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

glad we are to see you.” After that she always called him John, and treated him throughout his visit with wonderful kindness. No doubt that affair of the bull had in some measure produced this feeling; no doubt, also, she was well disposed to the man who she hoped might be accepted as a lover by Lily Dale. But I am inclined to think that the fact of his having beaten Crosbie had been the most potential cause of this affection for our hero on the part of Lady Julia. Ladies⁠—especially discreet old ladies, such as Lady Julia De Guest⁠—are bound to entertain pacific theories, and to condemn all manner of violence. Lady Julia would have blamed anyone who might have advised Eames to commit an assault upon Crosbie. But, nevertheless, deeds of prowess are still dear to the female heart, and a woman, be she ever so old and discreet, understands and appreciates the summary justice which may be done by means of a thrashing. Lady Julia, had she been called upon to talk of it, would undoubtedly have told Eames that he had committed a fault in striking Mr. Crosbie; but the deed had been done, and Lady Julia became very fond of John Eames.

“Vickers shall show you your room, if you like to go upstairs; but you’ll find my brother close about the house if you choose to go out; I saw him not half an hour since.” But John seemed to be well satisfied to sit in the armchair over the fire, and talk to his hostess; so neither of them moved.

“And now that you’re a private secretary, how do you like it?”

“I like the work well enough; only I don’t like the man, Lady Julia. But I shouldn’t say so, because he is such an intimate friend of your brother’s.”

“An intimate friend of Theodore’s!⁠—Sir Raffle Buffle!” Lady Julia stiffened her back and put on a serious face, not being exactly pleased at being told that the Earl De Guest had any such intimate friend.

“At any rate he tells me so about four times a day, Lady Julia. And he particularly wants to come down here next September.”

“Did he tell you that, too?”

“Indeed he did. You can’t believe what a goose he is! Then his voice sounds like a cracked bell; it’s the most disagreeable voice you ever heard in your life. And one has always to be on one’s guard lest he should make one do something that is⁠—is⁠—that isn’t quite the thing for a gentleman. You understand;⁠—what the messenger ought to do.”

“You shouldn’t be too much afraid of your own dignity.”

“No, I’m not. If Lord De Guest were to ask me to fetch him his shoes, I’d run to Guestwick and back for them and think nothing of it⁠—just because I know he’s my friend. He’d have a right to send me. But I’m not going to do such things as that for Sir Raffle Buffle.”

“Fetch him his shoes!”

“That’s what FitzHoward had to do, and he didn’t like it.”

“Isn’t Mr. FitzHoward nephew to the Duchess of St. Bungay?”

“Nephew, or cousin, or something.”

“Dear me!” said Lady Julia, “what a horrible man!” And in this way John Eames and her ladyship became very intimate.

There was no one at dinner at the Manor that day but the earl and his sister and their single guest. The earl when he came in was very warm in his welcome, slapping his young friend on the back, and poking jokes at him with a good-humoured if not brilliant pleasantry.

“Thrashed anybody lately, John?”

“Nobody to speak of,” said Johnny.

“Brought your nightcap down for your out-o’-doors nap?”

“No; but I’ve got a grand stick for the bull,” said Johnny.

“Ah! that’s no joke now, I can tell you,” said the earl. “We had to sell him, and it half broke my heart. We don’t know what had come to him, but he became quite unruly after that;⁠—knocked Darvell down in the straw-yard! It was a very bad business⁠—a very bad business, indeed! Come, go and dress. Do you remember how you came down to dinner that day? I shall never forget how Crofts stared at you. Come, you’ve only got twenty minutes, and you London fellows always want an hour.”

“He’s entitled to some consideration now he’s a private secretary,” said Lady Julia.

“Bless us all! yes; I forgot that. Come, Mr. Private Secretary, don’t stand on the grandeur of your necktie today, as there’s nobody here but ourselves. You shall have an opportunity tomorrow.”

Then Johnny was handed over to the groom of the chambers, and exactly in twenty minutes he reappeared in the drawing-room.

As soon as Lady Julia had left them after dinner, the earl began to explain his plan for the coming campaign. “I’ll tell you now what I have arranged,” said he. “The squire is to be here tomorrow with his eldest niece⁠—your Miss Lily’s sister, you know.”

“What, Bell?”

“Yes, with Bell, if her name is Bell. She’s a very pretty girl, too. I don’t know whether she’s not the prettiest of the two, after all.”

“That’s a matter of opinion.”

“Just so, Johnny; and do you stick to your own. They’re coming here for three or four days. Lady Julia did ask Mrs. Dale and Lily. I wonder whether you’ll let me call her Lily?”

“Oh, dear! I wish I might have the power of letting you.”

“That’s just the battle that you’ve got to fight. But the mother and the younger sister wouldn’t come. Lady Julia says it’s all right;⁠—that, as a matter of course, she wouldn’t come when she heard you were to be here. I don’t quite understand it. In my days the young girls were ready enough to go where they knew they’d meet their lovers, and I never thought any the worse of them for it.”

“It wasn’t because of that,” said Eames.

“That’s what Lady Julia says, and I always find her to be right in things of that sort. And she says you’ll have a better chance in going over there than you would here, if she were