On the morning of the New Year’s party, Lydgate learned that Rosamond had revoked his order to Borthrop Trumbull. He stared at her in mute amazement. “May I ask when and why you did so?” he asked. “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 I had a very strong objection to it. I think that was reason enough.” Lydgate’s anger gathered about his brow and eyes. “Is it of any use for me to tell you again why we must try to part with the house?” Rosamond answered, with a voice that fell and trickled like cold water-drops, “I think I had a perfect right to speak on a subject which concerns me at least as much as you.” Lydgate did not speak, but tossed his head on one side, and twitched the corners of his mouth in despair.
CHAPTER LXV.
The bias of human nature to be slow in correspondence triumphs even over the present quickening in the general pace of things. Nearly three weeks of the new year were gone, and Rosamond, awaiting an answer to her appeal, was every day disappointed. Lydgate, in total ignorance of her expectations, was seeing the bills come in, and feeling that Dover’s use of his advantage was imminent. He had been brooding the purpose of going to Quallingham, but did not want to admit what would appear to Rosamond a concession to her wishes until the last moment.
One morning, after Lydgate had gone out, a letter came addressed to him which Rosamond saw clearly to be from Sir Godwin. She was full of hope, and tripping to open the door when her husband returned, she said in her lightest tones, “Tertius, come in here, here is a letter for you.” He did not take off his hat, but turned her round within his arm to walk towards the spot where the letter lay. “My uncle Godwin!” he exclaimed, and as Rosamond watched him open it she saw his face, usually of a pale brown, take on a dry whiteness; with nostrils and lips quivering he tossed down the letter before her.
“DEAR TERTIUS,” it ran, “Don’t set your wife to write to me when you have anything to ask. It is a roundabout wheedling sort of thing which I should not have credited you with. As to my supplying you with a thousand pounds, or only half that sum, I can do nothing of the sort. My own family drains me to the last penny. 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. Your affectionate uncle, GODWIN LYDGATE.”
When Rosamond had finished reading the letter she sat quite still, with her hands folded before her, restraining any show of her keen disappointment, and intrenching herself in quiet passivity under her husband’s wrath. Lydgate 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 recognize now your incompetence to judge and act for me?”
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 she had never seen him. Lydgate, pausing and looking at her, 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 victimized air seems to put them in the wrong. “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? Will you only say that you have been mistaken, and that I may depend on your not acting secretly in future?”
Rosamond 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 think that you ought to apologize. You spoke of its being impossible to live with me. I think it was to be expected that I should try to avert some of the hardships which our marriage has brought on me.”
Lydgate flung himself into a chair, feeling checkmated. “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.” She spoke and wept with that gentleness which makes such words and tears omnipotent over a loving-hearted man. 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.
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