"Well, my dears," he said, kindly, as they went up to kiss him, "I hope nothing disagreeable has happened while I have been away.""No, uncle," said Celia, "we have been to Freshitt to look at the cottages. We thought you would have been at home to lunch.""I came by Lowick to lunch--you didn't know I came by Lowick. And Ihave brought a couple of pamphlets for you, Dorothea--in the library, you know; they lie on the table in the library."It seemed as if an electric stream went through Dorothea, thrilling her from despair into expectation. They were pamphlets about the early Church. The oppression of Celia, Tantripp, and Sir James was shaken off, and she walked straight to the library.
Celia went up-stairs. Mr. Brooke was detained by a message, but when he re-entered the library, he found Dorothea seated and already deep in one of the pamphlets which had some marginal manuscript of Mr. Casaubon's,--taking it in as eagerly as she might have taken in the scent of a fresh bouquet after a dry, hot, dreary walk.
She was getting away from Tipton and Freshitt, and her own sad liability to tread in the wrong places on her way to the New Jerusalem.
Mr. Brooke sat down in his arm-chair, stretched his legs towards the wood-fire, which had fallen into a wondrous mass of glowing dice between the dogs, and rubbed his hands gently, looking very mildly towards Dorothea, but with a neutral leisurely air, as if he had nothing particular to say. Dorothea closed her pamphlet, as soon as she was aware of her uncle's presence, and rose as if to go.
Usually she would have been interested about her uncle's merciful errand on behalf of the criminal, but her late agitation had made her absent-minded.
"I came back by Lowick, you know," said Mr. Brooke, not as if with any intention to arrest her departure, but apparently from his usual tendency to say what he had said before. This fundamental principle of human speech was markedly exhibited in Mr. Brooke.
"I lunched there and saw Casaubon's library, and that kind of thing.
There's a sharp air, driving. Won't you sit down, my dear?
You look cold."
Dorothea felt quite inclined to accept the invitation. Some times, when her uncle's easy way of taking things did not happen to be exasperating, it was rather soothing. She threw off her mantle and bonnet, and sat down opposite to him, enjoying the glow, but lifting up her beautiful hands for a screen. They were not thin hands, or small hands; but powerful, feminine, maternal hands.
She seemed to be holding them up in propitiation for her passionate desire to know and to think, which in the unfriendly mediums of Tipton and Freshitt had issued in crying and red eyelids.
She bethought herself now of the condemned criminal. "What news have you brought about the sheep-stealer, uncle?""What, poor Bunch?--well, it seems we can't get him off--he is to be hanged."Dorothea's brow took an expression of reprobation and pity.
"Hanged, you know," said Mr. Brooke, with a quiet nod. "Poor Romilly! he would have helped us. I knew Romilly. Casaubon didn't know Romilly.
He is a little buried in books, you know, Casaubon is.""When a man has great studies and is writing a great work, he must of course give up seeing much of the world. How can he go about making acquaintances?""That's true. But a man mopes, you know. I have always been a bachelor too, but I have that sort of disposition that I never moped;it was my way to go about everywhere and take in everything.
I never moped: but I can see that Casaubon does, you know. He wants a companion--a companion, you know.""It would be a great honor to any one to be his companion,"said Dorothea, energetically.
"You like him, eh?" said Mr. Brooke, without showing any surprise, or other emotion. "Well, now, I've known Casaubon ten years, ever since he came to Lowick. But I never got anything out of him--any ideas, you know. However, he is a tiptop man and may be a bishop--that kind of thing, you know, if Peel stays in.
And he has a very high opinion of you, my dear."Dorothea could not speak.
"The fact is, he has a very high opinion indeed of you. And he speaks uncommonly well--does Casaubon. He has deferred to me, you not being of age. In short, I have promised to speak to you, though I told him I thought there was not much chance. I was bound to tell him that. I said, my niece is very young, and that kind of thing. But I didn't think it necessary to go into everything.
However, the long and the short of it is, that he has asked my permission to make you an offer of marriage--of marriage, you know,"said Mr. Brooke, with his explanatory nod. "I thought it better to tell you, my dear."No one could have detected any anxiety in Mr. Brooke's manner, but he did really wish to know something of his niece's mind, that, if there were any need for advice, he might give it in time.
