Book VI: The Widow and the Wife

Chapter 54 

A personal note to begin: Early in the chapter, when Dorothea says that she intends to return to Lowick after staying with Celia and Sir James, it is briefly proposed that they should go to Cheltenham (a "market town" of some size in the northern part of the Cotswolds), with Eliot opining, "at that period a man could hardly know what to propose if Cheltenham were rejected" (504). The personal connection is that I spent a week in Cheltenham in the summer of 2022. I'm not sure what it was like in 1830, but I was underwhelmed. The highlight for me was about 5 miles south, in the village of Cooper's Hill, where I had the good fortune to witness the world-famous "cheese rolling." You might not believe it if I didn't have the pictures and videos to prove it. 

Maybe Dorothea would have perked up for that.

But let's get back to the business at hand. I love that Dorothea stands up to Mrs. Cadwallader, who describes sanity as "call[ing] things by the same names as other people call them by" (505). Dorothea rejects this, arguing that "the greater part of the world is mistaken about many things" (505), providing something of a hint at how she might regard the opinions/convictions of others at some point in the future.

Later Mrs. Cadwallader reports to her husband that Dorothea simply needs "a husband . . . to keep her in order" (505). I've always admired Mrs. C's spirit and homespun wisdom, but I see more on this reading that Eliot intends for her to represent a more conventional way of seeing the world.

Factual note: We learn on p. 506 that Dorothea was married to Casaubon for 18 months. I hadn't really kept track of how much time had passed, but somehow I'd thought it was less than a year before he died. 

The most important parts of the chapter, of course, are the revelation that Dorothea very much wishes to see Will ("The longing was to see Will Ladislaw" [507]), and Will's suprise visit the very next day. Their meeting is awkward and yet strangely meaningful before it is interrupted by Sir James. Another—and this case far more important—piece of factual information emerges; Casaubon's former butler, Pratt, "knew the fact of which Ladislaw was still ignorant" (509). In other words: Will doesn't know about the codicil to Casaubon's will (specifically forbidding Dorothea to marry Will), but he plans to leave the area nonetheless. 

One point of clarification: In the long paragraph near the bottom of p. 510, Eliot puts us inside Dorothea's head while she contemplates Will's departure—and what she assumes will be many years that he will be away. She further assumes that Will knows about the codicil to the will, which then causes her to think that Will "had never felt more than friendship for her" (510). She then experiences an "inward silent sob" before she does her best to take up her part of the dialogue. 

Just before Sir James is announced, there are a couple of poignant moments. Dorothea knows the full import of her words when she says, "Sorrow comes in so many ways . . . . and ties our hands" (512). She means, of course, the sorrow not only of the dishonor Casaubon has done with his codicil, but also the seeming impossibility of her properly loving Will. By contrast, Will doesn't know the full meaning of his own words when he says, "The thing one most longs for may be surrounded with conditions that would be intolerable" (512). 

Sir James' entrance, and all that his personage signifies, solidifies Will's certainty that he must leave the area—and Dorothea. 

Chapter 55 

I don't find a great deal to remark on here—maybe only that I again find Sir James pretty decent since he's the only one who seems to think it would be fine if Dorothea (even at just 21) chose never to marry again. 

Chapter 56 

This is one of my favorite chapters in the book—probably in part because it is one of the easiest to read and make sense of. It's as if Eliot temporarily decides to inhabit the more plain-spoken world of Caleb Garth himself in recounting these events. Reminds me a bit of The Mill on The Floss, another Eliot novel I hold dear—but one that is much simpler and more easily digestible. 

You may recall that Caleb Garth much earlier wondered if he might have enough extra work that he would be able to use Fred Vincy in some capacity. Well, now it comes to be. I love the scene out in the field where the laborers come after the surveyors, so I'll use this opportunity to share the best image I could find on that topic:

I said that I love how plain-spoken this chapter tends to be, but I'd like to highlight one of the exceptions, a sentence that leapt off the page to me when I was reading this novel in the fall of 2016 (when, daily, we seemed to go back and forth trying to decide how much to worry about the possibility of a Donald Trump presidency). In this moment, Caleb has just listened to a lengthy oration from one of the older laborers, Timothy Cooper. While Timothy was the only one who did not threaten the surveyors, he clearly doesn't trust them (or the "progress" they represent). 

After his speech, Eliot half-jokingly presents old Timothy as a philosophical type, one who intuitively understands The Rights of Man, the 1790 philosophical-political treatise in which Thomas Paine argued that "political revolution is permissible when a government does not safeguard the natural rights of its people" (Wikipedia; yeah, yeah, I know, but I've got a lot going on here). 

Eliot then takes us inside Garth's mind as he formulates a response, and this is the sentence I love: "Caleb was in a difficulty known to any person attempting in dark times and unassisted by miracle to reason with rustics who are in possession of an undeniable truth which they know through a hard process of feeling, and let it fall like a giant's club on your neatly carved argument for a social benefit which they do not feel" (526). 

And here we are again in 2024. Hoping for something better this time 'round.

Chapter 57 

I love how Eliot handles the scene between Fred and Mrs. Garth. Fred wants to speak to her in order to know that she approves (at least minimally) of his pursuit of Mary, and Mrs. Garth has her own interest in speaking to Fred. She has not forgiven him for his blunders that cost her family so much hard-earned money, and she isn't nearly as trusting or optimistic about him as her husband is. What I appreciate about Eliot's handling of the scene is how it culminates in this line from within Mrs. Garth's mind: "In fact her feelings were divided between the satisfaction of giving Fred his discipline and the sense of having gone a little too far" (539). 

It strikes me as so utterly human—we know we're in the right, and we decide to let someone have it so that they know exactly how we feel they've come up short, and then we say that little bit too much. (I do this myself frequently—maybe that's why I enjoy seeing it in a character I otherwise admire.)

In any case, back to the novel. As a result of her slight overstepping, Mrs. Garth loses something of the upper hand in this dynamic. And then she has to struggle internally with how her husband might feel about the exchange she's been having with Fred. She resolves to tell him about it herself, and hopes that Fred being aware of a potential rival (Farebrother) might set him on the straight and narrow.

Fresh from this unpleasant interaction, Fred goes on to Lowick to see Mary, and ends up in an awkward conversation with her too. Mr. Farebrother is yet again a complete mensch and makes it possible for Mary and Fred to talk privately, and yet again Fred more or less botches it. He doesn't know it yet, but Mary is devoted to him—and will give him signs eventually if he'd just stop being such an ass.

Chapter 58 

This is how I picture Lydgate and his cousin, "the Captain," whom Rosamond holds in such high esteem since he is the son of a baronet. I think of Lydgate as the one holding the paper, ignoring his relative because he's a "bore." (And he has his foot on the couch!)

This setting might be a bit too opulent for the Lydgates, but gradations of wealth as represented in interior furnishings in the Victorian era are not my area of expertise. Much of the chapter is concerned with the Lydgates' debt, though, so who knows?

I don't have a great deal to say about this (long) chapter, and the key elements are clear enough. I'll just offer that my opinion of Rosamond is here at its lowest. She's insufferable, isn't she? Poor Lydgate is always in the position of having to kowtow to her constant fits of pique, and she has the nerve to think that "if she had known how Lydgate would behave, she would never have married him" (560). That's one subject on which I suspect they'd be in agreement.

Chapter 57 

Okay, I need to speed this up. I just want to read and enjoy the book at this point, and I'm not sure anyone is reading this....

Will learns from loose-lipped Rosamond about Casaubon's codicil to the will. 

Chapter 58 

There's an auction, and Raffles is there. Remember that Raffles is the one who had information about both Joshua Rigg (the outsider who inherited Featherstone's property) and Bulstrode, the pious banker. Now he introduces himself (so to speak) to Will and reveals that he knows something about Will's mother, Sarah. More plot twists to come in relation to this.

Chapter 59 

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