'After a fashion he does. There is something imposing about such a man till you're used to it, and can see through it. Of course it's all padding. There are men who work, no doubt. But among the bigwigs, and bishops and cabinet ministers, I fancy that the looking beautiful is the chief part of it. Dear me, you don't mean to say it's luncheon time?'
But it was luncheon time, and not only had he not as yet said a word of all that which he had come to say, but had not as yet made any move towards getting it said. How was he to arrange that Lily should be left alone with him? Lady Julia had said that she should not expect him back till dinner-time, and he had answered her lackadaisically, 'I don't suppose I shall be there above ten minutes. The minutes will say all I've got to say, and do all I've got to do. And then I suppose I shall go and cut names about bridges--eh, Lady Julia?' Lady Julia understood the words; for once, upon a former occasion, she had found him cutting Lily's name on the rail of a wooden bridge in her brother's grounds. But he had now been a couple of hours at the Small House, and had not said a word of that which he had come to say.
'Are you going to walk out with us after lunch?' said Lily.
'He will have had walking enough,' said Mrs Dale.
'We'll convoy him part of the way,' said Lily.
'I'm not going yet,' said Johnny, 'unless you turn me out.'
'But we must have our walk before it is dark,' said Lily.
'You might go up with him to your uncle,' said Mrs Dale. 'Indeed, Ipromised to go up there myself, and so did you, Grace, to see the microscope. I heard Mr Dale give orders that one of those long-legged reptiles should be caught on purpose for your inspection.'
Mrs Dale's little scheme for bringing the two together was very transparent, but it was not the less wise on that account. Schemes will often be successful, let them be ever so transparent. Little intrigues become necessary, not to conquer unwilling people, but people who are willing enough, who, nevertheless, cannot give way except under the machinations of an intrigue.
'I don't think I mind looking at the long-legged creature, today,' said Johnny.
'I must go of course,' said Grace.
Lily said nothing at the moment, either about the long-legged creature or the walk. That which must be, must be. She knew well why John Eames had come there. She knew that the visits to his mother and to Lady Julia would never have been made, but that he might have this interview. And he had a right to demand, at any rate, as much as that. That which must be, must be. And therefore when both Mrs Dale and Grace stoutly maintained their purpose of going up to the squire, Lily neither attempted to persuade John to accompany them nor said that she would do so herself.
'I will convoy you home myself,' she said, 'and Grace, when she has done with the beetle, shall come and meet me. Won't you, Grace?'
'Certainly.'
'We are not helpless young ladies in these parts, nor yet timorous,' continued Lily. 'We can walk about without being afraid of ghosts, robbers, wild bulls, young men, or gypsies. Come the field path, Grace.
I will go as far as the big oak with him, and then I shall turn back, and I shall come in by the stile opposite the church gate, and through the garden. So you can't miss me.'
'I daresay he'll come back with you,' said Grace.
'No, he won't. He will do nothing of the kind. He'll have to go on and open Lady Julia's bottle of port wine for his own drinking.'
All this was very good on Lily's part, and very good also on the part of Mrs Dale; and John was of course very much obliged to them. But there was a lack of romance in it all, which did not seem to him to argue well as to his success. He did not think much about it, but he felt that Lily would not have been so ready to arrange their walk had she intended to yield to his entreaty. No doubt in these latter days plain good sense had become the prevailing mark of her character--perhaps, as Johnny thought, a little too strongly prevailing; but even with all her plain good sense and determination to dispense with the absurdities of romance in the affairs of her life, she would not have proposed herself as his companion for a walk across the fields merely that she might have an opportunity of accepting his hand. He did not say all this to himself, but he instinctively felt that it was so. And he felt also that it should have been his duty to arrange the walk, or the proper opportunity for the scene that was to come. She had done it instead--she and her mother between them, thereby forcing upon him a painful conviction that he himself had not been equal to the occasion. 'I always make a mull of it,' he said to himself, when the girls went up to get their hats.
They went down together through the garden, and parted where the paths led away, one to the great house and the other towards the church. 'I'll certainly come and call upon the squire before I go back to London,' said Johnny.
We'll tell him so,' said Mrs Dale. 'He would be sure to hear that you had been with us, even if we said nothing about it.'
'Of course he would,' said Lily; 'Hopkins has seen him.' Then they separated, and Lily and John Eames were together.
Hardly a word was said, perhaps not a word, till they had crossed the road and got into the field opposite to the church. And in this first field there was more than one path, and the children of the village were often there, and it had about it something of a public nature. John Eames felt that it was by no means a fitting field to say that which he had to say. In crossing it, therefore, he merely remarked that the day was very fine for walking. Then he added one special word, 'And it is so good of you, Lily, to come with me.'
'I am very glad to come with you. I would do more than that, John, to show how glad I am to see you.' Then they had come to the second little gate, and beyond that the fields were really fields, and there were stiles instead of wicket-gates, and the business of the day must be begun.
'Lily, whenever I come here you say that you are glad to see me?'