Middlemarch, Page 62

  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, andforthwith quitting Middlemarch. The morning after his agitating scenewith Bulstrode he wrote a brief letter to her, saying that variouscauses had detained him in the neighborhood longer than he hadexpected, and asking her permission to call again at Lowick at somehour which she would mention on the earliest possible day, he beinganxious to depart, but unwilling to do so until she had granted him aninterview. He left the letter at the office, ordering the messenger tocarry it to Lowick Manor, and wait for an answer.

  Ladislaw felt the awkwardness of asking for more last words. Hisformer farewell had been made in the hearing of Sir James Chettam, andhad been announced as final even to the butler. It is certainly tryingto a man's dignity to reappear when he is not expected to do so: afirst farewell has pathos in it, but to come back for a second lends anopening to comedy, and it was possible even that there might be bittersneers afloat about Will's motives for lingering. Still it was on thewhole more satisfactory to his feeling to take the directest means ofseeing Dorothea, than to use any device which might give an air ofchance to a meeting of which he wished her to understand that it waswhat he earnestly sought. When he had parted from her before, he hadbeen in ignorance of facts which gave a new aspect to the relationbetween them, and made a more absolute severance than he had thenbelieved in. He knew nothing of Dorothea's private fortune, and beinglittle used to reflect on such matters, took it for granted thataccording to Mr. Casaubon's arrangement marriage to him, Will Ladislaw,would mean that she consented to be penniless. That was not what hecould wish for even in his secret heart, or even if she had been readyto meet such hard contrast for his sake. And then, too, there was thefresh smart of that disclosure about his mother's family, which ifknown would be an added reason why Dorothea's friends should look downupon him as utterly below her. The secret hope that after some yearshe might come back with the sense that he had at least a personal valueequal to her wealth, seemed now the dreamy continuation of a dream.This change would surely justify him in asking Dorothea to receive himonce 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 tobe at home in a week, she had driven first to Freshitt to carry thenews, meaning to go on to the Grange to deliver some orders with whichher uncle had intrusted her--thinking, as he said, "a little mentaloccupation of this sort good for a widow."

  If Will Ladislaw could have overheard some of the talk at Freshitt thatmorning, he would have felt all his suppositions confirmed as to thereadiness of certain people to sneer at his lingering in theneighborhood. Sir James, indeed, though much relieved concerningDorothea, had been on the watch to learn Ladislaw's movements, and hadan instructed informant in Mr. Standish, who was necessarily in hisconfidence on this matter. That Ladislaw had stayed in Middlemarchnearly two months after he had declared that he was going immediately,was a fact to embitter Sir James's suspicions, or at least to justifyhis aversion to a "young fellow" whom he represented to himself asslight, volatile, and likely enough to show such recklessness asnaturally went along with a position unriveted by family ties or astrict profession. But he had just heard something from Standishwhich, while it justified these surmises about Will, offered a means ofnullifying all danger with regard to Dorothea.

  Unwonted circumstances may make us all rather unlike ourselves: thereare conditions under which the most majestic person is obliged tosneeze, and our emotions are liable to be acted on in the sameincongruous manner. Good Sir James was this morning so far unlikehimself that he was irritably anxious to say something to Dorothea on asubject which he usually avoided as if it had been a matter of shame tothem both. He could not use Celia as a medium, because he did notchoose that she should know the kind of gossip he had in his mind; andbefore Dorothea happened to arrive he had been trying to imagine how,with his shyness and unready tongue, he could ever manage to introducehis communication. Her unexpected presence brought him to utterhopelessness in his own power of saying anything unpleasant; butdesperation suggested a resource; he sent the groom on an unsaddledhorse across the park with a pencilled note to Mrs. Cadwallader, whoalready knew the gossip, and would think it no compromise of herself torepeat it as often as required.

  Dorothea was detained on the good pretext that Mr. Garth, whom shewanted to see, was expected at the hall within the hour, and she wasstill talking to Caleb on the gravel when Sir James, on the watch forthe rector's wife, saw her coming and met her with the needful hints.

  "Enough! I understand,"--said Mrs. Cadwallader. "You shall beinnocent. I am such a blackamoor that I cannot smirch myself."

  "I don't mean that it's of any consequence," said Sir James, dislikingthat Mrs. Cadwallader should understand too much. "Only it isdesirable that Dorothea should know there are reasons why she shouldnot receive him again; and I really can't say so to her. It will comelightly from you."

  It came very lightly indeed. When Dorothea quitted Caleb and turned tomeet them, it appeared that Mrs. Cadwallader had stepped across thepark by the merest chance in the world, just to chat with Celia in amatronly way about the baby. And so Mr. Brooke was coming back?Delightful!--coming back, it was to be hoped, quite cured ofParliamentary fever and pioneering. Apropos of the "Pioneer"--somebodyhad prophesied that it would soon be like a dying dolphin, and turn allcolors for want of knowing how to help itself, because Mr. Brooke'sprotege, the brilliant young Ladislaw, was gone or going. Had SirJames heard that?

  The three were walking along the gravel slowly, and Sir James, turningaside 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 ismaking 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. Itseems nobody ever goes into the house without finding this younggentleman lying on the rug or warbling at the piano. But the people inmanufacturing towns are always disreputable."

  "You began by saying that one report was false, Mrs. Cadwallader, and Ibelieve this is false too," said Dorothea, with indignant energy; "atleast, I feel sure it is a misrepresentation. I will not hear any evilspoken of Mr. Ladislaw; he has already suffered too much injustice."

  Dorothea when thoroughly moved cared little what any one thought of herfeelings; and even if she had been able to reflect, she would have heldit petty to keep silence at injurious words about Will from fear ofbeing 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 handsoutward and said--"Heaven grant it, my dear!--I mean that all bad talesabout anybody may be false. But it is a pity that young Lydgate shouldhave married one of these Middlemarch girls. Considering he's a son ofsomebody, he might have got a woman with good blood in her veins, andnot too young, who would have put up with his profession. There'sClara Harfager, for instance, whose friends don't know what to do withher; 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. Hewas altogether discontented with the result of a contrivance which hadcost him some secret humiliation beforehand.

  Dorothea drove along between the berried hedgerows and the shorncorn-fields, not seeing or hearing anything around. The tears came androlled down her cheeks, but she did not know it. The world, it seemed,was turning ugly and hateful, and there was no place for hertrustfulness. "It is not true--it is not true!" was the voice withinh
er that she listened to; but all the while a remembrance to whichthere had always clung a vague uneasiness would thrust itself on herattention--the remembrance of that day when she had found Will Ladislawwith Mrs. Lydgate, and had heard his voice accompanied by the piano.

  "He said he would never do anything that I disapproved--I wish I couldhave told him that I disapproved of that," said poor Dorothea,inwardly, feeling a strange alternation between anger with Will and thepassionate defence of him. "They all try to blacken him before me; butI will care for no pain, if he is not to blame. I always believed hewas good."--These were her last thoughts before she felt that thecarriage was passing under the archway of the lodge-gate at the Grange,when she hurriedly pressed her handkerchief to her face and began tothink of her errands. The coachman begged leave to take out the horsesfor half an hour as there was something wrong with a shoe; andDorothea, having the sense that she was going to rest, took off hergloves and bonnet, while she was leaning against a statue in theentrance-hall, and talking to the housekeeper. At last she said--

  "I must stay here a little, Mrs. Kell. I will go into the library andwrite you some memoranda from my uncle's letter, if you will open theshutters for me."

  "The shutters are open, madam," said Mrs. Kell, following Dorothea, whohad walked along as she spoke. "Mr. Ladislaw is there, looking forsomething."

  (Will had come to fetch a portfolio of his own sketches which he hadmissed in the act of packing his movables, and did not choose to leavebehind.)

  Dorothea's heart seemed to turn over as if it had had a blow, but shewas not perceptibly checked: in truth, the sense that Will was therewas for the moment all-satisfying to her, like the sight of somethingprecious 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 farend of the room, to turn over the sketches and please himself bylooking at the memorable piece of art which had a relation to naturetoo mysterious for Dorothea. He was smiling at it still, and shakingthe sketches into order with the thought that he might find a letterfrom her awaiting him at Middlemarch, when Mrs. Kell close to his elbowsaid--

  "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 atthe other, and consciousness was overflowed by something thatsuppressed utterance. It was not confusion that kept them silent, forthey both felt that parting was near, and there is no shamefacedness ina sad parting.

  She moved automatically towards her uncle's chair against thewriting-table, and Will, after drawing it out a little for her, went afew paces off and stood opposite to her.

  "Pray sit down," said Dorothea, crossing her hands on her lap; "I amvery glad you were here." Will thought that her face looked just as itdid 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 shehad lately been shedding tears. But the mixture of anger in heragitation had vanished at the sight of him; she had been used, whenthey were face to face, always to feel confidence and the happy freedomwhich comes with mutual understanding, and how could other people'swords hinder that effect on a sudden? Let the music which can takepossession of our frame and fill the air with joy for us, sound oncemore--what does it signify that we heard it found fault with in itsabsence?

  "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 awayimmediately, and I could not go without speaking to you again."

  "I thought we had parted when you came to Lowick many weeks ago--youthought you were going then," said Dorothea, her voice trembling alittle.

  "Yes; but I was in ignorance then of things which I know now--thingswhich have altered my feelings about the future. When I saw youbefore, I was dreaming that I might come back some day. I don't thinkI 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 lookingaway 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 toknow that under no circumstances would I have lowered myself by--underno circumstances would I have given men the chance of saying that Isought money under the pretext of seeking--something else. There wasno need of other safeguard against me--the safeguard of wealth wasenough."

  Will rose from his chair with the last word and went--he hardly knewwhere; but it was to the projecting window nearest him, which had beenopen as now about the same season a year ago, when he and Dorothea hadstood within it and talked together. Her whole heart was going out atthis moment in sympathy with Will's indignation: she only wanted toconvince him that she had never done him injustice, and he seemed tohave turned away from her as if she too had been part of the unfriendlyworld.

  "It would be very unkind of you to suppose that I ever attributed anymeanness to you," she began. Then in her ardent way, wanting to pleadwith him, she moved from her chair and went in front of him to her oldplace in the window, saying, "Do you suppose that I ever disbelieved inyou?"

  When Will saw her there, he gave a start and moved backward out of thewindow, without meeting her glance. Dorothea was hurt by this movementfollowing up the previous anger of his tone. She was ready to say thatit was as hard on her as on him, and that she was helpless; but thosestrange particulars of their relation which neither of them couldexplicitly mention kept her always in dread of saying too much. Atthis moment she had no belief that Will would in any case have wantedto marry her, and she feared using words which might imply such abelief. 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 thesewords of hers seemed to him cruelly neutral, and he looked pale andmiserable after his angry outburst. He went to the table and fastenedup his portfolio, while Dorothea looked at him from the distance. Theywere wasting these last moments together in wretched silence. Whatcould he say, since what had got obstinately uppermost in his mind wasthe passionate love for her which he forbade himself to utter? Whatcould she say, since she might offer him no help--since she was forcedto keep the money that ought to have been his?--since to-day he seemednot to respond as he used to do to her thorough trust and liking?

  But Will at last turned away from his portfolio and approached thewindow again.

  "I must go," he said, with that peculiar look of the eyes whichsometimes accompanies bitter feeling, as if they had been tired andburned with gazing too close at a light.

  "What shall you do in life?" said Dorothea, timidly. "Have yourintentions remained just the same as when we said good-by before?"

  "Yes," said Will, in a tone that seemed to waive the subject asuninteresting. "I shall work away at the first thing that offers. Isuppose 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 alikein speaking too strongly."

  "I have not spoken too strongly now," said Will, leaning back againstthe angle of the wall. "There are certain things which a man can onlygo through once in his life; and he must know some time or other thatthe best is over with him. This experience has happened to me while Iam very young--that is all. What I care more for than I can ever carefor anything else is absolutely forbidden to me--I don't mean merelyby being out of my reach, but forbidden me, even if it were within myreach, 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 ina trance."

  Will paused, imagining that it would be impossible for Dorothea tomisunderstand this; indeed he
felt that he was contradicting himselfand offending against his self-approval in speaking to her so plainly;but still--it could not be fairly called wooing a woman to tell herthat he would never woo her. It must be admitted to be a ghostly kindof wooing.

  But Dorothea's mind was rapidly going over the past with quite anothervision than his. The thought that she herself might be what Will mostcared for did throb through her an instant, but then came doubt: thememory of the little they had lived through together turned pale andshrank before the memory which suggested how much fuller might havebeen the intercourse between Will and some one else with whom he hadhad constant companionship. Everything he had said might refer to thatother relation, and whatever had passed between him and herself wasthoroughly explained by what she had always regarded as their simplefriendship and the cruel obstruction thrust upon it by her husband'sinjurious act. Dorothea stood silent, with her eyes cast downdreamily, while images crowded upon her which left the sickeningcertainty that Will was referring to Mrs. Lydgate. But why sickening?He wanted her to know that here too his conduct should be abovesuspicion.

  Will was not surprised at her silence. His mind also was tumultuouslybusy while he watched her, and he was feeling rather wildly thatsomething must happen to hinder their parting--some miracle, clearlynothing in their own deliberate speech. Yet, after all, had she anylove for him?--he could not pretend to himself that he would ratherbelieve her to be without that pain. He could not deny that a secretlonging for the assurance that she loved him was at the root of all hiswords.

  Neither of them knew how long they stood in that way. Dorothea wasraising her eyes, and was about to speak, when the door opened and herfootman came to say--

  "The horses are ready, madam, whenever you like to start."

  "Presently," said Dorothea. Then turning to Will, she said, "I havesome memoranda to write for the housekeeper."

  "I must go," said Will, when the door had closed again--advancingtowards 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 without speaking,for her words had seemed to him cruelly cold and unlike herself. Theireyes met, but there was discontent in his, and in hers there was onlysadness. 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 werenot in danger of forgetting everything else."

  He had really a movement of anger against her at that moment, and itimpelled him to go away without pause. It was all one flash toDorothea--his last words--his distant bow to her as he reached thedoor--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 werehurrying upon her. Joy came first, in spite of the threatening trainbehind it--joy in the impression that it was really herself whom Willloved and was renouncing, that there was really no other love lesspermissible, more blameworthy, which honor was hurrying him away from.They were parted all the same, but--Dorothea drew a deep breath andfelt her strength return--she could think of him unrestrainedly. Atthat moment the parting was easy to bear: the first sense of loving andbeing loved excluded sorrow. It was as if some hard icy pressure hadmelted, and her consciousness had room to expand: her past was comeback to her with larger interpretation. The joy was not theless--perhaps it was the more complete just then--because of theirrevocable parting; for there was no reproach, no contemptuous wonderto imagine in any eye or from any lips. He had acted so as to defyreproach, and make wonder respectful.

  Any one watching her might have seen that there was a fortifyingthought within her. Just as when inventive power is working with gladease some small claim on the attention is fully met as if it were onlya cranny opened to the sunlight, it was easy now for Dorothea to writeher memoranda. She spoke her last words to the housekeeper in cheerfultones, and when she seated herself in the carriage her eyes were brightand her cheeks blooming under the dismal bonnet. She threw back theheavy "weepers," and looked before her, wondering which road Will hadtaken. It was in her nature to be proud that he was blameless, andthrough all her feelings there ran this vein--"I was right to defendhim."

  The coachman was used to drive his grays at a good pace, Mr. Casaubonbeing unenjoying and impatient in everything away from his desk, andwanting to get to the end of all journeys; and Dorothea was now bowledalong quickly. Driving was pleasant, for rain in the night had laidthe dust, and the blue sky looked far off, away from the region of thegreat clouds that sailed in masses. The earth looked like a happyplace under the vast heavens, and Dorothea was wishing that she mightovertake Will and see him once more.

  After a turn of the road, there he was with the portfolio under hisarm; 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 acrowd of indifferent objects had thrust them asunder, and forced themalong different paths, taking them farther and farther away from eachother, and making it useless to look back. She could no more make anysign that would seem to say, "Need we part?" than she could stop thecarriage to wait for him. Nay, what a world of reasons crowded uponher against any movement of her thought towards a future that mightreverse the decision of this day!

  "I only wish I had known before--I wish he knew--then we could be quitehappy in thinking of each other, though we are forever parted. And ifI could but have given him the money, and made things easier forhim!"--were the longings that came back the most persistently. Andyet, so heavily did the world weigh on her in spite of her independentenergy, that with this idea of Will as in need of such help and at adisadvantage with the world, there came always the vision of thatunfittingness of any closer relation between them which lay in theopinion of every one connected with her. She felt to the full all theimperativeness of the motives which urged Will's conduct. How could hedream of her defying the barrier that her husband had placed betweenthem?--how could she ever say to herself that she would defy it?

  Will's certainty as the carriage grew smaller in the distance, had muchmore bitterness in it. Very slight matters were enough to gall him inhis sensitive mood, and the sight of Dorothea driving past him while hefelt himself plodding along as a poor devil seeking a position in aworld which in his present temper offered him little that he coveted,made his conduct seem a mere matter of necessity, and took away thesustainment of resolve. After all, he had no assurance that she lovedhim: could any man pretend that he was simply glad in such a case tohave the suffering all on his own side?

  That evening Will spent with the Lydgates; the next evening he was gone.

  BOOK VII.

  TWO TEMPTATIONS.