Middlemarch
“Yes, certainly. I dare say it is very faulty. But I have been
examining all the plans for cottages in Loudon’s book, and picked out
what seem the best things. Oh what a happiness it would be to set the
pattern about here! I think instead of Lazarus at the gate, we should
put the pigsty cottages outside the park-gate.”
Dorothea was in the best temper now. Sir James, as brother in-law,
building model cottages on his estate, and then, perhaps, others being
built at Lowick, and more and more elsewhere in imitation—it would be
as if the spirit of Oberlin had passed over the parishes to make the
life of poverty beautiful!
Sir James saw all the plans, and took one away to consult upon with
Lovegood. He also took away a complacent sense that he was making great
progress in Miss Brooke’s good opinion. The Maltese puppy was not
offered to Celia; an omission which Dorothea afterwards thought of with
surprise; but she blamed herself for it. She had been engrossing Sir
James. After all, it was a relief that there was no puppy to tread
upon.
Celia was present while the plans were being examined, and observed Sir
James’s illusion. “He thinks that Dodo cares about him, and she only
cares about her plans. Yet I am not certain that she would refuse him
if she thought he would let her manage everything and carry out all her
notions. And how very uncomfortable Sir James would be! I cannot bear
notions.”
It was Celia’s private luxury to indulge in this dislike. She dared not
confess it to her sister in any direct statement, for that would be
laying herself open to a demonstration that she was somehow or other at
war with all goodness. But on safe opportunities, she had an indirect
mode of making her negative wisdom tell upon Dorothea, and calling her
down from her rhapsodic mood by reminding her that people were staring,
not listening. Celia was not impulsive: what she had to say could wait,
and came from her always with the same quiet staccato evenness. When
people talked with energy and emphasis she watched their faces and
features merely. She never could understand how well-bred persons
consented to sing and open their mouths in the ridiculous manner
requisite for that vocal exercise.
It was not many days before Mr. Casaubon paid a morning visit, on which
he was invited again for the following week to dine and stay the night.
Thus Dorothea had three more conversations with him, and was convinced
that her first impressions had been just. He was all she had at first
imagined him to be: almost everything he had said seemed like a
specimen from a mine, or the inscription on the door of a museum which
might open on the treasures of past ages; and this trust in his mental
wealth was all the deeper and more effective on her inclination because
it was now obvious that his visits were made for her sake. This
accomplished man condescended to think of a young girl, and take the
pains to talk to her, not with absurd compliment, but with an appeal to
her understanding, and sometimes with instructive correction. What
delightful companionship! Mr. Casaubon seemed even unconscious that
trivialities existed, and never handed round that small-talk of heavy
men which is as acceptable as stale bride-cake brought forth with an
odor of cupboard. He talked of what he was interested in, or else he
was silent and bowed with sad civility. To Dorothea this was adorable
genuineness, and religious abstinence from that artificiality which
uses up the soul in the efforts of pretence. For she looked as
reverently at Mr. Casaubon’s religious elevation above herself as she
did at his intellect and learning. He assented to her expressions of
devout feeling, and usually with an appropriate quotation; he allowed
himself to say that he had gone through some spiritual conflicts in his
youth; in short, Dorothea saw that here she might reckon on
understanding, sympathy, and guidance. On one—only one—of her favorite
themes she was disappointed. Mr. Casaubon apparently did not care about
building cottages, and diverted the talk to the extremely narrow
accommodation which was to be had in the dwellings of the ancient
Egyptians, as if to check a too high standard. After he was gone,
Dorothea dwelt with some agitation on this indifference of his; and her
mind was much exercised with arguments drawn from the varying
conditions of climate which modify human needs, and from the admitted
wickedness of pagan despots. Should she not urge these arguments on Mr.
Casaubon when he came again? But further reflection told her that she
was presumptuous in demanding his attention to such a subject; he would
not disapprove of her occupying herself with it in leisure moments, as
other women expected to occupy themselves with their dress and
embroidery—would not forbid it when—Dorothea felt rather ashamed as she
detected herself in these speculations. But her uncle had been invited
to go to Lowick to stay a couple of days: was it reasonable to suppose
that Mr. Casaubon delighted in Mr. Brooke’s society for its own sake,
either with or without documents?
Meanwhile that little disappointment made her delight the more in Sir
James Chettam’s readiness to set on foot the desired improvements. He
came much oftener than Mr. Casaubon, and Dorothea ceased to find him
disagreeable since he showed himself so entirely in earnest; for he had
already entered with much practical ability into Lovegood’s estimates,
and was charmingly docile. She proposed to build a couple of cottages,
and transfer two families from their old cabins, which could then be
pulled down, so that new ones could be built on the old sites. Sir
James said “Exactly,” and she bore the word remarkably well.
Certainly these men who had so few spontaneous ideas might be very
useful members of society under good feminine direction, if they were
fortunate in choosing their sisters-in-law! It is difficult to say
whether there was or was not a little wilfulness in her continuing
blind to the possibility that another sort of choice was in question in
relation to her. But her life was just now full of hope and action: she
was not only thinking of her plans, but getting down learned books from
the library and reading many things hastily (that she might be a little
less ignorant in talking to Mr. Casaubon), all the while being visited
with conscientious questionings whether she were not exalting these
poor doings above measure and contemplating them with that
self-satisfaction which was the last doom of ignorance and folly.
CHAPTER IV.
1_st Gent_. Our deeds are fetters that we forge ourselves.
2_d Gent._ Ay, truly: but I think it is the world
That brings the iron.
“Sir James seems determined to do everything you wish,” said Celia, as
they were driving home from an inspection of the new building-site.
“He is a good creature, and more sensible than any one would imagine,”
said Dorothea, inconsiderately.
“You mean that he appears silly.”
“No, no,” said Dorothea, recollecting herself, and laying her hand on
her sister’s a moment, “but he does not talk equally well on all
subjects.”
“I should think none but disagreeable people do,” said Celia, in her
usual purring way. “They must be very dreadful to live with. Only
think! at breakfast, and always.”
Dorothea laughed. “O Kitty, you are a wonderful creature!” She pinched
Celia’s chin, being in the mood now to think her very winning and
lovely—fit hereafter to be an eternal cherub, and if it were not
doctrinally wrong to say so, hardly more in need of salvation than a
squirrel. “Of course people need not be always talking well. Only one
tells the quality of their minds when they try to talk well.”
“You mean that Sir James tries and fails.”
“I was speaking generally. Why do you catechise me about Sir James? It
is not the object of his life to please me.”
“Now, Dodo, can you really believe that?”
“Certainly. He thinks of me as a future sister—that is all.” Dorothea
had never hinted this before, waiting, from a certain shyness on such
subjects which was mutual between the sisters, until it should be
introduced by some decisive event. Celia blushed, but said at once—
“Pray do not make that mistake any longer, Dodo. When Tantripp was
brushing my hair the other day, she said that Sir James’s man knew from
Mrs. Cadwallader’s maid that Sir James was to marry the eldest Miss
Brooke.”
“How can you let Tantripp talk such gossip to you, Celia?” said
Dorothea, indignantly, not the less angry because details asleep in her
memory were now awakened to confirm the unwelcome revelation. “You must
have asked her questions. It is degrading.”
“I see no harm at all in Tantripp’s talking to me. It is better to hear
what people say. You see what mistakes you make by taking up notions. I
am quite sure that Sir James means to make you an offer; and he
believes that you will accept him, especially since you have been so
pleased with him about the plans. And uncle too—I know he expects it.
Every one can see that Sir James is very much in love with you.”
The revulsion was so strong and painful in Dorothea’s mind that the
tears welled up and flowed abundantly. All her dear plans were
embittered, and she thought with disgust of Sir James’s conceiving that
she recognized him as her lover. There was vexation too on account of
Celia.
“How could he expect it?” she burst forth in her most impetuous manner.
“I have never agreed with him about anything but the cottages: I was
barely polite to him before.”
“But you have been so pleased with him since then; he has begun to feel
quite sure that you are fond of him.”
“Fond of him, Celia! How can you choose such odious expressions?” said
Dorothea, passionately.
“Dear me, Dorothea, I suppose it would be right for you to be fond of a
man whom you accepted for a husband.”
“It is offensive to me to say that Sir James could think I was fond of
him. Besides, it is not the right word for the feeling I must have
towards the man I would accept as a husband.”
“Well, I am sorry for Sir James. I thought it right to tell you,
because you went on as you always do, never looking just where you are,
and treading in the wrong place. You always see what nobody else sees;
it is impossible to satisfy you; yet you never see what is quite plain.
That’s your way, Dodo.” Something certainly gave Celia unusual courage;
and she was not sparing the sister of whom she was occasionally in awe.
Who can tell what just criticisms Murr the Cat may be passing on us
beings of wider speculation?
“It is very painful,” said Dorothea, feeling scourged. “I can have no
more to do with the cottages. I must be uncivil to him. I must tell him
I will have nothing to do with them. It is very painful.” Her eyes
filled again with tears.
“Wait a little. Think about it. You know he is going away for a day or
two to see his sister. There will be nobody besides Lovegood.” Celia
could not help relenting. “Poor Dodo,” she went on, in an amiable
staccato. “It is very hard: it is your favorite _fad_ to draw plans.”
“_Fad_ to draw plans! Do you think I only care about my
fellow-creatures’ houses in that childish way? I may well make
mistakes. How can one ever do anything nobly Christian, living among
people with such petty thoughts?”
No more was said; Dorothea was too much jarred to recover her temper
and behave so as to show that she admitted any error in herself. She
was disposed rather to accuse the intolerable narrowness and the
purblind conscience of the society around her: and Celia was no longer
the eternal cherub, but a thorn in her spirit, a pink-and-white
nullifidian, worse than any discouraging presence in the “Pilgrim’s
Progress.” The _fad_ of drawing plans! What was life worth—what great