The Small House at Allington
will you not?"
"You may be quite sure of that."
"And so the time will go by till it suits you to come and take me. I
shall not be unhappy."
"I, at any rate, shall be impatient."
"Ah, men always are impatient. It is one of their privileges, I
suppose. And I don't think that a man ever has the same positive
and complete satisfaction in knowing that he is loved, which a girl
feels. You are my bird that I have shot with my own gun; and the
assurance of my success is sufficient for my happiness."
"You have bowled me over, and know that I can't get up again."
"I don't know about can't. I would let you up quick enough, if you
wished it."
How he made his loving assurance that he did not wish it, never would
or could wish it, the reader will readily understand. And then he
considered that he might as well leave all those money questions as
they now stood. His real object had been to convince her that their
joint circumstances did not admit of an immediate marriage; and as to
that she completely understood him. Perhaps, during the next three
days, some opportunity might arise for explaining the whole matter to
Mrs. Dale. At any rate, he had declared his own purpose honestly, and
no one could complain of him.
On the following day they all rode over to Guestwick together,--the
all consisting of the two girls, with Bernard and Crosbie. Their
object was to pay two visits,--one to their very noble and highly
exalted ally, the Lady Julia De Guest; and the other to their much
humbler and better known friend, Mrs. Eames. As Guestwick Manor lay
on their road into the town, they performed the grander ceremony the
first. The present Earl De Guest, brother of that Lady Fanny who ran
away with Major Dale, was an unmarried nobleman, who devoted himself
chiefly to the breeding of cattle. And as he bred very good cattle,
taking infinite satisfaction in the employment, devoting all his
energies thereto, and abstaining from all prominently evil courses,
it should be acknowledged that he was not a bad member of society.
He was a thorough-going old Tory, whose proxy was always in the hand
of the leader of his party; and who seldom himself went near the
metropolis, unless called thither by some occasion of cattle-showing.
He was a short, stumpy man, with red cheeks and a round face; who
was usually to be seen till dinner-time dressed in a very old
shooting coat, with breeches, gaiters, and very thick shoes. He lived
generally out of doors, and was almost as great in the preserving
of game as in the breeding of oxen. He knew every acre of his own
estate, and every tree upon it, as thoroughly as a lady knows the
ornaments in her drawing-room. There was no gap in a fence of which
he did not remember the exact bearings, no path hither or thither as
to which he could not tell the why and the wherefore. He had been
in his earlier years a poor man as regarded his income,--very poor,
seeing that he was an earl. But he was not at present by any means an
impoverished man, having been taught a lesson by the miseries of his
father and grandfather, and having learned to live within his means.
Now, as he was going down the vale of years, men said that he was
becoming rich, and that he had ready money to spend,--a position in
which no Lord De Guest had found himself for many generations back.
His father and grandfather had been known as spendthrifts; and now
men said that this earl was a miser.
There was not much of nobility in his appearance; but they greatly
mistook Lord De Guest who conceived that on that account his pride of
place was not dear to his soul. His peerage dated back to the time of
King John, and there were but three lords in England whose patents
had been conferred before his own. He knew what privileges were due
to him on behalf of his blood, and was not disposed to abate one
jot of them. He was not loud in demanding them. As he went through
the world he sent no trumpeters to the right or left, proclaiming
that the Earl De Guest was coming. When he spread his board for his
friends, which he did but on rare occasions, he entertained them
simply, with a mild, tedious, old-fashioned courtesy. We may say
that, if properly treated, the earl never walked over anybody. But he
could, if ill-treated, be grandly indignant; and if attacked, could
hold his own against all the world. He knew himself to be every
inch an earl, pottering about after his oxen with his muddy gaiters
and red cheeks, as much as though he were glittering with stars in
courtly royal ceremonies among his peers at Westminster;--ay, more an
earl than any of those who use their nobility for pageant purposes.
Woe be to him who should mistake that old coat for a badge of rural
degradation! Now and again some unlucky wight did make such a
mistake, and had to do his penance very uncomfortably.
With the earl lived a maiden sister, the Lady Julia. Bernard Dale's
father had, in early life, run away with one sister, but no suitor
had been fortunate enough to induce the Lady Julia to run with him.
Therefore she still lived, in maiden blessedness, as mistress of
Guestwick Manor; and as such had no mean opinion of the high position
which destiny had called upon her to fill. She was a tedious, dull,
virtuous old woman, who gave herself infinite credit for having
remained all her days in the home of her youth, probably forgetting,
in her present advanced years, that her temptations to leave it had
not been strong or numerous. She generally spoke of her sister Fanny
with some little contempt, as though that poor lady had degraded
herself in marrying a younger brother. She was as proud of her own
position as was the earl her brother, but her pride was maintained
with more of outward show and less of inward nobility. It was hardly
enough for her that the world should know that she was a De Guest,
and therefore she had assumed little pompous ways and certain airs of
condescension which did not make her popular with her neighbours.
The intercourse between Guestwick Manor and Allington was not very
frequent or very cordial. Soon after the running away of the Lady
Fanny, the two families had agreed to acknowledge their connection
with each other, and to let it be known by the world that they were
on friendly terms. Either that course was necessary to them, or
the other course, of letting it be known that they were enemies.
Friendship was the less troublesome, and therefore the two families
called on each other from time to time, and gave each other dinners
about once a year. The earl regarded the squire as a man who had
deserted his politics, and had thereby forfeited the respect due
to him as an hereditary land magnate; and the squire was wont to
be-little the earl as one who understood nothing of the outer world.
At Guestwick Manor Bernard was to some extent a favourite. He was
actually a relative, having in his veins blood of the De Guests, and
was not the less a favourite because he was the heir to Allington,
and because the blood of the Dales was older even than that of the
noble family to which he was allied. When Bernard should come to be
the squire, then indeed there might be cordial relations between
Guestwick Manor and Allington; unless, indeed, the earl's heir and
the squire's heir should have some fresh cause of ill-will between
themselves.
They found Lady Julia sitting in her drawing-room alone, and
introduced to her Mr. Crosbie in due form. The fact of Lily's
engagement was of course known at the manor, and it was quite
understood that her intended husband was now brought over that he
might be looked at and approved. Lady Julia made a very elaborate
curtsey, and expressed a hope that her young friend might be made
happy in that sphere of life to which it had pleased God to call her.
"I hope I shall, Lady Julia," said Lily, with a little laugh; "at any
rate I mean to try."
"We all try, my dear, but many of us fail to try with sufficient
energy of purpose. It is only by doing our duty that we can hope to
be happy, whether in single life or in married."
"Miss Dale means to be a dragon of perfection in the performance of
hers," said Crosbie.
"A dragon!" said Lady Julia. "No; I hope Miss Lily Dale will never
become a dragon." And then she turned to her nephew. It may be as
well to say at once that she never forgave Mr. Crosbie the freedom of
the expression which he had used. He had been in the drawing-room of
Guestwick Manor for two minutes only, and it did not become him to
talk about dragons. "Bernard," she said, "I heard from your mother
yesterday. I am afraid she does not seem to be very strong." And then
there was a little conversation, not very interesting in its nature,
between the aunt and the nephew as to the general health of Lady
Fanny.
"I didn't know my aunt was so unwell," said Bell.
"She isn't ill," said Bernard. "She never is ill; but then she is
never well."
"Your aunt," said Lady Julia, seeming to put a touch of sarcasm into
the tone of her voice as she repeated the word--"your aunt has never
enjoyed good health since she left this house; but that is a long
time ago."
"A very long time," said Crosbie, who was not accustomed to be left
in his chair silent. "You, Dale, at any rate, can hardly remember
it."
"But I can remember it," said Lady Julia, gathering herself up. "I
can remember when my sister Fanny was recognized as the beauty of the
country. It is a dangerous gift, that of beauty."
"Very dangerous," said Crosbie. Then Lily laughed again, and Lady
Julia became more angry than ever. What odious man was this whom her
neighbours were going to take into their very bosom! But she had
heard of Mr. Crosbie before, and Mr. Crosbie also had heard of her.
"By-the-by, Lady Julia," said he, "I think I know some very dear
friends of yours."
"Very dear friends is a very strong word. I have not many very dear
friends."
"I mean the Gazebees. I have heard Mortimer Gazebee and Lady Amelia
speak of you."
Whereupon Lady Julia confessed that she did know the Gazebees. Mr.
Gazebee, she said, was a man who in early life had wanted many
advantages, but still he was a very estimable person. He was now in
Parliament, and she understood that he was making himself useful. She
had not quite approved of Lady Amelia's marriage at the time, and
so she had told her very old friend Lady De Courcy; but-- And then
Lady Julia said many words in praise of Mr. Gazebee, which seemed to
amount to this; that he was an excellent sort of man, with a full
conviction of the too great honour done to him by the earl's daughter
who had married him, and a complete consciousness that even that
marriage had not put him on a par with his wife's relations, or even
with his wife. And then it came out that Lady Julia in the course of
the next week was going to meet the Gazebees at Courcy Castle.
"I am delighted to think that I shall have the pleasure of seeing you
there," said Crosbie.
"Indeed!" said Lady Julia.
"I am going to Courcy on Wednesday. That, I fear, will be too early
to allow of my being of any service to your ladyship."
Lady Julia drew herself up, and declined the escort which Mr. Crosbie
had seemed to offer. It grieved her to find that Lily Dale's future
husband was an intimate friend of her friend's, and it especially
grieved her to find that he was now going to that friend's house.
It was a grief to her, and she showed that it was. It also grieved
Crosbie to find that Lady Julia was to be a fellow guest with himself
at Courcy Castle; but he did not show it. He expressed nothing but
smiles and civil self-congratulation on the matter, pretending
that he would have much delight in again meeting Lady Julia; but,
in truth, he would have given much could he have invented any