"Very sorry to hear it, sir," said Pratt, retiring. Of course, as aservant who was to be told nothing, he knew the fact of which Ladislawwas still ignorant, and had drawn his inferences; indeed, had notdiffered from his betrothed Tantripp when she said, "Your master was asjealous as a fiend—and no reason. Madam would look higher than Mr.Ladislaw, else I don't know her. Mrs. Cadwallader's maid says there's alord coming who is to marry her when the mourning's over."
There were not many moments for Will to walk about with his hat inhis hand before Dorothea entered. The meeting was very different fromthat first meeting in Rome when Will had been embarrassed andDorothea calm. This time he felt miserable but determined, while shewas in a state of agitation which could not be hidden. Just outside thedoor she had felt that this longed-for meeting was after all too difficult,and when she saw Will advancing towards her, the deep blush which wasrare in her came with painful suddenness. Neither of them knew how itwas, but neither of them spoke. She gave her hand for a moment, andthen they went to sit down near the window, she on one settee and heon another opposite. Will was peculiarly uneasy: it seemed to him notlike Dorothea that the mere fact of her being a widow should cause sucha change in her manner of receiving him; and he knew of no othercondition which could have affected their previous relation to eachother—except that, as his imagination at once told him, her friendsmight have been poisoning her mind with their suspicions of him.
"I hope I have not presumed too much in calling," said Will; "I couldnot bear to leave the neighborhood and begin a new life without seeingyou to say good-by."
"Presumed? Surely not. I should have thought it unkind if you hadnot wished to see me," said Dorothea, her habit of speaking with perfectgenuineness asserting itself through all her uncertainty and agitation."Are you going away immediately?"
"Very soon, I think. I intend to go to town and eat my dinners as abarrister, since, they say, that is the preparation for all public business.There will be a great deal of political work to be done by-and-by, and Imean to try and do some of it. Other men have managed to win anhonorable position for themselves without family or money."
"And that will make it all the more honorable," said Dorothea,ardently. "Besides, you have so many talents. I have heard from my unclehow well you speak in public, so that every one is sorry when you leaveoff, and how clearly you can explain things. And you care that justiceshould be done to every one. I am so glad. When we were in Rome, Ithought you only cared for poetry and art, and the things that adorn lifefor us who are well off. But now I know you think about the rest of theworld."
While she was speaking Dorothea had lost her personalembarrassment, and had become like her former self. She looked at Willwith a direct glance, full of delighted confidence.
"You approve of my going away for years, then, and never cominghere again till I have made myself of some mark in the world?" said Will,trying hard to reconcile the utmost pride with the utmost effort to get anexpression of strong feeling from Dorothea.
She was not aware how long it was before she answered. She hadturned her head and was looking out of the window on the rose-bushes,which seemed to have in them the summers of all the years when Willwould be away. This was not judicious behavior. But Dorothea neverthought of studying her manners: she thought only of bowing to a sadnecessity which divided her from Will. Those first words of his about hisintentions had seemed to make everything clear to her: he knew, shesupposed, all about Mr. Casaubon's final conduct in relation to him, andit had come to him with the same sort of shock as to herself. He hadnever felt more than friendship for her—had never had anything in hismind to justify what she felt to be her husband's outrage on the feelingsof both: and that friendship he still felt. Something which may be calledan inward silent sob had gone on in Dorothea before she said with apure voice, just trembling in the last words as if only from its liquidflexibility—
"Yes, it must be right for you to do as you say. I shall be very happywhen I hear that you have made your value felt. But you must havepatience. It will perhaps be a long while."
Will never quite knew how it was that he saved himself from fallingdown at her feet, when the "long while" came forth with its gentletremor. He used to say that the horrible hue and surface of her crapedress was most likely the sufficient controlling force. He sat still,however, and only said—
"I shall never hear from you. And you will forget all about me."
"No," said Dorothea, "I shall never forget you. I have never forgottenany one whom I once knew. My life has never been crowded, and seemsnot likely to be so. And I have a great deal of space for memory atLowick, haven't I?" She smiled.
"Good God!" Will burst out passionately, rising, with his hat still inhis hand, and walking away to a marble table, where he suddenly turnedand leaned his back against it. The blood had mounted to his face andneck, and he looked almost angry. It had seemed to him as if they werelike two creatures slowly turning to marble in each other's presence,while their hearts were conscious and their eyes were yearning. But therewas no help for it. It should never be true of him that in this meeting towhich he had come with bitter resolution he had ended by a confessionwhich might be interpreted into asking for her fortune. Moreover, it wasactually true that he was fearful of the effect which such confessionsmight have on Dorothea herself.
She looked at him from that distance in some trouble, imagining thatthere might have been an offence in her words. But all the while therewas a current of thought in her about his probable want of money, andthe impossibility of her helping him. If her uncle had been at home,something might have been done through him! It was this preoccupationwith the hardship of Will's wanting money, while she had what ought tohave been his share, which led her to say, seeing that he remained silentand looked away from her—
"I wonder whether you would like to have that miniature whichhangs up-stairs—I mean that beautiful miniature of your grandmother. Ithink it is not right for me to keep it, if you would wish to have it. It iswonderfully like you."
"You are very good," said Will, irritably. "No; I don't mind about it. Itis not very consoling to have one's own likeness. It would be moreconsoling if others wanted to have it."
"I thought you would like to cherish her memory—I thought—"Dorothea broke off an instant, her imagination suddenly warning heraway from Aunt Julia's history—"you would surely like to have theminiature as a family memorial."
"Why should I have that, when I have nothing else! A man with onlya portmanteau for his stowage must keep his memorials in his head."
Will spoke at random: he was merely venting his petulance; it was alittle too exasperating to have his grandmother's portrait offered him atthat moment. But to Dorothea's feeling his words had a peculiar sting.She rose and said with a touch of indignation as well as hauteur—
"You are much the happier of us two, Mr. Ladislaw, to havenothing."
Will was startled. Whatever the words might be, the tone seemed likea dismissal; and quitting his leaning posture, he walked a little waytowards her. Their eyes met, but with a strange questioning gravity.Something was keeping their minds aloof, and each was left to conjecturewhat was in the other. Will had really never thought of himself as havinga claim of inheritance on the property which was held by Dorothea, andwould have required a narrative to make him understand her presentfeeling.
"I never felt it a misfortune to have nothing till now," he said. "Butpoverty may be as bad as leprosy, if it divides us from what we mostcare for."
The words cut Dorothea to the heart, and made her relent. Sheanswered in a tone of sad fellowship.
"Sorrow comes in so many ways. Two years ago I had no notion ofthat—I mean of the unexpected way in which trouble comes, and ties ourhands, and makes us silent when we long to speak. I used to despisewomen a little for not shaping their lives more, and doing better things. Iwas very fond of doing as I liked, but I have almost given it up," sheended, smiling playfully.
"I have not given up doing as I like, but I can very seldom do it," saidWill. He was standing two yards from her with his mind full ofcontradictory desires and resolves—desiring some unmistakable proofthat she loved him, and yet dreading the position into which such aproof might bring him. "The thing one most longs for may be surroundedwith conditions that would be intolerable."
At this moment Pratt entered and said, "Sir James Chettam is in thelibrary, madam."
"Ask Sir James to come in here," said Dorothea, immediately. It wasas if the same electric shock had passed through her and Will. Each ofthem felt proudly resistant, and neither looked at the other, while theyawaited Sir James's entrance.
After shaking hands with Dorothea, he bowed as slightly as possibleto Ladislaw, who repaid the slightness exactly, and then going towardsDorothea, said—
"I must say good-by, Mrs. Casaubon; and probably for a long while."
Dorothea put out her hand and said her good-by cordially. The sensethat Sir James was depreciating Will, and behaving rudely to him, rousedher resolution and dignity: there was no touch of confusion in hermanner. And when Will had left the room, she looked with such calmself-possession at Sir James, saying, "How is Celia?" that he was obligedto behave as if nothing had annoyed him. And what would be the use ofbehaving otherwise? Indeed, Sir James shrank with so much dislike fromthe association even in thought of Dorothea with Ladislaw as herpossible lover, that he would himself have wished to avoid an outwardshow of displeasure which would have recognized the disagreeablepossibility. If any one had asked him why he shrank in that way, I amnot sure that he would at first have said anything fuller or more precisethan "That Ladislaw!"—though on reflection he might have urged thatMr. Casaubon's codicil, barring Dorothea's marriage with Will, exceptunder a penalty, was enough to cast unfitness over any relation at allbetween them. His aversion was all the stronger because he felt himselfunable to interfere.
But Sir James was a power in a way unguessed by himself. Enteringat that moment, he was an incorporation of the strongest reasonsthrough which Will's pride became a repellent force, keeping him asunderfrom Dorothea.
CHAPTER LV.
Hath she her faults? I would you had them too.
They are the fruity must of soundest wine;
Or say, they are regenerating fire
Such as hath turned the dense black element
Into a crystal pathway for the sun.
If youth is the season of hope, it is often so only in the sense thatour elders are hopeful about us; for no age is so apt as youth to think itsemotions, partings, and resolves are the last of their kind. Each crisisseems final, simply because it is new. We are told that the oldestinhabitants in Peru do not cease to be agitated by the earthquakes, butthey probably see beyond each shock, and reflect that there are plentymore to come.
To Dorothea, still in that time of youth when the eyes with their longfull lashes look out after their rain of tears unsoiled and unwearied as afreshly opened passion-flower, that morning's parting with Will Ladislawseemed to be the close of their personal relations. He was going awayinto the distance of unknown years, and if ever he came back he wouldbe another man. The actual state of his mind—his proud resolve to givethe lie beforehand to any suspicion that he would play the needyadventurer seeking a rich woman—lay quite out of her imagination, andshe had interpreted all his behavior easily enough by her suppositionthat Mr. Casaubon's codicil seemed to him, as it did to her, a gross andcruel interdict on any active friendship between them. Their youngdelight in speaking to each other, and saying what no one else wouldcare to hear, was forever ended, and become a treasure of the past. Forthis very reason she dwelt on it without inward check. That uniquehappiness too was dead, and in its shadowed silent chamber she mightvent the passionate grief which she herself wondered at. For the firsttime she took down the miniature from the wall and kept it before her,liking to blend the woman who had been too hardly judged with thegrandson whom her own heart and judgment defended. Can any one whohas rejoiced in woman's tenderness think it a reproach to her that shetook the little oval picture in her palm and made a bed for it there, andleaned her cheek upon it, as if that would soothe the creatures who hadsuffered unjust condemnation? She did not know then that it was Lovewho had come to her briefly, as in a dream before awaking, with thehues of morning on his wings—that it was Love to whom she wassobbing her farewell as his image was banished by the blameless rigor ofirresistible day. She only felt that there was something irrevocably amissand lost in her lot, and her thoughts about the future were the morereadily shapen into resolve. Ardent souls, ready to construct their cominglives, are apt to commit themselves to the fulfilment of their own visions.
One day that she went to Freshitt to fulfil her promise of staying allnight and seeing baby washed, Mrs. Cadwallader came to dine, theRector being gone on a fishing excursion. It was a warm evening, andeven in the delightful drawing-room, where the fine old turf sloped fromthe open window towards a lilied pool and well-planted mounds, theheat was enough to make Celia in her white muslin and light curls reflectwith pity on what Dodo must feel in her black dress and close cap. Butthis was not until some episodes with baby were over, and had left hermind at leisure. She had seated herself and taken up a fan for some timebefore she said, in her quiet guttural—
"Dear Dodo, do throw off that cap. I am sure your dress must makeyou feel ill."
"I am so used to the cap—it has become a sort of shell," saidDorothea, smiling. "I feel rather bare and exposed when it is off."
"I must see you without it; it makes us all warm," said Celia,throwing down her fan, and going to Dorothea. It was a pretty picture tosee this little lady in white muslin unfastening the widow's cap from hermore majestic sister, and tossing it on to a chair. Just as the coils andbraids of dark-brown hair had been set free, Sir James entered the room.He looked at the released head, and said, "Ah!" in a tone of satisfaction.
