Middlemarch George Eliot (essential reading txt) 📖

“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.

“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 anyone 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