 62 He was a squire of low degree that loved the king's daughter of Hungary, Old Romance. 63 Will Laidus Laws' mind was now wholly bent on seeing Dorothea again, and forthwith quitting Middle March. The morning after his agitating scene with Balstrode, he wrote a brief letter to her, saying that various causes had detained him in the neighborhood longer than he had expected, and asking her permission to call again at Lowwick at some hour, which she would mention on the earliest possible day. He being anxious to depart, but unwilling to do so, until she had granted him an interview. He left the letter at the office, ordering the messenger to carry it to Lowwick Manor, and wait for an answer. Laidus Law felt the awkwardness of asking for more last words. His former farewell had been made in the hearing of Sir James Chetam, and had been announced as final even to the butler. It is certainly trying to a man's dignity to reappear when he is not expected to do so, a first farewell as pathos in it, but to come back for a second lens an opening to comedy, and it was possible, even that there might be bitter snares afloat about Will's motives for lingering. Still, it was on the whole more satisfactory to his feeling to take the directest means of seeing Dorothea, than to use any device which might give an air of chance to a meeting of which he wished her to understand that if it was what he earnestly sought. When he had parted from her before, he had been in ignorance of facts, which gave a new aspect to the relation between them, and made a more absolute severance than he had then believed in. He knew nothing of Dorothea's private fortune, and being little use to reflect on such matters took it for granted that according to Mr. Cassabon's arrangement marriage to him, Will Latter's law would mean that she consented to be penniless. That was not what he could wish for even in his secret heart, or even if she had been ready to meet such hard contrast for his sake. And then, too, there was the fresh smart of that disclosure about his mother's family, which if known would be an added reason why Dorothea's friends should look down upon him as utterly below her. The secret hope that after some years he might come back with the sense that he had at least a personal value equal to her wealth, seemed now the dreamy continuation of a dream. This change would surely justify him in asking Dorothea to receive him once more, but Dorothea on that morning was not at home to receive Will's note. In consequence of a letter from her uncle, announcing his intention to be at home in a week, she had driven first to freshen it, to carry the news, meaning to go on to the Grange to deliver some orders with which her uncle had entrusted her, thinking, as he said, a little mental occupation for this sort good for a widow. If Will Latter's law could have overheard some of the talk at fresher that morning, he would have felt all his suppositions confirmed, as to the redness of certain people to sneer at his lingering in the neighbourhood. Sir James indeed, though much relieved concerning Dorothea, had been on the watch to learn Latter's law's movements, and had an instructed informant in Mr. Standish, who was necessarily in his confidence on this matter. That Latter's law had stayed in Middle March nearly two months after he had declared that he was going immediately was a fact to him bitter, Sir James's suspicions, or at least to justify his aversion to a young fellow whom he represented to himself as slight, volatile, and likely enough to show some recklessness as naturally went along with the position unriveted by family ties or a strict profession, that he had just heard something from Standish which, while it justified these surmises about Will, offered a means of nullifying all danger with regard to Dorothea. Unwanted circumstances may make us all rather unlike ourselves, there are conditions under which the most majestic person is obliged to sneeze, and our emotions are liable to be acted on in the same incongruous manner. Good Sir James was this morning so far unlike himself that he was irritably anxious to say something to Dorothea on a subject which he usually avoided as if it had been a matter of shame to them both. He could not use Celia as a medium because he did not choose that she should know the kind of gossip he had in his mind, and before Dorothea happened to arrive he had been trying to imagine how, with his shyness and unready tongue, he could ever manage to introduce his communication. Their unexpected presence brought him to utter hopelessness in his own power of saying anything unpleasant, but desperation suggested a resource. He sent the groom on an unsettled horse across the park with a penciled note to Mrs. Cadwalda, who already knew the gossip, and would think at no compromise of herself to repeat it as often as required. Dorothea was detained on the good pretexts that Mr. Garth, whom she wanted to see, was expected at the hall within the hour, and she was still talking to Caleb on the gravel when Sir James, on the watch for the rector's wife, saw her coming and met her with the needful hints. Enough, I understand, said Mrs. Cadwalda, you shall be innocent. I am such a blackamore that I cannot smirch myself. I don't mean that it of any consequence, said Sir James, disliking that Mrs. Cadwalda should understand too much. Only it is desirable that Dorothea should know there are reasons why she should not receive him again, and I really can't say so to her. It will come lightly from you. It came very lightly indeed, when Dorothea quitted Caleb and turned to meet them. It appeared that Mrs. Cadwalda had stepped across the park by the merest chance in the world, just to chat with Celia in a matronly way about the baby. And so Mr. Brook was coming back, delightful, coming back. It was to be hoped quite cured of parliamentary fever and pioneering. A propose at the pioneer, somebody had prophesised that it would soon be like a dying dolphin and turn all colours for want of knowing how to help itself, because Mr. Brook's protege, the brilliant young Ladislaw, was gone all going. Had Sir James heard that, the three were walking along the gravel slowly, and Sir James, turning aside to whip a shrub, said he had heard something of that sort. All false, said Mrs. Cadwalda, he is not gone, all going, apparently. The pioneer keeps its colour, and Mr. Orlando Ladislaw is making a sad, dark blue scandal by warbling continually with your Mr. Lightgate's wife, who they tell me is as pretty as pretty can be. It seems nobody ever goes into the house without finding this young gentleman lying on the rug or warbling at the piano. But the people in manufacturing towns are always disreputable. You began by saying that one report was false, Mrs. Cadwalda, and I believe this is false too, said Dorothea, with indignant energy. At least I feel sure it is a misrepresentation. I will not hear any evil spoken of Mr. Ladislaw. She has already suffered too much injustice. Dorothea went thoroughly moved, cared little what anyone thought of her feelings, and even if she had been able to reflect, she would have held at petty to keep silence and injurious words about will from fear of being herself misunderstood. Her face was flushed and her lip trembled. Sir James, glancing at her, repented of his stratagem, that Mrs. Cadwalda, a cook to all occasions, spread the palms of her hands outward and said, Heaven grant it my dear. I mean that all bad tales about anybody may be false. But it is a pity that young Lightgate should have married one of these middle-march girls considering he's the son of somebody. He might have got a woman with good blood in her veins, and not too young, who would have put up with his profession. There's Clara Harfaja, for instance, whose friends don't know what to do with her, and she has a portion. Then we might have had her among us, however. It's no use being wise for other people. Here is Celia, pray, let us go in. I am going on immediately to Tipton, said Dorothea rather haughtily. Goodbye. Sir James could say nothing as he accompanied her to the carriage. He was altogether discontented with the result of a contrivance, which had cost him some secret humiliation beforehand. Dorothea drove along between the buried hedgerows and the shorn cornfields, not seeing or hearing anything around. The tears came and rolled down her cheeks, but she did not know it. The world, it seemed, was turning ugly and hateful, and there was no place for her trustfulness. It is not true, it is not true, was the voice within her that she listened to, that all the while a remembrance to which there had always clung, a vague uneasiness, would thrust itself on her attention. The remembrance of that day when she had found Will Ladislaw with Mrs Lodgate, and had heard his voice accompanied by the piano. He said he would never do anything that I disapproved. I wish I could have told him that I disapproved of that, said poor Dorothea inwardly, feeling a strange alternation between anger with Will and the passionate defence of him. They all tried to blacken him before me, but I will care for no pain, if he is not to blame. I have always believed he was good. These were her last thoughts before she felt that the carriage was passing under the archway at the Lodgate at the Grange, when she hurriedly pressed her handkerchief to her face and began to think of her errands. The coachman begged Leib to take out the horses for half an hour as there was something wrong with the shoe. And Dorothea, having the sense that she was going to rest, took off her gloves and bonnet while she was leaning against a statue in the entrance hall and talking to the housekeeper. At last she said, I must stay here a little, Mrs Cowell. I will go into the library and write you some memoranda from my uncle's letter, but he will open the shutters for me. The shutters are open, madam, said Mrs Cowell, following Dorothea, who had walked along as she spoke. Mr Ladder's law is there, looking for something. Will had come to fetch a portfolio of his own sketches, which he had missed in the act of packing his moveables, and did not choose to leave behind. Dorothea's heart seemed to turn over as if it had had a blow, but she was not perceptibly checked. In truth, the sense that Will was there was for the moment all satisfying to her, like the sight of something precious that one has lost. When she reached the door, she said to Mrs Cowell, Go in first and tell him that I am here. Will had found his portfolio, and had laid it on the table at the far end of the room, to turn over the sketches and please himself by looking at the memorable piece of art, which had a relation to nature too mysterious for Dorothea. He was smiling at it still, and shaking the sketches into order with the thought that he might find a letter from her awaiting him at middle March, when Mrs Cowell close to his elbow said, Mrs Cassabon is coming in, sir. Will turned round quickly, and the next moment Dorothea was entering. As Mrs Cowell closed the door behind her, they met. Each was looking at the other, and consciousness was overflowed by something that suppressed utterance. It was no confusion that kept them silent, for they both felt the parting was near, and there is no shame-facedness in a sad parting. She moved automatically towards her uncle's chair against the writing table, and Will, after drawing it out a little for her, went a few paces off and stood opposite to her. Pray, sit down, said Dorothea, crossing her hands on her lap. I am very glad you were here. Will thought that her face looked just as it did when she first shook hands with him in Rome, for her widow's cap, fixed in her bonnet, had gone off with it, and he could see that she had lately been shedding tears. But the mixture of anger in her agitation had vanished at the sight of him. She had been used when they were face to face, always to feel confidence and the happy freedom which comes with mutual understanding, and how could other people's words hinder that effect on a southern? Let the music which can take possession of our frame and fill the air with joy for us sound once more. What does it signify that we heard it found fault within its absence? I have sent a letter to Loic Manor today, asking Leith to see you, said Will, seating himself opposite to her. I am going away immediately, and I could not go without speaking to you again. I thought we had parted when you came to Loic many weeks ago. You thought you were going then, said Dorothea, her voice trembling a little. Yes, that I was ignorant then of things which I know now, things which have altered my feelings about the future. When I saw you before, I was dreaming that I might come back some day. I don't think I ever shall now. We will pause here. You wish me to know the reasons, said Dorothea timidly. Yes, said Will, impetuously, shaking his head backward, and looking away from her with irritation in his face. Of course I must wish it. I have been grossly insulted in your eyes and in the eyes of others. There has been a mean implication against my character. I wish you to know that under no circumstances would I have given men the chance of saying that I sought money under the pretext of seeking something else. There was no need of other safeguard against me. The safeguard of wealth was enough. Will rose from his chair with the last word and went. He hardly knew where, but it was to the projecting window nearest him, which had been open as now about the same season a year ago. When he and Dorothea had stood within it and talked together, her whole heart was going out at this moment in sympathy with Will's indignation. She only wanted to convince him that she had never done him injustice, and he seemed to have turned away from her as if she too had been part of the unfriendly world. It would be very unkind of you to suppose that I ever attributed any meanness to you she begun. Then in her ardent way, wanting to plead with him, she moved from her chair and went in front of him to her old place in the window saying, Do you suppose that I ever disbelieved in you? When Will saw her there, he gave a start and moved backward out of the window, without meeting her glance. Dorothea was hurt by this movement following up the previous anger of his tone. She was ready to say that it was as hard on her as on him, and that she was helpless, but those strange particulars of their relation, which neither of them could explicitly mention kept her always in dread of saying too much. At this moment, she had no belief that Will would in any case have wanted to marry her, and she feared using words which might imply such a belief. She only said earnestly, recurring to his last word, I am sure no safeguard was ever needed against you. Will did not answer. In the stormy fluctuation of his feelings, these words of hers seem to him cruelly neutral, and he looked pale and miserable after his angry outburst. He went to the table and fastened up his portfolio, while Dorothea looked at him from the distance. They were wasting these last moments together in wretched silence. What could he say, since what had he got, obstinately, uppermost in his mind, was the passionate love for her, which he forbade himself to utter? What could she say, since she might offer him no help? Since she was forced to keep the money that ought to have been his, since today he seemed not to respond as he used to do to her thorough trust and liking. But Will at last turned away from his portfolio and approached the window again. I must go, he said, with that peculiar look at the eyes, which sometimes accompanies bitter feelings, as if they had been tired and burned and gazing too close at a light. What shall you do in life? said Dorothea timidly. Have you intentions remained just the same as when we said goodbye before? Yes, said Will, in a tone that seemed to waive the subject as uninteresting. I shall work away at the first thing that offers. I suppose one gets a habit of doing without happiness or hope. Oh, what sad words, said Dorothea, with a dangerous tendency to sob. In trying to smile, she added, we used to agree that we were alike in speaking too strongly. I have not spoken too strongly now, said Will, leaning back against the angle of the wall. There are certain things which a man can only go through once in his life, and he must know some time or other that the best is over with him. This experience has happened to me while I am very young, that is all. What I care more for than I can ever care for anything else is absolutely forbidden to me. I don't mean merely by being out of my reach, but forbidden me, even if it were within my reach, by my own pride and honour, by everything I respect myself for. Of course I shall go on living as a man might do, who had seen heaven in a trance. Will paused, imagining that it would be impossible for Dorothea to misunderstand this. Indeed, he felt that it was contradicting himself and offending against his self-approval in speaking to her so plainly, but still it could not be fairly called wooing a woman to tell her that he would never woo her. It must be admitted to be a ghostly kind of wooing, but Dorothea's mind was rapidly going over the past with quite another vision than this. The thought that she herself might be what Will most cared for did throb through her an instant, but then came doubt, the memory of the little they had lived through together, impale and shrank before the memory, which suggested how much Fuller might have been the intercourse between Will and someone else with whom he had constant companionship. Everything he had said might refer to that other relation, and whatever had passed between him and herself was thoroughly explained by what she had always regarded as their simple friendship and the cruel obstruction thrust upon it by her husband's injurious act. Dorothea stood silent, with her eyes cast down dreamily, while images crowded upon her which left the sickening certainty that Will was referring to Mrs. Lightgate. But why sickening? He wanted her to know that he too, his conduct, should be above suspicion. Will was not surprised at her silence. His mind also was tumultuously busy while he watched her, and he was feeling rather wildly that something must happen to hinder their party, some miracle, clearly nothing at their own deliberate speech. Yet after all, had she any love for him, he could not pretend to himself that he would rather believe her to be without that pain. He could not deny that a secret longing for the assurance that she loved him was at the root of all his words. Neither of them knew how long they stood in that way. Dorothea was raising her eyes, and was about to speak when the door opened and her footmen came to say, The horses are ready, madam, whenever you like to start. Presently, said Dorothea. Then turning to Will, she said, I have some memoranda to write for the housekeeper. I must go, said Will, when the door had closed again, advancing towards her. The day after tomorrow I shall leave, Middle March. You have acted in every way rightly, said Dorothea, in a low tone, feeling a pressure at her heart which made it difficult to speak. She put out her hand, and Will took it for an instant without speaking, for her words had seemed to him cruelly cold and unlike herself. Their eyes met, but there was discontent in his, and in hers there was only sadness. He turned away and took the portfolio under his arm. I have never done you injustice. Please remember me, said Dorothea, repressing a rising soul. Why should you say that, said Will, with irritation, as if I were not in danger of forgetting everything else? He had really a movement of anger against her at that moment, and it impelled him to go away without pause. It was all one flash to Dorothea, his last words, his distant bow to her as he reached the door, the sense that he was no longer there. She sunk into the chair, and for a few moments sat like a statue, while images and emotions were hurrying upon her. Joy came first in spite of the threatening train behind it. Joy in the impression that it was really herself whom Will loved and was renouncing, that there was really no other love less permissible, more blameworthy, which honour was hurrying him away from. They were parted all the same, but Dorothea drew a deep breath and felt her strength return. She could think of him unrestrainedly. At that moment the parting was easy to bear, the first sense of loving and being loved excluded sorrow. It was as if some hard icy pressure had melted, and her consciousness had room to expand. Her past was come back to her with larger interpretation. The joy was not the less, perhaps it was the more complete just then, because of the irrevocable parting, for there was no reproach, no contemptuous wonder, to imagine in any eye or from any lips. He had acted so as to defy reproach and make wonder respectful. Someone watching her might have seen that there was a fortifying thought within her. Just as when inventive power is working, with glad ease some small claim on the attention is fully met, as if it were only a cranny open to the sunlight. It was easy now for Dorothea to write her memoranda. She spoke her last words to the housekeeper in cheerful tones, and when she seated herself in the carriage her eyes were bright and her cheeks blooming under the dismal bonnet. She threw back the heavy weepers, and looked before her, wondering which road Will had taken. It was in her nature to be proud that he was blameless, and through all her feelings there ran this fame. I was right to defend him. The coachman was used to drive his graze at a good pace, Mr. Casabon being unenjoying and impatient in every way from his desk, and wanting to get to the end of all journeys, and Dorothea was now bold along quickly. Driving was pleasant, for rain in the night had laid the dust, and the blue sky looked far off, away from the region of the great clouds that sailed in masses. The earth looked like a happy place under the vast heavens, and Dorothea was wishing that she might overtake Will and see him once more. After a turn of the road there he was with the portfolio under his arm, but the next moment she was passing him while he raised his hat, and she felt a pang at being seated there in a sort of exaltation, leaving him behind. She could not look back at him. It was as if a crowd of indifferent objects had thrust them asunder, and forced them along different paths, taking them farther and farther away from each other, and making it useless to look back. She could no more make any sign that would seem to say, need we part, than she could stop the carriage to wait for him. Nay, what a word of reasons crowded upon her against any movement of her thought towards a future that might reverse the decision of this day. I only wish I had known before. I wish he knew. Then we could be quite happy in thinking of each other, though we are forever parted. And if I could, but have given him the money, and made things easier for him, were the longings that came back the most persistently, and yet so heavily did the world weigh on her in spite of her independent energy, that with this idea of Will as in need of such help, and at a disadvantage with the world, there came always the vision of that unfittingness of any closer relation between them, which lay in the opinion of everyone connected with her. She felt to the full all the imperativeness of the motives which urged Will's conduct. How could he dream of her defying the barrier that her husband had placed between them? How could she ever say to herself that she would defy it? Will's certainty, as the carriage grew smaller in the distance, had much more bitterness in it. Very slight matters were enough to gall him in his sensitive mood, and the sight of Dorothea driving past him, while he felt himself plodding along as a poor devil, seeking a position in a will, which in his present temper offered him little that he coveted, made his conduct seem a mere matter of necessity, and took away the sustenance of resolve. After all, he had no assurance that she loved him. Could any man pretend that he was simply glad in such a case to have the suffering all on his own side? That evening Will spent with the light-gates. The next evening he was gone. CHAPTER 63 THESE LITTLE THINGS ARE GREAT TO LITTLE MAN. GOLD SMETH. "'Have you seen much of your scientific phoenix lidgate lately?' said Mr. Toller at one of his Christmas dinner parties, speaking to Mr. Fairbrother on his right hand. "'Not much, I am sorry to say,' answered the vicar, accustomed to parry Mr. Toller's banter about his belief in the new medical light. "'I am out of the way, and he is too busy.' "'Is he? I am glad to hear it,' said Mr. Mention, with mingled suavity and surprise. "'He gives a great deal of time to the new hospital,' said Mr. Fairbrother, who had his reasons for continuing the subject. "'I hear of that from my neighbor Mrs. Cosabon, who goes there often. She says lidgate is indefatigable, and is making a fine thing of Bulstrode's institution. He is preparing a new ward in case of the cholera coming to us. "'And preparing theories of treatment to try on the patients, I suppose,' said Mr. Toller. "'Come, Toller, be candid,' said Mr. Fairbrother. "'You are too clever not to see the good of a bold fresh mind in medicine, as well as in everything else. And as to cholera, I fancy none of you are very sure what you ought to do. If a man goes a little too far along a new road, it is usually himself that he harms more than anyone else. I am sure you and Wrench ought to be obliged to him,' said Dr. Mention, looking towards Toller, for he has sent you the cream of Peacock's patients. "'Lidgate has been living at a great rate for a young beginner,' said Mr. Harry Toller, the brewer. "'I suppose his relations in the north back him up.' "'I hope so,' said Mr. Chitsley. "'Else ought not to have married that nice girl we were all so fond of. Hang it, one has a grudge against a man who carries off the prettiest girl in the town.' "'I, by George, and the best two,' said Mr. Standish. "'My friend, Vincy, didn't half like the marriage. I know that,' said Mr. Chitsley. He wouldn't do much. How the relations on the other side may have come down, I can't say. There was an emphatic kind of reticence in Mr. Chitsley's manner of speaking. "'Oh, I shouldn't think Lidgate ever looked to practice for a living,' said Mr. Toller, with a slight touch of sarcasm, and there the subject was dropped. "'This was not the first time that Mr. Fairbrother had heard hints of Lidgate's expenses being obviously too great to be met by his practice, but he thought it not unlikely that there were resources or expectations which excused the large outlay at the time of Lidgate's marriage, and which might hinder any bad consequences from the disappointment in his practice. One evening, when he took the pains to go to Middlemarch on purpose to have a chat with Lidgate, as of old, he noticed in him an air of excited effort quite unlike his usual easy way of keeping silence or breaking it with abrupt energy whenever he had anything to say. Lidgate talked persistently when they were in his workroom, putting arguments for and against the probability of certain biological views, but he had none of those definite things to say or to show which give the waymarks of a patient uninterrupted pursuit, such as he used himself to insist on, saying that there must be a systole or diastole in all inquiry, and that a man's mind must be continually expanding and shrinking between the whole human horizon and the horizon of an object glass. That evening he seemed to be talking widely for the sake of resisting any personal bearing, and before long they went into the drawing-room where Lidgate, having asked Rosamond, who had given them music, sent back in his chair in silence, but with a strange light in his eyes. He may have been taking an opiate was a thought that crossed Mr. Fairbrother's mind, tick-duller-o, perhaps, or medical worries. It did not occur to him that Lidgate's marriage was not delightful. He believed, as the rest did, that Rosamond was an amiable docile creature, though he had always thought her rather uninteresting, a little too much the pattern card of the finishing school, and his mother could not forgive Rosamond because she never seemed to see that Henrietta Noble was in the room. However, Lidgate fell in love with her, said the vicar to himself, and she must be to his taste. Mr. Fairbrother was aware that Lidgate was a proud man, but having very little corresponding fibre in himself and perhaps too little care about personal dignity, except the dignity of not being mean or foolish, he could hardly allow enough for the way in which Lidgate shrank as from a burn from the utterance of any word about his private affairs. And soon after that conversation at Mr. Tullers the vicar learned something which made him watch the more eagerly for an opportunity of indirectly letting Lidgate know that if he wanted to open himself about any difficulty there was a friendly ear ready. The opportunity came at Mr. Vincy's where, on New Year's Day, there was a party to which Mr. Fairbrother was irresistibly invited, on the plea that he must not forsake his old friends on the first new year of his being of greater man and rector as well as vicar, and this party was thoroughly friendly. All the ladies of the Fairbrother family were present, the Vincy children all dined at the table, and Fred had persuaded his mother that if she did not invite Mary Garth the Fairbrothers would regard it as a slight to themselves, Mary being their particular friend. Mary came, and Fred was in high spirits, though his enjoyment was of a checkered kind, triumph that his mother should see Mary's importance with the chief personages in the party being much streaked with jealousy when Mr. Fairbrother sat down by her. Fred used to be much more easy about his own accomplishments in the days when he had not begun to dread being bold out by Fairbrother, and this terror was still before him. Mrs. Vincy, in her fullest matronly bloom, looked at Mary's little figure, rough wavy hair and visage quite without lilies and roses, and wondered, trying unsuccessfully to fancy herself caring about Mary's appearance in wedding-clothes or feeling complacency in grandchildren who would feature the Garth's. However, the party was a merry one, and Mary was particularly bright, being glad, for Fred's sake, that his friends were getting kinder to her, and being also quite willing that they should see how much she was valued by others whom they must admit to be judges. Mr. Fairbrother noticed that Lidgate seemed bored, and that Mr. Vincy spoke as little as possible to his son-in-law. Rosamond was perfectly graceful and calm, and only a subtle observation such as the vicar had not been enraged to bestow on her would have perceived the total absence of that interest in her husband's presence, which a loving wife is sure to betray, even if etiquette keeps her aloof from him. When Lidgate was taking part in the conversation, she never looked towards him any more than if she had been a sculptured psyche muddled to look another way, and when, after being called out for an hour or two, he re-entered the rule, she seemed unconscious of the fact, which eighteen months before would have had the effect of a numeral before ciphers. In reality, however, she was intensely aware of Lidgate's voice and movements, and her pretty good-tempered error of unconsciousness was a studied negation by which she satisfied her inward opposition to him without compromise of propriety. When the ladies were in the drawing-room after Lidgate had been called away from the dessert, Mrs. Fairbrother, when Rosamond happened to be near her, said, You have to give up a great deal of your husband's society, Mrs. Lidgate. Yes, the life of a medical man is very arduous, especially when he is so devoted to his profession as Mr. Lidgate is, said Rosamond, who was standing and moved easily away at the end of this correct little speech. It is dreadfully dull for her when there is no company, said Mrs. Vincy, who was seated at the old lady's side. I am sure I thought so when Rosamond was ill and I was staying with her. You know, Mrs. Fairbrother, ours is a cheerful house. I am of a cheerful disposition myself and Mr. Vincy always likes something to be going on. That is what Rosamond has been used to, very different from a husband out at odd hours and never knowing when he will come home, and of a close, proud disposition. I think, indiscreet, Mrs. Vincy did lower her tone slightly with this parenthesis, but Rosamond always had an angel of a temper, her brothers used very often not to please her, but she was never the girl to show temper. From a baby she was always as good as good and with a complexion beyond anything, but my children are all good tempered, thank goodness. This was easily credible to anyone looking at Mrs. Vincy as she threw back her broad capstrings and smiled towards her three little girls aged from seven to eleven, but in that smiling glance she was obliged to include Mary Garth, whom the three girls had got into a corner to make her tell them stories. Mary was just finishing the delicious tale of Rumpelstiltskin, which she had well, by heart, because Letty was never tired of communicating it to her ignorant elders from a favorite red volume. Luisa, Mrs. Vincent's darling, now ran to her with wide-eyed serious excitement, crying, Oh, Mama, Mama, the little man stamped so hard on the floor he couldn't get his leg out again. Bless you, my cherub, said Mama, you shall tell me all about it to-morrow. Go and listen, and then, as her eyes followed Luisa back towards the attractive corner, she thought if Fred wished her to invite Mary again she would make no objection, the children being so pleased with her. But presently the corner became still more animated, for Mr. Fairbrother came in, and seating himself behind Luisa took her on his lap, whereupon the girls all insisted that he must hear Rumpelstiltskin, and Mary must tell it over again. He insisted, too, and Mary without fuss began again in her neat fashion, with precisely the same words as before. Fred, who had also seated himself near, would have felt unmixed triumph in Mary's effectiveness, if Mr. Fairbrother had not been looking at her with evident admiration, while he dramatized an intense interest in the tale to please the children. You will never care any more about my one-eyed giant, Lu, said Fred at the end. Yes, I shall. Tell about him now, said Luisa. Oh, I dare say I am quite cut out. Ask Mr. Fairbrother. Yes, I did marry. Ask Mr. Fairbrother to tell you about the aunts whose beautiful house was knocked down by a giant named Tom, and he thought they didn't mind because he couldn't hear them cry or see them use their pocket handkerchiefs. Please, said Luisa, looking up at the vicar. No, no, I am a grave old parson. If I try to draw a story out of my bag of sermon comes instead. Shall I preach you a sermon? said he, putting on his short-sighted glasses and pursing up his lips. Yes, said Luisa, falteringly. Let me see, then. Against cakes. How cakes are bad things, especially if they are sweet and have plums in them. Luisa took the affair rather seriously and got down from the vicar's knee to go to Fred. Ah, I see it will not do to preach on New Year's Day, said Mr. Fairbrother, rising and walking away. He had discovered of late that Fred had become jealous of him, and also that he himself was not losing his reference for Mary above all other women. A delightful young person is Miss Garth, said Mrs. Fairbrother, who had been watching her son's movements. Yes, said Mrs. Bentsy, obliged to reply as the old lady turned to her expectantly. It is a pity she is not better looking. I cannot say that, said Mrs. Fairbrother decisively. I like her countenance. We must not always ask for beauty, when a good God has seen fit to make an excellent young woman without it. I put good manners first, and Miss Garth will know how to conduct herself in any station. The old lady was a little sharp in her tone, having a prospective reference to Mary's becoming her daughter-in-law. For there was this inconvenience in Mary's position with regard to Fred, that it was not suitable to be made public, and hence the three ladies at Loick Parsonage were still hoping that Camden would choose Miss Garth. New visitors entered, and the drawing-room was given up to music and games, while wist tables were prepared in the quiet room on the other side of the hall. Mr. Fairbrother played a rubber to satisfy his mother, who regarded her occasional wist as a protest against scandal and novelty of opinion, in which lied even a revoke at its dignity. But at the end he got Mr. Chisley to take his place and left the room. As he crossed the hall, Lidgate had just come in and was taking off his great coat. You are the man I was going to look for, said the vicar, and instead of entering the drawing-room, they walked along the hall and stood against the fireplace, where the frosty air helped to make a glowing bank. You see, I can leave the wist table easily enough. He went on, smiling at Lidgate. Now I don't play for money. I owe that to you, Mrs. Cossabon says. How? said Lidgate coldly. Ah, you didn't mean me to know it. I call that ungenerous reticence. You should let a man have the pleasure of feeling that you have done him a good turn. I don't enter into some people's dislike of being under an obligation. Upon my word I prefer being under an obligation to everybody for behaving well to me. I can't tell what you mean, said Lidgate, unless it is that I once spoke of you to Mrs. Cossabon. But I did not think that she would break her promise not to mention that I had done so, said Lidgate, leaning his back against the corner of the mantelpiece and showing no radiance in his face. It was Brooke who let it out only the other day. He paid me the compliment of saying that he was very glad I had the living, though you had come across his tactics and had praised me up as Helene and Attilotson and that sort of thing, till Mrs. Cossabon would hear of no one else. Oh, Brooke is such a leaky-minded fool, said Lidgate, contemptuously. Well I was glad of the leakiness then. I don't see why you shouldn't like me to know that you wished to do me a service, my dear fellow, and you certainly have done me one. It's rather a strong check to one's self-complacency to find how much of one's right doing depends on not being in want of money. A man will not be tempted to say the Lord's Prayer backward to please the devil if he doesn't want the devil's services. I have no need to hang on the smiles of chance now. I don't see that there's any money getting without chance, said Lidgate. If a man gets it in a profession, it's pretty sure to come by chance. Mr. Fairbrother thought he could account for this speech in striking contrast with Lidgate's former way of talking as the perversity which will often spring from the moodiness of a man ill at ease in his affairs. He answered in a tone of good-humored admission. Ah, there's enormous patience wanted with the way of the world, but it is the easier for a man to wait patiently when he has friends who love him and ask for nothing better than to help him through so far as it lies in their power. Oh, yes, said Lidgate in a careless tone, changing his attitude and looking at his watch. People make much more of their difficulties than they need to do. He knew as distinctly as possible that this was an offer of help to himself from Mr. Fairbrother, and he could not bear it. So strangely determined are we mortals that after having been long gratified with the sense that he had privately done the vicar a service, the suggestion that the vicar discerned his need of a service in return made him shrink into unconquerable reticence. Besides, behind all making of such offers, what else must come? That he should mention his case, imply that he wanted specific things. At that moment suicide seemed easier. Mr. Fairbrother was too keen a man not to know the meaning of that reply, and there was a certain massiveness in Lidgate's manner and tone, corresponding with his physique, which if he repelled your advances in the first instance seemed to put persuasive devices out of question. What time are you, said the vicar, devouring his wounded feeling? After eleven, said Lidgate, and they went into the drying-room. March by George Elliot, Chapter Sixty-Four. First gentleman. Where lies the power? There, let the blame lie, too. Second gentleman. Nay, power is relative. You cannot fright the coming pest with border fortresses, or catch your carp with subtle argument. All forces twain in one, cause is not cause, unless effect be there. An action self must needs contain a passive. So command exists, but with obedience. Even if Lidgate had been inclined to be quite open about his affairs, he knew that it would hardly have been a Mr. Fairbrother's power to give him the help he immediately wanted, with the years bills coming in from his tradesmen, with Dover's threatening hold on his furniture, and with nothing to depend on but slow, dribbling payments from patients who must not be offended, for the handsome fees he had had from Fresher Hall and Lowick Manor had been easily absorbed. Nothing less than a thousand pounds would have freed him from actual embarrassment, and left a residue which, according to the favourite phrase of hopefulness, in such circumstances, would have given him time to look about him. Naturally the merry Christmas bringing the happy new year, when fellow citizens expect to be paid for the trouble, and goods they have smilingly bestowed on their neighbours, had so tightened the pressure of sordid cares on Lidgate's mind, that it was hardly possible for him to think unbrokenly of any other subject, even the most habitual and soliciting. He was not an ill-tempered man, his intellectual activity, the ardent kindness of his heart, as well as his strong frame, would always, under tolerably easy conditions, have kept him above the petty, uncontrolled susceptibilities which make bad temper. But he was now a prey to that worst irritation, which arises not simply from annoyance, but from the second consciousness underlying those annoyances, of wasted energy and a degrading preoccupation which was the reverse of all his former purposes. This is what I am thinking of, and this is what I might have been thinking of, was the bitter, incessant murmur within him, making every difficulty a double goad to impatience. Some gentlemen have made an amazing figure in literature, by general discontent with the universe as a trap of dullness into which their great souls have fallen by mistake. But the sense of a stupendous self and an insignificant world may have its consolations. Lidgate's discontent was much harder to bear. It was the sense that there was a grand existence in thought and effective action lying around him, while his self was being narrowed into the miserable isolation of egoistic fears and vulgar anxieties for events that might allay such fears. His troubles will perhaps appear miserably sordid and beneath the intention of lofty persons who can know nothing of debt except on a magnificent scale. Doubtless they were sordid, and for the majority, who are not lofty, there is no escape from sordidness but by being free from money-craving, with all its base hopes and temptations, its watching for death, its hinted requests, its hoarse dealers' desires to make bad work pass for good, its seeking for function which ought to be in others, its compulsion often too long for luck in the shape of wide calamity. It was because Lidgate writhed under the idea of getting his neck beneath this vile yoke that he had fallen into a bitter moody state which was continually widening Rosamond's alienation from him. After the first disclosure about the Bill of Sale, he had made many efforts to draw her into sympathy with him about possible measures for narrowing their expenses, and with the threatening approach of Christmas his propositions grew more and more definite. "'We can do with only one servant, and live on very little,' he said, and I shall manage with one horse. For Lidgate, as we have seen, had begun to reason with a more distinct vision about the expenses of living, and any share of pride he had given to appearances of that sort was meagre compared with the pride which made him revolt from exposure as a debtor, or from asking men to help him with their money. "'Of course you can dismiss the other two servants, if you like,' said Rosamond, but I should have thought it would be very enduroous to your position for us to live in a poor way. You must expect your practice to be lowered.' "'My dear Rosamond is not a question of choice. We have begun too expensively. Peacock, you know, lived in a much smaller house than this. It is my fault. I ought to have known better, and I deserve a thrashing. If there were any body who had a right to give it to me, for bringing you into this necessity of living in a poorer way than you have been used to. But we were married because we loved each other, I suppose, and that may help us to pull along till things get better. Come, dear, put down that work and come to me.' He was really in chill gloom about her at that moment, but he dreaded a future without affection, and was determined to resist the oncoming of division between them. Rosamond obeyed him, and he took her on his knee, but in her secret soul she was utterly aloof from him. The poor thing saw only that the world was not ordered to her liking, and Lidgate was part of that world. But he held her waist with one hand, and laid the other gently on both of hers. For this rather abrupt man had much tenderness in his manners towards women, seeming to have always present in his imagination the weakness of their frames and the delicate poise of their health both in body and mind, and he began again to speak persuasively. I find now I look into things a little rosy, that it is wonderful what an amount of money slips away in our housekeeping. I suppose the servants are careless, and we have had a great many people coming, but there must be many in our rank who manage with much less. They must do with commoner things, I suppose, and look after the scraps. It seems money goes but a little way in these matters, for Wrench has everything as plain as possible, and he has a very large practice. Oh! If you think of living as the Wrench's do, says Rosamond, with a little turn of her neck, but I have heard you express your disgust at that way of living. Yes, they have very bad taste in everything. They make economy look ugly. We needn't do that. I only meant that they avoid expenses, although Wrench has a capital practice. Why should you not have a good practice, Tertius? Mr. Peacock had. You should be more careful not to offend people, and you should send out medicines as others do. I am sure you began well, and you got several good houses. It cannot answer to be eccentric. You should think what we'll be generally liked," said Rosamond, in a decided little turn of admonition. It gets anger rose. He was prepared to be indulgent towards feminine weakness, but not towards feminine dictation. The shallowness of a water-nixie's soul may have a charm until she becomes didactic, but he controlled himself, and only said with a touch of despotic firmness. What I am to do in my practice, Rosie, is for me to judge. That is not the question between us. It is enough for you to know that our income is likely to be a very narrow one—hardly four hundred—perhaps less, for a long time to come, and we must try to rearrange our lives in accordance with that fact." Rosamond was silent for a moment or two, looking before her, and then said, My uncle bull strode, ought to allow you a salary for the time you give to the hospital. It is not right that you should work for nothing. It was understood from the beginning that my services would be gratuitous. That again need not enter into our discussion. I have pointed out what is the only probability," said Lidgate impatiently, then checking himself he went on more quietly. I think I see one resource which would free us from a good deal of the present difficulty. I hear that young Ned Plymdale is going to be married to Miss Sophie Toller. They are rich, and it is not often that a good house is vacant in Middlemarch. I feel sure that they would be glad to take this house from us, with most of our furniture, and they would be willing to pay handsomely for the lease. I can employ Trumbull to speak to Plymdale about it. Rosamond left her husband's knee, and walked slowly to the other end of the room. When she turned around and walked towards him, it was evident that the tears had come, and that she was biting her underlip and clasping her hands to keep herself from crying. Lidgate was wretched, shaken with anger and yet feeling that it would be unmanly to vent his anger just now. I am very sorry, Rosamond. I know this is painful. I thought at least, when I had borne to send the plate back and have that man taking an inventory of the furniture, I should have thought that would suffice. I explained it to you at the time, dear. That was only a security, and behind that security there is a debt, and that debt must be paid within the next few months, else we shall have our furniture sold. If young Plymdale will take our house, and most of our furniture, we shall be able to pay that debt, and some others too, and we shall be quit of a place too expensive for us. We might take a smaller house. Trumbull, I know, has a very decent one to let at thirty pounds a year, and this is ninety. It uttered this speech in the curt, hammering way, with which we usually try to nail down a vague mind to imperative facts. Tears rolled silently down Rosamond's cheeks. She just pressed her handkerchief against them, and stood looking at the large vahs on the mantelpiece. It was a moment of more intense bitterness than she had ever felt before. At last she said, without hurry, and with careful emphasis, I could never have believed that you would like to act in that way. Like it! burst out Lidgate, rising from his chair, thrusting his hands in his pocket, and stalking away from the hearth. It's not a question of liking. Of course I don't like it. It's the only thing I can do! He wheeled around, and there turned towards her. I should have thought there were many other means than that! said Rosamond. Let us have a sale, and leave Middlemarch altogether. To do what? What is the use of my leaving my work in Middlemarch to go where I have none? We shall be just as penniless elsewhere as we are here," said Lidgate, still more angrily. If we are to be in that position, it will be entirely your own doing, terseous, said Rosamond, turning round to speak with the fullest conviction. You will not behave as you ought to do to your own family. You offend Captain Lidgate. Sir Godwin was very kind to me when we were at Quellingham, and I am sure if you showed proper regard to him, and told him your affairs, he would do anything for you. But rather than that, you like giving up our house and furniture to Mr. Ned Plimdale. There was something like fierceness in Lidgate's eyes as he answered with new violence. Well then, if you will have it so, I do like it. I admit that I like it better than making a fool of myself by going to beg where it's of no use. Understand then that it is what I like to do. There was a tone in that last sentence which was equivalent to the clutch of his strong hand on Rosamond's delicate arm. But for all that, his will was not a wit stronger than hers. She immediately walked out of the room in silence, but with an intense determination to hinder what Lidgate liked to do. He went out of the house. But as his blood cooled, he felt that the chief result of the discussion was a deposit of dread within him at the idea of opening with his wife in future subjects which might again urge him to violent speech. It was as if a fracture in delicate crystal had begun, and he was afraid of any movement that might make it fatal. His marriage would be a mere piece of bitter irony if they could not go on loving each other. He had had long ago made up his mind to what he thought was her negative character, her want of sensibility which showed itself in disregard both of his specific wishes and of his general aims. The first great disappointment had been borne. The tender devotedness and docile adoration of the ideal wife must be renounced, and life must be taken up on a lower stage of expectation, as it is by men who have lost their limbs. But the real wife had not only her claims. She still had a hold on his heart, and it was his intense desire that the hold should remain strong. In marriage the certainty she will never love me much is easier to bear than the fear I shall love her no more. Because after that outburst his inward effort was entirely to excuse her and to blame the hard circumstances which were partly his fault. He tried that evening by petting her to heal the wound he had made in the morning, and it was not in Rosamund's nature to be repellent or sulky. Indeed she welcomed the signs that her husband loved her and was under control. But this was something quite distinct from loving him. Lidgate would not have chosen soon to recur to the plan of parting with the house. He was resolved to carry it out, and to say as little more about it as possible. But Rosamund herself touched on it at breakfast by saying mildly, "'Have you spoken to Trumbull yet?' "'No,' said Lidgate, but I shall call on him as I go by this morning. No time must be lost.' He took Rosamund's question as a sign that she withdrew her inward opposition, and kissed her head caressingly when he got up to go away. As soon as it was late enough to make a call Rosamund went to Mrs. Plimdale, Mr. Ned's mother, and entered with pretty congratulations into the subject of the coming marriage. Mrs. Plimdale's maternal view was that Rosamund might possibly now have retrospective glimpses of her own folly, and feeling the advantages to be at present all on the side of her was too kind a woman not to behave graciously. "'Yes, Ned is most happy, I must say, and Sophie Toller is all I could desire in a daughter-in-law. Of course her father is able to do something handsome for her. That is only what would be expected with a brewery like his, and the connection is everything we should desire. But that is not what I look at. She is a very nice girl, no heirs, no pretensions, though on a level with the first I don't mean with the titled aristocracy. I see very little good in people aiming out of their own sphere. I mean that Sophie is equal to the best in the town, and she is contented with that. I have always thought her very agreeable," said Rosamund. I look upon it as a reward for Ned, who never held his head too high that he should have got into the very best connection. Her native sharpness softened by a fervid sense that she was taking a correct view, and such particular people as the Tollers are, they might have objected because some of our friends are not theirs. It is well known that your aunt Bulstrode and I have been intimate from our youth. And Mr. Plimdale has always been on Mr. Bulstrode's side, and I myself prefer serious opinions, but the Tollers have welcomed Ned all the same. I am sure he is very deserving, well-principled young man," said Rosamund, with a neat air of patronage in return for Mrs. Plimdale's wholesome corrections. Oh! he has not the style of a captain in the army, or that sort of carriage as if everybody was beneath him, or that showy kind of talking and singing an intellectual talent. But I am thankful he has not. It is a poor preparation both for here and hereafter. Oh! dear, yes, appearances have very little to do with happiness," said Rosamund. I think there is every prospect of there being a happy couple. What house will they take? Oh! as for that they must put up with what they can get. They have been looking at the house in St. Peter's place. Next to Mr. Hackbutts, it belongs to him, and he is putting it nicely in repair. I suppose they are not likely to hear of a better—indeed, I think Ned will decide the matter to-day. I should think it a nice house. I like St. Peter's place. Well, it is near the church in a gentile situation, but the windows are narrow, and it is all ups and downs. You don't happen to know of any other that would be at liberty," said Mrs. Plimdale, fixing her round black eyes on Rosamund with the animation of a sudden thought in them. Oh! no! I hear so little of those things. Ned had not foreseen that question and answer in setting out to pay her visit. She had simply meant to gather any information which would help her to avert the parting with her own house under circumstances thoroughly disagreeable to her. As to the untruth in her reply, she no more reflected on it than she did on the untruth there was in her saying that appearances had very little to do with happiness. Her object, she was convinced, was thoroughly justifiable. It was Lidgate whose intention was inexcusable, and there was a plan in her mind which, when she had carried it out fully, would prove how very false a step it would have been for him to have descended from his position. She returned home by Mr. Borthorpe Trumbull's office, meaning to call there. It was the first time in her life that Rosamund had thought of doing anything in the form of business, but she felt equal to the occasion. That she should be obliged to do what she intensely disliked was an idea which turned her quiet tenacity into active invention. Here was a case in which it could not be enough simply to disobey, and be serenely, placidly obstinate. She must act according to her judgment, and she said to herself that her judgment was right. Indeed, if it had not been, she would not have wished to act on it. Mr. Trumbull was in the back room of his office, and received Rosamund with his finest manners. Not only because he had much sensibility to her charms, but because the good-natured fibre in him was stirred by his certainty that Lidgate was in difficulties, and that this uncommonly pretty woman, this young lady with the highest personal attractions, was likely to feel the pinch of trouble, to find herself involved in circumstances beyond her control. He begged her to do him the honour to take a seat, and stood before her trimming and comporting himself with an eagerness illicitude, which was chiefly benevolent. Rosamund's first question was whether her husband had called on Mr. Trumbull that morning to speak about disposing of their house. "'Yes, ma'am, yes, he did—he did so,' said the good auctioneer, trying to throw something soothing into his iteration. I was about to fill his order, if possible, this afternoon. He wished me not to procrastinate. "'I call to tell you not to go any further, Mr. Trumbull, and I beg of you not to mention what has been said on the subject. Will you oblige me?' "'Certainly I will, Mrs. Lidgate. Certainly confidence is sacred with me on business or any other topic. I am then to consider the commission with John,' said Mr. Trumbull, adjusting the long ends of his blue cravat with both hands, and looking at Rosamund deferentially. "'Yes, if you please, I find that Mr. Ned Plindale has taken a house, the one in St. Peter's Place, next to Mr. Hackbutts. Mr. Lidgate would be annoyed that his orders should be fulfilled uselessly, and besides that, there are other circumstances which render the proposal unnecessary.' "'Very good, Mrs. Lidgate, very good, I am at your commands, whenever you acquire any service of me,' and Mr. Trumbull, who felt pleasure in conjecturing that some new resource had been opened, "'Rely on me, I beg, the affair shall go no further.'" That evening Lidgate was a little comforted by observing that Rosamund was more lively than she had usually been of late, and even seemed interested in doing what would please him without being asked. He thought, "'If she will be happy, and I can rub through, what does it all signify? It is only a narrow swamp that we have to pass in a long journey. If I can get my mind clear again, I shall do.'" He was so much cheered that he began to search for an account of experiments which he had long ago meant to look up, and had neglected out of that creeping self-despair which comes in the train of petty anxieties. He felt again some of the old delightful absorption in a far-reaching inquiry, while Rosamund played the quiet music which was as helpful to his meditation as the plash of an oar on the evening lake. It was rather late. He had pushed away all the books, and was looking at the fire with his hands clasped in his head in forgetfulness of everything except the construction of a new controlling equipment, when Rosamund, who had left the piano, and was leaning back in her chair watching him, said, "'Mr. Ned Plymdale has taken a house already.'" The night startled and jarred, looked up in silence for a moment, like a man who has been disturbed in his sleep. Then flushing, with an unpleasant consciousness, he asked, "'How do you know?' I called at Mrs. Plymdale's this morning, and she told me that he had taken the house in St. Peter's Place next to Mr. Hackbutts.' Lidgate was silent. He drew his hands from behind his head, and pressed them against their hair which was hanging, as it was apt to do, in a mass on his forehead, while he rested his elbow on his knees. He was feeling bitter disappointment, as if he had opened a door out of the suffocating place and then found it walled up. But he also felt sure that Rosamund was pleased with the cause of his disappointment. He preferred not looking at her and not speaking, until he had got over the first spasm of vexation. After all, he said in his bitterness, what can a woman care about so much as house and furniture? A husband without them is an absurdity. When he looked up and pushed his hair aside, his dark eyes had a miserable, blank, non-expectance of sympathy in them. But he only said coolly. "'Perhaps someone else may turn up. I told Trumbull to be on the lookout, if he failed with Plymdale.' Rosamund made no remark. She trusted to the chance that nothing more would pass between her husband and the auctioneer, until some issue should have justified her interference. At any rate, she had hindered the event which she immediately dreaded. After a pause, she said, "'How much money is it that those disagreeable people want? What disagreeable people? Those who took the list and the others, I mean, how much money would satisfy them so you need not be troubled any more?' It surveyed her for a moment, as if he were looking for symptoms, and then said, "'Oh, if I could have got six hundred from Plymdale for furniture as a premium, I might have managed. I could have paid off Dover and given enough on account to the others to make them wait patiently if we contracted our expenses. But, I mean, how much should you want if we stayed in this house?' "'More than I am likely to get anywhere,' said Lidgate, with a rather grating sarcasm in his tone. It angered him to perceive that Rosamond's mind was wondering over impracticable wishes instead of facing possible efforts. "'Why should you not mention the sum?' said Rosamond, with a mild indication that she did not like his manners. "'Well,' said Lidgate, in a guessing tone, "'it would take at least a thousand to set me at ease, but,' he said incisively, "'I have to consider what I shall do without it, not with it.' Rosamond said no more. Up the next day she carried out her plan of writing to Sir Godwin Lidgate. Since the captain's visit she had received a letter from him, and also won from Mrs. Mangan, his married sister, condoling with her on the loss of her baby, and expressing vaguely the hope that they should see her again at Quillingham. Lidgate had told her that this politeness meant nothing, but she was secretly convinced that any backwardness in Lidgate's family toward him was due to his cold and contemptuous behaviour, and she answered the letters in her most charming manner, feeling some confidence that a specific invitation would follow. But there had been total silence. The captain, evidently, was not a great penman, and Rosamond reflected that the sisters might have been abroad. However, the season was come for thinking of friends at home. And at any rate Sir Godwin, who had chucked her under the chin, and pronounced her to be like the celebrated beauty Mrs. Crowley, who had made a conquest of him in 1790, would be touched by any appeal from her, and would find it pleasant for her sake to behave as he ought to do towards his nephew. Rosamond was naively convinced of what an old gentleman ought to do to prevent her from suffering annoyance, and she wrote what she considered the most judicious letter possible, one which would strike Sir Godwin as a proof of her excellent sense, pointing out how desirable it was that Tertius should quit such a place as Middle March for one more fitted to his talents, how the unpleasant character of the inhabitants had hindered his professional success, and how inconsequence he was in money difficulties, from which it would require a thousand pounds thoroughly to extricate him. She did not say that Tertius was unaware of her intention to write, for she had the idea that his supposed sanction of her letter would be in accordance with what she did say of his great regard for his uncle Godwin as the relative who had always been his best friend. Such was the force of poor Rosamond's tactics, now she applied them to affairs. This had happened before the party on New Year's Day, and no answer had yet come from Sir Godwin. But on the morning of that day Lidgate had to learn that Rosamond had revoked his order to overthrow Trumbull. Feeling it necessary that she should be gradually accustomed to the idea of there quitting the house in Lowett Gate, he overcame his reluctance to speak to her again on the subject, and when they were breakfasting, said, I shall try to see Trumbull this morning, and tell him to advertise the house in the pioneer and the trumpet. If the thing were advertised, someone might be inclined to take it, who would not otherwise have thought of a change. In these country-places, many people go on in their old houses, when their families are too large for them, for want of knowing where they can find another, and Trumbull seems to have got no bite at all. Rosamond knew that the inevitable moment was come. I ordered Trumbull not to inquire further, she said, with a careful calmness which was evidently defensive. Lidgate stared at her in mute amazement. Only half an hour before he had been fastening up her plaits for her, and talking the little language of affection, which Rosamond, though not returning it, accepted, as if she had been a serene and lovely image, now and then miraculously dimpling towards her votary. With such fibres still astir in him, the shock he received could not at once be distinctly anger, it was confused pain. He laid down the knife and fork with which he was carving, and throwing himself back in his chair, set at last with a cool irony in his tone. May I ask when, and why you did so? When I knew that the Plymdals had taken a house, I called to tell him not to mention ours to them, and at the same time I told him not to let the affair go on any further. I knew that it would be very injurious to you if it were known that you wished to part with your house and furniture, and had a very strong objection to it. I think that was reason enough. It was of no consequence, then, that I had told you imperative reasons of another kind, of no consequence that I had come to a different conclusion, and given an order accordingly, said Lidgate, bitingly, the thunder and lightning gathering about his brow and eyes. The effect of any one's anger on Rosamond had always been to make her shrink in cold dislike, and to become all the more calmly correct. In the conviction that she was not the person to misbehave, whatever others might do, she replied, I think I had a perfect right to speak on a subject which concerns me at least as much as you. Clearly you had a right to speak, but only to me. You had no right to contradict my orders secretly, and to treat me as if I were a fool, said Lidgate, in the same tone as before. Then with some added scorn, is it possible to make you understand what the consequences will be? Is it of any use for me to tell you again why we must try to part with the house? It is not necessary for you to tell me again, said Rosamond, in a voice that fell and trickled like cold water drops. I remembered what you said. You spoke just as violently as you do now. But that does not alter my opinion that you ought to try every other means rather than take a step which is so painful to me, and as to advertising the house I think it would be perfectly degrading to you. And suppose I disregard your opinion, as you disregard mine. You can do so, of course, but I think you ought to have told me before we were married that you would place me in the worst position rather than give up your own will. Lidgate did not speak, but tossed his head on one side and twitched the corners of his mouth into spare. Rosamond, seeing that he was not looking at her, rose and set his cup of coffee before him. But he took no notice of it, and went on with an inward drama and argument, occasionally moving in his seat, resting one arm on the table, and rubbing his head against his hair. There was a conflux of emotions and thoughts in him that would not let him either give thorough way to his anger or persevere with simple rigidity of resolve. Rosamond took advantage of his silence. When we were married, everyone felt that your position was very high. I could not have imagined, then, that you would want to sell our furniture and take a house in Bride Street where the rooms are like caters. If we are to live in that way, let us at least leave middle March." "'These would be very strong considerations,' said Lidgate, half ironically. Still, there was a withered paleness about his lips as he looked at his coffee, and did not drink. These would be very strong considerations if I did not happen to be in debt.' Many persons must have been in debt in the same way, but if they are respectable, people trust them. I am sure I have heard papas say that the torpids were in debt, and they went on very well. It cannot be good to act rashly,' said Rosamond, with serene wisdom. Lidgate sat paralyzed by opposing impulsions, since no reasoning he could apply to Rosamond seemed likely to conquer her assent. He wanted to smash and grind some object on which he could at least produce an impression, or else to tell her brutally that he was master and she must obey. But he not only dreaded the effect of such extremities in their mutual life, he had a growing dread of Rosamond's quiet elusive obscenity, which would not allow any assertion of power to be final, and again she had touched him in a spot of keenest feeling by implying that she had been deluded with a false vision of happiness in marrying him. As to saying that he was master, it was not the fact. The very resolution to which he had wrought himself by dint of logic and honorable pride was beginning to relax under her torpedo-contact. He swallowed half his cup of coffee and then rose to go. "'I may at least request that you will not go to Trumbull at present. Until it has been seen that there are no other means,' said Rosamond. Although she was not subject to much fear, she felt it safer not to portray that she had written to Sir Godwin. "'Promise me that you will not go to him for a few weeks, or without telling me.' Lidgate gave a short laugh. "'I think it is I who should exact a promise that you will do nothing without telling me,' he said, turning his eyes sharply upon her and then moving to the door. "'You remember that we are going to dine at Papa's?' said Rosamond, wishing that he should turn and make a more thorough concession to her. But he only said, "'Oh, yes,' impatiently, and went away. She held it to be very odious in him that he did not think the painful propositions he had to make to her were enough without showing so unpleasant a temper. And when she put the moderate request that he would defer going to Trumbull again, it was cruel in him not to assure her of what he meant to do. She was convinced of her acting in every way for the best, and each grating or angry speech of Lidgate served only as an addition to the register of offences in her mind. Poor Rosamond for months had begun to associate her husband with feelings of disappointment, and the terribly inflexible relation of marriage had lost its charm of encouraging delightful dreams. It had freed her from the disagreeables of her father's house, but it had not given her everything that she had wished and hoped. The Lidgate, with whom she had been in love, had been a group of airy conditions for her, most of which had disappeared. While their place had been taken by everyday details which must be lived through slowly from hour to hour, not floated through with a rapid selection of favorable aspects. The habits of Lidgate's profession, his home preoccupation with scientific subjects which seemed to her almost like a morbid vampire's taste, his peculiar views of things which had never entered into the dialogue of courtship, all these continually alienating influences even without the effect of his having placed himself at a disadvantage in the town, and without the first shock of revelation about Dover's debt, would have made his presence dull to her. There was another presence which ever since the early days of her marriage, until four months ago, had been in agreeable excitement, but that was gone. Rosamund would not confess to herself how much the consequent blank had to do with her utter ennui. And it seemed to her, perhaps she was right, that an invitation to calling him, and an opening for Lidgate to settle elsewhere than in Middlemarch, in London, or somewhere likely to be free from unpleasantness, would satisfy her quite well, and make her indifferent to the absence of Will Lattice Law, towards whom she felt some resentment for his exultation of Mrs. Cosabourne. That was the state of things with Lidgate and Rosamund, on the New Year's Day when they dined at her father's. She looking mildly neutral towards him in remembrance of his ill-tempered behaviour at breakfast, and he carrying a much deeper effect from the inward conflict in which that morning scene was only one of many epochs. His flushed effort while talking to Mr. Fairbrother, his effort after the cynical pretense that all ways of getting money are essentially the same, and that chance has an empire which reduces choice to a fool's illusion, was but the symptom of a wavering resolve, a benumbed response to the old stimuli of enthusiasm. What was he to do? He saw even more keenly than Rosamund did the dreariness of taking her into the small house in Bright Street, where she would have scanty furniture around her and discontent within, a life of privation, and life with Rosamund where two images which had become more and more irreconcilable ever since the threat of privation had disclosed itself. But even if his resolves had forced the two images into combination, the useful preliminaries to that hard change were not visibly within reach. And though he had not given the promise which his wife had asked for, he did not go again to Trumbull. He even began to think of taking a rapid journey to the north and seeing Sir Godwin. He had once believed that nothing would urge him into making an application for money to his uncle. But he had not then known the full pressure of alternatives yet more disagreeable. He could not depend on the effect of a letter, and it was only in an interview, however disagreeable this might be to himself, that he could give a thorough explanation and could test the effectiveness of kinship. No sooner had Lidgate begun to represent this step to himself as the easiest than there was a reaction of anger that he, he who had long ago determined to live aloof from such abject calculations, such self-interested anxiety about the inclinations and the pockets of men with whom he had been proud to have had no aims in common, should have fallen not simply to their level, but to the level of soliciting them. CHAPTER 65 One of us, too, must bow and doubtless, and, since a man is more reasonable than woman is, ye men must be sufferable. Chaucer can't agree. The bias of human nature to be slow in correspondence triumphs even over the present quickening in the general pace of things. What a wonder then, that in 1832, old Sir Gudrun Lidgate was slow to write a letter which was of consequence to others rather than to himself. Nearly three weeks of the new year were gone, and Rosamond awaiting an answer to her winning appeal was every day disappointed. Lidgate, in total ignorance of her expectations, was seeing the bills come in, and feeling that Dover's use of his advantage over other creditors was imminent. He had never mentioned to Rosamond his brooding purpose of going to Qualingham. He did not want to admit what would appear to her a concession to her wishes after indignant refusal. After the last moment, but he was really expecting to set off soon. A slice of the railway would enable him to manage the whole journey and back in four days. But one morning after Lidgate had gone out, a letter came addressed to him which Rosamond saw clearly to be from Sir Gudrun. She was full of hope. Perhaps there might be a particular note to her enclosed, but Lidgate was naturally addressed on the question of money or other aid, and the fact that he was written to, nay, the very delay in writing at all, seemed to certify that the answer was thoroughly compliant. She was too much excited by these thoughts to do anything but light-stitching in a warm corner of the dining-room, with the outside of this momentous letter lying on the table before her. About twelve she heard her husband's step in the passage, and tripping to open the door she said in her lightest tones, "'Tertius, come in here. Here is a letter for you.' "'Ah,' he said, not taking off his hat, but just turning her round within his arm to walk towards the spot where the letter lay. "'My Uncle Gudrun?' he exclaimed, while Rosamond receded herself and watched him as he opened the letter. She had expected him to be surprised. While Lidgate's eyes glanced rapidly over the brief letter, she saw his face, usually of a pale brown, taking on a dry whiteness, with nostrils and lips quivering he tossed down the letter before her and said violently, "'It will be impossible to endure life with you, if you will always be acting secretly, acting in opposition to me and hiding your actions.' He checked his speech and turned his back on her. Then wheeled round and walked about, sat down, and got up again restlessly, grasping hard objects deep down in his pockets. He was afraid of saying something irredeemably cruel. Rosamond too had changed colour as she read. The letter ran this way. "'Dear Tertius, don't set your wife to write to me when you have anything to ask. It is a roundabout-weedling sort of thing, which I should not have credited you with. I never choose to write to a woman on matters of business. As to my supplying you with a thousand pounds, or any half that sum, I can do nothing of the sort. My own family drains me to the last penny. With two younger sons and three daughters, I am not likely to have cash to spare. You seem to have got through your own money pretty quickly, and to have made a mess where you are. The sooner you go somewhere else, the better. But I have nothing to do with men of your profession, and can't help you there. I did the best I could for you as guardian, and let you have your own way in taking to medicine. You might have gone into the army or the church. Your money would have held out for that. And there would have been a sureer ladder before you. Your uncle Charles has had a grudge against you for not going into his profession, but not I. I have always wished you well, but you must consider yourself on your own legs entirely now. Your affectionate uncle, Godwin Lidgate." When Rosamond had finished reading the letter, she sat quite still, with her hands folded before her, restraining any show of her keen disappointment in entrenching herself in quiet passivity under her husband's wrath. Lidgate paused in his movements, looked at her again, and said with biting severity, "'Will this be enough to convince you of the harm you may do by secret meddling? Have you sense enough to recognise how your incompetence to judge and act for me, to interfere with your ignorance in affairs which it belongs to me to decide on?' The words were hard, but this was not the first time that Lidgate had been frustrated by her. She did not look at him and made no reply. I had nearly resolved on going to calling him. It would have cost me pain enough to do it, yet it might have been of some use. But it has been of no use for me to think of anything. You have always been counteracting me secretly. You delude me with a false assent, and then I am in the mercy of your devices. If you mean to resist every wish I express, say so, and defy me, I shall at least know what I am doing then." It is a terrible moment in young lives when the closeness of love's bond has turned to this power of galling. In spite of Rosamond's self-control, a tear fell silently and rolled over her lips. She still said nothing. But under that quietude was hidden an intense effect. She was in such entire disgust with her husband that she wished that she had never seen him. So Godwin's rudeness towards her and utter want of feeling rang to him with dover and all other creditors. Disagreeable people who only thought of themselves and did not mind how annoying they were to her. Even her father was unkind, and might have done more for them. In fact there was but one person in Rosamond's world whom she did not regard as blameworthy. And that was the graceful creature with blond plaits, and with little hands crossed before her, who had never expressed herself unbecomingly and had always acted for the best, the best naturally being what she liked best. Lidgate, pausing and looking at her again, began to feel that half-maddening sense of helplessness which comes over passionate people when their passion is met by an innocent-looking silence whose meek, victimised air seems to put them in the wrong, and at last infects even the justice indignation with a doubt of its justice. He needed to recover the full sense that he was in the right by moderating his words. "'Can you not see, Rosamond?' he began again, trying to be simply grave and not bitter, that nothing can be so fatal as a want of openness and confidence between us. It has happened again and again that I have expressed a decided wish, and you have seemed to assent, yet after that you have secretly disobeyed my wish. In that way I can never know what I have to trust to. There would be some hope for us, if you would admit this. Am I such an unreasonable, furious brute? Why should you not be open with me?' Still silence. "'Will you only say that you have been mistaken and that I may depend on your not acting secretly in the future?' said Lidgate urgently, but with something of request in his tone which Rosamond was quick to perceive. She spoke with coolness. I cannot possibly make admissions or promises in answer to such words as you have used towards me. I have not been accustomed to language of that kind. You have spoken of my secret meddling, and my interfering ignorance, and my false assent. I have never expressed myself in that way to you, and I think that you ought to apologise. You spoke of its being impossible to live with me. Certainly you have not made my life pleasant to me of late. I think it was to be expected that I should try to avert some of the hardship which our marriage has brought on me.' Another tear fell as Rosamond ceased speaking, and she pressed it away as quietly as the first. Lidgate flung himself into a chair, feeling checkmated. What place was there in her mind for a remonstrance to lodging? He laid down his hat, flung an arm over the back of his chair, and looked down for some moments without speaking. And had the double purchase over him of insensibility to the point of justice in his reproach, and of sensibility to the undeniable hardships now present in her married life. Although her duplicity in the affair of the house had exceeded what he knew, and had really hindered the plimdals from knowing it, she had no consciousness that her action could rightly be called false. We are not obliged to identify our own acts according to a strict classification any more than the materials of our grocery and clothes. Rosamond felt that she was aggrieved, and that this was what Lidgate had to recognise. As for him, the need of accommodating himself to her nature, which was inflexible in proportion to its negations, held him as with pincers. He had begun to have an alarmed foresight of her irrarocable loss of love for him, and the consequentoriness of their life. The ready fullness of his emotions made this dread alternate quickly with the first violent movements of his anger. It would assuredly have been a vain boast in him to say that he was her master. You have not made my life pleasant to me of late. The hardships which our marriage has brought on me. These words were stinging his imagination, as a pain makes an exaggerated dream. If he were not only to sink from his highest resolve, but to sink into the hideous fettering of domestic hate. Rosamond, he said, turning his eyes on her with a melancholy look. You should allow for a man's words when he is disappointed and provoked. You and I cannot have opposite interests. I cannot part my happiness from yours. If I am angry with you, it is that you seem not to see how any concealment divides us. How could I wish to make anything hard to you either by my words or conduct? When I hurt you, I hurt part of my own life. I should never be angry with you if you would be quite open with me. I have only wished to prevent you from hurrying us into wretchedness without any necessity," said Rosamond, the tears coming again from a softened feeling now that her husband had softened. It is so very hard to be disgraced here among all the people we know, and to live in such a miserable way. I wish her died with the baby. She spoke and wept with that gentleness which makes such words and tears omnipotent over a loving-hearted man. Lidgate drew his tear near to hers and pressed her delicate head against his cheek with his powerful tender hand. He only caressed her. He did not say anything, for what was there to say? He could not promise to shield her from the dreaded wretchedness, for he could see no sure means of doing so. When he left her to go out again, he told himself that it was ten times harder for her than for him. He had a life away from home, and constant appeals to his activity on behalf of others. He wished to excuse everything in her if he could. But it was inevitable that, in that excusing mood, he should think of her as if she were an animal of another and feeblest species. Nevertheless she had mastered him. End of CHAPTER 65 Read by Martina, Sydney, Australia.