
and felt his want of memory for riddles.
"Come, Trumbull, this is too bad--you've been putting some old
maid's rubbish into the sale," murmured Mr. Toller, getting close
to the auctioneer. "I want to see how the prints go, and I must
be off soon."
"IMmediately, Mr. Toller. It was only an act of benevolence
which your noble heart would approve. Joseph! quick with the prints--
Lot 235. Now, gentlemen, you who are connoissURES, you
are going to have a treat. Here is an engraving of the Duke
of Wellington surrounded by his staff on the Field of Waterloo;
and notwithstanding recent events which have, as it were,
enveloped our great Hero in a cloud, I will be bold to say--
for a man in my line must not be blown about by political winds--
that a finer subject--of the modern order, belonging to our own
time and epoch--the understanding of man could hardly conceive:
angels might, perhaps, but not men, sirs, not men."
"Who painted it?" said Mr. Powderell, much impressed.
"It is a proof before the letter, Mr. Powderell--the painter is
not known," answered Trumbull, with a certain gaspingness in his
last words, after which he pursed up his lips and stared round him.
"I'll bid a pound!" said Mr. Powderell, in a tone of resolved emotion,
as of a man ready to put himself in the breach. Whether from awe
or pity, nobody raised the price on him.
Next came two Dutch prints which Mr. Toller had been eager for,
and after he had secured them he went away. Other prints, and afterwards
some paintings, were sold to leading Middlemarchers who had come
with a special desire for them, and there was a more active movement
of the audience in and out; some, who had bought what they wanted,
going away, others coming in either quite newly or from a temporary
visit to the refreshments which were spread under the marquee on
the lawn. It was this marquee that Mr. Bambridge was bent on buying,
and he appeared to like looking inside it frequently, as a foretaste
of its possession. On the last occasion of his return from it
he was observed to bring with him a new companion, a stranger to
Mr. Trumbull and every one else, whose appearance, however, led to
the supposition that he might be a relative of the horse-dealer's--
also "given to indulgence." His large whiskers, imposing swagger,
and swing of the leg, made him a striking figure; but his suit
of black, rather shabby at the edges, caused the prejudicial inference
that he was not able to afford himself as much indulgence as he liked.
"Who is it you've picked up, Bam?" said Mr. Horrock, aside.
"Ask him yourself," returned Mr. Bambridge. "He said he'd just
turned in from the road."
Mr. Horrock eyed the stranger, who was leaning back against his
stick with one hand, using his toothpick with the other, and looking
about him with a certain restlessness apparently under the silence
imposed on him by circumstances.
At length the "Supper at Emmaus" was brought forward, to Wills
immense relief, for he was getting so tired of the proceedings that he
had drawn back a little and leaned his shoulder against the wall
just behind the auctioneer. He now came forward again, and his
eye caught the conspicuous stranger, who, rather to his surprise,
was staring at him markedly. But Will was immediately appealed
to by Mr. Trumbull.
"Yes, Mr. Ladislaw, yes; this interests you as a connoissURE,
I think. It is some pleasure," the auctioneer went on with a
rising fervor, "to have a picture like this to show to a company
of ladies and gentlemen--a picture worth any sum to an individual
whose means were on a level with his judgment. It is a painting
of the Italian school--by the celebrated Guydo, the greatest
painter in the world, the chief of the Old Masters, as they are called--
I take it, because they were up to a thing or two beyond most of us--
in possession of secrets now lost to the bulk of mankind.
Let me tell you, gentlemen, I have seen a great many pictures
by the Old Masters, and they are not all up to this mark--some of
them are darker than you might like and not family subjects.
But here is a Guydo--the frame alone is worth pounds--which any
lady might be proud to hang up--a suitable thing for what we call
a refectory in a charitable institution, if any gentleman of the
Corporation wished to show his munifiCENCE. Turn it a little,
sir? yes. Joseph, turn it a little towards Mr. Ladislaw--Mr. Ladislaw,
having been abroad, understands the merit of these things,
you observe."
All eyes were for a moment turned towards Will, who said, coolly,
"Five pounds." The auctioneer burst out in deep remonstrance.
"Ah! Mr. Ladislaw! the frame alone is worth that. Ladies and gentlemen,
for the credit of the town! Suppose it should be discovered
hereafter that a gem of art has been amongst us in this town,
and nobody in Middlemarch awake to it. Five guineas--five seven-six--
five ten. Still, ladies, still! It is a gem, and `Full many a gem,'
as the poet says, has been allowed to go at a nominal pride because
the public knew no better, because it was offered in circles where
there was--I was going to say a low feeling, but no!--Six pounds--
six guineas--a Guydo of the first order going at six guineas--
it is an insult to religion, ladies; it touches us all as Christians,
gentlemen, that a subject like this should go at such a low figure--
six pounds ten--seven--"
The bidding was brisk, and Will continued to share in it,
remembering that Mrs. Bulstrode had a strong wish for the picture,
and thinking that he might stretch the price to twelve pounds.
But it was knocked down to him at ten guineas, whereupon he pushed
his way towards the bow-window and went out. He chose to go
under the marquee to get a glass of water, being hot and thirsty:
it was empty of other visitors, and he asked the woman in attendance
to fetch him some fresh water; but before she was well gone he was
annoyed to see entering the florid stranger who had stared at him.
It struck Will at this moment that the man might be one of those political
parasitic insects of the bloated kind who had once or twice claimed
acquaintance with him as having heard him speak on the Reform question,
and who might think of getting a shilling by news. In this light
his person, already rather heating to behold on a summer's day,
appeared the more disagreeable; and Will, half-seated on the elbow
of a garden-chair, turned his eyes carefully away from the comer.
But this signified little to our acquaintance Mr. Raffles, who never
hesitated to thrust himself on unwilling observation, if it suited
his purpose to do so. He moved. a step or two till he was in front
of Will, and said with full-mouthed haste, "Excuse me, Mr. Ladislaw--
was your mother's name Sarah Dunkirk?"
Will, starting to his feet, moved backward a step, frowning, and saying
with some fierceness, "Yes, sir, it was. And what is that to you?"
It was in Will's nature that the first spark it threw out was a
direct answer of the question and a challenge of the consequences.
To have said, "What is that to you?" in the first instance,
would have seemed like shuffling--as if he minded who knew anything
about his origin!
Raffles on his side had not the same eagerness for a collision
which was implied in Ladislaw's threatening air. The slim young
fellow with his girl's complexion looked like a tiger-cat ready
to spring on him. Under such circumstances Mr. Raffles's pleasure
in annoying his company was kept in abeyance.
"No offence, my good sir, no offence! I only remember your mother--
knew her when she was a girl. But it is your father that
you feature, sir. I had the pleasure of seeing your father too.
Parents alive, Mr. Ladislaw?"
"No!" thundered Will, in the same attitude as before.
"Should be glad to do you a service, Mr. Ladislaw--by Jove, I should!
Hope to meet again."
Hereupon Raffles, who had lifted his hat with the last words,
turned himself round with a swing of his leg and walked away.
Will looked after him a moment, and could see that he did not re-enter
the auction-room, but appeared to be walking towards the road.
For an instant he thought that he had been foolish not to let the man
go on talking;--but no! on the whole he preferred doing without
knowledge from that source.
Later in the evening, however, Raffles overtook him in the street,
and appearing either to have forgotten the roughness of his former
reception or to intend avenging it by a forgiving familiarity,
greeted him jovially and walked by his side, remarking at first
on the pleasantness of the town and neighbor hood. Will suspected
that the man had been drinking and was considering how to shake him
off when Raffles said--
"I've been abroad myself, Mr. Ladislaw--I've seen the world--
used to parley-vous a little. It was at Boulogne I saw your father--
a most uncommon likeness you are of him, by Jove! mouth--nose--eyes--
hair turned off your brow just like his--a little in the foreign style.
John Bull doesn't do much of that. But your father was very ill
when I saw him. Lord, lord! hands you might see through.
You were a small youngster then. Did he get well?"
"No," said Will, curtly.
"Ah! Well! I've often wondered what became of your mother.
She ran away from her friends when she was a young lass--
a proud-spirited lass, and pretty, by Jove! I knew the reason why
she ran away," said Raffles, winking slowly as he looked sideways
at Will.
"You know nothing dishonorable of her, sir," said Will, turning on
him rather savagely. But Mr. Raffles just now was not sensitive
to shades of manner.
"Not a bit!" said he, tossing his head decisively "She was a little
too honorable to like her friends--that was it!" Here Raffles
again winked slowly. "Lord bless you, I knew all about 'em--
a little in what you may call the respectable thieving line--
the high style of receiving-house--none of your holes and corners--
first-rate. Slap-up shop, high profits and no mistake. But Lord!
Sarah would have known nothing about it--a dashing young lady she was--
fine boarding-school--fit for a lord's wife--only Archie Duncan
threw it at her out of spite, because she would have nothing
to do with him. And so she ran away from the whole concern.
I travelled for 'em, sir, in a gentlemanly way--at a high salary.
They didn't mind her running away at first--godly folks, sir,
very godly--and she was for the stage. The son was alive then,
and the daughter was at a discount. Hallo! here we are at the
Blue Bull. What do you say, Mr. Ladislaw?--shall we turn in and have
a glass?"
"No, I must say good evening," said Will, dashing up a passage which
led into Lowick Gate, and almost running to get out of Raffles's reach.
He walked a long while on the Lowick road away from the town,
glad of the starlit darkness when it came. He felt as if he
had had dirt cast on him amidst shouts of scorn. There was this
to confirm the fellow's statement--that his mother never would
tell him the reason why she had run away from her family.
Well! what was he, Will Ladislaw, the worse, supposing the truth
about that family to be the ugliest? His mother had braved
hardship in order to separate herself from it. But if Dorothea's
friends had known this story--if the Chettams had known it--
they would have had a fine color to give their suspicions a welcome
ground for thinking him unfit to come near her. However, let them
suspect what they pleased, they would find themselves in the wrong.
They would find out that the blood in his veins was as free from
the taint of meanness as theirs.
CHAPTER LXI.
"Inconsistencies," answered Imlac, "cannot both be right, but imputed
to man they may both be true."--Rasselas.
The same night, when Mr. Bulstrode returned from a journey to
Brassing on business, his good wife met him in the entrance-hall
and drew him into his private sitting-room.
"Nicholas," she said, fixing her honest eyes upon him anxiously,
"there has been such a disagreeable man here asking for you--it has
made me quite uncomfortable."
"What kind of man, my dear," said Mr. Bulstrode, dreadfully certain
of the answer.
"A red-faced man with large whiskers, and most impudent in his manner.
He declared he was an old friend of yours, and said you would be
sorry not to see him. He wanted to wait for you here, but I told
him he could see you at the Bank to-morrow morning. Most impudent
he was!--stared at me, and said his friend Nick had luck in wives.
I don't believe he would have gone away, if Blucher had not
happened to break his chain and come running round on the gravel--
for I was in the garden; so I said, `You'd better go away--the dog
is very fierce, and I can't hold him.' Do you really know anything
of such a man?"
"I believe I know who he is, my dear," said Mr. Bulstrode,
in his usual subdued voice, "an unfortunate dissolute wretch,
whom I helped too much in days gone by. However, I presume you will
not be troubled by him again. He will probably come to the Bank--
to beg, doubtless."
No more was said on the subject until the next day, when Mr. Bulstrode
had returned from the town and was dressing for dinner. His wife,
not sure that he was come home, looked into his dressing-room
and saw him with his coat and cravat off, leaning one arm
on a chest of drawers and staring absently at the ground.
He started nervously and looked up as she entered.
"You look very ill, Nicholas. Is there anything the matter?"
"I have a good deal of pain in my head," said Mr. Bulstrode,
who was so frequently ailing that his wife was always ready
to believe in this cause of depression.
"Sit down and let me sponge it with vinegar."
Physically Mr. Bulstrode did not want the vinegar, but morally
the affectionate attention soothed him. Though always polite,
it was his habit to receive such services with marital coolness,
as his wife's duty. But to-day, while she was bending over him,
he said, "You are very good, Harriet," in a tone which had something
new in it to her ear; she did not know exactly what the novelty was,
but her woman's solicitude shaped itself into a darting thought that he
might be going to have an illness.
"Has anything worried you?" she said. "Did that man come to you
at the Bank?"
"Yes; it was as I had supposed. He is a man who at one time might
have done better. But he has sunk into a drunken debauched creature."
"Is he quite gone away?" said Mrs. Bulstrode, anxiously but for
certain reasons she refrained from adding, "It was very disagreeable
to hear him calling himself a friend of yours." At that moment she
would not have liked to say anything which implied her habitual
consciousness that her husband's earlier connections were not quite
on a level with her own. Not that she knew much about them.
That her husband had at first been employed in a bank, that he
had afterwards entered into what he called city business and gained
a fortune before he was three-and-thirty, that he had married
a widow who was much older than himself--a Dissenter, and in other
ways probably of that disadvantageous quality usually perceptible
in a first wife if inquired into with the dispassionate judgment
of a second--was almost as much as she had cared to learn beyond
the glimpses which Mr. Bulstrode's narrative occasionally gave of
his early bent towards religion, his inclination to be a preacher,
and his association with missionary and philanthropic efforts.
She believed in him as an excellent man whose piety carried
a peculiar eminence in belonging to a layman, whose influence
had turned her own mind toward seriousness, and whose share of
perishable good had been the means of raising her own position.
But she also liked to think that it was well in every sense
for Mr. Bulstrode to have won the hand of Harriet Vincy;
whose family was undeniable in a Middlemarch light--a better light
surely than any thrown in London thoroughfares or dissenting
chapel-yards. The unreformed provincial mind distrusted London;
and while true religion was everywhere saving, honest Mrs. Bulstrode
was convinced that to be saved in the Church was more respectable.
She so much wished to ignore towards others that her husband
had ever been a London Dissenter, that she liked to keep it out
of sight even in talking to him. He was quite aware of this;
indeed in some respects he was rather afraid of this ingenuous wife,
whose imitative piety and native worldliness were equally sincere,
who had nothing to be ashamed of, and whom he had married out of
a thorough inclination still subsisting. But his fears were such
as belong to a man who cares to maintain his recognized supremacy:
the loss of high consideration from his wife, as from every one
else who did not clearly hate him out of enmity to the truth,
would be as the beginning of death to him. When she said--
"Is he quite gone away?"
"Oh, I trust so," he answered, with an effort to throw as much
sober unconcern into his tone as possible!
But in truth Mr. Bulstrode was very far from a state of quiet trust.
In the interview at the Bank, Raffles had made it evident that his
eagerness to torment was almost as strong in him as any other greed.
He had frankly said that he had turned out of the way to come
to Middlemarch, just to look about him and see whether the neighborhood
would suit him to live in. He had certainly had a few debts to pay
more than he expected, but the two hundred pounds were not gone yet:
a cool five-and-twenty would suffice him to go away with for the present.
What he had wanted chiefly was to see his friend Nick and family,
and know all about the prosperity of a man to whom he was so
much attached. By-and-by he might come back for a longer stay.
This time Raffles declined to be "seen off the premises," as he
expressed it--declined to quit Middlemarch under Bulstrode's eyes.
He meant to go by coach the next day--if he chose.
Bulstrode felt himself helpless. Neither threats nor coaxing
could avail: he could not count on any persistent fear nor on
any promise. On the contrary, he felt a cold certainty at his
heart that Raffles--unless providence sent death to hinder him--
would come back to Middlemarch before long. And that certainty
was a terror.
It was not that he was in danger of legal punishment or of beggary:
he was in danger only of seeing disclosed to the judgment of his
neighbors and the mournful perception of his wife certain facts of his
past life which would render him an object of scorn and an opprobrium
of the religion with which he had diligently associated himself.
The terror of being judged sharpens the memory: it sends an inevitable
glare over that long-unvisited past which has been habitually
recalled only in general phrases. Even without memory, the life
is bound into one by a zone of dependence in growth and decay;
but intense memory forces a man to own his blameworthy past.
With memory set smarting like a reopened wound, a man's past is
not simply a dead history, an outworn preparation of the present:
it is not a repented error shaken loose from the life: it is a still
quivering part of himself, bringing shudders and bitter flavors and
the tinglings of a merited shame.
Into this second life Bulstrode's past had now risen, only the
pleasures of it seeming to have lost their quality. Night and day,
without interruption save of brief sleep which only wove retrospect
and fear into a fantastic present, he felt the scenes of his earlier
life coming between him and everything else, as obstinately as when we
look through the window from a lighted room, the objects we turn
our backs on are still before us, instead of the grass and the trees
The successive events inward and outward were there in one view:
though each might be dwelt on in turn, the rest still kept their
hold in the consciousness.
Once more he saw himself the young banker's clerk, with an
agreeable person, as clever in figures as he was fluent in speech
and fond of theological definition: an eminent though young member
of a Calvinistic dissenting church at Highbury, having had striking
experience in conviction of sin and sense of pardon. Again he
heard himself called for as Brother Bulstrode in prayer meetings,
speaking on religious platforms, preaching in private houses.
Again he felt himself thinking of the ministry as possibly his vocation,
and inclined towards missionary labor. That was the happiest time
of his life: that was the spot he would have chosen now to awake
in and find the rest a dream. The people among whom Brother
Bulstrode was distinguished were very few, but they were very near
to him, and stirred his satisfaction the more; his power stretched
through a narrow space, but he felt its effect the more intensely.
He believed without effort in the peculiar work of grace within him,
and in the signs that God intended him for special instrumentality.
Then came the moment of transition; it was with the sense of promotion
he had when he, an orphan educated at a commercial charity-school,
was invited to a fine villa belonging to Mr. Dunkirk, the richest man
in the congregation. Soon he became an intimate there, honored for
his piety by the wife, marked out for his ability by the husband,
whose wealth was due to a flourishing city and west-end trade.
That was the setting-in of a new current for his ambition,
directing his prospects of "instrumentality" towards the uniting
of distinguished religious gifts with successful business.
By-and-by came a decided external leading: a confidential subordinate
partner died, and nobody seemed to the principal so well fitted
to fill the severely felt vacancy as his young friend Bulstrode,
if he would become confidential accountant. The offer was accepted.
The business was a pawnbroker's, of the most magnificent sort both
in extent and profits; and on a short acquaintance with it Bulstrode
became aware that one source of magnificent profit was the easy
reception of any goods offered, without strict inquiry as to where
they came from. But there was a branch house at the west end,
and no pettiness or dinginess to give suggestions of shame.
He remembered his first moments of shrinking. They were private,
and were filled with arguments; some of these taking the form
of prayer. The business was established and had old roots;
is it not one thing to set up a new gin-palace and another to accept
an investment in an old one? The profits made out of lost souls--
where can the line be drawn at which they begin in human transactions?
Was it not even God's way of saving His chosen? "Thou knowest,"--
the young Bulstrode had said then, as the older Bulstrode was saying now--
"Thou knowest how loose my soul sits from these things--how I view
them all as implements for tilling Thy garden rescued here and there
from the wilderness."
Metaphors and precedents were not wanting; peculiar spiritual
experiences were not wanting which at last made the retention
of his position seem a service demanded of him: the vista of
a fortune had already opened itself, and Bulstrode's shrinking
remained private. Mr. Dunkirk had never expected that there
would be any shrinking at all: he had never conceived that trade
had anything to do with the scheme of salvation. And it was true
that Bulstrode found himself carrying on two distinct lives;
his religious activity could not be incompatible with his business
as soon as he had argued himself into not feeling it incompatible.
Mentally surrounded with that past again, Bulstrode had the
same pleas--indeed, the years had been perpetually spinning them
into intricate thickness, like masses of spider-web, padding
the moral sensibility; nay, as age made egoism more eager but
less enjoying, his soul had become more saturated with the belief
that he did everything for God's sake, being indifferent to it
for his own. And yet--if he could be back in that far-off spot
with his youthful poverty--why, then he would choose to be a missionary.
But the train of causes in which he had locked himself went on.
There was trouble in the fine villa at Highbury. Years before,
the only daughter had run away, defied her parents, and gone on the stage;
and now the only boy died, and after a short time Mr. Dunkirk died also.
The wife, a simple pious woman, left with all the wealth in and out
of the magnificent trade, of which she never knew the precise nature,
had come to believe in Bulstrode, and innocently adore him as women
often adore their priest or "man-made" minister. It was natural
that after a time marriage should have been thought of between them.
But Mrs. Dunkirk had qualms and yearnings about her daughter,
who had long been regarded as lost both to God and her parents.
It was known that the daughter had married, but she was utterly
gone out of sight. The mother, having lost her boy, imagined
a grandson, and wished in a double sense to reclaim her daughter.
If she were found, there would be a channel for property--
perhaps a wide one--in the provision for several grandchildren.
Efforts to find her must be made before Mrs. Dunkirk would marry again.
Bulstrode concurred; but after advertisement as well as other modes
of inquiry had been tried, the mother believed that her daughter
was not to be found, and consented to marry without reservation
of property.
The daughter had been found; but only one man besides Bulstrode knew it,
and he was paid for keeping silence and carrying himself away.
That was the bare fact which Bulstrode was now forced to see in
the rigid outline with which acts present themselves onlookers.
But for himself at that distant time, and even now in burning memory,
the fact was broken into little sequences, each justified as it came
by reasonings which seemed to prove it righteous. Bulstrode's course up
to that time had, he thought, been sanctioned by remarkable providences,
appearing to point the way for him to be the agent in making the
best use of a large property and withdrawing it from perversion.
Death and other striking dispositions, such as feminine trustfulness,
had come; and Bulstrode would have adopted Cromwell's words--
"Do you call these bare events? The Lord pity you!" The events
were comparatively small, but the essential condition was there--
namely, that they were in favor of his own ends. It was easy
for him to settle what was due from him to others by inquiring
what were God's intentions with regard to himself. Could it be
for God's service that this fortune should in any considerable
proportion go to a young woman and her husband who were given up
to the lightest pursuits, and might scatter it abroad in triviality--
people who seemed to lie outside the path of remarkable providences?
Bulstrode had never said to himself beforehand, "The daughter
shall not be found"--nevertheless when the moment came he kept
her existence hidden; and when other moments followed, he soothed
the mother with consolation in the probability that the unhappy
young woman might be no more.
There were hours in which Bulstrode felt that his action
was unrighteous; but how could he go back? He had mental exercises,
called himself nought laid hold on redemption, and went on in his
course of instrumentality. And after five years Death again came
to widen his path, by taking away his wife. He did gradually
withdraw his capital, but he did not make the sacrifices requisite
to put an end to the business, which was carried on for thirteen
years afterwards before it finally collapsed. Meanwhile Nicholas
Bulstrode had used his hundred thousand discreetly, and was
become provincially, solidly important--a banker, a Churchman,
a public benefactor; also a sleeping partner in trading concerns,
in which his ability was directed to economy in the raw material,
as in the case of the dyes which rotted Mr. Vincy's silk. And now,
when this respectability had lasted undisturbed for nearly thirty years--
when all that preceded it had long lain benumbed in the consciousness--
that past had risen and immersed his thought as if with the terrible
irruption of a new sense overburthening the feeble being.
Meanwhile, in his conversation with Raffles, he had learned
something momentous, something which entered actively into
the struggle of his longings and terrors. There, he thought,
lay an opening towards spiritual, perhaps towards material rescue.
The spiritual kind of rescue was a genuine need with him. There may
be coarse hypocrites, who consciously affect beliefs and emotions
for the sake of gulling the world, but Bulstrode was not one of them.
He was simply a man whose desires had been stronger than his
theoretic beliefs, and who had gradually explained the gratification
of his desires into satisfactory agreement with those beliefs.
If this be hypocrisy, it is a process which shows itself occasionally
in us all, to whatever confession we belong, and whether we
believe in the future perfection of our race or in the nearest
date fixed for the end of the world; whether we regard the earth
as a putrefying nidus for a saved remnant, including ourselves,
or have a passionate belief in the solidarity of mankind.
The service he could do to the cause of religion had been through
life the ground he alleged to himself for his choice of action:
it had been the motive which he had poured out in his prayers.
Who would use money and position better than he meant to use them?
Who could surpass him in self-abhorrence and exaltation of God's cause?
And to Mr. Bulstrode God's cause was something distinct from his own
rectitude of conduct: it enforced a discrimination of God's enemies,
who were to be used merely as instruments, and whom it would be
as well if possible to keep out of money and consequent influence.
Also, profitable investments in trades where the power of the prince
of this world showed its most active devices, became sanctified by a
right application of the profits in the hands of God's servant.
This implicit reasoning is essentially no more peculiar to evangelical
belief than the use of wide phrases for narrow motives is peculiar
to Englishmen. There is no general doctrine which is not capable
of eating out our morality if unchecked by the deep-seated habit
of direct fellow-feeling with individual fellow-men.
But a man who believes in something else than his own greed,
has necessarily a conscience or standard to which he more or less
adapts himself. Bulstrode's standard had been his serviceableness
to God's cause: "I am sinful and nought--a vessel to be consecrated
by use--but use me!"--had been the mould into which he had constrained
his immense need of being something important and predominating.
And now had come a moment in which that mould seemed in danger
of being broken and utterly cast away.
What if the acts he had reconciled himself to because they made
him a stronger instrument of the divine glory, were to become
the pretext of the scoffer, and a darkening of that glory?
If this were to be the ruling of Providence, he was cast out from
the temple as one who had brought unclean offerings.
He had long poured out utterances of repentance. But today a
repentance had come which was of a bitterer flavor, and a threatening
Providence urged him to a kind of propitiation which was not simply
a doctrinal transaction. The divine tribunal had changed its
aspect for him; self-prostration was no longer enough, and he must
bring restitution in his hand. It was really before his God that
Bulstrode was about to attempt such restitution as seemed possible:
a great dread had seized his susceptible frame, and the scorching
approach of shame wrought in him a new spiritual need. Night and day,
while the resurgent threatening past was making a conscience within him,
he was thinking by what means he could recover peace and trust--
by what sacrifice he could stay the rod. His belief in these
moments of dread was, that if he spontaneously did something right,
God would save him from the consequences of wrong-doing. For religion
can only change when the emotions which fill it are changed; and the
religion of personal fear remains nearly at the level of the savage.
He had seen Raffles actually going away on the Brassing coach,
and this was a temporary relief; it removed the pressure of an
immediate dread, but did not put an end to the spiritual conflict and
the need to win protection. At last he came to a difficult resolve,
and wrote a letter to Will Ladislaw, begging him to be at the
Shrubs that evening for a private interview at nine o'clock. Will
had felt no particular surprise at the request, and connected it
with some new notions about the "Pioneer;" but when he was shown
into Mr. Bulstrode's private room, he was struck with the painfully
worn look on the banker's face, and was going to say, "Are you ill?"
when, checking himself in that abruptness, he only inquired after
Mrs. Bulstrode, and her satisfaction with the picture bought for her.
"Thank you, she is quite satisfied; she has gone out with her daughters
this evening. I begged you to come, Mr. Ladislaw, because I have
a communication of a very private--indeed, I will say, of a sacredly
confidential nature, which I desire to make to you. Nothing, I dare say,
has been farther from your thoughts than that there had been
important ties in the past which could connect your history with mine."
Will felt something like an electric shock. He was already in a state
of keen sensitiveness and hardly allayed agitation on the subject
of ties in the past, and his presentiments were not agreeable.
It seemed like the fluctuations of a dream--as if the action begun
by that loud bloated stranger were being carried on by this pale-eyed
sickly looking piece of respectability, whose subdued tone and glib
formality of speech were at this moment almost as repulsive to him
as their remembered contrast. He answered, with a marked change
of color--
"No, indeed, nothing."
"You see before you, Mr. Ladislaw, a man who is deeply stricken.
But for the urgency of conscience and the knowledge that I am
before the bar of One who seeth not as man seeth, I should be under
no compulsion to make the disclosure which has been my object
in asking you to come here to-night. So far as human laws go,
you have no claim on me whatever."
Will was even more uncomfortable than wondering. Mr. Bulstrode
had paused, leaning his head on his hand, and looking at the floor.
But he now fixed his examining glance on Will and said--
"I am told that your mother's name was Sarah Dunkirk, and that she
ran away from her friends to go on the stage. Also, that your
father was at one time much emaciated by illness. May I ask
if you can confirm these statements?"
"Yes, they are all true," said Will, struck with the order in which
an inquiry had come, that might have been expected to be preliminary
to the banker's previous hints. But Mr. Bulstrode had to-night followed
the order of his emotions; he entertained no doubt that the opportunity
for restitution had come, and he had an overpowering impulse towards
the penitential expression by which he was deprecating chastisement.
"Do you know any particulars of your mother's family?" he continued.
"No; she never liked to speak of them. She was a very generous,
honorable woman," said Will, almost angrily.
"I do not wish to allege anything against her. Did she never mention
her mother to you at all?"
"I have heard her say that she thought her mother did not know the
reason of her running away. She said `poor mother' in a pitying tone."
"That mother became my wife," said Bulstrode, and then paused a
moment before he added, "you have a claim on me, Mr. Ladislaw: as I
said before, not a legal claim, but one which my conscience recognizes.
I was enriched by that marriage--a result which would probably
not have taken place--certainly not to the same extent--if your
grandmother could have discovered her daughter. That daughter,
I gather, is no longer living!"
"No," said Will, feeling suspicion and repugnance rising so strongly
within him, that without quite knowing what he did, he took his hat
from the floor and stood up. The impulse within him was to reject
the disclosed connection.
"Pray be seated, Mr. Ladislaw," said Bulstrode, anxiously.
"Doubtless you are startled by the suddenness of this discovery.
But I entreat your patience with one who is already bowed down
by inward trial."
Will reseated himself, feeling some pity which was half contempt
for this voluntary self-abasement of an elderly man.
"It is my wish, Mr. Ladislaw, to make amends for the deprivation
which befell your mother. I know that you are without fortune,
and I wish to supply you adequately from a store which would have
probably already been yours had your grandmother been certain
of your mother's existence and been able to find her."
Mr. Bulstrode paused. He felt that he was performing a striking piece
of scrupulosity in the judgment of his auditor, and a penitential
act in the eyes of God. He had no clew to the state of Will
Ladislaw's mind, smarting as it was from the clear hints of Raffles,
and with its natural quickness in construction stimulated by the
expectation of discoveries which he would have been glad to conjure
back into darkness. Will made no answer for several moments,
till Mr. Bulstrode, who at the end of his speech had cast his
eyes on the floor, now raised them with an examining glance,
which Will met fully, saying--
"I suppose you did know of my mother's existence, and knew where she
might have been found."
Bulstrode shrank--there was a visible quivering in his face and hands.
He was totally unprepared to have his advances met in this way,
or to find himself urged into more revelation than he had beforehand
set down as needful. But at that moment he dared not tell a lie,
and he felt suddenly uncertain of his ground which he had trodden
with some confidence before.
"I will not deny that you conjecture rightly," he answered,
with a faltering in his tone. "And I wish to make atonement to you
as the one still remaining who has suffered a loss through me.
You enter, I trust, into my purpose, Mr. Ladislaw, which has a reference
to higher than merely human claims, and as I have already said,
is entirely independent of any legal compulsion. I am ready to
narrow my own resources and the prospects of my family by binding
myself to allow you five hundred pounds yearly during my life,
and to leave you a proportional capital at my death--nay, to do
still more, if more should be definitely necessary to any laudable
project on your part." Mr. Bulstrode had gone on to particulars
in the expectation that these would work strongly on Ladislaw,
and merge other feelings in grateful acceptance.
But Will was looking as stubborn as possible, with his lip pouting
and his fingers in his side-pockets. He was not in the least touched,
and said firmly,--
"Before I make any reply to your proposition, Mr. Bulstrode, I must
beg you to answer a question or two. Were you connected with the
business by which that fortune you speak of was originally made?"
Mr. Bulstrode's thought was, "Raffles has told him." How could he
refuse to answer when he had volunteered what drew forth the question?
He answered, "Yes."
"And was that business--or was it not--a thoroughly dishonorable one--
nay, one that, if its nature had been made public, might have
ranked those concerned in it with thieves and convicts?"
Will's tone had a cutting bitterness: he was moved to put his
question as nakedly as he could.
Bulstrode reddened with irrepressible anger. He had been prepared
for a scene of self-abasement, but his intense pride and his habit
of supremacy overpowered penitence, and even dread, when this young man,
whom he had meant to benefit, turned on him with the air of a judge.
"The business was established before I became connected with it,
sir; nor is it for you to institute an inquiry of that kind,"
he answered, not raising his voice, but speaking with quick defiantness.
"Yes, it is," said Will, starting up again with his hat in his hand.
"It is eminently mine to ask such questions, when I have to decide
whether I will have transactions with you and accept your money.
My unblemished honor is important to me. It is important to me
to have no stain on my birth and connections. And now I find there
is a stain which I can't help. My mother felt it, and tried
to keep as clear of it as she could, and so will I. You shall keep
your ill-gotten money. If I had any fortune of my own, I would
willingly pay it to any one who could disprove what you have told me.
What I have to thank you for is that you kept the money till now,
when I can refuse it. It ought to lie with a man's self that he is
a gentleman. Good-night, sir."
Bulstrode was going to speak, but Will, with determined quickness,
was out of the room in an instant, and in another the hall-door had
closed behind him. He was too strongly possessed with passionate
rebellion against this inherited blot which had been thrust on his
knowledge to reflect at present whether he had not been too hard
on Bulstrode--too arrogantly merciless towards a man of sixty,
who was making efforts at retrieval when time had rendered them vain.
No third person listening could have thoroughly understood the
impetuosity of Will's repulse or the bitterness of his words.
No one but himself then knew how everything connected with the
sentiment of his own dignity had an immediate bearing for him on
his relation to Dorothea and to Mr. Casaubon's treatment of him.
And in the rush of impulses by which he flung back that offer
of Bulstrode's there was mingled the sense that it would have been
impossible for him ever to tell Dorothea that he had accepted it.
As for Bulstrode--when Will was gone he suffered a violent reaction,
and wept like a woman. It was the first time he had encountered
an open expression of scorn from any man higher than Raffles;
and with that scorn hurrying like venom through his system,
there was no sensibility left to consolations. Rut the relief
of weeping had to be checked. His wife and daughters soon came
home from hearing the address of an Oriental missionary, and were
full of regret that papa had not heard, in the first instance,
the interesting things which they tried to repeat to him.
Perhaps, through all other hidden thoughts, the one that breathed
most comfort was, that Will Ladislaw at least was not likely
to publish what had taken place that evening.
CHAPTER LXII.
"He was a squyer of lowe degre,
That loved the king's daughter of Hungrie.
--Old Romance.
Will Ladislaw's mind was now wholly bent on seeing Dorothea again,
and forthwith quitting Middlemarch. The morning after his agitating
scene with Bulstrode he wrote a brief letter to her, saying that
various causes had detained him in the neighborhood longer than he
had expected, and asking her permission to call again at Lowick
at some hour which she would mention on the earliest possible day,
he being anxious to depart, but unwilling to do so until she
had granted him an interview. He left the letter at the office,
ordering the messenger to carry it to Lowick Manor, and wait for
an answer.
Ladislaw felt the awkwardness of asking for more last words.
His former farewell had been made in the hearing of Sir James Chettam,
and had been announced as final even to the butler. It is certainly
trying to a man's dignity to reappear when he is not expected to do so:
a first farewell has pathos in it, but to come back for a second
lends an opening to comedy, and it was possible even that there
might be bitter sneers afloat about Will's motives for lingering.
Still it was on the whole more satisfactory to his feeling to take
the directest means of seeing Dorothea, than to use any device
which might give an air of chance to a meeting of which he
wished her to understand that it was what he earnestly sought.
When he had parted from her before, he had been in ignorance
of facts which gave a new aspect to the relation between them,
and made a more absolute severance than he had then believed in.
He knew nothing of Dorothea's private fortune, and being
little used to reflect on such matters, took it for granted
that according to Mr. Casaubon's arrangement marriage to him,
Will Ladislaw, would mean that she consented to be penniless.
That was not what he could wish for even in his secret heart,
or even if she had been ready to meet such hard contrast for his sake.
And then, too, there was the fresh smart of that disclosure about
his mother's family, which if known would be an added reason why
Dorothea's friends should look down upon him as utterly below her.
The secret hope that after some years he might come back with the
sense that he had at least a personal value equal to her wealth,
seemed now the dreamy continuation of a dream. This change would surely
justify him in asking Dorothea to receive him once more.
But Dorothea on that morning was not at home to receive Will's note.
In consequence of a letter from her uncle announcing his intention
to be at home in a week, she had driven first to Freshitt to carry
the news, meaning to go on to the Grange to deliver some orders
with which her uncle had intrusted her--thinking, as he said,
"a little mental occupation of this sort good for a widow."
If Will Ladislaw could have overheard some of the talk at Freshitt
that morning, he would have felt all his suppositions confirmed
as to the readiness of certain people to sneer at his lingering
in the neighborhood. Sir James, indeed, though much relieved
concerning Dorothea, had been on the watch to learn Ladislaw's movements,
and had an instructed informant in Mr. Standish, who was necessarily
in his confidence on this matter. That Ladislaw had stayed in
Middlemarch nearly two months after he had declared that he was
going immediately, was a fact to embitter Sir James's suspicions,
or at least to justify his aversion to a "young fellow" whom he
represented to himself as slight, volatile, and likely enough to show
such recklessness as naturally went along with a position unriveted
by family ties or a strict profession. But he had just heard something
from Standish which, while it justified these surmises about Will,
offered a means of nullifying all danger with regard to Dorothea.
Unwonted circumstances may make us all rather unlike ourselves:
there are conditions under which the most majestic person is obliged
to sneeze, and our emotions are liable to be acted on in the same
incongruous manner. Good Sir James was this morning so far unlike
himself that he was irritably anxious to say something to Dorothea
on a subject which he usually avoided as if it had been a matter
of shame to them both. He could not use Celia as a medium,
because he did not choose that she should know the kind of gossip
he had in his mind; and before Dorothea happened to arrive he had
been trying to imagine how, with his shyness and unready tongue,
he could ever manage to introduce his communication. Her unexpected
presence brought him to utter hopelessness in his own power of
saying anything unpleasant; but desperation suggested a resource;
he sent the groom on an unsaddled horse across the park with a
pencilled note to Mrs. Cadwallader, who already knew the gossip,
and would think it no compromise of herself to repeat it as often
as required.
Dorothea was detained on the good pretext that Mr. Garth,
whom she wanted to see, was expected at the hall within the hour,
and she was still talking to Caleb on the gravel when Sir James,
on the watch for the rector's wife, saw her coming and met her
with the needful hints.
"Enough! I understand,"--said Mrs. Cadwallader. "You shall
be innocent. I am such a blackamoor that I cannot smirch myself."
"I don't mean that it's of any consequence," said Sir James,
disliking that Mrs. Cadwallader should understand too much.
"Only it is desirable that Dorothea should know there are reasons why
she should not receive him again; and I really can't say so to her.
It will come lightly from you."
It came very lightly indeed. When Dorothea quitted Caleb and
turned to meet them, it appeared that Mrs. Cadwallader had stepped
across the park by the merest chance in the world, just to chat
with Celia in a matronly way about the baby. And so Mr. Brooke
was coming back? Delightful!--coming back, it was to be hoped,
quite cured of Parliamentary fever and pioneering. Apropos
of the "Pioneer"--somebody had prophesied that it would soon
be like a dying dolphin, and turn all colors for want of knowing
how to help itself, because Mr. Brooke's protege, the brilliant
young Ladislaw, was gone or going. Had Sir James heard that?
The three were walking along the gravel slowly, and Sir James,
turning aside to whip a shrub, said he had heard something of that sort.
"All false!" said Mrs. Cadwallader. "He is not gone, or going,
apparently; the `Pioneer' keeps its color, and Mr. Orlando Ladislaw
is making a sad dark-blue scandal by warbling continually with your
Mr. Lydgate's wife, who they tell me is as pretty as pretty can be.
It seems nobody ever goes into the house without finding this
young gentleman lying on the rug or warbling at the piano.
But the people in manufacturing towns are always disreputable."
"You began by saying that one report was false, Mrs. Cadwallader,
and I believe this is false too," said Dorothea, with indignant energy;
"at least, I feel sure it is a misrepresentation. I will not hear
any evil spoken of Mr. Ladislaw; he has already suffered too
much injustice."
Dorothea when thoroughly moved cared little what any one thought
of her feelings; and even if she had been able to reflect, she would
have held it petty to keep silence at injurious words about Will
from fear of being herself misunderstood. Her face was flushed
and her lip trembled.
Sir James, glancing at her, repented of his stratagem;
but Mrs. Cadwallader, equal to all occasions, spread the palms
of her hands outward and said--"Heaven grant it, my dear!--I mean
that all bad tales about anybody may be false. But it is a pity that
young Lydgate should have married one of these Middlemarch girls.
Considering he's a son of somebody, he might have got a woman
with good blood in her veins, and not too young, who would have put
up with his profession. There's Clara Harfager, for instance,
whose friends don't know what to do with her; and she has a portion.
Then we might have had her among us. However!--it's no use
being wise for other people. Where is Celia? Pray let us go in."
"I am going on immediately to Tipton," said Dorothea, rather haughtily.
"Good-by."
Sir James could say nothing as he accompanied her to the carriage.
He was altogether discontented with the result of a contrivance
which had cost him some secret humiliation beforehand.
Dorothea drove along between the berried hedgerows and the shorn
corn-fields, not seeing or hearing anything around. The tears
came and rolled down her cheeks, but she did not know it.
The world, it seemed, was turning ugly and hateful, and there was
no place for her trustfulness. "It is not true--it is not true!"
was the voice within her that she listened to; but all the while
a remembrance to which there had always clung a vague uneasiness
would thrust itself on her attention--the remembrance of that day
when she had found Will Ladislaw with Mrs. Lydgate, and had heard
his voice accompanied by the piano.
"He said he would never do anything that I disapproved--I wish I
could have told him that I disapproved of that," said poor Dorothea,
inwardly, feeling a strange alternation between anger with Will
and the passionate defence of him. "They all try to blacken him
before me; but I will care for no pain, if he is not to blame.
I always believed he was good."--These were her last thoughts
before she felt that the carriage was passing under the archway
of the lodge-gate at the Grange, when she hurriedly pressed
her handkerchief to her face and began to think of her errands.
The coachman begged leave to take out the horses for half an hour
as there was something wrong with a shoe; and Dorothea, having the
sense that she was going to rest, took off her gloves and bonnet,
while she was leaning against a statue in the entrance-hall,
and talking to the housekeeper. At last she said--
"I must stay here a little, Mrs. Kell. I will go into the library
and write you some memoranda from my uncle's letter, if you will
open the shutters for me."
"The shutters are open, madam," said Mrs. Kell, following Dorothea,
who had walked along as she spoke. "Mr. Ladislaw is there,
looking for something."
(Will had come to fetch a portfolio of his own sketches which he
had missed in the act of packing his movables, and did not choose
to leave behind.)
Dorothea's heart seemed to turn over as if it had had a blow,
but she was not perceptibly checked: in truth, the sense that Will
was there was for the moment all-satisfying to her, like the sight
of something precious that one has lost. When she reached the door
she said to Mrs. Kell--
"Go in first, and tell him that I am here."
Will had found his portfolio, and had laid it on the table at the
far end of the room, to turn over the sketches and please himself
by looking at the memorable piece of art which had a relation
to nature too mysterious for Dorothea. He was smiling at it still,
and shaking the sketches into order with the thought that he might
find a letter from her awaiting him at Middlemarch, when Mrs. Kell
close to his elbow said--
"Mrs. Casaubon is coming in, sir."
Will turned round quickly, and the next moment Dorothea was entering.
As Mrs. Kell closed the door behind her they met: each was looking
at the other, and consciousness was overflowed by something that
suppressed utterance. It was not confusion that kept them silent,
for they both felt that parting was near, and there is no shamefacedness
in a sad parting.
She moved automatically towards her uncle's chair against the
writing-table, and Will, after drawing it out a little for her,
went a few paces off and stood opposite to her.
"Pray sit down," said Dorothea, crossing her hands on her lap;
"I am very glad you were here." Will thought that her face looked
just as it did when she first shook hands with him in Rome;
for her widow's cap, fixed in her bonnet, had gone off with it,
and he could see that she had lately been shedding tears. But the
mixture of anger in her agitation had vanished at the sight of him;
she had been used, when they were face to face, always to feel
confidence and the happy freedom which comes with mutual understanding,
and how could other people's words hinder that effect on a sudden?
Let the music which can take possession of our frame and fill the air
with joy for us, sound once more--what does it signify that we heard it
found fault with in its absence?
"I have sent a letter to Lowick Manor to-day, asking leave to
see you," said Will, seating himself opposite to her. "I am going
away immediately, and I could not go without speaking to you again."
"I thought we had parted when you came to Lowick many weeks ago--
you thought you were going then," said Dorothea, her voice trembling
a little.
"Yes; but I was in ignorance then of things which I know now--
things which have altered my feelings about the future. When I
saw you before, I was dreaming that I might come back some day.
I don't think I ever shall--now." Will paused here.
"You wished me to know the reasons?" said Dorothea, timidly.
"Yes," said Will, impetuously, shaking his head backward, and looking
away from her with irritation in his face. "Of course I must wish it.
I have been grossly insulted in your eyes and in the eyes of others.
There has been a mean implication against my character. I wish you
to know that under no circumstances would I have lowered myself by--
under no circumstances would I have given men the chance of saying
that I sought money under the pretext of seeking--something else.
There was no need of other safeguard against me--the safeguard of wealth
was enough."
Will rose from his chair with the last word and went--he hardly
knew where; but it was to the projecting window nearest him,
which had been open as now about the same season a year ago, when he
and Dorothea had stood within it and talked together. Her whole heart
was going out at this moment in sympathy with Will's indignation:
she only wanted to convince him that she had never done him injustice,
and he seemed to have turned away from her as if she too had been
part of the unfriendly world.
"It would be very unkind of you to suppose that I ever attributed
any meanness to you," she began. Then in her ardent way,
wanting to plead with him, she moved from her chair and went
in front of him to her old place in the window, saying, "Do you
suppose that I ever disbelieved in you?"
When Will saw her there, he gave a start and moved backward out
of the window, without meeting her glance. Dorothea was hurt
by this movement following up the previous anger of his tone.
She was ready to say that it was as hard on her as on him,
and that she was helpless; but those strange particulars of their
relation which neither of them could explicitly mention kept
her always in dread of saying too much. At this moment she had
no belief that Will would in any case have wanted to marry her,
and she feared using words which might imply such a belief.
She only said earnestly, recurring to his last word--
"I am sure no safeguard was ever needed against you."
Will did not answer. In the stormy fluctuation of his feelings these
words of hers seemed to him cruelly neutral, and he looked pale and
miserable after his angry outburst. He went to the table and fastened
up his portfolio, while Dorothea looked at him from the distance.
They were wasting these last moments together in wretched silence.
What could he say, since what had got obstinately uppermost in his
mind was the passionate love for her which he forbade himself
to utter? What could she say, since she might offer him no help--
since she was forced to keep the money that ought to have been his?--
since to-day he seemed not to respond as he used to do to her thorough
trust and liking?
But Will at last turned away from his portfolio and approached
the window again.
"I must go," he said, with that peculiar look of the eyes which
sometimes accompanies bitter feeling, as if they had been tired
and burned with gazing too close at a light.
"What shall you do in life?" said Dorothea, timidly. "Have your
intentions remained just the same as when we said good-by before?"
"Yes," said Will, in a tone that seemed to waive the subject
as uninteresting. "I shall work away at the first thing that offers.
I suppose one gets a habit of doing without happiness or hope."
"Oh, what sad words!" said Dorothea, with a dangerous tendency to sob.
Then trying to smile, she added, "We used to agree that we were
alike in speaking too strongly."
"I have not spoken too strongly now," said Will, leaning back against
the angle of the wall. "There are certain things which a man can
only go through once in his life; and he must know some time or other
that the best is over with him. This experience has happened to me
while I am very young--that is all. What I care more for than I
can ever care for anything else is absolutely forbidden to me--
I don't mean merely by being out of my reach, but forbidden me,
even if it were within my reach, by my own pride and honor--
by everything I respect myself for. Of course I shall go on living
as a man might do who had seen heaven in a trance."
Will paused, imagining that it would be impossible for Dorothea
to misunderstand this; indeed he felt that he was contradicting
himself and offending against his self-approval in speaking
to her so plainly; but still--it could not be fairly called
wooing a woman to tell her that he would never woo her.
It must be admitted to be a ghostly kind of wooing.
But Dorothea's mind was rapidly going over the past with quite another
vision than his. The thought that she herself might be what Will
most cared for did throb through her an instant, but then came doubt:
the memory of the little they had lived through together turned pale
and shrank before the memory which suggested how much fuller might
have been the intercourse between Will and some one else with whom
he had had constant companionship. Everything he had said might
refer to that other relation, and whatever had passed between him
and herself was thoroughly explained by what she had always regarded
as their simple friendship and the cruel obstruction thrust upon it
by her husband's injurious act. Dorothea stood silent, with her
eyes cast down dreamily, while images crowded upon her which left
the sickening certainty that Will was referring to Mrs. Lydgate.
But why sickening? He wanted her to know that here too his conduct
should be above suspicion.
Will was not surprised at her silence. His mind also was tumultuously
busy while he watched her, and he was feeling rather wildly that something
must happen to hinder their parting--some miracle, clearly nothing
in their own deliberate speech. Yet, after all, had she any love
for him?--he could not pretend to himself that he would rather believe
her to be without that pain. He could not deny that a secret longing
for the assurance that she loved him was at the root of all his words.
Neither of them knew how long they stood in that way. Dorothea was
raising her eyes, and was about to speak, when the door opened
and her footman came to say--
"The horses are ready, madam, whenever you like to start."
"Presently," said Dorothea. Then turning to Will, she said,
"I have some memoranda to write for the housekeeper."
"I must go," said Will, when the door had closed again--advancing
towards her. "The day after to-morrow I shall leave Middlemarch."
"You have acted in every way rightly," said Dorothea, in a low tone,
feeling a pressure at her heart which made it difficult to speak.
She put out her hand, and Will took it for an instant with.
out speaking, for her words had seemed to him cruelly cold and
unlike herself. Their eyes met, but there was discontent in his,
and in hers there was only sadness. He turned away and took his
portfolio under his arm.
"I have never done you injustice. Please remember me," said Dorothea,
repressing a rising sob.
"Why should you say that?" said Will, with irritation. "As if I
were not in danger of forgetting everything else."
He had really a movement of anger against her at that moment, and it
impelled him to go away without pause. It was all one flash to Dorothea--
his last words--his distant bow to her as he reached the door--
the sense that he was no longer there. She sank into the chair,
and for a few moments sat like a statue, while images and emotions
were hurrying upon her. Joy came first, in spite of the threatening
train behind it--joy in the impression that it was really herself
whom Will loved and was renouncing, that there was really no other
love less permissible, more blameworthy, which honor was hurrying
him away from. They were parted all the same, but--Dorothea drew
a deep breath and felt her strength return--she could think of
him unrestrainedly. At that moment the parting was easy to bear:
the first sense of loving and being loved excluded sorrow. It was as
if some hard icy pressure had melted, and her consciousness had room
to expand: her past was come back to her with larger interpretation.
The joy was not the less--perhaps it was the more complete just then--
because of the irrevocable parting; for there was no reproach,
no contemptuous wonder to imagine in any eye or from any lips.
He had acted so as to defy reproach, and make wonder respectful.
Any one watching her might have seen that there was a fortifying
thought within her. Just as when inventive power is working
with glad ease some small claim on the attention is fully met
as if it were only a cranny opened to the sunlight, it was easy
now for Dorothea to write her memoranda. She spoke her last words
to the housekeeper in cheerful tones, and when she seated herself
in the carriage her eyes were bright and her cheeks blooming
under the dismal bonnet. She threw back the heavy "weepers,"
and looked before her, wondering which road Will had taken.
It was in her nature to be proud that he was blameless, and through
all her feelings there ran this vein--"I was right to defend him."
The coachman was used to drive his grays at a good pane, Mr. Casaubon
being unenjoying and impatient in everything away from his desk,
and wanting to get to the end of all journeys; and Dorothea
was now bowled along quickly. Driving was pleasant, for rain
in the night had laid the dust, and the blue sky looked far off,
away from the region of the great clouds that sailed in masses.
The earth looked like a happy place under the vast heavens,
and Dorothea was wishing that she might overtake Will and see him
once more.
After a turn of the road, there he was with the portfolio under his arm;
but the next moment she was passing him while he raised his hat,
and she felt a pang at being seated there in a sort of exaltation,
leaving him behind. She could not look back at him. It was
as if a crowd of indifferent objects had thrust them asunder,
and forced them along different paths, taking them farther and
farther away from each other, and making it useless to look back.
She could no more make any sign that would seem to say, "Need we part?"
than she could stop the carriage to wait for him. Nay, what a world
of reasons crowded upon her against any movement of her thought
towards a future that might reverse the decision of this day!
"I only wish I had known before--I wish he knew--then we could be
quite happy in thinking of each other, though we are forever parted.
And if I could but have given him the money, and made things easier
for him!"--were the longings that came back the most persistently.
And yet, so heavily did the world weigh on her in spite of her
independent energy, that with this idea of Will as in need of such help
and at a disadvantage with the world, there came always the vision
of that unfittingness of any closer relation between them which lay
in the opinion of every one connected with her. She felt to the full
all the imperativeness of the motives which urged Will's conduct.
How could he dream of her defying the barrier that her husband had
placed between them?--how could she ever say to herself that she
would defy it?
Will's certainty as the carriage grew smaller in the distance,
had much more bitterness in it. Very slight matters were enough
to gall him in his sensitive mood, and the sight of Dorothea
driving past him while he felt himself plodding along as a poor
devil seeking a position in a world which in his present temper
offered him little that he coveted, made his conduct seem a mere
matter of necessity, and took away the sustainment of resolve.
After all, he had no assurance that she loved him: could any man
pretend that he was simply glad in such a case to have the suffering
all on his own side?
That evening Will spent with the Lydgates; the next evening he
was gone.
BOOK VII.
TWO TEMPTATIONS.
CHAPTER LXIII.
These little things are great to little man.--GOLDSMITH.
"Have you seen much of your scientific phoenix, Lydgate, lately?"
said Mr. Toller at one of his Christmas dinner-parties, speaking
to Mr. Farebrother on his right hand.
"Not much, I am sorry to say," answered the Vicar, accustomed to parry
Mr. Toller's banter about his belief in the new medical light.
"I am out of the way and he is too busy."
"Is he? I am glad to hear it," said Dr. Minchin, with mingled
suavity and surprise.
"He gives a great deal of time to the New Hospital," said Mr. Farebrother,
who had his reasons for continuing the subject: "I hear of that from
my neighbor, Mrs. Casaubon, who goes there often. She says Lydgate
is indefatigable, and is making a fine thing of Bulstrode's institution.
He is preparing a new ward in case of the cholera coming to us."
"And preparing theories of treatment to try on the patients,
I suppose," said Mr. Toller.
"Come, Toller, be candid," said Mr. Farebrother. "You are too clever
not to see the good of a bold fresh mind in medicine, as well as in
everything else; and as to cholera, I fancy, none of you are very
sure what you ought to do. If a man goes a little too far along
a new road, it is usually himself that he harms more than any one else."
"I am sure you and Wrench ought to be obliged to him," said Dr. Minchin,
looking towards Toller, "for he has sent you the cream of Peacock's patients."
"Lydgate has been living at a great rate for a young beginner,"
said Mr. Harry Toller, the brewer. "I suppose his relations in the
North back him up."
"I hope so," said Mr. Chichely, "else he ought not to have married
that nice girl we were all so fond of. Hang it, one has a grudge
against a man who carries off the prettiest girl in the town."
"Ay, by God! and the best too," said Mr. Standish.
"My friend Vincy didn't half like the marriage, I know that,"
said Mr. Chichely. "HE wouldn't do much. How the relations
on the other side may have come down I can't say." There was an
emphatic kind of reticence in Mr. Chichely's manner of speaking.
"Oh, I shouldn't think Lydgate ever looked to practice for a living,"
said Mr. Toller, with a slight touch of sarcasm, and there the subject
was dropped.
This was not the first time that Mr. Farebrother had heard hints of
Lydgate's expenses being obviously too great to be met by his practice,
but he thought it not unlikely that there were resources or expectations
which excused the large outlay at the time of Lydgate's marriage,
and which might hinder any bad consequences from the disappointment
in his practice. One evening, when he took the pains to go
to Middlemarch on purpose to have a chat with Lydgate as of old,
he noticed in him an air of excited effort quite unlike his usual easy
way of keeping silence or breaking it with abrupt energy whenever
he had anything to say. Lydgate talked persistently when they were
in his work-room, putting arguments for and against the probability
of certain biological views; but he had none of those definite
things to say or to show which give the waymarks of a patient
uninterrupted pursuit, such as he used himself to insist on,
saying that "there must be a systole and diastole in all inquiry,"
and that "a man's mind must be continually expanding and shrinking
between the whole human horizon and the horizon of an object-glass."
That evening he seemed to be talking widely for the sake of resisting
any personal bearing; and before long they went into the drawing room,
where Lydgate, having asked Rosamond to give them music, sank back
in his chair in silence, but with a strange light in his eyes.
"He may have been taking an opiate," was a thought that crossed
Mr. Farebrother's mind--"tic-douloureux perhaps--or medical worries."
It did not occur to him that Lydgate's marriage was not delightful:
he believed, as the rest did, that Rosamond was an amiable,
docile creature, though he had always thought her rather uninteresting--
a little too much the pattern-card of the finishing-school;
and his mother could not forgive Rosamond because she never seemed
to see that Henrietta Noble was in the room. "However, Lydgate
fell in love with her," said the Vicar to himself, "and she must
be to his taste."
Mr. Farebrother was aware that Lydgate was a proud man, but having
very little corresponding fibre in himself, and perhaps too little care
about personal dignity, except the dignity of not being mean or foolish,
he could hardly allow enough for the way in which Lydgate shrank,
as from a burn, from the utterance of any word about his private affairs.
And soon after that conversation at Mr. Toller's, the Vicar
learned something which made him watch the more eagerly for an
opportunity of indirectly letting Lydgate know that if he wanted
to open himself about any difficulty there was a friendly ear ready.
The opportunity came at Mr. Vincy's, where, on New Year's Day,
there was a party, to which Mr. Farebrother was irresistibly invited,
on the plea that he must not forsake his old friends on the first
new year of his being a greater man, and Rector as well as Vicar.
And this party was thoroughly friendly: all the ladies of the
Farebrother family were present; the Vincy children all dined
at the table, and Fred had persuaded his mother that if she did
not invite Mary Garth, the Farebrothers would regard it as a slight
to themselves, Mary being their particular friend. Mary came, and Fred
was in high spirits, though his enjoyment was of a checkered kind--
triumph that his mother should see Mary's importance with the chief
personages in the party being much streaked with jealousy when
Mr. Farebrother sat down by her. Fred used to be much more easy
about his own accomplishments in the days when he had not begun
to dread being "bowled out by Farebrother," and this terror was
still before him. Mrs. Vincy, in her fullest matronly bloom,
looked at Mary's little figure, rough wavy hair, and visage quite
without lilies and roses, and wondered; trying unsuccessfully
to fancy herself caring about Mary's appearance in wedding clothes,
or feeling complacency in grandchildren who would "feature" the Garths.
However, the party was a merry one, and Mary was particularly bright;
being glad, for Fred's sake, that his friends were getting
kinder to her, and being also quite willing that they should
see how much she was valued by others whom they must admit to be judges.
Mr. Farebrother noticed that Lydgate seemed bored, and that Mr. Vincy
spoke as little as possible to his son-in-law. Rosamond was perfectly
graceful and calm, and only a subtle observation such as the Vicar
had not been roused to bestow on her would have perceived the total
absence of that interest in her husband's presence which a loving
wife is sure to betray, even if etiquette keeps her aloof from him.
When Lydgate was taking part in the conversation, she never looked
towards him any more than if she had been a sculptured Psyche modelled
to look another way: and when, after being called out for an hour
or two, he re-entered the room, she seemed unconscious of the fact,
which eighteen months before would have had the effect of a numeral
before ciphers. In reality, however, she was intensely aware
of Lydgate's voice and movements; and her pretty good-tempered air
of unconsciousness was a studied negation by which she satisfied
her inward opposition to him without compromise of propriety.
When the ladies were in the drawing-room after Lydgate had been
called away from the dessert, Mrs. Farebrother, when Rosamond
happened to be near her, said--"You have to give up a great deal
of your husband's society, Mrs. Lydgate."
"Yes, the life of a medical man is very arduous: especially when he
is so devoted to his profession as Mr. Lydgate is," said Rosamond,
who was standing, and moved easily away at the end of this correct
little speech.
"It is dreadfully dull for her when there is no company,"
said Mrs. Vincy, who was seated at the old lady's side.
"I am sure I thought so when Rosamond was ill, and I was staying
with her. You know, Mrs. Farebrother, ours is a cheerful house.
I am of a cheerful disposition myself, and Mr. Vincy always likes
something to be going on. That is what Rosamond has been used to.
Very different from a husband out at odd hours, and never knowing
when he will come home, and of a close, proud disposition,
_I_ think"--indiscreet Mrs. Vincy did lower her tone slightly with
this parenthesis. "But Rosamond always had an angel of a temper;
her brothers used very often not to please her, but she was never
the girl to show temper; from a baby she was always as good as good,
and with a complexion beyond anything. But my children are all
good-tempered, thank God."
This was easily credible to any one looking at Mrs. Vincy as she threw
back her broad cap-strings, and smiled towards her three little girls,
aged from seven to eleven. But in that smiling glance she was
obliged to include Mary Garth, whom the three girls had got into
a corner to make her tell them stories. Mary was just finishing
the delicious tale of Rumpelstiltskin, which she had well by heart,
because Letty was never tired of communicating it to her ignorant
elders from a favorite red volume. Louisa, Mrs. Vincy's darling,
now ran to her with wide-eyed serious excitement, crying, "Oh mamma,
mamma, the little man stamped so hard on the floor he couldn't
get his leg out again!"
"Bless you, my cherub!" said mamma; "you shall tell me all about it
to-morrow. Go and listen!" and then, as her eyes followed Louisa
back towards the attractive corner, she thought that if Fred wished
her to invite Mary again she would make no objection, the children
being so pleased with her.
But presently the corner became still more animated, for Mr. Farebrother
came in, and seating himself behind Louisa, took her on his lap;
whereupon the girls all insisted that he must hear Rumpelstiltskin,
and Mary must tell it over again. He insisted too, and Mary,
without fuss, began again in her neat fashion, with precisely
the same words as before. Fred, who had also seated himself near,
would have felt unmixed triumph in Mary's effectiveness if
Mr. Farebrother had not been looking at her with evident admiration,
while he dramatized an intense interest in the tale to please
the children.
"You will never care any more about my one-eyed giant, Loo,"
said Fred at the end.
"Yes, I shall. Tell about him now," said Louisa.
"Oh, I dare say; I am quite cut out. Ask Mr. Farebrother."
"Yes," added Mary; "ask Mr. Farebrother to tell you about the ants
whose beautiful house was knocked down by a giant named Tom,
and he thought they didn't mind because he couldn't hear them cry,
or see them use their pocket-handkerchiefs."
"Please," said Louisa, looking up at the Vicar.
"No, no, I am a grave old parson. If I try to draw a story out
of my bag a sermon comes instead. Shall I preach you a sermon?"
said he, putting on his short-sighted glasses, and pursing up
his lips.
"Yes," said Louisa, falteringly.
"Let me see, then. Against cakes: how cakes are bad things,
especially if they are sweet and have plums in them."
Louisa took the affair rather seriously, and got down from the
Vicar's knee to go to Fred.
"Ah, I see it will not do to preach on New Year's Day,"
said Mr. Farebrother, rising and walking--away. He had discovered
of late that Fred had become jealous of him, and also that he
himself was not losing his preference for Mary above all other women.
"A delightful young person is Miss Garth," said Mrs. Farebrother,
who had been watching her son's movements.
"Yes," said Mrs. Vincy, obliged to reply, as the old lady turned
to her expectantly. "It is a pity she is not better-looking."
"I cannot say that," said Mrs. Farebrother, decisively. "I like
her countenance. We must not always ask for beauty, when a good
God has seen fit to make an excellent young woman without it.
I put good manners first, and Miss Garth will know how to conduct
herself in any station."
The old lady was a little sharp in her tone, having a prospective
reference to Mary's becoming her daughter-in-law; for there was this
inconvenience in Mary's position with regard to Fred, that it was
not suitable to be made public, and hence the three ladies at Lowick
Parsonage were still hoping that Camden would choose Miss Garth.
New visitors entered, and the drawing-room was given up to music
and games, while whist-tables were prepared in the quiet room
on the other side of the hall. Mr. Farebrother played a rubber
to satisfy his mother, who regarded her occasional whist as a
protest against scandal and novelty of opinion, in which light
even a revoke had its dignity. But at the end he got Mr. Chichely
to take his place, and left the room. As he crossed the hall,
Lydgate had just come in and was taking off his great-coat.
"You are the man I was going to look for," said the Vicar;
and instead of entering the drawing-room, they walked along the hall
and stood against the fireplace, where the frosty air helped to make
a glowing bank. "You see, I can leave the whist-table easily enough,"
he went on, smiling at Lydgate, "now I don't play for money.
I owe that to you, Mrs. Casaubon says."
"How?" said Lydgate, coldly.
"Ah, you didn't mean me to know it; I call that ungenerous reticence.
You should let a man have the pleasure of feeling that you have
done him a good turn. I don't enter into some people's dislike
of being under an obligation: upon my word, I prefer being under
an obligation to everybody for behaving well to me."
"I can't tell what you mean," said Lydgate, "unless it is that I once
spoke of you to Mrs. Casaubon. But I did not think that she would
break her promise not to mention that I had done so," said Lydgate,
leaning his back against the corner of the mantel-piece, and showing
no radiance in his face.
"It was Brooke who let it out, only the other day. He paid me
the compliment of saying that he was very glad I had the living
though you had come across his tactics, and had praised me up as a
lien and a Tillotson, and that sort of thing, till Mrs. Casaubon
would hear of no one else."
"Oh, Brooke is such a leaky-minded fool," said Lydgate, contemptuously.
"Well, I was glad of the leakiness then. I don't see why you
shouldn't like me to know that you wished to do me a service,
my dear fellow. And you certainly have done me one. It's rather
a strong check to one's self-complacency to find how much of one's
right doing depends on not being in want of money. A man will not
be tempted to say the Lord's Prayer backward to please the devil,
if he doesn't want the devil's services. I have no need to hang
on the smiles of chance now."
"I don't see that there's any money-getting without chance,"
said Lydgate; "if a man gets it in a profession, it's pretty sure
to come by chance."
Mr. Farebrother thought he could account for this speech, in striking
contrast with Lydgate's former way of talking, as the perversity
which will often spring from the moodiness of a man ill at ease
in his affairs. He answered in a tone of good-humored admission--
"Ah, there's enormous patience wanted with the way of the world.
But it is the easier for a man to wait patiently when he has friends
who love him, and ask for nothing better than to help him through,
so far as it lies in their power."
"Oh yes," said Lydgate, in a careless tone, changing his attitude
and looking at his watch. "People make much more of their
difficulties than they need to do."
He knew as distinctly as possible that this was an offer of help
to himself from Mr. Farebrother, and he could not bear it.
So strangely determined are we mortals, that, after having been
long gratified with the sense that he had privately done the Vicar
a service, the suggestion that the Vicar discerned his need of a
service in return made him shrink into unconquerable reticence.
Besides, behind all making of such offers what else must come?--that he
should "mention his case," imply that he wanted specific things.
At that moment, suicide seemed easier.
Mr. Farebrother was too keen a man not to know the meaning of that reply,
and there was a certain massiveness in Lydgate's manner and tone,
corresponding with his physique, which if he repelled your advances
in the first instance seemed to put persuasive devices out of question.
"What time are you?" said the Vicar, devouring his wounded feeling.
"After eleven," said Lydgate. And they went into the drawing-room.
CHAPTER LXIV.
1st Gent. Where lies the power, there let the blame lie too.
2d Gent. Nay, power is relative; you cannot fright
The coming pest with border fortresses,
Or catch your carp with subtle argument.
All force is twain in one: cause is not cause
Unless effect be there; and action's self
Must needs contain a passive. So command
Exists but with obedience."
Even if Lydgate had been inclined to be quite open about his affairs,
he knew that it would have hardly been in Mr. Farebrother's power
to give him the help he immediately wanted. With the year's bills
coming in from his tradesmen, with Dover's threatening hold on
his furniture, and with nothing to depend on but slow dribbling
payments from patients who must not be offended--for the handsome
fees he had had from Freshitt Hall and Lowick Manor had been
easily absorbed--nothing less than a thousand pounds would have
freed him from actual embarrassment, and left a residue which,
according to the favorite phrase of hopefulness in such circumstances,
would have given him "time to look about him."
Naturally, the merry Christmas bringing the happy New Year,
when fellow-citizens expect to be paid for the trouble and goods
they have smilingly bestowed on their neighbors, had so tightened
the pressure of sordid cares on Lydgate's mind that it was hardly
possible for him to think unbrokenly of any other subject, even the
most habitual and soliciting. He was not an ill-tempered man;
his intellectual activity, the ardent kindness of his heart, as well
as his strong frame, would always, under tolerably easy conditions,
have kept him above the petty uncontrolled susceptibilities which make
bad temper. But he was now a prey to that worst irritation which
arises not simply from annoyances, but from the second consciousness
underlying those annoyances, of wasted energy and a degrading
preoccupation, which was the reverse of all his former purposes.
"THIS is what I am thinking of; and THAT is what I might
have been thinking of," was the bitter incessant murmur within him,
making every difficulty a double goad to impatience.
Some gentlemen have made an amazing figure in literature by general
discontent with the universe as a trap of dulness into which their
great souls have fallen by mistake; but the sense of a stupendous
self and an insignificant world may have its consolations.
Lydgate's discontent was much harder to bear: it was the sense that
there was a grand existence in thought and effective action lying
around him, while his self was being narrowed into the miserable
isolation of egoistic fears, and vulgar anxieties for events that might
allay such fears. His troubles will perhaps appear miserably sordid,
and beneath the attention of lofty persons who can know nothing
of debt except on a magnificent scale. Doubtless they were sordid;
and for the majority, who are not lofty, there is no escape from
sordidness but by being free from money-craving, with all its base
hopes and temptations, its watching for death, its hinted requests.
its horse-dealer's desire to make bad work pass for good,
its seeking for function which ought to be another's, its compulsion
often to long for Luck in the shape of a wide calamity.
It was because Lydgate writhed under the idea of getting his neck
beneath this vile yoke that he had fallen into a bitter moody state
which was continually widening Rosamond's alienation from him.
After the first disclosure about the bill of sale, he had made
many efforts to draw her into sympathy with him about possible
measures for narrowing their expenses, and with the threatening
approach of Christmas his propositions grew more and more definite.
"We two can do with only one servant, and live on very little,"
he said, "and I shall manage with one horse." For Lydgate,
as we have seen, had begun to reason, with a more distinct vision,
about the expenses of living, and any share of pride he had given to
appearances of that sort was meagre compared with the pride which made
him revolt from exposure as a debtor, or from asking men to help him
with their money.
"Of course you can dismiss the other two servants, if you like,"
said Rosamond; "but I should have thought it would be very injurious
to your position for us to live in a poor way. You must expect
your practice to be lowered."
"My dear Rosamond, it is not a question of choice. We have begun
too expensively. Peacock, you know, lived in a much smaller house
than this. It is my fault: I ought to have known better, and I
deserve a thrashing--if there were anybody who had a right to give
it me--for bringing you into the necessity of living in a poorer
way than you have been used to. But we married because we loved
each other, I suppose. And that may help us to pull along till
things get better. Come, dear, put down that work and come to me."
He was really in chill gloom about her at that moment, but he dreaded
a future without affection, and was determined to resist the oncoming
of division between them. Rosamond obeyed him, and he took her on
his knee, but in her secret soul she was utterly aloof from him.
The poor thing saw only that the world was not ordered to her liking,
and Lydgate was part of that world. But he held her waist with one
hand and laid the other gently on both of hers; for this rather abrupt
man had much tenderness in his manners towards women, seeming to
have always present in his imagination the weakness of their frames
and the delicate poise of their health both in body and mind.
And he began again to speak persuasively.
"I find, now I look into things a little, Rosy, that it is wonderful
what an amount of money slips away in our housekeeping. I suppose
the servants are careless, and we have had a great many people coming.
But there must be many in our rank who manage with much less:
they must do with commoner things, I suppose, and look after
the scraps. It seems, money goes but a little way in these matters,
for Wrench has everything as plain as possible, and he has a very
large practice."
"Oh, if you think of living as the Wrenches do!" said Rosamond,
with a little turn of her neck. "But I have heard you express your
disgust at that way of living."
"Yes, they have bad taste in everything--they make economy look ugly.
We needn't do that. I only meant that they avoid expenses,
although Wrench has a capital practice."
"Why should not you have a good practice, Tertius? Mr. Peacock had.
You should be more careful not to offend people, and you should
send out medicines as the others do. I am sure you began well,
and you got several good houses. It cannot answer to be eccentric;
you should think what will be generally liked," said Rosamond, in a
decided little tone of admonition.
Lydgate's anger rose: he was prepared to be indulgent towards
feminine weakness, but not towards feminine dictation.
The shallowness of a waternixie's soul may have a charm until
she becomes didactic. But he controlled himself, and only said,
with a touch of despotic firmness--
"What I am to do in my practice, Rosy, it is for me to judge.
That is not the question between us. It is enough for you
to know that our income is likely to be a very narrow one--
hardly four hundred, perhaps less, for a long time to come, and we
must try to re-arrange our lives in accordance with that fact."
Rosamond was silent for a moment or two, looking before her,
and then said, "My uncle Bulstrode ought to allow you a salary
for the time you give to the Hospital: it is not right that you
should work for nothing."
"It was understood from the beginning that my services would
be gratuitous. That, again, need not enter into our discussion.
I have pointed out what is the only probability," said Lydgate,
impatiently. Then checking himself, he went on more quietly--
"I think I see one resource which would free us from a good deal
of the present difficulty. I hear that young Ned Plymdale is going
to be married to Miss Sophy Toller. They are rich, and it is not often
that a good house is vacant in Middlemarch. I feel sure that they
would be glad to take this house from us with most of our furniture,
and they would be willing to pay handsomely for the lease.
I can employ Trumbull to speak to Plymdale about it."
Rosamond left her husband's knee and walked slowly to the other
end of the room; when she turned round and walked towards him it
was evident that the tears had come, and that she was biting her
under-lip and clasping her hands to keep herself from crying.
Lydgate was wretched--shaken with anger and yet feeling that it
would be unmanly to vent the anger just now.
"I am very sorry, Rosamond; I know this is painful."
"I thought, at least, when I had borne to send the plate back
and have that man taking an inventory of the furniture--I should
have thought THAT would suffice."
"I explained it to you at the time, dear. That was only a security
and behind that Security there is a debt. And that debt must be paid
within the next few months, else we shall have our furniture sold.
If young Plymdale will take our house and most of our furniture,
we shall be able to pay that debt, and some others too, and we
shall be quit of a place too expensive for us. We might take
a smaller house: Trumbull, I know, has a very decent one to let
at thirty pounds a-year, and this is ninety." Lydgate uttered this
speech in the curt hammering way with which we usually try to nail
down a vague mind to imperative facts. Tears rolled silently down
Rosamond's cheeks; she just pressed her handkerchief against them,
and stood looking al; the large vase on the mantel-piece. It was
a moment of more intense bitterness than she had ever felt before.
At last she said, without hurry and with careful emphasis--
"I never could have believed that you would like to act in that way."
"Like it?" burst out Lydgate, rising from his chair, thrusting his
hands in his pockets and stalking away from the hearth; "it's not
a question of liking. Of course, I don't like it; it's the only
thing I can do." He wheeled round there, and turned towards her.
"I should have thought there were many other means than that,"
said Rosamond. "Let us have a sale and leave Middlemarch altogether."
"To do what? What is the use of my leaving my work in Middlemarch
to go where I have none? We should be just as penniless elsewhere
as we are here," said Lydgate still more angrily.
"If we are to be in that position it will be entirely your
own doing, Tertius," said Rosamond, turning round to speak
with the fullest conviction. "You will not behave as you ought
to do to your own family. You offended Captain Lydgate.
Sir Godwin was very kind to me when we were at Quallingham,
and I am sure if you showed proper regard to him and told him
your affairs, he would do anything for you. But rather than that,
you like giving up our house and furniture to Mr. Ned Plymdale."
There was something like fierceness in Lydgate's eyes, as he
answered with new violence, "Well, then, if you will have it so,
I do like it. I admit that I like it better than making a fool
of myself by going to beg where it's of no use. Understand then,
that it is what I LIKE TO DO."
There was a tone in the last sentence which was equivalent
to the clutch of his strong hand on Rosamond's delicate arm.
But for all that, his will was not a whit stronger than hers.
She immediately walked out of the room in silence, but with an intense
determination to hinder what Lydgate liked to do.
He went out of the house, but as his blood cooled he felt that the chief
result of the discussion was a deposit of dread within him at the idea
of opening with his wife in future subjects which might again urge
him to violent speech. It was as if a fracture in delicate crystal
had begun, and he was afraid of any movement that might mate it fatal.
His marriage would be a mere piece of bitter irony if they could
not go on loving each other. He had long ago made up his mind to
what he thought was her negative character--her want of sensibility,
which showed itself in disregard both of his specific wishes and of
his general aims. The first great disappointment had been borne:
the tender devotedness and docile adoration of the ideal wife must
be renounced, and life must be taken up on a lower stage of expectation,
as it is by men who have lost their limbs. But the real wife
had not only her claims, she had still a hold on his heart,
and it was his intense desire that the hold should remain strong.
In marriage, the certainty, "She will never love me much,"
is easier to bear than the fear, "I shall love her no more." Hence,
after that outburst, his inward effort was entirely to excuse her,
and to blame the hard circumstances which were partly his fault.
He tried that evening, by petting her, to heal the wound he had
made in the morning, and it was not in Rosamond's nature to be
repellent or sulky; indeed, she welcomed the signs that her husband
loved her and was under control. But this was something quite
distinct from loving HIM. Lydgate would not have chosen soon
to recur to the plan of parting with the house; he was resolved
to carry it out, and say as little more about it as possible.
But Rosamond herself touched on it at breakfast by saying, mildly--
"Have you spoken to Trumbull yet?"
"No," said Lydgate, "but I shall call on him as I go by this morning.
No time must be lost." He took Rosamond's question as a sign that
she withdrew her inward opposition, and kissed her head caressingly
when he got up to go away.
As soon as it was late enough to make a call, Rosamond went to
Mrs. Plymdale, Mr. Ned's mother, and entered with pretty congratulations
into the of the coming marriage. Mrs. Plymdale's maternal view was,
that Rosamond might possibly now have retrospective glimpses
of her own folly; and feeling the advantages to be at present
all on the side of her son, was too kind a woman not to behave graciously.
"Yes, Ned is most happy, I must say. And Sophy Toller is all
I could desire in a daughter-in-law. Of course her father is
able to do something handsome for her--that is only what would
be expected with a brewery like his. And the connection is
everything we should desire. But that is not what I look at.
She is such a very nice girl--no airs, no pretensions, though on
a level with the first. I don't mean with the titled aristocracy.
I see very little good in people aiming out of their own sphere.
I mean that Sophy is equal to the best in the town, and she is
contented with that."
"I have always thought her very agreeable," said Rosamond.
"I look upon it as a reward for Ned, who never held his head
too high, that he should have got into the very best connection,"
continued Mrs. Plymdale, her native sharpness softened by a fervid
sense that she was taking a correct view. "And such particular people
as the Tollers are, they might have objected because some of our
friends are not theirs. It is well known that your aunt Bulstrode
and I have been intimate from our youth, and Mr. Plymdale has been
always on Mr. Bulstrode's side. And I myself prefer serious opinions.
But the Tollers have welcomed Ned all the same."
"I am sure he is a very deserving, well-principled young man,"
said Rosamond, with a neat air of patronage in return for
Mrs. Plymdale's wholesome corrections.
"Oh, he has not the style of a captain in the army, or that sort
of carriage as if everybody was beneath him, or that showy kind
of talking, and singing, and intellectual talent. But I am thankful
he has not. It is a poor preparation both for here and Hereafter."
"Oh dear, yes; appearances have very little to do with happiness,"
said Rosamond. "I think there is every prospect of their being a
happy couple. What house will they take?"
"Oh, as for that, they must put up with what they can get.
They have been looking at the house in St. Peter's Place, next to
Mr. Hackbutt's; it belongs to him, and he is putting it nicely
in repair. I suppose they are not likely to hear of a better.
Indeed, I think Ned will decide the matter to-day."
"I should think it is a nice house; I like St. Peter's Place."
"Well, it is near the Church, and a genteel situation.
But the windows are narrow, and it is all ups and downs.
You don't happen to know of any other that would be at liberty?"
said Mrs. Plymdale, fixing her round black eyes on Rosamond
with the animation of a sudden thought in them.
"Oh no; I hear so little of those things."
Rosamond had not foreseen that question and answer in setting out to pay
her visit; she had simply meant to gather any information which would
help her to avert the parting with her own house under circumstances
thoroughly disagreeable to her. As to the untruth in her reply,
she no more reflected on it than she did on the untruth there was
in her saying that appearances had very little to do with happiness.
Her object, she was convinced, was thoroughly justifiable:
it was Lydgate whose intention was inexcusable; and there was a plan
in her mind which, when she had carried it out fully, would prove
how very false a step it would have been for him to have descended
from his position.
She returned home by Mr. Borthrop Trumbull's office, meaning to
call there. It was the first time in her life that Rosamond had
thought of doing anything in the form of business, but she felt
equal to the occasion. That she should be obliged to do what she
intensely disliked, was an idea which turned her quiet tenacity
into active invention. Here was a case in which it could not be
enough simply to disobey and be serenely, placidly obstinate:
she must act according to her judgment, and she said to herself
that her judgment was right--"indeed, if it had not been,
she would not have wished to act on it."
Mr. Trumbull was in the back-room of his office, and received
Rosamond with his finest manners, not only because he had much
sensibility to her charms, but because the good-natured fibre in him
was stirred by his certainty that Lydgate was in difficulties,
and that this uncommonly pretty woman--this young lady with the highest
personal attractions--was likely to feel the pinch of trouble--
to find herself involved in circumstances beyond her control.
He begged her to do him the honor to take a seat, and stood before
her trimming and comporting himself with an eager solicitude,
which was chiefly benevolent. Rosamond's first question was,
whether her husband had called on Mr. Trumbull that morning, to speak
about disposing of their house.
"Yes, ma'am, yes, he did; he did so," said the good auctioneer,
trying to throw something soothing into his iteration.
"I was about to fulfil his order, if possible, this afternoon.
He wished me not to procrastinate."
"I called to tell you not to go any further, Mr. Trumbull;
and I beg of you not to mention what has been said on the subject.
Will you oblige me?"
"Certainly I will, Mrs. Lydgate, certainly. Confidence is sacred
with me on business or any other topic. I am then to consider the
commission withdrawn?" said Mr. Trumbull, adjusting the long ends
of his blue cravat with both hands, and looking at Rosamond deferentially.
"Yes, if you please. I find that Mr. Ned Plymdale has taken a house--
the one in St. Peter's Place next to Mr. Hackbutt's. Mr. Lydgate
would be annoyed that his orders should be fulfilled uselessly.
And besides that, there are other circumstances which render the
proposal unnecessary."
"Very good, Mrs. Lydgate, very good. I am at your commands,
whenever you require any service of me," said Mr. Trumbull, who felt
pleasure in conjecturing that some new resources had been opened.
"Rely on me, I beg. The affair shall go no further."
That evening Lydgate was a little comforted by observing that Rosamond
was more lively than she had usually been of late, and even seemed
interested in doing what would please him without being asked.
He thought, "If she will be happy and I can rub through, what does
it all signify? It is only a narrow swamp that we have to pass
in a long journey. If I can get my mind clear again, I shall do."
He was so much cheered that he began to search for an account
of experiments which he had long ago meant to look up, and had
neglected out of that creeping self-despair which comes in the train
of petty anxieties. He felt again some of the old delightful
absorption in a far-reaching inquiry, while Rosamond played the
quiet music which was as helpful to his meditation as the plash
of an oar on the evening lake. It was rather late; he had pushed
away all the books, and was looking at the fire with his hands
clasped behind his head in forgetfulness of everything except the
construction of a new controlling experiment, when Rosamond, who
had left the piano and was leaning back in her chair watching him, said--
"Mr. Ned Plymdale has taken a house already."
Lydgate, startled and jarred, looked up in silence for a moment,
like a man who has been disturbed in his sleep. Then flushing
with an unpleasant consciousness, he asked--
"How do you know?"
"I called at Mrs. Plymdale's this morning, and she told me that he
had taken the house in St. Peter's Place, next to Mr. Hackbutt's."
Lydgate was silent. He drew his hands from behind his head and
pressed them against the hair which was hanging, as it was apt to do,
in a mass on his forehead, while he rested his elbows on his knees.
He was feeling bitter disappointment, as if he had opened
a door out of a suffocating place and had found it walled up;
but he also felt sure that Rosamond was pleased with the cause of
his disappointment. He preferred not looking at her and not speaking,
until he had got over the first spasm of vexation. After all,
he said in his bitterness, what can a woman care about so much
as house and furniture? a husband without them is an absurdity.
When he looked up and pushed his hair aside, his dark eyes had
a miserable blank non-expectance of sympathy in them, but he
only said, coolly--
"Perhaps some one else may turn up. I told Trumbull to be on
the look-out if he failed with Plymdale."
Rosamond made no remark. She trusted to the chance that nothing
more would pass between her husband and the auctioneer until some
issue should have justified her interference; at any rate, she had
hindered the event which she immediately dreaded. After a pause,
she said--
"How much money is it that those disagreeable people want?"
"What disagreeable people?"
"Those who took the list--and the others. I mean, how much money
would satisfy them so that you need not be troubled any more?"
Lydgate surveyed her for a moment, as if he were looking for symptoms,
and then said, "Oh, if I could have got six hundred from Plymdale
for furniture and as premium, I might have managed. I could have
paid off Dover, and given enough on account to the others to make
them wait patiently, if we contracted our expenses."
"But I mean how much should you want if we stayed in this house?"
"More than I am likely to get anywhere," said Lydgate, with rather
a grating sarcasm in his tone. It angered him to perceive that
Rosamond's mind was wandering over impracticable wishes instead
of facing possible efforts.
"Why should you not mention the sum?" said Rosamond, with a mild
indication that she did not like his manners.
"Well," said Lydgate in a guessing tone, "it would take at least
a thousand to set me at ease. But," he added, incisively, "I have
to consider what I shall do without it, not with it."
Rosamond said no more.
But the next day she carried out her plan of writing to Sir
Godwin Lydgate. Since the Captain's visit, she had received a
letter from him, and also one from Mrs. Mengan, his married sister,
condoling with her on the loss of her baby, and expressing
vaguely the hope that they should see her again at Quallingham.
Lydgate had told her that this politeness meant nothing; but she
was secretly convinced that any backwardness in Lydgate's family
towards him was due to his cold and contemptuous behavior, and she
had answered the letters in her most charming manner, feeling some
confidence that a specific invitation would follow. But there had
been total silence. The Captain evidently was not a great penman,
and Rosamond reflected that the sisters might have been abroad.
However, the season was come for thinking of friends at home,
and at any rate Sir Godwin, who had chucked her under the chin,
and pronounced her to be like the celebrated beauty, Mrs. Croly,
who had made a conquest of him in 1790, would be touched by any appeal
from her, and would find it pleasant for her sake to behave as he ought
to do towards his nephew. Rosamond was naively convinced of what an
old gentleman ought to do to prevent her from suffering annoyance.
And she wrote what she considered the most judicious letter possible--
one which would strike Sir Godwin as a proof of her excellent sense--
pointing out how desirable it was that Tertius should quit such a place
as Middlemarch for one more fitted to his talents, how the unpleasant
character of the inhabitants had hindered his professional success,
and how in consequence he was in money difficulties, from which it
would require a thousand pounds thoroughly to extricate him.
She did not say that Tertius was unaware of her intention to write;
for she had the idea that his supposed sanction of her letter would
be in accordance with what she did say of his great regard for his
uncle Godwin as the relative who had always been his best friend.
Such was the force of Poor Rosamond's tactics now she applied them
to affairs.
This had happened before the party on New Year's Day, and no answer
had yet come from Sir Godwin. But on the morning of that day
Lydgate had to learn that Rosamond had revoked his order to
Borthrop Trumbull. Feeling it necessary that she should be gradually
accustomed to the idea of their quitting the house in Lowick Gate,
he overcame his reluctance to speak to her again on the subject,
and when they were breakfasting said--
"I shall try to see Trumbull this morning, and tell him to.
advertise the house in the `Pioneer' and the `Trumpet.' If the thing
were advertised, some one might be inclined to take it who would
not otherwise have thought of a change. In these country places
many people go on in their old houses when their families are too
large for them, for want of knowing where they can find another.
And Trumbull seems to have got no bite at all."
Rosamond knew that the inevitable moment was come. "I ordered
Trumbull not to inquire further," she said, with a careful calmness
which was evidently defensive.
Lydgate stared at her in mute amazement. Only half an hour
before he had been fastening up her plaits for her, and talking
the "little language" of affection, which Rosamond, though not
returning it, accepted as if she had been a serene and lovely image,
now and then miraculously dimpling towards her votary.
With such fibres still astir in him, the shock he received could
not at once be distinctly anger; it was confused pain. He laid
down the knife and fork with which he was carving, and throwing
himself back in his chair, said at last, with a cool irony in his tone--
"May I ask when and why you did so?"
"When I knew that the Plymdales had taken a house, I called to tell
him not to mention ours to them; and at the same time I told him
not to let the affair go on any further. I knew that it would be
very injurious to you if it were known that you wished to part with
your house and furniture, and I had a very strong objection to it.
I think that was reason enough."
"It was of no consequence then that I had told you imperative
reasons of another kind; of no consequence that I had come to a
different conclusion, and given an order accordingly?" said Lydgate,
bitingly, the thunder and lightning gathering about his brow and eyes.
The effect of any one's anger on Rosamond had always been to make
her shrink in cold dislike, and to become all the more calmly correct,
in the conviction that she was not the person to misbehave whatever
others might do. She replied--
"I think I had a perfect right to speak on a subject which concerns
me at least as much as you."
"Clearly--you had a right to speak, but only to me. You had no right
to contradict my orders secretly, and treat me as if I were a fool,"
said Lydgate, in the same tone as before. Then with some added scorn,
"Is it possible to make you understand what the consequences will be?
Is it of any use for me to tell you again why we must try to part
with the house?"
"It is not necessary for you to tell me again," said Rosamond,
in a voice that fell and trickled like cold water-drops. "I remembered
what you said. You spoke just as violently as you do now.
But that does not alter my opinion that you ought to try every
other means rather than take a step which is so painful to me.
And as to advertising the house, I think it would be perfectly
degrading to you."
"And suppose I disregard your opinion as you disregard mine?"
"You can do so, of course. But I think you ought to have told me
before we were married that you would place me in the worst position,
rather than give up your own will."
Lydgate did not speak, but tossed his head on one side, and twitched
the corners of his mouth in despair. Rosamond, seeing that he was
not looking at her, rose and set his cup of coffee before him; but he
took no notice of it, and went on with an inward drama and argument,
occasionally moving in his seat, resting one arm on the table,
and rubbing his hand against his hair. There was a conflux of emotions
and thoughts in him that would not let him either give thorough
way to his anger or persevere with simple rigidity of resolve.
Rosamond took advantage of his silence.
"When we were married everyone felt that your position was very high.
I could not have imagined then that you would want to sell our furniture,
and take a house in Bride Street, where the rooms are like cages.
If we are to live in that way let us at least leave Middlemarch."
"These would be very strong considerations," said Lydgate,
half ironically--still there was a withered paleness about his
lips as he looked at his coffee, and did not drink--"these would
be very strong considerations if I did not happen to be in debt."
"Many persons must have been in debt in the same way, but if they
are respectable, people trust them. I am sure I have heard papa
say that the Torbits were in debt, and they went on very well It
cannot be good to act rashly," said Rosamond, with serene wisdom.
Lydgate sat paralyzed by opposing impulses: since no reasoning
he could apply to Rosamond seemed likely to conquer her assent,
he wanted to smash and grind some object on which he could at least
produce an impression, or else to tell her brutally that he was master,
and she must obey. But he not only dreaded the effect of such
extremities on their mutual life--he had a growing dread of Rosamond's
quiet elusive obstinacy, which would not allow any assertion of power
to be final; and again, she had touched him in a spot of keenest
feeling by implying that she had been deluded with a false vision
of happiness in marrying him. As to saying that he was master,
it was not the fact. The very resolution to which he had wrought
himself by dint of logic and honorable pride was beginning to relax
under her torpedo contact. He swallowed half his cup of coffee,
and then rose to go.
"I may at least request that you will not go to Trumbull at present--
until it has been seen that there are no other means," said Rosamond.
Although she was not subject to much fear, she felt it safer not
to betray that she had written to Sir Godwin. "Promise me that you
will not go to him for a few weeks, or without telling me."
Lydgate gave a short laugh. "I think it is I who should exact
a promise that you will do nothing without telling me," he said,
turning his eyes sharply upon her, and then moving to the door.
"You remember that we are going to dine at papa's," said Rosamond,
wishing that he should turn and make a more thorough concession
to her. But he only said "Oh yes," impatiently, and went away.
She held it to be very odious in him that he did not think
the painful propositions he had had to make to her were enough,
without showing so unpleasant a temper. And when she put the
moderate request that he would defer going to Trumbull again,
it was cruel in him not to assure her of what he meant to do.
She was convinced of her having acted in every way for the best;
and each grating or angry speech of Lydgate's served only
as an addition to the register of offences in her mind.
Poor Rosamond for months had begun to associate her husband with
feelings of disappointment, and the terribly inflexible relation
of marriage had lost its charm of encouraging delightful dreams.
It had freed her from the disagreeables of her father's house,
but it had not given her everything that she had wished and hoped.
The Lydgate with whom she had been in love had been a group of airy
conditions for her, most of which had disappeared, while their
place had been taken by every-day details which must be lived
through slowly from hour to hour, not floated through with a rapid
selection of favorable aspects. The habits of Lydgate's profession,
his home preoccupation with scientific subjects, which seemed
to her almost like a morbid vampire's taste, his peculiar views
of things which had never entered into the dialogue of courtship--
all these continually alienating influences, even without the fact
of his having placed himself at a disadvantage in the town,
and without that first shock of revelation about Dover's debt,
would have made his presence dull to her. There was another
presence which ever since the early days of her marriage, until four
months ago, had been an agreeable excitement, but that was gone:
Rosamond would not confess to herself how much the consequent blank
had to do with her utter ennui; and it seemed to her (perhaps
she was right) that an invitation to Quallingham, and an opening
for Lydgate to settle elsewhere than in Middlemarch--in London,
or somewhere likely to be free from unpleasantness--would satisfy her
quite well, and make her indifferent to the absence of Will Ladislaw,
towards whom she felt some resentment for his exaltation of
Mrs. Casaubon.
That was the state of things with Lydgate and Rosamond on the New
Year's Day when they dined at her father's, she looking mildly
neutral towards him in remembrance of his ill-tempered behavior
at breakfast, and he carrying a much deeper effect from the inward
conflict in which that morning scene was only one of many epochs.
His flushed effort while talking to Mr. Farebrother--his effort after
the cynical pretence that all ways of getting money are essentially
the same, and that chance has an empire which reduces choice
to a fool's illusion--was but the symptom of a wavering resolve,
a benumbed response to the old stimuli of enthusiasm.
What was he to do? He saw even more keenly than Rosamond did
the dreariness of taking her into the small house in Bride Street,
where she would have scanty furniture around her and discontent within:
a life of privation and life with Rosamond were two images which
had become more and more irreconcilable ever since the threat
of privation had disclosed itself. But even if his resolves had
forced the two images into combination, the useful preliminaries
to that hard change were not visibly within reach. And though
he had not given the promise which his wife had asked for,
he did not go again to Trumbull. He even began to think
of taking a rapid journey to the North and seeing Sir Godwin.
He had once believed that nothing would urge him into making
an application for money to his uncle, but he had not then known
the full pressure of alternatives yet more disagreeable. He could
not depend on the effect of a letter; it was only in an interview,
however disagreeable this might be to himself, that he could give
a thorough explanation and could test the effectiveness of kinship.
No sooner had Lydgate begun to represent this step to himself as
the easiest than there was a reaction of anger that he--he who had
long ago determined to live aloof from such abject calculations,
such self-interested anxiety about the inclinations and the pockets
of men with whom he had been proud to have no aims in common--should have
fallen not simply to their level, but to the level of soliciting them.
CHAPTER LXV.
"One of us two must bowen douteless,
And, sith a man is more reasonable
Than woman is, ye [men] moste be suffrable.
--CHAUCER: Canterbury Tales.
The bias of human nature to be slow in correspondence triumphs
even over the present quickening in the general pace of things:
what wonder then that in 1832 old Sir Godwin Lydgate was slow
to write a letter which was of consequence to others rather
than to himself? Nearly three weeks of the new year were gone,
and Rosamond, awaiting an answer to her winning appeal, was every
day disappointed. Lydgate, in total ignorance of her expectations,
was seeing the bills come in, and feeling that Dover's use of
his advantage over other creditors was imminent. He had never
mentioned to Rosamond his brooding purpose of going to Quallingham:
he did not want to admit what would appear to her a concession
to her wishes after indignant refusal, until the last moment;
but he was really expecting to set off soon. A slice of the railway
would enable him to manage the whole journey and back in four days.