The Small House at Allington
She looked up at him, but made no answer. He had always called her
by her Christian name, and they two had ever regarded each other
as close friends. At the present moment she had forgotten all else
besides this, and yet she had infinite pleasure in sitting there and
talking to him.
"I am going to ask you a question which perhaps I ought not to ask,
only that I have known you so long that I almost feel that I am
speaking to a sister."
"You may ask me what you please," said she.
"It is about your cousin Bernard."
"About Bernard!" said Bell.
It was now dusk; and as they were sitting without other light than
that of the fire, she knew that he could not discern the colour which
covered her face as her cousin's name was mentioned. But, had the
light of day pervaded the whole room, I doubt whether Crofts would
have seen that blush, for he kept his eyes firmly fixed upon the
fire.
"Yes, about Bernard. I don't know whether I ought to ask you."
"I'm sure I can't say," said Bell, speaking words of the nature of
which she was not conscious.
"There has been a rumour in Guestwick that he and you--"
"It is untrue," said Bell; "quite untrue. If you hear it repeated,
you should contradict it. I wonder why people should say such
things."
"It would have been an excellent marriage;--all your friends must
have approved it."
"What do you mean, Dr. Crofts? How I do hate those words, 'an
excellent marriage.' In them is contained more of wicked worldliness
than any other words that one ever hears spoken. You want me to marry
my cousin simply because I should have a great house to live in, and
a coach. I know that you are my friend; but I hate such friendship as
that."
"I think you misunderstand me, Bell. I mean that it would have been
an excellent marriage, provided you had both loved each other."
"No, I don't misunderstand you. Of course it would be an excellent
marriage, if we loved each other. You might say the same if I loved
the butcher or the baker. What you mean is, that it makes a reason
for loving him."
"I don't think I did mean that."
"Then you mean nothing."
After that, there were again some minutes of silence during which
Dr. Crofts got up to go away. "You have scolded me very dreadfully,"
he said, with a slight smile, "and I believe I have deserved it for
interfering--"
"No; not at all for interfering."
"But at any rate you must forgive me before I go."
"I won't forgive you at all, unless you repent of your sins, and
alter altogether the wickedness of your mind. You will become very
soon as bad as Dr. Gruffen."
"Shall I?"
"Oh, but I will forgive you; for after all, you are the most generous
man in the world."
"Oh, yes; of course I am. Well,--good-by."
"But, Dr. Crofts, you should not suppose others to be so much more
worldly than yourself. You do not care for money so very much--"
"But I do care very much."
"If you did, you would not come here for nothing day after day."
"I do care for money very much. I have sometimes nearly broken my
heart because I could not get opportunities of earning it. It is the
best friend that a man can have--"
"Oh, Dr. Crofts!"
"--the best friend that a man can have, if it be honestly come by.
A woman can hardly realize the sorrow which may fall upon a man from
the want of such a friend."
"Of course a man likes to earn a decent living by his profession; and
you can do that."
"That depends upon one's ideas of decency."
"Ah! mine never ran very high. I've always had a sort of aptitude for
living in a pigsty;--a clean pigsty, you know, with nice fresh bean
straw to lie upon. I think it was a mistake when they made a lady of
me. I do, indeed."
"I do not," said Dr. Crofts.
"That's because you don't quite know me yet. I've not the slightest
pleasure in putting on three different dresses a day. I do it very
often because it comes to me to do it, from the way in which we have
been taught to live. But when we get to Guestwick I mean to change
all that; and if you come in to tea, you'll see me in the same brown
frock that I wear in the morning,--unless, indeed, the morning
work makes the brown frock dirty. Oh, Dr. Crofts! you'll have it
pitch-dark riding home under the Guestwick elms."
"I don't mind the dark," he said; and it seemed as though he hardly
intended to go even yet.
"But I do," said Bell, "and I shall ring for candles." But he stopped
her as she put her hand out to the bell-pull.
"Stop a moment, Bell. You need hardly have the candles before I go,
and you need not begrudge my staying either, seeing that I shall be
all alone at home."
"Begrudge your staying!"
"But, however, you shall begrudge it, or else make me very welcome."
He still held her by the wrist, which he had caught as he prevented
her from summoning the servant.
"What do you mean?" said she. "You know you are welcome to us as
flowers in May. You always were welcome; but now, when you have come
to us in our trouble-- At any rate, you shall never say that I turn
you out."
"Shall I never say so?" And still he held her by the wrist. He had
kept his chair throughout, but she was standing before him,--between
him and the fire. But she, though he held her in this way, thought
little of his words, or of his action. They had known each other with
great intimacy, and though Lily would still laugh at her, saying that
Dr. Crofts was her lover, she had long since taught herself that no
such feeling as that would ever exist between them.
"Shall I never say so, Bell? What if so poor a man as I ask for the
hand that you will not give to so rich a man as your cousin Bernard?"
She instantly withdrew her arm and moved back very quickly a step or
two across the rug. She did it almost with the motion which she might
have used had he insulted her; or had a man spoken such words who
would not, under any circumstances, have a right to speak them.
"Ah, yes! I thought it would be so," he said. "I may go now, and may
know that I have been turned out."
"What is it you mean, Dr. Crofts? What is it you are saying? Why do
you talk that nonsense, trying to see if you can provoke me?"
"Yes; it is nonsense. I have no right to address you in that way, and
certainly should not have done it now that I am in your house in the
way of my profession. I beg your pardon." Now he also was standing,
but he had not moved from his side of the fireplace. "Are you going
to forgive me before I go?"
"Forgive you for what?" said she.
"For daring to love you; for having loved you almost as long as you
can remember; for loving you better than all beside. This alone you
should forgive; but will you forgive me for having told it?"
He had made her no offer, nor did she expect that he was about to
make one. She herself had hardly yet realized the meaning of his
words, and she certainly had asked herself no question as to the
answer which she should give to them. There are cases in which lovers
present themselves in so unmistakeable a guise, that the first word
of open love uttered by them tells their whole story, and tells it
without the possibility of a surprise. And it is generally so when
the lover has not been an old friend, when even his acquaintance
has been of modern date. It had been so essentially in the case of
Crosbie and Lily Dale. When Crosbie came to Lily and made his offer,
he did it with perfect ease and thorough self-possession, for he
almost knew that it was expected. And Lily, though she had been
flurried for a moment, had her answer pat enough. She already loved
the man with all her heart, delighted in his presence, basked in
the sunshine of his manliness, rejoiced in his wit, and had tuned
her ears to the tone of his voice. It had all been done, and the
world expected it. Had he not made his offer, Lily would have been
ill-treated;--though, alas, alas, there was future ill-treatment, so
much heavier, in store for her! But there are other cases in which
a lover cannot make himself known as such without great difficulty,
and when he does do so, cannot hope for an immediate answer in his
favour. It is hard upon old friends that this difficulty should
usually fall the heaviest upon them. Crofts had been so intimate with
the Dale family that very many persons had thought it probable that
he would marry one of the girls. Mrs. Dale herself had thought so,
and had almost hoped it. Lily had certainly done both. These thoughts
and hopes had somewhat faded away, but yet their former existence
should have been in the doctor's favour. But now, when he had in some
way spoken out, Bell started back from him and would not believe that
he was in earnest. She probably loved him better than any man in the
world, and yet, when he spoke to her of love, she could not bring
herself to understand him.
"I don't know what you mean, Dr. Crofts; indeed I do not," she said.
"I had meant to ask you to be my wife; simply that. But you shall not
have the pain of making me a positive refusal. As I rode here to-day
I thought of it. During my frequent rides of late I have thought of
little else. But I told myself that I had no right to do it. I have
not even a house in which it would be fit that you should live."
"Dr. Crofts, if I loved you,--if I wished to marry you--" and then
she stopped herself.
"But you do not?"
"No; I think not. I suppose not. No. But in any way no consideration
about money has anything to do with it."
"But I am not that butcher or that baker whom you could love?"
"No," said Bell; and then she stopped herself from further speech,
not as intending to convey all her answer in that one word, but as
not knowing how to fashion any further words.
"I knew it would be so," said the doctor.
It will, I fear, be thought by those who condescend to criticize this
lover's conduct and his mode of carrying on his suit, that he was
very unfit for such work. Ladies will say that he wanted courage, and
men will say that he wanted wit. I am inclined, however, to believe
that he behaved as well as men generally do behave on such occasions,
and that he showed himself to be a good average lover. There is your
bold lover, who knocks his lady-love over as he does a bird, and
who would anathematize himself all over, and swear that his gun was
distraught, and look about as though he thought the world was coming
to an end, if he missed to knock over his bird. And there is your
timid lover, who winks his eyes when he fires, who has felt certain
from the moment in which he buttoned on his knickerbockers that he
at any rate would kill nothing, and who, when he hears the loud
congratulations of his friends, cannot believe that he really did
bag that beautiful winged thing by his own prowess. The beautiful
winged thing which the timid man carries home in his bosom, declining
to have it thrown into a miscellaneous cart, so that it may never
be lost in a common crowd of game, is better to him than are the
slaughtered hecatombs to those who kill their birds by the hundred.
But Dr. Crofts had so winked his eye, that he was not in the least
aware whether he had winged his bird or no. Indeed, having no one at
hand to congratulate him, he was quite sure that the bird had flown
away uninjured into the next field. "No" was the only word which Bell
had given in answer to his last sidelong question, and No is not a
comfortable word to lovers. But there had been that in Bell's No
which might have taught him that the bird was not escaping without a
wound, if he had still had any of his wits about him.
"Now I will go," said he. Then he paused for an answer, but none
came. "And you will understand what I meant when I spoke of being
turned out."
"Nobody--turns you out." And Bell, as she spoke, had almost descended
to a sob.