Its novelty made it the more irritating. He was amazed, disgusted that

conditions so foreign to all his purposes, so hatefully disconnected

with the objects he cared to occupy himself with, should have lain in

ambush and clutched him when he was unaware. And there was not only

the actual debt; there was the certainty that in his present position

he must go on deepening it. Two furnishing tradesmen at Brassing,

whose bills had been incurred before his marriage, and whom

uncalculated current expenses had ever since prevented him from paying,

had repeatedly sent him unpleasant letters which had forced themselves

on his attention. This could hardly have been more galling to any

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disposition than to Lydgate's, with his intense pride--his dislike of

asking a favor or being under an obligation to any one. He had scorned

even to form conjectures about Mr. Vincy's intentions on money matters,

and nothing but extremity could have induced him to apply to his

father-in-law, even if he had not been made aware in various indirect

ways since his marriage that Mr. Vincy's own affairs were not

flourishing, and that the expectation of help from him would be

resented. Some men easily trust in the readiness of friends; it had

never in the former part of his life occurred to Lydgate that he should

need to do so: he had never thought what borrowing would be to him; but

now that the idea had entered his mind, he felt that he would rather

incur any other hardship. In the mean time he had no money or

prospects of money; and his practice was not getting more lucrative.

No wonder that Lydgate had been unable to suppress all signs of inward

trouble during the last few months, and now that Rosamond was regaining

brilliant health, he meditated taking her entirely into confidence on

his difficulties. New conversance with tradesmen's bills had forced

his reasoning into a new channel of comparison: he had begun to

consider from a new point of view what was necessary and unnecessary in

goods ordered, and to see that there must be some change of habits.

How could such a change be made without Rosamond's concurrence? The

immediate occasion of opening the disagreeable fact to her was forced

upon him.

Having no money, and having privately sought advice as to what security

could possibly be given by a man in his position, Lydgate had offered

the one good security in his power to the less peremptory creditor, who

was a silversmith and jeweller, and who consented to take on himself

the upholsterer's credit also, accepting interest for a given term.

The security necessary was a bill of sale on the furniture of his

house, which might make a creditor easy for a reasonable time about a

debt amounting to less than four hundred pounds; and the silversmith,

Mr. Dover, was willing to reduce it by taking back a portion of the

plate and any other article which was as good as new. "Any other

article" was a phrase delicately implying jewellery, and more

particularly some purple amethysts costing thirty pounds, which Lydgate

had bought as a bridal present.




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