The Small House at Allington

by Anthony Trollope

  But how could she contrive that it should be so? That conversation with her mother had taken place on the day preceding the party, and Lady De Courcy had repeated it with dismay to Margaretta.

  ‘Of course he would allow her an income,’ Margaretta had coolly said.

  ‘But, my dear, they have been married only ten weeks.’

  ‘I don’t see why anybody is to be made absolutely wretched because they are married,’ Margaretta answered. ‘I don’t want to persuade her to leave him, but if what she says is true, it must be very uncomfortable.’

  Crosbie had consented to go to the party in Portman Square, but had not greatly enjoyed himself on that festive occasion. He had stood about moodily, speaking hardly a word to anyone. His whole aspect of life seemed to have been altered during the last few months. It was here, in such spots as this that he had been used to find his glory. On such occasions he had shone with peculiar light, making envious the hearts of many who watched the brilliance of his career as they stood around in dull quiescence. But now no one in those rooms had been more dull, more silent, or less courted than he; and yet he was established there as the son-in-law of that noble house. ‘Rather slow work; isn’t it?’ Gazebee had said to him, having, after many efforts, succeeded in reaching his brother-in-law in a corner. In answer to this Crosbie had only grunted. ‘As for myself,’ continued Gazebee, ‘I would a deal sooner be at home with my papers and slippers. It seems to me these sort of gatherings don’t suit married men.’ Crosbie had again grunted, and had then escaped into another corner.

  Crosbie and his wife went home together in a cab – speechless both of them. Alexandrina hated cabs – but she had been plainly told that in such vehicles, and in such vehicles only, could she be allowed to travel. On the following morning he was at the breakfast-table punctually by nine, but she did not make her appearance till after he had gone to his office. Soon after that, however, she was away to her mother and her sister; but she was seated grimly in her drawing-room when he came in to see her, on his return to his house. Having said some word which might be taken for a greeting, he was about to retire; but she stopped him with a request that he would speak to her.

  ‘Certainly,’ said he. ‘I was only going to dress. It is nearly the half-hour.’

  ‘I won’t keep you very long, and if dinner is a few minutes late it won’t signify. Mamma and Margaretta are going to Baden-Baden.’

  ‘To Baden-Baden, are they?’

  ‘Yes; and they intend to remain there – for a considerable time.’ There was a little pause, and Alexandrina found it necessary to clear her voice and to prepare herself for further speech by a little cough. She was determined to make her proposition, but was rather afraid of the manner in which it might be first received.

  ‘Has anything happened at Courcy Castle?’ Crosbie asked.

  ‘No; that is, yes; there may have been some words between papa and mamma; but I don’t quite know. That, however, does not matter now. Mamma is going, and purposes to remain there for the rest of the year.’

  ‘And the house in town will be given up.’

  ‘I suppose so, but that will be as papa chooses. Have you any objection to my going with mamma?’

  What a question to be asked by a bride of ten weeks’ standing! She had hardly been a month with her husband in her new house, and she was now asking permission to leave it, and to leave him also, for an indefinite number of months – perhaps for ever. But she showed no excitement as she made her request. There was neither sorrow, nor regret, nor hope in her face. She had not put on half the animation which she had once assumed in asking for the use, twice a week, of a carriage done up to look as though it were her own private possession. Crosbie had then answered her with great sternness, and she had wept when his refusal was made certain to her. But there was to be no weeping now. She meant to go – with his permission if he would accord it, and without if he should refuse it. The question of money was no doubt important, but Gazebee should manage that – as he managed all those things.

  ‘Going with them to Baden-Baden?’ said Crosbie. ‘For how long?’

  ‘Well; it would be no use unless it were for some time.’

  ‘For how long a time do you mean, Alexandrina? Speak out what you really have to say. For a month?’

  ‘Oh, more than that.’

  ‘For two months, or six, or as long as they may stay there?’

  ‘We could settle that afterwards, when I am there.’ During all this time she did not once look into his face, though he was looking hard at her throughout.

  ‘You mean,’ said he, ‘that you wish to go away from me.’

  ‘In one sense it would be going away, certainly.’

  ‘But in the ordinary sense? is it not so? When you talk of going to Baden-Baden for an unlimited number of months, have you any idea of coming back again?’

  ‘Back to London, you mean?’

  ‘Back to me – to my house – to your duties as a wife! Why cannot you say at once what it is you want? You wish to be separated from me?’

  ‘I am not happy here – in this house.’

  ‘And who chose the house? Did I want to come here? But it is not that. If you are not happy here, what could you have in any other house to make you happy?’

  ‘If you were left alone in this room for seven or eight hours at a time, without a soul to come to you, you would know what I mean. And even after that, it is not much better. You never speak to me when you are here.’

  ‘Is it my fault that nobody comes to you? The fact is, Alexandrina, that you will not reconcile yourself to the manner of life which is suitable to my income. You are wretched because you cannot have yourself driven round the Park. I cannot find you a carriage, and will not attempt to do so. You may go to Baden-Baden if you please – that is, if your mother is willing to take you.’

  ‘Of course I must pay my own expenses,’ said Alexandrina. But to this he made no answer on the moment. As soon as he had given his permission he had risen from his seat and was going, and her last words only caught him in the doorway. After all, would not this be the cheapest arrangement that he could make? As he went through his calculations he stood up with his elbow on the mantelpiece in his dressing-room. He had scolded his wife because she had been unhappy with him; but had he not been quite as unhappy with her? Would it not be better that they should part in this quiet, half-unnoticed way – that they should part and never again come together? He was lucky in this, that hitherto had come upon them no prospect of any little Crosbie to mar the advantages of such an arrangement. If he gave her four hundred a year, and allowed Gazebee two more towards the paying off encumbrances, he would still have six on which to enjoy himself in London. Of course he could not live as he had lived in those happy days before his marriage, nor, independently of the cost, would such a mode of life be within his reach. But he might go to his club for hid dinners; he might smoke his cigar in luxury; he would not be bound to that wooden home which, in spite of all his resolutions, had become almost unendurable to him. So he made his calculations, and found that it would be well that his bride should go. He would give over his house and his furniture to Gazebee, allowing Gazebee to do as he would a about that. To be once more a bachelor, in lodgings, with six hundred a year to spend on himself, seemed to him now such a prospect of happiness that he almost became light-hearted as he dressed himself. He would let her go to Baden-Baden.

  There was nothing said about it at dinner, nor did he mention the subject again till the servant had left the tea-things on the drawing-room table. ‘You can go with your mother if you like it,’ he then said.

  ‘I think it will be best,’ she answered.

  ‘Perhaps it will. At any rate you shall suit yourself.’

  ‘And about money?’

  ‘You had better leave me to speak to Gazebee about that.’

  ‘Very well. Will you have some tea?’ And then the whole thing was finished.

  On the next day she went after lunch
to her mother’s house, and never came back again to Princess Royal Crescent. During that morning she packed up those things which she cared to pack herself, and sent her sisters there, with an old family servant, to bring away whatever else might be supposed to belong to her. ‘Dear, dear,’ said Amelia, ‘what trouble I had in getting these things together for them, and only the other day. I can’t but think she’s wrong to go away.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Margaretta. ‘She has not been so lucky as you have in the man she has married. I always felt that she would find it difficult to manage him.’

  ‘But, my dear, she has not tried. She has given up at once. It isn’t management that was wanting. The fact is that when Alexandrina began she didn’t make up her mind to the kind of thing she was coming to. I did. I knew it wasn’t to be all party-going and that sort of thing. But I must own that Crosbie isn’t the same sort of man as Mortimer. I don’t think I could have gone on with him. You might as well have those small books put up; he won’t care about them.’ And in this way Crosbie’s house was dismantled.

  She saw him no more, for he made no farewell visit to the house in Portman Square. A note had been brought to him at his office: ‘I am here with mamma, and may as well say good-bye now. We start on Tuesday. If you wish to write, you can send your letters to the housekeeper here. I hope you will make yourself comfortable, and that you will be well. Yours affectionately, A.C.’ He made no answer to it, but went that day and dined at his club.

  ‘I haven’t seen you this age,’ said Montgomerie Dobbs.

  ‘No. My wife is going abroad with her mother, and while she is away I shall come back here again.’

  There was nothing more said to him, and no one ever made any inquiry about his domestic affairs. It seemed to him now as though he had no friend sufficiently intimate with him to ask him after his wife or family. She was gone, and in a month’s time he found himself again in Mount Street – beginning the world with five hundred a year, not six. For Mr Gazebee, when the reckoning came, showed him that a larger income at the present moment was not possible for him. The countess had for a long time refused to let Lady Alexandrina go with her on so small a pittance as four hundred and fifty – and then were there not the insurances to be maintained?

  But I think he would have consented to accept his liberty with three hundred a year – so great to him was the relief.

  CHAPTER 57

  LILIAN DALE VANQUISHES HER MOTHER

  MRS DALE had been present during the interview in which John Eames had made his prayer to her daughter, but she had said little or nothing on that occasion. All her wishes had been in favour of the suitor, but she had not dared to express them, neither had she dared to leave the room. It had been hard upon him to be thus forced to declare his love in the presence of a third person, but he had done it, and had gone away with his answer. Then, when the thing was over, Lily, without any communion with her mother, took herself off, and was no more seen till the evening hours had come on, in which it was natural that they should be together again. Mrs Dale, when thus alone, had been able to think of nothing but this new suit for her daughter’s hand. If only it might be accomplished! If any words from her to Lily might be efficacious to such an end! And yet, hitherto, she had been afraid almost to utter a word.

  She knew that it was very difficult. She declared to herself over and over that he had come too soon – that the attempt had been made too quickly after that other shipwreck. How was it possible that the ship should put to sea again at once, with all her timbers so rudely strained? And yet, now that the attempt had been made, now that Eames had uttered his request and been sent away with an answer, she felt that she must at once speak to Lily on the subject, if ever she were to speak upon it. She thought that she understood her child and all her feelings. She recognized the violence of the shock which must be encountered before Lily could be brought to acknowledge such a change in her heart. But if the thing could be done, Lily would be a happy woman. When once done it would be in all respects a blessing. And if it were not done, might not Lily’s life be blank, lonely, and loveless to the end? Yet when Lily came down in the evening, with some light, half-joking word on her lips, as was usual to her, Mrs Dale was still afraid to venture upon her task.

  ‘I suppose, mamma, we may consider it as a settled thing that everything must be again unpacked, and that the lodging scheme will be given up.’

  ‘I don’t know that, my dear.’

  ‘Oh, but I do – after what you said just now. What geese everybody will think us!’

  ‘I shouldn’t care a bit for that, if we didn’t think ourselves geese, or if your uncle did not think us so.’

  ‘I believe he would think we were swans. If I had ever thought he would be so much in earnest about it, or that he would ever have cared about our being here, I would never have voted for going. But he is so strange. He is affectionate when he ought to be angry, and ill-natured when he ought to be gentle and kind.’

  ‘He has, at any rate, given us reason to feel sure of his affection.’

  ‘For us girls I never doubted it. But, mamma, I don’t think I could face Mrs Boyce. Mrs Hearn and Mrs Crump would be very bad, and Hopkins would come down upon us terribly when he found that we had given way. But Mrs Boyce would be worse than any of them. Can’t you fancy the tone of her congratulations?’

  ‘I think I should survive Mrs Boyce.’

  ‘Ah, yes; because we should have to go and tell her. I know your cowardice of old, mamma; don’t I? And Bell wouldn’t care a bit because of her lover. Mrs Boyce will be nothing to her. It is I that must bear it all. Well, I don’t mind; I’ll vote for staying if you will promise to be happy here. Oh, mamma, I’ll vote for anything if you will be happy.’

  ‘And will you be happy?’

  ‘Yes, as happy as the day is long. Only I know we shall never see Bell. People never do see each other when they live just at that distance. It’s too near for long visits, and too far for short visits. I’ll tell you what; we might make arrangements each to walk half-way, and meet at the corner of Lord De Guest’s wood. I wonder whether they’d let us put up a seat there. I think we might have a little house and carry sandwiches and a bottle of beer. Couldn’t we see something of each other in that way?’

  Thus it came to be the fixed idea of both of them that they would abandon their plan of migrating to Guestwick, and on this subject they continued to talk over their tea-table; but on that evening Mrs Dale ventured to say nothing about John Eames.

  But they did not even yet dare to commence the work of reconstructing their old home. Bell must come back before they would do that, and the express assent of the squire must be formally obtained. Mrs Dale must, in a degree, acknowledge herself to have been wrong, and ask to be forgiven for her contumacy.

  ‘I suppose the three of us had better go up in sackcloth, and throw ashes on our foreheads as we meet Hopkins in the garden,’ said Lily ‘and then I know he’ll heap coals of fire on our heads by sending us an early dish of peas. And Dingles would bring us in a pheasant, only that pheasants don’t grow in May.’

  ‘If the sackcloth doesn’t take an unpleasanter shape than that, I shan’t mind it.’

  ‘That’s because you’ve got no delicate feelings. And then uncle Christopher’s gratitude!’

  ‘Ah! I shall feel that.’

  ‘But, mamma, we’ll wait till Bell comes home. She shall decide. She is going away, and therefore she’ll be free from prejudice. If uncle offers to paint the house – and I know he will – then I shall be humbled to the dust.’

  But yet Mrs Dale had said nothing on the subject which was nearest to her heart. When Lily in pleasantry had accused her of cowardice, her mind had instantly gone off to that other matter, and she had told herself that she was a coward. Why should she be afraid of offering her counsel to her own child? It seemed to her as though she had neglected some duty in allowing Crosbie’s conduct to have passed away without hardly a word of comment on it between hersel
f and Lily. Should she not have forced upon her daughter’s conviction the fact that Crosbie had been a villain, and as such should be discarded from her heart? As it was, Lily had spoken the simple truth when she told John Eames that she was dealing more openly with him on that affair of her engagement than she had ever dealt, even with her mother. Thinking of this as she sat in her own room that night, before she allowed herself to rest, Mrs Dale resolved that on the next morning she would endeavour to make Lily see as she saw and think as she thought.

  She let breakfast pass by before she began her task, and even then she did not rush at it at once. Lily sat herself down to her work when the teacups were taken away, and Mrs Dale went down to her kitchen as was her wont. It was nearly eleven before she seated herself in the parlour, and even then she got her work-box before her and took out her needle.

  ‘I wonder how Bell gets on with Lady Julia,’ said Lily.

  ‘Very well, I’m sure.’

  ‘Lady Julia won’t bite her, I know, and I suppose her dismay at the tall footmen has passed off by this time.’

  ‘I don’t know that they have any tall footmen.’

  ‘Short footmen then – you know what I mean; all the noble belongings. They must startle one at first, I’m sure, let one determine ever so much not to be startled. It’s a very mean thing, no doubt, to be afraid of a lord merely because he is a lord; yet I’m sure I should be afraid at first, even of Lord De Guest, if I were staying in the house.’

  ‘It’s well you didn’t go then.’

  ‘Yes, I think it is. Bell is of a firmer mind, and I dare say she’ll get over it after the first day. But what on earth does she do there? I wonder whether they mend their stockings in such a house as that.’