Middlemarch
shocked and discouraged at her own stupidity, and the answers she got
to some timid questions about the value of the Greek accents gave her a
painful suspicion that here indeed there might be secrets not capable
of explanation to a woman’s reason.
Mr. Brooke had no doubt on that point, and expressed himself with his
usual strength upon it one day that he came into the library while the
reading was going forward.
“Well, but now, Casaubon, such deep studies, classics, mathematics,
that kind of thing, are too taxing for a woman—too taxing, you know.”
“Dorothea is learning to read the characters simply,” said Mr.
Casaubon, evading the question. “She had the very considerate thought
of saving my eyes.”
“Ah, well, without understanding, you know—that may not be so bad. But
there is a lightness about the feminine mind—a touch and go—music, the
fine arts, that kind of thing—they should study those up to a certain
point, women should; but in a light way, you know. A woman should be
able to sit down and play you or sing you a good old English tune. That
is what I like; though I have heard most things—been at the opera in
Vienna: Gluck, Mozart, everything of that sort. But I’m a conservative
in music—it’s not like ideas, you know. I stick to the good old tunes.”
“Mr. Casaubon is not fond of the piano, and I am very glad he is not,”
said Dorothea, whose slight regard for domestic music and feminine fine
art must be forgiven her, considering the small tinkling and smearing
in which they chiefly consisted at that dark period. She smiled and
looked up at her betrothed with grateful eyes. If he had always been
asking her to play the “Last Rose of Summer,” she would have required
much resignation. “He says there is only an old harpsichord at Lowick,
and it is covered with books.”
“Ah, there you are behind Celia, my dear. Celia, now, plays very
prettily, and is always ready to play. However, since Casaubon does not
like it, you are all right. But it’s a pity you should not have little
recreations of that sort, Casaubon: the bow always strung—that kind of
thing, you know—will not do.”
“I never could look on it in the light of a recreation to have my ears
teased with measured noises,” said Mr. Casaubon. “A tune much iterated
has the ridiculous effect of making the words in my mind perform a sort
of minuet to keep time—an effect hardly tolerable, I imagine, after
boyhood. As to the grander forms of music, worthy to accompany solemn
celebrations, and even to serve as an educating influence according to
the ancient conception, I say nothing, for with these we are not
immediately concerned.”
“No; but music of that sort I should enjoy,” said Dorothea. “When we
were coming home from Lausanne my uncle took us to hear the great organ
at Freiberg, and it made me sob.”
“That kind of thing is not healthy, my dear,” said Mr. Brooke.
“Casaubon, she will be in your hands now: you must teach my niece to
take things more quietly, eh, Dorothea?”
He ended with a smile, not wishing to hurt his niece, but really
thinking that it was perhaps better for her to be early married to so
sober a fellow as Casaubon, since she would not hear of Chettam.
“It is wonderful, though,” he said to himself as he shuffled out of the
room—“it is wonderful that she should have liked him. However, the
match is good. I should have been travelling out of my brief to have
hindered it, let Mrs. Cadwallader say what she will. He is pretty
certain to be a bishop, is Casaubon. That was a very seasonable
pamphlet of his on the Catholic Question:—a deanery at least. They owe
him a deanery.”
And here I must vindicate a claim to philosophical reflectiveness, by
remarking that Mr. Brooke on this occasion little thought of the
Radical speech which, at a later period, he was led to make on the
incomes of the bishops. What elegant historian would neglect a striking
opportunity for pointing out that his heroes did not foresee the
history of the world, or even their own actions?—For example, that
Henry of Navarre, when a Protestant baby, little thought of being a
Catholic monarch; or that Alfred the Great, when he measured his
laborious nights with burning candles, had no idea of future gentlemen
measuring their idle days with watches. Here is a mine of truth, which,
however vigorously it may be worked, is likely to outlast our coal.
But of Mr. Brooke I make a further remark perhaps less warranted by
precedent—namely, that if he had foreknown his speech, it might not
have made any great difference. To think with pleasure of his niece’s
husband having a large ecclesiastical income was one thing—to make a
Liberal speech was another thing; and it is a narrow mind which cannot
look at a subject from various points of view.
CHAPTER VIII.
“Oh, rescue her! I am her brother now,
And you her father. Every gentle maid
Should have a guardian in each gentleman.”
It was wonderful to Sir James Chettam how well he continued to like
going to the Grange after he had once encountered the difficulty of
seeing Dorothea for the first time in the light of a woman who was
engaged to another man. Of course the forked lightning seemed to pass
through him when he first approached her, and he remained conscious
throughout the interview of hiding uneasiness; but, good as he was, it
must be owned that his uneasiness was less than it would have been if
he had thought his rival a brilliant and desirable match. He had no
sense of being eclipsed by Mr. Casaubon; he was only shocked that
Dorothea was under a melancholy illusion, and his mortification lost
some of its bitterness by being mingled with compassion.
Nevertheless, while Sir James said to himself that he had completely
resigned her, since with the perversity of a Desdemona she had not
affected a proposed match that was clearly suitable and according to
nature; he could not yet be quite passive under the idea of her
engagement to Mr. Casaubon. On the day when he first saw them together
in the light of his present knowledge, it seemed to him that he had not
taken the affair seriously enough. Brooke was really culpable; he ought
to have hindered it. Who could speak to him? Something might be done
perhaps even now, at least to defer the marriage. On his way home he
turned into the Rectory and asked for Mr. Cadwallader. Happily, the
Rector was at home, and his visitor was shown into the study, where all
the fishing tackle hung. But he himself was in a little room adjoining,
at work with his turning apparatus, and he called to the baronet to
join him there. The two were better friends than any other landholder
and clergyman in the county—a significant fact which was in agreement
with the amiable expression of their faces.
Mr. Cadwallader was a large man, with full lips and a sweet smile; very
plain and rough in his exterior, but with that solid imperturbable ease
and good-humor which is infectious, and like great grassy hills in the
sunshine, quiets even an irritated egoism, and makes it rather ashamed
of itself. “Well, how are you?” he said, showing a hand not quite fit
to be grasped. “Sorry I missed you before. Is there anything
particular? You look vexed.”
Sir James’s brow had a little crease in it, a little depression of the
eyebrow, which he seemed purposely to exaggerate as he answered.
“It is only this conduct of Brooke’s. I really think somebody should
speak to him.”
“What? meaning to stand?” said Mr. Cadwallader, going on with the
arrangement of the reels which he had just been turning. “I hardly
think he means it. But where’s the harm, if he likes it? Any one who
objects to Whiggery should be glad when the Whigs don’t put up the
strongest fellow. They won’t overturn the Constitution with our friend
Brooke’s head for a battering ram.”
“Oh, I don’t mean that,” said Sir James, who, after putting down his
hat and throwing himself into a chair, had begun to nurse his leg and
examine the sole of his boot with much bitterness. “I mean this
marriage. I mean his letting that blooming young girl marry Casaubon.”
“What is the matter with Casaubon? I see no harm in him—if the girl
likes him.”
“She is too young to know what she likes. Her guardian ought to
interfere. He ought not to allow the thing to be done in this headlong
manner. I wonder a man like you, Cadwallader—a man with daughters, can
look at the affair with indifference: and with such a heart as yours!
Do think seriously about it.”
“I am not joking; I am as serious as possible,” said the Rector, with a
provoking little inward laugh. “You are as bad as Elinor. She has been
wanting me to go and lecture Brooke; and I have reminded her that her
friends had a very poor opinion of the match she made when she married
me.”
“But look at Casaubon,” said Sir James, indignantly. “He must be fifty,
and I don’t believe he could ever have been much more than the shadow
of a man. Look at his legs!”
“Confound you handsome young fellows! you think of having it all your
own way in the world. You don’t understand women. They don’t admire you
half so much as you admire yourselves. Elinor used to tell her sisters
that she married me for my ugliness—it was so various and amusing that
it had quite conquered her prudence.”
“You! it was easy enough for a woman to love you. But this is no
question of beauty. I don’t _like_ Casaubon.” This was Sir James’s
strongest way of implying that he thought ill of a man’s character.
“Why? what do you know against him?” said the Rector laying down his
reels, and putting his thumbs into his armholes with an air of
attention.
Sir James paused. He did not usually find it easy to give his reasons:
it seemed to him strange that people should not know them without being
told, since he only felt what was reasonable. At last he said—
“Now, Cadwallader, has he got any heart?”
“Well, yes. I don’t mean of the melting sort, but a sound kernel,
_that_ you may be sure of. He is very good to his poor relations:
pensions several of the women, and is educating a young fellow at a
good deal of expense. Casaubon acts up to his sense of justice. His
mother’s sister made a bad match—a Pole, I think—lost herself—at any
rate was disowned by her family. If it had not been for that, Casaubon
would not have had so much money by half. I believe he went himself to
find out his cousins, and see what he could do for them. Every man
would not ring so well as that, if you tried his metal. _You_ would,
Chettam; but not every man.”
“I don’t know,” said Sir James, coloring. “I am not so sure of myself.”
He paused a moment, and then added, “That was a right thing for
Casaubon to do. But a man may wish to do what is right, and yet be a
sort of parchment code. A woman may not be happy with him. And I think
when a girl is so young as Miss Brooke is, her friends ought to
interfere a little to hinder her from doing anything foolish. You
laugh, because you fancy I have some feeling on my own account. But
upon my honor, it is not that. I should feel just the same if I were
Miss Brooke’s brother or uncle.”
“Well, but what should you do?”
“I should say that the marriage must not be decided on until she was of
age. And depend upon it, in that case, it would never come off. I wish
you saw it as I do—I wish you would talk to Brooke about it.”
Sir James rose as he was finishing his sentence, for he saw Mrs.
Cadwallader entering from the study. She held by the hand her youngest
girl, about five years old, who immediately ran to papa, and was made
comfortable on his knee.
“I hear what you are talking about,” said the wife. “But you will make
no impression on Humphrey. As long as the fish rise to his bait,
everybody is what he ought to be. Bless you, Casaubon has got a
trout-stream, and does not care about fishing in it himself: could