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

him comfortable, and would be specially careful not to irritate him by any insistence on her own higher rank. She would be very meek in this respect; and if children should come she would be as painstaking about them as though her own father had been merely a clergyman or a lawyer. She thought also much about poor Lilian Dale, asking herself sundry questions, with an idea of being high-principled as to her duty in that respect. Was she wrong in taking Mr. Crosbie away from Lilian Dale? In answer to these questions she was able to assure herself comfortably that she was not wrong. Mr. Crosbie would not, under any circumstances, marry Lilian Dale. He had told her so more than once, and that in a solemn way. She could therefore be doing no harm to Lilian Dale. If she entertained any inner feeling that Crosbie’s fault in jilting Lilian Dale was less than it would have been had she herself not been an earl’s daughter⁠—that her own rank did in some degree extenuate her lover’s falseness⁠—she did not express it in words even to herself.

She did not get very much sympathy from her own family. “I’m afraid he does not think much of his religious duties. I’m told that young men of that sort seldom do,” said Rosina. “I don’t say you’re wrong,” said Margaretta. “By no means. Indeed I think less of it now than I did when Amelia did the same thing. I shouldn’t do it myself, that’s all.” Her father told her that he supposed she knew her own mind. Her mother, who endeavoured to comfort and in some sort to congratulate her, nevertheless, harped constantly on the fact that she was marrying a man without rank and without a fortune. Her congratulations were apologetic, and her comfortings took the guise of consolation. “Of course you won’t be rich, my dear; but I really think you’ll do very well. Mr. Crosbie may be received anywhere, and you never need be ashamed of him.” By which the countess implied that her elder married daughter was occasionally called on to be ashamed of her husband. “I wish he could keep a carriage for you, but perhaps that will come some day.” Upon the whole Alexandrina did not repent, and stoutly told her father that she did know her own mind.

During all this time Lily Dale was as yet perfect in her happiness. That delay of a day or two in the receipt of the expected letter from her lover had not disquieted her. She had promised him that she would not distrust him, and she was firmly minded to keep her promises. Indeed no idea of breaking it came to her at this time. She was disappointed when the postman would come and bring no letter for her⁠—disappointed, as is the husbandman when the longed-for rain does not come to refresh the parched earth; but she was in no degree angry. “He will explain it,” she said to herself. And she assured Bell that men never recognized the hunger and thirst after letters which women feel when away from those whom they love.

Then they heard at the Small House that the squire had gone away from Allington. During the last few days Bernard had not been much with them, and now they heard the news, not through their cousin, but from Hopkins. “I really can’t undertake to say, Miss Bell, where the master’s gone to. It’s not likely the master’d tell me where he was going to; not unless it was about seeds, or the likes of that.”

“He has gone very suddenly,” said Bell.

“Well, miss, I’ve nothing to say to that. And why shouldn’t he go sudden if he likes? I only know he had his gig, and went to the station. If you was to bury me alive I couldn’t tell you more.”

“I should like to try,” said Lily as they walked away. “He is such a cross old thing. I wonder whether Bernard has gone with my uncle.” And then they thought no more about it.

On the day after that Bernard came down to the Small House, but he said nothing by way of accounting for the squire’s absence. “He is in London, I know,” said Bernard.

“I hope he’ll call on Mr. Crosbie,” said Lily. But on this subject Bernard said not a word. He did ask Lily whether she had heard from Adolphus, in answer to which she replied, with as indifferent a voice as she could assume, that she had not had a letter that morning.

“I shall be angry with him if he’s not a good correspondent,” said Mrs. Dale, when she and Lily were alone together.

“No, mamma, you mustn’t be angry with him. I won’t let you be angry with him. Please to remember he’s my lover and not yours.”

“But I can see you when you watch for the postman.”

“I won’t watch for the postman any more if it makes you have bad thoughts about him. Yes, they are bad thoughts. I won’t have you think that he doesn’t do everything that is right.”

On the next morning the postman brought a letter, or rather a note, and Lily at once saw that it was from Crosbie. She had contrived to intercept it near the back door, at which the postman called, so that her mother should not watch her watchings, nor see her disappointment if none should come. “Thank you, Jane,” she said, very calmly, when the eager, kindly girl ran to her with the little missive; and she walked off to some solitude, trying to hide her impatience. The note had seemed so small that it amazed her; but when she opened it the contents amazed her more. There was neither beginning nor end. There was no appellation of love, and no signature. It contained but two lines. “I will write to you at length tomorrow. This is my first day in London, and I have been so driven about that I cannot write.” That was