Middlemarch
her own folly; and feeling the advantages to be at present all on the
side of her son, was too kind a woman not to behave graciously.
“Yes, Ned is most happy, I must say. And Sophy Toller is all I could
desire in a daughter-in-law. Of course her father is able to do
something handsome for her—that is only what would be expected with a
brewery like his. And the connection is everything we should desire.
But that is not what I look at. She is such a very nice girl—no airs,
no pretensions, though on a level with the first. I don’t mean with the
titled aristocracy. I see very little good in people aiming out of
their own sphere. I mean that Sophy is equal to the best in the town,
and she is contented with that.”
“I have always thought her very agreeable,” said Rosamond.
“I look upon it as a reward for Ned, who never held his head too high,
that he should have got into the very best connection,” continued Mrs.
Plymdale, her native sharpness softened by a fervid sense that she was
taking a correct view. “And such particular people as the Tollers are,
they might have objected because some of our friends are not theirs. It
is well known that your aunt Bulstrode and I have been intimate from
our youth, and Mr. Plymdale has been always on Mr. Bulstrode’s side.
And I myself prefer serious opinions. But the Tollers have welcomed Ned
all the same.”
“I am sure he is a very deserving, well-principled young man,” said
Rosamond, with a neat air of patronage in return for Mrs. Plymdale’s
wholesome corrections.
“Oh, he has not the style of a captain in the army, or that sort of
carriage as if everybody was beneath him, or that showy kind of
talking, and singing, and intellectual talent. But I am thankful he has
not. It is a poor preparation both for here and Hereafter.”
“Oh dear, yes; appearances have very little to do with happiness,” said
Rosamond. “I think there is every prospect of their being a happy
couple. What house will they take?”
“Oh, as for that, they must put up with what they can get. They have
been looking at the house in St. Peter’s Place, next to Mr. Hackbutt’s;
it belongs to him, and he is putting it nicely in repair. I suppose
they are not likely to hear of a better. Indeed, I think Ned will
decide the matter to-day.”
“I should think it is a nice house; I like St. Peter’s Place.”
“Well, it is near the Church, and a genteel situation. But the windows
are narrow, and it is all ups and downs. You don’t happen to know of
any other that would be at liberty?” said Mrs. Plymdale, fixing her
round black eyes on Rosamond with the animation of a sudden thought in
them.
“Oh no; I hear so little of those things.”
Rosamond had not foreseen that question and answer in setting out to
pay her visit; she had simply meant to gather any information which
would help her to avert the parting with her own house under
circumstances thoroughly disagreeable to her. As to the untruth in her
reply, she no more reflected on it than she did on the untruth there
was in her saying that appearances had very little to do with
happiness. Her object, she was convinced, was thoroughly justifiable:
it was Lydgate whose intention was inexcusable; and there was a plan in
her mind which, when she had carried it out fully, would prove how very
false a step it would have been for him to have descended from his
position.
She returned home by Mr. Borthrop Trumbull’s office, meaning to call
there. It was the first time in her life that Rosamond had thought of
doing anything in the form of business, but she felt equal to the
occasion. That she should be obliged to do what she intensely disliked,
was an idea which turned her quiet tenacity into active invention. Here
was a case in which it could not be enough simply to disobey and be
serenely, placidly obstinate: she must act according to her judgment,
and she said to herself that her judgment was right—“indeed, if it had
not been, she would not have wished to act on it.”
Mr. Trumbull was in the back-room of his office, and received Rosamond
with his finest manners, not only because he had much sensibility to
her charms, but because the good-natured fibre in him was stirred by
his certainty that Lydgate was in difficulties, and that this
uncommonly pretty woman—this young lady with the highest personal
attractions—was likely to feel the pinch of trouble—to find herself
involved in circumstances beyond her control. He begged her to do him
the honor to take a seat, and stood before her trimming and comporting
himself with an eager solicitude, which was chiefly benevolent.
Rosamond’s first question was, whether her husband had called on Mr.
Trumbull that morning, to speak about disposing of their house.
“Yes, ma’am, yes, he did; he did so,” said the good auctioneer, trying
to throw something soothing into his iteration. “I was about to fulfil
his order, if possible, this afternoon. He wished me not to
procrastinate.”
“I called to tell you not to go any further, Mr. Trumbull; and I beg of
you not to mention what has been said on the subject. Will you oblige
me?”
“Certainly I will, Mrs. Lydgate, certainly. Confidence is sacred with
me on business or any other topic. I am then to consider the commission
withdrawn?” said Mr. Trumbull, adjusting the long ends of his blue
cravat with both hands, and looking at Rosamond deferentially.
“Yes, if you please. I find that Mr. Ned Plymdale has taken a house—the
one in St. Peter’s Place next to Mr. Hackbutt’s. Mr. Lydgate would be
annoyed that his orders should be fulfilled uselessly. And besides
that, there are other circumstances which render the proposal
unnecessary.”
“Very good, Mrs. Lydgate, very good. I am at your commands, whenever
you require any service of me,” said Mr. Trumbull, who felt pleasure in
conjecturing that some new resources had been opened. “Rely on me, I
beg. The affair shall go no further.”
That evening Lydgate was a little comforted by observing that Rosamond
was more lively than she had usually been of late, and even seemed
interested in doing what would please him without being asked. He
thought, “If she will be happy and I can rub through, what does it all
signify? It is only a narrow swamp that we have to pass in a long
journey. If I can get my mind clear again, I shall do.”
He was so much cheered that he began to search for an account of
experiments which he had long ago meant to look up, and had neglected
out of that creeping self-despair which comes in the train of petty
anxieties. He felt again some of the old delightful absorption in a
far-reaching inquiry, while Rosamond played the quiet music which was
as helpful to his meditation as the plash of an oar on the evening
lake. It was rather late; he had pushed away all the books, and was
looking at the fire with his hands clasped behind his head in
forgetfulness of everything except the construction of a new
controlling experiment, when Rosamond, who had left the piano and was
leaning back in her chair watching him, said—
“Mr. Ned Plymdale has taken a house already.”
Lydgate, startled and jarred, looked up in silence for a moment, like a
man who has been disturbed in his sleep. Then flushing with an
unpleasant consciousness, he asked—
“How do you know?”
“I called at Mrs. Plymdale’s this morning, and she told me that he had
taken the house in St. Peter’s Place, next to Mr. Hackbutt’s.”
Lydgate was silent. He drew his hands from behind his head and pressed
them against the hair which was hanging, as it was apt to do, in a mass
on his forehead, while he rested his elbows on his knees. He was
feeling bitter disappointment, as if he had opened a door out of a
suffocating place and had found it walled up; but he also felt sure
that Rosamond was pleased with the cause of his disappointment. He
preferred not looking at her and not speaking, until he had got over
the first spasm of vexation. After all, he said in his bitterness, what
can a woman care about so much as house and furniture? a husband
without them is an absurdity. When he looked up and pushed his hair
aside, his dark eyes had a miserable blank non-expectance of sympathy
in them, but he only said, coolly—
“Perhaps some one else may turn up. I told Trumbull to be on the
look-out if he failed with Plymdale.”
Rosamond made no remark. She trusted to the chance that nothing more
would pass between her husband and the auctioneer until some issue
should have justified her interference; at any rate, she had hindered
the event which she immediately dreaded. After a pause, she said—
“How much money is it that those disagreeable people want?”
“What disagreeable people?”
“Those who took the list—and the others. I mean, how much money would
satisfy them so that you need not be troubled any more?”
Lydgate surveyed her for a moment, as if he were looking for symptoms,
and then said, “Oh, if I could have got six hundred from Plymdale for
furniture and as premium, I might have managed. I could have paid off
Dover, and given enough on account to the others to make them wait
patiently, if we contracted our expenses.”
“But I mean how much should you want if we stayed in this house?”
“More than I am likely to get anywhere,” said Lydgate, with rather a
grating sarcasm in his tone. It angered him to perceive that Rosamond’s
mind was wandering over impracticable wishes instead of facing possible
efforts.
“Why should you not mention the sum?” said Rosamond, with a mild
indication that she did not like his manners.
“Well,” said Lydgate in a guessing tone, “it would take at least a
thousand to set me at ease. But,” he added, incisively, “I have to
consider what I shall do without it, not with it.”
Rosamond said no more.
But the next day she carried out her plan of writing to Sir Godwin
Lydgate. Since the Captain’s visit, she had received a letter from him,
and also one from Mrs. Mengan, his married sister, condoling with her
on the loss of her baby, and expressing vaguely the hope that they
should see her again at Quallingham. Lydgate had told her that this
politeness meant nothing; but she was secretly convinced that any
backwardness in Lydgate’s family towards him was due to his cold and
contemptuous behavior, and she had answered the letters in her most
charming manner, feeling some confidence that a specific invitation
would follow. But there had been total silence. The Captain evidently
was not a great penman, and Rosamond reflected that the sisters might
have been abroad. However, the season was come for thinking of friends
at home, and at any rate Sir Godwin, who had chucked her under the
chin, and pronounced her to be like the celebrated beauty, Mrs. Croly,
who had made a conquest of him in 1790, would be touched by any appeal
from her, and would find it pleasant for her sake to behave as he ought
to do towards his nephew. Rosamond was naively convinced of what an old
gentleman ought to do to prevent her from suffering annoyance. And she
wrote what she considered the most judicious letter possible—one which
would strike Sir Godwin as a proof of her excellent sense—pointing out
how desirable it was that Tertius should quit such a place as
Middlemarch for one more fitted to his talents, how the unpleasant
character of the inhabitants had hindered his professional success, and
how in consequence he was in money difficulties, from which it would
require a thousand pounds thoroughly to extricate him. She did not say
that Tertius was unaware of her intention to write; for she had the
idea that his supposed sanction of her letter would be in accordance
with what she did say of his great regard for his uncle Godwin as the
relative who had always been his best friend. Such was the force of
Poor Rosamond’s tactics now she applied them to affairs.