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 tufthunting, 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 tomorrow, 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 tomorrow? 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.
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?”
“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 Cœur 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 upstairs, dear. I told them to let us have tea in my dressingroom, 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 upstairs till dinnertime.” So saying she skipped upstairs and Alice followed her. “Here’s my dressingroom, and here’s your room all but opposite. You look out into the park. It’s pretty, isn’t it? But come into my dressingroom, and see the ruins out of the window.”
Alice followed Lady Glencora across the passage into what she called her dressingroom, 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 dressingroom 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 dressingroom is a dressingroom, 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 downstairs,” 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 downstairs. 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 downstairs 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.
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 goodnatured, 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 Glencowrer. 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 illnatured 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 tonight, 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?”
“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 upstairs 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.
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 hardworking 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 manœuvres, 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 Glencowrer?’“
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.”
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 illtreated 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 talebearing.”
“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 tonight!” 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 upstairs 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 upstairs. 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 waistcoat 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 goodnatured 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 upstairs 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 dressingroom 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.”
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 upstairs with an anxious heart, because she knew that her cousin was in the room downstairs. 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 armchair, 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 tomorrow,—indeed, I thought of going tomorrow.”
“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 upstairs, 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.
“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.
“Goodbye 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.
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 upstairs, 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 stonework 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.
“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 illtreated 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.
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 tomorrow 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 tomorrow morning, goodbye.”
“You will certainly not see me tomorrow morning.”
“Goodbye. 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 upstairs, 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 tomorrow, 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.
“Goodbye, 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.
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 godlike 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 tomorrow 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 cabstand 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 tonight.” 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?”
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.