The Small House at Allington
Commissioners, after they had fortified themselves with a biscuit
and a glass of sherry. On the present occasion, the usual amount of
business was transacted, but it was done in a manner which made
Crosbie feel that they did not all stand together on their usual
footing. The three Commissioners were all there. The Chairman gave
his directions in a solemn, pompous voice, which was by no means
usual to him when he was in good humour. The Major said little
or nothing; but there was a gleam of satisfied sarcasm in his
eye. Things were going wrong at the Board, and he was pleased. Mr.
Butterwell was exceedingly civil in his demeanour, and rather more
than ordinarily brisk. As soon as the regular work of the day was
over, Mr. Optimist shuffled about on his chair, rising from his seat,
and then sitting down again. He looked through a lot of papers close
to his hand, peering at them over his spectacles. Then he selected
one, took off his spectacles, leaned back in his chair, and began his
little speech.
"Mr. Crosbie," he said, "we are all very much gratified,--very much
gratified, indeed,--by your zeal and energy in the service."
"Thank you, sir," said Crosbie; "I am fond of the service."
"Exactly, exactly; we all feel that. But we think that you,--if I
were to say take too much upon yourself, I should say, perhaps, more
than we mean."
"Don't say more than you mean, Mr. Optimist." Crosbie's eyes, as he
spoke, gleamed slightly with his momentary triumph; as did also those
of Major Fiasco.
"No, no, no," said Mr. Optimist; "I would say rather less than more
to so very good a public servant as yourself. But you, doubtless,
understand me?"
"I don't think I do quite, sir. If I have not taken too much on me,
what is it that I have done that I ought not to have done?"
"You have given directions in many cases for which you ought first to
have received authority. Here is an instance," and the selected paper
was at once brought out.
It was a matter in which the Secretary had been manifestly wrong
according to written law, and he could not defend it on its own
merits.
"If you wish me," said he, "to confine myself exactly to the positive
instructions of the office, I will do so; but I think you will find
it inconvenient."
"It will be far the best," said Mr. Optimist.
"Very well," said Mr. Crosbie, "it shall be done." And he at once
determined to make himself as unpleasant to the three gentlemen in
the room as he might find it within his power to do. He could make
himself very unpleasant, but the unpleasantness would be as much to
him as to them.
Nothing would now go right with him. He could look in no direction
for satisfaction. He sauntered into Sebright's, as he went home, but
he could not find words to speak to any one about the little matters
of the day. He went home, and his wife, though she was up, complained
still of her headache.
"I haven't been out of the house all day," she said, "and that has
made it worse."
"I don't know how you are to get out if you won't walk," he answered.
Then there was no more said between them till they sat down to their
meal.
Had the squire at Allington known all, he might, I think, have been
satisfied with the punishment which Crosbie had encountered.
CHAPTER XLIX.
PREPARATIONS FOR GOING.
[ILLUSTRATION: (untitled)]
"Mamma, read that letter."
It was Mrs. Dale's eldest daughter who spoke to her, and they were
alone together in the parlour at the Small House. Mrs. Dale took the
letter and read it very carefully. She then put it back into its
envelope and returned it to Bell.
"It is, at any rate, a good letter, and, as I believe, tells the
truth."
"I think it tells a little more than the truth, mamma. As you say,
it is a well-written letter. He always writes well when he is in
earnest. But yet--"
"Yet what, my dear?"
"There is more head than heart in it."
"If so, he will suffer the less; that is, if you are quite resolved
in the matter."
"I am quite resolved, and I do not think he will suffer much. He
would not, I suppose, have taken the trouble to write like that, if
he did not wish this thing."
"I am quite sure that he does wish it, most earnestly; and that he
will be greatly disappointed."
"As he would be if any other scheme did not turn out to his
satisfaction; that is all."
The letter, of course, was from Bell's cousin Bernard, and containing
the strongest plea he was able to make in favour of his suit for her
hand. Bernard Dale was better able to press such a plea by letter
than by spoken words. He was a man capable of doing anything well in
the doing of which a little time for consideration might be given to
him; but he had not in him that power of passion which will force
a man to eloquence in asking for that which he desires to obtain.
His letter on this occasion was long, and well argued. If there was
little in it of passionate love, there was much of pleasant flattery.
He told Bell how advantageous to both their families their marriage
would be; he declared to her that his own feeling in the matter had
been rendered stronger by absence; he alluded without boasting to his
past career of life as her best guarantee for his future conduct; he
explained to her that if this marriage could be arranged there need
then, at any rate, be no further question as to his aunt removing
with Lily from the Small House; and then he told her that his
affection for herself was the absorbing passion of his existence.
Had the letter been written with the view of obtaining from a third
person a favourable verdict as to his suit, it would have been a very
good letter indeed; but there was not a word in it that could stir
the heart of such a girl as Bell Dale.
"Answer him kindly," Mrs. Dale said.
"As kindly as I know how," said Bell. "I wish you would write the
letter, mamma."
"I fear that would not do. What I should say would only tempt him to
try again."
Mrs. Dale knew very well,--had known for some months past,--that
Bernard's suit was hopeless. She felt certain, although the matter
had not been discussed between them, that whenever Dr. Crofts might
choose to come again and ask for her daughter's hand he would not be
refused. Of the two men she probably liked Dr. Crofts the best; but
she liked them both, and she could not but remember that the one,
in a worldly point of view, would be a very poor match, whereas the
other would, in all respects, be excellent. She would not, on any
account, say a word to influence her daughter, and knew, moreover,
that no word which she could say would influence her; but she could
not divest herself of some regret that it should be so.
"I know what you would wish, mamma," said Bell.
"I have but one wish, dearest, and that is for your happiness. May
God preserve you from any such fate as Lily's. When I tell you to
write kindly to your cousin, I simply mean that I think him to have
deserved a kind reply by his honesty."
"It shall be as kind as I can make it, mamma; but you know what the
lady says in the play,--how hard it is to take the sting from that
word 'no.'" Then Bell walked out alone for a while, and on her return
got her desk and wrote her letter. It was very firm and decisive.
As for that wit which should pluck the sting "from such a sharp and
waspish word as 'no,'" I fear she had it not. "It will be better
to make him understand that I, also, am in earnest," she said to
herself; and in this frame of mind she wrote her letter. "Pray do
not allow yourself to think that what I have said is unfriendly,"
she added, in a postscript. "I know how good you are, and I know the
great value of what I refuse; but in this matter it must be my duty
to tell you the simple truth."
It had been decided between the squire and Mrs. Dale that the removal
from the Small House to Guestwick was not to take place till the
first of May. When he had been made to understand that Dr. Crofts had
thought it injudicious that Lily should be taken out of their present
house in March, he had used all the eloquence of which he was master
to induce Mrs. Dale to consent to abandon her project. He had told
her that he had always considered that house as belonging, of right,
to some other of the family than himself; that it had always been so
inhabited, and that no squire of Allington had for years past taken
rent for it. "There is no favour conferred,--none at all," he had
said; but speaking nevertheless in his usual sharp, ungenial tone.
"There is a favour, a great favour, and great generosity," Mrs. Dale
had replied. "And I have never been too proud to accept it; but when
I tell you that we think we shall be happier at Guestwick, you will
not refuse to let us go. Lily has had a great blow in that house,
and Bell feels that she is running counter to your wishes on her
behalf,--wishes that are so very kind!"
"No more need be said about that. All that may come right yet, if you
will remain where you are."
But Mrs. Dale knew that "all that" could never come right, and
persisted. Indeed, she would hardly have dared to tell her girls
that she had yielded to the squire's entreaties. It was just then, at
that very time, that the squire was, as it were, in treaty with the
earl about Lily's fortune; and he did feel it hard that he should be
opposed in such a way by his own relatives at the moment when he was
behaving towards them with so much generosity. But in his arguments
about the house he said nothing of Lily, or her future prospects.
They were to move on the first of May, and one week of April was
already past. The squire had said nothing further on the matter after
the interview with Mrs. Dale to which allusion has just been made. He
was vexed and sore at the separation, thinking that he was ill-used
by the feeling which was displayed by this refusal. He had done his
duty by them, as he thought; indeed more than his duty, and now they
told him that they were leaving him because they could no longer bear
the weight of an obligation conferred by his hands. But in truth he
did not understand them; nor did they understand him. He had been
hard in his manner, and had occasionally domineered, not feeling that
his position, though it gave him all the privileges of a near and a
dear friend, did not give him the authority of a father or a husband.
In that matter of Bernard's proposed marriage he had spoken as though
Bell should have considered his wishes before she refused her cousin.
He had taken upon himself to scold Mrs. Dale, and had thereby given
offence to the girls, which they at the time had found it utterly
impossible to forgive.
But they were hardly better satisfied in the matter than was he; and
now that the time had come, though they could not bring themselves to
go back from their demand, almost felt that they were treating the
squire with cruelty. When their decision had been made,--while it
had been making,--he had been stern and hard to them. Since that he
had been softened by Lily's misfortune, and softened also by the
anticipated loneliness which would come upon him when they should be
gone from his side. It was hard upon him that they should so treat
him when he was doing his best for them all! And they also felt this,
though they did not know the extent to which he was anxious to go in
serving them. When they had sat round the fire planning the scheme of
their removal, their hearts had been hardened against him, and they
had resolved to assert their independence. But now, when the time
for action had come, they felt that their grievances against him had
already been in a great measure assuaged. This tinged all that they
did with a certain sadness; but still they continued their work.
Who does not know how terrible are those preparations for