Middlemarch, Page 76

  CHAPTER LXXVI.

  "To mercy, pity, peace, and love All pray in their distress, And to these virtues of delight, Return their thankfulness. . . . . . . For Mercy has a human heart, Pity a human face; And Love, the human form divine; And Peace, the human dress. --WILLIAM BLAKE: Songs of Innocence.

  Some days later, Lydgate was riding to Lowick Manor, in consequence ofa summons from Dorothea. The summons had not been unexpected, since ithad followed a letter from Mr. Bulstrode, in which he stated that hehad resumed his arrangements for quitting Middlemarch, and must remindLydgate of his previous communications about the Hospital, to thepurport of which he still adhered. It had been his duty, before takingfurther steps, to reopen the subject with Mrs. Casaubon, who nowwished, as before, to discuss the question with Lydgate. "Your viewsmay possibly have undergone some change," wrote Mr. Bulstrode; "but, inthat case also, it is desirable that you should lay them before her."

  Dorothea awaited his arrival with eager interest. Though, in deferenceto her masculine advisers, she had refrained from what Sir James hadcalled "interfering in this Bulstrode business," the hardship ofLydgate's position was continually in her mind, and when Bulstrodeapplied to her again about the hospital, she felt that the opportunitywas come to her which she had been hindered from hastening. In herluxurious home, wandering under the boughs of her own great trees, herthought was going out over the lot of others, and her emotions wereimprisoned. The idea of some active good within her reach, "hauntedher like a passion," and another's need having once come to her as adistinct image, preoccupied her desire with the yearning to giverelief, and made her own ease tasteless. She was full of confidenthope about this interview with Lydgate, never heeding what was said ofhis personal reserve; never heeding that she was a very young woman.Nothing could have seemed more irrelevant to Dorothea than insistenceon her youth and sex when she was moved to show her human fellowship.

  As she sat waiting in the library, she could do nothing but livethrough again all the past scenes which had brought Lydgate into hermemories. They all owed their significance to her marriage and itstroubles--but no; there were two occasions in which the image ofLydgate had come painfully in connection with his wife and some oneelse. The pain had been allayed for Dorothea, but it had left in heran awakened conjecture as to what Lydgate's marriage might be to him, asusceptibility to the slightest hint about Mrs. Lydgate. Thesethoughts were like a drama to her, and made her eyes bright, and gavean attitude of suspense to her whole frame, though she was only lookingout from the brown library on to the turf and the bright green budswhich stood in relief against the dark evergreens.

  When Lydgate came in, she was almost shocked at the change in his face,which was strikingly perceptible to her who had not seen him for twomonths. It was not the change of emaciation, but that effect whicheven young faces will very soon show from the persistent presence ofresentment and despondency. Her cordial look, when she put out herhand to him, softened his expression, but only with melancholy.

  "I have wished very much to see you for a long while, Mr. Lydgate,"said Dorothea when they were seated opposite each other; "but I put offasking you to come until Mr. Bulstrode applied to me again about theHospital. I know that the advantage of keeping the management of itseparate from that of the Infirmary depends on you, or, at least, onthe good which you are encouraged to hope for from having it under yourcontrol. And I am sure you will not refuse to tell me exactly what youthink."

  "You want to decide whether you should give a generous support to theHospital," said Lydgate. "I cannot conscientiously advise you to do itin dependence on any activity of mine. I may be obliged to leave thetown."

  He spoke curtly, feeling the ache of despair as to his being able tocarry out any purpose that Rosamond had set her mind against.

  "Not because there is no one to believe in you?" said Dorothea, pouringout her words in clearness from a full heart. "I know the unhappymistakes about you. I knew them from the first moment to be mistakes.You have never done anything vile. You would not do anythingdishonorable."

  It was the first assurance of belief in him that had fallen onLydgate's ears. He drew a deep breath, and said, "Thank you." He couldsay no more: it was something very new and strange in his life thatthese few words of trust from a woman should be so much to him.

  "I beseech you to tell me how everything was," said Dorothea,fearlessly. "I am sure that the truth would clear you."

  Lydgate started up from his chair and went towards the window,forgetting where he was. He had so often gone over in his mind thepossibility of explaining everything without aggravating appearancesthat would tell, perhaps unfairly, against Bulstrode, and had so oftendecided against it--he had so often said to himself that his assertionswould not change people's impressions--that Dorothea's words soundedlike a temptation to do something which in his soberness he hadpronounced to be unreasonable.

  "Tell me, pray," said Dorothea, with simple earnestness; "then we canconsult together. It is wicked to let people think evil of any onefalsely, when it can be hindered."

  Lydgate turned, remembering where he was, and saw Dorothea's facelooking up at him with a sweet trustful gravity. The presence of anoble nature, generous in its wishes, ardent in its charity, changesthe lights for us: we begin to see things again in their larger,quieter masses, and to believe that we too can be seen and judged inthe wholeness of our character. That influence was beginning to act onLydgate, who had for many days been seeing all life as one who isdragged and struggling amid the throng. He sat down again, and feltthat he was recovering his old self in the consciousness that he waswith one who believed in it.

  "I don't want," he said, "to bear hard on Bulstrode, who has lent memoney of which I was in need--though I would rather have gone withoutit now. He is hunted down and miserable, and has only a poor thread oflife in him. But I should like to tell you everything. It will be acomfort to me to speak where belief has gone beforehand, and where Ishall not seem to be offering assertions of my own honesty. You willfeel what is fair to another, as you feel what is fair to me."

  "Do trust me," said Dorothea; "I will not repeat anything without yourleave. But at the very least, I could say that you have made all thecircumstances clear to me, and that I know you are not in any wayguilty. Mr. Farebrother would believe me, and my uncle, and Sir JamesChettam. Nay, there are persons in Middlemarch to whom I could go;although they don't know much of me, they would believe me. They wouldknow that I could have no other motive than truth and justice. I wouldtake any pains to clear you. I have very little to do. There isnothing better that I can do in the world."

  Dorothea's voice, as she made this childlike picture of what she woulddo, might have been almost taken as a proof that she could do iteffectively. The searching tenderness of her woman's tones seemed madefor a defence against ready accusers. Lydgate did not stay to thinkthat she was Quixotic: he gave himself up, for the first time in hislife, to the exquisite sense of leaning entirely on a generoussympathy, without any check of proud reserve. And he told hereverything, from the time when, under the pressure of his difficulties,he unwillingly made his first application to Bulstrode; gradually, inthe relief of speaking, getting into a more thorough utterance of whathad gone on in his mind--entering fully into the fact that histreatment of the patient was opposed to the dominant practice, into hisdoubts at the last, his ideal of medical duty, and his uneasyconsciousness that the acceptance of the money had made some differencein his private inclination and professional behavior, though not in hisfulfilment of any publicly recognized obligation.

  "It has come to my knowledge since," he added, "that Hawley sent someone to examine the housekeeper at Stone Court, and she said that shegave the patient all the opium in the phial I left, as well as a gooddeal of brandy. But that would not have been opposed to ordinaryprescriptions, even of first-rate men. The suspicions against me hadno ho
ld there: they are grounded on the knowledge that I took money,that Bulstrode had strong motives for wishing the man to die, and thathe gave me the money as a bribe to concur in some malpractices or otheragainst the patient--that in any case I accepted a bribe to hold mytongue. They are just the suspicions that cling the most obstinately,because they lie in people's inclination and can never be disproved.How my orders came to be disobeyed is a question to which I don't knowthe answer. It is still possible that Bulstrode was innocent of anycriminal intention--even possible that he had nothing to do with thedisobedience, and merely abstained from mentioning it. But all thathas nothing to do with the public belief. It is one of those cases onwhich a man is condemned on the ground of his character--it isbelieved that he has committed a crime in some undefined way, becausehe had the motive for doing it; and Bulstrode's character has envelopedme, because I took his money. I am simply blighted--like a damagedear of corn--the business is done and can't be undone."

  "Oh, it is hard!" said Dorothea. "I understand the difficulty there isin your vindicating yourself. And that all this should have come toyou who had meant to lead a higher life than the common, and to findout better ways--I cannot bear to rest in this as unchangeable. I knowyou meant that. I remember what you said to me when you first spoke tome about the hospital. There is no sorrow I have thought more aboutthan that--to love what is great, and try to reach it, and yet to fail."

  "Yes," said Lydgate, feeling that here he had found room for the fullmeaning of his grief. "I had some ambition. I meant everything to bedifferent with me. I thought I had more strength and mastery. But themost terrible obstacles are such as nobody can see except oneself."

  "Suppose," said Dorothea, meditatively,--"suppose we kept on theHospital according to the present plan, and you stayed here though onlywith the friendship and support of a few, the evil feeling towards youwould gradually die out; there would come opportunities in which peoplewould be forced to acknowledge that they had been unjust to you,because they would see that your purposes were pure. You may still wina great fame like the Louis and Laennec I have heard you speak of, andwe shall all be proud of you," she ended, with a smile.

  "That might do if I had my old trust in myself," said Lydgate,mournfully. "Nothing galls me more than the notion of turning roundand running away before this slander, leaving it unchecked behind me.Still, I can't ask any one to put a great deal of money into a planwhich depends on me."

  "It would be quite worth my while," said Dorothea, simply. "Onlythink. I am very uncomfortable with my money, because they tell me Ihave too little for any great scheme of the sort I like best, and yet Ihave too much. I don't know what to do. I have seven hundred a-yearof my own fortune, and nineteen hundred a-year that Mr. Casaubon leftme, and between three and four thousand of ready money in the bank. Iwished to raise money and pay it off gradually out of my income which Idon't want, to buy land with and found a village which should be aschool of industry; but Sir James and my uncle have convinced me thatthe risk would be too great. So you see that what I should mostrejoice at would be to have something good to do with my money: Ishould like it to make other people's lives better to them. It makesme very uneasy--coming all to me who don't want it."

  A smile broke through the gloom of Lydgate's face. The childlikegrave-eyed earnestness with which Dorothea said all this wasirresistible--blent into an adorable whole with her ready understandingof high experience. (Of lower experience such as plays a great part inthe world, poor Mrs. Casaubon had a very blurred shortsightedknowledge, little helped by her imagination.) But she took the smile asencouragement of her plan.

  "I think you see now that you spoke too scrupulously," she said, in atone of persuasion. "The hospital would be one good; and making yourlife quite whole and well again would be another."

  Lydgate's smile had died away. "You have the goodness as well as themoney to do all that; if it could be done," he said. "But--"

  He hesitated a little while, looking vaguely towards the window; andshe sat in silent expectation. At last he turned towards her and saidimpetuously--

  "Why should I not tell you?--you know what sort of bond marriage is.You will understand everything."

  Dorothea felt her heart beginning to beat faster. Had he that sorrowtoo? But she feared to say any word, and he went on immediately.

  "It is impossible for me now to do anything--to take any step withoutconsidering my wife's happiness. The thing that I might like to do ifI were alone, is become impossible to me. I can't see her miserable.She married me without knowing what she was going into, and it mighthave been better for her if she had not married me."

  "I know, I know--you could not give her pain, if you were not obligedto do it," said Dorothea, with keen memory of her own life.

  "And she has set her mind against staying. She wishes to go. Thetroubles she has had here have wearied her," said Lydgate, breaking offagain, lest he should say too much.

  "But when she saw the good that might come of staying--" said Dorothea,remonstrantly, looking at Lydgate as if he had forgotten the reasonswhich had just been considered. He did not speak immediately.

  "She would not see it," he said at last, curtly, feeling at first thatthis statement must do without explanation. "And, indeed, I have lostall spirit about carrying on my life here." He paused a moment andthen, following the impulse to let Dorothea see deeper into thedifficulty of his life, he said, "The fact is, this trouble has comeupon her confusedly. We have not been able to speak to each otherabout it. I am not sure what is in her mind about it: she may fearthat I have really done something base. It is my fault; I ought to bemore open. But I have been suffering cruelly."

  "May I go and see her?" said Dorothea, eagerly. "Would she accept mysympathy? I would tell her that you have not been blamable before anyone's judgment but your own. I would tell her that you shall becleared in every fair mind. I would cheer her heart. Will you ask herif I may go to see her? I did see her once."

  "I am sure you may," said Lydgate, seizing the proposition with somehope. "She would feel honored--cheered, I think, by the proof that youat least have some respect for me. I will not speak to her about yourcoming--that she may not connect it with my wishes at all. I know verywell that I ought not to have left anything to be told her by others,but--"

  He broke off, and there was a moment's silence. Dorothea refrainedfrom saying what was in her mind--how well she knew that there might beinvisible barriers to speech between husband and wife. This was apoint on which even sympathy might make a wound. She returned to themore outward aspect of Lydgate's position, saying cheerfully--

  "And if Mrs. Lydgate knew that there were friends who would believe inyou and support you, she might then be glad that you should stay inyour place and recover your hopes--and do what you meant to do.Perhaps then you would see that it was right to agree with what Iproposed about your continuing at the Hospital. Surely you would, ifyou still have faith in it as a means of making your knowledge useful?"

  Lydgate did not answer, and she saw that he was debating with himself.

  "You need not decide immediately," she said, gently. "A few days henceit will be early enough for me to send my answer to Mr. Bulstrode."

  Lydgate still waited, but at last turned to speak in his most decisivetones.

  "No; I prefer that there should be no interval left for wavering. I amno longer sure enough of myself--I mean of what it would be possiblefor me to do under the changed circumstances of my life. It would bedishonorable to let others engage themselves to anything serious independence on me. I might be obliged to go away after all; I seelittle chance of anything else. The whole thing is too problematic; Icannot consent to be the cause of your goodness being wasted. No--letthe new Hospital be joined with the old Infirmary, and everything go onas it might have done if I had never come. I have kept a valuableregister since I have been there; I shall send it to a man who willmake use of it," he ended bitterly. "I can think of nothi
ng for a longwhile but getting an income."

  "It hurts me very much to hear you speak so hopelessly," said Dorothea."It would be a happiness to your friends, who believe in your future,in your power to do great things, if you would let them save you fromthat. Think how much money I have; it would be like taking a burthenfrom me if you took some of it every year till you got free from thisfettering want of income. Why should not people do these things? Itis so difficult to make shares at all even. This is one way."

  "God bless you, Mrs. Casaubon!" said Lydgate, rising as if with thesame impulse that made his words energetic, and resting his arm on theback of the great leather chair he had been sitting in. "It is goodthat you should have such feelings. But I am not the man who ought toallow himself to benefit by them. I have not given guarantees enough.I must not at least sink into the degradation of being pensioned forwork that I never achieved. It is very clear to me that I must notcount on anything else than getting away from Middlemarch as soon as Ican manage it. I should not be able for a long while, at the verybest, to get an income here, and--and it is easier to make necessarychanges in a new place. I must do as other men do, and think what willplease the world and bring in money; look for a little opening in theLondon crowd, and push myself; set up in a watering-place, or go tosome southern town where there are plenty of idle English, and getmyself puffed,--that is the sort of shell I must creep into and try tokeep my soul alive in."

  "Now that is not brave," said Dorothea,--"to give up the fight."

  "No, it is not brave," said Lydgate, "but if a man is afraid ofcreeping paralysis?" Then, in another tone, "Yet you have made a greatdifference in my courage by believing in me. Everything seems morebearable since I have talked to you; and if you can clear me in a fewother minds, especially in Farebrother's, I shall be deeply grateful.The point I wish you not to mention is the fact of disobedience to myorders. That would soon get distorted. After all, there is noevidence for me but people's opinion of me beforehand. You can onlyrepeat my own report of myself."

  "Mr. Farebrother will believe--others will believe," said Dorothea. "Ican say of you what will make it stupidity to suppose that you would bebribed to do a wickedness."

  "I don't know," said Lydgate, with something like a groan in his voice."I have not taken a bribe yet. But there is a pale shade of briberywhich is sometimes called prosperity. You will do me another greatkindness, then, and come to see my wife?"

  "Yes, I will. I remember how pretty she is," said Dorothea, into whosemind every impression about Rosamond had cut deep. "I hope she willlike me."

  As Lydgate rode away, he thought, "This young creature has a heartlarge enough for the Virgin Mary. She evidently thinks nothing of herown future, and would pledge away half her income at once, as if shewanted nothing for herself but a chair to sit in from which she canlook down with those clear eyes at the poor mortals who pray to her.She seems to have what I never saw in any woman before--a fountain offriendship towards men--a man can make a friend of her. Casaubon musthave raised some heroic hallucination in her. I wonder if she couldhave any other sort of passion for a man? Ladislaw?--there wascertainly an unusual feeling between them. And Casaubon must have hada notion of it. Well--her love might help a man more than her money."

  Dorothea on her side had immediately formed a plan of relieving Lydgatefrom his obligation to Bulstrode, which she felt sure was a part,though small, of the galling pressure he had to bear. She sat down atonce under the inspiration of their interview, and wrote a brief note,in which she pleaded that she had more claim than Mr. Bulstrode had tothe satisfaction of providing the money which had been serviceable toLydgate--that it would be unkind in Lydgate not to grant her theposition of being his helper in this small matter, the favor beingentirely to her who had so little that was plainly marked out for herto do with her superfluous money. He might call her a creditor or byany other name if it did but imply that he granted her request. Sheenclosed a check for a thousand pounds, and determined to take theletter with her the next day when she went to see Rosamond.