The Small House at Allington
for the elegant term which he used.] But all that must
be over between you now. _Amelia has promised to be
mine_--[this also was underscored]--and mine I intend that
she shall be. That you may find in the kind smiles of
L. D. consolation for any disappointment which this may
occasion you, is the ardent wish of your true friend,
JOSEPH CRADELL.
P.S.--Perhaps I had better tell you the whole. Mrs. Roper
has been in some trouble about her house. She is a little
in arrears with her rent, and some bills have not been
paid. As she explained that she has been brought into this
by those dreadful Lupexes I have consented to take the
house into my own hands, and have given bills to one or
two tradesmen for small amounts. Of course she will take
them up, but it was the credit that was wanting. She
will carry on the house, but I shall, in fact, be the
proprietor. I suppose it will not suit you now to remain
here, but don't you think I might make it comfortable
enough for some of our fellows; say half-a-dozen, or so?
That is Mrs. Roper's idea, and I certainly think it is not
a bad one. Our first efforts must be to get rid of the
Lupexes. Miss Spruce goes next week. In the meantime we
are all taking our meals up in our own rooms, so that
there is nothing for the Lupexes to eat. But they don't
seem to mind that, and still keep the sitting-room and
best bedroom. We mean to lock them out after Tuesday, and
send all their boxes to the public-house.
Poor Cradell! Eames, as he threw himself back upon his seat and
contemplated the depth of misfortune into which his friend had
fallen, began to be almost in love with his own position. He himself
was, no doubt, a very miserable fellow. There was only one thing
in life worth living for, and that he could not get. He had been
thinking for the last three days of throwing himself before a
locomotive steam-engine, and was not quite sure that he would not
do it yet; but, nevertheless, his place was a place among the gods
as compared to that which poor Cradell had selected for himself.
To be not only the husband of Amelia Roper, but to have been driven
to take upon himself as his bride's fortune the whole of his
future mother-in-law's debts! To find himself the owner of a very
indifferent lodging-house;--the owner as regarded all responsibility,
though not the owner as regarded any possible profit! And then, above
and almost worse than all the rest, to find himself saddled with the
Lupexes in the beginning of his career! Poor Cradell indeed!
Eames had not taken his things away from the lodging-house before he
left London, and therefore determined to drive to Burton Crescent
immediately on his arrival, not with the intention of remaining
there, even for a night, but that he might bid them farewell, speak
his congratulations to Amelia, and arrange for his final settlement
with Mrs. Roper. It should have been explained in the last chapter
that the earl had told him before parting with him that his want of
success with Lily would make no difference as regarded money. John
had, of course, expostulated, saying that he did not want anything,
and would not, under his existing circumstances, accept anything; but
the earl was a man who knew how to have his own way, and in this
matter did have it. Our friend, therefore, was a man of wealth when
he returned to London, and could tell Mrs. Roper that he would send
her a cheque for her little balance as soon as he reached his office.
He arrived in the middle of the day,--not timing his return at all
after the usual manner of Government clerks, who generally manage to
reach the metropolis not more than half an hour before the moment
at which they are bound to show themselves in their seats. But he
had come back two days before he was due, and had run away from the
country as though London in May to him were much pleasanter than the
woods and fields. But neither had London nor the woods and fields any
influence on his return. He had gone down that he might throw himself
at the feet of Lily Dale,--gone down, as he now confessed to himself,
with hopes almost triumphant, and he had returned because Lily Dale
would not have him at her feet. "I loved him,--him, Crosbie,--better
than all the world besides. It is still the same. I still love him
better than all the world." Those were the words which had driven him
back to London; and having been sent away with such words as those,
it was little matter to him whether he reached his office a day or
two sooner or later. The little room in the city, even with the
accompaniment of Sir Raffle's bell and Sir Raffle's voice, would be
now more congenial to him than Lady Julia's drawing-room. He would
therefore present himself to Sir Raffle on that very afternoon, and
expel some interloper from his seat. But he would first call in
Burton Crescent and say farewell to the Ropers.
The door was opened for him by the faithful Jemima. "Mr. Heames, Mr.
Heames! ho dear, ho dear!" and the poor girl, who had always taken
his side in the adventures of the lodging-house, raised her hands on
high and lamented the fate which had separated her favourite from its
fortunes. "I suppose you knows it all, Mister Johnny?" Mister Johnny
said that he believed he did know it all, and asked for the mistress
of the house. "Yes, sure enough, she's at home. She don't dare stir
out much, 'cause of them Lupexes. Ain't this a pretty game? No dinner
and no nothink! Them boxes is Miss Spruce's. She's agoing now, this
minute. You'll find 'em all upstairs in the drawen-room." So upstairs
into the drawing-room he went, and there he found the mother and
daughter, and with them Miss Spruce, tightly packed up in her bonnet
and shawl. "Don't, mother," Amelia was saying; "what's the good of
going on in that way? If she chooses to go, let her go."
"But she's been with me now so many years," said Mrs. Roper, sobbing;
"and I've always done everything for her! Haven't I, now, Sally
Spruce?" It struck Eames immediately that, though he had been an
inmate in the house for two years, he had never before heard that
maiden lady's Christian name. Miss Spruce was the first to see Eames
as he entered the room. It is probable that Mrs. Roper's pathos might
have produced some answering pathos on her part had she remained
unobserved, but the sight of a young man brought her back to her
usual state of quiescence. "I'm only an old woman," said she; "and
here's Mr. Eames come back again."
"How d'ye do, Mrs. Roper? how d'ye do,--Amelia? how d'ye do, Miss
Spruce?" and he shook hands with them all.
"Oh, laws," said Mrs. Roper, "you have given me such a start!"
"Dear me, Mr. Eames; only think of your coming back in that way,"
said Amelia.
"Well, what way should I come back? You didn't hear me knock at the
door, that's all. So Miss Spruce is really going to leave you?"
"Isn't it dreadful, Mr. Eames? Nineteen years we've been
together;--taking both houses together, Miss Spruce, we have,
indeed." Miss Spruce, at this point, struggled very hard to convince
John Eames that the period in question had in truth extended over
only eighteen years, but Mrs. Roper was authoritative, and would not
permit it. "It's nineteen years if it's a day. No one ought to know
dates if I don't, and there isn't one in the world understands her
ways unless it's me. Haven't I been up to your bedroom every night,
and with my own hand given you--" But she stopped herself, and was
too good a woman to declare before a young man what had been the
nature of her nightly ministrations to her guest.
"I don't think you'll be so comfortable anywhere else, Miss Spruce,"
said Eames.
"Comfortable! of course she won't," said Amelia. "But if I was mother
I wouldn't have any more words about it."
"It isn't the money I'm thinking of, but the feeling of it," said
Mrs. Roper. "The house will be so lonely like. I shan't know myself;
that I shan't. And now that things are all settled so pleasantly, and
that the Lupexes must go on Tuesday-- I'll tell you what, Sally; I'll
pay for the cab myself, and I'll start off to Dulwich by the omnibus
to-morrow, and settle it all out of my own pocket. I will indeed.
Come; there's the cab. Let me go down, and send him away."
"I'll do that," said Eames. "It's only sixpence, off the stand,"
Mrs. Roper called to him as he left the room. But the cabman got
a shilling, and John, as he returned, found Jemima in the act of
carrying Miss Spruce's boxes back to her room. "So much the better
for poor Caudle," said he to himself. "As he has gone into the trade
it's well that he should have somebody that will pay him."
Mrs. Roper followed Miss Spruce up the stairs and Johnny was left
with Amelia. "He's written to you, I know," said she, with her face
turned a little away from him. She was certainly very handsome, but
there was a hard, cross, almost sullen look about her, which robbed
her countenance of all its pleasantness. And yet she had no intention
of being sullen with him.
"Yes," said John. "He has told me how it's all going to be."
"Well?" she said.
"Well?" said he.
"Is that all you've got to say?"
"I'll congratulate you, if you'll let me."
"Psha;--congratulations! I hate such humbug. If you've no feelings
about it, I'm sure that I've none. Indeed I don't know what's the
good of feelings. They never did me any good. Are you engaged to
marry L. D.?"
"No, I am not."
"And you've nothing else to say to me?"
"Nothing,--except my hopes for your happiness. What else can I say?
You are engaged to marry my friend Cradell, and I think it will be a
happy match."
She turned away her face further from him, and the look of it became
even more sullen. Could it be possible that at such a moment she
still had a hope that he might come back to her?
"Good-by, Amelia," he said, putting out his hand to her.
"And this is to be the last of you in this house!"
"Well, I don't know about that. I'll come and call upon you, if
you'll let me, when you're married."
"Yes," she said, "that there may be rows in the house, and noise, and
jealousy,--as there have been with that wicked woman upstairs. Not
if I know it, you won't! John Eames, I wish I'd never seen you. I
wish we might have both fallen dead when we first met. I didn't think
ever to have cared for a man as I have cared for you. It's all trash
and nonsense and foolery; I know that. It's all very well for young
ladies as can sit in drawing-rooms all their lives, but when a woman
has her way to make in the world it's all foolery. And such a hard
way too to make as mine is!"
"But it won't be hard now."
"Won't it? But I think it will. I wish you would try it. Not that I'm
going to complain. I never minded work, and as for company, I can put
up with anybody. The world's not to be all dancing and fiddling for
the likes of me. I know that well enough. But--" and then she paused.
"What's the 'but' about, Amelia?"
"It's like you to ask me; isn't it?" To tell the truth he should not
have asked her. "Never mind. I'm not going to have any words with
you. If you've been a knave I've been a fool, and that's worse."
"But I don't think I have been a knave."
"I've been both," said the girl; "and both for nothing. After that
you may go. I've told you what I am, and I'll leave you to name
yourself. I didn't think it was in me to have been such a fool. It's
that that frets me. Never mind, sir; it's all over now, and I wish
you good-by."
I do not think that there was the slightest reason why John should
have again kissed her at parting, but he did so. She bore it, not
struggling with him; but she took his caress with sullen endurance.
"It'll be the last," she said. "Good-by, John Eames."