Middlemarch, Page 47

  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 thatlittle discussion with Lydgate. Its effect when he went to his ownrooms was to make him sit up half the night, thinking over again, undera new irritation, all that he had before thought of his having settledin Middlemarch and harnessed himself with Mr. Brooke. Hesitationsbefore he had taken the step had since turned into susceptibility toevery hint that he would have been wiser not to take it; and hence camehis heat towards Lydgate--a heat which still kept him restless. Was henot making a fool of himself?--and at a time when he was more thanever conscious of being something better than a fool? And for what end?

  Well, for no definite end. True, he had dreamy visions ofpossibilities: there is no human being who having both passions andthoughts does not think in consequence of his passions--does not findimages rising in his mind which soothe the passion with hope or stingit with dread. But this, which happens to us all, happens to some witha wide difference; and Will was not one of those whose wit "keeps theroadway:" he had his bypaths where there were little joys of his ownchoosing, such as gentlemen cantering on the highroad might havethought rather idiotic. The way in which he made a sort of happinessfor himself out of his feeling for Dorothea was an example of this. Itmay seem strange, but it is the fact, that the ordinary vulgar visionof which Mr. Casaubon suspected him--namely, that Dorothea might becomea widow, and that the interest he had established in her mind mightturn into acceptance of him as a husband--had no tempting, arrestingpower over him; he did not live in the scenery of such an event, andfollow it out, as we all do with that imagined "otherwise" which is ourpractical heaven. It was not only that he was unwilling to entertainthoughts which could be accused of baseness, and was already uneasy inthe sense that he had to justify himself from the charge ofingratitude--the latent consciousness of many other barriers betweenhimself and Dorothea besides the existence of her husband, had helpedto turn away his imagination from speculating on what might befall Mr.Casaubon. And there were yet other reasons. Will, we know, could notbear the thought of any flaw appearing in his crystal: he was at onceexasperated and delighted by the calm freedom with which Dorothealooked at him and spoke to him, and there was something so exquisite inthinking of her just as she was, that he could not long for a changewhich must somehow change her. Do we not shun the street version of afine melody?--or shrink from the news that the rarity--some bit ofchiselling or engraving perhaps--which we have dwelt on even withexultation in the trouble it has cost us to snatch glimpses of it, isreally not an uncommon thing, and may be obtained as an every-daypossession? Our good depends on the quality and breadth of ouremotion; and to Will, a creature who cared little for what are calledthe solid things of life and greatly for its subtler influences, tohave within him such a feeling as he had towards Dorothea, was like theinheritance of a fortune. What others might have called the futilityof his passion, made an additional delight for his imagination: he wasconscious of a generous movement, and of verifying in his ownexperience that higher love-poetry which had charmed his fancy.Dorothea, he said to himself, was forever enthroned in his soul: noother woman could sit higher than her footstool; and if he could havewritten out in immortal syllables the effect she wrought within him, hemight 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 forDorothea? What was his devotion worth to her? It was impossible totell. He would not go out of her reach. He saw no creature among herfriends to whom he could believe that she spoke with the same simpleconfidence as to him. She had once said that she would like him tostay; and stay he would, whatever fire-breathing dragons might hissaround her.

  This had always been the conclusion of Will's hesitations. But he wasnot without contradictoriness and rebellion even towards his ownresolve. He had often got irritated, as he was on this particularnight, 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 ofirritation--that notwithstanding his sacrifice of dignity forDorothea's sake, he could hardly ever see her. Whereupon, not beingable to contradict these unpleasant facts, he contradicted his ownstrongest 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 ofwhat her presence would be to him; and suddenly reflecting that themorrow would be Sunday, he determined to go to Lowick Church and seeher. He slept upon that idea, but when he was dressing in the rationalmorning light, Objection said--

  "That will be a virtual defiance of Mr. Casaubon's prohibition to visitLowick, and Dorothea will be displeased."

  "Nonsense!" argued Inclination, "it would be too monstrous for him tohinder me from going out to a pretty country church on a springmorning. And Dorothea will be glad."

  "It will be clear to Mr. Casaubon that you have come either to annoyhim or to see Dorothea."

  "It is not true that I go to annoy him, and why should I not go to seeDorothea? Is he to have everything to himself and be alwayscomfortable? Let him smart a little, as other people are obliged todo. 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 Lowickas if he had been on the way to Paradise, crossing Halsell Common andskirting the wood, where the sunlight fell broadly under the buddingboughs, bringing out the beauties of moss and lichen, and fresh greengrowths piercing the brown. Everything seemed to know that it wasSunday, and to approve of his going to Lowick Church. Will easily felthappy when nothing crossed his humor, and by this time the thought ofvexing Mr. Casaubon had become rather amusing to him, making his facebreak into its merry smile, pleasant to see as the breaking of sunshineon the water--though the occasion was not exemplary. But most of usare apt to settle within ourselves that the man who blocks our way isodious, and not to mind causing him a little of the disgust which hispersonality excites in ourselves. Will went along with a small bookunder his arm and a hand in each side-pocket, never reading, butchanting a little, as he made scenes of what would happen in church andcoming out. He was experimenting in tunes to suit some words of hisown, sometimes trying a ready-made melody, sometimes improvising. Thewords were not exactly a hymn, but they certainly fitted his Sundayexperience:--

  "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, andshowing his delicate throat as he sang, he looked like an incarnationof the spring whose spirit filled the air--a bright creature, abundantin uncertain promises.

  The bells were still ringing when he got to Lowick, and he went intothe curate's pew before any one else arrived there. But he was stillleft alone in it when the congregation had assembled. The curate's pewwas opposite the rector's at the entrance of the small chancel, andWill had time to fear that Dorothea might not come while he lookedround at the group of rural faces which made the congregation from yearto year within the white-washed walls and dark old pews, hardly withmore change than we see in the boughs
of a tree which breaks here andthere with age, but yet has young shoots. Mr. Rigg's frog-face wassomething alien and unaccountable, but notwithstanding this shock tothe order of things, there were still the Waules and the rural stock ofthe Powderells in their pews side by side; brother Samuel's cheek hadthe same purple round as ever, and the three generations of decentcottagers came as of old with a sense of duty to their bettersgenerally--the smaller children regarding Mr. Casaubon, who wore theblack gown and mounted to the highest box, as probably the chief of allbetters, and the one most awful if offended. Even in 1831 Lowick wasat peace, not more agitated by Reform than by the solemn tenor of theSunday sermon. The congregation had been used to seeing Will at churchin former days, and no one took much note of him except the choir, whoexpected him to make a figure in the singing.

  Dorothea did at last appear on this quaint background, walking up theshort aisle in her white beaver bonnet and gray cloak--the same she hadworn in the Vatican. Her face being, from her entrance, towards thechancel, even her shortsighted eyes soon discerned Will, but there wasno outward show of her feeling except a slight paleness and a grave bowas she passed him. To his own surprise Will felt suddenlyuncomfortable, and dared not look at her after they had bowed to eachother. Two minutes later, when Mr. Casaubon came out of the vestry,and, entering the pew, seated himself in face of Dorothea, Will felthis paralysis more complete. He could look nowhere except at the choirin the little gallery over the vestry-door: Dorothea was perhapspained, and he had made a wretched blunder. It was no longer amusingto vex Mr. Casaubon, who had the advantage probably of watching him andseeing that he dared not turn his head. Why had he not imagined thisbeforehand?--but he could not expect that he should sit in that squarepew alone, unrelieved by any Tuckers, who had apparently departed fromLowick altogether, for a new clergyman was in the desk. Still hecalled himself stupid now for not foreseeing that it would beimpossible for him to look towards Dorothea--nay, that she might feelhis coming an impertinence. There was no delivering himself from hiscage, however; and Will found his places and looked at his book as ifhe had been a school-mistress, feeling that the morning service hadnever been so immeasurably long before, that he was utterly ridiculous,out of temper, and miserable. This was what a man got by worshippingthe sight of a woman! The clerk observed with surprise that Mr.Ladislaw did not join in the tune of Hanover, and reflected that hemight have a cold.

  Mr. Casaubon did not preach that morning, and there was no change inWill's situation until the blessing had been pronounced and every onerose. 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, Willlooked straight at Mr. Casaubon. But that gentleman's eyes were on thebutton of the pew-door, which he opened, allowing Dorothea to pass, andfollowing her immediately without raising his eyelids. Will's glancehad caught Dorothea's as she turned out of the pew, and again shebowed, but this time with a look of agitation, as if she wererepressing tears. Will walked out after them, but they went on towardsthe little gate leading out of the churchyard into the shrubbery, neverlooking round.

  It was impossible for him to follow them, and he could only walk backsadly at mid-day along the same road which he had trodden hopefully inthe morning. The lights were all changed for him both without andwithin.