Middlemarch

In an instant Will is close to her and has his arms round her, but she draws her head back and holds his away gently that she may go on speaking. Her large tear-filled eyes look at his very simply while she says in a sobbing childlike way, “We could live quite well on my own fortune—it is too much—seven hundred a-year—I want so little—no new clothes—and I will learn what everything costs.”

CHAPTER LXXXIV.

It is just after the Lords have thrown out the Reform Bill; this explains how Mr. Cadwallader comes to be walking on the slope of the lawn near the great conservatory at Freshitt Hall, holding the “Times” in his hands behind him while he talks with a trout-fisher’s dispassionateness about the prospects of the country to Sir James Chettam. The ladies also talk politics more fitfully. Mrs. Cadwallader is strong on the intended creation of peers; Lady Chettam thinks such conduct very reprehensible; Celia confesses it is nicer to be “Lady” than “Mrs.,” and that Dodo never minded about precedence if she could have her own way.

Mr. Brooke is evidently in a state of nervous perturbation. When he has something painful to tell, it is usually his way to introduce it among disjointed particulars. He continues his chat about poachers until they are all seated, and Mrs. Cadwallader says impatiently, “I’m dying to know the sad news.”

“Well, it’s a very trying thing, you know,” says Mr. Brooke. “I’m glad you and the Rector are here; it’s a family matter. I’ve got to break it to you, my dear.” He looks at Celia. “You’ve no notion what it is, you know. There’s something singular in things: they come round, you know.”

“It must be about Dodo,” says Celia, who has been used to think of her sister as the dangerous part of the family machinery.

“For God’s sake let us hear what it is!” says Sir James.

“Well, you know, Chettam, I couldn’t help Casaubon’s will: it was a sort of will to make things worse.”

“Exactly. But what is worse?”

“Dorothea is going to be married again, you know.”

“Merciful heaven!” says Mrs. Cadwallader. “Not to young Ladislaw?”

Mr. Brooke nods. Sir James is almost white with anger but does not speak.

“It would have been better if I had called him out and shot him a year ago,” says Sir James, needing something strong to say.

“Be reasonable, Chettam. Look at the affair more quietly,” says Mr. Cadwallader.

“That is not so very easy for a man of any dignity—with any sense of right—when the affair happens to be in his own family,” says Sir James. “If Ladislaw had had a spark of honor he would have gone out of the country at once. We are indebted to seeing a woman like Dorothea degrading herself by marrying him. A man so marked out by her husband’s will that delicacy ought to have forbidden her from seeing him again—who takes her out of her proper rank—into poverty—has the meanness to accept such a sacrifice—has always had an objectionable position—a bad origin—and, I believe, is a man of little principle and light character.”

“I pointed everything out to her,” says Mr. Brooke, apologetically. “But I advise you to talk to Dorothea herself.”

“No—excuse me—I shall not,” says Sir James, with more coolness. “I cannot bear to see her again; it is too painful.”

“Be just, Chettam,” says the easy, large-lipped Rector. “Mrs. Casaubon may be acting imprudently: she is giving up a fortune for the sake of a man, and we men have so poor an opinion of each other that we can hardly call a woman wise who does that. But I think you should not condemn it as a wrong action.”

“Yes, I do,” answers Sir James. “I think that Dorothea commits a wrong action in marrying Ladislaw.”

Mr. Brooke, good-humoredly nursing his leg, says he cannot turn his back on Dorothea. “I can cut off the entail, you know. It will cost money and be troublesome; but I can do it, you know.” He has touched a motive of which Sir James is ashamed—the prospect of the union of the two estates, Tipton and Freshitt, lying charmingly within a ring-fence, that flattered him for his son and heir.

Mr. Cadwallader says he should not make any fuss about it. If she likes to be poor, that is her affair. “Nobody would have said anything if she had married the young fellow because he was rich. Plenty of beneficed clergy are poorer than they will be. Here is Elinor; she vexed her friends by me: I had hardly a thousand a-year—I was a lout—nobody could see anything in me. I must take Ladislaw’s part until I hear more harm of him.”

“Humphrey, that is all sophistry,” says his wife. “Everything is all one—that is the beginning and end with you. As if you had not been a Cadwallader! Does any one suppose that I would have taken such a monster as you by any other name?”

“It must be admitted that his blood is a frightful mixture!” says Mrs. Cadwallader. “The Casaubon cuttle-fish fluid to begin with, and then a rebellious Polish fiddler or dancing-master—” “Nonsense, Elinor,” says the Rector, rising. “It is time for us to go.”

“After all, he is a pretty sprig,” says Mrs. Cadwallader, wishing to make amends. “He is like the fine old Crichley portraits before the idiots came in.”

When Sir James and Celia are alone, she says, “Do you mind about my having the carriage to go to Lowick, James?” She will go to influence Dorothea’s mind, feeling she can act on her sister by a word judiciously placed. Sir James consents, though he cannot see her himself.

At Lowick, Dorothea, busy in her boudoir, feels a glow of pleasure at the sight of her sister so soon after the revelation of her intended marriage. “O Kitty, I am delighted to see you!” she says, putting her hands on Celia’s shoulders. They sit down on two small chairs opposite each other, with their knees touching.

“You know, Dodo, it is very bad,” says Celia, as prettily free from humors as possible. “You have disappointed us all so. James would have taken any trouble for you, and you might have gone on all your life doing what you liked.”

“On the contrary, dear, I never could do anything that I liked. I have never carried out any plan yet.”

“But how can you marry Mr. Ladislaw, that we none of us ever thought you could marry? It shocks James so dreadfully. And you never can go and live in that way. And I shall never see you—and you won’t mind about little Arthur—”

“Dear Celia, if you don’t ever see me, it will not be my fault.”

“Yes, it will,” says Celia. “How can I come to you when James can’t bear it?—that is because he thinks it is not right—he thinks you are so wrong, Dodo. But you always were wrong: only I can’t help loving you.”

“I am going to London,” says Dorothea.