The penultimate novel of Trollope’s Chronicles of Barsetshire introduces us to yet another outlying area of the region: Allington and Guestwick. Previous chronicles introduced us to the clerical lights of Barchester itself – Bishop Proudie and his wife, Dean and Mrs Arabin, kindly Mr Harding; to the Grantly family of Plumstead Episocpi; the Thornes of Ullathorne and Chaldicotes; the Greshams of Greshamsbury and Boxall Hill; the Robarts and Lufton families of Framley; and the leading families of the region, the de Courcy family and the Duke of Omnium. Now we’re taken to Allington and introduced to Squire Dale. The old squire never married – he was unlucky in love and the Dales are known for their constancy; his heir is a nephew, Captain Bernard Dale, and he has two nieces and a widowed sister-in-law living in a dowager’s house on his property. Squire Dale’s own residence is the Great House, and Mrs Dale and her two daughters live in the Small House. As the reader might easily guess, the action revolves around the Small House and its three residents.

Caution: spoilers ahead!

Bell and Lily Dale are widely regarded as two of the prettiest young ladies in the area. They’re not rich, but would-be suitors assume their uncle plans to make some provision for them when they marry. And that’s the state of things when Bernard visits and brings with him a young friend, Adolphus Crosbie. Mr Crosbie is a government clerk, but proves to be something of an “Apollo,” as a first derogatory and then soon admiring Lily puts it. For his part, this Apollo is struck by Cupid’s arrow and quickly becomes infatuated with Lily – and with the idea that she will have a large dowry courtesy of Uncle Christopher. Against his own better judgment, and ignoring private fears that a wife and houseful of children will mean the end of the freewheeling lifestyle he enjoys – he proposes, and is accepted. And he’s immediately conflicted. Lily is pretty and her adoration is flattering. But when Squire Dale expresses his disinclination to settle any money at all on Lily – meaning she’ll be bringing only her own very modest income to the marriage home – he’s dismayed.

The squire is nurturing a fond wish that Bernard will marry his cousin Bell, and he plans to settle all of his disposable riches on them. Bernard is willing, but Bell has someone else in mind. Squire Dale’s fury at his pet matrimonial project being stymied – and Mrs Dale’s steadfast refusal to do anything to influence her daughter in favor of Bernard – lead to the two houses splitting, temporarily, in anger. Mrs Dale threatens to move out – a financially disastrous idea, because she has no money of her own and is living rent-free in great comfort – and Bell and Lily egg her on. Squire Dale refuses to budge and the result is that the Small House is thrown into upheaval as the three Dale ladies prepare to move. Being mid-move myself when I read this, the following passage really resonated with me:

Who does not know how terrible are those preparations for house-moving;–how infinite in number are the articles which must be packed, how inexpressibly uncomfortable is the period of packing, and how poor and tawdry is the aspect of one’s belongings while they are thus in a state of dislocation? Nowadays people who understand the world, and have money commensurate with their understanding, have learned the way of shunning all these disasters, and of leaving the work to the hands of persons paid for doing it. The crockery is left in the cupboards, the books on the shelves, the wine in the bins, the curtains on their poles, and the family that is understanding goes for a fortnight to Brighton. At the end of that time the crockery is comfortably settled in other cupboards, the books on other shelves, the wine in other bins, the curtains are hung on other poles, and all is arranged. But Mrs Dale and her daughters understood nothing of a method of moving such as this.

Meanwhile, all is not well for Lily either. Mr Crosbie, dismayed by her lack of fortune, attends a house party at Courcy Castle and finds himself manipulated into proposing to a daughter of the house, Lady Alexandrina de Courcy. Now the character who is least inclined to marriage in, possibly, all of Trollope – has two fiancees. Whoops! There’s no jilting a de Courcy, so Lily’s love is sacrificed on the altar of Crosbie’s ambition. Lily is, understandably, devastated – and she spends the rest of the book mourning her lost love and committing to her new plan of never marrying anyone at all. Despite all evidence of Crosbie’s character, she insists she loves him and will have no one else – which is tough luck on her childhood friend Johnny Eames, who has loved her since they were schoolchildren but didn’t feel able to tell her of his love until he had a means to provide for her. Eames’s star is finally on the rise (thanks to a lucky break with a bull and an Earl), but he’s too late to win Lily.

Before picking up this book, I’d read that Lily Dale was Trollope’s least likable heroine. Now that I’ve read it, I wouldn’t say she is unlikable, necessarily (although she’s no Eleanor Harding, Mary Thorne or Lucy Robarts) but darned if she isn’t the most frustrating. This being Trollope, I assumed she would eventually come to her senses and marry John Eames – rewarding his steadfast love and being rewarded, herself, with his more than solid financial status. Up until The Small House at Allington, all of the Trollope novels I’ve read have had more or less conventionally happy endings.

Enter Lily Dale.

We are told repeatedly through the book that the Dales are known for their constancy. I’d edit that to pig-headedness. While Squire Dale eventually accepts that Bernard and Bell are not meant to be, his newfound (and frankly pretty paltry) flexibility is too late to secure a marriage between Lily and Mr Crosbie, and Lily will have no one else. She would literally rather spend her entire life an old maid than marry her newly rich childhood sweetheart. This level of stubborn idiocy actually deserves what it gets.

Mrs Dale is almost as frustrating. She refuses to intercede in her daughters’ love lives – a fair and laudable position to take unless you consider that marriage was the one means a woman had in Victorian times of securing her financial position. She’s staking their entire comfort later in life on Uncle Christopher, but she’s also willing to fight with him to the point of moving out of the house – a step that would have irreparably broken their relationship had she gone through with it, which fortunately she was prevented from doing by Lily’s illness after being jilted by Mr Crosbie. Had Mrs Dale and the girls actually left the Small House, their futures would have been bleak indeed.

When I read Trollope, I often think of Jane Austen. His books often have a very similar feel, even though they were written a few decades later. Austen would, I suspect, have had no sympathy for Lily or Mrs Dale. Mrs Dale is the anti-Mrs Bennet – reluctant to a fault to interfere in her daughters’ lives. While Mrs Bennet makes for an object of ridicule at first, when you stop to think about it, she’s a far more successful mother by the standards of the day. I’ve written about Mrs Bennet before – in a world in which the choice was often between marriage and literal destitution, Mrs Bennet got five fortune-less daughters married, two of them to very rich men, and secured her entire family’s financial futures. Meanwhile, Mrs Dale has one daughter married to a poor country doctor and as for the other – well, she could have married an Earl’s heir but instead the Dales are well on their way to becoming the Mrs and Miss Bates of Barsetshire. (Imagine if Lizzy had refused to marry Darcy even after finding out what a complete rogue Wickham is, just because she liked Wickham first.) I couldn’t help but think that had Austen been writing The Small House at Allington, either Bell would have eventually fallen for Bernard or Dr Crofts would have fallen into a large surprise inheritance, and Lily would have ended up with John Eames.

Don’t think, though, that I didn’t like The Small House at Allington – it seems impossible for me to dislike anything Trollope does. I find his writing so absorbing, his characters and settings so compelling, and his stories so compulsively readable that no matter how disappointed I am in a character’s maddening stubbornness, I still loved every page.

Lily Dale is a dip, though, and needs remedial life coaching from Lizzy Bennet.

Have you read the Chronicles of Barsetshire? Which is your favorite? For me, it’s still “Doctor Thorne.”