Chapter LXXXVI
Le coeur se sature d'amour comme d'un sel divin qui le
conserve; de la l'incorruptible adherence de ceux qui se
sont aimes des l'aube de la vie, et la fraicheur des vielles
amours prolonges. Il existe d'un embaumement d'amour. C'est
de Daphnis et Chloe que sont faits Philemon et Baucis.
Cette vieillesse la, ressemblance du soir avec l'aurore. —
VICTOR HUGO: L'homme qui rit.
Mrs. Garth, hearing Caleb enter the passage about tea-time, opened the parlor-door and said, "There you are,
Caleb. Have you had your dinner?" (Mr. Garth's meals were
much subordinated to "business.")
"Oh yes, a good dinner — cold mutton and I don't know
what. Where is Mary?"
"In the garden with Letty, I think."
"Fred is not come yet?"
"No. Are you going out again without taking tea,
Caleb?" said Mrs. Garth, seeing that her absent-minded
husband was putting on again the hat which he had just taken
off.
"No, no; I'm only going to Mary a minute."
Mary was in a grassy corner of the garden, where there
was a swing loftily hung between two pear-trees. She had a
pink kerchief tied over her head, making a little poke to
shade her eyes from the level sunbeams, while she was giving
a glorious swing to Letty, who laughed and screamed wildly.
Seeing her father, Mary left the swing and went to meet
him, pushing back the pink kerchief and smiling afar off at
him with the involuntary smile of loving pleasure.
"I came to look for you, Mary," said Mr. Garth. "Let
us-walk about a bit."
Mary knew quite well that her father had something
particular to say: his eyebrows made their pathetic angle,
and there was a tender gravity in his voice: these things
had been signs to her when she was Letty's age. She put her
arm within his, and they turned by the row of nut-trees.
"It will be a sad while before you can be married,
Mary," said her father, not looking at her, but at the end
of the stick which he held in his other hand.
"Not a sad while, father — I mean to be merry," said
Mary, laughingly. "I have been single and merry for four-and-twenty years and more: I suppose it will not be quite as
long again as that." Then, after a little pause, she said,
more gravely, bending her face before her father's, "If you
are contented with Fred?"
Caleb screwed up his mouth and turned his head aside
wisely.
"Now, father, you did praise him last Wednesday. You
said he had an uncommon notion of stock, and a good eye for
things."
"Did I?" said Caleb, rather slyly.
"Yes, I put it all down, and the date, anno Domini,
and everything," said Mary. "You like things to be neatly
booked. And then his behavior to you, father, is really
good; he has a deep respect for you; and it is impossible to
have a better temper than Fred has."
"Ay, ay; you want to coax me into thinking him a fine
match."
"No, indeed, father. I don't love him because he is a
fine match."
"What for, then?"
"Oh, dear, because I have always loved him. I should
never like scolding any one else so well; and that is a
point to be thought of in a husband."
"Your mind is quite settled, then, Mary?" said Caleb,
returning to his first tone. "There's no other wish come
into it since things have been going on as they have been of
late?" (Caleb meant a great deal in that vague phrase;)
"because, better late than never. A woman must not force
her heart — she'll do a man no good by that."
"My feelings have not changed, father," said Mary,
calmly. "I shall be constant to Fred as long as he is
constant to me. I don't think either of us could spare the
other, or like any one else better, however much we might
admire them. It would make too great a difference to us —
like seeing all the old places altered, and changing the
name for everything. We must wait for each other a long
while; but Fred knows that."
Instead of speaking immediately, Caleb stood still and
screwed his stick on the grassy walk. Then he said, with
emotion in his voice, "Well, I've got a bit of news. What
do you think of Fred going to live at Stone Court, and
managing the land there?"
"How can that ever be, father?" said Mary, wonderingly.
"He would manage it for his aunt Bulstrode. The poor
woman has been to me begging and praying. She wants to do
the lad good, and it might be a fine thing for him. With
saving, he might gradually buy the stock, and he has a turn
for farming."
"Oh, Fred would be so happy! It is too good to
believe."
"Ah, but mind you," said Caleb, turning his head
warningly, "I must take it on my shoulders, and be
responsible, and see after everything; and that will grieve
your mother a bit, though she mayn't say so. Fred had need
be careful."
"Perhaps it is too much, father," said Mary, checked in
her joy. "There would be no happiness in bringing you any
fresh trouble."
"Nay, nay; work is my delight, child, when it doesn't
vex your mother. And then, if you and Fred get married,"
here Caleb's voice shook just perceptibly, "he'll be steady
and saving; and you've got your mother's cleverness, and
mine too, in a woman's sort of way; and you'll keep him in
order. He'll be coming by-and-by, so I wanted to tell you
first, because I think you'd like to tell him by
yourselves. After that, I could talk it well over with him,
and we could go into business and the nature of things."
"Oh, you dear good father!" cried Mary, putting her
hands round her father's neck, while he bent his head
placidly, willing to be caressed. "I wonder if any other
girl thinks her father the best man in the world!"
"Nonsense, child; you'll think your husband better."
"Impossible," said Mary, relapsing into her usual tone;
" husbands are an inferior class of men, who require keeping
in order."
When they were entering the house with Letty, who had
run to join them, Mary saw Fred at the orchard-gate, and
went to meet him.
"What fine clothes you wear, you extravagant youth!"
said Mary, as Fred stood still and raised his hat to her
with playful formality. "You are not learning economy."
"Now that is too bad, Mary," said Fred. "Just look at
the edges of these coat-cuffs! It is only by dint of good
brushing that I look respectable. I am saving up three
suits — one for a wedding-suit."
"How very droll you will look! — like a gentleman in an
old fashion-book."
"Oh no, they will keep two years."
"Two years! be reasonable, Fred," said Mary, turning to
walk. "Don't encourage flattering expectations."
"Why not? One lives on them better than on unflattering
ones. If we can't be married in two years, the truth will
be quite bad enough when it comes."
"I have heard a story of a young gentleman who once
encouraged flattering expectations, and they did him harm."
"Mary, if you've got something discouraging to tell me,
I shall bolt; I shall go into the house to Mr. Garth. I am
out of spirits. My father is so cut up — home is not like
itself. I can't bear any more bad news."
"Should you call it bad news to be told that you were to
live at Stone Court, and manage the farm, and be remarkably
prudent, and save money every year till all the stock and
furniture were your own, and you were a distinguished
agricultural character, as Mr. Borthrop Trumbull says —
rather stout, I fear, and with the Greek and Latin sadly
weather-worn?"
"You don't mean anything except nonsense, Mary?" said
Fred, coloring slightly nevertheless.
"That is what my father has just told me of as what may
happen, and he never talks nonsense," said Mary, looking up
at Fred now, while he grasped her hand as they walked, till
it rather hurt her; but she would not complain.
"Oh, I could be a tremendously good fellow then, Mary,
and we could be married directly."
"Not so fast, sir; how do you know that I would not
rather defer our marriage for some years? That would leave
you time to misbehave, and then if I liked some one else
better, I should have an excuse for jilting you."
"Pray don't joke, Mary," said Fred, with strong feeling.
"Tell me seriously that all this is true, and that you are
happy because of it — because you love me best."
"It is all true, Fred, and I am happy because of it —
because I love you best," said Mary, in a tone of obedient
recitation.
They lingered on the door-step under the steep-roofed
porch, and Fred almost in a whisper said —
"When we were first engaged, with the umbrella-ring,
Mary, you used to — "
The spirit of joy began to laugh more decidedly in
Mary's eyes, but the fatal Ben came running to the door with
Brownie yapping behind him, and, bouncing against them,
said —
"Fred and Mary! are you ever coming in? — or may I eat
your cake?"
FINALE.
Every limit is a beginning as well as an ending. Who
can quit young lives after being long in company with them,
and not desire to know what befell them in their after-years? For the fragment of a life, however typical, is not
the sample of an even web: promises may not be kept, and an
ardent outset may be followed by declension; latent powers
may find their long-waited opportunity; a past error may
urge a grand retrieval.
Marriage, which has been the bourne of so many
narratives, is still a great beginning, as it was to Adam
and Eve, who kept their honeymoon in Eden, but had their
first little one among the thorns and thistles of the
wilderness. It is still the beginning of the home epic — the
gradual conquest or irremediable loss of that complete union
which makes the advancing years a climax, and age the
harvest of sweet memories in common.
Some set out, like Crusaders of old, with a glorious
equipment of hope and enthusiasm and get broken by the way,
wanting patience with each other and the world.
All who have oared for Fred Vincy and Mary Garth will
like to know that these two made no such failure, but
achieved a solid mutual happiness. Fred surprised his
neighbors in various ways. He became rather distinguished
in his side of the county as a theoretic and practical
farmer, and produced a work on the "Cultivation of Green
Crops and the
Economy of Cattle-Feeding" which won him
high congratulations at agricultural meetings. In
Middlemarch admiration was more reserved: most persons there
were inclined to believe that the merit of Fred's authorship
was due to his wife, since they had never expected Fred
Vincy to write on turnips and mangel-wurzel.
But when Mary wrote a little book for her boys, called
"Stories of Great Men, taken from Plutarch," and had it
printed and published by Gripp & Co., Middlemarch, every one
in the town was willing to give the credit of this work to
Fred, observing that he had been to the University, " where
the ancients were studied," and might have been a clergyman
if he had chosen.
In this way it was made clear that Middlemarch had never
been deceived, and that there was no need to praise anybody
for writing a book, since it was always done by somebody
else.
Moreover, Fred remained unswervingly steady. Some years
after his marriage he told Mary that his happiness was half
owing to Farebrother, who gave him a strong pull-up at the
right moment. I cannot say that he was never again misled
by his hopefulness: the yield of crops or the profits of a
cattle sale usually fell below his estimate; and he was
always prone to believe that he could make money by the
purchase of a horse which turned out badly — though this,
Mary observed, was of course the fault of the horse, not of
Fred's judgment. He kept his love of horsemanship, but he
rarely allowed himself a day's hunting; and when he did so,
it was remarkable that he submitted to be laughed at for
cowardliness at the fences, seeming to see Mary and the boys
sitting on the five-barred gate, or showing their curly
heads between hedge and ditch.
There were three boys: Mary was not discontented that
she brought forth men-children only; and when Fred wished to
have a girl like her, she said, laughingly, "that would be
too great a trial to your mother." Mrs. Vincy in her
declining years, and in the diminished lustre of her
housekeeping, was much comforted by her perception that two
at least of
Fred's boys were real Vincys, and did not
"feature the Garths." But Mary secretly rejoiced that the
youngest of the three was very much what her father must
have been when he wore a round jacket, and showed a
marvellous nicety of aim in playing at marbles, or in
throwing stones to bring down the mellow pears.
Ben and Letty Garth, who were uncle and aunt before they
were well in their teens, disputed much as to whether
nephews or nieces were more desirable; Ben contending that
it was clear girls were good for less than boys, else they
would not be always in petticoats, which showed how little
they were meant for; whereupon Letty, who argued much from
books, got angry in replying that God made coats of skins
for both Adam and Eve alike — also it occurred to her that in
the East the men too wore petticoats. But this latter
argument, obscuring the majesty of the former, was one too
many, for Ben answered contemptuously, "The more spooneys
they!" and immediately appealed to his mother whether boys
were not better than girls. Mrs. Garth pronounced that both
were alike naughty, but that boys were undoubtedly stronger,
could run faster, and throw with more precision to a greater
distance. With this oracular sentence Ben was well
satisfied, not minding the naughtiness; but Letty took it
ill, her feeling of superiority being stronger than her
muscles.
Fred never became rich — his hopefulness had not led him
to expect that; but he gradually saved enough to become
owner of the stock and furniture at Stone Court, and the
work which Mr. Garth put into his hands carried him in
plenty through those "bad times" which are always present
with farmers. Mary, in her matronly days, became as solid
in figure as her mother; but, unlike her, gave the boys
little formal teaching, so that Mrs. Garth was alarmed lest
they should never be well grounded in grammar and geography.
Nevertheless, they were found quite forward enough when they
went to school; perhaps, because they had liked nothing so
well as being with their mother. When Fred was riding home
on winter evenings he had a pleasant vision beforehand of
the bright hearth in the wainscoted parlor, and was sorry
for other men who could not have Mary for their wife;
especially for Mr. Farebrother. "He was ten times worthier
of you than I was," Fred could now say to her,
magnanimously. "To be sure he was," Mary answered; " and
for that reason he could do better without me. But you — I
shudder to think what you would have been — a curate in debt
for horse-hire and cambric pocket-handkerchiefs!"
On inquiry it might possibly be found that Fred and Mary
still inhabit Stone Court — that the creeping plants still
east the foam of their blossoms over the fine stone-wall
into the field where the walnut-trees stand in stately row —
and that on sunny days the two lovers who were first engaged
with the umbrella-ring may be seen in white-haired placidity
at the open window from which Mary Garth, in the days of old
Peter Featherstone, had often been ordered to look out for
Mr. Lydgate.
Lydgate's hair never became white. He died when he was
only fifty, leaving his wife and children provided for by a
heavy insurance on his life. He had gained an excellent
practice, alternating, according to the season, between
London and a Continental bathing-place; having written a
treatise on Gout, a disease which has a good deal of wealth
on its side. His skill was relied on by many paying
patients, but he always regarded himself as a failure: he
had not done what he once meant to do. His acquaintances
thought him enviable to have so charming a wife, and nothing
happened to shake their opinion. Rosamond never committed a
second compromising indiscretion. She simply continued to be
mild in her temper, inflexible in her judgment, disposed to
admonish her husband, and able to frustrate him by
stratagem. As the years went on he opposed her less and
less, whence Rosamond concluded that he had learned the
value of her opinion; on the other hand, she had a more
thorough conviction of his talents now that he gained a good
income, and instead of the threatened cage in Bride Street
provided one all flowers and gilding, fit for the bird of
paradise that she resembled. In brief, Lydgate was what is
called a successful man. But he died prematurely of
diphtheria, and Rosamond afterwards
married an elderly
and wealthy physician, who took kindly to her four children.
She made a very pretty show with her daughters, driving out
in her carriage, and often spoke of her happiness as "a
reward" — she did not say for what, but probably she meant
that it was a reward for her patience with Tertius, whose
temper never became faultless, and to the last occasionally
let slip a bitter speech which was more memorable than the
signs he made of his repentance. He once called her his
basil plant; and when she asked for an explanation, said
that basil was a plant which had flourished wonderfully on a
murdered man's brains. Rosamond had a placid but strong
answer to such speeches. Why then had he chosen her? It
was a pity he had not had Mrs. Ladislaw, whom he was always
praising and placing above her. And thus the conversation
ended with the advantage on Rosamond's side. But it would
be unjust not to tell, that she never uttered a word in
depreciation of Dorothea, keeping in religious remembrance
the generosity which had come to her aid in the sharpest
crisis of her life.
Dorothea herself had no dreams of being praised above
other women, feeling that there was always something better
which she might have done, if she had only been better and
known better. Still, she never repented that she had given
up position and fortune to marry Will Ladislaw, and he would
have held it the greatest shame as well as sorrow to him if
she had repented. They were bound to each other by a love
stronger than any impulses which could have marred it. No
life would have been possible to Dorothea which was not
filled with emotion, and she had now a life filled also with
a beneficent activity which she had not the doubtful pains
of discovering and marking out for herself. Will became an
ardent public man, working well in those times when reforms
were begun with a young hopefulness of immediate good which
has been much checked in our days, and getting at last
returned to Parliament by a constituency who paid his
expenses. Dorothea could have liked nothing better, since
wrongs existed, than that her husband should be in the thick
of a struggle against them, and that she should give him
wifely help. Many who knew her, thought it a pity that so
substantive and rare a
creature should have been
absorbed into the life of another, and be only known in a
certain circle as a wife and mother. But no one stated
exactly what else that was in her power she ought rather to
have done — not even Sir James Chettam, who went no further
than the negative prescription that she ought not to have
married Will Ladislaw.
But this opinion of his did not cause a lasting
alienation; and the way in which the family was made whole
again was characteristic of all concerned. Mr. Brooke could
not resist the pleasure of corresponding with Will and
Dorothea; and one morning when his pen had been remarkably
fluent on the prospects of Municipal Reform, it ran off into
an invitation to the Grange, which, once written, could not
be done away with at less cost than the sacrifice (hardly to
be conceived) of the whole valuable letter. During the
months of this correspondence Mr. Brooke had continually, in
his talk with Sir James Chettam, been presupposing or
hinting that the intention of cutting off the entail was
still maintained; and the day on which his pen gave the
daring invitation, he went to Freshitt expressly to intimate
that he had a stronger sense than ever of the reasons for
taking that energetic step as a precaution against any
mixture of low blood in the heir of the Brookes.
But that morning something exciting had happened at the
Hall. A letter had come to Celia which made her cry
silently as she read it; and when Sir James, unused to see
her in tears, asked anxiously what was the matter, she burst
out in a wail such as he had never heard from her before.
"Dorothea has a little boy. And you will not let me go
and see her. And I am sure she wants to see me. And she
will not know what to do with the baby — she will do wrong
things with it. And they thought she would die. It is very
dreadful! Suppose it had been me and little Arthur, and
Dodo had been hindered from coming to see me! I wish you
would be less unkind, James!"
"Good heavens, Celia!" said Sir James, much wrought
upon, " what do you wish? I will do anything you like. I
will take you to town to-morrow if you wish it." And Celia
did wish it.
It was after this that Mr. Brooke came, and meeting the
Baronet in the grounds, began to chat with him in ignorance
of the news, which Sir James for some reason did not care to
tell him immediately. But when the entail was touched on in
the usual way, he said, "My dear sir, it is not for me to
dictate to you, but for my part I would let that alone. I
would let things remain as they are."
Mr. Brooke felt so much surprised that he did not at
once find out how much he was relieved by the sense that he
was not expected to do anything in particular.
Such being the bent of Celia's heart, it was inevitable
that Sir James should consent to a reconciliation with
Dorothea and her husband. Where women love each other, men
learn to smother their mutual dislike. Sir James never
liked Ladislaw, and Will always preferred to have Sir
James's company mixed with another kind: they were on a
footing of reciprocal tolerance which was made quite easy
only when Dorothea and Celia were present.
It became an understood thing that Mr. and Mrs. Ladislaw
should pay at least two visits during the year to the
Grange, and there came gradually a small row of cousins at
Freshitt who enjoyed playing with the two cousins Visiting
Tipton as much as if the blood of these cousins had been
less dubiously mixed.
Mr. Brooke lived to a good old age, and his estate was
inherited by Dorothea's son, who might have represented
Middlemarch, but declined, thinking that his opinions had
less chance of being stifled if he remained out of doors.
Sir James never ceased to regard Dorothea's second
marriage as a mistake; and indeed this remained the
tradition concerning it in Middlemarch, where she was spoken
of to a younger generation as a fine girl who married a
sickly clergyman, old enough to be her father, and in little
more than a year after his death gave up her estate to marry
his cousin — young enough to have been his son, with no
property, and not well-born. Those who had not seen
anything of Dorothea usually observed that she could not
have been "a nice woman," else she would not have married
either the one or the other.
Certainly those determining acts of her life were not
ideally beautiful. They were the mixed result of young and
noble impulse struggling amidst the conditions of an
imperfect social state, in which great feelings will often
take the aspect of error, and great faith the aspect of
illusion. For there is no creature whose inward being is so
strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies
outside it. A new Theresa will hardly have the opportunity
of reforming a conventual life, any more than a new Antigone
will spend her heroic piety in daring all for the sake of a
brother's burial: the medium in which their ardent deeds
took shape is forever gone. But we insignificant people
with our daily words and acts are preparing the lives of
many Dorotheas, some of which may present a far sadder
sacrifice than that of the Dorothea whose story we know.
Her finely touched spirit had still its fine issues,
though they were not widely visible. Her full nature, like
that river of which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself
in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the
effect of her being on those around her was incalculably
diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly
dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill
with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to
the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in
unvisited tombs.
THE END.