Rosamond Visits Mrs. Plymdale to Block the Sale
As soon as it is late enough, Rosamond visits Mrs. Plymdale to congratulate her on Ned’s engagement to Sophy Toller. Mrs. Plymdale, whose native sharpness is softened by a sense of taking a correct view, dwells on the excellent connection and on Sophy’s unpretending merits, and announces that Ned will likely decide on the house in St. Peter’s Place that day. When she suddenly asks Rosamond whether she happens to know of any other house that would be at liberty, Rosamond lies and says she hears so little of those things. She had not foreseen this question when setting out, but her object, she is convinced, is thoroughly justifiable—to avert the parting with her own house under circumstances thoroughly disagreeable to her, and to prove how very false a step it would have been for Lydgate to descend from his position.
CHAPTER LXIV.
Rosamond, feeling equal to the occasion in spite of her dislike of business matters, visits Mr. Borthrop Trumbull to countermand her husband’s order to sell their house, citing as her pretext the fact that Ned Plymdale has already taken a house in St. Peter’s Place; she also writes to Sir Godwin Lydgate requesting a thousand pounds to extricate Tertius from his money difficulties, without his knowledge. The conflict comes to a head on New Year’s Day morning when Lydgate announces his intention to advertise the house, and Rosamond reveals her interference, leading to a bitter exchange in which she defends her actions on the grounds that her position is at stake and that advertising the house would be degrading, while Lydgate feels paralyzed between his anger at her secret countermanding of his orders and his growing awareness of the inflexibility of her quiet obstinacy. He leaves for the day refusing to promise anything, while Rosamond, wounded by his temper and unappreciative of her careful tactics, holds to her conviction that she has acted throughout for the best.
Rosamond Halts House Sale Plans
Rosamond, returning home, deliberately stops at Mr. Borthrop Trumbull’s auction office—the first time she has ever taken the initiative in a business matter. Disliking intensely what she must do, she transforms her usual passive obstinacy into decisive action, convinced that her judgment is correct.
Trumbull Withdraws Listing Commission
Trumbull receives Rosamond with eager, benevolent courtesy, already sensing Lydgate’s difficulties and wishing to spare her. When she tells him to abandon the house sale and keep the matter confidential, he readily withdraws the commission, conjecturing that new resources have been opened.
Lydgate’s Brief Optimism Before Plymdale News
That evening, Lydgate notices Rosamond seems more cheerful and eager to please him. Encouraged, he begins searching through old scientific notebooks and sinks into the absorbing pleasure of planning a new experiment, with Rosamond’s quiet piano music accompanying his reverie.
Plymdale’s House Purchase Upsets Lydgate
Rosamond breaks Lydgate’s meditative spell with the news that Ned Plymdale has already taken a house. Lydgate feels bitter disappointment—as if a door out of suffocation had been walled up—and suspects Rosamond is pleased by his frustration. He answers coolly that perhaps some other buyer will turn up through Trumbull.
Rosamond Inquires About Debt Sums
Rosamond presses Lydgate to name a specific sum that would satisfy his creditors. Lydgate estimates that six hundred pounds from Plymdale would have let him pay off Dover and give the others enough to wait, but that staying in the house would require at least a thousand. Frustrated by her wandering, impracticable wishes, he adds incisively that he must think of what he can do without the money, not with it.
Rosamond Secretly Writes to Sir Godwin
The next day, Rosamond carries out her plan of writing to Sir Godwin Lydgate. Believing the family’s coolness toward Tertius stems from his own contemptuous behavior, she composes a carefully judicious letter appealing to Sir Godwin’s chivalric sensibility, requesting a thousand pounds to relieve her husband’s money troubles and urging him to quit Middlemarch for a more suitable setting—without disclosing that Lydgate is unaware of her intervention.
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