Part 17 (1/2)
”Not frequent: he comes occasionally. We are both interested in a subject which I believe is not much studied in Langborough.”
”Dear me! not dressmaking?”
”No, madam, archaeology.”
Mrs. Bingham went out once more discomfited, and Mrs. Fairfax returned to the parlour.
”I am sure I am taking up too much of your time,” said the Doctor, ”but I cannot tell you what a privilege it is to spend a few minutes with a lady like yourself.”
Mrs. Fairfax was silent for a minute.
”Mrs. Bingham has been here, and I think I ought to tell you that she has made some significant remarks about you. Forgive me if I suggest that we should partially, at any rate, discontinue our intercourse. I should be most unhappy if your friends.h.i.+p with me were to do you any harm.”
The Doctor rose in a pa.s.sion, planting his stick on the floor.
”When the cackling of the geese or the braying of the a.s.ses on Langborough Common prevent my crossing it, then, and not till then, will my course be determined by Mrs. Bingham and her colleagues.”
He sat down again with his elbow on the arm of the chair and half shading his eyes with his hand. His whole manner altered. Not a trace of the rector remained in him: the decisiveness vanished from his voice; it became musical, low, and hesitating. It was as if some angel had touched him, and had suddenly converted all his strength into tenderness, a transformation not impossible, for strength is tenderness and tenderness is strength.
”I shall be forty-nine years old next birthday,” he said. ”Never until now have I been sure that I loved a woman. I was married when I was twenty-five. I had seen two or three girls whom I thought I could love, and at last chose one. It was the arbitrary selection of a weary will.
My wife died within two years of her marriage. After her death I was thrown in the way of women who attracted me, but I wavered. If I made up my mind at night, I shrank back in the morning. I thought my irresolution was mere cowardice. It was not so. It was a warning that the time had not come. I resolved at last that there was to be no change in my life, that I would resign myself to my lot, expect no affection, and do the duty blindly which had been imposed upon me. But a miracle has been wrought, and I have a perfectly clear direction: with you for the first time in my life I am SURE. You have known what it is to be in a fog, unable to tell which way to turn, and all at once the cold, wet mist was lifted, the sun came out, the fields were lighted up, the sea revealed itself to the horizon, and your road lay straight before you stretching over the hill. I will not shame myself by apologies that I am no longer young. My love has remained with me. It is a pa.s.sion for you, and it is a reverence for a mind to which it will be a perpetual joy to submit.”
”G.o.d pardon me,” she said after a moment's pause, ”for having drawn you to this! I did not mean it. If you knew all you would forgive me. It cannot, cannot be! Leave me.” He hesitated. ”Leave me, leave me at once!” she cried.
He rose, she took his right hand in both of hers: there was one look straight into his eyes from her own which were filling with tears, a half sob, her hands after one more grasp fell, and he found that he had left the house. He went home. How strange it is to return to a familiar chamber after a great event has happened! On his desk lay a volume of Cicero's letters. The fire had not been touched and was almost out: the door leading to the garden was open: the self of two hours before seemed to confront him. When the tumult in him began to subside he was struck by the groundlessness of his double a.s.sumption that Mrs. Fairfax was Mrs. Leighton and that she was free. He had made no inquiry. He had noticed the wedding-ring, and he had come to some conclusion about it which was supported by no evidence. Doubtless she could not be his: her husband was still alive. At last the hour for which unconsciously he had been waiting had struck, and his true self, he not having known hitherto what it was, had been declared. But it was all for nothing. It was as if some autumn-blooming plant had put forth on a sunny October morning the flower of the year, and had been instantaneously blasted and cut down to the root. The plant might revive next spring, but there could be no revival for him. There could be nothing now before him but that same dull duty, duty to the dull, duty without enthusiasm. He had no example for his consolation. The Bible is the record of heroic suffering: there is no story there of a martyrdom to monotony and life-weariness. He was a pious man, but loved prescription and form: he loved to think of himself as a member of the great Catholic Church and not as an isolated individual, and he found more relief in praying the prayers which millions had before him than in extempore effusion; humbly trusting that what he was seeking in consecrated pet.i.tions was all that he really needed. ”In proportion as your prayers are peculiar,” he once told his congregation in a course of sermons on Dissent, ”they are worthless.” There was nothing, though, in the prayer-book which met his case. He was in no danger from temptation, nor had he trespa.s.sed. He was not in want of his daily bread, and although he desired like all good men to see the Kingdom of G.o.d, the advent of that celestial kingdom which had for an instant been disclosed to him was for ever impossible.
The servant announced Mrs. Sweeting, who was asked to come in.
”Sit down, Mrs. Sweeting. What can I do for you?”
”Well, sir, perhaps you may remember--and if you don't, I do--how you helped my husband in that dreadful year 1825. I shall never forget that act of yours, Dr. Midleton, and I'd stick up for you if Mrs. Bingham and Mrs. Harrop and Mrs. Cobb and Miss Tarrant were to swear against you and you a-standing in the dock. As for that Miss Tarrant, there's that a- rankling in her that makes her worse than any of them, and if you don't know what it is, being too modest, forgive me for saying so, I do.”
”But what's the matter, Mrs. Sweeting?”
”Matter, sir! Why, I can hardly bring it out, seeing that I'm only the wife of a tradesman, but one thing I will say as I ain't like the serpent in Genesis, a-crawling about on its belly and spitting poison and biting people by their heels.”
”You have not yet told me what is wrong.”
”Dr. Midleton, you shall have it, but recollect I come here as your friend: leastways I hope you'll forgive me if I call myself so, for if you were ill and you were to hold up your finger for me not another soul should come near you night nor day till you were well again or it had pleased G.o.d Almighty to take you to Himself. Dr. Midleton, there's a conspiracy.”
”A what?”
”A conspiracy: that's right, I believe. You are acquainted with Mrs.
Fairfax. To make a long and a short of it, they say you are always going there, more than you ought, leastways unless you mean to marry her, and that she's only a dressmaker, and n.o.body knows where she comes from, and they ain't open and free: they won't come and tell you themselves; but you'll be turned out at the election the day after to- morrow.”
”But what do you say yourself?”
”Me, Dr. Midleton? Why, I've spoke up pretty plainly. I told Mrs. Cobb it would be a good thing if you were married, provided you wouldn't be trod upon as some people's husbands are, and I was pretty well sure you never would be, and that you knew a lady when you saw her better than most folk; and as for her being a dressmaker what's that got to do with it?”