Middlemarch

‘I still regret that your sister is not to accompany us,’ he said one morning, some time after it had been ascertained that Celia objected to go, and that Dorothea did not wish for her companionship. ‘You will have many lonely hours, Dorothea, for I shall be constrained to make the utmost use of my time during our stay in Rome, and I should feel more at liberty if you had a companion.’

The words ‘I should feel more at liberty’ grated on Dorothea. For the first time in speaking to Mr Casaubon she coloured from annoyance.

‘You must have misunderstood me very much,’ she said, ‘if you think I should not enter into the value of your time—if you think that I should not willingly give up whatever interfered with your using it to the best purpose.’

‘That is very amiable in you, my dear Dorothea,’ said Mr Casaubon, not in the least noticing that she was hurt; ‘but if you had a lady as your companion, I could put you both under the care of a cicerone, and we could thus achieve two purposes in the same space of time.’

‘I beg you will not refer to this again,’ said Dorothea, rather haughtily. But immediately she feared that she was wrong, and turning towards him she laid her hand on his, adding in a different tone, ‘Pray do not be anxious about me. I shall have so much to think of when I am alone. And Tantripp will be a sufficient companion, just to take care of me. I could not bear to have Celia: she would be miserable.’

It was time to dress. There was to be a dinner party that day, the last of the parties which were held at the Grange as proper preliminaries to the wedding, and Dorothea was glad of a reason for moving away at once on the sound of the bell, as if she needed more than her usual amount of preparation. She was ashamed of being irritated from some cause she could not define even to herself; for though she had no intention to be untruthful, her reply had not touched the real hurt within her. Mr Casaubon’s words had been quite reasonable, yet they had brought a vague instantaneous sense of aloofness on his part.

‘Surely I am in a strangely selfish weak state of mind,’ she said to herself. ‘How can I have a husband who is so much above me without knowing that he needs me less than I need him?’

Having convinced herself that Mr Casaubon was altogether right, she recovered her equanimity, and was an agreeable image of serene dignity when she came into the drawing-room in her silver-gray dress—the simple lines of her dark-brown hair parted over her brow and coiled massively behind, in keeping with the entire absence from her manner and expression of all search after mere effect. Sometimes when Dorothea was in company, there seemed to be as complete an air of repose about her as if she had been a picture of Santa Barbara looking out from her tower into the clear air; but these intervals of quietude made the energy of her speech and emotion the more remarked when some outward appeal had touched her.

She was naturally the subject of many observations this evening, for the dinner-party was large and rather more miscellaneous as to the male portion than any which had been held at the Grange since Mr Brooke’s nieces had resided with him, so that the talking was done in duos and trios more or less inharmonious. There was the newly-elected mayor of Middlemarch, who happened to be a manufacturer; the philanthropic banker his brother-in-law, who predominated so much in the town that some called him a Methodist, others a hypocrite, according to the resources of their vocabulary; and there were various professional men. In fact, Mrs Cadwallader said that Brooke was beginning to treat the Middlemarchers, and that she preferred the farmers at the tithe-dinner, who drank her health unpretentiously, and were not ashamed of their grandfathers’ furniture. For in that part of the country, before Reform had done its notable part in developing the political consciousness, there was a clearer distinction of ranks and a dimmer distinction of parties; so that Mr Brooke’s miscellaneous invitations seemed to belong to that general laxity which came from his inordinate travel and habit of taking too much in the form of ideas.

Already, as Miss Brooke passed out of the dining-room, opportunity was found for some interjectional ‘asides’.

‘A fine woman, Miss Brooke! an uncommonly fine woman, by God!’ said Mr Standish, the old lawyer, who had been so long concerned with the landed gentry that he had become landed himself, and used that oath in a deep-mouthed manner as a sort of armorial bearings, stamping the speech of a man who held a good position.

Mr Bulstrode, the banker, seemed to be addressed, but that gentleman disliked coarseness and profanity, and merely bowed. The remark was taken up by Mr Chichely, a middle-aged bachelor and coursing celebrity, who had a complexion something like an Easter egg, a few hairs carefully arranged, and a carriage implying the consciousness of a distinguished appearance.

‘Yes, but not my style of woman; I like a woman who lays herself out a little more to please us. There should be a little filigree about a woman—something of the coquette. A man likes a sort of challenge. The more of a dead set she makes at you the better.’

‘There’s some truth in that,’ said Mr Standish, disposed to be genial. ‘And, by God, it’s usually the way with them. I suppose it answers some wise ends. Providence made them so, eh, Bulstrode?’

‘I should be disposed to refer coquetry to another source,’ said Mr Bulstrode. ‘I should rather refer it to the devil.’

‘Ay, to be sure, there should be a little devil in a woman,’ said Mr Chichely, whose study of the fair sex seemed to have been detrimental to his theology. ‘And I like them blond, with a certain gait, and a swan neck. Between ourselves, the mayor’s daughter is more to my taste than Miss Brooke or Miss Celia either. If I were a marrying man I should choose Miss Vincy before either of them.’

‘Well, make up, make up,’ said Mr Standish jocosely; ‘you see the middle-aged fellows carry the day.’

Mr Chichely shook his head with much meaning: he was not going to incur the certainty of being accepted by the woman he would choose.

The Miss Vincy who had the honour of being Mr Chichely’s ideal was of course not present; for Mr Brooke, always objecting to go too far, would not have chosen that his nieces should meet the daughter of a Middlemarch manufacturer, unless it were on a public occasion. The feminine part of the company included none whom Lady Chettam or Mrs Cadwallader could object to; for Mrs Renfrew, the colonel’s widow, was not only unexceptionable in point of breeding, but also interesting on the ground of her complaint, which puzzled the doctors, and seemed clearly a case wherein the fullness of professional knowledge might need the supplement of quackery. Lady Chettam, who attributed her own remarkable health to homemade bitters united with constant medical attendance, entered with much exercise of the imagination into Mrs Renfrew’s account of symptoms, and into the amazing futility in her case of all strengthening medicines.

‘Where can all the strength of those medicines go, my dear?’ said the mild but stately dowager, turning to Mrs Cadwallader reflectively, when Mrs Renfrew’s attention was called away.

‘It strengthens the disease,’ said the Rector’s wife, much too well-born not to be an amateur in medicine. ‘Everything depends on the constitution: some people make fat, some blood, and some bile—that’s my view of the matter; and whatever they take is a sort of grist to the mill.’

‘Then she ought to take medicines that would reduce—reduce the disease, you know, if you are right, my dear. And I think what you say is reasonable.’

‘Certainly it is reasonable. You have two sorts of potatoes, fed on the same soil. One of them grows more and more watery—’

‘Ah! like this poor Mrs Renfrew—that is what I think. Dropsy! There is no swelling yet—it is inward. I should say she ought to take drying medicines, shouldn’t you?—or a dry hot-air bath. Many things might be tried, of a drying nature.’

‘Let her try a certain person’s pamphlets,’ said Mrs Cadwallader in an undertone, seeing the gentlemen enter. ‘He does not want drying.’

‘Who, my dear?’ said Lady Chettam, a charming woman, not so quick as to nullify the pleasure of explanation.

‘The bridegroom—Casaubon. He has certainly been drying up faster since the engagement: the flame of passion, I suppose.’

‘I should think he is far from having a good constitution,’ said Lady Chettam, with a still deeper undertone. ‘And then his studies—so very dry, as you say.’

‘Really, by the side of Sir James, he looks like a death’s head skinned over for the occasion. Mark my words, in a year from this time that girl will hate him. She looks up to him as an oracle now, and by-and-by she will be at the other extreme. All flightiness!’

‘How very shocking! I fear she is headstrong. But tell me—you know all about him—is there anything very bad? What is the truth?’

‘The truth? he is as bad as the wrong physic—nasty to take, and sure to disagree.’

‘There could not be anything worse than that,’ said Lady Chettam, with so vivid a conception of the physic that she seemed to have learned something exact about Mr Casaubon’s disadvantages. ‘However, James will hear nothing against Miss Brooke. He says she is the mirror of women still.’

‘That is a generous make-believe of his. Depend upon it, he likes little Celia better, and she appreciates him. I hope you like my little Celia?’

‘Certainly, she is fonder of geraniums, and seems more docile, though not so fine a figure. But we were talking of physic: tell me about this new young surgeon Mr Lydgate. I am told he is wonderfully clever: he certainly looks it—a fine brow indeed.’

‘He is a gentleman. I heard him talking to Humphrey. He talks well.’

‘Yes. Mr Brooke says he is one of the Lydgates of Northumberland, really well connected. One does not expect it in a practitioner of that kind. For my own part, I like a medical man more on a footing with the servants; they are often all the cleverer. I assure you I found poor Hicks’s judgment unfailing; I never knew him wrong. He was coarse and butcher-like, but he knew my constitution. It was a loss to me his going off so suddenly. Dear me, what a very animated conversation Miss Brooke seems to be having with this Mr Lydgate!’

‘She is talking cottages and hospitals with him,’ said Mrs Cadwallader, whose ears and power of interpretation were quick. ‘I believe he is a sort of philanthropist, so Brooke is sure to take him up.’

‘James,’ said Lady Chettam when her son came near, ‘bring Mr Lydgate and introduce him to me. I want to test him.’

The affable dowager declared herself delighted with this opportunity of making Mr Lydgate’s acquaintance, having heard of his success in treating fever on a new plan.

Mr Lydgate had the medical accomplishment of looking perfectly grave whatever nonsense was talked to him, and his dark steady eyes gave him impressiveness as a listener. He was as little as possible like the lamented Hicks, especially in a certain careless refinement about his toilet and utterance. Yet Lady Chettam gathered much confidence in him. He confirmed her view of her own constitution as being peculiar, by admitting that all constitutions might be called peculiar, and he did not deny that hers might be more peculiar than others. He did not approve of a too lowering system, including reckless cupping, nor, on the other hand, of incessant port wine and bark. He said ‘I think so’ with an air of so much deference accompanying the insight of agreement, that she formed the most cordial opinion of his talents.

‘I am quite pleased with your protégé,’ she said to Mr Brooke before going away.

‘My protégé—dear me!—who is that?’ said Mr Brooke.

‘This young Lydgate, the new doctor. He seems to me to understand his profession admirably.’

‘Oh, Lydgate! he is not my protégé you know; only I knew an uncle of his who sent me a letter about him. However, I think he is likely to be first-rate—has studied in Paris, knew Broussais; has ideas, you know—wants to raise the profession.’

‘Lydgate has lots of ideas, quite new, about ventilation and diet, that sort of thing,’ resumed Mr Brooke, after he had handed out Lady Chettam, and had returned to be civil to a group of Middlemarchers.

‘Hang it, do you think that is quite sound?—upsetting the old treatment, which has made Englishmen what they are?’ said Mr Standish.

‘Medical knowledge is at a low ebb among us,’ said Mr Bulstrode, who spoke in a subdued tone, and had rather a sickly air. ‘I, for my part, hail the advent of Mr Lydgate. I hope to find good reason for confiding the new hospital to his management.’

‘That is all very fine,’ replied Mr Standish, who was not fond of Mr Bulstrode; ‘if you like him to try experiments on your hospital patients, and kill a few people for charity, I have no objection. But I am not going to hand money out of my purse to have experiments tried on me. I like treatment that has been tested a little.’

‘Well, you know, Standish, every dose you take is an experiment—an experiment, you know,’ said Mr Brooke, nodding towards the lawyer.

‘Oh, if you talk in that sense!’ said Mr Standish, with as much disgust at such non-legal quibbling as a man can well betray towards a valuable client.