Middlemarch

CHAPTER LXVI.

Lydgate certainly had good reason to reflect on the service his practice did him in counteracting his personal cares. By the bedside of patients, the direct external calls on his judgment brought the added impulse needed to draw him out of himself. Some of that twice-blessed mercy was always with Lydgate in his work, serving better than any opiate to quiet and sustain him.

Mr. Farebrother’s suspicion as to the opiate was true, however. Under the first galling pressure of foreseen difficulties, he had once or twice tried a dose of opium. But he had no hereditary constitutional craving after such transient escapes. Just as he had tried opium, so his thought now began to turn upon gambling, not with appetite for its excitement, but with a sort of wistful inward gaze after that easy way of getting money which implied no asking and brought no responsibility. If he had been in London or Paris at that time, it is probable that such thoughts, seconded by opportunity, would have taken him into a gambling-house.

One evening, having occasion to seek Mr. Bambridge at the Green Dragon, Lydgate stayed, playing a game for the sake of passing the time. That evening he had the peculiar light in the eyes and unusual vivacity which had been once noticed by Mr. Farebrother. The bets were dropping round him, and with a swift glancing thought of the probable gain, he began to bet on his own play, and won again and again. He was still winning when two new visitors entered. One was young Hawley, just come from his law studies, and the other was Fred Vincy, who had been working heartily for six months under Mr. Garth, but had of late turned into the Green Dragon five or six times. Fred felt a shock at seeing his brother-in-law betting with an excited air, and stood aside, out of the circle round the table.

Lydgate, by betting on his own strokes, had won sixteen pounds, but young Hawley’s arrival changed the poise of things. Hawley made first-rate strokes and began to bet against Lydgate’s strokes, and Lydgate began often to fail. Still he went on, for his mind was as utterly narrowed into that precipitous crevice of play as if he had been the most ignorant lounger there. Fred observed that Lydgate was losing fast, and puzzled his brains to think of some device by which he could withdraw Lydgate’s attention. He could think of nothing cleverer than saying that he wanted to see Rosy, when a waiter came up with a message that Mr. Farebrother was below and begged to speak with him.

Fred went with a new impulse up to Lydgate and drew him aside, saying that Farebrother was below. The announcement had the effect of a sharp concussion on Lydgate. “I must be going,” he said, “I came in just to see Bambridge.” They went down, and when all three had turned into the street, the Vicar seemed quite willing to say good-by to Lydgate. His present purpose was clearly to talk with Fred alone.

It was a fine night, the sky thick with stars, and Mr. Farebrother proposed that they should make a circuit to the old church by the London road. He asked if Lydgate never went to the Green Dragon. Fred answered, and confessed that he himself had been going often. “I think you had some good reason for giving up the habit of going there?” “You know all about it,” said Fred. “I made a clean breast to you.” Farebrother said, “I am going to confess to you, Fred, that I have been tempted to reverse all that by keeping silence with you just now. When somebody said to me, ‘Young Vincy has taken to being at the billiard-table every night again,’ I was tempted to look on and see you take the wrong turning, wear out Garth’s patience, and lose the best opportunity of your life, the opportunity which you made some rather difficult effort to secure. You can guess the feeling which raised that temptation in me. I am sure you know that the satisfaction of your affections stands in the way of mine.”

There was a pause. “I could not be expected to give her up,” said Fred, after a moment’s hesitation. “Clearly not, when her affection met yours. But relations of this sort are always liable to change. I can easily conceive that you might act in a way to loosen the tie she feels towards you, and that in that case another man might succeed in winning that firm place in her love as well as respect which you had let slip.” It seemed to Fred that if Mr. Farebrother had had a beak and talons instead of his very capable tongue, his mode of attack could hardly be more cruel.

There was a pause, in which Fred was seized by a most uncomfortable chill. When the Vicar began again there was a change in his tone like the encouraging transition to a major key. “I want you to make the happiness of her life and your own, and if there is any chance that a word of warning from me may turn aside any risk to the contrary, well, I have uttered it.” Fred was moved quite newly. “I will try to be worthy,” he said, breaking off before he could say, “of you as well as of her.” They parted, and both of them walked about a long while before they went out of the starlight.