The Small House at Allington by Anthony Trollope (the kiss of deception read online txt) 📕

“Exactly, exactly; we all feel that. But we think that you⁠—if I were to say take too much upon yourself, I should say, perhaps, more than we mean.”

“Don’t say more than you mean, Mr. Optimist.” Crosbie’s eyes, as he spoke, gleamed slightly with his momentary triumph; as did also those of Major Fiasco.

“No, no, no,” said Mr. Optimist; “I would say rather less than more to so very good a public servant as yourself. But you, doubtless, understand me?”

“I don’t think I do quite, sir. If I have not taken too much on me, what is it that I have done that I ought not to have done?”

“You have given directions in many cases for which you ought first to have received authority. Here is an instance,” and the selected paper was at once brought out.

It was a matter in which the Secretary had been manifestly wrong according to written law, and he could not defend it on its own merits.

“If you wish me,” said he, “to confine myself exactly to the positive instructions of the office, I will do so; but I think you will find it inconvenient.”

“It will be far the best,” said Mr. Optimist.

“Very well,” said Mr. Crosbie, “it shall be done.” And he at once determined to make himself as unpleasant to the three gentlemen in the room as he might find it within his power to do. He could make himself very unpleasant, but the unpleasantness would be as much to him as to them.

Nothing would now go right with him. He could look in no direction for satisfaction. He sauntered into Sebright’s, as he went home, but he could not find words to speak to anyone about the little matters of the day. He went home, and his wife, though she was up, complained still of her headache.

“I haven’t been out of the house all day,” she said, “and that has made it worse.”

“I don’t know how you are to get out if you won’t walk,” he answered.

Then there was no more said between them till they sat down to their meal.

Had the squire at Allington known all, he might, I think, have been satisfied with the punishment which Crosbie had encountered.

“Mamma, read that letter.”

It was Mrs. Dale’s eldest daughter who spoke to her, and they were alone together in the parlour at the Small House. Mrs. Dale took the letter and read it very carefully. She then put it back into its envelope and returned it to Bell.

“It is, at any rate, a good letter, and, as I believe, tells the truth.”

“I think it tells a little more than the truth, mamma. As you say, it is a well-written letter. He always writes well when he is in earnest. But yet⁠—”

“Yet what, my dear?”

“There is more head than heart in it.”

“If so, he will suffer the less; that is, if you are quite resolved in the matter.”

“I am quite resolved, and I do not think he will suffer much. He would not, I suppose, have taken the trouble to write like that, if he did not wish this thing.”

“I am quite sure that he does wish it, most earnestly; and that he will be greatly disappointed.”

“As he would be if any other scheme did not turn out to his satisfaction; that is all.”

The letter, of course, was from Bell’s cousin Bernard, and containing the strongest plea he was able to make in favour of his suit for her hand. Bernard Dale was better able to press such a plea by letter than by spoken words. He was a man capable of doing anything well in the doing of which a little time for consideration might be given to him; but he had not in him that power of passion which will force a man to eloquence in asking for that which he desires to obtain. His letter on this occasion was long, and well argued. If there was little in it of passionate love, there was much of pleasant flattery. He told Bell how advantageous to both their families their marriage would be; he declared to her that his own feeling in the matter had been rendered stronger by absence; he alluded without boasting to his past career of life as her best guarantee for his future conduct; he explained to her that if this marriage could be arranged there need then, at any rate, be no further question as to his aunt removing with Lily from the Small House; and then he told her that his affection for herself was the absorbing passion of his existence. Had the letter been written with the view of obtaining from a third person a favourable verdict as to his suit, it would have been a very good letter indeed; but there was not a word in it that could stir the heart of such a girl as Bell Dale.

“Answer him kindly,” Mrs. Dale said.

“As kindly as I know how,” said Bell. “I wish you would write the letter, mamma.”

“I fear that would not do. What I should say would only tempt him to try again.”

Mrs. Dale knew very well⁠—had known for some months past⁠—that Bernard’s suit was hopeless. She felt certain, although the matter had not been discussed between them, that whenever Dr. Crofts might choose to come again and ask for her daughter’s hand he would not be refused. Of the two men she probably liked Dr. Crofts the best; but she liked them both, and she could not but remember that the one, in a worldly point of view, would be a very poor match, whereas the other would, in all respects, be excellent. She would not, on any account, say a word to influence her daughter, and knew, moreover, that no word which she could say would influence her; but she could not divest herself of some regret that it should be so.

“I know what you would wish, mamma,” said Bell.

“I have but one wish, dearest, and