gave her four hundred a year, and allowed Gazebee two more towards the paying off of encumbrances, he would still have six on which to enjoy himself in London. Of course he could not live as he had lived in those happy days before his marriage, nor, independently of the cost, would such a mode of life be within his reach. But he might go to his club for his dinners; he might smoke his cigar in luxury; he would not be bound to that wooden home which, in spite of all his resolutions, had become almost unendurable to him. So he made his calculations, and found that it would be well that his bride should go. He would give over his house and furniture to Gazebee, allowing Gazebee to do as he would about that. To be once more a bachelor, in lodgings, with six hundred a year to spend on himself, seemed to him now such a prospect of happiness that he almost became light-hearted as he dressed himself. He would let her go to Baden-Baden.
There was nothing said about it at dinner, nor did he mention the subject again till the servant had left the tea-things on the drawing-room table. 'You can go with your mother if you like it,' he then said.
'I think it will be best,' she answered.
'Perhaps it will. At any rate you shall suit yourself.'
'And about money?'
'You had better leave me to speak to Gazebee about that.'
'Very well. Will you have some tea?' And then the whole thing was finished.
On the next day she went after lunch to her mother's house, and never came back again to Princess Royal Crescent. During that morning she packed up those things which she cared to pack herself, and sent her sisters there, with an old family servant, to bring away whatever else might be supposed to belong to her. 'Dear, dear,' said Amelia, 'what trouble I had in getting these things together for them, and only the other day. I can't but think she's wrong to go away.'
'I don't know,' said Margaretta. 'She has not been so lucky as you have in the man she has married. I always felt that she would find it difficult to manage him.'
'But, my dear, she has not tried. She has given up at once. It isn't management that was wanting. The fact is that when Alexandrina began she didn't make up her mind to the kind of thing she was coming to. I did. I knew it wasn't to be all party-going and that sort of thing. But I must own that Crosbie isn't the same sort of man as Mortimer. I don't think I could have gone on with him. You might as well have those small books put up; he won't care about them.' And in this way Crosbie's house was dismantled.
She saw him no more, for he made no farewell visit to the house in Portman Square. A note had been brought to him at his office: 'I am here with mamma, and may as well say good-bye now. We start on Tuesday. If you wish to write, you can send your letters to the housekeeper here. I hope you will make yourself comfortable, and that you will be well. Yours affectionately, A. C.' He made no answer to it, but went that day and dined at his club.
'I haven't seen you this age,' said Montgomerie Dobbs.
'No. My wife is going abroad with her mother, and while she is away I shall come back here again.'
There was nothing more said to him, and no one ever made any inquiry about his domestic affairs. It seemed to him now as though he had no friend sufficiently intimate with him to ask him after his wife or family. She was gone, and in a month's time he found himself again in Mount Street,—beginning the world with five hundred a year, not six. For Mr Gazebee, when the reckoning came, showed him that a larger income at the present moment was not possible for him. The countess had for a long time refused to let Lady Alexandrina go with her on so small a pittance as four hundred and fifty;—and then were there not the insurances to be maintained?
But I think he would have consented to accept his liberty with three hundred a year,—so great to him was the relief.
LVII. Lilian Dale Vanquishes Her Mother
Mrs Dale had been present during the interview in which John Eames had made his prayer to her daughter, but she had said little or nothing on that occasion. All her wishes had been in favour of the suitor, but she had not dared to express them, neither had she dared to leave the room. It had been hard upon him to be thus forced to declare his love in the presence of a third person, but he had done it, and had gone away with his answer. Then, when the thing was over, Lily, without any communion with her mother, took herself off, and was no more seen till the evening hours had come on, in which it was natural that they should be together again. Mrs Dale, when thus alone, had been able to think of nothing but this new suit for her daughter's hand. If only it might be accomplished! If any words from her to Lily might be efficacious to such an end! And yet, hitherto, she had been afraid almost to utter a word.
