I am very uncomfortable with my money, because they tell me I have too little for any great scheme of the sort I like best, and yet I have too much. I don't know what to do. I have seven hundred a-year of my own fortune, and nineteen hundred a-year that Mr. Casaubon left me, and between three and four thousand of ready money in the bank.
I wished to raise money and pay it off gradually out of my income which I don't want, to buy land with and found a village which should be a school of industry; but Sir James and my uncle have convinced me that the risk would be too great. So you see that what I should most rejoice at would be to have something good to do with my money:
I should like it to make other people's lives better to them.
It makes me very uneasy--coming all to me who don't want it."A smile broke through the gloom of Lydgate's face. The childlike grave-eyed earnestness with which Dorothea said all this was irresistible--blent into an adorable whale with her ready understanding of high experience. (Of lower experience such as plays a great part in the world, poor Mrs. Casaubon had a very blurred shortsighted knowledge, little helped by her imagination.)But she took the smile as encouragement of her plan.
"I think you see now that you spoke too scrupulously," she said, in a tone of persuasion. "The hospital would be one good; and ****** your life quite whole and well again would be another."Lydgate's smile had died away. "You have the goodness as well as the money to do all that; if it could be done," he said.
"But--"
He hesitated a little while, looking vaguely towards the window;and she sat in silent expectation. At last he turned towards her and said impetuously--"Why should I not tell you?--you know what sort of bond marriage is.
You will understand everything."
Dorothea felt her heart beginning to beat faster. Had he that sorrow too? But she feared to say any word, and he went on immediately.
"It is impossible for me now to do anything--to take any step without considering my wife's happiness. The thing that I might like to do if I were alone, is become impossible to me. I can't see her miserable. She married me without knowing what she was going into, and it might have been better for her if she had not married me.""I know, I know--you could not give her pain, if you were not obliged to do it," said Dorothea, with keen memory of her own life.
"And she has set her mind against staying. She wishes to go.
The troubles she has had here have wearied her," said Lydgate, breaking off again, lest he should say too much.
"But when she saw the good that might come of staying--"said Dorothea, remonstrantly, looking at Lydgate as if he had forgotten the reasons which had just been considered. He did not speak immediately.
"She would not see it," he said at last, curtly, feeling at first that this statement must do without explanation. "And, indeed, I have lost all spirit about carrying on my life here." He paused a moment and then, following the impulse to let Dorothea see deeper into the difficulty of his life, he said, "The fact is, this trouble has come upon her confusedly. We have not been able to speak to each other about it. I am not sure what is in her mind about it:
she may fear that I have really done something base. It is my fault;I ought to be more open. But I have been suffering cruelly.""May I go and see her?" said Dorothea, eagerly. "Would she accept my sympathy? I would tell her that you have not been blamable before any one's judgment but your own. I would tell her that you shall be cleared in every fair mind. I would cheer her heart.
Will you ask her if I may go to see her? I did see her once.""I am sure you may," said Lydgate, seizing the proposition with some hope. "She would feel honored--cheered, I think, by the proof that you at least have some respect for me. I will not speak to her about your coming--that she may not connect it with my wishes at all.
I know very well that I ought not to have left anything to be told her by others, but--"He broke off, and there was a moment's silence. Dorothea refrained from saying what was in her mind--how well she knew that there might be invisible barriers to speech between husband and wife.
This was a point on which even sympathy might make a wound.
She returned to the more outward aspect of Lydgate's position, saying cheerfully--"And if Mrs. Lydgate knew that there were friends who would believe in you and support you, she might then be glad that you should stay in your place and recover your hopes--and do what you meant to do.
Perhaps then you would see that it was right to agree with what Iproposed about your continuing at the Hospital. Surely you would, if you still have faith in it as a means of ****** your knowledge useful?"Lydgate did not answer, and she saw that he was debating with himself.
"You need not decide immediately," she said, gently. "A few days hence it will be early enough for me to send my answer to Mr. Bulstrode."Lydgate still waited, but at last turned to speak in his most decisive tones.