CHAPTER XXVIII.
1st Gent. All times are good to seek your wedded home
Bringing a mutual delight.
2d Gent. Why, true.
The calendar hath not an evil day
For souls made one by love, and even death
Were sweetness, if it came like rolling waves
While they two clasped each other, and foresaw
No life apart.
Mr. and Mrs. Casaubon, returning from their wedding journey,arrived at Lowick Manor in the middle of January. A light snow wasfalling as they descended at the door, and in the morning, whenDorothea passed from her dressing-room avenue the blue-green boudoirthat we know of, she saw the long avenue of limes lifting their trunksfrom a white earth, and spreading white branches against the dun andmotionless sky. The distant flat shrank in uniform whiteness and low-hanging uniformity of cloud. The very furniture in the room seemed tohave shrunk since she saw it before: the slag in the tapestry looked morelike a ghost in his ghostly blue-green world; the volumes of politeliterature in the bookcase looked more like immovable imitations ofbooks. The bright fire of dry oak-boughs burning on the dogs seemed anincongruous renewal of life and glow—like the figure of Dorothea herselfas she entered carrying the red-leather cases containing the cameos forCelia.
She was glowing from her morning toilet as only healthful youth canglow: there was gem-like brightness on her coiled hair and in her hazeleyes; there was warm red life in her lips; her throat had a breathingwhiteness above the differing white of the fur which itself seemed towind about her neck and cling down her blue-gray pelisse with atenderness gathered from her own, a sentient commingled innocencewhich kept its loveliness against the crystalline purity of the outdoorsnow. As she laid the cameo-cases on the table in the bow-window, sheunconsciously kept her hands on them, immediately absorbed in lookingout on the still, white enclosure which made her visible world.
Mr. Casaubon, who had risen early complaining of palpitation, wasin the library giving audience to his curate Mr. Tucker. By-and-by Celiawould come in her quality of bridesmaid as well as sister, and throughthe next weeks there would be wedding visits received and given; all incontinuance of that transitional life understood to correspond with theexcitement of bridal felicity, and keeping up the sense of busyineffectiveness, as of a dream which the dreamer begins to suspect. Theduties of her married life, contemplated as so great beforehand, seemedto be shrinking with the furniture and the white vapor-walled landscape.The clear heights where she expected to walk in full communion hadbecome difficult to see even in her imagination; the delicious repose ofthe soul on a complete superior had been shaken into uneasy effort andalarmed with dim presentiment. When would the days begin of thatactive wifely devotion which was to strengthen her husband's life andexalt her own? Never perhaps, as she had preconceived them; butsomehow—still somehow. In this solemnly pledged union of her life,duty would present itself in some new form of inspiration and give a newmeaning to wifely love.
Meanwhile there was the snow and the low arch of dun vapor—therewas the stifling oppression of that gentlewoman's world, whereeverything was done for her and none asked for her aid—where thesense of connection with a manifold pregnant existence had to be keptup painfully as an inward vision, instead of coming from without inclaims that would have shaped her energies.— "What shall I do?""Whatever you please, my dear:" that had been her brief history since shehad left off learning morning lessons and practising silly rhythms on thehated piano. Marriage, which was to bring guidance into worthy andimperative occupation, had not yet freed her from the gentlewoman'soppressive liberty: it had not even filled her leisure with the ruminant joyof unchecked tenderness. Her blooming full-pulsed youth stood there in amoral imprisonment which made itself one with the chill, colorless,narrowed landscape, with the shrunken furniture, the never-read books,and the ghostly stag in a pale fantastic world that seemed to bevanishing from the daylight.
In the first minutes when Dorothea looked out she felt nothing butthe dreary oppression; then came a keen remembrance, and turning awayfrom the window she walked round the room. The ideas and hopeswhich were living in her mind when she first saw this room nearly threemonths before were present now only as memories: she judged them aswe judge transient and departed things. All existence seemed to beatwith a lower pulse than her own, and her religious faith was a solitarycry, the struggle out of a nightmare in which every object was witheringand shrinking away from her. Each remembered thing in the room wasdisenchanted, was deadened as an unlit transparency, till her wanderinggaze came to the group of miniatures, and there at last she sawsomething which had gathered new breath and meaning: it was theminiature of Mr. Casaubon's aunt Julia, who had made the unfortunatemarriage—of Will Ladislaw's grandmother. Dorothea could fancy that itwas alive now—the delicate woman's face which yet had a headstronglook, a peculiarity difficult to interpret. Was it only her friends whothought her marriage unfortunate? or did she herself find it out to be amistake, and taste the salt bitterness of her tears in the merciful silenceof the night? What breadths of experience Dorothea seemed to havepassed over since she first looked at this miniature! She felt a newcompanionship with it, as if it had an ear for her and could see how shewas looking at it. Here was a woman who had known some difficultyabout marriage. Nay, the colors deepened, the lips and chin seemed toget larger, the hair and eyes seemed to be sending out light, the face wasmasculine and beamed on her with that full gaze which tells her onwhom it falls that she is too interesting for the slightest movement of hereyelid to pass unnoticed and uninterpreted. The vivid presentation camelike a pleasant glow to Dorothea: she felt herself smiling, and turningfrom the miniature sat down and looked up as if she were again talkingto a figure in front of her. But the smile disappeared as she went onmeditating, and at last she said aloud—
"Oh, it was cruel to speak so! How sad—how dreadful!"
She rose quickly and went out of the room, hurrying along thecorridor, with the irresistible impulse to go and see her husband andinquire if she could do anything for him. Perhaps Mr. Tucker was goneand Mr. Casaubon was alone in the library. She felt as if all hermorning's gloom would vanish if she could see her husband glad becauseof her presence.
But when she reached the head of the dark oak there was Celiacoming up, and below there was Mr. Brooke, exchanging welcomes andcongratulations with Mr. Casaubon.
"Dodo!" said Celia, in her quiet staccato; then kissed her sister,whose arms encircled her, and said no more. I think they both cried alittle in a furtive manner, while Dorothea ran down-stairs to greet heruncle.
"I need not ask how you are, my dear," said Mr. Brooke, after kissingher forehead. "Rome has agreed with you, I see—happiness, frescos, theantique—that sort of thing. Well, it's very pleasant to have you backagain, and you understand all about art now, eh? But Casaubon is a littlepale, I tell him—a little pale, you know. Studying hard in his holidays iscarrying it rather too far. I overdid it at one time"—Mr. Brooke still heldDorothea's hand, but had turned his face to Mr. Casaubon—"abouttopography, ruins, temples—I thought I had a clew, but I saw it wouldcarry me too far, and nothing might come of it. You may go any length inthat sort of thing, and nothing may come of it, you know."
Dorothea's eyes also were turned up to her husband's face with someanxiety at the idea that those who saw him afresh after absence might beaware of signs which she had not noticed.
"Nothing to alarm you, my dear," said Mr. Brooke, observing herexpression. "A little English beef and mutton will soon make a difference.It was all very well to look pale, sitting for the portrait of Aquinas, youknow—we got your letter just in time. But Aquinas, now—he was a littletoo subtle, wasn't he? Does anybody read Aquinas?"
"He is not indeed an author adapted to superficial minds," said Mr.Casaubon, meeting these timely questions with dignified patience.
"You would like coffee in your own room, uncle?" said Dorothea,coming to the rescue.
"Yes; and you must go to Celia: she has great news to tell you, youknow. I leave it all to her."
The blue-green boudoir looked much more cheerful when Celia wasseated there in a pelisse exactly like her sister's, surveying the cameoswith a placid satisfaction, while the conversation passed on to othertopics.
"Do you think it nice to go to Rome on a wedding journey?" saidCelia, with her ready delicate blush which Dorothea was used to on thesmallest occasions.
"It would not suit all—not you, dear, for example," said Dorothea,quietly. No one would ever know what she thought of a wedding journeyto Rome.
"Mrs. Cadwallader says it is nonsense, people going a long journeywhen they are married. She says they get tired to death of each other,and can't quarrel comfortably, as they would at home. And Lady Chettamsays she went to Bath." Celia's color changed again and again—seemed
"To come and go with tidings from the heart,
As it a running messenger had been."
It must mean more than Celia's blushing usually did.
"Celia! has something happened?" said Dorothea, in a tone full ofsisterly feeling. "Have you really any great news to tell me?"
"It was because you went away, Dodo. Then there was nobody butme for Sir James to talk to," said Celia, with a certain roguishness in hereyes.
"I understand. It is as I used to hope and believe," said Dorothea,taking her sister's face between her hands, and looking at her halfanxiously. Celia's marriage seemed more serious than it used to do.
"It was only three days ago," said Celia. "And Lady Chettam is verykind."
"And you are very happy?"
"Yes. We are not going to be married yet. Because every thing is tobe got ready. And I don't want to be married so very soon, because Ithink it is nice to be engaged. And we shall be married all our livesafter."
"I do believe you could not marry better, Kitty. Sir James is a good,honorable man," said Dorothea, warmly.
"He has gone on with the cottages, Dodo. He will tell you about themwhen he comes. Shall you be glad to see him?"
"Of course I shall. How can you ask me?"
"Only I was afraid you would be getting so learned," said Celia,regarding Mr. Casaubon's learning as a kind of damp which might in duetime saturate a neighboring body.
CHAPTER XXIX.
"I found that no genius in another could please me. My unfortunate
paradoxes had entirely dried up that source of comfort."—
GOLDSMITH.
One morning, some weeks after her arrival at Lowick, Dorothea—butwhy always Dorothea? Was her point of view the only possible one withregard to this marriage? I protest against all our interest, all our effort atunderstanding being given to the young skins that look blooming in spiteof trouble; for these too will get faded, and will know the older and moreeating griefs which we are helping to neglect. In spite of the blinkingeyes and white moles objectionable to Celia, and the want of muscularcurve which was morally painful to Sir James, Mr. Casaubon had anintense consciousness within him, and was spiritually a-hungered like therest of us. He had done nothing exceptional in marrying—nothing butwhat society sanctions, and considers an occasion for wreaths andbouquets. It had occurred to him that he must not any longer defer hisintention of matrimony, and he had reflected that in taking a wife, a manof good position should expect and carefully choose a blooming younglady—the younger the better, because more educable and submissive—ofa rank equal to his own, of religious principles, virtuous disposition, andgood understanding. On such a young lady he would make handsomesettlements, and he would neglect no arrangement for her happiness: inreturn, he should receive family pleasures and leave behind him thatcopy of himself which seemed so urgently required of a man—to thesonneteers of the sixteenth century. Times had altered since then, and nosonneteer had insisted on Mr. Casaubon's leaving a copy of himself;moreover, he had not yet succeeded in issuing copies of his mythologicalkey; but he had always intended to acquit himself by marriage, and thesense that he was fast leaving the years behind him, that the world wasgetting dimmer and that he felt lonely, was a reason to him for losing nomore time in overtaking domestic delights before they too were leftbehind by the years.
And when he had seen Dorothea he believed that he had found evenmore than he demanded: she might really be such a helpmate to him aswould enable him to dispense with a hired secretary, an aid which Mr.Casaubon had never yet employed and had a suspicious dread of. (Mr.Casaubon was nervously conscious that he was expected to manifest apowerful mind.) Providence, in its kindness, had supplied him with thewife he needed. A wife, a modest young lady, with the purelyappreciative, unambitious abilities of her sex, is sure to think herhusband's mind powerful. Whether Providence had taken equal care ofMiss Brooke in presenting her with Mr. Casaubon was an idea whichcould hardly occur to him. Society never made the preposterous demandthat a man should think as much about his own qualifications for makinga charming girl happy as he thinks of hers for making himself happy. Asif a man could choose not only his wife hut his wife's husband! Or as ifhe were bound to provide charms for his posterity in his own person!—When Dorothea accepted him with effusion, that was only natural; andMr. Casaubon believed that his happiness was going to begin.
He had not had much foretaste of happiness in his previous life. Toknow intense joy without a strong bodily frame, one must have anenthusiastic soul. Mr. Casaubon had never had a strong bodily frame,and his soul was sensitive without being enthusiastic: it was too languidto thrill out of self-consciousness into passionate delight; it went onfluttering in the swampy ground where it was hatched, thinking of itswings and never flying. His experience was of that pitiable kind whichshrinks from pity, and fears most of all that it should be known: it wasthat proud narrow sensitiveness which has not mass enough to spare fortransformation into sympathy, and quivers thread-like in small currentsof self-preoccupation or at best of an egoistic scrupulosity. And Mr.Casaubon had many scruples: he was capable of a severe self-restraint;he was resolute in being a man of honor according to the code; he wouldbe unimpeachable by any recognized opinion. In conduct these ends hadbeen attained; but the difficulty of making his Key to all Mythologiesunimpeachable weighed like lead upon his mind; and the pamphlets—or"Parerga" as he called them—by which he tested his public and depositedsmall monumental records of his march, were far from having been seenin all their significance. He suspected the Archdeacon of not having readthem; he was in painful doubt as to what was really thought of them bythe leading minds of Brasenose, and bitterly convinced that his oldacquaintance Carp had been the writer of that depreciatory recensionwhich was kept locked in a small drawer of Mr. Casaubon's desk, andalso in a dark closet of his verbal memory. These were heavy impressionsto struggle against, and brought that melancholy embitterment which isthe consequence of all excessive claim: even his religious faith waveredwith his wavering trust in his own authorship, and the consolations ofthe Christian hope in immortality seemed to lean on the immortality ofthe still unwritten Key to all Mythologies. For my part I am very sorryfor him. It is an uneasy lot at best, to be what we call highly taught andyet not to enjoy: to be present at this great spectacle of life and never tobe liberated from a small hungry shivering self—never to be fullypossessed by the glory we behold, never to have our consciousnessrapturously transformed into the vividness of a thought, the ardor of apassion, the energy of an action, but always to be scholarly anduninspired, ambitious and timid, scrupulous and dim-sighted. Becominga dean or even a bishop would make little difference, I fear, to Mr.Casaubon's uneasiness. Doubtless some ancient Greek has observed thatbehind the big mask and the speaking-trumpet, there must always be ourpoor little eyes peeping as usual and our timorous lips more or less underanxious control.
