The Chronicles of Barsetshire (200 page)

“I shall be sorry—very sorry.”

“I also shall be sorry. I am now speaking of him. He has set his heart upon it; and as he has but few wishes, few desires, so is he the more constant in those which he expresses. When he knows this, I fear that we shall find him very stern.”

“Then he will be unjust.”

“No; he will not be unjust. He is always a just man. But he will be unhappy, and will, I fear, make others unhappy. Dear Bell, may not this thing remain for a while unsettled? You will not find that I take advantage of your goodness. I will not intrude it on you again—say for a fortnight—or till Crosbie shall be gone.”

“No, no, no,” said Bell.

“Why are you so eager in your noes? There can be no danger in such delay. I will not press you—and you can let my uncle think that you have at least taken time for consideration.”

“There are things as to which one is bound to answer at once. If I doubted myself, I would let you persuade me. But I do not doubt myself, and I should be wrong to keep you in suspense. Dear, dearest Bernard, it cannot be; and as it cannot he, you, as my brother, would bid me say so clearly. It cannot be.”

As she made this last assurance, they heard the steps of Lily and her lover close to them, and they both felt that it would be well that their intercourse should thus be brought to a close. Neither had known how to get up and leave the place, and yet each had felt that nothing further could then be said.

“Did you ever see anything so sweet and affectionate and romantic?” said Lily, standing over them and looking at them. “And all the while we have been so practical and worldly. Do you know, Bell, that Adolphus seems to think we can’t very well keep pigs in London. It makes me so unhappy.”

“It does seem a pity,” said Crosbie, “for Lily seems to know all about pigs.”

“Of course I do. I haven’t lived in the country all my life for nothing. Oh, Bernard, I should so like to see you rolled down into the bottom of the ha-ha. Just remain there, and we’ll do it between us.”

Whereupon Bernard got up, as did Bell also, and they all went in to tea.

CHAPTER IX

Mrs. Dale’s Little Party

The next day was the day of the party. Not a word more was said on that evening between Bell and her cousin, at least, not a word more of any peculiar note; and when Crosbie suggested to his friend on the following morning that they should both step down and see how the preparations were getting on at the Small House, Bernard declined.

“You forget, my dear fellow, that I’m not in love as you are,” said he.

“But I thought you were,” said Crosbie.

“No; not at all as you are. You are an accepted lover, and will be allowed to do anything—whip the creams, and tune the piano, if you know how. I’m only a half sort of lover, meditating a
mariage de convenance
to oblige an uncle, and by no means required by the terms of my agreement to undergo a very rigid amount of drill. Your position is just the reverse.” In saying all which Captain Dale was no doubt very false; but if falseness can be forgiven to a man in any position, it may be forgiven in that which he then filled. So Crosbie went down to the Small House alone.

“Dale wouldn’t come,” said he, speaking to the three ladies together, “I suppose he’s keeping himself up for the dance on the lawn.”

“I hope he will be here in the evening,” said Mrs. Dale. But Bell said never a word. She had determined, that under the existing circumstances, it would be only fair to her cousin that his offer and her answer to it should be kept secret. She knew why Bernard did not come across from the Great House with his friend, but she said nothing of her knowledge. Lily looked at her, but looked without speaking; and as for Mrs. Dale, she took no notice of the circumstance. Thus they passed the afternoon together without further mention of Bernard Dale; and it may be said, at any rate of Lily and Crosbie, that his presence was not missed.

Mrs. Eames, with her son and daughter, were the first to come. “It’s so nice of you to come early,” said Lily, trying on the spur of the moment to say something which should sound pleasant and happy, but in truth using that form of welcome which to my ears sounds always the most ungracious. “Ten minutes before the time named; and, of course, you must have understood that I meant thirty minutes after it!” That is my interpretation of the words when I am thanked for coming early. But Mrs. Eames was a kind, patient, unexacting woman, who took all civil words as meaning civility. And, indeed, Lily had meant nothing else.

“Yes; we did come early,” said Mrs. Eames, “because Mary thought she would like to go up into the girls’ room and just settle her hair, you know.”

“So she shall,” said Lily, who had taken Mary by the hand.

“And we knew we shouldn’t be in the way. Johnny can go out into the garden if there’s anything left to be done.”

“He shan’t be banished unless he likes it,” said Mrs. Dale. “If he finds us women too much for his unaided strength—”

John Eames muttered something about being very well as he was, and then got himself into an arm-chair. He had shaken hands with Lily, trying as he did so to pronounce articulately a little speech which he had prepared for the occasion. “I have to congratulate you, Lily, and I hope with all my heart that you will be happy.” The words were simple enough, and were not ill-chosen, but the poor young man never got them spoken. The word “congratulate” did reach Lily’s ears, and she understood it all—both the kindness of the intended speech and the reason why it could not be spoken.

“Thank you, John,” she said; “I hope I shall see so much of you in London. It will be so nice to have an old Guestwick friend near me.” She had her own voice, and the pulses of her heart better under command than had he; but she also felt that the occasion was trying to her. The man had loved her honestly and truly—still did love her, paying her the great homage of bitter grief in that he had lost her. Where is the girl who will not sympathise with such love and such grief, if it be shown only because it cannot be concealed, and be declared against the will of him who declares it?

Then came in old Mrs. Hearn, whose cottage was not distant two minutes’ walk from the Small House. She always called Mrs. Dale “my dear,” and petted the girls as though they had been children. When told of Lily’s marriage, she had thrown up her hands with surprise, for she had still left in some corner of her drawers remnants of sugar-plums which she had bought for Lily. “A London man, is he? Well, well. I wish he lived in the country. Eight hundred a year, my dear?” she had said to Mrs. Dale. “That sounds nice down here, because we are all so poor. But I suppose eight hundred a year isn’t very much up in London?”

“The squire’s coming, I suppose, isn’t he?” said Mrs. Hearn, as she seated herself on the sofa close to Mrs. Dale.

“Yes, he’ll be here by-and-by; unless he changes his mind, you know. He doesn’t stand on ceremony with me.”

“He change his mind! When did you ever know Christopher Dale change his mind?”

“He is pretty constant, Mrs. Hearn.”

“If he promised to give a man a penny, he’d give it. But if he promised to take away a pound, he’d take it, though it cost him years to get it. He’s going to turn me out of my cottage, he says.”

“Nonsense, Mrs. Hearn!”

“Jolliffe came and told me”—Jolliffe, I should explain, was the bailiff—”that if I didn’t like it as it was, I might leave it, and that the squire could get double the rent for it. Now all I asked was that he should do a little painting in the kitchen; and the wood is all as black as his hat.”

“I thought it was understood you were to paint inside.”

“How can I do it, my dear, with a hundred and forty pounds for everything? I must live, you know! And he that has workmen about him every day of the year! And was that a message to send to me, who have lived in the parish for fifty years? Here he is.” And Mrs. Hearn majestically raised herself from her seat as the squire entered the room.

With him entered Mr. and Mrs. Boyce, from the parsonage, with Dick Boyce, the ungrown gentleman, and two girl Boyces, who were fourteen and fifteen years of age. Mrs. Dale, with the amount of good-nature usual on such occasions, asked reproachfully why Jane, and Charles, and Florence, and Bessy, did not come—Boyce being a man who had his quiver full of them—and Mrs. Boyce, giving the usual answer, declared that she already felt that they had come as an avalanche.

“But where are the—the—the young men?” asked Lily, assuming a look of mock astonishment.

“They’ll be across in two or three hours’ time,” said the squire. “They both dressed for dinner, and, as I thought, made themselves very smart; but for such a grand occasion as this they thought a second dressing necessary. How do you do, Mrs. Hearn? I hope you are quite well. No rheumatism left, eh?” This the squire said very loud into Mrs. Hearn’s ear. Mrs. Hearn was perhaps a little hard of hearing; but it was very little, and she hated to be thought deaf. She did not, moreover, like to be thought rheumatic. This the squire knew, and therefore his mode of address was not good-natured.

“You needn’t make me jump so, Mr. Dale. I’m pretty well now, thank ye. I did have a twinge in the spring—that cottage is so badly built for draughts! ‘I wonder you can live in it,’ my sister said to me the last time she was over. I suppose I should be better off over with her at Hamersham, only one doesn’t like to move, you know, after living fifty years in one parish.”

“You mustn’t think of going away from us,” Mrs. Boyce said, speaking by no means loud, but slowly and plainly, hoping thereby to flatter the old woman. But the old woman understood it all. “She’s a sly creature, is Mrs. Boyce,” Mrs. Hearn said to Mrs. Dale, before the evening was out. There are some old people whom it is very hard to flatter, and with whom it is, nevertheless, almost impossible to live unless you do flatter them.

At last the two heroes came in across the lawn at the drawing-room window; and Lily, as they entered, dropped a low curtsey before them, gently swelling down upon the ground with her light muslin dress, till she looked like some wondrous flower that had bloomed upon the carpet, and putting her two hands, with the backs of her fingers pressed together, on the buckle of her girdle, she said, “We are waiting upon your honours’ kind grace, and feel how much we owe to you for favouring our poor abode.” And then she gently rose up again, smiling, oh, so sweetly, on the man she loved, and the puffings and swellings went out of her muslin.

I think there is nothing in the world so pretty as the conscious little tricks of love played off by a girl towards the man she loves, when she has made up her mind boldly that all the world may know that she has given herself away to him.

I am not sure that Crosbie liked it all as much as he should have done. The bold assurance of her love when they two were alone together he did like. What man does not like such assurances on such occasions? But perhaps he would have been better pleased had Lily shown more reticence—been more secret, as it were, as to her feelings, when others were around them. It was not that he accused her in his thoughts of any want of delicacy. He read her character too well—was, if not quite aright in his reading of it, at least too nearly so to admit of his making against her any such accusation as that. It was the calf-like feeling that was disagreeable to him. He did not like to be presented, even to the world of Allington, as a victim caught for the sacrifice, and bound with ribbon for the altar. And then there lurked behind it all a feeling that it might be safer that the thing should not be so openly manifested before all the world. Of course, everybody knew that he was engaged to Lily Dale; nor had he, as he said to himself, perhaps too frequently, the slightest idea of breaking from that engagement. But then the marriage might possibly be delayed. He had not discussed that matter yet with Lily, having, indeed, at the first moment of his gratified love, created some little difficulty for himself by pressing for an early day. “I will refuse you nothing,” she had said to him; “but do not make it too soon.” He saw, therefore, before him some little embarrassment, and was inclined to wish that Lily would abstain from that manner which seemed to declare to all the world that she was about to be married immediately. “I must speak to her to-morrow,” he said to himself, as he accepted her salute with a mock gravity equal to her own.

Poor Lily! How little she understood as yet what was passing through his mind. Had she known his wish she would have wrapped up her love carefully in a napkin, so that no one should have seen it—no one but he, when he might choose to have the treasure uncovered for his sight. And it was all for his sake that she had been thus open in her ways. She had seen girls who were half ashamed of their love; but she would never be ashamed of hers or of him. She had given herself to him; and now all the world might know it, if all the world cared for such knowledge. Why should she be ashamed of that which, to her thinking, was so great an honour to her? She had heard of girls who would not speak of their love, arguing to themselves cannily that there may be many a slip between the cup and the lip. There could be no need of any such caution with her. There could surely be no such slip! Should there be such a fall—should any such fate, either by falseness or misfortune, come upon her—no such caution could be of service to save her. The cup would have been so shattered in its fall that no further piecing of its parts would be in any way possible. So much as this she did not exactly say to herself; but she felt it all, and went bravely forward—bold in her love, and careful to hide it from none who chanced to see it.

They had gone through the ceremony with the cake and teacups, and had decided that, at any rate, the first dance or two should be held upon the lawn when the last of the guests arrived.

“Oh, Adolphus, I am so glad he has come,” said Lily. “Do try to like him.” Of Dr. Crofts, who was the newcomer, she had sometimes spoken to her lover, but she had never coupled her sister’s name with that of the doctor, even in speaking to him. Nevertheless, Crosbie had in some way conceived the idea that this Crofts either had been, or was, or was to be, in love with Bell; and as he was prepared to advocate his friend Dale’s claims in that quarter, he was not particularly anxious to welcome the doctor as a thoroughly intimate friend of the family. He knew nothing as yet of Dale’s offer, or of Bell’s refusal, but he was prepared for war, if war should be necessary. Of the squire, at the present moment, he was not very fond; but if his destiny intended to give him a wife out of this family, he should prefer the owner of Allington and nephew of Lord De Guest as a brother-in-law to a village doctor—as he took upon himself, in his pride, to call Dr. Crofts.

“It is very unfortunate,” said he, “but I never do like Paragons.”

“But you must like this Paragon. Not that he is a Paragon at all, for he smokes and hunts, and does all manner of wicked things.” And then she went forward to welcome her friend.

Dr. Crofts was a slight, spare man, about five feet nine in height, with very bright dark eyes, a broad forehead, with dark hair that almost curled, but which did not come so forward over his brow as it should have done for purposes of beauty—with a thin well-cut nose, and a mouth that would have been perfect had the lips been a little fuller. The lower part of his face, when seen alone, had in it somewhat of sternness, which, however, was redeemed by the brightness of his eyes. And yet an artist would have declared that the lower features of his face were by far the more handsome.

Lily went across to him and greeted him heartily, declaring how glad she was to have him there. “And I must introduce you to Mr. Crosbie,” she said, as though she was determined to carry her point. The two men shook hands with each other, coldly, without saying a word, as young men are apt to do when they are brought together in that way. Then they separated at once, somewhat to the disappointment of Lily. Crosbie stood off by himself, both his eyes turned up towards the ceiling, and looking as though he meant to give himself airs; while Crofts got himself quickly up to the fireplace, making civil little speeches to Mrs. Dale, Mrs. Boyce, and Mrs. Hearn. And then at last he made his way round to Bell.