‘Not in public, I should think.’
‘In very grand houses they throw them away at once, I suppose. I’ve often thought about it. Do you believe the Prime Minister ever has his shoes sent to a cobbler?’
‘Perhaps a regular shoemaker will condescend to mend a Prime Minister’s shoes.’
‘You do think they are mended then? But who orders it? Does he see himself when there’s a little hole coming, as I do? Does an archbishop allow himself so many pairs of gloves in a year?’
‘Not very strictly, I should think.’
‘Then I suppose it comes to this, that he has a new pair whenever he wants them. But what constitutes the want? Does he ever say to himself that they’ll do for another Sunday? I remember the bishop coming here once, and he had a hole at the end of his thumb. I was going to be confirmed, and I remember thinking that he ought to have been smarter.’
‘Why didn’t you offer to mend it?’
‘I shouldn’t have dared for all the world.’
The conversation had commenced itself in a manner that did not promise much assistance to Mrs Dale’s project. When Lily got upon any subject, she was not easily induced to leave it, and when her mind had twisted itself in one direction, it was difficult to untwist it. She was now bent on a consideration of the smaller social habits of the high and mighty among us, and was asking her mother whether she supposed that the royal children ever carried halfpence in their pockets, or descended so low as fourpenny-bits.
‘I suppose they have pockets like other children,’ said Lily.
But her mother stopped her suddenly –
‘Lily, dear, I want to say something to you about John Eames.’
‘Mamma, I’d sooner talk about the Royal Family just at present.’
‘But, dear, you must forgive me if I persist. I have thought much about it, and I’m sure you will not oppose me when I am doing what I think to be my duty.’
‘No, mamma; I won’t oppose you, certainly.’
‘Since Mr Crosbie’s conduct was made known to you, I have mentioned his name in your hearing very seldom.’
‘No, mamma, you have not. And I have loved you so dearly for your goodness to me. Do not think that I have not understood and known how generous you have been. No other mother ever was so good as you have been. I have known it all, and thought of it every day of my life, and thanked you in my heart for your trusting silence. Of course, I understand your feelings. You think him bad and you hate him for what he has done.’
‘I would not willingly hate anyone, Lily.’
‘Ah, but you do hate him. If I were you, I should hate him; but I am not you, and I love him. I pray for his happiness every night and morning, and for hers. I have forgiven him altogether, and I think that he was right. When I am old enough to do so without being wrong, I will go to him and tell him so. I should like to hear of all his doings and all his success, if it were only possible. How, then, can you and I talk about him? It is impossible. You have been silent and I have been silent – let us remain silent.’
‘It is not about Mr Crosbie that I wish to speak. But I think you ought to understand that conduct such as his will be rebuked by all the world. You may forgive him, but you should acknowledge –’
‘Mamma, I don’t want to acknowledge anything – not about him. There are things as to which a person cannot argue.’ Mrs Dale felt that this present matter was one as to which she could not argue. ‘Of course, mamma,’ continued Lily, ‘I don’t want to oppose you in anything, but I think we had better be silent about this.’
‘Of course I am thinking only of your future happiness.’
‘I know you are; but pray believe me that you need not be alarmed. I do not mean to be unhappy. Indeed, I think I may say I am not unhappy; of course I have been unhappy – very unhappy. I did think that my heart would break. But that has passed away, and I believe I can be as happy as my neighbours. We’re all of us sure to have some troubles, as you used to tell us when we were children.’
Mrs Dale felt that she had begun wrong, and that she would have been able to make better progress had she omitted all mention of Crosbie’s name. She knew exactly what it was that she wished to say – what were the arguments which she desired to expound before her daughter; but she did not know what language to use, or how she might best put her thoughts into words. She paused for a while, and Lily went on with her work as though the conversation was over. But the conversation was not over.
‘It was about John Eames and not about Mr Crosbie, that I wished to speak to you.’
‘Oh, mamma!’
‘My dear, you must not hinder me in doing what I think to be duty. I heard what he said to you and what you replied, and of course I cannot but have my mind full of the subject. Why should you set yourself against him in so fixed a manner?’
‘Because I love another man.’ These words she spoke out loud, in a steady, almost dogged tone, with a certain show of audacity – as though aware that the declaration was unseemly, but resolved that, though unseemly, it must be made.
‘But, Lily, that love, from its very nature, must cease; or, rather, such love is not the same as that you felt when you thought that you were to be his wife.’
‘Yes, it is. If she died, and he came to me in five years’ time, I would still take him. I should think myself constrained to take him.’
‘But she is not dead, nor likely to die.’
‘That makes no difference. You don’t understand me, mamma.’
‘I think I do, and I want you to understand me also. I know how difficult is your position; I know what your feelings are; but I know this also, that if you could reason with yourself, and bring yourself in time to receive John Eames as a dear friend –’
‘I did receive him as a dear friend. Why not? He is a dear friend. I love him heartily – as you do.’
‘You know what I mean?’
‘Yes, I do; and I tell you it is impossible.’
‘If you would make the attempt, all this misery would soon be forgotten. If once you could bring yourself to regard him as a friend, who might become your husband, all this would be changed – and I should see you happy!’
‘You are strangely anxious to be rid of me, mamma!’
‘Yes, Lily – to be rid of you in that way. If I could see you put your hand in his as his promised wife, I think that I should be the happiest woman in the world.’
‘Mamma, I cannot make you happy in that way. If you really understood my feelings, my doing as you propose would make you very unhappy. I should commit a great sin – the sin against which women should be more guarded than against any other. In my heart I am married to that other man. I gave myself to him and loved him, and rejoiced in his love. When he kissed me I kissed him again, and I longed for his kisses. I seemed to live only that he might caress me. All that time I never felt myself to be wrong – because he was all in all to me. I was his own. That has been changed – to my great misfortune; but it cannot be undone or forgotten. I cannot be the girl I was before he came here. There are things that will not have themselves buried and put out of sight, as though they had never been. I am as you are, mamma – widowed. But you have your daughter, and I have my mother. If you will be contented, so will I.’ Then she got up and threw herself on her mother’s neck.
Mrs Dale’s argument was over now. To such an appeal as that last made by Lily no rejoinder on her part was possible. After that she was driven to acknowledge to herself that she must be silent. Years as they rolled on might make a change, but no reasoning could be of avail. She embraced her daughter, weeping over her – whereas Lily’s eyes were dry. ‘It shall be as you will,’ Mrs Dale murmured.
‘Yes, as I will. I shall have my own way; shall I not? That is all I want; to be a tyrant over you, and make you do my bidding in everything, as a well-behaved mother should do. But I won’t be stern in my orderings. If you will only be obedient, I will be so gracious to you! There’s Hopkins again. I wonder whether he has com
e to knock us down and trample upon us with another speech.’
Hopkins knew very well to which window he must come, as only one of the rooms was at the present time habitable. He came up to the dining-room, and almost flattened his nose against the glass.
‘Well, Hopkins,’ said Lily, ‘here we are.’ Mrs Dale had turned her face away, for she knew that the tears were still on her cheek.
‘Yes, miss, I see you. I want to speak to your mamma, miss.’
‘Come round,’ said Lily, anxious to spare her mother the necessity of showing herself at once. ‘It’s too cold to open the window; come round, and I’ll open the door.’
‘Too cold!’ muttered Hopkins, as he went. ‘They’ll find it a deal colder in lodgings at Guestwick.’ However, he went round through the kitchen, and Lily met him in the hall.
‘Well, Hopkins, what is it? Mamma has got a headache.’
‘Got a headache, has she? I won’t make her headache no worse. It’s my opinion that there’s nothing for a headache so good as fresh air. Only some people can’t abear to be blowed upon, not for a minute. If you don’t let down the lights in a greenhouse more or less every day, you’ll never get any plants – never – and it’s just the same with the grapes. Is I to go back and say as how I couldn’t see her?’
‘You can come in if you like; only be quiet, you know.’
‘Ain’t I ollays quiet, miss? Did anybody ever hear me rampage? If you please, ma’am, the squire’s come home.’
‘What, home from Guestwick? Has he brought Miss Bell?’
‘He ain’t brought none but hisself, ’cause he come on horseback; and it’s my belief he’s going back almost immediate. But he wants you to come to him, Mrs Dale.’
‘Oh, yes, I’ll come at once.’
‘He bade me say with his kind love. I don’ know whether that makes any difference.’
‘At any rate, I’ll come, Hopkins.’
‘And I ain’t to say nothing about the headache?’
‘About what?’ said Mrs Dale.
‘No, no, no,’ said Lily. ‘Mamma will be there at once. Go and tell my uncle, there’s a good man,’ and she put up her hand and backed him out of the room.
‘I don’t believe she’s got no headache at all,’ said Hopkins, grumbling, as he returned through the back premises. ‘What lies gentlefolks do tell! If I said I’d headache when I ought to be out among the things, what would they say to me? But a poor man mustn’t never lie, nor yet drink, nor yet do nothing.’ And so he went back with his message.
‘What can have brought your uncle home?’ said Mrs Dale.
‘Just to look after the cattle, and to see that the pigs are not all dead. My wonder is that he should ever have gone away.’
‘I must go up to him at once.’
‘Oh, yes, of course.’
‘And what shall I say about the house?’
‘It’s not about that – at least I think not. I don’t think he’ll speak about that again till you speak to him.’
‘But if he does?’
‘You must put your trust in Providence. Declare you’ve got a bad headache, as I told Hopkins just now; only you would throw me over by not understanding. I’ll walk with you down to the bridge.’ So they went off together across the lawn.
But Lily was soon left alone, and continued her walk, waiting for her mother’s return. As she went round and round the gravel paths, she thought of the words that she had said to her mother. She had declared that she also was widowed. ‘And so it should be,’ she said, debating the matter with herself. ‘What can a heart be worth if it can be transferred hither and thither as circumstances and convenience and comfort may require? When he held me here in his arms’ – and, as the thoughts ran through her brain, she remembered the very spot on which they had stood – ‘oh, my love!’ she had said to him then as she returned his kisses – ‘oh, my love, my love, my love!’ ‘When he held me here in his arms, I told myself that it was right, because he was my husband. He has changed, but I have not. It might be that I should have ceased to love him, and then I should have told him so. I should have done as he did.’ But, as she came to this, she shuddered, thinking of the Lady Alexandrina. ‘It was very quick,’ she said, still speaking to herself; ‘very, very. But then men are not the same as women.’ And she walked on eagerly, hardly remembering where she was, thinking over it all, as she did daily; remembering every little thought and word of those few eventful months in which she had learned to regard Crosbie as her husband and master. She had declared that she had conquered her unhappiness; but there were moments in which she was almost wild with misery. ‘Tell me to forget him!’ she said. ‘It is the one thing which will never be forgotten.’
At last she heard her mother’s step coming down across the squire’s garden, and she took up her post at the bridge.
‘Stand and deliver,’ she said, as her mother put her foot upon the plank. ‘That is, if you’ve got anything worth delivering. Is anything settled?’
‘Come up to the house,’ said Mrs Dale, ‘and I’ll tell you all.’
CHAPTER 58
THE FATE OF THE SMALL HOUSE
THERE WAS something in the tone of Mrs Dale’s voice, as she desired he daughter to come up to the house, and declared that her budget of news should be opened there, which at once silenced Lily’s assumed pleasantry. Her mother had been away fully two hours, during which Lily had still continued her walk round the garden, till at last she had become impatient for her mother’s footstep. Something serious must have been said between he uncle and her mother during those long two hours. The interviews to which Mrs Dale was occasionally summoned at the Great House did not usually exceed twenty minutes, and the upshot would be communicated to the girls in a turn or two round the garden; but in the present instance Mrs Dale positively declined to speak till she was seated within the house.
‘Did he come over on purpose to see you, mamma?’
‘Yes, my dear, I believe so. He wished to see you, too; but I asked his permission to postpone that till after I had talked to you.’
‘To see me, mamma? About what?’
‘To kiss you, and bid you love him; solely for that. He has not a word to say to you that will vex you.’
‘Then I will kiss him, and love him, too.’
‘Yes, you will when I have told you all. I have promised him solemnly to give up all idea of going to Guestwick. So that is over.’
‘Oh, oh! And we may begin to unpack at once? What an episode in one’s life!’
‘We may certainly unpack, for I have pledged myself to him; and he is to go into Guestwick himself and arrange about the lodgings.’
‘Does Hopkins know it?’
‘I should think not yet.’
‘Nor Mrs Boyce! Mamma, I don’t believe I shall be able to survive this next week. We shall look such fools! I’ll tell you what we’ll do – it will be the only comfort I can have – we’ll go to work and get everything back into its place before Bell comes home, so as to surprise her.’
‘What! in two days?’
‘Why not? I’ll make Hopkins come and help, and then he’ll not be so bad. I’ll begin at once and go to the blankets and beds, because I can undo them myself.’
‘But I haven’t half told you all; and, indeed, I don’t know how to make you understand what passed between us. He is very unhappy about Bernard; Bernard has determined to go abroad, and may be away of years.’
‘One can hardly blame a man for following up his profession.’
‘There was no blaming. He only said that it was very sad for him that, in his old age, he should be left alone. This was before there was any talk about our remaining. Indeed he seemed determined not to ask that again as a favour. I could see that in his eye, and I understood it from his tone. He went on to speak of you and Bell, saying how well he loved you both; but that, unfortunately, his hopes regarding you had not been fulfilled.’
‘Ah, but he shouldn’t have had hopes of that sort.’
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‘Listen, my dear, and I think that you will not feel angry with him. He said that he felt his house had never been pleasant to you. Then there followed words which I could not repeat, even if I could remember them. He said much about myself, regretting that the feeling between us had not been more kindly. “But my heart,” he said, “has ever been kinder than my words.” Then I got up from where I was seated, and going over to him, I told him that we would remain here.’
‘And what did he say?’
‘I don’t know what he said. I know that I was crying, and that he kissed me. It was the first time in his life. I know that he was pleased – beyond measure pleased. After a while he became animated, and talked of doing ever so many things. He promised that very painting of which you spoke.’
‘Ah, yes, I knew it; and Hopkins will be here with the peas before dinner-time tomorrow, and Dingles with his shoulders smothered with rabbits. And then Mrs Boyce! Mamma, he didn’t think of Mrs Boyce; or, in very charity of heart, he would still have maintained his sadness.’
‘Then he did not think of her; for when I left him he was not at all sad. But I haven’t told you half yet.’
‘Dear me, mamma; was there more than that?’
‘And I’ve told it all wrong; for what I’ve got to tell now was said before a word was spoken about the house. He brought it in just after what he said about Bernard. He said that Bernard would, of course, be his heir.’
‘Of course he will.’
‘And that he should think it wrong to encumber the property with any charges for you girls.’
‘Mamma, did anyone ever –’
‘Stop, Lily, stop; and make your heart kinder towards him if you can.’
‘It is kind; only I hate to be told that I’m not to have a lot of money, as though I had ever shown a desire for it. I have never envied Bernard his man-servant, or his maid-servant, or his ox, or his ass, or anything that is his.1 To tell the truth I didn’t even wish it to be Bell’s, because I knew well that there was somebody she would like a great deal better than ever she could like Bernard.’
The Small House at Allington Page 75
