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

“I am to say whatever I like always; that was the bargain, and I mean to stand to it.”

On the following Sunday Lily did get up, but did not leave her mother’s bedroom. There she was, seated in that half-dignified and half-luxurious state which belongs to the first getting up of an invalid, when Dr. Crofts called. There she had eaten her tiny bit of roast mutton, and had called her mother a stingy old creature, because she would not permit another morsel; and there she had drunk her half glass of port wine, pretending that it was very bad, and twice worse than the doctor’s physic; and there, Sunday though it was, she had fully enjoyed the last hour of daylight, reading that exquisite new novel which had just completed itself, amidst the jarring criticisms of the youth and age of the reading public.

“I am quite sure she was right in accepting him, Bell,” she said, putting down the book as the light was fading, and beginning to praise the story.

“It was a matter of course,” said Bell. “It always is right in the novels. That’s why I don’t like them. They are too sweet.”

“That’s why I do like them, because they are so sweet. A sermon is not to tell you what you are, but what you ought to be, and a novel should tell you not what you are to get, but what you’d like to get.”

“If so, then, I’d go back to the old school, and have the heroine really a heroine, walking all the way up from Edinburgh to London, and falling among thieves; or else nursing a wounded hero, and describing the battle from the window. We’ve got tired of that; or else the people who write can’t do it nowadays. But if we are to have real life, let it be real.”

“No, Bell, no!” said Lily. “Real life sometimes is so painful.” Then her sister, in a moment, was down on the floor at her feet, kissing her hand and caressing her knees, and praying that the wound might be healed.

On that morning Lily had succeeded in inducing her sister to tell her all that had been said by Dr. Crofts. All that had been said by herself also, Bell had intended to tell; but when she came to this part of the story, her account was very lame. “I don’t think I said anything,” she said. “But silence always gives consent. He’ll know that,” Lily had rejoined.

“No, he will not; my silence didn’t give any consent; I’m sure of that. And he didn’t think that it did.”

“But you didn’t mean to refuse him?”

“I think I did. I don’t think I knew what I meant; and it was safer, therefore, to look no, than to look yes. If I didn’t say it, I’m sure I looked it.”

“But you wouldn’t refuse him now?” asked Lily.

“I don’t know,” said Bell. “It seems as though I should want years to make up my mind; and he won’t ask me again.”

Bell was still at her sister’s feet, caressing them, and praying with all her heart that that wound might be healed in due time, when Mrs. Dale came in and announced the doctor’s daily visit. “Then I’ll go,” said Bell.

“Indeed you won’t,” said Lily. “He’s coming simply to make a morning call, and nobody need run away. Now, Dr. Crofts, you need not come and stand over me with your watch, for I won’t let you touch my hand except to shake hands with me;” and then she held her hand out to him. “And all you’ll know of my tongue you’ll learn from the sound.”

“I don’t care in the least for your tongue.”

“I dare say not, and yet you may some of these days. I can speak out, if I like it; can’t I, mamma?”

“I should think Dr. Crofts knows that by this time, my dear.”

“I don’t know. There are some things gentlemen are very slow to learn. But you must sit down, Dr. Crofts, and make yourself comfortable and polite; for you must understand that you are not master here any longer. I am out of bed now, and your reign is over.”

“That’s the gratitude of the world, all through,” said Mrs. Dale.

“Who is ever grateful to a doctor? He only cures you that he may triumph over some other doctor, and declare, as he goes by Dr. Gruffen’s door, ‘There, had she called you in, she’d have been dead before now; or else would have been ill for twelve months.’ Don’t you jump for joy when Dr. Gruffen’s patients die?”

“Of course I do⁠—out in the marketplace, so that everybody shall see me,” said the doctor.

“Lily, how can you say such shocking things?” said her sister.

Then the doctor did sit down, and they were all very cosy together over the fire, talking about things which were not medical, or only half medical in their appliance. By degrees the conversation came round to Mrs. Eames and to John Eames. Two or three days since, Crofts had told Mrs. Dale of that affair at the railway station, of which up to that time she had heard nothing. Mrs. Dale, when she was assured that young Eames had given Crosbie a tremendous thrashing⁠—the tidings of the affair which had got themselves substantiated at Guestwick so described the nature of the encounter⁠—could not withhold some meed of applause.

“Dear boy!” she said, almost involuntarily. “Dear boy! it came from the honestness of his heart!” And then she gave special injunctions to the doctor⁠—injunctions which were surely unnecessary⁠—that no word of the matter should be whispered before Lily.

“I was at the manor, yesterday,” said the doctor, “and the earl would talk about nothing but Master Johnny. He says he’s the finest fellow going.” Whereupon Mrs. Dale touched him with her foot, fearing that the conversation might be led away in the direction of Johnny’s prowess.

“I am so glad,” said Lily. “I always knew that they’d find John out at last.”

“And Lady Julia is just as fond of