Bab Bab 86 · Chapter LXXXVI

“Le cœur se sature d’amour comme d’un sel divin qui le conserve; de là

l’incorruptible adhérence de ceux qui se sont aimés dès l’aube de la

vie, et la fraîcheur des vielles amours prolongées. Il existe un

embaumement d’amour. C’est de Daphnis et Chloé que sont faits Philémon

et Baucis. Cette vieillesse-là, ressemblance du soir avec

l’aurore.”—VICTOR HUGO: _L’homme qui rit_.

Mrs. Garth, hearing Caleb enter the passage about tea-time, opened the

parlor-door and said, “There you are, Caleb. Have you had your dinner?”

(Mr. Garth’s meals were much subordinated to “business.”)

“Oh yes, a good dinner—cold mutton and I don’t know what. Where is

Mary?”

“In the garden with Letty, I think.”

“Fred is not come yet?”

“No. Are you going out again without taking tea, Caleb?” said Mrs.

Garth, seeing that her absent-minded husband was putting on again the

hat which he had just taken off.

“No, no; I’m only going to Mary a minute.”

Mary was in a grassy corner of the garden, where there was a swing

loftily hung between two pear-trees. She had a pink kerchief tied over

her head, making a little poke to shade her eyes from the level

sunbeams, while she was giving a glorious swing to Letty, who laughed

and screamed wildly.

Seeing her father, Mary left the swing and went to meet him, pushing

back the pink kerchief and smiling afar off at him with the involuntary

smile of loving pleasure.

“I came to look for you, Mary,” said Mr. Garth. “Let us walk about a

bit.”

Mary knew quite well that her father had something particular to say:

his eyebrows made their pathetic angle, and there was a tender gravity

in his voice: these things had been signs to her when she was Letty’s

age. She put her arm within his, and they turned by the row of

nut-trees.

“It will be a sad while before you can be married, Mary,” said her

father, not looking at her, but at the end of the stick which he held

in his other hand.

“Not a sad while, father—I mean to be merry,” said Mary, laughingly. “I

have been single and merry for four-and-twenty years and more: I

suppose it will not be quite as long again as that.” Then, after a

little pause, she said, more gravely, bending her face before her

father’s, “If you are contented with Fred?”

Caleb screwed up his mouth and turned his head aside wisely.

“Now, father, you did praise him last Wednesday. You said he had an

uncommon notion of stock, and a good eye for things.”

“Did I?” said Caleb, rather slyly.

“Yes, I put it all down, and the date, _anno Domini_, and everything,”

said Mary. “You like things to be neatly booked. And then his behavior

to you, father, is really good; he has a deep respect for you; and it

is impossible to have a better temper than Fred has.”

“Ay, ay; you want to coax me into thinking him a fine match.”

“No, indeed, father. I don’t love him because he is a fine match.”

“What for, then?”

“Oh, dear, because I have always loved him. I should never like

scolding any one else so well; and that is a point to be thought of in

a husband.”

“Your mind is quite settled, then, Mary?” said Caleb, returning to his

first tone. “There’s no other wish come into it since things have been

going on as they have been of late?” (Caleb meant a great deal in that

vague phrase;) “because, better late than never. A woman must not force

her heart—she’ll do a man no good by that.”

“My feelings have not changed, father,” said Mary, calmly. “I shall be

constant to Fred as long as he is constant to me. I don’t think either

of us could spare the other, or like any one else better, however much

we might admire them. It would make too great a difference to us—like

seeing all the old places altered, and changing the name for

everything. We must wait for each other a long while; but Fred knows

that.”

Instead of speaking immediately, Caleb stood still and screwed his

stick on the grassy walk. Then he said, with emotion in his voice,

“Well, I’ve got a bit of news. What do you think of Fred going to live

at Stone Court, and managing the land there?”

“How can that ever be, father?” said Mary, wonderingly.

“He would manage it for his aunt Bulstrode. The poor woman has been to

me begging and praying. She wants to do the lad good, and it might be a

fine thing for him. With saving, he might gradually buy the stock, and

he has a turn for farming.”

“Oh, Fred would be so happy! It is too good to believe.”

“Ah, but mind you,” said Caleb, turning his head warningly, “I must

take it on _my_ shoulders, and be responsible, and see after

everything; and that will grieve your mother a bit, though she mayn’t

say so. Fred had need be careful.”

“Perhaps it is too much, father,” said Mary, checked in her joy. “There

would be no happiness in bringing you any fresh trouble.”

“Nay, nay; work is my delight, child, when it doesn’t vex your mother.

And then, if you and Fred get married,” here Caleb’s voice shook just

perceptibly, “he’ll be steady and saving; and you’ve got your mother’s

cleverness, and mine too, in a woman’s sort of way; and you’ll keep him

in order. He’ll be coming by-and-by, so I wanted to tell you first,

because I think you’d like to tell _him_ by yourself. After that, I

could talk it well over with him, and we could go into business and the

nature of things.”

“Oh, you dear good father!” cried Mary, putting her hands round her

father’s neck, while he bent his head placidly, willing to be caressed.

“I wonder if any other girl thinks her father the best man in the

world!”

“Nonsense, child; you’ll think your husband better.”

“Impossible,” said Mary, relapsing into her usual tone; “husbands are

an inferior class of men, who require keeping in order.”

When they were entering the house with Letty, who had run to join them,

Mary saw Fred at the orchard-gate, and went to meet him.

“What fine clothes you wear, you extravagant youth!” said Mary, as Fred

stood still and raised his hat to her with playful formality. “You are

not learning economy.”

“Now that is too bad, Mary,” said Fred. “Just look at the edges of

these coat-cuffs! It is only by dint of good brushing that I look

respectable. I am saving up three suits—one for a wedding-suit.”

“How very droll you will look!—like a gentleman in an old

fashion-book.”

“Oh no, they will keep two years.”

“Two years! be reasonable, Fred,” said Mary, turning to walk. “Don’t

encourage flattering expectations.”

“Why not? One lives on them better than on unflattering ones. If we

can’t be married in two years, the truth will be quite bad enough when

it comes.”

“I have heard a story of a young gentleman who once encouraged

flattering expectations, and they did him harm.”

“Mary, if you’ve got something discouraging to tell me, I shall bolt; I

shall go into the house to Mr. Garth. I am out of spirits. My father is

so cut up—home is not like itself. I can’t bear any more bad news.”

“Should you call it bad news to be told that you were to live at Stone

Court, and manage the farm, and be remarkably prudent, and save money

every year till all the stock and furniture were your own, and you were

a distinguished agricultural character, as Mr. Borthrop Trumbull

says—rather stout, I fear, and with the Greek and Latin sadly

weather-worn?”

“You don’t mean anything except nonsense, Mary?” said Fred, coloring

slightly nevertheless.

“That is what my father has just told me of as what may happen, and he

never talks nonsense,” said Mary, looking up at Fred now, while he

grasped her hand as they walked, till it rather hurt her; but she would

not complain.

“Oh, I could be a tremendously good fellow then, Mary, and we could be

married directly.”

“Not so fast, sir; how do you know that I would not rather defer our

marriage for some years? That would leave you time to misbehave, and

then if I liked some one else better, I should have an excuse for

jilting you.”

“Pray don’t joke, Mary,” said Fred, with strong feeling. “Tell me

seriously that all this is true, and that you are happy because of

it—because you love me best.”

“It is all true, Fred, and I am happy because of it—because I love you

best,” said Mary, in a tone of obedient recitation.

They lingered on the door-step under the steep-roofed porch, and Fred

almost in a whisper said—

“When we were first engaged, with the umbrella-ring, Mary, you used

to—”

The spirit of joy began to laugh more decidedly in Mary’s eyes, but the

fatal Ben came running to the door with Brownie yapping behind him,

and, bouncing against them, said—

“Fred and Mary! are you ever coming in?—or may I eat your cake?”

FINALE.

Every limit is a beginning as well as an ending. Who can quit young

lives after being long in company with them, and not desire to know

what befell them in their after-years? For the fragment of a life,

however typical, is not the sample of an even web: promises may not be

kept, and an ardent outset may be followed by declension; latent powers

may find their long-waited opportunity; a past error may urge a grand

retrieval.

Marriage, which has been the bourne of so many narratives, is still a

great beginning, as it was to Adam and Eve, who kept their honeymoon in

Eden, but had their first little one among the thorns and thistles of

the wilderness. It is still the beginning of the home epic—the gradual

conquest or irremediable loss of that complete union which makes the

advancing years a climax, and age the harvest of sweet memories in

common.

Some set out, like Crusaders of old, with a glorious equipment of hope

and enthusiasm and get broken by the way, wanting patience with each

other and the world.

All who have cared for Fred Vincy and Mary Garth will like to know that

these two made no such failure, but achieved a solid mutual happiness.

Fred surprised his neighbors in various ways. He became rather

distinguished in his side of the county as a theoretic and practical

farmer, and produced a work on the “Cultivation of Green Crops and the

Economy of Cattle-Feeding” which won him high congratulations at

agricultural meetings. In Middlemarch admiration was more reserved:

most persons there were inclined to believe that the merit of Fred’s

authorship was due to his wife, since they had never expected Fred

Vincy to write on turnips and mangel-wurzel.

But when Mary wrote a little book for her boys, called “Stories of

Great Men, taken from Plutarch,” and had it printed and published by

Gripp & Co., Middlemarch, every one in the town was willing to give the

credit of this work to Fred, observing that he had been to the

University, “where the ancients were studied,” and might have been a

clergyman if he had chosen.

In this way it was made clear that Middlemarch had never been deceived,

and that there was no need to praise anybody for writing a book, since

it was always done by somebody else.

Moreover, Fred remained unswervingly steady. Some years after his

marriage he told Mary that his happiness was half owing to Farebrother,

who gave him a strong pull-up at the right moment. I cannot say that he

was never again misled by his hopefulness: the yield of crops or the

profits of a cattle sale usually fell below his estimate; and he was

always prone to believe that he could make money by the purchase of a

horse which turned out badly—though this, Mary observed, was of course

the fault of the horse, not of Fred’s judgment. He kept his love of

horsemanship, but he rarely allowed himself a day’s hunting; and when

he did so, it was remarkable that he submitted to be laughed at for

cowardliness at the fences, seeming to see Mary and the boys sitting on

the five-barred gate, or showing their curly heads between hedge and

ditch.

There were three boys: Mary was not discontented that she brought forth

men-children only; and when Fred wished to have a girl like her, she

said, laughingly, “that would be too great a trial to your mother.”

Mrs. Vincy in her declining years, and in the diminished lustre of her

housekeeping, was much comforted by her perception that two at least of

Fred’s boys were real Vincys, and did not “feature the Garths.” But

Mary secretly rejoiced that the youngest of the three was very much

what her father must have been when he wore a round jacket, and showed

a marvellous nicety of aim in playing at marbles, or in throwing stones

to bring down the mellow pears.

Ben and Letty Garth, who were uncle and aunt before they were well in

their teens, disputed much as to whether nephews or nieces were more

desirable; Ben contending that it was clear girls were good for less

than boys, else they would not be always in petticoats, which showed

how little they were meant for; whereupon Letty, who argued much from

books, got angry in replying that God made coats of skins for both Adam

and Eve alike—also it occurred to her that in the East the men too wore

petticoats. But this latter argument, obscuring the majesty of the

former, was one too many, for Ben answered contemptuously, “The more

spooneys they!” and immediately appealed to his mother whether boys

were not better than girls. Mrs. Garth pronounced that both were alike

naughty, but that boys were undoubtedly stronger, could run faster, and

throw with more precision to a greater distance. With this oracular

sentence Ben was well satisfied, not minding the naughtiness; but Letty

took it ill, her feeling of superiority being stronger than her

muscles.

Fred never became rich—his hopefulness had not led him to expect that;

but he gradually saved enough to become owner of the stock and

furniture at Stone Court, and the work which Mr. Garth put into his

hands carried him in plenty through those “bad times” which are always

present with farmers. Mary, in her matronly days, became as solid in

figure as her mother; but, unlike her, gave the boys little formal

teaching, so that Mrs. Garth was alarmed lest they should never be well

grounded in grammar and geography. Nevertheless, they were found quite

forward enough when they went to school; perhaps, because they had

liked nothing so well as being with their mother. When Fred was riding

home on winter evenings he had a pleasant vision beforehand of the

bright hearth in the wainscoted parlor, and was sorry for other men who

could not have Mary for their wife; especially for Mr. Farebrother. “He

was ten times worthier of you than I was,” Fred could now say to her,

magnanimously. “To be sure he was,” Mary answered; “and for that reason

he could do better without me. But you—I shudder to think what you

would have been—a curate in debt for horse-hire and cambric

pocket-handkerchiefs!”

On inquiry it might possibly be found that Fred and Mary still inhabit

Stone Court—that the creeping plants still cast the foam of their

blossoms over the fine stone-wall into the field where the walnut-trees

stand in stately row—and that on sunny days the two lovers who were

first engaged with the umbrella-ring may be seen in white-haired

placidity at the open window from which Mary Garth, in the days of old

Peter Featherstone, had often been ordered to look out for Mr. Lydgate.

Lydgate’s hair never became white. He died when he was only fifty,

leaving his wife and children provided for by a heavy insurance on his

life. He had gained an excellent practice, alternating, according to

the season, between London and a Continental bathing-place; having

written a treatise on Gout, a disease which has a good deal of wealth

on its side. His skill was relied on by many paying patients, but he

always regarded himself as a failure: he had not done what he once

meant to do. His acquaintances thought him enviable to have so charming

a wife, and nothing happened to shake their opinion. Rosamond never

committed a second compromising indiscretion. She simply continued to

be mild in her temper, inflexible in her judgment, disposed to admonish

her husband, and able to frustrate him by stratagem. As the years went

on he opposed her less and less, whence Rosamond concluded that he had

learned the value of her opinion; on the other hand, she had a more

thorough conviction of his talents now that he gained a good income,

and instead of the threatened cage in Bride Street provided one all

flowers and gilding, fit for the bird of paradise that she resembled.

In brief, Lydgate was what is called a successful man. But he died

prematurely of diphtheria, and Rosamond afterwards married an elderly

and wealthy physician, who took kindly to her four children. She made a

very pretty show with her daughters, driving out in her carriage, and

often spoke of her happiness as “a reward”—she did not say for what,

but probably she meant that it was a reward for her patience with

Tertius, whose temper never became faultless, and to the last

occasionally let slip a bitter speech which was more memorable than the

signs he made of his repentance. He once called her his basil plant;

and when she asked for an explanation, said that basil was a plant

which had flourished wonderfully on a murdered man’s brains. Rosamond

had a placid but strong answer to such speeches. Why then had he chosen

her? It was a pity he had not had Mrs. Ladislaw, whom he was always

praising and placing above her. And thus the conversation ended with

the advantage on Rosamond’s side. But it would be unjust not to tell,

that she never uttered a word in depreciation of Dorothea, keeping in

religious remembrance the generosity which had come to her aid in the

sharpest crisis of her life.

Dorothea herself had no dreams of being praised above other women,

feeling that there was always something better which she might have

done, if she had only been better and known better. Still, she never

repented that she had given up position and fortune to marry Will

Ladislaw, and he would have held it the greatest shame as well as

sorrow to him if she had repented. They were bound to each other by a

love stronger than any impulses which could have marred it. No life

would have been possible to Dorothea which was not filled with emotion,

and she had now a life filled also with a beneficent activity which she

had not the doubtful pains of discovering and marking out for herself.

Will became an ardent public man, working well in those times when

reforms were begun with a young hopefulness of immediate good which has

been much checked in our days, and getting at last returned to

Parliament by a constituency who paid his expenses. Dorothea could have

liked nothing better, since wrongs existed, than that her husband

should be in the thick of a struggle against them, and that she should

give him wifely help. Many who knew her, thought it a pity that so

substantive and rare a creature should have been absorbed into the life

of another, and be only known in a certain circle as a wife and mother.

But no one stated exactly what else that was in her power she ought

rather to have done—not even Sir James Chettam, who went no further

than the negative prescription that she ought not to have married Will

Ladislaw.

But this opinion of his did not cause a lasting alienation; and the way

in which the family was made whole again was characteristic of all

concerned. Mr. Brooke could not resist the pleasure of corresponding

with Will and Dorothea; and one morning when his pen had been

remarkably fluent on the prospects of Municipal Reform, it ran off into

an invitation to the Grange, which, once written, could not be done

away with at less cost than the sacrifice (hardly to be conceived) of

the whole valuable letter. During the months of this correspondence Mr.

Brooke had continually, in his talk with Sir James Chettam, been

presupposing or hinting that the intention of cutting off the entail

was still maintained; and the day on which his pen gave the daring

invitation, he went to Freshitt expressly to intimate that he had a

stronger sense than ever of the reasons for taking that energetic step

as a precaution against any mixture of low blood in the heir of the

Brookes.

But that morning something exciting had happened at the Hall. A letter

had come to Celia which made her cry silently as she read it; and when

Sir James, unused to see her in tears, asked anxiously what was the

matter, she burst out in a wail such as he had never heard from her

before.

“Dorothea has a little boy. And you will not let me go and see her. And

I am sure she wants to see me. And she will not know what to do with

the baby—she will do wrong things with it. And they thought she would

die. It is very dreadful! Suppose it had been me and little Arthur, and

Dodo had been hindered from coming to see me! I wish you would be less

unkind, James!”

“Good heavens, Celia!” said Sir James, much wrought upon, “what do you

wish? I will do anything you like. I will take you to town to-morrow if

you wish it.” And Celia did wish it.

It was after this that Mr. Brooke came, and meeting the Baronet in the

grounds, began to chat with him in ignorance of the news, which Sir

James for some reason did not care to tell him immediately. But when

the entail was touched on in the usual way, he said, “My dear sir, it

is not for me to dictate to you, but for my part I would let that

alone. I would let things remain as they are.”

Mr. Brooke felt so much surprised that he did not at once find out how

much he was relieved by the sense that he was not expected to do

anything in particular.

Such being the bent of Celia’s heart, it was inevitable that Sir James

should consent to a reconciliation with Dorothea and her husband. Where

women love each other, men learn to smother their mutual dislike. Sir

James never liked Ladislaw, and Will always preferred to have Sir

James’s company mixed with another kind: they were on a footing of

reciprocal tolerance which was made quite easy only when Dorothea and

Celia were present.

It became an understood thing that Mr. and Mrs. Ladislaw should pay at

least two visits during the year to the Grange, and there came

gradually a small row of cousins at Freshitt who enjoyed playing with

the two cousins visiting Tipton as much as if the blood of these

cousins had been less dubiously mixed.

Mr. Brooke lived to a good old age, and his estate was inherited by

Dorothea’s son, who might have represented Middlemarch, but declined,

thinking that his opinions had less chance of being stifled if he

remained out of doors.

Sir James never ceased to regard Dorothea’s second marriage as a

mistake; and indeed this remained the tradition concerning it in

Middlemarch, where she was spoken of to a younger generation as a fine

girl who married a sickly clergyman, old enough to be her father, and

in little more than a year after his death gave up her estate to marry

his cousin—young enough to have been his son, with no property, and not

well-born. Those who had not seen anything of Dorothea usually observed

that she could not have been “a nice woman,” else she would not have

married either the one or the other.

Certainly those determining acts of her life were not ideally

beautiful. They were the mixed result of young and noble impulse

struggling amidst the conditions of an imperfect social state, in which

great feelings will often take the aspect of error, and great faith the

aspect of illusion. For there is no creature whose inward being is so

strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies outside it. A new

Theresa will hardly have the opportunity of reforming a conventual

life, any more than a new Antigone will spend her heroic piety in

daring all for the sake of a brother’s burial: the medium in which

their ardent deeds took shape is forever gone. But we insignificant

people with our daily words and acts are preparing the lives of many

Dorotheas, some of which may present a far sadder sacrifice than that

of the Dorothea whose story we know.

Her finely touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were

not widely visible. Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus

broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on

the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was

incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly

dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you

and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived

faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

THE END