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 returnfrom his wedding-journey was to Lowick Manor, in consequence of aletter which had requested him to fix a time for his visit.
Mr. Casaubon had never put any question concerning the nature of hisillness to Lydgate, nor had he even to Dorothea betrayed any anxiety asto how far it might be likely to cut short his labors or his life. Onthis point, as on all others, he shrank from pity; and if the suspicionof being pitied for anything in his lot surmised or known in spite ofhimself was embittering, the idea of calling forth a show of compassionby frankly admitting an alarm or a sorrow was necessarily intolerableto him. Every proud mind knows something of this experience, andperhaps it is only to be overcome by a sense of fellowship deep enoughto make all efforts at isolation seem mean and petty instead ofexalting.
But Mr. Casaubon was now brooding over something through which thequestion of his health and life haunted his silence with a moreharassing importunity even than through the autumnal unripeness of hisauthorship. It is true that this last might be called his centralambition; but there are some kinds of authorship in which by far thelargest result is the uneasy susceptibility accumulated in theconsciousness of the author--one knows of the river by a few streaksamid a long-gathered deposit of uncomfortable mud. That was the waywith Mr. Casaubon's hard intellectual labors. Their mostcharacteristic result was not the Key to all Mythologies, but amorbid consciousness that others did not give him the place which hehad not demonstrably merited--a perpetual suspicious conjecture thatthe views entertained of him were not to his advantage--a melancholyabsence of passion in his efforts at achievement, and a passionateresistance to the confession that he had achieved nothing.
Thus his intellectual ambition which seemed to others to have absorbedand dried him, was really no security against wounds, least of allagainst those which came from Dorothea. And he had begun now to framepossibilities for the future which were somehow more embittering to himthan anything his mind had dwelt on before.
Against certain facts he was helpless: against Will Ladislaw'sexistence, his defiant stay in the neighborhood of Lowick, and hisflippant state of mind with regard to the possessors of authentic,well-stamped erudition: against Dorothea's nature, always taking onsome new shape of ardent activity, and even in submission and silencecovering fervid reasons which it was an irritation to think of: againstcertain notions and likings which had taken possession of her mind inrelation to subjects that he could not possibly discuss with her.There was no denying that Dorothea was as virtuous and lovely a younglady as he could have obtained for a wife; but a young lady turned outto be something more troublesome than he had conceived. She nursedhim, she read to him, she anticipated his wants, and was solicitousabout his feelings; but there had entered into the husband's mind thecertainty that she judged him, and that her wifely devotedness was likea penitential expiation of unbelieving thoughts--was accompanied with apower of comparison by which himself and his doings were seen tooluminously as a part of things in general. His discontent passedvapor-like through all her gentle loving manifestations, and clung tothat inappreciative world which she had only brought nearer to him.
Poor Mr. Casaubon! This suffering was the harder to bear because itseemed like a betrayal: the young creature who had worshipped him withperfect trust had quickly turned into the critical wife; and earlyinstances of criticism and resentment had made an impression which notenderness and submission afterwards could remove. To his suspiciousinterpretation Dorothea's silence now was a suppressed rebellion; aremark from her which he had not in any way anticipated was anassertion of conscious superiority; her gentle answers had anirritating cautiousness in them; and when she acquiesced it was aself-approved effort of forbearance. The tenacity with which he stroveto hide this inward drama made it the more vivid for him; as we hearwith the more keenness what we wish others not to hear.
Instead of wondering at this result of misery in Mr. Casaubon, I thinkit quite ordinary. Will not a tiny speck very close to our vision blotout the glory of the world, and leave only a margin by which we see theblot? I know no speck so troublesome as self. And who, if Mr.Casaubon had chosen to expound his discontents--his suspicions that hewas not any longer adored without criticism--could have denied thatthey were founded on good reasons? On the contrary, there was a strongreason to be added, which he had not himself taken explicitly intoaccount--namely, that he was not unmixedly adorable. He suspectedthis, however, as he suspected other things, without confessing it, andlike the rest of us, felt how soothing it would have been to have acompanion who would never find it out.
This sore susceptibility in relation to Dorothea was thoroughlyprepared before Will Ladislaw had returned to Lowick, and what hadoccurred since then had brought Mr. Casaubon's power of suspiciousconstruction into exasperated activity. To all the facts which heknew, he added imaginary facts both present and future which becamemore real to him than those because they called up a stronger dislike,a more predominating bitterness. Suspicion and jealousy of WillLadislaw's intentions, suspicion and jealousy of Dorothea'simpressions, were constantly at their weaving work. It would be quiteunjust to him to suppose that he could have entered into any coarsemisinterpretation of Dorothea: his own habits of mind and conduct,quite as much as the open elevation of her nature, saved him from anysuch mistake. What he was jealous of was her opinion, the sway thatmight be given to her ardent mind in its judgments, and the futurepossibilities to which these might lead her. As to Will, though untilhis last defiant letter he had nothing definite which he would chooseformally to allege against him, he felt himself warranted in believingthat he was capable of any design which could fascinate a rebellioustemper and an undisciplined impulsiveness. He was quite sure thatDorothea was the cause of Will's return from Rome, and hisdetermination to settle in the neighborhood; and he was penetratingenough to imagine that Dorothea had innocently encouraged this course.It was as clear as possible that she was ready to be attached to Willand to be pliant to his suggestions: they had never had a tete-a-tetewithout her bringing away from it some new troublesome impression, andthe last interview that Mr. Casaubon was aware of (Dorothea, onreturning from Freshitt Hall, had for the first time been silent abouthaving seen Will) had led to a scene which roused an angrier feelingagainst them both than he had ever known before. Dorothea's outpouringof her notions about money, in the darkness of the night, had donenothing but bring a mixture of more odious foreboding into herhusband's mind.
And there was the shock lately given to his health always sadly presentwith him. He was certainly much revived; he had recovered all hisusual power of work: the illness might have been mere fatigue, andthere might still be twenty years of achievement before him, whichwould justify the thirty years of preparation. That prospect was madethe sweeter by a flavor of vengeance against the hasty sneers of Carp &Company; for even when Mr. Casaubon was carrying his taper among thetombs of the past, those modern figures came athwart the dim light, andinterrupted his diligent exploration. To convince Carp of his mistake,so that he would have to eat his own words with a good deal ofindigestion, would be an agreeable accident of triumphant authorship,which the prospect of living to future ages on earth and to alleternity in heaven could not exclude from contemplation. Since, thus,the prevision of his own unending bliss could not nullify the bittersavors of irritated jealousy and vindictiveness, it is the lesssurprising that the probability of a transient earthly bliss for otherpersons, when he himself should have entered into glory, had not apotently sweetening effect. If the truth should be that someundermining disease was at work within him, there might be largeopportunity for some people to be the happier when he was gone; and ifone of those people should be Will Ladislaw, Mr. Casaubon objected sostrongly that it seemed as if the annoyance would make part of hisdisembodied existence.
This is a very bare and therefore a very incomplete way of putting thecase. The human soul moves in many channels, and Mr. Casaubon, weknow, had a sense of rectitude and an honorable pride in satisfying therequirements of honor, which compelled him to find other reasons forhis conduct than those of jealousy and vindictiveness. The way inwhich Mr. Casaubon put the case was this:--In marrying Dorothea BrookeI had to care for her well-being in case of my death. But well-beingis not to be secured by ample, independent possession of property; onthe contrary, occasions might arise in which such possession mightexpose her to the more danger. She is ready prey to any man who knowshow to play adroitly either on her affectionate ardor or her Quixoticenthusiasm; and a man stands by with that very intention in his mind--aman with no other principle than transient caprice, and who has apersonal animosity towards me--I am sure of it--an animosity which isfed by the consciousness of his ingratitude, and which he hasconstantly vented in ridicule of which I am as well assured as if I hadheard it. Even if I live I shall not be without uneasiness as to whathe may attempt through indirect influence. This man has gainedDorothea's ear: he has fascinated her attention; he has evidently triedto impress her mind with the notion that he has claims beyond anythingI have done for him. If I die--and he is waiting here on the watch forthat--he will persuade her to marry him. That would be calamity forher and success for him. _She_ would not think it calamity: he wouldmake her believe anything; she has a tendency to immoderate attachmentwhich she inwardly reproaches me for not responding to, and already hermind is occupied with his fortunes. He thinks of an easy conquest andof entering into my nest. That I will hinder! Such a marriage would befatal to Dorothea. Has he ever persisted in anything except fromcontradiction? In knowledge he has always tried to be showy at smallcost. In religion he could be, as long as it suited him, the facileecho of Dorothea's vagaries. When was sciolism ever dissociated fromlaxity? I utterly distrust his morals, and it is my duty to hinder tothe utmost the fulfilment of his designs.
The arrangements made by Mr. Casaubon on his marriage left strongmeasures open to him, but in ruminating on them his mind inevitablydwelt so much on the probabilities of his own life that the longing toget the nearest possible calculation had at last overcome his proudreticence, and had determined him to ask Lydgate's opinion as to thenature of his illness.
He had mentioned to Dorothea that Lydgate was coming by appointment athalf-past three, and in answer to her anxious question, whether he hadfelt ill, replied,--No, I merely wish to have his opinion concerningsome habitual symptoms. You need not see him, my dear. I shall giveorders that he may be sent to me in the Yew-tree Walk, where I shall betaking my usual exercise.
When Lydgate entered the Yew-tree Walk he saw Mr. Casaubon slowlyreceding with his hands behind him according to his habit, and his headbent forward. It was a lovely afternoon; the leaves from the loftylimes were falling silently across the sombre evergreens, while thelights and shadows slept side by side: there was no sound but thecawing of the rooks, which to the accustomed ear is a lullaby, or thatlast solemn lullaby, a dirge. Lydgate, conscious of an energetic framein its prime, felt some compassion when the figure which he was likelysoon to overtake turned round, and in advancing towards him showed moremarkedly than ever the signs of premature age--the student's bentshoulders, the emaciated limbs, and the melancholy lines of the mouth.Poor fellow, he thought, some men with his years are like lions; onecan tell nothing of their age except that they are full grown.
Mr. Lydgate, said Mr. Casaubon, with his invariably polite air, I amexceedingly obliged to you for your punctuality. We will, if youplease, carry on our conversation in walking to and fro.
I hope your wish to see me is not due to the return of unpleasantsymptoms, said Lydgate, filling up a pause.
Not immediately--no. In order to account for that wish I mustmention--what it were otherwise needless to refer to--that my life, onall collateral accounts insignificant, derives a possible importancefrom the incompleteness of labors which have extended through all itsbest years. In short, I have long had on hand a work which I wouldfain leave behind me in such a state, at least, that it might becommitted to the press by--others. Were I assured that this is theutmost I can reasonably expect, that assurance would be a usefulcircumscription of my attempts, and a guide in both the positive andnegative determination of my course.
Here Mr. Casaubon paused, removed one hand from his back and thrust itbetween the buttons of his single-breasted coat. To a mind largelyinstructed in the human destiny hardly anything could be moreinteresting than the inward conflict implied in his formal measuredaddress, delivered with the usual sing-song and motion of the head.Nay, are there many situations more sublimely tragic than the struggleof the soul with the demand to renounce a work which has been all thesignificance of its life--a significance which is to vanish as thewaters which come and go where no man has need of them? But there wasnothing to strike others as sublime about Mr. Casaubon, and Lydgate,who had some contempt at hand for futile scholarship, felt a littleamusement mingling with his pity. He was at present too ill acquaintedwith disaster to enter into the pathos of a lot where everything isbelow 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 beclogged by some hesitation.
I do. You have not implied to me that the symptoms which--I am boundto testify--you watched with scrupulous care, were those of a fataldisease. But were it so, Mr. Lydgate, I should desire to know thetruth without reservation, and I appeal to you for an exact statementof your conclusions: I request it as a friendly service. If you cantell me that my life is not threatened by anything else than ordinarycasualties, 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 thefirst thing I must impress on you is that my conclusions are doublyuncertain--uncertain not only because of my fallibility, but becausediseases of the heart are eminently difficult to found predictions on.In any case, one can hardly increase appreciably the tremendousuncertainty of life.
Mr. Casaubon winced perceptibly, but bowed.
I believe that you are suffering from what is called fattydegeneration of the heart, a disease which was first divined andexplored by Laennec, the man who gave us the stethoscope, not so verymany years ago. A good deal of experience--a more lengthenedobservation--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 maybe consistent with a tolerably comfortable life for another fifteenyears, or even more. I could add no information to this beyondanatomical or medical details, which would leave expectation atprecisely the same point. Lydgate's instinct was fine enough to tellhim that plain speech, quite free from ostentatious caution, would befelt 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 havenow told me to Mrs. Casaubon?
Partly--I mean, as to the possible issues. Lydgate was going toexplain why he had told Dorothea, but Mr. Casaubon, with anunmistakable desire to end the conversation, waved his hand slightly,and said again, I thank you, proceeding to remark on the rare beautyof 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 continuedto pace the walk where the dark yew-trees gave him a mute companionshipin melancholy, and the little shadows of bird or leaf that fleetedacross the isles of sunlight, stole along in silence as in the presenceof a sorrow. Here was a man who now for the first time found himselflooking into the eyes of death--who was passing through one of thoserare moments of experience when we feel the truth of a commonplace,which is as different from what we call knowing it, as the vision ofwaters upon the earth is different from the delirious vision of thewater which cannot be had to cool the burning tongue. When thecommonplace We must all die transforms itself suddenly into the acuteconsciousness I must die--and soon, then death grapples us, and hisfingers are cruel; afterwards, he may come to fold us in his arms asour mother did, and our last moment of dim earthly discerning may belike the first. To Mr. Casaubon now, it was as if he suddenly foundhimself on the dark river-brink and heard the plash of the oncomingoar, not discerning the forms, but expecting the summons. In such anhour the mind does not change its lifelong bias, but carries it onwardin imagination to the other side of death, gazing backward--perhapswith the divine calm of beneficence, perhaps with the petty anxietiesof self-assertion. What was Mr. Casaubon's bias his acts will give us aclew to. He held himself to be, with some private scholarlyreservations, a believing Christian, as to estimates of the present andhopes of the future. But what we strive to gratify, though we may callit a distant hope, is an immediate desire: the future estate for whichmen drudge up city alleys exists already in their imagination and love.And Mr. Casaubon's immediate desire was not for divine communion andlight divested of earthly conditions; his passionate longings, poorman, clung low and mist-like in very shady places.
Dorothea had been aware when Lydgate had ridden away, and she hadstepped into the garden, with the impulse to go at once to her husband.But she hesitated, fearing to offend him by obtruding herself; for herardor, continually repulsed, served, with her intense memory, toheighten her dread, as thwarted energy subsides into a shudder; and shewandered slowly round the nearer clumps of trees until she saw himadvancing. Then she went towards him, and might have represented aheaven-sent angel coming with a promise that the short hours remainingshould yet be filled with that faithful love which clings the closer toa comprehended grief. His glance in reply to hers was so chill thatshe felt her timidity increased; yet she turned and passed her handthrough his arm.
Mr. Casaubon kept his hands behind him and allowed her pliant arm tocling with difficulty against his rigid arm.
There was something horrible to Dorothea in the sensation which thisunresponsive hardness inflicted on her. That is a strong word, but nottoo strong: it is in these acts called trivialities that the seeds ofjoy are forever wasted, until men and women look round with haggardfaces at the devastation their own waste has made, and say, the earthbears no harvest of sweetness--calling their denial knowledge. You mayask why, in the name of manliness, Mr. Casaubon should have behaved inthat way. Consider that his was a mind which shrank from pity: haveyou ever watched in such a mind the effect of a suspicion that what ispressing it as a grief may be really a source of contentment, eitheractual or future, to the being who already offends by pitying?Besides, he knew little of Dorothea's sensations, and had not reflectedthat on such an occasion as the present they were comparable instrength 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 hissteps in silence towards the house, and as they entered by the glassdoor on this eastern side, Dorothea withdrew her arm and lingered onthe matting, that she might leave her husband quite free. He enteredthe library and shut himself in, alone with his sorrow.
She went up to her boudoir. The open bow-window let in the sereneglory of the afternoon lying in the avenue, where the lime-trees castlong shadows. But Dorothea knew nothing of the scene. She threwherself 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 notpart of her inward misery?
She was in the reaction of a rebellious anger stronger than any she hadfelt since her marriage. Instead of tears there came words:--
What have I done--what am I--that he should treat me so? He neverknows what is in my mind--he never cares. What is the use of anythingI do? He wishes he had never married me.
She began to hear herself, and was checked into stillness. Like onewho has lost his way and is weary, she sat and saw as in one glance allthe paths of her young hope which she should never find again. Andjust as clearly in the miserable light she saw her own and herhusband's solitude--how they walked apart so that she was obliged tosurvey him. If he had drawn her towards him, she would never havesurveyed him--never have said, Is he worth living for? but would havefelt him simply a part of her own life. Now she said bitterly, It ishis fault, not mine. In the jar of her whole being, Pity wasoverthrown. Was it her fault that she had believed in him--hadbelieved in his worthiness?--And what, exactly, was he?-- She was ableenough to estimate him--she who waited on his glances with trembling,and shut her best soul in prison, paying it only hidden visits, thatshe 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 downagain, but would send a message to her husband saying that she was notwell and preferred remaining up-stairs. She had never deliberatelyallowed her resentment to govern her in this way before, but shebelieved now that she could not see him again without telling him thetruth about her feeling, and she must wait till she could do it withoutinterruption. He might wonder and be hurt at her message. It was goodthat he should wonder and be hurt. Her anger said, as anger is apt tosay, that God was with her--that all heaven, though it were crowdedwith spirits watching them, must be on her side. She had determined toring her bell, when there came a rap at the door.
Mr. Casaubon had sent to say that he would have his dinner in thelibrary. 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 praydo not disturb me again.
Dorothea sat almost motionless in her meditative struggle, while theevening slowly deepened into night. But the struggle changedcontinually, as that of a man who begins with a movement towardsstriking and ends with conquering his desire to strike. The energythat would animate a crime is not more than is wanted to inspire aresolved submission, when the noble habit of the soul reasserts itself.That thought with which Dorothea had gone out to meet her husband--herconviction that he had been asking about the possible arrest of all hiswork, and that the answer must have wrung his heart, could not be longwithout rising beside the image of him, like a shadowy monitor lookingat her anger with sad remonstrance. It cost her a litany of picturedsorrows and of silent cries that she might be the mercy for thosesorrows--but the resolved submission did come; and when the house wasstill, and she knew that it was near the time when Mr. Casaubonhabitually went to rest, she opened her door gently and stood outsidein the darkness waiting for his coming up-stairs with a light in hishand. If he did not come soon she thought that she would go down andeven risk incurring another pang. She would never again expectanything else. But she did hear the library door open, and slowly thelight advanced up the staircase without noise from the footsteps on thecarpet. When her husband stood opposite to her, she saw that his facewas more haggard. He started slightly on seeing her, and she looked upat him beseechingly, without speaking.
Dorothea! he said, with a gentle surprise in his tone. Were youwaiting for me?
Yes, I did not like to disturb you.
Come, my dear, come. You are young, and need not to extend your lifeby 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 wehad narrowly escaped hurting a lamed creature. She put her hand intoher 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 occasionallydrive into Middlemarch alone, on little errands of shopping or charitysuch as occur to every lady of any wealth when she lives within threemiles of a town. Two days after that scene in the Yew-tree Walk, shedetermined to use such an opportunity in order if possible to seeLydgate, and learn from him whether her husband had really felt anydepressing change of symptoms which he was concealing from her, andwhether he had insisted on knowing the utmost about himself. She feltalmost guilty in asking for knowledge about him from another, but thedread of being without it--the dread of that ignorance which would makeher unjust or hard--overcame every scruple. That there had been somecrisis in her husband's mind she was certain: he had the very next daybegun a new method of arranging his notes, and had associated her quitenewly in carrying out his plan. Poor Dorothea needed to lay up storesof patience.
It was about four o'clock when she drove to Lydgate's house in LowickGate, wishing, in her immediate doubt of finding him at home, that shehad written beforehand. And he was not at home.
Is Mrs. Lydgate at home? said Dorothea, who had never, that she knewof, 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 herif she can see me--see Mrs. Casaubon, for a few minutes?
When the servant had gone to deliver that message, Dorothea could hearsounds of music through an open window--a few notes from a man's voiceand then a piano bursting into roulades. But the roulades broke offsuddenly, and then the servant came back saying that Mrs. Lydgate wouldbe happy to see Mrs. Casaubon.
When the drawing-room door opened and Dorothea entered, there was asort of contrast not infrequent in country life when the habits of thedifferent ranks were less blent than now. Let those who know, tell usexactly what stuff it was that Dorothea wore in those days of mildautumn--that thin white woollen stuff soft to the touch and soft to theeye. It always seemed to have been lately washed, and to smell of thesweet hedges--was always in the shape of a pelisse with sleeves hangingall out of the fashion. Yet if she had entered before a still audienceas Imogene or Cato's daughter, the dress might have seemed rightenough: the grace and dignity were in her limbs and neck; and about hersimply parted hair and candid eyes the large round poke which was thenin the fate of women, seemed no more odd as a head-dress than the goldtrencher we call a halo. By the present audience of two persons, nodramatic heroine could have been expected with more interest than Mrs.Casaubon. To Rosamond she was one of those county divinities notmixing with Middlemarch mortality, whose slightest marks of manner orappearance were worthy of her study; moreover, Rosamond was not withoutsatisfaction that Mrs. Casaubon should have an opportunity of studying_her_. What is the use of being exquisite if you are not seen by thebest judges? and since Rosamond had received the highest compliments atSir Godwin Lydgate's, she felt quite confident of the impression shemust make on people of good birth. Dorothea put out her hand with herusual simple kindness, and looked admiringly at Lydgate's lovelybride--aware that there was a gentleman standing at a distance, butseeing him merely as a coated figure at a wide angle. The gentlemanwas too much occupied with the presence of the one woman to reflect onthe contrast between the two--a contrast that would certainly have beenstriking to a calm observer. They were both tall, and their eyes wereon a level; but imagine Rosamond's infantine blondness and wondrouscrown of hair-plaits, with her pale-blue dress of a fit and fashion soperfect that no dressmaker could look at it without emotion, a largeembroidered collar which it was to be hoped all beholders would knowthe price of, her small hands duly set off with rings, and thatcontrolled self-consciousness of manner which is the expensivesubstitute 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 Igo home, and I hoped that you might possibly tell me where I could findhim, 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 hewill 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 coloredwith surprise, but put out her hand with a smile of unmistakablepleasure, 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 seehim? said Will.
It would be quicker to send the carriage for him, said Dorothea, ifyou will be kind enough to give the message to the coachman.
Will was moving to the door when Dorothea, whose mind had flashed in aninstant over many connected memories, turned quickly and said, I willgo myself, thank you. I wish to lose no time before getting homeagain. I will drive to the Hospital and see Mr. Lydgate there. Prayexcuse me, Mrs. Lydgate. I am very much obliged to you.
Her mind was evidently arrested by some sudden thought, and she leftthe room hardly conscious of what was immediately around her--hardlyconscious that Will opened the door for her and offered her his arm tolead her to the carriage. She took the arm but said nothing. Will wasfeeling rather vexed and miserable, and found nothing to say on hisside. 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 somereflections that were quite new to her. Her decision to go, and herpreoccupation in leaving the room, had come from the sudden sense thatthere would be a sort of deception in her voluntarily allowing anyfurther intercourse between herself and Will which she was unable tomention to her husband, and already her errand in seeking Lydgate was amatter of concealment. That was all that had been explicitly in hermind; but she had been urged also by a vague discomfort. Now that shewas alone in her drive, she heard the notes of the man's voice and theaccompanying piano, which she had not noted much at the time, returningon her inward sense; and she found herself thinking with some wonderthat Will Ladislaw was passing his time with Mrs. Lydgate in herhusband's absence. And then she could not help remembering that he hadpassed some time with her under like circumstances, so why should therebe any unfitness in the fact? But Will was Mr. Casaubon's relative,and one towards whom she was bound to show kindness. Still there hadbeen signs which perhaps she ought to have understood as implying thatMr. Casaubon did not like his cousin's visits during his own absence.Perhaps I have been mistaken in many things, said poor Dorothea toherself, while the tears came rolling and she had to dry them quickly.She felt confusedly unhappy, and the image of Will which had been soclear to her before was mysteriously spoiled. But the carriage stoppedat the gate of the Hospital. She was soon walking round the grassplots with Lydgate, and her feelings recovered the strong bent whichhad made her seek for this interview.
Will Ladislaw, meanwhile, was mortified, and knew the reason of itclearly enough. His chances of meeting Dorothea were rare; and herefor the first time there had come a chance which had set him at adisadvantage. It was not only, as it had been hitherto, that she wasnot supremely occupied with him, but that she had seen him undercircumstances in which he might appear not to be supremely occupiedwith her. He felt thrust to a new distance from her, amongst thecircles of Middlemarchers who made no part of her life. But that wasnot his fault: of course, since he had taken his lodgings in the town,he had been making as many acquaintances as he could, his positionrequiring that he should know everybody and everything. Lydgate wasreally better worth knowing than any one else in the neighborhood, andhe happened to have a wife who was musical and altogether worth callingupon. Here was the whole history of the situation in which Diana haddescended too unexpectedly on her worshipper. It was mortifying. Willwas conscious that he should not have been at Middlemarch but forDorothea; and yet his position there was threatening to divide him fromher with those barriers of habitual sentiment which are more fatal tothe persistence of mutual interest than all the distance between Romeand Britain. Prejudices about rank and status were easy enough to defyin the form of a tyrannical letter from Mr. Casaubon; but prejudices,like odorous bodies, have a double existence both solid and subtle--solidas the pyramids, subtle as the twentieth echo of an echo, or asthe memory of hyacinths which once scented the darkness. And Will wasof a temperament to feel keenly the presence of subtleties: a man ofclumsier perceptions would not have felt, as he did, that for the firsttime some sense of unfitness in perfect freedom with him had sprung upin Dorothea's mind, and that their silence, as he conducted her to thecarriage, had had a chill in it. Perhaps Casaubon, in his hatred andjealousy, had been insisting to Dorothea that Will had slid below hersocially. Confound Casaubon!
Will re-entered the drawing-room, took up his hat, and lookingirritated as he advanced towards Mrs. Lydgate, who had seated herselfat her work-table, said--
It is always fatal to have music or poetry interrupted. May I comeanother day and just finish about the rendering of 'Lungi dal carobene'?
I shall be happy to be taught, said Rosamond. But I am sure youadmit that the interruption was a very beautiful one. I quite envyyour acquaintance with Mrs. Casaubon. Is she very clever? She looksas 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 shewere handsome. What is it that you gentlemen are thinking of when youare with Mrs. Casaubon?
Herself, said Will, not indisposed to provoke the charming Mrs.Lydgate. When one sees a perfect woman, one never thinks of herattributes--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 andthink 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, Isuppose.
No, said Will, almost pettishly. Worship is usually a matter oftheory rather than of practice. But I am practising it to excess justat 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 ofhim and holding his coat-collar with both her hands, Mr. Ladislaw washere singing with me when Mrs. Casaubon came in. He seemed vexed. Doyou think he disliked her seeing him at our house? Surely yourposition is more than equal to his--whatever may be his relation to theCasaubons.
No, no; it must be something else if he were really vexed, Ladislaw isa 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 andbric-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 girlhoodhad been inconceivable to her except as a dim tragedy in by-gonecostumes--that women, even after marriage, might make conquests andenslave men. At that time young ladies in the country, even wheneducated at Mrs. Lemon's, read little French literature later thanRacine, and public prints had not cast their present magnificentillumination over the scandals of life. Still, vanity, with a woman'swhole mind and day to work in, can construct abundantly on slighthints, especially on such a hint as the possibility of indefiniteconquests. How delightful to make captives from the throne of marriagewith a husband as crown-prince by your side--himself in fact asubject--while the captives look up forever hopeless, losing theirrest probably, and if their appetite too, so much the better! ButRosamond's romance turned at present chiefly on her crown-prince, andit was enough to enjoy his assured subjection. When he said, Poordevil! 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 theHospital, or seeing poor patients, or thinking about some doctor'squarrel; and then at home you always want to pore over your microscopeand phials. Confess you like those things better than me.
Haven't you ambition enough to wish that your husband should besomething better than a Middlemarch doctor? said Lydgate, letting hishands fall on to his wife's shoulders, and looking at her withaffectionate gravity. I shall make you learn my favorite bit from anold 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 outmyself 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 youto attain a high position in some better place than Middlemarch. Youcannot say that I have ever tried to hinder you from working. But wecannot 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 tobe splendid to our New Hospital: I think she will give us two hundreda-year.