The Small House at Allington
"Oh, dear, no. I think I'll go back through the squire's fields, and
out on the road at the white gate. The path is quite dry now."
"I dare say it is," said Mrs. Dale.
"Lily, I wonder whether you would come as far as that with me."
As the request was made Mrs. Dale looked at her daughter almost
beseechingly. "Do, pray do," said he; "it is a beautiful day for
walking."
The path proposed lay right across the field into which Lily had
taken Crosbie when she made her offer to let him off from his
engagement. Could it be possible that she should ever walk there
again with another lover? "No, John," she said; "not to-day, I think.
I am almost tired, and I had rather not go out."
"It would do you good," said Mrs. Dale.
"I don't want to be done good to, mamma. Besides, I should have to
come back by myself."
"I'll come back with you," said Johnny.
"Oh, yes; and then I should have to go again with you. But, John,
really I don't wish to walk to-day." Whereupon John Eames again put
down his hat.
"Lily," said he; and then he stopped. Mrs. Dale walked away to the
window, turning her back upon her daughter and visitor. "Lily, I have
come over here on purpose to speak to you. Indeed, I have come down
from London only that I might see you."
"Have you, John?"
"Yes, I have. You know well all that I have got to tell you. I loved
you before he ever saw you; and now that he has gone, I love you
better than I ever did. Dear Lily!" and he put out his hand to her.
"No, John; no," she answered.
"Must it be always no?"
"Always no to that. How can it be otherwise? You would not have me
marry you while I love another!"
"But he is gone. He has taken another wife."
"I cannot change myself because he is changed. If you are kind to me
you will let that be enough."
"But you are so unkind to me!"
"No, no; oh, I would wish to be so kind to you! John, here; take my
hand. It is the hand of a friend who loves you, and will always love
you. Dear John, I will do anything,--everything for you but that."
"There is only one thing," said he, still holding her by the hand,
but with his face turned from her.
"Nay; do not say so. Are you worse off than I am? I could not have
that one thing, and I was nearer to my heart's longings than you have
ever been. I cannot have that one thing; but I know that there are
other things, and I will not allow myself to be broken-hearted."
"You are stronger than I am," he said.
"Not stronger, but more certain. Make yourself as sure as I am, and
you, too, will be strong. Is it not so, mamma?"
"I wish it could be otherwise;--I wish it could be otherwise! If you
can give him any hope--"
"Mamma!"
"Tell me that I may come again,--in a year," he pleaded.
"I cannot tell you so. You may not come again,--not in this way. Do
you remember what I told you before, in the garden; that I loved him
better than all the world besides? It is still the same. I still love
him better than all the world. How, then, can I give you any hope?"
"But it will not be so for ever, Lily."
"For ever! Why should he not be mine as well as hers when that for
ever comes? John, if you understand what it is to love, you will say
nothing more of it. I have spoken to you more openly about this than
I have ever done to anybody, even to mamma, because I have wished to
make you understand my feelings. I should be disgraced in my own eyes
if I admitted the love of another man, after--after--. It is to me
almost as though I had married him. I am not blaming him, remember.
These things are different with a man."
She had not dropped his hand, and as she made her last speech was
sitting in her old chair with her eyes fixed upon the ground. She
spoke in a low voice, slowly, almost with difficulty; but still the
words came very clearly, with a clear, distinct voice which caused
them to be remembered with accuracy, both by Eames and Mrs. Dale. To
him it seemed to be impossible that he should continue his suit after
such a declaration. To Mrs. Dale they were terrible words, speaking
of a perpetual widowhood, and telling of an amount of suffering
greater even than that which she had anticipated. It was true that
Lily had never said so much to her as she had now said to John
Eames, or had attempted to make so clear an exposition of her own
feelings. "I should be disgraced in my own eyes if I admitted the
love of another man!" They were terrible words, but very easy to be
understood. Mrs. Dale had felt, from the first, that Eames was coming
too soon, that the earl and the squire together were making an effort
to cure the wound too quickly after its infliction; that time should
have been given to her girl to recover. But now the attempt had been
made, and words had been forced from Lily's lips, the speaking of
which would never be forgotten by herself.
"I knew that it would be so," said John.
"Ah, yes; you know it, because your heart understands my heart. And
you will not be angry with me, and say naughty, cruel words, as you
did once before. We will think of each other, John, and pray for each
other; and will always love one another. When we do meet let us be
glad to see each other. No other friend shall ever be dearer to me
than you are. You are so true and honest! When you marry I will tell
your wife what an infinite blessing God has given her."
"You shall never do that."
"Yes, I will. I understand what you mean; but yet I will."
"Good-by, Mrs. Dale," he said.
"Good-by, John. If it could have been otherwise with her, you should
have had all my best wishes in the matter. I would have loved you
dearly as my son; and I will love you now." Then she put up her lips
and kissed his face.
"And so will I love you," said Lily, giving him her hand again. He
looked longingly into her face as though he had thought it possible
that she also might kiss him: then he pressed her hand to his lips,
and without speaking any further farewell, took up his hat and left
the room.
"Poor fellow!" said Mrs. Dale.
"They should not have let him come," said Lily. "But they don't
understand. They think that I have lost a toy, and they mean to be
good-natured, and to give me another." Very shortly after that Lily
went away by herself, and sat alone for hours; and when she joined
her mother again at tea-time, nothing further was said of John
Eames's visit.
He made his way out by the front door, and through the churchyard,
and in this way on to the field through which he had asked Lily to
walk with him. He hardly began to think of what had passed till he
had left the squire's house behind him. As he made his way through
the tombstones he paused and read one, as though it interested him.
He stood a moment under the tower looking up at the clock, and then
pulled out his own watch, as though to verify the one by the other.
He made, unconsciously, a struggle to drive away from his thoughts
the facts of the late scene, and for some five or ten minutes he
succeeded. He said to himself a word or two about Sir Raffle and his
letters, and laughed inwardly as he remembered the figure of Rafferty
bringing in the knight's shoes. He had gone some half mile upon his
way before he ventured to stand still and tell himself that he had
failed in the great object of his life.
Yes; he had failed: and he acknowledged to himself, with bitter
reproaches, that he had failed, now and for ever. He told himself
that he had obtruded upon her in her sorrow with an unmannerly love,
and rebuked himself as having been not only foolish but ungenerous.
His friend the earl had been wont, in his waggish way, to call him
the conquering hero, and had so talked him out of his common sense
as to have made him almost think that he would be successful in his
suit. Now, as he told himself that any such success must have been
impossible, he almost hated the earl for having brought him to this
condition. A conquering hero, indeed! How should he manage to sneak
back among them all at the Manor House, crestfallen and abject in his
misery? Everybody knew the errand on which he had gone, and everybody
must know of his failure. How could he have been such a fool as to
undertake such a task under the eyes of so many lookers-on? Was it
not the case that he had so fondly expected success, as to think only
of his triumph in returning, and not of his more probable disgrace?
He had allowed others to make a fool of him, and had so made a fool
of himself that now all hope and happiness were over for him. How
could he escape at once out of the country,--back to London? How
could he get away without saying a word further to any one? That was
the thought that at first occupied his mind.
He crossed the road at the end of the squire's property, where the
parish of Allington divides itself from that of Abbot's Guest in
which the earl's house stands, and made his way back along the copse
which skirted the field in which they had encountered the bull, into
the high woods which were at the back of the park. Ah, yes; it had
been well for him that he had not come out on horseback. That ride
home along the high road and up to the Manor House stables would,
under his present circumstances, have been almost impossible to him.
As it was, he did not think it possible that he should return to
his place in the earl's house. How could he pretend to maintain his
ordinary demeanour under the eyes of those two old men? It would be
better for him to get home to his mother,--to send a message from
thence to the Manor, and then to escape back to London. So thinking,
but with no resolution made, he went on through the woods, and down
from the hill back towards the town till he again came to the little
bridge over the brook. There he stopped and stood a while with
his broad hand spread over the letters which he had cut in those
early days, so as to hide them from his sight. "What an ass I have
been,--always and ever!" he said to himself.
It was not only of his late disappointment that he was thinking, but
of his whole past life. He was conscious of his hobbledehoyhood,--of
that backwardness on his part in assuming manhood which had rendered
him incapable of making himself acceptable to Lily before she had
fallen into the clutches of Crosbie. As he thought of this he
declared to himself that if he could meet Crosbie again he would
again thrash him,--that he would so belabour him as to send him out
of the world, if such sending might possibly be done by fair beating,
regardless whether he himself might be called upon to follow him.
Was it not hard that for the two of them,--for Lily and for him
also,--there should be such punishment because of the insincerity of
that man? When he had thus stood upon the bridge for some quarter of
an hour, he took out his knife, and, with deep, rough gashes in the
wood, cut out Lily's name from the rail.
He had hardly finished, and was still looking at the chips as they
were being carried away by the stream, when a gentle step came close
up to him, and turning round, he saw that Lady Julia was on the
bridge. She was close to him, and had already seen his handiwork.
"Has she offended you, John?" she said.
"Oh, Lady Julia!"
"Has she offended you?"
"She has refused me, and it is all over."
[ILLUSTRATION: "She has refused me, and it is all over."]
"It may be that she has refused you, and that yet it need not be all
over. I am sorry that you have cut out the name, John. Do you mean to
cut it out from your heart?"
"Never. I would if I could, but I never shall."
"Keep to it as to a great treasure. It will be a joy to you in after
years, and not a sorrow. To have loved truly, even though you shall
have loved in vain, will be a consolation when you are as old as I
am. It is something to have had a heart."