Middlemarch
too strong: it is in these acts called trivialities that the seeds of
joy are forever wasted, until men and women look round with haggard
faces at the devastation their own waste has made, and say, the earth
bears no harvest of sweetness—calling their denial knowledge. You may
ask why, in the name of manliness, Mr. Casaubon should have behaved in
that way. Consider that his was a mind which shrank from pity: have you
ever watched in such a mind the effect of a suspicion that what is
pressing it as a grief may be really a source of contentment, either
actual or future, to the being who already offends by pitying? Besides,
he knew little of Dorothea’s sensations, and had not reflected that on
such an occasion as the present they were comparable in strength to his
own sensibilities about Carp’s criticisms.
Dorothea did not withdraw her arm, but she could not venture to speak.
Mr. Casaubon did not say, “I wish to be alone,” but he directed his
steps in silence towards the house, and as they entered by the glass
door on this eastern side, Dorothea withdrew her arm and lingered on
the matting, that she might leave her husband quite free. He entered
the library and shut himself in, alone with his sorrow.
She went up to her boudoir. The open bow-window let in the serene glory
of the afternoon lying in the avenue, where the lime-trees cast long
shadows. But Dorothea knew nothing of the scene. She threw herself on a
chair, not heeding that she was in the dazzling sun-rays: if there were
discomfort in that, how could she tell that it was not part of her
inward misery?
She was in the reaction of a rebellious anger stronger than any she had
felt since her marriage. Instead of tears there came words:—
“What have I done—what am I—that he should treat me so? He never knows
what is in my mind—he never cares. What is the use of anything I do? He
wishes he had never married me.”
She began to hear herself, and was checked into stillness. Like one who
has lost his way and is weary, she sat and saw as in one glance all the
paths of her young hope which she should never find again. And just as
clearly in the miserable light she saw her own and her husband’s
solitude—how they walked apart so that she was obliged to survey him.
If he had drawn her towards him, she would never have surveyed
him—never have said, “Is he worth living for?” but would have felt him
simply a part of her own life. Now she said bitterly, “It is his fault,
not mine.” In the jar of her whole being, Pity was overthrown. Was it
her fault that she had believed in him—had believed in his
worthiness?—And what, exactly, was he?— She was able enough to estimate
him—she who waited on his glances with trembling, and shut her best
soul in prison, paying it only hidden visits, that she might be petty
enough to please him. In such a crisis as this, some women begin to
hate.
The sun was low when Dorothea was thinking that she would not go down
again, but would send a message to her husband saying that she was not
well and preferred remaining up-stairs. She had never deliberately
allowed her resentment to govern her in this way before, but she
believed now that she could not see him again without telling him the
truth about her feeling, and she must wait till she could do it without
interruption. He might wonder and be hurt at her message. It was good
that he should wonder and be hurt. Her anger said, as anger is apt to
say, that God was with her—that all heaven, though it were crowded with
spirits watching them, must be on her side. She had determined to ring
her bell, when there came a rap at the door.
Mr. Casaubon had sent to say that he would have his dinner in the
library. He wished to be quite alone this evening, being much occupied.
“I shall not dine, then, Tantripp.”
“Oh, madam, let me bring you a little something?”
“No; I am not well. Get everything ready in my dressing room, but pray
do not disturb me again.”
Dorothea sat almost motionless in her meditative struggle, while the
evening slowly deepened into night. But the struggle changed
continually, as that of a man who begins with a movement towards
striking and ends with conquering his desire to strike. The energy that
would animate a crime is not more than is wanted to inspire a resolved
submission, when the noble habit of the soul reasserts itself. That
thought with which Dorothea had gone out to meet her husband—her
conviction that he had been asking about the possible arrest of all his
work, and that the answer must have wrung his heart, could not be long
without rising beside the image of him, like a shadowy monitor looking
at her anger with sad remonstrance. It cost her a litany of pictured
sorrows and of silent cries that she might be the mercy for those
sorrows—but the resolved submission did come; and when the house was
still, and she knew that it was near the time when Mr. Casaubon
habitually went to rest, she opened her door gently and stood outside
in the darkness waiting for his coming up-stairs with a light in his
hand. If he did not come soon she thought that she would go down and
even risk incurring another pang. She would never again expect anything
else. But she did hear the library door open, and slowly the light
advanced up the staircase without noise from the footsteps on the
carpet. When her husband stood opposite to her, she saw that his face
was more haggard. He started slightly on seeing her, and she looked up
at him beseechingly, without speaking.
“Dorothea!” he said, with a gentle surprise in his tone. “Were you
waiting for me?”
“Yes, I did not like to disturb you.”
“Come, my dear, come. You are young, and need not to extend your life
by watching.”
When the kind quiet melancholy of that speech fell on Dorothea’s ears,
she felt something like the thankfulness that might well up in us if we
had narrowly escaped hurting a lamed creature. She put her hand into
her husband’s, and they went along the broad corridor together.
BOOK V.
THE DEAD HAND.
CHAPTER XLIII.
“This figure hath high price: ’t was wrought with love
Ages ago in finest ivory;
Nought modish in it, pure and noble lines
Of generous womanhood that fits all time
That too is costly ware; majolica
Of deft design, to please a lordly eye:
The smile, you see, is perfect—wonderful
As mere Faience! a table ornament
To suit the richest mounting.”
Dorothea seldom left home without her husband, but she did occasionally
drive into Middlemarch alone, on little errands of shopping or charity
such as occur to every lady of any wealth when she lives within three
miles of a town. Two days after that scene in the Yew-tree Walk, she
determined to use such an opportunity in order if possible to see
Lydgate, and learn from him whether her husband had really felt any
depressing change of symptoms which he was concealing from her, and
whether he had insisted on knowing the utmost about himself. She felt
almost guilty in asking for knowledge about him from another, but the
dread of being without it—the dread of that ignorance which would make
her unjust or hard—overcame every scruple. That there had been some
crisis in her husband’s mind she was certain: he had the very next day
begun a new method of arranging his notes, and had associated her quite
newly in carrying out his plan. Poor Dorothea needed to lay up stores
of patience.
It was about four o’clock when she drove to Lydgate’s house in Lowick
Gate, wishing, in her immediate doubt of finding him at home, that she
had written beforehand. And he was not at home.
“Is Mrs. Lydgate at home?” said Dorothea, who had never, that she knew
of, seen Rosamond, but now remembered the fact of the marriage. Yes,
Mrs. Lydgate was at home.
“I will go in and speak to her, if she will allow me. Will you ask her
if she can see me—see Mrs. Casaubon, for a few minutes?”
When the servant had gone to deliver that message, Dorothea could hear
sounds of music through an open window—a few notes from a man’s voice
and then a piano bursting into roulades. But the roulades broke off
suddenly, and then the servant came back saying that Mrs. Lydgate would
be happy to see Mrs. Casaubon.
When the drawing-room door opened and Dorothea entered, there was a
sort of contrast not infrequent in country life when the habits of the
different ranks were less blent than now. Let those who know, tell us
exactly what stuff it was that Dorothea wore in those days of mild
autumn—that thin white woollen stuff soft to the touch and soft to the
eye. It always seemed to have been lately washed, and to smell of the
sweet hedges—was always in the shape of a pelisse with sleeves hanging
all out of the fashion. Yet if she had entered before a still audience
as Imogene or Cato’s daughter, the dress might have seemed right
enough: the grace and dignity were in her limbs and neck; and about her
simply parted hair and candid eyes the large round poke which was then
in the fate of women, seemed no more odd as a head-dress than the gold
trencher we call a halo. By the present audience of two persons, no
dramatic heroine could have been expected with more interest than Mrs.
Casaubon. To Rosamond she was one of those county divinities not mixing
with Middlemarch mortality, whose slightest marks of manner or
appearance were worthy of her study; moreover, Rosamond was not without
satisfaction that Mrs. Casaubon should have an opportunity of studying
_her_. What is the use of being exquisite if you are not seen by the
best judges? and since Rosamond had received the highest compliments at
Sir Godwin Lydgate’s, she felt quite confident of the impression she
must make on people of good birth. Dorothea put out her hand with her
usual simple kindness, and looked admiringly at Lydgate’s lovely
bride—aware that there was a gentleman standing at a distance, but
seeing him merely as a coated figure at a wide angle. The gentleman was
too much occupied with the presence of the one woman to reflect on the
contrast between the two—a contrast that would certainly have been
striking to a calm observer. They were both tall, and their eyes were
on a level; but imagine Rosamond’s infantine blondness and wondrous
crown of hair-plaits, with her pale-blue dress of a fit and fashion so
perfect that no dressmaker could look at it without emotion, a large
embroidered collar which it was to be hoped all beholders would know
the price of, her small hands duly set off with rings, and that
controlled self-consciousness of manner which is the expensive
substitute for simplicity.
“Thank you very much for allowing me to interrupt you,” said Dorothea,
immediately. “I am anxious to see Mr. Lydgate, if possible, before I go
home, and I hoped that you might possibly tell me where I could find
him, or even allow me to wait for him, if you expect him soon.”
“He is at the New Hospital,” said Rosamond; “I am not sure how soon he
will come home. But I can send for him.”
“Will you let me go and fetch him?” said Will Ladislaw, coming forward.
He had already taken up his hat before Dorothea entered. She colored
with surprise, but put out her hand with a smile of unmistakable
pleasure, saying—
“I did not know it was you: I had no thought of seeing you here.”
“May I go to the Hospital and tell Mr. Lydgate that you wish to see
him?” said Will.
“It would be quicker to send the carriage for him,” said Dorothea, “if
you will be kind enough to give the message to the coachman.”
Will was moving to the door when Dorothea, whose mind had flashed in an
instant over many connected memories, turned quickly and said, “I will
go myself, thank you. I wish to lose no time before getting home again.
I will drive to the Hospital and see Mr. Lydgate there. Pray excuse me,
Mrs. Lydgate. I am very much obliged to you.”