The Small House at Allington

by Anthony Trollope

  They were not above fifteen minutes late at the trysting-place, but nevertheless, punctual though they had been, the girls were there before them. Of course the first inquiries were made about the game, and of course the gentlemen declared that the birds were scarcer than they had ever been before, that the dogs were wilder, and their luck more excruciatingly bad – to all which apologies very little attention was paid. Lily and Bell had not come there to inquire after partridges, and would have forgiven the sportsmen even though no single bird had been killed. But they could not forgive the want of good spirits which was apparent.

  ‘I declare I don’t know what’s the matter with you,’ Lily said to her lover.

  ‘We have been over fifteen miles of ground, and –’

  ‘I never knew anything so lackadaisical as you gentlemen from London. Been over fifteen miles of ground! Why, uncle Christopher would think nothing of that.’

  ‘Uncle Christopher is made of sterner stuff than we are,’ said Crosbie. ‘They used to be born so sixty or seventy years ago.’ And then they walked on through Gruddock’s fields, and the home paddocks, back to the Great House, where they found the squire standing in the front of the porch.

  The walk had not been so pleasant as they had all intended that it should be when they made their arrangements for it. Crosbie had endeavoured to recover his happy state of mind, but had been unsuccessful; and Lily, fancying that her lover was not all that her lover was not all that he should be, had become reserves and silent. Bernard and Bell had not shared this discomfiture, but then Bernard and Bell were, as a rule, much more given to silence than the other two.

  ‘Uncle,’ said Lily, ‘these men have shot nothing, and you cannot conceive how unhappy they are in consequence. It’s all the fault of the naughty partridges.’

  ‘There are plenty of partridges if they knew how to get them,’ said the squire.

  ‘The dogs are uncommonly wild,’ said Crosbie.

  ‘They are not wild with me,’ said the squire; ‘nor yet with Dingles.’ Dingles was the squire’s gamekeeper. ‘The fact is, you young men, nowadays, expect to have dogs trained to do all the work for you, It’s too much labour for you to walk up to your game. You’ll be late for dinner, girls, if you don’t look sharp.’

  ‘We’re not coming up this evening, sir,’ said Bell.

  ‘And why not?’

  ‘We’re going to stay with mamma.’

  ‘And why will not your mother come with you? I’ll be whipped if I can understand it. One would have thought that under the present circumstances she would have been glad to see you all as much together as possible.’

  ‘We’re together quite enough,’ said Lily. ‘And as for mamma, I suppose she thinks –’ And then she stopped herself, catching the glance of Bell’s imploring eye. She was going to make some indignant excuse for her mother – some excuse which would be calculated to make her uncle angry. It was her practice to say such sharp words to him, and consequently he did not regard her as warmly as her more silent and more prudent sister. At the present moment he turned quickly round and went into the house; and then, with a very few words of farewell, the two young men followed him. The girls went back over the little bridge by themselves, feeling that the afternoon had not gone off altogether well.

  ‘You shouldn’t provoke him, Lily,’ said Bell.

  ‘And he shouldn’t say those things about mamma. It seems to me that you don’t mind what he says.’

  ‘Oh, Lily.’

  ‘No more you do. He makes me so angry that I cannot hold my tongue. He thinks that because all the place is his, he is to say just what he likes. Why should mama go up there to please his humours?’

  ‘You may be sure that mamma will do what she thinks best. She is stronger-minded than uncle Christopher, and does not want anyone to help her. But, Lily, you shouldn’t speak as though I were careless about mamma. You didn’t mean that, I know.’

  ‘Of course I didn’t.’ Then the two girls joined their mother in their own little domain; but we will return to the men at the Great House.

  Crosbie, when he went up to dress for dinner, fell into one of those melancholy fits of which I have spoken. Was he absolutely about to destroy all the good that he had done for himself throughout the past years of his hitherto successful life? or rather, as he at last put the question to himself more strongly – was it not the case that he had already destroyed all that success? His marriage with Lily, whether, it was to be for good or bad, was now a settled thing, and was not regarded as a matter admitting of any doubt. To do the man justice, I must declare that in all these moments of misery he still did the best he could to think of Lily herself as of a great treasure which he had won – as of a treasure which should, and perhaps would, compensate him for his misery. But there was the misery very plain. He must give up his clubs, and his fashion, and all that he had hitherto gained, and be content to live a plain, humdrum, domestic life, with eight hundred a year, and a small house, full of babies. It was not the kind of Elysium for which he had tutored himself. Lily was very nice, very nice indeed. She was, as he said to himself, ‘by odds, the nicest girl that he had ever seen.’ Whatever might now turn up, her happiness should be his first care. But as for his own – he began to fear that the compensation would hardly be perfect. ‘It is my own doing,’ he said to himself, intending to be rather noble in the purport of his soliloquy, ‘I have trained myself for other things – very foolishly. Of course I must suffer – suffer damnably. But she shall never know it. Dear, sweet, innocent, pretty little thing!’ And then be went on about the squire, as to whom he felt himself entitled to be indignant by his own disinterested and manly line of conduct towards the niece. ‘But I will let him know what I think about it,’ he said. ‘It’s all very well for Dale to say that I have been treated fairly. It isn’t fair for a man to put forward his niece under false pretences. Of course I thought that he intended to provide for her.’ And then, having made up his mind in a very manly way that he would not desert Lily altogether after having promised to marry her, he endeavoured to find consolation in the reflection that he might, at any rate, allow himself two years’ more run as a bachelor in London. Girls who have to get themselves married without fortunes always know that they will have to wait. Indeed, Lily had already told him, that they will have to wait. Indeed, Lily had already told him, that as far as she was concerned, she was in no hurry. He need not, therefore, at once withdraw his name from Sebright’s. Thus he endeavoured to console himself, still, however, resolving that he would have a little serious conversation with the squire that very evening as to Lily’s fortune.

  And what was the state of Lily’s mind at the same moment. while she, also, was performing some slight toilet changes preparatory to their simple dinner at the Small House?

  ‘I didn’t behave well to him,’ she said to herself; ‘I never do. I forget how much he is giving up for me; and then, when anything annoys him, I make it worse instead of comforting him.’ And upon that she made accusation against herself that she did not love him half enough – that she did not let him see how thoroughly and perfectly she loved him. She had an idea of her own, that as a girl should never show any preference for a man till circumstances should have full entitled him to such manifestation, so also should she make no drawback on her love, but pour it forth for his benefit with all her strength, when such circumstances had come to exist. But she was ever feeling that she was not acting up to her theory, now that the time for such practice had come. She would unwittingly assume little reserves, and make small pretences of indifferences in spite of her own judgement. She had done so on this afternoon, and had left him without giving him her hand to press, without looking up into his face with an assurance of love, and therefore she was angry with herself. ‘I know I shall teach him to hate me,’ she said out loud to Bell.

  ‘That would be very sad,’ said Bell; ‘but I don’t see it.’

  ‘If you were engaged to man you would be much better to him. You wou
ld not say so much, but what you did say would be all affection. I am always making horrid little speeches, for which I should like to cut out my tongue afterwards.’

  ‘Whatever sort of speeches they are, I think that he likes them.’

  ‘Does he? I’m not all so sure of that, Bell. Of course I don’t expect that he is to scold me – not yet, that is. But I know by his eye when he is pleased and when he is displeased.’

  And then they went down to their dinner.

  Up at the Great House the three gentlemen met together in apparent good humour. Bernard Dale was a man of an equal temperament, who rarely allowed any feeling, or even any annoyance, to interfere with his usual manner – a man who could always come to table with a smile, and meet either his friend or his enemy with a properly civil greeting. Not that he was especially a false man. There was nothing of deceit in his placidity of demeanor. It arose from true equanimity; but it was the equanimity of a cold disposition rather than of one well ordered by discipline. The squire was aware that he had been unreasonably petulant before dinner, and having taken himself to task in his own way, now entered the dining-room with the courteous greeting of a host. ‘I find that your bag was not so bad after all,’ he said, ‘and I hope that your appetite is at least as good as your bag.’

  Crosbie smiled, and made himself pleasant, and said a few flattering words. A man who intends to take some very decided step in an hour or two generally contrives to bear himself in the meantime as though the trifles of the world were quite sufficient for him. So he praised the squire’s game; said a good-natured word as to Dingles, and bantered himself as to his own want of skill. Then all went merry – not quite as a marriage bell;2 but still merry enough for a party of three gentlemen.

  But Crosbie’s resolution was fixed; and as soon, therefore, as the old butler was permanently gone, and the wine steadily in transit upon the table, he began his task, not without some apparent abruptness. Having fully considered the matter, he had determined that he would not wait for Bernard Dale’s absence. He thought it possible that he might be able to fight his battle better in Bernard’s presence than he could do behind his back.

  ‘Squire,’ he began. They all called him squire when they were on good terms together, and Crosbie thought it well to begin as though there was nothing amiss between them. ‘Squire, of course I am thinking a good deal at the present moment as to my intended marriage.’

  ‘That’s natural enough,’ said the squire.

  ‘Yes, by George! sir, a man doesn’t make a change like that without finding that he has got something to think of.’

  ‘I suppose not,’ said the squire. ‘I never was in the way of getting married myself, but I can easily understand that.’

  ‘I’ve been the luckiest fellow in the world in finding such a girl as your niece –’ Whereupon the squire bowed, intending to make a little courteous declaration that the luck in the matter was on the side of the Dales. ‘I know that,’ continued Crosbiue. ‘She is exactly everything that a girl ought to be.’

  ‘She is a good, girl,’ said Bernard.

  ‘Yes; I think she is,’ said the squire.

  ‘But it seems to me,’ said Crosbie, finding that it was necessary to dash at once headlong into the water, ‘that something ought to be said as to my means of supporting her properly.’

  Then he paused for a moment, expecting that the squire would speak. But the squire sat perfectly still, looking intently at the empty fireplace and saying nothing. ‘Of supporting her,’ continued Crosbie, ‘with all those comforts to which she has been accustomed.’

  ‘She has never been used to expense,’ said the squire. ‘Her mother, as you doubtless know, is not a rich woman.’

  ‘But living her, Lily has had great advantages – a horse to ride, and all that sort of thing.’

  ‘I don’t suppose she expects a horse in the park,’ said the squire, with a very perceptible touch of sarcasm in his voice.

  ‘I hope not,’ said Crosbie.

  ‘I believe she has had the use of one of the ponies here sometimes, but I hope that has not made her extravagant in her ideas. I did not think that there was anything of that nonsense about either of them.’

  ‘Nor is there – as far as I know.’

  ‘Nothing of the sort,’ said Bernard.

  ‘But the long and the short of it is this, sir!’ and Crosbie, as he spoke, endeavoured to maintain his ordinary voice and usual coolness, but his heightened colour betrayed that he was nervous. ‘Am I to expect any accession of income with my wife?’

  ‘I have not spoken to my sister-in-law on the subject,’ said the squire; ‘but I should fear that she cannot do much.’

  ‘As a matter of course, I would not take a shilling from her,’ said Crosbie.

  ‘Then that settles it,’ said the squire.

  Crosbie paused a moment, during which his colour became very red. He unconsciously took up an apricot and ate it, and then he spoke out. ‘Of course I was not alluding to Mrs Dale’s income; I would not, on any account, disturb herb arrangements. But I wished to learn, sir, whether you intend to do anything fur your niece.’

  ‘In the way of giving her a fortune? Nothing at all. I intend to do nothing at all.’

  ‘Then I suppose we understand each other – at last,’ said Crosbie.

  ‘I should have thought that we might have understood each other at first,’ said the squire. ‘Did I ever make you any promise, or give you any hint that I intended to provide for may niece? Have I ever held out to your any such hope? I don’t know what you mean by that word “at last” – unless it be to give offence.’

  ‘I meant the truth, sir – I meant this – that seeing the manner in which your nieces lived with you, I thought it probable that you would treat them both as though they were your daughters. Now I find out my mistake – that it all!’

  ‘You have been mistaken – and without a shadow of excuse for your mistake.’

  ‘Others have been mistaken with me,’ said Crosbie, forgetting, on the spur of the moment, that he had no right to drag the opinion of any other person into the question.

  ‘What others?’ said the squire, with anger; and his mind immediately betook itself to his sister-in-law.

  ‘I do not want to make any mischief,’ said Crosbie.

  ‘If anybody connected with my family has presumed to tell you that I intended to do more for my niece Lilian than I have already done, such person has not only been false, but ungrateful. I have given to no one any authority to make any promise on behalf of my niece.’

  ‘No such promise has been made. It was only a suggestion,’ said Crosbie.

  He was not in the least aware to whom the squire was alluding in his anger; but he perceived that his host was angry, and having already reflected that he should not have alluded to the words which Bernard Dale had spoken in his friendship, he resolved to name no one. Bernard, as he sat by listening, knew exactly how the matter stood; but, as he thought, there could be no reason why he should subject himself to his uncle’s ill-will, seeing that he had committed no sin.

  ‘No such suggestion should have been made,’ said the squire. ‘No one has had a right to make such a suggestion. No one has been placed by me in a position to make such a suggestion to you without manifest impropriety. I will ask no further question about it; but it is quite as well that you shoud understand at once that I do not consider it to be my duty to give my niece Lilian a fortune on her marriage. I trust that your offer to her was not made under any such delusion.’

  ‘No, sir, it was not,’ said Crosbie.

  ‘Then I suppose that no great harm has been done. I am sorry if false hopes have been given to you; but I am sure you will acknowledge that they were not given to you by me.’

  ‘I think you have misunderstood me, sir. My hopes were never very high; but I thought it right to ascertain your intentions.’

  ‘Now you know them. I trust, for the girl’s sake, that it will make no difference to her. I can h
ardly believe that she has been to blame in the matter.’

  Crosbie hastened at once to exculpate Lily; and then, with more awkward blunders than a man should have made who was so well acquainted with fashionable life as the Apollo of the Beaufort, he proceeded to explain that, as Lily was to have nothing, his own pecuniary arrangements would necessitate some little delay in their marriage.

  ‘As far as I myself am concerned,’ said the squire, ‘I do not like long engagements. But I am quite aware that in this matter I have no right to interfere, unless, indeed –’ and then he stopped himself.

  ‘I suppose it will be well to fix some day; eh, Crosbie?’ said Bernard.

  ‘I will discuss that matter with Mrs Dale,’ said Crosbie.

  ‘If you and she understand each other,’ said the squire, ‘that will be sufficient. Shall we go into the drawing-room now, or out upon the lawn?’

  That evening, as Crosbie went to bed, he felt that he had not gained the victory in his encounter with the squire.

  CHAPTER 8

  IT CANNOT BE

  ON THE following morning at breakfast each of the three gentlemen at the Great House received a little note on pink paper, nominally from Mrs Dale, asking them to drink tea at the Small House on that day week. At the bottom of the note which Lily had written for Mr Crosbie was added: ‘Dancing on the lawn, if we can get anybody to stand up. Of course you must come, whether you like it or not. And Bernard also. Do your possible to talk my uncle into coming.’ And this note did something towards re-creating good-humour among them at the breakfast-table. It was shown to the squire, and at last he was brought to say that he would perhaps go to Mrs Dale’s little evening-party.