Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (390 page)

“There is no hope for me,” said Will. “Even if you loved me as well as I love you — even if I were everything to you — I shall most likely always be very poor: on a sober calculation, one can count on nothing but a creeping lot. It is impossible for us ever to belong to each other. It is perhaps base of me to have asked for a word from you. I meant to go away into silence, but I have not been able to do what I meant.”

“Don’t be sorry,” said Dorothea, in her clear tender tones. “I would rather share all the trouble of our parting.”

Her lips trembled, and so did his. It was never known which lips were the first to move towards the other lips; but they kissed tremblingly, and then they moved apart.

The rain was dashing against the window-panes as if an angry spirit were within it, and behind it was the great swoop of the wind; it was one of those moments in which both the busy and the idle pause with a certain awe.

Dorothea sat down on the seat nearest to her, a long low ottoman in the middle of the room, and with her hands folded over each other on her lap, looked at the drear outer world. Will stood still an instant looking at her, then seated himself beside her, and laid his hand on hers, which turned itself upward to be clasped. They sat in that way without looking at each other, until the rain abated and began to fall in stillness. Each had been full of thoughts which neither of them could begin to utter.

But when the rain was quiet, Dorothea turned to look at Will. With passionate exclamation, as if some torture screw were threatening him, he started up and said, “It is impossible!”

He went and leaned on the back of the chair again, and seemed to be battling with his own anger, while she looked towards him sadly.

“It is as fatal as a murder or any other horror that divides people,” he burst out again; “it is more intolerable — to have our life maimed by petty accidents.”

“No — don’t say that — your life need not be maimed,” said Dorothea, gently.

“Yes, it must,” said Will, angrily. “It is cruel of you to speak in that way — as if there were any comfort. You may see beyond the misery of it, but I don’t. It is unkind — it is throwing back my love for you as if it were a trifle, to speak in that way in the face of the fact. We can never be married.”

“Some time — we might,” said Dorothea, in a trembling voice.

“When?” said Will, bitterly. “What is the use of counting on any success of mine? It is a mere toss up whether I shall ever do more than keep myself decently, unless I choose to sell myself as a mere pen and a mouthpiece. I can see that clearly enough. I could not offer myself to any woman, even if she had no luxuries to renounce.”

There was silence. Dorothea’s heart was full of something that she wanted to say, and yet the words were too difficult. She was wholly possessed by them: at that moment debate was mute within her. And it was very hard that she could not say what she wanted to say. Will was looking out of the window angrily. If he would have looked at her and not gone away from her side, she thought everything would have been easier. At last he turned, still resting against the chair, and stretching his hand automatically towards his hat, said with a sort of exasperation, “Good-by.”

“Oh, I cannot bear it — my heart will break,” said Dorothea, starting from her seat, the flood of her young passion bearing down all the obstructions which had kept her silent — the great tears rising and falling in an instant: “I don’t mind about poverty — I hate my wealth.”

In an instant Will was close to her and had his arms round her, but she drew her head back and held his away gently that she might go on speaking, her large tear-filled eyes looking at his very simply, while she said in a sobbing childlike way, “We could live quite well on my own fortune — it is too much — seven hundred a-year — I want so little — no new clothes — and I will learn what everything costs.”

CHAPTER LXXXIV
.

 
“Though it be songe of old and yonge,

 
That I sholde be to blame,

Theyrs be the charge, that spoke so large

 
In hurtynge of my name.”

— The Not-Browne Mayde.

It was just after the Lords had thrown out the Reform Bill: that explains how Mr. Cadwallader came to be walking on the slope of the lawn near the great conservatory at Freshitt Hall, holding the “Times” in his hands behind him, while he talked with a trout-fisher’s dispassionateness about the prospects of the country to Sir James Chettam. Mrs. Cadwallader, the Dowager Lady Chettam, and Celia were sometimes seated on garden-chairs, sometimes walking to meet little Arthur, who was being drawn in his chariot, and, as became the infantine Bouddha, was sheltered by his sacred umbrella with handsome silken fringe.

The ladies also talked politics, though more fitfully. Mrs. Cadwallader was strong on the intended creation of peers: she had it for certain from her cousin that Truberry had gone over to the other side entirely at the instigation of his wife, who had scented peerages in the air from the very first introduction of the Reform question, and would sign her soul away to take precedence of her younger sister, who had married a baronet. Lady Chettam thought that such conduct was very reprehensible, and remembered that Mrs. Truberry’s mother was a Miss Walsingham of Melspring. Celia confessed it was nicer to be “Lady” than “Mrs.,” and that Dodo never minded about precedence if she could have her own way. Mrs. Cadwallader held that it was a poor satisfaction to take precedence when everybody about you knew that you had not a drop of good blood in your veins; and Celia again, stopping to look at Arthur, said, “It would be very nice, though, if he were a Viscount — and his lordship’s little tooth coming through! He might have been, if James had been an Earl.”

“My dear Celia,” said the Dowager, “James’s title is worth far more than any new earldom. I never wished his father to be anything else than Sir James.”

“Oh, I only meant about Arthur’s little tooth,” said Celia, comfortably. “But see, here is my uncle coming.”

She tripped off to meet her uncle, while Sir James and Mr. Cadwallader came forward to make one group with the ladies. Celia had slipped her arm through her uncle’s, and he patted her hand with a rather melancholy “Well, my dear!” As they approached, it was evident that Mr. Brooke was looking dejected, but this was fully accounted for by the state of politics; and as he was shaking hands all round without more greeting than a “Well, you’re all here, you know,” the Rector said, laughingly —

“Don’t take the throwing out of the Bill so much to heart, Brooke; you’ve got all the riff-raff of the country on your side.”

“The Bill, eh? ah!” said Mr. Brooke, with a mild distractedness of manner. “Thrown out, you know, eh? The Lords are going too far, though. They’ll have to pull up. Sad news, you know. I mean, here at home — sad news. But you must not blame me, Chettam.”

“What is the matter?” said Sir James. “Not another gamekeeper shot, I hope? It’s what I should expect, when a fellow like Trapping Bass is let off so easily.”

“Gamekeeper? No. Let us go in; I can tell you all in the house, you know,” said Mr. Brooke, nodding at the Cadwalladers, to show that he included them in his confidence. “As to poachers like Trapping Bass, you know, Chettam,” he continued, as they were entering, “when you are a magistrate, you’ll not find it so easy to commit. Severity is all very well, but it’s a great deal easier when you’ve got somebody to do it for you. You have a soft place in your heart yourself, you know — you’re not a Draco, a Jeffreys, that sort of thing.”

Mr. Brooke was evidently in a state of nervous perturbation. When he had something painful to tell, it was usually his way to introduce it among a number of disjointed particulars, as if it were a medicine that would get a milder flavor by mixing. He continued his chat with Sir James about the poachers until they were all seated, and Mrs. Cadwallader, impatient of this drivelling, said —

“I’m dying to know the sad news. The gamekeeper is not shot: that is settled. What is it, then?”

“Well, it’s a very trying thing, you know,” said Mr. Brooke. “I’m glad you and the Rector are here; it’s a family matter — but you will help us all to bear it, Cadwallader. I’ve got to break it to you, my dear.” Here Mr. Brooke looked at Celia — “You’ve no notion what it is, you know. And, Chettam, it will annoy you uncommonly — but, you see, you have not been able to hinder it, any more than I have. There’s something singular in things: they come round, you know.”

“It must be about Dodo,” said Celia, who had been used to think of her sister as the dangerous part of the family machinery. She had seated herself on a low stool against her husband’s knee. fx “For God’s sake let us hear what it is!” said Sir James.

“Well, you know, Chettam, I couldn’t help Casaubon’s will: it was a sort of will to make things worse.”

“Exactly,” said Sir James, hastily. “But
what
is worse?”

“Dorothea is going to be married again, you know,” said Mr. Brooke, nodding towards Celia, who immediately looked up at her husband with a frightened glance, and put her hand on his knee. Sir James was almost white with anger, but he did not speak.

“Merciful heaven!” said Mrs. Cadwallader. “Not to
young
Ladislaw?”

Mr. Brooke nodded, saying, “Yes; to Ladislaw,” and then fell into a prudential silence.

“You see, Humphrey!” said Mrs. Cadwallader, waving her arm towards her husband. “Another time you will admit that I have some foresight; or rather you will contradict me and be just as blind as ever.
You
supposed that the young gentleman was gone out of the country.”

“So he might be, and yet come back,” said the Rector, quietly

“When did you learn this?” said Sir James, not liking to hear any one else speak, though finding it difficult to speak himself.

“Yesterday,” said Mr. Brooke, meekly. “I went to Lowick. Dorothea sent for me, you know. It had come about quite suddenly — neither of them had any idea two days ago — not any idea, you know. There’s something singular in things. But Dorothea is quite determined — it is no use opposing. I put it strongly to her. I did my duty, Chettam. But she can act as she likes, you know.”

“It would have been better if I had called him out and shot him a year ago,” said Sir James, not from bloody-mindedness, but because he needed something strong to say.

“Really, James, that would have been very disagreeable,” said Celia.

“Be reasonable, Chettam. Look at the affair more quietly,” said Mr. Cadwallader, sorry to see his good-natured friend so overmastered by anger.

“That is not so very easy for a man of any dignity — with any sense of right — when the affair happens to be in his own family,” said Sir James, still in his white indignation. “It is perfectly scandalous. If Ladislaw had had a spark of honor he would have gone out of the country at once, and never shown his face in it again. However, I am not surprised. The day after Casaubon’s funeral I said what ought to be done. But I was not listened to.”

“You wanted what was impossible, you know, Chettam,” said Mr. Brooke. “You wanted him shipped off. I told you Ladislaw was not to be done as we liked with: he had his ideas. He was a remarkable fellow — I always said he was a remarkable fellow.”

“Yes,” said Sir James, unable to repress a retort, “it is rather a pity you formed that high opinion of him. We are indebted to that for his being lodged in this neighborhood. We are indebted to that for seeing a woman like Dorothea degrading herself by marrying him.” Sir James made little stoppages between his clauses, the words not coming easily. “A man so marked out by her husband’s will, that delicacy ought to have forbidden her from seeing him again — who takes her out of her proper rank — into poverty — has the meanness to accept such a sacrifice — has always had an objectionable position — a bad origin — and, I
believe
, is a man of little principle and light character. That is my opinion.” Sir James ended emphatically, turning aside and crossing his leg.

“I pointed everything out to her,” said Mr. Brooke, apologetically — “I mean the poverty, and abandoning her position. I said, ‘My dear, you don’t know what it is to live on seven hundred a-year, and have no carriage, and that kind of thing, and go amongst people who don’t know who you are.’ I put it strongly to her. But I advise you to talk to Dorothea herself. The fact is, she has a dislike to Casaubon’s property. You will hear what she says, you know.”

“No — excuse me — I shall not,” said Sir James, with more coolness. “I cannot bear to see her again; it is too painful. It hurts me too much that a woman like Dorothea should have done what is wrong.”

“Be just, Chettam,” said the easy, large-lipped Rector, who objected to all this unnecessary discomfort. “Mrs. Casaubon may be acting imprudently: she is giving up a fortune for the sake of a man, and we men have so poor an opinion of each other that we can hardly call a woman wise who does that. But I think you should not condemn it as a wrong action, in the strict sense of the word.”

“Yes, I do,” answered Sir James. “I think that Dorothea commits a wrong action in marrying Ladislaw.”

“My dear fellow, we are rather apt to consider an act wrong because it is unpleasant to us,” said the Rector, quietly. Like many men who take life easily, he had the knack of saying a home truth occasionally to those who felt themselves virtuously out of temper. Sir James took out his handkerchief and began to bite the corner.

“It is very dreadful of Dodo, though,” said Celia, wishing to justify her husband. “She said she
never would
marry again — not anybody at all.”

“I heard her say the same thing myself,” said Lady Chettam, majestically, as if this were royal evidence.

“Oh, there is usually a silent exception in such cases,” said Mrs. Cadwallader. “The only wonder to me is, that any of you are surprised. You did nothing to hinder it. If you would have had Lord Triton down here to woo her with his philanthropy, he might have carried her off before the year was over. There was no safety in anything else. Mr. Casaubon had prepared all this as beautifully as possible. He made himself disagreeable — or it pleased God to make him so — and then he dared her to contradict him. It’s the way to make any trumpery tempting, to ticket it at a high price in that way.”

“I don’t know what you mean by wrong, Cadwallader,” said Sir James, still feeling a little stung, and turning round in his chair towards the Rector. “He’s not a man we can take into the family. At least, I must speak for myself,” he continued, carefully keeping his eyes off Mr. Brooke. “I suppose others will find his society too pleasant to care about the propriety of the thing.”

“Well, you know, Chettam,” said Mr. Brooke, good-humoredly, nursing his leg, “I can’t turn my back on Dorothea. I must be a father to her up to a certain point. I said, ‘My dear, I won’t refuse to give you away.’ I had spoken strongly before. But I can cut off the entail, you know. It will cost money and be troublesome; but I can do it, you know.”

Mr. Brooke nodded at Sir James, and felt that he was both showing his own force of resolution and propitiating what was just in the Baronet’s vexation. He had hit on a more ingenious mode of parrying than he was aware of. He had touched a motive of which Sir James was ashamed. The mass of his feeling about Dorothea’s marriage to Ladislaw was due partly to excusable prejudice, or even justifiable opinion, partly to a jealous repugnance hardly less in Ladislaw’s case than in Casaubon’s. He was convinced that the marriage was a fatal one for Dorothea. But amid that mass ran a vein of which he was too good and honorable a man to like the avowal even to himself: it was undeniable that the union of the two estates — Tipton and Freshitt — lying charmingly within a ring-fence, was a prospect that flattered him for his son and heir. Hence when Mr. Brooke noddingly appealed to that motive, Sir James felt a sudden embarrassment; there was a stoppage in his throat; he even blushed. He had found more words than usual in the first jet of his anger, but Mr. Brooke’s propitiation was more clogging to his tongue than Mr. Cadwallader’s caustic hint.