“He exhausted himself last night,” Dorothea
said to herself, thinking at first that he was asleep,
and that the summer-house was too damp a place to
rest in. But then she remembered that of late
she had seen him take that attitude when she was reading
to him, as if he found it easier than any other; and
that he would sometimes speak, as well as listen,
with his face down in that way. She went into
the summerhouse and said, “I am come, Edward;
I am ready.”
He took no notice, and she thought that he must be
fast asleep. She laid her hand on his shoulder,
and repeated, “I am ready!” Still he was
motionless; and with a sudden confused fear, she leaned
down to him, took off his velvet cap, and leaned her
cheek close to his head, crying in a distressed tone—
“Wake, dear, wake! Listen to me.
I am come to answer.” But Dorothea never
gave her answer.
Later in the day, Lydgate was seated by her bedside,
and she was talking deliriously, thinking aloud, and
recalling what had gone through her mind the night
before. She knew him, and called him by his
name, but appeared to think it right that she should
explain everything to him; and again, and again, begged
him to explain everything to her husband.
“Tell him I shall go to him soon: I am
ready to promise. Only, thinking about it was
so dreadful—it has made me ill. Not
very ill. I shall soon be better. Go and
tell him.”
But the silence in her husband’s ear was never
more to be broken.
A task too strong for wizard
spells
This squire had brought about;
’T is easy dropping
stones in wells,
But who shall get them out?”
“I wish to God we could hinder Dorothea from
knowing this,” said Sir James Chettam, with
a little frown on his brow, and an expression of intense
disgust about his mouth.
He was standing on the hearth-rug in the library at
Lowick Grange, and speaking to Mr. Brooke. It
was the day after Mr. Casaubon had been buried, and
Dorothea was not yet able to leave her room.
“That would be difficult, you know, Chettam,
as she is an executrix, and she likes to go into these
things—property, land, that kind of thing.
She has her notions, you know,” said Mr. Brooke,
sticking his eye-glasses on nervously, and exploring
the edges of a folded paper which he held in his hand;
“and she would like to act— depend
upon it, as an executrix Dorothea would want to act.
And she was twenty-one last December, you know.
I can hinder nothing.”
Sir James looked at the carpet for a minute in silence,
and then lifting his eyes suddenly fixed them on Mr.
Brooke, saying, “I will tell you what we can
do. Until Dorothea is well, all business must
be kept from her, and as soon as she is able to be
moved she must come to us. Being with Celia
and the baby will be the best thing in the world for
her, and will pass away the time. And meanwhile
you must get rid of Ladislaw: you must send him
out of the country.” Here Sir James’s
look of disgust returned in all its intensity.
