บทที่ บทที่ 66 · Chapter LXVI

’Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,

Another thing to fall.

—_Measure for Measure_.

Lydgate certainly had good reason to reflect on the service his

practice did him in counteracting his personal cares. He had no longer

free energy enough for spontaneous research and speculative thinking,

but by the bedside of patients, the direct external calls on his

judgment and sympathies brought the added impulse needed to draw him

out of himself. It was not simply that beneficent harness of routine

which enables silly men to live respectably and unhappy men to live

calmly—it was a perpetual claim on the immediate fresh application of

thought, and on the consideration of another’s need and trial. Many of

us looking back through life would say that the kindest man we have

ever known has been a medical man, or perhaps that surgeon whose fine

tact, directed by deeply informed perception, has come to us in our

need with a more sublime beneficence than that of miracle-workers. Some

of that twice-blessed mercy was always with Lydgate in his work at the

Hospital or in private houses, serving better than any opiate to quiet

and sustain him under his anxieties and his sense of mental degeneracy.

Mr. Farebrother’s suspicion as to the opiate was true, however. Under

the first galling pressure of foreseen difficulties, and the first

perception that his marriage, if it were not to be a yoked loneliness,

must be a state of effort to go on loving without too much care about

being loved, he had once or twice tried a dose of opium. But he had no

hereditary constitutional craving after such transient escapes from the

hauntings of misery. He was strong, could drink a great deal of wine,

but did not care about it; and when the men round him were drinking

spirits, he took sugar and water, having a contemptuous pity even for

the earliest stages of excitement from drink. It was the same with

gambling. He had looked on at a great deal of gambling in Paris,

watching it as if it had been a disease. He was no more tempted by such

winning than he was by drink. He had said to himself that the only

winning he cared for must be attained by a conscious process of high,

difficult combination tending towards a beneficent result. The power he

longed for could not be represented by agitated fingers clutching a

heap of coin, or by the half-barbarous, half-idiotic triumph in the

eyes of a man who sweeps within his arms the ventures of twenty

chapfallen companions.

But 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, no longer to

watch the gamblers, but to watch with them in kindred eagerness.

Repugnance would have been surmounted by the immense need to win, if

chance would be kind enough to let him. An incident which happened not

very long after that airy notion of getting aid from his uncle had been

excluded, was a strong sign of the effect that might have followed any

extant opportunity of gambling.

The billiard-room at the Green Dragon was the constant resort of a

certain set, most of whom, like our acquaintance Mr. Bambridge, were

regarded as men of pleasure. It was here that poor Fred Vincy had made

part of his memorable debt, having lost money in betting, and been

obliged to borrow of that gay companion. It was generally known in

Middlemarch that a good deal of money was lost and won in this way; and

the consequent repute of the Green Dragon as a place of dissipation

naturally heightened in some quarters the temptation to go there.

Probably its regular visitants, like the initiates of freemasonry,

wished that there were something a little more tremendous to keep to

themselves concerning it; but they were not a closed community, and

many decent seniors as well as juniors occasionally turned into the

billiard-room to see what was going on. Lydgate, who had the muscular

aptitude for billiards, and was fond of the game, had once or twice in

the early days after his arrival in Middlemarch taken his turn with the

cue at the Green Dragon; but afterwards he had no leisure for the game,

and no inclination for the socialities there. One evening, however, he

had occasion to seek Mr. Bambridge at that resort. The horsedealer had

engaged to get him a customer for his remaining good horse, for which

Lydgate had determined to substitute a cheap hack, hoping by this

reduction of style to get perhaps twenty pounds; and he cared now for

every small sum, as a help towards feeding the patience of his

tradesmen. To run up to the billiard-room, as he was passing, would

save time.

Mr. Bambridge was not yet come, but would be sure to arrive by-and-by,

said his friend Mr. Horrock; and Lydgate stayed, playing a game for the

sake of passing the time. That evening he had the peculiar light in the

eyes and the unusual vivacity which had been once noticed in him by Mr.

Farebrother. The exceptional fact of his presence was much noticed in

the room, where there was a good deal of Middlemarch company; and

several lookers-on, as well as some of the players, were betting with

animation. Lydgate was playing well, and felt confident; the bets were

dropping round him, and with a swift glancing thought of the probable

gain which might double the sum he was saving from his horse, he began

to bet on his own play, and won again and again. Mr. Bambridge had come

in, but Lydgate did not notice him. He was not only excited with his

play, but visions were gleaming on him of going the next day to

Brassing, where there was gambling on a grander scale to be had, and

where, by one powerful snatch at the devil’s bait, he might carry it

off without the hook, and buy his rescue from his daily solicitings.

He was still winning when two new visitors entered. One of them was a

young Hawley, just come from his law studies in town, and the other was

Fred Vincy, who had spent several evenings of late at this old haunt of

his. Young Hawley, an accomplished billiard-player, brought a cool

fresh hand to the cue. But Fred Vincy, startled at seeing Lydgate, and

astonished to see him betting with an excited air, stood aside, and

kept out of the circle round the table.

Fred had been rewarding resolution by a little laxity of late. He had

been working heartily for six months at all outdoor occupations under

Mr. Garth, and by dint of severe practice had nearly mastered the

defects of his handwriting, this practice being, perhaps, a little the

less severe that it was often carried on in the evening at Mr. Garth’s

under the eyes of Mary. But the last fortnight Mary had been staying at

Lowick Parsonage with the ladies there, during Mr. Farebrother’s

residence in Middlemarch, where he was carrying out some parochial

plans; and Fred, not seeing anything more agreeable to do, had turned

into the Green Dragon, partly to play at billiards, partly to taste the

old flavor of discourse about horses, sport, and things in general,

considered from a point of view which was not strenuously correct. He

had not been out hunting once this season, had had no horse of his own

to ride, and had gone from place to place chiefly with Mr. Garth in his

gig, or on the sober cob which Mr. Garth could lend him. It was a

little too bad, Fred began to think, that he should be kept in the

traces with more severity than if he had been a clergyman. “I will tell

you what, Mistress Mary—it will be rather harder work to learn

surveying and drawing plans than it would have been to write sermons,”

he had said, wishing her to appreciate what he went through for her

sake; “and as to Hercules and Theseus, they were nothing to me. They

had sport, and never learned to write a bookkeeping hand.” And now,

Mary being out of the way for a little while, Fred, like any other

strong dog who cannot slip his collar, had pulled up the staple of his

chain and made a small escape, not of course meaning to go fast or far.

There could be no reason why he should not play at billiards, but he

was determined not to bet. As to money just now, Fred had in his mind

the heroic project of saving almost all of the eighty pounds that Mr.

Garth offered him, and returning it, which he could easily do by giving

up all futile money-spending, since he had a superfluous stock of

clothes, and no expense in his board. In that way he could, in one

year, go a good way towards repaying the ninety pounds of which he had

deprived Mrs. Garth, unhappily at a time when she needed that sum more

than she did now. Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that on this

evening, which was the fifth of his recent visits to the billiard-room,

Fred had, not in his pocket, but in his mind, the ten pounds which he

meant to reserve for himself from his half-year’s salary (having before

him the pleasure of carrying thirty to Mrs. Garth when Mary was likely

to be come home again)—he had those ten pounds in his mind as a fund

from which he might risk something, if there were a chance of a good

bet. Why? Well, when sovereigns were flying about, why shouldn’t he

catch a few? He would never go far along that road again; but a man

likes to assure himself, and men of pleasure generally, what he could

do in the way of mischief if he chose, and that if he abstains from

making himself ill, or beggaring himself, or talking with the utmost

looseness which the narrow limits of human capacity will allow, it is

not because he is a spooney. Fred did not enter into formal reasons,

which are a very artificial, inexact way of representing the tingling

returns of old habit, and the caprices of young blood: but there was

lurking in him a prophetic sense that evening, that when he began to

play he should also begin to bet—that he should enjoy some

punch-drinking, and in general prepare himself for feeling “rather

seedy” in the morning. It is in such indefinable movements that action

often begins.

But the last thing likely to have entered Fred’s expectation was that

he should see his brother-in-law Lydgate—of whom he had never quite

dropped the old opinion that he was a prig, and tremendously conscious

of his superiority—looking excited and betting, just as he himself

might have done. Fred felt a shock greater than he could quite account

for by the vague knowledge that Lydgate was in debt, and that his

father had refused to help him; and his own inclination to enter into

the play was suddenly checked. It was a strange reversal of attitudes:

Fred’s blond face and blue eyes, usually bright and careless, ready to

give attention to anything that held out a promise of amusement,

looking involuntarily grave and almost embarrassed as if by the sight

of something unfitting; while Lydgate, who had habitually an air of

self-possessed strength, and a certain meditativeness that seemed to

lie behind his most observant attention, was acting, watching, speaking

with that excited narrow consciousness which reminds one of an animal

with fierce eyes and retractile claws.

Lydgate, by betting on his own strokes, had won sixteen pounds; but

young Hawley’s arrival had changed the poise of things. He made

first-rate strokes himself, and began to bet against Lydgate’s strokes,

the strain of whose nerves was thus changed from simple confidence in

his own movements to defying another person’s doubt in them. The

defiance was more exciting than the confidence, but it was less sure.

He continued to bet on his own play, but 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 found himself in the new

situation of puzzling his brains to think of some device by which,

without being offensive, he could withdraw Lydgate’s attention, and

perhaps suggest to him a reason for quitting the room. He saw that

others were observing Lydgate’s strange unlikeness to himself, and it

occurred to him that merely to touch his elbow and call him aside for a

moment might rouse him from his absorption. He could think of nothing

cleverer than the daring improbability of saying that he wanted to see

Rosy, and wished to know if she were at home this evening; and he was

going desperately to carry out this weak device, when a waiter came up

to him with a message, saying that Mr. Farebrother was below, and

begged to speak with him.

Fred was surprised, not quite comfortably, but sending word that he

would be down immediately, he went with a new impulse up to Lydgate,

said, “Can I speak to you a moment?” and drew him aside.

“Farebrother has just sent up a message to say that he wants to speak

to me. He is below. I thought you might like to know he was there, if

you had anything to say to him.”

Fred had simply snatched up this pretext for speaking, because he could

not say, “You are losing confoundedly, and are making everybody stare

at you; you had better come away.” But inspiration could hardly have

served him better. Lydgate had not before seen that Fred was present,

and his sudden appearance with an announcement of Mr. Farebrother had

the effect of a sharp concussion.

“No, no,” said Lydgate; “I have nothing particular to say to him.

But—the game is up—I must be going—I came in just to see Bambridge.”

“Bambridge is over there, but he is making a row—I don’t think he’s

ready for business. Come down with me to Farebrother. I expect he is

going to blow me up, and you will shield me,” said Fred, with some

adroitness.

Lydgate felt shame, but could not bear to act as if he felt it, by

refusing to see Mr. Farebrother; and he went down. They merely shook

hands, however, and spoke of the frost; 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, and

he said, kindly, “I disturbed you, young gentleman, because I have some

pressing business with you. Walk with me to St. Botolph’s, will you?”

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. The next thing he said was—

“I thought Lydgate never went to the Green Dragon?”

“So did I,” said Fred. “But he said that he went to see Bambridge.”

“He was not playing, then?”

Fred had not meant to tell this, but he was obliged now to say, “Yes,

he was. But I suppose it was an accidental thing. I have never seen him

there before.”

“You have been going often yourself, then, lately?”

“Oh, about five or six times.”

“I think you had some good reason for giving up the habit of going

there?”

“Yes. You know all about it,” said Fred, not liking to be catechised in

this way. “I made a clean breast to you.”

“I suppose that gives me a warrant to speak about the matter now. It is

understood between us, is it not?—that we are on a footing of open

friendship: I have listened to you, and you will be willing to listen

to me. I may take my turn in talking a little about myself?”

“I am under the deepest obligation to you, Mr. Farebrother,” said Fred,

in a state of uncomfortable surmise.

“I will not affect to deny that you are under some obligation to me.

But 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—he won’t bear the curb long;’ I was tempted to do the

opposite of what I am doing—to hold my tongue and wait while you went

down the ladder again, betting first and then—”

“I have not made any bets,” said Fred, hastily.

“Glad to hear it. But I say, my prompting was 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 it. I am sure you know that the

satisfaction of your affections stands in the way of mine.”

There was a pause. Mr. Farebrother seemed to wait for a recognition of

the fact; and the emotion perceptible in the tones of his fine voice

gave solemnity to his words. But no feeling could quell Fred’s alarm.

“I could not be expected to give her up,” he said, after a moment’s

hesitation: it was not a case for any pretence of generosity.

“Clearly not, when her affection met yours. But relations of this sort,

even when they are of long standing, are always liable to change. I can

easily conceive that you might act in a way to loosen the tie she feels

towards you—it must be remembered that she is only conditionally bound

to you—and that in that case, another man, who may flatter himself that

he has a hold on her regard, might succeed in winning that firm place

in her love as well as respect which you had let slip. I can easily

conceive such a result,” repeated Mr. Farebrother, emphatically. “There

is a companionship of ready sympathy, which might get the advantage

even over the longest associations.” 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. He had a

horrible conviction that behind all this hypothetic statement there was

a knowledge of some actual change in Mary’s feeling.

“Of course I know it might easily be all up with me,” he said, in a

troubled voice. “If she is beginning to compare—” He broke off, not

liking to betray all he felt, and then said, by the help of a little

bitterness, “But I thought you were friendly to me.”

“So I am; that is why we are here. But I have had a strong disposition

to be otherwise. I have said to myself, ‘If there is a likelihood of

that youngster doing himself harm, why should you interfere? Aren’t you

worth as much as he is, and don’t your sixteen years over and above

his, in which you have gone rather hungry, give you more right to

satisfaction than he has? If there’s a chance of his going to the dogs,

let him—perhaps you could nohow hinder it—and do you take the

benefit.’”

There was a pause, in which Fred was seized by a most uncomfortable

chill. What was coming next? He dreaded to hear that something had been

said to Mary—he felt as if he were listening to a threat rather than a

warning. When the Vicar began again there was a change in his tone like

the encouraging transition to a major key.

“But I had once meant better than that, and I am come back to my old

intention. I thought that I could hardly _secure myself_ in it better,

Fred, than by telling you just what had gone on in me. And now, do you

understand me? 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.”

There was a drop in the Vicar’s voice when he spoke the last words. He

paused—they were standing on a patch of green where the road diverged

towards St. Botolph’s, and he put out his hand, as if to imply that the

conversation was closed. Fred was moved quite newly. Some one highly

susceptible to the contemplation of a fine act has said, that it

produces a sort of regenerating shudder through the frame, and makes

one feel ready to begin a new life. A good degree of that effect was

just then present in Fred Vincy.

“I will try to be worthy,” he said, breaking off before he could say

“of you as well as of her.” And meanwhile Mr. Farebrother had gathered

the impulse to say something more.

“You must not imagine that I believe there is at present any decline in

her preference of you, Fred. Set your heart at rest, that if you keep

right, other things will keep right.”

“I shall never forget what you have done,” Fred answered. “I can’t say

anything that seems worth saying—only I will try that your goodness

shall not be thrown away.”

“That’s enough. Good-by, and God bless you.”

In that way they parted. But both of them walked about a long while

before they went out of the starlight. Much of Fred’s rumination might

be summed up in the words, “It certainly would have been a fine thing

for her to marry Farebrother—but if she loves me best and I am a good

husband?”

Perhaps Mr. Farebrother’s might be concentrated into a single shrug and

one little speech. “To think of the part one little woman can play in

the life of a man, so that to renounce her may be a very good imitation

of heroism, and to win her may be a discipline!”