The Small House at Allington
He had endeavoured to avoid any mention of Lady Hartletop and her
croquet ground, and her ladyship's name had been forced upon him.
Nevertheless, he liked Lily Dale through it all. But he thought that
he liked Bell the best, though she said little; for Bell was the
beauty of the family.
During the game Bernard remembered that they had especially come over
to bid the three ladies to dinner at the house on that day. They had
all dined there on the day before, and the girls' uncle had now sent
directions to them to come again. "I'll go and ask mamma about it,"
said Bell, who was out first. And then she returned, saying, that she
and her sister would obey their uncle's behest; but that her mother
would prefer to remain at home. "There are the peas to be eaten, you
know," said Lily.
"Send them up to the Great House," said Bernard.
"Hopkins would not allow it," said Lily. "He calls that a mixing of
things. Hopkins doesn't like mixings." And then when the game was
over, they sauntered about, out of the small garden into the larger
one, and through the shrubberies, and out upon the fields, where they
found the still lingering remnants of the haymaking. And Lily took a
rake, and raked for two minutes; and Mr. Crosbie, making an attempt
to pitch the hay into the cart, had to pay half-a-crown for his
footing to the haymakers; and Bell sat quiet under a tree, mindful
of her complexion; whereupon Mr. Crosbie, finding the hay-pitching
not much to his taste, threw himself under the same tree also, quite
after the manner of Apollo, as Lily said to her mother late in the
evening. Then Bernard covered Lily with hay, which was a great feat
in the jocose way for him; and Lily in returning the compliment,
almost smothered Mr. Crosbie,--by accident.
"Oh, Lily," said Bell.
"I'm sure I beg your pardon, Mr. Crosbie. It was Bernard's fault.
Bernard, I never will come into a hayfield with you again." And so
they all became very intimate; while Bell sat quietly under the tree,
listening to a word or two now and then as Mr. Crosbie chose to speak
them. There is a kind of enjoyment to be had in society, in which
very few words are necessary. Bell was less vivacious than her sister
Lily; and when, an hour after this, she was dressing herself for
dinner, she acknowledged that she had passed a pleasant afternoon,
though Mr. Crosbie had not said very much.
CHAPTER III.
THE WIDOW DALE OF ALLINGTON.
As Mrs. Dale, of the Small House, was not a Dale by birth, there
can be no necessity for insisting on the fact that none of the
Dale peculiarities should be sought for in her character. These
peculiarities were not, perhaps, very conspicuous in her daughters,
who had taken more in that respect from their mother than from their
father; but a close observer might recognize the girls as Dales. They
were constant, perhaps obstinate, occasionally a little uncharitable
in their judgment, and prone to think that there was a great deal
in being a Dale, though not prone to say much about it. But they
had also a better pride than this, which had come to them as their
mother's heritage.
Mrs. Dale was certainly a proud woman,--not that there was anything
appertaining to herself in which she took a pride. In birth she had
been much lower than her husband, seeing that her grandfather had
been almost nobody. Her fortune had been considerable for her rank
in life, and on its proceeds she now mainly depended; but it had not
been sufficient to give any of the pride of wealth. And she had been
a beauty; according to my taste, was still very lovely; but certainly
at this time of life, she, a widow of fifteen years' standing, with
two grown-up daughters, took no pride in her beauty. Nor had she
any conscious pride in the fact that she was a lady. That she was a
lady, inwards and outwards, from the crown of her head to the sole
of her feet, in head, in heart, and in mind, a lady by education and
a lady by nature, a lady also by birth in spite of that deficiency
respecting her grandfather, I hereby state as a fact--meo periculo.
And the squire, though he had no special love for her, had recognized
this, and in all respects treated her as his equal.
But her position was one which required that she should either be
very proud or else very humble. She was poor, and yet her daughters
moved in a position which belongs, as a rule, to the daughters of
rich men only. This they did as nieces of the childless squire of
Allington, and as his nieces she felt that they were entitled to
accept his countenance and kindness, without loss of self-respect
either to her or to them. She would have ill done her duty as a
mother to them had she allowed any pride of her own to come between
them and such advantage in the world as their uncle might be able to
give them. On their behalf she had accepted the loan of the house in
which she lived, and the use of many of the appurtenances belonging
to her brother-in-law; but on her own account she had accepted
nothing. Her marriage with Philip Dale had been disliked by his
brother the squire, and the squire, while Philip was still living,
had continued to show that his feelings in this respect were not
to be overcome. They never had been overcome; and now, though the
brother-in-law and sister-in-law had been close neighbours for years,
living as one may say almost in the same family, they had never
become friends. There had not been a word of quarrel between them.
They met constantly. The squire had unconsciously come to entertain a
profound respect for his brother's widow. The widow had acknowledged
to herself the truth of the affection shown by the uncle to her
daughters. But yet they had never come together as friends. Of her
own money matters Mrs. Dale had never spoken a word to the squire.
Of his intention respecting the girls the squire had never spoken a
word to the mother. And in this way they had lived and were living at
Allington.
The life which Mrs. Dale led was not altogether an easy life,--was
not devoid of much painful effort on her part. The theory of her life
one may say was this--that she should bury herself in order that
her daughters might live well above ground. And in order to carry
out this theory, it was necessary that she should abstain from all
complaint or show of uneasiness before her girls. Their life above
ground would not be well if they understood that their mother, in
this underground life of hers, was enduring any sacrifice on their
behalf. It was needful that they should think that the picking of
peas in a sun-bonnet, or long readings by her own fire-side, and
solitary hours spent in thinking, were specially to her mind. "Mamma
doesn't like going out." "I don't think mamma is happy anywhere out
of her own drawing-room." I do not say that the girls were taught to
say such words, but they were taught to have thoughts which led to
such words, and in the early days of their going out into the world
used so to speak of their mother. But a time came to them before
long,--to one first and then to the other, in which they knew that
it was not so, and knew also all that their mother had suffered for
their sakes.
And in truth Mrs. Dale could have been as young in heart as they
were. She, too, could have played croquet, and have coquetted with
a haymaker's rake, and have delighted in her pony, ay, and have
listened to little nothings from this and that Apollo, had she
thought that things had been conformable thereto. Women at forty do
not become ancient misanthropes, or stern Rhadamanthine moralists,
indifferent to the world's pleasures--no, not even though they be
widows. There are those who think that such should be the phase of
their minds. I profess that I do not so think. I would have women,
and men also, young as long as they can be young. It is not that a
woman should call herself in years younger than her father's family
Bible will have her to be. Let her who is forty call herself forty;
but if she can be young in spirit at forty, let her show that she is
so.
I think that Mrs. Dale was wrong. She would have joined that party on
the croquet ground, instead of remaining among the pea-sticks in her
sun-bonnet, had she done as I would have counselled her. Not a word
was spoken among the four that she did not hear. Those pea-sticks
were only removed from the lawn by a low wall and a few shrubs. She
listened, not as one suspecting, but simply as one loving. The voices
of her girls were very dear to her, and the silver ringing tones of
Lily's tongue were as sweet to her ears as the music of the gods. She
heard all that about Lady Hartletop, and shuddered at Lily's bold
sarcasm. And she heard Lily say that mamma would stay at home and
eat the peas, and said to herself sadly that that was now her lot in
life.
"Dear darling girl,--and so it should be!"
It was thus her thoughts ran. And then, when her ear had traced them,
as they passed across the little bridge into the other grounds, she
returned across the lawn to the house with her burden on her arm,
and sat herself down on the step of the drawing-room window, looking
out on the sweet summer flowers and the smooth surface of the grass
before her.
Had not God done well for her to place her where she was? Had not her
lines been set for her in pleasant places? Was she not happy in her
girls,--her sweet, loving, trusting, trusty children? As it was to be
that her lord, that best half of herself, was to be taken from her in
early life, and that the springs of all the lighter pleasures were to
be thus stopped for her, had it not been well that in her bereavement
so much had been done to soften her lot in life and give it grace and
beauty? 'Twas so, she argued with herself, and yet she acknowledged
to herself that she was not happy. She had resolved, as she herself
had said often, to put away childish things, and now she pined for
those things which she so put from her. As she sat she could still
hear Lily's voice as they went through the shrubbery,--hear it when
none but a mother's ears would have distinguished the sound. Now
that those young men were at the Great House it was natural that her
girls should be there too. The squire would not have had young men to
stay with him had there been no ladies to grace his table. But for
her,--she knew that no one would want her there. Now and again she
must go, as otherwise her very existence, without going, would be a
thing disagreeably noticeable. But there was no other reason why she
should join the party; nor in joining it would she either give or
receive pleasure. Let her daughters eat from her brother's table and
drink of his cup. They were made welcome to do so from the heart. For
her there was no such welcome as that at the Great House,--nor at any
other house, or any other table!
"Mamma will stay at home to eat the peas."
And then she repeated to herself the words which Lily had spoken,
sitting there, leaning with her elbow on her knee, and her head upon
her hand.
"Please, ma'am, cook says, can we have the peas to shell?" and then
her reverie was broken.
[ILLUSTRATION: "Please, ma'am, can we have the peas to shell?"]
Whereupon Mrs. Dale got up and gave over her basket. "Cook knows that
the young ladies are going to dine at the Great House?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"She needn't mind getting dinner for me. I will have tea early." And
so, after all, Mrs. Dale did not perform that special duty appointed
for her.
But she soon set herself to work upon another duty. When a family
of three persons has to live upon an income of three hundred a year,
and, nevertheless, makes some pretence of going into society, it has
to be very mindful of small details, even though that family may
consist only of ladies. Of this Mrs. Dale was well aware, and as