“Yes; now, mamma,” and again that sweet silvery voice became stern. “I will read it now, and there shall be an end.” Whereupon Mrs. Dale gave her the letter and she read it in silence. Her mother, though standing somewhat behind her, watched her narrowly as she did so. She was now lying over upon the bed, and the letter was on the pillow, as she propped herself upon her arm. Her tears were running, and ever and again she would stop to dry her eyes. Her sobs, too, were very audible, but she went on steadily with her reading till she came to the line on which Crosbie told that he had already engaged himself to another woman. Then her mother could see that she paused suddenly, and that a shudder slightly convulsed all her limbs.
“He has been very quick,” she said, almost in a whisper; and then she finished the letter. “Tell him, mamma,” she said, “that I do forgive him, and I will not hate him. You will tell him that—from me; will you not?” And then she raised herself from the bed.
Mrs. Dale would give her no such assurance. In her present mood her feelings against Crosbie were of a nature which she herself hardly could understand or analyse. She felt that if he were present she could almost fly at him as would a tigress. She had never hated before as she now hated this man. He was to her a murderer, and worse than a murderer. He had made his way like a wolf into her little fold, and torn her ewe-lamb and left her maimed and mutilated for life. How could a mother forgive such an offence as that, or consent to be the medium through which forgiveness should be expressed?
“You must, mamma; or, if you do not, I shall do so. Remember that I love him. You know what it is to have loved one single man. He has made me very unhappy; I hardly know yet how unhappy. But I have loved him, and do love him. I believe, in my heart, that he still loves me. Where this has been there must not be hatred and unforgiveness.”
“I will pray that I may become able to forgive him,” said Mrs. Dale.
“But you must write to him those words. Indeed you must, mamma! ‘She bids me tell you that she has forgiven you, and will not hate you.’ Promise me that!”
“I can make no promise now, Lily. I will think about it, and endeavour to do my duty.”
Lily was now seated, and was holding the skirt of her mother’s dress.
“Mamma,” she said, looking up into her mother’s face, “you must be very good to me now; and I must be very good to you. We shall be always together now. I must be your friend and counsellor; and be everything to you, more than ever. I must fall in love with you now;” and she smiled again, and the tears were almost dry upon her cheeks.
At last they went down to the breakfast-room, from which Bell had not moved. Mrs. Dale entered the room first, and Lily followed, hiding herself for a moment behind her mother. Then she came forward boldly, and taking Bell in her arms, clasped her close to her bosom.
“Bell,” she said, “he has gone.”
“Lily! Lily! Lily!” said Bell, weeping.
“He has gone! We shall talk it over in a few days, and shall know how to do so without losing ourselves in misery. To-day we will say no more about it. I am so thirsty, Bell; do give me my tea;” and she sat herself down at the breakfast-table.
Lily’s tea was given to her, and she drank it. Beyond that I cannot say that any of them partook with much heartiness of the meal. They sat there, as they would have sat if no terrible thunderbolt had fallen among them, and no word further was spoken about Crosbie and his conduct. Immediately after breakfast they went into the other room, and Lily, as was her wont, sat herself immediately down to her drawing. Her mother looked at her with wistful eyes, longing to bid her spare herself, but she shrank from interfering with her. For a quarter of an hour Lily sat over her board, with her brush or pencil in her hand, and then she rose up and put it away.
“It is no good pretending,” she said. “I am only spoiling the things; but I will be better to-morrow. I’ll go away and lie down by myself, mamma.” And so she went.
Soon after this Mrs. Dale took her bonnet and went up to the Great House, having received her brother-in-law’s message from Bell.
“I know what he has to tell me,” she said; “but I might as well go. It will be necessary that we should speak to each other about it.” So she walked across the lawn, and up into the hall of the Great House. “Is my brother in the book-room?” she said to one of the maids; and then knocking at the door, went in unannounced.
The squire rose from his arm-chair, and came forward to meet her.
“Mary,” he said, “I believe you know it all.”
“Yes,” she said. “You can read that,” and she handed him Crosbie’s letter. “How was one to know that any man could be so wicked as that?”
“And she has heard it?” asked the squire. “Is she able to bear it?”
“Wonderfully! She has amazed me by her strength. It frightens me; for I know that a relapse must come. She has never sunk for a moment beneath it. For myself, I feel as though it were her strength that enables me to bear my share of it.” And then she described to the squire all that had taken place that morning.
“Poor child!” said the squire. “Poor child! What can we do for her? Would it be good for her to go away for a time? She is a sweet, good, lovely girl, and has deserved better than that. Sorrow and disappointment come to us all; but they are doubly heavy when they come so early.”
Mrs. Dale was almost surprised at the amount of sympathy which he showed.
“And what is to be his punishment?” she asked.
“The scorn which men and women will feel for him; those, at least, whose esteem or scorn are matters of concern to anyone. I know no other punishment. You would not have Lily’s name brought before a tribunal of law?”
“Certainly not that.”
“And I will not have Bernard calling him out. Indeed, it would be for nothing; for in these days a man is not expected to fight duels.”
“You cannot think that I would wish that.”
“What punishment is there, then? I know of none. There are evils which a man may do, and no one can punish him. I know of nothing. I went up to London after him, but he contrived to crawl out of my way. What can you do to a rat but keep clear of him?”
Mrs. Dale had felt in her heart that it would be well if Crosbie could be beaten till all his bones were sore. I hardly know whether such should have been a woman’s thought, but it was hers. She had no wish that he should be made to fight a duel. In that there would have been much that was wicked, and in her estimation nothing that was just. But she felt that if Bernard would thrash the coward for his cowardice she would love her nephew better than ever she had loved him. Bernard also had considered it probable that he might be expected to horsewhip the man who had jilted his cousin, and, as regarded the absolute bodily risk, he would not have felt any insuperable objection to undertake the task. But such a piece of work was disagreeable to him in many ways. He hated the idea of a row at his club. He was most desirous that his cousin’s name should not be made public. He wished to avoid anything that might be impolitic. A wicked thing had been done, and he was quite ready to hate Crosbie as Crosbie ought to be hated; but as regarded himself, it made him unhappy to think that the world might probably expect him to punish the man who had so lately been his friend. And then he did not know where to catch him, or how to thrash him when caught. He was very sorry for his cousin, and felt strongly that Crosbie should not be allowed to escape. But what was he to do?
“Would she like to go anywhere?” said the squire again, anxious, if he could, to afford solace by some act of generosity. At this moment he would have settled a hundred a year for life upon his niece if by so doing he could have done her any good.
“She will be better at home,” said Mrs. Dale. “Poor thing. For a while she will wish to avoid going out.”
“I suppose so;” and then there was a pause. “I’ll tell you what, Mary; I don’t understand it. On my honour I don’t understand it. It is to me as wonderful as though I had caught the man picking my pence out of my
pocket. I don’t think any man in the position of a gentleman would have done such a thing when I was young. I don’t think any man would have dared to do it. But now it seems that a man may act in that way and no harm come to him. He had a friend in London who came to me and talked about it as though it were some ordinary, everyday transaction of life. Yes; you may come in, Bernard. The poor child knows it all now.”
Bernard offered to his aunt what of solace and sympathy he had to offer, and made some sort of half-expressed apology for having introduced this wolf into their flock. “We always thought very much of him at his club,” said Bernard.
“I don’t know much about your London clubs nowadays,” said his uncle, “nor do I wish to do so if the society of that man can be endured after what he has now done.”
“I don’t suppose half-a-dozen men will ever know anything about it,” said Bernard.
“Umph!” ejaculated the squire. He could not say that he wished Crosbie’s villainy to be widely discussed, seeing that Lily’s name was so closely connected with it. But yet he could not support the idea that Crosbie should not be punished by the frown of the world at large. It seemed to him that from this time forward any man speaking to Crosbie should be held to have disgraced himself by so doing.
“Give her my best love,” he said, as Mrs. Dale got up to take her leave; “my very best love. If her old uncle can do anything for her she has only to let me know. She met the man in my house, and I feel that I owe her much. Bid her come and see me. It will be better for her than moping at home. And Mary”—this he said to her, whispering into her ear—”think of what I said to you about Bell.”
Mrs. Dale, as she walked back to her own house, acknowledged to herself that her brother-in-law’s manner was different to her from anything that she had hitherto known of him.
During the whole of that day Crosbie’s name was not mentioned at the Small House. Neither of the girls stirred out, and Bell spent the greater part of the afternoon sitting, with her arm round her sister’s waist, upon the sofa. Each of them had a book; but though there was little spoken, there was as little read. Who can describe the thoughts that were passing through Lily’s mind as she remembered the hours which she had passed with Crosbie, of his warm assurances of love, of his accepted caresses, of her uncontrolled and acknowledged joy in his affection? It had all been holy to her then; and now those things which were then sacred had been made almost disgraceful by his fault. And yet as she thought of this she declared to herself over and over again that she would forgive him—nay, that she had forgiven him. “And he shall know it, too,” she said, speaking almost out loud.
“Lily, dear Lily,” said Bell, “turn your thoughts away from it for a while, if you can.”
“They won’t go away,” said Lily. And that was all that was said between them on the subject.
Everybody would know it! I doubt whether that must not be one of the bitterest drops in the cup which a girl in such circumstances is made to drain. Lily perceived early in the day that the parlour-maid well knew that she had been jilted. The girl’s manner was intended to convey sympathy; but it did convey pity; and Lily for a moment felt angry. But she remembered that it must be so, and smiled upon the girl, and spoke kindly to her. What mattered it? All the world would know it in a day or two.
On the following day she went up, by her mother’s advice, to see her uncle.
“My child,” said he, “I am sorry for you. My heart bleeds for you.”
“Uncle,” she said, “do not mind it. Only do this for me—do not talk about it—I mean to me.”
“No, no; I will not. That there should ever have been in my house so great a rascal—”
“Uncle! uncle! I will not have that! I will not listen to a word against him from any human being—not a word! Remember that!” And her eyes flashed as she spoke.
He did not answer her, but took her hand and pressed it, and then she left him. “The Dales were ever constant!” he said to himself, as he walked up and down the terrace before his house. “Ever constant!”
VOLUME II
CHAPTER XXXI
The Wounded Fawn
Nearly two months passed away, and it was now Christmas time at Allington. It may be presumed that there was no intention at either house that the mirth should be very loud. Such a wound as that received by Lily Dale was one from which recovery could not be quick, and it was felt by all the family that a weight was upon them which made gaiety impracticable. As for Lily herself it may be said that she bore her misfortune with all a woman’s courage. For the first week she stood up as a tree that stands against the wind, which is soon to be shivered to pieces because it will not bend. During that week her mother and sister were frightened by her calmness and endurance. She would perform her daily task. She would go out through the village, and appear at her place in church on the first Sunday. She would sit over her book of an evening, keeping back her tears; and would chide her mother and sister when she found that they were regarding her with earnest anxiety.
“Mamma, let it all be as though it had never been,” she said.
“Ah, dear! if that were but possible!”
“God forbid that it should be possible inwardly,” Lily replied, “but it is possible outwardly. I feel that you are more tender to me than you used to be, and that upsets me. If you would only scold me because I am idle, I should soon be better.” But her mother could not speak to her as she perhaps might have spoken had no grief fallen upon her pet. She could not cease from those anxious tender glances which made Lily know that she was looked on as a fawn wounded almost to death.
At the end of the first week she gave way. “I won’t get up, Bell,” she said one morning, almost petulantly. “I am ill—I had better lie here out of the way. Don’t make a fuss about it. I’m stupid and foolish, and that makes me ill.”
Thereupon Mrs. Dale and Bell were frightened, and looked into each other’s blank faces, remembering stories of poor broken-hearted girls who had died because their loves had been unfortunate—as small wax tapers whose lights are quenched if a breath of wind blows upon then too strongly. But then Lily was in truth no such slight taper as that. Nor was she the stem that must be broken because it will not bend. She bent herself to the blast during that week of illness, and then arose with her form still straight and graceful, and with her bright light unquenched.
After that she would talk more openly to her mother about her loss—openly and with a true appreciation of the misfortune which had befallen her; but with an assurance of strength which seemed to ridicule the idea of a broken heart. “I know that I can bear it,” she said, “and that I can bear it without lasting unhappiness. Of course I shall always love him, and must feel almost as you felt when you lost my father.”
In answer to this Mrs. Dale could say nothing. She could not speak out her thoughts about Crosbie, and explain to Lily that he was unworthy of her love. Love does not follow worth, and is not given to excellence—nor is it destroyed by ill-usage, nor killed by blows and mutilation. When Lily declared that she still loved the man who had so ill-used her, Mrs. Dale would be silent. Each perfectly understood the other, but on that matter even they could not interchange their thoughts with freedom.
“You must promise never to be tired of me, mamma,” said Lily.
“Mothers do not often get tired of their children, whatever the children may do of their mothers.”
“I’m not so sure of that when the children turn out old maids. And I mean to have a will of my own, too, mamma; and a way also, if it be possible. When Bell is maarried I shall consider it a partnership, and I shan’t do what I’m told any longer.”
“Forewarned will be forearmed.”
“Exactly—and I don’t want to take you by surprise. For a year or two longer, till Bell is gone, I mean to be dutiful; but it would be very stupid for a girl to be dutiful all her life.”
All of which Mrs. Dale understood thoroughly. It amounted to an assertion on Lily’s part that she had l
oved once and could never love again; that she had played her game, hoping, as other girls hope, that she might win the prize of a husband; but that, having lost, she could never play the game again. It was that inward conviction on Lily’s part which made her say such words to her mother. But Mrs. Dale would by no means allow herself to share this conviction. She declared to herself that time would cure Lily’s wound, and that her child might yet be crowned by the bliss of a happy marriage. She would not in her heart consent to that plan in accordance with which Lily’s destiny in life was to be regarded as already fixed. She had never really liked Crosbie as a suitor, and would herself have preferred John Eames, with all the faults of his hobbledehoyhood on his head. It might yet come to pass that John Eames’s love might be made happy.
But in the meantime Lily, as I have said, had become strong in her courage, and recommenced the work of living with no lackadaisical self-assurance that because she had been made more unhappy than others, therefore she should allow herself to be more idle. Morning and night she prayed for him, and daily, almost hour by hour, she assured herself that it was still her duty to love him. It was hard, this duty of loving, without any power of expressing such love. But still she would do her duty.
“Tell me at once, mamma,” she said one morning, “when you hear that the day is fixed for his marriage. Pray don’t keep me in the dark.”
“It is to be in February,” said Mrs. Dale.
“But let me know the day. It must not be to me like ordinary days. But do not look unhappy, mamma; I am not going to make a fool of myself. I shan’t steal off and appear in the church like a ghost.” And then, having uttered her little joke, a sob came, and she hid her face on her mother’s bosom. In a moment she raised it again. “Believe me, mamma, that I am not unhappy,” she said.
After the expiration of that second week Mrs. Dale did write a letter to Crosbie:
I suppose [she said] it is right that I should acknowledge the receipt of your letter. I do not know that I have aught else to say to you. It would not become me as a woman to say what I think of your conduct, but I believe that your conscience will tell you the same things. If it do not, you must, indeed, be hardened. I have promised my child that I will send to you a message from her. She bids me tell you that she has forgiven you, and that she does not hate you. May God also forgive you, and may you recover his love.
The Chronicles of Barsetshire Page 240
