"It was I who did it, James," said Celia. "Dodo need not make such aslavery of her mourning; she need not wear that cap any more among herfriends."
"My dear Celia," said Lady Chettam, "a widow must wear hermourning at least a year."
"Not if she marries again before the end of it," said Mrs.Cadwallader, who had some pleasure in startling her good friend theDowager. Sir James was annoyed, and leaned forward to play withCelia's Maltese dog.
"That is very rare, I hope," said Lady Chettam, in a tone intended toguard against such events. "No friend of ours ever committed herself inthat way except Mrs. Beevor, and it was very painful to Lord Grinsellwhen she did so. Her first husband was objectionable, which made it thegreater wonder. And severely she was punished for it. They said CaptainBeevor dragged her about by the hair, and held up loaded pistols at her."
"Oh, if she took the wrong man!" said Mrs. Cadwallader, who was ina decidedly wicked mood. "Marriage is always bad then, first or second.Priority is a poor recommendation in a husband if he has got no other. Iwould rather have a good second husband than an indifferent first."
"My dear, your clever tongue runs away with you," said LadyChettam. "I am sure you would be the last woman to marry againprematurely, if our dear Rector were taken away."
"Oh, I make no vows; it might be a necessary economy. It is lawful tomarry again, I suppose; else we might as well be Hindoos instead ofChristians. Of course if a woman accepts the wrong man, she must takethe consequences, and one who does it twice over deserves her fate. Butif she can marry blood, beauty, and bravery—the sooner the better." "I think the subject of our conversation is very ill-chosen," said SirJames, with a look of disgust. "Suppose we change it."
"Not on my account, Sir James," said Dorothea, determined not tolose the opportunity of freeing herself from certain oblique references toexcellent matches. "If you are speaking on my behalf, I can assure youthat no question can be more indifferent and impersonal to me thansecond marriage. It is no more to me than if you talked of women goingfox-hunting: whether it is admirable in them or not, I shall not followthem. Pray let Mrs. Cadwallader amuse herself on that subject as muchas on any other."
"My dear Mrs. Casaubon," said Lady Chettam, in her stateliest way,"you do not, I hope, think there was any allusion to you in mymentioning Mrs. Beevor. It was only an instance that occurred to me.She was step-daughter to Lord Grinsell: he married Mrs. Teveroy for hissecond wife. There could be no possible allusion to you."
"Oh no," said Celia. "Nobody chose the subject; it all came out ofDodo's cap. Mrs. Cadwallader only said what was quite true. A womancould not be married in a widow's cap, James."
"Hush, my dear!" said Mrs. Cadwallader. "I will not offend again. Iwill not even refer to Dido or Zenobia. Only what are we to talk about?I, for my part, object to the discussion of Human Nature, because that isthe nature of rectors' wives."
Later in the evening, after Mrs. Cadwallader was gone, Celia saidprivately to Dorothea, "Really, Dodo, taking your cap off made you likeyourself again in more ways than one. You spoke up just as you used todo, when anything was said to displease you. But I could hardly makeout whether it was James that you thought wrong, or Mrs. Cadwallader."
"Neither," said Dorothea. "James spoke out of delicacy to me, but hewas mistaken in supposing that I minded what Mrs. Cadwallader said. Ishould only mind if there were a law obliging me to take any piece ofblood and beauty that she or anybody else recommended."
"But you know, Dodo, if you ever did marry, it would be all thebetter to have blood and beauty," said Celia, reflecting that Mr.Casaubon had not been richly endowed with those gifts, and that itwould be well to caution Dorothea in time.
"Don't be anxious, Kitty; I have quite other thoughts about my life. Ishall never marry again," said Dorothea, touching her sister's chin, andlooking at her with indulgent affection. Celia was nursing her baby, andDorothea had come to say good-night to her.
"Really—quite?" said Celia. "Not anybody at all—if he were verywonderful indeed?"
Dorothea shook her head slowly. "Not anybody at all. I havedelightful plans. I should like to take a great deal of land, and drain it,and make a little colony, where everybody should work, and all the workshould be done well. I should know every one of the people and be theirfriend. I am going to have great consultations with Mr. Garth: he can tellme almost everything I want to know."
"Then you will be happy, if you have a plan, Dodo?" said Celia."Perhaps little Arthur will like plans when he grows up, and then he canhelp you."
Sir James was informed that same night that Dorothea was reallyquite set against marrying anybody at all, and was going to take to "allsorts of plans," just like what she used to have. Sir James made noremark. To his secret feeling there was something repulsive in a woman'ssecond marriage, and no match would prevent him from feeling it a sortof desecration for Dorothea. He was aware that the world would regardsuch a sentiment as preposterous, especially in relation to a woman ofone-and-twenty; the practice of "the world" being to treat of a youngwidow's second marriage as certain and probably near, and to smile withmeaning if the widow acts accordingly. But if Dorothea did choose toespouse her solitude, he felt that the resolution would well become her.
CHAPTER LVI.
"How happy is he born and taught
That serveth not another's will;
Whose armor is his honest thought,
And simple truth his only skill!
. . . . . . .
This man is freed from servile bands
Of hope to rise or fear to fall;
Lord of himself though not of lands;
And having nothing yet hath all."
—SIR HENRY WOTTON.
Dorothea's confidence in Caleb Garth's knowledge, which had begunon her hearing that he approved of her cottages, had grown fast duringher stay at Freshitt, Sir James having induced her to take rides over thetwo estates in company with himself and Caleb, who quite returned heradmiration, and told his wife that Mrs. Casaubon had a head forbusiness most uncommon in a woman. It must be remembered that by"business" Caleb never meant money transactions, but the skilfulapplication of labor.
"Most uncommon!" repeated Caleb. "She said a thing I often used tothink myself when I was a lad:—'Mr. Garth, I should like to feel, if Ilived to be old, that I had improved a great piece of land and built agreat many good cottages, because the work is of a healthy kind while itis being done, and after it is done, men are the better for it.' Those werethe very words: she sees into things in that way."
"But womanly, I hope," said Mrs. Garth, half suspecting that Mrs.Casaubon might not hold the true principle of subordination.
"Oh, you can't think!" said Caleb, shaking his head. "You would liketo hear her speak, Susan. She speaks in such plain words, and a voicelike music. Bless me! it reminds me of bits in the 'Messiah'—'andstraightway there appeared a multitude of the heavenly host, praisingGod and saying;' it has a tone with it that satisfies your ear."
Caleb was very fond of music, and when he could afford it went tohear an oratorio that came within his reach, returning from it with aprofound reverence for this mighty structure of tones, which made himsit meditatively, looking on the floor and throwing much unutterablelanguage into his outstretched hands.
With this good understanding between them, it was natural thatDorothea asked Mr. Garth to undertake any business connected with thethree farms and the numerous tenements attached to Lowick Manor;indeed, his expectation of getting work for two was being fast fulfilled.As he said, "Business breeds." And one form of business which wasbeginning to breed just then was the construction of railways. Aprojected line was to run through Lowick parish where the cattle hadhitherto grazed in a peace unbroken by astonishment; and thus ithappened that the infant struggles of the railway system entered into theaffairs of Caleb Garth, and determined the course of this history withregard to two persons who were dear to him. The submarine railway mayhave its difficulties; but the bed of the sea is not divided among variouslanded proprietors with claims for damages not only measurable butsentimental. In the hundred to which Middlemarch belonged railwayswere as exciting a topic as the Reform Bill or the imminent horrors ofCholera, and those who held the most decided views on the subject werewomen and landholders. Women both old and young regarded travellingby steam as presumptuous and dangerous, and argued against it bysaying that nothing should induce them to get into a railway carriage;while proprietors, differing from each other in their arguments as muchas Mr. Solomon Featherstone differed from Lord Medlicote, were yetunanimous in the opinion that in selling land, whether to the Enemy ofmankind or to a company obliged to purchase, these pernicious agenciesmust be made to pay a very high price to landowners for permission toinjure mankind.
But the slower wits, such as Mr. Solomon and Mrs. Waule, who bothoccupied land of their own, took a long time to arrive at this conclusion,their minds halting at the vivid conception of what it would be to cut theBig Pasture in two, and turn it into three-cornered bits, which would be"nohow;" while accommodation-bridges and high payments were remoteand incredible.
"The cows will all cast their calves, brother," said Mrs. Waule, in atone of deep melancholy, "if the railway comes across the Near Close;and I shouldn't wonder at the mare too, if she was in foal. It's a poor taleif a widow's property is to be spaded away, and the law say nothing to it.What's to hinder 'em from cutting right and left if they begin? It's wellknown, I can't fight."
"The best way would be to say nothing, and set somebody on to send'em away with a flea in their ear, when they came spying andmeasuring," said Solomon. "Folks did that about Brassing, by what I canunderstand. It's all a pretence, if the truth was known, about their beingforced to take one way. Let 'em go cutting in another parish. And I don'tbelieve in any pay to make amends for bringing a lot of ruffians totrample your crops. Where's a company's pocket?"
"Brother Peter, God forgive him, got money out of a company," saidMrs. Waule. "But that was for the manganese. That wasn't for railways toblow you to pieces right and left."
"Well, there's this to be said, Jane," Mr. Solomon concluded, loweringhis voice in a cautious manner—"the more spokes we put in their wheel,the more they'll pay us to let 'em go on, if they must come whether ornot."
This reasoning of Mr. Solomon's was perhaps less thorough than heimagined, his cunning bearing about the same relation to the course ofrailways as the cunning of a diplomatist bears to the general chill orcatarrh of the solar system. But he set about acting on his views in athoroughly diplomatic manner, by stimulating suspicion. His side ofLowick was the most remote from the village, and the houses of thelaboring people were either lone cottages or were collected in a hamletcalled Frick, where a water-mill and some stone-pits made a little centreof slow, heavy-shouldered industry.
In the absence of any precise idea as to what railways were, publicopinion in Frick was against them; for the human mind in that grassycorner had not the proverbial tendency to admire the unknown, holdingrather that it was likely to be against the poor man, and that suspicionwas the only wise attitude with regard to it. Even the rumor of Reformhad not yet excited any millennial expectations in Frick, there being nodefinite promise in it, as of gratuitous grains to fatten Hiram Ford's pig,or of a publican at the "Weights and Scales" who would brew beer fornothing, or of an offer on the part of the three neighboring farmers toraise wages during winter. And without distinct good of this kind in itspromises, Reform seemed on a footing with the bragging of pedlers,which was a hint for distrust to every knowing person. The men of Frickwere not ill-fed, and were less given to fanaticism than to a strongmuscular suspicion; less inclined to believe that they were peculiarlycared for by heaven, than to regard heaven itself as rather disposed totake them in—a disposition observable in the weather.
Thus the mind of Frick was exactly of the sort for Mr. SolomonFeatherstone to work upon, he having more plenteous ideas of the sameorder, with a suspicion of heaven and earth which was better fed andmore entirely at leisure. Solomon was overseer of the roads at that time,and on his slow-paced cob often took his rounds by Frick to look at theworkmen getting the stones there, pausing with a mysteriousdeliberation, which might have misled you into supposing that he hadsome other reason for staying than the mere want of impulse to move.After looking for a long while at any work that was going on, he wouldraise his eyes a little and look at the horizon; finally he would shake hisbridle, touch his horse with the whip, and get it to move slowly onward.The hour-hand of a clock was quick by comparison with Mr. Solomon,who had an agreeable sense that he could afford to be slow. He was inthe habit of pausing for a cautious, vaguely designing chat with everyhedger or ditcher on his way, and was especially willing to listen even tonews which he had heard before, feeling himself at an advantage over allnarrators in partially disbelieving them. One day, however, he got into adialogue with Hiram Ford, a wagoner, in which he himself contributedinformation. He wished to know whether Hiram had seen fellows withstaves and instruments spying about: they called themselves railroadpeople, but there was no telling what they were or what they meant todo. The least they pretended was that they were going to cut LowickParish into sixes and sevens.
"Why, there'll be no stirrin' from one pla-ace to another," said Hiram,thinking of his wagon and horses.
"Not a bit," said Mr. Solomon. "And cutting up fine land such as thisparish! Let 'em go into Tipton, say I. But there's no knowing what thereis at the bottom of it. Traffic is what they put for'ard; but it's to do harmto the land and the poor man in the long-run."
