Middlemarch
deliberation. “Mrs. Bulstrode is advised of the reasons which detain
me. Mrs. Abel and her husband are not experienced enough to be left
quite alone, and this kind of responsibility is scarcely included in
their service of me. You have some fresh instructions, I presume.”
The chief new instruction that Lydgate had to give was on the
administration of extremely moderate doses of opium, in case of the
sleeplessness continuing after several hours. He had taken the
precaution of bringing opium in his pocket, and he gave minute
directions to Bulstrode as to the doses, and the point at which they
should cease. He insisted on the risk of not ceasing; and repeated his
order that no alcohol should be given.
“From what I see of the case,” he ended, “narcotism is the only thing I
should be much afraid of. He may wear through even without much food.
There’s a good deal of strength in him.”
“You look ill yourself, Mr. Lydgate—a most unusual, I may say
unprecedented thing in my knowledge of you,” said Bulstrode, showing a
solicitude as unlike his indifference the day before, as his present
recklessness about his own fatigue was unlike his habitual
self-cherishing anxiety. “I fear you are harassed.”
“Yes, I am,” said Lydgate, brusquely, holding his hat, and ready to go.
“Something new, I fear,” said Bulstrode, inquiringly. “Pray be seated.”
“No, thank you,” said Lydgate, with some hauteur. “I mentioned to you
yesterday what was the state of my affairs. There is nothing to add,
except that the execution has since then been actually put into my
house. One can tell a good deal of trouble in a short sentence. I will
say good morning.”
“Stay, Mr. Lydgate, stay,” said Bulstrode; “I have been reconsidering
this subject. I was yesterday taken by surprise, and saw it
superficially. Mrs. Bulstrode is anxious for her niece, and I myself
should grieve at a calamitous change in your position. Claims on me are
numerous, but on reconsideration, I esteem it right that I should incur
a small sacrifice rather than leave you unaided. You said, I think,
that a thousand pounds would suffice entirely to free you from your
burthens, and enable you to recover a firm stand?”
“Yes,” said Lydgate, a great leap of joy within him surmounting every
other feeling; “that would pay all my debts, and leave me a little on
hand. I could set about economizing in our way of living. And by-and-by
my practice might look up.”
“If you will wait a moment, Mr. Lydgate, I will draw a check to that
amount. I am aware that help, to be effectual in these cases, should be
thorough.”
While Bulstrode wrote, Lydgate turned to the window thinking of his
home—thinking of his life with its good start saved from frustration,
its good purposes still unbroken.
“You can give me a note of hand for this, Mr. Lydgate,” said the
banker, advancing towards him with the check. “And by-and-by, I hope,
you may be in circumstances gradually to repay me. Meanwhile, I have
pleasure in thinking that you will be released from further
difficulty.”
“I am deeply obliged to you,” said Lydgate. “You have restored to me
the prospect of working with some happiness and some chance of good.”
It appeared to him a very natural movement in Bulstrode that he should
have reconsidered his refusal: it corresponded with the more munificent
side of his character. But as he put his hack into a canter, that he
might get the sooner home, and tell the good news to Rosamond, and get
cash at the bank to pay over to Dover’s agent, there crossed his mind,
with an unpleasant impression, as from a dark-winged flight of evil
augury across his vision, the thought of that contrast in himself which
a few months had brought—that he should be overjoyed at being under a
strong personal obligation—that he should be overjoyed at getting money
for himself from Bulstrode.
The banker felt that he had done something to nullify one cause of
uneasiness, and yet he was scarcely the easier. He did not measure the
quantity of diseased motive which had made him wish for Lydgate’s
good-will, but the quantity was none the less actively there, like an
irritating agent in his blood. A man vows, and yet will not cast away
the means of breaking his vow. Is it that he distinctly means to break
it? Not at all; but the desires which tend to break it are at work in
him dimly, and make their way into his imagination, and relax his
muscles in the very moments when he is telling himself over again the
reasons for his vow. Raffles, recovering quickly, returning to the free
use of his odious powers—how could Bulstrode wish for that? Raffles
dead was the image that brought release, and indirectly he prayed for
that way of release, beseeching that, if it were possible, the rest of
his days here below might be freed from the threat of an ignominy which
would break him utterly as an instrument of God’s service. Lydgate’s
opinion was not on the side of promise that this prayer would be
fulfilled; and as the day advanced, Bulstrode felt himself getting
irritated at the persistent life in this man, whom he would fain have
seen sinking into the silence of death: imperious will stirred
murderous impulses towards this brute life, over which will, by itself,
had no power. He said inwardly that he was getting too much worn; he
would not sit up with the patient to-night, but leave him to Mrs. Abel,
who, if necessary, could call her husband.
At six o’clock, Raffles, having had only fitful perturbed snatches of
sleep, from which he waked with fresh restlessness and perpetual cries
that he was sinking away, Bulstrode began to administer the opium
according to Lydgate’s directions. At the end of half an hour or more
he called Mrs. Abel and told her that he found himself unfit for
further watching. He must now consign the patient to her care; and he
proceeded to repeat to her Lydgate’s directions as to the quantity of
each dose. Mrs. Abel had not before known anything of Lydgate’s
prescriptions; she had simply prepared and brought whatever Bulstrode
ordered, and had done what he pointed out to her. She began now to ask
what else she should do besides administering the opium.
“Nothing at present, except the offer of the soup or the soda-water:
you can come to me for further directions. Unless there is any
important change, I shall not come into the room again to-night. You
will ask your husband for help if necessary. I must go to bed early.”
“You’ve much need, sir, I’m sure,” said Mrs. Abel, “and to take
something more strengthening than what you’ve done.”
Bulstrode went away now without anxiety as to what Raffles might say in
his raving, which had taken on a muttering incoherence not likely to
create any dangerous belief. At any rate he must risk this. He went
down into the wainscoted parlor first, and began to consider whether he
would not have his horse saddled and go home by the moonlight, and give
up caring for earthly consequences. Then, he wished that he had begged
Lydgate to come again that evening. Perhaps he might deliver a
different opinion, and think that Raffles was getting into a less
hopeful state. Should he send for Lydgate? If Raffles were really
getting worse, and slowly dying, Bulstrode felt that he could go to bed
and sleep in gratitude to Providence. But was he worse? Lydgate might
come and simply say that he was going on as he expected, and predict
that he would by-and-by fall into a good sleep, and get well. What was
the use of sending for him? Bulstrode shrank from that result. No ideas
or opinions could hinder him from seeing the one probability to be,
that Raffles recovered would be just the same man as before, with his
strength as a tormentor renewed, obliging him to drag away his wife to
spend her years apart from her friends and native place, carrying an
alienating suspicion against him in her heart.
He had sat an hour and a half in this conflict by the firelight only,
when a sudden thought made him rise and light the bed-candle, which he
had brought down with him. The thought was, that he had not told Mrs.
Abel when the doses of opium must cease.
He took hold of the candlestick, but stood motionless for a long while.
She might already have given him more than Lydgate had prescribed. But
it was excusable in him, that he should forget part of an order, in his
present wearied condition. He walked up-stairs, candle in hand, not
knowing whether he should straightway enter his own room and go to bed,
or turn to the patient’s room and rectify his omission. He paused in
the passage, with his face turned towards Raffles’s room, and he could
hear him moaning and murmuring. He was not asleep, then. Who could know
that Lydgate’s prescription would not be better disobeyed than
followed, since there was still no sleep?
He turned into his own room. Before he had quite undressed, Mrs. Abel
rapped at the door; he opened it an inch, so that he could hear her
speak low.
“If you please, sir, should I have no brandy nor nothing to give the
poor creetur? He feels sinking away, and nothing else will he
swaller—and but little strength in it, if he did—only the opium. And he
says more and more he’s sinking down through the earth.”
To her surprise, Mr. Bulstrode did not answer. A struggle was going on
within him.
“I think he must die for want o’ support, if he goes on in that way.
When I nursed my poor master, Mr. Robisson, I had to give him port-wine
and brandy constant, and a big glass at a time,” added Mrs. Abel, with
a touch of remonstrance in her tone.
But again Mr. Bulstrode did not answer immediately, and she continued,
“It’s not a time to spare when people are at death’s door, nor would
you wish it, sir, I’m sure. Else I should give him our own bottle o’
rum as we keep by us. But a sitter-up so as you’ve been, and doing
everything as laid in your power—”
Here a key was thrust through the inch of doorway, and Mr. Bulstrode
said huskily, “That is the key of the wine-cooler. You will find plenty
of brandy there.”
Early in the morning—about six—Mr. Bulstrode rose and spent some time
in prayer. Does any one suppose that private prayer is necessarily
candid—necessarily goes to the roots of action? Private prayer is
inaudible speech, and speech is representative: who can represent
himself just as he is, even in his own reflections? Bulstrode had not
yet unravelled in his thought the confused promptings of the last
four-and-twenty hours.
He listened in the passage, and could hear hard stertorous breathing.
Then he walked out in the garden, and looked at the early rime on the
grass and fresh spring leaves. When he re-entered the house, he felt
startled at the sight of Mrs. Abel.
“How is your patient—asleep, I think?” he said, with an attempt at
cheerfulness in his tone.
“He’s gone very deep, sir,” said Mrs. Abel. “He went off gradual
between three and four o’clock. Would you please to go and look at him?
I thought it no harm to leave him. My man’s gone afield, and the little
girl’s seeing to the kettles.”
Bulstrode went up. At a glance he knew that Raffles was not in the
sleep which brings revival, but in the sleep which streams deeper and
deeper into the gulf of death.
He looked round the room and saw a bottle with some brandy in it, and
the almost empty opium phial. He put the phial out of sight, and
carried the brandy-bottle down-stairs with him, locking it again in the
wine-cooler.
While breakfasting he considered whether he should ride to Middlemarch
at once, or wait for Lydgate’s arrival. He decided to wait, and told
Mrs. Abel that she might go about her work—he could watch in the
bed-chamber.
As he sat there and beheld the enemy of his peace going irrevocably
into silence, he felt more at rest than he had done for many months.