At first an edict had gone forth that Lily was to do nothing. She was an invalid, and was to be petted and kept quiet. But this edict soon fell to the ground, and Lily worked harder than either her mother or her sister. In truth she was hardly an invalid any longer, and would not submit to an invalid’s treatment. She felt herself that for the present constant occupation could alone save her from the misery of looking back – and she had conceived an idea that the harder that occupation was, the better it would be for her. While pulling down the books, and folding the linen, ad turning out from their old hiding-places the small long-forgotten properties of the household, she would be as gay as ever she had been in old timed. She would talk over her work, standing with flushed cheek and laughing eyes among the dusty ruins around her, till for a moment her mother would think that all was well within her. But then at other moments, when the reaction came, it would seem as though nothing were well. She could not sit quietly over the fire, with quiet rational work in her hands, and chat in a rational quiet way. Not as yet could she do so. Nevertheless it was well with her – within her own bosom. She had declared to herself that she would conquer her misery – as she had also declared to herself during her illness that her misfortune should not kill her – and she was in the way to conquer it. She told herself that the world was not over for her because her sweet hopes had been frustrated. The wound had been deep and very sore, but the flesh of the patient had been sound and healthy, and her blood pure. A physician having knowledge in such cases would have declared, after long watching of her symptoms, that a cure was probable. Her mother was the physician who watched her with the closest eyes: and she, though she was sometimes driven to doubt, did hope, with stronger hope from day to day, that her child might live to remember the story of her love without abiding agony.
That nobody should talk to her about it – that had been the one stipulation which she had seemed to make, not sending forth a request to that effect among her friends in so many words, but showing by certain signs that such was her stipulation. A word to that effect she had spoken to her uncle – as may be remembered, which word had been regarded with the closest obedience. She had gone out into her little world very soon after the news of Crosbie’s falsehood had reached her – first to church and then among the people of the village, resolving to carry herself as though no crushing weight had fallen upon her. The village people had understood it all, listening to her and answering her without the proffer of any outspoken parley.
‘Lord bless ’ee,’ said Mrs Crump, the post-mistress – and Mrs Crump was supposed to have the sourest temper in Allington – ‘whenever I look at thee, Miss Lily, I thinks that surely thee is the beautifulest young’ ooman in all these parts.’
‘And you are the crossest old woman,’ said Lily, laughing, and giving her hand to the post-mistress.
‘So I be,’ said Mrs Crump. ‘So I be.’ Then Lily sat down in the cottage and asked her ailments. With Mrs Hearn it was same. Mrs Hearn, after that first meeting which has been already mentioned, petted and caressed her, but spoke no further word of her misfortune. When Lily called a second time upon Mrs Boyce, which she did boldly by herself, that lady did begin one other word of commiseration. ‘My dearest Lily, we have all been made so unhappy –’ So far Mrs Boyce got, sitting close to Lily and striving to look into her face; but Lily, with a slightly heightened colour, turned sharp round upon one of the Boyce, girls, tearing Mrs Boyce’s commiseration into the smallest shreds. ‘Minnie,’ she said, speaking quite loud, almost with girlish ecstasy, ‘what do you think Tartar did yesterday? I never laughed so much in my life.’ Then she told a ludicrous story about a very ugly terrier which belonged to the squire. After that even Mrs Boyce made no further attempt. Mrs Dale and Bell both understood that such was to be the rule – the rule even to then. Lily would speak to them occasionlly on the matter – to one of them at a time, beginning with some almost single word of melancholy resignation, and then would go on till she opened her very bosom before them; but no such conversation was ever begun by them. But now, in these busy days of the packing, that topic seemed to have been banished altogether.
‘Mamma,’ she said, standing on the top rung of a house-ladder, from which position she was handing down glass out of a cupboard, ‘are you sure that these things are ours? I things are ours? I think some of them belong to the house.’
‘I’m sure about that bowl at any rate, because it was my mother’s before I was married.’
‘Oh, dear, what should I do if I were to break it? Whenever I handle anything very precious I always feel inclined to throw it down and smash it. Oh! it was as nearly gone as possible, mamma; but that was your fault.’
‘If you don’t take care you’ll be nearly gone yourself. Do take hold of something.’
‘Oh, Bell, here‘s the inkstand for which you‘ve been moaning for three years.’
‘I haven’t been moaning for three years; but who could have put it up there?’
‘Catch it,’ said Lily; and she threw the bottle down on to a pile of carpets.
At this moment a step was heard in the hall, and the squire entered through the open door of the room. ‘So you’re all at work,’ said he.
‘Yes, we’re at work,’ said Mrs Dale, almost with a tone of shame. ‘If it is to be done it is as well that it should be got over.’
‘It makes me wretched enough,’ said the squire. ‘But I didn’t come to talk about that. I’ve brought you a note from Lady Julia De Guest, and I’ve had one from the earl. They want us all to go there and stay the week after Easter.’
Mrs Dale and the girls, when this very sudden proposition was made to them, all remained fixed in their places, and, for a moment, were speechless. Go and stay a week at Guestwick Manor! The whole family! Hitherto the intercourse between the Manor and the Small House had been confined to morning calls, very far between. Mrs Dale had never dined there, and had latterly even deputed the calling to her daughters. Once Bell had dined there with her uncle, the squire, and once Lily had gone over with her uncle Orlando. Even this had been long ago, before they were quite brought out, and they had regarded the occasion with the solemn awe of children. Now, at this time of their flitting into some small mean dwelling at Guestwick, they had previously settled among themselves that that affair of calling at the Manor might be allowed to drop. Mrs Eames never called, and they were descending to the level of Mrs Eames. ‘Perhaps we shall get game sent to us, and that will be better,’ Lily had said. And now, at this very moment of their descent in life, they were all asked to go and stay a week at the Manor! Stay a week with Lady Julia! Had the Queen sent the Lord Chamberlain down to bid them all go to Windsor Castle it could hardly have startled them more at the first blow. Bell had been seated on the folded carpet when her uncle had entered, and now had again sat herself in the same place. Lily was still standing at the top of the ladder, and Mrs Dale was at the foot with one hand on Lily’s dress. The squire had told his story very abruptly, but he was a man who, having a story to tell, knew nothing better than to tell it out abruptly, letting out everything at the first moment.
‘Wants us all!’ said Mrs Dale. ‘How many does the all mean?’ Then she opened Lady Julia’s note and read it, not moving from her position at the foot of the ladder.
‘Do let me see, mamma,’ said Lily; and then the note was handed up to her. Hand Mrs Dale well considered the matter she might probably have kept the note to herself for a while, but he whole thing was so sudden that she had not considered the matter well.
MY DEAR MRS DALE (the letter ran),
I SEND this inside a note from brother to Mr Dale. We particularly want you and your two girls to come to come to us for a week from the seventeenth of this month. Considering our near connection we ought to have seen more of each other than we have done for years past, and of course it has been our fault. But it is never too late to amend one’s ways; and I hope you will receive my confession in the true spirit of affection in which it is intended, and
that you will show your goodness by coming to us. I will do all I can to make the house pleasant to your girls, for both of whom I have much real regard.
I should tell you that John Eames will be here for the same week. My brother is very fond of him, and thinks him the best young man of the day. He is one of my heroes, too, I must confess.
Very sincerely yours,
JULIA DE GUEST
Lily, standing on the ladder, read the letter very attentively. The squire meanwhile stood below speaking a word or two to his sister-in-law and niece. No one could see Lily’s face, as it was turned away towards the window, and it was still averted when she spoke. ‘It is out of the question that we should go mamma – that is all of us’
‘Why out of the question?’ said the squire.
‘A whole family!’ said Mrs Dale.
‘That is just what they want,’ said the squire.
‘I should like of all things to be left alone for a week,’ said Lily, ‘if mamma and Bell would go.’
‘That wouldn’t do at all,’ said he squire. ‘Lady Julia specially wants you to be one of the party.’
The thing had been badly managed altogether. The reference in Lady Julia’s not to John Eames had explained to Lily the whole scheme at once, and had so opened her eyes that all the combined influence of the Dale and De Guest families could not have dragged her over to the Manor.
‘Why not do?’ said Lily. ‘It would be out of the question a whole family going in that way, but it would be very nice for Bell.’
‘No, it would not,’ said Bell.
‘Don’t be ungenerous about it, my dear,’ said the squire, turning to Bell; ‘Lady Julia means to be kind. But, my darling,’ and the squire turned again towards Lily, addressing her, as was his wont in these days, with an affection that was almost vexatious to her, ‘but, my darling, why should you not go? A change of scene like that will do you all the good in the world, just when you are getting well. Mary, tell the girls that they ought to go.’
Mrs Dale stood silent, again reading the note, and Lily came down from the ladder. When she reached the floor she went directly up to her uncle, and taking his hand turned him round with herself towards one of the windows, so that they stood with their backs to the room. ‘Uncle,’ she said, ‘do not be angry with me. I can’t go;’ and then she put up her face to kiss him.
He stooped and kissed her and still held her hand. He looked into her face and read it all. He knew well, now, why she could not go; or, rather, why she herself thought that she could not go. ‘Cannot you, my darling?’ he said.
‘No, uncle. It is very kind – very kind; but I cannot go. I am not fit to go anywhere.’
‘But you should get over that feeling. You should make a struggle.’
‘I am struggling, and I shall succeed; but I cannot do it all at once. At any rate I could not go there. You must give my love to Lady Julia, and not let her think me cross. Perhaps Bell will go.’
What would be the good of Bell’s going– or the good of his putting himself out of the way, by a visit which would of itself be so tiresome to him, if the one object of the visit could not be carried out? The earl and his sister had planned the invitation with the express intention of bringing Lily and Eames together. It seemed that Lily was firm in her determination to resist this intention; and, if so, it would be better that the whole thing should fall to the ground. He was very vexed, and yet he was not angry with her. Everybody lately had opposed him in everything. All his intended family arrangements had gone wrong. But yet he was seldom angry respecting them. He was so accustomed to be thwarted that he hardly expected success. In this matter of providing Lily with a second lover, he had not come forward of his own accord. He had been appealed to by his neighbour the earl, and had certainly answered the appeal with much generosity. He had been induced to make the attempt with eagerness, and a true desire for its accomplishment; but in this, as in all his own schemes, he was met at once by opposition and failure.
‘I will leave you to talk it over among yourselves,’ he said. ‘But, Mary, you had better see me before you sent your answer. If you will come up by-and-by, Ralph shall take the two notes over together in the afternoon.’ So saying, he left the Small House, and went back to his own solitary home.
‘Lily, dear,’ said Mrs Dale, as soon as the front door had been closed, ‘this is meant for kindness to you – for most affectionate kind-ness.’
‘I know it, mamma; and you must go to Lady Julia, and must tell her that I know it. You must give her my love. And, indeed, I do love her now. But–’
‘You won’t go, Lily?’ said Mrs Dale, beseechingly.
‘No, mamma; certainly I will not go.’ Then she escaped out of the room by herself, and for the next hour neither of them dared to go to her.
CHAPTER 50
MRS DALE IS THANKFUL FOR A GOOD
THING
ON THAT day they dined early at the Small House, as they had been in the habit of doing since the packing had commenced. And after dinner Mrs Dale went through the gardens, up to the other house, with a written note in her hand. In that note she had told Lady Julia, with many protestations of gratitude, that Lily was unable to go out so soon after her illness, and that she herself was obliged to stay with Lily. She explained also, that the business of moving was in hand, and that, therefore, she could not herself accept the invitation. But her other daughter, she said, would be very happy to accompany her uncle to Guestwick Manor. Then, without closing her letter, she took it up to the squire in order that it might be decided whether it would or would not suit his views. It might well be that he would not care to go to Lord De Guest’s with Bell alone.
‘Leave it with me,’ he said; ‘that is, if you do not object.’
‘Oh dear, no!’
‘I’ll tell you the plain truth at once, Mary. I shall go over myself with it, and see the earl. Then I will decline it or not according to what passes between me and him. I wish Lily would have gone.’
‘Ah! she could not.’
‘I wish she could. I wish she could. I wish she could.’ As he repeated the words over and over again, there was an eagerness in his voice that filled Mrs Dale’s heart with tenderness towards him.’
‘The truth is,’ said Mrs Dale, ‘she could not go there to meet John Eames.’
‘Oh, I know,’ said the squire: ‘I understand it. But that is just what we want her to do. Why should she not spend a week in the same house with an honest young man whom we all like.’
‘There are reasons why she would not wish it.’
‘Ah, exactly; the very reasons which should make us induce her to go there if we can. Perhaps I had better tell you all. Lord De Guest has taken him by the hand, and wishes him to marry. He has promised to settle on him income which will make him comfortable for life.’
‘That is very generous; and I am delighted to hear it – for John’s sake.’
‘And they have promoted him at his office.’
‘Ah! then he will do well.’
‘He will do very well. He is private secretary now to their head man. And, Mary, so that she, Lily, should not be empty-handed if this marriage can be arranged, I have undertaken to settle a hundred a year on her – on her and her children, if she will accept him. Now you know it all. I did not mean to tell you; but it is as well that you should have the means of judging. That other man was a villain. This man is honest. Would it not be well that she should learn to like him? She always did like him, I thought, before that other fellow came down here among us.’
‘She has always liked him – as a friend.’
‘She will never get a better lover.’
Mrs Dale sat silent, thinking over it all. Every word that the squire said was true. It would be a healing of wounds most desirable and salutary; and arrangement advantageous to them all; a destiny for Lily most devoutly to be desired – if only in were possible. Mrs Dale firmly believed that if her daughter could be made to accept John Eames as her second lover in
a year or tow all would be well. Crosbie would then be forgotten or thought of without regret, and Lily would become the mistress of a happy home. But there are positions which cannot be reached, though there be no physical or material objection in the way. It is the view which the mind takes of a thing which creates the sorrow that arises from it. If the heart were always malleable and the feeling could be controlled, who would permit himself to be tormented by any of the reverses which affection meets? Death would create no sorrow; ingratitude would lose its sting; and the betrayal of love would do no injury beyond that which it might entail upon worldly circumstances. But the heart is not malleable; nor will the feelings admit of such control.
‘It is not possible for her,’ said Mrs Dale. ‘I fear it is not possible. It is too soon.’
‘Six months,’ pleaded the squire.
‘It will take years – not months,’ said Mrs Dale.
‘And she will lose all her youth.’
‘Yes; he has done all that by his treachery. But it is done, and we cannot now go back. She loves him yet as dearly as she ever loved him.’
Then the squire muttered certain words below his breath – ejaculations against Crosbie, which were hardly voluntary; but even as involuntary ejaculations were very improper. Mrs Dale heard them, and was not offended either by their impropriety or their warmth. ‘But you can understand,’ she said, ‘that she cannot bring herself to go there.’ The squire struck the table with his fist, and repeated his ejaculations. If he could only have known how very disagreeable Lady Alexandrina was making herself, his spirit might, perhaps, have been less vehemently disturbed. If, also, he could have perceived and understood the light in which an alliance with the De Courcy family was now regarded by Crosbie, I think that he would have received some consolation from that consideration. Those who offend us are generally punished for the offence they give; but we so frequently miss the satisfaction of knowing that we are avenged! It is arranged, apparently, that the injurer shall be punished, but that the person injured shall not gratify his desire for vengeance.
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