CHAPTER LVIII.

THE FATE OF THE SMALL HOUSE.

[ILLUSTRATION: (untitled)]

There was something in the tone of Mrs. Dale's voice, as she desired her daughter to come up to the house, and declared that her budget of news should be opened there, which at once silenced Lily's assumed pleasantry. Her mother had been away fully two hours, during which Lily had still continued her walk round the garden, till at last she had become impatient for her mother's footstep. Something serious must have been said between her uncle and her mother during those long two hours. The interviews to which Mrs. Dale was occasionally summoned at the Great House did not usually exceed twenty minutes, and the upshot would be communicated to the girls in a turn or two round the garden; but in the present instance Mrs. Dale positively declined to speak till she was seated within the house.

"Did he come over on purpose to see you, mamma?"

"Yes, my dear, I believe so. He wished to see you, too; but I asked his permission to postpone that till after I had talked to you."

"To see me, mamma? About what?"

"To kiss you, and bid you love him; solely for that. He has not a word to say to you that will vex you."

"Then I will kiss him, and love him, too."

"Yes, you will when I have told you all. I have promised him solemnly to give up all idea of going to Guestwick. So that is over."

"Oh, oh! And we may begin to unpack at once? What an episode in one's life!"

"We may certainly unpack, for I have pledged myself to him; and he is to go into Guestwick himself and arrange about the lodgings."

"Does Hopkins know it?"

"I should think not yet."

"Nor Mrs. Boyce! Mamma, I don't believe I shall be able to survive this next week. We shall look such fools! I'll tell you what we'll do;--it will be the only comfort I can have;--we'll go to work and get everything back into its place before Bell comes home, so as to surprise her."

"What! in two days?"

"Why not? I'll make Hopkins come and help, and then he'll not be so bad. I'll begin at once and go to the blankets and beds, because I can undo them myself."

"But I haven't half told you all; and, indeed, I don't know how to make you understand what passed between us. He is very unhappy about Bernard; Bernard has determined to go abroad, and may be away for years."

"One can hardly blame a man for following up his profession."

"There was no blaming. He only said that it was very sad for him that, in his old age, he should be left alone. This was before there was any talk about our remaining. Indeed he seemed determined not to ask that again as a favour. I could see that in his eye, and I understood it from his tone. He went on to speak of you and Bell, saying how well he loved you both; but that, unfortunately, his hopes regarding you had not been fulfilled."

"Ah, but he shouldn't have had hopes of that sort."

"Listen, my dear, and I think that you will not feel angry with him. He said that he felt his house had never been pleasant to you.

Then there followed words which I could not repeat, even if I could remember them. He said much about myself, regretting that the feeling between us had not been more kindly. 'But my heart,' he said, 'has ever been kinder than my words.' Then I got up from where I was seated, and going over to him, I told him that we would remain here."

"And what did he say?"

"I don't know what he said. I know that I was crying, and that he kissed me. It was the first time in his life. I know that he was pleased,--beyond measure pleased. After a while he became animated, and talked of doing ever so many things. He promised that very painting of which you spoke."

"Ah, yes, I knew it; and Hopkins will be here with the peas before dinner-time to-morrow, and Dingles with his shoulders smothered with rabbits. And then Mrs. Boyce! Mamma, he didn't think of Mrs. Boyce; or, in very charity of heart, he would still have maintained his sadness."

"Then he did not think of her; for when I left him he was not at all sad. But I haven't told you half yet."

"Dear me, mamma; was there more than that?"

"And I've told it all wrong; for what I've got to tell now was said before a word was spoken about the house. He brought it in just after what he said about Bernard. He said that Bernard would, of course, be his heir."

"Of course he will."

"And that he should think it wrong to encumber the property with any charges for you girls."

"Mamma, did any one ever--"

"Stop, Lily, stop; and make your heart kinder towards him if you can."

"It is kind; only I hate to be told that I'm not to have a lot of money, as though I had ever shown a desire for it. I have never envied Bernard his man-servant, or his maid-servant, or his ox, or his ass, or anything that is his. To tell the truth I didn't even wish it to be Bell's, because I knew well that there was somebody she would like a great deal better than ever she could like Bernard."

"I shall never get to the end of my story."

"Yes, you will, mamma, if you persevere."

"The long and the short of it is this, that he has given Bell three thousand pounds, and has given you three thousand also."

"But why me, mamma?" said Lily, and the colour of her cheeks became red as she spoke. There should if possible be nothing more said about John Eames; but whatever might or might not be the necessity of speaking, at any rate, let there be no mistake. "But why me, mamma?"

"Because, as he explained to me, he thinks it right to do the same by each of you. The money is yours at this moment,--to buy hair-pins with, if you please. I had no idea that he could command so large a sum."

"Three thousand pounds! The last money he gave me was half-a-crown, and I thought that he was so stingy! I particularly wanted ten shillings. I should have liked it so much better now if he had given me a nice new five-pound note."

"You'd better tell him so."

"No; because then he'd give me that too. But with five pounds I should have the feeling that I might do what I liked with it;--buy a dressing-case, and a thing for a squirrel to run round in. But nobody ever gives girls money like that, so that they can enjoy it."

"Oh, Lily; you ungrateful child!"

"No, I deny it. I'm not ungrateful. I'm very grateful, because his heart was softened--and because he cried and kissed you. I'll be ever so good to him! But how I'm to thank him for giving me three thousand pounds, I cannot think. It's a sort of thing altogether beyond my line of life. It sounds like something that's to come to me in another world, but which I don't want quite yet. I am grateful, but with a misty, mazy sort of gratitude. Can you tell me how soon I shall have a new pair of Balmoral boots because of this money? If that were brought home to me I think it would enliven my gratitude."

The squire, as he rode back to Guestwick, fell again from that animation, which Mrs. Dale had described, into his natural sombre mood. He thought much of his past life, declaring to himself the truth of those words in which he had told his sister-in-law that his heart had ever been kinder than his words. But the world, and all those nearest to him in the world, had judged him always by his words rather than by his heart. They had taken the appearance, which he could not command or alter, rather than the facts, of which he had been the master. Had he not been good to all his relations?--and yet was there one among them that cared for him? "I'm almost sorry that they are going to stay," he said to himself;--"I know that I shall disappoint them." Yet when he met Bell at the Manor House he accosted her cheerily, telling her with much appearance of satisfaction that that flitting into Guestwick was not to be accomplished.

"I am so glad," said she. "It is long since I wished it."

"And I do not think your mother wishes it now."

"I am sure she does not. It was all a misunderstanding from the first. When some of us could not do all that you wished, we thought it better--" Then Bell paused, finding that she would get herself into a mess if she persevered.

"We will not say any more about it," said the squire. "The thing is over, and I am very glad that it should be so pleasantly settled. I was talking to Dr. Crofts yesterday."