He had discussed the matter in this way within his own breast, till he had almost taught himself to believe that it was his duty to break off his engagement with Lily; and he had also almost taught himself to believe that a marriage with a daughter of the house of Courcy, would satisfy his ambition and assist him in his battle with the world. That Lady Alexandrina would accept him he felt certain, if he could only induce her to forgive him for his sin in becoming engaged to Miss Dale. How very prone she would be to forgiveness in this matter, he had not divined, having not as yet learned how easily such a woman can forgive such a sin, if the ultimate triumph be accorded to herself.
And there was another reason which operated much with Crosbie, urging him on in his present mood and wishes, though it should have given an exactly opposite impulse to his heart. He had hesitated as to marrying Lily Dale at once, because of the smallness of his income. Now he had a prospect of considerable increase to that income. One of the commissioners at his office had been promoted to some greater commissionership, and it was understood by everybody that the secretary at the General Committee Office would be the new commissioner. As to that there was no doubt. But then the question had arisen as to the place of secretary. Crosbie had received two or three letters on the subject, and it seemed that the likelihood of his obtaining this step in the world was by no means slight. It would increase his official income from seven hundred a year to twelve, and would place him altogether above the world. His friend, the present secretary, had written to him, assuring him that no other probable competitor was spoken of as being in the field against him. If such good fortune awaited him, would it not smooth any present difficulty which lay in the way of his marriage with Lily Dale? But, alas, he had not looked at the matter in that light! Might not the countess help him to this preferment? And if his destiny intended for him the good things of this world—secretaryships, commissionerships, chairmanships, and such like, would it not be well that he should struggle on in his upward path by such assistance as good connections might give him?
He sat thinking over it all in his own room on that evening. He had written twice to Lily since his arrival at Courcy Castle. His first letter has been given. His second was written much in the same tone; though Lily, as she had read it, had unconsciously felt somewhat less satisfied than she had been with the first. Expressions of love were not wanting, but they were vague and without heartiness. They savoured of insincerity, though there was nothing in the words themselves to convict them. Few liars can lie with the full roundness and self-sufficiency of truth; and Crosbie, bad as he was, had not yet become bad enough to reach that perfection. He had said nothing to Lily of the hopes of promotion which had been opened to him; but he had again spoken of his own worldliness—acknowledging that he received an unsatisfying satisfaction from the pomps and vanities of Courcy Castle. In fact he was paving the way for that which he had almost resolved that he would do, now he had told Lady Alexandrina that he loved her; and he was obliged to confess to himself that the die was cast.
As he thought of all this, there was not wanting to him some of the satisfaction of an escape. Soon after making that declaration of love at Allington he had begun to feel that in making it he had cut his throat. He had endeavoured to persuade himself that he could live comfortably with his throat cut in that way; and as long as Lily was with him he would believe that he could do so; but as soon as he was again alone he would again accuse himself of suicide. This was his frame of mind even while he was yet at Allington, and his ideas on the subject had become stronger during his sojourn at Courcy. But the self-immolation had not been completed, and he now began to think that he could save himself. I need hardly say that this was not all triumph to him. Even had there been no material difficulty as to his desertion of Lily—no uncle, cousin, and mother whose anger he must face—no vision of a pale face, more eloquent of wrong in its silence than even uncle, cousin, and mother, with their indignant storm of words—he was not altogether heartless. How should he tell all this to the girl who had loved him so well; who had so loved him, that, as he himself felt, her love would fashion all her future life either for weal or for woe? “I am unworthy of her, and will tell her so,” he said to himself. How many a false hound of a man has endeavoured to salve his own conscience by such mock humility? But he acknowledged at this moment, as he rose from his seat to dress himself, that the die was cast, and that it was open to him now to say what he pleased to Lady Alexandrina. “Others have gone through the same fire before,” he said to himself, as he walked downstairs, “and have come out scatheless.” And then he recalled to himself the names of various men of high repute in the world who were supposed to have committed in their younger days some such little mistake as that into which he had been betrayed.
In passing through the hall he overtook Lady Julia De Guest, and was in time to open for her the door of the drawing-room. He then remembered that she had come into the billiard-room at one side, and had gone out at the other, while he was standing with Alexandrina at the window. He had not, however, then thought much of Lady Julia; and as he now stood for her to pass by him through the doorway, he made to her some indifferent remark.
But Lady Julia was on some subjects a stern woman, and not without a certain amount of courage. In the last week she had seen what had been going on, and had become more and more angry. Though she had disowned any family connection with Lily Dale, nevertheless she now felt for her sympathy and almost affection. Nearly every day she had repeated stiffly to the countess some incident of Crosbie’s courtship and engagement to Miss Dale—speaking of it as with absolute knowledge, as a thing settled at all points. This she had done to the countess alone, in the presence of the countess and Alexandrina, and also before all the female guests of the castle. But what she had said was received simply with an incredulous smile. “Dear me! Lady Julia,” the countess had replied at last, “I shall begin to think you are in love with Mr. Crosbie yourself; you harp so constantly on this affair of his. One would think that young ladies in your part of the world must find it very difficult to get husbands, seeing that the success of one young lady is trumpeted so loudly.” For the moment, Lady Julia was silenced; but it was not easy to silence her altogether when she had a subject for speech near her heart.
Almost all the Courcy world were assembled in the drawing-room as she now walked into the room with Crosbie at her heels. When she found herself near the crowd she turned round, and addressed him in a voice more audible than that generally required for purposes of drawing-room conversation. “Mr. Crosbie,” she said, “have you heard lately from our dear friend, Lily Dale?” And she looked him full in the face, in a manner more significant, probably, than even she had intended it to be. There was, at once, a general hush in the room, and all eyes were turned upon her and upon him.
Crosbie instantly made an effort to bear the attack gallantly, but he felt that he could not quite command his colour, or prevent a sudden drop of perspiration from showing itself upon his brow. “I had a letter from Allington yesterday,” he said. “I suppose you have heard of your brother’s encounter with the bull?”
“The bull!” said Lady Julia. And it was instantly manifest to all that her attack had been foiled and her flank turned.
“Good gracious! Lady Julia, how very odd you are!” said the countess.
“But what about the bull?” asked the Honourable George.
“It seems that the earl was knocked down in the middle of one of his own fields.”
“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Alexandrina. And sundry other exclamations were made by all the assembled ladies.
“But he wasn’t hurt,” said Crosbie. “A young man named Eames seems to have fallen from the sky and carried off the earl on his back.”
“Ha, ha, ha, ha!” growled the other earl, as he heard of the discomfiture of his brother peer.
Lady Julia, who had received her own letters that day from Guestwick, knew that nothing of importance had happened to her brother; but she f
elt that she was foiled for that time.
“I hope that there has not really been any accident,” said Mr. Gazebee, with a voice of great solicitude.
“My brother was quite well last night, thank you,” said she. And then the little groups again formed themselves, and Lady Julia was left alone on the corner of a sofa.
“Was that all an invention of yours, sir?” said Alexandrina to Crosbie.
“Not quite. I did get a letter this morning from my friend Bernard Dale—that old harridan’s nephew; and Lord De Guest has been worried by some of his animals. I wish I had told her that his stupid old neck had been broken.”
“Fie, Mr. Crosbie!”
“What business has she to interfere with me?”
“But I mean to ask the same question that she asked, and you won’t put me off with a cock-and-bull story like that.” But then, as she was going to ask the question, dinner was announced.
“And is it true that De Guest has been tossed by a bull?” said the earl, as soon as the ladies were gone. He had spoken nothing during dinner except what words he had muttered into the ear of Lady Dumbello. It was seldom that conversation had many charms for him in his own house; but there was a savour of pleasantry in the idea of Lord De Guest having been tossed, by which even he was tickled.
“Only knocked down, I believe,” said Crosbie.
“Ha, ha, ha!” growled the earl; then he filled his glass, and allowed some one else to pass the bottle. Poor man! There was not much left to him now in the world which did amuse him.
“I don’t see anything to laugh at,” said Plantagenet Palliser, who was sitting at the earl’s right hand, opposite to Lord Dumbello.
“Don’t you?” said the earl. “Ha, ha, ha!”
“I’ll be shot if I do. From all I hear De Guest is an uncommon good farmer. And I don’t see the joke of tossing a farmer merely because he’s a nobleman also. Do you?” and he turned round to Mr. Gazebee, who was sitting on the other side. The earl was an earl, and was also Mr. Gazebee’s father-in-law. Mr. Plantagenet Palliser was the heir to a dukedom. Therefore, Mr. Gazebee merely simpered, and did not answer the question put to him. Mr. Palliser said nothing more about it, nor did the earl; and then the joke died away.
Mr. Plantagenet Palliser was the Duke of Omnium’s heir—heir to that nobleman’s title and to his enormous wealth; and, therefore, was a man of mark in the world. He sat in the House of Commons, of course. He was about five-and-twenty years of age, and was, as yet, unmarried. He did not hunt or shoot or keep a yacht, and had been heard to say that he had never put a foot upon a race-course in his life. He dressed very quietly, never changing the colour or form of his garments; and in society was quiet, reserved, and very often silent. He was tall, slight, and not ill-looking; but more than this cannot be said for his personal appearance—except, indeed, this, that no one could mistake him for other than a gentleman. With his uncle, the duke, he was on good terms—that is to say, they had never quarrelled. A very liberal allowance had been made to the nephew; but the two relatives had no tastes in common, and did not often meet. Once a year Mr. Palliser visited the duke at his great country seat for two or three days, and usually dined with him two or three times during the season in London. Mr. Palliser sat for a borough which was absolutely under the duke’s command; but had accepted his seat under the distinct understanding that he was to take whatever part in politics might seem good to himself. Under these well-understood arrangements, the duke and his heir showed to the world quite a pattern of a happy family. “So different to the earl and Lord Porlock!” the people of West Barsetshire used to say. For the estates, both of the duke and of the earl, were situated in the western division of that county.
Mr. Palliser was chiefly known to the world as a rising politician. We may say that he had everything at his command, in the way of pleasure, that the world could offer him. He had wealth, position, power, and the certainty of attaining the highest rank among, perhaps, the most brilliant nobility of the world. He was courted by all who could get near enough to court him. It is hardly too much to say that he might have selected a bride from all that was most beautiful and best among English women. If he would have bought race-horses, and have expended thousands on the turf, he would have gratified his uncle by doing so. He might have been the master of hounds, or the slaughterer of hecatombs of birds. But to none of these things would he devote himself. He had chosen to be a politician, and in that pursuit he laboured with a zeal and perseverance which would have made his fortune at any profession or in any trade. He was constant in committee-rooms up to the very middle of August. He was rarely absent from any debate of importance, and never from any important division. Though he seldom spoke, he was always ready to speak if his purpose required it. No man gave him credit for any great genius—few even considered that he could become either an orator or a mighty statesman. But the world said that he was a rising man, and old Nestor of the Cabinet looked on him as one who would be able, at some far future day, to come among them as a younger brother. Hitherto he had declined such inferior offices as had been offered to him, biding his time carefully; and he was as yet tied hand and neck to no party, though known to be liberal in all his political tendencies. He was a great reader—not taking up a book here, and another there, as chance brought books before him, but working through an enormous course of books, getting up the great subject of the world’s history—filling himself full of facts—though perhaps not destined to acquire the power of using those facts otherwise than as precedents. He strove also diligently to become a linguist—not without success, as far as a competent understanding of various languages. He was a thin-minded, plodding, respectable man, willing to devote all his youth to work, in order that in old age he might be allowed to sit among the Councillors of the State.
Hitherto his name had not been coupled by the world with that of any woman whom he had been supposed to admire; but latterly it had been observed that he had often been seen in the same room with Lady Dumbello. It had hardly amounted to more than this; but when it was remembered how undemonstrative were the two persons concerned—how little disposed was either of them to any strong display of feeling—even this was thought matter to be mentioned. He certainly would speak to her from time to time almost with an air of interest; and Lady Dumbello, when she saw that he was in the room, would be observed to raise her head with some little show of life, and to look round as though there were something there on which it might be worth her while to allow her eyes to rest. When such innuendoes were abroad, no one would probably make more of them than Lady de Courcy. Many, when they heard that Mr. Palliser was to be at the castle, had expressed their surprise at her success in that quarter. Others, when they learned that Lady Dumbello had consented to become her guest, had also wondered greatly. But when it was ascertained that the two were to be there together, her good-natured friends had acknowledged that she was a very clever woman. To have either Mr. Palliser or Lady Dumbello would have been a feather in her cap; but to succeed in getting both, by enabling each to know that the other would be there, was indeed a triumph. As regards Lady Dumbello, however, the bargain was not fairly carried out; for, after all, Mr. Palliser came to Courcy Castle only for two nights and a day, and during the whole of that day he was closeted with sundry large blue-books. As for Lady de Courcy, she did not care how he might be employed. Blue-books and Lady Dumbello were all the same to her. Mr. Palliser had been at Courcy Castle, and neither enemy nor friend could deny the fact.
This was his second evening; and as he had promised to meet his constituents at Silverbridge at one p.m. on the following day, with the view of explaining to them his own conduct and the political position of the world in general; and as he was not to return from Silverbridge to Courcy, Lady Dumbello, if she made any way at all, must take advantage of the short gleam of sunshine which the present hour afforded her. No one, however, could say that she showed any active disposition to monopolise Mr. Palliser’s attention. When he sauntered
into the drawing-room she was sitting, alone, in a large, low chair, made without arms, so as to admit the full expansion of her dress, but hollowed and round at the back, so as to afford her the support that was necessary to her. She had barely spoken three words since she had left the dining-room, but the time had not passed heavily with her. Lady Julia had again attacked the countess about Lily Dale and Mr. Crosbie, and Alexandrina, driven almost to rage, had stalked off to the farther end of the room, not concealing her special concern in the matter.
“How I do wish they were married and done with,” said the countess; “and then we should hear no more about them.”
All of which Lady Dumbello heard and understood; and in all of it she took a certain interest. She remembered such things, learning thereby who was who, and regulating her own conduct by what she learned. She was by no means idle at this or at other such times, going through, we may say, a considerable amount of really hard work in her manner of working. There she had sat speechless, unless when acknowledging by a low word of assent some expression of flattery from those around her. Then the door opened, and when Mr. Palliser entered she raised her head, and the faintest possible gleam of satisfaction might have been discerned upon her features. But she made no attempt to speak to him; and when, as he stood at the table, he took up a book and remained thus standing for a quarter of an hour, she neither showed nor felt any impatience. After that Lord Dumbello came in, and he stood at the table without a book. Even then Lady Dumbello felt no impatience.
Plantagenet Palliser skimmed through his little book, and probably learned something. When he put it down he sipped a cup of tea, and remarked to Lady de Courcy that he believed it was only twelve miles to Silverbridge.
“I wish it was a hundred and twelve,” said the countess.
The Chronicles of Barsetshire Page 231