He asked for Mrs. Casaubon, but being told that she was outwalking, he was going away, when Dorothea and Celia appeared, bothglowing from their struggle with the March wind. When Lydgate beggedto speak with her alone, Dorothea opened the library door whichhappened to be the nearest, thinking of nothing at the moment but whathe might have to say about Mr. Casaubon. It was the first time she hadentered this room since her husband had been taken ill, and the servanthad chosen not to open the shutters. But there was light enough to readby from the narrow upper panes of the windows.
"You will not mind this sombre light," said Dorothea, standing in themiddle of the room. "Since you forbade books, the library has been out ofthe question. But Mr. Casaubon will soon be here again, I hope. Is henot making progress?"
"Yes, much more rapid progress than I at first expected. Indeed, he isalready nearly in his usual state of health."
"You do not fear that the illness will return?" said Dorothea, whosequick ear had detected some significance in Lydgate's tone.
"Such cases are peculiarly difficult to pronounce upon," said Lydgate."The only point on which I can be confident is that it will be desirable tobe very watchful on Mr. Casaubon's account, lest he should in any waystrain his nervous power."
"I beseech you to speak quite plainly," said Dorothea, in an imploringtone. "I cannot bear to think that there might be something which I didnot know, and which, if I had known it, would have made me actdifferently." The words came out like a cry: it was evident that they werethe voice of some mental experience which lay not very far off.
"Sit down," she added, placing herself on the nearest chair, andthrowing off her bonnet and gloves, with an instinctive discarding offormality where a great question of destiny was concerned.
"What you say now justifies my own view," said Lydgate. "I think it isone's function as a medical man to hinder regrets of that sort as far aspossible. But I beg you to observe that Mr. Casaubon's case is preciselyof the kind in which the issue is most difficult to pronounce upon. Hemay possibly live for fifteen years or more, without much worse healththan he has had hitherto."
Dorothea had turned very pale, and when Lydgate paused she said ina low voice, "You mean if we are very careful."
"Yes—careful against mental agitation of all kinds, and againstexcessive application."
"He would be miserable, if he had to give up his work," saidDorothea, with a quick prevision of that wretchedness.
"I am aware of that. The only course is to try by all means, directand indirect, to moderate and vary his occupations. With a happyconcurrence of circumstances, there is, as I said, no immediate dangerfrom that affection of the heart, which I believe to have been the causeof his late attack. On the other hand, it is possible that the disease maydevelop itself more rapidly: it is one of those eases in which death issometimes sudden. Nothing should be neglected which might be affectedby such an issue."
There was silence for a few moments, while Dorothea sat as if shehad been turned to marble, though the life within her was so intense thather mind had never before swept in brief time over an equal range ofscenes and motives.
"Help me, pray," she said, at last, in the same low voice as before."Tell me what I can do."
"What do you think of foreign travel? You have been lately in Rome,I think."
The memories which made this resource utterly hopeless were a newcurrent that shook Dorothea out of her pallid immobility.
"Oh, that would not do—that would be worse than anything," shesaid with a more childlike despondency, while the tears rolled down."Nothing will be of any use that he does not enjoy."
"I wish that I could have spared you this pain," said Lydgate, deeplytouched, yet wondering about her marriage. Women just like Dorotheahad not entered into his traditions.
"It was right of you to tell me. I thank you for telling me the truth."
"I wish you to understand that I shall not say anything to enlightenMr. Casaubon himself. I think it desirable for him to know nothing morethan that he must not overwork himself, and must observe certain rules.Anxiety of any kind would be precisely the most unfavorable conditionfor him."
Lydgate rose, and Dorothea mechanically rose at the same time?unclasping her cloak and throwing it off as if it stifled her. He wasbowing and quitting her, when an impulse which if she had been alonewould have turned into a prayer, made her say with a sob in her voice—
"Oh, you are a wise man, are you not? You know all about life anddeath. Advise me. Think what I can do. He has been laboring all his lifeand looking forward. He minds about nothing else.— And I mind aboutnothing else—"
For years after Lydgate remembered the impression produced in himby this involuntary appeal—this cry from soul to soul, without otherconsciousness than their moving with kindred natures in the sameembroiled medium, the same troublous fitfully illuminated life. But whatcould he say now except that he should see Mr. Casaubon again to-morrow?
When he was gone, Dorothea's tears gushed forth, and relieved herstifling oppression. Then she dried her eyes, reminded that her distressmust not be betrayed to her husband; and looked round the roomthinking that she must order the servant to attend to it as usual, sinceMr. Casaubon might now at any moment wish to enter. On his writing-table there were letters which had lain untouched since the morningwhen he was taken ill, and among them, as Dorothea well remembered,there were young Ladislaw's letters, the one addressed to her stillunopened. The associations of these letters had been made the morepainful by that sudden attack of illness which she felt that the agitationcaused by her anger might have helped to bring on: it would be timeenough to read them when they were again thrust upon her, and she hadhad no inclination to fetch them from the library. But now it occurred toher that they should be put out of her husband's sight: whatever mighthave been the sources of his annoyance about them, he must, if possible,not be annoyed again; and she ran her eyes first over the letter addressedto him to assure herself whether or not it would be necessary to write inorder to hinder the offensive visit.
Will wrote from Rome, and began by saying that his obligations toMr. Casaubon were too deep for all thanks not to seem impertinent. Itwas plain that if he were not grateful, he must be the poorest-spiritedrascal who had ever found a generous friend. To expand in wordy thankswould be like saying, "I am honest." But Will had come to perceive thathis defects—defects which Mr. Casaubon had himself often pointed to—needed for their correction that more strenuous position which hisrelative's generosity had hitherto prevented from being inevitable. Hetrusted that he should make the best return, if return were possible, byshowing the effectiveness of the education for which he was indebted,and by ceasing in future to need any diversion towards himself of fundson which others might have a better claim. He was coming to England, totry his fortune, as many other young men were obliged to do whose onlycapital was in their brains. His friend Naumann had desired him to takecharge of the "Dispute"—the picture painted for Mr. Casaubon, withwhose permission, and Mrs. Casaubon's, Will would convey it to Lowickin person. A letter addressed to the Poste Restante in Paris within thefortnight would hinder him, if necessary, from arriving at aninconvenient moment. He enclosed a letter to Mrs. Casaubon in whichhe continued a discussion about art, begun with her in Rome.
Opening her own letter Dorothea saw that it was a livelycontinuation of his remonstrance with her fanatical sympathy and herwant of sturdy neutral delight in things as they were—an outpouring ofhis young vivacity which it was impossible to read just now. She hadimmediately to consider what was to be done about the other letter:there was still time perhaps to prevent Will from coming to Lowick.Dorothea ended by giving the letter to her uncle, who was still in thehouse, and begging him to let Will know that Mr. Casaubon had been ill,and that his health would not allow the reception of any visitors.
No one more ready than Mr. Brooke to write a letter: his onlydifficulty was to write a short one, and his ideas in this case expandedover the three large pages and the inward foldings. He had simply said toDorothea—
"To be sure, I will write, my dear. He's a very clever young fellow—this young Ladislaw—I dare say will be a rising young man. It's a goodletter—marks his sense of things, you know. However, I will tell himabout Casaubon."
But the end of Mr. Brooke's pen was a thinking organ, evolvingsentences, especially of a benevolent kind, before the rest of his mindcould well overtake them. It expressed regrets and proposed remedies,which, when Mr. Brooke read them, seemed felicitously worded—surprisingly the right thing, and determined a sequel which he had neverbefore thought of. In this case, his pen found it such a pity youngLadislaw should not have come into the neighborhood just at that time,in order that Mr. Brooke might make his acquaintance more fully, andthat they might go over the long-neglected Italian drawings together—italso felt such an interest in a young man who was starting in life with astock of ideas—that by the end of the second page it had persuaded Mr.Brooke to invite young Ladislaw, since he could not be received atLowick, to come to Tipton Grange. Why not? They could find a greatmany things to do together, and this was a period of peculiar growth—the political horizon was expanding, and—in short, Mr. Brooke's penwent off into a little speech which it had lately reported for thatimperfectly edited organ the "Middlemarch Pioneer." While Mr. Brookewas sealing this letter, he felt elated with an influx of dim projects:—ayoung man capable of putting ideas into form, the "Pioneer" purchased toclear the pathway for a new candidate, documents utilized—who knewwhat might come of it all? Since Celia was going to marry immediately, itwould be very pleasant to have a young fellow at table with him, at leastfor a time.
But he went away without telling Dorothea what he had put into theletter, for she was engaged with her husband, and—in fact, these thingswere of no importance to her.
CHAPTER XXXI.
How will you know the pitch of that great bell
Too large for you to stir? Let but a flute
Play 'neath the fine-mixed metal listen close
Till the right note flows forth, a silvery rill.
Then shall the huge bell tremble—then the mass
With myriad waves concurrent shall respond
In low soft unison.
Lydgate that evening spoke to Miss Vincy of Mrs. Casaubon, andlaid some emphasis on the strong feeling she appeared to have for thatformal studious man thirty years older than herself.
"Of course she is devoted to her husband," said Rosamond, implyinga notion of necessary sequence which the scientific man regarded as theprettiest possible for a woman; but she was thinking at the same timethat it was not so very melancholy to be mistress of Lowick Manor witha husband likely to die soon. "Do you think her very handsome?"
"She certainly is handsome, but I have not thought about it," saidLydgate.
"I suppose it would be unprofessional," said Rosamond, dimpling."But how your practice is spreading! You were called in before to theChettams, I think; and now, the Casaubons."
"Yes," said Lydgate, in a tone of compulsory admission. "But I don'treally like attending such people so well as the poor. The cases are moremonotonous, and one has to go through more fuss and listen moredeferentially to nonsense."
"Not more than in Middlemarch," said Rosamond. "And at least yougo through wide corridors and have the scent of rose-leaves everywhere."
"That is true, Mademoiselle de Montmorenci," said Lydgate, justbending his head to the table and lifting with his fourth finger herdelicate handkerchief which lay at the mouth of her reticule, as if toenjoy its scent, while he looked at her with a smile.
But this agreeable holiday freedom with which Lydgate hoveredabout the flower of Middlemarch, could not continue indefinitely. It wasnot more possible to find social isolation in that town than elsewhere,and two people persistently flirting could by no means escape from "thevarious entanglements, weights, blows, clashings, motions, by whichthings severally go on." Whatever Miss Vincy did must be remarked, andshe was perhaps the more conspicuous to admirers and critics becausejust now Mrs. Vincy, after some struggle, had gone with Fred to stay alittle while at Stone Court, there being no other way of at once gratifyingold Featherstone and keeping watch against Mary Garth, who appeared aless tolerable daughter-in-law in proportion as Fred's illness disappeared.
Aunt Bulstrode, for example, came a little oftener into Lowick Gateto see Rosamond, now she was alone. For Mrs. Bulstrode had a truesisterly feeling for her brother; always thinking that he might havemarried better, but wishing well to the children. Now Mrs. Bulstrode hada long-standing intimacy with Mrs. Plymdale. They had nearly the samepreferences in silks, patterns for underclothing, china-ware, andclergymen; they confided their little troubles of health and householdmanagement to each other, and various little points of superiority onMrs. Bulstrode's side, namely, more decided seriousness, moreadmiration for mind, and a house outside the town, sometimes served togive color to their conversation without dividing them—well-meaningwomen both, knowing very little of their own motives.
Mrs. Bulstrode, paying a morning visit to Mrs. Plymdale, happenedto say that she could not stay longer, because she was going to see poorRosamond.
"Why do you say 'poor Rosamond'?" said Mrs. Plymdale, a round-eyed sharp little woman, like a tamed falcon.
"She is so pretty, and has been brought up in such thoughtlessness.The mother, you know, had always that levity about her, which makesme anxious for the children."
"Well, Harriet, if I am to speak my mind," said Mrs. Plymdale, withemphasis, "I must say, anybody would suppose you and Mr. Bulstrodewould be delighted with what has happened, for you have doneeverything to put Mr. Lydgate forward."
