Dorothea was in fact thinking that it was desirable for Celia to knowof the momentous change in Mr. Casaubon's position since he had lastbeen in the house: it did not seem fair to leave her in ignorance of whatwould necessarily affect her attitude towards him; but it was impossiblenot to shrink from telling her. Dorothea accused herself of somemeanness in this timidity: it was always odious to her to have any smallfears or contrivances about her actions, but at this moment she wasseeking the highest aid possible that she might not dread thecorrosiveness of Celia's pretty carnally minded prose. Her reverie wasbroken, and the difficulty of decision banished, by Celia's small andrather guttural voice speaking in its usual tone, of a remark aside or a"by the bye."
"Is any one else coming to dine besides Mr. Casaubon?"
"Not that I know of."
"I hope there is some one else. Then I shall not hear him eat his soupso."
"What is there remarkable about his soup-eating?"
"Really, Dodo, can't you hear how he scrapes his spoon? And healways blinks before he speaks. I don't know whether Locke blinked, butI'm sure I am sorry for those who sat opposite to him if he did."
"Celia," said Dorothea, with emphatic gravity, "pray don't make anymore observations of that kind."
"Why not? They are quite true," returned Celia, who had her reasonsfor persevering, though she was beginning to be a little afraid.
"Many things are true which only the commonest minds observe."
"Then I think the commonest minds must be rather useful. I think itis a pity Mr. Casaubon's mother had not a commoner mind: she mighthave taught him better." Celia was inwardly frightened, and ready to runaway, now she had hurled this light javelin.
Dorothea's feelings had gathered to an avalanche, and there could beno further preparation.
"It is right to tell you, Celia, that I am engaged to marry Mr.Casaubon."
Perhaps Celia had never turned so pale before. The paper man shewas making would have had his leg injured, but for her habitual care ofwhatever she held in her hands. She laid the fragile figure down at once,and sat perfectly still for a few moments. When she spoke there was atear gathering.
"Oh, Dodo, I hope you will be happy." Her sisterly tenderness couldnot but surmount other feelings at this moment, and her fears were thefears of affection.
Dorothea was still hurt and agitated.
"It is quite decided, then?" said Celia, in an awed under tone. "Anduncle knows?"
"I have accepted Mr. Casaubon's offer. My uncle brought me theletter that contained it; he knew about it beforehand."
"I beg your pardon, if I have said anything to hurt you, Dodo," saidCelia, with a slight sob. She never could have thought that she shouldfeel as she did. There was something funereal in the whole affair, andMr. Casaubon seemed to be the officiating clergyman, about whom itwould be indecent to make remarks.
"Never mind, Kitty, do not grieve. We should never admire the samepeople. I often offend in something of the same way; I am apt to speaktoo strongly of those who don't please me."
In spite of this magnanimity Dorothea was still smarting: perhaps asmuch from Celia's subdued astonishment as from her small criticisms. Ofcourse all the world round Tipton would be out of sympathy with thismarriage. Dorothea knew of no one who thought as she did about lifeand its best objects.
Nevertheless before the evening was at an end she was very happy.In an hour's tete-a-tete with Mr. Casaubon she talked to him with morefreedom than she had ever felt before, even pouring out her joy at thethought of devoting herself to him, and of learning how she might bestshare and further all his great ends. Mr. Casaubon was touched with anunknown delight (what man would not have been?) at this childlikeunrestrained ardor: he was not surprised (what lover would have been?)that he should be the object of it.
"My dear young lady—Miss Brooke—Dorothea!" he said, pressing herhand between his hands, "this is a happiness greater than I had everimagined to be in reserve for me. That I should ever meet with a mindand person so rich in the mingled graces which could render marriagedesirable, was far indeed from my conception. You have all—nay, morethan all—those qualities which I have ever regarded as the characteristicexcellences of womanhood. The great charm of your sex is its capabilityof an ardent self-sacrificing affection, and herein we see its fitness toround and complete the existence of our own. Hitherto I have known fewpleasures save of the severer kind: my satisfactions have been those ofthe solitary student. I have been little disposed to gather flowers thatwould wither in my hand, but now I shall pluck them with eagerness, toplace them in your bosom."
No speech could have been more thoroughly honest in its intention:the frigid rhetoric at the end was as sincere as the bark of a dog, or thecawing of an amorous rook. Would it not be rash to conclude that therewas no passion behind those sonnets to Delia which strike us as the thinmusic of a mandolin?
Dorothea's faith supplied all that Mr. Casaubon's words seemed toleave unsaid: what believer sees a disturbing omission or infelicity? Thetext, whether of prophet or of poet, expands for whatever we can putinto it, and even his bad grammar is sublime.
"I am very ignorant—you will quite wonder at my ignorance," saidDorothea. "I have so many thoughts that may be quite mistaken; andnow I shall be able to tell them all to you, and ask you about them. But,"she added, with rapid imagination of Mr. Casaubon's probable feeling, "Iwill not trouble you too much; only when you are inclined to listen tome. You must often be weary with the pursuit of subjects in your owntrack. I shall gain enough if you will take me with you there."
"How should I be able now to persevere in any path without yourcompanionship?" said Mr. Casaubon, kissing her candid brow, andfeeling that heaven had vouchsafed him a blessing in every way suited tohis peculiar wants. He was being unconsciously wrought upon by thecharms of a nature which was entirely without hidden calculations eitherfor immediate effects or for remoter ends. It was this which madeDorothea so childlike, and, according to some judges, so stupid, with allher reputed cleverness; as, for example, in the present case of throwingherself, metaphorically speaking, at Mr. Casaubon's feet, and kissing hisunfashionable shoe-ties as if he were a Protestant Pope. She was not inthe least teaching Mr. Casaubon to ask if he were good enough for her,but merely asking herself anxiously how she could be good enough forMr. Casaubon. Before he left the next day it had been decided that themarriage should take place within six weeks. Why not? Mr. Casaubon'shouse was ready. It was not a parsonage, but a considerable mansion,with much land attached to it. The parsonage was inhabited by thecurate, who did all the duty except preaching the morning sermon.
CHAPTER VI.
My lady's tongue is like the meadow blades,
That cut you stroking them with idle hand.
Nice cutting is her function: she divides
With spiritual edge the millet-seed,
And makes intangible savings.
As Mr. Casaubon's carriage was passing out of the gateway, itarrested the entrance of a pony phaeton driven by a lady with a servantseated behind. It was doubtful whether the recognition had been mutual,for Mr. Casaubon was looking absently before him; but the lady wasquick-eyed, and threw a nod and a "How do you do?" in the nick of time.In spite of her shabby bonnet and very old Indian shawl, it was plainthat the lodge-keeper regarded her as an important personage, from thelow curtsy which was dropped on the entrance of the small phaeton.
"Well, Mrs. Fitchett, how are your fowls laying now?" said the high-colored, dark-eyed lady, with the clearest chiselled utterance.
"Pretty well for laying, madam, but they've ta'en to eating their eggs:I've no peace o' mind with 'em at all."
"Oh, the cannibals! Better sell them cheap at once. What will you sellthem a couple? One can't eat fowls of a bad character at a high price."
"Well, madam, half-a-crown: I couldn't let 'em go, not under."
"Half-a-crown, these times! Come now—for the Rector's chicken-broth on a Sunday. He has consumed all ours that I can spare. You arehalf paid with the sermon, Mrs. Fitchett, remember that. Take a pair oftumbler-pigeons for them—little beauties. You must come and see them.You have no tumblers among your pigeons."
"Well, madam, Master Fitchett shall go and see 'em after work. He'svery hot on new sorts; to oblige you."
"Oblige me! It will be the best bargain he ever made. A pair of churchpigeons for a couple of wicked Spanish fowls that eat their own eggs!Don't you and Fitchett boast too much, that is all!"
The phaeton was driven onwards with the last words, leaving Mrs.Fitchett laughing and shaking her head slowly, with an interjectional"Surely, surely!"—from which it might be inferred that she would havefound the country-side somewhat duller if the Rector's lady had been lessfree-spoken and less of a skinflint. Indeed, both the farmers and laborersin the parishes of Freshitt and Tipton would have felt a sad lack ofconversation but for the stories about what Mrs. Cadwallader said anddid: a lady of immeasurably high birth, descended, as it were, fromunknown earls, dim as the crowd of heroic shades—who pleadedpoverty, pared down prices, and cut jokes in the most companionablemanner, though with a turn of tongue that let you know who she was.Such a lady gave a neighborliness to both rank and religion, andmitigated the bitterness of uncommuted tithe. A much more exemplarycharacter with an infusion of sour dignity would not have furthered theircomprehension of the Thirty-nine Articles, and would have been lesssocially uniting.
Mr. Brooke, seeing Mrs. Cadwallader's merits from a different pointof view, winced a little when her name was announced in the library,where he was sitting alone.
"I see you have had our Lowick Cicero here," she said, seating herselfcomfortably, throwing back her wraps, and showing a thin but well-builtfigure. "I suspect you and he are brewing some bad polities, else youwould not be seeing so much of the lively man. I shall inform againstyou: remember you are both suspicious characters since you took Peel'sside about the Catholic Bill. I shall tell everybody that you are going toput up for Middlemarch on the Whig side when old Pinkerton resigns,and that Casaubon is going to help you in an underhand manner: goingto bribe the voters with pamphlets, and throw open the public-houses todistribute them. Come, confess!"
"Nothing of the sort," said Mr. Brooke, smiling and rubbing his eye-glasses, but really blushing a little at the impeachment. "Casaubon and Idon't talk politics much. He doesn't care much about the philanthropicside of things; punishments, and that kind of thing. He only cares aboutChurch questions. That is not my line of action, you know."
"Ra-a-ther too much, my friend. I have heard of your doings. Whowas it that sold his bit of land to the Papists at Middlemarch? I believeyou bought it on purpose. You are a perfect Guy Faux. See if you are notburnt in effigy this 5th of November coming. Humphrey would not cometo quarrel with you about it, so I am come."
"Very good. I was prepared to be persecuted for not persecuting—notpersecuting, you know."
"There you go! That is a piece of clap-trap you have got ready for thehustings. Now, do not let them lure you to the hustings, my dear Mr.Brooke. A man always makes a fool of himself, speechifying: there's noexcuse but being on the right side, so that you can ask a blessing on yourhumming and hawing. You will lose yourself, I forewarn you. You willmake a Saturday pie of all parties' opinions, and be pelted by everybody."
"That is what I expect, you know," said Mr. Brooke, not wishing tobetray how little he enjoyed this prophetic sketch—"what I expect as anindependent man. As to the Whigs, a man who goes with the thinkers isnot likely to be hooked on by any party. He may go with them up to acertain point—up to a certain point, you know. But that is what youladies never understand."
"Where your certain point is? No. I should like to be told how a mancan have any certain point when he belongs to no party—leading aroving life, and never letting his friends know his address. 'Nobodyknows where Brooke will be—there's no counting on Brooke'—that iswhat people say of you, to be quite frank. Now, do turn respectable.How will you like going to Sessions with everybody looking shy on you,and you with a bad conscience and an empty pocket?"
"I don't pretend to argue with a lady on politics," said Mr. Brooke,with an air of smiling indifference, but feeling rather unpleasantlyconscious that this attack of Mrs. Cadwallader's had opened thedefensive campaign to which certain rash steps had exposed him. "Yoursex are not thinkers, you know—varium et mutabile semper—that kindof thing. You don't know Virgil. I knew"—Mr. Brooke reflected in timethat he had not had the personal acquaintance of the Augustan poet—"Iwas going to say, poor Stoddart, you know. That was what he said. Youladies are always against an independent attitude—a man's caring fornothing but truth, and that sort of thing. And there is no part of thecounty where opinion is narrower than it is here—I don't mean to throwstones, you know, but somebody is wanted to take the independent line;and if I don't take it, who will?"
"Who? Why, any upstart who has got neither blood nor position.People of standing should consume their independent nonsense at home,not hawk it about. And you! who are going to marry your niece, as goodas your daughter, to one of our best men. Sir James would be cruellyannoyed: it will be too hard on him if you turn round now and makeyourself a Whig sign-board."
Mr. Brooke again winced inwardly, for Dorothea's engagement hadno sooner been decided, than he had thought of Mrs. Cadwallader'sprospective taunts. It might have been easy for ignorant observers to say,"Quarrel with Mrs. Cadwallader;" but where is a country gentleman to gowho quarrels with his oldest neighbors? Who could taste the fine flavorin the name of Brooke if it were delivered casually, like wine without aseal? Certainly a man can only be cosmopolitan up to a certain point.
