Middlemarch

Book VII opened with two epigraphs and a title—Two Temptations—and Mr. Farebrother soon had occasion to study them. At Mr. Toller’s Christmas dinner the Middlemarch gentlemen discussed Lydgate with that emphatic reticence which said more than words: his expenses were too great for a beginner, his marriage to that nice Vincy girl had perhaps been imprudent, and the cream of Peacock’s patients had somehow passed to the Wrenches. When Farebrother visited Lydgate on purpose to chat as of old, he found him talking widely for the sake of resisting any personal bearing, and Rosamond playing the piano while Lydgate sank back in his chair with a strange light in his eyes. At the Vincy New Year party the situation was plainer: Lydgate seemed bored, Mr. Vincy spoke as little as possible to his son-in-law, and only a subtle observer would have perceived the total absence of that interest in a husband’s presence which a loving wife is sure to betray. Fred Vincy, who had brought Mary Garth to the party against his mother’s mild objection, watched with mixed triumph and jealousy as Mr. Farebrother sat down by Mary and dramatized an intense interest in the tale of Rumpelstiltskin. Farebrother later drew Lydgate aside by the hall fire and, thanking him for the word to Mrs. Casaubon that had brought him the Lowick living, offered in his easy way the friendship of a man who asked for nothing better than to help through, so far as it lay in his power. Lydgate, who could not bear to be seen in need, answered with careless thrusts; and when Farebrother hinted that there was a friendly ear ready if he wanted to open himself about any difficulty, Lydgate felt that suicide seemed easier. That evening at least went no further.

But Lydgate’s money troubles would not let him rest. Dover had a threatening hold on his furniture; the tradesmen’s bills were coming in for Christmas; nothing less than a thousand pounds would free him from actual embarrassment. He proposed to his wife that they dismiss two of the three servants, keep only one horse, and let their house in Lowick Gate to young Ned Plymdale, who was about to marry the brewer’s daughter and would pay handsomely for the lease with most of the furniture. Rosamond, who had been obliged to send back the plate and submit to an inventory of her possessions, listened in tears. She could not, she said, believe he would like to act in that way; she had never imagined, when they were married, that she would be asked to sell the furniture and take a house in Bride Street where the rooms were like cages. If they must live poorly, let them at least leave Middlemarch. Lydgate answered with violence that he liked it better than making a fool of himself by begging where it was of no use. Rosamond walked out of the room in silence, but with an intense determination to hinder what Lydgate liked to do. The next morning, before he could call on Borthrop Trumbull the auctioneer, she went herself, withdrew the commission with the prettiest authority, and afterwards called on Mrs. Plymdale to learn that Ned had already taken the house in St. Peter’s Place next to Mr. Hackbutt’s. Rosamond had also, some days earlier, written secretly to Sir Godwin Lydgate, appealing to him as the relative who had always been Tertius’s best friend, and pointing out how a thousand pounds would extricate him from the unpleasant character of Middlemarch and its inhabitants.

Nearly three weeks of the new year passed before Sir Godwin’s reply arrived. Rosamond, awaiting it with secret hope, heard her husband’s step in the passage and tripped to open the door with her lightest tones. Lydgate glanced rapidly over the brief letter, and his face took on a dry whiteness. “It will be impossible to endure life with you,” he said, “if you will always be acting secretly—acting in opposition to me and hiding your actions.” Sir Godwin wrote that he could do nothing of the sort; his own family drained him to the last penny. He wished Tertius well, but he must consider himself on his own legs entirely now. Lydgate reproached Rosamond with biting severity for her secret meddling, her interfering ignorance, her false assent; she answered at last, with the calmness of one who knew she had acted for the best, that she could not make admissions or promises in answer to such words, and that he ought to apologize. He flung himself into a chair, feeling checkmated, and asked whether she could not see that nothing could be so fatal as a want of openness and confidence. Rosamond wept at last, very gently, with the words, “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 I had died with the baby.” Lydgate drew his chair 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. Nevertheless she had mastered him.