Middlemarch, Page 55

  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 thatour elders are hopeful about us; for no age is so apt as youth to thinkits emotions, partings, and resolves are the last of their kind. Eachcrisis seems final, simply because it is new. We are told that theoldest inhabitants in Peru do not cease to be agitated by theearthquakes, but they probably see beyond each shock, and reflect thatthere are plenty more to come.

  To Dorothea, still in that time of youth when the eyes with their longfull lashes look out after their rain of tears unsoiled and unweariedas a freshly opened passion-flower, that morning's parting with WillLadislaw seemed to be the close of their personal relations. He wasgoing away into the distance of unknown years, and if ever he came backhe would be another man. The actual state of his mind--his proudresolve to give the lie beforehand to any suspicion that he would playthe needy adventurer seeking a rich woman--lay quite out of herimagination, and she had interpreted all his behavior easily enough byher supposition that Mr. Casaubon's codicil seemed to him, as it did toher, a gross and cruel interdict on any active friendship between them.Their young delight in speaking to each other, and saying what no oneelse would care to hear, was forever ended, and become a treasure ofthe past. For this very reason she dwelt on it without inward check.That unique happiness too was dead, and in its shadowed silent chambershe might vent the passionate grief which she herself wondered at. Forthe first time she took down the miniature from the wall and kept itbefore her, liking to blend the woman who had been too hardly judgedwith the grandson whom her own heart and judgment defended. Can anyone who has rejoiced in woman's tenderness think it a reproach to herthat she took the little oval picture in her palm and made a bed for itthere, and leaned her cheek upon it, as if that would soothe thecreatures who had suffered unjust condemnation? She did not know thenthat it was Love who had come to her briefly, as in a dream beforeawaking, with the hues of morning on his wings--that it was Love towhom she was sobbing her farewell as his image was banished by theblameless rigor of irresistible day. She only felt that there wassomething irrevocably amiss and lost in her lot, and her thoughts aboutthe future were the more readily shapen into resolve. Ardent souls,ready to construct their coming lives, are apt to commit themselves tothe fulfilment of their own visions.

  One day that she went to Freshitt to fulfil her promise of staying allnight and seeing baby washed, Mrs. Cadwallader came to dine, the Rectorbeing gone on a fishing excursion. It was a warm evening, and even inthe delightful drawing-room, where the fine old turf sloped from theopen window towards a lilied pool and well-planted mounds, the heat wasenough to make Celia in her white muslin and light curls reflect withpity on what Dodo must feel in her black dress and close cap. But thiswas not until some episodes with baby were over, and had left her mindat leisure. She had seated herself and taken up a fan for some timebefore she said, in her quiet guttural--

  "Dear Dodo, do throw off that cap. I am sure your dress must make youfeel ill."

  "I am so used to the cap--it has become a sort of shell," saidDorothea, smiling. "I feel rather bare and exposed when it is off."

  "I must see you without it; it makes us all warm," said Celia, throwingdown her fan, and going to Dorothea. It was a pretty picture to seethis little lady in white muslin unfastening the widow's cap from hermore majestic sister, and tossing it on to a chair. Just as the coilsand braids of dark-brown hair had been set free, Sir James entered theroom. He looked at the released head, and said, "Ah!" in a tone ofsatisfaction.

  "It was I who did it, James," said Celia. "Dodo need not make such aslavery of her mourning; she need not wear that cap any more among herfriends."

  "My dear Celia," said Lady Chettam, "a widow must wear her mourning atleast 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. SirJames 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 toguard against such events. "No friend of ours ever committed herselfin that way except Mrs. Beevor, and it was very painful to LordGrinsell when she did so. Her first husband was objectionable, whichmade it the greater wonder. And severely she was punished for it.They said Captain Beevor dragged her about by the hair, and held uploaded pistols at her."

  "Oh, if she took the wrong man!" said Mrs. Cadwallader, who was in adecidedly 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, ifour dear Rector were taken away."

  "Oh, I make no vows; it might be a necessary economy. It is lawful tomarry again, I suppose; else we might as well be Hindoos instead ofChristians. Of course if a woman accepts the wrong man, she must takethe consequences, and one who does it twice over deserves her fate.But if she can marry blood, beauty, and bravery--the sooner thebetter."

  "I think the subject of our conversation is very ill-chosen," said SirJames, with a look of disgust. "Suppose we change it."

  "Not on my account, Sir James," said Dorothea, determined not to losethe opportunity of freeing herself from certain oblique references toexcellent matches. "If you are speaking on my behalf, I can assure youthat no question can be more indifferent and impersonal to me thansecond marriage. It is no more to me than if you talked of women goingfox-hunting: whether it is admirable in them or not, I shall not followthem. Pray let Mrs. Cadwallader amuse herself on that subject as muchas on any other."

  "My dear Mrs. Casaubon," said Lady Chettam, in her stateliest way, "youdo not, I hope, think there was any allusion to you in my mentioningMrs. Beevor. It was only an instance that occurred to me. She wasstep-daughter to Lord Grinsell: he married Mrs. Teveroy for his secondwife. There could be no possible allusion to you."

  "Oh no," said Celia. "Nobody chose the subject; it all came out ofDodo's cap. Mrs. Cadwallader only said what was quite true. A womancould not be married in a widow's cap, James."

  "Hush, my dear!" said Mrs. Cadwallader. "I will not offend again. Iwill not even refer to Dido or Zenobia. Only what are we to talkabout? 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 saidprivately to Dorothea, "Really, Dodo, taking your cap off made you likeyourself again in more ways than one. You spoke up just as you used todo, when anything was said to displease you. But I could hardly makeout whether it was James that you thought wrong, or Mrs. Cadwallader."

  "Neither," said Dorothea. "James spoke out of delicacy to me, but hewas mistaken in supposing that I minded what Mrs. Cadwallader said. Ishould only mind if there were a law obliging me to take any piece ofblood and beauty that she or anybody else recommended."

  "But you know, Dodo, if you ever did marry, it would be all the betterto have blood and beauty," said Celia, reflecting that Mr. Casaubon hadnot been richly endowed with those gifts, and that it would be well tocaution Dorothea in time.

  "Don't be anxious, Kitty; I have quite other thoughts about my life. Ishall never marry again," said Dorothea, touching her sister's chin,and looking at her with indulgent affection. Celia was nursing herbaby, and Dorothea had come to say good-night to her.

  "Really--quite?" said Celia. "Not anybody at all--if he were verywonderful indeed?"

  Dorothea shook her head slowly. "Not anybody at all. I havedelightful plans. I should like to take a great deal of land, anddrain it, and make a little colony, where everybody sho
uld work, andall the work should be done well. I should know every one of thepeople and be their friend. I am going to have great consultationswith 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 hecan help you."

  Sir James was informed that same night that Dorothea was really quiteset against marrying anybody at all, and was going to take to "allsorts of plans," just like what she used to have. Sir James made noremark. To his secret feeling there was something repulsive in awoman's second marriage, and no match would prevent him from feeling ita sort of desecration for Dorothea. He was aware that the world wouldregard such a sentiment as preposterous, especially in relation to awoman of one-and-twenty; the practice of "the world" being to treat ofa young widow's second marriage as certain and probably near, and tosmile with meaning if the widow acts accordingly. But if Dorothea didchoose to espouse her solitude, he felt that the resolution would wellbecome her.