The Last Chronicle of Barset

CHAPTER XXXV

LILY DALE WRITES TWO WORDS IN HER BOOK

John Eames saw noth­ing more of Lily Dale till he packed up his port­man­teau, left his moth­er’s house, and went to stay for a few days with his old friend La­dy Ju­lia; and this did not hap­pen till he had been above a week at Guest­wick. Mrs Dale re­peat­ed­ly said that it was odd that John­ny Eames did not come to see them; and Grace, speak­ing of him to Lily, asked why he did not come. Lily, in her fun­ny way, de­clared that he would come soon enough. But even while she was jok­ing there was some­thing of half-​ex­pressed con­scious­ness in her words–as though she felt it to be fool­ish to speak of his com­ing as she might of that of any oth­er young man, be­fore peo­ple who knew her whole sto­ry. ‘He’ll come quick enough. He knows, and I know, that his com­ing will do no good. Of course I shall be glad to see him. Why shouldn’t I be glad to see him? I’ve known him and liked him all my life. I liked him when there did not seem to be much about him to like, and now that he is clever, and agree­able, and good-​look­ing–which he nev­er was as a lad–why shouldn’t I go on lik­ing him? He’s more like a broth­er to me than any­body else I’ve got. James,’–James was her broth­er-​in-​law, Dr Crofts–’thinks of noth­ing but his pa­tients and his ba­bies, and my cousin Bernard is much too grand a per­son for me to take the lib­er­ty of lov­ing him. I shall be very glad to see John­ny Eames.’ From all which Mrs Dale was led to be­lieve that John­ny’s case was still hope­less. And how should it not be hope­less? Had not Lily con­fessed with­in the last week or two that she still loved Adol­phus Cros­bie?

Mrs Eames al­so, and Mary, were sur­prised that John did not go over to Alling­ton. ‘You haven’t seen Mrs Dale yet, or the squire?’

‘I shall see them when I am at the cot­tage.’

‘Yes;–no doubt. But it seems strange that you should be here so long with­out go­ing to them.’

‘There’s time enough,’ said he. ‘I shall have noth­ing else to do when I’m at the cot­tage.’ Then, when Mary had spo­ken to him again in pri­vate, ex­press­ing a hope that there was ‘noth­ing wrong’, he had been very an­gry with his sis­ter. ‘What do you mean by wrong? What rub­bish you girls talk! And you nev­er have any del­ica­cy of feel­ing to make you silent.’

‘Oh, John, don’t say such hard things as that of me!’

‘But I do say them. You’ll make me swear among you some day that I will nev­er see Lily Dale again. As it is, I wish I nev­er had seen her–sim­ple be­cause I am so dunned about it.’ In all of which I think that John­ny was man­ifest­ly wrong. When the hu­mour was on him he was fond enough of talk­ing about Lily Dale. Had he not taught her to do so, I doubt whether his sis­ter would ev­er have men­tioned Lily’s name to him. ‘I did not mean to dun you, John,’ said Mary, meek­ly.

But at last he went to La­dy Ju­lia’s, and was no soon­er there than he was ready to start for Alling­ton. When La­dy Ju­lia spoke to him about Lily, he did not ven­ture to snub her. In­deed, of all his friends, La­dy Ju­lia was the one whom on this sub­ject he al­lowed him­self the most un­re­strict­ed con­fi­dence. He came over one day, just be­fore din­ner, and de­clared his in­ten­tion of walk­ing over to Alling­ton im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter break­fast on the fol­low­ing morn­ing. ‘It’s the last time, La­dy Ju­lia,’ he said.

‘So you say, John­ny.’

‘And so I mean it! What’s the good of a man flit­ter­ing away his life? What’s the good of wish­ing for what you can’t get?’

‘Ja­cob was not in such a hur­ry when he wished for Rachel.’

‘That was all very well for an old pa­tri­arch who had sev­en or eight hun­dred years to live.’

‘My dear John, you for­get your Bible. Ja­cob did not live half as long as that.’

‘He lived long enough, and slow­ly enough, to be able to wait four­teen years;–and then he had some­thing to com­fort him in the mean­time. And af­ter all, La­dy Ju­lia, it’s more than sev­en years since I first thought Lily was the pret­ti­est girl I ev­er saw.’

‘How old are you now?’ ‘Twen­ty-​sev­en–and she’s twen­ty-​four.’

‘You’ve time enough yet, if you’ll on­ly be pa­tient.’

‘I’ll be pa­tient for to­mor­row, La­dy Ju­lia, but nev­er again. Not that I mean to quar­rel with her. I’m not such a fool as to quar­rel with a girl be­cause she can’t like me. I know how it all is. If that scoundrel had not come across my path just when he did–in that very nick of time, all might have been right be­twixt her and me. I couldn’t have of­fered to mar­ry her be­fore, when I hadn’t as much in­come as would have found her bread-​and-​but­ter. And then, just as bet­ter times came to me, he stepped in! I won­der whether it will be ex­pect­ed of me that I should for­give him?’

‘As far as that goes, you have no right to be an­gry with him.’

‘But I am–all the same.’

‘And so was I–but not for step­ping in, as you call it.’

‘You and I are dif­fer­ent, La­dy Ju­lia. I was an­gry with him for step­ping in; but I couldn’t show it. Then he stepped out, and I did man­age to show it. And now I shouldn’t won­der if he doesn’t step in again. Af­ter all, why should he have such a pow­er? It was sim­ply the nick of time which gave it to him.’ That John Eames should be able to find some con­so­la­tion in this con­sid­er­ation is de­vout­ly to be hoped by us all.

There was noth­ing said about Lily Dale the next morn­ing at break­fast. La­dy Ju­lia ob­served that John was dressed a lit­tle more neat­ly than usu­al;–though the change was not such as to have called for her spe­cial ob­ser­va­tion, had she not known the busi­ness on which he was in­tent.

‘You have noth­ing to send to the Dales?’ he said, as he got up from the ta­ble.

‘Noth­ing but my love, John­ny.’

‘No worsted em­broi­dery work–or a pot of spe­cial jam for the squire?’

‘No, sir, noth­ing; though I should like to make you car­ry a pair of pan­niers, if I could.’

‘They would be­come me well,’ said John­ny, ‘for I am go­ing on an ass’s er­rand.’ Then, with­out wait­ing for the word of af­fec­tion which was on the old wom­an’s lips, he got him­self out of the room, and start­ed on his jour­ney.

The walk was on­ly three miles and the weath­er was dry and frosty, and he had come to the turn lead­ing up to the church and the squire’s house al­most be­fore he re­mem­bered that he was near Alling­ton. Here he paused for a mo­ment to think. If he con­tin­ued his way down by the ‘Red Li­on’ and through Alling­ton Street, he must knock at Mrs Dale’s door, and ask for ad­mis­sion by means of the ser­vant–as would be done by any or­di­nary vis­itor. But he could make his way on to the lawn by go­ing up be­yond the wall of the church­yard and through the squire’s gar­den. He knew the path well–very well; and he thought that he might take so much lib­er­ty as that, both with the squire and with Mrs Dale, al­though his vis­its to Alling­ton were not so fre­quent now as they used to be in the days of his boy­hood. He did not wish to be ad­mit­ted by the ser­vant, and there­fore he went through the gar­dens. Luck­ily he did not see the squire, who would have de­tained him, and he es­caped from Hop­kins, the old gar­den­er, with lit­tle more than a word. ‘I’m go­ing down to see the ladies, Hop­kins; I sup­pose I shall find them?’ And then, while Hop­kins was ar­rang­ing his spade so that he might lean up­on it for a lit­tle chat, John­ny was gone and had made his way in­to the oth­er gar­den. He had thought it pos­si­ble that he might meet Lily out among the walks by her­self and such a meet­ing as this would have suit­ed him bet­ter than any oth­er. And as he crossed the lit­tle bridge which sep­arat­ed the gar­dens he thought of more than one such meet­ing–of one es­pe­cial oc­ca­sion on which he had first ven­tured to tell her in plain words that he loved her. But be­fore that day Cros­bie had come there, and at the mo­ment in which he was speak­ing of his love she re­gard­ed Cros­bie as an an­gel of light up­on the earth. What hope could there have been for him then? What use was there in telling such a tale of love at that time? When he told it, he knew Cros­bie had been be­fore him. He knew that Cros­bie was at that mo­ment the an­gel of light. But as he had nev­er be­fore been able to speak of his love, so was he then un­able not to speak of it. He had spo­ken, and of course had been sim­ply re­buked. Since that day Cros­bie had ceased to be an an­gel of light, and he, John Eames, had spo­ken of­ten. But he had spo­ken in vain, and now he would speak once again.

He went through the gar­den and over the lawn be­long­ing to the Small House and saw no one. He for­got, I think, that ladies do not come out to pick ros­es when the ground is frozen, and that cro­quet is not of­ten in progress with the hoar-​frost on the grass. So he walked up to the lit­tle ter­race be­fore the draw­ing-​room, and look­ing in saw Mrs Dale, and Lily, and Grace at their morn­ing work. Lily was draw­ing, and Mrs Dale was writ­ing, and Grace had her nee­dle in her hand. As it hap­pened, no one at first per­ceived him, and he had time to feel that af­ter all he would have man­aged it bet­ter if he had been an­nounced in the usu­al way. As, how­ev­er, it was now nec­es­sary that he should an­nounce him­self, he knocked at the win­dow, and they all im­me­di­ate­ly looked up and saw him. ‘It’s my cousin John,’ said Grace. ‘Oh, John­ny, how are you at last?’ said Mrs Dale. But it was Lily who, with­out speak­ing, opened the win­dow for him, who was the first to give him her hand, and who led him through in­to the room.

‘It’s a great shame my com­ing in this way,’ said John, ‘and let­ting all the cold air in up­on you.’

‘We shall sur­vive it,’ said Mrs Dale. ‘I sup­pose you have just come down from my broth­er-​in-​law?’

‘No; I have not seen the squire as yet. I will do so be­fore I go back, of course. But it seemed such a com­mon­place sort of thing to go round by the vil­lage.’

‘We are very glad to see you, by what­ev­er way you came;–are we not, mam­ma?’ said Lily.

‘I’m not so sure of that. We were on­ly say­ing yes­ter­day that as you had been in the coun­try a fort­night with­out com­ing to us, we did not think we would be at home when you did come.’

‘But I have caught you, you see,’ said John­ny.

And so they went on, chat­ting of old times and of mu­tu­al friends very com­fort­ably for full an hour. And there was some se­ri­ous con­ver­sa­tion about Grace’s fa­ther and his af­fairs, and John de­clared his opin­ion that Mr Craw­ley should go to his un­cle, Thomas Too­good, not at all know­ing that at that time Mr Craw­ley him­self had come to the same opin­ion. And John gave them an elab­orate de­scrip­tion of Sir Raf­fle Buf­fle, stand­ing up with his back to the fire with his hat on his head, and speak­ing with a loud harsh voice, to show them the way in which he de­clared that that gen­tle­man re­ceived his in­fe­ri­ors; and then bow­ing and scrap­ing and rub­bing his hands to­geth­er and sim­per­ing with would-​be soft­ness–de­clared that af­ter that fash­ion Sir Raf­fle re­ceived his su­pe­ri­ors. And they were very mer­ry–so that no one would have thought that John­ny was a de­spon­dent lover, now bent on throw­ing the dice for his last stake; or that Lily was aware that she was in the pres­ence of one lover, and that she was like to fall on the ground be­tween two stools–hav­ing two lovers, nei­ther of whom could serve her turn.

‘How can you con­sent to serve him if he’s such a man as that?’ said Lily, speak­ing of Sir Raf­fle.

‘I do not serve him. I serve the Queen–or rather the pub­lic. I don’t take his wages, and he does not play his tricks with me. He knows that he can’t. He has tried it, and failed. And he on­ly keeps me where I am be­cause I’ve had some mon­ey left me. He thinks it fine to have a pri­vate sec­re­tary with a for­tune. I know that he tells peo­ple all man­ner of lies about it, mak­ing it out to be five times as much as it is. Dear old Huf­fle Snuf­fle. He is such an ass; and yet he’s had wit enough to get to the top of the tree, and to keep him­self there. He be­gan the world with­out a pen­ny. Now he has got a han­dle to his name, and he’ll live in clover all his life. It’s very odd, isn’t it, Mrs Dale?’

‘I sup­pose he does his work?’

‘When men get so high as that, there’s no know­ing whether they work or whether they don’t. There isn’t much left for them to do, as far as I can see. They have to look beau­ti­ful, and fright­en the young ones.’

‘And does Sir Raf­fle look beau­ti­ful?’ Lily asked.

‘Af­ter a fash­ion he does. There is some­thing im­pos­ing about such a man till you’re used to it, and can see through it. Of course it’s all padding. There are men who work, no doubt. But among the big­wigs, and bish­ops and cab­inet min­is­ters, I fan­cy that the look­ing beau­ti­ful is the chief part of it. Dear me, you don’t mean to say it’s lun­cheon time?’

But it was lun­cheon time, and not on­ly had he not as yet said a word of all that which he had come to say, but had not as yet made any move to­wards get­ting it said. How was he to ar­range that Lily should be left alone with him? La­dy Ju­lia had said that she should not ex­pect him back till din­ner-​time, and he had an­swered her lack­adaisi­cal­ly, ‘I don’t sup­pose I shall be there above ten min­utes. The min­utes will say all I’ve got to say, and do all I’ve got to do. And then I sup­pose I shall go and cut names about bridges–eh, La­dy Ju­lia?’ La­dy Ju­lia un­der­stood the words; for once, up­on a for­mer oc­ca­sion, she had found him cut­ting Lily’s name on the rail of a wood­en bridge in her broth­er’s grounds. But he had now been a cou­ple of hours at the Small House, and had not said a word of that which he had come to say.

‘Are you go­ing to walk out with us af­ter lunch?’ said Lily.

‘He will have had walk­ing enough,’ said Mrs Dale.

‘We’ll con­voy him part of the way,’ said Lily.

‘I’m not go­ing yet,’ said John­ny, ‘un­less you turn me out.’

‘But we must have our walk be­fore it is dark,’ said Lily.

‘You might go up with him to your un­cle,’ said Mrs Dale. ‘In­deed, I promised to go up there my­self, and so did you, Grace, to see the mi­cro­scope. I heard Mr Dale give or­ders that one of those long-​legged rep­tiles should be caught on pur­pose for your in­spec­tion.’

Mrs Dale’s lit­tle scheme for bring­ing the two to­geth­er was very trans­par­ent, but it was not the less wise on that ac­count. Schemes will of­ten be suc­cess­ful, let them be ev­er so trans­par­ent. Lit­tle in­trigues be­come nec­es­sary, not to con­quer un­will­ing peo­ple, but peo­ple who are will­ing enough, who, nev­er­the­less, can­not give way ex­cept un­der the machi­na­tions of an in­trigue.

‘I don’t think I mind look­ing at the long-​legged crea­ture, to­day,’ said John­ny.

‘I must go of course,’ said Grace.

Lily said noth­ing at the mo­ment, ei­ther about the long-​legged crea­ture or the walk. That which must be, must be. She knew well why John Eames had come there. She knew that the vis­its to his moth­er and to La­dy Ju­lia would nev­er have been made, but that he might have this in­ter­view. And he had a right to de­mand, at any rate, as much as that. That which must be, must be. And there­fore when both Mrs Dale and Grace stout­ly main­tained their pur­pose of go­ing up to the squire, Lily nei­ther at­tempt­ed to per­suade John to ac­com­pa­ny them nor said that she would do so her­self.

‘I will con­voy you home my­self,’ she said, ‘and Grace, when she has done with the bee­tle, shall come and meet me. Won’t you, Grace?’

‘Cer­tain­ly.’

‘We are not help­less young ladies in these parts, nor yet tim­orous,’ con­tin­ued Lily. ‘We can walk about with­out be­ing afraid of ghosts, rob­bers, wild bulls, young men, or gyp­sies. Come the field path, Grace. I will go as far as the big oak with him, and then I shall turn back, and I shall come in by the stile op­po­site the church gate, and through the gar­den. So you can’t miss me.’

‘I dare­say he’ll come back with you,’ said Grace.

‘No, he won’t. He will do noth­ing of the kind. He’ll have to go on and open La­dy Ju­lia’s bot­tle of port wine for his own drink­ing.’

All this was very good on Lily’s part, and very good al­so on the part of Mrs Dale; and John was of course very much obliged to them. But there was a lack of ro­mance in it all, which did not seem to him to ar­gue well as to his suc­cess. He did not think much about it, but he felt that Lily would not have been so ready to ar­range their walk had she in­tend­ed to yield to his en­treaty. No doubt in these lat­ter days plain good sense had be­come the pre­vail­ing mark of her char­ac­ter–per­haps, as John­ny thought, a lit­tle too strong­ly pre­vail­ing; but even with all her plain good sense and de­ter­mi­na­tion to dis­pense with the ab­sur­di­ties of ro­mance in the af­fairs of her life, she would not have pro­posed her­self as his com­pan­ion for a walk across the fields mere­ly that she might have an op­por­tu­ni­ty of ac­cept­ing his hand. He did not say all this to him­self, but he in­stinc­tive­ly felt that it was so. And he felt al­so that it should have been his du­ty to ar­range the walk, or the prop­er op­por­tu­ni­ty for the scene that was to come. She had done it in­stead–she and her moth­er be­tween them, there­by forc­ing up­on him a painful con­vic­tion that he him­self had not been equal to the oc­ca­sion. ‘I al­ways make a mull of it,’ he said to him­self, when the girls went up to get their hats.

They went down to­geth­er through the gar­den, and part­ed where the paths led away, one to the great house and the oth­er to­wards the church. ‘I’ll cer­tain­ly come and call up­on the squire be­fore I go back to Lon­don,’ said John­ny.

We’ll tell him so,’ said Mrs Dale. ‘He would be sure to hear that you had been with us, even if we said noth­ing about it.’

‘Of course he would,’ said Lily; ‘Hop­kins has seen him.’ Then they sep­arat­ed, and Lily and John Eames were to­geth­er.

Hard­ly a word was said, per­haps not a word, till they had crossed the road and got in­to the field op­po­site to the church. And in this first field there was more than one path, and the chil­dren of the vil­lage were of­ten there, and it had about it some­thing of a pub­lic na­ture. John Eames felt that it was by no means a fit­ting field to say that which he had to say. In cross­ing it, there­fore, he mere­ly re­marked that the day was very fine for walk­ing. Then he added one spe­cial word, ‘And it is so good of you, Lily, to come with me.’

‘I am very glad to come with you. I would do more than that, John, to show how glad I am to see you.’ Then they had come to the sec­ond lit­tle gate, and be­yond that the fields were re­al­ly fields, and there were stiles in­stead of wick­et-​gates, and the busi­ness of the day must be be­gun.

‘Lily, when­ev­er I come here you say that you are glad to see me?’

‘And so I am–very glad. On­ly you would take it as mean­ing what it does not mean, I would tell you, that of all my friends liv­ing away from the reach of my dai­ly life, you are the one whose com­ing is ev­er the most pleas­ant to me.’

‘Oh, Lily!’

‘It was, I think, on­ly yes­ter­day that I was telling Grace that you are more like a broth­er to me than any­one else. I wish it might be so. I wish we might swear to be broth­er and sis­ter. I’d do more for you then than walk across the fields with you to Guest­wick Cot­tage. Your pros­per­ity would then be the thing in the world for which I should be most anx­ious. And if you should mar­ry–’

‘It can nev­er be like that be­tween us,’ said John­ny.

‘Can it not? I think it can. Per­haps not this year, or next year; per­haps not in the next five years. But I make my­self hap­py with think­ing that it may be so some day. I shall wait for it pa­tient­ly, very pa­tient­ly, even though you should re­buff me again and again–as you have done now.’

‘I have not re­buffed you.’

‘Not ma­li­cious­ly, or in­ju­ri­ous­ly, or of­fen­sive­ly. I will be very pa­tient and take lit­tle re­buffs with­out com­plain­ing. This is the worst of it all. When Grace and I are to­geth­er we can nev­er man­age it with­out tear­ing our­selves all to pieces. It is much nicer to have you to help me.’

‘Let me help you al­ways,’ he said, keep­ing her hands in his af­ter he had aid­ed her to jump from the stile to the ground.

‘Yes, as my broth­er.’

‘That is non­sense, Lily.’

‘Is it non­sense? Non­sense is a hard word.’

‘It is non­sense as com­ing from you to me. Lily, I some­times think that I am per­se­cut­ing you, writ­ing to you, com­ing af­ter you, as I am do­ing now–telling the same whin­ing sto­ry–ask­ing, ask­ing, and ask­ing for that which you say you will nev­er give me. And then I feel ashamed of my­self, and swear that I will do it no more.’

‘Do not be ashamed of your­self; but yet do it no more.’

‘And then,’ he con­tin­ued, with­out mind­ing her words, ‘at oth­er times I feel that it must be my own fault; that if I on­ly per­se­vered with suf­fi­cient en­er­gy, I must be suc­cess­ful. At such times I swear I will nev­er give it up.’

‘Oh, John, if you could on­ly know how lit­tle wor­thy of such pur­suit it is.’

‘Leave me to be the judge of that, dear. When a man has tak­en a month, or per­haps on­ly a week, or per­haps not more than half-​an-​hour, to make up his mind, it may be very well to tell him that he doesn’t know what he is about. I’ve been in the of­fice now for over sev­en years, and the first day I went I put an oath in­to a book that I would come back and get you for my wife when I had got enough to live up­on.’

‘Did you, John?’

‘Yes. I can show it to you. I used to come and hov­er about the place in the old days, be­fore I went up to Lon­don, when I was such a fool that I couldn’t speak to you if I met you. I am speak­ing of a time long be­fore–be­fore that man came down here.’

‘Do not speak of him, John.’

‘I must speak of him. A man isn’t to hold his tongue when ev­ery­thing he has in the world is at stake. I sup­pose he loved you af­ter a fash­ion, once.’

‘Pray, pray, do not speak ill of him, John.’

‘I am not go­ing to abuse him. You can judge of him by his deeds. I can­not say any­thing worse of him than what they say. I sup­pose he loved you; but he cer­tain­ly did not love you as I have done. I have at any rate been true to you. Yes, Lily, I have been true to you. I am true to you. He did not know what he was about. I do. I am jus­ti­fied in say­ing that I do. I want you to be my wife. It is no use your talk­ing about it as though I on­ly half want­ed it.’

‘I did not say that.’

‘Is not a man to have any re­ward? Of course if you had mar­ried him there would have been an end of it. He had come in be­tween me and my hap­pi­ness, and I must have borne it, as oth­er men bear such sor­rows. But you have not mar­ried him; and, of course, I can­not but feel that I may yet have a chance. Lily, an­swer me this. Do you be­lieve that I love you?’ But she did not an­swer him. ‘You can at any rate tell me that. Do you think that I am in earnest?’

‘Yes, I think you are in earnest.’

‘And do you be­lieve that I love you with all my heart and all my strength and all my soul?’

‘Oh, John!’

‘But do you?’

‘I think you love me.’

‘Think! What am I to say or to do to make you un­der­stand that my on­ly idea of hap­pi­ness is the idea that soon­er or lat­er I may get you to be my wife? Lily, will you say that it shall be so? Speak, Lily. There is no one that will not be glad. Your un­cle will con­sent–has con­sent­ed. Your moth­er wish­es it. Bell wish­es it. My moth­er wish­es it. La­dy Ju­lia wish­es it. You would be do­ing what ev­ery­body around you wants you to do. And why should you not do it? It isn’t that you dis­like me. You wouldn’t talk about be­ing my sis­ter, if you had not some sort of re­gard for me.’

‘I have a re­gard for you.’

‘Then why will you not be my wife? Oh, Lily, say the word now, here, at once. Say the word, and you’ll make me the hap­pi­est fel­low in all Eng­land.’ As he spoke he took her by both arms, and held her fast. She did not strug­gle to get away from him, but stood quite still, look­ing in­to his face, while the first sparkle of a salt tear formed it­self in each eye. ‘Lily, one lit­tle word will do it–half a word, a nod, a smile. Just touch my arm with your hand and I will take it for a yes.’ I think that she al­most tried to touch him; that the word was in her throat, and that she al­most strove to speak it. But there was no syl­la­ble spo­ken, and her fin­gers did not loose them­selves to fall up­on his sleeve. ‘Lily, Lily, what can I say to you?’

‘I wish I could,’ she whis­pered;–but the whis­per was so hoarse that he hard­ly rec­og­nized the voice.

‘And why can you not? What is there to hin­der you? There is noth­ing to hin­der you, Lily.’

‘Yes, John; there is that which must hin­der me.’

‘And what is it?’

‘I will tell you. You are so good and so true, and so ex­cel­lent–such a dear, dear friend, that I will tell you ev­ery­thing, so that you may read my heart. I will tell you as I tell mam­ma–you and her and no one else;–for you are the choice friend of my heart. I can­not be your wife be­cause of the love I bear for an­oth­er man.’

‘And that man is he–he who came here?’

‘Of course it is he. I think, John­ny, you and I are alike in this, that when we have loved, we can­not bring our­selves to change. You will not change, though it would be so much bet­ter you should do so.’

‘No; I will nev­er change.’

‘Nor can I. When I sleep I dream of him. When I am alone I can­not ban­ish him from my thoughts. I can­not de­fine what it is to love him. I want noth­ing from him–noth­ing, noth­ing. But I move about through my lit­tle world think­ing of him, and I shall do so till the end. I used to feel proud of my love, though it made me so wretched that I thought it would kill me. I am not proud of it any longer. It is a fool­ish poor-​spir­it­ed weak­ness–as though my heart has been on­ly half formed in the mak­ing. Do you be stronger, John. A man should be stronger than a wom­an.’

‘I have none of that sort of strength.’

‘Nor have I. What can we do but pity each oth­er, and swear that we will be friends–dear friends. There is the oak-​tree and I have got to turn back. We have said ev­ery­thing that we can say–un­less you will tell me that you will be my broth­er.’

‘No; I will not tell you that.’

‘Good-​bye, then, John­ny.’

He paused, hold­ing her by the hand and think­ing of an­oth­er ques­tion which he longed to put to her–con­sid­er­ing whether he would ask her that ques­tion or not. He hard­ly knew whether he were en­ti­tled to ask it;–whether or no the ask­ing of it would be un­gen­er­ous. She had said that she would tell him ev­ery­thing–as she had told ev­ery­thing to her moth­er. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘I have no right to ex­pect to know any­thing of your fu­ture in­ten­tions.’

‘You may know them all–as far as I know them my­self. I have said that you should read my heart.’

‘If this man, whose name I can­not bear to men­tion, should come again–’

‘If he were to come again he would come in vain, John.’ She did not say that he had come again. She could tell her own se­cret, but not that of an­oth­er per­son.

‘You would not mar­ry him, now that he is free?’

She stood and thought for a while be­fore she an­swered him. ‘No, I should not mar­ry him now. I think not.’ Then she paused again. ‘Nay, I am sure I would not. Af­ter what has passed, I could not trust my­self to do it. There is my hand on it. I will not.’

‘No, Lily, I do not want that.’

‘But I in­sist. I will not mar­ry Mr Cros­bie. But you must not mis­un­der­stand me, John. There;–all that is over for me now. All those dreams about love, and mar­riage, and of a house of my own, and chil­dren–and a cross hus­band, and a wed­ding-​ring grow­ing al­ways tighter as I grow fat and old­er. I have dreamed of such things as oth­er girls do–more per­haps than oth­er girls, more than I should have done. And now I ac­cept the thing as fin­ished. You wrote some­thing in your book, you dear John–some­thing that could not be made to come true. Dear John, I wish for your sake it was oth­er­wise. I will go home and I will write in my book, this very day, Lily Dale, Old Maid. If ev­er I make that false, do you come and ask me for the page.’

‘Let it re­main there till I am al­lowed to tear it for you.’

‘I will write it, and it shall nev­er be torn out. You I can­not mar­ry. Him I will not mar­ry. You may be­lieve me, John­ny, when I say there can nev­er be a third.’

‘And is that to be the end of it?’

‘Yes;–that is to be the end of it. Not the end of our friend­ship. Old maids have friends.’

‘It shall not be the end of it. There shall be no end of it with me.’

‘But, John–’

‘Do not sup­pose that I will trou­ble you again–at any rate not for a while. In five years per­haps–’

‘Now, John­ny, you are laugh­ing at me. And of course it is the best way. If there is not Grace, and she has caught me be­fore I have turned back. Good-​bye, dear John. God bless you. I think you the finest fel­low in the world. I do, and do does mam­ma. Re­mem­ber al­ways that there is a tem­ple at Alling­ton in which your wor­ship is nev­er for­got­ten.’ Then she pressed his hand and turned away from him to meet Grace Craw­ley. John did not stop to speak a word to his cousin, but pur­sued his way alone.

‘That cousin of yours,’ said Lily, ‘is sim­ply the dear­est, warmest-​heart­ed, finest crea­ture that ev­er was seen in the shape of a man.’

‘Have you told him that you think him so?’ said Grace.

‘In­deed, I have,’ said Lily.

‘But have you told this finest, warmest, dear­est crea­ture that he shall be re­ward­ed with the prize he cov­ets?’

‘No, Grace. I have told him noth­ing of the kind. I think he un­der­stands it all now. If he does not, it is not for the want of my telling him. I don’t sup­pose any la­dy was ev­er more open-​spo­ken to a gen­tle­man that I have been to him.’

‘And why have you sent him away dis­ap­point­ed? You know you love him.’

‘You see, my dear,’ said Lily, ‘you al­low your­self, for the sake of your ar­gu­ment, to use a word in a dou­ble sense, and you at­tempt to con­found me by do­ing so. But I am a great deal too clever for you, and have thought too much about it, to be tak­en in in that way. I cer­tain­ly love your cousin John; and so do I love Mr Boyce, the vicar.’

‘You love John­ny much bet­ter than you do Mr Boyce.’

‘True; very much bet­ter; but it is of the same sort of love. How­ev­er, it is a great deal too deep for you to un­der­stand. You’re too young, and I shan’t try to ex­plain it. But the long and the short of it is–I am not go­ing to mar­ry your cousin.’

‘I wish you were,’ said Grace, ‘with all my heart.’

John Eames as he re­turned to the cot­tage was by no means able to fall back up­on those res­olu­tions as to his fu­ture life, which he had formed for him­self and com­mu­ni­cat­ed to his friend Dal­rym­ple, and which he had in­tend­ed to bring at once in­to force in the event of his be­ing re­ject­ed by Lily Dale. ‘I will cleanse my mind of it al­to­geth­er,’ he had said, ‘and though I may not for­get her, I will live as though she were for­got­ten. If she de­clines my pro­pos­al again, I will ac­cept her word as fi­nal. I will not go about the world any longer as a strick­en deer–to be pitied or else bul­lied by the rest of the herd.’ On his way down to Guest­wick he had sworn twen­ty times that it should be so. He would make one more ef­fort, and then he would give it up. But now, af­ter his in­ter­view with Lily, he was as lit­tle dis­posed to give it up as ev­er.

He sat up­on a gate in a pad­dock through which there was a back en­trance in­to La­dy Ju­lia’s gar­den, and there swore a thou­sand oaths that he would nev­er give her up. He was, at any rate, sure that she would nev­er be­come the wife of any­one else. He was equal­ly sure that he would nev­er be­come the hus­band of any oth­er wife. He could trust her. Yes; he was sure of that. But could he trust him­self? Com­muning with him­self, he told him­self that af­ter all he was but a poor crea­ture. Cir­cum­stances had been very good to him, but he had done noth­ing for him­self. He was vain, and fool­ish, and un­steady. So he told him­self while sit­ting up­on the gate. But he had, at any rate, been con­stant to Lily, and con­stant he would re­main.

He would nev­er more men­tion her name to any­one–un­less it were to La­dy Ju­lia tonight. To Dal­rym­ple he would not open his mouth about her, but would plain­ly ask his friend to be silent on that sub­ject if her name should be men­tioned by him. But morn­ing and evening he would pray for her, and in his prayers he would al­ways think of her as his wife. He would nev­er speak to an­oth­er girl with­out re­mem­ber­ing that he was bound to Lily. He would go nowhere in­to so­ci­ety with­out re­call­ing to mind the fact that he was bound by the chains of a solemn en­gage­ment. If he knew him­self he would be con­stant to Lily.

And then he con­sid­ered in what man­ner it would be best and most be­com­ing that he should still pros­ecute his en­deav­our and re­peat his of­fer. He thought that he would write to her ev­ery year, on the same day of the year, year af­ter year, it might be for the next twen­ty years. And his let­ters would be very sim­ple. Sit­ting there on the gate he planned the word­ing of his let­ters;–of his first let­ter, and of his sec­ond, and of his third. They should be very like to each oth­er–should hard­ly be more than a rep­eti­tion of the same words. ‘If now you are ready for me, then Lily, am I, as ev­er, still ready for you.’ And then, ‘if now’ again and again, ‘if now;–and still ‘if now’. When his hair should be grey, and the wrin­kles on his cheeks–ay, though they should be on hers, he would still con­tin­ue to tell her from year to year that he was ready to take her. Sure­ly some day that ‘if now’ would pre­vail. And should it nev­er pre­vail, the mer­it of his con­stan­cy should be its own re­ward.

Such let­ters as those she would sure­ly keep. Then he looked for­ward, down in­to the val­ley of com­ing years, and fan­cied her as she might sit read­ing them in the twi­light of some long evening–let­ters which had been writ­ten all in vain. He thought that he could look for­ward with some sat­is­fac­tion to­wards the close of his own ca­reer, in hav­ing been the hero of such a love-​sto­ry. At any rate, if such a sto­ry were to be his sto­ry, the melan­choly at­tached to it should arise from no fault of his own. He would still press her to be his wife. And then as he re­mem­bered that he was on­ly twen­ty-​sev­en and that she was twen­ty-​four, he be­gan to mar­vel at the feel­ing of grey old age which had come up­on him, and tried to make him­self be­lieve that he would have her yet be­fore the bloom was off her cheeks.

He went in­to the cot­tage and made his way at once in­to the room in which La­dy Ju­lia was sit­ting. She did not speak at first, but looked anx­ious­ly about his face. And he did not speak, but turned to a ta­ble near the win­dow and took up a book–though the room was too dark for him to see to read the words. ‘John,’ at last said La­dy Ju­lia.

‘Well, my la­dy?’

‘Have you noth­ing to tell me, John?’

‘Noth­ing on earth–ex­cept the same old sto­ry, which has now be­come a mat­ter of course.’

‘But, John, will you not tell me what she said?’

‘La­dy Ju­lia, she has said no; sim­ply no. It is a very easy word to say, and she has said it so of­ten that it seems to come from her quite nat­ural­ly.’ Then he got a can­dle and sat down over the fire with a vol­ume of a nov­el. It was not yet past five, and La­dy Ju­lia did not go up­stairs to dress till six, and there­fore there was an hour dur­ing which they were to­geth­er. John had at first been rather grand to his old friend, and very un­com­mu­nica­tive. But be­fore the dress­ing-​bell had rung he had been coaxed in­to a con­fi­den­tial strain and had told ev­ery­thing. ‘I sup­pose it is wrong and self­ish,’ he said. ‘I sup­pose I am a dog in a manger. But I do own that there is a con­so­la­tion to me in the as­sur­ance that she will nev­er be the wife of that scoundrel.’

‘I could nev­er for­give her if she were to mar­ry him now,’ said La­dy Ju­lia.

‘I could nev­er for­give him. But she has said that she will not, and I know that she will not for­swear her­self. I shall go on with it, La­dy Ju­lia. I have made up my mind to that. I sup­pose it will nev­er come to any­thing, but I shall stick to it. I can live an old bach­elor as well as an­oth­er man. At any rate I shall stick to it.’ Then the good sil­ly old wom­an com­fort­ed him and ap­plaud­ed him as though he were a hero among men, and did re­ward him, as Lily had pre­dict­ed, by one of those now rare bot­tles of su­per-​ex­cel­lent port which had come to her from her broth­er’s cel­lar.

John Eames stayed out his time at the cot­tage, and went over more than once again to Alling­ton, and called on the squire, on one oc­ca­sion din­ing with him and meet­ing the three ladies from the Small House; and he walked with the girls, com­port­ing him­self like any or­di­nary man. But he was not again alone with Lily Dale, nor did he learn whether she had in truth writ­ten those two words in her book. But the read­er may be know that she did write them there on the evening of the day on which the promise was made. ‘Lil­ian Dale–Old Maid’.

And when John’s hol­iday was over, he re­turned to his du­ties at the el­bow of Sir Raf­fle Buf­fle.