第136章

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; Isuppose 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 hour-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 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 Ican see. They have to look beautiful, and frighten the young ones.'

'And does Sir Raffle look beautiful?' Lily asked.