But there was no such drawback on Lily’s happiness. Her ideas about money were rather vague, but they were very honest. She knew she had none of her own, but supposed it was a husband’s duty to find what would be needful. She knew she had none of her own, and was therefore aware that she ought not to expect luxuries in the little household that was to be prepared for her. She hoped, for his sake, that her uncle might give some assistance, but was quite prepared to prove that she could be a good poor man’s wife. In the old colloquies on such matters between her and her sister, she had always declared that some decent income should be considered as indispensable before love could be entertained. But eight hundred a year had been considered as doing much more than fulfilling this stipulation. Bell had high-flown notions as to the absolute glory of poverty. She had declared that income should not be considered at all. If she had loved a man, she would allow herself to be engaged to him, even though he had no income. Such had been their theories; and as regarded money, Lily was quite contented with the way in which she had carried out her own.
In these beautiful days there was nothing to check her happiness. Her mother and sister united in telling her that she had done well—that she was happy in her choice, and justified in her love. On that first day, when she told her mother all, she had been made exquisitely blissful by the way in which her tidings had been received.
“Oh! mamma, I must tell you something,” she said, coming up to her mother’s bedroom, after a long ramble with Mr. Crosbie through those Allington fields.
“Is it about Mr. Crosbie?”
“Yes, mamma.” And then the rest had been said through the medium of warm embraces and happy tears rather than by words.
As she sat in her mother’s room, hiding her face on her mother’s shoulders, Bell had come, and had knelt at her feet.
“Dear Lily,” she had said, “I am so glad.” And then Lily remembered how she had, as it were, stolen her lover from her sister, and she put her arms round Bell’s neck and kissed her.
“I knew how it was going to be from the very first,” said Bell. “Did I not, mamma?”
“I’m sure I didn’t,” said Lily. “I never thought such a thing was possible.”
“But we did—mamma and I.”
“Did you?” said Lily.
“Bell told me that it was to be so,” said Mrs. Dale. “But I could hardly bring myself at first to think that he was good enough for my darling.”
“Oh, mamma! you must not say that. You must think that he is good enough for anything.”
“I will think that he is very good.”
“Who could be better? And then, when you remember all that he is to give up for my sake!— And what can I do for him in return? What have I got to give him?”
Neither Mrs. Dale nor Bell could look at the matter in this light, thinking that Lily gave quite as much as she received. But they both declared that Crosbie was perfect, knowing that by such assurances only could they now administer to Lily’s happiness; and Lily, between them, was made perfect in her happiness, receiving all manner of encouragement in her love, and being nourished in her passion by the sympathy and approval of her mother and sister.
And then had come that visit from Johnny Eames. As the poor fellow marched out of the room, giving them no time to say farewell, Mrs. Dale and Bell looked at each other sadly; but they were unable to concoct any arrangement, for Lily had run across the lawn and was already on the ground before the window.
“As soon as we got to the end of the shrubbery there were Uncle Christopher and Bernard close to us; so I told Adolphus he might go on by himself.”
“And who do you think has been here?” said Bell. But Mrs. Dale said nothing. Had time been given to her to use her own judgment, nothing should have been said at that moment as to Johnny’s visit.
“Has anybody been here since I went? Whoever it was didn’t stay very long.”
“Poor Johnny Eames,” said Bell. Then the colour came up into Lily’s face, and she bethought herself in a moment that the old friend of her young days had loved her, that he, too, had had hopes as to his love, and that now he had heard tidings which would put an end to such hopes. She understood it all in a moment, but understood also that it was necessary that she should conceal such understanding.
“Dear Johnny!” she said. “Why did he not wait for me?”
“We told him you were out,” said Mrs. Dale. “He will be here again before long, no doubt.”
“And he knows—?”
“Yes; I thought you would not object to my telling him.”
“No, mamma; of course not. And he has gone back to Guestwick?”
There was no answer given to this question, nor were there any further words then spoken about Johnny Eames. Each of these women understood exactly how the matter stood, and each knew that the others understood it. The young man was loved by them all, but not loved with that sort of admiring affection which had been accorded to Mr. Crosbie. Johnny Eames could not have been accepted as a suitor by their pet. Mrs. Dale and Bell both felt that. And yet they loved him for his love, and for that distant, modest respect which had restrained him from any speech regarding it. Poor Johnny! But he was young—hardly as yet out of his hobbledehoyhood—and he would easily recover this blow, remembering, and perhaps feeling to his advantage, some slight touch of its passing romance. It is thus women think of men who love young and love in vain.
But Johnny Eames himself, as he rode back to Guestwick, forgetful of his spurs, and with his gloves stuffed into his pocket, thought of the matter very differently. He had never promised to himself any success as to his passion for Lily, and had, indeed, always acknowledged that he could have no hope; but, now that she was actually promised to another man, and as good as married, he was not the less broken-hearted because his former hopes had not been high. He had never dared to speak to Lily of his love, but he was conscious that she knew it, and he did not now dare to stand before her as one convicted of having loved in vain. And then, as he rode back, he thought also of his other love, not with many of those pleasant thoughts which Lotharios and Don Juans may be presumed to enjoy when they contemplate their successes. “I suppose I shall marry her, and there’ll be an end of me,” he said to himself, as he remembered a short note which he had once written to her in his madness. There had been a little supper at Mrs. Roper’s, and Mrs. Lupex and Amelia had made the punch. After supper, he had been by some accident alone with Amelia in the dining-parlour; and when, warmed by the generous god, he had declared his passion, she had shaken her head mournfully, and had fled from him to some upper region, absolutely refusing his proffered embrace. But on the same night, before his head had found its pillow, a note had come to him, half repentant, half affectionate, half repellent—”If, indeed, he would swear to her that his love was honest and manly, then, indeed, she might even yet—see him through the chink of the doorway with the purport of telling him that he was forgiven.” Whereupon, a perfidious pencil being near to his hand, he had written the requisite words. “My only object in life is to call you my own for ever.” Amelia had her misgivings whether such a promise, in order that it might be used as legal evidence, should not have been written in ink. It was a painful doubt; but nevertheless she was as good as her word, and saw him through the chink, forgiving him for his impetuosity in the parlour with, perhaps, more clemency than a mere pardon required. “By George! how well she looked with her hair all loose,” he said to himself, as he at last regained his pillow, still warm with the generous god. But now, as he thought of that night, returning on his road from Allington to Guestwick, those loose, floating locks were remembered by him with no strong feeling as to their charms. And he thought also of Lily Dale, as she was when he had said farewell to her on that day before he first went up to London. “I shall care more about seeing you than anybody,” he had said; and he had often thought of the words since, wondering whether she had understood them as meaning more than an assurance of ordinary friendship. And he remembered well the dress she had then worn. It was an old brown merino, which he had known before, and which, in truth, had nothing in it to recommend it specially to a lover’s notice. “Horrid old thing!” had been Lily’s own verdict respecting the frock, even before that day. But she had hallowed it in his eyes, and he would have been only too happy to have worn a shred of it near his heart, as a talisman. How wonderful in its nature is that passion of which men speak when they acknowledge to themselves that they are in love. Of all things, it is, under one condition, the most foul, and under another, the most fair. As that condition is, a man shows himself either as a beast or as a god! And so we will let poor Johnny Eames ride back to Guestwick, suffering much in that he had loved basely—and suffering much, also, in that he had loved nobly.
Lily, as she had tripped along through the shrubbery, under her lover’s arm, looking up, every other moment, into his face, had espied her uncle and Bernard. “Stop,” she had said, giving him a little pull at the arm; “I won’t go on. Uncle is always teasing me with some old-fashioned wit. And I’ve had quite enough of you to-day, sir. Mind you come over to-morrow before you go to your shooting.” And so she had left him.
We may as well learn here what was the question in dispute between the uncle and cousin, as they were walking there on the broad gravel path behind the Great House. “Bernard,” the old man had said, “I wish this matter could be settled between you and Bell.”
“Is there any hurry about it, sir?”
“Yes, there is hurry; or, rather, as I hate hurry in all things, I would say that there is ground for despatch. Mind, I do not wish to drive you. If you do not like your cousin, say so.”
“But I do like her; only I have a sort of feeling that these things grow best by degrees. I quite share your dislike to being in a hurry.”
“But time enough has been taken now. You see, Bernard, I am going to make a great sacrifice of income on your behalf.”
“I am sure I am very grateful.”
“I have no children, and have therefore always regarded you as my own. But there is no reason why my brother Philip’s daughter should not be as dear to me as my brother Orlando’s son.”
“Of course not, sir; or, rather, his two daughters.”
“You may leave that matter to me, Bernard. The younger girl is going to marry this friend of yours, and as he has a sufficient income to support a wife, I think that my sister-in-law has good reason to be satisfied by the match. She will not be expected to give up any part of her small income, as she must have done had Lily married a poor man.”
“I suppose she could hardly give up much.”
“People must be guided by circumstances. I am not disposed to put myself in the place of a parent to them both. There is no reason why I should, and I will not encourage false hopes. If I knew that this matter between you and Bell was arranged, I should have reason to feel satisfied with what I was doing.” From all which Bernard began to perceive that poor Crosbie’s expectations in the matter of money would not probably receive much gratification. But he also perceived—or thought that he perceived—a kind of threat in this warning from his uncle. “I have promised you eight hundred a year with your wife,” the warning seemed to say. “But if you do not at once accept it, or let me feel that it will be accepted, it may be well for me to change my mind—especially as this other niece is about to be married. If I am to give you so large a fortune with Bell, I need do nothing for Lily. But if you do not choose to take Bell and the fortune, why then—” And so on. It was thus that Bernard read his uncle’s caution, as they walked together on the broad gravel path.
“I have no desire to postpone the matter any longer,” said Bernard. “I will propose to Bell at once, if you wish it.”
“If your mind be quite made up, I cannot see why you should delay it.”
And then, having thus arranged that matter, they received their future relative with kind smiles and soft words.
CHAPTER VII
The Beginning of Troubles
Lily, as she parted with her lover in the garden, had required of him to attend upon her the next morning as he went to his shooting, and in obedience to this command he appeared on Mrs. Dale’s lawn after breakfast, accompanied by Bernard and two dogs. The men had guns in their hands, and were got up with all proper sporting appurtenances, but it so turned out that they did not reach the stubble-fields on the farther side of the road until after luncheon. And may it not be fairly doubted whether croquet is not as good as shooting when a man is in love?
It will be said that Bernard Dale was not in love; but they who bring such accusation against him, will bring it falsely. He was in love with his cousin Bell according to his manner and fashion. It was not his nature to love Bell as John Eames loved Lily; but then neither would his nature bring him into such a trouble as that which the charms of Amelia Roper had brought upon the poor clerk from the Income-tax Office. Johnny was susceptible, as the word goes; whereas Captain Dale was a man who had his feelings well under control. He was not one to make a fool of himself about a girl, or to die of a broken heart; but, nevertheless, he would probably love his wife when he got a wife, and would be a careful father to his children.
They were very intimate with each other now—these four. It was Bernard and Adolphus, or sometimes Apollo, and Bell and Lily among them; and Crosbie found it to be pleasant enough. A new position of life had come upon him, and one exceeding pleasant; but, nevertheless, there were moments in which cold fits of a melancholy nature came upon him. He was doing the very thing which throughout all the years of his manhood he had declared to himself that he would not do. According to his plan of life he was to have eschewed marriage, and to have allowed himself to regard it as a possible event only under the circumstances of wealth, rank, and beauty all coming in his way together. As he had expected no such glorious prize, he had regarded himself as a man who would reign at the Beaufort and be potent at Sebright’s to the end of his chapter. But now—
It was the fact that he had fallen from his settled position, vanquished by a silver voice, a pretty wit, and a pair of moderately bright eyes. He was very fond of Lily, having in truth a stronger capability for falling in love than his friend Captain Dale; but was the sacrifice worth his while? This was the question which he asked himself in those melancholy moments; while he was lying in bed, for instance, awake in the morning, when he was shaving himself, and sometimes also when the squire was prosy after dinner. At such times as these, while he would be listening to Mr. Dale, his self-reproaches would sometimes be very bitter. Why should he undergo this, he, Crosbie of Sebright’s, Crosbie of the General Committee Office, Crosbie who would allow no one to bore him between Charing Cross and the far end of Bayswater—why should he listen to the long-winded stories of such a one as Squire Dale? If, indeed, the squire intended to be liberal to his niece, then it might be very well. But as yet the squire had given no sign of such intention, and Crosbie was angry with himself in that he had not had the courage to ask a question on that subject.
And thus the course of love was not all smooth to our Apollo. It was still pleasant for him when he was there on the croquet ground, or sitting in Mrs. Dale’s drawing-room with all the privileges of an accepted lover. It was pleasant to him also as he sipped the squire’s claret, knowing that his coffee would soon be handed to him by a sweet girl who would have tripped across the two gardens on purpose to perform for him this service. There is nothing pleasanter than all this, although a man when so treated does feel himself to look like a calf at the altar, ready for the knife, with blue ribbons round his horns and neck. Crosbie felt that he was such a calf—and the more calf-like, in that he had not as yet dared to ask a question about his wife’s fortune. “I will have it out of the old fellow this evening,” he said to himself, as he buttoned on his dandy shooting gaiters that morning.
“How nice he looks in them,” Lily said to her sister afterwards, knowing nothing of the thoughts which had troubled her lover’s mind while he was adorning his legs.
“I suppose we shall come back this way,” Crosbie said, as they prepared to move away on their proper business when lunch was over.
“Well, not exactly!” said Bernard. “We shall make our way round by Darvell’s farm, and so back by Gruddock’s. Are the girls going to dine up at the Great House to-day?”
The girls declared that they were not going to dine up at the Great House—that they did not intend going to the Great House at all that evening.
“Then, as you won’t have to dress, you might as well meet us at Gruddock’s gate, at the back of the farmyard. We’ll be there exactly at half-past five.”
“That is to say, we’re to be there at half-past five, and you’ll keep us waiting for three-quarters of an hour,” said Lily. Nevertheless the arrangement as proposed was made, and the two ladies were not at all unwilling to make it. It is thus that the game is carried on among unsophisticated people who really live in the country. The farmyard gate at Farmer Gruddock’s has not a fitting sound as a trysting-place in romance, but for people who are in earnest it does as well as any oak in the middle glade of a forest. Lily Dale was quite in earnest—and so indeed was Adolphus Crosbie—only with him the earnest was beginning to take that shade of brown which most earnest things have to wear in this vale of tears. With Lily it was as yet all rose-coloured. And Bernard Dale was also in earnest. Throughout this morning he had stood very near to Bell on the lawn, and had thought that his cousin did not receive his little whisperings with any aversion. Why should she? Lucky girl that she was, thus to have eight hundred a year pinned to her skirt!
“I say, Dale,” Crosbie said, as in the course of their day’s work they had come round upon Gruddock’s ground, and were preparing to finish off his turnips before they reached the farmyard gate. And now, as Crosbie spoke, they stood leaning on the gate, looking at the turnips while the two dogs squatted on their haunches. Crosbie had been very silent for the last mile or two, and had been making up his mind for this conversation. “I say, Dale—your uncle has never said a word to me yet as to Lily’s fortune.”
“As to Lily’s fortune! The question is whether Lily has got a fortune.”
“He can hardly expect that I am to take her without something. Your uncle is a man of the world and he knows—”
“Whether or no my uncle is a man of the world, I will not say; but you are, Crosbie, whether he is or not. Lily, as you have always known, has nothing of her own.”
“I am not talking of Lily’s own. I’m speaking of her uncle. I have been straightforward with him; and when I became attached to your cousin I declared what I meant at once.”
“You should have asked him the question, if you thought there was any room for such a question.”
“Thought there was any room! Upon my word, you are a cool fellow.”
“Now look here, Crosbie; you may say what you like about my uncle, but you must not say a word against Lily.”
“Who is going to say a word against her? You can little understand me if you don’t know that the protection of her name against evil words is already more my care than it is yours. I regard Lily as my own.”
“I only meant to say, that any discontent you may feel as to her money, or want of money, you must refer to my uncle, and not to the family at the Small House.”
“I am quite well aware of that.”
“And though you are quite at liberty to say what you like to me about my uncle, I cannot say that I can see that he has been to blame.”
“He should have told me what her prospects are.”
“But if she have got no prospects! It cannot be an uncle’s duty to tell everybody that he does not mean to give his niece a fortune. In point of fact, why should you suppose that he has such an intention?”
“Do you know that he has not? because you once led me to believe that he would give his niece money.”
“Now, Crosbie, it is necessary that you and I should understand each other in this matter—”
“But did you not?”
“Listen to me for a moment. I never said a word to you about my uncle’s intentions in any way, until after you had become fully engaged to Lily with the knowledge of us all. Then, when my belief on the subject could make no possible difference in your conduct, I told you that I thought my uncle would do something for her. I told you so because I did think so—and as your friend, I should have told you what I thought in any matter that concerned your interest.”
“And now you have changed your opinion?”
“I have changed my opinion; but very probably without sufficient ground.”
“That’s hard upon me.”
“It may be hard to bear disappointment; but you cannot say that anybody has ill-used you.”
“And you don’t think he will give her anything?”
“Nothing that will be of much moment to you.”
“And I’m not to say that that’s hard? I think it confounded hard. Of course I must put off my marriage.”
“Why do you not speak to my uncle?”
“I shall do so. To tell the truth, I think it would have come better from him; but that is a matter of opinion. I shall tell him very plainly what I think about it; and if he is angry, why, I suppose I must leave his house; that will be all.”
“Look here, Crosbie; do not begin your conversation with the purpose of angering him. He is not a bad-hearted man, but is very obstinate.”
“I can be quite as obstinate as he.” And, then, without further parley, they went in among the turnips, and each swore against his luck as he missed his birds. There are certain phases of mind in which a man can neither ride nor shoot, nor play a stroke at billiards, nor remember a card at whist—and to such a phase of mind had come both Crosbie and Dale after their conversation over the gate.
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 he should be, had become reserved 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 mamma 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 he 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 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.