Dorothea sent for me, you know. It had come about quite suddenly--neither of them had any idea two days ago--not any idea, you know.
There's something singular in things. But Dorothea is quite determined--it is no use opposing. I put it strongly to her.
I did my duty, Chettam. But she can act as she likes, you know.""It would have been better if I had called him out and shot him a year ago," said Sir James, not from bloody-mindedness, but because he needed something strong to say.
"Really, James, that would have been very disagreeable," said Celia.
"Be reasonable, Chettam. Look at the affair more quietly,"said Mr. Cadwallader, sorry to see his good-natured friend so overmastered by anger.
"That is not so very easy for a man of any dignity--with any sense of right--when the affair happens to be in his own family,"said Sir James, still in his white indignation. "It is perfectly scandalous. If Ladislaw had had a spark of honor he would have gone out of the country at once, and never shown his face in it again. However, I am not surprised. The day after Casaubon's funeral I said what ought to be done. But I was not listened to.""You wanted what was impossible, you know, Chettam," said Mr. Brooke.
"You wanted him shipped off. I told you Ladislaw was not to be done as we liked with: he had his ideas. He was a remarkable fellow--I always said he was a remarkable fellow.""Yes," said Sir James, unable to repress a retort, "it is rather a pity you formed that high opinion of him. We are indebted to that for his being lodged in this neighborhood. We are indebted to that for seeing a woman like Dorothea degrading herself by marrying him."Sir James made little stoppages between his clauses, the words not coming easily. "A man so marked out by her husband's will, that delicacy ought to have forbidden her from seeing him again--who takes her out of her proper rank--into poverty--has the meanness to accept such a sacrifice--has always had an objectionable position--a bad origin--and, I BELIEVE, is a man of little principle and light character. That is my opinion." Sir James ended emphatically, turning aside and crossing his leg.
"I pointed everything out to her," said Mr. Brooke, apologetically--"I mean the poverty, and abandoning her position. I said, `My dear, you don't know what it is to live on seven hundred a-year, and have no carriage, and that kind of thing, and go amongst people who don't know who you are.' I put it strongly to her.
But I advise you to talk to Dorothea herself. The fact is, she has a dislike to Casaubon's property. You will hear what she says, you know.""No--excuse me--I shall not," said Sir James, with more coolness.
"I cannot bear to see her again; it is too painful. It hurts me too much that a woman like Dorothea should have done what is wrong.""Be just, Chettam," said the easy, large-lipped Rector, who objected to all this unnecessary discomfort. "Mrs. Casaubon may be acting imprudently: she is giving up a fortune for the sake of a man, and we men have so poor an opinion of each other that we can hardly call a woman wise who does that. But I think you should not condemn it as a wrong action, in the strict sense of the word.""Yes, I do," answered Sir James. "I think that Dorothea commits a wrong action in marrying Ladislaw.""My dear fellow, we are rather apt to consider an act wrong because it is unpleasant to us," said the Rector, quietly. Like many men who take life easily, he had the knack of saying a home truth occasionally to those who felt themselves virtuously out of temper.
Sir James took out his handkerchief and began to bite the corner.
"It is very dreadful of Dodo, though," said Celia, wishing to justify her husband. "She said she NEVER WOULD marry again--not anybody at all."
"I heard her say the same thing myself," said Lady Chettam, majestically, as if this were royal evidence.
"Oh, there is usually a silent exception in such cases,"said Mrs. Cadwallader. "The only wonder to me is, that any of you are surprised. You did nothing to hinder it. If you would have had Lord Triton down here to woo her with his philanthropy, he might have carried her off before the year was over. There was no safety in anything else. Mr. Casaubon had prepared all this as beautifully as possible. He made himself disagreeable--or it pleased God to make him so--and then he dared her to contradict him.
It's the way to make any trumpery tempting, to ticket it at a high price in that way.""I don't know what you mean by wrong, Cadwallader," said Sir James, still feeling a little stung, and turning round in his chair towards the Rector. "He's not a man we can take into the family.
At least, I must speak for myself," he continued, carefully keeping his eyes off Mr. Brooke. "I suppose others will find his society too pleasant to care about the propriety of the thing.""Well, you know, Chettam," said Mr. Brooke, good-humoredly, nursing his leg, "I can't turn my back on Dorothea. I must be a father to her up to a certain point. I said, `My dear, I won't refuse to give you away.' I had spoken strongly before. But I can cut off the entail, you know. It will cost money and be troublesome;but I can do it, you know."
Mr. Brooke nodded at Sir James, and felt that he was both showing his own force of resolution and propitiating what was just in the Baronet's vexation. He had hit on a more ingenious mode of parrying than he was aware of. He had touched a motive of which Sir James was ashamed.
The mass of his feeling about Dorothea's marriage to Ladislaw was due partly to excusable prejudice, or even justifiable opinion, partly to a jealous repugnance hardly less in Ladislaw's case than in Casaubon's. He was convinced that the marriage was a fatal one for Dorothea. But amid that mass ran a vein of which he was too good and honorable a man to like the avowal even to himself:
