Should he apply directly to Mr. Brooke, and demand
of that troublesome gentleman to revoke his proposal?
Or should he consult Sir James Chettam, and get him
to concur in remonstrance against a step which touched
the whole family? In either case Mr. Casaubon
was aware that failure was just as probable as success.
It was impossible for him to mention Dorothea’s
name in the matter, and without some alarming urgency
Mr. Brooke was as likely as not, after meeting all
representations with apparent assent, to wind up by
saying, “Never fear, Casaubon! Depend upon
it, young Ladislaw will do you credit. Depend
upon it, I have put my finger on the right thing.”
And Mr. Casaubon shrank nervously from communicating
on the subject with Sir James Chettam, between whom
and himself there had never been any cordiality, and
who would immediately think of Dorothea without any
mention of her.
Poor Mr. Casaubon was distrustful of everybody’s
feeling towards him, especially as a husband.
To let any one suppose that he was jealous would
be to admit their (suspected) view of his disadvantages:
to let them know that he did not find marriage particularly
blissful would imply his conversion to their (probably)
earlier disapproval. It would be as bad as letting
Carp, and Brasenose generally, know how backward he
was in organizing the matter for his “Key to
all Mythologies.” All through his life
Mr. Casaubon had been trying not to admit even to
himself the inward sores of self-doubt and jealousy.
And on the most delicate of all personal subjects,
the habit of proud suspicious reticence told doubly.
Thus Mr. Casaubon remained proudly, bitterly silent.
But he had forbidden Will to come to Lowick Manor,
and he was mentally preparing other measures of frustration.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
“C’est beaucoup
que le jugement des hommes sur les actions
humaines; tot ou tard il devient
efficace.”—GUIZOT.
Sir James Chettam could not look with any satisfaction
on Mr. Brooke’s new courses; but it was easier
to object than to hinder. Sir James accounted
for his having come in alone one day to lunch with
the Cadwalladers by saying—
“I can’t talk to you as I want, before
Celia: it might hurt her. Indeed, it would
not be right.”
“I know what you mean—the `Pioneer’
at the Grange!” darted in Mrs. Cadwallader,
almost before the last word was off her friend’s
tongue. “It is frightful—this
taking to buying whistles and blowing them in everybody’s
hearing. Lying in bed all day and playing at
dominoes, like poor Lord Plessy, would be more private
and bearable.”
“I see they are beginning to attack our friend
Brooke in the `Trumpet,’” said the Rector,
lounging back and smiling easily, as he would have
done if he had been attacked himself. “There
are tremendous sarcasms against a landlord not a hundred
miles from Middlemarch, who receives his own rents,
and makes no returns.”
