"Oh, it is hard!" said Dorothea. "I understand the difficulty there is inyour vindicating yourself. And that all this should have come to you whohad meant to lead a higher life than the common, and to find out betterways—I cannot bear to rest in this as unchangeable. I know you meantthat. I remember what you said to me when you first spoke to me aboutthe hospital. There is no sorrow I have thought more about than that—tolove what is great, and try to reach it, and yet to fail."
"Yes," said Lydgate, feeling that here he had found room for the fullmeaning of his grief. "I had some ambition. I meant everything to bedifferent with me. I thought I had more strength and mastery. But themost terrible obstacles are such as nobody can see except oneself."
"Suppose," said Dorothea, meditatively,—"suppose we kept on theHospital according to the present plan, and you stayed here though onlywith the friendship and support of a few, the evil feeling towards youwould gradually die out; there would come opportunities in which peoplewould be forced to acknowledge that they had been unjust to you,because they would see that your purposes were pure. You may still wina great fame like the Louis and Laennec I have heard you speak of, andwe 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 andrunning away before this slander, leaving it unchecked behind me. Still, Ican't ask any one to put a great deal of money into a plan which dependson me."
"It would be quite worth my while," said Dorothea, simply. "Onlythink. I am very uncomfortable with my money, because they tell me Ihave too little for any great scheme of the sort I like best, and yet I havetoo much. I don't know what to do. I have seven hundred a-year of myown fortune, and nineteen hundred a-year that Mr. Casaubon left me,and between three and four thousand of ready money in the bank. Iwished to raise money and pay it off gradually out of my income which Idon't want, to buy land with and found a village which should be aschool of industry; but Sir James and my uncle have convinced me thatthe risk would be too great. So you see that what I should most rejoice atwould be to have something good to do with my money: I should like itto 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 childlikegrave-eyed earnestness with which Dorothea said all this wasirresistible—blent into an adorable whole with her ready understandingof high experience. (Of lower experience such as plays a great part in theworld, poor Mrs. Casaubon had a very blurred shortsighted knowledge,little helped by her imagination.) But she took the smile asencouragement of her plan.
"I think you see now that you spoke too scrupulously," she said, in atone of persuasion. "The hospital would be one good; and making yourlife quite whole and well again would be another."
Lydgate's smile had died away. "You have the goodness as well as themoney to do all that; if it could be done," he said. "But—"
He hesitated a little while, looking vaguely towards the window; andshe sat in silent expectation. At last he turned towards her and saidimpetuously—
"Why should I not tell you?—you know what sort of bond marriageis. You will understand everything."
Dorothea felt her heart beginning to beat faster. Had he that sorrowtoo? But she feared to say any word, and he went on immediately.
"It is impossible for me now to do anything—to take any stepwithout considering my wife's happiness. The thing that I might like todo 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 mighthave been better for her if she had not married me."
"I know, I know—you could not give her pain, if you were notobliged to do it," said Dorothea, with keen memory of her own life.
"And she has set her mind against staying. She wishes to go. Thetroubles she has had here have wearied her," said Lydgate, breaking offagain, lest he should say too much.
"But when she saw the good that might come of staying—" saidDorothea, remonstrantly, looking at Lydgate as if he had forgotten thereasons which had just been considered. He did not speak immediately.
"She would not see it," he said at last, curtly, feeling at first that thisstatement must do without explanation. "And, indeed, I have lost allspirit about carrying on my life here." He paused a moment and then,following the impulse to let Dorothea see deeper into the difficulty of hislife, he said, "The fact is, this trouble has come upon her confusedly. Wehave not been able to speak to each other about it. I am not sure what isin her mind about it: she may fear that I have really done somethingbase. It is my fault; I ought to be more open. But I have been sufferingcruelly."
"May I go and see her?" said Dorothea, eagerly. "Would she acceptmy sympathy? I would tell her that you have not been blamable beforeany one's judgment but your own. I would tell her that you shall becleared in every fair mind. I would cheer her heart. Will you ask her if Imay go to see her? I did see her once."
"I am sure you may," said Lydgate, seizing the proposition with somehope. "She would feel honored—cheered, I think, by the proof that youat least have some respect for me. I will not speak to her about yourcoming—that she may not connect it with my wishes at all. I know verywell 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 refrainedfrom saying what was in her mind—how well she knew that there mightbe invisible barriers to speech between husband and wife. This was apoint on which even sympathy might make a wound. She returned to themore outward aspect of Lydgate's position, saying cheerfully—
"And if Mrs. Lydgate knew that there were friends who wouldbelieve in you and support you, she might then be glad that you shouldstay in your place and recover your hopes—and do what you meant todo. Perhaps then you would see that it was right to agree with what Iproposed about your continuing at the Hospital. Surely you would, if youstill have faith in it as a means of making your knowledge useful?"
Lydgate did not answer, and she saw that he was debating withhimself.
"You need not decide immediately," she said, gently. "A few dayshence 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 decisivetones.
"No; I prefer that there should be no interval left for wavering. I amno longer sure enough of myself—I mean of what it would be possible forme to do under the changed circumstances of my life. It would bedishonorable to let others engage themselves to anything serious independence on me. I might be obliged to go away after all; I see littlechance of anything else. The whole thing is too problematic; I cannotconsent to be the cause of your goodness being wasted. No—let the newHospital be joined with the old Infirmary, and everything go on as itmight have done if I had never come. I have kept a valuable registersince 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 anincome."
"It hurts me very much to hear you speak so hopelessly," saidDorothea. "It would be a happiness to your friends, who believe in yourfuture, in your power to do great things, if you would let them save youfrom that. Think how much money I have; it would be like taking aburthen from me if you took some of it every year till you got free fromthis fettering want of income. Why should not people do these things? Itis so difficult to make shares at all even. This is one way."
"God bless you, Mrs. Casaubon!" said Lydgate, rising as if with thesame impulse that made his words energetic, and resting his arm on theback of the great leather chair he had been sitting in. "It is good that youshould have such feelings. But I am not the man who ought to allowhimself to benefit by them. I have not given guarantees enough. I mustnot at least sink into the degradation of being pensioned for work that Inever achieved. It is very clear to me that I must not count on anythingelse than getting away from Middlemarch as soon as I can manage it. Ishould not be able for a long while, at the very best, to get an incomehere, and—and it is easier to make necessary changes in a new place. Imust do as other men do, and think what will please the world and bringin money; look for a little opening in the London crowd, and pushmyself; set up in a watering-place, or go to some southern town wherethere are plenty of idle English, and get myself puffed,—that is the sortof 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 creepingparalysis?" Then, in another tone, "Yet you have made a great differencein my courage by believing in me. Everything seems more bearable sinceI 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 wishyou not to mention is the fact of disobedience to my orders. That wouldsoon get distorted. After all, there is no evidence for me but people'sopinion of me beforehand. You can only repeat my own report ofmyself."
"Mr. Farebrother will believe—others will believe," said Dorothea. "Ican say of you what will make it stupidity to suppose that you would bebribed to do a wickedness."
"I don't know," said Lydgate, with something like a groan in hisvoice. "I have not taken a bribe yet. But there is a pale shade of briberywhich is sometimes called prosperity. You will do me another greatkindness, then, and come to see my wife?"
"Yes, I will. I remember how pretty she is," said Dorothea, intowhose mind every impression about Rosamond had cut deep. "I hope shewill like me."
As Lydgate rode away, he thought, "This young creature has a heartlarge enough for the Virgin Mary. She evidently thinks nothing of herown future, and would pledge away half her income at once, as if shewanted nothing for herself but a chair to sit in from which she can lookdown with those clear eyes at the poor mortals who pray to her. Sheseems to have what I never saw in any woman before—a fountain offriendship towards men—a man can make a friend of her. Casaubonmust have raised some heroic hallucination in her. I wonder if she couldhave any other sort of passion for a man? Ladislaw?—there was certainlyan unusual feeling between them. And Casaubon must have had a notionof it. Well—her love might help a man more than her money."
Dorothea on her side had immediately formed a plan of relievingLydgate 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 atonce under the inspiration of their interview, and wrote a brief note, inwhich she pleaded that she had more claim than Mr. Bulstrode had tothe satisfaction of providing the money which had been serviceable toLydgate—that it would be unkind in Lydgate not to grant her theposition of being his helper in this small matter, the favor being entirelyto her who had so little that was plainly marked out for her to do withher superfluous money. He might call her a creditor or by any othername if it did but imply that he granted her request. She enclosed acheck for a thousand pounds, and determined to take the letter with herthe next day when she went to see Rosamond.
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 thathe should be away until the evening. Of late she had never gone beyondher 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, willyou not, papa? I suppose we shall have very little money. I am sure Ihope some one will help us." And Mr. Vincy had said, "Yes, child, I don'tmind a hundred or two. I can see the end of that." With these exceptionsshe had sat at home in languid melancholy and suspense, fixing her mindon Will Ladislaw's coming as the one point of hope and interest, andassociating this with some new urgency on Lydgate to make immediatearrangements for leaving Middlemarch and going to London, till she feltassured that the coming would be a potent cause of the going, without atall seeing how. This way of establishing sequences is too common to befairly regarded as a peculiar folly in Rosamond. And it is precisely thissort of sequence which causes the greatest shock when it is sundered: forto see how an effect may be produced is often to see possible missingsand checks; but to see nothing except the desirable cause, and closeupon it the desirable effect, rids us of doubt and makes our mindsstrongly 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 whitefingers suspended on the wooden front, and looking before her indreamy ennui. Her melancholy had become so marked that Lydgate felt astrange timidity before it, as a perpetual silent reproach, and the strongman, mastered by his keen sensibilities towards this fair fragile creaturewhose life he seemed somehow to have bruised, shrank from her look,and sometimes started at her approach, fear of her and fear for herrushing in only the more forcibly after it had been momentarily expelledby 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 letteraddressed to Mr. Ladislaw and written with charming discretion, butintended to hasten his arrival by a hint of trouble. The servant-maid,their sole house-servant now, noticed her coming down-stairs in herwalking dress, and thought "there never did anybody look so pretty in abonnet poor thing."
