The Project Gutenberg eBook, Can You Forgive Her?, by Anthony Trollope
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Title: Can You Forgive Her?
Author: Anthony Trollope
Release Date: November 16, 2006 [eBook #19500]
Most recently updated: November 19, 2011
Language: English
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Editorial note:
_Can You Forgive Her?_ was first published in monthly
installments (one shilling each) in 1864-1865. The first
book edition was published by Chapman and Hall in two
volumes (Volume I in 1864 and Volume II in 1865).
Volume I was illustrated by Hablôt Knight Browne, better
known as "Phiz" and a favorite of Dickens. Trollope was
not pleased with Browne's work, and the illustrations for
Volume II were drawn by a Miss E. Taylor of St. Leonards.
These original illustrations are referred to in this text
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CAN YOU FORGIVE HER?
by
ANTHONY TROLLOPE
Author of "Orley Farm," "Doctor Thorne," "Framley Parsonage," etc.
With Illustrations.
In Two Volumes
[Illustration: The Balcony at Basle. (Frontispiece)]
CONTENTS
Volume I.
I. Mr. Vavasor and His Daughter.
II. Lady Macleod.
III. John Grey, the Worthy Man.
IV. George Vavasor, the Wild Man.
V. The Balcony at Basle.
VI. The Bridge over the Rhine.
VII. Aunt Greenow.
VIII. Mr. Cheesacre.
IX. The Rivals.
X. Nethercoats.
XI. John Grey Goes to London.
XII. Mr. George Vavasor at Home.
XIII. Mr. Grimes Gets His Odd Money.
XIV. Alice Vavasor Becomes Troubled.
XV. Paramount Crescent.
XVI. The Roebury Club.
XVII. Edgehill.
XVIII. Alice Vavasor's Great Relations.
XIX. Tribute from Oileymead.
XX. Which Shall It Be?
XXI. Alice Is Taught to Grow Upwards, Towards the Light.
XXII. Dandy and Flirt.
XXIII. Dinner at Matching Priory.
XXIV. Three Politicians.
XXV. In Which Much of the History of the Pallisers Is Told.
XXVI. Lady Midlothian.
XXVII. The Priory Ruins.
XXVIII. Alice Leaves the Priory.
XXIX. Burgo Fitzgerald.
XXX. Containing a Love Letter.
XXXI. Among the Fells.
XXXII. Containing an Answer to the Love Letter.
XXXIII. Monkshade.
XXXIV. Mr. Vavasor Speaks to His Daughter.
XXXV. Passion versus Prudence.
XXXVI. John Grey Goes a Second Time to London.
XXXVII. Mr. Tombe's Advice.
XXXVIII. The Inn at Shap.
XXXIX. Mr. Cheesacre's Hospitality.
XL. Mrs. Greenow's Little Dinner in the Close.
XLI. A Noble Lord Dies.
XLII. Parliament Meets.
XLIII. Mrs. Marsham.
XLIV. The Election for the Chelsea Districts.
XLV. George Vavasor Takes His Seat.
XLVI. A Love Gift.
XLVII. Mr. Cheesacre's Disappointment.
XLVIII. Preparations for Lady Monk's Party.
XLIX. How Lady Glencora Went to Lady Monk's Party.
L. How Lady Glencora Came Back from Lady Monk's Party.
Volume II.
LI. Bold Speculations on Murder.
LII. What Occurred in Suffolk Street, Pall Mall.
LIII. The Last Will of the Old Squire.
LIV. Showing How Alice Was Punished.
LV. The Will.
LVI. Another Walk on the Fells.
LVII. Showing How the Wild Beast Got Himself Back from the
Mountains.
LVIII. The Pallisers at Breakfast.
LIX. The Duke of St. Bungay in Search of a Minister.
LX. Alice Vavasor's Name Gets into the Money Market.
LXI. The Bills Are Made All Right.
LXII. Going Abroad.
LXIII. Mr. John Grey in Queen Anne Street.
LXIV. The Rocks and Valleys.
LXV. The First Kiss.
LXVI. Lady Monk's Plan.
LXVII. The Last Kiss.
LXVIII. From London to Baden.
LXIX. From Baden to Lucerne.
LXX. At Lucerne.
LXXI. Showing How George Vavasor Received a Visit.
LXXII. Showing How George Vavasor Paid a Visit.
LXXIII. In Which Come Tidings of Great Moment to All Pallisers.
LXXIV. Showing What Happened in the Churchyard.
LXXV. Rouge et Noir.
LXXVI. The Landlord's Bill.
LXXVII. The Travellers Return Home.
LXXVIII. Mr. Cheesacre's Fate.
LXXIX. Diamonds Are Diamonds.
LXXX. The Story Is Finished Within the Halls of the Duke of
Omnium.
ILLUSTRATIONS.
Volume I.
The Balcony at Basle. Frontispiece.
"Would you mind shutting the window?" Chapter II.
"Sometimes you drive me too hard." Chapter III.
"Peace be to his manes." Chapter VII.
Captain Bellfield proposes a toast. Chapter IX.
"If it were your friend, what advice
would you give her?" Chapter XI.
"I'm as round as your hat, and as square
as your elbow; I am." Chapter XIII.
"Mrs. Greenow, look at that." Chapter XIV.
Edgehill. Chapter XVII.
"Arabella Greenow, will you be that woman?" Chapter XX.
"Baker, you must put Dandy in the bar." Chapter XXII.
"Mr. Palliser, that was a cannon." Chapter XXIII.
"The most self-willed young woman I ever
met in my life." Chapter XXVI.
The Priory Ruins. Chapter XXVII.
Burgo Fitzgerald. Chapter XXIX.
Swindale Fell. Chapter XXXI.
"I have heard," said Burgo. Chapter XXXIII.
"Then--then,--then let her come to me." Chapter XXXVI.
"So you've come back, have you?" said
the Squire. Chapter XXXVIII.
"Dear Greenow; dear husband!" Chapter XL.
Volume II.
Great Jove. Chapter XLII.
"Friendships will not come by ordering,"
said Lady Glencora. Chapter XLII.
"I asked you for a kiss." Chapter XLVI.
Mr. Cheesacre disturbed. Chapter XLVII.
"All right," said Burgo, as he thrust the
money into his breast-pocket. Chapter XLIX.
Mr. Bott on the watch. Chapter L.
The last of the old squire. Chapter LIII.
Kate. Chapter LVI.
Lady Glencora.
"Before God, my first wish is to free you
from the misfortune that I have brought
on you." Chapter LVIII.
She managed to carry herself with some
dignity. Chapter LXIII.
A sniff of the rocks and valleys. Chapter LXIV.
"I wonder when you're going to pay me what
you owe me, Lieutenant Bellfield?" Chapter LXV.
Lady Glencora at Baden. Chapter LXVIII.
Alice. Chapter LXX.
"Oh! George," she said, "you won't do
that?" Chapter LXXI.
"How am I to thank you for forgiving me?" Chapter LXXV.
"Good night, Mr. Palliser." Chapter LXXVI.
Alice and her bridesmaids. Chapter LXXIX.
"Yes, my bonny boy,--you have made it
all right for me." Chapter LXXX.
VOLUME I.
CHAPTER I.
Mr. Vavasor and His Daughter.
Whether or no, she, whom you are to forgive, if you can, did or did
not belong to the Upper Ten Thousand of this our English world, I am
not prepared to say with any strength of affirmation. By blood she
was connected with big people,--distantly connected with some very
big people indeed, people who belonged to the Upper Ten Hundred if
there be any such division; but of these very big relations she had
known and seen little, and they had cared as little for her. Her
grandfather, Squire Vavasor of Vavasor Hall, in Westmoreland, was a
country gentleman, possessing some thousand a year at the outside,
and he therefore never came up to London, and had no ambition to have
himself numbered as one in any exclusive set. A hot-headed, ignorant,
honest old gentleman, he lived ever at Vavasor Hall, declaring to any
who would listen to him, that the country was going to the mischief,
and congratulating himself that at any rate, in his county,
parliamentary reform had been powerless to alter the old political
arrangements. Alice Vavasor, whose offence against the world I am to
tell you, and if possible to excuse, was the daughter of his younger
son; and as her father, John Vavasor, had done nothing to raise
the family name to eminence, Alice could not lay claim to any high
position from her birth as a Vavasor. John Vavasor had come up to
London early in life as a barrister, and had failed. He had failed at
least in attaining either much wealth or much repute, though he had
succeeded in earning, or perhaps I might better say, in obtaining,
a livelihood. He had married a lady somewhat older than himself,
who was in possession of four hundred a year, and who was related
to those big people to whom I have alluded. Who these were and the
special nature of the relationship, I shall be called upon to explain
hereafter, but at present it will suffice to say that Alice Macleod
gave great offence to all her friends by her marriage. She did not,
however, give them much time for the indulgence of their anger.
Having given birth to a daughter within twelve months of her
marriage, she died, leaving in abeyance that question as to whether
the fault of her marriage should or should not be pardoned by her
family.
When a man marries an heiress for her money, if that money be within
her own control, as was the case with Miss Macleod's fortune, it is
generally well for the speculating lover that the lady's friends
should quarrel with him and with her. She is thereby driven to throw
herself entirely into the gentleman's arms, and he thus becomes
possessed of the wife and the money without the abominable nuisance
of stringent settlements. But the Macleods, though they quarrelled
with Alice, did not quarrel with her _à l'outrance_. They snubbed
herself and her chosen husband; but they did not so far separate
themselves from her and her affairs as to give up the charge of her
possessions. Her four hundred a year was settled very closely on
herself and on her children, without even a life interest having
been given to Mr. Vavasor, and therefore when she died the mother's
fortune became the property of the little baby. But, under these
circumstances, the big people did not refuse to interest themselves
to some extent on behalf of the father. I do not suppose that any
actual agreement or compact was made between Mr. Vavasor and the
Macleods; but it came to be understood between them that if he made
no demand upon them for his daughter's money, and allowed them to
have charge of her education, they would do something for him. He was
a practising barrister, though his practice had never amounted to
much; and a practising barrister is always supposed to be capable of
filling any situation which may come his way. Two years after his
wife's death Mr. Vavasor was appointed assistant commissioner in some
office which had to do with insolvents, and which was abolished three
years after his appointment. It was at first thought that he would
keep his eight hundred a year for life and be required to do nothing
for it; but a wretched cheeseparing Whig government, as John Vavasor
called it when describing the circumstances of the arrangement to his
father, down in Westmoreland, would not permit this; it gave him the
option of taking four hundred a year for doing nothing, or of keeping
his whole income and attending three days a week for three hours
a day during term time, at a miserable dingy little office near
Chancery Lane, where his duty would consist in signing his name to
accounts which he never read, and at which he was never supposed even
to look. He had sulkily elected to keep the money, and this signing
had been now for nearly twenty years the business of his life. Of
course he considered himself to be a very hardly-used man. One Lord
Chancellor after another he petitioned, begging that he might be
relieved from the cruelty of his position, and allowed to take his
salary without doing anything in return for it. The amount of work
which he did perform was certainly a minimum of labour. Term time, as
terms were counted in Mr. Vavasor's office, hardly comprised half the
year, and the hours of weekly attendance did not do more than make
one day's work a week for a working man; but Mr. Vavasor had been
appointed an assistant commissioner, and with every Lord Chancellor
he argued that all Westminster Hall, and Lincoln's Inn to boot, had
no right to call upon him to degrade himself by signing his name to
accounts. In answer to every memorial he was offered the alternative
of freedom with half his income; and so the thing went on.
There can, however, be no doubt that Mr. Vavasor was better off and
happier with his almost nominal employment than he would have been
without it. He always argued that it kept him in London; but he
would undoubtedly have lived in London with or without his official
occupation. He had become so habituated to London life in a small
way, before the choice of leaving London was open to him, that
nothing would have kept him long away from it. After his wife's death
he dined at his club every day on which a dinner was not given to him
by some friend elsewhere, and was rarely happy except when so dining.
They who have seen him scanning the steward's list of dishes, and
giving the necessary orders for his own and his friend's dinner, at
about half past four in the afternoon, have seen John Vavasor at
the only moment of the day at which he is ever much in earnest. All
other things are light and easy to him,--to be taken easily and to be
dismissed easily. Even the eating of the dinner calls forth from him
no special sign of energy. Sometimes a frown will gather on his brow
as he tastes the first half glass from his bottle of claret; but as
a rule that which he has prepared for himself with so much elaborate
care, is consumed with only pleasant enjoyment. Now and again it will
happen that the cook is treacherous even to him, and then he can hit
hard; but in hitting he is quiet, and strikes with a smile on his
face.
Such had been Mr. Vavasor's pursuits and pleasures in life up to the
time at which my story commences. But I must not allow the reader to
suppose that he was a man without good qualities. Had he when young
possessed the gift of industry I think that he might have shone in
his profession, and have been well spoken of and esteemed in the
world. As it was he was a discontented man, but nevertheless he was
popular, and to some extent esteemed. He was liberal as far as his
means would permit; he was a man of his word; and he understood well
that code of by-laws which was presumed to constitute the character
of a gentleman in his circle. He knew how to carry himself well among
men, and understood thoroughly what might be said, and what might
not; what might be done among those with whom he lived, and what
should be left undone. By nature, too, he was kindly disposed, loving
many persons a little if he loved few or none passionately. Moreover,
at the age of fifty, he was a handsome man, with a fine forehead,
round which the hair and beard was only beginning to show itself to
be grey. He stood well, with a large person, only now beginning to
become corpulent. His eyes were bright and grey, and his mouth and
chin were sharply cut, and told of gentle birth. Most men who knew
John Vavasor well, declared it to be a pity that he should spend his
time in signing accounts in Chancery Lane.
I have said that Alice Vavasor's big relatives cared but little for
her in her early years; but I have also said that they were careful
to undertake the charge of her education, and I must explain away
this little discrepancy. The biggest of these big people had hardly
heard of her; but there was a certain Lady Macleod, not very big
herself, but, as it were, hanging on to the skirts of those who
were so, who cared very much for Alice. She was the widow of a Sir
Archibald Macleod, K.C.B., who had been a soldier, she herself having
also been a Macleod by birth; and for very many years past--from
a time previous to the birth of Alice Vavasor--she had lived at
Cheltenham, making short sojourns in London during the spring, when
the contents of her limited purse would admit of her doing so. Of
old Lady Macleod I think I may say that she was a good woman;--that
she was a good woman, though subject to two of the most serious
drawbacks to goodness which can afflict a lady. She was a Calvinistic
Sabbatarian in religion, and in worldly matters she was a devout
believer in the high rank of her noble relatives. She could almost
worship a youthful marquis, though he lived a life that would
disgrace a heathen among heathens; and she could and did, in her own
mind, condemn crowds of commonplace men and women to all eternal
torments of which her imagination could conceive, because they
listened to profane music in a park on Sunday. Yet she was a good
woman. Out of her small means she gave much away. She owed no man
anything. She strove to love her neighbours. She bore much pain with
calm unspeaking endurance, and she lived in trust of a better world.
Alice Vavasor, who was after all only her cousin, she loved with an
exceeding love, and yet Alice had done very much to extinguish such
love. Alice, in the years of her childhood, had been brought up by
Lady Macleod; at the age of twelve she had been sent to a school at
Aix-la-Chapelle,--a comitatus of her relatives having agreed that
such was to be her fate, much in opposition to Lady Macleod's
judgement; at nineteen she had returned to Cheltenham, and after
remaining there for little more than a year, had expressed her
unwillingness to remain longer with her cousin. She could sympathize
neither with her relative's faults or virtues. She made an
arrangement, therefore, with her father, that they two would keep
house together in London, and so they had lived for the last five
years;--for Alice Vavasor when she will be introduced to the reader
had already passed her twenty-fourth birthday.
Their mode of life had been singular and certainly not in all
respects satisfactory. Alice when she was twenty-one had the full
command of her own fortune; and when she induced her father, who for
the last fifteen years had lived in lodgings, to take a small house
in Queen Anne Street, of course she offered to incur a portion of
the expense. He had warned her that his habits were not those of a
domestic man, but he had been content simply so to warn her. He had
not felt it to be his duty to decline the arrangement because he knew
himself to be unable to give to his child all that attention which
a widowed father under such circumstances should pay to an only
daughter. The house had been taken, and Alice and he had lived
together, but their lives had been quite apart. For a short time, for
a month or two, he had striven to dine at home and even to remain at
home through the evening; but the work had been too hard for him and
he had utterly broken down. He had said to her and to himself that
his health would fail him under the effects of so great a change made
so late in life, and I am not sure that he had not spoken truly. At
any rate the effort had been abandoned, and Mr. Vavasor now never
dined at home. Nor did he and his daughter ever dine out together.
Their joint means did not admit of their giving dinners, and
therefore they could not make their joint way in the same circle. It
thus came to pass that they lived apart,--quite apart. They saw each
other, probably daily; but they did little more than see each other.
They did not even breakfast together, and after three o'clock in the
day Mr. Vavasor was never to be found in his own house.
Miss Vavasor had made for herself a certain footing in society,
though I am disposed to doubt her right to be considered as holding
a place among the Upper Ten Thousand. Two classes of people she had
chosen to avoid, having been driven to such avoidings by her aunt's
preferences; marquises and such-like, whether wicked or otherwise,
she had eschewed, and had eschewed likewise all Low Church
tendencies. The eschewing of marquises is not generally very
difficult. Young ladies living with their fathers on very moderate
incomes in or about Queen Anne Street are not usually much troubled
on that matter. Nor can I say that Miss Vavasor was so troubled. But
with her there was a certain definite thing to be done towards such
eschewal. Lady Macleod by no means avoided her noble relatives,
nor did she at all avoid Alice Vavasor. When in London she was
persevering in her visits to Queen Anne Street, though she considered
herself, nobody knew why, not to be on speaking terms with Mr.
Vavasor. And she strove hard to produce an intimacy between Alice
and her noble relatives--such an intimacy as that which she herself
enjoyed;--an intimacy which gave her a footing in their houses but no
footing in their hearts, or even in their habits. But all this Alice
declined with as much consistency as she did those other struggles
which her old cousin made on her behalf,--strong, never-flagging,
but ever-failing efforts to induce the girl to go to such places of
worship as Lady Macleod herself frequented.
A few words must be said as to Alice Vavasor's person; one fact
also must be told, and then, I believe, I may start upon my story.
As regards her character, I will leave it to be read in the story
itself. The reader already knows that she appears upon the scene at
no very early age, and the mode of her life had perhaps given to her
an appearance of more years than those which she really possessed. It
was not that her face was old, but that there was nothing that was
girlish in her manners. Her demeanour was as staid, and her voice
as self-possessed as though she had already been ten years married.
In person she was tall and well made, rather large in her neck and
shoulders, as were all the Vavasors, but by no means fat. Her hair
was brown, but very dark, and she wore it rather lower upon her
forehead than is customary at the present day. Her eyes, too, were
dark, though they were not black, and her complexion, though not
quite that of a brunette, was far away from being fair. Her nose was
somewhat broad, and _retroussé_ too, but to my thinking it was a
charming nose, full of character, and giving to her face at times a
look of pleasant humour, which it would otherwise have lacked. Her
mouth was large, and full of character, and her chin oval, dimpled,
and finely chiselled, like her father's. I beg you, in taking her for
all in all, to admit that she was a fine, handsome, high-spirited
young woman.
And now for my fact. At the time of which I am writing she was
already engaged to be married.
CHAPTER II.
Lady Macleod.
I cannot say that the house in Queen Anne Street was a pleasant
house. I am now speaking of the material house, made up of the walls
and furniture, and not of any pleasantness or unpleasantness supplied
by the inmates. It was a small house on the south side of the street,
squeezed in between two large mansions which seemed to crush it,
and by which its fair proportion of doorstep and area was in truth
curtailed. The stairs were narrow; the dining-room was dark, and
possessed none of those appearances of plenteous hospitality which a
dining-room should have. But all this would have been as nothing if
the drawing-room had been pretty as it is the bounden duty of all
drawing-rooms to be. But Alice Vavasor's drawing-room was not pretty.
Her father had had the care of furnishing the house, and he had
intrusted the duty to a tradesman who had chosen green paper, a green
carpet, green curtains, and green damask chairs. There was a green
damask sofa, and two green arm-chairs opposite to each other at the
two sides of the fireplace. The room was altogether green, and was
not enticing. In shape it was nearly square, the very small back room
on the same floor not having been, as is usual, added to it. This had
been fitted up as a "study" for Mr. Vavasor, and was very rarely used
for any purpose.
Most of us know when we enter a drawing-room whether it is a pretty
room or no; but how few of us know how to make a drawing-room pretty!
There has come up in London in these latter days a form of room so
monstrously ugly that I will venture to say that no other people on
earth but Londoners would put up with it. Londoners, as a rule, take
their houses as they can get them, looking only to situation, size,
and price. What Grecian, what Roman, what Turk, what Italian would
endure, or would ever have endured, to use a room with a monstrous
cantle in the form of a parallelogram cut sheerly out of one corner
of it? This is the shape of room we have now adopted,--or rather
which the builders have adopted for us,--in order to throw the whole
first floor into one apartment which may be presumed to have noble
dimensions,--with such drawback from it as the necessities of the
staircase may require. A sharp unadorned corner projects itself into
these would-be noble dimensions, and as ugly a form of chamber is
produced as any upon which the eye can look. I would say more on
the subject if I dared to do so here, but I am bound now to confine
myself to Miss Vavasor's room. The monstrous deformity of which I
have spoken was not known when that house in Queen Anne Street was
built. There is to be found no such abomination of shape in the
buildings of our ancestors,--not even in the days of George the
Second. But yet the drawing-room of which I speak was ugly, and Alice
knew that it was so. She knew that it was ugly, and she would greatly
have liked to banish the green sofa, to have re-papered the wall, and
to have hung up curtains with a dash of pink through them. With the
green carpet she would have been contented. But her father was an
extravagant man; and from the day on which she had come of age she
had determined that it was her special duty to avoid extravagance.
"It's the ugliest room I ever saw in my life," her father once said
to her.
"It is not very pretty," Alice replied.
"I'll go halves with you in the expense of redoing it," said Mr.
Vavasor.
"Wouldn't that be extravagant, papa? The things have not been here
quite four years yet."
Then Mr. Vavasor had shrugged his shoulders and said nothing more
about it. It was little to him whether the drawing-room in Queen
Anne Street was ugly or pretty. He was on the committee of his club,
and he took care that the furniture there should be in all respects
comfortable.
It was now June; and that month Lady Macleod was in the habit of
spending among her noble relatives in London when she had succeeded
in making both ends so far overlap each other at Cheltenham as to
give her the fifty pounds necessary for this purpose. For though she
spent her month in London among her noble friends, it must not be
supposed that her noble friends gave her bed or board. They sometimes
gave her tea, such as it was, and once or twice in the month they
gave the old lady a second-rate dinner. On these occasions she
hired a little parlour and bedroom behind it in King Street, Saint
James's, and lived a hot, uncomfortable life, going about at nights
to gatherings of fashionable people of which she in her heart
disapproved, seeking for smiles which seldom came to her, and which
she excused herself for desiring because they were the smiles of her
kith and her kin, telling herself always that she made this vain
journey to the modern Babylon for the good of Alice Vavasor, and
telling herself as often that she now made it for the last time. On
the occasion of her preceding visit she had reminded herself that
she was then seventy-five years old, and had sworn to herself that
she would come to London no more; but here she was again in London,
having justified the journey to herself on the plea that there were
circumstances in Alice's engagement which made it desirable that she
should for a while be near her niece. Her niece, as she thought, was
hardly managing her own affairs discreetly.
"Well, aunt," said Alice, as the old lady walked into the
drawing-room one morning at eleven o'clock. Alice always called Lady
Macleod her aunt, though, as has been before explained, there was no
such close connexion between them. During Lady Macleod's sojourn in
London these morning visits were made almost every day. Alice never
denied herself, and even made a point of remaining at home to receive
them unless she had previously explained that she would be out; but I
am not prepared to say that they were, of their own nature, agreeable
to her.
"Would you mind shutting the window, my dear?" said Lady Macleod,
seating herself stiffly on one of the small ugly green chairs. She
had been educated at a time when easy-chairs were considered vicious,
and among people who regarded all easy postures as being so; and she
could still boast, at seventy-six, that she never leaned back. "Would
you mind shutting the window? I'm so warm that I'm afraid of the
draught."
[Illustration: "Would you mind shutting the window?"]
"You don't mean to say that you've walked from King Street," said
Alice, doing as she was desired.
"Indeed I do,--every step of the way. Cabs are so ruinous. It's a
most unfortunate thing; they always say it's just over the two miles
here. I don't believe a word of it, because I'm only a little more
than the half-hour walking it; and those men will say anything. But
how can I prove it, you know?"
"I really think it's too far for you to walk when it's so warm."
"But what can I do, my dear? I must come, when I've specially come up
to London to see you. I shall have a cab back again, because it'll
be hotter then, and dear Lady Midlothian has promised to send her
carriage at three to take me to the concert. I do so wish you'd go,
Alice."
"It's out of the question, aunt. The idea of my going in that way at
the last moment, without any invitation!"
"It wouldn't be without an invitation, Alice. The marchioness has
said to me over and over again how glad she would be to see you, if
I would bring you."
"Why doesn't she come and call if she is so anxious to know me?"
"My dear, you've no right to expect it; you haven't indeed. She never
calls even on me."
"I know I've no right, and I don't expect it, and I don't want
it. But neither has she a right to suppose that, under such
circumstances, I shall go to her house. You might as well give it up,
aunt. Cart ropes wouldn't drag me there."
"I think you are very wrong,--particularly under your present
circumstances. A young woman that is going to be married, as you
are--"
"As I am,--perhaps."
"That's nonsense, Alice. Of course you are; and for his sake you are
bound to cultivate any advantages that naturally belong to you. As to
Lady Midlothian or the marchioness coming to call on you here in your
father's house, after all that has passed, you really have no right
to look for it."
"And I don't look for it."
"That sort of people are not expected to call. If you'll think of it,
how could they do it with all the demands they have on their time?"
"My dear aunt, I wouldn't interfere with their time for worlds."
"Nobody can say of me, I'm sure, that I run after great people or
rich people. It does happen that some of the nearest relations I
have,--indeed I may say the nearest relations,--are people of high
rank; and I do not see that I'm bound to turn away from my own flesh
and blood because of that, particularly when they are always so
anxious to keep up the connexion."
"I was only speaking of myself, aunt. It is very different with you.
You have known them all your life."
"And how are you to know them if you won't begin? Lady Midlothian
said to me only yesterday that she was glad to hear that you were
going to be married so respectably, and then--"
"Upon my word I'm very much obliged to her ladyship. I wonder whether
she considered that she married respectably when she took Lord
Midlothian?"
Now Lady Midlothian had been unfortunate in her marriage, having
united herself to a man of bad character, who had used her ill, and
from whom she had now been for some years separated. Alice might have
spared her allusion to this misfortune when speaking of the countess
to the cousin who was so fond of her, but she was angered by the
application of that odious word respectable to her own prospects;
and perhaps the more angered as she was somewhat inclined to feel
that the epithet did suit her own position. Her engagement, she
had sometimes told herself, was very respectable, and had as often
told herself that it lacked other attractions which it should have
possessed. She was not quite pleased with herself in having accepted
John Grey,--or rather perhaps was not satisfied with herself in
having loved him. In her many thoughts on the subject, she always
admitted to herself that she had accepted him simply because she
loved him;--that she had given her quick assent to his quick proposal
simply because he had won her heart. But she was sometimes almost
angry with herself that she had permitted her heart to be thus easily
taken from her, and had rebuked herself for her girlish facility.
But the marriage would be at any rate respectable. Mr. Grey was a man
of high character, of good though moderate means; he was, too, well
educated, of good birth, a gentleman, and a man of talent. No one
could deny that the marriage would be highly respectable, and her
father had been more than satisfied. Why Miss Vavasor herself was
not quite satisfied will, I hope, in time make itself appear. In the
meanwhile it can be understood that Lady Midlothian's praise would
gall her.
"Alice, don't be uncharitable," said Lady Macleod severely. "Whatever
may have been Lady Midlothian's misfortunes no one can say they have
resulted from her own fault."
"Yes they can, aunt, if she married a man whom she knew to be a
scapegrace because he was very rich and an earl."
"She was the daughter of a nobleman herself, and only married in
her own degree. But I don't want to discuss that. She meant to be
good-natured when she mentioned your marriage, and you should take
it as it was meant. After all she was only your mother's second
cousin--"
"Dear aunt, I make no claim on her cousinship."
"But she admits the claim, and is quite anxious that you should know
her. She has been at the trouble to find out everything about Mr.
Grey, and told me that nothing could be more satisfactory."
"Upon my word I am very much obliged to her."
Lady Macleod was a woman of much patience, and possessed also
of considerable perseverance. For another half-hour she went on
expatiating on the advantages which would accrue to Alice as a
married woman from an acquaintance with her noble relatives, and
endeavouring to persuade her that no better opportunity than the
present would present itself. There would be a place in Lady
Midlothian's carriage, as none other of the daughters were going but
Lady Jane. Lady Midlothian would take it quite as a compliment, and a
concert was not like a ball or any customary party. An unmarried girl
might very properly go to a concert under such circumstances as now
existed without any special invitation. Lady Macleod ought to have
known her adopted niece better. Alice was immoveable. As a matter
of course she was immoveable. Lady Macleod had seldom been able to
persuade her to anything, and ought to have been well sure that, of
all things, she could not have persuaded her to this.
Then, at last, they came to another subject, as to which Lady Macleod
declared that she had specially come on this special morning,
forgetting, probably, that she had already made the same assertion
with reference to the concert. But in truth the last assertion was
the correct one, and on that other subject she had been hurried
on to say more than she meant by the eagerness of the moment. All
the morning she had been full of the matter on which she was now
about to speak. She had discussed it quite at length with Lady
Midlothian;--though she was by no means prepared to tell Alice
Vavasor that any such discussion had taken place. From the concert,
and the effect which Lady Midlothian's countenance might have upon
Mr. Grey's future welfare, she got herself by degrees round to a
projected Swiss tour which Alice was about to make. Of this Swiss
tour she had heard before, but had not heard who were to be Miss
Vavasor's companions until Lady Midlothian had told her. How it had
come to pass that Lady Midlothian had interested herself so much in
the concerns of a person whom she did not know, and on whom she in
her greatness could not be expected to call, I cannot say; but from
some quarter she had learned who were the proposed companions of
Alice Vavasor's tour, and she had told Lady Macleod that she did not
at all approve of the arrangement.
"And when do you go, Alice?" said Lady Macleod.
"Early in July, I believe. It will be very hot, but Kate must be back
by the middle of August." Kate Vavasor was Alice's first cousin.
"Oh! Kate is to go with you?"
"Of course she is. I could not go alone, or with no one but George.
Indeed it was Kate who made up the party."
"Of course you could not go alone with George," said Lady Macleod,
very grimly. Now George Vavasor was Kate's brother, and was therefore
also first cousin to Alice. He was heir to the old squire down in
Westmoreland, with whom Kate lived, their father being dead. Nothing,
it would seem, could be more rational than that Alice should go to
Switzerland with her cousins; but Lady Macleod was clearly not of
this opinion; she looked very grim as she made this allusion to
cousin George, and seemed to be preparing herself for a fight.
"That is exactly what I say," answered Alice. "But, indeed, he is
simply going as an escort to me and Kate, as we don't like the rôle
of unprotected females. It is very good-natured of him, seeing how
much his time is taken up."
"I thought he never did anything."
"That's because you don't know him, aunt."
"No; certainly I don't know him." She did not add that she had no
wish to know Mr. George Vavasor, but she looked it. "And has your
father been told that he is going?"
"Of course he has."
"And does--" Lady Macleod hesitated a little before she went on, and
then finished her question with a little spasmodic assumption of
courage. "And does Mr. Grey know that he is going?"
Alice remained silent for a full minute before she answered this
question, during which Lady Macleod sat watching her grimly, with her
eyes very intent upon her niece's face. If she supposed such silence
to have been in any degree produced by shame in answering the
question, she was much mistaken. But it may be doubted whether she
understood the character of the girl whom she thought she knew so
well, and it is probable that she did make such mistake.
"I might tell you simply that he does," said Alice at last, "seeing
that I wrote to him yesterday, letting him know that such were our
arrangements; but I feel that I should not thus answer the question
you mean to ask. You want to know whether Mr. Grey will approve of it.
As I only wrote yesterday of course I have not heard, and therefore
cannot say. But I can say this, aunt, that much as I might regret his
disapproval, it would make no change in my plans."
"Would it not? Then I must tell you, you are very wrong. It ought
to make a change. What! the disapproval of the man you are going to
marry make no change in your plans?"
"Not in that matter. Come, aunt, if we must discuss this matter let
us do it at any rate fairly. In an ordinary way, if Mr. Grey had asked
me to give up for any reason my trip altogether, I should have given
it up certainly, as I would give up any other indifferent project at
the request of so dear a friend,--a friend with whom I am so--so--so
closely connected. But if he asked me not to travel with my cousin
George, I should refuse him absolutely, without a word of parley
on the subject, simply because of the nature and closeness of my
connection with him. I suppose you understand what I mean, aunt?"
"I suppose I do. You mean that you would refuse to obey him on the
very subject on which he has a right to claim your obedience."
"He has no right to claim my obedience on any subject," said Alice;
and as she spoke Aunt Macleod jumped up with a little start at the
vehemence of the words, and of the tone in which they were expressed.
She had heard that tone before, and might have been used to it; but,
nevertheless, the little jump was involuntary. "At present he has no
right to my obedience on any subject, but least of all on that," said
Alice. "His advice he may give me, but I am quite sure he will not
ask for obedience."
"And if he advises you you will slight his advice."
"If he tells me that I had better not travel with my cousin George I
shall certainly not take his advice. Moreover, I should be careful to
let him know how much I was offended by any such counsel from him.
It would show a littleness on his part, and a suspicion of which I
cannot suppose him to be capable." Alice, as she said this, got up
from her seat and walked about the room. When she had finished she
stood at one of the windows with her back to her visitor. There was
silence between them for a minute or two, during which Lady Macleod
was deeply considering how best she might speak the terrible words,
which, as Alice's nearest female relative, she felt herself bound to
utter. At last she collected her thoughts and her courage, and spoke
out.
"My dear Alice, I need hardly say that if you had a mother living,
or any person with you filling the place of a mother, I should not
interfere in this matter."
"Of course, Aunt Macleod, if you think I am wrong you have quite a
right to say so."
"I do think you are wrong,--very wrong, indeed; and if you persist in
this I am afraid I must say that I shall think you wicked. Of course
Mr. Grey cannot like you to travel with George Vavasor."
"And why not, aunt?" Alice, as she asked this question, turned round
and confronted Lady Macleod boldly. She spoke with a steady voice,
and fixed her eyes upon the old lady's face, as though determined to
show that she had no fear of what might be said to her.
"Why not, Alice? Surely you do not wish me to say why not."
"But I do wish you to say why not. How can I defend myself till the
accusation is made?"
"You are now engaged to marry Mr. Grey, with the consent and
approbation of all your friends. Two years ago you had--had--"
"Had what, aunt? If you mean to say that two years ago I was engaged
to my cousin George you are mistaken. Three years ago I told him
that under certain conditions I would become engaged to him. But my
conditions did not suit him, nor his me, and no engagement was ever
made. Mr. Grey knows the history of the whole thing. As far as it was
possible I have told him everything that took place."
"The fact was, Alice, that George Vavasor's mode of life was such
that an engagement with him would have been absolute madness."
"Dear aunt, you must excuse me if I say that I cannot discuss George
Vavasor's mode of life. If I were thinking of becoming his wife you
would have a perfect right to discuss it, because of your constant
kindness to me. But as matters are he is simply a cousin; and as I
like him and you do not, we had better say nothing about him."
"I must say this--that after what has passed, and at the present
crisis of your life--"
"Dear aunt, I'm not in any crisis."
"Yes you are, Alice; in the most special crisis of a girl's life. You
are still a girl, but you are the promised wife of a very worthy man,
who will look to you for all his domestic happiness. George Vavasor
has the name, at least, of being very wild."
"The worthy man and the wild man must fight it out between them. If I
were going away with George by himself, there might be something in
what you say."
"That would be monstrous."
"Monstrous or not, it isn't what I'm about to do. Kate and I have put
our purses together, and are going to have an outing for our special
fun and gratification. As we should be poor travellers alone, George
has promised to go with his sister. Papa knows all about it, and
never thought of making any objection."
Lady Macleod shook her head. She did not like to say anything against
Mr. Vavasor before his daughter; but the shaking of her head was
intended to signify that Mr. Vavasor's assent in such a matter was
worth nothing.
"I can only say again," said Lady Macleod, "that I think Mr. Grey
will be displeased,--and that he will have very great cause for
displeasure. And I think, moreover, that his approbation ought to be
your chief study. I believe, my dear, I'll ask you to let Jane get me
a cab. I shan't have a bit too much time to dress for the concert."
Alice simply rang the bell, and said no further word on the subject
which they had been discussing. When Lady Macleod got up to go away,
Alice kissed her, as was customary with them, and the old lady as
she went uttered her customary valediction. "God bless you, my dear.
Good-bye! I'll come to-morrow if I can." There was therefore no
quarrel between them. But both of them felt that words had been
spoken which must probably lead to some diminution of their past
intimacy.
When Lady Macleod had gone Alice sat alone for an hour thinking of
what had passed between them,--thinking rather of those two men, the
worthy man and the wild man, whose names had been mentioned in close
connection with herself. John Grey was a worthy man, a man worthy at
all points, as far as she knew him. She told herself it was so. And
she told herself, also, that her cousin George was wild,--very wild.
And yet her thoughts were, I fear, on the whole more kindly towards
her cousin than towards her lover. She had declared to her aunt that
John Grey would be incapable of such suspicion as would be shown by
any objection on his part to the arrangements made for the tour. She
had said so, and had so believed; and yet she continued to brood
over the position which her affairs would take, if he did make the
objection which Lady Macleod anticipated. She told herself over and
over again, that under such circumstances she would not give way an
inch. "He is free to go," she said to herself. "If he does not trust
me he is quite free to go." It may almost be said that she came at
last to anticipate from her lover that very answer to her own letter
which she had declared him to be incapable of making.
CHAPTER III.
John Grey, the Worthy Man.
Mr. Grey's answer to Alice Vavasor's letter, which was duly sent by
return of post and duly received on the morning after Lady Macleod's
visit, may perhaps be taken as giving a sample of his worthiness. It
was dated from Nethercoats, a small country-house in Cambridgeshire
which belonged to him, at which he already spent much of his time,
and at which he intended to live altogether after his marriage.
Nethercoats, June, 186--.
DEAREST ALICE,
I am glad you have settled your affairs,--foreign affairs,
I mean,--so much to your mind. As to your home affairs
they are not, to my thinking, quite so satisfactorily
arranged. But as I am a party interested in the latter my
opinion may perhaps have an undue bias. Touching the tour,
I quite agree with you that you and Kate would have been
uncomfortable alone. It's a very fine theory, that of
women being able to get along without men as well as with
them; but, like other fine theories, it will be found very
troublesome by those who first put it in practice. Gloved
hands, petticoats, feminine softness, and the general
homage paid to beauty, all stand in the way of success.
These things may perhaps some day be got rid of, and
possibly with advantage; but while young ladies are still
encumbered with them a male companion will always be found
to be a comfort. I don't quite know whether your cousin
George is the best possible knight you might have chosen.
I should consider myself to be infinitely preferable,
had my going been upon the cards. Were you in danger
of meeting Paynim foes, he, no doubt, would kill them
off much quicker than I could do, and would be much
more serviceable in liberating you from the dungeons
of oppressors, or even from stray tigers in the Swiss
forests. But I doubt his being punctual with the luggage.
He will want you or Kate to keep the accounts, if any are
kept. He will be slow in getting you glasses of water at
the railway stations, and will always keep you waiting at
breakfast. I hold that a man with two ladies on a tour
should be an absolute slave to them, or they will not
fully enjoy themselves. He should simply be an upper
servant, with the privilege of sitting at the same table
with his mistresses. I have my doubts as to whether your
cousin is fit for the place; but, as to myself, it is just
the thing that I was made for. Luckily, however, neither
you nor Kate are without wills of your own, and perhaps
you may be able to reduce Mr. Vavasor to obedience.
As to the home affairs I have very little to say here,--in
this letter. I shall of course run up and see you before
you start, and shall probably stay a week in town. I know
I ought not to do so, as it will be a week of idleness,
and yet not a week of happiness. I'd sooner have an hour
with you in the country than a whole day in London. And I
always feel in town that I've too much to do to allow of
my doing anything. If it were sheer idleness I could enjoy
it, but it is a feverish idleness, in which one is driven
here and there, expecting some gratification which not
only never comes, but which never even begins to come. I
will, however, undergo a week of it,--say the last seven
days of this month, and shall trust to you to recompense
me by as much of yourself as your town doings will permit.
And now again as to those home affairs. If I say nothing
now I believe you will understand why I refrain. You
have cunningly just left me to imply, from what you say,
that all my arguments have been of no avail; but you do
not answer them, or even tell me that you have decided.
I shall therefore imply nothing, and still trust to my
personal eloquence for success. Or rather not trust,--not
trust, but hope.
The garden is going on very well. We are rather short of
water, and therefore not quite as bright as I had hoped;
but we are preparing with untiring industry for future
brightness. Your commands have been obeyed in all things,
and Morrison always says "The mistress didn't mean this,"
or "The mistress did intend that." God bless the mistress
is what I now say, and send her home, to her own home,
to her flowers, and her fruit, and her house, and her
husband, as soon as may be, with no more of these delays
which are to me so grievous, and which seem to me to be
so unnecessary. That is my prayer.
Yours ever and always,
J. G.
"I didn't give commands," Alice said to herself, as she sat with the
letter at her solitary breakfast-table. "He asked me how I liked the
things, and of course I was obliged to say. I was obliged to seem to
care, even if I didn't care." Such were her first thoughts as she put
the letter back into its envelope, after reading it the second time.
When she opened it, which she did quickly, not pausing a moment
lest she should suspect herself of fearing to see what might be
its contents, her mind was full of that rebuke which her aunt had
anticipated, and which she had almost taught herself to expect. She
had torn the letter open rapidly, and had dashed at its contents with
quick eyes. In half a moment she had seen what was the nature of the
reply respecting the proposed companion of her tour, and then she had
completed her reading slowly enough. "No; I gave no commands," she
repeated to herself, as though she might thereby absolve herself from
blame in reference to some possible future accusations, which might
perhaps be brought against her under certain circumstances which she
was contemplating.
Then she considered the letter bit by bit, taking it backwards, and
sipping her tea every now and then amidst her thoughts. No; she had
no home, no house, there. She had no husband;--not as yet. He spoke
of their engagement as though it were a betrothal, as betrothals used
to be of yore; as though they were already in some sort married. Such
betrothals were not made now-a-days. There still remained, both to
him and to her, a certain liberty of extricating themselves from this
engagement. Should he come to her and say that he found that their
contemplated marriage would not make him happy, would not she release
him without a word of reproach? Would not she regard him as much
more honourable in doing so than in adhering to a marriage which was
distasteful to him? And if she would so judge him,--judge him and
certainly acquit him, was it not reasonable that she under similar
circumstances should expect a similar acquittal? Then she declared
to herself that she carried on this argument within her own breast
simply as an argument, induced to do so by that assertion on his part
that he was already her husband,--that his house was even now her
home. She had no intention of using that power which was still hers.
She had no wish to go back from her pledged word. She thought that
she had no such wish. She loved him much, and admired him even more
than she loved him. He was noble, generous, clever, good,--so good as
to be almost perfect; nay, for aught she knew he was perfect. Would
that he had some faults! Would that he had! Would that he had! How
could she, full of faults as she knew herself to be,--how could she
hope to make happy a man perfect as he was! But then there would
be no doubt as to her present duty. She loved him, and that was
everything. Having told him that she loved him, and having on that
score accepted his love, nothing but a change in her heart towards
him could justify her in seeking to break the bond which bound them
together. She did love him, and she loved him only.
But she had once loved her cousin. Yes, truly it was so. In her
thoughts she did not now deny it. She had loved him, and was
tormented by a feeling that she had had a more full delight in that
love than in this other that had sprung up subsequently. She had told
herself that this had come of her youth;--that love at twenty was
sweeter than it could be afterwards. There had been a something of
rapture in that earlier dream which could never be repeated,--which
could never live, indeed, except in a dream. Now, now that she was
older and perhaps wiser, love meant a partnership, in which each
partner would be honest to the other, in which each would wish and
strive for the other's welfare, so that thus their joint welfare
might be insured. Then, in those early girlish days, it had meant
a total abnegation of self. The one was of earth, and therefore
possible. The other had been a ray from heaven,--and impossible,
except in a dream.
And she had been mistaken in her first love. She admitted that
frankly. He whom she had worshipped had been an idol of clay, and she
knew that it was well for her to have abandoned that idolatry. He had
not only been untrue to her, but, worse than that, had been false in
excusing his untruth. He had not only promised falsely, but had made
such promises with a deliberate, premeditated falsehood. And he had
been selfish, coldly selfish, weighing the value of his own low lusts
against that of her holy love. She had known this, and had parted
from him with an oath to herself that no promised contrition on his
part should ever bring them again together. But she had pardoned him
as a man, though never as a lover, and had bade him welcome again
as a cousin and as her friend's brother. She had again become very
anxious as to his career, not hiding her regard, but professing that
anxiety aloud. She knew him to be clever, ambitious, bold,--and she
believed even yet, in spite of her own experience, that he might not
be bad at heart. Now, as she told herself that in truth she loved the
man to whom her troth was plighted, I fear that she almost thought
more of that other man from whom she had torn herself asunder.
"Why should he find himself unhappy in London?" she said, as she went
back to the letter. "Why should he pretend to condemn the very place
which most men find the fittest for all their energies? Were I a man,
no earthly consideration should induce me to live elsewhere. It is
odd how we differ in all things. However brilliant might be his own
light, he would be contented to hide it under a bushel!"
And at last she recurred to that matter as to which she had been
so anxious when she first opened her lover's letter. It will be
remembered how assured she had expressed herself that Mr. Grey would
not condescend to object to her travelling with her cousin. He had
not so condescended. He had written on the matter with a pleasant
joke, like a gentleman as he was, disdaining to allude to the past
passages in the life of her whom he loved, abstaining even from
expressing anything that might be taken as a permission on his part.
There had been in Alice's words, as she told him of their proposed
plan, a something that had betrayed a tremor in her thoughts. She
had studiously striven so to frame her phrases that her tale might
be told as any other simple statement,--as though there had been no
trembling in her mind as she wrote. But she had failed, and she knew
that she had failed. She had failed; and he had read all her effort
and all her failure. She was quite conscious of this; she felt it
thoroughly; and she knew that he was noble and a gentleman to the
last drop of his blood. And yet--yet--yet there was almost a feeling
of disappointment in that he had not written such a letter as Lady
Macleod had anticipated.
During the next week Lady Macleod still came almost daily to Queen
Anne Street, but nothing further was said between her and Miss
Vavasor as to the Swiss tour; nor were any questions asked about Mr.
Grey's opinion on the subject. The old lady of course discovered
that there was no quarrel, or, as she believed, any probability of a
quarrel; and with that she was obliged to be contented. Nor did she
again on this occasion attempt to take Alice to Lady Midlothian's.
Indeed, their usual subjects of conversation were almost abandoned,
and Lady Macleod's visits, though they were as constant as
heretofore, were not so long. She did not dare to talk about Mr. Grey,
and because she did not so dare, was determined to regard herself as
in a degree ill-used. So she was silent, reserved, and fretful. At
length came the last day of her London season, and her last visit
to her niece. "I would come because it's my last day," said Lady
Macleod; "but really I'm so hurried, and have so many things to do,
that I hardly know how to manage it."
"It's very kind," said Alice, giving her aunt an affectionate squeeze
of the hand.
"I'm keeping the cab, so I can just stay twenty-five minutes. I've
marked the time accurately, but I know the man will swear it's over
the half-hour."
"You'll have no more trouble about cabs, aunt, when you are back in
Cheltenham."
"The flies are worse, my dear. I really think they're worse. I pay
the bill every month, but they've always one down that I didn't have.
It's the regular practice, for I've had them from all the men in the
place."
"It's hard enough to find honest men anywhere, I suppose."
"Or honest women either. What do you think of Mrs. Green wanting to
charge me for an extra week, because she says I didn't give her
notice till Tuesday morning? I won't pay her, and she may stop my
things if she dares. However, it's the last time. I shall never come
up to London again, my dear."
"Oh, aunt, don't say that!"
"But I do say it, my dear. What should an old woman like me do,
trailing up to town every year, merely because it's what people
choose to call the season."
"To see your friends, of course. Age doesn't matter when a person's
health is so good as yours."
"If you knew what I suffer from lumbago,--though I must say coming
to London always does cure that for the time. But as for friends--!
Well, I suppose one has no right to complain when one gets to be as
old as I am; but I declare I believe that those I love best would
sooner be without me than with me."
"Do you mean me, aunt?"
"No, my dear, I don't mean you. Of course my life would have been
very different if you could have consented to remain with me till you
were married. But I didn't mean you. I don't know that I meant any
one. You shouldn't mind what an old woman like me says."
"You're a little melancholy because you're going away."
"No, indeed. I don't know why I stayed the last week. I did say to
Lady Midlothian that I thought I should go on the 20th; and, though I
know that she knew that I really didn't go, she has not once sent to
me since. To be sure they've been out every night; but I thought she
might have asked me to come and lunch. It's so very lonely dining by
myself in lodgings in London."
"And yet you never will come and dine with me."
"No, my dear; no. But we won't talk about that. I've just one word
more to say. Let me see. I've just six minutes to stay. I've made
up my mind that I'll never come up to town again,--except for one
thing."
"And what's that, aunt?" Alice, as she asked the question, well knew
what that one thing was.
"I'll come for your marriage, my dear. I do hope you will not keep me
long waiting."
"Ah! I can't make any promise. There's no knowing when that may be."
"And why should there be no knowing? I always think that when a girl
is once engaged the sooner she's married the better. There may be
reasons for delay on the gentleman's part."
"There very often are, you know,"
"But, Alice, you don't mean to say that Mr. Grey is putting it off?"
Alice was silent for a moment, during which Lady Macleod's face
assumed a look of almost tragic horror. Was there something wrong on
Mr. Grey's side of which she was altogether unaware? Alice, though for
a second or two she had been guilty of a slight playful deceit, was
too honest to allow the impression to remain. "No, aunt," she said;
"Mr. Grey is not putting it off. It has been left to me to fix the
time."
"And why don't you fix it?"
"It is such a serious thing! After all it is not more than four
months yet since I--I accepted him. I don't know that there has been
any delay."
"But you might fix the time now, if he wishes it."
"Well, perhaps I shall,--some day, aunt. I'm going to think about it,
and you mustn't drive me."
"But you should have some one to advise you, Alice."
"Ah! that's just it. People always do seem to think it so terrible
that a girl should have her own way in anything. She mustn't like any
one at first; and then, when she does like some one, she must marry
him directly she's bidden. I haven't much of my own way at present;
but you see, when I'm married I shan't have it at all. You can't
wonder that I shouldn't be in a hurry."
"I am not advocating anything like hurry, my dear. But, goodness
gracious me! I've been here twenty-eight minutes, and that horrid
man will impose upon me. Good-bye; God bless you! Mind you write."
And Lady Macleod hurried out of the room more intent at the present
moment upon saving her sixpence than she was on any other matter
whatsoever.
And then John Grey came up to town, arriving a day or two after the
time that he had fixed. It is not, perhaps, improbable that Alice
had used some diplomatic skill in preventing a meeting between Lady
Macleod and her lover. They both were very anxious to obtain the same
object, and Alice was to some extent opposed to their views. Had Lady
Macleod and John Grey put their forces together she might have found
herself unable to resist their joint endeavours. She was resolved
that she would not at any rate name any day for her marriage before
her return from Switzerland; and she may therefore have thought it
wise to keep Mr. Grey in the country till after Lady Macleod had gone,
even though she thereby cut down the time of his sojourn in London
to four days. On the occasion of that visit Mr. Vavasor did a very
memorable thing. He dined at home with the view of welcoming his
future son-in-law. He dined at home, and asked, or rather assented
to Alice's asking, George and Kate Vavasor to join the dinner-party.
"What an auspicious omen for the future nuptials!" said Kate, with
her little sarcastic smile. "Uncle John dines at home, and Mr. Grey
joins in the dissipation of a dinner-party. We shall all be changed
soon, I suppose, and George and I will take to keeping a little
cottage in the country."
"Kate," said Alice, angrily, "I think you are about the most unjust
person I ever met. I would forgive your raillery, however painful it
might be, if it were only fair."
"And to whom is it unfair on the present occasion;--to your father?"
"It was not intended for him."
"To yourself?"
"I care nothing as to myself; you know that very well."
"Then it must have been unfair to Mr. Grey."
"Yes; it was Mr. Grey whom you meant to attack. If I can forgive him
for not caring for society, surely you might do so."
"Exactly; but that's just what you can't do, my dear. You don't
forgive him. If you did you might be quite sure that I should say
nothing. And if you choose to bid me hold my tongue I will say
nothing. But when you tell me all your own thoughts about this
thing you can hardly expect but that I should let you know mine in
return. I'm not particular; and if you are ready for a little good,
wholesome, useful hypocrisy, I won't balk you. I mayn't be quite so
dishonest as you call me, but I'm not so wedded to truth but what I
can look, and act, and speak a few falsehoods if you wish it. Only
let us understand each other."
"You know I wish for no falsehood, Kate."
"I know it's very hard to understand what you do wish. I know that
for the last year or two I have been trying to find out your wishes,
and, upon my word, my success has been very indifferent. I suppose
you wish to marry Mr. Grey, but I'm by no means certain. I suppose the
last thing on earth you'd wish would be to marry George?"
"The very last. You're right there at any rate."
"Alice--! sometimes you drive me too hard; you do, indeed. You make
me doubt whether I hate or love you most. Knowing what my feelings
are about George, I cannot understand how you can bring yourself to
speak of him to me with such contempt!" Kate Vavasor, as she spoke
these words, left the room with a quick step, and hurried up to her
own chamber. There Alice found her in tears, and was driven by her
friend's real grief into the expression of an apology, which she
knew was not properly due from her. Kate was acquainted with all the
circumstances of that old affair between her brother and Alice. She
had given in her adhesion to the propriety of what Alice had done.
She had allowed that her brother George's behaviour had been such as
to make any engagement between them impossible. The fault, therefore,
had been hers in making any reference to the question of such a
marriage. Nor had it been by any means her first fault of the same
kind. Till Alice had become engaged to Mr. Grey she had spoken of
George only as her brother, or as her friend's cousin, but now she
was constantly making allusion to those past occurrences, which all
of them should have striven to forget. Under these circumstances was
not Lady Macleod right in saying that George Vavasor should not have
been accepted as a companion for the Swiss tour?
[Illustration: "Sometimes you drive me too hard."]
The little dinner-party went off very quietly; and if no other ground
existed for charging Mr. Grey with London dissipation than what that
afforded, he was accused most unjustly. The two young men had never
before met each other; and Vavasor had gone to his uncle's house,
prepared not only to dislike but to despise his successor in Alice's
favour. But in this he was either disappointed or gratified, as the
case may be. "He has plenty to say for himself," he said to Kate on
his way home.
"Oh yes; he can talk."
"And he doesn't talk like a prig either, which was what I expected.
He's uncommonly handsome."
"I thought men never saw that in each other. I never see it in any
man."
"I see it in every animal--in men, women, horses, dogs, and even
pigs. I like to look on handsome things. I think people always do who
are ugly themselves."
"And so you're going into raptures in favour of John Grey."
"No, I'm not. I very seldom go into raptures about anything. But he
talks in the way I like a man to talk. How he bowled my uncle over
about those actors; and yet if my uncle knows anything about anything
it is about the stage twenty years ago." There was nothing more said
then about John Grey; but Kate understood her brother well enough to
be aware that this praise meant very little. George Vavasor spoke
sometimes from his heart, and did so more frequently to his sister
than to any one else; but his words came generally from his head.
On the day after the little dinner in Queen Anne Street, John Grey
came to say good-bye to his betrothed;--for his betrothed she
certainly was, in spite of those very poor arguments which she had
used in trying to convince herself that she was still free if she
wished to claim her freedom. Though he had been constantly with Alice
during the last three days, he had not hitherto said anything as to
the day of their marriage. He had been constantly with her alone,
sitting for hours in that ugly green drawing-room, but he had never
touched the subject. He had told her much of Switzerland, which she
had never yet seen but which he knew well. He had told her much of
his garden and house, whither she had once gone with her father,
whilst paying a visit nominally to the colleges at Cambridge. And he
had talked of various matters, matters bearing in no immediate way
upon his own or her affairs; for Mr. Grey was a man who knew well how
to make words pleasant; but previous to this last moment he had said
nothing on that subject on which he was so intent.
"Well, Alice," he said, when the last hour had come, "and about that
question of home affairs?"
"Let us finish off the foreign affairs first."
"We have finished them; haven't we?"
"Finished them! why we haven't started yet."
"No; you haven't started. But we've had the discussion. Is there any
reason why you'd rather not have this thing settled."
"No; no special reason."
"Then why not let it be fixed? Do you fear coming to me as my wife?"
"No."
"I cannot think that you repent your goodness to me."
"No; I don't repent it;--what you call my goodness? I love you too
entirely for that."
"My darling!" And now he passed his arm round her waist as they stood
near the empty fireplace. "And if you love me--"
"I do love you."
"Then why should you not wish to come to me?"
"I do wish it. I think I wish it."
"But, Alice, you must have wished it altogether when you consented to
be my wife."
"A person may wish for a thing altogether, and yet not wish for it
instantly."
"Instantly! Come; I have not been hard on you. This is still June.
Will you say the middle of September, and we shall still be in time
for warm pleasant days among the lakes? Is that asking for too much?"
"It is not asking for anything."
"Nay, but it is, love. Grant it, and I will swear that you have
granted me everything."
She was silent, having things to say but not knowing in what words to
put them. Now that he was with her she could not say the things which
she had told herself that she would utter to him. She could not bring
herself to hint to him that his views of life were so unlike her own,
that there could be no chance of happiness between them, unless each
could strive to lean somewhat towards the other. No man could be more
gracious in word and manner than John Grey; no man more chivalrous in
his carriage towards a woman; but he always spoke and acted as though
there could be no question that his manner of life was to be adopted,
without a word or thought of doubting, by his wife. When two came
together, why should not each yield something, and each claim
something? This she had meant to say to him on this day; but now that
he was with her she could not say it.
"John," she said at last, "do not press me about this till I return."
"But then you will say the time is short. It would be short then."
"I cannot answer you now;--indeed, I cannot. That is I cannot answer
in the affirmative. It is such a solemn thing."
"Will it ever be less solemn, dearest?"
"Never, I hope never."
He did not press her further then, but kissed her and bade her
farewell.
CHAPTER IV.
George Vavasor, the Wild Man.
It will no doubt be understood that George Vavasor did not roam about
in the woods unshorn, or wear leathern trappings and sandals, like
Robinson Crusoe, instead of coats and trousers. His wildness was of
another kind. Indeed, I don't know that he was in truth at all wild,
though Lady Macleod had called him so, and Alice had assented to her
use of the word.
George Vavasor had lived in London since he was twenty, and now, at
the time of the beginning of my story, he was a year or two over
thirty. He was and ever had been the heir to his grandfather's
estate; but that estate was small, and when George first came to
London his father was a strong man of forty, with as much promise
of life in him as his son had. A profession had therefore been
absolutely necessary to him; and he had, at his uncle John's
instance, been placed in the office of a parliamentary land agent.
With this parliamentary land agent he had quarrelled to the knife,
but not before he had by his talents made himself so useful that
he had before him the prospects of a lucrative partnership in the
business. George Vavasor had many faults, but idleness--absolute
idleness--was not one of them. He would occasionally postpone his
work to pleasure. He would be at Newmarket when he should have been
at Whitehall. But it was not usual with him to be in bed when he
should be at his desk, and when he was at his desk he did not whittle
his ruler, or pick his teeth, or clip his nails. Upon the whole
his friends were pleased with the first five years of his life in
London--in spite of his having been found to be in debt on more than
one occasion. But his debts had been paid; and all was going on
swimmingly, when one day he knocked down the parliamentary agent
with a blow between the eyes, and then there was an end of that.
He himself was wont to say that he had known very well what he was
about, that it had behoved him to knock down the man who was to have
been his partner, and that he regretted nothing in the matter. At any
rate the deed was looked upon with approving eyes by many men of good
standing,--or, at any rate, sufficient standing to help George to
another position; and within six weeks of the time of his leaving the
office at Whitehall, he had become a partner in an established firm
of wine merchants. A great-aunt had just then left him a couple of
thousand pounds, which no doubt assisted him in his views with the
wine merchants.
In this employment he remained for another period of five years, and
was supposed by all his friends to be doing very well. And indeed
he did not do badly, only that he did not do well enough to satisfy
himself. He was ambitious of making the house to which he belonged
the first house in the trade in London, and scared his partners by
the boldness and extent of his views. He himself declared that if
they would only have gone along with him he would have made them
princes in the wine market. But they were men either of more prudence
or of less audacity than he, and they declined to walk in his
courses. At the end of the five years Vavasor left the house, not
having knocked any one down on this occasion, and taking with him a
very nice sum of money.
The two last of these five years had certainly been the best period
of his life, for he had really worked very hard, like a man, giving
up all pleasure that took time from him,--and giving up also most
pleasures which were dangerous on account of their costliness. He
went to no races, played no billiards, and spoke of Cremorne as a
childish thing, which he had abandoned now that he was no longer
a child. It was during these two years that he had had his love
passages with his cousin; and it must be presumed that he had, at any
rate, intended at one time to settle himself respectably as a married
man. He had, however, behaved very badly to Alice, and the match had
been broken off.
He had also during the last two years quarrelled with his
grandfather. He had wished to raise a sum of money on the Vavasor
estate, which, as it was unentailed, he could only do with his
grandfather's concurrence. The old gentleman would not hear of
it,--would listen with no patience to the proposition. It was in
vain that George attempted to make the squire understand that the
wine business was going on very well, that he himself owed no man
anything, that everything with him was flourishing;--but that his
trade might be extended indefinitely by the use of a few thousand
pounds at moderate interest. Old Mr. Vavasor was furious. No documents
and no assurances could make him lay aside a belief that the wine
merchants, and the business, and his grandson were all ruined and
ruinous together. No one but a ruined man would attempt to raise
money on the family estate! So they had quarrelled, and had never
spoken or seen each other since. "He shall have the estate for his
life," the squire said to his son John. "I don't think I have a right
to leave it away from him. It never has been left away from the heir.
But I'll tie it up so that he shan't cut a tree on it." John Vavasor
perhaps thought that the old rule of primogeniture might under such
circumstances have been judiciously abandoned--in this one instance,
in his own favour. But he did not say so. Nor would he have said it
had there been a chance of his doing so with success. He was a man
from whom no very noble deed could be expected; but he was also one
who would do no ignoble deed.
After that George Vavasor had become a stockbroker, and a stockbroker
he was now. In the first twelve months after his leaving the wine
business,--the same being the first year after his breach with
Alice,--he had gone back greatly in the estimation of men. He had
lived in open defiance of decency. He had spent much money and had
apparently made none, and had been, as all his friends declared, on
the high road to ruin. Aunt Macleod had taken her judgement from this
period of his life when she had spoken of him as a man who never did
anything. But he had come forth again suddenly as a working man; and
now they who professed to know, declared that he was by no means
poor. He was in the City every day; and during the last two years had
earned the character of a shrewd fellow who knew what he was about,
who might not perhaps be very mealy-mouthed in affairs of business,
but who was fairly and decently honourable in his money transactions.
In fact, he stood well on 'Change.
And during these two years he had stood a contest for a seat in
Parliament, having striven to represent the metropolitan borough of
Chelsea, on the extremely Radical interest. It is true that he had
failed, and that he had spent a considerable sum of money in the
contest. "Where on earth does your nephew get his money?" men said to
John Vavasor at his club. "Upon my word I don't know," said Vavasor.
"He doesn't get it from me, and I'm sure he doesn't get it from my
father." But George Vavasor, though he failed at Chelsea, did not
spend his money altogether fruitlessly. He gained reputation by the
struggle, and men came to speak of him as though he were one who
would do something. He was a stockbroker, a thorough-going Radical,
and yet he was the heir to a fine estate, which had come down from
father to son for four hundred years! There was something captivating
about his history and adventures, especially as just at the time of
the election he became engaged to an heiress, who died a month before
the marriage should have taken place. She died without a will, and
her money all went to some third cousins.
George Vavasor bore this last disappointment like a man, and it was
at this time that he again became fully reconciled to his cousin.
Previous to this they had met; and Alice, at her cousin Kate's
instigation, had induced her father to meet him. But at first there
had been no renewal of real friendship. Alice had given her cordial
assent to her cousin's marriage with the heiress, Miss Grant, telling
Kate that such an engagement was the very thing to put him thoroughly
on his feet. And then she had been much pleased by his spirit at that
Chelsea election. "It was grand of him, wasn't it?" said Kate, her
eyes brimming full of tears. "It was very spirited," said Alice. "If
you knew all, you would say so. They could get no one else to stand
but that Mr. Travers, and he wouldn't come forward, unless they would
guarantee all his expenses." "I hope it didn't cost George much,"
said Alice. "It did, though; nearly all he had got. But what matters?
Money's nothing to him, except for its uses. My own little mite is
my own now, and he shall have every farthing of it for the next
election, even though I should go out as a housemaid the next day."
There must have been something great about George Vavasor, or he
would not have been so idolized by such a girl as his sister Kate.
Early in the present spring, before the arrangements for the Swiss
journey were made, George Vavasor had spoken to Alice about that
intended marriage which had been broken off by the lady's death. He
was sitting one evening with his cousin in the drawing-room in Queen
Anne Street, waiting for Kate, who was to join him there before going
to some party. I wonder whether Kate had had a hint from her brother
to be late! At any rate, the two were together for an hour, and the
talk had been all about himself. He had congratulated her on her
engagement with Mr. Grey, which had just become known to him, and had
then spoken of his own last intended marriage.
"I grieved for her," he said, "greatly."
"I'm sure you did, George."
"Yes, I did;--for her, herself. Of course the world has given me
credit for lamenting the loss of her money. But the truth is, that as
regards both herself and her money, it is much better for me that we
were never married."
"Do you mean even though she should have lived?"
"Yes;--even had she lived."
"And why so? If you liked her, her money was surely no drawback."
"No; not if I had liked her."
"And did you not like her?"
"No."
"Oh, George!"
"I did not love her as a man should love his wife, if you mean that.
As for my liking her, I did like her. I liked her very much."
"But you would have loved her?"
"I don't know. I don't find that task of loving so very easy. It
might have been that I should have learned to hate her."
"If so, it is better for you, and better for her, that she has gone."
"It is better. I am sure of it. And yet I grieve for her, and in
thinking of her I almost feel as though I were guilty of her death."
"But she never suspected that you did not love her?"
"Oh no. But she was not given to think much of such things. She took
all that for granted. Poor girl! she is at rest now, and her money
has gone, where it should go, among her own relatives."
"Yes; with such feelings as yours are about her, her money would have
been a burden to you."
"I would not have taken it. I hope, at least, that I would not have
taken it. Money is a sore temptation, especially to a poor man like
me. It is well for me that the trial did not come in my way."
"But you are not such a very poor man now, are you, George? I thought
your business was a good one."
"It is, and I have no right to be a poor man. But a man will be poor
who does such mad things as I do. I had three or four thousand pounds
clear, and I spent every shilling of it on the Chelsea election.
Goodness knows whether I shall have a shilling at all when another
chance comes round; but if I have I shall certainly spend it, and
if I have not, I shall go in debt wherever I can raise a hundred
pounds."
"I hope you will be successful at last."
"I feel sure that I shall. But, in the mean time, I cannot but know
that my career is perfectly reckless. No woman ought to join her lot
to mine unless she has within her courage to be as reckless as I am.
You know what men do when they toss up for shillings?"
"Yes, I suppose I do."
"I am tossing up every day of my life for every shilling that I
have."
"Do you mean that you're--gambling?"
"No. I have given that up altogether. I used to gamble, but I never
do that now, and never shall again. What I mean is this,--that I hold
myself in readiness to risk everything at any moment, in order to
gain any object that may serve my turn. I am always ready to lead a
forlorn hope. That's what I mean by tossing up every day for every
shilling that I have."
Alice did not quite understand him, and perhaps he did not intend
that she should. Perhaps his object was to mystify her imagination.
She did not understand him, but I fear that she admired the kind of
courage which he professed. And he had not only professed it: in that
matter of the past election he had certainly practised it.
In talking of beauty to his sister he had spoken of himself as being
ugly. He would not generally have been called ugly by women, had not
one side of his face been dreadfully scarred by a cicatrice, which in
healing, had left a dark indented line down from his left eye to his
lower jaw. That black ravine running through his cheek was certainly
ugly. On some occasions, when he was angry or disappointed, it was
very hideous; for he would so contort his face that the scar would,
as it were, stretch itself out, revealing all its horrors, and his
countenance would become all scar. "He looked at me like the devil
himself--making the hole in his face gape at me," the old squire
had said to John Vavasor in describing the interview in which the
grandson had tried to bully his grandfather into assenting to his own
views about the mortgage. But in other respects George's face was not
ugly, and might have been thought handsome by many women. His hair
was black, and was parted in the front. His forehead, though low,
was broad. His eyes were dark and bright, and his eyebrows were very
full, and perfectly black. At those periods of his anger, all his
face which was not scar, was eye and eyebrow. He wore a thick black
moustache, which covered his mouth, but no whiskers. People said of
him that he was so proud of his wound that he would not grow a hair
to cover it. The fact, however, was that no whisker could be made to
come sufficiently forward to be of service, and therefore he wore
none.
The story of that wound should be told. When he was yet hardly more
than a boy, before he had come up to London, he was living in a
house in the country which his father then occupied. At the time
his father was absent, and he and his sister only were in the house
with the maid-servants. His sister had a few jewels in her room, and
an exaggerated report of them having come to the ears of certain
enterprising burglars, a little plan was arranged for obtaining them.
A small boy was hidden in the house, a window was opened, and at the
proper witching hour of night a stout individual crept up-stairs in
his stocking-feet, and was already at Kate Vavasor's door,--when,
in the dark, dressed only in his nightshirt, wholly unarmed, George
Vavasor flew at the fellow's throat. Two hours elapsed before the
horror-stricken women of the house could bring men to the place.
George's face had then been ripped open from the eye downwards, with
some chisel, or house-breaking instrument. But the man was dead.
George had wrenched from him his own tool, and having first jabbed
him all over with insufficient wounds, had at last driven the steel
through his windpipe. The small boy escaped, carrying with him two
shillings and threepence which Kate had left upon the drawing-room
mantelpiece.
George Vavasor was rather low in stature, but well made, with small
hands and feet, but broad in the chest and strong in the loins. He
was a fine horseman and a hard rider; and men who had known him well
said that he could fence and shoot with a pistol as few men care to
do in these peaceable days. Since volunteering had come up, he had
become a captain of Volunteers, and had won prizes with his rifle at
Wimbledon.
Such had been the life of George Vavasor, and such was his character,
and such his appearance. He had always lived alone in London, and did
so at present; but just now his sister was much with him, as she was
staying up in town with an aunt, another Vavasor by birth, with whom
the reader will, if he persevere, become acquainted in course of
time. I hope he will persevere a little, for of all the Vavasors Mrs.
Greenow was perhaps the best worth knowing. But Kate Vavasor's home
was understood to be in her grandfather's house in Westmoreland.
On the evening before they started for Switzerland, George and Kate
walked from Queen Anne Street, where they had been dining with Alice,
to Mrs. Greenow's house. Everything had been settled about luggage,
hours of starting, and routes as regarded their few first days;
and the common purse had been made over to George. That portion of
Mr. Grey's letter had been read which alluded to the Paynims and
the glasses of water, and everything had passed in the best of
good-humour. "I'll endeavour to get the cold water for you," George
had said; "but as to the breakfasts, I can only hope you won't put
me to severe trials by any very early hours. When people go out for
pleasure it should be pleasure."
The brother and sister walked through two or three streets in
silence, and then Kate asked a question.
"George, I wonder what your wishes really are about Alice?"
"That she shouldn't want her breakfast too early while we are away."
"That means that I'm to hold my tongue, of course."
"No, it doesn't."
"Then it means that you intend to hold yours."
"No; not that either."
"Then what does it mean?"
"That I have no fixed wishes on the subject. Of course she'll marry
this man John Grey, and then no one will hear another word about
her."
"She will no doubt, if you don't interfere. Probably she will whether
you interfere or not. But if you wish to interfere--"
"She's got four hundred a year, and is not so good-looking as she
was."
"Yes; she has got four hundred a year, and she is more handsome now
than ever she was. I know that you think so;--and that you love her
and love no one else--unless you have a sneaking fondness for me."
"I'll leave you to judge of that last."
"And as for me,--I only love two people in the world; her and you. If
ever you mean to try, you should try now."
CHAPTER V.
The Balcony at Basle.
I am not going to describe the Vavasors' Swiss tour. It would not be
fair on my readers. "Six Weeks in the Bernese Oberland, by party of
three," would have but very small chance of success in the literary
world at present, and I should consider myself to be dishonest if
I attempt to palm off such matter on the public in the pages of a
novel. It is true that I have just returned from Switzerland, and
should find such a course of writing very convenient. But I dismiss
the temptation, strong as it is. _Retro age, Satanas._ No living man
or woman any longer wants to be told anything of the Grimsell or
of the Gemmi. Ludgate Hill is now-a-days more interesting than the
Jungfrau.
The Vavasors were not very energetic on their tour. As George had
said, they had gone out for pleasure and not for work. They went
direct to Interlaken and then hung about between that place and
Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen, It delighted him to sit still on some
outer bench, looking at the mountains, with a cigar in his mouth,
and it seemed to delight them to be with him. Much that Mr. Grey
prophesied had come true. The two girls were ministers to him,
instead of having him as their slave.
"What fine fellows those Alpine club men think themselves," he said
on one of these occasions, "and how thoroughly they despise the sort
of enjoyment I get from mountains. But they're mistaken."
"I don't see why either need be mistaken," said Alice.
"But they are mistaken," he continued. "They rob the mountains of
their poetry, which is or should be their greatest charm. Mont Blanc
can have no mystery for a man who has been up it half a dozen times.
It's like getting behind the scenes at a ballet, or making a conjuror
explain his tricks."
"But is the exercise nothing?" said Kate.
"Yes; the exercise is very fine;--but that avoids the question."
"And they all botanize," said Alice.
"I don't believe it. I believe that the most of them simply walk
up the mountain and down again. But if they did, that avoids the
question also. The poetry and mystery of the mountains are lost to
those who make themselves familiar with their details, not the less
because such familiarity may have useful results. In this world
things are beautiful only because they are not quite seen, or not
perfectly understood. Poetry is precious chiefly because it suggests
more than it declares. Look in there, through that valley, where you
just see the distant little peak at the end. Are you not dreaming
of the unknown beautiful world that exists up there;--beautiful, as
heaven is beautiful, because you know nothing of the reality? If you
make your way up there and back to-morrow, and find out all about it,
do you mean to say that it will be as beautiful to you when you come
back?"
"Yes;--I think it would," said Alice.
"Then you've no poetry in you. Now I'm made up of poetry." After that
they began to laugh at him and were very happy.
I think that Mr. Grey was right in answering Alice's letter as he did;
but I think that Lady Macleod was also right in saying that Alice
should not have gone to Switzerland in company with George Vavasor. A
peculiar familiarity sprang up, which, had all its circumstances been
known to Mr. Grey, would not have entirely satisfied him, even though
no word was said which might in itself have displeased him. During
the first weeks of their travelling no word was said which would
have displeased him; but at last, when the time for their return was
drawing nigh, when their happiness was nearly over, and that feeling
of melancholy was coming on them which always pervades the last hours
of any period that has been pleasant,--then words became softer than
they had been, and references were made to old days,--allusions which
never should have been permitted between them.
Alice had been very happy,--more happy perhaps in that she had been
a joint minister with Kate to her cousin George's idle fantasies,
than she would have been hurrying about with him as her slave. They
had tacitly agreed to spoil him with comforts; and girls are always
happier in spoiling some man than in being spoiled by men. And he had
taken it all well, doing his despotism pleasantly, exacting much,
but exacting nothing that was disagreeable. And he had been amusing
always, as Alice thought without any effort. But men and women, when
they show themselves at their best, seldom do so without an effort.
If the object be near the heart the effort will be pleasant to him
who makes it, and if it be made well, it will be hidden; but, not the
less, will the effort be there. George Vavasor had on the present
occasion done his very best to please his cousin.
They were sitting at Basle one evening in the balcony of the big
hotel which overlooks the Rhine. The balcony runs the length of the
house, and is open to all the company; but it is spacious, and little
parties can be formed there with perfect privacy. The swift broad
Rhine runs underneath, rushing through from the bridge which here
spans the river; and every now and then on summer evenings loud
shouts come up from strong swimmers in the water, who are glorying
in the swiftness of the current. The three were sitting there, by
themselves, at the end of the balcony. Coffee was before them on a
little table, and George's cigar, as usual, was in his mouth.
"It's nearly all over," said he, after they had remained silent for
some minutes.
"And I do think it has been a success," said Kate. "Always excepting
about the money. I'm ruined for ever."
"I'll make your money all straight," said George.
"Indeed you'll do nothing of the kind," said Kate. "I'm ruined, but
you are ruineder. But what signifies? It is such a great thing ever
to have had six weeks' happiness, that the ruin is, in point of fact,
a good speculation. What do you say, Alice? Won't you vote, too, that
we've done it well?"
"I think we've done it very well. I have enjoyed myself thoroughly."
"And now you've got to go home to John Grey and Cambridgeshire! It's
no wonder you should be melancholy." That was the thought in Kate's
mind, but she did not speak it out on this occasion.
"That's good of you, Alice," said Kate. "Is it not, George? I like a
person who will give a hearty meed of approbation."
"But I am giving the meed of approbation to myself."
"I like a person even to do that heartily," said Kate. "Not that
George and I are thankful for the compliment. We are prepared to
admit that we owe almost everything to you,--are we not, George?"
"I'm not; by any means," said George.
"Well, I am, and I expect to have something pretty said to me in
return. Have I been cross once, Alice?"
"No; I don't think you have. You are never cross, though you are
often ferocious."
"But I haven't been once ferocious,--nor has George."
"He would have been the most ungrateful man alive if he had," said
Alice. "We've done nothing since we've started but realize from him
that picture in 'Punch' of the young gentleman at Jeddo who had a
dozen ladies to wait upon him."
"And now he has got to go home to his lodgings, and wait upon himself
again. Poor fellow! I do pity you, George."
"No, you don't;--nor does Alice. I believe girls always think that
a bachelor in London has the happiest of all lives. It's because
they think so that they generally want to put an end to the man's
condition."
"It's envy that makes us want to get married,--not love," said Kate.
"It's the devil in some shape, as often as not," said he. "With a
man, marriage always seems to him to be an evil at the instant."
"Not always," said Alice.
"Almost always;--but he does it, as he takes physic, because
something worse will come if he don't. A man never likes having his
tooth pulled out, but all men do have their teeth pulled out,--and
they who delay it too long suffer the very mischief."
"I do like George's philosophy," said Kate, getting up from her chair
as she spoke; "it is so sharp, and has such a pleasant acid taste
about it; and then we all know that it means nothing. Alice, I'm
going up-stairs to begin the final packing."
"I'll come with you, dear."
"No, don't. To tell the truth I'm only going into that man's room
because he won't put up a single thing of his own decently. We'll
do ours, of course, when we go up to bed. Whatever you disarrange
to-night, Master George, you must rearrange for yourself to-morrow
morning, for I promise I won't go into your room at five o'clock."
"How I do hate that early work," said George.
"I'll be down again very soon," said Kate. "Then we'll take one turn
on the bridge and go to bed."
Alice and George were left together sitting in the balcony. They
had been alone together before many times since their travels had
commenced; but they both of them felt that there was something to
them in the present moment different from any other period of their
journey. There was something that each felt to be sweet, undefinable,
and dangerous. Alice had known that it would be better for her to go
up-stairs with Kate; but Kate's answer had been of such a nature that
had she gone she would have shown that she had some special reason
for going. Why should she show such a need? Or why, indeed, should
she entertain it?
Alice was seated quite at the end of the gallery, and Kate's chair
was at her feet in the corner. When Alice and Kate had seated
themselves, the waiter had brought a small table for the coffee-cups,
and George had placed his chair on the other side of that. So that
Alice was, as it were, a prisoner. She could not slip away without
some special preparation for going, and Kate had so placed her chair
in leaving, that she must actually have asked George to move it
before she could escape. But why should she wish to escape? Nothing
could be more lovely and enticing than the scene before her. The
night had come on, with quick but still unperceived approach, as it
does in those parts; for the twilight there is not prolonged as it is
with us more northern folk. The night had come on, but there was a
rising moon, which just sufficed to give a sheen to the water beneath
her. The air was deliciously soft;--of that softness which produces
no sensation either of warmth or cold, but which just seems to touch
one with loving tenderness, as though the unseen spirits of the air
kissed one's forehead as they passed on their wings. The Rhine was
running at her feet, so near, that in the soft half light it seemed
as though she might step into its ripple. The Rhine was running
by with that delicious sound of rapidly moving waters, that fresh
refreshing gurgle of the river, which is so delicious to the ear at
all times. If you be talking, it wraps up your speech, keeping it for
yourselves, making it difficult neither to her who listens nor to him
who speaks. If you would sleep, it is of all lullabies the sweetest.
If you are alone and would think, it aids all your thoughts. If
you are alone, and, alas! would not think,--if thinking be too
painful,--it will dispel your sorrow, and give the comfort which
music alone can give. Alice felt that the air kissed her, that
the river sang for her its sweetest song, that the moon shone for
her with its softest light,--that light which lends the poetry of
half-developed beauty to everything that it touches. Why should she
leave it?
Nothing was said for some minutes after Kate's departure, and Alice
was beginning to shake from her that half feeling of danger which had
come over her. Vavasor had sat back in his chair, leaning against
the house, with his feet raised upon a stool; his arms were folded
across his breast, and he seemed to have divided himself between
his thoughts and his cigar. Alice was looking full upon the river,
and her thoughts had strayed away to her future home among John
Grey's flower-beds and shrubs; but the river, though it sang to her
pleasantly, seemed to sing a song of other things than such a home as
that,--a song full of mystery, as are all river songs when one tries
to understand their words.
"When are you to be married, Alice?" said George at last.
"Oh, George!" said she. "You ask me a question as though you were
putting a pistol to my ear."
"I'm sorry the question was so unpleasant."
"I didn't say that it was unpleasant; but you asked it so suddenly!
The truth is, I didn't expect you to speak at all just then. I
suppose I was thinking of something."
"But if it be not unpleasant,--when are you to be married?"
"I do not know. It is not fixed."
"But about when, I mean? This summer?"
"Certainly not this summer, for the summer will be over when we reach
home."
"This winter? Next spring? Next year?--or in ten years' time?"
"Before the expiration of the ten years, I suppose. Anything more
exact than that I can't say."
"I suppose you like it?" he then said.
"What, being married? You see I've never tried yet."
"The idea of it,--the anticipation, You look forward with
satisfaction to the kind of life you will lead at Nethercoats? Don't
suppose I am saying anything against it, for I have no conception
what sort of a place Nethercoats is. On the whole I don't know that
there is any kind of life better than that of an English country
gentleman in his own place;--that is, if he can keep it up, and not
live as the old squire does, in a state of chronic poverty."
"Mr. Grey's place doesn't entitle him to be called a country
gentleman."
"But you like the prospect of it?"
"Oh, George, how you do cross-question one! Of course I like it, or
I shouldn't have accepted it."
"That does not follow. But I quite acknowledge that I have no right
to cross-question you. If I ever had such right on the score of
cousinship, I have lost it on the score of--; but we won't mind that,
will we, Alice?" To this she at first made no answer, but he repeated
the question. "Will we, Alice?"
"Will we what?"
"Recur to the old days."
"Why should we recur to them? They are passed, and as we are again
friends and dear cousins the sting of them is gone."
"Ah, yes! The sting of them is gone. It is for that reason, because
it is so, that we may at last recur to them without danger. If we
regret nothing,--if neither of us has anything to regret, why not
recur to them, and talk of them freely?"
"No, George; that would not do."
"By heavens, no! It would drive me mad; and if I know aught of you,
it would hardly leave you as calm as you are at present."
"As I would wish to be left calm--"
"Would you? Then I suppose I ought to hold my tongue. But, Alice, I
shall never have the power of speaking to you again as I speak now.
Since we have been out together, we have been dear friends; is it not
so?"
"And shall we not always be dear friends?"
"No, certainly not. How will it be possible? Think of it. How can I
really be your friend when you are the mistress of that man's house
in Cambridgeshire?"
"George!"
"I mean nothing disrespectful. I truly beg your pardon if it
has seemed so. Let me say that gentleman's house;--for he is a
gentleman."
"That he certainly is."
"You could not have accepted him were he not so. But how can I be
your friend when you are his wife? I may still call you cousin Alice,
and pat your children on the head if I chance to see them; and shall
stop in the streets and shake hands with him if I meet him;--that is
if my untoward fate does not induce him to cut my acquaintance;--but
as for friendship, that will be over when you and I shall have parted
next Thursday evening at London Bridge."
"Oh, George, don't say so!"
"But I do."
"And why on Thursday? Do you mean that you won't come to Queen Anne
Street any more?"
"Yes, that is what I do mean. This trip of ours has been very
successful, Kate says. Perhaps Kate knows nothing about it."
"It has been very pleasant,--at least to me."
"And the pleasure has had no drawback?"
"None to me."
"It has been very pleasant to me, also;--but the pleasure has had its
alloy. Alice, I have nothing to ask from you,--nothing."
"Anything that you should ask, I would do for you."
"I have nothing to ask;--nothing. But I have one word to say."
"George, do not say it. Let me go up-stairs. Let me go to Kate."
"Certainly; if you wish it you shall go." He still held his foot
against the chair which barred her passage, and did not attempt to
rise as he must have done to make way for her passage out. "Certainly
you shall go to Kate, if you refuse to hear me. But after all
that has passed between us, after these six weeks of intimate
companionship, I think you ought to listen to me. I tell you that I
have nothing to ask. I am not going to make love to you."
Alice had commenced some attempt to rise, but she had again settled
herself in her chair. And now, when he paused for a moment, she made
no further sign that she wished to escape, nor did she say a word to
intimate her further wish that he should be silent.
"I am not going to make love to you," he said again. "As for making
love, as the word goes, that must be over between you and me. It has
been made and marred, and cannot be remade. It may exist, or it may
have been expelled; but where it does not exist, it will never be
brought back again."
"It should not be spoken of between you and me."
"So, no doubt, any proper-going duenna would say, and so, too, little
children should be told; but between you and me there can be no
necessity for falsehood. We have grown beyond our sugar-toothed ages,
and are now men and women. I perfectly understood your breaking away
from me. I understood you, and in spite of my sorrow knew that you
were right. I am not going to accuse or to defend myself; but I knew
that you were right."
"Then let there be no more about it."
"Yes; there must be more about it. I did not understand you when you
accepted Mr. Grey. Against him I have not a whisper to make. He may
be perfect for aught I know. But, knowing you as I thought I did, I
could not understand your loving such a man as him. It was as though
one who had lived on brandy should take himself suddenly to a milk
diet,--and enjoy the change! A milk diet is no doubt the best. But
men who have lived on brandy can't make those changes very suddenly.
They perish in the attempt."
"Not always, George."
"It may be done with months of agony;--but there was no such agony
with you."
"Who can tell?"
"But you will tell me the cure was made. I thought so, and therefore
thought that I should find you changed. I thought that you, who had
been all fire, would now have turned yourself into soft-flowing milk
and honey, and have become fit for the life in store for you. With
such a one I might have travelled from Moscow to Malta without
danger. The woman fit to be John Grey's wife would certainly do
me no harm,--could not touch my happiness. I might have loved her
once,--might still love the memory of what she had been; but her, in
her new form, after her new birth,--such a one as that, Alice, could
be nothing to me. Don't mistake me. I have enough of wisdom in me to
know how much better, ay, and happier a woman she might be. It was
not that I thought you had descended in the scale; but I gave you
credit for virtues which you have not acquired. Alice, that wholesome
diet of which I spoke is not your diet. You would starve on it, and
perish."
He had spoken with great energy, but still in a low voice, having
turned full round upon the table, with both his arms upon it, and his
face stretched out far over towards her. She was looking full at him;
and, as I have said before, that scar and his gloomy eyes and thick
eyebrows seemed to make up the whole of his face. But the scar had
never been ugly to her. She knew the story, and when he was her lover
she had taken pride in the mark of the wound. She looked at him, but
though he paused she did not speak. The music of the river was still
in her ears, and there came upon her a struggle as though she were
striving to understand its song. Were the waters also telling her of
the mistake she had made in accepting Mr. Grey as her husband? What
her cousin was now telling her,--was it not a repetition of words
which she had spoken to herself hundreds of times during the last
two months? Was she not telling herself daily,--hourly,--always,--in
every thought of her life, that in accepting Mr. Grey she had assumed
herself to be mistress of virtues which she did not possess? Had
she not, in truth, rioted upon brandy, till the innocence of milk
was unfitted for her? This man now came and rudely told her all
this,--but did he not tell her the truth? She sat silent and
convicted; only gazing into his face when his speech was done.
"I have learned this since we have been again together, Alice; and
finding you, not the angel I had supposed, finding you to be the same
woman I had once loved,--the safety that I anticipated has not fallen
to my lot. That's all. Here's Kate, and now we'll go for our walk."
CHAPTER VI.
The Bridge over the Rhine.
"George," said Kate, speaking before she quite got up to them, "will
you tell me whether you have been preparing all your things for an
open sale by auction?" Then she stole a look at Alice, and having
learned from that glance that something had occurred which prevented
Alice from joining her in her raillery, she went on with it herself
rapidly, as though to cover Alice's confusion, and give her time to
rally before they should all move. "Would you believe it? he had
three razors laid out on his table--"
"A man must shave,--even at Basle."
"But not with three razors at once; and three hair-brushes, and
half a dozen toothbrushes, and a small collection of combs, and
four or five little glass bottles, looking as though they contained
poison,--all with silver tops. I can only suppose you desired to
startle the weak mind of the chambermaid. I have put them all up; but
remember this, if they are taken out again you are responsible. And
I will not put up your boots, George. What can you have wanted with
three pairs of boots at Basle?"
"When you have completed the list of my wardrobe we'll go out upon
the bridge. That is, if Alice likes it."
"Oh, yes; I shall like it."
"Come along then," said Kate. And so they moved away. When they got
upon the bridge Alice and Kate were together, while George strolled
behind them, close to them, but not taking any part in their
conversation,--as though he had merely gone with them as an escort.
Kate seemed to be perfectly content with this arrangement, chattering
to Alice, so that she might show that there was nothing serious on
the minds of any of them. It need hardly be said that Alice at this
time made no appeal to George to join them. He followed them at their
heels, with his hands behind his back, looking down upon the pavement
and simply waiting upon their pleasure.
"Do you know," said Kate, "I have a very great mind to run away."
"Where do you want to run to?"
"Well;--that wouldn't much signify. Perhaps I'd go to the little inn
at Handek. It's a lonely place, where nobody would hear of me,--and I
should have the waterfall. I'm afraid they'd want to have their bill
paid. That would be the worst of it."
"But why run away just now?"
"I won't, because you wouldn't like going home with George
alone,--and I suppose he'd be bound to look after me, as he's doing
now. I wonder what he thinks of having to walk over the bridge after
us girls. I suppose he'd be in that place down there drinking beer,
if we weren't here."
"If he wanted to go, I dare say he would, in spite of us."
"That's ungrateful of you, for I'm sure we've never been kept in a
moment by his failing us. But as I was saying, I do dread going home.
You are going to John Grey, which may be pleasant enough; but I'm
going--to Aunt Greenow."
"It's your own choice."
"No, it's not. I haven't any choice in the matter. Of course I might
refuse to speak to Aunt Greenow, and nobody could make me;--but
practically I haven't any choice in the matter. Fancy a month at
Yarmouth with no companion but such a woman as that!"
"I shouldn't mind it. Aunt Greenow always seems to me to be a very
good sort of woman."
"She may be a good woman, but I must say I think she's of a bad sort.
You've never heard her talk about her husband?"
"No, never; I think she did cry a little the first day she came to
Queen Anne Street, but that wasn't unnatural."
"He was thirty years older than herself."
"But still he was her husband. And even if her tears are assumed,
what of that? What's a woman to do? Of course she was wrong to marry
him. She was thirty-five, and had nothing, while he was sixty-five,
and was very rich. According to all accounts she made him a very good
wife, and now that she's got all his money, you wouldn't have her go
about laughing within three months of his death."
"No; I wouldn't have her laugh; but neither would I have her cry.
And she's quite right to wear weeds; but she needn't be so very
outrageous in the depth of her hems, or so very careful that her caps
are becoming. Her eyes will be worn out by their double service. They
are always red with weeping, and yet she is ready every minute with a
full battery of execution for any man that she sees."
"Then why have you consented to go to Yarmouth with her?"
"Just because she's got forty thousand pounds. If Mr. Greenow had left
her with a bare maintenance I don't suppose I should ever have held
out my hand to her."
"Then you're as bad as she is."
"Quite as bad;--and that's what makes me want to run away. But it
isn't my own fault altogether. It's the fault of the world at large.
Does anybody ever drop their rich relatives? When she proposed to
take me to Yarmouth, wasn't it natural that the squire should ask me
to go? When I told George, wasn't it natural that he should say, 'Oh,
go by all means. She's got forty thousand pounds!' One can't pretend
to be wiser or better than one's relatives. And after all what can I
expect from her money?"
"Nothing, I should say."
"Not a halfpenny. I'm nearly thirty and she's only forty, and of
course she'll marry again. I will say of myself, too, that no person
living cares less for money."
"I should think no one."
"Yet one sticks to one's rich relatives. It's the way of the world."
Then she paused a moment. "But shall I tell you, Alice, why I do
stick to her? Perhaps you'll think the object as mean as though I
wanted her money myself."
"Why is it?"
"Because it is on the cards that she may help George in his career. I
do not want money, but he may. And for such purposes as his, I think
it fair that all the family should contribute. I feel sure that he
would make a name for himself in Parliament; and if I had my way I
would spend every shilling of Vavasor money in putting him there.
When I told the squire so I thought he would have eaten me. I really
did think he would have turned me out of the house."
"And serve you right too after what had happened."
"I didn't care. Let him turn me out. I was determined he should know
what I thought. He swore at me; and then he was so unhappy at what
he had done that he came and kissed me that night in my bedroom, and
gave me a ten-pound note. What do you think I did with it? I sent it
as a contribution to the next election and George has it now locked
up in a box. Don't you tell him that I told you."
Then they stopped and leaned for a while over the parapet of the
bridge. "Come here, George," said Kate; and she made room for him
between herself and Alice. "Wouldn't you like to be swimming down
there as those boys were doing when we went out into the balcony? The
water looks so enticing."
"I can't say I should;--unless it might be a pleasant way of swimming
into the next world."
"I should so like to feel myself going with the stream," said Kate;
"particularly by this light. I can't fancy in the least that I should
be drowned."
"I can't fancy anything else," said Alice.
"It would be so pleasant to feel the water gliding along one's limbs,
and to be carried away headlong,--knowing that you were on the direct
road to Rotterdam."
"And so arrive there without your clothes," said George.
"They would be brought after in a boat. Didn't you see that those
boys had a boat with them? But if I lived here, I'd never do it
except by moonlight. The water looks so clear and bright now, and the
rushing sound of it is so soft! The sea at Yarmouth won't be anything
like that I suppose."
Neither of them any longer answered her, and yet she went on talking
about the river, and their aunt, and her prospects at Yarmouth.
Neither of them answered her, and yet it seemed that they had not a
word to say to each other. But still they stood there looking down
upon the river, and every now and then Kate's voice was to be heard,
preventing the feeling which might otherwise have arisen that their
hearts were too full for speech.
At last Alice seemed to shiver. There was a slight trembling in her
arms, which George felt rather than saw. "You are cold," he said.
"No indeed."
"If you are let us go in. I thought you shivered with the night air."
"It wasn't that. I was thinking of something. Don't you ever think of
things that make you shiver?"
"Indeed I do, very often;--so often that I have to do my shiverings
inwardly. Otherwise people would think I had the palsy."
"I don't mean things of moment," said Alice. "Little bits of things
make me do it;--perhaps a word that I said and ought not to have said
ten years ago;--the most ordinary little mistakes, even my own past
thoughts to myself about the merest trifles. They are always making
me shiver."
"It's not because you have committed any murder then."
"No; but it's my conscience all the same, I suppose."
"Ah! I'm not so good as you. I doubt it's not my conscience at all.
When I think of a chance I've let go by, as I have thousands, then it
is that I shiver. But, as I tell you, I shiver inwardly. I've been in
one long shiver ever since we came out because of one chance that I
let go by. Come, we'll go in. We've to be up at five o'clock, and now
it's eleven. I'll do the rest of my shivering in bed."
"Are you tired of being out?" said Kate, when the other two began to
move.
"Not tired of being out, but George reminds me that we have to be up
at five."
"I wish George would hold his tongue. We can't come to the bridge
at Basle every night in our lives. If one found oneself at the top
of Sinai I'm afraid the first feeling would be one of fear lest one
wouldn't be down in time to dress for dinner. Are you aware, George,
that the king of rivers is running beneath your feet, and that the
moon is shining with a brilliance you never see at home?"
"I'll stay here all night if you'll put off going to-morrow," said
George.
"Our money wouldn't hold out," said Kate.
"Don't talk about Sinai any more after that," said he, "but let's go
in to bed."
They walked across the bridge back to the hotel in the same manner as
before, the two girls going together with the young man after them,
and so they went up the front steps of the hotel, through the hall,
and on to the stairs. Here George handed Alice her candle, and as he
did so he whispered a few words to her. "My shivering fit has to come
yet," said he, "and will last me the whole night." She would have
given much to be able to answer him lightly, as though what he had
said had meant nothing;--but she couldn't do it; the light speech
would not come to her. She was conscious of all this, and went away
to her own room without answering him at all. Here she sat down at
the window looking out upon the river till Kate should join her.
Their rooms opened through from one to the other, and she would not
begin her packing till her cousin should come.
But Kate had gone with her brother, promising, as she did so, that
she would be back in half a minute. That half minute was protracted
beyond half an hour. "If you'll take my advice," said Kate, at last,
standing up with her candle in her hand, "you'll ask her in plain
words to give you another chance. Do it to-morrow at Strasbourg;
you'll never have a better opportunity."
"And bid her throw John Grey over!"
"Don't say anything about John Grey; leave her to settle that matter
with herself. Believe me that she has quite courage enough to dispose
of John Grey, if she has courage enough to accept your offer."
"Kate, you women never understand each other. If I were to do that,
all her most powerful feelings would be arrayed in arms against me.
I must leave her to find out first that she wishes to be rid of her
engagement."
"She has found that out long ago. Do you think I don't know what she
wishes? But if you can't bring yourself to speak to her, she'll marry
him in spite of her wishes."
"Bring myself! I've never been very slow in bringing myself to speak
to any one when there was need. It isn't very pleasant sometimes, but
I do it, if I find occasion."
"But surely it must be pleasant with her. You must be glad to find
that she still loves you. You still love her, I suppose?"
"Upon my word I don't know."
"Don't provoke me, George. I'm moving heaven and earth to bring you
two together; but if I didn't think you loved her, I'd go to her at
once and bid her never see you again."
"Upon my word, Kate, I sometimes think it would be better if you'd
leave heaven and earth alone."
"Then I will. But of all human beings, surely you're the most
ungrateful."
"Why shouldn't she marry John Grey if she likes him?"
"But she doesn't like him. And I hate him. I hate the sound of his
voice, and the turn of his eye, and that slow, steady movement of
his,--as though he was always bethinking himself that he wouldn't
wear out his clothes."
"I don't see that your hating him ought to have anything to do with
it."
"If you're going to preach morals, I'll leave you. It's the darling
wish of my heart that she should be your wife. If you ever loved
anybody,--and I sometimes doubt whether you ever did,--but if you
did, you loved her."
"Did and do are different things."
"Very well, George; then I have done. It has been the same in every
twist and turn of my life. In everything that I have striven to do
for you, you have thrown yourself over, in order that I might be
thrown over too. But I believe you say this merely to vex me."
"Upon my word, Kate, I think you'd better go to bed."
"But not till I've told her everything. I won't leave her to be
deceived and ill-used again."
"Who is ill-using her now? Is it not the worst of ill-usage, trying
to separate her from that man?"
"No;--if I thought so, I would have no hand in doing it. She would
be miserable with him, and make him miserable as well. She does not
really love him. He loves her, but I've nothing to do with that. It's
nothing to me if he breaks his heart."
"I shall break mine if you don't let me go to bed."
With that she went away and hurried along the corridor, till she came
to her cousin's room. She found Alice still seated at the window, or
rather kneeling on the chair, with her head out through the lattice.
"Why, you lazy creature," said Kate; "I declare you haven't touched a
thing."
"You said we'd do it together."
"But he has kept me. Oh, what a man he is! If he ever does get
married, what will his wife do with him?"
"I don't think he ever will," said Alice.
"Don't you? I dare say you understand him better than I do. Sometimes
I think that the only thing wanting to make him thoroughly good, is a
wife. But it isn't every woman that would do for him. And the woman
who marries him should have high courage. There are moments with him
when he is very wild; but he never is cruel and never hard. Is Mr.
Grey ever hard?"
"Never; nor yet wild."
"Oh, certainly not that. I'm quite sure he's never wild."
"When you say that, Kate, I know that you mean to abuse him."
"No; upon my word. What's the good of abusing him to you? I like a
man to be wild,--wild in my sense. You knew that before."
"I wonder whether you'd like a wild man for yourself?"
"Ah! that's a question I've never asked myself. I've been often
curious to consider what sort of husband would suit you, but I've
had very few thoughts about a husband for myself. The truth is, I'm
married to George. Ever since--"
"Ever since what?"
"Since you and he were parted, I've had nothing to do in life but to
stick to him. And I shall do so to the end,--unless one thing should
happen."
"And what's that?"
"Unless you should become his wife after all. He will never marry
anybody else."
"Kate, you shouldn't allude to such a thing now. You know that it's
impossible."
"Well, perhaps so. As far as I'm concerned, it is all the better
for me. If George ever married, I should have nothing to do in the
world;--literally nothing--nothing--nothing--nothing!"
"Kate, don't talk in that way," and Alice came up to her and embraced
her.
"Go away," said she. "Go, Alice; you and I must part. I cannot bear
it any longer. You must know it all. When you are married to John
Grey, our friendship must be over. If you became George's wife I
should become nobody. I've nothing else in the world. You and he
would be so all-sufficient for each other, that I should drop away
from you like an old garment. But I'd give up all, everything, every
hope I have, to see you become George's wife. I know myself not to
be good. I know myself to be very bad, and yet I care nothing for
myself. Don't Alice, don't; I don't want your caresses. Caress him,
and I'll kneel at your feet and cover them with kisses." She had now
thrown herself upon a sofa, and had turned her face away to the wall.
"Kate, you shouldn't speak in that way."
"Of course I shouldn't,--but I do."
"You, who know everything, must know that I cannot marry your
brother,--even if he wished it."
"He does wish it."
"Not though I were under no other engagement."
"And why not?" said Kate, again starting up. "What is there to
separate you from George now, but that unfortunate affair, that will
end in the misery of you all. Do you think I can't see? Don't I know
which of the two men you like best?"
"You are making me sorry, Kate, that I have ventured to come here in
your brother's company. It is not only unkind of you to talk to me in
this way, but worse than that--it is indelicate."
"Oh, indelicate! How I do hate that word. If any word in the language
reminds me of a whited sepulchre it is that;--all clean and polished
outside with filth and rottenness within. Are your thoughts delicate?
that's the thing. You are engaged to marry John Grey. That may be
delicate enough if you love him truly, and feel yourself fitted to be
his wife; but it's about the most indelicate thing you can do, if you
love any one better than him. Delicacy with many women is like their
cleanliness. Nothing can be nicer than the whole outside get-up, but
you wouldn't wish to answer for anything beneath."
"If you think ill of me like that--"
"No; I don't think ill of you. How can I think ill of you when I know
that all your difficulties have come from him? It hasn't been your
fault; it has been his throughout. It is he who has driven you to
sacrifice yourself on this altar. If we can, both of us, manage to
lay aside all delicacy and pretence, and dare to speak the truth,
we shall acknowledge that it is so. Had Mr. Grey come to you while
things were smooth between you and George, would you have thought it
possible that he could be George's rival in your estimation? It is
Hyperion to Satyr."
"And which is the Satyr?"
"I'll leave your heart to tell you. You know what is the darling
wish of my heart. But, Alice, if I thought that Mr. Grey was to you
Hyperion,--if I thought that you could marry him with that sort of
worshipping, idolatrous love which makes a girl proud as well as
happy in her marriage, I wouldn't raise a little finger to prevent
it."
To this Alice made no answer, and then Kate allowed the matter to
drop. Alice made no answer, though she felt that she was allowing
judgement to go against her by default in not doing so. She had
intended to fight bravely, and to have maintained the excellence
of her present position as the affianced bride of Mr. Grey, but she
felt that she had failed. She felt that she had, in some sort,
acknowledged that the match was one to be deplored;--that her words
in her own defence would by no means have satisfied Mr. Grey, if Mr.
Grey could have heard them;--that they would have induced him to
offer her back her troth rather than have made him happy as a lover.
But she had nothing further to say. She could do something. She would
hurry home and bid him name the earliest day he pleased. After that
her cousin would cease to disturb her in her career.
It was nearly one o'clock before the two girls began to prepare for
their morning start, and Alice, when they had finished their packing,
seemed to be worn out with fatigue. "If you are tired, dear, we'll
put it off," said Kate. "Not for worlds," said Alice. "For half a
word we'll do it," continued Kate. "I'll slip out to George and tell
him, and there's nothing he'd like so much." But Alice would not
consent.
About two they got into bed, and punctually at six they were at the
railway station. "Don't speak to me," said George, when he met them
at their door in the passage. "I shall only yawn in your face."
However, they were in time,--which means abroad that they were at the
station half an hour before their train started,--and they went on
upon their journey to Strasbourg.
There is nothing further to be told of their tour. They were but two
days and nights on the road from Basle to London; and during those
two days and nights neither George nor Kate spoke a word to Alice of
her marriage, nor was any allusion made to the balcony at the inn, or
to the bridge over the river.
CHAPTER VII.
Aunt Greenow.
Kate Vavasor remained only three days in London before she started
for Yarmouth; and during those three days she was not much with her
cousin. "I'm my aunt's, body and soul, for the next six weeks," she
said to Alice, when she did come to Queen Anne Street on the morning
after her arrival. "And she is exigeant in a manner I can't at all
explain to you. You mustn't be surprised if I don't even write a
line. I've escaped by stealth now. She went up-stairs to try on some
new weeds for the seaside, and then I bolted." She did not say a
word about George; nor during those three days, nor for some days
afterwards, did George show himself. As it turned out afterwards, he
had gone off to Scotland, and had remained a week among the grouse.
Thus, at least, he had accounted for himself and his movements; but
all George Vavasor's friends knew that his goings out and comings in
were seldom accounted for openly like those of other men.
It will perhaps be as well to say a few words about Mrs. Greenow
before we go with her to Yarmouth. Mrs. Greenow was the only daughter
and the youngest child of the old squire at Vavasor Hall. She was
just ten years younger than her brother John, and I am inclined to
think that she was almost justified in her repeated assertion that
the difference was much greater than ten years, by the freshness of
her colour, and by the general juvenility of her appearance. She
certainly did not look forty, and who can expect a woman to proclaim
herself to be older than her looks? In early life she had been taken
from her father's house, and had lived with relatives in one of the
large towns in the north of England. It is certain she had not been
quite successful as a girl. Though she had enjoyed the name of being
a beauty, she had not the usual success which comes from such repute.
At thirty-four she was still unmarried. She had, moreover, acquired
the character of being a flirt; and I fear that the stories which
were told of her, though doubtless more than half false, had in
them sufficient of truth to justify the character. Now this was
very sad, seeing that Arabella Vavasor had no fortune, and that she
had offended her father and brothers by declining to comply with
their advice at certain periods of her career. There was, indeed,
considerable trouble in the minds of the various male Vavasors with
reference to Arabella, when tidings suddenly reached the Hall that
she was going to be married to an old man.
She was married to the old man; and the marriage fortunately turned
out satisfactorily, at any rate for the old man and for her family.
The Vavasors were relieved from all further trouble, and were as much
surprised as gratified when they heard that she did her duty well
in her new position. Arabella had long been a thorn in their side,
never having really done anything which they could pronounce to be
absolutely wrong, but always giving them cause for fear. Now they
feared no longer. Her husband was a retired merchant, very rich, not
very strong in health, and devoted to his bride. Rumours soon made
their way to Vavasor Hall, and to Queen Anne Street, that Mrs. Greenow
was quite a pattern wife, and that Mr. Greenow considered himself to
be the happiest old man in Lancashire. And now in her prosperity she
quite forgave the former slights which had been put upon her by her
relatives. She wrote to her dear niece Alice, and to her dearest
niece Kate, and sent little presents to her father. On one occasion
she took her husband to Vavasor Hall, and there was a regular renewal
of all the old family feelings. Arabella's husband was an old
man, and was very old for his age; but the whole thing was quite
respectable, and there was, at any rate, no doubt about the money.
Then Mr. Greenow died; and the widow, having proved the will, came up
to London and claimed the commiseration of her nieces.
"Why not go to Yarmouth with her for a month?" George had said to
Kate. "Of course it will be a bore. But an aunt with forty thousand
pounds has a right to claim attention." Kate acknowledged the truth
of the argument and agreed to go to Yarmouth for a month. "Your aunt
Arabella has shown herself to be a very sensible woman," the old
squire had written; "much more sensible than anybody thought her
before her marriage. Of course you should go with her if she asks
you." What aunt, uncle, or cousin, in the uncontrolled possession of
forty thousand pounds was ever unpopular in the family?
Yarmouth is not a very prepossessing place to the eye. To my eye,
at any rate, it is not so. There is an old town with which summer
visitors have little or nothing to do; and there are the new houses
down by the sea-side, to which, at any rate, belongs the full
advantage of sea air. A kind of esplanade runs for nearly a mile
along the sands, and there are built, or in the course of building,
rows of houses appropriated to summer visitors all looking out upon
the sea. There is no beauty unless the yellow sandy sea can be called
beautiful. The coast is low and straight, and the east wind blows
full upon it. But the place is healthy; and Mrs. Greenow was probably
right in thinking that she might there revive some portion of the
health which she had lost in watching beside the couch of her
departing lord.
"Omnibus;--no, indeed. Jeannette, get me a fly." These were the first
words Mrs. Greenow spoke as she put her foot upon the platform at the
Yarmouth station. Her maid's name was Jenny; but Kate had already
found, somewhat to her dismay, that orders had been issued before
they left London that the girl was henceforth to be called Jeannette.
Kate had also already found that her aunt could be imperious; but
this taste for masterdom had not shown itself so plainly in London
as it did from the moment that the train had left the station at
Shoreditch. In London Mrs. Greenow had been among Londoners, and her
career had hitherto been provincial. Her spirit, no doubt, had been
somewhat cowed by the novelty of her position. But when she felt
herself to be once beyond the stones as the saying used to be, she
was herself again; and at Ipswich she had ordered Jeannette to get
her a glass of sherry with an air which had created a good deal of
attention among the guards and porters.
The fly was procured; and with considerable exertion all Mrs.
Greenow's boxes, together with the more moderate belongings of her
niece and maid, were stowed on the top of it, round upon the driver's
body on the coach box, on the maid's lap, and I fear in Kate's also,
and upon the vacant seat.
"The large house in Montpelier Parade," said Mrs. Greenow.
"They is all large, ma'am," said the driver.
"The largest," said Mrs. Greenow.
"They're much of a muchness," said the driver.
"Then Mrs. Jones's," said Mrs. Greenow. "But I was particularly told
it was the largest in the row."
"I know Mrs. Jones's well," said the driver, and away they went.
Mrs. Jones's house was handsome and comfortable; but I fear Mrs.
Greenow's satisfaction in this respect was impaired by her
disappointment in finding that it was not perceptibly bigger than
those to the right and left of her. Her ambition in this and in
other similar matters would have amused Kate greatly had she been
a bystander, and not one of her aunt's party. Mrs. Greenow was
good-natured, liberal, and not by nature selfish; but she was
determined not to waste the good things which fortune had given, and
desired that all the world should see that she had forty thousand
pounds of her own. And in doing this she was repressed by no
feeling of false shame. She never hesitated in her demands through
bashfulness. She called aloud for such comfort and grandeur as
Yarmouth could afford her, and was well pleased that all around
should hear her calling. Joined to all this was her uncontrolled
grief for her husband's death.
"Dear Greenow! sweet lamb! Oh, Kate, if you'd only known that man!"
When she said this she was sitting in the best of Mrs. Jones's
sitting-rooms, waiting to have dinner announced. She had taken a
drawing-room and dining-room, "because," as she had said, "she didn't
see why people should be stuffy when they went to the seaside;--not
if they had means to make themselves comfortable."
"Oh, Kate, I do wish you'd known him!"
"I wish I had," said Kate,--very untruly. "I was unfortunately away
when he went to Vavasor Hall."
"Ah, yes; but it was at home, in the domestic circle, that Greenow
should have been seen to be appreciated. I was a happy woman,
Kate, while that lasted." And Kate was surprised to see that real
tears--one or two on each side--were making their way down her
aunt's cheeks. But they were soon checked with a handkerchief of the
broadest hem and of the finest cambric.
"Dinner, ma'am," said Jeannette, opening the door.
"Jeannette, I told you always to say that dinner was served."
"Dinner's served then," said Jeannette in a tone of anger.
"Come, Kate," said her aunt. "I've but little appetite myself, but
there's no reason you shouldn't eat your dinner. I specially wrote to
Mrs. Jones to have some sweetbread. I do hope she's got a decent cook.
It's very little I eat myself, but I do like to see things nice."
The next day was Sunday; and it was beautiful to see how Mrs. Greenow
went to church in all the glory of widowhood. There had been a great
unpacking after that banquet on the sweetbread, and all her funereal
millinery had been displayed before Kate's wondering eyes. The charm
of the woman was in this,--that she was not in the least ashamed of
anything that she did. She turned over all her wardrobe of mourning,
showing the richness of each article, the stiffness of the crape,
the fineness of the cambric, the breadth of the frills,--telling the
price of each to a shilling, while she explained how the whole had
been amassed without any consideration of expense. This she did with
all the pride of a young bride when she shows the glories of her
trousseau to the friend of her bosom. Jeannette stood by the while,
removing one thing and exhibiting another. Now and again through the
performance, Mrs. Greenow would rest a while from her employment, and
address the shade of the departed one in terms of most endearing
affection. In the midst of this Mrs. Jones came in; but the widow was
not a whit abashed by the presence of the stranger. "Peace be to his
manes!" she said at last, as she carefully folded up a huge black
crape mantilla. She made, however, but one syllable of the classical
word, and Mrs. Jones thought that her lodger had addressed herself to
the mortal "remains" of her deceased lord.
[Illustration: "Peace be to his manes."]
"He is left her uncommon well off, I suppose," said Mrs. Jones to
Jeannette.
"You may say that, ma'am. It's more nor a hundred thousand of
pounds!"
"No!"
"Pounds of sterling, ma'am! Indeed it is;--to my knowledge."
"Why don't she have a carriage?"
"So she do;--but a lady can't bring her carriage down to the sea when
she's only just buried her husband as one may say. What'd folks say
if they saw her in her own carriage? But it ain't because she can't
afford it, Mrs. Jones. And now we're talking of it you must order a
fly for church to-morrow, that'll look private, you know. She said I
was to get a man that had a livery coat and gloves."
The man with the coat and gloves was procured; and Mrs. Greenow's
entry into church made quite a sensation. There was a thoughtfulness
about her which alone showed that she was a woman of no ordinary
power. She foresaw all necessities, and made provision for all
emergencies. Another would not have secured an eligible sitting, and
been at home in Yarmouth church, till half the period of her sojourn
there was over. But Mrs. Greenow had done it all. She walked up the
middle aisle with as much self-possession as though the chancel had
belonged to her family for years; and the respectable pew-opener
absolutely deserted two or three old ladies whom she was attending,
to show Mrs. Greenow into her seat. When seated, she was the cynosure
of all eyes. Kate Vavasor became immediately aware that a great
sensation had been occasioned by their entrance, and equally aware
that none of it was due to her. I regret to say that this feeling
continued to show itself throughout the whole service. How many
ladies of forty go to church without attracting the least attention!
But it is hardly too much to say that every person in that church had
looked at Mrs. Greenow. I doubt if there was present there a single
married lady who, on leaving the building, did not speak to her
husband of the widow. There had prevailed during the whole two hours
a general though unexpressed conviction that something worthy of
remark had happened that morning. It had an effect even upon the
curate's reading; and the incumbent, while preaching his sermon,
could not keep his eyes off that wonderful bonnet and veil.
On the next morning, before eleven, Mrs. Greenow's name was put down
at the Assembly Room. "I need hardly say that in my present condition
I care nothing for these things. Of course I would sooner be alone.
But, my dear Kate, I know what I owe to you."
Kate, with less intelligence than might have been expected from one
so clever, began to assure her aunt that she required no society;
and that, coming thus with her to the seaside in the early days of
her widowhood, she had been well aware that they would live retired.
But Mrs. Greenow soon put her down, and did so without the slightest
feeling of shame or annoyance on her own part. "My dear," she said,
"in this matter you must let me do what I know to be right. I should
consider myself to be very selfish if I allowed my grief to interfere
with your amusements."
"But, aunt, I don't care for such amusements."
"That's nonsense, my dear. You ought to care for them. How are you to
settle yourself in life if you don't care for them?"
"My dear aunt, I am settled."
"Settled!" said Mrs. Greenow, astounded, as though there must have
been some hidden marriage of which she had not heard. "But that's
nonsense. Of course you're not settled; and how are you to be, if I
allow you to shut yourself up in such a place as this,--just where a
girl has a chance?"
It was in vain that Kate tried to stop her. It was not easy to stop
Mrs. Greenow when she was supported by the full assurance of being
mistress of the place and of the occasion. "No, my dear; I know very
well what I owe to you, and I shall do my duty. As I said before,
society can have no charms now for such a one as I am. All that
social intercourse could ever do for me lies buried in my darling's
grave. My heart is desolate, and must remain so. But I'm not going to
immolate you on the altars of my grief. I shall force myself to go
out for your sake, Kate."
"But, dear aunt, the world will think it so odd, just at present."
"I don't care twopence for the world. What can the world do to me?
I'm not dependent on the world,--thanks to the care of that sainted
lamb. I can hold my own; and as long as I can do that the world won't
hurt me. No, Kate, if I think a thing's right I shall do it. I mean
to make the place pleasant for you if I can, and the world may object
if it likes."
Mrs. Greenow was probably right in her appreciation of the value of
her independence. Remarks may perhaps have been made by the world of
Yarmouth as to her early return to society. People, no doubt, did
remind each other that old Greenow was hardly yet four months buried.
Mrs. Jones and Jeannette probably had their little jokes down-stairs.
But this did not hurt Mrs. Greenow. What was said, was not said in her
hearing, Mrs. Jones's bills were paid every Saturday with admirable
punctuality; and as long as this was done everybody about the
house treated the lady with that deference which was due to the
respectability of her possessions. When a recently bereaved widow
attempts to enjoy her freedom without money, then it behoves the
world to speak aloud;--and the world does its duty.
Numerous people came to call at Montpelier Parade, and Kate was
astonished to find that her aunt had so many friends. She was indeed
so bewildered by these strangers that she could hardly ascertain whom
her aunt had really known before, and whom she now saw for the first
time. Somebody had known somebody who had known somebody else, and
that was allowed to be a sufficient introduction,--always presuming
that the existing somebody was backed by some known advantages of
money or position. Mrs. Greenow could smile from beneath her widow's
cap in a most bewitching way. "Upon my word then she is really
handsome," Kate wrote one day to Alice. But she could also frown, and
knew well how to put aside, or, if need be, to reprobate any attempt
at familiarity from those whose worldly circumstances were supposed
to be disadvantageous.
"My dear aunt," said Kate one morning after their walk upon the pier,
"how you did snub that Captain Bellfield!"
"Captain Bellfield, indeed! I don't believe he's a captain at all. At
any rate he has sold out, and the tradesmen have had a scramble for
the money. He was only a lieutenant when the 97th were in Manchester,
and I'm sure he's never had a shilling to purchase since that."
"But everybody here seems to know him."
"Perhaps they do not know so much of him as I do. The idea of his
having the impudence to tell me I was looking very well! Nothing can
be so mean as men who go about in that way when they haven't money
enough in their pockets to pay their washerwomen."
"But how do you know, aunt, that Captain Bellfield hasn't paid his
washerwoman?"
"I know more than you think, my dear. It's my business. How could I
tell whose attentions you should receive and whose you shouldn't, if
I didn't inquire into these things?"
It was in vain that Kate rebelled, or attempted to rebel against this
more than maternal care. She told her aunt that she was now nearly
thirty, and that she had managed her own affairs, at any rate with
safety, for the last ten years;--but it was to no purpose. Kate would
get angry; but Mrs. Greenow never became angry. Kate would be quite
in earnest; but Mrs. Greenow would push aside all that her niece said
as though it were worth nothing. Kate was an unmarried woman with a
very small fortune, and therefore, of course, was desirous of being
married with as little delay as possible. It was natural that she
should deny that it was so, especially at this early date in their
mutual acquaintance. When the niece came to know her aunt more
intimately, there might be confidence between them, and then they
would do better. But Mrs. Greenow would spare neither herself nor her
purse on Kate's behalf, and she would be a dragon of watchfulness in
protecting her from the evil desires of such useless men as Captain
Bellfield.
"I declare, Kate, I don't understand you," she said one morning to
her niece as they sat together over a late breakfast. They had fallen
into luxurious habits, and I am afraid it was past eleven o'clock,
although the breakfast things were still on the table. Kate would
usually bathe before breakfast, but Mrs. Greenow was never out of her
room till half-past ten. "I like the morning for contemplation," she
once said. "When a woman has gone through all that I have suffered
she has a great deal to think of." "And it is so much more
comfortable to be a-thinking when one's in bed," said Jeannette, who
was present at the time. "Child, hold your tongue," said the widow.
"Yes, ma'am," said Jeannette. But we'll return to the scene at the
breakfast-table.
"What don't you understand, aunt?"
"You only danced twice last night, and once you stood up with Captain
Bellfield."
"On purpose to ask after that poor woman who washes his clothes
without getting paid for it."
"Nonsense, Kate; you didn't ask him anything of the kind, I'm sure.
It's very provoking. It is indeed."
"But what harm can Captain Bellfield do me?"
"What good can he do you? That's the question. You see, my dear,
years will go by. I don't mean to say you ain't quite as young
as ever you were, and nothing can be nicer and fresher than you
are;--especially since you took to bathing."
"Oh, aunt, don't!"
"My dear, the truth must be spoken. I declare I don't think I ever
saw a young woman so improvident as you are. When are you to begin to
think about getting married if you don't do it now?"
"I shall never begin to think about it, till I buy my wedding
clothes."
"That's nonsense,--sheer nonsense. How are you to get wedding clothes
if you have never thought about getting a husband? Didn't I see Mr.
Cheesacre ask you for a dance last night?"
"Yes, he did; while you were talking to Captain Bellfield yourself,
aunt."
"Captain Bellfield can't hurt me, my dear. And why didn't you dance
with Mr. Cheesacre?"
"He's a fat Norfolk farmer, with not an idea beyond the virtues of
stall-feeding."
"My dear, every acre of it is his own land,--every acre! And he
bought another farm for thirteen thousand pounds only last autumn.
They're better than the squires,--some of those gentlemen farmers;
they are indeed. And of all men in the world they're the easiest
managed."
"That's a recommendation, no doubt."
"Of course it is;--a great recommendation."
Mrs. Greenow had no idea of joking when her mind was intent on serious
things. "He's to take us to the picnic to-morrow, and I do hope
you'll manage to let him sit beside you. It'll be the place of
honour, because he gives all the wine. He's picked up with that
man Bellfield, and he's to be there; but if you allow your name to
be once mixed up with his, it will be all over with you as far as
Yarmouth is concerned."
"I don't at all want to be mixed up with Captain Bellfield, as you
call it," said Kate. Then she subsided into her novel, while Mrs.
Greenow busied herself about the good things for the picnic. In
truth, the aunt did not understand the niece. Whatsoever might be the
faults of Kate Vavasor, an unmaidenly desire of catching a husband
for herself was certainly not one of them.
CHAPTER VIII.
Mr. Cheesacre.
Yarmouth is not a happy place for a picnic. A picnic should be held
among green things. Green turf is absolutely an essential. There
should be trees, broken ground, small paths, thickets, and hidden
recesses. There should, if possible, be rocks, old timber, moss, and
brambles. There should certainly be hills and dales,--on a small
scale; and above all, there should be running water. There should be
no expanse. Jones should not be able to see all Greene's movements,
nor should Augusta always have her eye upon her sister Jane. But the
spot chosen for Mr. Cheesacre's picnic at Yarmouth had none of the
virtues above described. It was on the seashore. Nothing was visible
from the site but sand and sea. There were no trees there and nothing
green;--neither was there any running water. But there was a long,
dry, flat strand; there was an old boat half turned over, under which
it was proposed to dine; and in addition to this, benches, boards,
and some amount of canvas for shelter were provided by the liberality
of Mr. Cheesacre. Therefore it was called Mr. Cheesacre's picnic.
But it was to be a marine picnic, and therefore the essential
attributes of other picnics were not required. The idea had come from
some boating expeditions, in which mackerel had been caught, and
during which food had been eaten, not altogether comfortably, in the
boats. Then a thought had suggested itself to Captain Bellfield that
they might land and eat their food, and his friend Mr. Cheesacre had
promised his substantial aid. A lady had surmised that Ormesby sands
would be the very place for dancing in the cool of the evening. They
might "Dance on the sand," she said, "and yet no footing seen." And
so the thing had progressed, and the picnic been inaugurated.
It was Mr. Cheesacre's picnic undoubtedly. Mr. Cheesacre was to supply
the boats, the wine, the cigars, the music, and the carpenter's work
necessary for the turning of the old boat into a banqueting saloon.
But Mrs. Greenow had promised to provide the eatables, and enjoyed as
much of the _éclat_ as the master of the festival. She had known Mr.
Cheesacre now for ten days and was quite intimate with him. He was a
stout, florid man, of about forty-five, a bachelor, apparently much
attached to ladies' society, bearing no sign of age except that he
was rather bald, and that grey hairs had mixed themselves with his
whiskers, very fond of his farming, and yet somewhat ashamed of it
when he found himself in what he considered to be polite circles. And
he was, moreover, a little inclined to seek the honour which comes
from a well-filled and liberally-opened purse. He liked to give a man
a dinner and then to boast of the dinner he had given. He was very
proud when he could talk of having mounted, for a day's hunting, any
man who might be supposed to be of higher rank than himself. "I had
Grimsby with me the other day,--the son of old Grimsby of Hatherwick,
you know. Blessed if he didn't stake my bay mare. But what matters? I
mounted him again the next day just the same." Some people thought he
was soft, for it was very well known throughout Norfolk that young
Grimsby would take a mount wherever he could get it. In these days
Mrs. Greenow had become intimate with Mr. Cheesacre, and had already
learned that he was the undoubted owner of his own acres.
"It wouldn't do for me," she had said to him, "to be putting myself
forward, as if I were giving a party myself, or anything of that
sort;--would it now?"
"Well, perhaps not. But you might come with us."
"So I will, Mr. Cheesacre, for that dear girl's sake. I should never
forgive myself if I debarred her from all the pleasures of youth,
because of my sorrows. I need hardly say that at such a time as this
nothing of that sort can give me any pleasure."
"I suppose not," said Mr. Cheesacre, with solemn look.
"Quite out of the question." And Mrs. Greenow wiped away her tears.
"For though as regards age I might dance on the sands as merrily as
the best of them--"
"That I'm sure you could, Mrs. Greenow."
"How's a woman to enjoy herself if her heart lies buried?"
"But it won't be so always, Mrs. Greenow."
Mrs. Greenow shook her head to show that she hardly knew how to answer
such a question. Probably it would be so always;--but she did not
wish to put a damper on the present occasion by making so sad a
declaration. "But as I was saying," continued she--"if you and I do
it between us won't that be the surest way of having it come off
nicely?"
Mr. Cheesacre thought that it would be the best way.
"Exactly so;--I'll do the meat and pastry and fruit, and you shall do
the boats and the wine."
"And the music," said Cheesacre, "and the expenses at the place." He
did not choose that any part of his outlay should go unnoticed.
"I'll go halves in all that if you like," said Mrs. Greenow. But Mr.
Cheesacre had declined this. He did not begrudge the expense, but
only wished that it should be recognised.
"And, Mr. Cheesacre," continued Mrs. Greenow. "I did mean to send the
music; I did, indeed."
"I couldn't hear of it, Mrs. Greenow."
"But I mention it now, because I was thinking of getting Blowehard
to come. That other man, Flutey, wouldn't do at all out in the open
air."
"It shall be Blowehard," said Mr. Cheesacre; and it was Blowehard. Mrs.
Greenow liked to have her own way in these little things, though her
heart did lie buried.
On the morning of the picnic Mr. Cheesacre came down to Montpelier
Parade with Captain Bellfield, whose linen on that occasion certainly
gave no outward sign of any quarrel between him and his washerwoman.
He was got up wonderfully, and was prepared at all points for the
day's work. He had on a pseudo-sailor's jacket, very liberally
ornamented with brass buttons, which displayed with great judgement
the exquisite shapes of his pseudo-sailor's duck trousers. Beneath
them there was a pair of very shiny patent-leather shoes, well
adapted for dancing on the sand, presuming him to be anxious of
doing so, as Venus offered to do, without leaving any footmarks. His
waistcoat was of a delicate white fabric, ornamented with very many
gilt buttons. He had bejewelled studs in his shirt, and yellow kid
gloves on his hands; having, of course, another pair in his pocket
for the necessities of the evening. His array was quite perfect, and
had stricken dismay into the heart of his friend Cheesacre, when he
joined that gentleman. He was a well-made man, nearly six feet high,
with dark hair, dark whiskers, and dark moustache, nearly black, but
of that suspicious hue which to the observant beholder seems always
to tell a tale of the hairdresser's shop. He was handsome, too, with
well-arranged features,--but carrying, perhaps, in his nose some
first symptoms of the effects of midnight amusements. Upon the whole,
however, he was a nice man to look at--for those who like to look on
nice men of that kind.
Cheesacre, too, had adopted something of a sailor's garb. He had on
a jacket of a rougher sort, coming down much lower than that of the
captain, being much looser, and perhaps somewhat more like a garment
which a possible seaman might possibly wear. But he was disgusted
with himself the moment that he saw Bellfield. His heart had been
faint, and he had not dared to ornament himself boldly as his friend
had done. "I say, Guss, you are a swell," he exclaimed. It may be
explained that Captain Bellfield had been christened Gustavus.
"I don't know much about that," said the captain; "my fellow sent me
this toggery, and said that it was the sort of thing. I'll change
with you if you like it." But Cheesacre could not have worn that
jacket, and he walked on, hating himself.
It will be remembered that Mrs. Greenow had spoken with considerable
severity of Captain Bellfield's pretensions when discussing his
character with her niece; but, nevertheless, on the present occasion
she received him with most gracious smiles. It may be that her
estimate of his character had been altered, or that she was making
sacrifice of her own feelings in consideration of Mr. Cheesacre, who
was known to be the captain's intimate friend. But she had smiles for
both of them. She had a wondrous power of smiling; and could, upon
occasion, give signs of peculiar favour to half a dozen different
gentlemen in as many minutes. They found her in the midst of hampers
which were not yet wholly packed, while Mrs. Jones, Jeannette, and the
cook of the household moved around her, on the outside of the circle,
ministering to her wants. She had in her hand an outspread clean
napkin, and she wore fastened round her dress a huge coarse apron,
that she might thus be protected from some possible ebullition of
gravy, or escape of salad mixture, or cream; but in other respects
she was clothed in the fullest honours of widowhood. She had not
mitigated her weeds by half an inch. She had scorned to make any
compromise between the world of pleasure and the world of woe. There
she was, a widow, declared by herself to be of four months' standing,
with a buried heart, making ready a dainty banquet with skill and
liberality. She was ready on the instant to sit down upon the baskets
in which the grouse pie had been just carefully inhumed, and talked
about her sainted lamb with a deluge of tears. If anybody didn't like
it, that person--might do the other thing. Mr. Cheesacre and Captain
Bellfield thought that they did like it.
"Oh, Mr. Cheesacre, if you haven't caught me before I've half done!
Captain Bellfield, I hope you think my apron becoming."
"Everything that you wear, Mrs. Greenow, is always becoming."
"Don't talk in that way when you know--; but never mind--we will
think of nothing sad to-day if we can help it. Will we, Mr.
Cheesacre?"
"Oh dear no; I should think not;--unless it should come on to rain."
"It won't rain--we won't think of such a thing. But, by the by,
Captain Bellfield, I and my niece do mean to send out a few things,
just in a bag you know, so that we may tidy ourselves up a little
after the sea. I don't want it mentioned, because if it gets about
among the other ladies, they'd think we wanted to make a dressing of
it;--and there wouldn't be room for them all; would there?"
"No; there wouldn't," said Mr. Cheesacre, who had been out on the
previous evening, inspecting, and perhaps limiting, the carpenters
in their work.
"That's just it," said Mrs. Greenow. "But there won't be any harm,
will there, Mr. Cheesacre, in Jeanette's going out with our things?
She'll ride in the cart, you know, with the eatables. I know
Jeannette's a friend of yours."
"We shall be delighted to have Jeanette," said Mr. Cheesacre.
"Thank ye, sir," said Jeannette, with a curtsey.
"Jeannette, don't you let Mr. Cheesacre turn your head; and mind you
behave yourself and be useful. Well; let me see;--what else is there?
Mrs. Jones, you might as well give me that ham now. Captain Bellfield,
hand it over. Don't you put it into the basket, because you'd turn it
the wrong side down. There now, if you haven't nearly made me upset
the apricot pie." Then, in the transfer of the dishes between the
captain and the widow, there occurred some little innocent by-play,
which seemed to give offence to Mr. Cheesacre; so that that gentleman
turned his back upon the hampers and took a step away towards the
door.
Mrs. Greenow saw the thing at a glance, and immediately applied
herself to cure the wound. "What do you think, Mr. Cheesacre," said
she, "Kate wouldn't come down because she didn't choose that you
should see her with an apron on over her frock!"
"I'm sure I don't know why Miss Vavasor should care about my seeing
her."
"Nor I either. That's just what I said. Do step up into the
drawing-room; you'll find her there, and you can make her answer for
herself."
"She wouldn't come down for me," said Mr. Cheesacre. But he didn't
stir. Perhaps he wasn't willing to leave his friend with the widow.
At length the last of the dishes was packed and Mrs. Greenow went
up-stairs with the two gentlemen. There they found Kate and two or
three other ladies who had promised to embark under the protection of
Mrs. Greenow's wings. There were the two Miss Fairstairs, whom Mrs.
Greenow had especially patronized, and who repaid that lady for her
kindness by an amount of outspoken eulogy which startled Kate by its
audacity.
"Your dear aunt!" Fanny Fairstairs had said on coming into the room.
"I don't think I ever came across a woman with such genuine milk of
human kindness!"
"Nor with so much true wit," said her sister Charlotte,--who had been
called Charlie on the sands of Yarmouth for the last twelve years.
When the widow came into the room, they flew at her and devoured her
with kisses, and swore that they had never seen her looking so well.
But as the bright new gloves which both the girls wore had been
presents from Mrs. Greenow, they certainly did owe her some affection.
There are not many ladies who would venture to bestow such gifts upon
their friends after so very short an acquaintance; but Mrs. Greenow
had a power that was quite her own in such matters. She was already
on a very confidential footing with the Miss Fairstairs, and had
given them much useful advice as to their future prospects.
And then was there a Mrs. Green, whose husband was first-lieutenant on
board a man-of-war on the West Indian Station. Mrs. Green was a quiet,
ladylike little woman, rather pretty, very silent, and, as one would
have thought, hardly adapted for the special intimacy of Mrs. Greenow.
But Mrs. Greenow had found out that she was alone, not very rich,
and in want of the solace of society. Therefore she had, from sheer
good-nature, forced herself upon Mrs. Green, and Mrs. Green, with much
trepidation, had consented to be taken to the picnic. "I know your
husband would like it," Mrs. Greenow had said, "and I hope I may live
to tell him that I made you go."
There came in also a brother of the Fairstairs girls, Joe Fairstairs,
a lanky, useless, idle young man, younger than them, who was supposed
to earn his bread in an attorney's office at Norwich, or rather to be
preparing to earn it at some future time, and who was a heavy burden
upon all his friends. "We told Joe to come to the house," said Fanny
to the widow, apologetically, "because we thought he might be useful
in carrying down the cloaks." Mrs. Greenow smiled graciously upon
Joe, and assured him that she was charmed to see him, without any
reference to such services as those mentioned.
And then they started. When they got to the door both Cheesacre and
the captain made an attempt to get possession of the widow's arm. But
she had it all arranged. Captain Bellfield found himself constrained
to attend to Mrs. Green, while Mr. Cheesacre walked down to the beach
beside Kate Vavasor. "I'll take your arm, Mr. Joe," said the widow,
"and the girls shall come with us." But when they got to the boats,
round which the other comers to the picnic were already assembled,
Mr. Cheesacre,--although both the boats were for the day his
own,--found himself separated from the widow. He got into that which
contained Kate Vavasor, and was shoved off from the beach while he
saw Captain Bellfield arranging Mrs. Greenow's drapery. He had
declared to himself that it should be otherwise; and that as he had
to pay the piper, the piper should play as he liked it. But Mrs.
Greenow with a word or two had settled it all, and Mr. Cheesacre had
found himself to be powerless. "How absurd Bellfield looks in that
jacket, doesn't he?" he said to Kate, as he took his seat in the boat.
"Do you think so? I thought it was so very pretty and becoming for
the occasion."
Mr. Cheesacre hated Captain Bellfield, and regretted more than ever
that he had not done something for his own personal adornment. He
could not endure to think that his friend, who paid for nothing,
should carry away the honours of the morning and defraud him of the
delights which should justly belong to him, "It may be becoming,"
said Cheesacre; "but don't you think it's awfully extravagant?"
"As to that I can't tell. You see I don't at all know what is the
price of a jacket covered all over with little brass buttons."
"And the waistcoat, Miss Vavasor!" said Cheesacre, almost solemnly.
"The waistcoat I should think must have been expensive."
"Oh, dreadful! and he's got nothing, Miss Vavasor; literally nothing.
Do you know,"--and he reduced his voice to a whisper as he made this
communication,--"I lent him twenty pounds the day before yesterday;
I did indeed. You won't mention it again, of course. I tell you,
because, as you are seeing a good deal of him just now, I think it
right that you should know on what sort of a footing he stands."
It's all fair, they say, in love and war, and this small breach of
confidence was, we must presume, a love stratagem on the part of Mr.
Cheesacre. He was at this time smitten with the charms both of the
widow and of the niece, and he constantly found that the captain was
interfering with him on whichever side he turned himself. On the
present occasion he had desired to take the widow for his share, and
was, upon the whole, inclined to think that the widow was the more
worthy of his attentions. He had made certain little inquiries within
the last day or two, the answers to which had been satisfactory.
These he had by no means communicated to his friend, to whom, indeed,
he had expressed an opinion that Mrs. Greenow was after all only a
flash in the pan. "She does very well pour passer le temps," the
captain had answered. Mr. Cheesacre had not quite understood the exact
gist of the captain's meaning, but had felt certain that his friend
was playing him false.
"I don't want it to be mentioned again, Miss Vavasor," he continued.
"Such things should not be mentioned at all," Kate replied,
having been angered at the insinuation that the nature of Captain
Bellfield's footing could be a matter of any moment to her.
"No, they shouldn't; and therefore I know that I'm quite safe with
you, Miss Vavasor. He's a very pleasant fellow, very; and has seen
the world,--uncommon; but he's better for eating and drinking with
than he is for buying and selling with, as we say in Norfolk. Do you
like Norfolk, Miss Vavasor?"
"I never was in it before, and now I've only seen Yarmouth."
"A nice place, Yarmouth, very; but you should come up and see our
lands. I suppose you don't know that we feed one-third of England
during the winter months."
"Dear me!"
"We do, though; nobody knows what a county Norfolk is. Taking it
altogether, including the game you know, and Lord Nelson, and its
watering-places and the rest of it, I don't think there's a county
in England to beat it. Fancy feeding one-third of all England and
Wales!"
"With bread and cheese, do you mean, and those sort of things?"
"Beef!" said Mr. Cheesacre, and in his patriotic energy he repeated
the word aloud. "Beef! Yes indeed; but if you were to tell them that
in London they wouldn't believe you. Ah! you should certainly come
down and see our lands. The 7.45 A.M. train would take you through
Norwich to my door, as one may say, and you would be back by the 6.22
P.M." In this way he brought himself back again into good-humour,
feeling, that in the absence of the widow, he could not do better
than make progress with the niece.
In the mean time Mrs. Greenow and the captain were getting on very
comfortably in the other boat. "Take an oar, Captain," one of the
men had said to him as soon as he had placed the ladies. "Not to-day,
Jack," he had answered. "I'll content myself with being bo'san this
morning." "The best thing as the bo'san does is to pipe all hands to
grog," said the man. "I won't be behind in that either," said the
captain; and so they all went on swimmingly.
"What a fine generous fellow your friend, Mr. Cheesacre, is!" said the
widow.
"Yes, he is; he's a capital fellow in his way. Some of these Norfolk
farmers are no end of good fellows."
"And I suppose he's something more than a common farmer. He's visited
by the people about where he lives, isn't he?"
"Oh, yes, in a sort of a way. The county people, you know, keep
themselves very much to themselves."
"That's of course. But his house;--he has a good sort of place,
hasn't he?"
"Yes, yes;--a very good house;--a little too near to the horse-pond
for my taste. But when a man gets his money out of the till, he
mustn't be ashamed of the counter;--must he, Mrs. Greenow?"
"But he could live like a gentleman if he let his own land, couldn't
he?"
"That depends upon how a gentleman wishes to live." Here the privacy
of their conversation was interrupted by an exclamation from a young
lady to the effect that Charlie Fairstairs was becoming sick. This
Charlie stoutly denied, and proved the truth of her assertion by her
behaviour. Soon after this they completed their marine adventures,
and prepared to land close to the spot at which the banquet was
prepared.
CHAPTER IX.
The Rivals.
There had been a pretence of fishing, but no fish had been caught.
It was soon found that such an amusement would interfere with the
ladies' dresses, and the affairs had become too serious to allow of
any trivial interruption. "I really think, Mr. Cheesacre," an anxious
mother had said, "that you'd better give it up. The water off the
nasty cord has got all over Maria's dress, already." Maria made a
faint protest that it did not signify in the least; but the fishing
was given up,--not without an inward feeling on the part of Mr.
Cheesacre that if Maria chose to come out with him in his boat,
having been invited especially to fish, she ought to have put up with
the natural results. "There are people who like to take everything
and never like to give anything," he said to Kate afterwards, as he
was walking up with her to the picnic dinner. But he was unreasonable
and unjust. The girls had graced his party with their best hats and
freshest muslins, not that they might see him catch a mackerel, but
that they might flirt and dance to the best advantage. "You can't
suppose that any girl will like to be drenched with sea-water when
she has taken so much trouble with her starch," said Kate. "Then she
shouldn't come fishing," said Mr. Cheesacre. "I hate such airs."
But when they arrived at the old boat, Mrs. Greenow shone forth
pre-eminently as the mistress of the occasion, altogether
overshadowing Mr. Cheesacre by the extent of her authority. There was
a little contest for supremacy between them, invisible to the eyes
of the multitude; but Mr. Cheesacre in such a matter had not a chance
against Mrs. Greenow. I am disposed to think that she would have
reigned even though she had not contributed to the eatables; but
with that point in her favour, she was able to make herself supreme.
Jeannette, too, was her servant, which was a great thing. Mr.
Cheesacre soon gave way; and though he bustled about and was
conspicuous, he bustled about in obedience to orders received, and
became a head servant. Captain Bellfield also made himself useful,
but he drove Mr. Cheesacre into paroxysms of suppressed anger by
giving directions, and by having those directions obeyed. A man to
whom he had lent twenty pounds the day before yesterday, and who had
not contributed so much as a bottle of champagne!
"We're to dine at four, and now it's half-past three," said Mrs.
Greenow, addressing herself to the multitude.
"And to begin to dance at six," said an eager young lady.
"Maria, hold your tongue," said the young lady's mother.
"Yes, we'll dine at four," said Mr. Cheesacre. "And as for the music,
I've ordered it to be here punctual at half-past five. We're to have
three horns, cymbals, triangle, and a drum."
"How very nice; isn't it, Mrs. Greenow?" said Charlie Fairstairs.
"And now suppose we begin to unpack," said Captain Bellfield. "Half
the fun is in arranging the things."
"Oh, dear, yes; more than half," said Fanny Fairstairs.
"Bellfield, don't mind about the hampers," said Cheesacre. "Wine is a
ticklish thing to handle, and there's my man there to manage it."
"It's odd if I don't know more about wine than the boots from the
hotel," said Bellfield. This allusion to the boots almost cowed Mr.
Cheesacre, and made him turn away, leaving Bellfield with the widow.
There was a great unpacking, during which Captain Bellfield and Mrs.
Greenow constantly had their heads in the same hamper. I by no means
intend to insinuate that there was anything wrong in this. People
engaged together in unpacking pies and cold chickens must have their
heads in the same hamper. But a great intimacy was thereby produced,
and the widow seemed to have laid aside altogether that prejudice
of hers with reference to the washerwoman. There was a long table
placed on the sand, sheltered by the upturned boat from the land
side, but open towards the sea, and over this, supported on poles,
there was an awning. Upon the whole the arrangement was not an
uncomfortable one for people who had selected so very uncomfortable
a dining-room as the sand of the sea-shore. Much was certainly due
to Mr. Cheesacre for the expenditure he had incurred,--and something
perhaps to Captain Bellfield for his ingenuity in having suggested
it.
Now came the placing of the guests for dinner, and Mr. Cheesacre
made another great effort. "I'll tell you what," he said, aloud,
"Bellfield and I will take the two ends of the table, and Mrs. Greenow
shall sit at my right hand." This was not only boldly done, but there
was a propriety in it which at first sight seemed to be irresistible.
Much as he had hated and did hate the captain, he had skilfully made
the proposition in such a way as to flatter him, and it seemed for a
few moments as though he were going to have it all his own way. But
Captain Bellfield was not a man to submit to defeat in such a matter
as this without an effort. "I don't think that will do," said he.
"Mrs. Greenow gives the dinner, and Cheesacre gives the wine. We must
have them at the two ends of the table. I am sure Mrs. Greenow won't
refuse to allow me to hand her to the place which belongs to her. I
will sit at her right hand and be her minister." Mrs. Greenow did not
refuse,--and so the matter was adjusted.
Mr. Cheesacre took his seat in despair. It was nothing to him that
he had Kate Vavasor at his left hand. He liked talking to Kate very
well, but he could not enjoy that pleasure while Captain Bellfield
was in the very act of making progress with the widow. "One would
think that he had given it himself; wouldn't you?" he said to Maria's
mother, who sat at his right hand.
The lady did not in the least understand him. "Given what?" said she.
"Why, the music and the wine and all the rest of it. There are some
people full of that kind of impudence. How they manage to carry it on
without ever paying a shilling, I never could tell. I know I have to
pay my way, and something over and beyond generally."
Maria's mother said, "Yes, indeed." She had other daughters there
besides Maria, and was looking down the table to see whether they
were judiciously placed. Her beauty, her youngest one, Ophelia, was
sitting next to that ne'er-do-well Joe Fairstairs, and this made
her unhappy. "Ophelia, my dear, you are dreadfully in the draught;
there's a seat up here, just opposite, where you'll be more
comfortable."
"There's no draught here, mamma," said Ophelia, without the slightest
sign of moving. Perhaps Ophelia liked the society of that lanky,
idle, useless young man.
The mirth of the table certainly came from Mrs. Greenow's end. The
widow had hardly taken her place before she got up again and changed
with the captain. It was found that the captain could better carve
the great grouse pie from the end than from the side. Cheesacre, when
he saw this, absolutely threw down his knife and fork violently upon
the table. "Is anything the matter?" said Maria's mother.
"Matter!" said he. Then he shook his head in grief of heart and
vexation of spirit, and resumed his knife and fork. Kate watched
it all, and was greatly amused. "I never saw a man so nearly
broken-hearted," she said, in her letter to Alice the next day.
"Eleven, thirteen, eighteen, twenty-one," said Cheesacre to himself,
reckoning up in his misery the number of pounds sterling which he
would have to pay for being ill-treated in this way.
"Ladies and gentlemen," said Captain Bellfield, as soon as the eating
was over, "if I may be permitted to get upon my legs for two minutes,
I am going to propose a toast to you." The real patron of the feast
had actually not yet swallowed his last bit of cheese. The thing was
indecent in the violence of its injustice.
[Illustration: Captain Bellfield proposes a toast.]
"If you please, Captain Bellfield," said the patron, indifferent to
the cheese in his throat, "I'll propose the toast."
"Nothing on earth could be better, my dear fellow," said the captain,
"and I'm sure I should be the last man in the world to take the job
out of the hands of one who would do it so much better than I can;
but as it's your health that we're going to drink, I really don't see
how you are to do it."
Cheesacre grunted and sat down. He certainly could not propose his
own health, nor did he complain of the honour that was to be done
him. It was very proper that his health should be drunk, and he had
now to think of the words in which he would return thanks. But the
extent of his horror may be imagined when Bellfield got up and made a
most brilliant speech in praise of Mrs. Greenow. For full five minutes
he went on without mentioning the name of Cheesacre. Yarmouth, he
said, had never in his days been so blessed as it had been this year
by the presence of the lady who was now with them. She had come among
them, he declared, forgetful of herself and of her great sorrows,
with the sole desire of adding something to the happiness of others.
Then Mrs. Greenow had taken out her pocket-handkerchief, sweeping back
the broad ribbons of her cap over her shoulders. Altogether the scene
was very affecting, and Cheesacre was driven to madness. They were
the very words that he had intended to speak himself.
"I hate all this kind of thing," he said to Kate. "It's so fulsome."
"After-dinner speeches never mean anything," said Kate.
At last, when Bellfield had come to an end of praising Mrs. Greenow,
he told the guests that he wished to join his friend Mr. Cheesacre in
the toast, the more so as it could hardly be hoped that Mrs. Greenow
would herself rise to return thanks. There was no better fellow than
his friend Cheesacre, whom he had known for he would not say how
many years. He was quite sure they would all have the most sincere
pleasure in joining the health of Mr. Cheesacre with that of Mrs.
Greenow. Then there was a clattering of glasses and a murmuring of
healths, and Mr. Cheesacre slowly got upon his legs.
"I'm very much obliged to this company," said he, "and to my friend
Bellfield, who really is,--but perhaps that doesn't signify now. I've
had the greatest pleasure in getting up this little thing, and I'd
made up my mind to propose Mrs. Greenow's health; but, h'm, ha, no
doubt it has been in better hands. Perhaps, considering all things,
Bellfield might have waited."
"With such a subject on my hands, I couldn't wait a moment."
"I didn't interrupt you, Captain Bellfield, and perhaps you'll let me
go on without interrupting me. We've all drunk Mrs. Greenow's health,
and I'm sure she's very much obliged. So am I for the honour you've
done me. I have taken some trouble in getting up this little thing,
and I hope you like it. I think somebody said something about
liberality. I beg to assure you that I don't think of that for a
moment. Somebody must pay for these sort of things, and I'm always
very glad to take my turn. I dare say Bellfield will give us the
next picnic, and if he'll appoint a day before the end of the month,
I shall be happy to be one of the party." Then he sat down with some
inward satisfaction, fully convinced that he had given his enemy a
fatal blow.
"Nothing on earth would give me so much pleasure," said Bellfield.
After that he turned again to Mrs. Greenow and went on with his
private conversation.
There was no more speaking, nor was there much time for other
after-dinner ceremonies. The three horns, the cymbals, the triangle,
and the drum were soon heard tuning-up behind the banqueting-hall,
and the ladies went to the further end of the old boat to make their
preparations for the dance. Then it was that the thoughtful care of
Mrs. Greenow, in having sent Jeannette with brushes, combs, clean
handkerchiefs, and other little knick-knackeries, became so apparent.
It was said that the widow herself actually changed her cap,--which
was considered by some to be very unfair, as there had been an
understanding that there should be no dressing. On such occasions
ladies are generally willing to forego the advantage of dressing
on the condition that other ladies shall forego the same advantage;
but when this compact is broken by any special lady, the treason
is thought to be very treacherous. It is as though a fencer should
remove the button from the end of his foil. But Mrs. Greenow was so
good-natured in tendering the services of Jeannette to all the young
ladies, and was so willing to share with others those good things of
the toilet which her care had provided, that her cap was forgiven her
by the most of those present.
When ladies have made up their minds to dance they will dance let the
circumstances of the moment be ever so antagonistic to that exercise.
A ploughed field in February would not be too wet, nor the side of a
house too uneven. In honest truth the sands of the seashore are not
adapted for the exercise. It was all very well for Venus to make the
promise, but when making it she knew that Adonis would not keep her
to her word. Let any lightest-limbed nymph try it, and she will find
that she leaves most palpable footing. The sands in question were
doubtless compact, firm, and sufficiently moist to make walking on
them comfortable; but they ruffled themselves most uncomfortably
under the unwonted pressure to which they were subjected.
Nevertheless our friends did dance on the sands; finding, however,
that quadrilles and Sir Roger de Coverley suited them better than
polkas and waltzes.
"No, my friend, no," Mrs. Greenow said to Mr. Cheesacre when that
gentleman endeavoured to persuade her to stand up; "Kate will be
delighted I am sure to join you,--but as for me, you must excuse me."
But Mr. Cheesacre was not inclined at that moment to ask Kate Vavasor
to dance with him. He was possessed by an undefined idea that Kate
had snubbed him, and as Kate's fortune was, as he said, literally
nothing, he was not at all disposed to court her favour at the
expense of such suffering to himself.
"I'm not quite sure that I'll dance myself," said he, seating himself
in a corner of the tent by Mrs. Greenow's side. Captain Bellfield at
that moment was seen leading Miss Vavasor away to a new place on
the sands, whither he was followed by a score of dancers; and Mr.
Cheesacre saw that now at last he might reap the reward for which he
had laboured. He was alone with the widow, and having been made bold
by wine, had an opportunity of fighting his battle, than which none
better could ever be found. He was himself by no means a poor man,
and he despised poverty in others. It was well that there should be
poor gentry, in order that they might act as satellites to those who,
like himself, had money. As to Mrs. Greenow's money, there was no
doubt. He knew it all to a fraction. She had spread for herself, or
some one else had spread for her, a report that her wealth was almost
unlimited; but the forty thousand pounds was a fact, and any such
innocent fault as that little fiction might well be forgiven to a
woman endorsed with such substantial virtues. And she was handsome
too. Mr. Cheesacre, as he regarded her matured charms, sometimes felt
that he should have been smitten even without the forty thousand
pounds. "By George! there's flesh and blood," he had once said to his
friend Bellfield before he had begun to suspect that man's treachery.
His admiration must then have been sincere, for at that time the
forty thousand pounds was not an ascertained fact. Looking at the
matter in all its bearings Mr. Cheesacre thought that he couldn't do
better. His wooing should be fair, honest, and above board. He was a
thriving man, and what might not they two do in Norfolk if they put
their wealth together?
"Oh, Mr. Cheesacre, you should join them," said Mrs. Greenow; "they'll
not half enjoy themselves without you. Kate will think that you mean
to neglect her."
"I shan't dance, Mrs. Greenow, unless you like to stand up for a set."
"No, my friend, no; I shall not do that. I fear you forget how recent
has been my bereavement. Your asking me is the bitterest reproach to
me for having ventured to join your festive board."
"Upon my honour I didn't mean it, Mrs. Greenow. I didn't mean it,
indeed."
"I do not suspect you. It would have been unmanly."
"And nobody can say that of me. There isn't a man or woman in Norfolk
that wouldn't say I was manly."
"I'm quite sure of that."
"I have my faults, I'm aware."
"And what are your faults, Mr. Cheesacre?"
"Well; perhaps I'm extravagant. But it's only in these kind of
things you know, when I spend a little money for the sake of making
my friends happy. When I'm about, on the lands at home, I ain't
extravagant, I can tell you."
"Extravagance is a great vice."
"Oh, I ain't extravagant in that sense;--not a bit in the world. But
when a man's enamoured, and perhaps looking out for a wife, he does
like to be a little free, you know."
"And are you looking out for a wife, Mr. Cheesacre?"
"If I told you I suppose you'd only laugh at me."
"No; indeed I would not. I am not given to joking when any one that I
regard speaks to me seriously."
"Ain't you though? I'm so glad of that. When one has really got a
serious thing to say, one doesn't like to have fun poked at one."
"And, besides, how could I laugh at marriages, seeing how happy I
have been in that condition?--so--very--happy," and Mrs. Greenow put
up her handkerchief to her eyes.
"So happy that you'll try it again some day; won't you?"
"Never, Mr. Cheesacre; never. Is that the way you talk of serious
things without joking? Anything like love--love of that sort--is
over for me. It lies buried under the sod with my poor dear departed
saint."
"But, Mrs. Greenow,"--and Cheesacre, as he prepared to argue the
question with her, got nearer to her in the corner behind the
table,--"But, Mrs. Greenow, care killed a cat, you know."
"And sometimes I think that care will kill me."
"No, by George; not if I can prevent it."
"You're very kind, Mr. Cheesacre; but there's no preventing such care
as mine."
"Isn't there though? I'll tell you what, Mrs. Greenow; I'm in earnest,
I am indeed. If you'll inquire, you'll find there isn't a fellow in
Norfolk pays his way better than I do, or is better able to do it. I
don't pay a sixpence of rent, and I sit upon seven hundred acres of
as good land as there is in the county. There's not an acre that
won't do me a bullock and a half. Just put that and that together,
and see what it comes to. And, mind you, some of these fellows that
farm their own land are worse off than if they'd rent to pay. They've
borrowed so much to carry on with, that the interest is more than
rent. I don't owe a sixpence to ere a man or ere a company in the
world. I can walk into every bank in Norwich without seeing my
master. There ain't any of my paper flying about, Mrs. Greenow. I'm
Samuel Cheesacre of Oileymead, and it's all my own." Mr. Cheesacre, as
he thus spoke of his good fortunes and firm standing in the world,
became impetuous in the energy of the moment, and brought down his
fist powerfully on the slight table before them. The whole fabric
rattled, and the boat resounded, but the noise he had made seemed to
assist him. "It's all my own, Mrs. Greenow, and the half of it shall
be yours if you'll please to take it;" then he stretched out his hand
to her, not as though he intended to grasp hers in a grasp of love,
but as if he expected some hand-pledge from her as a token that she
accepted the bargain.
"If you'd known Greenow, Mr. Cheesacre--"
"I've no doubt he was a very good sort of man."
"If you'd known him, you would not have addressed me in this way."
"What difference would that make? My idea is that care killed a cat,
as I said before. I never knew what was the good of being unhappy.
If I find early mangels don't do on a bit of land, then I sow late
turnips; and never cry after spilt milk. Greenow was the early
mangels; I'll be the late turnips. Come then, say the word. There
ain't a bedroom in my house,--not one of the front ones,--that isn't
mahogany furnished!"
"What's furniture to me?" said Mrs. Greenow, with her handkerchief to
her eyes.
Just at this moment Maria's mother stepped in under the canvas. It
was most inopportune. Mr. Cheesacre felt that he was progressing well,
and was conscious that he had got safely over those fences in the
race which his bashfulness would naturally make difficult to him. He
knew that he had done this under the influence of the champagne, and
was aware that it might not be easy to procure again a combination
of circumstances that would be so beneficial to him. But now he was
interrupted just as he was expecting success. He was interrupted,
and felt himself to be looking like a guilty creature under the eye
of the strange lady. He had not a word to say; but drawing himself
suddenly a foot and half away from the widow's side, sat there
confessing his guilt in his face.
Mrs. Greenow felt no guilt, and was afraid of no strange eyes. "Mr.
Cheesacre and I are talking about farming," she said.
"Oh; farming!" answered Maria's mother.
"Mr. Cheesacre thinks that turnips are better than early mangels,"
said Mrs. Greenow.
"Yes, I do," said Cheesacre,
"I prefer the early mangels," said Mrs. Greenow. "I don't think nature
ever intended those late crops. What do you say, Mrs. Walker?"
"I daresay Mr. Cheesacre understands what he's about when he's at
home," said the lady.
"I know what a bit of land can do as well as any man in Norfolk,"
said the gentleman.
"It may be very well in Norfolk," said Mrs. Greenow, rising from her
seat; "but the practice isn't thought much of in the other counties
with which I am better acquainted."
"I'd just come in to say that I thought we might be getting to the
boats," said Mrs. Walker. "My Ophelia is so delicate." At this moment
the delicate Ophelia was to be seen, under the influence of the
music, taking a distant range upon the sands with Joe Fairstairs' arm
round her waist. The attitude was justified by the tune that was in
progress, and there is no reason why a galop on the sands should have
any special termination in distance, as it must have in a room. But,
under such circumstances, Mrs. Walker's solicitude was not
unreasonable.
The erratic steps of the distant dancers were recalled and
preparations were made for the return journey. Others had strayed
besides the delicate Ophelia and the idle Joe, and some little time
was taken up in collecting the party. The boats had to be drawn down,
and the boatmen fetched from their cans and tobacco-pipes. "I hope
they're sober," said Mrs. Walker, with a look of great dismay.
"Sober as judges," said Bellfield, who had himself been looking after
the remains of Mr. Cheesacre's hampers, while that gentleman had been
so much better engaged in the tent.
"Because," continued Mrs. Walker, "I know that they play all manner of
tricks when they're--in liquor. They'd think nothing of taking us out
to sea, Mrs. Greenow."
"Oh, I do wish they would," said Ophelia.
"Ophelia, mind you come in the boat with me," said her mother, and
she looked very savage when she gave the order. It was Mrs. Walker's
intention that that boat should not carry Joe Fairstairs. But Joe and
her daughter together were too clever for her. When the boats went
off she found herself to be in that one over which Mr. Cheesacre
presided, while the sinning Ophelia with her good-for-nothing admirer
were under the more mirthful protection of Captain Bellfield.
"Mamma will be so angry," said Ophelia, "and it was all your fault. I
did mean to go into the other boat. Don't, Mr. Fairstairs." Then they
got settled down in their seats, to the satisfaction, let us hope, of
them both.
Mr. Cheesacre had vainly endeavoured to arrange that Mrs. Greenow
should return with him. But not only was Captain Bellfield opposed
to such a change in their positions, but so also was Mrs. Greenow. "I
think we'd better go back as we came," she said, giving her hand to
the Captain.
"Oh, certainly," said Captain Bellfield. "Why should there be any
change? Cheesacre, old fellow, mind you look after Mrs. Walker. Come
along, my hearty." It really almost appeared that Captain Bellfield
was addressing Mrs. Greenow as "his hearty," but it must be presumed
that the term of genial endearment was intended for the whole boat's
load. Mrs. Greenow took her place on the comfortable broad bench in
the stern, and Bellfield seated himself beside her, with the tiller
in his hand.
"If you're going to steer, Captain Bellfield, I beg that you'll be
careful."
"Careful,--and with you on board!" said the Captain. "Don't you know
that I would sooner perish beneath the waves than that a drop of
water should touch you roughly?"
"But you see, we might perish beneath the waves together."
"Together! What a sweet word that is;--perish together! If it were
not that there might be something better even than that, I would wish
to perish in such company."
"But I should not wish anything of the kind, Captain Bellfield, and
therefore pray be careful."
There was no perishing by water on that occasion. Mr. Cheesacre's boat
reached the pier at Yarmouth first, and gave up its load without
accident. Very shortly afterwards Captain Bellfield's crew reached
the same place in the same state of preservation. "There," said he,
as he handed out Mrs. Greenow. "I have brought you to no harm, at any
rate as yet."
"And, as I hope, will not do so hereafter."
"May the heavens forbid it, Mrs. Greenow! Whatever may be our lots
hereafter,--yours I mean and mine,--I trust that yours may be free
from all disaster. Oh, that I might venture to hope that, at some
future day, the privilege might be mine of protecting you from all
danger!"
"I can protect myself very well, I can assure you. Good night,
Captain Bellfield. We won't take you and Mr. Cheesacre out of your
way;--will we, Kate? We have had a most pleasant day."
They were now upon the esplanade, and Mrs. Greenow's house was to the
right, whereas the lodgings of both the gentlemen were to the left.
Each of them fought hard for the privilege of accompanying the widow
to her door; but Mrs. Greenow was self-willed, and upon this occasion
would have neither of them. "Mr. Joe Fairstairs must pass the house,"
said she, "and he will see us home. Mr. Cheesacre, good night. Indeed
you shall not;--not a step." There was that in her voice which
induced Mr. Cheesacre to obey her, and which made Captain Bellfield
aware that he would only injure his cause if he endeavoured to make
further progress in it on the present occasion.
"Well, Kate, what do you think of the day?" the aunt said when she
was alone with her niece.
"I never think much about such days, aunt. It was all very well, but
I fear I have not the temperament fitted for enjoying the fun. I
envied Ophelia Walker because she made herself thoroughly happy."
"I do like to see girls enjoy themselves," said Mrs. Greenow, "I do,
indeed;--and young men too. It seems so natural; why shouldn't young
people flirt?"
"Or old people either for the matter of that?"
"Or old people either,--if they don't do any harm to anybody. I'll
tell you what it is, Kate; people have become so very virtuous, that
they're driven into all manner of abominable resources for amusement
and occupation. If I had sons and daughters I should think a little
flirting the very best thing for them as a safety valve. When people
get to be old, there's a difficulty. They want to flirt with the
young people and the young people don't want them. If the old people
would be content to flirt together, I don't see why they should ever
give it up;--till they're obliged to give up every thing, and go
away."
That was Mrs. Greenow's doctrine on the subject of flirtation.
CHAPTER X.
Nethercoats.
We will leave Mrs. Greenow with her niece and two sisters at Yarmouth,
and returning by stages to London, will call upon Mr. Grey at his
place in Cambridgeshire as we pass by. I believe it is conceded by
all the other counties, that Cambridgeshire possesses fewer rural
beauties than any other county in England. It is very flat; it is
not well timbered; the rivers are merely dikes; and in a very large
portion of the county the farms and fields are divided simply by
ditches--not by hedgerows. Such arrangements are, no doubt, well
adapted for agricultural purposes, but are not conducive to rural
beauty. Mr. Grey's residence was situated in a part of Cambridgeshire
in which the above-named characteristics are very much marked. It was
in the Isle of Ely, some few miles distant from the Cathedral town,
on the side of a long straight road, which ran through the fields
for miles without even a bush to cheer it. The name of his place was
Nethercoats, and here he lived generally throughout the year, and
here he intended to live throughout his life.
His father had held a prebendal stall at Ely in times when prebendal
stalls were worth more than they are at present, and having also
been possessed of a living in the neighbourhood, had amassed a
considerable sum of money. With this he had during his life purchased
the property of Nethercoats, and had built on it the house in which
his son now lived. He had married late in life, and had lost his wife
soon after the birth of an only child. The house had been built in
his own parish, and his wife had lived there for a few months and had
died there. But after that event the old clergyman had gone back to
his residence in the Close at Ely, and there John Grey had had the
home of his youth. He had been brought up under his father's eye,
having been sent to no public school. But he had gone to Cambridge,
had taken college honours, and had then, his father dying exactly at
this time, declined to accept a fellowship. His father had left to
him an income of some fifteen hundred a year, and with this he sat
himself down, near to his college friends, near also to the old
cathedral which he loved, in the house which his father had built.
But though Nethercoats possessed no beauty of scenery, though the
country around it was in truth as uninteresting as any country
could be, it had many delights of its own. The house itself was as
excellent a residence for a country gentleman of small means as
taste and skill together could construct. I doubt whether prettier
rooms were ever seen than the drawing-room, the library, and the
dining-room at Nethercoats. They were all on the ground-floor, and
all opened out on to the garden and lawn. The library, which was
the largest of the three, was a handsome chamber, and so filled as
to make it well known in the University as one of the best private
collections in that part of England. But perhaps the gardens of
Nethercoats constituted its greatest glory. They were spacious
and excellently kept up, and had been originally laid out with
that knowledge of gardening without which no garden, merely as a
garden, can be effective. And such, of necessity, was the garden of
Nethercoats. Fine single forest trees there were none there, nor was
it possible that there should have been any such. Nor could there
be a clear rippling stream with steep green banks, and broken rocks
lying about its bed. Such beauties are beauties of landscape, and do
not of their nature belong to a garden. But the shrubs of Nethercoats
were of the rarest kind, and had been long enough in their present
places to have reached the period of their beauty. Nothing had been
spared that a garden could want. The fruit-trees were perfect in
their kind, and the glass-houses were so good and so extensive that
John Grey in his prudence was some times tempted to think that he had
too much of them.
It must be understood that there were no grounds, according to
the meaning usually given to that word, belonging to the house at
Nethercoats. Between the garden and the public road there was a
paddock belonging to the house, along the side of which, but divided
from it by a hedge and shrubbery, ran the private carriageway up to
the house. This swept through the small front flower-garden, dividing
it equally; but the lawns and indeed the whole of that which made
the beauty of the place lay on the back of the house, on which side
opened the windows from the three sitting-rooms. Down on the public
road there stood a lodge at which lived one of the gardeners. There
was another field of some six or seven acres, to which there was
a gate from the corner of the front paddock, and which went round
two sides of the garden. This was Nethercoats, and the whole estate
covered about twelve acres.
It was not a place for much bachelor enjoyment of that sort generally
popular with bachelors; nevertheless Mr. Grey had been constant in his
residence there for the seven years which had now elapsed since he
had left his college. His easy access to Cambridge had probably done
much to mitigate what might otherwise have been the too great tedium
of his life; and he had, prompted thereto by early associations,
found most of his society in the Close of Ely Cathedral. But, with
all the delight he could derive from these two sources, there had
still been many solitary hours in his life, and he had gradually
learned to feel that he of all men wanted a companion in his home.
His visits to London had generally been short and far between,
occasioned probably by some need in the library, or by the necessity
of some slight literary transaction with the editor or publisher of a
periodical. In one of these visits he had met Alice Vavasor, and had
remained in Town,--I will not say till Alice had promised to share
his home in Cambridgeshire, but so long that he had resolved before
he went that he would ask her to do so. He had asked her, and we
know that he had been successful. He had obtained her promise, and
from that moment all his life had been changed for him. Hitherto at
Nethercoats his little smoking-room, his books, and his plants had
been everything to him. Now he began to surround himself with an
infinity of feminine belongings, and to promise himself an infinity
of feminine blessings, wondering much that he should have been
content to pass so long a portion of his life in the dull seclusion
which he had endured. He was not by nature an impatient man; but now
he became impatient, longing for the fruition of his new idea of
happiness,--longing to have that as his own which he certainly loved
beyond all else in the world, and which, perhaps, was all he had ever
loved with the perfect love of equality. But though impatient, and
fully aware of his own impatience, he acknowledged to himself that
Alice could not be expected to share it. He could plan nothing
now,--could have no pleasure in life that she was not expected to
share. But as yet it could not be so with her. She had her house
in London, her town society, and her father. And, inasmuch as the
change for her would be much greater than it would be for him, it was
natural that she should require some small delay. He had not pressed
her. At least he had not pressed her with that eager pressure which
a girl must resist with something of the opposition of a contest,
if she resist it at all. But in truth his impatience was now waxing
strong, and during the absence in Switzerland of which we have
spoken, he resolved that a marriage very late in the autumn,--that a
marriage even in winter, would be better than a marriage postponed
till the following year. It was not yet late in August when the party
returned from their tour. Would not a further delay of two months
suffice for his bride?
Alice had written to him occasionally from Switzerland, and her
first two letters had been very charming. They had referred almost
exclusively to the tour, and had been made pleasant with some
slightly coloured account of George Vavasor's idleness, and of Kate's
obedience to her brother's behests. Alice had never written much of
love in her love-letters, and Grey was well enough contented with her
style, though it was not impassioned. As for doubting her love, it
was not in the heart of the man to do so after it had been once
assured to him by her word. He could not so slightly respect himself
or her as to leave room for such a doubt in his bosom. He was a man
who could never have suggested to himself that a woman loved him till
the fact was there before him; but who having ascertained, as he
might think, the fact, could never suggest to himself that her love
would fail him. Her first two letters from Switzerland had been very
pleasant; but after that there had seemed to have crept over her a
melancholy which she unconsciously transferred to her words, and
which he could not but taste in them,--at first unconsciously, also,
but soon with so plain a flavour that he recognised it, and made it a
matter of mental inquiry. During the three or four last days of the
journey, while they were at Basle and on their way home, she had not
written. But she did write on the day after her arrival, having then
received from Mr. Grey a letter, in which he told her how very much
she would add to his happiness if she would now agree that their
marriage should not be postponed beyond the end of October. This
letter she found in her room on her return, and this she answered at
once. And she answered it in such words that Mr. Grey resolved that he
would at once go to her in London. I will give her letter at length,
as I shall then be best able to proceed with my story quickly.
Queen Anne Street,
-- August, 186--.
DEAREST JOHN,--
We reached home yesterday tired enough, as we came through
from Paris without stopping. I may indeed say that we
came through from Strasbourg, as we only slept in Paris.
I don't like Strasbourg. A steeple, after all, is not
everything, and putting the steeple aside, I don't think
the style is good. But the hotel was uncomfortable, which
goes for so much;--and then we were saturated with beauty
of a better kind.
I got your letter directly I came in last night, and
I suppose I had better dash at it at once. I would so
willingly delay doing so, saying nice little things the
while, did I not know that this would be mere cowardice.
Whatever happens I won't be a coward, and therefore I will
tell you at once that I cannot let you hope that we should
be married this year. Of course you will ask me why,
as you have a right to do, and of course I am bound to
answer. I do not know that I can give any answer with
which you will not have a right to complain. If it be so,
I can only ask your pardon for the injury I am doing you.
Marriage is a great change in life,--much greater to me
than to you, who will remain in your old house, will keep
your old pursuits, will still be your own master, and will
change in nothing,--except in this, that you will have a
companion who probably may not be all that you expect.
But I must change everything. It will be to me as though
I were passing through a grave to a new world. I shall
see nothing that I have been accustomed to see, and must
abandon all the ways of life that I have hitherto adopted.
Of course I should have thought of this before I accepted
you; and I did think of it. I made up my mind that, as I
truly loved you, I would risk the change;--that I would
risk it for your sake and for mine, hoping that I might
add something to your happiness, and that I might secure
my own. Dear John, do not suppose that I despair that it
may be so; but, indeed, you must not hurry me. I must tune
myself to the change that I have to make. What if I should
wake some morning after six months living with you, and
tell you that the quiet of your home was making me mad?
You must not ask me again till the winter shall have
passed away. If in the meantime I shall find that I have
been wrong, I will humbly confess that I have wronged
you, and ask you to forgive me. And I will freely admit
this. If the delay which I now purpose is so contrary
to your own plans as to make your marriage, under such
circumstances, not that which you had expected, I know
that you are free to tell me so, and to say that our
engagement shall be over. I am well aware that I can have
no right to bind you to a marriage at one period which you
had only contemplated as to take place at another period.
I think I may promise that I will obey any wish you may
express in anything,--except in that one thing which you
urged in your last letter.
Kate is going down to Yarmouth with Mrs. Greenow, and I
shall see no more of her probably till next year, as she
will be due in Westmoreland after that. George left me at
the door when he brought me home, and declared that he
intended to vanish out of London. Whether in town or out,
he is never to be seen at this period of the year. Papa
offers to go to Ramsgate for a fortnight, but he looks so
wretched when he makes the offer, that I shall not have
the heart to hold him to it. Lady Macleod very much wants
me to go to Cheltenham. I very much want not to go, simply
because I can never agree with her about anything; but
it will probably end in my going there for a week or two.
Over and beyond that, I have no prospects before Christmas
which are not purely domestic. There is a project that we
shall all eat our Christmas dinner at Vavasor Hall,--of
course not including George,--but this project is quite
in the clouds, and, as far as I am concerned, will remain
there.
Dear John, let me hear that this letter does not make you
unhappy.
Most affectionately yours,
ALICE VAVASOR.
At Nethercoats, the post was brought in at breakfast-time, and Mr.
Grey was sitting with his tea and eggs before him, when he read
Alice's letter. He read it twice before he began to think what he
would do in regard to it, and then referred to one or two others
which he had received from Switzerland,--reading them also very
carefully. After that, he took up the slouch hat which he had been
wearing in the garden before he was called to his breakfast, and,
with the letters in his hand, sauntered down among the shrubs and
lawns.
He knew, he thought he knew, that there was more in Alice's mind than
a mere wish for delay. There was more in it than that hesitation to
take at once a step which she really desired to take, if not now,
then after some short interval. He felt that she was unhappy, and
unhappy because she distrusted the results of her marriage; but it
never for a moment occurred to him that, therefore, the engagement
between them should be broken. In the first place he loved her too
well to allow of his admitting such an idea without terrible sorrow
to himself. He was a constant, firm man, somewhat reserved, and
unwilling to make new acquaintances, and, therefore, specially
unwilling to break away from those which he had made. Undoubtedly,
had he satisfied himself that Alice's happiness demanded such a
sacrifice of himself, he would have made it, and made it without a
word of complaint. The blow would not have prostrated him, but the
bruise would have remained on his heart, indelible, not to be healed
but by death. He would have submitted, and no man would have seen
that he had been injured. But it did not once occur to him that such
a proceeding on his part would be beneficial to Alice. Without being
aware of it, he reckoned himself to be the nobler creature of the
two, and now thought of her as of one wounded, and wanting a cure.
Some weakness had fallen on her, and strength must be given to her
from another. He did not in the least doubt her love, but he knew
that she had been associated, for a few weeks past, with two persons
whose daily conversation would be prone to weaken the tone of her
mind. He no more thought of giving her up than a man thinks of having
his leg cut off because he has sprained his sinews. He would go up to
town and see her, and would not even yet abandon all hope that she
might be found sitting at his board when Christmas should come. By
that day's post he wrote a short note to her.
"Dearest Alice," he said, "I have resolved to go to London at once. I
will be with you in the evening at eight, the day after to-morrow.
"Yours, J. G."
There was no more in the letter than that.
"And now," she said, when she received it, "I must dare to tell him
the whole truth."
CHAPTER XI.
John Grey Goes to London.
And what was the whole truth? Alice Vavasor, when she declared to
herself that she must tell her lover the whole truth, was expressing
to herself her intention of putting an end to her engagement with Mr.
Grey. She was acknowledging that that which had to be told was not
compatible with the love and perfect faith which she owed to the man
who was her affianced husband. And yet, why should it be so? She did
not intend to tell him that she had been false in her love to him.
It was not that her heart had again veered itself round and given
itself to that wild cousin of hers. Though she might feel herself
constrained to part from John Grey, George Vavasor could never be her
husband. Of that she assured herself fifty times during the two days'
grace which had been allowed her. Nay, she went farther than that
with herself, and pronounced a verdict against any marriage as
possible to her if she now decided against this marriage which had
for some months past been regarded as fixed by herself and all her
friends.
People often say that marriage is an important thing, and should be
much thought of in advance, and marrying people are cautioned that
there are many who marry in haste and repent at leisure. I am not
sure, however, that marriage may not be pondered over too much; nor
do I feel certain that the leisurely repentance does not as often
follow the leisurely marriages as it does the rapid ones. That some
repent no one can doubt; but I am inclined to believe that most men
and women take their lots as they find them, marrying as the birds
do by force of nature, and going on with their mates with a general,
though not perhaps an undisturbed satisfaction, feeling inwardly
assured that Providence, if it have not done the very best for them,
has done for them as well as they could do for themselves with all
the thought in the world. I do not know that a woman can assure to
herself, by her own prudence and taste, a good husband any more than
she can add two cubits to her stature; but husbands have been made
to be decently good,--and wives too, for the most part, in our
country,--so that the thing does not require quite so much thinking
as some people say.
That Alice Vavasor had thought too much about it, I feel quite sure.
She had gone on thinking of it till she had filled herself with a
cloud of doubts which even the sunshine of love was unable to drive
from her heavens. That a girl should really love the man she intends
to marry,--that, at any rate, may be admitted. But love generally
comes easily enough. With all her doubts Alice never doubted her love
for Mr. Grey. Nor did she doubt his character, nor his temper, nor his
means. But she had gone on thinking of the matter till her mind had
become filled with some undefined idea of the importance to her of
her own life. What should a woman do with her life? There had arisen
round her a flock of learned ladies asking that question, to whom it
seems that the proper answer has never yet occurred. Fall in love,
marry the man, have two children, and live happy ever afterwards.
I maintain that answer has as much wisdom in it as any other that
can be given;--or perhaps more. The advice contained in it cannot,
perhaps, always be followed to the letter; but neither can the advice
of the other kind, which is given by the flock of learned ladies who
ask the question.
A woman's life is important to her,--as is that of a man to him,--not
chiefly in regard to that which she shall do with it. The chief thing
for her to look to is the manner in which that something shall be
done. It is of moment to a young man when entering life to decide
whether he shall make hats or shoes; but not of half the moment that
will be that other decision, whether he shall make good shoes or bad.
And so with a woman;--if she shall have recognised the necessity of
truth and honesty for the purposes of her life, I do not know that
she need ask herself many questions as to what she will do with it.
Alice Vavasor was ever asking herself that question, and had by
degrees filled herself with a vague idea that there was a something
to be done; a something over and beyond, or perhaps altogether beside
that marrying and having two children;--if she only knew what it was.
She had filled herself, or had been filled by her cousins, with an
undefined ambition that made her restless without giving her any real
food for her mind. When she told herself that she would have no scope
for action in that life in Cambridgeshire which Mr. Grey was preparing
for her, she did not herself know what she meant by action. Had any
one accused her of being afraid to separate herself from London
society, she would have declared that she went very little into
society and disliked that little. Had it been whispered to her that
she loved the neighbourhood of the shops, she would have scorned the
whisperer. Had it been suggested that the continued rattle of the big
city was necessary to her happiness, she would have declared that she
and her father had picked out for their residence the quietest street
in London because she could not bear noise;--and yet she told herself
that she feared to be taken into the desolate calmness of
Cambridgeshire.
When she did contrive to find any answer to that question as to what
she should do with her life,--or rather what she would wish to do
with it if she were a free agent, it was generally of a political
nature. She was not so far advanced as to think that women should be
lawyers and doctors, or to wish that she might have the privilege of
the franchise for herself; but she had undoubtedly a hankering after
some second-hand political manoeuvering. She would have liked, I
think, to have been the wife of the leader of a Radical opposition,
in the time when such men were put into prison, and to have kept up
for him his seditious correspondence while he lay in the Tower. She
would have carried the answers to him inside her stays,--and have
made long journeys down into northern parts without any money, if the
cause required it. She would have liked to have around her ardent
spirits, male or female, who would have talked of "the cause," and
have kept alive in her some flame of political fire. As it was, she
had no cause. Her father's political views were very mild. Lady
Macleod's were deadly conservative. Kate Vavasor was an aspiring
Radical just now, because her brother was in the same line; but
during the year of the love-passages between George and Alice, George
Vavasor's politics had been as conservative as you please. He did not
become a Radical till he had quarrelled with his grandfather. Now,
indeed, he was possessed of very advanced views,--views with which
Alice felt that she could sympathize. But what would be the use of
sympathizing down in Cambridgeshire? John Grey had, so to speak, no
politics. He had decided views as to the treatment which the Roman
Senate received from Augustus, and had even discussed with Alice the
conduct of the Girondists at the time of Robespierre's triumph; but
for Manchester and its cares he had no apparent solicitude, and had
declared to Alice that he would not accept a seat in the British
House of Commons if it were offered to him free of expense. What
political enthusiasm could she indulge with such a companion down in
Cambridgeshire?
She thought too much of all this,--and was, if I may say,
over-prudent in calculating the chances of her happiness and of
his. For, to give her credit for what was her due, she was quite as
anxious on the latter head as on the former. "I don't care for the
Roman Senate," she would say to herself. "I don't care much for the
Girondists. How am I to talk to him day after day, night after night,
when we shall be alone together?"
No doubt her tour in Switzerland with her cousin had had some effect
in making such thoughts stronger now than they had ever been. She had
not again learned to love her cousin. She was as firmly sure as ever
that she could never love him more. He had insulted her love; and
though she had forgiven him and again enrolled him among her dearest
friends, she could never again feel for him that passion which a
woman means when she acknowledges that she is in love. That, as
regarded her and George Vavasor, was over. But, nevertheless, there
had been a something of romance during those days in Switzerland
which she feared she would regret when she found herself settled
at Nethercoats. She envied Kate. Kate could, as his sister, attach
herself on to George's political career, and obtain from it all that
excitement of life which Alice desired for herself. Alice could not
love her cousin and marry him; but she felt that if she could do so
without impropriety she would like to stick close to him like another
sister, to spend her money in aiding his career in Parliament as Kate
would do, and trust herself and her career into the boat which he was
to command. She did not love her cousin; but she still believed in
him,--with a faith which he certainly did not deserve.
As the two days passed over her, her mind grew more and more fixed as
to its purpose. She would tell Mr. Grey that she was not fit to be his
wife--and she would beg him to pardon her and to leave her. It never
occurred to her that perhaps he might refuse to let her go. She felt
quite sure that she would be free as soon as she had spoken the word
which she intended to speak. If she could speak it with decision she
would be free, and to attain that decision she would school herself
with her utmost strength. At one moment she thought of telling all to
her father and of begging him to break the matter to Mr. Grey; but she
knew that her father would not understand her, and that he would be
very hostile to her,--saying hard, uncomfortable words, which would
probably be spared if the thing were done before he was informed. Nor
would she write to Kate, whose letters to her at this time were full
of wit at the expense of Mrs. Greenow. She would tell Kate as soon as
the thing was done, but not before. That Kate would sympathize with
her, she was quite certain.
So the two days passed by and the time came at which John Grey was to
be there. As the minute hand on the drawing-room clock came round to
the full hour, she felt that her heart was beating with a violence
which she could not repress. The thing seemed to her to assume bigger
dimensions than it had hitherto done. She began to be aware that she
was about to be guilty of a great iniquity, when it was too late for
her to change her mind. She could not bring herself to resolve that
she would, on the moment, change her mind. She believed that she
could never pardon herself such weakness. But yet she felt herself to
be aware that her purpose was wicked. When the knock at the door was
at last heard she trembled and feared that she would almost be unable
to speak to him. Might it be possible that there should yet be a
reprieve for her? No; it was his step on the stairs, and there he was
in the room with her.
"My dearest," he said, coming to her. His smile was sweet and loving
as it ever was, and his voice had its usual manly, genial, loving
tone. As he walked across the room Alice felt that he was a man of
whom a wife might be very proud. He was tall and very handsome, with
brown hair, with bright blue eyes, and a mouth like a god. It was the
beauty of his mouth,--beauty which comprised firmness within itself,
that made Alice afraid of him. He was still dressed in his morning
clothes; but he was a man who always seemed to be well dressed. "My
dearest," he said, advancing across the room, and before she knew how
to stop herself or him, he had taken her in his arms and kissed her.
He did not immediately begin about the letter, but placed her upon
the sofa, seating himself by her side, and looked into her face with
loving eyes,--not as though to scrutinize what might be amiss there,
but as though determined to enjoy to the full his privilege as a
lover. There was no reproach at any rate in his countenance;--none as
yet; nor did it seem that he thought that he had any cause for fear.
They sat in this way for a moment or two in silence, and during those
moments Alice was summoning up her courage to speak. The palpitation
at her heart was already gone, and she was determined that she would
speak.
"Though I am very glad to see you," she said, at last, "I am sorry
that my letter should have given you the trouble of this journey."
"Trouble!" he said. "Nay, you ought to know that it is no trouble. I
have not enough to do down at Nethercoats to make the running up to
you at any time an unpleasant excitement. So your Swiss journey went
off pleasantly?"
"Yes; it went off very pleasantly." This she said in that tone of
voice which clearly implies that the speaker is not thinking of the
words spoken.
"And Kate has now left you?"
"Yes; she is with her aunt, at the seaside."
"So I understand;--and your cousin George?"
"I never know much of George's movements. He may be in Town, but I
have not seen him since I came back."
"Ah! that is the way with friends living in London. Unless
circumstances bring them together, they are in fact further apart
than if they lived fifty miles asunder in the country. And he managed
to get through all the trouble without losing your luggage for you
very often?"
"If you were to say that we did not lose his, that would be nearer
the mark. But, John, you have come up to London in this sudden way to
speak to me about my letter to you. Is it not so?"
"Certainly it is so. Certainly I have."
"I have thought much, since, of what I then wrote, very much,--very
much, indeed; and I have learned to feel sure that we had better--"
"Stop, Alice; stop a moment, love. Do not speak hurriedly. Shall I
tell you what I learned from your letter?"
"Yes; tell me, if you think it better that you should do so."
"Perhaps it may be better. I learned, love, that something had been
said or done during your journey,--or perhaps only something thought,
that had made you melancholy, and filled your mind for a while with
those unsubstantial and indefinable regrets for the past which we are
all apt to feel at certain moments of our life. There are few of us
who do not encounter, now and again, some of that irrational spirit
of sadness which, when over-indulged, drives men to madness and
self-destruction. I used to know well what it was before I knew you;
but since I have had the hope of having you in my house, I have
banished it utterly. In that I think I have been stronger than you.
Do not speak under the influence of that spirit till you have thought
whether you, too, cannot banish it."
"I have tried, and it will not be banished."
"Try again, Alice. It is a damned spirit, and belongs neither to
heaven nor to earth. Do not say to me the words that you were about
to say till you have wrestled with it manfully. I think I know what
those words were to be. If you love me, those words should not be
spoken. If you do not--"
"If I do not love you, I love no one upon earth."
"I believe it. I believe it as I believe in my own love for you. I
trust your love implicitly, Alice. I know that you love me. I think I
can read your mind. Tell me that I may return to Cambridgeshire, and
again plead my cause for an early marriage from thence. I will not
take such speech from you to mean more than it says!"
She sat quiet, looking at him--looking full into his face. She had in
nowise changed her mind, but after such words from him, she did not
know how to declare to him her resolution. There was something in his
manner that awed her,--and something also that softened her.
"Tell me," said he, "that I may see you again to-morrow morning in
our usual quiet, loving way, and that I may return home to-morrow
evening. Pronounce a yea to that speech from me, and I will ask for
nothing further."
"No; I cannot do so," she said. And the tone of her voice, as she
spoke, was different to any tone that he had heard before from her
mouth.
"Is that melancholy fiend too strong for you?" He smiled as he said
this, and as he smiled, he took her hand. She did not attempt to
withdraw it, but sat by him in a strange calmness, looking straight
before her into the middle of the room. "You have not struggled with
it. You know, as I do, that it is a bad fiend and a wicked one,--a
fiend that is prompting you to the worst cruelty in the world. Alice!
Alice! Alice! Try to think of all this as though some other person
were concerned. If it were your friend, what advice would you give
her?"
[Illustration: "If it were your friend, what advice would you give
her?"]
"I would bid her tell the man who had loved her,--that is, if he were
noble, good, and great,--that she found herself to be unfit to be his
wife; and then I would bid her ask his pardon humbly on her knees."
As she said this, she sank before him on to the floor, and looked up
into his face with an expression of sad contrition which almost drew
him from his purposed firmness.
He had purposed to be firm,--to yield to her in nothing, resolving
to treat all that she might say as the hallucination of a sickened
imagination,--as the effect of absolute want of health, for which
some change in her mode of life would be the best cure. She might
bid him begone in what language she would. He knew well that such
was her intention. But he would not allow a word coming from her in
such a way to disturb arrangements made for the happiness of their
joint lives. As a loving husband would treat a wife, who, in some
exceptionable moment of a melancholy malady, should declare herself
unable to remain longer in her home, so would he treat her. As for
accepting what she might say as his dismissal, he would as soon think
of taking the fruit-trees from the southern wall because the sun
sometimes shines from the north. He could not treat either his
interests or hers so lightly as that.
"But what if he granted no such pardon, Alice? I will grant none
such. You are my wife, my own, my dearest, my chosen one. You are all
that I value in the world, my treasure and my comfort, my earthly
happiness and my gleam of something better that is to come hereafter.
Do you think that I shall let you go from me in that way? No, love.
If you are ill I will wait till your illness is gone by; and, if you
will let me, I will be your nurse."
"I am not ill."
"Not ill with any defined sickness. You do not shake with ague, nor
does your head rack you with aching; but yet you may be ill. Think of
what has passed between us. Must you not be ill when you seek to put
an end to all that without any cause assigned."
"You will not hear my reasons,"--she was still kneeling before him
and looking up into his face.
"I will hear them if you will tell me that they refer to any supposed
faults of my own."
"No, no, no!"
"Then I will not hear them. It is for me to find out your faults, and
when I have found out any that require complaint, I will come and
make it. Dear Alice, I wish you knew how I long for you." Then he put
his hand upon her hair, as though he would caress her.
But this she would not suffer, so she rose slowly, and stood with her
hand upon the table in the middle of the room. "Mr. Grey--" she said.
"If you will call me so, I shall think it only a part of your
malady."
"Mr. Grey," she continued, "I can only hope that you will take me at
my word."
"Oh, but I will not; certainly I will not, if that would be adverse
to my own interests."
"I am thinking of your interests; I am, indeed;--at any rate as much
as of my own. I feel quite sure that I should not make you happy as
your wife,--quite sure; and feeling that, I think that I am right,
even after all that has passed, to ask your forgiveness, and to beg
that our engagement may be over."
"No, Alice, no; never with my consent. I cannot tell you with what
contentment I would marry you to-morrow,--to-morrow, or next month,
or the month after. But if it cannot be so, then I will wait. Nothing
but your marriage with some one else would convince me."
"I cannot convince you in that way," she said, smiling.
"You will convince me in no other. You have not spoken to your father
of this as yet?"
"Not as yet."
"Do not do so, at any rate for the present. You will own that it
might be possible that you would have to unsay what you had said."
"No; it is not possible."
"Give yourself and me the chance. It can do no harm. And, Alice, I
ask you now for no reasons. I will not ask your reasons, or even
listen to them, because I do not believe that they will long have
effect even on yourself. Do you still think of going to Cheltenham?"
"I have decided nothing as yet."
"If I were you, I would go. I think a change of air would be good for
you."
"Yes; you treat me as though I were partly silly, and partly insane;
but it is not so. The change you speak of should be in my nature, and
in yours."
He shook his head and still smiled. There was something in the
imperturbed security of his manner which almost made her angry with
him. It seemed as though he assumed so great a superiority that he
felt himself able to treat any resolve of hers as the petulance of
a child. And though he spoke in strong language of his love, and of
his longing that she should come to him, yet he was so well able
to command his feelings, that he showed no sign of grief at the
communication she had made to him. She did not doubt his love, but
she believed him to be so much the master of his love,--as he was the
master of everything else, that her separation from him would cause
him no uncontrollable grief. In that she utterly failed to understand
his character. Had she known him better, she might have been sure
that such a separation now would with him have carried its mark to
the grave. Should he submit to her decision, he would go home and
settle himself to his books the next day; but on no following day
would he be again capable of walking forth among his flowers with an
easy heart. He was a strong, constant man, perhaps over-conscious of
his own strength; but then his strength was great. "He is perfect!"
Alice had said to herself often. "Oh that he were less perfect!"
He did not stay with her long after the last word that has been
recorded. "Perhaps," he said, as for a moment he held her hand at
parting, "I had better not come to-morrow."
"No, no; it is better not."
"I advise you not to tell your father of this, and doubtless you will
think of it before you do so. But if you do tell him, let me know
that you have done so."
"Why that?"
"Because in such case I also must see him. God bless you, Alice! God
bless you, dearest, dearest Alice!" Then he went, and she sat there
on the sofa without moving, till she heard her father's feet as he
came up the stairs.
"What, Alice, are you not in bed yet?"
"Not yet, papa."
"And so John Grey has been here. He has left his stick in the hall. I
should know it among a thousand."
"Yes; he has been here."
"Is anything the matter, Alice?"
"No, papa, nothing is the matter."
"He has not made himself disagreeable, has he?"
"Not in the least. He never does anything wrong. He may defy man or
woman to find fault with him."
"So that is it, is it? He is just a shade too good. Well, I have
always thought that myself. But it's a fault on the right side."
"It's no fault, Papa. If there be any fault, it is not with him. But
I am yawning and tired, and I will go to bed."
"Is he to be here to-morrow?"
"No; he returns to Nethercoats early. Good night, papa."
Mr. Vavasor, as he went up to his bedroom, felt sure that there had
been something wrong between his daughter and her lover. "I don't
know how she'll ever put up with him," he said to himself, "he is so
terribly conceited. I shall never forget how he went on about Charles
Kemble, and what a fool he made of himself."
Alice, before she went to bed, sat down and wrote a letter to her
cousin Kate.
CHAPTER XII.
Mr. George Vavasor at Home.
It cannot perhaps fairly be said that George Vavasor was an
unhospitable man, seeing that it was his custom to entertain his
friends occasionally at Greenwich, Richmond, or such places; and
he would now and again have a friend to dine with him at his club.
But he never gave breakfasts, dinners, or suppers under his own
roof. During a short period of his wine-selling career, at which
time he had occupied handsome rooms over his place of business in
New Burlington Street, he had presided at certain feasts given to
customers or expectant customers by the firm; but he had not found
this employment to his taste, and had soon relinquished it to one
of the other partners. Since that he had lived in lodgings in Cecil
Street,--down at the bottom of that retired nook, near to the river
and away from the Strand. Here he had simply two rooms on the first
floor, and hither his friends came to him very rarely. They came very
rarely on any account. A stray man might now and then pass an hour
with him here; but on such occasions the chances were that the visit
had some reference, near or distant, to affairs of business. Eating
or drinking there was never any to be found here by the most intimate
of his allies. His lodgings were his private retreat, and they were
so private that but few of his friends knew where he lived.
And had it been possible he would have wished that no one should have
known his whereabouts. I am not aware that he had any special reason
for this peculiarity, or that there was anything about his mode of
life that required hiding; but he was a man who had always lived as
though secrecy in certain matters might at any time become useful
to him. He had a mode of dressing himself when he went out at night
that made it almost impossible that any one should recognise him. The
people at his lodgings did not even know that he had relatives, and
his nearest relatives hardly knew that he had lodgings. Even Kate
had never been at the rooms in Cecil Street, and addressed all her
letters to his place of business or his club. He was a man who would
bear no inquiry into himself. If he had been out of view for a month,
and his friends asked him where he had been, he always answered the
question falsely, or left it unanswered. There are many men of whom
everybody knows all about all their belongings;--as to whom everybody
knows where they live, whither they go, what is their means, and how
they spend it. But there are others of whom no man knows anything,
and George Vavasor was such a one. For myself I like the open babbler
the best. Babbling may be a weakness, but to my thinking mystery is a
vice.
Vavasor also maintained another little establishment, down in
Oxfordshire; but the two establishments did not even know of each
other's existence. There was a third, too, very closely hidden from
the world's eye, which shall be nameless; but of the establishment in
Oxfordshire he did sometimes speak, in very humble words, among his
friends. When he found himself among hunting men, he would speak of
his two nags at Roebury, saying that he had never yet been able to
mount a regular hunting stable, and that he supposed he never would;
but that there were at Roebury two indifferent beasts of his if any
one chose to buy them. And men very often did buy Vavasor's horses.
When he was on them they always went well and sold themselves
readily. And though he thus spoke of two, and perhaps did not keep
more during the summer, he always seemed to have horses enough when
he was down in the country. No one even knew George Vavasor not to
hunt because he was short of stuff. And here, at Roebury, he kept
a trusty servant, an ancient groom with two little bushy grey eyes
which looked as though they could see through a stable door. Many
were the long whisperings which George and Bat Smithers carried on
at the stable door, in the very back depth of the yard attached to
the hunting inn at Roebury. Bat regarded his master as a man wholly
devoted to horses, but often wondered why he was not more regular in
his sojournings in Oxfordshire. Of any other portion of his master's
life Bat knew nothing. Bat could give the address of his master's
club in London, but he could give no other address.
But though Vavasor's private lodgings were so very private, he had,
nevertheless, taken some trouble in adorning them. The furniture in
the sitting-room was very neat, and the book-shelves were filled
with volumes that shone with gilding on their backs. The inkstand,
the paper-weight, the envelope case on his writing-table were all
handsome. He had a single good portrait of a woman's head hanging on
one of his walls. He had a special place adapted for his pistols,
others for his foils, and again another for his whips. The room was
as pretty a bachelor's room as you would wish to enter, but you
might see, by the position of the single easy-chair that was brought
forward, that it was seldom appropriated to the comfort of more than
one person. Here he sat lounging over his breakfast, late on a Sunday
morning in September, when all the world was out of town. He was
reading a letter which had just been brought down to him from his
club. Though the writer of it was his sister Kate, she had not been
privileged to address it to his private lodgings. He read it very
quickly, running rapidly over its contents, and then threw it aside
from him as though it were of no moment, keeping, however, an
enclosure in his hand. And yet the letter was of much moment, and
made him think deeply. "If I did it at all," said he, "it would be
more with the object of cutting him out than with any other."
The reader will hardly require to be told that the him in question
was John Grey, and that Kate's letter was one instigating her brother
to renew his love affair with Alice. And Vavasor was in truth well
inclined to renew it, and would have begun the renewing it at once,
had he not doubted his power with his cousin. Indeed it has been seen
that he had already attempted some commencement of such renewal at
Basle. He had told Kate more than once that Alice's fortune was not
much, and that her beauty was past its prime; and he would no doubt
repeat the same objections to his sister with some pretence of
disinclination. It was not his custom to show his hand to the players
at any game that he played. But he was, in truth, very anxious to
obtain from Alice a second promise of her hand. How soon after that
he might marry her, would be another question.
Perhaps it was not Alice's beauty that he coveted, nor yet her money
exclusively. Nevertheless he thought her very beautiful, and was
fully aware that her money would be of great service to him. But I
believe that he was true in that word that he spoke to himself, and
that his chief attraction was the delight which he would have in
robbing Mr. Grey of his wife. Alice had once been his love, had
clung to his side, had whispered love to him, and he had enough of
the weakness of humanity in him to feel the soreness arising from
her affection for another. When she broke away from him he had
acknowledged that he had been wrong, and when, since her engagement
with Mr. Grey, he had congratulated her, he had told her in his quiet,
half-whispered, impressive words how right she was; but not the less,
therefore, did he feel himself hurt that John Grey should be her
lover. And when he had met this man he had spoken well of him to
his sister, saying that he was a gentleman, a scholar, and a man
of parts; but not the less had he hated him from the first moment
of his seeing him. Such hatred under such circumstances was almost
pardonable. But George Vavasor, when he hated, was apt to follow up
his hatred with injury. He could not violently dislike a man and yet
not wish to do him any harm. At present, as he sat lounging in his
chair, he thought that he would like to marry his cousin Alice; but
he was quite sure that he would like to be the means of putting a
stop to the proposed marriage between Alice and John Grey.
Kate had been very false to her friend, and had sent up to her
brother the very letter which Alice had written to her after that
meeting in Queen Anne Street which was described in the last
chapter,--or rather a portion of it, for with the reserve common to
women she had kept back the other half. Alice had declared to herself
that she would be sure of her cousin's sympathy, and had written out
all her heart on the matter, as was her wont when writing to Kate.
"But you must understand," she wrote, "that all that I said to him
went with him for nothing. I had determined to make him know that
everything between us must be over, but I failed. I found that I had
no words at command, but that he was able to talk to me as though I
were a child. He told me that I was sick and full of phantasies, and
bade me change the air. As he spoke in this way, I could not help
feeling how right he was to use me so; but I felt also that he,
in his mighty superiority, could never be a fitting husband for a
creature so inferior to him as I am. Though I altogether failed
to make him understand that it was so, every moment that we were
together made me more fixed in my resolution."
This letter from Alice to Kate, Vavasor read over and over again,
though Kate's letter to himself, which was the longer one, he had
thrown aside after the first glance. There was nothing that he could
learn from that. He was as good a judge of the manner in which he
would play his own game as Kate could be; but in this matter he was
to learn how he would play his game from a knowledge of the other
girl's mind. "She'll never marry him, at any rate," he said to
himself, "and she is right. He'd make an upper servant of her; very
respectable, no doubt, but still only an upper servant. Now with
me;--well, I hardly know what I should make of her. I cannot think of
myself as a man married." Then he threw her letter after Kate's, and
betook himself to his newspaper and his cigar.
It was two hours after this, and he still wore his dressing-gown, and
he was still lounging in his easy-chair, when the waiting-maid at
the lodgings brought him up word that a gentleman wished to see him.
Vavasor kept no servant of his own except that confidential groom
down at Bicester. It was a rule with him that people could be better
served and cheaper served by other people's servants than by their
own. Even in the stables at Bicester the innkeeper had to find what
assistance was wanted, and charge for it in the bill. And George
Vavasor was no Sybarite. He did not deem it impracticable to put on
his own trousers without having a man standing at his foot to hold up
the leg of the garment. A valet about a man knows a great deal of a
man's ways, and therefore George had no valet.
"A gentleman!" said he to the girl. "Does the gentleman look like a
public-house keeper?"
"Well, I think he do," said the girl.
"Then show him up," said George.
And the gentleman was a public-house keeper. Vavasor was pretty sure
of his visitor before he desired the servant to give him entrance.
It was Mr. Grimes from the "Handsome Man" public-house and tavern, in
the Brompton Road, and he had come by appointment to have a little
conversation with Mr. Vavasor on matters political. Mr. Grimes was
a man who knew that business was business, and as such had some
considerable weight in his own neighbourhood. With him politics was
business, as well as beer, and omnibus-horses, and foreign wines;--in
the fabrication of which latter article Mr. Grimes was supposed
to have an extended experience. To such as him, when intent on
business, Mr. Vavasor was not averse to make known the secrets of his
lodging-house; and now, when the idle of London world was either at
morning church or still in bed, Mr. Grimes had come out by appointment
to do a little political business with the lately-rejected member for
the Chelsea Districts.
Vavasor had been, as I have said, lately rejected, and the new member
who had beaten him at the hustings had sat now for one session in
parliament. Under his present reign he was destined to the honour of
one other session, and then the period of his existing glory,--for
which he was said to have paid nearly six thousand pounds,--would be
over. But he might be elected again, perhaps for a full period of six
sessions; and it might be hoped that this second election would be
conducted on more economical principles. To this, the economical view
of the matter, Mr. Grimes was very much opposed, and was now waiting
upon George Vavasor in Cecil Street, chiefly with the object of
opposing the new member's wishes on this head. No doubt Mr. Grimes was
personally an advocate for the return of Mr. Vavasor, and would do all
in his power to prevent the re-election of the young Lord Kilfenora,
whose father, the Marquis of Bunratty, had scattered that six
thousand pounds among the electors and non-electors of Chelsea; but
his main object was that money should be spent. "'Tain't altogether
for myself," he said to a confidential friend in the same way of
business; "I don't get so much on it. Perhaps sometimes not none. May
be I've a bill agin some of those gents not paid this werry moment.
But it's the game I looks to. If the game dies away, it'll never be
got up again;--never. Who'll care about elections then? Anybody'd go
and get hisself elected if we was to let the game go by!" And so,
that the game might not go by, Mr. Grimes was now present in Mr. George
Vavasor's rooms.
"Well Mr. Grimes," said George, "how are you this morning? Sit down,
Mr. Grimes. If every man were as punctual as you are, the world would
go like clock-work; wouldn't it?"
"Business is business, Mr. Vavasor," said the publican, after having
made his salute, and having taken his chair with some little show of
mock modesty. "That's my maxim. If I didn't stick to that, nothing
wouldn't ever stick to me; and nothing doesn't much as it is. Times
is very bad, Mr. Vavasor."
"Of course they are. They're always bad. What was the Devil made
for, except that they should be bad? But I should have thought you
publicans were the last men who ought to complain."
"Lord love you, Mr. Vavasor; why, I suppose of all the men as is put
upon, we're put upon the worst. What's the good of drawing of beer,
if the more you draw the more you don't make. Yesterday as ever was
was Saturday, and we drawed three pound ten and nine. What'll that
come to, Mr. Vavasor, when you reckons it up with the brewer? Why,
it's a next to nothing. You knows that well enough."
"Upon my word I don't. But I know you don't sell a pint of beer
without getting a profit out of it."
"Lord love you, Mr. Vavasor. If I hadn't nothink to look to but beer I
couldn't keep a house over my head; no I couldn't. That house of mine
belongs to Meux's people; and very good people they are too;--have
made a sight of money; haven't they, Mr. Vavasor? I has to get my beer
from them in course. Why not, when it's their house? But if I sells
their stuff as I gets it, there ain't a halfpenny coming to me out of
a gallon. Look at that, now."
"But then you don't sell it as you get it. You stretch it."
"That's in course. I'm not going to tell you a lie, Mr. Vavasor. You
know what's what as well as I do, and a sight better, I expect.
There's a dozen different ways of handling beer, Mr. Vavasor. But
what's the use of that, when they can take four or five pounds a day
over the counter for their rot-gut stuff at the 'Cadogan Arms,' and I
can't do no better nor yet perhaps so well, for a real honest glass
of beer. Stretch it! It's my belief the more you poison their liquor,
the more the people likes it!"
Mr. Grimes was a stout man, not very tall, with a mottled red face,
and large protruding eyes. As regards his own person, Mr. Grimes
might have been taken as a fair sample of the English innkeeper,
as described for many years past. But in his outer garments he was
very unlike that description. He wore a black, swallow-tailed coat,
made, however, to set very loose upon his back, a black waistcoat,
and black pantaloons. He carried, moreover, in his hands a black
chimney-pot hat. Not only have the top-boots and breeches vanished
from the costume of innkeepers, but also the long, particoloured
waistcoat, and the birds'-eye fogle round their necks. They get
themselves up to look like Dissenting ministers or undertakers,
except that there is still a something about their rosy gills which
tells a tale of the spigot and corkscrew.
Mr. Grimes had only just finished the tale of his own hard ways as a
publican, when the door-bell was again rung. "There's Scruby," said
George Vavasor, "and now we can go to business."
CHAPTER XIII.
Mr. Grimes Gets His Odd Money.
The handmaiden at George Vavasor's lodgings announced "another gent,"
and then Mr. Scruby entered the room in which were seated George, and
Mr. Grimes the publican from the "Handsome Man" on the Brompton Road.
Mr. Scruby was an attorney from Great Marlborough Street, supposed to
be very knowing in the ways of metropolitan elections; and he had now
stepped round, as he called it, with the object of saying a few words
to Mr. Grimes, partly on the subject of the forthcoming contest at
Chelsea, and partly on that of the contest last past. These words
were to be said in the presence of Mr. Vavasor, the person interested.
That some other words had been spoken between Mr. Scruby and Mr. Grimes
on the same subjects behind Mr. Vavasor's back I think very probable.
But even though this might have been so I am not prepared to say that
Mr. Vavasor had been deceived by their combinations.
The two men were very civil to each other in their salutations, the
attorney assuming an air of patronizing condescension, always calling
the other Grimes; whereas Mr. Scruby was treated with considerable
deference by the publican, and was always called Mr. Scruby. "Business
is business," said the publican as soon as these salutations were
over; "isn't it now, Mr. Scruby?"
"And I suppose Grimes thinks Sunday morning a particularly good time
for business," said the attorney, laughing.
"It's quiet, you know," said Grimes. "But it warn't me as named
Sunday morning. It was Mr. Vavasor here. But it is quiet; ain't it,
Mr. Scruby?"
Mr. Scruby acknowledged that it was quiet, especially looking out
over the river, and then they proceeded to business. "We must pull
the governor through better next time than we did last," said the
attorney.
"Of course we must, Mr. Scruby; but, Lord love you, Mr. Vavasor,
whose fault was it? What notice did I get,--just tell me that? Why,
Travers's name was up on the liberal interest ever so long before the
governor had ever thought about it."
"Nobody is blaming you, Mr. Grimes," said George.
"And nobody can't, Mr. Vavasor. I done my work true as steel, and
there ain't another man about the place as could have done half
as much. You ask Mr. Scruby else. Mr. Scruby knows, if ere a man in
London does. I tell you what it is, Mr. Vavasor, them Chelsea fellows,
who lives mostly down by the river, ain't like your Maryboners or
Finsburyites. It wants something of a man to manage them. Don't it Mr.
Scruby?"
"It wants something of a man to manage any of them as far as my
experience goes," said Mr. Scruby.
"Of course it do; and there ain't one in London knows so much about
it as you do, Mr. Scruby. I will say that for you. But the long and
the short of it is this;--business is business, and money is money."
"Money is money, certainly," said Mr. Scruby. "There's no doubt in the
world about that, Grimes;--and a deal of it you had out of the last
election."
"No, I hadn't; begging your pardon, Mr. Scruby, for making so free.
What I had to my own cheek wasn't nothing to speak of. I wasn't paid
for my time; that's what I wasn't. You look how a publican's business
gets cut up at them elections;--and then the state of the house
afterwards! What would the governor say to me if I was to put down
painting inside and out in my little bill?"
"It doesn't seem to make much difference how you put it down," said
Vavasor. "The total is what I look at."
"Just so, Mr. Vavasor; just so. The total is what I looks at too. And
I has to look at it a deuced long time before I gets it. I ain't a
got it yet; have I, Mr. Vavasor?"
"Well; if you ask me I should say you had," said George. "I know I
paid Mr. Scruby three hundred pounds on your account."
"And I got every shilling of it, Mr. Vavasor. I'm not a going to deny
the money, Mr. Vavasor. You'll never find me doing that. I'm as round
as your hat, and as square as your elbow,--I am. Mr. Scruby knows me;
don't you, Mr. Scruby?"
"Perhaps I know you too well, Grimes."
"No you don't, Mr. Scruby; not a bit too well. Nor I don't know you
too well, either. I respect you, Mr. Scruby, because you're a man as
understands your business. But as I was saying, what's three hundred
pounds when a man's bill is three hundred and ninety-two thirteen and
fourpence?"
"I thought that was all settled, Mr. Scruby," said Vavasor.
"Why you see, Mr. Vavasor, it's very hard to settle these things. If
you ask me whether Mr. Grimes here can sue you for the balance, I tell
you very plainly that he can't. We were a little short of money when
we came to a settlement, as is generally the case at such times, and
so we took Mr. Grimes' receipt for three hundred pounds."
"Of course you did, Mr. Scruby."
"Not on account, but in full of all demands."
"Now Mr. Scruby!" and the publican as he made this appeal looked at
the attorney with an expression of countenance which was absolutely
eloquent. "Are you going to put me off with such an excuse as that?"
so the look spoke plainly enough. "Are you going to bring up my own
signature against me, when you know very well that I shouldn't have
got a shilling at all for the next twelve months if I hadn't given
it? Oh Mr. Scruby!" That's what Mr. Grimes' look said, and both Mr.
Scruby and Mr. Vavasor understood it perfectly.
"In full of all demands," said Mr. Scruby, with a slight tone of
triumph in his voice, as though to show that Grimes' appeal had no
effect at all upon his conscience. "If you were to go into a court
of law, Grimes, you wouldn't have a leg to stand upon."
"A court of law? Who's a going to law with the governor, I should
like to know? not I; not if he didn't pay me them ninety-two pounds
thirteen and fourpence for the next five years."
"Five years or fifteen would make no difference," said Scruby. "You
couldn't do it."
"And I ain't a going to try. That's not the ticket I've come here
about, Mr. Vavasor, this blessed Sunday morning. Going to law, indeed!
But Mr. Scruby, I've got a family."
"Not in the vale of Taunton, I hope," said George.
"They is at the 'Handsome Man' in the Brompton Road, Mr. Vavasor; and
I always feels that I owes my first duty to them. If a man don't work
for his family, what do he work for?"
"Come, come, Grimes," said Mr. Scruby. "What is it you're at? Out with
it, and don't keep us here all day."
"What is it I'm at, Mr. Scruby? As if you didn't know very well
what I'm at. There's my house;--in all them Chelsea districts it's
the most convenientest of any public as is open for all manner of
election purposes. That's given up to it."
"And what next?" said Scruby.
"The next is, I myself. There isn't one of the lot of 'em can work
them Chelsea fellows down along the river unless it is me. Mr. Scruby
knows that. Why I've been a getting of them up with a view to this
very job ever since;--why ever since they was a talking of the
Chelsea districts. When Lord Robert was a coming in for the county
on the religious dodge, he couldn't have worked them fellows anyhow,
only for me. Mr. Scruby knows that."
"Let's take it all for granted, Mr. Grimes," said Vavasor. "What comes
next?"
"Well;--them Bunratty people; it is they as has come next. They know
which side their bread is likely to be buttered; they do. They're a
bidding for the 'Handsome Man' already; they are."
"And you'd let your house to the Tory party, Grimes!" said Mr. Scruby,
in a tone in which disgust and anger were blended.
"Who said anything of my letting my house to the Tory party, Mr.
Scruby? I'm as round as your hat, Mr. Scruby, and as square as your
elbow; I am. But suppose as all the liberal gents as employs you,
Mr. Scruby, was to turn again you and not pay you your little bills,
wouldn't you have your eyes open for customers of another kind? Come
now, Mr. Scruby?"
[Illustration: "I'm as round as your hat, and as square as your
elbow; I am."]
"You won't make much of that game, Grimes."
"Perhaps not; perhaps not. There's a risk in all these things; isn't
there, Mr. Vavasor? I should like to see you a Parliament gent; I
should indeed. You'd be a credit to the districts; I really think you
would."
"I'm much obliged by your good opinion, Mr. Grimes," said George.
"When I sees a gent coming forward I knows whether he's fit for
Parliament, or whether he ain't. I says you are fit. But Lord love
you, Mr. Vavasor; it's a thing a gentleman always has to pay for."
"That's true enough; a deal more than it's worth, generally."
"A thing's worth what it fetches. I'm worth what I'll fetch; that's
the long and the short of it. I want to have my balance, that's the
truth. It's the odd money in a man's bill as always carries the
profit. You ask Mr. Scruby else;--only with a lawyer it's all profit I
believe."
"That's what you know about it," said Scruby.
"If you cut off a man's odd money," continued the publican, "you
break his heart. He'd almost sooner have that and leave the other
standing. He'd call the hundreds capital, and if he lost them at
last, why he'd put it down as being in the way of trade. But the odd
money;--he looks at that, Mr. Vavasor, as in a manner the very sweat
of his brow, the work of his own hand; that's what goes to his
family, and keeps the pot a boiling down-stairs. Never stop a man's
odd money, Mr. Vavasor; that is, unless he comes it very strong
indeed."
"And what is it you want now?" said Scruby.
"I wants ninety-two pounds thirteen and fourpence, Mr. Scruby, and
then we'll go to work for the new fight with contented hearts. If
we're to begin at all, it's quite time; it is indeed, Mr. Vavasor."
"And what you mean us to understand is, that you won't begin at all
without your money," said the lawyer.
"That's about it, Mr. Scruby."
"Take a fifty-pound note, Grimes," said the lawyer.
"Fifty-pound notes are not so ready," said George.
"Oh, he'll be only too happy to have your acceptance; won't you,
Grimes."
"Not for fifty pounds, Mr. Scruby. It's the odd money that I wants.
I don't mind the thirteen and four, because that's neither here nor
there among friends, but if I didn't get all them ninety-two pounds
I should be a broken-hearted man; I should indeed, Mr. Vavasor. I
couldn't go about your work for next year so as to do you justice
among the electors. I couldn't indeed."
"You'd better give him a bill for ninety pounds at three months, Mr.
Vavasor. I have no doubt he has got a stamp in his pocket."
"That I have, Mr. Scruby; there ain't no mistake about that. A bill
stamp is a thing that often turns up convenient with gents as mean
business like Mr. Vavasor and you. But you must make it ninety-two;
you must indeed, Mr. Vavasor. And do make it two months if you can,
Mr. Vavasor; they do charge so unconscionable on ninety days at them
branch banks; they do indeed."
George Vavasor and Mr. Scruby, between them, yielded at last, so far
as to allow the bill to be drawn for ninety-two pounds, but they were
stanch as to the time. "If it must be, it must," said the publican,
with a deep sigh, as he folded up the paper and put it into the
pocket of a huge case which he carried. "And now, gents, I'll tell
you what it is. We'll make safe work of this here next election. We
know what's to be our little game in time, and if we don't go in and
win, my name ain't Jacob Grimes, and I ain't the landlord of the
'Handsome Man.' As you gents has perhaps got something to say among
yourselves, I'll make so bold as to wish you good morning." So, with
that, Mr. Grimes lifted his hat from the floor, and bowed himself out
of the room.
"You couldn't have done it cheaper; you couldn't, indeed," said the
lawyer, as soon as the sound of the closing front door had been
heard.
"Perhaps not; but what a thief the man is! I remember your telling me
that the bill was about the most preposterous you had ever seen."
"So it was, and if we hadn't wanted him again of course we shouldn't
have paid him. But we'll have it all off his next account, Mr.
Vavasor,--every shilling of it, It's only lent; that's all;--it's
only lent."
"But one doesn't want to lend such a man money, if one could help
it."
"That's true. If you look at it in that light, it's quite true. But
you see we cannot do without him. If he hadn't got your bill, he'd
have gone over to the other fellows before the week was over; and the
worst of it would have been that he knows our hand. Looking at it all
round you've got him cheap, Mr. Vavasor;--you have, indeed."
"Looking at it all round is just what I don't like, Mr. Scruby, But if
a man will have a whistle, he must pay for it."
"You can't do it cheap for any of these metropolitan seats; you
can't, indeed, Mr. Vavasor. That is, a new man can't. When you've
been in four or five times, like old Duncombe, why then, of course,
you may snap your fingers at such men as Grimes. But the Chelsea
districts ain't dear. I don't call them by any means dear. Now
Marylebone is dear,--and so is Southwark. It's dear, and nasty;
that's what the borough is. Only that I never tell tales, I could
tell you a tale, Mr. Vavasor, that'd make your hair stand on end; I
could indeed."
"Ah! the game is hardly worth the candle, I believe."
"That depends on what way you choose to look at it. A seat in
Parliament is a great thing to a man who wants to make his way;--a
very great thing;--specially when a man's young, like you, Mr.
Vavasor."
"Young!" said George. "Sometimes it seems to me as though I've been
living for a hundred years. But I won't trouble you with that, Mr.
Scruby, and I believe I needn't keep you any longer." With that, he
got up and bowed the attorney out of the room, with just a little
more ceremony than he had shown to the publican.
"Young!" said Vavasor to himself, when he was left alone. "There's
my uncle, or the old squire,--they're both younger men than I am.
One cares for his dinner, and the other for his bullocks and his
trees. But what is there that I care for, unless it is not getting
among the sheriff's officers for debt?" Then he took out a little
memorandum-book from his breast-pocket, and having made in it an
entry as to the amount and date of that bill which he had just
accepted on the publican's behalf, he conned over the particulars of
its pages. "Very blue; very blue, indeed," he said to himself when he
had completed the study. "But nobody shall say I hadn't the courage
to play the game out, and that old fellow must die some day, one
supposes. If I were not a fool, I should make it up with him before
he went; but I am a fool, and shall remain so to the last." Soon
after that he dressed himself slowly, reading a little every now and
then as he did so. When his toilet was completed, and his Sunday
newspapers sufficiently perused, he took up his hat and umbrella and
sauntered out.
CHAPTER XIV.
Alice Vavasor Becomes Troubled.
Kate Vavasor had sent to her brother only the first half of her
cousin's letter, that half in which Alice had attempted to describe
what had taken place between her and Mr. Grey. In doing this, Kate
had been a wicked traitor,--a traitor to that feminine faith against
which treason on the part of one woman is always unpardonable in
the eyes of other women. But her treason would have been of a deeper
die had she sent the latter portion, for in that Alice had spoken
of George Vavasor himself. But even of this treason, Kate would, I
think, have been guilty, had the words which Alice wrote been of a
nature to serve her own purpose if read by her brother. But they had
not been of this nature. They had spoken of George as a man with
whom any closer connection than that which existed at present was
impossible, and had been written with the view of begging Kate to
desist from making futile attempts in that direction. "I feel myself
driven," Alice had said, "to write all this, as otherwise,--if I were
simply to tell you that I have resolved to part from Mr. Grey,--you
would think that the other thing might follow. The other thing cannot
follow. I should think myself untrue in my friendship to you if I did
not tell you about Mr. Grey; and you will be untrue in your friendship
to me if you take advantage of my confidence by saying more about
your brother." This part of Alice's letter Kate had not sent to
George Vavasor;--"But the other thing shall follow," Kate had said,
as she read the words for the second time, and then put the papers
into her desk. "It shall follow."
To give Kate Vavasor her due, she was, at any rate, unselfish in
her intrigues. She was obstinately persistent, and she was moreover
unscrupulous, but she was not selfish. Many years ago she had made
up her mind that George and Alice should be man and wife, feeling
that such a marriage would be good at any rate for her brother. It
had been almost brought about, and had then been hindered altogether
through a fault on her brother's part. But she had forgiven him this
sin as she had forgiven many others, and she was now at work in
his behalf again, determined that they two should be married, even
though neither of them might be now anxious that it should be so. The
intrigue itself was dear to her, and success in it was necessary to
her self-respect.
She answered Alice's letter with a pleasant, gossiping epistle, which
shall be recorded, as it will tell us something of Mrs. Greenow's
proceedings at Yarmouth. Kate had promised to stay at Yarmouth for a
month, but she had already been there six weeks, and was still under
her aunt's wing.
Yarmouth, October, 186--.
DEAREST ALICE,
Of course I am delighted. It is no good saying that I am
not. I know how difficult it is to deal with you, and
therefore I sit down to answer your letter with fear and
trembling, lest I should say a word too much, and thereby
drive you back, or not say quite enough and thereby fail
to encourage you on. Of course I am glad. I have long
thought that Mr. Grey could not make you happy, and as
I have thought so, how can I not be glad? It is no use
saying that he is good and noble, and all that sort of
thing. I have never denied it. But he was not suited to
you, and his life would have made you wretched. Ergo, I
rejoice. And as you are the dearest friend I have, of
course I rejoice mightily.
I can understand accurately the sort of way in which
the interview went. Of course he had the best of it.
I can see him so plainly as he stood up in unruffled
self-possession, ignoring all that you said, suggesting
that you were feverish or perhaps bilious, waving his
hand over you a little, as though that might possibly do
you some small good, and then taking his leave with an
assurance that it would be all right as soon as the wind
changed. I suppose it's very noble in him, not taking you
at your word, and giving you, as it were, another chance;
but there is a kind of nobility which is almost too great
for this world. I think very well of you, my dear, as
women go, but I do not think well enough of you to believe
that you are fit to be Mr. John Grey's wife.
Of course I'm very glad. You have known my mind from the
first to the last, and, therefore, what would be the good
of my mincing matters? No woman wishes her dearest friend
to marry a man to whom she herself is antipathetic. You
would have been as much lost to me, had you become Mrs.
Grey of Nethercoats, Cambridgeshire, as though you had
gone to heaven. I don't say but what Nethercoats may be a
kind of heaven,--but then one doesn't wish one's friend
that distant sort of happiness. A flat Eden I can fancy
it, hemmed in by broad dykes, in which cream and eggs are
very plentiful, where an Adam and an Eve might drink the
choicest tea out of the finest china, with toast buttered
to perfection, from year's end to year's end; into which
no money troubles would ever find their way, nor yet
any naughty novels. But such an Eden is not tempting to
me, nor, as I think, to you. I can fancy you stretching
your poor neck over the dyke, longing to fly away that
you might cease to be at rest, but knowing that the
matrimonial dragon was too strong for any such flight. If
ever bird banged his wings to pieces against gilded bars,
you would have banged yours to pieces in that cage.
You say that you have failed to make him understand that
the matter is settled. I need not say that of course it is
settled, and that he must be made to understand it. You
owe it to him now to put him out of all doubt. He is, I
suppose, accessible to the words of a mortal, god though
he be. But I do not fear about this, for, after all, you
have as much firmness about you as most people;--perhaps
as much as he has at bottom, though you may not have so
many occasions to show it.
As to that other matter I can only say that you shall be
obliged, as far as it is in my power to obey you. For
what may come out from me by word of mouth when we are
together, I will not answer with certainty. But my pen is
under better control, and it shall not write the offending
name.
And now I must tell you a little about myself;--or rather,
I am inclined to spin a yarn, and tell you a great deal.
I have got such a lover! But I did describe him before.
Of course it's Mr. Cheesacre. If I were to say he hasn't
declared himself, I should hardly give you a fair idea of
my success. And yet he has not declared himself,--and,
which is worse, is very anxious to marry a rival. But it's
a strong point in my favour that my rival wants him to
take me, and that he will assuredly be driven to make me
an offer sooner or later, in obedience to her orders. My
aunt is my rival, and I do not feel the least doubt as to
his having offered to her half a dozen times. But then she
has another lover, Captain Bellfield, and I see that she
prefers him. He is a penniless scamp and looks as though
he drank. He paints his whiskers too, which I don't
like; and, being forty, tries to look like twenty-five.
Otherwise he is agreeable enough, and I rather approve of
my aunt's taste in preferring him.
But my lover has solid attractions, and allures me on by
a description of the fat cattle which he sends to market.
He is a man of substance, and should I ever become Mrs.
Cheesacre, I have reason to think that I shall not be left
in want. We went up to his place on a visit the other day.
Oileymead is the name of my future home;--not so pretty
as Nethercoats, is it? And we had such a time there! We
reached the place at ten and left it at four, and he
managed to give us three meals. I'm sure we had before our
eyes at different times every bit of china, delf, glass,
and plate in the establishment. He made us go into the
cellar, and told us how much wine he had got there, and
how much beer. "It's all paid for, Mrs. Greenow, every
bottle of it," he said, turning round to my aunt, with a
pathetic earnestness, for which I had hardly given him
credit. "Everything in this house is my own; it's all paid
for. I don't call anything a man's own till it's paid for.
Now that jacket that Bellfield swells about with on the
sands at Yarmouth,--that's not his own,--and it's not
like to be either." And then he winked his eye as though
bidding my aunt to think of that before she encouraged
such a lover as Bellfield. He took us into every bedroom,
and disclosed to us all the glories of his upper chambers.
It would have done you good to see him lifting the
counterpanes, and bidding my aunt feel the texture of
the blankets! And then to see her turn round to me and
say:--"Kate, it's simply the best-furnished house I ever
went over in my life!"--"It does seem very comfortable,"
said I. "Comfortable!" said he. "Yes, I don't think
there's anybody can say that Oileymead isn't comfortable."
I did so think of you and Nethercoats. The attractions
are the same;--only in the one place you would have a god
for your keeper, and in the other a brute. For myself, if
ever I'm to have a keeper at all, I shall prefer a man.
But when we got to the farmyard his eloquence reached the
highest pitch. "Mrs. Greenow," said he, "look at that," and
he pointed to heaps of manure raised like the streets of a
little city. "Look at that!" "There's a great deal," said
my aunt. "I believe you," said he. "I've more muck upon
this place here than any farmer in Norfolk, gentle or
simple; I don't care who the other is." Only fancy, Alice;
it may all be mine; the blankets, the wine, the muck, and
the rest of it. So my aunt assured me when we got home
that evening. When I remarked that the wealth had been
exhibited to her and not to me, she did not affect to deny
it, but treated that as a matter of no moment. "He wants
a wife, my dear," she said, "and you may pick him up
to-morrow by putting out your hand." When I remarked that
his mind seemed to be intent on low things, and specially
named the muck, she only laughed at me. "Money's never
dirty," she said, "nor yet what makes money." She talks of
taking lodgings in Norwich for the winter, saying that in
her widowed state she will be as well there as anywhere
else, and she wants me to stay with her up to Christmas.
Indeed she first proposed the Norwich plan on the ground
that it might be useful to me,--with a view to Mr.
Cheesacre, of course; but I fancy that she is unwilling
to tear herself away from Captain Bellfield. At any rate
to Norwich she will go, and I have promised not to leave
her before the second week in November. With all her
absurdities I like her. Her faults are terrible faults,
but she has not the fault of hiding them by falsehood. She
is never stupid, and she is very good-natured. She would
have allowed me to equip myself from head to foot at her
expense, if I would have accepted her liberality, and
absolutely offered to give me my trousseau if I would
marry Mr. Cheesacre.
I live in the hope that you will come down to the old
place at Christmas. I won't offend you more than I can
help. At any rate he won't be there. And if I don't see
you there, where am I to see you? If I were you I would
certainly not go to Cheltenham. You are never happy there.
Do you ever dream of the river at Basle? I do;--so often.
Most affectionately yours,
KATE VAVASOR.
[Illustration: "Mrs. Greenow, look at that."]
Alice had almost lost the sensation created by the former portion of
Kate's letter by the fun of the latter, before she had quite made
that sensation her own. The picture of the Cambridgeshire Eden would
have displeased her had she dwelt upon it, and the allusion to the
cream and toast would have had the very opposite effect to that which
Kate had intended. Perhaps Kate had felt this, and had therefore
merged it all in her stories about Mr. Cheesacre. "I will go to
Cheltenham," she said to herself. "He has recommended it. I shall
never be his wife;--but, till we have parted altogether, I will show
him that I think well of his advice." That same afternoon she told
her father that she would go to Lady Macleod's at Cheltenham before
the end of the month. She was, in truth, prompted to this by a
resolution, of which she was herself hardly conscious, that she would
not at this period of her life be in any way guided by her cousin.
Having made up her mind about Mr. Grey, it was right that she should
let her cousin know her purpose; but she would never be driven to
confess to herself that Kate had influenced her in the matter. She
would go to Cheltenham. Lady Macleod would no doubt vex her by hourly
solicitations that the match might be renewed; but, if she knew
herself, she had strength to withstand Lady Macleod.
She received one letter from Mr. Grey before the time came
for her departure, and she answered it, telling him of her
intention;--telling him also that she now felt herself bound to
explain to her father her present position. "I tell you this," she
said, "in consequence of what you said to me on the matter. My father
will know it to-morrow, and on the following morning I shall start
for Cheltenham. I have heard from Lady Macleod and she expects me."
On the following morning she did tell her father, standing by him as
he sat at his breakfast. "What!" said he, putting down his tea-cup
and looking up into her face; "What! not marry John Grey!"
"No, papa; I know how strange you must think it."
"And you say that there has been no quarrel."
"No;--there has been no quarrel. By degrees I have learned to feel
that I should not make him happy as his wife."
"It's d----d nonsense," said Mr. Vavasor. Now such an expression as
this from him, addressed to his daughter, showed that he was very
deeply moved.
"Oh, papa! don't talk to me in that way."
"But it is. I never heard such trash in my life. If he comes to me I
shall tell him so. Not make him happy! Why can't you make him happy?"
"We are not suited to each other."
"But what's the matter with him? He's a gentleman."
"Yes; he's a gentleman."
"And a man of honour, and with good means, and with all that
knowledge and reading which you profess to like. Look here, Alice;
I am not going to interfere, nor shall I attempt to make you marry
anyone. You are your own mistress as far as that is concerned. But I
do hope, for your sake and for mine,--I do hope that there is nothing
again between you and your cousin."
"There is nothing, papa."
"I did not like your going abroad with him, though I didn't choose
to interrupt your plan by saying so. But if there were anything of
that kind going on, I should be bound to tell you that your cousin's
position at present is not a good one. Men do not speak well of him."
"There is nothing between us, papa; but if there were, men speaking
ill of him would not deter me."
"And men speaking well of Mr. Grey will not do the other thing. I know
very well that women can be obstinate."
"I haven't come to this resolution without thinking much about it,
papa."
"I suppose not. Well;--I can't say anything more. You are your own
mistress, and your fortune is in your own keeping. I can't make you
marry John Grey. I think you very foolish, and if he comes to me I
shall tell him so. You are going down to Cheltenham, are you?"
"Yes, papa; I have promised Lady Macleod."
"Very well. I'd sooner it should be you than me; that's all I can
say." Then he took up his newspaper, thereby showing that he had
nothing further to say on the matter, and Alice left him alone.
The whole thing was so vexatious that even Mr. Vavasor was disturbed
by it. As it was not term time he had no signing to do in Chancery
Lane, and could not, therefore, bury his unhappiness in his daily
labour,--or rather in his labour that was by no means daily. So he
sat at home till four o'clock, expressing to himself in various
phrases his wonder that "any man alive should ever rear a daughter."
And when he got to his club the waiters found him quite unmanageable
about his dinner, which he ate alone, rejecting all proposition of
companionship. But later in the evening he regained his composure
over a glass of whiskey-toddy and a cigar. "She's got her own money,"
he said to himself, "and what does it matter? I don't suppose she'll
marry her cousin. I don't think she's fool enough for that. And after
all she'll probably make it up again with John Grey." And in this way
he determined that he might let this annoyance run off him, and that
he need not as a father take the trouble of any interference.
But while he was at his club there came a visitor to Queen Anne
Street, and that visitor was the dangerous cousin of whom, according
to his uncle's testimony, men at present did not speak well. Alice
had not seen him since they had parted on the day of their arrival
in London,--nor, indeed, had heard of his whereabouts. In the
consternation of her mind at this step which she was taking,--a step
which she had taught herself to regard as essentially her duty before
it was taken, but which seemed to herself to be false and treacherous
the moment she had taken it,--she had become aware that she had been
wrong to travel with her cousin. She felt sure,--she thought that
she was sure,--that her doing so had in nowise affected her dealings
with Mr. Grey. She was very certain,--she thought that she was
certain,--that she would have rejected him just the same had she
never gone to Switzerland. But every one would say of her that her
journey to Switzerland with such companions had produced that result.
It had been unlucky and she was sorry for it, and she now wished to
avoid all communication with her cousin till this affair should be
altogether over. She was especially unwilling to see him; but she
had not felt it necessary to give any special injunctions as to his
admittance; and now, before she had time to think of it,--on the eve
of her departure for Cheltenham,--he was in the room with her, just
as the dusk of the October evening was coming on. She was sitting
away from the fire, almost behind the window-curtains, thinking of
John Grey and very unhappy in her thoughts, when George Vavasor was
announced. It will of course be understood that Vavasor had at this
time received his sister's letter. He had received it, and had had
time to consider the matter since the Sunday morning on which we
saw him in his own rooms in Cecil Street. "She can turn it all into
capital to-morrow, if she pleases," he had said to himself when
thinking of her income. But he had also reminded himself that her
grandfather would probably enable him to settle an income out of the
property upon Alice, in the event of their being married. And then
he had also felt that he could have no greater triumph than "walking
atop of John Grey," as he called it. His return for the Chelsea
Districts would hardly be sweeter to him than that.
"You must have thought I had vanished out of the world," said George,
coming up to her with his extended hand.
Alice was confused, and hardly knew how to address him. "Somebody
told me that you were shooting," she said after a pause.
"So I was, but my shooting is not like the shooting of your great
Nimrods,--men who are hunters upon the earth. Two days among the
grouse and two more among the partridges are about the extent of it.
Capel Court is the preserve in which I am usually to be found."
Alice knew nothing of Capel Court, and said, "Oh, indeed."
"Have you heard from Kate?" George asked.
"Yes, once or twice; she is still at Yarmouth with Aunt Greenow."
"And is going to Norwich, as she says. Kate seems to have made
a league with Aunt Greenow. I, who don't pretend to be very
disinterested in money matters, think that she is quite right. No
doubt Aunt Greenow may marry again, but friends with forty thousand
pounds are always agreeable."
"I don't believe that Kate thinks much of that," said Alice.
"Not so much as she ought, I dare say. Poor Kate is not a rich woman,
or, I fear, likely to become one. She doesn't seem to dream of
getting married, and her own fortune is less than a hundred a year."
"Girls who never dream of getting married are just those who make the
best marriages at last," said Alice.
"Perhaps so, but I wish I was easier about Kate. She is the best
sister a man ever had."
"Indeed she is."
"And I have done nothing for her as yet. I did think, while I was in
that wine business, that I could have done anything I pleased for
her. But my grandfather's obstinacy put me out of that; and now I'm
beginning the world again,--that is, comparatively. I wonder whether
you think I'm wrong in trying to get into Parliament?"
"No; quite right. I admire you for it. It is just what I would do in
your place. You are unmarried, and have a right to run the risk."
"I am so glad to hear you speak like that," said he. He had now
managed to take up that friendly, confidential, almost affectionate
tone of talking which he had so often used when abroad with her, and
which he had failed to assume when first entering the room.
"I have always thought so."
"But you have never said it."
"Haven't I? I thought I had."
"Not heartily like that. I know that people abuse me;--my own people,
my grandfather, and probably your father,--saying that I am reckless
and the rest of it. I do risk everything for my object; but I do not
know that any one can blame me,--unless it be Kate. To whom else do I
owe anything?"
"Kate does not blame you."
"No; she sympathizes with me; she, and she only, unless it be you."
Then he paused for an answer, but she made him none. "She is brave
enough to give me her hearty sympathy. But perhaps for that very
reason I ought to be the more chary in endangering the only support
that she is like to have. What is ninety pounds a year for the
maintenance of a single lady?"
"I hope that Kate will always live with me," said Alice; "that is, as
soon as she has lost her home at Vavasor Hall."
He had been very crafty and had laid a trap for her. He had laid a
trap for her, and she had fallen into it. She had determined not to
be induced to talk of herself; but he had brought the thing round so
cunningly that the words were out of her mouth before she remembered
whither they would lead her. She did remember this as she was
speaking them, but then it was too late.
"What;--at Nethercoats?" said he. "Neither she nor I doubt your love,
but few men would like such an intruder as that into their household,
and of all men Mr. Grey, whose nature is retiring, would like it the
least."
"I was not thinking of Nethercoats," said Alice.
"Ah, no; that is it, you see. Kate says so often to me that when you
are married she will be alone in the world."
"I don't think she will ever find that I shall separate myself from
her."
"No; not by any will of your own. Poor Kate! You cannot be surprised
that she should think of your marriage with dread. How much of her
life has been made up of her companionship with you;--and all the
best of it too! You ought not to be angry with her for regarding your
withdrawal into Cambridgeshire with dismay."
Alice could not act the lie which now seemed to be incumbent on her.
She could not let him talk of Nethercoats as though it were to be her
future home. She made the struggle, and she found that she could not
do it. She was unable to find the words which should tell no lie to
the ear, and which should yet deceive him. "Kate may still live with
me," she said slowly. "Everything is over between me and Mr. Grey."
"Alice!--is that true?"
"Yes, George; it is true. If you will allow me to say so, I would
rather not talk about it;--not just at present."
"And does Kate know it?"
"Yes, Kate knows it."
"And my uncle?"
"Yes, papa knows it also."
"Alice, how can I help speaking of it? How can I not tell you that I
am rejoiced that you are saved from a thraldom which I have long felt
sure would break your heart?"
"Pray do not talk of it further."
"Well; if I am forbidden I shall of course obey. But I own it is hard
to me. How can I not congratulate you?" To this she answered nothing,
but beat with her foot upon the floor as though she were impatient
of his words. "Yes, Alice, I understand. You are angry with me,"
he continued. "And yet you have no right to be surprised that when
you tell me this I should think of all that passed between us in
Switzerland. Surely the cousin who was with you then has a right to
say what he thinks of this change in your life; at any rate he may do
so, if as in this case he approves altogether of what you are doing."
"I am glad of your approval, George; but pray let that be an end to
it."
After that the two sat silent for a minute or two. She was waiting
for him to go, but she could not bid him leave the house. She was
angry with herself, in that she had allowed herself to tell him
of her altered plans, and she was angry with him because he would
not understand that she ought to be spared all conversation on
the subject. So she sat looking through the window at the row of
gaslights as they were being lit, and he remained in his chair with
his elbow on the table and his head resting on his hand.
"Do you remember asking me whether I ever shivered," he said at last;
"--whether I ever thought of things that made me shiver? Don't you
remember; on the bridge at Basle?"
"Yes; I remember."
"Well, Alice;--one cause for my shivering is over. I won't say more
than that now. Shall you remain long at Cheltenham?"
"Just a month."
"And then you come back here?"
"I suppose so. Papa and I will probably go down to Vavasor Hall
before Christmas. How much before I cannot say."
"I shall see you at any rate after your return from Cheltenham? Of
course Kate will know, and she will tell me."
"Yes; Kate will know. I suppose she will stay here when she comes up
from Norfolk. Good-bye."
"Good-bye, Alice. I shall have fewer fits of that inward shivering
that you spoke of,--many less, on account of what I have now heard.
God bless you, Alice; good-bye."
"Good-bye, George."
As he went he took her hand and pressed it closely between his own.
In those days when they were lovers,--engaged lovers, a close,
long-continued pressure of her hand had been his most eloquent speech
of love. He had not been given to many kisses,--not even to many
words of love. But he would take her hand and hold it, even as he
looked away from her, and she remembered well the touch of his palm.
It was ever cool,--cool, and with a surface smooth as a woman's,--a
small hand that had a firm grip. There had been days when she had
loved to feel that her own was within it, when she trusted in it, and
intended that it should be her staff through life. Now she distrusted
it; and as the thoughts of the old days came upon her, and the
remembrance of that touch was recalled, she drew her hand away
rapidly. Not for that had she driven from her as honest a man as had
ever wished to mate with a woman. He, George Vavasor, had never so
held her hand since the day when they had parted, and now on this
first occasion of her freedom she felt it again. What did he think of
her? Did he suppose that she could transfer her love in that way, as
a flower may be taken from one buttonhole and placed in another? He
read it all, and knew that he was hurrying on too quickly. "I can
understand well," he said in a whisper, "what your present feelings
are; but I do not think you will be really angry with me because I
have been unable to repress my joy at what I cannot but regard as
your release from a great misfortune." Then he went.
"My release!" she said, seating herself on the chair from which he
had risen. "My release from a misfortune! No;--but my fall from
heaven! Oh, what a man he is! That he should have loved me, and that
I should have driven him away from me!" Her thoughts travelled off to
the sweetness of that home at Nethercoats, to the excellence of that
master who might have been hers; and then in an agony of despair
she told herself that she had been an idiot and a fool, as well as
a traitor. What had she wanted in life that she should have thus
quarrelled with as happy a lot as ever had been offered to a woman?
Had she not been mad, when she sent from her side the only man that
she loved,--the only man that she had ever truly respected? For hours
she sat there, all alone, putting out the candles which the servant
had lighted for her, and leaving untasted the tea that was brought to
her.
Poor Alice! I hope that she may be forgiven. It was her special
fault, that when at Rome she longed for Tibur, and when at Tibur
she regretted Rome. Not that her cousin George is to be taken as
representing the joys of the great capital, though Mr. Grey may be
presumed to form no inconsiderable part of the promised delights
of the country. Now that she had sacrificed her Tibur, because it
had seemed to her that the sunny quiet of its pastures lacked the
excitement necessary for the happiness of life, she was again
prepared to quarrel with the heartlessness of Rome, and already was
again sighing for the tranquillity of the country.
Sitting there, full of these regrets, she declared to herself that
she would wait for her father's return, and then, throwing herself
upon his love and upon his mercy, would beg him to go to Mr. Grey and
ask for pardon for her. "I should be very humble to him," she said;
"but he is so good, that I may dare to be humble before him." So
she waited for her father. She waited till twelve, till one, till
two;--but still he did not come. Later than that she did not dare to
wait for him. She feared to trust him on such business returning so
late as that,--after so many cigars; after, perhaps, some superfluous
beakers of club nectar. His temper at such a moment would not be fit
for such work as hers. But if he was late in coming home, who had
sent him away from his home in unhappiness? Between two and three she
went to bed, and on the following morning she left Queen Anne Street
for the Great Western Station before her father was up.
CHAPTER XV.
Paramount Crescent.
Lady Macleod lived at No. 3, Paramount Crescent, in Cheltenham, where
she occupied a very handsome first-floor drawing-room, with a bedroom
behind it, looking over a stable-yard, and a small room which would
have been the dressing-room had the late Sir Archibald been alive,
but which was at present called the dining-room: and in it Lady
Macleod did dine whenever her larger room was to be used for any
purposes of evening company. The vicinity of the stable-yard was not
regarded by the tenant as among the attractions of the house; but it
had the effect of lowering the rent, and Lady Macleod was a woman who
regarded such matters. Her income, though small, would have sufficed
to enable her to live removed from such discomforts; but she was one
of those women who regard it as a duty to leave something behind
them,--even though it be left to those who do not at all want it;
and Lady Macleod was a woman who wilfully neglected no duty. So
she pinched herself, and inhaled the effluvia of the stables, and
squabbled with the cabmen, in order that she might bequeath a
thousand pounds or two to some Lady Midlothian, who cared, perhaps,
little for her, and would hardly thank her memory for the money.
Had Alice consented to live with her, she would have merged that duty
of leaving money behind her in that other duty of finding a home for
her adopted niece. But Alice had gone away, and therefore the money
was due to Lady Midlothian rather than to her. The saving, however,
was postponed whenever Alice would consent to visit Cheltenham; and a
bedroom was secured for her which did not look out over the stables.
Accommodation was also found for her maid much better than that
provided for Lady Macleod's own maid. She was a hospitable, good old
woman, painfully struggling to do the best she could in the world. It
was a pity that she was such a bore, a pity that she was so hard to
cabmen and others, a pity that she suspected all tradesmen, servants,
and people generally of a rank of life inferior to her own, a pity
that she was disposed to condemn for ever and ever so many of her own
rank because they played cards on week days, and did not go to church
on Sundays,--and a pity, as I think above all, that while she was
so suspicious of the poor she was so lenient to the vices of earls,
earl's sons, and such like.
Alice, having fully considered the matter, had thought it most
prudent to tell Lady Macleod by letter what she had done in regard
to Mr. Grey. There had been many objections to the writing of such a
letter, but there appeared to be stronger objection to that telling
it face to face which would have been forced upon her had she not
written. There would in such case have arisen on Lady Macleod's
countenance a sternness of rebuke which Alice did not choose
to encounter. The same sternness of rebuke would come upon the
countenance on receipt of the written information; but it would come
in its most aggravated form on the immediate receipt of the letter,
and some of its bitterness would have passed away before Alice's
arrival. I think that Alice was right. It is better for both parties
that any great offence should be confessed by letter.
But Alice trembled as the cab drew up at No. 3, Paramount Crescent.
She met her aunt, as was usual, just inside the drawing-room door,
and she saw at once that if any bitterness had passed away from that
face, the original bitterness must indeed have been bitter. She had
so timed her letter that Lady Macleod should have no opportunity of
answering it. The answer was written there in the mingled anger and
sorrow of those austere features.
"Alice!" she said, as she took her niece in her arms and kissed her;
"oh, Alice, what is this?"
"Yes, aunt; it is very bad, I know," and poor Alice tried to make a
jest of it. "Young ladies are very wicked when they don't know their
own minds. But if they haven't known them and have been wicked, what
can they do but repent?"
"Repent!" said Lady Macleod. "Yes; I hope you will repent. Poor Mr.
Grey;--what must he think of it?"
"I can only hope, aunt, that he won't think of it at all for very
long."
"That's nonsense, my dear, Of course he'll think of it, and of course
you'll marry him."
"Shall I, aunt?"
"Of course you will. Why, Alice, hasn't it been all settled among
families? Lady Midlothian knew all the particulars of it just as
well as I did. And is not your word pledged to him? I really don't
understand what you mean. I don't see how it is possible you should
go back. Gentlemen when they do that kind of thing are put out of
society;--but I really think it is worse in a woman."
"Then they may if they please put me out of society;--only that I
don't know that I'm particularly in it."
"And the wickedness of the thing, Alice! I'm obliged to say so."
"When you talk to me about society, aunt, and about Lady Midlothian,
I give up to you, willingly;--the more willingly, perhaps, because I
don't care much for one or the other." Here Lady Macleod tried to say
a word; but she failed, and Alice went on, boldly looking up into her
aunt's face, which became a shade more bitter than ever. "But when
you tell me about wickedness and my conscience, then I must be my own
judge. It is my conscience, and the fear of committing wickedness,
that has made me do this."
"You should submit to be guided by your elders, Alice."
"No; my elders in such a matter as this cannot teach me. It cannot be
right that I should go to a man's house and be his wife, if I do not
think that I can make him happy."
"Then why did you accept him?"
"Because I was mistaken. I am not going to defend that. If you choose
to scold me for that, you may do so, aunt, and I will not answer you.
But as to marrying him or not marrying him now,--as to that, I must
judge for myself."
"It was a pity you did not know your own mind earlier."
"It was a pity,--a great pity. I have done myself an injury that is
quite irretrievable;--I know that, and am prepared to bear it. I have
done him, too, an injustice which I regret with my whole heart. I
can only excuse myself by saying that I might have done him a worse
injustice."
All this was said at the very moment of her arrival, and the greeting
did not seem to promise much for the happiness of the next month; but
perhaps it was better for them both that the attack and the defence
should thus be made suddenly, at their first meeting. It is better to
pull the string at once when you are in the shower-bath, and not to
stand shivering, thinking of the inevitable shock which you can only
postpone for a few minutes. Lady Macleod in this case had pulled the
string, and thus reaped the advantage of her alacrity.
"Well, my dear," said her ladyship, "I suppose you will like to go
up-stairs and take off your bonnet. Mary shall bring you some tea
when you come down." So Alice escaped, and when she returned to the
comfort of her cup of tea in the drawing-room, the fury of the storm
had passed away. She sat talking of other things till dinner; and
though Lady Macleod did during the evening make one allusion to "poor
Mr. Grey," the subject was allowed to drop. Alice was very tender as
to her aunt's ailments, was more than ordinarily attentive to the
long list of Cheltenham iniquities which was displayed to her, and
refrained from combating any of her aunt's religious views. After
a while they got upon the subject of Aunt Greenow, for whose name
Lady Macleod had a special aversion,--as indeed she had for all the
Vavasor side of Alice's family; and then Alice offered to read, and
did read to her aunt many pages out of one of those terrible books of
wrath, which from time to time come forth and tell us that there is
no hope for us. Lady Macleod liked to be so told; and as she now,
poor woman, could not read at nights herself, she enjoyed her
evening.
Lady Macleod no doubt did enjoy her niece's sojourn at Cheltenham,
but I do not think it could have been pleasant to Alice. On the
second day nothing was said about Mr. Grey, and Alice hoped that by
her continual readings in the book of wrath her aunt's heart might
be softened towards her. But it seemed that Lady Macleod measured
the periods of respite, for on the third day and on the fifth she
returned to the attack. "Did John Grey still wish that the match
should go on?" she asked, categorically. It was in vain that Alice
tried to put aside the question, and begged that the matter might
not be discussed. Lady Macleod insisted on her right to carry on the
examination, and Alice was driven to acknowledge that she believed he
did wish it. She could hardly say otherwise, seeing that she had at
that moment a letter from him in her pocket, in which he still spoke
of his engagement as being absolutely binding on him, and expressed a
hope that this change from London to Cheltenham would bring her round
and set everything to rights. He certainly did, in a fashion, wave
his hand over her, as Kate had said of him. This letter Alice had
resolved that she would not answer. He would probably write again,
and she would beg him to desist. Instead of Cheltenham bringing her
round, Cheltenham had made her firmer than ever in her resolution. I
am inclined to think that the best mode of bringing her round at this
moment would have been a course of visits from her cousin George, and
a series of letters from her cousin Kate. Lady Macleod's injunctions
would certainly not bring her round.
After ten days, ten terrible days, devoted to discussions on
matrimony in the morning, and to the book of wrath in the
evening,--relieved by two tea-parties, in which the sins of
Cheltenham were discussed at length,--Lady Macleod herself got a
letter from Mr. Grey. Mr. Grey's kindest compliments to Lady Macleod.
He believed that Lady Macleod was aware of the circumstances of his
engagement with Miss Vavasor. Might he call on Miss Vavasor at Lady
Macleod's house in Cheltenham? and might he also hope to have the
pleasure of making Lady Macleod's acquaintance? Alice had been in
the room when her aunt received this letter, but her aunt had said
nothing, and Alice had not known from whom the letter had come.
When her aunt crept away with it after breakfast she had suspected
nothing, and had never imagined that Lady Macleod, in the privacy of
her own room looking out upon the stables, had addressed a letter to
Nethercoats. But such a letter had been addressed to Nethercoats,
and Mr. Grey had been informed that he would be received in Paramount
Crescent with great pleasure.
Mr. Grey had even indicated the day on which he would come, and on the
morning of that day Lady Macleod had presided over the two teacups
in a state of nervous excitement which was quite visible to Alice.
More than once Alice asked little questions, not supposing that she
was specially concerned in the matter which had caused her aunt's
fidgety restlessness, but observing it so plainly that it was almost
impossible not to allude to it. "There's nothing the matter, my dear,
at all," at last Lady Macleod said; but as she said so she was making
up her mind that the moment had not come in which she must apprise
Alice of Mr. Grey's intended visit. As Alice had questioned her at the
breakfast table she would say nothing about it then, but waited till
the teacups were withdrawn, and till the maid had given her last
officious poke to the fire. Then she began. She had Mr. Grey's letter
in her pocket, and as she prepared herself to speak, she pulled it
out and held it on the little table before her.
"Alice," she said, "I expect a visitor here to-day."
Alice knew instantly who was the expected visitor. Probably any girl
under such circumstances would have known equally well. "A visitor,
aunt," she said, and managed to hide her knowledge admirably.
"Yes, Alice a visitor. I should have told you before, only I
thought,--I thought I had better not. It is Mr.--Mr. Grey."
"Indeed, aunt! Is he coming to see you?"
"Well;--he is desirous no doubt of seeing you more especially; but he
has expressed a wish to make my acquaintance, which I cannot, under
the circumstances, think is unnatural. Of course, Alice, he must want
to talk over this affair with your friends."
"I wish I could have spared them," said Alice,--"I wish I could."
"I have brought his letter here, and you can see it if you please.
It is very nicely written, and as far as I am concerned I should not
think of refusing to see him. And now comes the question. What are we
to do with him? Am I to ask him to dinner? I take it for granted that
he will not expect me to offer him a bed, as he knows that I live in
lodgings."
"Oh no, aunt; he certainly will not expect that."
"But ought I to ask him to dinner? I should be most happy to
entertain him, though you know how very scanty my means of doing so
are;--but I really do not know how it might be,--between you and him,
I mean."
"We should not fight, aunt."
"No, I suppose not;--but if you cannot be affectionate in your manner
to him--"
"I will not answer for my manners, aunt; but you may be sure of
this,--that I should be affectionate in my heart. I shall always
regard him as a dearly loved friend; though for many years, no doubt,
I shall be unable to express my friendship."
"That may be all very well, Alice, but it will not be what he will
want. I think upon the whole that I had better not ask him to
dinner."
"Perhaps not, aunt."
"It is a period of the day in which any special constraint among
people is more disagreeable than at any other time, and then at
dinner the servants must see it. I think there might be some
awkwardness if he were to dine here."
"I really think there would," said Alice, anxious to have the subject
dropped.
"I hope he won't think that I am inhospitable. I should be so happy
to do the best I could for him, for I regard him, Alice, quite as
though he were to be your husband. And when anybody at all connected
with me has come to Cheltenham I always have asked them to dine, and
then I have Gubbins's man to come and wait at table,--as you know."
"Of all men in the world Mr. Grey is the last to think about it."
"That should only make me the more careful. But I think it would
perhaps be more comfortable if he were to come in the evening."
"Much more comfortable, aunt."
"I suppose he will be here in the afternoon, before dinner, and we
had better wait at home for him. I dare say he'll want to see you
alone, and therefore I'll retire to my own rooms,"--looking over
the stables! Dear old lady. "But if you wish it, I will receive him
first--and then Martha,"--Martha was Alice's maid--"can fetch you
down."
This discussion as to the propriety or impropriety of giving her
lover a dinner had not been pleasant to Alice, but, nevertheless,
when it was over she felt grateful to Lady Macleod. There was an
attempt in the arrangement to make Mr. Grey's visit as little painful
as possible; and though such a discussion at such a time might as
well have been avoided, the decision to which her ladyship had at
last come with reference both to the dinner and the management of
the visit was, no doubt, the right one.
Lady Macleod had been quite correct in all her anticipations. At
three o'clock Mr. Grey was announced, and Lady Macleod, alone,
received him in her drawing-room. She had intended to give him a
great deal of good advice, to bid him still keep up his heart and as
it were hold up his head, to confess to him how very badly Alice was
behaving, and to express her entire concurrence with that theory of
bodily ailment as the cause and origin of her conduct. But she found
that Mr. Grey was a man to whom she could not give much advice. It
was he who did the speaking at this conference, and not she. She
was overawed by him after the first three minutes. Indeed her first
glance at him had awed her. He was so handsome,--and then, in his
beauty, he had so quiet and almost saddened an air! Strange to say
that after she had seen him, Lady Macleod entertained for him an
infinitely higher admiration than before, and yet she was less
surprised than she had been at Alice's refusal of him. The conference
was very short; and Mr. Grey had not been a quarter of an hour in the
house before Martha attended upon her mistress with her summons.
Alice was ready and came down instantly. She found Mr. Grey standing
in the middle of the room waiting to receive her, and the look of
majesty which had cowed Lady Macleod had gone from his countenance.
He could not have received her with a kinder smile, had she come to
him with a promise that she would at this meeting name the day for
their marriage. "At any rate it does not make him unhappy," she said
to herself.
"You are not angry," he said, "that I should have followed you all
the way here, to see you."
"No, certainly; not angry, Mr. Grey. All anger that there may be
between us must be on your side. I feel that thoroughly."
"Then there shall be none on either side. Whatever may be done, I
will not be angry with you. Your father advised me to come down here
to you."
"You have seen him, then?"
"Yes, I have seen him. I was in London the day you left."
"It is so terrible to think that I should have brought upon you all
this trouble."
"You will bring upon me much worse trouble than that unless--.
But I have not now come down here to tell you that. I believe that
according to rule in such matters I should not have come to you at
all, but I don't know that I care much about such rules."
"It is I that have broken all rules."
"When a lady tells a gentleman that she does not wish to see more of
him--"
"Oh, Mr. Grey, I have not told you that."
"Have you not? I am glad at any rate to hear you deny it. But you
will understand what I mean. When a gentleman gets his dismissal
from a lady he should accept it,--that is, his dismissal under such
circumstances as I have received mine. But I cannot lay down my love
in that way; nor, maintaining my love, can I give up the battle.
It seems to me that I have a right at any rate to know something of
your comings and goings as long as,--unless, Alice, you should take
another name than mine."
"My intention is to keep my own." This she said in the lowest
possible tone,--almost in a whisper,--with her eyes fixed upon the
ground.
"And you will not deny me that right?"
"I cannot hinder you. Whatever you may do, I myself have sinned so
against you that I can have no right to blame you."
"There shall be no question between us of injury from one to
the other. In any conversation that we may have, or in any
correspondence--"
"Oh, Mr. Grey, do not ask me to write."
"Listen to me. Should there be any on either side, there shall be no
idea of any wrong done."
"But I have done you wrong;--great wrong."
"No, Alice; I will not have it so. When I asked you to accept my
hand,--begging the greatest boon which it could ever come to my lot
to ask from a fellow-mortal,--I knew well how great was your goodness
to me when you told me that it should be mine. Now that you refuse
it, I know also that you are good, thinking that in doing so you are
acting for my welfare,--thinking more of my welfare than of your
own."
"Oh yes, yes; it is so, Mr. Grey; indeed it is so."
"Believing that, how can I talk of wrong? That you are wrong in your
thinking on this subject,--that your mind has become twisted by
false impressions,--that I believe. But I cannot therefore love you
less,--nor, so believing, can I consider myself to be injured. Nor am
I even so little selfish as you are. I think if you were my wife that
I could make you happy; but I feel sure that my happiness depends on
your being my wife."
She looked up into his face, but it was still serene in all its manly
beauty. Her cousin George, if he were moved to strong feeling, showed
it at once in his eyes,--in his mouth, in the whole visage of his
countenance. He glared in his anger, and was impassioned in his love.
But Mr. Grey when speaking of the happiness of his entire life, when
confessing that it was now at stake with a decision against him that
would be ruinous to it, spoke without a quiver in his voice, and
had no more sign of passion in his face than if he were telling his
gardener to move a rose tree.
"I hope--and believe that you will find your happiness elsewhere, Mr.
Grey."
"Well; we can but differ, Alice. In that we do differ. And now I will
say one word to explain why I have come here. If I were to write to
you against your will, it would seem that I were persecuting you. I
cannot bring myself to do that, even though I had the right. But if I
were to let you go from me, taking what you have said to me and doing
nothing, it would seem that I had accepted your decision as final. I
do not do so. I will not do so. I come simply to tell you that I am
still your suitor. If you will let me, I will see you again early
in January,--as soon as you have returned to town. You will hardly
refuse to see me."
"No," she said; "I cannot refuse to see you."
"Then it shall be so," he said, "and I will not trouble you with
letters, nor will I trouble you longer now with words. Tell your aunt
that I have said what I came to say, and that I give her my kindest
thanks." Then he took her hand and pressed it,--not as George Vavasor
had pressed it,--and was gone. When Lady Macleod returned, she found
that the question of the evening's tea arrangements had settled
itself.
CHAPTER XVI.
The Roebury Club.
It has been said that George Vavasor had a little establishment at
Roebury, down in Oxfordshire, and thither he betook himself about
the middle of November. He had been long known in this county, and
whether or no men spoke well of him as a man of business in London,
men spoke well of him down there, as one who knew how to ride to
hounds. Not that Vavasor was popular among fellow-sportsmen. It was
quite otherwise. He was not a man that made himself really popular
in any social meetings of men. He did not himself care for the loose
little talkings, half flat and half sharp, of men when they meet
together in idleness. He was not open enough in his nature for such
popularity. Some men were afraid of him, and some suspected him.
There were others who made up to him, seeking his intimacy, but these
he usually snubbed, and always kept at a distance. Though he had
indulged in all the ordinary pleasures of young men, he had never
been a jovial man. In his conversations with men he always seemed to
think that he should use his time towards serving some purpose of
business. With women he was quite the reverse. With women he could be
happy. With women he could really associate. A woman he could really
love;--but I doubt whether for all that he could treat a woman well.
But he was known in the Oxfordshire country as a man who knew what he
was about, and such men are always welcome. It is the man who does
not know how to ride that is made uncomfortable in the hunting field
by cold looks or expressed censure. And yet it is very rarely that
such men do any real harm. Such a one may now and then get among
the hounds or override the hunt, but it is not often so. Many such
complaints are made; but in truth the too forward man, who presses
the dogs, is generally one who can ride, but is too eager or too
selfish to keep in his proper place. The bad rider, like the bad
whist player, pays highly for what he does not enjoy, and should be
thanked. But at both games he gets cruelly snubbed. At both games
George Vavasor was great and he never got snubbed.
There were men who lived together at Roebury in a kind of club,--four
or five of them, who came thither from London, running backwards and
forwards as hunting arrangements enabled them to do so,--a brewer or
two and a banker, with a would-be fast attorney, a sporting literary
gentleman, and a young unmarried Member of Parliament who had no
particular home of his own in the country. These men formed the
Roebury Club, and a jolly life they had of it. They had their own
wine closet at the King's Head,--or Roebury Inn as the house had come
to be popularly called,--and supplied their own game. The landlord
found everything else; and as they were not very particular about
their bills, they were allowed to do pretty much as they liked in
the house. They were rather imperious, very late in their hours,
sometimes, though not often, noisy, and once there had been a hasty
quarrel which had made the landlord in his anger say that the club
should be turned out of his house. But they paid well, chaffed the
servants much oftener than they bullied them, and on the whole were
very popular.
To this club Vavasor did not belong, alleging that he could not
afford to live at their pace, and alleging, also, that his stays at
Roebury were not long enough to make him a desirable member. The
invitation to him was not repeated and he lodged elsewhere in the
little town. But he occasionally went in of an evening, and would
make up with the members a table at whist.
He had come down to Roebury by mail train, ready for hunting the next
morning, and walked into the club-room just at midnight. There he
found Maxwell the banker, Grindley the would-be fast attorney, and
Calder Jones the Member of Parliament, playing dummy. Neither of the
brewers were there, nor was the sporting literary gentleman.
"Here's Vavasor," said Maxwell, "and now we won't play this
blackguard game any longer. Somebody told me, Vavasor, that you were
gone away."
"Gone away;--what, like a fox?"
"I don't know what it was; that something had happened to you since
last season; that you were married, or dead, or gone abroad. By
George, I've lost the trick after all! I hate dummy like the devil.
I never hold a card in dummy's hand. Yes, I know; that's seven points
on each side. Vavasor, come and cut. Upon my word if any one had
asked me, I should have said you were dead."
"But you see, nobody ever does think of asking you anything."
"What you probably mean," said Grindley, "is that Vavasor was not
returned for Chelsea last February; but you've seen him since that.
Are you going to try it again, Vavasor?"
"If you'll lend me the money I will."
"I don't see what on earth a man gains by going into the house," said
Calder Jones. "I couldn't help myself as it happened, but, upon my
word it's a deuce of a bore. A fellow thinks he can do as he likes
about going,--but he can't. It wouldn't do for me to give it up,
because--"
"Oh no, of course not; where should we all be?" said Vavasor.
"It's you and me, Grindems," said Maxwell. "D---- parliament, and now
let's have a rubber."
They played till three and Mr. Calder Jones lost a good deal of
money,--a good deal of money in a little way, for they never played
above ten-shilling points, and no bet was made for more than a pound
or two. But Vavasor was the winner, and when he left the room he
became the subject of some ill-natured remarks.
"I wonder he likes coming in here," said Grindley, who had himself
been the man to invite him to belong to the club, and who had at one
time indulged the ambition of an intimacy with George Vavasor.
"I can't understand it," said Calder Jones, who was a little bitter
about his money. "Last year he seemed to walk in just when he liked,
as though he were one of us."
"He's a bad sort of fellow," said Grindley; "he's so uncommonly dark.
I don't know where on earth he gets his money from, He was heir to
some small property in the north, but he lost every shilling of that
when he was in the wine trade."
"You're wrong there, Grindems," said Maxwell,--making use of a
playful nickname which he had invented for his friend. "He made a pot
of money at the wine business, and had he stuck to it he would have
been a rich man."
"He's lost it all since then, and that place in the north into the
bargain."
"Wrong again, Grindems, my boy. If old Vavasor were to die to-morrow,
Vavasor Hall would go just as he might choose to leave it. George may
be a ruined man for aught I know--"
"There's no doubt about that, I believe," said Grindley.
"Perhaps not, Grindems; but he can't have lost Vavasor Hall because
he has never as yet had an interest in it. He's the natural heir, and
will probably get it some day."
"All the same," said Calder Jones, "isn't it rather odd he should
come in here?"
"We've asked him often enough," said Maxwell; "not because we like
him, but because we want him so often to make up a rubber. I don't
like George Vavasor, and I don't know who does; but I like him
better than dummy. And I'd sooner play whist with men I don't like,
Grindems, than I'd not play at all." A bystander might have thought
from the tone of Mr. Maxwell's voice that he was alluding to Mr.
Grindley himself, but Mr. Grindley didn't seem to take it in that
light.
"That's true, of course," said he. "We can't pick men just as we
please. But I certainly didn't think that he'd make it out for
another season."
The club breakfasted the next morning at nine o'clock, in order that
they might start at half-past for the meet at Edgehill. Edgehill is
twelve miles from Roebury, and the hacks would do it in an hour and
a half,--or perhaps a little less. "Does anybody know anything about
that brown horse of Vavasor's?" said Maxwell. "I saw him coming into
the yard yesterday with that old groom of his."
"He had a brown horse last season," said Grindley;--"a little thing
that went very fast, but wasn't quite sound on the road."
"That was a mare," said Maxwell, "and he sold her to Cinquebars."*
[*Ah, my friend, from whom I have borrowed this scion of the
nobility! Had he been left with us he would have forgiven me
my little theft, and now that he has gone I will not change
the name.]
"For a hundred and fifty," said Calder Jones, "and she wasn't worth
the odd fifty."
"He won seventy with her at Leamington," said Maxwell, "and I doubt
whether he'd take his money now."
"Is Cinquebars coming down here this year?"
"I don't know," said Maxwell. "I hope not. He's the best fellow in
the world, but he can't ride, and he don't care for hunting, and he
makes more row than any fellow I ever met. I wish some fellow could
tell me something about that fellow's brown horse."
"I'd never buy a horse of Vavasor's if I were you," said Grindley.
"He never has anything that's all right all round."
"And who has?" said Maxwell, as he took into his plate a second
mutton chop, which had just been brought up hot into the room
especially for him. "That's the mistake men make about horses, and
that's why there's so much cheating. I never ask for a warranty with
a horse, and don't very often have a horse examined. Yet I do as
well as others. You can't have perfect horses any more than you can
perfect men, or perfect women. You put up with red hair, or bad
teeth, or big feet,--or sometimes with the devil of a voice. But a
man when he wants a horse won't put up with anything! Therefore those
who've got horses to sell must lie. When I go into the market with
three hundred pounds I expect a perfect animal. As I never do that
now I never expect a perfect animal. I like 'em to see; I like 'em to
have four legs; and I like 'em to have a little wind. I don't much
mind anything else."
"By Jove you're about right," said Calder Jones. The reader will
therefore readily see that Mr. Maxwell the banker reigned as king in
that club.
Vavasor had sent two horses on in charge of Bat Smithers, and
followed on a pony about fourteen hands high, which he had ridden as
a cover hack for the last four years. He did not start till near ten,
but he was able to catch Bat with his two horses about a mile and a
half on that side of Edgehill. "Have you managed to come along pretty
clean?" the master asked as he came up with his servant.
"They be the most beastly roads in all England," said Bat, who always
found fault with any county in which he happened to be located. "But
I'll warrant I'm cleaner than most on 'em. What for any county should
make such roads as them I never could tell."
"The roads about there are bad, certainly;--very bad. But I suppose
they would have been better had Providence sent better materials. And
what do you think of the brown horse, Bat?"
"Well, sir." He said no more, and that he said with a drawl.
"He's as fine an animal to look at as ever I put my eye on," said
George.
"He's all that," said Bat.
"He's got lots of pace too."
"I'm sure he has, sir."
"And they tell me you can't beat him at jumping."
"They can mostly do that, sir, if they're well handled."
"You see he's a deal over my weight."
"Yes, he is, Mr. Vavasor. He is a fourteen stoner."
"Or fifteen," said Vavasor.
"Perhaps he may, sir. There's no knowing what a 'orse can carry till
he's tried."
George asked his groom no more questions, but felt sure that he had
better sell his brown horse if he could. Now I here protest that
there was nothing specially amiss with the brown horse. Towards the
end of the preceding season he had overreached himself and had been
lame, and had been sold by some owner with more money than brains who
had not cared to wait for a cure. Then there had gone with him a bad
character, and a vague suspicion had attached itself to him, as there
does to hundreds of horses which are very good animals in their way.
He had come thus to Tattersall's, and Vavasor had bought him cheap,
thinking that he might make money of him, from his form and action.
He had found nothing amiss with him,--nor, indeed, had Bat Smithers.
But his character went with him, and therefore Bat Smithers thought
it well to be knowing. George Vavasor knew as much of horses as most
men can,--as, perhaps, as any man can who is not a dealer, or a
veterinary surgeon; but he, like all men, doubted his own knowledge,
though on that subject he would never admit that he doubted it.
Therefore he took Bat's word and felt sure that the horse was wrong.
"We shall have a run from the big wood," said George.
"If they make un break, you will, sir," said Bat.
"At any rate I'll ride the brown horse," said George. Then, as soon
as that was settled between them, the Roebury Club overtook them.
There was now a rush of horses on the road altogether, and they were
within a quarter of a mile of Edgehill church, close to which was the
meet. Bat with his two hunters fell a little behind, and the others
trotted on together. The other grooms with their animals were on in
advance, and were by this time employed in combing out forelocks, and
rubbing stirrup leathers and horses' legs free from the dirt of the
roads;--but Bat Smithers was like his master, and did not congregate
much with other men, and Vavasor was sure to give orders to his
servant different from the orders given by others.
"Are you well mounted this year?" Maxwell asked of George Vavasor.
"No, indeed; I never was what I call well mounted yet. I generally
have one horse and three or four cripples. That brown horse behind
there is pretty good, I believe."
"I see your man has got the old chestnut mare with him."
"She's one of the cripples,--not but what she's as sound as a bell,
and as good a hunter as ever I wish to ride; but she makes a little
noise when she's going."
"So that you can hear her three fields off," said Grindley.
"Five if the fields are small enough and your ears are sharp enough,"
said Vavasor. "All the same I wouldn't change her for the best horse
I ever saw under you."
"Had you there, Grindems," said Maxwell.
"No, he didn't," said Grindley. "He didn't have me at all."
"Your horses, Grindley, are always up to all the work they have to
do," said George; "and I don't know what any man wants more than
that."
"Had you again, Grindems," said Maxwell.
"I can ride against him any day," said Grindley.
"Yes; or against a brick wall either, if your horse didn't know any
better," said George.
"Had you again, Grindems," said Maxwell. Whereupon Mr. Grindley
trotted on, round the corner by the church, and into the field in
which the hounds were assembled. The fire had become too hot for him,
and he thought it best to escape. Had it been Vavasor alone he would
have turned upon him and snarled, but he could not afford to exhibit
any ill temper to the king of the club. Mr. Grindley was not popular,
and were Maxwell to turn openly against him his sporting life down at
Roebury would decidedly be a failure.
The lives of such men as Mr. Grindley,--men who are tolerated in the
daily society of others who are accounted their superiors, do not
seem to have many attractions. And yet how many such men does one see
in almost every set? Why Mr. Grindley should have been inferior to Mr.
Maxwell the banker, or to Stone, or to Prettyman who were brewers, or
even to Mr. Pollock the heavy-weight literary gentleman, I can hardly
say. An attorney by his trade is at any rate as good as a brewer, and
there are many attorneys who hold their heads high anywhere. Grindley
was a rich man,--or at any rate rich enough for the life he led.
I don't know much about his birth, but I believe it was as good as
Maxwell's. He was not ignorant, or a fool;--whereas I rather think
Maxwell was a fool. Grindley had made his own way in the world, but
Maxwell would certainly not have made himself a banker if his father
had not been a banker before him; nor could the bank have gone on
and prospered had there not been partners there who were better men
of business than our friend. Grindley knew that he had a better
intellect than Maxwell; and yet he allowed Maxwell to snub him, and
he toadied Maxwell in return. It was not on the score of riding that
Maxwell claimed and held his superiority, for Grindley did not want
pluck, and every one knew that Maxwell had lived freely and that his
nerves were not what they had been. I think it had come from the
outward look of the men, from the form of each, from the gait and
visage which in one was good and in the other insignificant. The
nature of such dominion of man over man is very singular, but this is
certain that when once obtained in manhood it may be easily held.
Among boys at school the same thing is even more conspicuous, because
boys have less of conscience than men, are more addicted to tyranny,
and when weak are less prone to feel the misery and disgrace of
succumbing. Who has been through a large school and does not remember
the Maxwells and Grindleys,--the tyrants and the slaves,--those who
domineered and those who submitted? Nor was it, even then, personal
strength, nor always superior courage, that gave the power of
command. Nor was it intellect, or thoughtfulness, nor by any means
such qualities as make men and boys lovable. It is said by many
who have had to deal with boys, that certain among them claim and
obtain ascendancy by the spirit within them; but I doubt whether the
ascendancy is not rather thrust on them than claimed by them. Here
again I think the outward gait of the boy goes far towards obtaining
for him the submission of his fellows.
But the tyrant boy does not become the tyrant man, or the slave boy
the slave man, because the outward visage, that has been noble or
mean in the one, changes and becomes so often mean or noble in the
other.
"By George, there's Pollock!" said Maxwell, as he rode into the
field by the church. "I'll bet half a crown that he's come down from
London this morning, that he was up all night last night, and that he
tells us so three times before the hounds go out of the paddock." Mr.
Pollock was the heavy-weight sporting literary gentleman.
CHAPTER XVII.
Edgehill.
Of all sights in the world there is, I think, none more beautiful
than that of a pack of fox-hounds seated, on a winter morning, round
the huntsman, if the place of meeting has been chosen with anything
of artistic skill. It should be in a grassy field, and the field
should be small. It should not be absolutely away from all buildings,
and the hedgerows should not have been clipped and pared, and made
straight with reference to modern agricultural economy. There should
be trees near, and the ground should be a little uneven, so as to
mark some certain small space as the exact spot where the dogs and
servants of the hunt should congregate.
There are well-known grand meets in England, in the parks of
noblemen, before their houses, or even on what are called their
lawns; but these magnificent affairs have but little of the beauty
of which I speak. Such assemblies are too grand and too ornate, and,
moreover, much too far removed from true sporting proprieties. At
them, equipages are shining, and ladies' dresses are gorgeous, and
crowds of tradesmen from the neighbouring town have come there to
look at the grand folk. To my eye there is nothing beautiful in
that. The meet I speak of is arranged with a view to sport, but the
accident of the locality may make it the prettiest thing in the
world.
Such, in a special degree, was the case at Edgehill. At Edgehill the
whole village consisted of three or four cottages; but there was a
small old church, with an old grey tower, and a narrow, green, almost
dark, churchyard, surrounded by elm-trees. The road from Roebury to
the meet passed by the church stile, and turning just beyond it came
upon the gate which led into the little field in which the hounds
felt themselves as much at home as in their kennels. There might be
six or seven acres in the field, which was long and narrow, so that
the huntsman had space to walk leisurely up and down with the pack
clustering round him, when he considered that longer sitting might
chill them. The church tower was close at hand, visible through
the trees, and the field itself was green and soft, though never
splashing with mud or heavy with holes.
Edgehill was a favourite meet in that country, partly because foxes
were very abundant in the great wood adjacent, partly because the
whole country around is grass-land, and partly, no doubt, from the
sporting propensities of the neighbouring population. As regards my
own taste, I do not know that I do like beginning a day with a great
wood,--and if not beginning it, certainly not ending it. It is hard
to come upon the cream of hunting, as it is upon the cream of any
other delight. Who can always drink Lafitte of the finest, can always
talk to a woman who is both beautiful and witty, or can always find
the right spirit in the poetry he reads? A man has usually to work
through much mud before he gets his nugget. It is so certainly in
hunting, and a big wood too frequently afflicts the sportsman, as the
mud does the miner. The small gorse cover is the happy, much-envied
bit of ground in which the gold is sure to show itself readily. But
without the woods the gorse would not hold the foxes, and without the
mud the gold would not have found its resting-place.
But, as I have said, Edgehill was a popular meet, and, as regarded
the meet itself, was eminently picturesque. On the present occasion
the little field was full of horsemen, moving about slowly, chatting
together, smoking cigars, getting off from their hacks and mounting
their hunters, giving orders to their servants, and preparing for the
day. There were old country gentlemen there, greeting each other from
far sides of the county; sporting farmers who love to find themselves
alongside their landlords, and to feel that the pleasures of the
country are common to both; men down from town, like our friends
of the Roebury club, who made hunting their chosen pleasure, and
who formed, in number, perhaps the largest portion of the field;
officers from garrisons round about; a cloud of servants, and a
few nondescript stragglers who had picked up horses, hither and
thither, round the country. Outside the gate on the road were drawn
up a variety of vehicles, open carriages, dog-carts, gigs, and
waggonettes, in some few of which were seated ladies who had come
over to see the meet. But Edgehill was, essentially, not a ladies'
meet. The distances to it were long, and the rides in Cranby
Wood--the big wood--were not adapted for wheels. There were one or
two ladies on horseback, as is always the case; but Edgehill was not
a place popular, even with hunting ladies. One carriage, that of the
old master of the hounds, had entered the sacred precincts of the
field, and from this the old baronet was just descending, as Maxwell,
Calder Jones, and Vavasor rode into the field.
[Illustration: Edgehill.]
"I hope I see you well, Sir William," said Maxwell, greeting the
master. Calder Jones also made his little speech, and so did Vavasor.
"Humph--well, yes, I'm pretty well, thank'ee. Just move on, will you?
My mare can't stir here." Then some one else spoke to him, and he
only grunted in answer. Having slowly been assisted up on to his
horse,--for he was over seventy years of age,--he trotted off to the
hounds, while all the farmers round him touched their hats to him.
But his mind was laden with affairs of import, and he noticed no one.
In a whispered voice he gave his instructions to his huntsman, who
said, "Yes, Sir William," "No, Sir William," "No doubt, Sir William."
One long-eared, long-legged fellow, in a hunting-cap and scarlet
coat, hung listening by, anxious to catch something of the orders for
the morning. "Who the devil's that fellow, that's all breeches and
boots?" said Sir William aloud to some one near him, as the huntsman
moved off with the hounds. Sir William knew the man well enough, but
was minded to punish him for his discourtesy. "Where shall we find
first, Sir William?" said Calder Jones, in a voice that was really
very humble. "How the mischief am I to know where the foxes are?"
said Sir William, with an oath; and Calder Jones retired unhappy, and
for the moment altogether silenced.
And yet Sir William was the most popular man in the county, and no
more courteous gentleman ever sat at the bottom of his own table. A
mild man he was, too, when out of his saddle, and one by no means
disposed to assume special supremacy. But a master of hounds, if he
have long held the country,--and Sir William had held his for more
than thirty years,--obtains a power which that of no other potentate
can equal. He may say and do what he pleases, and his tyranny is
always respected. No conspiracy against him has a chance of success;
no sedition will meet with sympathy;--that is, if he be successful
in showing sport. If a man be sworn at, abused, and put down without
cause, let him bear it and think that he has been a victim for the
public good. And let him never be angry with the master. That rough
tongue is the necessity of the master's position. They used to say
that no captain could manage a ship without swearing at his men.
But what are the captain's troubles in comparison with those of the
master of hounds? The captain's men are under discipline, and can
be locked up, flogged, or have their grog stopped. The master of
hounds cannot stop the grog of any offender, and he can only stop the
tongue, or horse, of such an one by very sharp words.
"Well, Pollock, when did you come?" said Maxwell.
"By George," said the literary gentleman, "just down from London by
the 8.30 from Euston Square, and got over here from Winslow in a
trap, with two fellows I never saw in my life before. We came tandem
in a fly, and did the nineteen miles in an hour."
"Come, Athenian, draw it mild," said Maxwell.
"We did, indeed. I wonder whether they'll pay me their share of the
fly. I had to leave Onslow Crescent at a quarter before eight, and I
did three hours' work before I started."
"Then you did it by candle-light," said Grindley.
"Of course I did; and why shouldn't I? Do you suppose no one can work
by candle-light except a lawyer? I suppose you fellows were playing
whist, and drinking hard. I'm uncommon glad I wasn't with you, for I
shall be able to ride."
"I bet you a pound," said Jones, "if there's a run, I see more of it
than you."
"I'll take that bet with Jones," said Grindley, "and Vavasor shall be
the judge."
"Gentlemen, the hounds can't get out, if you will stop up the gate,"
said Sir William. Then the pack passed through, and they all trotted
on for four miles, to Cranby Wood.
Vavasor, as he rode on to the wood, was alone, or speaking, from time
to time, a few words to his servant. "I'll ride the chestnut mare in
the wood," he said, "and do you keep near me."
"I bean't to be galloping up and down them rides, I suppose," said
Bat, almost contemptuously.
"I shan't gallop up and down the rides, myself; but do you mark me,
to know where I am, so that I can change if a fox should go away."
"You'll be here all day, sir. That's my belief."
"If so, I won't ride the brown horse at all. But do you take care to
let me have him if there's a chance. Do you understand?"
"Oh, yes, I understand, sir. There ain't no difficulty in my
understanding;--only I don't think, sir, you'll ever get a fox out
of that wood to-day. Why, it stands to reason. The wind's from the
north-east."
Cranby Wood is very large,--there being, in truth, two or three woods
together. It was nearly twelve before they found; and then for an
hour there was great excitement among the men, who rode up and down
the rides as the hounds drove the fox from one end to another of the
enclosure. Once or twice the poor animal did try to go away, and then
there was great hallooing, galloping, and jumping over unnecessary
fences; but he was headed back again, or changed his mind, not liking
the north-east wind of which Bat Smithers had predicted such bad
things. After one the crowd of men became rather more indifferent,
and clustered together in broad spots, eating their lunch, smoking
cigars, and chaffing each other. It was singular to observe the
amazing quantity of ham sandwiches and of sherry that had been
carried into Cranby Wood on that day. Grooms appeared to have been
laden with cases, and men were as well armed with flasks at their
saddle-bows as they used to be with pistols. Maxwell and Pollock
formed the centre of one of these crowds, and chaffed each other with
the utmost industry, till, tired of having inflicted no wounds, they
turned upon Grindley and drove him out of the circle. "You'll make
that man cut his throat, if you go on at that," said Pollock. "Shall
I?" said Maxwell. "Then I'll certainly stick to him for the sake of
humanity in general." During all this time Vavasor sat apart, quite
alone, and Bat Smithers grimly kept his place, about three hundred
yards from him.
"We shan't do any good to-day," said Grindley, coming up to Vavasor.
"I'm sure I don't know," said Vavasor.
"That old fellow has got to be so stupid, he doesn't know what he's
about," said Grindley, meaning Sir William.
"How can he make the fox break?" said Vavasor; and as his voice was
by no means encouraging Grindley rode away.
Lunch and cigars lasted till two, during which hour the hounds, the
huntsmen, the whips, and old Sir William were hard at work, as also
were some few others who persistently followed every chance of the
game. From that till three there were two or three flashes in the
pan, and false reports as to foxes which had gone away, which first
set men galloping, and then made them very angry. After three, men
began to say naughty things, to abuse Cranby Wood, to wish violently
that they had remained at home or gone elsewhere, and to speak
irreverently of their ancient master. "It's the cussidest place in
all creation," said Maxwell. "I often said I'd not come here any
more, and now I say it again."
"And yet you'll be here the next meet," said Grindley, who had
sneaked back to his old companions in weariness of spirit.
"Grindems, you know a sight too much," said Maxwell; "you do indeed.
An ordinary fellow has no chance with you."
Grindley was again going to catch it, but was on this time saved by
the appearance of the huntsman, who came galloping up one of the
rides, with a lot of the hounds at his heels.
"He isn't away, Tom, surely?" said Maxwell.
"He's out of the wood somewheres," said Tom;--and off they all went.
Vavasor changed his horse, getting on to the brown one, and giving
up his chestnut mare to Bat Smithers, who suggested that he might
as well go home to Roebury now. Vavasor gave him no answer, but,
trotting on to the point where the rides met, stopped a moment and
listened carefully. Then he took a path diverging away from that by
which the huntsmen and the crowd of horsemen had gone, and made the
best of his way through the wood. At the end of this he came upon Sir
William, who, with no one near him but his servant, was standing in
the pathway of a little hunting-gate.
"Hold hard," said Sir William. "The hounds are not out of the wood
yet."
"Is the fox away, sir?"
"What's the good of that if we can't get the hounds out?--Yes, he's
away. He passed out where I'm standing." And then he began to blow
his horn lustily, and by degrees other men and a few hounds came down
the ride. Then Tom, with his horse almost blown, made his appearance
outside the wood, and soon there came a rush of men, nearly on the
top of one another, pushing on, not knowing whither, but keenly alive
to the fact that the fox had at last consented to move his quarters.
Tom touched his hat, and looked at his master, inquiringly. "He's
gone for Claydon's," said the master. "Try them up that hedgerow."
Tom did try them up the hedgerow, and in half a minute the hounds
came upon the scent. Then you might see men settling their hats on
their heads, and feeling their feet in the stirrups. The moment for
which they had so long waited had come, and yet there were many
who would now have preferred that the fox should be headed back
into cover. Some had but little confidence in their half-blown
horses;--with many the waiting, though so abused and anathematized,
was in truth more to their taste than the run itself;--with others
the excitement had gone by, and a gallop over a field or two was
necessary before it would be restored. With most men at such a moment
there is a little nervousness, some fear of making a bad start, a
dread lest others should have more of the success of the hunt than
falls to them. But there was a great rush and a mighty bustle as the
hounds made out their game, and Sir William felt himself called upon
to use the rough side of his tongue to more than one delinquent.
And then certain sly old stagers might be seen turning off to the
left, instead of following the course of the game as indicated by the
hounds. They were men who had felt the air as they came out, and knew
that the fox must soon run down wind, whatever he might do for the
first half mile or so,--men who knew also which was the shortest way
to Claydon's by the road. Ah, the satisfaction that there is when
these men are thrown out, and their dead knowledge proved to be of no
avail! If a fox will only run straight, heading from the cover on his
real line, these very sagacious gentlemen seldom come to much honour
and glory.
In the present instance the beast seemed determined to go straight
enough, for the hounds ran the scent along three or four hedgerows
in a line. He had managed to get for himself full ten minutes' start,
and had been able to leave the cover and all his enemies well behind
him before he bethought himself as to his best way to his purposed
destination. And here, from field to field, there were little
hunting-gates at which men crowded lustily, poking and shoving each
other's horses, and hating each other with a bitterness of hatred
which is, I think, known nowhere else. No hunting man ever wants
to jump if he can help it, and the hedges near the gate were not
alluring. A few there were who made lines for themselves, taking the
next field to the right, or scrambling through the corners of the
fences while the rush was going on at the gates; and among these was
George Vavasor. He never rode in a crowd, always keeping himself
somewhat away from men as well as hounds. He would often be thrown
out, and then men would hear no more of him for that day. On such
occasions he did not show himself, as other men do, twenty minutes
after the fox had been killed or run to ground,--but betook himself
home by himself, going through the byeways and lanes, thus leaving no
report of his failure to be spoken of by his compeers.
As long as the line of gates lasted, the crowd continued as thick as
ever, and the best man was he whose horse could shove the hardest.
After passing some four or five fields in this way they came out
upon a road, and, the scent holding strong, the dogs crossed it
without any demurring. Then came doubt into the minds of men, many
of whom, before they would venture away from their position on the
lane, narrowly watched the leading hounds to see whether there was
indication of a turn to the one side or the other. Sir William, whose
seventy odd years excused him, turned sharp to the left, knowing that
he could make Claydon's that way; and very many were the submissive
horsemen who followed him; a few took the road to the right, having
in their minds some little game of their own. The hardest riders
there had already crossed from the road into the country, and were
going well to the hounds, ignorant, some of them, of the brook
before them, and others unheeding. Foremost among these was Burgo
Fitzgerald,--Burgo Fitzgerald, whom no man had ever known to crane at
a fence, or to hug a road, or to spare his own neck or his horse's.
And yet poor Burgo seldom finished well,--coming to repeated grief in
this matter of his hunting, as he did so constantly in other matters
of his life.
But almost neck and neck with Burgo was Pollock, the sporting
literary gentleman. Pollock had but two horses to his stud, and was
never known to give much money for them;--and he weighed without his
boots, fifteen stones! No one ever knew how Pollock did it;--more
especially as all the world declared that he was as ignorant of
hunting as any tailor. He could ride, or when he couldn't ride he
could tumble,--men said that of him,--and he would ride as long as
the beast under him could go. But few knew the sad misfortunes which
poor Pollock sometimes encountered;--the muddy ditches in which he
was left; the despair with which he would stand by his unfortunate
horse when the poor brute could no longer move across some
deep-ploughed field; the miles that he would walk at night beside a
tired animal, as he made his way slowly back to Roebury!
Then came Tom the huntsman, with Calder Jones close to him, and
Grindley intent on winning his sovereign. Vavasor had also crossed
the road somewhat to the left, carrying with him one or two who knew
that he was a safe man to follow. Maxwell had been ignominiously
turned by the hedge, which, together with its ditch, formed a fence
such as all men do not love at the beginning of a run. He had turned
from it, acknowledging the cause. "By George!" said he, "that's too
big for me yet awhile; and there's no end of a river at the bottom."
So he had followed the master down the road.
All those whom we have named managed to get over the brook, Pollock's
horse barely contriving to get up his hind legs from the broken edge
of the bank. Some nags refused it, and their riders thus lost all
their chance of sport for that day. Such is the lot of men who hunt.
A man pays five or six pounds for his day's amusement, and it is ten
to one that the occurrences of the day disgust rather than gratify
him! One or two got in, and scrambled out on the other side, but
Tufto Pearlings, the Manchester man from Friday Street, stuck in the
mud at the bottom, and could not get his mare out till seven men
had come with ropes to help him. "Where the devil is my fellow?"
Pearlings asked of the countrymen; but the countrymen could not tell
him that "his fellow" with his second horse was riding the hunt with
great satisfaction to himself.
George Vavasor found that his horse went with him uncommonly well,
taking his fences almost in the stride of his gallop, and giving
unmistakeable signs of good condition. "I wonder what it is that's
amiss with him," said George to himself, resolving, however, that he
would sell him that day if he got an opportunity. Straight went the
line of the fox, up from the brook, and Tom began to say that his
master had been wrong about Claydon's.
"Where are we now?" said Burgo, as four or five of them dashed
through the open gate of a farmyard.
"This is Bulby's farm," said Tom, "and we're going right away for
Elmham Wood."
"Elmham Wood be d----," said a stout farmer, who had come as far as
that with them. "You won't see Elmham Wood to-day."
"I suppose you know best," said Tom; and then they were through the
yard, across another road, and down a steep ravine by the side of a
little copse. "He's been through them firs, any way," said Tom. "To
him, Gaylass!" Then up they went the other side of the ravine, and
saw the body of the hounds almost a field before them at the top.
"I say,--that took some of the wind out of a fellow," said Pollock.
"You mustn't mind about wind now," said Burgo, dashing on.
"Wasn't the pace awful, coming up to that farmhouse?" said Calder
Jones, looking round to see if Grindley was shaken off. But Grindley,
with some six or seven others, was still there. And there, also,
always in the next field to the left, was George Vavasor. He had
spoken no word to any one since the hunt commenced, nor had he wished
to speak to any one. He desired to sell his horse,--and he desired
also to succeed in the run for other reasons than that, though I
think he would have found it difficult to define them.
Now they had open grass land for about a mile, but with very heavy
fences,--so that the hounds gained upon them a little, and Pollock's
weight began to tell. The huntsman and Burgo were leading with some
fortunate county gentleman whose good stars had brought him in upon
them at the farmyard gate. It is the injustice of such accidents as
this that breaks the heart of a man who has honestly gone through all
the heat and work of the struggle! And the hounds had veered a little
round to the left, making, after all, for Claydon's. "Darned if the
Squire warn't right," said Tom. Sir William, though a baronet, was
familiarly called the Squire throughout the hunt.
"We ain't going for Claydon's now?" asked Burgo.
"Them's Claydon's beeches we sees over there," said Tom. "'Tain't
often the Squire's wrong."
Here they came to a little double rail and a little quick-set hedge.
A double rail is a nasty fence always if it has been made any way
strong, and one which a man with a wife and a family is justified in
avoiding. They mostly can be avoided, having gates; and this could
have been avoided. But Burgo never avoided anything, and went over
it beautifully. The difficulty is to be discreet when the man before
one has been indiscreet. Tom went for the gate, as did Pollock, who
knew that he could have no chance at the double rails. But Calder
Jones came to infinite grief, striking the top bar of the second rail,
and going head-foremost out of his saddle, as though thrown by a
catapult. There we must leave him. Grindley, rejoicing greatly at
this discomfiture, made for the gate; but the country gentleman with
the fresh horse accomplished the rails, and was soon alongside of
Burgo.
"I didn't see you at the start," said Burgo.
"And I didn't see you," said the country gentleman; "so it's even."
Burgo did not see the thing in the same light, but he said no more.
Grindley and Tom were soon after them, Tom doing his utmost to shake
off the attorney. Pollock was coming on also; but the pace had been
too much for him, and though the ground rode light his poor beast
laboured and grunted sorely. The hounds were still veering somewhat
to the left, and Burgo, jumping over a small fence into the same
field with them, saw that there was a horseman ahead of him. This was
George Vavasor, who was going well, without any symptom of distress.
And now they were at Claydon's, having run over some seven miles of
ground in about thirty-five minutes. To those who do not know what
hunting is, this pace does not seem very extraordinary; but it had
been quite quick enough, as was testified by the horses which had
gone the distance. Our party entered Claydon's Park at back, through
a gate in the park palings that was open on hunting days; but a much
more numerous lot was there almost as soon as them, who had come in
by the main entrance. This lot was headed by Sir William, and our
friend Maxwell was with him.
"A jolly thing so far," said Burgo to Maxwell; "about the best we've
had this year."
"I didn't see a yard of it," said Maxwell. "I hadn't nerve to get off
the first road, and I haven't been off it ever since." Maxwell was a
man who never lied about his hunting, or had the slightest shame in
riding roads. "Who's been with you?" said he.
"There've been Tom and I;--and Calder Jones was there for a while.
I think he killed himself somewhere. And there was Pollock, and your
friend Grindley, and a chap whose name I don't know who dropped out
of heaven about half-way in the run; and there was another man whose
back I saw just now; there he is,--by heavens, it's Vavasor! I didn't
know he was here."
They hung about the Claydon covers for ten minutes, and then their
fox went off again,--their fox or another, as to which there was a
great discussion afterwards; but he who would have suggested the
idea of a new fox to Sir William would have been a bold man. A fox,
however, went off, turning still to the left from Claydon's towards
Roebury. Those ten minutes had brought up some fifty men; but it did
not bring up Calder Jones nor Tufto Pearlings, nor some half-dozen
others who had already come to serious misfortune; but Grindley was
there, very triumphant in his own success, and already talking of
Jones's sovereign. And Pollock was there also, thankful for the ten
minutes' law, and trusting that wind might be given to his horse to
finish the run triumphantly.
But the pace on leaving Claydon's was better than ever. This may have
come from the fact that the scent was keener, as they got out so
close upon their game. But I think they must have changed their fox.
Maxwell, who saw him go, swore that he was fresh and clean. Burgo
said that he knew it to be the same fox, but gave no reason. "Same
fox! in course it was; why shouldn't it be the same?" said Tom. The
country gentleman who had dropped from heaven was quite sure that
they had changed, and so were most of those who had ridden the road.
Pollock confined himself to hoping that he might soon be killed, and
that thus his triumph for the day might be assured.
On they went, and the pace soon became too good for the poor author.
His horse at last refused a little hedge, and there was not another
trot to be got out of him. That night Pollock turned up at Roebury
about nine o'clock, very hungry,--and it was known that his animal
was alive;--but the poor horse ate not a grain of oats that night,
nor on the next morning. Vavasor had again taken a line to himself,
on this occasion a little to the right of the meet; but Maxwell
followed him and rode close with him to the end. Burgo for a while
still led the body of the field, incurring at first much condemnation
from Sir William,--nominally for hurrying on among the hounds, but in
truth because he got before Sir William himself. During this latter
part of the run Sir William stuck to the hounds in spite of his
seventy odd years. Going down into Marham Bottom, some four or five
were left behind, for they feared the soft ground near the river, and
did not know the pass through it. But Sir William knew it, and those
who remained close to him got over that trouble. Burgo, who would
still lead, nearly foundered in the bog;--but he was light, and his
horse pulled him through,--leaving a fore-shoe in the mud. After that
Burgo was contented to give Sir William the lead.
Then they came up by Marham Pits to Cleshey Small Wood, which they
passed without hanging there a minute, and over the grass lands of
Cleshey Farm. Here Vavasor and Maxwell joined the others, having
gained some three hundred yards in distance by their course, but
having been forced to jump the Marham Stream which Sir William had
forded. The pace now was as good as the horses could make it,--and
perhaps something better as regarded some of them. Sir William's
servant had been with him, and he had got his second horse at
Claydon's; Maxwell had been equally fortunate; Tom's second horse
had not come up, and his beast was in great distress; Grindley had
remained behind at Marham Bottom, being contented perhaps with having
beaten Calder Jones,--from whom by-the-by I may here declare that he
never got his sovereign. Burgo, Vavasor, and the country gentleman
still held on; but it was devoutly desired by all of them that the
fox might soon come to the end of his tether. Ah! that intense
longing that the fox may fail, when the failings of the horse begin
to make themselves known,--and the consciousness comes on that all
that one has done will go for nothing unless the thing can be brought
to a close in a field or two! So far you have triumphed, leaving
scores of men behind; but of what good is all that, if you also are
to be left behind at the last?
It was manifest now to all who knew the country that the fox was
making for Thornden Deer Park, but Thornden Deer Park was still two
miles ahead of them, and the hounds were so near to their game that
the poor beast could hardly hope to live till he got there. He had
tried a well-known drain near Cleshey Farm House; but it had been
inhospitably, nay cruelly, closed against him. Soon after that he
threw himself down in a ditch, and the eager hounds overran him,
giving him a moment's law,--and giving also a moment's law to horses
that wanted it as badly. "I'm about done for," said Burgo to Maxwell.
"Luckily for you," said Maxwell, "the fox is much in the same way."
But the fox had still more power left in him than poor Burgo
Fitzgerald's horse. He gained a minute's check and then he started
again, being viewed away by Sir William himself. The country
gentleman of whom mention has been made also viewed him, and holloa'd
as he did so: "Yoicks, tally; gone away!" The unfortunate man! "What
the d---- are you roaring at?" said Sir William. "Do you suppose
I don't know where the fox is?" Whereupon the country gentleman
retreated, and became less conspicuous than he had been.
Away they went again, off Cleshey and into Thornden parish, on the
land of Sorrel Farm,--a spot well to be remembered by one or two ever
afterwards. Here Sir William made for a gate which took him a little
out of the line, but Maxwell and Burgo Fitzgerald, followed by
Vavasor, went straight ahead. There was a huge ditch and boundary
bank there which Sir William had known and had avoided. Maxwell,
whose pluck had returned to him at last, took it well. His horse was
comparatively fresh and made nothing of it. Then came poor Burgo!
Oh, Burgo, hadst thou not have been a very child, thou shouldst have
known that now, at this time of the day,--after all that thy gallant
horse had done for thee,--it was impossible to thee or him. But when
did Burgo Fitzgerald know anything? He rode at the bank as though it
had been the first fence of the day, striking his poor beast with his
spurs, as though muscle, strength, and new power could be imparted by
their rowels. The animal rose at the bank and in some way got upon
it, scrambling as he struck it with his chest, and then fell headlong
into the ditch at the other side, a confused mass of head, limbs, and
body. His career was at an end, and he had broken his heart! Poor
noble beast, noble in vain! To his very last gasp he had done his
best, and had deserved that he should have been in better hands. His
master's ignorance had killed him. There are men who never know how
little a horse can do,--or how much!
There was to some extent a gap in the fence when Maxwell had first
ridden it and Burgo had followed him; a gap, or break in the hedge at
the top, indicating plainly the place at which a horse could best get
over. To this spot Vavasor followed, and was on the bank at Burgo's
heels before he knew what had happened. But the man had got away and
only the horse lay there in the ditch. "Are you hurt?" said Vavasor;
"can I do anything?" But he did not stop, "If you can find a chap
just send him to me," said Burgo in a melancholy tone. Then he sat
down, with his feet in the ditch, and looked at the carcase of his
horse.
There was no more need of jumping that day. The way was open into the
next field,--a turnip field,--and there amidst the crisp breaking
turnip-tops, with the breath of his enemies hot upon him, with their
sharp teeth at his entrails, biting at them impotently in the agonies
of his death struggle, poor Reynard finished his career. Maxwell was
certainly the first there,--but Sir William and George Vavasor were
close upon him. That taking of brushes of which we used to hear is
a little out of fashion; but if such honour were due to any one it
was due to Vavasor, for he and he only had ridden the hunt throughout.
But he claimed no honour, and none was specially given to him. He
and Maxwell rode homewards together, having sent assistance to poor
Burgo Fitzgerald; and as they went along the road, saying but little
to each other, Maxwell, in a very indifferent voice, asked him a
question.
"What do you want for that horse, Vavasor?"
"A hundred and fifty," said Vavasor.
"He's mine," said Maxwell. So the brown horse was sold for about half
his value, because he had brought with him a bad character.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Alice Vavasor's Great Relations.
Burgo Fitzgerald, of whose hunting experiences something has been
told in the last chapter, was a young man born in the purple of the
English aristocracy. He was related to half the dukes in the kingdom,
and had three countesses for his aunts. When he came of age he was
master of a sufficient fortune to make it quite out of the question
that he should be asked to earn his bread; and though that, and other
windfalls that had come to him, had long since been spent, no one
had ever made to him so ridiculous a proposition as that. He was now
thirty, and for some years past had been known to be much worse than
penniless; but still he lived on in the same circles, still slept
softly and drank of the best, and went about with his valet and his
groom and his horses, and fared sumptuously every day. Some people
said the countesses did it for him, and some said that it was the
dukes;--while others, again, declared that the Jews were his most
generous friends. At any rate he still seemed to live as he had
always lived, setting tradesmen at defiance, and laughing to scorn
all the rules which regulate the lives of other men.
About eighteen months before the time of which I am now speaking,
a great chance had come in this young man's way, and he had almost
succeeded in making himself one of the richest men in England. There
had been then a great heiress in the land, on whom the properties of
half-a-dozen ancient families had concentrated; and Burgo, who in
spite of his iniquities still kept his position in the drawing-rooms
of the great, had almost succeeded in obtaining the hand and the
wealth,--as people still said that he had obtained the heart,--of the
Lady Glencora M'Cluskie. But sundry mighty magnates, driven almost
to despair at the prospect of such a sacrifice, had sagaciously
put their heads together, and the result had been that the Lady
Glencora had heard reason. She had listened,--with many haughty
tossings indeed of her proud little head, with many throbbings of her
passionate young heart; but in the end she listened and heard reason.
She saw Burgo, for the last time, and told him that she was the
promised bride of Plantagenet Palliser, nephew and heir of the Duke
of Omnium.
He had borne it like a man,--never having groaned openly, or quivered
once before any comrade at the name of the Lady Glencora. She had
married Mr. Palliser at St. George's Square, and on the morning of the
marriage he had hung about his club door in Pall Mall, listening to
the bells, and saying a word or two about the wedding, with admirable
courage. It had been for him a great chance,--and he had lost it.
Who can say, too, that his only regret was for the money? He had
spoken once of it to a married sister of his, in whose house he had
first met Lady Glencora. "I shall never marry now,--that is all,"
he said--and then he went about, living his old reckless life, with
the same recklessness as ever. He was one of those young men with
dark hair and blue eyes,--who wear no beard, and are certainly among
the handsomest of all God's creatures. No more handsome man than
Burgo Fitzgerald lived in his days; and this merit at any rate was
his,--that he thought nothing of his own beauty. But he lived ever
without conscience, without purpose,--with no idea that it behoved
him as a man to do anything but eat and drink,--or ride well to
hounds till some poor brute, much nobler than himself, perished
beneath him.
He chiefly concerns our story at this present time because the Lady
Glencora who had loved him,--and would have married him had not those
sagacious heads prevented it,--was a cousin of Alice Vavasor's. She
was among those very great relations with whom Alice was connected by
her mother's side,--being indeed so near to Lady Macleod, that she
was first cousin to that lady, only once removed. Lady Midlothian
was aunt to the Lady Glencora, and our Alice might have called
cousins, and not been forbidden, with the old Lord of the Isles, Lady
Glencora's father,--who was dead, however, some time previous to that
affair with Burgo,--and with the Marquis of Auld Reekie, who was
Lady Glencora's uncle, and had been her guardian. But Alice had kept
herself aloof from her grand relations on her mother's side, choosing
rather to hold herself as belonging to those who were her father's
kindred. With Lady Glencora, however, she had for a short time--for
some week or ten days,--been on terms of almost affectionate
intimacy. It had been then, when the wayward heiress with the bright
waving locks had been most strongly minded to give herself and her
wealth to Burgo Fitzgerald. Burgo had had money dealings with George
Vavasor, and knew him,--knew him intimately, and had learned the
fact of his cousinship between the heiress and his friend's cousin.
Whereupon in the agony of those weeks in which the sagacious heads
were resisting her love, Lady Glencora came to her cousin in Queen
Anne Street, and told Alice all that tale. "Was Alice," she asked,
"afraid of the marquises and the countesses, or of all the rank and
all the money which they boasted?" Alice answered that she was not at
all afraid of them. "Then would she permit Lady Glencora and Burgo
to see each other in the drawing-room at Queen Anne Street, just
once!" Just once,--so that they might arrange that little plan of an
elopement. But Alice could not do that for her newly found cousin.
She endeavoured to explain that it was not the dignity of the
sagacious heads which stood in her way, but her woman's feeling of
what was right and wrong in such a matter.
"Why should I not marry him?" said Lady Glencora, with her eyes
flashing. "He is my equal."
Alice explained that she had no word to say against such a marriage.
She counselled her cousin to be true to her love if her love was in
itself true. But she, an unmarried woman, who had hitherto not known
her cousin, might not give such help as that! "If you will not help
me, I am helpless!" said the Lady Glencora, and then she kneeled at
Alice's knees and threw her wavy locks abroad on Alice's lap. "How
shall I bribe you?" said Lady Glencora. "Next to him I will love you
better than all the world." But Alice, though she kissed the fair
forehead and owned that such reward would be worth much to her, could
not take any bribe for such a cause. Then Lady Glencora had been
angry with her, calling her heartless, and threatening her that she
too might have sorrow of her own and want assistance. Alice told
nothing of her own tale,--how she had loved her cousin and had been
forced to give him up, but said what kind words she could, and she
of the waving hair and light blue eyes had been pacified. Then she
had come again,--had come daily while the sagacious heads were at
work,--and Alice in her trouble had been a comfort to her.
But the sagacious heads were victorious, as we know, and Lady
Glencora M'Cluskie became Lady Glencora Palliser with all the
propriety in the world, instead of becoming wife to poor Burgo, with
all imaginable impropriety. And then she wrote a letter to Alice,
very short and rather sad; but still with a certain sweetness in it.
"She had been counselled that it was not fitting for her to love as
she had thought to love, and she had resolved to give up her dream.
Her cousin Alice, she knew, would respect her secret. She was going
to become the wife of the best man, she thought, in all the world;
and it should be the one care of her life to make him happy." She
said not a word in all her letter of loving this newly found lord.
"She was to be married at once. Would Alice be one among the bevy of
bridesmaids who were to grace the ceremony?"
Alice wished her joy heartily,--"heartily," she said, but had
declined that office of bridesmaid. She did not wish to undergo the
cold looks of the Lady Julias and Lady Janes who all would know each
other, but none of whom would know her. So she sent her cousin a
little ring, and asked her to keep it amidst all the wealthy tribute
of marriage gifts which would be poured forth at her feet.
From that time to this present Alice had heard no more of Lady
Glencora. She had been married late in the preceding season and
had gone away with Mr. Palliser, spending her honeymoon amidst the
softnesses of some Italian lake. They had not returned to England
till the time had come for them to encounter the magnificent
Christmas festivities of Mr. Palliser's uncle, the Duke. On this
occasion Gatherum Castle, the vast palace which the Duke had built at
a cost of nearly a quarter of a million, was opened, as it had never
been opened before;--for the Duke's heir had married to the Duke's
liking, and the Duke was a man who could do such things handsomely
when he was well pleased. Then there had been a throng of bridal
guests, and a succession of bridal gaieties which had continued
themselves even past the time at which Mr. Palliser was due at
Westminster;--and Mr. Palliser was a legislator who served his
country with the utmost assiduity. So the London season commenced,
progressed, and was consumed; and still Alice heard nothing more of
her friend and cousin Lady Glencora.
But this had troubled her not at all. A chance circumstance, the
story of which she had told to no one, had given her a short intimacy
with this fair child of the gold mines, but she had felt that they
two could not live together in habits of much intimacy. She had, when
thinking of the young bride, only thought of that wild love episode
in the girl's life. It had been strange to her that she should in
one week have listened to the most passionate protestations from her
friend of love for one man, and then have been told in the next that
another man was to be her friend's husband! But she reflected that
her own career was much the same,--only with the interval of some
longer time.
But her own career was not the same. Glencora had married Mr.
Palliser,--had married him without pausing to doubt;--but Alice had
gone on doubting till at last she had resolved that she would not
marry Mr. Grey. She thought of this much in those days at Cheltenham,
and wondered often whether Glencora lived with her husband in the
full happiness of conjugal love.
One morning, about three days after Mr. Grey's visit, there came to
her two letters, as to neither of which did she know the writer by
the handwriting. Lady Macleod had told her,--with some hesitation,
indeed, for Lady Macleod was afraid of her,--but had told her,
nevertheless, more than once, that those noble relatives had heard of
the treatment to which Mr. Grey was being subjected, and had expressed
their great sorrow,--if not dismay or almost anger. Lady Macleod,
indeed, had gone as far as she dared, and might have gone further
without any sacrifice of truth. Lady Midlothian had said that it
would be disgraceful to the family, and Lady Glencora's aunt, the
Marchioness of Auld Reekie, had demanded to be told what it was the
girl wanted.
When the letters came Lady Macleod was not present, and I am disposed
to think that one of them had been written by concerted arrangement
with her. But if so she had not dared to watch the immediate effect
of her own projectile. This one was from Lady Midlothian. Of the
other Lady Macleod certainly knew nothing, though it also had sprung
out of the discussions which had taken place as to Alice's sins in
the Auld Reekie-Midlothian set. This other letter was from Lady
Glencora. Alice opened the two, one without reading the other, very
slowly. Lady Midlothian's was the first opened, and then came a spot
of anger on Alice's cheeks as she saw the signature, and caught a
word or two as she allowed her eye to glance down the page. Then she
opened the other, which was shorter, and when she saw her cousin's
signature, "Glencora Palliser," she read that letter first,--read it
twice before she went back to the disagreeable task of perusing Lady
Midlothian's lecture. The reader shall have both the letters, but
that from the Countess shall have precedence.
Castle Reekie, N.B.
-- Oct. 186--.
MY DEAR MISS VAVASOR,
I have not the pleasure of knowing you personally, though
I have heard of you very often from our dear mutual friend
and relative Lady Macleod, with whom I understand that
you are at present on a visit. Your grandmother,--by
the mother's side,--Lady Flora Macleod, and my mother
the Countess of Leith, were half-sisters; and though
circumstances since that have prevented our seeing so much
of each other as is desirable, I have always remembered
the connection, and have ever regarded you as one in
whose welfare I am bound by ties of blood to take a warm
interest.
"'Since that!'--what does she mean by 'since that'?" said Alice to
herself. "She has never set eyes on me at all. Why does she talk of
not having seen as much of me as is desirable?"
I had learned with great gratification that you were going
to be married to a most worthy gentleman, Mr. John Grey of
Nethercoats, in Cambridgeshire. When I first heard this
I made it my business to institute some inquiries, and I
was heartily glad to find that your choice had done you
so much credit. [If the reader has read Alice's character
as I have meant it should be read, it will thoroughly be
understood that this was wormwood to her.] I was informed
that Mr. Grey is in every respect a gentleman,--that he is
a man of most excellent habits, and one to whom any young
woman could commit her future happiness with security,
that his means are very good for his position, and that
there was no possible objection to such a marriage. All
this gave great satisfaction to me, in which I was joined
by the Marchioness of Auld Reekie, who is connected with
you almost as nearly as I am, and who, I can assure you,
feels a considerable interest in your welfare. I am
staying with her now, and in all that I say, she agrees
with me.
You may feel then how dreadfully we were dismayed when
we were told by dear Lady Macleod that you had told Mr.
Grey that you intended to change your mind! My dear Miss
Vavasor, can this be true? There are things in which a
young lady has no right to change her mind after it has
been once made up; and certainly when a young lady has
accepted a gentleman, that is one of them. He cannot
legally make you become his wife, but he has a right to
claim you before God and man. Have you considered that he
has probably furnished his house in consequence of his
intended marriage,--and perhaps in compliance with your
own especial wishes? [I think that Lady Macleod must have
told the Countess something that she had heard about the
garden.] Have you reflected that he has of course told all
his friends? Have you any reason to give? I am told, none!
Nothing should ever be done without a reason; much less
such a thing as this in which your own interests and,
I may say, respectability are involved. I hope you will
think of this before you persist in destroying your own
happiness and perhaps that of a very worthy man.
I had heard, some years ago, when you were much younger,
that you had become imprudently attached in another
direction--with a gentleman with none of those qualities
to recommend him which speak so highly for Mr. Grey.
It would grieve me very much, as it would also the
Marchioness, who in this matter thinks exactly as I do, if
I were led to suppose that your rejection of Mr. Grey had
been caused by _any renewal of that project_. Nothing, my
dear Miss Vavasor, could be more unfortunate,--and I might
almost add a stronger word.
I have been advised that a line from me as representing
your poor mother's family, especially as I have at
the present moment the opportunity of expressing Lady
Auld Reekie's sentiments as well as my own, might be
of service. I implore you, my dear Miss Vavasor, to
remember what you owe to God and man, and to carry out an
engagement made by yourself, that is in all respects comme
il faut, and which will give entire satisfaction to your
friends and relatives.
MARGARET M. MIDLOTHIAN.
I think that Lady Macleod had been wrong in supposing that this could
do any good. She should have known Alice better; and should also
have known the world better. But her own reverence for her own noble
relatives was so great that she could not understand, even yet, that
all such feeling was wanting to her niece. It was to her impossible
that the expressed opinion of such an one as the Countess of
Midlothian, owning her relationship and solicitude, and condescending
at the same time to express friendship,--she could not, I say,
understand that the voice of such an one, so speaking, should have no
weight whatever. But I think that she had been quite right in keeping
out of Alice's way at the moment of the arrival of the letter. Alice
read it, slowly, and then replacing it in its envelope, leaned back
quietly in her chair,--with her eyes fixed upon the teapot on the
table. She had, however, the other letter on which to occupy her
mind, and thus relieve her from the effects of too deep an animosity
against the Countess.
The Lady Glencora's letter was as follows:
Matching Priory,
Thursday.
DEAR COUSIN,
I have just come home from Scotland, where they have been
telling me something of your little troubles. I had little
troubles once too, and you were so good to me! Will you
come to us here for a few weeks? We shall be here till
Christmas-time, when we go somewhere else. I have told my
husband that you are a great friend of mine as well as a
cousin, and that he must be good to you. He is very quiet,
and works very hard at politics; but I think you will like
him. Do come! There will be a good many people here, so
that you will not find it dull. If you will name the day
we will send the carriage for you at Matching Station, and
I dare say I can manage to come myself.
Yours affectionately,
G. PALLISER.
P.S. I know what will be in your mind. You will say, why
did not she come to me in London? She knew the way to
Queen Anne Street well enough. Dear Alice, don't say that.
Believe me, I had much to do and think of in London. And
if I was wrong, yet you will forgive me. Mr. Palliser says
I am to give you his love,--as being a cousin,--and say
that you must come!
This letter was certainly better than the other, but Alice, on
reading it, came to a resolve that she would not accept the
invitation. In the first place, even that allusion to her little
troubles jarred upon her feelings; and then she thought that her
rejection of Mr. Grey could be no special reason why she should go to
Matching Priory. Was it not very possible that she had been invited
that she might meet Lady Midlothian there, and encounter all the
strength of a personal battery from the Countess? Lady Glencora's
letter she would of course answer, but to Lady Midlothian she would
not condescend to make any reply whatever.
About eleven o'clock Lady Macleod came down to her. For half-an-hour
or so Alice said nothing; nor did Lady Macleod ask any question. She
looked inquisitively at Alice, eyeing the letter which was lying by
the side of her niece's workbasket, but she said no word about Mr.
Grey or the Countess. At last Alice spoke.
"Aunt," she said, "I have had a letter this morning from your friend,
Lady Midlothian."
"She is my cousin, Alice; and yours as much as mine."
"Your cousin then, aunt. But it is of more moment that she is your
friend. She certainly is not mine, nor can her cousinship afford any
justification for her interfering in my affairs."
"Alice,--from her position--"
"Her position can be nothing to me, aunt. I will not submit to it.
There is her letter, which you can read if you please. After that you
may burn it. I need hardly say that I shall not answer it."
"And what am I to say to her, Alice?"
"Nothing from me, aunt;--from yourself, whatever you please, of
course." Then there was silence between them for a few minutes.
"And I have had another letter, from Lady Glencora, who married Mr.
Palliser, and whom I knew in London last spring."
"And has that offended you, too?"
"No, there is no offence in that. She asks me to go and see her at
Matching Priory, her husband's house; but I shall not go."
But at last Alice agreed to pay this visit, and it may be as well
to explain here how she was brought to do so. She wrote to Lady
Glencora, declining, and explaining frankly that she did decline,
because she thought it probable that she might there meet Lady
Midlothian. Lady Midlothian, she said, had interfered very
unwarrantably in her affairs, and she did not wish to make her
acquaintance. To this Lady Glencora replied, post haste, that she had
intended no such horrid treachery as that for Alice; that neither
would Lady Midlothian be there, nor any of that set; by which
Alice knew that Lady Glencora referred specially to her aunt the
Marchioness; that no one would be at Matching who could torment
Alice, either with right or without it, "except so far as I myself
may do so," Lady Glencora said; and then she named an early day in
November, at which she would herself undertake to meet Alice at the
Matching Station. On receipt of this letter, Alice, after two days'
doubt, accepted the invitation.
CHAPTER XIX.
Tribute from Oileymead.
Kate Vavasor, in writing to her cousin Alice, felt some little
difficulty in excusing herself for remaining in Norfolk with Mrs.
Greenow. She had laughed at Mrs. Greenow before she went to Yarmouth,
and had laughed at herself for going there. And in all her letters
since, she had spoken of her aunt as a silly, vain, worldly woman,
weeping crocodile tears, for an old husband whose death had released
her from the tedium of his company, and spreading lures to catch new
lovers. But yet she agreed to stay with her aunt, and remain with her
in lodgings at Norwich for a month.
But Mrs. Greenow had about her something more than Kate had
acknowledged when she first attempted to read her aunt's character.
She was clever, and in her own way persuasive. She was very generous,
and possessed a certain power of making herself pleasant to those
around her. In asking Kate to stay with her she had so asked as to
make it appear that Kate was to confer the favour. She had told her
niece that she was all alone in the world. "I have money," she had
said, with more appearance of true feeling than Kate had observed
before. "I have money, but I have nothing else in the world. I have
no home. Why should I not remain here in Norfolk, where I know a few
people? If you'll say that you'll go anywhere else with me, I'll go
to any place you'll name." Kate had believed this to be hardly true.
She had felt sure that her aunt wished to remain in the neighbourhood
of her seaside admirers; but, nevertheless, she had yielded, and at
the end of October the two ladies, with Jeannette, settled themselves
in comfortable lodgings within the precincts of the Close at Norwich.
Mr. Greenow at this time had been dead very nearly six months, but his
widow made some mistakes in her dates and appeared to think that the
interval had been longer. On the day of their arrival at Norwich it
was evident that this error had confirmed itself in her mind. "Only
think," she said, as she unpacked a little miniature of the departed
one, and sat with it for a moment in her hands, as she pressed her
handkerchief to her eyes, "only think, that it is barely nine months
since he was with me?"
"Six, you mean, aunt," said Kate, unadvisedly.
"Only nine months" repeated Mrs. Greenow, as though she had not heard
her niece. "Only nine months!" After that Kate attempted to correct
no more such errors. "It happened in May, Miss," Jeannette said
afterwards to Miss Vavasor, "and that, as we reckons, it will be just
a twelvemonth come Christmas." But Kate paid no attention to this.
And Jeannette was very ungrateful, and certainly should have indulged
herself in no such sarcasms. When Mrs. Greenow made a slight change in
her mourning, which she did on her arrival at Norwich, using a little
lace among her crapes, Jeannette reaped a rich harvest in gifts of
clothes. Mrs. Greenow knew well enough that she expected more from
a servant than mere service;--that she wanted loyalty, discretion,
and perhaps sometimes a little secrecy;--and as she paid for these
things, she should have had them.
Kate undertook to stay a month with her aunt at Norwich, and Mrs.
Greenow undertook that Mr. Cheesacre should declare himself as Kate's
lover, before the expiration of the month. It was in vain that Kate
protested that she wanted no such lover, and that she would certainly
reject him if he came. "That's all very well, my dear," Aunt Greenow
would say. "A girl must settle herself some day, you know;--and you'd
have it all your own way at Oileymead."
But the offer certainly showed much generosity on the part of Aunt
Greenow, inasmuch as Mr. Cheesacre's attentions were apparently paid
to herself rather than to her niece. Mr. Cheesacre was very attentive.
He had taken the lodgings in the Close, and had sent over fowls and
cream from Oileymead, and had called on the morning after their
arrival; but in all his attentions he distinguished the aunt more
particularly than the niece. "I am all for Mr. Cheesacre, Miss,"
said Jeannette once. "The Captain is perhaps the nicerer-looking
gentleman, and he ain't so podgy like; but what's good looks if a
gentleman hasn't got nothing? I can't abide anything that's poor;
neither can't Missus." From which it was evident that Jeannette gave
Miss Vavasor no credit in having Mr. Cheesacre in her train.
Captain Bellfield was also at Norwich, having obtained some
quasi-military employment there in the matter of drilling volunteers.
Certain capacities in that line it may be supposed that he possessed,
and, as his friend Cheesacre said of him, he was going to earn an
honest penny once in his life. The Captain and Mr. Cheesacre had made
up any little differences that had existed between them at Yarmouth,
and were close allies again when they left that place. Some little
compact on matters of business must have been arranged between
them,--for the Captain was in funds again. He was in funds again
through the liberality of his friend,--and no payment of former loans
had been made, nor had there been any speech of such. Mr. Cheesacre
had drawn his purse-strings liberally, and had declared that if all
went well the hospitality of Oileymead should not be wanting during
the winter. Captain Bellfield had nodded his head and declared that
all should go well.
"You won't see much of the Captain, I suppose," said Mr. Cheesacre to
Mrs. Greenow on the morning of the day after her arrival at Norwich.
He had come across the whole way from Oileymead to ask her if she
found herself comfortable,--and perhaps with an eye to the Norwich
markets at the same time. He now wore a pair of black riding boots
over his trousers, and a round topped hat, and looked much more at
home than he had done by the seaside.
"Not much, I dare say," said the widow. "He tells me that he must be
on duty ten or twelve hours a day. Poor fellow!"
"It's a deuced good thing for him, and he ought to be very much
obliged to me for putting him in the way of getting it. But he told
me to tell you that if he didn't call, you were not to be angry with
him."
"Oh, no;--I shall remember, of course."
"You see, if he don't work now he must come to grief. He hasn't got
a shilling that he can call his own."
"Hasn't he really?"
"Not a shilling, Mrs. Greenow;--and then he's awfully in debt. He
isn't a bad fellow, you know, only there's no trusting him for
anything." Then after a few further inquiries that were almost
tender, and a promise of further supplies from the dairy, Mr.
Cheesacre took his leave, almost forgetting to ask after Miss
Vavasor.
But as he left the house he had a word to say to Jeannette. "He
hasn't been here, has he, Jenny?" "We haven't seen a sight of him
yet, sir,--and I have thought it a little odd." Then Mr. Cheesacre
gave the girl half-a-crown, and went his way. Jeannette, I think,
must have forgotten that the Captain had looked in after leaving his
military duties on the preceding evening.
The Captain's ten or twelve hours of daily work was performed,
no doubt, at irregular intervals,--some days late and some days
early,--for he might be seen about Norwich almost at all times,
during the early part of that November;--and he might be very
often seen going into the Close. In Norwich there are two weekly
market-days, but on those days the Captain was no doubt kept more
entirely to his military employment, for at such times he never
was seen near the Close. Now Mr. Cheesacre's visits to the town
were generally made on market-days, and so it happened that they
did not meet. On such occasions Mr. Cheesacre always was driven
to Mrs. Greenow's door in a cab,--for he would come into town by
railway,--and he would deposit a basket bearing the rich produce of
his dairy. It was in vain that Mrs. Greenow protested against these
gifts,--for she did protest and declared that if they were continued,
they would be sent back. They were, however, continued, and Mrs.
Greenow was at her wits' end about them. Cheesacre would not come
up with them; but leaving them, would go about his business, and
would return to see the ladies. On such occasions he would be very
particular in getting his basket from Jeannette. As he did so he
would generally ask some question about the Captain, and Jeannette
would give him answers confidentially,--so that there was a strong
friendship between these two.
"What am I to do about it?" said Mrs. Greenow, as Kate came into the
sitting-room one morning, and saw on the table a small hamper lined
with a clean cloth. "It's as much as Jeannette has been able to
carry."
"So it is, ma'am,--quite; and I'm strong in the arm, too, ma'am."
"What am I to do, Kate? He is such a good creature."
"And he do admire you both so much," said Jeannette.
"Of course I don't want to offend him for many reasons," said the
aunt, looking knowingly at her niece.
"I don't know anything about your reasons, aunt, but if I were
you, I should leave the basket just as it is till he comes in the
afternoon."
"Would you mind seeing him yourself, Kate, and explaining to him that
it won't do to get on in this way. Perhaps you wouldn't mind telling
him that if he'll promise not to bring any more, you won't object to
take this one."
"Indeed, aunt, I can't do that. They're not brought to me."
"Oh, Kate!"
"Nonsense, aunt;--I won't have you say so;--before Jeannette, too."
"I think it's for both, ma'am; I do indeed. And there certainly ain't
any cream to be bought like it in Norwich:--nor yet eggs."
"I wonder what there is in the basket." And the widow lifted up
the corner of the cloth. "I declare if there isn't a turkey poult
already."
"My!" said Jeannette. "A turkey poult! Why, that's worth ten and
sixpence in the market if it's worth a penny."
"It's out of the question that I should take upon myself to say
anything to him about it," said Kate.
"Upon my word I don't see why you shouldn't, as well as I," said Mrs.
Greenow.
"I'll tell you what, ma'am," said Jeannette: "let me just ask him who
they're for;--he'll tell me anything."
"Don't do anything of the kind, Jeannette," said Kate. "Of course,
aunt, they're brought for you. There's no doubt about that. A
gentleman doesn't bring cream and turkeys to-- I've never heard of
such a thing!"
"I don't see why a gentleman shouldn't bring cream and turkeys to you
just as well as to me. Indeed, he told me once as much himself."
"Then, if they're for me, I'll leave them down outside the front
door, and he may find his provisions there." And Kate proceeded to
lift the basket off the table.
"Leave it alone, Kate," said Mrs. Greenow, with a voice that was
rather solemn; and which had, too, something of sadness in its tone.
"Leave it alone. I'll see Mr. Cheesacre myself."
"And I do hope you won't mention my name. It's the most absurd thing
in the world. The man never spoke two dozen words to me in his life."
"He speaks to me, though," said Mrs. Greenow.
"I dare say he does," said Kate.
"And about you, too, my dear."
"He doesn't come here with those big flowers in his button-hole for
nothing," said Jeannette,--"not if I knows what a gentleman means."
"Of course he doesn't," said Mrs. Greenow.
"If you don't object, aunt," said Kate, "I will write to grandpapa
and tell him that I will return home at once."
"What!--because of Mr. Cheesacre?" said Mrs. Greenow. "I don't think
you'll be so silly as that, my dear."
On the present occasion Mrs. Greenow undertook that she would see
the generous gentleman, and endeavour to stop the supplies from
his farmyard. It was well understood that he would call about four
o'clock, when his business in the town would be over; and that he
would bring with him a little boy, who would carry away the basket.
At that hour Kate of course was absent, and the widow received
Mr. Cheesacre alone. The basket and cloth were there, in the
sitting-room, and on the table were laid out the rich things which
it had contained;--the turkey poult first, on a dish provided in the
lodging-house, then a dozen fresh eggs in a soup plate, then the
cream in a little tin can, which, for the last fortnight, had passed
regularly between Oileymead and the house in the Close, and as to
which Mr. Cheesacre was very pointed in his inquiries with Jeannette.
Then behind the cream there were two or three heads of broccoli, and
a stick of celery as thick as a man's wrist. Altogether the tribute
was a very comfortable assistance to the housekeeping of a lady
living in a small way in lodgings.
Mr. Cheesacre, when he saw the array on the long sofa-table, knew that
he was to prepare himself for some resistance; but that resistance
would give him, he thought, an opportunity of saying a few words that
he was desirous of speaking, and he did not altogether regret it. "I
just called in," he said, "to see how you were."
"We are not likely to starve," said Mrs. Greenow, pointing to the
delicacies from Oileymead.
"Just a few trifles that my old woman asked me to bring in," said
Cheesacre. "She insisted on putting them up."
"But your old woman is by far too magnificent," said Mrs. Greenow.
"She really frightens Kate and me out of our wits."
Mr. Cheesacre had no wish that Miss Vavasor's name should be
brought into play upon the occasion. "Dear Mrs. Greenow," said he,
"there is no cause for you to be alarmed, I can assure you. Mere
trifles;--light as air, you know. I don't think anything of such
things as these."
"But I and Kate think a great deal of them,--a very great deal, I can
assure you. Do you know, we had a long debate this morning whether or
no we would return them to Oileymead?"
"Return them, Mrs. Greenow!"
"Yes, indeed: what are women, situated as we are, to do under such
circumstances? When gentlemen will be too liberal, their liberality
must be repressed."
"And have I been too liberal, Mrs. Greenow? What is a young turkey and
a stick of celery when a man is willing to give everything that he
has in the world?"
"You've got a great deal more in the world, Mr. Cheesacre, than you'd
like to part with. But we won't talk of that, now."
"When shall we talk of it?"
"If you really have anything to say, you had by far better speak to
Kate herself."
"Mrs. Greenow, you mistake me. Indeed, you mistake me." Just at this
moment, as he was drawing close to the widow, she heard, or fancied
that she heard, Jeannette's step, and, going to the sitting-room
door, called to her maid. Jeannette did not hear her, but the bell
was rung, and then Jeannette came. "You may take these things down,
Jeannette," she said. "Mr. Cheesacre has promised that no more shall
come."
"But I haven't promised," said Mr. Cheesacre.
"You will oblige me and Kate, I know;--and, Jeannette, tell Miss
Vavasor that I am ready to walk with her."
Then Mr. Cheesacre knew that he could not say those few words on
that occasion; and as the hour of his train was near, he took his
departure, and went out of the Close, followed by the little boy,
carrying the basket, the cloth, and the tin can.
CHAPTER XX.
Which Shall It Be?
The next day was Sunday, and it was well known at the lodging-house
in the Close that Mr. Cheesacre would not be seen there then. Mrs.
Greenow had specially warned him that she was not fond of Sunday
visitors, fearing that otherwise he might find it convenient to give
them too much of his society on that idle day. In the morning the
aunt and niece both went to the Cathedral, and then at three o'clock
they dined. But on this occasion they did not dine alone. Charlie
Fairstairs, who, with her family, had come home from Yarmouth, had
been asked to join them; and in order that Charlie might not feel it
dull, Mrs. Greenow had, with her usual good-nature, invited Captain
Bellfield. A very nice little dinner they had. The captain carved the
turkey, giving due honour to Mr. Cheesacre as he did so; and when he
nibbled his celery with his cheese, he was prettily jocose about the
richness of the farmyard at Oileymead.
"He is the most generous man I ever met," said Mrs. Greenow.
"So he is," said Captain Bellfield, "and we'll drink his health. Poor
old Cheesy! It's a great pity he shouldn't get himself a wife."
"I don't know any man more calculated to make a young woman happy,"
said Mrs. Greenow.
"No, indeed," said Miss Fairstairs. "I'm told that his house and all
about it is quite beautiful."
"Especially the straw-yard and the horse-pond," said the Captain. And
then they drank the health of their absent friend.
It had been arranged that the ladies should go to church in the
evening, and it was thought that Captain Bellfield would, perhaps,
accompany them; but when the time for starting came, Kate and Charlie
were ready, but the widow was not, and she remained,--in order, as
she afterwards explained to Kate, that Captain Bellfield might not
seem to be turned out of the house. He had made no offer churchwards,
and,--"Poor man," as Mrs. Greenow said in her little explanation,
"if I hadn't let him stay there, he would have had no resting-place
for the sole of his foot, but some horrid barrack-room!" Therefore
the Captain was allowed to find a resting-place in Mrs. Greenow's
drawing-room; but on the return of the young ladies from church, he
was not there, and the widow was alone, "looking back," she said, "to
things that were gone;--that were gone. But come, dears, I am not
going to make you melancholy." So they had tea, and Mr. Cheesacre's
cream was used with liberality.
Captain Bellfield had not allowed the opportunity to slip idly from
his hands. In the first quarter of an hour after the younger ladies
had gone, he said little or nothing, but sat with a wine-glass before
him, which once or twice he filled from the decanter. "I'm afraid the
wine is not very good," said Mrs. Greenow. "But one can't get good
wine in lodgings."
"I'm not thinking very much about it, Mrs. Greenow; that's the truth,"
said the Captain. "I daresay the wine is very good of its kind." Then
there was another period of silence between them.
"I suppose you find it rather dull, living in lodgings; don't you?"
asked the Captain.
"I don't know quite what you mean by dull, Captain Bellfield; but a
woman circumstanced as I am, can't find her life very gay. It's not a
full twelvemonth yet since I lost all that made life desirable, and
sometimes I wonder at myself for holding up as well as I do."
"It's wicked to give way to grief too much, Mrs. Greenow."
"That's what my dear Kate always says to me, and I'm sure I do
my best to overcome it." Upon this soft tears trickled down her
cheek, showing in their course that she at any rate used no paint in
producing that freshness of colour which was one of her great charms.
Then she pressed her handkerchief to her eyes, and removing it,
smiled faintly on the Captain. "I didn't intend to treat you to such
a scene as this, Captain Bellfield."
"There is nothing on earth, Mrs. Greenow, I desire so much, as
permission to dry those tears."
"Time alone can do that, Captain Bellfield;--time alone."
"But cannot time be aided by love and friendship and affection?"
"By friendship, yes. What would life be worth without the solace of
friendship?"
"And how much better is the warm glow of love?" Captain Bellfield,
as he asked this question, deliberately got up, and moved his chair
over to the widow's side. But the widow as deliberately changed her
position to the corner of a sofa. The Captain did not at once follow
her, nor did he in any way show that he was aware that she had fled
from him.
"How much better is the warm glow of love?" he said again, contenting
himself with looking into her face with all his eyes. He had hoped
that he would have been able to press her hand by this time.
"The warm, glow of love, Captain Bellfield, if you have ever felt
it--"
"If I have ever felt it! Do I not feel it now, Mrs. Greenow? There can
be no longer any mask kept upon my feelings. I never could restrain
the yearnings of my heart when they have been strong."
"Have they often been strong, Captain Bellfield?"
"Yes; often;--in various scenes of life; on the field of battle--"
"I did not know that you had seen active service."
"What!--not on the plains of Zuzuland, when with fifty picked men
I kept five hundred Caffres at bay for seven weeks;--never knew the
comfort of a bed, or a pillow to my head, for seven long weeks!"
"Not for seven weeks?" said Mrs. Greenow.
"No. Did I not see active service at Essiquebo, on the burning coast
of Guiana, when all the wild Africans from the woods rose up to
destroy the colony; or again at the mouth of the Kitchyhomy River,
when I made good the capture of a slaver by my own hand and my own
sword!"
"I really hadn't heard," said Mrs. Greenow.
"Ah, I understand. I know. Cheesy is the best fellow in the world in
some respects, but he cannot bring himself to speak well of a fellow
behind his back. I know who has belittled me. Who was the first to
storm the heights of Inkerman?" demanded the Captain, thinking in the
heat of the moment that he might as well be hung for a sheep as a
lamb.
"But when you spoke of yearnings, I thought you meant yearnings of a
softer kind."
"So I did. So I did. I don't know why I have been led away to speak
of deeds that are very seldom mentioned, at any rate by myself. But I
cannot bear that a slanderous backbiting tongue should make you think
that I have seen no service. I have served her Majesty in the four
quarters of the globe, Mrs. Greenow; and now I am ready to serve you
in any way in which you will allow me to make my service acceptable."
Whereupon he took one stride over to the sofa, and went down upon his
knees before her.
"But, Captain Bellfield, I don't want any services. Pray get up now;
the girl will come in."
"I care nothing for any girl. I am planted here till some answer
shall have been made to me; till some word shall have been said
that may give me a little hope." Then he attempted to get hold
of her hand, but she put them behind her back and shook her head.
"Arabella," he said, "will you not speak a word to me?"
"Not a word, Captain Bellfield, till you get up; and I won't have you
call me Arabella. I am the widow of Samuel Greenow, than whom no man
was more respected where he was known, and it is not fitting that I
should be addressed in that way."
"But I want you to become my wife,--and then--"
"Ah, then indeed! But that then isn't likely to come. Get up, Captain
Bellfield, or I'll push you over and then ring the bell. A man never
looks so much like a fool as when he's kneeling down,--unless he's
saying his prayers, as you ought to be doing now. Get up, I tell you.
It's just half past seven, and I told Jeannette to come to me then."
There was that in the widow's voice which made him get up, and he
rose slowly to his feet. "You've pushed all the chairs about, you
stupid man," she said. Then in one minute she had restored the
scattered furniture to their proper places, and had rung the bell.
When Jeannette came she desired that tea might be ready by the time
that the young ladies returned, and asked Captain Bellfield if a cup
should be set for him. This he declined, and bade her farewell while
Jeannette was still in the room. She shook hands with him without
any sign of anger, and even expressed a hope that they might see him
again before long.
"He's a very handsome man, is the Captain," said Jeannette, as the
hero of the Kitchyhomy River descended the stairs.
"You shouldn't think about handsome men, child," said Mrs. Greenow.
"And I'm sure I don't," said Jeannette. "Not no more than anybody
else; but if a man is handsome, ma'am, why it stands to reason that
he is handsome."
"I suppose Captain Bellfield has given you a kiss and a pair of
gloves."
"As for gloves and such like, Mr. Cheesacre is much better for giving
than the Captain; as we all know; don't we, ma'am? But in regard to
kisses, they're presents as I never takes from anybody. Let everybody
pay his debts. If the Captain ever gets a wife, let him kiss her."
On the following Tuesday morning Mr. Cheesacre as usual called in the
Close, but he brought with him no basket. He merely left a winter
nosegay made of green leaves and laurestinus flowers, and sent up a
message to say that he should call at half past three, and hoped that
he might then be able to see Mrs. Greenow--on particular business.
"That means you, Kate," said Mrs. Greenow.
"No, it doesn't; it doesn't mean me at all. At any rate he won't see
me."
"I dare say it's me he wishes to see. It seems to be the fashionable
plan now for gentlemen to make offers by deputy. If he says anything,
I can only refer him to you, you know."
"Yes, you can; you can tell him simply that I won't have him. But he
is no more thinking of me than--"
"Than he is of me, you were going to say."
"No, aunt; I wasn't going to say that at all."
"Well, we shall see. If he does mean anything, of course you can
please yourself; but I really think you might do worse."
"But if I don't want to do at all?"
"Very well; you must have your own way. I can only tell you what I
think."
At half past three o'clock punctually Mr. Cheesacre came to the
door, and was shown up-stairs. He was told by Jeannette that Captain
Bellfield had looked in on the Sunday afternoon, but that Miss
Fairstairs and Miss Vavasor had been there the whole time. He had
not got on his black boots nor yet had his round topped hat. And as
he did wear a new frock coat, and had his left hand thrust into a
kid glove, Jeannette was quite sure that he intended business of
some kind. With new boots, creaking loudly, he walked up into the
drawing-room, and there he found the widow alone.
"Thanks for the flowers," she said at once. "It was so good of you to
bring something that we could accept."
"As for that," said he, "I don't see why you should scruple about a
trifle of cream, but I hope that any such feeling as that will be
over before long." To this the widow made no answer, but she looked
very sweetly on him as she bade him sit down.
He did sit down; but first he put his hat and stick carefully away in
one corner, and then he pulled off his glove--somewhat laboriously,
for his hand was warm. He was clearly prepared for great things. As
he pushed up his hair with his hands there came from his locks an
ambrosial perfume,--as of marrow-oil, and there was a fixed propriety
of position of every hair of his whiskers, which indicated very
plainly that he had been at a hairdresser's shop since he left the
market. Nor do I believe that he had worn that coat when he came to
the door earlier in the morning. If I were to say that he had called
at his tailor's also, I do not think that I should be wrong.
"How goes everything at Oileymead?" said Mrs. Greenow, seeing that her
guest wanted some little assistance in leading off the conversation.
"Pretty well, Mrs. Greenow; pretty well. Everything will go very well
if I am successful in the object which I have on hand to-day."
"I'm sure I hope you'll be successful in all your undertakings."
"In all my business undertakings I am, Mrs. Greenow. There isn't a
shilling due on my land to e'er a bank in Norwich; and I haven't
thrashed out a quarter of last year's corn yet, which is more than
many of them can say. But there ain't many of them who don't have to
pay rent, and so perhaps I oughtn't to boast."
"I know that Providence has been very good to you, Mr. Cheesacre, as
regards worldly matters."
"And I haven't left it all to Providence, either. Those who do,
generally go to the wall, as far as I can see. I'm always at work
late and early, and I know when I get a profit out of a man's labour
and when I don't, as well as though it was my only chance of bread
and cheese."
"I always thought you understood farming business, Mr. Cheesacre."
"Yes, I do. I like a bit of fun well enough, when the time for it
comes, as you saw at Yarmouth. And I keep my three or four hunters,
as I think a country gentleman should; and I shoot over my own
ground. But I always stick to my work. There are men, like Bellfield,
who won't work. What do they come to? They're always borrowing."
"But he has fought his country's battles, Mr. Cheesacre."
"He fight! I suppose he's been telling you some of his old stories.
He was ten years in the West Indies, and all his fighting was with
the mosquitoes."
"But he was in the Crimea. At Inkerman, for instance--"
"He in the Crimea! Well, never mind. But do you inquire before you
believe that story. But as I was saying, Mrs. Greenow, you have seen
my little place at Oileymead."
"A charming house. All you want is a mistress for it."
"That's it; that's just it. All I want is a mistress for it. And
there's only one woman on earth that I would wish to see in that
position. Arabella Greenow, will you be that woman?" As he made the
offer he got up and stood before her, placing his right hand upon his
heart.
[Illustration: "Arabella Greenow, will you be that woman?"]
"I, Mr. Cheesacre!" she said.
"Yes, you. Who else? Since I saw you what other woman has been
anything to me; or, indeed, I may say before? Since the first day
I saw you I felt that there my happiness depended."
"Oh, Mr. Cheesacre, I thought you were looking elsewhere."
"No, no, no. There never was such a mistake as that. I have the
highest regard and esteem for Miss Vavasor, but really--"
"Mr. Cheesacre, what am I to say to you?"
"What are you to say to me? Say that you'll be mine. Say that I shall
be yours. Say that all I have at Oileymead shall be yours. Say that
the open carriage for a pair of ponies to be driven by a lady which
I have been looking at this morning shall be yours. Yes, indeed; the
sweetest thing you ever saw in your life,--just like one that the
lady of the Lord Lieutenant drives about in always. That's what you
must say. Come, Mrs. Greenow!"
"Ah, Mr. Cheesacre, you don't know what it is to have buried the pride
of your youth hardly yet twelve months."
"But you have buried him, and there let there be an end of it. Your
sitting here all alone, morning, noon, and night, won't bring him
back. I'm sorry for him; I am indeed. Poor Greenow! But what more can
I do?"
"I can do more, Mr. Cheesacre. I can mourn for him in solitude and in
silence."
"No, no, no. What's the use of it,--breaking your heart for
nothing,--and my heart too. You never think of that." And Mr.
Cheesacre spoke in a tone that was full of reproach.
"It cannot be, Mr. Cheesacre."
"Ah, but it can be. Come, Mrs. Greenow. We understand each other well
enough now, surely. Come, dearest." And he approached her as though
to put his arm round her waist. But at that moment there came a knock
at the door, and Jeannette, entering the room, told her mistress that
Captain Bellfield was below and wanted to know whether he could see
her for a minute on particular business.
"Show Captain Bellfield up, certainly," said Mrs. Greenow.
"D---- Captain Bellfield!" said Mr. Cheesacre.
CHAPTER XXI.
Alice Is Taught to Grow Upwards, Towards the Light.
Before the day came on which Alice was to go to Matching Priory, she
had often regretted that she had been induced to make the promise,
and yet she had as often resolved that there was no possible reason
why she should not go to Matching Priory. But she feared this
commencement of a closer connection with her great relations. She
had told herself so often that she was quite separated from them,
that the slight accident of blood in no way tied her to them or them
to her,--this lesson had been so thoroughly taught to her by the
injudicious attempts of Lady Macleod to teach an opposite lesson,
that she did not like the idea of putting aside the effect of that
teaching. And perhaps she was a little afraid of the great folk whom
she might probably meet at her cousin's house. Lady Glencora herself
she had liked,--and had loved too with that momentary love which
certain circumstances of our life will sometimes produce, a love
which is strong while it lasts, but which can be laid down when the
need of it is passed. She had liked and loved Lady Glencora, and had
in no degree been afraid of her during those strange visitings in
Queen Anne Street;--but she was by no means sure that she should like
Lady Glencora in the midst of her grandeur and surrounded by the pomp
of her rank. She would have no other friend or acquaintance in that
house, and feared that she might find herself desolate, cold, and
wounded in her pride. She had been tricked into the visit, too, or
rather had tricked herself into it. She had been sure that there had
been a joint scheme between her cousin and Lady Midlothian, and could
not resist the temptation of repudiating it in her letter to Lady
Glencora. But there had been no such scheme; she had wronged Lady
Glencora, and had therefore been unable to resist her second request.
But she felt unhappy, fearing that she would be out of her element,
and more than once half made up her mind to excuse herself.
Her aunt had, from the first, thought well of her going, believing
that it might probably be the means of reconciling her to Mr. Grey.
Moreover, it was a step altogether in the right direction. Lady
Glencora would, if she lived, become a Duchess, and as she was
decidedly Alice's cousin, of course Alice should go to her house when
invited. It must be acknowledged that Lady Macleod was not selfish
in her worship of rank. She had played out her game in life, and
there was no probability that she would live to be called cousin by
a Duchess of Omnium. She bade Alice go to Matching Priory, simply
because she loved her niece, and therefore wished her to live in the
best and most eligible way within her reach. "I think you owe it as a
duty to your family to go," said Lady Macleod.
What further correspondence about her affairs had passed between Lady
Macleod and Lady Midlothian Alice never knew. She steadily refused
all entreaty made that she would answer the Countess's letter, and
at last threatened her aunt that if the request were further urged
she would answer it,--telling Lady Midlothian that she had been very
impertinent.
"I am becoming a very old woman, Alice," the poor lady said,
piteously, "and I suppose I had better not interfere any further.
Whatever I have said I have always meant to be for your good." Then
Alice got up, and kissing her aunt, tried to explain to her that she
resented no interference from her, and felt grateful for all that she
both said and did; but that she could not endure meddling from people
whom she did not know, and who thought themselves entitled to meddle
by their rank.
"And because they are cousins as well," said Lady Macleod, in a
softly sad, apologetic voice.
Alice left Cheltenham about the middle of November on her road to
Matching Priory. She was to sleep in London one night, and go down to
Matching in Yorkshire with her maid on the following day. Her father
undertook to meet her at the Great Western Station, and to take her
on the following morning to the Great Northern. He said nothing in
his letter about dining with her, but when he met her, muttered
something about an engagement, and taking her home graciously
promised that he would breakfast with her on the following morning.
"I'm very glad you are going, Alice," he said when they were in the
cab together.
"Why, papa?"
"Why?--because I think it's the proper thing to do. You know I've
never said much to you about these people. They're not connected with
me, and I know that they hate the name of Vavasor;--not but what the
name is a deal older than any of theirs, and the family too."
"And therefore I don't understand why you think I'm specially right.
If you were to say I was specially wrong, I should be less surprised,
and of course I shouldn't go."
"You should go by all means. Rank and wealth are advantages, let
anybody say what they will to the contrary. Why else does everybody
want to get them?"
"But I shan't get them by going to Matching Priory."
"You'll get part of their value. Take them as a whole, the nobility
of England are pleasant acquaintances to have. I haven't run after
them very much myself, though I married, as I may say, among them.
That very thing rather stood in my way than otherwise. But you may be
sure of this, that men and women ought to grow, like plants, upwards.
Everybody should endeavour to stand as well as he can in the world,
and if I had a choice of acquaintance between a sugar-baker and a
peer, I should prefer the peer,--unless, indeed, the sugar-baker
had something very strong on his side to offer. I don't call that
tuft-hunting, and it does not necessitate toadying. It's simply
growing up, towards the light, as the trees do."
Alice listened to her father's worldly wisdom with a smile, but she
did not attempt to answer him. It was very seldom, indeed, that he
took upon himself the labour of lecturing her, or that he gave her
even as much counsel as he had given now. "Well, papa, I hope I shall
find myself growing towards the light," she said as she got out of
the cab. Then he had not entered the house, but had taken the cab on
with him to his club.
On her table Alice found a note from her cousin George. "I hear you
are going down to the Pallisers at Matching Priory to-morrow, and as
I shall be glad to say one word to you before you go, will you let
me see you this evening,--say at nine?--G. V." She felt immediately
that she could not help seeing him, but she greatly regretted the
necessity. She wished that she had gone directly from Cheltenham to
the North,--regardless even of those changes of wardrobe which her
purposed visit required. Then she set herself to considering. How had
George heard of her visit to the Priory, and how had he learned the
precise evening which she would pass in London? Why should he be so
intent on watching all her movements as it seemed that he was? As to
seeing him she had no alternative, so she completed her arrangements
for her journey before nine, and then awaited him in the
drawing-room.
"I'm so glad you're going to Matching Priory," were the first words
he said. He, too, might have taught her to grow towards the light,
if she had asked him for his reasons;--but this she did not do just
then.
"How did you learn that I was going?" she said.
"I heard it from a friend of mine. Well;--from Burgo Fitzgerald, if
you must know."
"From Mr. Fitzgerald?" said Alice, in profound astonishment: "How
could Mr. Fitzgerald have heard of it?"
"That's more than I know, Alice. Not directly from Lady Glencora, I
should say."
"That would be impossible."
"Yes; quite so, no doubt. I think she keeps up her intimacy with
Burgo's sister, and perhaps it got round to him in that way."
"And did he tell you also that I was going to-morrow? He must have
known all about it very accurately."
"No; then I asked Kate, and Kate told me when you were going. Yes; I
know. Kate has been wrong, hasn't she? Kate was cautioned, no doubt,
to say nothing about your comings and goings to so inconsiderable
a person as myself. But you must not be down upon Kate. She never
mentioned it till I showed by my question to her that I knew all
about your journey to Matching. I own I do not understand why it
should be necessary to keep me so much in the dark."
Alice felt that she was blushing. The caution had been given to Kate
because Kate still transgressed in her letters, by saying little
words about her brother. And Alice did not even now believe Kate
to have been false to her; but she saw that she herself had been
imprudent.
"I cannot understand it," continued George, speaking without looking
at her. "It was but the other day that we were such dear friends! Do
you remember the balcony at Basle? and now it seems that we are quite
estranged;--nay, worse than estranged; that I am, as it were, under
some ban. Have I done anything to offend you, Alice? If so, speak
out, like a woman of spirit as you are."
"Nothing," said Alice.
"Then why am I tabooed? Why was I told the other day that I might not
congratulate you on your happy emancipation? I say boldly, that had
you resolved on that while we were together in Switzerland, you would
have permitted me, as a friend, almost as a brother, to discuss it
with you."
"I think not, George."
"I am sure you would. And why has Kate been warned not to tell me of
this visit to the Pallisers? I know she has been warned though she
has not confessed it."
Alice sat silent, not knowing what to say in answer to this charge
brought against her,--thinking, perhaps, that the questioner would
allow his question to pass without an answer. But Vavasor was not so
complaisant. "If there be any reason, Alice, I think that I have a
right to ask it."
For a few seconds she did not speak a word, but sat considering.
He also remained silent with his eyes fixed upon her. She looked
at him and saw nothing but his scar,--nothing but his scar and the
brightness of his eyes, which was almost fierce. She knew that he was
in earnest, and therefore resolved that she would be in earnest also.
"I think that you have such a right," she said at last.
"Then let me exercise it."
"I think that you have such a right, but I think also that you are
ungenerous to exercise it."
"I cannot understand that. By heavens, Alice, I cannot be left in
this suspense! If I have done anything to offend you, perhaps I can
remove the offence by apology."
"You have done nothing to offend me."
"Or if there be any cause why our friendship should be dropped,--why
we should be on a different footing to each other in London than we
were in Switzerland, I may acknowledge it, if it be explained to me.
But I cannot put up with the doubt, when I am told that I have a
right to demand its solution."
"Then I will be frank with you, George, though my being so will, as
you may guess, be very painful." She paused again, looking at him
to see if yet he would spare her; but he was all scar and eyes as
before, and there was no mercy in his face.
"Your sister, George, has thought that my parting with Mr. Grey
might lead to a renewal of a purpose of marriage between you and me.
You know her eagerness, and will understand that it may have been
necessary that I should require silence from her on that head. You
ought now to understand it all."
"I then am being punished for her sins," he said; and suddenly the
scar on his face was healed up again, and there was something of the
old pleasantness in his eyes.
"I have said nothing about any sins, George, but I have found it
necessary to be on my guard."
"Well," he said, after a short pause, "You are an honest woman,
Alice,--the honestest I ever knew. I will bring Kate to order,--and,
now, we may be friends again; may we not?" And he extended his hand
to her across the table.
"Yes," she said, "certainly, if you wish it." She spoke doubtingly,
with indecision in her voice, as though remembering at the moment
that he had given her no pledge. "I certainly do wish it very much,"
said he; and then she gave him her hand.
"And I may now talk about your new freedom?"
"No," said she; "no. Do not speak of that. A woman does not do what I
have done in that affair without great suffering. I have to think of
it daily; but do not make me speak of it."
"But this other subject, this visit to Matching; surely I may speak
of that?" There was something now in his voice so bright, that she
felt the influence of it, and answered him cheerfully, "I don't see
what you can have to say about it."
"But I have a great deal. I am so glad you are going. Mind you cement
a close intimacy with Mr. Palliser."
"With Mr. Palliser?"
"Yes; with Mr. Palliser. You must read all the blue books about
finance. I'll send them to you if you like it."
"Oh, George!"
"I'm quite in earnest. That is, not in earnest about the blue books,
as you would not have time; but about Mr. Palliser. He will be the new
Chancellor of the Exchequer without a doubt."
"Will he indeed? But why should I make a bosom friend of the
Chancellor of the Exchequer. I don't want any public money."
"But I do, my girl. Don't you see?"
"No; I don't."
"I think I shall get returned at this next election."
"I'm sure I hope you will."
"And if I do, of course it will be my game to support the
ministry;--or rather the new ministry; for of course there will be
changes."
"I hope they will be on the right side."
"Not a doubt of that, Alice."
"I wish they might be changed altogether."
"Ah! that's impossible. It's very well as a dream; but there are no
such men as you want to see,--men really from the people,--strong
enough to take high office. A man can't drive four horses because
he's a philanthropist,--or rather a philhorseophist, and is desirous
that the team should be driven without any hurt to them. A man can't
govern well, simply because he is genuinely anxious that men should
be well governed."
"And will there never be any such men?"
"I won't say that. I don't mind confessing to you that it is my
ambition to be such a one myself. But a child must crawl before he
can walk. Such a one as I, hoping to do something in politics, must
spare no chance. It would be something to me that Mr. Palliser should
become the friend of any dear friend of mine,--especially of a dear
friend bearing the same name."
"I'm afraid, George, you'll find me a bad hand at making any such
friendship."
"They say he is led immensely by his wife, and that she is very
clever. But I mean this chiefly, Alice, that I do hope I shall have
all your sympathy in any political career that I may make, and all
your assistance also."
"My sympathy I think I can promise you. My assistance, I fear, would
be worthless."
"By no means worthless, Alice; not if I see you take that place in
the world which I hope to see you fill. Do you think women nowadays
have no bearing upon the politics of the times? Almost as much as men
have." In answer to which Alice shook her head; but, nevertheless,
she felt in some way pleased and flattered.
George left her without saying a word more about her marriage
prospects past or future, and Alice as she went to bed felt glad that
this explanation between them had been made.
CHAPTER XXII.
Dandy and Flirt.
Alice reached the Matching Road Station about three o'clock in the
afternoon without adventure, and immediately on the stopping of the
train became aware that all trouble was off her own hands. A servant
in livery came to the open window, and touching his hat to her,
inquired if she were Miss Vavasor. Then her dressing-bag and shawls
and cloaks were taken from her, and she was conveyed through the
station by the station-master on one side of her, the footman on the
other, and by the railway porter behind. She instantly perceived that
she had become possessed of great privileges by belonging even for a
time to Matching Priory, and that she was essentially growing upwards
towards the light.
Outside, on the broad drive before the little station, she saw an
omnibus that was going to the small town of Matching, intended for
people who had not grown upwards as had been her lot; and she saw
also a light stylish-looking cart which she would have called a
Whitechapel had she been properly instructed in such matters, and
a little low open carriage with two beautiful small horses, in
which was sitting a lady enveloped in furs. Of course this was Lady
Glencora. Another servant was standing on the ground, holding the
horses of the carriage and the cart.
"Dear Alice, I'm so glad you've come," said a voice from the
furs. "Look here, dear; your maid can go in the dog-cart with
your things,"--it wasn't a dog-cart, but Lady Glencora knew no
better;--"she'll be quite comfortable there; and do you get in here.
Are you very cold?"
"Oh, no; not cold at all."
"But it is awfully cold. You've been in the stuffy carriage, but
you'll find it cold enough out here, I can tell you."
"Oh! Lady Glencora, I am so sorry that I've brought you out on such
a morning," said Alice, getting in and taking the place assigned her
next to the charioteer.
"What nonsense! Sorry! Why I've looked forward to meeting you all
alone, ever since I knew you were coming. If it had snowed all the
morning I should have come just the same. I drive out almost every
day when I'm down here,--that is, when the house is not too crowded,
or I can make an excuse. Wrap these things over you; there are plenty
of them. You shall drive if you like." Alice, however, declined the
driving, expressing her gratitude in what prettiest words she could
find.
"I like driving better than anything, I think. Mr. Palliser doesn't
like ladies to hunt, and of course it wouldn't do as he does not hunt
himself. I do ride, but he never gets on horseback. I almost fancy I
should like to drive four-in-hand,--only I know I should be afraid."
"It would look very terrible," said Alice.
"Yes; wouldn't it? The look would be the worst of it; as it is all
the world over. Sometimes I wish there were no such things as looks.
I don't mean anything improper, you know; only one does get so
hampered, right and left, for fear of Mrs. Grundy. I endeavour to go
straight, and get along pretty well on the whole, I suppose. Baker,
you must put Dandy in the bar; he pulls so, going home, that I can't
hold him in the check." She stopped the horses, and Baker, a very
completely-got-up groom of some forty years of age, who sat behind,
got down and put the impetuous Dandy "in the bar," thereby changing
the rein, so that the curb was brought to bear on him. "They're
called Dandy and Flirt," continued Lady Glencora, speaking to Alice.
"Ain't they a beautiful match? The Duke gave them to me and named
them himself. Did you ever see the Duke?"
[Illustration: "Baker, you must put Dandy in the bar."]
"Never," said Alice.
"He won't be here before Christmas, but you shall be introduced some
day in London. He's an excellent creature and I'm a great pet of his;
though, after all, I never speak half a dozen words to him when I see
him. He's one of those people who never talk. I'm one of those who
like talking, as you'll find out. I think it runs in families; and
the Pallisers are non-talkers. That doesn't mean that they are not
speakers, for Mr. Palliser has plenty to say in the House, and they
declare that he's one of the few public men who've got lungs enough
to make a financial statement without breaking down."
Alice was aware that she had as yet hardly spoken herself, and
began to bethink herself that she didn't know what to say. Had Lady
Glencora paused on the subject of Dandy and Flirt, she might have
managed to be enthusiastic about the horses, but she could not
discuss freely the general silence of the Palliser family, nor the
excellent lungs, as regarded public purposes, of the one who was
the husband of her present friend. So she asked how far it was to
Matching Priory.
"You're not tired of me already, I hope," said Lady Glencora.
"I didn't mean that," said Alice. "I delight in the drive. But
somehow one expects Matching Station to be near Matching."
"Ah, yes; that's a great cheat. It's not Matching Station at all
but Matching Road Station, and it's eight miles. It is a great bore,
for though the omnibus brings our parcels, we have to be constantly
sending over, and it's very expensive, I can assure you. I want Mr.
Palliser to have a branch, but he says he would have to take all the
shares himself, and that would cost more, I suppose."
"Is there a town at Matching?"
"Oh, a little bit of a place. I'll go round by it if you like, and in
at the further gate."
"Oh, no!" said Alice.
"Ah, but I should like. It was a borough once, and belonged to the
Duke; but they put it out at the Reform Bill. They made some kind of
bargain;--he was to keep either Silverbridge or Matching, but not
both. Mr. Palliser sits for Silverbridge, you know. The Duke chose
Silverbridge,--or rather his father did, as he was then going to
build his great place in Barsetshire;--that's near Silverbridge. But
the Matching people haven't forgiven him yet. He was sitting for
Matching himself when the Reform Bill passed. Then his father died,
and he hasn't lived there much since. It's a great deal nicer place
than Gatherum Castle, only not half so grand. I hate grandeur; don't
you?"
"I never tried much of it, as you have."
"Come now; that's not fair. There's no one in the world less grand
than I am."
"I mean that I've not had grand people about me."
"Having cut all your cousins,--and Lady Midlothian in particular,
like a naughty girl as you are. I was so angry with you when you
accused me of selling you about that. You ought to have known that
I was the last person in the world to have done such a thing."
"I did not think you meant to sell me, but I thought--"
"Yes, you did, Alice. I know what you thought; you thought that Lady
Midlothian was making a tool of me that I might bring you under her
thumb, so that she might bully you into Mr. Grey's arms. That's what
you thought. I don't know that I was at all entitled to your good
opinion, but I was not entitled to that special bad opinion."
"I had no bad opinion;--but it was so necessary that I should guard
myself."
"You shall be guarded. I'll take you under my shield. Mr. Grey shan't
be named to you, except that I shall expect you to tell me all about
it; and you must tell me all about that dangerous cousin, too, of
whom they were saying such terrible things down in Scotland. I had
heard of him before." These last words Lady Glencora spoke in a lower
voice and in an altered tone,--slowly, as though she were thinking of
something that pained her. It was from Burgo Fitzgerald that she had
heard of George Vavasor.
Alice did not know what to say. She found it impossible to discuss
all the most secret and deepest of her feelings out in that open
carriage, perhaps in the hearing of the servant behind, on this her
first meeting with her cousin,--of whom, in fact, she knew very
little. She had not intended to discuss these things at all, and
certainly not in such a manner as this. So she remained silent. "This
is the beginning of the park," said Lady Glencora, pointing to a
grand old ruin of an oak tree, which stood on the wide margin of the
road, outside the rounded corner of the park palings, propped up with
a skeleton of supporting sticks all round it. "And that is Matching
oak, under which Coeur de Lion or Edward the Third, I forget which,
was met by Sir Guy de Palisere as he came from the war, or from
hunting, or something of that kind. It was the king, you know, who
had been fighting or whatever it was, and Sir Guy entertained him
when he was very tired. Jeffrey Palliser, who is my husband's cousin,
says that old Sir Guy luckily pulled out his brandy-flask. But the
king immediately gave him all the lands of Matching,--only there was
a priory then and a lot of monks, and I don't quite understand how
that was. But I know one of the younger brothers always used to be
abbot and sit in the House of Lords. And the king gave him Littlebury
at the same time, which is about seven miles away from here. As
Jeffrey Palliser says, it was a great deal of money for a pull at his
flask. Jeffrey Palliser is here now, and I hope you'll like him. If
I have no child, and Mr. Palliser were not to marry again, Jeffrey
would be the heir." And here again her voice was low and slow, and
altogether changed in its tone.
"I suppose that's the way most of the old families got their
estates."
"Either so, or by robbery. Many of them were terrible thieves, my
dear, and I dare say Sir Guy was no better than he should be. But
since that they have always called some of the Pallisers Plantagenet.
My husband's name is Plantagenet. The Duke is called George
Plantagenet, and the king was his godfather. The queen is my
godmother, I believe, but I don't know that I'm much the better for
it. There's no use in godfathers and godmothers;--do you think there
is?"
"Not much as it's managed now."
"If I had a child,-- Oh, Alice, it's a dreadful thing not to have a
child when so much depends on it!"
"But you're such a short time married yet."
"Ah, well; I can see it in his eyes when he asks me questions; but I
don't think he'd say an unkind word, not if his own position depended
on it. Ah, well; this is Matching. That other gate we passed, where
Dandy wanted to turn in,--that's where we usually go up, but I've
brought you round to show you the town. That's the inn,--whoever can
possibly come to stay there I don't know; I never saw anybody go in
or out. That's the baker who bakes our bread,--we baked it at the
house at first, but nobody could eat it; and I know that that man
there mends Mr. Palliser's shoes. He's very particular about his
shoes. We shall see the church as we go in at the other gate. It
is in the park, and is very pretty,--but not half so pretty as the
priory ruins close to the house. The ruins are our great lion. I do
so love to wander about them at moonlight. I often think of you when
I do; I don't know why.--But I do know why, and I'll tell you some
day. Come, Miss Flirt!"
As they drove up through the park, Lady Glencora pointed out first
the church and then the ruins, through the midst of which the road
ran, and then they were at once before the front door. The corner
of the modern house came within two hundred yards of the gateway of
the old priory. It was a large building, very pretty, with two long
fronts; but it was no more than a house. It was not a palace, nor a
castle, nor was it hardly to be called a mansion. It was built with
gabled roofs, four of which formed the side from which the windows of
the drawing-rooms opened out upon a lawn which separated the house
from the old ruins, and which indeed surrounded the ruins, and went
inside them, forming the present flooring of the old chapel, and
the old refectory, and the old cloisters. Much of the cloisters
indeed was standing, and there the stone pavement remained; but the
square of the cloisters was all turfed, and in the middle of it stood
a large modern stone vase, out of the broad basin of which hung
flowering creepers and green tendrils.
As Lady Glencora drove up to the door, a gentleman, who had heard the
sound of the wheels, came forth to meet them. "There's Mr. Palliser,"
said she; "that shows that you are an honoured guest, for you may
be sure that he is hard at work and would not have come out for
anybody else. Plantagenet, here is Miss Vavasor, perished. Alice, my
husband." Then Mr. Palliser put forth his hand and helped her out of
the carriage.
"I hope you've not found it very cold," said he. "The winter has come
upon us quite suddenly."
He said nothing more to her than this, till he met her again before
dinner. He was a tall thin man, apparently not more than thirty years
of age, looking in all respects like a gentleman, but with nothing in
his appearance that was remarkable. It was a face that you might see
and forget, and see again and forget again; and yet when you looked
at it and pulled it to pieces, you found that it was a fairly good
face, showing intellect in the forehead, and much character in the
mouth. The eyes too, though not to be called bright, had always
something to say for themselves, looking as though they had a real
meaning. But the outline of the face was almost insignificant, being
too thin; and he wore no beard to give it character. But, indeed, Mr.
Palliser was a man who had never thought of assisting his position in
the world by his outward appearance. Not to be looked at, but to be
read about in the newspapers, was his ambition. Men said that he was
to be Chancellor of the Exchequer, and no one thought of suggesting
that the insignificance of his face would stand in his way.
"Are the people all out?" his wife asked him.
"The men have not come in from shooting;--at least I think not;--and
some of the ladies are driving, I suppose. But I haven't seen anybody
since you went."
"Of course you haven't. He never has time, Alice, to see any one.
But we'll go up-stairs, dear. I told them to let us have tea in my
dressing-room, as I thought you'd like that better than going into
the drawing-room before you had taken off your things. You must be
famished, I know. Then you can come down, or if you want to avoid
two dressings you can sit over the fire up-stairs till dinner-time."
So saying she skipped up-stairs and Alice followed her. "Here's my
dressing-room, and here's your room all but opposite. You look out
into the park. It's pretty, isn't it? But come into my dressing-room,
and see the ruins out of the window."
Alice followed Lady Glencora across the passage into what she
called her dressing-room, and there found herself surrounded by
an infinitude of feminine luxuries. The prettiest of tables were
there;--the easiest of chairs;--the most costly of cabinets;--the
quaintest of old china ornaments. It was bright with the gayest
colours,--made pleasant to the eye with the binding of many books,
having nymphs painted on the ceiling and little Cupids on the doors.
"Isn't it pretty?" she said, turning quickly on Alice. "I call it
my dressing-room because in that way I can keep people out of it,
but I have my brushes and soap in a little closet there, and my
clothes,--my clothes are everywhere I suppose, only there are none
of them here. Isn't it pretty?"
"Very pretty."
"The Duke did it all. He understands such things thoroughly. Now
to Mr. Palliser a dressing-room is a dressing-room, and a bedroom a
bedroom. He cares for nothing being pretty; not even his wife, or he
wouldn't have married me."
"You wouldn't say that if you meant it."
"Well, I don't know. Sometimes when I look at myself, when I simply
am myself, with no making up or grimacing, you know, I think I'm the
ugliest young woman the sun ever shone on. And in ten years' time
I shall be the ugliest old woman. Only think,--my hair is beginning
to get grey, and I'm not twenty-one yet. Look at it;" and she lifted
up the wavy locks just above her ear. "But there's one comfort; he
doesn't care about beauty. How old are you?"
"Over five-and-twenty," said Alice.
"Nonsense;--then I oughtn't to have asked you. I am so sorry."
"That's nonsense at any rate. Why should you think I should be
ashamed of my age?"
"I don't know why, only somehow, people are; and I didn't think you
were so old. Five-and-twenty seems so old to me. It would be nothing
if you were married; only, you see, you won't get married."
"Perhaps I may yet; some day."
"Of course you will. You'll have to give way. You'll find that
they'll get the better of you. Your father will storm at you, and
Lady Macleod will preach at you, and Lady Midlothian will jump upon
you."
"I'm not a bit afraid of Lady Midlothian."
"I know what it is, my dear, to be jumped upon. We talked with such
horror of the French people giving their daughters in marriage, just
as they might sell a house or a field, but we do exactly the same
thing ourselves. When they all come upon you in earnest how are you
to stand against them? How can any girl do it?"
"I think I shall be able."
"To be sure you're older,--and you are not so heavily weighted. But
never mind; I didn't mean to talk about that;--not yet at any rate.
Well, now, my dear, I must go down. The Duchess of St. Bungay is here,
and Mr. Palliser will be angry if I don't do pretty to her. The Duke
is to be the new President of the Council, or rather, I believe he
is President now. I try to remember it all, but it is so hard when
one doesn't really care two pence how it goes. Not but what I'm very
anxious that Mr. Palliser should be Chancellor of the Exchequer. And
now, will you remain here, or will you come down with me, or will you
go to your own room, and I'll call for you when I go down to dinner?
We dine at eight."
Alice decided that she would stay in her own room till dinner time,
and was taken there by Lady Glencora. She found her maid unpacking
her clothes, and for a while employed herself in assisting at the
work; but that was soon done, and then she was left alone. "I shall
feel so strange, ma'am, among all those people down-stairs," said the
girl. "They all seem to look at me as though they didn't know who I
was."
"You'll get over that soon, Jane."
"I suppose I shall; but you see, they're all like knowing each other,
miss."
Alice, when she sat down alone, felt herself to be very much in the
same condition as her maid. What would the Duchess of St. Bungay or Mr.
Jeffrey Palliser,--who himself might live to be a duke if things went
well for him,--care for her? As to Mr. Palliser, the master of the
house, it was already evident to her that he would not put himself
out of his way for her. Had she not done wrong to come there? If it
were possible for her to fly away, back to the dullness of Queen Anne
Street, or even to the preachings of Lady Macleod, would she not do
so immediately? What business had she,--she asked herself,--to come
to such a house as that? Lady Glencora was very kind to her, but
frightened her even by her kindness. Moreover, she was aware that
Lady Glencora could not devote herself especially to any such guest
as she was. Lady Glencora must of course look after her duchesses,
and do pretty, as she called it, to her husband's important political
alliances.
And then she began to think about Lady Glencora herself. What a
strange, weird nature she was,--with her round blue eyes and wavy
hair, looking sometimes like a child and sometimes almost like an old
woman! And how she talked! What things she said, and what terrible
forebodings she uttered of stranger things that she meant to say! Why
had she at their first meeting made that allusion to the mode of her
own betrothal,--and then, checking herself for speaking of it so
soon, almost declare that she meant to speak more of it hereafter?
"She should never mention it to any one," said Alice to herself.
"If her lot in life has not satisfied her, there is so much the
more reason why she should not mention it." Then Alice protested to
herself that no father, no aunt, no Lady Midlothian should persuade
her into a marriage of which she feared the consequences. But Lady
Glencora had made for herself excuses which were not altogether
untrue. She had been very young, and had been terribly weighted with
her wealth.
And it seemed to Alice that her cousin had told her everything in
that hour and a half that they had been together. She had given
a whole history of her husband and of herself. She had said how
indifferent he was to her pleasures, and how vainly she strove to
interest herself in his pursuits. And then, as yet, she was childless
and without prospect of a child, when, as she herself had said,--"so
much depended on it." It was very strange to Alice that all this
should have been already told to her. And why should Lady Glencora
think of Alice when she walked out among the priory ruins by
moonlight?
The two hours seemed to her very long,--as though she were passing
her time in absolute seclusion at Matching. Of course she did not
dare to go down-stairs. But at last her maid came to dress her.
"How do you get on below, Jane?" her mistress asked her.
"Why, miss, they are uncommon civil, and I don't think after all it
will be so bad. We had our teas very comfortable in the housekeeper's
room. There are five or six of us altogether, all ladies'-maids,
miss; and there's nothing on earth to do all the day long, only sit
and do a little needlework over the fire."
A few minutes before eight Lady Glencora knocked at Alice's door, and
took her arm to lead her to the drawing-room. Alice saw that she was
magnificently dressed, with an enormous expanse of robe, and that her
locks had been so managed that no one could suspect the presence of
a grey hair. Indeed, with all her magnificence, she looked almost a
child. "Let me see," she said, as they went down-stairs together.
"I'll tell Jeffrey to take you in to dinner. He's about the easiest
young man we have here. He rather turns up his nose at everything,
but that doesn't make him the less agreeable; does it, dear?--unless
he turns up his nose at you, you know."
"But perhaps he will."
"No; he won't do that. That would be uncourteous,--and he's the most
courteous man in the world. There's nobody here, you see," she said
as they entered the room, "and I didn't suppose there would be. It's
always proper to be first in one's own house. I do so try to be
proper,--and it is such trouble. Talking of people earning their
bread, Alice;--I'm sure I earn mine. Oh dear!--what fun it would be
to be sitting somewhere in Asia, eating a chicken with one's fingers,
and lighting a big fire outside one's tent to keep off the lions and
tigers. Fancy your being on one side of the fire and the lions and
tigers on the other, grinning at you through the flames!" Then Lady
Glencora strove to look like a lion, and grinned at herself in the
glass.
"That sort of grin wouldn't frighten me," said Alice.
"I dare say not. I have been reading about it in that woman's
travels. Oh, here they are, and I mustn't make any more faces.
Duchess, do come to the fire. I hope you've got warm again. This is
my cousin, Miss Vavasor."
The Duchess made a stiff little bow of condescension, and then
declared that she was charmingly warm. "I don't know how you manage
in your house, but the staircases are so comfortable. Now at
Longroyston we've taken all the trouble in the world,--put down
hot-water pipes all over the house, and everything else that could be
thought of, and yet, you can't move about the place without meeting
with draughts at every corner of the passages." The Duchess spoke
with an enormous emphasis on every other word, sometimes putting so
great a stress on some special syllable, as almost to bring her voice
to a whistle. This she had done with the word "pipes" to a great
degree,--so that Alice never afterwards forgot the hot-water pipes
of Longroyston. "I was telling Lady Glencora, Miss Palliser, that
I never knew a house so warm as this,--or, I'm sorry to say,"--and
here the emphasis was very strong on the word sorry,--"so cold as
Longroyston." And the tone in which Longroyston was uttered would
almost have drawn tears from a critical audience in the pit of a
playhouse. The Duchess was a woman of about forty, very handsome, but
with no meaning in her beauty, carrying a good fixed colour in her
face, which did not look like paint, but which probably had received
some little assistance from art. She was a well-built, sizeable
woman, with good proportions and fine health,--but a fool. She had
addressed herself to one Miss Palliser; but two Miss Pallisers,
cousins of Plantagenet Palliser, had entered the room at the same
time, of whom I may say, whatever other traits of character they may
have possessed, that at any rate they were not fools.
"It's always easy to warm a small house like this," said Miss
Palliser, whose Christian names, unfortunately for her, were
Iphigenia Theodata, and who by her cousin and sister was called
Iphy--"and I suppose equally difficult to warm a large one such as
Longroyston." The other Miss Palliser had been christened Euphemia.
"We've got no pipes, Duchess, at any rate," said Lady Glencora; and
Alice, as she sat listening, thought she discerned in Lady Glencora's
pronunciation of the word pipes an almost hidden imitation of the
Duchess's whistle. It must have been so, for at the moment Lady
Glencora's eye met Alice's for an instant, and was then withdrawn, so
that Alice was compelled to think that her friend and cousin was not
always quite successful in those struggles she made to be proper.
Then the gentlemen came in one after another, and other ladies, till
about thirty people were assembled. Mr. Palliser came up and spoke
another word to Alice in a kind voice,--meant to express some sense
of connection if not cousinship. "My wife has been thinking so much
of your coming. I hope we shall be able to amuse you." Alice, who had
already begun to feel desolate, was grateful, and made up her mind
that she would try to like Mr. Palliser.
Jeffrey Palliser was almost the last in the room, but directly he
entered Lady Glencora got up from her seat, and met him as he was
coming into the crowd. "You must take my cousin, Alice Vavasor, in
to dinner," she said, "and;--will you oblige me to-day?"
"Yes;--as you ask me like that."
"Then try to make her comfortable." After that she introduced them,
and Jeffrey Palliser stood opposite to Alice, talking to her, till
dinner was announced.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Dinner at Matching Priory.
Alice found herself seated near to Lady Glencora's end of the table,
and, in spite of her resolution to like Mr. Palliser, she was not
sorry that such an arrangement had been made. Mr. Palliser had taken
the Duchess out to dinner, and Alice wished to be as far removed
as possible from her Grace. She found herself seated between her
bespoken friend Jeffrey Palliser and the Duke, and as soon as she
was seated Lady Glencora introduced her to her second neighbour. "My
cousin, Duke," Lady Glencora said, "and a terrible Radical."
"Oh, indeed; I'm glad of that. We're sadly in want of a few leading
Radicals, and perhaps I may be able to gain one now."
Alice thought of her cousin George, and wished that he, instead of
herself, was sitting next to the Duke of St. Bungay. "But I'm afraid
I never shall be a leading Radical," she said.
"You shall lead me at any rate, if you will," said he.
"As the little dogs lead the blind men," said Lady Glencora.
"No, Lady Glencora, not so. But as the pretty women lead the men
who have eyes in their head. There is nothing I want so much, Miss
Vavasor, as to become a Radical;--if I only knew how."
"I think it's very easy to know how," said Alice.
"Do you? I don't. I've voted for every liberal measure that has come
seriously before Parliament since I had a seat in either House, and
I've not been able to get beyond Whiggery yet."
"Have you voted for the ballot?" asked Alice, almost trembling at her
own audacity as she put the question.
"Well; no, I've not. And I suppose that is the crux. But the ballot
has never been seriously brought before any House in which I have
sat. I hate it with so keen a private hatred, that I doubt whether
I could vote for it."
"But the Radicals love it," said Alice.
"Palliser," said the Duke, speaking loudly from his end of the table,
"I'm told you can never be entitled to call yourself a Radical till
you've voted for the ballot."
"I don't want to be called a Radical," said Mr. Palliser,--"or to be
called anything at all."
"Except Chancellor of the Exchequer," said Lady Glencora in a low
voice.
"And that's about the finest ambition by which a man can be moved,"
said the Duke. "The man who can manage the purse-strings of this
country can manage anything." Then that conversation dropped and the
Duke ate his dinner.
"I was especially commissioned to amuse you," said Mr. Jeffrey
Palliser to Alice. "But when I undertook the task I had no conception
that you would be calling Cabinet Ministers over the coals about
their politics."
"I did nothing of the kind, surely, Mr. Palliser. I suppose all
Radicals do vote for the ballot, and that's why I said it."
"Your definition was perfectly just, I dare say, only--"
"Only what?"
"Lady Glencora need not have been so anxious to provide specially
for your amusement. Not but what I'm very much obliged to her,--of
course. But Miss Vavasor, unfortunately I'm not a politician. I
haven't a chance of a seat in the House, and so I despise politics."
"Women are not allowed to be politicians in this country."
"Thank God, they can't do much in that way;--not directly, I mean.
Only think where we should be if we had a feminine House of Commons,
with feminine debates, carried on, of course, with feminine courtesy.
My cousins Iphy and Phemy there would of course be members. You don't
know them yet?"
"No; not yet. Are they politicians?"
"Not especially. They have their tendencies, which are decidedly
liberal. There has never been a Tory Palliser known, you know. But
they are too clever to give themselves up to anything in which they
can do nothing. Being women they live a depressed life, devoting
themselves to literature, fine arts, social economy, and the
abstract sciences. They write wonderful letters; but I believe their
correspondence lists are quite full, so that you have no chance at
present of getting on either of them."
"I haven't the slightest pretension to ask for such an honour."
"Oh! if you mean because you don't know them, that has nothing to do
with it."
"But I have no claim either private or public."
"That has nothing to do with it either. They don't at all seek people
of note as their correspondents. Free communication with all the
world is their motto, and Rowland Hill is the god they worship.
Only they have been forced to guard themselves against too great an
accession of paper and ink. Are you fond of writing letters, Miss
Vavasor?"
"Yes, to my friends; but I like getting them better."
"I shrewdly suspect they don't read half what they get. Is it
possible any one should go through two sheets of paper filled by our
friend the Duchess there? No; their delight is in writing. They sit
each at her desk after breakfast, and go on till lunch. There is a
little rivalry between them, not expressed to each other, but visible
to their friends. Iphy certainly does get off the greater number,
and I'm told crosses quite as often as Phemy, but then she has the
advantage of a bolder and larger hand."
"Do they write to you?"
"Oh, dear no. I don't think they ever write to any relative. They
don't discuss family affairs and such topics as that. Architecture
goes a long way with them, and whether women ought to be clerks in
public offices. Iphy has certain American correspondents that take
up much of her time, but she acknowledges she does not read their
letters."
"Then I certainly shall not write to her."
"But you are not American, I hope. I do hate the Americans. It's the
only strong political feeling I have. I went there once, and found I
couldn't live with them on any terms."
"But they please themselves. I don't see they are to be hated because
they don't live after our fashion."
"Oh; it's jealousy of course. I know that. I didn't come across a
cab-driver who wasn't a much better educated man than I am. And as
for their women, they know everything. But I hated them, and I intend
to hate them. You haven't been there?"
"Oh no."
"Then I will make bold to say that any English lady who spent a month
with them and didn't hate them would have very singular tastes. I
begin to think they'll eat each other up, and then there'll come an
entirely new set of people of a different sort. I always regarded the
States as a Sodom and Gomorrah, prospering in wickedness, on which
fire and brimstone were sure to fall sooner or later."
"I think that's wicked."
"I am wicked, as Topsy used to say. Do you hunt?"
"No."
"Do you shoot?"
"Shoot! What; with a gun?"
"Yes. I was staying in a house last week with a lady who shot a good
deal."
"No; I don't shoot."
"Do you ride?"
"No; I wish I did. I have never ridden because I've no one to ride
with me."
"Do you drive?"
"No; I don't drive either."
"Then what do you do?"
"I sit at home, and--"
"Mend your stockings?"
"No; I don't do that, because it's disagreeable; but I do work a good
deal. Sometimes I have amused myself by reading."
"Ah; they never do that here. I have heard that there is a library,
but the clue to it has been lost, and nobody now knows the way. I
don't believe in libraries. Nobody ever goes into a library to read,
any more than you would into a larder to eat. But there is this
difference;--the food you consume does come out of the larders, but
the books you read never come out of the libraries."
"Except Mudie's," said Alice.
"Ah, yes; he is the great librarian. And you mean to read all the
time you are here, Miss Vavasor?"
"I mean to walk about the priory ruins sometimes."
"Then you must go by moonlight, and I'll go with you. Only isn't it
rather late in the year for that?"
"I should think it is,--for you, Mr. Palliser."
Then the Duke spoke to her again, and she found that she got on very
well during dinner. But she could not but feel angry with herself
in that she had any fear on the subject;--and yet she could not
divest herself of that fear. She acknowledged to herself that she was
conscious of a certain inferiority to Lady Glencora and to Mr. Jeffrey
Palliser, which almost made her unhappy. As regarded the Duke on the
other side of her, she had no such feeling. He was old enough to be
her father, and was a Cabinet Minister; therefore he was entitled
to her reverence. But how was it that she could not help accepting
the other people round her as being indeed superior to herself? Was
she really learning to believe that she could grow upwards by their
sunlight?
"Jeffrey is a pleasant fellow, is he not?" said Lady Glencora to her
as they passed back through the billiard-room to the drawing-room.
"Very pleasant;--a little sarcastic, perhaps."
"I should think you would soon find yourself able to get the better
of that if he tries it upon you," said Lady Glencora; and then the
ladies were all in the drawing-room together.
"It is quite deliciously warm, coming from one room to another," said
the Duchess, putting her emphasis on the "one" and the "other."
"Then we had better keep continually moving," said a certain Mrs.
Conway Sparkes, a literary lady, who had been very handsome, who was
still very clever, who was not perhaps very good-natured, and of whom
the Duchess of St. Bungay was rather afraid.
"I hope we may be warm here too," said Lady Glencora.
"But not deliciously warm," said Mrs. Conway Sparkes.
"It makes me tremble in every limb when Mrs. Sparkes attacks her,"
Lady Glencora said to Alice in Alice's own room that night, "for I
know she'll tell the Duke; and he'll tell that tall man with red hair
whom you see standing about, and the tall man with red hair will tell
Mr. Palliser, and then I shall catch it."
"And who is the tall man with red hair?"
"He's a political link between the Duke and Mr. Palliser. His name is
Bott, and he's a Member of Parliament."
"But why should he interfere?"
"I suppose it's his business. I don't quite understand all the ins
and outs of it. I believe he's to be one of Mr. Palliser's private
secretaries if he becomes Chancellor of the Exchequer. Perhaps he
doesn't tell;--only I think he does all the same. He always calls me
Lady Glen-cowrer. He comes out of Lancashire, and made calico as long
as he could get any cotton." But this happened in the bedroom, and we
must go back for a while to the drawing-room.
The Duchess had made no answer to Mrs. Sparkes, and so nothing further
was said about the warmth. Nor, indeed, was there any conversation
that was comfortably general. The number of ladies in the room was
too great for that, and ladies do not divide themselves nicely into
small parties, as men and women do when they are mixed. Lady Glencora
behaved pretty by telling the Duchess all about her pet pheasants;
Mrs. Conway Sparkes told ill-natured tales of some one to Miss
Euphemia Palliser; one of the Duchess's daughters walked off to a
distant piano with an admiring friend and touched a few notes; while
Iphigenia Palliser boldly took up a book, and placed herself at a
table. Alice, who was sitting opposite to Lady Glencora, began to
speculate whether she might do the same; but her courage failed her,
and she sat on, telling herself that she was out of her element.
"Alice Vavasor," said Lady Glencora after a while, suddenly, and in a
somewhat loud voice, "can you play billiards?"
"No," said Alice, rather startled.
"Then you shall learn to-night, and if nobody else will teach you,
you shall be my pupil." Whereupon Lady Glencora rang the bell and
ordered that the billiard-table might be got ready. "You'll play,
Duchess, of course," said Lady Glencora.
"It is so nice and warm, that I think I will," said the Duchess; but
as she spoke she looked suspiciously to that part of the room where
Mrs. Conway Sparkes was sitting.
"Let us all play," said Mrs. Conway Sparkes, "and then it will be
nicer,--and perhaps warmer, too."
The gentlemen joined them just as they were settling themselves round
the table, and as many of them stayed there, the billiard-room became
full. Alice had first a cue put into her hand, and making nothing
of that was permitted to play with a mace. The duty of instructing
her devolved on Jeffrey Palliser, and the next hour passed
pleasantly;--not so pleasantly, she thought afterwards, as did some
of those hours in Switzerland when her cousins were with her. After
all, she could get more out of her life with such associates as them,
than she could with any of these people at Matching. She felt quite
sure of that;--though Jeffrey Palliser did take great trouble to
teach her the game, and once or twice made her laugh heartily by
quizzing the Duchess's attitude as she stood up to make her stroke.
"I wish I could play billiards," said Mrs. Sparkes, on one of these
occasions; "I do indeed."
"I thought you said you were coming to play," said the Duchess,
almost majestically, and with a tone of triumph evidently produced
by her own successes.
"Only to see your Grace," said Mrs. Sparkes.
"I don't know that there is anything more to see in me than in
anybody else," said the Duchess. "Mr. Palliser, that was a cannon.
Will you mark that for our side?"
[Illustration: "Mr. Palliser, that was a cannon."]
"Oh no, Duchess, you hit the same ball twice."
"Very well;--then I suppose Miss Vavasor plays now. That was a miss.
Will you mark that, if you please?" This latter demand was made with
great stress, as though she had been defrauded in the matter of the
cannon, and was obeyed. Before long, the Duchess, with her partner,
Lady Glencora, won the game,--which fact, however, was, I think,
owing rather to Alice's ignorance than to her Grace's skill. The
Duchess, however, was very triumphant, and made her way back into the
drawing-room with a step which seemed to declare loudly that she had
trumped Mrs. Sparkes at last.
Not long after this the ladies went up-stairs on their way to bed.
Many of them, perhaps, did not go to their pillows at once, as it was
as yet not eleven o'clock, and it was past ten when they all came
down to breakfast. At any rate, Alice, who had been up at seven, did
not go to bed then, nor for the next two hours. "I'll come into your
room just for one minute," Lady Glencora said as she passed on from
the door to her own room; and in about five minutes she was back with
her cousin. "Would you mind going into my room--it's just there, and
sitting with Ellen for a minute?" This Lady Glencora said in the
sweetest possible tone to the girl who was waiting on Alice; and
then, when they were alone together, she got into a little chair by
the fireside and prepared herself for conversation.
"I must keep you up for a quarter of an hour while I tell you
something. But first of all, how do you like the people? Will you
be able to be comfortable with them?" Alice of course said that
she thought she would; and then there came that little discussion
in which the duties of Mr. Bott, the man with the red hair, were
described.
"But I've got something to tell you," said Lady Glencora, when they
had already been there some twenty minutes. "Sit down opposite to me,
and look at the fire while I look at you."
"Is it anything terrible?"
"It's nothing wrong."
"Oh, Lady Glencora, if it's--"
"I won't have you call me Lady Glencora. Don't I call you Alice? Why
are you so unkind to me? I have not come to you now asking you to do
for me anything that you ought not to do."
"But you are going to tell me something." Alice felt sure that the
thing to be told would have some reference to Mr. Fitzgerald, and she
did not wish to hear Mr. Fitzgerald's name from her cousin's lips.
"Tell you something;--of course I am. I'm going to tell you
that,--that in writing to you the other day I wrote a fib. But it
wasn't that I wished to deceive you;--only I couldn't say it all in
a letter."
"Say all what?"
"You know I confessed that I had been very bad in not coming to you
in London last year."
"I never thought of it for a moment."
"You did not care whether I came or not: was that it? But never mind.
Why should you have cared? But I cared. I told you in my letter that
I didn't come because I had so many things on hand. Of course that
was a fib."
"Everybody makes excuses of that kind," said Alice.
"But they don't make them to the very people of all others whom
they want to know and love. I was longing to come to you every day.
But I feared I could not come without speaking of him;--and I had
determined never to speak of him again." This she said in that
peculiar low voice which she assumed at times.
"Then why do it now, Lady Glencora?"
"I won't be called Lady Glencora. Call me Cora. I had a sister once,
older than I, and she used to call me Cora. If she had lived--. But
never mind that now. She didn't live. I'll tell you why I do it now.
Because I cannot help it. Besides, I've met him. I've been in the
same room with him, and have spoken to him. What's the good of any
such resolution now?"
"And you have met him?"
"Yes; he--Mr. Palliser--knew all about it. When he talked of taking
me to the house, I whispered to him that I thought Burgo would be
there."
"Do not call him by his Christian name," said Alice, almost with a
shudder.
"Why not?--why not his Christian name? I did when I told my husband.
Or perhaps I said Burgo Fitzgerald."
"Well."
"And he bade me go. He said it didn't signify, and that I had better
learn to bear it. Bear it, indeed! If I am to meet him, and speak to
him, and look at him, surely I may mention his name." And then she
paused for an answer. "May I not?"
"What am I to say?" exclaimed Alice.
"Anything you please, that's not a falsehood. But I've got you here
because I don't think you will tell a falsehood. Oh, Alice, I do so
want to go right, and it is so hard!"
Hard, indeed, poor creature, for one so weighted as she had been, and
sent out into the world with so small advantages of previous training
or of present friendship! Alice began to feel now that she had been
enticed to Matching Priory because her cousin wanted a friend, and
of course she could not refuse to give the friendship that was asked
from her. She got up from her chair, and kneeling down at the other's
feet put up her face and kissed her.
"I knew you would be good to me," said Lady Glencora. "I knew you
would. And you may say whatever you like. But I could not bear that
you should not know the real reason why I neither came to you nor
sent for you after we went to London. You'll come to me now; won't
you, dear?"
"Yes;--and you'll come to me," said Alice, making in her mind a sort
of bargain that she was not to be received into Mr. Palliser's house
after the fashion in which Lady Midlothian had proposed to receive
her. But it struck her at once that this was unworthy of her, and
ungenerous. "But I'll come to you," she added, "whether you come to
me or not."
"I will go to you," said Lady Glencora, "of course,--why shouldn't I?
But you know what I mean. We shall have dinners and parties and lots
of people."
"And we shall have none," said Alice, smiling.
"And therefore there is so much more excuse for your coming to
me;--or rather I mean so much more reason, for I don't want excuses.
Well, dear, I'm so glad I've told you. I was afraid to see you in
London. I should hardly have known how to look at you then. But I've
got over that now." Then she smiled and returned the kiss which Alice
had given her. It was singular to see her standing on the bedroom rug
with all her magnificence of dress, but with her hair pushed back
behind her ears, and her eyes red with tears,--as though the burden
of the magnificence remained to her after its purpose was over.
"I declare it's ever so much past twelve. Good night, now, dear. I
wonder whether he's come up. But I should have heard his step if he
had. He never treads lightly. He seldom gives over work till after
one, and sometimes goes on till three. It's the only thing he likes,
I believe. God bless you! good night. I've such a deal more to say to
you; and Alice, you must tell me something about yourself, too; won't
you, dear?" Then without waiting for an answer Lady Glencora went,
leaving Alice in a maze of bewilderment. She could hardly believe
that all she had heard, and all she had done, had happened since she
left Queen Anne Street that morning.
CHAPTER XXIV.
Three Politicians.
Mr. Palliser was one of those politicians in possessing whom England
has perhaps more reason to be proud than of any other of her
resources, and who, as a body, give to her that exquisite combination
of conservatism and progress which is her present strength and best
security for the future. He could afford to learn to be a statesman,
and had the industry wanted for such training. He was born in the
purple, noble himself, and heir to the highest rank as well as one of
the greatest fortunes of the country, already very rich, surrounded
by all the temptations of luxury and pleasure; and yet he devoted
himself to work with the grinding energy of a young penniless
barrister labouring for a penniless wife, and did so without any
motive more selfish than that of being counted in the roll of
the public servants of England. He was not a brilliant man, and
understood well that such was the case. He was now listened to in
the House, as the phrase goes; but he was listened to as a laborious
man, who was in earnest in what he did, who got up his facts with
accuracy, and who, dull though he be, was worthy of confidence. And
he was very dull. He rather prided himself on being dull, and on
conquering in spite of his dullness. He never allowed himself a
joke in his speeches, nor attempted even the smallest flourish of
rhetoric. He was very careful in his language, labouring night and
day to learn to express himself with accuracy, with no needless
repetition of words, perspicuously with regard to the special object
he might have in view. He had taught himself to believe that oratory,
as oratory, was a sin against that honesty in politics by which he
strove to guide himself. He desired to use words for the purpose of
teaching things which he knew and which others did not know; and he
desired also to be honoured for his knowledge. But he had no desire
to be honoured for the language in which his knowledge was conveyed.
He was an upright, thin, laborious man; who by his parts alone could
have served no political party materially, but whose parts were
sufficient to make his education, integrity, and industry useful in
the highest degree. It is the trust which such men inspire which
makes them so serviceable;--trust not only in their labour,--for any
man rising from the mass of the people may be equally laborious; nor
yet simply in their honesty and patriotism. The confidence is given
to their labour, honesty, and patriotism joined to such a personal
stake in the country as gives them a weight and ballast which no
politician in England can possess without it.
If he was dull as a statesman he was more dull in private life, and
it may be imagined that such a woman as his wife would find some
difficulty in making his society the source of her happiness. Their
marriage, in a point of view regarding business, had been a complete
success,--and a success, too, when on the one side, that of Lady
Glencora, there had been terrible dangers of shipwreck, and when
on his side also there had been some little fears of a mishap. As
regards her it has been told how near she went to throwing herself,
with all her vast wealth, into the arms of a young man, whom no
father, no guardian could have regarded as a well-chosen husband for
any girl;--one who as yet had shown no good qualities, who had been
a spendthrift, unprincipled, and debauched. Alas, she had loved him!
It is possible that her love and her wealth might have turned him
from evil to good. But who would have ventured to risk her,--I will
not say her and her vast inheritances,--on such a chance? That evil,
however, had been prevented, and those about her had managed to marry
her to a young man, very steady by nature, with worldly prospects as
brilliant as her own, and with a station than which the world offers
nothing higher. His little threatened mischance,--a passing fancy for
a married lady who was too wise to receive vows which were proffered
not in the most ardent manner,--had, from special reasons, given some
little alarm to his uncle, which had just sufficed at the time to
make so very judicious a marriage doubly pleasant to that noble duke,
So that all things and all people had conspired to shower substantial
comforts on the heads of this couple, when they were joined together,
and men and women had not yet ceased to declare how happy were both
in the accumulated gifts of fortune.
And as regards Mr. Palliser, I think that his married life, and the
wife, whom he certainly had not chosen, but who had dropped upon him,
suited him admirably. He wanted great wealth for that position at
which he aimed. He had been rich before his marriage with his own
wealth,--so rich that he could throw thousands away if he wished it;
but for him and his career was needed that colossal wealth which
would make men talk about it,--which would necessitate an expansive
expenditure, reaching far and wide, doing nothing, or less than
nothing, for his own personal comfort, but giving to him at once that
rock-like solidity which is so necessary to our great aristocratic
politicians. And his wife was, as far as he knew, all that he
desired. He had not dabbled much in the fountains of Venus, though
he had forgotten himself once, and sinned in coveting another man's
wife. But his sin then had hardly polluted his natural character,
and his desire had been of a kind which was almost more gratified in
its disappointment than it would have been in its fruition. On the
morning after the lady had frowned on him he had told himself that he
was very well out of that trouble. He knew that it would never be for
him to hang up on the walls of a temple a well-worn lute as a votive
offering when leaving the pursuits of love. _Idoneus puellis_ he
never could have been. So he married Lady Glencora and was satisfied.
The story of Burgo Fitzgerald was told to him, and he supposed that
most girls had some such story to tell. He thought little about it,
and by no means understood her when she said to him, with all the
impressiveness which she could throw into the words, "You must know
that I have really loved him." "You must love me now," he had replied
with a smile; and then as regarded his mind, the thing was over. And
since his marriage he had thought that things matrimonial had gone
well with him, and with her too. He gave her almost unlimited power
of enjoying her money, and interfered but little in her way of
life. Sometimes he would say a word of caution to her with reference
to those childish ways which hardly became the dull dignity of
his position; and his words then would have in them something of
unintentional severity,--whether instigated or not by the red-haired
Radical Member of Parliament, I will not pretend to say;--but on
the whole he was contented and loved his wife, as he thought, very
heartily, and at least better than he loved any one else. One cause
of unhappiness, or rather one doubt as to his entire good fortune,
was beginning to make itself felt, as his wife had to her sorrow
already discovered. He had hoped that before this he might have heard
that she would give him a child. But the days were young yet for that
trouble, and the care had not become a sorrow.
But this judicious arrangement as to properties, this well-ordered
alliance between families, had not perhaps suited her as well as it
had suited him. I think that she might have learned to forget her
early lover, or to look back upon it with a soft melancholy hardly
amounting to regret, had her new lord been more tender in his ways
with her. I do not know that Lady Glencora's heart was made of that
stern stuff which refuses to change its impressions; but it was a
heart, and it required food. To love and fondle someone,--to be
loved and fondled, were absolutely necessary to her happiness. She
wanted the little daily assurance of her supremacy in the man's
feelings, the constant touch of love, half accidental half contrived,
the passing glance of the eye telling perhaps of some little joke
understood only between them two rather than of love, the softness of
an occasional kiss given here and there when chance might bring them
together, some half-pretended interest in her little doings, a nod, a
wink, a shake of the head, or even a pout. It should have been given
to her to feed upon such food as this daily, and then she would have
forgotten Burgo Fitzgerald. But Mr. Palliser understood none of these
things; and therefore the image of Burgo Fitzgerald in all his beauty
was ever before her eyes.
But not the less was Mr. Palliser a prosperous man, as to the success
of whose career few who knew him had much doubt. It might be written
in the book of his destiny that he would have to pass through some
violent domestic trouble, some ruin in the hopes of his home, of a
nature to destroy then and for ever the worldly prospects of other
men. But he was one who would pass through such violence, should
it come upon him, without much scathe. To lose his influence with
his party would be worse to him than to lose his wife, and public
disgrace would hit him harder than private dishonour.
And the present was the very moment in which success was, as was
said, coming to him. He had already held laborious office under the
Crown, but had never sat in the Cabinet. He had worked much harder
than Cabinet Ministers generally work,--but hitherto had worked
without any reward that was worth his having. For the stipend which
he had received had been nothing to him,--as the great stipend which
he would receive, if his hopes were true, would also be nothing to
him. To have ascendancy over other men, to be known by his countrymen
as one of their real rulers, to have an actual and acknowledged voice
in the management of nations,--those were the rewards for which he
looked; and now in truth it seemed as though they were coming to him.
It was all but known that the existing Chancellor of the Exchequer
would separate himself from the Government, carrying various others
with him, either before or immediately consequent on the meeting
of Parliament;--and it was all but known, also, that Mr. Palliser
would fill his place, taking that high office at once, although he
had never hitherto sat in that august assembly which men call the
Cabinet. He could thus afford to put up with the small everyday
calamity of having a wife who loved another man better than she loved
him.
The presence of the Duke of St. Bungay at Matching was assumed to be a
sure sign of Mr. Palliser's coming triumph. The Duke was a statesman
of a very different class, but he also had been eminently successful
as an aristocratic pillar of the British Constitutional Republic. He
was a minister of very many years' standing, being as used to cabinet
sittings as other men are to their own armchairs; but he had never
been a hard-working man. Though a constant politician, he had ever
taken politics easy whether in office or out. The world had said
before now that the Duke might be Premier, only that he would not
take the trouble. He had been consulted by a very distinguished
person,--so the papers had said more than once,--as to the making of
Prime Ministers. His voice in council was esteemed to be very great.
He was regarded as a strong rock of support to the liberal cause, and
yet nobody ever knew what he did; nor was there much record of what
he said. The offices which he held, or had held, were generally those
to which no very arduous duties were attached. In severe debates he
never took upon himself the brunt of opposition oratory. What he said
in the House was generally short and pleasant,--with some slight,
drolling, undercurrent of uninjurious satire running through it. But
he was a walking miracle of the wisdom of common sense. He never lost
his temper. He never made mistakes. He never grew either hot or cold
in a cause. He was never reckless in politics, and never cowardly. He
snubbed no man, and took snubbings from no man. He was a Knight of
the Garter, a Lord Lieutenant of his county, and at sixty-two had
his digestion unimpaired and his estate in excellent order. He was a
great buyer of pictures, which, perhaps, he did not understand, and a
great collector of books which certainly he never read. All the world
respected him, and he was a man to whom the respect of all the world
was as the breath of his nostrils.
But even he was not without his peacock on the wall, his skeleton
in the closet, his thorn in his side; though the peacock did not
scream loud, the skeleton was not very terrible in his anatomical
arrangement, nor was the thorn likely to fester to a gangrene. The
Duke was always in awe about his wife.
He was ever uneasy about his wife, but it must not be supposed
that he feared the machinations of any Burgo Fitzgerald as being
destructive of his domestic comfort. The Duchess was and always
had been all that is proper. Ladies in high rank, when gifted with
excelling beauty, have often been made the marks of undeserved
calumny;--but no breath of slander had ever touched her name. I doubt
if any man alive had ever had the courage even to wink at her since
the Duke had first called her his own. Nor was she a spendthrift, or
a gambler. She was not fast in her tastes, or given to any pursuit
that was objectionable. She was simply a fool, and as a fool was ever
fearing that she was the mark of ridicule. In all such miseries she
would complain sorrowfully, piteously, and occasionally very angrily,
to her dear Duke and protector; till sometimes her dear Duke did not
quite know what to do with her or how to protect her. It did not suit
him, a Knight of the Garter and a Duke of St. Bungay, to beg mercy
for that poor wife of his from such a one as Mrs. Conway Sparkes; nor
would it be more in his way to lodge a formal complaint against that
lady before his host or hostess,--as one boy at school may sometimes
do as regards another. "If you don't like the people, my dear, we
will go away," he said to her late on that evening of which we have
spoken. "No," she replied, "I do not wish to go away. I have said
that we would stay till December, and Longroyston won't be ready
before that. But I think that something ought to be done to silence
that woman." And the accent came strong upon "something," and then
again with terrific violence upon "woman."
The Duke did not know how to silence Mrs. Conway Sparkes. It was
a great principle of his life never to be angry with any one. How
could he get at Mrs. Conway Sparkes? "I don't think she is worth your
attention," said the husband. "That's all very well, Duke," said the
wife, "and perhaps she is not. But I find her in this house, and I
don't like to be laughed at. I think Lady Glencora should make her
know her place."
"Lady Glencora is very young, my dear."
"I don't know about being so very young," said the Duchess, whose ear
had perhaps caught some little hint of poor Lady Glencora's almost
unintentional mimicry. Now as appeals of this kind were being made
frequently to the Duke, and as he was often driven to say some word,
of which he himself hardly approved, to some one in protection of his
Duchess, he was aware that the matter was an annoyance, and at times
almost wished that her Grace was at--Longroyston.
And there was a third politician staying at Matching Priory who had
never yet risen to the rank of a statesman, but who had his hopes.
This was Mr. Bott, the member for St. Helens, whom Lady Glencora had
described as a man who stood about, with red hair,--and perhaps told
tales of her to her husband. Mr. Bott was a person who certainly had
had some success in life and who had won it for himself. He was not
very young, being at this time only just on the right side of fifty.
He was now enjoying his second session in Parliament, having been
returned as a pledged disciple of the Manchester school. Nor had he
apparently been false to his pledges. At St. Helens he was still held
to be a good man and true. But they who sat on the same side with
him in the House and watched his political manoeuvres, knew that he
was striving hard to get his finger into the public pie. He was not
a rich man, though he had made calico and had got into Parliament.
And though he claimed to be a thoroughgoing Radical, he was a man
who liked to live with aristocrats, and was fond of listening to the
whispers of such as the Duke of St. Bungay or Mr. Palliser. It was
supposed that he did understand something of finance. He was at any
rate great in figures; and as he was possessed of much industry, and
was obedient withal, he was a man who might make himself useful to a
Chancellor of the Exchequer ambitious of changes.
There are men who get into such houses as Matching Priory and whose
presence there is a mystery to many;--as to whom the ladies of the
house never quite understand why they are entertaining such a guest.
"And Mr. Bott is coming," Mr. Palliser had said to his wife. "Mr.
Bott!" Lady Glencora had answered. "Goodness me! who is Mr. Bott?"
"He is member for St. Helens," said Mr. Palliser. "A very serviceable
man in his way." "And what am I to do with him?" asked Lady Glencora.
"I don't know that you can do anything with him. He is a man who
has a great deal of business, and I dare say he will spend most of
his time in the library." So Mr. Bott arrived. But though a huge
pile of letters and papers came to him every morning by post, he
unfortunately did not seem to spend much of his time in the library.
Perhaps he had not found the clue to that lost apartment. Twice he
went out shooting, but as on the first day he shot the keeper, and
on the second very nearly shot the Duke, he gave that up. Hunting he
declined, though much pressed to make an essay in that art by Jeffrey
Palliser. He seemed to spend his time, as Lady Glencora said, in
standing about,--except at certain times when he was closeted with
Mr. Palliser, and when, it may be presumed, he made himself useful.
On such days he would be seen at the hour of lunch with fingers
much stained with ink, and it was generally supposed that on those
occasions he had been counting up taxes and calculating the effect
of great financial changes. He was a tall, wiry, strong man, with a
bald head and bristly red beard, which, however, was cut off from his
upper and under lip. This was unfortunate, as had he hidden his mouth
he would not have been in so marked a degree an ugly man. His upper
lip was very long, and his mouth was mean. But he had found that
without the help of a razor to these parts he could not manage his
soup to his satisfaction, and preferring cleanliness to beauty had
shaved himself accordingly.
"I shouldn't dislike Mr. Bott so much," Lady Glencora said to her
husband, "if he didn't rub his hands and smile so often, and seem
to be going to say something when he really is not going to say
anything."
"I don't think you need trouble yourself about him, my dear," Mr.
Palliser had answered.
"But when he looks at me in that way, I can't help stopping, as
I think he is going to speak; and then he always says, 'Can I do
anything for you, Lady Glen-cowrer?'"
She instantly saw that her husband did not like this. "Don't be angry
with me, dear," she said. "You must admit that he is rather a bore."
"I am not at all angry, Glencora," said the husband; "and if you
insist upon it, I will see that he leaves;--and in such case will
of course never ask him again. But that might be prejudicial to me,
as he is a man whom I trust in politics, and who may perhaps be
serviceable to me."
Of course Lady Glencora declared that Mr. Bott might remain as long as
he and her husband desired, and of course she mentioned his name no
more to Mr. Palliser; but from that time forth she regarded Mr. Bott as
an enemy, and felt also that Mr. Bott regarded her in the same light.
When it was known among outside politicians that the Duke of St.
Bungay was staying at Matching Priory, outside politicians became
more sure than ever that Mr. Palliser would be the new Chancellor of
the Exchequer. The old minister and the young minister were of course
arranging matters together. But I doubt whether Mr. Palliser and the
Duke ever spoke on any such topic during the entire visit. Though
Mr. Bott was occasionally closeted with Mr. Palliser, the Duke never
troubled himself with such closetings. He went out shooting--on his
pony, read his newspaper, wrote his notes, and looked with the eye
of a connoisseur over all Mr. Palliser's farming apparatus. "You seem
to have a good man, I should say," said the Duke. "What! Hubbings?
Yes;--he was a legacy from my uncle when he gave me up the Priory."
"A very good man, I should say. Of course he won't make it pay; but
he'll make it look as though it did;--which is the next best thing.
I could never get rent out of land that I farmed myself,--never." "I
suppose not," said Mr. Palliser, who did not care much about it. The
Duke would have talked to him by the hour together about farming had
Mr. Palliser been so minded; but he talked to him very little about
politics. Nor during the whole time of his stay at Matching did the
Duke make any other allusion to Mr. Palliser's hopes as regarded
the ministry, than that in which he had told Lady Glencora at the
dinner-table that her husband's ambition was the highest by which
any man could be moved.
But Mr. Bott was sometimes honoured by a few words with the Duke.
"We shall muster pretty strong, your Grace," Mr. Bott had said to him
one day before dinner.
"That depends on how the changes go," said the Duke.
"I suppose there will be a change?"
"Oh yes; there'll be a change,--certainly, I should say. And it will
be in your direction."
"And in Palliser's?"
"Yes; I should think so;--that is, if it suits him. By-the-by, Mr.
Bott--" Then there was a little whispered communication, in which
perhaps Mr. Bott was undertaking some commission of that nature which
Lady Glencora had called "telling."
CHAPTER XXV.
In Which Much of the History of the Pallisers Is Told.
At the end of ten days Alice found herself quite comfortable at
Matching Priory. She had now promised to remain there till the second
week of December, at which time she was to go to Vavasor Hall,--there
to meet her father and Kate. The Pallisers were to pass their
Christmas with the Duke of Omnium in Barsetshire. "We always are
to do that," said Glencora. "It is the state occasion at Gatherum
Castle, but it only lasts for one week. Then we go somewhere else.
Oh dear!"
"Why do you say 'oh dear'?"
"Because--; I don't think I mean to tell you."
"Then I'm sure I won't ask."
"That's so like you, Alice. But I can be as firm as you, and I'm sure
I won't tell you unless you do ask." But Alice did not ask, and it
was not long before Lady Glencora's firmness gave way.
But, as I have said, Alice had become quite comfortable at Matching
Priory. Perhaps she was already growing upwards towards the light.
At any rate she could listen with pleasure to the few words the Duke
would say to her. She could even chat a little to the Duchess,--so
that her Grace had observed to Lady Glencora that "her cousin was a
very nice person,--a very nice person indeed. What a pity it was that
she had been so ill-treated by that gentleman in Oxfordshire!" Lady
Glencora had to explain that the gentleman lived in Cambridgeshire,
and that he, at any rate, had not treated anybody ill. "Do you mean
that she--jilted him?" said the Duchess, almost whistling, and
opening her eyes very wide. "Dear me, I'm sorry for that. I shouldn't
have thought it." And when she next spoke to Alice she assumed rather
a severe tone of emphasis;--but this was soon abandoned when Alice
listened to her with complacency.
Alice also had learned to ride,--or rather had resumed her riding,
which for years had been abandoned. Jeffrey Palliser had been her
squire, and she had become intimate with him so as to learn to
quarrel with him and to like him,--to such an extent that Lady
Glencora had laughingly told her that she was going to do more.
"I rather think not," said Alice.
"But what has thinking to do with it? Who ever thinks about it?"
"I don't just at present,--at any rate."
"Upon my word it would be very nice;--and then perhaps some day you'd
be the Duchess."
"Glencora, don't talk such nonsense."
"Those are the speculations which people make. Only I should spite
you by killing myself, so that he might marry again."
"How can you say such horrid things?"
"I think I shall,--some day. What right have I to stand in his way?
He spoke to me the other day about Jeffrey's altered position, and I
knew what he meant;--or rather what he didn't mean to say, but what
he thought. But I shan't kill myself."
"I should think not."
"I only know one other way," said Lady Glencora.
"You are thinking of things which should never be in your thoughts,"
said Alice vehemently. "Have you no trust in God's providence? Cannot
you accept what has been done for you?"
Mr. Bott had gone away, much to Lady Glencora's delight, but had
unfortunately come back again. On his return Alice heard more of the
feud between the Duchess and Mrs. Conway Sparkes. "I did not tell
you," said Lady Glencora to her friend;--"I did not tell you before
he went that I was right about his tale-bearing."
"And did he bear tales?"
"Yes; I did get the scolding, and I know very well that it came
through him, though Mr. Palliser did not say so. But he told me that
the Duchess had felt herself hurt by that other woman's way of
talking."
"But it was not your fault."
"No; that's what I said. It was he who desired me to ask Mrs. Conway
Sparkes to come here. I didn't want her. She goes everywhere, and it
is thought a catch to get her; but if she had been drowned in the Red
Sea I shouldn't have minded. When I told him that, he said it was
nonsense,--which of course it was; and then he said I ought to make
her hold her tongue. Of course I said I couldn't. Mrs. Conway Sparkes
wouldn't care for me. If she quizzed me, myself, I told him that
I could take care of myself, though she were ten times Mrs. Conway
Sparkes, and had written finer poetry than Tennyson."
"It is fine;--some of it," said Alice.
"Oh, I dare say! I know a great deal of it by heart, only I wouldn't
give her the pleasure of supposing that I had ever thought so much
about her poetry. And then I told him that I couldn't take care of
the Duchess,--and he told me that I was a child."
"He only meant that in love."
"I am a child; I know that. Why didn't he marry some strong-minded,
ferocious woman that could keep his house in order, and frown Mrs.
Sparkes out of her impudence? It wasn't my fault."
"You didn't tell him that."
"But I did. Then he kissed me, and said it was all right, and told me
that I should grow older. 'And Mrs. Sparkes will grow more impudent,'
I said, 'and the Duchess more silly.' And after that I went away. Now
this horrid Mr. Bott has come back again, and only that it would be
mean in me to condescend so far, I would punish him. He grins and
smiles at me, and rubs his big hands more than ever, because he feels
that he has behaved badly. Is it not horrid to have to live in the
house with such people?"
"I don't think you need mind him much."
"Yes; but I am the mistress here, and am told that I am to entertain
the people. Fancy entertaining the Duchess of St. Bungay and Mr. Bott!"
Alice had now become so intimate with Lady Glencora that she did not
scruple to read her wise lectures,--telling her that she allowed
herself to think too much of little things,--and too much also of
some big things. "As regards Mr. Bott," said Alice, "I think you
should bear it as though there were no such person."
"But that would be pretence,--especially to you."
"No; it would not be pretence; it would be the reticence which all
women should practise,--and you, in your position, more almost than
any other woman." Then Lady Glencora pouted, told Alice that it was
a pity she had not married Mr. Palliser, and left her.
That evening,--the evening of Mr. Bott's return to Matching, that
gentleman found a place near to Alice in the drawing-room. He had
often come up to her, rubbing his hands together, and saying little
words, as though there was some reason from their positions that they
two should be friends. Alice had perceived this, and had endeavoured
with all her force to shake him off; but he was a man, who if he
understood a hint, never took it. A cold shoulder was nothing to
him, if he wanted to gain the person who showed it him. His code
of perseverance taught him that it was a virtue to overcome cold
shoulders. The man or woman who received his first overtures with
grace would probably be one on whom it would be better that he should
look down and waste no further time; whereas he or she who could
afford to treat him with disdain would no doubt be worth gaining.
Such men as Mr. Bott are ever gracious to cold shoulders. The colder
the shoulders, the more gracious are the Mr. Botts.
"What a delightful person is our dear friend, Lady Glencora!" said
Mr. Bott, having caught Alice in a position from which she could not
readily escape.
Alice had half a mind to differ, or to make any remark that might
rid her from Mr. Bott. But she did not dare to say a word that might
seem to have been said playfully. "Yes, indeed," she replied. "How
very cold it is to-night!" She was angry with herself for her own
stupidity as soon as the phrase was out of her mouth, and then she
almost laughed as she thought of the Duchess and the hot-water pipes
at Longroyston.
"Yes, it is cold. You and her ladyship are great friends, I believe,
Miss Vavasor."
"She is my cousin," said Alice.
"Ah! yes; that is so pleasant. I have reason to know that Mr. Palliser
is very much gratified that you should be so much with her."
This was unbearable. Alice could not quite assume sufficient courage
to get up from her chair and walk away from him, and yet she felt
that she must escape further conversation. "I don't know that I am
very much with her, and if I were I can't think it would make any
difference to Mr. Palliser."
But Mr. Bott was not a man to be put down when he had a purpose in
hand. "I can assure you that those are his sentiments. Of course we
all know that dear Lady Glencora is young. She is very young."
"Mr. Bott, I really would rather not talk about my cousin."
"But, dear Miss Vavasor;--when we both have her welfare in view--?"
"I haven't her welfare in view, Mr. Bott; not in the least. There is
no reason why I should. You must excuse me if I say I cannot talk
about her welfare with a perfect stranger." Then she did get up,
and went away from the Member of Parliament, leaving him rather
astonished at her audacity. But he was a constant man, and his inner
resolve was simply to the effect that he would try it again.
I wonder whether Jeffrey Palliser did think much of the difference
between his present position and that which would have been his had
Lady Glencora been the happy possessor of a cradle up-stairs with a
boy in it. I suppose he must have done so. It is hardly possible that
any man should not be alive to the importance of such a chance. His
own present position was one of the most unfortunate which can fall
to the lot of a man. His father, the Duke's youngest brother, had
left him about six hundred a year, and had left him also a taste
for living with people of six thousand. The propriety of earning
his bread had never been put before him. His father had been in
Parliament, and had been the most favoured son of the old Duke, who
for some years before his death had never spoken to him who now
reigned over the house of the Pallisers. Jeffrey's father had been
brought up at Matching Priory as scions of ducal houses are brought
up, and on the old man's death had been possessed of means sufficient
to go on in the same path, though with difficulty. His brother had
done something for him, and at various times he had held some place
near the throne. But on his death, when the property left behind him
was divided between his son and three daughters, Jeffrey Palliser
became possessed of the income above stated. Of course he could live
on it,--and as during the winter months of the year a home was found
for him free of cost, he could keep hunters, and live as rich men
live. But he was a poor, embarrassed man, without prospects,--until
this fine ducal prospect became opened to him by the want of that
cradle at Matching Priory.
But the prospect was no doubt very distant. Lady Glencora might yet
have as many sons as Hecuba. Or she might die, and some other more
fortunate lady might become the mother of his cousin's heir. Or the
Duke might marry and have a son. And, moreover, his cousin was only
one year older than himself, and the great prize, if it came his way,
might not come for forty years as yet. Nevertheless his hand might
now be acceptable in quarters where it would certainly be rejected
had Lady Glencora possessed that cradle up-stairs. We cannot but
suppose that he must have made some calculations of this nature.
"It is a pity you should do nothing all your life," his cousin
Plantagenet said to him one morning just at this time. Jeffrey had
sought the interview in his cousin's room, and I fear had done so
with some slight request for ready money.
"What am I to do?" said Jeffrey.
"At any rate you might marry."
"Oh, yes;--I could marry. There's no man so poor but what he can do
that. The question would be how I might like the subsequent
starvation."
"I don't see that you need starve. Though your own fortune is small,
it is something,--and many girls have fortunes of their own."
Jeffrey thought of Lady Glencora, but he made no allusion to her in
speech. "I don't think I'm very good at that kind of thing," he said.
"When the father and mother came to ask of my house and my home I
should break down. I don't say it as praising myself;--indeed, quite
the reverse; but I fear I have not a mercenary tendency."
"That's nonsense."
"Oh, yes; quite so. I admit that."
"Men must have mercenary tendencies or they would not have bread. The
man who ploughs that he may live does so because he, luckily, has a
mercenary tendency."
"Just so. But you see I am less lucky than the ploughman."
"There is no vulgar error so vulgar,--that is to say, common or
erroneous, as that by which men have been taught to say that
mercenary tendencies are bad. A desire for wealth is the source
of all progress. Civilization comes from what men call greed. Let
your mercenary tendencies be combined with honesty and they cannot
take you astray." This the future Chancellor of the Exchequer said
with much of that air and tone of wisdom which a Chancellor of the
Exchequer ought to possess.
"But I haven't got any such tendencies," said Jeffrey.
"Would you like to occupy a farm in Scotland?" said Plantagenet
Palliser.
"And pay rent?"
"You would have to pay rent of course."
"Thank you, no. It would be dishonest, as I know I should never pay
it."
"You are too old, I fear, for the public service."
"You mean a desk in the Treasury,--with a hundred a year. Yes; I
think I am too old."
"But have you no plan of your own?"
"Not much of one. Sometimes I have thought I would go to New
Zealand."
"You would have to be a farmer there."
"No;--I shouldn't do that. I should get up an opposition to the
Government and that sort of thing, and then they would buy me off and
give me a place."
"That does very well here, Jeffrey, if a man can get into Parliament
and has capital enough to wait; but I don't think it would do out
there. Would you like to go into Parliament?"
"What; here? Of course I should. Only I should be sure to get
terribly into debt. I don't owe very much, now,--not to speak
of,--except what I owe you."
"You owe nothing to me," said Plantagenet, with some little touch of
magniloquence in his tone. "No; don't speak of it. I have no brother,
and between you and me it means nothing. You see, Jeffrey, it may
be that I shall have to look to you as my--my--my heir, in short."
Hereupon Jeffrey muttered something as to the small probability of
such necessity, and as to the great remoteness of any result even if
it were so.
"That's all true," said the elder heir of the Pallisers, "but
still--. In short, I wish you would do something. Do you think about
it; and then some day speak to me again."
Jeffrey, as he left his cousin with a cheque for £500 in his
waist-coat pocket, thought that the interview which had at one
time taken important dimensions, had not been concluded altogether
satisfactorily. A seat in Parliament! Yes, indeed! If his cousin
would so far use his political, monetary, or ducal interest as to
do that for him;--as to give him something of the status properly
belonging to the younger son of the House, then indeed life would
have some charms for him! But as for the farm in Scotland, or a desk
at an office in London,--his own New Zealand plan would be better
than those. And then as he went along of course he bethought himself
that it might be his lot yet to die, and at least to be buried, in
the purple, as a Duke of Omnium. If so, certainly it would be his
duty to prepare another heir, and leave a duke behind him,--if it
were possible.
"Are you going to ride with us after lunch?" said Lady Glencora to
him as he strolled into the drawing-room.
"No," said Jeffrey; "I'm going to study."
"To do what?" said Lady Glencora.
"To study;--or rather I shall spend to-day in sitting down and
considering what I will study. My cousin has just been telling me
that I ought to do something."
"So you ought," said Iphigenia energetically from her writing-desk.
"But he didn't seem to have any clear opinion what it ought to be.
You see there can't be two Chancellors of the Exchequer at the same
time. Mrs. Sparkes, what ought a young man like me to set about
doing?"
"Go into Parliament, I should say," said Mrs. Sparkes.
"Ah, yes; exactly. He had some notion of that kind, too, but he
didn't name any particular place. I think I'll try the City of
London. They've four there, and of course the chance of getting in
would thereby be doubled."
"I thought that commercial men were generally preferred in the City,"
said the Duchess, taking a strong and good-natured interest in the
matter.
"Mr. Palliser means to make a fortune in trade as a preliminary," said
Mrs. Sparkes.
"I don't think he meant anything of the kind," said the Duchess.
"At any rate I have got to do something, so I can't go and ride,"
said Jeffrey.
"And you ought to do something," said Iphigenia from her desk.
Twice during this little conversation Lady Glencora had looked up,
catching Alice's eye, and Alice had well known what she had meant.
"You see," the glance had said, "Plantagenet is beginning to take an
interest in his cousin, and you know why. The man who is to be the
father of the future dukes must not be allowed to fritter away his
time in obscurity. Had I that cradle up-stairs Jeffrey might be as
idle as he pleased." Alice understood it well.
Of course Jeffrey did join the riding party. "What is a man like me
to do who wants to do something?" he said to Alice. Alice was quite
aware that Lady Glencora had contrived some little scheme that Mr.
Palliser should be riding next to her. She liked Mr. Palliser, and
therefore had no objection; but she declared to herself that her
cousin was a goose for her pains.
"Mrs. Sparkes says you ought to go into Parliament."
"Yes;--and the dear Duchess would perhaps suggest a house in Belgrave
Square. I want to hear your advice now."
"I can only say ditto to Miss Palliser."
"What! Iphy? About procrastination? But you see the more of my time
he steals the better it is for me."
"That's the evil you have got to cure."
"My cousin Plantagenet suggested--marriage."
"A very good thing too, I'm sure," said Alice; "only it depends
something on the sort of wife you get."
"You mean, of course, how much money she has."
"Not altogether."
"Looking at it from my cousin's point of view, I suppose that it is
the only important point. Who are there coming up this year,--in the
way of heiresses?"
"Upon my word I don't know. In the first place, how much money makes
an heiress?"
"For such a fellow as me, I suppose ten thousand pounds ought to do."
"That's not much," said Alice, who had exactly that amount of her
own.
"No--; perhaps that's too moderate. But the lower one went in the
money speculation, the greater would be the number to choose from,
and the better the chance of getting something decent in the woman
herself. I have something of my own,--not much you know; so with
the lady's ten thousand pounds we might be able to live,--in some
second-rate French town perhaps."
"But I don't see what you would gain by that."
"My people here would have got rid of me. That seems to be the great
thing. If you hear of any girl with about that sum, moderately
good-looking, not too young so that she might know something of the
world, decently born, and able to read and write, perhaps you will
bear me in mind."
"Yes, I will," said Alice, who was quite aware that he had made an
accurate picture of her own position. "When I meet such a one, I will
send for you at once."
"You know no such person now?"
"Well, no; not just at present."
"I declare I don't think he could do anything better," her cousin
said to her that night. Lady Glencora was now in the habit of having
Alice with her in what she called her dressing-room every evening,
and then they would sit till the small hours came upon them. Mr.
Palliser always burnt the midnight oil and came to bed with the owls.
They would often talk of him and his prospects till Alice had perhaps
inspired his wife with more of interest in him and them than she had
before felt. And Alice had managed generally to drive her friend away
from those topics which were so dangerous,--those allusions to her
childlessness, and those hints that Burgo Fitzgerald was still in her
thoughts. And sometimes, of course, they had spoken of Alice's own
prospects, till she got into a way of telling her cousin freely all
that she felt. On such occasions Lady Glencora would always tell her
that she had been right,--if she did not love the man. "Though your
finger were put out for the ring," said Lady Glencora on one such
occasion, "you should go back, if you did not love him."
"But I did love him," said Alice.
"Then I don't understand it," said Lady Glencora; and, in truth,
close as was their intimacy, they did not perfectly understand each
other.
But on this occasion they were speaking of Jeffrey Palliser. "I
declare I don't think he could do any better," said Lady Glencora.
"If you talk such nonsense, I will not stay," said Alice.
"But why should it be nonsense? You would be very comfortable with
your joint incomes. He is one of the best fellows in the world. It is
clear that he likes you; and then we should be so near to each other.
I am sure Mr. Palliser would do something for him if he married,--and
especially if I asked him."
"I only know of two things against it."
"And what are they?"
"That he would not take me for his wife, and that I would not take
him for my husband."
"Why not? What do you dislike in him?"
"I don't dislike him at all. I like him very much indeed. But one
can't marry all the people one likes."
"But what reason is there why you shouldn't marry him?"
"This chiefly," said Alice, after a pause; "that I have just
separated myself from a man whom I certainly did love truly, and
that I cannot transfer my affections quite so quickly as that."
As soon as the words were out of her mouth she knew that they should
not have been spoken. It was exactly what Glencora had done. She
had loved a man and had separated herself from him and had married
another all within a month or two. Lady Glencora first became red as
fire over her whole face and shoulders, and Alice afterwards did the
same as she looked up, as though searching in her cousin's eyes for
pardon.
"It is an unmaidenly thing to do, certainly," said Lady Glencora very
slowly, and in her lowest voice. "Nay, it is unwomanly; but one may
be driven. One may be so driven that all gentleness of womanhood is
driven out of one."
"Oh, Glencora!"
"I did not propose that you should do it as a sudden thing."
"Glencora!"
"I did do it suddenly. I know it. I did it like a beast that is
driven as its owner chooses. I know it. I was a beast. Oh, Alice, if
you know how I hate myself!"
"But I love you with all my heart," said Alice. "Glencora, I have
learned to love you so dearly!"
"Then you are the only being that does. He can't love me. How is it
possible? You,--and perhaps another."
"There are many who love you. He loves you. Mr. Palliser loves you."
"It is impossible. I have never said a word to him that could make
him love me. I have never done a thing for him that can make him love
me. The mother of his child he might have loved, because of that. Why
should he love me? We were told to marry each other and did it. When
could he have learned to love me? But, Alice, he requires no loving,
either to take it or to give it. I wish it were so with me."
Alice said what she could to comfort her, but her words were but of
little avail as regarded those marriage sorrows.
"Forgive you!" at last Glencora said. "What have I to forgive? You
don't suppose I do not know it all, and think of it all without the
chance of some stray word like that! Forgive you! I am so grateful
that you love me! Some one's love I must have found,--or I could not
have remained here."
CHAPTER XXVI.
Lady Midlothian.
A week or ten days after this, Alice, when she came down to the
breakfast-parlour one morning, found herself alone with Mr. Bott. It
was the fashion at Matching Priory for people to assemble rather late
in the day. The nominal hour for breakfast was ten, and none of the
ladies of the party were ever seen before that. Some of the gentlemen
would breakfast earlier, especially on hunting mornings; and on some
occasions the ladies, when they came together, would find themselves
altogether deserted by their husbands and brothers. On this day it
was fated that Mr. Bott alone should represent the sterner sex, and
when Alice entered the room he was standing on the rug with his
back to the fire, waiting till the appearance of some other guest
should give him the sanction necessary for the commencement of his
morning meal. Alice, when she saw him, would have retreated had it
been possible, for she had learned to dislike him greatly, and was,
indeed, almost afraid of him; but she could not do so without making
her flight too conspicuous.
"Do you intend to prolong your stay here, Miss Vavasor?" said Mr.
Bott, taking advantage of the first moment at which she looked up
from a letter which she was reading.
"For a few more days, I think," said Alice.
"Ah--I'm glad of that. Mr. Palliser has pressed me so much to remain
till he goes to the Duke's, that I cannot get away sooner. As I am an
unmarried man myself, I can employ my time as well in one place as in
another;--at this time of the year at least."
"You must find that very convenient," said Alice.
"Yes, it is convenient. You see in my position,--Parliamentary
position, I mean,--I am obliged, as a public man, to act in concert
with others. A public man can be of no service unless he is prepared
to do that. We must give and take, you know, Miss Vavasor."
As Miss Vavasor made no remark in answer to this, Mr. Bott
continued--"I always say to the men of my party,--of course I regard
myself as belonging to the extreme Radicals."
"Oh, indeed!" said Alice.
"Yes. I came into Parliament on that understanding; and I have never
seen any occasion as yet to change any political opinion that I have
expressed. But I always say to the gentlemen with whom I act, that
nothing can be done if we don't give and take. I don't mind saying to
you, Miss Vavasor, that I look upon our friend, Mr. Palliser, as the
most rising public man in the country. I do, indeed."
"I am happy to hear you say so," said his victim, who found herself
driven to make some remark.
"And I, as an extreme Radical, do not think I can serve my party
better than by keeping in the same boat with him, as long as it will
hold the two. 'He'll make a Government hack of you,' a friend of mine
said to me the other day. 'And I'll make a Manchester school Prime
Minister of him,' I replied. I rather think I know what I'm about,
Miss Vavasor."
"No doubt," said Alice.
"And so does he;--and so does he. Mr. Palliser is not the man to be
led by the nose by any one. But it's a fair system of give and take.
You can't get on in politics without it. What a charming woman is
your relative, Lady Glencowrer! I remember well what you said to me
the other evening."
"Do you?" said Alice.
"And I quite agree with you that confidential intercourse regarding
dear friends should not be lightly made."
"Certainly not," said Alice.
"But there are occasions, Miss Vavasor; there are occasions when the
ordinary laws by which we govern our social conduct must be made
somewhat elastic."
"I don't think this one of them, Mr. Bott."
"Is it not? Just listen to me for one moment, Miss Vavasor. Our
friend, Mr. Palliser, I am proud to say, relies much upon my humble
friendship. Our first connection has, of course, been political; but
it has extended beyond that, and has become pleasantly social;--I may
say, very pleasantly social."
"What a taste Mr. Palliser must have!" Alice thought to herself.
"But I need not tell you that Lady Glencowrer is--very young; we may
say, very young indeed."
"Mr. Bott, I will not talk to you about Lady Glencora Palliser."
This Alice said in a determined voice, and with all the power of
resistance at her command. She frowned too, and looked savagely at Mr.
Bott. But he was a man of considerable courage, and knew how to bear
such opposition without flinching.
"When I tell you, Miss Vavasor, that I speak solely with a view to
her domestic happiness!"
"I don't think that she wishes to have any such guardian of her
happiness."
"But if he wishes it, Miss Vavasor! Now I have the means of knowing
that he has the greatest reliance on your judgement."
Hereupon Alice got up with the intention of leaving the room, but she
was met at the door by Mrs. Conway Sparkes.
"Are you running from your breakfast, Miss Vavasor?" said she.
"No, Mrs. Sparkes; I am running from Mr. Bott," said Alice, who was
almost beside herself with anger.
"Mr. Bott, what is this?" said Mrs. Sparkes. "Ha, ha, ha," laughed Mr.
Bott.
Alice returned to the room, and Mrs. Sparkes immediately saw that
she had in truth been running from Mr. Bott. "I hope I shall be able
to keep the peace," said she. "I trust his offence was not one that
requires special punishment."
"Ha, ha, ha," again laughed Mr. Bott, who rather liked his position.
Alice was very angry with herself, feeling that she had told more of
the truth to Mrs. Sparkes than she should have done, unless she was
prepared to tell the whole. As it was, she wanted to say something,
and did not know what to say; but her confusion was at once stopped
by the entrance of Lady Glencora.
"Mrs. Sparkes, good morning," said Lady Glencora. "I hope nobody has
waited breakfast. Good morning, Mr. Bott. Oh, Alice!"
"What is the matter?" said Alice, going up to her.
"Oh, Alice, such a blow!" But Alice could see that her cousin was
not quite in earnest;--that the new trouble, though it might be
vexatious, was no great calamity. "Come here," said Lady Glencora;
and they both went into an embrasure of the window. "Now I shall have
to put your confidence in me to the test. This letter is from,--whom
do you think?"
"How can I guess?"
"From Lady Midlothian! and she's coming here on Monday, on her road
to London. Unless you tell me that you are quite sure this is as
unexpected by me as by you, I will never speak to you again."
"I am quite sure of that."
"Ah! then we can consult. But first we'll go and have some
breakfast." Then more ladies swarmed into the room,--the Duchess and
her daughter, and the two Miss Pallisers, and others; and Mr. Bott
had his hands full in attending,--or rather in offering to attend, to
their little wants.
The morning was nearly gone before Alice and her cousin had any
further opportunity of discussing in private the approach of Lady
Midlothian; but Mr. Palliser had come in among them, and had been told
of the good thing which was in store for him. "We shall be delighted
to see Lady Midlothian," said Mr. Palliser.
"But there is somebody here who will not be at all delighted to see
her," said Lady Glencora to her husband.
"Is there, indeed?" said he. "Who is that?"
"Her most undutiful cousin, Alice Vavasor. But, Alice, Mr. Palliser
knows nothing about it, and it is too long to explain."
"I am extremely sorry--" began Mr. Palliser.
"I can assure you it does not signify in the least," said Alice. "It
will only be taking me away three days earlier."
Upon hearing this Mr. Palliser looked very serious. What quarrel could
Miss Vavasor have had with Lady Midlothian which should make it
impossible for them to be visitors at the same house?
"It will do no such thing," said Lady Glencora. "Do you mean to say
that you are coward enough to run away from her?"
"I'm afraid, Miss Vavasor, that we can hardly bid her not come," said
Mr. Palliser. In answer to this, Alice protested that she would not
for worlds have been the means of keeping Lady Midlothian away from
Matching. "I should tell you, Mr. Palliser, that I have never seen
Lady Midlothian, though she is my far-away cousin. Nor have I ever
quarrelled with her. But she has given me advice by letter, and I did
not answer her because I thought she had no business to interfere.
I shall go away, not because I am afraid of her, but because, after
what has passed, our meeting would be unpleasant to her."
"You could tell her that Miss Vavasor is here," said Mr. Palliser.
"And then she need not come unless she pleased."
The matter was so managed at last that Alice found herself unable
to leave Matching without making more of Lady Midlothian's coming
than it was worth. It would undoubtedly be very disagreeable,--this
unexpected meeting with her relative; but, as Lady Glencora said,
Lady Midlothian would not eat her. In truth, she felt ashamed of
herself in that she was afraid of her relative. No doubt she was
afraid of her. So much she was forced to admit to herself. But she
resolved at last that she would not let her drive her out of the
house.
"Is Mr. Bott an admirer of your cousin?" Mrs. Sparkes said that evening
to Lady Glencora.
"A very distant one I should think," said Lady Glencora.
"Goodness gracious!" exclaimed an old lady who had been rather awed
by Alice's intimacy and cousinship with Lady Glencora; "it's the very
last thing I should have dreamt of."
"But I didn't dream it, first or last," said Mrs. Sparkes.
"Why do you ask?" said Lady Glencora.
"Don't suppose that I am asking whether Miss Vavasor is an admirer
of his," said Mrs. Sparkes. "I have no suspicion of that nature. I
rather think that when he plays Bacchus she plays Ariadne, with full
intention of flying from him in earnest."
"Is Mr. Bott inclined to play Bacchus?" asked Lady Glencora.
"I rather thought he was this morning. If you observe, he has
something of a godlike and triumphant air about him."
"I don't think his godship will triumph there," said Lady Glencora.
"I really think she would be throwing herself very much away," said
the old lady.
"Miss Vavasor is not at all disposed to do that," said Mrs. Sparkes.
Then that conversation was allowed to drop.
On the following Monday, Lady Midlothian arrived. The carriage was
sent to meet her at the station about three o'clock in the afternoon,
and Alice had to choose whether she would undergo her first
introduction immediately on her relative's arrival, or whether she
would keep herself out of the way till she should meet her in the
drawing-room before dinner.
"I shall receive her when she comes," said Lady Glencora, "and of
course will tell her that you are here."
"Yes, that will be best; and--; dear me, I declare I don't know how
to manage it."
"I'll bring her to you in my room if you like it."
"No; that would be too solemn," said Alice. "That would make her
understand that I thought a great deal about her."
"Then we'll let things take their chance, and you shall come across
her just as you would any other stranger." It was settled at last
that this would be the better course, but that Lady Midlothian was to
be informed of Alice's presence at the Priory as soon as she should
arrive.
Alice was in her own room when the carriage in which sat the
unwelcome old lady was driven up to the hall-door. She heard the
wheels plainly, and knew well that her enemy was within the house.
She had striven hard all the morning to make herself feel indifferent
to this arrival, but had not succeeded; and was angry with herself
at finding that she sat up-stairs with an anxious heart, because
she knew that her cousin was in the room down-stairs. What was Lady
Midlothian to her that she should be afraid of her? And yet she was
very much afraid of Lady Midlothian. She questioned herself on the
subject over and over again, and found herself bound to admit that
such was the fact. At last, about five o'clock, having reasoned much
with herself, and rebuked herself for her own timidity, she descended
into the drawing-room,--Lady Glencora having promised that she would
at that hour be there,--and on opening the door became immediately
conscious that she was in the presence of her august relative. There
sat Lady Midlothian in a great chair opposite the fire, and Lady
Glencora sat near to her on a stool. One of the Miss Pallisers was
reading in a further part of the room, and there was no one else
present in the chamber.
The Countess of Midlothian was a very little woman, between sixty and
seventy years of age, who must have been very pretty in her youth.
At present she made no pretension either to youth or beauty,--as
some ladies above sixty will still do,--but sat confessedly an old
woman in all her external relations. She wore a round bonnet which
came much over her face,--being accustomed to continue the use
of her bonnet till dinner time when once she had been forced by
circumstances to put it on. She wore a short cloak which fitted
close to her person, and, though she occupied a great arm-chair,
sat perfectly upright, looking at the fire. Very small she was, but
she carried in her grey eyes and sharp-cut features a certain look
of importance which saved her from being considered as small in
importance. Alice, as soon as she saw her, knew that she was a lady
over whom no easy victory could be obtained.
"Here is Alice," said Lady Glencora, rising as her cousin entered the
room. "Alice, let me introduce you to Lady Midlothian."
Alice, as she came forward, was able to assume an easy demeanour,
even though her heart within was failing her. She put out her hand,
leaving it to the elder lady to speak the first words of greeting.
"I am glad at last to be able to make your acquaintance, my dear,"
said Lady Midlothian; "very glad." But still Alice did not speak.
"Your aunt, Lady Macleod, is one of my oldest friends, and I have
heard her speak of you very often."
"And Lady Macleod has often spoken to me of your ladyship," said
Alice.
"Then we know each other's names," said the Countess; "and it will
be well that we should be acquainted with each other's persons. I am
becoming an old woman, and if I did not learn to know you now, or
very shortly, I might never do so."
Alice could not help thinking that even under those circumstances
neither might have had, so far as that was concerned, much cause of
sorrow, but she did not say so. She was thinking altogether of Lady
Midlothian's letter to her, and trying to calculate whether or no
it would be well for her to rush away at once to the subject. That
Lady Midlothian would mention the letter, Alice felt well assured;
and when could it be better mentioned than now, in Glencora's
presence,--when no other person was near them to listen to her? "You
are very kind," said Alice.
"I would wish to be so," said Lady Midlothian. "Blood is thicker
than water, my dear; and I know no earthly ties that can bind people
together if those of family connection will not do so. Your mother,
when she and I were young, was my dearest friend."
"I never knew my mother," said Alice,--feeling, however, as she
spoke, that the strength of her resistance to the old woman was
beginning to give way.
"No, my dear, you never did; and that is to my thinking another
reason why they who loved her should love you. But Lady Macleod is
your nearest relative,--on your mother's side, I mean,--and she has
done her duty by you well."
"Indeed she has, Lady Midlothian."
"She has, and others, therefore, have been the less called upon to
interfere. I only say this, my dear, in my own vindication,--feeling,
perhaps, that my conduct needs some excuse."
"I'm sure Alice does not think that," said Lady Glencora.
"It is what I think rather than what Alice thinks that concerns my
own shortcomings," said Lady Midlothian, with a smile which was
intended to be pleasant. "But I have wished to make up for former
lost opportunities." Alice knew that she was about to refer to her
letter, and trembled. "I am very anxious now to be reckoned one of
Alice Vavasor's friends, if she will allow me to become so."
"I can only be too proud,--if--"
"If what, my dear?" said the old lady. I believe that she meant to be
gracious, but there was something in her manner, or, perhaps, rather
in her voice, so repellant, that Alice felt that they could hardly
become true friends. "If what, my dear?"
"Alice means--" began Lady Glencora.
"Let Alice say what she means herself," said Lady Midlothian.
"I hardly know how to say what I do mean," said Alice, whose spirit
within her was rising higher as the occasion for using it came upon
her. "I am assured that you and I, Lady Midlothian, differ very much
as to a certain matter; and as it is one in which I must be guided by
my own opinion, and not that of any other person, perhaps--"
"You mean about Mr. Grey?"
"Yes," said Alice; "I mean about Mr. Grey."
"I think so much about that matter, and your happiness as therein
concerned, that when I heard that you were here I was determined
to take Matching in my way to London, so that I might have an
opportunity of speaking to you."
"Then you knew that Alice was here," said Lady Glencora.
"Of course I did. I suppose you have heard all the history,
Glencora?"
Lady Glencora was forced to acknowledge that she had heard the
history,--"the history" being poor Alice's treatment of Mr. Grey.
"And what do you think of it?" Both Alice and her hostess looked
round to the further end of the room in which Miss Palliser was
reading, intending thus to indicate that the lady knew as yet none
of the circumstances, and that there could be no good reason why she
should be instructed in them at this moment. "Perhaps another time
and another place may be better," said Lady Midlothian; "but I must
go the day after to-morrow,--indeed, I thought of going to-morrow."
"Oh, Lady Midlothian!" exclaimed Lady Glencora.
"You must regard this as merely a passing visit, made upon business.
But, as I was saying, when shall I get an opportunity of speaking to
Alice where we need not be interrupted?"
Lady Glencora suggested her room up-stairs, and offered the use of it
then, or on that night when the world should be about to go to bed.
But the idea of this premeditated lecture was terrible to Alice, and
she determined that she would not endure it.
"Lady Midlothian, it would really be of no use."
"Of no use, my dear!"
"No, indeed. I did get your letter, you know."
"And as you have not answered it, I have come all this way to see
you."
"I shall be so sorry if I give offence, but it is a subject which
I cannot bring myself to discuss"--she was going to say with a
stranger, but she was able to check herself before the offensive word
was uttered,--"which I cannot bring myself to discuss with any one."
"But you don't mean to say that you won't see me?"
"I will not talk upon that matter," said Alice. "I will not do it
even with Lady Macleod."
"No," said Lady Midlothian, and her sharp grey eyes now began to
kindle with anger; "and therefore it is so very necessary that other
friends should interfere."
"But I will endure no interference," said Alice, "either from persons
who are friends or who are not friends." And as she spoke she rose
from her chair. "You must forgive me, Lady Midlothian, if I say that
I can have no conversation with you on this matter." Then she walked
out of the room, leaving the Countess and Lady Glencora together. As
she went Miss Palliser lifted her eyes from her book, and knew that
there had been a quarrel, but I doubt if she had heard any of the
words which had been spoken.
"The most self-willed young woman I ever met in my life," said Lady
Midlothian, as soon as Alice was gone.
[Illustration: "The most self-willed young woman I ever met in
my life."]
"I knew very well how it would be," said Lady Glencora.
"But it is quite frightful, my dear. She has been engaged, with the
consent of all her friends, to this young man."
"I know all about it."
"But you must think she is very wrong."
"I don't quite understand her, but I suppose she fears they would not
be happy together."
"Understand her! I should think not; nobody can understand her. A
young woman to become engaged to a gentleman in that way,--before all
the world, as one may say;--to go to his house, as I am told, and
talk to the servants, and give orders about the furniture and then
turn round and simply say that she has changed her mind! She hasn't
given the slightest reason to my knowledge." And Lady Midlothian, as
she insisted on the absolute iniquity of Alice's proceedings, almost
startled Lady Glencora by the eagerness of her countenance. Lady
Midlothian had been one of those who, even now not quite two years
ago, had assisted in obtaining the submission of Lady Glencora
herself. Lady Midlothian seemed on the present occasion to remember
nothing of this, but Lady Glencora remembered it very exactly.
"I shall not give it up," continued Lady Midlothian. "I have the
greatest possible objection to her father, who contrived to connect
himself with our family in a most shameful manner, without the
slightest encouragement. I don't think I have spoken to him since,
but I shall see him now and tell him my opinion."
Alice held her ground, and avoided all further conversation with Lady
Midlothian. A message came to her through Lady Glencora imploring her
to give way, but she was quite firm.
"Good-bye to you," Lady Midlothian said to her as she went. "Even yet
I hope that things may go right, and if so you will find that I can
forget and forgive."
"If perseverance merits success," said Lady Glencora to Alice, "she
ought to succeed." "But she won't succeed," said Alice.
CHAPTER XXVII.
The Priory Ruins.
Lady Midlothian went away on her road to London on the Wednesday
morning, and Alice was to follow her on the next day. It was now
December, and the weather was very clear and frosty, but at night
there was bright moonlight. On this special night the moon would be
full, and Lady Glencora had declared that she and Alice would go out
amidst the ruins. It was no secret engagement, having been canvassed
in public, and having been met with considerable discouragement
by some of the party. Mr. Palliser had remarked that the night air
would be very cold, and Mr. Bott had suggested all manner of evil
consequences. Had Mr. Palliser alone objected, Lady Glencora might
have given way, but Mr. Bott's word riveted her purpose.
"We are not going to be frightened," Lady Glencora said.
"People do not generally walk out at night in December," Mr. Palliser
observed.
"That's just the reason why we want to do it," said Lady Glencora.
"But we shall wrap ourselves up, and nobody need be afraid. Jeffrey,
we shall expect you to stand sentinel at the old gate, and guard us
from the ghosts."
Jeffrey Palliser, bargaining that he might be allowed a cigar,
promised that he would do as he was bidden.
The party at Matching Priory had by this time become very small.
There were indeed no guests left, not counting those of the Palliser
family, excepting Miss Vavasor, Mr. Bott, and an old lady who had
been a great friend of Mr. Palliser's mother. It was past ten in the
evening when Lady Glencora declared that the time had arrived for
them to carry out their purpose. She invited the two Miss Pallisers
to join her, but they declined, urging their fear of the night air,
and showing by their manner that they thought the proposition a very
imprudent one. Mr. Bott offered to accompany them, but Lady Glencora
declined his attendance very stoutly.
"No, indeed, Mr. Bott; you were one of those who preached a sermon
against my dissipation in the morning, and I'm not going to allow you
to join it, now the time for its enjoyment has come."
"My dear Lady Glencora, if I were you, indeed I wouldn't," said the
old lady, looking round towards Mr. Palliser.
"My dear Mrs. Marsham, if you were me, indeed you would," and Lady
Glencora also looked at her husband.
"I think it a foolish thing to do," said Mr. Palliser, sternly.
"If you forbid it, of course we won't go," said Lady Glencora.
"Forbid it:--no; I shall not forbid it."
"Allons donc," said Lady Glencora.
She and Alice were already muffled in cloaks and thick shawls, and
Alice now followed her out of the room. There was a door which opened
from the billiard-room out on to the grand terrace, which ran in
front of the house, and here they found Jeffrey Palliser already
armed with his cigar. Alice, to tell the truth, would much have
preferred to abandon the expedition, but she had felt that it would
be cowardly in her to desert Lady Glencora. There had not arisen any
very close intimacy between her and Mr. Palliser, but she entertained
a certain feeling that Mr. Palliser trusted her, and liked her to
be with his wife. She would have wished to justify this supposed
confidence, and was almost sure that Mr. Palliser expected her to
do so in this instance. She did say a word or two to her cousin
up-stairs, urging that perhaps her husband would not like it.
"Let him say so plainly," said Lady Glencora, "and I'll give it
up instantly. But I'm not going to be lectured out of my purposes
secondhand by Mr. Bott or old Mother Marsham. I understand all these
people, my dear. And if you throw me over, Alice, I'll never forgive
you," Lady Glencora added.
After this Alice resolved that she would not throw her friend over.
She was afraid to do so. But she was also becoming a little afraid of
her friend,--afraid that she would be driven some day either to throw
her over, or to say words to her that would be very unpalatable.
"Now, Jeffrey," said Lady Glencora as they walked abreast along the
broad terrace towards the ruins, "when we get under the old gateway
you must let me and Alice go round the dormitory and the chapel
alone. Then we'll come back by the cloisters, and we'll take another
turn outside with you. The outside is the finest by this light,--only
I want to show Alice something by ourselves."
"You're not afraid, I know, and if Miss Vavasor is not--"
"Miss Vavasor,--who, I think, would have allowed you to call her by
her other name on such an occasion as this,--is never afraid."
"Glencora, how dare you say so?" said Alice. "I really think we had
better go back."
She felt herself to be very angry with her cousin. She almost
began to fear that she had mistaken her, and had thought better of
her than she had deserved. What she had now said struck Alice as
being vulgar,--as being premeditated vulgarity, and her annoyance
was excessive. Of course Mr. Palliser would think that she was a
consenting party to the proposition made to him.
"Go back!" said Glencora. "No, indeed. We'll go on, and leave him
here. Then he can call nobody anything. Don't be angry with me," she
said, as soon as they were out of hearing. "The truth is this;--if
you choose to have him for your husband, you may."
"But if I do not choose."
"Then there can be no harm done, and I will tell him so. But,
Alice,--think of this. Whom will you meet that would suit you better?
And you need not decide now. You need not say a word, but leave me to
tell him, that if it is to be thought of at all, it cannot be thought
of till he meets you in London. Trust me, you will be safe with me."
"You shall tell him nothing of the kind," said Alice. "I believe you
to be joking throughout, and I think the joke is a bad one."
"No; there you wrong me. Indeed I am not joking. I know that in what
I am saying I am telling you the simple truth. He has said enough
to me to justify me in saying so. Alice, think of it all. It would
reconcile me to much, and it would be something to be the mother of
the future Duke of Omnium."
"To me it would be nothing," said Alice; "less than nothing. I mean
to say that the temptation is one so easily resisted that it acts in
the other way. Don't say anything more about it, Glencora."
"If you don't wish it, I will not."
"No;--I do not wish it. I don't think I ever saw moonlight so bright
as this. Look at the lines of that window against the light. They are
clearer than you ever see them in the day."
They were now standing just within the gateway of the old cruciform
chapel, having entered the transept from a ruined passage which was
supposed to have connected the church with the dormitory. The church
was altogether roofless, but the entire walls were standing. The
small clerestory windows of the nave were perfect, and the large
windows of the two transepts and of the west end were nearly so. Of
the opposite window, which had formed the back of the choir, very
little remained. The top of it, with all its tracery, was gone, and
three broken upright mullions of uneven heights alone remained. This
was all that remained of the old window, but a transom or cross-bar
of stone had been added to protect the carved stone-work of the
sides, and save the form of the aperture from further ruin. That this
transom was modern was to be seen from the magnificent height and
light grace of the workmanship in the other windows, in which the
long slender mullions rose from the lower stage or foundation of the
whole up into the middle tracery of the arch without protection or
support, and then lost themselves among the curves, not running up
into the roof or soffit, and there holding on as though unable to
stand alone. Such weakness as that had not as yet shown itself in
English church architecture when Matching Priory was built.
[Illustration: The Priory Ruins.]
"Is it not beautiful!" said Glencora. "I do love it so! And there is
a peculiar feeling of cold about the chill of the moon, different
from any other cold. It makes you wrap yourself up tight, but it does
not make your teeth chatter; and it seems to go into your senses
rather than into your bones. But I suppose that's nonsense," she
added, after a pause.
"Not more so than what people are supposed to talk by moonlight."
"That's unkind. I'd like what I say on such an occasion to be more
poetical or else more nonsensical than what other people say under
the same circumstances. And now I'll tell you why I always think of
you when I come here by moonlight."
"But I suppose you don't often come."
"Yes, I do; that is to say, I did come very often when we had the
full moon in August. The weather wasn't like this, and I used to run
out through the open windows and nobody knew where I was gone. I made
him come once, but he didn't seem to care about it. I told him that
part of the refectory wall was falling; so he looked at that, and
had a mason sent the next day. If anything is out of order he has
it put to rights at once. There would have been no ruins if all the
Pallisers had been like him."
"So much the better for the world."
"No;--I say no. Things may live too long. But now I'm going to tell
you. Do you remember that night I brought you home from the play to
Queen Anne Street?"
"Indeed I do,--very well."
Alice had occasion to remember it, for it had been in the carriage on
that evening that she had positively refused to give any aid to her
cousin in that matter relating to Burgo Fitzgerald.
"And do you remember how the moon shone then?"
"Yes, I think I do."
"I know I do. As we came round the corner out of Cavendish Square he
was standing there,--and a friend of yours was standing with him."
"What friend of mine?"
"Never mind that; it does not matter now."
"Do you mean my cousin George?"
"Yes, I do mean your cousin; and oh, Alice! dear Alice! I don't know
why I should love you, for if you had not been hardhearted that
night,--stony cruel in your hard propriety, I should have gone with
him then, and all this icy coldness would have been prevented."
She was standing quite close to Alice, and as she spake she shook
with shivering and wrapped her furs closer and still closer about
her.
"You are very cold," said Alice. "We had better go in."
"No, I am not cold,--not in that way. I won't go in yet. Jeffrey will
come to us directly. Yes;--we should have escaped that night if you
would have allowed him to come into your house. Ah, well! we didn't,
and there's an end of it."
"But Glencora,--you cannot regret it."
"Not regret it! Alice, where can your heart be? Or have you a heart?
Not regret it! I would give everything I have in the world to have
been true to him. They told me that he would spend my money. Though
he should have spent every farthing of it, I regret it; though he
should have made me a beggar, I regret it. They told me that he would
ill-use me, and desert me,--perhaps beat me. I do not believe it; but
even though that should have been so, I regret it. It is better to
have a false husband than to be a false wife."
"Glencora, do not speak like that. Do not try to make me think that
anything could tempt you to be false to your vows."
"Tempt me to be false! Why, child, it has been all false throughout.
I never loved him. How can you talk in that way, when you know that
I never loved him? They browbeat me and frightened me till I did as
I was told;--and now;--what am I now?"
"You are his honest wife. Glencora, listen to me." And Alice took
hold of her arm.
"No," she said, "no; I am not honest. By law I am his wife; but the
laws are liars! I am not his wife. I will not say the thing that I
am. When I went to him at the altar, I knew that I did not love the
man that was to be my husband. But him,--Burgo,--I love him with all
my heart and soul. I could stoop at his feet and clean his shoes for
him, and think it no disgrace!"
"Oh, Cora, my friend, do not say such words as those! Remember what
you owe your husband and yourself, and come away."
"I do know what I owe him, and I will pay it him. Alice, if I had a
child I think I would be true to him. Think! I know I would;--though
I had no hour of happiness left to me in my life. But what now is the
only honest thing that I can do? Why, leave him;--so leave him that
he may have another wife and be the father of a child. What injury
shall I do him by leaving him? He does not love me; you know yourself
that he does not love me."
"I know that he does."
"Alice, that is untrue. He does not; and you have seen clearly that
it is so. It may be that he can love no woman. But another woman
would give him a son, and he would be happy. I tell you that every
day and every night,--every hour of every day and of every night,--I
am thinking of the man I love. I have nothing else to think of. I
have no occupation,--no friends,--no one to whom I care to say a
word. But I am always talking to Burgo in my thoughts; and he listens
to me. I dream that his arm is round me--"
"Oh, Glencora!"
"Well!--Do you begrudge me that I should tell you the truth? You have
said that you would be my friend, and you must bear the burden of my
friendship. And now,--this is what I want to tell you.--Immediately
after Christmas, we are to go to Monkshade, and he will be there.
Lady Monk is his aunt."
"You must not go. No power should take you there."
"That is easily said, child; but all the same I must go. I told Mr.
Palliser that he would be there, and he said it did not signify.
He actually said that it did not signify. I wonder whether he
understands what it is for people to love each other;--whether he has
ever thought about it."
"You must tell him plainly that you will not go."
"I did. I told him plainly as words could tell him. 'Glencora,' he
said,--and you know the way he looks when he means to be lord and
master, and put on the very husband indeed,--'This is an annoyance
which you must bear and overcome. It suits me that we should go to
Monkshade, and it does not suit me that there should be any one whom
you are afraid to meet.' Could I tell him that he would lose his wife
if I did go? Could I threaten him that I would throw myself into
Burgo's arms if that opportunity were given to me? You are very wise,
and very prudent. What would you have had me say?"
"I would have you now tell him everything, rather than go to that
house."
"Alice, look here. I know what I am, and what I am like to become. I
loathe myself, and I loathe the thing that I am thinking of. I could
have clung to the outside of a man's body, to his very trappings,
and loved him ten times better than myself!--ay, even though he
had ill-treated me,--if I had been allowed to choose a husband for
myself. Burgo would have spent my money,--all that it would have been
possible for me to give him. But there would have been something
left, and I think that by that time I could have won even him to care
for me. But with that man--! Alice you are very wise. What am I to
do?"
Alice had no doubt as to what her cousin should do. She should be
true to her marriage-vow, whether that vow when made were true or
false. She should be true to it as far as truth would now carry her.
And in order that she might be true, she should tell her husband as
much as might be necessary to induce him to spare her the threatened
visit to Monkshade. All that she said to Lady Glencora, as they
walked slowly across the chapel. But Lady Glencora was more occupied
with her own thoughts than with her friend's advice. "Here's
Jeffrey!" she said. "What an unconscionable time we have kept him!"
"Don't mention it," he said. "And I shouldn't have come to you now,
only that I thought I should find you both freezing into marble."
"We are not such cold-blooded creatures as that,--are we, Alice?"
said Lady Glencora. "And now we'll go round the outside; only we must
not stay long, or we shall frighten those two delicious old duennas,
Mrs. Marsham and Mr. Bott."
These last words were said as it were in a whisper to Alice; but they
were so whispered that there was no real attempt to keep them from
the ears of Mr. Jeffrey Palliser. Glencora, Alice thought, should not
have allowed the word duenna to have passed her lips in speaking to
any one; but, above all, she should not have done so in the hearing
of Mr. Palliser's cousin.
They walked all round the ruin, on a raised gravel-path which had
been made there; and Alice, who could hardly bring herself to
speak,--so full was her mind of that which had just been said to
her,--was surprised to find that Glencora could go on, in her usual
light humour, chatting as though there were no weight within her to
depress her spirits.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Alice Leaves the Priory.
As they came in at the billiard-room door, Mr. Palliser was there to
meet them. "You must be very cold," he said to Glencora, who entered
first. "No, indeed," said Glencora;--but her teeth were chattering,
and her whole appearance gave the lie to her words. "Jeffrey," said
Mr. Palliser, turning to his cousin, "I am angry with you. You, at
least, should have known better than to have allowed her to remain so
long." Then Mr. Palliser turned away, and walked his wife off, taking
no notice whatsoever of Miss Vavasor.
Alice felt the slight, and understood it all. He had told her plainly
enough, though not in words, that he had trusted his wife with her,
and that she had betrayed the trust. She might have brought Glencora
in within five or six minutes, instead of allowing her to remain out
there in the freezing night air for nearly three-quarters of an hour.
That was the accusation which Mr. Palliser made against her, and he
made it with the utmost severity. He asked no question of her whether
she were cold. He spoke no word to her, nor did he even look at her.
She might get herself away to her bedroom as she pleased. Alice
understood all this completely, and though she knew that she had not
deserved such severity, she was not inclined to resent it. There was
so much in Mr. Palliser's position that was to be pitied, that Alice
could not find it in her heart to be angry with him.
"He is provoked with us, now," said Jeffrey Palliser, standing with
her for a moment in the billiard-room, as he handed her a candle.
"He is afraid that she will have caught cold."
"Yes; and he thinks it wrong that she should remain out at night so
long. You can easily understand, Miss Vavasor, that he has not much
sympathy for romance."
"I dare say he is right," said Alice, not exactly knowing what to
say, and not being able to forget what had been said about herself
and Jeffrey Palliser when they first left the house. "Romance usually
means nonsense, I believe."
"That is not Glencora's doctrine."
"No; but she is younger than I am. My feet are very cold, Mr.
Palliser, and I think I will go up to my room."
"Good night," said Jeffrey, offering her his hand. "I think it so
hard that you should have incurred his displeasure."
"It will not hurt me," said Alice, smiling.
"No;--but he does not forget."
"Even that will not hurt me. Good night, Mr. Palliser."
"As it is the last night, may I say good night, Alice? I shall be
away to-morrow before you are up."
He still held her hand; but it had not been in his for half a minute,
and she had thought nothing of that, nor did she draw it away even
now suddenly. "No," said she, "Glencora was very wrong there,--doing
an injury without meaning it to both of us. There can be no possible
reason why you should call me otherwise than is customary."
"Can there never be a reason?"
"No, Mr. Palliser. Good night;--and if I am not to see you to-morrow
morning, good-bye."
"You will certainly not see me to-morrow morning."
"Good-bye. Had it not been for this folly of Glencora's, our
acquaintance would have been very pleasant."
"To me it has been very pleasant. Good night."
Then she left him, and went up alone to her own room. Whether or no
other guests were still left in the drawing-room she did not know;
but she had seen that Mr. Palliser took his wife up-stairs, and
therefore she considered herself right in presuming that the party
was broken up for the night. Mr. Palliser,--Plantagenet Palliser,
according to all rules of courtesy should have said a word to her as
he went; but, as I have said before, Alice was disposed to overlook
his want of civility on this occasion. So she went up alone to her
room, and was very glad to find herself able to get close to a good
fire. She was, in truth, very cold--cold to her bones, in spite of
what Lady Glencora had said on behalf of the moonlight. They two had
been standing all but still during the greater part of the time that
they had been talking, and Alice, as she sat herself down, found that
her feet were numbed with the damp that had penetrated through her
boots. Certainly Mr. Palliser had reason to be angry that his wife
should have remained out in the night air so long,--though perhaps
not with Alice.
And then she began to think of what had been told her; and to try
to think of what, under such circumstances, it behoved her to do.
She could not doubt that Lady Glencora had intended to declare that,
if opportunity offered itself, she would leave her husband, and put
herself under the protection of Mr. Fitzgerald; and Alice, moreover,
had become painfully conscious that the poor deluded unreasoning
creature had taught herself to think that she might excuse herself
for this sin to her own conscience by the fact that she was
childless, and that she might thus give to the man who had married
her an opportunity of seeking another wife who might give him an
heir. Alice well knew how insufficient such an excuse would be even
to the wretched woman who had framed it for herself. But still
it would operate,--manifestly had already operated, on her mind,
teaching her to hope that good might come out of evil. Alice, who was
perfectly clearsighted as regarded her cousin, however much impaired
her vision might have been with reference to herself, saw nothing but
absolute ruin, ruin of the worst and most intolerable description,
in the plan which Lady Glencora seemed to have formed. To her it was
black in the depths of hell; and she knew that to Glencora also it
was black. "I loathe myself," Glencora had said, "and the thing that
I am thinking of."
What was Alice to do under these circumstances? Mr. Palliser, she was
aware, had quarrelled with her; for in his silent way he had first
shown that he had trusted her as his wife's friend; and then, on this
evening, he had shown that he had ceased to trust her. But she cared
little for this. If she told him that she wished to speak to him, he
would listen, let his opinion of her be what it might; and having
listened he would surely act in some way that would serve to save
his wife. What Mr. Palliser might think of herself, Alice cared but
little.
But then there came to her an idea that was in every respect
feminine,--that in such a matter she had no right to betray her
friend. When one woman tells the story of her love to another woman,
the confidant always feels that she will be a traitor if she reveals
the secret. Had Lady Glencora made Alice believe that she meditated
murder, or robbery, Alice would have had no difficulty in telling the
tale, and thus preventing the crime. But now she hesitated, feeling
that she would disgrace herself by betraying her friend. And, after
all, was it not more than probable that Glencora had no intention of
carrying out a threat the very thought of which must be terrible to
herself?
As she was thinking of all this, sitting in her dressing-gown close
over the fire, there came a loud knock at the door, which, as she
had turned the key, she was forced to answer in person. She opened
the door, and there was Iphigenia Palliser, Jeffrey's cousin, and Mr.
Palliser's cousin. "Miss Vavasor," she said, "I know that I am taking
a great liberty, but may I come into your room for a few minutes? I
so much wish to speak to you!" Alice of course bade her enter, and
placed a chair for her by the fire.
Alice Vavasor had made very little intimacy with either of the two
Miss Pallisers. It had seemed to herself as though there had been two
parties in the house, and that she had belonged to the one which was
headed by the wife, whereas the Miss Pallisers had been naturally
attached to that of the husband. These ladies, as she had already
seen, almost idolized their cousin; and though Plantagenet Palliser
had till lately treated Alice with the greatest personal courtesy,
there had been no intimacy of friendship between them, and
consequently none between her and his special adherents. Nor was
either of these ladies prone to sudden friendship with such a one
as Alice Vavasor. A sudden friendship, with a snuffy president of a
foreign learned society, with some personally unknown lady employed
on female emigration, was very much in their way. But Alice had not
shown herself to be useful or learned, and her special intimacy with
Lady Glencora had marked her out as in some sort separated from them
and their ways.
"I know that I am intruding," said Miss Palliser, as though she were
almost afraid of Alice.
"Oh dear, no," said Alice. "If I can do anything for you I shall be
very happy."
"You are going to-morrow, and if I did not speak to you now I should
have no other opportunity. Glencora seems to be very much attached to
you, and we all thought it so good a thing that she should have such
a friend."
"I hope you have not all changed your minds," said Alice, with a
faint smile, thinking as she spoke that the "all" must have been
specially intended to include the master of the house.
"Oh, no;--by no means. I did not mean that. My cousin, Mr. Palliser,
I mean, liked you so much when you came."
"And he does not like me quite so much now, because I went out in the
moonlight with his wife. Isn't that it?"
"Well;--no, Miss Vavasor. I had not intended to mention that at all.
I had not indeed. I have seen him certainly since you came in,--just
for a minute, and he is vexed. But it is not about that that I would
speak to you."
"I saw plainly enough that he was angry with me."
"He thought you would have brought her in earlier."
"And why should he think that I can manage his wife? She was
the mistress out there as she is in here. Mr. Palliser has been
unreasonable. Not that it signifies."
"I don't think he has been unreasonable; I don't, indeed, Miss
Vavasor. He has certainly been vexed. Sometimes he has much to vex
him. You see, Glencora is very young."
Mr. Bott also had declared that Lady Glencora was very young. It was
probable, therefore, that that special phrase had been used in some
discussion among Mr. Palliser's party as to Glencora's foibles. So
thought Alice as the remembrance of the word came upon her.
"She is not younger than when Mr. Palliser married her," Alice said.
"You mean that if a man marries a young wife he must put up with the
trouble. That is a matter of course. But their ages, in truth, are
very suitable. My cousin himself is not yet thirty. When I say that
Glencora is young--"
"You mean that she is younger in spirit, and perhaps in conduct, than
he had expected to find her."
"But you are not to suppose that he complains, Miss Vavasor. He is
much too proud for that."
"I should hope so," said Alice, thinking of Mr. Bott.
"I hardly know how to explain to you what I wish to say, or how far
I may be justified in supposing that you will believe me to be acting
solely on Glencora's behalf. I think you have some influence with
her;--and I know no one else that has any."
"My friendship with her is not of very long date, Miss Palliser."
"I know it, but still there is the fact. Am I not right in
supposing--"
"In supposing what?"
"In supposing that you had heard the name of Mr. Fitzgerald as
connected with Glencora's before her marriage with my cousin?"
Alice paused a moment before she answered.
"Yes, I had," she then said.
"And I think you were agreed, with her other relations, that such a
marriage would have been very dreadful."
"I never spoke of the matter in the presence of any relatives of
Glencora's. You must understand, Miss Palliser, that though I am her
far-away cousin, I do not even know her nearest connections. I never
saw Lady Midlothian till she came here the other day."
"But you advised her to abandon Mr. Fitzgerald."
"Never!"
"I know she was much with you, just at that time."
"I used to see her, certainly."
Then there was a pause, and Miss Palliser, in truth, scarcely knew
how to go on. There had been a hardness about Alice which her visitor
had not expected,--an unwillingness to speak or even to listen, which
made Miss Palliser almost wish that she were out of the room. She
had, however, mentioned Burgo Fitzgerald's name, and out of the room
now she could not go without explaining why she had done so. But at
this point Alice came suddenly to her assistance.
"Just then she was often with me," said Alice, continuing her reply;
"and there was much talk between us about Mr. Fitzgerald. What was
my advice then can be of little matter; but in this we shall be both
agreed, Miss Palliser, that Glencora now should certainly not be
called upon to be in his company."
"She has told you, then?"
"Yes;--she has told me."
"That he is to be at Lady Monk's?"
"She has told me that Mr. Palliser expects her to meet him at the
place to which they are going when they leave the Duke's, and that
she thinks it hard that she should be subjected to such a trial."
"It should be no trial, Miss Vavasor."
"How can it be otherwise? Come, Miss Palliser; if you are her friend,
be fair to her."
"I am her friend;--but I am, above everything, my cousin's friend. He
has told me that she has complained of having to meet this man. He
declares that it should be nothing to her, and that the fear is an
idle folly. It should be nothing to her, but still the fear may not
be idle. Is there any reason,--any real reason,--why she should not
go? Miss Vavasor, I conjure you to tell me,--even though in doing so
you must cast so deep reproach upon her name! Anything will be better
than utter disgrace and sin!"
"I conceive that I cast no reproach upon her in saying that there is
great reason why she should not go to Monkshade."
"You think there is absolute grounds for interference? I must tell
him, you know, openly what he would have to fear."
"I think,--nay, Miss Palliser, I know,--that there is ample reason
why you should save her from being taken to Monkshade, if you have
the power to do so."
"I can only do it, or attempt to do it, by telling him just what you
tell me."
"Then tell him. You must have thought of that, I suppose, before you
came to me."
"Yes;--yes, Miss Vavasor. I had thought of it. No doubt I had thought
of it. But I had believed all through that you would assure me that
there was no danger. I believed that you would have said that she was
innocent."
"And she is innocent," said Alice, rising from her chair, as though
she might thus give emphasis to words which she hardly dared to speak
above a whisper. "She is innocent. Who accuses her of guilt? You ask
me a question on his behalf--"
"On hers--and on his, Miss Vavasor."
"A question which I feel myself bound to answer truly,--to answer
with reference to the welfare of them both; but I will not have it
said that I accuse her. She had been attached to Mr. Fitzgerald when
your cousin married her. He knew that this had been the case. She
told him the whole truth. In a worldly point of view her marriage
with Mr. Fitzgerald would probably have been very imprudent."
"It would have been utterly ruinous."
"Perhaps so; I say nothing about that. But as it turned out, she gave
up her own wishes and married your cousin."
"I don't know about her own wishes, Miss Vavasor."
"It is what she did. She would have married Mr. Fitzgerald, had she
not been hindered by the advice of those around her. It cannot be
supposed that she has forgotten him in so short a time. There can be
no guilt in her remembrance."
"There is guilt in loving any other than her husband."
"Then, Miss Palliser, it was her marriage that was guilty, and not
her love. But all that is done and past. It should be your cousin's
object to teach her to forget Mr. Fitzgerald, and he will not do that
by taking her to a house where that gentleman is staying."
"She has said so much to you herself?"
"I do not know that I need declare to you what she has said herself.
You have asked me a question, and I have answered it, and I am
thankful to you for having asked it. What object can either of us
have but to assist her in her position?"
"And to save him from dishonour. I had so hoped that this was simply
a childish dread on her part."
"It is not so. It is no childish dread. If you have the power to
prevent her going to Lady Monk's, I implore you to use it. Indeed, I
will ask you to promise me that you will do so."
"After what you have said, I have no alternative."
"Exactly. There is no alternative. Either for his sake or for hers,
there is none."
Thereupon Miss Palliser got up, and wishing her companion good
night, took her departure. Throughout the interview there had been
no cordiality of feeling between them. There was no pretence of
friendship, even as they were parting. They acknowledged that their
objects were different. That of Alice was to save Lady Glencora
from ruin. That of Miss Palliser was to save her cousin from
disgrace,--with perhaps some further honest desire to prevent sorrow
and sin. One loved Lady Glencora, and the other clearly did not love
her. But, nevertheless, Alice felt that Miss Palliser, in coming to
her, had acted well, and that to herself this coming had afforded
immense relief. Some step would now be taken to prevent that meeting
which she had so deprecated, and it would be taken without any great
violation of confidence on her part. She had said nothing as to which
Lady Glencora could feel herself aggrieved.
On the next morning she was down in the breakfast-room soon after
nine, and had not been in the room many minutes before Mr. Palliser
entered. "The carriage is ordered for you at a quarter before ten,"
he said, "and I have come down to give you your breakfast." There was
a smile on his face as he spoke, and Alice could see that he intended
to make himself pleasant.
"Will you allow me to give you yours instead?" said she. But as it
happened, no giving on either side was needed, as Alice's breakfast
was brought to her separately.
"Glencora bids me say that she will be down immediately," said Mr.
Palliser.
Alice then made some inquiry with reference to the effects of last
night's imprudence, which received only a half-pronounced reply.
Mr. Palliser was willing to be gracious, but did not intend to be
understood as having forgiven the offence. The Miss Pallisers then
came in together, and after them Mr. Bott, closely followed by Mrs.
Marsham, and all of them made inquiries after Lady Glencora, as
though it was to be supposed that she might probably be in a perilous
state after what she had undergone on the previous evening. Mr. Bott
was particularly anxious. "The frost was so uncommonly severe," said
he, "that any delicate person like Lady Glencora must have suffered
in remaining out so long."
The insinuation that Alice was not a delicate person and that, as
regarded her, the severity of the frost was of no moment, was very
open, and was duly appreciated. Mr. Bott was aware that his great
patron had in some sort changed his opinion about Miss Vavasor, and
he was of course disposed to change his own. A fortnight since Alice
might have been as delicate as she pleased in Mr. Bott's estimation.
"I hope you do not consider Lady Glencora delicate," said Alice to Mr.
Palliser.
"She is not robust," said the husband.
"By no means," said Mrs. Marsham.
"Indeed, no," said Mr. Bott.
Alice knew that she was being accused of being robust herself; but
she bore it in silence. Ploughboys and milkmaids are robust, and the
accusation was a heavy one. Alice, however, thought that she would
not have minded it, if she could have allowed herself to reply; but
this at the moment of her going away she could not do.
"I think she is as strong as the rest of us," said Iphigenia
Palliser, who felt that after last night she owed something to Miss
Vavasor.
"As some of us," said Mr. Bott, determined to persevere in his
accusation.
At this moment Lady Glencora entered, and encountered the eager
inquiries of her two duennas. These, however, she quickly put aside,
and made her way up to Alice. "The last morning has come, then," she
said.
"Yes, indeed," said Alice. "Mr. Palliser must have thought that I was
never going."
"On the other hand," said he, "I have felt much obliged to you for
staying." But he said it coldly; and Alice began to wish that she had
never seen Matching Priory.
"Obliged!" exclaimed Lady Glencora. "I can't tell you how much
obliged I am. Oh, Alice, I wish you were going to stay with us!"
"We are leaving this in a week's time," said Mr. Palliser.
"Of course we are," said Lady Glencora. "With all my heart I wish we
were not. Dear Alice! I suppose we shall not meet till we are all in
town."
"You will let me know when you come up," said Alice.
"I will send to you instantly; and, Alice, I will write to you from
Gatherum,--or from Monkshade."
Alice could not help looking around and catching Miss Palliser's eye.
Miss Palliser was standing with her foot on the fender, but was so
placed that she could see Alice. She made a slight sign with her
head, as much as to say that Lady Glencora must have no opportunity
of writing from the latter place; but she said nothing.
Then the carriage was announced, and Mr. Palliser took Alice out on
his arm. "Don't come to the door, Glencora," he said. "I especially
wish you not to do so." The two cousins then kissed each other, and
Alice went away to the carriage.
"Good-bye, Miss Vavasor," said Mr. Palliser; but he expressed no wish
that he might see her again as his guest at Matching Priory.
Alice, as she was driven in solitary grandeur to the railway station,
could not but wish that she had never gone there.
CHAPTER XXIX.
Burgo Fitzgerald.
On the night before Christmas Eve two men were sitting together in
George Vavasor's rooms in Cecil Street. It was past twelve o'clock,
and they were both smoking; there were square bottles on the table
containing spirits, with hot water and cold water in jugs, and one
of the two men was using, and had been using, these materials for
enjoyment. Vavasor had not been drinking, nor did it appear as though
he intended to begin. There was a little weak brandy and water in
a glass by his side, but there it had remained untouched for the
last twenty minutes. His companion, however, had twice in that time
replenished his beaker, and was now puffing out the smoke of his pipe
with the fury of a steamer's funnel when she has not yet burned the
black off her last instalment of fresh coals. This man was Burgo
Fitzgerald. He was as handsome as ever;--a man whom neither man nor
woman could help regarding as a thing beautiful to behold;--but
not the less was there in his eyes and cheeks a look of haggard
dissipation,--of riotous living, which had become wearisome, by its
continuance, even to himself,--that told to all who saw him much
of the history of his life. Most men who drink at nights, and are
out till cockcrow doing deeds of darkness, become red in their
faces, have pimpled cheeks and watery eyes, and are bloated and not
comfortable to be seen. It is a kind dispensation of Providence who
thus affords to such sinners a visible sign, to be seen day by day,
of the injury which is being done. The first approach of a carbuncle
on the nose, about the age of thirty, has stopped many a man from
drinking. No one likes to have carbuncles on his nose, or to appear
before his female friends with eyes which look as though they were
swimming in grog. But to Burgo Fitzgerald Providence in her anger had
not afforded this protection. He became at times pale, sallow, worn,
and haggard. He grew thin, and still thinner. At times he had been
ill to death's door. Among his intimate friends there were those who
heard him declare frequently that his liver had become useless to
him; and that, as for gastric juices, he had none left to him. But
still his beauty remained. The perfect form of his almost god-like
face was the same as ever, and the brightness of his bright blue eye
was never quenched.
On the present occasion he had come to Vavasor's room with the object
of asking from him certain assistance, and perhaps also some amount
of advice. But as regarded the latter article he was, I think, in the
state of most men when they seek for counsellors who shall counsel
them to do evil. Advice administered in accordance with his own views
would give him comfortable encouragement, but advice on the other
side he was prepared to disregard altogether. These two men had known
each other long, and a close intimacy had existed between them in the
days past, previous to Lady Glencora's engagement with Mr. Palliser.
When Lady Glencora endeavoured, vainly as we know, to obtain aid from
Alice Vavasor, Burgo had been instigated to believe that Alice's
cousin might assist him. Any such assistance George Vavasor would
have been quite ready to give. Some pecuniary assistance he had
given, he at that time having been in good funds. Perhaps he had for
a moment induced Burgo to think that he could obtain for the pair the
use of the house in Queen Anne Street as a point at which they might
meet, and from whence they might start on their journey of love. All
that was over. Those hopes had been frustrated, and Lady Glencora
M'Cluskie had become Lady Glencora Palliser and not Lady Glencora
Fitzgerald. But now other hopes had sprung up, and Burgo was again
looking to his friend for assistance.
"I believe she would," Burgo said, as he lifted the glass to
his mouth. "It's a thing of that sort that a man can only
believe,--perhaps only hope,--till he has tried. I know that she is
not happy with him, and I have made up my mind that I will at least
ask her."
"But he would have her fortune all the same?"
"I don't know how that would be. I haven't inquired, and I don't mean
to inquire. Of course I don't expect you or any one else to believe
me, but her money has no bearing on the question now. Heaven knows I
want money bad enough, but I wouldn't take away another man's wife
for money."
"You don't mean to say you think it would be wicked. I supposed you
to be above those prejudices."
"It's all very well for you to chaff."
"It's no chaff at all. I tell you fairly I wouldn't run away with any
man's wife. I have an old-fashioned idea that when a man has got a
wife he ought to be allowed to keep her. Public opinion, I know, is
against me."
"I think he ran away with my wife," said Burgo, with emphasis;
"that's the way I look at it. She was engaged to me first; and she
really loved me, while she never cared for him."
"Nevertheless, marriage is marriage, and the law is against you. But
if I did go in for such a troublesome job at all, I certainly should
keep an eye upon the money."
"It can make no difference."
"It did make a difference, I suppose, when you first thought of
marrying her?"
"Of course it did. My people brought us together because she had a
large fortune and I had none. There's no doubt in the world about
that. And I'll tell you what; I believe that old harridan of an aunt
of mine is willing to do the same thing now again. Of course she
doesn't say as much. She wouldn't dare do that, but I do believe she
means it. I wonder where she expects to go to!"
"That's grateful on your part."
"Upon my soul I hate her. I do indeed. It isn't love for me now so
much as downright malice against Palliser, because he baulked her
project before. She is a wicked old woman. Some of us fellows are
wicked enough--you and I for instance--"
"Thank you. I don't know, however, that I am qualified to run in a
curricle with you."
"But we are angels to such an old she-devil as that. You may believe
me or not, as you like.--I dare say you won't believe me."
"I'll say I do, at any rate."
"The truth is, I want to get her, partly because I love her; but
chiefly because I do believe in my heart that she loves me."
"It's for her sake then! You are ready to sacrifice yourself to do
her a good turn."
"As for sacrificing myself, that's done. I'm a man utterly ruined
and would cut my throat to-morrow for the sake of my relations, if I
cared enough about them. I know my own condition pretty well. I have
made a shipwreck of everything, and have now only got to go down
among the breakers."
"Only you would like to take Lady Glencora with you."
"No, by heavens! But sometimes, when I do think about it at
all,--which I do as seldom as I can,--it seems to me that I might
still become a different fellow if it were possible for me to marry
her."
"Had you married her when she was free to marry any one and when her
money was her own, it might have been so."
"I think it would be quite as much so now. I do, indeed. If I could
get her once, say to Italy, or perhaps to Greece, I think I could
treat her well, and live with her quietly. I know that I would try."
"Without the assistance of brandy and cigars."
"Yes."
"And without any money."
"With only a little. I know you'll laugh at me; but I make pictures
to myself of a sort of life which I think would suit us, and be very
different from this hideous way of living, with which I have become
so sick that I loathe it."
"Something like Juan and Haidée, with Planty Pall coming after you,
like old Lambro." By the nickname of Planty Pall George Vavasor
intended to designate Lady Glencora's present husband.
"He'd get a divorce, of course, and then we should be married. I
really don't think he'd dislike it, when it was all done. They tell
me he doesn't care for her."
"You have seen her since her marriage?"
"Yes; twice."
"And have spoken to her?"
"Once only,--so as to be able to do more than ask her if she were
well. Once, for about two minutes, I did speak to her."
"And what did she say?"
"She said it would be better that we should not meet. When she said
that, I knew that she was still fond of me. I could have fallen at
her feet that moment, only the room was full of people. I do think
that she is fond of me."
Vavasor paused a few minutes. "I dare say she is fond of you," he
then said; "but whether she has pluck for such a thing as this, is
more than I can say. Probably she has not. And if she has, probably
you would fail in carrying out your plan."
"I must get a little money first," said Burgo.
"And that's an operation which no doubt you find more difficult every
day, as you grow older."
"It seems to be much the same sort of thing. I went to Magruin this
morning."
"He's the fellow that lives out near Gray's Inn Lane?"
"Just beyond the Foundling Hospital. I went to him, and he was quite
civil about it. He says I owe him over three thousand pounds, but
that doesn't seem to make any difference."
"How much did you ever have from him?"
"I don't recollect that I ever absolutely had any money. He got a
bill of mine from a tailor who went to smash, and he kept on renewing
that till it grew to be ever so many bills. I think he did once let
me have twenty-four pounds,--but certainly never more than that."
"And he says he'll give you money now? I suppose you told him why you
wanted it."
"I didn't name her,--but I told him what would make him understand
that I hoped to get off with a lady who had a lot of tin. I asked him
for two hundred and fifty. He says he'll let me have one hundred and
fifty on a bill at two months for five hundred,--with your name to
it."
"With my name to it! That's kind on his part,--and on yours too."
"Of course I can't take it up at the end of two months."
"I dare say not," said Vavasor.
"But he won't come upon you then,--nor for a year or more afterwards.
I did pay you what you lent me before."
"Yes, you did. I always thought that to be a special compliment on
your part."
"And you'll find I'll pull you through now in some way. If I don't
succeed in this I shall go off the hooks altogether soon; and if I
were dead my people would pay my debts then."
Before the evening was over Vavasor promised the assistance asked
of him. He knew that he was lending his name to a man who was
utterly ruined, and putting it into the hands of another man who was
absolutely without conscience in the use he would make of it. He knew
that he was creating for himself trouble, and in all probability
loss, which he was ill able to bear. But the thing was one which came
within the pale of his laws. Such assistance as that he might ask of
others, and had asked and received before now. It was a reckless deed
on his part, but then all his doings were reckless. It was consonant
with his mode of life.
"I thought you would, old fellow," said Burgo, as he got up to go
away. "Perhaps, you know, I shall pull through in this; and perhaps,
after all, some part of her fortune will come with her. If so you'll
be all right."
"Perhaps I may. But look here, Burgo,--don't you give that fellow up
the bill till you've got the money into your fist."
"You may be quite easy about that. I know their tricks. He and I will
go to the bank together, and we shall squabble there at the door
about four or five odd sovereigns,--and at last I shall have to give
him up two or three. Beastly old robber! I declare I think he's worse
than I am myself." Then Burgo Fitzgerald took a little more brandy
and water and went away.
He was living at this time in the house of one of his relatives in
Cavendish Square, north of Oxford Street. His uncles and his aunts,
and all those who were his natural friends, had clung to him with a
tenacity that was surprising; for he had never been true to any of
them, and did not even pretend to like them. His father, with whom
for many years he had not been on speaking terms, was now dead; but
he had sisters whose husbands would still open their houses to him,
either in London or in the country;--would open their houses to him,
and lend him their horses, and provide him with every luxury which
the rich enjoy,--except ready money. When the uttermost stress of
pecuniary embarrassment would come upon him, they would pay something
to stave off the immediate evil. And so Burgo went on. Nobody now
thought of saying much to reproach him. It was known to be waste of
words, and trouble in vain. They were still fond of him because he
was beautiful and never vain of his beauty;--because in the midst
of his recklessness there was always about him a certain kindliness
which made him pleasant to those around him. He was soft and gracious
with children, and would be very courteous to his lady cousins. They
knew that as a man he was worthless, but nevertheless they loved him.
I think the secret of it was chiefly in this,--that he seemed to
think so little of himself.
But now as he walked home in the middle of the night from Cecil
Street to Cavendish Square he did think much of himself. Indeed such
self-thoughts come naturally to all men, be their outward conduct
ever so reckless. Every man to himself is the centre of the whole
world;--the axle on which it all turns. All knowledge is but his own
perception of the things around him. All love, and care for others,
and solicitude for the world's welfare, are but his own feelings as
to the world's wants and the world's merits.
He had played his part as a centre of all things very badly. Of that
he was very well aware. He had sense enough to know that it should be
a man's lot to earn his bread after some fashion, and he often told
himself that never as yet had he earned so much as a penny roll. He
had learned to comprehend that the world's progress depends on the
way in which men do their duty by each other,--that the progress
of one generation depends on the discharge of such duties by that
which preceded it;--and he knew that he, in his generation, had done
nothing to promote such progress. He thoroughly despised himself,--if
there might be any good in that! But on such occasions as these, when
the wine he had drunk was sufficient only to drive away from him the
numbness of despair, when he was all alone with the cold night air
upon his face, when the stars were bright above him and the world
around him was almost quiet, he would still ask himself whether
there might not yet be, even for him, some hope of a redemption,
--some chance of a better life in store for him. He was still
young,--wanting some years of thirty. Could there be, even for him,
some mode of extrication from his misery?
We know what was the mode which now, at this moment, was suggesting
itself to him. He was proposing to himself, as the best thing that he
could do, to take away another man's wife and make himself happy with
her! What he had said to Vavasor as to disregarding Lady Glencora's
money had been perfectly true. That in the event of her going off
with him, some portion of her enormous wealth would still cling to
her, he did believe. Seeing that she had no children he could not
understand where else it should all go. But he thought of this
as it regarded her, not as it regarded him. When he had before
made his suit to her,--a suit which was then honourable, however
disadvantageous it might have seemed to be to her--he had made in his
mind certain calculations as to the good things which would result
to him if he were successful He would keep hounds, and have three or
four horses every day for his own riding, and he would have no more
interviews with Magruin, waiting in that rogue's dingy back parlour
for many a weary wretched half-hour, till the rogue should be pleased
to show himself. So far he had been mercenary; but he had learned to
love the girl, and to care more for her than for her money, and when
the day of disappointment came upon him,--the day on which she had
told him that all between them was to be over for ever,--he had, for
a few hours, felt the loss of his love more than the loss of his
money.
Then he had had no further hope. No such idea as that which now
filled his mind had then come upon him. The girl had gone from him
and married another man, and there was an end of it. But by degrees
tidings had reached him that she was not happy,--reaching him through
the mouths of people who were glad to exaggerate all that they had
heard. A whole tribe of his female relatives had been anxious to
promote his marriage with Lady Glencora M'Cluskie, declaring that,
after all that was come and gone, Burgo would come forth from his
troubles as a man of great wealth. So great was the wealth of the
heiress that it might withstand even his propensities for spending.
That whole tribe had been bitterly disappointed; and when they heard
that Mr. Palliser's marriage had given him no child, and that Lady
Glencora was unhappy,--they made their remarks in triumph rather
than in sorrow. I will not say that they looked forward approvingly
to such a step as that which Burgo now wished to take,--though as
regarded his aunt, Lady Monk, he himself had accused her; but they
whispered that such things had been done and must be expected, when
marriages were made up as had been that marriage between Mr. Palliser
and his bride.
As he walked on, thinking of his project, he strove hard to cheat
himself into a belief that he would do a good thing in carrying Lady
Glencora away from her husband. Bad as had been his life he had
never before done aught so bad as that. The more fixed his intention
became, the more thoroughly he came to perceive how great and
grievous was the crime which he contemplated. To elope with another
man's wife no longer appeared to him to be a joke at which such men
as he might smile. But he tried to think that in this case there
would be special circumstances which would almost justify him, and
also her. They had loved each other and had sworn to love each other
with constancy. There had been no change in the feelings or even in
the wishes of either of them. But cold people had come between them
with cold calculations, and had separated them. She had been, he told
himself, made to marry a man she did not love. If they two loved
each other truly, would it not still be better that they should come
together? Would not the sin be forgiven on account of the injustice
which had been done to them? Had Mr. Palliser a right to expect more
from a wife who had been made to marry him without loving him? Then
he reverted to those dreams of a life of love, in some sunny country,
of which he had spoken to Vavasor, and he strove to nourish them.
Vavasor had laughed at him, talking of Juan and Haidée. But Vavasor,
he said to himself, was a hard cold man, who had no touch of romance
in his character. He would not be laughed out of his plan by such as
he,--nor would he be frightened by the threat of any Lambro who might
come after him, whether he might come in the guise of indignant uncle
or injured husband.
He had crossed from Regent Street through Hanover Square, and as he
came out by the iron gates into Oxford Street, a poor wretched girl,
lightly clad in thin raiment, into whose bones the sharp freezing air
was penetrating, asked him for money. Would he give her something to
get drink, so that for a moment she might feel the warmth of her life
renewed? Such midnight petitions were common enough in his ears, and
he was passing on without thinking of her. But she was urgent, and
took hold of him. "For love of God," she said, "if it's only a penny
to get a glass of gin! Feel my hand,--how cold it is." And she strove
to put it up against his face.
He looked round at her and saw that she was very young,--sixteen,
perhaps, at the most, and that she had once,--nay very lately,--been
exquisitely pretty. There still lingered about her eyes some remains
of that look of perfect innocency and pure faith which had been hers
not more than twelve months since. And now, at midnight, in the
middle of the streets, she was praying for a pennyworth of gin, as
the only comfort she knew, or could expect!
"You are cold!" said he, trying to speak to her cheerily.
"Cold!" said she, repeating the word, and striving to wrap herself
closer in her rags, as she shivered--"Oh God! if you knew what it
was to be as cold as I am! I have nothing in the world,--not one
penny,--not a hole to lie in!"
"We are alike then," said Burgo, with a slight low laugh. "I also
have nothing. You cannot be poorer than I am."
"You poor!" she said. And then she looked up into his face.
"Gracious; how beautiful you are! Such as you are never poor."
He laughed again,--in a different tone. He always laughed when any
one told him of his beauty. "I am a deal poorer than you, my girl,"
he said. "You have nothing. I have thirty thousand pounds worse than
nothing. But come along, and I will get you something to eat."
"Will you?" said she, eagerly. Then looking up at him again, she
exclaimed--"Oh, you are so handsome!"
He took her to a public-house and gave her bread and meat and beer,
and stood by her while she ate it. She was shy with him then, and
would fain have taken it to a corner by herself, had he allowed her.
He perceived this, and turned his back to her, but still spoke to her
a word or two as she ate. The woman at the bar who served him looked
at him wonderingly, staring into his face; and the pot-boy woke
himself thoroughly that he might look at Burgo; and the waterman from
the cab-stand stared at him; and women who came in for gin looked
almost lovingly up into his eyes. He regarded them all not at all,
showing no feeling of disgrace at his position, and no desire to
carry himself as a ruffler. He quietly paid what was due when the
girl had finished her meal, and then walked with her out of the
shop. "And now," said he, "what must I do with you? If I give you a
shilling can you get a bed?" She told him that she could get a bed
for sixpence. "Then keep the other sixpence for your breakfast," said
he. "But you must promise me that you will buy no gin to-night." She
promised him, and then he gave her his hand as he wished her good
night;--his hand, which it had been the dearest wish of Lady Glencora
to call her own. She took it and pressed it to her lips. "I wish I
might once see you again," she said, "because you are so good and so
beautiful." He laughed again cheerily, and walked on, crossing the
street towards Cavendish Square. She stood looking at him till he was
out of sight, and then as she moved away,--let us hope to the bed
which his bounty had provided, and not to a gin-shop,--she exclaimed
to herself again and again--"Gracious, how beautiful he was!" "He's
a good un," the woman at the public-house had said as soon as he
left it; "but, my! did you ever see a man's face handsome as that
fellow's?"
[Illustration: Burgo Fitzgerald.]
Poor Burgo! All who had seen him since life had begun with him had
loved him and striven to cherish him. And with it all, to what a
state had he come! Poor Burgo! had his eyes been less brightly blue,
and his face less godlike in form, it may be that things would
have gone better with him. A sweeter-tempered man than he never
lived,--nor one who was of a kinder nature. At this moment he had
barely money about him to take him down to his aunt's house at
Monkshade, and as he had promised to be there before Christmas Day,
he was bound to start on the next morning, before help from Mr.
Magruin was possible. Nevertheless, out of his very narrow funds he
had given half a crown to comfort the poor creature who had spoken to
him in the street.
CHAPTER XXX.
Containing a Love Letter.
Vavasor, as he sat alone in his room, after Fitzgerald had left him,
began to think of the days in which he had before wished to assist
his friend in his views with reference to Lady Glencora;--or rather
he began to think of Alice's behaviour then, and of Alice's words.
Alice had steadfastly refused to give any aid. No less likely
assistant for such a purpose could have been selected. But she had
been very earnest in declaring that it was Glencora's duty to stand
by her promise to Burgo. "He is a desperate spendthrift," Kate
Vavasor had said to her. "Then let her teach him to be otherwise,"
Alice had answered. "That might have been a good reason for refusing
his offer when he first made it; but it can be no excuse for untruth,
now that she has told him that she loves him!" "If a woman," she had
said again, "won't venture her fortune for the man she loves, her
love is not worth having." All this George Vavasor remembered now;
and as he remembered it he asked himself whether the woman that had
once loved him would venture her fortune for him still.
Though his sister had pressed him on the subject with all the
vehemence that she could use, he had hardly hitherto made up his
mind that he really desired to marry Alice. There had grown upon
him lately certain Bohemian propensities,--a love of absolute
independence in his thoughts as well as actions,--which were
antagonistic to marriage. He was almost inclined to think that
marriage was an old-fashioned custom, fitted indeed well enough for
the usual dull life of the world at large,--as many men both in
heathen and in Christian ages have taught themselves to think of
religion,--but which was not adapted to his advanced intelligence.
If he loved any woman he loved his cousin Alice. If he thoroughly
respected any woman he respected her. But that idea of tying himself
down to a household was in itself distasteful to him. "It is a thing
terrible to think of," he once said to a congenial friend in these
days of his life, "that a man should give permission to a priest
to tie him to another human being like a Siamese twin, so that all
power of separate and solitary action should be taken from him for
ever! The beasts of the field do not treat each other so badly. They
neither drink themselves drunk, nor eat themselves stupid;--nor do
they bind themselves together in a union which both would have to
hate." In this way George Vavasor, trying to imitate the wisdom of
the brutes, had taught himself some theories of a peculiar nature.
But, nevertheless, as he thought of Alice Vavasor on this occasion,
he began to feel that if a Siamese twin were necessary for him, she
of all others was the woman to whom he would wish to be so bound.
And if he did it at all, he must do it now. Under the joint
instigation of himself and his sister,--as he thought, and perhaps
not altogether without reason,--she had broken her engagement with Mr.
Grey. That she would renew it again if left to herself, he believed
probable. And then, despite that advanced intelligence which had
taught him to regard all forms and ceremonies with the eye of a
philosopher, he had still enough of human frailty about him to feel
keenly alive to the pleasure of taking from John Grey the prize which
John Grey had so nearly taken from him. If Alice could have been
taught to think as he did as to the absurdity of those indissoluble
ties, that would have been better. But nothing would have been more
impossible than the teaching of such a lesson to his cousin Alice.
George Vavasor was a man of courage, and dared do most things;--but
he would not have dared to commence the teaching of such a lesson to
her.
And now, at this moment, what was his outlook into life generally? He
had very high ambition, and a fair hope of gratifying it if he could
only provide that things should go well with him for a year or so. He
was still a poor man, having been once nearly a rich man; but still
so much of the result of his nearly acquired riches remained to him,
that on the strength of them he might probably find his way into
Parliament. He had paid the cost of the last attempt, and might,
in a great degree, carry on this present attempt on credit. If he
succeeded there would be open to him a mode of life, agreeable in
itself, and honourable among men. But how was he to bear the cost
of this for the next year, or the next two years? His grandfather
was still alive, and would probably live over that period. If he
married Alice he would do so with no idea of cheating her out of her
money. She should learn,--nay, she had already learned from his own
lips,--how perilous was his enterprise. But he knew her to be a woman
who would boldly risk all in money, though no consideration would
induce her to stir a hair's breadth towards danger in reputation.
Towards teaching her that doctrine at which I have hinted, he would
not have dared to make an attempt; but he felt that he should have no
repugnance to telling her that he wanted to spend all her money in
the first year or two of their married life!
He was still in his arm-chair, thinking of all this, with that small
untasted modicum of brandy and water beside him, when he heard some
distant Lambeth clock strike three from over the river. Then he rose
from his seat, and taking the candles in his hand, sat himself down
at a writing-desk on the other side of the room. "I needn't send it
when it's written," he said to himself, "and the chances are that I
won't." Then he took his paper, and wrote as follows:--
DEAR ALICE,
The time was when the privilege was mine of beginning my
letters to you with a warmer show of love than the above
word contains,--when I might and did call you dearest; but
I lost that privilege through my own folly, and since that
it has been accorded to another. But you have found,--with
a thorough honesty of purpose than which I know nothing
greater,--that it has behoved you to withdraw that
privilege also. I need hardly say that I should not have
written as I now write, had you not found it expedient to
do as you have done. I now once again ask you to be my
wife. In spite of all that passed in those old days,--of
all the selfish folly of which I was then guilty, I think
you know, and at the time knew, that I ever loved you.
I claim to say for myself that my love to you was true
from first to last, and I claim from you belief for that
statement. Indeed I do not think that you ever doubted my
love.
Nevertheless, when you told me that I might no longer hope
to make you my wife, I had no word of remonstrance that
I could utter. You acted as any woman would act whom love
had not made a fool. Then came the episode of Mr. Grey;
and bitter as have been my feelings whilst that engagement
lasted, I never made any attempt to come between you and
the life you had chosen. In saying this I do not forget
the words which I spoke last summer at Basle, when, as
far as I knew, you still intended that he should be your
husband. But what I said then was nothing to that which,
with much violence, I refrained from saying. Whether you
remember those few words I cannot tell; but certainly
you would not have remembered them,--would not even have
noticed them,--had your heart been at Nethercoats.
But all this is nothing. You are now again a free woman;
and once again I ask you to be my wife. We are both older
than we were when we loved before, and will both be prone
to think of marriage in a somewhat different light. Then
personal love for each other was most in our thoughts. God
forbid that it should not be much in our thoughts now!
Perhaps I am deceiving myself in saying that it is not
even now stronger in mine than any other consideration.
But we have both reached that time of life, when it is
probable that in any proposition of marriage we should
think more of our adaptability to each other than we
did before. For myself I know that there is much in my
character and disposition to make me unfit to marry a
woman of the common stamp. You know my mode of life,
and what are my hopes and my chances of success. I run
great risk of failing. It may be that I shall encounter
ruin where I look for reputation and a career of honour.
The chances are perhaps more in favour of ruin than of
success. But, whatever may be the chances, I shall go on
as long as any means of carrying on the fight are at my
disposal. If you were my wife to-morrow I should expect to
use your money, if it were needed, in struggling to obtain
a seat in Parliament and a hearing there. I will hardly
stoop to tell you that I do not ask you to be my wife for
the sake of this aid;--but if you were to become my wife
I should expect all your cooperation;--with your money,
possibly, but certainly with your warmest spirit.
And now, once again, Alice,--dearest Alice, will you
be my wife? I have been punished, and I have kissed the
rod,--as I never kissed any other rod. You cannot accuse
my love. Since the time in which I might sit with my arm
round your waist, I have sat with it round no other waist.
Since your lips were mine, no other lips have been dear
to me. Since you were my counsellor, I have had no other
counsellor,--unless it be poor Kate, whose wish that we
may at length be married is second in earnestness only
to my own. Nor do I think you will doubt my repentance.
Such repentance indeed claims no merit, as it has been
the natural result of the loss which I have suffered.
Providence has hitherto been very good to me in not having
made that loss irremediable by your marriage with Mr. Grey.
I wish you now to consider the matter well, and to tell me
whether you can pardon me and still love me. Do I flatter
myself when I feel that I doubt your pardon almost more
than I doubt your love?
Think of this thing in all its bearings before you answer
me. I am so anxious that you should think of it that I
will not expect your reply till this day week. It can
hardly be your desire to go through life unmarried. I
should say that it must be essential to your ambition that
you should join your lot to that of some man the nature
of whose aspirations would be like to your own. It is
because this was not so as regarded him whose suit you had
accepted, that you found yourself at last obliged to part
from him. May I not say that with us there would be no
such difference? It is because I believe that in this
respect we are fitted for each other, as man and woman
seldom are fitted, that I once again ask you to be my
wife.
This will reach you at Vavasor, where you will now be with
the old squire and Kate. I have told her nothing of my
purpose in writing this letter. If it should be that your
answer is such as I desire, I should use the opportunity
of our re-engagement to endeavour to be reconciled to my
grandfather. He has misunderstood me and has ill-used me.
But I am ready to forgive that, if he will allow me to
do so. In such case you and Kate would arrange that, and
I would, if possible, go down to Vavasor while you are
there. But I am galloping on a-head foolishly in thinking
of this, and am counting up my wealth while the crockery
in my basket is so very fragile. One word from you will
decide whether or no I shall ever bring it into market.
If that word is to be adverse do not say anything
of a meeting between me and the Squire. Under such
circumstances it would be impossible. But, oh, Alice! do
not let it be adverse. I think you love me. Your woman's
pride towards me has been great and good and womanly; but
it has had its way; and, if you love me, might now be
taught to succumb.
Dear Alice, will you be my wife?
Yours, in any event, most affectionately,
GEORGE VAVASOR.
Vavasor, when he had finished his letter, went back to his seat over
the fire, and there he sat with it close at his hand for nearly an
hour. Once or twice he took it up with fingers almost itching to
throw it into the fire. He took it up and held the corners between
his forefinger and thumb, throwing forward his hand towards the
flame, as though willing that the letter should escape from him and
perish if chance should so decide. But chance did not so decide, and
the letter was put back upon the table at his elbow. Then when the
hour was nearly over he read it again. "I'll bet two to one that she
gives way," he said to himself, as he put the sheet of paper back
into the envelope. "Women are such out-and-out fools." Then he took
his candle, and carrying his letter with him, went into his bedroom.
The next morning was the morning of Christmas Eve. At about nine
o'clock a boy came into his room who was accustomed to call for
orders for the day. "Jem," he said to the boy, "there's half a crown
lying there on the looking-glass." Jem looked and acknowledged the
presence of the half-crown. "Is it a head or a tail, Jem?" asked
the boy's master. Jem scrutinized the coin, and declared that the
uppermost surface showed a tail. "Then take that letter and post it,"
said George Vavasor. Whereupon Jem, asking no question and thinking
but little of the circumstances under which the command was given,
did take the letter and did post it. In due accordance with postal
regulations it reached Vavasor Hall and was delivered to Alice on the
Christmas morning.
A merry Christmas did not fall to the lot of George Vavasor on the
present occasion. An early Christmas-box he did receive in the shape
of a very hurried note from his friend Burgo. "This will be brought
to you by Stickling," the note said; but who Stickling was Vavasor
did not know. "I send the bill. Couldn't you get the money and send
it me, as I don't want to go up to town again before the thing comes
off? You're a trump; and will do the best you can. Don't let that
rogue off for less than a hundred and twenty.--Yours, B. F." Vavasor,
therefore, having nothing better to do, spent his Christmas morning
in calling on Mr. Magruin.
"Oh, Mr. Vavasor," said Magruin; "really this is no morning for
business!"
"Time and tide wait for no man, Mr. Magruin, and my friend wants his
money to-morrow."
"Oh, Mr. Vavasor,--to-morrow!"
"Yes, to-morrow. If time and tide won't wait, neither will love.
Come, Mr. Magruin, out with your cheque-book, and don't let's have any
nonsense."
"But is the lady sure, Mr. Vavasor?" asked Mr. Magruin, anxiously.
"Ladies never are sure," said Vavasor; "hardly more sure than bills
made over to money-lenders. I'm not going to wait here all day. Are
you going to give him the money?"
"Christmas-day, Mr. Vavasor! There's no getting money in the city
to-day."
But Vavasor before he left did get the money from Mr. Magruin,--£122
10s.--for which an acceptance at two months for £500 was given
in exchange,--and carried it off in triumph. "Do tell him to be
punctual," said Mr. Magruin, when Vavasor took his leave. "I do so
like young men to be punctual. But I really think Mr. Fitzgerald is
the most unpunctual young man I ever did know yet."
"I think he is," said George Vavasor, as he went away.
He ate his Christmas dinner in absolute solitude at an eating-house
near his lodgings. It may be supposed that no man dares to dine at
his club on a Christmas Day. He at any rate did not so dare;--and
after dinner he wandered about through the streets, wondering within
his mind how he would endure the restraints of married life. And the
same dull monotony of his days was continued for a week, during which
he waited, not impatiently, for an answer to his letter. And before
the end of the week the answer came.
CHAPTER XXXI.
Among the Fells.
Alice came down to breakfast on that Christmas morning at Vavasor
Hall without making any sign as to the letter she had received. The
party there consisted of her grandfather, her father, her cousin
Kate, and herself. They all made their Christmas salutations as is
usual, and Alice received and made hers as did the others, without
showing that anything had occurred to disturb her tranquillity. Kate
remarked that she had heard that morning from Aunt Greenow, and
promised to show Alice the letter after breakfast. But Alice said no
word of her own letter.
"Why didn't your aunt come here to eat her Christmas dinner?" said
the Squire.
"Perhaps, sir, because you didn't ask her," said Kate, standing close
to her grandfather,--for the old man was somewhat deaf.
"And why didn't you ask her;--that is, if she stands upon asking to
come to her old home?"
"Nay, sir, but I couldn't do that without your bidding. We Vavasors
are not always fond of meeting each other."
"Hold your tongue, Kate. I know what you mean, and you should be the
last to speak of it. Alice, my dear, come and sit next to me. I am
much obliged to you for coming down all this way to see your old
grandfather at Christmas. I am indeed. I only wish you had brought
better news about your sweetheart."
"She'll think better of it before long, sir," said her father.
"Papa, you shouldn't say that. You would not wish me to marry against
my own judgement."
"I don't know much about ladies' judgements," said the old man. "It
does seem to me that when a lady makes a promise she ought to keep
it."
"According to that," said Kate, "if I were engaged to a man, and
found that he was a murderer, I still ought to marry him."
"But Mr. Grey is not a murderer," said the Squire.
"Pray,--pray, don't talk about it," said Alice. "If you do I really
cannot sit and hear it."
"I have given over saying anything on the subject," said John
Vavasor, speaking as though he had already expended upon it a vast
amount of paternal eloquence. He had, however, never said more than
has been recorded in these pages. Alice during this conversation, sat
with her cousin's letter in her pocket, and as yet had not even begun
to think what should be the nature of her reply.
The Squire of Vavasor Hall was a stout old man, with a red face and
grey eyes, which looked fiercely at you, and with long grey hair, and
a rough grey beard, which gave him something of the appearance of an
old lion. He was passionate, unreasoning, and specially impatient
of all opposition; but he was affectionate, prone to forgive when
asked to do so, unselfish, and hospitable. He was, moreover, guided
strictly by rules, which he believed to be rules of right. His
grandson George had offended him very deeply,--had offended him
and never asked his pardon. He was determined that such pardon
should never be given, unless it were asked for with almost bended
knees; but, nevertheless, this grandson should be his heir. That
was his present intention. The right of primogeniture could not, in
accordance with his theory, be abrogated by the fact that it was, in
George Vavasor's case, protected by no law. The Squire could leave
Vavasor Hall to whom he pleased, but he could not have hoped to rest
quietly in his grave should it be found that he had left it to any
one but the eldest son of his own eldest son. Though violent, and
even stern, he was more prone to love than to anger; and though none
of those around him dared to speak to him of his grandson, yet he
longed in his heart for some opportunity of being reconciled to him.
The whole party went to church on this Christmas morning. The small
parish church of Vavasor, an unpretending wooden structure, with a
single bell which might be heard tinkling for a mile or two over
the fells, stood all alone about half a mile from the Squire's gate.
Vavasor was a parish situated on the intermediate ground between
the mountains of the lake country and the plains. Its land was
unproductive, ill-drained, and poor, and yet it possessed little or
none of the beauty which tourists go to see. It was all amidst the
fells, and very dreary. There were long skirtings of dark pines
around a portion of the Squire's property, and at the back of the
house there was a thick wood of firs running up to the top of what
was there called the Beacon Hill. Through this there was a wild steep
walk which came out upon the moorland, and from thence there was a
track across the mountain to Hawes Water and Naddale, and on over
many miles to the further beauties of Bowness and Windermere. They
who knew the country, and whose legs were of use to them, could find
some of the grandest scenery in England within reach of a walk from
Vavasor Hall; but to others the place was very desolate. For myself,
I can find I know not what of charm in wandering over open, unadorned
moorland. It must be more in the softness of the grass to the feet,
and the freshness of the air to the lungs, than in anything that
meets the eye. You might walk for miles and miles to the north-east,
or east, or south-east of Vavasor without meeting any object to
arrest the view. The great road from Lancaster to Carlisle crossed
the outskirts of the small parish about a mile from the church, and
beyond that the fell seemed to be interminable. Towards the north
it rose, and towards the south it fell, and it rose and fell very
gradually. Here and there some slight appearance of a valley might
be traced which had been formed by the action of the waters; but
such breakings of ground were inconsiderable, and did not suffice to
interrupt the stern sameness of the everlasting moorland.
The daily life at Vavasor was melancholy enough for such a one as the
Squire's son, who regarded London as the only place on the earth's
surface in which a man could live with comfort. The moors offered
no charms to him. Nor did he much appreciate the homely comforts of
the Hall; for the house, though warm, was old-fashioned and small,
and the Squire's cook was nearly as old as the Squire himself. John
Vavasor's visits to Vavasor were always visits of duty rather than of
pleasure. But it was not so with Alice. She could be very happy there
with Kate; for, like herself, Kate was a good walker and loved the
mountains. Their regard for each other had grown and become strong
because they had gone together o'er river and moor, and because they
had together disregarded those impediments of mud and wet which
frighten so many girls away from the beauties of nature.
On this Christmas Day they all went to church, the Squire being
accompanied by Alice in a vehicle which in Ireland is called an
inside jaunting-car, and which is perhaps the most uncomfortable kind
of vehicle yet invented; while John Vavasor walked with his niece.
But the girls had arranged that immediately after church they would
start for a walk up the Beacon Hill, across the fells, towards Hawes
Water. They always dined at the Hall at the vexatious hour of five;
but as their church service, with the sacrament included, would
be completed soon after twelve, and as lunch was a meal which the
Squire did not himself attend, they could have full four hours for
their excursion. This had all been planned before Alice received her
letter; but there was nothing in that to make her change her mind
about the walk.
"Alice, my dear," said the old man to her when they were together in
the jaunting-car, "you ought to get married." The Squire was hard
of hearing, and under any circumstances an inside jaunting-car is a
bad place for conversation, as your teeth are nearly shaken out of
your head by every movement which the horse makes. Alice therefore
said nothing, but smiled faintly, in reply to her grandfather. On
returning from church he insisted that Alice should again accompany
him, telling her specially that he desired to speak to her. "My dear
child," he said, "I have been thinking a great deal about you, and
you ought to get married."
"Well, sir, perhaps I shall some day."
"Not if you quarrel with all your suitors," said the old man. "You
quarrelled with your cousin George, and now you have quarrelled with
Mr. Grey. You'll never get married, my dear, if you go on in that
way."
"Why should I be married more than Kate?"
"Oh, Kate! I don't know that anybody wants to marry Kate. I wish
you'd think of what I say. If you don't get married before long,
perhaps you'll never get married at all. Gentlemen won't stand that
kind of thing for ever."
The two girls took a slice of cake each in her hand, and started on
their walk. "We shan't be able to get to the lake," said Kate.
"No," said Alice; "but we can go as far as the big stone on Swindale
Fell, where we can sit down and see it."
"Do you remember the last time we sat there?" said Kate. "It is
nearly three years ago, and it was then that you told me that all was
to be over between you and George. Do you remember what a fool I was,
and how I screamed in my sorrow? I sometimes wonder at myself and my
own folly. How is it that I can never get up any interest about my
own belongings? And then we got soaking wet through coming home."
"I remember that very well."
"And how dark it was! That was in September, but we had dined early.
If we go as far as Swindale we shall have it very dark coming home
to-day;--but I don't mind that through the Beacon Wood, because I
know my way so well. You won't be afraid of half an hour's dark?"
"Oh, no," said Alice.
"Yes; I do remember that day. Well; it's all for the best, I suppose.
And now I must read you my aunt's letter." Then, while they were
still in the wood, Kate took out the letter from her aunt and read
it, while they still walked slowly up the hill. It seemed that
hitherto neither of her two suitors had brought the widow to terms.
Indeed, she continued to write of Mr. Cheesacre as though that
gentleman were inconsolable for the loss of Kate, and gave her niece
much serious advice as to the expedience of returning to Norfolk,
in order that she might secure so eligible a husband. "You must
understand all the time, Alice," said Kate, pausing as she read the
letter, "that the dear man has never given me the slightest ground
for the faintest hope, and that I know to a certainty that he makes
an offer to her twice a week,--that is, on every market day. You
can't enjoy half the joke if you won't bear that in mind." Alice
promised that she would bear it all in mind, and then Kate went on
with her reading. Poor Bellfield was working very hard at his drill,
Mrs. Greenow went on to say; so hard that sometimes she really thought
the fatigue would be too much for his strength. He would come in
sometimes of an evening and just take a cup of tea;--generally on
Mondays and Thursdays. "These are not market days at Norwich," said
Kate; "and thus unpleasant meetings are avoided." "He comes in," said
Mrs. Greenow, "and takes a little tea; and sometimes I think that
he will faint at my feet." "That he kneels there on every occasion,"
said Kate, "and repeats his offer also twice a week, I have not the
least doubt in the world."
"And will she accept him at last?"
"Really I don't know what to think of it. Sometimes I fancy that
she likes the fun of the thing, but that she is too wide-awake to
put herself in any man's power. I have no doubt she lends him money,
because he wants it sadly and she is very generous. She gives him
money, I feel sure, but takes his receipt on stamped paper for every
shilling. That's her character all over."
The letter then went on to say that the writer had made up her mind
to remain at Norwich certainly through the winter and spring, and
that she was anxiously desirous that her dear Kate should go back to
her. "Come and have one other look at Oileymead," said the letter,
"and then, if you make up your mind that you don't like it or him, I
won't ask you to think of them ever again. I believe him to be a very
honest fellow." "Did you ever know such a woman?" said Kate; "with
all her faults I believe she would go through fire and water to serve
me. I think she'd lend me money without any stamped paper." Then Aunt
Greenow's letter was put up, and the two girls had come out upon the
open fell.
It was a delicious afternoon for a winter's walk. The air was clear
and cold, but not actually frosty. The ground beneath their feet
was dry, and the sky, though not bright, had that appearance of
enduring weather which gives no foreboding of rain. There is a
special winter's light, which is very clear though devoid of all
brilliancy,--through which every object strikes upon the eye with
well-marked lines, and under which almost all forms of nature seem
graceful to the sight if not actually beautiful. But there is a
certain melancholy which ever accompanies it. It is the light of
the afternoon, and gives token of the speedy coming of the early
twilight. It tells of the shortness of the day, and contains even in
its clearness a promise of the gloom of night. It is absolute light,
but it seems to contain the darkness which is to follow it. I do not
know that it is ever to be seen and felt so plainly as on the wide
moorland, where the eye stretches away over miles, and sees at the
world's end the faint low lines of distant clouds settling themselves
upon the horizon. Such was the light of this Christmas afternoon, and
both the girls had felt the effects of it before they reached the big
stone on Swindale Fell, from which they intended to look down upon
the loveliness of Hawes Water. As they went up through the wood there
had been some laughter between them over Aunt Greenow's letter; and
they had discussed almost with mirth the merits of Oileymead and
Mr. Cheesacre; but as they got further on to the fell, and as the
half-melancholy wildness of the place struck them, their words became
less light, and after a while they almost ceased to speak.
Alice had still her letter in her pocket. She had placed it there
when she came down to breakfast, and had carried it with her since.
She had come to no resolution as yet as to her answer to it, nor had
she resolved whether or no she would show it to Kate. Kate had ever
been regarded by her as her steadfast friend. In all these affairs
she had spoken openly to Kate. We know that Kate had in part betrayed
her, but Alice suspected no such treason. She had often quarrelled
with Kate; but she had quarrelled with her not on account of any sin
against the faith of their friendship. She believed in her cousin
perfectly, though she found herself often called upon to disagree
with her almost violently. Why should she not show this letter to
Kate, and discuss it in all its bearings before she replied to it?
This was in her mind as she walked silently along over the fell.
The reader will surmise from this that she was already half inclined
to give way, and to join her lot to that of her cousin George. Alas,
yes! The reader will be right in his surmise. And yet it was not her
love for the man that prompted her to run so terrible a risk. Had
it been so, I think that it would be easier to forgive her. She was
beginning to think that love,--the love of which she had once thought
so much,--did not matter. Of what use was it, and to what had it led?
What had love done for her friend Glencora? What had love done for
her? Had she not loved John Grey, and had she not felt that with
all her love life with him would have been distasteful to her? It
would have been impossible for her to marry a man whom personally she
disliked; but she liked her cousin George,--well enough, as she said
to herself almost indifferently.
Upon the whole it was a grievous task to her in these days,--this
having to do something with her life. Was it not all vain and futile?
As for that girl's dream of the joys of love which she had once
dreamed,--that had gone from her slumbers, never to return. How might
she best make herself useful,--useful in some sort that might gratify
her ambition;--that was now the question which seemed to her to be of
most importance.
Her cousin's letter to her had been very crafty. He had studied the
whole of her character accurately as he wrote it. When he had sat
down to write it he had been indifferent to the result; but he had
written it with that care to attain success which a man uses when he
is anxious not to fail in an attempt. Whether or no he cared to marry
his cousin was a point so little interesting to him that chance might
decide it for him; but when chance had decided that he did wish it,
it was necessary for his honour that he should have that for which he
condescended to ask.
His letter to her had been clever and very crafty. "At any rate he
does me justice," she said to herself, when she read those words
about her money, and the use which he proposed to make of it. "He is
welcome to it all if it will help him in his career, whether he has
it as my friend or as my husband." Then she thought of Kate's promise
of her little mite, and declared to herself that she would not be
less noble than her cousin Kate. And would it not be well that she
should be the means of reconciling George to his grandfather? George
was the representative of the family,--of a family so old that no one
now knew which had first taken the ancient titular name of some old
Saxon landowner,--the parish, or the man. There had been in old days
some worthy Vavaseurs, as Chaucer calls them, whose rank and bearing
had been adopted on the moorland side. Of these things Alice thought
much, and felt that it should be her duty so to act, that future
Vavasors might at any rate not be less in the world than they who
had passed away. In a few years at furthest, George Vavasor must be
Vavasor of Vavasor. Would it not be right that she should help him to
make that position honourable?
They walked on, exchanging now and again a word or two, till the
distant Cumberland mountains began to form themselves in groups of
beauty before their eyes. "There's Helvellyn at last," said Kate.
"I'm always happy when I see that." "And isn't that Kidsty Pike?"
asked Alice. "No; you don't see Kidsty yet. But you will when you
get up to the bank there. That's Scaw Fell on the left;--the round
distant top. I can distinguish it, though I doubt whether you can."
Then they went on again, and were soon at the bank from whence the
sharp top of the mountain which Alice had named was visible. "And now
we are on Swindale, and in five minutes we shall get to the stone."
In less than five minutes they were there; and then, but not till
then, the beauty of the little lake, lying down below them in the
quiet bosom of the hills, disclosed itself. A lake should, I think,
be small, and should be seen from above, to be seen in all its glory.
The distance should be such that the shadows of the mountains on its
surface may just be traced, and that some faint idea of the ripple
on the waters may be present to the eye. And the form of the lakes
should be irregular, curving round from its base among the lower
hills, deeper and still deeper into some close nook up among the
mountains from which its head waters spring. It is thus that a lake
should be seen, and it was thus that Hawes Water was seen by them
from the flat stone on the side of Swindale Fell. The basin of the
lake has formed itself into the shape of the figure of 3, and the top
section of the figure lies embosomed among the very wildest of the
Westmoreland mountains. Altogether it is not above three miles long,
and every point of it was to be seen from the spot on which the girls
sat themselves down. The water beneath was still as death, and as
dark,--and looked almost as cold. But the slow clouds were passing
over it, and the shades of darkness on its surface changed themselves
with gradual changes. And though no movement was visible, there
was ever and again in places a slight sheen upon the lake, which
indicated the ripple made by the breeze.
"I'm so glad I've come here," said Alice, seating herself. "I cannot
bear the idea of coming to Vavasor without seeing one of the lakes at
least."
"We'll get over to Windermere one day," said Kate.
"I don't think we shall. I don't think it possible that I should stay
long. Kate, I've got a letter to show you." And there was that in the
tone of her voice which instantly put Kate upon her mettle.
Kate seated herself also, and put up her hand for the letter. "Is it
from Mr. Grey?" she asked.
"No," said Alice; "it is not from Mr. Grey." And she gave her
companion the paper. Kate before she had touched it had seen that it
was from her brother George; and as she opened it looked anxiously
into Alice's face. "Has he offended you?" Kate asked.
[Illustration: Swindale Fell.]
"Read it," said Alice, "and then we'll talk of it afterwards,--as we
go home." Then she got up from the stone and walked a step or two
towards the brow of the fell, and stood there looking down upon the
lake, while Kate read the letter. "Well!" she said, when she returned
to her place.
"Well," said Kate. "Alice, Alice, it will, indeed, be well if you
listen to him. Oh, Alice, may I hope? Alice, my own Alice, my
darling, my friend! Say that it shall be so." And Kate knelt at her
friend's feet upon the heather, and looked up into her face with eyes
full of tears. What shall we say of a woman who could be as false as
she had been, and yet could be so true?
Alice made no immediate answer, but still continued to gaze down over
her friend upon the lake. "Alice," continued Kate, "I did not think
I should be made so happy this Christmas Day. You could not have the
heart to bring me here and show me this letter in this way, and bid
me read it so calmly, and then tell me that it is all for nothing.
No; you could not do that? Alice, I am so happy. I will so love this
place. I hated it before." And then she put her face down upon the
boulder-stone and kissed it. Still Alice said nothing, but she began
to feel that she had gone further than she had intended. It was
almost impossible for her now to say that her answer to George must
be a refusal.
Then Kate again went on speaking. "But is it not a beautiful letter?
Say, Alice,--is it not a letter of which if you were his brother you
would feel proud if another girl had shown it to you? I do feel proud
of him. I know that he is a man with a manly heart and manly courage,
who will yet do manly things. Here out on the mountain, with nobody
near us, with Nature all round us, I ask you on your solemn word as a
woman, do you love him?"
"Love him!" said Alice.
"Yes;--love him: as a woman should love her husband. Is not your
heart his? Alice, there need be no lies now. If it be so, it should
be your glory to say so, here, to me, as you hold that letter in your
hand."
"I can have no such glory, Kate. I have ever loved my cousin; but not
so passionately as you seem to think."
"Then there can be no passion in you."
"Perhaps not, Kate. I would sometimes hope that it is so. But come;
we shall be late; and you will be cold sitting there."
"I would sit here all night to be sure that your answer would be as
I would have it. But, Alice, at any rate you shall tell me before I
move what your answer is to be. I know you will not refuse him; but
make me happy by saying so with your own lips."
"I cannot tell you before you move, Kate."
"And why not?"
"Because I have not as yet resolved."
"Ah, that is impossible. That is quite impossible. On such a subject
and under such circumstances a woman must resolve at the first
moment. You had resolved, I know, before you had half read the
letter;--though, perhaps, it may not suit you to say so."
"You are quite mistaken. Come along and let us walk, and I will tell
you all." Then Kate arose, and they turned their back to the lake,
and began to make their way homewards. "I have not made up my mind as
to what answer I will give him; but I have shown you his letter in
order that I might have some one with whom I might speak openly. I
knew well how it would be, and that you would strive to hurry me into
an immediate promise."
"No;--no; I want nothing of the kind."
"But yet I could not deny myself the comfort of your friendship."
"No, Alice, I will not hurry you. I will do nothing that you do not
wish. But you cannot be surprised that I should be very eager. Has
it not been the longing of all my life? Have I not passed my time
plotting and planning and thinking of it till I have had time to
think of nothing else? Do you know what I suffered when, through
George's fault, the engagement was broken off? Was it not martyrdom
to me,--that horrid time in which your Crichton from Cambridgeshire
was in the ascendant? Did I not suffer the tortures of purgatory
while that went on;--and yet, on the whole, did I not bear them with
patience? And, now, can you be surprised that I am wild with joy when
I begin to see that everything will be as I wish;--for it will be as
I wish, Alice. It may be that you have not resolved to accept him.
But you would have resolved to refuse him instantly had that been
your destined answer to his letter." There was but little more said
between them on the subject as they were passing over the fell, but
when they were going down the path through the Beacon Wood, Kate
again spoke: "You will not answer him without speaking to me first?"
said Kate.
"I will, at any rate, not send my answer without telling you," said
Alice.
"And you will let me see it?"
"Nay," said Alice; "I will not promise that. But if it is
unfavourable I will show it you."
"Then I shall never see it," said Kate, laughing. "But that is quite
enough for me. I by no means wish to criticise the love-sweet words
in which you tell him that his offences are all forgiven. I know how
sweet they will be. Oh, heavens! how I envy him!"
Then they were at home; and the old man met them at the front door,
glowering at them angrily from out his old leonine eyes, because the
roast beef was already roasted. He had his great uncouth silver watch
in his hand, which was always a quarter of an hour too fast, and he
pointed at it fiercely, showing them the minute hand at ten minutes
past the hour.
"But, grandpapa, you are always too fast," said Kate.
"And you are always too slow, miss," said the hungry old squire.
"Indeed, it is not five yet. Is it, Alice?"
"And how long are you going to be dressing?"
"Not ten minutes;--are we, Alice? And, grandpapa, pray don't wait."
"Don't wait! That's what they always say," he muttered, peevishly.
"As if one would be any better waiting for them after the meat is
on the table." But neither Kate nor Alice heard this, as they were
already in their rooms.
Nothing more was said that evening between Alice and Kate about the
letter; but Kate, as she wished her cousin good night inside her
bedroom door, spoke to her just one word--"Pray for him to-night,"
she said, "as you pray for those you love best." Alice made no
answer, but we may believe that she did as she was desired to do.
CHAPTER XXXII.
Containing an Answer to the Love Letter.
Alice had had a week allowed to her to write her answer; but she
sent it off before the full week was past. "Why should I keep him in
suspense?" she said. "If it is to be so, there can be no good in not
saying so at once." Then she thought, also, that if this were to be
her destiny it might be well for Mr. Grey that all his doubts on the
matter should be dispelled. She had treated him badly,--very badly.
She had so injured him that the remembrance of the injury must always
be a source of misery to her; but she owed to him above everything to
let him know what were her intentions as soon as they were settled.
She tried to console herself by thinking that the wound to him would
be easy to cure. "He also is not passionate," she said. But in so
saying she deceived herself. He was a man in whom Love could be very
passionate;--and was, moreover, one in whom Love could hardly be
renewed.
Each morning Kate asked her whether her answer was written; and on
the third day after Christmas, just before dinner, Alice said that
she had written it, and that it was gone.
"But it isn't post-day," said Kate;--for the post illuminated Vavasor
but three days a week.
"I have given a boy sixpence to take it to Shap," said Alice,
blushing.
"And what have you said?" asked Kate, taking hold of the other's arm.
"I have kept my promise," said Alice; "and do you keep yours by
asking no further questions."
"My sister,--my own sister," said Kate. And then, as Alice met her
embrace, there was no longer any doubt as to the nature of the reply.
After this there was of course much close discussion between them as
to what other steps should now be taken. Kate wanted her cousin to
write immediately to Mr. Grey, and was somewhat frightened when Alice
declined to do so till she had received a further letter from George.
"You have not proposed any horrid stipulations to him?" exclaimed
Kate.
"I don't know what you may call horrid stipulations," said Alice,
gravely. "My conditions have not been very hard, and I do not think
you would have disapproved them."
"But he!--He is so impetuous! Will he disapprove them?"
"I have told him-- But, Kate, this is just what I did not mean to
tell you."
"Why should there be secrets between us?" said Kate.
"There shall be none, then. I have told him that I cannot bring
myself to marry him instantly;--that he must allow me twelve
months to wear off, if I can in that time, much of sadness and of
self-reproach which has fallen to my lot."
"Twelve months, Alice?"
"Listen to me. I have said so. But I have told him also that if he
wishes it still, I will at once tell papa and grandpapa that I hold
myself as engaged to him, so that he may know that I bind myself
to him as far as it is possible that I should do so. And I have
added something else, Kate," she continued to say after a slight
pause,--"something else which I can tell you, though I could tell it
to no other person. I can tell you because you would do, and will
do the same. I have told him that any portion of my money is at his
service which may be needed for his purposes before that twelve
months is over."
"Oh, Alice! No;--no. You shall not do that. It is too generous." And
Kate perhaps felt at the moment that her brother was a man to whom
such an offer could hardly be made with safety.
"But I have done it. Mercury, with sixpence in his pocket, is already
posting my generosity at Shap. And, to tell the truth, Kate, it is
no more than fair. He has honestly told me that while the old Squire
lives he will want my money to assist him in a career of which I do
much more than approve. It has been my earnest wish to see him in
Parliament. It will now be the most earnest desire of my heart;--the
one thing as to which I shall feel an intense anxiety. How then can
I have the face to bid him wait twelve months for that which is
specially needed in six months' time? It would be like the workhouses
which are so long in giving bread, that in the mean time the wretches
starve."
"But the wretch shan't starve," said Kate. "My money, small as it is,
will carry him over this bout. I have told him that he shall have it,
and that I expect him to spend it. Moreover, I have no doubt that
Aunt Greenow would lend me what he wants."
"But I should not wish him to borrow from Aunt Greenow. She would
advance him the money, as you say, upon stamped paper, and then talk
of it."
"He shall have mine," said Kate.
"And who are you?" said Alice, laughing. "You are not going to be his
wife?"
"He shall not touch your money till you are his wife," said Kate,
very seriously. "I wish you would consent to change your mind about
this stupid tedious year, and then you might do as you pleased. I
have no doubt such a settlement might be made as to the property
here, when my grandfather hears of it, as would make you ultimately
safe."
"And do you think I care to be ultimately safe, as you call it? Kate,
my dear, you do not understand me."
"I suppose not. And yet I thought that I had known something about
you."
"It is because I do not care for the safety of which you speak that I
am now going to become your brother's wife. Do you suppose that I do
not see that I must run much risk?"
"You prefer the excitement of London to the tranquillity, may I say,
of Cambridgeshire."
"Exactly;--and therefore I have told George that he shall have my
money whenever he wants it."
Kate was very persistent in her objection to this scheme till
George's answer came. His answer to Alice was accompanied by a letter
to his sister, and after that Kate said nothing more about the
money question. She said no more then; but it must not therefore be
supposed that she was less determined than she had been that no part
of Alice's fortune should be sacrificed to her brother's wants;--at
any rate before Alice should become her brother's wife. But her
brother's letter for the moment stopped her mouth. It would be
necessary that she should speak to him before she again spoke to
Alice.
In what words Alice had written her assent it will be necessary that
the reader should know, in order that something may be understood
of the struggle which she made upon the occasion; but they shall be
given presently, when I come to speak of George Vavasor's position as
he received them. George's reply was very short and apparently very
frank. He deprecated the delay of twelve months, and still hoped to
be able to induce her to be more lenient to him. He advised her to
write to Mr. Grey at once,--and as regarded the Squire he gave her
_carte blanche_ to act as she pleased. If the Squire required any
kind of apology, expression of sorrow,--and asking for pardon, or
such like, he, George, would, under the circumstances as they now
existed, comply with the requisition most willingly. He would regard
it as a simple form, made necessary by his coming marriage. As to
Alice's money, he thanked her heartily for her confidence. If the
nature of his coming contest at Chelsea should make it necessary,
he would use her offer as frankly as it had been made. Such was his
letter to Alice. What was contained in his letter to Kate, Alice
never knew.
Then came the business of telling this new love tale,--the
third which poor Alice had been forced to tell her father and
grandfather;--and a grievous task it was. In this matter she feared
her father much more than her grandfather, and therefore she resolved
to tell her grandfather first;--or, rather, she determined that she
would tell the Squire, and that in the mean time Kate should talk to
her father.
"Grandpapa," she said to him the morning after she had received her
cousin's second letter.--The old man was in the habit of breakfasting
alone in a closet of his own, which was called his dressing-room,
but in which he kept no appurtenances for dressing, but in lieu of
them a large collection of old spuds and sticks and horse's-bits.
There was a broken spade here, and a hoe or two; and a small table
in the corner was covered with the debris of tradesmen's bills
from Penrith, and dirty scraps which he was wont to call his farm
accounts.--"Grandpapa," said Alice, rushing away at once into the
middle of her subject, "you told me the other day that you thought
I ought to be--married."
"Did I, my dear? Well, yes; so I did. And so you ought;--I mean to
that Mr. Grey."
"That is impossible, sir."
"Then what's the use of your coming and talking to me about it?"
This made Alice's task not very easy; but, nevertheless, she
persevered. "I am come, grandpapa, to tell you of another
engagement."
"Another!" said he. And by the tone of his voice he accused his
granddaughter of having a larger number of favoured suitors than
ought to fall to the lot of any young lady. It was very hard upon
her, but still she went on.
"You know," said she, "that some years ago I was to have been married
to my cousin George;"--and then she paused.
"Well," said the old man.
"And I remember you told me then that you were much pleased."
"So I was. George was doing well then; or,--which is more
likely,--had made us believe that he was doing well. Have you made it
up with him again?"
"Yes, sir."
"And that's the meaning of your jilting Mr. Grey, is it?"
Poor Alice! It is hard to explain how heavy a blow fell upon
her from the open utterance of that word! Of all words in the
language it was the one which she now most dreaded. She had called
herself a jilt, with that inaudible voice which one uses in making
self-accusations;--but hitherto no lips had pronounced the odious
word to her ears. Poor Alice! She was a jilt; and perhaps it may have
been well that the old man should tell her so.
"Grandpapa!" she said; and there was that in the tone of her voice
which somewhat softened the Squire's heart.
"Well, my dear, I don't want to be ill-natured. So you are going at
last to marry George, are you? I hope he'll treat you well; that's
all. Does your father approve of it?"
"I have told you first, sir;--because I wish to obtain your consent
to seeing George again here as your grandson."
"Never," said the old man, snarling;--"never!"
"If he has been wrong, he will beg your pardon."
"If he has been wrong! Didn't he want to squander every shilling of
the property,--property which has never belonged to him;--property
which I could give to Tom, Dick, or Harry to-morrow, if I liked?--If
he has been wrong!"
"I am not defending him, sir;--but I thought that, perhaps, on such
an occasion as this--"
"A Tom Fool's occasion! You've got money of your own. He'll spend all
that now."
"He will be less likely to do so if you will recognise him as your
heir. Pray believe, sir, that he is not the sort of man that he was."
"He must be a very clever sort of man, I think, when he has talked
you out of such a husband as John Grey. It's astounding to me,--with
that ugly mug of his! Well, my dear, if your father approves of it,
and if George will ask my pardon,--but I don't think he ever will--"
"He will, sir. I am his messenger for as much as that."
"Oh, you are, are you? Then you may also be my messenger to him, and
tell him that, for your sake, I will let him come back here. I know
he'll insult me the first day; but I'll try and put up with it,--for
your sake, my dear. Of course I must know what your father thinks
about it."
It may be imagined that Kate's success was even less than that which
Alice achieved. "I knew it would be so," said John Vavasor, when his
niece first told him;--and as he spoke he struck his hand upon the
table. "I knew all along how it would be."
"And why should it not be so, Uncle John?"
"He is your brother, and I will not tell you why."
"You think that he is a spendthrift?"
"I think that he is as unsafe a man as ever I knew to be intrusted
with the happiness of any young woman. That is all."
"You are hard upon him, uncle."
"Perhaps so. Tell Alice this from me,--that as I have never yet been
able to get her to think anything of my opinion, I do not at all
expect that I shall be able to induce her to do so now. I will not
even make the attempt. As my son-in-law I will not receive George
Vavasor. Tell Alice that."
Alice was told her father's message; but Kate in telling it felt no
deep regret. She well knew that Alice would not be turned back from
her present intention by her father's wishes. Nor would it have
been very reasonable that she should. Her father had for many years
relieved himself from the burden of a father's cares, and now had
hardly the right to claim a father's privileges.
We will now go once again to George Vavasor's room in Cecil Street,
in which he received Alice's letter. He was dressing when it was
first brought to him; and when he recognised the handwriting he put
it down on his toilet table unopened. He put it down, and went on
brushing his hair, as though he were determined to prove to himself
that he was indifferent as to the tidings which it might contain.
He went on brushing his hair, and cleaning his teeth, and tying his
cravat carefully over his turned-down collar, while the unopened
letter lay close to his hand. Of course he was thinking of it,--of
course he was anxious,--of course his eye went to it from moment
to moment. But he carried it with him into the sitting-room still
unopened, and so it remained until after the girl had brought him his
tea and his toast. "And now," said he, as he threw himself into his
arm-chair, "let us see what the girl of my heart says to me." The
girl of his heart said to him as follows:--
MY DEAR GEORGE,
I feel great difficulty in answering your letter. Could I
have my own way, I should make no answer to it at present,
but leave it for the next six months, so that then such
answer might hereafter be made as circumstances should
seem to require. This will be little flattering to you,
but it is less flattering to myself. Whatever answer I may
make, how can anything in this affair be flattering either
to you or to me? We have been like children who have
quarrelled over our game of play, till now, at the close
of our little day of pleasure, we are fain to meet each
other in tears, and acknowledge that we have looked for
delights where no delights were to be found.
Kate, who is here, talks to me of passionate love. There
is no such passion left to me;--nor, as I think, to you
either. It would not now be possible that you and I should
come together on such terms as that. We could not stand
up together as man and wife with any hope of a happy
marriage, unless we had both agreed that such happiness
might be had without passionate love.
You will see from all this that I do not refuse your
offer. Without passion, I have for you a warm affection,
which enables me to take a livelier interest in your
career than in any other of the matters which are around
me. Of course, if I become your wife that interest will be
still closer and dearer, and I do feel that I can take in
it that concern which a wife should have in her husband's
affairs.
If it suits you, I will become your wife;--but it cannot
be quite at once. I have suffered much from the past
conflicts of my life, and there has been very much with
which I must reproach myself. I know that I have behaved
badly. Sometimes I have to undergo the doubly bitter
self-accusation of having behaved in a manner which the
world will call unfeminine. You must understand that I
have not passed through this unscathed, and I must beg
you to allow me some time for a cure. A perfect cure I
may never expect, but I think that in twelve months from
this time I may so far have recovered my usual spirit and
ease of mind as to enable me to devote myself to your
happiness. Dear George, if you will accept me under such
circumstances, I will be your wife, and will endeavour to
do my duty by you faithfully.
I have said that even now, as your cousin, I take a lively
interest in your career,--of course I mean your career as
a politician,--and especially in your hopes of entering
Parliament. I understand, accurately as I think, what you
have said about my fortune, and I perfectly appreciate
your truth and frankness. If I had nothing of my own you,
in your circumstances, could not possibly take me as your
wife. I know, moreover, that your need of assistance from
my means is immediate rather than prospective. My money
may be absolutely necessary to you within this year,
during which, as I tell you most truly, I cannot bring
myself to become a married woman. But my money shall
be less cross-grained than myself. You will take it as
frankly as I mean it when I say, that whatever you want
for your political purposes shall be forthcoming at your
slightest wish. Dear George, let me have the honour and
glory of marrying a man who has gained a seat in the
Parliament of Great Britain! Of all positions which a man
may attain that, to me, is the grandest.
I shall wait for a further letter from you before I speak
either to my father or to my grandfather. If you can tell
me that you accede to my views, I will at once try to
bring about a reconciliation between you and the Squire.
I think that that will be almost easier than inducing my
father to look with favour upon our marriage. But I need
hardly say that should either one or the other oppose
it,--or should both do so,--that would not turn me from my
purpose.
I also wait for your answer to write a last line to Mr.
Grey.
Your affectionate cousin,
ALICE VAVASOR.
George Vavasor when he had read the letter threw it carelessly from
him on to the breakfast table, and began to munch his toast. He threw
it carelessly from him, as though taking a certain pride in his
carelessness. "Very well," said he; "so be it. It is probably the
best thing that I could do, whatever the effect may be on her." Then
he took up his newspaper. But before the day was over he had made
many plans,--plans made almost unconsciously,--as to the benefit
which might accrue to him from the offer which she had made of her
money. And before night he had written that reply to her of which we
have heard the contents; and had written also to his sister Kate a
letter, of which Kate had kept the contents to herself.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
Monkshade.
When the first of the new year came round Lady Glencora was not
keeping her appointment at Lady Monk's house. She went to Gatherum
Castle, and let us hope that she enjoyed the magnificent Christmas
hospitality of the Duke; but when the time came for moving on to
Monkshade, she was indisposed, and Mr. Palliser went thither alone.
Lady Glencora returned to Matching and remained at home, while her
husband was away, in company with the two Miss Pallisers.
When the tidings reached Monkshade that Lady Glencora was not to
be expected, Burgo Fitzgerald was already there, armed with such
pecuniary assistance as George Vavasor had been able to wrench out
of the hands of Mr. Magruin. "Burgo," said his aunt, catching him one
morning near his bedroom door as he was about to go down-stairs in
hunting trim, "Burgo, your old flame, Lady Glencora, is not coming
here."
"Lady Glencora not coming!" said Burgo, betraying by his look and the
tone of his voice too clearly that this change in the purpose of a
married lady was to him of more importance than it should have been.
Such betrayal, however, to Lady Monk was not perhaps matter of much
moment.
"No; she is not coming. It can't be matter of any moment to you now."
"But, by heavens, it is," said he, putting his hand up to his
forehead, and leaning back against the wall of the passage as though
in despair. "It is matter of moment to me. I am the most unfortunate
devil that ever lived."
"Fie, Burgo, fie! You must not speak in that way of a married woman.
I begin to think it is better that she should not come." At this
moment another man booted and spurred came down the passage, upon
whom Lady Monk smiled sweetly, speaking some pretty little word as
he passed. Burgo spoke never a word, but still stood leaning against
the wall, with his hand to his forehead, showing that he had heard
something which had moved him greatly. "Come back into your room,
Burgo," said his aunt; and they both went in at the door that was
nearest to them, for Lady Monk had been on the look-out for him, and
had caught him as soon as he appeared in the passage. "If this does
annoy you, you should keep it to yourself! What will people say?"
"How can I help what they say?"
"But you would not wish to injure her, I suppose? I thought it best
to tell you, for fear you should show any special sign of surprise
if you heard of it first in public. It is very weak in you to allow
yourself to feel that sort of regard for a married woman. If you
cannot constrain yourself I shall be afraid to let you meet her in
Brook Street."
Burgo looked for a moment into his aunt's face without answering her,
and then turned away towards the door. "You can do as you please
about that," said he; "but you know as well as I do what I have made
up my mind to do."
"Nonsense, Burgo; I know nothing of the kind. But do you go
down-stairs to breakfast, and don't look like that when you go among
the people there."
Lady Monk was a woman now about fifty years of age, who had been a
great beauty, and who was still handsome in her advanced age. Her
figure was very good. She was tall and of fine proportion, though by
no means verging to that state of body which our excellent American
friend and critic Mr. Hawthorne has described as beefy and has
declared to be the general condition of English ladies of Lady Monk's
age. Lady Monk was not beefy. She was a comely, handsome, upright,
dame,--one of whom, as regards her outward appearance, England might
be proud,--and of whom Sir Cosmo Monk was very proud. She had come of
the family of the Worcestershire Fitzgeralds, of whom it used to be
said that there never was one who was not beautiful and worthless.
Looking at Lady Monk you would hardly think that she could be a
worthless woman; but there were one or two who professed to know her,
and who declared that she was a true scion of the family to which she
belonged;--that even her husband's ample fortune had suffered from
her extravagance, that she had quarrelled with her only son, and
had succeeded in marrying her daughter to the greatest fool in the
peerage. She had striven very hard to bring about a marriage between
her nephew and the great heiress, and was a woman not likely to
pardon those who had foiled her.
At this moment Burgo felt very certain that his aunt was aware of his
purpose, and could not forgive her for pretending to be innocent of
it. In this he was most ungrateful, as well as unreasonable,--and
very indiscreet also. Had he been a man who ever reflected he must
have known that such a woman as his aunt could only assist him as
long as she might be presumed to be ignorant of his intention. But
Burgo never reflected. The Fitzgeralds never reflected till they were
nearer forty than thirty, and then people began to think worse of
them than they had thought before.
When Burgo reached the dining-room there were many men there, but no
ladies. Sir Cosmo Monk, a fine bald-headed hale man of about sixty,
was standing up at the sideboard, cutting a huge game pie. He was a
man also who did not reflect much, but who contrived to keep straight
in his course through the world without much reflection. "Palliser
is coming without her," he said in his loud clear voice, thinking
nothing of his wife's nephew. "She's ill, she says."
"I'm sorry for it," said one man. "She's a deal the better fellow of
the two."
"She has twice more go in her than Planty Pall," said another.
"Planty is no fool, I can tell you," said Sir Cosmo, coming to the
table with his plate full of pie. "We think he's about the most
rising man we have." Sir Cosmo was the member for his county, and
was a Liberal. He had once, when a much younger man, been at the
Treasury, and had since always spoken of the Whig Government as
though he himself were in some sort a part of it.
"Burgo, do you hear that Palliser is coming without his wife?"
said one man,--a very young man, who hardly knew what had been the
circumstances of the case. The others, when they saw Burgo enter, had
been silent on the subject of Lady Glencora.
"I have heard,--and be d----d to him," said Burgo. Then there was
suddenly a silence in the room, and everyone seemed to attend
assiduously to his breakfast. It was very terrible, this clear
expression of a guilty meaning with reference to the wife of another
man! Burgo regarded neither his plate nor his cup, but thrusting
his hands into his breeches pockets, sat back in his chair with the
blackness as of a thunder cloud upon his brow.
[Illustration: "I have heard," said Burgo.]
"Burgo, you had better eat your breakfast," said Sir Cosmo.
"I don't want any breakfast." He took, however, a bit of toast,
and crumbling it up in his hand as he put a morsel into his mouth,
went away to the sideboard and filled for himself a glass of cherry
brandy.
"If you don't eat any breakfast the less of that you take the
better," said Sir Cosmo.
"I'm all right now," said he, and coming back to the table, went
through some form of making a meal with a roll and a cup of tea.
They who were then present used afterwards to say that they should
never forget that breakfast. There had been something, they declared,
in the tone of Burgo's voice when he uttered his curse against Mr.
Palliser, which had struck them all with dread. There had, too, they
said, been a blackness in his face, so terrible to be seen, that it
had taken from them all the power of conversation. Sir Cosmo, when he
had broken the ominous silence, had done so with a manifest struggle.
The loud clatter of glasses with which Burgo had swallowed his dram,
as though resolved to show that he was regardless who might know that
he was drinking, added to the feeling. It may easily be understood
that there was no further word spoken at that breakfast-table about
Planty Pall or his wife.
On that day Burgo Fitzgerald startled all those who saw him by the
mad way in which he rode. Early in the day there was no excuse for
any such rashness. The hounds went from wood to wood, and men went in
troops along the forest sides as they do on such occasions. But Burgo
was seen to cram his horse at impracticable places, and to ride at
gates and rails as though resolved to do himself and his uncle's
steed a mischief. This was so apparent that some friend spoke to Sir
Cosmo Monk about it. "I can do nothing," said Sir Cosmo. "He is a
man whom no one's words will control. Something has ruffled him this
morning, and he must run his chance till he becomes quiet." In the
afternoon there was a good run, and Burgo again rode as hard as he
could make his horse carry him;--but then there was the usual excuse
for hard riding; and such riding in a straight run is not dangerous,
as it is when the circumstances of the occasion do not warrant it,
But, be that as it may, Burgo went on to the end of the day without
accident, and as he went home, assured Sir Cosmo, in a voice which
was almost cheery, that his mare Spinster was by far the best thing
in the Monkshade stables. Indeed Spinster made quite a character that
day, and was sold at the end of the season for three hundred guineas
on the strength of it. I am, however, inclined to believe that there
was nothing particular about the mare. Horses always catch the
temperament of their riders, and when a man wishes to break his neck,
he will generally find a horse willing to assist him in appearance,
but able to save him in the performance. Burgo, at any rate, did not
break his neck, and appeared at the dinner-table in a better humour
than that which he had displayed in the morning.
On the day appointed Mr. Palliser reached Monkshade. He was, in a
manner, canvassing for the support of the Liberal party, and it would
not have suited him to show any indifference to the invitation of
so influential a man as Sir Cosmo. Sir Cosmo had a little party of
his own in the House, consisting of four or five other respectable
country gentlemen, who troubled themselves little with thinking, and
who mostly had bald heads. Sir Cosmo was a man with whom it was quite
necessary that such an aspirant as Mr. Palliser should stand well, and
therefore Mr. Palliser came to Monkshade, although Lady Glencora was
unable to accompany him.
"We are so sorry," said Lady Monk. "We have been looking forward to
having Lady Glencora with us beyond everything."
Mr. Palliser declared that Lady Glencora herself was overwhelmed with
grief in that she should have been debarred from making this special
visit. She had, however, been so unwell at Gatherum, the anxious
husband declared, as to make it unsafe for her to go again away from
home.
"I hope it is nothing serious," said Lady Monk, with a look of grief
so well arranged that any stranger would have thought that all the
Pallisers must have been very dear to her heart. Then Mr. Palliser
went on to explain that Lady Glencora had unfortunately been foolish.
During one of those nights of hard frost she had gone out among the
ruins at Matching, to show them by moonlight to a friend. The friend
had thoughtlessly, foolishly, and in a manner which Mr. Palliser
declared to be very reprehensible, allowed Lady Glencora to remain
among the ruins till she had caught cold.
"How very wrong!" said Lady Monk with considerable emphasis.
"It was very wrong," said Mr. Palliser, speaking of poor Alice almost
maliciously. "However, she caught a cold which, unfortunately, has
become worse at my uncle's, and so I was obliged to take her home."
Lady Monk perceived that Mr. Palliser had in truth left his wife
behind because he believed her to be ill, and not because he was
afraid of Burgo Fitzgerald. So accomplished a woman as Lady Monk felt
no doubt that the wife's absence was caused by fear of the lover, and
not by any cold caught in viewing ruins by moonlight. She was not to
be deceived in such a matter. But she became aware that Mr. Palliser
had been deceived. As she was right in this we must go back for a
moment, and say a word of things as they went on at Matching after
Alice Vavasor had left that place.
Alice had told Miss Palliser that steps ought to be taken, whatever
might be their cost, to save Lady Glencora from the peril of a visit
to Monkshade. To this Miss Palliser had assented, and, when she left
Alice, was determined to tell Mr. Palliser the whole story. But when
the time for doing so had come, her courage failed her. She could not
find words in which to warn the husband that his wife would not be
safe in the company of her old lover. The task with Lady Glencora
herself, bad as that would be, might be easier, and this task she at
last undertook,--not without success.
"Glencora," she said, when she found a fitting opportunity, "you
won't be angry, I hope, if I say a word to you?"
"That depends very much upon what the word is," said Lady Glencora.
And here it must be acknowledged that Mr. Palliser's wife had not done
much to ingratiate herself with Mr. Palliser's cousins;--not perhaps
so much as she should have done, seeing that she found them in her
husband's house. She had taught herself to think that they were hard,
stiff, and too proud of bearing the name of Palliser. Perhaps some
little attempt may have been made by one or both of them to teach her
something, and it need hardly be said that such an attempt on the
part of a husband's unmarried female relations would not be forgiven
by a young bride. She had undoubtedly been ungracious, and of this
Miss Palliser was well aware.
"Well,--the word shall be as little unpleasant as I can make it,"
said Miss Palliser, already appreciating fully the difficulty of her
task.
"But why say anything that is unpleasant? However, if it is to be
said, let us have it over at once."
"You are going to Monkshade, I believe, with Plantagenet."
"Well;--and what of that?"
"Dear Glencora, I think you had better not go. Do you not think so
yourself?"
"Who has been talking to you?" said Lady Glencora, turning upon her
very sharply.
"Nobody has been talking to me;--not in the sense you mean."
"Plantagenet has spoken to you?"
"Not a word," said Miss Palliser. "You may be sure that he would not
utter a word on such a subject to anyone unless it were to yourself.
But, dear Glencora, you should not go there;--I mean it in all
kindness and love,--I do indeed." Saying this she offered her hand to
Glencora, and Glencora took it.
"Perhaps you do," said she in a low voice.
"Indeed I do. The world is so hard and cruel in what it says."
"I do not care two straws for what the world says."
"But he might care."
"It is not my fault. I do not want to go to Monkshade. Lady Monk was
my friend once, but I do not care if I never see her again. I did not
arrange this visit. It was Plantagenet who did it."
"But he will not take you there if you say you do not wish it."
"I have said so, and he told me that I must go. You will hardly
believe me,--but I condescended even to tell him why I thought it
better to remain away. He told me, in answer, that it was a silly
folly which I must live down, and that it did not become me to be
afraid of any man."
"Of course you are not afraid, but--"
"I am afraid. That is just the truth. I am afraid;--but what can I do
more than I have done?"
This was very terrible to Miss Palliser. She had not thought that
Lady Glencora would say so much, and she felt a true regret in having
been made to hear words which so nearly amounted to a confession.
But for this there was no help now. There were not many more words
between them, and we already know the result of the conversation.
Lady Glencora became so ill from the effects of her imprudent
lingering among the ruins that she was unable to go to Monkshade.
Mr. Palliser remained three days at Monkshade, and cemented his
political alliance with Sir Cosmo much in the same way as he had
before done with the Duke of St. Bungay. There was little or nothing
said about politics, and certainly not a word that could be taken as
any definite party understanding between the men; but they sat at
dinner together at the same table, drank a glass of wine or two out
of the same decanters, and dropped a chance word now and again about
the next session of Parliament. I do not know that anything more had
been expected either by Mr. Palliser or by Sir Cosmo; but it seemed
to be understood when Mr. Palliser went away that Sir Cosmo was of
opinion that that young scion of a ducal house ought to become the
future Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Whig Government.
"I can't see that there's so much in him," said one young member of
Parliament to Sir Cosmo.
"I rather think that there is, all the same," said the baronet.
"There's a good deal in him, I believe! I dare say he's not very
bright, but I don't know that we want brightness. A bright financier
is the most dangerous man in the world. We've had enough of that
already. Give me sound common sense, with just enough of the gab in
a man to enable him to say what he's got to say! We don't want more
than that nowadays." From which it became evident that Sir Cosmo was
satisfied with the new political candidate for high place.
Lady Monk took an occasion to introduce Mr. Palliser to Burgo
Fitzgerald; with what object it is difficult to say, unless she was
anxious to make mischief between the men. Burgo scowled at him; but
Mr. Palliser did not notice the scowl, and put out his hand to his
late rival most affably. Burgo was forced to take it, and as he did
so made a little speech. "I'm sorry that we have not the pleasure of
seeing Lady Glencora with you," said he.
"She is unfortunately indisposed," said Mr. Palliser.
"I am sorry for it," said Burgo--"very sorry indeed." Then he turned
his back and walked away. The few words he had spoken, and the manner
in which he had carried himself, had been such as to make all those
around them notice it. Each of them knew that Lady Glencora's name
should not have been in Burgo's mouth, and all felt a fear not
easily to be defined that something terrible would come of it. But
Mr. Palliser himself did not seem to notice anything, or to fear
anything; and nothing terrible did come of it during that visit of
his to Monkshade.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Mr. Vavasor Speaks to His Daughter.
Alice Vavasor returned to London with her father, leaving Kate at
Vavasor Hall with her grandfather. The journey was not a pleasant
one. Mr. Vavasor knew that it was his duty to do something,--to
take some steps with the view of preventing the marriage which his
daughter meditated; but he did not know what that something should
be, and he did know that, whatever it might be, the doing of it
would be thoroughly disagreeable. When they started from Vavasor he
had as yet hardly spoken to her a word upon the subject. "I cannot
congratulate you," he had simply said. "I hope the time may come,
papa, when you will," Alice had answered; and that had been all.
The squire had promised that he would consent to a reconciliation
with his grandson, if Alice's father would express himself satisfied
with the proposed marriage. John Vavasor had certainly expressed
nothing of the kind. "I think so badly of him," he had said, speaking
to the old man of George, "that I would rather know that almost any
other calamity was to befall her, than that she should be united
to him." Then the squire, with his usual obstinacy, had taken up
the cudgels on behalf of his grandson; and had tried to prove that
the match after all would not be so bad in its results as his son
seemed to expect. "It would do very well for the property," he said.
"I would settle the estate on their eldest son, so that he could
not touch it; and I don't see why he shouldn't reform as well as
another." John Vavasor had then declared that George was thoroughly
bad, that he was an adventurer; that he believed him to be a ruined
man, and that he would never reform. The squire upon this had waxed
angry, and in this way George obtained aid and assistance down at
the old house, which he certainly had no right to expect. When Alice
wished her grandfather good-bye the old man gave her a message to his
grandson. "You may tell him," said he, "that I will never see him
again unless he begs my pardon for his personal bad conduct to me,
but that if he marries you, I will take care that the property is
properly settled upon his child and yours. I shall always be glad to
see you, my dear; and for your sake, I will see him if he will humble
himself to me." There was no word spoken then about her father's
consent; and Alice, when she left Vavasor, felt that the squire was
rather her friend than her enemy in regard to this thing which she
contemplated. That her father was and would be an uncompromising
enemy to her,--uncompromising though probably not energetical,--she
was well aware; and, therefore, the journey up to London was not
comfortable.
Alice had resolved, with great pain to herself, that in this matter
she owed her father no obedience. "There cannot be obedience on one
side," she said to herself, "without protection and support on the
other." Now it was quite true that John Vavasor had done little in
the way of supporting or protecting his daughter. Early in life,
before she had resided under the same roof with him in London, he
had, as it were, washed his hands of all solicitude regarding her;
and having no other ties of family, had fallen into habits of life
which made it almost impossible for him to live with her as any other
father would live with his child. Then, when there first sprang
up between them that manner of sharing the same house without any
joining together of their habits of life, he had excused himself
to himself by saying that Alice was unlike other girls, and that
she required no protection. Her fortune was her own, and at her own
disposal. Her character was such that she showed no inclination to
throw the burden of such disposal on her father's shoulders. She was
steady, too, and given to no pursuits which made it necessary that he
should watch closely over her. She was a girl, he thought, who could
do as well without surveillance as with it,--as well, or perhaps
better. So it had come to pass that Alice had been the free mistress
of her own actions, and had been left to make the most she could of
her own hours. It cannot be supposed that she had eaten her lonely
dinners in Queen Anne Street night after night, week after week,
month after month, without telling herself that her father was
neglecting her. She could not perceive that he spent every evening in
society, but never an evening in her society, without feeling that
the tie between her and him was not the strong bond which usually
binds a father to his child. She was well aware that she had been
ill-used in being thus left desolate in her home. She had uttered no
word of complaint; but she had learned, without being aware that she
was doing so, to entertain a firm resolve that her father should not
guide her in her path through life. In that affair of John Grey they
had both for a time thought alike, and Mr. Vavasor had believed that
his theory with reference to Alice had been quite correct. She had
been left to herself, and was going to dispose of herself in a way
than which nothing could be more eligible. But evil days were now
coming, and Mr. Vavasor, as he travelled up to London, with his
daughter seated opposite to him in the railway carriage, felt that
now, at last, he must interfere. In part of the journey they had the
carriage to themselves, and Mr. Vavasor thought that he would begin
what he had to say; but he put it off till others joined them, and
then there was no further opportunity for such conversation as that
which would be necessary between them. They reached home about
eight in the evening, having dined on the road. "She will be tired
to-night," he said to himself, as he went off to his club, "and I
will speak to her to-morrow." Alice specially felt his going on this
evening. When two persons had together the tedium of such a journey
as that from Westmoreland up to London, there should be some feeling
between them to bind them together while enjoying the comfort of the
evening. Had he stayed and sat with her at her tea-table, Alice would
at any rate have endeavoured to be soft with him in any discussion
that might have been raised; but he went away from her at once,
leaving her to think alone over the perils of the life before her. "I
want to speak to you after breakfast to-morrow," he said as he went
out. Alice answered that she should be there,--as a matter of course.
She scorned to tell him that she was always there,--always alone at
home. She had never uttered a word of complaint, and she would not
begin now.
The discussion after breakfast the next day was commenced with
formal and almost ceremonial preparation. The father and daughter
breakfasted together, with the knowledge that the discussion was
coming. It did not give to either of them a good appetite, and very
little was said at table.
"Will you come up-stairs?" said Alice, when she perceived that her
father had finished his tea.
"Perhaps that will be best," said he. Then he followed her into the
drawing-room in which the fire had just been lit.
"Alice," said he, "I must speak to you about this engagement of
yours."
"Won't you sit down, papa? It does look so dreadful, your standing up
over one in that way." He had placed himself on the rug with his back
to the incipient fire, but now, at her request, he sat himself down
opposite to her.
"I was greatly grieved when I heard of this at Vavasor."
"I am sorry that you should be grieved, papa."
"I was grieved. I must confess that I never could understand why you
treated Mr. Grey as you have done."
"Oh, papa, that's done and past. Pray let that be among the bygones."
"Does he know yet of your engagement with your cousin?"
"He will know it by this time to-morrow."
"Then I beg of you, as a great favour, to postpone your letter to
him." To this Alice made no answer. "I have not troubled you with
many such requests, Alice. Will you tell me that this one shall be
granted?"
"I think that I owe it to him as an imperative duty to let him know
the truth."
"But you may change your mind again." Alice found that this was
hard to bear and hard to answer; but there was a certain amount of
truth in the grievous reproach conveyed in her father's words, which
made her bow her neck to it. "I have no right to say that it is
impossible," she replied, in words that were barely audible.
"No;--exactly so," said her father. "And therefore it will be better
that you should postpone any such communication."
"For how long do you mean?"
"Till you and I shall have agreed together that he should be told."
"No, papa; I will not consent to that. I consider myself bound to let
him know the truth without delay. I have done him a great injury, and
I must put an end to that as soon as possible."
"You have done him an injury certainly, my dear;--a very great
injury," said Mr. Vavasor, going away from his object about the
proposed letter; "and I believe he will feel it as such to the last
day of his life, if this goes on."
"I hope not. I believe that it will not be so. I feel sure that it
will not be so."
"But of course what I am thinking of now is your welfare,--not his.
When you simply told me that you intended to--." Alice winced,
for she feared to hear from her father that odious word which her
grandfather had used to her; and indeed the word had been on her
father's lips, but he had refrained and spared her--"that you
intended to break your engagement with Mr. Grey," he continued, "I
said little or nothing to you. I would not ask you to marry any man,
even though you had yourself promised to marry him. But when you
tell me that you are engaged to your cousin George, the matter is
very different. I do not think well of your cousin. Indeed I think
anything but well of him. It is my duty to tell you that the world
speaks very ill of him." He paused, but Alice remained silent. "When
you were about to travel with him," he continued, "I ought perhaps to
have told you the same. But I did not wish to pain you or his sister;
and, moreover, I have heard worse of him since then,--much worse than
I had heard before."
"As you did not tell me before, I think you might spare me now," said
Alice.
"No, my dear; I cannot allow you to sacrifice yourself without
telling you that you are doing so. If it were not for your money he
would never think of marrying you."
"Of that I am well aware," said Alice. "He has told me so himself
very plainly."
"And yet you will marry him?"
"Certainly I will. It seems to me, papa, that there is a great deal
of false feeling about this matter of money in marriage,--or rather,
perhaps, a great deal of pretended feeling. Why should I be angry
with a man for wishing to get that for which every man is struggling?
At this point of George's career the use of money is essential to
him. He could not marry without it."
"You had better then give him your money without yourself," said her
father, speaking in irony.
"That is just what I mean to do, papa," said Alice.
"What!" said Mr. Vavasor, jumping up from his seat. "You mean to give
him your money before you marry him?"
"Certainly I do;--if he should want it;--or, I should rather say, as
much as he may want of it."
"Heavens and earth!" exclaimed Mr. Vavasor. "Alice, you must be mad."
"To part with my money to my friend?" said she. "It is a kind of
madness of which I need not at any rate be ashamed."
"Tell me this, Alice; has he got any of it as yet?"
"Not a shilling. Papa, pray do not look at me like that. If I had no
thought of marrying him you would not call me mad because I lent to
my cousin what money he might need."
"I should only say that so much of your fortune was thrown away, and
if it were not much that would be an end of it. I would sooner see
you surrender to him the half of all you have, without any engagement
to marry him, than know that he had received a shilling from you
under such a promise."
"You are prejudiced against him, sir."
"Was it prejudice that made you reject him once before? Did you
condemn him then through prejudice? Had you not ascertained that he
was altogether unworthy of you?"
"We were both younger, then," said Alice, speaking very softly, but
very seriously. "We were both much younger then, and looked at life
with other eyes than those which we now use. For myself I expected
much then, which I now seem hardly to regard at all; and as for him,
he was then attached to pleasures to which I believe he has now
learned to be indifferent."
"Psha!" ejaculated the father.
"I can only speak as I believe," continued Alice. "And I think I may
perhaps know more of his manner of life than you do, papa. But I am
prepared to run risks now which I feared before. Even though he were
all that you think him to be, I would still endeavour to do my duty
to him, and to bring him to other things."
"What is it you expect to get by marrying him?" asked Mr. Vavasor.
"A husband whose mode of thinking is congenial to my own," answered
Alice. "A husband who proposes to himself a career in life with which
I can sympathize. I think that I may perhaps help my cousin in the
career which he has chosen, and that alone is a great reason why I
should attempt to do so."
"With your money?" said Mr. Vavasor with a sneer.
"Partly with my money," said Alice, disdaining to answer the sneer.
"Though it were only with my money, even that would be something."
"Well, Alice, as your father, I can only implore you to pause before
you commit yourself to his hands. If he demands money from you, and
you are minded to give it to him, let him have it in moderation.
Anything will be better than marrying him. I know that I cannot
hinder you; you are as much your own mistress as I am my own
master,--or rather a great deal more, as my income depends on my
going to that horrid place in Chancery Lane. But yet I suppose you
must think something of your father's wishes and your father's
opinion. It will not be pleasant for you to stand at the altar
without my being there near you."
To this Alice made no answer; but she told herself that it had not
been pleasant to her to have stood at so many places during the last
four years,--and to have found herself so often alone,--without her
father being near to her. That had been his fault, and it was not now
in her power to remedy the ill-effects of it.
"Has any day been fixed between you and him?" he asked.
"No, papa."
"Nothing has been said about that?"
"Yes; something has been said. I have told him that it cannot be for
a year yet. It is because I told him that, that I told him also that
he should have my money when he wanted it."
"Not all of it?" said Mr. Vavasor.
"I don't suppose he will need it all. He intends to stand again for
Chelsea, and it is the great expense of the election which makes
him want money. You are not to suppose that he has asked me for it.
When I made him understand that I did not wish to marry quite yet,
I offered him the use of that which would be ultimately his own."
"And he has accepted it?"
"He answered me just as I had intended,--that when the need came he
would take me at my word."
"Then, Alice, I will tell you what is my belief. He will drain you of
every shilling of your money, and when that is gone, there will be no
more heard of the marriage. We must take a small house in some cheap
part of the town and live on my income as best we may. I shall go
and insure my life, so that you may not absolutely starve when I
die." Having said this, Mr. Vavasor went away, not immediately to the
insurance office, as his words seemed to imply, but to his club where
he sat alone, reading the newspaper, very gloomily, till the time
came for his afternoon rubber of whist, and the club dinner bill for
the day was brought under his eye.
Alice had no such consolations in her solitude. She had fought her
battle with her father tolerably well, but she was now called upon
to fight a battle with herself, which was one much more difficult
to win. Was her cousin, her betrothed as she now must regard him,
the worthless, heartless, mercenary rascal which her father painted
him? There had certainly been a time, and that not very long distant,
in which Alice herself had been almost constrained so to regard him.
Since that any change for the better in her opinion of him had been
grounded on evidence given either by himself or by his sister Kate.
He had done nothing to inspire her with any confidence, unless his
reckless daring in coming forward to contest a seat in Parliament
could be regarded as a doing of something. And he had owned himself
to be a man almost penniless; he had spoken of himself as being
utterly reckless,--as being one whose standing in the world was and
must continue to be a perch on the edge of a precipice, from which
any accident might knock him headlong. Alice believed in her heart
that this last profession or trade to which he had applied himself,
was becoming as nothing to him,--that he received from it no certain
income;--no income that a man could make to appear respectable to
fathers or guardians when seeking a girl in marriage. Her father
declared that all men spoke badly of him. Alice knew her father to be
an idle man, a man given to pleasure, to be one who thought by far
too much of the good things of the world; but she had never found him
to be either false or malicious. His unwonted energy in this matter
was in itself evidence that he believed himself to be right in what
he said.
To tell the truth, Alice was frightened at what she had done, and
almost repented of it already. Her acceptance of her cousin's
offer had not come of love;--nor had it, in truth, come chiefly of
ambition. She had not so much asked herself why she should do this
thing, as why she should not do it,--seeing that it was required
of her by her friend. What after all did it matter? That was her
argument with herself. It cannot be supposed that she looked back
on the past events of her life with any self-satisfaction. There was
no self-satisfaction, but in truth there was more self-reproach than
she deserved. As a girl she had loved her cousin George passionately,
and that love had failed her. She did not tell herself that she had
been wrong when she gave him up, but she thought herself to have been
most unfortunate in the one necessity. After such an experience as
that, would it not have been better for her to have remained without
further thought of marriage?
Then came that terrible episode in her life for which she never could
forgive herself. She had accepted Mr. Grey because she liked him and
honoured him. "And I did love him," she said to herself, now on this
morning. Poor, wretched, heart-wrung woman! As she sat there thinking
of it all in her solitude she was to be pitied at any rate, if not to
be forgiven. Now, as she thought of Nethercoats, with its quiet life,
its gardens, its books, and the peaceful affectionate ascendancy of
him who would have been her lord and master, her feelings were very
different from those which had induced her to resolve that she would
not stoop to put her neck beneath that yoke. Would it not have been
well for her to have a master who by his wisdom and strength could
save her from such wretched doubtings as these? But she had refused
to bend, and then she had found herself desolate and alone in the
world.
"If I can do him good why should I not marry him?" In that feeling
had been the chief argument which had induced her to return such
an answer as she had sent to her cousin. "For myself, what does it
matter? As to this life of mine and all that belongs to it, why
should I regard it otherwise than to make it of some service to
some one who is dear to me?" He had been ever dear to her from her
earliest years. She believed in his intellect, even if she could not
believe in his conduct. Kate, her friend, longed for this thing. As
for that dream of love, it meant nothing; and as for those arguments
of prudence,--that cold calculation about her money, which all people
seemed to expect from her,--she would throw it to the winds. What if
she were ruined! There was always the other chance. She might save
him from ruin, and help him to honour and fortune.
But then, when the word was once past her lips, there returned to her
that true woman's feeling which made her plead for a long day,--which
made her feel that that long day would be all too short,--which made
her already dread the coming of the end of the year. She had said
that she would become George Vavasor's wife, but she wished that the
saying so might be the end of it. When he came to her to embrace
her how should she receive him? The memory of John Grey's last kiss
still lingered on her lips. She had told herself that she scorned the
delights of love; if it were so, was she not bound to keep herself
far from them; if it were so,--would not her cousin's kiss pollute
her?
"It may be as my father says," she thought. "It may be that he wants
my money only; if so, let him have it. Surely when the year is over
I shall know." Then a plan formed itself in her head, which she did
not make willingly, with any voluntary action of her mind,--but which
came upon her as plans do come,--and recommended itself to her in
despite of herself. He should have her money as he might call for
it,--all of it excepting some small portion of her income, which
might suffice to keep her from burdening her father. Then, if he were
contented, he should go free, without reproach, and there should be
an end of all question of marriage for her.
As she thought of this, and matured it in her mind, the door opened,
and the servant announced her cousin George.
CHAPTER XXXV.
Passion versus Prudence.
It had not occurred to Alice that her accepted lover would come to
her so soon. She had not told him expressly of the day on which she
would return, and had not reflected that Kate would certainly inform
him. She had been thinking so much of the distant perils of this
engagement, that this peril, so sure to come upon her before many
days or hours could pass by, had been forgotten. When the name struck
her ear, and George's step was heard outside on the landing-place,
she felt the blood rush violently to her heart, and she jumped up
from her seat panic-stricken and in utter dismay. How should she
receive him? And then again, with what form of affection would she be
accosted by him? But he was there in the room with her before she had
had a moment allowed to her for thought.
She hardly ventured to look up at him; but, nevertheless, she became
aware that there was something in his appearance and dress brighter,
more lover-like, perhaps newer, than was usual with him. This in
itself was an affliction to her. He ought to have understood that
such an engagement as theirs not only did not require, but absolutely
forbade, any such symptom of young love as this. Even when their
marriage came, if it must come, it should come without any customary
sign of smartness, without any outward mark of exaltation. It would
have been very good in him to have remained away from her for weeks
and months; but to come upon her thus, on the first morning of her
return, was a cruelty not to be forgiven. These were the feelings
with which Alice regarded her betrothed when he came to see her.
"Alice," said he, coming up to her with his extended hand,--"Dearest
Alice!"
She gave him her hand, and muttered some word which was inaudible
even to him; she gave him her hand, and immediately endeavoured to
resume it, but he held it clenched within his own, and she felt that
she was his prisoner. He was standing close to her now, and she could
not escape from him. She was trembling with fear lest worse might
betide her even than this. She had promised to marry him, and now she
was covered with dismay as she felt rather than thought how very far
she was from loving the man to whom she had given this promise.
"Alice," he said, "I am a man once again. It is only now that I can
tell you what I have suffered during these last few years." He still
held her hand, but he had not as yet attempted any closer embrace.
She knew that she was standing away from him awkwardly, almost
showing her repugnance to him; but it was altogether beyond her power
to assume an attitude of ordinary ease. "Alice," he continued, "I
feel that I am a strong man again, armed to meet the world at all
points. Will you not let me thank you for what you have done for me?"
She must speak to him! Though the doing so should be ever so painful
to her, she must say some word to him which should have in it a sound
of kindness. After all, it was his undoubted right to come to her,
and the footing on which he assumed to stand was simply that which
she herself had given to him. It was not his fault if at this moment
he inspired her with disgust rather than with love.
"I have done nothing for you, George," she said, "nothing at all."
Then she got her hand away from him, and retreated back to a sofa
where she seated herself, leaving him still standing in the space
before the fire. "That you may do much for yourself is my greatest
hope. If I can help you, I will do so most heartily." Then she
became thoroughly ashamed of her words, feeling that she was at once
offering to him the use of her purse.
"Of course you will help me," he said. "I am full of plans, all of
which you must share with me. But now, at this moment, my one great
plan is that in which you have already consented to be my partner.
Alice, you are my wife now. Tell me that it will make you happy to
call me your husband."
Not for worlds could she have said so at this moment. It was
ill-judged in him to press her thus. He should already have seen,
with half an eye, that no such triumph as that which he now demanded
could be his on this occasion. He had had his triumph when, in the
solitude of his own room, with quiet sarcasm he had thrown on one
side of him the letter in which she had accepted him, as though the
matter had been one almost indifferent to him. He had no right to
expect the double triumph. Then he had frankly told himself that her
money would be useful to him. He should have been contented with
that conviction, and not have required her also to speak to him soft
winning words of love.
"That must be still distant, George," she said. "I have suffered so
much!"
"And it has been my fault that you have suffered; I know that. These
years of misery have been my doing." It was, however, the year of
coming misery that was the most to be dreaded.
"I do not say that," she replied, "nor have I ever thought it. I have
myself and myself only to blame." Here he altogether misunderstood
her, believing her to mean that the fault for which she blamed
herself had been committed in separating herself from him on that
former occasion.
"Alice, dear, let bygones be bygones."
"Bygones will not be bygones. It may be well for people to say so,
but it is never true. One might as well say so to one's body as to
one's heart. But the hairs will grow grey, and the heart will grow
cold."
"I do not see that one follows upon the other," said George. "My hair
is growing very grey;"--and to show that it was so, he lifted the
dark lock from the side of his forehead, and displayed the incipient
grizzling of the hair from behind. "If grey hairs make an old man,
Alice, you will marry an old husband; but even you shall not be
allowed to say that my heart is old."
That word "husband," which her cousin had twice used, was painful to
Alice's ear. She shrunk from it with palpable bodily suffering. Marry
an old husband! His age was nothing to the purpose, though he had
been as old as Enoch. But she was again obliged to answer him. "I
spoke of my own heart," said she: "I sometimes feel that it has grown
very old."
"Alice, that is hardly cheering to me."
"You have come to me too quickly, George, and do not reflect how much
there is that I must remember. You have said that bygones should be
bygones. Let them be so, at any rate as far as words are concerned.
Give me a few months in which I may learn,--not to forget them, for
that will be impossible,--but to abstain from speaking of them."
There was something in her look as she spoke, and in the tone of her
voice that was very sad. It struck him forcibly, but it struck him
with anger rather than with sadness. Doubtless her money had been
his chief object when he offered to renew his engagement with her.
Doubtless he would have made no such offer had she been penniless,
or even had his own need been less pressing. But, nevertheless, he
desired something more than money. The triumph of being preferred
to John Grey,--of having John Grey sent altogether adrift, in order
that his old love might be recovered, would have been too costly a
luxury for him to seek, had he not in seeking it been able to combine
prudence with the luxury. But though his prudence had been undoubted,
he desired the luxury also. It was on a calculation of the combined
advantage that he had made his second offer to his cousin. As he
would by no means have consented to proceed with the arrangement
without the benefit of his cousin's money, so also did he feel
unwilling to dispense with some expression of her love for him, which
would be to him triumphant. Hitherto in their present interview there
had certainly been no expression of her love.
"Alice," he said, "your greeting to me is hardly all that I had
hoped."
"Is it not?" said she. "Indeed, George, I am sorry that you should
be disappointed; but what can I say? You would not have me affect a
lightness of spirit which I do not feel?"
"If you wish," said he, very slowly,--"if you wish to retract your
letter to me, you now have my leave to do so."
What an opportunity was this of escape! But she had not the courage
to accept it. What girl, under such circumstances, would have had
such courage? How often are offers made to us which we would almost
give our eyes to accept, but dare not accept because we fear the
countenance of the offerer? "I do not wish to retract my letter,"
said she, speaking as slowly as he had spoken; "but I wish to be left
awhile, that I may recover my strength of mind. Have you not heard
doctors say, that muscles which have been strained, should be allowed
rest, or they will never entirely renew their tension? It is so with
me now; if I could be quiet for a few months, I think I could learn
to face the future with a better courage."
"And is that all you can say to me, Alice?"
"What would you have me say?"
"I would fain hear one word of love from you; is that unreasonable?
I would wish to know from your own lips that you have satisfaction in
the renewed prospect of our union; is that too ambitious? It might
have been that I was over-bold in pressing my suit upon you again;
but as you accepted it, have I not a right to expect that you should
show me that you have been happy in accepting it?"
But she had not been happy in accepting it. She was not happy now
that she had accepted it. She could not show to him any sign of such
joy as that which he desired to see. And now, at this moment, she
feared with an excessive fear that there would come some demand for
an outward demonstration of love, such as he in his position might
have a right to make. She seemed to be aware that this might be
prevented only by such demeanour on her part as that which she had
practised, and she could not, therefore, be stirred to the expression
of any word of affection. She listened to his appeal, and when it was
finished she made no reply. If he chose to take her in dudgeon, he
must do so. She would make for him any sacrifice that was possible to
her, but this sacrifice was not possible.
"And you have not a word to say to me?" he asked. She looked up at
him, and saw that the cicature on his face was becoming ominous; his
eyes were bent upon her with all their forbidding brilliance, and he
was assuming that look of angry audacity which was so peculiar to
him, and which had so often cowed those with whom he was brought in
contact.
"No other word, at present, George; I have told you that I am not at
ease. Why do you press me now?"
He had her letter to him in the breast-pocket of his coat, and
his hand was on it, that he might fling it back to her, and tell
her that he would not hold her to be his promised wife under such
circumstances as these. The anger which would have induced him to do
so was the better part of his nature. Three or four years since, this
better part would have prevailed, and he would have given way to his
rage. But now, as his fingers played upon the paper, he remembered
that her money was absolutely essential to him,--that some of it was
needed by him almost instantly,--that on this very morning he was
bound to go where money would be demanded from him, and that his
hopes with regard to Chelsea could not be maintained unless he was
able to make some substantial promise of providing funds. His sister
Kate's fortune was just two thousand pounds. That, and no more, was
now the capital at his command, if he should abandon this other
source of aid. Even that must go, if all other sources should fail
him; but he would fain have that untouched, if it were possible. Oh,
that that old man in Westmoreland would die and be gathered to his
fathers, now that he was full of years and ripe for the sickle! But
there was no sign of death about the old man. So his fingers released
their hold on the letter, and he stood looking at her in his anger.
"You wish me then to go from you?" he said.
"Do not be angry with me, George!"
"Angry! I have no right to be angry. But, by heaven, I am wrong
there. I have the right, and I am angry. I think you owed it me to
give me some warmer welcome. Is it to be thus with us always for the
next accursed year?"
"Oh, George!"
"To me it will be accursed. But is it to be thus between us always?
Alice, I have loved you above all women. I may say that I have never
loved any woman but you; and yet I am sometimes driven to doubt
whether you have a heart in you capable of love. After all that has
passed, all your old protestations, all my repentance, and your
proffer of forgiveness, you should have received me with open arms.
I suppose I may go now, and feel that I have been kicked out of your
house like a dog."
"If you speak to me like that, and look at me like that, how can I
answer you?"
"I want no answer. I wanted you to put your hand in mine, to kiss me,
and to tell me that you are once more my own. Alice, think better of
it; kiss me, and let me feel my arm once more round your waist."
She shuddered as she sat, still silent, on her seat, and he saw that
she shuddered. With all his desire for her money,--his instant need
of it,--this was too much for him; and he turned upon his heel, and
left the room without another word. She heard his quick step as he
hurried down the stairs, but she did not rise to arrest him. She
heard the door slam as he left the house, but still she did not move
from her seat. Her immediate desire had been that he should go,--and
now he was gone. There was in that a relief which almost comforted
her. And this was the man from whom, within the last few days, she
had accepted an offer of marriage.
George, when he left the house, walked hurriedly into Cavendish
Square, and down along the east side, till he made his way out along
Princes Street, into the Circus in Oxford Street. Close to him there,
in Great Marlborough Street, was the house of his parliamentary
attorney, Mr. Scruby, on whom he was bound to call on that morning. As
he had walked away from Queen Anne Street, he had thought of nothing
but that too visible shudder which his cousin Alice had been unable
to repress. He had been feeding on his anger, and indulging it,
telling himself at one moment that he would let her and her money
go from him whither they list,--and making inward threats in the
next that the time should come in which he would punish her for this
ill-usage. But there was the necessity of resolving what he would say
to Mr. Scruby. To Mr. Scruby was still due some trifle on the cost of
the last election; but even if this were paid, Mr. Scruby would make
no heavy advance towards the expense of the next election. Whoever
might come out at the end of such affairs without a satisfactory
settlement of his little bill, as had for a while been the case with
Mr. Grimes, from the "Handsome Man,"--and as, indeed, still was the
case with him, as that note of hand at three months' date was not yet
paid,--Mr. Scruby seldom allowed himself to suffer. It was true that
the election would not take place till the summer; but there were
preliminary expenses which needed ready money. Metropolitan voters,
as Mr. Scruby often declared, required to be kept in good humour,--so
that Mr. Scruby wanted the present payment of some five hundred
pounds, and a well-grounded assurance that he would be put in full
funds by the beginning of next June. Even Mr. Scruby might not be true
as perfect steel, if he thought that his candidate at the last moment
would not come forth properly prepared. Other candidates, with money
in their pockets, might find their way into Mr. Scruby's offices.
As George Vavasor crossed Regent Street, he gulped down his anger,
and applied his mind to business. Should he prepare himself to give
orders that Kate's little property should be sold out, or would he
resolve to use his cousin's money? That his cousin's money would
still be at his disposal, in spite of the stormy mood in which he had
retreated from her presence, he felt sure; but the asking for it on
his part would be unpleasant. That duty he must entrust to Kate. But
as he reached Mr. Scruby's door, he had decided that for such purposes
as those now in hand, it was preferable that he should use his wife's
fortune. It was thus that in his own mind he worded the phrase, and
made for himself an excuse. Yes;--he would use his wife's fortune,
and explain to Mr. Scruby that he would be justified in doing so
by the fact that his own heritage would be settled on her at her
marriage. I do not suppose that he altogether liked it. He was not,
at any rate as yet, an altogether heartless swindler. He could not
take his cousin's money without meaning,--without thinking that he
meant, to repay her in full all that he took. Her behaviour to him
this very morning had no doubt made the affair more difficult to
his mind, and more unpleasant than it would have been had she smiled
on him; but even as it was, he managed to assure himself that he
was doing her no wrong, and with this self-assurance he entered Mr.
Scruby's office.
The clerks in the outer office were very civil to him, and undertook
to promise him that he should not be kept waiting an instant. There
were four gentlemen in the little parlour, they said, waiting to see
Mr. Scruby, but there they should remain till Mr. Vavasor's interview
was over. One gentleman, as it seemed, was even turned out to make
way for him; for as George was ushered into the lawyer's room, a
little man, looking very meek, was hurried away from it.
"You can wait, Smithers," said Mr. Scruby, speaking from within. "I
shan't be very long." Vavasor apologized to his agent for the injury
he was doing Smithers; but Mr. Scruby explained that he was only a
poor devil of a printer, looking for payment of his little account.
He had printed and posted 30,000 placards for one of the late
Marylebone candidates, and found some difficulty in getting his
money. "You see, when they're in a small way of business, it ruins
them," said Scruby. "Now that poor devil,--he hasn't had a shilling
of his money yet, and the greater part has been paid out of his
pocket to the posters. It is hard."
It comforted Vavasor when he thus heard that there were others who
were more backward in their payments, even than himself, and made him
reflect that a longer credit than had yet been achieved by him, might
perhaps be within his reach. "It is astonishing how much a man may
get done for him," said he, "without paying anything for years."
"Yes; that's true. So he may, if he knows how to go about it. But
when he does pay, Mr. Vavasor, he does it through the nose;--cent. per
cent., and worse, for all his former shortcomings."
"How many there are who never pay at all," said George.
"Yes, Mr. Vavasor;--that's true, too. But see what a life they lead.
It isn't a pleasant thing to be afraid of coming into your agent's
office; not what you would like, Mr. Vavasor;--not if I know you."
"I never was afraid of meeting anyone yet," said Vavasor; "but I
don't know what I may come to."
"Nor never will, I'll go bail. But, Lord love you, I could tell
you such tales! I've had Members of Parliament, past, present, and
future, almost down on their knees to me in this little room. It's
about a month or six weeks before the elections come on when they're
at their worst. There is so much you see, Mr. Vavasor, for which a
gentleman must pay ready money. It isn't like a business in which a
lawyer is supposed to find the capital. If I had money enough to pay
out of my own pocket all the cost of all the metropolitan gentlemen
for whom I act, why, I could live on the interest without any
trouble, and go into Parliament myself like a man."
George Vavasor perfectly understood that Mr. Scruby was explaining to
him, with what best attempt at delicacy he could make, that funds for
the expense of the Chelsea election were not to be forthcoming from
the Great Marlborough Street establishment.
"I suppose so," said he. "But you do do it sometimes."
"Never, Mr. Vavasor," said Mr. Scruby, very solemnly. "As a rule,
never. I may advance the money, on interest, of course, when I
receive a guarantee from the candidate's father, or from six or
seven among the committee, who must all be very substantial,--very
substantial indeed. But in a general way I don't do it. It isn't my
place."
"I thought you did;--but at any rate I don't want you to do it for
me."
"I'm quite sure you don't," said Mr. Scruby, with a brighter tone of
voice than that he had just been using. "I never thought you did, Mr.
Vavasor. Lord bless you, Mr. Vavasor, I know the difference between
gentlemen as soon as I see them."
Then they went to business, and Vavasor became aware that it would be
thought convenient that he should lodge with Mr. Scruby, to his own
account, a sum not less than six hundred pounds within the next week,
and it would be also necessary that he should provide for taking up
that bill, amounting to ninety-two pounds, which he had given to
the landlord of the "Handsome Man." In short, it would be well that
he should borrow a thousand pounds from Alice, and as he did not
wish that the family attorney of the Vavasors should be employed
to raise it, he communicated to Mr. Scruby as much of his plans as
was necessary,--feeling more hesitation in doing it than might have
been expected from him. When he had done so, he was very intent on
explaining also that the money taken from his cousin, and future
bride, would be repaid to her out of the property in Westmoreland,
which was,--did he say settled on himself? I am afraid he did.
"Yes, yes;--a family arrangement," said Mr. Scruby, as he
congratulated him on his proposed marriage. Mr. Scruby did not care a
straw from what source the necessary funds might be drawn.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
John Grey Goes a Second Time to London.
Early in that conversation which Mr. Vavasor had with his daughter,
and which was recorded a few pages back, he implored her to pause a
while before she informed Mr. Grey of her engagement with her cousin.
Nothing, however, on that point had been settled between them. Mr.
Vavasor had wished her to say that she would not write till he should
have assented to her doing so. She had declined to bind herself in
this way, and then they had gone off to other things;--to George
Vavasor's character and the disposition of her money. Alice, however,
had felt herself bound not to write to Mr. Grey quite at once. Indeed,
when her cousin left her she had no appetite for writing such a
letter as hers was to be. A day or two passed by her in this way, and
nothing more was said by her or her father. It was now the middle of
January, and the reader may remember that Mr. Grey had promised that
he would come to her in London in that month, as soon as he should
know that she had returned from Westmoreland. She must at any rate
do something to prevent that visit. Mr. Grey would not come without
giving her notice. She knew enough of the habits of the man to be
sure of that. But she desired that her letter to him should be in
time to prevent his to her; so when those few days were gone, she sat
down to write without speaking to her father again upon the subject.
It was a terrible job;--perhaps the most difficult of all the
difficult tasks which her adverse fate had imposed upon her. She
found when she did attempt it, that she could have done it better if
she had done it at the moment when she was writing the other letter
to her cousin George. Then Kate had been near her, and she had been
comforted by Kate's affectionate happiness. She had been strengthened
at that moment by a feeling that she was doing the best in her power,
if not for herself, at any rate for others. All that comfort and
all that strength had left her now. The atmosphere of the fells had
buoyed her up, and now the thick air of London depressed her. She
sat for hours with the pen in her hand, and could not write the
letter. She let a day go by and a night, and still it was not written.
She hardly knew herself in her unnatural weakness. As the mental
photographs of the two men forced themselves upon her, she could
not force herself to forget those words--"Look here, upon this
picture--and on this." How was it that she now knew how great was
the difference between the two men, how immense the pre-eminence of
him whom she had rejected;--and that she had not before been able
to see this on any of those many previous occasions on which she had
compared the two together? As she thought of her cousin George's face
when he left her room a few days since, and remembered Mr. Grey's
countenance when last he held her hand at Cheltenham, the quiet
dignity of his beauty which would submit to show no consciousness
of injury, she could not but tell herself that when Paradise had
been opened to her, she had declared herself to be fit only for
Pandemonium. In that was her chief misery; that now,--now when it was
too late,--she could look at it aright.
But the letter must be written, and on the second day she declared
to herself that she would not rise from her chair till it was done.
The letter was written on that day and was posted. I will now ask the
reader to go down with me to Nethercoats that we may be present with
John Grey when he received it. He was sitting at breakfast in his
study there, and opposite to him, lounging in an arm-chair, with a
_Quarterly_ in his hand, was the most intimate of his friends, Frank
Seward, a fellow of the college to which they had both belonged. Mr.
Seward was a clergyman, and the tutor of his college, and a man who
worked very hard at Cambridge. In the days of his leisure he spent
much of his time at Nethercoats, and he was the only man to whom Grey
had told anything of his love for Alice and of his disappointment.
Even to Seward he had not told the whole story. He had at first
informed his friend that he was engaged to be married, and as he had
told this as no secret,--having even said that he hated secrets on
such matters,--the engagement had been mentioned in the common room
of their college, and men at Cambridge knew that Mr. Grey was going
to take to himself a wife. Then Mr. Seward had been told that trouble
had come, and that it was not improbable that there would be no such
marriage. Even when saying this Mr. Grey told none of the particulars,
though he owned to his friend that a heavy blow had struck him. His
intimacy with Seward was of that thorough kind which is engendered
only out of such young and lasting friendship as had existed between
them; but even to such a friend as this Mr. Grey could not open his
whole heart. It was only to a friend who should also be his wife that
he could do that,--as he himself thoroughly understood. He had felt
that such a friend was wanting to him, and he had made the attempt.
"Don't speak of this as yet," he had said to Mr. Seward. "Of course
when the matter is settled, those few people who know me must know
it. But perhaps there may be a doubt as yet, and as long as there is
a doubt, it is better that it should not be discussed."
He had said no more than this,--had imputed no blame to Alice,--had
told none of the circumstances; but Seward had known that the girl
had jilted his friend, and had made up his mind that she must be
heartless and false. He had known also that his friend would never
look for any other such companion for his home.
Letters were brought to each of them on this morning, and Seward's
attention was of course occupied by those which he received. Grey,
as soon as the envelopes had touched his hand, became aware that one
of them was from Alice, and this he at once opened. He did it very
calmly, but without any of that bravado of indifference with which
George Vavasor had received Alice's letter from Westmoreland. "It is
right that I should tell you at once," said Alice, rushing into the
middle of her subject without even the formality of the customary
address--"It is right that I should tell you at once that--." Oh,
the difficulty which she had encountered when her words had carried
her as far as this!--"that my cousin, George Vavasor, has repeated
to me his offer of marriage, and that I have accepted it. I tell
you, chiefly in order that I may save you from the trouble which you
purposed to take when I last saw you at Cheltenham. I will not tell
you any of the circumstances of this engagement, because I have no
right to presume that you will care to hear them. I hardly dare
to ask you to believe of me that in all that I have done, I have
endeavoured to act with truth and honesty. That I have been very
ignorant, foolish,--what you will that is bad, I know well; otherwise
there could not have been so much in the last few years of my life
on which I am utterly ashamed to look back. For the injury that I
have done you, I can only express deep contrition. I do not dare to
ask you to forgive me.--ALICE VAVASOR." She had tormented herself in
writing this,--had so nearly driven herself distracted with attempts
which she had destroyed, that she would not even read once to herself
these last words. "He'll know it, and that is all that is necessary,"
she said to herself as she sent the letter away from her.
Mr. Grey read it twice over, leaving the other letters unnoticed on
the table by his tea-cup. He read it twice over, and the work of
reading it was one to him of intense agony. Hitherto he had fed
himself with hope. That Alice should have been brought to think of
her engagement with him in a spirit of doubt and with a mind so
troubled, that she had been inclined to attempt an escape from it,
had been very grievous to him; but it had been in his mind a fantasy,
a morbid fear of himself, which might be cured by time. He, at any
rate, would give all his energies towards achieving such a cure.
There had been one thing, however, which he most feared;--which he
had chiefly feared, though he had forbidden himself to think that it
could be probable, and this thing had now happened.
He had ever disliked and feared George Vavasor;--not from any effect
which the man had upon himself, for as we know his acquaintance with
Vavasor was of the slightest;--but he had feared and disliked his
influence upon Alice. He had also feared the influence of her cousin
Kate. To have cautioned Alice against her cousins would have been to
him impossible. It was not his nature to express suspicion to one he
loved. Is the tone of that letter remembered in which he had answered
Alice when she informed him that her cousin George was to go with
Kate and her to Switzerland? He had written, with a pleasant joke,
words which Alice had been able to read with some little feeling of
triumph to her two friends. He had not so written because he liked
what he knew of the man. He disliked all that he knew of him. But it
had not been possible for him to show that he distrusted the prudence
of her, whom, as his future wife, he was prepared to trust in all
things.
I have said that he read Alice's letter with an agony of sorrow; as
he sat with it in his hand he suffered as, probably, he had never
suffered before. But there was nothing in his countenance to show
that he was in pain. Seward had received some long epistle, crossed
from end to end,--indicative, I should say, of a not far distant
termination to that college tutorship,--and was reading it with
placid contentment. It did not occur to him to look across at Grey,
but had he done so, I doubt whether he would have seen anything to
attract his attention. But Grey, though he was wounded, would not
allow himself to be dismayed. There was less hope now than before,
but there might still be hope;--hope for her, even though there might
be none for him. Tidings had reached his ears also as to George
Vavasor, which had taught him to believe that the man was needy,
reckless, and on the brink of ruin. Such a marriage to Alice Vavasor
would be altogether ruinous. Whatever might be his own ultimate fate
he would still seek to save her from that. Her cousin, doubtless,
wanted her money. Might it not be possible that he would be satisfied
with her money, and that thus the woman might be saved?
"Seward," he said at last, addressing his friend, who had not yet
come to the end of the last crossed page.
"Is there anything wrong?" said Seward.
"Well;--yes; there is something a little wrong. I fear I must leave
you, and go up to town to-day."
"Nobody ill, I hope?"
"No;--nobody is ill. But I must go up to London. Mrs. Bole will take
care of you, and you must not be angry with me for leaving you."
Seward assured him that he would not be in the least angry, and
that he was thoroughly conversant with the capabilities and good
intentions of Mrs. Bole the housekeeper; but added, that as he was
so near his own college, he would of course go back to Cambridge.
He longed to say some word as to the purpose of Grey's threatened
journey; to make some inquiry as to this new trouble; but he knew
that Grey was a man who did not well bear close inquiries, and he was
silent.
"Why not stay here?" said Grey, after a minute's pause. "I wish
you would, old fellow; I do, indeed." There was a tone of special
affection in his voice which struck Seward at once. "If I can be of
the slightest service or comfort to you, I will of course."
Grey again sat silent for a little while. "I wish you would; I do,
indeed."
"Then I will." And again there was a pause.
"I have got a letter here from--Miss Vavasor," said Grey.
"May I hope that--"
"No;--it does not bring good news to me. I do not know that I can
tell it you all. I would if I could, but the whole story is one not
to be told in a hurry. I should leave false impressions. There are
things which a man cannot tell."
"Indeed there are," said Seward.
"I wish with all my heart that you knew it all as I know it; but that
is impossible. There are things which happen in a day which it would
take a lifetime to explain." Then there was another pause. "I have
heard bad news this morning, and I must go up to London at once. I
shall go into Ely so as to be there by twelve; and if you will, you
shall drive me over. I may be back in a day; certainly in less than
a week; but it will be a comfort to me to know that I shall find you
here."
The matter was so arranged, and at eleven they started. During
the first two miles not a word was spoken between them. "Seward,"
Grey said at last, "if I fail in what I am going to attempt, it is
probable that you will never hear Alice Vavasor's name mentioned by
me again; but I want you always to bear this in mind;--that at no
moment has my opinion of her ever been changed, nor must you in such
case imagine from my silence that it has changed. Do you understand
me?"
"I think I do."
"To my thinking she is the finest of God's creatures that I have
known. It may be that in her future life she will be severed from me
altogether; but I shall not, therefore, think the less well of her;
and I wish that you, as my friend, should know that I so esteem her,
even though her name should never be mentioned between us." Seward,
in some few words, assured him that it should be so, and then they
finished their journey in silence.
From the station at Ely, Grey sent a message by the wires up to John
Vavasor, saying that he would call on him that afternoon at his
office in Chancery Lane. The chances were always much against finding
Mr. Vavasor at his office; but on this occasion the telegram did reach
him there, and he remained till the unaccustomed hour of half past
four to meet the man who was to have been his son-in-law.
"Have you heard from her?" he asked as soon as Grey entered the dingy
little room, not in Chancery Lane, but in its neighbourhood, which
was allocated to him for his signing purposes.
"Yes,"--said Grey; "she has written to me."
"And told you about her cousin George. I tried to hinder her from
writing, but she is very wilful."
"Why should you have hindered her? If the thing was to be told, it is
better that it should be done at once."
"But I hoped that there might be an escape. I don't know what you
think of all this, Grey, but to me it is the bitterest misfortune
that I have known. And I've had some bitter things, too," he
added,--thinking of that period of his life, when the work of which
he was ashamed was first ordained as his future task.
"What is the escape that you hoped?" asked Grey.
"I hardly know. The whole thing seems to me to be so mad, that I
partly trusted that she would see the madness of it. I am not sure
whether you know anything of my nephew George?" asked Mr. Vavasor.
"Very little," said Grey.
"I believe him to be utterly an adventurer,--a man without means and
without principle,--upon the whole about as bad a man as you may
meet. I give you my word, Grey, that I don't think I know a worse
man. He's going to marry her for her money; then he will beggar her,
after that he'll ill-treat her, and yet what can I do?"
"Prevent the marriage."
"But how, my dear fellow? Prevent it! It's all very well to say that,
and it's the very thing I want to do. But how am I to prevent it?
She's as much her own master as you are yours. She can give him every
shilling of her fortune to-morrow. How am I to prevent her from
marrying him?"
"Let her give him every shilling of her fortune to-morrow," said
Grey.
"And what is she to do then?" asked Mr. Vavasor.
"Then--then,--then,--then let her come to me," said John Grey; and as
he spoke there was the fragment of a tear in his eye, and the hint of
quiver in his voice.
[Illustration: "Then--then,--then let her come to me."]
Even the worldly, worn-out, unsympathetic nature of John Vavasor was
struck, and, as it were, warmed by this.
"God bless you; God bless you, my dear fellow. I heartily wish
for her sake that I could look forward to any such an end to this
affair."
"And why not look forward to it? You say that he merely wants her
money. As he wants it let him have it!"
"But Grey, you do not know Alice; you do not understand my girl. When
she had lost her fortune nothing would induce her to become your
wife."
"Leave that to follow as it may," said John Grey. "Our first object
must be to sever her from a man, who is, as you say, himself on the
verge of ruin; and who would certainly make her wretched. I am here
now, not because I wish her to be my own wife, but because I wish
that she should not become the wife of such a one as your nephew. If
I were you I would let him have her money."
"If you were I, you would have nothing more to do with it than the
man that is as yet unborn. I know that she will give him her money
because she has said so; but I have no power as to her giving it or
as to her withholding it. That's the hardship of my position;--but it
is of no use to think of that now."
John Grey certainly did not think about it. He knew well that Alice
was independent, and that she was not inclined to give up that
independence to anyone. He had not expected that her father would
be able to do much towards hindering his daughter from becoming the
wife of George Vavasor, but he had wished that he himself and her
father should be in accord in their views, and he found that this
was so. When he left Mr. Vavasor's room nothing had been said about
the period of the marriage. Grey thought it improbable that Alice
would find herself able to give herself in marriage to her cousin
immediately,--so soon after her breach with him; but as to this he
had no assurance, and he determined to have the facts from her own
lips, if she would see him. So he wrote to her, naming a day on which
he would call upon her early in the morning; and having received
from her no prohibition, he was in Queen Anne Street at the hour
appointed.
He had conceived a scheme which he had not made known to Mr. Vavasor,
and as to the practicability of which he had much doubt; but which,
nevertheless, he was resolved to try if he should find the attempt
possible. He himself would buy off George Vavasor. He had ever been a
prudent man, and he had money at command. If Vavasor was such a man
as they, who knew him best, represented him, such a purchase might be
possible. But then, before this was attempted, he must be quite sure
that he knew his man, and he must satisfy himself also that in doing
so he would not, in truth, add to Alice's misery. He could hardly
bring himself to think it possible that she did, in truth, love her
cousin with passionate love. It seemed to him, as he remembered what
Alice had been to himself, that this must be impossible. But if it
were so, that of course must put an end to his interference. He
thought that if he saw her he might learn all this, and therefore he
went to Queen Anne Street.
"Of course he must come if he will," she said to herself when she
received his note. "It can make no matter. He will say nothing half
so hard to me as what I say to myself all day long." But when the
morning came, and the hour came, and the knock at the door for which
her ears were on the alert, her heart misgave her, and she felt that
the present moment of her punishment, though not the heaviest, would
still be hard to bear.
He came slowly up-stairs,--his step was ever slow,--and gently opened
the door for himself. Then, before he even looked at her, he closed
it again. I do not know how to explain that it was so; but it was
this perfect command of himself at all seasons which had in part made
Alice afraid of him, and drove her to believe that they were not
fitted for each other. She, when he thus turned for a moment from
her, and then walked slowly towards her, stood with both her hands
leaning on the centre table of the room, and with her eyes fixed upon
its surface.
"Alice," he said, walking up to her very slowly.
Her whole frame shuddered as she heard the sweetness of his voice.
Had I not better tell the truth of her at once? Oh, if she could only
have been his again! What madness during these last six months had
driven her to such a plight as this! The old love came back upon
her. Nay; it had never gone. But that trust in his love returned to
her,--that trust which told her that such love and such worth would
have sufficed to make her happy. But this confidence in him was
worthless now! Even though he should desire it, she could not change
again.
"Alice," he said again. And then, as slowly she looked up at him, he
asked her for her hand. "You may give it me," he said, "as to an old
friend." She put her hand in his hand, and then, withdrawing it, felt
that she must never trust herself to do so again.
"Alice," he continued, "I do not expect you to say much to me; but
there is a question or two which I think you will answer. Has a day
been fixed for this marriage?"
"No," she said.
"Will it be in a month?"
"Oh, no;--not for a year," she replied hurriedly;--and he knew at
once by her voice that she already dreaded this new wedlock. Whatever
of anger he might before have felt for her was banished. She had
brought herself by her ill-judgement,--by her ignorance, as she had
confessed,--to a sad pass; but he believed that she was still worthy
of his love.
"And now one other question, Alice;--but if you are silent, I will
not ask it again. Can you tell me why you have again accepted your
cousin's offer?"
"Because--," she said very quickly, looking up as though she were
about to speak with all her old courage. "But you would never
understand me," she said,--"and there can be no reason why I should
dare to hope that you should ever think well of me again."
He knew that there was no love,--no love for that man to whom she
had pledged her hand. He did not know, on the other hand, how strong,
how unchanged, how true was her love for himself. Indeed, of himself
he was thinking not at all. He desired to learn whether she would
suffer, if by any scheme he might succeed in breaking off this
marriage. When he had asked her whether she were to be married at
once, she had shuddered at the thought. When he asked her why she
had accepted her cousin, she had faltered, and hinted at some excuse
which he might fail to understand. Had she loved George Vavasor, he
could have understood that well enough.
"Alice," he said, speaking still very slowly, "nothing has ever yet
been done which need to a certainty separate you and me. I am a
persistent man, and I do not even yet give up all hope. A year is a
long time. As you say yourself, I do not as yet quite understand you.
But, Alice,--and I think that the position in which we stood a few
months since justifies me in saying so without offence,--I love you
now as well as ever, and should things change with you, I cannot tell
you with how much joy and eagerness I should take you back to my
bosom. My heart is yours now as it has been since I knew you."
Then he again just touched her hand, and left her before she had been
able to answer a word.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
Mr. Tombe's Advice.
Alice sat alone for an hour without moving when John Grey had left
her, and the last words which he had uttered were sounding in her
ears all the time, "My heart is still yours, as it has been since I
knew you." There had been something in his words which had soothed
her spirits, and had, for the moment, almost comforted her. At any
rate, he did not despise her. He could not have spoken such words as
these to her had he not still held her high in his esteem. Nay;--had
he not even declared that he would yet take her as his own if she
would come to him? "I cannot tell you with how much joy I would take
you back to my bosom!" Ah! that might never be. But yet the assurance
had been sweet to her;--dangerously sweet, as she soon told herself.
She knew that she had lost her Eden, but it was something to her that
the master of the garden had not himself driven her forth. She sat
there, thinking of her fate, as though it belonged to some other
one,--not to herself; as though it were a tale that she had read.
Herself she had shipwrecked altogether; but though she might sink,
she had not been thrust from the ship by hands which she loved.
But would it not have been better that he should have scorned her
and reviled her? Had he been able to do so, he at least would have
escaped the grief of disappointed love. Had he learned to despise
her, he would have ceased to regret her. She had no right to feel
consolation in the fact that his sufferings were equal to her own.
But when she thought of this, she told herself that it could not be
that it was so. He was a man, she said, not passionate by nature.
Alas! it was the mistake she had ever made when summing up the items
of his character! He might be persistent, she thought, in still
striving to do that upon which he had once resolved. He had said
so, and that which he said was always true to the letter. But,
nevertheless, when this thing which he still chose to pursue should
have been put absolutely beyond his reach, he would not allow his
calm bosom to be harassed by a vain regret. He was a man too whole at
every point,--so Alice told herself,--to allow his happiness to be
marred by such an accident.
But must the accident occur? Was there no chance that he might be
saved, even from such trouble as might follow upon such a loss?
Could it not be possible that he might be gratified,--since it would
gratify him,--and that she might be saved! Over and over again she
considered this,--but always as though it were another woman whom she
would fain save, and not herself.
But she knew that her own fate was fixed. She had been mad when she
had done the thing, but the thing was not on that account the less
done. She had been mad when she had trusted herself abroad with
two persons, both of whom, as she had well known, were intent on
wrenching her happiness from out of her grasp. She had been mad when
she had told herself, whilst walking over the Westmoreland fells,
that after all she might as well marry her cousin, since that other
marriage was then beyond her reach! Her two cousins had succeeded in
blighting all the hopes of her life;--but what could she now think
of herself in that she had been so weak as to submit to such usage
from their hands? Alas!--she told herself, admitting in her misery
all her weakness,--alas, she had no mother. She had gloried in her
independence, and this had come of it! She had scorned the prudence
of Lady Macleod, and her scorn had brought her to this pass!
Was she to give herself bodily,--body and soul, as she said aloud in
her solitary agony,--to a man whom she did not love? Must she submit
to his caresses,--lie on his bosom,--turn herself warmly to his
kisses? "No," she said, "no,"--speaking audibly, as she walked about
the room; "no;--it was not in my bargain; I never meant it." But if
so what had she meant;--what had been her dream? Of what marriage had
she thought, when she was writing that letter back to George Vavasor?
How am I to analyse her mind, and make her thoughts and feelings
intelligible to those who may care to trouble themselves with the
study? Any sacrifice she would make for her cousin which one friend
could make for another. She would fight his battles with her money,
with her words, with her sympathy. She would sit with him if he
needed it, and speak comfort to him by the hour. His disgrace should
be her disgrace;--his glory her glory;--his pursuits her pursuits.
Was not that the marriage to which she had consented? But he had come
to her and asked her for a kiss, and she had shuddered before him,
when he made the demand. Then that other one had come and had touched
her hand, and the fibres of her body had seemed to melt within her at
the touch, so that she could have fallen at his feet.
She had done very wrong. She knew that she had done wrong. She knew
that she had sinned with that sin which specially disgraces a woman.
She had said that she would become the wife of a man to whom she
could not cleave with a wife's love; and, mad with a vile ambition,
she had given up the man for whose modest love her heart was longing.
She had thrown off from her that wondrous aroma of precious delicacy,
which is the greatest treasure of womanhood. She had sinned against
her sex; and, in an agony of despair, as she crouched down upon the
floor with her head against her chair, she told herself that there
was no pardon for her. She understood it now, and knew that she could
not forgive herself.
But can you forgive her, delicate reader? Or am I asking the question
too early in my story? For myself, I have forgiven her. The story of
the struggle has been present to my mind for many years,--and I have
learned to think that even this offence against womanhood may, with
deep repentance, be forgiven. And you also must forgive her before we
close the book, or else my story will have been told amiss.
But let us own that she had sinned,--almost damnably, almost past
forgiveness. What;--think that she knew what love meant, and not know
which of two she loved! What;--doubt, of two men for whose arms she
longed, of which the kisses would be sweet to bear; on which side lay
the modesty of her maiden love! Faugh! She had submitted to pollution
of heart and feeling before she had brought herself to such a pass as
this. Come;--let us see if it be possible that she may be cleansed by
the fire of her sorrow.
"What am I to do?" She passed that whole day in asking herself that
question. She was herself astounded at the rapidity with which the
conviction had forced itself upon her that a marriage with her cousin
would be to her almost impossible; and could she permit it to be
said of her that she had thrice in her career jilted a promised
suitor,--that three times she would go back from her word because
her fancy had changed? Where could she find the courage to tell her
father, to tell Kate, to tell even George himself, that her purpose
was again altered? But she had a year at her disposal. If only during
that year he would take her money and squander it, and then require
nothing further of her hands, might she not thus escape the doom
before her? Might it not be possible that the refusal should this
time come from him? But she succeeded in making one resolve. She
thought at least that she succeeded. Come what might, she would never
stand with him at the altar. While there was a cliff from which she
might fall, water that would cover her, a death-dealing grain that
might be mixed in her cup, she could not submit herself to be George
Vavasor's wife. To no ear could she tell of this resolve. To no
friend could she hint her purpose. She owed her money to the man
after what had passed between them. It was his right to count upon
such assistance as that would give him, and he should have it. Only
as his betrothed she could give it him, for she understood well that
if there were any breach between them, his accepting of such aid
would be impossible. He should have her money, and then, when the day
came, some escape should be found.
In the afternoon her father came to her, and it may be as well to
explain that Mr. Grey had seen him again that day. Mr. Grey, when
he left Queen Anne Street, had gone to his lawyer, and from thence
had made his way to Mr. Vavasor. It was between five and six when
Mr. Vavasor came back to his house, and he then found his daughter
sitting over the drawing-room fire, without lights, in the gloom
of the evening. Mr. Vavasor had returned with Grey to the lawyer's
chambers, and had from thence come direct to his own house. He had
been startled at the precision with which all the circumstances
of his daughter's position had been explained to a mild-eyed old
gentleman, with a bald head, who carried on his business in a narrow,
dark, clean street, behind Doctors' Commons. Mr. Tombe was his name.
"No;" Mr. Grey had said, when Mr. Vavasor had asked as to the peculiar
nature of Mr. Tombe's business; "he is not specially an ecclesiastical
lawyer. He had a partner at Ely, and was always employed by my
father, and by most of the clergy there." Mr. Tombe had evinced no
surprise, no dismay, and certainly no mock delicacy, when the whole
affair was under discussion. George Vavasor was to get present
moneys, but,--if it could be so arranged--from John Grey's stores
rather than from those belonging to Alice. Mr. Tombe could probably
arrange that with Mr. Vavasor's lawyer, who would no doubt be able to
make difficulty as to raising ready money. Mr. Tombe would be able
to raise ready money without difficulty. And then, at last, George
Vavasor was to be made to surrender his bride, taking or having taken
the price of his bargain. John Vavasor sat by in silence as the
arrangement was being made, not knowing how to speak. He had no money
with which to give assistance. "I wish you to understand from the
lady's father," Grey said to the lawyer, "that the marriage would be
regarded by him with as much dismay as by myself."
"Certainly;--it would be ruinous," Mr. Vavasor had answered.
"And you see, Mr. Tombe," Mr. Grey went on, "we only wish to try the
man. If he be not such as we believe him to be, he can prove it by
his conduct. If he is worthy of her, he can then take her."
"You merely wish to open her eyes, Mr. Grey," said the mild-eyed
lawyer.
"I wish that he should have what money he wants, and then we shall
find what it is he really wishes."
"Yes; we shall know our man," said the lawyer. "He shall have the
money, Mr. Grey," and so the interview had been ended.
Mr. Vavasor, when he entered the drawing-room, addressed his daughter
in a cheery voice. "What; all in the dark?"
"Yes, papa. Why should I have candles when I am doing nothing? I did
not expect you."
"No; I suppose not. I came here because I want to say a few words to
you about business."
"What business, papa?" Alice well understood the tone of her father's
voice. He was desirous of propitiating her; but was at the same time
desirous of carrying some point in which he thought it probable that
she would oppose him.
"Well; my love, if I understood you rightly, your cousin George wants
some money."
"I did not say that he wants it now; but I think he will want it
before the time for the election comes."
"If so, he will want it at once. He has not asked you for it yet?"
"No; he has merely said that should he be in need he would take me at
my word."
"I think there is no doubt that he wants it. Indeed, I believe that
he is almost entirely without present means of his own."
"I can hardly think so; but I have no knowledge about it. I can only
say that he has not asked me yet, and that I should wish to oblige
him whenever he may do so."
"To what extent, Alice?"
"I don't know what I have. I get about four hundred a year, but I
do not know what it is worth, or how far it can all be turned into
money. I should wish to keep a hundred a year and let him have the
rest."
"What; eight thousand pounds!" said the father who in spite of his
wish not to oppose her, could not but express his dismay.
"I do not imagine that he will want so much; but if he should, I wish
that he should have it."
"Heaven and earth!" said John Vavasor. "Of course we should have to
give up the house." He could not suppress his trouble, or refrain
from bursting out in agony at the prospect of such a loss.
"But he has asked me for nothing yet, papa."
"No, exactly; and perhaps he may not; but I wish to know what to do
when the demand is made. I am not going to oppose you now; your money
is your own, and you have a right to do with it as you please;--but
would you gratify me in one thing?"
"What is it, papa?"
"When he does apply, let the amount be raised through me?"
"How through you?"
"Come to me; I mean, so that I may see the lawyer, and have the
arrangements made." Then he explained to her that in dealing with
large sums of money, it could not be right that she should do so
without his knowledge, even though the property was her own. "I will
promise you that I will not oppose your wishes," he said. Then Alice
undertook that when such case should arise the money should be raised
through his means.
The day but one following this she received a letter from Lady
Glencora, who was still at Matching Priory. It was a light-spirited,
chatty, amusing letter, intended to be happy in its tone,--intended
to have a flavour of happiness, but just failing through the too
apparent meaning of a word here and there. "You will see that I am at
Matching," the letter said, "whereas you will remember that I was to
have been at Monkshade. I escaped at last by a violent effort, and
am now passing my time innocently,--I fear not so profitably as she
would induce me to do,--with Iphy Palliser. You remember Iphy. She is
a good creature, and would fain turn even me to profit, if it were
possible. I own that I am thinking of them all at Monkshade, and
am in truth delighted that I am not there. My absence is entirely
laid upon your shoulders. That wicked evening amidst the ruins! Poor
ruins. I go there alone sometimes and fancy that I hear such voices
from the walls, and see such faces through the broken windows! All
the old Pallisers come and frown at me, and tell me that I am not
good enough to belong to them. There is a particular window to which
Sir Guy comes and makes faces at me. I told Iphy the other day, and
she answered me very gravely, that I might, if I chose, make myself
good enough for the Pallisers. Even for the Pallisers! Isn't that
beautiful?"
Then Lady Glencora went on to say, that her husband intended to come
up to London early in the session, and that she would accompany him.
"That is," added Lady Glencora, "if I am still good enough for the
Pallisers at that time."
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
The Inn at Shap.
When George Vavasor left Mr. Scruby's office--the attentive reader
will remember that he did call upon Mr. Scruby, the Parliamentary
lawyer, and there recognised the necessity of putting himself
in possession of a small sum of money with as little delay as
possible;--when he left the attorney's office, he was well aware that
the work to be done was still before him. And he knew also that the
job to be undertaken was a very disagreeable job. He did not like the
task of borrowing his cousin Alice's money.
We all of us know that swindlers and rogues do very dirty tricks,
and we are apt to picture to ourselves a certain amount of gusto
and delight on the part of the swindlers in the doing of them. In
this, I think we are wrong. The poor, broken, semi-genteel beggar,
who borrows half-sovereigns apiece from all his old acquaintances,
knowing that they know that he will never repay them, suffers a
separate little agony with each petition that he makes. He does not
enjoy pleasant sailing in this journey which he is making. To be
refused is painful to him. To get his half sovereign with scorn is
painful. To get it with apparent confidence in his honour is almost
more painful. "D---- it," he says to himself on such rare occasions,
"I will pay that fellow;" and yet, as he says it, he knows that he
never will pay even that fellow. It is a comfortless unsatisfying
trade, that of living upon other people's money.
How was George Vavasor to make his first step towards getting his
hand into his cousin's purse? He had gone to her asking for her
love, and she had shuddered when he asked her. That had been the
commencement of their life under their new engagement. He knew very
well that the money would be forthcoming when he demanded it,--but
under their present joint circumstances, how was he to make the
demand? If he wrote to her, should he simply ask for money, and make
no allusion to his love? If he went to her in person, should he make
his visit a mere visit of business,--as he might call on his banker?
He resolved at last that Kate should do the work for him. Indeed,
he had felt all along that it would be well that Kate should act as
ambassador between him and Alice in money matters, as she had long
done in other things. He could talk to Kate as he could not talk to
Alice;--and then, between the women, those hard money necessities
would be softened down by a romantic phraseology which he would not
himself know how to use with any effect. He made up his mind to see
Kate, and with this view he went down to Westmoreland; and took
himself to a small wayside inn at Shap among the fells, which had
been known to him of old. He gave his sister notice that he would be
there, and begged her to come over to him as early as she might find
it possible on the morning after his arrival. He himself reached the
place late in the evening by train from London. There is a station
at Shap, by which the railway company no doubt conceives that it
has conferred on that somewhat rough and remote locality all the
advantages of a refined civilization; but I doubt whether the
Shappites have been thankful for the favour. The landlord at the inn,
for one, is not thankful. Shap had been a place owing all such life
as it had possessed to coaching and posting. It had been a stage on
the high road from Lancaster to Carlisle, and though it lay high
and bleak among the fells, and was a cold, windy, thinly-populated
place,--filling all travellers with thankfulness that they had not
been made Shappites, nevertheless, it had had its glory in its
coaching and posting. I have no doubt that there are men and women
who look back with a fond regret to the palmy days of Shap.
Vavasor reached the little inn about nine in the evening on a night
that was pitchy dark, and in a wind which made it necessary for him
to hold his hat on to his head. "What a beastly country to live in,"
he said to himself, resolving that he would certainly sell Vavasor
Hall in spite of all family associations, if ever the power to do so
should be his. "What trash it is," he said, "hanging on to such a
place as that without the means of living like a gentleman, simply
because one's ancestors have done so." And then he expressed a
doubt to himself whether all the world contained a more ignorant,
opinionated, useless old man than his grandfather,--or, in short, a
greater fool.
"Well, Mr. George," said the landlord as soon as he saw him, "a sight
of you's guid for sair een. It's o'er lang since you've been doon
amang the fells." But George did not want to converse with the
innkeeper, or to explain how it was that he did not visit Vavasor
Hall. The innkeeper, no doubt, knew all about it,--knew that the
grandfather had quarrelled with his grandson, and knew the reason
why; but George, if he suspected such knowledge, did not choose to
refer to it. So he simply grunted something in reply, and getting
himself in before a spark of fire which hardly was burning in a
public room with a sandy floor, begged that the little sitting-room
up-stairs might be got ready for him. There he passed the evening in
solitude, giving no encouragement to the landlord, who, nevertheless,
looked him up three or four times,--till at last George said that his
head ached, and that he would wish to be alone. "He was always one of
them cankery chiels as never have a kindly word for man nor beast,"
said the landlord. "Seems as though that raw slash in his face had
gone right through into his heart." After that George was left alone,
and sat thinking whether it would not be better to ask Alice for two
thousand pounds at once,--so as to save him from the disagreeable
necessity of a second borrowing before their marriage. He was very
uneasy in his mind. He had flattered himself through it all that his
cousin had loved him. He had felt sure that such was the case while
they were together in Switzerland. When she had determined to give
up John Grey, of course he had told himself the same thing. When she
had at once answered his first subsequent overture with an assent, he
had of course been certain that it was so. Dark, selfish, and even
dishonest as he was, he had, nevertheless, enjoyed something of a
lover's true pleasure in believing that Alice had still loved him
through all their mischances. But his joy had in a moment been turned
into gall during that interview in Queen Anne Street. He had read the
truth at a glance. A man must be very vain, or else very little used
to such matters, who at George Vavasor's age cannot understand the
feelings with which a woman receives him. When Alice contrived as she
had done to escape the embrace he was so well justified in asking, he
knew the whole truth. He was sore at heart, and very angry withal.
He could have readily spurned her from him, and rejected her who had
once rejected him. He would have done so had not his need for her
money restrained him. He was not a man who could deceive himself in
such matters. He knew that this was so, and he told himself that he
was a rascal.
Vavasor Hall was, by the road, about five miles from Shap, and it
was not altogether an easy task for Kate to get over to the village
without informing her grandfather that the visit was to be made, and
what was its purport. She could, indeed, walk, and the walk would not
be so long as that she had taken with Alice to Swindale fell;--but
walking to an inn on a high road, is not the same thing as walking
to a point on a hill side over a lake. Had she been dirty, draggled,
and wet through on Swindale fell, it would have simply been matter
for mirth; but her brother she knew would not have liked to see her
enter the Lowther Arms at Shap in such a condition. It, therefore,
became necessary that she should ask her grandfather to lend her the
jaunting car.
"Where do you want to go?" he asked sharply. In such establishments
as that at Vavasor Hall the family horse is generally used for double
duties. Though he draws the lady of the house one day, he is not too
proud to draw manure on the next. And it will always be found that
the master of the house gives a great preference to the manure over
the lady. The squire at Vavasor had come to do so to such an extent
that he regarded any application for the animal's services as an
encroachment.
"Only to Shap, grandpapa."
"To Shap! what on earth can take you to Shap? There are no shops at
Shap."
"I am not going to do shopping. I want to see some one there."
"Whom can you want to see at Shap?"
Then it occurred to Kate on the spur of the moment that she might as
well tell her grandfather the fact. "My brother has come down," she
said; "and is at the inn there. I had not intended to tell you, as
I did not wish to mention his name till you had consented to receive
him here."
"And he expects to come here now;--does he?" said the squire.
"Oh, no, sir. I think he has no expectation of the kind. He has come
down simply to see me;--about business I believe."
"Business! what business? I suppose he wants to get your money from
you?"
"I think it is with reference to his marriage. I think he wants me to
use my influence with Alice that it may not be delayed."
"Look here, Kate; if ever you lend him your money, or any of
it,--that is, of the principal I mean,--I will never speak to him
again under any circumstance. And more than that! Look here, Kate. In
spite of all that has past and gone, the property will become his for
his life when I die,--unless I change my will. If he gets your money
from you, I will change it, and he shall not be a shilling richer at
my death than he is now. You can have the horse to go to Shap."
What unlucky chance had it been which had put this idea into the old
squire's head on this especial morning? Kate had resolved that she
would entreat her brother to make use of her little fortune. She
feared that he was now coming with some reference to his cousin's
money,--that something was to be done to enable him to avail himself
of his cousin's offer; and Kate, almost blushing in the solitude of
her chamber at the thought, was determined that her brother must be
saved from such temptation. She knew that money was necessary to him.
She knew that he could not stand a second contest without assistance.
With all their confidences, he had never told her much of his
pecuniary circumstances in the world, but she was almost sure that he
was a poor man. He had said as much as that to her, and in his letter
desiring her to come to him at Shap, he had inserted a word or two
purposely intended to prepare her mind for monetary considerations.
As she was jogged along over the rough road to Shap, she made up
her mind that Aunt Greenow would be the proper person to defray
the expense of the coming election. To give Kate her due she would
have given up every shilling of her own money without a moment's
hesitation, or any feeling that her brother would be wrong to accept
it. Nor would she, perhaps, have been unalterably opposed to his
taking Alice's money, had Alice simply been his cousin. She felt that
as Vavasors they were bound to stand by the future head of the family
in an attempt which was to be made, as she felt, for the general
Vavasor interest. But she could not endure to think that her brother
should take the money of the girl whom he was engaged to marry. Aunt
Greenow's money she thought was fair game. Aunt Greenow herself had
made various liberal offers to herself which Kate had declined, not
caring to be under pecuniary obligations even to Aunt Greenow without
necessity; but she felt that for such a purpose as her brother's
contest, she need not hesitate to ask for assistance, and she thought
also that such assistance would be forthcoming.
"Grandpapa knows that you are here, George," said Kate, when their
first greeting was over.
"The deuce he does! and why did you tell him?"
"I could not get the car to come in without letting him know why I
wanted it."
"What nonsense! as if you couldn't have made any excuse! I was
particularly anxious that he should not guess that I am here."
"I don't see that it can make any difference, George."
"But I see that it can,--a very great difference. It may prevent my
ever being able to get near him again before he dies. What did he say
about my coming?"
"He didn't say much."
"He made no offer as to my going there?"
"No."
"I should not have gone if he had. I don't know now that I ever
shall go. To be there to do any good,--so as to make him alter his
will, and leave me in the position which I have a right to expect,
would take more time than the whole property is worth. And he would
endeavour to tie me down in some way I could not stand;--perhaps ask
me to give up my notion for going into Parliament."
"He might ask you, but he would not make it ground for another
quarrel, if you refused."
"He is so unreasonable and ignorant that I am better away from
him. But, Kate, you have not congratulated me on my matrimonial
prospects."
"Indeed I did, George, when I wrote to you."
"Did you? well; I had forgotten. I don't know that any very strong
congratulatory tone is necessary. As things go, perhaps it may be as
well for all of us, and that's about the best that can be said for
it."
"Oh, George!"
"You see I'm not romantic, Kate, as you are. Half a dozen children
with a small income do not generally present themselves as being
desirable to men who wish to push their way in the world."
"You know you have always longed to make her your wife."
"I don't know anything of the kind. You have always been under a
match-making hallucination on that point. But in this case you have
been so far successful, and are entitled to your triumph."
"I don't want any triumph; you ought to know that."
"But I'll tell you what I do want, Kate. I want some money." Then
he paused, but as she did not answer immediately, he was obliged to
go on speaking. "I'm not at all sure that I have not been wrong in
making this attempt to get into Parliament,--that I'm not struggling
to pick fruit which is above my reach."
"Don't say that, George."
"Ah, but I can't help feeling it. I need hardly tell you that I am
ready to risk anything of my own. If I know myself I would toss up
to-morrow, or for the matter of that to-day, between the gallows and
a seat in the House. But I cannot go on with this contest by risking
what is merely my own. Money, for immediate use, I have none left,
and my neck, though I were ever so willing to risk it, is of no
service."
"Whatever I have can be yours to-morrow," said Kate, in a hesitating
voice, which too plainly pronounced her misery as she made the
offer. She could not refrain herself from making it. Though her
grandfather's threat was ringing in her ears,--though she knew that
she might be ruining her brother by proposing such a loan, she had
no alternative. When her brother told her of his want of money, she
could not abstain from tendering to him the use of what was her own.
"No;" said he. "I shall not take your money."
"You would not scruple, if you knew how welcome you are."
"At any rate, I shall not take it. I should not think it right. All
that you have would only just suffice for my present wants, and I
should not choose to make you a beggar. There would, moreover, be a
difficulty about readjusting the payment."
"There would be no difficulty, because no one need be consulted but
us two."
"I should not think it right, and therefore let there be an end of
it," said George in a tone of voice which had in it something of
magniloquence.
"What is it you wish then?" said Kate, who knew too well what he did
wish.
"I will explain to you. When Alice and I are married, of course
there will be a settlement made on her, and as we are both the
grandchildren of the old squire I shall propose that the Vavasor
property shall be hers for life in the event of her outliving me."
"Well," said Kate.
"And if this be done, there can be no harm in my forestalling some
of her property, which, under the circumstances of such a settlement,
would of course become mine when we are married."
"But the squire might leave the property to whom he pleases."
"We know very well that he won't, at any rate, leave it out of the
family. In fact, he would only be too glad to consent to such an
agreement as that I have proposed, because he would thereby rob me of
all power in the matter."
"But that could not be done till you are married."
"Look here, Kate;--don't you make difficulties." And now, as he
looked at her, the cicature on his face seemed to open and yawn at
her. "If you mean to say that you won't help me, do say so, and I
will go back to London."
"I would do anything in my power to help you,--that was not wrong!"
"Yes; anybody could say as much as that. That is not much of an offer
if you are to keep to yourself the power of deciding what is wrong.
Will you write to Alice,--or better still, go to her, and explain
that I want the money."
"How can I go to London now?"
"You can do it very well, if you choose. But if that be too much,
then write to her. It will come much better from you than from me;
write to her, and explain that I must pay in advance the expenses
of this contest, and that I cannot look for success unless I do so.
I did not think that the demand would come so quick on me; but they
know that I am not a man of capital, and therefore I cannot expect
them to carry on the fight for me, unless they know that the money is
sure. Scruby has been bitten two or three times by these metropolitan
fellows, and he is determined that he will not be bitten again." Then
he paused for Kate to speak.
"George," she said, slowly.
"Well."
"I wish you would try any other scheme but that."
"There is no other scheme! That's so like a woman;--to quarrel with
the only plan that is practicable."
"I do not think you ought to take Alice's money."
"My dear Kate, you must allow me to be the best judge of what I ought
to do, and what I ought not to do. Alice herself understands the
matter perfectly. She knows that I cannot obtain this position, which
is as desirable for her as it is for me--"
"And for me as much as for either," said Kate, interrupting him.
"Very well. Alice, I say, knows that I cannot do this without money,
and has offered the assistance which I want. I would rather that you
should tell her how much I want, and that I want it now, than that I
should do so. That is all. If you are half the woman that I take you
to be, you will understand this well enough."
Kate did understand it well enough. She was quite awake to the fact
that her brother was ashamed of the thing he was about to do,--so
much ashamed of it that he was desirous of using her voice instead
of his own. "I want you to write to her quite at once," he continued;
"since you seem to think that it is not worth while to take the
trouble of a journey to London."
"There is no question about the trouble," said Kate. "I would walk to
London to get the money for you, if that were all."
"Do you think that Alice will refuse to lend it me?" said he, looking
into her face.
"I am sure that she would not, but I think that you ought not to take
it from her. There seems to me to be something sacred about property
that belongs to the girl you are going to marry."
"If there is anything on earth I hate," said George, walking about
the room, "it is romance. If you keep it for reading in your bedroom,
it's all very well for those who like it, but when it comes to be
mixed up with one's business it plays the devil. If you would only
sift what you have said, you would see what nonsense it is. Alice and
I are to be man and wife. All our interests, and all our money, and
our station in life, whatever it may be, are to be joint property.
And yet she is the last person in the world to whom I ought to go for
money to improve her prospects as well as my own. That's what you
call delicacy. I call it infernal nonsense."
"I tell you what I'll do, George. I'll ask Aunt Greenow to lend you
the money,--or to lend it to me."
"I don't believe she'd give me a shilling. Moreover, I want it quite
immediately, and the time taken up in letter-writing and negotiations
would be fatal to me. If you won't apply to Alice, I must. I want you
to tell me whether you will oblige me in this matter."
Kate was still hesitating as to her answer, when there came a knock
at the door, and a little crumpled note was brought up to her. A boy
had just come with it across the fell from Vavasor Hall, and Kate, as
soon as she saw her name on the outside, knew that it was from her
grandfather. It was as follows:--
"If George wishes to come to the Hall, let him come. If
he chooses to tell me that he regrets his conduct to me,
I will see him."
"What is it?" said George. Then Kate put the note into her brother's
hand.
"I'll do nothing of the kind," he said. "What good should I get by
going to the old man's house?"
"Every good," said Kate. "If you don't go now you never can do so."
"Never till it's my own," said George.
"If you show him that you are determined to be at variance with him,
it never will be your own;--unless, indeed, it should some day come
to you as part of Alice's fortune. Think of it, George; you would not
like to receive everything from her."
He walked about the room, muttering maledictions between his teeth
and balancing, as best he was able at such a moment, his pride
against his profit. "You haven't answered my question," said he. "If
I go to the Hall, will you write to Alice?"
"No, George; I cannot write to Alice asking her for the money."
"You won't?"
"I could not bring myself to do it."
"Then, Kate, you and my grandfather may work together for the future.
You may get him to leave you the place if you have skill enough."
"That is as undeserved a reproach as any woman ever encountered,"
said Kate, standing her ground boldly before him. "If you have either
heart or conscience, you will feel that it is so."
"I'm not much troubled with either one or the other, I fancy. Things
are being brought to such a pass with me that I am better without
them."
"Will you take my money, George; just for the present?"
"No. I haven't much conscience; but I have a little left."
"Will you let me write to Mrs. Greenow?"
"I have not the slightest objection; but it will be of no use
whatsoever."
"I will do so, at any rate. And now will you come to the Hall?"
"To beg that old fool's pardon? No; I won't. In the mood I am in at
present, I couldn't do it. I should only anger him worse than ever.
Tell him that I've business which calls me back to London at once."
"It is a thousand pities."
"It can't be helped."
"It may make so great a difference to you for your whole life!" urged
Kate.
"I'll tell you what I'll do," said George. "I'll go to Vavasor
and put up with the old squire's insolence, if you'll make this
application for me to Alice." I wonder whether it occurred to him
that his sister desired his presence at the Hall solely on his own
behalf. The same idea certainly did not occur to Kate. She hesitated,
feeling that she would almost do anything to achieve a reconciliation
between her grandfather and her brother.
"But you'll let me write to Aunt Greenow first," said she. "It will
take only two days,--or at the most three?"
To this George consented as though he were yielding a great deal;
and Kate, with a sore conscience, with a full knowledge that she was
undertaking to do wrong, promised that she would apply to Alice for
her money, if sufficient funds should not be forthcoming from Mrs.
Greenow. Thereupon, George graciously consented to proceed to his
bedroom, and put together his clothes with a view to his visit to the
Hall.
"I thank Providence, Kate, that circumstances make it impossible for
me to stay above two days. I have not linen to last me longer."
"We'll manage that for you at the Hall."
"Indeed you won't do anything of the kind. And look, Kate, when I
make that excuse don't you offer to do so. I will stay there over
to-morrow night, and shall go into Kendal early, so as to catch the
express train up on Thursday morning. Don't you throw me over by any
counter proposition."
Then they started together in the car, and very few words were said
till they reached the old lodge, which stood at the entrance to the
place. "Eh, Mr. George; be that you?" said the old woman, who came out
to swing back for them the broken gate. "A sight of you is good for
sair een." It was the same welcome that the inn-keeper had given him,
and equally sincere. George had never made himself popular about the
place, but he was the heir.
"I suppose you had better go into the drawing-room," said Kate;
"while I go to my grandfather. You won't find a fire there."
"Manage it how you please; but don't keep me in the cold very long.
Heavens, what a country house! The middle of January, and no fires in
the room."
"And remember, George, when you see him you must say that you regret
that you ever displeased him. Now that you are here, don't let there
be any further misunderstanding."
"I think it very probable that there will be," said George. "I only
hope he'll let me have the old horse to take me back to Shap if there
is. There he is at the front door, so I shan't have to go into the
room without a fire."
The old man was standing at the hall steps when the car drove up, as
though to welcome his grandson. He put out his hand to help Kate down
the steps, keeping his eye all the time on George's face.
"So you've come back," the squire said to him.
[Illustration: "So you've come back, have you?" said the Squire.]
"Yes, sir;--I've come back, like the prodigal son in the parable."
"The prodigal son was contrite. I hope you are so."
"Pretty well for that, sir. I'm sorry there has been any quarrel, and
all that, you know."
"Go in," said the squire, very angrily. "Go in. To expect anything
gracious from you would be to expect pearls from swine. Go in."
George went in, shrugging his shoulders as his eyes met his sister's.
It was in this fashion that the reconciliation took place between
Squire Vavasor and his heir.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
Mr. Cheesacre's Hospitality.
As the winter wore itself away, Mr. Cheesacre, happy as he was amidst
the sports of Norfolk, and prosperous as he might be with the augean
spoils of Oileymead, fretted himself with an intense anxiety to bring
to a close that affair which he had on his hands with the widow
Greenow. There were two special dangers which disturbed him. She
would give herself and all her money to that adventurer, Bellfield;
or else she would spend her own money so fast before he got hold upon
it, that the prize would be greatly damaged. "I'm ---- if she hasn't
been and set up a carriage!" he said to himself one day, as standing
on the pavement of Tombland, in Norwich, he saw Mrs. Greenow issue
forth from the Close in a private brougham, accompanied by one of the
Fairstairs girls. "She's been and set up her carriage as sure as my
name's Cheesacre!"
Whatever reason he might have to fear the former danger, we may
declare that he had none whatever as to the latter. Mrs. Greenow knew
what she was doing with her money as well as any lady in England. The
private carriage was only a hired brougham taken by the month, and as
to that boy in buttons whom she had lately established, why should
she not keep a young servant, and call him a page, if it gave her any
comfort to do so? If Mr. Cheesacre had also known that she had lent
the Fairstairs family fifty pounds to help them through with some
difficulty which Joe had encountered with the Norwich tradespeople,
he would have been beside himself with dismay. He desired to obtain
the prize unmutilated,--in all its fair proportions. Any such
clippings he regarded as robberies against himself.
But he feared Bellfield more than he feared the brougham. That
all is fair in love and war was no doubt, at this period, Captain
Bellfield's maxim, and we can only trust that he found in it some
consolation, or ease to his conscience, in regard to the monstrous
lies which he told his friend. In war, no doubt, all stratagems are
fair. The one general is quite justified in making the other believe
that he is far to the right, when in truth he is turning his enemy's
left flank. If successful, he will be put upon a pedestal for his
clever deceit, and crowned with laurels because of his lie. If
Bellfield could only be successful, and achieve for himself the
mastery over those forty thousand pounds, the world would forgive him
and place, on his brow also, some not uncomfortable crown. In the
mean time, his stratagems were as deep and his lies as profound as
those of any general.
It must not be supposed that Cheesacre ever believed him. In the
first place, he knew that Bellfield was not a man to be believed
in any way. Had he not been living on lies for the last ten years?
But then a man may lie in such a way as to deceive, though no one
believe him. Mr. Cheesacre was kept in an agony of doubt while Captain
Bellfield occupied his lodgings in Norwich. He fee'd Jeannette
liberally. He even fee'd Charlie Fairstairs,--Miss Fairstairs I
mean,--with gloves, and chickens from Oileymead, so that he might
know whether that kite fluttered about his dovecoat, and of what
nature were the flutterings. He went even further than this, and
fee'd the Captain himself,--binding him down not to flutter as
value given in return for such fees. He attempted even to fee the
widow,--cautioning her against the fluttering, as he tendered to
her, on his knees, a brooch as big as a breast-plate. She waved aside
the breast-plate, declaring that the mourning ring which contained
poor Greenow's final grey lock of hair, was the last article from a
jeweller's shop which should ever find a place about her person. At
the same time she declared that Captain Bellfield was nothing to her;
Mr. Cheesacre need have no fears in that quarter. But then, she added,
neither was he to have any hope. Her affections were all buried under
the cold sod. This was harassing. Nevertheless, though no absolute
satisfaction was to be attained in the wooing of Mrs. Greenow, there
was a pleasantness in the occupation which ought to have reconciled
her suitors to their destiny. With most ladies, when a gentleman has
been on his knees before one of them in the morning, with outspoken
protestations of love, with clearly defined proffers of marriage,
with a minute inventory of the offerer's worldly wealth,--down even
to the "mahogany-furnitured" bed-chambers, as was the case with
Mr. Cheesacre, and when all these overtures have been peremptorily
declined,--a gentleman in such a case, I say, would generally feel
some awkwardness in sitting down to tea with the lady at the close
of such a performance. But with Mrs. Greenow there was no such
awkwardness. After an hour's work of the nature above described she
would play the hostess with a genial hospitality, that eased off
all the annoyance of disappointment; and then at the end of the
evening, she would accept a squeeze of the hand, a good, palpable,
long-protracted squeeze, with that sort of "don't;--have done now,"
by which Irish young ladies allure their lovers. Mr. Cheesacre, on
such occasions, would leave the Close, swearing that she should be
his on the next market-day,--or at any rate, on the next Saturday.
Then, on the Monday, tidings would reach him that Bellfield had
passed all Sunday afternoon with his lady-love,--Bellfield, to whom
he had lent five pounds on purpose that he might be enabled to
spend that very Sunday with some officers of the Suffolk volunteers
at Ipswich. And hearing this, he would walk out among those rich
heaps, at the back of his farmyard, uttering deep curses against the
falsehood of men and the fickleness of women.
Driven to despair, he at last resolved to ask Bellfield to come to
Oileymead for a month. That drilling at Norwich, or the part of it
which was supposed to be profitable, was wearing itself out. Funds
were low with the Captain,--as he did not scruple to tell his friend
Cheesacre, and he accepted the invitation. "I'll mount you with the
harriers, old fellow," Cheesacre had said; "and give you a little
shooting. Only I won't have you go out when I'm not with you."
Bellfield agreed, Each of them understood the nature of the bargain;
though Bellfield, I think, had somewhat the clearer understanding
in the matter. He would not be so near the widow as he had been at
Norwich, but he would not be less near than his kind host. And his
host would no doubt watch him closely;--but then he also could watch
his host. There was a railway station not two miles from Oileymead,
and the journey thence into Norwich was one of half an hour. Mr.
Cheesacre would doubtless be very jealous of such journeys, but with
all his jealousy he could not prevent them. And then, in regard
to this arrangement, Mr. Cheesacre paid the piper, whereas Captain
Bellfield paid nothing. Would it not be sweet to him if he could
carry off his friend's prize from under the very eaves of his
friend's house?
And Mrs. Greenow also understood the arrangement. "Going to Oileymead;
are you?" she said when Captain Bellfield came to tell her of his
departure. Charlie Fairstairs was with her, so that the Captain could
not utilize the moment in any special way. "It's quite delightful,"
continued the widow, "to see how fond you two gentlemen are of each
other."
"I think gentlemen always like to go best to gentlemen's houses where
there are no ladies," said Charlie Fairstairs, whose career in life
had not as yet been satisfactory to her.
"As for that," said Bellfield, "I wish with all my heart that dear
old Cheesy would get a wife. He wants a wife badly, if ever a man
did, with all that house full of blankets and crockery. Why don't you
set your cap at him, Miss Fairstairs?"
"What;--at a farmer!" said Charlie who was particularly anxious that
her dear friend, Mrs. Greenow, should not marry Mr. Cheesacre, and who
weakly thought to belittle him accordingly.
"Give him my kind love," said Mrs. Greenow, thereby resenting the
impotent interference. "And look here, Captain Bellfield, suppose you
both dine with me next Saturday. He always comes in on Saturday, and
you might as well come too."
Captain Bellfield declared that he would only be too happy.
"And Charlie shall come to set her cap at Mr. Cheesacre," said the
widow, turning a soft and gracious eye on the Captain.
"I shall be happy to come,"--said Charlie, quite delighted; "but
not with that object. Mr. Cheesacre is very respectable, I'm sure."
Charlie's mother had been the daughter of a small squire who had
let his land to tenants, and she was, therefore, justified by
circumstances in looking down upon a farmer.
The matter was so settled,--pending the consent of Mr. Cheesacre; and
Bellfield went out to Oileymead. He knew the ways of the house, and
was not surprised to find himself left alone till after dusk; nor was
he much surprised when he learned that he was not put into one of the
mahogany-furnitured chambers, but into a back room looking over the
farm-yard in which there was no fire-place. The Captain had already
endured some of the evils of poverty, and could have put up with this
easily had nothing been said about it. As it was, Cheesacre brought
the matter forward, and apologized, and made the thing difficult.
"You see, old fellow," he said, "there are the rooms, and of course
they're empty. But it's such a bore hauling out all the things and
putting up the curtains. You'll be very snug where you are."
"I shall do very well," said Bellfield rather sulkily.
"Of course you'll do very well. It's the warmest room in the house in
one way." He did not say in what way. Perhaps the near neighbourhood
of the stables may have had a warming effect.
Bellfield did not like it; but what is a poor man to do under such
circumstances? So he went up-stairs and washed his hands before
dinner in the room without a fire-place, flattering himself that he
would yet be even with his friend Cheesacre.
They dined together not in the best humour, and after dinner they
sat down to enjoy themselves with pipes and brandy and water.
Bellfield, having a taste for everything that was expensive, would
have preferred cigars; but his friend put none upon the table. Mr.
Cheesacre, though he could spend his money liberally when occasion
required such spending, knew well the value of domestic economy. He
wasn't going to put himself out, as he called it, for Bellfield! What
was good enough for himself was good enough for Bellfield. "A beggar,
you know; just a regular beggar!" as he was betrayed into saying
to Mrs. Greenow on some occasion just at this period. "Poor fellow!
He only wants money to make him almost perfect," Mrs. Greenow had
answered;--and Mr. Cheesacre had felt that he had made a mistake.
Both the men became talkative, if not good-humoured, under the
effects of the brandy and water, and the Captain then communicated
Mrs. Greenow's invitation to Mr. Cheesacre. He had had his doubts as
to the propriety of doing so,--thinking that perhaps it might be to
his advantage to forget the message. But he reflected that he was
at any rate a match for Cheesacre when they were present together,
and finally came to the conclusion that the message should be
delivered. "I had to go and just wish her goodbye you know," he said
apologetically, as he finished his little speech.
"I don't see that at all," said Cheesacre.
"Why, my dear fellow, how foolishly jealous you are. If I were to be
downright uncivil to her, as you would have me be, it would only call
attention to the thing."
"I'm not a bit jealous. A man who sits upon his own ground as I do
hasn't any occasion to be jealous."
"I don't know what your own ground has to do with it,--but we'll let
that pass."
"I think it has a great deal to do with it. If a man does intend to
marry he ought to have things comfortable about him; unless he wants
to live on his wife, which I look upon as about the meanest thing a
man can do. By George, I'd sooner break stones than that."
This was hard for any captain to bear,--even for Captain Bellfield;
but he did bear it,--looking forward to revenge.
"There's no pleasing you, I know," said he. "But there's the fact.
I went to say goodbye to her, and she asked me to give you that
message. Shall we go or not?"
Cheesacre sat for some time silent, blowing out huge clouds of
smoke while he meditated a little plan. "I'll tell you what it is,
Bellfield," he said at last. "She's nothing to you, and if you won't
mind it, I'll go. Mrs. Jones shall get you anything you like for
dinner,--and,--and--I'll stand you a bottle of the '34 port!"
But Captain Bellfield was not going to put up with this. He had
not sold himself altogether to work Mr. Cheesacre's will. "No, old
fellow," said he; "that cock won't fight. She has asked me to dine
with her on Saturday, and I mean to go. I don't intend that she shall
think that I'm afraid of her,--or of you either."
"You don't;--don't you?"
"No, I don't," said the Captain stoutly.
"I wish you'd pay me some of that money you owe me," said Cheesacre.
"So I will,--when I've married the widow. Ha,--ha,--ha."
Cheesacre longed to turn him out of the house. Words to bid him go,
were, so to say, upon his tongue. But the man would only have taken
himself to Norwich, and would have gone without any embargo upon his
suit; all their treaties would then be at an end. "She knows a trick
worth two of that," said Cheesacre at last.
"I dare say she does; and if so, why shouldn't I go and dine with her
next Saturday?"
"I'll tell you why,--because you're in my way. The deuce is in it if
I haven't made the whole thing clear enough. I've told you all my
plans because I thought you were my friend, and I've paid you well to
help me, too; and yet it seems to me you'd do anything in your power
to throw me over,--only you can't."
"What an ass you are," said the Captain after a pause; "just you
listen to me. That scraggy young woman, Charlie Fairstairs, is to be
there of course."
"How do you know?"
"I tell you that I do know. She was present when the whole thing
was arranged, and I heard her asked, and heard her say that she
would come;--and for the matter of that I heard her declare that she
wouldn't set her cap at you, because you're a farmer."
"Upon my word she's kind. Upon my word she is," said Cheesacre,
getting very angry and very red. "Charlie Fairstairs, indeed! I
wouldn't pick her out of a gutter with a pair of tongs. She ain't
good enough for my bailiff, let alone me."
"But somebody must take her in hand on Saturday, if you're to do any
good," said the crafty Bellfield.
"What the deuce does she have that nasty creature there for?" said
Cheesacre, who thought it very hard that everything should not be
arranged exactly as he would desire.
"She wants a companion, of course. You can get rid of Charlie, you
know, when you make her Mrs. Cheesacre."
"Get rid of her! You don't suppose she'll ever put her foot in this
house. Not if I know it. I've detested that woman for the last ten
years." Cheesacre could forgive no word of slight respecting his
social position, and the idea of Miss Fairstairs having pretended to
look down upon him, galled him to the quick.
"You'll have to dine with her at any rate," said Bellfield, "and
I always think that four are better company than three on such
occasions."
Mr. Cheesacre grunted an unwilling assent, and after this it was
looked upon as an arranged thing that they two should go into Norwich
on the Saturday together, and that they should both dine with the
widow. Indeed, Mrs. Greenow got two notes, one from each of them,
accepting the invitation. Cheesacre wrote in the singular number,
altogether ignoring Captain Bellfield, as he might have ignored his
footman had he intended to take one. The captain condescended to use
the plural pronoun. "We shall be so happy to come," said he. "Dear
old Cheesy is out of his little wits with delight," he added, "and
has already begun to polish off the effects of the farmyard."
"Effects of the farmyard," said Mrs. Greenow aloud, in Jeannette's
hearing, when she received the note. "It would be well for Captain
Bellfield if he had a few such effects himself."
"You can give him enough, ma'am," said Jeannette, "to make him a
better man than Mr. Cheesacre any day. And for a gentleman--of course
I say nothing, but if I was a lady, I know which should be the man
for me."
CHAPTER XL.
Mrs. Greenow's Little Dinner in the Close.
How deep and cunning are the wiles of love! When that Saturday
morning arrived not a word was said by Cheesacre to his rival as
to his plans for the day. "You'll take the dog-cart in?" Captain
Bellfield had asked overnight. "I don't know what I shall do as yet,"
replied he who was master of the house, of the dog-cart, and, as he
fondly thought, of the situation. But Bellfield knew that Cheesacre
must take the dog-cart, and was contented. His friend would leave him
behind, if it were possible, but Bellfield would take care that it
should not be possible.
Before breakfast Mr. Cheesacre surreptitiously carried out into the
yard a bag containing all his apparatus for dressing,--his marrow
oil for his hair, his shirt with the wondrous worked front upon an
under-stratum of pink to give it colour, his shiny boots, and all
the rest of the paraphernalia. When dining in Norwich on ordinary
occasions, he simply washed his hands there, trusting to the
chambermaid at the inn to find him a comb; and now he came down with
his bag surreptitiously, and hid it away in the back of the dog-cart
with secret, but alas, not unobserved hands, hoping that Bellfield
would forget his toilet. But when did such a Captain ever forget his
outward man? Cheesacre, as he returned through the kitchen from the
yard into the front hall, perceived another bag lying near the door,
apparently filled almost as well as his own.
"What the deuce are you going to do with all this luggage?" said he,
giving the bag a kick.
"Put it where I saw you putting yours when I opened my window just
now," said Bellfield.
"D---- the window," exclaimed Cheesacre, and then they sat down to
breakfast. "How you do hack that ham about," he said. "If you ever
found hams yourself you'd be more particular in cutting them." This
was very bad. Even Bellfield could not bear it with equanimity, and
feeling unable to eat the ham under such circumstances, made his
breakfast with a couple of fresh eggs. "If you didn't mean to eat the
meat, why the mischief did you cut it?" said Cheesacre.
"Upon my word, Cheesacre, you're too bad;--upon my word you are,"
said Bellfield, almost sobbing.
"What's the matter now?" said the other.
"Who wants your ham?"
"You do, I suppose, or you wouldn't cut it."
"No I don't; nor anything else either that you've got. It isn't fair
to ask a fellow into your house, and then say such things to him as
that. And it isn't what I've been accustomed to either; I can tell
you that, Mr. Cheesacre."
"Oh, bother!"
"It's all very well to say bother, but I choose to be treated like a
gentleman wherever I go. You and I have known each other a long time,
and I'd put up with more from you than from anyone else; but--"
"Can you pay me the money that you owe me, Bellfield?" said
Cheesacre, looking hard at him.
"No, I can't," said Bellfield; "not immediately."
"Then eat your breakfast, and hold your tongue."
After that Captain Bellfield did eat his breakfast,--leaving the ham
however untouched, and did hold his tongue, vowing vengeance in his
heart. But the two men went into Norwich more amicably together than
they would have done had there been no words between them. Cheesacre
felt that he had trespassed a little, and therefore offered the
Captain a cigar as he seated himself in the cart. Bellfield accepted
the offering, and smoked the weed of peace.
"Now," said Cheesacre, as he drove into the Swan yard, "what do you
mean to do with yourself all day?"
"I shall go down to the quarters, and look the fellows up."
"All right. But mind this, Bellfield;--it's an understood thing, that
you're not to be in the Close before four?"
"I won't be in the Close before four!"
"Very well. That's understood. If you deceive me, I'll not drive you
back to Oileymead to-night."
In this instance Captain Bellfield had no intention to deceive.
He did not think it probable that he could do himself any good
by philandering about the widow early in the day. She would be
engaged with her dinner and with an early toilet. Captain Bellfield,
moreover, had learned from experience that the first comer has not
always an advantage in ladies' society. The mind of a woman is greedy
after novelty, and it is upon the stranger, or upon the most strange
of her slaves around her, that she often smiles the sweetest. The
cathedral clock, therefore, had struck four before Captain Bellfield
rang Mrs. Greenow's bell, and then, when he was shown into the
drawing-room, he found Cheesacre there alone, redolent with the
marrow oil, and beautiful with the pink bosom.
"Haven't you seen her yet?" asked the Captain almost in a whisper.
"No," said Cheesacre sulkily.
"Nor yet Charlie Fairstairs?"
"I've seen nobody," said Cheesacre.
But at this moment he was compelled to swallow his anger, as Mrs.
Greenow, accompanied by her lady guest, came into the room. "Whoever
would have expected two gentlemen to be so punctual," said she,
"especially on market-day!"
"Market-day makes no difference when I come to see you," said
Cheesacre, putting his best foot forward, while Captain Bellfield
contented himself with saying something civil to Charlie. He would
bide his time and ride a waiting race.
The widow was almost gorgeous in her weeds. I believe that she
had not sinned in her dress against any of those canons which the
semi-ecclesiastical authorities on widowhood have laid down as to the
outward garments fitted for gentlemen's relicts. The materials were
those which are devoted to the deepest conjugal grief. As regarded
every item of the written law her suttee worship was carried out
to the letter. There was the widow's cap, generally so hideous,
so well known to the eyes of all men, so odious to womanhood. Let
us hope that such headgear may have some assuaging effect on the
departed spirits of husbands. There was the dress of deep, clinging,
melancholy crape,--of crape which becomes so brown and so rusty,
and which makes the six months' widow seem so much more afflicted
a creature than she whose husband is just gone, and whose crape is
therefore new. There were the trailing weepers, and the widow's
kerchief pinned close round her neck and somewhat tightly over her
bosom. But there was that of genius about Mrs. Greenow, that she had
turned every seeming disadvantage to some special profit, and had so
dressed herself that though she had obeyed the law to the letter, she
had thrown the spirit of it to the winds. Her cap sat jauntily on her
head, and showed just so much of her rich brown hair as to give her
the appearance of youth which she desired. Cheesacre had blamed her
in his heart for her private carriage, but she spent more money, I
think, on new crape than she did on her brougham. It never became
brown and rusty with her, or formed itself into old lumpy folds, or
shaped itself round her like a grave cloth. The written law had not
interdicted crinoline, and she loomed as large with weeds, which
with her were not sombre, as she would do with her silks when the
period of her probation should be over. Her weepers were bright with
newness, and she would waft them aside from her shoulder with an air
which turned even them into auxiliaries. Her kerchief was fastened
close round her neck and close over her bosom; but Jeannette well
knew what she was doing as she fastened it,--and so did Jeannette's
mistress.
Mrs. Greenow would still talk much about her husband, declaring that
her loss was as fresh to her wounded heart, as though he, on whom
all her happiness had rested, had left her only yesterday; but
yet she mistook her dates, frequently referring to the melancholy
circumstance, as having taken place fifteen months ago. In truth,
however, Mr. Greenow had been alive within the last nine months,--as
everybody around her knew. But if she chose to forget the exact day,
why should her friends or dependents remind her of it? No friend or
dependent did remind her of it, and Charlie Fairstairs spoke of the
fifteen months with bold confidence,--false-tongued little parasite
that she was.
"Looking well," said the widow, in answer to some outspoken
compliment from Mr. Cheesacre. "Yes, I'm well enough in health, and
I suppose I ought to be thankful that it is so. But if you had buried
a wife whom you had loved within the last eighteen months, you would
have become as indifferent as I am to all that kind of thing."
"I never was married yet," said Mr. Cheesacre.
"And therefore you know nothing about it. Everything in the world
is gay and fresh to you. If I were you, Mr. Cheesacre, I would not
run the risk. It is hardly worth a woman's while, and I suppose not
a man's. The sufferings are too great!" Whereupon she pressed her
handkerchief to her eyes.
"But I mean to try all the same," said Cheesacre, looking the lover
all over as he gazed into the fair one's face.
"I hope that you may be successful, Mr. Cheesacre, and that she may
not be torn away from you early in life. Is dinner ready, Jeannette?
That's well. Mr. Cheesacre, will you give your arm to Miss
Fairstairs?"
There was no doubt as to Mrs. Greenow's correctness. As Captain
Bellfield held, or had held, her Majesty's commission, he was clearly
entitled to take the mistress of the festival down to dinner. But
Cheesacre would not look at it in this light. He would only remember
that he had paid for the Captain's food for some time past, that the
Captain had been brought into Norwich in his gig, that the Captain
owed him money, and ought, so to say, to be regarded as his property
on the occasion. "I pay my way, and that ought to give a man higher
station than being a beggarly captain,--which I don't believe he is,
if all the truth was known." It was thus that he took an occasion to
express himself to Miss Fairstairs on that very evening. "Military
rank is always recognised," Miss Fairstairs had replied, taking Mr.
Cheesacre's remarks as a direct slight upon herself. He had taken her
down to dinner, and had then come to her complaining that he had been
injured in being called upon to do so! "If you were a magistrate, Mr.
Cheesacre, you would have rank; but I believe you are not." Charlie
Fairstairs knew well what she was about. Mr. Cheesacre had striven
much to get his name put upon the commission of the peace, but had
failed. "Nasty, scraggy old cat," Cheesacre said to himself, as he
turned away from her.
But Bellfield gained little by taking the widow down. He and
Cheesacre were placed at the top and bottom of the table, so that
they might do the work of carving; and the ladies sat at the sides.
Mrs. Greenow's hospitality was very good. The dinner was exactly
what a dinner ought to be for four persons. There was soup, fish,
a cutlet, a roast fowl, and some game. Jeannette waited at table
nimbly, and the thing could not have been done better. Mrs. Greenow's
appetite was not injured by her grief, and she so far repressed for
the time all remembrance of her sorrow as to enable her to play the
kind hostess to perfection. Under her immediate eye Cheesacre was
forced into apparent cordiality with his friend Bellfield, and the
Captain himself took the good things which the gods provided with
thankful good-humour.
Nothing, however, was done at the dinner-table. No work got itself
accomplished. The widow was so accurately fair in the adjustment of
her favours, that even Jeannette could not perceive to which of the
two she turned with the amplest smile. She talked herself and made
others talk, till Cheesacre became almost comfortable, in spite of
his jealousy. "And now," she said, as she got up to leave the room,
when she had taken her own glass of wine, "We will allow these two
gentlemen just half an hour, eh Charlie? and then we shall expect
them up-stairs."
"Ten minutes will be enough for us here," said Cheesacre, who was in
a hurry to utilize his time.
"Half an hour," said Mrs. Greenow, not without some little tone of
command in her voice. Ten minutes might be enough for Mr. Cheesacre,
but ten minutes was not enough for her.
Bellfield had opened the door, and it was upon him that the widow's
eye glanced as she left the room. Cheesacre saw it, and resolved to
resent the injury. "I'll tell you what it is, Bellfield," he said, as
he sat down moodily over the fire, "I won't have you coming here at
all, till this matter is settled."
"Till what matter is settled?" said Bellfield, filling his glass.
"You know what matter I mean."
"You take such a deuce of a time about it."
"No, I don't. I take as little time as anybody could. That other
fellow has only been dead about nine months, and I've got the thing
in excellent training already."
"And what harm do I do?"
"You disturb me, and you disturb her. You do it on purpose. Do you
suppose I can't see? I'll tell you what, now; if you'll go clean out
of Norwich for a month, I'll lend you two hundred pounds on the day
she becomes Mrs. Cheesacre."
"And where am I to go to?"
"You may stay at Oileymead, if you like;--that is, on condition that
you do stay there."
"And be told that I hack the ham because it's not my own. Shall I
tell you a piece of my mind, Cheesacre?"
"What do you mean?"
"That woman has no more idea of marrying you than she has of marrying
the Bishop. Won't you fill your glass, old fellow? I know where the
tap is if you want another bottle. You may as well give it up, and
spend no more money in pink fronts and polished boots on her account.
You're a podgy man, you see, and Mrs. Greenow doesn't like podgy men."
Cheesacre sat looking at him with his mouth open, dumb with surprise,
and almost paralysed with impotent anger. What had happened during
the last few hours to change so entirely the tone of his dependent
captain? Could it be that Bellfield had been there during the
morning, and that she had accepted him?
"You are very podgy, Cheesacre," Bellfield continued, "and then you
so often smell of the farm-yard; and you talk too much of your money
and your property. You'd have had a better chance if you had openly
talked to her of hers,--as I have done. As it is, you haven't any
chance at all."
Bellfield, as he thus spoke to the man opposite to him, went on
drinking his wine comfortably, and seemed to be chuckling with glee.
Cheesacre was so astounded, so lost in amazement that the creature
whom he had fed,--whom he had bribed with money out of his own
pocket, should thus turn against him, that for a while he could not
collect his thoughts or find voice wherewith to make any answer. It
occurred to him immediately that Bellfield was even now, at this very
time, staying at his house,--that he, Cheesacre, was expected to
drive him, Bellfield, back to Oileymead, to his own Oileymead, on
this very evening; and as he thought of this he almost fancied that
he must be in a dream. He shook himself, and looked again, and there
sat Bellfield, eyeing him through the bright colour of a glass of
port.
"Now I've told you a bit of my mind, Cheesy, my boy," continued
Bellfield, "and you'll save yourself a deal of trouble and annoyance
if you'll believe what I say. She doesn't mean to marry you. It's
most probable that she'll marry me; but, at any rate, she won't marry
you."
"Do you mean to pay me my money, sir?" said Cheesacre, at last,
finding his readiest means of attack in that quarter.
"Yes, I do."
"But when?"
"When I've married Mrs. Greenow,--and, therefore, I expect your
assistance in that little scheme. Let us drink her health. We shall
always be delighted to see you at our house, Cheesy, my boy, and you
shall be allowed to hack the hams just as much as you please."
"You shall be made to pay for this," said Cheesacre, gasping with
anger;--gasping almost more with dismay than he did with anger.
"All right, old fellow; I'll pay for it,--with the widow's money.
Come; our half-hour is nearly over; shall we go up-stairs?"
"I'll expose you."
"Don't now;--don't be ill-natured."
"Will you tell me where you mean to sleep to-night, Captain
Bellfield?"
"If I sleep at Oileymead it will only be on condition that I have one
of the mahogany-furnitured bedrooms."
"You'll never put your foot in that house again. You're a rascal,
sir."
"Come, come, Cheesy, it won't do for us to quarrel in a lady's house.
It wouldn't be the thing at all. You're not drinking your wine. You
might as well take another glass, and then we'll go up-stairs."
"You've left your traps at Oileymead, and not one of them you shall
have till you've paid me every shilling you owe me. I don't believe
you've a shirt in the world beyond what you've got there."
"It's lucky I brought one in to change; wasn't it, Cheesy? I
shouldn't have thought of it only for the hint you gave me. I might
as well ring the bell for Jeannette to put away the wine, if you
won't take any more." Then he rang the bell, and when Jeannette came
he skipped lightly up-stairs into the drawing-room.
"Was he here before to-day?" said Cheesacre, nodding his head at the
doorway through which Bellfield had passed.
"Who? The Captain? Oh dear no. The Captain don't come here much
now;--not to say often, by no means."
"He's a confounded rascal."
"Oh, Mr. Cheesacre!" said Jeannette.
"He is;--and I ain't sure that there ain't others nearly as bad as he
is."
"If you mean me, Mr. Cheesacre, I do declare you're a wronging me; I
do indeed."
"What's the meaning of his going on in this way?"
"I don't know nothing of his ways, Mr. Cheesacre; but I've been as
true to you, sir;--so I have;--as true as true." And Jeannette put
her handkerchief up to her eyes.
He moved to the door, and then a thought occurred to him. He put his
hand to his trousers pocket, and turning back towards the girl, gave
her half-a-crown. She curtsied as she took it, and then repeated her
last words. "Yes, Mr. Cheesacre,--as true as true." Mr. Cheesacre said
nothing further, but followed his enemy up to the drawing-room. "What
game is up now, I wonder," said Jeannette to herself, when she was
left alone. "They two'll be cutting each other's throatses before
they've done, and then my missus will take the surwiver." But she
made up her mind that Cheesacre should be the one to have his throat
cut fatally, and that Bellfield should be the survivor.
Cheesacre, when he reached the drawing-room, found Bellfield sitting
on the same sofa with Mrs. Greenow looking at a book of photographs
which they both of them were handling together. The outside rim of
her widow's frill on one occasion touched the Captain's whisker, and
as it did so the Captain looked up with a gratified expression of
triumph. If any gentleman has ever seen the same thing under similar
circumstances, he will understand that Cheesacre must have been
annoyed.
"Yes," said Mrs. Greenow, waving her handkerchief, of which little but
a two-inch-deep border seemed to be visible. Bellfield knew at once
that it was not the same handkerchief which she had waved before they
went down to dinner. "Yes,--there he is. It's so like him." And then
she apostrophized the _carte de visite_ of the departed one. "Dear
Greenow; dear husband! When my spirit is false to thee, let thine
forget to visit me softly in my dreams. Thou wast unmatched among
husbands. Whose tender kindness was ever equal to thine? whose sweet
temper was ever so constant? whose manly care so all-sufficient?"
While the words fell from her lips her little finger was touching
Bellfield's little finger, as they held the book between them.
Charlie Fairstairs and Mr. Cheesacre were watching her narrowly, and
she knew that they were watching her. She was certainly a woman of
great genius and of great courage.
[Illustration: "Dear Greenow; dear husband!"]
Bellfield, moved by the eloquence of her words, looked with some
interest at the photograph. There was represented there before him,
a small, grey-looking, insignificant old man, with pig's eyes and a
toothless mouth,--one who should never have been compelled to submit
himself to the cruelty of the sun's portraiture! Another widow, even
if she had kept in her book the photograph of such a husband, would
have scrambled it over silently,--would have been ashamed to show it.
"Have you ever seen it, Mr. Cheesacre?" asked Mrs. Greenow. "It's so
like him."
"I saw it at Yarmouth," said Cheesacre, very sulkily.
"That you did not," said the lady with some dignity, and not a little
of rebuke in her tone; "simply because it never was at Yarmouth. A
larger one you may have seen, which I always keep, and always shall
keep, close by my bedside."
"Not if I know it," said Captain Bellfield to himself. Then the widow
punished Mr. Cheesacre for his sullenness by whispering a few words to
the Captain; and Cheesacre in his wrath turned to Charlie Fairstairs.
Then it was that he spake out his mind about the Captain's rank, and
was snubbed by Charlie,--as was told a page or two back.
After that, coffee was brought to them, and here again Cheesacre in
his ill-humour allowed the Captain to out-manoeuvre him. It was the
Captain who put the sugar into the cups and handed them round. He
even handed a cup to his enemy. "None for me, Captain Bellfield; many
thanks for your politeness all the same," said Mr. Cheesacre; and
Mrs. Greenow knew from the tone of his voice that there had been a
quarrel.
Cheesacre sitting then in his gloom, had resolved upon one
thing,--or, I may perhaps say, upon two things. He had resolved that
he would not leave the room that evening till Bellfield had left it;
and that he would get a final answer from the widow, if not that
night,--for he thought it very possible that they might both be sent
away together,--then early after breakfast on the following morning.
For the present, he had given up any idea of turning his time to
good account. He was not perhaps a coward, but he had not that
special courage which enables a man to fight well under adverse
circumstances. He had been cowed by the unexpected impertinence of
his rival,--by the insolence of a man to whom he thought that he had
obtained the power of being always himself as insolent as he pleased.
He could not recover his ground quickly, or carry himself before his
lady's eye as though he was unconscious of the wound he had received.
So he sat silent, while Bellfield was discoursing fluently. He sat
in silence, comforting himself with reflections on his own wealth,
and on the poverty of the other, and promising himself a rich harvest
of revenge when the moment should come in which he might tell Mrs.
Greenow how absolutely that man was a beggar, a swindler, and a
rascal.
And he was astonished when an opportunity for doing so came very
quickly. Before the neighbouring clock had done striking seven,
Bellfield rose from his chair to go. He first of all spoke a word of
farewell to Miss Fairstairs; then he turned to his late host; "Good
night, Cheesacre," he said, in the easiest tone in the world; after
that he pressed the widow's hand and whispered his adieu.
"I thought you were staying at Oileymead?" said Mrs. Greenow.
"I came from there this morning," said the Captain.
"But he isn't going back there, I can tell you," said Mr. Cheesacre.
"Oh, indeed," said Mrs. Greenow; "I hope there is nothing wrong."
"All as right as a trivet," said the Captain; and then he was off.
"I promised mamma that I would be home by seven," said Charlie
Fairstairs, rising from her chair. It cannot be supposed that she had
any wish to oblige Mr. Cheesacre, and therefore this movement on her
part must be regarded simply as done in kindness to Mrs. Greenow. She
might be mistaken in supposing that Mrs. Greenow would desire to be
left alone with Mr. Cheesacre; but it was clear to her that in this
way she could give no offence, whereas it was quite possible that she
might offend by remaining. A little after seven Mr. Cheesacre found
himself alone with the lady.
"I'm sorry to find," said she, gravely, "that you two have
quarrelled."
"Mrs. Greenow," said he, jumping up, and becoming on a sudden full of
life, "that man is a downright swindler."
"Oh, Mr. Cheesacre."
"He is. He'll tell you that he was at Inkerman, but I believe he
was in prison all the time." The Captain had been arrested, I think
twice, and thus Mr. Cheesacre justified to himself this assertion. "I
doubt whether he ever saw a shot fired," he continued.
"He's none the worse for that."
"But he tells such lies; and then he has not a penny in the world.
How much do you suppose he owes me, now?"
"However much it is, I'm sure you are too much of a gentleman to
say."
"Well;--yes, I am," said he, trying to recover himself. "But when I
asked him how he intended to pay me, what do you think he said? He
said he'd pay me when he got your money."
"My money! He couldn't have said that!"
"But he did, Mrs. Greenow; I give you my word and honour. 'I'll pay
you when I get the widow's money,' he said."
"You gentlemen must have a nice way of talking about me when I am
absent."
"I never said a disrespectful word about you in my life, Mrs.
Greenow,--or thought one. He does;--he says horrible things."
"What horrible things, Mr. Cheesacre?"
"Oh, I can't tell you;--but he does. What can you expect from such
a man as that, who, to my knowledge, won't have a change of clothes
to-morrow, except what he brought in on his back this morning. Where
he's to get a bed to-night, I don't know, for I doubt whether he's
got half-a-crown in the world."
"Poor Bellfield!"
"Yes; he is poor."
"But how gracefully he carries his poverty."
"I should call it very disgraceful, Mrs. Greenow." To this she made
no reply, and then he thought that he might begin his work. "Mrs.
Greenow,--may I say Arabella?"
"Mr. Cheesacre!"
"But mayn't I? Come, Mrs. Greenow. You know well enough by this time
what it is I mean. What's the use of shilly-shallying?"
"Shilly-shallying, Mr. Cheesacre! I never heard such language. If I
bid you good night, now, and tell you that it is time for you to go
home, shall you call that shilly-shallying?"
He had made a mistake in his word and repented it. "I beg your
pardon, Mrs. Greenow; I do indeed. I didn't mean anything offensive."
"Shilly-shallying, indeed! There's very little shall in it, I can
assure you."
The poor man was dreadfully crestfallen, so much so that the widow's
heart relented, and she pardoned him. It was not in her nature to
quarrel with people;--at any rate, not with her lovers. "I beg your
pardon, Mrs. Greenow," said the culprit, humbly. "It is granted," said
the widow; "but never tell a lady again that she is shilly-shallying.
And look here, Mr. Cheesacre, if it should ever come to pass that you
are making love to a lady in earnest--"
"I couldn't be more in earnest," said he.
"That you are making love to a lady in earnest, talk to her a little
more about your passion and a little less about your purse. Now, good
night."
"But we are friends."
"Oh yes;--as good friends as ever."
Cheesacre, as he drove himself home in the dark, tried to console
himself by thinking of the miserable plight in which Bellfield would
find himself at Norwich, with no possessions but what he had brought
into the town that day in a small bag. But as he turned in at his
own gate he met two figures emerging; one of them was laden with a
portmanteau, and the other with a hat case.
"It's only me, Cheesy, my boy," said Bellfield. "I've just come down
by the rail to fetch my things, and I'm going back to Norwich by the
9.20.
"If you've stolen anything of mine I'll have you prosecuted," roared
Cheesacre, as he drove his gig up to his own door.
VOLUME II.
CHAPTER XLI.
A Noble Lord Dies.
George Vavasor remained about four days beneath his grandfather's
roof; but he was not happy there himself, nor did he contribute to
the happiness of any one else. He remained there in great discomfort
so long, being unwilling to leave till an answer had been received to
the request made to Aunt Greenow, in order that he might insist on
Kate's performance of her promise with reference to Alice, if that
answer should be unfavourable. During these five days Kate did all
in her power to induce her brother to be, at any rate, kind in his
manner towards his grandfather, but it was in vain. The Squire would
not be the first to be gracious; and George, quite as obstinate as
the old man, would take no steps in that direction till encouraged
to do so by graciousness from the other side. Poor Kate entreated
each of them to begin, but her entreaties were of no avail. "He is
an ill-mannered cub," the old man said, "and I was a fool to let him
into the house. Don't mention his name to me again." George argued
the matter more at length. Kate spoke to him of his own interest in
the matter, urging upon him that he might, by such conduct, drive the
Squire to exclude him altogether from the property.
"He must do as he likes," George said, sulkily.
"But for Alice's sake!" Kate answered.
"Alice would be the last to expect me to submit to unreasonable
ill-usage for the sake of money. As regards myself, I confess that
I'm very fond of money and am not particularly squeamish. I would
do anything that a man can do to secure it. But this I can't do. I
never injured him, and I never asked him to injure himself. I never
attempted to borrow money from him. I have never cost him a shilling.
When I was in the wine business he might have enabled me to make a
large fortune simply by settling on me then the reversion of property
which, when he dies, ought to be my own. He was so perversely
ignorant that he would make no inquiry, but chose to think that I was
ruining myself, at the only time of my life when I was really doing
well."
"But he had a right to act as he pleased," urged Kate.
"Certainly he had. But he had no right to resent my asking such a
favour at his hands. He was an ignorant old fool not to do it; but
I should never have quarrelled with him on that account. Nature made
him a fool, and it wasn't his fault. But I can't bring myself to
kneel in the dirt before him simply because I asked for what was
reasonable."
The two men said very little to each other. They were never alone
together except during that half-hour after dinner in which they
were supposed to drink their wine. The old Squire always took three
glasses of port during this period, and expected that his grandson
would take three with him. But George would drink none at all.
"I have given up drinking wine after dinner," said he, when his
grandfather pushed the bottle over to him. "I suppose you mean that
you drink nothing but claret," said the Squire, in a tone of voice
that was certainly not conciliatory. "I mean simply what I say," said
George--"that I have given up drinking wine after dinner." The old
man could not openly quarrel with his heir on such a point as that.
Even Mr. Vavasor could not tell his grandson that he was going to the
dogs because he had become temperate. But, nevertheless, there was
offence in it; and when George sat perfectly silent, looking at the
fire, evidently determined to make no attempt at conversation, the
offence grew, and became strong. "What the devil's the use of your
sitting there if you neither drink nor talk?" said the old man. "No
use in the world, that I can see," said George; "if, however, I were
to leave you, you would abuse me for it." "I don't care how soon you
leave me," said the Squire. From all which it may be seen that George
Vavasor's visit to the hall of his ancestors was not satisfactory.
On the fourth day, about noon, came Aunt Greenow's reply. "Dearest
Kate," she said, "I am not going to do what you ask me,"--thus
rushing instantly into the middle of her subject.
You see, I don't know my nephew, and have no reason for
being specially anxious that he should be in Parliament.
I don't care two straws about the glory of the Vavasor
family. If I had never done anything for myself, the
Vavasors would have done very little for me. I don't care
much about what you call 'blood.' I like those who like
me, and whom I know. I am very fond of you, and because
you have been good to me I would give you a thousand
pounds if you wanted it for yourself; but I don't see why
I am to give my money to those I don't know. If it is
necessary to tell my nephew of this, pray tell him that I
mean no offence.
Your friend C. is still waiting--waiting--waiting,
patiently; but his patience may be exhausted.
Your affectionate aunt,
ARABELLA GREENOW.
"Of course she won't," said George, as he threw back the letter to
his sister. "Why should she?"
"I had hoped she would," said Kate.
"Why should she? What did I ever do for her? She is a sensible woman.
Who is your friend C., and why is he waiting patiently?"
"He is a man who would be glad to marry her for her money, if she
would take him."
"Then what does she mean by his patience being exhausted?"
"It is her folly. She chooses to pretend to think that the man is a
lover of mine."
"Has he got any money?"
"Yes; lots of money--or money's worth."
"And what is his name?"
"His name is Cheesacre. But pray don't trouble yourself to talk about
him."
"If he wants to marry you, and has plenty of money, why shouldn't you
take him?"
"Good heavens, George! In the first place he does not want to marry
me. In the next place all his heart is in his farmyard."
"And a very good place to have it," said George.
"Undoubtedly. But, really, you must not trouble yourself to talk
about him."
"Only this,--that I should be very glad to see you well married."
"Should you?" said she, thinking of her close attachment to himself.
"And now, about the money," said George. "You must write to Alice at
once."--"Oh, George!"
"Of course you must; you have promised. Indeed, it would have been
much wiser if you had taken me at my word, and done it at once."--"I
cannot do it."
Then the scar on his face opened itself, and his sister stood before
him in fear and trembling. "Do you mean to tell me," said he, "that
you will go back from your word, and deceive me;--that after having
kept me here by this promise, you will not do what you have said you
would do?"
"Take my money now, and pay me out of hers as soon as you are
married. I will be the first to claim it from her,--and from you."
"That is nonsense."
"Why should it be nonsense? Surely you need have no scruple with me.
I should have none with you if I wanted assistance."
"Look here, Kate; I won't have it, and there's an end of it. All that
you have in the world would not pull me through this election, and
therefore such a loan would be worse than useless."
"And am I to ask her for more than two thousand pounds?"
"You are to ask her simply for one thousand. That is what I want, and
must have, at present. And she knows that I want it, and that she is
to supply it; only she does not know that my need is so immediate.
That you must explain to her."
"I would sooner burn my hand, George!"
"But burning your hand, unfortunately, won't do any good. Look here,
Kate; I insist upon your doing this for me. If you do not, I shall
do it, of course, myself; but I shall regard your refusal as an
unjustifiable falsehood on your part, and shall certainly not see you
afterwards. I do not wish, for reasons which you may well understand,
to write to Alice myself on any subject at present. I now claim your
promise to do so; and if you refuse, I shall know very well what to
do."
Of course she did not persist in her refusal. With a sorrowful heart,
and with fingers that could hardly form the needful letters, she did
write a letter to her cousin, which explained the fact--that George
Vavasor immediately wanted a thousand pounds for his electioneering
purposes. It was a stiff, uncomfortable letter, unnatural in
its phraseology, telling its own tale of grief and shame. Alice
understood very plainly all the circumstances under which it was
written, but she sent back word to Kate at once, undertaking that the
money should be forthcoming; and she wrote again before the end of
January, saying that the sum named had been paid to George's credit
at his own bankers.
Kate had taken immense pride in the renewal of the match between her
brother and her cousin, and had rejoiced in it greatly as being her
own work. But all that pride and joy were now over. She could no
longer write triumphant notes to Alice, speaking always of George as
one who was to be their joint hero, foretelling great things of his
career in Parliament, and saying little soft things of his enduring
love. It was no longer possible to her now to write of George at all,
and it was equally impossible to Alice. Indeed, no letters passed
between them, when that monetary correspondence was over, up to the
end of the winter. Kate remained down in Westmoreland, wretched
and ill at ease, listening to hard words spoken by her grandfather
against her brother, and feeling herself unable to take her brother's
part as she had been wont to do in other times.
George returned to town at the end of those four days, and found that
the thousand pounds was duly placed to his credit before the end of
the month. It is hardly necessary to tell the reader that this money
had come from the stores of Mr. Tombe, and that Mr. Tombe duly debited
Mr. Grey with the amount. Alice, in accordance with her promise,
had told her father that the money was needed, and her father, in
accordance with his promise, had procured it without a word of
remonstrance. "Surely I must sign some paper," Alice had said. But
she had been contented when her father told her that the lawyers
would manage all that.
It was nearly the end of February when George Vavasor made his first
payment to Mr. Scruby on behalf of the coming election; and when he
called at Mr. Scruby's office with this object, he received some
intelligence which surprised him not a little. "You haven't heard the
news," said Scruby. "What news?" said George.
"The Marquis is as nearly off the hooks as a man can be." Mr. Scruby,
as he communicated the tidings, showed clearly by his face and voice
that they were supposed to be of very great importance; but Vavasor
did not at first seem to be as much interested in the fate of "the
Marquis" as Scruby had intended.
"I'm very sorry for him," said George. "Who is the Marquis? There'll
be sure to come another, so it don't much signify."
"There will come another, and that's just it. It's the Marquis of
Bunratty; and if he drops, our young Member will go into the Upper
House."
"What, immediately; before the end of the Session?" George, of
course, knew well enough that such would be the case, but the effect
which this event would have upon himself now struck him suddenly.
"To be sure," said Scruby. "The writ would be out immediately. I
should be glad enough of it, only that I know that Travers's people
have heard of it before us, and that they are ready to be up with
their posters directly the breath is out of the Marquis's body. We
must go to work immediately; that's all."
"It will only be for part of a Session," said George.
"Just so," said Mr. Scruby.
"And then there'll be the cost of another election."
"That's true," said Mr. Scruby; "but in such cases we do manage to
make it come a little cheaper. If you lick Travers now, it may be
that you'll have a walk-over for the next."
"Have you seen Grimes?" asked George.
"Yes, I have; the blackguard! He is going to open his house on
Travers's side. He came to me as bold as brass, and told me so,
saying that he never liked gentlemen who kept him waiting for his
odd money. What angers me is that he ever got it."
"We have not managed it very well, certainly," said Vavasor, looking
nastily at the attorney.
"We can't help those little accidents, Mr. Vavasor. There are worse
accidents than that turn up almost daily in my business. You may
think yourself almost lucky that I haven't gone over to Travers
myself. He is a Liberal, you know; and it hasn't been for want of an
offer, I can tell you."
Vavasor was inclined to doubt the extent of his luck in this respect,
and was almost disposed to repent of his Parliamentary ambition.
He would now be called upon to spend certainly not less than three
thousand pounds of his cousin's money on the chance of being able to
sit in Parliament for a few months. And then, after what a fashion
would he be compelled to negotiate that loan! He might, to be sure,
allow the remainder of this Session to run, and stand, as he had
intended, at the general election; but he knew that if he now allowed
a Liberal to win the seat, the holder of the seat would be almost
sure of subsequent success. He must either fight now, or give up the
fight altogether; and he was a man who did not love to abandon any
contest in which he had been engaged.
"Well, Squire," said Scruby, "how is it to be?" And Vavasor felt
that he detected in the man's voice some diminution of that respect
with which he had hitherto been treated as a paying candidate for a
metropolitan borough.
"This lord is not dead yet," said Vavasor.
"No; he's not dead yet, that we have heard; but it won't do for us to
wait. We want every minute of time that we can get. There isn't any
hope for him, I'm told. It's gout in the stomach, or dropsy at the
heart, or some of those things that make a fellow safe to go."
"It won't do to wait for the next election?"
"If you ask me, I should say certainly not. Indeed, I shouldn't wish
to have to conduct it under such circumstances. I hate a fight when
there's no chance of success. I grudge spending a man's money in such
a case; I do indeed, Mr. Vavasor."
"I suppose Grimes's going over won't make much difference?"
"The blackguard! He'll take a hundred and fifty votes, I suppose;
perhaps more. But that is not much in such a constituency as the
Chelsea districts. You see, Travers played mean at the last election,
and that will be against him."
"But the Conservatives will have a candidate."
"There's no knowing; but I don't think they will. They'll try one
at the general, no doubt; but if the two sitting Members can pull
together, they won't have much of a chance."
Vavasor found himself compelled to say that he would stand; and
Scruby undertook to give the initiatory orders at once, not waiting
even till the Marquis should be dead. "We should have our houses open
as soon as theirs," said he. "There's a deal in that." So George
Vavasor gave his orders. "If the worst comes to the worst," he said
to himself, "I can always cut my throat."
As he walked from the attorney's office to his club he bethought
himself that that might not unprobably be the necessary termination
of his career. Everything was going wrong with him. His grandfather,
who was eighty years of age, would not die,--appeared to have no
symptoms of dying;--whereas this Marquis, who was not yet much over
fifty, was rushing headlong out of the world, simply because he was
the one man whose continued life at the present moment would be
serviceable to George Vavasor. As he thought of his grandfather he
almost broke his umbrella by the vehemence with which he struck it
against the pavement. What right could an ignorant old fool like that
have to live for ever, keeping the possession of a property which
he could not use, and ruining those who were to come after him? If
now, at this moment, that wretched place down in Westmoreland could
become his, he might yet ride triumphantly over his difficulties, and
refrain from sullying his hands with more of his cousin's money till
she should become his wife.
Even that thousand pounds had not passed through his hands without
giving him much bitter suffering. As is always the case in such
matters, the thing done was worse than the doing of it. He had taught
himself to look at it lightly whilst it was yet unaccomplished; but
he could not think of it lightly now. Kate had been right. It would
have been better for him to take her money. Any money would have been
better than that upon which he had laid his sacrilegious hands. If
he could have cut a purse, after the old fashion, the stain of the
deed would hardly have been so deep. In these days,--for more than
a month, indeed, after his return from Westmoreland,--he did not go
near Queen Anne Street, trying to persuade himself that he stayed
away because of her coldness to him. But, in truth, he was afraid of
seeing her without speaking of her money, and afraid to see her if he
were to speak of it.
"You have seen the _Globe_?" someone said to him as he entered the
club.
"No, indeed; I have seen nothing."
"Bunratty died in Ireland this morning. I suppose you'll be up for
the Chelsea districts?"
CHAPTER XLII.
Parliament Meets.
Parliament opened that year on the twelfth of February, and Mr.
Palliser was one of the first Members of the Lower House to take his
seat. It had been generally asserted through the country, during the
last week, that the existing Chancellor of the Exchequer had, so to
say, ceased to exist as such; that though he still existed to the
outer world, drawing his salary, and doing routine work,--if a man
so big can have any routine work to do,--he existed no longer in
the inner world of the cabinet. He had differed, men said, with
his friend and chief, the Prime Minister, as to the expediency of
repealing what were left of the direct taxes of the country, and was
prepared to launch himself into opposition with his small bodyguard
of followers, with all his energy and with all his venom.
There is something very pleasant in the close, bosom friendship, and
bitter, uncompromising animosity, of these human gods,--of these
human beings who would be gods were they not shorn so short of their
divinity in that matter of immortality. If it were so arranged that
the same persons were always friends, and the same persons were
always enemies, as used to be the case among the dear old heathen
gods and goddesses;--if Parliament were an Olympus in which Juno and
Venus never kissed, the thing would not be nearly so interesting. But
in this Olympus partners are changed, the divine bosom, now rabid
with hatred against some opposing deity, suddenly becomes replete
with love towards its late enemy, and exciting changes occur which
give to the whole thing all the keen interest of a sensational novel.
No doubt this is greatly lessened for those who come too near the
scene of action. Members of Parliament, and the friends of Members
of Parliament, are apt to teach themselves that it means nothing;
that Lord This does not hate Mr. That, or think him a traitor to his
country, or wish to crucify him; and that Sir John of the Treasury
is not much in earnest when he speaks of his noble friend at the
"Foreign Office" as a god to whom no other god was ever comparable in
honesty, discretion, patriotism, and genius. But the outside Briton
who takes a delight in politics,--and this description should include
ninety-nine educated Englishmen out of every hundred,--should not be
desirous of peeping behind the scenes. No beholder at any theatre
should do so. It is good to believe in these friendships and these
enmities, and very pleasant to watch their changes. It is delightful
when Oxford embraces Manchester, finding that it cannot live without
support in that quarter; and very delightful when the uncompromising
assailant of all men in power receives the legitimate reward of his
energy by being taken in among the bosoms of the blessed.
But although the outer world was so sure that the existing Chancellor
of the Exchequer had ceased to exist, when the House of Commons met
that gentleman took his seat on the Treasury Bench. Mr. Palliser, who
had by no means given a general support to the Ministry in the last
Session, took his seat on the same side of the House indeed, but low
down, and near to the cross benches. Mr. Bott sat close behind him,
and men knew that Mr. Bott was a distinguished member of Mr. Palliser's
party, whatever that party might be. Lord Cinquebars moved the
Address, and I must confess that he did it very lamely. He was
once accused by Mr. Maxwell, the brewer, of making a great noise in
the hunting-field. The accusation could not be repeated as to his
performance on this occasion, as no one could hear a word that he
said. The Address was seconded by Mr. Loftus Fitzhoward, a nephew of
the Duke of St. Bungay, who spoke as though he were resolved to trump
poor Lord Cinquebars in every sentence which he pronounced,--as we
so often hear the second clergyman from the Communion Table trumping
his weary predecessor, who has just finished the Litany not in the
clearest or most audible voice. Every word fell from Mr. Fitzhoward
with the elaborate accuracy of a separate pistol-shot; and as he
became pleased with himself in his progress, and warm with his work,
he accented his words sharply, made rhetorical pauses, even moved his
hands about in action, and quite disgusted his own party, who had
been very well satisfied with Lord Cinquebars. There are many rocks
which a young speaker in Parliament should avoid, but no rock which
requires such careful avoiding as the rock of eloquence. Whatever
may be his faults, let him at least avoid eloquence. He should
not be inaccurate, which, however, is not much; he should not be
long-winded, which is a good deal; he should not be ill-tempered,
which is more; but none of these faults are so damnable as eloquence.
All Mr. Fitzhoward's friends and all his enemies knew that he had had
his chance, and that he had thrown it away.
In the Queen's Speech there had been some very lukewarm allusion to
remission of direct taxation. This remission, which had already been
carried so far, should be carried further if such further carrying
were found practicable. So had said the Queen. Those words, it was
known, could not have been approved of by the energetic and still
existing Chancellor of the Exchequer. On this subject the mover
of the Address said never a word, and the seconder only a word or
two. What they had said had, of course, been laid down for them;
though, unfortunately, the manner of saying could not be so easily
prescribed. Then there arose a great enemy, a man fluent of diction,
apparently with deep malice at his heart, though at home,--as we used
to say at school,--one of the most good-natured fellows in the world;
one ambitious of that godship which a seat on the other side of
the House bestowed, and greedy to grasp at the chances which this
disagreement in the councils of the gods might give him. He was quite
content, he said, to vote for the Address, as, he believed, would be
all the gentlemen on his side of the House. No one could suspect them
or him of giving a factious opposition to Government. Had they not
borne and forborne beyond all precedent known in that House? Then
he touched lightly, and almost with grace to his opponents, on many
subjects, promising support, and barely hinting that they were
totally and manifestly wrong in all things. But--. Then the tone of
his voice changed, and the well-known look of fury was assumed upon
his countenance. Then great Jove on the other side pulled his hat
over his eyes, and smiled blandly. Then members put away the papers
they had been reading for a moment, and men in the gallery began
to listen. But--. The long and the short of it was this; that the
existing Government had come into power on the cry of a reduction
of taxation, and now they were going to shirk the responsibility
of their own measures. They were going to shirk the responsibility
of their own election cry, although it was known that their own
Chancellor of the Exchequer was prepared to carry it out to the full.
He was willing to carry it out to the full were he not restrained by
the timidity, falsehood, and treachery of his colleagues, of whom,
of course, the most timid, the most false, and the most treacherous
was--the great god Jove, who sat blandly smiling on the other side.
[Illustration: Great Jove.]
No one should ever go near the House of Commons who wishes to enjoy
all this. It was so manifestly evident that neither Jove nor any
of his satellites cared twopence for what the irate gentleman was
saying; nay, it became so evident that, in spite of his assumed fury,
the gentleman was not irate. He intended to communicate his look
of anger to the newspaper reports of his speech; and he knew from
experience that he could succeed in that. And men walked about the
House in the most telling moments,--enemies shaking hands with
enemies,--in a way that showed an entire absence of all good, honest
hatred among them. But the gentleman went on and finished his speech,
demanding at last, in direct terms, that the Treasury Jove should
state plainly to the House who was to be, and who was not to be, the
bearer of the purse among the gods.
Then Treasury Jove got up smiling, and thanked his enemy for the
cordiality of his support. "He had always," he said, "done the
gentleman's party justice for their clemency, and had feared no
opposition from them; and he was glad to find that he was correct in
his anticipations as to the course they would pursue on the present
occasion." He went on saying a good deal about home matters, and
foreign matters, proving that everything was right, just as easily as
his enemy had proved that everything was wrong. On all these points
he was very full, and very courteous; but when he came to the subject
of taxation, he simply repeated the passage from the Queen's Speech,
expressing a hope that his right honourable friend, the Chancellor of
the Exchequer, would be able to satisfy the judgement of the House,
and the wishes of the people. That specially personal question which
had been asked he did not answer at all.
But the House was still all agog, as was the crowded gallery. The
energetic and still existing Chancellor of the Exchequer was then
present, divided only by one little thin Secretary of State from Jove
himself. Would he get up and declare his purposes? He was a man who
almost always did get up when an opportunity offered itself,--or when
it did not. Some second little gun was fired off from the Opposition
benches, and then there was a pause. Would the purse-bearer of
Olympus rise upon his wings and speak his mind, or would he sit
in silence upon his cloud? There was a general call for the
purse-bearer, but he floated in silence, and was inexplicable. The
purse-bearer was not to be bullied into any sudden reading of the
riddle. Then there came on a general debate about money matters, in
which the purse-bearer did say a few words, but he said nothing as
to the great question at issue. At last up got Mr. Palliser, towards
the close of the evening, and occupied a full hour in explaining what
taxes the Government might remit with safety, and what they might
not,--Mr. Bott, meanwhile, prompting him with figures from behind
with an assiduity that was almost too persistent. According to Mr.
Palliser, the words used in the Queen's Speech were not at all too
cautious. The Members went out gradually, and the House became very
thin during this oration; but the newspapers declared, next morning,
that his speech had been the speech of the night, and that the
perspicuity of Mr. Palliser pointed him out as the coming man.
He returned home to his house in Park Lane quite triumphant after his
success, and found Lady Glencora, at about twelve o'clock, sitting
alone. She had arrived in town on that day, having come up at her own
request, instead of remaining at Matching Priory till after Easter,
as he had proposed. He had wished her to stay, in order, as he
had said, that there might be a home for his cousins. But she had
expressed herself unwilling to remain without him, explaining that
the cousins might have the home in her absence, as well as they
could in her presence; and he had given way. But, in truth, she had
learned to hate her cousin Iphy Palliser with a hatred that was
unreasonable,--seeing that she did not also hate Alice Vavasor, who
had done as much to merit her hatred as had her cousin. Lady Glencora
knew by what means her absence from Monkshade had been brought about.
Miss Palliser had told her all that had passed in Alice's bedroom
on the last night of Alice's stay at Matching, and had, by so doing,
contrived to prevent the visit. Lady Glencora understood well all
that Alice had said: and yet, though she hated Miss Palliser for what
had been done, she entertained no anger against Alice. Of course
Alice would have prevented that visit to Monkshade if it were in her
power to do so. Of course she would save her friend. It is hardly
too much to say that Lady Glencora looked to Alice to save her.
Nevertheless she hated Iphy Palliser for engaging herself in the same
business. Lady Glencora looked to Alice to save her, and yet it may
be doubted whether she did, in truth, wish to be saved.
While she was at Matching, and before Mr. Palliser had returned from
Monkshade, a letter reached her, by what means she had never learned.
"A letter has been placed within my writing-case," she said to her
maid, quite openly. "Who put it there?" The maid had declared her
ignorance in a manner that had satisfied Lady Glencora of her truth.
"If such a thing happens again," said Lady Glencora, "I shall be
obliged to have the matter investigated. I cannot allow that anything
should be put into my room surreptitiously." There, then, had been an
end of that, as regarded any steps taken by Lady Glencora. The letter
had been from Burgo Fitzgerald, and had contained a direct proposal
that she should go off with him. "I am at Matching," the letter said,
"at the Inn; but I do not dare to show myself, lest I should do you
an injury. I walked round the house yesterday, at night, and I know
that I saw your room. If I am wrong in thinking that you love me, I
would not for worlds insult you by my presence; but if you love me
still, I ask you to throw aside from you that fictitious marriage,
and give yourself to the man whom, if you love him, you should regard
as your husband." There had been more of it, but it had been to the
same effect. To Lady Glencora it had seemed to convey an assurance
of devoted love,--of that love which, in former days, her friends
had told her was not within the compass of Burgo's nature. He had
not asked her to meet him then, but saying that he would return to
Matching after Parliament was met, begged her to let him have some
means of knowing whether her heart was true to him.
She told no one of the letter, but she kept it, and read it over and
over again in the silence and solitude of her room. She felt that she
was guilty in thus reading it,--even in keeping it from her husband's
knowledge; but though conscious of this guilt, though resolute
almost in its commission, still she determined not to remain at
Matching after her husband's departure,--not to undergo the danger
of remaining there while Burgo Fitzgerald should be in the vicinity.
She could not analyse her own wishes. She often told herself, as she
had told Alice, that it would be better for them all that she should
go away; that in throwing herself even to the dogs, if such must be
the result, she would do more of good than of harm. She declared to
herself, in the most passionate words she could use, that she loved
this man with all her heart. She protested that the fault would not
be hers, but theirs, who had forced her to marry the man she did
not love. She assured herself that her husband had no affection for
her, and that their marriage was in every respect prejudicial to
him. She recurred over and over again, in her thoughts, to her own
childlessness, and to his extreme desire for an heir. "Though I do
sacrifice myself," she would say, "I shall do more of good than harm,
and I cannot be more wretched than I am now." But yet she fled to
London because she feared to leave herself at Matching when Burgo
Fitzgerald should be there. She sent no answer to his letter. She
made no preparation for going with him. She longed to see Alice, to
whom alone, since her marriage, had she ever spoken of her love, and
intended to tell her the whole tale of that letter. She was as one
who, in madness, was resolute to throw herself from a precipice, but
to whom some remnant of sanity remained which forced her to seek
those who would save her from herself.
Mr. Palliser had not seen her since her arrival in London, and,
of course, he took her by the hand and kissed her. But it was the
embrace of a brother rather than of a lover or a husband. Lady
Glencora, with her full woman's nature, understood this thoroughly,
and appreciated by instinct the true bearing of every touch from his
hand. "I hope you are well?" she said.
"Oh, yes; quite well. And you? A little fatigued with your journey, I
suppose?"
"No; not much."
"Well, we have had a debate on the Address. Don't you want to know
how it has gone?"
"If it has concerned you particularly, I do, of course."
"Concerned me! It has concerned me certainly."
"They haven't appointed you yet; have they?"
"No; they don't appoint people during debates, in the House of
Commons. But I fear I shall never make you a politician."
"I'm almost afraid you never will. But I'm not the less anxious for
your success, since you wish it yourself. I don't understand why you
should work so very hard; but, as you like it, I'm as anxious as
anybody can be that you should triumph."
"Yes; I do like it," he said. "A man must like something, and I don't
know what there is to like better. Some people can eat and drink all
day; and some people can care about a horse. I can do neither."
And there were others, Lady Glencora thought, who could love to lie
in the sun, and could look up into the eyes of women, and seek their
happiness there. She was sure, at any rate, that she knew one such.
But she said nothing of this.
"I spoke for a moment to Lord Brock," said Mr. Palliser. Lord Brock
was the name by which the present Jove of the Treasury was known
among men.
"And what did Lord Brock say?"
"He didn't say much, but he was very cordial."
"But I thought, Plantagenet, that he could appoint you if he pleased?
Doesn't he do it all?"
"Well, in one sense, he does. But I don't suppose I shall ever make
you understand." He endeavoured, however, to do so on the present
occasion, and gave her a somewhat longer lecture on the working of
the British Constitution, and the manner in which British politics
evolved themselves, than would have been expected from most young
husbands to their young wives under similar circumstances. Lady
Glencora yawned, and strove lustily, but ineffectually, to hide her
yawn in her handkerchief.
"But I see you don't care a bit about it," said he, peevishly.
"Don't be angry, Plantagenet. Indeed I do care about it, but I am so
ignorant that I can't understand it all at once. I am rather tired,
and I think I'll go to bed now. Shall you be late?"
"No, not very; that is, I shall be rather late. I've a lot of
letters I want to write to-night, as I must be at work all to-morrow.
By-the-by, Mr. Bott is coming to dine here. There will be no one
else." The next day was a Wednesday, and the House would not sit in
the evening.
"Mr. Bott!" said Lady Glencora, showing by her voice that she
anticipated no pleasure from that gentleman's company.
"Yes, Mr. Bott. Have you any objection?"
"Oh, no. Would you like to dine alone with him?"
"Why should I dine alone with him? Why shouldn't you eat your dinner
with us? I hope you are not going to become fastidious, and to turn
up your nose at people. Mrs. Marsham is in town, and I dare say she'll
come to you if you ask her."
But this was too much for Lady Glencora. She was disposed to be mild,
but she could not endure to have her two duennas thus brought upon
her together on the first day of her arrival in London. And Mrs.
Marsham would be worse than Mr. Bott. Mr. Bott would be engaged with
Mr. Palliser during the greater part of the evening. "I thought," said
she, "of asking my cousin, Alice Vavasor, to spend the evening with
me."
"Miss Vavasor!" said the husband. "I must say that I thought Miss
Vavasor--" He was going to make some allusion to that unfortunate
hour spent among the ruins, but he stopped himself.
"I hope you have nothing to say against my cousin?" said his wife.
"She is my only near relative that I really care for;--the only
woman, I mean."
"No; I don't mean to say anything against her. She's very well as a
young lady, I dare say. I would sooner that you would ask Mrs. Marsham
to-morrow."
Lady Glencora was standing, waiting to go away to her own room, but
it was absolutely necessary that this matter should be decided before
she went. She felt that he was hard to her, and unreasonable, and
that he was treating her like a child who should not be allowed her
own way in anything. She had endeavoured to please him, and, having
failed, was not now disposed to give way.
"As there will be no other ladies here to-morrow evening,
Plantagenet, and as I have not yet seen Alice since I have been in
town, I wish you would let me have my way in this. Of course I cannot
have very much to say to Mrs. Marsham, who is an old woman."
"I especially want Mrs. Marsham to be your friend," said he.
"Friendships will not come by ordering, Plantagenet," said she.
[Illustration: "Friendships will not come by ordering,"
said Lady Glencora.]
"Very well," said he. "Of course, you will do as you please. I am
sorry that you have refused the first favour I have asked you this
year." Then he left the room, and she went away to bed.
CHAPTER XLIII.
Mrs. Marsham.
But Lady Glencora was not brought to repentance by her husband's last
words. It seemed to her to be so intolerably cruel, this demand of
his, that she should be made to pass the whole of her first evening
in town with an old woman for whom it was impossible that she should
entertain the slightest regard, that she resolved upon rebellion. Had
he positively ordered Mrs. Marsham, she would have sent for that lady,
and have contented herself with enduring her presence in disdainful
silence; but Mr. Palliser had not given any order. He had made a
request, and a request, from its very nature, admits of no obedience.
The compliance with a request must be voluntary, and she would not
send for Mrs. Marsham, except upon compulsion. Had not she also made
a request to him, and had not he refused it? It was his prerogative,
undoubtedly, to command; but in that matter of requests she had a
right to expect that her voice should be as potent as his own. She
wrote a line, therefore, to Alice before she went to bed, begging her
cousin to come to her early on the following day, so that they might
go out together, and then afterwards dine in company with Mr. Bott.
"I know that will be an inducement to you," Lady Glencora said,
"because your generous heart will feel of what service you may be to
me. Nobody else will be here,--unless, indeed, Mrs. Marsham should be
asked, unknown to myself."
Then she sat herself down to think,--to think especially about the
cruelty of husbands. She had been told over and over again, in the
days before her marriage, that Burgo would ill-use her if he became
her husband. The Marquis of Auld Reekie had gone so far as to suggest
that Burgo might probably beat her. But what hard treatment, even
what beating, could be so unendurable as this total want of sympathy,
as this deadness in life, which her present lot entailed upon her? As
for that matter of beating, she ridiculed the idea in her very soul.
She sat smiling at the absurdity of the thing as she thought of the
beauty of Burgo's eyes, of the softness of his touch, of the loving,
almost worshipping, tones of his voice. Would it not even be better
to be beaten by him than to have politics explained to her at one
o'clock at night by such a husband as Plantagenet Palliser? The
British Constitution, indeed! Had she married Burgo they would have
been in sunny Italy, and he would have told her some other tale than
that as they sat together under the pale moonlight. She had a little
water-coloured drawing called Raphael and Fornarina, and she was
infantine enough to tell herself that the so-called Raphael was like
her Burgo--no, not her Burgo, but the Burgo that was not hers. At any
rate, all the romance of the picture she might have enjoyed had they
allowed her to dispose as she had wished of her own hand. She might
have sat in marble balconies, while the vines clustered over her
head, and he would have been at her knee, hardly speaking to her,
but making his presence felt by the halo of its divinity. He would
have called upon her for no hard replies. With him near her she would
have enjoyed the soft air, and would have sat happy, without trouble,
lapped in the delight of loving. It was thus that Fornarina sat. And
why should not such a lot have been hers? Her Raphael would have
loved her, let them say what they would about his cruelty.
Poor, wretched, overburthened child, to whom the commonest lessons of
life had not yet been taught, and who had now fallen into the hands
of one who was so ill-fitted to teach them! Who would not pity her?
Who could say that the fault was hers? The world had laden her with
wealth till she had had no limb free for its ordinary uses, and then
had turned her loose to run her race!
"Have you written to your cousin?" her husband asked her the next
morning. His voice, as he spoke, clearly showed that his anger was
either over or suppressed.
"Yes; I have asked her to come and drive, and then to stay for
dinner. I shall send the carriage for her if she can come. The man is
to wait for an answer."
"Very well," said Mr. Palliser, mildly. And then, after a short pause,
he added, "As that is settled, perhaps you would have no objection to
ask Mrs. Marsham also?"
"Won't she probably be engaged?"
"No; I think not," said Mr. Palliser. And then he added, being ashamed
of the tinge of falsehood of which he would otherwise have been
guilty, "I know she is not engaged."
"She expects to come, then?" said Lady Glencora.
"I have not asked her, if you mean that, Glencora. Had I done so,
I should have said so. I told her that I did not know what your
engagements were."
"I will write to her, if you please," said the wife, who felt that
she could hardly refuse any longer.
"Do, my dear!" said the husband. So Lady Glencora did write to Mrs.
Marsham, who promised to come,--as did also Alice Vavasor.
Lady Glencora would, at any rate, have Alice to herself for some
hours before dinner. At first she took comfort in that reflection;
but after a while she bethought herself that she would not know
what to tell Alice, or what not to tell. Did she mean to show that
letter to her cousin? If she did show it, then,--so she argued with
herself,--she must bring herself to endure the wretchedness of her
present lot, and must give up for ever all her dreams about Raphael
and Fornarina. If she did not show it,--or, at any rate, tell of
it,--then it would come to pass that she would leave her husband
under the protection of another man, and she would become--what she
did not dare to name even to herself. She declared that so it must
be. She knew that she would go with Burgo, should he ever come to her
with the means of going at his and her instant command. But should
she bring herself to let Alice know that such a letter had been
conveyed to her, Burgo would never have such power.
I remember the story of a case of abduction in which a man was tried
for his life, and was acquitted, because the lady had acquiesced in
the carrying away while it was in progress. She had, as she herself
declared, armed herself with a sure and certain charm or talisman
against such dangers, which she kept suspended round her neck; but
whilst she was in the post-chaise she opened the window and threw
the charm from her, no longer desiring, as the learned counsel for
the defence efficiently alleged, to be kept under the bonds of such
protection. Lady Glencora's state of mind was, in its nature, nearly
the same as that of the lady in the post-chaise. Whether or no she
would use her charm, she had not yet decided, but the power of doing
so was still hers.
Alice came, and the greeting between the cousins was very
affectionate. Lady Glencora received her as though they had been
playmates from early childhood; and Alice, though such impulsive love
was not natural to her as to the other, could not bring herself to
be cold to one who was so warm to her. Indeed, had she not promised
her love in that meeting at Matching Priory in which her cousin
had told her of all her wretchedness? "I will love you!" Alice had
said; and though there was much in Lady Glencora that she could not
approve,--much even that she could not bring herself to like,--still
she would not allow her heart to contradict her words.
They sat so long over the fire in the drawing-room that at last they
agreed that the driving should be abandoned.
"What's the use of it?" said Lady Glencora. "There's nothing to see,
and the wind is as cold as charity. We are much more comfortable
here; are we not?" Alice quite acquiesced in this, having no great
desire to be driven through the parks in the gloom of a February
afternoon.
"If I had Dandy and Flirt up here, there would be some fun in it; but
Mr. Palliser doesn't wish me to drive in London."
"I suppose it would be dangerous?"
"Not in the least. I don't think it's that he minds; but he has an
idea that it looks fast."
"So it does. If I were a man, I'm sure I shouldn't like my wife to
drive horses about London."
"And why not? Just because you'd be a tyrant,--like other husbands?
What's the harm of looking fast, if one doesn't do anything improper?
Poor Dandy, and dear Flirt! I'm sure they'd like it."
"Perhaps Mr. Palliser doesn't care for that?"
"I can tell you something else he doesn't care for. He doesn't care
whether Dandy's mistress likes it."
"Don't say that, Glencora."
"Why not say it,--to you?"
"Don't teach yourself to think it. That's what I mean. I believe he
would consent to anything that he didn't think wrong."
"Such as lectures about the British Constitution! But never mind
about that, Alice. Of course the British Constitution is everything
to him, and I wish I knew more about it;--that's all. But I haven't
told you whom you are to meet at dinner."
"Yes, you have--Mr. Bott."
"But there's another guest, a Mrs. Marsham. I thought I'd got rid of
her for to-day, when I wrote to you; but I hadn't. She's coming."
"She won't hurt me at all," said Alice.
"She will hurt me very much. She'll destroy the pleasure of our whole
evening. I do believe that she hates you, and that she thinks you
instigate me to all manner of iniquity. What fools they all are!"
"Who are they all, Glencora?"
"She and that man, and--. Never mind. It makes me sick when I think
that they should be so blind. Alice, I hardly know how much I owe to
you; I don't, indeed. Everything, I believe." Lady Glencora, as she
spoke, put her hand into her pocket, and grasped the letter which lay
there.
"That's nonsense," said Alice.
"No; it's not nonsense. Who do you think came to Matching when I was
there?"
"What;--to the house?" said Alice, feeling almost certain that Mr.
Fitzgerald was the person to whom Lady Glencora was alluding.
"No; not to the house."
"If it is the person of whom I am thinking," said Alice, solemnly,
"let me implore you not to speak of him."
"And why should I not speak of him? Did I not speak of him before to
you, and was it not for good? How are you to be my friend, if I may
not speak to you of everything?"
"But you should not think of him."
"What nonsense you talk, Alice! Not think of him! How is one to help
one's thoughts? Look here."
Her hand was on the letter, and it would have been out in a moment,
and thrown upon Alice's lap, had not the servant opened the door and
announced Mrs. Marsham.
"Oh, how I do wish we had gone to drive!" said Lady Glencora, in a
voice which the servant certainly heard, and which Mrs. Marsham would
have heard had she not been a little hard of hearing,--in her bonnet.
"How do, my dear?" said Mrs. Marsham. "I thought I'd just come across
from Norfolk Street and see you, though I am coming to dinner in the
evening. It's only just a step, you know. How d'ye do, Miss Vavasor?"
and she made a salutation to Alice which was nearly as cold as it
could be.
Mrs. Marsham was a woman who had many good points. She was poor,
and bore her poverty without complaint She was connected by blood
and friendship with people rich and titled; but she paid to none of
them egregious respect on account of their wealth or titles. She was
staunch in her friendships, and staunch in her enmities. She was
no fool, and knew well what was going on in the world. She could
talk about the last novel, or--if need be--about the Constitution.
She had been a true wife, though sometimes too strong-minded, and a
painstaking mother, whose children, however, had never loved her as
most mothers like to be loved.
The catalogue of her faults must be quite as long as that of her
virtues. She was one of those women who are ambitious of power, and
not very scrupulous as to the manner in which they obtain it. She
was hardhearted, and capable of pursuing an object without much
regard to the injury she might do. She would not flatter wealth or
fawn before a title, but she was not above any artifice by which she
might ingratiate herself with those whom it suited her purpose to
conciliate. She thought evil rather than good. She was herself untrue
in action, if not absolutely in word. I do not say that she would
coin lies, but she would willingly leave false impressions. She had
been the bosom friend, and in many things the guide in life, of Mr.
Palliser's mother; and she took a special interest in Mr. Palliser's
welfare. When he married, she heard the story of the loves of Burgo
and Lady Glencora; and though she thought well of the money, she
was not disposed to think very well of the bride. She made up her
mind that the young lady would want watching, and she was of opinion
that no one would be so well able to watch Lady Glencora as herself.
She had not plainly opened her mind on this matter to Mr. Palliser;
she had not made any distinct suggestion to him that she would act
as Argus to his wife. Mr. Palliser would have rejected any such
suggestion, and Mrs. Marsham knew that he would do so; but she
had let a word or two drop, hinting that Lady Glencora was very
young,--hinting that Lady Glencora's manners were charming in their
childlike simplicity; but hinting also that precaution was, for that
reason, the more necessary. Mr. Palliser, who suspected nothing as
to Burgo or as to any other special peril, whose whole disposition
was void of suspicion, whose dry nature realized neither the delights
nor the dangers of love, acknowledged that Glencora was young. He
especially wished that she should be discreet and matronly; he feared
no lovers, but he feared that she might do silly things,--that
she would catch cold,--and not know how to live a life becoming
the wife of a Chancellor of the Exchequer. Therefore he submitted
Glencora,--and, to a certain extent, himself,--into the hands of Mrs.
Marsham.
Lady Glencora had not been twenty-four hours in the house with this
lady before she recognized in her a duenna. In all such matters no
one could be quicker than Lady Glencora. She might be very ignorant
about the British Constitution, and, alas! very ignorant also as to
the real elements of right and wrong in a woman's conduct, but she
was no fool. She had an eye that could see, and an ear that could
understand, and an abundance of that feminine instinct which teaches
a woman to know her friend or her enemy at a glance, at a touch, at
a word. In many things Lady Glencora was much quicker, much more
clever, than her husband, though he was to be Chancellor of the
Exchequer, and though she did know nothing of the Constitution.
She knew, too, that he was easily to be deceived,--that though his
intelligence was keen, his instincts were dull,--that he was gifted
with no fineness of touch, with no subtle appreciation of the
characters of men and women; and, to a certain extent, she looked
down upon him for his obtusity. He should have been aware that Burgo
was a danger to be avoided; and he should have been aware also that
Mrs. Marsham was a duenna not to be employed. When a woman knows that
she is guarded by a watch-dog, she is bound to deceive her Cerberus,
if it be possible, and is usually not ill-disposed to deceive also
the owner of Cerberus. Lady Glencora felt that Mrs. Marsham was her
Cerberus, and she was heartily resolved that if she was to be kept in
the proper line at all, she would not be so kept by Mrs. Marsham.
Alice rose and accepted Mrs. Marsham's salutation quite as coldly as
it had been given, and from that time forward those two ladies were
enemies. Mrs. Marsham, groping quite in the dark, partly guessed that
Alice had in some way interfered to prevent Lady Glencora's visit to
Monkshade, and, though such prevention was, no doubt, good in that
lady's eyes, she resented the interference. She had made up her mind
that Alice was not the sort of friend that Lady Glencora should have
about her. Alice recognized and accepted the feud.
"I thought I might find you at home," said Mrs. Marsham, "as I know
you are lazy about going out in the cold,--unless it be for a foolish
midnight ramble," and Mrs. Marsham shook her head. She was a little
woman, with sharp small eyes, with a permanent colour in her face,
and two short, crisp, grey curls at each side of her face; always
well dressed, always in good health, and, as Lady Glencora believed,
altogether incapable of fatigue.
"The ramble you speak of was very wise, I think," said Lady Glencora;
"but I never could see the use of driving about in London in the
middle of winter."
"One ought to go out of the house every day," said Mrs. Marsham.
"I hate all those rules. Don't you, Alice?" Alice did not hate them,
therefore she said nothing.
"My dear Glencora, one must live by rules in this life. You might as
well say that you hated sitting down to dinner."
"So I do, very often; almost always when there's company."
"You'll get over that feeling after another season in town," said Mrs.
Marsham, pretending to suppose that Lady Glencora alluded to some
remaining timidity in receiving her own guests.
"Upon my word I don't think I shall. It's a thing that seems always
to be getting more grievous, instead of less so. Mr. Bott is coming to
dine here to-night."
There was no mistaking the meaning of this. There was no pretending
even to mistake it. Now, Mrs. Marsham had accepted the right hand
of fellowship from Mr. Bott,--not because she especially liked him,
but in compliance with the apparent necessities of Mr. Palliser's
position. Mr. Bott had made good his ground about Mr. Palliser; and Mrs.
Marsham, as she was not strong enough to turn him off from it, had
given him the right hand of fellowship.
"Mr. Bott is a Member of Parliament, and a very serviceable friend of
Mr. Palliser's," said Mrs. Marsham.
"All the same; we do not like Mr. Bott--do we, Alice? He is Doctor
Fell to us; only I think we could tell why."
"I certainly do not like him," said Alice.
"It can be but of small matter to you, Miss Vavasor," said Mrs.
Marsham, "as you will not probably have to see much of him."
"Of the very smallest moment," said Alice. "He did annoy me once, but
will never, I dare say, have an opportunity of doing so again."
"I don't know what the annoyance may have been."
"Of course you don't, Mrs. Marsham."
"But I shouldn't have thought it likely that a person so fully
employed as Mr. Bott, and employed, too, on matters of such vast
importance, would have gone out of his way to annoy a young lady whom
he chanced to meet for a day or two in a country-house."
"I don't think that Alice means that he attempted to flirt with her,"
said Lady Glencora, laughing. "Fancy Mr. Bott's flirtation!"
"Perhaps he did not attempt," said Mrs. Marsham; and the words, the
tone, and the innuendo together were more than Alice was able to bear
with equanimity.
"Glencora," said she, rising from her chair, "I think I'll leave
you alone with Mrs. Marsham. I'm not disposed to discuss Mr. Bott's
character, and certainly not to hear his name mentioned in
disagreeable connection with my own."
But Lady Glencora would not let her go. "Nonsense, Alice," she said.
"If you and I can't fight our little battles against Mr. Bott and Mrs.
Marsham without running away, it is odd. There is a warfare in which
they who run away never live to fight another day."
"I hope, Glencora, you do not count me as your enemy?" said Mrs.
Marsham, drawing herself up.
"But I shall,--certainly, if you attack Alice. Love me, love my dog.
I beg your pardon, Alice; but what I meant was this, Mrs. Marsham;
Love me, love the best friend I have in the world."
"I did not mean to offend Miss Vavasor," said Mrs. Marsham, looking at
her very grimly. Alice merely bowed her head. She had been offended,
and she would not deny it. After that, Mrs. Marsham took herself
off, saying that she would be back to dinner. She was angry, but
not unhappy. She thought that she could put down Miss Vavasor, and
she was prepared to bear a good deal from Lady Glencora--for Mr.
Palliser's sake, as she said to herself, with some attempt at a
sentimental remembrance of her old friend.
"She's a nasty old cat," said Lady Glencora, as soon as the door was
closed; and she said these words with so droll a voice, with such a
childlike shaking of her head, with so much comedy in her grimace,
that Alice could not but laugh. "She is," said Lady Glencora. "I know
her, and you'll have to know her, too, before you've done with her.
It won't at all do for you to run away when she spits at you. You
must hold your ground, and show your claws,--and make her know that
if she spits, you can scratch."
"But I don't want to be a cat myself."
"She'll find I'm of the genus, but of the tiger kind, if she
persecutes me. Alice, there's one thing I have made up my mind about.
I will not be persecuted. If my husband tells me to do anything, as
long as he is my husband I'll do it; but I won't be persecuted."
"You should remember that she was a very old friend of Mr. Palliser's
mother."
"I do remember; and that may be a very good reason why she should
come here occasionally, or go to Matching, or to any place in which
we may be living. It's a bore, of course; but it's a natural bore,
and one that ought to be borne."
"And that will be the beginning and the end of it."
"I'm afraid not, my dear. It may perhaps be the end of it, but I fear
it won't be the beginning. I won't be persecuted. If she gives me
advice, I shall tell her to her face that it's not wanted; and if she
insults any friend of mine, as she did you, I shall tell her that she
had better stay away. She'll go and tell him, of course; but I can't
help that. I've made up my mind that I won't be persecuted."
After that, Lady Glencora felt no further inclination to show Burgo's
letter to Alice on that occasion. They sat over the drawing-room
fire, talking chiefly of Alice's affairs, till it was time for them
to dress. But Alice, though she spoke much of Mr. Grey, said no word
as to her engagement with George Vavasor. How could she speak of it,
inasmuch as she had already resolved,--already almost resolved,--that
that engagement also should be broken?
Alice, when she came down to the drawing-room, before dinner, found
Mr. Bott there alone. She had dressed more quickly than her friend,
and Mr. Palliser had not yet made his appearance.
"I did not expect the pleasure of meeting Miss Vavasor to-day," he
said, as he came up, offering his hand. She gave him her hand, and
then sat down, merely muttering some word of reply.
"We spent a very pleasant month down at Matching together;--didn't
you think so?"
"I spent a pleasant month there certainly."
"You left, if I remember, the morning after that late walk out among
the ruins? That was unfortunate, was it not? Poor Lady Glencora! it
made her very ill; so much so, that she could not go to Monkshade,
as she particularly wished. It was very sad. Lady Glencora is very
delicate,--very delicate, indeed. We, who have the privilege of being
near her, ought always to remember that."
"I don't think she is at all delicate."
"Oh! don't you? I'm afraid that's your mistake, Miss Vavasor."
"I believe she has very good health, which is the greatest blessing
in the world. By delicate I suppose you mean weak and infirm."
"Oh, dear, no,--not in the least,--not infirm certainly! I should be
very sorry to be supposed to have said that Lady Glencora is infirm.
What I mean is, not robust, Miss Vavasor. Her general organization,
if you understand me, is exquisitely delicate. One can see that, I
think, in every glance of her eye."
Alice was going to protest that she had never seen it at all, when Mr.
Palliser entered the room along with Mrs. Marsham.
The two gentlemen shook hands, and then Mr. Palliser turned to Alice.
She perceived at once by his face that she was unwelcome, and wished
herself away from his house. It might be all very well for Lady
Glencora to fight with Mrs. Marsham,--and with her husband, too, in
regard to the Marsham persecution,--but there could be no reason why
she should do so. He just touched her hand, barely closing his thumb
upon her fingers, and asked her how she was. Then he turned away from
her side of the fire, and began talking to Mrs. Marsham on the other.
There was that in his face and in his manner which was positively
offensive to her. He made no allusion to his former acquaintance with
her,--spoke no word about Matching, no word about his wife, as he
would naturally have done to his wife's friend. Alice felt the blood
mount into her face, and regretted greatly that she had ever come
among these people. Had she not long since made up her mind that she
would avoid her great relations, and did not all this prove that it
would have been well for her to have clung to that resolution? What
was Lady Glencora to her that she should submit herself to be treated
as though she were a poor companion,--a dependent, who received a
salary for her attendance,--an indigent cousin, hanging on to the
bounty of her rich connection? Alice was proud to a fault. She had
nursed her pride till it was very faulty. All her troubles and
sorrows in life had come from an overfed craving for independence.
Why, then, should she submit to be treated with open want of courtesy
by any man; but, of all men, why should she submit to it from such a
one as Mr. Palliser,--the heir of a ducal house, rolling in wealth,
and magnificent with all the magnificence of British pomp and pride?
No; she would make Lady Glencora understand that the close intimacies
of daily life were not possible to them!
"I declare I'm very much ashamed," said Lady Glencora, as she entered
the room. "I shan't apologize to you, Alice, for it was you who kept
me talking; but I do beg Mrs. Marsham's pardon."
Mrs. Marsham was all smiles and forgiveness, and hoped that Lady
Glencora would not make a stranger of her. Then dinner was announced,
and Alice had to walk down stairs by herself. She did not care a
doit for that, but there had been a disagreeable little contest when
the moment came. Lady Glencora had wished to give up Mr. Bott to her
cousin, but Mr. Bott had stuck manfully to Lady Glencora's side. He
hoped to take Lady Glencora down to dinner very often, and was not at
all disposed to abate his privilege.
During dinner-time Alice said very little, nor was there given to her
opportunity of saying much. She could not but think of the day of her
first arrival at Matching Priory, when she had sat between the Duke
of St. Bungay and Jeffrey Palliser, and when everybody had been so
civil to her! She now occupied one side of the table by herself,
away from the fire, where she felt cold and desolate in the gloom of
the large half-lighted room. Mr. Palliser occupied himself with Mrs.
Marsham, who talked politics to him; and Mr. Bott never lost a moment
in his endeavours to say some civil word to Lady Glencora. Lady
Glencora gave him no encouragement; but she hardly dared to snub
him openly in her husband's immediate presence. Twenty times during
dinner she said some little word to Alice, attempting at first to
make the time pleasant, and then, when the matter was too far gone
for that, attempting to give some relief. But it was of no avail.
There are moments in which conversation seems to be impossible,--in
which the very gods interfere to put a seal upon the lips of the
unfortunate one. It was such a moment now with Alice. She had never
as yet been used to snubbing. Whatever position she had hitherto
held, in that she had always stood foremost,--much more so than had
been good for her. When she had gone to Matching, she had trembled
for her position; but there all had gone well with her; there
Lady Glencora's kindness had at first been able to secure for
her a reception that had been flattering, and almost better than
flattering. Jeffrey Palliser had been her friend, and would, had she
so willed it, have been more than her friend. But now she felt that
the halls of the Pallisers were too cold for her, and that the sooner
she escaped from their gloom and hard discourtesy the better for her.
Mrs. Marsham, when the three ladies had returned to the drawing-room
together, was a little triumphant. She felt that she had put Alice
down; and with the energetic prudence of a good general who knows
that he should follow up a victory, let the cost of doing so be what
it may, she determined to keep her down. Alice had resolved that she
would come as seldom as might be to Mr. Palliser's house in Park
Lane. That resolution on her part was in close accordance with Mrs.
Marsham's own views.
"Is Miss Vavasor going to walk home?" she asked.
"Walk home;--all along Oxford Street! Good gracious! no. Why should
she walk? The carriage will take her."
"Or a cab," said Alice. "I am quite used to go about London in a cab
by myself."
"I don't think they are nice for young ladies after dark," said Mrs.
Marsham. "I was going to offer my servant to walk with her. She is an
elderly woman, and would not mind it."
"I'm sure Alice is very much obliged," said Lady. Glencora; "but she
will have the carriage."
"You are very good-natured," said Mrs. Marsham; "but gentlemen do so
dislike having their horses out at night."
"No gentleman's horses will be out," said Lady Glencora, savagely;
"and as for mine, it's what they are there for." It was not often
that Lady Glencora made any allusion to her own property, or allowed
any one near her to suppose that she remembered the fact that her
husband's great wealth was, in truth, her wealth. As to many matters
her mind was wrong. In some things her taste was not delicate as
should be that of a woman. But, as regarded her money, no woman could
have behaved with greater reticence, or a purer delicacy. But now,
when she was twitted by her husband's special friend with ill-usage
to her husband's horses, because she chose to send her own friend
home in her own carriage, she did find it hard to bear.
"I dare say it's all right," said Mrs. Marsham.
"It is all right," said Lady Glencora. "Mr. Palliser has given me my
horses for my own use, to do as I like with them; and if he thinks I
take them out when they ought to be left at home, he can tell me so.
Nobody else has a right to do it." Lady Glencora, by this time, was
almost in a passion, and showed that she was so.
"My dear Lady Glencora, you have mistaken me," said Mrs. Marsham; "I
did not mean anything of that kind."
"I am so sorry," said Alice. "And it is such a pity, as I am quite
used to going about in cabs."
"Of course you are," said Lady Glencora. "Why shouldn't you? I'd
go home in a wheelbarrow if I couldn't walk, and had no other
conveyance. That's not the question. Mrs. Marsham understands that."
"Upon my word, I don't understand anything," said that lady.
"I understand this," said Lady Glencora; "that in all such matters as
that, I intend to follow my own pleasure. Come, Alice, let us have
some coffee,"--and she rang the bell. "What a fuss we have made about
a stupid old carriage!"
The gentlemen did not return to the drawing-room that evening,
having, no doubt, joint work to do in arranging the great financial
calculations of the nation; and, at an early hour, Alice was taken
home in Lady Glencora's brougham, leaving her cousin still in the
hands of Mrs. Marsham.
CHAPTER XLIV.
The Election for the Chelsea Districts.
March came, and still the Chancellor of the Exchequer held his
position. In the early days of March there was given in the House a
certain parliamentary explanation on the subject, which, however, did
not explain very much to any person. A statement was made which was
declared by the persons making it to be altogether satisfactory, but
nobody else seemed to find any satisfaction in it. The big wigs of
the Cabinet had made an arrangement which, from the language used
by them on this occasion, they must be supposed to have regarded as
hardly less permanent than the stars; but everybody else protested
that the Government was going to pieces; and Mr. Bott was heard
to declare in clubs and lobbies, and wherever he could get a
semi-public, political hearing, that this kind of thing wouldn't do.
Lord Brock must either blow hot or cold. If he chose to lean upon Mr.
Palliser, he might lean upon him, and Mr. Palliser would not be found
wanting. In such case no opposition could touch Lord Brock or the
Government. That was Mr. Bott's opinion. But if Lord Brock did not so
choose, why, in that case, he must expect that Mr. Palliser, and Mr.
Palliser's friends, would--. Mr. Bott did not say what they would do;
but he was supposed by those who understood the matter to hint at an
Opposition lobby, and adverse divisions, and to threaten Lord Brock
with the open enmity of Mr. Palliser,--and of Mr. Palliser's great
follower.
"This kind of thing won't do long, you know," repeated Mr. Bott for
the second or third time, as he stood upon the rug before the fire at
his club, with one or two of his young friends around him.
"I suppose not," said Calder Jones, the hunting Member of Parliament
whom we once met at Roebury. "Planty Pall won't stand it, I should
say."
"What can he do?" asked another, an unfledged Member who was not as
yet quite settled as to the leadership under which he intended to
work.
"What can he do?" said Mr. Bott, who on such an occasion as this could
be very great,--who, for a moment, could almost feel that he might
become a leader of a party for himself, and some day institute a Bott
Ministry. "What can he do? You will very shortly see what he can do.
He can make himself the master of the occasion. If Lord Brock doesn't
look about him, he'll find that Mr. Palliser will be in the Cabinet
without his help."
"You don't mean to say that the Queen will send for Planty Pall!"
said the young Member.
"I mean to say that the Queen will send for any one that the House
of Commons may direct her to call upon," said Mr. Bott, who conceived
himself to have gauged the very depths of our glorious Constitution.
"How hard it is to make any one understand that the Queen has really
nothing to do with it!"
"Come, Bott, draw it mild," said Calder Jones, whose loyalty was
shocked by the utter Manchesterialism of his political friend.
"Not if I know it," said Mr. Bott, with something of grandeur in his
tone and countenance. "I never drew it mild yet, and I shan't begin
now. All our political offences against civilization have come from
men drawing it mild, as you call it. Why is it that Englishmen can't
read and write as Americans do? Why can't they vote as they do even
in Imperial France? Why are they serfs, less free than those whose
chains were broken the other day in Russia? Why is the Spaniard more
happy, and the Italian more contented? Because men in power have been
drawing it mild!" And Mr. Bott made an action with his hand as though
he were drawing up beer from a patent tap.
"But you can't set aside Her Majesty like that, you know," said the
young Member, who had been presented, and whose mother's old-world
notions about the throne still clung to him.
"I should be very sorry," said Mr. Bott; "I'm no republican." With
all his constitutional love, Mr. Bott did not know what the word
republican meant. "I mean no disrespect to the throne. The throne in
its place is very well. But the power of governing this great nation
does not rest with the throne. It is contained within the four walls
of the House of Commons. That is the great truth which all young
Members should learn, and take to their hearts."
"And you think Planty Pall will become Prime Minister?" said Calder
Jones.
"I haven't said that; but there are more unlikely things. Among young
men I know no man more likely. But I certainly think this,--that if
Lord Brock doesn't take him into the Cabinet, Lord Brock won't long
remain there himself."
In the meantime the election came on in the Chelsea districts, and
the whole of the south-western part of the metropolis was covered
with posters bearing George Vavasor's name. "Vote for Vavasor and the
River Bank." That was the cry with which he went to the electors; and
though it must be presumed that it was understood by some portion of
the Chelsea electors, it was perfectly unintelligible to the majority
of those who read it. His special acquaintances and his general
enemies called him Viscount Riverbank, and he was pestered on all
sides by questions as to Father Thames. It was Mr. Scruby who invented
the legend, and who gave George Vavasor an infinity of trouble by the
invention. There was a question in those days as to embanking the
river from the Houses of Parliament up to the remote desolations
of further Pimlico, and Mr. Scruby recommended the coming Member
to pledge himself that he would have the work carried on even to
Battersea Bridge. "You must have a subject," pleaded Mr. Scruby. "No
young Member can do anything without a subject. And it should be
local;--that is to say, if you have anything of a constituency. Such
a subject as that, if it's well worked, may save you thousands of
pounds--thousands of pounds at future elections."
"It won't save me anything at this one, I take it."
"But it may secure the seat, Mr. Vavasor, and afterwards make you the
most popular metropolitan Member in the House; that is, with your
own constituency. Only look at the money that would be spent in the
districts if that were done! It would come to millions, sir!"
"But it never will be done."
"What matters that?" and Mr. Scruby almost became eloquent as he
explained the nature of a good parliamentary subject. "You should
work it up, so as to be able to discuss it at all points. Get the
figures by heart, and then, as nobody else will do so, nobody can put
you down. Of course it won't be done. If it were done, that would be
an end of it, and your bread would be taken out of your mouth. But
you can always promise it at the hustings, and can always demand
it in the House. I've known men who've walked into as much as two
thousand a year, permanent place, on the strength of a worse subject
than that!"
Vavasor allowed Mr. Scruby to manage the matter for him, and took
up the subject of the River Bank. "Vavasor and the River Bank"
was carried about by an army of men with iron shoulder-straps,
and huge pasteboard placards six feet high on the top of them.
You would think, as you saw the long rows, that the men were
being marshalled to their several routes; but they always kept
together--four-and-twenty at the heels of each other. "One placard
at a time would strike the eye," said Mr. Vavasor, counting the
expense up to himself. "There's no doubt of it," said Mr. Scruby in
reply. "One placard will do that, if it's big enough; but it takes
four-and-twenty to touch the imagination." And then sides of houses
were covered with that shibboleth--"Vavasor and the River Bank"--the
same words repeated in columns down the whole sides of houses.
Vavasor himself declared that he was ashamed to walk among his future
constituents, so conspicuous had his name become. Grimes saw it,
and was dismayed. At first, Grimes ridiculed the cry with all his
publican's wit. "Unless he mean to drown hisself in the Reach, it's
hard to say what he do mean by all that gammon about the River Bank,"
said Grimes, as he canvassed for the other Liberal candidate. But,
after a while, Grimes was driven to confess that Mr. Scruby knew what
he was about. "He is a sharp 'un, that he is," said Grimes in the
inside bar of the "Handsome Man;" and he almost regretted that he
had left the leadership of Mr. Scruby, although he knew that on this
occasion he would not have gotten his odd money.
George Vavasor, with much labour, actually did get up the subject of
the River Bank. He got himself introduced to men belonging to the
Metropolitan Board, and went manfully into the matter of pounds,
shillings, and pence. He was able even to work himself into an
apparent heat when he was told that the thing was out of the
question; and soon found that he had disciples who really believed in
him. If he could have brought himself to believe in the thing,--if
he could have been induced himself to care whether Chelsea was to
be embanked or no, the work would not have been so difficult to him.
In that case it would have done good to him, if to no one else. But
such belief was beyond him. He had gone too far in life to be capable
of believing in, or of caring for, such things. He was ambitious
of having a hand in the government of his country, but he was not
capable of caring even for that.
But he worked. He worked hard, and spoke vehemently, and promised
the men of Chelsea, Pimlico, and Brompton that the path of London
westwards had hardly commenced as yet. Sloane Street should be the
new Cheapside. Squares should arise around the Chelsea barracks, with
sides open to the water, for which Belgravia would be deserted. There
should be palaces there for the rich, because the rich spend their
riches; but no rich man's palace should interfere with the poor man's
right to the River Bank. Three millions and a half should be spent
on the noble street to be constructed, the grandest pathway that the
world should ever yet have seen; three millions and a half to be
drawn from,--to be drawn from anywhere except from Chelsea;--from the
bloated money-bags of the City Corporation, Vavasor once ventured
to declare, amidst the encouraging shouts of the men of Chelsea. Mr.
Scruby was forced to own that his pupil worked the subject well.
"Upon my word, that was uncommon good," he said, almost patting
Vavasor on the back, after a speech in which he had vehemently
asserted that his ambition to represent the Chelsea districts had all
come of his long-fixed idea that the glory of future London would be
brought about by the embankment of the river at Chelsea.
But armies of men carrying big boards, and public-houses open at
every corner, and placards in which the letters are three feet long,
cost money. Those few modest hundreds which Mr. Scruby had already
received before the work began, had been paid on the supposition that
the election would not take place till September. Mr. Scruby made an
early request, a very early request, that a further sum of fifteen
hundred pounds should be placed in his hands; and he did this in
a tone which clearly signified that not a man would be sent about
through the streets, or a poster put upon a wall, till this request
had been conceded. Mr. Scruby was in possession of two very distinct
manners of address. In his jovial moods, when he was instigating his
clients to fight their battles well, it might almost be thought that
he was doing it really for the love of the thing; and some clients,
so thinking, had believed for a few hours that Scruby, in his
jolly, passionate eagerness, would pour out his own money like dust,
trusting implicitly to future days for its return. But such clients
had soon encountered Mr. Scruby's other manner, and had perceived that
they were mistaken.
The thing had come so suddenly upon George Vavasor that there was not
time for him to carry on his further operations through his sister.
Had he written to Kate,--let him have written in what language he
would,--she would have first rejoined by a negative, and there would
have been a correspondence before he had induced her to comply.
He thought of sending for her by telegram, but even in that there
would have been too much delay. He resolved, therefore, to make his
application to Alice himself, and he wrote to her, explaining his
condition. The election had come upon him quite suddenly, as she
knew, he said. He wanted two thousand pounds instantly, and felt
little scruple in asking her for it, as he was aware that the old
Squire would be only too glad to saddle the property with a legacy
to Alice for the repayment of this money, though he would not have
advanced a shilling himself for the purpose of the election. Then
he said a word or two as to his prolonged absence from Queen Anne
Street. He had not been there because he had felt, from her manner
when they last met, that she would for a while prefer to be left free
from the unavoidable excitement of such interviews. But should he be
triumphant in his present contest, he should go to her to share his
triumph with her; or, should he fail, he should go to her to console
him in his failure.
Within three days he heard from her, saying that the money would
be at once placed to his credit. She sent him also her candid good
wishes for success in his enterprise, but beyond this her letter
said nothing. There was no word of love,--no word of welcome,--no
expression of a desire to see him. Vavasor, as he perceived all this
in the reading of her note, felt a triumph in the possession of her
money. She was ill-using him by her coldness, and there was comfort
in revenge. "It serves her right," he said to himself. "She should
have married me at once when she said she would do so, and then it
would have been my own."
When Mr. Tombe had communicated with John Grey on the matter of this
increased demand,--this demand which Mr. Tombe began to regard as
carrying a love-affair rather too far,--Grey had telegraphed back
that Vavasor's demand for money, if made through Mr. John Vavasor, was
to be honoured to the extent of five thousand pounds. Mr. Tombe raised
his eyebrows, and reflected that some men were very foolish. But John
Grey's money matters were of such a nature as to make Mr. Tombe know
that he must do as he was bidden; and the money was paid to George
Vavasor's account.
He told Kate nothing of this. Why should he trouble himself to do so?
Indeed, at this time he wrote no letters to his sister, though she
twice sent to him, knowing what his exigencies would be, and made
further tenders of her own money. He could not reply to these offers
without telling her that money had been forthcoming from that other
quarter, and so he left them unanswered.
In the meantime the battle went on gloriously. Mr. Travers, the other
Liberal candidate, spent his money freely,--or else some other person
did so on his behalf. When Mr. Scruby mentioned this last alternative
to George Vavasor, George cursed his own luck in that he had never
found such backers. "I don't call a man half a Member when he's
brought in like that," said Mr. Scruby, comforting him. "He can't do
what he likes with his vote. He ain't independent. You never hear of
those fellows getting anything good. Pay for the article yourself, Mr.
Vavasor, and then it's your own. That's what I always say."
Mr. Grimes went to work strenuously, almost fiercely, in the opposite
interest, telling all that he knew, and perhaps more than he knew, of
Vavasor's circumstances. He was at work morning, noon, and night, not
only in his own neighbourhood, but among those men on the river bank
of whom he had spoken so much in his interview with Vavasor in Cecil
Street. The entire Vavasorian army with its placards was entirely
upset on more than one occasion, and was once absolutely driven
ignominiously into the river mud. And all this was done under the
direction of Mr. Grimes. Vavasor himself was pelted with offal from
the sinking tide, so that the very name of the River Bank became
odious to him. He was a man who did not like to have his person
touched, and when they hustled him he became angry. "Lord love you,
Mr. Vavasor," said Scruby, "that's nothing! I've had a candidate so
mauled,--it was in the Hamlets, I think,--that there wasn't a spot
on him that wasn't painted with rotten eggs. The smell was something
quite awful. But I brought him in, through it all."
And Mr. Scruby at last did as much for George Vavasor as he had done
for the hero of the Hamlets. At the close of the poll Vavasor's name
stood at the head by a considerable majority, and Scruby comforted
him by saying that Travers certainly wouldn't stand the expense of a
petition, as the seat was to be held only for a few months.
"And you've done it very cheap, Mr. Vavasor," said Scruby,
"considering that the seat is metropolitan. I do say that you have
done it cheap. Another thousand, or twelve hundred, will cover
everything--say thirteen, perhaps, at the outside. And when you shall
have fought the battle once again, you'll have paid your footing, and
the fellows will let you in almost for nothing after that."
A further sum of thirteen hundred pounds was wanted at once, and then
the whole thing was to be repeated over again in six months' time!
This was not consolatory. But, nevertheless, there was a triumph in
the thing itself which George Vavasor was man enough to enjoy. It
would be something to have sat in the House of Commons, though it
should only have been for half a session.
CHAPTER XLV.
George Vavasor Takes His Seat.
George Vavasor's feeling of triumph was not unjustifiable. It is
something to have sat in the House of Commons, though it has been but
for one session! There is on the left-hand side of our great national
hall,--on the left-hand side as one enters it, and opposite to the
doors leading to the Law Courts,--a pair of gilded lamps, with a door
between them, near to which a privileged old dame sells her apples
and her oranges solely, as I presume, for the accommodation of the
Members of the House and of the great policeman who guards the pass.
Between those lamps is the entrance to the House of Commons, and none
but Members may go that way! It is the only gate before which I have
ever stood filled with envy,--sorrowing to think that my steps might
never pass under it. There are many portals forbidden to me, as there
are many forbidden to all men; and forbidden fruit, they say, is
sweet; but my lips have watered after no other fruit but that which
grows so high, within the sweep of that great policeman's truncheon.
Ah, my male friend and reader, who earnest thy bread, perhaps, as a
country vicar; or sittest, may-be, at some weary desk in Somerset
House; or who, perhaps, rulest the yard behind the Cheapside counter,
hast thou never stood there and longed,--hast thou never confessed,
when standing there, that Fate has been unkind to thee in denying
thee the one thing that thou hast wanted? I have done so; and as my
slow steps have led me up that more than royal staircase, to those
passages and halls which require the hallowing breath of centuries to
give them the glory in British eyes which they shall one day possess,
I have told myself, in anger and in grief, that to die and not to
have won that right of way, though but for a session,--not to have
passed by the narrow entrance through those lamps,--is to die and
not to have done that which it most becomes an Englishman to have
achieved.
There are, doubtless, some who come out by that road, the loss of
whose society is not to be regretted. England does not choose her six
hundred and fifty-four best men. One comforts one's self, sometimes,
with remembering that. The George Vavasors, the Calder Joneses, and
the Botts are admitted. Dishonesty, ignorance, and vulgarity do
not close the gate of that heaven against aspirants; and it is a
consolation to the ambition of the poor to know that the ambition of
the rich can attain that glory by the strength of its riches alone.
But though England does not send thither none but her best men, the
best of her Commoners do find their way there. It is the highest
and most legitimate pride of an Englishman to have the letters
M.P. written after his name. No selection from the alphabet, no
doctorship, no fellowship, be it of ever so learned or royal a
society, no knightship,--not though it be of the Garter,--confers so
fair an honour. Mr. Bott was right when he declared that this country
is governed from between the walls of that House, though the truth
was almost defiled by the lips which uttered it. He might have added
that from thence flow the waters of the world's progress,--the
fullest fountain of advancing civilization.
George Vavasor, as he went in by the lamps and the apple-stall, under
the guardianship of Mr. Bott, felt all the pride of which I have been
speaking. He was a man quite capable of feeling such pride as it
should be felt,--capable, in certain dreamy moments, of looking at
the thing with pure and almost noble eyes; of understanding the
ambition of serving with truth so great a nation as that which fate
had made his own. Nature, I think, had so fashioned George Vavasor,
that he might have been a good, and perhaps a great man; whereas Mr.
Bott had been born small. Vavasor had educated himself to badness
with his eyes open. He had known what was wrong, and had done it,
having taught himself to think that bad things were best. But poor
Mr. Bott had meant to do well, and thought that he had done very well
indeed. He was a tuft-hunter and a toady, but he did not know that he
was doing amiss in seeking to rise by tuft-hunting and toadying. He
was both mean and vain, both a bully and a coward, and in politics,
I fear, quite unscrupulous in spite of his grand dogmas; but he
believed that he was progressing in public life by the proper and
usual means, and was troubled by no idea that he did wrong.
Vavasor, in those dreamy moments of which I have spoken, would
sometimes feel tempted to cut his throat and put an end to himself,
because he knew that he had taught himself amiss. Again he would
sadly ask himself whether it was yet too late; always, however,
answering himself that it was too late. Even now, at this moment,
as he went in between the lamps, and felt much of the honest pride
of which I have spoken, he told himself that it was too late. What
could he do now, hampered by such a debt as that which he owed to his
cousin, and with the knowledge that it must be almost indefinitely
increased, unless he meant to give up this seat in Parliament, which
had cost him so dearly, almost before he had begun to enjoy it? But
his courage was good, and he was able to resolve that he would go on
with the business that he had in hand, and play out his game to the
end. He had achieved his seat in the House of Commons, and was so
far successful. Men who had ever been gracious to him were now more
gracious than ever, and they who had not hitherto treated him with
courtesy, now began to smile and to be very civil. It was, no doubt,
a great thing to have the privilege of that entrance between the
lamps.
Mr. Bott had the new Member now in hand, not because there had been
any old friendship between them, but Mr. Bott was on the look-out for
followers, and Vavasor was on the look-out for a party. A man gets
no great thanks for attaching himself to existing power. Our friend
might have enrolled himself among the general supporters of the
Government without attracting much attention. He would in such case
have been at the bottom of a long list. But Mr. Palliser was a rising
man, round whom, almost without wish of his own, a party was forming
itself. If he came into power,--as come he must, according to Mr. Bott
and many others,--then they who had acknowledged the new light before
its brightness had been declared, might expect their reward.
Vavasor, as he passed through the lobby to the door of the House,
leaning on Mr. Bott's arm, was very silent. He had spoken but little
since they had left their cab in Palace Yard, and was not very well
pleased by the garrulity of his companion. He was going to sit among
the first men of his nation, and to take his chance of making himself
one of them. He believed in his own ability; he believed thoroughly
in his own courage; but he did not believe in his own conduct. He
feared that he had done,--feared still more strongly that he would
be driven to do,--that which would shut men's ears against his words,
and would banish him from high places. No man believes in himself who
knows himself to be a rascal, however great may be his talent, or
however high his pluck.
"Of course you have heard a debate?" said Mr. Bott.
"Yes," answered Vavasor, who wished to remain silent.
"Many, probably?"
"No."
"But you have heard debates from the gallery. Now you'll hear them
from the body of the House, and you'll find how very different it is.
There's no man can know what Parliament is who has never had a seat.
Indeed no one can thoroughly understand the British Constitution
without it. I felt, very early in life, that that should be my line;
and though it's hard work and no pay, I mean to stick to it. How
do, Thompson? You know Vavasor? He's just returned for the Chelsea
Districts, and I'm taking him up. We shan't divide to-night; shall
we? Look! there's Farringcourt just coming out; he's listened to
better than any man in the House now, but he'll borrow half-a-crown
from you if you'll lend him one. How d'ye do, my lord? I hope I have
the pleasure of seeing you well?" and Bott bowed low to a lord who
was hurrying through the lobby as fast as his shuffling feet would
carry him. "Of course you know him?"
Vavasor, however, did not know the lord in question, and was obliged
to say so.
"I thought you were up to all these things?" said Bott.
"Taking the peerage generally, I am not up to it," said Vavasor, with
a curl on his lip.
"But you ought to have known him. That was Viscount Middlesex; he has
got something on to-night about the Irish Church. His father is past
ninety, and he's over sixty. We'll go in now; but let me give you one
bit of advice, my dear fellow--don't think of speaking this session.
A Member can do no good at that work till he has learned something of
the forms of the House. The forms of the House are everything; upon
my word they are. This is Mr. Vavasor, the new Member for the Chelsea
Districts."
Our friend was thus introduced to the doorkeeper, who smiled
familiarly, and seemed to wink his eye. Then George Vavasor passed
through into the House itself, under the wing of Mr. Bott.
Vavasor, as he walked up the House to the Clerk's table and took the
oath and then walked down again, felt himself to be almost taken
aback by the little notice which was accorded to him. It was not that
he had expected to create a sensation, or that he had for a moment
thought on the subject, but the thing which he was doing was so
great to him, that the total indifference of those around him was
a surprise to him. After he had taken his seat, a few men came up
by degrees and shook hands with him; but it seemed, as they did so,
merely because they were passing that way. He was anxious not to
sit next to Mr. Bott, but he found himself unable to avoid this
contiguity. That gentleman stuck to him pertinaciously, giving him
directions which, at the spur of the moment, he hardly knew how not
to obey. So he found himself sitting behind Mr. Palliser, a little to
the right, while Mr. Bott occupied the ear of the rising man.
There was a debate in progress, but it seemed to Vavasor, as soon
as he was able to become critical, to be but a dull affair, and yet
the Chancellor of the Exchequer was on his legs, and Mr. Palliser
was watching him as a cat watches a mouse. The speaker was full of
figures, as becomes a Chancellor of the Exchequer; and as every new
budget of them fell from him, Mr. Bott, with audible whispers, poured
into the ear of his chief certain calculations of his own, most of
which went to prove that the financier in office was altogether
wrong. Vavasor thought that he could see that Mr. Palliser was
receiving more of his assistance than was palatable to him. He would
listen, if he did listen, without making any sign that he heard, and
would occasionally shake his head with symptoms of impatience. But
Mr. Bott was a man not to be repressed by a trifle. When Mr. Palliser
shook his head he became more assiduous than ever, and when Mr.
Palliser slightly moved himself to the left, he boldly followed him.
No general debate arose on the subject which the Minister had in
hand, and when he sat down, Mr. Palliser would not get up, though
Mr. Bott counselled him to do so. The matter was over for the night,
and the time had arrived for Lord Middlesex. That nobleman got upon
his feet, with a roll of papers in his hand, and was proceeding to
address the House on certain matters of church reform, with great
energy; but, alas, for him and for his feelings! before his energy
had got itself into full swing, the Members were swarming away
through the doors like a flock of sheep. Mr. Palliser got up and went,
and was followed at once by Mr. Bott, who succeeded in getting hold
of his arm in the lobby. Had not Mr. Palliser been an even-tempered,
calculating man, with a mind and spirit well under his command, he
must have learned to hate Mr. Bott before this time. Away streamed the
Members, but still the noble lord went on speaking, struggling hard
to keep up his fire as though no such exodus were in process. There
was but little to console him. He knew that the papers would not
report one sentence in twenty of those he uttered. He knew that no
one would listen to him willingly. He knew that he had worked for
weeks and months to get up his facts, and he was beginning to know
that he had worked in vain. As he summoned courage to look round, he
began to fear that some enemy would count the House, and that all
would be over. He had given heart and soul to this affair. His cry
was not as Vavasor's cry about the River Bank. He believed in his own
subject with a great faith, thinking that he could make men happier
and better, and bring them nearer to their God. I said that he had
worked for weeks and months. I might have said that he had been all
his life at this work. Though he shuffled with his feet when he
walked, and knocked his words together when he talked, he was an
earnest man, meaning to do well, seeking no other reward for his
work than the appreciation of those whom he desired to serve. But
this was never to be his. For him there was in store nothing but
disappointment. And yet he will work on to the end, either in this
House or in the other, labouring wearily, without visible wages of
any kind, and, one may say, very sadly. But when he has been taken to
his long rest, men will acknowledge that he has done something, and
there will be left on the minds of those who shall remember him a
conviction that he served a good cause diligently, and not altogether
inefficiently. Invisible are his wages, yet in some coin are they
paid. Invisible is the thing he does, and yet it is done. Let us hope
that some sense of this tardy appreciation may soothe his spirit
beyond the grave. On the present occasion there was nothing to soothe
his spirit. The Speaker sat, urbane and courteous, with his eyes
turned towards the unfortunate orator; but no other ears in the House
seemed to listen to him. The corps of reporters had dwindled down to
two, and they used their pens very listlessly, taking down here a
sentence and there a sentence, knowing that their work was naught.
Vavasor sat it out to the last, as it taught him a lesson in those
forms of the House which Mr. Bott had truly told him it would be
well that he should learn. And at last he did learn the form of a
"count-out." Some one from a back seat muttered something, which the
Speaker understood; and that high officer, having had his attention
called to a fact of which he would never have taken cognizance
without such calling, did count the House, and finding that it
contained but twenty-three Members, he put an end to his own labours
and to those of poor Lord Middlesex. With what feelings that noble
lord must have taken himself home, and sat himself down in his study,
vainly opening a book before his eyes, can we not all imagine? A man
he was with ample means, with children who would do honour to his
name; one whose wife believed in him, if no one else would do so; a
man, let us say, with a clear conscience, to whom all good things had
been given. But of whom now was he thinking with envy? Early on that
same day Farringcourt had spoken in the House,--a man to whom no one
would lend a shilling, whom the privilege of that House kept out of
gaol, whose word no man believed; who was wifeless, childless, and
unloved. But three hundred men had hung listening upon his words.
When he laughed in his speech, they laughed; when he was indignant
against the Minister, they sat breathless, as the Spaniard sits in
the critical moment of the bull-killing. Whichever way he turned
himself, he carried them with him. Crowds of Members flocked into the
House from libraries and smoking-rooms when it was known that this
ne'er-do-well was on his legs. The Strangers' Gallery was filled to
overflowing. The reporters turned their rapid pages, working their
fingers wearily till the sweat drops stood upon their brows. And
as the Premier was attacked with some special impetus of redoubled
irony, men declared that he would be driven to enrol the speaker
among his colleagues, in spite of dishonoured bills and evil reports.
A man who could shake the thunderbolts like that must be paid to
shake them on the right side. It was of this man, and of his success,
that Lord Middlesex was envious, as he sat, wretched and respectable,
in his solitary study!
Mr. Bott had left the House with Mr. Palliser; and Vavasor, after
the count-out, was able to walk home by himself, and think of the
position which he had achieved. He told himself over and over again
that he had done a great thing in obtaining that which he now
possessed, and he endeavoured to teach himself that the price he
was paying for it was not too dear. But already there had come upon
him something of that feeling,--that terribly human feeling,--which
deprives every prize that is gained of half its value. The mere
having it robs the diamond of its purity, and mixes vile alloy with
the gold. Lord Middlesex, as he had floundered on into terrible
disaster, had not been a subject to envy. There had been nothing of
brilliance in the debate, and the Members had loomed no larger than
ordinary men at ordinary clubs. The very doorkeepers had hardly
treated them with respect. The great men with whose names the papers
are filled had sat silent, gloomy, and apparently idle. As soon as
a fair opportunity was given them they escaped out of the House, as
boys might escape from school. Everybody had rejoiced in the break-up
of the evening, except that one poor old lord who had worked so hard.
Vavasor had spent everything that he had to become a Member of that
House, and now, as he went alone to his lodgings, he could not but
ask himself whether the thing purchased was worth the purchase-money.
But his courage was still high. Though he was gloomy, and almost sad,
he knew that he could trust himself to fight out the battle to the
last. On the morrow he would go to Queen Anne Street, and would
demand sympathy there from her who had professed to sympathize with
him so strongly in his political desires. With her, at any rate, the
glory of his Membership would not be dimmed by any untoward knowledge
of the realities. She had only seen the play acted from the boxes;
and to her eyes the dresses would still be of silk velvet, and the
swords of bright steel.
CHAPTER XLVI.
A Love Gift.
When Alice heard of her cousin's success, and understood that he was
actually Member of Parliament for the Chelsea Districts, she resolved
that she would be triumphant. She had sacrificed nearly everything
to her desire for his success in public life, and now that he had
achieved the first great step towards that success, it would have
been madness on her part to decline her share in the ovation. If
she could not rejoice in that, what source of joy would then be left
for her? She had promised to be his wife, and at present she was
under the bonds of that promise. She had so promised because she
had desired to identify her interests with his,--because she wished
to share his risks, to assist his struggles, and to aid him in his
public career. She had done all this, and he had been successful. She
strove, therefore, to be triumphant on his behalf, but she knew that
she was striving ineffectually. She had made a mistake, and the days
were coming in which she would have to own to herself that she had
done so in sackcloth, and to repent with ashes.
But yet she struggled to be triumphant. The tidings were first
brought to her by her servant, and then she at once sat down to
write him a word or two of congratulation. But she found the task
more difficult than she had expected, and she gave it up. She had
written no word to him since the day on which he had left her almost
in anger, and now she did not know how she was to address him. "I
will wait till he comes," she said, putting away from her the paper
and pens. "It will be easier to speak than to write." But she wrote
to Kate, and contrived to put some note of triumph into her letter.
Kate had written to her at length, filling her sheet with a loud pæan
of sincere rejoicing. To Kate, down in Westmoreland, it had seemed
that her brother had already done everything. He had already tied
Fortune to his chariot wheels. He had made the great leap, and had
overcome the only obstacle that Fate had placed in his way. In her
great joy she almost forgot whence had come the money with which the
contest had been won. She was not enthusiastic in many things;--about
herself she was never so; but now she was elated with an enthusiasm
which seemed to know no bounds. "I am proud," she said, in her letter
to Alice. "No other thing that he could have done would have made me
so proud of him. Had the Queen sent for him and made him an earl, it
would have been as nothing to this. When I think that he has forced
his way into Parliament without any great friend, with nothing to
back him but his own wit"--she had, in truth, forgotten Alice's money
as she wrote;--"that he has achieved his triumph in the metropolis,
among the most wealthy and most fastidious of the richest city in the
world, I do feel proud of my brother. And, Alice, I hope that you are
proud of your lover." Poor girl! One cannot but like her pride, nay,
almost love her for it, though it was so sorely misplaced. It must be
remembered that she had known nothing of Messrs. Grimes and Scruby,
and the River Bank, and that the means had been wanting to her of
learning the principles upon which some metropolitan elections are
conducted.
"And, Alice, I hope that you are proud of your lover!" "He is not
my lover," Alice said to herself. "He knows that he is not. He
understands it, though she may not." And if not your lover, Alice
Vavasor, what is he then to you? And what are you to him, if not his
love? She was beginning to understand that she had put herself in
the way of utter destruction;--that she had walked to the brink of
a precipice, and that she must now topple over it. "He is not my
lover," she said; and then she sat silent and moody, and it took her
hours to get her answer written to Kate.
On the same afternoon she saw her father for a moment or two. "So
George has got himself returned," he said, raising his eyebrows.
"Yes, he has been successful. I'm sure you must be glad, papa."
"Upon my word, I'm not. He has bought a seat for three months; and
with whose money has he purchased it?"
"Don't let us always speak of money, papa."
"When you discuss the value of a thing just purchased, you must
mention the price before you know whether the purchaser has done well
or badly. They have let him in for his money because there are only a
few months left before the general election. Two thousand pounds he
has had, I believe?"
"And if as much more is wanted for the next election he shall have
it."
"Very well, my dear;--very well, If you choose to make a beggar of
yourself, I cannot help it. Indeed, I shall not complain though he
should spend all your money, if you do not marry him at last." In
answer to this, Alice said nothing. On that point her father's wishes
were fast growing to be identical with her own.
"I tell you fairly what are my feelings and my wishes," he continued.
"Nothing, in my opinion, would be so deplorable and ruinous as such
a marriage. You tell me that you have made up your mind to take him,
and I know well that nothing that I can say will turn you. But I
believe that when he has spent all your money he will not take you,
and that thus you will be saved. Thinking as I do about him, you can
hardly expect that I should triumph because he has got himself into
Parliament with your money!"
Then he left her, and it seemed to Alice that he had been very cruel.
There had been little, she thought, nay, nothing of a father's loving
tenderness in his words to her. If he had spoken to her differently,
might she not even now have confessed everything to him? But herein
Alice accused him wrongfully. Tenderness from him on this subject
had, we may say, become impossible. She had made it impossible. Nor
could he tell her the extent of his wishes without damaging his own
cause. He could not let her know that all that was done was so done
with the view of driving her into John Grey's arms.
But what words were those for a father to speak to a daughter! Had
she brought herself to such a state that her own father desired to
see her deserted and thrown aside? And was it probable that this wish
of his should come to pass? As to that, Alice had already made up
her mind. She thought that she had made up her mind that she would
never become her cousin's wife. It needed not her father's wish to
accomplish her salvation, if her salvation lay in being separated
from him.
On the next morning George went to her. The reader will, perhaps,
remember their last interview. He had come to her after her letter to
him from Westmoreland, and had asked her to seal their reconciliation
with a kiss; but she had refused him. He had offered to embrace her,
and she had shuddered before him, fearing his touch, telling him by
signs much more clear than any words, that she felt for him none of
the love of a woman. Then he had turned from her in anger, declaring
to her honestly that he was angry. Since that he had borrowed her
money,--had made two separate assaults upon her purse,--and was now
come to tell her of the results. How was he to address her? I beg
that it may be also remembered that he was not a man to forget the
treatment he had received. When he entered the room, Alice looked
at him, at first, almost furtively. She was afraid of him. It must
be confessed that she already feared him. Had there been in the man
anything of lofty principle he might still have made her his slave,
though I doubt whether he could ever again have forced her to love
him. She looked at him furtively, and perceived that the gash on his
face was nearly closed. The mark of existing anger was not there. He
had come to her intending to be gentle, if it might be possible. He
had been careful in his dress, as though he wished to try once again
if the rôle of lover might be within his reach.
Alice was the first to speak. "George, I am so glad that you have
succeeded! I wish you joy with my whole heart."
"Thanks, dearest. But before I say another word, let me acknowledge
my debt. Unless you had aided me with your money, I could not have
succeeded."
"Oh, George! pray don't speak of that!"
"Let me rather speak of it at once, and have done. If you will think
of it, you will know that I must speak of it sooner or later." He
smiled and looked pleasant, as he used to do in those Swiss days.
"Well, then, speak and have done."
"I hope you have trusted me in thus giving me the command of your
fortune?"
"Oh, yes."
"I do believe that you have. I need hardly say that I could not have
stood for this last election without it; and I must try to make you
understand that if I had not come forward at this vacancy, I should
have stood no chance for the next; otherwise, I should not have been
justified in paying so dearly for a seat for one session. You can
understand that; eh, Alice?"
"Yes; I think so?
"Anybody, even your father, would tell you that; though, probably,
he regards my ambition to be a Member of Parliament as a sign of
downright madness. But I was obliged to stand now, if I intended to
go on with it, as that old lord died so inopportunely. Well, about
the money! It is quite upon the cards that I may be forced to ask for
another loan when the autumn comes."
"You shall have it, George."
"Thanks, Alice. And now I will tell you what I propose. You know
that I have been reconciled,--with a sort of reconciliation,--to my
grandfather? Well, when the next affair is over, I propose to tell
him exactly how you and I then stand."
"Do not go into that now, George. It is enough for you at present to
be assured that such assistance as I can give you is at your command.
I want you to feel the full joy of your success, and you will do so
more thoroughly if you will banish all these money troubles from your
mind for a while."
"They shall, at any rate, be banished while I am with you," said he.
"There; let them go!" And he lifted up his right hand, and blew at
the tips of his fingers. "Let them vanish," said he. "It is always
well to be rid of such troubles for a time."
It is well to be rid of them at any time, or at all times, if only
they can be banished without danger. But when a man has overused his
liver till it will not act for him any longer, it is not well for him
to resolve that he will forget the weakness of his organ just as he
sits down to dinner.
It was a pretty bit of acting, that of Vavasor's, when he blew away
his cares; and, upon the whole, I do not know that he could have
done better. But Alice saw through it, and he knew that she did so.
The whole thing was uncomfortable to him, except the fact that he
had the promise of her further moneys. But he did not intend to
rest satisfied with this. He must extract from her some meed of
approbation, some show of sympathy, some spark of affection, true or
pretended, in order that he might at least affect to be satisfied,
and be enabled to speak of the future without open embarrassment. How
could even he take her money from her, unless he might presume that
he stood with her upon some ground that belonged mutually to them
both?
"I have already taken my seat," said he.
"Yes; I saw that in the newspapers. My acquaintance among Members of
Parliament is very small, but I see that you were introduced, as they
call it, by one of the few men that I do know. Is Mr. Bott a friend of
yours?"
"No,--certainly not a friend. I may probably have to act with him in
public."
"Ah, that's just what they said of Mr. Palliser when they felt ashamed
of his having such a man as his guest. I think if I were in public
life I should try to act with people that I could like."
"Then you dislike Mr. Bott?"
"I do not like him, but my feelings about him are not violent."
"He is a vulgar ass," said George, "with no more pretensions to rank
himself a gentleman than your footman."
"If I had one."
"But he will get on in Parliament, to a certain extent."
"I'm afraid I don't quite understand what are the requisites for
Parliamentary success, or indeed of what it consists. Is his
ambition, do you suppose, the same as yours?"
"His ambition, I take it, does not go beyond a desire to be
Parliamentary flunkey to a big man,--with wages, if possible, but
without, if the wages are impossible."
"And yours?"
"Oh, as to mine;--there are some things, Alice, that a man does not
tell to any one."
"Are there? They must be very terrible things."
"The schoolboy, when he sits down to make his rhymes, dares not say,
even to his sister, that he hopes to rival Milton; but he nurses such
a hope. The preacher, when he preaches his sermon, does not whisper,
even to his wife, his belief that thousands may perhaps be turned
to repentance by the strength of his words; but he thinks that the
thousand converts are possible."
"And you, though you will not say so, intend to rival Chatham, and to
make your thousand converts in politics."
"I like to hear you laugh at me,--I do, indeed. It does me good to
hear your voice again with some touch of satire in it. It brings back
the old days,--the days to which I hope we may soon revert without
pain. Shall it not be so, dearest?"
Her playful manner at once deserted her. Why had he made this foolish
attempt to be tender? "I do not know," she said, gloomily.
For a few minutes he sat silent, fingering some article belonging to
her which was lying on the table. It was a small steel paper-knife,
of which the handle was cast and gilt; a thing of no great value, of
which the price may have been five shillings. He sat with it, passing
it through his fingers, while she went on with her work.
"Who gave you this paper-cutter?" he said, suddenly.
"Goodness me, why do you ask? and especially, why do you ask in that
way?"
"I asked simply because if it is a present to you from any one, I
will take up something else."
"It was given me by Mr. Grey."
He let it drop from his fingers on to the table with a noise, and
then pushed it from him, so that it fell on the other side, near to
where she sat.
"George," she said, as she stooped and picked it up, "your violence
is unreasonable; pray do not repeat it."
"I did not mean it," he said, "and I beg your pardon. I was simply
unfortunate in the article I selected. And who gave you this?" In
saying which he took up a little ivory foot-rule that was folded up
so as to bring it within the compass of three inches.
"It so happens that no one gave me that; I bought it at a stupid
bazaar."
"Then this will do. You shall give it me as a present, on the renewal
of our love."
"It is too poor a thing to give," said she, speaking still more
gloomily than she had done before.
"By no means; nothing is too poor, if given in that way. Anything
will do; a ribbon, a glove, a broken sixpence. Will you give me
something that I may take, and, taking it, may know that your heart
is given with it?"
"Take the rule, if you please," she said.
"And about the heart?" he asked.
He should have been more of a rascal or less. Seeing how very much of
a rascal he was already, I think it would have been better that he
should have been more,--that he should have been able to content his
spirit with the simple acquisition of her money, and that he should
have been free from all those remains of a finer feeling which made
him desire her love also. But it was not so. It was necessary for
his comfort that she should, at any rate, say she loved him. "Well,
Alice, and what about the heart?" he asked again.
"I would so much rather talk about politics, George," said she.
The cicatrice began to make itself very visible in his face, and the
debonair manner was fast vanishing. He had fixed his eyes upon her,
and had inserted his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat.
"Alice, that is not quite fair," he said.
"I do not mean to be unfair."
"I am not so sure of that. I almost think that you do mean it. You
have told me that you intend to become my wife. If, after that, you
wilfully make me miserable, will not that be unfair?"
"I am not making you miserable,--certainly not wilfully."
"Did that letter which you wrote to me from Westmoreland mean
anything?"
"George, do not strive to make me think that it meant too much."
"If it did, you had better say so at once."
But Alice, though she would have said so had she dared, made no
answer to this. She sat silent, turning her face away from his gaze,
longing that the meeting might be over, and feeling that she had lost
her own self-respect.
"Look here, Alice," he said, "I find it very hard to understand you.
When I look back over all that has passed between us, and to that
other episode in your life, summing it all up with your conduct to me
at present, I find myself at a loss to read your character."
"I fear I cannot help you in the reading of it."
"When you first loved me;--for you did love me. I understood that
well enough. There is no young man who in early life does not read
with sufficient clearness that sweetest morsel of poetry.--And when
you quarrelled with me, judging somewhat harshly of my offences, I
understood that also; for it is the custom of women to be hard in
their judgement on such sins. When I heard that you had accepted the
offer made to you by that gentleman in Cambridgeshire, I thought that
I understood you still,--knowing how natural it was that you should
seek some cure for your wound. I understood it, and accused myself,
not you, in that I had driven you to so fatal a remedy." Here Alice
turned round towards him sharply, as though she were going to
interrupt him, but she said nothing, though he paused for her to
speak; and then he went on. "And I understood it well when I heard
that this cure had been too much for you. By heavens, yes! there was
no misunderstanding that. I meant no insult to the man when I upset
his little toy just now. I have not a word to say against him. For
many women he would make a model husband, but you are not one of
them. And when you discovered this yourself, as you did, I understood
that without difficulty. Yes, by heavens! if ever woman had been
driven to a mistake, you had been driven to one there." Here she
looked at him again, and met his eyes. She looked at him with
something of his own fierceness in her face, as though she were
preparing herself to fight with him; but she said nothing at the
moment, and then he again went on. "And, Alice, I understood it
also when you again consented to be my wife. I thought that I still
understood you then. I may have been vain to think so, but surely it
was natural. I believed that the old love had come back upon you, and
again warmed your heart. I thought that it had been cold during our
separation, and I was pleased to think so. Was that unnatural? Put
yourself in my place, and say if you would not have thought so. I
told myself that I understood you then, and I told myself that in
all that you had done you had acted as a true, and good, and loving
woman. I thought of you much, and I saw that your conduct, as a
whole, was intelligible and becoming." The last word grated on
Alice's ears, and she showed her anger by the motion of her foot upon
the floor. Her cousin noted it all, but went on as though he had
not noted it. "But now your present behaviour makes all the rest a
riddle. You have said that you would be my wife, declaring thereby
that you had forgiven my offences, and, as I suppose, reassuring me
of your love; and yet you receive me with all imaginable coldness.
What am I to think of it, and in what way would you have me behave to
you? When last I was here I asked you for a kiss." As he said this he
looked at her with all his eyes, with his mouth just open, so as to
show the edges of his white teeth, with the wound down his face all
wide and purple. The last word came with a stigmatizing hiss from
his lips. Though she did not essay to speak, he paused again, as if
he were desirous that she might realize the full purport of such a
request. I think that, in the energy of his speaking, a touch of true
passion had come upon him; that he had forgotten his rascaldom, and
his need of her money, and that he was punishing her with his whole
power of his vengeance for the treatment which he had received from
her. "I asked you for a kiss. If you are to be my wife you can have
no shame in granting me such a request. Within the last two months
you have told me that you would marry me. What am I to think of such
a promise if you deny me all customary signs of your affection?" Then
he paused again, and she found that the time had come in which she
must say something to him.
[Illustration: "I asked you for a kiss."]
"I wonder you cannot understand," she said, "that I have suffered
much."
"And is that to be my answer?"
"I don't know what answer you want."
"Come, Alice, do not be untrue; you do know what answer I want, and
you know also whether my wanting it is unreasonable."
"No one ever told me that I was untrue before," she said.
"You do know what it is that I desire. I desire to learn that the
woman who is to be my wife, in truth, loves me."
She was standing up, and so was he also, but still she said nothing.
He had in his hand the little rule which she had told him that he
might take, but he held it as though in doubt what he would do with
it. "Well, Alice, am I to hear anything from you?"
"Not now, George; you are angry, and I will not speak to you in your
anger."
"Have I not cause to be angry? Do you not know that you are treating
me badly?"
"I know that my head aches, and that I am very wretched. I wish you
would leave me."
"There, then, is your gift," said he, and he threw the rule over on
to the sofa behind her. "And there is the trumpery trinket which I
had hoped you would have worn for my sake." Whereupon something which
he had taken from his waistcoat-pocket was thrown violently into the
fender, beneath the fire-grate. He then walked with quick steps to
the door; but when his hand was on the handle, he turned. "Alice," he
said, "when I am gone, try to think honestly of your conduct to me."
Then he went, and she remained still, till she heard the front door
close behind him.
When she was sure that he was gone, her first movement was made in
search of the trinket. I fear that this was not dignified on her
part; but I think that it was natural. It was not that she had any
desire for the jewel, or any curiosity even to see it. She would very
much have preferred that he should have brought nothing of the kind
to her. But she had a feminine reluctance that anything of value
should be destroyed without a purpose. So she took the shovel, and
poked among the ashes, and found the ring which her cousin had thrown
there. It was a valuable ring, bearing a ruby on it between two small
diamonds. Such at least, she became aware, had been its bearing; but
one of the side stones had been knocked out by the violence with
which the ring had been flung. She searched even for this, scorching
her face and eyes, but in vain. Then she made up her mind that the
diamond should be lost for ever, and that it should go out among
the cinders into the huge dust-heaps of the metropolis. Better that,
though it was distasteful to her feminine economy, than the other
alternative of setting the servants to search, and thereby telling
them something of what had been done.
When her search was over, she placed the ring on the mantelpiece; but
she knew that it would not do to leave it there,--so she folded it up
carefully in a new sheet of note-paper, and put it in the drawer of
her desk. After that she sat herself down at the table to think what
she would do; but her head was, in truth, racked with pain, and on
that occasion she could bring her thoughts to no conclusion.
CHAPTER XLVII.
Mr. Cheesacre's Disappointment.
When Mrs. Greenow was left alone in her lodgings, after the little
entertainment which she had given to her two lovers, she sat herself
down to think seriously over her affairs. There were three paths open
before her. She might take Mr. Cheesacre, or she might take Captain
Bellfield--or she might decide that she would have nothing more
to say to either of them in the way of courting. They were very
persistent, no doubt; but she thought that she would know how to make
them understand her, if she should really make up her mind that she
would have neither one nor the other. She was going to leave Norwich
after Easter, and they knew that such was her purpose. Something had
been said of her returning to Yarmouth in the summer. She was a just
woman at heart, and justice required that each of them should know
what was to be his prospect if she did so return.
There was a good deal to be said on Mr. Cheesacre's behalf.
Mahogany-furnitured bedrooms assist one's comfort in this life;
and heaps of manure, though they are not brilliant in romance, are
very efficacious in farming. Mrs. Greenow by no means despised these
things; and as for the owner of them, though she saw that there was
much amiss in his character, she thought that his little foibles were
of such a nature that she, as his wife, or any other woman of spirit,
might be able to repress them, if not to cure them. But she had
already married for money once, as she told herself very plainly on
this occasion, and she thought that she might now venture on a little
love. Her marriage for money had been altogether successful. The
nursing of old Greenow had not been very disagreeable to her, nor had
it taken longer than she had anticipated. She had now got all the
reward that she had ever promised herself, and she really did feel
grateful to his memory. I almost think that among those plentiful
tears some few drops belonged to sincerity. She was essentially a
happy-tempered woman, blessed with a good digestion, who looked back
upon her past life with contentment, and forward to her future life
with confidence. She would not be greedy, she said to herself. She
did not want more money, and therefore she would have none of Mr.
Cheesacre. So far she resolved,--resolving also that, if possible,
the mahogany-furnitured bedrooms should be kept in the family, and
made over to her niece, Kate Vavasor.
But should she marry for love; and if so, should Captain Bellfield
be the man? Strange to say, his poverty and his scampishness and his
lies almost recommended him to her. At any rate, it was not of those
things that she was afraid. She had a woman's true belief in her own
power, and thought that she could cure them,--as far as they needed
cure. As for his stories about Inkerman, and his little debts, she
cared nothing about that. She also had her Inkermans, and was quite
aware that she made as good use of them as the Captain did of his.
And as for the debts,--what was a man to do who hadn't got any money?
She also had owed for her gloves and corsets in the ante-Greenow days
of her adventures. But there was this danger,--that there might be
more behind of which she had never heard. Another Mrs. Bellfield
was not impossible; and what, if instead of being a real captain
at all, he should be a returned ticket-of-leave man! Such things
had happened. Her chief security was in this,--that Cheesacre had
known the man for many years, and would certainly have told anything
against him that he did know. Under all these circumstances, she
could not quite make up her mind either for or against Captain
Bellfield.
Between nine and ten in the evening, an hour or so after Mr. Cheesacre
had left her, Jeannette brought to her some arrowroot with a little
sherry in it. She usually dined early, and it was her habit to take a
light repast before she retired for the night.
"Jeannette," she said, as she stirred the lumps of white sugar in the
bowl, "I'm afraid those two gentlemen have quarrelled."
"Oh, laws, ma'am, in course they have! How was they to help it?"
Jeannette, on these occasions, was in the habit of standing beside
the chair of her mistress, and chatting with her; and then, if the
chatting was much prolonged, she would gradually sink down upon the
corner of a chair herself,--and then the two women would be very
comfortable together over the fire, Jeannette never forgetting that
she was the servant, and Mrs. Greenow never forgetting that she was
the mistress.
"And why should they quarrel, Jeannette? It's very foolish."
"I don't know about being foolish, ma'am; but it's the most natural
thing in life. If I had two beaux as was a-courting me together,
in course I should expect as they would punch each other's heads.
There's some girls do it a purpose, because they like to see it. One
at a time's what I say."
"You're a young thing, Jeannette."
"Well, ma'am--yes; I am young, no doubt. But I won't say but what
I've had a beau, young as I look."
"But you don't suppose that I want beaux, as you call them?"
"I don't know, ma'am, as you wants 'em exactly. That's as may be.
There they are; and if they was to blow each other's brains out in
the gig to-night, I shouldn't be a bit surprised for one. There's
nothing won't quiet them at Oileymead to-night, if brandy-and-water
don't do it." As she said this, Jeannette slipt into her chair, and
held up her hands in token of the intensity of her fears.
"Why, you silly child, they're not going home together at all. Did
not the Captain go away first?"
"The Captain did go away first, certainly; but I thought perhaps it
was to get his pistols and fighting things ready."
"They won't fight, Jeannette. Gentlemen have given over fighting."
"Have they, ma'am? That makes it much easier for ladies, no doubt.
Perhaps them peaceable ways will come down to such as us in time.
It'd be a comfort, I know, to them as are quiet given, like me. I
hate to see men knocking each other's heads about,--I do. So Mr.
Cheesacre and the Captain won't fight, ma'am?"
"Of course they won't, you little fool, you."
"Dear, dear; I was so sure we should have had the papers all full of
it,--and perhaps one of them stretched upon his bloody bier! I wonder
which it would have been? I always made up my mind that the Captain
wouldn't be wounded in any of his wital parts--unless it was his
heart, you know, ma'am."
"But why should they quarrel at all, Jeannette? It is the most
foolish thing."
"Well, ma'am, I don't know about that. What else is they to do?
There's some things as you can cry halves about, but there's no
crying halves about this."
"About what, Jeannette?"--"Why, about you, ma'am."
"Jeannette, I wonder how you can say such things; as if I, in my
position, had ever said a word to encourage either of them. You know
it's not true, Jeannette, and you shouldn't say so." Whereupon Mrs.
Greenow put her handkerchief to her eyes, and Jeannette, probably in
token of contrition, put her apron to hers.
"To be sure, ma'am, no lady could have behaved better through it than
you have done, and goodness knows you have been tried hard."
"Indeed I have, Jeannette."
"And if gentlemen will make fools of themselves, it isn't your fault;
is it, ma'am?"
"But I'm so sorry that they should have quarrelled. They were such
dear friends, you know;--quite all in all to each other."
"When you've settled which it's to be, ma'am, that'll all come right
again,--seeing that gentlefolks like them have given up fighting, as
you say." Then there was a little pause. "I suppose, ma'am, it won't
be Mr. Cheesacre? To be sure, he's a man as is uncommonly well to do
in the world."
"What's all that to me, Jeannette? I shall ever regard Mr. Cheesacre
as a dear friend who has been very good to me at a time of trouble;
but he'll never be more than that."
"Then it'll be the Captain, ma'am? I'm sure, for my part, I've always
thought the Captain was the nicer gentleman of the two,--and have
always said so."
"He's nothing to me, girl."
"And as for money,--what's the good of having more than enough? If he
can bring love, you can bring money; can't you, ma'am?"
"He's nothing to me, girl," repeated Mrs. Greenow.
"But he will be?" said Jeannette, plainly asking a question.
"Well, I'm sure! What's the world come to, I wonder, when you sit
yourself down there, and cross-examine your mistress in that way! Get
to bed, will you? It's near ten o'clock."
"I hope I haven't said anything amiss, ma'am;" and Jeannette rose
from her seat.
"It's my fault for encouraging you," said Mrs. Greenow. "Go
down-stairs and finish your work, do; and then take yourself off to
bed. Next week we shall have to be packing up, and there'll be all my
things to see to before that." So Jeannette got up and departed, and
after some few further thoughts about Captain Bellfield, Mrs. Greenow
herself went to her bedroom.
Mr. Cheesacre, when he drove back to Oileymead alone from Norwich,
after dining with Mrs. Greenow, had kept himself hot, and almost
comfortable, with passion against Bellfield; and his heat, if not
his comfort, had been sustained by his seeing the Captain, with his
portmanteau, escaping just as he reached his own homestead. But early
on the following morning his mind reverted to Mrs. Greenow, and he
remembered, with anything but satisfaction, some of the hard things
which she had said to him. He had made mistakes in his manner of
wooing. He was quite aware of that now, and was determined that they
should be rectified for the future. She had rebuked him for having
said nothing about his love. He would instantly mend that fault.
And she had bidden him not to be so communicative about his wealth.
Henceforth he would be dumb on that subject. Nevertheless, he could
not but think that the knowledge of his circumstances which the lady
already possessed, must be of service to him. "She can't really
like a poor beggarly wretch who hasn't got a shilling," he said to
himself. He was very far from feeling that the battle was already
lost. Her last word to him had been an assurance of her friendship;
and then why should she have been at so much trouble to tell him the
way in which he ought to address her if she were herself indifferent
as to his addresses? He was, no doubt, becoming tired of his
courtship, and heartily wished that the work were over; but he was
not minded to give it up. He therefore prepared himself for another
attack, and took himself into Norwich without seeking counsel from
any one. He could not trust himself to think that she could really
wish to refuse him after all the encouragement she had given him. On
this occasion he put on no pink shirt or shiny boots, being deterred
from doing so by a remembrance of Captain Bellfield's ridicule;
but, nevertheless, he dressed himself with considerable care. He
clothed his nether person in knickerbockers, with tight, leathern,
bright-coloured gaiters round his legs, being conscious of certain
manly graces and symmetrical proportions which might, as he thought,
stand him in good stead. And he put on a new shooting-coat, the
buttons on which were elaborate, and a wonderful waistcoat worked
over with foxes' heads. He completed his toilet with a round,
low-crowned hat, with dog's-skin gloves, and a cutting whip. Thus
armed he went forth resolved to conquer or to die,--as far as death
might result from any wound which Mrs. Greenow might be able to give
him. He waited, on this occasion, for the coming of no market-day;
indeed, the journey into the city was altogether special, and he was
desirous that she should know that such was the case. He drove at a
great pace into the inn-yard, threw his reins to the ostler, took
just one glass of cherry-brandy at the bar, and then marched off
across the market-place to the Close, with quiet and decisive steps.
"Is that you, Cheesacre?" said a friendly voice, in one of the narrow
streets. "Who expected to see you in Norwich on a Thursday!" It was
Grimsby, the son of old Grimsby of Hatherwich, a country gentleman,
and one, therefore, to whom Cheesacre would generally pay much
respect; but on this occasion he did not even pull up for an instant,
or moderate his pace. "A little bit of private business," he said,
and marched onwards with his head towards the Close. "I'm not going
to be afraid of a woman--not if I know it," he said to himself;
but, nevertheless, at a certain pastrycook's, of whose shop he had
knowledge, he pulled up and had another glass of cherry-brandy.
"Mrs. Greenow is at home," he said to Jeannette, not deigning to ask
any question.
"Oh, yes, sir; she is at home," said Jeannette, conscious that some
occasion had arrived; and in another second he was in the presence of
his angel.
"Mr. Cheesacre, whoever expected to see you in Norwich on a Thursday?"
said the lady, as she welcomed him, using almost the same words
as his friend had done in the street. Why should not he come into
Norwich on a Thursday, as well as any one else? Did they suppose
that he was tied for ever to his ploughs and carts? He was minded to
conduct himself with a little spirit on this occasion, and to improve
the opinion which Mrs. Greenow had formed about him. On this account
he answered her somewhat boldly.
"There's no knowing when I may be in Norwich, Mrs. Greenow, or when
I mayn't. I'm one of those men of whom nobody knows anything certain,
except that I pay as I go." Then he remembered that he was not to
make any more boasts about his money, and he endeavoured to cover the
error. "There's one other thing they may all know if they please, but
we won't say what that is just at present."
"Won't you sit down, Mr. Cheesacre?"
"Well,--thank you,--I will sit down for a few minutes if you'll let
me, Mrs. Greenow. Mrs. Greenow, I'm in such a state of mind that I must
put an end to it, or else I shall be going mad, and doing somebody a
damage."
"Dear me! what has happened to you? You're going out shooting,
presently; are you not?" and Mrs. Greenow looked down at his garments.
"No, Mrs. Greenow, I'm not going out shooting. I put on these things
because I thought I might take a shot as I came along. But I couldn't
bring myself to do it, and then I wouldn't take them off again. What
does it matter what a man wears?"
"Not in the least, so long as he is decent."
"I'm sure I'm always that, Mrs. Greenow."
"Oh, dear, yes. More than that, I should say. I consider you to be
rather gay in your attire."
"I don't pretend to anything of that kind, Mrs. Greenow. I like to
be nice, and all that kind of thing. There are people who think that
because a man farms his own land, he must be always in the muck. It
is the case, of course, with those who have to make their rent and
living out of it." Then he remembered that he was again treading on
forbidden ground, and stopped himself. "But it don't matter what a
man wears if his heart isn't easy within him."
"I don't know why you should speak in that way, Mr. Cheesacre; but
it's what I have felt every hour since--since Greenow left me."
Mr. Cheesacre was rather at a loss to know how he should begin. This
allusion to the departed one did not at all assist him. He had so
often told the widow that care killed a cat, and that a live dog was
better than a dead lion; and had found so little efficacy in the
proverbs, that he did not care to revert to them. He was aware that
some more decided method of proceeding was now required. Little hints
at love-making had been all very well in the earlier days of their
acquaintance; but there must be something more than little hints
before he could hope to bring the matter to a favourable conclusion.
The widow herself had told him that he ought to talk about love; and
he had taken two glasses of cherry-brandy, hoping that they might
enable him to do so. He had put on a coat with brilliant buttons, and
new knickerbockers, in order that he might be master of the occasion.
He was resolved to call a spade a spade, and to speak boldly of his
passion; but how was he to begin? There was the difficulty. He was
now seated in a chair, and there he remained silent for a minute or
two, while she smoothed her eyebrows with her handkerchief after her
last slight ebullition of grief.
"Mrs. Greenow," he exclaimed at last, jumping up before her; "dearest
Mrs. Greenow; darling Mrs. Greenow, will you be my wife? There! I
have said it at last, and I mean it. Everything that I've got shall
be yours. Of course I speak specially of my hand and heart. As for
love;--oh, Arabella, if you only knew me! I don't think there's a
man in Norfolk better able to love a woman than I am. Ever since I
first saw you at Yarmouth, I've been in love to that extent that I've
not known what I've been about. If you'll ask them at home, they'll
tell you that I've not been able to look after anything about the
place,--not as it should be done. I haven't really. I don't suppose
I've opened the wages book half a dozen times since last July."
"And has that been my fault, Mr. Cheesacre?"
"Upon my word it has. I can't move about anywhere without thinking
about you. My mind's made up; I won't stay at Oileymead unless you
will come and be its mistress."
"Not stay at Oileymead?"
"No, indeed. I'll let the place, and go and travel somewheres. What's
the use of my hanging on there without the woman of my heart? I
couldn't do it, Mrs. Greenow; I couldn't, indeed. Of course I've got
everything there that money can buy,--but it's all of no use to a man
that's in love. Do you know, I've come quite to despise money and
stock, and all that sort of thing. I haven't had my banker's book
home these last three months. Only think of that now."
"But how can I help you, Mr. Cheesacre?"
"Just say one word, and the thing'll be done. Say you'll be my wife?
I'll be so good to you. I will, indeed. As for your fortune, I don't
care that for it! I'm not like somebody else; it's yourself I want.
You shall be my pet, and my poppet, and my dearest little duck all
the days of your life."
"No, Mr. Cheesacre; it cannot be."
"And why not? Look here, Arabella!" At these words he rose from his
chair, and coming immediately before her, went down on both knees
so close to her as to prevent the possibility of her escaping from
him. There could be no doubt as to the efficacy of the cherry-brandy.
There he was, well down on his knees; but he had not got down so
low without some little cracking and straining on the part of the
gaiters with which his legs were encompassed. He, in his passion, had
probably omitted to notice this; but Mrs. Greenow, who was more cool
in her present temperament, was painfully aware that he might not be
able to rise with ease.
"Mr. Cheesacre, don't make a fool of yourself. Get up," said she.
"Never, till you have told me that you will be mine!"
"Then you'll remain there for ever, which will be inconvenient. I
won't have you take hold of my hand, Mr. Cheesacre. I tell you to have
done." Whereupon his grasp upon her hand was released; but he made no
attempt to rise.
"I never saw a man look so much like a fool in my life," said she.
"If you don't get up, I'll push you over. There; don't you hear?
There's somebody coming."
But Cheesacre, whose senses were less acute than the lady's, did not
hear. "I'll never get up," said he, "till you have bid me hope."
"Bid you play the fiddle. Get away from my knees, at any rate.
There;--he'll be in the room now before--"
[Illustration: Mr. Cheesacre disturbed.]
Cheesacre now did hear a sound of steps, and the door was opened
while he made his first futile attempt to get back to a standing
position. The door was opened, and Captain Bellfield entered. "I
beg ten thousand pardons," said he, "but as I did not see Jeannette,
I ventured to come in. May I venture to congratulate my friend
Cheesacre on his success?"
In the meantime Cheesacre had risen; but he had done so slowly, and
with evident difficulty. "I'll trouble you to leave the room, Captain
Bellfield," said he. "I'm particularly engaged with Mrs. Greenow, as
any gentleman might have seen."
"There wasn't the slightest difficulty in seeing it, old fellow,"
said the Captain. "Shall I wish you joy?"
"I'll trouble you to leave the room, sir," said Cheesacre, walking up
to him.
"Certainly, if Mrs. Greenow will desire me to do so," said the
Captain.
Then Mrs. Greenow felt herself called upon to speak.
"Gentlemen, I must beg that you will not make my drawing-room a
place for quarrelling. Captain Bellfield, lest there should be any
misconception, I must beg you to understand that the position in
which you found Mr. Cheesacre was one altogether of his own seeking.
It was not with my consent that he was there."
"I can easily believe that, Mrs. Greenow," said the Captain.
"Who cares what you believe, sir?" said Mr. Cheesacre.
"Gentlemen! gentlemen! this is really unkind. Captain Bellfield, I
think I had better ask you to withdraw."
"By all means," said Mr. Cheesacre.
"As it is absolutely necessary that I should give Mr. Cheesacre a
definite answer after what has occurred--"
"Of course," said Captain Bellfield, preparing to go. "I'll take
another opportunity of paying my respects to you. Perhaps I might be
allowed to come this evening?"
To this Mrs. Greenow half assented with an uncertain nod, and then
the Captain went. As soon as the door was closed behind his back, Mr.
Cheesacre again prepared to throw himself into his former position,
but to this Mrs. Greenow decidedly objected. If he were allowed to
go down again, there was no knowing what force might be necessary to
raise him. "Mr. Cheesacre," she said, "let there be an end to this
little farce between us."
"Farce!" said he, standing with his hand on his heart, and his legs
and knickerbockers well displayed.
"It is certainly either a farce or a mistake. If the latter,--and I
have been at all to blame,--I ask your pardon most sincerely."
"But you'll be Mrs. Cheesacre; won't you?"
"No, Mr. Cheesacre; no. One husband is enough for any woman, and mine
lies buried at Birmingham."
"Oh, damn it!" said he, in utter disgust at this further reference
to Mr. Greenow. The expression, at such a moment, militated against
courtesy; but even Mrs. Greenow herself felt that the poor man had
been subjected to provocation.
"Let us part friends," said she, offering him her hand.
But he turned his back upon her, for there was something in his eye
that he wanted to hide. I believe that he really did love her, and
that at this moment he would have taken her, even though he had
learned that her fortune was gone.
"Will you not give me your hand," said she, "in token that there is
no anger between us?"
"Do think about it again--do!" said he. "If there's anything you
like to have changed, I'll change it at once. I'll give up Oileymead
altogether, if you don't like being so near the farm-yard. I'll give
up anything; so I will. Mrs. Greenow, if you only knew how I've set my
heart upon it!" And now, though his back was turned, the whimpering
of his voice told plainly that tears were in his eyes.
She was a little touched. No woman would feel disposed to marry a man
simply because he cried, and perhaps few women would be less likely
to give way to such tenderness than Mrs. Greenow. She understood men
and women too well, and had seen too much both of the world's rough
side and of its smooth side to fall into such a blunder as that; but
she was touched. "My friend," she said, putting her hand upon his
arm, "think no more of it."
"But I can't help thinking of it," said he, almost blubbering in his
earnestness.
"No, no, no," said she, still touching him with her hand. "Why, Mr.
Cheesacre, how can you bring yourself to care for an old woman like
me, when so many pretty young ladies would give their eyes to get a
kind word from you?"
"I don't want any young lady," said he.
"There's Charlie Fairstairs, who would make as good a wife as any
girl I know."
"Psha! Charlie Fairstairs, indeed!" The very idea of having such a
bride palmed off upon him did something to restore him to his manly
courage.
"Or my niece, Kate Vavasor, who has a nice little fortune of her own,
and who is as accomplished as she is good-looking."
"She's nothing to me, Mrs. Greenow."
"That's because you never asked her to be anything. If I get her to
come back to Yarmouth next summer, will you think about it? You want
a wife, and you couldn't do better if you searched all England over.
It would be so pleasant for us to be such near friends; wouldn't it?"
And again she put her hand upon his arm.
"Mrs. Greenow, just at present there's only one woman in the world
that I can think of."
"And that's my niece."
"And that's yourself. I'm a broken-hearted man,--I am, indeed. I
didn't ever think I should feel so much about a thing of the kind--I
didn't, really. I hardly know what to do with myself; but I suppose
I'd better go back to Oileymead." He had become so painfully
unconscious of his new coat and his knickerbockers that it was
impossible not to pity him. "I shall always hate the place now," he
said,--"always."
"That will pass away. You'd be as happy as a king there, if you'd
take Kate for your queen."
"And what'll you do, Mrs. Greenow?"
"What shall I do?"--"Yes; what will you do?"
"That is, if you marry Kate? Why, I'll come and stay with you half my
time, and nurse the children, as an old grand-aunt should."
"But about--." Then he hesitated, and she asked him of what he was
thinking.
"You don't mean to take that man Bellfield, do you?"
"Come, Mr. Cheesacre, that's rank jealousy. What right can you have to
ask me whether I shall take any man or no man? The chances are that I
shall remain as I am till I'm carried to my grave; but I'm not going
to give any pledge about it to you or to any one."
"You don't know that man, Mrs. Greenow; you don't, indeed. I tell
it you as your friend. Does not it stand to reason, when he has got
nothing in the world, that he must be a beggar? It's all very well
saying that when a man is courting a lady, he shouldn't say much
about his money; but you won't make me believe that any man will make
a good husband who hasn't got a shilling. And for lies, there's no
beating him!"
"Why, then, has he been such a friend of yours?"
"Well, because I've been foolish. I took up with him just because he
looked pleasant, I suppose."
"And you want to prevent me from doing the same thing."
"If you were to marry him, Mrs. Greenow, it's my belief I should do
him a mischief; it is, really. I don't think I could stand it;--a
mean, skulking beggar! I suppose I'd better go now?"
"Certainly, if that's the way you choose to talk about my friends."
"Friends, indeed! Well, I won't say any more at present. I suppose if
I was to talk for ever it wouldn't be any good?"
"Come and talk to Kate Vavasor for ever, Mr. Cheesacre."
To this he made no reply, but went forth from the house, and got
his gig, and drove himself home to Oileymead, thinking of his
disappointment with all the bitterness of a young lover. "I didn't
ever think I should ever care so much about anything," he said, as he
took himself up to bed that night.
That evening Captain Bellfield did call in the Close, as he had said
he would do, but he was not admitted. "Her mistress was very bad with
a headache," Jeannette said.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
Preparations for Lady Monk's Party.
Early in April, the Easter recess being all over, Lady Monk gave
a grand party in London. Lady Monk's town house was in Gloucester
Square. It was a large mansion, and Lady Monk's parties in London
were known to be very great affairs. She usually gave two or three in
the season, and spent a large portion of her time and energy in so
arranging matters that her parties should be successful. As this was
her special line in life, a failure would have been very distressing
to her;--and we may also say very disgraceful, taking into
consideration, as we should do in forming our judgement on the
subject, the very large sums of Sir Cosmo's money which she spent in
this way. But she seldom did fail. She knew how to select her days,
so as not to fall foul of other events. It seldom happened that
people could not come to her because of a division which occupied
all the Members of Parliament, or that they were drawn away by the
superior magnitude of some other attraction in the world of fashion.
This giving of parties was her business, and she had learned it
thoroughly. She worked at it harder than most men work at their
trades, and let us hope that the profits were consolatory.
It was generally acknowledged to be the proper thing to go to Lady
Monk's parties. There were certain people who were asked, and who
went as a matter of course,--people who were by no means on intimate
terms with Lady Monk, or with Sir Cosmo; but they were people to have
whom was the proper thing, and they were people who understood that
to go to Lady Monk's was the proper thing for them. The Duchess of
St. Bungay was always there, though she hated Lady Monk, and Lady Monk
always abused her; but a card was sent to the Duchess in the same way
as the Lord Mayor invites a Cabinet Minister to dinner, even though
the one man might believe the other to be a thief. And Mrs. Conway
Sparkes was generally there; she went everywhere. Lady Monk did not
at all know why Mrs. Conway Sparkes was so favoured by the world;
but there was the fact, and she bowed to it. Then there were another
set, the members of which were or were not invited, according to
circumstances, at the time; and these were the people who were
probably the most legitimate recipients of Lady Monk's hospitality.
Old family friends of her husband were among the number. Let the
Tuftons come in April, and perhaps again in May; then they will not
feel their exclusion from that seventh heaven of glory,--the great
culminating crush in July. Scores of young ladies who really loved
parties belonged to this set. The mothers and aunts knew Lady Monk's
sisters and cousins. They accepted so much of Lady Monk's good
things as she vouchsafed them, and were thankful. Then there was
another lot, which generally became, especially on that great July
occasion, the most numerous of the three. It comprised all those
who made strong interest to obtain admittance within her ladyship's
house,--who struggled and fought almost with tooth and nail to get
invitations. Against these people Lady Monk carried on an internecine
war. Had she not done so she would have been swamped by them, and
her success would have been at an end; but yet she never dreamed of
shutting her doors against them altogether, or of saying boldly that
none such should hamper her staircases. She knew that she must yield,
but her effort was made to yield to as few as might be possible. When
she was first told by her factotum in these operations that Mr. Bott
wanted to come, she positively declined to have him. When it was
afterwards intimated to her that the Duchess of St. Bungay had made a
point of it, she sneered at the Duchess, and did not even then yield.
But when at last it was brought home to her understanding that Mr.
Palliser wished it, and that Mr. Palliser probably would not come
himself unless his wishes were gratified, she gave way. She was
especially anxious that Lady Glencora should come to her gathering,
and she knew that Lady Glencora could not be had without Mr. Palliser.
It was very much desired by her that Lady Glencora should be there.
"Burgo," said she to her nephew, one morning, "look here." Burgo was
at the time staying with his aunt, in Gloucester Square, much to the
annoyance of Sir Cosmo, who had become heartily tired of his nephew.
The aunt and the nephew had been closeted together more than once
lately, and perhaps they understood each other better now than they
had done down at Monkshade. The aunt had handed a little note to
Burgo, which he read and then threw back to her. "You see that she is
not afraid of coming," said Lady Monk.
"I suppose she doesn't think much about it," said Burgo.
"If that's what you really believe, you'd better give it up. Nothing
on earth would justify such a step on your part except a thorough
conviction that she is attached to you."
Burgo looked at the fireplace, almost savagely, and his aunt looked
at him very keenly. "Well," she said, "if there's to be an end of it,
let there be an end of it."
"I think I'd better hang myself," he said.
"Burgo, I will not have you here if you talk to me in that way. I am
trying to help you once again; but if you look like that, and talk
like that, I will give it up."
"I think you'd better give it up."
"Are you becoming cowardly at last? With all your faults I never
expected that of you."
"No; I am not a coward. I'd go out and fight him at two paces'
distance with the greatest pleasure in the world."
"You know that's nonsense, Burgo. It's downright braggadocio. Men do
not fight now; nor at any time would a man be called upon to fight,
because you simply wanted to take his wife from him. If you had done
it, indeed!"
"How am I to do it? I'd do it to-morrow if it depended on me. No one
can say that I'm afraid of anybody or of anything."
"I suppose something in the matter depends on her?"
"I believe she loves me,--if you mean that?"
"Look here, Burgo," and the considerate aunt gave to the impoverished
and ruined nephew such counsel as she, in accordance with her lights,
was enabled to bestow. "I think you were much wronged in that matter.
After what had passed I thought that you had a right to claim Lady
Glencora as your wife. Mr. Palliser, in my mind, behaved very wrongly
in stepping in between you and--you and such a fortune as hers, in
that way. He cannot expect that his wife should have any affection
for him. There is nobody alive who has a greater horror of anything
improper in married women than I have. I have always shown it. When
Lady Madeline Madtop left her husband, I would never allow her to
come inside my doors again,--though I have no doubt he ill-used her
dreadfully, and there was nothing ever proved between her and Colonel
Graham. One can't be too particular in such matters. But here,
if you,--if you can succeed, you know, I shall always regard the
Palliser episode in Lady Glencora's life as a tragical accident. I
shall indeed. Poor dear! It was done exactly as they make nuns of
girls in Roman Catholic countries; and as I should think no harm
of helping a nun out of her convent, so I should think no harm of
helping her now. If you are to say anything to her, I think you might
have an opportunity at the party."
Burgo was still looking at the fireplace; and he sat on, looking and
still looking, but he said nothing.
"You can think of what I have said, Burgo," continued his aunt,
meaning that he should get up and go. But he did not go. "Have you
anything more that you wish to say to me?" she asked.
"I've got no money," said Burgo, still looking at the fireplace.
Lady Glencora's property was worth not less than fifty thousand
a year. He was a young man ambitious of obtaining that almost
incredible amount of wealth, and who once had nearly reached it, by
means of her love. His present obstacle consisted in his want of a
twenty-pound note! "I've got no money." The words were growled out
rather than spoken, and his eyes were never turned even for a moment
towards his aunt's face.
"You've never got any money," said she, speaking almost with passion.
"How can I help it? I can't make money. If I had a couple of hundred
pounds, so that I could take her, I believe that she would go with
me. It should not be my fault if she did not. It would have been all
right if she had come to Monkshade."
"I've got no money for you, Burgo. I have not five pounds belonging
to me."
"But you've got--?"
"What?" said Lady Monk, interrupting him sharply.
"Would Cosmo lend it me?" said he, hesitating to go on with that
suggestion which he had been about to make. The Cosmo of whom he
spoke was not his uncle, but his cousin. No eloquence could have
induced his uncle, Sir Cosmo, to lend him another shilling. But the
son of the house was a man rich with his own wealth, and Burgo had
not taxed him for some years.
"I do not know," said Lady Monk. "I never see him. Probably not."
"It is hard," said Burgo. "Fancy that a man should be ruined for two
hundred pounds, just at such a moment of his life as this!" He was
a man bold by nature, and he did make his proposition. "You have
jewels, aunt;--could you not raise it for me? I would redeem them
with the very first money that I got."
Lady Monk rose in a passion when the suggestion was first made,
but before the interview was over she had promised that she would
endeavour to do something in the way of raising money for him yet,
once again. He was her favourite nephew, and the same almost to
her as a child of her own. With one of her own children indeed she
had quarrelled, and of the other, a married daughter, she rarely
saw much. Such love as she had to give she gave to Burgo, and she
promised him the money though she knew that she must raise it by some
villanous falsehood to her husband.
On the same morning Lady Glencora went to Queen Anne Street with the
purpose of inducing Alice to go to Lady Monk's party; but Alice would
not accede to the proposition, though Lady Glencora pressed it with
all her eloquence. "I don't know her," said Alice.
"My dear," said Lady Glencora, "that's absurd. Half the people there
won't know her."
"But they know her set, or know her friends,--or, at any rate, will
meet their own friends at her house. I should only bother you, and
should not in the least gratify myself."
"The fact is, everybody will go who can, and I should have no sort
of trouble in getting a card for you. Indeed I should simply write a
note and say I meant to bring you."
"Pray don't do any such thing, for I certainly shall not go. I can't
conceive why you should wish it."
"Mr. Fitzgerald will be there," said Lady Glencora, altering her voice
altogether, and speaking in that low tone with which she used to win
Alice's heart down at Matching. She was sitting close over the fire,
leaning low, holding up her little hands as a screen to her face, and
looking at her companion earnestly. "I'm sure that he will be there,
though nobody has told me."
"That may be a reason for your staying away," said Alice, slowly,
"but hardly a reason for my going with you."
Lady Glencora would not condescend to tell her friend in so many
words that she wanted her protection. She could not bring herself to
say that, though she wished it to be understood. "Ah! I thought you
would have gone," said she.
"It would be contrary to all my habits," said Alice: "I never go to
people's houses when I don't know them. It's a kind of society which
I don't like. Pray do not ask me."
"Oh! very well. If it must be so, I won't press it." Lady Glencora
had moved the position of one of her hands so as to get it to her
pocket, and there had grasped a letter, which she still carried; but
when Alice said those last cold words, "Pray do not ask me," she
released the grasp, and left the letter where it was. "I suppose he
won't bite me, at any rate," she said, and she assumed that look of
childish drollery which she would sometimes put on, almost with a
grimace, but still with so much prettiness that no one who saw her
would regret it.
"He certainly can't bite you, if you will not let him."
"Do you know, Alice, though they all say that Plantagenet is one of
the wisest men in London, I sometimes think that he is one of the
greatest fools. Soon after we came to town I told him that we had
better not go to that woman's house. Of course he understood me. He
simply said that he wished that I should do so. 'I hate anything out
of the way,' he said. 'There can be no reason why my wife should not
go to Lady Monk's house as well as to any other.' There was an end of
it, you know, as far as anything I could do was concerned. But there
wasn't an end of it with him. He insists that I shall go, but he
sends my duenna with me. Dear Mrs. Marsham is to be there!"
"She'll do you no harm, I suppose?"
"I'm not so sure of that, Alice. In the first place, one doesn't like
to be followed everywhere by a policeman, even though one isn't going
to pick a pocket. And then, the devil is so strong within me, that I
should like to dodge the policeman. I can fancy a woman being driven
to do wrong simply by a desire to show her policeman that she can be
too many for him."
"Glencora, you make me so wretched when you talk like that."
"Will you go with me, then, so that I may have a policeman of my own
choosing? He asked me if I would mind taking Mrs. Marsham with me in
my carriage. So I up and spoke, very boldly, like the proud young
porter, and told him I would not; and when he asked why not, I said
that I preferred taking a friend of my own,--a young friend, I said,
and I then named you or my cousin, Lady Jane. I told him I should
bring one or the other."
"And was he angry?"
"No; he took it very quietly,--saying something, in his calm way,
about hoping that I should get over a prejudice against one of
his earliest and dearest friends. He twits at me because I don't
understand Parliament and the British Constitution, but I know more
of them than he does about a woman. You are quite sure you won't go,
then?" Alice hesitated a moment. "Do," said Lady Glencora; and there
was an amount of persuasion in her accent which should, I think, have
overcome her cousin's scruples.
"It is against the whole tenor of my life's way," she said, "And,
Glencora, I am not happy myself. I am not fit for parties. I
sometimes think that I shall never go into society again."
"That's nonsense, you know."
"I suppose it is, but I cannot go now. I would if I really thought--"
"Oh, very well," said Lady Glencora, interrupting her. "I suppose I
shall get through it. If he asks me to dance, I shall stand up with
him, just as though I had never seen him before." Then she remembered
the letter in her pocket,--remembered that at this moment she bore
about with her a written proposition from this man to go off with him
and leave her husband's house. She had intended to show it to Alice
on this occasion; but as Alice had refused her request, she was glad
that she had not done so. "You'll come to me the morning after," said
Lady Glencora, as she went. This Alice promised to do; and then she
was left alone.
Alice regretted,--regretted deeply that she had not consented to go
with her cousin. After all, of what importance had been her objection
when compared with the cause for which her presence had been desired?
Doubtless she would have been uncomfortable at Lady Monk's house;
but could she not have borne some hour or two of discomfort on her
friend's behalf? But, in truth, it was only after Lady Glencora had
left her that she began to understand the subject fully, and to feel
that she might possibly have been of service in a great danger. But
it was too late now. Then she strove to comfort herself with the
reflection that a casual meeting at an evening party in London could
not be perilous in the same degree as a prolonged sojourn together in
a country house.
CHAPTER XLIX.
How Lady Glencora Went to Lady Monk's Party.
Lady Monk's house in Gloucester Square was admirably well adapted for
the giving of parties. It was a large house, and seemed to the eyes
of guests to be much larger than it was. The hall was spacious, and
the stairs went up in the centre, facing you as you entered the inner
hall. Round the top of the stairs there was a broad gallery, with an
ornamented railing, and from this opened the doors into the three
reception-rooms. There were two on the right, the larger of which
looked out backwards, and these two were connected by an archway, as
though made for folding-doors; but the doors, I believe, never were
there. Fronting the top of the staircase there was a smaller room,
looking out backwards, very prettily furnished, and much used by Lady
Monk when alone. It was here that Burgo had held that conference with
his aunt of which mention has been made. Below stairs there was the
great dining-room, on which, on these occasions, a huge buffet was
erected for refreshments,--what I may call a masculine buffet, as it
was attended by butlers and men in livery,--and there was a smaller
room looking out into the square, in which there was a feminine
battery for the dispensing of tea and such like smaller good things,
and from which female aid could be attained for the arrangement or
mending of dresses in a further sanctum within it. For such purposes
as that now on foot the house was most commodious. Lady Monk, on
these occasions, was moved by a noble ambition to do something
different from that done by her neighbours in similar circumstances,
and therefore she never came forward to receive her guests. She
ensconced herself, early in the evening, in that room at the head of
the stairs, and there they who chose to see her made their way up to
her, and spoke their little speeches. They who thought her to be a
great woman,--and many people did think her to be great,--were wont
to declare that she never forgot those who did come, or those who did
not. And even they who desired to describe her as little,--for even
Lady Monk had enemies,--would hint that though she never came out
of the room, she would rise from her chair and make a step towards
the door whenever any name very high in fashionable life greeted
her ears. So that a mighty Cabinet Minister, or a duchess in great
repute, or any special wonder of the season, could not fail of
entering her precincts and being seen there for a few moments. It
would, of course, happen that the doorway of her chamber would become
blocked; but there were precautions taken to avoid this inconvenience
as far as possible, and one man in livery was employed to go
backwards and forwards between his mistress and the outer world, so
as to keep the thread of a passage open.
But though Lady Monk was in this way enabled to rest herself during
her labours, there was much in her night's work which was not
altogether exhilarating. Ladies would come into her small room and
sit there by the hour, with whom she had not the slightest wish
to hold conversation. The Duchess of St. Bungay would always be
there,--so that there was a special seat in one corner of the room
which was called the Duchess' stool. "I shouldn't care a straw about
her," Lady Monk had been heard to complain, "if she would talk
to anybody. But nobody will talk to her, and then she listens to
everything."
There had been another word or two between Burgo Fitzgerald and his
aunt before the evening came, a word or two in the speaking of which
she had found some difficulty. She was prepared with the money,--with
that two hundred pounds for which he had asked,--obtained with what
wiles, and lies, and baseness of subterfuge I need not stop here to
describe. But she was by no means willing to give this over into her
nephew's hands without security. She was willing to advance him this
money; she had been willing even to go through unusual dirt to get
it for him; but she was desirous that he should have it only for a
certain purpose. How could she bind him down to spend it as she would
have it spent? Could she undertake to hand it to him as soon as Lady
Glencora should be in his power? Even though she could have brought
herself to say as much,--and I think she might also have done so
after what she had said,--she could not have carried out such a
plan. In that case the want would be instant, and the action must be
rapid. She therefore had no alternative but to entrust him with the
bank-notes at once. "Burgo," she said, "if I find that you deceive me
now, I will never trust you again." "All right," said Burgo, as he
barely counted the money before he thrust it into his breast-pocket.
"It is lent to you for a certain purpose, should you happen to want
it," she said, solemnly. "I do happen to want it very much," he
answered. She did not dare to say more; but as her nephew turned away
from her with a step that was quite light in its gaiety, she almost
felt that she was already cozened. Let Burgo's troubles be as heavy
as they might be, there was something to him ecstatic in the touch of
ready money which always cured them for the moment.
[Illustration: "All right," said Burgo, as he thrust the money
into his breast-pocket.]
On the morning of Lady Monk's party a few very uncomfortable words
passed between Mr. Palliser and his wife.
"Your cousin is not going, then?" said he.
"Alice is not going."
"Then you can give Mrs. Marsham a seat in your carriage?"
"Impossible, Plantagenet. I thought I had told you that I had
promised my cousin Jane."
"But you can take three."
"Indeed I can't,--unless you would like me to sit out with the
coachman."
There was something in this,--a tone of loudness, a touch of what he
called to himself vulgarity,--which made him very angry. So he turned
away from her, and looked as black as a thundercloud.
"You must know, Plantagenet," she went on, "that it is impossible for
three women dressed to go out in one carriage. I am sure you wouldn't
like to see me afterwards if I had been one of them."
"You need not have said anything to Lady Jane when Miss Vavasor
refused. I had asked you before that."
"And I had told you that I liked going with young women, and not with
old ones. That's the long and the short of it."
"Glencora, I wish you would not use such expressions."
"What! not the long and the short? It's good English. Quite as good
as Mr. Bott's, when he said in the House the other night that the
Government kept their accounts in a higgledy-piggledy way. You see, I
have been studying the debates, and you shouldn't be angry with me."
"I am not angry with you. You speak like a child to say so. Then,
I suppose, the carriage must go for Mrs. Marsham after it has taken
you?"
"It shall go before. Jane will not be in a hurry, and I am sure I
shall not."
"She will think you very uncivil; that is all. I told her that she
could go with you when I heard that Miss Vavasor was not to be
there."
"Then, Plantagenet, you shouldn't have told her so, and that's the
long--; but I mustn't say that. The truth is this, if you give me any
orders I'll obey them,--as far as I can. If I can't I'll say so. But
if I'm left to go by my own judgement, it's not fair that I should be
scolded afterwards."
"I have never scolded you."
"Yes, you have. You have told me that I was uncivil."
"I said that she would think you so."
"Then, if it's only what she thinks, I don't care two straws about
it. She may have the carriage to herself if she likes, but she shan't
have me in it,--not unless I'm ordered to go. I don't like her, and I
won't pretend to like her. My belief is that she follows me about to
tell you if she thinks that I do wrong."
"Glencora!"
"And that odious baboon with the red bristles does the same
thing,--only he goes to her because he doesn't dare to go to you."
Plantagenet Palliser was struck wild with dismay. He understood well
who it was whom his wife intended to describe; but that she should
have spoken of any man as a baboon with red bristles, was terrible to
his mind! He was beginning to think that he hardly knew how to manage
his wife. And the picture she had drawn was very distressing to him.
She had no mother; neither had he; and he had wished that Mrs. Marsham
should give to her some of that matronly assistance and guidance
which a mother does give to her young married daughter. It was true,
too, as he knew, that a word or two as to some socially domestic
matters had filtered through to him from Mr. Bott, down at Matching
Priory, but only in such a way as to enable him to see what counsel
it was needful that he should give. As for espionage over his
wife,--no man could despise it more than he did! No man would be less
willing to resort to it! And now his wife was accusing him of keeping
spies, both male and female.
"Glencora!" he said again; and then he stopped, not knowing what to
say to her.
"Well, my dear, it's better you should know at once what I feel about
it. I don't suppose I'm very good; indeed I dare say I'm bad enough,
but these people about me won't make me any better. The duennas don't
make the Spanish ladies worth much."
"Duennas!" After that, Lady Glencora sat herself down, and Mr.
Palliser stood for some moments looking at her.
It ended in his making her a long speech, in which he said a good
deal of his own justice and forbearance, and something also of her
frivolity and childishness. He told her that his only complaint of
her was that she was too young, and, as he did so, she made a little
grimace,--not to him, but to herself, as though saying to herself
that that was all he knew about it. He did not notice it, or, if he
did, his notice did not stop his eloquence. He assured her that he
was far from keeping any watch over her, and declared that she had
altogether mistaken Mrs. Marsham's character. Then there was another
little grimace. "There's somebody has mistaken it worse than I have,"
the grimace said. Of the bristly baboon he condescended to say
nothing, and he wound up by giving her a cold kiss, and saying that
he would meet her at Lady Monk's.
When the evening came,--or rather the night,--the carriage went
first for Mrs. Marsham, and having deposited her at Lady Monk's, went
back to Park Lane for Lady Glencora. Then she had herself driven to
St. James's Square, to pick up Lady Jane, so that altogether the
coachman and horses did not have a good time of it. "I wish he'd
keep a separate carriage for her," Lady Glencora said to her cousin
Jane,--having perceived that her servants were not in a good humour.
"That would be expensive," said Lady Jane. "Yes, it would be
expensive," said Lady Glencora. She would not condescend to make any
remark as to the non-importance of such expense to a man so wealthy
as her husband, knowing that his wealth was, in fact, hers. Never to
him or to any other,--not even to herself,--had she hinted that much
was due to her because she had been magnificent as an heiress. There
were many things about this woman that were not altogether what a
husband might wish. She was not softly delicate in all her ways; but
in disposition and temper she was altogether generous. I do not know
that she was at all points a lady, but had Fate so willed it she
would have been a thorough gentleman.
Mrs. Marsham was by no means satisfied with the way in which she was
treated. She would not have cared to go at all to Lady Monk's party
had she supposed that she would have to make her entry there alone.
With Lady Glencora she would have seemed to receive some of that
homage which would certainly have been paid to her companion. The
carriage called, moreover, before she was fully ready, and the
footman, as he stood at the door to hand her in, had been very sulky.
She understood it all. She knew that Lady Glencora had positively
declined her companionship; and if she resolved to be revenged, such
resolution on her part was only natural. When she reached Lady Monk's
house, she had to make her way up stairs all alone. The servants
called her Mrs. Marsh, and under that name she got passed on into the
front drawing-room. There she sat down, not having seen Lady Monk,
and meditated over her injuries.
It was past eleven before Lady Glencora arrived, and Burgo Fitzgerald
had begun to think that his evil stars intended that he should never
see her again. He had been wickedly baulked at Monkshade, by what
influence he had never yet ascertained; and now he thought that the
same influence must be at work to keep her again away from his aunt's
house. He had settled in his mind no accurate plan of a campaign; he
had in his thoughts no fixed arrangement by which he might do the
thing which he meditated. He had attempted to make some such plan;
but, as is the case with all men to whom thinking is an unusual
operation, concluded at last that he had better leave it to the
course of events. It was, however, obviously necessary that he should
see Lady Glencora before the course of events could be made to do
anything for him. He had written to her, making his proposition in
bold terms, and he felt that if she were utterly decided against him,
her anger at his suggestion, or at least her refusal, would have
been made known to him in some way. Silence did not absolutely give
consent, but it seemed to show that consent was not impossible. From
ten o'clock to past eleven he stood about on the staircase of his
aunt's house, waiting for the name which he was desirous of hearing,
and which he almost feared to hear. Men spoke to him, and women also,
but he hardly answered. His aunt once called him into her room, and
with a cautionary frown on her brow, bade him go dance. "Don't look
so dreadfully preoccupied," she said to him in a whisper. But he
shook his head at her, almost savagely, and went away, and did not
dance. Dance! How was he to dance with such an enterprise as that
upon his mind? Even to Burgo Fitzgerald the task of running away
with another man's wife had in it something which prevented dancing.
Lady Monk was older, and was able to regulate her feelings with more
exactness. But Burgo, though he could not dance, went down into the
dining-room and drank. He took a large beer-glass full of champagne
and soon after that another. The drink did not flush his cheeks or
make his forehead red, or bring out the sweat-drops on his brow, as
it does with some men; but it added a peculiar brightness to his blue
eyes. It was by the light of his eyes that men knew when Burgo had
been drinking.
At last, while he was still in the supper room, he heard Lady
Glencora's name announced. He had already seen Mr. Palliser come in
and make his way up-stairs some quarter of an hour before; but as
to that he was indifferent. He had known that the husband was to be
there. When the long-expected name reached his ears, his heart seemed
to jump within him. What, on the spur of the moment, should he do?
As he had resolved that he would be doing,--that something should be
done, let it be what it might,--he hurried to the dining-room door,
and was just in time to see and be seen as Lady Glencora was passing
up the stairs. She was just above him as he got himself out into the
hall, so that he could not absolutely greet her with his hand; but
he looked up at her, and caught her eye. He looked up, and moved his
hand to her in token of salutation. She looked down at him, and the
expression of her face altered visibly as her glance met his. She
barely bowed to him,--with her eyes rather than with her head, but
he flattered himself that there was, at any rate, no anger in her
countenance. How beautiful he was as he gazed up at her, leaning
against the wall as he stood, and watching her as she made her slow
way up the stairs! She felt that his eyes were on her, and where the
stairs turned she could not restrain herself from one other glance.
As her eyes fell on his again, his mouth opened, and she fancied that
she could hear the faint sigh that he uttered. It was a glorious
mouth, such as the old sculptors gave to their marble gods! And
Burgo, if it was so that he had not heart enough to love truly, could
look as though he loved. It was not in him deceit,--or what men call
acting. The expression came to him naturally, though it expressed so
much more than there was within; as strong words come to some men who
have no knowledge that they are speaking strongly. At this moment
Burgo Fitzgerald looked as though it were possible that he might die
of love.
Lady Glencora was met at the top of the stairs by Lady Monk, who came
out to her, almost into the gallery, with her sweetest smile,--so
that the newly-arrived guest, of course, entered into the small
room. There sat the Duchess of St. Bungay on her stool in the corner,
and there, next to the Duchess, but at the moment engaged in no
conversation, stood Mr. Bott. There was another lady there, who
stood very high in the world, and whom Lady Monk was very glad to
welcome--the young Marchioness of Hartletop. She was in slight
mourning; for her father-in-law, the late Marquis, had died no
t yet quite six months since. Very beautiful she was, and one whose
presence at their houses ladies and gentlemen prized alike. She never
said silly things, like the Duchess, never was troublesome as to
people's conduct to her, was always gracious, yet was never led away
into intimacies, was without peer the best-dressed woman in London,
and yet gave herself no airs;--and then she was so exquisitely
beautiful. Her smile was loveliness itself. There were, indeed,
people who said that it meant nothing; but then, what should the
smile of a young married woman mean? She had not been born in the
purple, like Lady Glencora, her father being a country clergyman who
had never reached a higher grade than that of an archdeacon; but she
knew the ways of high life, and what an exigeant husband would demand
of her, much better than poor Glencora. She would have spoken of no
man as a baboon with a bristly beard. She never talked of the long
and the short of it. She did not wander out o' nights in winter among
the ruins. She made no fast friendship with ladies whom her lord did
not like. She had once, indeed, been approached by a lover since she
had been married,--Mr. Palliser himself having been the offender,--but
she had turned the affair to infinite credit and profit, had gained
her husband's closest confidence by telling him of it all, had yet
not brought on any hostile collision, and had even dismissed her
lover without annoying him. But then Lady Hartletop was a miracle of
a woman!
Lady Glencora was no miracle. Though born in the purple, she was
made of ordinary flesh and blood, and as she entered Lady Monk's
little room, hardly knew how to recover herself sufficiently for
the purposes of ordinary conversation. "Dear Lady Glencora, do come
in for a moment to my den. We were so sorry not to have you at
Monkshade. We heard such terrible things about your health." Lady
Glencora said that it was only a cold,--a bad cold. "Oh, yes; we
heard,--something about moonlight and ruins. So like you, you know.
I love that sort of thing, above all people; but it doesn't do;
does it? Circumstances are so exacting. I think you know Lady
Hartletop;--and there's the Duchess of St. Bungay. Mr. Palliser was
here five minutes since." Then Lady Monk was obliged to get to her
door again and Lady Glencora found herself standing close to Lady
Hartletop.
"We saw Mr. Palliser just pass through," said Lady Hartletop, who was
able to meet and speak of the man who had dared to approach her with
his love, without the slightest nervousness.
"Yes; he said he should be here," said Lady Glencora.
"There's a great crowd," said Lady Hartletop. "I didn't think London
was so full."
"Very great." said Lady Glencora, and then they had said to each
other all that society required. Lady Glencora, as we know, could
talk with imprudent vehemence by the hour together if she liked her
companion; but the other lady seldom committed herself by more words
than she had uttered now,--unless it was to her tirewoman.
"How very well you are looking," said the Duchess. "And I heard you
had been so ill." Of that midnight escapade among the ruins it was
fated that Lady Glencora should never hear the last.
"How d'ye do, Lady Glencowrer?" sounded in her ear, and there was a
great red paw stuck out for her to take. But after what had passed
between Lady Glencora and her husband to-day about Mr. Bott, she was
determined that she would not take Mr. Bott's hand.
"How are you, Mr. Bott?" she said. "I think I'll look for Mr. Palliser
in the back room."
"Dear Lady Glencora," whispered the Duchess, in an ecstasy of agony.
Lady Glencora turned and bowed her head to her stout friend. "Do let
me go away with you. There's that woman, Mrs. Conway Sparkes, coming,
and you know how I hate her." She had nothing to do but to take the
Duchess under her wing, and they passed into the large room together.
It is, I think, more than probable that Mrs. Conway Sparkes had been
brought in by Lady Monk as the only way of removing the Duchess from
her stool.
Just within the dancing-room Lady Glencora found her husband,
standing in a corner, looking as though he were making calculations.
"I'm going away," said he, coming up to her. "I only just came
because I said I would. Shall you be late?"
"Oh, no; I suppose not."
"Shall you dance?"
"Perhaps once,--just to show that I'm not an old woman."
"Don't heat yourself. Good-bye." Then he went, and in the crush of
the doorway he passed Burgo Fitzgerald, whose eye was intently fixed
upon his wife. He looked at Burgo, and some thought of that young
man's former hopes flashed across his mind,--some remembrance, too,
of a caution that had been whispered to him; but for no moment did a
suspicion come to him that he ought to stop and watch by his wife.
CHAPTER L.
How Lady Glencora Came Back from Lady Monk's Party.
Burgo Fitzgerald remained for a minute or two leaning where we
last saw him,--against the dining-room wall at the bottom of the
staircase; and as he did so some thoughts that were almost solemn
passed across his mind, This thing that he was about to do, or to
attempt,--was it in itself a good thing, and would it be good for her
whom he pretended to love? What would be her future if she consented
now to go with him, and to divide herself from her husband? Of his
own future he thought not at all. He had never done so. Even when he
had first found himself attracted by the reputation of her wealth, he
cannot be said to have looked forward in any prudential way to coming
years. His desire to put himself in possession of so magnificent
a fortune had simply prompted him, as he might have been prompted
to play for a high stake at a gaming-table. But now, during these
moments, he did think a little of her. Would she be happy, simply
because he loved her, when all women should cease to acknowledge
her; when men would regard her as one degraded and dishonoured; when
society should be closed against her; when she would be driven to
live loudly because the softness and graces of quiet life would be
denied to her? Burgo knew well what must be the nature of such a
woman's life in such circumstances. Would Glencora be happy with him
while living such a life simply because he loved her? And, under such
circumstances, was it likely that he would continue to love her? Did
he not know himself to be the most inconstant of men, and the least
trustworthy? Leaning thus against the wall at the bottom of the
stairs he did ask himself all these questions with something of true
feeling about his heart, and almost persuaded himself that he had
better take his hat and wander forth anywhere into the streets. It
mattered little what might become of himself. If he could drink
himself out of the world, it might be an end of things that would be
not altogether undesirable.
But then the remembrance of his aunt's two hundred pounds came upon
him, which money he even now had about him on his person, and a
certain idea of honour told him that he was bound to do that for
which the money had been given to him. As to telling his aunt that he
had changed his mind, and, therefore, refunding the money--no such
thought as that was possible to him! To give back two hundred pounds
entire,--two hundred pounds which were already within his clutches,
was not within the compass of Burgo's generosity. Remembering the
cash, he told himself that hesitation was no longer possible to
him. So he gathered himself up, stretched his hands over his head,
uttered a sigh that was audible to all around him, and took himself
up-stairs.
He looked in at his aunt's room, and then he saw her and was seen by
her. "Well, Burgo," she said, with her sweetest smile, "have you been
dancing?" He turned away from her without answering her, muttering
something between his teeth about a cold-blooded Jezebel,--which, if
she had heard it, would have made her think him the most ungrateful
of men. But she did not hear him, and smiled still as he went away,
saying something to Mrs. Conway Sparkes as to the great change for the
better which had taken place in her nephew's conduct.
"There's no knowing who may not reform," said Mrs. Sparkes, with an
emphasis which seemed to Lady Monk to be almost uncourteous.
Burgo made his way first into the front room and then into the
larger room where the dancing was in progress, and there he saw Lady
Glencora standing up in a quadrille with the Marquis of Hartletop.
Lord Hartletop was a man not much more given to conversation than
his wife, and Lady Glencora seemed to go through her work with very
little gratification either in the dancing or in the society of her
partner. She was simply standing up to dance, because, as she had
told Mr. Palliser, ladies of her age generally do stand up on such
occasions. Burgo watched her as she crossed and re-crossed the room,
and at last she was aware of his presence. It made no change in her,
except that she became even somewhat less animated than she had been
before. She would not seem to see him, nor would she allow herself to
be driven into a pretence of a conversation with her partner because
he was there. "I will go up to her at once, and ask her to waltz,"
Burgo said to himself, as soon as the last figure of the quadrille
was in action. "Why should I not ask her as well as any other woman?"
Then the music ceased, and after a minute's interval Lord Hartletop
took away his partner on his arm into another room. Burgo, who had
been standing near the door, followed them at once. The crowd was
great, so that he could not get near them or even keep them in sight,
but he was aware of the way in which they were going.
It was five minutes after this when he again saw her, and then she
was seated on a cane bench in the gallery, and an old woman was
standing close to her, talking to her. It was Mrs. Marsham cautioning
her against some petty imprudence, and Lady Glencora was telling that
lady that she needed no such advice, in words almost as curt as those
I have used. Lord Hartletop had left her, feeling that, as far as
that was concerned, he had done his duty for the night. Burgo knew
nothing of Mrs. Marsham,--had never seen her before, and was quite
unaware that she had any special connection with Mr. Palliser. It was
impossible, he thought, to find Lady Glencora in a better position
for his purpose, so he made his way up to her through the crowd, and
muttering some slight inaudible word, offered her his hand.
"That will do very well thank you, Mrs. Marsham," Lady Glencora said
at this moment. "Pray, do not trouble yourself," and then she gave
her hand to Fitzgerald. Mrs. Marsham, though unknown to him, knew with
quite sufficient accuracy who he was, and all his history, as far as
it concerned her friend's wife. She had learned the whole story of
the loves of Burgo and Lady Glencora. Though Mr. Palliser had never
mentioned that man's name to her, she was well aware that her duty
as a duenna would make it expedient that she should keep a doubly
wary eye upon him should he come near the sheepfold. And there he was,
close to them, almost leaning over them, with the hand of his late
lady love,--the hand of Mr. Palliser's wife,--within his own! How Lady
Glencora might have carried herself at this moment had Mrs. Marsham
not been there, it is bootless now to surmise; but it may be well
understood that under Mrs. Marsham's immediate eye all her resolution
would be in Burgo's favour. She looked at him softly and kindly, and
though she uttered no articulate word, her countenance seemed to show
that the meeting was not unpleasant to her.
"Will you waltz?" said Burgo,--asking it not at all as though it were
a special favour,--asking it exactly as he might have done had they
been in the habit of dancing with each other every other night for
the last three months.
"I don't think Lady Glencora will waltz to-night," said Mrs. Marsham,
very stiffly. She certainly did not know her business as a duenna, or
else the enormity of Burgo's proposition had struck her so forcibly
as to take away from her all her presence of mind. Otherwise, she
must have been aware that such an answer from her would surely drive
her friend's wife into open hostility.
"And why not, Mrs. Marsham?" said Lady Glencora rising from her seat.
"Why shouldn't I waltz to-night? I rather think I shall, the more
especially as Mr. Fitzgerald waltzes very well." Thereupon she put her
hand upon Burgo's arm.
Mrs. Marsham made still a little effort,--a little effort that was
probably involuntary. She put out her hand, and laid it on Lady
Glencora's left shoulder, looking into her face as she did so with
all the severity of caution of which she was mistress. Lady Glencora
shook her duenna off angrily. Whether she would put her fate into
the hands of this man who was now touching her, or whether she would
not, she had not as yet decided; but of this she was very sure,
that nothing said or done by Mrs. Marsham should have any effect in
restraining her.
What could Mrs. Marsham do? Mr. Palliser was gone. Some rumour of
that proposed visit to Monkshade, and the way in which it had been
prevented, had reached her ear. Some whispers had come to her that
Fitzgerald still dared to love, as married, the woman whom he had
loved before she was married. There was a rumour about that he still
had some hope. Mrs. Marsham had never believed that Mr. Palliser's
wife would really be false to her vows. It was not in fear of any such
catastrophe as a positive elopement that she had taken upon herself
the duty of duenna. Lady Glencora would, no doubt, require to be
pressed down into that decent mould which it would become the wife
of a Mr. Palliser to assume as her form; and this pressing down, and
this moulding, Mrs. Marsham thought that she could accomplish. It had
not hitherto occurred to her that she might be required to guard Mr.
Palliser from positive dishonour; but now--now she hardly knew what
to think about it. What should she do? To whom should she go? And
then she saw Mr. Bott looming large before her on the top of the
staircase.
[Illustration: Mr. Bott on the watch.]
In the meantime Lady Glencora went off towards the dancers, leaning
on Burgo's arm. "Who is that woman?" said Burgo. They were the first
words he spoke to her, though since he had last seen her he had
written to her that letter which even now she carried about her. His
voice in her ears sounded as it used to sound when their intimacy
had been close, and questions such as that he had asked were common
between them. And her answer was of the same nature. "Oh, such an
odious woman!" she said. "Her name is Mrs. Marsham; she is my bête
noire." And then they were actually dancing, whirling round the room
together, before a word had been said of that which was Burgo's
settled purpose, and which at some moments was her settled purpose
also.
Burgo waltzed excellently, and in old days, before her marriage, Lady
Glencora had been passionately fond of dancing. She seemed to give
herself up to it now as though the old days had come back to her.
Lady Monk, creeping to the intermediate door between her den and
the dancing-room, looked in on them, and then crept back again. Mrs.
Marsham and Mr. Bott standing together just inside the other door,
near to the staircase, looked on also--in horror.
"He shouldn't have gone away and left her," said Mr. Bott, almost
hoarsely.
"But who could have thought it?" said Mrs. Marsham. "I'm sure I
didn't."
"I suppose you'd better tell him?" said Mr. Bott.
"But I don't know where to find him," said Mrs. Marsham.
"I didn't mean now at once," said Mr. Bott;--and then he added, "Do
you think it is as bad as that?"
"I don't know what to think," said Mrs. Marsham.
The waltzers went on till they were stopped by want of breath. "I
am so much out of practice," said Lady Glencora; "I didn't think--I
should have been able--to dance at all." Then she put up her face,
and slightly opened her mouth, and stretched her nostrils,--as ladies
do as well as horses when the running has been severe and they want
air.
"You'll take another turn," said he.
"Presently," said she, beginning to have some thought in her mind
as to whether Mrs. Marsham was watching her. Then there was a little
pause, after which he spoke in an altered voice.
"Does it put you in mind of old days?" said he.
It was, of course, necessary for him that he should bring her to some
thought of the truth. It was all very sweet, that dancing with her,
as they used to dance, without any question as to the reason why it
was so; that sudden falling into the old habits, as though everything
between this night and the former nights had been a dream; but this
would not further his views. The opportunity had come to him which
he must use, if he intended ever to use such opportunity. There was
the two hundred pounds in his pocket, which he did not intend to give
back. "Does it put you in mind of 'old days?'" he said.
The words roused her from her sleep at once, and dissipated her
dream. The facts all rushed upon her in an instant; the letter in her
pocket; the request which she had made to Alice, that Alice might be
induced to guard her from this danger; the words which her husband
had spoken to her in the morning, and her anger against him in that
he had subjected her to the eyes of a Mrs. Marsham; her own unsettled
mind--quite unsettled whether it would be best for her to go or to
stay! It all came upon her now at the first word of tenderness which
Burgo spoke to her.
It has often been said of woman that she who doubts is lost,--so
often that they who say it now, say it simply because others have
said it before them, never thinking whether or no there be any truth
in the proverb. But they who have said so, thinking of their words as
they were uttered, have known but little of women. Women doubt every
day, who solve their doubts at last on the right side, driven to
do so, some by fear, more by conscience, but most of them by that
half-prudential, half-unconscious knowledge of what is fitting,
useful, and best under the cirumstances, which rarely deserts
either men or women till they have brought themselves to the Burgo
Fitzgerald state of recklessness. Men when they have fallen even to
that, will still keep up some outward show towards the world; but
women in this condition defy the world, and declare themselves to be
children of perdition. Lady Glencora was doubting sorely; but, though
doubting, she was not as yet lost.
"Does it put you in mind of old days?" said Burgo.
She was driven to answer, and she knew that much would be decided by
the way in which she might now speak. "You must not talk of that,"
she said, very softly.
"May I not?" And now his tongue was unloosed, so that he began to
speak quickly. "May I not? And why not? They were happy days,--so
happy! Were not you happy when you thought--? Ah, dear! I suppose it
is best not even to think of them?"
"Much the best."
"Only it is impossible. I wish I knew the inside of your heart, Cora,
so that I could see what it is that you really wish."
In the old days he had always called her Cora, and now the name
came from his lips upon her ears as a thing of custom, causing no
surprise. They were standing back, behind the circle, almost in a
corner, and Burgo knew well how to speak at such moments so that his
words should be audible to none but her whom he addressed.
"You should not have come to me at all," she said.
"And why not? Who has a better right to come to you? Who has ever
loved you as I have done? Cora, did you get my letter?"
"Come and dance," she said; "I see a pair of eyes looking at us."
The pair of eyes which Lady Glencora saw were in the possession of
Mr. Bott, who was standing alone, leaning against the side of the
doorway, every now and then raising his heels from the ground, so
that he might look down upon the sinners as from a vantage ground.
He was quite alone. Mrs. Marsham had left him, and had gotten herself
away in Lady Glencora's own carriage to Park Lane, in order that she
might find Mr. Palliser there, if by chance he should be at home.
"Won't it be making mischief?" Mrs. Marsham had said when Mr. Bott had
suggested this line of conduct.
"There'll be worse mischief if you don't," Mr. Bott had answered. "He
can come back, and then he can do as he likes. I'll keep my eyes upon
them." And so he did keep his eyes upon them.
Again they went round the room,--or that small portion of the room
which the invading crowd had left to the dancers,--as though they
were enjoying themselves thoroughly, and in all innocence. But there
were others besides Mr. Bott who looked on and wondered. The Duchess
of St. Bungay saw it, and shook her head sorrowing,--for the Duchess
was good at heart. Mrs. Conway Sparkes saw it, and drank it down with
keen appetite,--as a thirsty man with a longing for wine will drink
champagne,--for Mrs. Conway Sparkes was not good at heart. Lady
Hartletop saw it, and just raised her eyebrows. It was nothing to
her. She liked to know what was going on, as such knowledge was
sometimes useful; but, as for heart,--what she had was, in such a
matter, neither good nor bad. Her blood circulated with its ordinary
precision, and, in that respect, no woman ever had a better heart.
Lady Monk saw it, and a frown gathered on her brow. "The fool!" she
said to herself. She knew that Burgo would not help his success by
drawing down the eyes of all her guests upon his attempt. In the
meantime Mr. Bott stood there, mounting still higher on his toes,
straightening his back against the wall.
"Did you get my letter?" Burgo said again, as soon as a moment's
pause gave him breath to speak. She did not answer him. Perhaps her
breath did not return to her as rapidly as his. But, of course, he
knew that she had received it. She would have quickly signified to
him that no letter from him had come to her hands had it not reached
her. "Let us go out upon the stairs," he said, "for I must speak to
you. Oh, if you could know what I suffered when you did not come to
Monkshade! Why did you not come?"
"I wish I had not come here," she said.
"Because you have seen me? That, at any rate, is not kind of you."
They were now making their way slowly down the stairs, in the crowd,
towards the supper-room. All the world was now intent on food and
drink, and they were only doing as others did. Lady Glencora was not
thinking where she went, but, glancing upwards, as she stood for a
moment wedged upon the stairs, her eyes met those of Mr. Bott. "A man
that can treat me like that deserves that I should leave him." That
was the thought that crossed her mind at the moment.
"I'll get you some champagne with water in it," said Burgo. "I know
that is what you like."
"Do not get me anything," she said. They had now got into the
room, and had therefore escaped Mr. Bott's eyes for the moment. "Mr.
Fitzgerald,"--and now her words had become a whisper in his ear,--"do
what I ask you. For the sake of the old days of which you spoke, the
dear old days which can never come again--"
"By G----! they can," said he. "They can come back, and they shall."
"Never. But you can still do me a kindness. Go away, and leave me.
Go to the sideboard, and then do not come back. You are doing me an
injury while you remain with me."
"Cora," he said,
But she had now recovered her presence of mind, and understood what
was going on. She was no longer in a dream, but words and things
bore to her again their proper meaning. "I will not have it, Mr.
Fitzgerald," she answered, speaking almost passionately. "I will not
have it. Do as I bid you. Go and leave me, and do not return. I tell
you that we are watched." This was still true, for Mr. Bott had now
again got his eyes on them, round the supper-room door. Whatever was
the reward for which he was working, private secretaryship or what
else, it must be owned that he worked hard for it. But there are
labours which are labours of love.
"Who is watching us?" said Burgo; "and what does it matter? If you
are minded to do as I have asked you--"
"But I am not so minded. Do you not know that you insult me by
proposing it?"
"Yes;--it is an insult, Cora,--unless such an offer be a joy to you.
If you wish to be my wife instead of his, it is no insult."
"How can I be that?" Her face was not turned to him, and her words
were half-pronounced, and in the lowest whisper, but, nevertheless,
he heard them.
"Come with me,--abroad, and you shall yet be my wife. You got my
letter? Do what I asked you, then. Come with me--to-night."
The pressing instance of the suggestion, the fixing of a present
hour, startled her back to her propriety. "Mr. Fitzgerald," she said,
"I asked you to go and leave me. If you do not do so, I must get up
and leave you. It will be much more difficult."
"And is that to be all?"
"All;--at any rate, now." Oh, Glencora! how could you be so weak? Why
did you add that word, "now"? In truth, she added it then, at that
moment, simply feeling that she could thus best secure an immediate
compliance with her request.
"I will not go," he said, looking at her sternly, and leaning before
her, with earnest face, with utter indifference as to the eyes of any
that might see them. "I will not go till you tell me that you will
see me again."
"I will," she said in that low, all-but-unuttered whisper.
"When,--when,--when?" he asked.
Looking up again towards the doorway, in fear of Mr. Bott's eyes, she
saw the face of Mr. Palliser as he entered the room. Mr. Bott had also
seen him, and had tried to clutch him by the arm; but Mr. Palliser
had shaken him off, apparently with indifference,--had got rid of
him, as it were, without noticing him. Lady Glencora, when she saw
her husband, immediately recovered her courage. She would not cower
before him, or show herself ashamed of what she had done. For the
matter of that, if he pressed her on the subject, she could bring
herself to tell him that she loved Burgo Fitzgerald much more easily
than she could whisper such a word to Burgo himself. Mr. Bott's eyes
were odious to her as they watched her; but her husband's glance
she could meet without quailing before it. "Here is Mr. Palliser,"
said she, speaking again in her ordinary clear-toned voice. Burgo
immediately rose from his seat with a start, and turned quickly
towards the door; but Lady Glencora kept her chair.
Mr. Palliser made his way as best he could through the crowd up to
his wife. He, too, kept his countenance without betraying his secret.
There was neither anger nor dismay in his face, nor was there any
untoward hurry in his movement. Burgo stood aside as he came up, and
Lady Glencora was the first to speak. "I thought you were gone home
hours ago," she said.
"I did go home," he answered, "but I thought I might as well come
back for you."
"What a model of a husband! Well; I am ready. Only, what shall we do
about Jane? Mr. Fitzgerald, I left a scarf in your aunt's room,--a
little black and yellow scarf,--would you mind getting it for me?"
"I will fetch it," said Mr. Palliser; "and I will tell your cousin
that the carriage shall come back for her."
"If you will allow me--" said Burgo.
"I will do it," said Mr. Palliser; and away he went, making his slow
progress up through the crowd, ordering his carriage as he passed
through the hall, and leaving Mr. Bott still watching at the door.
Lady Glencora resolved that she would say nothing to Burgo while her
husband was gone. There was a touch of chivalry in his leaving them
again together, which so far conquered her. He might have bade her
leave the scarf, and come at once. She had seen, moreover, that he
had not spoken to Mr. Bott, and was thankful to him also for that.
Burgo also seemed to have become aware that his chance for that
time was over. "I will say good-night," he said. "Good-night, Mr.
Fitzgerald," she answered, giving him her hand. He pressed it for a
moment, and then turned and went. When Mr. Palliser came back he was
no more to be seen.
Lady Glencora was at the dining-room door when her husband returned,
standing close to Mr. Bott. Mr. Bott had spoken to her, but she made
no reply. He spoke again, but her face remained as immovable as though
she had been deaf. "And what shall we do about Mrs. Marsham?" she
said, quite out loud, as soon as she put her hand on her husband's
arm. "I had forgotten her."
"Mrs. Marsham has gone home," he replied.
"Have you seen her?"
"Yes."
"When did you see her?"
"She came to Park Lane."
"What made her do that?"
These questions were asked and answered as he was putting her into
the carriage. She got in just as she asked the last, and he, as he
took his seat, did not find it necessary to answer it. But that would
not serve her turn. "What made Mrs. Marsham go to you at Park Lane
after she left Lady Monk's?" she asked again. Mr. Palliser sat silent,
not having made up his mind what he would say on the subject. "I
suppose she went," continued Lady Glencora, "to tell you that I was
dancing with Mr. Fitzgerald. Was that it?"
"I think, Glencora, we had better not discuss it now."
"I don't mean to discuss it now, or ever. If you did not wish me
to see Mr. Fitzgerald you should not have sent me to Lady Monk's.
But, Plantagenet, I hope you will forgive me if I say that no
consideration shall induce me to receive again as a guest, in my own
house, either Mrs. Marsham or Mr. Bott."
Mr. Palliser absolutely declined to say anything on the subject on
that occasion, and the evening of Lady Monk's party in this way came
to an end.
CHAPTER LI.
Bold Speculations on Murder.
George Vavasor was not in a very happy mood when he left Queen Anne
Street, after having flung his gift ring under the grate. Indeed
there was much in his condition, as connected with the house which
he was leaving, which could not but make him unhappy. Alice was
engaged to be his wife, and had as yet said nothing to show that she
meditated any breach of that engagement, but she had treated him in
a way which made him long to throw her promise in her teeth. He was
a man to whom any personal slight from a woman was unendurable. To
slights from men, unless they were of a nature to provoke offence,
he was indifferent. There was no man living for whose liking or
disliking George Vavasor cared anything. But he did care much for the
good opinion, or rather for the personal favour, of any woman to whom
he had endeavoured to make himself agreeable. "I will marry you,"
Alice had said to him,--not in words, but in acts and looks, which
were plainer than words,--"I will marry you for certain reasons of my
own, which in my present condition make it seem that that arrangement
will be more convenient to me than any other that I can make; but
pray understand that there is no love mixed up with this. There is
another man whom I love;--only, for those reasons above hinted, I
do not care to marry him." It was thus that he read Alice's present
treatment of him, and he was a man who could not endure this
treatment with ease.
But though he could throw his ring under the grate in his passion, he
could not so dispose of her. That he would have done so had his hands
been free, we need not doubt. And he would have been clever enough
to do so in some manner that would have been exquisitely painful to
Alice, willing as she might be to be released from her engagement.
But he could not do this to a woman whose money he had borrowed, and
whose money he could not repay;--to a woman, more of whose money he
intended to borrow immediately. As to that latter part of it, he did
say to himself over and over again, that he would have no more of
it. As he left the house in Queen Anne Street, on that occasion, he
swore, that under no circumstances would he be indebted to her for
another shilling. But before he had reached Great Marlborough Street,
to which his steps took him, he had reminded himself that everything
depended on a further advance. He was in Parliament, but Parliament
would be dissolved within three months. Having sacrificed so much
for his position, should he let it all fall from him now,--now, when
success seemed to be within his reach? That wretched old man in
Westmoreland, who seemed gifted almost with immortality,--why could
he not die and surrender his paltry acres to one who could use them?
He turned away from Regent Street into Hanover Square before he
crossed to Great Marlborough Street, giving vent to his passion
rather than arranging his thoughts. As he walked the four sides of
the square he considered how good it would be if some accident should
befall the old man. How he would rejoice were he to hear to-morrow
that one of the trees of the "accursed place," had fallen on the
"obstinate old idiot," and put an end to him! I will not say that he
meditated the murder of his grandfather. There was a firm conviction
on his mind, as he thought of all this, that such a deed as that
would never come in his way. But he told himself, that if he chose
to make the attempt, he would certainly be able to carry it through
without detection. Then he remembered Rush and Palmer--the openly
bold murderer and the secret poisoner. Both of them, in Vavasor's
estimation, were great men. He had often said so in company. He had
declared that the courage of Rush had never been surpassed. "Think of
him," he would say with admiration, "walking into a man's house, with
pistols sufficient to shoot every one there, and doing it as though
he were killing rats! What was Nelson at Trafalgar to that? Nelson
had nothing to fear!" And of Palmer he declared that he was a man
of genius as well as courage. He had "looked the whole thing in the
face," Vavasor would say, "and told himself that all scruples and
squeamishness are bosh,--child's tales. And so they are. Who lives
as though they fear either heaven or hell? And if we do live without
such fear or respect, what is the use of telling lies to ourselves?
To throw it all to the dogs, as Palmer did, is more manly." "And
be hanged," some hearer of George's doctrine replied. "Yes, and be
hanged,--if such is your destiny. But you hear of the one who is
hanged, but hear nothing of the twenty who are not."
Vavasor walked round Hanover Square, nursing his hatred against the
old Squire. He did not tell himself that he would like to murder his
grandfather. But he suggested to himself, that if he desired to do
so, he would have courage enough to make his way into the old man's
room, and strangle him; and he explained to himself how he would be
able to get down into Westmoreland without the world knowing that he
had been there,--how he would find an entrance into the house by a
window with which he was acquainted,--how he could cause the man to
die as though, those around him should think, it was apoplexy,--he,
George Vavasor, having read something on that subject lately. All
this he considered very fully, walking rapidly round Hanover Square
more than once or twice. If he were to become an active student in
the Rush or Palmer school, he would so study the matter that he would
not be the one that should be hung. He thought that he could, so far,
trust his own ingenuity. But yet he did not meditate murder. "Beastly
old idiot!" he said to himself, "he must have his chance as other
men have, I suppose," And then he went across Regent Street to Mr.
Scruby's office in Great Marlborough Street, not having, as yet, come
to any positive conclusion as to what he would do in reference to
Alice's money.
But he soon found himself talking to Mr. Scruby as though there were
no doubts as to the forthcoming funds for the next elections. And
Mr. Scruby talked to him very plainly, as though those funds must
be forthcoming before long. "A stitch in time saves nine," said Mr.
Scruby, meaning to insinuate that a pound in time might have the
same effect. "And I'll tell you what, Mr. Vavasor,--of course I've my
outstanding bills for the last affair. That's no fault of yours, for
the things came so sharp one on another that my fellows haven't had
time to make it out. But if you'll put me in funds for what I must be
out of pocket in June--"
"Will it be so soon as June?"
"They are talking of June. Why, then, I'll lump the two bills
together when it's all over."
In their discussion respecting money Mr. Scruby injudiciously
mentioned the name of Mr. Tombe. No precise caution had been given
to him, but he had become aware that the matter was being managed
through an agency that was not recognized by his client; and as that
agency was simply a vehicle of money which found its way into Mr.
Scruby's pocket, he should have held his tongue. But Mr. Tombe's name
escaped from him, and Vavasor immediately questioned him. Scruby, who
did not often make such blunders, readily excused himself, shaking
his head, and declaring that the name had fallen from his lips
instead of that of another man. Vavasor accepted the excuse without
further notice, and nothing more was said about Mr. Tombe while he
was in Mr. Scruby's office. But he had not heard the name in vain,
and had unfortunately heard it before. Mr. Tombe was a remarkable
man in his way. He wore powder to his hair,--was very polite in his
bearing,--was somewhat asthmatic, and wheezed in his talking,--and
was, moreover, the most obedient of men, though it was said of him
that he managed the whole income of the Ely Chapter just as he
pleased. Being in these ways a man of note, John Grey had spoken of
him to Alice, and his name had filtered through Alice and her cousin
Kate to George Vavasor. George seldom forgot things or names, and
when he heard Mr. Tombe's name mentioned in connection with his own
money matters, he remembered that Mr. Tombe was John Grey's lawyer.
As soon as he could escape out into the street he endeavoured to put
all these things together, and after a while resolved that he would
go to Mr. Tombe. What if there should be an understanding between John
Grey and Alice, and Mr. Tombe should be arranging his money matters
for him! Would not anything be better than this,--even that little
tragedy down in Westmoreland, for which his ingenuity and courage
would be required? He could endure to borrow money from Alice. He
might even endure it still,--though that was very difficult after
her treatment of him; but he could not endure to be the recipient of
John Grey's money. By heavens, no! And as he got into a cab, and had
himself driven off to the neighbourhood of Doctors' Commons, he gave
himself credit for much fine manly feeling. Mr. Tombe's chambers were
found without difficulty, and, as it happened, Mr. Tombe was there.
The lawyer rose from his chair as Vavasor entered, and bowed his
powdered head very meekly as he asked his visitor to sit down. "Mr.
Vavasor;--oh, yes. He had heard the name. Yes; he was in the habit of
acting for his very old friend Mr. John Grey. He had acted for Mr. John
Grey, and for Mr. John Grey's father,--he or his partner,--he believed
he might say, for about half a century. There could not be a nicer
gentleman than Mr. John Grey;--and such a pretty child as he used to
be!" At every new sentence Mr. Tombe caught his poor asthmatic breath,
and bowed his meek old head, and rubbed his hands together as though
he hardly dared to keep his seat in Vavasor's presence without the
support of some such motion; and wheezed apologetically, and seemed
to ask pardon of his visitor for not knowing intuitively what was the
nature of that visitor's business. But he was a sly old fox was Mr.
Tombe, and was considering all this time how much it would be well
that he should tell Mr. Vavasor, and how much it would be well that he
should conceal. "The fat had got into the fire," as he told his old
wife when he got home that evening. He told his old wife everything,
and I don't know that any of his clients were the worse for his doing
so. But while he was wheezing, and coughing, and apologizing, he made
up his mind that if George Vavasor were to ask him certain questions,
it would be best that he should answer them truly. If Vavasor did ask
those questions, he would probably do so upon certain knowledge, and
if so, why, in that case, lying would be of no use. Lying would not
put the fat back into the frying pan. And even though such questions
might be asked without any absolute knowledge, they would, at any
rate, show that the questioner had the means of ascertaining the
truth. He would tell as little as he could; but he decided during his
last wheeze, that he could not lie in the matter with any chance of
benefiting his client. "The prettiest child I ever saw, Mr. Vavasor!"
said Mr. Tombe, and then he coughed violently. Some people who knew
Mr. Tombe declared that he nursed his cough.
"I dare say," said George.
"Yes, indeed,--ugh--ugh--ugh."
"Can you tell me, Mr. Tombe, whether either you or he have anything to
do with the payment of certain sums to my credit at Messrs. Hock and
Block's?"
"Messrs. Hock and Block's, the bankers,--in Lom--bard Street?" said Mr.
Tombe, taking a little more time.
"Yes; I bank there," said Vavasor, sharply.
"A most respectable house."
"Has any money been paid there to my credit, by you, Mr. Tombe?"
"May I ask you why you put the question to me, Mr. Vavasor?"
"Well, I don't think you may. That is to say, my reason for asking it
can have nothing to do with yours for replying to it. If you have had
no hand in any such payment, there is an end of it, and I need not
take up your time by saying anything more on the subject."
"I am not prepared to go that length, Mr. Vavasor,--not altogether to
go that length,--ugh--ugh--ugh."
"Then, will you tell me what you have done in the matter?"
"Well,--upon my word, you've taken me a little by surprise. Let me
see. Pinkle,--Pinkle." Pinkle was a clerk who sat in an inner room,
and Mr. Tombe's effort to call him seemed to be most ineffectual. But
Pinkle understood the sound, and came. "Pinkle, didn't we pay some
money into Hock and Block's a few weeks since, to the credit of Mr.
George Vavasor?"
"Did we, sir?" said Pinkle, who probably knew that his employer was
an old fox, and who, perhaps, had caught something of the fox nature
himself.
"I think we did. Just look Pinkle;--and, Pinkle,--see the date, and
let me know all about it. It's fine bright weather for this time of
year, Mr. Vavasor; but these easterly winds!--ugh--ugh--ugh!"
Vavasor found himself sitting for an apparently interminable number
of minutes in Mr. Tombe's dingy chamber, and was coughed at, and
wheezed at, till he begun to be tired of his position; moreover, when
tired, he showed his impatience. "Perhaps you'll let us write you a
line when we have looked into the matter?" suggested Mr. Tombe.
"I'd rather know at once," said Vavasor. "I don't suppose it can take
you very long to find out whether you have paid money to my account,
by order of Mr. Grey. At any rate, I must know before I go away."
"Pinkle, Pinkle!" screamed the old man through his coughing; and
again Pinkle came. "Well, Pinkle, was anything of the kind done, or
is my memory deceiving me?" Mr. Tombe was, no doubt, lying shamefully,
for, of course, he remembered all about it; and, indeed, George
Vavasor had learned already quite enough for his own purposes.
"I was going to look," said Pinkle; and Pinkle again went away.
"I'm sorry to give your clerk so much trouble," said Vavasor, in an
angry voice; "and I think it must be unnecessary. Surely you know
whether Mr. Grey has commissioned you to pay money for me?"
"We have so many things to do, Mr. Vavasor; and so many clients. We
have, indeed. You see, it isn't only one gentleman's affairs. But I
think there was something done. I do, indeed."
"What is Mr. John Grey's address?" asked Vavasor, very sharply.
"Number 5, Suffolk Street, Pall Mall East," said Mr. Tombe. Herein
Mr. Tombe somewhat committed himself. His client, Mr. Grey, was, in
fact, in town, but Vavasor had not known or imagined that such was
the case. Had Mr. Tombe given the usual address of Nethercoats, nothing
further would have been demanded from him on that subject. But he
had foolishly presumed that the question had been based on special
information as to his client's visit to London, and he had told the
plain truth in a very simple way.
"Number 5, Suffolk Street," said Vavasor, writing down the address.
"Perhaps it will be better that I should go to him, as you do not
seem inclined to give me any information." Then he took up his hat,
and hardly bowing to Mr. Tombe, left the chambers. Mr. Tombe, as he
did so, rose from his chair, and bent his head meekly down upon the
table.
"Pinkle, Pinkle," wheezed Mr. Tombe. "Never mind; never mind." Pinkle
didn't mind; and we may say that he had not minded; for up to that
moment he had taken no steps towards a performance of the order which
had been given him.
CHAPTER LII.
What Occurred in Suffolk Street, Pall Mall.
Mr. Tombe had gained nothing for the cause by his crafty silence.
George Vavasor felt perfectly certain, as he walked out from the
little street which runs at the back of Doctors' Commons, that the
money which he had been using had come, in some shape, through the
hands of John Grey. He did not care much to calculate whether the
payments had been made from the personal funds of his rival, or
whether that rival had been employed to dispense Alice's fortune.
Under either view of the case his position was sufficiently bitter.
The truth never for a moment occurred to him. He never dreamed that
there might be a conspiracy in the matter, of which Alice was as
ignorant as he himself had been. He never reflected that his uncle
John, together with John, the lover, whom he so hated, might be the
conspirators. To him it seemed to be certain that Alice and Mr. Grey
were in league;--and if they were in league, what must he think of
Alice, and of her engagement with himself!
There are men who rarely think well of women,--who hardly think
well of any woman. They put their mothers and sisters into the
background,--as though they belonged to some sex or race apart,--and
then declare to themselves and to their friends that all women are
false,--that no woman can be trusted unless her ugliness protect
her; and that every woman may be attacked as fairly as may game in
a cover, or deer on a mountain, What man does not know men who have
so thought? I cannot say that such had been Vavasor's creed,--not
entirely such. There had been periods of his life when he had
believed implicitly in his cousin Alice;--but then there had been
other moments in which he had ridiculed himself for his Quixotism
in believing in any woman. And as he had grown older the moments of
his Quixotism had become more rare. There would have been no such
Quixotism left with him now, had not the various circumstances which
I have attempted to describe, filled him, during the last twelve
months, with a renewed desire to marry his cousin. Every man tries to
believe in the honesty of his future wife; and, therefore, Vavasor
had tried, and had in his way, believed. He had flattered himself,
too, that Alice's heart had, in truth, been more prone to him than to
that other suitor. Grey, as he thought, had been accepted by her cold
prudence; but he thought, also, that she had found her prudence to
be too cold, and had therefore returned where she had truly loved.
Vavasor, though he did not love much himself, was willing enough to
be the object of love.
This idea of his, however, had been greatly shaken by Alice's
treatment of himself personally; but still he had not, hitherto,
believed that she was false to him. Now, what could he believe of
her? What was there within the compass of such a one to believe?
As he walked out into St. Paul's Churchyard he called her by every
name which is most offensive to a woman's ears. He hated her at this
moment with even a more bitter hatred than that which he felt towards
John Grey. She must have deceived him with unparalleled hypocrisy,
and lied to him and to his sister Kate as hardly any woman had ever
lied before. Or could it be that Kate, also, was lying to him? If so,
Kate also should be included in the punishment.
But why should they have conspired to feed him with these moneys?
There had been no deceit, at any rate, in reference to the pounds
sterling which Scruby had already swallowed. They had been supplied,
whatever had been the motives of the suppliers; and he had no doubt
that more would be supplied if he would only keep himself quiet. He
was still walking westward as he thought of this, down Ludgate Hill,
on his direct line towards Suffolk Street; and he tried to persuade
himself that it would be well that he should hide his wrath till
after provision should have been made for this other election. They
were his enemies,--Alice and Mr. Grey,--and why should he keep any
terms with his enemies? It was still a trouble to him to think
that he should have been in any way beholden to John Grey; but the
terrible thing had been done, the evil had occurred. What would he
gain by staying his hand now? Still, however, he walked on quickly
along Fleet Street, and along the Strand, and was already crossing
under the Picture Galleries towards Pall Mall East before he had
definitely decided what steps he would take on this very day. Exactly
at the corner of Suffolk Street he met John Grey.
"Mr. Grey," he said, stopping himself suddenly, "I was this moment
going to call on you at your lodgings."
"At my lodgings, were you? Shall I return with you?"
"If you please," said Vavasor, leading the way up Suffolk Street.
There had been no other greeting than this between them. Mr. Grey
himself, though a man very courteous in his general demeanour, would
probably have passed Vavasor in the street with no more than the
barest salutation. Situated as they were towards each other there
could hardly be any show of friendship between them; but when Vavasor
had spoken to him, he had dressed his face in that guise of civility
which men always use who do not intend to be offensive;--but Vavasor
dressed his as men dress theirs who do mean to be offensive; and Mr.
Grey had thoroughly appreciated the dressing.
"If you will allow me, I have the key," said Grey. Then they both
entered the house, and Vavasor followed his host up-stairs. Mr. Grey,
as he went up, felt almost angry with himself in having admitted his
enemy into his lodgings. He was sure that no good could come of it,
and remembered, when it was too late, that he might easily have saved
himself from giving the invitation while he was still in the street.
There they were, however, together in the sitting-room, and Grey had
nothing to do but to listen. "Will you take a chair, Mr. Vavasor?" he
said. "No," said Vavasor; "I will stand up." And he stood up, holding
his hat behind his back with his left hand, with his right leg
forward, and the thumb of his right hand in his waistcoat-pocket. He
looked full into Grey's face, and Grey looked full into his; and as
he looked the great cicatrice seemed to open itself and to become
purple with fresh blood stains.
"I have come here from Mr. Tombe's office in the City," said Vavasor,
"to ask you of what nature has been the interference which you have
taken in my money matters?"
This was a question which Mr. Grey could not answer very quickly. In
the first place it was altogether unexpected; in the next place he
did not know what Mr. Tombe had told, and what he had not told; and
then, before he replied, he must think how much of the truth he was
bound to tell in answer to a question so put to him.
"Do you say that you have come from Mr. Tombe?" he asked.
"I think you heard me say so. I have come here direct from Mr. Tombe's
chambers. He is your lawyer, I believe?"
"He is so."
"And I have come from him to ask you what interference you have
lately taken in my money matters. When you have answered that, I
shall have other questions to ask you."
"But, Mr. Vavasor, has it occurred to you that I may not be disposed
to answer questions so asked?"
"It has not occurred to me to think that you will prevaricate. If
there has been no such interference, I will ask your pardon, and go
away; but if there has been such interference on your part, I have a
right to demand that you shall explain to me its nature."
Grey had now made up his mind that it would be better that he should
tell the whole story,--better not only for himself, but for all the
Vavasors, including this angry man himself. The angry man evidently
knew something, and it would be better that he should know the truth.
"There has been such interference, Mr. Vavasor, if you choose to call
it so. Money, to the extent of two thousand pounds, I think, has by
my directions been paid to your credit by Mr. Tombe."
"Well," said Vavasor, taking his right hand away from his waistcoat,
and tapping the round table with his fingers impatiently.
"I hardly know how to explain all the circumstances under which this
has been done."
"I dare say not; but, nevertheless, you must explain them."
Grey was a man tranquil in temperament, very little prone to
quarrelling, with perhaps an exaggerated idea of the evil results
of a row,--a man who would take infinite trouble to avoid any such
scene as that which now seemed to be imminent; but he was a man whose
courage was quite as high as that of his opponent. To bully or be
bullied were alike contrary to his nature. It was clear enough now
that Vavasor intended to bully him, and he made up his mind at once
that if the quarrel were forced upon him it should find him ready
to take his own part. "My difficulty in explaining it comes from
consideration for you," he said.
"Then I beg that your difficulty will cease, and that you will have
no consideration for me. We are so circumstanced towards each other
that any consideration must be humbug and nonsense. At any rate, I
intend to have none for you. Now, let me know why you have meddled
with my matters."
"I think I might, perhaps, better refer you to your uncle."
"No, sir; Mr. Tombe is not my uncle's lawyer. My uncle never heard his
name, unless he heard of it from you."
"But it was by agreement with your uncle that I commissioned Mr. Tombe
to raise for you the money you were desirous of borrowing from your
cousin. We thought it better that her fortune should not be for the
moment disturbed."
"But what had you to do with it? Why should you have done it? In the
first place, I don't believe your story; it is altogether improbable.
But why should he come to you of all men to raise money on his
daughter's behalf?"
"Unless you can behave yourself with more discretion, Mr. Vavasor, you
must leave the room," said Mr. Grey. Then, as Vavasor simply sneered
at him, but spoke nothing, he went on. "It was I who suggested to
your uncle that this arrangement should be made. I did not wish to
see Miss Vavasor's fortune squandered."
"And what was her fortune to you, sir? Are you aware that she is
engaged to me as my wife? I ask you, sir, whether you are aware that
Miss Vavasor is to be my wife?"
"I must altogether decline to discuss with you Miss Vavasor's present
or future position."
"By heavens, then, you shall hear me discuss it! She was engaged to
you, and she has given you your dismissal. If you had understood
anything of the conduct which is usual among gentlemen, or if you
had had any particle of pride in you, sir, you would have left her
and never mentioned her name again. I now find you meddling with her
money matters, so as to get a hold upon her fortune."
"I have no hold upon her fortune."
"Yes, sir, you have. You do not advance two thousand pounds without
knowing that you have security. She has rejected you; and in order
that you may be revenged, or that you may have some further hold
upon her,--that she may be in some sort within your power, you have
contrived this rascally pettifogging way of obtaining power over her
income. The money shall be repaid at once, with any interest that can
be due; and if I find you interfering again, I will expose you."
"Mr. Vavasor," said Grey very slowly, in a low tone of voice, but with
something in his eye which would have told any bystander that he was
much in earnest, "you have used words in your anger which I cannot
allow to pass. You must recall them."
"What were the words? I said that you were a pettifogging rascal. I
now repeat them." As he spoke he put on his hat, so as to leave both
his hands ready for action if action should be required.
Grey was much the larger man and much the stronger. It may be doubted
whether he knew himself the extent of his own strength, but such as
it was he resolved that he must now use it. "There is no help for
it," he said, as he also prepared for action. The first thing he did
was to open the door, and as he did so he became conscious that his
mouth was full of blood from a sharp blow upon his face. Vavasor
had struck him with his fist, and had cut his lip against his teeth.
Then there came a scramble, and Grey was soon aware that he had his
opponent in his hands. I doubt whether he had attempted to strike a
blow, or whether he had so much as clenched his fist. Vavasor had
struck him repeatedly, but the blows had fallen on his body or his
head, and he was unconscious of them. He had but one object now in
his mind, and that object was the kicking his assailant down the
stairs. Then came a scramble, as I have said, and Grey had a hold of
the smaller man by the nape of his neck. So holding him he forced
him back through the door on to the landing, and there succeeded in
pushing him down the first flight of steps. Grey kicked at him as
he went, but the kick was impotent. He had, however, been so far
successful that he had thrust his enemy out of the room, and had the
satisfaction of seeing him sprawling on the landing-place.
Vavasor, when he raised himself, prepared to make another rush at
the room, but before he could do so a man from below, hearing the
noise, had come upon him and interrupted him. "Mr. Jones," said Grey,
speaking from above, "if that gentleman does not leave the house, I
must get you to search for a policeman."
Vavasor, though the lodging-house man had hold of the collar of his
coat, made no attempt to turn upon his new enemy. When two dogs are
fighting, any bystander may attempt to separate them with impunity.
The brutes are so anxious to tear each other that they have no
energies left for other purposes. It never occurs to them to turn
their teeth upon newcomers in the quarrel. So it was with George
Vavasor. Jones was sufficient to prevent his further attack upon the
foe up-stairs, and therefore he had no alternative but to relinquish
the fight.
"What's it all about, sir?" said Jones, who kept a tailor's
establishment, and, as a tailor, was something of a fighting man
himself. Of all tradesmen in London the tailors are, no doubt, the
most combative,--as might be expected from the necessity which lies
upon them of living down the general bad character in this respect
which the world has wrongly given them. "What's it all about, sir?"
said Jones, still holding Vavasor by his coat.
"That man has ill-used me, and I've punished him; that's all."
"I don't know much about punishing," said the tailor. "It seems to me
he pitched you down pretty clean out of the room above. I think the
best thing you can do now is to walk yourself off."
It was the only thing that Vavasor could do, and he did walk himself
off. He walked himself off, and went home to his own lodgings in
Cecil Street, that he might smooth his feathers after the late
encounter before he went down to Westminster to take his seat in the
House of Commons. I do not think that he was comfortable when he got
there, or that he felt himself very well able to fight another battle
that night on behalf of the River Bank. He had not been hurt, but he
had been worsted. Grey had probably received more personal damage
than had fallen to his share; but Grey had succeeded in expelling him
from the room, and he knew that he had been found prostrate on the
landing-place when the tailor first saw him.
But he might probably have got over the annoyance of this feeling
had he not been overwhelmed by a consciousness that everything was
going badly with him. He was already beginning to hate his seat in
Parliament. What good had it done for him, or was it likely to do
for him? He found himself to be associated there with Mr. Bott, and
a few others of the same class,--men whom he despised; and even they
did not admit him among them without a certain show of superiority
on their part. Who has not ascertained by his own experience the
different lights through which the same events may be seen, according
to the success, or want of success, which pervades the atmosphere
at the moment? At the present time everything was unsuccessful with
George Vavasor; and though he told himself, almost from hour to hour,
that he would go on with the thing which he had begun,--that he would
persevere in Parliament till he had obtained a hearing there and
created for himself success, he could not himself believe in the
promises which he had made to himself. He had looked forward to his
entrance into that Chamber as the hour of his triumph; but he had
entered it with Mr. Bott, and there had been no triumph to him in
doing so. He had sworn to himself that when there he would find men
to hear him. Hitherto, indeed, he could not accuse himself of having
missed his opportunities; his election had been so recent that he
could hardly yet have made the attempt. But he had been there long
enough to learn to fancy that there was no glory in attempting. This
art of speaking in Parliament, which had appeared to him to be so
grand, seemed already to be a humdrum, homely, dull affair. No one
seemed to listen much to what was said. To such as himself,--Members
without an acquired name,--men did not seem to listen at all. Mr.
Palliser had once, in his hearing, spoken for two hours together, and
all the House had treated his speech with respect,--had declared that
it was useful, solid, conscientious, and what not; but more than half
the House had been asleep more than half the time that he was on his
legs. Vavasor had not as yet commenced his career as an orator; but
night after night, as he sat there, the chance of commencing it with
brilliance seemed to be further from him, and still further. Two
thousand pounds of his own money, and two thousand more of Alice's
money,--or of Mr. Grey's,--he had already spent to make his way into
that assembly. He must spend, at any rate, two thousand more if he
intended that his career should be prolonged beyond a three months'
sitting;--and how was he to get this further sum after what had taken
place to-day?
He would get it. That was his resolve as he walked in by the
apple-woman's stall, under the shadow of the great policeman, and
between the two august lamps. He would get it;--as long as Alice had
a pound over which he could obtain mastery by any act or violence
within his compass. He would get it; even though it should come
through the hands of John Grey and Mr. Tombe. He would get it; though
in doing so he might destroy his cousin Alice and ruin his sister
Kate. He had gone too far to stick at any scruples. Had he not often
declared how great had been that murderer who had been able to divest
himself of all such scruples,--who had scoured his bosom free from
all fears of the hereafter, and, as regarded the present, had dared
to trust for everything to success? He would go to Alice and demand
the money from her with threats, and with that violence in his eyes
which he knew so well how to assume. He believed that when he so
demanded it, the money would be forthcoming so as to satisfy, at any
rate, his present emergencies.
That wretched old man in Westmoreland! If he would but die, there
might yet be a hope remaining of permanent success! Even though
the estate might be entailed so as to give him no more than a
life-interest, still money might be raised on it. His life-interest
in it would be worth ten or twelve years' purchase. He had an idea
that his grandfather had not as yet made any such will when he left
the place in Westmoreland. What a boon it would be if death could be
made to overtake the old man before he did so! On this very night he
walked about the lobbies of the House, thinking of all this. He went
by himself from room to room, roaming along passages, sitting now for
ten minutes in the gallery, and then again for a short space in the
body of the House,--till he would get up and wander again out into
the lobby, impatient of the neighbourhood of Mr. Bott. Certainly just
at this time he felt no desire to bring before the House the subject
of the River Embankment.
Nor was Mr. Grey much happier when he was left alone, than was his
assailant. To give Vavasor his due, the memory of the affray itself
did not long trouble him much. The success between the combatants had
been nearly equal, and he had, at any rate, spoken his mind freely.
His misery had come from other sources. But the reflection that he
had been concerned in a row was in itself enough to make John Grey
wretched for the time. Such a misfortune had never hitherto befallen
him. In all his dealings with men words had been sufficient, and
generally words of courtesy had sufficed. To have been personally
engaged in a fighting scramble with such a man as George Vavasor was
to him terrible. When ordering that his money might be expended with
the possible object of saving Alice from her cousin, he had never
felt a moment's regret; he had never thought that he was doing more
than circumstances fairly demanded of him. But now he was almost
driven to utter reproach. "Oh, Alice! that this thing should have
come upon me through thy fault!"
When Vavasor was led away down stairs by the tailor, and Grey found
that no more actual fighting would be required of him, he retired
into his bedroom, that he might wash his mouth and free himself from
the stains of the combat. He had heard the front door closed, and
knew that the miscreant was gone,--the miscreant who had disturbed
his quiet. Then he began to think what was the accusation with which
Vavasor had charged him. He had been told that he had advanced
money on behalf of Alice, in order that he might obtain some power
over Alice's fortune, and thus revenge himself upon Alice for her
treatment of him. Nothing could be more damnably false than this
accusation. Of that he was well aware. But were not the circumstances
of a nature to make it appear that the accusation was true? Security
for the money advanced by him, of course, he had none;--of course
he had desired none;--of course the money had been given out of his
own pocket with the sole object of saving Alice, if that might be
possible; but of all those who might hear of this affair, how many
would know or even guess the truth?
While he was in this wretched state of mind, washing his mouth, and
disturbing his spirit, Mr. Jones, his landlord, came up to him. Mr.
Jones had known him for some years, and entertained a most profound
respect for his character. A rather sporting man than otherwise was
Mr. Jones. His father had been a tradesman at Cambridge, and in this
way Jones had become known to Mr. Grey. But though given to sport,
by which he meant modern prize-fighting and the Epsom course on the
Derby day, Mr. Jones was a man who dearly loved respectable customers
and respectable lodgers. Mr. Grey, with his property at Nethercoats,
and his august manners, and his reputation at Cambridge, was a most
respectable lodger, and Mr. Jones could hardly understand how any one
could presume to raise his hand against such a man.
"Dear, dear, sir--this is a terrible affair!" he said, as he made his
way into the room.
"It was very disagreeable, certainly," said Grey.
"Was the gentleman known to you?" asked the tailor.
"Yes; I know who he is."
"Any quarrel, sir?"
"Well, yes. I should not have pushed him down stairs had he not
quarrelled with me."
"We can have the police after him if you wish it, sir?"
"I don't wish it at all."
"Or we might manage to polish him off in any other way, you know."
It was some time before Mr. Grey could get rid of the tailor, but he
did so at last without having told any part of the story to that
warlike, worthy, and very anxious individual.
CHAPTER LIII.
The Last Will of the Old Squire.
In the meantime Kate Vavasor was living down in Westmoreland, with no
other society than that of her grandfather, and did not altogether
have a very pleasant life of it. George had been apt to represent the
old man to himself as being as strong as an old tower, which, though
it be but a ruin, shows no sign of falling. To his eyes the Squire
had always seemed to be full of life and power. He could be violent
on occasions, and was hardly ever without violence in his eyes and
voice. But George's opinion was formed by his wish, or rather by
the reverses of his wish. For years he had been longing that his
grandfather should die,--had been accusing Fate of gross injustice in
that she did not snap the thread; and with such thoughts in his mind
he had grudged every ounce which the Squire's vigour had been able to
sustain. He had almost taught himself to believe that it would be a
good deed to squeeze what remained of life out of that violent old
throat. But, indeed, the embers of life were burning low; and had
George known all the truth, he would hardly have inclined his mind to
thoughts of murder.
He was, indeed, very weak with age, and tottering with unsteady steps
on the brink of his grave, though he would still come down early from
his room, and would, if possible, creep out about the garden and into
the farmyard. He would still sit down to dinner, and would drink his
allotted portion of port wine, in the doctor's teeth. The doctor by
no means desired to rob him of his last luxury, or even to stint
his quantity; but he recommended certain changes in the mode and
time of taking it. Against this, however, the old Squire indignantly
rebelled, and scolded Kate almost off her legs when she attempted
to enforce the doctor's orders. "What the mischief does it signify,"
the old man said to her one evening;--"what difference will it make
whether I am dead or alive, unless it is that George would turn you
out of the house directly he gets it."
"I was not thinking of any one but yourself, sir," said Kate, with a
tear in her eye.
"You won't be troubled to think of me much longer," said the Squire;
and then he gulped down the remaining half of his glass of wine.
Kate was, in truth, very good to him. Women always are good under
such circumstances; and Kate Vavasor was one who would certainly
stick to such duties as now fell to her lot. She was eminently true
and loyal to her friends, though she could be as false on their
behalf as most false people can be on their own. She was very good
to the old man, tending all his wants, taking his violence with
good-humour rather than with submission, not opposing him with direct
contradiction when he abused his grandson, but saying little words
to mitigate his wrath, if it were possible. At such times the Squire
would tell her that she also would learn to know her brother's
character some day. "You'll live to be robbed by him, and turned out
as naked as you were born," he said to her one day. Then Kate fired
up and declared that she fully trusted her brother's love. Whatever
faults he might have, he had been staunch to her, So she said, and
the old man sneered at her for saying so.
One morning, soon after this, when she brought him up to his bedroom
some mixture of thin porridge, which he still endeavoured to swallow
for his breakfast, he bade her sit down, and began to talk to her
about the property. "I know you are a fool," he said, "about all
matters of business;--more of a fool than even women generally are."
To this Kate acceded with a little smile,--acknowledging that her
understanding was limited. "I want to see Gogram," he said. "Do you
write to him a line, telling him to come here to-day,--he or one of
his men,--and send it at once by Peter." Gogram was an attorney who
lived at Penrith, and who was never summoned to Vavasor Hall unless
the Squire had something to say about his will. "Don't you think
you'd better put it off till you are a little stronger?" said Kate.
Whereupon the Squire fired at her such a volley of oaths that she
sprang off the chair on which she was sitting, and darted across to a
little table at which there was pen and ink, and wrote her note to Mr.
Gogram, before she had recovered from the shaking which the battery
had given her. She wrote the note, and ran away with it to Peter,
and saw Peter on the pony on his way to Penrith, before she dared to
return to her grandfather's bedside.
"What should you do with the estate if I left it you?" the Squire
said to her the first moment she was again back with him.
This was a question she could not answer instantly. She stood by
his bedside for a while thinking,--holding her grandfather's hand
and looking down upon the bed. He, with his rough watery old eyes,
was gazing up into her face, as though he were trying to read her
thoughts. "I think I should give it to my brother," she said.
"Then I'm d---- if I'll leave it to you," said he.
She did not jump now, though he had sworn at her. She still stood,
holding his hand softly, and looking down upon the bed. "If I were
you, grandfather," she said almost in a whisper, "I would not trust
myself to alter family arrangements whilst I was ill. I'm sure you
would advise any one else against doing so."
"And if I were to leave it to Alice, she'd give it to him too," he
said, speaking his thoughts out loud. "What it is you see in him, I
never could even guess. He's as ugly as a baboon, with his scarred
face. He has never done anything to show himself a clever fellow.
Kate, give me some of that bottle the man sent." Kate handed him his
medicine, and then stood again by his bedside.
"Where did he get the money to pay for his election?" the Squire
asked, as soon as he had swallowed the draught. "They wouldn't give
such a one as him credit a yard further than they could see him."
"I don't know where he got it," said Kate, lying.
"He has not had yours; has he?"
"He would not take it, sir."
"And you offered it to him?"
"Yes, sir."
"And he has not had it?"
"Not a penny of it, sir."
"And what made you offer it to him after what I said to you?"
"Because it was my own," said Kate, stoutly.
"You're the biggest idiot that ever I heard of, and you'll know it
yourself some day. Go away now, and let me know when Gogram comes."
She went away, and for a time employed herself about her ordinary
household work. Then she sat down alone in the dingy old dining-room,
to think what had better be done in her present circumstances. The
carpet of the room was worn out, as were also the covers of the
old chairs and the horsehair sofa which was never moved from its
accustomed place along the wall. It was not a comfortable Squire's
residence, this old house at Vavasor. In the last twenty years no
money had been spent on furniture or embellishments, and for the last
ten years there had been no painting, either inside or out. Twenty
years ago the Squire had been an embarrassed man, and had taken a
turn in his life and had lived sparingly. It could not be said that
he had become a miser. His table was kept plentifully, and there had
never been want in his house. In some respects, too, he had behaved
liberally to Kate and to others, and he had kept up the timber and
fences on the property. But the house had become wretched in its
dull, sombre, dirty darkness, and the gardens round it were as bad.
What ought she now to do? She believed that her grandfather's last
days were coming, and she knew that others of the family should be
with him besides herself. For their sakes, for his, and for her own,
it would be proper that she should not be alone there when he died.
But for whom should she send? Her brother was the natural heir, and
would be the head of the family. Her duty to him was clear, and the
more so as her grandfather was at this moment speaking of changes in
his will. But it was a question to her whether George's presence at
Vavasor, even if he would come, would not at this moment do more harm
than good to his own interests. It would make some prejudicial change
in the old man's will more probable instead of less so. George would
not become soft and mild-spoken even by a death-bed side, and it
would be likely enough that the Squire would curse his heir with his
dying breath. She might send for her uncle John; but if she did so
without telling George she would be treating George unfairly; and she
knew that it was improbable that her uncle and her brother should act
together in anything. Her aunt Greenow, she thought, would come to
her, and her presence would not influence the Squire in any way with
reference to the property. So she made up her mind at last that she
would ask her aunt to come to Vavasor, and that she would tell her
brother accurately all that she could tell,--leaving him to come or
stay, as he might think. Alice would, no doubt, learn all the facts
from him, and her uncle John would hear them from Alice. Then they
could do as they pleased. As soon as Mr. Gogram had been there she
would write her letters, and they should be sent over to Shap early
on the following morning.
Mr. Gogram came and was closeted with the Squire, and the doctor
also came. The doctor saw Kate, and, shaking his head, told her that
her grandfather was sinking lower and lower every hour. It would be
infinitely better for him if he would take that port wine at four
doses in the day, or even at two, instead of taking it all together.
Kate promised to try again, but stated her conviction that the
trial would be useless. The doctor, when pressed on the matter,
said that his patient might probably live a week, not improbably a
fortnight,--perhaps a month, if he would be obedient,--and so forth.
Gogram went away without seeing Kate; and Kate, who looked upon a
will as an awful and somewhat tedious ceremony, was in doubt whether
her grandfather would live to complete any new operation. But, in
truth, the will had been made and signed and witnessed,--the parish
clerk and one of the tenants having been had up into the room as
witnesses. Kate knew that the men had been there, but still did not
think that a new will had been perfected.
That evening when it was dusk the Squire came into the dining-room,
having been shuffling about the grand sweep before the house for a
quarter of an hour. The day was cold and the wind bleak, but still
he would go out, and Kate had wrapped him up carefully in mufflers
and great-coats. Now he came in to what he called dinner, and Kate
sat down with him. He had drank no wine that day, although she had
brought it to him twice during the morning. Now he attempted to
swallow a little soup, but failed; and after that, while Kate was
eating her bit of chicken, had the decanter put before him. "I can't
eat, and I suppose it won't hurt you if I take my wine at once," he
said. It went against the grain with him, even yet, that he could not
wait till the cloth was gone from the table, but his impatience for
the only sustenance that he could take was too much for him.
"But you should eat something, sir; will you have a bit of toast to
sop in your wine?"
The word "sop" was badly chosen, and made the old Squire angry.
"Sopped toast! why am I to spoil the only thing I can enjoy?"
"But the wine would do you more good if you would take something with
it."
"Good! Nothing will do me any good any more. As for eating, you know
I can't eat. What's the use of bothering me?" Then he filled his
second glass, and paused awhile before he put it to his lips. He
never exceeded four glasses, but the four he was determined that he
would have, as long as he could lift them to his mouth.
Kate finished, or pretended to finish, her dinner within five
minutes, in order that the table might be made to look comfortable
for him. Then she poked the fire, and brushed up the hearth, and
closed the old curtains with her own hands, moving about silently. As
she moved his eye followed her, and when she came behind his chair,
and pushed the decanter a little more within his reach, he put out
his rough, hairy hand, and laid it upon one of hers which she had
rested on the table, with a tenderness that was unusual with him.
"You are a good girl, Kate. I wish you had been a boy, that's all."
"If I had, I shouldn't, perhaps, have been here to take care of you,"
she said, smiling.
"No; you'd have been like your brother, no doubt. Not that I think
there could have been two so bad as he is."
"Oh, grandfather, if he has offended you, you should try to forgive
him."
"Try to forgive him! How often have I forgiven him without any
trying? Why did he come down here the other day, and insult me for
the last time? Why didn't he keep away, as I had bidden him?"
"But you gave him leave to see you, sir."
"I didn't give him leave to treat me like that. Never mind; he will
find that, old as I am, I can punish an insult."
"You haven't done anything, sir, to injure him?" said Kate.
"I have made another will, that's all. Do you suppose I had that man
here all the way from Penrith for nothing?"
"But it isn't done yet?"
"I tell you it is done. If I left him the whole property it would be
gone in two years' time. What's the use of doing it?"
"But for his life, sir! You had promised him that he should have it
for his life."
"How dare you tell me that? I never promised him. As my heir, he
would have had it all, if he would have behaved himself with common
decency. Even though I disliked him, as I always have done, he should
have had it."
"And you have taken it from him altogether?"
"I shall answer no questions about it, Kate." Then a fit of coughing
came upon him, his four glasses of wine having been all taken, and
there was no further talk about business. During the evening Kate
read a chapter of the Bible out loud. But the Squire was very
impatient under the reading, and positively refused permission for
a second. "There isn't any good in so much of it, all at once," he
said, using almost exactly the same words which Kate had used to him
about the port wine. There may have been good produced by the small
quantity to which he listened, as there is good from the physic which
children take with wry faces, most unwillingly. Who can say?
For many weeks past Kate had begged her uncle to allow the clergyman
of Vavasor to come to him; but he had positively declined. The vicar
was a young man to whom the living had lately been given by the
Chancellor, and he had commenced his career by giving instant offence
to the Squire. This vicar's predecessor had been an old man, almost
as old as the Squire himself, and had held the living for forty
years. He had been a Westmoreland man, had read the prayers and
preached his one Sunday sermon in a Westmoreland dialect, getting
through the whole operation rather within an hour and a quarter. He
had troubled none of his parishioners by much advice, and had been
meek and obedient to the Squire. Knowing the country well, and being
used to its habits, he had lived, and been charitable too, on the
proceeds of his living, which had never reached two hundred a year.
But the new comer was a close-fisted man, with higher ideas of
personal comfort, who found it necessary to make every penny go as
far as possible, who made up in preaching for what he could not
give away in charity; who established an afternoon service, and who
had rebuked the Squire for saying that the doing so was trash and
nonsense. Since that the Squire had never been inside the church,
except on the occasion of Christmas-day. For this, indeed, the state
of his health gave ample excuse; but he had positively refused to
see the vicar, though that gentleman had assiduously called, and had
at last desired the servant to tell the clergyman not to come again
unless he were sent for. Kate's task was, therefore, difficult, both
as regarded the temporal and spiritual wants of her grandfather.
When the reading was finished, the old man dozed in his chair for
half an hour. He would not go up to bed before the enjoyment of that
luxury. He was daily implored to do so, because that sleep in the
chair interfered so fatally with his chance of sleeping in bed. But
sleep in his chair he would and did. Then he woke, and after a fit
of coughing, was induced, with much ill-humour, to go up to his room.
Kate had never seen him so weak. He was hardly able, even with her
assistance and that of the old servant, to get up the broad stairs.
But there was still some power left to him for violence of language
after he got to his room, and he rated Kate and the old woman loudly,
because his slippers were not in the proper place. "Grandfather,"
said Kate, "would you like me to stay in the room with you to-night?"
He rated her again for this proposition, and then, with assistance
from the nurse, he was gotten into bed and was left alone.
[Illustration: The last of the old squire.]
After that Kate went to her own room and wrote her letters. The first
she wrote was to her aunt Greenow. That was easily enough written. To
Mrs. Greenow it was not necessary that she should say anything about
money. She simply stated her belief that her grandfather's last day
was near at hand, and begged her aunt to come and pay a last visit to
the old man. "It will be a great comfort to me in my distress," she
said; "and it will be a satisfaction to you to have seen your father
again." She knew that her aunt would come, and that task was soon
done.
But her letter to her brother was much more difficult. What should
she tell him, and what should she not tell him? She began by
describing her grandfather's state, and by saying to him, as she
had done to Mrs. Greenow, that she believed the old man's hours were
well-nigh come to a close. She told him that she had asked her aunt
to come to her; "not," she said, "that I think her coming will be
of material service, but I feel the loneliness of the house will be
too much for me at such a time. I must leave it for you to decide,"
she said, "whether you had better be here. If anything should
happen,"--people when writing such letters are always afraid to speak
of death by its proper name,--"I will send you a message, and no
doubt you would come at once." Then came the question of the will.
Had it not occurred to her that her own interests were involved
she would have said nothing on the subject; but she feared her
brother,--feared even his misconstruction of her motives, even though
she was willing to sacrifice so much on his behalf,--and therefore
she resolved to tell him all that she knew. He might turn upon her
hereafter if she did not do so, and accuse her of a silence which had
been prejudicial to him.
So she told it all, and the letter became long in the telling. "I
write with a heavy heart," she said, "because I know it will be a
great blow to you. He gave me to understand that in this will he left
everything away from you. I cannot declare that he said so directly.
Indeed I cannot remember his words; but that was the impression he
left on me. The day before he had asked me what I should do if he
gave me the estate; but of course I treated that as a joke. I have no
idea what he put into his will. I have not even attempted to guess.
But now I have told you all that I know." The letter was a very long
one, and was not finished till late; but when it was completed she
had the two taken out into the kitchen, as the boy was to start with
them before daylight.
Early on the next morning she crept silently into her grandfather's
room, as was her habit; but he was apparently sleeping, and then she
crept back again. The old servant told her that the Squire had been
awake at four, and at five, and at six, and had called for her. Then
he had seemed to go to sleep. Four or five times in the course of the
morning Kate went into the room, but her grandfather did not notice
her. At last she feared he might already have passed away, and she
put her hand upon his shoulder, and down his arm. He then gently
touched her hand with his, showing her plainly that he was not
only alive, but conscious. She then offered him food,--the thin
porridge,--which he was wont to take, and the medicine. She offered
him some wine too, but he would take nothing.
At twelve o'clock a letter was brought to her, which had come by the
post. She saw that it was from Alice, and opening it found that it
was very long. At that moment she could not read it, but she saw
words in it that made her wish to know its contents as quickly as
possible. But she could not leave her grandfather then. At two
o'clock the doctor came to him, and remained there till the dusk of
the evening had commenced. At eight o'clock the old man was dead.
CHAPTER LIV.
Showing How Alice Was Punished.
Poor Kate's condition at the old Hall on that night was very sad.
The presence of death is always a source of sorrow, even though the
circumstances of the case are of a kind to create no agony of grief.
The old man who had just passed away up-stairs was fully due to go.
He had lived his span all out, and had himself known that to die was
the one thing left for him to do. Kate also had expected his death,
and had felt that the time had come in which it would be foolish even
to wish that it should be arrested. But death close to one is always
sad as it is solemn.
And she was quite alone at Vavasor Hall. She had no acquaintance
within some miles of her. From the young vicar, though she herself
had not quarrelled with him, she could receive no comfort, as she
hardly knew him; nor was she of a temperament which would dispose her
to turn to a clergyman at such a time for comfort, unless to one who
might have been an old friend. Her aunt and brother would probably
both come to her, but they could hardly be with her for a day or two,
and during that day or two it would be needful that orders should
be given which it is disagreeable for a woman to have to give. The
servants, moreover, in the house were hardly fit to assist her much.
There was an old butler, or footman, who had lived at the Hall for
more than fifty years, but he was crippled with rheumatism, and so
laden with maladies, that he rarely crept out of his own room. He was
simply an additional burden on the others. There was a boy who had
lately done all the work which the other should have done, and ever
so much more beside. There is no knowing how much work such a boy
will do when properly drilled, and he was now Kate's best minister in
her distress. There was the old nurse,--but she had been simply good
for nursing, and there were two rough Westmoreland girls who called
themselves cook and housemaid.
On that first evening,--the very day on which her grandfather had
died,--Kate would have been more comfortable had she really found
something that she could do. But there was in truth nothing. She
hovered for an hour or two in and out of the room, conscious of the
letter which she had in her pocket, and very desirous in heart of
reading it, but restrained by a feeling that at such a moment she
ought to think only of the dead. In this she was wrong. Let the
living think of the dead, when their thoughts will travel that way
whether the thinker wish it or no. Grief taken up because grief is
supposed to be proper, is only one degree better than pretended
grief. When one sees it, one cannot but think of the lady who asked
her friend, in confidence, whether hot roast fowl and bread-sauce
were compatible with the earliest state of weeds; or of that other
lady,--a royal lady she,--who was much comforted in the tedium of her
trouble when assured by one of the lords about the Court that piquet
was mourning.
It was late at night, near eleven, before Kate took out her letter
and read it. As something of my story hangs upon it, I will give it
at length, though it was a long letter. It had been written with
great struggles, and with many tears, and Kate, as she read it to the
end, almost forgot that her grandfather was lying dead in the room
above her.
Queen Anne Street, April, 186--.
DEAREST KATE,
I hardly know how to write to you--what I have to tell,
and yet I must tell it. I must tell it to you, but I shall
never repeat the story to any one else. I should have
written yesterday, when it occurred, but I was so ill that
I felt myself unable to make the exertion. Indeed, at one
time, after your brother had left me, I almost doubted
whether I should ever be able to collect my thoughts
again. My dismay was at first so great that my reason for
a time deserted me, and I could only sit and cry like an
idiot.
Dear Kate, I hope you will not be angry with me for
telling you. I have endeavoured to think about it as
calmly as I can, and I believe that I have no alternative.
The fact that your brother has quarrelled with me cannot
be concealed from you, and I must not leave him to tell
you of the manner of it. He came to me yesterday in great
anger. His anger then was nothing to what it became
afterwards; but even when he first came in he was full of
wrath. He stood up before me, and asked me how it had come
to pass that I had sent him the money which he had asked
of me through the hands of Mr. Grey. Of course I had not
done this, and so I told him at once. I had spoken of
the matter to no one but papa, and he had managed it for
me. Even now I know nothing of it, and as I have not yet
spoken to papa I cannot understand it. George at once told
me that he disbelieved me, and when I sat quiet under
this insult, he used harsher words, and said that I had
conspired to lower him before the world.
He then asked me whether I loved him. Oh, Kate, I must
tell it you all, though it is dreadful to me that I should
have to write it. You remember how it came to pass when we
were in Westmoreland together at Christmas? Do not think
that I am blaming you, but I was very rash then in the
answers which I made to him. I thought that I could be
useful to him as his wife, and I had told myself that it
would be good that I should be of use in some way. When
he asked me that question yesterday, I sat silent. Indeed,
how could I have answered it in the affirmative, when he
had just used such language to me,--while he was standing
opposite to me, looking at me in that way which he has
when he is enraged? Then he spoke again and demanded of me
that I should at once send back to Mr. Grey all presents
of his which I had kept, and at the same time took up and
threw across the table on to the sofa near me, a little
paper knife which Mr. Grey once gave me. I could not allow
myself to be so ordered by him; so I said nothing, but put
the knife back upon the table. He then took it again and
threw it beneath the grate. "I have a right to look upon
you as my wife," he said, "and, as such, I will not allow
you to keep that man's things about you." I think I told
him then that I should never become his wife, but though
I remember many of his words, I remember none of my own.
He swore, I know, with a great oath, that if I went back
a second time from my word to him he would leave me no
peace,--that he would punish me for my perfidy with some
fearful punishment. Oh, Kate, I cannot tell you what he
looked like. He had then come quite close to me, and I
know that I trembled before him as though he were going
to strike me. Of course I said nothing. What could I say
to a man who behaved to me in such a manner? Then, as far
as I can remember it, he sat down and began to talk about
money. I forget what he said at first, but I know that I
assured him that he might take what he wanted so long as
enough was left to prevent my being absolutely a burden
on papa. "That, madam, is a matter of course," he said. I
remember those words so well. Then he explained that after
what had passed between us, I had no right to ruin him by
keeping back from him money which had been promised to
him, and which was essential to his success. In this, dear
Kate, I think he was mainly right. But he could not have
been right in putting it to me in that hard, cruel manner,
especially as I had never refused anything that he had
asked of me in respect of money. The money he may have
while it lasts; but then there must be an end of it all
between us, even though he should have the power of
punishing me, as he says he will do. Punishing me, indeed!
What punishment can be so hard as that which he has
already inflicted?
He then desired me to write a letter to him which he
might show to the lawyer,--to our own lawyer, I think he
meant,--in order that money might be raised to pay back
what Mr. Grey had advanced, and give him what he now
required. I think he said it was to be five thousand
pounds. When he asked this I did not move. Indeed, I was
unable to move. Then he spoke very loud, and swore at me
again, and brought me pen and ink, demanding that I should
write the letter. I was so frightened that I thought of
running to the door to escape, and I would have done so
had I not distrusted my own power. Had it been to save my
life I could not have written the letter. I believe I was
now crying,--at any rate I threw myself back and covered
my face with my hands. Then he came and sat by me, and
took hold of my arms. Oh, Kate; I cannot tell it you all.
He put his mouth close to my ear, and said words which
were terrible, though I did not understand them. I do
not know what it was he said, but he was threatening me
with his anger if I did not obey him. Before he left me,
I believe I found my voice to tell him that he should
certainly have the money which he required. And so he
shall. I will go to Mr. Round myself, and insist on its
being done. My money is my own, and I may do with it as
I please. But I hope,--I am obliged to hope, that I may
never be made to see my cousin again.
I will not pretend to express any opinion as to the cause
of all this. It is very possible that you will not believe
all I say,--that you will think that I am mad and have
deluded myself. Of course your heart will prompt you to
accuse me rather than him. If it is so, and if there must
therefore be a division between us, my grief will be
greatly increased; but I do not know that I can help it.
I cannot keep all this back from you. He has cruelly
ill-used me and insulted me. He has treated me as I
should have thought no man could have treated a woman. As
regards money, I did all that I could do to show that I
trusted him thoroughly, and my confidence has only led
to suspicion. I do not know whether he understands that
everything must be over between us; but, if not, I must
ask you to tell him so. And I must ask you to explain to
him that he must not come again to Queen Anne Street. If
he does, nothing shall induce me to see him. Tell him also
that the money that he wants shall assuredly be sent to
him as soon as I can make Mr. Round get it.
Dearest Kate, good-bye. I hope you will feel for me.
If you do not answer me I shall presume that you think
yourself bound to support his side, and to believe me to
have been wrong. It will make me very unhappy; but I shall
remember that you are his sister, and I shall not be angry
with you.
Yours always affectionately,
ALICE VAVASOR.
Kate, as she read her letter through, at first quickly, and then
very slowly, came by degrees almost to forget that death was in the
house. Her mind, and heart, and brain, were filled with thoughts and
feelings that had exclusive reference to Alice and her brother, and
at last she found herself walking the room with quick, impetuous
steps, while her blood was hot with indignation.
All her sympathies in the matter were with Alice. It never occurred
to her to disbelieve a word of the statement made to her, or to
suggest to herself that it had been coloured by any fears or
exaggerations on the part of her correspondent. She knew that Alice
was true. And, moreover, much as she loved her brother,--willing as
she had been and would still be to risk all that she possessed, and
herself also, on his behalf,--she knew that it would be risking and
not trusting. She loved her brother, such love having come to her
by nature, and having remained with her from of old; and in his
intellect she still believed. But she had ceased to have belief in
his conduct. She feared everything that he might do, and lived with
a consciousness that though she was willing to connect all her own
fortunes with his, she had much reason to expect that she might
encounter ruin in doing so. Her sin had been in this,--that she had
been anxious to subject Alice to the same danger,--that she had
intrigued, sometimes very meanly, to bring about the object which
she had at heart,--that she had used all her craft to separate Alice
from Mr. Grey. Perhaps it may be alleged in her excuse that she had
thought,--had hoped rather than thought,--that the marriage which she
contemplated would change much in her brother that was wrong, and
bring him into a mode of life that would not be dangerous. Might not
she and Alice together so work upon him, that he should cease to
stand ever on the brink of some half-seen precipice? To risk herself
for her brother was noble. But when she used her cunning in inducing
her cousin to share that risk she was ignoble. Of this she had
herself some consciousness, as she walked up and down the old
dining-room at midnight, holding her cousin's letter in her hand.
Her cheeks became tinged with shame as she thought of the scene
which Alice had described,--the toy thrown beneath the grate, the
loud curses, the whispered threats, which had been more terrible
than curses, the demand for money, made with something worse than a
cut-throat's violence, the strong man's hand placed upon the woman's
arm in anger and in rage, those eyes glaring, and the gaping horror
of that still raw cicatrice, as he pressed his face close to that
of his victim! Not for a moment did she think of defending him. She
accused him to herself vehemently of a sin over and above those
sins which had filled Alice with dismay. He had demanded money
from the girl whom he intended to marry! According to Kate's idea,
nothing could excuse or palliate this sin. Alice had accounted
it as nothing,--had expressed her opinion that the demand was
reasonable;--even now, after the ill-usage to which she had been
subjected, she had declared that the money should be forthcoming, and
given to the man who had treated her so shamefully. It might be well
that Alice should so feel and so act, but it behoved Kate to feel
and act very differently. She would tell her brother, even in the
house of death, should he come there, that his conduct was mean and
unmanly. Kate was no coward. She declared to herself that she would
do this even though he should threaten her with all his fury,--though
he should glare upon her with all the horrors of his countenance.
One o'clock, and two o'clock, still found her in the dark sombre
parlour, every now and then pacing the floor of the room. The fire
had gone out, and, though it was now the middle of April, she began
to feel the cold. But she would not go to bed before she had written
a line to Alice. To her brother a message by telegraph would of
course be sent the next morning; as also would she send a message
to her aunt. But to Alice she would write, though it might be but a
line. Cold as she was, she found her pens and paper, and wrote her
letter that night. It was very short. "Dear Alice, to-day I received
your letter, and to-day our poor old grandfather died. Tell my uncle
John, with my love, of his father's death. You will understand that
I cannot write much now about that other matter; but I must tell you,
even at such a moment as this, that there shall be no quarrel between
you and me. There shall be none at least on my side. I cannot say
more till a few days shall have passed by. He is lying up-stairs,
a corpse. I have telegraphed to George, and I suppose he will come
down. I think my aunt Greenow will come also, as I had written to her
before, seeing that I wanted the comfort of having her here. Uncle
John will of course come or not as he thinks fitting. I don't know
whether I am in a position to say that I shall be glad to see him;
but I should be very glad. He and you will know that I can, as yet,
tell you nothing further. The lawyer is to see the men about the
funeral. Nothing, I suppose, will be done till George comes. Your own
cousin and friend, KATE VAVASOR." And then she added a line below,
"My own Alice,--If you will let me, you shall be my sister, and be
the nearest to me and the dearest."
Alice, when she received this, was at the first moment so much
struck, and indeed surprised, by the tidings of her grandfather's
death, that she was forced, in spite of the still existing violence
of her own feelings, to think and act chiefly with reference to that
event. Her father had not then left his room. She therefore went to
him, and handed him Kate's letter. "Papa," she said, "there is news
from Westmoreland; bad news, which you hardly expected yet." "My
father is dead," said John Vavasor. Whereupon Alice gave him Kate's
letter, that he might read it. "Of course I shall go down," he said,
as he came to that part in which Kate had spoken of him. "Does she
think I shall not follow my father to the grave, because I dislike
her brother? What does she mean by saying that there shall be no
quarrel between you and her?" "I will explain that at another time,"
said Alice. John Vavasor asked no further questions then, but
declared at first that he should go to Westmoreland on the following
day. Then he altered his purpose. "I'll go by the mail train
to-night," he said. "It will be very disagreeable, but I ought to
be there when the will is opened." There was very little more said
in Queen Anne Street on the subject till the evening,--till a few
moments before Mr. Vavasor left his house. He indeed had thought
nothing more about that quarrelling, or rather that promise that
there should be no quarrelling, between the girls. He still regarded
his nephew George as the man who, unfortunately, was to be his
son-in-law, and now, during this tedious sad day, in which he felt
himself compelled to remain at home, he busied his mind in thinking
of George and Alice, as living together at the old Hall. At six, the
father and daughter dined, and soon after dinner Mr. Vavasor went up
to his own room to prepare himself for his journey. After a while
Alice followed him,--but she did not do so till she knew that if
anything was to be told before the journey no further time could be
lost. "Papa," she said, as soon as she had shut the door behind her,
"I think I ought to tell you before you go that everything is over
between me and George."
"Have you quarrelled with him too?" said her father, with
uncontrolled surprise.
"I should perhaps say that he has quarrelled with me. But, dear papa,
pray do not question me at present. I will tell you all when you come
back, but I thought it right that you should know this before you
went."
"It has been his doing then?"
"I cannot explain it to you in a hurry like this. Papa, you may
understand something of the shame which I feel, and you should not
question me now."
"And John Grey?"
"There is nothing different in regard to him."
"I'll be shot if I can understand you. George, you know, has had
two thousand pounds of your money,--of yours or somebody else's.
Well, we can't talk about it now, as I must be off. Thinking as I
do of George, I'm glad of it,--that's all." Then he went, and Alice
was left alone, to comfort herself as best she might by her own
reflections.
George Vavasor had received the message on the day previous to that
on which Alice's letter had reached her, but it had not come to him
till late in the day. He might have gone down by the mail train of
that night, but there were one or two persons, his own attorney
especially, whom he wished to see before the reading of his
grandfather's will. He remained in town, therefore, on the following
day, and went down by the same train as that which took his uncle.
Walking along the platform, looking for a seat, he peered into a
carriage and met his uncle's eye. The two saw each other, but did not
speak, and George passed on to another carriage. On the following
morning, before the break of day, they met again in the refreshment
room, at the station at Lancaster. "So my father has gone, George,"
said the uncle, speaking to the nephew. They must go to the same
house, and Mr. Vavasor felt that it would be better that they should
be on speaking terms when they reached it. "Yes," said George; "he
has gone at last. I wonder what we shall find to have been his latest
act of injustice." The reader will remember that he had received
Kate's first letter, in which she had told him of the Squire's
altered will. John Vavasor turned away disgusted. His finer feelings
were perhaps not very strong, but he had no thoughts or hopes in
reference to the matter which were mean. He expected nothing himself,
and did not begrudge his nephew the inheritance. At this moment he
was thinking of the old Squire as a father who had ever been kind
to him. It might be natural that George should have no such old
affection at his heart, but it was unnatural that he should express
himself as he had done at such a moment.
The uncle turned away, but said nothing. George followed him with
a little proposition of his own. "We shan't get any conveyance at
Shap," he said. "Hadn't we better go over in a chaise from Kendal?"
To this the uncle assented, and so they finished their journey
together. George smoked all the time that they were in the carriage,
and very few words were spoken. As they drove up to the old house,
they found that another arrival had taken place before them,--Mrs.
Greenow having reached the house in some vehicle from the Shap
station. She had come across from Norwich to Manchester, where she
had joined the train which had brought the uncle and nephew from
London.
CHAPTER LV.
The Will.
The coming of Mrs. Greenow at this very moment was a great comfort
to Kate. Without her she would hardly have known how to bear herself
with her uncle and her brother. As it was, they were all restrained
by something of the courtesy which strangers are bound to show to
each other. George had never seen his aunt since he was a child, and
some sort of introduction was necessary between them.
"So you are George," said Mrs. Greenow, putting out her hand and
smiling.
"Yes; I'm George," said he.
"And a Member of Parliament!" said Mrs. Greenow. "It's quite an
honour to the family. I felt so proud when I heard it!" She said this
pleasantly, meaning it to be taken for truth, and then turned away to
her brother. "Papa's time was fully come," she said, "though, to tell
the truth, I had no idea that he was so weak as Kate describes him to
have been."
"Nor I, either," said John Vavasor. "He went to church with us here
on Christmas-day."
"Did he, indeed? Dear, dear! He seems at last to have gone off just
like poor Greenow." Here she put her handkerchief up to her face. "I
think you didn't know Greenow, John?"
"I met him once," said her brother.
"Ah! he wasn't to be known and understood in that way. I'm aware
there was a little prejudice, because of his being in trade, but
we won't talk of that now. Where should I have been without him,
tradesman or no tradesman?"
"I've no doubt he was an excellent man."
"You may say that, John. Ah, well! we can't keep everything in this
life for ever." It may, perhaps, be as well to explain now that Mrs.
Greenow had told Captain Bellfield at their last meeting before
she left Norwich, that, under certain circumstances, if he behaved
himself well, there might possibly be ground of hope. Whereupon
Captain Bellfield had immediately gone to the best tailor in that
city, had told the man of his coming marriage, and had given an
extensive order. But the tailor had not as yet supplied the goods,
waiting for more credible evidence of the Captain's good fortune.
"We're all grass of the field," said Mrs. Greenow, lightly brushing
a tear from her eye, "and must be cut down and put into the oven in
our turns." Her brother uttered a slight sympathetic groan, shaking
his head in testimony of the uncertainty of human affairs, and then
said that he would go out and look about the place. George, in the
meantime, had asked his sister to show him his room, and the two were
already together up-stairs.
Kate had made up her mind that she would say nothing about Alice at
the present moment,--nothing, if it could be avoided, till after the
funeral. She led the way up-stairs, almost trembling with fear, for
she knew that that other subject of the will would also give rise to
trouble and sorrow,--perhaps, also, to determined quarrelling.
"What has brought that woman here?" was the first question that
George asked.
"I asked her to come," said Kate.
"And why did you ask her to come here?" said George, angrily. Kate
immediately felt that he was speaking as though he were master of
the house, and also as though he intended to be master of her. As
regarded the former idea, she had no objection to it. She thoroughly
and honestly wished that he might be the master; and though she
feared that he might find himself mistaken in his assumption, she
herself was not disposed to deny any appearance of right that he
might take upon himself in that respect. But she had already begun to
tell herself that she must not submit herself to his masterdom. She
had gradually so taught herself since he had compelled her to write
the first letter in which Alice had been asked to give her money.
"I asked her, George, before my poor grandfather's death, when I
thought that he would linger perhaps for weeks. My life here alone
with him, without any other woman in the house beside the servants,
was very melancholy."
"Why did you not ask Alice to come to you?"
"Alice could not have come," said Kate, after a short pause.
"I don't know why she shouldn't have come. I won't have that woman
about the place. She disgraced herself by marrying a blacksmith--."
"Why, George, it was you yourself who advised me to go and stay with
her."
"That's a very different thing. Now that he's dead, and she's got his
money, it's all very well that you should go to her occasionally; but
I won't have her here."
"It's natural that she should come to her father's house at her
father's death-bed."
"I hate to be told that things are natural. It always means humbug.
I don't suppose she cared for the old man any more than I did,--or
than she cared for the other old man who married her. People are
such intense hypocrites. There's my uncle John, pulling a long face
because he has come into this house, and he will pull it as long as
the body lies up there; and yet for the last twenty years there's
nothing on earth he has so much hated as going to see his father.
When are they going to bury him?"
"On Saturday, the day after to-morrow."
"Why couldn't they do it to-morrow, so that we could get away before
Sunday?"
"He only died on Monday, George," said Kate, solemnly.
"Psha! Who has got the will?"
"Mr. Gogram. He was here yesterday, and told me to tell you and uncle
John that he would have it with him when he came back from the
funeral."
"What has my uncle John to do with it?" said George, sharply. "I
shall go over to Penrith this afternoon and make Gogram give it up to
me."
"I don't think he'll do that, George."
"What right has he to keep it? What right has he to it at all? How do
I know that he has really got the old man's last will? Where did my
grandfather keep his papers?"
"In that old secretary, as he used to call it; the one that stands in
the dining-room. It is sealed up."
"Who sealed it?"
"Mr. Gogram did,--Mr. Gogram and I together."
"What the deuce made you meddle with it?"
"I merely assisted him. But I believe he was quite right. I think it
is usual in such cases."
"Balderdash! You are thinking of some old trumpery of former days.
Till I know to the contrary, everything here belongs to me as
heir-at-law, and I do not mean to allow of any interference till I
know for certain that my rights have been taken from me. And I won't
accept a death-bed will. What a man chooses to write when his fingers
will hardly hold the pen, goes for nothing."
"You can't suppose that I wish to interfere with your rights?"
"I hope not."
"Oh, George!"
"Well; I say, I hope not. But I know there are those who would. Do
you think my uncle John would not interfere with me if he could?
By ----! if he does, he shall find that he does it to his cost. I'll
lead him such a life through the courts, for the next two or three
years, that he'll wish that he had remained in Chancery Lane, and
had never left it."
A message was now brought up by the nurse, saying that Mrs. Greenow
and Mr. Vavasor were going into the room where the old Squire was
lying, "Would Miss Kate and Mr. George go with them?"
"Mr. Vavasor!" shouted out George, making the old woman jump. She did
not understand his meaning in the least. "Yes, sir; the old Squire,"
she said.
"Will you come, George?" Kate asked.
"No; what should I go there for? Why should I pretend an interest in
the dead body of a man whom I hated and who hated me;--whose very
last act, as far as I know as yet, was an attempt to rob me? I won't
go and see him."
Kate went, and was glad of an opportunity of getting away from her
brother. Every hour the idea was becoming stronger in her mind that
she must in some way separate herself from him. There had come upon
him of late a hard ferocity which made him unendurable. And then he
carried to such a pitch that hatred, as he called it, of conventional
rules, that he allowed himself to be controlled by none of the
ordinary bonds of society. She had felt this heretofore, with a
nervous consciousness that she was doing wrong in endeavouring to
bring about a marriage between him and Alice; but this demeanour and
mode of talking had now so grown upon him that Kate began to feel
herself thankful that Alice had been saved.
Kate went up with her uncle and aunt, and saw the face of her
grandfather for the last time. "Poor, dear old man!" said Mrs.
Greenow, as the easy tears ran down her face. "Do you remember, John,
how he used to scold me, and say that I should never come to good. He
has said the same thing to you, Kate, I dare say?"
"He has been very kind to me," said Kate, standing at the foot of the
bed. She was not one of those whose tears stand near their eyes.
"He was a fine old gentleman," said John Vavasor;--"belonging to days
that are now gone by, but by no means the less of a gentleman on that
account. I don't know that he ever did an unjust or ungenerous act to
any one. Come, Kate, we may as well go down." Mrs. Greenow lingered to
say a word or two to the nurse, of the manner in which Greenow's body
was treated when Greenow was lying dead, and then she followed her
brother and niece.
George did not go into Penrith, nor did he see Mr. Gogram till that
worthy attorney came out to Vavasor Hall on the morning of the
funeral. He said nothing more on the subject, nor did he break the
seals on the old upright desk that stood in the parlour. The two
days before the funeral were very wretched for all the party, except,
perhaps, for Mrs. Greenow, who affected not to understand that her
nephew was in a bad humour. She called him "poor George," and treated
all his incivility to herself as though it were the effect of his
grief. She asked him questions about Parliament, which, of course, he
didn't answer, and told him little stories about poor dear Greenow,
not heeding his expressions of unmistakable disgust.
The two days at last went by, and the hour of the funeral came. There
was the doctor and Gogram, and the uncle and the nephew, to follow
the corpse,--the nephew taking upon himself ostentatiously the
foremost place, as though he could thereby help to maintain his
pretensions as heir. The clergyman met them at the little wicket-gate
of the churchyard, having, by some reasoning, which we hope was
satisfactory to himself, overcome a resolution which he at first
formed, that he would not read the burial service over an unrepentant
sinner. But he did read it, having mentioned his scruples to none but
one confidential clerical friend in the same diocese.
"I'm told that you have got my grandfather's will," George said to
the attorney as soon as he saw him.
"I have it in my pocket," said Mr. Gogram, "and purpose to read it as
soon as we return from church."
"Is it usual to take a will away from a man's house in that way?"
George asked.
"Quite usual," said the attorney; "and in this case it was done at
the express desire of the testator."
"I think it is the common practice," said John Vavasor.
George upon this turned round at his uncle as though about to attack
him, but he restrained himself and said nothing, though he showed his
teeth.
The funeral was very plain, and not a word was spoken by George
Vavasor during the journey there and back. John Vavasor asked a few
questions of the doctor as to the last weeks of his father's life;
and it was incidentally mentioned, both by the doctor and by the
attorney, that the old Squire's intellect had remained unimpaired
up to the last moment that he had been seen by either of them. When
they returned to the hall Mrs. Greenow met them with an invitation to
lunch. They all went to the dining-room, and drank each a glass of
sherry. George took two or three glasses. The doctor then withdrew,
and drove himself back to Penrith, where he lived.
"Shall we go into the other room now?" said the attorney.
The three gentlemen then rose up, and went across to the
drawing-room, George leading the way. The attorney followed him, and
John Vavasor closed the door behind them. Had any observer been there
to watch them he might have seen by the faces of the two latter that
they expected an unpleasant meeting. Mr. Gogram, as he had walked
across the hall, had pulled a document out of his pocket, and held
it in his hand as he took a chair. John Vavasor stood behind one of
the chairs which had been placed at the table, and leaned upon it,
looking across the room, up at the ceiling. George stood on the rug
before the fire, with his hands in the pockets of his trousers, and
his coat tails over his arms.
"Gentlemen, will you sit down?" said Mr. Gogram.
John Vavasor immediately sat down.
"I prefer to stand here," said George.
Mr. Gogram then opened the document before him.
"Before that paper is read," said George, "I think it right to say
a few words. I don't know what it contains, but I believe it to
have been executed by my grandfather only an hour or two before his
death."
"On the day before he died,--early in the day," said the attorney.
"Well,--the day before he died; it is the same thing,--while he was
dying, in fact. He never got out of bed afterwards."
"He was not in bed at the time, Mr. Vavasor. Not that it would have
mattered if he had been. And he came down to dinner on that day. I
don't understand, however, why you make these observations."
"If you'll listen to me you will understand. I make them because I
deny my grandfather's fitness to make a will in the last moments of
his existence, and at such an age. I saw him a few weeks ago, and he
was not fit to be trusted with the management of property then."
"I do not think this is the time, George, to put forward such
objections," said the uncle.
"I think it is," said George. "I believe that that paper purports to
be an instrument by which I should be villanously defrauded if it
were allowed to be held as good. Therefore I protest against it now,
and shall question it at law if action be taken on it. You can read
it now, if you please."
"Oh, yes, I shall read," said Mr. Gogram; "and I say that it is as
valid a will as ever a man signed."
"And I say it's not. That's the difference between us."
The will was read amidst sundry interjections and expressions of
anger from George, which it is not necessary to repeat. Nor need I
trouble my readers with the will at length. It began by expressing
the testator's great desire that his property might descend in his
own family, and that the house might be held and inhabited by some
one bearing the name of Vavasor. He then declared that he felt
himself obliged to pass over his natural heir, believing that the
property would not be safe in his hands; he therefore left it in
trust to his son John Vavasor, whom he appointed to be sole executor
of his will. He devised it to George's eldest son,--should George
ever marry and have a son,--as soon as he might reach the age of
twenty-five. In the meantime the property should remain in the hands
of John Vavasor for his use and benefit, with a lien on it of five
hundred a year to be paid annually to his granddaughter Kate. In
the event of George having no son, the property was to go to the
eldest son of Kate, or failing that to the eldest son of his other
granddaughter who might take the name of Vavasor. All his personal
property he left to his son, John Vavasor. "And, Mr. Vavasor," said
the attorney, as he finished his reading, "you will, I fear, get very
little by that latter clause. The estate now owes nothing; but I
doubt whether the Squire had fifty pounds in his banker's hands when
he died, and the value of the property about the place is very small.
He has been unwilling to spend anything during the last ten years,
but has paid off every shilling that the property owed."
"It is as I supposed," said George. His voice was very unpleasant,
and so was the fire of his eyes and the ghastly rage of his scarred
face. "The old man has endeavoured in his anger to rob me of
everything because I would not obey him in his wickedness when I was
here with him a short while before he died. Such a will as that can
stand nowhere."
"As to that I have nothing to say at present," said the attorney.
"Where is his other will,--the one he made before that?"
"If I remember rightly we executed two before this."
"And where are they?"
"It is not my business to know, Mr. Vavasor. I believe that I saw him
destroy one, but I have no absolute knowledge. As to the other, I can
say nothing."
"And what do you mean to do?" said George, turning to his uncle.
"Do! I shall carry out the will. I have no alternative. Your sister
is the person chiefly interested under it. She gets five hundred a
year for her life; and if she marries and you don't, or if she has a
son and you don't, her son will have the whole property."
George stood for a few moments thinking. Might it not be possible
that by means of Alice and Kate together,--by marrying the
former,--perhaps, he might still obtain possession of the property?
But that which he wanted was the command of the property at
once,--the power of raising money upon it instantly. The will had
been so framed as to make that impossible in any way. Kate's share in
it had not been left to her unconditionally, but was to be received
even by her through the hands of her uncle John. Such a will shut him
out from all his hopes. "It is a piece of d---- roguery," he said.
"What do you mean by that, sir?" said Gogram, turning round towards
him.
"I mean exactly what I say. It is a piece of d---- roguery. Who was
in the room when that thing was written?"
"The signature was witnessed by--"
"I don't ask as to the signature. Who was in the room when the thing
was written?"
"I was here with your grandfather."
"And no one else?"
"No one else. The presence of any one else at such a time would be
very unusual."
"Then I regard the document simply as waste paper." After saying
this, George Vavasor left the room, and slammed the door after him.
"I never was insulted in such a way before," said the attorney,
almost with tears in his eyes.
"He is a disappointed and I fear a ruined man," said John Vavasor.
"I do not think you need regard what he says."
"But he should not on that account insult me. I have only done my
duty. I did not even advise his grandfather. It is mean on his part
and unmanly. If he comes in my way again I shall tell him so."
"He probably will not put himself in your way again, Mr. Gogram."
Then the attorney went, having suggested to Mr. Vavasor that he should
instruct his attorney in London to take steps in reference to the
proving of the will. "It's as good a will as ever was made," said
Mr. Gogram. "If he can set that aside, I'll give up making wills
altogether."
Who was to tell Kate? That was John Vavasor's first thought when
he was left alone at the hall-door, after seeing the lawyer start
away. And how was he to get himself back to London without further
quarrelling with his nephew? And what was he to do at once with
reference to the immediate duties of proprietorship which were
entailed upon him as executor? It was by no means improbable, as he
thought, that George might assume to himself the position of master
of the house; that he might demand the keys, for instance, which
no doubt were in Kate's hands at present, and that he would take
possession with violence. What should he do under such circumstances?
It was clear that he could not run away and get back to his club by
the night mail train. He had duties there at the Hall, and these
duties were of a nature to make him almost regret the position in
which his father's will had placed him. Eventually he would gain some
considerable increase to his means, but the immediate effect would
be terribly troublesome. As he looked up at the melancholy pines
which were slowly waving their heads in the wind before the door
he declared to himself that he would sell his inheritance and his
executorship very cheaply, if such a sale were possible.
In the dining-room he found his sister alone. "Well, John," said she;
"well? How is it left?"
"Where is Kate?" he asked.
"She has gone out with her brother."
"Did he take his hat?"
"Oh, yes. He asked her to walk, and she went with him at once."
"Then, I suppose, he will tell her," said John Vavasor. After that
he explained the circumstances of the will to Mrs. Greenow. "Bravo,"
exclaimed the widow. "I'm delighted. I love Kate dearly: and now she
can marry almost whom she pleases."
CHAPTER LVI.
Another Walk on the Fells.
George when he left the room in which he had insulted the lawyer,
went immediately across to the parlour in which his aunt and sister
were sitting. "Kate," said he, "put on your hat and come and walk
with me. That business is over." Kate's hat and shawl were in the
room, and they were out of the house together within a minute.
They walked down the carriage-road, through the desolate, untenanted
grounds, to the gate, before either of them spoke a word. Kate was
waiting for George to tell her of the will, but did not dare to ask
any question. George intended to tell her of the will, but was not
disposed to do so without some preparation. It was a thing not to be
spoken of open-mouthed, as a piece of ordinary news. "Which way shall
we go?" said Kate, as soon as they had passed through the old rickety
gate, which swung at the entrance of the place. "Up across the fell,"
said George; "the day is fine, and I want to get away from my uncle
for a time." She turned round, therefore, outside the hill of firs,
and led the way back to the beacon wood through which she and Alice
had walked across to Haweswater upon a memorable occasion. They
had reached the top of the beacon hill, and were out upon the Fell,
before George had begun his story. Kate was half beside herself with
curiosity, but still she was afraid to ask. "Well," said George,
when they paused a moment as they stepped over a plank that crossed
the boundary ditch of the wood: "don't you want to know what that
dear old man has done for you?" Then he looked into her face very
steadfastly. "But perhaps you know already," he added. He had come
out determined not to quarrel with his sister. He had resolved,
in that moment of thought which had been allowed to him, that his
best hope for the present required that he should keep himself on
good terms with her, at any rate till he had settled what line of
conduct he would pursue. But he was, in truth, so sore with anger
and disappointment,--he had become so nearly mad with that continued,
unappeased wrath in which he now indulged against all the world, that
he could not refrain himself from bitter words. He was as one driven
by the Furies, and was no longer able to control them in their
driving of him.
"I know nothing of it," said Kate. "Had I known I should have told
you. Your question is unjust to me."
"I am beginning to doubt," said he, "whether a man can be safe in
trusting any one. My grandfather has done his best to rob me of the
property altogether."
"I told you that I feared he would do so."
"And he has made you his heir."
"Me?"
"Yes; you."
"He told me distinctly that he would not do that."
"But he has, I tell you."
"Then, George, I shall do that which I told him I should do in the
event of his making such a will; for he asked me the question. I told
him I should restore the estate to you, and upon that he swore that
he would not leave it to me."
"And what a fool you were," said he, stopping her in the pathway.
"What an ass! Why did you tell him that? You knew that he would not,
on that account, do justice to me."
"He asked me, George."
"Psha! now you have ruined me, and you might have saved me."
"But I will save you still, if he has left the estate to me. I do not
desire to take it from you. As God in heaven sees me, I have never
ceased to endeavour to protect your interests here at Vavasor. I will
sign anything necessary to make over my right in the property to
you." Then they walked on over the Fell for some minutes without
speaking. They were still on the same path,--that path which Kate and
Alice had taken in the winter,--and now poor Kate could not but think
of all that she had said that day on George's behalf;--how had she
mingled truth and falsehood in her efforts to raise her brother's
character in her cousin's eyes! It had all been done in vain. At
this very moment of her own trouble Kate thought of John Grey, and
repented of what she had done. Her hopes in that direction were
altogether blasted. She knew that her brother had ill-treated Alice,
and that she must tell him so if Alice's name were mentioned between
them. She could no longer worship her brother, and hold herself at
his command in all things. But, as regarded the property to which he
was naturally the heir, if any act of hers could give it to him, that
act would be done. "If the will is as you say, George, I will make
over my right to you."
"You can make over nothing," he answered. "The old robber has been
too cunning for that; he has left it all in the hands of my uncle
John. D---- him. D---- them both."
"George! George! he is dead now."
"Dead; of course he is dead. What of that? I wish he had been dead
ten years ago,--or twenty. Do you suppose I am to forgive him because
he is dead? I'll heap his grave with curses, if that can be of avail
to punish him."
"You can only punish the living that way."
"And I will punish them;--but not by cursing them. My uncle John
shall have such a life of it for the next year or two that he shall
bitterly regret the hour in which he has stepped between me and my
rights."
"I do not believe that he has done so."
"Not done so! What was he down here for at Christmas? Do you pretend
to think that that make-believe will was concocted without his
knowledge?"
"I'm sure that he knew nothing of it. I don't think my grandfather's
mind was made up a week before he died."
"You'll have to swear that, remember, in a court. I'm not going to
let the matter rest, I can tell you. You'll have to prove that. How
long is it since he asked you what you would do with the estate if he
left it to you?"
Kate thought for a moment before she answered. "It was only two days
before he died, if I remember rightly."
"But you must remember rightly. You'll have to swear to it. And now
tell me this honestly; do you believe, in your heart, that he was in
a condition fit for making a will?"
"I advised him not to make it."
"Why? why? What reason did you give?"
"I told him that I thought no man should alter family arrangements
when he was so ill."
"Exactly. You told him that. And what did he say?"
"He was very angry, and made me send for Mr. Gogram."
"Now, Kate, think a little before you answer me again. If ever you
are to do me a good turn, you must do it now. And remember this, I
don't at all want to take anything away from you. Whatever you think
is fair you shall have."
He was a fool not to have known her better than that.
"I want nothing," she said, stopping, and stamping with her foot upon
the crushed heather. "George, you don't understand what it is to be
honest."
He smiled,--with a slight provoking smile that passed very rapidly
from his face. The meaning of the smile was to be read, had Kate been
calm enough to read it. "I can't say that I do." That was the meaning
of the smile. "Well, never mind about that," said he; "you advised my
grandfather not to make his will,--thinking, no doubt, that his mind
was not clear enough?"
She paused a moment again before she answered him. "His mind was
clear," she said; "but I thought that he should not trust his
judgement while he was so weak."
"Look here, Kate; I do believe that you at any rate have no mind
to assist in this robbery. That it is a robbery you can't have any
doubt. I said he had left the estate to you. That is not what he has
done. He has left the estate to my uncle John."
"Why tell me, then, what was untrue?"
"Are you disappointed?"
"Of course I am; uncle John won't give it you. George, I don't
understand you; I don't, indeed."
"Never mind about that, but listen to me. The estate is left in the
hands of John Vavasor; but he has left you five hundred a year out of
it till somebody is twenty-five years old who is not yet born, and
probably never will be born. The will itself shows the old fool to
have been mad."
"He was no more mad than you are, George."
"Listen to me, I tell you. I don't mean that he was a raging maniac.
Now, you had advised him not to make any new will because you thought
he was not in a fit condition?"
"Yes; I did."
"You can swear to that?"
"I hope I may not be called on to do so. I hope there may be no
swearing about it. But if I am asked the question I must swear it."
"Exactly. Now listen till you understand what it is I mean. That
will, if it stands, gives all the power over the estate to John
Vavasor. It renders you quite powerless as regards any help
or assistance that you might be disposed to give to me. But,
nevertheless, your interest under the will is greater than his,--or
than that of any one else,--for your son would inherit if I have
none. Do you understand?"
"Yes; I think so."
"And your testimony as to the invalidity of the will would be
conclusive against all the world."
"I would say in a court what I have told you, if that will do any
good."
"It will not be enough. Look here, Kate; you must be steadfast here;
everything depends on you. How often have you told me that you will
stick to me throughout life? Now you will be tried."
Kate felt that her repugnance towards him,--towards all that he was
doing and wished her to do,--was growing stronger within her at every
word he spoke. She was becoming gradually aware that he desired from
her something which she could not and would not do, and she was aware
also that in refusing him she would have to encounter him in all his
wrath. She set her teeth firmly together, and clenched her little
fist. If a fight was necessary, she would fight with him. As he
looked at her closely with his sinister eyes, her love towards him
was almost turned to hatred.
"But that was what you meant when you advised him not to make the
will because you thought his intellect was impaired!"
"No; not so."
"Stop, Kate, stop. If you will think of it, It was so. What is the
meaning of his judgement being weak?"
"I didn't say his judgement was weak."
"But that was what you meant when you advised him not to trust it!"
"Look here, George; I think I know now what you mean. If anybody asks
me if his mind was gone, or his intellect deranged, I cannot say that
there was anything of the kind."
"You will not?"
"Certainly not. It would be untrue."
"Then you are determined to throw me over and claim the property for
yourself." Again he turned towards and looked at her as though he
were resolved to frighten her. "And I am to count you also among my
enemies? You had better take care, Kate."
They were now upon the fell side, more than three miles away from the
Hall; and Kate, as she looked round, saw that they were all alone.
Not a cottage,--not a sign of humanity was within sight. Kate saw
that it was so, and was aware that the fact pressed itself upon her
as being of importance. Then she thought again of her resolution
to fight with him, if any fight were necessary; to tell him, in so
many words, that she would separate herself from him and defy him.
She would not fear him, let his words and face be ever so terrible!
Surely her own brother would do her no bodily harm. And even though
he should do so,--though he should take her roughly by the arm as he
had done to Alice,--though he should do worse than that, still she
would fight him. Her blood was the same as his, and he should know
that her courage was, at any rate, as high.
And, indeed, when she looked at him, she had cause to fear. He
intended that she should fear. He intended that she should dread what
he might do to her at that moment. As to what he would do he had no
resolve made. Neither had he resolved on anything when he had gone to
Alice and had shaken her rudely as she sat beside him. He had been
guided by no fixed intent when he had attacked John Grey, or when
he insulted the attorney; but a Fury was driving him, and he was
conscious of being so driven. He almost wished to be driven to some
act of frenzy. Everything in the world had gone against him, and he
desired to expend his rage on some one.
"Kate," said he, stopping her, "we will have this out here, if you
please. So much, at any rate, shall be settled to-day. You have made
many promises to me, and I have believed them. You can now keep them
all, by simply saying what you know to be the truth,--that that old
man was a drivelling idiot when he made this will. Are you prepared
to do me that justice? Think before you answer me, for, by G----, if
I cannot have justice among you, I will have revenge." And he put his
hand upon her breast up near to her throat.
"Take your hand down, George," said she. "I'm not such a fool that
you can frighten me in that way."
"Answer me!" he said, and shook her, having some part of her raiment
within his clutch.
"Oh, George, that I should live to be so ashamed of my brother!"
"Answer me," he said again; and again he shook her.
"I have answered you. I will say nothing of the kind that you want
me to say. My grandfather, up to the latest moment that I saw him,
knew what he was about. He was not an idiot. He was, I believe, only
carrying out a purpose fixed long before. You will not make me change
what I say by looking at me like that, nor get it by shaking me.
You don't know me, George, if you think you can frighten me like a
child."
He heard her to the last word, still keeping his hand upon her, and
holding her by the cloak she wore; but the violence of his grasp had
relaxed itself, and he let her finish her words, as though his object
had simply been to make her speak out to him what she had to say.
"Oh," said he, when she had done, "That's to be it; is it? That's
your idea of honesty. The very name of the money being your own
has been too much for you. I wonder whether you and my uncle had
contrived it all between you beforehand?"
"You will not dare to ask him, because he is a man," said Kate, her
eyes brimming with tears, not through fear, but in very vexation at
the nature of the charge he had brought against her.
"Shall I not? You will see what I dare do. As for you, with all your
promises--. Kate, you know that I keep my word. Say that you will do
as I desire you, or I will be the death of you."
"Do you mean that you will murder me?" said she.
"Murder you! yes; why not? Treated as I have been among you, do you
suppose that I shall stick at anything? Why should I not murder
you--you and Alice, too, seeing how you have betrayed me?"
"Poor Alice!" As she spoke the words she looked straight into his
eyes, as though defying him, as far as she herself were concerned.
"Poor Alice, indeed! D---- hypocrite! There's a pair of you; cursed,
whining, false, intriguing hypocrites. There; go down and tell your
uncle and that old woman there that I threatened to murder you. Tell
the judge so, when you're brought into court to swear me out of my
property. You false liar!" Then he pushed her from him with great
violence, so that she fell heavily upon the stony ground.
He did not stop to help her up, or even to look at her as she lay,
but walked away across the heath, neither taking the track on towards
Haweswater, nor returning by the path which had brought them thither.
He went away northwards across the wild fell; and Kate, having risen
up and seated herself on a small cairn of stones which stood there,
watched him as he descended the slope of the hill till he was out
of sight. He did not run, but he seemed to move rapidly, and he
never once turned round to look at her. He went away, down the hill
northwards, and presently the curving of the ground hid him from her
view.
When she first seated herself her thoughts had been altogether of
him. She had feared no personal injury, even when she had asked him
whether he would murder her. Her blood had been hot within her veins,
and her heart had been full of defiance. Even yet she feared nothing,
but continued to think of him and his misery, and his disgrace. That
he was gone for ever, utterly and irretrievably ruined, thrown out,
as it were, beyond the pale of men, was now certain to her. And this
was the brother in whom she had believed; for whom she had not only
been willing to sacrifice herself, but for whose purposes she had
striven to sacrifice her cousin! What would he do now? As he passed
from out of her sight down the hill, it seemed to her as though he
were rushing straight into some hell from which there could be no
escape.
[Illustration: Kate.]
She knew that her arm had been hurt in the fall, but for a while she
would not move it or feel it, being resolved to take no account of
what might have happened to herself. But when he had been gone some
ten minutes, she rose to her feet, and finding that the movement
pained her greatly, and that her right arm was powerless, she put up
her left hand and became aware that the bone of her arm was broken
below the elbow. Her first thought was given to the telling him of
this, or the not telling, when she should meet him below at the
house. How should she mention the accident to him? Should she lie,
and say that she had fallen as she came down the hill alone? Of
course he would not believe her, but still some such excuse as that
might make the matter easier for them all. It did not occur to her
that she might not see him again at all that day; and that, as far as
he was concerned, there might be need for no lie.
She started off to walk down home, holding her right arm steadily
against her body with her left hand. Of course she must give some
account of herself when she got to the house; but it was of the
account to be given to him that she thought. As to the others she
cared little for them. "Here I am; my arm is broken; and you had
better send for a doctor." That would be sufficient for them.
When she got into the wood the path was very dark. The heavens were
overcast with clouds, and a few drops began to fall. Then the rain
fell faster and faster, and before she had gone a quarter of a mile
down the beacon hill, the clouds had opened themselves, and the
shower had become a storm of water. Suffering as she was she stood up
for a few moments under a large tree, taking the excuse of the rain
for some minutes of delay, that she might make up her mind as to what
she would say. Then it occurred to her that she might possibly meet
him again before she reached the house; and, as she thought of it,
she began for the first time to fear him. Would he come out upon her
from the trees and really kill her? Had he made his way round, when
he got out of her sight, that he might fall upon her suddenly and do
as he had threatened? As the idea came upon her, she made a little
attempt to run, but she found that running was impracticable from the
pain the movement caused her. Then she walked on through the hard
rain, steadily holding her arm against her side, but still looking
every moment through the trees on the side from which George might be
expected to reach her. But no one came near her on her way homewards.
Had she been calm enough to think of the nature of the ground, she
might have known that he could not have returned upon her so quickly.
He must have come back up the steep hill-side which she had seen him
descend. No;--he had gone away altogether, across the fells towards
Bampton, and was at this moment vainly buttoning his coat across his
breast, in his unconscious attempt to keep out the wet. The Fury was
driving him on, and he himself was not aware whither he was driven.
Dinner at the Hall had been ordered at five, the old hour; or rather
that had been assumed to be the hour for dinner without any ordering.
It was just five when Kate reached the front door. This she opened
with her left hand, and turning at once into the dining-room, found
her uncle and her aunt standing before the fire.
"Dinner is ready," said John Vavasor; "where is George?"
"You are wet, Kate," said aunt Greenow.
"Yes, I am very wet," said Kate. "I must go up-stairs. Perhaps you'll
come with me, aunt?"
"Come with you,--of course I will." Aunt Greenow had seen at once
that something was amiss.
"Where's George?" said John Vavasor. "Has he come back with you, or
are we to wait for him?"
Kate seated herself in her chair. "I don't quite know where he is,"
she said. In the meantime her aunt had hastened up to her side just
in time to catch her as she was falling from her chair. "My arm,"
said Kate, very gently; "my arm!" Then she slipped down against her
aunt, and had fainted.
"He has done her a mischief," said Mrs. Greenow, looking up at her
brother. "This is his doing."
John Vavasor stood confounded, wishing himself back in Queen Anne
Street.
CHAPTER LVII.
Showing How the Wild Beast Got Himself Back from the Mountains.
About eleven o'clock on that night,--the night of the day on which
Kate Vavasor's arm had been broken,--there came a gentle knock at
Kate's bedroom door. There was nothing surprising in this, as of all
the household Kate only was in bed. Her aunt was sitting at this time
by her bedside, and the doctor, who had been summoned from Penrith
and who had set her broken arm, was still in the house, talking
over the accident with John Vavasor in the dining-room, before he
proceeded back on his journey home.
"She will do very well," said the doctor. "It's only a simple
fracture. I'll see her the day after to-morrow."
"Is it not odd that such an accident should come from a fall whilst
walking?" asked Mr. Vavasor.
The doctor shrugged his shoulders. "One never can say how anything
may occur," said he. "I know a young woman who broke the os femoris
by just kicking her cat;--at least, she said she did."
"Indeed! I suppose you didn't take any trouble to inquire?"
"Not much. My business was with the injury, not with the way she got
it. Somebody did make inquiry, but she stuck to her story and nothing
came of it. Good night, Mr. Vavasor. Don't trouble her with questions
till she has had some hours' sleep, at any rate." Then the doctor
went, and John Vavasor was left alone, standing with his back to the
dining-room fire.
There had been so much trouble and confusion in the house since Kate
had fainted, almost immediately upon her reaching home, that Mr.
Vavasor had not yet had time to make up his mind as to the nature of
the accident which had occurred. Mrs. Greenow had at once ascertained
that the bone was broken, and the doctor had been sent for. Luckily
he had been found at home, and had reached the Hall a little before
ten o'clock. In the meantime, as soon as Kate recovered her senses,
she volunteered her account of what had occurred.
Her brother had quarrelled with her about the will, she said, and had
left her abruptly on the mountain. She had fallen, she went on to
say, as she turned from him, and had at once found that she had hurt
herself. But she had been too angry with him to let him know it; and,
indeed, she had not known the extent herself till he had passed out
of her sight. This was her story; and there was nothing in it that
was false by the letter, though there was much that was false in the
spirit. It was certainly true that George had not known that she was
injured. It was true that she had asked him for no help. It was true,
in one sense, that she had fallen, and it was true that she had not
herself known how severe had been the injury done to her till he had
gone beyond the reach of her voice. But she repressed all mention
of his violence, and when she was pressed as to the nature of the
quarrel, she declined to speak further on that matter.
Neither her uncle nor her aunt believed her. That was a matter of
course, and she knew that they did not believe her. George's absence,
their recent experience of his moods, and the violence by which her
arm must have been broken, made them certain that Kate had more to
tell if she chose to tell it. But in her present condition they could
not question her. Mrs. Greenow did ask as to the probability of her
nephew's return.
"I can only tell you," said Kate, "that he went away across the Fell
in the direction of Bampton. Perhaps he has gone on to Penrith. He
was very angry with us all; and as the house is not his own, he has
probably resolved that he will not stay another night under the roof.
But, who can say? He is not in his senses when he is angered."
John Vavasor, as he stood alone after the doctor's departure,
endeavoured to ascertain the truth by thinking of it. "I am sure,"
he said to himself, "that the doctor suspects that there has been
violence. I know it from his tone, and I can see it in his eye. But
how to prove it? and would there be good in proving it? Poor girl!
Will it not be better for her to let it pass as though we believed
her story?" He made up his mind that it would be better. Why should
he take upon himself the terrible task of calling this insane
relation to account for an act which he could not prove? The will
itself, without that trouble, would give him trouble enough. Then he
began to long that he was back at his club, and to think that the
signing-room in Chancery Lane was not so bad. And so he went up to
his bed, calling at Kate's door to ask after the patient.
In the meantime there had come a messenger to Mrs. Greenow, who had
stationed herself with her niece. One of the girls of the house
brought up a scrap of paper to the door, saying that a boy had
brought it over with a cart from Shap, and that it was intended for
Miss Vavasor, and it was she who knocked at the sickroom door. The
note was open and was not addressed; indeed, the words were written
on a scrap of paper that was crumpled up rather than folded, and were
as follows: "Send me my clothes by the bearer. I shall not return to
the house." Mrs. Greenow took it in to Kate, and then went away to see
her nephew's things duly put into his portmanteau. This was sent away
in the cart, and Mr. Vavasor, as he went up-stairs, was told what had
been done.
Neither on that night or on the following day did Mrs. Greenow ask any
further questions; but on the morning after that, when the doctor had
left them with a good account of the broken limb, her curiosity would
brook no further delay. And, indeed, indignation as well as curiosity
urged her on. In disposition she was less easy, and, perhaps, less
selfish, than her brother. If it were the case that that man had
ill-treated his sister, she would have sacrificed much to bring him
to punishment. "Kate," she said, when the doctor was gone, "I expect
that you will tell me the whole truth as to what occurred between you
and your brother when you had this accident."
"I have told you the truth."
"But not the whole truth."
"All the truth I mean to tell, aunt. He has quarrelled with me, as I
think, most unnecessarily, but you don't suppose that I am going to
give an exact account of the quarrel? We were both wrong, probably,
and so let there be an end of it."
"Was he violent to you when he quarrelled with you?"
"When he is angry he is always violent in his language."
"But, did he strike you?"
"Dear aunt, don't be angry with me if I say that I won't be
cross-examined. I would rather answer no more questions about it.
I know that questioning can do no good."
Mrs. Greenow knew her niece well enough to be aware that nothing
more would be told her, but she was quite sure now that Kate had not
broken her arm by a simple fall. She was certain that the injury had
come from positive violence. Had it not been so, Kate would not have
contented herself with refusing to answer the last question that had
been asked, but would also have repelled the charge made against her
brother with indignation.
"You must have it your own way," said Mrs. Greenow; "but let me just
tell you this, that your brother George had better keep out of my
way."
"It is probable that he will," said Kate. "Especially if you remain
here to nurse me."
Kate's conduct in answering all the questions made to her was not
difficult, but she found that there was much difficulty in planning
her own future behaviour towards her own brother. Must she abandon
him altogether from henceforth; divide herself from him, as it were;
have perfectly separate interests, and interests that were indeed
hostile? and must she see him ruined and overwhelmed by want of
money, while she had been made a rich woman by her grandfather's
will? It will be remembered that her life had hitherto been devoted
to him; that all her schemes and plans had had his success as their
object; that she had taught herself to consider it to be her duty to
sacrifice everything to his welfare. It is very sad to abandon the
only object of a life! It is very hard to tear out from one's heart
and fling away from it the only love that one has cherished! What was
she to say to Alice about all this--to Alice whom she had cheated of
a husband worthy of her, that she might allure her into the arms of
one so utterly unworthy? Luckily for Kate, her accident was of such a
nature that any writing to Alice was now out of the question.
But a blow! What woman can bear a blow from a man, and afterwards
return to him with love? A wife may have to bear it and to return.
And she may return with that sort of love which is a thing of custom.
The man is the father of her children, and earns the bread which they
eat and which she eats. Habit and the ways of the world require that
she should be careful in his interests, and that she should live with
him in what amity is possible to them. But as for love,--all that we
mean by love when we speak of it and write of it,--a blow given by
the defender to the defenceless crushes it all! A woman may forgive
deceit, treachery, desertion,--even the preference given to a rival.
She may forgive them and forget them; but I do not think that a woman
can forget a blow. And as for forgiveness,--it is not the blow that
she cannot forgive, but the meanness of spirit that made it possible.
Kate, as she thought of it, told herself that everything in life was
over for her. She had long feared her brother's nature,--had feared
that he was hard and heartless; but still there had been some hope
with her fear. Success, if he could be made to achieve it, would
soften him, and then all might be right. But now all was wrong, and
she knew that it was so. When he had compelled her to write to Alice
for money, her faith in him had almost succumbed. That had been very
mean, and the meanness had shocked her. But now he had asked her to
perjure herself that he might have his own way, and had threatened
to murder her, and had raised his hand against her because she
had refused to obey him. And he had accused her of treachery to
himself,--had accused her of premeditated deceit in obtaining this
property for herself!
"But he does not believe it," said Kate to herself. "He said that
because he thought it would vex me; but I know he does not think it."
Kate had watched her brother longing for money all his life,--had
thoroughly understood the intensity of his wish for it,--the agony
of his desire. But so far removed was she from any such longing on
her own account, that she could not believe that her brother would in
his heart accuse her of it. How often had she offered to give him, on
the instant, every shilling that she had in the world! At this moment
she resolved, in her mind, that she never wished to see him more; but
even now, had it been practicable, she would have made over to him,
without any drawback, all her interest in the Vavasor estate.
But any such making over was impossible. John Vavasor remained in
Westmoreland for a week, and during that time many discussions were,
of course, held about the property. Mr. Round came down from London,
and met Mr. Gogram at Penrith. As to the validity of the will Mr. Round
said that there was no shadow of a doubt. So an agent was appointed
for receiving the rents, and it was agreed that the old Hall should
be let in six months from that date. In the meantime Kate was to
remain there till her arm should become strong, and she could make
her plans for the future. Aunt Greenow promised to remain at the Hall
for the present, and offered, indeed, indefinite services for the
future, as though she were quite forgetful of Captain Bellfield. Of
Mr. Cheesacre she was not forgetful, for she still continued to speak
of that gentleman to Kate, as though he were Kate's suitor. But she
did not now press upon her niece the acceptance of Mr. Cheesacre's
hand as an absolute duty. Kate was mistress of a considerable
fortune, and though such a marriage might be comfortable, it was no
longer necessary. Mrs. Greenow called him poor Cheesacre, pointing
out how easily he might be managed, and how indubitable were his
possessions; but she no longer spoke of Kate's chances in the
marriage market as desperate, even though she should decline the
Cheesacre alliance.
"A young woman, with six hundred a year, my dear, may do pretty
nearly what she pleases," said aunt Greenow. "It's better than having
ten years' grace given you."
"And will last longer, certainly," said Kate.
Kate's desire was that Alice should come down to her for a while in
Westmoreland, before the six months were over, and this desire she
mentioned to her uncle. He promised to carry the message up to Alice,
but could not be got to say more than that upon the subject. Then Mr.
Vavasor went away, leaving the aunt and niece together at the Hall.
"What on earth shall we do if that wild beast shows himself suddenly
among us women?" asked Mrs. Greenow of her brother.
The brother could only say, "that he hoped the wild beast would keep
his distance."
And the wild beast did keep his distance, at any rate as long as Mrs.
Greenow remained at the Hall. We will now go back to the wild beast,
and tell how he walked across the mountains, in the rain, to Bampton,
a little village at the foot of Haweswater. It will be remembered
that after he had struck his sister, he turned away from her, and
walked with quick steps down the mountain-side, never turning back
to look at her. He had found himself to be without any power of
persuasion over her, as regarded her evidence to be given, if the
will were questioned. The more he threatened her the steadier she had
been in asserting her belief in her grandfather's capacity. She had
looked into his eye and defied him, and he had felt himself to be
worsted. What was he to do? In truth, there was nothing for him to
do. He had told her that he would murder her; and in the state of
mind to which his fury had driven him, murder had suggested itself
to him as a resource to which he might apply himself. But what could
he gain by murdering her,--or, at any rate, by murdering her then,
out on the mountain-side? Nothing but a hanging! There would be
no gratification even to his revenge. If, indeed, he had murdered
that old man, who was now, unfortunately, gone beyond the reach of
murder;--if he could have poisoned the old man's cup before that last
will had been made--there might have been something in such a deed!
But he had merely thought of it, letting "I dare not wait upon I
would"--as he now told himself, with much self-reproach. Nothing was
to be got by killing his sister. So he restrained himself in his
passion, and walked away from her, solitary, down the mountain.
The rain soon came on, and found him exposed on the hill-side. He
thought little about it, but buttoned his coat, as I have said
before, and strode on. It was a storm of rain, so that he was forced
to hold his head to one side, as it hit him from the north. But with
his hand to his hat, and his head bent against the wind, he went on
till he had reached the valley at the foot, and found that the track
by which he had been led thither had become a road. He had never
known the mountains round the Hall as Kate had known them, and was
not aware whither he was going. On one thing only had he made up his
mind since he had left his sister, and that was that he would not
return to the house. He knew that he could do nothing there to serve
his purpose; his threats would be vain impotence; he had no longer
any friend in the house. He could hardly tell himself what line of
conduct he would pursue, but he thought that he would hurry back
to London, and grasp at whatever money he could get from Alice. He
was still, at this moment, a Member of Parliament; and as the rain
drenched him through and through, he endeavoured to get consolation
from the remembrance of that fact in his favour.
As he got near the village he overtook a shepherd boy coming down
from the hills, and learned his whereabouts from him. "Baampton,"
said the boy, with an accent that was almost Scotch, when he was
asked the name of the place. When Vavasor further asked whether a
gig were kept there, the boy simply stared at him, not knowing a
gig by that name. At last, however, he was made to understand the
nature of his companion's want, and expressed his belief that "John
Applethwaite, up at the Craigs yon, had got a mickle cart." But the
Craigs was a farm-house, which now came in view about a mile off, up
across the valley; and Vavasor, hoping that he might still find a
speedier conveyance than John Applethwaite's mickle cart, went on to
the public-house in the village. But, in truth, neither there, nor
yet from John Applethwaite, to whom at last an application was sent,
could he get any vehicle; and between six and seven he started off
again, through the rain, to make his weary way on foot to Shap. The
distance was about five miles, and the little byways, lying between
walls, were sticky, and almost glutinous with light-coloured, chalky
mud. Before he started he took a glass of hot rum-and-water, but the
effect of that soon passed away from him, and then he became colder
and weaker than he had been before.
Wearily and wretchedly he plodded on. A man may be very weary in such
a walk as that, and yet be by no means wretched. Tired, hungry, cold,
wet, and nearly penniless, I have sat me down and slept among those
mountain tracks,--have slept because nature refused to allow longer
wakefulness. But my heart has been as light as my purse, and there
has been something in the air of the hills that made me buoyant and
happy in the midst of my weariness. But George Vavasor was wretched
as well as weary, and every step that he took, plodding through the
mud, was a new misfortune to him. What are five miles of a walk to
a young man, even though the rain be falling and the ways be dirty?
what, though they may come after some other ten that he has already
traversed on his feet? His sister Kate would have thought nothing
of the distance. But George stopped on his way from time to time,
leaning on the loose walls, and cursing the misfortune that had
brought him to such a pass. He cursed his grandfather, his uncle, his
sister, his cousin, and himself. He cursed the place in which his
forefathers had lived, and he cursed the whole county. He cursed the
rain, and the wind, and his town-made boots, which would not keep
out the wet slush. He cursed the light as it faded, and the darkness
as it came. Over and over again he cursed the will that had robbed
him, and the attorney that had made it. He cursed the mother that
had borne him and the father that had left him poor. He thought
of Scruby, and cursed him, thinking how that money would be again
required of him by that stern agent. He cursed the House of Commons,
which had cost him so much, and the greedy electors who would not
send him there without his paying for it. He cursed John Grey, as he
thought of those two thousand pounds, with double curses. He cursed
this world, and all worlds beyond; and thus, cursing everything, he
made his way at last up to the inn at Shap.
It was nearly nine when he got there. He had wasted over an hour at
Bampton in his endeavour to get John Applethwaite's cart to carry him
on, and he had been two hours on his walk from Bampton to Shap,--two
hours amidst his cursing. He ordered supper and brandy-and-water,
and, as we know, sent off a Mercury for his clothes. But the
Mercuries of Westmoreland do not move on quick wings, and it was past
midnight before he got his possessions. During all this time he had,
by no means, ceased from cursing, but continued it over his broiled
ham and while he swallowed his brandy-and-water. He swore aloud, so
that the red-armed servant at the inn could not but hear him, that
those thieves at the Hall intended to rob him of his clothes;--that
they would not send him his property. He could not restrain himself,
though he knew that every word he uttered would injure his cause, as
regarded the property in Westmoreland, if ever he could make a cause.
He knew that he had been mad to strike his sister, and cursed himself
for his madness. Yet he could not restrain himself. He told himself
that the battle for him was over, and he thought of poison for
himself. He thought of poison, and a pistol,--of the pistols he had
ever loaded at home, each with six shots, good for a life apiece. He
thought of an express train, rushing along at its full career, and of
the instant annihilation which it would produce. But if that was to
be the end of him, he would not go alone. No, indeed! why should he
go alone, leaving those pistols ready loaded in his desk? Among them
they had brought him to ruin and to death. Was he a man to pardon his
enemies when it was within his power to take them with him, down,
down, down--? What were the last words upon his impious lips, as with
bloodshot eyes, half drunk, and driven by the Fury, he took himself
off to the bed prepared for him, cursing aloud the poor red-haired
girl as he went, I may not utter here.
CHAPTER LVIII.
The Pallisers at Breakfast.
Gentle reader, do you remember Lady Monk's party, and how it
ended,--how it ended, at least as regards those special guests with
whom we are concerned? Mr. Palliser went away early, Mrs. Marsham
followed him to his house in Park Lane, caught him at home, and told
her tale. He returned to his wife, found her sitting with Burgo in
the dining-room, under the Argus eyes of the constant Bott, and bore
her away home. Burgo disappeared utterly from the scene, and Mr. Bott,
complaining inwardly that virtue was too frequently allowed to be its
own reward, comforted himself with champagne, and then walked off
to his lodgings. Lady Monk, when Mr. Palliser made his way into her
room up-stairs, seeking his wife's scarf,--which little incident,
also, the reader may perhaps remember,--saw that the game was up, and
thought with regret of the loss of her two hundred pounds. Such was
the ending of Lady Monk's party.
Lady Glencora, on her journey home in the carriage with her husband,
had openly suggested that Mrs. Marsham had gone to Park Lane to tell
of her doings with Burgo, and had declared her resolution never again
to see either that lady or Mr. Bott in her own house. This she said
with more of defiance in her tone than Mr. Palliser had ever hitherto
heard. He was by nature less ready than her, and knowing his own
deficiency in that respect, abstained from all answer on the subject.
Indeed, during that drive home very few further words were spoken
between them. "I will breakfast with you to-morrow," he said to her,
as she prepared to go up-stairs. "I have work still to do to-night,
and I will not disturb you by coming to your room."
"You won't want me to be very early?" said his wife.
"No," said he, with more of anger in his voice than he had yet shown.
"What hour will suit you? I must say something of what has occurred
to-night before I leave you to-morrow."
"I don't know what you can have got to say about to-night, but I'll
be down by half-past eleven, if that will do?" Mr. Palliser said that
he would make it do, and then they parted.
Lady Glencora had played her part very well before her husband. She
had declined to be frightened by him; had been the first to mention
Burgo's name, and had done so with no tremor in her voice, and had
boldly declared her irreconcilable enmity to the male and female
duennas who had dared to take her in charge. While she was in the
carriage with her husband she felt some triumph in her own strength;
and as she wished him good night on the staircase, and slowly walked
up to her room, without having once lowered her eyes before his,
something of this consciousness of triumph still supported her. And
even while her maid remained with her she held herself up, as it
were, inwardly, telling herself that she would not yield,--that she
would not be cowed either by her husband or by his spies. But when
she was left alone all her triumph departed from her.
She bade her maid go while she was still sitting in her
dressing-gown; and when the girl was gone she got close over the
fire, sitting with her slippers on the fender, with her elbows on
her knees, and her face resting on her hands. In this position she
remained for an hour, with her eyes fixed on the altering shapes of
the hot coals. During this hour her spirit was by no means defiant,
and her thoughts of herself anything but triumphant. Mr. Bott and
Mrs. Marsham she had forgotten altogether. After all, they were but
buzzing flies, who annoyed her by their presence. Should she choose
to leave her husband, they could not prevent her leaving him. It was
of her husband and of Burgo that she was thinking,--weighing them one
against the other, and connecting her own existence with theirs, not
as expecting joy or the comfort of love from either of them, but with
an assured conviction that on either side there must be misery for
her. But of that shame before all the world which must be hers for
ever, should she break her vows and consent to live with a man who
was not her husband, she thought hardly at all. That which in the
estimation of Alice was everything, to her, at this moment, was
almost nothing. For herself, she had been sacrificed; and,--as she
told herself with bitter denunciations against herself,--had been
sacrificed through her own weakness. But that was done. Whatever way
she might go, she was lost. They had married her to a man who cared
nothing for a wife, nothing for any woman,--so at least she declared
to herself,--but who had wanted a wife that he might have an heir.
Had it been given to her to have a child, she thought that she might
have been happy,--sufficiently happy in sharing her husband's joy in
that respect. But everything had gone against her. There was nothing
in her home to give her comfort. "He looks at me every time he
sees me as the cause of his misfortune," she said to herself. Of
her husband's rank, of the future possession of his title and his
estates, she thought much. But of her own wealth she thought nothing.
It did not occur to her that she had given him enough in that respect
to make his marriage with her a comfort to him. She took it for
granted that that marriage was now one distasteful to him, as it was
to herself, and that he would eventually be the gainer if she should
so conduct herself that her marriage might be dissolved.
[Illustration: Lady Glencora.]
As to Burgo, I doubt whether she deceived herself much as to his
character. She knew well enough that he was a man infinitely less
worthy than her husband. She knew that he was a spendthrift, idle,
given to bad courses,--that he drank, that he gambled, that he lived
the life of the loosest man about the town. She knew also that
whatever chance she might have had to redeem him, had she married
him honestly before all the world, there could be no such chance
if she went to him as his mistress, abandoning her husband and all
her duties, and making herself vile in the eyes of all women. Burgo
Fitzgerald would not be influenced for good by such a woman as she
would then be. She knew much of the world and its ways, and told
herself no lies about this. But, as I have said before, she did not
count herself for much. What though she were ruined? What though
Burgo were false, mean, and untrustworthy? She loved him, and he was
the only man she ever had loved! Lower and lower she crouched before
the fire; and then, when the coals were no longer red, and the shapes
altered themselves no more, she crept into bed. As to what she should
say to her husband on the following morning,--she had not yet begun
to think of that.
Exactly at half-past eleven she entered the little breakfast parlour
which looked out over the park. It was the prettiest room in the
house, and now, at this springtide, when the town trees were putting
out their earliest greens, and were fresh and bright almost as
country trees, it might be hard to find a prettier chamber. Mr.
Palliser was there already, sitting with the morning paper in his
hand. He rose when she entered, and, coming up to her, just touched
her with his lips. She put her cheek up to him, and then took her
place at the breakfast table.
"Have you any headache this morning?" he asked.
"Oh, no," she said. Then he took his tea and his toast, spoke some
word to her about the fineness of the weather, told her some scraps
of news, and soon returned to the absorbing interest of a speech made
by the leader of the Opposition in the House of Lords. The speech was
very interesting to Mr. Palliser, because in it the noble lord alluded
to a break-up in the present Cabinet, as to which the rumours were,
he said, so rife through the country as to have destroyed all that
feeling of security in the existing Government which the country so
much valued and desired. Mr. Palliser had as yet heard no official
tidings of such a rupture; but if such rupture were to take place,
it must be in his favour. He felt himself at this moment to be full
of politics,--to be near the object of his ambition, to have affairs
upon his hands which required all his attention. Was it absolutely
incumbent on him to refer again to the incidents of last night? The
doing so would be odious to him. The remembrance of the task now
immediately before him destroyed all his political satisfaction. He
did not believe that his wife was in any serious danger. Might it not
yet be possible for him to escape from the annoyance, and to wash
his mind clean of all suspicion? He was not jealous; he was indeed
incapable of jealousy. He knew what it would be to be dishonoured,
and he knew that under certain circumstances the world would expect
him to exert himself in a certain way. But the thing that he had now
to do was a great trouble to him. He would rather have to address
the House of Commons with ten columns of figures than utter a word
of remonstrance to his wife. But she had defied him,--defied him
by saying that she would see his friends no more; and it was the
remembrance of this, as he sat behind his newspaper, that made him
ultimately feel that he could not pass in silence over what had been
done.
Nevertheless, he went on reading, or pretending to read, as long as
the continuance of the breakfast made it certain that his wife would
remain with him. Every now and then he said some word to her of
what he was reading, endeavouring to use the tone of voice that was
customary to him in his domestic teachings of politics. But through
it all there was a certain hesitation,--there were the sure signs of
an attempt being made, of which he was himself conscious, and which
she understood with the most perfect accuracy. He was deferring the
evil moment, and vainly endeavouring to make himself believe that he
was comfortably employed the while. She had no newspaper, and made no
endeavour to deceive herself. She, therefore, was the first to begin
the conversation.
"Plantagenet," she said, "you told me last night, as I was going to
bed, that you had something to say about Lady Monk's party."
He put down the newspaper slowly, and turned towards her. "Yes, my
dear. After what happened, I believe that I must say something."
"If you think anything, pray say it," said Glencora.
"It is not always easy for a man to show what he thinks by what he
says," he replied. "My fear is that you should suppose me to think
more than I do. And it was for that reason that I determined to sleep
on it before I spoke to you."
"If anybody is angry with me I'd much rather they should have it out
with me while their anger is hot. I hate cold anger."
"But I am not angry."
"That's what husbands always say when they're going to scold."
"But I am not going to scold. I am only going to advise you."
"I'd sooner be scolded. Advice is to anger just what cold anger is to
hot."
"But, my dear Glencora, surely if I find it necessary to speak--"
"I don't want to stop you, Plantagenet. Pray, go on. Only it will be
so nice to have it over."
He was now more than ever averse to the task before him. Husbands,
when they give their wives a talking, should do it out of hand,
uttering their words hard, sharp, and quick,--and should then go.
There are some works that won't bear a preface, and this work of
marital fault-finding is one of them. Mr. Palliser was already
beginning to find out the truth of this. "Glencora," he said, "I wish
you to be serious with me."
"I am very serious," she replied, as she settled herself in her chair
with an air of mockery, while her eyes and mouth were bright and
eloquent with a spirit which her husband did not love to see. Poor
girl! There was seriousness enough in store for her before she would
be able to leave the room.
"You ought to be serious. Do you know why Mrs. Marsham came here from
Lady Monk's last night?"
"Of course I do. She came to tell you that I was waltzing with Burgo
Fitzgerald. You might as well ask me whether I knew why Mr. Bott was
standing at all the doors, glaring at me."
"I don't know anything about Mr. Bott."
"I know something about him though," she said, again moving herself
in her chair.
"I am speaking now of Mrs. Marsham."
"You should speak of them both together as they hunt in couples."
"Glencora, will you listen to me, or will you not? If you say that
you will not, I shall know what to do."
"I don't think you would, Plantagenet." And she nodded her little
head at him, as she spoke. "I'm sure I don't know what you would do.
But I will listen to you. Only, as I said before, it will be very
nice when it's over."
"Mrs. Marsham came here, not simply to tell me that you were waltzing
with Mr. Fitzgerald,--and I wish that when you mention his name you
would call him Mr. Fitzgerald."
"So I do."
"You generally prefix his Christian name, which it would be much
better that you should omit."
"I will try," she said, very gently; "but it's hard to drop an old
habit. Before you married me you knew that I had learned to call him
Burgo."
"Let me go on," said Mr. Palliser.
"Oh, certainly."
"It was not simply to tell me that you were waltzing that Mrs. Marsham
came here."
"And it was not simply to see me waltzing that Mr. Bott stood in the
doorways, for he followed me about, and came down after me to the
supper-room."
"Glencora, will you oblige me by not speaking of Mr. Bott?"
"I wish you would oblige me by not speaking of Mrs. Marsham." Mr.
Palliser rose quickly from his chair with a gesture of anger, stood
upright for half a minute, and then sat down again. "I beg your
pardon, Plantagenet," she said. "I think I know what you want, and
I'll hold my tongue till you bid me speak."
"Mrs. Marsham came here because she saw that every one in the room
was regarding you with wonder." Lady Glencora twisted herself about
in her chair, but she said nothing. "She saw that you were not only
dancing with Mr. Fitzgerald, but that you were dancing with him,--what
shall I say?"
"Upon my word I can't tell you."
"Recklessly."
"Oh! recklessly, was I? What was I reckless of?"
"Reckless of what people might say; reckless of what I might feel
about it; reckless of your own position."
"Am I to speak now?"
"Perhaps you had better let me go on. I think she was right to come
to me."
"That's of course. What's the good of having spies, if they
don't run and tell as soon as they see anything, especially
anything--reckless."
"Glencora, you are determined to make me angry. I am angry now,--very
angry. I have employed no spies. When rumours have reached me, not
from spies, as you choose to call them, but through your dearest
friends and mine--"
"What do you mean by rumours from my dearest friends?"
"Never mind. Let me go on."
"No; not when you say my dear friends have spread rumours about me.
Tell me who they are. I have no dear friends. Do you mean Alice
Vavasor?"
"It does not signify. But when I was warned that you had better not
go to any house in which you could meet that man, I would not listen
to it. I said that you were my wife, and that as such I could trust
you anywhere, everywhere, with any person. Others might distrust
you, but I would not do so. When I wished you to go to Monkshade,
were there to be any spies there? When I left you last night at Lady
Monk's, do you believe in your heart that I trusted to Mrs. Marsham's
eyes rather than to your own truth? Do you think that I have lived in
fear of Mr. Fitzgerald?"
"No, Plantagenet; I do not think so."
"Do you believe that I have commissioned Mr. Bott to watch your
conduct? Answer me, Glencora."
She paused a moment, thinking what actually was her true belief on
that subject. "He does watch me, certainly," she said.
"That does not answer my question. Do you believe that I have
commissioned him to do so?"
"No; I do not."
"Then it is ignoble in you to talk to me of spies. I have employed
no spies. If it were ever to come to that, that I thought spies
necessary, it would be all over with me."
There was something of feeling in his voice as he said
this,--something that almost approached to passion which touched his
wife's heart. Whether or not spies would be of any avail, she knew
that she had in truth done that of which he had declared that he
had never suspected her. She had listened to words of love from her
former lover. She had received, and now carried about with her a
letter from this man, in which he asked her to elope with him. She
had by no means resolved that she would not do this thing. She had
been false to her husband; and as her husband spoke of his confidence
in her, her own spirit rebelled against the deceit which she herself
was practising.
"I know that I have never made you happy," she said. "I know that I
never can make you happy."
He looked at her, struck by her altered tone, and saw that her whole
manner and demeanour were changed. "I do not understand what you
mean," he said. "I have never complained. You have not made me
unhappy." He was one of those men to whom this was enough. If his
wife caused him no uneasiness, what more was he to expect from her?
No doubt she might have done much more for him. She might have given
him an heir. But he was a just man, and knew that the blank he had
drawn was his misfortune, and not her fault.
But now her heart was loosed and she spoke out, at first slowly,
but after a while with all the quietness of strong passion. "No,
Plantagenet; I shall never make you happy. You have never loved me,
nor I you. We have never loved each other for a single moment. I have
been wrong to talk to you about spies; I was wrong to go to Lady
Monk's; I have been wrong in everything that I have done; but never
so wrong as when I let them persuade me to be your wife!"
"Glencora!"
"Let me speak now, Plantagenet, It is better that I should tell you
everything; and I will. I will tell you everything;--everything! I do
love Burgo Fitzgerald. I do! I do! I do! How can I help loving him?
Have I not loved him from the first,--before I had seen you? Did you
not know that it was so? I do love Burgo Fitzgerald, and when I went
to Lady Monk's last night, I had almost made up my mind that I must
tell him so, and that I must go away with him and hide myself. But
when he came to speak to me--"
"He has asked you to go with him, then?" said the husband, in whose
bosom the poison was beginning to take effect, thereby showing that
he was neither above nor below humanity.
Glencora was immediately reminded that though she might, if she
pleased, tell her own secrets, she ought not, in accordance with her
ideas of honour, tell those of her lover. "What need is there of
asking, do you think, when people have loved each other as we have
done?"
"You wanted to go with him, then?"
"Would it not have been the best for you? Plantagenet, I do not love
you;--not as women love their husbands when they do love them. But,
before God, my first wish is to free you from the misfortune that
I have brought on you." As she made this attestation she started up
from her chair, and coming close to him, took him by the coat. He was
startled, and stepped back a pace, but did not speak; and then stood
looking at her as she went on.
[Illustration: "Before God, my first wish is to free you
from the misfortune that I have brought on you."]
"What matters it whether I drown myself, or throw myself away by
going with such a one as him, so that you might marry again, and
have a child? I'd die;--I'd die willingly. How I wish I could die!
Plantagenet, I would kill myself if I dared."
He was a tall man and she was short of stature, so that he stood over
her and looked upon her, and now she was looking up into his face
with all her eyes. "I would," she said. "I would--I would! What is
there left for me that I should wish to live?"
Softly, slowly, very gradually, as though he were afraid of what he
was doing, he put his arm round her waist. "You are wrong in one
thing," he said. "I do love you."
She shook her head, touching his breast with her hair as she did so.
"I do love you," he repeated. "If you mean that I am not apt at
telling you so, it is true, I know. My mind is running on other
things."
"Yes," she said; "your mind is running on other things."
"But I do love you. If you cannot love me, it is a great misfortune
to us both. But we need not therefore be disgraced. As for that other
thing of which you spoke,--of our having, as yet, no child"--and in
saying this he pressed her somewhat closer with his arm--"you allow
yourself to think too much of it;--much more of it than I do. I have
made no complaints on that head, even within my own breast."
"I know what your thoughts are, Plantagenet."
"Believe me that you wrong my thoughts. Of course I have been
anxious, and have, perhaps, shown my anxiety by the struggle I have
made to hide it. I have never told you what is false, Glencora."
"No; you are not false!"
"I would rather have you for my wife, childless,--if you will try to
love me,--than any other woman, though another might give me an heir.
Will you try to love me?"
She was silent. At this moment, after the confession that she had
made, she could not bring herself to say that she would even try. Had
she said so, she would have seemed to have accepted his forgiveness
too easily.
"I think, dear," he said, still holding her by her waist, "that we
had better leave England for a while. I will give up politics for
this season. Should you like to go to Switzerland for the summer, or
perhaps to some of the German baths, and then on to Italy when the
weather is cold enough?" Still she was silent. "Perhaps your friend,
Miss Vavasor, would go with us?"
He was killing her by his goodness. She could not speak to him yet;
but now, as he mentioned Alice's name, she gently put up her hand and
rested it on the back of his.
At that moment there came a knock at the door;--a sharp knock, which
was quickly repeated.
"Come in," said Mr. Palliser, dropping his arm from his wife's waist,
and standing away from her a few yards.
CHAPTER LIX.
The Duke of St. Bungay in Search of a Minister.
It was the butler who had knocked,--showing that the knock was of
more importance than it would have been had it been struck by the
knuckles of the footman in livery. "If you please, sir, the Duke of
St. Bungay is here."
"The Duke of St. Bungay!" said Mr. Palliser, becoming rather red as he
heard the announcement.
"Yes, sir, his grace is in the library. He bade me tell you that he
particularly wanted to see you; so I told him that you were with my
lady."
"Quite right; tell his grace that I will be with him in two minutes."
Then the butler retired, and Mr. Palliser was again alone with his
wife.
"I must go now, my dear," he said; "and perhaps I shall not see you
again till the evening."
"Don't let me put you out in any way," she answered.
"Oh no;--you won't put me out. You will be dressing, I suppose, about
nine."
"I did not mean as to that," she answered. "You must not think
more of Italy. He has come to tell you that you are wanted in the
Cabinet."
Again he turned very red. "It may be so," he answered, "but though
I am wanted, I need not go. But I must not keep the duke waiting.
Good-bye." And he turned to the door.
She followed him and took hold of him as he went, so that he was
forced to turn to her once again. She managed to get hold of both
his hands, and pressed them closely, looking up into his face with
her eyes laden with tears. He smiled at her gently, returned the
pressure of the hands, and then left her,--without kissing her. It
was not that he was minded not to kiss her. He would have kissed her
willingly enough had he thought that the occasion required it. "He
says that he loves me," said Lady Glencora to herself, "but he does
not know what love means."
But she was quite aware that he had behaved to her with genuine, true
nobility. As soon as she was alone and certain of her solitude, she
took out that letter from her pocket, and tearing it into very small
fragments, without reading it, threw the pieces on the fire. As she
did so, her mind seemed to be fixed, at any rate, to one thing,--that
she would think no more of Burgo Fitzgerald as her future master. I
think, however, that she had arrived at so much certainty as this,
at that moment in which she had been parting with Burgo Fitzgerald,
in Lady Monk's dining-room. She had had courage enough,--or shall we
rather say sin enough,--to think of going with him,--to tell herself
that she would do so; to put herself in the way of doing it; nay, she
had had enough of both to enable her to tell her husband that she had
resolved that it would be good for her to do so. But she was neither
bold enough nor wicked enough to do the thing. As she had said of her
own idea of destroying herself,--she did not dare to take the plunge.
Therefore, knowing now that it was so, she tore up the letter that
she had carried so long, and burnt it in the fire.
She had in truth told him everything, believing that in doing so she
was delivering her own death-warrant as regarded her future position
in his house. She had done this, not hoping thereby for any escape;
not with any purpose as regarded herself, but simply because deceit
had been grievous to her, and had become unendurable as soon as
his words and manner had in them any feeling of kindness. But her
confession had no sooner been made than her fault had been forgiven.
She had told him that she did not love him. She had told him, even,
that she had thought of leaving him. She had justified by her own
words any treatment of his, however harsh, which he might choose
to practise. But the result had been--the immediate result--that
he had been more tender to her than she had ever remembered him to
be before. She knew that he had conquered her. However cold and
heartless his home might be to her, it must be her home now. There
could be no further thought of leaving him. She had gone out into the
tiltyard and had tilted with him, and he had been the victor.
Mr. Palliser himself had not time for much thought before he found
himself closeted with the Duke; but as he crossed the hall and went
up the stairs, a thought or two did pass quickly across his mind. She
had confessed to him, and he had forgiven her. He did not feel quite
sure that he had been right, but he did feel quite sure that the
thing had been done. He recognized it for a fact that, as regarded
the past, no more was to be said. There were to be no reproaches,
and there must be some tacit abandoning of Mrs. Marsham's close
attendance. As to Mr. Bott;--he had begun to hate Mr. Bott, and had
felt cruelly ungrateful, when that gentleman endeavoured to whisper a
word into his ear as he passed through the doorway into Lady Monk's
dining-room. And he had offered to go abroad,--to go abroad and
leave his politics, and his ambition, and his coming honours. He
had persisted in his offer, even after his wife had suggested to
him that the Duke of St. Bungay was now in the house with the object
of offering him that very thing for which he had so longed! As he
thought of this his heart became heavy within him. Such chances,--so
he told himself,--do not come twice in a man's way. When returning
from a twelvemonth's residence abroad he would be nobody in politics.
He would have lost everything for which he had been working all his
life. But he was a man of his word, and as he opened the library door
he was resolute,--he thought that he could be resolute in adhering to
his promise.
"Duke," he said, "I'm afraid I have kept you waiting." And the two
political allies shook each other by the hand.
The Duke was in a glow of delight. There had been no waiting. He was
only too glad to find his friend at home. He had been prepared to
wait, even if Mr. Palliser had been out. "And I suppose you guess why
I'm come?" said the Duke.
"I would rather be told than have to guess," said Mr. Palliser,
smiling for a moment. But the smile quickly passed off his face as he
remembered his pledge to his wife.
"He has resigned at last. What was said in the Lords last night made
it necessary that he should do so, or that Lord Brock should declare
himself able to support him through thick and thin. Of course, I can
tell you everything now. He must have gone, or I must have done so.
You know that I don't like him in the Cabinet. I admire his character
and his genius, but I think him the most dangerous man in England as
a statesman. He has high principles,--the very highest; but they are
so high as to be out of sight to ordinary eyes. They are too exalted
to be of any use for everyday purposes. He is honest as the sun, I'm
sure; but it's just like the sun's honesty,--of a kind which we men
below can't quite understand or appreciate. He has no instinct in
politics, but reaches his conclusions by philosophical deduction.
Now, in politics, I would a deal sooner trust to instinct than to
calculation. I think he may probably know how England ought to be
governed three centuries hence better than any man living, but of the
proper way to govern it now, I think he knows less. Brock half likes
him and half fears him. He likes the support of his eloquence, and he
likes the power of the man; but he fears his restless activity, and
thoroughly dislikes his philosophy. At any rate, he has left us, and
I am here to ask you to take his place."
The Duke, as he concluded his speech, was quite contented, and
almost jovial. He was thoroughly satisfied with the new political
arrangement which he was proposing. He regarded Mr. Palliser as a
steady, practical man of business, luckily young, and therefore with
a deal of work in him, belonging to the race from which English
ministers ought, in his opinion, to be taken, and as being, in some
respects, his own pupil. He had been the first to declare aloud that
Plantagenet Palliser was the coming Chancellor of the Exchequer; and
it had been long known, though no such declaration had been made
aloud, that the Duke did not sit comfortably in the same Cabinet with
the gentleman who had now resigned. Everything had now gone as the
Duke wished; and he was prepared to celebrate some little ovation
with his young friend before he left the house in Park Lane.
"And who goes out with him?" asked Mr. Palliser, putting off the evil
moment of his own decision; but before the Duke could answer him, he
had reminded himself that under his present circumstances he had no
right to ask such a question. His own decision could not rest upon
that point. "But it does not matter," he said; "I am afraid I must
decline the offer you bring me."
"Decline it!" said the Duke, who could not have been more surprised
had his friend talked of declining heaven.
"I fear I must." The Duke had now risen from his chair, and was
standing, with both his hands upon the table. All his contentment,
all his joviality, had vanished. His fine round face had become
almost ludicrously long; his eyes and mouth were struggling to convey
reproach, and the reproach was almost drowned in vexation. Ever since
Parliament had met he had been whispering Mr. Palliser's name into
the Prime Minister's ear, and now--. But he could not, and would not,
believe it. "Nonsense, Palliser," he said. "You must have got some
false notion into your head. There can be no possible reason why you
should not join us. Finespun himself will support us, at any rate
for a time." Mr. Finespun was the gentleman whose retirement from the
ministry the Duke of St. Bungay had now announced.
"It is nothing of that kind," said Mr. Palliser, who perhaps felt
himself quite equal to the duties proposed to him, even though Mr.
Finespun should not support him. "It is nothing of that kind;--it is
no fear of that sort that hinders me."
"Then, for mercy's sake, what is it? My dear Palliser, I looked upon
you as being as sure in this matter as myself; and I had a right
to do so. You certainly intended to join us a month ago, if the
opportunity offered. You certainly did."
"It is true, Duke. I must ask you to listen to me now, and I must
tell you what I would not willingly tell to any man." As Mr. Palliser
said this a look of agony came over his face. There are men who can
talk easily of all their most inmost matters, but he was not such
a man. It went sorely against the grain with him to speak of the
sorrow of his home, even to such a friend as the Duke; but it was
essentially necessary to him that he should justify himself.
"Upon my word," said the Duke, "I can't understand that there should
be any reason strong enough to make you throw your party over."
"I have promised to take my wife abroad."
"Is that it?" said the Duke, looking at him with surprise, but at the
same time with something of returning joviality in his face. "Nobody
thinks of going abroad at this time of the year. Of course, you can
get away for a time when Parliament breaks up."
"But I have promised to go at once."
"Then, considering your position, you have made a promise which it
behoves you to break. I am sure Lady Glencora will see it in that
light."
"You do not quite understand me, and I am afraid I must trouble you
to listen to matters which, under other circumstances, it would
be impertinent in me to obtrude upon you." A certain stiffness of
demeanour, and measured propriety of voice, much at variance with his
former manner, came upon him as he said this.
"Of course, Palliser, I don't want to interfere for a moment."
"If you will allow me, Duke. My wife has told me that, this morning,
which makes me feel that absence from England is requisite for her
present comfort. I was with her when you came, and had just promised
her that she should go."
"But, Palliser, think of it. If this were a small matter, I would
not press you; but a man in your position has public duties. He owes
his services to his country. He has no right to go back, if it be
possible that he should so do."
"When a man has given his word, it cannot be right that he should go
back from that."
"Of course not. But a man may be absolved from a promise. Lady
Glencora--"
"My wife would, of course, absolve me. It is not that. Her happiness
demands it, and it is partly my fault that it is so. I cannot explain
to you more fully why it is that I must give up the great object for
which I have striven with all my strength."
"Oh, no!" said the Duke. "If you are sure that it is imperative--"
"It is imperative."
"I could give you twenty-four hours, you know." Mr. Palliser did
not answer at once, and the Duke thought that he saw some sign of
hesitation. "I suppose it would not be possible that I should speak
to Lady Glencora?"
"It could be of no avail, Duke. She would only declare, at the first
word, that she would remain in London; but it would not be the less
my duty on that account to take her abroad."
"Well; I can't say. Of course, I can't say. Such an opportunity may
not come twice in a man's life. And at your age too! You are throwing
away from you the finest political position that the world can offer
to the ambition of any man. No one at your time of life has had such
a chance within my memory. That a man under thirty should be thought
fit to be Chancellor of the Exchequer, and should refuse it,--because
he wants to take his wife abroad! Palliser, if she were dying, you
should remain under such an emergency as this. She might go, but you
should remain."
Mr. Palliser remained silent for a moment or two in his chair; he then
rose and walked towards the window, as he spoke. "There are things
worse than death," he said, when his back was turned. His voice was
very low, and there was a tear in his eye as he spoke them; the words
were indeed whispered, but the Duke heard them, and felt that he
could not press him any more on the subject of his wife.
"And must this be final?" said the Duke.
"I think it must. But your visit here has come so quickly on my
resolution to go abroad,--which, in truth, was only made ten minutes
before your name was brought to me,--that I believe I ought to ask
for a portion of those twenty-four hours which you have offered me. A
small portion will be enough. Will you see me, if I come to you this
evening, say at eight? If the House is up in the Lords I will go to
you in St. James's Square."
"We shall be sitting after eight, I think."
"Then I will see you there. And, Duke, I must ask you to think of me
in this matter as a friend should think, and not as though we were
bound together only by party feeling."
"I will,--I will."
"I have told you what I shall never whisper to any one else."
"I think you know that you are safe with me."
"I am sure of it. And, Duke, I can tell you that the sacrifice to me
will be almost more than I can bear. This thing that you have offered
me to-day is the only thing that I have ever coveted. I have thought
of it and worked for it, have hoped and despaired, have for moments
been vain enough to think that it was within my strength, and have
been wretched for weeks together because I have told myself that it
was utterly beyond me."
"As to that, neither Brock nor I, nor any of us, have any doubt.
Finespun himself says that you are the man."
"I am much obliged to them. But I say all this simply that you may
understand how imperative is the duty which, as I think, requires me
to refuse the offer."
"But you haven't refused as yet," said the Duke. "I shall wait at the
House for you, whether they are sitting or not. And endeavour to join
us. Do the best you can. I will say nothing as to that duty of which
you speak; but if it can be made compatible with your public service,
pray--pray let it be done. Remember how much such a one as you owes
to his country." Then the Duke went, and Mr. Palliser was alone.
He had not been alone before since the revelation which had been made
to him by his wife, and the words she had spoken were still sounding
in his ears. "I do love Burgo Fitzgerald;--I do! I do! I do!" They
were not pleasant words for a young husband to hear. Men there are,
no doubt, whose nature would make them more miserable under the
infliction than it had made Plantagenet Palliser. He was calm,
without strong passion, not prone to give to words a stronger
significance than they should bear;--and he was essentially
unsuspicious. Never for a moment had he thought, even while those
words were hissing in his ears, that his wife had betrayed his
honour. Nevertheless, there was that at his heart, as he remembered
those words, which made him feel that the world was almost too heavy
for him. For the first quarter of an hour after the Duke's departure
he thought more of his wife and of Burgo Fitzgerald than he did of
Lord Brock and Mr. Finespun. But of this he was aware,--that he had
forgiven his wife; that he had put his arm round her and embraced her
after hearing her confession,--and that she, mutely, with her eyes,
had promised him that she would do her best for him. Then something
of an idea of love came across his heart, and he acknowledged to
himself that he had married without loving or without requiring love.
Much of all this had been his own fault. Indeed, had not the whole
of it come from his own wrong-doing? He acknowledged that it was so.
But now,--now he loved her. He felt that he could not bear to part
with her, even if there were no question of public scandal, or of
disgrace. He had been torn inwardly by that assertion that she loved
another man. She had got at his heart-strings at last. There are men
who may love their wives, though they never can have been in love
before their marriage.
When the Duke had been gone about an hour, and when, under ordinary
circumstances, it would have been his time to go down to the House,
he took his hat and walked into the Park. He made his way across Hyde
Park, and into Kensington Gardens, and there he remained for an hour,
walking up and down beneath the elms. The quidnuncs of the town, who
chanced to see him, and who had heard something of the political
movements of the day, thought, no doubt, that he was meditating his
future ministerial career. But he had not been there long before he
had resolved that no ministerial career was at present open to him.
"It has been my own fault," he said, as he returned to his house,
"and with God's help I will mend it, if it be possible."
But he was a slow man, and he did not go off instantly to the Duke.
He had given himself to eight o'clock, and he took the full time.
He could not go down to the House of Commons because men would make
inquiries of him which he would find it difficult to answer. So he
dined at home, alone. He had told his wife that he would see her at
nine, and before that hour he would not go to her. He sat alone till
it was time for him to get into his brougham, and thought it all
over. That seat in the Cabinet and Chancellorship of the Exchequer,
which he had so infinitely desired, were already done with. There was
no doubt about that. It might have been better for him not to have
married; but now that he was married, and that things had brought
him untowardly to this pass, he knew that his wife's safety was his
first duty. "We will go through Switzerland," he said to himself, "to
Baden, and then we will get on to Florence and to Rome. She has seen
nothing of all these things yet, and the new life will make a change
in her. She shall have her own friend with her." Then he went down to
the House of Lords, and saw the Duke.
"Well, Palliser," said the Duke, when he had listened to him, "of
course I cannot argue it with you any more. I can only say that I am
very sorry;--more sorry than perhaps you will believe. Indeed, it
half breaks my heart." The Duke's voice was very sad, and it might
almost have been thought that he was going to shed a tear. In truth
he disliked Mr. Finespun with the strongest political feeling of which
he was capable, and had attached himself to Mr. Palliser almost as
strongly. It was a thousand pities! How hard had he not worked to
bring about this arrangement, which was now to be upset because a
woman had been foolish! "I never above half liked her," said the Duke
to himself, thinking perhaps a little of the Duchess's complaints
of her. "I must go to Brock at once," he said aloud, "and tell him.
God knows what we must do now. Goodbye! good-bye! No; I'm not angry.
There shall be no quarrel. But I am very sorry." In this way the two
politicians parted.
We may as well follow this political movement to its end. The Duke
saw Lord Brock that night, and then those two ministers sent for
another minister,--another noble Lord, a man of great experience
in Cabinets. These three discussed the matter together, and on the
following day Lord Brock got up in the House, and made a strong
speech in defence of his colleague, Mr. Finespun. To the end of the
Session, at any rate, Mr. Finespun kept his position, and held the
seals of the Exchequer while all the quidnuncs of the nation, shaking
their heads, spoke of the wonderful power of Mr. Finespun, and
declared that Lord Brock did not dare to face the Opposition without
him.
In the meantime Mr. Palliser had returned to his wife, and told her of
his resolution with reference to their tour abroad. "We may as well
make up our minds to start at once," said he. "At any rate, there is
nothing on my side to hinder us."
CHAPTER LX.
Alice Vavasor's Name Gets into the Money Market.
Some ten or twelve days after George Vavasor's return to London from
Westmoreland he appeared at Mr. Scruby's offices with four small
slips of paper in his hand. Mr. Scruby, as usual, was pressing for
money. The third election was coming on, and money was already being
spent very freely among the men of the River Bank. So, at least, Mr.
Scruby declared. Mr. Grimes, of the "Handsome Man," had shown signs
of returning allegiance. But Mr. Grimes could not afford to be loyal
without money. He had his little family to protect. Mr. Scruby,
too, had his little family, and was not ashamed to use it on this
occasion. "I'm a family man, Mr. Vavasor, and therefore I never run
any risks. I never go a yard further than I can see my way back."
This he had said in answer to a proposition that he should take
George's note of hand for the expenses of the next election, payable
in three months' time. "It is so very hard to realize," said George,
"immediately upon a death, when all the property left is real
property." "Very hard indeed," said Mr. Scruby, who had heard with
accuracy all the particulars of the old Squire's will. Vavasor
understood the lawyer, cursed him inwardly, and suggested to himself
that some day he might murder Mr. Scruby as well as John Grey,--and
perhaps also a few more of his enemies. Two days after the interview
in which his own note of hand had been refused, he again called in
Great Marlborough Street. Upon this occasion he tendered to Mr. Scruby
for his approval the four slips of paper which have been mentioned.
Mr. Scruby regarded them with attention, looking first at one side
horizontally, and then at the other side perpendicularly. But before
we learn the judgement pronounced by Mr. Scruby as to these four slips
of paper, we must go back to their earlier history. As they were
still in their infancy, we shall not have to go back far.
One morning, at about eleven o'clock the parlour-maid came up to
Alice, as she sat alone in the drawing-room in Queen Anne Street, and
told her there was a "gentleman" in the hall waiting to be seen by
her. We all know the tone in which servants announce a gentleman when
they know that the gentleman is not a gentleman.
"A gentleman wanting to see me! What sort of a gentleman?"
"Well, miss, I don't think he's just of our sort; but he's decent to
look at."
Alice Vavasor had no desire to deny herself to any person but one.
She was well aware that the gentleman in the hall could not be her
cousin George, and therefore she did not refuse to see him.
"Let him come up," she said. "But I think, Jane, you ought to ask him
his name." Jane did ask him his name, and came back immediately,
announcing Mr. Levy.
This occurred immediately after the return of Mr. John Vavasor from
Westmoreland. He had reached home late on the preceding evening, and
at the moment of Mr. Levy's call was in his dressing-room.
Alice got up to receive her visitor, and at once understood the tone
of her maid's voice. Mr. Levy was certainly not a gentleman of the
sort to which she had been most accustomed. He was a little dark man,
with sharp eyes, set very near to each other in his head, with a
beaked nose, thick at the bridge, and a black moustache, but no other
beard. Alice did not at all like the look of Mr. Levy, but she stood
up to receive him, made him a little bow, and asked him to sit down.
"Is papa dressed yet?" Alice asked the servant.
"Well, miss, I don't think he is,--not to say dressed."
Alice had thought it might be as well that Mr. Levy should know that
there was a gentleman in the house with her.
"I've called about a little bit of business, miss," said Mr. Levy,
when they were alone. "Nothing as you need disturb yourself about.
You'll find it all square, I think." Then he took a case out of his
breast-pocket, and produced a note, which he handed to her. Alice
took the note, and saw immediately that it was addressed to her by
her cousin George. "Yes, Mr. George Vavasor," said Mr. Levy. "I dare
say you never saw me before, miss?"
"No, sir; I think not," said Alice.
"I am your cousin's clerk."
"Oh, you're Mr. Vavasor's clerk. I'll read his letter, if you please,
sir."
"If you please, miss."
George Vavasor's letter to his cousin was as follows:--
DEAR ALICE,
After what passed between us when I last saw you I thought
that on my return from Westmoreland I should learn that
you had paid in at my bankers' the money that I require.
But I find that this is not so; and of course I excuse
you, because women so seldom know when or how to do that
which business demands of them. You have, no doubt, heard
the injustice which my grandfather has done me, and will
probably feel as indignant as I do. I only mention this
now, because the nature of his will makes it more than
ever incumbent on you that you should be true to your
pledge to me.
Till there shall be some ground for a better understanding
between us,--and this I do not doubt will come,--I think
it wiser not to call, myself, at Queen Anne Street. I
therefore send my confidential clerk with four bills, each
of five hundred pounds, drawn at fourteen days' date,
across which I will get you to write your name. Mr. Levy
will show you the way in which this should be done. Your
name must come under the word "accepted," and just above
the name of Messrs. Drummonds, where the money must be
lying ready, at any rate, not later than Monday fortnight.
Indeed, the money must be there some time on the Saturday.
They know you so well at Drummonds' that you will not
object to call on the Saturday afternoon, and ask if it is
all right.
I have certainly been inconvenienced by not finding the
money as I expected on my return to town. If these bills
are not properly provided for, the result will be very
disastrous to me. I feel, however, sure that this will be
done, both for your own sake and for mine.
Affectionately yours,
GEORGE VAVASOR.
The unparalleled impudence of this letter had the effect which the
writer had intended. It made Alice think immediately of her own
remissness,--if she had been remiss,--rather than of the enormity of
his claim upon her. The decision with which he asked for her money,
without any pretence at an excuse on his part, did for the time
induce her to believe that she had no alternative but to give it to
him, and that she had been wrong in delaying it. She had told him
that he should have it, and she ought to have been as good as her
word. She should not have forced upon him the necessity of demanding
it.
But the idea of signing four bills was terrible to her, and she felt
sure that she ought not to put her name to orders for so large an
amount and then intrust them to such a man as Mr. Levy. Her father
was in the house, and she might have asked him. The thought that
she would do so of course occurred to her. But then it occurred to
her also that were she to speak to her father as to this advancing
of money to her cousin,--to this giving of money, for she now well
understood that it would be a gift;--were she to consult her father
in any way about it, he would hinder her, not only from signing the
bills for Mr. Levy, but, as far as he could do so, from keeping the
promise made to her cousin. She was resolved that George should have
the money, and she knew that she could give it to him in spite of her
father. But her father might probably be able to delay the gift, and
thus rob it of its chief value. If she were to sign the bills, the
money must be made to be forthcoming. So much she understood.
Mr. Levy had taken out the four bills from the same case, and had
placed them on the table before him. "Mr. Vavasor has explained, I
believe, miss, what it is you have to do?" he said.
"Yes, sir; my cousin has explained."
"And there is nothing else to trouble you with, I believe. If you
will just write your name across them, here, I need not detain you by
staying any longer." Mr. Levy was very anxious to make his visit as
short as possible, since he had heard that Mr. John Vavasor was in the
house.
But Alice hesitated. Two thousand pounds is a very serious sum of
money. She had heard much of sharpers, and thought that she ought to
be cautious. What if this man, of whom she had never before heard,
should steal the bills after she had signed them? She looked again at
her cousin's letter, chiefly with the object of gaining time.
"It's all right, miss," said Mr. Levy.
"Could you not leave them with me, sir?" said Alice.
"Well; not very well, miss. No doubt Mr. Vavasor has explained it all;
but the fact is, he must have them this afternoon. He has got a heavy
sum to put down on the nail about this here election, and if it ain't
down to-day, them on whom he has to depend will be all abroad."
"But, sir, the money will not be payable to-day. If I understand it,
they are not cheques."
"No, miss, no; they are not cheques. But your name, miss, at fourteen
days, is the same as ready money;--just the same."
She paused, and while she paused, he reached a pen for her from the
writing-table, and then she signed the four bills as he held them
before her. She was quick enough at doing this when she had once
commenced the work. Her object, then, was that the man should be gone
from the house before her father could meet him.
These were the four bits of paper which George Vavasor tendered to Mr.
Scruby's notice on the occasion which we have now in hand. In doing
so, he made use of them after the manner of a grand capitalist, who
knows that he may assume certain airs as he allows the odours of the
sweetness of his wealth to drop from him.
"You insisted on ready money, with your d---- suspicions," said he;
"and there it is. You're not afraid of fourteen days, I dare say."
"Fourteen days is neither here nor there," said Mr. Scruby. "We can
let our payments stand over as long as that, without doing any harm.
I'll send one of my men down to Grimes, and tell him I can't see him,
till,--let me see," and he looked at one of the bills, "till the
15th."
But this was not exactly what George Vavasor wanted. He was desirous
that the bills should be immediately turned into money, so that the
necessity of forcing payments from Alice, should due provision for
the bills not be made, might fall into other hands than his.
"We can wait till the 15th," said Scruby, as he handed the bits of
paper back to his customer.
"You will want a thousand, you say?" said George.
"A thousand to begin with. Certainly not less."
"Then you had better keep two of them."
"Well--no! I don't see the use of that. You had better collect them
through your own banker, and let me have a cheque on the 15th or
16th."
"How cursed suspicious you are, Scruby."
"No, I ain't. I'm not a bit suspicious. I don't deal in such
articles; that's all!"
"What doubt can there be about such bills as those? Everybody knows
that my cousin has a considerable fortune, altogether at her own
disposal."
"The truth is, Mr. Vavasor, that bills with ladies' names on
them,--ladies who are no way connected with business,--ain't just the
paper that people like."
"Nothing on earth can be surer."
"You take them into the City for discount, and see if the bankers
don't tell you the same. They may be done, of course, upon your name.
I say nothing about that."
"I can explain to you the nature of the family arrangement, but I
can't do that to a stranger. However, I don't mind."
"Of course not. The time is so short that it does not signify. Have
them collected through your own bankers, and then, if it don't suit
you to call, send me a cheque for a thousand pounds when the time
is up." Then Mr. Scruby turned to some papers on his right hand, as
though the interview had been long enough. Vavasor looked at him
angrily, opening his wound at him and cursing him inwardly. Mr. Scruby
went on with his paper, by no means regarding either the wound or the
unspoken curses. Thereupon Vavasor got up and went away without any
word of farewell.
As he walked along Great Marlborough Street, and through those
unalluring streets which surround the Soho district, and so on to
the Strand and his own lodgings, he still continued to think of some
wide scheme of revenge,--of some scheme in which Mr. Scruby might be
included. There had appeared something latterly in Mr. Scruby's manner
to him, something of mingled impatience and familiarity, which made
him feel that he had fallen in the attorney's estimation. It was not
that the lawyer thought him to be less honourable, or less clever,
than he had before thought him; but that the man was like a rat,
and knew a falling house by the instinct that was in him. So George
Vavasor cursed Mr. Scruby, and calculated some method of murdering him
without detection.
The reader is not to suppose that the Member for the Chelsea
Districts had, in truth, resolved to gratify his revenge by
murder,--by murdering any of those persons whom he hated so
vigorously. He did not, himself, think it probable that he would
become a murderer. But he received some secret satisfaction in
allowing his mind to dwell upon the subject, and in making those
calculations. He reflected that it would not do to take off Scruby
and John Grey at the same time, as it would be known that he was
connected with both of them; unless, indeed, he was to take off a
third person at the same time,--a third person, as to the expediency
of ending whose career he made his calculations quite as often as he
did in regard to any of those persons whom he cursed so often. It
need hardly be explained to the reader that this third person was the
sitting Member for the Chelsea Districts.
As he was himself in want of instant ready money Mr. Scruby's
proposition that he should leave the four bills at his own bankers',
to be collected when they came to maturity, did not suit him. He
doubted much, also, whether at the end of the fourteen days the
money would be forthcoming. Alice would be driven to tell her father,
in order that the money might be procured, and John Vavasor would
probably succeed in putting impediments in the way of the payment.
He must take the bills into the City, and do the best there that he
could with them. He was too late for this to-day, and therefore he
went to his lodgings, and then down to the House. In the House he
sat all the night with his hat over his eyes, making those little
calculations of which I have spoken.
"You have heard the news; haven't you?" said Mr. Bott to him,
whispering in his ear.
"News; no. I haven't heard any news."
"Finespun has resigned, and Palliser is at this moment with the Duke
of St. Bungay in the Lords' library."
"They may both be at the bottom of the Lords' fishpond, for what I
care," said Vavasor.
"That's nonsense, you know," said Bott. "Still, you know Palliser is
Chancellor of the Exchequer at this moment. What a lucky fellow you
are to have such a chance come to you directly you get in. As soon as
he takes his seat down there, of course we shall go up behind him."
"We shall have another election in a month's time," said George. "I'm
safe enough," said Bott. "It never hurts a man at elections to be
closely connected with the Government."
George Vavasor was in the City by times the next morning, but he
found that the City did not look with favourable eyes on his four
bills. The City took them up, first horizontally, and then, with
a twist of its hand, perpendicularly, and looked at them with
distrustful eyes. The City repeated the name, Alice Vavasor, as
though it were not esteemed a good name on Change. The City suggested
that as the time was so short, the holder of the bills would be wise
to hold them till he could collect the amount. It was very clear that
the City suspected something wrong in the transaction. The City, by
one of its mouths, asserted plainly that ladies' bills never meant
business. George Vavasor cursed the City, and made his calculation
about murdering it. Might not a river of strychnine be turned on
round the Exchange about luncheon time? Three of the bills he left
at last with his own bankers for collection, and retained the fourth
in his breast-pocket, intending on the morrow to descend with it
into those lower depths of the money market which he had not as yet
visited. Again, on the next day, he went to work and succeeded to
some extent. Among those lower depths he found a capitalist who was
willing to advance him two hundred pounds, keeping that fourth bill
in his possession as security. The capitalist was to have forty
pounds for the transaction, and George cursed him as he took his
cheque. George Vavasor knew quite enough of the commercial world to
enable him to understand that a man must be in a very bad condition
when he consents to pay forty pounds for the use of two hundred for
fourteen days. He cursed the City. He cursed the House of Commons. He
cursed his cousin Alice and his sister Kate. He cursed the memory of
his grandfather. And he cursed himself.
Mr. Levy had hardly left the house in Queen Anne Street, before
Alice had told her father what she had done. "The money must be
forthcoming," said Alice. To this her father made no immediate reply,
but turning himself in his chair away from her with a sudden start,
sat looking at the fire and shaking his head. "The money must be made
to be forthcoming," said Alice. "Papa, will you see that it is done?"
This was very hard upon poor John Vavasor, and so he felt it to
be. "Papa, if you will not promise, I must go to Mr. Round about it
myself, and must find out a broker to sell out for me. You would not
wish that my name should be dishonoured."
"You will be ruined," said he, "and for such a rascal as that!"
"Never mind whether he is a rascal or not, papa. You must acknowledge
that he has been treated harshly by his grandfather."
"I think that will was the wisest thing my father ever did. Had he
left the estate to George, there wouldn't have been an acre of it
left in the family in six months' time."
"But the life interest, papa!"
"He would have raised all he could upon that, and it would have done
him no good."
"At any rate, papa, he must have this two thousand pounds. You must
promise me that."
"And then he will want more."
"No; I do not think he will ask for more. At any rate, I do not think
that I am bound to give him all that I have."
"I should think not. I should like to know how you can be bound to
give him anything?"
"Because I promised it. I have signed the bills now, and it must be
done." Still Mr. Vavasor made no promise. "Papa, if you will not say
that you will do it, I must go down to Mr. Round at once."
"I don't know that I can do it. I don't know that Mr. Round can do
it. Your money is chiefly on mortgage." Then there was a pause for
a moment in the conversation. "Upon my word, I never heard of such
a thing in my life," said Mr. Vavasor; "I never did. Four thousand
pounds given away to such a man as that, in three months! Four
thousand pounds! And you say you do not intend to marry him."
"Certainly not; all that is over."
"And does he know that it is over?"
"I suppose he does."
"You suppose so! Things of that sort are so often over with you!"
This was very cruel. Perhaps she had deserved the reproach, but still
it was very cruel. The blow struck her with such force that she
staggered under it. Tears came into her eyes, and she could hardly
speak lest she should betray herself by sobbing.
"I know that I have behaved badly," she said at last; "but I am
punished, and you might spare me now!"
"I didn't want to punish you," he said, getting up from his chair and
walking about the room. "I don't want to punish you. But, I don't
want to see you ruined!"
"I must go to Mr. Round then, myself."
Mr. Vavasor went on walking about the room, jingling the money in
his trousers-pockets, and pushing the chairs about as he chanced to
meet them. At last, he made a compromise with her. He would take a
day to think whether he would assist her in getting the money, and
communicate his decision to her on the following morning.
CHAPTER LXI.
The Bills Are Made All Right.
Mr. Vavasor was at his wits' end about his daughter. She had put her
name to four bills for five hundred pounds each, and had demanded
from him, almost without an apology, his aid in obtaining money to
meet them. And she might put her name to any other number of bills,
and for any amount! There was no knowing how a man ought to behave
to such a daughter. "I don't want her money," the father said to
himself; "and if she had got none of her own, I would make her as
comfortable as I could with my own income. But to see her throw her
money away in such a fashion as this is enough to break a man's
heart."
Mr. Vavasor went to his office in Chancery Lane, but he did not go to
the chambers of Mr. Round, the lawyer. Instead of calling on Mr. Round
he sent a note by a messenger to Suffolk Street, and the answer to
the note came in the person of Mr. Grey. John Grey was living in town
in these days, and was in the habit of seeing Mr. Vavasor frequently.
Indeed, he had not left London since the memorable occasion on which
he had pitched his rival down the tailor's stairs at his lodgings. He
had made himself pretty well conversant with George Vavasor's career,
and had often shuddered as he thought what might be the fate of any
girl who might trust herself to marry such a man as that.
He had been at home when Mr. Vavasor's note had reached his lodgings,
and had instantly walked off towards Chancery Lane. He knew his way
to Mr. Vavasor's signing-office very accurately, for he had acquired
a habit of calling there, and of talking to the father about his
daughter. He was a patient, persevering man, confident in himself,
and apt to trust that he would accomplish those things which he
attempted, though he was hardly himself aware of any such aptitude.
He had never despaired as to Alice. And though he had openly
acknowledged to himself that she had been very foolish,--or rather,
that her judgement had failed her,--he had never in truth been
angry with her. He had looked upon her rejection of himself, and
her subsequent promise to her cousin, as the effects of a mental
hallucination, very much to be lamented,--to be wept for, perhaps,
through a whole life, as a source of terrible sorrow to himself
and to her. But he regarded it all as a disease, of which the cure
was yet possible,--as a disease which, though it might never leave
the patient as strong as she was before, might still leave her
altogether. And as he would still have clung to his love had she been
attacked by any of those illnesses for which doctors have well-known
names, so would he cling to her now that she was attacked by a malady
for which no name was known. He had already heard from Mr. Vavasor
that Alice had discovered how impossible it was that she should marry
her cousin, and, in his quiet, patient, enduring way, was beginning
to feel confident that he would, at last, carry his mistress off with
him to Nethercoats.
It was certainly a melancholy place, that signing-office, in which
Mr. John Vavasor was doomed to spend twelve hours a week, during every
term time, of his existence. Whether any man could really pass an
existence of work in such a workshop, and not have gone mad,--could
have endured to work there for seven hours a day, every week-day of
his life, I am not prepared to say. I doubt much whether any victims
are so doomed. I have so often wandered through those gloomy passages
without finding a sign of humanity there,--without hearing any
slightest tick of the hammer of labour, that I am disposed to think
that Lord Chancellors have been anxious to save their subordinates
from suicide, and have mercifully decreed that the whole staff of
labourers, down to the very message boys of the office, should be
sent away to green fields or palatial clubs during, at any rate, a
moiety of their existence.
The dismal set of chambers, in which the most dismal room had been
assigned to Mr. Vavasor, was not actually in Chancery Lane. Opening
off from Chancery Lane are various other small lanes, quiet, dingy
nooks, some of them in the guise of streets going no whither,
some being thoroughfares to other dingy streets beyond, in which
sponging-houses abound, and others existing as the entrances to
so-called Inns of Court,--inns of which all knowledge has for years
been lost to the outer world of the laity, and, as I believe, lost
almost equally to the inner world of the legal profession. Who has
ever heard of Symonds' Inn? But an ancestral Symonds, celebrated, no
doubt, in his time, did found an inn, and there it is to this day. Of
Staples' Inn, who knows the purposes or use? Who are its members, and
what do they do as such? And Staples' Inn is an inn with pretensions,
having a chapel of its own, or, at any rate, a building which, in
its external dimensions, is ecclesiastical, having a garden and
architectural proportions; and a façade towards Holborn, somewhat
dingy, but respectable, with an old gateway, and with a decided
character of its own.
The building in which Mr. John Vavasor had a room and a desk was
located in one of these side streets, and had, in its infantine days,
been regarded with complacency by its founder. It was stone-faced,
and strong, and though very ugly, had about it that air of importance
which justifies a building in assuming a special name of itself. This
building was called the Accountant-General's Record Office, and very
probably, in the gloom of its dark cellars, may lie to this day the
records of the expenditure of many a fair property which has gotten
itself into Chancery, and has never gotten itself out again. It was
entered by a dark hall, the door of which was never closed; and
which, having another door at its further end leading into another
lane, had become itself a thoroughfare. But the passers through it
were few in number. Now and then a boy might be seen there carrying
on his head or shoulders a huge mass of papers which you would
presume to be accounts, or some clerk employed in the purlieus of
Chancery Lane who would know the shortest possible way from the
chambers of some one attorney to those of some other. But this hall,
though open at both ends, was as dark as Erebus; and any who lingered
in it would soon find themselves to be growing damp, and would smell
mildew, and would become naturally affected by the exhalations
arising from those Chancery records beneath their feet.
Up the stone stairs, from this hall, John Grey passed to Mr. Vavasor's
signing-room. The stairs were broad, and almost of noble proportions,
but the darkness and gloom which hung about the hall, hung also about
them,--a melancholy set of stairs, up and down which no man can walk
with cheerful feet. Here he came upon a long, broad passage, in which
no sound was, at first, to be heard. There was no busy noise of doors
slamming, no rapid sound of shoes, no passing to and fro of men
intent on their daily bread. Pausing for a moment, that he might
look round about him and realize the deathlike stillness of the
whole, John Grey could just distinguish the heavy breathing of a man,
thereby learning that there was a captive in, at any rate, one of
those prisons on each side of him. As he drew near to the door of Mr.
Vavasor's chamber he knew that the breathing came from thence.
On the door there were words inscribed, which were just legible in
the gloom--"Signing Room. Mr. Vavasor."
How John Vavasor did hate those words! It seemed to him that they
had been placed there with the express object of declaring his
degradation aloud to the world. Since his grandfather's will had
been read to him he had almost made up his mind to go down those
melancholy stairs for the last time, to shake the dust off his feet
as he left the Accountant-General's Record Office for ever, and
content himself with half his official income. But how could he give
up so many hundreds a year while his daughter was persisting in
throwing away thousands as fast as, or faster than, she could lay her
hands on them?
John Grey entered the room and found Mr. Vavasor sitting all alone in
an arm-chair over the fire. I rather think that that breathing had
been the breathing of a man asleep. He was resting himself amidst the
labours of his signing. It was a large, dull room, which could not
have been painted, I should think, within the memory of man, looking
out backwards into some court. The black wall of another building
seemed to stand up close to the window,--so close that no direct ray
of the sun ever interrupted the signing-clerk at his work. In the
middle of the room there was a large mahogany-table, on which lay a
pile of huge papers. Across the top of them there was placed a bit
of blotting-paper, with a quill pen, the two only tools which were
necessary to the performance of the signing-clerk's work. On the
table there stood a row of official books, placed lengthways on
their edges: the "Post-Office Directory," the "Court Circular,"
a "Directory to the Inns of Court," a dusty volume of Acts of
Parliament, which had reference to Chancery accounts,--a volume which
Mr. Vavasor never opened; and there were some others; but there was
no book there in which any Christian man or woman could take delight,
either for amusement or for recreation. There were three or four
chairs round the wall, and there was the one arm-chair which the
occupant of the chamber had dragged away from its sacred place to the
hearth-rug. There was also an old Turkey carpet on the floor. Other
furniture there was none. Can it be a matter of surprise to any one
that Mr. Vavasor preferred his club to his place of business? He was
not left quite alone in this deathlike dungeon. Attached to his own
large room there was a small closet, in which sat the signing-clerk's
clerk,--a lad of perhaps seventeen years of age, who spent the
greatest part of his time playing tit-tat-to by himself upon official
blotting-paper. Had I been Mr. Vavasor I should have sworn a bosom
friendship with that lad, have told him all my secrets, and joined
his youthful games.
"Come in!" Mr. Vavasor had cried when John Grey disturbed his slumber
by knocking at the door. "I'm glad to see you,--very. Sit down; won't
you? Did you ever see such a wretched fire? The coals they give you
in this place are the worst in all London. Did you ever see such
coals?" And he gave a wicked poke at the fire.
It was now the 1st of May, and Grey, who had walked from Suffolk
Street, was quite warm. "One hardly wants a fire at all, such weather
as this," he said.
"Oh; don't you?" said the signing-clerk. "If you had to sit here all
day, you'd see if you didn't want a fire. It's the coldest building I
ever put my foot in. Sometimes in winter I have to sit here the whole
day in a great-coat. I only wish I could shut old Sugden up here for
a week or two, after Christmas." The great lawyer whom he had named
was the man whom he supposed to have inflicted on him the terrible
injury of his life, and he was continually invoking small misfortunes
on the head of that tyrant.
"How is Alice?" said Grey, desiring to turn the subject from the
ten-times-told tale of his friend's wrongs.
Mr. Vavasor sighed. "She is well enough, I believe," he said.
"Is anything the matter in Queen Anne Street?"
"You'll hardly believe it when I tell you; and, indeed, I hardly know
whether I ought to tell you or not."
"As you and I have gone so far together, I think that you ought to
tell me anything that concerns her nearly."
"That's just it. It's about her money. Do you know, Grey, I'm
beginning to think that I've been wrong in allowing you to advance
what you have done on her account?"
"Why wrong?"
"Because I foresee there'll be a difficulty about it. How are we to
manage about the repayment?"
"If she becomes my wife there will be no management wanted."
"But how if she never becomes your wife? I'm beginning to think
she'll never do anything like any other woman."
"I'm not quite sure that you understand her," said Grey; "though of
course you ought to do so better than any one else."
"Nobody can understand her," said the angry father. "She told me the
other day, as you know, that she was going to have nothing more to do
with her cousin--"
"Has she--has she become friends with him again?" said Grey. As he
asked the question there came a red spot on each cheek, showing the
strong mental anxiety which had prompted it.
"No; I believe not;--that is, certainly not in the way you mean. I
think that she is beginning to know that he is a rascal."
"It is a great blessing that she has learned the truth before it was
too late."
"But would you believe it;--she has given him her name to bills for
two thousand pounds, payable at two weeks' sight? He sent to her only
this morning a fellow that he called his clerk, and she has been fool
enough to accept them. Two thousand pounds! That comes of leaving
money at a young woman's own disposal."
"But we expected that, you know," said Grey, who seemed to take the
news with much composure.
"Expected it?"
"Of course we did. You yourself did not suppose that what he had
before would have been the last."
"But after she had quarrelled with him!"
"That would make no difference with her. She had promised him her
money, and as it seems that he will be content with that, let her
keep her promise."
"And give him everything! Not if I can help it. I'll expose him. I
will indeed. Such a pitiful rascal as he is!"
"You will do nothing, Mr. Vavasor, that will injure your daughter. I'm
very sure of that."
"But, by heavens--. Such sheer robbery as that! Two thousand pounds
more in fourteen days!" The shortness of the date at which the bills
were drawn seemed to afflict Mr. Vavasor almost as keenly as the
amount. Then he described the whole transaction as accurately as he
could do so, and also told how Alice had declared her purpose of
going to Mr. Round the lawyer, if her father would not undertake to
procure the money for her by the time the bills should become due.
"Mr. Round, you know, has heard nothing about it," he continued. "He
doesn't dream of any such thing. If she would take my advice, she
would leave the bills, and let them be dishonoured. As it is, I think
I shall call at Drummonds', and explain the whole transaction."
"You must not do that," said Grey. "I will call at Drummonds',
instead, and see that the money is all right for the bills. As far as
they go, let him have his plunder."
"And if she won't take you, at last, Grey? Upon my word, I don't
think she ever will. My belief is she'll never get married. She'll
never do anything like any other woman."
"The money won't be missed by me if I never get married," said Grey,
with a smile. "If she does marry me, of course I shall make her pay
me."
"No, by George! that won't do," said Vavasor. "If she were your
daughter you'd know that she could not take a man's money in that
way."
"And I know it now, though she is not my daughter. I was only joking.
As soon as I am certain,--finally certain,--that she can never become
my wife, I will take back my money. You need not be afraid. The
nature of the arrangement we have made shall then be explained to
her."
In this way it was settled; and on the following morning the father
informed the daughter that he had done her bidding, and that the
money would be placed to her credit at the bankers' before the bills
came due. On that Saturday, the day which her cousin had named in his
letter, she trudged down to Drummonds', and was informed by a very
courteous senior clerk in that establishment, that due preparation
for the bills had been made.
So far, I think we may say that Mr. George Vavasor was not
unfortunate.
CHAPTER LXII.
Going Abroad.
One morning, early in May, a full week before Alice's visit to the
bankers' at Charing Cross, a servant in grand livery, six feet high,
got out of a cab at the door in Queen Anne Street, and sent up a
note for Miss Vavasor, declaring that he would wait in the cab for
her answer. He had come from Lady Glencora, and had been specially
ordered to go in a cab and come back in a cab, and make himself as
like a Mercury, with wings to his feet, as may be possible to a
London footman. Mr. Palliser had arranged his plans with his wife that
morning,--or, I should more correctly say, had given her his orders,
and she, in consequence, had sent away her Mercury in hot pressing
haste to Queen Anne Street. "Do come;--instantly if you can," the
note said. "I have so much to tell you, and so much to ask of you. If
you can't come, when shall I find you, and where?" Alice sent back a
note, saying that she would be in Park Lane as soon as she could put
on her bonnet and walk down; and then the Mercury went home in his
cab.
Alice found her friend in the small breakfast-room up-stairs, sitting
close by the window. They had not as yet met since the evening of
Lady Monk's party, nor had Lady Glencora seen Alice in the mourning
which she now wore for her grandfather. "Oh, dear, what a change it
makes in you," she said. "I never thought of your being in black."
"I don't know what it is you want, but shan't I do in mourning as
well as I would in colours?"
"You'll do in anything, dear. But I have so much to tell you, and I
don't know how to begin. And I've so much to ask of you, and I'm so
afraid you won't do it."
"You generally find me very complaisant."
"No I don't, dear. It is very seldom you will do anything for me.
But I must tell you everything first. Do take your bonnet off, for
I shall be hours in doing it."
"Hours in telling me!"
"Yes; and in getting your consent to what I want you to do. But I
think I'll tell you that first. I'm to be taken abroad immediately."
"Who is to take you?"
"Ah, you may well ask that. If you could know what questions I have
asked myself on that head! I sometimes say things to myself as though
they were the most proper and reasonable things in the world, and
then within an hour or two I hate myself for having thought of them."
"But why don't you answer me? Who is going abroad with you?"
"Well; you are to be one of the party."
"I!"
"Yes; you. When I have named so very respectable a chaperon for my
youth, of course you will understand that my husband is to take us."
"But Mr. Palliser can't leave London at this time of the year?"
"That's just it. He is to leave London at this time of the year.
Don't look in that way, for it's all settled. Whether you go with
me or not, I've got to go. To-day is Tuesday. We are to be off next
Tuesday night, if you can make yourself ready. We shall breakfast in
Paris on Wednesday morning, and then it will be to us all just as if
we were in a new world. Mr. Palliser will walk up and down the new
court of the Louvre, and you will be on his left arm, and I shall be
on his right,--just like English people,--and it will be the most
proper thing that ever was seen in life. Then we shall go on to
Basle"--Alice shuddered as Basle was mentioned, thinking of the
balcony over the river--"and so to Lucerne--. But no; that was the
first plan, and Mr. Palliser altered it. He spent a whole day up
here with maps and Bradshaw's and Murray's guide-books, and he
scolded me so because I didn't care whether we went first to Baden
or to some other place. How could I care? I told him I would go
anywhere he chose to take me. Then he told me I was heartless;--and
I acknowledged that I was heartless. 'I am heartless,' I said. 'Tell
me something I don't know.'"
"Oh, Cora, why did you say that?"
"I didn't choose to contradict my husband. Besides, it's true. Then
he threw the Bradshaw away, and all the maps flew about. So I picked
them up again, and said we'd go to Switzerland first. I knew that
would settle it, and of course he decided on stopping at Baden. If he
had said Jericho, it would have been the same thing to me. Wouldn't
you like to go to Jericho?"
"I should have no special objection to Jericho."
"But you are to go to Baden instead."
"I've said nothing about that yet. But you have not told me half your
story. Why is Mr. Palliser going abroad in the middle of Parliament in
this way?"
"Ah; now I must go back to the beginning. And indeed, Alice, I hardly
know how to tell you; not that I mind you knowing it, only there are
some things that won't get themselves told. You can hardly guess what
it is that he is giving up. You must swear that you won't repeat what
I'm going to tell you now?"
"I'm not a person apt to tell secrets, but I shan't swear anything."
"What a woman you are for discretion! it is you that ought to be
Chancellor of the Exchequer; you are so wise. Only you haven't
brought your own pigs to the best market, after all."
"Never mind my own pigs now, Cora."
"I do mind them, very much. But the secret is this. They have asked
Mr. Palliser to be Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he has--refused.
Think of that!"
"But why?"
"Because of me,--of me, and my folly, and wickedness, and
abominations. Because he has been fool enough to plague himself with
a wife--he who of all men ought to have kept himself free from such
troubles. Oh, he has been so good! It is almost impossible to make
any one understand it. If you could know how he has longed for this
office;--how he has worked for it day and night, wearing his eyes out
with figures when everybody else has been asleep, shutting himself up
with such creatures as Mr. Bott when other men have been shooting and
hunting and flirting and spending their money. He has been a slave to
it for years,--all his life I believe,--in order that he might sit
in the Cabinet, and be a minister and a Chancellor of the Exchequer.
He has hoped and feared, and has been, I believe, sometimes half-mad
with expectation. This has been his excitement,--what racing and
gambling are to other men. At last, the place was there, ready for
him, and they offered it to him. They begged him to take it, almost
on their knees. The Duke of St. Bungay was here all one morning about
it; but Mr. Palliser sent him away, and refused the place. It's all
over now, and the other man, whom they all hate so much, is to remain
in."
"But why did he refuse it?"
"I keep on telling you--because of me. He found that I wanted looking
after, and that Mrs. Marsham and Mr. Bott between them couldn't do it."
"Oh, Cora! how can you talk in that way?"
"If you knew all, you might well ask how I could. You remember about
Lady Monk's ball, that you would not go to,--as you ought to have
done. If you had gone, Mr. Palliser would have been Chancellor of the
Exchequer at this minute; he would, indeed. Only think of that! But
though you did not go, other people did who ought to have remained at
home. I went for one,--and you know who was there for another."
"What difference could that make to you?" said Alice, angrily.
"It might have made a great deal of difference. And, for the matter
of that, so it did. Mr. Palliser was there too, but, of course, he
went away immediately. I can't tell you all the trouble there had
been about Mrs. Marsham,--whether I was to take her with me or not.
However, I wouldn't take her, and didn't take her. The carriage went
for her first, and there she was when we got there; and Mr. Bott was
there too. I wonder whether I shall ever make you understand it all."
"There are some things I don't want to understand."
"There they both were watching me,--looking at me the whole evening;
and, of course, I resolved that I would not be put down by them."
"I think, if I had been you, I would not have allowed their presence
to make any difference to me."
"That is very easily said, my dear, but by no means so easily done.
You can't make yourself unconscious of eyes that are always looking
at you. I dared them, at any rate, to do their worst, for I stood up
to dance with Burgo Fitzgerald."
"Oh, Cora!"
"Why shouldn't I? At any rate I did; and I waltzed with him for half
an hour. Alice, I never will waltz again;--never. I have done with
dancing now. I don't think, even in my maddest days, I ever kept it
up so long as I did then. And I knew that everybody was looking at
me. It was not only Mrs. Marsham and Mr. Bott, but everybody there.
I felt myself to be desperate,--mad, like a wild woman. There I was,
going round and round and round with the only man for whom I ever
cared two straws. It seemed as though everything had been a dream
since the old days. Ah! how well I remember the first time I danced
with him,--at his aunt's house in Cavendish Square. They had only
just brought me out in London then, and I thought that he was a god."
"Cora! I cannot bear to hear you talk like that."
"I know well enough that he is no god now; some people say that he is
a devil, but he was like Apollo to me then. Did you ever see anyone
so beautiful as he is?"
"I never saw him at all."
"I wish you could have seen him; but you will some day. I don't know
whether you care for men being handsome." Alice thought of John Grey,
who was the handsomest man that she knew, but she made no answer.
"I do; or, rather, I used to do," continued Lady Glencora. "I don't
think I care much about anything now; but I don't see why handsome
men should not be run after as much as handsome women."
"But you wouldn't have a girl run after any man, would you; whether
handsome or ugly?"
"But they do, you know. When I saw him the other night he was just as
handsome as ever;--the same look, half wild and half tame, like an
animal you cannot catch, but which you think would love you so if you
could catch him. In a little while it was just like the old time, and
I had made up my mind to care nothing for the people looking at me."
"And you think that was right?"
"No, I don't. Yes, I do; that is. It wasn't right to care about
dancing with him, but it was right to disregard all the people gaping
round. What was it to them? Why should they care who I danced with?"
"That is nonsense, dear, and you must know that it is so. If you were
to see a woman misbehaving herself in public, would not you look on
and make your comments? Could you help doing so if you were to try?"
"You are very severe, Alice. Misbehaving in public!"
"Yes, Cora. I am only taking your own story. According to that, you
were misbehaving in public."
Lady Glencora got up from her chair near the window, on which she had
been crouching close to Alice's knees, and walked away towards the
fireplace. "What am I to say to you, or how am I to talk to you?"
said Alice. "You would not have me tell you a lie?"
"Of all things in the world, I hate a prude the most," said Lady
Glencora.
"Cora, look here. If you consider it prudery on my part to disapprove
of your waltzing with Mr. Fitzgerald in the manner you have
described,--or, indeed, in any other manner,--you and I must differ
so totally about the meaning of words and the nature of things that
we had better part."
"Alice, you are the unkindest creature that ever lived. You are as
cold as stone. I sometimes think that you can have no heart."
"I don't mind your saying that. Whether I have a heart or not I will
leave you to find out for yourself; but I won't be called a prude by
you. You know you were wrong to dance with that man. What has come of
it? What have you told me yourself this morning? In order to preserve
you from misery and destruction, Mr. Palliser has given up all his
dearest hopes. He has had to sacrifice himself that he might save
you. That, I take it, is about the truth of it,--and yet you tell me
that you have done no wrong."
"I never said so." Now she had come back to her chair by the window,
and was again sitting in that crouching form. "I never said that I
was not wrong. Of course I was wrong. I have been so wrong throughout
that I have never been right yet. Let me tell it on to the end, and
then you can go away if you like, and tell me that I am too wicked
for your friendship."
"Have I ever said anything like that, Cora?"
"But you will, I dare say, when I have done. Well; what do you think
my senior duenna did,--the female one, I mean? She took my own
carriage, and posted off after Mr. Palliser as hard as ever she could,
leaving the male duenna on the watch. I was dancing as hard as I
could, but I knew what was going on all the time as well as though
I had heard them talking. Of course Mr. Palliser came after me. I
don't know what else he could do, unless, indeed, he had left me to
my fate. He came there, and behaved so well,--so much like a perfect
gentleman. Of course I went home, and I was prepared to tell him
everything, if he spoke a word to me,--that I intended to leave him,
and that cart-ropes should not hold me!"
"To leave him, Cora!"
"Yes, and go with that other man whose name you won't let me mention.
I had a letter from him in my pocket asking me to go. He asked me
a dozen times that night. I cannot think how it was that I did not
consent."
"That you did not consent to your own ruin and disgrace?"
"That I did not consent to go off with him,--anywhere. Of course it
would have been my own destruction. I'm not such a fool as not to
know that. Do you suppose I have never thought of it;--what it would
be to be a man's mistress instead of his wife. If I had not I should
be a thing to be hated and despised. When once I had done it I should
hate and despise myself. I should feel myself to be loathsome, and,
as it were, a beast among women. But why did they not let me marry
him, instead of driving me to this? And though I might have destroyed
myself, I should have saved the man who is still my husband. Do you
know, I told him all that,--told him that if I had gone away with
Burgo Fitzgerald he would have another wife, and would have children,
and would--?"
"You told your husband that you had thought of leaving him?"
"Yes; I told him everything. I told him that I dearly loved that poor
fellow, for whom, as I believe, nobody else on earth cares a single
straw."
"And what did he say?"
"I cannot tell you what he said, only that we are all to go to Baden
together, and then to Italy. But he did not seem a bit angry; he very
seldom is angry, unless at some trumpery thing, as when he threw the
book away. And when I told him that he might have another wife and a
child, he put his arm round me and whispered to me that he did not
care so much about it as I had imagined. I felt more like loving him
at that moment than I had ever done before."
"He must be fit to be an angel."
"He's fit to be a cabinet minister, which, I'm quite sure, he'd like
much better. And now you know everything; but no,--there is one thing
you don't know yet. When I tell you that, you'll want to make him
an archangel or a prime minister. 'We'll go abroad,' he said,--and
remember, this was his own proposition, made long before I was able
to speak a word;--'We'll go abroad, and you shall get your cousin
Alice to go with us.' That touched me more than anything. Only think
if he had proposed Mrs. Marsham!"
"But yet he does not like me."
"You're wrong there, Alice. There has been no question of liking or
of disliking. He thought you would be a kind of Mrs. Marsham, and
when you were not, but went out flirting among the ruins with Jeffrey
Palliser, instead--"
"I never went out flirting with Jeffrey Palliser."
"He did with you, which is all the same thing. And when Plantagenet
knew of that,--for, of course, Mr. Bott told him--"
"Mr. Bott can't see everything."
"Those men do. The worst is, they see more than everything. But, at
any rate, Mr. Palliser has got over all that now. Come, Alice; the
fact of the offer having come from himself should disarm you of any
such objection as that. As he has held out his hand to you, you have
no alternative but to take it."
"I will take his hand willingly."
"And for my sake you will go with us? He understands himself that
I am not fit to be his companion, and to have no companion but him.
Now there is a spirit of wisdom about you that will do for him, and
a spirit of folly that will suit me. I can manage to put myself on a
par with a girl who has played such a wild game with her lovers as
you have done."
Alice would give no promise then. Her first objection was that
she had undertaken to go down to Westmoreland and comfort Kate
in the affliction of her broken arm. "And I must go," said Alice,
remembering how necessary it was that she should plead her own cause
with George Vavasor's sister. But she acknowledged that she had not
intended to stay long in Westmoreland, probably not more than a week,
and it was at last decided that the Pallisers should postpone their
journey for four or five days, and that Alice should go with them
immediately upon her return from Vavasor Hall.
"I have no objection;" said her father, speaking with that voice
of resignation which men use when they are resolved to consider
themselves injured whatever may be done. "I can get along in
lodgings. I suppose we had better leave the house, as you have given
away so much of your own fortune?" Alice did not think it worth her
while to point out to him, in answer to this, that her contribution
to their joint housekeeping should still remain the same as ever.
Such, however, she knew would be the fact, and she knew also that she
would find her father in the old house when she returned from her
travels. To her, in her own great troubles, the absence from London
would be as serviceable as it could be to Lady Glencora. Indeed, she
had already begun to feel the impossibility of staying quietly at
home. She could lecture her cousin, whose faults were open, easy to
be defined, and almost loud in their nature; but she was not on that
account the less aware of her own. She knew that she too had cause to
be ashamed of herself. She was half afraid to show her face among her
friends, and wept grievously over her own follies. Those cruel words
of her father rang in her ears constantly:--"Things of that sort are
so often over with you." The reproach, though cruel, was true, and
what reproach more galling could be uttered to an unmarried girl such
as was Alice Vavasor? She had felt from the first moment in which the
proposition was made to her, that it would be well that she should
for a while leave her home, and especially that drawing-room in Queen
Anne Street, which told her so many tales that she would fain forget,
if it were possible.
Mr. Palliser would not allow his wife to remain in London for the ten
or twelve days which must yet elapse before they started, nor could
he send her into the country alone. He took her down to Matching
Priory, having obtained leave to be absent from the House for the
remainder of the Session, and remained with her there till within
two days of their departure. That week down at Matching, as she
afterwards told Alice, was very terrible. He never spoke a word to
rebuke her. He never hinted that there had been aught in her conduct
of which he had cause to complain. He treated her with a respect that
was perfect, and indeed with more outward signs of affection than
had ever been customary with him. "But," as Lady Glencora afterwards
expressed it, "he was always looking after me. I believe he thought
that Burgo Fitzgerald had hidden himself among the ruins," she said
once to Alice. "He never suspected me, I am sure of that; but he
thought that he ought to look after me." And Lady Glencora in this
had very nearly hit the truth. Mr. Palliser had resolved, from that
hour in which he had walked out among the elms in Kensington Gardens,
that he would neither suspect his wife, nor treat her as though he
suspected her. The blame had been his, perhaps, more than it had
been hers. So much he had acknowledged to himself, thinking of the
confession she had made to him before their marriage. But it was
manifestly his imperative duty,--his duty of duties,--to save her
from that pitfall into which, as she herself had told him, she had
been so ready to fall. For her sake and for his this must be done.
It was a duty so imperative, that in its performance he had found
himself forced to abandon his ambition. To have his wife taken from
him would be terrible, but the having it said all over the world that
such a misfortune had come upon him would be almost more terrible
even than that.
So he went with his wife hither and thither, down at Matching,
allowing himself to be driven about behind Dandy and Flirt. He
himself proposed these little excursions. They were tedious to him,
but doubly tedious to his wife, who now found it more difficult than
ever to talk to him. She struggled to talk, and he struggled to talk,
but the very struggles themselves made the thing impossible. He sat
with her in the mornings, and he sat with her in the evenings; he
breakfasted with her, lunched with her, and dined with her. He went
to bed early, having no figures which now claimed his attention. And
so the week at last wore itself away. "I saw him yawning sometimes,"
Lady Glencora said afterwards, "as though he would fall in pieces."
CHAPTER LXIII.
Mr. John Grey in Queen Anne Street.
Alice was resolved that she would keep her promise to Kate, and pay
her visit to Westmoreland before she started with the Pallisers. Kate
had written to her three lines with her left hand, begging her to
come, and those three lines had been more eloquent than anything
she could have written had her right arm been uninjured. Alice had
learned something of the truth as to the accident from her father;
or, rather, had heard her father's surmises on the subject. She had
heard, too, how her cousin George had borne himself when the will was
read, and how he had afterwards disappeared, never showing himself
again at the hall. After all that had passed she felt that she owed
Kate some sympathy. Sympathy may, no doubt, be conveyed by letter;
but there are things on which it is almost impossible for any writer
to express himself with adequate feeling; and there are things,
too, which can be spoken, but which cannot be written. Therefore,
though the journey must be a hurried one, Alice sent word down to
Westmoreland that she was to be expected there in a day or two. On
her return she was to go at once to Park Lane, and sleep there for
the two nights which would intervene before the departure of the
Pallisers.
On the day before she started for Westmoreland her father came to her
in the middle of the day, and told her that John Grey was going to
dine with him in Queen Anne Street on that evening.
"To-day, papa?" she asked.
"Yes, to-day. Why not? No man is less particular as to what he eats
than Grey."
"I was not thinking of that, papa," she said.
To this Mr. Vavasor made no reply, but stood for some minutes looking
out of the window. Then he prepared to leave the room, getting
himself first as far as the table, where he lifted a book, and then
on half-way to the door before Alice arrested him.
"Perhaps, papa, you and Mr. Grey had better dine alone."
"What do you mean by alone?"
"I meant without me,--as two men generally like to do."
"If I wanted that I should have asked him to dine at the club," said
Mr. Vavasor, and then he again attempted to go.
"But, papa--"
"Well, my dear! If you mean to say that because of what has
passed you object to meet Mr. Grey, I can only tell you it's
nonsense,--confounded nonsense. If he chooses to come there can be
no reason why you shouldn't receive him."
"It will look as though--"
"Look what?"
"As though he were asked as my guest."
"That's nonsense. I saw him yesterday, and I asked him to come. I saw
him again to-day, and he said he would come. He's not such a fool as
to suppose after that, that you asked him."
"No; not that I asked him."
"And if you run away you'll only make more of the thing than it's
worth. Of course I can't make you dine with me if you don't like."
Alice did not like it, but, after some consideration, she thought
that she might be open to the imputation of having made more of the
thing than it was worth if she ran away, as her father called it. She
was going to leave the country for some six or eight months,--perhaps
for a longer time than that, and it might be as well that she should
have an opportunity of telling her plans to Mr. Grey. She could do it,
she thought, in such a way as to make him understand that her last
quarrel with George Vavasor was not supposed to alter the footing on
which she stood with him. She did not doubt that her father had told
everything to Mr. Grey. She knew well enough what her father's wishes
still were. It was not odd that he should be asking John Grey to
his house, though such exercises of domestic hospitality were very
unusual with him. But,--so she declared to herself,--such little
attempts on his part would be altogether thrown away. It was a pity
that he had not yet learned to know her better. She would receive
Mr. Grey as the mistress of her father's house now, for the last
time; and then, on her return in the following year, he would be at
Nethercoats, and the whole thing would be over.
She dressed herself very plainly, simply changing one black frock
for another, and then sat herself in her drawing-room awaiting the
two gentlemen. It was already past the hour of dinner before her
father came up-stairs. She knew that he was in the house, and in
her heart she accused him of keeping out of the way, in order that
John Grey might be alone with her. Whether or no she were right in
her suspicions John Grey did not take advantage of the opportunity
offered to him. Her father came up first, and had seated himself
silently in his arm-chair before the visitor was announced.
As Mr. Grey entered the room Alice knew that she was flurried, but
still she managed to carry herself with some dignity. His bearing was
perfect. But then, as she declared to herself afterwards, no possible
position in life would put him beside himself. He came up to her
with his usual quiet smile,--a smile that was genial even in its
quietness, and took her hand. He took it fairly and fully into his;
but there was no squeezing, no special pressure, no love-making.
And when he spoke to her he called her Alice, as though his doing
so was of all things the most simply a matter of course. There was
no tell-tale hesitation in his voice. When did he ever hesitate at
anything? "I hear you are going abroad," he said, "with your cousin,
Lady Glencora Palliser."
[Illustration: She managed to carry herself with some dignity.]
"Yes," said Alice; "I am going with them for a long tour. We shall
not return, I fancy, till the end of next winter."
"Plans of that sort are as easily broken as they are made," said her
father. "You won't be your own mistress; and I advise you not to
count too surely upon getting further than Baden."
"If Mr. Palliser changes his mind of course I shall come home," said
Alice, with a little attempt at a smile.
"I should think him a man not prone to changes," said Grey. "But all
London is talking about his change of mind at this moment. They say
at the clubs that he might have been in the Cabinet if he would, but
that he has taken up this idea of going abroad at the moment when he
was wanted."
"It's his wife's doing, I take it," said Mr. Vavasor.
"That's the worst of being in Parliament," said Grey. "A man can't do
anything without giving a reason for it. There must be men for public
life, of course; but, upon my word, I think we ought to be very much
obliged to them."
Alice, as she took her old lover's arm, and walked down with him to
dinner, thought of all her former quarrels with him on this very
subject. On this very point she had left him. He had never argued the
matter with her. He had never asked her to argue with him. He had not
condescended so far as that. Had he done so, she thought that she
would have brought herself to think as he thought. She would have
striven, at any rate, to do so. But she could not become unambitious,
tranquil, fond of retirement, and philosophic, without an argument
on the matter,--without being allowed even the poor grace of owning
herself to be convinced. If a man takes a dog with him from the
country up to town, the dog must live a town life without knowing the
reason why;--must live a town life or die a town death. But a woman
should not be treated like a dog. "Had he deigned to discuss it with
me!" Alice had so often said. "But, no; he will read his books, and I
am to go there to fetch him his slippers, and make his tea for him."
All this came upon her again as she walked down-stairs by his side;
and with it there came a consciousness that she had been driven by
this usage into the terrible engagement which she had made with her
cousin. That, no doubt, was now over. There was no longer to her any
question of her marrying George Vavasor. But the fact that she had
been mad enough to think and talk of such a marriage, had of itself
been enough to ruin her. "Things of that sort are so often over with
you!" After such a speech as that to her from her father, Alice
told herself that there could be no more "things of that sort" for
her. But all her misery had been brought about by this scornful
superiority to the ordinary pursuits of the world,--this looking down
upon humanity. "It seems to me," she said, very quietly, while her
hand was yet upon his arm, "that your pity is hardly needed. I should
think that no persons can be happier than those whom you call our
public men."
"Ah!" said he, "that is our old quarrel." He said it as though
the quarrel had simply been an argument between them, or a dozen
arguments,--as arguments do come up between friends; not as though
it had served to separate for life two persons who had loved each
other dearly. "It's the old story of the town mouse and the country
mouse,--as old as the hills. Mice may be civil for a while, and
compliment each other; but when they come to speak their minds
freely, each likes his own life best." She said nothing more at the
moment, and the three sat down to their small dinner-table. It was
astonishing to Alice that he should be able to talk in this way, to
hint at such things, to allude to their former hopes and present
condition, without a quiver in his voice, or, as far as she could
perceive, without any feeling in his heart.
"Alice," said her father, "I can't compliment your cook upon her
soup."
"You don't encourage her, papa, by eating it often enough. And then
you only told me at two o'clock to-day."
"If a cook can't make soup between two and seven, she can't make it
in a week."
"I hope Mr. Grey will excuse it," said Alice.
"Isn't it good?" said he. "I won't say that it is, because I should
be pretending to have an opinion; but I should not have found out
anything against it of myself."
"Where do you dine usually, now you are in London?" Mr. Vavasor asked.
"At the old club, at the corner of Suffolk Street. It's the oldest
club in London, I believe. I never belonged to any other, and
therefore can't compare them; but I can't imagine anything much
nicer."
"They give you better soup than ours?" said Alice.
"You've an excellent cook," said Mr. Vavasor, with great gravity; "one
of the best second-class cooks in London. We were very nearly getting
him, but you nicked him just in time. I know him well."
"It's a great deal more than I do, or hope to do. There's another
branch of public life for which I'm quite unfitted. I'd as soon be
called on to choose a Prime Minister for the country, as I would a
cook for a club."
"Of course you would," said Mr. Vavasor. "There may be as many as a
dozen cooks about London to be looked up, but there are never more
than two possible Prime Ministers about. And as one of them must be
going out when the other is coming in, I don't see that there can be
any difficulty. Moreover, now-a-days, people do their politics for
themselves, but they expect to have their dinners cooked for them."
The little dinner went on quietly and very easily. Mr. Vavasor found
fault with nearly everything. But as, on this occasion, the meat
and the drink, with the manner of the eating and drinking, did not
constitute the difficulty, Alice was indifferent to her father's
censures. The thing needed was that she and Mr. Grey should be able
to sit together at the same table without apparent consciousness of
their former ties. Alice felt that she was succeeding indifferently
well while she was putting in little mock defences for the cook. And
as for John Grey, he succeeded so well that his success almost made
Alice angry with him. It required no effort with him at all to be
successful in this matter. "If he can forget all that has passed,
so much the better," said Alice to herself when she got up into the
drawing-room. Then she sat herself down on the sofa, and cried. Oh!
what had she not lost! Had any woman ever been so mad, so reckless,
so heartless as she had been! And she had done it, knowing that she
loved him! She cried bitterly, and then went away to wash her eyes,
that she might be ready to give him his coffee when he should come
up-stairs.
"She does not look well," said Grey as soon as she had left the room.
"Well;--no: how can she look well after what she has gone through?
I sometimes think, that of all the people I ever knew, she has been
the most foolish. But, of course, it is not for me to say anything
against my own child; and, of all people, not to you."
"Nothing that you could say against her would make any difference to
me. I sometimes fancy that I know her better than you do."
"And you think that she'll still come round again?"
"I cannot say that I think so. No one can venture to say whether or
not such wounds as hers may be cured. There are hearts and bodies
so organized, that in them severe wounds are incurable, whereas in
others no injury seems to be fatal. But I can say that if she be not
cured it shall not be from want of perseverance on my part."
"Upon my word, Grey, I don't know how to thank you enough. I don't,
indeed."
"It doesn't seem to me to be a case for thanking."
"Of course it isn't. I know that well enough. And in the ordinary
way of the world no father would think of thanking a man for wanting
to marry his daughter. But things have come to such a pass with us,
that, by George! I don't feel like any other father. I don't mind
saying anything to you, you know. That claret isn't very good, but
you might as well take another glass."
"Thank you, I will. I should have said that that was rather good
wine, now."
"It's not just the thing. What's the use of my having good wine here,
when nobody comes to drink it? But, as I was saying about Alice, of
course I've felt all this thing very much. I feel as though I were
responsible, and yet what could I do? She's her own mistress through
it all. When she told me she was going to marry that horrible
miscreant, my nephew, what could I do?"
"That's over now, and we need not talk about it."
"It's very kind of you to say so,--very. I believe she's a good girl.
I do, indeed, in spite of it all."
"I've no doubt of her being what you call a good girl,--none in the
least. What she has done to me does not impair her goodness. I don't
think you have ever understood how much all this has been a matter of
conscience with her."
"Conscience!" said the angry father. "I hate such conscience. I
like the conscience that makes a girl keep her word, and not bring
disgrace upon those she belongs to."
"I shall not think that I am disgraced," said Grey, quietly, "if
she will come and be my wife. She has meant to do right, and has
endeavoured to take care of the happiness of other people rather than
her own."
"She has taken very little care of mine," said Mr. Vavasor.
"I shall not be at all afraid to trust mine to her,--if she will let
me do so. But she has been wounded sorely, and it must take time."
"And, in the meantime, what are we to do when she tells us that
Mr. George Vavasor wants another remittance? Two thousand pounds a
quarter comes heavy, you know!"
"Let us hope that he has had enough."
"Enough! Did such a man ever have enough?"
"Let us hope, then, that she thinks he has had enough. Come;--may I
go up-stairs?"
"Oh, yes. I'll follow you. She'll think that I mean something if I
leave you together."
From all this it will be seen that Alice's father and her lover still
stood together on confidential terms. Not easily had Mr. Vavasor
brought himself to speak of his daughter to John Grey, in such
language as he had now used; but he had been forced by adverse
circumstances to pass the Rubicon of parental delicacy; he had been
driven to tell his wished-for son-in-law that he did wish to have him
as a son-in-law; he had been compelled to lay aside those little airs
of reserve with which a father generally speaks of his daughter,--and
now all was open between them.
"And you really start to-morrow?" said Grey, as he stood close
over Alice's work-table. Mr. Vavasor had followed him into the
drawing-room, but had seated himself in an easy-chair on the other
side of the fire. There was no tone of whispering in Grey's voice,
but yet he spoke in a manner which showed that he did not intend to
be audible on the other side of the room.
"I start for Westmoreland to-morrow. We do not leave London for the
continent till the latter end of next week."
"But you will not be here again?"
"No; I shall not come back to Queen Anne Street."
"And you will be away for many months?"
"Mr. Palliser talked of next Easter as the term of his return. He
mentioned Easter to Lady Glencora. I have not seen him myself since
I agreed to go with him."
"What should you say if you met me somewhere in your travels?" He had
now gently seated himself on the sofa beside her;--not so close to
her as to give her just cause to move away, but yet so near as to
make his conversation with her quite private.
"I don't think that will be very likely," she replied, not knowing
what to say.
"I think it is very likely. For myself, I hate surprises. I could not
bring myself to fall in upon your track unawares. I shall go abroad,
but it will not be till the late autumn, when the summer heats are
gone,--and I shall endeavour to find you."
"To find me, Mr. Grey!" There was a quivering in her voice, as she
spoke, which she could not prevent, though she would have given
worlds to prevent it. "I do not think that will be quite fair."
"It will not be unfair, I think, if I give you notice of my approach.
I will not fall upon you and your friends unawares."
"I was not thinking of them. They would be glad to know you, of
course."
"And equally, of course! or, rather, much more of course, you will
not be glad to see me? That's what you mean?"
"I mean that we had better not meet more than we can help."
"I think differently, Alice,--quite differently. The more we meet the
better,--that is what I think. But I will not stop to trouble you
now. Good night!" Then he got up and went away, and her father went
with him. Mr. Vavasor, as he rose from his chair, declared that he
would just walk through a couple of streets; but Alice knew that he
was gone to his club.
CHAPTER LXIV.
The Rocks and Valleys.
During these days Mrs. Greenow was mistress of the old Hall down in
Westmoreland, and was nursing Kate assiduously through the calamity
of her broken arm. There had come to be a considerable amount of
confidence between the aunt and the niece. Kate had acknowledged to
her aunt that her brother had behaved badly,--very badly; and the
aunt had confessed to the niece that she regarded Captain Bellfield
as a fit subject for compassion.
"And he was violent to you, and broke your arm? I always knew it was
so," Mrs. Greenow had said, speaking with reference to her nephew. But
this Kate had denied. "No," said she; "that was an accident. When he
went away and left me, he knew nothing about it. And if he had broken
both my arms I should not have cared much. I could have forgiven him
that." But that which Kate could not forgive him was the fault which
she had herself committed. For his sake she had done her best to
separate Alice and John Grey, and George had shown himself to be
unworthy of the kindness of her treachery. "I would give all I have
in the world to bring them together again," Kate said. "They'll come
together fast enough if they like each other," said Mrs. Greenow.
"Alice is young still, and they tell me she's as good looking as
ever. A girl with her money won't have far to seek for a husband,
even if this paragon from Cambridgeshire should not turn up again."
"You don't know Alice, aunt."
"No, I don't. But I know what young women are, and I know what young
men are. All this nonsense about her cousin George,--what difference
will it make? A man like Mr. Grey won't care about that,--especially
not if she tells him all about it. My belief is that a girl can have
anything forgiven her, if she'll only tell it herself."
But Kate preferred the other subject, and so, I think, did Mrs.
Greenow herself. "Of course, my dear," she would say, "marriage with
me, if I should marry again, would be a very different thing to your
marriage, or that of any other young person. As for love, that has
been all over for me since poor Greenow died. I have known nothing
of the softness of affection since I laid him in his cold grave, and
never can again. 'Captain Bellfield,' I said to him, 'if you were to
kneel at my feet for years, it would not make me care for you in the
way of love.'"
"And what did he say to that?"
"How am I to tell you what he said? He talked nonsense about my
beauty, as all the men do. If a woman were hump-backed, and had only
one eye, they wouldn't be ashamed to tell her she was a Venus."
"But, aunt, you are a handsome woman, you know."
"Laws, my dear, as if I didn't understand all about it; as if I
didn't know what makes a woman run after? It isn't beauty,--and it
isn't money altogether. I've seen women who had plenty of both, and
not a man would come nigh them. They didn't dare. There are some of
them, a man would as soon think of putting his arm round a poplar
tree, they are so hard and so stiff. You know you're a little that
way yourself, Kate, and I've always told you it won't do."
"I'm afraid I'm too old to mend, aunt."
"Not at all, if you'll only set your wits to work and try. You've
plenty of money now, and you're good-looking enough, too, when you
take the trouble to get yourself up. But, as I said before, it isn't
that that's wanted. There's a stand-off about some women,--what the
men call a 'nollimy tangere,' that a man must be quite a furious
Orlando to attempt to get the better of it. They look as though
matrimony itself were improper, and as if they believed that little
babies were found about in the hedges and ditches. They talk of women
being forward! There are some of them a deal too backward, according
to my way of thinking."
"Yours is a comfortable doctrine, aunt."
"That's just what I want it to be. I want things to be comfortable.
Why shouldn't things be nice about one when one's got the means?
Nobody can say it's a pleasant thing to live alone. I always thought
that man in the song hit it off properly. You remember what he says?
'The poker and tongs to each other belongs.' So they do, and that
should be the way with men and women."
"But the poker and tongs have but a bad life of it sometimes."
"Not so often as the people say, my dear. Men and women ain't like
lumps of sugar. They don't melt because the water is sometimes warm.
Now, if I do take Bellfield,--and I really think I shall; but if I
do he'll give me a deal of trouble. I know he will. He'll always
be wanting my money, and, of course, he'll get more than he ought.
I'm not a Solomon, nor yet a Queen of Sheba, no more than anybody
else. And he'll smoke too many cigars, and perhaps drink more
brandy-and-water than he ought. And he'll be making eyes, too, at
some of the girls who'll be fools enough to let him."
"Dear me, aunt, if I thought all that ill of him, I'm sure I wouldn't
marry him;--especially as you say you don't love him."
"As for love, my dear, that's gone,--clear gone!" Whereupon Mrs.
Greenow put up her handkerchief to her eyes. "Some women can love
twice, but I am not one of them. I wish I could,--I wish I could!"
These last words were spoken in a tone of solemn regret, which,
however, she contrived to change as quickly as she had adopted it.
"But my dear, marriage is a comfortable thing. And then, though
the Captain may be a little free, I don't doubt but what I shall
get the upper hand with him at last. I shan't stop his cigars and
brandy-and-water you know. Why shouldn't a man smoke and have a
glass, if he don't make a beast of himself? I like to see a man enjoy
himself. And then," she added, speaking tenderly of her absent lover,
"I do think he's fond of me,--I do, indeed."
"So is Mr. Cheesacre for the matter of that."
"Poor Cheesy! I believe he was, though he did talk so much about
money. I always like to believe the best I can of them. But then
there was no poetry about Cheesy. I don't care about saying it now,
as you've quite made up your mind not to have him."
"Quite, aunt."
"Your grandfather's will does make a difference, you know. But, as
I was saying, I do like a little romance about them,--just a sniff,
as I call it, of the rocks and valleys. One knows that it doesn't
mean much; but it's like artificial flowers,--it gives a little
colour, and takes off the dowdiness. Of course, bread-and-cheese is
the real thing. The rocks and valleys are no good at all, if you
haven't got that, But enough is as good as a feast. Thanks to dear
Greenow,"--here the handkerchief was again used--"Thanks to dear
Greenow, I shall never want. Of course I shan't let any of the money
go into his hands,--the Captain's, I mean. I know a trick worth two
of that, my dear. But, lord love you! I've enough for him and me.
What's the good of a woman's wanting to keep it all to herself?"
[Illustration: A sniff of the rocks and valleys.]
"And you think you'll really take him, aunt, and pay his
washerwoman's bills for him? You remember what you told me when I
first saw him?"
"Oh, yes; I remember. And if he can't pay his own washerwoman, isn't
that so much more of a reason that I should do it for him? Well; yes;
I think I will take him. That is, if he lets me take him just as I
choose. Beggars mustn't be choosers, my dear."
In this way the aunt and niece became very confidential, and Mrs.
Greenow whispered into Kate's ears her belief that Captain Bellfield
might possibly make his way across the country to Westmoreland.
"There would be no harm in offering him a bed, would there?" Mrs.
Greenow asked. "You see the inn at Shap is a long way off for morning
calls." Kate could not take upon herself to say that there would be
any harm, but she did not like the idea of having Captain Bellfield
as a visitor. "After all, perhaps he mayn't come," said the widow. "I
don't see where he is to raise the money for such a journey, now that
he has quarrelled with Mr. Cheesacre."
"If Captain Bellfield must come to Vavasor Hall, at any rate let him
not come till Alice's visit had been completed." That was Kate's
present wish, and so much she ventured to confide to her aunt. But
there seemed to be no way of stopping him. "I don't in the least know
where he is, my dear, and as for writing to him, I never did such a
thing in my life, and I shouldn't know how to begin." Mrs. Greenow
declared that she had not positively invited the Captain; but on this
point Kate hardly gave full credit to her aunt's statement.
Alice arrived, and, for a day or two, the three ladies lived very
pleasantly together. Kate still wore her arm in a sling; but she was
able to walk out, and would take long walks in spite of the doctor's
prohibition. Of course, they went up on the mountains. Indeed, all
the walks from Vavasor Hall led to the mountains, unless one chose to
take the road to Shap. But they went up, across the beacon hill, as
though by mutual consent. There were no questions asked between them
as to the route to be taken; and though they did not reach the stone
on which they had once sat looking over upon Haweswater, they did
reach the spot upon which Kate had encountered her accident. "It was
here I fell," she said; "and the last I saw of him was his back, as
he made his way down into the valley, there. When I got upon my legs
I could still see him. It was one of those evenings when the clouds
are dark, but you can see all objects with a peculiar clearness
through the air. I stood here ever so long, holding my arm, and
watching him; but he never once turned to look back at me. Do you
know, Alice, I fancy that I shall never see him again."
"Do you suppose that he means to quarrel with you altogether?"
"I can hardly tell you what I mean! He seemed to me to be going away
from me, as though he went into another world. His figure against the
light was quite clear, and he walked quickly, and on he went, till
the slope of the hill hid him from me. Of course, I thought that he
would return to the Hall. At one time I almost feared that he would
come upon me through the woods, as I went back myself. But yet, I had
a feeling,--what people call a presentiment, that I should never see
him again."
"He has never written?"
"No; not a word. You must remember that he did not know that I had
hurt myself. I am sure he will not write, and I am sure, also, that I
shall not. If he wanted money I would send it to him, but I would not
write to him."
"I fear he will always want money, Kate."
"I fear he will. If you could know what I suffered when he made me
write that letter to you! But, of course, I was a beast. Of course,
I ought not to have written it."
"I thought it a very proper letter."
"It was a mean letter. The whole thing was mean! He should have
starved in the street before he had taken your money. He should have
given up Parliament, and everything else! I had doubted much about
him before, but it was that which first turned my heart against
him. I had begun to fear that he was not such a man as I had always
thought him,--as I had spoken of him to you."
"I had judged of him for myself," said Alice.
"Of course you did. But I had endeavoured to make you judge kindly.
Alice, dear! we have both suffered for him; you more than I, perhaps;
but I, too, have given up everything for him. My whole life has
been at his service. I have been his creature, to do his bidding,
just as he might tell me. He made me do things that I knew to be
wrong,--things that were foreign to my own nature; and yet I almost
worshipped him. Even now, if he were to come back, I believe that I
should forgive him everything."
"I should forgive him, but I could never do more."
"But he will never come back. He will never ask us to forgive him, or
even wish it. He has no heart."
"He has longed for money till the Devil has hardened his heart," said
Alice.
"And yet how tender he could be in his manner when he chose it;--how
soft he could make his words and his looks! Do you remember how he
behaved to us in Switzerland? Do you remember that balcony at Basle,
and the night we sat there, when the boys were swimming down the
river?"
"Yes;--I remember."
"So do I! So do I! Alice, I would give all I have in the world, if I
could recall that journey to Switzerland."
"If you mean for my sake, Kate--"
"I do mean for your sake. It made no difference to me. Whether I
stayed in Westmoreland or went abroad, I must have found out that my
god was made of bricks and clay instead of gold. But there was no
need for you to be crushed in the ruins."
"I am not crushed, Kate!"
"Of course, you are too proud to own it?"
"If you mean about Mr. Grey, that would have happened just the same,
whether I had gone abroad or remained at home."
"Would it, dear?"
"Just the same."
There was nothing more than this said between them about Mr. Grey.
Even to her cousin, Alice could not bring herself to talk freely on
that subject. She would never allow herself to think, for a moment,
that she had been persuaded by others to treat him as she had treated
him. She was sure that she had acted on her own convictions of what
was right and wrong; and now, though she had begun to feel that she
had been wrong, she would hardly confess as much even to herself.
They walked back, down the hill, to the Hall in silence for the
greater part of the way. Once or twice Kate repeated her conviction
that she should never again see her brother. "I do not know what may
happen to him," she said in answer to her cousin's questions; "but
when he was passing out of my sight into the valley, I felt that I
was looking at him for the last time."
"That is simply what people call a presentiment," Alice replied.
"Exactly so; and presentiments, of course, mean nothing," said Kate.
Then they walked on towards the house without further speech; but
when they reached the end of the little path which led out of the
wood, on to the gravelled sweep before the front door, they were both
arrested by a sight that met their eyes. There was a man standing,
with a cigar in his mouth, before them, swinging a little cane,
and looking about him up at the wood. He had on his head a jaunty
little straw-hat, and he wore a jacket with brass buttons, and white
trousers. It was now nearly the middle of May, but the summer does
not come to Westmoreland so early as that, and the man, as he stood
there looking about him, seemed to be cold and almost uncomfortable.
He had not as yet seen the two girls, who stood at the end of the
walk, arrested by the sight of him. "Who is it?" asked Alice, in a
whisper.
"Captain Bellfield," said Kate, speaking with something very like
dismay in her voice.
"What! aunt Greenow's Captain?"
"Yes; aunt Greenow's Captain. I have been fearing this, and now, what
on earth are we to do with him? Look at him. That's what aunt Greenow
calls a sniff of the rocks and valleys."
The Captain began to move,--just to move, as though it were necessary
to do something to keep the life in his limbs. He had finished his
cigar, and looked at the end of it with manifest regret. As he threw
it away among a tuft of shrubs his eye fell upon the two ladies, and
he uttered a little exclamation. Then he came forward, waving his
little straw-hat in his hand, and made his salutation. "Miss Vavasor,
I am delighted," he said. "Miss Alice Vavasor, if I am not mistaken?
I have been commissioned by my dear friend Mrs. Greenow to go out and
seek you, but, upon my word, the woods looked so black that I did not
dare to venture;--and then, of course, I shouldn't have found you."
Kate put out her left hand, and then introduced her cousin to the
Captain. Again he waved his little straw-hat, and strove to bear
himself as though he were at home and comfortable. But he failed,
and it was manifest that he failed. He was not the Bellfield who had
conquered Mr. Cheesacre on the sands at Yarmouth, though he wore the
same jacket and waistcoat, and must now have enjoyed the internal
satisfaction of feeling that his future maintenance in life was
assured to him. But he was not at his ease. His courage had sufficed
to enable him to follow his quarry into Westmoreland, but it did not
suffice to make him comfortable while he was there. Kate instantly
perceived his condition, and wickedly resolved that she would make no
effort to assist him. She went through some ceremony of introduction,
and then expressed her surprise at seeing him so far north.
"Well," said he; "I am a little surprised myself;--I am, indeed! But
I had nothing to do in Norwich,--literally nothing; and your aunt had
so often talked to me of the beauties of this place,"--and he waved
his hand round at the old house and the dark trees,--"that I thought
I'd take the liberty of paying you a flying visit. I didn't mean to
intrude in the way of sleeping; I didn't indeed, Miss Vavasor; only
Mrs. Greenow has been so kind as to say--"
"We are so very far out of the world, Captain Bellfield, that we
always give our visitors beds."
"I didn't intend it; I didn't indeed, miss!" Poor Captain Bellfield
was becoming very uneasy in his agitation. "I did just put my bag,
with a change of things, into the gig, which brought me over, not
knowing quite where I might go on to."
"We won't send you any further to-day, at any rate," said Kate.
"Mrs. Greenow has been very kind,--very kind, indeed. She has asked me
to stay till--Saturday!"
Kate bit her lips in a momentary fit of anger. The house was her
house, and not her aunt's. But she remembered that her aunt had been
kind to her at Norwich and at Yarmouth, and she allowed this feeling
to die away. "We shall be very glad to see you," she said. "We are
three women together here, and I'm afraid you will find us rather
dull."
"Oh dear, no,--dull with you! That would be impossible!"
"And how have you left your friend, Mr. Cheesacre?"
"Quite well;--very well, thank you. That is to say, I haven't seen
him much lately. He and I did have a bit of a breeze, you know."
"I can't say that I did know, Captain Bellfield."
"I thought, perhaps, you had heard. He seemed to think that I was too
particular in a certain quarter! Ha--ha--ha--ha! That's only my joke,
you know, ladies."
They then went into the house, and the Captain straggled in after
them. Mrs. Greenow was in neither of the two sitting-rooms which
they usually occupied. She, too, had been driven somewhat out of the
ordinary composure of her manner by the arrival of her lover,--even
though she had expected it, and had retired to her room, thinking
that she had better see Kate in private before they met in the
presence of the Captain. "I suppose you have seen my aunt since you
have been here?" said Kate.
"Oh dear, yes. I saw her, and she suggested that I had better walk
out and find you. I did find you, you know, though I didn't walk very
far."
"And have you seen your room?"
"Yes;--yes. She was kind enough to show me my room. Very nice indeed,
thank you;--looking out into the front, and all that kind of thing."
The poor fellow was no doubt thinking how much better was his lot at
Vavasor Hall than it had been at Oileymead. "I shan't stay long, Miss
Vavasor,--only just a night or so; but I did want to see your aunt
again,--and you, too, upon my word."
"My aunt is the attraction, Captain Bellfield. We all know that."
He actually simpered,--simpered like a young girl who is half elated
and half ashamed when her lover is thrown in her teeth. He fidgeted
with the things on the table, and moved himself about uneasily from
one leg to the other. Perhaps he was remembering that though he had
contrived to bring himself to Vavasor Hall he had not money enough
left to take him back to Norwich. The two girls left him and went to
their rooms. "I will go to my aunt at once," said Kate, "and find out
what is to be done."
"I suppose she means to marry him?"
"Oh, yes; she means to marry him, and the sooner the better now. I
knew this was coming, but I did so hope it would not be while you
were here. It makes me feel so ashamed of myself that you should see
it."
Kate boldly knocked at her aunt's door, and her aunt received her
with a conscious smile. "I was waiting for you to come," said Mrs.
Greenow.
"Here I am, aunt; and, what is more to the purpose, there is Captain
Bellfield in the drawing-room."
"Stupid man! I told him to take himself away about the place till
dinner-time. I've half a mind to send him back to Shap at once;--upon
my word I have."
"Don't do that, aunt; it would be inhospitable."
"But he is such an oaf. I hope you understand, my dear, that I
couldn't help it?"
"But you do mean to--to marry him, aunt; don't you?"
"Well, Kate, I really think I do. Why shouldn't I? It's a lonely sort
of life being by myself; and, upon my word, I don't think there's
very much harm in him."
"I am not saying anything against him; only in that case you can't
very well turn him out of the house."
"Could not I, though? I could in a minute; and, if you wish it, you
shall see if I can't do it."
"The rocks and valleys would not allow that, aunt."
"It's all very well for you to laugh, my dear. If laughing would
break my bones I shouldn't be as whole as I am now. I might have had
Cheesacre if I liked, who is a substantial man, and could have kept
a carriage for me; but it was the rocks and valleys that prevented
that;--and perhaps a little feeling that I might do some good to
a poor fellow who has nobody in the world to look after him." Mrs.
Greenow, as she said this, put her handkerchief up to her eyes, and
wiped away the springing moisture. Tears were always easy with her,
but on this occasion Kate almost respected her tears. "I'm sure I
hope you'll be happy, aunt."
"If he makes me unhappy he shall pay for it;" and Mrs. Greenow, having
done with the tears, shook her head, as though upon this occasion she
quite meant all that she said.
At dinner they were not very comfortable. Either the gloomy air of
the place and the neighbourhood of the black pines had depressed the
Captain, or else the glorious richness of the prospects before him
had made him thoughtful. He had laid aside the jacket with the brass
buttons, and had dressed himself for dinner very soberly. And he
behaved himself at dinner and after dinner with a wonderful sobriety,
being very unlike the Captain who had sat at the head of the table
at Mrs. Greenow's picnic. When left to himself after dinner he
barely swallowed two glasses of the old Squire's port wine before he
sauntered out into the garden to join the ladies, whom he had seen
there; and when pressed by Kate to light a cigar he positively
declined.
On the following morning Mrs. Greenow had recovered her composure,
but Captain Bellfield was still in a rather disturbed state of mind.
He knew that his efforts were to be crowned with success, and that
he was sure of his wife, but he did not know how the preliminary
difficulties were to be overcome, and he did not know what to do
with himself at the Hall. After breakfast he fidgeted about in the
parlour, being unable to contrive for himself a mode of escape, and
was absolutely thrown upon his beam-ends when the widow asked him
what he meant to do with himself between that and dinner.
"I suppose I'd better take a walk," he said; "and perhaps the young
ladies--"
"If you mean my two nieces," said Mrs. Greenow, "I'm afraid you'll
find they are engaged. But if I'm not too old to walk with--" The
Captain assured her that she was just of the proper age for a walking
companion, as far as his taste went, and then attempted some apology
for the awkwardness of his expression, at which the three women
laughed heartily. "Never mind, Captain," said Mrs. Greenow. "We'll
have our walk all the same, and won't mind those young girls. Come
along." They started, not up towards the mountains, as Kate always
did when she walked in Westmoreland, but mildly, and at a gentle
pace, as beseemed their years, along the road towards Shap. The
Captain politely opened the old gate for the widow, and then
carefully closed it again,--not allowing it to swing, as he would
have done at Yarmouth. Then he tripped up to his place beside her,
suggested his arm, which she declined, and walked on for some paces
in silence. What on earth was he to say to her? He had done his
love-making successfully, and what was he to do next?
"Well, Captain Bellfield," said she. They were walking very slowly,
and he was cutting the weeds by the roadside with his cane. He knew
by her voice that something special was coming, so he left the
weeds and ranged himself close up alongside of her. "Well, Captain
Bellfield,--so I suppose I'm to be good-natured; am I?"
"Arabella, you'll make me the happiest man in the world."
"That's all fudge." She would have said, "all rocks and valleys,"
only he would not have understood her.
"Upon my word, you will."
"I hope I shall make you respectable?"
"Oh, yes; certainly. I quite intend that."
"It is the great thing that you should intend. Of course I am going
to make a fool of myself."
"No, no; don't say that."
"If I don't say it, all my friends will say it for me. It's lucky for
you that I don't much care what people say."
"It is lucky;--I know that I'm lucky. The very first day I saw you I
thought what a happy fellow I was to meet you. Then, of course, I was
only thinking of your beauty."
"Get along with you!"
"Upon my word, yes. Come, Arabella, as we are to be man and wife, you
might as well." At this moment he had got very close to her, and had
recovered something of his usual elasticity; but she would not allow
him even to put his arm round her waist. "Out in the high road!" she
said. "How can you be so impertinent,--and so foolish?"
"You might as well, you know,--just once."
"Captain Bellfield, I brought you out here not for such fooling as
that, but in order that we might have a little chat about business.
If we are to be man and wife, as you say, we ought to understand on
what footing we are to begin together. I'm afraid your own private
means are not considerable?"
"Well, no; they are not, Mrs. Greenow."
"Have you anything?" The Captain hesitated, and poked the ground
with his cane. "Come, Captain Bellfield, let us have the truth at
once, and then we shall understand each other." The Captain still
hesitated, and said nothing. "You must have had something to live
upon, I suppose?" suggested the widow. Then the Captain, by degrees,
told his story. He had a married sister by whom a guinea a week was
allowed to him. That was all. He had been obliged to sell out of the
army, because he was unable to live on his pay as a lieutenant. The
price of his commission had gone to pay his debts, and now,--yes,
it was too true,--now he was in debt again. He owed ninety pounds
to Cheesacre, thirty-two pounds ten to a tailor at Yarmouth, over
seventeen pounds at his lodgings in Norwich. At the present moment
he had something under thirty shillings in his pocket. The tailor at
Yarmouth had lent him three pounds in order that he might make his
journey into Westmoreland, and perhaps be enabled to pay his debts
by getting a rich wife. In the course of the cross-examination Mrs.
Greenow got much information out of him; and then, when she was
satisfied that she had learned, not exactly all the truth, but
certain indications of the truth, she forgave him all his offences.
"And now you will give a fellow a kiss,--just one kiss," said the
ecstatic Captain, in the height of his bliss.
"Hush!" said the widow, "there's a carriage coming on the road--close
to us."
CHAPTER LXV.
The First Kiss.
"Hush!" said the widow, "there's a carriage coming on the road--close
to us." Mrs. Greenow, as she spoke these words, drew back from the
Captain's arms before the first kiss of permitted ante-nuptial love
had been exchanged. The scene was on the high road from Shap to
Vavasor, and as she was still dressed in all the sombre habiliments
of early widowhood, and as neither he nor his sweetheart were under
forty, perhaps it was as well that they were not caught toying
together in so very public a place. But they were only just in time
to escape the vigilant eyes of a new visitor. Round the corner of the
road, at a sharp trot, came the Shap post-horse, with the Shap gig
behind him,--the same gig which had brought Bellfield to Vavasor on
the previous day,--and seated in the gig, looming large, with his
eyes wide awake to everything round him, was--Mr. Cheesacre.
It was a sight terrible to the eyes of Captain Bellfield, and by no
means welcome to those of Mrs. Greenow. As regarded her, her annoyance
had chiefly reference to her two nieces, and especially to Alice.
How was she to account for this second lover? Kate, of course, knew
all about it; but how could Alice be made to understand that she,
Mrs. Greenow, was not to blame,--that she had, in sober truth, told
this ardent gentleman that there was no hope for him? And even as
to Kate,--Kate, whom her aunt had absurdly chosen to regard as the
object of Mr. Cheesacre's pursuit,--what sort of a welcome would
she extend to the owner of Oileymead? Before the wheels had stopped,
Mrs. Greenow had begun to reflect whether it might be possible that
she should send Mr. Cheesacre back without letting him go on to the
Hall; but if Mrs. Greenow was dismayed, what were the feelings of the
Captain? For he was aware that Cheesacre knew that of him which he
had not told. How ardently did he now wish that he had sailed nearer
to the truth in giving in the schedule of his debts to Mrs. Greenow.
"That man's wanted by the police," said Cheesacre, speaking while the
gig was still in motion. "He's wanted by the police, Mrs. Greenow,"
and in his ardour he stood up in the gig and pointed at Bellfield.
Then the gig stopped suddenly, and he fell back into his seat in his
effort to prevent his falling forward. "He's wanted by the police,"
he shouted out again, as soon as he was able to recover his voice.
Mrs. Greenow turned pale beneath the widow's veil which she had
dropped. What might not her Captain have done? He might have procured
things, to be sent to him, out of shops on false pretences; or, urged
on by want and famine, he might have committed--forgery. "Oh, my!"
she said, and dropped her hand from his arm, which she had taken.
"It's false," said Bellfield.
"It's true," said Cheesacre.
"I'll indict you for slander, my friend," said Bellfield.
"Pay me the money you owe me," said Cheesacre. "You're a swindler!"
Mrs. Greenow cared little as to her lover being a swindler in Mr.
Cheesacre's estimation. Such accusations from him she had heard
before. But she did care very much as to this mission of the police
against her Captain. If that were true, the Captain could be her
Captain no longer. "What is this I hear, Captain Bellfield?" she
said.
"It's a lie and a slander. He merely wants to make a quarrel between
us. What police are after me, Mr. Cheesacre?"
"It's the police, or the sheriff's officer, or something of the
kind," said Cheesacre.
"Oh, the sheriff's officers!" exclaimed Mrs. Greenow, in a tone of
voice which showed how great had been her relief. "Mr. Cheesacre, you
shouldn't come and say such things;--you shouldn't, indeed. Sheriff's
officers can be paid, and there's an end of them."
"I'll indict him for the libel--I will, as sure as I'm alive," said
Bellfield.
"Nonsense," said the widow. "Don't you make a fool of yourself. When
men can't pay their way they must put up with having things like that
said of them. Mr. Cheesacre, where were you going?"
"I was going to Vavasor Hall, on purpose to caution you."
"It's too late," said Mrs. Greenow, sinking behind her veil.
"Why, you haven't been and married him since yesterday? He only had
twenty-four hours' start of me, I know. Or, perhaps, you had it done
clandestine in Norwich? Oh, Mrs. Greenow!"
He got out of the gig, and the three walked back towards the Hall
together, while the boy drove on with Mr. Cheesacre's carpetbag. "I
hardly know," said Mrs. Greenow, "whether we can welcome you. There
are other visitors, and the house is full."
"I'm not one to intrude where I'm not wanted. You may be sure of
that. If I can't get my supper for love, I can get at for money.
That's more than some people can say. I wonder when you're going to
pay me what you owe me, Lieutenant Bellfield?"
[Illustration: "I wonder when you're going to pay me what you
owe me, Lieutenant Bellfield?"]
Nevertheless, the widow had contrived to reconcile the two men before
she reached the Hall. They had actually shaken hands, and the lamb
Cheesacre had agreed to lie down with the wolf Bellfield. Cheesacre,
moreover, had contrived to whisper into the widow's ears the true
extent of his errand into Westmoreland. This, however, he did not do
altogether in Bellfield's hearing. When Mrs. Greenow ascertained that
there was something to be said, she made no scruple in sending her
betrothed away from her "You won't throw a fellow over, will you,
now?" whispered Bellfield into her ear as he went. She merely frowned
at him, and bade him begone, so that the walk which Mrs. Greenow began
with one lover she ended in company with the other.
Bellfield, who was sent on to the house, found Alice and Kate
surveying the newly arrived carpet bag. "He knows 'un," said the boy
who had driven the gig, pointing to the Captain.
"It belongs to your old friend, Mr. Cheesacre," said Bellfield to
Kate.
"And has he come too?" said Kate.
The Captain shrugged his shoulders, and admitted that it was hard.
"And it's not the slightest use," said he, "not the least in the
world. He never had a chance in that quarter."
"Not enough of the rocks and valleys about him, was there, Captain
Bellfield?" said Kate. But Captain Bellfield understood nothing about
the rocks and valleys, though he was regarded by certain eyes as
being both a rock and a valley himself.
In the meantime Cheesacre was telling his story. He first asked, in a
melancholy tone, whether it was really necessary that he must abandon
all his hopes. "He wasn't going to say anything against the Captain,"
he said, "if things were really fixed. He never begrudged any man his
chance."
"Things are really fixed," said Mrs. Greenow.
He could, however, not keep himself from hinting that Oileymead was
a substantial home, and that Bellfield had not as much as a straw
mattress to lie upon. In answer to this Mrs. Greenow told him that
there was so much more reason why some one should provide the poor
man with a mattress. "If you look at it in that light, of course it's
true," said Cheesacre. Mrs. Greenow told him that she did look at it
in that light. "Then I've done about that," said Cheesacre; "and as
to the little bit of money he owes me, I must give him his time about
it, I suppose." Mrs. Greenow assured him that it should be paid as
soon as possible after the nuptial benediction had been said over
them. She offered, indeed, to pay it at once if he was in distress
for it, but he answered contemptuously that he never was in distress
for money. He liked to have his own,--that was all.
After this he did not get away to his next subject quite so easily
as he wished; and it must be admitted that there was a difficulty.
As he could not have Mrs. Greenow he would be content to put up with
Kate for his wife. That was his next subject. Rumours as to the old
Squire's will had no doubt reached him, and he was now willing to
take advantage of that assistance which Mrs. Greenow had before
offered him in this matter. The time had come in which he ought to
marry; of that he was aware. He had told many of his friends in
Norfolk that Kate Vavasor had thrown herself at his head, and very
probably he had thought it true. In answer to all his love speeches
to herself, the aunt had always told him what an excellent wife her
niece would make him. So now he had come to Westmoreland with this
second string to his bow. "You know you put it into my head your own
self," pleaded Mr. Cheesacre. "Didn't you, now?"
"But things are so different since that," said the widow.
"How different? I ain't different. There's Oileymead just where it
always was, and the owner of it don't owe a shilling to any man. How
are things different?"
"My niece has inherited property."
"And is that to make a change? Oh! Mrs. Greenow, who would have
thought to find you mercenary like that? Inherited property! Is she
going to fling a man over because of that?"
Mrs. Greenow endeavoured to explain to him that her niece could hardly
be said to have flung him over, and at last pretended to become angry
when he attempted to assert his position. "Why, Mr. Cheesacre, I am
quite sure she never gave you a word of encouragement in her life."
"But you always told me I might have her for the asking."
"And now I tell you that you mayn't. It's of no use your going on
there to ask her, for she will only send you away with an answer
you won't like. Look here, Mr. Cheesacre; you want to get married,
and it's quite time you should. There's my dear friend Charlie
Fairstairs. How could you get a better wife than Charlie?"
"Charlie Fairstairs!" said Cheesacre, turning up his nose in disgust.
"She hasn't got a penny, nor any one belonging to her. The man who
marries her will have to find the money for the smock she stands up
in."
"Who's mercenary now, Mr. Cheesacre? Do you go home and think of it;
and if you'll marry Charlie, I'll go to your wedding. You shan't be
ashamed of her clothing. I'll see to that."
They were now close to the gate, and Cheesacre paused before he
entered. "Do you think there's no chance at all for me, then?" said
he.
"I know there's none. I've heard her speak about it."
"Somebody else, perhaps, is the happy man?"
"I can't say anything about that, but I know that she wouldn't take
you. I like farming, you know, but she doesn't."
"I might give that up," said Cheesacre readily,--"at any rate, for a
time."
"No, no, no; it would do no good. Believe me, my friend, that it is
of no use."
He still paused at the gate. "I don't see what's the use of my going
in," said he. To this she made him no answer. "There's a pride about
me," he continued, "that I don't choose to go where I'm not wanted."
"I can't tell you, Mr. Cheesacre, that you are wanted in that light,
certainly."
"Then I'll go. Perhaps you'll be so good as to tell the boy with
the gig to come after me? That's six pound ten it will have cost me
to come here and go back. Bellfield did it cheaper, of course; he
travelled second class. I heard of him as I came along."
"The expense does not matter to you, Mr. Cheesacre."
To this he assented, and then took his leave, at first offering his
hand to Mrs. Greenow with an air of offended dignity, but falling back
almost into humility during the performance of his adieu. Before he
was gone he had invited her to bring the Captain to Oileymead when
she was married, and had begged her to tell Miss Vavasor how happy he
should be to receive her. "And Mr. Cheesacre," said the widow, as he
walked back along the road, "don't forget dear Charlie Fairstairs."
They were all standing at the front door of the house when Mrs.
Greenow re-appeared,--Alice, Kate, Captain Bellfield, the Shap boy,
and the Shap horse and gig. "Where is he?" Kate asked in a low voice,
and everyone there felt how important was the question. "He has
gone," said the widow. Bellfield was so relieved that he could not
restrain his joy, but took off his little straw hat and threw it up
into the air. Kate's satisfaction was almost as intense. "I am so
glad," said she. "What on earth should we have done with him?" "I
never was so disappointed in my life," said Alice. "I have heard so
much of Mr. Cheesacre, but have never seen him." Kate suggested that
she should get into the gig and drive after him. "He ain't a been and
took hisself off?" suggested the boy, whose face became very dismal
as the terrible idea struck him. But, with juvenile craft, he put his
hand on the carpet-bag, and finding that it did not contain stones,
was comforted. "You drive after him, young gentleman, and you'll find
him on the road to Shap," said Mrs. Greenow. "Mind you give him my
love," said the Captain in his glee, "and say I hope he'll get his
turnips in well."
This little episode went far to break the day, and did more than
anything else could have done to put Captain Bellfield at his ease.
It created a little joint-stock fund of merriment between the whole
party, which was very much needed. The absence of such joint-stock
fund is always felt when a small party is thrown together without
such assistance. Some bond is necessary on these occasions, and no
other bond is so easy or so pleasant. Now, when the Captain found
himself alone for a quarter of an hour with Alice, he had plenty of
subjects for small-talk. "Yes, indeed. Old Cheesacre, in spite of his
absurdities, is not a bad sort of fellow at bottom;--awfully fond of
his money, you know, Miss Vavasor, and always boasting about it."
"That's not pleasant," said Alice. "No, the most unpleasant thing in
the world. There's nothing I hate so much, Miss Vavasor, as that kind
of talking. My idea is this,--when a man has lots of money, let him
make the best use he can of it, and say nothing about it. Nobody ever
heard me talking about my money." He knew that Alice knew that he was
a pauper; but, nevertheless, he had the satisfaction of speaking of
himself as though he were not a pauper.
In this way the afternoon went very pleasantly. For an hour before
dinner Captain Bellfield was had into the drawing-room and was
talked to by his widow on matters of business; but he had of course
known that this was necessary. She scolded him soundly about those
sheriff's officers. Why had he not told her? "As long as there's
anything kept back, I won't have you," said she. "I won't become your
wife till I'm quite sure there's not a penny owing that is not shown
in the list." Then I think he did tell her all,--or nearly all. When
all was counted it was not so very much. Three or four hundred pounds
would make him a new man, and what was such a sum as that to his
wealthy widow! Indeed, for a woman wanting a husband of that sort,
Captain Bellfield was a safer venture than would be a man of a higher
standing among his creditors. It is true Bellfield might have been
a forger, or a thief, or a returned convict,--but then his debts
could not be large. Let him have done his best, he could not have
obtained credit for a thousand pounds; whereas, no one could tell the
liabilities of a gentleman of high standing. Burgo Fitzgerald was a
gentleman of high standing, and his creditors would have swallowed up
every shilling that Mrs. Greenow possessed; but with Captain Bellfield
she was comparatively safe.
Upon the whole I think that she was lucky in her choice; or, perhaps,
I might more truly say, that she had chosen with prudence. He was no
forger, or thief--in the ordinary sense of the word; nor was he a
returned convict. He was simply an idle scamp, who had hung about the
world for forty years, doing nothing, without principle, shameless,
accustomed to eat dirty puddings, and to be kicked--morally
kicked--by such men as Cheesacre. But he was moderate in his
greediness, and possessed of a certain appreciation of the comfort
of a daily dinner, which might possibly suffice to keep him from
straying very wide as long as his intended wife should be able to
keep the purse-strings altogether in her own hands. Therefore, I say
that Mrs. Greenow had been lucky in her choice, and not altogether
without prudence.
"I think of taking this house," said she, "and of living here."
"What, in Westmoreland!" said the Captain, with something of dismay
in his tone. What on earth would he do with himself all his life in
that gloomy place!
"Yes, in Westmoreland. Why not in Westmoreland as well as anywhere
else? If you don't like Westmoreland, it's not too late yet, you
know." In answer to this the poor Captain was obliged to declare that
he had no objection whatever to Westmoreland.
"I've been talking to my niece about it," continued Mrs. Greenow, "and
I find that such an arrangement can be made very conveniently. The
property is left between her and her uncle,--the father of my other
niece, and neither of them want to live here."
"But won't you be rather dull, my dear?"
"We could go to Yarmouth, you know, in the autumn." Then the
Captain's visage became somewhat bright again. "And perhaps, if you
are not extravagant, we could manage a month or so in London during
the winter, just to see the plays and do a little shopping." Then the
Captain's face became very bright. "That will be delightful," said
he. "And as for being dull," said the widow, "when people grow old
they must be dull. Dancing can't go on for ever." In answer to this
the widow's Captain assured the widow that she was not at all old;
and now, on this occasion, that ceremony came off successfully which
had been interrupted on the Shap road by the noise of Mr. Cheesacre's
wheels. "There goes my cap," said she. "What a goose you are! What
will Jeannette say?" "Bother Jeannette," said the Captain in his
bliss. "She can do another cap, and many more won't be wanted." Then
I think the ceremony was repeated.
Upon the whole the Captain's visit was satisfactory--at any rate to
the Captain. Everything was settled. He was to go away on Saturday
morning, and remain in lodgings at Penrith till the wedding, which
they agreed to have celebrated at Vavasor Church. Kate promised to be
the solitary bridesmaid. There was some talk of sending for Charlie
Fairstairs, but the idea was abandoned. "We'll have her afterwards,"
said the widow to Kate, "when you are gone, and we shall want her
more. And I'll get Cheesacre here, and make him marry her. There's
no good in paying for two journeys." The Captain was to be allowed
to come over from Penrith twice a week previous to his marriage; or
perhaps, I might more fairly say, that he was commanded to do so. I
wonder how he felt when Mrs. Greenow gave him his first five-pound
note, and told him that he must make it do for a fortnight?--whether
it was all joy, or whether there was about his heart any touch of
manly regret?
"Captain Bellfield, of Vavasor Hall, Westmoreland. It don't sound
badly," he said to himself, as he travelled away on his first journey
to Penrith.
CHAPTER LXVI.
Lady Monk's Plan.
On the night of Lady Monk's party, Burgo Fitzgerald disappeared; and
when the guests were gone and the rooms were empty, his aunt inquired
for him in vain. The old butler and factotum of the house, who was
employed by Sir Cosmo to put out the lamps and to see that he was
not robbed beyond a certain point on these occasions of his wife's
triumphs, was interrogated by his mistress, and said that he thought
Mr. Burgo had left the house. Lady Monk herself knocked at her
nephew's door, when she went up-stairs, ascending an additional
flight of stairs with her weary old limbs in order that she might
do so; she even opened the door and saw the careless debris of his
toilet about the room. But he was gone. "Perhaps, after all, he has
arranged it," she said to herself, as she went down to her own room.
But Burgo, as we know, had not "arranged it." It may be remembered
that when Mr. Palliser came back to his wife in the supper-room at
Lady Monk's, bringing with him the scarf which Lady Glencora had left
up-stairs, Burgo was no longer with her. He had become well aware
that he had no chance left, at any rate for that night. The poor
fool, acting upon his aunt's implied advice rather than his own
hopes, had secured a post-chaise, and stationed it in Bruton Street,
some five minutes' walk from his aunt's house. And he had purchased
feminine wrappings, cloaks, &c.--things that he thought might be
necessary for his companion. He had, too, ordered rooms at the new
hotel near the Dover Station,--the London Bridge Station,--from
whence was to start on the following morning a train to catch the
tidal boat for Boulogne. There was a dressing-bag there for which he
had paid twenty-five guineas out of his aunt's money, not having been
able to induce the tradesman to grant it to him on credit; and there
were other things,--slippers, collars, stockings, handkerchiefs, and
what else might, as he thought, under such circumstances be most
necessary. Poor thoughtful, thoughtless fool!
The butler was right. He did leave the house. He saw Lady Glencora
taken to her carriage from some back hiding-place in the hall, and
then slipped out, unmindful of his shining boots, and dress coat and
jewelled studs. He took a Gibus hat,--his own, or that of some other
unfortunate,--and slowly made his way down to the place in Bruton
Street. There was the carriage and pair of horses, all in readiness;
and the driver, when he had placed himself by the door of the
vehicle, was not long in emerging from the neighbouring public-house.
"All ready, your honour," said the man. "I shan't want you to-night,"
said Burgo, hoarsely;--"go away." "And about the things, your
honour?" "Take them to the devil. No; stop. Take them back with you,
and ask somebody to keep them till I send for them. I shall want them
and another carriage in a day or two." Then he gave the man half a
sovereign, and went away, not looking at the little treasures which
he had spent so much of his money in selecting for his love. When he
was gone, the waterman and the driver turned them over with careful
hands and gloating eyes. "It's a 'eiress, I'll go bail," said the
waterman. "Pretty dear! I suppose her parints was too many for her,"
said the driver. But neither of them imagined the enormity which the
hirer of the chaise had in truth contemplated.
Burgo from thence took his way back into Grosvenor Square, and from
thence down Park Street, and through a narrow passage and a mews
which there are in those parts, into Park Lane. He had now passed
the position of Mr. Palliser's house, having come out on Park Lane
at a spot nearer to Piccadilly; but he retraced his steps, walking
along by the rails of the Park, till he found himself opposite to
the house. Then he stood there, leaning back upon the railings, and
looking up at Lady Glencora's windows. What did he expect to see?
Or was he, in truth, moved by love of that kind which can take joy
in watching the slightest shadow that is made by the one loved
object,--that may be made by her, or, by some violent conjecture of
the mind, may be supposed to have been so made? Such love as that is,
I think, always innocent. Burgo Fitzgerald did not love like that. I
almost doubt whether he can be said to have loved at all. There was
in his breast a mixed, feverish desire, which he took no trouble to
analyse. He wanted money. He wanted the thing of which this Palliser
had robbed him. He wanted revenge,--though his desire for that was
not a burning desire. And among other things, he wanted the woman's
beauty of the woman whom he coveted. He wanted to kiss her again as
he had once kissed her, and to feel that she was soft, and lovely,
and loving for him. But as for seeing her shadow, unless its movement
indicated some purpose in his favour,--I do not think that he cared
much about that.
And why then was he there? Because in his unreasoning folly he did
not know what step to take, or what step not to take. There are men
whose energies hardly ever carry them beyond looking for the thing
they want. She might see him from the window, and come to him. I do
not say that he thought that it would be so. I fancy that he never
thought at all about that or about anything. If you lie under a tree,
and open your mouth, a plum may fall into it. It was probably an
undefined idea of some such chance as this which brought him against
the railings in the front of Mr. Palliser's house; that, and a feeling
made up partly of despair and partly of lingering romance that he
was better there, out in the night air, under the gas-lamps, than
he could be elsewhere. There he stood and looked, and cursed his
ill-luck. But his curses had none of the bitterness of those which
George Vavasor was always uttering. Through it all there remained
about Burgo one honest feeling,--one conviction that was true,--a
feeling that it all served him right, and that he had better,
perhaps, go to the devil at once, and give nobody any more trouble.
If he loved no one sincerely, neither did he hate any one; and
whenever he made any self-inquiry into his own circumstances, he
always told himself that it was all his own fault. When he cursed
his fate, he only did so because cursing is so easy. George Vavasor
would have ground his victims up to powder if he knew how; but Burgo
Fitzgerald desired to hurt no one.
There he stood till he was cold, and then, as the plum did not drop
into his mouth, he moved on. He went up into Oxford Street, and
walked along it the whole distance to the corner of Bond Street,
passing by Grosvenor Square, to which he intended to return. At the
corner of Bond Street, a girl took hold of him, and looked up into
his face. "Ah!" she said, "I saw you once before."--"Then you saw the
most miserable devil alive," said Burgo. "You can't be miserable,"
said the girl. "What makes you miserable? You've plenty of
money."--"I wish I had," said Burgo. "And plenty to eat and drink,"
exclaimed the girl; "and you are so handsome! I remember you. You
gave me supper one night when I was starving. I ain't hungry now.
Will you give me a kiss?"--"I'll give you a shilling, and that's
better," said Burgo. "But give me a kiss too," said the girl. He gave
her first the kiss, and then the shilling, and after that he left her
and passed on. "I'm d----d if I wouldn't change with her!" he said
to himself. "I wonder whether anything really ails him?" thought the
girl. "He said he was wretched before. Shouldn't I like to be good to
such a one as him!"
Burgo went on, and made his way into the house in Grosvenor Square,
by some means probably unknown to his aunt, and certainly unknown to
his uncle. He emptied his pockets as he got into bed, and counted a
roll of notes which he had kept in one of them. There were still a
hundred and thirty pounds left. Lady Glencora had promised that she
would see him again. She had said as much as that quite distinctly.
But what use would there be in that if all his money should then be
gone? He knew that the keeping of money in his pocket was to him
quite an impossibility. Then he thought of his aunt. What should he
say to his aunt if he saw her in the course of the coming day? Might
it not be as well for him to avoid his aunt altogether?
He breakfasted up-stairs in his bedroom,--in the bed, indeed, eating
a small paté de foie gras from the supper-table, as he read a French
novel. There he was still reading his French novel in bed when his
aunt's maid came to him, saying that his aunt wished to see him
before she went out. "Tell me, Lucy," said he, "how is the old girl?"
"She's as cross as cross, Mr. Burgo. Indeed, I shan't;--not a minute
longer. Don't, now; will you? I tell you she's waiting for me." From
which it may be seen that Lucy shared the general feminine feeling in
favour of poor Burgo.
Thus summoned Burgo applied himself to his toilet; but as he did so,
he recruited his energies from time to time by a few pages of the
French novel, and also by small doses from a bottle of curaçoa which
he had in his bedroom. He was utterly a pauper. There was no pauper
poorer than he in London that day. But, nevertheless, he breakfasted
on paté de foie gras and curaçoa, and regarded those dainties very
much as other men regard bread and cheese and beer.
But though he was dressing at the summons of his aunt, he had by no
means made up his mind that he would go to her. Why should he go to
her? What good would it do him? She would not give him more money.
She would only scold him for his misconduct. She might, perhaps, turn
him out of the house if he did not obey her,--or attempt to do so;
but she would be much more likely to do this when he had made her
angry by contradicting her. In neither case would he leave the house,
even though its further use were positively forbidden him, because
his remaining there was convenient; but as he could gain nothing by
seeing "the old girl," as he had called her, he resolved to escape to
his club without attending to her summons.
But his aunt, who was a better general than he, out-manoeuvred
him. He crept down the back stairs; but as he could not quite
condescend to escape through the area, he was forced to emerge upon
the hall, and here his aunt pounced upon him, coming out of the
breakfast-parlour. "Did not Lucy tell you that I wanted to see you?"
Lady Monk asked, with severity in her voice.
Burgo replied, with perfect ease, that he was going out just to
have his hair washed and brushed. He would have been back in twenty
minutes. There was no energy about the poor fellow, unless, perhaps,
when he was hunting; but he possessed a readiness which enabled him
to lie at a moment's notice with the most perfect ease. Lady Monk did
not believe him; but she could not confute him, and therefore she let
the lie pass.
"Never mind your hair now," she said. "I want to speak to you. Come
in here for a few minutes."
As there was no way of escape left to him, he followed his aunt into
the breakfast-parlour.
"Burgo," she said, when she had seated herself, and had made him
sit in a chair opposite to her, "I don't think you will ever do any
good."
"I don't much think I shall, aunt."
"What do you mean, then, to do with yourself?"
"Oh,--I don't know. I haven't thought much about it."
"You can't stay here in this house. Sir Cosmo was speaking to me
about you only yesterday morning."
"I shall be quite willing to go down to Monkshade, if Sir Cosmo likes
it better;--that is, when the season is a little more through."
"He won't have you at Monkshade. He won't let you go there again. And
he won't have you here. You know that you are turning what I say into
joke."
"No, indeed, aunt,"
"Yes, you are;--you know you are. You are the most ungrateful,
heartless creature I ever met. You must make up your mind to leave
this house at once."
"Where does Sir Cosmo mean that I should go, then?"
"To the workhouse, if you like. He doesn't care."
"I don't suppose he does;--the least in the world," said Burgo,
opening his eyes, and stretching his nostrils, and looking into his
aunt's face as though he had great ground for indignation.
But the turning of Burgo out of the house was not Lady Monk's
immediate purpose. She knew that he would hang on there till the
season was over. After that he must not be allowed to return again,
unless he should have succeeded in a certain enterprise. She had
now caught him in order that she might learn whether there was any
possible remaining chance of success as to that enterprise. So she
received his indignation in silence, and began upon another subject.
"What a fool you made of yourself last night, Burgo!"
"Did I;--more of a fool than usual?"
"I believe that you will never be serious about anything. Why did you
go on waltzing in that way when every pair of eyes in the room was
watching you?"
"I couldn't help going on, if she liked it."
"Oh, yes,--say it was her fault. That's so like a man!"
"Look here, aunt, I'm not going to sit here and be abused. I couldn't
take her in my arms, and fly away with her out of a crowd."
"Who wants you to fly away with her?"
"For the matter of that, I suppose that you do."
"No, I don't."
"Well, then, I do."
"You! you haven't spirit to do that, or anything else. You are like a
child that is just able to amuse itself for the moment, and never can
think of anything further. You simply disgraced yourself last night,
and me too,--and her; but, of course, you care nothing about that."
"I had a plan all ready;--only he came back."
"Of course he came back. Of course he came back, when they sent him
word how you and she were going on. And now he will have forgiven
her, and after that, of course, the thing will be all over."
"I tell you what, aunt; she would go if she knew how. When I was
forced to leave her last night, she promised to see me again. And as
for being idle, and not doing anything;--why, I was out in Park Lane
last night, after you were in bed."
"What good did that do?"
"It didn't do any good, as it happened. But a fellow can only
try. I believe, after all, it would be easier down in the
country,--especially now that he has taken it into his head to look
after her."
Lady Monk sat silent for a few moments, and then she said in a low
voice, "What did she say to you when you were parting? What were her
exact words?" She, at any rate, was not deficient in energy. She
was anxious enough to see her purpose accomplished. She would have
conducted the matter with discretion, if the running away with Mr.
Palliser's wife could, in very fact, have been done by herself.
"She said she would see me again. She promised it twice."
"And was that all?"
"What could she say more, when she was forced to go away?"
"Had she said that she would go with you?"
"I had asked her,--half a dozen times, and she did not once refuse.
I know she means it, if she knew how to get away. She hates him;--I'm
sure of it. A woman, you know, wouldn't absolutely say that she would
go, till she was gone."
"If she really meant it, she would tell you."
"I don't think she could have told me plainer. She said she would see
me again. She said that twice over."
Again Lady Monk sat silent. She had a plan in her head,--a plan that
might, as she thought, give to her nephew one more chance. But she
hesitated before she could bring herself to explain it in detail.
At first she had lent a little aid to this desired abduction of Mr.
Palliser's wife, but in lending it had said no word upon the subject.
During the last season she had succeeded in getting Lady Glencora
to her house in London, and had taken care that Burgo should meet
her there. Then a hint or two had been spoken, and Lady Glencora
had been asked to Monkshade. Lady Glencora, as we know, did not go
to Monkshade, and Lady Monk had then been baffled. But she did not
therefore give up the game. Having now thought of it so much, she
began to speak of it more boldly, and had procured money for her
nephew that he might thereby be enabled to carry off the woman. But
though this had been well understood between them, though words had
been spoken which were sufficiently explicit, the plan had not been
openly discussed. Lady Monk had known nothing of the mode in which
Lady Glencora was to have been carried off after her party, nor
whither she was to have been taken. But now,--now she must arrange it
herself, and have a scheme of her own, or else the thing must fail
absolutely. Even she was almost reluctant to speak out plainly to her
nephew on such a subject. What if he should be false to her, and tell
of her? But when a woman has made such schemes, nothing distresses
her so sadly as their failure. She would risk all rather than that Mr.
Palliser should keep his wife.
"I will try and help you," she said at last, speaking hoarsely,
almost in a whisper, "if you have courage to make an attempt
yourself."
"Courage!" said he "What is it you think I am afraid of? Mr. Palliser?
I'd fight him,--or all the Pallisers, one after another, if it would
do any good."
"Fighting! There's no fighting wanted, as you know well enough. Men
don't fight nowadays. Look here! If you can get her to call here some
day,--say on Thursday, at three o'clock,--I will be here to receive
her; and instead of going back into her carriage, you can have a cab
for her somewhere near. She can come, as it were, to make a morning
call."
"A cab!"
"Yes; a cab won't kill her, and it is less easily followed than a
carriage."
"And where shall we go?"
"There is a train to Southampton at four, and the boat sails for
Jersey at half-past six; you will be in Jersey the next morning,
and there is a boat goes on to St. Malo, almost at once. You can go
direct from one boat to the other,--that is, if she has strength and
courage." After that, who will say that Lady Monk was not a devoted
aunt?
"That would do excellently well," said the enraptured Burgo.
"She will have difficulty in getting away from me, out of the house.
Of course I shall say nothing about it, and shall know nothing about
it. She had better tell her coachman to drive somewhere to pick
some one up, and to return;--out somewhere to Tyburnia, or down to
Pimlico. Then she can leave me, and go out on foot, to where you
have the cab. She can tell the hall-porter that she will walk to her
carriage. Do you understand?" Burgo declared that he did understand.
"You must call on her, and make your way in, and see her, and arrange
all this. It must be a Thursday, because of the boats." Then she
made inquiry about his money, and took from him the notes which he
had, promising to return them, with something added, on the Thursday
morning; but he asked, with a little whine, for a five-pound note,
and got it. Burgo then told her about the travelling-bags and the
stockings, and they were quite pleasant and confidential. "Bid her
come in a stout travelling-dress," said Lady Monk. "She can wear some
lace or something over it, so that the servants won't observe it. I
will take no notice of it." Was there ever such an aunt?
After this, Burgo left his aunt, and went away to his club, in a
state of most happy excitement.
CHAPTER LXVII.
The Last Kiss.
Alice, on her return from Westmoreland, went direct to Park Lane,
whither Lady Glencora and Mr. Palliser had also returned before
her. She was to remain with them in London one entire day, and on
the morning after that they were to start for Paris. She found
Mr. Palliser in close attendance upon his wife. Not that there was
anything in his manner which at all implied that he was keeping watch
over her, or that he was more with her, or closer to her than a
loving husband might wish to be with a young wife; but the mode of
life was very different from that which Alice had seen at Matching
Priory!
On her arrival Mr. Palliser himself received her in the hall, and took
her up to his wife before she had taken off her travelling hat. "We
are so much obliged to you, Miss Vavasor," he said. "I feel it quite
as deeply as Glencora."
"Oh, no," she said; "it is I that am under obligation to you for
taking me."
He merely smiled, and shook his head, and then took her up-stairs.
On the stairs he said one other word to her: "You must forgive me if
I was cross to you that night she went out among the ruins." Alice
muttered something,--some little fib of courtesy as to the matter
having been forgotten, or never borne in mind; and then they went on
to Lady Glencora's room. It seemed to Alice that he was not so big
or so much to be dreaded as when she had seen him at Matching. His
descent from an expectant, or more than an expectant, Chancellor of
the Exchequer, down to a simple, attentive husband, seemed to affect
his gait, his voice, and all his demeanour. When he received Alice at
the Priory he certainly loomed before her as something great, whereas
now his greatness seemed to have fallen from him. We must own that
this was hard upon him, seeing that the deed by which he had divested
himself of his greatness had been so pure and good!
"Dear Alice, this is so good of you! I am all in the midst of
packing, and Plantagenet is helping me." Plantagenet winced a little
under this, as the hero of old must have winced when he was found
with the distaff. Mr. Palliser had relinquished his sword of state
for the distaff which he had assumed, and could take no glory in the
change. There was, too, in his wife's voice the slightest hint of
mockery, which, slight as it was, he perhaps thought she might have
spared. "You have nothing left to pack," continued Glencora, "and I
don't know what you can do to amuse yourself."
"I will help you," said Alice.
"But we have so very nearly done. I think we shall have to pull all
the things out, and put them up again, or we shall never get through
to-morrow. We couldn't start to-morrow;--could we, Plantagenet?"
"Not very well, as your rooms are ordered in Paris for the next day."
"As if we couldn't find rooms at every inn on the road. Men are
so particular. Now in travelling I should like never to order
rooms,--never to know where I was going or when I was going, and to
carry everything I wanted in a market-basket." Alice, who by this
time had followed her friend along the passage to her bedroom, and
had seen how widely the packages were spread about, bethought herself
that the market-basket should be a large one. "And I would never
travel among Christians. Christians are so slow, and they wear
chimney-pot hats everywhere. The further one goes from London among
Christians, the more they wear chimney-pot hats. I want Plantagenet
to take us to see the Kurds, but he won't."
"I don't think that would be fair to Miss Vavasor," said Mr. Palliser,
who had followed them.
"Don't put the blame on her head," said Lady Glencora. "Women have
always pluck for anything. Wouldn't you like to see a live Kurd,
Alice?"
"I don't exactly know where they live," said Alice.
"Nor I. I have not the remotest idea of the way to the Kurds. You see
my joke, don't you, though Plantagenet doesn't? But one knows that
they are Eastern, and the East is such a grand idea!"
"I think we'll content ourselves with Rome, or perhaps Naples, on
this occasion," said Mr. Palliser.
The notion of Lady Glencora packing anything for herself was as good
a joke as that other one of the Kurds and whey. But she went flitting
about from room to room, declaring that this thing must be taken,
and that other, till the market-basket would have become very large
indeed. Alice was astonished at the extent of the preparations, and
the sort of equipage with which they were about to travel. Lady
Glencora was taking her own carriage. "Not that I shall ever use it,"
she said to Alice, "but he insists upon it, to show that I am not
supposed to be taken away in disgrace. He is so good;--isn't he?"
"Very good," said Alice. "I know no one better."
"And so dull!" said Lady Glencora. "But I fancy that all husbands are
dull from the nature of their position. If I were a young woman's
husband, I shouldn't know what to say to her that wasn't dull."
Two women and two men servants were to be taken. Alice had received
permission to bring her own maid--"or a dozen, if you want them,"
Lady Glencora had said. "Mr. Palliser in his present mood would think
nothing too much to do for you. If you were to ask him to go among
the Kurds, he'd go at once;--or on to Crim Tartary, if you made a
point of it." But as both Lady Glencora's servants spoke French, and
as her own did not, Alice trusted herself in that respect to her
cousin. "You shall have one all to yourself," said Lady Glencora. "I
only take two for the same reason that I take the carriage,--just as
you let a child go out in her best frock, for a treat, after you've
scolded her."
When Alice asked why it was supposed that Mr. Palliser was so
specially devoted to her, the thing was explained to her. "You see,
my dear, I have told him everything. I always do tell everything.
Nobody can say I am not candid. He knows about your not letting me
come to your house in the old days. Oh, Alice!--you were wrong then;
I shall always say that. But it's done and gone; and things that are
done and gone shall be done and gone for me. And I told him all that
you said,--about you know what. I have had nothing else to do but
make confessions for the last ten days, and when a woman once begins,
the more she confesses the better. And I told him that you refused
Jeffrey."
"You didn't?"
"I did indeed, and he likes you the better for that. I think he'd
let Jeffrey marry you now if you both wished it;--and then, oh
dear!--supposing that you had a son and that we adopted it?"
"Cora, if you go on in that way I will not remain with you."
"But you must, my dear. You can't escape now. At any rate, you can't
when we once get to Paris. Oh dear! you shouldn't grudge me my little
naughtinesses. I have been so proper for the last ten days. Do you
know I got into a way of driving Dandy and Flirt at the rate of six
miles an hour, till I'm sure the poor beasts thought they were always
going to a funeral. Poor Dandy and poor Flirt! I shan't see them now
for another year."
On the following morning they breakfasted early, because Mr. Palliser
had got into an early habit. He had said that early hours would be
good for them. "But he never tells me why," said Lady Glencora.
"I think it is pleasant when people are travelling," said Alice.
"It isn't that," her cousin answered; "but we are all to be such
particularly good children. It's hardly fair, because he went to
sleep last night after dinner while you and I kept ourselves awake:
but we needn't do that another night, to be sure." After breakfast
they all three went to work to do nothing. It was ludicrous and
almost painful to see Mr. Palliser wandering about and counting the
boxes, as though he could do any good by that. At this special crisis
of his life he hated his papers and figures and statistics, and
could not apply himself to them. He, whose application had been
so unremitting, could apply himself now to nothing. His world had
been brought to an abrupt end, and he was awkward at making a new
beginning. I believe that they all three were reading novels before
one o'clock. Lady Glencora and Alice had determined that they would
not leave the house throughout the day. "Nothing has been said about
it, but I regard it as part of the bond that I'm not to go out
anywhere. Who knows but what I might be found in Gloucester Square?"
There was, however, no absolute necessity that Mr. Palliser should
remain with them; and, at about three, he prepared himself for a
solitary walk. He would not go down to the House. All interest in the
House was over with him for the present. He had the Speaker's leave
to absent himself for the season. Nor would he call on anyone. All
his friends knew, or believed they knew, that he had left town. His
death and burial had been already chronicled, and were he now to
reappear, he could reappear only as a ghost. He was being talked
of as the departed one;--or rather, such talk on all sides had now
come nearly to an end. The poor Duke of St. Bungay still thought of
him with regret when more than ordinarily annoyed by some special
grievance coming to him from Mr. Finespun; but even the Duke had
become almost reconciled to the present order of things. Mr. Palliser
knew better than to disturb all this by showing himself again in
public; and prepared himself, therefore, to take another walk under
the elms in Kensington Gardens.
He had his hat on his head in the hall, and was in the act of putting
on his gloves, when there came a knock at the front door. The
hall-porter was there, a stout, plethoric personage, not given
to many words, who was at this moment standing with his master's
umbrella in his hand, looking as though he would fain be of some use
to somebody, if any such utility were compatible with the purposes
of his existence. Now had come this knock at the door, while the
umbrella was still in his hand, and the nature of his visage changed,
and it was easy to see that he was oppressed by the temporary
multiplicity of his duties. "Give me the umbrella, John," said Mr.
Palliser. John gave up the umbrella, and opening the door disclosed
Burgo Fitzgerald standing upon the door-step. "Is Lady Glencora at
home?" asked Burgo, before he had seen the husband. John turned a
dismayed face upon his master, as though he knew that the comer ought
not to be making a morning call at that house,--as no doubt he did
know very well,--and made no instant reply. "I am not sure," said
Mr. Palliser, making his way out as he had originally purposed. "The
servant will find out for you." Then he went on his way across Park
Lane and into the Park, never once turning back his face to see
whether Burgo had effected an entrance into the house. Nor did he
return a minute earlier than he would otherwise have done. After all,
there was something chivalrous about the man.
"Yes; Lady Glencora was at home," said the porter, not stirring to
make any further inquiry. It was no business of his if Mr. Palliser
chose to receive such a guest. He had not been desired to say that
her ladyship was not at home. Burgo was therefore admitted and shown
direct up into the room in which Lady Glencora was sitting. As chance
would have it, she was alone. Alice had left her and was in her
own chamber, and Lady Glencora was sitting at the window of the
small room up-stairs that overlooked the Park. She was seated on a
footstool with her face between her hands when Burgo was admitted,
thinking of him, and of what the world might have been to her had
"they left her alone," as she was in the habit of saying to Alice and
to herself.
She rose quickly, so that he saw her only as she was rising. "Ask
Miss Vavasor to come to me," she said, as the servant left the room;
and then she came forward to greet her lover.
"Cora," he said, dashing at once into his subject--hopelessly, but
still with a resolve to do as he had said that he would do. "Cora,
I have come to you, to ask you to go with me."
"I will not go with you," said she.
"Do not answer me in that way, without a moment's thought. Everything
is arranged--"
"Yes, everything is arranged," she said. "Mr. Fitzgerald, let me
ask you to leave me alone, and to behave to me with generosity.
Everything is arranged. You can see that my boxes are all prepared
for going. Mr. Palliser and I, and my friend, are starting to-morrow.
Wish me God-speed and go, and be generous."
"And is this to be the end of everything?" He was standing close to
her, but hitherto he had only touched her hand at greeting her. "Give
me your hand, Cora," he said.
"No;--I will never give you my hand again. You should be generous to
me and go. This is to be the end of everything,--of everything that
is common to you and to me. Go, when I ask you."
"Cora; did you ever love me?"
"Yes; I did love you. But we were separated, and there was no room
for love left between us."
"You are as dear to me now,--dearer than ever you were. Do not look
at me like that. Did you not tell me when we last parted that I might
come to you again? Are we children, that others should come between
us and separate us like that?"
"Yes, Burgo; we are children. Here is my cousin coming. You must
leave me now." As she spoke the door was opened and Alice entered the
room. "Miss Vavasor, Mr. Fitzgerald," said Lady Glencora. "I have
told him to go and leave me. Now that you have come, Alice, he will
perhaps obey me."
Alice was dumbfounded, and knew not how to speak either to him or to
her; but she stood with her eyes riveted on the face of the man of
whom she had heard so much. Yes; certainly he was very beautiful. She
had never before seen man's beauty such as that. She found it quite
impossible to speak a word to him then--at the spur of the moment,
but she acknowledged the introduction with a slight inclination of
the head, and then stood silent, as though she were waiting for him
to go.
"Mr. Fitzgerald, why do you not leave me and go?" said Lady Glencora.
Poor Burgo also found it difficult enough to speak. What could he
say? His cause was one which certainly did not admit of being pleaded
in the presence of a strange lady; and he might have known from the
moment in which he heard Glencora's request that a third person
should be summoned to their meeting--and probably did know, that
there was no longer any hope for him. It was not on the cards that he
should win. But there remained one thing that he must do. He must get
himself out of that room; and how was he to effect that?
"I had hoped," said he, looking at Alice, though he addressed Lady
Glencora--"I had hoped to be allowed to speak to you alone for a few
minutes."
"No, Mr. Fitzgerald; it cannot be so. Alice do not go. I sent for my
cousin when I saw you, because I did not choose to be alone with you.
I have asked you to go--"
"You perhaps have not understood me?"
"I understand you well enough."
"Then, Mr. Fitzgerald," said Alice, "why do you not do as Lady
Glencora has asked you? You know--you must know, that you ought not
to be here."
"I know nothing of the kind," said he, still standing his ground.
"Alice," said Lady Glencora, "we will leave Mr. Fitzgerald here, since
he drives us from the room."
In such contests, a woman has ever the best of it at all points. The
man plays with a button to his foil, while the woman uses a weapon
that can really wound. Burgo knew that he must go,--felt that he
must skulk away as best he might, and perhaps hear a low titter of
half-suppressed laughter as he went. Even that might be possible.
"No, Lady Glencora," he said, "I will not drive you from the room.
As one must be driven out, it shall be I. I own I did think that you
would at any rate have been--less hard to me." He then turned to go,
bowing again very slightly to Miss Vavasor.
He was on the threshold of the door before Glencora's voice recalled
him. "Oh my God!" she said, "I am hard,--harder than flint. I am
cruel. Burgo!" And he was back with her in a moment, and had taken
her by the hand.
"Glencora," said Alice, "pray,--pray let him go. Mr. Fitzgerald, if
you are a man, do not take advantage of her folly."
"I will speak to him," said Lady Glencora. "I will speak to him,
and then he shall leave me." She was holding him by the hand now
and turning to him, away from Alice, who had taken her by the arm.
"Burgo," she said, repeating his name twice again, with all the
passion that she could throw into the word,--"Burgo, no good can come
of this. Now, you must leave me. You must go. I shall stay with my
husband as I am bound to do. Because I have wronged you, I will not
wrong him also. I loved you;--you know I loved you." She still held
him by the hand, and was now gazing up into his face, while the tears
were streaming from her eyes.
"Sir," said Alice, "you have heard from her all that you can care to
hear. If you have any feeling of honour in you, you will leave her."
"I will never leave her, while she tells me that she loves me!"
"Yes, Burgo, you will;--you must! I shall never tell you that again,
never. Do as she bids you. Go, and leave us;--but I could not bear
that you should tell me that I was hard."
"You are hard;--hard and cruel, as you said, yourself."
"Am I? May God forgive you for saying that of me!"
"Then why do you send me away?"
"Because I am a man's wife, and because I care for his honour, if not
for my own. Alice, let us go."
He still held her, but she would have been gone from him had he not
stooped over her, and put his arm round her waist. In doing this, I
doubt whether he was quicker than she would have been had she chosen
to resist him. As it was, he pressed her to his bosom, and, stooping
over her, kissed her lips. Then he left her, and making his way out
of the room, and down the stairs, got himself out into the street.
"Thank God, that he is gone!" said Alice.
"You may say so," said Lady Glencora, "for you have lost nothing!"
"And you have gained everything!"
"Have I? I did not know that I had ever gained anything, as yet. The
only human being to whom I have ever yet given my whole heart,--the
only thing that I have ever really loved, has just gone from me for
ever, and you bid me thank God that I have lost him. There is no room
for thankfulness in any of it;--either in the love or in the loss. It
is all wretchedness from first to last!"
"At any rate, he understands now that you meant it when you told him
to leave you."
"Of course I meant it. I am beginning to know myself by degrees. As
for running away with him, I have not the courage to do it. I can
think of it, scheme for it, wish for it;--but as for doing it, that
is beyond me. Mr. Palliser is quite safe. He need not try to coax me
to remain."
Alice knew that it was useless to argue with her, so she came and sat
over her,--for Lady Glencora had again placed herself on the stool
by the window,--and tried to sooth her by smoothing her hair, and
nursing her like a child.
"Of course I know that I ought to stay where I am," she said,
breaking out, almost with rage, and speaking with quick, eager voice.
"I am not such a fool as to mistake what I should be if I left my
husband, and went to live with that man as his mistress. You don't
suppose that I should think that sort of life very blessed. But
why have I been brought to such a pass as this? And, as for female
purity! Ah! What was their idea of purity when they forced me, like
ogres, to marry a man for whom they knew I never cared? Had I gone
with him,--had I now eloped with that man who ought to have been my
husband,--whom would a just God have punished worst,--me, or those
two old women and my uncle, who tortured me into this marriage?"
"Come, Cora,--be silent."
"I won't be silent! You have had the making of your own lot. You have
done what you liked, and no one has interfered with you. You have
suffered, too; but you, at any rate, can respect yourself."
"And so can you, Cora,--thoroughly, now."
"How;--when he kissed me, and I could hardly restrain myself from
giving him back his kiss tenfold, could I respect myself? But it is
all sin. I sin towards my husband, feigning that I love him; and
I sin in loving that other man, who should have been my husband.
There;--I hear Mr. Palliser at the door. Come away with me; or rather,
stay, for he will come up here, and you can keep him in talk while I
try to recover myself."
Mr. Palliser did at once as his wife had said, and came up-stairs
to the little front room, as soon as he had deposited his hat in
the hall. Alice was, in fact, in doubt what she should do, as to
mentioning, or omitting to mention, Mr. Fitzgerald's name. In an
ordinary way, it would be natural that she should name any visitor
who had called, and she specially disliked the idea of remaining
silent because that visitor had come as the lover of her host's wife.
But, on the other hand, she owed much to Lady Glencora; and there
was no imperative reason, as things had gone, why she should make
mischief. There was no further danger to be apprehended. But Mr.
Palliser at once put an end to her doubts. "You have had a visitor
here?" said he.
"Yes," said Alice.
"I saw him as I went out," said Mr. Palliser. "Indeed, I met him
at the hall door. He, of course, was wrong to come here;--so wrong,
that he deserves punishment, if there were any punishment for such
offences."
"He has been punished, I think," said Alice.
"But as for Glencora," continued Mr. Palliser, without any apparent
notice of what Alice had said, "I thought it better that she should
see him or not, as she should herself decide."
"She had no choice in the matter. As it turned out, he was shown up
here at once. She sent for me, and I think she was right to do that."
"Glencora was alone when he came in?"
"For a minute or two,--till I could get to her."
"I have no questions to ask about it," said Mr. Palliser, after
waiting for a few moments. He had probably thought that Alice would
say something further. "I am very glad that you were within reach of
her, as otherwise her position might have been painful. For her, and
for me perhaps, it may be as well that he has been here. As for him,
I can only say, that I am forced to suppose him to be a villain. What
a man does when driven by passion, I can forgive; but that he should
deliberately plan schemes to ruin both her and me, is what I can
hardly understand." As he made this little speech I wonder whether
his conscience said anything to him about Lady Dumbello, and a
certain evening in his own life, on which he had ventured to call
that lady, Griselda.
The little party of three dined together very quietly, and after
dinner they all went to work with their novels. Before long Alice saw
that Mr. Palliser was yawning, and she began to understand how much
he had given up in order that his wife might be secure. It was then,
when he had left the room for a few minutes, in order that he might
wake himself by walking about the house, that Glencora told Alice of
his yawning down at Matching. "I used to think that he would fall in
pieces. What are we to do about it?"
"Don't seem to notice it," said Alice.
"That's all very well," said the other; "but he'll set us off yawning
as bad as himself, and then he'll notice it. He has given himself up
to politics, till nothing else has any salt in it left for him. I
cannot think why such a man as that wanted a wife at all."
"You are very hard upon him, Cora."
"I wish you were his wife, with all my heart. But, of course, I know
why he got married. And I ought to feel for him as he has been so
grievously disappointed." Then Mr. Palliser having walked off his
sleep, returned to the room, and the remainder of the evening was
passed in absolute tranquillity.
Burgo Fitzgerald, when he left the house, turned back into Grosvenor
Square, not knowing, at first, whither he was going. He took himself
as far as his uncle's door, and then, having paused there for a
moment, hurried on. For half an hour, or thereabouts, something like
true feeling was at work within his heart. He had once more pressed
to his bosom the woman he had, at any rate, thought that he had
loved. He had had his arm round her, and had kissed her, and the tone
with which she had called him by his name was still ringing in his
ears, "Burgo!" He repeated his own name audibly to himself, as though
in this way he could recall her voice. He comforted himself for
a minute with the conviction that she loved him. He felt,--for
a moment,--that he could live on such consolation as that! But
among mortals there could, in truth, hardly be one with whom such
consolation would go a shorter way. He was a man who required to have
such comfort backed by patés and curaçoa to a very large extent, and
now it might be doubted whether the amount of patés and curaçoa at
his command would last him much longer.
He would not go in and tell his aunt at once of his failure, as he
could gain nothing by doing so. Indeed, he thought that he would not
tell his aunt at all. So he turned back from Grosvenor Square, and
went down to his club in St. James's Street, feeling that billiards
and brandy-and-water might, for the present, be the best restorative.
But, as he went back, he blamed himself very greatly in the matter of
those bank-notes which he had allowed Lady Monk to take from him. How
had it come to pass that he had been such a dupe in her hands? When
he entered his club in St. James's Street his mind had left Lady
Glencora, and was hard at work considering how he might best contrive
to get that spoil out of his aunt's possession.
CHAPTER LXVIII.
From London to Baden.
On the following morning everybody was stirring by times at Mr.
Palliser's house in Park Lane, and the master of that house yawned no
more. There is some life in starting for a long journey, and the life
is the stronger and the fuller if the things and people to be carried
are numerous and troublesome. Lady Glencora was a little troublesome,
and would not come down to breakfast in time. When rebuked on account
of this manifest breach of engagement, she asserted that the next
train would do just as well; and when Mr. Palliser proved to her,
with much trouble, that the next train could not enable them to
reach Paris on that day, she declared that it would be much more
comfortable to take a week in going than to hurry over the ground in
one day. There was nothing she wanted so much as to see Folkestone.
"If that is the case, why did not you tell me so before?" said Mr.
Palliser, in his gravest voice. "Richard and the carriage went down
yesterday, and are already on board the packet."
"If Richard and the carriage are already on board the packet," said
Lady Glencora, "of course we must follow them, and we must put off
the glories of Folkestone till we come back. Alice, haven't you
observed that, in travelling, you are always driven on by some
Richard or some carriage, till you feel that you are a slave?"
All this was trying to Mr. Palliser; but I think that he enjoyed it,
nevertheless, and that he was happy when he found that he did get his
freight off from the Pimlico Station in the proper train.
Of course Lady Glencora and Alice were very ill crossing the Channel;
of course the two maids were worse than their mistresses; of course
the men kept out of their master's way when they were wanted, and
drank brandy-and-water with the steward down-stairs; and of course
Lady Glencora declared that she would not allow herself to be carried
beyond Boulogne that day;--but, nevertheless, they did get on to
Paris. Had Mr. Palliser become Chancellor of the Exchequer, as he had
once hoped, he could hardly have worked harder than he did work. It
was he who found out which carriage had been taken for them, and who
put, with his own hands, the ladies' dressing-cases and cloaks on to
the seats,--who laid out the novels, which, of course, were not read
by the road,--and made preparations as though this stage of their
journey was to take them a week, instead of five hours and a half.
"Oh, dear! how I have slept!" said Lady Glencora, as they came near
to Paris.
"I think you've been tolerably comfortable," said Mr. Palliser,
joyfully.
"Since we got out of that horrid boat I have done pretty well. Why do
they make the boats so nasty? I'm sure they do it on purpose."
"It would be difficult to make them nice, I suppose?" said Alice.
"It is the sea that makes them uncomfortable," said Mr. Palliser.
"Never mind; we shan't have any more of it for twelve months, at any
rate. We can get to the Kurds, Alice, without getting into a packet
again. That, to my way of thinking, is the great comfort of the
Continent. One can go everywhere without being seasick."
Mr. Palliser said nothing, but he sighed as he thought of being absent
for a whole year. He had said that such was his intention, and would
not at once go back from what he himself had said. But how was he to
live for twelve months out of the House of Commons? What was he to
do with himself, with his intellect and his energy, during all these
coming dreary days? And then,--he might have been Chancellor of the
Exchequer! He might even now, at this very moment, have been upon
his legs, making a financial statement of six hours' duration,
to the delight of one-half of the House, and bewilderment of the
other, instead of dragging cloaks across that dingy, dull, dirty
waiting-room at the Paris Station, in which British subjects are kept
in prison while their boxes are being tumbled out of the carriages.
"But we are not to stop here;--are we?" said Lady Glencora,
mournfully.
"No, dear;--I have given the keys to Richard. We will go on at once."
"But can't we have our things?"
"In about half an hour," pleaded Mr. Palliser.
"I suppose we must bear it, Alice?" said Lady Glencora as she got
into the carriage that was waiting for her.
Alice thought of the last time in which she had been in that
room,--when George and Kate had been with her,--and the two girls
had been quite content to wait patiently while their trunks were
being examined. But Alice was now travelling with great people,--with
people who never spoke of their wealth, or seemed ever to think of
it, but who showed their consciousness of it at every turn of their
lives. "After all," Alice had said to herself more than once, "I
doubt whether the burden is not greater than the pleasure."
They stayed in Paris for a week, and during that time Alice found
that she became very intimate with Mr. Palliser. At Matching she
had, in truth, seen but little of him, and had known nothing. Now
she began to understand his character, and learned how to talk to
him, She allowed him to tell her of things in which Lady Glencora
resolutely persisted in taking no interest. She delighted him by
writing down in a little pocket-book the number of eggs that were
consumed in Paris every day, whereas Glencora protested that the
information was worth nothing unless her husband could tell her how
many of the eggs were good, and how many bad. And Alice was glad
to find that a hundred and fifty thousand female operatives were
employed in Paris, while Lady Glencora said it was a great shame,
and that they ought all to have husbands. When Mr. Palliser explained
that that was impossible, because of the redundancy of the female
population, she angered him very much by asserting that she saw a
great many men walking about who, she was quite sure, had not wives
of their own.
"I do so wish you had married him!" Glencora said to Alice that
evening. "You would always have had a pocket-book ready to write down
the figures, and you would have pretended to care about the eggs, and
the bottles of wine, and the rest of it. As for me, I can't do it. If
I see an hungry woman, I can give her my money; or if she be a sick
woman, I can nurse her; or if I hear of a very wicked man, I can hate
him;--but I cannot take up poverty and crime in the lump. I never
believe it all. My mind isn't big enough."
They went into no society at Paris, and at the end of a week were all
glad to leave it.
"I don't know that Baden will be any better," Lady Glencora said;
"but, you know, we can leave that again after a bit,--and so we shall
go on getting nearer to the Kurds."
To this, Mr. Palliser demurred. "I think we had better make up our
mind to stay a month at Baden."
"But why should we make up our minds at all?" his wife pleaded.
"I like to have a plan," said Mr. Palliser.
"And so do I," said his wife,--"if only for the sake of not keeping
it."
"There's nothing I hate so much as not carrying out my intentions,"
said Mr. Palliser.
Upon this, Lady Glencora shrugged her shoulders, and made a mock
grimace to her cousin. All this her husband bore for a while meekly,
and it must be acknowledged that he behaved very well. But, then,
he had his own way in everything. Lady Glencora did not behave very
well,--contradicting her husband, and not considering, as, perhaps,
she ought to have done, the sacrifice he was making on her behalf.
But, then, she had her own way in nothing.
She had her own way in almost nothing; but on one point she did
conquer her husband. He was minded to go from Paris back to Cologne,
and so down the Rhine to Baden. Lady Glencora declared that she hated
the Rhine,--that, of all rivers, it was the most distasteful to
her; that, of all scenery, the scenery of the Rhine was the most
over-praised; and that she would be wretched all the time if she
were carried that way. Upon this, Mr. Palliser referred the matter
to Alice; and she, who had last been upon the Rhine with her
cousins Kate and George Vavasor, voted for going to Baden by way of
Strasbourg.
"We will go by Strasbourg, then," said Mr. Palliser, gallantly.
"Not that I want to see that horrid church again," said Glencora.
"Everything is alike horrid to you, I think," said her husband. "You
are determined not to be contented, so that it matters very little
which way we go."
"That's the truth," said his wife. "It does matter very little."
They got on to Baden,--with very little delay at Strasbourg, and
found half an hotel prepared for their reception. Here the carriage
was brought into use for the first time, and the mistress of the
carriage talked of sending home for Dandy and Flirt. Mr. Palliser,
when he heard the proposition, calmly assured his wife that the
horses would not bear the journey. "They would be so out of
condition," he said, "as not to be worth anything for two or three
months."
"I only meant to ask for them if they could come in a balloon," said
Lady Glencora.
This angered Mr. Palliser, who had really, for a few minutes, thought
of pacifying his wife by sending for the horses.
"Alice," she asked, one morning, "how many eggs are eaten in Baden
every morning before ten o'clock?"
Mr. Palliser, who at the moment was in the act of eating one, threw
down his spoon, and pushed his plate from him.
"What's the matter, Plantagenet?" she asked.
"The matter!" he said. "But never mind; I am a fool to care for it."
"I declare I didn't know that I had done anything wrong," said Lady
Glencora. "Alice, do you understand what it is?"
Alice said that she did understand very well.
"Of course she understands," said Mr. Palliser. "How can she help
it? And, indeed, Miss Vavasor, I am more unhappy than I can express
myself, to think that your comfort should be disturbed in this way."
"Upon my word I think Alice is doing very well," said Lady Glencora.
"What is there to hurt her comfort? Nobody scolds her. Nobody tells
her that she is a fool. She never jokes, or does anything wicked,
and, of course, she isn't punished."
Mr. Palliser, as he wandered that day alone through the gambling-rooms
at the great Assembly House, thought that, after all, it might have
been better for him to have remained in London, to have become
Chancellor of the Exchequer, and to have run all risks.
"I wonder whether it would be any harm if I were to put a few pieces
of money on the table, just once?" Lady Glencora said to her cousin,
on the evening of the same day, in one of those gambling salons.
There had been some music on that evening in one side of the
building, and the Pallisers had gone to the rooms. But as neither
of the two ladies would dance, they had strayed away into the other
apartments.
"The greatest harm in the world!" said Alice; "and what on earth
could you gain by it? You don't really want any of those horrid
people's money?"
"I'll tell you what I want,--something to live for,--some excitement.
Is it not a shame that I see around me so many people getting
amusement, and that I can get none? I'd go and sit out there, and
drink beer and hear the music, only Plantagenet wouldn't let me. I
think I'll throw one piece on to the table to see what becomes of
it."
"I shall leave you if you do," said Alice.
"You are such a prude! It seems to me as if it must have been my
special fate,--my good fate, I mean,--that has thrown me so much with
you. You look after me quite as carefully as Mr. Bott and Mrs. Marsham
ever did; but as I chose you myself, I can't very well complain, and
I can't very well get rid of you."
"Do you want to get rid of me, Cora?"
"Sometimes. Do you know, there are moments when I almost make up my
mind to go headlong to the devil,--when I think it is the best thing
to be done. It's a hard thing for a woman to do, because she has to
undergo so much obloquy before she gets used to it. A man can take to
drinking, and gambling and all the rest of it, and nobody despises
him a bit. The domestic old fogies give him lectures if they can
catch him, but he isn't fool enough for that. All he wants is money,
and he goes away and has his fling. Now I have plenty of money,--or,
at any rate, I had,--and I never got my fling yet. I do feel so
tempted to rebel, and go ahead, and care for nothing."
"Throwing one piece on to the table wouldn't satisfy that longing."
"You think I should be like the wild beast that has tasted blood,
and can't be controlled. Look at all these people here. There are
husbands gambling, and their wives don't know it; and wives gambling,
and their husbands don't know it. I wonder whether Plantagenet ever
has a fling? What a joke it would be to come and catch him!"
"I don't think you need be afraid."
"Afraid! I should like him all the better for it. If he came to me,
some morning, and told me that he had lost a hundred thousand pounds,
I should be so much more at my ease with him."
"You have no chance in that direction, I'm quite sure."
"None the least. He'd make a calculation that the chances were nine
to seven against him, and then the speculation would seem to him to
be madness."
"I don't suppose he'd wish to try, even though he were sure of
winning."
"Of course not. It would be a very vulgar kind of thing then.
Look,--there's an opening there. I'll just put on one napoleon."
"You shall not. If you do, I'll leave you at once. Look at the women
who are playing. Is there one there whom it would not disgrace you to
touch? Look what they are. Look at their cheeks, and their eyes, and
their hands. Those men who rake about the money are bad enough, but
the women look like fiends."
"You're not going to frighten me in that hobgoblin sort of way, you
know. I don't see anything the matter with any of the people."
"What do you think of that young woman who has just got a handful of
money from the man next to her?"
"I think she is very happy. I never get money given to me by
handfuls, and the man to whom I belong gives me no encouragement
when I want to amuse myself." They were now standing near to one end
of the table, and suddenly there came to be an opening through the
crowd up to the table itself. Lady Glencora, leaving Alice's side, at
once stepped up and deposited a piece of gold on one of the marked
compartments. As soon as she placed it she retreated again with
flushed face, and took hold of Alice's arm. "There," she said,
"I have done it." Alice, in her dismay, did not know what step to
take. She could not scold her friend now, as the eyes of many were
turned upon them, nor could she, of course, leave her, as she had
threatened. Lady Glencora laughed with her peculiar little low
laughter, and stood her ground. "I was determined you shouldn't
frighten me out of it," she said.
[Illustration: Lady Glencora at Baden.]
One of the ministers at the table had in the meantime gone on with
the cards, and had called the game; and another minister had gently
pushed three or four more pieces of gold up to that which Lady
Glencora had flung down, and had then cunningly caught her eye, and,
with all the courtesy of which he was master, had pushed them further
on towards her. She had supposed herself to be unknown there in the
salon, but no doubt all the croupiers and half the company knew well
enough who was the new customer at the table. There was still the
space open, near to which she stood, and then someone motioned to her
to come and take up the money which she had won. She hesitated, and
then the croupier asked her, in that low, indifferent voice which
these men always use, whether she desired that her money should
remain. She nodded her head to him, and he at once drew the money
back again to the spot on which she had placed the first napoleon.
Again the cards were turned up softly, again the game was called,
and again she won. The money was dealt out to her,--on this occasion
with a full hand. There were lying there between twenty and thirty
napoleons, of which she was the mistress. Her face had flushed
before, but now it became very red. She caught hold of Alice, who was
literally trembling beside her, and tried to laugh again. But there
was that in her eye which told Alice that she was really frightened.
Some one then placed a chair for her at the table, and in her
confusion, not knowing what she was to do, she seated herself. "Come
away," said Alice, taking hold of her, and disregarding everything
but her own purpose, in the agony of the moment. "You must come
away! You shall not sit there!" "I must get rid of that money," said
Glencora, trying to whisper her words, "and then I will come away."
The croupier again asked her if the money was to remain, and she
again nodded her head. Everybody at the table was now looking at
her. The women especially were staring at her,--those horrid women
with vermilion cheeks, and loud bonnets half off their heads, and
hard, shameless eyes, and white gloves, which, when taken off in the
ardour of the game, disclosed dirty hands. They stared at her with
that fixed stare which such women have, and Alice saw it all, and
trembled.
Again she won. "Leave it," said Alice, "and come away." "I can't
leave it," said Glencora. "If I do, there'll be a fuss. I'll go
the next time." What she said was, of course, in English, and was
probably understood by no one near her; but it was easy to be seen
that she was troubled, and, of course, those around her looked at
her the more because of her trouble. Again that little question and
answer went on between her and the croupier, and on this occasion
the money was piled up on the compartment--a heap of gold which made
envious the hearts of many who stood around there. Alice had now
both her hands on the back of the chair, needing support. If the
devil should persist, and increase that stock of gold again, she
must go and seek for Mr. Palliser. She knew not what else to do. She
understood nothing of the table, or of its laws; but she supposed
all those ministers of the game to be thieves, and believed that
all villainous contrivances were within their capacity. She thought
that they might go on adding to that heap so long as Lady Glencora
would sit there, presuming that they might thus get her into their
clutches. Of course, she did not sift her suspicions. Who does at
such moments? "Come away at once, and leave it," she said, "or I
shall go." At that moment the croupier raked it all up, and carried
it all away; but Alice did not see that this had been done. A hand
had been placed on her shoulder, and as she turned round her face
her eyes met those of Mr. Palliser. "It is all gone," said Glencora,
laughing. And now she, turning round, also saw her husband. "I am so
glad that you are come," said Alice. "Why did you bring her here?"
said Mr. Palliser. There was anger in his tone, and anger in his eye.
He took his wife's arm upon his own, and walked away quickly, while
Alice followed them alone. He went off at once, down the front steps
of the building, towards the hotel. What he said to his wife, Alice
did not hear; but her heart was swelling with the ill-usage to which
she herself was subjected. Though she might have to go back alone
to England, she would tell him that he was ill-treating her. She
followed him on, up into their drawing-room, and there he stood with
the door open in his hand for her, while Lady Glencora threw herself
upon a sofa, and burst out into affected laughter. "Here's a piece of
work," she said, "about a little accident."
"An accident!" said Mr. Palliser.
"Yes, an accident. You don't suppose that I sat down there meaning to
win all that money?" Whereupon he looked at her with scorn.
"Mr. Palliser," said Alice, "you have treated me this evening in a
manner I did not expect from you. It is clear that you blame me."
"I have not said a word, Miss Vavasor."
"No; you have not said a word. You know well how to show your anger
without speaking. As I do not choose to undergo your displeasure, I
will return to England by myself."
"Alice! Alice!" said Glencora, jumping up, "that is nonsense! What
is all this trumpery thing about? Leave me, because he chooses to be
angry about nothing?"
"Is it nothing that I find my wife playing at a common
gambling-table, surrounded by all that is wretched and
vile,--established there, seated, with heaps of gold before her?"
"You wrong me, Plantagenet," said Glencora. "There was only one heap,
and that did not remain long. Did it, Alice?"
"It is impossible to make you ashamed of anything," he said.
"I certainly don't like being ashamed," she answered; "and don't feel
any necessity on this occasion."
"If you don't object, Mr. Palliser," said Alice, "I will go to bed.
You can think over all this at night,--and so can I. Good night,
Glencora." Then Alice took her candle, and marched off to her own
room, with all the dignity of which she was mistress.
CHAPTER LXIX.
From Baden to Lucerne.
The second week in July saw Mr. Palliser's party, carriage and all,
established at Lucerne, in Switzerland, safe beyond the reach of
the German gambling tables. Alice Vavasor was still with them; and
the reader will therefore understand that that quarrel about Lady
Glencora's wickedness had been settled without any rupture. It had
been settled amicably, and by the time that they had reached Lucerne,
Alice was inclined to acknowledge that the whole thing was not worth
notice; but for many days her anger against Mr. Palliser had not been
removed, and her intimacy with him had been much checked. It was now
a month since the occurrence of that little scene in the salon at
Baden, which was described in the last chapter,--since Mr. Palliser
had marched off with his wife, leaving Alice to follow as she best
could by herself. After that, as the reader may remember, he had
almost told her that she was to be blamed because of his wife's
indiscretion; and when she had declared her intention of leaving him,
and making her way home to England by herself, he had answered her
not at all, and had allowed her to go off to her own room under the
full ban of his displeasure. Since that he had made no apology to
her; he had not, in so many words, acknowledged that he had wronged
her; but Alice had become aware that he intended to apologize by his
conduct, and she had been content so far to indulge his obstinacy as
to accept this conduct on his part in lieu of any outspoken petition
for pardon. The acknowledgement of a mistake and the asking for grace
is almost too much for any woman to expect from such a man as Mr.
Palliser.
Early on the morning after the scene in question, Lady Glencora
had gone into Alice's bedroom, and had found her cousin in her
dressing-gown, packing up her things, or looking as though she
intended to do so. "You are not such a fool," she said, "as to think
anything of what occurred yesterday?" Alice assured her that, whether
fool or not, she did think a great deal of it. "In point of fact,"
said Alice, "I can't stand it. He expects me to take care of you, and
chooses to show himself offended if you don't do just what he thinks
proper; whereas, as you know well enough, I have not the slightest
influence over you." All these positions Lady Glencora contradicted
vigorously. Of course, Mr. Palliser had been wrong in walking out
of the Assembly Rooms as he had done, leaving Alice behind him. So
much Lady Glencora admitted. But this had come of his intense anxiety.
"And you know what a man he is," said his wife--"how stiff, and hard,
and unpleasant he can be without meaning it."--"There is no reason
why I should bear his unpleasantness," said Alice. "Yes, there
is,--great reason. You are to do it for the sake of friendship. And
as for my not doing what you tell me, you know that's not true."
"Did I not beg you to keep away from the table?"
"Of course you did, and of course I was naughty; but that was only
once. Alice, I want you more than I ever wanted you before. I cannot
tell you more now, but you must stay with me."
Alice consented to come down to breakfast without any immediate
continuance of her active preparations for going, and at last, of
course, she stayed. When she entered the breakfast-room Mr. Palliser
came up to her, and offered her his hand. She had no alternative
but to take it, and then seated herself. That there was an intended
apology in the manner in which he offered her toast and butter, she
was convinced; and the special courtesy with which he handed her to
the carriage, when she and Lady Glencora went out for their drive,
after dinner, was almost as good as a petition for pardon. So the
thing went on, and by degrees Mr. Palliser and Miss Vavasor were again
friends.
But Alice never knew in what way the matter was settled between
Mr. Palliser and his wife, or whether there was any such settling.
Probably there was none. "Of course, he understands that it didn't
mean anything," Lady Glencora had said. "He knows that I don't want
to gamble." But let that be as it might, their sojourn at Baden was
curtailed, and none of the party went up again to the Assembly Rooms
before their departure.
Before establishing themselves at Lucerne they made a little tour
round by the Falls of the Rhine and Zurich. In their preparations
for this journey, Alice made a struggle, but a struggle in vain, to
avoid a passage through Basle. It was only too clear to her that Mr.
Palliser was determined to go by Basle. She could not bring herself
to say that she had recollections connected with that place which
would make a return to it unpleasant to her. If she could have
said as much, even to Glencora, Mr. Palliser would no doubt have
gone round,--round by any more distant route that might have been
necessary to avoid that eternal gateway into Switzerland. But she
could not say it. She was very averse to talking about herself and
her own affairs, even with her cousin. Of course Lady Glencora knew
the whole story of Mr. John Grey and his rejection,--and knew much
also of that other story of Mr. George Vavasor. And, of course, like
all Alice's friends, she hated George Vavasor, and was prepared to
receive Mr. John Grey with open arms, if there were any possibility
that her cousin would open her arms to him also. But Alice was so
stubborn about her own affairs that her friend found it almost
impossible to speak of them. "It is not that you trouble me," Alice
once said, "but that you trouble yourself about that which is of no
use. It is all done and over; and though I know that I have behaved
badly,--very badly,--yet I believe that everything has been done for
the best. I am inclined to think that I can live alone, or perhaps
with my cousin Kate, more happily than I could with any husband."
"That is such nonsense."
"Perhaps so; but, at any rate, I mean to try. We Vavasors don't seem
to be good at marrying."
"You want some one to break your heart for you; that's what you
want," said Lady Glencora. In saying this she knew but little of
the state of her friend's heart, and perhaps was hardly capable
of understanding it. With all the fuss that Lady Glencora made to
herself,--with all the tears that she had shed about her lost lover,
and was so often shedding,--with all her continual thinking of the
matter, she had never loved Burgo Fitzgerald as Alice Vavasor had
loved Mr. Grey. But her nature was altogether different to that of
Alice. Love with her had in it a gleam of poetry, a spice of fun,
a touch of self-devotion, something even of hero-worship; but with
it all there was a dash of devilry, and an aptitude almost for
wickedness. She knew Burgo Fitzgerald to be a scapegrace, and she
liked him the better on that account. She despised her husband
because he had no vices. She would have given everything she had
to Burgo,--pouring her wealth upon him with a total disregard of
herself, had she been allowed to do so. She would have forgiven him
sin after sin, and might perhaps have brought him round, at last, to
some life not absolutely reckless and wretched. But in all that she
might have done, there would have been no thoughtfulness,--no true
care either for him or for herself. And now that she was married
there was no thoughtfulness, or care either for herself or for her
husband. She was ready to sacrifice herself for him, if any sacrifice
might be required of her. She believed herself to be unfit for him,
and would have submitted to be divorced,--or smothered out of the
way, for the matter of that,--if the laws of the land would have
permitted it. But she had never for a moment given to herself the
task of thinking what conduct on her part might be the best for his
welfare.
But Alice's love had been altogether of another kind,--and I am by no
means sure that it was better suited for the work of this work-a-day
world than that of her cousin. It was too thoughtful. I will not
say that there was no poetry in it, but I will say that it lacked
romance. Its poetry was too hard for romance. There was certainly
in it neither fun nor wickedness; nor was there, I fear, so large
a proportion of hero-worship as there always should be in a girl's
heart when she gives it away. But there was in it an amount
of self-devotion which none of those near to her had hitherto
understood,--unless it were that one to whom the understanding of it
was of the most importance. In all the troubles of her love, of her
engagements, and her broken promises, she had thought more of others
than of herself,--and, indeed, those troubles had chiefly come from
that self-devotion. She had left John Grey because she feared that
she would do him no good as his wife,--that she would not make him
happy; and she had afterwards betrothed herself for a second time to
her cousin, because she believed that she could serve him by marrying
him. Of course she had been wrong. She had been very wrong to give up
the man she did love, and more wrong again in suggesting to herself
the possibility of marrying the man she did not love. She knew that
she had been wrong in both, and was undergoing repentance with very
bitter inward sackcloth. But she said little of all this even to her
cousin.
They went to Lucerne by Basle, and put up at the big hotel with the
balcony over the Rhine, which Alice remembered so well. On the first
evening of her arrival she found herself again looking down upon the
river, as though it might have been from the same spot which she had
occupied together with George and Kate. But, in truth, that house is
very large, and has many bedrooms over the water. Who has ever been
through Basle, and not stood in one of them, looking down upon the
father of waters? Here, on this very spot, in one of these balconies,
was brought to her a letter from her cousin Kate, which was filled
with tidings respecting her cousin George. Mr. Palliser brought it to
her with his own hands, and she had no other alternative but to read
it in his presence. "George has lost his election," the letter began.
For one moment Alice thought of her money, and the vain struggle
in which it had been wasted. For one moment, something like regret
for the futility of the effort she had made came upon her. But it
passed away at once. "It was worth our while to try it," she said to
herself, and then went on with her letter. "I and Aunt Greenow are up
in London," the letter went on to say, "and have just heard the news.
Though I have been here for three days, and have twice sent word to
him to say so, he has not been near me. Perhaps it is best that he
should stay away, as I do not know how any words could pass between
us that would be pleasant. The poll was finished this afternoon, and
he lost his election by a large majority. There were five candidates
altogether for the two seats--three Liberals, and two Conservatives.
The other two Liberals were seated, and he was the last of the five.
I continue to hear tidings about him from day to day,--or rather, my
aunt hears them and tells them to me, which fill me full of fears as
to his future career. I believe that he has abandoned his business,
and that he has now no source of income. I would willingly share what
I have with him; or I would do more than that. After keeping back
enough to repay you gradually what he owes you, I would give him all
my share of the income out of the estate. But I cannot do this while
we are presumed to be enemies. I am up here to see a lawyer as to
some steps which he is taking to upset grandpapa's will. The lawyer
says that it is all nonsense, and that George's lawyer is not really
in earnest; but I cannot do anything till the matter is settled. Dear
Alice, though so much of your money is for a time gone, I am bound to
congratulate you on your safety,--on what I may more truly call your
escape. You will understand what my own feelings must be in writing
this, after all that I did to bring you and him together,--after all
my hopes and ambition respecting him. As for the money, it shall be
repaid. I do not think I shall ever dare to indulge in any strong
desire again. I think you will forgive me the injury I have done
you;--and I know that you will pity me.
"I am here to see the London lawyer,--but not only for that. Aunt
Greenow is buying her wedding clothes, and Captain Bellfield is in
lodgings near to us, also buying his trousseau; or, as I should
more properly say, having it bought for him. I am hardly in a mood
for much mirth, but it is impossible not to laugh inwardly when
she discusses before me the state of his wardrobe, and proposes
economical arrangements--greatly to his disgust. At present, she
holds him very tightly in hand, and makes him account for all his
hours as well as all his money. 'Of course, he'll run wild directly
he's married,' she said to me, yesterday; 'and, of course, there'll
always be a fight about it; but the more I do to tame him now, the
less wild he'll be by-and-by. And though I dare say, I shall scold
him sometimes, I shall never quarrel with him.' I have no doubt all
that is true; but what a fool she is to trouble herself with such a
man. She says she does it for an occupation. I took courage to tell
her once that a caged tiger would give her as much to do, and be less
dangerous. She was angry at this, and answered me very sharply. I had
tried my hand on a tiger, she said, and had felt his claws. She chose
to sacrifice herself,--if a sacrifice it were to be,--when some good
result might be possible. I had nothing further to say; and from that
time to this we have been on the pleasantest terms possible as to the
Captain. They have settled with your father to take Vavasor Hall for
three years, and I suppose I shall stay with them till your return.
What I may do then will depend entirely upon your doings. I feel
myself to be a desolate, solitary being, without any tie to any
person, or to any place. I never thought that I should feel the death
of my grandfather to be such a loss to me as it has been. Except you,
I have nothing left to me; and, as regards you, I have the unpleasant
feeling that I have for years been endeavouring to do you the worst
possible injury, and that you must regard me as an enemy from whom
you have escaped indeed, but not without terrible wounds."
Alice was always angered by any assumption that her conduct to Mr.
Grey had been affected by the advice or influence of her cousin Kate.
But this very feeling seemed to preserve Kate from the worse anger,
which might have been aroused against her, had Alice acknowledged the
injury which her cousin had in truth done to her. It was undoubtedly
true that had Alice neither seen nor heard from Kate during the
progress of John Grey's courtship, John Grey would not have lost his
wife. But against this truth Alice was always protesting within her
own breast. She had been weak, foolish, irresolute,--and had finally
acted with false judgement. So much she now admitted to herself. But
she would not admit that any other woman had persuaded her to such
weakness. "She mistakes me," Alice thought, as she put up her letter.
"She is not the enemy who has wounded me."
Mr. Palliser, who had brought her the letter, was seated in the same
balcony, and while Alice had been reading, had almost buried himself
in newspapers which conveyed intelligence as to the general elections
then in progress. He was now seated with a sheet of _The Times_ in
his hand, opened to its full extent,--for he had been too impatient
to cut the paper,--and as he held it up in his hands before his eyes,
was completely hidden beneath it. Five or six other open papers were
around him, and he had not spoken a word since he had commenced his
present occupation. Lady Glencora was standing on the other side of
him, and she also had received letters. "Sophy tells me that you are
returned for Silverbridge," she said at last.
"Who? I! yes; I'm returned," said Mr. Palliser, speaking with
something like disdain in his voice as to the possibility of anybody
having stood with a chance of success against him in his own family
borough. For a full appreciation of the advantages of a private seat
in the House of Commons let us always go to those great Whig families
who were mainly instrumental in carrying the Reform Bill. The house
of Omnium had been very great on that occasion. It had given up
much, and had retained for family use simply the single seat at
Silverbridge. But that that seat should be seriously disputed hardly
suggested itself as possible to the mind of any Palliser. The
Pallisers and the other great Whig families have been right in this.
They have kept in their hands, as rewards for their own services to
the country, no more than the country is manifestly willing to give
them. "Yes; I have been returned," said Mr. Palliser. "I'm sorry to
see, Miss Vavasor, that your cousin has not been so fortunate."
"So I find," said Alice. "It will be a great misfortune to him."
"Ah! I suppose so. Those Metropolitan elections cost so much trouble
and so much money, and under the most favourable circumstances, are
so doubtful. A man is never sure there till he has fought for his
seat three or four times."
"This has been the third time with him," said Alice, "and he is a
poor man."
"Dear, dear," said Mr. Palliser, who himself knew nothing of such
misfortunes. "I have always thought that those seats should be
left to rich commercial men who can afford to spend money upon them.
Instead of that, they are generally contested by men of moderate
means. Another of my friends in the House has been thrown out."
"Who is that unfortunate?" asked Lady Glencora.
"Mr. Bott," said the unthinking husband.
"Mr. Bott out!" exclaimed Lady Glencora. "Mr. Bott thrown out! I am so
glad. Alice, are you not glad? The red-haired man, that used to stand
about, you know, at Matching;--he has lost his seat in Parliament. I
suppose he'll go and stand about somewhere in Lancashire, now."
A very indiscreet woman was poor Lady Glencora. Mr. Palliser's face
became black beneath _The Times_ newspaper. "I did not know," said
he, "that my friend Mr. Bott and Miss Vavasor were enemies."
"Enemies! I don't suppose they were enemies," said Glencora. "But he
was a man whom no one could help observing,--and disliking."
"He was a man I specially disliked," said Alice, with great courage.
"He may be very well in Parliament; but I never met a man who could
make himself so disagreeable in society. I really did feel myself
constrained to be his enemy."
"Bravo, Alice!" said Lady Glencora.
"I hope he did nothing at Matching, to--to--to--," began Mr. Palliser,
apologetically.
"Nothing especially to offend me, Mr. Palliser,--except that he had
a way that I especially dislike of trying to make little secret
confidences."
"And then he was so ugly," said Lady Glencora.
"I felt certain that he endeavoured to do mischief," said Alice.
"Of course he did," said Lady Glencora; "and he had a habit of
rubbing his head against the papers in the rooms, and leaving a mark
behind him that was quite unpardonable."
Mr. Palliser was effectually talked down, and felt himself constrained
to abandon his political ally. Perhaps he did this the easier as the
loss which Mr. Bott had just suffered would materially interfere with
his political utility. "I suppose he will remain now among his own
people," said Mr. Palliser.
"Let us hope he will," said Lady Glencora,--"and that his own people
will appreciate the advantage of his presence." Then there was
nothing more said about Mr. Bott.
It was evening, and while they were still sitting among their letters
and newspapers, there came a shout along the water, and the noise of
many voices from the bridge. Suddenly, there shot down before them
in the swift running stream the heads of many swimmers in the river,
and with the swimmers came boats carrying their clothes. They went
by almost like a glance of light upon the waters, so rapid was the
course of the current. There was the shout of voices,--the quick
passage of the boats,--the uprising, some half a dozen times, of
the men's hands above the surface; and then they were gone down the
river, out of sight,--like morsels of wood thrown into a cataract,
which are borne away instantly.
"Oh, how I wish I could do that!" said Lady Glencora.
"It seems to be very dangerous," said Mr. Palliser. "I don't know how
they can stop themselves."
"Why should they want to stop themselves?" said Lady Glencora. "Think
how cool the water must be, and how beautiful to be carried along so
quickly, and to go on, and on, and on! I suppose we couldn't try it?"
As no encouragement was given to this proposition, Lady Glencora did
not repeat it; but stood leaning on the rail of the balcony, and
looking enviously down upon the water. Alice was, of course, thinking
of that other evening, when perhaps the same swimmers had come down
under the bridge and before the balcony, and where George Vavasor was
sitting in her presence. It was, I think, on that evening, that she
made up her mind to separate herself from Mr. Grey.
On the day after that, Mr. Palliser and his party went on to
Lucerne, making that journey, as I have said, by slow stages; taking
Schaffhausen and Zurich in their way. At Lucerne, they established
themselves for some time, occupying nearly a dozen rooms in the great
hotel which overlooks the lake. Here there came to them a visitor, of
whose arrival I will speak in the next chapter.
CHAPTER LXX.
At Lucerne.
I am inclined to think that Mr. Palliser did not much enjoy this
part of his tour abroad. When he first reached Lucerne there was no
one there with whom he could associate pleasantly, nor had he any
occupation capable of making his time run easily. He did not care for
scenery. Close at his elbow was the finest to be had in Europe; but
it was nothing to him. Had he been simply journeying through Lucerne
at the proper time of the year for such a journey, when the business
of the Session was over, and a little change of air needed, he could
have enjoyed the thing in a moderate way, looking about him, passing
on, and knowing that it was good for him to be there at that moment.
But he had none of that passion for mountains and lakes, none of
that positive joy in the heather, which would have compensated many
another man for the loss of all that Mr. Palliser was losing. His mind
was ever at home in the House of Commons, or in that august assembly
which men call the Cabinet, and of the meetings of which he read from
week to week the simple records. Therein were mentioned the names of
those heroes to whom Fortune had been so much kinder than she had
been to him; and he envied them. He took short, solitary walks, about
the town, over the bridges, and along the rivers, making to himself
the speeches which he would have made to full houses, had not his
wife brought ruin upon all his hopes. And as he pictured to himself
the glorious successes which probably never would have been his had
he remained in London, so did he prophesy to himself an absolute and
irremediable downfall from all political power as the result of his
absence,--having, in truth, no sufficient cause for such despair. As
yet, he was barely thirty, and had he been able to judge his own case
as keenly as he could have judged the case of another, he would have
known that a short absence might probably raise his value in the
estimation of others rather than lower it. But his personal annoyance
was too great to allow of his making such calculations aright. So he
became fretful and unhappy; and though he spoke no word of rebuke
to his wife, though he never hinted that she had robbed him of his
glories, he made her conscious by his manner that she had brought him
to this miserable condition.
Lady Glencora herself had a love for the mountains and lakes, but it
was a love of that kind which requires to be stimulated by society,
and which is keenest among cold chickens, picnic-pies, and the flying
of champagne corks. When they first entered Switzerland she was very
enthusiastic, and declared her intention of climbing up all the
mountains, and going through all the passes. She endeavoured to
induce her husband to promise that she should be taken up Mont Blanc.
And I think she would have carried this on, and would have been taken
up Mont Blanc, had Mr. Palliser's aspirations been congenial. But they
were not congenial, and Lady Glencora soon lost all her enthusiasm.
By the time that they were settled at Lucerne she had voted the
mountains to be bores, and had almost learned to hate the lake, which
she declared always made her wet through when she got into a small
boat, and sea-sick when she put her foot in a large one. At Lucerne
they made no acquaintances, Mr. Palliser being a man not apt to new
friendships. They did not even dine at the public table, though Lady
Glencora had expressed a wish to do so. Mr. Palliser did not like it,
and of course Lady Glencora gave way. There were, moreover, some
marital passages which were not pleasant to a third person. They did
not scold each other; but Lady Glencora would make little speeches of
which her husband disapproved. She would purposely irritate him by
continuing her tone of badinage, and then Mr. Palliser would become
fretful, and would look as though the cares of the world were too
many for him. I cannot, therefore, say that Alice had much to make
the first period of her sojourn at Lucerne a period of enjoyment.
But when they had been there about a fortnight, a stranger arrived,
whose coming at any rate lent the grace of some excitement to their
lives. Their custom was to breakfast at nine,--or as near nine as
Lady Glencora could be induced to appear,--and then Mr. Palliser would
read till three. At that hour he would walk forth by himself, after
having handed the two ladies into their carriage, and they would
be driven about for two hours. "How I do hate this carriage," Lady
Glencora said one day. "I do so wish it would come to grief, and be
broken to pieces. I wonder whether the Swiss people think that we are
going to be driven about here for ever." There were moments, however,
which seemed to indicate that Lady Glencora had something to tell
her cousin, which, if told, would alter the monotony of their lives.
Alice, however, would not press her for her secret.
"If you have anything to tell, why don't you tell it?" Alice once
said.
"You are so hard," said Lady Glencora.
"So you tell me very often," Alice replied; "and it is not
complimentary. But hard or soft, I won't make a petition for your
confidence." Then Lady Glencora said something savage, and the
subject was dropped for a while.
But we must go back to the stranger. Mr. Palliser had put the ladies
into their carriage, and was standing between the front door of the
hotel and the lake on a certain day, doubting whether he would walk
up the hill to the left or turn into the town on the right, when he
was accosted by an English gentleman, who, raising his hat, said that
he believed that he spoke to Mr. Palliser.
"I am Mr. Palliser," said our friend, very courteously, returning the
salute, and smiling as he spoke. But though he smiled, and though
he was courteous, and though he raised his hat, there was something
in his look and voice which would not have encouraged any ordinary
stranger to persevere. Mr. Palliser was not a man with whom it was
easy to open an acquaintance.
"My name is John Grey," said the stranger.
Then the smile was dropped, the look of extreme courtesy disappeared,
the tone of Mr. Palliser's voice was altered, and he put out his
hand. He knew enough of Mr. John Grey's history to be aware that
Mr. John Grey was a man with whom he might permit himself to become
acquainted. After the interchange of a very few words, the two men
started off for a walk together.
"Perhaps you don't wish to meet the carriage?" said Mr. Palliser. "If
so, we had better go through the town and up the river."
They went through the town, and up the river, and when Mr. Palliser,
on his return, was seen by Alice and Lady Glencora, he was alone.
They dined together, and nothing was said. Together they sauntered
out in the evening, and together came in and drank their tea; but
still nothing was said. At last, Alice and her cousin took their
candles from Mr. Palliser's hands and left the sitting-room for the
night.
"Alice," said Lady Glencora, as soon as they were in the passage
together, "I have been dying for this time to come. I could not speak
before, or I should have made blunders, and so would you. Let us go
into your room at once. Who do you think is here, at Lucerne, in this
house, at this very moment?"
Alice knew at once who it was. She knew, immediately, that Mr. Grey
had followed her, though no word had been written to her or spoken to
her on the subject since that day on which he himself had told her
that they would meet abroad. But though she was quite sure, she did
not mention his name. "Who is it, Glencora?" she asked, very calmly.
"Whom in all the world would you best like to see?" said Glencora.
"My cousin Kate, certainly," said Alice.
"Then it is not your cousin Kate. And I don't believe you;--or else
you're a fool."
Alice was accustomed to Lady Glencora's mode of talking, and
therefore did not think much of this. "Perhaps I am a fool," she
said.
"Only I know you are not. But I am not at all so sure as to your
being no hypocrite. The person I mean is a gentleman, of course. Why
don't you show a little excitement, at any rate? When Plantagenet
told me, just before dinner, I almost jumped out of my shoes. He was
going to tell you himself after dinner, in the politest way in the
world, no doubt, and just as the servants were carrying away the
apples. I thought it best to save you from that; but, I declare, I
believe I might have left him to do it; it would have had no effect
upon you. Who is it that has come, do you suppose?"
"Of course I know now," said Alice, very calmly, "that Mr. John Grey
has come."
"Yes, Mr. John Grey has come. He is here in this house at this
minute;--or, more probably, waiting outside by the lake till he shall
see a light in your bedroom." Then Lady Glencora paused for a moment,
waiting that Alice might say something. But Alice said nothing.
"Well?" said Lady Glencora, rising up from her chair. "Well?"
"Well?" said Alice.
"Have you nothing to say? Is it the same to you as though Mr. Smith
had come?"
"No; not exactly the same. I am quite alive to the importance of Mr.
Grey's arrival, and shall probably lie awake all night thinking about
it,--if it will do you any good to know that; but I don't feel that I
have much to say about it."
"I wish I had let Mr. Palliser tell you, in an ordinary way, before
all the servants. I do indeed."
"It would not have made much difference."
"Not the least, I believe. I wonder whether you ever did care for
anybody in your life,--for him, or for that other one, or for
anybody. For nobody, I believe;--except your cousin Kate. Still
waters, they say, run deep; and sometimes I think your waters run
too deep for me to fathom. I suppose I may go now, if you have got
nothing more to say?"
"What do you want me to say? Of course I know why he has come here.
He told me he should come."
"And you have never said a word about it."
"He told me he should come, and I thought it better not to say a word
about it. He might change his mind, or anything might happen. I told
him not to come; and it would have been much better that he should
have remained away."
"Why;--why;--why would it be better?"
"Because his being here will do no good to any one."
"No good! It seems to me impossible but that it should do all the
good in the world. Look here, Alice. If you do not altogether make
it up with him before to-morrow evening, I shall believe you to be
utterly heartless. Had I been you I should have been in his arms
before this. I'll go now, and leave you to lie awake, as you say
you will." Then she left the room, but returned in a moment to ask
another question. "What is Plantagenet to say to him about seeing you
to-morrow? Of course he has asked permission to come and call."
"He may come if he pleases. You don't think I have quarrelled with
him, or would refuse to see him!"
"And may we ask him to dine with us?"
"Oh, yes."
"And make up a picnic, and all the rest of it. In fact, he is to
be regarded as only an ordinary person. Well;--good night. I don't
understand you, that's all."
It may be doubted whether Alice understood herself. As soon as her
friend was gone, she put out her candle and seated herself at the
open window of her room, looking out upon the moonlight as it played
upon the lake. Would he be there, thinking of her, looking up,
perhaps, as Glencora had hinted, to see if he could distinguish her
light among the hundred that would be flickering across the long
front of the house. If it were so, at any rate he should not see her,
so she drew the curtain, and sat there watching the lake. It was
a pity that he should have come, and yet she loved him dearly for
coming. It was a pity that he should have come, as his coming could
lead to no good result. Of this she assured herself over and over
again, and yet she hardly knew why she was so sure of it. Glencora
had called her hard; but her conviction on that matter had not come
from hardness. Now that she was alone, her heart was full of love, of
the soft romance of love towards this man; and yet she felt that she
ought not to marry him, even though he might still be willing to take
her. That he was still willing to take her, that he desired to have
her for his wife in spite of all the injury she had done him, there
could be no doubt. Why else had he followed her to Switzerland? And
she remembered, now at this moment, how he had told her at Cheltenham
that he would never consider her to be lost to him, unless she
should, in truth, become the wife of another man. Why, then, should
it not be as he wished it?
[Illustration: Alice.]
She asked herself the question, and did not answer it; but still she
felt that it might not be so. She had no right to such happiness
after the evil that she had done. She had been driven by a frenzy to
do that which she herself could not pardon; and having done it, she
could not bring herself to accept the position which should have been
the reward of good conduct. She could not analyse the causes which
made her feel that she must still refuse the love that was proffered
to her; she could not clearly read her own thoughts; but the causes
were as I have said, and such was the true reading of her thoughts.
Had she simply refused his hand after she had once accepted it,--had
she refused it, and then again changed her mind, she could have
brought herself to ask him to forgive her. But she had done so much
more than this, and so much worse! She had affianced herself to
another man since she had belonged to him,--since she had been his,
as his future wife. What must he not think of her, and what not
suspect? Then she remembered those interviews which she had had with
her cousin since she had written to him, accepting his offer. When
he had been with her in Queen Anne Street she had shrunk from all
outward signs of a love which she did not feel. There had been no
caress between them. She had not allowed him to touch her with his
lips. But it was impossible that the nature of that mad engagement
between her and her cousin George should ever be made known to Mr.
Grey. She sat there wiping the tears from her eyes as she looked for
his figure among the figures by the lake-side; but, as she sat there,
she promised herself no happiness from his coming. Oh! reader, can
you forgive her in that she had sinned against the softness of her
feminine nature? I think that she may be forgiven, in that she had
never brought herself to think lightly of her own fault.
If he were there, by the lake-side, she did not see him. I think we
may say that John Grey was not a man to console himself in his love
by looking up at his lady's candle. He was one who was capable of
doing as much as most men in the pursuit of his love,--as he proved
to be the case when he followed Alice to Cheltenham, and again to
London, and now again to Lucerne; but I doubt whether a glimmer from
her bedroom-window, had it been unmistakably her own glimmer, and not
that of some ugly old French woman who might chance to sleep next to
her, would have done him much good. He had come to Lucerne with a
purpose, which purpose, if it might be possible, he meant to carry
out; but I think he was already in bed, being tired with long travel,
before Lady Glencora had left Alice's room.
At breakfast the next morning nothing was said for a while about the
new arrival. At last Mr. Palliser ventured to speak. "Glencora has
told you, I think, that Mr. Grey is here? Mr. Grey is an old friend of
yours, I believe?"
Alice, keeping her countenance as well as she was able, said Mr. Grey
had been, and, indeed, was, a very dear friend of hers. Mr. Palliser
knew the whole story, and what was the use of any little attempt at
dissimulation? "I shall be glad to see him,--if you will allow me?"
she went on to say.
"Glencora suggests that we should ask him to dinner," said Mr.
Palliser; and then that matter was settled.
But Mr. Grey did not wait till dinner-time to see Alice. Early in the
morning his card was brought up, and Lady Glencora, as soon as she
saw the name, immediately ran away.
"Indeed you need not go," said Alice.
"Indeed I shall go," said her ladyship. "I know what's proper on
these occasions, if you don't."
So she went, whisking herself along the passages with a little run;
and Mr. Grey, as he was shown into her ladyship's usual sitting-room,
saw the skirt of her ladyship's dress as she whisked herself off
towards her husband.
"I told you I should come," he said, with his ordinary sweet smile.
"I told you that I should follow you, and here I am."
He took her hand, and held it, pressing it warmly. She hardly knew
with what words first to address him, or how to get her hand back
from him.
"I am very glad to see you,--as an old friend," she said; "but I
hope--"
"Well;--you hope what?"
"I hope you have had some better cause for travelling than a desire
to see me?"
"No, dearest; no. I have had no better cause, and, indeed, none
other. I have come on purpose to see you; and had Mr. Palliser
taken you off to Asia or Africa, I think I should have felt myself
compelled to follow him. You know why I follow you?"
"Hardly," said she,--not finding at the moment any other word that
she could say.
"Because I love you. You see what a plain-spoken John Bull I am, and
how I come to the point at once. I want you to be my wife; and they
say that perseverance is the best way when a man has such a want as
that."
"You ought not to want it," she said, whispering the words as though
she were unable to speak them out loud.
"But I do, you see. And why should I not want it?"
"I am not fit to be your wife."
"I am the best judge of that, Alice. You have to make up your mind
whether I am fit to be your husband."
"You would be disgraced if you were to take me, after all that has
passed;--after what I have done. What would other men say of you when
they knew the story?"
"Other men, I hope, would be just enough to say, that when I had made
up my mind, I was tolerably constant in keeping to it. I do not think
they could say much worse of me than that."
"They would say that you had been jilted, and had forgiven the jilt."
"As far as the forgiveness goes, they would tell the truth. But,
indeed, Alice, I don't very much care what men do say of me."
"But I care, Mr. Grey;--and though you may forgive me, I cannot
forgive myself. Indeed I know now, as I have known all along, that
I am not fit to be your wife. I am not good enough. And I have done
that which makes me feel that I have no right to marry anyone."
These words she said, jerking out the different sentences almost in
convulsions; and when she had come to the end of them, the tears
were streaming down her cheeks. "I have thought about it, and I
will not. I will not. After what has passed, I know that it will be
better,--more seemly, that I should remain as I am."
Soon after that she left him, not, however, till she had told him
that she would meet him again at dinner, and had begged him to treat
her simply as a friend. "In spite of everything, I hope that we may
always be friends,--dear friends," she said.
"I hope we may," he answered;--"the very dearest." And then he left
her.
In the afternoon he again encountered Mr. Palliser, and having thought
over the matter since his interview with Alice, he resolved to tell
his whole story to his new acquaintance,--not in order that he might
ask for counsel from him, for in this matter he wanted no man's
advice,--but that he might get some assistance. So the two men
walked off together, up the banks of the clear-flowing Reuss, and Mr.
Palliser felt the comfort of having a companion.
"I have always liked her," said Mr. Palliser, "though, to tell the
truth, I have twice been very angry with her."
"I have never been angry with her," said the lover.
"And my anger was in both instances unjust. You may imagine how
great is my confidence in her, when I have thought she was the
best companion my wife could have for a long journey, taken under
circumstances that were--that were--; but I need not trouble you with
that."
So great had been the desolation of Mr. Palliser's life since his
banishment from London that he almost felt tempted to tell the story
of his troubles to this absolute stranger. But he bethought himself
of the blood of the Pallisers, and refrained. There are comforts
which royalty may never enjoy, and luxuries in which such men as
Plantagenet Palliser may not permit themselves to indulge.
"About her and her character I have no doubt in the world," said
Grey. "In all that she has done I think that I have seen her motives;
and though I have not approved of them, I have always known them to
be pure and unselfish. She has done nothing that I did not forgive as
soon as it was done. Had she married that man, I should have forgiven
her even that,--though I should have known that all her future life
was destroyed, and much of mine also. I think I can make her happy if
she will marry me, but she must first be taught to forgive herself.
Living as she is with you, and with your wife, she may, perhaps,
just now be more under your influence and your wife's than she can
possibly be under mine." Whereupon, Mr. Palliser promised that he
would do what he could. "I think she loves me," said Mr. Grey.
Mr. Palliser said that he was sure she did, though what ground he
had for such assurance I am quite unable to surmise. He was probably
desirous of saying the most civil thing which occurred to him.
The little dinner-party that evening was pleasant enough, and nothing
more was said about love. Lady Glencora talked nonsense to Mr. Grey,
and Mr. Palliser contradicted all the nonsense which his wife talked.
But this was all done in such a way that the evening passed away
pleasantly. It was tacitly admitted among them that Mr. Grey was to be
allowed to come among them as a friend, and Lady Glencora managed to
say one word to him aside, in which she promised to give him her most
cordial cooperation.
CHAPTER LXXI.
Showing How George Vavasor Received a Visit.
We must go back for a few pages to scenes which happened in London
during this summer, so that the reader may understand Mr. Grey's
position when he reached Lucerne. He had undergone another quarrel
with George Vavasor, and something of the circumstances of that
quarrel must be told.
It has been already said that George Vavasor lost his election for
the Chelsea Districts, after all the money which he had spent,--money
which he had been so ill able to spend, and on which he had laid
his hands in a manner so disreputable! He had received two thousand
pounds from the bills which Alice had executed on his behalf,--or
rather, had received the full value of three out of the four bills,
and a part of the value of the fourth, on which he had been driven
to raise what immediate money he had wanted by means of a Jew
bill-discounter. One thousand pounds he had paid over at once into
the hands of Mr. Scruby, his Parliamentary election agent, towards
the expenses of his election; and when the day of polling arrived
had exactly in his hands the sum of five hundred pounds. Where
he was to get more when this was gone he did not know. If he
were successful,--if the enlightened constituents of the Chelsea
Districts, contented with his efforts on behalf of the River Bank,
should again send him to Parliament, he thought that he might still
carry on the war. A sum of ready money he would have in hand; and, as
to his debts, he would be grandly indifferent to any consideration
of them. Then there might be pickings in the way of a Member of
Parliament of his calibre. Companies,--mercantile companies,--would
be glad to have him as a director, paying him a guinea a day,
or perhaps more, for his hour's attendance. Railways in want of
vice-chairmen might bid for his services; and in the City he might
turn that "M.P." which belonged to him to good account in various
ways. With such a knowledge of the City world as he possessed, he
thought that he could pick up a living in London, if only he could
retain his seat in Parliament.
But what was he to do if he could not retain it? No sooner had Mr.
Scruby got the thousand pounds into his clutches than he pressed for
still more money. George Vavasor, with some show of justice on his
side, pointed out to this all-devouring agent that the sum demanded
had already been paid. This Mr. Scruby admitted, declaring that he
was quite prepared to go on without any further immediate remittance,
although by doing so might subject himself to considerable risk. But
another five hundred pounds, paid at once, would add greatly to the
safety of the seat; whereas eight hundred judiciously thrown in at
the present moment would make the thing quite secure. But Vavasor
swore to himself that he would not part with another shilling. Never
had he felt such love for money as he did for that five hundred
pounds which he now held in his pocket. "It's no use," he said to Mr.
Scruby. "I have done what you asked, and would have done more had you
asked for more at that time. As it is, I cannot make another payment
before the election." Mr. Scruby shrugged his shoulders, and said
that he would do his best. But George Vavasor soon knew that the
man was not doing his best,--that the man had, in truth, abandoned
his cause. The landlord of the "Handsome Man" jeered him when he
went there canvassing. "Laws, Mr. Vavasor!" said the landlord of
the "Handsome Man," "you're not at all the fellow for us chaps
along the river,--you ain't. You're afraid to come down with the
stumpy,--that's what you are." George put his hand upon his purse,
and acknowledged to himself that he had been afraid to come down with
the stumpy.
For the last five days of the affair George Vavasor knew that his
chance was gone. Mr. Scruby's face, manner, and words, told the result
of the election as plainly as any subsequent figures could do. He
would be absent when Vavasor called, or the clerk would say that he
was absent. He would answer in very few words, constantly shrugging
his shoulders. He would even go away and leave the anxious candidate
while he was in the middle of some discussion as to his plans. It was
easy to see that Mr. Scruby no longer regarded him as a successful
man, and the day of the poll showed very plainly how right Mr. Scruby
had been.
George Vavasor was rejected, but he still had his five hundred pounds
in his pocket. Of course he was subject to that mortification which a
man feels when he reflects that some little additional outlay would
have secured his object. Whether it might have been so, or not, who
can say? But there he was, with the gateway between the lamps barred
against him, ex-Member of Parliament for the Chelsea Districts, with
five hundred pounds in his pocket, and little or nothing else that he
could call his own. What was he to do with himself?
After trying to make himself heard upon the hustings when he was
rejected, and pledging himself to stand again at the next election,
he went home to his lodgings in Cecil Street, and endeavoured
to consider calmly his position in the world. He had lost his
inheritance. He had abandoned one profession after another, and was
now beyond the pale of another chance in that direction. His ambition
had betrayed him, and there were no longer possible to him any hopes
of political activity. He had estranged from himself every friend
that he had ever possessed. He had driven from him with violence the
devotion even of his sister. He had robbed the girl whom he intended
to marry of her money, and had so insulted her that no feeling of
amity between them was any longer possible. He had nothing now but
himself and that five hundred pounds, which he still held in his
pocket. What should he do with himself and his money? He thought
over it all with outer calmness for awhile, as he sat there in his
arm-chair.
From the moment in which he had first become convinced that the
election would go against him, and that he was therefore ruined on
all sides, he had resolved that he would be calm amidst his ruin.
Sometimes he assumed a little smile, as though he were laughing at
his own position. Mr. Bott's day of rejection had come before his own,
and he had written to Mr. Bott a drolling note of consolation and mock
sympathy. He had shaken hands with Mr. Scruby, and had poked his fun
at the agent, bidding him be sure to send in his little bill soon. To
all who accosted him, he replied in a subrisive tone; and he bantered
Calder Jones, whose seat was quite sure, till Calder Jones began to
have fears that were quite unnecessary. And now, as he sat himself
down, intending to come to some final decision as to what he would
do, he maintained the same calmness. He smiled in the same way,
though there was no one there to see the smile. He laughed even
audibly once or twice, as he vainly endeavoured to persuade himself
that he was able to regard the world and all that belonged to it as a
bubble.
There came to him a moment in which he laughed out very audibly. "Ha!
ha!" he shouted, rising up from his chair, and he walked about the
room, holding a large paper-knife in his hand. "Ha! ha!" Then he
threw the knife away from him, and thrusting his hands into his
trousers-pockets, laughed again--"Ha! ha!" He stood still in the
centre of the room, and the laughter was very plainly visible on his
face, had there been anybody there to see it.
But suddenly there was a change upon his face, as he stood there all
alone, and his eyes became fierce, and the cicatrice that marred
his countenance grew to be red and ghastly, and he grinned with his
teeth, and he clenched his fists as he still held them within his
pockets. "Curse him!" he said out loud. "Curse him, now and for
ever!" He had broken down in his calmness, when he thought of that
old man who had opposed him during his life, and had ruined him at
his death. "May all the evils which the dead can feel cling to him
for ever and ever!" His laughter was all gone, and his assumed
tranquillity had deserted him. Walking across the room, he struck his
foot against a chair; upon this, he took the chair in his hands, and
threw it across the room. But he hardly arrested the torrent of his
maledictions as he did so. What good was it that he should lie to
himself by that mock tranquillity, or that false laughter? He lied
to himself no longer, but uttered a song of despair that was true
enough. What should he do? Where should he go? From what fountain
should he attempt to draw such small draughts of the water of comfort
as might support him at the present moment? Unless a man have some
such fountain to which he can turn, the burden of life cannot be
borne. For the moment, Vavasor tried to find such fountain in a
bottle of brandy which stood near him. He half filled a tumbler, and
then, dashing some water on it, swallowed it greedily. "By ----!" he
said, "I believe it is the best thing a man can do."
But where was he to go? to whom was he to turn himself? He went to
a high desk which stood in one corner of the room, and unlocking it,
took out a revolving pistol, and for a while carried it about with
him in his hand. He turned it up, and looked at it, and tried the
lock, and snapped it without caps, to see that the barrel went
round fairly. "It's a beggarly thing to do," he said, and then
he turned the pistol down again; "and if I do do it, I'll use it
first for another purpose." Then he poured out for himself more
brandy-and-water, and having drunk it, he threw himself upon the
sofa, and seemed to sleep.
But he did not sleep, and by-and-by there came a slight single knock
at the door, which he instantly answered. But he did not answer it
in the usual way by bidding the comer to come in. "Who's there?" he
said. Then the comer attempted to enter, turning the handle of the
door. But the door had been locked, and the key was on Vavasor's
side. "Who's there?" he asked again, speaking out loudly, but in an
angry voice. "It is I," said a woman's voice. "D----ation!" said
George Vavasor.
The woman heard him, but she made no sign of having heard him. She
simply remained standing where she was till something further should
be done within. She knew the man well, and knew that she must bide
his time. She was very patient,--and for the time was meek, though
it might be that there would come an end to her meekness. Vavasor,
when he had heard her voice, and knew who was there, had again thrown
himself on the sofa. There flashed across his mind another thought or
two as to his future career,--another idea about the pistol, which
still lay upon the table. Why should he let the intruder in, and
undergo the nuisance of a disagreeable interview, if the end of all
things might come in time to save him from such trouble? There he lay
for ten minutes thinking, and then the low single knock was heard
again. He jumped upon his feet, and his eyes were full of fire. He
knew that it was useless to bid her go and leave him. She would sit
there, if it were through the whole night. Should he open the door
and strangle her, and pass out over her with the pistol in his hand,
so that he might make that other reckoning which he desired to
accomplish, and then never come back any more?
He took a turn through the room, and then walked gently up to the
door, and undid the lock. He did not open the door, nor did he bid
his visitor enter, but having made the way easy for her if she chose
to come in, he walked back to the sofa and threw himself on it again.
As he did so, he passed his hand across the table so as to bring the
pistol near to himself at the place where he would be lying. She
paused a moment after she had heard the sound of the key, and then
she made her way into the room. He did not at first speak to her. She
closed the door very gently, and then, looking around, came up to the
foot of the sofa. She paused a moment, waiting for him to address
her; but as he said nothing, but lay there looking at her, she was
the first to speak. "George," she said, "what am I to do?"
She was a woman of about thirty years of age, dressed poorly, in old
garments, but still with decency, and with some attempt at feminine
prettiness. There were flowers in the bonnet on her head, though
the bonnet had that unmistakable look of age which is quite as
distressing to bonnets as it is to women, and the flowers themselves
were battered and faded. She had long black ringlets on each cheek,
hanging down much below her face, and brought forward so as to hide
in some degree the hollowness of her jaws. Her eyes had a peculiar
brightness, but now they left on those who looked at her cursorily
no special impression as to their colour. They had been blue,--that
dark violet blue, which is so rare, but is sometimes so lovely. Her
forehead was narrow, her mouth was small, and her lips were thin;
but her nose was perfect in its shape, and, by the delicacy of its
modelling, had given a peculiar grace to her face in the days when
things had gone well with her, when her cheeks had been full with
youth and good living, and had been dimpled by the softness of love
and mirth. There were no dimples there now, and all the softness
which still remained was that softness which sorrow and continual
melancholy give to suffering women. On her shoulders she wore a light
shawl, which was fastened to her bosom with a large clasp brooch. Her
faded dress was supported by a wide crinoline, but the under garment
had lost all the grace of its ancient shape, and now told that
woman's tale of poverty and taste for dress which is to be read in
the outward garb of so many of Eve's daughters. The whole story was
told so that those who ran might read it. When she had left her home
this afternoon, she had struggled hard to dress herself so that
something of the charm of apparel might be left to her; but she had
known of her own failure at every twist that she had given to her
gown, and at every jerk with which she had settled her shawl. She
had despaired at every push she had given to her old flowers, vainly
striving to bring them back to their old forms; but still she had
persevered. With long tedious care she had mended the old gloves
which would hardly hold her fingers. She had carefully hidden the
rags of her sleeves. She had washed her little shrivelled collar, and
had smoothed it out painfully. It had been a separate grief to her
that she could find no cuffs to put round her wrists;--and yet she
knew that no cuffs could have availed her anything. Nothing could
avail her now. She expected nothing from her visit; yet she had come
forth anxiously, and would have waited there throughout the whole
night had access to his room been debarred to her. "George," she
said, standing at the bottom of the sofa, "what am I to do?"
As he lay there with his face turned towards her, the windows were at
her back, and he could see her very plainly. He saw and appreciated
the little struggles she had made to create by her appearance some
reminiscence of her former self. He saw the shining coarseness of
the long ringlets which had once been softer than silk. He saw the
sixpenny brooch on her bosom where he had once placed a jewel, the
price of which would now have been important to him. He saw it all,
and lay there for a while, silently reading it.
"Don't let me stand here," she said, "without speaking a word to me."
"I don't want you to stand there," he said.
"That's all very well, George. I know you don't want me to stand
here. I know you don't want to see me ever again."
"Never."
"I know it. Of course I know it. But what am I to do? Where am I to
go for money? Even you would not wish that I should starve?"
"That's true, too. I certainly would not wish it. I should be
delighted to hear that you had plenty to eat and plenty to drink, and
plenty of clothes to wear. I believe that's what you care for the
most, after all."
"It was only for your sake,--because you liked it."
"Well;--I did like it; but that has come to an end, as have all my
other likings. You know very well that I can do nothing more for you.
What good do you do yourself by coming here to annoy me? Have I not
told you over and over again that you were never to look for me here?
Is it likely that I should give you money now, simply because you
have disobeyed me!"
"Where else was I to find you?"
"Why should you have found me at all? I don't want you to find me. I
shall give you nothing;--not a penny. You know very well that we've
had all that out before. When I put you into business I told you that
we were to see no more of each other."
"Business!" she said. "I never could make enough out of the shop to
feed a bird."
"That wasn't my fault. Putting you there cost me over a hundred
pounds, and you consented to take the place."
"I didn't consent. I was obliged to go there because you took my
other home away from me."
"Have it as you like, my dear. That was all I could do for you;--and
more than most men would have done, when all things are considered."
Then he got up from the sofa, and stood himself on the hearthrug,
with his back to the fireplace. "At any rate, you may be sure of
this, Jane;--that I shall do nothing more. You have come here to
torment me, but you shall get nothing by it."
"I have come here because I am starving."
"I have nothing for you. Now go;" and he pointed to the door.
Nevertheless, for more than three years of his life this woman had
been his closest companion, his nearest friend, the being with whom
he was most familiar. He had loved her according to his fashion of
loving, and certainly she had loved him. "Go," he said repeating the
word very angrily. "Do as I bid you, or it will be the worse for
you."
"Will you give me a sovereign?"
"No;--I will give you nothing. I have desired you not to come to me
here, and I will not pay for you coming."
"Then I will not go;" and the woman sat down upon a chair at the foot
of the table. "I will not go till you have given me something to buy
food. You may put me out of the room if you can, but I will lie at
the door of the stairs. And if you get me out of the house, I will
sit upon the door-step."
"If you play that game, my poor girl, the police will take you."
"Let them. It has come to that with me, that I care for nothing. Out
of this I will not go till you give me money--unless I am put out."
And for this she had dressed herself with so much care, mending her
gloves, and darning her little fragments of finery! He stood looking
at her, with his hands thrust deep into his pockets,--looking at her
and thinking what he had better do to rid himself of her presence. If
he even quite resolved to take that little final journey of which we
have spoken, with the pistol in his hand, why should he not go and
leave her there? Or, for the matter of that, why should he not make
her his heir to all remainder of his wealth? What he still had left
was sufficient to place her in a seventh heaven of the earth. He
cared but little for her, and was at this moment angry with her; but
there was no one for whom he cared more, and no friend with whom he
was less angry. But then his mind was not quite made up as to that
final journey. Therefore he desired to rid himself and his room of
the nuisance of her presence.
"Jane," he said, looking at her again with that assumed tranquillity
of which I have spoken, "you talk of starving and of being ruined,--"
"I am starving. I have not a shilling in the world."
"Perhaps it may be a comfort to you in your troubles to know that
I am, at any rate, as badly off as you are? I won't say that I am
starving, because I could get food to eat at this moment if I wanted
it; but I am utterly ruined. My property,--what should have been
mine,--has been left away from me. I have lost the trumpery seat
in Parliament for which I have paid so much. All my relations have
turned their backs upon me--"
"Are you not going to be married?" she said, rising quickly from her
chair and coming close to him.
"Married! No;--but I am going to blow my brains out. Look at that
pistol, my girl. Of course you won't think that I am in earnest,--but
I am."
She looked up into his face piteously. "Oh! George," she said, "you
won't do that?"
[Illustration: "Oh! George," she said, "you won't do that?"]
"But I shall do that. There is nothing else left for me to do. You
talk to me about starving. I tell you that I should have no objection
to be starved, and so be put an end to in that way. It's not so bad
as some other ways when it comes gradually. You and I, Jane, have not
played our cards very well. We have staked all that we had, and we've
been beaten. It's no good whimpering after what's lost. We'd better
go somewhere else and begin a new game."
"Go where?" said she.
"Ah!--that's just what I can't tell you."
"George," she said, "I'll go anywhere with you. If what you say is
true,--if you're not going to be married, and will let me come to
you, I will work for you like a slave. I will indeed. I know I'm
poorly looking now--"
"My girl, where I'm going, I shall not want any slave; and as for
your looks--when you go there too,--they'll be of no matter, as far
as I am able to judge."
"But, George, where are you going?"
"Wherever people do go when their brains are knocked out of them; or,
rather, when they have knocked out their own brains,--if that makes
any difference."
"George,"--she came up to him now, and took hold of him by the front
of his coat, and for the moment he allowed her to do so,--"George,
you frighten me. Do not do that. Say that you will not do that!"
"But I am just saying that I shall."
"Are you not afraid of God's anger? You and I have been very wicked."
"I have, my poor girl. I don't know much about your wickedness. I've
been like Topsy;--indeed I am a kind of second Topsy myself. But
what's the good of whimpering when it's over?"
"It isn't over; it isn't over,--at any rate for you."
"I wish I knew how I could begin again. But all this is nonsense,
Jane, and you must go."
"You must tell me, first, that you are not going to--kill yourself."
"I don't suppose I shall do it to-night,--or, perhaps, not to-morrow.
Very probably I may allow myself a week, so that your staying here
can do no good. I merely wanted to make you understand that you are
not the only person who has come to grief."
"And you are not going to be married?"
"No; I'm not going to be married, certainly."
"And I must go now?"
"Yes; I think you'd better go now." Then she rose and went, and he
let her leave the room without giving her a shilling! His bantering
tone, in speaking of his own position, had been successful. It had
caused her to take herself off quietly. She knew enough of his usual
manner to be aware that his threats of self destruction were probably
unreal; but, nevertheless, what he had said had created some feeling
in her heart which had induced her to yield to him, and go away in
peace.
CHAPTER LXXII.
Showing How George Vavasor Paid a Visit.
It was nearly seven o'clock in the evening,--a hot, July
evening,--when the woman went from Vavasor's room, and left him there
alone. It was necessary that he should immediately do something.
In the first place he must dine, unless he meant to carry out his
threat, and shoot himself at once. But he had no such intention as
that, although he stood for some minutes with the pistol in his hand.
He was thinking then of shooting some one else. But he resolved that,
if he did so at all, he would not do it on that evening, and he
locked up the pistol again in the standing desk. After that, he took
up some papers, referring to steam packets, which were lying on his
table. They contained the programmes of different companies, and
showed how one vessel went on one day to New York, and another on
another day would take out a load of emigrants for New Zealand and
Australia. "That's a good line," said he, as he read a certain
prospectus. "They generally go to the bottom, and save a man from any
further trouble on his own account." Then he dressed himself, putting
on his boots and coat, and went out to his club for his dinner.
London was still fairly full,--that is to say, the West End was not
deserted, although Parliament had been broken up two months earlier
than usual, in preparation for the new elections. Many men who had
gone down into the country were now back again in town, and the
dining-room at the club was crowded. Men came up to him condoling
with him, telling him that he was well rid of a great nuisance, that
the present Members for the Chelsea Districts would not sit long, or
that there would be another general election in a year or two. To all
these little speeches he made cheerful replies, and was declared by
his acquaintance to bear his disappointment well. Calder Jones came
to him and talked hunting talk, and Vavasor expressed his intention
of being at Roebury in November. "You had better join our club," said
Calder Jones. In answer to which Vavasor said that he thought he
would join the club. He remained in the smoking-room till nearly
eleven; then he took himself home, and remained up half the night
destroying papers. Every written document on which he could lay his
hands he destroyed. All the pigeon-holes of his desk were emptied
out, and their contents thrown into the flames. At first he looked at
the papers before he burned them; but the trouble of doing so soon
tired him, and he condemned them all, as he came to them, without
examination. Then he selected a considerable amount of his clothes,
and packed up two portmanteaus, folding his coats with care, and
inspecting his boots narrowly, so that he might see which, out of
the large number before him, it might be best worth his while to
take with him. When that was done, he took from his desk a bag of
sovereigns, and, pouring them out upon the table, he counted them out
into parcels of twenty-five each, and made them up carefully into
rouleaus with paper. These, when complete, he divided among the two
portmanteaus and a dressing-bag which he also packed and a travelling
desk, which he filled with papers, pens, and the like. But he put
into it no written document. He carefully looked through his linen,
and anything that had been marked with more than his initials he
rejected. Then he took out a bundle of printed cards, and furnished a
card-case with them. On these cards was inscribed the name of Gregory
Vance. When all was finished, he stood for awhile with his back
to the fireplace contemplating his work. "After all," he said to
himself, "I know that I shall never start; and, if I do, nobody can
hinder me, and my own name would be as good as any other. As for a
man with such a face as mine not being known, that is out of the
question." But still he liked the arrangements which he had made, and
when he had looked at them for awhile he went to bed.
He was up early the next morning, and had some coffee brought to him
by the servant of the house, and as he drank it he had an interview
with his landlady. "He was going," he said;--"going that very day."
It might be possible that he would change his mind; but as he would
desire to start without delay, if he did go, he would pay her then
what he owed her, and what would be due for her lodgings under a
week's notice. The woman stared, and curtseyed, and took her money.
Vavasor, though he had lately been much pressed for money, had never
been so foolish as to owe debts where he lived. "There will be some
things left about, Mrs. Bunsby," he said, "and I will get you to keep
them till I call or send." Mrs. Bunsby said that she would, and then
looked her last at him. After that interview she never saw him again.
When he was left alone he put on a rough morning coat, and taking up
the pistol, placed it carefully in his pocket, and sallied forth. It
was manifest enough that he had some decided scheme in his head, for
he turned quickly towards the West when he reached the Strand, went
across Trafalgar Square to Pall Mall East, and then turned up Suffolk
Street. Just as he reached the club-house at the corner he paused and
looked back, facing first one way and then the other. "The chances
are that I shall never see anything of it again," he said to himself.
Then he laughed in his own silent way, shook his head slightly, and
turning again quickly on his heel, walked up the street till he
reached the house of Mr. Jones, the pugilistic tailor. The reader, no
doubt, has forgotten all he ever knew of Mr. Jones, the pugilistic
tailor. It can soon be told again. At Mr. Jones's house John Grey
lodged when he was in London, and he was in London at this moment.
Vavasor rang the bell, and as soon as the servant came he went
quickly into the house, and passed her in the passage. "Mr. Grey is
at home," he said. "I will go up to him." The girl said that Mr. Grey
was at home, but suggested that she had better announce the gentleman.
But Vavasor was already halfway up the stairs, and before the girl
had reached the first landing place, he had entered Mr. Grey's room
and closed the door behind him.
Grey was sitting near the open window, in a dressing-gown, and was
reading. The breakfast things were on the table, but he had not as
yet breakfasted. As soon as he saw George Vavasor, he rose from his
chair quickly, and put down his book. "Mr. Vavasor," he said, "I
hardly expected to see you in my lodgings again!"
"I dare say not," said Vavasor; "but, nevertheless, here I am." He
kept his right hand in the pocket which held the pistol, and held his
left hand under his waistcoat.
"May I ask why you have come?" said Grey.
"I intend to tell you, at any rate, whether you ask me or not. I have
come to declare in your own hearing,--as I am in the habit of doing
occasionally behind your back,--that you are a blackguard,--to spit
in your face, and defy you." As he said this he suited his action to
his words, but without any serious result. "I have come here to see
if you are man enough to resent any insult that I can offer you; but
I doubt whether you are."
"Nothing that you can say to me, Mr. Vavasor, will have any effect
upon me;--except that you can, of course, annoy me."
"And I mean to annoy you, too, before I have done with you. Will you
fight me?"
"Fight a duel with you,--with pistols? Certainly not."
"Then you are a coward, as I supposed."
"I should be a fool if I were to do such a thing as that."
"Look here, Mr. Grey. You managed to worm yourself into an intimacy
with my cousin, Miss Vavasor, and to become engaged to her. When she
found out what you were, how paltry, and mean, and vile, she changed
her mind, and bade you leave her."
"Are you here at her request?"
"I am here as her representative."
"Self-appointed, I think."
"Then, sir, you think wrong. I am at this moment her affianced
husband; and I find that, in spite of all that she has said to
you,--which was enough, I should have thought, to keep any man of
spirit out of her presence,--you still persecute her by going to her
house, and forcing yourself upon her presence. Now, I give you two
alternatives. You shall either give me your written promise never to
go near her again, or you shall fight me."
"I shall do neither one nor the other,--as you know very well
yourself."
"Stop till I have done, sir. If you have courage enough to fight me,
I will meet you in any country. I will fight you here in London, or,
if you are afraid of that, I will go over to France, or to America,
if that will suit you better."
"Nothing of the kind will suit me at all. I don't want to have
anything to do with you."
"Then you are a coward."
"Perhaps I am;--but your saying so will not make me one."
"You are a coward, and a liar, and a blackguard. I have given you the
option of behaving like a gentleman, and you have refused it. Now,
look here. I have come here with arms, and I do not intend to leave
this room without using them, unless you will promise to give me the
meeting that I have proposed." And he took the pistol out of his
pocket.
"Do you mean that you are going to murder me?" Grey asked. There were
two windows in the room, and he had been sitting near to that which
was furthest removed from the fireplace, and consequently furthest
removed from the bell, and his visitor was now standing immediately
between him and the door. He had to think what steps he might best
take, and to act upon his decision instantly. He was by no means
a timid man, and was one, moreover, very little prone to believe
in extravagant action. He did not think, even now, that this
disappointed, ruined man had come there with any intention of killing
him. But he knew that a pistol in the hands of an angry man is
dangerous, and that it behoved him to do his best to rid himself of
the nuisance which now encumbered him. "Do you mean that you are
going to murder me?" he had said.
"I mean that you shall not leave this room alive unless you promise
to meet me, and fight it out." Upon hearing this, Grey turned himself
towards the bell. "If you move a step, I will fire at you," said
Vavasor. Grey paused a moment, and looked him full in the face. "I
will," said Vavasor again.
"That would be murder," said Grey.
"Don't think that you will frighten me by ugly words," said Vavasor.
"I am beyond that."
Grey had stopped for a moment to fix his eyes on the other man's
face; but it was only for a moment, and then he went on to the bell.
He had seen that the pistol was pointed at himself, and had once
thought of rushing across the room at his adversary, calculating that
a shot fired at him as he did so might miss him, and that he would
then have a fair chance of disarming the madman. But his chief object
was to avoid any personal conflict, to escape the indignity of a
scramble for the pistol,--and especially to escape the necessity of
a consequent appearance at some police-office, where he would have
to justify himself, and answer the questions of a lawyer hired to
cross-question him. He made, therefore, towards the bell, trusting
that Vavasor would not fire at him, but having some little thought
also as to the danger of the moment. It might be that everything was
over for him now,--that the fatal hour had come, and that eternity
was close upon him. Something of the spirit of a prayer flashed
across his mind as he moved. Then he heard the click of the pistol's
hammer as it fell, and was aware that his eyes were dazzled, though
he was unconscious of seeing any flame. He felt something in the air,
and knew that the pistol had been fired;--but he did not know whether
the shot had struck him or had missed him. His hand was out for the
bell-handle, and he had pulled it, before he was sure that he was
unhurt.
"D----ation!" exclaimed the murderer. But he did not pull the trigger
again. Though the weapon had of late been so often in his hands, he
forgot, in the agitation of the moment, that his missing once was but
of small matter if he chose to go on with his purpose. Were there not
five other barrels for him, each making itself ready by the discharge
of the other? But he had paused, forgetting, in his excitement, the
use of his weapon, and before he had bethought himself that the man
was still in his power, he heard the sound of the bell. "D----ation!"
he exclaimed. Then he turned round, left the room, hurried down the
stairs, and made his way out into the street, having again passed the
girl on his way.
Grey, when he perceived that his enemy was gone, turned round to look
for the bullet or its mark. He soon found the little hole in the
window-shutter, and probing it with the point of his pencil, came
upon the morsel of lead which might now just as readily have been
within his own brain. There he left it for the time, and then made
some not inaccurate calculation as to the narrowness of his own
escape. He had been standing directly between Vavasor and the
shutter, and he found, from the height of the hole, that the shot
must have passed close beneath his ear. He remembered to have heard
the click of the hammer, but he could not remember the sound of the
report, and when the girl entered the room, he perceived at once from
her manner that she was unaware that firearms had been used.
"Has that gentleman left the house?" Grey asked. The girl said that
he had left the house. "Don't admit him again," said he;--"that
is, if you can avoid it. I believe he is not in his right senses."
Then he asked for Mr. Jones, his landlord, and in a few minutes the
pugilistic tailor was with him.
During those few minutes he had been called upon to resolve what he
would do now. Would he put the police at once upon the track of the
murderer, who was, as he remembered too well, the first cousin of the
woman whom he still desired to make his wife? That cross-examination
which he would have to undergo at the police-office, and again
probably in an assize court, in which all his relations with
the Vavasor family would be made public, was very vivid to his
imagination. That he was called upon by duty to do something he felt
almost assured. The man who had been allowed to make such an attempt
once with impunity, might probably make it again. But he resolved
that he need not now say anything about the pistol to the pugilistic
tailor, unless the tailor said something to him.
"Mr. Jones," he said, "that man whom I had to put out of the room once
before, has been here again."
"Has there been another tussle, sir?"
"No;--nothing of that kind. But we must take some steps to prevent
his getting in again, if we can help it."
Jones promised his aid, and offered to go at once to the police.
To this, however, Mr. Grey demurred, saying that he should himself
seek assistance from some magistrate. Jones promised to be very
vigilant as to watching the door; and then John Grey sat down to
his breakfast. Of course he thought much of what had occurred. It
was impossible that he should not think much of so narrow an escape.
He had probably been as near death as a man may well be without
receiving any injury; and the more he thought of it, the more
strongly he was convinced that he could not allow the thing to pass
by without some notice, or some precaution as to the future.
At eleven o'clock he went to Scotland Yard, and saw some
officer great in power over policemen, and told him all the
circumstances,--confidentially. The powerful officer recommended an
equally confidential reference to a magistrate; and towards evening
a very confidential policeman in plain clothes paid a visit to
Vavasor's lodgings in Cecil Street. But Vavasor lodged there no
longer. Mrs. Bunsby, who was also very confidential,--and at her wits'
end because she could not learn the special business of the stranger
who called,--stated that Mr. George Vavasor left her house in a cab
at ten o'clock that morning, having taken with him such luggage as
he had packed, and having gone, "she was afraid, for good," as Mrs.
Bunsby expressed it.
He had gone for good, and at the moment in which the policeman was
making the inquiry in Cecil Street, was leaning over the side of an
American steamer which had just got up her steam and weighed her
anchor in the Mersey. He was on board at six o'clock, and it was not
till the next day that the cabman was traced who had carried him to
Euston Square Station. Of course, it was soon known that he had gone
to America, but it was not thought worth while to take any further
steps towards arresting him. Mr. Grey himself was decidedly opposed to
any such attempt, declaring his opinion that his own evidence would
be insufficient to obtain a conviction. The big men in Scotland Yard
were loth to let the matter drop. Their mouths watered after the job,
and they had very numerous and very confidential interviews with John
Grey. But it was decided that nothing should be done. "Pity!" said
one enterprising superintendent, in answer to the condolings of a
brother superintendent. "Pity's no name for it. It's the greatest
shame as ever I knew since I joined the force. A man as was a Member
of Parliament only last Session,--as belongs to no end of swell
clubs, a gent as well known in London as any gent about the town! And
I'd have had him back in three months, as sure as my name's Walker."
And that superintendent felt that his profession and his country were
alike disgraced.
And now George Vavasor vanishes from our pages, and will be heard of
no more. Roebury knew him no longer, nor Pall Mall, nor the Chelsea
Districts. His disappearance was a nine days' wonder, but the world
at large knew nothing of the circumstances of that attempt in Suffolk
Street. Mr. Grey himself told the story to no one, till he told it to
Mr. Palliser at Lucerne. Mr. Scruby complained bitterly of the way in
which Vavasor had robbed him; but I doubt whether Scruby, in truth,
lost much by the transaction. To Kate, down in Westmoreland, no
tidings came of her brother, and her sojourn in London with her aunt
had nearly come to an end before she knew that he was gone. Even then
the rumour reached her through Captain Bellfield, and she learned
what few facts she knew from Mrs. Bunsby in Cecil Street.
"He was always mysterious," said Mrs. Greenow, "and now he has
vanished. I hate mysteries, and, as for myself, I think it will be
much better that he should not come back again." Perhaps Kate was of
the same opinion, but, if so, she kept it to herself.
CHAPTER LXXIII.
In Which Come Tidings of Great Moment to All Pallisers.
It was not till they had been for a day or two together at Lucerne
that Mr. Grey told Mr. Palliser the story of George Vavasor's visit
to him in Suffolk Street. Having begun the history of his connection
with Alice, he found himself obliged to go with it to the end, and as
he described the way in which the man had vanished from the sight of
all who had known him,--that he had in truth gone, so as no longer to
be a cause of dread, he could not without dissimulation, keep back
the story of that last scene. "And he tried to murder you!" said Mr.
Palliser. "He should be caught and,--and--" Mr. Palliser hesitated,
not liking to say boldly that the first cousin of the lady who was
now living with him ought to be hung.
"It is better as it is," said Grey.
"He actually walked into your rooms in the day time, and fired a
pistol at you as you were sitting at your breakfast! He did that in
London, and then walked off and went abroad, as though he had nothing
to fear!"
"That was just it," said Grey.
Mr. Palliser began to think that something ought to be done to make
life more secure in the metropolis of the world. Had he not known Mr.
Grey, or been accustomed to see the other man in Parliament, he would
not have thought so much about it. But it was almost too much for him
when he reflected that one man whom he now called his friend, had
been nearly murdered in daylight, in the heart of his own part of
London, by another man whom he had reckoned among his Parliamentary
supporters. "And he has got your money too!" said Palliser, putting
all the circumstances of the case together. In answer to this Mr. Grey
said that he hoped the loss might eventually be his own; but that he
was bound to regard the money which had been taken as part of Miss
Vavasor's fortune. "He is simply the greatest miscreant of whom I
ever heard in my life," said Mr. Palliser. "The wonder is that Miss
Vavasor should ever have brought herself to--to like him." Then Mr.
Grey apologized for Alice, explaining that her love for her cousin
had come from her early years; that the man himself was clever and
capable of assuming pleasant ways, and that he had not been wholly
bad till ruin had come upon him. "He attempted public life and made
himself miserable by failing, as most men do who make that attempt,"
said Grey. This was a statement which Mr. Palliser could not allow
to pass without notice. Whereupon the two men got away from George
Vavasor and their own individual interests, and went on seriously
discussing the merits and demerits of public life. "The end of it all
is," said Grey at last, "that public men in England should be rich
like you, and not poor like that miserable wretch, who has now lost
everything that the Fates had given him."
They continued to live at Lucerne in this way for a fortnight. Mr.
Grey, though he was not unfrequently alone with Alice, did not plead
his suit in direct words; but continued to live with her on terms
of close and easy friendship. He had told her that her cousin had
left England,--that he had gone to America immediately after his
disappointment in regard to the seat in Parliament, and that he would
probably not return. "Poor George!" Alice had said; "he is a man
very much to be pitied." "He is a man very much to be pitied," Grey
had replied. After that, nothing more was said between them about
George Vavasor. From Lady Glencora Alice did hear something; but
Lady Glencora herself had not heard the whole story. "I believe he
misbehaved himself, my dear," Lady Glencora said; "but then, you
know, he always does that. I believe that he saw Mr. Grey and insulted
him. Perhaps you had better not ask anything about it till by-and-by.
You'll be able to get anything out of him then." In answer to this
Alice made her usual protest, and Lady Glencora, as was customary,
told her that she was a fool.
I am inclined to think that Mr. Grey knew what he was about. Lady
Glencora once scolded him very vehemently for not bringing the affair
to an end. "We shall be going on to Italy before it's settled," she
said; "and I don't suppose you can go with us, unless it is settled."
Mr. Grey protested that he had no intention of going to Italy in
either case.
"Then it will be put off for another year or two, and you are both of
you as old as Adam and Eve already."
"We ancient people are never impatient," said Grey, laughing.
"If I were you I would go to her and tell her, roundly, that she
should marry me, and then I would shake her. If you were to scold
her, till she did not know whether she stood on her head or her
heels, she would come to reason."
"Suppose you try that, Lady Glencora!"
"I can't. It's she that always scolds me,--as you will her, when
she's your wife. You and Mr. Palliser are very much alike. You're both
of you so very virtuous that no woman would have a chance of picking
a hole in your coats."
But Lady Glencora was wrong. Alice would, no doubt, have submitted
herself patiently to her lover's rebukes, and would have confessed
her own sins towards him with any amount of self-accusation that he
might have required; but she would not, on that account, have been
more willing to obey him in that one point, as to which he now
required present obedience. He understood that she must be taught
to forgive herself for the evil she had done,--to forgive herself,
at any rate in part,--before she could be induced to return to
her old allegiance to him. Thus they went on together at Lucerne,
passing quiet, idle days,--with some pretence of reading, with a
considerable amount of letter-writing, with boat excursions and pony
excursions,--till the pony excursions came to a sudden end by means
of a violent edict, as to which, and the cause of it, a word or two
must be said just now. During these days of the boats and the ponies,
the carriage which Lady Glencora hated so vehemently was shut up in
limbo, and things went very pleasantly with her. Mr. Palliser received
political letters from England, which made his mouth water sadly,
and was often very fidgety. Parliament was not now sitting, and the
Government would, of course, remain intact till next February. Might
it not be possible that when the rent came in the Cabinet, he might
yet be present at the darning? He was a constant man, and had once
declared his intention of being absent for a year. He continued to
speak to Grey of his coming travels, as though it was impossible
that they should be over until after the next Easter. But he was
sighing for Westminster, and regretting the blue books which were
accumulating themselves at Matching;--till on a sudden, there came to
him tidings which upset all his plans, which routed the ponies, which
made everything impossible, which made the Alps impassable and the
railways dangerous, which drove Burgo Fitzgerald out of Mr. Palliser's
head, and so confused him that he could no longer calculate the
blunders of the present Chancellor of the Exchequer. All the Palliser
world was about to be moved from its lowest depths, to the summits of
its highest mountains. Lady Glencora had whispered into her husband's
ear that she thought it probable--; she wasn't sure;--she didn't
know. And then she burst out into tears on his bosom as he sat by her
on her bedside.
He was beside himself when he left her, which he did with the
primary intention of telegraphing to London for half a dozen leading
physicians. He went out by the lake side, and walked there alone for
ten minutes in a state of almost unconscious exaltation. He did not
quite remember where he was, or what he was doing. The one thing in
the world which he had lacked; the one joy which he had wanted so
much, and which is so common among men, was coming to him also. In a
few minutes it was to him as though each hand already rested on the
fair head of a little male Palliser, of whom one should rule in the
halls at Gatherum, and the other be eloquent among the Commons of
England. Hitherto,--for the last eight or nine months, since his
first hopes had begun to fade,--he had been a man degraded in his own
sight amidst all his honours. What good was all the world to him if
he had nothing of his own to come after him? We must give him his
due, too, when we speak of this. He had not had wit enough to hide
his grief from his wife; his knowledge of women and of men in social
life had not been sufficient to teach him how this should be done;
but he had wished to do it. He had never willingly rebuked her for
his disappointment, either by a glance of his eye, or a tone of his
voice; and now he had already forgiven everything. Burgo Fitzgerald
was a myth. Mrs. Marsham should never again come near her. Mr. Bott
was, of course, a thing abolished;--he had not even had the sense to
keep his seat in Parliament. Dandy and Flirt should feed on gilded
corn, and there should be an artificial moon always ready in the
ruins. If only those d----able saddle-ponies of Lucerne had not come
across his wife's path! He went at once into the yard and ordered
that the ponies should be abolished;--sent away, one and all, to the
furthest confines of the canton; and then he himself inspected the
cushions of the carriage. Were they dry? As it was August in those
days, and August in Lucerne is a warm month, it may be presumed that
they were dry.
He then remembered that he had promised to send Alice up to his
wife, and he hurried back into the house. She was alone in the
breakfast-room, waiting for him and for his wife. In these days, Mr.
Grey would usually join them at dinner; but he seldom saw them before
eleven or twelve o'clock in the day. Then he would saunter in and
join Mr. Palliser, and they would all be together till the evening.
When the expectant father of embryo dukes entered the room, Alice
perceived at once that some matter was astir. His manner was
altogether changed, and he showed by his eye that he was eager and
moved beyond his wont. "Alice," he said, "would you mind going up to
Glencora's room? She wishes to speak to you." He had never called
her Alice before, and as soon as the word was spoken, he remembered
himself and blushed.
"She isn't ill, I hope?" said Alice.
"No;--she isn't ill. At least I think she had better not get up quite
yet. Don't let her excite herself, if you can help it."
"I'll go to her at once," said Alice rising.
"I'm so much obliged to you;--but, Miss Vavasor--"
"You called me Alice just now, Mr. Palliser, and I took it as a great
compliment."
He blushed again. "Did I? Very well. Then I'll do it again--if you'll
let me. But, if you please, do be as calm with her as you can. She
is so easily excited, you know. Of course, if there's anything she
fancies, we'll take care to get it for her; but she must be kept
quiet." Upon this Alice left him, having had no moment of time to
guess what had happened, or was about to happen; and he was again
alone, contemplating the future glories of his house. Had he a
thought for his poor cousin Jeffrey, whose nose was now so terribly
out of joint? No, indeed. His thoughts were all of himself, and the
good things that were coming to him,--of the new world of interest
that was being opened for him. It would be better to him, this, than
being Chancellor of the Exchequer. He would rather have it in store
for him to be father of the next Duke of Omnium, than make half a
dozen consecutive annual speeches in Parliament as to the ways and
means, and expenditure of the British nation! Could it be possible
that this foreign tour had produced for him this good fortune? If so,
how luckily had things turned out! He would remember even that ball
at Lady Monk's with gratitude. Perhaps a residence abroad would be
best for Lady Glencora at this particular period of her life. If
so, abroad she should certainly live. Before resolving, however,
on anything permanently on this head, he thought that he might
judiciously consult those six first-rate London physicians, whom, in
the first moment of his excitement, he had been desirous of summoning
to Lucerne.
In the meantime Alice had gone up to the bedroom of the lady who was
now to be the subject of so much anxious thought. When she entered
the room, her friend was up and in her dressing-gown, lying on a sofa
which stood at the foot of the bed. "Oh, Alice, I'm so glad you've
come," said Lady Glencora. "I do so want to hear your voice." Then
Alice knelt beside her, and asked her if she were ill.
"He hasn't told you? But of course he wouldn't. How could he? But,
Alice, how did he look? Did you observe anything about him? Was he
pleased?"
"I did observe something, and I think he was pleased. But what is it?
He called me Alice. And seemed to be quite unlike himself. But what
is it? He told me that I was to come to you instantly."
"Oh, Alice, can't you guess?" Then suddenly Alice did guess the
secret, and whispered her guess into Lady Glencora's ear. "I suppose
it is so," said Lady Glencora. "I know what they'll do. They'll
kill me by fussing over me. If I could go about my work like a
washerwoman, I should be all right."
"I am so happy," she said, some two or three hours afterwards. "I
won't deny that I am very happy. It seemed as though I were destined
to bring nothing but misery to everybody, and I used to wish myself
dead so often. I shan't wish myself dead now."
"We shall all have to go home, I suppose?" said Alice.
"He says so;--but he seems to think that I oughtn't to travel above
a mile and a half a day. When I talked of going down the Rhine in
one of the steamers, I thought he would have gone into a fit. When I
asked him why, he gave me such a look. I know he'll make a goose of
himself;--and he'll make geese of us, too; which is worse."
On that afternoon, as they were walking together, Mr. Palliser told
the important secret to his new friend, Mr. Grey. He could not deny
himself the pleasure of talking about this great event. "It is a
matter, you see, of such immense importance to me," Mr. Palliser said.
"Indeed, it is," said Grey. "Every man feels that when a child
is about to be born to him." But this did not at all satisfy Mr.
Palliser.
"Yes," said he. "That's of course. It is an important thing to
everybody;--very important, no doubt. But, when a man--. You see,
Grey, I don't think a man is a bit better because he is rich, or
because he has a title; nor do I think he is likely to be in any
degree the happier. I am quite sure that he has no right to be in the
slightest degree proud of that which he has had no hand in doing for
himself."
"Men usually are very proud of such advantages," said Grey.
"I don't think that I am; I don't, indeed. I am proud of some things.
Whenever I can manage to carry a point in the House, I feel very
proud of it. I don't think I ever knocked under to any one, and I am
proud of that." Perhaps, Mr. Palliser was thinking of a certain time
when his uncle the Duke had threatened him, and he had not given way
to the Duke's threats. "But I don't think I'm proud because chance
has made me my uncle's heir."
"Not in the least, I should say."
"But I do feel that a son to me is of more importance than it is
to most men. A strong anxiety on the subject, is, I think, more
excusable in me than it might be in another. I don't know whether I
quite make myself understood?"
"Oh, yes! When there's a dukedom and heaven knows how many thousands
a year to be disposed of, the question of their future ownership does
become important."
"This property is so much more interesting to one, if one feels that
all one does to it is done for one's own son."
"And yet," said Grey, "of all the great plunderers of property
throughout Europe, the Popes have been the most greedy."
"Perhaps it's different, when a man can't have a wife," said Mr.
Palliser.
From all this it may be seen that Mr. Palliser and Mr. Grey had become
very intimate. Had chance brought them together in London they might
have met a score of times before Mr. Palliser would have thought
of doing more than bowing to such an acquaintance. Mr. Grey might
have spent weeks at Matching, without having achieved anything like
intimacy with its noble owner. But things of that kind progress more
quickly abroad than they do at home. The deck of an ocean steamer is
perhaps the most prolific hotbed of the growth of sudden friendships;
but an hotel by the side of a Swiss lake does almost as well.
For some time after this Lady Glencora's conduct was frequently so
indiscreet as to drive her husband almost to frenzy. On the very day
after the news had been communicated to him, she proposed a picnic,
and made the proposition not only in the presence of Alice, but in
that of Mr. Grey also! Mr. Palliser, on such an occasion, could not
express all that he thought; but he looked it.
"What is the matter, now, Plantagenet?" said his wife.
"Nothing," said he;--"nothing. Never mind."
"And shall we make this party up to the chapel?"
The chapel in question was Tell's chapel--ever so far up the lake. A
journey in a steam-boat would have been necessary.
"No!" said he, shouting out his refusal at her. "We will not."
"You needn't be angry about it," said she;--as though he could have
failed to be stirred by such a proposition at such a time. On another
occasion she returned from an evening walk, showing on her face some
sign of the exercise she had taken.
"Good G----! Glencora," said he, "do you mean to kill yourself?"
He wanted her to eat six or seven times a day; and always told her
that she was eating too much, remembering some ancient proverb about
little and often. He watched her now as closely as Mrs. Marsham and
Mr. Bott had watched her before; and she always knew that he was doing
so. She made the matter worse by continually proposing to do things
which she knew he would not permit, in order that she might enjoy the
fun of seeing his agony and amazement. But this, though it was fun to
her at the moment, produced anything but fun, as its general result.
"Upon my word, Alice, I think this will kill me," she said. "I am not
to stir out of the house now, unless I go in the carriage, or he is
with me."
"It won't last long."
"I don't know what you call long. As for walking with him, it's out
of the question. He goes about a mile an hour. And then he makes me
look so much like a fool. I had no idea that he would be such an old
coddle."
"The coddling will all be given to some one else, very soon."
"No baby could possibly live through it, if you mean that. If there
is a baby--"
"I suppose there will be one, by-and-by," said Alice.
"Don't be a fool! But, if there is, I shall take that matter into
my own hands. He can do what he pleases with me, and I can't help
myself; but I shan't let him or anybody do what they please with my
baby. I know what I'm about in such matters a great deal better than
he does. I've no doubt he's a very clever man in Parliament; but he
doesn't seem to me to understand anything else."
Alice was making some very wise speech in answer to this, when Lady
Glencora interrupted her.
"Mr. Grey wouldn't make himself so troublesome, I'm quite sure." Then
Alice held her tongue.
When the first consternation arising from the news had somewhat
subsided,--say in a fortnight from the day in which Mr. Palliser was
made so triumphant,--and when tidings had been duly sent to the Duke,
and an answer from his Grace had come, arrangements were made for the
return of the party to England. The Duke's reply was very short:--
MY DEAR PLANTAGENET,--Give my kind love to Glencora. If
it's a boy, of course I will be one of the godfathers.
The Prince, who is very kind, will perhaps oblige me by
being the other. I should advise you to return as soon as
convenient.
Your affectionate uncle,
OMNIUM.
That was the letter; and short as it was, it was probably the longest
that Mr. Palliser had ever received from the Duke.
There was great trouble about the mode of their return.
"Oh, what nonsense," said Glencora. "Let us get into an express
train, and go right through to London." Mr. Palliser looked at her
with a countenance full of rebuke and sorrow. He was always so
looking at her now. "If you mean, Plantagenet, that we are to be
dragged all across the Continent in that horrible carriage, and be
a thousand days on the road, I for one won't submit to it." "I wish
I had never told him a word about it," she said afterwards to Alice.
"He would never have found it out himself, till this thing was all
over."
Mr. Palliser did at last consent to take the joint opinion of a Swiss
doctor and an English one who was settled at Berne; and who, on the
occasion, was summoned to Lucerne. They suggested the railway; and as
letters arrived for Mr. Palliser,--medical letters,--in which the same
opinion was broached, it was agreed, at last, that they should return
by railway; but they were to make various halts on the road, stopping
at each halting-place for a day. The first was, of course, Basle, and
from Basle they were to go on to Baden.
"I particularly want to see Baden again," Lady Glencora said; "and
perhaps I may be able to get back my napoleon."
CHAPTER LXXIV.
Showing What Happened in the Churchyard.
These arrangements as to the return of Mr. Palliser's party to London
did not, of course, include Mr. Grey. They were generally discussed in
Mr. Grey's absence, and communicated to him by Mr. Palliser. "I suppose
we shall see you in England before long?" said Mr. Palliser. "I shall
be able to tell you that before you go," said Grey. "Not but that in
any event I shall return to England before the winter."
"Then come to us at Matching," said Mr. Palliser. "We shall be most
happy to have you. Say that you'll come for the first fortnight
in December. After that we always go to the Duke, in Barsetshire.
Though, by-the-by, I don't suppose we shall go anywhere this year,"
Mr. Palliser added, interrupting the warmth of his invitation, and
reflecting that, under the present circumstances, perhaps, it might
be improper to have any guests at Matching in December. But he had
become very fond of Mr. Grey, and on this occasion, as he had done on
some others, pressed him warmly to make an attempt at Parliament. "It
isn't nearly so difficult as you think," said he, when Grey declared
that he would not know where to look for a seat. "See the men that
get in. There was Mr. Vavasor. Even he got a seat."
"But he had to pay for it very dearly."
"You might easily find some quiet little borough."
"Quiet little boroughs have usually got their own quiet little
Members," said Grey.
"They're fond of change; and if you like to spend a thousand pounds,
the thing isn't difficult. I'll put you in the way of it." But Mr.
Grey still declined. He was not a man prone to be talked out of his
own way of life, and the very fact that George Vavasor had been in
Parliament would of itself have gone far towards preventing any
attempt on his part in that direction. Alice had also wanted him to
go into public life, but he had put aside her request as though the
thing were quite out of the question,--never giving a moment to its
consideration. Had she asked him to settle himself and her in Central
Africa, his manner and mode of refusal would have been the same. It
was this immobility on his part,--this absolute want of any of the
weakness of indecision, which had frightened her, and driven her away
from him. He was partly aware of this; but that which he had declined
to do at her solicitation, he certainly would not do at the advice
of any one else. So it was that he argued the matter with himself.
Had he now allowed himself to be so counselled, with what terrible
acknowledgements of his own faults must he not have presented himself
before Alice?
"I suppose books, then, will be your object in life?" said Mr.
Palliser.
"I hope they will be my aids," Grey answered. "I almost doubt whether
any object such as that you mean is necessary for life, or even
expedient. It seems to me that if a man can so train himself that he
may live honestly and die fearlessly, he has done about as much as is
necessary."
"He has done a great deal, certainly," said Mr. Palliser, who was
not ready enough to carry on the argument as he might have done had
more time been given to him to consider it. He knew very well that
he himself was working for others, and not for himself; and he was
aware, though he had not analysed his own convictions on the matter,
that good men struggle as they do in order that others, besides
themselves, may live honestly, and, if possible, die fearlessly. The
recluse of Nethercoats had thought much more about all this than the
rising star of the House of Commons; but the philosophy of the rising
star was the better philosophy of the two, though he was by far the
less brilliant man. "I don't see why a man should not live honestly
and be a Member of Parliament as well," continued Mr. Palliser, when
he had been silent for a few minutes.
"Nor I either," said Grey. "I am sure that there are such men, and
that the country is under great obligation to them. But they are
subject to temptations which a prudent man like myself may perhaps
do well to avoid." But though he spoke with an assured tone, he was
shaken, and almost regretted that he did not accept the aid which was
offered to him. It is astonishing how strong a man may be to those
around him,--how impregnable may be his exterior, while within he
feels himself to be as weak as water, and as unstable as chaff.
But the object which he had now in view was a renewal of his
engagement with Alice, and he felt that he must obtain an answer from
her before they left Lucerne. If she still persisted in refusing to
give him her hand, it would not be consistent with his dignity as
a man to continue his immediate pursuit of her any longer. In such
case he must leave her, and see what future time might bring forth.
He believed himself to be aware that he would never offer his love
to another woman; and if Alice were to remain single, he might try
again, after the lapse of a year or two. But if he failed now,--then,
for that year or two, he would see her no more. Having so resolved,
and being averse to anything like a surprise, he asked her, as
he left her one evening, whether she would walk with him on the
following morning. That morning would be the morning of her last day
at Lucerne; and as she assented she knew well what was to come. She
said nothing to Lady Glencora on the subject, but allowed the coming
prospects of the Palliser family to form the sole subject of their
conversation that night, as it had done on every night since the
great news had become known. They were always together for an hour
every evening before Alice was allowed to go to bed, and during
this hour the anxieties of the future father and mother were always
discussed till Alice Vavasor was almost tired of them. But she was
patient with her friend, and on this special night she was patient
as ever. But when she was released and was alone, she made a great
endeavour to come to some fixed resolution as to what she would do on
the morrow,--some resolution which should be absolutely resolute, and
from which no eloquence on the part of any one should move her. But
such resolutions are not easily reached, and Alice laboured through
half the night almost in vain. She knew that she loved the man. She
knew that he was as true to her as the sun is true to the earth. She
knew that she would be, in all respects, safe in his hands. She knew
that Lady Glencora would be delighted, and her father gratified. She
knew that the countesses would open their arms to her,--though I
doubt whether this knowledge was in itself very persuasive. She knew
that by such a marriage she would gain all that women generally look
to gain when they give themselves away. But, nevertheless, as far as
she could decide at all, she decided against her lover. She had no
right of her own to be taken back after the evil that she had done,
and she did not choose to be taken back as an object of pity and
forgiveness.
"Where are you going?" said her cousin, when she came in with her hat
on, soon after breakfast.
"I am going to walk,--with Mr. Grey."
"By appointment?"
"Yes, by appointment. He asked me yesterday."
"Then it's all settled, and you haven't told me!"
"All that is settled I have told you very often. He asked me
yesterday to walk with him this morning, and I could not well refuse
him."
"Why should you have wished to refuse him?"
"I haven't said that I did wish it. But I hate scenes, and I think it
would have been pleasanter for us to have parted without any occasion
for special words."
"Alice, you are such a fool!"
"So you tell me very often."
"Of course he is now going to say the very thing that he has come
all this way for the purpose of saying. He has been wonderfully slow
about it; but then slow as he is, you are slower. If you don't make
it up with him now, I really shall think you are very wicked. I am
becoming like Lady Midlothian;--I can't understand it. I know you
want to be his wife, and I know he wants to be your husband, and the
only thing that keeps you apart is your obstinacy,--just because you
have said you wouldn't have him. My belief is that if Lady Midlothian
and the rest of us were to pat you on the back, and tell you how
right you were, you'd ask him to take you, out of defiance. You may
be sure of this, Alice; if you refuse him now, it'll be for the last
time."
This, and much more of the same kind, she bore before Mr. Grey came
to take her, and she answered to it all as little as she could. "You
are making me very unhappy, Glencora," she said once. "I wish I could
break you down with unhappiness," Lady Glencora answered, "so that he
might find you less stiff, and hard, and unmanageable." Directly upon
that he came in, looking as though he had no business on hand more
exciting than his ordinary morning's tranquil employments. Alice at
once got up to start with him. "So you and Alice are going to make
your adieux," said Lady Glencora. "It must be done sooner or later,"
said Mr. Grey; and then they went off.
Those who know Lucerne,--and almost everybody now does know
Lucerne,--will remember the big hotel which has been built close to
the landing-pier of the steamers, and will remember also the church
that stands upon a little hill or rising ground, to the left of you,
as you come out of the inn upon the lake. The church is immediately
over the lake, and round the church there is a burying-ground,
and skirting the burying-ground there are cloisters, through the
arches and apertures of which they who walk and sit there look down
immediately upon the blue water, and across the water upon the
frowning menaces of Mount Pilate. It is one of the prettiest spots in
that land of beauty; and its charm is to my feeling enhanced by the
sepulchral monuments over which I walk, and by which I am surrounded,
as I stand there. Up here, into these cloisters, Alice and John Grey
went together. I doubt whether he had formed any purpose of doing
so. She certainly would have gone without question in any direction
that he might have led her. The distance from the inn up to the
church-gate did not take them ten minutes, and when they were there
their walk was over. But the place was solitary, and they were alone;
and it might be as well for Mr. Grey to speak what words he had to say
there as elsewhere. They had often been together in those cloisters
before, but on such occasions either Mr. Palliser or Lady Glencora
had been with them. On their slow passage up the hill very little was
spoken, and that little was of no moment. "We will go in here for a
few minutes," he said. "It is the prettiest spot about Lucerne, and
we don't know when we may see it again." So they went in, and sat
down on one of the embrasures that open from the cloisters over the
lake.
"Probably never again," said Alice. "And yet I have been here now two
years running."
She shuddered as she remembered that in that former year George
Vavasor had been with her. As she thought of it all she hated
herself. Over and over again she had told herself that she had so
mismanaged the latter years of her life that it was impossible for
her not to hate herself. No woman had a clearer idea of feminine
constancy than she had, and no woman had sinned against that idea
more deeply. He gave her time to think of all this as he sat there
looking down upon the water.
"And yet I would sooner live in Cambridgeshire," were the first words
he spoke.
"Why so?"
"Partly because all beauty is best enjoyed when it is sought for with
some trouble and difficulty, and partly because such beauty, and the
romance which is attached to it, should not make up the staple of
one's life. Romance, if it is to come at all, should always come by
fits and starts."
"I should like to live in a pretty country."
"And would like to live a romantic life,--no doubt; but all those
things lose their charm if they are made common. When a man has to
go to Vienna or St. Petersburg two or three times a month, you don't
suppose he enjoys travelling?"
"All the same, I should like to live in a pretty country," said
Alice.
"And I want you to come and live in a very ugly country." Then he
paused for a minute or two, not looking at her, but gazing still on
the mountain opposite. She did not speak a word, but looked as he was
looking. She knew that the request was coming, and had been thinking
about it all night; but now that it had come she did not know how to
bear herself. "I don't think," he went on to say, "that you would let
that consideration stand in your way, if on other grounds you were
willing to become my wife."
"What consideration?"
"Because Nethercoats is not so pretty as Lucerne."
"It would have nothing to do with it," said Alice.
"It should have nothing to do with it."
"Nothing; nothing at all," repeated Alice.
"Will you come, then? Will you come and be my wife, and help me to be
happy amidst all that ugliness? Will you come and be my one beautiful
thing, my treasure, my joy, my comfort, my counsellor?"
"You want no counsellor, Mr. Grey."
"No man ever wanted one more. Alice, this has been a bad year to me,
and I do not think that it has been a happy one for you."
"Indeed, no."
"Let us forget it,--or rather, let us treat it as though it were
forgotten. Twelve months ago you were mine. You were, at any rate,
so much mine that I had a right to boast of my possession among my
friends."
"It was a poor boast."
"They did not seem to think so. I had but one or two to whom I could
speak of you, but they told me that I was going to be a happy man.
As to myself, I was sure that I was to be so. No man was ever better
contented with his bargain than I was with mine. Let us go back to
it, and the last twelve months shall be as though they had never
been."
"That cannot be, Mr. Grey. If it could, I should be worse even than
I am."
"Why cannot it be?"
"Because I cannot forgive myself what I have done, and because you
ought not to forgive me."
"But I do. There has never been an hour with me in which there has
been an offence of yours rankling in my bosom unforgiven. I think you
have been foolish, misguided,--led away by a vain ambition, and that
in the difficulty to which these things brought you, you endeavoured
to constrain yourself to do an act, which, when it came near to
you,--when the doing of it had to be more closely considered, you
found to be contrary to your nature." Now, as he spoke thus, she
turned her eyes upon him, and looked at him, wondering that he should
have had power to read her heart so accurately. "I never believed
that you would marry your cousin. When I was told of it, I knew that
trouble had blinded you for awhile. You had driven yourself to revolt
against me, and upon that your heart misgave you, and you said to
yourself that it did not matter then how you might throw away all
your sweetness. You see that I speak of your old love for me with the
frank conceit of a happy lover."
"No;--no, no!" she ejaculated.
"But the storm passes over the tree and does not tear it up by
the roots or spoil it of all its symmetry. When we hear the winds
blowing, and see how the poor thing is shaken, we think that its
days are numbered and its destruction at hand. Alice, when the
winds were shaking you, and you were torn and buffeted, I never
thought so. There may be some who will forgive you slowly. Your own
self-forgiveness will be slow. But I, who have known you better than
any one,--yes, better than any one,--I have forgiven you everything,
have forgiven you instantly. Come to me, Alice, and comfort me. Come
to me, for I want you sorely." She sat quite still, looking at the
lake and the mountain beyond, but she said nothing. What could she
say to him? "My need of you is much greater now," he went on to say,
"than when I first asked you to share the world with me. Then I could
have borne to lose you, as I had never boasted to myself that you
were my own,--had never pictured to myself the life that might be
mine if you were always to be with me. But since that day I have had
no other hope,--no other hope but this for which I plead now. Am I to
plead in vain?"
"You do not know me," she said; "how vile I have been! You do not
think what it is,--for a woman to have promised herself to one man
while she loved another."
"But it was me you loved. Ah! Alice, I can forgive that. Do I not
tell you that I did forgive it the moment that I heard it? Do you not
hear me say that I never for a moment thought that you would marry
him? Alice, you should scold me for my vanity, for I have believed
all through that you loved me, and me only. Come to me, dear, and
tell me that it is so, and the past shall be only as a dream."
"I am dreaming it always," said Alice.
"They will cease to be bitter dreams if your head be upon my
shoulder. You will cease to reproach yourself when you know that you
have made me happy."
"I shall never cease to reproach myself. I have done that which no
woman can do and honour herself afterwards. I have been--a jilt."
"The noblest jilt that ever yet halted between two minds! There has
been no touch of selfishness in your fickleness. I think I could be
hard enough upon a woman who had left me for greater wealth, for a
higher rank,--who had left me even that she might be gay and merry.
It has not been so with you."
"Yes, it has. I thought you were too firm in your own will, and--"
"And you think so still. Is that it?"
"It does not matter what I think now. I am a fallen creature, and
have no longer a right to such thoughts. It will be better for us
both that you should leave me,--and forget me. There are things
which, if a woman does them, should never be forgotten;--which she
should never permit herself to forget."
"And am I to be punished, then, because of your fault? Is that your
sense of justice?" He got up, and standing before her, looked down
upon her. "Alice, if you will tell me that you do not love me, I will
believe you, and will trouble you no more. I know that you will say
nothing to me that is false. Through it all you have spoken no word
of falsehood. If you love me, after what has passed, I have a right
to demand your hand. My happiness requires it, and I have a right
to expect your compliance. I do demand it. If you love me, Alice,
I tell you that you dare not refuse me. If you do so, you will fail
hereafter to reconcile it to your conscience before God."
Then he stopped his speech, and waited for a reply; but Alice sat
silent beneath his gaze, with her eyes turned upon the tombstones
beneath her feet. Of course she had no choice but to yield. He,
possessed of power and force infinitely greater than hers, had left
her no alternative but to be happy. But there still clung to her what
I fear we must call a perverseness of obstinacy, a desire to maintain
the resolution she had made,--a wish that she might be allowed to
undergo the punishment she had deserved. She was as a prisoner who
would fain cling to his prison after pardon has reached him, because
he is conscious that the pardon is undeserved. And it may be that
there was still left within her bosom some remnant of that feeling
of rebellion which his masterful spirit had ever produced in her. He
was so imperious in his tranquillity, he argued his question of love
with such a manifest preponderance of right on his side, that she had
always felt that to yield to him would be to confess the omnipotence
of his power. She knew now that she must yield to him,--that his
power over her was omnipotent. She was pressed by him as in some
countries the prisoner is pressed by the judge,--so pressed that she
acknowledged to herself silently that any further antagonism to him
was impossible. Nevertheless, the word which she had to speak still
remained unspoken, and he stood over her, waiting for her answer.
Then slowly he sat down beside her, and gradually he put his arm
round her waist. She shrank from him, back against the stonework of
the embrasure, but she could not shrink away from his grasp. She put
up her hand to impede his, but his hand, like his character and his
words, was full of power. It would not be impeded. "Alice," he said,
as he pressed her close with his arm, "the battle is over now, and I
have won it."
"You win everything,--always," she said, whispering to him, as she
still shrank from his embrace.
"In winning you I have won everything." Then he put his face over her
and pressed his lips to hers. I wonder whether he was made happier
when he knew that no other touch had profaned those lips since last
he had pressed them?
CHAPTER LXXV.
Rouge et Noir.
Alice insisted on being left up in the churchyard, urging that she
wanted to "think about it all," but, in truth, fearing that she might
not be able to carry herself well, if she were to walk down with her
lover to the hotel. To this he made no objection, and, on reaching
the inn, met Mr. Palliser in the hall. Mr. Palliser was already
inspecting the arrangement of certain large trunks which had been
brought down-stairs, and was preparing for their departure. He was
going about the house, with a nervous solicitude to do something,
and was flattering himself that he was of use. As he could not
be Chancellor of the Exchequer, and as, by the nature of his
disposition, some employment was necessary to him, he was looking to
the cording of the boxes. "Good morning! good morning!" he said to
Grey, hardly looking at him, as though time were too precious with
him to allow of his turning his eyes upon his friend. "I am going up
to the station to see after a carriage for to-morrow. Perhaps you'll
come with me." To this proposition Mr. Grey assented. "Sometimes, you
know," continued Mr. Palliser, "the springs of the carriages are so
very rough." Then, in a very few words, Mr. Grey told him what had
been his own morning's work. He hated secrets and secrecy, and as the
Pallisers knew well what had brought him upon their track, it was,
he thought, well that they should know that he had been successful.
Mr. Palliser congratulated him very cordially, and then, running
up-stairs for his gloves or his stick, or, more probably, that he
might give his wife one other caution as to her care of herself, he
told her also that Alice had yielded at last. "Of course she has,"
said Lady Glencora.
"I really didn't think she would," said he.
"That's because you don't understand things of that sort," said
his wife. Then the caution was repeated, the mother of the future
duke was kissed, and Mr. Palliser went off on his mission about the
carriage, its cushions, and its springs. In the course of their walk
Mr. Palliser suggested that, as things were settled so pleasantly,
Mr. Grey might as well return with them to England, and to this
suggestion Mr. Grey assented.
Alice remained alone for nearly an hour, looking out upon the rough
sides and gloomy top of Mount Pilate. No one disturbed her in the
churchyard,--no steps were heard along the tombstones,--no voice
sounded through the cloisters. She was left in perfect solitude to
think of the past, and form her plans of the future. Was she happy,
now that the manner of her life to come was thus settled for her;
that all further question as to the disposal of herself was taken
out of her hands, and that her marriage with a man she loved was so
firmly arranged that no further folly of her own could disarrange
it? She was happy, though she was slow to confess her happiness to
herself. She was happy, and she was resolute in this,--that she would
now do all she could to make him happy also. And there must now,
she acknowledged, be an end to her pride,--to that pride which had
hitherto taught her to think that she could more wisely follow her
own guidance than that of any other who might claim to guide her. She
knew now that she must follow his guidance. She had found her master,
as we sometimes say, and laughed to herself with a little inward
laughter as she confessed that it was so. She was from henceforth
altogether in his hands. If he chose to tell her that they were to be
married at Michaelmas, or at Christmas, or on Lady Day, they would,
of course, be married accordingly. She had taken her fling at having
her own will, and she and all her friends had seen what had come of
it. She had assumed the command of the ship, and had thrown it upon
the rocks, and she felt that she never ought to take the captain's
place again. It was well for her that he who was to be captain was
one whom she respected as thoroughly as she loved him.
She would write to her father at once,--to her father and Lady
Macleod,--and would confess everything. She felt that she owed it to
them that they should be told by herself that they had been right and
that she had been wrong. Hitherto she had not mentioned to either of
them the fact that Mr. Grey was with them in Switzerland. And, then,
what must she do as to Lady Midlothian? As to Lady Midlothian, she
would do nothing. Lady Midlothian, of course, would triumph;--would
jump upon her, as Lady Glencora had once expressed it, with very
triumphant heels,--would try to patronize her, or, which would be
almost worse, would make a parade of her forgiveness. But she would
have nothing to do with Lady Midlothian, unless, indeed, Mr. Grey
should order it. Then she laughed at herself again with that inward
laughter, and, rising from her seat, proceeded to walk down the hill
to the hotel.
"Vanquished at last!" said Lady Glencora, as Alice entered the room.
"Yes, vanquished; if you like to call it so," said Alice.
"It is not what I call it, but what you feel it," said the other.
"Do you think that I don't know you well enough to be sure that you
regard yourself now as an unfortunate prisoner,--as a captive taken
in war, to be led away in triumph, without any hope of a ransom? I
know that it is quite a misery to you that you should be made a happy
woman of at last. I understand it all, my dear, and my heart bleeds
for you."
"Of course; I knew that was the way you would treat me."
"In what way would you have me treat you? If I were to hug you with
joy, and tell you how good he is, and how fortunate you are,--if I
were to praise him, and bid you triumph in your success, as might be
expected on such an occasion,--you would put on a long face at once,
and tell me that though the thing is to be, it would be much better
that the thing shouldn't be. Don't I know you, Alice?"
"I shouldn't have said that;--not now."
"I believe in my heart you would;--that, or something like it. But I
do wish you joy all the same, and you may say what you please. He has
got you in his power now, and I don't think even you can go back."
"No; I shall not go back again."
"I would join with Lady Midlothian in putting you into a madhouse,
if you did. But I am so glad; I am, indeed. I was afraid to the
last,--terribly afraid; you are so hard and so proud. I don't mean
hard to me, dear. You have never been half hard enough to me. But you
are hard to yourself, and, upon my word, you have been hard to him.
What a deal you will have to make up to him!"
"I feel that I ought to stand before him always as a penitent,--in a
white sheet."
"He will like it better, I dare say, if you will sit upon his knee.
Some penitents do, you know. And how happy you will be! He'll never
explain the sugar-duties to you, and there'll be no Mr. Bott at
Nethercoats." They sat together the whole morning,--while Mr. Palliser
was seeing to the springs and cushions,--and by degrees Alice began
to enjoy her happiness. As she did so her friend enjoyed it with her,
and at last they had something of the comfort and excitement which
such an occasion should give. "I'll tell you what, Alice; you shall
come and be married at Matching, in August, or perhaps September.
That's the only way in which I can be present; and if we can bespeak
some sun, we'll have the breakfast out in the ruins."
On the following morning they all started together, a first-class
compartment having been taken for the Palliser family, and a
second-class compartment close to them for the Palliser servants. Mr.
Palliser, as he slowly handed his wife in, was a triumphant man; as
was also Mr. Grey, as he handed in his lady-love, though, in a manner,
much less manifest. We may say that both the gentlemen had been
very fortunate while at Lucerne. Mr. Palliser had come abroad with a
feeling that all the world had been cut from under his feet. A great
change was needed for his wife, and he had acknowledged at once that
everything must be made to yield to that necessity. He certainly
had his reward,--now in his triumphant return. Terrible troubles
had afflicted him as he went, which seemed now to have dissipated
themselves altogether. When he thought of Burgo Fitzgerald he
remembered him only as a poor, unfortunate fellow, for whom he should
be glad to do something, if the doing of anything were only in his
power; and he had in his pocket a letter which he had that morning
received from the Duke of St. Bungay, marked private and confidential,
which was in its nature very private and confidential, and in which
he was told that Lord Brock and Mr. Finespun were totally at variance
about French wines. Mr. Finespun wanted to do something, now in the
recess,--to send some political agent over to France,--to which Lord
Brock would not agree; and no one knew what would be the consequence
of this disagreement. Here might be another chance,--if only Mr.
Palliser could give up his winter in Italy! Mr. Palliser, as he took
his place opposite his wife, was very triumphant.
And Mr. Grey was triumphant, as he placed himself gently in his seat
opposite to Alice. He seemed to assume no right, as he took that
position apparently because it was the one which came naturally to
his lot. No one would have been made aware that Alice was his own
simply by seeing his arrangements for her comfort. He made no loud
assertion as to his property and his rights, as some men do. He was
quiet and subdued in his joy, but not the less was he triumphant.
From the day on which Alice had accepted his first offer,--nay, from
an earlier day than that; from the day on which he had first resolved
to make it, down to the present hour, he had never been stirred from
his purpose. By every word that he had said, and by every act that he
had done, he had shown himself to be unmoved by that episode in their
joint lives, which Alice's other friends had regarded as so fatal.
When she first rejected him, he would not take his rejection. When
she told him that she intended to marry her cousin, he silently
declined to believe that such marriage would ever take place. He had
never given her up for a day, and now the event proved that he had
been right. Alice was happy, very happy; but she was still disposed
to regard her lover as Fate, and her happiness as an enforced
necessity.
They stopped a night at Basle, and again she stood upon the balcony.
He was close to her as she stood there,--so close that, putting out
her hand for his, she was able to take it and press it closely. "You
are thinking of something, Alice," he said. "What is it?"
"It was here," she said--"here, on this very balcony, that I first
rebelled against you, and now you have brought me here that I should
confess and submit on the same spot. I do confess. How am I to thank
you for forgiving me?"
[Illustration: "How am I to thank you for forgiving me?"]
On the following morning they went on to Baden-Baden, and there they
stopped for a couple of days. Lady Glencora had positively refused
to stop a day at Basle, making so many objections to the place that
her husband had at last yielded. "I could go from Vienna to London
without feeling it," she said, with indignation; "and to tell me that
I can't do two easy days' journey running!" Mr. Palliser had been
afraid to be imperious, and therefore, immediately on his arrival at
one of the stations in Basle, he had posted across the town, in the
heat and the dust, to look after the cushions and the springs at the
other.
"I've a particular favour to ask of you," Lady Glencora said to
her husband, as soon as they were alone together in their rooms at
Baden. Mr. Palliser declared that he would grant her any particular
favour,--only premising that he was not to be supposed to have
thereby committed himself to any engagement under which his wife
should have authority to take any exertion upon herself. "I wish I
were a milkmaid," said Lady Glencora.
"But you are not a milkmaid, my dear. You haven't been brought up
like a milkmaid."
But what was the favour? If she would only ask for jewels,--though
they were the Grand Duchess's diamond eardrops, he would endeavour
to get them for her. If she would have quaffed molten pearls, like
Cleopatra, he would have procured the beverage,--having first
fortified himself with a medical opinion as to the fitness of the
drink for a lady in her condition. There was no expenditure that
he would not willingly incur for her, nothing costly that he would
grudge. But when she asked for a favour, he was always afraid of an
imprudence. Very possibly she might want to drink beer in an open
garden.
And her request was, at last, of this nature: "I want you to take me
up to the gambling-rooms!" said she.
"The gambling-rooms!" said Mr. Palliser in dismay.
"Yes, Plantagenet; the gambling-rooms. If you had been with me
before, I should not have made a fool of myself by putting my piece
of money on the table. I want to see the place; but then I saw
nothing, because I was so frightened when I found that I was
winning."
Mr. Palliser was aware that all the world of Baden,--or rather the
world of the strangers at Baden,--assembles itself in those salons.
It may be also that he himself was curious to see how men looked
when they lost their own money, or won that of others. He knew how a
Minister looked when he lost or gained a tax. He was familiar with
millions and tens of millions in a committee of the whole House. He
knew the excitement of a near division upon the estimates. But he
had never yet seen a poor man stake his last napoleon, and rake back
from off the table a small hatful of gold. A little exercise after an
early dinner was, he had been told, good for his wife; and he agreed
therefore that, on their second evening at Baden, they would all walk
up and see the play.
"Perhaps I shall get back my napoleon," said Glencora to Alice.
"And perhaps I shall be forgiven when somebody sees how difficult it
is to manage you," said Alice, looking at Mr. Palliser.
"She isn't in earnest," said Mr. Palliser, almost fearing the result
of the experiment.
"I don't know that," said Lady Glencora.
They started together, Mr. Palliser with his wife, and Mr. Grey with
Alice on his arm, and found all the tables at work. They at first
walked through the different rooms, whispering to each other their
comments on the people that they saw, and listening to the quick,
low, monotonous words of the croupiers as they arranged and presided
over the games. Each table was closely surrounded by its own crowd,
made up of players, embryo players, and simple lookers-on, so that
they could not see much as they walked. But this was not enough for
Lady Glencora. She was anxious to know what these men and women were
doing,--to see whether the croupiers wore horns on their heads and
were devils indeed,--to behold the faces of those who were wretched
and of those who were triumphant,--to know how the thing was
done, and to learn something of that lesson in life. "Let us stand
here a moment," she said to her husband, arresting him at one corner
of the table which had the greatest crowd. "We shall be able to see
in a few minutes." So he stood with her there, giving way to Alice,
who went in front with his wife; and in a minute or two an aperture
was made, so that they could all see the marked cloth, and the money
lying about, and the rakes on the table, and the croupier skilfully
dealing his cards, and,--more interesting than all the rest, the
faces of those who were playing. Grey looked on, over Alice's
shoulder, very attentively,--as did Palliser also,--but both of them
kept their eyes upon the ministers of the work. Alice and Glencora
did the same at first, but as they gained courage they glanced round
upon the gamblers.
It was a long table, having, of course, four corners, and at the
corner appropriated by them they were partly opposite to the man who
dealt the cards. The corner answering to theirs at the other end was
the part of the table most removed from their sight, and that on
which their eyes fell last. As Lady Glencora stood she could hardly
see,--indeed, at first she could not see,--one or two who were
congregated at this spot. Mr. Palliser, who was behind her, could not
see them at all. But to Alice,--and to Mr. Grey, had he cared about
it,--every face at the table was visible except the faces of those
who were immediately close to them. Before long Alice's attention
was riveted on the action and countenance of one young man who sat
at that other corner. He was leaning, at first listlessly, over the
table, dressed in a velveteen jacket, and with his round-topped hat
brought far over his eyes, so that she could not fully see his face.
But she had hardly begun to observe him before he threw back his
hat, and taking some pieces of gold from under his left hand, which
lay upon the table, pushed three or four of them on to one of the
divisions marked on the cloth. He seemed to show no care, as others
did, as to the special spot which they should occupy. Many were very
particular in this respect, placing their ventures on the lines, so
as to share the fortunes of two compartments, or sometimes of four;
or they divided their coins, taking three or four numbers, selecting
the numbers with almost grotesque attention to some imagined rule of
their own. But this man let his gold go all together, and left it
where his half-stretched rake deposited it by chance. Alice could
not but look at his face. His eyes she could see were bloodshot, and
his hair, when he pushed back his hat, was rough and dishevelled;
but still there was that in his face which no woman could see and
not regard. It was a face which at once prepossessed her in his
favour,--as it had always prepossessed all others. On this occasion
he had won his money, and Alice saw him drag it in as lazily as he
had pushed it out.
"Do you see that little Frenchman?" said Lady Glencora. "He has
just made half a napoleon, and has walked off with it. Isn't it
interesting? I could stay here all the night." Then she turned round
to whisper something to her husband, and Alice's eyes again fell on
the face of the man at the other end of the table. After he had won
his money, he had allowed the game to go on for a turn without any
action on his part. The gold again went under his hand, and he
lounged forward with his hat over his eyes. One of the croupiers had
said a word, as though calling his attention to the game, but he
had merely shaken his head. But when the fate of the next turn had
been decided, he again roused himself, and on this occasion, as far
as Alice could see, pushed his whole stock forward with the rake.
There was a little mass of gold, and, from his manner of placing it,
all might see that he left its position to chance. One piece had
got beyond its boundary, and the croupier pushed it back with some
half-expressed inquiry as to his correctness. "All right," said a
voice in English. Then Lady Glencora started and clutched Alice's arm
with her hand. Mr. Palliser was explaining to Mr. Grey, behind them,
something about German finance as connected with gambling-tables, and
did not hear the voice, or see his wife's motion. I need hardly tell
the reader that the gambler was Burgo Fitzgerald.
But Lady Glencora said not a word,--not as yet. She looked forward
very gently, but still with eager eyes, till she could just see
the face she knew so well. His hat was now pushed back, and his
countenance had lost its listlessness. He watched narrowly the face
of the man as he told out the amount of the cards as they were dealt.
He did not try to hide his anxiety, and when, after the telling of
some six or seven cards, he heard a certain number named, and a
certain colour called, he made some exclamation which even Glencora
could not hear. And then another croupier put down, close to Burgo's
money, certain rolls of gold done up in paper, and also certain loose
napoleons.
"Why doesn't he take it?" said Lady Glencora.
"He is taking it," said Alice, not at all knowing the cause of her
cousin's anxiety.
Burgo had paused a moment, and then prepared to rake the money to
him; but as he did so, he changed his mind, and pushed it all back
again,--now, on this occasion, being very careful to place it on its
former spot. Both Alice and Glencora could see that a man at his
elbow was dissuading him,--had even attempted to stop the arm which
held the rake. But Burgo shook him off, speaking to him some word
roughly, and then again he steadied the rolls upon their appointed
place. The croupier who had paused for a moment now went on quickly
with his cards, and in two minutes the fate of Burgo's wealth was
decided. It was all drawn back by the croupier's unimpassioned rake,
and the rolls of gold were restored to the tray from whence they had
been taken.
Burgo looked up and smiled at them all round the table. By this
time most of those who stood around were looking at him. He was a
man who gathered eyes upon him wherever he might be, or whatever
he was doing; and it had been clear that he was very intent upon
his fortune, and on the last occasion the amount staked had been
considerable. He knew that men and women were looking at him, and
therefore he smiled faintly as he turned his eyes round the table.
Then he got up, and, putting his hands in his trousers pockets,
whistled as he walked away. His companion followed him, and laid a
hand upon his shoulder; but Burgo shook him off, and would not turn
round. He shook him off, and walked on whistling, the length of the
whole salon.
"Alice," said Lady Glencora, "it is Burgo Fitzgerald." Mr. Palliser
had gone so deep into that question of German finance that he had not
at all noticed the gambler. "Alice, what can we do for him? It is
Burgo," said Lady Glencora.
Many eyes were now watching him. Used as he was to the world and to
misfortune, he was not successful in his attempt to bear his loss
with a show of indifference. The motion of his head, the position of
his hands, the tone of his whistling, all told the tale. Even the
unimpassioned croupiers furtively cast an eye after him, and a very
big Guard, in a cocked hat, and uniform, and sword, who hitherto
had hardly been awake, seemed evidently to be interested by his
movements. If there is to be a tragedy at these places,--and
tragedies will sometimes occur,--it is always as well that the tragic
scene should be as far removed as possible from the salons, in order
that the public eye should not suffer.
Lady Glencora and Alice had left their places, and had shrunk back,
almost behind a pillar. "Is it he, in truth?" Alice asked.
"In very truth," said Glencora. "What can I do? Can I do anything?
Look at him, Alice. If he were to destroy himself, what should I do
then?"
Burgo, conscious that he was the regarded of all eyes, turned round
upon his heel and again walked the length of the salon. He knew well
that he had not a franc left in his possession, but still he laughed
and still he whistled. His companion, whoever he might be, had slunk
away from him, not caring to share the notoriety which now attended
him.
"What shall I do, Alice?" said Lady Glencora, with her eyes still
fixed on him who had been her lover.
"Tell Mr. Palliser," whispered Alice.
Lady Glencora immediately ran up to her husband, and took him away
from Mr. Grey. Rapidly she told her story,--with such rapidity that Mr.
Palliser could hardly get in a word. "Do something for him;--do, do.
Unless I know that something is done, I shall die. You needn't be
afraid."
"I'm not afraid," said Mr. Palliser.
Lady Glencora, as she went on quickly, got hold of her husband's
hand, and caressed it. "You are so good," said she. "Don't let him
out of your sight. There; he is going. I will go home with Mr. Grey.
I will be ever so good; I will, indeed. You know what he'll want, and
for my sake you'll let him have it. But don't let him gamble. If you
could only get him home to England, and then do something. You owe
him something, Plantagenet; do you not?"
"If money can do anything, he shall have it."
"God bless you, dearest! I shall never see him again; but if you
could save him! There;--he is going now. Go;--go." She pushed him
forward, and then retreating, put her arm within Mr. Grey's, still
keeping her eye upon her husband.
Burgo, when he first got to the door leading out of the salon,
had paused a moment, and, turning round, had encountered the big
gendarme close to him. "Well, old Buffer, what do you want?" said
he, accosting the man in English. The big gendarme simply walked on
through the door, and said nothing. Then Burgo also passed out, and
Mr. Palliser quickly went after him. They were now in the large front
salon, from whence the chief door of the building opened out upon the
steps. Through this door Burgo went without pausing, and Mr. Palliser
went after him. They both walked to the end of the row of buildings,
and then Burgo, leaving the broad way, turned into a little path
which led up through the trees to the hills. That hillside among the
trees is a popular resort at Baden, during the day; but now, at nine
in the evening, it was deserted. Palliser did not press on the other
man, but followed him, and did not accost Burgo till he had thrown
himself on the grass beneath a tree.
"You are in trouble, I fear, Mr. Fitzgerald," said Mr. Palliser, as
soon as he was close at Burgo's feet.
"We will go home. Mr. Palliser has something to do," said Lady
Glencora to Mr. Grey, as soon as the two men had disappeared from her
sight.
"Is that a friend of Mr. Palliser?" said Mr. Grey.
"Yes;--that is, he knows him, and is interested about him. Alice,
shall we go home? Oh! Mr. Grey, you must not ask any questions.
He,--Mr. Palliser, will tell you everything when he sees you,--that
is, if there is anything to be told." Then they all went home, and
soon separated for the night. "Of course I shall sit up for him,"
said Lady Glencora to Alice, "but I will do it in my own room. You
can tell Mr. Grey, if you like." But Alice told nothing to Mr. Grey,
nor did Mr. Grey ask any questions.
CHAPTER LXXVI.
The Landlord's Bill.
"You are in trouble, Mr. Fitzgerald, I fear," said Mr. Palliser,
standing over Burgo as he lay upon the ground. They were now
altogether beyond the gas-lights, and the evening was dark. Burgo,
too, was lying with his face to the ground, expecting that the
footsteps which he had heard would pass by him.
"Who is that?" said he, turning round suddenly; but still he was not
at once able to recognize Mr. Palliser, whose voice was hardly known
to him.
"Perhaps I have been wrong in following you," said Mr. Palliser, "but
I thought you were in distress, and that probably I might help you.
My name is Palliser."
"Plantagenet Palliser?" said Burgo, jumping up on to his legs and
looking close into the other's face. "By heavens! it is Plantagenet
Palliser! Well, Mr. Palliser, what do you want of me?"
"I want to be of some use to you, if I can. I and my wife saw you
leave the gaming-table just now."
"Is she here too?"
"Yes;--she is here. We are going home, but chance brought us up to
the salon. She seemed to think that you are in distress, and that I
could help you. I will, if you will let me."
Mr. Palliser, during the whole interview, felt that he could afford to
be generous. He knew that he had no further cause for fear. He had no
lingering dread of this poor creature who stood before him. All that
feeling was over, though it was as yet hardly four months since he
had been sent back by Mrs. Marsham to Lady Monk's house to save his
wife, if saving her were yet possible.
"So she is here, is she;--and saw me there when I staked my last
chance? I should have had over twenty thousand francs now, if the
cards had stood to me."
"The cards never do stand to any one, Mr. Fitzgerald."
"Never;--never,--never!" said Burgo. "At any rate, they never did to
me. Nothing ever does stand to me."
"If you want twenty thousand francs,--that's eight hundred pounds, I
think--I can let you have it without any trouble."
"The devil you can!"
"Oh, yes. As I am travelling with my family--" I wonder whether Mr.
Palliser considered himself to be better entitled to talk of his
family than he had been some three or four weeks back--"As I am
travelling with my family, I have been obliged to carry large bills
with me, and I can accommodate you without any trouble."
There was something pleasant in this, which made Burgo Fitzgerald
laugh. Mr. Palliser, the husband of Lady Glencora M'Cluskie, and the
heir of the Duke of Omnium happening to have money with him! As if
Mr. Palliser could not bring down showers of money in any quarter
of the globe by simply holding up his hand. And then to talk of
accommodating him,--Burgo Fitzgerald, as though it were simply a
little matter of convenience,--as though Mr. Palliser would of course
find the money at his bankers' when he next examined his book! Burgo
could not but laugh.
"I was not in the least doubting your ability to raise the money,"
said he; "but how would you propose to get it back again?"
"That would be at your convenience," said Mr. Palliser, who hardly
knew how to put himself on a proper footing with his companion, so
that he might offer to do something effectual for the man's aid.
"I never have any such convenience," said Burgo. "Who were those
women whose tubs always had holes at the bottom of them? My tub
always has such a hole."
"You mean the daughters of Danaus," said Mr. Palliser.
"I don't know whose daughters they were, but you might just as well
lend them all eight hundred pounds apiece."
"There were so many of them," said Mr. Palliser, trying a little joke.
"But as you are only one I shall be most happy, as I said before, to
be of service."
They were now walking slowly together up towards the hills, and near
to them they heard a step. Upon this, Burgo turned round.
"Do you see that fellow?" said he. Mr. Palliser, who was somewhat
short-sighted, said that he did not see him. "I do, though. I don't
know his name, but they have sent him out from the hotel with me, to
see what I do with myself. I owe them six or seven hundred francs,
and they want to turn me out of the house and not let me take my
things with me."
"That would be very uncomfortable," said Mr. Palliser.
"It would be uncomfortable, but I shall be too many for them. If they
keep my traps they shall keep me. They think I'm going to blow my
brains out. That's what they think. The man lets me go far enough off
to do that,--so long as it's nowhere about the house."
"I hope you're not thinking of such a thing?"
"As long as I can help it, Mr. Palliser, I never think of anything."
The stranger was now standing near to them,--almost so near that he
might hear their words. Burgo, perceiving this, walked up to him,
and, speaking in bad French, desired him to leave them. "Don't you
see that I have a friend with me?"
"Oh! a friend," said the man, answering in bad English. "Perhaps de
friend can advance moneys?"
"Never mind what he can do," said Burgo. "You do as you are bid, and
leave me."
Then the gentleman from the hotel retreated down the hill, but Mr.
Palliser, during the rest of the interview, frequently fancied that
he heard the man's footfall at no great distance.
They continued to walk on up the hill very slowly, and it was some
time before Mr. Palliser knew how to repeat his offer.
"So Lady Glencora is here?" Burgo said again.
"Yes, she is here. It was she who asked me to come to you," Mr.
Palliser answered. Then they both walked on a few steps in silence,
for neither of them knew how to address the other.
"By George!--isn't it odd," said Burgo, at last, "that you and I, of
all men in the world, should be walking together here at Baden? It's
not only that you're the richest man in London, and that I'm the
poorest, but--; there are other things, you know, which make it so
funny."
"There have been things which make me and my wife very anxious to
give you aid."
"And have you considered, Mr. Palliser, that those things make you the
very man in the world,--indeed, for the matter of that, the only man
in the world,--from whom I can't take aid. I would have taken it all
if I could have got it,--and I tried hard."
"I know you have been disappointed, Mr. Fitzgerald."
"Disappointed! By G----! yes. Did you ever know any man who had so
much right to be disappointed as I have? I did love her, Mr. Palliser.
Nay, by heavens! I do love her. Out here I will dare to say as much
even to you. I shall never try to see her again. All that is over, of
course. I've been a fool about her as I have been about everything.
But I did love her."
"I believe it, Mr. Fitzgerald."
"It was not altogether her money. But think what it would have been
to me, Mr. Palliser. Think what a chance I had, and what a chance
I lost. I should have been at the top of everything,--as now I am
at the bottom. I should not have spent that. There would have been
enough of it to have saved me. And then I might have done something
good instead of crawling about almost in fear of that beast who is
watching us."
"It has been ordered otherwise," said Mr. Palliser, not knowing what
to say.
"Yes; it has been ordered, with a vengeance! It seems to have been
ordered that I'm to go to the devil; but I don't know who gave the
orders, and I don't know why."
Mr. Palliser had not time to explain to his friend that the orders had
been given, in a very peremptory way, by himself, as he was anxious
to bring back the conversation to his own point. He wished to give
some serviceable, and, if possible, permanent aid to the poor
ne'er-do-well; but he did not wish to talk more than could be helped
about his own wife.
"There is an old saying, which you will remember well," said he,
"that the way to good manners is never too late."
"That's nonsense," said Burgo. "It's too late when the man feels the
knot round his neck at the Old Bailey."
"Perhaps not, even then. Indeed, we may say, certainly not, if the
man be still able to take the right way. But I don't want to preach
to you."
"It wouldn't do any good, you know."
"But I do want to be of service to you. There is something of truth
in what you say. You have been disappointed; and I, perhaps, of all
men am the most bound to come to your assistance now that you are in
need."
"How can I take it from you?" said Burgo, almost crying.
"You shall take it from her!"
"No;--that would be worse; twenty times worse. What! take her money,
when she would not give me herself!"
"I do not see why you should not borrow her money,--or mine. You
shall call it which you will."
"No; I won't have it."
"And what will you do then?"
"What will I do? Ah! That's the question. I don't know what I will
do. I have the key of my bedroom in my pocket, and I will go to bed
to-night. It's not very often that I look forward much beyond that."
"Will you let me call on you, to-morrow?"
"I don't see what good it will do? I shan't get up till late, for
fear they should shut the room against me. I might as well have as
much out of them as I can. I think I shall say I'm ill, and keep my
bed."
"Will you take a few napoleons?"
"No; not a rap. Not from you. You are the first man from whom I ever
refused to borrow money, and I should say that you'll be about the
last to offer to lend it me."
"I don't know what else I can offer?" said Mr. Palliser.
"You can offer nothing. If you will say to your wife from me that
I bade her adieu;--that is all you can do for me. Good night, Mr.
Palliser; good night."
[Illustration: "Good night, Mr. Palliser."]
Mr. Palliser left him and went his way, feeling that he had no further
eloquence at his command. He shook Burgo's hand, and then walked
quickly down the hill. As he did so he passed, or would have passed
the man who had been dodging them.
"Misther, Misther!" said the man in a whisper.
"What do you want of me?" asked Mr. Palliser, in French.
Then the man spoke in French, also. "Has he got any money? Have you
given him any money?"
"I have not given him any money," said Mr. Palliser, not quite knowing
what he had better do or say under such circumstances.
"Then he will have a bad time with it," said the man. "And he might
have carried away two thousand francs just now! Dear, dear, dear! Has
he got any friends, sir?"
"Yes, he has friends. I do not know that I can assist him, or you."
"Fitzgerald;--his name is Fitzgerald?"
"Yes," said Mr. Palliser; "his name is Fitzgerald."
"Ah! There are so many Fitzgeralds in England. Mr. Fitzgerald,
London;--he has no other address?"
"If he had, and I knew it, I should not give it you without his
sanction."
"But what shall we do? How shall we act? Perhaps with his own hand he
will himself kill. For five weeks his pension he owes; yes, for five
weeks. And for wine, oh so much! There came through Baden a my lord,
and then, I think he got money. But he went and played. That was of
course. But; oh my G----! he might have carried away this night two
thousand francs; yes, two thousand francs!"
"Are you the hotelkeeper?"
"His friend, sir; only his friend. That is, I am the head
Commissionaire. I look after the gentlemen who sometimes are not
all--not all--" exactly what they should be, the commissioner
intended to explain; and Mr. Palliser understood him although the
words were not quite spoken. The interview was ended by Mr. Palliser
taking the name of the hotel, and promising to call before Mr.
Fitzgerald should be up in the morning--a purposed visit, which we
need not regard as requiring any very early energy on Mr. Palliser's
part, when we remember Burgo's own programme for the following day.
Lady Glencora received her husband that night with infinite anxiety,
and was by no means satisfied with what had been done. He described
to her as accurately as he could the nature of his interview with
Burgo, and he described to her also his other interview with the head
commissioner.
"He will; he will," said Lady Glencora; when she heard from her
husband the man's surmise that perhaps he might destroy himself.
"He will; he will; and if he does, how can you expect that I shall
bear it?" Mr. Palliser tried to soothe her by telling her of his
promised visit to the landlord; and Lady Glencora, accepting this as
something, strove to instigate her husband to some lavish expenditure
on Burgo's behalf. "There can be no reason why he should not take
it," said Glencora. "None the least. Had it not been promised to him?
Had he not a right to it?" The subject was one which Mr. Palliser
found it very hard to discuss. He could not tell his wife that
Fitzgerald ought to accept his bounty; but he assured her that his
money should be forthcoming, almost to any extent, if it could be
made available.
On the following morning he went down to the hotel, and saw the
real landlord. He found him to be a reasonable, tranquil, and very
good-natured man,--who was possessed by a not irrational desire that
his customers' bills should be paid; but who seemed to be much less
eager on the subject than are English landlords in general. His chief
anxiety seemed to arise from the great difficulty of doing anything
with the gentleman who was now lying in his bed up-stairs. "Has he
had any breakfast?" Mr. Palliser asked.
"Breakfast! Oh yes;" and the landlord laughed. He had been very
particular in the orders he had given. He had desired his cutlets to
be dressed in a particular way,--with a great deal of cayenne pepper,
and they had been so dressed. He had ordered a bottle of Sauterne;
but the landlord had thought, or the head-waiter acting for him had
thought, that a bottle of ordinary wine of the country would do as
well. The bottle of ordinary wine of the country had just that moment
been sent up-stairs.
Then Mr. Palliser sat down in the landlord's little room, and had
Burgo Fitzgerald's bill brought to him. "I think I might venture to
pay it," said Mr. Palliser.
"That was as monsieur pleased," said the landlord, with something
like a sparkle in his eye.
What was Mr. Palliser to do? He did not know whether, in accordance
with the rules of the world in which he lived, he ought to pay it,
or ought to leave it; and certainly the landlord could not tell him.
Then he thought of his wife. He could not go back to his wife without
having done something; so, as a first measure, he paid the bill. The
landlord's eyes glittered, and he receipted it in the most becoming
manner.
"Should he now send up the bottle of Sauterne?"--but to this Mr.
Palliser demurred.
"And to whom should the receipted bill be given?" Mr. Palliser thought
that the landlord had better keep it himself for a while.
"Perhaps there is some little difficulty?" suggested the landlord.
Mr. Palliser acknowledged that there was a little difficulty. He knew
that he must do something more. He could not simply pay the bill
and go away. That would not satisfy his wife. He knew that he must
do something more; but how was he to do it? So at last he let the
landlord into his confidence. He did not tell the whole of Burgo's
past history. He did not tell that little episode in Burgo's life
which referred to Lady Glencora. But he did make the landlord
understand that he was willing to administer money to Mr. Fitzgerald,
if only it could only be administered judiciously.
"You can't keep him out of the gambling salon, you know, sir; that
is, not if he has a franc in his pocket." As to that the landlord was
very confident.
It was at last arranged, that the landlord was to tell Burgo that his
bill did not signify at present, and that the use of the hotel was to
be at Burgo's command for the next three months. At the end of that
time he was to have notice to quit. No money was to be advanced to
him;--but the landlord, even in this respect, had a discretion.
"When I get home, I will see what can be done with his relations
there," said Mr. Palliser. Then he went home and told his wife.
"But he'll have no clothes," said Lady Glencora.
Mr. Palliser said that the judicious landlord would manage that also;
and in that way Lady Glencora was appeased,--appeased, till something
final could be done for the young man, on Mr. Palliser's return home.
Poor Burgo! He must now be made to end his career as far as these
pages are concerned. He soon found that something had been done for
him at the hotel, and no doubt he must have made some guess near
the truth. The discreet landlord told him nothing,--would tell him
nothing; but that his bill did not signify as yet. Burgo, thinking
about it, resolved to write about it in an indignant strain to Mr.
Palliser; but the letter did not get itself written. When in England,
Mr. Palliser saw Sir Cosmo Monk, and with many apologies, told him
what he had done.
"I regret it," said Sir Cosmo, in anger. "I regret it; not for the
money's sake, but I regret it." The amount expended, was however
repaid to Mr. Palliser, and an arrangement was made for remitting
a weekly sum of fifteen pounds to Burgo, through a member of the
diplomatic corps, as long as he should remain at a certain small
German town which was indicated, and in which there was no public
gambling-table. Lady Glencora expressed herself satisfied for the
present; but I must doubt whether poor Burgo lived long in comfort
on the allowance made to him.
Here we must say farewell to Burgo Fitzgerald.
CHAPTER LXXVII.
The Travellers Return Home.
Mr. Palliser did not remain long in Baden after the payment of
Burgo's bill. Perhaps I shall not throw any undeserved discredit
on his courage if I say that he was afraid to do so. What would he
have said,--what would he have been able to say, if that young man
had come to him demanding an explanation? So he hurried away to
Strasbourg the same day, much to his wife's satisfaction.
The journey home from thence was not marked by any incidents.
Gradually Mr. Palliser became a little more lenient to his wife and
slightly less oppressive in his caution. If he still inquired about
the springs of the carriages, he did so in silence, and he ceased to
enjoin the necessity of a day's rest after each day's journey. By
the time that they reached Dover he had become so used to his wife's
condition that he made but little fluttering as she walked out of
the boat by that narrow gangway which is so contrived as to make an
arrival there a serious inconvenience to a lady, and a nuisance even
to a man. He was somewhat staggered when a big man, in the middle
of the night, insisted on opening the little basket which his wife
carried, and was uncomfortable when obliged to stop her on the plank
while he gave up the tickets which he thought had been already
surrendered; but he was becoming used to his position, and bore
himself like a man.
During their journey home Mr. Palliser had by no means kept his seat
opposite to Lady Glencora with constancy. He had soon found that it
was easier to talk to Mr. Grey than to his wife, and, consequently,
the two ladies had been much together, as had also the two gentlemen.
What the ladies discussed may be imagined. One was about to become
a wife and the other a mother, and that was to be their fate after
each had made up her mind that no such lot was to be hers. It may,
however, be presumed that for every one word that Alice spoke Lady
Glencora spoke ten. The two men, throughout these days of close
intimacy, were intent upon politics. Mr. Palliser, who may be regarded
as the fox who had lost his tail,--the tail being, in this instance,
the comfort of domestic privacy,--was eager in recommending his new
friend to cut off his tail also. "Your argument would be very well,"
said he, "if men were to be contented to live for themselves only."
"Your argument would be very well," said the other, "if it were used
to a man who felt that he could do good to others by going into
public life. But it is wholly inefficacious if it recommends public
life simply or chiefly because a man may gratify his own ambition by
public services."
"Of course there is personal gratification, and of course there is
good done," said Mr. Palliser.
"Is,--or should be," said Mr. Grey.
"Exactly; and the two things must go together. The chief
gratification comes from the feeling that you are of use."
"But if you feel that you would not be of use?"
We need not follow the argument any further. We all know its nature,
and what between two such men would be said on both sides. We all
know that neither of them would put the matter altogether in a true
light. Men never can do so in words, let the light within themselves
be ever so clear. I do not think that any man yet ever had such a
gift of words as to make them a perfect exponent of all the wisdom
within him. But the effect was partly that which the weaker man of
the two desired,--the weaker in the gifts of nature, though art
had in some respects made him stronger. Mr. Grey was shaken in his
quiescent philosophy, and startled Alice,--startled her as much as he
delighted her,--by a word or two he said as he walked with her in the
courts of the Louvre. "It's all hollow here," he said, speaking of
French politics.
"Very hollow," said Alice, who had no love for the French mode of
carrying on public affairs.
"Of all modes of governing this seems to me to be the surest of
coming to a downfall. Men are told that they are wise enough to talk,
but not wise enough to have any power of action. It is as though men
were cautioned that they were walking through gunpowder, and that
no fire could be allowed them, but were at the same time enjoined
to carry lucifer matches in their pockets. I don't believe in the
gunpowder, and I think there should be fire, and plenty of it; but if
I didn't want the fire I wouldn't have the matches."
"It's so odd to hear you talk politics," said Alice, laughing.
After this he dropped the subject for a while, as though he were
ashamed of it, but in a very few minutes he returned to it manfully.
"Mr. Palliser wants me to go into Parliament." Upon hearing this Alice
said nothing. She was afraid to speak. After all that had passed she
felt that it would not become her to show much outward joy on hearing
such a proposition, so spoken by him, and yet she could say nothing
without some sign of exultation in her voice. So she walked on
without speaking, and was conscious that her fingers trembled on his
arm. "What do you say about it?" he asked.
"What do I say? Oh, John, what right can I have to say anything?"
"No one else can have so much right,--putting aside of course myself,
who must be responsible for my own actions. He asked me whether I
could afford it, and he seems to think that a smaller income suffices
for such work now than it did a few years since. I believe that I
could afford it, if I could get a seat that was not very expensive at
the first outset. He could help me there."
"On that point, of course, I can have no opinion."
"No; not on that point. I believe we may take that for granted.
Living in London for four or five months in the year might be
managed. But as to the mode of life!"
Then Alice was unable to hold her tongue longer, and spoke out her
thoughts with more vehemence than discretion. No doubt he combated
them with some amount of opposition. He seldom allowed out-spoken
enthusiasm to pass by him without some amount of hostility. But he
was not so perverse as to be driven from his new views by the fact
that Alice approved them, and she, as she drew near home, was able
to think that the only flaw in his character was in process of being
cured.
When they reached London they all separated. It was Mr. Palliser's
purpose to take his wife down to Matching with as little delay as
possible. London was at this time nearly empty, and all the doings
of the season were over. It was now the first week of August, and
as Parliament had not been sitting for nearly two months, the town
looked as it usually looks in September. Lady Glencora was to stay
but one day in Park Lane, and it had been understood between her and
Alice that they were not to see each other.
"How odd it is parting in this way, when people have been together so
long," said Lady Glencora. "It always seems as though there had been
a separate little life of its own which was now to be brought to a
close. I suppose, Mr. Grey, you and I, when we next meet, will be far
too distant to fight with each other."
"I hope that may never be the case," said Mr. Grey.
"I suppose nothing would prevent his fighting; would it Alice? But,
remember, there must be no fighting when we do meet next, and that
must be in September."
"With all my heart," said Mr. Grey. But Alice said nothing.
Then Mr. Palliser made his little speech. "Alice," he said, as he gave
his hand to Miss Vavasor, "give my compliments to your father, and
tell him that I shall take the liberty of asking him to come down to
Matching for the early shooting in September, and that I shall expect
him to bring you with him. You may tell him also that he will have
to stay to see you off, but that he will not be allowed to take you
away." Lady Glencora thought that this was very pretty as coming from
her husband, and so she told him on their way home.
Alice insisted on going to Queen Anne Street in a cab by herself.
Mr. Palliser had offered a carriage, and Mr. Grey, of course, offered
himself as a protector; but she would have neither the one nor the
other. If he had gone with her he might by chance have met her
father, and she was most anxious that she should not be encumbered
by her lover's presence when she first received her father's
congratulations. They had slept at Dover, and had come up by a
mid-day train. When she reached Queen Anne Street, the house was
desolate, and she might therefore have allowed Mr. Grey to attend her.
But she found a letter waiting for her which made her for the moment
forget both him and her father. Lady Macleod, at Cheltenham, was very
ill, and wished to see her niece, as she said, before she died. "I
have got your letter," said the kind old woman, "and am now quite
happy. It only wanted that to reconcile me to my departure. I thought
through it all that my girl would be happy at last. Will she forgive
me if I say that I have forgiven her?" The letter then went on to beg
Alice to come to Cheltenham at once. "It is not that I am dying now,"
said Lady Macleod, "though you will find me much altered and keeping
my bed. But the doctor says he fears the first cold weather. I know
what that means, my dear; and if I don't see you now, before your
marriage, I shall never see you again. Pray get married as soon as
you can. I want to know that you are Mrs. Grey before I go. If I were
to hear that it was postponed because of my illness, I think it would
kill me at once."
There was another letter for her from Kate, full, of course, of
congratulations, and promising to be at the wedding; "that is," said
Kate, "unless it takes place at the house of some one of your very
grand friends;" and telling her that aunt Greenow was to be married
in a fortnight;--telling her of this, and begging her to attend that
wedding. "You should stand by your family," said Kate. "And only
think what my condition will be if I have no one here to support me.
Do come. Journeys are nothing nowadays. Don't you know I would go
seven times the distance for you? Mr. Cheesacre and Captain Bellfield
are friends after all, and Mr. Cheesacre is to be best man. Is it
not beautiful? As for poor me, I'm told I haven't a chance left of
becoming mistress of Oileymead and all its wealth."
Alice began to think that her hands were almost too full. If
she herself were to be married in September, even by the end of
September, her hands were very full indeed. Yet she did not know how
to refuse any of the requests made to her. As to Lady Macleod, her
visit to her was a duty which must of course be performed at once.
She would stay but one day in London, and then go down to Cheltenham.
Having resolved upon this she at once wrote to her aunt to that
effect. As to that other affair down in Westmoreland, she sighed
as she thought of it, but she feared that she must go there also.
Kate had suffered too much on her behalf to allow of her feeling
indifferent to such a request.
Then her father came in. "I didn't in the least know when you might
arrive," said he, beginning with an apology for his absence. "How
could I, my dear?" Alice scorned to remind him that she herself had
named the precise hour of the train by which they had arrived. "It's
all right, papa," said she. "I was very glad to have an hour to write
a letter or two. Poor Lady Macleod is very ill. I must go to her the
day after to-morrow."
"Dear, dear, dear! I had heard that she was poorly. She is very old,
you know. So, Alice, you've made it all square with Mr. Grey at last?"
"Yes, papa;--if you call that square."
"Well; I do call it square. It has all come round to the proper
thing."
"I hope he thinks so."
"What do you think yourself, my dear?"
"I've no doubt it's the proper thing for me, papa."
"Of course not; of course not; and I can tell you this, Alice, he is
a man in a thousand. You've heard about the money?"
"What money, papa?"
"The money that George had." As the reader is aware, Alice had heard
nothing special about this money. She only knew, or supposed she
knew, that she had given three thousand pounds to her cousin. But now
her father explained to her the whole transaction. "We couldn't have
realized your money for months, perhaps," said he; "but Grey knew
that some men must have rope enough before they can hang themselves."
Alice was unable to say anything on this subject to her father, but
to herself she did declare that not in that way or with that hope
had John Grey produced his money. "He must be paid, papa," she said.
"Paid!" he answered; "he can pay himself now. It may make some
difference in the settlements, perhaps, but he and the lawyers may
arrange that. I shan't think of interfering with such a man as Grey.
If you could only know, my dear, what I've suffered!" Alice in a
penitential tone expressed her sorrow, and then he too assured her
that he had forgiven her. "Bless you, my child!" he said, "and make
you happy, and good, and--and--and very comfortable." After that he
went back to his club.
Alice made her journey down to Cheltenham without any adventure, and
was received by Lady Macleod with open arms. "Dearest Alice, it is so
good of you." "Good!" said Alice, "would I not have gone a thousand
miles to you?"
Lady Macleod was very eager to know all about the coming marriage.
"I can tell you now, my dear, though I couldn't do it before, that
I knew he'd persist for ever. He told me so himself in confidence."
"He has persisted, aunt; that is certain."
"And I hope you'll reward him. A beautiful woman without discretion
is like a pearl in a swine's snout; but a good wife is a crown of
glory to her husband. Remember that, my dear, and choose your part
for his sake."
"I won't be that unfortunate pearl, if I can help it, aunt."
"We can all help it, if we set about it in the right way. And Alice,
you must be careful to find out all his likes and his dislikes. Dear
me! I remember how hard I found it, but then I don't think I was so
clever as you are."
"Sometimes I think nobody has ever been so stupid as I have."
"Not stupid, my dear; if I must say the word, it is self-willed. But,
dear, all that is forgiven now. Is it not?"
"There is a forgiveness which it is rather hard to get," said Alice.
There was something said then as to the necessity of looking for
pardon beyond this world, which I need not here repeat. To all her
old friend's little sermons Alice was infinitely more attentive than
had been her wont, so that Lady Macleod was comforted and took heart
of grace, and at last brought forth from under her pillow a letter
from the Countess of Midlothian, which she had received a day or
two since, and which bore upon Alice's case. "I was not quite sure
whether I'd show it you," said Lady Macleod, "because you wouldn't
answer her when she wrote to you. But when I'm gone, as I shall be
soon, she will be the nearest relative you have on your mother's
side, and from her great position, you know, Alice--" But here Alice
became impatient for the letter. Her aunt handed it to her, and she
read as follows:--
Castle Reekie, July, 186--.
DEAR LADY MACLEOD,--
I am sorry to hear of the symptoms you speak about. I
strongly advise you to depend chiefly on beef-tea. They
should be very careful to send it up quite free from
grease, and it should not be too strong of the meat. There
should be no vegetables in it. Not soup, you know, but
beef-tea. If any thing acts upon your strength, that will.
I need not tell one who has lived as you have done where
to look for that other strength which alone can support
you at such a time as this. I would go to you if I thought
that my presence would be any comfort to you, but I know
how sensitive you are, and the shock might be too much for
you.
If you see Alice Vavasor on her return to England, as you
probably will, pray tell her from me that I give her my
warmest congratulations, and that I am heartily glad that
matters are arranged. I think she treated my attempts to
heal the wound in a manner that they did not deserve; but
all that shall be forgiven, as shall also her original bad
behaviour to poor Mr. Grey.
Alice was becoming weary of so much forgiveness, and told herself,
as she was reading the letter, that that of Lady Midlothian was at
any rate unnecessary. "I trust that we may yet meet and be friends,"
continued Lady Midlothian. "I am extremely gratified at finding that
she has been thought so much of by Mr. Palliser. I'm told that Mr.
Palliser and Mr. Grey have become great friends, and if this is so,
Alice must be happy to feel that she has had it in her power to
confer so great a benefit on her future husband as he will receive
from this introduction." "I ain't a bit happy, and I have conferred
no benefit on Mr. Grey," exclaimed Alice, who was unable to repress
the anger occasioned by the last paragraph.
"But it is a great benefit, my dear."
"Mr. Palliser has every bit as much cause to be gratified for that as
Mr. Grey, and perhaps more."
Poor Lady Macleod could not argue the matter in her present state.
She merely sighed, and moved her shrivelled old hand up and down upon
the counterpane. Alice finished the letter without further remarks.
It merely went on to say how happy the writer would be to know
something of her cousin as Mrs. Grey, as also to know something of Mr.
Grey, and then gave a general invitation to both Mr. and Mrs. Grey,
asking them to come to Castle Reekie whenever they might be able. The
Marchioness, with whom Lady Midlothian was staying, had expressly
desired her to give this message. Alice, however, could not but
observe that Lady Midlothian's invitation applied only to another
person's house.
"I'm sure she means well," said Alice.
"Indeed she does," said Lady Macleod, "and then you know you'll
probably have children; and think what a thing it will be for them to
know the Midlothian family. You shouldn't rob them of their natural
advantages."
Alice remained a week with her aunt, and went from thence direct to
Westmoreland. Some order as to bridal preparations we must presume
she gave on that single day which she passed in London. Much
advice she had received on this head from Lady Glencora, and no
inconsiderable amount of assistance was to be rendered to her at
Matching during the fortnight she would remain there before her
marriage. Something also, let us hope, she might do at Cheltenham.
Something no doubt she did do. Something also might probably be
achieved among the wilds in Westmoreland, but that something would
necessarily be of a nature not requiring fashionable tradespeople.
While at Cheltenham, she determined that she would not again return
to London before her marriage. This resolve was caused by a very
urgent letter from Mr. Grey, and by another, almost equally urgent,
from Lady Glencora. If the marriage did not take place in September
she would not be present at it. The gods of the world,--of Lady
Glencora's world,--had met together and come to a great decision.
Lady Glencora was to be removed in October to Gatherum Castle, and
remain there till the following spring, so that the heir might,
in truth, be born in the purple. "It is such a bore," said Lady
Glencora, "and I know it will be a girl. But the Duke isn't to be
there, except for the Christmas week." An invitation for the ceremony
at Matching had been sent from Mr. Palliser to Mr. Vavasor, and another
from Lady Glencora to Kate, "whom I long to know," said her ladyship,
"and with whom I should like to pick a crow, if I dared, as I'm sure
she did all the mischief."
CHAPTER LXXVIII.
Mr. Cheesacre's Fate.
It must be acknowledged that Mrs. Greenow was a woman of great
resources, and that she would be very prudent for others, though I
fear the verdict of those who know her must go against her in regard
to prudence in herself. Her marriage with Captain Bellfield was a
rash act,--certainly a rash act, although she did take so much care
in securing the payment of her own income into her own hands; but the
manner in which she made him live discreetly for some months previous
to his marriage, the tact with which she renewed the friendship which
had existed between him and Mr. Cheesacre, and the skill she used in
at last providing Mr. Cheesacre with a wife, oblige us all to admit
that, as a general, she had great powers.
When Alice reached Vavasor Hall she found Charlie Fairstairs
established there on a long visit. Charlie and Kate were to be
the two bridesmaids, and, as Kate told her cousin in their first
confidential intercourse on the evening of Alice's arrival, there
were already great hopes in the household that the master of
Oileymead might be brought to surrender. It was true that Charlie had
not a shilling, and that Mr. Cheesacre had set his heart on marrying
an heiress. It was true that Miss Fairstairs had always stood low in
the gentleman's estimation, as being connected with people who were
as much without rank and fashion as they were without money, and that
the gentleman loved rank and fashion dearly. It was true that Charlie
was no beauty, and that Cheesacre had an eye for feminine charms. It
was true that he had despised Charlie, and had spoken his contempt
openly;--that he had seen the girl on the sands at Yarmouth every
summer for the last ten years, and about the streets of Norwich every
winter, and had learned to regard her as a thing poor and despicable,
because she was common in his eyes. It is thus that the Cheesacres
judge of people. But in spite of all these difficulties Mrs. Greenow
had taken up poor Charlie's case, and Kate Vavasor expressed a strong
opinion that her aunt would win.
"What has she done to the man?" Alice asked.
"Coaxed him; simply that. She has made herself so much his master
that he doesn't know how to say no to her. Sometimes I have thought
that he might possibly run away, but I have abandoned that fear now.
She has little confidences with him from day to day, which are so
alluring to him that he cannot tear himself off. In the middle of one
of them he will find himself engaged."
"But, the unfortunate girl! Won't it be a wretched marriage for her?"
"Not at all. She'll make him a very good wife. He's one of those men
to whom any woman, after a little time, will come to be the same.
He'll be rough with her once a month or so, and perhaps tell her
that she brought no money with her; but that won't break any bones,
and Charlie will know how to fight her own battles. She'll save his
money if she brings none, and in a few years' time they will quite
understand each other."
Mr. Cheesacre and Captain Bellfield were at this time living in
lodgings together, at Penrith, but came over and spent every other
day at Vavasor, returning always to their lodgings in the evening.
It wanted but eight days to the marriage when Alice arrived, and
preparations for that event were in progress. "It's to be very quiet,
Alice," said her aunt; "as quiet as such a thing can be made. I owe
that to the memory of the departed one. I know that he is looking
down upon me, and that he approves all that I do. Indeed, he told
me once that he did not want me to live desolate for his sake. If I
didn't feel that he was looking down and approving it, I should be
wretched indeed." She took Alice up to see her trousseau, and gave
the other expectant bride some little hints which, under present
circumstances, might be useful. "Yes, indeed; only three-and-sixpence
a piece, and they're quite real. Feel them. You wouldn't get them in
the shops under six." Alice did feel them, and wondered whether her
aunt could have saved the half-crown honestly. "I had my eyes about
me when I was up in town, my dear. And look here, these are quite
new,--have never been on yet, and I had them when I was married
before. There is nothing like being careful, my dear. I hate
meanness, as everybody knows who knows me; but there is nothing like
being careful. You have a lot of rich people about you just now, and
will have ever so many things given you which you won't want. Do
you put them all by, and be careful. They may turn out useful, you
know." Saying this, Mrs. Greenow folded up, among her present bridal
belongings, sundries of the wealth which had accrued to her in an
earlier stage of her career.
And then Mrs. Greenow opened her mind to Alice about the Captain.
"He's as good as gold, my dear; he is, indeed,--in his own way. Of
course, I know that he has faults, and I should like to know who
hasn't. Although poor dear Greenow certainly was more without them
than anybody else I ever knew." As this remembrance came upon Mrs.
Greenow she put her handkerchief to her eyes, and Alice observed
that that which she held still bore the deepest hem of widowhood.
They would be used, no doubt, till the last day, and then put by in
lavender for future possible occasions. "Bellfield may have been a
little extravagant. I dare say he has. But how can a man help being
extravagant when he hasn't got any regular income? He has been
ill-treated in his profession; very. It makes my blood curdle when I
think of it. After fighting his country's battles through blood, and
dust, and wounds;--but I'll tell you about that another time."
"I suppose a man seldom does make a fortune, aunt, by being a
soldier?"
"Never, my dear; much better be a tailor. Don't you ever marry a
soldier. But as I was saying, he is the best-tempered creature
alive, and the staunchest friend I ever met. You should hear what Mr.
Cheesacre says of him! But you don't know Mr. Cheesacre?"
"No, aunt, not yet. If you remember, he went away before I saw him
when he came here before."
"Yes, I know, poor fellow! Between you and me, Kate might have had
him if she liked; but perhaps Kate was right."
"I don't think he would have suited Kate at all."
"Because of the farmyard, you mean? Kate shouldn't give herself airs.
Money's never dirty, you know. But perhaps it's all for the best.
There's a sweet girl here to whom he is violently attached, and who I
hope will become Mrs. Cheesacre. But as I was saying, the friendship
between these two men is quite wonderful, and I have always observed
that when a man can create that kind of affection in the bosom of
another man, he invariably is,--the sort of man,--the man, in fact,
who makes a good husband."
Alice knew the story of Charlie Fairstairs and her hopes; knew of
the quarrels between Bellfield and Cheesacre; knew almost as much of
Bellfield's past life as Mrs. Greenow did herself; and Mrs. Greenow
was no doubt aware that such was the case. Nevertheless, she had a
pleasure in telling her own story, and told it as though she believed
every word that she spoke.
On the following day the two gentlemen came over, according to
custom, and Alice observed that Miss Fairstairs hardly spoke to Mr.
Cheesacre. Indeed her manner of avoiding that gentleman was so very
marked, that it was impossible not to observe it. They drank tea out
of doors, and when Mr. Cheesacre on one occasion sauntered across
towards the end of the bench on which Charlie was sitting, Charlie
got up and walked away. And in strolling about the place afterwards,
and in going up through the wood, she was at great pains to attach
herself to some other person, so that there should be no such
attaching between her and the owner of Oileymead. At one time Mr.
Cheesacre did get close up to her and spoke some word, some very
indifferent word. He knew that he was being cut and he wanted to
avoid the appearance of a scene. "I don't know, sir," said Charlie,
again moving away with excellent dignity, and she at once attached
herself to Alice who was close by. "I know you have just come home
from Switzerland," said Charlie. "Beautiful Switzerland! My heart
pants for Switzerland. Do tell me something about Switzerland!" Mr.
Cheesacre had heard that Alice was the dear friend of a lady who
would probably some day become a duchess. He therefore naturally
held her in awe, and slunk away. On this occasion Mrs. Greenow clung
lovingly to her future husband, and the effect was that Mr. Cheesacre
found himself to be very much alone and unhappy. He had generally
enjoyed these days at Vavasor Hall, having found himself, or fancied
himself, to be the dominant spirit there. That Mrs. Greenow was always
in truth the dominant spirit I need hardly say; but she knew how to
make a companion happy, and well also how to make him wretched. On
the whole of this day poor Cheesacre was very wretched.
"I don't think I shall go there any more," he said to Bellfield, as
he drove the gig back to Penrith that evening.
"Not go there any more, Cheesy," said Bellfield; "why, we are to have
the dinner out in the field on Friday. It's your own bespeak."
"Well, yes; I'll go on Friday, but not after that."
"You'll stop and see me turned off, old fellow?"
"What's the use? You'll get your wife, and that's enough for you. The
truth is, that since that girl came down from London with her d----d
airs;"--the girl from London with the airs was poor Alice,--"the
place is quite changed. I'm blessed if the whole thing isn't as dark
as ditch-water. I'm a plain man, I am; and I do hate your swells."
Against this view of the case Captain Bellfield argued stoutly; but
Cheesacre had been offended, and throughout the next day he was cross
and touchy. He wouldn't play billiards, and on one occasion hinted
that he hoped he should get that money soon.
"You did it admirably, my dear," said Mrs. Greenow that night
to Charlie Fairstairs. The widow was now on terms almost more
confidential with Miss Fairstairs than with her own niece, Kate
Vavasor. She loved a little bit of intrigue; and though Kate could
intrigue, as we have seen in this story, Kate would not join her
aunt's intrigues. "You did it admirably. I really did not think you
had so much in you."
"Oh, I don't know," said Charlie, blushing at the praise.
"And it's the only way, my dear;--the only way, I mean, for you with
such a one as him. And if he does come round, you'll find him an
excellent husband."
"I don't think he cares for me a bit," said Charlie whimpering.
"Pooh, nonsense! Girls never know whether men care for them or not.
If he asks you to marry him, won't that be a sign that he cares for
you? and if he don't, why, there'll be no harm done."
"If he thinks it's his money--" began Charlie.
"Now, don't talk nonsense, Charlie," said Mrs. Greenow, "or you'll
make me sick. Of course it's his money, more or less. You don't
mean to tell me you'd go and fall in love with him if he was like
Bellfield, and hadn't got a rap? I can afford that sort of thing; you
can't. I don't mean to say you ain't to love him. Of course, you're
to love him; and I've no doubt you will, and make him a very good
wife. I always think that worldliness and sentimentality are like
brandy-and-water. I don't like either of them separately, but taken
together they make a very nice drink. I like them warm, with ---- as
the gentlemen say." To this little lecture Miss Fairstairs listened
with dutiful patience, and when it was over she said nothing more
of her outraged affections or of her disregard for money. "And
now, my dear, mind you look your best on Friday. I'll get him away
immediately after dinner, and when he's done with me you can contrive
to be in his way, you know."
The next day was what Kate called the blank day at the Hall. The
ladies were all alone, and devoted themselves, as was always the case
on the blank days, to millinery and household cares. Mrs. Greenow,
as has before been stated, had taken a lease of the place, and her
troubles extended beyond her mere bridal wardrobe. Large trunks of
household linen had arrived, and all this linen was marked with the
name of Greenow; Greenow, 5.58; Greenow, 7.52; and a good deal had
to be done before this ancient wealth of housewifery could probably
be converted to Bellfield purposes. "We must cut out the pieces,
Jeannette, and work 'em in again ever so carefully," said the widow,
after some painful consideration. "It will always show," said
Jeannette, shaking her head. "But the other would show worse," said
the widow; "and if you finedraw it, not one person in ten will notice
it. We'd always put them on with the name to the feet, you know."
It was not quite true that Cheesacre had bespoke the dinner out in
the field, although no doubt he thought he had done so. The little
treat, if treat it was, had all been arranged by Mrs. Greenow, who
was ever ready to create festivities. There was not much scope for
a picnic here. Besides their own party, which, of course, included
the Captain and Mr. Cheesacre, no guest could be caught except the
clergyman;--that low-church clergyman, who was so anxious about his
income, and with whom the old Squire had quarrelled. Mrs. Greenow
had quickly obtained the advantage of his alliance, and he, who was
soon to perform on her behalf the marriage ceremony, had promised
to grace this little festival. The affair simply amounted to this,
that they were to eat their dinner uncomfortably in the field
instead of comfortably in the dining-room. But Mrs. Greenow knew that
Charlie's charms would be much strengthened by a dinner out-of-doors.
"Nothing," she said to Kate, "nothing makes a man come forward so
well as putting him altogether out of his usual tack. A man who
wouldn't think of such a thing in the drawing-room would be sure to
make an offer if he spent an evening with a young lady down-stairs in
the kitchen."
At two o'clock the gig from Penrith arrived at the Hall, and for
the next hour both Cheesacre and the Captain were engaged in
preparing the tables and carrying out the viands. The Captain and
Charlie Fairstairs were going to lay the cloth. "Let me do it," said
Cheesacre taking it out of the Captain's hands. "Oh, certainly," said
the Captain, giving up his prize. "Captain Bellfield would do it much
better," said Charlie, with a little toss of her head; "he's as good
as a married man, and they always do these things best."
The day was fine, and although the shade was not perfect, and the
midges were troublesome, the dinner went off very nicely. It was
beautiful to see how well Mrs. Greenow remembered herself about the
grace, seeing that the clergyman was there. She was just in time, and
would have been very angry with herself, and have thought herself
awkward, had she forgotten it. Mr. Cheesacre sat on her right hand,
and the clergyman on her left, and she hardly spoke a word to
Bellfield. Her sweetest smiles were all given to Cheesacre. She was
specially anxious to keep her neighbour, the parson, in good-humour,
and therefore illuminated him once in every five minutes with a
passing ray, but the full splendour of her light was poured out upon
Cheesacre, as it never had before been poured. How she did flatter
him, and with what a capacious gullet did he swallow her flatteries!
Oileymead was the only paradise she had ever seen. "Ah, me; when I
think of it sometimes,--but never mind." A moment came to him when he
thought that even yet he might win the race, and send Bellfield away
howling into outer darkness. A moment came to him, and the widow saw
the moment well. "I know I have done for the best," said she, "and
therefore I shall never regret it; at any rate, it's done now."
"Not done yet," said he plaintively.
"Yes; done, and done, and done. Besides, a man in your position in
the county should always marry a wife younger than yourself,--a good
deal younger." Cheesacre did not understand the argument, but he
liked the allusion to his position in the county, and he perceived
that it was too late for any changes in the present arrangements. But
he was happy; and all that feeling of animosity to Alice had vanished
from his breast. Poor Alice! she, at any rate, was innocent. With so
much of her own to fill her mind, she had been but little able to
take her share in the Greenow festivities; and we may safely say,
that if Mr. Cheesacre's supremacy was on any occasion attacked, it
was not attacked by her. His supremacy on this occasion was paramount,
and during the dinner, and after the dinner, he was allowed to
give his orders to Bellfield in a manner that must have gratified
him much. "You must have another glass of champagne with me, my
friend," said Mrs. Greenow; and Mr. Cheesacre drank the other glass of
champagne. It was not the second nor the third that he had taken.
After dinner they started off for a ramble through the fields, and
Mrs. Greenow and Mr. Cheesacre were together. I think that Charlie
Fairstairs did not go with them at all. I think she went into the
house and washed her face, and brushed her hair, and settled her
muslin. I should not wonder if she took off her frock and ironed it
again. Captain Bellfield, I know, went with Alice, and created some
astonishment by assuring her that he fully meant to correct the error
of his ways. "I know what it is," he said, "to be connected with such
a family as yours, Miss Vavasor." He too had heard about the future
duchess, and wished to be on his best behaviour. Kate fell to the lot
of the parson.
"This is the last time we shall ever be together in this way," said
the widow to her friend.
"Oh, no," said Cheesacre; "I hope not."
"The last time. On Wednesday I become Mrs. Bellfield, and I need
hardly say that I have many things to think of before that; but Mr.
Cheesacre, I hope we are not to be strangers hereafter?" Mr. Cheesacre
said that he hoped not. Oileymead would always be open to Captain and
Mrs. Bellfield.
"We all know your hospitality," said she; "it is not to-day nor
to-morrow that I or my husband,--that is to be,--will have to learn
that. He always declares that you are the very beau ideal of an
English country gentleman."
"Merely a poor Norfolk farmer," said Cheesacre. "I never want to
put myself beyond my own place. There has been some talk about the
Commission of the Peace, but I don't think anything of it."
"It has been the greatest blessing in the world for him that he has
ever known you," said Mrs. Greenow, still talking about her future
husband.
"I've tried to be good-natured; that's all. D---- me, Mrs. Greenow,
what's the use of living if one doesn't try to be good-natured? There
isn't a better fellow than Bellfield living. He and I ran for the
same plate, and he has won it. He's a lucky fellow, and I don't
begrudge him his luck."
"That's so manly of you, Mr. Cheesacre! But, indeed, the plate you
speak of was not worth your running for."
"I may have my own opinion about that, you know."
"It was not. Nobody knows that as well as I do, or could have thought
over the whole matter so often. I know very well what my mission is
in life. The mistress of your house, Mr. Cheesacre, should not be any
man's widow."
"She wouldn't be a widow then, you know."
"A virgin heart should be yours; and a virgin heart may be yours, if
you choose to accept it."
"Oh, bother!"
"If you choose to take my solicitude on your behalf in that way, of
course I have done. You were good enough to say just now that you
wished to see me and my husband in your hospitable halls. After all
that has passed, do you think that I could be a visitor at your house
unless there is a mistress there?"
"Upon my word, I think you might."
"No, Mr. Cheesacre; certainly not. For all our sakes, I should
decline. But if you were married--"
"You are always wanting to marry me, Mrs. Greenow."
"I do, I do. It is the only way in which there can be any friendship
between us, and not for worlds would I lose that advantage for my
husband,--let alone what I may feel for myself."
"Why didn't you take me yourself, Mrs. Greenow?"
"If you can't understand, it is not for me to say anything more, Mr.
Cheesacre. If you value the warm affection of a virgin heart--"
"Why, Mrs. Greenow, all yesterday she wouldn't say a word to me."
"Not say a word to you? Is that all you know about it? Are you so
ignorant that you cannot see when a girl's heart is breaking beneath
her stays?" This almost improper allusion had quite an effect on Mr.
Cheesacre's sensitive bosom. "Did you say a word to her yesterday?
And if not, why have you said so many words before?"
"Oh, Mrs. Greenow; come!"
"It is, oh, Mrs. Greenow. But it is time that we should go back
to them." They had been sitting all this time on a bank, under a
hedge. "We will have our tea, and you shall have your pipe and
brandy-and-water, and Charlie shall bring it to you. Shall she, Mr.
Cheesacre?"
"If she likes she shall, of course."
"Do you ask her, and she'll like it it quick enough. But remember,
Mr. Cheesacre, I'm quite serious in what I say about your having a
mistress for your house. Only think what an age you'll be when your
children grow up, if you don't marry soon now."
They returned to the field in which they had dined, and found Charlie
under the trees, with her muslin looking very fresh. "What, all
a-mort?" said Mrs. Greenow. Charlie did not quite understand this, but
replied that she preferred being alone. "I have told him that you
should fill his pipe for him," said Mrs. Greenow. "He doesn't care for
ladies to fill his pipe for him," said Charlie. "Do you try," said
the widow, "while I go indoors and order the tea."
It had been necessary to put the bait very close before Cheesacre's
eyes, or there would have been no hope that he might take it. The
bait had been put so very close that we must feel sure that he saw
the hook. But there are fish so silly that they will take the bait
although they know the hook is there. Cheesacre understood it all.
Many things he could not see, but he could see that Mrs. Greenow
was trying to catch him as a husband for Charlie Fairstairs; and he
knew also that he had always despised Charlie, and that no worldly
advantage whatever would accrue to him by a marriage with such a
girl. But there she was, and he didn't quite know how to avoid it.
She did look rather nice in her clear-starched muslin frock, and he
felt that he should like to kiss her. He needn't marry her because
he kissed her. The champagne which had created the desire also gave
him the audacity. He gave one glance around him to see that he was
not observed, and then he did kiss Charlie Fairstairs under the
trees. "Oh, Mr. Cheesacre," said Charlie. "Oh, Mr. Cheesacre," echoed
a laughing voice; and poor Cheesacre, looking round, saw that Mrs.
Greenow, who ought to have been inside the house looking after the
boiling water, was moving about for some unknown reason within sight
of the spot which he had chosen for his dalliance.
"Mr. Cheesacre," said Charlie sobbing, "how dare you do that?--and
where all the world could see you?"
"It was only Mrs. Greenow," said Cheesacre.
"And what will she think of me?"
"Lord bless you--she won't think anything about it."
"But I do;--I think a great deal about it. I don't know what to do,
I don't;--I don't." Whereupon Charlie got up from her seat under the
trees and began to move away slowly. Cheesacre thought about it for
a moment or two. Should he follow her or should he not? He knew that
he had better not follow her. He knew that she was bait with a very
visible hook. He knew that he was a big fish for whom these two women
were angling. But after all, perhaps it wouldn't do him much harm to
be caught. So he got up and followed her. I don't suppose she meant
to take the way towards the woods,--towards the little path leading
to the old summer-house up in the trees. She was too much beside
herself to know where she was going, no doubt. But that was the
path she did take, and before long she and Cheesacre were in the
summerhouse together. "Don't, Sam, don't! Somebody really will be
coming. Well, then, there. Now I won't do it again." 'Twas thus she
spoke when the last kiss was given on this occasion;--unless there
may have been one or two later in the evening, to which it is not
necessary more especially to allude here. But on the occasion of that
last kiss in the summer-house Miss Fairstairs was perfectly justified
by circumstances, for she was then the promised bride of Mr.
Cheesacre.
But how was he to get down again among his friends? That
consideration troubled Mr. Cheesacre as he rose from his happy seat
after that last embrace. He had promised Charlie, and perhaps he
would keep his promise, but it might be as well not to make it all
too public at once. But Charlie wasn't going to be thrown over;--not
if she knew it, as she said to herself. She returned therefore
triumphantly among them all,--blushing indeed, and with her eyes
turned away, and her hand now remained upon her lover's arm;--but
still so close to him that there could be no mistake. "Goodness,
gracious, Charlie! where have you and Mr. Cheesacre been?" said Mrs.
Greenow. "We got up into the woods and lost ourselves," said Charlie.
"Oh, indeed," said Mrs. Greenow.
It would be too long to tell now, in these last pages of our story,
how Cheesacre strove to escape, and with what skill Mrs. Greenow kept
him to his bargain. I hope that Charlie Fairstairs was duly grateful.
Before that evening was over, under the comfortable influence of
a glass of hot brandy-and-water,--the widow had, I think, herself
mixed the second glass for Mr. Cheesacre, before the influence became
sufficiently comfortable,--he was forced to own that he had made
himself the happy possessor of Charlie Fairstairs' heart and hand.
"And you are a lucky man," said the widow with enthusiasm; "and I
congratulate you with all my heart. Don't let there be any delay now,
because a good thing can't be done too soon." And indeed, before
that night was over, Mrs. Greenow had the pair together in her own
presence, and then fixed the day. "A fellow ought to be allowed to
turn himself," Cheesacre said to her, pleading for himself in a
whisper. But no; Mrs. Greenow would give him no such mercy. She knew
to what a man turning himself might probably lead. She was a woman
who was quite in earnest when she went to work, and I hope that
Miss Fairstairs was grateful. Then, in that presence, was in truth
the last kiss given on that eventful evening. "Come, Charlie, be
good-natured to him. He's as good as your own now," said the widow.
And Charlie was good-natured. "It's to be as soon as ever we come
back from our trip," said Mrs. Greenow to Kate, the next day, "and
I'm lending her money to get all her things at once. He shall come to
the scratch, though I go all the way to Norfolk by myself and fetch
him by his ears. He shall come, as sure as my name's Greenow,--or
Bellfield, as it will be then, you know."
"And I shouldn't wonder if she did have to go to Norfolk," said Kate
to her cousin. That event, however, cannot be absolutely concluded in
these pages. I can only say that, when I think of Mrs. Greenow's force
of character and warmth of friendship, I feel that Miss Fairstairs'
prospects stand on good ground.
Mrs. Greenow's own marriage was completed with perfect success. She
took Captain Bellfield for better or for worse, with a thorough
determination to make the best of his worst, and to put him on his
legs, if any such putting might be possible. He, at any rate, had
been in luck. If any possible stroke of fortune could do him good, he
had found that stroke. He had found a wife who could forgive all his
past offences,--and also, if necessary, some future offences; who
had money enough for all his wants, and kindness enough to gratify
them, and who had, moreover,--which for the Captain was the most
important,--strength enough to keep from him the power of ruining
them both. Reader, let us wish a happy married life to Captain and
Mrs. Bellfield!
The day after the ceremony Alice Vavasor and Kate Vavasor started for
Matching Priory.
CHAPTER LXXIX.
Diamonds Are Diamonds.
Kate and Alice, as they drew near to their journey's end, were both
a little flurried, and I cannot but own that there was cause for
nervousness. Kate Vavasor was to meet Mr. Grey for the first time. Mr.
Grey was now staying at Matching and was to remain there until a week
of his marriage. He was then to return to Cambridgeshire for a day
or two, and after that was to become a guest at the rector's house
at Matching the evening before the ceremony. "Why not let him come
here at once?" Lady Glencora had said to her husband. "It is such
nonsense, you know." But Mr. Palliser would not hear of it. Mr.
Palliser, though a Radical in public life, would not for worlds
transgress the social laws of his ancestors; and so the matter was
settled. Kate on this very day of her arrival at Matching would thus
see Mr. Grey for the first time, and she could not but feel that she
had been the means of doing Mr. Grey much injury. She had moreover
something,--not much indeed, but still something,--of that feeling
which made the Pallisers terrible to the imagination, because of
their rank and wealth. She was a little afraid of the Pallisers, but
of Mr. Grey she was very much afraid. And Alice also was not at her
ease. She would fain have prevented so very quick a marriage had she
not felt that now,--after all the trouble that she had caused,--there
was nothing left for her but to do as others wished. When a day
had been named she had hardly dared to demur, and had allowed Lady
Glencora to settle everything as she had wished. But it was not
only the suddenness of her marriage which dismayed her. Its nature
and attributes were terrible to her. Both Lady Midlothian and the
Marchioness of Auld Reekie were coming. When this was told to her by
letter she had no means of escape. "Lady Macleod is right in nearly
all that she says," Lady Glencora had written to her. "At any rate,
you needn't be such a fool as to run away from your cousins, simply
because they have handles to their names. You must take the thing
as it comes." Lady Glencora, moreover, had settled for her the list
of bridesmaids. Alice had made a petition that she might be allowed
to go through the ceremony with only one,--with none but Kate to
back her. But she ought to have known that when she consented to be
married at Matching,--and indeed she had had very little power of
resisting that proposition,--all such questions would be decided for
her. Two daughters therefore of Lady Midlothian were to act, Lady
Jane and Lady Mary, and the one daughter of the Marchioness, who was
also a Lady Jane, and there were to be two Miss Howards down from
London,--girls who were known both to Alice and to Lady Glencora,
and who were in some distant way connected with them both. A great
attempt was made to induce the two Miss Pallisers to join the bevy,
but they had frankly pleaded their age. "No woman should stand up as
a bridesmaid," said the strong-minded Sophy, "who doesn't mean to get
married if she can. Now I don't mean to get married, and I won't put
myself among the young people." Lady Glencora was therefore obliged
to submit to do the work with only six. But she swore that they
should be very smart. She was to give all the dresses, and Mr.
Palliser was to give a brooch and an armlet to each. "She is the only
person in the world I want to pet, except yourself," Lady Glencora
had said to her husband, and he had answered by giving her _carte
blanche_ as regards expense.
[Illustration: Alice and her bridesmaids.]
All this was very terrible to Kate, who had not much feminine taste
for finery. Of the dress she had heard,--of the dress which was
waiting at Matching to be made up after her arrival,--though as yet
she knew nothing of the trinkets. There are many girls who could
submit themselves at a moment to the kindness of such a woman as Lady
Glencora. Perhaps most girls would do so, for of all such women in
the world, Lady Glencora was the least inclined to patronize or to
be condescending in her kindnesses. But Kate Vavasor was one to whom
such submission would not come easily.
"I wish I was out of this boat," she said to Alice in the train.
"So that I might be shipwrecked alone!"
"No; there can be no shipwreck to you. When the day of action comes
you will be taken away, up to heaven, upon the clouds. But what are
they to do with me?"
"You'll find that Glencora will not desert you. You can't conceive
what taste she has."
"I'd sooner be bridesmaid to Charlie Fairstairs. I would indeed.
My place in the world is not among Cabinet Ministers and old
countesses."
"Nor mine."
"Yes; it seems that yours is to be there. They are your cousins, and
you have made at any rate one great friend among them,--one who is to
be the biggest of them all."
"And you are going to throw me over, Kate?"
"To tell the truth, Alice, I sometimes think you had better throw me
over. I know it would be sad,--sad for both, but perhaps it would be
better. I have done you much harm and no good; and now where I am
going I shall disgrace you." She talked even of getting out at some
station and returning, and would have done so had not Alice made
it impossible. As it was, the evening found her and Alice together
entering the park-gate at Matching, in Lady Glencora's carriage.
Lady Glencora had sent a note to the station. "She could not come
herself," she said, "because Mr. Palliser was a little fussy. You'll
understand, dear, but don't say a word." Alice didn't say a word,
having been very anxious not to lower Mr. Palliser in her cousin's
respect.
None of the Lady Janes and Lady Marys were at Matching when they
arrived. Indeed, there was no guest there but Mr. Grey, for which Kate
felt herself to be extremely grateful. Mr. Grey came into the hall,
standing behind Mr. Palliser, who stood behind his wife. Alice passed
by them both, and was at once in her lover's arms. "Then I must
introduce myself," said Lady Glencora to Kate, "and my husband also."
This she did, and no woman in England could have excelled her in
the manner of doing it. "I have heard so much about you," said she,
still keeping Kate's hand, "and I know how good you've been;--and
how wicked you have been," she added in a whisper. Then Mr. Grey was
brought up to her, and they were introduced. It was not till some
days had passed over them that she felt herself at all at her ease
with Mr. Grey, and I doubt whether she ever reached that point with Mr.
Palliser; but Lady Glencora she knew, and liked, and almost loved,
from the first moment of their meeting.
"Have you heard the news?" said Lady Glencora to Alice, the first
minute that they were alone. Alice, of course, had not heard the
news. "Mr. Bott is going to marry Mrs. Marsham. There is such a row
about it. Plantagenet is nearly mad. I never knew him so disgusted in
my life. Of course I don't dare to tell him so, but I am so heartily
rejoiced. You know how I love them both, and I could not possibly
wish any better reward for either." Alice, who had personally known
more of Mr. Bott than of Mrs. Marsham, said that she couldn't but be
sorry for the lady. "She's old enough to be his mother," said Lady
Glencora, "otherwise I really don't know any people better suited
to each other. The best is, that Mr. Bott is doing it to regain his
footing with Mr. Palliser! I am sure of that;--and Plantagenet will
never speak to him again. But, Alice, there is other news."
"What other news?"
"It is hardly news yet, and of course I am very wicked to tell you.
But I feel sure Mr. Grey knows all about it, and if I didn't tell, he
would."
"He hasn't told me anything yet."
"He hasn't had time; and when he does, you mustn't pretend to know.
I believe Mr. Palliser will certainly be Chancellor of the Exchequer
before next month, and, if so, he'll never come in for Silverbridge
again."
"But he'll be in Parliament; will he not?"
"Oh, yes; he'll be in Parliament. I don't understand all about it.
There is a man going out for the county,--for Barsetshire,--some man
whom the Duke used to favour, and he wants Plantagenet to come in for
that. I can't understand what difference it makes."
"But he will be in the Cabinet?"
"Oh, yes. But who do you suppose is to be the new Member for
Silverbridge?"
"I can't guess," said Alice. Though, of course, she did guess.
"Mind, I don't know it. He has never told me. But he told me that
he had been with the Duke, and asked the Duke to let Jeffrey have
the seat. The Duke became as black as thunder, and said that Jeffrey
had no fortune. In short, he wouldn't hear of it. Poor Jeffrey!
we must try to do something for him, but I really don't know how.
Then the Duke said, that Plantagenet should put in for Silverbridge
some friend who would support himself; and I fancy,--mind it's only
fancy,--but I fancy that Plantagenet mentioned to his Grace--one Mr.
Grey."
"Oh, Glencora!"
"They've been talking together till sometimes I think Mr. Grey is
worse than Plantagenet. When Mr. Grey began to say something the other
night in the drawing-room about sugar, I knew it was all up with you.
He'll be a financial Secretary; you see if he isn't; or a lord of
something, or an under-somebody of State; and then some day he'll
go mad, either because he does or because he doesn't get into the
Cabinet." Lady Glencora, as she said all this, knew well that the
news she was giving would please her cousin better than any other
tidings that could be told.
By degrees the guests came. The two Miss Howards were the first, and
they expressed themselves as delighted with Lady Glencora's taste
and with Mr. Palliser's munificence,--for at that time the brooches
and armlets had been produced. Kate had said very little about
these matters, but the Miss Howards were loud in their thanks. But
they were good-humoured, merry girls, and the house was pleasanter
after their arrival than it had been before. Then came the dreaded
personage,--the guest,--Lady Midlothian! On the subject of Lady
Midlothian Kate had really become curious. She had a real desire
to see the face and gait of the woman, and to hear her voice. Lady
Midlothian came, and with her came Lady Jane and Lady Mary. I am by
no means sure that Lady Jane and Lady Mary were not nearly as old as
the two Miss Pallisers; but they were not probably so fully resolved
as to the condition of their future modes of living as were those two
ladies, and if so, they were not wrong to shine as bridesmaids. With
them Alice had made some slight acquaintance during the last spring
in London, and as they were now to attend upon her as the bride they
were sufficiently gracious. To Kate, too, they were civil enough, and
things, in public, went on very pleasantly at Matching.
A scene there was, of course, between Alice and Lady Midlothian;--a
scene in private. "You must go through it," Lady Glencora had said,
with jocose mournfulness; "and why should you not let her jump upon
you a little? It can't hurt you now."
"But I don't like people to jump upon me," Alice said.
"And why are you to have everything just as you like it? You are so
unreasonable. Think how I've been jumped on! Think what I have borne
from them! If you knew the things she used to say to me, you would
not be such a coward. I was sent down to her for a week, and had no
power of helping myself. And the Marchioness used to be sent for to
look at me, for she never talks. She used to look at me, and groan,
and hold up her hands till I hated her the worst of the two. Think
what they did to me, and yet they are my dear friends now. Why should
you escape altogether?"
Alice could not escape altogether, and therefore was closeted with
Lady Midlothian for the best part of an hour. "Did Lady Macleod read
to you what I wrote?" the Countess asked.
"Yes,--that is, she gave me the letter to read."
"And I hope you understand me, Alice?"
"Oh, yes, I suppose so."
"You suppose so, my dear! If you only suppose so I shall not
be contented. I want you to appreciate my feelings towards you
thoroughly. I want you to know that I am most anxious as to your
future life, and that I am thoroughly satisfied with the step you are
now taking." The Countess paused, but Alice said nothing. Her tongue
was itching to tell the old woman that she cared nothing for this
expression of satisfaction; but she was aware that she had done much
that was deserving of punishment, and resolved to take this as part
of her penance. She was being jumped upon, and it was unpleasant;
but, after all that had happened, it was only fitting that she should
undergo much unpleasantness. "Thoroughly satisfied," continued the
Countess; "and now, I only wish to refer, in the slightest manner
possible, to what took place between us when we were both of us under
this roof last winter."
"Why refer to it at all, Lady Midlothian?"
"Because I think it may do good, and because I cannot make you
understand that I have thoroughly forgiven everything, unless I tell
you that I have forgiven that also. On that occasion I had come all
the way from Scotland on purpose to say a few words to you."
"I am so sorry that you should have had the trouble."
"I do not regret it, Alice. I never do regret doing anything which
I believe to have been my duty. There is no knowing how far what I
said then may have operated for good." Alice thought that she knew
very well, but she said nothing. "I must confess that what I then
understood to be your obstinacy,--and I must say also, if I tell the
truth, your indifference to--to--to all prudential considerations
whatever, not to talk of appearances and decorum, and I might say,
anything like a high line of duty or moral conduct,--shocked me
very much. It did, indeed, my dear. Taking it altogether, I don't
know that I was ever more shocked in my life. The thing was so
inscrutable!" Here Lady Midlothian held up one hand in a manner that
was truly imposing; "so inscrutable! But that is all over now. What
was personally offensive to myself I could easily forgive, and I do
forgive it. I shall never think of it any more." Here Lady Midlothian
put up both her hands gently, as though wafting the injury away into
the air. "But what I wish specially to say to you is this; your own
conduct is forgiven also!" Here she paused again, and Alice winced.
Who was this dreadful old Countess;--what was the Countess to her,
that she should be thus tormented with the old woman's forgiveness?
John Grey had forgiven her, and of external forgiveness that was
enough. She had not forgiven herself,--would never forgive herself
altogether; and the pardon of no old woman in England could assist
her in doing so. She had sinned, but she had not sinned against Lady
Midlothian. "Let her jump upon you, and have done with it," Lady
Glencora had said. She had resolved that it should be so, but it was
very hard to keep her resolution.
"The Marchioness and I have talked it over," continued Lady
Midlothian, "and she has asked me to speak for both her and myself."
There is comfort at any rate in that, thought Alice, who had never
yet seen the Marchioness. "We have resolved that all those little
mistakes should be as though they had never been committed. We shall
both be most happy to receive you and your husband, who is, I must
say, one of the most gentlemanlike looking men I ever saw. It seems
that he and Mr. Palliser are on most friendly,--I may say, most
confidential terms, and that must be quite a pleasure to you."
"It's a pleasure to him, which is more to the purpose," said Alice.
"Exactly so. And now, my dear, everything is forgiven and shall be
forgotten. Come and give me a kiss, and let me wish you joy." Alice
did as she was bidden, and accepted the kiss and the congratulations,
and a little box of jewellery which Lady Midlothian produced from out
of her pocket. "The diamonds are from the Marchioness, my dear, whose
means, as you doubtless are aware, greatly exceed my own. The garnets
are from me. I hope they may both be worn long and happily."
I hardly know which was the worst, the lecture, the kiss, or the
present. The latter she would have declined, had it been possible;
but it was not possible. When she had agreed to be married at
Matching she had not calculated the amount of punishment which would
thereby be inflicted on her. But I think that, though she bore it
impatiently, she was aware that she had deserved it. Although she
fretted herself greatly under the infliction of Lady Midlothian, she
acknowledged to herself, even at the time, that she deserved all
the lashes she received. She had made a fool of herself in her vain
attempt to be greater and grander than other girls, and it was only
fair that her folly should be in some sort punished before it was
fully pardoned. John Grey punished it after one fashion; by declining
to allude to it, or to think of it, or to take any account of it. And
now Lady Midlothian had punished it after another fashion, and Alice
went out of the Countess's presence with sundry inward exclamations
of "mea culpa," and with many unseen beatings of the breast.
Two days before the ceremony came the Marchioness and her august
daughter. Her Lady Jane was much more august than the other Lady
Jane;--very much more august indeed. She had very long flaxen hair,
and very light blue eyes, which she did not move frequently, and she
spoke very little,--one may almost say not at all, and she never
seemed to do anything. But she was very august, and was, as all the
world knew, engaged to marry the Duke of Dumfriesshire, who, though
twice her own age, was as yet childless, as soon as he should have
completed his mourning for his first wife. Kate told her cousin that
she did not at all know how she should ever stand up as one in a
group with so august a person as this Lady Jane, and Alice herself
felt that such an attendant would quite obliterate her. But Lady Jane
and her mother were both harmless. The Marchioness never spoke to
Kate and hardly spoke to Alice, and the Marchioness's Lady Jane was
quite as silent as her mother.
On the morning of this day,--the day on which these very august
people came,--a telegram arrived at the Priory calling for Mr.
Palliser's immediate presence in London. He came to Alice full of
regret, and behaved himself very nicely. Alice now regarded him quite
as a friend. "Of course I understand," she said, "and I know that the
business which takes you up to London pleases you." "Well; yes;--it
does please me. I am glad,--I don't mind saying so to you. But it
does not please me to think that I shall be away at your marriage.
Pray make your father understand that it was absolutely unavoidable.
But I shall see him, of course, when I come back. And I shall see you
too before very long."
"Shall you?"
"Oh yes."
"And why so?"
"Because Mr. Grey must be at Silverbridge for his election.--But
perhaps I ought not tell you his secrets." Then he took her into the
breakfast-parlour and showed her his present. It was a service of
Sèvres china,--very precious and beautiful. "I got you these things
because Grey likes china."
"So do I like china," said she, with her face brighter than he had
ever yet seen it.
"I thought you would like them best," said he. Alice looking up at
him with her eyes full of tears told him that she did like them best;
and then, as he wished her all happiness, and as he was stooping over
her to kiss her, Lady Glencora came in.
"I beg pardon," said she, "I was just one minute too soon; was I
not?"
"She would have them sent here and unpacked," said Mr. Palliser,
"though I told her it was foolish."
"Of course I would," said Lady Glencora. "Everything shall be
unpacked and shown. It's easy to get somebody to pack them again."
Much of the wedding tribute had already been deposited with the
china, and among other things there were the jewels that Lady
Midlothian had brought.
"Upon my word, her ladyship's diamonds are not to be sneezed at,"
said Lady Glencora.
"I don't care for diamonds," said Alice.
Then Lady Glencora took up the Countess's trinkets, and shook her
head and turned up her nose. There was a wonderfully comic expression
on her face as she did so.
"To me they are just as good as the others," said Alice.
"To me they are not, then," said Lady Glencora. "Diamonds are
diamonds, and garnets are garnets; and I am not so romantic but what
I know the difference."
On the evening before the marriage Alice and Lady Glencora walked for
the last time through the Priory ruins. It was now September, and the
evenings were still long, so that the ladies could get out upon the
lawn after dinner. Whether Lady Glencora would have been allowed to
walk through the ruins so late as half-past eight in the evening if
her husband had been there may be doubtful, but her husband was away
and she took this advantage of his absence.
"Do you remember that night we were here?" said Lady Glencora.
"When shall I forget it; or how is it possible that such a night
should ever be forgotten?"
"No; I shall never forget it. Oh dear, what wonderful things have
happened since that! Do you ever think of Jeffrey?"
"Yes;--of course I think of him. I did like him so much. I hope I
shall see him some day."
"And he liked you too, young woman; and, what was more, young woman,
I thought at one time that, perhaps, you were going to like him in
earnest."
"Not in that way, certainly."
"You've done much better, of course; especially as poor Jeffrey's
chance of promotion doesn't look so good now. If I have a boy, I
wonder whether he'll hate me?"
"Why should he hate you?"
"I can't help it, you know, if he does. Only think what it is to
Plantagenet. Have you seen the difference it makes in him already?"
"Of course it makes a difference;--the greatest difference in the
world."
"And think what it will be to me, Alice. I used to lie in bed and
wish myself dead, and make up my mind to drown myself,--if I could
only dare. I shan't think any more of that poor fellow now." Then she
told Alice what had been done for Burgo; how his uncle had paid his
bills once again, and had agreed to give him a small income. "Poor
fellow!" said Lady Glencora, "it won't do more than buy him gloves,
you know."
The marriage was magnificent, greatly to the dismay of Alice and
to the discomfort of Mr. Vavasor, who came down on the eve of the
ceremony,--arriving while his daughter and Lady Glencora were in
the ruins. Mr. Grey seemed to take it all very easily, and, as Lady
Glencora said, played his part exactly as though he were in the habit
of being married, at any rate, once a year. "Nothing on earth will
ever put him out, so you need not try, my dear," she said, as Alice
stood with her a moment alone in the dressing-room up-stairs before
her departure.
"I know that," said Alice, "and therefore I shall never try."
xxxxxxxxxx
CHAPTER LXXX.
The Story Is Finished Within the Halls of the Duke of Omnium.
Mr. Grey and wife were duly carried away from Matching Priory by post
horses, and did their honeymoon, we may be quite sure, with much
satisfaction. When Alice was first asked where she would go, she
simply suggested that it should not be to Switzerland. They did, in
truth, go by slow stages to Italy, to Venice, Florence, and on to
Rome; but such had not been their intention when they first started
on their journey. At that time Mr. Grey believed that he would be
wanted again in England, down at Silverbridge in Barsetshire, very
shortly. But before he had married a week he learned that all that
was to be postponed. The cup of fruition had not yet reached Mr.
Palliser's lips. "There will be no vacancy either in the county or in
the borough till Parliament meets." That had been the message sent
by Mr. Palliser to Mr. Grey. Lady Glencora's message to Alice had been
rather more full, having occupied three pages of note paper, the
last of which had been crossed, but I do not know that it was more
explicit. She had abused Lord Brock, had abused Mr. Finespun, and had
abused all public things and institutions, because the arrangements
as now proposed would be very comfortable to Alice, but would not,
as she was pleased to think, be very comfortable to herself. "You
can go to Rome and see everything and enjoy yourself, which I was
not allowed to do; and all this noise and bother, and crowd of
electioneering, will take place down in Barsetshire just when I am in
the middle of all my trouble." There were many very long letters came
from Lady Glencora to Rome during the winter,--letters which Alice
enjoyed thoroughly, but which she could not but regard as being very
indiscreet. The Duke was at the Castle during the Christmas week, and
the descriptions of the Duke and of his solicitude as to his heir
were very comic. "He comes and bends over me on the sofa in the most
stupendous way, as though a woman to be the mother of his heir must
be a miracle in nature. He is quite awful when he says a word or two,
and more awful in his silence. The devil prompted me the other day,
and I said I hoped it would be a girl. There was a look came over his
face which nearly frightened me. If it should be, I believe he will
turn me out of the house; but how can I help it? I wish you were
going to have a baby at the same time. Then, if yours was a boy and
mine a girl, we'd make a change." This was very indiscreet. Lady
Glencora would write indiscreet letters like this, which Alice could
not show to her husband. It was a thousand pities.
But December and January wore themselves away, and the time came in
which the Greys were bound to return to England. The husband had
very fully discussed with his wife that matter of his parliamentary
ambition, and found in her a very ready listener. Having made up
his mind to do this thing, he was resolved to do it thoroughly, and
was becoming almost as full of politics, almost as much devoted to
sugar, as Mr. Palliser himself. He at any rate could not complain that
his wife would not interest herself in his pursuits. Then, as they
returned, came letters from Lady Glencora, written as her troubles
grew nigh. The Duke had gone, of course; but he was to be there at
the appointed time. "Oh, I do so wish he would have a fit of the gout
in London,--or at Timbuctoo," said Lady Glencora. When they reached
London they first heard the news from Mr. Vavasor, who on this
occasion condescended to meet them at the railway. "The Duke has got
an heir," he said, before the carriage-door was open;--"born this
morning!" One might have supposed that it was the Duke's baby, and
not the baby of Lady Glencora and Mr. Palliser. There was a note from
Mr. Palliser to Mr. Grey. "Thank God!" said the note, "Lady Glencora
and the boy"--Mr. Palliser had scorned to use the word child--"Lady
Glencora and the boy are quite as well as can be expected. Both the
new writs were moved for last night." Mr. Palliser's honours, as will
be seen, came rushing upon him all at once.
Wondrous little baby,--_purpureo genitus!_ What have the gods not
done for thee, if thou canst only manage to live till thy good things
are all thine own,--to live through all the terrible solicitude with
which they will envelope thee! Better than royal rank will be thine,
with influence more than royal, and power of action fettered by no
royalty. Royal wealth which will be really thine own, to do with it
as it beseemeth thee. Thou wilt be at the top of an aristocracy in a
country where aristocrats need gird themselves with no buckram. All
that the world can give will be thine; and yet when we talk of thee
religiously, philosophically, or politico-economically, we are wont
to declare that thy chances of happiness are no better,--no better,
if they be no worse,--than are those of thine infant neighbour just
born, in that farmyard cradle. Who shall say that they are better or
that they are worse? Or if they be better, or if they be worse, how
shall we reconcile to ourselves that seeming injustice?
And now we will pay a little visit to the small one born in the
purple, and the story of that visit shall be the end of our history.
It was early in April, quite early in April, and Mr. and Mrs. Grey were
both at Gatherum Castle. Mrs. Grey was there at the moment of which
we write, but Mr. Grey was absent at Silverbridge with Mr. Palliser.
This was the day of the Silverbridge election, and Mr. Grey had gone
to that ancient borough, to offer himself as a candidate to the
electors, backed by the presence and aid of a very powerful member of
the Cabinet. Lady Glencora and Alice were sitting up-stairs with the
small, purple-born one in their presence, and the small, purple-born
one was lying in Alice's lap.
"It is such a comfort that it is over," said the mother.
"You are the most ungrateful of women."
"Oh, Alice,--if you could have known! Your baby may come just as it
pleases. You won't lie awake trembling how on earth you will bear
your disgrace if one of the vile weaker sex should come to disturb
the hopes of your lords and masters;--for I had two, which made it so
much more terrible."
"I'm sure Mr. Palliser would not have said a word."
"No, he would have said nothing,--nor would the Duke. The Duke would
simply have gone away instantly, and never have seen me again till
the next chance comes,--if it ever does come. And Mr. Palliser would
have been as gentle as a dove;--much more gentle than he is now, for
men are rarely gentle in their triumph. But I should have known what
they both thought and felt."
"It's all right now, dear."
"Yes, my bonny boy,--you have made it all right for me;--have you
not?" And Lady Glencora took her baby into her own arms. "You have
made everything right, my little man. But oh, Alice, if you had seen
the Duke's long face through those three days; if you had heard the
tones of the people's voices as they whispered about me; if you
had encountered the oppressive cheerfulness of those two London
doctors,--doctors are such bad actors,--you would have thought it
impossible for any woman to live throughout. There's one comfort;--if
my mannikin lives, I can't have another eldest. He looks like
living;--don't he, Alice?" Then were perpetrated various mysterious
ceremonies of feminine idolatry which were continued till there came
a grandly dressed old lady, who called herself the nurse, and who
took the idol away.
[Illustration: "Yes, my bonny boy,--you have made it
all right for me."]
In the course of that afternoon Lady Glencora took Alice all over
the house. It was a castle of enormous size, quite new,--having been
built by the present proprietor,--very cold, very handsome, and very
dull. "What an immense place!" said Alice, as she stood looking round
her in the grand hall, which was never used as an entrance except on
very grand occasions. "Is it not? And it cost--oh, I can't tell you
how much it cost. A hundred thousand pounds or more. Well;--that
would be nothing, as the Duke no doubt had the money in his pocket
to do what he liked with at the time. But the joke is, nobody ever
thinks of living here. Who'd live in such a great, overgrown place
such as this, if they could get a comfortable house like Matching? Do
you remember Longroyston and the hot-water pipes? I always think of
the poor Duchess when I come through here. Nobody ever lives here, or
ever will. The Duke comes for one week in the year, and Plantagenet
says he hates to do that. As for me, nothing on earth shall ever make
me live here. I was completely in their power and couldn't help their
bringing me here the other day;--because I had, as it were, disgraced
myself."
"How disgraced yourself?"
"In being so long, you know, before that gentleman was born. But they
shan't play me the same trick again. I shall dare to assert myself,
now. Come,--we must go away. There are some of the British public
come to see one of the British sights. That's another pleasure here.
One has to run about to avoid being caught by the visitors. The
housekeeper tells me they always grumble because they are not allowed
to go into my little room up-stairs."
On the evening of that day Mr. Palliser and Mr. Grey returned home from
Silverbridge together. The latter was then a Member of Parliament,
but the former at that moment was the possessor of no such dignity.
The election for the borough was now over, whereas that for the
county had not yet taken place. But there was no rival candidate for
the position, and Mr. Palliser was thoroughly contented with his fate.
He was at this moment actually Chancellor of the Exchequer, and in
about ten days' time would be on his legs in the House proposing for
his country's use his scheme of finance. The two men were seated
together in an open carriage, and were being whirled along by four
horses. They were both no doubt happy in their ambition, but I think
that of the two, Mr. Palliser showed his triumph the most. Not that he
spoke even to his friend a word that was triumphant in its tone. It
was not thus that he rejoiced. He was by nature too placid for that.
But there was a nervousness in his contentment which told the tale to
any observer who might know how to read it.
"I hope you'll like it," he said to Grey.
"I shall never like it as you do," Grey answered.
"And why not;--why not?"
"In the first place, I have not begun it so young."
"Any time before thirty-five is young enough."
"For useful work, yes,--but hardly for enjoyment in the thing. And
then I don't believe it all as you do. To you the British House of
Commons is everything."
"Yes;--everything," said Mr. Palliser with unwonted
enthusiasm;--"everything, everything. That and the Constitution are
everything."
"It is not so to me."
"Ah, but it will be. If you really take to the work, and put yourself
into harness, it will be so. You'll get to feel it as I do. The man
who is counted by his colleagues as number one on the Treasury Bench
in the English House of Commons, is the first of living men. That's
my opinion. I don't know that I ever said it before; but that's my
opinion."
"And who is the second;--the purse-bearer to this great man?"
"I say nothing about the second. I don't know that there is any
second. I wonder how we shall find Lady Glencora and the boy." They
had then arrived at the side entrance to the Castle, and Mr. Grey ran
up-stairs to his wife's room to receive her congratulations.
"And you are a Member of Parliament?" she asked.
"They tell me so, but I don't know whether I actually am one till
I've taken the oaths."
"I am so happy. There's no position in the world so glorious!"
"It's a pity you are not Mr. Palliser's wife. That's just what he has
been saying."
"Oh, John, I am so happy. It is so much more than I have deserved. I
hope,--that is, I sometimes think--"
"Think what, dearest?"
"I hope nothing that I have ever said has driven you to it."
"I'd do more than that, dear, to make you happy," he said, as he put
his arm round her and kissed her; "more than that, at least if it
were in my power."
Probably my readers may agree with Alice, that in the final
adjustment of her affairs she had received more than she had
deserved. All her friends, except her husband, thought so. But as
they have all forgiven her, including even Lady Midlothian herself, I
hope that they who have followed her story to its close will not be
less generous.
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