It was a loss to me his going off so suddenly. Dear me, what a very animated conversation Miss Brooke seems to be having with this Mr. Lydgate!""She is talking cottages and hospitals with him," said Mrs. Cadwallader, whose ears and power of interpretation were quick. "I believe he is a sort of philanthropist, so Brooke is sure to take him up.""James," said Lady Chettam when her son came near, "bring Mr. Lydgate and introduce him to me. I want to test him."The affable dowager declared herself delighted with this opportunity of making Mr. Lydgate's acquaintance, having heard of his success in treating fever on a new plan.
Mr. Lydgate had the medical accomplishment of looking perfectly grave whatever nonsense was talked to him, and his dark steady eyes gave him impressiveness as a listener. He was as little as possible like the lamented Hicks, especially in a certain careless refinement about his toilet and utterance. Yet Lady Chettam gathered much confidence in him.
He confirmed her view of her own constitution as being peculiar, by admitting that all constitutions might be called peculiar, and he did not deny that hers might be more peculiar than others.
He did not approve of a too lowering system, including reckless cupping, nor, on the other hand, of incessant port wine and bark. He said "Ithink so" with an air of so much deference accompanying the insight of agreement, that she formed the most cordial opinion of his talents.
"I am quite pleased with your protege," she said to Mr. Brooke before going away.
"My protege?--dear me!--who is that?" said Mr. Brooke.
"This young Lydgate, the new doctor.-He seems to me to understand his profession admirably.""Oh, Lydgate! he is not my protege, you know; only I knew an uncle of his who sent me a letter about him. However, I think he is likely to be first-rate--has studied in Paris, knew Broussais;has ideas, you know--wants to raise the profession.""Lydgate has lots of ideas, quite new, about ventilation and diet, that sort of thing," resumed Mr. Brooke, after he had handed out Lady Chettam, and had returned to be civil to a group of Middlemarchers.
"Hang it, do you think that is quite sound?--upsetting The old treatment, which has made Englishmen what they re?" said Mr. Standish.
"Medical knowledge is at a low ebb among us," said Mr. Bulstrode, who spoke in a subdued tone, and had rather a sickly wir "I, for my part, hail the advent of Mr. Lydgate. I hope to find good reason for confiding the new hospital to his management.""That is all very fine," replied Mr. Standish, who was not fond of Mr. Bulstrode; "if you like him to try experiments on your hospital patients, and kill a few people for charity I have no objection.
But I am not going to hand money out of my purse to have experiments tried on me. I like treatment that has been tested a little.""Well, you know, Standish, every dose you take is an experiment-an experiment, you know," said Mr. Brooke, nodding towards the lawyer.
"Oh, if you talk in that sense!" said Mr. Standish, with as much disgust at such non-legal quibbling as a man can well betray towards a valuable client.
"I should be glad of any treatment that would cure me without reducing me to a skeleton, like poor Grainger," said Mr. Vincy, the mayor, a florid man, who would have served for a study of flesh in striking contrast with the Franciscan tints of Mr. Bulstrode.
"It's an uncommonly dangerous thing to be left without any padding against the shafts of disease, as somebody said,--and I think it a very good expression myself."Mr. Lydgate, of course, was out of hearing. He had quitted the party early, and would have thought it altogether tedious but for the novelty of certain introductions, especially the introduction to Miss Brooke, whose youthful bloom, with her approaching marriage to that faded scholar, and her interest in matters socially useful, gave her the piquancy of an unusual combination.
"She is a good creature--that fine girl--but a little too earnest,"he thought. "It is troublesome to talk to such women. They are always wanting reasons, yet they are too ignorant to understand the merits of any question, and usually fall hack on their moral sense to settle things after their own taste."Evidently Miss Brooke was not Mr. Lydgate's style of woman any more than Mr. Chichely's. Considered, indeed, in relation to the latter, whose mied was matured, she was altogether a mistake, and calculated to shock his trust in final causes, including the adaptation of fine young women to purplefaced bachelors. But Lydgate was less ripe, and might possibly have experience before him which would modify his opinion as to the most excellent things in woman.
Miss Brooke, however, was not again seen by either of these gentlemen under her maiden name. Not long after that dinner-party she had become Mrs. Casaubon, and was on her way to Rome.
