Chapter LXXVII
And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot,
To mark the full-fraught man and best indued
With some suspicion.
Henry V.
The next day Lydgate had to go to Brassing, and told
Rosamond that he should be away until the evening. Of late
she had never gone beyond her own house and garden, except
to church, and once to see her papa, to whom she said, " If
Tertius goes away, you will help us to move, will you not,
papa? I suppose we shall have very little money. I am
sure I hope some one will help us." And Mr. Vincy had
said, " Yes, child, I don't mind a hundred or two. I can
see the end of that." With these exceptions she had sat at
home in languid melancholy and suspense, fixing her mind on
Will Ladislaw's coming as the one point of hope and
interest, and associating this with some new urgency on
Lydgate to make immediate arrangements for leaving
Middlemarch and going to London, till she felt assured that
the coming would be a potent cause of the going, without at
all seeing how. This way of establishing sequences is too
common to be fairly regarded as a peculiar folly in
Rosamond. And it is precisely this sort of sequence which
causes the greatest shock when it is sundered: for to see
how an effect may be produced is often to see possible
missings and checks; but to see nothing except the desirable
cause, and close upon it the desirable effect, rids us of
doubt and makes our minds strongly intuitive. That was the
process going on in poor Rosamond, while she arranged all
objects around her with the same nicety as ever, only with
more slowness — or sat down to the piano, meaning to play,
and then desisting, yet lingering on the music stool with
her white fingers suspended on the wooden front, and looking
before her in dreamy ennui. Her melancholy had become so
marked that Lydgate felt a strange timidity before it, as a
perpetual silent reproach, and the strong man, mastered by
his keen sensibilities towards this fair fragile creature
whose life he seemed somehow to have bruised, shrank from
her look, and sometimes started at her approach. fear of
her and fear for her rushing in only the more forcibly after
it had been momentarily expelled by exasperation.
But this morning Rosamond descended from her room
upstairs — where she sometimes sat the whole day when Lydgate
was out — equipped for a walk in the town. She had a letter
to post — a letter addressed to Mr. Ladislaw and written with
charming discretion, but intended to hasten his arrival by a
hint of trouble. The servant-maid, their sole house-servant
now, noticed her coming down-stairs in her walking dress,
and thought " there never did anybody look so pretty in a
bonnet poor thing."
Meanwhile Dorothea's mind was filled with her project of
going to Rosamond, and with the many thoughts, both of the
past and the probable future, which gathered round the idea
of that visit. Until yesterday when Lydgate had opened to
her a glimpse of some trouble in his married life, the image
of Mrs. Lydgate had always been associated for her with that
of Will Ladislaw. Even in her most uneasy moments — even
when she had been agitated by Mrs. Cadwallader's painfully
graphic report of gossip — her effort, nay, her strongest
impulsive prompting, had been towards the vindication of
Will from any sullying surmises; and when, in her meeting
with him afterwards, she had at first interpreted his words
as a probable allusion to a feeling towards Mrs. Lydgate
which he was determined to cut himself off from indulging,
she had had a quick, sad, excusing vision of the charm there
might be in his constant opportunities of companionship with
that fair creature, who most likely shared his other tastes
as she evidently did his delight in music. But there had
followed his parting words — the few passionate words in
which he had implied that she herself was the object of whom
his love held him in dread, that it was his love for her
only which he was resolved not to declare but to carry away
into banishment. From the time of that parting, Dorothea,
believing in Will's love for her, believing with a proud
delight in his delicate sense of honor and his determination
that no one should impeach him justly, felt her heart quite
at rest as to the regard he might have for Mrs. Lydgate.
She ,was sure that the regard was blameless.
There are natures in which, if they love us, we are
conscious of having a sort of baptism and consecration: they
bind us over to rectitude and purity by their pure belief
about us; and our sins become that worst kind of sacrilege
which tears down the invisible altar of trust. "If you are
not good, none is good " — those little words may give a
terrific meaning to responsibility, may hold a vitriolic
intensity for remorse.
Dorothea's nature was of that kind: her own passionate
faults lay along the easily counted open channels of her
ardent character; and while she was full of pity for the,
visible mis
takes of others, she had not yet any
material within her experience for subtle constructions and
suspicions of hidden wrong. But that simplicity of hers,
holding up an ideal for others in her believing conception
of them, was one of the great powers of her womanhood. And
it had from the first acted strongly on Will Ladislaw. He
felt, when he parted from her, that the brief words by which
he had tried to convey to her his feeling about herself and
the division which her fortune made between them, would only
profit by their brevity when Dorothea had to interpret them:
he felt that in her mind he had found his highest estimate.
And he was right there. In the months since their
parting Dorothea had felt a delicious though sad repose in
their relation to each other, as one which was inwardly
whole and without blemish. She had an active force of
antagonism within her, when the antagonism turned on the
defence either of plans or persons that she believed in; and
the wrongs which she felt that Will had received from her
husband, and the external conditions which to others were
grounds for slighting him, only gave the more tenacity to
her affection and admiring judgment. And now with the
disclosures about Bulstrode had come another fact affecting
Will's social position, which roused afresh Dorothea's
inward resistance to what was said about him in that part of
her world which lay within park palings.
"Young Ladislaw the grandson of a thieving Jew
pawnbroker " was a phrase which had entered emphatically
into the dialogues about the Bulstrode business, at Lowick,
Tipton, and Freshitt, and was a worse kind of placard on
poor Will's back than the " Italian with white mice."
Upright Sir James Chettam was convinced that his own
satisfaction was righteous when he thought with some
complacency that here was an added league to that
mountainous distance between Ladislaw and Dorothea, which
enabled him to dismiss any anxiety in that direction as too
absurd. And perhaps there had been some pleasure in
pointing Mr. Brooke's attention to this ugly bit of
Ladislaw's genealogy, as a fresh candle for him to see his
own folly by. Dorothea had observed the animus with which
Will's
part in the painful story had been recalled more
than once; but she had uttered no word, being checked now,
as she had not been formerly in speaking of Will, by the
consciousness of a deeper relation between them which must
always remain in consecrated secrecy. But her silence
shrouded her resistant emotion into a more thorough glow;
and this misfortune in Will's lot which, it seemed, others
were wishing to fling at his back as an opprobrium, only
gave something more of enthusiasm to her clinging thought.
She entertained no visions of their ever coming into
nearer union, and yet she had taken no posture of
renunciation. She had accepted her whole relation to Will
very simply as part of her marriage sorrows, and would have
thought it very sinful in her to keep up an inward wail
because she was not completely happy, being rather disposed
to dwell on the superfluities of her lot. She could bear
that the chief pleasures of her tenderness should lie in
memory, and the idea of marriage came to her solely as a
repulsive proposition from some suitor of whom she at
present knew nothing, but whose merits, as seen by her
friends, would be a source of torment to her: — " somebody
who will manage your property-for you, my dear," was Mr.
Brooke's attractive suggestion of suitable characteristics.
"I should like to manage it myself, if I knew what to do
with it," said Dorothea. No — she adhered to her declaration
that she would never be married again, and in the long
valley of her life which looked so flat and empty of
waymarks, guidance would come as she walked along the road,
and saw her fellow-passengers by the way.
This habitual state of feeling about Will Ladislaw had
been strong. in all her waking hours since she had proposed
to pay a visit to Mrs. Lydgate, making a sort of background
against which she saw Rosamond's figure presented to her
without hindrances to her interest and compassion. There
was evidently some mental separation, some barrier to
complete confidence which had arisen between this wife and
the husband who had yet made her happiness a law to him.
That was a trouble which no third person must directly
touch. But Dorothea thought with deep pity of the
loneliness which must have
come upon Rosamond from the
suspicions cast on her husband; and there would surely be
help in the manifestation of respect for Lydgate and
sympathy with her.
"I shall talk to her about her husband," thought
Dorothea, as she was being driven towards the town. The
clear spring morning, the scent of the moist earth, the
fresh leaves just showing their creased-up wealth of
greenery from out their half-opened sheaths, seemed part of
the cheerfulness she was feeling from a long conversation
with Mr. Farebrother, who had joyfully accepted the
justifying explanation of Lydgate's conduct. "I shall take
Mrs. Lydgate good news, and perhaps she will like to talk to
me and make a friend of me."
Dorothea had another errand in Lowick Gate: it was about
a new fine-toned bell for the school-house, and as she had
to get out of her carriage very near to Lydgate's, she
walked thither across the street, having told the coachman
to wait for some packages. The street door was open, and
the servant was taking the opportunity of looking out at the
carriage which was pausing within sight when it became
apparent to her that the lady who " belonged to it " was
coming towards her.
"Is Mrs. Lydgate at home?" said Dorothea.
"I'm not sure, my lady; I'll see, if you'll please to
walk in," said Martha, a little confused on the score of her
kitchen apron, but collected enough to be sure that " mum "
was not the right title for this queenly young widow with a
carriage and pair. "Will you please to walk in, and I'll go
and see."
"Say that I am Mrs. Casaubon," said Dorothea, as Martha
moved forward intending to show her into the drawing-room
and then to go up-stairs to see if Rosamond had returned
from her walk.
They crossed the broader part of the entrance-hall, and
turned up the passage which led to the garden. The drawing-room door was unlatched, and Martha, pushing it without
looking into the room, waited for Mrs. Casaubon to enter and
then turned away, the door having swung open and swung back
again without noise.
Dorothea had less of outward vision than usual this
morning, being filled with images of things as they had been
and
were going to be. She found herself on the other
side of the door without seeing anything remarkable, but
immediately she heard a voice speaking in low tones which
startled her as with a sense of dreaming in daylight, and
advancing unconsciously a step or two beyond the projecting
slab of a bookcase, she saw, in the terrible illumination of
a certainty which filled up all outlines, something which
made her pause, motionless, without self-possession enough
to speak.
Seated with his back towards her on a sofa which stood
against the wall on a line with the door by which she had
entered, she saw Will Ladislaw: close by him and turned
towards him with a flushed tearfulness which gave a new
brilliancy to her face sat Rosamond, her bonnet hanging
back, while Will leaning towards her clasped both her
upraised hands in his and spoke with low-toned fervor.
Rosamond in her agitated absorption had not noticed the
silently advancing figure; but when Dorothea, after the
first immeasurable instant of this vision, moved confusedly
backward and found herself impeded by some piece of
furniture, Rosamond was suddenly aware of her presence, and
with a spasmodic movement snatched away her hands and rose,
looking at Dorothea who was necessarily arrested. Will
Ladislaw, starting up, looked round also, and meeting
Dorothea's eyes with a new lightning in them, seemed
changing to marble: But she immediately turned them away
from him to Rosamond and said in a firm voice —
"Excuse me, Mrs. Lydgate, the servant did not know that
you were here. I called to deliver an important letter for
Mr. Lydgate, which I wished to put into your own hands."
She laid down the letter on the small table which had
checked her retreat, and then including Rosamond and Will in
one distant glance and bow, she went quickly out of the
room, meeting in the passage the surprised Martha, who said
she was sorry the mistress was not at home, and then showed
the strange lady out with an inward reflection that grand
people were probably more impatient than others.
Dorothea walked across the street with her most elastic
step and was quickly in her carriage again.
"Drive on to Freshitt Hall," she said to the coachman,
and any one looking at her might have thought that though
she was paler than usual she was never animated by a more
self-possessed energy. And that was really her experience.
It was as if she had drunk a great draught of scorn that
stimulated her beyond the susceptibility to other feelings.
She had seen something so far below her belief, that her
emotions rushed back from it and made an excited throng
without an object. She needed something active to turn her
excitement out upon. She felt power to walk and work for a
day, without meat or drink. And she would carry out the
purpose with which she had started in the morning, of going
to Freshitt and Tipton to tell Sir James and her uncle all
that she wished them to know about Lydgate, whose married
loneliness under his trial now presented itself to her with
new significance, and made her more ardent in readiness to
be his champion. She had never felt anything like this
triumphant power of indignation in the struggle of her
married life, in which there had always been a quickly
subduing pang; and she took it as a sign of new strength.
"Dodo, how very bright your eyes are!" said Celia, when
Sir James was gone out of the room. "And you don't see
anything you look at, Arthur or anything. You are going to
do something uncomfortable, I know. Is it all about Mr.
Lydgate, or has something else happened?" Celia had been
used to watch her sister with expectation.
"Yes, dear, a great many things have happened," said
Dodo, in her full tones.
"I wonder what," said Celia, folding her arms cozily and
leaning forward upon them.
"Oh, all the troubles of all people on the face of the
earth," said Dorothea, lifting her arms to the back of her
head.
"Dear me, Dodo, are you going to have a scheme for
them?" said Celia, a little uneasy at this Hamlet-like
raving.
But Sir James came in again, ready to accompany Dorothea
to the Grange, and she finished her expedition well, not
swerving in her resolution until she descended at her own
door.