The Small House at Allington, Anthony Trollope [best ebook reader for chromebook .txt] 📗

it for them, and so you may tell them. I won’t have it. D’ye hear?” Then there was another short pause. “D’ye hear?” he shouted at her.

“Yes; of course I hear. I was only thinking you wouldn’t wish me to turn them out, just as her confinement is coming on.”

“I know what that means. Then they’d never go. I won’t have it; and if you don’t tell them I will.” In answer to this Lady De Courcy promised that she would tell them, thinking perhaps that the earl’s mode of telling might not be beneficial in that particular epoch which was now coming in the life of Mrs. George.

“Did you know,” said he, breaking out on a new subject, “that a man had been here named Dale, calling on somebody in this house?” In answer to which the countess acknowledged that she had known it.

“Then why did you keep it from me?” And that gnashing of the teeth took place which was so specially objectionable to Mrs. George.

“It was a matter of no moment. He came to see Lady Julia De Guest.”

“Yes; but he came about that man Crosbie.”

“I suppose he did.”

“Why have you let that girl be such a fool? You’ll find he’ll play her some knave’s trick.”

“Oh dear, no.”

“And why should she want to marry such a man as that?”

“He’s quite a gentleman, you know, and very much thought of in the world. It won’t be at all bad for her, poor thing. It is so very hard for a girl to get married nowadays without money.”

“And so they’re to take up with anybody. As far as I can see, this is a worse affair than that of Amelia.”

“Amelia has done very well, my dear.”

“Oh, if you call it doing well for your girls, I don’t. I call it doing uncommon badly; about as bad as they well can do. But it’s your affair. I have never meddled with them, and don’t intend to do it now.”

“I really think she’ll be happy, and she is devotedly attached to the young man.”

“Devotedly attached to the young man!” The tone and manner in which the earl repeated these words were such as to warrant an opinion that his lordship might have done very well on the stage had his attention been called to that profession. “It makes me sick to hear people talk in that way. She wants to get married, and she’s a fool for her pains;⁠—I can’t help that; only remember that I’ll have no nonsense here about that other girl. If he gives me trouble of that sort, by ⸻, I’ll be the death of him. When is the marriage to be?”

“They talk of February.”

“I won’t have any tomfoolery and expense. If she chooses to marry a clerk in an office, she shall marry him as clerks are married.”

“He’ll be the secretary before that, De Courcy.”

“What difference does that make? Secretary, indeed! What sort of men do you suppose secretaries are? A beggar that came from nobody knows where! I won’t have any tomfoolery;⁠—d’ye hear?” Whereupon the countess said that she did hear, and soon afterwards managed to escape. The valet then took his turn; and repeated, after his hour of service, that “Old Nick” in his tantrums had been more like the Prince of Darkness than ever.

XXVII “On My Honour, I Do Not Understand It.”

In the meantime Lady Alexandrina endeavoured to realize to herself all the advantages and disadvantages of her own position. She was not possessed of strong affections, nor of depth of character, nor of high purpose; but she was no fool, nor was she devoid of principle. She had asked herself many times whether her present life was so happy as to make her think that a permanent continuance in it would suffice for her desires, and she had always replied to herself that she would fain change to some other life if it were possible. She had also questioned herself as to her rank, of which she was quite sufficiently proud, and had told herself that she could not degrade herself in the world without a heavy pang. But she had at last taught herself to believe that she had more to gain by becoming the wife of such a man as Crosbie than by remaining as an unmarried daughter of her father’s house. There was much in her sister Amelia’s position which she did not envy, but there was less to envy in that of her sister Rosina. The Gazebee house in St. John’s Wood Road was not so magnificent as Courcy Castle; but then it was less dull, less embittered by torment, and was moreover her sister’s own.

“Very many do marry commoners,” she had said to Margaretta.

“Oh, yes, of course. It makes a difference, you know, when a man has a fortune.”

Of course it did make a difference. Crosbie had no fortune, was not even so rich as Mr. Gazebee, could keep no carriage, and would have no country house. But then he was a man of fashion, was more thought of in the world than Mr. Gazebee, might probably rise in his own profession⁠—and was at any rate thoroughly presentable. She would have preferred a gentleman with £5,000 a year; but then as no gentleman with £5,000 a year came that way, would she not be happier with Mr. Crosbie than she would be with no husband at all? She was not very much in love with Mr. Crosbie, but she thought that she could live with him comfortably, and that on the whole it would be a good thing to be married.

And she made certain resolves as to the manner in which she would do her duty by her husband. Her sister Amelia was paramount in her own house, ruling indeed with a moderate, endurable dominion, and ruling much to her husband’s advantage. Alexandrina feared that she would not be allowed to rule, but she could at any rate try. She would do all in her power to make