Middlemarch, Page 50

  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 hadasked any dangerous questions. Every morning now she sat with Celia inthe prettiest of up-stairs sitting-rooms, opening into a smallconservatory--Celia all in white and lavender like a bunch of mixedviolets, watching the remarkable acts of the baby, which were sodubious to her inexperienced mind that all conversation was interruptedby appeals for their interpretation made to the oracular nurse.Dorothea sat by in her widow's dress, with an expression which ratherprovoked Celia, as being much too sad; for not only was baby quitewell, but really when a husband had been so dull and troublesome whilehe lived, and besides that had--well, well! Sir James, of course, hadtold Celia everything, with a strong representation how important itwas that Dorothea should not know it sooner than was inevitable.

  But Mr. Brooke had been right in predicting that Dorothea would notlong remain passive where action had been assigned to her; she knew thepurport of her husband's will made at the time of their marriage, andher mind, as soon as she was clearly conscious of her position, wassilently occupied with what she ought to do as the owner of LowickManor with the patronage of the living attached to it.

  One morning when her uncle paid his usual visit, though with an unusualalacrity in his manner which he accounted for by saying that it was nowpretty certain Parliament would be dissolved forthwith, Dorothea said--

  "Uncle, it is right now that I should consider who is to have theliving at Lowick. After Mr. Tucker had been provided for, I neverheard my husband say that he had any clergyman in his mind as asuccessor to himself. I think I ought to have the keys now and go toLowick to examine all my husband's papers. There may be something thatwould 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 desksand drawers--there was nothing--nothing but deep subjects, youknow--besides the will. Everything can be done by-and-by. As to theliving, I have had an application for interest already--I should sayrather good. Mr. Tyke has been strongly recommended to me--I hadsomething to do with getting him an appointment before. An apostolicman, I believe--the sort of thing that would suit you, my dear."

  "I should like to have fuller knowledge about him, uncle, and judge formyself, if Mr. Casaubon has not left any expression of his wishes. Hehas perhaps made some addition to his will--there may be someinstructions for me," said Dorothea, who had all the while had thisconjecture in her mind with relation to her husband's work.

  "Nothing about the rectory, my dear--nothing," said Mr. Brooke, risingto go away, and putting out his hand to his nieces: "nor about hisresearches, you know. Nothing in the will."

  Dorothea's lip quivered.

  "Come, you must not think of these things yet, my dear. By-and-by, youknow."

  "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 ofwork now--it's a crisis--a political crisis, you know. And here isCelia and her little man--you are an aunt, you know, now, and I am asort of grandfather," said Mr. Brooke, with placid hurry, anxious toget away and tell Chettam that it would not be his (Mr. Brooke's) faultif Dorothea insisted on looking into everything.

  Dorothea sank back in her chair when her uncle had left the room, andcast her eyes down meditatively on her crossed hands.

  "Look, Dodo! look at him! Did you ever see anything like that?" saidCelia, 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 hemeant to make a face. Isn't it wonderful! He may have his littlethoughts. I wish nurse were here. Do look at him."

  A large tear which had been for some time gathering, rolled downDorothea's cheek as she looked up and tried to smile.

  "Don't be sad, Dodo; kiss baby. What are you brooding over so? I amsure you did everything, and a great deal too much. You should behappy now."

  "I wonder if Sir James would drive me to Lowick. I want to look overeverything--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 notsaid so yet (here you are, nurse; take baby and walk up and down thegallery). 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 almostready now to think Celia wiser than herself, and was really wonderingwith 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 shedid, or knew how to manage her. Since Celia's baby was born, she hadhad a new sense of her mental solidity and calm wisdom. It seemedclear that where there was a baby, things were right enough, and thaterror, 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," saidCelia. "You are wanting to find out if there is anything uncomfortablefor you to do now, only because Mr. Casaubon wished it. As if you hadnot been uncomfortable enough before. And he doesn't deserve it, andyou will find that out. He has behaved very badly. James is as angrywith him as can be. And I had better tell you, to prepare you."

  "Celia," said Dorothea, entreatingly, "you distress me. Tell me atonce what you mean." It glanced through her mind that Mr. Casaubonhad left the property away from her--which would not be so verydistressing.

  "Why, he has made a codicil to his will, to say the property was all togo 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 withpersevering quietude. "Of course that is of no consequence in oneway--you never _would_ marry Mr. Ladislaw; but that only makes it worseof Mr. Casaubon."

  The blood rushed to Dorothea's face and neck painfully. But Celia wasadministering what she thought a sobering dose of fact. It was takingup notions that had done Dodo's health so much harm. So she went on inher 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 everwould think of making you an offer. Mrs. Cadwallader said you might aswell marry an Italian with white mice! But I must just go and look atbaby," Celia added, without the least change of tone, throwing a lightshawl over her, and tripping away.

  Dorothea by this time had turned cold again, and now threw herself backhelplessly in her chair. She might have compared her experience atthat moment to the vague, alarmed consciousness that her life wastaking on a new form, that she was undergoing a metamorphosis in whichmemory would not adjust itself to the stirring of new organs.Everything was changing its aspect: her husband's conduct, her ownduteous feeling towards him, every struggle between them--and yetmore, her whole relation to Will Ladislaw. Her world was in a state ofconvulsive change; the only thing she could say distinctly to herselfwas, that she must wait and think anew. One change terrified her as ifit had been a sin; it was a violent shock of repulsion from herdeparted husband, who had had hidden thoughts, perhaps pervertingeverything she said and did. Then again she was conscious of anotherchange which also made her tremulous; it was a sudden strange yearningof heart towards Will Ladislaw. It had never before entered her mindthat he could, under any circumstances, be her lover: conceive theeffect of the
sudden revelation that another had thought of him in thatlight--that perhaps he himself had been conscious of such apossibility,--and this with the hurrying, crowding vision of unfittingconditions, and questions not soon to be solved.

  It seemed a long while--she did not know how long--before she heardCelia 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 Ithink, Dodo," Celia went on, observing nothing more than that Dorotheawas 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. Ithink the corners of his mouth were dreadfully spiteful. And now hehas behaved in this way, I am sure religion does not require you tomake yourself uncomfortable about him. If he has been taken away, thatis a mercy, and you ought to be grateful. We should not grieve, shouldwe, baby?" said Celia confidentially to that unconscious centre andpoise of the world, who had the most remarkable fists all complete evento the nails, and hair enough, really, when you took his cap off, tomake--you didn't know what:--in short, he was Bouddha in a Westernform.

  At this crisis Lydgate was announced, and one of the first things hesaid was, "I fear you are not so well as you were, Mrs. Casaubon; haveyou been agitated? allow me to feel your pulse." Dorothea's hand wasof a marble coldness.

  "She wants to go to Lowick, to look over papers," said Celia. "Sheought not, ought she?"

  Lydgate did not speak for a few moments. Then he said, looking atDorothea. "I hardly know. In my opinion Mrs. Casaubon should do whatwould give her the most repose of mind. That repose will not alwayscome 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 sithere idle?" Then, with an effort to recall subjects not connected withher 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 haveserious 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; shebroke off and burst into sobs. Lydgate made her drink a dose of salvolatile.

  "Let Mrs. Casaubon do as she likes," he said to Sir James, whom heasked to see before quitting the house. "She wants perfect freedom, Ithink, more than any other prescription."

  His attendance on Dorothea while her brain was excited, had enabled himto form some true conclusions concerning the trials of her life. Hefelt sure that she had been suffering from the strain and conflict ofself-repression; and that she was likely now to feel herself only inanother sort of pinfold than that from which she had been released.

  Lydgate's advice was all the easier for Sir James to follow when hefound that Celia had already told Dorothea the unpleasant fact aboutthe will. There was no help for it now--no reason for any furtherdelay in the execution of necessary business. And the next day SirJames complied at once with her request that he would drive her toLowick.

  "I have no wish to stay there at present," said Dorothea; "I couldhardly bear it. I am much happier at Freshitt with Celia. I shall beable to think better about what should be done at Lowick by looking atit from a distance. And I should like to be at the Grange a littlewhile with my uncle, and go about in all the old walks and among thepeople in the village."

  "Not yet, I think. Your uncle is having political company, and you arebetter out of the way of such doings," said Sir James, who at thatmoment thought of the Grange chiefly as a haunt of young Ladislaw's.But no word passed between him and Dorothea about the objectionablepart of the will; indeed, both of them felt that the mention of itbetween them would be impossible. Sir James was shy, even with men,about disagreeable subjects; and the one thing that Dorothea would havechosen to say, if she had spoken on the matter at all, was forbidden toher at present because it seemed to be a further exposure of herhusband's injustice. Yet she did wish that Sir James could know whathad passed between her and her husband about Will Ladislaw's moralclaim on the property: it would then, she thought, be apparent to himas it was to her, that her husband's strange indelicate proviso hadbeen chiefly urged by his bitter resistance to that idea of claim, andnot merely by personal feelings more difficult to talk about. Also, itmust be admitted, Dorothea wished that this could be known for Will'ssake, since her friends seemed to think of him as simply an object ofMr. Casaubon's charity. Why should he be compared with an Italiancarrying white mice? That word quoted from Mrs. Cadwallader seemedlike a mocking travesty wrought in the dark by an impish finger.

  At Lowick Dorothea searched desk and drawer--searched all her husband'splaces of deposit for private writing, but found no paper addressedespecially to her, except that "Synoptical Tabulation," which wasprobably only the beginning of many intended directions for herguidance. In carrying out this bequest of labor to Dorothea, as in allelse, Mr. Casaubon had been slow and hesitating, oppressed in the planof transmitting his work, as he had been in executing it, by the senseof moving heavily in a dim and clogging medium: distrust of Dorothea'scompetence to arrange what he had prepared was subdued only by distrustof any other redactor. But he had come at last to create a trust forhimself 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 toerect a tomb with his name upon it. (Not that Mr. Casaubon called thefuture volumes a tomb; he called them the Key to all Mythologies.) Butthe months gained on him and left his plans belated: he had only hadtime to ask for that promise by which he sought to keep his cold graspon Dorothea's life.

  The grasp had slipped away. Bound by a pledge given from the depths ofher pity, she would have been capable of undertaking a toil which herjudgment whispered was vain for all uses except that consecration offaithfulness which is a supreme use. But now her judgment, instead ofbeing controlled by duteous devotion, was made active by theimbittering discovery that in her past union there had lurked thehidden alienation of secrecy and suspicion. The living, suffering manwas no longer before her to awaken her pity: there remained only theretrospect of painful subjection to a husband whose thoughts had beenlower than she had believed, whose exorbitant claims for himself hadeven blinded his scrupulous care for his own character, and made himdefeat his own pride by shocking men of ordinary honor. As for theproperty which was the sign of that broken tie, she would have beenglad to be free from it and have nothing more than her original fortunewhich had been settled on her, if there had not been duties attached toownership, which she ought not to flinch from. About this propertymany troublous questions insisted on rising: had she not been right inthinking that the half of it ought to go to Will Ladislaw?--but was itnot impossible now for her to do that act of justice? Mr. Casaubon hadtaken a cruelly effective means of hindering her: even with indignationagainst him in her heart, any act that seemed a triumphant eluding ofhis purpose revolted her.

  After collecting papers of business which she wished to examine, shelocked up again the desks and drawers--all empty of personal words forher--empty of any sign that in her husband's lonely brooding his hearthad gone out to her in excuse or explanation; and she went back toFreshitt with the sense that around his last hard demand and his lastinjurious assertion of his power, the silence was unbroken.

  Dorothea tried now to turn her thoughts towards immediate duties, andone of these was of a kind which others were determined to remind herof. Lydgate's ear had caught eagerly her mention of the living, and assoon as he could, he reopened the subject, seeing here a possibility ofmaking amends for the casting-vote he had once given with anill-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, andgives him a stinted provision for himself and his family. His mother,aunt, and sister all live with him, and depend upon him. I believe hehas never married because of them. I never heard such good preachingas his--such plain, easy eloquence. He would have done to preach atSt. Pau
l's Cross after old Latimer. His talk is just as good about allsubjects: original, simple, clear. I think him a remarkable fellow: heought to have done more than he has done."

  "Why has he not done more?" said Dorothea, interested now in all whohad slipped below their own intention.

  "That's a hard question," said Lydgate. "I find myself that it'suncommonly difficult to make the right thing work: there are so manystrings pulling at once. Farebrother often hints that he has got intothe wrong profession; he wants a wider range than that of a poorclergyman, and I suppose he has no interest to help him on. He is veryfond of Natural History and various scientific matters, and he ishampered in reconciling these tastes with his position. He has nomoney to spare--hardly enough to use; and that has led him intocard-playing--Middlemarch is a great place for whist. He does play formoney, and he wins a good deal. Of course that takes him into companya 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 mostblameless 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 intoplenty: he would be glad of the time for other things."

  "My uncle says that Mr. Tyke is spoken of as an apostolic man," saidDorothea, meditatively. She was wishing it were possible to restorethe times of primitive zeal, and yet thinking of Mr. Farebrother with astrong 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 aparson among parishioners whose lives he has to try and make better.Practically I find that what is called being apostolic now, is animpatience of everything in which the parson doesn't cut the principalfigure. I see something of that in Mr. Tyke at the Hospital: a gooddeal of his doctrine is a sort of pinching hard to make peopleuncomfortably aware of him. Besides, an apostolic man at Lowick!--heought to think, as St. Francis did, that it is needful to preach to thebirds."

  "True," said Dorothea. "It is hard to imagine what sort of notions ourfarmers and laborers get from their teaching. I have been looking intoa volume of sermons by Mr. Tyke: such sermons would be of no use atLowick--I mean, about imputed righteousness and the prophecies in theApocalypse. I have always been thinking of the different ways in whichChristianity is taught, and whenever I find one way that makes it awider blessing than any other, I cling to that as the truest--I meanthat which takes in the most good of all kinds, and brings in the mostpeople as sharers in it. It is surely better to pardon too much, thanto condemn too much. But I should like to see Mr. Farebrother and hearhim preach."

  "Do," said Lydgate; "I trust to the effect of that. He is very muchbeloved, but he has his enemies too: there are always people who can'tforgive an able man for differing from them. And that money-winningbusiness is really a blot. You don't, of course, see many Middlemarchpeople: but Mr. Ladislaw, who is constantly seeing Mr. Brooke, is agreat friend of Mr. Farebrother's old ladies, and would be glad to singthe Vicar's praises. One of the old ladies--Miss Noble, the aunt--is awonderfully quaint picture of self-forgetful goodness, and Ladislawgallants her about sometimes. I met them one day in a back street: youknow Ladislaw's look--a sort of Daphnis in coat and waistcoat; and thislittle old maid reaching up to his arm--they looked like a coupledropped out of a romantic comedy. But the best evidence aboutFarebrother is to see him and hear him."

  Happily Dorothea was in her private sitting-room when this conversationoccurred, and there was no one present to make Lydgate's innocentintroduction of Ladislaw painful to her. As was usual with him inmatters of personal gossip, Lydgate had quite forgotten Rosamond'sremark that she thought Will adored Mrs. Casaubon. At that moment hewas only caring for what would recommend the Farebrother family; and hehad purposely given emphasis to the worst that could be said about theVicar, in order to forestall objections. In the weeks since Mr.Casaubon's death he had hardly seen Ladislaw, and he had heard no rumorto warn him that Mr. Brooke's confidential secretary was a dangeroussubject with Mrs. Casaubon. When he was gone, his picture of Ladislawlingered in her mind and disputed the ground with that question of theLowick living. What was Will Ladislaw thinking about her? Would hehear 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 aspossible how he smiled down at the little old maid. An Italian withwhite mice!--on the contrary, he was a creature who entered into everyone's feelings, and could take the pressure of their thought instead ofurging his own with iron resistance.