Middlemarch

by George Eliot

  CHAPTER LXXXIII.

  "And now good-morrow to our waking souls Which watch not one another out of fear; For love all love of other sights controls, And makes one little room, an everywhere." --DR. DONNE.

  On the second morning after Dorothea's visit to Rosamond, she had hadtwo nights of sound sleep, and had not only lost all traces of fatigue,but felt as if she had a great deal of superfluous strength--that isto say, more strength than she could manage to concentrate on anyoccupation. The day before, she had taken long walks outside thegrounds, and had paid two visits to the Parsonage; but she never in herlife told any one the reason why she spent her time in that fruitlessmanner, and this morning she was rather angry with herself for herchildish restlessness. To-day was to be spent quite differently. Whatwas there to be done in the village? Oh dear! nothing. Everybody waswell and had flannel; nobody's pig had died; and it was Saturdaymorning, when there was a general scrubbing of doors and door-stones,and when it was useless to go into the school. But there were varioussubjects that Dorothea was trying to get clear upon, and she resolvedto throw herself energetically into the gravest of all. She sat downin the library before her particular little heap of books on politicaleconomy and kindred matters, out of which she was trying to get lightas to the best way of spending money so as not to injure one'sneighbors, or--what comes to the same thing--so as to do them the mostgood. Here was a weighty subject which, if she could but lay hold ofit, would certainly keep her mind steady. Unhappily her mind slippedoff it for a whole hour; and at the end she found herself readingsentences twice over with an intense consciousness of many things, butnot of any one thing contained in the text. This was hopeless. Shouldshe order the carriage and drive to Tipton? No; for some reason orother she preferred staying at Lowick. But her vagrant mind must bereduced to order: there was an art in self-discipline; and she walkedround and round the brown library considering by what sort of manoeuvreshe could arrest her wandering thoughts. Perhaps a mere task was thebest means--something to which she must go doggedly. Was there not thegeography of Asia Minor, in which her slackness had often been rebukedby Mr. Casaubon? She went to the cabinet of maps and unrolled one:this morning she might make herself finally sure that Paphlagonia wasnot on the Levantine coast, and fix her total darkness about theChalybes firmly on the shores of the Euxine. A map was a fine thing tostudy when you were disposed to think of something else, being made upof names that would turn into a chime if you went back upon them.Dorothea set earnestly to work, bending close to her map, and utteringthe names in an audible, subdued tone, which often got into a chime.She looked amusingly girlish after all her deep experience--noddingher head and marking the names off on her fingers, with a littlepursing of her lip, and now and then breaking off to put her hands oneach side of her face and say, "Oh dear! oh dear!"

  There was no reason why this should end any more than a merry-go-round;but it was at last interrupted by the opening of the door and theannouncement of Miss Noble.

  The little old lady, whose bonnet hardly reached Dorothea's shoulder,was warmly welcomed, but while her hand was being pressed she made manyof her beaver-like noises, as if she had something difficult to say.

  "Do sit down," said Dorothea, rolling a chair forward. "Am I wantedfor anything? I shall be so glad if I can do anything."

  "I will not stay," said Miss Noble, putting her hand into her smallbasket, and holding some article inside it nervously; "I have left afriend in the churchyard." She lapsed into her inarticulate sounds,and unconsciously drew forth the article which she was fingering. Itwas the tortoise-shell lozenge-box, and Dorothea felt the colormounting to her cheeks.

  "Mr. Ladislaw," continued the timid little woman. "He fears he hasoffended you, and has begged me to ask if you will see him for a fewminutes."

  Dorothea did not answer on the instant: it was crossing her mind thatshe could not receive him in this library, where her husband'sprohibition seemed to dwell. She looked towards the window. Could shego out and meet him in the grounds? The sky was heavy, and the treeshad begun to shiver as at a coming storm. Besides, she shrank fromgoing out to him.

  "Do see him, Mrs. Casaubon," said Miss Noble, pathetically; "else Imust go back and say No, and that will hurt him."

  "Yes, I will see him," said Dorothea. "Pray tell him to come."

  What else was there to be done? There was nothing that she longed forat that moment except to see Will: the possibility of seeing him hadthrust itself insistently between her and every other object; and yetshe had a throbbing excitement like an alarm upon her--a sense thatshe was doing something daringly defiant for his sake.

  When the little lady had trotted away on her mission, Dorothea stood inthe middle of the library with her hands falling clasped before her,making no attempt to compose herself in an attitude of dignifiedunconsciousness. What she was least conscious of just then was her ownbody: she was thinking of what was likely to be in Will's mind, and ofthe hard feelings that others had had about him. How could any dutybind her to hardness? Resistance to unjust dispraise had mingled withher feeling for him from the very first, and now in the rebound of herheart after her anguish the resistance was stronger than ever. "If Ilove him too much it is because he has been used so ill:"--there was avoice within her saying this to some imagined audience in the library,when the door was opened, and she saw Will before her.

  She did not move, and he came towards her with more doubt and timidityin his face than she had ever seen before. He was in a state ofuncertainty which made him afraid lest some look or word of his shouldcondemn him to a new distance from her; and Dorothea was afraid of her_own_ emotion. She looked as if there were a spell upon her, keepingher motionless and hindering her from unclasping her hands, while someintense, grave yearning was imprisoned within her eyes. Seeing thatshe did not put out her hand as usual, Will paused a yard from her andsaid with embarrassment, "I am so grateful to you for seeing me."

  "I wanted to see you," said Dorothea, having no other words at command.It did not occur to her to sit down, and Will did not give a cheerfulinterpretation to this queenly way of receiving him; but he went on tosay what he had made up his mind to say.

  "I fear you think me foolish and perhaps wrong for coming back so soon.I have been punished for my impatience. You know--every one knowsnow--a painful story about my parentage. I knew of it before I wentaway, and I always meant to tell you of it if--if we ever met again."

  There was a slight movement in Dorothea, and she unclasped her hands,but immediately folded them over each other.

  "But the affair is matter of gossip now," Will continued. "I wishedyou to know that something connected with it--something which happenedbefore I went away, helped to bring me down here again. At least Ithought it excused my coming. It was the idea of getting Bulstrode toapply some money to a public purpose--some money which he had thoughtof giving me. Perhaps it is rather to Bulstrode's credit that heprivately offered me compensation for an old injury: he offered to giveme a good income to make amends; but I suppose you know thedisagreeable story?"

  Will looked doubtfully at Dorothea, but his manner was gathering someof the defiant courage with which he always thought of this fact in hisdestiny. He added, "You know that it must be altogether painful to me."

  "Yes--yes--I know," said Dorothea, hastily.

  "I did not choose to accept an income from such a source. I was surethat you would not think well of me if I did so," said Will. Whyshould he mind saying anything of that sort to her now? She knew thathe had avowed his love for her. "I felt that"--he broke off,nevertheless.

  "You acted as I should have expected you to act," said Dorothea, herface brightening and her head becoming a little more erect on itsbeautiful stem.

  "I did not believe that you would let any circumstance of my birthcreate a prejudice in you against me, though it was sure to do so inothers," said Will, shaking his head backward in his old way, andlo
oking with a grave appeal into her eyes.

  "If it were a new hardship it would be a new reason for me to cling toyou," said Dorothea, fervidly. "Nothing could have changed me but--"her heart was swelling, and it was difficult to go on; she made a greateffort over herself to say in a low tremulous voice, "but thinking thatyou were different--not so good as I had believed you to be."

  "You are sure to believe me better than I am in everything but one,"said Will, giving way to his own feeling in the evidence of hers. "Imean, in my truth to you. When I thought you doubted of that, I didn'tcare about anything that was left. I thought it was all over with me,and there was nothing to try for--only things to endure."

  "I don't doubt you any longer," said Dorothea, putting out her hand; avague fear for him impelling her unutterable affection.

  He took her hand and raised it to his lips with something like a sob.But he stood with his hat and gloves in the other hand, and might havedone for the portrait of a Royalist. Still it was difficult to loosethe hand, and Dorothea, withdrawing it in a confusion that distressedher, looked and moved away.

  "See how dark the clouds have become, and how the trees are tossed,"she said, walking towards the window, yet speaking and moving with onlya dim sense of what she was doing.

  Will followed her at a little distance, and leaned against the tallback of a leather chair, on which he ventured now to lay his hat andgloves, and free himself from the intolerable durance of formality towhich he had been for the first time condemned in Dorothea's presence.It must be confessed that he felt very happy at that moment leaning onthe chair. He was not much afraid of anything that she might feel now.

  They stood silent, not looking at each other, but looking at theevergreens which were being tossed, and were showing the pale undersideof their leaves against the blackening sky. Will never enjoyed theprospect of a storm so much: it delivered him from the necessity ofgoing away. Leaves and little branches were hurled about, and thethunder was getting nearer. The light was more and more sombre, butthere came a flash of lightning which made them start and look at eachother, and then smile. Dorothea began to say what she had beenthinking of.

  "That was a wrong thing for you to say, that you would have had nothingto try for. If we had lost our own chief good, other people's goodwould remain, and that is worth trying for. Some can be happy. Iseemed to see that more clearly than ever, when I was the mostwretched. I can hardly think how I could have borne the trouble, ifthat feeling had not come to me to make strength."

  "You have never felt the sort of misery I felt," said Will; "the miseryof knowing that you must despise me."

  "But I have felt worse--it was worse to think ill--" Dorothea had begunimpetuously, but broke off.

  Will colored. He had the sense that whatever she said was uttered inthe vision of a fatality that kept them apart. He was silent a moment,and then said passionately--

  "We may at least have the comfort of speaking to each other withoutdisguise. Since I must go away--since we must always be divided--youmay think of me as one on the brink of the grave."

  While he was speaking there came a vivid flash of lightning which liteach of them up for the other--and the light seemed to be the terror ofa hopeless love. Dorothea darted instantaneously from the window; Willfollowed her, seizing her hand with a spasmodic movement; and so theystood, with their hands clasped, like two children, looking out on thestorm, while the thunder gave a tremendous crack and roll above them,and the rain began to pour down. Then they turned their faces towardseach other, with the memory of his last words in them, and they did notloose each other's hands.

  "There is no hope for me," said Will. "Even if you loved me as well asI love you--even if I were everything to you--I shall most likelyalways be very poor: on a sober calculation, one can count on nothingbut a creeping lot. It is impossible for us ever to belong to eachother. It is perhaps base of me to have asked for a word from you. Imeant to go away into silence, but I have not been able to do what Imeant."

  "Don't be sorry," said Dorothea, in her clear tender tones. "I wouldrather share all the trouble of our parting."

  Her lips trembled, and so did his. It was never known which lips werethe first to move towards the other lips; but they kissed tremblingly,and then they moved apart.

  The rain was dashing against the window-panes as if an angry spiritwere within it, and behind it was the great swoop of the wind; it wasone of those moments in which both the busy and the idle pause with acertain awe.

  Dorothea sat down on the seat nearest to her, a long low ottoman in themiddle of the room, and with her hands folded over each other on herlap, looked at the drear outer world. Will stood still an instantlooking at her, then seated himself beside her, and laid his hand onhers, which turned itself upward to be clasped. They sat in that waywithout looking at each other, until the rain abated and began to fallin stillness. Each had been full of thoughts which neither of themcould begin to utter.

  But when the rain was quiet, Dorothea turned to look at Will. Withpassionate exclamation, as if some torture screw were threatening him,he started up and said, "It is impossible!"

  He went and leaned on the back of the chair again, and seemed to bebattling with his own anger, while she looked towards him sadly.

  "It is as fatal as a murder or any other horror that divides people,"he burst out again; "it is more intolerable--to have our life maimed bypetty accidents."

  "No--don't say that--your life need not be maimed," said Dorothea,gently.

  "Yes, it must," said Will, angrily. "It is cruel of you to speak inthat way--as if there were any comfort. You may see beyond the miseryof it, but I don't. It is unkind--it is throwing back my love for youas if it were a trifle, to speak in that way in the face of the fact.We can never be married."

  "Some time--we might," said Dorothea, in a trembling voice.

  "When?" said Will, bitterly. "What is the use of counting on anysuccess of mine? It is a mere toss up whether I shall ever do morethan keep myself decently, unless I choose to sell myself as a mere penand a mouthpiece. I can see that clearly enough. I could not offermyself to any woman, even if she had no luxuries to renounce."

  There was silence. Dorothea's heart was full of something that shewanted to say, and yet the words were too difficult. She was whollypossessed by them: at that moment debate was mute within her. And itwas very hard that she could not say what she wanted to say. Will waslooking out of the window angrily. If he would have looked at her andnot gone away from her side, she thought everything would have beeneasier. At last he turned, still resting against the chair, andstretching his hand automatically towards his hat, said with a sort ofexasperation, "Good-by."

  "Oh, I cannot bear it--my heart will break," said Dorothea, startingfrom her seat, the flood of her young passion bearing down all theobstructions which had kept her silent--the great tears rising andfalling in an instant: "I don't mind about poverty--I hate my wealth."

  In an instant Will was close to her and had his arms round her, but shedrew her head back and held his away gently that she might go onspeaking, her large tear-filled eyes looking at his very simply, whileshe said in a sobbing childlike way, "We could live quite well on myown fortune--it is too much--seven hundred a-year--I want so little--nonew clothes--and I will learn what everything costs."