to Dr Tempest, for the bishop’s signature, in which the doctor should be requested, as the rural dean to whom Mr Crawley was subject, to hold a commission of five to inquire into Mr Crawley’s conduct. The letter was to explain to Dr Tempest that the bishop, moved by his solicitude for the souls of the people of Hogglestock, had endeavoured, ‘in a friendly way,’ to induce Mr Crawley to desist from his ministrations; but that having failed through Mr Crawley’s obstinacy, he had no alternative but to proceed in this way. ‘You had better say that his lordship, as bishop of the diocese, can take no heed of the coming trial,’ said Mrs Proudie. ‘I think his lordship had better say nothing at all about the trial,’ said Mr Chadwick. ‘I think it will be best,’ said the bishop.
‘But if they report against him,’ said Mr Chadwick, ‘you can only then proceed in the ecclesiastical court–at your own expense.’
‘He’ll hardly be so obstinate as that,’ said the bishop.
‘I’m afraid you don’t know him, my lord,’ said the lawyer. The bishop, thinking of the scene which had taken place in that very room only yesterday, felt that he did know Mr Crawley, and felt also that the hope which he had just expressed was one in which he himself put no trust. But something might turn up; and it was devoutly to be hoped that Dr Tempest would take a long time over his inquiry. The assizes might come on as soon as it was terminated, or very shortly afterwards; and then everything might be well. ‘You won’t find Dr Tempest very ready at it,’ said Mr Chadwick. The bishop in his heart was comforted by the words. ‘But he must be made to be ready to do his duty,’ said Mrs Proudie, imperiously. Mr Chadwick shrugged his shoulders, then got up, spoke his farewell little speeches, and left the palace.
CHAPTER XXXV
LILY DALE WRITES TWO WORDS IN HER BOOK
John Eames saw nothing more of Lily Dale till he packed up his portmanteau, left his mother’s house, and went to stay for a few days with his old friend Lady Julia; and this did not happen till he had been above a week at Guestwick. Mrs Dale repeatedly said that it was odd that Johnny Eames did not come to see them; and Grace, speaking of him to Lily, asked why he did not come. Lily, in her funny way, declared that he would come soon enough. But even while she was joking there was something of half-expressed consciousness in her words–as though she felt it to be foolish to speak of his coming as she might of that of any other young man, before people who knew her whole story. ‘He’ll come quick enough. He knows, and I know, that his coming will do no good. Of course I shall be glad to see him. Why shouldn’t I be glad to see him? I’ve known him and liked him all my life. I liked him when there did not seem to be much about him to like, and now that he is clever, and agreeable, and good-looking–which he never was as a lad–why shouldn’t I go on liking him? He’s more like a brother to me than anybody else I’ve got. James,’–James was her brother-in-law, Dr Crofts–‘thinks of nothing but his patients and his babies, and my cousin Bernard is much too grand a person for me to take the liberty of loving him. I shall be very glad to see Johnny Eames.’ From all which Mrs Dale was led to believe that Johnny’s case was still hopeless. And how should it not be hopeless? Had not Lily confessed within the last week or two that she still loved Adolphus Crosbie?
Mrs Eames also, and Mary, were surprised that John did not go over to Allington. ‘You haven’t seen Mrs Dale yet, or the squire?’
‘I shall see them when I am at the cottage.’
‘Yes;–no doubt. But it seems strange that you should be here so long without going to them.’
‘There’s time enough,’ said he. ‘I shall have nothing else to do when I’m at the cottage.’ Then, when Mary had spoken to him again in private, expressing a hope that there was ‘nothing wrong’, he had been very angry with his sister. ‘What do you mean by wrong? What rubbish you girls talk! And you never have any delicacy of feeling to make you silent.’
‘Oh, John, don’t say such hard things as that of me!’
‘But I do say them. You’ll make me swear among you some day that I will never see Lily Dale again. As it is, I wish I never had seen her–simple because I am so dunned about it.’ In all of which I think that Johnny was manifestly wrong. When the humour was on him he was fond enough of talking about Lily Dale. Had he not taught her to do so, I doubt whether his sister would ever have mentioned Lily’s name to him. ‘I did not mean to dun you, John,’ said Mary, meekly.
But at last he went to Lady Julia’s, and was no sooner there than he was ready to start for Allington. When Lady Julia spoke to him about Lily, he did not venture to snub her. Indeed, of all his friends, Lady Julia was the one whom on this subject he allowed himself the most unrestricted confidence. He came over one day, just before dinner, and declared his intention of walking over to Allington immediately after breakfast on the following morning. ‘It’s the last time, Lady Julia,’ he said.
‘So you say, Johnny.’
‘And so I mean it! What’s the good of a man flittering away his life? What’s the good of wishing for what you can’t get?’
‘Jacob was not in such a hurry when he wished for Rachel.’
‘That was all very well for an old patriarch who had seven or eight hundred years to live.’
‘My dear John, you forget your Bible. Jacob did not live half as long as that.’
‘He lived long enough, and slowly enough, to be able to wait fourteen years;–and then he had something to comfort him in the meantime. And after all, Lady Julia, it’s more than seven years since I first thought Lily was the prettiest girl I ever saw.’
‘How old are you now?’ ‘Twenty-seven–and she’s twenty-four.’
‘You’ve time enough yet, if you’ll only be patient.’
‘I’ll be patient for tomorrow, Lady Julia, but never again. Not that I mean to quarrel with her. I’m not such a fool as to quarrel with a girl because she can’t like me. I know how it all is. If that scoundrel had not come across my path just when he did–in that very nick of time, all might have been right betwixt her and me. I couldn’t have offered to marry her before, when I hadn’t as much income as would have found her bread-and-butter. And then, just as better times came to me, he stepped in! I wonder whether it will be expected of me that I should forgive him?’
‘As far as that goes, you have no right to be angry with him.’
‘But I am–all the same.’
‘And so was I–but not for stepping in, as you call it.’
‘You and I are different, Lady Julia. I was angry with him for stepping in; but I couldn’t show it. Then he stepped out, and I did manage to show it. And now I shouldn’t wonder if he doesn’t step in again. After all, why should he have such a power? It was simply the nick of time which gave it to him.’ That John Eames should be able to find some consolation in this consideration is devoutly to be hoped by us all.
There was nothing said about Lily Dale the next morning at breakfast. Lady Julia observed that John was dressed a little more neatly than usual;–though the change was not such as to have called for her special observation, had she not known the business on which he was intent.
‘You have nothing to send to the Dales?’ he said, as he got up from the table.
‘Nothing but my love, Johnny.’
‘No worsted embroidery work–or a pot of special jam for the squire?’
‘No, sir, nothing; though I should like to make you carry a pair of panniers, if I could.’
‘They would become me well,’ said Johnny, ‘for I am going on an ass’s errand.’ Then, without waiting for the word of affection which was on the old woman’s lips, he got himself out of the room, and started on his journey.
The walk was only three miles and the weather was dry and frosty, and he had come to the turn leading up to the church and the squire’s house almost before he remembered that he was near Allington. Here he paused for a moment to think. If he continued his way down by the ‘Red Lion’ and through Allington Street, he must knock at Mrs Dale’s door, and ask for admission by means of the servant–as would be done by any ordinary visitor. But he could make his way on to the lawn by going up beyond the wall of the churchyard and through the squire’s garden. He knew the path well–very well; and he thought that he might take so much liberty as that, both with the squire and with Mrs Dale, although his visits to Allington were not so frequent now as they used to be in the days of his boyhood. He did not wish to be admitted by the servant, and therefore he went through the gardens. Luckily he did not see the squire, who would have detained him, and he escaped from Hopkins, the old gardener, with little more than a word. ‘I’m going down to see the ladies, Hopkins; I suppose I shall find them?’ And then, while Hopkins was arranging his spade so that he might lean upon it for a little chat, Johnny was gone and had made his way into the other garden. He had thought it possible that he might meet Lily out among the walks by herself and such a meeting as this would have suited him better than any other. And as he crossed the little bridge which separated the gardens he thought of more than one such meeting–of one especial occasion on which he had first ventured to tell her in plain words that he loved her. But before that day Crosbie had come there, and at the moment in which he was speaking of his love she regarded Crosbie as an angel of light upon the earth. What hope could there have been for him then? What use was there in telling such a tale of love at that time? When he told it, he knew Crosbie had been before him. He knew that Crosbie was at that moment the angel of light. But as he had never before been able to speak of his love, so was he then unable not to speak of it. He had spoken, and of course had been simply rebuked. Since that day Crosbie had ceased to be an angel of light, and he, John Eames, had spoken often. But he had spoken in vain, and now he would speak once again.
He went through the garden and over the lawn belonging to the Small House and saw no one. He forgot, I think, that ladies do not come out to pick roses when the ground is frozen, and that croquet is not often in progress with the hoar-frost on the grass. So he walked up to the little terrace before the drawing-room, and looking in saw Mrs Dale, and Lily, and Grace at their morning work. Lily was drawing, and Mrs Dale was writing, and Grace had her needle in her hand. As it happened, no one at first perceived him, and he had time to feel that after all he would have managed it better if he had been announced in the usual way. As, however, it was now necessary that he should announce himself, he knocked at the window, and they all immediately looked up and saw him. ‘It’s my cousin John,’ said Grace. ‘Oh, Johnny, how are you at last?’ said Mrs Dale. But it was Lily who, without speaking, opened the window for him, who was the first to give him her hand, and who led him through into the room.
‘It’s a great shame my coming in this way,’ said John, ‘and letting all the cold air in upon you.’
‘We shall survive it,’ said Mrs Dale. ‘I suppose you have just come down from my brother-in-law?’
‘No; I have not seen the squire as yet. I will do so before I go back, of course. But it seemed such a commonplace sort of thing to go round by the village.’
‘We are very glad to see you, by whatever way you came;–are we not, mamma?’ said Lily.
‘I’m not so sure of that. We were only saying yesterday that as you had been in the country a fortnight without coming to us, we did not think we would be at home when you did come.’
‘But I have caught you, you see,’ said Johnny.
And so they went on, chatting of old times and of mutual friends very comfortably for full an hour. And there was some serious conversation about Grace’s father and his affairs, and John declared his opinion that Mr Crawley should go to his uncle, Thomas Toogood, not at all knowing that at that time Mr Crawley himself had come to the same opinion. And John gave them an elaborate description of Sir Raffle Buffle, standing up with his back to the fire with his hat on his head, and speaking with a loud harsh voice, to show them the way in which he declared that that gentleman received his inferiors; and then bowing and scraping and rubbing his hands together and simpering with would-be softness–declared that after that fashion Sir Raffle received his superiors. And they were very merry–so that no one would have thought that Johnny was a despondent lover, now bent on throwing the dice for his last stake; or that Lily was aware that she was in the presence of one lover, and that she was like to fall on the ground between two stools–having two lovers, neither of whom could serve her turn.
‘How can you consent to serve him if he’s such a man as that?’ said Lily, speaking of Sir Raffle.
‘I do not serve him. I serve the Queen–or rather the public. I don’t take his wages, and he does not play his tricks with me. He knows that he can’t. He has tried it, and failed. And he only keeps me where I am because I’ve had some money left me. He thinks it fine to have a private secretary with a fortune. I know that he tells people all manner of lies about it, making it out to be five times as much as it is. Dear old Huffle Snuffle. He is such an ass; and yet he’s had wit enough to get to the top of the tree, and to keep himself there. He began the world without a penny. Now he has got a handle to his name, and he’ll live in clover all his life. It’s very odd, isn’t it, Mrs Dale?’
‘I suppose he does his work?’
‘When men get so high as that, there’s no knowing whether they work or whether they don’t. There isn’t much left for them to do, as far as I can see. They have to look beautiful, and frighten the young ones.’
‘And does Sir Raffle look beautiful?’ Lily asked.
‘After a fashion he does. There is something imposing about such a man till you’re used to it, and can see through it. Of course it’s all padding. There are men who work, no doubt. But among the bigwigs, and bishops and cabinet ministers, I fancy that the looking beautiful is the chief part of it. Dear me, you don’t mean to say it’s luncheon time?’
But it was luncheon time, and not only had he not as yet said a word of all that which he had come to say, but had not as yet made any move towards getting it said. How was he to arrange that Lily should be left alone with him? Lady Julia had said that she should not expect him back till dinner-time, and he had answered her lackadaisically, ‘I don’t suppose I shall be there above ten minutes. The minutes will say all I’ve got to say, and do all I’ve got to do. And then I suppose I shall go and cut names about bridges–eh, Lady Julia?’ Lady Julia understood the words; for once, upon a former occasion, she had found him cutting Lily’s name on the rail of a wooden bridge in her brother’s grounds. But he had now been a couple of hours at the Small House, and had not said a word of that which he had come to say.
‘Are you going to walk out with us after lunch?’ said Lily.
‘He will have had walking enough,’ said Mrs Dale.
‘We’ll convoy him part of the way,’ said Lily.
‘I’m not going yet,’ said Johnny, ‘unless you turn me out.’
‘But we must have our walk before it is dark,’ said Lily.
‘You might go up with him to your uncle,’ said Mrs Dale. ‘Indeed, I promised to go up there myself, and so did you, Grace, to see the microscope. I heard Mr Dale give orders that one of those long-legged reptiles should be caught on purpose for your inspection.’
Mrs Dale’s little scheme for bringing the two together was very transparent, but it was not the less wise on that account. Schemes will often be successful, let them be ever so transparent. Little intrigues become necessary, not to conquer unwilling people, but people who are willing enough, who, nevertheless, cannot give way except under the machinations of an intrigue.
‘I don’t think I mind looking at the long-legged creature, today,’ said Johnny.
‘I must go of course,’ said Grace.
Lily said nothing at the moment, either about the long-legged creature or the walk. That which must be, must be. She knew well why John Eames had come there. She knew that the visits to his mother and to Lady Julia would never have been made, but that he might have this interview. And he had a right to demand, at any rate, as much as that. That which must be, must be. And therefore when both Mrs Dale and Grace stoutly maintained their purpose of going up to the squire, Lily neither attempted to persuade John to accompany them nor said that she would do so herself.
‘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 gypsies. 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, very 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 of it all. When Grace and I are 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 I will never give it up.’
‘Oh, John, if you could only know how little worthy of such pursuit it is.’
‘Leave me to be the 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 up 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 before–before that man came down here.’
‘Do not speak of him, John.’
‘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, John.’
‘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 fat 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, Lily 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 for you.’
‘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 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 John. God bless you. I think you the finest fellow in the world. I do, and do 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.’
‘You love Johnny much better than you do Mr Boyce.’
‘True; very much better; but it is of the same sort of love. However, it is a great deal too deep for you to understand. You’re too young, and I shan’t try to explain it. But the long and the short of it is–I am not going to marry your cousin.’
‘I wish you were,’ said Grace, ‘with all my heart.’
John Eames as he returned to the cottage was by no means able to fall back upon those resolutions as to his future life, which he had formed for himself and communicated to his friend Dalrymple, and which he had intended to bring at once into force in the event of his being rejected by Lily Dale. ‘I will cleanse my mind of it altogether,’ he had said, ‘and though I may not forget her, I will live as though she were forgotten. If she declines my proposal again, I will accept her word as final. I will not go about the world any longer as a stricken deer–to be pitied or else bullied by the rest of the herd.’ On his way down to Guestwick he had sworn twenty times that it should be so. He would make one more effort, and then he would give it up. But now, after his interview with Lily, he was as little disposed to give it up as ever.
He sat upon a gate in a paddock through which there was a back entrance into Lady Julia’s garden, and there swore a thousand oaths that he would never give her up. He was, at any rate, sure that she would never become the wife of anyone else. He was equally sure that he would never become the husband of any other wife. He could trust her. Yes; he was sure of that. But could he trust himself? Communing with himself, he told himself that after all he was but a poor creature. Circumstances had been very good to him, but he had done nothing for himself. He was vain, and foolish, and unsteady. So he told himself while sitting upon the gate. But he had, at any rate, been constant to Lily, and constant he would remain.
He would never more mention her name to anyone–unless it were to Lady Julia tonight. To Dalrymple he would not open his mouth about her, but would plainly ask his friend to be silent on that subject if her name should be mentioned by him. But morning and evening he would pray for her, and in his prayers he would always think of her as his wife. He would never speak to another girl without remembering that he was bound to Lily. He would go nowhere into society without recalling to mind the fact that he was bound by the chains of a solemn engagement. If he knew himself he would be constant to Lily.
And then he considered in what manner it would be best and most becoming that he should still prosecute his endeavour and repeat his offer. He thought that he would write to her every year, on the same day of the year, year after year, it might be for the next twenty years. And his letters would be very simple. Sitting there on the gate he planned the wording of his letters;–of his first letter, and of his second, and of his third. They should be very like to each other–should hardly be more than a repetition of the same words. ‘If now you are ready for me, then Lily, am I, as ever, still ready for you.’ And then, ‘if now’ again and again, ‘if now;–and still ‘if now’. When his hair should be grey, and the wrinkles on his cheeks–ay, though they should be on hers, he would still continue to tell her from year to year that he was ready to take her. Surely some day that ‘if now’ would prevail. And should it never prevail, the merit of his constancy should be its own reward.
Such letters as those she would surely keep. Then he looked forward, down into the valley of coming years, and fancied her as she might sit reading them in the twilight of some long evening–letters which had been written all in vain. He thought that he could look forward with some satisfaction towards the close of his own career, in having been the hero of such a love-story. At any rate, if such a story were to be his story, the melancholy attached to it should arise from no fault of his own. He would still press her to be his wife. And then as he remembered that he was only twenty-seven and that she was twenty-four, he began to marvel at the feeling of grey old age which had come upon him, and tried to make himself believe that he would have her yet before the bloom was off her cheeks.
He went into the cottage and made his way at once into the room in which Lady Julia was sitting. She did not speak at first, but looked anxiously about his face. And he did not speak, but turned to a table near the window and took up a book–though the room was too dark for him to see to read the words. ‘John,’ at last said Lady Julia.
‘Well, my lady?’
‘Have you nothing to tell me, John?’
‘Nothing on earth–except the same old story, which has now become a matter of course.’
‘But, John, will you not tell me what she said?’
‘Lady Julia, she has said no; simply no. It is a very easy word to say, and she has said it so often that it seems to come from her quite naturally.’ Then he got a candle and sat down over the fire with a volume of a novel. It was not yet past five, and Lady Julia did not go upstairs to dress till six, and therefore there was an hour during which they were together. John had at first been rather grand to his old friend, and very uncommunicative. But before the dressing-bell had rung he had been coaxed into a confidential strain and had told everything. ‘I suppose it is wrong and selfish,’ he said. ‘I suppose I am a dog in a manger. But I do own that there is a consolation to me in the assurance that she will never be the wife of that scoundrel.’
‘I could never forgive her if she were to marry him now,’ said Lady Julia.
‘I could never forgive him. But she has said that she will not, and I know that she will not forswear herself. I shall go on with it, Lady Julia. I have made up my mind to that. I suppose it will never come to anything, but I shall stick to it. I can live an old bachelor as well as another man. At any rate I shall stick to it.’ Then the good silly old woman comforted him and applauded him as though he were a hero among men, and did reward him, as Lily had predicted, by one of those now rare bottles of super-excellent port which had come to her from her brother’s cellar.
John Eames stayed out his time at the cottage, and went over more than once again to Allington, and called on the squire, on one occasion dining with him and meeting the three ladies from the Small House; and he walked with the girls, comporting himself like any ordinary man. But he was not again alone with Lily Dale, nor did he learn whether she had in truth written those two words in her book. But the reader may be know that she did write them there on the evening of the day on which the promise was made. ‘Lilian Dale–Old Maid’.
And when John’s holiday was over, he returned to his duties at the elbow of Sir Raffle Buffle.
CHAPTER XXXVI
GRACE CRAWLEY RETURNS HOME
About this time Grace Crawley received two letters, the first of them reaching her while John Eames was still at the cottage, and the other immediately after his return to London. They both help to tell our story, and our reader shall, therefore, read them if he so please–or, rather, he shall read the first and as much of the second as is necessary for him. Grace’s answer to the first letter he shall see also. Her answer to the second will be told in a very few words. The first was from Major Grantly, and the task of answering that was by no means easy for Grace.
‘COSBY LODGE,–February, 186-
‘DEAREST GRACE,
‘I told you when I parted from you, that I should write to you, and I think it best to do so at once, in order that you may fully understand me. Spoken words are soon forgotten,’–‘I shall never forget his words,’ Grace had said to herself as she read this;–‘and are not always as plain as they might be. Dear Grace, I suppose I ought not to say so, but I fancied when I parted from you at Allington, that I had succeeded in making myself dear to you. I believe you to be so true in spirit, that you were unable to conceal from me the fact that you love me. I shall believe that it is so, till I am deliberately and solemnly assured by yourself that it is not so;–and I conjure you to think what is due both to yourself and to myself, before you allow yourself to think of making such an assurance unless it be strictly true.
‘I have already told my friends that I have asked you to be my wife. I tell you this, in order that you may know how little effect your answer to me has had towards inducing me to give you up. What you said about your father and your family has no weight with me, and ought ultimately to have none with you. This business of your father’s great misfortune–so great, that probably, had we not known each other before it happened, it might have prevented our becoming intimate when we chanced to meet. But we had met before it happened, and before it happened I had determined to ask you to be my wife. What should I have to think of myself if I allowed my heart to be altered by such a cause as that?
‘I have only further to say that I love you better than anyone in the world, and that it is my best hope that you will be my wife. I will not press you further till this affair of your father’s has been settled; but when that is over, I shall look for my reward without reference to its result. Not that I doubt the result if there be anything like justice in England; but that your debt to me, if you owe me any debt, will be altogether irrespective of that. If, as I suppose, you will remain at Allington for some time longer, I shall not see you till after the trial is over. As soon as that is done, I will come to you wherever you are. In the meantime I shall look for an answer to this; and if it be true that you love me, dear, dear Grace, pray have the courage to tell me so.–Most affectionately your own,
‘HENRY GRANTLY’
When the letter was given to Grace across the breakfast-table, both Mrs Dale and Lily suspected that it came from Major Grantly, but not a word was spoken about it. When Grace with hesitating hand broke the envelope, neither of her friends looked at her. Lily had a letter of her own, and Mrs Dale opened the newspaper. But still it was impossible not to perceive that her face became red with blushes, and then they knew that the letter must be from Major Grantly. Grace herself could not read it, though her eye ran down over the two pages catching a word here and there. She had looked at the name at once, and had seen the manner of his signature. ‘Most affectionately your own’! What was she to say to him? Twice, thrice, as she sat at the breakfast-table she turned the page of the letter, and at each turning she read the signature. And she read the beginning, ‘Dearest Grace’. More than that she did not really read till she had got the letter away with her into the seclusion of her own room.
Not a word was said about the letter at breakfast. Poor Grace went on eating or pretending to eat, but could not bring herself to utter a word. Mrs Dale and Lily spoke of various matters, which were quite indifferent to them; but even with them the conversation was so difficult that Grace felt it to be forced, and was conscious that they were thinking about her and her lover. As soon as she could make an excuse she left the room, and hurrying upstairs took the letter from her pocket and read it in earnest.
‘That was from Major Grantly, mamma,’ said Lily.
‘I daresay it was, my dear.’
‘And what had we better do; or what had we better say?’
‘Nothing–I should say. Let him fight his own battle. If we interfere, we may probably only make her more stubborn in clinging to her old idea.’
‘I think she will cling to it.’
‘For a time she will, I daresay. And it will be the best that she should. He himself will respect her for it afterwards.’ Thus it was agreed between them that they should say nothing to Grace about the letter unless Grace should first speak to them.
Grace read her letter over and over again. It was the first love-letter she had ever had;–the first letter she had ever received from any man except her father and brother–the first, almost, that had ever been written to her by any other than her own special friends. The words of it were very strange to her ear. He had told her when he left her that he would write to her, and therefore she had looked forward to the event which had now come; but she had thought that it would be much more distant–and she had tried to make herself believe that when it did come it would be very different from this letter which she now possessed. ‘He will tell me that he has altered his mind. He ought to do so. It is not proper that he should still think of me when we are in such disgrace.’ But now the letter had come, and she acknowledged the truth of his saying that written words were clearer in their expression than those simply spoken. ‘Not that I could ever forget a syllable that he said.’ Yet, as she held the letter in her hand she felt that it was a possession. It was a thing at which she could look in coming years, when he and she might be far apart–a thing at which she could look with pride in remembering that he had thought her worthy of it.
Neither on that day nor on the next did she think of her answer, nor on the third or fourth day with any steady thinking. She knew that an answer would have to be written, and she felt that the sooner it was written the easier might be the writing; but she felt also that it should not be written too quickly. A week should first elapse, she thought, and therefore a week was allowed to elapse, and then the day for writing her answer came. She had spoken no word about it either to Mrs Dale or to Lily. She had longed to do so, but had feared. Even though she should speak to Lily she could not be led by Lily’s advice. Her letter, whatever it might be, must be her own letter. She would admit of no dictation. She must say her own say, let her say it ever so badly. As to the manner of saying it, Lily’s aid would have been invaluable; but she feared that she could not secure that aid without compromising her own power of action–her own individuality; and therefore she said no word about the letter either to Lily or to Lily’s mother.
On a certain morning she fixed herself at her desk to write her letter. She had known that the task would be difficult, but she had little known how difficult it would be. On that day of her first attempt she did not get it written at all. Now was she to begin? He had called her ‘Dearest Grace’; and this mode of beginning seemed as easy as it was sweet. ‘It is very easy for a gentleman,’ she said to herself, ‘because he may say just what he pleases.’ She wrote the words ‘Dearest Henry,’ on a scrap of paper, and immediately tore it into fragments as though she was ashamed of having written them. She knew that she would not dare to send away a letter beginning with such words. She would not even have dared to let such words in her own handwriting remain within the recesses of her own little desk. ‘Dear Major Grantly,’ she began at length. It seemed to her to be very ugly, but after much consideration she believed it to be correct. On the second day the letter was written as follows:–
‘ALLINGTON, Thursday
‘MY DEAR MAJOR GRANTLY,
‘I do not know how I ought to answer your kind letter, but I must tell you that I am very much flattered by your great goodness to me. I cannot understand why you should think so much of me, but I suppose it is because you have felt for my misfortunes. I will not say anything about what might have happened, if it had not been for papa’s sorrow and disgrace; and as far as I can help it, I will not think of it; but I am sure that I ought not to think about loving anyone, that is, in the way you mean, while we are in such trouble at home. I should not dare to meet any of your great friends, knowing that I had brought nothing with me but disgrace. And I should feel that I was doing an injury to dear Edith, which would be worse to me than anything.
‘Pray believe me that I am quite in earnest about this. I know that a gentleman ought not to marry any girl to do himself and his family an injury by it; and I know that if I were to make such a marriage I should be unhappy ever afterwards, even though I loved the man ever so dearly, with all my heart.’ These last words she had underscored at first, but the doing so had been the unconscious expression of her own affection, and had been done with no desire on her part to convey that expression to him. But on reading the words she discovered their latent meaning, and wrote it all again.
‘Therefore I know that it will be best that I should wish you good-bye, and I do so, thanking you again and again for your goodness to me,–believe me to be, Yours very sincerely,
‘GRACE CRAWLEY’
The letter when it was written was hateful to her; but she had tried her hand at it again and again, and had found that she could do nothing better. There was much in his letter that she had not attempted to answer. He had implored her to tell him whether or no she did in truth love him. Of course she loved him. He knew that well enough. Why should she answer any such question? There was a way of answering it indeed which might serve her turn–or rather serve his, of which she was thinking more than of her own. She might say that she did not love him. It would be a lie, and he would know it would be a lie. But still it might serve the turn. She did not like the idea of writing such a lie as that, but nevertheless she considered the matter. It would be very wicked; but still, if it would serve the turn, might it not be well to write it? But at last she reflected that, after all, the doing of the thing was in her own hands. She could refuse to marry this man without burdening her conscience with any lie about it. It only required that she should be firm. She abstained, therefore, from the falsehood, and left her lover’s question unanswered. So she put up her letter and directed it, and carried it herself to the village post-office.
On the day after this she got a second letter, and that she showed immediately to Mrs Dale. It was from her mother, and was written to tell that her father was seriously ill. ‘He went up to London to see a lawyer about this weary work of the trial,’ said Mrs Crawley. ‘The fatigue was very great, and on the next day he was so weak that he could not leave his bed. Dr Turner, who has been very kind, says that we need not frighten ourselves, but he thinks it must be some time before he can leave the house. He has a low fever on him, and wants nourishment. His mind has wandered once or twice, and he has asked for you, and I think it will be best, love, that you should come home. I know you will not mind it when I say that I think he would like to have you here. Dr Turner says that the illness is chiefly owing to his not having proper food.’
Of course she would go home. ‘Dear Mrs Dale,’ she said; ‘I must go home. Can you send me to the station?’ Then Mrs Dale read the letter. Of course they would send her. Would she go on that day, or on the next? Might it not be better to write first, and say that she was going? But Grace would go at once. ‘I know it will be a comfort to mamma; and I know that he is worse than mamma says.’ Of course there was no more to be said, and she was despatched to the station. Before she went Mrs Dale asked after her purse. ‘If there is any trouble about money–for your journey, or anything, you will not scruple to come to me as an old friend.’ But Grace assured her that there was no trouble about money–for her journey. Then Lily took her aside and produced two clean new five-pound notes. ‘Grace, dear, you won’t be ill-natured. You know I have a little fortune of my own. You know I can give them without missing them.’ Grace threw herself into her friend’s arms and wept, but would have none of her money. ‘Buy a present from me to your mother–whom I love though I do not know her.’ ‘I will give her your love,’ Grace said, ‘but nothing else.’ And then she went.
CHAPTER XXXVII
HOOK COURT
Mr Dobbs Broughton and Mr Musselboro were sitting together on a certain morning at their office in the City, discussing the affairs of their joint business. The City office was a very poor place indeed, in comparison with the fine house which Mr Dobbs occupied at the West End; but then City offices are poor places, and there are certain City occupations which seem to enjoy the greater credit the poorer are the material circumstances by which they are surrounded. Turning out of a lane which turns out of Lombard Street, there is a desolate, forlorn-looking, dark alley, which is called Hook Court. The entrance to this alley is beneath the first-floor of one of the houses in the lane, and in passing under this covered way the visitor to the place finds himself in a small paved square court, at the two further corners of which there are two open doors; for in Hook Court there are only two houses. There is No 1 Hook Court, and No 2 Hook Court. The entire premises indicated by No 1 are occupied by a firm of wine and spirit merchants, in connexion with whose trade one side and two angles of the court are always lumbered with crates, hampers, and wooden cases. And nearly in the middle of the court, though somewhat more to the wine-merchant’s side than to the other, there is always gaping open a trap-door, leading down to the vaults below; and over the trap there is a great board with a bright advertisement in very large letters:–
BURTON AND BANGLES
HIMALAYA WINES
22s 6d per dozen
And this notice is so bright and so large, and the trap-door is so conspicuous in the court, that no visitor, even to No 2, ever afterwards can quite divest his memory of those names, Burton and Bangles, Himalaya wines. It may therefore be acknowledged that Burton and Bangles have achieved their object in putting up the notice. The house No 2, small as it seems to be, standing in the jamb of a corner, is divided among different occupiers, whose names are painted in small letters upon the very dirty posts of the doorway. Nothing can be more remarkable than the contrast between Burton and Bangles and these other City gentlemen in the method taken by them in declaring their presence to visitors in the court. The names of Dobbs Broughton and of A. Musselboro–the Christian name of Mr Musselboro was Augustus–were on one of those dirty posts, not joined together by any visible ‘and’, so as to declare boldly that they were partners; but in close vicinity–showing at least that the two gentlemen would be found in apartments very near to each other. And on the first-floor of this house Dobbs Broughton and his friend did occupy three rooms–or rather two rooms and a closet–between them. The larger and front room was tenanted by an old clerk, who sat within a rail in one corner of it. And there was a broad, short counter, which jutted out from the wall into the middle of the room, intended for the use of such of the public as might come to transact miscellaneous business with Dobbs Broughton or Augustus Musselboro. But anyone accustomed to the look of offices might have seen with half an eye that very little business was ever done on that counter. Behind this large room was a smaller one, belonging to Dobbs Broughton, in the furnishing and arrangement of which some regard was paid to comfort. The room was carpeted, and there was a sofa in it, though a very old one, and two arm-chairs and a mahogany office-table, and a cellaret, which was generally well supplied with wine which Dobbs Broughton did not get out of the vaults of his neighbours, Burton and Bangles. Behind this again, but with a separate entrance from the passage, was the closet; and this closet was specially devoted to the use of Mr Musselboro. Closet as it was–or cupboard as it might have almost been called–it contained a table and two chairs; and it had a window of its own, which opened out upon a blank wall which was distant from it not above four feet. As the house to which this wall belonged was four storeys high, it would sometimes happen that Mr Musselboro’s cupboard was rather dark. But this mattered the less as in these days Mr Musselboro seldom used it. Mr Musselboro, who was very constant at his place of business–much more constant than his friend Dobbs Broughton,–was generally to be found in his friend’s room. Only on some special occasions, on which it was thought expedient that the commercial world should be made to understand that Mr Augustus Musselboro had an individual existence of his own, did that gentleman really seat himself in the dark closet. Mr Dobbs Broughton, had he been asked what was his trade, would have said that he was a stockbroker; and he would have answered truly, for he was a stockbroker. A man may be a stockbroker though he never sells any stock; as he may be a barrister though has not practiced at the bar. I do not say that Mr Broughton never sold any stocks; but the buying and selling of stock for other people was certainly not his chief business. And had Mr Musselboro been asked what was his trade, he would have probably given an evasive answer. At any rate in the City, and among people who understood City matters, he would not have said that he was a stockbroker. Both Mr Broughton and Mr Musselboro bought and sold a good deal, but it was chiefly on account. The shares which were bought and sold very generally did not pass from hand to hand; but the difference in the price of the shares did do so. And then they had another little business between them. They lent money on interest. And in this business there was a third partner, whose name did not appear on the dirty door-post. That third partner was Mrs Van Siever, the mother of Clara Van Siever whom Mr Conway Dalrymple intended to portray as Jael driving a nail into Sisera’s head.
On a certain morning Mr Broughton and Mr Musselboro were sitting together in the office which has been described. They were in Mr Broughton’s room, and occupied each arm-chair on the different sides of the fire. Mr Musselboro was sitting close to the table, on which a ledger was open before him, and he had a pen and ink before him, as though he had been at work. Dobbs Broughton had a small betting-book in his hand, and was seated with his feet up against the side of the fire-place. Both men wore their hats, and the aspect of the room was not the aspect of a place of business. They had been silent for some minutes when Broughton took his cigar-case out of his pocket, and nibbled off the end of a cigar, preparatory to lighting it.
‘You had better not smoke here this morning, Dobbs,’ said Musselboro.
‘Why shouldn’t I smoke in my own room?’
‘Because she’ll be here just now.’
‘What do I care? If you think I’m going to be afraid of Mother Van, you’re mistaken. Let come what may, I’m not going to live under her thumb.’ So he lighted his cigar.
‘All right,’ said Musselboro, and he took up his pen and went to work at his book.
‘What is she coming her for this morning,’ asked Broughton.
‘To look after her money. What should she come for?’
‘She gets her interest. I don’t suppose there’s better paid money in the City.’
‘She hasn’t got what was coming to her at Christmas yet.’
‘And this is February. What would she have? She had better put her dirty money into the three per cents, if she is frightened at having to wait a week or two.’
‘Can she have it today?’
‘What, the whole of it? Of course she can’t. You know that as well as I do. She can have four hundred pounds, if she wants it. But seeing all she gets out of the concern, she has no right to press for it in that way. She is the—-old usurer I ever came across in my life.’
‘Of course she likes her money.’
‘Likes her money! By George she does; her own and anybody else’s that she can get hold of. For a downright leech, recommend me always to a woman. When a woman does go in for it, she is much more thorough than any man.’ Then Broughton turned over the little pages of his book, and Musselboro pondered over the big pages of his book, and there was silence for a quarter of an hour.
‘There’s something about nine hundred and fifteen pounds due to her,’ said Musselboro.
‘I daresay there is.’
‘It would be a very good thing to let her have it if you’ve got it. The whole of it this morning, I mean.’
‘If! Yes, if!’ said Broughton.
‘I know there’s more than that at the bank.’
‘And I’m to draw out every shilling that there is! I’ll see Mother Van —- further first. She can have 500 pounds if she likes it–and the rest in a fortnight. Or she can have my note-of-hand for it all at fourteen days.’
‘She won’t like that at all,’ said Musselboro.
‘Then she must lump it. I’m not going to bother myself about her. I’ve pretty nearly as much money in it as she has, and we’re in a boat together. If she comes here bothering, you’d better tell her so.’
‘You’ll see her yourself?’
‘Not unless she comes within the next ten minutes. I must go down to the court. I said I’d be there by twelve. I’ve got somebody I want to see.’
‘I’d stay if I were you.’
‘Why should I stay for her? If she thinks that I’m going to make myself her clerk, she’s mistaken. It may be all very well for you, Mussy, but it won’t do for me. I’m not dependent on her, and I don’t want to marry her daughter.’
‘It will simply end in her demanding to have her money back again.’
‘And how will she get it?’ said Dobbs Broughton. ‘I haven’t a doubt in life but she’d take it tomorrow if she could put her hands upon it. And then, after a bit, when she began to find that she didn’t like four per cent, she’d bring it back again. But nobody can do business after such a fashion as that. For the last three years she’s drawn close upon two thousand a year for less than eighteen thousand pounds. When a woman wants to do that, she can’t have her money in her pocket every Monday morning.’
‘But you’ve done better than that yourself, Dobbs.’
‘Of course I have. And who has made the connexions; and who has done the work? I suppose she doesn’t think that I’m to have all the sweat and that she is to have all the profit?’
‘If you talk of work, Dobbs, it is I that have done the most of it.’ This Mr Musselboro said in a very serious voice, and with a look of much reproach.
‘And you’ve been paid for what you’ve done. Come, Mussy, you’d better not turn against me. You’ll never get your change out of that. Even if you marry the daughter, that won’t give you the mother’s money. She’ll stick to every shilling of it till she dies; and she’d take it with her then, if she knew how.’ Having said this, he got up from his chair, put his little book into his pocket, and walked out of the office. He pushed his way across the court, which was more than ordinarily crowded with the implements of Burton and Bangles’ trade, and as he passed under the covered way he encountered at the entrance an old woman getting out of a cab. The old woman was, of course, Mother Van, as her partner, Mr Dobbs Broughton irreverently called her. ‘Mrs Van Siever, how d’ye do? Let me give you a hand. Fare from South Kensington? I always give the fellow three shillings.’
‘You don’t mean to tell me it’s six miles!’ And she tendered a florin to the man.
‘Can’t take that, ma’am,’ said the cabman.
‘Can’t take it! But you must take it. Broughton, just get a policeman, will you?’ Dobbs Broughton satisfied the driver out of his own pocket, and the cab was driven away. ‘What did you give him?’ said Mrs Van Siever.
‘Just another sixpence. There never is a policeman anywhere about here.’
‘It’ll be out of your own pocket, then,’ said Mrs Van. ‘But you’re not going away?’
‘I must be at Capel Court by half-past twelve;–I must, indeed. If it wasn’t real business, I’d stay.’
‘I told Musselboro, I should be here.’
‘He’s up there, and he knows all about the business just as well as I do. When I found that I couldn’t stay for you, I went through the account with him, and it’s all settled. Good morning. I’ll see you at the West End in a day or two.’ Then he made his way out into Lombard Street, and Mrs Van Siever picked her steps across the yard, and mounted the stairs, and made her way into the room in which Mr Musselboro was sitting.
‘Somebody’s been smoking, Gus,’ she said, almost as soon as she had entered the room.
‘That’s nothing new here,’ he replied, as he got up from his chair.
‘There’s no good being done when men sit and smoke over their work. Is it you, or he, or both of you?’
‘Well–it was Broughton was smoking just now. I don’t smoke of a morning myself.’
‘What made him get up and run away when I came?’
‘How can I tell, Mrs Van Siever,’ said Musselboro, laughing. ‘If he did run away when you came, I suppose it was because he didn’t want to see you.’
‘And why shouldn’t he want to see me? Gus, I expect the truth from you. How are things going on here?’ To this question Mr Musselboro made no immediate answer; but tilted himself back in his chair and took his hat off, and put his thumbs into the arm-holes of his waistcoat, and looked his patroness full in the face. ‘Gus,’ she said again, ‘I do expect the truth from you. How are things going on here?’
‘There’d be a good business–if he’d only keep things together.’
‘But he’s idle. Isn’t he idle?’
‘Confoundedly idle,’ said Musselboro.
‘And he drinks;–don’t he drink in the day?’
‘Like the mischief–some days. But that isn’t the worst of it.’
‘And what is the worst of it?’
‘Newmarket;–that’s the rock he’s going to pieces on.’
‘You don’t mean to say he takes the money out of the business for that?’ And Mrs Van Siever’s face, as she asked the question, expressed almost a tragic horror. ‘If I thought that I wouldn’t give him an hour’s mercy.’
‘When a man bets he doesn’t well know what money he uses. I can’t say that he takes money that is not his own. Situated as I am, I don’t know what is his own and what isn’t. If your money was in my name I could keep a hand on it;–but as it is not I can do nothing. I can see that what is put out is put out fairly well; and when I think of it, Mrs Van Siever, it is quite wonderful that we’ve lost so little. It has been next to nothing. That has been my doing–and that’s about all I can do.’
‘You must know whether he has used my money for his own purposes or not.’
‘If you ask me, I think he has,’ said Mr Musselboro.
‘Then I’ll go into it, and I’ll find it out, and if it is so, as sure as my name’s Van Siever, I’ll sew him up.’ Having uttered which terrible threat, the old woman drew a chair to the table and seated herself fairly down, as though she were determined to go through all the books of the office before she quitted that room. Mrs Van Siever in her present habiliments was not a thing so terrible to look at as she had been in her wiggeries at Mrs Dobbs Broughton’s dinner-table. Her curls were laid aside altogether, and she wore simply a front beneath her close bonnet–and a very old front, too, which was not loudly offensive because it told no lies. Her eyes were as bright, and her little wizen face was as sharp as ever; but the wizen face and the bright eyes were not so much amiss as seen together with the old dark brown silk dress which she now wore, as they had been with the wiggeries and the evening finery. Even now, in her morning costume, in her work-a-day business dress, as we may call it, she looked to be very old–so old that nobody could guess her age. People attempting to guess would say that she must be at least over eighty. And yet she was wiry, and strong, and nimble. It was not because she was feeble that she was thought to be old. They who so judged of her were led to their opinion by the extreme thinness of her face, and by the brightness of her eyes, joined to the depth of the hollows in which they lay, and the red margin by which they were surrounded. It was not really the fact that Mrs Van Siever was so very aged, for she had still some years to live before she would reach eighty, but that she was such a weird old woman, so small, so ghastly, and so ugly! ‘I’ll sew him up, if he’s robbing me,’ she said. ‘I will indeed!’ And she stretched out her hand to grab at the ledger which Musselboro had been using.
‘You won’t understand anything from that,’ said he, pushing the book over to her.
‘You can explain it to me.’
‘That’s all straight sailing, that is.’
‘And where does he keep the figures that aren’t straight sailing? That’s the book I want to see.’
‘There is no such book.’
‘Look here, Gus–if I find you deceiving me I’ll throw you overboard as sure as I’m a living woman. I will indeed. I’ll have no mercy. I’ve stuck to you, and made a man of you, and I expect you to stick to me.’
‘Not much of a man,’ said Musselboro, with a touch of scorn in his voice.
‘You’ve never had a shilling yet but what I gave you.’
‘Yes; I have. I’ve had what I’ve worked for–and worked confounded hard too.’
‘Look here, Musselboro; if you’re going to throw me over, just tell me so, and let us begin fair.’
‘I’m not going to throw you over. I’ve always been on the square with you. Why don’t you trust me out and out, and then I could do a deal better for you. You ask me now about your money. I don’t know about your money, Mrs Van Siever. How am I to know anything about your money, Mrs Van Seiver? You don’t give me any power of keeping a hand upon Dobbs Broughton. I suppose you have security from Dobbs Broughton, but I don’t know what security you have, Mrs Van Siever. He owes you now 915 pounds 16s 2d on last year’s account!’
‘Why doesn’t he give me a cheque for the money?’
‘He says he can’t spare it. You may have 500 pounds, and the rest when he can give it to you. Or he’ll give you his note-of-hand at fourteen days on the whole.’
‘Bother the note-of-hand. Why should I take his note-of-hand?’
‘Do as you like, Mrs Van Siever.’
‘It’s the interest on my own money. Why don’t he give it me? I suppose he has had it.’
‘You must ask him that, Mrs Van Siever. You’re in partnership with him, and he can tell you. Nobody knows anything about it. If you were in partnership with me, then of course I could tell you. But you’re not. You’ve never trusted me, Mrs Van Siever.’
The lady remained there closeted with Mr Musselboro for an hour after that, and did, I think, at length learn something more as to the details of her partner’s business than her faithful servant Mr Musselboro had at first found himself able to give to her. And at last they came to friendly and confidential terms, in the midst of which the personal welfare of Mr Dobbs Broughton was, I fear, somewhat forgotten. Not that Mr Musselboro palpably and plainly threw his friend overboard. He took his friend’s part–alleging excuses for him, and pleading some facts. ‘Of course, you know, a man like that is fond of pleasure, Mrs Van Siever. He’s been at it more or less all his life. I don’t suppose he ever missed a Derby or an Oaks, or the cup at Ascot, or the Goodwood in his life.’ ‘He’ll have to miss them before long, I’m thinking,’ said Mrs Van Siever. ‘And as to not cashing up, you must remember, Mrs Van Siever, that ten per cent won’t come in quite as regularly as four or five. When you go for high interest, there must be hitches here and there. There must, indeed, Mrs Van Siever.’ ‘I know all about it,’ said Mrs Van Siever. ‘If he gave it to me as soon as he got it himself, I shouldn’t complain. Never mind. He’s only got to give me my little bit of money out of the business, and then he and I will be all square. You come and see Clara this evening, Gus.’
Then Mr Musselboro put Mrs Van Siever into another cab, and went out upon the ‘Change–hanging about the Bank, and standing in Threadneedle Street, talking to other men just like himself. When he saw Dobbs Broughton he told that gentleman that Mrs Van Siever had been in her tantrums, but that he had managed to pacify her before she left Hook Court. ‘I’m to take the cheque for the five hundred tonight,’ he said.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
JAEL
On the first of March, Conway Dalrymple’s easel was put up in Mrs Dobbs Broughton’s boudoir upstairs, the canvas was placed upon it on which the outlines of Jael and Sisera had been already drawn, and Mrs Broughton and Clara Van Siever and Conway Dalrymple were assembled with the view of steady art-work. But before we see how they began their work together, we will go back for a moment to John Eames on his return to his London lodgings. The first thing every man does when he returns home after an absence, is to look for his letters, and John Eames looked at his. There were not very many. There was a note marked immediate from Sir Raffle Buffle, in which Sir R had scrawled in four lines a notification that he should be driven to an extremity of inconvenience if Eames were not at his post at half-past nine on the following morning. ‘I think I see myself there at that hour,’ said John. There was a notification of a house dinner, which he was asked to join, at his club, and a card for an evening gathering at Lady Glencora Palliser’s–procured for him by his friend Conway–and an invitation for dinner at the house of his uncle Mr Toogood; and there was a scented note in the handwriting of a lady, which he did not recognise. ‘My dearest, dearest friend, M D M,’ he said, as he opened the note and looked at the signature. Then he read the letter from Miss Demolines.
‘MY DEAR MR EAMES,
‘Pray come to me at once. I know that you are to be back tomorrow. Do not lose an hour if you can help it. I shall be at home at half-past five. I fear what you know of has begun. But it certainly shall not go on. In one way or another it must be prevented. I won’t say another word till I see you, but pray come at once–Yours always,
‘Thursday.’
M D M’
‘Poor mother isn’t very well, so you had better ask for me.’
‘Beautiful!’ said Johnny, as he read the note. ‘There’s nothing I like so much as a mystery–especially if it’s about nothing. I wonder why she is so desperately anxious that the picture should not be painted. I’d ask Dalrymple, only I should spoil the mystery.’ Then he sat himself down, and began to think of Lily. There could be no treason to Lily in his amusing himself with the freaks of such a woman as Miss Demolines.
At eleven o’clock on the morning of the first of March–the day following that on which Miss Demolines had written her note–the easel was put up and the canvas was placed on it in Mrs Broughton’s room. Mrs Broughton and Clara were both there, and when they had seen the outlines as far as it had been drawn, they proceeded to make arrangements for their future operations. The period of work was to begin always at eleven, and was to be continued for an hour and a half or for two hours on the days on which they met. I fear that there was a little improper scheming in this against the two persons whom the ladies were bound to obey. Mr Dobbs Broughton invariably left his house after ten in the morning. It would sometimes happen, though not frequently, that he returned home early in the day–at four perhaps, or even before that; and should he chance to do so while the picture was going on, he would catch them at their work if the work were postponed till after luncheon. And then again Mrs Van Siever would often go out in the morning, and when she did so, would always go without her daughter. On such occasion she went into the City, or to other resorts of business, at which, in some manner quite unintelligible to her daughter, she looked after her money. But when she did not go out in the morning, she did go out in the afternoon, and she would then require her daughter’s company. There was some place to which she always went of a Friday morning, and at which she stayed for two or three hours. Friday therefore was a fitting day on which to begin the work at Mrs Broughton’s house. All this was explained between the three conspirators. Mrs Dobbs Broughton declared that if she entertained the slightest idea that her husband would object to the painting of the picture in her room, nothing on earth would induce her to lend her countenance to it; but yet it might be well not to tell him just at first, perhaps not till the sittings were over–perhaps not till the picture was finished; as otherwise, tidings of the picture might get round to ears which were not intended to hear it. ‘Poor dear Dobbs is so careless with a secret.’ Miss Van Siever explained her motives in a different way. ‘I know mamma would not let me do it if she knew it; and therefore I shall not tell her.’ ‘My dear Clara,’ said Mrs Broughton with a smile ‘you are so outspoken!’ ‘And why not?’ said Miss Van Siever. ‘I am old enough to judge for myself. If mamma does not want me to be deceived, she ought not to treat me as a child. Of course she’ll find it out sooner or later; but I don’t care about that.’ Conway Dalrymple said nothing as the two ladies were thus excusing themselves. ‘How delightful it must be not to have a master,’ said Mrs Broughton, addressing him. ‘But then a man has to work for his own bread,’ said he. ‘I suppose it comes about equal in the long run.’
Very little drawing or painting was done on that day. In the first place it was necessary that the question of costume should be settled, and both Mrs Broughton and the artist had much to say on that subject. It was considered proper that Jael should be dressed as a Jewess, and there came to be much question how Jewesses dressed themselves in those very early days. Mrs Broughton had prepared her jewels and raiment of many colours, but the painter declared that the wife of Heber the Kenite would have no jewels. But when Mrs Broughton discovered from her Bible that Heber had been connected by family ties with Moses, she was more than ever sure that Heber’s wife would have much in her tent of the spoilings of the Egyptians. And when Clara Van Siever suggested that at any rate she would not have worn them in a time of confusion when soldiers were loose, flying about the country, Mrs Broughton was quite confident that she would have put them on before she invited the captain of the enemy’s host into her tent. The artist at last took the matter into his own hand, by declaring that Miss Van Siever would sit the subject much better without jewels, and therefore all Mrs Broughton’s gewgaws were put back into their boxes. And then on four different times the two ladies had to retire into Mrs Broughton’s room in order that Jael might be arrayed in various costumes–and in each costume she had to kneel down, taking the hammer in her hand, and holding the pointed stick which had been prepared to do duty as the nail, upon the forehead of the dummy Sisera. At last it was decided that her raiment should be altogether white, and that she should wear, twisted round her head and falling over her shoulder, a Roman silk scarf of various colours. ‘Where Jael could have gotten it I don’t know,’ said Clara. ‘You may be sure that there were lots of such things among the Egyptians,’ said Mrs Broughton, ‘and that Moses brought away all the best for his own family.’
‘And who is to be Sisera?’ asked Mrs Broughton in one of the pauses in their work.’
‘I’m thinking of asking my friend John Eames to sit.’
‘Of course we cannot sit together,’ said Miss Van Siever.
‘There’s no reason why you should,’ said Dalrymple. ‘I can do the second figure in my own room.’ Then there was a bargain made that Sisera should not be a portrait. ‘It would never do,’ said Mrs Broughton, shaking her head very gravely.
Though there was really very little done to the picture on that day, the work was commenced; and Mrs Broughton, who had at first objected strongly to the idea, and who had said twenty times that it was quite out of the question that it should be done her house, became very eager in her delight about it. Nobody should know anything of the picture till it should be exhibited. That would be best. And it should be the picture of the year! She was a little heart-broken when Dalrymple assured her that it could not possible be finished for exhibition in that May; but she came to again when he declared that he meant to put out all his strength upon it. ‘There will be five or six months’ work in it,’ he said. ‘Will there, indeed? And how much work was there in “The Graces”?’ ‘The Graces’, as will perhaps be remembered, was the triple portrait of Mrs Dobbs Broughton herself. This question the artist did not answer with absolute accuracy, but contented himself with declaring that with such a model as Mrs Broughton the picture had been comparatively easy,
Mrs Broughton, having no doubt that ultimate object of which she had spoken to her friend Conway steadily in view, took occasion before the sitting was over to leave the room, so that the artist might have an opportunity of speaking a word in private to his model–if he had any such word to speak. And Mrs Broughton, as she did this, felt that she was doing her duty as a wife, a friend, and a Christian. She was doing her duty as a wife, because she was giving the clearest proof in the world–the clearest at any rate to herself–that the intimacy between herself and her friend Conway had in it nothing that was improper. And she was doing her duty as a friend, because Clara Van Siever, with her large expectations, would be an eligible wife. And she was doing her duty as a Christian, because the whole thing was intended to be moral. Miss Demolines had declared that her friend Maria Clutterbuck–as Miss Demolines delighted to call Mrs Broughton, in memory of dear old innocent days–had high principles; and the reader will see that she was justified in her declaration. ‘It will be better so,’ said Mrs Broughton, as she sat upon her bed and wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. ‘Yes; it will be better so. There is a pang. Of course there’s a pang. But it will be better so.’ Acting upon this high principle, she allowed Conway Dalrymple five minutes to say what he had to say to Clara Van Siever. Then she allowed herself to indulge in some very savage feelings in reference to her husband–accusing her husband in her thoughts of great cruelty–nay, of brutality, because of certain sharp words that he had said as to Conway Dalrymple. ‘But of course he can’t understand,’ said Mrs Broughton to herself. ‘How is it to be expected that he should understand?’
But she allowed her friend on this occasion only five minutes, thinking probably that so much time might suffice. A woman, when she is jealous, is apt to attribute to other woman with whom her jealousy is concerned, both weakness and timidity, and to the man both audacity and strength. A woman who has herself taken perhaps twelve months in the winning, will think that another woman is to be won in five minutes. It is not to be supposed that Mrs Dobbs Broughton had ever been won by anyone except Mr Dobbs Broughton. At least, let it not be supposed that she had ever acknowledged a spark of love for Conway Dalymple. But nevertheless there was enough of jealousy in her present mood to make her think poorly of Miss Van Siever’s capacity for standing a siege against the artist’s eloquence. Otherwise, having left the two together with the object which she had acknowledged to herself, she would hardly have returned to them after so short an interval.
‘I hope you won’t dislike the trouble of all this?’ said Dalrymple to his model, as soon as Mrs Broughton was gone.
‘I cannot say that I like it very much,’ said Miss Van Siever.
‘I’m afraid it will be a bore;–but I hope you’ll go through with it.’
‘I shall if I am not prevented,’ said Miss Van Siever. ‘When I’ve said that I’ll do a thing, I like to do it.’
There was a pause in the conversation which took up a considerable portion of the five minutes. Miss Van Siever was not holding her nail during those moments, but was sitting in a commonplace way on her chair, while Dalrymple was scraping his palette. ‘I wonder what it was that first induced you to sit?’ said he.
‘Oh, I don’t know. I took a fancy for it.’
‘I’m very glad you did take the fancy. You’ll make an excellent model. If you won’t mind posing again for a few minutes–I will not weary you today. Your right arm a little more forward.’
‘But I should tumble down.’
‘Not if you lean well on the nail.’
‘But that would have woken Sisera before she had struck a blow.’
‘Never mind. Let us try it.’ Then Mrs Broughton returned, with that pleasant feeling in her bosom of having done her duty as a wife, friend, and a Christian. ‘Mrs Broughton,’ continued the painter, ‘just steady Miss Van Siever’s shoulder with your hand; and now bring the arm and the elbow a little more forward.’
‘But Jael did not have a friend to help her in that way,’ said Miss Van Siever.
At the end of an hour and a half the two ladies retired, and Jael disrobed herself, and Miss Van Siever put on her customary raiment. It was agreed among them that they had commenced their work auspiciously, and that they would meet again on the following Monday. The artist begged to be allowed an hour to go on with his work in Mrs Broughton’s room, and thus the hour was conceded to him. It was understood that he could not take the canvas backwards and forwards with him to his own house, and he pointed out that no progress whatever could be made, unless he were occasionally allowed some such grace as this. Mrs Broughton doubted and hesitated, made difficulties, and lifted up her hands in despair. ‘It is easy for you to say, Why not? but I know very well why not?’ But at last she gave way. ‘Honi soit qui mal y pense,’ she said; ‘that must be my protection.’ So she followed Miss Van Siever downstairs, leaving Mr Dalrymple in possession of her boudoir. ‘I shall give you just one hour,’ she said, ‘and then I shall come and turn you out.’ So she went down, and, as Miss Van Siever would not stay to lunch with her, she ate her lunch by herself, sending a glass of sherry and a biscuit up to the poor painter at his work.
Exactly at the end of the hour she returned to him. ‘Now, Conway, you must go,’ she said.
‘But why in such a hurry?’
‘Because I say that it must be so. When I say so, pray let that be sufficient.’ But still Dalrymple went on painting.
‘Conway,’ she said, ‘how can you treat me with such disdain?’
‘Disdain, Mrs Broughton!’
‘Yes, disdain. Have I not begged you to understand that I cannot allow you to remain here, and yet you pay no attention to my wishes.’
‘I have done now’; and he began to put his brushes and paints together. ‘I suppose all these things may remain here?’
‘Yes; they may remain. They must do so, of course. There; if you will put the easel in the corner, with the canvas behind it, they will not be seen if he should chance to come into the room.’
‘He would not be angry, I suppose, if he should see them?’
‘There is no knowing. Men are so unreasonable. All men are, I think. All those are whom I have had the fortune to know. Women generally say that men are selfish. I do not complain so much that they are selfish as that they are thoughtless. They are headstrong and do not look forward to results. Now you–I do not think you would willingly do me an injury?’
‘I do not think I would.’
‘I am sure you would not;–but yet you would forget to save me from one.’
‘What injury?’
‘Oh, never mind. I am not thinking of anything in particular. From myself, for instance. But we will not talk about that. That way madness lies. Tell me, Conway;–what do you think of Clara Van Siever?’
‘She is very handsome, certainly.’
‘And clever?’
‘Decidedly clever. I should think she has a temper of her own.’
‘What woman is there worth a straw that has not? If Clara Van Siever were ill-used, she would resent it. I do not doubt that for a moment. I should not like to be the man who would do it.’
‘Nor I, either,’ said Conway.
‘But there is plenty of feminine softness in that character, if she were treated with love and kindness. Conway, if you will take my advice you will ask Clara Van Siever to be your wife. But perhaps you have already.’
‘Who; I?’
‘Yes; you.’
‘I have not done it yet, certainly, Mrs Broughton.’
‘And why should you not do it?’
‘There are two or three reasons;–but perhaps none of any great importance. Do you know of none, Mrs Broughton?’
‘I know of none,’ said Mrs Broughton in a very serious–in almost a tragic tone;–‘of none that should weigh for a moment. As far as I am concerned, nothing would give me more pleasure.’
‘That is so kind of you!’
‘I mean to be kind. I do, indeed, Conway. I know it will be better for you that you should be settled–very much better. And it will be better for me. I do not mind admitting that;–though in saying so I trust greatly to your generosity to interpret my words properly.’
‘I shall not flatter myself, if you mean that.’
‘There is no question of flattery, Conway. The question is simply of truth and prudence. Do you not know that it would be better for yourself that you should be married?’
‘Not unless a certain gentleman were to die first,’ said Conway Dalrymple, as he deposited the last of his painting paraphernalia in the recess which had been prepared for them by Mrs Broughton.
‘Conway, how can you speak in that wicked, wicked way?’
‘I can assure that I do not wish the gentleman in question the slightest harm in the world. If his welfare depended on me, he should be safe as the Bank of England.’
‘And you will not take my advice?’
‘What advice?’
‘About Clara?’
‘Mrs Broughton, matrimony is a very important thing.’
‘Indeed, it is;–oh, who can say how important! There was a time, Conway, when I thought that you had given your heart to Madelina Demolines.’
‘Heaven forbid!’
‘And I grieved, because I thought that she was not worthy of you.’
‘There was never anything in that, Mrs Broughton.’
‘She thought that there was. At any rate, she said so. I know that for certain. She told me so herself. But let that pass. Clara Van Siever is in every respect very different from Madalina. Clara, I think, is worthy of you. And Conway–of course it is not for me to dictate to you; but this I must tell you–‘
‘What must you tell me?’
‘I will tell you nothing more. If you cannot understand what I have said, you must be more dull of comprehension than I believe you to be. Now go. Why are you not gone this half-hour?’
‘How could I go while you were giving me all this good advice?’
‘I have not asked you to stay. Go now, at any rate. And, remember, Conway, if this picture is to go on, I will not have you remaining here after the work is done. Will you remember that?’ And she held him by the hand while he declared that he would remember it.
Mrs Dobbs Broughton was no more in love with Conway Dalrymple than she was in love with King Charles on horseback at Charing Cross. And, over and beyond the protection which came to her in the course of nature from impassioned feelings in this special phase of her life–and indeed, if I may say, in every phase of her life–it must be acknowledged on her behalf that she did enjoy that protection which comes from what we call principle–though the principle was not perhaps very high of its kind. Madalina Demolines had been right when she talked of her friend Maria’s principles. Dobbs Broughton had been so far lucky in that jump in the dark which he had made in taking a wife to himself, that he had not fallen upon a really vicious woman, or upon a woman of strong feeling. It had come to be the lot of Mrs Dobbs Broughton to have six hours’ work every day of her life, I think that the work would have been done badly, but that it would have kept her free from all danger. As it was she had nothing to do. She had no child. She was not given to much reading. She could not sit with a needle in her hand all day. She had no aptitude for May meetings, or the excitement of charitable good works. Life with her was very dull, and she found no amusement within her reach so easy and so pleasant as the amusement of pretending to be in love. If all that she did and all that she said could only have been taken for its worth and for nothing more, by the different persons concerned, there was very little in it to flatter Mr Dalrymple or to give cause for tribulation to Mr Broughton. She probably cared but little for either of them. She was one of those women to whom it is not given by nature to care very much for anybody. But, of the two, she certainly cared the most for Mr Dobbs Broughton–because Mr Dobbs Broughton belonged to her. As to leaving Mr Dobbs Broughton’s house, and putting herself into the hands of another man–no Imogen of a wife was ever less likely to take step so wicked, so dangerous, and so generally disagreeable to all the parties concerned.
But Conway Dalrymple–though now and again he had got a side glance at her true character with a clear-seeing eye–did allow himself to be flattered and deceived. He knew that she was foolish and ignorant, and that she often talked wonderful nonsense. He knew also that she was continually contradicting herself–as when she would strenuously beg him to leave her, while she would continue to talk to him in a strain that prevented the possibility of his going. But, nevertheless, he was flattered, and he did believe that she loved him. As to his love for her–he knew very well that it amounted to nothing. Now and again, perhaps, twice a week, if he saw her as often, he would say something which would imply a declaration of affection. He felt that as much as that was expected from him, and that he ought not to hope to get off cheaper. And now that this little play was going on about Miss Van Siever, he did think that Mrs Dobbs Broughton was doing her very best to overcome an unfortunate attachment. It is so gratifying to a young man’s feelings to suppose that another man’s wife has conceived an unfortunate attachment for him! Conway Dalrymple ought not to have been fooled by such a woman; but I fear that he was fooled by her.
As he returned home today from Mrs Broughton’s house to his own lodgings he rambled out for a while into Kensington Gardens, and thought of his position seriously. ‘I don’t see why I should not marry her,’ he said to himself, thinking of course of Miss Van Siever. ‘If Maria is not in earnest it is not my fault. And it would be my wish that she should be in earnest. If I suppose her to be so, and take her at her word, she can have no right to quarrel with me. Poor Maria! At any rate it will be better for her, for no good can come of this kind of thing. And, by heavens, with a woman like that, of strong feelings, one never knows what may happen.’ And then he thought of the condition he would be in, if he were to find her some fine day in his own rooms, and if she were to tell him that she could not go home again, and that she meant to remain with him!
In the meantime Mrs Dobbs Broughton has gone down into her own drawing-room, had tucked herself up on the sofa, and had fallen fast asleep.
CHAPTER XXXIX
A NEW FLIRTATION
John Eames sat at his office on the day after his return to London, and answered the various letters which he had found waiting for him at his lodgings on the previous evening. To Miss Demolines he had already written from his club, a single line, which he considered to be appropriate to the mysterious necessities of the occasion. ‘I will be with you at a quarter to six tomorrow.–J E. Just returned.’ There was not another word; and as he scrawled it at one of the club tables while two or three other men were talking to him, he felt rather proud of his correspondence. ‘It was capital fun,’ he said; ‘and after all’–the ‘all’ on this occasion being Lily Dale, and the sadness of his disappointment at Allington–‘after all, let a fellow be ever so down in the mouth, a little amusement should do him good.’ And he reflected further that the more a fellow be ‘down in the mouth’, the more good the amusement would do him. He sent off his note, therefore, with some little inward rejoicing–and a word of two also of spoken rejoicing. ‘What fun women are sometimes,’ he said to one of his friends–a friend with whom he was very intimate, calling him always Fred, and slapping his back, but whom he never by any chance saw out of his club.
‘What up to now, Johnny? Some good fortune?’
‘Good fortune, no. I never saw good fortune of that kind. But I’ve got hold of a young woman–or rather a young woman has got hold of me, who insists on having mystery with me. In the mystery itself there is not the slightest interest. But the mysteriousness of it is charming. I have just written to her three words to settle an appointment for tomorrow. We don’t sign our names lest the Postmaster General should find out about it.’
‘Is she pretty?’
‘Well;–she isn’t ugly. She has just enough of good looks to make the sort of thing pass off pleasantly. A mystery with a downright ugly young woman would be unpleasant.’
After this fashion the note from Miss Demolines had been received, and answered at once, but the other letters remained in his pocket till he reached his office on the following morning. Sir Raffle had begged him to be there at half-past nine. This he had sworn he would not do; but he did seat himself in his room at ten minutes before ten, finding of course the whole building untenanted at that early hour–that unearthly hour, as Johnny called it himself. ‘I shouldn’t wonder if he really is here this morning,’ Johnny said, as he entered the building, ‘just that he may have the opportunity of jumping on me.’ But Sir Raffle was not there, and then Johnny began to abuse Sir Raffle. ‘If I ever come here early to meet him again, because he says he means to be here himself, I hope I may be–blessed.’ On that especial morning it was twelve before Sir Raffle made his appearance, and Johnny avenged himself–I regret to have to tell it–by a fib. That Sir Raffle fibbed first, was no valid excuse whatever for Eames.
‘I’ve been at it ever since six o’clock,’ said Sir Raffle.
‘At what?’ said John.
‘Work, to be sure;–and very hard work too. I believe the Chancellor of the Exchequer thinks that he can call upon me to any extent that he pleases;–just any extent that he pleases. He doesn’t give me credit for a desire to have a single hour to myself.’
‘What would he do, Sir Raffle, if you were to get ill, or wear yourself out?’
‘He knows I’m not one of the wearing-out sort of men. You got my note last night?’
‘Yes; I got your note.’
‘I’m sorry that I troubled you; but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t expect to get a box full of papers at eleven o’clock last night.’
‘You didn’t put me out, Sir Raffle; I happened to have business of my own which prevented the possibility of my being here early.’
This was the way in which John Eames avenged himself. Sir Raffle turned his face upon his private secretary, and his face was very black. Johnny bore the gaze without dropping an eyelid. ‘I’m not going to stand it, and he may as well know that at once,’ Johnny said to one of his friends in the office afterwards. ‘If he ever wants anything really done, I’ll do it;–though it should take me twelve hours at a stretch. But I’m not going to pretend to believe all the lies he tells me about the Chancellor of the Exchequer. If that is to be part of the private secretary’s business, he had better get somebody else.’ But now Sir Raffle was very angry, and his countenance was full of wrath as he looked down upon his subordinate minister. ‘If I had come here, Mr Eames, and had found you absent, I should have been very much annoyed, very much annoyed indeed, after having written as I did.’
‘You would have found me absent at the hour you named. As I wasn’t there then, I think it’s only fair to say so.’
‘I’m afraid you begrudge your time to the service, Mr Eames.’
‘I do begrudge it when the service doesn’t want it.’
‘At your age, Mr Eames, that’s not for you to judge. If I had acted in that way when I was young I should never have filled the position I now hold. I always remembered in those days that as I was the hand and not the head, I was bound to hold myself in readiness whether work might be required of me or not.’
‘If I’m wanted as hand now, Sir Raffle, I’m ready.’
‘That’s all very well;–but why were you not here at the hour I named?’
‘Well, Sir Raffle, I cannot say that the Chancellor of the Exchequer detained me;–but there was business. As I’ve been here for the last two hours, I am happy to think that in this instance the public service will not have suffered by my disobedience.’
Sir Raffle was still standing with his hat on, and with his back to the fire, and his countenance was full of wrath. It was on his tongue to tell Johnny that he had better return to his former work in the outer office. He greatly wanted the comfort of a private secretary who would believe in him–or at least pretend to believe in him. There are men who, though they have not sense enough to be true, have nevertheless sense enough to know that they cannot expect to be really believed in by those who are near enough to them to know them. Sir Raffle Buffle was