The Chronicles of Barsetshire (236 page)

“Five and three?” said Lady Amelia.

“Oh, no, my lady; five and seven; and the cheapest carpet we have in the house. There is twopence a yard more in the colour; there is, indeed.”

“And the discount?” asked Lady Amelia.

“Two and a half, my lady.”

“Oh dear, no,” said Lady Amelia. “I always have five per cent. for immediate payment—quite immediate, you know.” Upon which the man declared the question must be referred to his master. Two and a half was the rule of the house. Crosbie, who had been looking out of the window, said that upon his honour he couldn’t wait any longer.

“And what do you think of it, Adolphus?”, asked Alexandrina.

“Think of what?”

“Of the carpet—this one, you know!”

“Oh—what do I think of the carpet? I don’t think I quite like all these yellow bands; and isn’t it too red? I should have thought something brown with a small pattern would have been better. But, upon my word, I don’t much care.”

“Of course he doesn’t,” said Lady Amelia. Then the two ladies put their heads together for another five minutes, and the carpet was chosen—subject to that question of the discount. “And now about the rug,” said Lady Amelia. But here Crosbie rebelled, and insisted that he must leave them and go to his office. “You can’t want me about the rug,” he said. “Well, perhaps not,” said Lady Amelia. But it was manifest that Alexandrina did not approve of being thus left by her male attendant.

The same thing happened in Oxford Street with reference to the chairs and sofas, and Crosbie began to wish that he were settled, even though he should have to dress himself in the closet below the kitchen-stairs. He was learning to hate the whole household in St. John’s Wood, and almost all that belonged to it. He was introduced there to little family economies of which hitherto he had known nothing, and which were disgusting to him, and the necessity for which was especially explained to him. It was to men placed as he was about to place himself that these economies were so vitally essential—to men who with limited means had to maintain a decorous outward face towards the fashionable world. Ample supplies of butchers’ meat and unlimited washing-bills might be very well upon fifteen hundred a year to those who went out but seldom, and who could use the first cab that came to hand when they did go out. But there were certain things that Lady Alexandrina must do, and therefore the strictest household economy became necessary. Would Lily Dale have required the use of a carriage, got up to look as though it were private, at the expense of her husband’s beefsteaks and clean shirts? That question and others of that nature were asked by Crosbie within his own mind, not unfrequently.

But, nevertheless, he tried to love Alexandrina, or rather to persuade himself that he loved her. If he could only get her away from the De Courcy faction, and especially from the Gazebee branch of it, he would break her of all that. He would teach her to sit triumphantly in a street cab, and to cater for her table with a plentiful hand. Teach her!—at some age over thirty; and with such careful training as she had already received! Did he intend to forbid her ever again to see her relations, ever to go to St. John’s Wood, or to correspond with the countess and Lady Margaretta? Teach her, indeed! Had he yet to learn that he could not wash a blackamoor white?—that he could not have done so even had he himself been well adapted for the attempt, whereas he was in truth nearly as ill adapted as a man might be? But who could pity him? Lily, whom he might have had in his bosom, would have been no blackamoor.

Then came the time of Lady de Courcy’s visit to town, and Alexandrina moved herself off to Portman Square. There was some apparent comfort in this to Crosbie, for he would thereby be saved from those daily dreary journeys up to the north-west. I may say that he positively hated that windy corner near the church, round which he had to walk in getting to the Gazebee residence, and that he hated the lamp which guided him to the door, and the very door itself. This door stood buried as it were in a wall, and opened on to a narrow passage which ran across a so-called garden, or front yard, containing on each side two iron receptacles for geraniums, painted to look like Palissy ware, and a naked female on a pedestal. No spot in London was, as he thought, so cold as the bit of pavement immediately in front of that door. And there he would be kept five, ten, fifteen minutes, as he declared—though I believe in my heart that the time never exceeded three—while Richard was putting off the trappings of his work and putting on the trappings of his grandeur.

If people would only have their doors opened to you by such assistance as may come most easily and naturally to the work! I stood lately for some minutes on a Tuesday afternoon at a gallant portal, and as I waxed impatient a pretty maiden came and opened it. She was a pretty maiden, though her hands and face and apron told tales of the fire-grates. “Laws, sir,” she said, “the visitors’ day is Wednesday; and if you would come then, there would be the man in livery!” She took my card with the corner of her apron, and did just as well as the man in livery; but what would have happened to her had her little speech been overheard by her mistress?

Crosbie hated the house in St. John’s Wood, and therefore the coming of the countess was a relief to him. Portman Square was easily to be reached, and the hospitalities of the countess would not be pressed upon him so strongly as those of the Gazebees. When he first called he was shown into the great family dining-room, which looked out towards the back of the house. The front windows were, of course, closed, as the family was not supposed to be in London. Here he remained in the room for some quarter of an hour, and then the countess descended upon him in all her grandeur. Perhaps he had never before seen her so grand. Her dress was very large, and rustled through the broad doorway, as if demanding even a broader passage. She had on a wonder of a bonnet, and a velvet mantle that was nearly as expansive as her petticoats. She threw her head a little back as she accosted him, and he instantly perceived that he was enveloped in the fumes of an affectionate but somewhat contemptuous patronage. In old days he had liked the countess, because her manner to him had always been flattering. In his intercourse with her he had been able to feel that he gave quite as much as he got, and that the countess was aware of the fact. In all the circumstances of their acquaintance the ascendancy had been with him, and therefore the acquaintance had been a pleasant one. The countess had been a good-natured, agreeable woman, whose rank and position had made her house pleasant to him; and therefore he had consented to shine upon her with such light as he had to give. Why was it that the matter was reversed, now that there was so much stronger a cause for good feeling between them? He knew that there was such change, and with bitter internal upbraidings he acknowledged to himself that this woman was getting the mastery over him. As the friend of the countess he had been a great man in her eyes—in all her little words and looks she had acknowledged his power; but now, as her son-in-law, he was to become a very little man—such as was Mortimer Gazebee!

“My dear Adolphus,” she said, taking both his hands, “the day is coming very near now; is it not?”

“Very near, indeed,” he said.

“Yes, it is very near. I hope you feel yourself a happy man.”

“Oh, yes, that’s of course.”

“It ought to be. Speaking very seriously, I mean that it ought to be a matter of course. She is everything that a man should desire in a wife. I am not alluding now to her rank, though of course you feel what a great advantage she gives you in this respect.”

Crosbie muttered something as to his consciousness of having drawn a prize in the lottery; but he so muttered it as not to convey to the lady’s ears a proper sense of his dependent gratitude. “I know of no man more fortunate than you have been,” she continued; “and I hope that my dear girl will find that you are fully aware that it is so. I think that she is looking rather fagged. You have allowed her to do more than was good for her in the way of shopping.”

“She has done a good deal, certainly,” said Crosbie.

“She is so little used to anything of that kind! But of course, as things have turned out, it was necessary that she should see to these things herself.”

“I rather think she liked it,” said Crosbie.

“I believe she will always like doing her duty. We are just going now to Madame Millefranc’s, to see some silks—perhaps you would wish to go with us?”

Just at this moment Alexandrina came into the room, and looked as though she were in all respects a smaller edition of her mother. They were both well-grown women, with handsome large figures, and a certain air about them which answered almost for beauty. As to the countess, her face, on close inspection, bore, as it was entitled to do, deep signs of age; but she so managed her face that any such close inspection was never made; and her general appearance for her time of life was certainly good. Very little more than this could be said in favour of her daughter.

“Oh dear, no, mamma,” she said, having heard her mother’s last words. “He’s the worst person in a shop in the world. He likes nothing, and dislikes nothing. Do you, Adolphus?”

“Indeed I do. I like all the cheap things, and dislike all the dear things.”

“Then you certainly shall not go with us to Madame Millefranc’s,” said Alexandrina.

“It would not matter to him there, you know, my dear,” said the countess, thinking perhaps of the suggestion she had lately made to Mr. Gazebee.

On this occasion Crosbie managed to escape, simply promising to return to Portman Square in the evening after dinner. “By-the-by, Adolphus,” said the countess, as he handed her into the hired carriage which stood at the door, “I wish you would go to Lambert’s, on Ludgate Hill, for me. He has had a bracelet of mine for nearly three months. Do, there’s a good creature. Get it if you can, and bring it up this evening.”

Crosbie, as he made his way back to his office, swore that he would not do the bidding of the countess. He would not trudge off into the city after her trinkets. But at five o’clock, when he left his office, he did go there. He apologised to himself by saying that he had nothing else to do, and bethought himself that at the present moment his lady mother-in-law’s smiles might be more convenient than her frowns. So he went to Lambert’s, on Ludgate Hill, and there learned that the bracelet had been sent down to Courcy Castle full two months since.

After that he dined at his club, at Sebright’s. He dined alone, sitting by no means in bliss with his half-pint of sherry on the table before him. A man now and then came up and spoke to him, one a few words, and another a few, and two or three congratulated him as to his marriage; but the club was not the same thing to him as it had formerly been. He did not stand in the centre of the rug, speaking indifferently to all or any around him, ready with his joke, and loudly on the alert with the last news of the day. How easy it is to be seen when any man has fallen from his pride of place, though the altitude was ever so small, and the fall ever so slight. Where is the man who can endure such a fall without showing it in his face, in his voice, in his step, and in every motion of every limb? Crosbie knew that he had fallen, and showed that he knew it by the manner in which he ate his mutton-chop.

At half-past eight he was again in Portman Square, and found the two ladies crowding over a small fire in a small back drawing-room. The furniture was all covered with brown holland, and the place had about it that cold comfortless feeling which uninhabited rooms always produce. Crosbie, as he had walked from the club up to Portman Square, had indulged in some serious thoughts. The kind of life which he had hitherto led had certainly passed away from him. He could never again be the pet of a club, or indulged as one to whom all good things were to be given without any labour at earning them on his own part. Such for some years had been his good fortune, but such could be his good fortune no longer. Was there anything within his reach which he might take in lieu of that which he had lost? He might still be victorious at his office, having more capacity for such victory than others around him. But such success alone would hardly suffice for him. Then he considered whether he might not even yet be happy in his own home—whether Alexandrina, when separated from her mother, might not become such a wife as he could love. Nothing softens a man’s feelings so much as failure, or makes him turn so anxiously to an idea of home as buffetings from those he meets abroad. He had abandoned Lily because his outer world had seemed to him too bright to be deserted. He would endeavour to supply her place with Alexandrina, because his outer world had seemed to him too harsh to be supported. Alas! alas! a man cannot so easily repent of his sins, and wash himself white from their stains!

When he entered the room the two ladies were sitting over the fire, as I have stated, and Crosbie could immediately perceive that the spirit of the countess was not serene. In fact there had been a few words between the mother and child on that matter of the trousseau, and Alexandrina had plainly told her mother that if she were to be married at all she would be married with such garments belonging to her as were fitting for an earl’s daughter. It was in vain that her mother had explained with many circumlocutional phrases, that the fitness in this respect should be accommodated rather to the plebeian husband than to the noble parent. Alexandrina had been very firm, and had insisted on her rights, giving the countess to understand that if her orders for finery were not complied with, she would return as a spinster to Courcy, and prepare herself for partnership with Rosina.

“My dear,” said the countess, piteously, “you can have no idea of what I shall have to go through with your father. And, of course, you could get all these things afterwards.”

“Papa has no right to treat me in such a way. And if he would not give me any money himself, he should have let me have some of my own.”

“Ah, my dear, that was Mr. Gazebee’s fault.”

“I don’t care whose fault it was. It certainly was not mine. I won’t have him to tell me”—”him” was intended to signify Adolphus Crosbie—”that he had to pay for my wedding-clothes.”