We must go back for a few pages to scenes which happened in London during this summer, so that the reader may understand Mr Grey’s position when he reached Lucerne. He had undergone another quarrel with George Vavasor, and something of the circumstances of that quarrel must be told.
It has been already said that George Vavasor lost his election for the Chelsea Districts, after all the money which he had spent — money which he had been so ill able to spend, and on which he had laid his hands in a manner so disreputable! He had received two thousand pounds from the bills which Alice had executed on his behalf — or rather, had received the full value of three out of the four bills, and a part of the value of the fourth, on which he had been driven to raise what immediate money he had wanted by means of a Jew bill-discounter. One thousand pounds he had paid over at once into the hands of Mr Scruby, his Parliamentary election agent, towards the expenses of his election; and when the day of polling arrived had exactly in his hands the sum of five hundred pounds. Where he was to get more when this was gone he did not know. If he were successful — if the enlightened constituents of the Chelsea Districts, contented with his efforts on behalf of the River Bank, should again send him to Parliament, he thought that he might still carry on the war. A sum of ready money he would have in hand; and, as to his debts, he would be grandly indifferent to any consideration of them. Then there might be pickings in the way of a Member of Parliament of his calibre. Companies — mercantile companies — would be glad to have him as a director, paying him a guinea a day, or perhaps more, for his hour’s attendance. Railways in want of vice-chairmen might bid for his services; and in the City he might turn that “M.P.” which belonged to him to good account in various ways. With such a knowledge of the City world as he possessed, he thought that he could pick up a living in London, if only he could retain his seat in Parliament.
But what was he to do if he could not retain it? No sooner had Mr Scruby got the thousand pounds into his clutches than he pressed for still more money. George Vavasor, with some show of justice on his side, pointed out to this all-devouring agent that the sum demanded had already been paid. This Mr Scruby admitted, declaring that he was quite prepared to go on without any further immediate remittance, although by doing so he might subject himself to considerable risk. But another five hundred pounds, paid at once, would add greatly to the safety of the seat; whereas eight hundred judiciously thrown in at the present moment would make the thing quite secure. But Vavasor swore to himself that he would not part with another shilling. Never had he felt such love for money as he did for that five hundred pounds which he now held in his pocket. “It’s no use,” he said to Mr Scruby. “I have done what you asked, and would have done more had you asked for more at that time. As it is, I cannot make another payment before the election.” Mr Scruby shrugged his shoulders, and said that he would do his best. But George Vavasor soon knew that the man was not doing his best — that the man had, in truth, abandoned his cause. The landlord of The Handsome Man jeered him when he went there canvassing. “Laws, Mr Vavasor!” said the landlord of The Handsome Man, “you’re not at all the fellow for us chaps along the river — you ain’t. You’re afraid to come down with the stumpy — that’s what you are.” George put his hand upon his purse, and acknowledged to himself that he had been afraid to come down with the stumpy.
For the last five days of the affair George Vavasor knew that his chance was gone. Mr Scruby’s face, manner, and words, told the result of the election as plainly as any subsequent figures could do. He would be absent when Vavasor called, or the clerk would say that he was absent. He would answer in very few words, constantly shrugging his shoulders. He would even go away and leave the anxious candidate while he was in the middle of some discussion as to his plans. It was easy to see that Mr Scruby no longer regarded him as a successful man, and the day of the poll showed very plainly how right Mr Scruby had been.
George Vavasor was rejected, but he still had his five hundred pounds in his pocket. Of course he was subject to that mortification which a man feels when he reflects that some little additional outlay would have secured his object. Whether it might have been so, or not, who can say? But there he was, with the gateway between the lamps barred against him, ex-Member of Parliament for the Chelsea Districts, with five hundred pounds in his pocket, and little or nothing else that he could call his own. What was he to do with himself?
After trying to make himself heard upon the hustings when he was rejected, and pledging himself to stand again at the next election, he went home to his lodgings in Cecil Street, and endeavoured to consider calmly his position in the world. He had lost his inheritance. He had abandoned one profession after another, and was now beyond the pale of another chance in that direction. His ambition had betrayed him, and there were no longer possible to him any hopes of political activity. He had estranged from himself every friend that he had ever possessed. He had driven from him with violence the devotion even of his sister. He had robbed the girl whom he intended to marry of her money, and had so insulted her that no feeling of amity between them was any longer possible. He had nothing now but himself and that five hundred pounds, which he still held in his pocket. What should he do with himself and his money? He thought over it all with outer calmness for awhile, as he sat there in his armchair.
From the moment in which he had first become convinced that the election would go against him, and that he was therefore ruined on all sides, he had resolved that he would be calm amidst his ruin. Sometimes he assumed a little smile, as though he were laughing at his own position. Mr Bott’s day of rejection had come before his own, and he had written to Mr Bott a drolling note of consolation and mock sympathy. He had shaken hands with Mr Scruby, and had poked his fun at the agent, bidding him be sure to send in his little bill soon. To all who accosted him, he replied in a subrisive tone; and he bantered Calder Jones, whose seat was quite sure, till Calder Jones began to have fears that were quite unnecessary. And now, as he sat himself down, intending to come to some final decision as to what he would do, he maintained the same calmness. He smiled in the same way, though there was no one there to see the smile. He laughed even audibly once or twice, as he vainly endeavoured to persuade himself that he was able to regard the world and all that belonged to it as a bubble.
There came to him a moment in which he laughed out very audibly. “Ha! ha!” he shouted, rising up from his chair, and he walked about the room, holding a large paper-knife in his hand. “Ha! ha!” Then he threw the knife away from him, and thrusting his hands into his trouser-pockets, laughed again — “Ha! ha!” He stood still in the centre of the room, and the laughter was very plainly visible on his face, had there been anybody there to see it.
But suddenly there was a change upon his face, as he stood there all alone, and his eyes became fierce, and the cicatrice that marred his countenance grew to be red and ghastly, and he grinned with his teeth, and he clenched his fists as he still held them within his pockets. “Curse him!” he said out loud. “Curse him, now and for ever!” He had broken down in his calmness, when he thought of that old man who had opposed him during his life, and had ruined him at his death. “May all the evils which the dead can feel cling to him for ever and ever!” His laughter was all gone, and his assumed tranquillity had deserted him. Walking across the room, he struck his foot against a chair; upon this, he took the chair in his hands, and threw it across the room. But he hardly arrested the torrent of his male dictions as he did so. What good was it that he should lie to himself by that mock tranquillity, or that false laughter? He lied to himself no longer, but uttered a song of despair that was true enough. What should he do? Where should he go? From what fountain should he attempt to draw such small draughts of the water of comfort as might support him at the present moment? Unless a man have some such fountain to which he can turn, the burden of life cannot be borne. For the moment, Vavasor tried to find such fountain in a bottle of brandy which stood near him. He half-filled a tumbler, and then, dashing some water on it, swallowed it greedily. “By —!” he said, “I believe it is the best thing a man can do.”
But where was he to go? to whom was he to turn himself? He went to a high desk which stood in one corner of the room, and unlocking it, took out a revolving pistol, and for a while carried it about with him in his hand. He turned it up, and looked at it, and tried the lock, and snapped it without caps, to see that the barrel went round fairly. “It’s a beggarly thing to do,” he said, and then he turned the pistol down again; “and if I do do it, I’ll use it first for another purpose.” Then he poured out for himself more brandy and water, and having drunk it, he threw himself upon the sofa, and seemed to sleep.
But he did not sleep, and by and by there came a slight single knock at the door, which he instantly answered. But he did not answer it in the usual way by bidding the comer to come in. “Who’s there?” he said. Then the comer attempted to enter, turning the handle of the door. But the door had been locked, and the key was on Vavasor’s side. “Who’s there?” he asked again, speaking out loudly, but in an angry voice. “It is I,” said a woman’s voice. “D— ation!” said George Vavasor.
The woman heard him, but she made no sign of having heard him. She simply remained standing where she was till something further should be done within. She knew the man well, and knew that she must bide his time. She was very patient — and for the time was meek, though it might be that there would come an end to her meekness. Vavasor, when he had heard her voice, and knew who was there, had again thrown himself on to the sofa. There flashed across his mind another thought or two as to his future career — another idea about the pistol, which still lay upon the table. Why should he let the intruder in, and undergo the nuisance of a disagreeable interview, if the end of all things might come in time to save him from such trouble? There he lay for ten minutes thinking, and then the low single knock was heard again. He jumped upon his feet, and his eyes were full of fire. He knew that it was useless to bid her go and leave him. She would sit there, if it were through the whole night. Should he open the door and strangle her, and pass out over her with the pistol in his hand, so that he might make that other reckoning which he desired to accomplish, and then never come back any more?
He took a turn through the room, and then walked gently up to the door, and undid the lock. He did not open the door, nor did he bid his visitor enter, but having made the way easy for her if she chose to come in, he walked back to the sofa and threw himself on it again. As he did so, he passed his hand across the table so as to bring the pistol near to himself at the place where he would be lying. She paused a moment after she had heard the sound of the key, and then she made her way into the room. He did not at first speak to her. She closed the door very gently, and then, looking around, came up to the foot of the sofa. She paused a moment, waiting for him to address her; but as he said nothing, but lay there looking at her, she was the first to speak. “George,” she said, what am I to do?
She was a woman of about thirty years of age, dressed poorly, in old garments, but still with decency, and with some attempt at feminine prettiness. There were flowers in the bonnet on her head, though the bonnet had that unmistakable look of age which is quite as distressing to bonnets as it is to women, and the flowers themselves were battered and faded. She had long black ringlets on each cheek, hanging down much below her face, and brought forward so as to hide in some degree the hollowness of her jaws. Her eyes had a peculiar brightness, but now they left on those who looked at her cursorily no special impression as to their colour. They had been blue — that dark violet blue, which is so rare, but is sometimes so lovely. Her forehead was narrow, her mouth was small, and her lips were thin; but her nose was perfect in its shape, and, by the delicacy of its modelling, had given a peculiar grace to her face in the days when things had gone well with her, when her cheeks had been full with youth and good living, and had been dimpled by the softness of love and mirth. There were no dimples there now, and all the softness which still remained was that softness which sorrow and continual melancholy give to suffering women. On her shoulders she wore a light shawl, which was fastened on her bosom with a large clasp brooch. Her faded dress was supported by a wide crinoline, but the under garment had lost all the grace of its ancient shape, and now told that woman’s tale of poverty and taste for dress which is to be read in the outward garb of so many of Eve’s daughters. The whole story was told so that those who ran might read it. When she had left her home this afternoon, she had struggled hard to dress herself so that something of the charm of apparel might be left to her; but she had known of her own failure at every twist that she had given to her gown, and at every jerk with which she had settled her shawl. She had despaired at every push she had given to her old flowers, vainly striving to bring them back to their old forms; but still she had persevered. With long tedious care she had mended the old gloves which would hardly hold her fingers. She had carefully hidden the rags of her sleeves. She had washed her little shrivelled collar, and had smoothed it out painfully. It had been a separate grief to her that she could find no cuffs to put round her wrists — and yet she knew that no cuffs could have availed her anything. Nothing could avail her now. She expected nothing from her visit; yet she had come forth anxiously, and would have waited there throughout the whole night had access to his room been debarred to her. “George,” she said, standing at the bottom of the sofa, “what am I to do?”
As he lay there with his face turned towards her, the windows were at her back, and he could see her very plainly. He saw and appreciated the little struggles she had made to create by her appearance some reminiscence of her former self. He saw the shining coarseness of the long ringlets which had once been softer than silk. He saw the sixpenny brooch on her bosom where he had once placed a jewel, the price of which would now have been important to him. He saw it all, and lay there for a while, silently reading it.
“Don’t let me stand here,” she said, “without speaking a word to me.”
“I don’t want you to stand there,” he said.
“That’s all very well, George. I know you don’t want me to stand here. I know you don’t want to see me ever again.”
“Never.”
“I know it. Of course I know it. But what am I to do? Where am I to go for money? Even you would not wish that I should starve.”
“That’s true, too. I certainly would not wish it. I should be delighted to hear that you had plenty to eat and plenty to drink, and plenty of clothes to wear. I believe that’s what you care for the most, after all.”
“It was only for your sake — because you liked it.”
“Well — I did like it; but that has come to an end, as have all my other likings. You know very well that I can do nothing more for you. What good do you do yourself by coming here to annoy me? Have I not told you over and over again that you were never to look for me here? It is likely that I should give you money now, simply because you have disobeyed me!”
“Where else was I to find you?”
“Why should you have found me at all? I don’t want you to find me. I shall give you nothing — not a penny. You know very well that we’ve had all that out before. When I put you into business I told you that we were to see no more of each other.”
“Business!” she said. “I never could make enough out of the shop to feed a bird.”
“That wasn’t my fault. Putting you there cost me over a hundred pounds, and you consented to take the place.”
“I didn’t consent. I was obliged to go there because you took my other home away from me.”
“Have it as you like, my dear. That was all I could do for you — and more than most men would have done, when all things are considered.” Then he got up from the sofa, and stood himself on the hearthrug, with his back to the fireplace.
“At any rate, you may be sure of this, Jane — that I shall do nothing more. You have come here to torment me, but you shall get nothing by it.”
“I have come here because I am starving.”
“I have nothing for you. Now go;” and he pointed to the door. Nevertheless, for more than three years of his life this woman had been his closest companion, his nearest friend, the being with whom he was most familiar. He had loved her according to his fashion of loving, and certainly she had loved him. “Go,” he said, repeating the word very angrily. “Do as I bid you, or it will be the worse for you.”
“Will you give me a sovereign?”
“No — I will give you nothing. I have desired you not to come to me here, and I will not pay you for coming.”
“Then I will not go;” and the woman sat down upon a chair at the foot of the table. “I will not go till you have given me something to buy food. You may put me out of the room if you can, but I will lie at the door of the stairs. And if you get me out of the house, I will sit upon the doorstep.”
“If you play that game, my poor girl, the police will take you.”
“Let them. It has come to that with me, that I care for nothing. Out of this I will not go till you give me money — unless I am put out.”
And for this she had dressed herself with so much care, mending her gloves, and darning her little fragments of finery! He stood looking at her, with his hands thrust deep into his pockets — looking at her and thinking what he had better do to rid himself of her presence. If he even quite resolved to take that little final journey of which we have spoken, with the pistol in his hand, why should he not go and leave her there? Or, for the matter of that, why should he not make her his heir to all remainder of his wealth? What he still had left was sufficient to place her in a seventh heaven of the earth. He cared but little for her, and was at this moment angry with her; but there was no one for whom he cared more, and no friend with whom he was less angry. But then his mind was not quite made up as to that final journey. Therefore he desired to rid himself and his room of the nuisance of her presence. “Jane,” he said, looking at her again with that assumed tranquillity of which I have spoken, “you talk of starving and of being ruined — ”
“I am starving. I have not a shilling in the world.”
“Perhaps it may be a comfort to you in your troubles to know that I am, at any rate, as badly off as you are? I won’t say that I am starving, because I could get food to eat at this moment if I wanted it; but I am utterly ruined. My property — what should have been mine — has been left away from me. I have lost the trumpery seat in Parliament for which I have paid so much. All my relations have turned their backs upon me — ”
“Are you not going to be married?” said she, rising quickly from her chair and coming close to him.
“Married! No — but I am going to blow my brains out. Look at that pistol, my girl. Of course you won’t think that I am in earnest — but I am.”
She looked up into his face piteously. “Oh! George,” she said, “you won’t do that?”
“But I shall do that. There is nothing else left for me to do. You talk to me about starving. I tell you that I should have no objection to be starved, and so be put an end to in that way. It’s not so bad as some other ways when it comes gradually. You and I, Jane, have not played our cards very well. We have staked all that we had, and we’ve been beaten. It’s no good whimpering after what’s lost. We’d better go somewhere else and begin a new game.”
“Go where?” said she.
“Ah! — that’s just what I can’t tell you.”
“George,” she said, “I’ll go anywhere with you. If what you say is true — if you’re not going to be married, and will let me come to you, I will work for you like a slave. I will indeed. I know I’m poorly looking now — ”
“My girl, where I’m going, I shall not want any slave; and as for your looks — when you go there too — they’ll be of no matter, as far as I am able to judge.”
“But, George, where are you going?”
“Wherever people do go when their brains are knocked out of them; or, rather, when they have knocked out their own brains — if that makes any difference.”
“George,” — she came up to him now, and took hold of him by the front of his coat, and for the moment he allowed her to do so — “George, you frighten me. Do not do that. Say that you will not do that!”
“But I am just saying that I shall.”
“Are you not afraid of God’s anger? You and I have been very wicked.”
“I have, my poor girl. I don’t know much about your wickedness. I’ve been like Topsy — indeed I am a kind of second Topsy myself. But what’s the good of whimpering when it’s over?”
“It isn’t over; it isn’t over — at any rate for you.”
“I wish I knew how I could begin again. But all this is nonsense, Jane, and you must go.”
“You must tell me, first, that you are not going to — kill yourself.”
“I don’t suppose I shall do it tonight — or, perhaps, not tomorrow. Very probably I may allow myself a week, so that your staying here can do no good. I merely wanted to make you understand that you are not the only person who has come to grief.”
“And you are not going to be married?”
“No; I’m not going to be married, certainly.”
“And I must go now?”
“Yes; I think you’d better go now.” Then she rose and went, and he let her leave the room without giving her a shilling! His bantering tone, in speaking of his own position, had been successful. It had caused her to take herself off quietly. She knew enough of his usual manner to be aware that his threats of self-destruction were probably unreal; but, nevertheless, what he had said had created some feeling in her heart which had induced her to yield to him, and go away in peace.
It was nearly seven o’clock in the evening — a hot, July evening — when the woman went from Vavasor’s room, and left him there alone. It was necessary that he should immediately do something. In the first place he must dine, unless he meant to carry out his threat, and shoot himself at once. But he had no such intention as that, although he stood for some minutes with the pistol in his hand. He was thinking then of shooting someone else. But he resolved that, if he did so at all — he would not do it on that evening, and he locked up the pistol again in the standing desk. After that, he took up some papers, referring to steam packets, which were lying on his table. They contained the programmes of different companies, and showed how one vessel went on one day to New York, and another on another day would take out a load of emigrants for New Zealand and Australia. “That’s a good line,” said he, as he read a certain prospectus. “They generally go to the bottom, and save a man from any further trouble on his own account.” Then he dressed himself, putting on his boots and coat, and went out to his club for his dinner.
London was still fairly full — that is to say, the West End was not deserted, although Parliament had been broken up two months earlier than usual, in preparation for the new elections. Many men who had gone down into the country were now back again in town, and the dining-room at the club was crowded. Men came up to him condoling with him, telling him that he was well rid of a great nuisance, that the present Members for the Chelsea Districts would not sit long, or that there would be another general election in a year or two. To all these little speeches he made cheerful replies, and was declared by his acquaintance to bear his disappointment well. Calder Jones came to him and talked hunting talk, and Vavasor expressed his intention of being at Roebury in November. “You had better join our club,” said Calder Jones. In answer to which Vavasor said that he thought he would join the club. He remained in the smoking-room till nearly eleven; then he took himself home, and remained up half the night destroying papers. Every written document on which he could lay his hands he destroyed. All the pigeon-holes of his desk were emptied out, and their contents thrown into the flames. At first he looked at the papers before he burned them; but the trouble of doing so soon tired him, and he condemned them all, as he came to them, without examination. Then he selected a considerable amount of his clothes, and packed up two portmanteaus, folding his coats with care, and inspecting his boots narrowly, so that he might see which, out of the large number before him, it might be best worth his while to take with him. When that was done, he took from his desk a bag of sovereigns, and, pouring them out upon the table, he counted them out into parcels of twenty-five each, and made them up carefully into rouleaus with paper. These, when complete, he divided among the two portmanteaus and a dressing-bag which he also packed and a travelling desk, which he filled with papers, pens, and the like. But he put into it no written document. He carefully looked through his linen, and anything that had been marked with more than his initials he rejected. Then he took out a bundle of printed cards, and furnished a card-case with them. On these cards was inscribed the name of Gregory Vance. When all was finished, he stood for awhile with his back to the fireplace contemplating his work. “After all,” he said to himself, “I know that I shall never start; and, if I do, nobody can hinder me, and my own name would be as good as any other. As for a man with such a face as mine not being known, that is out of the question.” But still he liked the arrangements which he had made, and when he had looked at them for awhile he went to bed.
He was up early the next morning, and had some coffee brought to him by the servant of the house, and as he drank it he had an interview with his landlady. “He was going,” he said — “going that very day.” It might be possible that he would change his mind; but as he would desire to start without delay, if he did go, he would pay her then what he owed her, and what would be due for her lodgings under a week’s notice. The woman stared, and curtseyed, and took her money. Vavasor, though he had lately been much pressed for money, had never been so foolish as to owe debts where he lived. “There will be some things left about, Mrs Bunsby,” he said, “and I will get you to keep them till I call or send.” Mrs Bunsby said that she would, and then looked her last at him. After that interview she never saw him again.
When he was left alone he put on a rough morning coat, and taking up the pistol, placed it carefully in his pocket, and sallied forth. It was manifest enough that he had some decided scheme in his head, for he turned quickly towards the West when he reached the Strand, went across Trafalgar Square to Pall Mall East, and then turned up Suffolk Street. Just as he reached the club-house at the corner he paused and looked back, facing first one way and then the other. “The chances are that I shall never see anything of it again,” he said to himself. Then he laughed in his own silent way, shook his head slightly, and turning again quickly on his heel, walked up the street till he reached the house of Mr Jones, the pugilistic tailor. The reader, no doubt, has forgotten all he ever knew of Mr Jones, the pugilistic tailor. It can soon be told again. At Mr Jones’s house John Grey lodged when he was in London, and he was in London at this moment.
Vavasor rang the bell, and as soon as the servant came he went quickly into the house, and passed her in the passage. “Mr Grey is at home,” he said. “I will go up to him.” The girl said that Mr Grey was at home, but suggested that she had better announce the gentleman. But Vavasor was already halfway up the stairs, and before the girl had reached the first landing-place, he had entered Mr Grey’s room and closed the door behind him.
Grey was sitting near the open window, in a dressing-gown, and was reading. The breakfast things were on the table, but he had not as yet breakfasted. As soon as he saw George Vavasor, he rose from his chair quickly, and put down his book. “Mr Vavasor,” he said, “I hardly expected to see you in my lodgings again!”
“I dare say not,” said Vavasor; “but, nevertheless, here I am.” He kept his right hand in the pocket which held the pistol, and held his left hand under his waistcoat.
“May I ask why you have come?” said Grey.
“I intend to tell you, at any rate, whether you ask me or not. I have come here to declare in your own hearing — as I am in the habit of doing occasionally behind your back — that you are a blackguard — to spit in your face, and defy you.” As he said this he suited his action to his words, but without any serious result. “I have come here to see if you are man enough to resent any insult that I can offer you; but I doubt whether you are.”
“Nothing that you can say to me, Mr Vavasor, will have any effect upon me — except that you can, of course, annoy me.”
“And I mean to annoy you, too, before I have done with you. Will you fight me?”
“Fight a duel with you — with pistols? Certainly not.”
“Then you are a coward, as I supposed.”
“I should be a fool if I were to do such a thing as that.”
“Look here, Mr Grey. You managed to worm yourself into an intimacy with my cousin, Miss Vavasor, and to become engaged to her. When she found out what you were, how paltry, and mean, and vile, she changed her mind, and bade you leave her.”
“Are you here at her request?”
“I am here as her representative.”
“Self-appointed, I think.”
“Then, sir, you think wrong. I am at this moment her affianced husband; and I find that, in spite of all that she has said to you — which was enough, I should have thought, to keep any man of spirit out of her presence — you still persecute her by going to her house, and forcing yourself upon her presence. Now, I give you two alternatives. You shall either give me your written promise never to go near her again, or you shall fight me.”
“I shall do neither one nor the other — as you know very well yourself.”
“Stop till I have done, sir. If you have courage enough to fight me, I will meet you in any country. I will fight you here in London, or, if you are afraid of that, I will go over to France, or to America, if that will suit you better.”
“Nothing of the kind will suit me at all. I don’t want to have anything to do with you.”
“Then you are a coward.”
“Perhaps I am — but your saying so will not make me one.”
“You are a coward, and a liar, and a blackguard. I have given you the option of behaving like a gentleman, and you have refused it. Now, look here. I have come here with arms, and I do not intend to leave this room without using them, unless you will promise to give me the meeting that I have proposed.” And he took the pistol out of his pocket.
“Do you mean that you are going to murder me?” Grey asked. There were two windows in the room, and he had been sitting near to that which was furthest removed from the fireplace, and consequently furthest removed from the bell, and his visitor was now standing immediately between him and the door. He had to think what steps he might best take, and to act upon his decision instantly. He was by no means a timid man, and was one, moreover, very little prone to believe in extravagant action. He did not think, even now, that this disappointed, ruined man had come there with any intention of killing him. But he knew that a pistol in the hands of an angry man is dangerous, and that it behoved him to do his best to rid himself of the nuisance which now encumbered him. “Do you mean that you are going to murder me?” he had said.
“I mean that you shall not leave this room alive unless you promise to meet me, and fight it out.” Upon hearing this, Grey turned himself towards the bell, “If you move a step, I will fire at you,” said Vavasor. Grey paused a moment, and looked him full in the face. “I will,” said Vavasor again,
“That would be murder,” said Grey.
“Don’t think that you will frighten me by ugly words,” said Vavasor, “I am beyond that.”
Grey had stopped for a moment to fix his eyes on the other man’s face; but it was only for a moment, and then he went on to the bell. He had seen that the pistol was pointed at himself, and had once thought of rushing across the room at his adversary, calculating that a shot fired at him as he did so might miss him, and that he would then have a fair chance of disarming the madman. But his chief object was to avoid any personal conflict, to escape the indignity of a scramble for the pistol — and especially to escape the necessity of a consequent appearance at some police office, where he would have to justify himself, and answer the questions of a lawyer hired to cross-question him. He made, therefore, towards the bell, trusting that Vavasor would not fire at him, but having some little thought also as to the danger of the moment. It might be that everything was over for him now — that the fatal hour had come, and that eternity was close upon him. Something of the spirit of a prayer flashed across his mind as he moved. Then he heard the click of the pistol’s hammer as it fell, and was aware that his eyes were dazzled, though he was unconscious of seeing any flame. He felt something in the air, and knew that the pistol had been fired — but he did not know whether the shot had struck him or had missed him. His hand was out for the bell-handle, and he had pulled it, before he was sure that he was unhurt.
“D— ation!” exclaimed the murderer. But he did not pull the trigger again. Though the weapon had of late been so often in his hands, he forgot, in the agitation of the moment, that his missing once was but of small matter if he chose to go on with his purpose. Were there not five other barrels for him, each making itself ready by the discharge of the other? But he had paused, forgetting, in his excitement, the use of his weapon, and before he had bethought himself that the man was still in his power, he heard the sound of the bell. “D— ation!” he exclaimed. Then he turned round, left the room, hurried down the stairs, and made his way out into the street, having again passed the girl on his way.
Grey, when he perceived that his enemy was gone, turned round to look for the bullet or its mark. He soon found the little hole in the window-shutter, and probing it with the point of his pencil, came upon the morsel of lead which might now just as readily have been within his own brain. There he left it for the time, and then made some not inaccurate calculation as to the narrowness of his own escape. He had been standing directly between Vavasor and the shutter, and he found, from the height of the hole, that the shot must have passed close beneath his ear. He remembered to have heard the click of the hammer, but he could not remember the sound of the report, and when the girl entered the room, he perceived at once from her manner that she was unaware that firearms had been used.
“Has that gentleman left the house?” Grey asked. The girl said that he had left the house. “Don’t admit him again,” said he — “that is, if you can avoid it. I believe he is not in his right senses.” Then he asked for Mr Jones, his landlord, and in a few minutes the pugilistic tailor was with him.
During those few minutes he had been called upon to resolve what he would do now. Would he put the police at once upon the track of the murderer, who was, as he remembered too well, the first cousin of the woman whom he still desired to make his wife? That cross-examination which he would have to undergo at the police office, and again probably in an assize court, in which all his relations with the Vavasor family would be made public, was very vivid to his imagination. That he was called upon by duty to do something he felt almost assured. The man who had been allowed to make such an attempt once with impunity, might probably make it again. But he resolved that he need not now say anything about the pistol to the pugilistic tailor, unless the tailor said something to him,
“Mr Jones,” he said, “that man whom I had to put out of the room once before, has been here again.”
“Has there been another tussle, sir?”
“No — nothing of that kind. But we must take some steps to prevent his getting in again, if we can help it.”
Jones promised his aid, and offered to go at once to the police. To this, however, Mr Grey demurred, saying that he should himself seek assistance from some magistrate, Jones promised to be very vigilant as to watching the door; and then John Grey sat down to his breakfast. Of course he thought much of what had occurred. It was impossible that he should not think much of so narrow an escape. He had probably been as near death as a man may well be without receiving any injury; and the more he thought of it, the more strongly he was convinced that he could not allow the thing to pass by without some notice, or some precaution as to the future. At eleven o’clock he went to Scotland Yard, and saw some officer great in power over policemen, and told him all the circumstances — confidentially. The powerful officer recommended an equally confidential reference to a magistrate; and towards evening a very confidential policeman in plain clothes paid a visit to Vavasor’s lodgings in Cecil Street. But Vavasor lodged there no longer. Mrs Bunsby, who was also very confidential — and at her wits’ end because she could not learn the special business of the stranger who called — stated that Mr George Vavasor left her house in a cab at ten o’clock that morning, having taken with him such luggage as he had packed, and having gone, “she was afraid, for good,” as Mrs Bunsby expressed it.
He had gone for good, and at the moment in which the policeman was making the inquiry in Cecil Street, was leaning over the side of an American steamer which had just got up her steam and weighed her anchor in the Mersey. He was on board at six o’clock, and it was not till the next day that the cabman was traced who had carried him to the Euston Square Station. Of course, it was soon known that he had gone to America, but it was not thought worth while to take any further steps towards arresting him. Mr Grey himself was decidedly opposed to any such attempt, declaring his opinion that his own evidence would be insufficient to obtain a conviction. The big men in Scotland Yard were loath to let the matter drop. Their mouths watered after the job, and they had very numerous and very confidential interviews with John Grey. But it was decided that nothing should be done. “Pity!” said one enterprising superintendent, in answer to the condolings of a brother superintendent. “Pity’s no name for it. It’s the greatest shame as ever I knew since I joined the force. A man as was a Member of Parliament only last Session — as belongs to no end of swell clubs, a gent as well known in London as any gent about the town! And I’d have had him back in three months, as sure as my name’s Walker.” And that superintendent felt that his profession and his country were alike disgraced.
And now George Vavasor vanishes from our pages, and will be heard of no more. Roebury knew him no longer, nor Pall Mall, nor the Chelsea Districts. His disappearance was a nine days’ wonder, but the world at large knew nothing of the circumstances of that attempt in Suffolk Street. Mr Grey himself told the story to no one, till he told it to Mr Palliser at Lucerne. Mr Scruby complained bitterly of the way in which Vavasor had robbed him; but I doubt whether Scruby, in truth, lost much by the transaction. To Kate, down in Westmoreland, no tidings came of her brother, and her sojourn in London with her aunt had nearly come to an end before she knew that he was gone. Even then the rumour reached her through Captain Bellfield, and she learned what few facts she knew from Mrs Bunsby in Cecil Street.
“He was always mysterious,” said Mrs Greenow, “and now he has vanished. I hate mysteries, and, as for myself, I think it will be much better that he should not come back again.” Perhaps Kate was of the same opinion; but, if so, she kept it to herself.
It was not till they had been for a day or two together at Lucerne that Mr Grey told Mr Palliser the story of George Vavasor’s visit to him in Suffolk Street. Having begun the history of his connection with Alice, he found himself obliged to go with it to the end, and as he described the way in which the man had vanished from the sight of all who had known him, that he had in truth gone, so as no longer to be a cause of dread, he could not without dissimulation keep back the story of that last scene. “And he tried to murder you!” said Mr Palliser. “He should be caught and — and — ” Mr Palliser hesitated, not liking to say boldly that the first cousin of the lady who was now living with him ought to be hung.
“It is better as it is,” said Grey,
“He actually walked into your rooms in the day time, and fired a pistol at you as you were sitting at your breakfast! He did that in London, and then walked off and went abroad, as though he had nothing to fear!”
“That was just it,” said Grey.
Mr Palliser began to think that something ought to be done to make life more secure in the metropolis of the world. Had he not known Mr Grey, or been accustomed to see the other man in Parliament, he would not have thought so much about it. But it was almost too much for him when he reflected that one man whom he now called his friend had been nearly murdered in daylight, in the heart of his own part of London, by another man whom he had reckoned among his Parliamentary supporters. “And he has got your money too!” said Palliser, putting all the circumstances of the case together. In answer to this Mr Grey said that he hoped the loss might eventually be his own; but that he was bound to regard the money which had been taken as part of Miss Vavasor’s fortune. “He is simply the greatest miscreant of whom I ever heard in my life,” said Mr Palliser. “The wonder is that Miss Vavasor should ever have brought herself to — to like him.” Then Mr Grey apologised for Alice, explaining that her love for her cousin had come from her early years; that the man himself was clever and capable of assuming pleasant ways, and that he had not been wholly bad till ruin had come upon him. “He attempted public life and made himself miserable by failing, as most men do who make that attempt,” said Grey. This was a statement which Mr Palliser could not allow to pass without notice. Whereupon the two men got away from George Vavasor and their own individual interests, and went on seriously discussing the merits and demerits of public life. “The end of it all is,” said Grey at last, “that public men in England should be rich like you, and not poor like that miserable wretch, who has now lost everything that the Fates had given him.”
They continued to live at Lucerne in this way for a fortnight. Mr Grey, though he was not infrequently alone with Alice, did not plead his suit in direct words; but continued to live with her on terms of close and easy friendship. He had told her that her cousin had left England — that he had gone to America immediately after his disappointment in regard to the seat in Parliament, and that he would probably not return. “Poor George!” Alice had said; “he is a man very much to be pitied.”
“He is a man very much to be pitied,” Grey had replied. After that, nothing more was said between them about George Vavasor. From Lady Glencora, Alice did hear something; but Lady Glencora herself had not heard the whole story. “I believe he misbehaved himself, my dear,” Lady Glencora said; “but then, you know, he always does that. I believe that he saw Mr Grey and insulted him. Perhaps you had better not ask anything about it till by and by. You’ll be able to get anything out of him then.” In answer to this Alice made her usual protest, and Lady Glencora, as was customary, told her that she was a fool.
I am inclined to think that Mr Grey knew what he was about. Lady Glencora once scolded him very vehemently for not bringing the affair to an end. “We shall be going on to Italy before it’s settled,” she said; “and I don’t suppose you can go with us, unless it is settled.” Mr Grey protested that he had no intention of going to Italy in either case.
“Then it will be put off for another year or two, and you are both of you as old as Adam and Eve already.”
“We ancient people are never impatient” said Grey, laughing.
“If I were you I would go to her and tell her, roundly, that she should marry me, and then I would shake her. If you were to scold her, till she did not know whether she stood on her head or her heels, she would come to reason.”
“Suppose you try that, Lady Glencora!”
“I can’t. It’s she that always scolds me — as you will her, when she’s your wife. You and Mr Palliser are very much alike. You’re both of you so very virtuous that no woman would have a chance of picking a hole in your coats.”
But Lady Glencora was wrong. Alice would, no doubt, have submitted herself patiently to her lover’s rebukes, and would have confessed her own sins towards him with any amount of self-accusation that he might have required; but she would not, on that account, have been more willing to obey him in that one point, as to which he now required present obedience. He understood that she must be taught to forgive herself for the evil she had done — to forgive herself, at any rate in part — before she could be induced to return to her old allegiance to him. Thus they went on together at Lucerne, passing quiet, idle days — with some pretence of reading, with a considerable amount of letter-writing, with boat excursions and pony excursions — till the pony excursions came to a sudden end by means of a violent edict, as to which, and the cause of it, a word or two must be said just now. During these days of the boats and the ponies, the carriage which Lady Glencora hated so vehemently was shut up in limbo, and things went very pleasantly with her. Mr Palliser received political letters from England, which made his mouth water sadly, and was often very fidgety. Parliament was not now sitting, and the Government would, of course, remain intact till next February. Might it not be possible that when the rent came in the Cabinet, he might yet be present at the darning? He was a constant man, and had once declared his intention of being absent for a year. He continued to speak to Grey of his coming travels, as though it was impossible that they should be over until after the next Easter. But he was sighing for Westminster, and regretting the blue books which were accumulating themselves at Matching — till on a sudden, there came to him tidings which upset all his plans which routed the ponies, which made everything impossible, which made the Alps impassable and the railways dangerous, which drove Burgo Fitzgerald out of Mr Palliser’s head, and so confused him that he could no longer calculate the blunders of the present Chancellor of the Exchequer. All the Palliser world was about to be moved from its lowest depths, to the summits of its highest mountains, Lady Glencora had whispered into her husband’s ear that she thought it probable —; she wasn’t sure — she didn’t know. And then she burst out into tears on his bosom as he sat by her on her bedside.
He was beside himself when he left her, which he did with the primary intention of telegraphing to London for half a dozen leading physicians. He went out by the lakeside, and walked there alone for ten minutes in a state of almost unconscious exaltation. He did not quite remember where he was, or what he was doing. The one thing in the world which he had lacked; the one joy which he had wanted so much, and which is so common among men, was coming to him also. In a few minutes it was to him as though each hand already rested on the fair head of a little male Palliser, of whom one should rule in the halls at Gatherum, and the other be eloquent among the Commons of England. Hitherto — for the last eight or nine months, since his first hopes had begun to fade — he had been a man degraded in his own sight amidst all his honours. What good was all the world to him if he had nothing of his own to come after him? We must give him his due, too, when we speak of this. He had not had wit enough to hide his grief from his wife; his knowledge of women and of men in social life had not been sufficient to teach him how this should be done; but he had wished to do it. He had never willingly rebuked her for his disappointment, either by a glance of his eye, or a tone of his voice; and now he had already forgiven everything. Burgo Fitzgerald was a myth. Mrs Marsham should never again come near her. Mr Bott was, of course, a thing abolished — he had not even had the sense to keep his seat in Parliament. Dandy and Flirt should feed on gilded corn, and there should be an artificial moon always ready in the ruins. If only those d — able saddle-ponies of Lucerne had not come across his wife’s path! He went at once into the yard and ordered that the ponies should be abolished — sent away, one and all, to the furthest confines of the canton; and then he himself inspected the cushions of the carriage. Were they dry? As it was August in those days, and August at Lucerne is a warm month, it may be presumed that they were dry.
He then remembered that he had promised to send Alice up to his wife, and he hurried back into the house. She was alone in the breakfast-room, waiting for him and for his wife. In these days, Mr Grey would usually join them at dinner; but he seldom saw them before eleven or twelve o’clock in the day. Then he would saunter in and join Mr Palliser, and they would all be together till the evening. When the expectant father of embryo dukes entered the room, Alice perceived at once that some matter was astir. His manner was altogether changed, and he showed by his eye that he was eager and moved beyond his wont. “Alice,” he said, “would you mind going up to Glencora’s room? She wishes to speak to you.” He had never called her Alice before, and as soon as the word was spoken, he remembered himself and blushed,
“She isn’t ill, I hope?” said Alice.
“No — she isn’t ill. At least I think she had better not get up quite yet. Don’t let her excite herself, if you can help it.”
“I’ll go to her at once,” said Alice rising.
“I’m so much obliged to you — but, Miss Vavasor — ”
“You called me Alice just now, Mr Palliser, and I took it as a great compliment.”
He blushed again. “Did I? Very well. Then I’ll do it again if you’ll let me. But, if you please, do be as calm with her as you can. She is so easily excited, you know. Of course, if there’s anything she fancies, we’ll take care to get it for her; but she must be kept quiet.” Upon this Alice left him, having had no moment of time to guess what had happened, or was about to happen; and he was again alone, contemplating the future glories of his house. Had he a thought for his poor cousin Jeffrey, whose nose was now so terribly out of joint? No, indeed. His thoughts were all of himself, and the good things that were coming to him — of the new world of interest that was being opened for him. It would be better to him, this, than being Chancellor of the Exchequer. He would rather have it in store for him to be father of the next Duke of Omnium, than make half a dozen consecutive annual speeches in Parliament as to the ways and means, and expenditure of the British nation! Could it be possible that this foreign tour had produced for him this good fortune? If so, how luckily had things turned out! He would remember even that ball at Lady Monk’s with gratitude. Perhaps a residence abroad would be best for Lady Glencora at this particular period of her life. If so, abroad she should certainly live. Before resolving, however, on anything permanently on this head, he thought that he might judiciously consult those six first-rate London physicians, whom, in the first moment of his excitement, he had been desirous of summoning to Lucerne.
In the meantime Alice had gone up to the bedroom of the lady who was now to be the subject of so much anxious thought. When she entered the room, her friend was up and in her dressing-gown, lying on a sofa which stood at the foot of the bed. “Oh, Alice, I’m so glad you’ve come,” said Lady Glencora. “I do so want to hear your voice.” Then Alice knelt beside her, and asked her if she were ill.
“He hasn’t told you? But of course he wouldn’t. How could he? But, Alice, how did he look? Did you observe anything about him? Was he pleased?”
“I did observe something, and I think he was pleased. But what is it? He called me Alice. And seemed to be quite unlike himself. But what is it? He told me that I was to come to you instantly.”
“Oh, Alice, can’t you guess?” Then suddenly Alice did guess the secret, and whispered her guess into Lady Glencora’s ear. “I suppose it is so,” said Lady Glencora. “I know what they’ll do. They’ll kill me by fussing over me. If I could go about my work like a washerwoman, I should be all right.”
“I am so happy,” she said, some two or three hours afterwards. “I won’t deny that I am very happy. It seemed as though I were destined to bring nothing but misery to everybody, and I used to wish myself dead so often. I shan’t wish myself dead now.”
“We shall all have to go home, I suppose?” said Alice.
“He says so — but he seems to think that I oughtn’t to travel above a mile and a half a day. When I talked of going down the Rhine in one of the steamers, I thought he would have gone into a fit. When I asked him why, he gave me such a look. I know he’ll make a goose of himself — and he’ll make geese of us, too; which is worse.”
On that afternoon, as they were walking together, Mr Palliser told the important secret to his new friend, Mr Grey. He could not deny himself the pleasure of talking about this great event. “It is a matter, you see, of such immense importance to me,” Mr Palliser said.
“Indeed, it is,” said Grey. “Every man feels that when a child is about to be born to him.” But this did not at all satisfy Mr Palliser.
“Yes,” said he. “That’s of course. It is an important thing to everybody — very important, no doubt. But, when a man —. You see, Grey, I don’t think a man is a bit better because he is rich, or because he has a title; nor do I think he is likely to be in any degree the happier. I am quite sure that he has no right to be in the slightest degree proud of that which he has had no hand in doing for himself.”
“Men usually are very proud of such advantages,” said Grey.
“I don’t think that I am; I don’t, indeed. I am proud of some things. Whenever I can manage to carry a point in the House, I feel very proud of it. I don’t think I ever knocked under to any one, and I am proud of that.” Perhaps, Mr Palliser was thinking of a certain time when his uncle the Duke had threatened him, and he had not given way to the Duke’s threats. “But I don’t think I’m proud because chance has made me my uncle’s heir.”
“Not in the least, I should say.”
“But I do feel that a son to me is of more importance than it is to most men. A strong anxiety on the subject, is, I think, more excusable in me than it might be in another. I don’t know whether I quite make myself understood?”
“Oh, yes! When there’s a dukedom and heaven knows how many thousands a year to be disposed of, the question of their future ownership does become important.”
“This property is so much more interesting to one, if one feels that all one does to it is done for one’s own son.”
“And yet,” said Grey, “of all the great plunderers of property throughout Europe, the Popes have been the most greedy.”
“Perhaps it’s different, when a man can’t have a wife — ” said Mr Palliser.
From all this it may be seen that Mr Palliser and Mr Grey had become very intimate. Had chance brought them together in London they might have met a score of times before Mr Palliser would have thought of doing more than bowing to such an acquaintance. Mr Grey might have spent weeks at Matching, without having achieved anything like intimacy with its noble owner. But things of that kind progress more quickly abroad than they do at home. The deck of an ocean steamer, is perhaps the most prolific hotbed for the growth of sudden friendships; but an hotel by the side of a Swiss lake does almost as well.
For some time after this Lady Glencora’s conduct was frequently so indiscreet as to drive her husband almost to frenzy. On the very day after the news had been communicated to him, she proposed a picnic, and made the proposition not only in the presence of Alice, but in that of Mr Grey also! Mr Palliser, on such an occasion, could not express all that he thought; but he looked it.
“What is the matter, now, Plantagenet?” said his wife.
“Nothing,” said he — nothing. Never mind.
“And shall we make this party up to the chapel?”
The chapel in question was Tell’s chapel, — ever so far up the lake. A journey in a steamboat would have been necessary.
“No!” said he, shouting out his refusal at her. “We will not.”
“You needn’t be angry about it,” said she — as though he could have failed to be stirred by such a proposition at such a time. On another occasion she returned from an evening walk, showing on her face some sign of the exercise she had taken.
“Good G—! Glencora,” said he, “do you mean to kill yourself?” He wanted her to eat six or seven times a day; and always told her that she was eating too much, remembering some ancient proverb about little and often. He watched her now as closely as Mrs Marsham and Mr Bott had watched her before; and she always knew that he was doing so. She made the matter worse by continually proposing to do things which she knew he would not permit, in order that she might enjoy the fun of seeing his agony and amazement. But this, though it was fun to her at the moment, produced anything but fun, as its general result.
“Upon my word, Alice, I think this will kill me,” she said. “I am not to stir out of the house now, unless I go in the carriage, or he is with me.”
“It won’t last long.”
“I don’t know what you call long. As for walking with him, it’s out of the question. He goes about a mile an hour. And then he makes me look so much like a fool. I had no idea that he would be such an old coddle.”
“The coddling will all be given to someone else, very soon.”
“No baby could possibly live through it, if you mean that. If there is a baby — ”
“I suppose there will be one, by and by,” said Alice.
“Don’t be a fool! But if there is, I shall take that matter into my own hands. He can do what he pleases with me, and I can’t help myself; but I shan’t let him or anybody do what they please with my baby. I know what I’m about in such matters a great deal better than he does. I’ve no doubt he’s a very clever man in Parliament; but he doesn’t seem to me to understand anything else.”
Alice was making some very wise speech in answer to this, when Lady Glencora interrupted her.
“Mr Grey wouldn’t make himself so troublesome, I’m quite sure.” Then Alice held her tongue.
When the first consternation arising from the news had somewhat subsided — say in a fortnight from the day in which Mr Palliser was made so triumphant — and when tidings had been duly sent to the Duke, and an answer from his Grace had come, arrangements were made for the return of the party to England. The Duke’s reply was very short —
“MY DEAR PLANTAGENET, —
“Give my kind love to Glencora. If it’s a boy, of course I will be one of the godfathers. The Prince, who is very kind, will perhaps oblige me by being the other. I should advise you to return as soon as convenient.
“Your affectionate uncle, OMNIUM.”
That was the letter; and short as it was, it was probably the longest that Mr Palliser had ever received from the Duke.
There was great trouble about the mode of their return.
“Oh, what nonsense,” said Glencora. “Let us get into an express train, and go right through to London.” Mr Palliser looked at her with a countenance full of rebuke and sorrow. He was always so looking at her now. “If you mean, Plantagenet, that we are to be dragged all across the Continent in that horrible carriage, and be a thousand days on the road, I for one won’t submit to it.”
“I wish I had never told him a word about it,” she said afterwards to Alice. “He would never have found it out himself, till this thing was all over.”
Mr Palliser did at last consent to take the joint opinion of a Swiss doctor and an English one who was settled at Berne; and who, on the occasion, was summoned to Lucerne. They suggested the railway; and as letters arrived for Mr Palliser — medical letters — in which the same opinion was broached, it was agreed, at last, that they should return by railway; but they were to make various halts on the road, stopping at each halting-place for a day. The first was, of course, Basle, and from Basle they were to go on to Baden.
“I particularly want to see Baden again,” Lady Glencora said; “and perhaps I may be able to get back my napoleon.”
These arrangements as to the return of Mr Palliser’s party to London did not, of course, include Mr Grey. They were generally discussed in Mr Grey’s absence, and communicated to him by Mr Palliser. “I suppose we shall see you in England before long?” said Mr Palliser. “I shall be able to tell you that before you go,” said Grey. “Not but that in any event I shall return to England before the winter.”
“Then come to us at Matching,” said Mr Palliser. “We shall be most happy to have you. Say that you’ll come for the first fortnight in December. After that we always go to the Duke, in Barsetshire. Though, by the by, I don’t suppose we shall go anywhere this year,” Mr Palliser added, interrupting the warmth of his invitation, and reflecting that, under the present circumstances, perhaps, it might be improper to have any guests at Matching in December. But he had become very fond of Mr Grey, and on this occasion, as he had done on some others, pressed him warmly to make an attempt at Parliament. “It isn’t nearly so difficult as you think,” said he, when Grey declared that he would not know where to look for a seat. “See the men that get in. There was Mr Vavasor. Even he got a seat.”
“But he had to pay for it very dearly.”
“You might easily find some quiet little borough.”
“Quiet little boroughs have usually got their own quiet little Members,” said Grey.
“They’re fond of change; and if you like to spend a thousand pounds, the thing isn’t difficult. I’ll put you in the way of it.” But Mr Grey still declined. He was not a man prone to be talked out of his own way of life, and the very fact that George Vavasor had been in Parliament would of itself have gone far towards preventing any attempt on his part in that direction. Alice had also wanted him to go into public life, but he had put aside her request as though the thing were quite out of the question — never giving a moment to its consideration. Had she asked him to settle himself and her in Central Africa, his manner and mode of refusal would have been the same. It was this immobility on his part — this absolute want of any of the weakness of indecision, which had frightened her, and driven her away from him. He was partly aware of this; but that which he had declined to do at her solicitation, he certainly would not do at the advice of any one else. So it was that he argued the matter with himself. Had he now allowed himself to be so counselled, with what terrible acknowledgments of his own faults must he not have presented himself before Alice?
“I suppose books, then, will be your object in life?” said Mr Palliser.
“I hope they will be my aids,” Grey answered. “I almost doubt whether any object such as that you mean is necessary for life, or even expedient. It seems to me that if a man can so train himself that he may live honestly and die fearlessly, he has done about as much as is necessary.”
“He has done a great deal, certainly,” said Mr Palliser, who was not ready enough to carry on the argument as he might have done had more time been given to him to consider it. He knew very well that he himself was working for others, and not for himself; and he was aware, though he had not analysed his own convictions on the matter, that good men struggle as they do in order that others, besides themselves, may live honestly, and, if possible, die fearlessly. The recluse of Nethercoats had thought much more about all this than the rising star of the House of Commons; but the philosophy of the rising star was the better philosophy of the two, though he was by far the less brilliant man. “I don’t see why a man should not live honestly and be a Member of Parliament as well,” continued Mr Palliser, when he had been silent for a few minutes.
“Nor I either,” said Grey. “I am sure that there are such men, and that the country is under great obligation to them. But they are subject to temptations which a prudent man like myself may perhaps do well to avoid.” But though he spoke with an assured tone, he was shaken, and almost regretted that he did not accept the aid which was offered to him. It is astonishing how strong a man may be to those around him — how impregnable may be his exterior, while within he feels himself to be as weak as water, and as unstable as chaff.
But the object which he had now in view was a renewal of his engagement with Alice, and he felt that he must obtain an answer from her before they left Lucerne. If she still persisted in refusing to give him her hand, it would not be consistent with his dignity as a man to continue his immediate pursuit of her any longer. In such case he must leave her, and see what future time might bring forth. He believed himself to be aware that he would never offer his love to another woman; and if Alice were to remain single, he might try again, after the lapse of a year or two. But if he failed now — then, for that year or two, he would see her no more. Having so resolved, and being averse to anything like a surprise, he asked her, as he left her one evening, whether she would walk with him on the following morning. That morning would be the morning of her last day at Lucerne; and as she assented she knew well what was to come. She said nothing to Lady Glencora on the subject, but allowed the coming prospects of the Palliser family to form the sole subject of their conversation that night, as it had done on every night since the great news had become known. They were always together for an hour every evening before Alice was allowed to go to bed, and during this hour the anxieties of the future father and mother were always discussed till Alice Vavasor was almost tired of them. But she was patient with her friend, and on this special night she was patient as ever. But when she was released and was alone, she made a great endeavour to come to some fixed resolution as to what she would do on the morrow — some resolution which should be absolutely resolute, and from which no eloquence on the part of any one should move her. But such resolutions are not easily reached, and Alice laboured through half the night almost in vain. She knew that she loved the man. She knew that he was as true to her as the sun is true to the earth. She knew that she would be, in all respects, safe in his hands. She knew that Lady Glencora would be delighted, and her father gratified. She knew that the countesses would open their arms to her — though I doubt whether this knowledge was in itself very persuasive. She knew that by such a marriage she would gain all that women generally look to gain when they give themselves away. But, nevertheless, as far as she could decide at all, she decided against her lover. She had no right of her own to be taken back after the evil that she had done, and she did not choose to be taken back as an object of pity and forgiveness.
“Where are you going?” said her cousin, when she came in with her hat on, soon after breakfast.
“I am going to walk — with Mr Grey.”
“By appointment?”
“Yes, by appointment. He asked me yesterday.”
“Then it’s all settled, and you haven’t told me!”
“All that is settled I have told you very often. He asked me yesterday to walk with him this morning, and I could not well refuse him.”
“Why should you have wished to refuse him?”
“I haven’t said that I did wish it. But I hate scenes, and I think it would have been pleasanter for us to have parted without any occasion for special words.”
“Alice, you are such a fool!”
“So you tell me very often.”
“Of course he is now going to say the very thing that he has come all this way for the purpose of saying. He has been wonderfully slow about it; but then slow as he is, you are slower. If you don’t make it up with him now, I really shall think you can’t understand it. I know you want to be his wife, and I know he wants to be your husband, and the only thing that keeps you apart is your obstinacy — just because you have said you wouldn’t have him. My belief is that if Lady Midlothian and the rest of us were to pat you on the back, and tell you how right you were, you’d ask him to take you, out of defiance. You may be sure of this, Alice; if you refuse him now, it’ll be for the last time.”
This, and much more of the same kind, she bore before Mr Grey came to take her, and she answered to it all as little as she could. “You are making me very unhappy, Glencora,” she said once. “I wish I could break you down with unhappiness,” Lady Glencora answered, “so that he might find you less stiff, and hard, and unmanageable.” Directly upon that he came in, looking as though he had no business on hand more exciting than his ordinary morning’s tranquil employments. Alice at once got up to start with him. “So you and Alice are going to make your adieux,” said Lady Glencora. “It must be done sooner or later,” said Mr Grey; and then they went off.
Those who know Lucerne — and almost everybody now does know Lucerne — will remember the big hotel which has been built close to the landing-pier of the steamers, and will remember also the church that stands upon a little hill or rising ground, to the left of you, as you come out of the inn upon the lake. The church is immediately over the lake, and round the church there is a burying-ground, and skirting the burying-ground there are cloisters, through the arches and apertures of which they who walk and sit there look down immediately upon the blue water, and across the water upon the frowning menaces of Mount Pilate. It is one of the prettiest spots in that land of beauty; and its charm is to my feeling enhanced by the sepulchral monuments over which I walk, and by which I am surrounded, as I stand there. Up here, into these cloisters, Alice and John Grey went together. I doubt whether he had formed any purpose of doing so. She certainly would have gone without a question in any direction that he might have led her. The distance from the inn up to the church-gate did not take them ten minutes, and when they were there their walk was over. But the place was solitary, and they were alone; and it might be as well for Mr Grey to speak what words he had to say there as elsewhere. They had often been together in those cloisters before, but on such occasions either Mr Palliser or Lady Glencora had been with them. On their slow passage up the hill very little was spoken, and that little was of no moment. “We will go in here for a few minutes,” he said. “It is the prettiest spot about Lucerne, and we don’t know when we may see it again.” So they went in, and sat down on one of the embrasures that open from the cloisters over the lake.
“Probably never again,” said Alice. “And yet I have been here now two years running.”
She shuddered as she remembered that in that former year George Vavasor had been with her. As she thought of it all she hated herself. Over and over again she had told herself that she had so mismanaged the latter years of her life that it was impossible for her not to hate herself. No woman had a clearer idea of feminine constancy than she had, and no woman had sinned against that idea more deeply. He gave her time to think of all this as he sat there looking down upon the water.
“And yet I would sooner live in Cambridgeshire,” were the first words he spoke.
“Why so?”
“Partly because all beauty is best enjoyed when it is sought for with some trouble and difficulty, and partly because such beauty, and the romance which is attached to it, should not make up the staple of one’s life. Romance, if it is to come at all, should always come by fits and starts.”
“I should like to live in a pretty country.”
“And would like to live a romantic life — no doubt; but all those things lose their charm if they are made common. When a man has to go to Vienna or St Petersburg two or three times a month, you don’t suppose he enjoys travelling?”
“All the same, I should like to live in a pretty country,” said Alice.
“And I want you to come and live in a very ugly country.” Then he paused for a minute or two, not looking at her, but gazing still on the mountain opposite. She did not speak a word, but looked as he was looking. She knew that the request was coming, and had been thinking about it all night; but now that it had come she did not know how to bear herself. “I don’t think”, he went on to say, “that you would let that consideration stand in your way, if on other grounds you were willing to become my wife.”
“What consideration?”
“Because Nethercoats is not so pretty as Lucerne.”
“It would have nothing to do with it,” said Alice.
“It should have nothing to do with it.”
“Nothing; nothing at all,” repeated Alice.
“Will you come, then? Will you come and be my wife, and help me to be happy amidst all that ugliness? Will you come and be my one beautiful thing, my treasure, my joy, my comfort, my counsellor?”
“You want no counsellor, Mr Grey.”
“No man ever wanted one more. Alice, this has been a bad year to me, and I do not think that it has been a happy one for you.”
“Indeed, no.”
“Let us forget it — or rather, let us treat it as though it were forgotten. Twelve months ago you were mine. You were, at any rate, so much mine that I had a right to boast of my possession among my friends.”
“It was a poor boast.”
“They did not seem to think so. I had but one or two to whom I could speak of you, but they told me that I was going to be a happy man. As to myself, I was sure that I was to be so. No man was ever better contented with his bargain than I was with mine. Let us go back to it, and the last twelve months shall be as though they had never been.”
“That cannot be, Mr Grey. If it could, I should be worse even than I am.”
“Why cannot it be?”
“Because I cannot forgive myself what I have done, and because you ought not to forgive me.”
“But I do. There has never been an hour with me in which there has been an offence of yours rankling in my bosom unforgiven. I think you have been foolish, misguided — led away by a vain ambition, and that in the difficulty to which these things brought you, you endeavoured to constrain yourself to do an act, which, when it came near to you — when the doing of it had to be more closely considered, you found to be contrary to your nature.” Now, as he spoke thus, she turned her eyes upon him, and looked at him, wondering that he should have had power to read her heart so accurately. “I never believed that you would marry your cousin. When I was told of it, I knew that trouble had blinded you for awhile. You had driven yourself to revolt against me, and upon that your heart misgave you, and you said to yourself that it did not matter then how you might throw away all your sweetness. You see that I speak of your old love for me with the frank conceit of a happy lover.”
“No — no, no!” she ejaculated.
“But the storm passes over the tree and does not tear it up by the roots or spoil it of all its symmetry. When we hear the winds blowing, and see how the poor thing is shaken, we think that its days are numbered and its destruction at hand. Alice, when the winds were shaking you, and you were torn and buffeted, I never thought so. There may be some who will forgive you slowly. Your own self-forgiveness will be slow. But I, who have known you better than any one — yes, better than any one — I have forgiven you everything, have forgiven you instantly. Come to me, Alice, and comfort me. Come to me, for I want you sorely.” She sat quite still, looking at the lake and the mountain beyond, but she said nothing. What could she say to him? “My need of you is much greater now”, he went on to say, “than when I first asked you to share the world with me. Then I could have borne to lose you, as I had never boasted to myself that you were my own — had never pictured to myself the life that might be mine if you were always to be with me. But since that day I have had no other hope — no other hope but this for which I plead now. Am I to plead in vain?”
“You do not know me,” she said; “how vile I have been! You do not think what it is — for a woman to have promised herself to one man while she loved another.”
“But it was me you loved. Ah! Alice, I can forgive that. Do I not tell you that I did forgive it the moment that I heard it? Do you not hear me say that I never for a moment thought that you would marry him? Alice, you should scold me for my vanity, for I have believed all through that you loved me, and me only. Come to me, dear, and tell me that it is so, and the past shall be only as a dream.”
“I am dreaming it always,” said Alice.
“They will cease to be bitter dreams if your head be upon my shoulder. You will cease to reproach yourself when you know that you have made me happy.”
“I shall never cease to reproach myself. I have done that which no woman can do and honour herself afterwards. I have been — a jilt.”
“The noblest jilt that ever yet halted between two minds! There has been no touch of selfishness in your fickleness. I think I could be hard enough upon a woman who had left me for greater wealth, for a higher rank — who had left me even that she might be gay and merry. It has not been so with you.”
“Yes, it has, I thought you were too firm in your own will, and — ”
“And you think so still. Is that it?”
“It does not matter what I think now. I am a fallen creature, and have no longer a right to such thoughts. It will be better for us both that you should leave me — and forget me. There are things which, if a woman does them, should never be forgotten — which she should never permit herself to forget.”
“And am I to be punished then, because of your fault? Is that your sense of justice?” He got up, and standing before her, looked down upon her. “Alice, if you will tell me that you do not love me, I will believe you, and will trouble you no more. I know that you will say nothing to me that is false. Through it all you have spoken no word of falsehood. If you love me, after what has passed, I have a right to demand your hand. My happiness requires it, and I have a right to expect your compliance. I do demand it. If you love me, Alice, I tell you that you dare not refuse me. If you do so, you will fail hereafter to reconcile it to your conscience before God.”
Then he stopped his speech, and waited for a reply; but Alice sat silent beneath his gaze, with her eyes turned upon the tombstones beneath her feet. Of course she had no choice but to yield. He, possessed of power and force infinitely greater than hers, had left her no alternative but to be happy. But there still clung to her what I fear we must call a perverseness of obstinacy, a desire to maintain the resolution she had made — a wish that she might be allowed to undergo the punishment she had deserved. She was as a prisoner who would fain cling to his prison after pardon has reached him, because he is conscious that the pardon is undeserved. And it may be that there was still left within her bosom some remnant of that feeling of rebellion which his masterful spirit had ever produced in her. He was so imperious in his tranquillity, he argued his question of such love with a manifest preponderance of right on his side, that she had always felt that to yield to him would be to confess the omnipotence of his power. She knew now that she must yield to him — that his power over her was omnipotent. She was pressed by him as in some countries the prisoner is pressed by the judge — so pressed that she acknowledged to herself silently that any further antagonism to him was impossible. Nevertheless, the word which she had to speak still remained unspoken, and he stood over her, waiting for her answer. Then slowly he sat down beside her, and gradually he put his arm round her waist. She shrank from him, back against the stonework of the embrasure, but she could not shrink away from his grasp. She put up her hand to impede his, but his hand, like his character and his words, was full of power. It would not be impeded. “Alice,” he said, as he pressed her close with his arm, “the battle is over now, and I have won it.”
“You win everything — always,” she said, whispering to him, as she still shrank from his embrace.
“In winning you I have won everything.” Then he put his face over her and pressed his lips to hers. I wonder whether he was made happier when he knew that no other touch had profaned those lips since last he had pressed them?
Alice insisted on being left up in the churchyard, urging that she wanted to “think about it all,” but, in truth, fearing that she might not be able to carry herself well, if she were to walk down with her lover to the hotel. To this he made no objection, and, on reaching the inn, met Mr Palliser in the hall. Mr Palliser was already inspecting the arrangement of certain large trunks which had been brought downstairs, and was preparing for their departure. He was going about the house, with a nervous solicitude to do something, and was flattering himself that he was of use. As he could not be Chancellor of the Exchequer, and as, by the nature of his disposition, some employment was necessary to him, he was looking to the cording of the boxes. “Good morning! Good morning!” he said to Grey, hardly looking at him, as though time were too precious with him to allow of his turning his eyes upon his friend. “I am going up to the station to see after a carriage for tomorrow. Perhaps you’ll come with me.” To this proposition Mr Grey assented. “Sometimes, you know,” continued Mr Palliser, “the springs of the carriages are so very rough.” Then, in a very few words, Mr Grey told him what had been his own morning’s work. He hated secrets and secrecy, and as the Pallisers knew well what had brought him upon their track, it was, he thought, well that they should know that he had been successful. Mr Palliser congratulated him very cordially, and then, running upstairs for his gloves or his stick, or, more probably, that he might give his wife one other caution as to her care of herself, he told her also that Alice had yielded at last. “Of course she has,” said Lady Glencora.
“I really didn’t think she would,” said he.
“That’s because you don’t understand things of that sort,” said his wife. Then the caution was repeated, the mother of the future duke was kissed, and Mr Palliser went off on his mission about the carriage, its cushions, and its springs. In the course of their walk Mr Palliser suggested that, as things were settled so pleasantly, Mr Grey might as well return with them to England, and to this suggestion Mr Grey assented.
Alice remained alone for nearly an hour, looking out upon the rough sides and gloomy top of Mount Pilate. No one disturbed her in the churchyard — no steps were heard along the tombstones — no voice sounded through the cloisters. She was left in perfect solitude to think of the past, and form her plans of the future. Was she happy, now that the manner of her life to come was thus settled for her; that all further question as to the disposal of herself was taken out of her hands, and that her marriage with a man she loved was so firmly arranged that no further folly of her own could disarrange it? She was happy, though she was slow to confess her happiness to herself. She was happy, and she was resolute in this — that she would now do all she could to make him happy also. And there must now, she acknowledged, be an end to her pride — to that pride which had hitherto taught her to think that she could more wisely follow her own guidance than that of any other who might claim to guide her. She knew now that she must follow his guidance. She had found her master, as we sometimes say, and laughed to herself with a little inward laughter as she confessed that it was so. She was from henceforth altogether in his hands. If he chose to tell her that they were to be married at Michaelmas, or at Christmas, or on Lady Day, they would, of course, be married accordingly. She had taken her fling at having her own will, and she and all her friends had seen what had come of it. She had assumed the command of the ship, and had thrown it upon the rocks, and she felt that she never ought to take the captain’s place again. It was well for her that he who was to be captain was one whom she respected as thoroughly as she loved him.
She would write to her father at once — to her father and Lady Macleod — and would confess everything. She felt that she owed it to them that they should be told by herself that they had been right and that she had been wrong. Hitherto she had not mentioned to either of them the fact that Mr Grey was with them in Switzerland. And, then, what must she do as to Lady Midlothian? As to Lady Midlothian, she would do nothing. Lady Midlothian, of course, would triumph — would jump upon her, as Lady Glencora had once expressed it, with very triumphant heels — would try to patronise her, or, which would be almost worse, would make a parade of her forgiveness. But she would have nothing to do with Lady Midlothian, unless, indeed, Mr Grey should order it. Then she laughed at herself again with that inward laughter, and, rising from her seat, proceeded to walk down the hill to the hotel.
“Vanquished at last!” said Lady Glencora, as Alice entered the room.
“Yes, vanquished; if you like to call it so,” said Alice.
“It is not what I call it, but what you feel it,” said the other. “Do you think that I don’t know you well enough to be sure that you regard yourself now as an unfortunate prisoner — as a captive taken in war, to be led away in triumph, without any hope of a ransom? I know that it is quite a misery to you that you should be made a happy woman of at last. I understand it all, my dear, and my heart bleeds for you.”
“Of course; I knew that was the way you would treat me.”
“In what way would you have me treat you? If I were to hug you with joy, and tell you how good he is, and how fortunate you are — if I were to praise him, and bid you triumph in your success, as might be expected on such an occasion, you would put on a long face at once, and tell me that though the thing is to be, it would be much better that the thing shouldn’t be. Don’t I know you, Alice?”
“I shouldn’t have said that — not now.”
“I believe in my heart you would — that, or something like it. But I do wish you joy all the same, and you may say what you please. He has got you in his power now, and I don’t think even you can go back.”
“No; I shall not go back again.”
“I would join with Lady Midlothian in putting you into a madhouse, if you did. But I am so glad; I am, indeed. I was afraid to the last — terribly afraid; you are so hard and so proud. I don’t mean hard to me, dear. You have never been half hard enough to me. But you are hard to yourself, and, upon my word, you have been hard to him. What a deal you will have to make up to him!”
“I feel that I ought to stand before him always as a penitent — in a white sheet.”
“He will like it better, I dare say, if you will sit upon his knee. Some penitents do, you know. And how happy you will be! He’ll never explain the sugar duties to you, and there’ll be no Mr Bott at Nethercoats.” They sat together the whole morning — while Mr Palliser was seeing to the springs and cushions — and by degrees Alice began to enjoy her happiness. As she did so her friend enjoyed it with her, and at last they had something of the comfort and excitement which such an occasion should give. “I’ll tell you what, Alice; you shall come and be married at Matching, in August, or perhaps September. That’s the only way in which I can be present; and if we can bespeak some sun, we’ll have the breakfast out in the ruins.”
On the following morning they all started together, a first-class compartment having been taken for the Palliser family, and a second-class compartment close to them for the Palliser servants. Mr Palliser, as he slowly handed his wife in, was a triumphant man; as was also Mr Grey, as he handed in his lady-love, though, in a manner, much less manifest. We may say that both the gentlemen had been very fortunate while at Lucerne. Mr Palliser had come abroad with a feeling that all the world had been cut from under his feet. A great change was needed for his wife, and he had acknowledged at once that everything must be made to yield to that necessity. He certainly had his reward — now in his triumphant return. Terrible troubles had afflicted him as he went, which seemed now to have dissipated themselves altogether. When he thought of Burgo Fitzgerald he remembered him only as a poor, unfortunate fellow, for whom he should be glad to do something, if the doing of anything were only in his power; and he had in his pocket a letter which he had that morning received from the Duke of St Bungay, marked private and confidential, which was in its nature very private and confidential, and in which he was told that Lord Brock and Mr Finespun were totally at variance about French wines. Mr Finespun wanted to do something, now in the recess — to send some political agent over to France — to which Lord Brock would not agree; and no one knew what would be the consequence of this disagreement. Here might be another chance — if only Mr Palliser could give up his winter in Italy! Mr Palliser, as he took his place opposite his wife, was very triumphant.
And Mr Grey was triumphant, as he placed himself gently in his seat opposite to Alice. He seemed to assume no right, as he took that position apparently because it was the one which came naturally to his lot. No one would have been made aware that Alice was his own simply by seeing his arrangements for her comfort. He made no loud assertion as to his property and his rights, as some men do. He was quiet and subdued in his joy, but not the less was he triumphant. From the day on which Alice had accepted his first offer — nay, from an earlier day than that; from the day on which he had first resolved to make it, down to the present hour, he had never been stirred from his purpose. By every word that he had said, and by every act that he had done, he had shown himself to be unmoved by that episode in their joint lives, which Alice’s other friends had regarded as so fatal. When she first rejected him, he would not take his rejection. When she told him that she intended to marry her cousin, he silently declined to believe that such marriage would ever take place. He had never given her up for a day, and now the event proved that he had been right. Alice was happy, very happy; but she was still disposed to regard her lover as Fate, and her happiness as an enforced necessity.
They stopped a night at Basle, and again she stood upon the balcony. He was close to her as she stood there — so close that, putting out her hand for his, she was able to take it and press it closely. “You are thinking of something, Alice,” he said. “What is it?”
“It was here,” she said — “here, on this very balcony, that I first rebelled against you, and now you have brought me here that I should confess and submit on the same spot. I do confess. How am I to thank you for forgiving me?”
On the following morning they went on to Baden-Baden, and there they stopped for a couple of days. Lady Glencora had positively refused to stop a day at Basle, making so many objections to the place that her husband had at last yielded. “I could go from Vienna to London without feeling it,” she said, with indignation; “and to tell me that I can’t do two easy days’ journey running!” Mr Palliser had been afraid to be imperious, and therefore, immediately on his arrival at one of the stations in Basle, he had posted across the town, in the heat and the dust, to look after the cushions and the springs at the other.
“I’ve a particular favour to ask of you,” Lady Glencora said to her husband, as soon as they were alone together in their rooms at Baden. Mr Palliser declared that he would grant her any particular favour — only promising that he was not to be supposed to have thereby committed himself to any engagement under which his wife should have authority to take any exertion upon herself. “I wish I were a milkmaid,” said Lady Glencora.
“But you are not a milkmaid, my dear. You haven’t been brought up like a milkmaid.”
But what was the favour? If she would only ask for jewels — though they were the Grand Duchess’s diamond eardrops, he would endeavour to get them for her. If she would have quaffed molten pearls, like Cleopatra, he would have procured the beverage — having first fortified himself with a medical opinion as to the fitness of the drink for a lady in her condition. There was no expenditure that he would not willingly incur for her, nothing costly that he would grudge. But when she asked for a favour, he was always afraid of an imprudence. Very possibly she might want to drink beer in an open garden.
And her request was, at last, of this nature! “I want you to take me up to the gambling-rooms,” said she.
“The gambling-rooms!” said Mr Palliser in dismay.
“Yes, Plantagenet; the gambling-rooms. If you had been with me before, I should not have made a fool of myself by putting my piece of money on the table. I want to see the place; but then I saw nothing, because I was so frightened when I found that I was winning.”
Mr Palliser was aware that all the world of Baden — or rather the world of the strangers at Baden — assembles itself in those salons. It may be also that he himself was curious to see how men looked when they lost their own money, or won that of others. He knew how a Minister looked when he lost or gained a tax. He was familiar with millions and tens of millions in a committee of the whole House. He knew the excitement of a near division upon the estimates. But he had never yet seen a poor man stake his last napoleon, and rake back from off the table a small hatful of gold. A little exercise after an early dinner was, he had been told, good for his wife; and he agreed therefore that, on their second evening at Baden, they would all walk up and see the play.
“Perhaps I shall get back my napoleon,” said Glencora to Alice.
“And perhaps I shall be forgiven when somebody sees how difficult it is to manage you,” said Alice, looking at Mr Palliser.
“She isn’t in earnest,” said Mr Palliser, almost fearing the result of the experiment.
“I don’t know that,” said Lady Glencora.
They started together, Mr Palliser with his wife, and Mr Grey with Alice on his arm, and found all the tables at work. They at first walked through the different rooms, whispering to each other their comments on the people that they saw, and listening to the quick, low, monotonous words of the croupiers as they arranged and presided over the games. Each table was closely surrounded by its own crowd, made up of players, embryo players, and simple lookers-on, so that they could not see much as they walked. But this was not enough for Lady Glencora. She was anxious to know what these men and women were doing — to see whether the croupiers wore horns on their heads and were devils indeed — to behold the faces of those who were wretched and of those who were triumphant — to know how the thing was done, and to learn something of that lesson in life. “Let us stand here a moment,” she said to her husband, arresting him at one corner of the table which had the greatest crowd. “We shall be able to see in a few minutes.” So he stood with her there, giving way to Alice, who went in front with his wife; and in a minute or two an aperture was made, so that they could all see the marked cloth, and the money lying about, and the rakes on the table, and the croupier skilfully dealing his cards, and — more interesting than all the rest, the faces of those who were playing. Grey looked on, over Alice’s shoulder, very attentively — as did Palliser also — but both of them kept their eyes upon the ministers of the work. Alice and Glencora did the same at first, but as they gained courage they glanced round upon the gamblers.
It was a long table, having, of course, four corners, and at the corner appropriated by them they were partly opposite to the man who dealt the cards. The corner answering to theirs at the other end was the part of the table most removed from their sight, and that on which their eyes fell last. As Lady Glencora stood she could hardly see — indeed, at first she could not see — one or two who were congregated at this spot. Mr Palliser, who was behind her, could not see them at all. But to Alice — and to Mr Grey, had he cared about it — every face at the table was visible except the faces of those who were immediately close to them. Before long Alice’s attention was riveted on the action and countenance of one young man who sat at that other corner. He was leaning, at first listlessly, over the table, dressed in a velveteen jacket, and with his round-topped hat brought far over his eyes, so that she could not fully see his face. But she had hardly begun to observe him before he threw back his hat, and taking some pieces of gold from under his left hand, which lay upon the table, pushed three or four of them on to one of the divisions marked on the cloth. He seemed to show no care, as others did, as to the special spot which they should occupy. Many were very particular in this respect, placing their ventures on the lines, so as to share the fortunes of two compartments, or sometimes of four; or they divided their coins, taking three or four numbers, selecting the numbers with almost grotesque attention to some imagined rule of their own. But this man let his gold go all together, and left it where his half-stretched rake deposited it by chance. Alice could not but look at his face. His eyes she could see were bloodshot, and his hair, when he pushed back his hat, was rough and dishevelled; but still there was that in his face which no woman could see and not regard. It was a face which at once prepossessed her in his favour — as it had always prepossessed all others. On this occasion he had won his money, and Alice saw him drag it in as lazily as he had pushed it out.
“Do you see that little Frenchman?” said Lady Glencora. “He has just made half a napoleon, and has walked off with it. Isn’t it interesting? I could stay here all the night.” Then she turned round to whisper something to her husband, and Alice’s eyes again fell on the face of the man at the other end of the table. After he had won his money, he had allowed the game to go on for a turn without any action on his part. The gold again went under his hand, and he lounged forward with his hat over his eyes. One of the croupiers had said a word, as though calling his attention to the game, but he had merely shaken his head. But when the fate of the next turn had been decided, he again roused himself, and on this occasion, as far as Alice could see, pushed his whole stock forward with the rake. There was a little mass of gold, and, from his manner of placing it, all might see that he left its position to chance. One piece had got beyond its boundary, and the croupier pushed it back with some half-expressed inquiry as to his correctness. “All right,” said a voice in English. Then Lady Glencora started and clutched Alice’s arm with her hand. Mr Palliser was explaining to Mr Grey, behind them, something about German finance as connected with gambling-tables, and did not hear the voice, or see his wife’s motion. I need hardly tell the reader that the gambler was Burgo Fitzgerald.
But Lady Glencora said not a word — not as yet. She looked forward very gently, but still with eager eyes, till she could just see the face she knew so well. His hat was now pushed back, and his countenance had lost its listlessness. He watched narrowly the face of the man as he told out the amount of the cards as they were dealt. He did not try to hide his anxiety, and when, after the telling of some six or seven cards, he heard a certain number named, and a certain colour called, he made some exclamation which even Glencora could not hear. And then another croupier put down, close to Burgo’s money, certain rolls of gold done up in paper, and also certain loose napoleons.
“Why doesn’t he take it?” said Lady Glencora.
“He is taking it,” said Alice, not at all knowing the cause of her cousin’s anxiety.
Burgo had paused a moment, and then prepared to rake the money to him; but as he did so, he changed his mind, and pushed it all back again — now, on this occasion, being very careful to place it on its former spot. Both Alice and Glencora could see that a man at his elbow was dissuading him — had even attempted to stop the arm which held the rake. But Burgo shook him off, speaking to him some word roughly, and then again he steadied the rolls upon their appointed place. The croupier who had paused for a moment now went on quickly with his cards, and in two minutes the fate of Burgo’s wealth was decided. It was all drawn back by the croupier’s unimpassioned rake, and the rolls of gold were restored to the tray from whence they had been taken.
Burgo looked up and smiled at them all round the table. By this time most of those who stood around were looking at him. He was a man who gathered eyes upon him wherever he might be, or whatever he was doing; and it had been clear that he was very intent upon his fortune, and on the last occasion the amount staked had been considerable. He knew that men and women were looking at him, and therefore he smiled faintly as he turned his eyes round the table. Then he got up, and, putting his hands in his trouser-pockets, whistled as he walked away. His companion followed him, and laid a hand upon his shoulder; but Burgo shook him off, and would not turn round. He shook him off, and walked on whistling, the length of the whole salon.
“Alice,” said Lady Glencora, “it is Burgo Fitzgerald.” Mr Palliser had gone so deep into that question of German finance that he had not at all noticed the gambler. “Alice, what can we do for him? It is Burgo,” said Lady Glencora. Many eyes were now watching him. Used as he was to the world and to misfortune, he was not successful in his attempt to bear his loss with a show of indifference. The motion of his head, the position of his hands, the tone of his whistling, all told the tale. Even the unimpassioned croupiers furtively cast an eye after him, and a very big Guard, in a cocked hat, and uniform, and sword, who hitherto had hardly been awake, seemed evidently to be interested by his movements. If there is to be a tragedy at these places — and tragedies will sometimes occur — it is always as well that the tragic scene should be as far removed as possible from the salons, in order that the public eye should not suffer.
Lady Glencora and Alice had left their places, and had shrunk back, almost behind a pillar. “Is it he, in truth?” Alice asked.
“In very truth,” said Glencora. “What can I do? Can I do anything? Look at him, Alice. If he were to destroy himself, what should I do then?”
Burgo, conscious that he was the regarded of all eyes, turned round upon his heel and again walked the length of the salon. He knew well that he had not a franc left in his possession, but still he laughed and still he whistled. His companion, whoever he might be, had slunk away from him, not caring to share the notoriety which now attended him.
“What shall I do, Alice?” said Lady Glencora, with her eyes still fixed on him who had been her lover.
“Tell Mr Palliser,” whispered Alice.
Lady Glencora immediately ran up to her husband, and took him away from Mr Grey. Rapidly she told her story — with such rapidity that Mr Palliser could hardly get in a word. “Do something for him — do, do. Unless I know that something is done, I shall die. You needn’t be afraid.”
“I’m not afraid,” said Mr Palliser,
Lady Glencora, as she went on quickly, got hold of her husband’s hand, and caressed it. “You are so good,” said she. “Don’t let him out of your sight. There; he is going. I will go home with Mr Grey. I will be ever so good; I will, indeed. You know what he’ll want, and for my sake you’ll let him have it. But don’t let him gamble. If you could only get him home to England, and then do something. You owe him something, Plantagenet; do you not?”
“If money can do anything, he shall have it.”
“God bless you, dearest! I shall never see him again; but if you could save him! There — he is going now. Go — go.” She pushed him forward, and then retreating, put her arm within Mr Grey’s, still keeping her eye upon her husband. Burgo, when he first got to the door leading out of the salon, had paused a moment, and, turning round, had encountered the big gendarme close to him. “Well, old Buffer, what do you want?” said he, accosting the man in English. The big gendarme simply walked on through the door, and said nothing. Then Burgo also passed out, and Mr Palliser quickly went after him. They were now in the large front salon, from whence the chief door of the building opened out upon the steps. Through this door Burgo went without pausing, and Mr Palliser went after him. They both walked to the end of the row of buildings, and then Burgo, leaving the broad way, turned into a little path which led up through the trees to the hills. That hillside among the trees is a popular resort at Baden, during the day; but now, at nine in the evening, it was deserted. Palliser did not press on the other man, but followed him, and did not accost Burgo till he had thrown himself on the grass beneath a tree.
“You are in trouble, I fear, Mr Fitzgerald,” said Mr Palliser, as soon as he was close at Burgo’s feet.
“We will go home. Mr Palliser has something to do,” said Lady Glencora to Mr Grey, as soon as the two men had disappeared from her sight.
“Is that a friend of Mr Palliser?” said Mr Grey.
“Yes — that is, he knows him, and is interested about him. Alice, shall we go home? Oh! Mr Grey, you must not ask any questions. He — Mr Palliser, will tell you everything when he sees you — that is, if there is anything to be told.” Then they all went home, and soon separated for the night. “Of course I shall sit up for him,” said Lady Glencora to Alice, “but I will do it in my own room. You can tell Mr Grey, if you like.” But Alice told nothing to Mr Grey, nor did Mr Grey ask any questions.
“You are in trouble, Mr Fitzgerald, I fear,” said Mr Palliser, standing over Burgo as he lay upon the ground. They were now altogether beyond the gaslights, and the evening was dark. Burgo, too, was lying with his face to the ground, expecting that the footsteps which he had heard would pass by him.
“Who is that?” said he, turning round suddenly; but still he was not at once able to recognise Mr Palliser, whose voice was hardly known to him.
“Perhaps I have been wrong in following you,” said Mr Palliser, “but I thought you were in distress, and that probably I might help you. My name is Palliser.”
“Plantagenet Palliser?” said Burgo, jumping up on to his legs and looking close into the other’s face. “By heavens! it is Plantagenet Palliser! Well, Mr Palliser, what do you want of me?”
“I want to be of some use to you, if I can. I and my wife saw you leave the gaming-table just now.”
“Is she here too?”
“Yes — she is here. We are going home, but chance brought us up to the salon. She seemed to think that you are in distress, and that I could help you. I will, if you will let me.”
Mr Palliser, during the whole interview, felt that he could afford to be generous. He knew that he had no further cause for fear. He had no lingering dread of this poor creature who stood before him. All that feeling was over, though it was as yet hardly four months since he had been sent back by Mrs Marsham to Lady Monk’s house to save his wife, if saving her were yet possible.
“So she is here, is she — and saw me there when I staked my last chance? I should have had over twenty thousand francs now, if the cards had stood to me.”
“The cards never do stand to any one, Mr Fitzgerald.”
“Never — never — never!” said Burgo. “At any rate, they never did to me. Nothing ever does stand to me.”
“If you want twenty thousand francs — that’s eight hundred pounds, I think — I can let you have it without any trouble.”
“The devil you can!”
“Oh, yes. As I am travelling with my family — ” I wonder whether Mr Palliser considered himself to be better entitled to talk of his family than he had been some three or four weeks back — “As I am travelling with my family, I have been obliged to carry large bills with me, and I can accommodate you without any trouble.”
There was something pleasant in this, which made Burgo Fitzgerald laugh. Mr Palliser, the husband of Lady Glencora M’Cluskie, and the heir of the Duke of Omnium happening to have money with him! As if Mr Palliser could not bring down showers of money in any quarter of the globe by simply holding up his hand. And then to talk of accommodating him — him, Burgo Fitzgerald, as though it were simply a little matter of convenience — as though Mr Palliser would of course find the money at his bankers’ when he next examined his book! Burgo could not but laugh.
“I was not in the least doubting your ability to raise the money,” said he; “but how would you propose to get it back again?”
“That would be at your convenience,” said Mr Palliser, who hardly knew how to put himself on a proper footing with his companion, so that he might offer to do something effectual for the man’s aid.
“I never have any such convenience,” said Burgo. “Who were those women whose tubs always had holes at the bottom of them? My tub always has such a hole.”
“You mean the daughters of Danaus,” said Mr Palliser.
“I don’t know whose daughters they were, but you might just as well lend them all eight hundred pounds apiece.”
“There were so many of them,” said Mr Palliser, trying a little joke. “But as you are the only one I shall be most happy, as I said before, to be of service.”
They were now walking slowly together up towards the hills, and near to them they heard a step. Upon this, Burgo turned round.
“Do you see that fellow?” said he. Mr Palliser, who was somewhat short-sighted, said that he did not see him. “I do, though. I don’t know his name, but they have sent him out from the hotel with me, to see what I do with myself. I owe them six or seven hundred francs, and they want to turn me out of the house and not let me take my things with me.”
“That would be very uncomfortable,” said Mr Palliser.
“It would be uncomfortable, but I shall be too many for them. If they keep my traps they shall keep me. They think I’m going to blow my brains out. That’s what they think. The man lets me go far enough off to do that — so long as it’s nowhere about the house.”
“I hope you’re not thinking of such a thing?”
“As long as I can help it, Mr Palliser, I never think of anything.” The stranger was now standing near to them — almost so near that he might hear their words. Burgo, perceiving this, walked up to him, and, speaking in bad French, desired him to leave them. “Don’t you see that I have a friend with me?”
“Oh! a friend,” said the man, answering in bad English, “Perhaps de friend can advance moneys?”
“Never mind what he can do,” said Burgo, “You do as you are bid, and leave me.”
Then the gentleman from the hotel retreated down the hill, but Mr Palliser, during the rest of the interview, frequently fancied that he heard the man’s footfall at no great distance. They continued to walk on up the hill very slowly, and it was some time before Mr Palliser knew how to repeat his offer.
“So Lady Glencora is here?” Burgo said again.
“Yes, she is here. It was she who asked me to come to you,” Mr Palliser answered. Then they both walked on a few steps in silence, for neither of them knew how to address the other.
“By George! — isn’t it odd,” said Burgo, at last, “that you and I, of all men in the world, should be walking together here at Baden? It’s not only that you’re the richest man in London, and that I’m the poorest, but —; there are other things, you know, which make it so funny.”
“There have been things which make me and my wife very anxious to give you aid.”
“And have you considered, Mr Palliser, that those things make you the very man in the world — indeed, for the matter of that, the only man in the world — from whom I can’t take aid? I would have taken it all if I could have got it — and I tried hard.”
“I know you have been disappointed, Mr Fitzgerald.”
“Disappointed! By G—! yes. Did you ever know any man who had so much right to be disappointed as I have? I did love her, Mr Palliser. Nay, by heavens! I do love her. Out here I will dare to say as much even to you. I shall never try to see her again. All that is over, of course. I’ve been a fool about her as I have been about everything. But I did love her.”
“I believe it, Mr Fitzgerald.”
“It was not altogether her money. But think what it would have been to me, Mr Palliser. Think what a chance I had, and what a chance I lost. I should have been at the top of everything — as now I am at the bottom. I should not have spent that. There would have been enough of it to have saved me. And then I might have done something good instead of crawling about almost in fear of that beast who is watching us.”
“It has been ordered otherwise,” said Mr Palliser, not knowing what to say.
“Yes; it has been ordered, with a vengeance! It seems to have been ordered that I’m to go to the devil; but I don’t know who gave the orders, and I don’t know why.”
Mr Palliser had not time to explain to his friend that the orders had been given, in a very peremptory way, by himself, as he was anxious to bring back the conversation to his own point. He wished to give some serviceable, and, if possible, permanent aid to the poor ne’er-do-well; but he did not wish to talk more than could be helped about his own wife.
“There is an old saying, which you will remember well,” said he, “that the way to good manners is never too late.”
“That’s nonsense,” said Burgo. “It’s too late when the man feels the knot round his neck at the Old Bailey.”
“Perhaps not, even then, Indeed, we may say, certainly not, if the man be still able to take the right way. But I don’t want to preach to you.”
“It wouldn’t do any good, you know.”
“But I do want to be of service to you. There is something of truth in what you say. You have been disappointed; and I, perhaps, of all men am the most bound to come to your assistance now that you are in need.”
“How can I take it from you?” said Burgo, almost crying.
“You shall take it from her!”
“No — that would be worse; twenty times worse. What! take her money, when she would not give me herself!”
“I do not see why you should not borrow her money — or mine. You shall call it which you will.”
“No; I won’t have it.”
“And what will you do then?”
“What will I do? Ah! that’s the question. I don’t know what I will do. I have the key of my bedroom in my pocket, and I will go to bed tonight. It’s not very often that I look forward much beyond that.”
“Will you let me call on you, tomorrow?”
“I don’t see what good it will do? I shan’t get up till late, for fear they should shut the room against me. I might as well have as much out of them as I can. I think I shall say I’m ill, and keep my bed.”
“Will you take a few napoleons?”
“No; not a rap. Not from you. You are the first man from whom I ever refused to borrow money, and I should say that you’ll be about the last to offer to lend it me.”
“I don’t know what else I can offer?” said Mr Palliser.
“You can offer nothing. If you will say to your wife from me that I bade her adieu — that is all you can do for me. Goodnight, Mr Palliser; goodnight.”
Mr Palliser left him and went his way, feeling that he had no further eloquence at his command. He shook Burgo’s hand, and then walked quickly down the hill. As he did so, he passed, or would have passed, the man who had been dodging them.
“Misther, Misther!” said the man in a whisper.
“What do you want of me?” asked Mr Palliser, in French. Then the man spoke in French, also. “Has he got any money? Have you given him any money?”
“I have not given him any money,” said Mr Palliser, not quite knowing what he had better do or say under such circumstances.
“Then he will have a bad time with it,” said the man. “And he might have carried away two thousand francs just now! Dear, dear, dear! Has he got any friends, sir?”
“Yes, he has friends. I do not know that I can assist him, or you.”
“Fitzgerald — his name is Fitzgerald?”
“Yes,” said Mr Palliser; his name is Fitzgerald.
“Ah! There are so many Fitzgeralds in England. Mr Fitzgerald, London — he has no other address?”
“If he had, and I knew it, I should not give it you without his sanction.”
“But what shall we do? How shall we act? Perhaps with his own hand he will himself kill. For five weeks his pension he owes; yes, for five weeks. And for wine, oh so much! There came through Baden a my lord, and then, I think he got money. But he went and played. That was of course. But; oh my G—! he might have carried away this night two thousand francs; yes, two thousand francs!”
“Are you the hotelkeeper?”
“His friend, sir; only his friend. That is, I am the head Commissionaire. I look after the gentlemen who sometimes are not all — not all — ” exactly what they should be, the commissioner intended to explain; and Mr Palliser understood him although the words were not quite spoken. The interview was ended by Mr Palliser taking the name of the hotel, and promising to call before Mr Fitzgerald should be up in the morning — a purposed visit, which we need not regard as requiring any very early energy on Mr Palliser’s part, when we remember Burgo’s own programme for the following day.
Lady Glencora received her husband that night with infinite anxiety, and was by no means satisfied with what had been done. He described to her as accurately as he could the nature of his interview with Burgo, and he described to her also his other interview with the head commissioner.
“He will; he will,” said Lady Glencora, when she heard from her husband the man’s surmise that perhaps he might destroy himself. “He will; he will; and if he does, how can you expect that I shall bear it?” Mr Palliser tried to soothe her by telling her of his promised visit to the landlord; and Lady Glencora, accepting this as something, strove to instigate her husband to some lavish expenditure on Burgo’s behalf. “There can be no reason why he should not take it,” said Glencora. “None the least. Had it not been promised to him? Had he not a right to it?” The subject was one which Mr Palliser found it very hard to discuss. He could not tell his wife that Fitzgerald ought to accept his bounty; but he assured her that his money should be forthcoming, almost to any extent, if it could be made available.
On the following morning he went down to the hotel, and saw the real landlord. He found him to be a reasonable, tranquil, and very good-natured man — who was possessed by a not irrational desire that his customers’ bills should be paid; but who seemed to be much less eager on the subject than are English landlords in general. His chief anxiety seemed to arise from the great difficulty of doing anything with the gentleman who was now lying in his bed upstairs. “Has he had any breakfast?” Mr Palliser asked.
“Breakfast! Oh yes;” and the landlord laughed. He had been very particular in the orders he had given. He had desired his cutlets to be dressed in a particular way — with a great deal of cayenne pepper, and they had been so dressed. He had ordered a bottle of Sauterne; but the landlord had thought, or the head-waiter acting for him had thought, that a bottle of ordinary wine of the country would do as well. The bottle of ordinary wine of the country had just that moment been sent upstairs.
Then Mr Palliser sat down in the landlord’s little room, and had Burgo Fitzgerald’s bill brought to him. “I think I might venture to pay it,” said Mr Palliser.
“That was as monsieur pleased,” said the landlord, with something like a sparkle in his eye.
What was Mr Palliser to do? He did not know whether, in accordance with the rules of the world in which he lived, he ought to pay it, or ought to leave it; and certainly the landlord could not tell him. Then he thought of his wife. He could not go back to his wife without having done something; so, as a first measure, he paid the bill. The landlord’s eyes glittered, and he receipted it in the most becoming manner.
“Should he now send up the bottle of Sauterne?” — but to this Mr Palliser demurred.
“And to whom should the receipted bill be given?” Mr Palliser thought that the landlord had better keep it himself for a while.
“Perhaps there is some little difficulty?” suggested the landlord.
Mr Palliser acknowledged that there was a little difficulty. He knew that he must do something more. He could not simply pay the bill and go away. That would not satisfy his wife. He knew that he must do something more; but how was he to do it? So at last he let the landlord into his confidence. He did not tell the whole of Burgo’s past history. He did not tell that little episode in Burgo’s life which referred to Lady Glencora. But he did make the landlord understand that he was willing to administer money to Mr Fitzgerald, if only it could be administered judiciously.
“You can’t keep him out of the gambling salon, you know, sir; that is, not if he has a franc in his pocket.” As to that the landlord was very confident.
It was at last arranged, that the landlord was to tell Burgo that his bill did not signify at present, and that the use of the hotel was to be at Burgo’s command for the next three months. At the end of that time he was to have notice to quit. No money was to be advanced to him — but the landlord, even in this respect, had a discretion.
“When I get home, I will see what can be done with his relations there,” said Mr Palliser. Then he went home and told his wife.
“But he’ll have no clothes,” said Lady Glencora.
Mr Palliser said that the judicious landlord would manage that also; and in that way Lady Glencora was appeased — appeased, till something final could be done for the young man, on Mr Palliser’s return home.
Poor Burgo! He must now be made to end his career as far as these pages are concerned. He soon found that something had been done for him at the hotel, and no doubt he must have made some guess near the truth. The discreet landlord told him nothing — would tell him nothing; but that his bill did not signify as yet. Burgo thinking about it, resolved to write about it in an indignant strain to Mr Palliser; but the letter did not get itself written. When in England, Mr Palliser saw Sir Cosmo Monk, and with many apologies, told him what he had done.
“I regret it,” said Sir Cosmo, in anger. “I regret it; not for the money’s sake, but I regret it.” The amount expended, was however repaid to Mr Palliser, and an arrangement was made for remitting a weekly sum of fifteen pounds to Burgo, through a member of the diplomatic corps, as long as he should remain at a certain small German town which was indicated, and in which there was no public gambling-table. Lady Glencora expressed herself satisfied for the present; but I much doubt whether poor Burgo lived long in comfort on the allowance made to him.
Here we must say farewell to Burgo Fitzgerald.
Mr Palliser did not remain long in Baden after the payment of Burgo’s bill. Perhaps I shall not throw any undeserved discredit on his courage if I say that he was afraid to do so. What would he have said — what would he have been able to say, if that young man had come to him demanding an explanation? So he hurried away to Strasbourg the same day, much to his wife’s satisfaction.
The journey home from thence was not marked by any incidents. Gradually Mr Palliser became a little more lenient to his wife and slightly less oppressive in his caution. If he still inquired about the springs of the carriages, he did so in silence, and he ceased to enjoin the necessity of a day’s rest after each day’s journey. By the time that they reached Dover he had become so used to his wife’s condition that he made but little fluttering as she walked out of the boat by that narrow gangway which is so contrived as to make an arrival there a serious inconvenience to a lady, and a nuisance even to a man. He was somewhat staggered when a big man, in the middle of the night, insisted on opening the little basket which his wife carried, and was uncomfortable when obliged to stop her on the plank while he gave up the tickets which he thought had been already surrendered; but he was becoming used to his position, and bore himself like a man.
During their journey home Mr Palliser had by no means kept his seat opposite to Lady Glencora with constancy. He had soon found that it was easier to talk to Mr Grey than to his wife, and, consequently, the two ladies had been much together, as had also the two gentlemen. What the ladies discussed may be imagined. One was about to become a wife and the other a mother, and that was to be their fate after each had made up her mind that no such lot was to be hers. It may, however, be presumed that for every one word that Alice spoke Lady Glencora spoke ten. The two men, throughout these days of close intimacy, were intent upon politics. Mr Palliser, who may be regarded as the fox who had lost his tail — the tail being, in this instance, the comfort of domestic privacy — was eager in recommending his new friend to cut off his tail also. “Your argument would be very well”, said he, “if men were to be contented to live for themselves only.”
“Your argument would be very well”, said the other, “if it were used to a man who felt that he could do good to others by going into public life. But it is wholly inefficacious if it recommends public life simply or chiefly because a man may gratify his own ambition by public services.”
“Of course there is personal gratification, and of course there is good done,” said Mr Palliser.
“Is — or should be,” said Mr Grey.
“Exactly; and the two things must go together. The chief gratification comes from the feeling that you are of use.”
“But if you feel that you would not be of use?”
We need not follow the argument any further. We all know its nature, and what between two such men would be said on both sides. We all know that neither of them would put the matter altogether in a true light. Men never can do so in words, let the light within themselves be ever so clear. I do not think that any man yet ever had such a gift of words as to make them a perfect exponent of all the wisdom within him. But the effect was partly that which the weaker man of the two desired — the weaker in the gifts of nature, though art had in some respects made him stronger. Mr Grey was shaken in his quiescent philosophy, and startled Alice — startled her as much as he delighted her — by a word or two he said as he walked with her in the courts of the Louvre. “It’s all hollow here,” he said, speaking of French politics.
“Very hollow,” said Alice, who had no love for the French mode of carrying on public affairs.
“Of all modes of governing this seems to me to be the surest of coming to a downfall. Men are told that they are wise enough to talk, but not wise enough to have any power of action. It is as though men were cautioned that they were walking through gunpowder, and that no fire could be allowed them, but were at the same time enjoined to carry lucifer matches in their pockets. I don’t believe in the gunpowder, and I think there should be fire, and plenty of it; but if I didn’t want the fire I wouldn’t have the matches.”
“It’s so odd to hear you talk politics,” said Alice, laughing.
After this he dropped the subject for a while, as though he were ashamed of it, but in a very few minutes he returned to it manfully. “Mr Palliser wants me to go into Parliament.” Upon hearing this Alice said nothing. She was afraid to speak. After all that had passed she felt that it would not become her to show much outward joy on hearing such a proposition, so spoken by him, and yet she could say nothing without some sign of exultation in her voice. So she walked on without speaking, and was conscious that her fingers trembled on his arm. “What do you say about it?” he asked.
“What do I say? Oh, John, what right can I have to say anything?”
“No one else can have so much right — putting aside of course myself, who must be responsible for my own actions. He asked me whether I could afford it, and he seems to think that a smaller income suffices for such work now than it did a few years since. I believe that I could afford it, if I could get a seat that was not very expensive at the first outset. He could help me there.”
“On that point, of course, I can have no opinion.”
“No; not on that point. I believe we may take that for granted. Living in London for four or five months in the year might be managed. But as to the mode of life!”
Then Alice was unable to hold her tongue longer, and spoke out her thoughts with more vehemence than discretion. No doubt he combated them with some amount of opposition. He seldom allowed outspoken enthusiasm to pass by him without some amount of hostility. But he was not so perverse as to be driven from his new views by the fact that Alice approved them, and she, as she drew near home, was able to think that the only flaw in his character was in process of being cured.
When they reached London they all separated. It was Mr Palliser’s purpose to take his wife down to Matching with as little delay as possible. London was at this time nearly empty, and all the doings of the season were over. It was now the first week of August, and as Parliament had not been sitting for nearly two months, the town looked as it usually looks in September. Lady Glencora was to stay but one day in Park Lane, and it had been understood between her and Alice that they were not to see each other.
“How odd it is parting in this way, when people have been together so long,” said Lady Glencora. “It always seems as though there had been a separate little life of its own which was now to be brought to a close. I suppose, Mr Grey, you and I, when we next meet, will be far too distant to fight with each other.”
“I hope that may never be the case,” said Mr Grey.
“I suppose nothing would prevent his fighting; would it, Alice? But, remember, there must be no fighting when we do meet next, and that must be in September.”
“With all my heart,” said Mr Grey. But Alice said nothing.
Then Mr Palliser made his little speech. “Alice,” he said, as he gave his hand to Miss Vavasor, “give my compliments to your father, and tell him that I shall take the liberty of asking him to come down to Matching for the early shooting in September, and that I shall expect him to bring you with him. You may tell him also that he will have to stay to see you off, but that he will not be allowed to take you away.” Lady Glencora thought that this was very pretty as coming from her husband, and so she told him on their way home.
Alice insisted on going to Queen Anne Street in a cab by herself. Mr Palliser had offered a carriage; and Mr Grey, of course, offered himself as a protector; but she would have neither the one nor the other. If he had gone with her he might by chance have met her father, and she was most anxious that she should not be encumbered by her lover’s presence when she first received her father’s congratulations. They had slept at Dover, and had come up by a midday train. When she reached Queen Anne Street, the house was desolate, and she might therefore have allowed Mr Grey to attend her. But she found a letter waiting for her which made her for the moment forget both him and her father. Lady Macleod, at Cheltenham, was very ill, and wished to see her niece, as she said, before she died. “I have got your letter,” said the kind old woman, “and am now quite happy. It only wanted that to reconcile me to my departure. I thought through it all that my girl would be happy at last. Will she forgive me if I say that I have forgiven her?” The letter then went on to beg Alice to come to Cheltenham at once. “It is not that I am dying now,” said Lady Macleod, “though you will find me much altered and keeping my bed. But the doctor says he fears the first cold weather. I know what that means, my dear; and if I don’t see you now, before your marriage, I shall never see you again. Pray get married as soon as you can. I want to know that you are Mrs Grey before I go. If I were to hear that it was postponed because of my illness, I think it would kill me at once.”
There was another letter for her from Kate, full, of course, of congratulations, and promising to be at the wedding; “that is,” said Kate, “unless it takes place at the house of someone of your very grand friends;” and telling her that Aunt Greenow was to be married in a fortnight — telling her of this, and begging her to attend that wedding. “You should stand by your family,” said Kate. “And only think what my condition will be if I have no one here to support me. Do come. Journeys are nothing nowadays. Don’t you know I would go seven times the distance for you? Mr Cheesacre and Captain Bellfield are friends after all, and Mr Cheesacre is to be best man. Is it not beautiful? As for poor me, I’m told I haven’t a chance left of becoming mistress of Oileymead and all its wealth.”
Alice began to think that her hands were almost too full. If she herself were to be married in September, even by the end of September, her hands were very full indeed. Yet she did not know how to refuse any of the requests made to her. As to Lady Macleod, her visit to her was a duty which must of course be performed at once. She would stay but one day in London, and then go down to Cheltenham. Having resolved upon this she at once wrote to her aunt to that effect. As to that other affair down in Westmoreland, she sighed as she thought of it, but she feared that she must go there also. Kate had suffered too much on her behalf to allow of her feeling indifferent to such a request.
Then her father came in. “I didn’t in the least know when you might arrive,” said he, beginning with an apology for his absence. “How could I, my dear?” Alice scorned to remind him that she herself had named the precise hour of the train by which they had arrived. “It’s all right, papa,” said she. “I was very glad to have an hour to write a letter or two. Poor Lady Macleod is very ill. I must go to her the day after tomorrow.”
“Dear, dear, dear! I had heard that she was poorly. She is very old, you know. So, Alice, you’ve made it all square with Mr Grey at last?”
“Yes, papa — if you call that square.”
“Well; I do call it square. It has all come round to the proper thing.”
“I hope he thinks so.”
“What do you think yourself, my dear?”
“I’ve no doubt it’s the proper thing for me, papa.”
“Of course not; of course not; and I can tell you this, Alice, he is a man in a thousand. You’ve heard about the money?”
“What money, papa?”
“The money that George had.” As the reader is aware, Alice had heard nothing special about this money. She only knew, or supposed she knew, that she had given three thousand pounds to her cousin. But now her father explained to her the whole transaction. “We couldn’t have realised your money for months, perhaps,” said he; “but Grey knew that some men must have rope enough before they can hang themselves.”
Alice was unable to say anything on this subject to her father, but to herself she did declare that not in that way or with that hope had John Grey produced his money. “He must be paid, papa,” she said. “Paid! he answered; he can pay himself now. It may make some difference in the settlements, perhaps, but he and the lawyers may arrange that. I shan’t think of interfering with such a man as Grey. If you could only know, my dear, what I’ve suffered!” Alice in a penitential tone expressed her sorrow, and then he too assured her that he had forgiven her. “Bless you, my child!” he said, “and make you happy, and good, and — and — and very comfortable.” After that he went back to his club.
Alice made her journey down to Cheltenham without any adventure, and was received by Lady Macleod with open arms. “Dearest Alice, it is so good of you.”
“Good!” said Alice, “would I not have gone a thousand miles to you?” Lady Macleod was very eager to know all about the coming marriage. “I can tell you now, my dear, though I couldn’t do it before, that I knew he’d persist for ever. He told me so himself in confidence.”
“He has persisted, aunt; that is certain.”
“And I hope you’ll reward him. A beautiful woman without discretion is like a pearl in a swine’s snout; but a good wife is a crown of glory to her husband. Remember that, my dear, and choose your part for his sake.”
“I won’t be that unfortunate pearl, if I can help it, aunt.”
“We can all help it, if we set about it in the right way. And, Alice, you must be careful to find out all his likes and his dislikes. Dear me! I remember how hard I found it, but then I don’t think I was so clever as you are.”
“Sometimes I think nobody has ever been so stupid as I have.”
“Not stupid, my dear; if I must say the word, it is self-willed. But, dear, all that is forgiven now. Is it not?”
“There is a forgiveness which it is rather hard to get,” said Alice.
There was something said then as to the necessity of looking for pardon beyond this world, which I need not here repeat. To all her old friend’s little sermons Alice was infinitely more attentive than had been her wont, so that Lady Macleod was comforted and took heart of grace, and at last brought forth from under her pillow a letter from the Countess of Midlothian, which she had received a day or two since, and which bore upon Alice’s case. “I was not quite sure whether I’d show it you,” said Lady Macleod, “because you wouldn’t answer her when she wrote to you. But when I’m gone, as I shall be soon, she will be the nearest relative you have on your mother’s side, and from her great position, you know, Alice — ” But here Alice became impatient for the letter. Her aunt handed it to her, and she read as follows:
“Castle Reekie, July, 186-.
“DEAR LADY MACLEOD, —
“I am so sorry to hear of the symptoms you speak about. I strongly advise you to depend chiefly on beef-tea. They should be very careful to send it up quite free from grease, and it should not be too strong of the meat. There should be no vegetables in it. Not soup, you know, but beef-tea. If any thing acts upon your strength, that will. I need not tell one who has lived as you have done where to look for that other strength which alone can support you at such a time as this, I would go to you if I thought that my presence would be any comfort to you, but I know how sensitive you are, and the shock might be too much for you.
“If you see Alice Vavasor on her return to England, as you probably will, pray tell her from me that I give her my warmest congratulations, and that I am heartily glad that matters are arranged. I think she treated my attempts to heal the wound in a manner that they did not deserve; but all that shall be forgiven, as shall also her original bad behaviour to poor Mr Grey.”
Alice was becoming weary of so much forgiveness, and told herself, as she was reading the letter, that that of Lady Midlothian was at any rate unnecessary.
“I trust that we may yet meet and be friends,” continued Lady Midlothian. “I am extremely gratified at finding that she has been thought so much of by Mr Palliser. I’m told that Mr Palliser and Mr Grey have become great friends, and if this is so, Alice must be happy to feel that she has had it in her power to confer so great a benefit on her future husband as he will receive from this introduction.”
“I ain’t a bit happy, and I have conferred no benefit on Mr Grey,” exclaimed Alice, who was unable to repress the anger occasioned by the last paragraph.
“But it is a great benefit, my dear.”
“Mr Palliser has every bit as much cause to be gratified for that as Mr Grey, and perhaps more.”
Poor Lady Macleod could not argue the matter in her present state. She merely sighed, and moved her shrivelled old hand up and down upon the counterpane. Alice finished the letter without further remarks. It merely went on to say how happy the writer would be to know something of her cousin as Mrs Grey, as also to know something of Mr Grey, and then gave a general invitation to both Mr and Mrs Grey, asking them to come to Castle Reekie whenever they might be able. The Marchioness, with whom Lady Midlothian was staying, had expressly desired her to give this message. Alice, however, could not but observe that Lady Midlothian’s invitation applied only to another person’s house.
“I’m sure she means well,” said Alice.
“Indeed she does,” said Lady Macleod, “and then you know you’ll probably have children; and think what a thing it will be for them to know the Midlothian family. You shouldn’t rob them of their natural advantages.”
Alice remained a week with her aunt, and went from thence direct to Westmoreland. Some order as to bridal preparations we must presume she gave on that single day which she passed in London. Much advice she had received on this head from Lady Glencora, and no inconsiderable amount of assistance was to be rendered to her at Matching during the fortnight she would remain there before her marriage. Something also, let us hope, she might do at Cheltenham. Something no doubt she did do. Something also might probably be achieved among the wilds in Westmoreland, but that something would necessarily be of a nature not requiring fashionable tradespeople. While at Cheltenham she determined that she would not again return to London before her marriage. This resolve was caused by a very urgent letter from Mr Grey, and by another, almost equally urgent, from Lady Glencora. If the marriage did not take place in September she would not be present at it. The gods of the world — of Lady Glencora’s world — had met together and come to a great decision. Lady Glencora was to be removed in October to Gatherum Castle, and remain there till the following spring, so that the heir might, in truth, be born in the purple. “It is such a bore,” said Lady Glencora, “and I know it will be a girl. But the Duke isn’t to be there, except for the Christmas week.” An invitation for the ceremony at Matching had been sent from Mr Palliser to Mr Vavasor, and another from Lady Glencora to Kate, “whom I long to know,” said her ladyship, “and with whom I should like to pick a crow, if I dared, as I’m sure she did all the mischief.”