It seemed a long while—she did not know how long—before sheheard Celia saying, "That will do, nurse; he will be quiet on my lap now.You can go to lunch, and let Garratt stay in the next room." "What Ithink, Dodo," Celia went on, observing nothing more than that Dorotheawas leaning back in her chair, and likely to be passive, "is that Mr.Casaubon was spiteful. I never did like him, and James never did. I thinkthe corners of his mouth were dreadfully spiteful. And now he hasbehaved in this way, I am sure religion does not require you to makeyourself uncomfortable about him. If he has been taken away, that is amercy, and you ought to be grateful. We should not grieve, should we,baby?" said Celia confidentially to that unconscious centre and poise ofthe world, who had the most remarkable fists all complete even to thenails, and hair enough, really, when you took his cap off, to make—youdidn't know what:—in short, he was Bouddha in a Western form.
At this crisis Lydgate was announced, and one of the first things hesaid was, "I fear you are not so well as you were, Mrs. Casaubon; haveyou been agitated? allow me to feel your pulse." Dorothea's hand was ofa marble coldness.
"She wants to go to Lowick, to look over papers," said Celia. "Sheought not, ought she?"
Lydgate did not speak for a few moments. Then he said, looking atDorothea. "I hardly know. In my opinion Mrs. Casaubon should do whatwould give her the most repose of mind. That repose will not alwayscome from being forbidden to act."
"Thank you," said Dorothea, exerting herself, "I am sure that is wise.There are so many things which I ought to attend to. Why should I sithere idle?" Then, with an effort to recall subjects not connected with heragitation, she added, abruptly, "You know every one in Middlemarch, Ithink, Mr. Lydgate. I shall ask you to tell me a great deal. I have seriousthings to do now. I have a living to give away. You know Mr. Tyke andall the—" But Dorothea's effort was too much for her; she broke off andburst into sobs. Lydgate made her drink a dose of sal volatile.
"Let Mrs. Casaubon do as she likes," he said to Sir James, whom heasked to see before quitting the house. "She wants perfect freedom, Ithink, more than any other prescription."
His attendance on Dorothea while her brain was excited, hadenabled him to form some true conclusions concerning the trials of herlife. He felt sure that she had been suffering from the strain and conflictof self-repression; and that she was likely now to feel herself only inanother sort of pinfold than that from which she had been released.
Lydgate's advice was all the easier for Sir James to follow when hefound that Celia had already told Dorothea the unpleasant fact about thewill. There was no help for it now—no reason for any further delay inthe execution of necessary business. And the next day Sir James compliedat once with her request that he would drive her to Lowick.
"I have no wish to stay there at present," said Dorothea; "I couldhardly bear it. I am much happier at Freshitt with Celia. I shall be ableto think better about what should be done at Lowick by looking at itfrom a distance. And I should like to be at the Grange a little while withmy uncle, and go about in all the old walks and among the people in thevillage."
"Not yet, I think. Your uncle is having political company, and youare better out of the way of such doings," said Sir James, who at thatmoment thought of the Grange chiefly as a haunt of young Ladislaw's.But no word passed between him and Dorothea about the objectionablepart of the will; indeed, both of them felt that the mention of it betweenthem would be impossible. Sir James was shy, even with men, aboutdisagreeable subjects; and the one thing that Dorothea would havechosen to say, if she had spoken on the matter at all, was forbidden toher at present because it seemed to be a further exposure of herhusband's injustice. Yet she did wish that Sir James could know whathad passed between her and her husband about Will Ladislaw's moralclaim on the property: it would then, she thought, be apparent to him asit was to her, that her husband's strange indelicate proviso had beenchiefly urged by his bitter resistance to that idea of claim, and notmerely by personal feelings more difficult to talk about. Also, it must beadmitted, Dorothea wished that this could be known for Will's sake,since her friends seemed to think of him as simply an object of Mr.Casaubon's charity. Why should he be compared with an Italian carryingwhite mice? That word quoted from Mrs. Cadwallader seemed like amocking travesty wrought in the dark by an impish finger.
At Lowick Dorothea searched desk and drawer—searched all herhusband's places of deposit for private writing, but found no paperaddressed especially to her, except that "Synoptical Tabulation," whichwas probably only the beginning of many intended directions for herguidance. In carrying out this bequest of labor to Dorothea, as in all else,Mr. Casaubon had been slow and hesitating, oppressed in the plan oftransmitting his work, as he had been in executing it, by the sense ofmoving heavily in a dim and clogging medium: distrust of Dorothea'scompetence to arrange what he had prepared was subdued only bydistrust of any other redactor. But he had come at last to create a trustfor himself out of Dorothea's nature: she could do what she resolved todo: and he willingly imagined her toiling under the fetters of a promiseto erect a tomb with his name upon it. (Not that Mr. Casaubon called thefuture volumes a tomb; he called them the Key to all Mythologies.) Butthe months gained on him and left his plans belated: he had only hadtime to ask for that promise by which he sought to keep his cold graspon Dorothea's life.
The grasp had slipped away. Bound by a pledge given from thedepths of her pity, she would have been capable of undertaking a toilwhich her judgment whispered was vain for all uses except thatconsecration of faithfulness which is a supreme use. But now herjudgment, instead of being controlled by duteous devotion, was madeactive by the imbittering discovery that in her past union there hadlurked the hidden alienation of secrecy and suspicion. The living,suffering man was no longer before her to awaken her pity: thereremained only the retrospect of painful subjection to a husband whosethoughts had been lower than she had believed, whose exorbitant claimsfor himself had even blinded his scrupulous care for his own character,and made him defeat his own pride by shocking men of ordinary honor.As for the property which was the sign of that broken tie, she wouldhave been glad to be free from it and have nothing more than heroriginal fortune which had been settled on her, if there had not beenduties attached to ownership, which she ought not to flinch from. Aboutthis property many troublous questions insisted on rising: had she notbeen right in thinking that the half of it ought to go to Will Ladislaw?—but was it not impossible now for her to do that act of justice? Mr.Casaubon had taken a cruelly effective means of hindering her: even withindignation against him in her heart, any act that seemed a triumphanteluding of his purpose revolted her.
After collecting papers of business which she wished to examine, shelocked up again the desks and drawers—all empty of personal words forher—empty of any sign that in her husband's lonely brooding his hearthad gone out to her in excuse or explanation; and she went back toFreshitt with the sense that around his last hard demand and his lastinjurious assertion of his power, the silence was unbroken.
Dorothea tried now to turn her thoughts towards immediate duties,and one of these was of a kind which others were determined to remindher of. Lydgate's ear had caught eagerly her mention of the living, and assoon as he could, he reopened the subject, seeing here a possibility ofmaking amends for the casting-vote he had once given with an ill-satisfied conscience. "Instead of telling you anything about Mr. Tyke," hesaid, "I should like to speak of another man—Mr. Farebrother, the Vicarof St. Botolph's. His living is a poor one, and gives him a stintedprovision for himself and his family. His mother, aunt, and sister all livewith him, and depend upon him. I believe he has never married becauseof them. I never heard such good preaching as his—such plain, easyeloquence. He would have done to preach at St. Paul's Cross after oldLatimer. His talk is just as good about all subjects: original, simple,clear. I think him a remarkable fellow: he ought to have done more thanhe has done."
"Why has he not done more?" said Dorothea, interested now in allwho had slipped below their own intention.
"That's a hard question," said Lydgate. "I find myself that it'suncommonly difficult to make the right thing work: there are so manystrings pulling at once. Farebrother often hints that he has got into thewrong profession; he wants a wider range than that of a poor clergyman,and I suppose he has no interest to help him on. He is very fond ofNatural History and various scientific matters, and he is hampered inreconciling these tastes with his position. He has no money to spare—hardly enough to use; and that has led him into card-playing—Middlemarch is a great place for whist. He does play for money, and hewins a good deal. Of course that takes him into company a little beneathhim, and makes him slack about some things; and yet, with all that,looking at him as a whole, I think he is one of the most blameless men Iever knew. He has neither venom nor doubleness in him, and those oftengo with a more correct outside."
"I wonder whether he suffers in his conscience because of that habit,"said Dorothea; "I wonder whether he wishes he could leave it off."
"I have no doubt he would leave it off, if he were transplanted intoplenty: he would be glad of the time for other things."
"My uncle says that Mr. Tyke is spoken of as an apostolic man," saidDorothea, meditatively. She was wishing it were possible to restore thetimes of primitive zeal, and yet thinking of Mr. Farebrother with a strongdesire to rescue him from his chance-gotten money.
"I don't pretend to say that Farebrother is apostolic," said Lydgate."His position is not quite like that of the Apostles: he is only a parsonamong parishioners whose lives he has to try and make better.Practically I find that what is called being apostolic now, is animpatience of everything in which the parson doesn't cut the principalfigure. I see something of that in Mr. Tyke at the Hospital: a good deal ofhis doctrine is a sort of pinching hard to make people uncomfortably—aware of him. Besides, an apostolic man at Lowick!—he ought to think,as St. Francis did, that it is needful to preach to the birds."
"True," said Dorothea. "It is hard to imagine what sort of notions ourfarmers and laborers get from their teaching. I have been looking into avolume of sermons by Mr. Tyke: such sermons would be of no use atLowick—I mean, about imputed righteousness and the prophecies in theApocalypse. I have always been thinking of the different ways in whichChristianity is taught, and whenever I find one way that makes it a widerblessing than any other, I cling to that as the truest—I mean that whichtakes in the most good of all kinds, and brings in the most people assharers in it. It is surely better to pardon too much, than to condemn toomuch. But I should like to see Mr. Farebrother and hear him preach."
"Do," said Lydgate; "I trust to the effect of that. He is very muchbeloved, but he has his enemies too: there are always people who can'tforgive an able man for differing from them. And that money-winningbusiness is really a blot. You don't, of course, see many Middlemarchpeople: but Mr. Ladislaw, who is constantly seeing Mr. Brooke, is a greatfriend of Mr. Farebrother's old ladies, and would be glad to sing theVicar's praises. One of the old ladies—Miss Noble, the aunt—is awonderfully quaint picture of self-forgetful goodness, and Ladislawgallants her about sometimes. I met them one day in a back street: youknow Ladislaw's look—a sort of Daphnis in coat and waistcoat; and thislittle old maid reaching up to his arm—they looked like a couple droppedout of a romantic comedy. But the best evidence about Farebrother is tosee him and hear him."
Happily Dorothea was in her private sitting-room when thisconversation occurred, and there was no one present to make Lydgate'sinnocent introduction of Ladislaw painful to her. As was usual with himin matters of personal gossip, Lydgate had quite forgotten Rosamond'sremark that she thought Will adored Mrs. Casaubon. At that moment hewas only caring for what would recommend the Farebrother family; andhe had purposely given emphasis to the worst that could be said aboutthe Vicar, in order to forestall objections. In the weeks since Mr.Casaubon's death he had hardly seen Ladislaw, and he had heard norumor to warn him that Mr. Brooke's confidential secretary was adangerous subject with Mrs. Casaubon. When he was gone, his picture ofLadislaw lingered in her mind and disputed the ground with thatquestion of the Lowick living. What was Will Ladislaw thinking abouther? Would he hear of that fact which made her cheeks burn as theynever used to do? And how would he feel when he heard it?—But shecould see as well as possible how he smiled down at the little old maid.An Italian with white mice!—on the contrary, he was a creature whoentered into every one's feelings, and could take the pressure of theirthought instead of urging his own with iron resistance.
CHAPTER LI.
Party is Nature too, and you shall see
By force of Logic how they both agree:
The Many in the One, the One in Many;
All is not Some, nor Some the same as Any:
Genus holds species, both are great or small;
One genus highest, one not high at all;
Each species has its differentia too,
This is not That, and He was never You,
Though this and that are AYES, and you and he
Are like as one to one, or three to three.
No gossip about Mr. Casaubon's will had yet reached Ladislaw: theair seemed to be filled with the dissolution of Parliament and the comingelection, as the old wakes and fairs were filled with the rival clatter ofitinerant shows; and more private noises were taken little notice of. Thefamous "dry election" was at hand, in which the depths of public feelingmight be measured by the low flood-mark of drink. Will Ladislaw wasone of the busiest at this time; and though Dorothea's widowhood wascontinually in his thought, he was so far from wishing to be spoken to onthe subject, that when Lydgate sought him out to tell him what hadpassed about the Lowick living, he answered rather waspishly—
