Middlemarch

Lydgate arrived within the hour. Bulstrode met him and said he had called him in to an unfortunate man who was once in his employment, afterwards went to America, and returned to an idle dissolute life. Lydgate, who had the remembrance of his last conversation with Bulstrode strongly upon him, was not disposed to say an unnecessary word. When he had examined Raffles he ordered him to bed and kept him in complete quiet. He told Bulstrode the case was serious but not hopeless; he should not expect the attack to be fatal, though the system was in a ticklish state. He prescribed treatment and especially warned against giving alcohol. Bulstrode said he would remain at Stone Court himself, alleging his own indisposition to sleep and anxiety to carry out the doctor’s orders. Lydgate did not feel surprised at a little peculiarity in Bulstrode. He rode away forming no conjectures about Raffles but rehearsing the whole argument about the right way of treating cases of alcoholic poisoning such as this. He had repeatedly acted on his conviction against the prevalent practice with favorable results. A streak of bitterness came from a plenteous source as he neared Lowick Gate, for he was returning home without the vision of any expedient which left him a hope of raising money. He got down from his horse in a very sad mood. On entering he found that Dover’s agent had already put a man in the house, and Rosamond was in her bedroom. He sat down by the bed and leaning over her said with almost a cry of prayer, “Forgive me for this misery, my poor Rosamond! Let us only love one another.” She looked at him silently, but then the tears began to fill her blue eyes and her lip trembled. The strong man had had too much to bear that day. He let his head fall beside hers and sobbed. He did not hinder her from going to her father early in the morning. In half an hour she came back and said that papa wished her to go and stay with them while things were in this miserable state. Papa said he could do nothing about the debt. Lydgate said do as you liked. There was no hurry.

CHAPTER LXX.

The chapter opens with the line that our deeds still travel with us from afar, and what we have been makes us what we are. Bulstrode’s first object after Lydgate left Stone Court was to examine Raffles’s pockets, where various bills were crammed into his pocketbook, but none of a later date than Christmas at any other place except one bearing date that morning from an inn at Bilkley. The bill was heavy, and since Raffles had no luggage, it seemed probable he had left his portmanteau behind in payment. Bulstrode gathered a sense of safety from these indications that Raffles had really kept at a distance from Middlemarch. He sat up alone with him through the night, only ordering the housekeeper to lie down in her clothes. He carried out Lydgate’s orders faithfully, although Raffles was incessantly asking for brandy and declaring he was sinking away. On the offer of food ordered by Lydgate, which he refused, Raffles seemed to concentrate all his terror on Bulstrode, imploringly deprecating his anger, his revenge by starvation, and declaring with strong oaths he had never told any mortal a word against him. Even this Bulstrode felt he would not have liked Lydgate to hear; but a more alarming sign of fitful alternation was that in the morning twilight Raffles suddenly seemed to imagine a doctor present, declaring Bulstrode wanted to starve him to death out of revenge for telling, when he never had told. Bulstrode’s native imperiousness served him well. Through that difficult night and morning, while he had the air of an animated corpse returned to movement without warmth, holding the mastery by its chill impassibility, his mind was intensely at work. Whatever prayers he might lift up, through all this effort there pierced and spread with irresistible vividness the images of the events he desired. He could not but see the death of Raffles and see in it his own deliverance. What was the removal of this wretched creature? He was impenitent, but were not public criminals impenitent? Yet the law decided on their fate. Should Providence award death, there was no sin in contemplating death as the desirable issue, if he kept his hands from hastening it, if he scrupulously did what was prescribed. Even here there might be a mistake; human prescriptions were fallible; Lydgate had said that treatment had hastened death—why not his own method? But of course intention was everything. Bulstrode set himself to keep his intention separate from his desire.

His anxieties continually glanced towards Lydgate. He had probably made Lydgate his enemy, and he desired to propitiate him, to create in him a strong sense of personal obligation. He regretted that he had not at once made even an unreasonable money-sacrifice. Strange, piteous conflict in the soul of this unhappy man, who had longed for years to be better than he was, who had taken his selfish passions into discipline and clad them in severe robes, so that he had walked with them as a devout choir, till now that a terror had risen among them and they could chant no longer.

It was nearly the middle of the day before Lydgate arrived. Raffles was worse, would take hardly any food, was persistently wakeful and restlessly raving, but still not violent. Contrary to Bulstrode’s alarmed expectation, he took little notice of Lydgate’s presence and continued to murmur incoherently. The chief new instruction Lydgate had to give was on the administration of extremely moderate doses of opium. He brought opium in his pocket and gave minute directions. He insisted on the risk of not ceasing, and repeated his order that no alcohol should be given. Bulstrode, showing a solicitude unlike his indifference the day before, asked if Lydgate were harassed. Lydgate said brusquely that the execution had been actually put into his house. One can tell a good deal of trouble in a short sentence. Bulstrode, saying he had been reconsidering the subject, that he esteemed it right that he should incur a small sacrifice, wrote a check for a thousand pounds. Lydgate felt a great leap of joy within him surmounting every other feeling; that would pay all his debts. He put his hack into a canter to get home and tell Rosamond the good news. But there crossed his mind, with an unpleasant impression as from a dark-winged flight of evil augury, the thought of that contrast in himself—that he should be overjoyed at being under a strong personal obligation, that he should be overjoyed at getting money for himself from Bulstrode.