Chapter LIV
Negli occhi porta la mia donna Amore;
Per ehe si fa gentil eio eh'ella mira:
Ov'ella passa, ogni uom ver lei si gira,
E cui saluta fa tremar lo core.
Sicche, bassando il viso, tutto smore,
E d'ogni suo difetto allor sospira:
Fuggon dinanzi a lei Superbia ed Ira:
Aiutatemi, donne, a farle onore.
Ogni dolcezza, ogni pensiero umile
Nasee nel core a ehi parlar la sente;
Ond' e beato chi primn la vide.
Quel ch'ella par quand' un poco sorride,
Non si puo dicer, ne tener a mente,
Si e nuovo miracolo gentile.
DANTE: la Vita Nuova.
By that delightful morning when the hay-ricks at Stone
Court were scenting the air quite impartially, as if Mr.
Raffles had been a guest worthy of finest incense, Dorothea
had again taken up her abode at Lowick Manor. After three
months Freshitt had become rather oppressive: to sit like a
model for Saint Catherine looking rapturously at Celia's
baby would not do for many hours in the day, and to remain
in that momentous babe's presence with persistent disregard
was a course that could not have been tolerated in a
childless sister. Dorothea would have been capable of
carrying baby joyfully for a mile if there had been need,
and of loving it the more tenderly for that labor; but to an
aunt who does not recognize her infant nephew as Bouddha,
and has nothing to do for him but
to admire, his
behavior is apt to appear monotonous, and the interest of
watching him exhaustible.
This possibility was quite hidden from Celia, who felt
that Dorothea's childless widowhood fell in quite prettily
with the birth of little Arthur (baby was named after Mr.
Brooke).
"Dodo is just the creature not to mind about having
anything of her own — children or anything!" said Celia to
her husband. "And if she had had a baby, it never could
have been such a dear as Arthur. Could it, James?
"Not if it had been like Casaubon," said Sir James,
conscious of some indirectness in his answer, and of holding
a strictly private opinion as to the perfections of his
first-born.
"No! just imagine! Really it was a mercy," said 'Celia;
"and I think it is very nice for Dodo to be a widow. She
can be just as fond of oar baby as if it were her own, and
she can have as many notions of her own as she likes."
"It is a pity she was not a queen," said the devout Sir
James.
"But what should we have been then? We must have been
something else," said Celia, objecting to so laborious a
flight of imagination. "I like her better as she is."
Hence, when she found that Dorothea was making
arrangements for her final departure to Lowick, Celia raised
her eyebrows with disappointment, and in her quiet
unemphatic way shot a needle-arrow of sarcasm.
"What will you do at Lowick, Dodo? You say yourself
there is nothing to be done there: everybody is so clean and
well off, it makes you quite melancholy. And here you have
been so happy going all about Tipton with Mr. Garth into the
worst backyards. And now uncle is abroad, you and Mr. Garth
can have it all your own way; and I am sure James does
everything you tell him."
"I shall often come here, and I shall see how baby grows
all the better," said Dorothea.
"But you will never see him washed," said Celia; "and
that is quite the best part of the day." She was almost
pouting: it did seem to her very hard in Dodo to go away
from the baby when she might stay.
"Dear Kitty, I will come and stay all night on purpose,"
said Dorothea; "but I want to be alone now, and in my own
home. I wish to know the Farebrothers better, and to talk
to Mr. Farebrother about what there is to be done in
Middlemarch."
Dorothea's native strength of will was no longer all
converted into resolute submission. She had a great
yearning to be at Lowick, and was simply determined to go,
not feeling bound to tell all her reasons. But every one
around her disapproved. Sir James was much pained, and
offered that they should all migrate to Cheltenham for a few
months with the sacred ark, otherwise called a cradle: at
that period a man could hardly know what to propose if
Cheltenham were rejected.
The Dowager Lady Chettam, just returned from a visit to
her daughter in town, wished, at least, that Mrs. Vigo
should be written to, and invited to accept the office of
companion to Mrs. Casaubon: it was not credible that
Dorothea as a young widow would think of living alone in the
house at Lowick. Mrs. Vigo had been reader and secretary to
royal personages, and in point of knowledge and sentiments
even Dorothea could have nothing to object to her.
Mrs. Cadwallader said, privately, "You will certainly go
mad in that house alone, my dear. You will see visions. We
have all got to exert ourselves a little to keep sane, and
call things by the same names as other people call them by.
To be sure, for younger sons and women who have no money, it
is a sort of provision to go mad: they are taken care of
then. But you must not run into that. I dare say you are a
little bored here with our good dowager; but think what a
bore you might become yourself to your fellow-creatures if
you were always playing tragedy queen and taking things
sublimely. Sitting alone in that library at Lowick you may
fancy yourself ruling the weather; you must get a few people
round you who wouldn't believe you if you told them. That
is a good lowering medicine."
"I never called everything by the same name that all the
people about me did," said Dorothea, stoutly.
"But I suppose you have found out your mistake, my
dear," said Mrs. Cadwallader, " and that is a proof of
sanity."
Dorothea was aware of the sting, but it did not hurt
her. "No," she said, "I still think that the greater part
of the world is mistaken about many things. Surely one may
be sane and yet think so, since the greater part of the
world has often had to come round from its opinion."
Mrs. Cadwallader said no more on that point to Dorothea,
but to her husband she remarked, " It will be well for her
to marry again as soon as it is proper, if one could get her
among the right people. Of course the Chettams would not
wish it. But I see clearly a husband is the best thing to
keep her in order. If we were not so poor I would invite
Lord Triton. He will be marquis some day, and there is no
denying that she would make a good marchioness: she looks
handsomer than ever in her mourning."
"My dear Elinor, do let the poor woman alone. Such
contrivances are of no use," said the easy Rector.
"No use? How are matches made, except by bringing men
and women together? And it is a shame that her uncle should
have run away and shut up the Grange just now. There ought
to be plenty of eligible matches invited to Freshitt and the
Grange. Lord Triton is precisely the man: full of plans for
making the people happy in a soft-headed sort of way. That
would just suit Mrs. Casaubon."
"Let Mrs. Casaubon choose for herself, Elinor."
"That is the nonsense you wise men talk! How can she
choose if she has no variety to choose from? A woman's
choice usually means taking the only man she can get. Mark
my words, Humphrey. If her friends don't exert themselves,
there will be a worse business than the Casaubon business
yet."
"For heaven's sake don't touch on that topic, Elinor I
It is a very sore point with Sir James He would be deeply
offended if you entered on it to him unnecessarily."
"I have never entered on it," said Mrs Cadwallader,
opening her hands. " Celia told me all about the will at
the beginning, without any asking of mine."
"Yes, yes; but they want the thing hushed up, and I
understand that the young fellow is going out of the
neighborhood."
Mrs. Cadwallader said nothing, but gave her husband
three significant nods, with a very sarcastic expression in
her dark eyes.
Dorothea quietly persisted in spite of remonstrance and
persuasion. So by the end of June the shutters were all
opened at Lowick Manor, and the morning gazed calmly into
the library, shining on the rows of note-books as it shines
on the weary waste planted with huge stones, the mute
memorial of a forgotten faith; and the evening laden with
roses entered silently into the blue-green boudoir where
Dorothea chose oftenest to sit. At first she walked into
every room, questioning the eighteen months of her married
life, and carrying on her thoughts as if they were a speech
to be heard by her husband. Then, she lingered in the
library and could not be at rest till she had carefully
ranged all the note-books as she imagined that he would wish
to see them, in orderly sequence. The pity which had been
the restraining compelling motive in her life with him still
clung about his image, even while she remonstrated with him
in indignant thought and told him that he was unjust. One
little act of hers may perhaps be smiled at as
superstitious. The Synoptical Tabulation for the use of
Mrs. Casaubon, she carefully enclosed and sealed, writing
within the envelope, " I could not use it. Do you not see
now that I could not submit my soul to yours, by working
hopelessly at what I have no belief in — Dorothea?" Then
she deposited the paper in her own desk.
That silent colloquy was perhaps only the more earnest
because underneath and through it all there was always the
deep longing which had really determined her to come to
Lowick. The longing was to see Will Ladislaw. She did not
know any good that could come of their meeting: she was
helpless; her hands had been tied from making up to him for
any unfairness in his lot. But her soul thirsted to see
him. How could it be otherwise? If a princess in the days
of enchantment had seen a four-footed creature from among
those which live in herds come to her once and again
with a human gaze which rested upon her with choice and
beseeching, what would she think of in her journeying, what
would she look for when the herds passed her? Surely for
the gaze which had found her, and which she would know
again. Life would be no better than candle-light tinsel and
daylight rubbish if our spirits were not touched by what has
been, to issues of longing and constancy. It was true that
Dorothea wanted to know the Farebrothers better, and
especially to talk to the new rector, but also true that
remembering what Lydgate had told her about Will Ladislaw
and little Miss Noble, she counted on Will's coming to
Lowick to see the Farebrother family. The very first
Sunday,
before she entered the church, she saw him as
she had seen him the last time she was there, alone in the
clergyman's pew; but
when she entered his figure was
gone.
In the week-days when she went to see the ladies at the
Rectory, she listened in vain for some word that they might
let fall about Will; but it seemed to her that Mrs.
Farebrother talked of every one else in the neighborhood and
out
of it.
"Probably some of Mr. Farebrother's Middlemarch hearers
may follow him to Lowick sometimes. Do you not think so '7"
said Dorothea, rather despising herself for having a secret
motive in asking the question.
"If they are wise they will, Mrs. Casaubon," said the
old lady. "I see that you set a right value on my son's
preaching. His grandfather on my side was an excellent
clergyman, but his father was in the law: — most exemplary
and honest nevertheless, which is a reason for our never
being rich. They say Fortune is a woman and capricious.
But sometimes she is a good woman and gives to those who
merit, which has been the ease with you, Mrs. Casaubon, who
have given a living to my son."
Mrs. Farebrother recurred to her knitting with a
dignified satisfaction in her neat little effort at oratory,
but this was not what Dorothea wanted to hear. Poor thing!
she did not even know whether Will Ladislaw was still at
Middlemarch,
and there was no one whom she dared to
ask, unless it were Lydgate. But just now she could not see
Lydgate without sending for him or going to seek him.
Perhaps Will Ladislaw, having heard of that strange ban
against him left by Mr. Casaubon, had felt it better that he
and she should not meet again, and perhaps she was wrong to
wish for a meeting that others might find many good reasons
against. Still "I do wish it " came at the end of those
wise reflections as naturally as a sob after holding the
breath. And the meeting did happen, but in a formal way
quite unexpected by her.
One morning, about eleven, Dorothea was seated in her
boudoir with a map of the land attached to the manor and
other papers before her, which were to help her in making an
exact statement for herself of her income and affairs. She
had not yet applied herself to her work, but was seated with
her hands folded on her lap, looking out along the avenue of
limes to the distant fields. Every leaf was at rest in the
sunshine, the familiar scene was changeless, and seemed to
represent the prospect of her life, full of motiveless
ease — motiveless, if her own energy could not seek out
reasons for ardent action. The widow's cap of those times
made an oval frame for the face, and had a crown standing
up; the dress was an experiment in the utmost laying on of
crape; but this heavy solemnity of clothing made her face
look all the younger, with its recovered bloom, and the
sweet, inquiring candor of her eyes.
Her reverie was broken by Tantripp, who came to say that
Mr. Ladislaw was below, and begged permission to see Madam
if it were not too early.
"I will see him," said Dorothea, rising immediately. "
Let him be shown into the drawing-room."
The drawing-room was the most neutral room in the house
to her — the one least associated with the trials of her
married life: the damask matched the wood-work, which was
all white and gold; there were two tall mirrors and tables
with nothing on them — in brief, it was a room where you had
no reason for sitting in one place rather than in another.
It was below the boudoir, and had also a bow-window looking
out on the
avenue. But when Pratt showed Will Ladislaw
into it the window was open; and a winged visitor, buzzing
in and out now and then without minding the furniture, made
the room look less formal and uninhabited.
"Glad to see you here again, sir," said Pratt, lingering
to adjust a blind.
"I am only come to say good-by, Pratt," said Will, who
wished even the butler to know that he was too proud to hang
about Mrs. Casaubon now she was a rich widow.
"Very sorry to hear it, sir," said Pratt, retiring. Of
course, as a servant who was to be told nothing, he knew the
fact of which Ladislaw was still ignorant, and had drawn his
inferences; indeed, had not differed from his betrothed
Tantripp when she said, " Your master was as jealous as a
fiend — and no reason. Madam would look higher than Mr.
Ladislaw, else I don't know her. Mrs. Cadwallader's maid
says there's a lord coming who is to marry her when the
mourning's over."
There were not many moments for Will to walk about with
his hat in his hand before Dorothea entered. The meeting
was very different from that first meeting in Rome when Will
had been embarrassed and Dorothea calm. This time he felt
miserable but determined, while she was in a state of
agitation which could not be hidden. Just outside the door
she had felt that this longed-for meeting was after all too
difficult, and when she saw Will advancing towards her, the
deep blush which was rare in her came with painful
suddenness. Neither of them knew how it was, but neither of
them spoke. She gave her hand for a moment, and then they
went to sit down near the window, she on one settee and he
on another opposite. Will was peculiarly uneasy: it seemed
to him not like Dorothea that the mere fact of her being a
widow should cause such a change in her manner of receiving
him; and he knew of no other condition which could have
affected their previous relation to each other — except that,
as his imagination at once told him, her friends might have
been poisoning her mind with their suspicions of him.
"I hope I have not presumed too much in calling," said
Will; " I could not bear to leave the neighborhood and
begin a new life without seeing you to say good-by."
"Presumed? Surely not. I should have thought it unkind
if you had not wished to see me," said Dorothea, her habit
of speaking with perfect genuineness asserting itself
through all her uncertainty and agitation. " Are you going
away immediately?"
"Very soon, I think. I intend to go to town and eat my
dinners as a barrister, since, they say, that is the
preparation for all public business. There will be a great
deal of political work to be done by-and-by, and I mean to
try and do some of it. Other men have managed to win au
honorable position for themselves without family or money."
"And that will make it all the more honorable," said
Dorothea, ardently. " Besides, you have so many talents. I
have heard from my uncle how well you speak in public, so
that every one is sorry when you leave off, and how clearly
you can explain things. And you care that justice should be
done to every one. I am so glad. When we were in Rome, I
thought you only cared for poetry and art, and the things
that adorn life for us who are well off. But now I know you
think about the rest of the world."
While she was speaking Dorothea had lost her personal
embarrassment, and had become like her former self. She
looked at Will with a direct glance, full of delighted
confidence.
"You approve of my going away for years, then, and never
coming here again till I have made myself of some mark in
the world? " said Will, trying hard to reconcile the utmost
pride with the utmost effort to get an expression of strong
feeling from Dorothea.
She was not aware how long it was before she answered.
She had turned her head and was looking out of the window on
the rose-bushes, which seemed to have in them the summers of
all the years when Will would be away. This was not
judicious behavior. But Dorothea never thought of studying
her manners: she thought only of bowing to a sad necessity
which divided her from Will. Those first words of his about
his intentions had seemed to make everything clear to
her: he knew, she supposed, all about Mr. Casaubon's final
conduct in relation to him, and it had come to him with the
same sort of shock as to herself. He had never felt more
than friendship for her — had never had anything in his mind
to justify what she felt to be her husband's outrage on the
feelings of both: and that friendship he still felt.
Something which may be called an inward silent sob had gone
on in Dorothea before she said with a pure voice, just
trembling in the last words as if only from its liquid
flexibility —
"Yes, it must be right for you to do as you say. I
shall be very happy when I hear that you have made your
value felt. But you must have patience. It will perhaps be
a long while."
Will never quite knew how it was that he saved himself
from falling down at her feet, when the "long while " came
forth with its gen-tle tremor. He used to say that the
horrible hue and surface of her crape dress was most likely
the sufficient controlling force. He sat still, however,
and only said —
"I shall never hear from you. And you will forget all
about me."
"No," said Dorothea, "I shall never forget you. I have
never forgotten any one whom I once knew. My life has never
been crowded, and seems not likely to be so. And I have a
great deal of space for memory at Lowick, haven't I?" She
smiled.
"Good God!" Will burst out passionately, rising, with
his hat still in his hand, and walking away to a marble
table, where he suddenly turned and leaned his back against
it. The blood had mounted to his face and neck, and he
looked almost angry. It had seemed to him as if they were
like two creatures slowly turning to marble in each other's
presence, while their hearts were conscious and their eyes
were yearning. But there was no help for it. It should
never be true of him that in this meeting to which he had
come with bitter resolution he had ended by a confession
which might be interpreted into asking for her fortune.
Moreover, it was actually true that he was fearful of the
effect which such confessions might have on Dorothea
herself.
She looked at him from that distance in some trouble,
imagining that there might hate been an offence in her
words. But all the while there was a current of thought in
her about his probable want of money, and the impossibility
of her helping him. If her uncle had been at home,
something might have been done through him! It was this
preoccupation with the hardship of Will's wanting money,
while she had what ought to have been his share, which led
her to say, seeing that he remained silent and looked away
from her —
"I wonder whether you would like to have that miniature
which hangs up-stairs — I mean that beautiful miniature
of your grandmother. I think it is not right for me to
keep it, if you would wish to have it. It is wonderfully
like you."
"You are very good," said Will, irritably. "No; I don't
mind about it. It is not very consoling to have one's own
likeness. It would be more consoling if others wanted to
have it."
"I thought you would like to cherish her memory — I
thought — " Dorothea broke off an instant, her imagination
suddenly warning her away from Aunt Julia's history — "you
would surely like to have the miniature as a family
memorial."
"Why should I have that, when I have nothing else! A man
with only a portmanteau for his stowage must keep his
memorials in his head."
Will spoke at random: he was merely venting his
petulance; it was a little too exasperating to have his
grandmother's portrait offered him at that moment. But to
Dorothea's feeling his words had a peculiar sting. She rose
and said with a touch of indignation as well as hauteur —
"You are much the happier of us two, Mr. Ladislaw, to
have nothing."
Will was startled. Whatever the words might be, the
tone seemed like a dismissal; and quitting his leaning
posture, he walked a little way towards her. Their eyes
met, but with a strange questioning gravity. Something was
keeping their minds aloof, and each was left to conjecture
what was in the other. Will had really never thought of
himself as having a
claim of inheritance on the
property which was held by Dorothea, and would have required
a narrative to make him understand her present feeling.
"I never felt it a misfortune to have nothing till now,"
he said. " But poverty may be as bad as leprosy, if it
divides us from what we most care for."
The words cut Dorothea to the heart, and made her
relent. She answered in a tone of sad fellowship.
"Sorrow comes in so many ways. Two years ago I had no
notion of that — I mean of the unexpected way in which
trouble comes, and ties our hands, and makes us silent when
we long to speak. I used to despise women a little for not
shaping their lives more, and doing better things. I was
very fond of doing as I liked, but I have almost given it
up," she ended, smiling playfully.
"I have not given up doing as I like, but I can very
seldom do it," said Will. He was standing two yards from
her with his mind full of contradictory desires and
resolves — desiring some unmistakable proof that she loved
him, and yet dreading the position into which such a proof
might bring him. " The thing one most longs for may be
surrounded with conditions that would be intolerable."
At this moment Pratt entered and said, " Sir James
Chettam is in the library, madam."
"Ask Sir James to come in here," said Dorothea,
immediately. It was as if the same electric shock had
passed through her and Will. Each of them felt proudly
resistant, and neither looked at the other, while they
awaited Sir James's entrance.
After shaking hands with Dorothea, he bowed as slightly
as possible to Ladislaw, who repaid the slightness exactly,
and then going towards Dorothea, said —
"I must say good-by, Mrs. Casaubon; and probably for a
long while."
Dorothea put out her hand and said her good-by
cordially. The sense that Sir James was depreciating Will,
and behaving rudely to him, roused her resolution and
dignity-there was no touch of confusion in her manner. And
when Will had
left the room, she looked with such calm
self-possession at Sir James, saying, " How is Celia?" that
he was obliged to behave as if nothing had annoyed him. And
what would be the use of behaving otherwise? Indeed, Sir
James shrank with so much dislike from the association even
in thought of Dorothea with Ladislaw as her possible lover,
that he would himself have wished to avoid an outward show
of displeasure which would have recognized the disagreeable
possibility. If any one had asked him why he shrank in that
way, I am not sure that he would at first have said anything
fuller or more precise than "
that Ladislaw!" — though on
reflection he might have urged that Mr. Casaubon's codicil,
barring Dorothea's marriage with Will, except under a
penalty, was enough to east unfitness over any relation at
all between them. His aversion was all the stronger because
he felt himself unable to interfere.
But Sir James was a power in a way unguessed by himself
Entering at that moment, he was an incorporation of the
strongest reasons through which Will's pride became a
repellent force, keeping him asunder from Dorothea