Chapter LXXVI
To mercy, pity, peace, and love
All pray in their distress,
And to these virtues of delight,
Return their thankfulness.
. . . . . .
For Mercy has a human heart,
Pity a human face;
And Love, the human form divine;
And Peace, the human dress.
WILLIAM BLAKE: Songs of Innocence.
Some days later, Lydgate was riding to Lowick Manor, in
consequence of a summons from Dorothea. The summons had not
been unexpected, since it had followed a letter from Mr.
Bulstrode, in which he stated that he had resumed his
arrangements for quitting Middlemarch, and must remind
Lydgate of his previous communications about the Hospital,
to the purport of which he still adhered. It had been his
duty, before taking further steps, to reopen the subject
with Mrs. Casaubon, who now wished, as before, to discuss
the question with Lydgate. "Your views may possibly have
undergone some change," wrote Mr. Bulstrode; " but, in that
ease also, it is desirable that you should lay them before
her."
Dorothea awaited his arrival with eager interest.
Though, in deference to her masculine advisers, she had
refrained from what Sir James had called " interfering in
this Bulstrode business," the hardship of Lydgate's position
was continually in her mind, and when Bulstrode applied to
her again about the hospital, she felt that the opportunity
was come to her which she had been hindered from hastening.
In her luxurious home, wandering under the boughs of her own
great trees, her thought was going out over the lot of
others, and her emotions were imprisoned. The idea of some
active good within her reach, "haunted her like a passion,"
and another's need having once
come to her as a
distinct image, preoccupied her desire with the yearning to
give relief, and made her own ease tasteless. She was full
of confident hope about this interview with Lydgate, never
heeding what was said of his personal reserve; never heeding
that she was a very young woman. Nothing could have seemed
more irrelevant to Dorothea than insistence on her youth and
sex when she was moved to show her human fellowship.
As she sat waiting in the library, she could do nothing
but live through again all the past scenes which had brought
Lydgate into her memories. They all owed their significance
to her marriage and its troubles — but no; there were two
occasions in which the image of Lydgate had come painfully
in connection with his wife and some one else. The pain had
been allayed for Dorothea, but it had left in her an
awakened conjecture as to what Lydgate's marriage might be
to him, a susceptibility to the slightest hint about Mrs.
Lydgate. These thoughts were like a drama to her, and made
her eyes bright, and gave an attitude of suspense to her
whole frame, though she was only looking out from the brown
library on to the turf and the bright green buds which stood
in relief against the dark evergreens.
When Lydgate came in, she was almost shocked at the
change in his face, which was strikingly perceptible to her
who had not seen him for two months. It was not the change
of emaciation, but that effect which even young faces will
very soon show from the persistent presence of resentment
and despondency. Her cordial look, when she put out her
hand to him, softened his expression, but only with
melancholy.
"I have wished very much to see you for a long while,
Mr. Lydgate," said Dorothea when they were seated opposite
each other; "but I put off asking you to come until Mr.
Bulstrode applied to me again about the Hospital. I know
that the advantage of keeping the management of it separate
from that of the Infirmary depends on you, or, at least, on
the good which you are encouraged to hope for from having it
under your control. And I am sure you will not refuse to
tell me exactly what you think."
"You want to decide whether you should give a generous
support to the Hospital," said Lydgate. "I cannot
conscientiously advise you to do it in dependence on any
activity of mine. I may be obliged to leave the town."
He spoke curtly, feeling the ache of despair as to his
being able to carry out any purpose that Rosamond had set
her mind against.
"Not because there is no one to believe in you?" said
Dorothea, pouring out her words in clearness from a full
heart. "I know the unhappy mistakes about you. I knew them
from the first moment to be mistakes. You have never done
anything vile. You would not do anything dishonorable."
It was the first assurance of belief in him that had
fallen on Lydgate's ears. He drew a deep breath, and said,
" Thank you." He could say no more: it was something very
new and strange in his life that these few words of trust
from a woman should be so much to him.
"I beseech you to tell me how everything was," said
Dorothea, fearlessly. "I am sure that the truth would clear
you."
Lydgate started up from his chair and went towards the
window, forgetting where he was. He had so often gone over
in his mind the possibility of explaining everything without
aggravating appearances that would tell, perhaps unfairly,
against Bulstrode, and had so often decided against it — he
had so often said to himself that his assertions would not
change people's impressions — that Dorothea's words sounded
like a temptation to do something which in his soberness he
had pronounced to be unreasonable.
"Tell me, pray," said Dorothea, with simple earnestness;
"then we can consult together. It is wicked to let people
think evil of any one falsely, when it can be hindered."
Lydgate turned, remembering where he was, and saw
Dorothea's face looking up at him with a sweet trustful
gravity. The presence of a noble nature, generous in its
wishes, ardent in its charity, changes the lights for us: we
begin to see things again in their larger, quieter masses,
and to believe that we too can be seen and judged in the
wholeness of our
character. That influence was
beginning to act on Lydgate, who had for many days been
seeing all life as one who is dragged and struggling amid
the throng. He sat down again, and felt that he was
recovering his old self in the consciousness that he was
with one who believed in it.
"I don't want," he said, " to bear hard on Bulstrode,
who has lent me money of which I was in need — though I would
rather have gone without it now. He is hunted down and
miserable, and has only a poor thread of life in him. But I
should like to tell you everything. It will be a comfort to
me to speak where belief has gone beforehand, and where I
shall not seem to be offering assertions of my own honesty.
You will feel what is fair to another, as you feel what is
fair to me."
"Do trust me," said Dorothea; " I will not repeat
anything without your leave. But at the very least, I could
say that you have made all the circumstances clear to me,
and that I know you are not in any way guilty. Mr.
Farebrother would believe me, and my uncle, and Sir James
Chettam. Nay, there are persons in Middlemarch to whom I
could go; al though they don't know much of me, they would
believe me. They would know that I could have no other
motive than truth and justice. I would take any pains to
clear you. I have very little to do. There is nothing
better that I can do in the world."
Dorothea's voice, as she made this childlike picture of
what she would do, might have been almost taken as a proof
that she could do it effectively. The searching tenderness
of her woman's tones seemed made for a defence against ready
accusers. Lydgate did not stay to think that she was
Quixotic: he gave himself up, for the first time in his
life, to the exquisite sense of leaning entirely on a
generous sympathy, without any check of proud reserve. And
he told her everything, from the time when, under the
pressure of his difficulties, he unwillingly made his first
application to Bulstrode; gradually, in the relief of
speaking, getting into a more thorough utterance of what had
gone on in his mind — entering fully into the fact that his
treatment of the patient was opposed to the dominant
practice, into his doubts at the last, his
ideal of
medical duty, and his uneasy consciousness that the
acceptance of the money had made some difference in his
private inclination and professional behavior, though not in
his fulfilment of any publicly recognized obligation.
"It has come to my knowledge since," he added, "that
Hawley sent some one to examine the housekeeper at Stone
Court, and she said that she gave the patient all the opium
in the phial I left, as well as a good deal of brandy. But
that would not have been opposed to ordinary prescriptions,
even of first-rate men. The suspicions against me had no
hold there: they are grounded on the knowledge that I took
money, that Bulstrode had strong motives for wishing the man
to die, and that he gave me the money as a bribe to concur
in some malpractices or other against the patient — that in
any case I accepted a bribe to hold my tongue. They are
just the suspicions that cling the most obstinately, because
they lie in people's inclination and can never be disproved.
How my orders came to be disobeyed is a question to which I
don't know the answer. It is still possible that Bulstrode
was innocent of any criminal intention — even possible that
he had nothing to do with the disobedience, and merely
abstained from mentioning it. But all that has nothing to
do with the public belief. It is one of those cases on
which a man is condemned on the ground of his character — it
is believed that he has committed a crime in some undefined
way, because he had the motive for doing it; and Bulstrode's
character has enveloped me, because I took his money. I am
simply blighted — like a damaged ear of corn — the business is
done and can't be undone."
"Oh, it is hard!" said Dorothea. "I understand the
difficulty there is in your vindicating yourself. And that
all this should have come to you who had meant to lead a
higher life than the common, and to find out better ways — I
cannot bear to rest in this as unchangeable. I know you
meant that. I remember what you said to me when you first
spoke to me about the hospital. There is no sorrow I have
thought more about than that — to love what is great, and try
to reach it, and yet to fail."
"Yes," said Lydgate, feeling that here he had found room
for the full meaning of his grief. "I had some ambition. I
meant everything to be different with me. I thought I had
more strength and mastery. But the most terrible obstacles
are such as nobody can see except oneself."
"Suppose," said Dorothea, meditatively, — "suppose we
kept on the Hospital according to the present plan, and you
stayed here though only with the friendship and support of a
few, the evil feeling towards you would gradually die out;
there would come opportunities in which people would be
forced to acknowledge that they had been unjust to you,
because they would see that your purposes were pure. You
may still win a great fame like the Louis and Laennec I have
heard you speak of, and we shall all be proud of you," she
ended, with a smile.
"That might do if I had my old trust in myself," said
Lydgate, mournfully. "Nothing galls me more than the notion
of turning round and running away before this slander,
leaving it unchecked behind me. Still, I can't ask any one
to put a great deal of money into a plan which depends on
me."
"It would be quite worth my while," said Dorothea,
simply. "Only think. I am very uncomfortable with my
money, because they tell me I have too little for any great
scheme of the sort I like best, and yet I have too much. I
don't know what to do. I have seven hundred a-year of my
own fortune, and nineteen hundred a-year that Mr. Casaubon
left me, and between three and four thousand of ready money
in the bank. I wished to raise money and pay it off
gradually out of my income which I don't want, to buy land
with and found a village which should be a school of
industry; but Sir James and my uncle have convinced me that
the risk would be too great. So you see that what I should
most rejoice at would be to have something good to do with
my money: I should like it to make other people's lives
better to them. It makes me very uneasy — coming all to me
who don't want it."
A smile broke through the gloom of Lydgate's face. The
childlike grave-eyed earnestness with which Dorothea said
all this was irresistible — blent into an adorable whale with
her
ready understanding of high experience. (Of lower
experience such as plays a great part in the world, poor
Mrs. Casaubon had a very blurred shortsighted knowledge,
little helped by her imagination.) But she took the smile as
encouragement of her plan.
"I think you see now that you spoke too scrupulously,"
she said, in a tone of persuasion. "The hospital would be
one good; and making your life quite whole and well again
would be another."
Lydgate's smile had died away. "You have the goodness
as well as the money to do all that; if it could be done,"
he said. "But — "
He hesitated a little while, looking vaguely towards the
window; and she sat in silent expectation At last he turned
towards her and said impetuously —
"Why should I not tell you? — you know what sort of bond
marriage is. You will understand everything."
Dorothea felt her heart beginning to beat faster. Had
he that sorrow too? But she feared to say any word, and he
went on immediately.
"It is impossible for me now to do anything — to take any
step without considering my wife's happiness. The thing
that I might like to do if I were alone, is become
impossible to me. I can't see her miserable. She married
me without knowing what she was going into, and it might
have been better for her if she had not married me."
"I know, I know — you could not give her pain, if you
were not obliged to do it," said Dorothea, with keen memory
of her own life.
"And she has set her mind against staying. She wishes
to go. The troubles she has had here have wearied her,"
said Lydgate, breaking off again, lest he should say too
much.
"But when she saw the good that might come of staying — "
said Dorothea, remonstrantly, looking at Lydgate as if he
had forgotten the reasons which had just been considered.
He did not speak immediately.
"She would not see it," he said at last, curtly, feeling
at first that this statement must do without explanation.
"And,
indeed, I have lost all spirit about carrying on
my life here." He paused a moment and then, following the
impulse to let Dorothea see deeper into the difficulty of
his life, he said, " The fact is, this trouble has come upon
her confusedly. We have not been able to speak to each
other about it. I am not sure what is in her mind about it:
she may fear that I have really done something base. It is
my fault; I ought to be more open. But I have been
suffering cruelly."
"May I go and see her?" said Dorothea, eagerly. "Would
she accept my sympathy? I would tell her that you have not
been blamable before any one's judgment but your own. I
would tell her that you shall be cleared in every fair mind.
I would cheer her heart. Will you ask her if I may go to
see her? I did see her once."
"I am sure you may," said Lydgate, seizing the
proposition with some hope. "She would feel honored —
cheered, I think, by the proof that you at least have some
respect for me. I will not speak to her about your coming —
that she may not connect it with my wishes at all. I know
very well that I ought not to have left anything to be told
her by others, but — "
He broke off, and there was a moment's silence.
Dorothea refrained from saying what was in her mind — how
well she knew that there might be invisible barriers to
speech between husband and wife. This was a point on which
even sympathy might make a wound. She returned to the more
outward aspect of Lydgate's position, saying cheerfully —
"And if Mrs. Lydgate knew that there were friends who
would believe in you and support you, she might then be glad
that you should stay in your place and recover your hopes —
and do what you meant to do. Perhaps then you would see
that it was right to agree with what I proposed about your
continuing at the Hospital. Surely you would, if you still
have faith in it as a means of making your knowledge
useful?"
Lydgate did not answer, and she saw that he was debating
with himself.
"You need not decide immediately," she said, gently. "A
few days hence it will be early enough for me to send
my answer to Mr. Bulstrode."
Lydgate still waited, but at last turned to speak in his
most decisive tones.
"No; I prefer that there should be no interval left for
wavering. I am no longer sure enough of myself — I mean of
what it would be possible for me to do under the changed
circumstances of my life. It would be dishonorable to let
others engage themselves to anything serious in dependence
on me. I might be obliged to go away after all; I see
little chance of anything else. The whole thing is too
problematic; I cannot consent to be the cause of your
goodness being wasted. No — let the new Hospital be joined
with the old Infirmary, and everything go on as it might
have done if I had never come. I have kept a valuable
register since I have been there; I shall send it to a man
who will make use of it," he ended bitterly. "I can think
of nothing for a long while but getting an income."
"It hurts me very much to hear you speak so hopelessly,"
said Dorothea. "It would be a happiness to your friends,
who believe in your future, in your power to do great
things, if you would let them save you from that. Think how
much money I have; it would be like taking a burthen from me
if you took some of it every year till you got free from
this fettering want of income. Why should not people do
these things? It is so difficult to make shares at all
even. This is one way."
"God bless you, Mrs. Casaubon!" said Lydgate, rising as
if with the same impulse that made his words energetic, and
resting his arm on the back of the great leather chair he
had been sitting in. "It is good that you should have such
feelings. But I am not the man who ought to allow himself
to benefit by them. I have not given guarantees enough. I
must not at least sink into the degradation of being
pensioned for work that I never achieved. It is very clear
to me that I must not count on anything else than getting
away from Middlemarch as soon as I can manage it. I should
not be able for a long while, at the very best, to get an
income here,
and — and it is easier to make necessary
changes in a new place. I must do as other men do, and
think what will please the world and bring in money; look
for a little opening in the London crowd, and push myself;
set up in a watering-place, or go to some southern town
where there are plenty of idle English, and get myself
puffed, — that is the sort of shell I must creep into and try
to keep my soul alive in."
"Now that is not brave," said Dorothea, — " to give up
the fight."
"No, it is not brave," said Lydgate, " but if a man is
afraid of creeping paralysis?" Then, in another tone, "Yet
you have made a great difference in my courage by believing
in me. Everything seems more bearable since I have talked
to you; and if you can clear me in a few other minds,
especially in Farebrother's, I shall be deeply grateful.
The point I wish you not to mention is the fact of
disobedience to my orders. That would soon get distorted.
After all, there is no evidence for me but people's opinion
of me beforehand. You can only repeat my own report of
myself."
"Mr. Farebrother will believe — others will believe,"
said Dorothea. "I can say of you what will make it
stupidity to suppose that you would be bribed to do a
wickedness."
"I don't know," said Lydgate, with something like a
groan in his voice. "I have not taken a bribe yet. But
there is a pale shade of bribery which is sometimes called
prosperity. You will do me another great kindness, then,
and come to see my wife?"
"Yes, I will. I remember how pretty she is," said
Dorothea, into whose mind every impression about Rosamond
had cut deep. "I hope she will like me."
As Lydgate rode away, he thought, " This young creature
has a heart large enough for the Virgin Mary. She evidently
thinks nothing of her own future, and would pledge away half
her income at once, as if she wanted nothing for herself but
a chair to sit in from which she can look down with those
clear eyes at the poor mortals who pray to her. She seems
to have what I never saw in any woman before — a fountain of
friendship towards men — a man can make a friend of her.
Casau
bon must have raised some heroic hallucination in
her. I wonder if she could have any other sort of passion
for a man? Ladislaw? — there was certainly an unusual
feeling between them. And Casaubon must have had a notion
of it. Well — her love might help a man more than her
money."
Dorothea on her side had immediately formed a plan of
relieving Lydgate from his obligation to Bulstrode, which
she felt sure was a part, though small, of the galling
pressure he had to bear. She sat down at once under the
inspiration of their interview, and wrote a brief note, in
which she pleaded that she had more claim than Mr. Bulstrode
had to the satisfaction of providing the money which had
been serviceable to Lydgate — that it would be unkind in
Lydgate not to grant her the position of being his helper in
this small matter, the favor being entirely to her who had
so little that was plainly marked out for her to do with her
superfluous money. He might call her a creditor or by any
other name if it did but imply that he granted her request.
She enclosed a check for a thousand pounds, and determined
to take the letter with her the next day when she went to
see Rosamond.