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

in his life. I know that he was pleased⁠—beyond measure pleased. After a while he became animated, and talked of doing ever so many things. He promised that very painting of which you spoke.”

“Ah, yes, I knew it; and Hopkins will be here with the peas before dinnertime tomorrow, and Dingles with his shoulders smothered with rabbits. And then Mrs. Boyce! Mamma, he didn’t think of Mrs. Boyce; or, in very charity of heart, he would still have maintained his sadness.”

“Then he did not think of her; for when I left him he was not at all sad. But I haven’t told you half yet.”

“Dear me, mamma; was there more than that?”

“And I’ve told it all wrong; for what I’ve got to tell now was said before a word was spoken about the house. He brought it in just after what he said about Bernard. He said that Bernard would, of course, be his heir.”

“Of course he will.”

“And that he should think it wrong to encumber the property with any charges for you girls.”

“Mamma, did anyone ever⁠—”

“Stop, Lily, stop; and make your heart kinder towards him if you can.”

“It is kind; only I hate to be told that I’m not to have a lot of money, as though I had ever shown a desire for it. I have never envied Bernard his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his ass, or anything that is his. To tell the truth I didn’t even wish it to be Bell’s, because I knew well that there was somebody she would like a great deal better than ever she could like Bernard.”

“I shall never get to the end of my story.”

“Yes, you will, mamma, if you persevere.”

“The long and the short of it is this, that he has given Bell three thousand pounds, and has given you three thousand also.”

“But why me, mamma?” said Lily, and the colour of her cheeks became red as she spoke. There should if possible be nothing more said about John Eames; but whatever might or might not be the necessity of speaking, at any rate, let there be no mistake. “But why me, mamma?”

“Because, as he explained to me, he thinks it right to do the same by each of you. The money is yours at this moment⁠—to buy hairpins with, if you please. I had no idea that he could command so large a sum.”

“Three thousand pounds! The last money he gave me was half-a-crown, and I thought that he was so stingy! I particularly wanted ten shillings. I should have liked it so much better now if he had given me a nice new five-pound note.”

“You’d better tell him so.”

“No; because then he’d give me that too. But with five pounds I should have the feeling that I might do what I liked with it;⁠—buy a dressing-case, and a thing for a squirrel to run round in. But nobody ever gives girls money like that, so that they can enjoy it.”

“Oh, Lily; you ungrateful child!”

“No, I deny it. I’m not ungrateful. I’m very grateful, because his heart was softened⁠—and because he cried and kissed you. I’ll be ever so good to him! But how I’m to thank him for giving me three thousand pounds, I cannot think. It’s a sort of thing altogether beyond my line of life. It sounds like something that’s to come to me in another world, but which I don’t want quite yet. I am grateful, but with a misty, mazy sort of gratitude. Can you tell me how soon I shall have a new pair of Balmoral boots because of this money? If that were brought home to me I think it would enliven my gratitude.”

The squire, as he rode back to Guestwick, fell again from that animation, which Mrs. Dale had described, into his natural sombre mood. He thought much of his past life, declaring to himself the truth of those words in which he had told his sister-in-law that his heart had ever been kinder than his words. But the world, and all those nearest to him in the world, had judged him always by his words rather than by his heart. They had taken the appearance, which he could not command or alter, rather than the facts, of which he had been the master. Had he not been good to all his relations?⁠—and yet was there one among them that cared for him? “I’m almost sorry that they are going to stay,” he said to himself;⁠—“I know that I shall disappoint them.” Yet when he met Bell at the Manor House he accosted her cheerily, telling her with much appearance of satisfaction that that flitting into Guestwick was not to be accomplished.

“I am so glad,” said she. “It is long since I wished it.”

“And I do not think your mother wishes it now.”

“I am sure she does not. It was all a misunderstanding from the first. When some of us could not do all that you wished, we thought it better⁠—” Then Bell paused, finding that she would get herself into a mess if she persevered.

“We will not say any more about it,” said the squire. “The thing is over, and I am very glad that it should be so pleasantly settled. I was talking to Dr. Crofts yesterday.”

“Were you, uncle?”

“Yes; and he is to come and stay with me the day before he is married. We have arranged it all. And we’ll have the breakfast up at the Great House. Only you must fix the day. I should say some time in May. And, my dear, you’ll want to make yourself fine; here’s a little money for you. You are to spend that before your marriage, you know.” Then he shambled away, and as soon as he was alone, again became sad and despondent. He was a man for whom we may predicate some gentle sadness and continued despondency to the end of his life’s chapter.

We left John Eames in the custody of Lady Julia, who had overtaken him