Middlemarch

by George Eliot

  CHAPTER LXXVII.

  "And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot, To mark the full-fraught man and best indued With some suspicion." --Henry V.

  The next day Lydgate had to go to Brassing, and told Rosamond that heshould be away until the evening. Of late she had never gone beyondher own house and garden, except to church, and once to see her papa,to whom she said, "If Tertius goes away, you will help us to move, willyou not, papa? I suppose we shall have very little money. I am sure Ihope some one will help us." And Mr. Vincy had said, "Yes, child, Idon't mind a hundred or two. I can see the end of that." With theseexceptions she had sat at home in languid melancholy and suspense,fixing her mind on Will Ladislaw's coming as the one point of hope andinterest, and associating this with some new urgency on Lydgate to makeimmediate arrangements for leaving Middlemarch and going to London,till she felt assured that the coming would be a potent cause of thegoing, without at all seeing how. This way of establishing sequencesis too common to be fairly regarded as a peculiar folly in Rosamond.And it is precisely this sort of sequence which causes the greatestshock when it is sundered: for to see how an effect may be produced isoften to see possible missings and checks; but to see nothing exceptthe desirable cause, and close upon it the desirable effect, rids us ofdoubt and makes our minds strongly intuitive. That was the processgoing on in poor Rosamond, while she arranged all objects around herwith the same nicety as ever, only with more slowness--or sat down tothe piano, meaning to play, and then desisting, yet lingering on themusic stool with her white fingers suspended on the wooden front, andlooking before her in dreamy ennui. Her melancholy had become somarked that Lydgate felt a strange timidity before it, as a perpetualsilent reproach, and the strong man, mastered by his keen sensibilitiestowards this fair fragile creature whose life he seemed somehow to havebruised, shrank from her look, and sometimes started at her approach,fear of her and fear for her rushing in only the more forcibly after ithad been momentarily expelled by exasperation.

  But this morning Rosamond descended from her room upstairs--where shesometimes sat the whole day when Lydgate was out--equipped for a walkin the town. She had a letter to post--a letter addressed to Mr.Ladislaw and written with charming discretion, but intended to hastenhis arrival by a hint of trouble. The servant-maid, their solehouse-servant now, noticed her coming down-stairs in her walking dress,and thought "there never did anybody look so pretty in a bonnet poorthing."

  Meanwhile Dorothea's mind was filled with her project of going toRosamond, and with the many thoughts, both of the past and the probablefuture, which gathered round the idea of that visit. Until yesterdaywhen Lydgate had opened to her a glimpse of some trouble in his marriedlife, the image of Mrs. Lydgate had always been associated for her withthat of Will Ladislaw. Even in her most uneasy moments--even when shehad been agitated by Mrs. Cadwallader's painfully graphic report ofgossip--her effort, nay, her strongest impulsive prompting, had beentowards the vindication of Will from any sullying surmises; and when,in her meeting with him afterwards, she had at first interpreted hiswords as a probable allusion to a feeling towards Mrs. Lydgate which hewas determined to cut himself off from indulging, she had had a quick,sad, excusing vision of the charm there might be in his constantopportunities of companionship with that fair creature, who most likelyshared his other tastes as she evidently did his delight in music. Butthere had followed his parting words--the few passionate words inwhich he had implied that she herself was the object of whom his loveheld him in dread, that it was his love for her only which he wasresolved not to declare but to carry away into banishment. From thetime of that parting, Dorothea, believing in Will's love for her,believing with a proud delight in his delicate sense of honor and hisdetermination that no one should impeach him justly, felt her heartquite at rest as to the regard he might have for Mrs. Lydgate. She wassure that the regard was blameless.

  There are natures in which, if they love us, we are conscious of havinga sort of baptism and consecration: they bind us over to rectitude andpurity by their pure belief about us; and our sins become that worstkind of sacrilege which tears down the invisible altar of trust. "Ifyou are not good, none is good"--those little words may give aterrific meaning to responsibility, may hold a vitriolic intensity forremorse.

  Dorothea's nature was of that kind: her own passionate faults lay alongthe easily counted open channels of her ardent character; and while shewas full of pity for the visible mistakes of others, she had not yetany material within her experience for subtle constructions andsuspicions of hidden wrong. But that simplicity of hers, holding up anideal for others in her believing conception of them, was one of thegreat powers of her womanhood. And it had from the first actedstrongly on Will Ladislaw. He felt, when he parted from her, that thebrief words by which he had tried to convey to her his feeling aboutherself and the division which her fortune made between them, wouldonly profit by their brevity when Dorothea had to interpret them: hefelt that in her mind he had found his highest estimate.

  And he was right there. In the months since their parting Dorothea hadfelt a delicious though sad repose in their relation to each other, asone which was inwardly whole and without blemish. She had an activeforce of antagonism within her, when the antagonism turned on thedefence either of plans or persons that she believed in; and the wrongswhich she felt that Will had received from her husband, and theexternal conditions which to others were grounds for slighting him,only gave the more tenacity to her affection and admiring judgment.And now with the disclosures about Bulstrode had come another factaffecting Will's social position, which roused afresh Dorothea's inwardresistance to what was said about him in that part of her world whichlay within park palings.

  "Young Ladislaw the grandson of a thieving Jew pawnbroker" was a phrasewhich had entered emphatically into the dialogues about the Bulstrodebusiness, at Lowick, Tipton, and Freshitt, and was a worse kind ofplacard on poor Will's back than the "Italian with white mice."Upright Sir James Chettam was convinced that his own satisfaction wasrighteous when he thought with some complacency that here was an addedleague to that mountainous distance between Ladislaw and Dorothea,which enabled him to dismiss any anxiety in that direction as tooabsurd. And perhaps there had been some pleasure in pointing Mr.Brooke's attention to this ugly bit of Ladislaw's genealogy, as a freshcandle for him to see his own folly by. Dorothea had observed theanimus with which Will's part in the painful story had been recalledmore than once; but she had uttered no word, being checked now, as shehad not been formerly in speaking of Will, by the consciousness of adeeper relation between them which must always remain in consecratedsecrecy. But her silence shrouded her resistant emotion into a morethorough glow; and this misfortune in Will's lot which, it seemed,others were wishing to fling at his back as an opprobrium, only gavesomething more of enthusiasm to her clinging thought.

  She entertained no visions of their ever coming into nearer union, andyet she had taken no posture of renunciation. She had accepted herwhole relation to Will very simply as part of her marriage sorrows, andwould have thought it very sinful in her to keep up an inward wailbecause she was not completely happy, being rather disposed to dwell onthe superfluities of her lot. She could bear that the chief pleasuresof her tenderness should lie in memory, and the idea of marriage cameto her solely as a repulsive proposition from some suitor of whom sheat present knew nothing, but whose merits, as seen by her friends,would be a source of torment to her:--"somebody who will manage yourproperty for you, my dear," was Mr. Brooke's attractive suggestion ofsuitable characteristics. "I should like to manage it myself, if Iknew what to do with it," said Dorothea. No--she adhered to herdeclaration that she would never be married again, and in the longvalley of her life which looked so flat and empty of waymarks, guidancewould come as she walked along the road, and saw her fellow-passengersby the way.

  This habitual state of feeling about Will Ladislaw had been strong inall her waking hours
since she had proposed to pay a visit to Mrs.Lydgate, making a sort of background against which she saw Rosamond'sfigure presented to her without hindrances to her interest andcompassion. There was evidently some mental separation, some barrierto complete confidence which had arisen between this wife and thehusband who had yet made her happiness a law to him. That was atrouble which no third person must directly touch. But Dorotheathought with deep pity of the loneliness which must have come uponRosamond from the suspicions cast on her husband; and there wouldsurely be help in the manifestation of respect for Lydgate and sympathywith her.

  "I shall talk to her about her husband," thought Dorothea, as she wasbeing driven towards the town. The clear spring morning, the scent ofthe moist earth, the fresh leaves just showing their creased-up wealthof greenery from out their half-opened sheaths, seemed part of thecheerfulness she was feeling from a long conversation with Mr.Farebrother, who had joyfully accepted the justifying explanation ofLydgate's conduct. "I shall take Mrs. Lydgate good news, and perhapsshe will like to talk to me and make a friend of me."

  Dorothea had another errand in Lowick Gate: it was about a newfine-toned bell for the school-house, and as she had to get out of hercarriage very near to Lydgate's, she walked thither across the street,having told the coachman to wait for some packages. The street doorwas open, and the servant was taking the opportunity of looking out atthe carriage which was pausing within sight when it became apparent toher that the lady who "belonged to it" was coming towards her.

  "Is Mrs. Lydgate at home?" said Dorothea.

  "I'm not sure, my lady; I'll see, if you'll please to walk in," saidMartha, a little confused on the score of her kitchen apron, butcollected enough to be sure that "mum" was not the right title for thisqueenly young widow with a carriage and pair. "Will you please to walkin, and I'll go and see."

  "Say that I am Mrs. Casaubon," said Dorothea, as Martha moved forwardintending to show her into the drawing-room and then to go up-stairs tosee if Rosamond had returned from her walk.

  They crossed the broader part of the entrance-hall, and turned up thepassage which led to the garden. The drawing-room door was unlatched,and Martha, pushing it without looking into the room, waited for Mrs.Casaubon to enter and then turned away, the door having swung open andswung back again without noise.

  Dorothea had less of outward vision than usual this morning, beingfilled with images of things as they had been and were going to be.She found herself on the other side of the door without seeing anythingremarkable, but immediately she heard a voice speaking in low toneswhich startled her as with a sense of dreaming in daylight, andadvancing unconsciously a step or two beyond the projecting slab of abookcase, she saw, in the terrible illumination of a certainty whichfilled up all outlines, something which made her pause, motionless,without self-possession enough to speak.

  Seated with his back towards her on a sofa which stood against the wallon a line with the door by which she had entered, she saw WillLadislaw: close by him and turned towards him with a flushedtearfulness which gave a new brilliancy to her face sat Rosamond, herbonnet hanging back, while Will leaning towards her clasped both herupraised hands in his and spoke with low-toned fervor.

  Rosamond in her agitated absorption had not noticed the silentlyadvancing figure; but when Dorothea, after the first immeasurableinstant of this vision, moved confusedly backward and found herselfimpeded by some piece of furniture, Rosamond was suddenly aware of herpresence, and with a spasmodic movement snatched away her hands androse, looking at Dorothea who was necessarily arrested. Will Ladislaw,starting up, looked round also, and meeting Dorothea's eyes with a newlightning in them, seemed changing to marble: But she immediatelyturned them away from him to Rosamond and said in a firm voice--

  "Excuse me, Mrs. Lydgate, the servant did not know that you were here.I called to deliver an important letter for Mr. Lydgate, which I wishedto put into your own hands."

  She laid down the letter on the small table which had checked herretreat, and then including Rosamond and Will in one distant glance andbow, she went quickly out of the room, meeting in the passage thesurprised Martha, who said she was sorry the mistress was not at home,and then showed the strange lady out with an inward reflection thatgrand people were probably more impatient than others.

  Dorothea walked across the street with her most elastic step and wasquickly in her carriage again.

  "Drive on to Freshitt Hall," she said to the coachman, and any onelooking at her might have thought that though she was paler than usualshe was never animated by a more self-possessed energy. And that wasreally her experience. It was as if she had drunk a great draught ofscorn that stimulated her beyond the susceptibility to other feelings.She had seen something so far below her belief, that her emotionsrushed back from it and made an excited throng without an object. Sheneeded something active to turn her excitement out upon. She feltpower to walk and work for a day, without meat or drink. And she wouldcarry out the purpose with which she had started in the morning, ofgoing to Freshitt and Tipton to tell Sir James and her uncle all thatshe wished them to know about Lydgate, whose married loneliness underhis trial now presented itself to her with new significance, and madeher more ardent in readiness to be his champion. She had never feltanything like this triumphant power of indignation in the struggle ofher married life, in which there had always been a quickly subduingpang; and she took it as a sign of new strength.

  "Dodo, how very bright your eyes are!" said Celia, when Sir James wasgone out of the room. "And you don't see anything you look at, Arthuror anything. You are going to do something uncomfortable, I know. Isit all about Mr. Lydgate, or has something else happened?" Celia hadbeen used to watch her sister with expectation.

  "Yes, dear, a great many things have happened," said Dodo, in her fulltones.

  "I wonder what," said Celia, folding her arms cozily and leaningforward upon them.

  "Oh, all the troubles of all people on the face of the earth," saidDorothea, lifting her arms to the back of her head.

  "Dear me, Dodo, are you going to have a scheme for them?" said Celia, alittle uneasy at this Hamlet-like raving.

  But Sir James came in again, ready to accompany Dorothea to the Grange,and she finished her expedition well, not swerving in her resolutionuntil she descended at her own door.