“I will convoy you home myself,” she said, “and Grace, when she has done with the beetle, shall come and meet me. Won’t you, Grace?”
“Certainly.”
“We are not helpless young ladies in these parts, nor yet timorous,” continued Lily. “We can walk about without being afraid of ghosts, robbers, wild bulls, young men, or gipsies. Come the field path, Grace. I will go as far as the big oak with him, and then I shall turn back, and I shall come in by the stile opposite the church gate, and through the garden. So you can’t miss me.”
“I daresay he’ll come back with you,” said Grace.
“No, he won’t. He will do nothing of the kind. He’ll have to go on and open Lady Julia’s bottle of port wine for his own drinking.”
All this was very good on Lily’s part, and very good also on the part of Mrs. Dale; and John was of course very much obliged to them. But there was a lack of romance in it all, which did not seem to him to argue well as to his success. He did not think much about it, but he felt that Lily would not have been so ready to arrange their walk had she intended to yield to his entreaty. No doubt in these latter days plain good sense had become the prevailing mark of her character—perhaps, as Johnny thought, a little too strongly prevailing; but even with all her plain good sense and determination to dispense with the absurdities of romance in the affairs of her life, she would not have proposed herself as his companion for a walk across the fields merely that she might have an opportunity of accepting his hand. He did not say all this to himself, but he instinctively felt that it was so. And he felt also that it should have been his duty to arrange the walk, or the proper opportunity for the scene that was to come. She had done it instead—she and her mother between them, thereby forcing upon him a painful conviction that he himself had not been equal to the occasion. “I always make a mull of it,” he said to himself, when the girls went up to get their hats.
They went down together through the garden, and parted where the paths led away, one to the great house and the other towards the church. “I’ll certainly come and call upon the squire before I go back to London,” said Johnny.
“We’ll tell him so,” said Mrs. Dale. “He would be sure to hear that you had been with us, even if we said nothing about it.”
“Of course he would,” said Lily; “Hopkins has seen him.” Then they separated, and Lily and John Eames were together.
Hardly a word was said, perhaps not a word, till they had crossed the road and got into the field opposite to the church. And in this first field there was more than one path, and the children of the village were often there, and it had about it something of a public nature. John Eames felt that it was by no means a fitting field to say that which he had to say. In crossing it, therefore, he merely remarked that the day was very fine for walking. Then he added one special word, “And it is so good of you, Lily, to come with me.”
“I am very glad to come with you. I would do more than that, John, to show how glad I am to see you.” Then they had come to the second little gate, and beyond that the fields were really fields, and there were stiles instead of wicket-gates, and the business of the day must be begun.
“Lily, whenever I come here you say that you are glad to see me?”
“And so I am—very glad. Only you would take it as meaning what it does not mean, I would tell you, that of all my friends living away from the reach of my daily life, you are the one whose coming is ever the most pleasant to me.”
“Oh, Lily!”
“It was, I think, only yesterday that I was telling Grace that you are more like a brother to me than anyone else. I wish it might be so. I wish we might swear to be brother and sister. I’d do more for you then than walk across the fields with you to Guestwick Cottage. Your prosperity would then be the thing in the world for which I should be most anxious. And if you should marry—”
“It can never be like that between us,” said Johnny.
“Can it not? I think it can. Perhaps not this year, or next year; perhaps not in the next five years. But I make myself happy with thinking that it may be so some day. I shall wait for it patiently, even though you should rebuff me again and again—as you have done now.”
“I have not rebuffed you.”
“Not maliciously, or injuriously, or offensively. I will be very patient, and take little rebuffs without complaining. This is the worst stile of all. When Grace and I are here together we can never manage it without tearing ourselves all to pieces. It is much nicer to have you to help me.”
“Let me help you always,” he said, keeping her hands in his after he had aided her to jump from the stile to the ground.
“Yes, as my brother.”
“That is nonsense, Lily.”
“Is it nonsense? Nonsense is a hard word.”
“It is nonsense as coming from you to me. Lily, I sometimes think that I am persecuting you, writing to you, coming after you, as I am doing now—telling the same whining story—asking, asking, and asking for that which you say you will never give me. And then I feel ashamed of myself, and swear that I will do it no more.”
“Do not be ashamed of yourself; but yet do it no more.”
“And then,” he continued, without minding her words, “at other times I feel that it must be my own fault; that if I only persevered with sufficient energy I must be successful. At such times I swear that I will never give it up.”
“Oh, John, if you could only know how little worthy of such pursuit it is.”
“Leave me to judge of that, dear. When a man has taken a month, or perhaps only a week, or perhaps not more than half-an-hour, to make up his mind, it may be very well to tell him that he doesn’t know what he is about. I’ve been in the office now for over seven years, and the first day I went I put an oath into a book that I would come back and get you for my wife when I had got enough to live upon.”
“Did you, John?”
“Yes. I can show it to you. I used to come and hover about the place in the old days, before I went to London, when I was such a fool that I couldn’t speak to you if I met you. I am speaking of a time long ago—before that man came down here.”
“Do not speak of him, Johnny.”
“I must speak of him. A man isn’t to hold his tongue when everything he has in the world is at stake. I suppose he loved you after a fashion, once.”
“Pray, pray do not speak ill of him.”
“I am not going to abuse him. You can judge of him by his deeds. I cannot say anything worse of him than what they say. I suppose he loved you; but he certainly did not love you as I have done. I have at any rate been true to you. Yes, Lily, I have been true to you. I am true to you. He did not know what he was about. I do. I am justified in saying that I do. I want you to be my wife. It is no use your talking about it as though I only half wanted it.”
“I did not say that.”
“Is not a man to have any reward? Of course if you had married him there would have been an end of it. He had come in between me and my happiness, and I must have borne it, as other men bear such sorrows. But you have not married him; and, of course, I cannot but feel that I may yet have a chance. Lily, answer me this. Do you believe that I love you?” But she did not answer him. “You can at any rate tell me that. Do you think that I am in earnest?”
“Yes, I think you are in earnest.”
“And do you believe that I love you with all my heart and all my strength and all my soul?”
“Oh, John!”
“But do you?”
“I think you love me.”
“Think! what am I to say or to do to make you understand that my only idea of happiness is the idea that sooner or later I may get you to be my wife? Lily, will you say that it shall be so? Speak, Lily. There is no one that will not be glad. Your uncle will consent—has consented. Your mother wishes it. Bell wishes it. My mother wishes it. Lady Julia wishes it. You would be doing what everybody around you wants you to do. And why should you not do it? It isn’t that you dislike me. You wouldn’t talk about being my sister, if you had not some sort of regard for me.”
“I have a regard for you.”
“Then why will you not be my wife? Oh, Lily, say the word now, here, at once. Say the word, and you’ll make me the happiest fellow in all England.” As he spoke he took her by both arms, and held her fast. She did not struggle to get away from him, but stood quite still, looking into his face, while the first sparkle of a salt tear formed itself in each eye. “Lily, one little word will do it—half a word, a nod, a smile. Just touch my arm with your hand and I will take it for a yes.” I think that she almost tried to touch him; that the word was in her throat, and that she almost strove to speak it. But there was no syllable spoken, and her fingers did not loose themselves to fall upon his sleeve. “Lily, Lily, what can I say to you?”
“I wish I could,” she whispered—but the whisper was so hoarse that he hardly recognized the voice.
“And why can you not? What is there to hinder you? There is nothing to hinder you, Lily.”
“Yes, John; there is that which must hinder me.”
“And what is it?”
“I will tell you. You are so good and so true, and so excellent—such a dear, dear friend, that I will tell you everything, so that you may read my heart. I will tell you as I tell mamma—you and her and no one else—for you are the choice friend of my heart. I cannot be your wife because of the love I bear for another man.”
“And that man is he—he who came here?”
“Of course it is he. I think, Johnny, you and I are alike in this, that when we have loved, we cannot bring ourselves to change. You will not change, though it would be so much better you should do so.”
“No; I will never change.”
“Nor can I. When I sleep I dream of him. When I am alone I cannot banish him from my thoughts. I cannot define what it is to love him. I want nothing from him—nothing, nothing. But I move about through my little world thinking of him, and I shall do so till the end. I used to feel proud of my love, though it made me so wretched that I thought it would kill me. I am not proud of it any longer. It is a foolish poor-spirited weakness—as though my heart has been only half formed in the making. Do you be stronger, John. A man should be stronger than a woman.”
“I have none of that sort of strength.”
“Nor have I. What can we do but pity each other, and swear that we will be friends—dear friends. There is the oak-tree and I have got to turn back. We have said everything that we can say—unless you will tell me that you will be my brother.”
“No; I will not tell you that.”
“Good-bye, then, Johnny.”
He paused, holding her by the hand and thinking of another question which he longed to put to her—considering whether he would ask her that question or not. He hardly knew whether he were entitled to ask it—whether or no the asking of it would be ungenerous. She had said that she would tell him everything—as she had told everything to her mother. “Of course,” he said, “I have no right to expect to know anything of your future intentions?”
“You may know them all—as far as I know them myself. I have said that you should read my heart.”
“If this man, whose name I cannot bear to mention, should come again—”
“If he were to come again he would come in vain, John.” She did not say that he had come again. She could tell her own secret, but not that of another person.
“You would not marry him, now that he is free?”
She stood and thought for a while before she answered him. “No, I should not marry him now. I think not.” Then she paused again. “Nay, I am sure I would not. After what has passed I could not trust myself to do it. There is my hand on it. I will not.”
“No, Lily, I do not want that.”
“But I insist. I will not marry Mr. Crosbie. But you must not misunderstand me, John. There—all that is over for me now. All those dreams about love, and marriage, and of a house of my own, and children—and a cross husband, and a wedding-ring growing always tighter as I grow fatter and older. I have dreamed of such things as other girls do—more perhaps than other girls, more than I should have done. And now I accept the thing as finished. You wrote something in your book, you dear John—something that could not be made to come true. Dear John, I wish for your sake it was otherwise. I will go home and I will write in my book, this very day, Lilian Dale, Old Maid. If ever I make that false, do you come and ask me for the page.”
“Let it remain there till I am allowed to tear it out.”
“I will write it, and it shall never be torn out. You I cannot marry. Him I will not marry. You may believe me, Johnny, when I say there can never be a third.”
“And is that to be the end of it?”
“Yes—that is to be the end of it. Not the end of our friendship. Old maids have friends.”
“It shall not be the end of it. There shall be no end of it with me.”
“But, John—”
“Do not suppose that I will trouble you again—at any rate not for a while. In five years’ time perhaps—”
“Now, Johnny, you are laughing at me. And of course it is the best way. If there is not Grace, and she has caught me before I have turned back. Good-bye, dear, dear John. God bless you. I think you the finest fellow in the world. I do, and so does mamma. Remember always that there is a temple at Allington in which your worship is never forgotten.” Then she pressed his hand and turned away from him to meet Grace Crawley. John did not stop to speak a word to his cousin, but pursued his way alone.
“That cousin of yours,” said Lily, “is simply the dearest, warmest-hearted, finest creature that ever was seen in the shape of a man.”
“Have you told him that you think him so?” said Grace.
“Indeed, I have,” said Lily.
“But have you told this finest, warmest, dearest creature that he shall be rewarded with the prize he covets?”
“No, Grace. I have told him nothing of the kind. I think he understands it all now. If he does not, it is not for the want of my telling him. I don’t suppose any lady was ever more open-spoken to a gentleman that I have been to him.”
“And why have you sent him away disappointed? You know you love him.”
“You see, my dear,” said Lily, “you allow yourself, for the sake of your argument, to use a word in a double sense, and you attempt to confound me by doing so. But I am a great deal too clever for you, and have thought too much about it, to be taken in in that way. I certainly love your cousin John; and so do I love Mr. Boyce, the vicar.”