Middlemarch

“How can you always live in a street? And you will be so poor. I could give you half my things, only how can I, when I never see you?”

“Bless you, Kitty. Take comfort: perhaps James will forgive me some time.”

“But it would be much better if you would not be married. Nobody thinks Mr. Ladislaw a proper husband for you. And you said you would never be married again.”

“It is quite true that I might be a wiser person, Celia, and that I might have done something better, if I had been better. But this is what I am going to do. I have promised to marry Mr. Ladislaw; and I am going to marry him.”

The tone in which Dorothea says this is a note Celia has long learned to recognize. She is silent a few moments, then asks, “Is he very fond of you, Dodo?” “I hope so. I am very fond of him.” “That is nice,” says Celia, comfortably. “Only I would rather you had such a sort of husband as James is, with a place very near, that I could drive to.” Dorothea smiles, and Celia looks rather meditative. Presently she says, “I cannot think how it all came about.” Celia thinks it would be pleasant to hear the story.

“I dare say not,” says Dorothea, pinching her sister’s chin. “If you knew how it came about, it would not seem wonderful to you.”

“Can’t you tell me?” says Celia.

“No, dear, you would have to feel with me, else you would never know.”

CHAPTER LXXXV.

The chapter opens with Bunyan’s grim allegory of Mr. Blindman, Mr. No-good, Mr. Malice, and their fellow jurors condemning Faithful. Eliot asks who pities him, answering that the pitiable man knows he is condemned not for the Right but for failing to be the man he claimed to be. Bulstrode is thus consumed as he prepares to leave Middlemarch. Harriet’s constancy spares him one terror, yet her presence remains a tribunal he cannot face. He has rationalized his acts around Raffles’s death, praying to an Omniscience he half-believes in, but cannot bear Harriet calling those acts Murder. He shrinks from confession’s humiliation, imagining telling her only as he lies dying.

Harriet has sent her daughters to a coastal school, her hair whitening. When Bulstrode offers to leave her his land, she asks to make amends to her brother Walter’s family, since Lydgate’s practice is ruined. Bulstrode winces, then admits Lydgate has returned the thousand pounds, repaid through Mrs. Casaubon’s loan—a public mark of disgrace that wounds Harriet deeply. He proposes another path: Garth once drew up terms for managing Stone Court to set up Fred Vincy, and Harriet might reinstate that arrangement. He insists she negotiate directly with Garth, no longer his agent.

CHAPTER LXXXVI.

A Victor Hugo epigraph on old loves opens a gentler scene. Mrs. Garth calls Caleb in for tea; he seeks Mary, whom he finds swinging little Letty between two pear-trees. She comes smiling, and they walk among the nut-trees while Caleb says it will be a long while before she marries. Mary laughs, asks whether he is contented with Fred; he pretends to demur as she teases him with his recorded praise. She declares she has always loved Fred. Caleb announces Fred is to manage Stone Court for his aunt Bulstrode, who has begged him to do the lad good. Mary fears burdening her parents, but Caleb, his voice trembling, says work is his delight when it does not vex her mother.

Mary runs to meet Fred at the orchard-gate. They banter about his shabby coat-cuffs and his wedding-suit savings, and she teases him with the news till he flushes, grips her hand too hard, and asks seriously whether she loves him best. She answers in obedient recitation, and they linger on the doorstep recalling the umbrella-ring, until Ben comes bouncing up with Brownie yapping, demanding whether they will come in or whether he may eat their cake.

FINALE.

Marriage, Eliot reflects, is a beginning rather than an ending. Fred and Mary achieved solid happiness: he became a theoretic farmer who wrote on green crops and cattle-feeding, while Mary, who wrote Plutarch stories for their boys, had the credit given to her husband. They had three sons, and Fred stayed steady, occasionally misled by hopeful horses. Lydgate died at fifty of diphtheria, well insured, and Rosamond later married a wealthy physician. Dorothea and Will lived in fruitful union, his political work her wifely help, her spirit diffusing incalculable good. Mr. Brooke’s letter and Celia’s tears over Dorothea’s baby softened Sir James; a reconciliation was arranged, and Dorothea’s son ultimately inherited. Eliot closes with meditation: world’s growing good depends partly on unhistoric acts, and we are better than we might have been because of those who lived faithfully hidden lives.