Middlemarch
emotion about her husband when Lydgate began to attend him—from her
passionate cry to be taught what would best comfort that man for whose
sake it seemed as if she must quell every impulse in her except the
yearnings of faithfulness and compassion. These revived impressions
succeeded each other quickly and dreamily in Lydgate’s mind while the
tea was being brewed. He had shut his eyes in the last instant of
reverie while he heard Dorothea saying, “Advise me—think what I can
do—he has been all his life laboring and looking forward. He minds
about nothing else—and I mind about nothing else.”
That voice of deep-souled womanhood had remained within him as the
enkindling conceptions of dead and sceptred genius had remained within
him (is there not a genius for feeling nobly which also reigns over
human spirits and their conclusions?); the tones were a music from
which he was falling away—he had really fallen into a momentary doze,
when Rosamond said in her silvery neutral way, “Here is your tea,
Tertius,” setting it on the small table by his side, and then moved
back to her place without looking at him. Lydgate was too hasty in
attributing insensibility to her; after her own fashion, she was
sensitive enough, and took lasting impressions. Her impression now was
one of offence and repulsion. But then, Rosamond had no scowls and had
never raised her voice: she was quite sure that no one could justly
find fault with her.
Perhaps Lydgate and she had never felt so far off each other before;
but there were strong reasons for not deferring his revelation, even if
he had not already begun it by that abrupt announcement; indeed some of
the angry desire to rouse her into more sensibility on his account
which had prompted him to speak prematurely, still mingled with his
pain in the prospect of her pain. But he waited till the tray was gone,
the candles were lit, and the evening quiet might be counted on: the
interval had left time for repelled tenderness to return into the old
course. He spoke kindly.
“Dear Rosy, lay down your work and come to sit by me,” he said, gently,
pushing away the table, and stretching out his arm to draw a chair near
his own.
Rosamond obeyed. As she came towards him in her drapery of transparent
faintly tinted muslin, her slim yet round figure never looked more
graceful; as she sat down by him and laid one hand on the elbow of his
chair, at last looking at him and meeting his eyes, her delicate neck
and cheek and purely cut lips never had more of that untarnished beauty
which touches as in spring-time and infancy and all sweet freshness. It
touched Lydgate now, and mingled the early moments of his love for her
with all the other memories which were stirred in this crisis of deep
trouble. He laid his ample hand softly on hers, saying—
“Dear!” with the lingering utterance which affection gives to the word.
Rosamond too was still under the power of that same past, and her
husband was still in part the Lydgate whose approval had stirred
delight. She put his hair lightly away from his forehead, then laid her
other hand on his, and was conscious of forgiving him.
“I am obliged to tell you what will hurt you, Rosy. But there are
things which husband and wife must think of together. I dare say it has
occurred to you already that I am short of money.”
Lydgate paused; but Rosamond turned her neck and looked at a vase on
the mantel-piece.
“I was not able to pay for all the things we had to get before we were
married, and there have been expenses since which I have been obliged
to meet. The consequence is, there is a large debt at Brassing—three
hundred and eighty pounds—which has been pressing on me a good while,
and in fact we are getting deeper every day, for people don’t pay me
the faster because others want the money. I took pains to keep it from
you while you were not well; but now we must think together about it,
and you must help me.”
“What can _I_ do, Tertius?” said Rosamond, turning her eyes on him
again. That little speech of four words, like so many others in all
languages, is capable by varied vocal inflections of expressing all
states of mind from helpless dimness to exhaustive argumentative
perception, from the completest self-devoting fellowship to the most
neutral aloofness. Rosamond’s thin utterance threw into the words “What
can—I—do!” as much neutrality as they could hold. They fell like a
mortal chill on Lydgate’s roused tenderness. He did not storm in
indignation—he felt too sad a sinking of the heart. And when he spoke
again it was more in the tone of a man who forces himself to fulfil a
task.
“It is necessary for you to know, because I have to give security for a
time, and a man must come to make an inventory of the furniture.”
Rosamond colored deeply. “Have you not asked papa for money?” she said,
as soon as she could speak.
“No.”
“Then I must ask him!” she said, releasing her hands from Lydgate’s,
and rising to stand at two yards’ distance from him.
“No, Rosy,” said Lydgate, decisively. “It is too late to do that. The
inventory will be begun to-morrow. Remember it is a mere security: it
will make no difference: it is a temporary affair. I insist upon it
that your father shall not know, unless I choose to tell him,” added
Lydgate, with a more peremptory emphasis.
This certainly was unkind, but Rosamond had thrown him back on evil
expectation as to what she would do in the way of quiet steady
disobedience. The unkindness seemed unpardonable to her: she was not
given to weeping and disliked it, but now her chin and lips began to
tremble and the tears welled up. Perhaps it was not possible for
Lydgate, under the double stress of outward material difficulty and of
his own proud resistance to humiliating consequences, to imagine fully
what this sudden trial was to a young creature who had known nothing
but indulgence, and whose dreams had all been of new indulgence, more
exactly to her taste. But he did wish to spare her as much as he could,
and her tears cut him to the heart. He could not speak again
immediately; but Rosamond did not go on sobbing: she tried to conquer
her agitation and wiped away her tears, continuing to look before her
at the mantel-piece.
“Try not to grieve, darling,” said Lydgate, turning his eyes up towards
her. That she had chosen to move away from him in this moment of her
trouble made everything harder to say, but he must absolutely go on.
“We must brace ourselves to do what is necessary. It is I who have been
in fault: I ought to have seen that I could not afford to live in this
way. But many things have told against me in my practice, and it really
just now has ebbed to a low point. I may recover it, but in the mean
time we must pull up—we must change our way of living. We shall weather
it. When I have given this security I shall have time to look about me;
and you are so clever that if you turn your mind to managing you will
school me into carefulness. I have been a thoughtless rascal about
squaring prices—but come, dear, sit down and forgive me.”
Lydgate was bowing his neck under the yoke like a creature who had
talons, but who had Reason too, which often reduces us to meekness.
When he had spoken the last words in an imploring tone, Rosamond
returned to the chair by his side. His self-blame gave her some hope
that he would attend to her opinion, and she said—
“Why can you not put off having the inventory made? You can send the
men away to-morrow when they come.”
“I shall not send them away,” said Lydgate, the peremptoriness rising
again. Was it of any use to explain?
“If we left Middlemarch? there would of course be a sale, and that
would do as well.”
“But we are not going to leave Middlemarch.”
“I am sure, Tertius, it would be much better to do so. Why can we not
go to London? Or near Durham, where your family is known?”
“We can go nowhere without money, Rosamond.”
“Your friends would not wish you to be without money. And surely these
odious tradesmen might be made to understand that, and to wait, if you
would make proper representations to them.”
“This is idle Rosamond,” said Lydgate, angrily. “You must learn to take
my judgment on questions you don’t understand. I have made necessary
arrangements, and they must be carried out. As to friends, I have no
expectations whatever from them, and shall not ask them for anything.”
Rosamond sat perfectly still. The thought in her mind was that if she
had known how Lydgate would behave, she would never have married him.
“We have no time to waste now on unnecessary words, dear,” said
Lydgate, trying to be gentle again. “There are some details that I want
to consider with you. Dover says he will take a good deal of the plate
back again, and any of the jewellery we like. He really behaves very
well.”
“Are we to go without spoons and forks then?” said Rosamond, whose very
lips seemed to get thinner with the thinness of her utterance. She was
determined to make no further resistance or suggestions.
“Oh no, dear!” said Lydgate. “But look here,” he continued, drawing a
paper from his pocket and opening it; “here is Dover’s account. See, I
have marked a number of articles, which if we returned them would
reduce the amount by thirty pounds and more. I have not marked any of
the jewellery.” Lydgate had really felt this point of the jewellery
very bitter to himself; but he had overcome the feeling by severe
argument. He could not propose to Rosamond that she should return any
particular present of his, but he had told himself that he was bound to
put Dover’s offer before her, and her inward prompting might make the
affair easy.
“It is useless for me to look, Tertius,” said Rosamond, calmly; “you
will return what you please.” She would not turn her eyes on the paper,
and Lydgate, flushing up to the roots of his hair, drew it back and let
it fall on his knee. Meanwhile Rosamond quietly went out of the room,
leaving Lydgate helpless and wondering. Was she not coming back? It
seemed that she had no more identified herself with him than if they
had been creatures of different species and opposing interests. He
tossed his head and thrust his hands deep into his pockets with a sort
of vengeance. There was still science—there were still good objects to
work for. He must give a tug still—all the stronger because other
satisfactions were going.
But the door opened and Rosamond re-entered. She carried the leather
box containing the amethysts, and a tiny ornamental basket which
contained other boxes, and laying them on the chair where she had been
sitting, she said, with perfect propriety in her air—
“This is all the jewellery you ever gave me. You can return what you
like of it, and of the plate also. You will not, of course, expect me
to stay at home to-morrow. I shall go to papa’s.”
To many women the look Lydgate cast at her would have been more
terrible than one of anger: it had in it a despairing acceptance of the
distance she was placing between them.
“And when shall you come back again?” he said, with a bitter edge on
his accent.
“Oh, in the evening. Of course I shall not mention the subject to
mamma.” Rosamond was convinced that no woman could behave more
irreproachably than she was behaving; and she went to sit down at her
work-table. Lydgate sat meditating a minute or two, and the result was
that he said, with some of the old emotion in his tone—
“Now we have been united, Rosy, you should not leave me to myself in
the first trouble that has come.”
“Certainly not,” said Rosamond; “I shall do everything it becomes me to
do.”
“It is not right that the thing should be left to servants, or that I
should have to speak to them about it. And I shall be obliged to go
out—I don’t know how early. I understand your shrinking from the