Lady Lufton had conquered. If one is looking for a passage that illustrates Trollope's mastery of the subtleties of human interaction, this is it. What is not said, what is not done, and what little may be said or done when the world assumes that much must have been said or done, rarely escapes Trollope's notice. Griselda Grantly and Lord Hartletop hardly speak to each other; Lady Lufton says nothing to the Duke of Omnium; and nothing much is said at Gatherum Castle when the world assumes that the political powers assembled there must be constantly discussing matters of state.
Lady Lufton does not finish the course undefeated. Her inevitable fall comes when she attempts to dismiss the "insignificant," "brown," "little" Lucy Robarts as her son's intended bride. Lucy fears a lecture when she is summoned, and she heads it off at every turn, and when she makes her little speech acknowledging her love for her son, she refuses to allow Lady Lufton to interrupt her: "I beg your pardon, Lady Lufton; I shall have done directly, and then I will hear you. …"
Never fear: all ends happily. Indeed, the author develops the reader's good will with such memorable scenes and characters that repetitious themes and plotlines are readily forgiven.
THE SWELL, THE HOBBLEDEHOY, AND THE SMALL HOUSE
THE SMALL HOUSE AT ALLINGTON
The Small House at Allington may be, after all, what Anthony Trollope's novel of this title is about. Is it really about Lily Dale? She is a major figure and comes across as a strong, even dominating individual. But her fate as a rejected woman, determined to embrace a life of spinsterhood, is settled early in the book, so that the plot is finished in Part I. What is Part II for, if not to determine the fate of the Small House, which seems doomed to be abandoned by Lily and her sister and mother?
Of the subplots, the most amusing is the celebrated introduction of Plantagenet Palliser, whose scandalous affair with Lady Dumbello is discussed all over London. The reader knows that the outward manifestations of this affair are limited to one or two comments about the weather when he comes to stand by her chair at large parties. The climax of the affair occurs when Mr. Palliser dares to address her as "Griselda," and it concludes when she promptly responds by asking him to send for her coach. Around these modest happenings the Duke of Omnium and Gatherum feels obliged to threaten to cut off his nephew from his allowance and perhaps even cut off his status as heir by marrying and begetting a son himself, at his advanced age. With no interest in Griselda until so threatened, the young nephew feels obliged to challenge his uncle by addressing Griselda. However, the seeding of the wild oats is finished with the arranged marriage of the young Member of Parliament to the wealthy young Lady Glencora McCluskie. All these events are dramatized in the 1974 BBC television series, The Pallisers, and form the prequel to Trollope's series of six novels about the Pallisers.
Such comic relief is welcome in a rather serious novel which is destined to have no fairy tale ending. As such, it stands as a credible account of human affairs as we humans may conduct them. I suppose that sometimes women do indeed take voluntary private vows of chastity after being jilted, and sometimes keep them, and perhaps it happened more often in Victorian society over a hundred years ago than in our seemingly more open society today, but it takes a strong woman to do it; and the unusual occurrence of the phenomenon is emphasized by the author in the refusal of any of Lily's family or friends to acknowledge her statement of purpose. John Eames, faithful in his unrequited love for Lily, seems to understand it better than any of them, but he sympathizes with her position in his own profession never to love anyone else.
One could make a case for the novel's being a story about the hobbledehoy, the author's term for awkward late bloomers like John Eames. Johnny progresses toward manhood and is considered to have succeeded in this by the end of Part II; he "thrashes" Adolphus Crosbie by punching him in the eye at a railway station; he is promoted to be the private secretary to Sir Raffle Baffle in the bureaucracy, and he never allows himself to be demeaned by fetching Sir Raffle's boots; he earns the friendship and patronage of the Earl de Guest by saving him from a bull in his pasture; he escapes a foolish liaison with Amelia Roper, the designing daughter of his landlady; and he receives encouragement from the Earl and from Lily's mother in his suit. But he doesn't get the girl.