The Small House at Allington
his heart softer than any exponent of his heart that he was able to
put forth. He wished to love his brother's children, and to be loved
by them; but even failing that, he wished to do good to them. It had
not occurred to him to be angry with Mrs. Dale after that interview
was over. The conversation had not gone pleasantly with him; but
then he hardly expected that things would go pleasantly. No idea had
occurred to him that evil could come upon any of the Dale ladies from
the words which had then been spoken. He regarded the Small House as
their abode and home as surely as the Great House was his own. In
giving him his due, it must be declared that any allusion to their
holding these as a benefit done to them by him had been very far
from his thoughts. Mrs. Hearn, who held her cottage at half its real
value, grumbled almost daily at him as her landlord; but it never
occurred to him that therefore he should raise her rent, or that in
not doing so he was acting with special munificence. It had ever been
to him a grumbling, cross-grained, unpleasant world; and he did not
expect from Mrs. Hearn, or from his sister-in-law, anything better
than that to which he had ever been used.
"It will make me very happy," said he, "if it has any bearing on
Bell's marriage with her cousin."
"Mr. Dale, that is out of the question. I would not vex you by saying
so if I were not certain of it; but I know my child so well!"
"Then we must leave it to time, Mary."
"Yes, of course; but no time will suffice to make Bell change her
mind. We will, however, leave the subject. And now, Mr. Dale, I have
to tell you of something else;--we have resolved to leave the Small
House."
"Resolved on what?" said the squire, turning his eyes full upon her.
"We have resolved to leave the Small House."
"Leave the Small House!" he said, repeating her words; "and where on
earth do you mean to go?"
"We think we shall go into Guestwick."
"And why?"
"Ah, that is so hard to explain. If you would only accept the fact as
I tell it to you, and not ask for the reasons which have guided me!"
"But that is out of the question, Mary. In such a matter as that I
must ask your reasons; and I must tell you also that, in my opinion,
you will not be doing your duty to your daughters in carrying out
such an intention, unless your reasons are very strong indeed."
"But they are very strong," said Mrs. Dale; and then she paused.
"I cannot understand it," said the squire. "I cannot bring myself
to believe that you are really in earnest. Are you not comfortable
there?"
"More comfortable than we have any right to be with our means."
"But I thought you always did very nicely with your money. You never
get into debt."
"No; I never get into debt. It is not that, exactly. The fact is,
Mr. Dale, we have no right to live there without paying rent; but we
could not afford to live there if we did pay rent."
"Who has talked about rent?" he said, jumping up from his chair.
"Some one has been speaking falsehoods of me behind my back." No
gleam of the real truth had yet come to him. No idea had reached his
mind that his relatives thought it necessary to leave his house in
consequence of any word that he himself had spoken. He had never
considered himself to have been in any special way generous to them,
and would not have thought it reasonable that they should abandon the
house in which they had been living, even if his anger against them
had been strong and hot. "Mary," he said, "I must insist upon getting
to the bottom of this. As for your leaving the house, it is out of
the question. Where can you be better off, or so well? As to going
into Guestwick, what sort of life would there be for the girls? I
put all that aside as out of the question; but I must know what has
induced you to make such a proposition. Tell me honestly,--has any
one spoken evil of me behind my back?"
Mrs. Dale had been prepared for opposition and for reproach; but
there was a decision about the squire's words, and an air of
masterdom in his manner, which made her recognize more fully than she
had yet done the difficulty of her position. She almost began to fear
that she would lack power to carry out her purpose.
"Indeed, it is not so, Mr. Dale."
"Then what is it?"
"I know that if I attempt to tell you, you will be vexed, and will
contradict me."
"Vexed I shall be, probably."
"And yet I cannot help it. Indeed, I am endeavouring to do what is
right by you and by the children."
"Never mind me; your duty is to think of them."
"Of course it is; and in doing this they most cordially agree with
me."
In using such argument as that, Mrs. Dale showed her weakness, and
the squire was not slow to take advantage of it. "Your duty is to
them," he said; "but I do not mean by that that your duty is to let
them act in any way that may best please them for the moment. I
can understand that they should be run away with by some romantic
nonsense, but I cannot understand it of you."
"The truth is this, Mr. Dale. You think that my children owe to you
that sort of obedience which is due to a parent, and as long as they
remain here, accepting from your hands so large a part of their daily
support, it is perhaps natural that you should think so. In this
unhappy affair about Bell--"
"I have never said anything of the kind," said the squire,
interrupting her.
"No; you have not said so. And I do not wish you to think that I
make any complaint. But I feel that it is so, and they feel it. And,
therefore, we have made up our minds to go away."
Mrs. Dale, as she finished, was aware that she had not told her story
well, but she had acknowledged to herself that it was quite out of
her power to tell it as it should be told. Her main object was to
make her brother-in-law understand that she certainly would leave his
house, and to make him understand this with as little pain to himself
as possible. She did not in the least mind his thinking her foolish,
if only she could so carry her point as to be able to tell her
daughters on her return that the matter was settled. But the squire,
from his words and manners, seemed indisposed to give her this
privilege.
"Of all the propositions which I ever heard," said he, "it is the
most unreasonable. It amounts to this, that you are too proud to live
rent-free in a house which belongs to your husband's brother, and
therefore you intend to subject yourself and your children to the
great discomfort of a very straitened income. If you yourself only
were concerned I should have no right to say anything; but I think
myself bound to tell you that, as regards the girls, everybody that
knows you will think you to have been very wrong. It is in the
natural course of things that they should live in that house. The
place has never been let. As far as I know, no rent has ever been
paid for the house since it was built. It has always been given to
some member of the family, who has been considered as having the best
right to it. I have considered your footing there as firm as my own
here. A quarrel between me and your children would be to me a great
calamity, though, perhaps, they might be indifferent to it. But if
there were such a quarrel it would afford no reason for their leaving
that house. Let me beg you to think over the matter again."
[ILLUSTRATION: "Let me beg you to think over the matter again."]
The squire could assume an air of authority on certain occasions, and
he had done so now. Mrs. Dale found that she could only answer him
by a simple repetition of her own intention; and, indeed, failed in
making him any serviceable answer whatsoever.
"I know that you are very good to my girls," she said.
"I will say nothing about that," he answered; not thinking at that
moment of the Small House, but of the full possession which he had
desired to give to the elder of all the privileges which should
belong to the mistress of Allington,--thinking also of the means by
which he was hoping to repair poor Lily's shattered fortunes. What
words were further said had no great significance, and Mrs. Dale got
herself away, feeling that she had failed. As soon as she was gone
the squire arose, and putting on his great-coat, went forth with his
hat and stick to the front of the house. He went out in order that
his thoughts might be more free, and that he might indulge in that
solace which an injured man finds in contemplating his injury. He
declared to himself that he was very hardly used,--so hardly used,
that he almost began to doubt himself and his own motives. Why was
it that the people around him disliked him so strongly,--avoided him
and thwarted him in the efforts which he made for their welfare? He
offered to his nephew all the privileges of a son,--much more indeed
than the privileges of a son,--merely asking in return that he would
consent to live permanently in the house which was to be his own. But
his nephew refused. "He cannot bear to live with me," said the old
man to himself sorely. He was prepared to treat his nieces with more
generosity than the daughters of the House of Allington had usually
received from their fathers; and they repelled his kindness, running
away from him, and telling him openly that they would not be beholden
to him. He walked slowly up and down the terrace, thinking of this
very bitterly. He did not find in the contemplation of his grievance
all that solace which a grievance usually gives, because he accused
himself in his thoughts rather than others. He declared to himself
that he was made to be hated, and protested to himself that it would
be well that he should die and be buried out of memory, so that
the remaining Dales might have a better chance of living happily;
and then as he thus discussed all this within his own bosom, his
thoughts were very tender, and though he was aggrieved, he was most
affectionate to those who had most injured him. But it was absolutely
beyond his power to reproduce outwardly, with words and outward
signs, such thoughts and feelings.
It was now very nearly the end of the year, but the weather was still
soft and open. The air was damp rather than cold, and the lawns
and fields still retained the green tints of new vegetation. As
the squire was walking on the terrace Hopkins came up to him, and
touching his hat, remarked that they should have frost in a day or
two.
"I suppose we shall," said the squire.
"We must have the mason to the flues of that little grape-house, sir,
before I can do any good with a fire there."
"Which grape-house?" said the squire, crossly.
"Why, the grape-house in the other garden, sir. It ought to have been
done last year by rights." This Hopkins said to punish his master
for being cross to him. On that matter of the flues of Mrs. Dale's
grape-house he had, with much consideration, spared his master during
the last winter, and he felt that this ought to be remembered now. "I
can't put any fire in it, not to do any real good, till something's
done. That's sure."
"Then don't put any fire in it," said the squire.
Now the grapes in question were supposed to be peculiarly fine, and
were the glory of the garden of the Small House. They were always
forced, though not forced so early as those at the Great House, and
Hopkins was in a state of great confusion.
"They'll never ripen, sir; not the whole year through."
"Then let them be unripe," said the squire, walking about.
Hopkins did not at all understand it. The squire in his natural
course was very unwilling to neglect any such matter as this, but
would be specially unwilling to neglect anything touching the
Small House. So Hopkins stood on the terrace, raising his hat and
scratching his head. "There's something wrong amongst them," said he
to himself, sorrowfully.