George Eliot: Middlemarch

BOOK VIII. SUNSET AND SUNRISE. 84. CHAPTER LXXXIV. (continued)

"I'm dying to know the sad news. The gamekeeper is not shot: that is settled. What is it, then?"

"Well, it's a very trying thing, you know," said Mr. Brooke. "I'm glad you and the Rector are here; it's a family matter-- but you will help us all to bear it, Cadwallader. I've got to break it to you, my dear." Here Mr. Brooke looked at Celia-- "You've no notion what it is, you know. And, Chettam, it will annoy you uncommonly--but, you see, you have not been able to hinder it, any more than I have. There's something singular in things: they come round, you know."

"It must be about Dodo," said Celia, who had been used to think of her sister as the dangerous part of the family machinery. She had seated herself on a low stool against her husband's knee.

"For God's sake let us hear what it is!" said Sir James.

"Well, you know, Chettam, I couldn't help Casaubon's will: it was a sort of will to make things worse."

"Exactly," said Sir James, hastily. "But WHAT is worse?"

"Dorothea is going to be married again, you know," said Mr. Brooke, nodding towards Celia, who immediately looked up at her husband with a frightened glance, and put her hand on his knee. Sir James was almost white with anger, but he did not speak.

"Merciful heaven!" said Mrs. Cadwallader. "Not to YOUNG Ladislaw?"

Mr. Brooke nodded, saying, "Yes; to Ladislaw," and then fell into a prudential silence.

"You see, Humphrey!" said Mrs. Cadwallader, waving her arm towards her husband. "Another time you will admit that I have some foresight; or rather you will contradict me and be just as blind as ever. YOU supposed that the young gentleman was gone out of the country."

"So he might be, and yet come back," said the Rector, quietly