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

this service. There is nothing pleasanter than all this, although a man when so treated does feel himself to look like a calf at the altar, ready for the knife, with blue ribbons round his horns and neck. Crosbie felt that he was such a calf⁠—and the more calf-like, in that he had not as yet dared to ask a question about his wife’s fortune. “I will have it out of the old fellow this evening,” he said to himself, as he buttoned on his dandy shooting gaiters that morning.

“How nice he looks in them,” Lily said to her sister afterwards, knowing nothing of the thoughts which had troubled her lover’s mind while he was adorning his legs.

“I suppose we shall come back this way,” Crosbie said, as they prepared to move away on their proper business when lunch was over.

“Well, not exactly!” said Bernard. “We shall make our way round by Darvell’s farm, and so back by Gruddock’s. Are the girls going to dine up at the Great House today?”

The girls declared that they were not going to dine up at the Great House⁠—that they did not intend going to the Great House at all that evening.

“Then, as you won’t have to dress, you might as well meet us at Gruddock’s gate, at the back of the farmyard. We’ll be there exactly at half-past five.”

“That is to say, we’re to be there at half-past five, and you’ll keep us waiting for three-quarters of an hour,” said Lily. Nevertheless the arrangement as proposed was made, and the two ladies were not at all unwilling to make it. It is thus that the game is carried on among unsophisticated people who really live in the country. The farmyard gate at Farmer Gruddock’s has not a fitting sound as a trysting-place in romance, but for people who are in earnest it does as well as any oak in the middle glade of a forest. Lily Dale was quite in earnest⁠—and so indeed was Adolphus Crosbie⁠—only with him the earnest was beginning to take that shade of brown which most earnest things have to wear in this vale of tears. With Lily it was as yet all rose-coloured. And Bernard Dale was also in earnest. Throughout this morning he had stood very near to Bell on the lawn, and had thought that his cousin did not receive his little whisperings with any aversion. Why should she? Lucky girl that she was, thus to have eight hundred a year pinned to her skirt!

“I say, Dale,” Crosbie said, as in the course of their day’s work they had come round upon Gruddock’s ground, and were preparing to finish off his turnips before they reached the farmyard gate. And now, as Crosbie spoke, they stood leaning on the gate, looking at the turnips while the two dogs squatted on their haunches. Crosbie had been very silent for the last mile or two, and had been making up his mind for this conversation. “I say, Dale⁠—your uncle has never said a word to me yet as to Lily’s fortune.”

“As to Lily’s fortune! The question is whether Lily has got a fortune.”

“He can hardly expect that I am to take her without something. Your uncle is a man of the world and he knows⁠—”

“Whether or no my uncle is a man of the world, I will not say; but you are, Crosbie, whether he is or not. Lily, as you have always known, has nothing of her own.”

“I am not talking of Lily’s own. I’m speaking of her uncle. I have been straightforward with him; and when I became attached to your cousin I declared what I meant at once.”

“You should have asked him the question, if you thought there was any room for such a question.”

“Thought there was any room! Upon my word, you are a cool fellow.”

“Now look here, Crosbie; you may say what you like about my uncle, but you must not say a word against Lily.”

“Who is going to say a word against her? You can little understand me if you don’t know that the protection of her name against evil words is already more my care than it is yours. I regard Lily as my own.”

“I only meant to say, that any discontent you may feel as to her money, or want of money, you must refer to my uncle, and not to the family at the Small House.”

“I am quite well aware of that.”

“And though you are quite at liberty to say what you like to me about my uncle, I cannot say that I can see that he has been to blame.”

“He should have told me what her prospects are.”

“But if she have got no prospects! It cannot be an uncle’s duty to tell everybody that he does not mean to give his niece a fortune. In point of fact, why should you suppose that he has such an intention?”

“Do you know that he has not? because you once led me to believe that he would give his niece money.”

“Now, Crosbie, it is necessary that you and I should understand each other in this matter⁠—”

“But did you not?”

“Listen to me for a moment. I never said a word to you about my uncle’s intentions in any way, until after you had become fully engaged to Lily with the knowledge of us all. Then, when my belief on the subject could make no possible difference in your conduct, I told you that I thought my uncle would do something for her. I told you so because I did think so;⁠—and as your friend, I should have told you what I thought in any matter that concerned your interest.”

“And now you have changed your opinion?”

“I have changed my opinion; but very probably without sufficient ground.”

“That’s hard upon me.”

“It may be hard to bear disappointment; but you cannot say that anybody has ill-used you.”

“And you don’t think he will give her anything?”

“Nothing that will be of much moment to you.”

“And I’m not to say