‘What do you say to Robinson Crusoe?’ said Bell.
‘Or Paul and Virginia?’2 said Lily. ‘But I believe I’ll have Pilgrim’s Progress. I never can understand it, but I rather think that makes it nicer.’
‘I hate books I can’t understand,’ said Bell. ‘I like a book to be clear as running water, so that the whole meaning may be seen at once.’
‘The quick seeing of the meaning must depend a little on the reader, must it not?’ said Mrs Dale.
‘The reader mustn’t be a fool, of course,’ said Bell.
‘But then so many readers are fools,’ said Lily. ‘And yet they get something out of their reading. Mrs Crump is always poring over the Revelations, and nearly knows them by heart. I don’t think she could interpret a single image, but she has a hazy, misty idea of the truth. That’s why she likes it – because it’s too beautiful to be understood; and that’s why I like Pilgrim’s Progress.’ After which Bell offered to get the book in question.
‘No, not now,’ said Lily. ‘I’ll go on with this, as you say it’s so grand. The personages are always in their tantrums, and go on as though they were mad. Mamma, do you know where they’re going for the honeymoon?’
‘No, my dear.’
‘He used to talk to me about going to the lakes.’ And then there was another pause, during which Bell observed that her mother’s face became clouded with anxiety. ‘But I won’t think of it any more,’ continued Lily; ‘I will fix my mind to something.’ And then she got up from her chair. ‘I don’t think it would have been so difficult if I had not been ill.’
‘Of course it would it would not, my darling.’
‘And I’m going to be well again now, immediately. Let me see: I was told to read Carlyle’s History of the French Revolution, and I think I’ll begin now.’ It was Crosbie who had told her to read the book, as both Bell and Mrs Dale were well aware. ‘But I must put it off till I can get it down from the other house.’
‘Jane shall fetch it, if you really want it,’ said Mrs Dale.
‘Bell shall get it, when she goes up in the afternoon; will you, Bell? And I’ll try to get on with this stuff in the meantime.’ Then again she sat with her eyes fixed upon the pages of the book. ‘I’ll tell you what, mamma – you may have some comfort in this: that when today’s gone by, I shan’t make a fuss about any other day.’
‘Nobody thinks that you are making a fuss, Lily.’
‘Yes, but I am. Isn’t it odd, Bell, that it should take place on Valentine’s day? I wonder whether it was so settled on purpose, because of the day. Oh, dear, I used to think so often of the letter that I should get from him on this day, when he would tell me that I was his valentine. Well; he’s got another–valen–tine–now.’ So much she said with articulate voice, and then she broke down, bursting out into convulsive sobs, and crying in her mother’s arms as though she would break her heart. And yet her heart was not broken, and she was still strong in that resolve which she had made, that her grief should not overpower her. As she had herself said, the thing would not have been so difficult, had she not been weakened by illness.
‘Lily, my darling; my poor, ill-used darling.’
‘No, mamma, I won’t be that.’ And she struggled grievously to get the better of the hysterical attack which had overpowered her. ‘I won’t be regarded as ill-used; not as specially ill-used. But I am your darling, your own darling. Only I wish you’d wish you’d beat me and thump me when I’m such a fool, instead of pitying me. It’s a great mistake being soft to people when they make fools of themselves. There, Bell; there’s your stupid book, and I won’t have any more of it. I believe it was that that did it.’ And she pushed the book away from her.
After this little scene she said no further word about Crosbie and his bride on that day, but turned the conversation towards the prospect of their new house at Guestwick.
‘It will be a great comfort to be nearer Dr Crofts; won’t it, Bell?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Bell.
‘Because if we are ill, he won’t have such a terrible distance to come?’
‘That will be a comfort for him, I should thin,’ said Bell, very demurely.
In the evening the first volume of the French Revolution had been procured, and Lily struck to her reading with laudable perseverance; till at eight her mother insisted on her going to bed, queen as she was.
‘I don’t believe a bit, a you know, that the king was such a bad man as that,’3 she said.
‘I do,’ said Bell.
‘Ah, that’s because you’re a radical. I never will believe that kings are so much worse than other people. As for Charles the First, he was about the best man in history.’
‘This was an old subject of dispute; but Lily on the present occasion was allowed her own way – as being an invalid.
CHAPTER 45
VALENTINE’S DAY IN LONDON
THE FOURTEENTH of February in London was quite as black, and cold, and as wintersome as it was at Allington, and was, perhaps, somewhat more melancholy in its coldness. Nevertheless Lady Alexandrina De Courcy looked as bright as bridal finery could make her, when she got out of her carriage and walked into St James’s church1 at eleven o’clock on that morning.
It had been finally arranged that the marriage should take place in London. There were certainly many reasons which would have made a marriage from Courcy Castle more convenient. The De Courcy family were all assembled at their country family residence, and could therefore have been present at the ceremony without cost of trouble. The castle too was warm with the warmth of life, and the pleasantness of home would have lent a grace to the departure of one of the daughters of the house. The retainers and servants were there, and something of the rich mellowness of a noble alliance might have been felt at any rate by Crosbie, at a marriage so celebrated. And it must have been acknowledged, even by Lady De Courcy, that the house in Portman Square was very cold – that a marriage from thence would be cold – that there could be no hope of attaching to it any honour and glory, or of making it resound with fashionable éclat in the columns of the Morning Post. But then, had they been married in the country, the earl would have been there; whereas there was no probability of his travelling up to London for the purpose of being present on such an occasion.
The earl was very terrible in these days, and Alexandrina, as she became confidential in her communications with her future husband, spoke of him as of an ogre, who could not by any means be avoided in all the concerns of life, but whom one might shun now and again by some subtle device and careful arrangement of favourable circumstances. Crosbie had more than once taken upon himself to hint that he did not specially regard the ogre, seeing that for the future he could keep himself altogether apart from the malicious monster’s dominions.
‘He will not come to me in our new home,’ he had said to his love, with some little touch of affection. But to this view of the case Lady Alexandrina had demurred. The ogre in question was not only her parent, but was also a noble peer, and she could not agree to any arrangement by which their future connection with the earl, and with nobility in general, might be endangered. Her parent, doubtless, was an ogre, and in his ogreship could make himself very terrible to those near him; but then might it not be better for them to be near to an earl who was an ogre, than not to be near to any earl at all. She had therefore signified to Crosbie that the ogre must be endured.
But, nevertheless, it was a great thing to be rid of him on that happy occasion. He would have said very dreadful things – things so dreadful that there might have been a question whether the bridegroom could have borne them. Since her had heard of Crosbie’s accident at the railway station, he had constantly talked with fiendish glee of the beating which had been administered to his son-in-law. Lady De Courcy in taking Crosbie’s part, and maintaining that the match was fitting for her daughter, had ventured to declare before her husband that Crosbie was a man of fashion, and the earl would now ask, with a loathsome grin, whether t
he bridegroom’s fashion had been improved by his little adventure at Paddington. Crosbie, to whom all this was not repeated, would have preferred a wedding in the country. But the countess and Lady Alexandrina knew better.
The earl had strictly interdicted any expenditure, and the countess had of necessity construed this as forbidding any unnecessary expense. ‘To marry a girl without any immediate cost was a thing which nobody could understand,’ as the countess remarked to her eldest daughter.
‘I would really spend as little as possible,’ Lady Amelia had answered. ‘You see, mamma, there are circumstances about it which one doesn’t wish to have talked about just at present. There’s the story of that girl – and then that fracas at the station. I really think it ought to be as quiet as possible.’ The good sense of Lady Amelia was not to be disputed, as her mother acknowledged. But then if the marriage were managed in any notoriously quiet way, the very notoriety of that quiet would be as dangerous as an attempt at loud glory. ‘But it won’t cost as much,’ said Amelia. And thus it had been resolved that the wedding should be very quiet.
To this Crosbie had assented very willingly, though he had not relished the manner in which the countess had explained to him her views.
‘I need not tell you, Adolphus,’ she had said, ‘how thoroughly satisfied I am with this marriage. My dear girl feels that she can be happy as your wife, and what more can I want? I declared to her and to Amelia that I was not ambitious, for their sakes, and have allowed them both to please themselves.’
‘I hope they have pleased themselves,’ said Crosbie.
‘I trust so; but nevertheless – I don’t know whether I make myself understood?’
‘Quite so, Lady De Courcy. If Alexandrina were going to marry the eldest son of a marquis, you would have a longer procession to church than will be necessary when she marries me.’
‘You put it in such an odd way, Adolphus.’
‘It’s all right so long as we understand each other. I can assure you I don’t want any procession at all. I should be quite contented to go down with Alexandrina, arm i arm, like Darby and Joan,2 and let the clerk given her away.’
We may say that he would have been much better contented could be have been allowed to go down the street without any encumbrance on his arm. But there was no possibility now for such deliverance as that.
Both Lady Amelia and Mr Gazebee had long since discovered the bitterness of his heart and the fact of his repentance, and Gazebee had ventured to suggest to his wife that his noble sister-in-law was preparing for herself a life of misery.
‘He’ll become quiet and happy when he’s used to it,’ Lady Amelia had replied, thinking, perhaps, of her own experiences.
‘I don’t know, my dear; he’s not a quiet man. There’s something in his eye which tells me that he could be very hard to a woman.’
‘It has gone too far now for any change,’ Lady Amelia had answered.
‘Well; perhaps it has.’
‘And I know my sister so well; she would not hear of it. I really think they will do very well when they become used to each other.’
Mr Gazebee, who also had had his own experiences, hardly dared to hope so much. His home had been satisfactory to him, because he had been a calculating man, and having made his calculation correctly was willing to take the net result. He had done so all his life with success. In his house his wife was paramount – as he very well knew. But no effort on his wife’s part, had she wished to make such effort, could have forced him to spend more than two-thirds of his income. Of this she also was aware, and had trimmed her sails accordingly, likening herself to him in this respect. But of such wisdom, and such trimmings, and such adaptability, what likelihood was there with Mr Crosbie and Lady Alexandrina?
‘At any rate, it is too late now,’ said Lady Amelia, thus concluding the conversation.
But nevertheless, when the last moment came, there was some little attempt at glory. Who does not know the way in which a lately married couple’s little dinner-party stretches itself out from the pure simplicity of a fried sole and a leg of mutton to the attempt at clear soup, the unfortunately cold dish of round balls which is handed about after the sole, and the brightly red jelly, and beautifully pink cream, which are ordered, in the last agony of ambition, from the next pastrycook’s shop?
‘We cannot give a dinner, my dear, with only cook and Sarah.’
It has thus begun, and the husband has declared that he has no such idea. ‘If Phipps and Dowdney can come here and eat a bit of mutton, they are very welcome; if not, let them stay away. And you might as well ask Phipps’s sister; just to have someone to go with you into the drawing-room.’
‘I’d much rather go alone, because then I can read,’ – or sleep, we may say.
But her husband has explained that she would look friendless in this solitary state, and therefore Phipps’s sister has been asked. Then the dinner has progressed down to those costly jellies which have been ordered in a last agony. There has been a conviction on the minds of both of them that the simple leg of mutton would have been more jolly for them all. Had those round balls not been carried about by a hired man; had simple mutton with hot potatoes been handed to Miss Phipps by Sarah, Miss Phipps would not have simpered with such unmeaning stiffness when young Dowdney spoke to her. They would have been much more jolly. ‘Have a bit more mutton, Phipps; and where do you like it?’ How pleasant it sounds! But we all know that it is impossible. My young friend had intended this, but his dinner had run itself away to cold round balls and coloured forms from the pastrycook. And so it was with the Crosbie marriage.
The bride must leave the church in a properly appointed carriage, and the postboys must have wedding favours. So the thing grew; not into noble proportions, not into proportions of true glory, justifying the attempt and making good the gala. A well-cooked rissole, brought pleasantly to you, is good eating. A gala marriage, when everything is in keeping, is excellent sport. Heaven forbid that we should have no gala marriages. But the small spasmodic attempt, made in opposition to manifest propriety, made with an inner conviction of failure – that surely should be avoided in marriages, in dinners, and in all affairs of life.
There were bridesmaids and there was a breakfast. Both Margaretta and Rosina came up to London for the occasion, as did also a first cousin of theirs, one Miss Gresham,3 a lady whose father lived in the same county. Mr Gresham had married a sister of Lord De Courcy’s, and his services were also called into requisition. He was brought up to give away the bride, because the earl – as the paragraph in the newspaper declared – was confined at Courcy Castle by his old hereditary enemy, the gout. A fourth bridesmaid also was procured, and thus there was a bevy, though not so large a bevy as is now generally thought to be desirable. There were only three or four carriages at the church, but even three or four were something. The weather was so frightfully cold that the light-coloured silks of the ladies carried with them a show of discomfort. Girls should be very young to look nice in light dresses on a frosty morning, and the bridesmaids at Lady Alexandrina’s wedding were not very young. Lady Rosina’s nose was decidedly red. Lady Margaretta was very wintry, and apparently very cross. Miss Gresham was dull, tame, and insipid; and the Honourable Miss O’Flaherty, who filled the fourth place, was sulky at finding that she had been invited to take a share in so very lame a performance.
But the marriage was made good, and Crosbie bore up against his misfortunes like a man. Montgomerie Dobbs and Fowler Pratt both stood by him, giving him, let us hope, some assurance that he was not absolutely deserted by the world – that he had not given himself up, bound hand and foot, to the De Courcy, to be dealt with in all matters as they might please. It was that feeling which had been so grievous to him – and that other feeling, cognate to it, that if he should ultimately succeed in rebelling against the De Courcys, he would find himself a solitary man.
‘Yes; I shall go,’ Fowler Pratt had said to Montgomerie Dobbs. ‘I always stick to a fellow if
I can. Crosbie has behaved like a blackguard, and like a fool also; and he knows that I think so. But I don’t see why I should drop him on that account. I shall go as he has asked me.’
‘So shall I,’ said Montgomerie Dobbs, who considered that he would he safe in doing whatever Fowler Pratt did, and who remarked to himself that after all Crosbie was marrying the daughter of an earl.
Then, after the marriage, came the breakfast, at which the countess presided with much noble magnificence. She had not gone to church, thinking, no doubt, that she would be better able to maintain her good humour at the feast, if she did not subject herself to the chance of lumbago in the church. At the foot of the table sat Mr Gresham, her brother-in-law, who had undertaken to give the necessary toast and make the necessary speech. The Honourable John was there, saying all manner of ill-natured things about his sister and new brother-in-law, because he had been excluded from his proper position at the foot of the table. But Alexandrina had declared that she would not have the matter entrusted to her brother. The Honourable George would not come, because the countess had not asked his wife.
‘Maria may be slow, and all that sort of thing,’ George had said; ‘but she is my wife. And she has got what they haven’t. Love me, love my dog, you know.’ SO he had stayed down at Courcy – very properly as I think.
Alexandrina had wished to go away before breakfast, and Crosbie would not have cared how early an escape had been provided for him; but the countess had told her daughter that if she would not wait for the breakfast, there should be no breakfast at all, and in fact no wedding; nothing but a simple marriage. Had there been a grand party, that going away of the bridge and bridgeroom might be very well; but the countess felt that on such an occasion as this nothing but the presence of the body of the sacrifice would give any reality to the festivity. So Crosbie and Lady Alexandrina Crosbie heard Mr Gresham’s speech, in which he prophesied for the young couple an amount of happiness and prosperity almost grater than is compatible with the circumstances of humanity. His young friend Crosbie, whose acquaintance he had been delighted to make, was well known as one of the rising pillars of the State. Whether his future career might be parliamentary, or devoted to the permanent Civil Service of the country, it would be alike great, noble, and prosperous. As to his dear niece, who was now filling that position in life which was most beautiful and glorious for a young woman – she could not have done better. She had preferred genius to wealth – so said Mr Gresham – and she would find her fitting reward. As to her finding her fitting reward, whatever her preferences may have been, there Mr Gresham was no doubt quite right. On that head I myself have no doubt whatever. After that Crosbie returned thanks, making a much better speech than nine men do out of ten on such occasions, and then the thing was over. No other speaking was allowed, and within half an hour from that time, he and his bride were in the post-chaise, being carried away to the Folkestone railway station; for that place had been chosen as the scene of their honeymoon. It had been at one time intended that the journey to Folkestone should be made simply as the first stage to Paris, but Paris and all foreign travelling had been given up by degrees.
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