The Last Chronicle of Barset

CHAPTER LIII

ROT­TEN ROW

Lily had heard noth­ing as to the dif­fi­cul­ty about her horse, and could there­fore en­joy her ex­er­cise with­out the draw­back of feel­ing that her un­cle was sub­ject to an an­noy­ance. She was in the habit of go­ing out ev­ery day with Bernard and Emi­ly Dun­sta­ble, and their par­ty was gen­er­al­ly joined by oth­ers who would meet them at Mrs Thorne’s house. For Mrs Thorne was a very hos­pitable wom­an, and there were many who liked well enough to go to her house. Late in the af­ter­noon there would be a great con­gre­ga­tion of hors­es be­fore the door–some­times as many as a dozen; and then the cav­al­cade would go off in­to the Park, and there it would be­come scat­tered. As nei­ther Bernard nor Miss Dun­sta­ble were un­con­scionable lovers, Lily in these scat­ter­ings did not of­ten find her self ne­glect­ed or lost. Her cousin would gen­er­al­ly re­main with her, and as in those days she had no ‘it’ of her own she was well pleased that he should do so.

But it so hap­pened that on a cer­tain af­ter­noon she found her­self rid­ing in Rot­ten Row alone with a cer­tain stout gen­tle­man whom she con­stant­ly met at Mrs Thorne’s house. His name was One­sipho­rus Dunn, and he was ac­tu­al­ly called Siph by his in­ti­mate friends. It had seemed to Lily that ev­ery­body was an in­ti­mate friend of Mr Dunn’s, and she was in dai­ly fear lest she should make a mis­take and call him Siph her­self. Had she done so it would not have mat­tered in the least. Mr Dunn, had he ob­served it at all, would nei­ther have been flat­tered or an­gry. A great many young ladies about Lon­don did call him Siph, and to him it was quite nat­ural that they should do so. He was an Irish­man, liv­ing on the best of ev­ery­thing in the world, with ap­par­ent­ly no for­tune of his own, and cer­tain­ly nev­er earn­ing any­thing. Ev­ery­body liked him, and it was ad­mit­ted on all sides that there was no safer friend in the world, ei­ther for young ladies or young men, than Mr One­sipho­rus Dunn. He did not bor­row mon­ey, and he did not en­croach. He did like be­ing asked out to din­ner, and he did think that they to whom he gave the light of his coun­te­nance in town owed him the re­turn of a week’s run in the coun­try. He nei­ther shot, nor hunt­ed, nor fished, nor read, and yet he was nev­er in the way in any house. He did play bil­liards, and whist, and cro­quet–very bad­ly. He was a good judge of wine, and would oc­ca­sion­al­ly con­de­scend to look af­ter the bot­tling of it on be­half of some very in­ti­mate friend. He was a great friend of Mrs Thorne’s, with whom he al­ways spent ten days in the au­tumn at Chaldicotes.

Bernard and Emi­ly were not in­sa­tiable lovers, but, nev­er­the­less, Mrs Thorne had thought it prop­er to pro­vide a fourth in the rid­ing-​par­ties, and had put Mr Dunn on this du­ty. ‘Don’t both­er your­self about it, Siph,’ she had said; ‘on­ly if those lovers should go off phi­lan­der­ing out of sight, our lit­tle coun­try lassie might find her­self to be nowhere in the Park.’ Siph had promised to make him­self use­ful, and had done so. There had gen­er­al­ly been so large a num­ber in their par­ty that the work im­posed on Mr Dunn had been very light. Lily had nev­er found out that he had been es­pe­cial­ly con­signed to her as her own cav­alier, but had seen quite enough of him to be aware that he was a pleas­ant com­pan­ion. To her, think­ing, as she ev­er was think­ing, about John­ny Eames, Siph was much more agree­able than might have been a younger man who would have en­deav­oured to make her think about him­self.

Thus when she found her­self rid­ing alone in Rot­ten Row with Siph Dunn, she was nei­ther dis­con­cert­ed nor dis­pleased. He had been talk­ing to her about Lord De Guest, whom he had known–for Siph knew ev­ery­body–and Lily had be­gun to won­der whether he knew John Eames. She was mak­ing up her mind that she would say some­thing about the Craw­ley mat­ter–not in­tend­ing of course to men­tion John Eames’s name–when sud­den­ly her tongue was paral­ysed and she could not speak. At that mo­ment they were stand­ing near a cor­ner, where a turn­ing path made an an­gle in the iron rails, Mr Dunn hav­ing pro­posed that they should wait there for a few min­utes be­fore they re­turned home, as it was prob­able that Bernard and Miss Dun­sta­ble might come up. They had been there for some five or ten min­utes, and Lily had asked her first ques­tion about the Craw­leys–in­quir­ing of Mr Dunn whether he had heard of a ter­ri­ble ac­cu­sa­tion which had been made against a cler­gy­man in Barset­shire–when on a sud­den her tongue was paral­ysed. As they were stand­ing, Lily’s horse was turned to­wards the di­verg­ing path, where­as Mr Dun was look­ing the oth­er way, to­wards Achilles and Ap­sley house. Mr Dunn was near­er the rail­ings, but though they were thus look­ing dif­fer­ent ways they were so placed that each could see the face of the oth­er. Then, on a sud­den, com­ing slow­ly to­wards her along the di­verg­ing path and lean­ing on the arm of an­oth­er man, she saw–Adol­phus Cros­bie.

She had nev­er seen him since a day on which she had part­ed from him with many kiss­es–with warm, press­ing, ea­ger kiss­es–of which she had been nowhat ashamed. He had then been to her al­most as her hus­band. She had trust­ed him en­tire­ly, and had thrown her­self in­to his arms with full re­liance. There is of­ten much of ret­icence on the part of a wom­an to­wards a man to whom she is en­gaged, some­thing al­so of shame­faced­ness oc­ca­sion­al­ly. There ex­ists a shad­ow of doubt, at least of that hes­ita­tion which shows that in spite of vows the wom­an knows that a change may come, and that pro­vi­sion for such pos­si­ble steps back­ward should al­ways be with­in her reach. But Lily had cast all such cau­tion to the winds. She had giv­en her­self to the man en­tire­ly, and had de­ter­mined that she would sink or swim, stand or fall, live or die, by him and by his truth. He had been as false as hell. She had been in his arms, cling­ing to him, kiss­ing him, swear­ing that her on­ly plea­sure in the world was to be with him–with him, her trea­sure, her promised hus­band; and with­in a month, a week, he had been false to her. There had come up­on her crush­ing tid­ings, and she had for days won­dered at her­self that they had not killed her. But she had lived, and had for­giv­en him, which had been an­swered as the read­er knows. But she had nev­er seen him since the day on which she had part­ed from him at Alling­ton, with­out a doubt as to his faith. Now he was be­fore her, walk­ing on the foot­path, al­most with­in reach of her whip.

He did not recog­nise her, but as he passed on he did recog­nise Mr One­sipho­rus Dunn, and stopped to speak to him. Or it might have been that Cros­bie’s friend Fowler Pratt stopped with this spe­cial ob­ject–for Siph Dunn was an in­ti­mate friend of Fowler Pratt’s. Cros­bie and Siph were al­so ac­quaint­ed, but in those days Cros­bie did not care much for stop­ping his friends in the Park or else­where. He had be­come moody and dis­con­tent­ed, and was gen­er­al­ly seen go­ing about the world alone. On this spe­cial oc­ca­sion he was hav­ing a lit­tle spe­cial con­ver­sa­tion about mon­ey with his very old friend Fowler Pratt.

‘What, Siph, is this you? You’re al­ways on horse­back now,’ said Fowler Pratt.

‘Well, yes; I have gone in a good deal for cav­al­ry work this last month. I’ve been lucky enough to have a young la­dy to ride with me.’ This he said in a whis­per, which the dis­tance of Lily jus­ti­fied. ‘How d’ye do, Cros­bie? One doesn’t of­ten see you on horse­back or on foot ei­ther.’

‘I’ve some­thing to do be­sides go­ing to look or to be looked at,’ said Cros­bie. Then he raised his eyes and saw Lily’s side-​face, and recog­nised her. Had he seen her be­fore he had been stopped on his way I think he would have passed on, en­deav­our­ing to es­cape ob­ser­va­tion. But as it was, his feet had been ar­rest­ed be­fore he knew of her close vicin­ity, and now it would seen that he was afraid of her, and was fly­ing from her, were he at once to walk off, leav­ing his friend be­hind him. And he knew that she had seen him, and had recog­nised him, and was now suf­fer­ing from his pres­ence. He could not but per­ceive that it was so from the fixed­ness of her face, and from the con­strained man­ner in which she gazed be­fore her. His friend Fowler Pratt had nev­er seen Miss Dale, though he knew very much of her his­to­ry. Siph Dunn knew noth­ing of the his­to­ry of Cros­bie and his love, and was un­aware that he and Lily had ev­er seen each oth­er. There was thus no help near her to ex­tri­cate her from her dif­fi­cul­ty.

‘When a man has any work to do in the world,’ said Siph, ‘he al­ways boasts of it to his ac­quain­tance, and curs­es his luck to him­self. I have noth­ing to do and can go about to see and be seen;–and I must own that I like it.’

Cros­bie was still look­ing at Lily. He could not help him­self. He could not take his eyes from off her. He could see that she was as pret­ty as ev­er, that she was but very lit­tle al­tered. She was, in truth, some­what stouter than in the old days, but of that he took no spe­cial no­tice. Should he speak to her? Should he try to catch her eye, and then raise his hat? Should he go up to her horse’s head bold­ly, and ask her to let by­gones be by­gones? He had an idea that of all cours­es which he could pur­sue that was the one which she would ap­prove the best–which would be most ef­fi­ca­cious for him, if with her any­thing from him might have any ef­fi­ca­cy. But he could not do it. He did not know what words he might best use. Would it be­come him humbly to sue to her for par­don? Or should he strive to ex­press his un­al­tered love by some tone of his voice? Or should he sim­ply ask her af­ter her health? He made one step to­wards her, and he saw that the face be­came more rigid and more fixed than be­fore, and then he de­sist­ed. He told him­self that he was sim­ply hate­ful to her. He thought that he could per­ceive that there was no ten­der­ness mixed with her un­abat­ed anger.

At this mo­ment Bernard Dale and Emi­ly came close up­on him, and Bernard saw him at once. It was through Bernard that Lily and Cros­bie had come to know each oth­er. He and Bernard Dale had been fast friends in old times, and had, of course, been bit­ter en­emies since the day of Cros­bie’s treach­ery. They had nev­er spo­ken since, though they had of­ten seen each oth­er, and Dale was not at all dis­posed to speak to him now. The mo­ment that he recog­nised Cros­bie he looked across to his cousin. For an in­stant, an idea flashed across him that he was there by her per­mis­sion–with her as­sent; but it re­quired no sec­ond glance to show him that this was not the case. ‘Dunn,’ he said, ‘I think we will ride on,’ and he put his horse in­to a trot. Siph, whose ear was very ac­cu­rate, and who knew that some­thing was wrong, trot­ted on with him, and Lily, of course, was not left be­hind. ‘Is there any­thing the mat­ter?’ said Emi­ly to her lover.

‘Noth­ing spe­cial­ly the mat­ter,’ he replied; ‘but you were stand­ing in com­pa­ny with the great­est black­guard that ev­ery lived, and I thought we had bet­ter change our ground.’

‘Bernard!’ said Lily, flash­ing on him with all the fire which her eyes could com­mand. Then she re­mem­bered that she could not rep­ri­mand him for the of­fence of such abuse in such a com­pa­ny; so she reined in her horse and fell a-​weep­ing.

Siph Dunn, with his wicked clev­er­ness, knew the whole sto­ry at once, re­mem­ber­ing that he had once heard some­thing of Cros­bie hav­ing be­haved very ill to some­one be­fore he mar­ried La­dy Alexan­dra De Cour­cy. He stopped his horse al­so, falling a lit­tle be­hind Lily, so that he might not be sup­posed to have seen her tears, and be­gan to hum a tune. Emi­ly al­so, though not wicked­ly clever, un­der­stood some­thing of it. ‘If Bernard says any­thing to make you an­gry, I will scold him,’ she said. Then the two girls rode on to­geth­er in front, while Bernard fell back with Siph Dunn.

‘Pratt,’ said Cros­bie, putting his hand on his friend’s shoul­der as soon as the par­ty had rid­den out of hear­ing, ‘do you see that girl there in the dark blue habit?’

‘What, the one near­est to the path?’

‘Yes; the one near­est to the path. That is Lily Dale.’

‘Lily Dale!’ said Fowler Pratt.

‘Yes, that is Lily Dale.’

‘Did you speak to her?’ Pratt asked.

‘No; she gave me no chance. She was there but a mo­ment. But it was her­self. It seems so odd to me that I should have been thus so near her again.’ If there was any man to whom Cros­bie could have spo­ken freely about Lily Dale it was this man, Fowler Pratt. Pratt was the old­est friend he had in the world, and it had hap­pened that when he first woke to the mis­ery that he had pre­pared for him­self in throw­ing over Lily and be­troth­ing him­self to his late wife, Pratt had been the first per­son to whom he had com­mu­ni­cat­ed his sor­row. Not that he had ev­er been re­al­ly open in his com­mu­ni­ca­tions. It was not giv­en to such men as Cros­bie to speak open­ly of them­selves to their friends. Nor, in­deed, was Fowler Pratt one who was fond of lis­ten­ing to such tales. He had no such tales to tell of him­self, and he thought that men and wom­en should go through the world qui­et­ly, not sub­ject­ing them­selves or their ac­quain­tances to anx­ieties and emo­tions from pe­cu­liar con­duct. But he was con­sci­en­tious, and coura­geous al­so as well as pru­dent, and he had dared to tell Cros­bie that he was be­hav­ing very bad­ly. He had spo­ken his mind plain­ly, and had then giv­en all the as­sis­tance in his pow­er.

He paused a mo­ment be­fore he replied, weigh­ing, like a pru­dent man, the force of the words he was about to ut­ter. ‘It is much bet­ter as it is,’ he said. ‘It is much bet­ter that you should be strangers for the fu­ture.’

‘I do not see that at all,’ said Cros­bie. They were both lean­ing on the rails, and so they re­mained for the next twen­ty min­utes. ‘I do not see that at all.’

‘I feel sure of it. What could come of any re­newed in­ter­course–even if she would al­low it?’

‘I might make her my wife.’

‘And do you think that you would be hap­py with her, or she with you, af­ter what has passed?’

‘I do think so.’

‘I do not. It might be pos­si­ble that she could bring her­self to mar­ry you. Wom­en de­light to for­give in­juries. They like the ex­cite­ment of gen­eros­ity. But she could nev­er for­get that you had a for­mer wife, or the cir­cum­stances un­der which you were mar­ried. And as for your­self, you would re­gret it af­ter the first month. How could you ev­er speak to her of your love with­out speak­ing al­so of your shame? If a man does mar­ry he should at least be able to hold up his head be­fore his wife.’

This was very se­vere, but Cros­bie showed no anger. ‘I think I should do so,’ he said–’af­ter a while.’

‘And then, about mon­ey? Of course you would have to tell her ev­ery­thing.’

‘Ev­ery­thing–of course.’

‘It is like enough that she might not re­gard that–ex­cept that she would feel that if you could not af­ford to mar­ry her when you were un­em­bar­rassed, you can hard­ly af­ford to do so when you are over your head and ears in debt.’

‘She has mon­ey now.’

‘Af­ter all that has come and gone you would hard­ly seek Lily Dale be­cause you want to mar­ry a for­tune.’

‘You are too hard on me, Pratt. You know that my on­ly rea­son for seek­ing her is that I love her.’

‘I do not mean to be hard. But I have a very strong opin­ion that the quar­rels of lovers, when they are of so very se­ri­ous a na­ture, are a bad ba­sis for the re­new­al of love. Come, let us go and dress for din­ner. I am go­ing to dine with Mrs Thorne, the mil­lion­aire, who mar­ried a coun­try doc­tor, and who used to be called Miss Dun­sta­ble.’

‘I nev­er dine out any­where now,’ said Cros­bie. And then they walked out of the Park to­geth­er. Nei­ther of them, of course, knew that Lily Dale was stay­ing at the house at which Fowler was go­ing to dine.

Lily, as she rode home, did not speak a word. She would have giv­en worlds to be able to talk, but she could not even make a be­gin­ning. She heard Bernard and Siph Dunn chat­ting be­hind her, had hoped they would con­tin­ue to do so till she was safe with­in the house. They all used her well, for no one tried to draw her in­to con­ver­sa­tion. Once Emi­ly said to her, ‘Shall we trot a lit­tle, Lily?’ And then they moved on quick­ly, and the mis­ery was soon over. As soon as she was up­stairs in the house she got Emi­ly by her­self, and ex­plained all the mys­tery in a word or two. ‘I fear I have made a fool of my­self. That was the man to whom I was once en­gaged.’ ‘What, Mr Cros­bie?’ said Emi­ly, who had heard the whole sto­ry from Bernard. ‘Yes, Mr Cros­bie; pray do not say a word of it to any­body–not even to your aunt. I am bet­ter now, but I was such a fool. No, dear; I won’t go in­to the draw­ing-​room. I’ll go up­stairs, and come down ready for din­ner.’

When she was alone she sat down in her habit and de­clared to her­self that she cer­tain­ly would nev­er be­come the wife of Mr Cros­bie. I do not know why she should make such a dec­la­ra­tion. She had promised her moth­er and John Eames that she would not do so, and that promise would cer­tain­ly have bound her with­out any fur­ther res­olu­tions on her part. But, to tell the truth, the vi­sion of the man had dis­en­chant­ed her. When last she had seen him he had been as it were a god to her; and though, since that day, his con­duct to her had been as un­god­like as it well might be, still the mem­ory of the out­ward signs of his di­vin­ity had re­mained with her. It is dif­fi­cult to ex­plain how it had come to pass that the glimpse which she had had of him should have al­tered so much with­in her mind;–why she should so sud­den­ly have come to re­gard him in an al­tered light. It was not sim­ply that he looked to be old­er, and be­cause his face was care­worn. It was not on­ly that he had lost that look of an Apol­lo which Lily had once in her mirth at­tribut­ed to him. I think it was chiefly that she her­self was old­er, and could no longer see a god in such a man. She had nev­er re­gard­ed John Eames as be­ing gift­ed with di­vin­ity, and had there­fore al­ways been mak­ing com­par­isons to his dis­cred­it. Any such com­par­ison now would tend quite the oth­er way. Nev­er­the­less she would ad­here to the two let­ters in her book. Since she had seen Mr Cros­bie she was al­to­geth­er out of love with the prospect of mat­ri­mo­ny.

She was in the room when Mr Pratt was an­nounced, and she at once recog­nised him as the man who had been with Cros­bie. And when, some min­utes af­ter­wards, Siph Dunn came in­to the room, she could see that in their greet­ing al­lu­sion was made to the scene in the Park. But still it was prob­able that this man would not recog­nise her, and, if he did so, what would it mat­ter? There were twen­ty peo­ple to sit down to din­ner, and the chances were that she would not be called up­on to ex­change a word with Mr Pratt. She had now re­cov­ered her­self, and could speak freely to her friend Siph, and when Siph came and stood near her she thanked him gra­cious­ly for his es­cort in the Park. ‘If it wasn’t for you, Mr Dunn, I re­al­ly think I should not get any rid­ing at all. Bernard and Miss Dun­sta­ble have on­ly one thing to think about, and cer­tain­ly I am not the one thing.’ She thought it prob­able that if she could keep Siph close to her, Mrs Thorne, who al­ways man­aged things her­self, might ap­por­tion her out to be led to din­ner by her good-​na­tured friend. But the fates were averse. The time had now come, and Lily was wait­ing her turn. ‘Mr Fowler Pratt, let me in­tro­duce to Miss Lily Dale,’ said Mrs Thorne. Lily could per­ceive that Mr Pratt was star­tled. The sign he gave was the least pos­si­ble sign in the world; but still it suf­ficed for Lily to per­ceive it. She put her hand up­on his arm, and walked down with him to the din­ing-​room with­out giv­ing him the slight­est cause to sup­pose that she knew who he was.

‘I think I saw you in the park rid­ing?’ he said.

‘Yes, I was there; we go near­ly ev­ery day.’

‘I nev­er ride; I was walk­ing.’

‘It seems to me that the peo­ple who don’t go there to walk, but to stand still,’ said Lily. ‘I can­not un­der­stand how so many peo­ple can bear to loi­ter about in that way–lean­ing on the rails and do­ing noth­ing.’

‘It is about as good as rid­ing, and costs less mon­ey. That is all that can be said for it. Do you live chiefly in town?’

‘Oh, dear no; I live al­to­geth­er in the coun­try. I’m on­ly up here be­cause a cousin is go­ing to be mar­ried.’

‘Cap­tain Dale, you mean–to Miss Dun­sta­ble?’ said Fowler Pratt.

‘When they have been joined to­geth­er in holy mat­ri­mo­ny, I shall go down to the coun­try, and nev­er, I sup­pose, come up to Lon­don again.’

‘You do not like Lon­don?’

‘Not as a res­idence, I think,’ said Lily. ‘But of course one’s lik­ings and dis­lik­ings on such a mat­ter de­pend on cir­cum­stances. I live with my moth­er, and all my rel­atives live near us. Of course I like the coun­try best, be­cause they are there.’

‘Young ladies so of­ten have a dif­fer­ent way of look­ing at this sub­ject. I shouldn’t won­der if Miss Dun­sta­ble’s views about it were al­to­geth­er of an­oth­er sort. Young ladies gen­er­al­ly ex­pect to be tak­en away from their fa­ther and moth­ers, and un­cles and aunts.’

‘But you see I ex­pect to be left with mine,’ said Lily. Af­ter that she turned as much away from Mr Fowler Pratt as she could, hav­ing tak­en an aver­sion to him. What busi­ness had he to talk to her about be­ing tak­en away from un­cles and aunts? She had seen him with Mr Cros­bie, and it might be pos­si­ble that they were in­ti­mate friends. It might be that Mr Pratt was ask­ing ques­tions in Mr Cros­bie’s in­ter­ests. Let that be as it might, she would an­swer no more ques­tions from him fur­ther than or­di­nary good breed­ing should re­quire of her.

‘She is a nice girl, cer­tain­ly,’ said Fowler Pratt to him­self, as he walked home, ‘and I have no doubt would make a good, or­di­nary, ev­ery­day wife. But she is not such a paragon that a man should con­de­scend to grov­el in the dirt for her.’

That night Lily told Emi­ly Dun­sta­ble the whole of Mr Cros­bie’s his­to­ry as far as she knew it, and al­so ex­plained her new aver­sion to Mr Fowler Pratt. ‘They are very great friends,’ said Emi­ly. ‘Bernard has told me so; and you may be sure that Mr Pratt knew the whole his­to­ry be­fore he came here. I am so sor­ry that my aunt asked him.’

‘It does not sig­ni­fy in the least,’ said Lily. ‘Even if I were to meet Mr Cros­bie I don’t think I should make such a fool of my­self again. As it is, I can on­ly hope that he did not see it.’

‘I am sure he did not.’

Then there was a pause, dur­ing which Lily sat with her face rest­ing on both her hands. ‘It is won­der­ful how much he has al­tered,’ she said at last.

‘Think how much he has suf­fered.’

‘I sup­pose I am al­tered as much, on­ly I do not see it my­self.’

‘I don’t know what you were, but I don’t think you can have changed much. You no doubt have suf­fered too, but not as he has done.’

‘Oh, as for that, I have done very well. I think I’ll go to bed now. The rid­ing makes me so sleepy.’