In Middlemarch, several important events occur in book 5. Among the most notable are the death of Casaubon, the revelation of the contents of his will, and Dorothea’s reaction to both her husband’s death and his written instructions. Casaubon has prohibited a future marriage to Will Ladislaw—that is, imposed his will after death, or exercised his “dead hand,” as book 5 is titled. Will is in love with Dorothea but had deluded himself into thinking he was content to worship her from afar. However, when Casaubon dies, he realizes he had harbored secret hopes of marriage. His decision to leave soon derives from those secret hopes and the need to deflect gossip, as well as prove himself worthy of her.
Will is aware that his love for Dorothea is judged wrong by others’ social standards because she is not only married, but married to his cousin. He does whatever he can to stay occupied in Middlemarch so that he can find opportunities to be near her. He gains a post in the office of the local lawyers, Brooke and Chettam. Brooke is married to Dorothea’s sister, Celia. Romantically proud of his devotion to her, he is determined to be a good friend and stay close by, “whatever fire-breathing dragons might hiss around her.”
Casaubon’s health has been touch-and-go, but he senses that the end is near. He tries to get Dorothea to promise that after he dies, she will not remarry but will devote herself to carrying on his life’s work of religious studies. She tells him she will give him her answer the next day. In the morning, however, she finds him dead in the back garden of their home. He had not lived long enough to hear her promise.
But the silence in her husband's ear was never more to be broken.
After his death, Brooke and Chettam, who are in charge of settling the estate, argue about the meaning behind the codicil and what to do with Ladislaw. They are both appalled but cannot agree if Ladislaw should be persuaded to leave because of the predicted gossip. Chettam is incensed that Casaubon
has most unfairly compromised Dorothea. I say that there never was a meaner, more ungentlemanly action than this—a codicil of this sort to a will which he made at the time of his marriage with the knowledge and reliance of her family—a positive insult to Dorothea! . . . I believe Casaubon was only jealous of him on Dorothea's account, and the world will suppose that she gave him some reason; and that is what makes it so abominable—coupling her name with this young fellow's.
Brooke tells Celia about the codicil, and she breaks the news to her sister. Hearing the news turns Dorothea’s world upside down, and she tries to sort out her feelings, both toward her late husband and toward Will.
One change terrified her as if it had been a sin; it was a violent shock of repulsion from her departed husband, who had had hidden thoughts, perhaps perverting everything she said and did. Then again she was conscious of another change which also made her tremulous; it was a sudden strange yearning of heart towards Will Ladislaw. It had never before entered her mind that he could, under any circumstances, be her lover.
Brooke, in order to deflect possible gossip, discourages his clerk from coming to his house, where he might run into Dorothea. Will is conscious of the change but, having not yet heard of the codicil, can only guess at the reasons.
Will, awake to the slightest hint in this direction, concluded that he was to be kept away from the Grange on Dorothea's account. Her friends, then, regarded him with some suspicion? Their fears were quite superfluous: they were very much mistaken if they imagined that he would put himself forward as a needy adventurer trying to win the favor of a rich woman.
Until now Will had never fully seen the chasm between himself and Dorothea—until now that he was come to the brink of it, and saw her on the other side. He began, not without some inward rage, to think of going away from the neighborhood: it would be impossible for him to show any further interest in Dorothea without subjecting himself to disagreeable imputations—perhaps even in her mind, which others might try to poison.
Still unaware of the codicil, he becomes more determined to go away and make a name for himself, even if it takes five years.
Why should he stay? If the impassable gulf between himself and Dorothea were ever to be filled up, it must rather be by his going away and getting into a thoroughly different position than by staying here and slipping into deserved contempt as an understrapper of Brooke's. . . . Why should he not one day be lifted above the shoulders of the crowd, and feel that he had won that eminence well? Without doubt he would leave Middlemarch, go to town, and make himself fit for celebrity by "eating his dinners."
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/145/145-h/145-h.htm
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