Chapter: "'This Loller here wol precilen us somewhat.'
     'Nay by my father's soule! that schal he nat,'
      Sayde the Schipman, 'here schal he not preche,
      We schal no gospel glosen here ne teche.
      We leven all in the gret God,' quod he.
      He wolden sowen some diffcultee."
                                 Canterbury Tales.


Dorothea had been safe at Freshitt Hall nearly a week before she had
asked any dangerous questions.  Every morning now she sat with Celia in
the prettiest of up-stairs sitting-rooms, opening into a small
conservatory--Celia all in white and lavender like a bunch of mixed
violets, watching the remarkable acts of the baby, which were so
dubious to her inexperienced mind that all conversation was interrupted
by appeals for their interpretation made to the oracular nurse.
Dorothea sat by in her widow's dress, with an expression which rather
provoked Celia, as being much too sad; for not only was baby quite
well, but really when a husband had been so dull and troublesome while
he lived, and besides that had--well, well!  Sir James, of course, had
told Celia everything, with a strong representation how important it
was that Dorothea should not know it sooner than was inevitable.

But Mr. Brooke had been right in predicting that Dorothea would not
long remain passive where action had been assigned to her; she knew the
purport of her husband's will made at the time of their marriage, and
her mind, as soon as she was clearly conscious of her position, was
silently occupied with what she ought to do as the owner of Lowick
Manor with the patronage of the living attached to it.

One morning when her uncle paid his usual visit, though with an unusual
alacrity in his manner which he accounted for by saying that it was now
pretty certain Parliament would be dissolved forthwith, Dorothea said--

"Uncle, it is right now that I should consider who is to have the
living at Lowick.  After Mr. Tucker had been provided for, I never
heard my husband say that he had any clergyman in his mind as a
successor to himself.  I think I ought to have the keys now and go to
Lowick to examine all my husband's papers.  There may be something that
would throw light on his wishes."

"No hurry, my dear," said Mr. Brooke, quietly.  "By-and-by, you know,
you can go, if you like.  But I cast my eyes over things in the desks
and drawers--there was nothing--nothing but deep subjects, you
know--besides the will.  Everything can be done by-and-by. As to the
living, I have had an application for interest already--I should say
rather good.  Mr. Tyke has been strongly recommended to me--I had
something to do with getting him an appointment before.  An apostolic
man, I believe--the sort of thing that would suit you, my dear."

"I should like to have fuller knowledge about him, uncle, and judge for
myself, if Mr. Casaubon has not left any expression of his wishes.  He
has perhaps made some addition to his will--there may be some
instructions for me," said Dorothea, who had all the while had this
conjecture in her mind with relation to her husband's work.

"Nothing about the rectory, my dear--nothing," said Mr. Brooke, rising
to go away, and putting out his hand to his nieces: "nor about his
researches, you know.  Nothing in the will."

Dorothea's lip quivered.

"Come, you must not think of these things yet, my dear.  By-and-by, you
know."

"I am quite well now, uncle; I wish to exert myself."

"Well, well, we shall see.  But I must run away now--I have no end of
work now--it's a crisis--a political crisis, you know.  And here is
Celia and her little man--you are an aunt, you know, now, and I am a
sort of grandfather," said Mr. Brooke, with placid hurry, anxious to
get away and tell Chettam that it would not be his (Mr. Brooke's) fault
if Dorothea insisted on looking into everything.

Dorothea sank back in her chair when her uncle had left the room, and
cast her eyes down meditatively on her crossed hands.

"Look, Dodo! look at him!  Did you ever see anything like that?" said
Celia, in her comfortable staccato.

"What, Kitty?" said Dorothea, lifting her eyes rather absently.

"What? why, his upper lip; see how he is drawing it down, as if he
meant to make a face.  Isn't it wonderful!  He may have his little
thoughts.  I wish nurse were here.  Do look at him."

A large tear which had been for some time gathering, rolled down
Dorothea's cheek as she looked up and tried to smile.

"Don't be sad, Dodo; kiss baby.  What are you brooding over so?  I am
sure you did everything, and a great deal too much.  You should be
happy now."

"I wonder if Sir James would drive me to Lowick.  I want to look over
everything--to see if there were any words written for me."

"You are not to go till Mr. Lydgate says you may go.  And he has not
said so yet (here you are, nurse; take baby and walk up and down the
gallery). Besides, you have got a wrong notion in your head as usual,
Dodo--I can see that: it vexes me."

"Where am I wrong, Kitty?" said Dorothea, quite meekly.  She was almost
ready now to think Celia wiser than herself, and was really wondering
with some fear what her wrong notion was.  Celia felt her advantage,
and was determined to use it.  None of them knew Dodo as well as she
did, or knew how to manage her.  Since Celia's baby was born, she had
had a new sense of her mental solidity and calm wisdom.  It seemed
clear that where there was a baby, things were right enough, and that
error, in general, was a mere lack of that central poising force.

"I can see what you are thinking of as well as can be, Dodo," said
Celia.  "You are wanting to find out if there is anything uncomfortable
for you to do now, only because Mr. Casaubon wished it.  As if you had
not been uncomfortable enough before.  And he doesn't deserve it, and
you will find that out.  He has behaved very badly.  James is as angry
with him as can be.  And I had better tell you, to prepare you."

"Celia," said Dorothea, entreatingly, "you distress me.  Tell me at
once what you mean."  It glanced through her mind that Mr. Casaubon
had left the property away from her--which would not be so very
distressing.

"Why, he has made a codicil to his will, to say the property was all to
go away from you if you married--I mean--"

"That is of no consequence," said Dorothea, breaking in impetuously.

"But if you married Mr. Ladislaw, not anybody else," Celia went on with
persevering quietude.  "Of course that is of no consequence in one
way--you never _would_ marry Mr. Ladislaw; but that only makes it worse
of Mr. Casaubon."

The blood rushed to Dorothea's face and neck painfully.  But Celia was
administering what she thought a sobering dose of fact.  It was taking
up notions that had done Dodo's health so much harm.  So she went on in
her neutral tone, as if she had been remarking on baby's robes.

"James says so.  He says it is abominable, and not like a gentleman.
And there never was a better judge than James.  It is as if Mr.
Casaubon wanted to make people believe that you would wish to marry Mr.
Ladislaw--which is ridiculous.  Only James says it was to hinder Mr.
Ladislaw from wanting to marry you for your money--just as if he ever
would think of making you an offer.  Mrs. Cadwallader said you might as
well marry an Italian with white mice!  But I must just go and look at
baby," Celia added, without the least change of tone, throwing a light
shawl over her, and tripping away.

Dorothea by this time had turned cold again, and now threw herself back
helplessly in her chair.  She might have compared her experience at
that moment to the vague, alarmed consciousness that her life was
taking on a new form, that she was undergoing a metamorphosis in which
memory would not adjust itself to the stirring of new organs.
Everything was changing its aspect: her husband's conduct, her own
duteous feeling towards him, every struggle between them--and yet
more, her whole relation to Will Ladislaw.  Her world was in a state of
convulsive change; the only thing she could say distinctly to herself
was, that she must wait and think anew.  One change terrified her as if
it had been a sin; it was a violent shock of repulsion from her
departed husband, who had had hidden thoughts, perhaps perverting
everything she said and did.  Then again she was conscious of another
change which also made her tremulous; it was a sudden strange yearning
of heart towards Will Ladislaw.  It had never before entered her mind
that he could, under any circumstances, be her lover: conceive the
effect of the sudden revelation that another had thought of him in that
light--that perhaps he himself had been conscious of such a
possibility,--and this with the hurrying, crowding vision of unfitting
conditions, and questions not soon to be solved.

It seemed a long while--she did not know how long--before she heard
Celia saying, "That will do, nurse; he will be quiet on my lap now.
You can go to lunch, and let Garratt stay in the next room." "What I
think, Dodo," Celia went on, observing nothing more than that Dorothea
was leaning back in her chair, and likely to be passive, "is that Mr.
Casaubon was spiteful.  I never did like him, and James never did.  I
think the corners of his mouth were dreadfully spiteful.  And now he
has behaved in this way, I am sure religion does not require you to
make yourself uncomfortable about him.  If he has been taken away, that
is a mercy, and you ought to be grateful.  We should not grieve, should
we, baby?" said Celia confidentially to that unconscious centre and
poise of the world, who had the most remarkable fists all complete even
to the nails, and hair enough, really, when you took his cap off, to
make--you didn't know what:--in short, he was Bouddha in a Western
form.

At this crisis Lydgate was announced, and one of the first things he
said was, "I fear you are not so well as you were, Mrs. Casaubon; have
you been agitated? allow me to feel your pulse."  Dorothea's hand was
of a marble coldness.

"She wants to go to Lowick, to look over papers," said Celia.  "She
ought not, ought she?"

Lydgate did not speak for a few moments.  Then he said, looking at
Dorothea.  "I hardly know.  In my opinion Mrs. Casaubon should do what
would give her the most repose of mind.  That repose will not always
come from being forbidden to act."

"Thank you," said Dorothea, exerting herself, "I am sure that is wise.
There are so many things which I ought to attend to.  Why should I sit
here idle?"  Then, with an effort to recall subjects not connected with
her agitation, she added, abruptly, "You know every one in Middlemarch,
I think, Mr. Lydgate.  I shall ask you to tell me a great deal.  I have
serious things to do now.  I have a living to give away.  You know Mr.
Tyke and all the--" But Dorothea's effort was too much for her; she
broke off and burst into sobs.  Lydgate made her drink a dose of sal
volatile.

"Let Mrs. Casaubon do as she likes," he said to Sir James, whom he
asked to see before quitting the house.  "She wants perfect freedom, I
think, more than any other prescription."

His attendance on Dorothea while her brain was excited, had enabled him
to form some true conclusions concerning the trials of her life.  He
felt sure that she had been suffering from the strain and conflict of
self-repression; and that she was likely now to feel herself only in
another sort of pinfold than that from which she had been released.

Lydgate's advice was all the easier for Sir James to follow when he
found that Celia had already told Dorothea the unpleasant fact about
the will.  There was no help for it now--no reason for any further
delay in the execution of necessary business.  And the next day Sir
James complied at once with her request that he would drive her to
Lowick.

"I have no wish to stay there at present," said Dorothea; "I could
hardly bear it.  I am much happier at Freshitt with Celia.  I shall be
able to think better about what should be done at Lowick by looking at
it from a distance.  And I should like to be at the Grange a little
while with my uncle, and go about in all the old walks and among the
people in the village."

"Not yet, I think.  Your uncle is having political company, and you are
better out of the way of such doings," said Sir James, who at that
moment thought of the Grange chiefly as a haunt of young Ladislaw's.
But no word passed between him and Dorothea about the objectionable
part of the will; indeed, both of them felt that the mention of it
between them would be impossible.  Sir James was shy, even with men,
about disagreeable subjects; and the one thing that Dorothea would have
chosen to say, if she had spoken on the matter at all, was forbidden to
her at present because it seemed to be a further exposure of her
husband's injustice.  Yet she did wish that Sir James could know what
had passed between her and her husband about Will Ladislaw's moral
claim on the property: it would then, she thought, be apparent to him
as it was to her, that her husband's strange indelicate proviso had
been chiefly urged by his bitter resistance to that idea of claim, and
not merely by personal feelings more difficult to talk about.  Also, it
must be admitted, Dorothea wished that this could be known for Will's
sake, since her friends seemed to think of him as simply an object of
Mr. Casaubon's charity.  Why should he be compared with an Italian
carrying white mice?  That word quoted from Mrs. Cadwallader seemed
like a mocking travesty wrought in the dark by an impish finger.

At Lowick Dorothea searched desk and drawer--searched all her husband's
places of deposit for private writing, but found no paper addressed
especially to her, except that "Synoptical Tabulation," which was
probably only the beginning of many intended directions for her
guidance.  In carrying out this bequest of labor to Dorothea, as in all
else, Mr. Casaubon had been slow and hesitating, oppressed in the plan
of transmitting his work, as he had been in executing it, by the sense
of moving heavily in a dim and clogging medium: distrust of Dorothea's
competence to arrange what he had prepared was subdued only by distrust
of any other redactor.  But he had come at last to create a trust for
himself out of Dorothea's nature: she could do what she resolved to do:
and he willingly imagined her toiling under the fetters of a promise to
erect a tomb with his name upon it.  (Not that Mr. Casaubon called the
future volumes a tomb; he called them the Key to all Mythologies.) But
the months gained on him and left his plans belated: he had only had
time to ask for that promise by which he sought to keep his cold grasp
on Dorothea's life.

The grasp had slipped away.  Bound by a pledge given from the depths of
her pity, she would have been capable of undertaking a toil which her
judgment whispered was vain for all uses except that consecration of
faithfulness which is a supreme use.  But now her judgment, instead of
being controlled by duteous devotion, was made active by the
imbittering discovery that in her past union there had lurked the
hidden alienation of secrecy and suspicion.  The living, suffering man
was no longer before her to awaken her pity: there remained only the
retrospect of painful subjection to a husband whose thoughts had been
lower than she had believed, whose exorbitant claims for himself had
even blinded his scrupulous care for his own character, and made him
defeat his own pride by shocking men of ordinary honor.  As for the
property which was the sign of that broken tie, she would have been
glad to be free from it and have nothing more than her original fortune
which had been settled on her, if there had not been duties attached to
ownership, which she ought not to flinch from.  About this property
many troublous questions insisted on rising: had she not been right in
thinking that the half of it ought to go to Will Ladislaw?--but was it
not impossible now for her to do that act of justice?  Mr. Casaubon had
taken a cruelly effective means of hindering her: even with indignation
against him in her heart, any act that seemed a triumphant eluding of
his purpose revolted her.

After collecting papers of business which she wished to examine, she
locked up again the desks and drawers--all empty of personal words for
her--empty of any sign that in her husband's lonely brooding his heart
had gone out to her in excuse or explanation; and she went back to
Freshitt with the sense that around his last hard demand and his last
injurious assertion of his power, the silence was unbroken.

Dorothea tried now to turn her thoughts towards immediate duties, and
one of these was of a kind which others were determined to remind her
of.  Lydgate's ear had caught eagerly her mention of the living, and as
soon as he could, he reopened the subject, seeing here a possibility of
making amends for the casting-vote he had once given with an
ill-satisfied conscience.  "Instead of telling you anything about Mr.
Tyke," he said, "I should like to speak of another man--Mr.
Farebrother, the Vicar of St. Botolph's.  His living is a poor one, and
gives him a stinted provision for himself and his family.  His mother,
aunt, and sister all live with him, and depend upon him.  I believe he
has never married because of them.  I never heard such good preaching
as his--such plain, easy eloquence.  He would have done to preach at
St. Paul's Cross after old Latimer.  His talk is just as good about all
subjects: original, simple, clear.  I think him a remarkable fellow: he
ought to have done more than he has done."

"Why has he not done more?" said Dorothea, interested now in all who
had slipped below their own intention.

"That's a hard question," said Lydgate.  "I find myself that it's
uncommonly difficult to make the right thing work: there are so many
strings pulling at once.  Farebrother often hints that he has got into
the wrong profession; he wants a wider range than that of a poor
clergyman, and I suppose he has no interest to help him on.  He is very
fond of Natural History and various scientific matters, and he is
hampered in reconciling these tastes with his position.  He has no
money to spare--hardly enough to use; and that has led him into
card-playing--Middlemarch is a great place for whist.  He does play for
money, and he wins a good deal.  Of course that takes him into company
a little beneath him, and makes him slack about some things; and yet,
with all that, looking at him as a whole, I think he is one of the most
blameless men I ever knew.  He has neither venom nor doubleness in him,
and those often go with a more correct outside."

"I wonder whether he suffers in his conscience because of that habit,"
said Dorothea; "I wonder whether he wishes he could leave it off."

"I have no doubt he would leave it off, if he were transplanted into
plenty: he would be glad of the time for other things."

"My uncle says that Mr. Tyke is spoken of as an apostolic man," said
Dorothea, meditatively.  She was wishing it were possible to restore
the times of primitive zeal, and yet thinking of Mr. Farebrother with a
strong desire to rescue him from his chance-gotten money.

"I don't pretend to say that Farebrother is apostolic," said Lydgate.
"His position is not quite like that of the Apostles: he is only a
parson among parishioners whose lives he has to try and make better.
Practically I find that what is called being apostolic now, is an
impatience of everything in which the parson doesn't cut the principal
figure.  I see something of that in Mr. Tyke at the Hospital: a good
deal of his doctrine is a sort of pinching hard to make people
uncomfortably aware of him.  Besides, an apostolic man at Lowick!--he
ought to think, as St. Francis did, that it is needful to preach to the
birds."

"True," said Dorothea.  "It is hard to imagine what sort of notions our
farmers and laborers get from their teaching.  I have been looking into
a volume of sermons by Mr. Tyke: such sermons would be of no use at
Lowick--I mean, about imputed righteousness and the prophecies in the
Apocalypse.  I have always been thinking of the different ways in which
Christianity is taught, and whenever I find one way that makes it a
wider blessing than any other, I cling to that as the truest--I mean
that which takes in the most good of all kinds, and brings in the most
people as sharers in it.  It is surely better to pardon too much, than
to condemn too much.  But I should like to see Mr. Farebrother and hear
him preach."

"Do," said Lydgate; "I trust to the effect of that.  He is very much
beloved, but he has his enemies too: there are always people who can't
forgive an able man for differing from them.  And that money-winning
business is really a blot.  You don't, of course, see many Middlemarch
people: but Mr. Ladislaw, who is constantly seeing Mr. Brooke, is a
great friend of Mr. Farebrother's old ladies, and would be glad to sing
the Vicar's praises.  One of the old ladies--Miss Noble, the aunt--is a
wonderfully quaint picture of self-forgetful goodness, and Ladislaw
gallants her about sometimes.  I met them one day in a back street: you
know Ladislaw's look--a sort of Daphnis in coat and waistcoat; and this
little old maid reaching up to his arm--they looked like a couple
dropped out of a romantic comedy.  But the best evidence about
Farebrother is to see him and hear him."

Happily Dorothea was in her private sitting-room when this conversation
occurred, and there was no one present to make Lydgate's innocent
introduction of Ladislaw painful to her.  As was usual with him in
matters of personal gossip, Lydgate had quite forgotten Rosamond's
remark that she thought Will adored Mrs. Casaubon.  At that moment he
was only caring for what would recommend the Farebrother family; and he
had purposely given emphasis to the worst that could be said about the
Vicar, in order to forestall objections.  In the weeks since Mr.
Casaubon's death he had hardly seen Ladislaw, and he had heard no rumor
to warn him that Mr. Brooke's confidential secretary was a dangerous
subject with Mrs. Casaubon.  When he was gone, his picture of Ladislaw
lingered in her mind and disputed the ground with that question of the
Lowick living.  What was Will Ladislaw thinking about her?  Would he
hear of that fact which made her cheeks burn as they never used to do?
And how would he feel when he heard it?--But she could see as well as
possible how he smiled down at the little old maid.  An Italian with
white mice!--on the contrary, he was a creature who entered into every
one's feelings, and could take the pressure of their thought instead of
urging his own with iron resistance.

 Dorothea is restless after a week of domestic bliss at Celias house with the new baby. She broods over what that last demand of her husbands had referred to. Brooke resists her request to be taken to Lowick Manor. Then Celia tells her all about the codicil in the will, and Lydgate agrees that she should do whatever gives her mental peace. The way is clear for her to take up the threads of her life again. She searches for further instructions all over the library but can find nothing. Her earlier feeling that Casaubons work is futile is compounded by his perverse will. The will casts a new light on her entire marriage and on his mind, which perhaps perverted everything she said and did. She wonders whether it would now be impossible for her to divide the property with Will, as she had earlier suggested to her husband. She also wonders whether Will has ever thought of her as a lover would. Celia, meanwhile, firmly declares that she should give up mourning for a spiteful man, whom she is well rid of. Dorothea tries to get involved in practical matters, the first of which was - who would succeed her husband as clergyman at Lowick. She has mentioned this to Lydgate. He takes it up eagerly, recommending Farebrother for the post. Lowick is a much better paid living than his present one, and Lydgate wants to make amends for promoting Tyke at Farebrothers cost, at the hospital. He tells Dorothea all about Farebrother and his old ladies, including his playing whist for money. Her interest is at once caught by the idea of one, who has potential, and which circumstances prevent him from fulfilling. Lydgate innocently mentions that Will, as a friend who could recommend the vicar, is closely associated with Farebrothers aunt and her charitable work. Dorothea is embarrassed, but also touched at Wills sensitivity. She indignantly remembers Mrs. Cadwalladers insulting remarks about him.

