‘Good-bye,’ she answered – and then he was gone.
She waited quite still till she heard the front door close after him, and then she crept silently up to her own bedroom, and sat herself down in a low rocking-chair over the fire. It was in accordance with a custom already established that her mother should remain with Lily till the tea was ready downstairs; for in these days of illness such dinners as were provided were eaten early. Bell, therefore, knew that she had still some half-hour of her own, during which she might sit and think undisturbed.
And what naturally should have been her first thoughts? – that she had ruthlessly refused a man who, as she now knew, loved her well, and for whom she had always felt at any rate the warmest friendship? Such were not her thoughts, nor were they in any way akin to this. They ran back instantly to years gone by – over long years, as her few years were counted – and settled themselves on certain halcyon days, in which she had dreamed that he had loved her, and had fancies that she had loved him. How she had schooled herself for those days since that, and taught herself to know that her thoughts had been over-bold! And now it had all come round. They only man that she had ever liked had loved her. Then there came to her a memory of a certain day, in which she had been almost proud to think that Crosbie had admired her, in which she had almost hoped that it might be so; and as she thought of this she blushed, and struck her foot twice upon the floor. ‘Dear Lily,’ she said to herself – ‘poor Lily!’ But the feeling which induced her then to think of her sister had had no relation to that which had first brought Crosbie into her mind.
And this man had loved her through it all – this priceless, peerless man – this man who was as true to the backbone as that other man had shown himself to be false; who was as sound as the other man had proved himself to be rotten. A smile came across her face as she sat looking at the fire, thinking of this. A man had loved her, whose love was worth possessing. She hardly remembered whether or no she had refused him or accepted him. She hardly asked herself what she would do. As to all that it as necessary that she should have many thoughts, but the necessity did not press upon her quite immediately. For the present, at any rate, she might sit and triumph – and thus triumphant she sat there till the old nurse came in and told her that her mother was waiting for her below.
CHAPTER 40
PREPARATIONS FOR THE WEDDING
THE FOURTEENTH of February was finally settled as the day on which Mr Crosbie was to be made the happiest of men. A later day had been at first named, the twenty-seventh or twenty-eighth having been suggested as an improvement over the first week in March; but Lady Amelia had been frightened by Crosbie’s behaviour on that Sunday evening, and had made the countess understand that there should be no unnecessary delay. ‘He doesn’t scruple at that kind of thing,’ Lady Amelia had said in one of her letters, showing perhaps less trust in the potency of her own rank than might have been expected from her. The countess, however, had agreed with her, and when Crosbie received from his mother-in-law a very affectionate epistle, setting forth all the reasons which would make the fourteenth so much more convenient a day than the twenty-eighth, he was unable to invent an excuse for not being made happy a fortnight earlier than the time named in the bargain. His first impulse had been against yielding, arising from some feeling which made him think that more than the bargain ought not to be exacted. But what was the use to him of quarrelling? What the use, at least, of quarrelling just then? He believed that he could more easily enfranchise himself from the De Courcy tyranny when he should be once married than he could do now. When Lady Alexandrina should be his own he would let her know that he intended to be her master. If in doing so it would be necessary that he should divide himself altogether from the De Courcys, such division should be made. At the present moment he would yield to them, at any rate in this matter. And so the fourteenth of February was fixed for the marriage.
In the second week in January Alexandrina came up to look after her things; or, in more noble language, to fit herself with becoming bridal appanages.1 As she would not properly do all this work alone, or even under surveillance and with the assistance of a sister, Lady De Courcy was to come up also. but Alexandrina came first, remaining with her sister in St John’s Wood till the countess should arrive. The countess had never yet condescended to accept of her son-in-law’s hospitality, but always went to the cold, comfortless house in Portman Square2 – the house which had been the De Courcy town family mansion for many years, and which the countess would long since have willingly exchanged for some abode on the other side of Oxford Street; but the earl had been obdurate; his clubs and certain lodgings which he had occasionally been wont to occupy, were on the right side of Oxford Street; why should he change his old family residence? So the countess was coming up to Portman Square, not have been even asked on this occasion to St John’s Wood.
‘Don’t you think we’d better,’ Mr Gazebee had said to his wife, almost trembling at the renewal of his own proposition.
‘I think not, my dear,’ Lady Amelia had answered. ‘Mamma is not very particular; but there are little things, you know –’
‘Oh, yes, of course,’ said Mr Gazebee; and then the conversation had been dropped. He would most willingly have entertained his august mother-in-law during her visit to the metropolis, and yet her presence in his house would have made him miserable as long as she remained there.
But for a week Alexandrina sojourned under Mr Gazebee’s roof, during which time Crosbie was made unhappy with all the delights of an expectant bridegroom. Of course he was given to understand that he was to dine at the Gazebees’ every day, and spend all his evenings there; and, under the circumstances, he had no excuse for not doing so. Indeed, at the present moment, his hours would otherwise have hung heavily enough upon his hands. In spite of his bold resolution with reference to his eye, and his intention not to be debarred from the pleasures of society by the marks of the late combat, he had not, since that occurrence, frequented his club very closely; and though London was now again becoming fairly full, he did not find himself going out so much as had been his wont. The brilliance of his coming marriage did not seem to have added much to his popularity; in fact, the world – his world – was beginning to look coldly at him. Therefore that daily attendance at St John’s Wood was not felt to be so irksome as might have been expected.
A residence had been taken for the couple in a very fashionable row of buildings abutting upon the Bayswater Road, called Princess Royal Crescent. The house was quite new, and the street being unfinished had about it a strong smell of mortar, and a general aspect of builders’ poles and brickbats; but nevertheless, it was acknowledged to be a quite correct locality. From one end of the crescent a corner of Hyde Park could be seen, and the other abutted on a very handsome terrace indeed, in which lived an ambassador – from South America – a few bankers’ senior clerks, and a peer of the realm. We know how vile is the sound of Baker Street, and how absolutely foul to the polite ear is the name of Fitzroy Square.3 The houses, however, in those purlieus are substantial, warm, and of good size. The house in Princess Royal Crescent was certainly not substantial,4 for in these days substantially-built houses do not pay. It could hardly have been warm, for, to speak the truth, it was even yet not finished throughout; and as for the size, though the drawing-room was a noble apartment, consisting of a section of the whole house, with a corner cut out for the staircase, it was very much cramped in its other parts, and was made like a cherub, in this respect, that it had no rear belonging to it.5 ‘But if you have no private fortune of your own, you cannot have everything,’ as the countess observed when Crosbie objected to the house because a closet under the kitchen stairs was to be assigned to him as his own dressing-room.
When the question of the house was first debated Lady Amelia had been anxious that St John’s Wood should be selected as the site, but to this Crosbie had positively objected.
‘I think you don’t like St John’s Wood,’ Lady Amelia ha
d said to him somewhat sternly, thinking to awe him into a declaration that he entertained no general enmity to the neighbourhood. But Crosbie was not weak enough for this.
‘No; I do not,’ he said. ‘I have always disliked it. It amounts to a prejudice, I dare say. But if I were made to live here I am convinced I should cut my throat in the first six months.’
Lady Amelia had then drawn herself up, declaring her sorrow that her house should be so hateful to him.
‘Oh, dear, no,’ said he. ‘I like it very much for you, and enjoy coming here of all things. I speak only of the effect which living here myself would have upon me.’
Lady Amelia was quite clever enough to understand it all; but she had her sister’s interest at heart, and therefore persevered in her affectionate solicitude for her brother-in-law, giving up that point as to St John’s Wood. Crosbie himself had wished to go to one of the new Pimlico squares down near Vauxhall Bridge and the river, actuated chiefly by consideration of the enormous distance lying between that locality and the northern region in which Lady Amelia lived; but to this Lady Alexandrina had objected strongly. If, indeed, they could have achieved Eaton Square, or a street leading out of Eaton Square – if they could have crept on to the hem of the skirt of Belgravia – the bridge would have been delighted. And at first she was very nearly being taken in with the idea that such was the proposal made to her. Her geographical knowledge of Pimlico had not been perfect,6 and she had nearly fallen into a fatal error. But a friend had kindly intervened. ‘For heaven’s sake, my dear, don’t let him take you anywhere beyond Eccleston Square!’ had been exclaimed to her in dismay by a faithful married friend. Thus warned, Alexandrina had been firm, and no their tent was to be pitched in Princess Royal Crescent, from one end of which the Hyde Park may be seen.
The furniture had been ordered chiefly under the inspection, and by the experience, of the Lady Amelia. Crosbie had satisfied himself by declaring that she at any rate could get the things cheaper than he could buy them, and that he had no taste for such employment. Nevertheless, he had felt that he was being made subject to tyranny and brought under the thumb of subjection. He could not go cordially into this matter of beds and chairs, and, therefore, at last deputed the whole matter to the De Courcy faction. And for this there was another reason, not hitherto mentioned. Mr Mortimer Gazebee was finding the money with which all the furniture was being bought. He, with an honest, but almost unintelligible zeal for the De Courcy family, had tired up every shilling on which he could lay his hand as belonging to Crosbie, in the interest of Lady Alexandrina. He had gone to work for her, scraping here and arranging there, strapping the new husband down upon the grindstone of his matrimonial settlement, as though the future bread of his, Gazebee’s, own children were dependent on he validity of his legal workmanship. And for this he was not to receive a penny, or gain any advantage, immediate or ulterior. It came from his zeal – his zeal for the coronet which Lord De Courcy wore. According to his mind an earl and an earl’s belongings were entitled to such zeal. It was the theory in which he had been educated, and amounted to a worship which, unconsciously, he practised. Personally, he disliked Lord De Courcy, who ill-treated him. He knew that the ear! was a heartless, cruel, bad man. But as an earl he was entitled to an amount of service which no commoner could have commanded from Mr Gazebee. Mr Gazebee, having thus tied up all the available funds in favour of Lady Alexandrina’s seemingly expected widowhood, was himself providing the money with which the new house was to be furnished. ‘You can pay me a hundred and fifty a year with four per cent till it is liquidated,’ he had said to Crosbie; and Crosbie had assented with a grunt. Hitherto, though he had lived in London expensively, and as a man of fashion, he had never owed anyone anything. He was now to begin that career of owing. But when a clerk in a public office marries an earl’s daughter, he cannot expect to have everything his own way.
Lady Amelia had bought the ordinary furniture – the beds, the stair-carpets, the washing-stands, and the kitchen things. Gazebee had got a bargain of the dinner-table and sideboard. But Lady Alexandrina herself was to come up with reference to the appurtenances of the drawing-room. It was with reference to matters of costume that the countess intended to lend her assistance – matters of costume as to which the bill could not be sent in to Gazebee, and be paid for by him with five per cent duly charged against the bridegroom. The bridal trousseau must be produced by de Courcy’s means, and, therefore, it was necessary that the countess herself should come upon the scene. ‘I will have no bills, d’ye hear?’ snarled the earl, gnashing and snapping upon his words with one specially ugly black tooth. ‘I won’t have any bills about this affair.’ And yet he made no offer of ready money. It was very necessary under such circumstances that the countess herself should come upon the scene. An ambiguous hint had been conveyed to Mr Gazebee, during a visit of business which he had lately made to Courcy Castle, that the milliner’s bills might as well be pinned on to those of the furniture-makers, the crockery-mongers, and the like. The countess, putting it in her own way, had gently suggested that the fashion of the thing had changed lately, and that such an arrangement was considered to be the proper thing among people who lived really in the world. But Gazebee was a clear-headed, honest man; and he knew the countess. He did not think that such an arrangement could be made on the present occasion. Whereupon the countess pushed her suggestion no further, but made up her mind that she must come up to London herself.
It was pleasant to see the Ladies Amelia and Alexandrina, as they say within a vast emporium of carpets in Bond Street, asking questions of the four men who were waiting upon them, putting their heads together and whispering, calculating accurately as to extra twopences a yard, and occasioning as much trouble as it was possible for them to give. It was pleasant because they managed their large hoops cleverly among the huge rolls of carpets, because they were enjoying themselves thoroughly, and taking to themselves the homage of the men as clearly their due. But it was not so pleasant to look at Crosbie, who was fidgeting to get away to his office, to whom no power of choosing in the matter was really given, and whom the men regarded as being altogether supernumerary. The ladies had promised to be at the shop by half-past ten, so tat Crosbie should reach his office at eleven – or a little after. But it was nearly eleven before they left the Gazebee residence, and it was very evident that half-an-hour among the carpets would be by no means sufficient. It seemed as though miles upon miles of gorgeous colouring were unrolled before them; and then when any pattern was regarded as at all practicable, it was unrolled backwards and forwards till a room was nearly covered by it. Crosbie felt for the men who were hauling about the huge heaps of material; but Lady Amelia sat as composed as though it were her duty to inspect every yard to stuff in the warehouse. ‘I think we’ll look at that one at the bottom again.’ Then the men went to work and removed a mountain. ‘No, my dear, that green in the scroll-work won’t do. It would fly directly, if any hot water were spilt.’ The man, smiling ineffably, declared that that particular green never flew anywhere. But Lady Amelia paid no attention to him, and the carpet for which the mountains had been removed became part of another mountain.
‘That might do,’ said Alexandrina, gazing upon a magnificent crimson ground through which rivers of yellow meandered, carrying with them in their streams an infinity of blue flowers. And as she spoke she held her head gracefully one one side, and looked down upon the carpet doubtingly. Lady Amelia poked it with her parasol as though to test its durability, and whispered something about yellows showing the dirt. Crosbie took out his watch and groaned.
‘It’s a superb carpet, my lady, and about the newest thing we have. We put down four hundred and fifty yards of it for the Duchess of South Wales, at Cwddglwlch Castle, only last month. Nobody has had it since, for it has not been in stock.’ Whereupon Lady Amelia again poked it, and then got up and walked upon it. Lady Alexandrina held her head a little more on one side.
‘Five and three?’ said Lady
Amelia.
‘Oh, no, my lady; five and seven; and the cheapest carpet we have in the house. There is twopence a yard more in the colour; there is, indeed.’
‘And the discount?’ asked Lady Amelia.
‘Two and a half, my lady.’
‘Oh dear, no,’ said Lady Amelia. ‘I always have five per cent for immediate payment – quite immediate, you know.’ Upon which the man declared the question must be referred to his master. Two and a half was the rule of the house. Crosbie, who had been looking out of the window, said that upon his honour he couldn’t wait any longer.
‘And what do you think of it, Adolphus?’ asked Alexandrina.
‘Think of what?’
‘Of the carpet – this one, you know!’
‘Oh – what do I think of the carpet? I don’t think I quite like all these yellow bands; and isn’t it too red? I should have thought something brown with a small pattern would have been better. But, upon my word, I don’t much care.’
‘Of course he doesn’t,’ said Lady Amelia. Then the two ladies put their heads together for another five minutes, and the carpet was chosen – subject to that question of the discount. ‘And now about the rug,’ said Lady Amelia. But here Crosbie rebelled, and insisted that he must leave them and go to his office. ‘You can’t want me about the rug,’ he said. ‘Well, perhaps not,’ said Lady Amelia. But it was manifest that Alexandrina did not approve of being thus left by her senior attendant.
The same thing happened in Oxford Street with reference to the chairs and sofas, and Crosbie began to wish that he were settled, even though he should have to dress himself in the closet below the kitchen stairs. He was learning to hate the whole household in St John’s Wood, and almost all that belonged to it. He was introduced there to little family economies of which hitherto he had known nothing, and which were disgusting to him, and the necessity for which was especially explained to him. It was to men placed as he was about to place himself that these economies were so vitally essential – to men who with limited means had to maintain a decorous outward face towards the fashionable world. Ample supplies of butchers’ meat and unlimited washing-bills might be very well upon fifteen hundred a year to those who went out but seldom, and who could use the first can that came to hand when they did go out. But there were certain things that Lady Alexandrina must do, and therefore the strictest household economy became necessary. Would Lily Dale have required the use of a carriage, got up to look as though it were private, at the expense of her husband’s beefsteaks and clean shirts? That question and others of that nature were asked by Crosbie within his own mind, not unfrequently.
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