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.