The Last Chronicle of Barset

CHAPTER XXIX

MISS LILY DALE’S LOG­IC

La­dy Ju­lia De Guest al­ways lunched at one ex­act­ly, and it was not much past twelve when John Eames made his ap­pear­ance at the cot­tage. He was of course told to stay, and of course said that he would stay. It had been his pur­pose to lunch with La­dy Ju­lia; but then he had not ex­pect­ed to find Lily Dale at the cot­tage. Lily her­self would have been quite at her ease, pro­tect­ed by La­dy Ju­lia, and some­what pro­tect­ed al­so by her own pow­ers of fence, had it not been that Grace was there al­so. But Grace Craw­ley, from the mo­ment that she had heard the de­scrip­tion of the gen­tle­man who looked out of the win­dow with his glass in his eye, had by no means been at her ease. Lily saw at once that she could not be brought to join in any con­ver­sa­tion, and both John and La­dy Ju­lia, in their ig­no­rance of the mat­ter in hand, made mat­ters worse.

‘So that was Ma­jor Grant­ly,’ said John. ‘I have heard of him be­fore, I think. He is a son of the old archdea­con, is he not?’

‘I don’t know about old archdea­con,’ said La­dy Ju­lia. ‘The archdea­con is the son of the old bish­op, whom I re­mem­ber very well. And it is not so very long since the bish­op died, ei­ther.’

‘I won­der what he is do­ing at Alling­ton,’ said John.

‘I think he knows my un­cle,’ said Lily.

‘But he’s go­ing to call on your moth­er, he said.’ Then John­ny re­mem­bered that the ma­jor had said some­thing as to know­ing Miss Craw­ley, and for the mo­ment he was silent.

‘I re­mem­ber when they talked of mak­ing the son a bish­op al­so,’ said La­dy Ju­lia.

‘What;–the same man who is now a ma­jor?’ said John­ny.

‘No, you goose. He is not the son of; he is the grand­son. They were go­ing to make the archdea­con a bish­op, and I re­mem­ber hear­ing that he was ter­ri­bly dis­ap­point­ed. He is get­ting to be an old man now, I sup­pose; and yet, dear me, how well I re­mem­ber his fa­ther.’

‘He didn’t look like a bish­op’s son,’ said John­ny.

‘How does a bish­op’s son look,’ Lily asked.

‘I sup­pose he ought to have some sort of cler­ical tinge about him; but this fel­low had noth­ing of that kind.’

‘But then this fel­low, as you call him,’ said Lily, ‘is on­ly the son of an archdea­con.’

‘That ac­counts for it, I sup­pose,’ said John­ny.

But dur­ing all this time, Grace did not say a word, and Lily per­ceived it. Then she bethought her­self as to what she had bet­ter do. Grace, she knew, could not be com­fort­able where she was. Nor, in­deed, was it prob­able that Grace would be very com­fort­able in re­turn­ing home. There could not be much ease for Grace till the com­ing meet­ing be­tween her and Ma­jor Grant­ly should be over. But it would be bet­ter that Grace should go back to Alling­ton at once; and bet­ter al­so, per­haps, for Ma­jor Grant­ly that it should be so. ‘La­dy Ju­lia,’ she said, ‘I don’t think we’ll mind stop­ping for lunch to­day.’

‘Non­sense, my dear; you promised.’

‘I think we must break our promise; I do in­deed. You mustn’t be an­gry with us.’ And Lily looked at La­dy Ju­lia, as though there were some­thing which La­dy Ju­lia ought to un­der­stand, which she, Lily, could not quite ex­plain. I fear that Lily was false, and in­tend­ed her old friend to be­lieve that she was run­ning away be­cause John Eames had come there.

‘But you will be fam­ished,’ said La­dy Ju­lia.

‘We shall live through it,’ said Lily.

‘It is out of the ques­tion that I should let you walk all the way here from Alling­ton and all the way back with­out tak­ing some­thing.’

‘We shall just be home in time for lunch if we go now,’ said Lily. ‘Will not that be the best, Grace?’

Grace hard­ly knew what would be best. She on­ly knew that Ma­jor Grant­ly was at Alling­ton, and that he had come thith­er to see her. The idea of hur­ry­ing back af­ter him was un­pleas­ant to her, and yet she was so flur­ried that she felt thank­ful to Lily for tak­ing her away from the cot­tage. The mat­ter was com­pro­mised at last. They re­mained for half-​an-​hour, and ate some bis­cuits and pre­tend­ed to drink a glass of wine, and then they start­ed. John Eames, who in truth be­lieved that Lily Dale was run­ning away from him, was by no means well pleased, and when the girls were gone, did not make him­self so agree­able to his old friend as he should have done. ‘What a fool I am to come here at all,’ he said, throw­ing him­self in­to an arm-​chair as soon as the front door was closed.

‘That’s very civ­il to me, John!’

‘You know what I mean, La­dy Ju­lia. I am a fool to come near her, un­til I can do so with­out think­ing more of her than I do of any oth­er girl in the coun­try.’

‘I don’t think you have any­thing to com­plain of as yet,’ said La­dy Ju­lia, who had in some sort per­ceived that Lily’s re­treat had been on Grace’s ac­count, and not on her own. ‘It seems to me that Lily was very glad to see you, and when I told her that you were com­ing to stay here, and would be near them for some days, she seemed to be quite pleased;–she did in­deed.’

‘Then why did she run away the mo­ment I came in?’ said John­ny.

‘I think it was some­thing you said about the man who has gone to Alling­ton.’

‘What dif­fer­ence can the man make to her? The truth is, I de­spise my­self;–I do in­deed, La­dy Ju­lia. On­ly think of my meet­ing Cros­bie at din­ner the oth­er day, and his hav­ing the im­per­ti­nence to come up and shake hands with me.’

‘I sup­pose he didn’t say any­thing about what hap­pened at the Padding­ton Sta­tion?’

‘No; he didn’t speak about that. I wish I knew whether she cares for him still. If I thought she did, I would nev­er speak an­oth­er word to her–I mean about my­self. Of course I am not go­ing to quar­rel with them. I am not such a fool as that.’ Then La­dy Ju­lia tried to com­fort him, and suc­ceed­ed so far that he was in­duced to eat the mince veal that had been in­tend­ed for the com­fort and sup­port of the two young ladies who had run away.

‘Do you think it is he?’ were the first words which Grace said when they were fair­ly on their way back to­geth­er.

‘I should think it must be. What oth­er man can there be, of that sort, who would be like­ly to come to Alling­ton to see you?’

‘His com­ing is not like­ly. I can­not un­der­stand that he should come. He let me leave Sil­ver­bridge with­out see­ing me–and I thought that he was quite right.’

‘And I think he is quite right to come here. I am very glad he has come. It shows that he has re­al­ly some­thing like a heart in­side him. Had he not come, or sent, or writ­ten, or tak­en some step be­fore the tri­al comes on, to make you know that he was think­ing of you, I should have said that he was as hard–as hard as any oth­er man I had ev­er heard of. Men are so hard! But I don’t think he is, now. I am be­gin­ning to re­gard him as the one cheva­lier sans peur et sans re­proche, and to fan­cy that you ought to go down on your knees be­fore him, and kiss his high­ness’s shoe­buck­le. In judg­ing of men one’s mind vac­il­lates so quick­ly be­tween the scorn which is due to a false man and the wor­ship which is due to a true man.’ Then she was silent for a mo­ment, but Grace said noth­ing, and Lily con­tin­ued, ‘I tell you fair­ly, Grace, that I shall ex­pect very much from you now.’

‘Much in what way, Lily?’

‘In the way of wor­ship. I shall not be con­tent that you should mere­ly love him. If he has come here, as he must have done, to say that the mo­ment of the world’s re­proach is the mo­ment he has cho­sen to ask you to be his wife, I think that you will owe him more than love.’

‘I shall owe him more than love, and I will pay him more than love,’ said Grace. There was some­thing in the tone of her voice as she spoke which made Lily stop her and look up in­to her face. There was a smile there which Lily had nev­er seen be­fore, and which gave a beau­ty to her which was won­der­ful to Lily’s eyes. Sure­ly this lover of Grace’s must have seen a smile like that, and there­fore had loved her and was giv­ing such won­der­ful proof of his love. ‘Yes,’ con­tin­ued Grace, stand­ing and look­ing at her friend, ‘you may stare at me, Lily, but you may be sure that I will do for Ma­jor Grant­ly all the good that I can do for him.’

‘Nev­er mind what I mean. You are very im­pe­ri­ous in man­ag­ing your own af­fairs, and you must let me be so equal­ly in mine.’

‘But I tell you ev­ery­thing.’

‘Do you sup­pose that if–if–if in re­al truth it can pos­si­bly be the case that Ma­jor Grant­ly shall have come here to of­fer me his hand when we all ground down in the dust as we are, do you think that I will let him sac­ri­fice him­self? Would you?’

‘Cer­tain­ly. Why not? There will be no sac­ri­fice. He will be ask­ing for that which he wish­es to get; and you will be bound to give it to him.’

‘If he wants it, where is his no­bil­ity? If it be as you say, he will have shown him­self no­ble, and his no­bil­ity will have con­sist­ed in this, that he has been will­ing to take that which he does not want, in or­der that he may suc­cour the one whom he loves. I al­so will suc­cour one whom I love, as best I know how.’ Then she walked on quick­ly be­fore her friend, and Lily stood for a mo­ment think­ing be­fore she fol­lowed her. They were now on a field-​path, by which they were en­abled to es­cape the road back to Alling­ton for the greater part of the dis­tance, and Grace had reached a stile, and had clam­bered over it be­fore Lily had caught her.

‘You must not go away by your­self,’ said Lily.

‘I don’t wish to go away by my­self.’

‘I want you to stop a mo­ment and lis­ten to me. I am sure you are wrong in this–wrong for both your sakes. You be­lieve that he loves you?’

‘I thought he did once; and if he has come here to see me, I sup­pose he does still.’

‘If that be the case, and you al­so love him–’

‘I do. I make no mys­tery about that to you. I do love him with all my heart. I love him to­day, now that I be­lieve him to be here, and that I sup­pose I shall see him, per­haps this very af­ter­noon. And I loved him yes­ter­day, when I thought that I should nev­er see him again. I do love him. I do. I love him so well that I will nev­er do him an in­jury.’

‘That be­ing so, if he makes you an of­fer you are bound to ac­cept it. I do not think that you have an al­ter­na­tive.’

‘I have an al­ter­na­tive, and I shall use it. Why don’t you take my cousin John?’

‘Be­cause I like some­body else bet­ter. If you have got as good a rea­son, I won’t say an­oth­er word to you.’

‘And why don’t you take that oth­er per­son?’

‘Be­cause I can­not trust his love; that is why. It is not very kind of you, open­ing my sores afresh, when I am try­ing to heal yours.’

‘Oh, Lily, I am un­kind–un­kind to you, who have been so gen­er­ous to me?’

‘I’ll for­give you all that and a deal more if you will on­ly lis­ten to me and try to take my ad­vice. Be­cause this ma­jor of yours does a gen­er­ous thing, which is for the good of you both–the in­fi­nite good of both of you–you are to em­ulate his gen­eros­ity by do­ing a thing which will be for the good of nei­ther of you. That is about it. Yes, it is, Grace. You can­not doubt that he has been mean­ing this for some time past; and of course, if he looks up­on you as his own–and I dare­say, if the whole truth is to be told, he does–’

‘But I am not his own.’

‘Yes you are, in one sense; you have just said so with a great deal of en­er­gy. And if it is so–let me see, where was I?’

‘Oh, Lily, you need not mind where you were.’

‘But I do mind, and I hate to be in­ter­rupt­ed in my ar­gu­ments. Yes, just that. If he saw his cow sick, he’d try to doc­tor the cow in her sick­ness. He sees that you are sick, and of course he comes to your re­lief.’

‘I am not Ma­jor Grant­ly’s cow.’

‘Yes, you are.’

‘Nor his dog, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any­thing that is his, ex­cept–ex­cept, Lily, the dear­est friend that he has on the face of the earth. He can­not have a friend that will go no fur­ther for him than I will. He will nev­er know how far I will go to serve him. You don’t know his peo­ple. Nor do I know them. But I know what they are. His sis­ter is mar­ried to a mar­quis.’

‘What has that to do with it?’ said Lily, sharply. ‘If she were mar­ried to an arch­duke, what dif­fer­ence would that make?’

‘And they are proud peo­ple–all of them–and rich; and they live with high per­sons in the world.’

‘I didn’t care though they lived with the roy­al fam­ily, and had the Prince of Wales for their bo­som friend. It on­ly shows how much bet­ter he is than they are.’

‘But think of what my fam­ily is–how we are sit­uat­ed. When my fa­ther was sim­ply poor I did not care about it, be­cause he has been born and bred a gen­tle­man. But now he is dis­graced. Yes, Lily, he is. I am bound to say so, at any rate to my­self, when I am think­ing of Ma­jor Grant­ly; and I will not car­ry that dis­grace in­to a fam­ily which would feel it so keen­ly as they would do.’ Lily, how­ev­er, went on with her ar­gu­ments, and was still ar­gu­ing when they turned the cor­ner of the lane, and came up­on Lily’s un­cle and the ma­jor him­self.