Middlemarch
too ready to believe a slander,” said Bulstrode, casting about for
pleas that might be adapted to his hearer’s mind. “That is a poor
reason for giving up a connection which I think I may say will be
mutually beneficial.”
“I would injure no man if I could help it,” said Caleb; “even if I
thought God winked at it. I hope I should have a feeling for my
fellow-creature. But, sir—I am obliged to believe that this Raffles has
told me the truth. And I can’t be happy in working with you, or
profiting by you. It hurts my mind. I must beg you to seek another
agent.”
“Very well, Mr. Garth. But I must at least claim to know the worst that
he has told you. I must know what is the foul speech that I am liable
to be the victim of,” said Bulstrode, a certain amount of anger
beginning to mingle with his humiliation before this quiet man who
renounced his benefits.
“That’s needless,” said Caleb, waving his hand, bowing his head
slightly, and not swerving from the tone which had in it the merciful
intention to spare this pitiable man. “What he has said to me will
never pass from my lips, unless something now unknown forces it from
me. If you led a harmful life for gain, and kept others out of their
rights by deceit, to get the more for yourself, I dare say you
repent—you would like to go back, and can’t: that must be a bitter
thing”—Caleb paused a moment and shook his head—“it is not for me to
make your life harder to you.”
“But you do—you do make it harder to me,” said Bulstrode constrained
into a genuine, pleading cry. “You make it harder to me by turning your
back on me.”
“That I’m forced to do,” said Caleb, still more gently, lifting up his
hand. “I am sorry. I don’t judge you and say, he is wicked, and I am
righteous. God forbid. I don’t know everything. A man may do wrong, and
his will may rise clear out of it, though he can’t get his life clear.
That’s a bad punishment. If it is so with you,—well, I’m very sorry for
you. But I have that feeling inside me, that I can’t go on working with
you. That’s all, Mr. Bulstrode. Everything else is buried, so far as my
will goes. And I wish you good-day.”
“One moment, Mr. Garth!” said Bulstrode, hurriedly. “I may trust then
to your solemn assurance that you will not repeat either to man or
woman what—even if it have any degree of truth in it—is yet a malicious
representation?” Caleb’s wrath was stirred, and he said, indignantly—
“Why should I have said it if I didn’t mean it? I am in no fear of you.
Such tales as that will never tempt my tongue.”
“Excuse me—I am agitated—I am the victim of this abandoned man.”
“Stop a bit! you have got to consider whether you didn’t help to make
him worse, when you profited by his vices.”
“You are wronging me by too readily believing him,” said Bulstrode,
oppressed, as by a nightmare, with the inability to deny flatly what
Raffles might have said; and yet feeling it an escape that Caleb had
not so stated it to him as to ask for that flat denial.
“No,” said Caleb, lifting his hand deprecatingly; “I am ready to
believe better, when better is proved. I rob you of no good chance. As
to speaking, I hold it a crime to expose a man’s sin unless I’m clear
it must be done to save the innocent. That is my way of thinking, Mr.
Bulstrode, and what I say, I’ve no need to swear. I wish you good-day.”
Some hours later, when he was at home, Caleb said to his wife,
incidentally, that he had had some little differences with Bulstrode,
and that in consequence, he had given up all notion of taking Stone
Court, and indeed had resigned doing further business for him.
“He was disposed to interfere too much, was he?” said Mrs. Garth,
imagining that her husband had been touched on his sensitive point, and
not been allowed to do what he thought right as to materials and modes
of work.
“Oh,” said Caleb, bowing his head and waving his hand gravely. And Mrs.
Garth knew that this was a sign of his not intending to speak further
on the subject.
As for Bulstrode, he had almost immediately mounted his horse and set
off for Stone Court, being anxious to arrive there before Lydgate.
His mind was crowded with images and conjectures, which were a language
to his hopes and fears, just as we hear tones from the vibrations which
shake our whole system. The deep humiliation with which he had winced
under Caleb Garth’s knowledge of his past and rejection of his
patronage, alternated with and almost gave way to the sense of safety
in the fact that Garth, and no other, had been the man to whom Raffles
had spoken. It seemed to him a sort of earnest that Providence intended
his rescue from worse consequences; the way being thus left open for
the hope of secrecy. That Raffles should be afflicted with illness,
that he should have been led to Stone Court rather than
elsewhere—Bulstrode’s heart fluttered at the vision of probabilities
which these events conjured up. If it should turn out that he was freed
from all danger of disgrace—if he could breathe in perfect liberty—his
life should be more consecrated than it had ever been before. He
mentally lifted up this vow as if it would urge the result he longed
for—he tried to believe in the potency of that prayerful resolution—its
potency to determine death. He knew that he ought to say, “Thy will be
done;” and he said it often. But the intense desire remained that the
will of God might be the death of that hated man.
Yet when he arrived at Stone Court he could not see the change in
Raffles without a shock. But for his pallor and feebleness, Bulstrode
would have called the change in him entirely mental. Instead of his
loud tormenting mood, he showed an intense, vague terror, and seemed to
deprecate Bulstrode’s anger, because the money was all gone—he had been
robbed—it had half of it been taken from him. He had only come here
because he was ill and somebody was hunting him—somebody was after him,
he had told nobody anything, he had kept his mouth shut. Bulstrode, not
knowing the significance of these symptoms, interpreted this new
nervous susceptibility into a means of alarming Raffles into true
confessions, and taxed him with falsehood in saying that he had not
told anything, since he had just told the man who took him up in his
gig and brought him to Stone Court. Raffles denied this with solemn
adjurations; the fact being that the links of consciousness were
interrupted in him, and that his minute terror-stricken narrative to
Caleb Garth had been delivered under a set of visionary impulses which
had dropped back into darkness.
Bulstrode’s heart sank again at this sign that he could get no grasp
over the wretched man’s mind, and that no word of Raffles could be
trusted as to the fact which he most wanted to know, namely, whether or
not he had really kept silence to every one in the neighborhood except
Caleb Garth. The housekeeper had told him without the least constraint
of manner that since Mr. Garth left, Raffles had asked her for beer,
and after that had not spoken, seeming very ill. On that side it might
be concluded that there had been no betrayal. Mrs. Abel thought, like
the servants at The Shrubs, that the strange man belonged to the
unpleasant “kin” who are among the troubles of the rich; she had at
first referred the kinship to Mr. Rigg, and where there was property
left, the buzzing presence of such large blue-bottles seemed natural
enough. How he could be “kin” to Bulstrode as well was not so clear,
but Mrs. Abel agreed with her husband that there was “no knowing,” a
proposition which had a great deal of mental food for her, so that she
shook her head over it without further speculation.
In less than an hour Lydgate arrived. Bulstrode met him outside the
wainscoted parlor, where Raffles was, and said—
“I have called you in, Mr. Lydgate, to an unfortunate man who was once
in my employment, many years ago. Afterwards he went to America, and
returned I fear to an idle dissolute life. Being destitute, he has a
claim on me. He was slightly connected with Rigg, the former owner of
this place, and in consequence found his way here. I believe he is
seriously ill: apparently his mind is affected. I feel bound to do the
utmost for him.”
Lydgate, who had the remembrance of his last conversation with
Bulstrode strongly upon him, was not disposed to say an unnecessary
word to him, and bowed slightly in answer to this account; but just
before entering the room he turned automatically and said, “What is his
name?”—to know names being as much a part of the medical man’s
accomplishment as of the practical politician’s.
“Raffles, John Raffles,” said Bulstrode, who hoped that whatever became
of Raffles, Lydgate would never know any more of him.
When he had thoroughly examined and considered the patient, Lydgate
ordered that he should go to bed, and be kept there in as complete
quiet as possible, and then went with Bulstrode into another room.
“It is a serious case, I apprehend,” said the banker, before Lydgate
began to speak.
“No—and yes,” said Lydgate, half dubiously. “It is difficult to decide
as to the possible effect of long-standing complications; but the man
had a robust constitution to begin with. I should not expect this
attack to be fatal, though of course the system is in a ticklish state.
He should be well watched and attended to.”
“I will remain here myself,” said Bulstrode. “Mrs. Abel and her husband
are inexperienced. I can easily remain here for the night, if you will
oblige me by taking a note for Mrs. Bulstrode.”
“I should think that is hardly necessary,” said Lydgate. “He seems tame
and terrified enough. He might become more unmanageable. But there is a
man here—is there not?”
“I have more than once stayed here a few nights for the sake of
seclusion,” said Bulstrode, indifferently; “I am quite disposed to do
so now. Mrs. Abel and her husband can relieve or aid me, if necessary.”
“Very well. Then I need give my directions only to you,” said Lydgate,
not feeling surprised at a little peculiarity in Bulstrode.
“You think, then, that the case is hopeful?” said Bulstrode, when
Lydgate had ended giving his orders.
“Unless there turn out to be further complications, such as I have not
at present detected—yes,” said Lydgate. “He may pass on to a worse
stage; but I should not wonder if he got better in a few days, by
adhering to the treatment I have prescribed. There must be firmness.
Remember, if he calls for liquors of any sort, not to give them to him.
In my opinion, men in his condition are oftener killed by treatment
than by the disease. Still, new symptoms may arise. I shall come again
to-morrow morning.”
After waiting for the note to be carried to Mrs. Bulstrode, Lydgate
rode away, forming no conjectures, in the first instance, about the
history of Raffles, but rehearsing the whole argument, which had lately
been much stirred by the publication of Dr. Ware’s abundant experience
in America, as to the right way of treating cases of alcoholic
poisoning such as this. Lydgate, when abroad, had already been
interested in this question: he was strongly convinced against the
prevalent practice of allowing alcohol and persistently administering
large doses of opium; and he had repeatedly acted on this conviction
with a favorable result.
“The man is in a diseased state,” he thought, “but there’s a good deal
of wear in him still. I suppose he is an object of charity to
Bulstrode. It is curious what patches of hardness and tenderness lie
side by side in men’s dispositions. Bulstrode seems the most
unsympathetic fellow I ever saw about some people, and yet he has taken
no end of trouble, and spent a great deal of money, on benevolent
objects. I suppose he has some test by which he finds out whom Heaven
cares for—he has made up his mind that it doesn’t care for me.”