For when a man is at the foot of the hill in his fortunes, he may stay a long while there in spite of professional accomplishment.
In the British climate there is no incompatibility between scientific insight and furnished lodgings: the incompatibility is chiefly between scientific ambition and a wife who objects to that kind of residence.
But in the midst of his hesitation, opportunity came to decide him.
A note from Mr. Bulstrode requested Lydgate to call on him at the Bank. A hypochondriacal tendency had shown itself in the banker's constitution of late; and a lack of sleep, which was really only a slight exaggeration of an habitual dyspeptic symptom, had been dwelt on by him as a sign of threatening insanity.
He wanted to consult Lydgate without delay on that particular morning, although he had nothing to tell beyond what he had told before.
He listened eagerly to what Lydgate had to say in dissipation of his fears, though this too was only repetition; and this moment in which Bulstrode was receiving a medical opinion with a sense of comfort, seemed to make the communication of a personal need to him easier than it had been in Lydgate's contemplation beforehand.
He had been insisting that it would be well for Mr. Bulstrode to relax his attention to business.
"One sees how any mental strain, however slight, may affect a delicate frame," said Lydgate at that stage of the consultation when the remarks tend to pass from the personal to the general, "by the deep stamp which anxiety will make for a time even on the young and vigorous. I am naturally very strong; yet Ihave been thoroughly shaken lately by an accumulation of trouble.""I presume that a constitution in the susceptible state in which mine at present is, would be especially liable to fall a victim to cholera, if it visited our district. And since its appearance near London, we may well besiege the Mercy-seat for our protection,"said Mr. Bulstrode, not intending to evade Lydgate's allusion, but really preoccupied with alarms about himself.
"You have at all events taken your share in using good practical precautions for the town, and that is the best mode of asking for protection," said Lydgate, with a strong distaste for the broken metaphor and bad logic of the banker's religion, somewhat increased by the apparent deafness of his sympathy.
But his mind had taken up its long-prepared movement towards getting help, and was not yet arrested. He added, "The town has done well in the way of cleansing, and finding appliances;and I think that if the cholera should come, even our enemies will admit that the arrangements in the Hospital are a public good.""Truly," said Mr. Bulstrode, with some coldness. "With regard to what you say, Mr. Lydgate, about the relaxation of my mental labor, I have for some time been entertaining a purpose to that effect--a purpose of a very decided character. I contemplate at least a temporary withdrawal from the management of much business, whether benevolent or commercial. Also I think of changing my residence for a time: probably I shall close or let `The Shrubs,' and take some place near the coast--under advice of course as to salubrity.
That would be a measure which you would recommend?""Oh yes," said Lydgate, falling backward in his chair, with ill-repressed impatience under the banker's pale earnest eyes and intense preoccupation with himself.
"I have for some time felt that I should open this subject with you in relation to our Hospital," continued Bulstrode. "Under the circumstances I have indicated, of course I must cease to have any personal share in the management, and it is contrary to my views of responsibility to continue a large application of means to an institution which Icannot watch over and to some extent regulate. I shall therefore, in case of my ultimate decision to leave Middlemarch, consider that Iwithdraw other support to the New Hospital than that which will subsist in the fact that I chiefly supplied the expenses of building it, and have contributed further large sums to its successful working."Lydgate's thought, when Bulstrode paused according to his wont, was, "He has perhaps been losing a good deal of money."This was the most plausible explanation of a speech which had caused rather a startling change in his expectations. He said in reply--"The loss to the Hospital can hardly be made up, I fear.""Hardly," returned Bulstrode, in the same deliberate, silvery tone;"except by some changes of plan. The only person who may be certainly counted on as willing to increase her contributions is Mrs. Casaubon.
I have had an interview with her on the subject, and I have pointed out to her, as I am about to do to you, that it will be desirable to win a more general support to the New Hospital by a change of system."Another pause, but Lydgate did not speak.
"The change I mean is an amalgamation with the Infirmary, so that the New Hospital shall be regarded as a special addition to the elder institution, having the same directing board.
It will be necessary, also, that the medical management of the two shall be combined. In this way any difficulty as to the adequate maintenance of our new establishment will be removed;the benevolent interests of the town will cease to be divided."Mr. Bulstrode had lowered his eyes from Lydgate's face to the buttons of his coat as he again paused.