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

act in that way and no harm come to him. He had a friend in London who came to me and talked about it as though it were some ordinary, everyday transaction of life. Yes; you may come in, Bernard. The poor child knows it all now.”

Bernard offered to his aunt what of solace and sympathy he had to offer, and made some sort of half-expressed apology for having introduced this wolf into their flock. “We always thought very much of him at his club,” said Bernard.

“I don’t know much about your London clubs nowadays,” said his uncle, “nor do I wish to do so if the society of that man can be endured after what he has now done.”

“I don’t suppose half-a-dozen men will ever know anything about it,” said Bernard.

“Umph!” ejaculated the squire. He could not say that he wished Crosbie’s villany to be widely discussed, seeing that Lily’s name was so closely connected with it. But yet he could not support the idea that Crosbie should not be punished by the frown of the world at large. It seemed to him that from this time forward any man speaking to Crosbie should be held to have disgraced himself by so doing.

“Give her my best love,” he said, as Mrs. Dale got up to take her leave; “my very best love. If her old uncle can do anything for her she has only to let me know. She met the man in my house, and I feel that I owe her much. Bid her come and see me. It will be better for her than moping at home. And Mary”⁠—this he said to her, whispering into her ear⁠—“think of what I said to you about Bell.”

Mrs. Dale, as she walked back to her own house, acknowledged to herself that her brother-in-law’s manner was different to her from anything that she had hitherto known of him.

During the whole of that day Crosbie’s name was not mentioned at the Small House. Neither of the girls stirred out, and Bell spent the greater part of the afternoon sitting, with her arm round her sister’s waist, upon the sofa. Each of them had a book; but though there was little spoken, there was as little read. Who can describe the thoughts that were passing through Lily’s mind as she remembered the hours which she had passed with Crosbie, of his warm assurances of love, of his accepted caresses, of her uncontrolled and acknowledged joy in his affection? It had all been holy to her then; and now those things which were then sacred had been made almost disgraceful by his fault. And yet as she thought of this she declared to herself over and over again that she would forgive him;⁠—nay, that she had forgiven him. “And he shall know it, too,” she said, speaking almost out loud.

“Lily, dear Lily,” said Bell, “turn your thoughts away from it for a while, if you can.”

“They won’t go away,” said Lily. And that was all that was said between them on the subject.

Everybody would know it! I doubt whether that must not be one of the bitterest drops in the cup which a girl in such circumstances is made to drain. Lily perceived early in the day that the parlourmaid well knew that she had been jilted. The girl’s manner was intended to convey sympathy; but it did convey pity; and Lily for a moment felt angry. But she remembered that it must be so, and smiled upon the girl, and spoke kindly to her. What mattered it? All the world would know it in a day or two.

On the following day she went up, by her mother’s advice, to see her uncle.

“My child,” said he, “I am sorry for you. My heart bleeds for you.”

“Uncle,” she said, “do not mind it. Only do this for me⁠—do not talk about it⁠—I mean to me.”

“No, no; I will not. That there should ever have been in my house so great a rascal⁠—”

“Uncle! uncle! I will not have that! I will not listen to a word against him from any human being⁠—not a word! Remember that!” And her eyes flashed as she spoke.

He did not answer her, but took her hand and pressed it, and then she left him. “The Dales were ever constant!” he said to himself, as he walked up and down the terrace before his house. “Ever constant!”

XXXI The Wounded Fawn

Nearly two months passed away, and it was now Christmas time at Allington. It may be presumed that there was no intention at either house that the mirth should be very loud. Such a wound as that received by Lily Dale was one from which recovery could not be quick, and it was felt by all the family that a weight was upon them which made gaiety impracticable. As for Lily herself it may be said that she bore her misfortune with all a woman’s courage. For the first week she stood up as a tree that stands against the wind, which is soon to be shivered to pieces because it will not bend. During that week her mother and sister were frightened by her calmness and endurance. She would perform her daily task. She would go out through the village, and appear at her place in church on the first Sunday. She would sit over her book of an evening, keeping back her tears; and would chide her mother and sister when she found that they were regarding her with earnest anxiety.

“Mamma, let it all be as though it had never been,” she said.

“Ah, dear! if that were but possible!”

“God forbid that it should be possible inwardly,” Lily replied, “but it is possible outwardly. I feel that you are more tender to me than you used to be, and that upsets me. If you would only scold me because I am idle, I should soon be better.” But her mother could not speak to her as she perhaps