What was he to do? He saw even more keenly than
Rosamond did the dreariness of taking her into the
small house in Bride Street, where she would have
scanty furniture around her and discontent within:
a life of privation and life with Rosamond were two
images which had become more and more irreconcilable
ever since the threat of privation had disclosed itself.
But even if his resolves had forced the two images
into combination, the useful preliminaries to that
hard change were not visibly within reach. And
though he had not given the promise which his wife
had asked for, he did not go again to Trumbull.
He even began to think of taking a rapid journey
to the North and seeing Sir Godwin. He had once
believed that nothing would urge him into making an
application for money to his uncle, but he had not
then known the full pressure of alternatives yet more
disagreeable. He could not depend on the effect
of a letter; it was only in an interview, however
disagreeable this might be to himself, that he could
give a thorough explanation and could test the effectiveness
of kinship. No sooner had Lydgate begun to represent
this step to himself as the easiest than there was
a reaction of anger that he—he who had
long ago determined to live aloof from such abject
calculations, such self-interested anxiety about the
inclinations and the pockets of men with whom he had
been proud to have no aims in common—should
have fallen not simply to their level, but to the
level of soliciting them.
“One of us two must bowen douteless,
And, sith a man is more reasonable
Than woman is, ye [men] moste be suffrable.
—CHAUCER:
Canterbury Tales.
The bias of human nature to be slow in correspondence
triumphs even over the present quickening in the general
pace of things: what wonder then that in 1832
old Sir Godwin Lydgate was slow to write a letter
which was of consequence to others rather than to
himself? Nearly three weeks of the new year were
gone, and Rosamond, awaiting an answer to her winning
appeal, was every day disappointed. Lydgate,
in total ignorance of her expectations, was seeing
the bills come in, and feeling that Dover’s use
of his advantage over other creditors was imminent.
He had never mentioned to Rosamond his brooding purpose
of going to Quallingham: he did not want to admit
what would appear to her a concession to her wishes
after indignant refusal, until the last moment; but
he was really expecting to set off soon. A slice
of the railway would enable him to manage the whole
journey and back in four days.
