Middlemarch
something that she could achieve stirred her as with an approaching
murmur which would soon gather distinctness. She took off the clothes
which seemed to have some of the weariness of a hard watching in them,
and began to make her toilet. Presently she rang for Tantripp, who came
in her dressing-gown.
“Why, madam, you’ve never been in bed this blessed night,” burst out
Tantripp, looking first at the bed and then at Dorothea’s face, which
in spite of bathing had the pale cheeks and pink eyelids of a mater
dolorosa. “You’ll kill yourself, you _will_. Anybody might think now
you had a right to give yourself a little comfort.”
“Don’t be alarmed, Tantripp,” said Dorothea, smiling. “I have slept; I
am not ill. I shall be glad of a cup of coffee as soon as possible. And
I want you to bring me my new dress; and most likely I shall want my
new bonnet to-day.”
“They’ve lain there a month and more ready for you, madam, and most
thankful I shall be to see you with a couple o’ pounds’ worth less of
crape,” said Tantripp, stooping to light the fire. “There’s a reason in
mourning, as I’ve always said; and three folds at the bottom of your
skirt and a plain quilling in your bonnet—and if ever anybody looked
like an angel, it’s you in a net quilling—is what’s consistent for a
second year. At least, that’s _my_ thinking,” ended Tantripp, looking
anxiously at the fire; “and if anybody was to marry me flattering
himself I should wear those hijeous weepers two years for him, he’d be
deceived by his own vanity, that’s all.”
“The fire will do, my good Tan,” said Dorothea, speaking as she used to
do in the old Lausanne days, only with a very low voice; “get me the
coffee.”
She folded herself in the large chair, and leaned her head against it
in fatigued quiescence, while Tantripp went away wondering at this
strange contrariness in her young mistress—that just the morning when
she had more of a widow’s face than ever, she should have asked for her
lighter mourning which she had waived before. Tantripp would never have
found the clew to this mystery. Dorothea wished to acknowledge that she
had not the less an active life before her because she had buried a
private joy; and the tradition that fresh garments belonged to all
initiation, haunting her mind, made her grasp after even that slight
outward help towards calm resolve. For the resolve was not easy.
Nevertheless at eleven o’clock she was walking towards Middlemarch,
having made up her mind that she would make as quietly and unnoticeably
as possible her second attempt to see and save Rosamond.
CHAPTER LXXXI.
Du Erde warst auch diese Nacht beständig,
Und athmest neu erquickt zu meinen Füssen,
Beginnest schon mit Lust mich zu umgeben,
Du regst und rührst ein kräftiges Beschliessen
_Zum höchsten Dasein immerfort zu streben_.
—_Faust:_ 2r Theil.
When Dorothea was again at Lydgate’s door speaking to Martha, he was in
the room close by with the door ajar, preparing to go out. He heard her
voice, and immediately came to her.
“Do you think that Mrs. Lydgate can receive me this morning?” she said,
having reflected that it would be better to leave out all allusion to
her previous visit.
“I have no doubt she will,” said Lydgate, suppressing his thought about
Dorothea’s looks, which were as much changed as Rosamond’s, “if you
will be kind enough to come in and let me tell her that you are here.
She has not been very well since you were here yesterday, but she is
better this morning, and I think it is very likely that she will be
cheered by seeing you again.”
It was plain that Lydgate, as Dorothea had expected, knew nothing about
the circumstances of her yesterday’s visit; nay, he appeared to imagine
that she had carried it out according to her intention. She had
prepared a little note asking Rosamond to see her, which she would have
given to the servant if he had not been in the way, but now she was in
much anxiety as to the result of his announcement.
After leading her into the drawing-room, he paused to take a letter
from his pocket and put it into her hands, saying, “I wrote this last
night, and was going to carry it to Lowick in my ride. When one is
grateful for something too good for common thanks, writing is less
unsatisfactory than speech—one does not at least _hear_ how inadequate
the words are.”
Dorothea’s face brightened. “It is I who have most to thank for, since
you have let me take that place. You _have_ consented?” she said,
suddenly doubting.
“Yes, the check is going to Bulstrode to-day.”
He said no more, but went up-stairs to Rosamond, who had but lately
finished dressing herself, and sat languidly wondering what she should
do next, her habitual industry in small things, even in the days of her
sadness, prompting her to begin some kind of occupation, which she
dragged through slowly or paused in from lack of interest. She looked
ill, but had recovered her usual quietude of manner, and Lydgate had
feared to disturb her by any questions. He had told her of Dorothea’s
letter containing the check, and afterwards he had said, “Ladislaw is
come, Rosy; he sat with me last night; I dare say he will be here again
to-day. I thought he looked rather battered and depressed.” And
Rosamond had made no reply.
Now, when he came up, he said to her very gently, “Rosy, dear, Mrs.
Casaubon is come to see you again; you would like to see her, would you
not?” That she colored and gave rather a startled movement did not
surprise him after the agitation produced by the interview yesterday—a
beneficent agitation, he thought, since it seemed to have made her turn
to him again.
Rosamond dared not say no. She dared not with a tone of her voice touch
the facts of yesterday. Why had Mrs. Casaubon come again? The answer
was a blank which Rosamond could only fill up with dread, for Will
Ladislaw’s lacerating words had made every thought of Dorothea a fresh
smart to her. Nevertheless, in her new humiliating uncertainty she
dared do nothing but comply. She did not say yes, but she rose and let
Lydgate put a light shawl over her shoulders, while he said, “I am
going out immediately.” Then something crossed her mind which prompted
her to say, “Pray tell Martha not to bring any one else into the
drawing-room.” And Lydgate assented, thinking that he fully understood
this wish. He led her down to the drawing-room door, and then turned
away, observing to himself that he was rather a blundering husband to
be dependent for his wife’s trust in him on the influence of another
woman.
Rosamond, wrapping her soft shawl around her as she walked towards
Dorothea, was inwardly wrapping her soul in cold reserve. Had Mrs.
Casaubon come to say anything to her about Will? If so, it was a
liberty that Rosamond resented; and she prepared herself to meet every
word with polite impassibility. Will had bruised her pride too sorely
for her to feel any compunction towards him and Dorothea: her own
injury seemed much the greater. Dorothea was not only the “preferred”
woman, but had also a formidable advantage in being Lydgate’s
benefactor; and to poor Rosamond’s pained confused vision it seemed
that this Mrs. Casaubon—this woman who predominated in all things
concerning her—must have come now with the sense of having the
advantage, and with animosity prompting her to use it. Indeed, not
Rosamond only, but any one else, knowing the outer facts of the case,
and not the simple inspiration on which Dorothea acted, might well have
wondered why she came.
Looking like the lovely ghost of herself, her graceful slimness wrapped
in her soft white shawl, the rounded infantine mouth and cheek
inevitably suggesting mildness and innocence, Rosamond paused at three
yards’ distance from her visitor and bowed. But Dorothea, who had taken
off her gloves, from an impulse which she could never resist when she
wanted a sense of freedom, came forward, and with her face full of a
sad yet sweet openness, put out her hand. Rosamond could not avoid
meeting her glance, could not avoid putting her small hand into
Dorothea’s, which clasped it with gentle motherliness; and immediately
a doubt of her own prepossessions began to stir within her. Rosamond’s
eye was quick for faces; she saw that Mrs. Casaubon’s face looked pale
and changed since yesterday, yet gentle, and like the firm softness of
her hand. But Dorothea had counted a little too much on her own
strength: the clearness and intensity of her mental action this morning
were the continuance of a nervous exaltation which made her frame as
dangerously responsive as a bit of finest Venetian crystal; and in
looking at Rosamond, she suddenly found her heart swelling, and was
unable to speak—all her effort was required to keep back tears. She
succeeded in that, and the emotion only passed over her face like the
spirit of a sob; but it added to Rosamond’s impression that Mrs.
Casaubon’s state of mind must be something quite different from what
she had imagined.
So they sat down without a word of preface on the two chairs that
happened to be nearest, and happened also to be close together; though
Rosamond’s notion when she first bowed was that she should stay a long
way off from Mrs. Casaubon. But she ceased thinking how anything would
turn out—merely wondering what would come. And Dorothea began to speak
quite simply, gathering firmness as she went on.
“I had an errand yesterday which I did not finish; that is why I am
here again so soon. You will not think me too troublesome when I tell
you that I came to talk to you about the injustice that has been shown
towards Mr. Lydgate. It will cheer you—will it not?—to know a great
deal about him, that he may not like to speak about himself just
because it is in his own vindication and to his own honor. You will
like to know that your husband has warm friends, who have not left off
believing in his high character? You will let me speak of this without
thinking that I take a liberty?”
The cordial, pleading tones which seemed to flow with generous
heedlessness above all the facts which had filled Rosamond’s mind as
grounds of obstruction and hatred between her and this woman, came as
soothingly as a warm stream over her shrinking fears. Of course Mrs.
Casaubon had the facts in her mind, but she was not going to speak of
anything connected with them. That relief was too great for Rosamond to
feel much else at the moment. She answered prettily, in the new ease of
her soul—
“I know you have been very good. I shall like to hear anything you will
say to me about Tertius.”
“The day before yesterday,” said Dorothea, “when I had asked him to
come to Lowick to give me his opinion on the affairs of the Hospital,
he told me everything about his conduct and feelings in this sad event
which has made ignorant people cast suspicions on him. The reason he
told me was because I was very bold and asked him. I believed that he
had never acted dishonorably, and I begged him to tell me the history.
He confessed to me that he had never told it before, not even to you,
because he had a great dislike to say, ‘I was not wrong,’ as if that
were proof, when there are guilty people who will say so. The truth is,
he knew nothing of this man Raffles, or that there were any bad secrets
about him; and he thought that Mr. Bulstrode offered him the money
because he repented, out of kindness, of having refused it before. All
his anxiety about his patient was to treat him rightly, and he was a
little uncomfortable that the case did not end as he had expected; but
he thought then and still thinks that there may have been no wrong in
it on any one’s part. And I have told Mr. Farebrother, and Mr. Brooke,
and Sir James Chettam: they all believe in your husband. That will
cheer you, will it not? That will give you courage?”