The Last Chronicle of Barset Read Online Free Page B

Lily Dale on the diverging path in Hyde Park he is no longer god-like or heroic, but a tired and disappointed man, beleaguered by debt. Lily has turned her back on the Achilles, that popular monument to female erotic fantasy, in the same moment as she becomes disillusioned with the man who has for years been the secret object of her sexual and emotional desires. Some critics have accused Lily Dale of being sexless, or afraid of sex, and in this a typical Victorian heroine. However, a closer and less prejudiced look at the Victorian novel gives ample evidence of the sexual desires of both women and men, and Trollope’s novels are no exception. Lily Dale has given and received Crosbie’s embraces, passionately. Her rejection of John Eames, which has thwarted the wishes of so many readers, partly accounts for the mistaken idea that she is afraid of sex, but her rejection of the worthy lover means not that she fears sexual intimacy, but that she cannot face such closeness with one whom she has always loved platonically. Sexuality is indeed so important to her that after her euphemistic ‘worship’ of Crosbie, she cannot ‘give herself ’ to Eames in marriage, no matter how much it may fulfil her social and domestic life. In the scene of Lily and Crosbie’s encounter on Rotten Row, Trollope veers from his usual style to employ a more sensational language in describing Lily’s former relationship with Crosbie: she had ‘given herself to the man entirely, and had determined that she would sink or swim, stand or fall, live or die, by him and by his truth. He had been as false as hell’ (Ch. 53 ). Of course Lily Dale does not suddenly become thehigh-flown heroine of a sensation novel – those aspirations are left to the comic Madalina Demolines – but the close of this intensely rendered paragraph gives some idea of the subtext of sexual frustration and potential violence in Lily’s erotic disillusionment: ‘Now he was before her, walking on the footpath, almost within reach of her whip’ (Ch. 53 ).
    In chapter 23 Trollope writes ‘to Lily, who knew that her mother was always thinking of her, and of her alone, her mother was the only human divinity now worthy of adoration’. Lily may write ‘Old Maid’ after her name, but in her self-imposed role as a single woman she does not become a poor governess, seamstress or ‘Magdalen’, the three dreaded fates of many unmarried women as represented in the periodical press, paintings and literature of the period. Lily has the safety of the ‘small house’ at Allington and the very close and loving relationship with her mother to return to. Nevertheless, even in the small house, Trollope shows the cruelty and manipulation that can exist between those who love each other best. This can be seen most clearly in a scene which has been designated by some critics the most moving, and by others the worst in the novel. It consists of a long conversation between Lily and her mother, after Lily has read the letter from Adolphus Crosbie asking to be allowed to approach her again with his love. The two women debate whether or not Lily should reopen the relationship with this man who has betrayed her. Their language is subtly complicated by biblical subtext. Trollope and many of his contemporary readers would have been familiar with the verses from Matthew’s Gospel that are employed here by Lily and her mother, and with the verses which follow and precede them. Mrs Dale, for example, speaks of ‘grapes and thistles’ but does not dare quote the previous passage, which is far closer to what she wants to say: ‘Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves’ (Matthew 7:15). To her thinking Crosbie is a ravening wolf, but to say so openly would antagonize her daughter. Instead she relies upon the biblical subtext to insinuate her