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They stood silent, not looking at each other, but looking at the evergreens which were being tossed, and were showing the pale underside of their leaves against the blackening sky. Will never enjoyed the prospect of a storm so much: it delivered him from the necessity of going away. Leaves and little branches were hurled about, and the thunder was getting nearer. The light was more and more sombre, but there came a flash of lightning which made them start and look at each other, and then smile. Dorothea began to say what she had been thinking of.
"That was a wrong thing for you to say, that you would have had nothing to try for. If we had lost our own chief good, other people's good would remain, and that is worth trying for. Some can be happy. I seemed to see that more clearly than ever, when I was the most wretched. I can hardly think how I could have borne the trouble, if that feeling had not come to me to make strength."
"You have never felt the sort of misery I felt," said Will; " the misery of knowing that you must despise me."
"But I have felt worse -- it was worse to think ill -- " Dorothea had begun impetuously, but broke off.
Will colored. He had the sense that whatever she said was uttered in the vision of a fatality that kept them apart. He was silent a moment, and then said passionately --
"We may at least have the comfort of speaking to each other without disguise. Since I must go away -- since we must always be divided -- you may think of me as one on the brink of the grave."
While he was speaking there came a vivid flash of lightning which lit each of them up for the other -- and the light seemed to be the terror of a hopeless love. Dorothea darted instantaneously from the window; Will followed her, seizing her hand with a spasmodic movement; and so they stood, with their hands clasped, like two children, looking out on the storm, while the thunder gave a tremendous crack and roll above them, and the rain began to pour down. Then they turned their faces towards each other, with the memory of his last words in them, and they did not loose each other's hands.
"There is no hope for me," said Will. "Even if you loved me as well as I love you -- even if I were everything to you -- I shall most likely always be very poor: on a sober calculation, one can count on nothing but a creeping lot. It is impossible for us ever to belong to each other. It is perhaps base of me to have asked for a word from you. I meant to go away into silence, but I have not been able to do what I meant."
"Don't be sorry," said Dorothea, in her clear tender tones. "I would rather share all the trouble of our parting."
Her lips trembled, and so did his. It was never known which lips were the first to move towards the other lips; but they kissed tremblingly, and then they moved apart.
The rain was dashing against the window-panes as if an angry spirit were within it, and behind it was the great swoop of the wind; it was one of those moments in which both the busy and the idle pause with a certain awe.
Dorothea sat down on the seat nearest to her, a long low ottoman in the middle of the room, and with her hands folded over each other on her lap, looked at the drear outer world. Will stood still an instant looking at her, then seated himself beside her, and laid his hand on hers, which turned itself upward to be clasped. They sat in that way without looking at each other, until the rain abated and began to fall in stillness. Each had been full of thoughts which neither of them could begin to utter.
But when the rain was quiet, Dorothea turned to look at Will. With passionate exclamation, as if some torture screw were threatening him, he started up and said, "It is impossible!"
He went and leaned on the back of the chair again, and seemed to be battling with his own anger, while she looked towards him sadly.
"It is as fatal as a murder or any other horror that divides people," he burst out again; " it is more intolerable -- to have our life maimed by petty accidents."
"No -- don't say that -- your life need not be maimed," said Dorothea, gently.
"Yes, it must," said Will, angrily. "It is cruel of you to speak in that way -- as if there were any comfort. You may see beyond the misery of it, but I don't. It is unkind -- it is throwing back my love for you as if it were a trifle, to speak in that way in the face of the fact. We can never be married."
"Some time -- we might," said Dorothea, in a trembling voice.
"When?" said Will, bitterly. "What is the use of counting on any success of mine? It is a mere toss up whether I shall ever do more than keep myself decently, unless I choose to sell myself as a mere pen and a mouthpiece. I can see that clearly enough. I could not offer myself to any woman, even if she had no luxuries to renounce."
There was silence. Dorothea's heart was full of something that she wanted to say, and yet the words were too difficult. She was wholly possessed by them: at that moment debate was mute within her. And it was very hard that she could not say what she wanted to say. Will was looking out of the window angrily. If he would have looked at her and not gone away from her side, she thought everything would have been easier. At last he turned, still resting against the chair, and stretching his hand automatically towards his hat, said with a sort of exasperation, "Good-by."
"Oh, I cannot bear it -- my heart will break," said Dorothea, starting from her seat, the flood of her young passion bearing down all the obstructions which had kept her silent -- the great tears rising and falling in an instant: " I don't mind about poverty -- I hate my wealth."
In an instant Will was close to her and had his arms round her, but she drew her head back and held his away gently that she might go on speaking, her large tear-filled eyes looking at his very simply, while she said in a sobbing childlike way, " We could live quite well on my own fortune -- it is too much -- seven hundred a-year -- I want so little -- no new clothes -- and I will learn what everything costs."
Good grief! Is this the work of George Eliot, the great Realist, or of some hack melodramatist? How noble of Dorothea to accept living on 700 pounds a year (that would be about $50k in modern money). How convenient of the thunder and lightening to augment the kiss! How pathetic of Will Ladislaw to dissemble with the "my life is over" bit (who could love such a twit?).
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"It will be a sad while before you can be married, Mary," said her father, not looking at her, but at the end of the stick which he held in his other hand.
"Not a sad while, father -- I mean to be merry," said Mary, laughingly. "I have been single and merry for four-and-twenty years and more: I suppose it will not be quite as long again as that." Then, after a little pause, she said, more gravely, bending her face before her father's, "If you are contented with Fred?"
Caleb screwed up his mouth and turned his head aside wisely.
"Now, father, you did praise him last Wednesday. You said he had an uncommon notion of stock, and a good eye for things."
"Did I?" said Caleb, rather slyly.
"Yes, I put it all down, and the date, anno Domini, and everything," said Mary. "You like things to be neatly booked. And then his behavior to you, father, is really good; he has a deep respect for you; and it is impossible to have a better temper than Fred has."
"Ay, ay; you want to coax me into thinking him a fine match."
"No, indeed, father. I don't love him because he is a fine match."
"What for, then?"
"Oh, dear, because I have always loved him. I should never like scolding any one else so well; and that is a point to be thought of in a husband."
"Your mind is quite settled, then, Mary?" said Caleb, returning to his first tone. "There's no other wish come into it since things have been going on as they have been of late?" (Caleb meant a great deal in that vague phrase;) "because, better late than never. A woman must not force her heart -- she'll do a man no good by that."
"My feelings have not changed, father," said Mary, calmly. "I shall be constant to Fred as long as he is constant to me. I don't think either of us could spare the other, or like any one else better, however much we might admire them. It would make too great a difference to us -- like seeing all the old places altered, and changing the name for everything. We must wait for each other a long while; but Fred knows that."
Instead of speaking immediately, Caleb stood still and screwed his stick on the grassy walk. Then he said, with emotion in his voice, "Well, I've got a bit of news. What do you think of Fred going to live at Stone Court, and managing the land there?"
"How can that ever be, father?" said Mary, wonderingly.
"He would manage it for his aunt Bulstrode. The poor woman has been to me begging and praying. She wants to do the lad good, and it might be a fine thing for him. With saving, he might gradually buy the stock, and he has a turn for farming."
"Oh, Fred would be so happy! It is too good to believe."
"Ah, but mind you," said Caleb, turning his head warningly, "I must take it on my shoulders, and be responsible, and see after everything; and that will grieve your mother a bit, though she mayn't say so. Fred had need be careful."
"Perhaps it is too much, father," said Mary, checked in her joy. "There would be no happiness in bringing you any fresh trouble."
"Nay, nay; work is my delight, child, when it doesn't vex your mother. And then, if you and Fred get married," here Caleb's voice shook just perceptibly, "he'll be steady and saving; and you've got your mother's cleverness, and mine too, in a woman's sort of way; and you'll keep him in order. He'll be coming by-and-by, so I wanted to tell you first, because I think you'd like to tell him by yourselves. After that, I could talk it well over with him, and we could go into business and the nature of things."
"Oh, you dear good father!" cried Mary, putting her hands round her father's neck, while he bent his head placidly, willing to be caressed. "I wonder if any other girl thinks her father the best man in the world!"
"Nonsense, child; you'll think your husband better."
"Impossible," said Mary, relapsing into her usual tone; " husbands are an inferior class of men, who require keeping in order."
When they were entering the house with Letty, who had run to join them, Mary saw Fred at the orchard-gate, and went to meet him.
"What fine clothes you wear, you extravagant youth!" said Mary, as Fred stood still and raised his hat to her with playful formality. "You are not learning economy."
"Now that is too bad, Mary," said Fred. "Just look at the edges of these coat-cuffs! It is only by dint of good brushing that I look respectable. I am saving up three suits -- one for a wedding-suit."
"How very droll you will look! -- like a gentleman in an old fashion-book."
"Oh no, they will keep two years."
"Two years! be reasonable, Fred," said Mary, turning to walk. "Don't encourage flattering expectations."
"Why not? One lives on them better than on unflattering ones. If we can't be married in two years, the truth will be quite bad enough when it comes."
"I have heard a story of a young gentleman who once encouraged flattering expectations, and they did him harm."
"Mary, if you've got something discouraging to tell me, I shall bolt; I shall go into the house to Mr. Garth. I am out of spirits. My father is so cut up -- home is not like itself. I can't bear any more bad news."
"Should you call it bad news to be told that you were to live at Stone Court, and manage the farm, and be remarkably prudent, and save money every year till all the stock and furniture were your own, and you were a distinguished agricultural character, as Mr. Borthrop Trumbull says -- rather stout, I fear, and with the Greek and Latin sadly weather-worn?"
"You don't mean anything except nonsense, Mary?" said Fred, coloring slightly nevertheless.
"That is what my father has just told me of as what may happen, and he never talks nonsense," said Mary, looking up at Fred now, while he grasped her hand as they walked, till it rather hurt her; but she would not complain.
"Oh, I could be a tremendously good fellow then, Mary, and we could be married directly."
"Not so fast, sir; how do you know that I would not rather defer our marriage for some years? That would leave you time to misbehave, and then if I liked some one else better, I should have an excuse for jilting you."
"Pray don't joke, Mary," said Fred, with strong feeling. "Tell me seriously that all this is true, and that you are happy because of it -- because you love me best."
"It is all true, Fred, and I am happy because of it -- because I love you best," said Mary, in a tone of obedient recitation.
They lingered on the door-step under the steep-roofed porch, and Fred almost in a whisper said --
"When we were first engaged, with the umbrella-ring, Mary, you used to -- "
The spirit of joy began to laugh more decidedly in Mary's eyes, but the fatal Ben came running to the door with Brownie yapping behind him, and, bouncing against them, said --
"Fred and Mary! are you ever coming in? -- or may I eat your cake?"
