Its novelty made it the more irritating. He was amazed, disgusted that
conditions so foreign to all his purposes, so hatefully disconnected
with the objects he cared to occupy himself with, should have lain in
ambush and clutched him when he was unaware. And there was not only
the actual debt; there was the certainty that in his present position
he must go on deepening it. Two furnishing tradesmen at Brassing,
whose bills had been incurred before his marriage, and whom
uncalculated current expenses had ever since prevented him from paying,
had repeatedly sent him unpleasant letters which had forced themselves
on his attention. This could hardly have been more galling to any
disposition than to Lydgate's, with his intense pride--his dislike of
asking a favor or being under an obligation to any one. He had scorned
even to form conjectures about Mr. Vincy's intentions on money matters,
and nothing but extremity could have induced him to apply to his
father-in-law, even if he had not been made aware in various indirect
ways since his marriage that Mr. Vincy's own affairs were not
flourishing, and that the expectation of help from him would be
resented. Some men easily trust in the readiness of friends; it had
never in the former part of his life occurred to Lydgate that he should
need to do so: he had never thought what borrowing would be to him; but
now that the idea had entered his mind, he felt that he would rather
incur any other hardship. In the mean time he had no money or
prospects of money; and his practice was not getting more lucrative.
No wonder that Lydgate had been unable to suppress all signs of inward
trouble during the last few months, and now that Rosamond was regaining
brilliant health, he meditated taking her entirely into confidence on
his difficulties. New conversance with tradesmen's bills had forced
his reasoning into a new channel of comparison: he had begun to
consider from a new point of view what was necessary and unnecessary in
goods ordered, and to see that there must be some change of habits.
How could such a change be made without Rosamond's concurrence? The
immediate occasion of opening the disagreeable fact to her was forced
upon him.
Having no money, and having privately sought advice as to what security
could possibly be given by a man in his position, Lydgate had offered
the one good security in his power to the less peremptory creditor, who
was a silversmith and jeweller, and who consented to take on himself
the upholsterer's credit also, accepting interest for a given term.
The security necessary was a bill of sale on the furniture of his
house, which might make a creditor easy for a reasonable time about a
debt amounting to less than four hundred pounds; and the silversmith,
Mr. Dover, was willing to reduce it by taking back a portion of the
plate and any other article which was as good as new. "Any other
article" was a phrase delicately implying jewellery, and more
particularly some purple amethysts costing thirty pounds, which Lydgate
had bought as a bridal present.