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

affair of the bracelet. “Your ladyship’s memory must have played you false,” said he, with a smile.

“My memory is very good,” said the countess; “very good indeed. If Twitch got it, and didn’t tell me, that was not my fault.” Twitch was her ladyship’s lady’s-maid. Crosbie, seeing how the land lay, said nothing more about the bracelet.

After a minute or two he put out his hand to take that of Alexandrina. They were to be married now in a week or two, and such a sign of love might have been allowed to him, even in the presence of the bride’s mother. He did succeed in getting hold of her fingers, but found in them none of the softness of a response. “Don’t,” said Lady Alexandrina, withdrawing her hand; and the tone of her voice as she spoke the word was not sweet to his ears. He remembered at the moment a certain scene which took place one evening at the little bridge at Allington, and Lily’s voice, and Lily’s words, and Lily’s passion, as he caressed her: “Oh, my love, my love, my love!”

“My dear,” said the countess, “they know how tired I am. I wonder whether they are going to give us any tea.” Whereupon Crosbie rang the bell, and, on resuming his chair, moved it a little farther away from his ladylove.

Presently the tea was brought to them by the housekeeper’s assistant, who did not appear to have made herself very smart for the occasion, and Crosbie thought that he was de trop. This, however, was a mistake on his part. As he had been admitted into the family, such little matters were no longer subject of care. Two or three months since, the countess would have fainted at the idea of such a domestic appearing with a tea-tray before Mr. Crosbie. Now, however, she was utterly indifferent to any such consideration. Crosbie was to be admitted into the family, thereby becoming entitled to certain privileges⁠—and thereby also becoming subject to certain domestic drawbacks. In Mrs. Dale’s little household there had been no rising to grandeur; but then, also, there had never been any bathos of dirt. Of this also Crosbie thought as he sat with his tea in his hand.

He soon, however, got himself away. When he rose to go Alexandrina also rose, and he was permitted to press his nose against her cheekbone by way of a salute.

“Good night, Adolphus,” said the countess, putting out her hand to him. “But stop a minute; I know there is something I want you to do for me. But you will look in as you go to your office tomorrow morning.”

XLI Domestic Troubles

When Crosbie was making his ineffectual inquiry after Lady De Courcy’s bracelet at Lambert’s, John Eames was in the act of entering Mrs. Roper’s front door in Burton Crescent.

“Oh, John, where’s Mr. Cradell?” were the first words which greeted him, and they were spoken by the divine Amelia. Now, in her usual practice of life, Amelia did not interest herself much as to the whereabouts of Mr. Cradell.

“Where’s Cradell?” said Eames, repeating the question. “Upon my word, I don’t know. I walked to the office with him, but I haven’t seen him since. We don’t sit in the same room, you know.”

“John!” and then she stopped.

“What’s up now?” said John.

“John! That woman’s off and left her husband. As sure as your name’s John Eames, that foolish fellow has gone off with her.”

“What, Cradell? I don’t believe it.”

“She went out of this house at two o’clock in the afternoon, and has never been back since.” That, certainly, was only four hours from the present time, and such an absence from home in the middle of the day was but weak evidence on which to charge a married woman with the great sin of running off with a lover. This Amelia felt, and therefore she went on to explain. “He’s there upstairs in the drawing-room, the very picture of disconsolateness.”

“Who⁠—Cradell?”

“Lupex is. He’s been drinking a little, I’m afraid; but he’s very unhappy, indeed. He had an appointment to meet his wife here at four o’clock, and when he came he found her gone. He rushed up into their room, and now he says she has broken open a box he had and taken off all his money.”

“But he never had any money.”

“He paid mother some the day before yesterday.”

“That’s just the reason he shouldn’t have any today.”

“She certainly has taken things she wouldn’t have taken if she’d merely gone out shopping or anything like that, for I’ve been up in the room and looked about it. She’d three necklaces. They weren’t much account; but she must have them all on, or else have got them in her pocket.”

“Cradell has never gone off with her in that way. He may be a fool⁠—”

“Oh, he is, you know. I’ve never seen such a fool about a woman as he has been.”

“But he wouldn’t be a party to stealing a lot of trumpery trinkets, or taking her husband’s money. Indeed, I don’t think he has anything to do with it.” Then Eames thought over the circumstances of the day, and remembered that he had certainly not seen Cradell since the morning. It was that public servant’s practice to saunter into Eames’s room in the middle of the day, and there consume bread and cheese and beer⁠—in spite of an assertion which Johnny had once made as to crumbs of biscuit bathed in ink. But on this special day he had not done so. “I can’t think he has been such a fool as that,” said Johnny.

“But he has,” said Amelia. “It’s dinnertime now, and where is he? Had he any money left, Johnny?”

So interrogated, Eames disclosed a secret confided to him by his friend which no other circumstances would have succeeded in dragging from his breast.

“She borrowed twelve pounds from him about a fortnight since, immediately after quarter-day. And she owed him money, too, before that.”

“Oh, what a