Rating:

Affairs of the Heart

Author: Anthony Trollope

The Small House at Allington starts with a whirlwind spring courtship. Poor but pretty Lily Dale has found the man of her dreams. Crosbie, her happy suitor, thinks that Lily’s rich uncle, who has benevolently given her impoverished family a place to live, will gift her with a large dowry. When he finds out that he is mistaken, however, he grows distant. He thinks about other opportunities, wasted chances, an old love he was close to wooing, and he begins to plan his way out. He may be a cad, but it is better for Lily, is it not, that he does not grow to resent her? She may be used to a life of poverty . . . but if he were to marry her, to give up his clubs, his lifestyle, the love would naturally sour, and he would fall out of love with the pure, resonant, beautiful girl. He loves her too much for that. Surely, it is better to break a promise, to part, than to hurt her further in the long run through a natural, unavoidable, distaste brought about by the decrease of fortune?

In the meantime, Lily’s cousin, Johnny Eames has his own romance troubles. He loves Lily, who is betrothed to Crosbie, and yet he is involved in his own unfortunate triangle at his boarding house. Lily’s sister, likewise, is closer than she suspects to her own romance.

With all this misplaced devotion in the air, it’s no wonder that Trollope uses The Small House at Allington to take a magnifying glass to the fallibilities of the human heart, both its over and underabundances. Love and money, as always, is a focal point of this drawing room drama, as are the pressures of society. Lily Dale and her misplaced affection is the main story, and Crosbie is a villain we love to hate. His selfishness is well balanced with just enough conscience to enable us to see ourselves in his poorly attempted justifications and his inevitable, brutal fall. It’s a moral well told, a story that unfolds in the way we know that it will. Crosbie chooses money and status over love, and irony, of course, unfolds. In the end, he gets what he thought he wanted, but, of course, he could have had that and love, as it turns out.

John Everett Millais, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Lily Dale is another story. At first, our collective hearts bleed for her, this innocent girl who has given her full self and is experiencing her first heartache, her first sense of the world in all its ruthlessness. We recognize ourselves in Lily, our original innocence, the first hints of love and human connection, our first sense of betrayal. But then, Lily goes full adolescent and insists on staying single forever, mourning her love but continuing to pine for him, nonetheless. She will have no ill spoken of Crosbie, and her melancholy is sickening, at best. She becomes an annoying character and our sympathy grows thin, especially as the end nears and Lily stays static, the only character who does not grow, who does not mature and learn.

Johnny Eames has a better character arc. Although he is also a flawed man. At times we like him, at other times we are frustrated. His maturing process is realistic and filled with Trollope’s sardonic observations, his perfect ways of pointing out human nobility and foibles.

The Small House at Allington is another wonderful addition to the series. It is one of my favorite Barsetshire books (second only to Dr Thorne), despite Lily’s annoying Victorian lady “perfection.” The arcs of Crosbie and Eames are well described and followed, and I found myself especially invested in the dramas and machinations of the characters as their sensibilities fought their hearts and they misunderstood, hurt, and miscommunicated with one another. It’s a very human struggle, a very relatable one, and although the fast-paced world of cubicles has replaced the drawing rooms and piano forte, many of our concerns remain the same – should we follow our hearts or what grants us worldly success? Highly recommended.

– Frances Carden

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Frances Carden
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