Middlemarch
small fears or contrivances about her actions, but at this moment she
was seeking the highest aid possible that she might not dread the
corrosiveness of Celia’s pretty carnally minded prose. Her reverie was
broken, and the difficulty of decision banished, by Celia’s small and
rather guttural voice speaking in its usual tone, of a remark aside or
a “by the bye.”
“Is any one else coming to dine besides Mr. Casaubon?”
“Not that I know of.”
“I hope there is some one else. Then I shall not hear him eat his soup
so.”
“What is there remarkable about his soup-eating?”
“Really, Dodo, can’t you hear how he scrapes his spoon? And he always
blinks before he speaks. I don’t know whether Locke blinked, but I’m
sure I am sorry for those who sat opposite to him if he did.”
“Celia,” said Dorothea, with emphatic gravity, “pray don’t make any
more observations of that kind.”
“Why not? They are quite true,” returned Celia, who had her reasons for
persevering, though she was beginning to be a little afraid.
“Many things are true which only the commonest minds observe.”
“Then I think the commonest minds must be rather useful. I think it is
a pity Mr. Casaubon’s mother had not a commoner mind: she might have
taught him better.” Celia was inwardly frightened, and ready to run
away, now she had hurled this light javelin.
Dorothea’s feelings had gathered to an avalanche, and there could be no
further preparation.
“It is right to tell you, Celia, that I am engaged to marry Mr.
Casaubon.”
Perhaps Celia had never turned so pale before. The paper man she was
making would have had his leg injured, but for her habitual care of
whatever she held in her hands. She laid the fragile figure down at
once, and sat perfectly still for a few moments. When she spoke there
was a tear gathering.
“Oh, Dodo, I hope you will be happy.” Her sisterly tenderness could not
but surmount other feelings at this moment, and her fears were the
fears of affection.
Dorothea was still hurt and agitated.
“It is quite decided, then?” said Celia, in an awed under tone. “And
uncle knows?”
“I have accepted Mr. Casaubon’s offer. My uncle brought me the letter
that contained it; he knew about it beforehand.”
“I beg your pardon, if I have said anything to hurt you, Dodo,” said
Celia, with a slight sob. She never could have thought that she should
feel as she did. There was something funereal in the whole affair, and
Mr. Casaubon seemed to be the officiating clergyman, about whom it
would be indecent to make remarks.
“Never mind, Kitty, do not grieve. We should never admire the same
people. I often offend in something of the same way; I am apt to speak
too strongly of those who don’t please me.”
In spite of this magnanimity Dorothea was still smarting: perhaps as
much from Celia’s subdued astonishment as from her small criticisms. Of
course all the world round Tipton would be out of sympathy with this
marriage. Dorothea knew of no one who thought as she did about life and
its best objects.
Nevertheless before the evening was at an end she was very happy. In an
hour’s _tête-à-tête_ with Mr. Casaubon she talked to him with more
freedom than she had ever felt before, even pouring out her joy at the
thought of devoting herself to him, and of learning how she might best
share and further all his great ends. Mr. Casaubon was touched with an
unknown delight (what man would not have been?) at this childlike
unrestrained ardor: he was not surprised (what lover would have been?)
that he should be the object of it.
“My dear young lady—Miss Brooke—Dorothea!” he said, pressing her hand
between his hands, “this is a happiness greater than I had ever
imagined to be in reserve for me. That I should ever meet with a mind
and person so rich in the mingled graces which could render marriage
desirable, was far indeed from my conception. You have all—nay, more
than all—those qualities which I have ever regarded as the
characteristic excellences of womanhood. The great charm of your sex is
its capability of an ardent self-sacrificing affection, and herein we
see its fitness to round and complete the existence of our own.
Hitherto I have known few pleasures save of the severer kind: my
satisfactions have been those of the solitary student. I have been
little disposed to gather flowers that would wither in my hand, but now
I shall pluck them with eagerness, to place them in your bosom.”
No speech could have been more thoroughly honest in its intention: the
frigid rhetoric at the end was as sincere as the bark of a dog, or the
cawing of an amorous rook. Would it not be rash to conclude that there
was no passion behind those sonnets to Delia which strike us as the
thin music of a mandolin?
Dorothea’s faith supplied all that Mr. Casaubon’s words seemed to leave
unsaid: what believer sees a disturbing omission or infelicity? The
text, whether of prophet or of poet, expands for whatever we can put
into it, and even his bad grammar is sublime.
“I am very ignorant—you will quite wonder at my ignorance,” said
Dorothea. “I have so many thoughts that may be quite mistaken; and now
I shall be able to tell them all to you, and ask you about them. But,”
she added, with rapid imagination of Mr. Casaubon’s probable feeling,
“I will not trouble you too much; only when you are inclined to listen
to me. You must often be weary with the pursuit of subjects in your own
track. I shall gain enough if you will take me with you there.”
“How should I be able now to persevere in any path without your
companionship?” said Mr. Casaubon, kissing her candid brow, and feeling
that heaven had vouchsafed him a blessing in every way suited to his
peculiar wants. He was being unconsciously wrought upon by the charms
of a nature which was entirely without hidden calculations either for
immediate effects or for remoter ends. It was this which made Dorothea
so childlike, and, according to some judges, so stupid, with all her
reputed cleverness; as, for example, in the present case of throwing
herself, metaphorically speaking, at Mr. Casaubon’s feet, and kissing
his unfashionable shoe-ties as if he were a Protestant Pope. She was
not in the least teaching Mr. Casaubon to ask if he were good enough
for her, but merely asking herself anxiously how she could be good
enough for Mr. Casaubon. Before he left the next day it had been
decided that the marriage should take place within six weeks. Why not?
Mr. Casaubon’s house was ready. It was not a parsonage, but a
considerable mansion, with much land attached to it. The parsonage was
inhabited by the curate, who did all the duty except preaching the
morning sermon.
CHAPTER VI.
My lady’s tongue is like the meadow blades,
That cut you stroking them with idle hand.
Nice cutting is her function: she divides
With spiritual edge the millet-seed,
And makes intangible savings.
As Mr. Casaubon’s carriage was passing out of the gateway, it arrested
the entrance of a pony phaeton driven by a lady with a servant seated
behind. It was doubtful whether the recognition had been mutual, for
Mr. Casaubon was looking absently before him; but the lady was
quick-eyed, and threw a nod and a “How do you do?” in the nick of time.
In spite of her shabby bonnet and very old Indian shawl, it was plain
that the lodge-keeper regarded her as an important personage, from the
low curtsy which was dropped on the entrance of the small phaeton.
“Well, Mrs. Fitchett, how are your fowls laying now?” said the
high-colored, dark-eyed lady, with the clearest chiselled utterance.
“Pretty well for laying, madam, but they’ve ta’en to eating their eggs:
I’ve no peace o’ mind with ’em at all.”
“Oh, the cannibals! Better sell them cheap at once. What will you sell
them a couple? One can’t eat fowls of a bad character at a high price.”
“Well, madam, half-a-crown: I couldn’t let ’em go, not under.”
“Half-a-crown, these times! Come now—for the Rector’s chicken-broth on
a Sunday. He has consumed all ours that I can spare. You are half paid
with the sermon, Mrs. Fitchett, remember that. Take a pair of
tumbler-pigeons for them—little beauties. You must come and see them.
You have no tumblers among your pigeons.”
“Well, madam, Master Fitchett shall go and see ’em after work. He’s
very hot on new sorts; to oblige you.”
“Oblige me! It will be the best bargain he ever made. A pair of church
pigeons for a couple of wicked Spanish fowls that eat their own eggs!
Don’t you and Fitchett boast too much, that is all!”
The phaeton was driven onwards with the last words, leaving Mrs.
Fitchett laughing and shaking her head slowly, with an interjectional
“Sure_ly_, sure_ly_!”—from which it might be inferred that she would
have found the country-side somewhat duller if the Rector’s lady had
been less free-spoken and less of a skinflint. Indeed, both the farmers
and laborers in the parishes of Freshitt and Tipton would have felt a
sad lack of conversation but for the stories about what Mrs.
Cadwallader said and did: a lady of immeasurably high birth, descended,
as it were, from unknown earls, dim as the crowd of heroic shades—who
pleaded poverty, pared down prices, and cut jokes in the most
companionable manner, though with a turn of tongue that let you know
who she was. Such a lady gave a neighborliness to both rank and
religion, and mitigated the bitterness of uncommuted tithe. A much more
exemplary character with an infusion of sour dignity would not have
furthered their comprehension of the Thirty-nine Articles, and would
have been less socially uniting.
Mr. Brooke, seeing Mrs. Cadwallader’s merits from a different point of
view, winced a little when her name was announced in the library, where
he was sitting alone.
“I see you have had our Lowick Cicero here,” she said, seating herself
comfortably, throwing back her wraps, and showing a thin but well-built
figure. “I suspect you and he are brewing some bad polities, else you
would not be seeing so much of the lively man. I shall inform against
you: remember you are both suspicious characters since you took Peel’s
side about the Catholic Bill. I shall tell everybody that you are going
to put up for Middlemarch on the Whig side when old Pinkerton resigns,
and that Casaubon is going to help you in an underhand manner: going to
bribe the voters with pamphlets, and throw open the public-houses to
distribute them. Come, confess!”
“Nothing of the sort,” said Mr. Brooke, smiling and rubbing his
eye-glasses, but really blushing a little at the impeachment. “Casaubon
and I don’t talk politics much. He doesn’t care much about the
philanthropic side of things; punishments, and that kind of thing. He
only cares about Church questions. That is not my line of action, you
know.”
“Ra-a-ther too much, my friend. I have heard of your doings. Who was it
that sold his bit of land to the Papists at Middlemarch? I believe you
bought it on purpose. You are a perfect Guy Faux. See if you are not
burnt in effigy this 5th of November coming. Humphrey would not come to
quarrel with you about it, so I am come.”
“Very good. I was prepared to be persecuted for not persecuting—not
persecuting, you know.”
“There you go! That is a piece of clap-trap you have got ready for the
hustings. Now, _do not_ let them lure you to the hustings, my dear Mr.
Brooke. A man always makes a fool of himself, speechifying: there’s no
excuse but being on the right side, so that you can ask a blessing on
your humming and hawing. You will lose yourself, I forewarn you. You
will make a Saturday pie of all parties’ opinions, and be pelted by
everybody.”
“That is what I expect, you know,” said Mr. Brooke, not wishing to
betray how little he enjoyed this prophetic sketch—“what I expect as an