Depend upon it, I have put my finger on the right thing."
And Mr. Casaubon shrank nervously from communicating on the subject with Sir James Chettam, between whom and himself there had never been any cordiality, and who would immediately think of Dorothea without any mention of her.
Poor Mr. Casaubon was distrustful of everybody's feeling towards him, especially as a husband.
To let any one suppose that he was jealous would be to admit their (suspected) view of his disadvantages: to let them know that he did not find marriage particularly blissful would imply his conversion to their (probably) earlier disapproval.
It would be as bad as letting Carp, and Brasenose generally, know how backward he was in organizing the matter for his
"Key to all Mythologies."
All through his life Mr. Casaubon had been trying not to admit even to himself the inward sores of self-doubt and jealousy.
And on the most delicate of all personal subjects, the habit of proud suspicious reticence told doubly.
Thus Mr. Casaubon remained proudly, bitterly silent.
But he had forbidden Will to come to Lowick Manor, and he was mentally preparing other measures of frustration.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
"C'est beaucoup que le jugement des hommes sur les actions humaines; tot ou tard il devient efficace."—GUIZOT.
Sir James Chettam could not look with any satisfaction on Mr. Brooke's new courses; but it was easier to object than to hinder.
Sir James accounted for his having come in alone one day to lunch with the Cadwalladers by saying—
"I can't talk to you as I want, before Celia: it might hurt her.
Indeed, it would not be right."
"I know what you mean—the
'Pioneer' at the Grange!" darted in Mrs. Cadwallader, almost before the last word was off her friend's tongue.
"It is frightful—this taking to buying whistles and blowing them in everybody's hearing.
Lying in bed all day and playing at dominoes, like poor Lord Plessy, would be more private and bearable."
"I see they are beginning to attack our friend Brooke in the 'Trumpet,'" said the Rector, lounging back and smiling easily, as he would have done if he had been attacked himself.
"There are tremendous sarcasms against a landlord not a hundred miles from Middlemarch, who receives his own rents, and makes no returns."
"I do wish Brooke would leave that off," said Sir James, with his little frown of annoyance.
"Is he really going to be put in nomination, though?" said Mr. Cadwallader.
"I saw Farebrother yesterday—he's Whiggish himself, hoists Brougham and Useful Knowledge; that's the worst I know of him;—and he says that Brooke is getting up a pretty strong party.
Bulstrode, the banker, is his foremost man.
But he thinks Brooke would come off badly at a nomination."
"Exactly," said Sir James, with earnestness.
"I have been inquiring into the thing, for I've never known anything about Middlemarch politics before—the county being my business.
What Brooke trusts to, is that they are going to turn out Oliver because he is a Peelite.
But Hawley tells me that if they send up a Whig at all it is sure to be Bagster, one of those candidates who come from heaven knows where, but dead against Ministers, and an experienced Parliamentary man.
Hawley's rather rough: he forgot that he was speaking to me.
He said if Brooke wanted a pelting, he could get it cheaper than by going to the hustings."
"I warned you all of it," said Mrs. Cadwallader, waving her hands outward.
"I said to Humphrey long ago, Mr. Brooke is going to make a splash in the mud.
And now he has done it."
"Well, he might have taken it into his head to marry," said the Rector.
"That would have been a graver mess than a little flirtation with politics."
"He may do that afterwards," said Mrs. Cadwallader—"when he has come out on the other side of the mud with an ague."
"What I care for most is his own dignity," said Sir James.
"Of course I care the more because of the family. But he's getting on in life now, and I don't like to think of his exposing himself.
They will be raking up everything against him."
"I suppose it's no use trying any persuasion," said the Rector.
"There's such an odd mixture of obstinacy and changeableness in Brooke.
Have you tried him on the subject?"
"Well, no," said Sir James;
"I feel a delicacy in appearing to dictate.
But I have been talking to this young Ladislaw that Brooke is making a factotum of.
Ladislaw seems clever enough for anything.
I thought it as well to hear what he had to say; and he is against Brooke's standing this time.