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

“Another earl!” said Lily.

“Yes; haven’t you heard? Miss Bell has been here this morning, insisting that I should have over Lord De Guest and his sister for the marriage. It seems that there was some scheming between Bell and Lady Julia.”

“Of course you’ll ask them.”

“Of course I must. I’ve no way out of it. It’ll be all very well for Bell, who’ll be off to Wales with her lover; but what am I to do with the earl and Lady Julia, when they’re gone? Will you come and help me?”

In answer to this, Lily of course promised that she would come and help. “Indeed,” said she, “I thought we were all asked up for the day. And now for my favour. Uncle, you must forgive poor Hopkins.”

“Forgive a fiddlestick!” said the squire.

“No, but you must. You can’t think how unhappy he is.”

“How can I forgive a man who won’t forgive me. He goes prowling about the place doing nothing; and he sends me back his wages, and he looks as though he were going to murder someone; and all because he wouldn’t do as he was told. How am I to forgive such a man as that?”

“But, uncle, why not?”

“It would be his forgiving me. He knows very well that he may come back whenever he pleases; and, indeed, for the matter of that he has never gone away.”

“But he is so very unhappy.”

“What can I do to make him happier?”

“Just go down to his cottage and tell him that you forgive him.”

“Then he’ll argue with me.”

“No; I don’t think he will. He is too much down in the world for arguing now.”

“Ah! you don’t know him as I do. All the misfortunes in the world wouldn’t stop that man’s conceit. Of course I’ll go if you ask me, but it seems to me that I’m made to knock under to everybody. I hear a great deal about other people’s feelings, but I don’t know that mine are very much thought of.” He was not altogether in a happy mood, and Lily almost regretted that she had persevered; but she did succeed in carrying him off across the garden to the cottage, and as they went together she promised him that she would think of him always⁠—always. The scene with Hopkins cannot be described now, as it would take too many of our few remaining pages. It resulted, I am afraid I must confess, in nothing more triumphant to the squire than a treaty of mutual forgiveness. Hopkins acknowledged, with much self-reproach, that his feelings had been too many for him; but then, look at his provocation! He could not keep his tongue from that matter, and certainly said as much in his own defence as he did in confession of his sins. The substantial triumph was altogether his, for nobody again ever dared to interfere with his operations in the farmyard. He showed his submission to his master mainly by consenting to receive his wages for the two weeks which he had passed in idleness.

Owing to this little accident, Lily was not so much oppressed by Hopkins as she had expected to be in that matter of their altered plans; but this salvation did not extend to Mrs. Hearn, to Mrs. Crump, or, above all, to Mrs. Boyce. They, all of them, took an interest more or less strong in the Hopkins controversy; but their interest in the occupation of the Small House was much stronger, and it was found useless to put Mrs. Hearn off with the gardener’s persistent refusal of his wages, when she was big with inquiry whether the house was to be painted inside, as well as out. “Ah,” said she, “I think I’ll go and look at lodgings at Guestwick myself, and pack up some of my beds.” Lily made no answer to this, feeling that it was a part of that punishment which she had expected. “Dear, dear,” said Mrs. Crump to the two girls; “well, to be sure, we should ’a been ’lone without ’ee, and mayhap we might ’a got worse in your place; but why did ’ee go and fasten up all your things in them big boxes, just to unfasten ’em all again?”

“We changed our minds, Mrs. Crump,” said Bell, with some severity.

“Yees, I know ye changed your mindses. Well, it’s all right for loiks o’ ye, no doubt; but if we changes our mindses, we hears of it.”

“So, it seems, do we!” said Lily. “But never mind, Mrs. Crump. Do you send us our letters up early, and then we won’t quarrel.”

“Oh, letters! Drat them for letters. I wish there weren’t no sich things. There was a man here yesterday with his imperence. I don’t know where he come from⁠—down from Lun’on, I b’leeve: and this was wrong, and that was wrong, and everything was wrong; and then he said he’d have me discharged the sarvice.”

“Dear me, Mrs. Crump; that wouldn’t do at all.”

“Discharged the sarvice! Tuppence farden a day. So I told ’un to discharge hisself, and take all the old bundles and things away upon his shoulders. Letters indeed! What business have they with post-missusses, if they cannot pay ’em better nor tuppence farden a day?” And in this way, under the shelter of Mrs. Crump’s storm of wrath against the inspector who had visited her, Lily and Bell escaped much that would have fallen upon their own heads; but Mrs. Boyce still remained. I may here add, in order that Mrs. Crump’s history may be carried on to the farthest possible point, that she was not “discharged the sarvice,” and that she still receives her twopence farthing a day from the Crown.

“That’s a bitter old lady,” said the inspector to the man who was driving him.

“Yes, sir; they all says the same about she. There ain’t none of ’em get much change out of Mrs. Crump.”

Bell and Lily went together also to Mrs. Boyce’s. “If she makes herself very disagreeable, I shall insist upon talking of your marriage,”