The Last Chronicle of Barset

CHAPTER XXVII

A HERO AT HOME

On the morn­ing af­ter his vis­it to Miss De­mo­lines, John Eames found him­self at the Padding­ton Sta­tion ask­ing for a tick­et for Guest­wick, and as he picked up his change an­oth­er gen­tle­man al­so de­mand­ed a tick­et for the same place. Had Guest­wick been as Liv­er­pool or Manch­ester, Eames would have thought noth­ing about it. It is a mat­ter of course that men should al­ways be go­ing from Lon­don to Liv­er­pool and Manch­ester; but it seemed odd to him that two men should want first-​class tick­ets for so small a place as Guest­wick at the same mo­ment. And when, af­ter­wards, he was placed by the guard in the same car­riage with this oth­er trav­eller, he could not but feel some lit­tle cu­rios­ity. The man was four or five years John­ny’s se­nior, a good-​look­ing fel­low, with a pleas­ant face, and the out­ward ap­pur­te­nances of a gen­tle­man. The in­tel­li­gent read­er will no doubt be aware that the stranger was Ma­jor Grant­ly; but the in­tel­li­gent read­er has in this re­spect had much ad­van­tage over John Eames, who up to this time had nev­er even heard of his cousin Grace Craw­ley’s lover. ‘I think you were ask­ing for a tick­et to Guest­wick,’ said John­ny; –where­upon the ma­jor owned that such was the case. ‘I lived in Guest­wick for the greater part of my life,’ said John­ny, ‘and it’s the dullest, dear­est lit­tle town in all Eng­land.’ ‘I nev­er was there be­fore,’ said the ma­jor, ‘and in­deed I can hard­ly say I am go­ing there now. I shall on­ly pass through it.’ Then he got out his news­pa­per, and John­ny al­so got his out, and for a time there was no con­ver­sa­tion be­tween them. John re­mem­bered how holy was the er­rand up­on which he was in­tent, and gath­ered his thoughts to­geth­er, re­solv­ing that hav­ing so great a mat­ter on his mind he would think about noth­ing else and speak about noth­ing at all. He was go­ing down to Alling­ton to ask Lily Dale for the last time whether she would be his wife; to as­cer­tain whether he was to be suc­cess­ful or un­suc­cess­ful in the one great wish of his life; and, as such was the case with him–as he had in hand a thing so vi­tal, it could be noth­ing to him whether the chance com­pan­ion of his voy­age was an agree­able or dis­agree­able per­son. He him­self, in any of the or­di­nary cir­cum­stances of life, was prone enough to talk with any­one he might meet. He could have trav­elled for twelve hours to­geth­er with an old la­dy, and could lis­ten to her or make her lis­ten to him with­out half-​an-​hour’s in­ter­rup­tion. But this jour­ney was made on no or­di­nary oc­ca­sion, and it be­hoved him to think of Lily. There­fore, af­ter the first lit­tle al­most nec­es­sary ef­fort at ci­vil­ity, he fell back in­to gloomy si­lence. He was go­ing to do his best to win Lily Dale, and this do­ing of his best would re­quire all his thoughts and all his en­er­gy.

And prob­ably Ma­jor Grant­ly’s mind was bent in the same di­rec­tion. He, too, had this work be­fore him, and could not look up­on his work as a thing that which he was in­tent up­on ob­tain­ing. He knew–he al­most knew–that he had won the heart of the girl whom he was seek­ing. There had been that be­tween him and her which jus­ti­fied him in sup­pos­ing that he was dear to her, al­though no ex­pres­sion of af­fec­tion had ev­er passed from her lips to his ears. Men may know all that they re­quire to know on that sub­ject with­out any plain­ly spo­ken words. Grace Craw­ley had spo­ken no word, and yet he had known–at any rate had not doubt­ed, that he could have the place in her heart of which he de­sired to be the mas­ter. She would nev­er sur­ren­der her­self al­to­geth­er till she had taught her­self to be sure of him to whom she gave her­self. But she had lis­tened to him with si­lence that had not re­buked him, and he had told him­self that he might ven­ture, with­out fear of that re­buke as to which the minds of some men are sen­si­tive to a de­gree which oth­er men can­not even un­der­stand. But for all this Ma­jor Grant­ly could not be al­to­geth­er hap­py as to his mis­sion; he would ask Grace Craw­ley to be his wife; but he would be ru­ined by his own suc­cess. And the re­mem­brance that he would be sev­ered from his own fam­ily by the thing that he was do­ing, was very bit­ter to him. In gen­eros­ity he might be silent about this to Grace, but who can en­dure to be silent on such a sub­ject to the wom­an who is to be his wife? And then it would not be pos­si­ble for him to ab­stain from some ex­pla­na­tion. He was now fol­low­ing her down to Alling­ton, a step which he cer­tain­ly would not have tak­en but the mis­for­tune which had be­fall­en her fa­ther, and he must ex­plain to her in some sort of way why he did so. He must say to her–if not in so many words, still al­most as plain­ly as words could speak–I am here now to ask you to be my wife, be­cause you spe­cial­ly re­quire the pro­tec­tion and coun­te­nance of the man who loves you, in the present cir­cum­stances of your fa­ther’s af­fairs. He knew that he was do­ing right;–per­haps had some idea that he was do­ing nobly; but this very ap­pre­ci­ation of his own good qual­ities made the task be­fore the more dif­fi­cult.

Ma­jor Grant­ly had The Times, and John Eames had The Dai­ly News, and they ex­changed pa­pers. One had the last Sat­ur­day, and the oth­er the last Spec­ta­tor, and they ex­changed these al­so. Both had The Pall Mall Gazette, of which en­ter­pris­ing pe­ri­od­ical they grad­ual­ly came to dis­cuss the mer­its and de­mer­its, thus falling in­to con­ver­sa­tion at last, in spite of the weight of the mis­sion on which each of them was in­tent. Then, at last, when they were with­in half-​an-​hour of the end of their jour­ney, Ma­jor Grant­ly asked his com­pan­ion what was the best inn at Guest­wick. He had at first been mind­ed to go on to Alling­ton at once–to go on to Alling­ton and get his work done, and then re­turn home or re­main there, or find the near­est inn with a de­cent bed, as cir­cum­stances might di­rect him. But on re­con­sid­er­ation, as he drew near­er to the scene of his fu­ture op­er­ations, he thought that it might be well for him to re­main that night at Guest­wick. He did not quite know how far Alling­ton was from Guest­wick, but he did know that it was still mid-​win­ter, and that the days were short. ‘The Mag­pie’ was the best inn, John­ny said. Hav­ing lived at Guest­wick all his life, and hav­ing a moth­er liv­ing there now, he had nev­er him­self put up at ‘The Mag­pie’ but he be­lieved it to a good coun­try inn. They kept post-​hors­es there, he knew. He did not tell the stranger that his late old friend Lord De Guest, and his present old friend La­dy Ju­lia, al­ways hired post-​hors­es from ‘The Mag­pie’, but he ground­ed his ready as­ser­tion on the re­mem­brance of that fact. ‘I think I shall stay there tonight,’ said the ma­jor. ‘You’ll find it pret­ty com­fort­able, I don’t doubt,’ said John­ny. ‘Though, in­deed, it al­ways seems to me that a man alone at an inn has a very bad time of it. Read­ing is all very well, but one gets tired of it at last. And then I hate horse-​hair chairs.’ ‘It isn’t very de­light­ful,’ said the ma­jor, ‘but beg­gars mustn’t be choosers.’ Then there was a pause, af­ter which the ma­jor spoke again. ‘You don’t hap­pen to know which way Alling­ton lies?’

‘Alling­ton!’ said John­ny.

‘Yes, Alling­ton. Is there not a vil­lage called Alling­ton?’

‘There is a vil­lage called Alling­ton, cer­tain­ly. It lies over there.’ And John­ny point­ed with his fin­ger through the win­dow. ‘As you do not know the coun­try you can see noth­ing, but I can see the Alling­ton trees at this mo­ment.’

‘I sup­pose there is no inn at Alling­ton?’

‘There’s a pub­lic-​house, with a very nice bed­room. It is called the “Red Li­on”. Mrs For­rard keeps it. I would quite as soon stay there as at “The Mag­pie”. On­ly if they don’t ex­pect you, they wouldn’t have much for din­ner.’

‘Then you know the vil­lage of Alling­ton?’

‘Yes, I know the vil­lage of Alling­ton very well. I have friends liv­ing there. In­deed, I may say I know ev­ery­body liv­ing in Alling­ton.’

‘Do you know Mrs Dale?’

‘Mrs Dale,’ said John­ny. ‘Yes, I know Mrs Dale. I have known Mrs Dale pret­ty near­ly all my life.’ Who could this man be who was gong down to see Mrs Dale–Mrs Dale, and con­se­quent­ly, Lily Dale? He thought that he knew Mrs Dale so well, that she could have no vis­itor of whom he would not be en­ti­tled to have some knowl­edge. But Ma­jor Grant­ly had noth­ing more to say at the mo­ment about Mrs Dale. He had nev­er seen Mrs Dale in his life, and was now go­ing to her house, not to see her, but a friend of hers. He found that he could not very well ex­plain this to a stranger, and there­fore at the mo­ment he said noth­ing fur­ther. But John­ny would not al­low the sub­ject to be dropped. ‘Have you known Mrs Dale long?’ he asked.

‘I have not the plea­sure of know­ing her at all,’ said the ma­jor.

‘I thought, per­haps, by your ask­ing af­ter her–’

‘I in­tend to call up­on her, that is all. I sup­pose they will have an om­nibus here from “The Mag­pie”?’ Eames said that there no doubt would be an om­nibus from ‘The Mag­pie’, and then they were at their jour­ney’s end.

For the present we will fol­low John Eames, who went at once to his moth­er’s house. It was his in­ten­tion to re­main there for two or three days, and then go over to the house, or rather to the cot­tage, of his great al­ly La­dy Ju­lia, which lay just be­yond Guest­wick Manor, and some­what near­er to Alling­ton than to the town of Guest­wick. He had made up his mind that he would not him­self go over to Alling­ton till he could do so from Guest­wick Cot­tage, as it was called, feel­ing that, un­der cer­tain un­to­ward cir­cum­stances–should un­to­ward cir­cum­stances arise–La­dy Ju­lia’s sym­pa­thy might be more en­durable than that of his moth­er. But he would take care that it should be known at Alling­ton that he was in the neigh­bour­hood. He un­der­stood the nec­es­sary strat­egy of his cam­paign too well to sup­pose that he could star­tle Lily in­to ac­cep­tance.

With his own moth­er and sis­ter, John Eames was in these days quite a hero. He was a hero with them now, be­cause in his ear­ly boy­ish days there had been so lit­tle about him that was hero­ic. Then there had been a doubt whether he would ev­er earn his dai­ly bread, and he had been a very heavy bur­den on the slight fam­ily re­sources in the mat­ter of jack­ets and trousers. The pride tak­en in John­ny had not been great, though the love felt for him had been warm. But grad­ual­ly things had changed, and John Eames had be­come hero in his moth­er’s eyes. A chance cir­cum­stance had en­deared him to Earl De Guest, and from that mo­ment things had gone well with him. The earl had giv­en him a watch and had left him a for­tune, and Sir Raf­fle Buf­fle had made him his pri­vate sec­re­tary. In the old days, when John­ny’s love for Lily Dale was first dis­cussed by his moth­er and sis­ter, they had thought it im­pos­si­ble that Lily should ev­er bring her­self to re­gard with af­fec­tion so hum­ble a suit­or;–for the Dales have ev­er held their heads up in the world. But now there is no mis­giv­ing on that score with Mrs Eames and her daugh­ter. Their won­der that Lily Dale should be such a fool as to de­cline the love of such a man. So John­ny was re­ceived with re­spect due to a hero, as well as with the af­fec­tion be­long­ing to a son;–by which I mean it to be in­ferred that Mrs Eames had got a lit­tle bit of fish for din­ner as well as a leg of mut­ton.

‘A man came down in the train with me who says he is go­ing over to Alling­ton,’ said John­ny. ‘I won­der who he can be. He is stay­ing at “The Mag­pie”.’

‘A friend of Cap­tain Dale’s prob­ably,’ said Mary. Cap­tain Dale was the squire’s nephew and his heir.

‘But this man was not go­ing to the squire’s. He was go­ing to the Small House.’

‘Is he go­ing to stay there?’

‘I sup­pose not, as he asked about the inn.’ Then, John­ny re­flect­ed that he might pos­si­bly be a friend of Cros­bie’s, and be­came melan­choly in con­se­quence. Cros­bie might have thought it ex­pe­di­ent to send an am­bas­sador down to pre­pare the ground for him be­fore he should ven­ture again up­on the scene him­self. If it were so, would it not be well that he, John Eames, should get over to Lily as soon as pos­si­ble, and not wait till he should be stay­ing with La­dy Ju­lia?

It was at any rate in­cum­bent up­on him to call up­on La­dy Ju­lia the next morn­ing, be­cause of his com­mis­sion. The Berlin wool might re­main in his port­man­teau till his port­man­teau should go with him to the cot­tage; but he would take the spec­ta­cles at once, and he must ex­plain to La­dy Ju­lia what the lawyers had told him about the in­come. So he hired a sad­dle-​horse from ‘The Mag­pie’ and start­ed af­ter break­fast on the morn­ing af­ter his ar­rival. In his un­heroic days he would have walked–as he had done, scores of times, over the whole dis­tance from Guest­wick to Alling­ton. But now, in these grander days, he thought about his boots and the mud, and the for­mal ap­pear­ance of the thing. ‘Ah dear,’ he said to him­self, as the nag walked slow­ly out of the town, ‘it used to be bet­ter with the old days. I hard­ly hoped that she would ev­er ac­cept me, but at least she had nev­er re­fused me. And then that brute had not as yet made his way down to Alling­ton!’

He did not go very fast. Af­ter leav­ing the town he trot­ted on for a mile or so. But when he got to the pal­ings of Guest­wick Manor he let the an­imal walk again, and his mind ran back over the in­ci­dents of his life which were con­nect­ed with the place. He re­mem­bered a cer­tain long ram­ble which he had tak­en in those days woods af­ter Lily had re­fused him. That had been sub­se­quent to the Cros­bie episode in his life, and John­ny had been led to hope by cer­tain of his friends–es­pe­cial­ly by Lord De Guest and his sis­ter–that he might then be suc­cess­ful. But he had been un­suc­cess­ful, and had passed the bit­ter­est hour of his life wan­der­ing about in those woods. Since that he had been un­suc­cess­ful again and again; but the bit­ter­ness of fail­ure had not been so strong with him as on that first oc­ca­sion. He would try again now, and if he failed, he would fail for the last time. As he was think­ing of all this, a gig over­took him on the road, and on look­ing round he saw that the oc­cu­pant of the gig was the man who had trav­elled with him on the pre­vi­ous day in the train. Ma­jor Grant­ly was alone in the gig, and as he recog­nised John Eames he stopped his horse. ‘Are you go­ing to Alling­ton?’ he asked. John Eames, with some­thing of scorn in his voice, replied that he had no in­ten­tion of go­ing to Alling­ton on that day. He still thought that this man might be an emis­sary from Cros­bie, and there­fore re­solved that but scant cour­tesy was due to him. ‘I am on my way there now,’ said Grant­ly, ‘and am go­ing to the house of your friend. May I tell her that I trav­elled with you yes­ter­day?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said John­ny. ‘You may tell her that you came down with John Eames.’

‘And are you John Eames?’ asked the ma­jor.

‘If you have no ob­jec­tion,’ said John­ny. ‘But I can hard­ly sup­pose that you have heard of my name be­fore?’

‘It is fa­mil­iar to me be­cause I have the plea­sure of know­ing a cousin of yours, Grace Craw­ley.’

‘My cousin is at present stay­ing at Alling­ton with Mrs Dale,’ said John­ny.

‘Just so,’ said the ma­jor, who now be­gan to re­flect that he had been in­dis­creet in men­tion­ing Grace Craw­ley’s name. No doubt ev­ery­one con­nect­ed with the fam­ily, all the Craw­leys, all the Dales, and all the Eames’s, would soon know the busi­ness which had brought him down to All­ng­ton; but he need not have tak­en the trou­ble of be­gin­ning the sto­ry him­self. John Eames, in truth, had nev­er heard of Ma­jor Grant­ly’s name, and was quite un­aware of the for­tune which await­ed his cousin. Even af­ter what he had now been told, he still sus­pect­ed the stranger of be­ing an emis­sary from his en­emy; but the ma­jor, not giv­ing him cred­it for his ig­no­rance, was an­noyed with him­self for hav­ing told so much of his own his­to­ry. ‘I will tell the ladies that I had the plea­sure of meet­ing you,’ he said; ‘that is, if I am lucky enough to see them.’ And then he drove on.

‘I know I should hate that fel­low if I were to meet him any­where again,’ said John­ny to him­self as he rode on. ‘When I take an aver­sion to a fel­low at first sight, I al­ways stick to it. It’s in­stinct, I sup­pose.’ And he was still giv­ing him­self cred­it for the strength of his in­stincts when he reached La­dy Ju­lia’s cot­tage. He rode at once in­to the sta­ble-​yard, with the priv­ilege of an ac­cus­tomed friend of the house, and hav­ing giv­en up his horse, en­tered the cot­tage by the back door. ‘Is my la­dy at home, Jemi­ma?’ he said to the maid.

‘Yes, Mr John; she is in the draw­ing-​room, and friends of yours are with her.’ Then he was an­nounced, and found him­self in the pres­ence of La­dy Ju­lia, Lily Dale, and Grace Craw­ley.

He was very warm­ly re­ceived. La­dy Ju­lia re­al­ly loved him dear­ly, and would have done any­thing in her pow­er to bring about a match be­tween him and Lily. Grace was his cousin, and though she had not seen him of­ten, she was pre­pared to love him dear­ly as Lily’s lover. And Lily–Lily loved him dear­ly too–if on­ly she could have brought her­self to love him as he wished to be loved! To all of them John­ny Eames was some­thing of a hero. At any rate in the eyes of all of them he pos­sessed those virtues which seemed to them to jus­ti­fy them in pet­ting him and mak­ing much of him.

‘I am so glad you’ve come–that is, if you’ve brought my spec­ta­cles,’ said La­dy Ju­lia.

‘My pock­ets are crammed with spec­ta­cles,’ said John­ny.

‘And when are you com­ing to me?’

‘I was think­ing of Tues­day.’

‘No; don’t come till Wednes­day. But I mean Mon­day. No; Mon­day won’t do. Come on Tues­day–ear­ly, and drive me out. And now tell us the news.’

John­ny swore that there was no news. He made a brave at­tempt to be gay and easy be­fore Lily; but he failed, and he knew that he failed–and he knew that she knew that he failed. ‘Mam­ma will be so glad to see you,’ said Lily. ‘I sup­pose you haven’t seen Bell yet?’

‘I on­ly got to Guest­wick yes­ter­day af­ter­noon,’ said he.

‘And it will be so nice our hav­ing Grace at the Small House;–won’t it? Un­cle Christo­pher has quite tak­en a pas­sion for Grace–so that I am hard­ly any­body now in the Alling­ton world.’

‘By-​the-​by,’ said John­ny, ‘I came down here with a friend of yours, Grace.’

‘A friend of mine?’ said Grace.

‘So he says, and he is at Alling­ton at this mo­ment. He passed me in the gig down here.’

‘And what was his name?’ Lily asked.

‘I have not the re­motest idea,’ said John­ny. ‘He is a man about my own age, very good-​look­ing, and ap­par­ent­ly very well able to take care of him­self. He is short-​sight­ed, and holds a glass in one eye when he looks out of a car­riage win­dow. That’s all I know about him.

Grace Craw­ley’s face had be­come suf­fused with blush­es at the first men­tion of the friend and the gig; but then Grace blushed very eas­ily. Lily knew all about it at once;–at once di­vined who must be the friend in the gig, and was al­most be­side her­self with joy. La­dy Ju­lia, who had heard no more of the ma­jor than had John­ny, was still clever enough to per­ceive that the friend must be a par­tic­ular friend–for she had no­ticed Miss Craw­ley’s blush­es. And Grace her­self had no doubt as to the man. The pic­ture of her lover, with the glass in his eye as he looked out of the win­dow, had been too per­fect to ad­mit of a doubt. In her dis­tress she put out her hand and took hold of Lily’s dress.

‘And you say he is at Alling­ton now?’ said Lily.

‘I have no doubt he is at the Small House at this mo­ment,’ said John­ny.