The Last Chronicle of Barset

CHAPTER XLVI

THE BAYSWA­TER RO­MANCE

Eames had by no means done his work for that evening when he left Mr Dale and Lily at their lodg­ings. He had oth­er busi­ness in hand to which he had promised to give at­ten­tion, and an­oth­er per­son to see who would wel­come his com­ing quite as warm­ly, though by no means as pleas­ant­ly, as Lily Dale. It was then just nine o’clock, and as he had told Miss De­mo­lines–Madali­na we may as well call her now–that he would be in Porch­ester Ter­race by nine at the lat­est, it was in­cum­bent on him to make haste. He got in­to a cab, and bid the cab­man drive hard, and light­ing a cigar, be­gan to in­quire of him­self over and over again whether it was well for him to hur­ry away from the pres­ence of Lily Dale to that of Madali­na De­mo­lines. He felt that he was half-​ashamed of what he was do­ing. Though he de­clared to him­self over and over again that he nev­er had said a word, and nev­er in­tend­ed to say a word, to Madali­na, which all the world might not hear, yet he knew that he was do­ing amiss. He was do­ing amiss, and half re­pent­ed it, and he was half proud of it. He was most anx­ious to be able to give him­self cred­it for his con­stan­cy to Lily Dale; to be able to feel that he was stead­fast in his pas­sion; and yet he liked the idea of amus­ing him­self with his Bayswa­ter ro­mance, as he would call it, and was not with­out some­thing of con­ceit as he thought of the progress he had made in it. ‘Love is one thing and amuse­ment is an­oth­er,’ he said to him­self as he puffed the cigar smoke out of his mouth; and in his heart he was proud of his own ca­pac­ity for en­joy­ment. He thought it a fine thing, al­though at the same mo­ment he knew it to be an evil thing–this hur­ry­ing away from the young la­dy whom he re­al­ly loved to an­oth­er as to whom he thought it very like­ly that he should be called up­on to pre­tend to love her. And he sang a lit­tle song as he went, ‘If she be not fair to me, what care I how fair she be.’ That was in­tend­ed to ap­ply to Lily, and was used as an ex­cuse for his fick­le­ness in go­ing to Miss De­mo­lines. And he was per­haps, too, a lit­tle con­ceit­ed as to his mis­sion to the Con­ti­nent. Lily had told him that he was very glad that he was go­ing; that she thought him very right to go. The words had been very pleas­ant to his ears, and Lily had nev­er looked pret­ti­er in his eyes than when she had spo­ken them. John­ny, there­fore, was rather proud of him­self as he sat in the cab smok­ing his cigar. He had, more­over, beat­en his old en­emy Sir Raf­fle Buf­fle in an­oth­er con­test, and he felt that the world was smil­ing on him;–that the world was smil­ing on him in spite of his cru­el fate in the mat­ter of his re­al lovesuit.

There was a mys­tery about the Bayswa­ter ro­mance which was not with­out its al­lure­ment, and a por­tion of the mys­tery was con­nect­ed with Madali­na’s moth­er. La­dy De­mo­lines was very rarely seen, and John Eames could not quite un­der­stand what was the man­ner of life of that un­for­tu­nate la­dy. Her daugh­ter usu­al­ly spoke of her with af­fec­tion­ate re­gret as be­ing un­able to ap­pear on that par­tic­ular oc­ca­sion on ac­count of some pass­ing mal­ady. She was suf­fer­ing from a ner­vous headache, or was af­flict­ed with bron­chi­tis, or had been touched with rheuma­tism, so that she was sel­dom on the scene when John­ny was pass­ing his time at Porch­ester Ter­race. And yet he heard of her din­ing out, and go­ing to plays and op­eras; and when he did chance to see her, he found that she was a spright­ly old wom­an enough. I will not ven­ture to say that he much re­gret­ted the ab­sence of La­dy De­mo­lines, or that he was keen­ly alive to the im­pro­pri­ety of be­ing left alone with the gen­tle Madali­na; but the cus­tom­ary ab­sence of the el­der la­dy was an in­ci­dent in the ro­mance which did not fail to strike him.

Madali­na was alone when he was shown up­on in­to the draw­ing-​room on the evening of which we are speak­ing.

‘Mr Eames,’ she said, ‘will you kind­ly look at that watch which is ly­ing on the ta­ble.’ She looked full at him with her great eyes wide open, and the tone of her voice was in­tend­ed to show him that she was ag­grieved.

‘Yes, I see it,’ said John, look­ing down on Miss De­mo­lines’ lit­tle gold Gene­va watch, with which he had al­ready made suf­fi­cient ac­quain­tance to know that it was worth noth­ing. ‘Shall I give it you?’

‘No, Mr Eames; let it re­main there, that it may re­mind me, if it does not re­mind you, by how long a time you have bro­ken your word.’

‘Up­on my word I couldn’t help it;–up­on my hon­our I couldn’t.’

‘Up­on your hon­our, Mr Eames?’

‘I was obliged to go and see a friend who has just come to town from my part of the coun­try.’

‘That is the friend, I sup­pose, of whom I have heard from Maria.’ It is to be feared that Con­way Dal­rym­ple had not been so guard­ed as he should have been in some of his con­ver­sa­tions with Mrs Dobbs Broughton, and that a word or two had es­caped from him as to the love of John Eames for Lily Dale.

‘I don’t know what you may have heard,’ said John­ny, ‘but I was obliged to see these peo­ple be­fore I left town. There is go­ing to be a mar­riage and all that sort of thing.’

‘Who is go­ing to be mar­ried?’

‘One Cap­tain Dale is go­ing to be mar­ried to Miss Dun­sta­ble.’

‘Oh! And as to one Miss Lily Dale–is she to be mar­ried to any­body?’

‘Not that I have heard of,’ said John­ny.

‘She is not go­ing to be the wife of one Mr John Eames?’

He did not wish to talk to Miss De­mo­lines about Lily Dale. He did not choose to dis­own the im­pu­ta­tion, or to ac­knowl­edge its truth.

‘Si­lence gives con­sent,’ she said. ‘If it be so, I con­grat­ulate you. I have no doubt she is the most charm­ing young wom­an. It is about sev­en years, I be­lieve, since that lit­tle af­fair with Mr Cros­bie, and there­fore that, I sup­pose, may be con­sid­ered as for­got­ten.’

‘It is on­ly three years,’ said John­ny, an­gri­ly. ‘Be­sides, I don’t know what that has to do with it.’

‘You need not be ashamed,’ said Madali­na. ‘I have heard how well you be­haved on that oc­ca­sion. You were quite the preux cheva­lier; and if any gen­tle­man ev­er de­served well of a la­dy you de­served well of her. I won­der how Mr Cros­bie felt when he met you the oth­er day at Maria’s. I had not heard any­thing about it then, or I should have been much more in­ter­est­ed in watch­ing your meet­ing.’

‘I re­al­ly can’t say how he felt.’

‘I dare­say not; but I saw him shake hands with you. And so Lily Dale has come to town.’

‘Yes–Miss Dale is here with her un­cle.’

‘And you are go­ing away to­mor­row?’

‘Yes–and I am go­ing away to­mor­row.’

Af­ter that there was a pause in the con­ver­sa­tion. Eames was sick of it, and was very anx­ious to change the con­ver­sa­tion. Miss De­mo­lines was sit­ting in the shad­ow, away from the light, with her face half hid­den by her hands. At last she jumped up, and came round and stood op­po­site to him. ‘I charge you to tell me tru­ly, John Eames,’ she said, ‘whether Miss Lil­ian Dale is en­gaged to you as your fu­ture wife?’ He looked up in to her face, but made no im­me­di­ate an­swer. Then she re­peat­ed her de­mand. ‘I ask you whether you are en­gaged to mar­ry Miss Lil­ian Dale, and I ex­pect a re­ply.’

‘What makes you ask me such a ques­tion as that?’

‘What makes me ask you? Do you de­ny my right to feel so much in­ter­est in you as to de­sire to know whether you are about to mar­ried? Of course you can de­cline to tell me if you choose.’

‘And if I were to de­cline?’

‘I should know then that it was true, and I should think you were a cow­ard.’

‘I don’t see any cow­ardice in the mat­ter. One does not talk about that kind of thing to ev­ery­body.’

‘Up­on my word, Mr Eames, you are com­pli­men­ta­ry;–in­deed you are. To ev­ery­body! I am ev­ery­body–am I? That is your idea of–friend­ship! You may be sure that af­ter that I shall ask no fur­ther ques­tions.’

‘I didn’t mean it the way you have tak­en it, Madali­na.’

‘In what way did you mean it, sir? Ev­ery­body! Mr Eames, you must ex­cuse me if I say that I am not well enough this evening to bear the com­pa­ny of–ev­ery­body. I think you had bet­ter leave me. I think that you had bet­ter go.’

‘Are you an­gry with me?’

‘Yes, I am–very an­gry. Be­cause I have con­de­scend­ed to feel an in­ter­est in your wel­fare, and have asked you a ques­tion which I thought that our in­ti­ma­cy jus­ti­fied, you tell me that that is a kind of thing that you will not talk about to–ev­ery­body. I beg you to un­der­stand that I will not be your ev­ery­body. Mr Eames, there is the door.’

Things had now be­come very se­ri­ous. Hith­er­to John­ny had been seat­ed com­fort­ably in the cor­ner of a so­fa, and had not found him­self bound to move, though Miss De­mo­lines was stand­ing be­fore him. But now it was ab­so­lute­ly nec­es­sary that he should do some­thing. He must ei­ther go, or else he must make en­treaty to be al­lowed to re­main. Would it not be ex­pe­di­ent that he should take the la­dy at her word and es­cape? She was still point­ing to the door, and the way was open to him. If he were to walk out now of course he would nev­er re­turn, and there would be the end of the Bayswa­ter ro­mance. If he re­mained it might be that the ro­mance would be­come trou­ble­some. He got up from his seat, and had al­most re­solved that he would go. Had she not some­what re­laxed the majesty of her anger as he rose, had the fire of her eye not been some­what quenched and the lines of her mouth soft­ened, I think that he would have gone. The ro­mance would have been over, and he would have felt it had come to an in­glo­ri­ous end; but it would have been well for him that he should have gone. Though the fire was some­what quenched and the lines were some­what soft­ened, she was still point­ing at the door.

‘Do you mean it?’ he said.

‘I do mean it–cer­tain­ly.’

‘And this is to be the end of ev­ery­thing?’

‘I do not know what you mean by ev­ery­thing. It is a very lit­tle ev­ery­thing to you, I should say. I do not quite un­der­stand your ev­ery­thing and your ev­ery­body.’

‘I will go if you wish me to go of course.’

‘I do wish it.’

‘But be­fore I go, you must per­mit me to ex­cuse my­self. I did not in­tend to of­fend you. I mere­ly meant–’

‘You mere­ly meant! Give me an hon­est an­swer to a down­right ques­tion. Are you en­gaged to Miss Lil­ian Dale?’

‘No;–I am not.’

‘Up­on your hon­our?’

‘Do you think that I would tell you a false­hood about it? What I meant was that it is a kind of thing that one doesn’t like talk­ing about, mere­ly be­cause sto­ries are bandied about. Peo­ple are so fond of say­ing that this man is en­gaged to that wom­an, and of mak­ing up tales; and it seems so fool­ish to con­tra­dict such things.’

‘But you know that you used to be very fond of her.’

He had tak­en up his hat when he had risen from the so­fa, and was still stand­ing with it ready in his hand. He was even now half-​mind­ed to es­cape; and the name of Lily Dale in Miss De­mo­line’s mouth was so dis­taste­ful to him that he would have done so–he would have gone in sheer dis­gust, had she not stood in his way, so that he could not es­cape with­out mov­ing her, or go­ing round be­hind the so­fa. She did not stir to make way for him, and it may be that she un­der­stood that he was her pris­on­er, in spite of her late com­mand to him to go. It may be, al­so, that she un­der­stood his vex­ation and the cause of it, and that she saw the ex­pe­di­en­cy of leav­ing Lily Dale alone for the present. At any rate, she pressed him no more up­on the mat­ter. ‘Are we to be friends again?’ she said.

‘I hope so,’ said John­ny.

‘There is my hand, then.’ So John­ny took her hand and pressed it, and held it for a lit­tle while–just long enough to seem to give a mean­ing to the ac­tion. ‘You will get to un­der­stand me some day,’ she said, ‘and will learn that I do not like to be reck­oned among the ev­ery­bod­ies by those for whom I re­al­ly–re­al­ly–re­al­ly have a re­gard. When I am an­gry, I am an­gry.’

‘You were very an­gry just now, when you showed me the way to the door.’

‘And I meant it too–for the minute. On­ly think–sup­pos­ing you had gone! We should nev­er have seen each oth­er again;–nev­er, nev­er! What a change one word may make!’

‘One word of­ten does make a change.’

‘Does it not? Just a lit­tle “yes” or “no”. A “no” is said when a “yes” is meant, and then there comes no sec­ond chance, and what a change that may be from bright hopes to des­ola­tion! Or, worse again, a “yes” is said when a “no” should be said–when the speak­er knows that it should be “no”. What a dif­fer­ence that “no” makes! When one thinks of it, one won­ders that a wom­an should ev­er say any­thing but “no”.’

‘They nev­er did say any­thing else to me,’ said John­ny.

‘I don’t be­lieve it. I dare­say the truth is, you nev­er asked any­body.’

‘Did any­body ev­er ask you?’

‘What would you give to know? But I will tell you frankly;–yes. And once–once I thought that my an­swer would not have been a “no”.’

‘But you changed your mind?’

‘When the mo­ment came I could not bring my­self to say the word that should rob me of my lib­er­ty for ev­er. I had said “no” to him of­ten enough be­fore–poor fel­low; and on this oc­ca­sion, he told me that he had asked me for the last time. “I shall not give my­self an­oth­er chance,” he said, “for I shall be on board ship with­in a week.” I mere­ly bade him good-​bye. It was the on­ly an­swer I gave him. He un­der­stood me, and since that day his foot has not pressed his na­tive soil.’

‘And was it all be­cause you are so fond of your lib­er­ty?’ said John­ny.

‘Per­haps–I did not–love him,’ said Miss De­mo­lines, thought­ful­ly. She was now again seat­ed in her chair, and John Eames had gone back to his cor­ner of the so­fa. ‘If I had re­al­ly loved him, I sup­pose it would have been oth­er­wise. He was a gal­lant fel­low, and had two thou­sand a year of his own, in In­dia stock and oth­er se­cu­ri­ties.’

‘Dear me! And he has not mar­ried yet?’

‘He wrote me a word to say that he would nev­er mar­ry till I was mar­ried–but that on the day that he should hear of my wed­ding, he would go to the first sin­gle wom­an near him and pro­pose. It was a droll thing to say; was it not?’

‘The sin­gle wom­an ought to feel her­self flat­tered.’

‘He would find plen­ty to ac­cept him. Be­sides be­ing so well off he was a very hand­some fel­low, and is con­nect­ed with peo­ple of ti­tle. He had ev­ery­thing to rec­om­mend him.’

‘And yet you re­fused him?’

‘Yes. You think I was fool­ish;–do you not?’

‘I don’t think you were fool­ish if you didn’t care for him.’

‘It was my des­tiny, I sup­pose; I dare­say I was wrong. Oth­er girls mar­ry with­out vi­olent love, and do very well af­ter­wards. Look at Maria Clut­ter­buck.’

The name of Maria Clut­ter­buck had be­come odi­ous to John Eames. As long as Miss De­mo­lines would con­tin­ue to talk about her­self he could lis­ten with some amount of grat­ifi­ca­tion. Con­ver­sa­tion on that sub­ject was the nat­ural progress of the Bayswa­ter ro­mance. And if Madali­na would on­ly call her friend by her present name, he had no strong ob­jec­tion to an oc­ca­sion­al men­tion of the la­dy; but the com­bined names of Maria Clut­ter­buck had come to be ab­so­lute­ly dis­taste­ful to him. He did not be­lieve in the Maria Clut­ter­buck friend­ship–ei­ther in its past or present ex­is­tence, as de­scribed by Madali­na. In­deed, he did not put strong faith in any­thing that Madali­na said to him. In the hand­some gen­tle­man with two thou­sand a year, he did not be­lieve at all. But the hand­some gen­tle­man had on­ly been men­tioned once in the course of his ac­quain­tance with Miss De­mo­lines, where­as Maria Clut­ter­buck had come up so of­ten! ‘Up­on my word I must wish you good-​bye,’ he said. ‘It is go­ing for eleven o’clock, and I have to start to­mor­row at sev­en.’

‘What dif­fer­ence does that make?’

‘A fel­low wants to get a lit­tle sleep, you know.’

‘Go, then;–go and get your sleep. What a sleepy-​head gen­er­ation it is.’ John­ny longed to ask whether the last gen­er­ation was less sleepy-​head­ed, and whether the gen­tle­man with two thou­sand a year sat up talk­ing all night be­fore he pressed his foot for the last time on his na­tive soil; but he did not dare. As he said to him­self af­ter­wards, ‘It would not do to bring the Bayswa­ter ro­mance too sud­den­ly to ter­mi­na­tion!’ ‘But be­fore you go,’ she con­tin­ued, ‘I must say the word to you about that pic­ture. Did you speak to Mr Dal­rym­ple?’

‘I did not. I have been so busy with dif­fer­ent things that I have not seen him.’

‘And now you are go­ing?’

‘Well–to tell the truth, I think I shall see him tonight, in spite of my be­ing so sleepy-​head­ed. I wrote him a line that I would look in and smoke a cigar with him if he chanced to be at home!’

‘And that is why you want to go. A gen­tle­man can­not live with­out his cigar now.’

‘It is es­pe­cial­ly at your bid­ding that I am go­ing to see him.’

‘Go then–and make your friend un­der­stand that if he con­tin­ues this pic­ture of his, he will bring him­self to great trou­ble, and will prob­ably ru­in the wom­an for whom he pro­fess­es, I pre­sume, to feel some­thing like friend­ship. You may tell him that Mrs Van Siev­er has al­ready heard of it.’

‘Who told her?’ de­mand­ed John­ny.

‘Nev­er mind. You need not look at me like that. It was not I. Do you sup­pose that se­crets can be kept when so many peo­ple know them? Ev­ery ser­vant in Maria’s house knows all about it.’

‘As for that, I don’t sup­pose Mrs Broughton makes any great se­cret of it.’

‘Do you think she has told Mr Broughton? I am sure she has not. I may say that I know she has not. Maria Clut­ter­buck is in­fat­uat­ed. There is no oth­er ex­cuse to be made for her.’

‘Good-​bye,’ said John­ny, hur­ried­ly.

‘And you are re­al­ly go­ing?’

‘Well–yes. I sup­pose so.’

‘Go then. I have noth­ing more to say to you.’

‘I shall come and call di­rect­ly I re­turn,’ said John­ny.

‘You may do as you please about that, sir.’

‘Do you mean that you won’t be glad to see me again?’

‘I am not go­ing to flat­ter you, Mr Eames. Mam­ma will be well by that time, I hope, and I do not mind telling you that you are a favourite with her.’ John­ny thought that this was par­tic­ular­ly kind, as he had seen so very lit­tle of the old la­dy. ‘If you choose to call up­on her,’ said Madali­na, ‘of course she will be glad to see you.’

‘But I was speak­ing of your­self, you know?’ and John­ny per­mit­ted him­self for a mo­ment to look ten­der­ly at her.

‘Then from my­self pray un­der­stand that I will say noth­ing to flat­ter your self-​love.’

‘I thought you would be kinder just when I was go­ing away.’

‘I think I have been quite kind enough. As you ob­served your­self just now, it is near­ly eleven o’clock, and I must ask you to go away. Bon voy­age, and a hap­py re­turn to you.’

‘And you will be glad to see me when I am back? Tell that you will be glad to see me.’

‘I will tell you noth­ing of the kind. Mr Eames, if you do, I will be very an­gry with you.’ And then he went.

On his way back to his own lodg­ings he did call on Con­way Dal­rym­ple, and in spite of his need for ear­ly ris­ing, sat smok­ing with the artist for an hour. ‘If you don’t take care, young man,’ said his friend, ‘you will find your­self in a scrape with your Madali­na.’

‘What sort of scrape?’

‘As you walk away from Porch­ester Ter­race some fine day, you will have to con­grat­ulate your­self on hav­ing made a suc­cess­ful over­ture to­wards mat­ri­mo­ny.’

‘You don’t think I am such a fool as that comes to?’

‘Oth­er men as wise as you have done the same sought of thing. Miss De­mo­lines is very clever, and I dare­say you find it amus­ing.’

‘It isn’t so much that she’s clever, and I can hard­ly say that it is amus­ing. One gets aw­ful­ly tired of it, you know. But a fel­low must have some­thing to do, and that is as good as any­thing else.’

‘I sup­pose you have not heard that one young man lev­ant­ed last year to save him­self from a breach of promise case?’

‘I won­der whether he had any mon­ey in In­di­an se­cu­ri­ties?’

‘What makes you ask that?’

‘Noth­ing in par­tic­ular.’

‘What­ev­er lit­tle he chose to save, and I think that I heard that he went to Cana­da. His name was Short­er; and they say that, on the eve of his go­ing, Madali­na sent him word that she had no ob­jec­tion to the colonies, and that, un­der the press­ing emer­gen­cy of his ex­pa­tri­ation, she was will­ing to be­come Mrs Short­er with more ex­pe­di­tion than usu­al­ly at­tends fash­ion­able wed­dings. Short­er, how­ev­er, es­caped, and has nev­er been seen back again.’

Eames de­clared that he did not be­lieve a word of it. Nev­er­the­less, as he walked home he came to the con­clu­sion that if Mr Short­er must have been the hand­some gen­tle­man with In­di­an se­cu­ri­ties, to whom ‘no’ had been said once too of­ten.

While sit­ting with Con­way Dal­rym­ple, he had for­got­ten to say a word about Jael and Sis­era.