"But you must bear up as well as you can, Harriet. People don'tblame you. And I'll stand by you whatever you make up your mind todo," said the brother, with rough but well-meaning affectionateness.
"Give me your arm to the carriage, Walter," said Mrs. Bulstrode. "Ifeel very weak."
And when she got home she was obliged to say to her daughter, "Iam not well, my dear; I must go and lie down. Attend to your papa.Leave me in quiet. I shall take no dinner."
She locked herself in her room. She needed time to get used to hermaimed consciousness, her poor lopped life, before she could walksteadily to the place allotted her. A new searching light had fallen on herhusband's character, and she could not judge him leniently: the twentyyears in which she had believed in him and venerated him by virtue ofhis concealments came back with particulars that made them seem anodious deceit. He had married her with that bad past life hidden behindhim, and she had no faith left to protest his innocence of the worst thatwas imputed to him. Her honest ostentatious nature made the sharing ofa merited dishonor as bitter as it could be to any mortal.
But this imperfectly taught woman, whose phrases and habits werean odd patchwork, had a loyal spirit within her. The man whoseprosperity she had shared through nearly half a life, and who hadunvaryingly cherished her—now that punishment had befallen him it wasnot possible to her in any sense to forsake him. There is a forsakingwhich still sits at the same board and lies on the same couch with theforsaken soul, withering it the more by unloving proximity. She knew,when she locked her door, that she should unlock it ready to go down toher unhappy husband and espouse his sorrow, and say of his guilt, I willmourn and not reproach. But she needed time to gather up her strength;she needed to sob out her farewell to all the gladness and pride of herlife. When she had resolved to go down, she prepared herself by somelittle acts which might seem mere folly to a hard onlooker; they were herway of expressing to all spectators visible or invisible that she had beguna new life in which she embraced humiliation. She took off all herornaments and put on a plain black gown, and instead of wearing hermuch-adorned cap and large bows of hair, she brushed her hair downand put on a plain bonnet-cap, which made her look suddenly like anearly Methodist.
Bulstrode, who knew that his wife had been out and had come insaying that she was not well, had spent the time in an agitation equal tohers. He had looked forward to her learning the truth from others, andhad acquiesced in that probability, as something easier to him than anyconfession. But now that he imagined the moment of her knowledgecome, he awaited the result in anguish. His daughters had been obligedto consent to leave him, and though he had allowed some food to bebrought to him, he had not touched it. He felt himself perishing slowly inunpitied misery. Perhaps he should never see his wife's face withaffection in it again. And if he turned to God there seemed to be noanswer but the pressure of retribution.
It was eight o'clock in the evening before the door opened and hiswife entered. He dared not look up at her. He sat with his eyes bentdown, and as she went towards him she thought he looked smaller—heseemed so withered and shrunken. A movement of new compassion andold tenderness went through her like a great wave, and putting one handon his which rested on the arm of the chair, and the other on hisshoulder, she said, solemnly but kindly—
"Look up, Nicholas."
He raised his eyes with a little start and looked at her half amazedfor a moment: her pale face, her changed, mourning dress, the tremblingabout her mouth, all said, "I know;" and her hands and eyes restedgently on him. He burst out crying and they cried together, she sitting athis side. They could not yet speak to each other of the shame which shewas bearing with him, or of the acts which had brought it down onthem. His confession was silent, and her promise of faithfulness wassilent. Open-minded as she was, she nevertheless shrank from the wordswhich would have expressed their mutual consciousness, as she wouldhave shrunk from flakes of fire. She could not say, "How much is onlyslander and false suspicion?" and he did not say, "I am innocent."
CHAPTER LXXV.
"Le sentiment de la fausseté des plaisirs présents, et l'ignorance de la
vanité des plaisirs absents causent l'inconstance."—PASCAL.
Rosamond had a gleam of returning cheerfulness when the house wasfreed from the threatening figure, and when all the disagreeable creditorswere paid. But she was not joyous: her married life had fulfilled none ofher hopes, and had been quite spoiled for her imagination. In this briefinterval of calm, Lydgate, remembering that he had often been stormy inhis hours of perturbation, and mindful of the pain Rosamond had had tobear, was carefully gentle towards her; but he, too, had lost some of hisold spirit, and he still felt it necessary to refer to an economical changein their way of living as a matter of course, trying to reconcile her to itgradually, and repressing his anger when she answered by wishing thathe would go to live in London. When she did not make this answer, shelistened languidly, and wondered what she had that was worth living for.The hard and contemptuous words which had fallen from her husband inhis anger had deeply offended that vanity which he had at first calledinto active enjoyment; and what she regarded as his perverse way oflooking at things, kept up a secret repulsion, which made her receive allhis tenderness as a poor substitute for the happiness he had failed togive her. They were at a disadvantage with their neighbors, and therewas no longer any outlook towards Quallingham—there was no outlookanywhere except in an occasional letter from Will Ladislaw. She had feltstung and disappointed by Will's resolution to quit Middlemarch, for inspite of what she knew and guessed about his admiration for Dorothea,she secretly cherished the belief that he had, or would necessarily cometo have, much more admiration for herself; Rosamond being one of thosewomen who live much in the idea that each man they meet would havepreferred them if the preference had not been hopeless. Mrs. Casaubonwas all very well; but Will's interest in her dated before he knew Mrs.Lydgate. Rosamond took his way of talking to herself, which was amixture of playful fault-finding and hyperbolical gallantry, as the disguiseof a deeper feeling; and in his presence she felt that agreeable titillationof vanity and sense of romantic drama which Lydgate's presence had nolonger the magic to create. She even fancied—what will not men andwomen fancy in these matters?—that Will exaggerated his admiration forMrs. Casaubon in order to pique herself. In this way poor Rosamond'sbrain had been busy before Will's departure. He would have made, shethought, a much more suitable husband for her than she had found inLydgate. No notion could have been falser than this, for Rosamond'sdiscontent in her marriage was due to the conditions of marriage itself,to its demand for self-suppression and tolerance, and not to the nature ofher husband; but the easy conception of an unreal Better had asentimental charm which diverted her ennui. She constructed a littleromance which was to vary the flatness of her life: Will Ladislaw wasalways to be a bachelor and live near her, always to be at her command,and have an understood though never fully expressed passion for her,which would be sending out lambent flames every now and then ininteresting scenes. His departure had been a proportionatedisappointment, and had sadly increased her weariness of Middlemarch;but at first she had the alternative dream of pleasures in store from herintercourse with the family at Quallingham. Since then the troubles ofher married life had deepened, and the absence of other reliefencouraged her regretful rumination over that thin romance which shehad once fed on. Men and women make sad mistakes about their ownsymptoms, taking their vague uneasy longings, sometimes for genius,sometimes for religion, and oftener still for a mighty love. Will Ladislawhad written chatty letters, half to her and half to Lydgate, and she hadreplied: their separation, she felt, was not likely to be final, and thechange she now most longed for was that Lydgate should go to live inLondon; everything would be agreeable in London; and she had set towork with quiet determination to win this result, when there came asudden, delightful promise which inspirited her.
It came shortly before the memorable meeting at the town-hall, andwas nothing less than a letter from Will Ladislaw to Lydgate, whichturned indeed chiefly on his new interest in plans of colonization, butmentioned incidentally, that he might find it necessary to pay a visit toMiddlemarch within the next few weeks—a very pleasant necessity, hesaid, almost as good as holidays to a schoolboy. He hoped there was hisold place on the rug, and a great deal of music in store for him. But hewas quite uncertain as to the time. While Lydgate was reading the letterto Rosamond, her face looked like a reviving flower—it grew prettier andmore blooming. There was nothing unendurable now: the debts werepaid, Mr. Ladislaw was coming, and Lydgate would be persuaded toleave Middlemarch and settle in London, which was "so different from aprovincial town."
That was a bright bit of morning. But soon the sky became blackover poor Rosamond. The presence of a new gloom in her husband,about which he was entirely reserved towards her—for he dreaded toexpose his lacerated feeling to her neutrality and misconception—soonreceived a painfully strange explanation, alien to all her previous notionsof what could affect her happiness. In the new gayety of her spirits,thinking that Lydgate had merely a worse fit of moodiness than usual,causing him to leave her remarks unanswered, and evidently to keep outof her way as much as possible, she chose, a few days after the meeting,and without speaking to him on the subject, to send out notes ofinvitation for a small evening party, feeling convinced that this was ajudicious step, since people seemed to have been keeping aloof fromthem, and wanted restoring to the old habit of intercourse. When theinvitations had been accepted, she would tell Lydgate, and give him awise admonition as to how a medical man should behave to hisneighbors; for Rosamond had the gravest little airs possible about otherpeople's duties. But all the invitations were declined, and the last answercame into Lydgate's hands.
"This is Chichely's scratch. What is he writing to you about?" saidLydgate, wonderingly, as he handed the note to her. She was obliged tolet him see it, and, looking at her severely, he said—
"Why on earth have you been sending out invitations without tellingme, Rosamond? I beg, I insist that you will not invite any one to thishouse. I suppose you have been inviting others, and they have refusedtoo." She said nothing.
"Do you hear me?" thundered Lydgate.
"Yes, certainly I hear you," said Rosamond, turning her head asidewith the movement of a graceful long-necked bird.
Lydgate tossed his head without any grace and walked out of theroom, feeling himself dangerous. Rosamond's thought was, that he wasgetting more and more unbearable—not that there was any new specialreason for this peremptoriness. His indisposition to tell her anything inwhich he was sure beforehand that she would not be interested wasgrowing into an unreflecting habit, and she was in ignorance ofeverything connected with the thousand pounds except that the loan hadcome from her uncle Bulstrode. Lydgate's odious humors and theirneighbors' apparent avoidance of them had an unaccountable date for herin their relief from money difficulties. If the invitations had beenaccepted she would have gone to invite her mamma and the rest, whomshe had seen nothing of for several days; and she now put on her bonnetto go and inquire what had become of them all, suddenly feeling as ifthere were a conspiracy to leave her in isolation with a husband disposedto offend everybody. It was after the dinner hour, and she found herfather and mother seated together alone in the drawing-room. Theygreeted her with sad looks, saying "Well, my dear!" and no more. She hadnever seen her father look so downcast; and seating herself near him shesaid—
"Is there anything the matter, papa?"
He did not answer, but Mrs. Vincy said, "Oh, my dear, have youheard nothing? It won't be long before it reaches you."
"Is it anything about Tertius?" said Rosamond, turning pale. The ideaof trouble immediately connected itself with what had beenunaccountable to her in him.
"Oh, my dear, yes. To think of your marrying into this trouble. Debtwas bad enough, but this will be worse."
"Stay, stay, Lucy," said Mr. Vincy. "Have you heard nothing aboutyour uncle Bulstrode, Rosamond?"
"No, papa," said the poor thing, feeling as if trouble were notanything she had before experienced, but some invisible power with aniron grasp that made her soul faint within her.
Her father told her everything, saying at the end, "It's better for youto know, my dear. I think Lydgate must leave the town. Things havegone against him. I dare say he couldn't help it. I don't accuse him of anyharm," said Mr. Vincy. He had always before been disposed to find theutmost fault with Lydgate.
The shock to Rosamond was terrible. It seemed to her that no lotcould be so cruelly hard as hers to have married a man who had becomethe centre of infamous suspicions. In many cases it is inevitable that theshame is felt to be the worst part of crime; and it would have required agreat deal of disentangling reflection, such as had never entered intoRosamond's life, for her in these moments to feel that her trouble wasless than if her husband had been certainly known to have donesomething criminal. All the shame seemed to be there. And she hadinnocently married this man with the belief that he and his family were aglory to her! She showed her usual reticence to her parents, and onlysaid, that if Lydgate had done as she wished he would have leftMiddlemarch long ago.
"She bears it beyond anything," said her mother when she was gone.
"Ah, thank God!" said Mr. Vincy, who was much broken down.
But Rosamond went home with a sense of justified repugnancetowards her husband. What had he really done—how had he reallyacted? She did not know. Why had he not told her everything? He didnot speak to her on the subject, and of course she could not speak tohim. It came into her mind once that she would ask her father to let hergo home again; but dwelling on that prospect made it seem utterdreariness to her: a married woman gone back to live with her parents—life seemed to have no meaning for her in such a position: she could notcontemplate herself in it.
