MIDDLEMARCH
PART 44
CHAPTER LXXXIV.
"Though it be songe of old and
yonge,
That I sholde be to blame,
Theyrs be the charge, that spoke so
large
In hurtynge of my name."
—The Not-Browne
Mayde.
It was
just after the Lords had thrown out the Reform Bill: that explains how Mr.
Cadwallader came to be walking on the slope of the lawn near the great
conservatory at Freshitt Hall, holding the "Times" in his hands
behind him, while he talked with a trout-fisher's dispassionateness about the
prospects of the country to Sir James Chettam. Mrs. Cadwallader, the Dowager
Lady Chettam, and Celia were sometimes seated on garden-chairs, sometimes
walking to meet little Arthur, who was being drawn in his chariot, and, as
became the infantine Bouddha, was sheltered by his sacred umbrella with
handsome silken fringe.
The
ladies also talked politics, though more fitfully. Mrs. Cadwallader was strong
on the intended creation of peers: she had it for certain from her cousin that
Truberry had gone over to the other side entirely at the instigation of his
wife, who had scented peerages in the air from the very first introduction of
the Reform question, and would sign her soul away to take precedence of her
younger sister, who had married a baronet. Lady Chettam thought that such
conduct was very reprehensible, and remembered that Mrs. Truberry's mother was
a Miss Walsingham of Melspring. Celia confessed it was nicer to be
"Lady" than "Mrs.," and that Dodo never minded about
precedence if she could have her own way. Mrs. Cadwallader held that it was a
poor satisfaction to take precedence when everybody about you knew that you had
not a drop of good blood in your veins; and Celia again, stopping to look at
Arthur, said, "It would be very nice, though, if he were a Viscount—and
his lordship's little tooth coming through! He might have been, if James had
been an Earl."
"My
dear Celia," said the Dowager, "James's title is worth far more than
any new earldom. I never wished his father to be anything else than Sir
James."
"Oh,
I only meant about Arthur's little tooth," said Celia, comfortably.
"But see, here is my uncle coming."
She
tripped off to meet her uncle, while Sir James and Mr. Cadwallader came forward
to make one group with the ladies. Celia had slipped her arm through her
uncle's, and he patted her hand with a rather melancholy "Well, my
dear!" As they approached, it was evident that Mr. Brooke was looking
dejected, but this was fully accounted for by the state of politics; and as he
was shaking hands all round without more greeting than a "Well, you're all
here, you know," the Rector said, laughingly—
"Don't
take the throwing out of the Bill so much to heart, Brooke; you've got all the
riff-raff of the country on your side."
"The
Bill, eh? ah!" said Mr. Brooke, with a mild distractedness of manner.
"Thrown out, you know, eh? The Lords are going too far, though. They'll
have to pull up. Sad news, you know. I mean, here at home—sad news. But you
must not blame me, Chettam."
"What
is the matter?" said Sir James. "Not another gamekeeper shot, I hope?
It's what I should expect, when a fellow like Trapping Bass is let off so
easily."
"Gamekeeper?
No. Let us go in; I can tell you all in the house, you know," said Mr.
Brooke, nodding at the Cadwalladers, to show that he included them in his
confidence. "As to poachers like Trapping Bass, you know, Chettam,"
he continued, as they were entering, "when you are a magistrate, you'll
not find it so easy to commit. Severity is all very well, but it's a great deal
easier when you've got somebody to do it for you. You have a soft place in your
heart yourself, you know—you're not a Draco, a Jeffreys, that sort of
thing."
Mr.
Brooke was evidently in a state of nervous perturbation. When he had something
painful to tell, it was usually his way to introduce it among a number of
disjointed particulars, as if it were a medicine that would get a milder
flavour by mixing. He continued his chat with Sir James about the poachers
until they were all seated, and Mrs. Cadwallader, impatient of this drivelling,
said—
"I'm
dying to know the sad news. The gamekeeper is not shot: that is settled. What
is it, then?"
"Well,
it's a very trying thing, you know," said Mr. Brooke. "I'm glad you
and the Rector are here; it's a family matter—but you will help us all to bear
it, Cadwallader. I've got to break it to you, my dear." Here Mr. Brooke
looked at Celia—"You've no notion what it is, you know. And, Chettam, it
will annoy you uncommonly—but, you see, you have not been able to hinder it,
any more than I have. There's something singular in things: they come round,
you know."
"It
must be about Dodo," said Celia, who had been used to think of her sister
as the dangerous part of the family machinery. She had seated herself on a low
stool against her husband's knee.
"For
God's sake let us hear what it is!" said Sir James.
"Well,
you know, Chettam, I couldn't help Casaubon's will: it was a sort of will to
make things worse."
"Exactly,"
said Sir James, hastily. "But what is worse?"
"Dorothea
is going to be married again, you know," said Mr. Brooke, nodding towards
Celia, who immediately looked up at her husband with a frightened glance, and
put her hand on his knee. Sir James was almost white with anger, but he did not
speak.
"Merciful
heaven!" said Mrs. Cadwallader. "Not to young Ladislaw?"
Mr.
Brooke nodded, saying, "Yes; to Ladislaw," and then fell into a
prudential silence.
"You
see, Humphrey!" said Mrs. Cadwallader, waving her arm towards her husband.
"Another time you will admit that I have some foresight; or rather you
will contradict me and be just as blind as ever. You supposed that the
young gentleman was gone out of the country."
"So
he might be, and yet come back," said the Rector, quietly
"When
did you learn this?" said Sir James, not liking to hear any one else
speak, though finding it difficult to speak himself.
"Yesterday,"
said Mr. Brooke, meekly. "I went to Lowick. Dorothea sent for me, you
know. It had come about quite suddenly—neither of them had any idea two days
ago—not any idea, you know. There's something singular in things. But Dorothea
is quite determined—it is no use opposing. I put it strongly to her. I did my
duty, Chettam. But she can act as she likes, you know."
"It
would have been better if I had called him out and shot him a year ago,"
said Sir James, not from bloody-mindedness, but because he needed something
strong to say.
"Really,
James, that would have been very disagreeable," said Celia.
"Be
reasonable, Chettam. Look at the affair more quietly," said Mr.
Cadwallader, sorry to see his good-natured friend so overmastered by anger.
"That
is not so very easy for a man of any dignity—with any sense of right—when the
affair happens to be in his own family," said Sir James, still in his white
indignation. "It is perfectly scandalous. If Ladislaw had had a spark of
honour he would have gone out of the country at once, and never shown his face
in it again. However, I am not surprised. The day after Casaubon's funeral I
said what ought to be done. But I was not listened to."
"You
wanted what was impossible, you know, Chettam," said Mr. Brooke. "You
wanted him shipped off. I told you Ladislaw was not to be done as we liked
with: he had his ideas. He was a remarkable fellow—I always said he was a
remarkable fellow."
"Yes,"
said Sir James, unable to repress a retort, "it is rather a pity you
formed that high opinion of him. We are indebted to that for his being lodged
in this neighborhood. We are indebted to that for seeing a woman like Dorothea
degrading herself by marrying him." Sir James made little stoppages
between his clauses, the words not coming easily. "A man so marked out by
her husband's will, that delicacy ought to have forbidden her from seeing him
again—who takes her out of her proper rank—into poverty—has the meanness to
accept such a sacrifice—has always had an objectionable position—a bad
origin—and, I believe, is a man of little principle and light character.
That is my opinion." Sir James ended emphatically, turning aside and crossing
his leg.
"I
pointed everything out to her," said Mr. Brooke, apologetically—"I
mean the poverty, and abandoning her position. I said, 'My dear, you don't know
what it is to live on seven hundred a-year, and have no carriage, and that kind
of thing, and go amongst people who don't know who you are.' I put it strongly
to her. But I advise you to talk to Dorothea herself. The fact is, she has a
dislike to Casaubon's property. You will hear what she says, you know."
"No—excuse
me—I shall not," said Sir James, with more coolness. "I cannot bear
to see her again; it is too painful. It hurts me too much that a woman like
Dorothea should have done what is wrong."
"Be
just, Chettam," said the easy, large-lipped Rector, who objected to all
this unnecessary discomfort. "Mrs. Casaubon may be acting imprudently: she
is giving up a fortune for the sake of a man, and we men have so poor an
opinion of each other that we can hardly call a woman wise who does that. But I
think you should not condemn it as a wrong action, in the strict sense of the
word."
"Yes,
I do," answered Sir James. "I think that Dorothea commits a wrong
action in marrying Ladislaw."
"My
dear fellow, we are rather apt to consider an act wrong because it is unpleasant
to us," said the Rector, quietly. Like many men who take life easily, he
had the knack of saying a home truth occasionally to those who felt themselves
virtuously out of temper. Sir James took out his handkerchief and began to bite
the corner.
"It
is very dreadful of Dodo, though," said Celia, wishing to justify her
husband. "She said she never would marry again—not anybody at
all."
"I
heard her say the same thing myself," said Lady Chettam, majestically, as
if this were royal evidence.
"Oh,
there is usually a silent exception in such cases," said Mrs. Cadwallader.
"The only wonder to me is, that any of you are surprised. You did nothing
to hinder it. If you would have had Lord Triton down here to woo her with his
philanthropy, he might have carried her off before the year was over. There was
no safety in anything else. Mr. Casaubon had prepared all this as beautifully
as possible. He made himself disagreeable—or it pleased God to make him so—and
then he dared her to contradict him. It's the way to make any trumpery
tempting, to ticket it at a high price in that way."
"I
don't know what you mean by wrong, Cadwallader," said Sir James, still
feeling a little stung, and turning round in his chair towards the Rector.
"He's not a man we can take into the family. At least, I must speak for
myself," he continued, carefully keeping his eyes off Mr. Brooke. "I
suppose others will find his society too pleasant to care about the propriety
of the thing."
"Well,
you know, Chettam," said Mr. Brooke, good-humouredly, nursing his leg,
"I can't turn my back on Dorothea. I must be a father to her up to a
certain point. I said, 'My dear, I won't refuse to give you away.' I had spoken
strongly before. But I can cut off the entail, you know. It will cost money and
be troublesome; but I can do it, you know."
Mr.
Brooke nodded at Sir James, and felt that he was both showing his own force of
resolution and propitiating what was just in the Baronet's vexation. He had hit
on a more ingenious mode of parrying than he was aware of. He had touched a
motive of which Sir James was ashamed. The mass of his feeling about Dorothea's
marriage to Ladislaw was due partly to excusable prejudice, or even justifiable
opinion, partly to a jealous repugnance hardly less in Ladislaw's case than in
Casaubon's. He was convinced that the marriage was a fatal one for Dorothea.
But amid that mass ran a vein of which he was too good and honourable a man to
like the avowal even to himself: it was undeniable that the union of the two
estates—Tipton and Freshitt—lying charmingly within a ring-fence, was a
prospect that flattered him for his son and heir. Hence when Mr. Brooke
noddingly appealed to that motive, Sir James felt a sudden embarrassment; there
was a stoppage in his throat; he even blushed. He had found more words than
usual in the first jet of his anger, but Mr. Brooke's propitiation was more
clogging to his tongue than Mr. Cadwallader's caustic hint.
But Celia
was glad to have room for speech after her uncle's suggestion of the marriage
ceremony, and she said, though with as little eagerness of manner as if the
question had turned on an invitation to dinner, "Do you mean that Dodo is
going to be married directly, uncle?"
"In
three weeks, you know," said Mr. Brooke, helplessly. "I can do
nothing to hinder it, Cadwallader," he added, turning for a little
countenance toward the Rector, who said—
"—I—should
not make any fuss about it. If she likes to be poor, that is her affair. Nobody
would have said anything if she had married the young fellow because he was
rich. Plenty of beneficed clergy are poorer than they will be. Here is
Elinor," continued the provoking husband; "she vexed her friends by
me: I had hardly a thousand a-year—I was a lout—nobody could see anything in
me—my shoes were not the right cut—all the men wondered how a woman could like
me. Upon my word, I must take Ladislaw's part until I hear more harm of
him."
"Humphrey,
that is all sophistry, and you know it," said his wife. "Everything
is all one—that is the beginning and end with you. As if you had not been a
Cadwallader! Does any one suppose that I would have taken such a monster as you
by any other name?"
"And
a clergyman too," observed Lady Chettam with approbation. "Elinor
cannot be said to have descended below her rank. It is difficult to say what
Mr. Ladislaw is, eh, James?"
Sir James
gave a small grunt, which was less respectful than his usual mode of answering
his mother. Celia looked up at him like a thoughtful kitten.
"It
must be admitted that his blood is a frightful mixture!" said Mrs.
Cadwallader. "The Casaubon cuttle-fish fluid to begin with, and then a
rebellious Polish fiddler or dancing-master, was it?—and then an old clo—"
"Nonsense,
Elinor," said the Rector, rising. "It is time for us to go."
"After
all, he is a pretty sprig," said Mrs. Cadwallader, rising too, and wishing
to make amends. "He is like the fine old Crichley portraits before the
idiots came in."
"I'll
go with you," said Mr. Brooke, starting up with alacrity. "You must
all come and dine with me to-morrow, you know—eh, Celia, my dear?"
"You
will, James—won't you?" said Celia, taking her husband's hand.
"Oh,
of course, if you like," said Sir James, pulling down his waistcoat, but
unable yet to adjust his face good-humouredly. "That is to say, if it is
not to meet anybody else.':
"No,
no, no," said Mr. Brooke, understanding the condition. "Dorothea
would not come, you know, unless you had been to see her."
When Sir
James and Celia were alone, she said, "Do you mind about my having the
carriage to go to Lowick, James?"
"What,
now, directly?" he answered, with some surprise.
"Yes,
it is very important," said Celia.
"Remember,
Celia, I cannot see her," said Sir James.
"Not
if she gave up marrying?"
"What
is the use of saying that?—however, I'm going to the stables. I'll tell Briggs
to bring the carriage round."
Celia
thought it was of great use, if not to say that, at least to take a journey to
Lowick in order to influence Dorothea's mind. All through their girlhood she
had felt that she could act on her sister by a word judiciously placed—by
opening a little window for the daylight of her own understanding to enter
among the strange colored lamps by which Dodo habitually saw. And Celia the
matron naturally felt more able to advise her childless sister. How could any
one understand Dodo so well as Celia did or love her so tenderly?
Dorothea,
busy in her boudoir, felt a glow of pleasure at the sight of her sister so soon
after the revelation of her intended marriage. She had prefigured to herself,
even with exaggeration, the disgust of her friends, and she had even feared
that Celia might be kept aloof from her.
"O
Kitty, I am delighted to see you!" said Dorothea, putting her hands on
Celia's shoulders, and beaming on her. "I almost thought you would not
come to me."
"I
have not brought Arthur, because I was in a hurry," said Celia, and they
sat down on two small chairs opposite each other, with their knees touching.
"You
know, Dodo, it is very bad," said Celia, in her placid guttural, looking
as prettily free from humours as possible. "You have disappointed us all
so. And I can't think that it ever will be—you never can go and live in
that way. And then there are all your plans! You never can have thought of
that. James would have taken any trouble for you, and you might have gone on
all your life doing what you liked."
"On
the contrary, dear," said Dorothea, "I never could do anything that I
liked. I have never carried out any plan yet."
"Because
you always wanted things that wouldn't do. But other plans would have come. And
how can you marry Mr. Ladislaw, that we none of us ever thought you could
marry? It shocks James so dreadfully. And then it is all so different from what
you have always been. You would have Mr. Casaubon because he had such a great
soul, and was so and dismal and learned; and now, to think of marrying Mr.
Ladislaw, who has got no estate or anything. I suppose it is because you must
be making yourself uncomfortable in some way or other."
Dorothea
laughed.
"Well,
it is very serious, Dodo," said Celia, becoming more impressive. "How
will you live? and you will go away among queer people. And I shall never see
you—and you won't mind about little Arthur—and I thought you always
would—"
Celia's
rare tears had got into her eyes, and the corners of her mouth were agitated.
"Dear
Celia," said Dorothea, with tender gravity, "if you don't ever see
me, it will not be my fault."
"Yes,
it will," said Celia, with the same touching distortion of her small
features. "How can I come to you or have you with me when James can't bear
it?—that is because he thinks it is not right—he thinks you are so wrong, Dodo.
But you always were wrong: only I can't help loving you. And nobody can think
where you will live: where can you go?"
"I
am going to London," said Dorothea.
"How
can you always live in a street? And you will be so poor. I could give you half
my things, only how can I, when I never see you?"
"Bless
you, Kitty," said Dorothea, with gentle warmth. "Take comfort:
perhaps James will forgive me some time."
"But
it would be much better if you would not be married," said Celia, drying
her eyes, and returning to her argument; "then there would be nothing
uncomfortable. And you would not do what nobody thought you could do. James
always said you ought to be a queen; but this is not at all being like a queen.
You know what mistakes you have always been making, Dodo, and this is another.
Nobody thinks Mr. Ladislaw a proper husband for you. And you said you
would never be married again."
"It
is quite true that I might be a wiser person, Celia," said Dorothea,
"and that I might have done something better, if I had been better. But
this is what I am going to do. I have promised to marry Mr. Ladislaw; and I am
going to marry him."
The tone
in which Dorothea said this was a note that Celia had long learned to
recognize. She was silent a few moments, and then said, as if she had dismissed
all contest, "Is he very fond of you, Dodo?"
"I
hope so. I am very fond of him."
"That
is nice," said Celia, comfortably. "Only I rather you had such a sort
of husband as James is, with a place very near, that I could drive to."
Dorothea
smiled, and Celia looked rather meditative. Presently she said, "I cannot
think how it all came about." Celia thought it would be pleasant to hear
the story.
"I
dare say not," said-Dorothea, pinching her sister's chin. "If you
knew how it came about, it would not seem wonderful to you."
"Can't
you tell me?" said Celia, settling her arms cozily.
"No,
dear, you would have to feel with me, else you would never know."
CHAPTER LXXXV.
"Then
went the jury out whose names were Mr. Blindman, Mr. No-good, Mr. Malice, Mr.
Love-lust, Mr. Live-loose, Mr. Heady, Mr. High-mind, Mr. Enmity, Mr. Liar, Mr.
Cruelty, Mr. Hate-light, Mr. Implacable, who every one gave in his private
verdict against him among themselves, and afterwards unanimously concluded to
bring him in guilty before the judge. And first among themselves, Mr. Blindman,
the foreman, said, I see clearly that this man is a heretic. Then said Mr.
No-good, Away with such a fellow from the earth! Ay, said Mr. Malice, for I
hate the very look of him. Then said Mr. Love-lust, I could never endure him.
Nor I, said Mr. Live-loose; for he would be always condemning my way. Hang him,
hang him, said Mr. Heady. A sorry scrub, said Mr. High-mind. My heart riseth
against him, said Mr. Enmity. He is a rogue, said Mr. Liar. Hanging is too good
for him, said Mr. Cruelty. Let us despatch him out of the way said Mr.
Hate-light. Then said Mr. Implacable, Might I have all the world given me, I
could not be reconciled to him; therefore let us forthwith bring him in guilty
of death."—Pilgrim's Progress.
When
immortal Bunyan makes his picture of the persecuting passions bringing in their
verdict of guilty, who pities Faithful? That is a rare and blessed lot which
some greatest men have not attained, to know ourselves guiltless before a
condemning crowd—to be sure that what we are denounced for is solely the good
in us. The pitiable lot is that of the man who could not call himself a martyr
even though he were to persuade himself that the men who stoned him were but
ugly passions incarnate—who knows that he is stoned, not for professing the
Right, but for not being the man he professed to be.
This was
the consciousness that Bulstrode was withering under while he made his
preparations for departing from Middlemarch, and going to end his stricken life
in that sad refuge, the indifference of new faces. The duteous merciful
constancy of his wife had delivered him from one dread, but it could not hinder
her presence from being still a tribunal before which he shrank from confession
and desired advocacy. His equivocations with himself about the death of Raffles
had sustained the conception of an Omniscience whom he prayed to, yet he had a
terror upon him which would not let him expose them to judgment by a full confession
to his wife: the acts which he had washed and diluted with inward argument and
motive, and for which it seemed comparatively easy to win invisible pardon—what
name would she call them by? That she should ever silently call his acts Murder
was what he could not bear. He felt shrouded by her doubt: he got strength to
face her from the sense that she could not yet feel warranted in pronouncing
that worst condemnation on him. Some time, perhaps—when he was dying—he would
tell her all: in the deep shadow of that time, when she held his hand in the
gathering darkness, she might listen without recoiling from his touch. Perhaps:
but concealment had been the habit of his life, and the impulse to confession
had no power against the dread of a deeper humiliation.
He was
full of timid care for his wife, not only because he deprecated any harshness
of judgment from her, but because he felt a deep distress at the sight of her
suffering. She had sent her daughters away to board at a school on the coast,
that this crisis might be hidden from them as far as possible. Set free by
their absence from the intolerable necessity of accounting for her grief or of
beholding their frightened wonder, she could live unconstrainedly with the
sorrow that was every day streaking her hair with whiteness and making her
eyelids languid.
"Tell
me anything that you would like to have me do, Harriet," Bulstrode had
said to her; "I mean with regard to arrangements of property. It is my
intention not to sell the land I possess in this neighborhood, but to leave it
to you as a safe provision. If you have any wish on such subjects, do not
conceal it from me."
A few
days afterwards, when she had returned from a visit to her brother's, she began
to speak to her husband on a subject which had for some time been in her mind.
"I should
like to do something for my brother's family, Nicholas; and I think we are
bound to make some amends to Rosamond and her husband. Walter says Mr. Lydgate
must leave the town, and his practice is almost good for nothing, and they have
very little left to settle anywhere with. I would rather do without something
for ourselves, to make some amends to my poor brother's family."
Mrs.
Bulstrode did not wish to go nearer to the facts than in the phrase "make
some amends;" knowing that her husband must understand her. He had a
particular reason, which she was not aware of, for wincing under her
suggestion. He hesitated before he said—
"It
is not possible to carry out your wish in the way you propose, my dear. Mr.
Lydgate has virtually rejected any further service from me. He has returned the
thousand pounds which I lent him. Mrs. Casaubon advanced him the sum for that
purpose. Here is his letter."
The
letter seemed to cut Mrs. Bulstrode severely. The mention of Mrs. Casaubon's
loan seemed a reflection of that public feeling which held it a matter of
course that every one would avoid a connection with her husband. She was silent
for some time; and the tears fell one after the other, her chin trembling as
she wiped them away. Bulstrode, sitting opposite to her, ached at the sight of
that grief-worn face, which two months before had been bright and blooming. It
had aged to keep sad company with his own withered features. Urged into some
effort at comforting her, he said—
"There
is another means, Harriet, by which I might do a service to your brother's
family, if you like to act in it. And it would, I think, be beneficial to you:
it would be an advantageous way of managing the land which I mean to be
yours."
She
looked attentive.
"Garth
once thought of undertaking the management of Stone Court in order to place
your nephew Fred there. The stock was to remain as it is, and they were to pay
a certain share of the profits instead of an ordinary rent. That would be a
desirable beginning for the young man, in conjunction with his employment under
Garth. Would it be a satisfaction to you?"
"Yes,
it would," said Mrs. Bulstrode, with some return of energy. "Poor
Walter is so cast down; I would try anything in my power to do him some good
before I go away. We have always been brother and sister."
"You
must make the proposal to Garth yourself, Harriet," said Mr. Bulstrode,
not liking what he had to say, but desiring the end he had in view, for other
reasons besides the consolation of his wife. "You must state to him that
the land is virtually yours, and that he need have no transactions with me.
Communications can be made through Standish. I mention this, because Garth gave
up being my agent. I can put into your hands a paper which he himself drew up,
stating conditions; and you can propose his renewed acceptance of them. I think
it is not unlikely that he will accept when you propose the thing for the sake
of your nephew."
CHAPTER LXXXVI.
"Le
coeur se sature d'amour comme d'un sel divin qui le conserve; de la
l'incorruptible adherence de ceux qui se sont aimes des l'aube de la vie, et la
fraicheur des vielles amours prolonges. Il existe un embaumement d'amour. C'est
de Daphnis et Chloe que sont faits Philemon et Baucis. Cette vieillesse la,
ressemblance du soir avec l'aurore."—VICTOR HUGO: L'homme qui rit.
Mrs.
Garth, hearing Caleb enter the passage about tea-time, opened the parlour-door
and said, "There you are, Caleb. Have you had your dinner?" (Mr.
Garth's meals were much subordinated to "business.")
"Oh
yes, a good dinner—cold mutton and I don't know what. Where is Mary?"
"In
the garden with Letty, I think."
"Fred
is not come yet?"
"No.
Are you going out again without taking tea, Caleb?" said Mrs. Garth,
seeing that her absent-minded husband was putting on again the hat which he had
just taken off.
"No,
no; I'm only going to Mary a minute."
Mary was
in a grassy corner of the garden, where there was a swing loftily hung between
two pear-trees. She had a pink kerchief tied over her head, making a little
poke to shade her eyes from the level sunbeams, while she was giving a glorious
swing to Letty, who laughed and screamed wildly.
Seeing
her father, Mary left the swing and went to meet him, pushing back the pink
kerchief and smiling afar off at him with the involuntary smile of loving
pleasure.
"I
came to look for you, Mary," said Mr. Garth. "Let us walk about a
bit."
Mary knew
quite well that her father had something particular to say: his eyebrows made
their pathetic angle, and there was a tender gravity in his voice: these things
had been signs to her when she was Letty's age. She put her arm within his, and
they turned by the row of nut-trees.
"It
will be a sad while before you can be married, Mary," said her father, not
looking at her, but at the end of the stick which he held in his other hand.
"Not
a sad while, father—I mean to be merry," said Mary, laughingly. "I
have been single and merry for four-and-twenty years and more: I suppose it
will not be quite as long again as that." Then, after a little pause, she
said, more gravely, bending her face before her father's, "If you are
contented with Fred?"
Caleb
screwed up his mouth and turned his head aside wisely.
"Now,
father, you did praise him last Wednesday. You said he had an uncommon notion
of stock, and a good eye for things."
"Did
I?" said Caleb, rather slyly.
"Yes,
I put it all down, and the date, anno Domini, and everything," said Mary.
"You like things to be neatly booked. And then his behaviour to you,
father, is really good; he has a deep respect for you; and it is impossible to
have a better temper than Fred has."
"Ay,
ay; you want to coax me into thinking him a fine match."
"No,
indeed, father. I don't love him because he is a fine match."
"What
for, then?"
"Oh,
dear, because I have always loved him. I should never like scolding any one
else so well; and that is a point to be thought of in a husband."
"Your
mind is quite settled, then, Mary?" said Caleb, returning to his first
tone. "There's no other wish come into it since things have been going on
as they have been of late?" (Caleb meant a great deal in that vague
phrase;) "because, better late than never. A woman must not force her
heart—she'll do a man no good by that."
"My
feelings have not changed, father," said Mary, calmly. "I shall be
constant to Fred as long as he is constant to me. I don't think either of us
could spare the other, or like any one else better, however much we might
admire them. It would make too great a difference to us—like seeing all the old
places altered, and changing the name for everything. We must wait for each
other a long while; but Fred knows that."
Instead
of speaking immediately, Caleb stood still and screwed his stick on the grassy
walk. Then he said, with emotion in his voice, "Well, I've got a bit of
news. What do you think of Fred going to live at Stone Court, and managing the
land there?"
"How
can that ever be, father?" said Mary, wonderingly.
"He
would manage it for his aunt Bulstrode. The poor woman has been to me begging
and praying. She wants to do the lad good, and it might be a fine thing for
him. With saving, he might gradually buy the stock, and he has a turn for
farming."
"Oh,
Fred would be so happy! It is too good to believe."
"Ah,
but mind you," said Caleb, turning his head warningly, "I must take
it on my shoulders, and be responsible, and see after everything; and
that will grieve your mother a bit, though she mayn't say so. Fred had need be
careful."
"Perhaps
it is too much, father," said Mary, checked in her joy. "There would
be no happiness in bringing you any fresh trouble."
"Nay,
nay; work is my delight, child, when it doesn't vex your mother. And then, if
you and Fred get married," here Caleb's voice shook just perceptibly,
"he'll be steady and saving; and you've got your mother's cleverness, and
mine too, in a woman's sort of way; and you'll keep him in order. He'll be
coming by-and-by, so I wanted to tell you first, because I think you'd like to
tell him by yourselves. After that, I could talk it well over with him,
and we could go into business and the nature of things."
"Oh,
you dear good father!" cried Mary, putting her hands round her father's
neck, while he bent his head placidly, willing to be caressed. "I wonder
if any other girl thinks her father the best man in the world!"
"Nonsense,
child; you'll think your husband better."
"Impossible,"
said Mary, relapsing into her usual tone; "husbands are an inferior class
of men, who require keeping in order."
When they
were entering the house with Letty, who had run to join them, Mary saw Fred at
the orchard-gate, and went to meet him.
"What
fine clothes you wear, you extravagant youth!" said Mary, as Fred stood
still and raised his hat to her with playful formality. "You are not
learning economy."
"Now
that is too bad, Mary," said Fred. "Just look at the edges of these
coat-cuffs! It is only by dint of good brushing that I look respectable. I am
saving up three suits—one for a wedding-suit."
"How
very droll you will look!—like a gentleman in an old fashion-book."
"Oh
no, they will keep two years."
"Two
years! be reasonable, Fred," said Mary, turning to walk. "Don't
encourage flattering expectations."
"Why
not? One lives on them better than on unflattering ones. If we can't be married
in two years, the truth will be quite bad enough when it comes."
"I
have heard a story of a young gentleman who once encouraged flattering
expectations, and they did him harm."
"Mary,
if you've got something discouraging to tell me, I shall bolt; I shall go into
the house to Mr. Garth. I am out of spirits. My father is so cut up—home is not
like itself. I can't bear any more bad news."
"Should
you call it bad news to be told that you were to live at Stone Court, and
manage the farm, and be remarkably prudent, and save money every year till all
the stock and furniture were your own, and you were a distinguished
agricultural character, as Mr. Borthrop Trumbull says—rather stout, I fear, and
with the Greek and Latin sadly weather-worn?"
"You
don't mean anything except nonsense, Mary?" said Fred, coloring slightly
nevertheless.
"That
is what my father has just told me of as what may happen, and he never talks
nonsense," said Mary, looking up at Fred now, while he grasped her hand as
they walked, till it rather hurt her; but she would not complain.
"Oh,
I could be a tremendously good fellow then, Mary, and we could be married
directly."
"Not
so fast, sir; how do you know that I would not rather defer our marriage for
some years? That would leave you time to misbehave, and then if I liked some
one else better, I should have an excuse for jilting you."
"Pray
don't joke, Mary," said Fred, with strong feeling. "Tell me seriously
that all this is true, and that you are happy because of it—because you love me
best."
"It
is all true, Fred, and I am happy because of it—because I love you best,"
said Mary, in a tone of obedient recitation.
They
lingered on the door-step under the steep-roofed porch, and Fred almost in a
whisper said—
"When
we were first engaged, with the umbrella-ring, Mary, you used to—"
The
spirit of joy began to laugh more decidedly in Mary's eyes, but the fatal Ben
came running to the door with Brownie yapping behind him, and, bouncing against
them, said—
"Fred
and Mary! are you ever coming in?—or may I eat your cake?"
FINALE.
Every
limit is a beginning as well as an ending. Who can quit young lives after being
long in company with them, and not desire to know what befell them in their
after-years? For the fragment of a life, however typical, is not the sample of
an even web: promises may not be kept, and an ardent outset may be followed by
declension; latent powers may find their long-waited opportunity; a past error
may urge a grand retrieval.
Marriage,
which has been the bourne of so many narratives, is still a great beginning, as
it was to Adam and Eve, who kept their honeymoon in Eden, but had their first
little one among the thorns and thistles of the wilderness. It is still the
beginning of the home epic—the gradual conquest or irremediable loss of that
complete union which makes the advancing years a climax, and age the harvest of
sweet memories in common.
Some set
out, like Crusaders of old, with a glorious equipment of hope and enthusiasm
and get broken by the way, wanting patience with each other and the world.
All who
have cared for Fred Vincy and Mary Garth will like to know that these two made
no such failure, but achieved a solid mutual happiness. Fred surprised his
neighbors in various ways. He became rather distinguished in his side of the
county as a theoretic and practical farmer, and produced a work on the
"Cultivation of Green Crops and the Economy of Cattle-Feeding" which
won him high congratulations at agricultural meetings. In Middlemarch
admiration was more reserved: most persons there were inclined to believe that
the merit of Fred's authorship was due to his wife, since they had never
expected Fred Vincy to write on turnips and mangel-wurzel.
But when
Mary wrote a little book for her boys, called "Stories of Great Men, taken
from Plutarch," and had it printed and published by Gripp & Co.,
Middlemarch, every one in the town was willing to give the credit of this work
to Fred, observing that he had been to the University, "where the ancients
were studied," and might have been a clergyman if he had chosen.
In this
way it was made clear that Middlemarch had never been deceived, and that there
was no need to praise anybody for writing a book, since it was always done by
somebody else.
Moreover,
Fred remained unswervingly steady. Some years after his marriage he told Mary
that his happiness was half owing to Farebrother, who gave him a strong pull-up
at the right moment. I cannot say that he was never again misled by his
hopefulness: the yield of crops or the profits of a cattle sale usually fell
below his estimate; and he was always prone to believe that he could make money
by the purchase of a horse which turned out badly—though this, Mary observed,
was of course the fault of the horse, not of Fred's judgment. He kept his love
of horsemanship, but he rarely allowed himself a day's hunting; and when he did
so, it was remarkable that he submitted to be laughed at for cowardliness at
the fences, seeming to see Mary and the boys sitting on the five-barred gate,
or showing their curly heads between hedge and ditch.
There
were three boys: Mary was not discontented that she brought forth men-children
only; and when Fred wished to have a girl like her, she said, laughingly,
"that would be too great a trial to your mother." Mrs. Vincy in her
declining years, and in the diminished lustre of her housekeeping, was much
comforted by her perception that two at least of Fred's boys were real Vincys,
and did not "feature the Garths." But Mary secretly rejoiced that the
youngest of the three was very much what her father must have been when he wore
a round jacket, and showed a marvellous nicety of aim in playing at marbles, or
in throwing stones to bring down the mellow pears.
Ben and
Letty Garth, who were uncle and aunt before they were well in their teens,
disputed much as to whether nephews or nieces were more desirable; Ben
contending that it was clear girls were good for less than boys, else they
would not be always in petticoats, which showed how little they were meant for;
whereupon Letty, who argued much from books, got angry in replying that God
made coats of skins for both Adam and Eve alike—also it occurred to her that in
the East the men too wore petticoats. But this latter argument, obscuring the
majesty of the former, was one too many, for Ben answered contemptuously,
"The more spooneys they!" and immediately appealed to his mother
whether boys were not better than girls. Mrs. Garth pronounced that both were
alike naughty, but that boys were undoubtedly stronger, could run faster, and
throw with more precision to a greater distance. With this oracular sentence
Ben was well satisfied, not minding the naughtiness; but Letty took it ill, her
feeling of superiority being stronger than her muscles.
Fred
never became rich—his hopefulness had not led him to expect that; but he
gradually saved enough to become owner of the stock and furniture at Stone
Court, and the work which Mr. Garth put into his hands carried him in plenty
through those "bad times" which are always present with farmers.
Mary, in her matronly days, became as solid in figure as her mother; but,
unlike her, gave the boys little formal teaching, so that Mrs. Garth was
alarmed lest they should never be well grounded in grammar and geography.
Nevertheless, they were found quite forward enough when they went to school;
perhaps, because they had liked nothing so well as being with their mother.
When Fred was riding home on winter evenings he had a pleasant vision
beforehand of the bright hearth in the wainscoted parlour, and was sorry for
other men who could not have Mary for their wife; especially for Mr.
Farebrother. "He was ten times worthier of you than I was," Fred
could now say to her, magnanimously. "To be sure he was," Mary
answered; "and for that reason he could do better without me. But you—I
shudder to think what you would have been—a curate in debt for horse-hire and
cambric pocket-handkerchiefs!"
On
inquiry it might possibly be found that Fred and Mary still inhabit Stone
Court—that the creeping plants still cast the foam of their blossoms over the
fine stone-wall into the field where the walnut-trees stand in stately row—and
that on sunny days the two lovers who were first engaged with the umbrella-ring
may be seen in white-haired placidity at the open window from which Mary Garth,
in the days of old Peter Featherstone, had often been ordered to look out for
Mr. Lydgate.
Lydgate's
hair never became white. He died when he was only fifty, leaving his wife and
children provided for by a heavy insurance on his life. He had gained an
excellent practice, alternating, according to the season, between London and a
Continental bathing-place; having written a treatise on Gout, a disease which
has a good deal of wealth on its side. His skill was relied on by many paying
patients, but he always regarded himself as a failure: he had not done what he
once meant to do. His acquaintances thought him enviable to have so charming a
wife, and nothing happened to shake their opinion. Rosamond never committed a
second compromising indiscretion. She simply continued to be mild in her
temper, inflexible in her judgment, disposed to admonish her husband, and able
to frustrate him by stratagem. As the years went on he opposed her less and
less, whence Rosamond concluded that he had learned the value of her opinion;
on the other hand, she had a more thorough conviction of his talents now that
he gained a good income, and instead of the threatened cage in Bride Street
provided one all flowers and gilding, fit for the bird of paradise that she
resembled. In brief, Lydgate was what is called a successful man. But he died
prematurely of diphtheria, and Rosamond afterwards married an elderly and
wealthy physician, who took kindly to her four children. She made a very pretty
show with her daughters, driving out in her carriage, and often spoke of her
happiness as "a reward"—she did not say for what, but probably she
meant that it was a reward for her patience with Tertius, whose temper never
became faultless, and to the last occasionally let slip a bitter speech which
was more memorable than the signs he made of his repentance. He once called her
his basil plant; and when she asked for an explanation, said that basil was a
plant which had flourished wonderfully on a murdered man's brains. Rosamond had
a placid but strong answer to such speeches. Why then had he chosen her? It was
a pity he had not had Mrs. Ladislaw, whom he was always praising and placing
above her. And thus the conversation ended with the advantage on Rosamond's
side. But it would be unjust not to tell, that she never uttered a word in
depreciation of Dorothea, keeping in religious remembrance the generosity which
had come to her aid in the sharpest crisis of her life.
Dorothea
herself had no dreams of being praised above other women, feeling that there
was always something better which she might have done, if she had only been
better and known better. Still, she never repented that she had given up
position and fortune to marry Will Ladislaw, and he would have held it the
greatest shame as well as sorrow to him if she had repented. They were bound to
each other by a love stronger than any impulses which could have marred it. No
life would have been possible to Dorothea which was not filled with emotion,
and she had now a life filled also with a beneficent activity which she had not
the doubtful pains of discovering and marking out for herself. Will became an
ardent public man, working well in those times when reforms were begun with a
young hopefulness of immediate good which has been much checked in our days,
and getting at last returned to Parliament by a constituency who paid his
expenses. Dorothea could have liked nothing better, since wrongs existed, than
that her husband should be in the thick of a struggle against them, and that
she should give him wifely help. Many who knew her, thought it a pity that so
substantive and rare a creature should have been absorbed into the life of
another, and be only known in a certain circle as a wife and mother. But no one
stated exactly what else that was in her power she ought rather to have
done—not even Sir James Chettam, who went no further than the negative
prescription that she ought not to have married Will Ladislaw.
But this
opinion of his did not cause a lasting alienation; and the way in which the
family was made whole again was characteristic of all concerned. Mr. Brooke
could not resist the pleasure of corresponding with Will and Dorothea; and one
morning when his pen had been remarkably fluent on the prospects of Municipal
Reform, it ran off into an invitation to the Grange, which, once written, could
not be done away with at less cost than the sacrifice (hardly to be conceived)
of the whole valuable letter. During the months of this correspondence Mr.
Brooke had continually, in his talk with Sir James Chettam, been presupposing
or hinting that the intention of cutting off the entail was still maintained;
and the day on which his pen gave the daring invitation, he went to Freshitt
expressly to intimate that he had a stronger sense than ever of the reasons for
taking that energetic step as a precaution against any mixture of low blood in
the heir of the Brookes.
But that
morning something exciting had happened at the Hall. A letter had come to Celia
which made her cry silently as she read it; and when Sir James, unused to see
her in tears, asked anxiously what was the matter, she burst out in a wail such
as he had never heard from her before.
"Dorothea
has a little boy. And you will not let me go and see her. And I am sure she
wants to see me. And she will not know what to do with the baby—she will do
wrong things with it. And they thought she would die. It is very dreadful!
Suppose it had been me and little Arthur, and Dodo had been hindered from
coming to see me! I wish you would be less unkind, James!"
"Good
heavens, Celia!" said Sir James, much wrought upon, "what do you
wish? I will do anything you like. I will take you to town to-morrow if you
wish it." And Celia did wish it.
It was
after this that Mr. Brooke came, and meeting the Baronet in the grounds, began
to chat with him in ignorance of the news, which Sir James for some reason did
not care to tell him immediately. But when the entail was touched on in the
usual way, he said, "My dear sir, it is not for me to dictate to you, but
for my part I would let that alone. I would let things remain as they
are."
Mr.
Brooke felt so much surprised that he did not at once find out how much he was
relieved by the sense that he was not expected to do anything in particular.
Such
being the bent of Celia's heart, it was inevitable that Sir James should
consent to a reconciliation with Dorothea and her husband. Where women love
each other, men learn to smother their mutual dislike. Sir James never liked
Ladislaw, and Will always preferred to have Sir James's company mixed with
another kind: they were on a footing of reciprocal tolerance which was made
quite easy only when Dorothea and Celia were present.
It became
an understood thing that Mr. and Mrs. Ladislaw should pay at least two visits
during the year to the Grange, and there came gradually a small row of cousins
at Freshitt who enjoyed playing with the two cousins visiting Tipton as much as
if the blood of these cousins had been less dubiously mixed.
Mr.
Brooke lived to a good old age, and his estate was inherited by Dorothea's son,
who might have represented Middlemarch, but declined, thinking that his
opinions had less chance of being stifled if he remained out of doors.
Sir James
never ceased to regard Dorothea's second marriage as a mistake; and indeed this
remained the tradition concerning it in Middlemarch, where she was spoken of to
a younger generation as a fine girl who married a sickly clergyman, old enough
to be her father, and in little more than a year after his death gave up her
estate to marry his cousin—young enough to have been his son, with no property,
and not well-born. Those who had not seen anything of Dorothea usually observed
that she could not have been "a nice woman," else she would not have
married either the one or the other.
Certainly
those determining acts of her life were not ideally beautiful. They were the
mixed result of young and noble impulse struggling amidst the conditions of an
imperfect social state, in which great feelings will often take the aspect of
error, and great faith the aspect of illusion. For there is no creature whose
inward being is so strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies
outside it. A new Theresa will hardly have the opportunity of reforming a
conventual life, any more than a new Antigone will spend her heroic piety in
daring all for the sake of a brother's burial: the medium in which their ardent
deeds took shape is forever gone. But we insignificant people with our daily
words and acts are preparing the lives of many Dorotheas, some of which may
present a far sadder sacrifice than that of the Dorothea whose story we know.
Her
finely touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were not widely
visible. Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus broke the strength,
spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect
of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing
good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are
not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number
who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
The End
