Yarmouth is not a happy place for a picnic. A picnic should be held among green things. Green turf is absolutely an essential. There should be trees, broken ground, small paths, thickets, and hidden recesses. There should, if possible, be rocks, old timber, moss, and brambles. There should certainly be hills and dales — on a small scale, and, above all, there should be running water. There should be no expanse. Jones should not be able to see all Greene’s movements, nor should Augusta always have her eye upon her sister Jane. But the spot chosen for Mr Cheesacre’s picnic at Yarmouth had none of the virtues above described. It was on the sea-shore. Nothing was visible from the site but sand and sea. There were no trees there and nothing green — neither was there any running water. But there was a long, dry, flat strand; there was an old boat half turned over, under which it was proposed to dine; and in addition to this, benches, boards, and some amount of canvas for shelter were provided by the liberality of Mr Cheesacre. Therefore it was called Mr Cheesacre’s picnic.
But it was to be a marine picnic, and therefore the essential attributes of other picnics were not required. The idea had come from some boating expeditions, in which mackerel had been caught, and during which food had been eaten, not altogether comfortably, in the boats. Then a thought had suggested itself to Captain Bellfield that they might land and eat their food, and his friend Mr Cheesacre had promised his substantial aid. A lady had surmised that Ormesby sands would be the very place for dancing in the cool of the evening. They might “dance on the sand,” she said, “and yet no footing seen.” And so the thing had progressed, and the picnic been inaugurated.
It was Mr Cheesacre’s picnic undoubtedly. Mr Cheesacre was to supply the boats, the wine, the cigars, the music, and the carpenter’s work necessary for the turning of the old boat into a banqueting saloon. But Mrs Greenow had promised to provide the eatables, and enjoyed as much of the éclat as the master of the festival. She had known Mr Cheesacre now for ten days and was quite intimate with him. He was a stout, florid man, of about forty-five, a bachelor, apparently much attached to ladies’ society, bearing no sign of age except that he was rather bald, and that grey hairs had mixed themselves with his whiskers, very fond of his farming, and yet somewhat ashamed of it when he found himself in what he considered to be polite circles. And he was, moreover, a little inclined to seek the honour which comes from a well-filled and liberally-opened purse. He liked to give a man a dinner and then to boast of the dinner he had given. He was very proud when he could talk of having mounted, for a day’s hunting, any man who might be supposed to be of higher rank than himself. “I had Grimsby with me the other day — the son of old Grimsby of Hatherwick, you know. Blessed if he didn’t stake my bay mare. But what matters? I mounted him again the next day just the same.” Some people thought he was soft, for it was very well known throughout Norfolk that young Grimsby would take a mount wherever he could get it. In these days Mrs Greenow had become intimate with Mr Cheesacre, and had already learned that he was the undoubted owner of his own acres.
“It wouldn’t do for me,” she had said to him, “to be putting myself forward, as if I were giving a party myself, or anything of that sort — would it now?”
“Well, perhaps not. But you might come with us.”
“So I will, Mr Cheesacre, for that dear girl’s sake. I should never forgive myself if I debarred her from all the pleasures of youth, because of my sorrows. I need hardly say that at such a time as this nothing of that sort can give me any pleasure.”
“I suppose not,” said Mr Cheesacre, with a solemn look.
“Quite out of the question.” And Mrs Greenow wiped away her tears. “For though as regards age I might dance on the sands as merrily as the best of them — ”
“That I’m sure you could, Mrs Greenow.”
“How’s a woman to enjoy herself if her heart lies buried?”
“But it won’t be so always, Mrs Greenow.”
Mrs Greenow shook her head to show that she hardly knew how to answer such a question. Probably it would be so always — but she did not wish to put a damper on the present occasion by making so sad a declaration. “But as I was saying,” continued she — “if you and I do it between us won’t that be the surest way of having it come off nicely?”
Mr Cheesacre thought that it would be the best way.
“Exactly so — I’ll do the meat and pastry and fruit, and you shall do the boats and the wine.”
“And the music”, said Cheesacre, “and the expenses at the place.” He did not choose that any part of his outlay should go unnoticed.
“I’ll go halves in all that if you like,” said Mrs Greenow. But Mr Cheesacre had declined this. He did not begrudge the expense, but only wished that it should be recognized.
“And, Mr Cheesacre,” continued Mrs Greenow, “I did mean to send the music; I did, indeed.”
“I couldn’t hear of it, Mrs Greenow.”
“But I mention it now, because I was thinking of getting Blowehard to come. That other man, Flutey, wouldn’t do at all out in the open air.”
“It shall be Blowehard,” said Mr Cheesacre; and it was Blowehard. Mrs Greenow liked to have her own way in these little things, though her heart did lie buried.
On the morning of the picnic Mr Cheesacre came down to Montpelier Parade with Captain Bellfield, whose linen on that occasion certainly gave no outward sign of any quarrel between him and his washerwoman. He was got up wonderfully, and was prepared at all points for the day’s work. He had on a pseudo-sailor’s jacket, very liberally ornamented with brass buttons, which displayed with great judgment the exquisite shapes of his pseudo-sailor’s duck trousers. Beneath them there was a pair of very shiny patent-leather shoes, well adapted for dancing on the sand, presuming him to be anxious of doing so, as Venus offered to do, without leaving any footmarks. His waistcoat was of a delicate white fabric, ornamented with very many gilt buttons. He had be jewelled studs in his shirt, and yellow kid gloves on his hands; having, of course, another pair in his pocket for the necessities of the evening. His array was quite perfect, and had stricken dismay into the heart of his friend Cheesacre, when he joined that gentleman. He was a well-made man, nearly six feet high, with dark hair, dark whiskers, and dark moustache, nearly black, but of that suspicious hue which to the observant beholder seems always to tell a tale of the hairdresser’s shop. He was handsome, too, with well-arranged features — but carrying, perhaps, in his nose some first symptoms of the effects of midnight amusements. Upon the whole, however, he was a nice man to look on — for those who like to look on nice men of that kind.
Cheesacre, too, had adopted something of a sailor’s garb. He had on a jacket of a rougher sort, coming down much lower than that of the Captain, being much looser, and perhaps somewhat more like a garment which a possible seaman might possibly wear. But he was disgusted with himself the moment that he saw Bellfield. His heart had been faint, and he had not dared to ornament himself boldly as his friend had done. “I say, Guss, you are a swell,” he exclaimed. It may be explained that Captain Bellfield had been christened Gustavus.
“I don’t know much about that,” said the Captain; “my fellow sent me this toggery, and said that it was the sort of thing. I’ll change with you if you like it.” But Cheesacre could not have worn that jacket, and he walked on, hating himself.
It will be remembered that Mrs Greenow had spoken with considerable severity of Captain Bellfield’s pretensions when discussing his character with her niece; but, nevertheless, on the present occasion she received him with most gracious smiles. It may be that her estimate of his character had been altered, or that she was making sacrifice of her own feelings in consideration of Mr Cheesacre, who was known to be the Captain’s intimate friend. But she had smiles for both of them. She had a wondrous power of smiling; and could, upon occasion, give signs of peculiar favour to half a dozen different gentlemen in as many minutes. They found her in the midst of hampers which were not yet wholly packed, while Mrs Jones, Jeannette, and the cook of the household moved around her, on the outside of the circle, ministering to her wants. She had in her hand an outspread clean napkin, and she wore fastened round her dress a huge coarse apron, that she might thus be protected from some possible ebullition of gravy, or escape of salad mixture, or cream; but in other respects she was clothed in the fullest honours of widowhood. She had not mitigated her weeds by half an inch. She had scorned to make any compromise between the world of pleasure and the world of woe. There she was, a widow, declared by herself to be of four months’ standing, with a buried heart, making ready a dainty banquet with skill and liberality. She was ready on the instant to sit down upon the basket in which the grouse pie had been just carefully inhumed, and talk about her sainted lamb with a deluge of tears. If anybody didn’t like it, that person — might do the other thing. Mr Cheesacre and Captain Bellfield thought that they did like it.
“Oh, Mr Cheesacre, if you haven’t caught me before I’ve half done! Captain Bellfield, I hope you think my apron becoming.”
“Everything that you wear, Mrs Greenow, is always becoming.”
“Don’t talk in that way when you know —; but never mind — we will think of nothing sad today if we can help it. Will we, Mr Cheesacre?”
“Oh dear no; I should think not — unless it should come on to rain.”
“It won’t rain — we won’t think of such a thing. But, by the by, Captain Bellfield, I and my niece do mean to send out a few things, just in a bag you know, so that we may tidy ourselves up a little after the sea. I don’t want it mentioned, because if it gets about among the other ladies, they’d think we wanted to make a dressing of it — and there wouldn’t be room for them all; would there?”
“No; there wouldn’t,” said Mr Cheesacre, who had been out on the previous evening, inspecting, and perhaps limiting, the carpenters in their work.
“That’s just it,” said Mrs Greenow. “But there won’t be any harm, will there, Mr Cheesacre, in Jeannette going out with our things? She’ll ride in the cart, you know, with the eatables. I know Jeannette’s a friend of yours.”
“We shall be delighted to have Jeannette,” said Mr Cheesacre.
“Thank ye, sir,” said Jeannette, with a curtsey.
“Jeannette, don’t you let Mr Cheesacre turn your head; and mind you behave yourself and be useful. Well; let me see — what else is there? Mrs Jones, you might as well give me that ham now. Captain Bellfield, hand it over. Don’t you put it into the basket, because you’d turn it the wrong side down. There now, if you haven’t nearly made me upset the apricot pie.” Then, in the transfer of the dishes between the Captain and the widow, there occurred some little innocent by-play, which seemed to give offence to Mr Cheesacre; so that that gentleman turned his back upon the hampers and took a step away towards the door.
Mrs Greenow saw the thing at a glance, and immediately applied herself to cure the wound. “What do you think, Mr Cheesacre?” said she, “Kate wouldn’t come down because she didn’t choose that you should see her with an apron on over her frock!”
“I’m sure I don’t know why Miss Vavasor should care about my seeing her.”
“Nor I neither. That’s just what I said. Do step up into the drawing-room; you’ll find her there, and you can make her answer for herself.”
“She wouldn’t come down for me,” said Mr Cheesacre. But he didn’t stir. Perhaps he wasn’t willing to leave his friend with the widow.
At length the last of the dishes was packed, and Mrs Greenow went upstairs with the two gentlemen. There they found Kate and two or three other ladies who had promised to embark under the protection of Mrs Greenow’s wings. There were the two Miss Fairstairs, whom Mrs Greenow had especially patronized, and who repaid that lady for her kindness by an amount of outspoken eulogy which startled Kate by its audacity.
“Your dear aunt!” Fanny Fairstairs had said on coming into the room. “I don’t think I ever came across a woman with such genuine milk of human kindness!”
“Nor with so much true wit,” said her sister Charlotte — who had been called Charlie on the sands of Yarmouth for the last twelve years.
When the widow came into the room, they flew at her and devoured her with kisses, and swore that they had never seen her looking so well. But as the bright new gloves which both the girls wore had been presents from Mrs Greenow, they certainly did owe her some affection. There are not many ladies who would venture to bestow such gifts upon their friends after so very short an acquaintance; but Mrs Greenow had a power that was quite her own in such matters. She was already on a very confidential footing with the Miss Fairstairs, and had given them much useful advice as to their future prospects.
And then was there a Mrs Green, whose husband was first-lieutenant on board a man-of-war on the West Indian Station. Mrs Green was a quiet, ladylike little woman, rather pretty, very silent, and, as one would have thought, hardly adapted for the special intimacy of Mrs Greenow. But Mrs Greenow had found out that she was alone, not very rich, and in want of the solace of society. Therefore she had, from sheer good-nature, forced herself upon Mrs Green, and Mrs Green, with much trepidation, had consented to be taken to the picnic. “I know your husband would like it,” Mrs Greenow had said, “and I hope I may live to tell him that I made you go.”
There came in also a brother of the Fairstairs girls, Joe Fairstairs, a lanky, useless, idle young man, younger than them, who was supposed to earn his bread in an attorney’s office at Norwich, or rather to be preparing to earn it at some future time, and who was a heavy burden upon all his friends. “We told Joe to come to the house”, said Fanny to the widow, apologetically, “because we thought he might be useful in carrying down the cloaks.” Mrs Greenow smiled graciously upon Joe, and assured him that she was charmed to see him, without any reference to such services as those mentioned.
And then they started. When they got to the door both Cheesacre and the Captain made an attempt to get possession of the widow’s arm. But she had it all arranged. Captain Bellfield found himself constrained to attend to Mrs Green, while Mr Cheesacre walked down to the beach beside Kate Vavasor. “I’ll take your arm, Mr Joe,” said the widow, “and the girls shall come with us.” But when they got to the boats, round which the other comers to the picnic were already assembled, Mr Cheesacre — although both the boats were for the day his own — found himself separated from the widow. He got into that which contained Kate Vavasor, and was shoved off from the beach while he saw Captain Bellfield arranging Mrs Greenow’s drapery. He had declared to himself that it should be otherwise; and that as he had to pay the piper, the piper should play as he liked it. But Mrs Greenow with a word or two had settled it all, and Mr Cheesacre had found himself to be powerless. “How absurd Bellfield looks in that jacket, doesn’t he?” he said to Kate, as he took his seat in the boat.
“Do you think so? I thought it was so very pretty and becoming for the occasion.”
Mr Cheesacre hated Captain Bellfield, and regretted more than ever that he had not done something for his own personal adornment. He could not endure to think that his friend, who paid for nothing, should carry away the honours of the morning and defraud him of the delights which should justly belong to him. “It may be becoming,” said Cheesacre; “but don’t you think it’s awfully extravagant?”
“As to that I can’t tell. You see I don’t at all know what is the price of a jacket covered all over with little brass buttons.”
“And the waistcoat, Miss Vavasor!” said Cheesacre, almost solemnly.
“The waistcoat I should think must have been expensive.”
“Oh, dreadful! and he’s got nothing, Miss Vavasor; literally nothing. Do you know,” — and he reduced his voice to a whisper as he made this communication — “I lent him twenty pounds the day before yesterday; I did indeed. You won’t mention it again, of course. I tell you, because, as you are seeing a good deal of him just now, I think it right that you should know on what sort of a footing he stands.” It’s all fair, they say, in love and war, and this small breach of confidence was, we must presume, a love stratagem on the part of Mr Cheesacre. He was at this time smitten with the charms both of the widow and of the niece, and he constantly found that the captain was interfering with him on whichever side he turned himself. On the present occasion he had desired to take the widow for his share, and was, upon the whole, inclined to think that the widow was the more worthy of his attentions. He had made certain little inquiries within the last day or two, the answers to which had been satisfactory. These he had by no means communicated to his friend, to whom, indeed, he had expressed an opinion that Mrs Greenow was after all only a flash in the pan. “She does very well pour passer le temps,” the captain had answered. Mr Cheesacre had not quite understood the exact gist of the captain’s meaning, but had felt certain that his friend was playing him false.
“I don’t want it to be mentioned again, Miss Vavasor,” he continued.
“Such things should not be mentioned at all,” Kate replied, having been angered at the insinuation that the nature of Captain Bellfield’s footing could be a matter of any moment to her.
“No, they shouldn’t; and therefore I know that I’m quite safe with you, Miss Vavasor. He’s a very pleasant fellow, very; and has seen the world — uncommon; but he’s better for eating and drinking with than he is for buying and selling with, as we say in Norfolk. Do you like Norfolk, Miss Vavasor?”
“I never was in it before, and now I’ve only seen Yarmouth.”
“A nice place, Yarmouth, very; but you should come up and see our lands. I suppose you don’t know that we feed one-third of England during the winter months.”
“Dear me!”
“We do, though; nobody knows what a county Norfolk is. Taking it altogether, including the game you know, and Lord Nelson, and its watering-places and the rest of it, I don’t think there’s a county in England to beat it. Fancy feeding one-third of all England and Wales!”
“With bread and cheese, do you mean, and those sort of things?”
“Beef!” said Mr Cheesacre, and in his patriotic energy he repeated the word aloud. “Beef! Yes indeed; but if you were to tell them that in London they wouldn’t believe you. Ah! you should certainly come down and see our lands. The 7.45 A.M. train would take you through Norwich to my door, as one may say, and you would be back by the 6.22 P.M.” In this way he brought himself back again into good humour, feeling, that in the absence of the widow, he could not do better than make progress with the niece.
In the mean time Mrs Greenow and the Captain were getting on very comfortably in the other boat. “Take an oar, Captain,” one of the men had said to him as soon as he had placed the ladies. “Not today, Jack,” he had answered. “I’ll content myself with being bo’san this morning.”
“The best thing as the bo’san does is to pipe all hands to grog,” said the man. “I won’t be behind in that either,” said the Captain; and so they all went on swimmingly.
“What a fine generous fellow your friend, Mr Cheesacre, is!” said the widow.
“Yes, he is; he’s a capital fellow in his way. Some of these Norfolk farmers are no end of good fellows.”
“And I suppose he’s something more than a common farmer. He’s visited by the people about where he lives, isn’t he?”
“Oh, yes, in a sort of a way. The county people, you know, keep themselves very much to themselves.”
“That’s of course. But his house — he has a good sort of place, hasn’t he?”
“Yes, yes — a very good house — a little too near to the horse-pond for my taste. But when a man gets his money out of the till, he musn’t be ashamed of the counter — must he, Mrs Greenow?”
“But he could live like a gentleman if he let his own land, couldn’t he?”
“That depends upon how a gentleman wishes to live.” Here the privacy of their conversation was interrupted by an exclamation from a young lady to the effect that Charlie Fairstairs was becoming sick. This Charlie stoutly denied, and proved the truth of her assertion by her behaviour. Soon after this they completed their marine adventures, and prepared to land close to the spot at which the banquet was prepared,
There had been a pretence of fishing, but no fish had been caught. It was soon found that such an amusement would interfere with the ladies’ dresses, and the affairs had become too serious to allow of any trivial interruption. “I really think, Mr Cheesacre,” an anxious mother had said, “that you’d better give it up. The water off the nasty cord has got all over Maria’s dress, already.” Maria made a faint protest that it did not signify in the least; but the fishing was given up — not without an inward feeling on the part of Mr Cheesacre that if Maria chose to come out with him in his boat, having been invited especially to fish, she ought to have put up with the natural results. “There are people who like to take everything and never like to give anything,” he said to Kate afterwards, as he was walking up with her to the picnic dinner. But he was unreasonable and unjust. The girls had graced his party with their best hats and freshest muslins, not that they might see him catch a mackerel, but that they might flirt and dance to the best advantage. “You can’t suppose that any girl will like to be drenched with sea-water when she has taken so much trouble with her starch,” said Kate. “Then she shouldn’t come fishing,” said Mr Cheesacre. “I hate such airs.”
But when they arrived at the old boat, Mrs Greenow shone forth pre-eminently as the mistress of the occasion, altogether overshadowing Mr Cheesacre by the extent of her authority. There was a little contest for supremacy between them, invisible to the eyes of the multitude; but Mr Cheesacre in such a matter had not a chance against Mrs Greenow. I am disposed to think that she would have reigned even though she had not contributed the eatables; but with that point in her favour, she was able to make herself supreme. Jeannette, too, was her servant, which was a great thing. Mr Cheesacre soon gave way; and though he bustled about and was conspicuous, he bustled about in obedience to orders received, and became a head servant. Captain Bellfield also made himself useful, but he drove Mr Cheesacre into paroxysms of suppressed anger by giving directions, and by having those directions obeyed. A man to whom he had lent twenty pounds the day before yesterday, and who had not contributed so much as a bottle of champagne!
“We’re to dine at four, and now it’s half past three,” said Mrs Greenow, addressing herself to the multitude.
“And to begin to dance at six,” said an eager young lady;
“Maria, hold your tongue,” said the young lady’s mother.
“Yes, we’ll dine at four,” said Mr Cheesacre. “And as for the music, I’ve ordered it to be here punctual at half past five. We’re to have three horns, cymbals, triangle, and a drum.”
“How very nice; isn’t it, Mrs Greenow?” said Charlie Fairstairs.
“And now suppose we begin to unpack,” said Captain Bellfield. “Half the fun is in arranging the things.”
“Oh, dear, yes; more than half,” said Fanny Fairstairs.
“Bellfield, don’t mind about the hampers,” said Cheesacre.
“Wine is a ticklish thing to handle, and there’s my man there to manage it.”
“It’s odd if I don’t know more about wine than the boots from the hotel,” said Bellfield. This allusion to the boots almost cowed Mr Cheesacre, and made him turn away, leaving Bellfield with the widow.
There was a great unpacking, during which Captain Bellfield and Mrs Greenow constantly had their heads in the same hamper. I by no means intend to insinuate that there was anything wrong in this. People engaged together in unpacking pies and cold chickens must have their heads in the same hamper. But a great intimacy was thereby produced, and the widow seemed to have laid aside altogether that prejudice of hers with reference to the washerwoman. There was a long table placed on the sand, sheltered by the upturned boat from the land side, but open towards the sea, and over this, supported on poles, there was an awning. Upon the whole the arrangement was not an uncomfortable one for people who had selected so very uncomfortable a dining-room as the sand of the sea-shore. Much was certainly due to Mr Cheesacre for the expenditure he had incurred — and something perhaps to Captain Bellfield for his ingenuity in having suggested it.
Now came the placing of the guests for dinner, and Mr Cheesacre made another great effort. “I’ll tell you what,” said he, aloud, “Bellfield and I will take the two ends of the table, and Mrs Greenow shall sit at my right hand.” This was not only boldly done, but there was a propriety in it which at first sight seemed to be irresistible. Much as he had hated and did hate the Captain, he had skilfully made the proposition in such a way as to flatter him, and it seemed for a few moments as though he were going to have it all his own way. But Captain Bellfield was not a man to submit to defeat in such a matter as this without an effort. “I don’t think that will do,” said he. “Mrs Greenow gives the dinner, and Cheesacre gives the wine. We must have them at the two ends of the table. I am sure Mrs Greenow won’t refuse to allow me to hand her to the place which belongs to her. I will sit at her right hand and be her minister.” Mrs Greenow did not refuse — and so the matter was adjusted.
Mr Cheesacre took his seat in despair. It was nothing to him that he had Kate Vavasor at his left hand. He liked talking to Kate very well, but he could not enjoy that pleasure while Captain Bellfield was in the very act of making progress with the widow. “One would think that he had given it himself; wouldn’t you?” he said to Maria’s mother, who sat at his right hand.
The lady did not in the least understand him. “Given what?” said she.
“Why, the music and the wine and all the rest of it. There are some people full of that kind of impudence. How they manage to carry it on without ever paying a shilling, I never could tell. I know I have to pay my way, and something over and beyond generally.”
Maria’s mother said, “Yes, indeed.” She had other daughters there besides Maria, and was looking down the table to see whether they were judiciously placed. Her beauty, her youngest one, Ophelia, was sitting next to that ne’er-do-well Joe Fairstairs, and this made her unhappy. “Ophelia, my dear, you are dreadfully in the draught; there’s a seat up here, just opposite, where you’ll be more comfortable.”
“There’s no draught here, mamma,” said Ophelia, without the slightest sign of moving. Perhaps Ophelia liked the society of that lanky, idle, useless young man.
The mirth of the table certainly came from Mrs Greenow’s end. The widow had hardly taken her place before she got up again and changed with the Captain. It was found that the Captain could better carve the great grouse pie from the end than from the side. Cheesacre, when he saw this, absolutely threw down his knife and fork violently upon the table. “Is anything the matter?” said Maria’s mother.
“Matter!” said he. Then he shook his head in grief of heart and vexation of spirit, and resumed his knife and fork. Kate watched it all, and was greatly amused. “I never saw a man so nearly broken-headed,” she said, in her letter to Alice the next day. “Eleven, thirteen, eighteen, twenty-one,” said Cheesacre to himself, reckoning up in his misery the number of pounds sterling which he would have to pay for being illtreated in this way.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Captain Bellfield, as soon as the eating was over, “if I may be permitted to get upon my legs for two minutes, I am going to propose a toast to you.” The real patron of the feast had actually not yet swallowed his last bit of cheese. The thing was indecent in the violence of its injustice.
“If you please, Captain Bellfield,” said the patron, indifferent to the cheese in his throat, “I’ll propose the toast.”
“Nothing on earth could be better, my dear fellow,” said the Captain, “and I’m sure I should be the last man in the world to take the job out of the hands of one who would do it so much better than I can; but as it’s your health that we’re going to drink, I really don’t see how you are to do it.” Cheesacre grunted and sat down. He certainly could not propose his own health, nor did he complain of the honour that was to be done him. It was very proper that his health should be drunk, and he had now to think of the words in which he would return thanks. But the extent of his horror may be imagined when Bellfield got up and made a most brilliant speech in praise of Mrs Greenow. For full five minutes he went on without mentioning the name of Cheesacre. Yarmouth, he said, had never in his days been so blessed as it had been this year by the presence of the lady who was now with them. She had come among them, he declared, forgetful of herself and of her great sorrows, with the sole desire of adding something to the happiness of others. Then Mrs Greenow had taken out her pocket-handkerchief, sweeping back the broad ribbons of her cap over her shoulders. Altogether the scene was very affecting, and Cheesacre was driven to madness. They were the very words that he had intended to speak himself.
“I hate all this kind of thing,” he said to Kate. “It’s so fulsome.”
“After-dinner speeches never mean anything,” said Kate.
At last, when Bellfield had come to an end of praising Mrs Greenow, he told the guests that he wished to join his friend Cheesacre in the toast, the more so as it could hardly be hoped that Mrs Greenow would herself rise to return thanks. There was no better fellow than his friend Cheesacre, whom he had known for he would not say how many years. He was quite sure they would all have the most sincere pleasure in joining the health of Mr Cheesacre with that of Mrs Greenow. Then there was a clattering of glasses and a — murmuring of healths, and Mr Cheesacre slowly got upon his legs.
“I’m very much obliged to this company,” said he, “and to my friend Bellfield, who really is — but perhaps that doesn’t signify now. I’ve had the greatest pleasure in getting up this little thing, and I’d made up my mind to propose Mrs Greenow’s health; but, h’m, ha, no doubt it has been in better hands. Perhaps, considering all things, Bellfield might have waited.”
“With such a subject on my hands, I couldn’t wait a moment.”
“I didn’t interrupt you, Captain Bellfield, and perhaps you’ll let me go on without interrupting me. We’ve all drunk Mrs Greenow’s health, and I’m sure she’s very much obliged. So am I for the honour you’ve done me. I have taken some trouble in getting up this little thing, and I hope you like it. I think somebody said something about liberality. I beg to assure you that I don’t think of that for a moment. Somebody must pay for these sort of things, and I’m always very glad to take my turn. I dare say Bellfield will give us the next picnic, and if he’ll appoint a day before the end of the month, I shall be happy to be one of the party.” Then he sat down with some inward satisfaction, fully convinced that he had given his enemy a fatal blow.
“Nothing on earth would give me so much pleasure,” said Bellfield. After that he turned again to Mrs Greenow and went on with his private conversation.
There was no more speaking, nor was there much time for other after-dinner ceremonies. The three horns, the cymbals, the triangle, and the drum were soon heard tuning up behind the banqueting hall, and the ladies went to the further end of the old boat to make their preparations for the dance. Then it was that the thoughtful care of Mrs Greenow, in having sent Jeannette with brushes, combs, clean handkerchiefs, and other little knick-knackeries, became so apparent. It was said that the widow herself actually changed her cap — which was considered by some to be very unfair, as there had been an understanding that there should be no dressing. On such occasions ladies are generally willing to forego the advantage of dressing on the condition that other ladies shall forego the same advantage; but when this compact is broken by any special lady, the treason is thought to be very treacherous. It is as though a fencer should remove the button from the end of his foil. But Mrs Greenow was so good natured in tendering the services of Jeannette to all the young ladies, and was so willing to share with others those good things of the toilet which her care had provided, that her cap was forgiven her by the most of those present.
When ladies have made up their minds to dance they will dance let the circumstances of the moment be ever so antagonistic to that exercise. A ploughed field in February would not be too wet, nor the side of a house too uneven. In honest truth the sands of the seashore are not adapted for the exercise. It was all very well for Venus to make the promise, but when making it she knew that Adonis would not keep her to her word. Let any lightest-limbed nymph try it, and she will find that she leaves most palpable footing. The sands in question were doubtless compact, firm, and sufficiently moist to make walking on them comfortable; but they ruffled themselves most uncomfortably under the unwonted pressure to which they were subjected. Nevertheless our friends did dance on the sands; finding, however, that quadrilles and Sir Roger de Coverley suited them better than polkas and waltzes.
“No, my friend, no,” Mrs Greenow said to Mr Cheesacre when that gentleman endeavoured to persuade her to stand up; “Kate will be delighted I am sure to join you — but as, for me, you must excuse me.”
But Mr Cheesacre was not inclined at that moment to ask Kate Vavasor to dance with him. He was possessed by an undefined idea that Kate had snubbed him, and as Kate’s fortune was, as he said, literally nothing, he was not at all disposed to court her favour at the expense of such suffering to himself.
“I’m not quite sure that I’ll dance myself,” said he, seating himself in a corner of the tent by Mrs Greenow’s side. Captain Bellfield at that moment was seen leading Miss Vavasor away to a new place on the sands, whither he was followed by a score of dancers; and Mr Cheesacre saw that now at last he might reap the reward for which he had laboured. He was alone with the widow, and having been made bold by wine, had an opportunity of fighting his battle, than which none better could ever be found. He was himself by no means a poor man, and he despised poverty in others. It was well that there should be poor gentry, in order that they might act as satellites to those who, like himself, had money. As to Mrs Greenow’s money, there was no doubt. He knew it all to a fraction. She had spread for herself, or someone else had spread for her, a report that her wealth was almost unlimited; but the forty thousand pounds was a fact, and any such innocent fault as that little fiction might well be forgiven to a woman endorsed with such substantial virtues. And she was handsome too. Mr Cheesacre, as he regarded her matured charms, sometimes felt that he should have been smitten even without the forty thousand pounds. “By George! there’s flesh and blood,” he had once said to his friend Bellfield before he had begun to suspect the man’s treachery. His admiration must then have been sincere, for at that time the forty thousand pounds was not an ascertained fact. Looking at the matter in all its bearings Mr Cheesacre thought that he couldn’t do better. His wooing should be fair, honest, and above-board. He was a thriving man, and what might not they two do in Norfolk if they put their wealth together?
“Oh, Mr Cheesacre, you should join them,” said Mrs Greenow; “they’ll not half enjoy themselves without you. Kate will think that you mean to neglect her.”
“I shan’t dance, Mrs Greenow, unless you like to stand up for a set.”
“No, my friend, no; I shall not do that. I fear you forget how recent has been my bereavement. Your asking me is the bitterest reproach to me for having ventured to join your festive board.”
“Upon my honour I didn’t mean it, Mrs Greenow. I didn’t mean it, indeed.”
“I do not suspect you. It would have been unmanly.”
“And nobody can say that of me. There isn’t a man or woman in Norfolk that wouldn’t say I was manly.”
“I’m quite sure of that.”
“I have my faults, I’m aware.”
“And what are your faults, Mr Cheesacre?”
“Well; perhaps I’m extravagant. But it’s only in these kind of things you know, when I spend a little money for the sake of making my friends happy. When I’m about, on the lands at home, I ain’t extravagant, I can tell you.”
“Extravagance is a great vice.”
“Oh, I ain’t extravagant in that sense — not a bit in the world. But when a man’s enamoured, and perhaps looking out for a wife, he does like to be a little free, you know.”
“And are you looking out for a wife, Mr Cheesacre?”
“If I told you I suppose you’d only laugh at me.”
“No; indeed I would not. I am not given to joking when any one that I regard speaks to me seriously.”
“Ain’t you though? I’m so glad of that. When one has really got a serious thing to say, one doesn’t like to have fun poked at one.”
“And, besides, how could I laugh at marriage, seeing how happy I have been in that condition? — so — very — happy,” and Mrs Greenow put up her handkerchief to her eyes.
“So happy that you’ll try it again some day; won’t you?”
“Never, Mr Cheesacre; never. Is that the way you talk of serious things without joking? Anything like love — love of that sort — is over for me. It lies buried under the sod with my poor dear departed saint.”
“But, Mrs Greenow,” — and Cheesacre, as he prepared to argue the question with her, got nearer to her in the corner behind the table — “But, Mrs Greenow, care killed a cat, you know.”
“And sometimes I think that care will kill me.”
“No, by George; not if I can prevent it.”
“You’re very kind, Mr Cheesacre; but there’s no preventing such care as mine.”
“Isn’t there though? I’ll tell you what, Mrs Greenow; I’m in earnest, I am indeed. If you’ll inquire, you’ll find there isn’t a fellow in Norfolk pays his way better than I do, or is better able to do it. I don’t pay a sixpence of rent, and I sit upon seven hundred acres of as good land as there is in the county. There’s not an acre that won’t do me a bullock and a half. Just put that and that together, and see what it comes to. And, mind you, some of these fellows that farm their own land are worse off than if they’d rent to pay. They’ve borrowed so much to carry on with, that the interest is more than rent. I don’t owe a sixpence to ere a man or ere a company in the world. I can walk into every bank in Norwich without seeing my master. There ain’t any of my paper flying about, Mrs Greenow. I’m Samuel Cheesacre of Oileymead, and it’s all my own.” Mr Cheesacre, as he thus spoke of his good fortunes and firm standing in the world, became impetuous in the energy of the moment, and brought down his fist powerfully on the slight table before them. The whole fabric rattled, and the boat resounded, but the noise he had made seemed to assist him. “It’s all my own, Mrs Greenow, and the half of it shall be yours if you’ll please to take it;” then he stretched out his hand to her, not as though he intended to grasp hers in a grasp of love, but as if he expected some hand-pledge from her as a token that she accepted the bargain.
“If you’d known Greenow, Mr Cheesacre — ”
“I’ve no doubt he was a very good sort of man.”
“If you’d known him, you would not have addressed me in this way.”
“What difference would that make? My idea is that care killed a cat, as I said before. I never knew what was the good of being unhappy. If I find early mangels don’t do on a bit of land, then I sow late turnips; and never cry after spilt milk. Greenow was the early mangels; I’ll be the late turnips. Come then, say the word. There ain’t a bedroom in my house — not one of the front ones — that isn’t mahogany furnished!”
“What’s furniture to me?” said Mrs Greenow, with her handkerchief to her eyes.
Just at this moment Maria’s mother stepped in under the canvas. It was most inopportune. Mr Cheesacre felt that he was progressing well, and was conscious that he had got safely over those fences in the race which his bashfulness would naturally make difficult to him. He knew that he had done this under the influence of the champagne, and was aware that it might not be easy to procure again a combination of circumstances that would be so beneficial to him. But now he was interrupted just as he was expecting success. He was interrupted, and felt himself to be looking like a guilty creature under the eye of the strange lady. He had not a word to say; but drawing himself suddenly a foot and a half away from the widow’s side, sat there confessing his guilt in his face. Mrs Greenow felt no guilt, and was afraid of no strange eyes. “Mr Cheesacre and I are talking about farming,” she said.
“Oh; farming!” answered Maria’s mother.
“Mr Cheesacre thinks that late turnips are better than early mangels,” said Mrs Greenow.
“Yes, I do,” said Cheesacre.
“I prefer the early mangels,” said Mrs Greenow. “I don’t think nature ever intended those late crops. What do you say, Mrs Walker?”
“I daresay Mr Cheesacre understands what he’s about when he’s at home,” said the lady.
“I know what a bit of land can do as well as any man in Norfolk,” said the gentleman.
“It may be very well in Norfolk,” said Mrs Greenow, rising from her seat; “but the practice isn’t thought much of in the other counties with which I am better acquainted.”
“I’d just come in to say that I thought we might be getting to the boats,” said Mrs Walker. “My Ophelia is so delicate.” At this moment the delicate Ophelia was to be seen, under the influence of the music, taking a distant range upon the sands with Joe Fairstairs’ arm round her waist. The attitude was justified by the tune that was in progress, and there is no reason why a gallop on the sands should have any special termination in distance, as it must have in a room. But, under such circumstances, Mrs Walker’s solicitude was not unreasonable.
The erratic steps of the distant dancers were recalled and preparations were made for the return journey. Others had strayed besides the delicate Ophelia and the idle Joe, and some little time was taken up in collecting the party. The boats had to be drawn down, and the boatmen fetched from their cans and tobacco-pipes. “I hope they’re sober,” said Mrs Walker, with a look of great dismay.
“Sober as judges,” said Bellfield, who had himself been looking after the remains of Mr Cheesacre’s hampers, while that gentleman had been so much better engaged in the tent.
“Because,” continued Mrs Walker, “I know that they play all manner of tricks when they’re — in liquor. They’d think nothing of taking us out to sea, Mrs Greenow.”
“Oh, I do wish they would,” said Ophelia.
“Ophelia, mind you come in the boat with me,” said her mother, and she looked very savage when she gave the order. It was Mrs Walker’s intention that that boat should not carry Joe Fairstairs. But Joe and her daughter together were too clever for her. When the boats went off she found herself to be in that one over which Mr Cheesacre presided, while the sinning Ophelia with her good-for-nothing admirer were under the more mirthful protection of Captain Bellfield.
“Mamma will be so angry,” said Ophelia, “and it was all your fault. I did mean to go into the other boat. Don’t, Mr Fairstairs.” Then they got settled down in their seats, to the satisfaction, let us hope, of them both.
Mr Cheesacre had vainly endeavoured to arrange that Mrs Greenow should return with him. But not only was Captain Bellfield opposed to such a change in their positions, but so also was Mrs Greenow. “I think we’d better go back as we came,” she said, giving her hand to the Captain.
“Oh, certainly,” said Captain Bellfield. “Why should there be any change? Cheesacre, old fellow, mind you look after Mrs Walker. Come along, my hearty.” It really almost appeared that Captain Bellfield was addressing Mrs Greenow as “his hearty,” but it must be presumed that the term of genial endearment was intended for the whole boat’s load. Mrs Greenow took her place on the comfortable broad bench in the stern, and Bellfield seated himself beside her, with the tiller in his hand.
“If you’re going to steer, Captain Bellfield, I beg that you’ll be careful.”
“Careful — and with you on board!” said the Captain. “Don’t you know that I would sooner perish beneath the waves than that a drop of water should touch you roughly?”
“But you see, we might perish beneath the waves together.”
“Together! What a sweet word that is — perish together! If it were not that there might be something better even than that, I would wish to perish in such company.”
“But I should not wish anything of the kind, Captain Bellfield, and therefore pray be careful.”
There was no perishing by water on that occasion. Mr Cheesacre’s boat reached the pier at Yarmouth first, and gave up its load without accident. Very shortly afterwards Captain Bellfield’s crew reached the same place in the same state of preservation. “There,” said he, as he handed out Mrs Greenow.
“I have brought you to no harm, at any rate as yet.”
“And, as I hope, will not do so hereafter.”
“May the heavens forbid it, Mrs Greenow! Whatever may be our lots hereafter — yours I mean and mine — I trust that yours may be free from all disaster. Oh, that I might venture to hope that, at some future day, the privilege might be mine of protecting you from all danger!”
“I can protect myself very well, I can assure you. Good night, Captain Bellfield. We won’t take you and Mr Cheesacre out of your way — will we, Kate? We have had a most pleasant day.”
They were now upon the esplanade, and Mrs Greenow’s house was to the right, whereas the lodgings of both the gentlemen were to the left. Each of them fought hard for the privilege of accompanying the widow to her door; but Mrs Greenow was self-willed, and upon this occasion would have neither of them. “Mr Joe Fairstairs must pass the house,” said she, “and he will see us home. Mr Cheesacre, goodnight. Indeed you shall not — not a step.” There was that in her voice which induced Mr Cheesacre to obey her, and which made Captain Bellfield aware that he would only injure his cause if he endeavoured to make further progress in it on the present occasion.
“Well, Kate, what do you think of the day?” the aunt said when she was alone with her niece.
“I never think much about such days, aunt. It was all very well, but I fear I have not the temperament fitted for enjoying the fun. I envied Ophelia Walker because she made herself thoroughly happy.”
“I do like to see girls enjoy themselves,” said Mrs Greenow,
“I do indeed — and young men too. It seems so natural; why shouldn’t young people flirt?”
“Or old people either, for the matter of that?”
“Or old people either — if they don’t do any harm to anybody. I’ll tell you what it is, Kate; people have become so very virtuous, that they’re driven into all manner of abominable resources for amusement and occupation. If I had sons — and daughters I should think a little flirting the very best thing for them as a safety valve. When people get to be old, there’s a difficulty. They want to flirt with the young people and the young people don’t want them. If the old people would be content to flirt together, I don’t see why they should ever give it up — till they’re obliged to give up everything, and go away.” That was Mrs Greenow’s doctrine on the subject of flirtation.
We will leave Mrs Greenow with her niece and two suitors at Yarmouth and returning by stages to London, will call upon Mr Grey at his place in Cambridgeshire as we pass by. I believe it is conceded by all the other counties, that Cambridgeshire possesses fewer rural beauties than any other county in England. It is very flat; it is not well timbered; the rivers are merely dykes; and in a very large portion of the county the farms and fields are divided simply by ditches — not by hedgerows. Such arrangements are, no doubt, well adapted for agricultural purposes, but are not conducive to rural beauty. Mr Grey’s residence was situated in a part of Cambridgeshire in which the above-named characteristics are very much marked. It was in the Isle of Ely, some few miles distant from the Cathedral town, on the side of a long straight road, which ran through the fields for miles without even a bush to cheer it. The name of his place was Nethercoats, and here he lived generally throughout the year, and here he intended to live throughout his life.
His father had held a prebendal stall at Ely in times when prebendal stalls were worth more than they are at present, and having also been possessed of a living in the neighbourhood, had amassed a considerable sum of money. With this he had during his life purchased the property of Nethercoats, and had built on it the house in which his son now lived. He had married late in life, and had lost his wife soon after the birth of an only child. The house had been built in his own parish, and his wife had lived there for a few months and had died there. But after that event the old clergyman had gone back to his residence in the close at Ely, and there John Grey had had the home of his youth. He had been brought up under his father’s eye, having been sent to no public school. But he had gone to Cambridge, had taken college honours, and had then, his father dying exactly at this time, declined to accept a fellowship. His father had left to him an income of some fifteen hundred a year, and with this he sat himself down, near to his college friends, near also to the old cathedral which he loved, in the house which his father had built.
But though Nethercoats possessed no beauty of scenery, though the country around it was in truth as uninteresting as any country could be, it had many delights of its own. The house itself was as excellent a residence for a country gentleman of small means as taste and skill together could construct. I doubt whether prettier rooms were ever seen than the drawing-room, the library, and the dining-room at Nethercoats. They were all on the ground-floor, and all opened out on to the garden and lawn. The library, which was the largest of the three, was a handsome chamber, and so filled as to make it well known in the University as one of the best private collections in that part of England. But perhaps the gardens of Nethercoats constituted its greatest glory. They were spacious and excellently kept up, and had been originally laid out with that knowledge of gardening without which no garden, merely as a garden, can be effective. And such, of necessity, was the garden of Nethercoats. Fine single forest trees there were none there, nor was it possible that there should have been any such, Nor could there be a clear rippling stream with steep green banks, and broken rocks lying about its bed. Such beauties are beauties of landscape, and do not of their nature belong to a garden. But the shrubs of Nethercoats were of the rarest kind, and had been long enough in their present places to have reached the period of their beauty. Nothing had been spared that a garden could want. The fruit trees were perfect in their kind, and the glasshouses were so good and so extensive that John Grey in his prudence was sometimes tempted to think that he had too much of them.
It must be understood that there were no grounds, according to the meaning usually given to that word, belonging to the house at Nethercoats. Between the garden and the public road there was a paddock belonging to the house, along the side of which, but divided from it by a hedge and shrubbery, ran the private carriageway up to the house. This swept through the small front flower garden, dividing it equally; but the lawns and indeed the whole of that which made the beauty of the place lay on the back of the house, on which side opened the windows from the three sitting-rooms. Down on the public road there stood a lodge at which lived one of the gardeners. There was another field of some six or seven acres, to which there was a gate from the corner of the front paddock, and which went round two sides of the garden. This was Nethercoats, and the whole estate covered about twelve acres.
It was not a place for much bachelor enjoyment of that sort generally popular with bachelors, nevertheless Mr Grey had been constant in his residence there for the seven years which had now elapsed since he had left his college. His easy access to Cambridge had probably done much to mitigate what might otherwise have been the too great tedium of his life; and he had, prompted thereto by early associations, found most of his society in the close of Ely Cathedral. But, with all the delight he could derive from these two sources, there had still been many solitary hours in his life, and he had gradually learned to feel that he of all men wanted a companion in his home.
His visits to London had generally been short and far between, occasioned probably by some need in the library, or by the necessity of some slight literary transaction with the editor or publisher of a periodical. In one of these visits he had met Alice Vavasor, and had remained in Town — I will not say till Alice had promised to share his home in Cambridgeshire, but so long that he had resolved before he went that he would ask her to do so. He had asked her, and we know that he had been successful. He had obtained her promise, and from that moment all his life had been changed for him. Hitherto at Nethercoats his little smoking-room, his books, and his plants had been everything to him. Now he began to surround himself with an infinity of feminine belongings, and to promise himself an infinity of feminine blessings, wondering much that he should have been content to pass so long a portion of his life in the dull seclusion which he had endured. He was not by nature an impatient man; but now he became impatient, longing for the fruition of his new idea of happiness — longing to have that as his own which he certainly loved beyond all else in the world, and which, perhaps, was all he had ever loved with the perfect love of equality. But though impatient, and fully aware of his own impatience, he acknowledged to himself that Alice could not be expected to share it. He could plan nothing now — could have no pleasure in life that she was not expected to share. But as yet it could not be so with her. She had her house in London, her town society, and her father. And, inasmuch as the change for her would be much greater than it would be for him, it was natural that she should require some small delay. He had not pressed her. At least he had not pressed her with that eager pressure which a girl must resist with something of the opposition of a contest, if she resist at all. But in truth his impatience was now waxing strong, and during the absence in Switzerland of which we have spoken, he resolved that a marriage very late in the autumn — that a marriage even in winter, would be better than a marriage postponed till the following year. It was not yet late in August when the party returned from their tour. Would not a further delay of two months suffice for his bride?
Alice had written to him occasionally from Switzerland, and her first two letters had been very charming. They had referred almost exclusively to the tour, and had been made pleasant with some slightly coloured account of George Vavasor’s idleness, and of Kate’s obedience to her brother’s behests. Alice had never written much of love in her love-letters, and Grey was well enough contented with her style, though it was not impassioned. As for doubting her love, it was not in the heart of the man to do so after it had been once assured to him by her word. He could not so slightly respect himself or her as to leave room for such a doubt in his bosom. He was a man who could never have suggested to himself that a woman loved him till the fact was there before him; but who having ascertained, as he might think, the fact, could never suggest to himself that her love would fail him. Her first two letters from Switzerland had been very pleasant; but after that there had seemed to have crept over her a melancholy which she unconsciously transferred to her words, and which he could not but taste in them — at first unconsciously, also, but soon with so plain a flavour that he recognized it, and made it a matter of mental inquiry. During the three or four last days of the journey, while they were at Basle and on their way home, she had not written. But she did write on the day after her arrival, having then received from Mr Grey a letter, in which he told her how very much she would add to his happiness if she would now agree that their marriage should not be postponed beyond the end of October. This letter she found in her room on her return, and this she answered at once. And she answered it in such words that Mr Grey resolved that he would at once go to her in London. I will give her letter at length, as I shall then be best able to proceed with my story quickly.
Queen Anne Street — August, 186-.
DEAREST JOHN, —
We reached home yesterday tired enough, as we came through from Paris without stopping. I may indeed say that we came through from Strasbourg, as we only slept in Paris, I don’t like Strasbourg. A steeple, after all, is not everything, and putting the steeple aside, I don’t think the style is good. But the hotel was uncomfortable, which goes for so much — and then we were saturated with beauty of a better kind.
I got your letter directly I came in last night, and I suppose I had better dash at it at once. I would so willingly delay doing so, saying nice little things the while, did I not know that this would be mere cowardice. Whatever happens I won’t be a coward, and therefore I will tell you at once that I cannot let you hope that we should be married this year. Of course you will ask me why, as you have a right to do, and of course I am bound to answer. I do not know that I can give any answer with which you will not have a right to complain. If it be so, I can only ask your pardon for the injury I am doing you.
Marriage is a great change in life — much greater to me than to you, who will remain in your old house, will keep your old pursuits, will still be your own master, and will change in nothing — except in this, that you will have a companion who probably may not be all that you expect. But I must change everything. It will be to me as though I were passing through a grave to a new world. I shall see nothing that I have been accustomed to see, and must abandon all the ways of life that I have hitherto adopted. Of course I should have thought of this before I accepted you; and I did think of it. I made up my mind that, as I truly loved you, I would risk the change — that I would risk it for your sake and for mine, hoping that I might add something to your happiness, and that I might secure my own. Dear John, do not suppose that I despair that it may be so; but, indeed, you must not hurry me. I must tune myself to the change that I have to make. What if I should wake some morning after six months living with you, and tell you that the quiet of your home was making me mad?
You must not ask me again till the winter shall have passed away. If in the meantime I shall find that I have been wrong, I will humbly confess that I have wronged you, and ask you to forgive me. And I will freely admit this. If the delay which I now purpose is so contrary to your own plans as to make your marriage, under such circumstances, not that which you had expected, I know that you are free to tell me so, and to say that our engagement shall be over. I am well aware that I can have no right to bind you to a marriage at one period which you had only contemplated as to take place at another period. I think I may promise that I will obey any wish you may express in anything — except in that one thing which you urged in your last letter.
Kate is going down to Yarmouth with Mrs Greenow, and I shall see no more of her probably till next year, as she will be due in Westmoreland after that. George left me at the door when he brought me home, and declared that he intended to vanish out of London. Whether in town or out, he is never to be seen at this period of the year. Papa offers to go to Ramsgate for a fortnight, but he looks so wretched when he makes the offer, that I shall not have the heart to hold him to it. Lady Macleod very much wants me to go to Cheltenham. I very much want not to go, simply because I can never agree with her about anything; but it will probably end in my going there for a week or two. Over and beyond that, I have no prospects before Christmas which are not purely domestic. There is a project that we shall all eat our Christmas dinner at Vavasor Hall — of course not including George — but this project is quite in the clouds, and, as far as I am concerned, will remain there.
Dear John, let me hear that this letter does not make you unhappy.
Most affectionately yours, ALICE VAVASOR.
At Nethercoats, the post was brought in at breakfast-time, and Mr Grey was sitting with his tea and eggs before him, when he read Alice’s letter. He read it twice before he began to think what he would do in regard to it, and then referred to one or two others which he had received from Switzerland — reading them also very carefully. After that, he took up the slouch had which he had been wearing in the garden before he was called to his breakfast, and, with the letters in his hand, sauntered down among the shrubs and lawns.
He knew, he thought he knew, that there was more in Alice’s mind than a mere wish for delay. There was more in it than that hesitation to take at once a step which she really desired to take, if not now, then after some short interval. He felt that she was unhappy, and unhappy because she distrusted the results of her marriage; but it never for a moment occurred to him that, therefore, the engagement between them should be broken. In the first place he loved her too well to allow of his admitting such an idea without terrible sorrow to himself. He was a constant, firm man, somewhat reserved, and unwilling to make new acquaintances, and, therefore, specially unwilling to break away from those which he had made. Undoubtedly, had he satisfied himself that Alice’s happiness demanded such a sacrifice of himself, he would have made it, and made it without a word of complaint. The blow would not have prostrated him, but the bruise would have remained on his heart, indelible, not to be healed but by death. He would have submitted, and no man would have seen that he had been injured. But it did not once occur to him that such a proceeding on his part would be beneficial to Alice. Without being aware of it, he reckoned himself to be the nobler creature of the two, and now thought of her as of one wounded, and wanting a cure. Some weakness had fallen on her, and strength must be given to her from another. He did not in the least doubt her love, but he knew that she had been associated, for a few weeks past, with two persons whose daily conversation would be prone to weaken the tone of her mind. He no more thought of giving her up than a man thinks of having his leg cut off because he has sprained his sinews. He would go up to town and see her, and would not even yet abandon all hope that she might be found sitting at his board when Christmas should come. By that day’s post he wrote a short note to her.
Dearest Alice, [he said] I have resolved to go to London at once. I will be with you in the evening at eight, the day after tomorrow.
Yours, J. G.
There was no more in the letter than that.
“And now,” she said, when she received it, “I must dare to tell him the whole truth.”
And what was the whole truth? Alice Vavasor, when she declared to herself that she must tell her lover the whole truth, was expressing to herself her intention of putting an end to her engagement with Mr Grey. She was acknowledging that that which had to be told was not compatible with the love and perfect faith which she owed to the man who was her affianced husband. And yet, why should it be so? She did not intend to tell him that she had been false in her love to him. It was not that her heart had again veered itself round and given itself to that wild cousin of hers. Though she might feel herself constrained to part from John Grey, George Vavasor could never be her husband. Of that she assured herself fifty times during the two days’ grace which had been allowed her. Nay, she went farther than that with herself, and pronounced a verdict against any marriage as possible to her if she now decided against this marriage which had for some months past been regarded as fixed by herself and all her friends.
People often say that marriage is an important thing, and should be much thought of in advance, and marrying people are cautioned that there are many who marry in haste and repent at leisure. I am not sure, however, that marriage may not be pondered over too much; nor do I feel certain that the leisurely repentance does not as often follow the leisurely marriages as it does the rapid ones. That some repent no one can doubt; but I am inclined to believe that most men and women take their lots as they find them, marrying as the birds do by force of nature, and going on with their mates with a general, though not perhaps an undisturbed satisfaction, feeling inwardly assured that Providence, if it have not done the very best for them, has done for them as well as they could do for themselves with all the thought in the world. I do not know that a woman can assure to herself, by her own prudence and taste, a good husband any more than she can add two cubits to her stature; but husbands have been made to be decently good — and wives too, for the most part, in our country — so that the thing does not require quite so much thinking as some people say.
That Alice Vavasor had thought too much about it, I feel quite sure. She had gone on thinking of it till she had filled herself with a cloud of doubts which even the sunshine of love was unable to drive from her heavens. That a girl should really love the man she intends to marry — that, at any rate, may be admitted. But love generally comes easily enough. With all her doubts Alice never doubted her love for Mr Grey. Nor did she doubt his character, nor his temper, nor his means. But she had gone on thinking of the matter till her mind had become filled with some undefined idea of the importance to her of her own life. What should a woman do with her life? There had arisen round her a flock of learned ladies asking that question, to whom it seems that the proper answer has never yet occurred. Fall in love, marry the man, have two children, and live happy ever afterwards. I maintain that answer has as much wisdom in it as any other that can be given — or perhaps more. The advice contained in it cannot, perhaps, always be followed to the letter; but neither can the advice of the other kind, which is given by the flock of learned ladies who ask the question.
A woman’s life is important to her — as is that of a man to him — not chiefly in regard to that which she shall do with it. The chief thing for her to look to is the manner in which that something shall be done. It is of moment to a young man when entering life to decide whether he shall make hats or shoes; but not of half the moment that will be that other decision, whether he shall make good shoes or bad. And so with a woman — if she shall have recognized the necessity of truth and honesty for the purposes of her life, I do not know that she need ask herself many questions as to what she will do with it.
Alice Vavasor was ever asking herself that question, and had by degrees filled herself with a vague idea that there was a something to be done; a something over and beyond, or perhaps altogether beside that marrying and having two children — if she only knew what it was. She had filled herself, or had been filled by her cousins, with an undefined ambition that made her restless without giving her any real food for her mind. When she told herself that she would have no scope for action in that life in Cambridgeshire which Mr Grey was preparing for her, she did not herself know what she meant by action. Had any one accused her of being afraid to separate herself from London society, she would have declared that she went very little into society and disliked that little. Had it been whispered to her that she loved the neighbourhood of the shops, she would have scorned the whisperer. Had it been suggested that the continued rattle of the big city was necessary to her happiness, she would have declared that she and her father had picked out for their residence the quietest street in London because she could not bear noise — and yet she told herself that she feared to be taken into the desolate calmness of Cambridgeshire.
When she did contrive to find any answer to that question as to what she should do with her life — or rather what she would wish to do with it if she were a free agent, it was generally of a political nature. She was not so far advanced as to think that women should be lawyers and doctors, or to wish that she might have the privilege of the franchise for herself; but she had undoubtedly a hankering after some second-hand political manoeuvring. She would have liked, I think, to have been the wife of the leader of a Radical opposition, in the time when such men were put into prison, and to have kept up for him his seditious correspondence while he lay in the Tower. She would have carried the answers to him inside her stays — and have made long journeys down into northern parts without any money, if the cause required it. She would have liked to have around her ardent spirits, male or female, who would have talked of “the cause,” and have kept alive in her some flame of political fire. As it was, she had no cause. Her father’s political views were very mild. Lady Macleod’s were deadly Conservative. Kate Vavasor was an aspiring Radical just now, because her brother was in the same line; but during the year of the love-passages between George and Alice, George Vavasor’s politics had been as Conservative as you please. He did not become a Radical till he had quarrelled with his grandfather. Now, indeed, he was possessed of very advanced views — views with which Alice felt that she could sympathize. But what would be the use of sympathizing down in Cambridgeshire? John Grey had, so to speak, no politics. He had decided views as to the treatment which the Roman Senate received from Augustus, and had even discussed with Alice the conduct of the Girondists at the time of Robespierre’s triumph; but for Manchester and its cares he had no apparent solicitude, and had declared to Alice that he would not accept a seat in the British House of Commons if it were offered to him free of expense. What political enthusiasm could she indulge with such a companion down in Cambridgeshire?
She thought too much of all this — and was, if I may say, over-prudent in calculating the chances of her happiness and of his. For, to give her credit for what was her due, she was quite as anxious on the latter head as on the former. “I don’t care for the Roman Senate,” she would say to herself. “I don’t care much for the Girondists. How am I to talk to him day after day, night after night, when we shall be alone together?”
No doubt her tour in Switzerland with her cousin had had some effect in making such thoughts stronger now than they had ever been. She had not again learned to love her cousin. She was as firmly sure as ever that she could never love him more. He had insulted her love; and though she had forgiven him and again enrolled him among her dearest friends, she could never again feel for him that passion which a woman means when she acknowledges that she is in love. That, as regarded her and George Vavasor, was over. But, nevertheless, there had been a something of romance during those days in Switzerland which she feared she would regret when she found herself settled at Nethercoats. She envied Kate. Kate could, as his sister, attach herself on to George’s political career, and obtain from it all that excitement of life which Alice desired for herself. Alice could not love her cousin and marry him; but she felt that if she could do so without impropriety she would like to stick close to him like another sister, to spend her money in aiding his career in Parliament as Kate would do, and trust herself and her career into the boat which he was to command. She did not love her cousin; but she still believed in him — with a faith which he certainly did not deserve.
As the two days passed over her, her mind grew more and more fixed as to its purpose. She would tell Mr Grey that she was not fit to be his wife — and she would beg him to pardon her and to leave her. It never occurred to her that perhaps he might refuse to let her go. She felt quite sure that she would be free as soon as she had spoken the word which she intended to speak. If she could speak it with decision she would be free, and to attain that decision she would school herself with her utmost strength. At one moment she thought of telling all to her father and of begging him to break the matter to Mr Grey; but she knew that her father would not understand her, and that he would be very hostile to her — saying hard, uncomfortable words, which would probably be spared if the thing were done before he was informed. Nor would she write to Kate, whose letters to her at this time were full of wit at the expense of Mrs Greenow. She would tell Kate as soon as the thing was done, but not before. That Kate would sympathize with her, she was quite certain.
So the two days passed by and the time came at which John Grey was to be there. As the minute hand on the drawing-room clock came round to the full hour, she felt that her heart was beating with a violence which she could not repress. The thing seemed to her to assume bigger dimensions than it had hitherto done. She began to be aware that she was about to be guilty of a great iniquity, when it was too late for her to change her mind. She could not bring herself to resolve that she would, on the moment, change her mind. She believed that she could never pardon herself such weakness. But yet she felt herself to be aware that her purpose was wicked. When the knock at the door was at last heard she trembled and feared that she would almost be unable to speak to him. Might it be possible that there should yet be a reprieve for her? No; it was his step on the stairs, and there he was in the room with her.
“My dearest,” he said, coming to her. His smile was sweet and loving as it ever was, and his voice had its usual manly, genial, loving tone. As he walked across the room Alice felt that he was a man of whom a wife might be very proud. He was tall and very handsome, with brown hair, with bright blue eyes, and a mouth like a god. It was the beauty of his mouth — beauty which comprised firmness within itself, that made Alice afraid of him. He was still dressed in his morning clothes; but he was a man who always seemed to be well dressed. “My dearest,” he said, advancing across the room, and before she knew how to stop herself or him, he had taken her in his arms and kissed her.
He did not immediately begin about the letter, but placed her upon the sofa, seating himself by her side, and looked into her face with loving eyes — not as though to scrutinize what might be amiss there, but as though determined to enjoy to the full his privilege as a lover. There was no reproach at any rate in his countenance — none as yet; nor did it seem that he thought that he had any cause for fear. They sat in this way for a moment or two in silence, and during those moments Alice was summoning up her courage to speak. The palpitation at her heart was already gone, and she was determined that she would speak.
“Though I am very glad to see you,” she said, at last, “I am sorry that my letter should have given you the trouble of this journey.”
“Trouble!” he said. “Nay, you ought to know that it is no trouble. I have not enough to do down at Nethercoats to make the running up to you at any time an unpleasant excitement. So your Swiss journey went off pleasantly?”
“Yes; it went off very pleasantly.” This she said in that tone of voice which clearly implies that the speaker is not thinking of the words spoken.
“And Kate has now left you?”
“Yes; she is with her aunt, at the seaside.”
“So I understand — and your cousin George?”
“I never know much of George’s movements. He may be in Town, but I have not seen him since I came back.”
“Ah! that is the way with friends living in London. Unless circumstances bring them together, they are in fact further apart than if they lived fifty miles asunder in the country. And he managed to get through all the trouble without losing your luggage for you very often?”
“If you were to say that we did not lose his, that would be nearer the mark. But, John, you have come up to London in this sudden way to speak to me about my letter to you. Is it not so?”
“Certainly it is so. Certainly I have.”
“I have thought much, since, of what I then wrote, very much — very much, indeed; and I have learned to feel sure that we had better — ”
“Stop, Alice; stop a moment, love. Do not speak hurriedly. Shall I tell you what I learned from your letter?”
“Yes; tell me, if you think it better that you should do so.”
“Perhaps it may be better. I learned, love, that something had been said or done during your journey — or perhaps only something thought, that had made you melancholy, and filled your mind for a while with those unsubstantial and indefinable regrets for the past which we are all apt to feel at certain moments of our life. There are few of us who do not encounter, now and again, some of that irrational spirit of sadness which, when over-indulged, drives men to madness and self-destruction. I used to know well what it was before I knew you; but since I have had the hope of having you in my house, I have banished it utterly. In that I think I have been stronger than you. Do not speak under the influence of that spirit till you have thought whether you, too, cannot banish it.”
“I have tried, and it will not be banished.”
“Try again, Alice. It is a damned spirit, and belongs neither to heaven nor to earth. Do not say to me the words that you were about to say till you have wrestled with it manfully. I think I know what those words were to be. If you love me, those words should not be spoken. If you do not — ”
“If I do not love you, I love no one upon earth.”
“I believe it. I believe it as I believe in my own love for you. I trust your love implicitly, Alice. I know that you love me. I think I can read your mind. Tell me that I may return to Cambridgeshire, and again plead my cause for an early marriage from thence. I will not take such speech from you to mean more than it says!”
She sat quiet, looking at him — looking full into his face. She had in no wise changed her mind, but after such words from him, she did not know how to declare to him her resolution. There was something in his manner that awed her — and something also that softened her.
“Tell me,” said he “that I may see you again tomorrow morning in our usual quiet, loving way, and that I may return home tomorrow evening. Pronounce a yea to that speech from me, and I will ask for nothing further.”
“No; I cannot do so,” she said. And the tone of her voice, as she spoke, was different to any tone that he had heard before from her mouth.
“Is that melancholy fiend too strong for you?” He smiled as he said this, and as he smiled, he took her hand. She did not attempt to withdraw it, but sat by him in a strange calmness, looking straight before her into the middle of the room. “You have not struggled with it. You know, as I do, that it is a bad fiend and a wicked one — a fiend that is prompting you to the worst cruelty in the world. Alice! Alice! Alice! Try to think of all this as though some other person were concerned. If it were your friend, what advice would you give her?”
“I would bid her tell the man who had loved her — that is, if he were noble, good, and great — that she found herself to be unfit to be his wife; and then I would bid her ask his pardon humbly on her knees.” As she said this, she sank before him on the floor, and looked up into his face with an expression of sad contrition which almost drew him from his purposed firmness.
He had purposed to be firm — to yield to her in nothing, resolving to treat all that she might say as the hallucination of a sickened imagination — as the effect of absolute want of health, for which some change in her mode of life would be the best cure. She might bid him be gone in what language she would. He knew well that such was her intention. But he would not allow a word coming from her in such a way to disturb arrangements made for the happiness of their joint lives. As a loving husband would treat a wife, who, in some exceptionable moment of a melancholy malady, should declare herself unable to remain longer in her home, so would he treat her. As for accepting what she might say as his dismissal, he would as soon think of taking the fruit trees from the southern wall because the sun sometimes shines from the north. He could not treat either his interests or hers so lightly as that.
“But what if he granted no such pardon, Alice? I will grant none such. You are my wife, my own, my dearest, my chosen one. You are all that I value in the world, my treasure and my comfort, my earthly happiness and my gleam of something better that is to come hereafter. Do you think that I shall let you go from me in that way? No, love. If you are ill I will wait till your illness is gone by; and, if you will let me, I will be your nurse.”
“I am not ill.”
“Not ill with any defined sickness. You do not shake with ague, nor does your head rack you with aching; but yet you may be ill. Think of what has passed between us. Must you not be ill when you seek to put an end to all that without any cause assigned?”
“You will not hear my reasons,” — she was still kneeling before him and looking up into his face.
“I will hear them if you will tell me that they refer to any supposed faults of my own.”
“No, no, no!”
“Then I will not hear them. It is for me to find out your faults, and when I have found out any that require complaint, I will come and make it. Dear Alice, I wish you knew how I long for you.” Then he put his hand upon her hair, as though he would caress her.
But this she would not suffer, so she rose slowly, and stood with her hand upon the table in the middle of the room. “Mr Grey — ” she said.
“If you will call me so, I shall think it only a part of your malady.”
“Mr Grey,” she continued, “I can only hope that you will take me at my word.”
“Oh, but I will not; certainly I will not, if that would be adverse to my own interests.”
“I am thinking of your interests; I am, indeed — at any rate as much as of my own. I feel quite sure that I should not make you happy as your wife — quite sure; and feeling that, I think that I am right, even after all that has passed, to ask your forgiveness, and to beg that our engagement may be over.”
“No, Alice, no; never with my consent. I cannot tell you with what contentment I would marry you tomorrow — tomorrow, or next month, or the month after. But if it cannot be so, then I will wait. Nothing but your marriage with someone else would convince me.”
“I cannot convince you in that way,” she said, smiling.
“You will convince me in no other. You have not spoken to your father of this as yet?”
“Not as yet.”
“Do not do so, at any rate for the present. You will own that it might be possible that you would have to unsay what you had said.”
“No; it is not possible.”
“Give yourself and me the chance. It can do no harm. And, Alice, I ask you now for no reasons. I will not ask your reasons, or even listen to them, because I do not believe that they will long have effect even on yourself. Do you still think of going to Cheltenham?”
“I have decided nothing as yet.”
“If I were you, I would go. I think a change of air would be good for you.”
“Yes; you treat me as though I were partly silly, and partly insane; but it is not so. The change you speak of should be in my nature, and in yours.”
He shook his head and still smiled. There was something in the imperturbed security of his manner which almost made her angry with him. It seemed as though he assumed so great a superiority that he felt himself able to treat any resolve of hers as the petulance of a child. And though he spoke in strong language of his love, and of his longing that she should come to him, yet he was so well able to command his feelings, that he showed no sign of grief at the communication she had made to him. She did not doubt his love, but she believed him to be so much the master of his love — as he was the master of everything else, that her separation from him would cause him no uncontrollable grief. In that she utterly failed to understand his character. Had she known him better, she might have been sure that such a separation now would with him have carried its mark to the grave. Should he submit to her decision, he would go home and settle himself to his books the next day; but on no following day would he be again capable of walking forth among his flowers with an easy heart. He was a strong, constant man, perhaps over-conscious of his own strength; but then his strength was great. “He is perfect!” Alice had said to herself often. “Oh that he were less perfect!” He did not stay with her long after the last word that has been recorded. “Perhaps,” he said, as for a moment he held her hand at parting, “I had better not come tomorrow.”
“No, no; it is better not.”
“I advise you not to tell your father of this, and doubtless you will think of it before you do so. But if you do tell him, let me know that you have done so.”
“Why that?”
“Because in such case I also must see him. God bless you, Alice! God bless you, dearest, dearest Alice!” Then he went, and she sat there on the sofa without moving, till she heard her father’s feet as he came up the stairs.
“What, Alice, are you not in bed yet?”
“Not yet, papa.”
“And so John Grey has been here. He has left his stick in the hall. I should know it among a thousand.”
“Yes; he has been here.”
“Is anything the matter, Alice?”
“No, papa, nothing is the matter.”
“He has not made himself disagreeable, has he?”
“Not in the least. He never does anything wrong. He may defy man or woman to find fault with him.”
“So that is it, is it? He is just a shade too good. Well, I have always thought that myself. But it’s a fault on the right side.”
“It’s no fault, papa. If there be any fault, it is not with him. But I am yawning and tired, and I will go to bed.”
“Is he to be here tomorrow?”
“No; he returns to Nethercoats early. Good-night, papa.”
Mr Vavasor, as he went up to his bedroom, felt sure that there had been something wrong between his daughter and her lover. “I don’t know how she’ll ever put up with him,” he said to himself, “he is so terribly conceited. I shall never forget how he went on about Charles Kemble, and what a fool he made of himself.”
Alice, before she went to bed, sat down and wrote a letter to her cousin Kate.
It cannot perhaps fairly be said that George Vavasor was an inhospitable man, seeing that it was his custom to entertain his friends occasionally at Greenwich, Richmond or such places; and he would now and again have a friend to dine with him at his club. But he never gave breakfasts, dinners, or suppers under his own roof. During a short period of his wine-selling career, at which time he had occupied handsome rooms over his place of business in New Burlington Street, he had presided at certain feasts given to customers or expectant customers by the firm; but he had not found this employment to be to his taste, and had soon relinquished it to one of the other partners. Since that he had lived in lodgings in Cecil Street — down at the bottom of that retired nook, near to the river and away from the Strand. Here he had simply two rooms on the first floor, and hither his friends came to him very rarely. They came very rarely on any account. A stray man might now and then pass an hour with him here; but on such occasions the chances were that the visit had some reference, near or distant, to affairs of business. Eating or drinking there was never any to be found here by the most intimate of his allies. His lodgings were his private retreat, and they were so private that but few of his friends knew where he lived.
And had it been possible he would have wished that no one should have known his whereabouts, I am not aware that he had any special reason for this peculiarity, or that there was anything about his mode of life that required hiding; but he was a man who had always lived as though secrecy in certain matters might at any time become useful to him. He had a mode of dressing himself when he went out at night that made it almost impossible that any one should recognize him. The people at his lodgings did not even know that he had relatives, and his nearest relatives hardly knew that he had lodgings. Even Kate had never been at the rooms in Cecil Street, and addressed all her letters to his place of business or his club. He was a man who would bear no inquiry into himself. If he had been out of view for a month, and his friends asked him where he had been, he always answered the question falsely, or left it unanswered. There are many men of whom everybody knows all about all their belongings — as to whom everybody knows where they live, whither they go, what is their means, and how they spend it. But there are others of whom no man knows anything, and George Vavasor was such a one. For myself I like the open babbler the best. Babbling may be a weakness, but to my thinking mystery is a vice.
Vavasor also maintained another little establishment, down in Oxfordshire; but the two establishments did not even know of each other’s existence. There was a third, too, very closely hidden from the world’s eye, which shall be nameless; but of the establishment in Oxfordshire he did sometimes speak, in very humble words, among his friends. When he found himself among hunting men, he would speak of his two nags at Roebury, saying that he had never yet been able to mount a regular hunting stable, and that he supposed he never would; but that there were at Roebury two indifferent beasts of his if any one chose to buy them. And men very often did buy Vavasor’s horses. When he was on them they always went well and sold themselves readily. And though he thus spoke of two, and perhaps did not keep more during the summer, he always seemed to have horses enough when he was down in the country. No one ever knew George Vavasor not to hunt because he was short of stuff. And here, at Roebury, he kept a trusty servant, an ancient groom with two little bushy grey eyes which looked as though they could see through a stable door. Many were the long whisperings which George and Bat Smithers carried on at the stable door, in the very back depth of the yard attached to the hunting inn at Roebury. Bat regarded his master as a man wholly devoted to horses, but often wondered why he was not more regular in his sojournings in Oxfordshire. Of any other portion of his master’s life Bat knew nothing. Bat could give the address of his master’s club in London, but he could give no other address.
But though Vavasor’s private lodgings were so very private, he had, nevertheless, taken some trouble in adorning them. The furniture in the sitting-room was very neat, and the bookshelves were filled with volumes that shone with gilding on their backs. The inkstand, the paperweight, the envelope case on his writing-table were all handsome. He had a single good portrait of a woman’s head hanging on one of his walls. He had a special place adapted for his pistols, others for his foils, and again another for his whips. The room was as pretty a bachelor’s room as you would wish to enter, but you might see, by the position of the single easy chair that was brought forward, that it was seldom appropriated to the comfort of more than one person. Here he sat lounging over his breakfast, late on a Sunday morning in September, when all the world was out of town. He was reading a letter which had just been brought down to him from his club. Though the writer of it was his sister Kate, she had not been privileged to address it to his private lodgings. He read it very quickly, running rapidly over its contents, and then threw it aside from him as though it were of no moment, keeping, however, an enclosure in his hand. And yet the letter was of much moment, and made him think deeply. “If I did it at all,” said he, “it would be more with the object of cutting him out than with any other.”
The reader will hardly require to be told that the “him” in question was John Grey, and that Kate’s letter was one instigating her brother to renew his love affair with Alice. And Vavasor was in truth well inclined to renew it, and would have begun the renewing it at once, had he not doubted his power with his cousin. Indeed it has been seen that he had already attempted some commencement of such renewal at Basle. He had told Kate more than once that Alice’s fortune was not much, and that her beauty was past its prime; and he would no doubt repeat the same objections to his sister with some pretence of disinclination. It was not his custom to show his hand to the players at any game that he played. But he was, in truth, very anxious to obtain from Alice a second promise of her hand. How soon after that he might marry her, would be another question.
Perhaps it was not Alice’s beauty that he coveted, nor yet her money exclusively. Nevertheless he thought her very beautiful, and was fully aware that her money would be of great service to him. But I believe that he was true in that word that he spoke to himself, and that his chief attraction was the delight which he would have in robbing Mr Grey of his wife. Alice had once been his love, had clung to his side, had whispered love to him, and he had enough of the weakness of humanity in him to feel the soreness arising from her affection for another. When she broke away from him he had acknowledged that he had been wrong, and when, since her engagement with Mr Grey, he had congratulated her, he had told her in his quiet, half-whispered, impressive words how right she was; but not the less, therefore, did he feel himself hurt that John Grey should be her lover. And when he had met this man he had spoken well of him to his sister, saying that he was a gentleman, a scholar, and a man of parts; but not the less had he hated him from the first moment of his seeing him. Such hatred under such circumstances was almost pardonable. But George Vavasor, when he hated, was apt to follow up his hatred with injury. He could not violently dislike a man and yet not wish to do him any harm. At present, as he sat lounging in his chair, he thought that he would like to marry his cousin Alice; but he was quite sure that he would like to be the means of putting a stop to the proposed marriage between Alice and John Grey.
Kate had been very false to her friend, and had sent up to her brother the very letter which Alice had written to her after that meeting in Queen Anne Street which was described in the last chapter — or rather a portion of it, for with the reserve common to women she had kept back the other half. Alice had declared to herself that she would be sure of her cousin’s sympathy, and had written out all her heart on the matter, as was her wont when writing to Kate. “But you must understand”, she wrote, “that all that I said to him went with him for nothing. I had determined to make him know that everything between us must be over, but I failed. I found that I had no words at command, but that he was able to talk to me as though I were a child. He told me that I was sick and full of phantasies, and bade me change the air. As he spoke in this way, I could not help feeling how right he was to use me so; but I felt also that he, in his mighty superiority, could never be a fitting husband for a creature so inferior to him as I am. Though I altogether failed to make him understand that it was so, every moment that we were together made me more fixed in my resolution.”
This letter from Alice to Kate, Vavasor read over and over again, though Kate’s letter to himself, which was the longer one, he had thrown aside after the first glance. There was nothing that he could learn from that. He was as good a judge of the manner in which he would play his own game as Kate could be; but in this matter he was to learn how he would play his game from a knowledge of the other girl’s mind. “She’ll never marry him, at any rate,” he said to himself, “and she is right. He’d make an upper servant of her; very respectable, no doubt, but still only an upper servant. Now with me — well, I hardly know what I should make of her. I cannot think of myself as a man married.” Then he threw her letter after Kate’s, and betook himself to his newspaper and his cigar.
It was two hours after this, and he still wore his dressing-gown, and he was still lounging in his easy chair, when the waiting-maid at the lodgings brought him up word that a gentleman wished to see him. Vavasor kept no servant of his own except that confidential groom down at Bicester. It was a rule with him that people could be better served and cheaper served by other people’s servants than by their own. Even in the stables at Bicester the innkeeper had to find what assistance was wanted, and charge for it in the bill. And George Vavasor was no Sybarite. He did not deem it impracticable to put on his own trousers without having a man standing at his foot to hold up the leg of the garment. A valet about a man knows a great deal of a man’s ways, and therefore George had no valet.
“A gentleman!” said he to the girl. “Does the gentleman look like a public house keeper?”
“Well, I think he do,” said the girl.
“Then show him up,” said George.
And the gentleman was a public house keeper. Vavasor was pretty sure of his visitor before he desired the servant to give him entrance. It was Mr Grimes from the Handsome Man public house and tavern, in the Brompton Road, and he had come by appointment to have a little conversation with Mr Vavasor on matters political. Mr Grimes was a man who knew that business was business, and as such had some considerable weight in his own neighbourhood. With him politics was business, as well as beer, and omnibus-horses, and foreign wines — in the fabrication of which latter article Mr Grimes was supposed to have an extended experience. To such as him, when intent on business, Mr Vavasor was not averse to make known the secrets of his lodging-house; and now, when the idle London world was either at morning church or still in bed, Mr Grimes had come out by appointment to do a little political business with the lately-rejected member for the Chelsea Districts.
Vavasor had been, as I have said, lately rejected, and the new member who had beaten him at the hustings had sat now for one session in Parliament. Under his present reign he was destined to the honour of one other session, and then the period of his existing glory — for which he was said to have paid nearly six thousand pounds — would be over. But he might be elected again, perhaps for a full period of six sessions; and it might be hoped that this second election would be conducted on more economical principles. To this, the economical view of the matter, Mr Grimes was very much opposed, and was now waiting upon George Vavasor in Cecil Street, chiefly with the object of opposing the new member’s wishes on this head. No doubt Mr Grimes was personally an advocate for the return of Mr Vavasor, and would do all in his power to prevent the re-election of the young Lord Kilfenora, whose father, the Marquis of Bunratty, had scattered that six thousand pounds among the electors and non-electors of Chelsea; but his main object was that money should be spent. “’Tain’t altogether for myself,” he said to a confidential friend in the same way of business; “I don’t get so much on it. Perhaps sometimes not none. Maybe I’ve a bill again some of those gents not paid this very moment. But it’s the game I looks to. If the game dies away, it’ll never be got up again — never. Who’ll care about elections then? Anybody’d go and get hisself elected if we was to let the game go by!” And so, that the game might not go by, Mr Grimes was now present in Mr George Vavasor’s rooms.
“Well, Mr Grimes,” said George, “how are you this morning? Sit down, Mr Grimes. If every man were as punctual as you are, the world would go like clockwork; wouldn’t it?”
“Business is business, Mr Vavasor,” said the publican, after having made his salute, and having taken his chair with some little show of mock modesty. “That’s my maxim. If I didn’t stick to that, nothing wouldn’t ever stick to me; and nothing doesn’t much, as it is. Times is very bad, Mr Vavasor.”
“Of course they are. They’re always bad. What was the Devil made for, except that they should be bad? But I should have thought you publicans were the last men who ought to complain.”
“Lord love you, Mr Vavasor; why, I suppose of all the men as is put upon, we’re put upon the worst. What’s the good of drawing of beer, if the more you draw the more you don’t make? Yesterday as ever was was Saturday, and we drawed three pound ten and nine. What’ll that come to, Mr Vavasor, when you reckons it up with the brewer? Why, it’s a next to nothing. You knows that well enough.”
“Upon my word I don’t. But I know you don’t sell a pint of beer without getting a profit out of it.”
“Lord love you, Mr Vavasor. If I hadn’t nothink to look to but beer I couldn’t keep a house over my head; no, I couldn’t. That house of mine belongs to Meux’s people; and very good people they are too — have made a sight of money; haven’t they, Mr Vavasor? I has to get my beer from them in course. Why not, when it’s their house? But if I sells their stuff as I gets it, there ain’t a halfpenny coming to me out of a gallon. Look at that, now.”
“But then you don’t sell it as you get it. You stretch it.”
“That’s in course. I’m not going to tell you a lie, Mr Vavasor. You know what’s what as well as I do, and a sight better, I expect. There’s a dozen different ways of handling beer, Mr Vavasor. But what’s the use of that, when they can take four or five pounds a day over the counter for their rot-gut stuff at the ‘Cadogan Arms’, and I can’t do no better nor yet perhaps so well, for a real honest glass of beer? Stretch it! It’s my belief the more you poison their liquor, the more the people likes it!”
Mr Grimes was a stout man, not very tall, with a mottled red face, and large protruding eyes. As regards his own person, Mr Grimes might have been taken as a fair sample of the English innkeeper, as described for many years past. But in his outer garments he was very unlike that description. He wore a black, swallow-tailed coat, made, however, to set very loose upon his back, a black waistcoat, and black pantaloons. He carried, moreover, in his hands a black chimney-pot hat. Not only have the top-boots and breeches vanished from the costume of innkeepers, but also the long, parti-coloured waistcoat, and the birds’-eye fogle round their necks. They get themselves up to look like Dissenting ministers or undertakers, except that there is still a something about their rosy gills which tells a tale of the spigot and corkscrew.
Mr Grimes had only just finished the tale of his own hard ways as a publican, when the doorbell was again rung. “There’s Scruby,” said George Vavasor, “and now we can go to business.”
The handmaiden at George Vavasor’s lodgings announced “another gent”, and then Mr Scruby entered the room in which were seated George, and Mr Grimes the publican from the “Handsome Man” on the Brompton Road. Mr Scruby was an attorney from Great Marlborough Street, supposed to be very knowing in the ways of metropolitan elections; and he had now stepped round, as he called it, with the object of saying a few words to Mr Grimes, partly on the subject of the forthcoming contest at Chelsea, and partly on that of the contest just past. These words were to be said in the presence of Mr Vavasor, the person interested. That some other words had been spoken between Mr Scruby and Mr Grimes on the same subjects behind Mr Vavasor’s back I think very probable. But even though this might have been so I am not prepared to say that Mr Vavasor had been deceived by their combinations.
The two men were very civil to each other in their salutations, the attorney assuming an air of patronising condescension, always calling the other Grimes; whereas Mr Scruby was treated with considerable deference by the publican, and was always called Mr Scruby. “Business is business”, said the publican as soon as these salutations were over; “isn’t it now, Mr Scruby?”
“And I suppose Grimes thinks Sunday morning a particularly good time for business,” said the attorney, laughing.
“It’s quiet, you know,” said Grimes. “But it warn’t me as named Sunday morning. It was Mr Vavasor here. But it is quiet; ain’t it, Mr Scruby?”
Mr Scruby acknowledged that it was quiet, especially looking out over the river, and then they proceeded to business. “We must pull the governor through better next time than we did last,” said the attorney.
“Of course we must, Mr Scruby; but, Lord love you, Mr Vavasor, whose fault was it? What notice did I get — just tell me that? Why, Travers’s name was up on the Liberal interest ever so long before the governor had ever thought about it.”
“Nobody is blaming you, Mr Grimes,” said George.
“And nobody can’t, Mr Vavasor. I done my work true as steel, and there ain’t another man about the place as could have done half as much. You ask Mr Scruby else. Mr Scruby knows, if ere a man in London does. I tell you what it is, Mr Vavasor, them Chelsea fellows, who lives mostly down by the river, ain’t like your Maryboners or Finsburyites. It wants something of a man to manage them. Don’t it, Mr Scruby?”
“It wants something of a man to manage any of them as far as my experience goes,” said Mr Scruby.
“Of course it do; and there ain’t no one in London knows so much about it as you do, Mr Scruby. I will say that for you. But the long and the short of it is this — business is business, and money is money.”
“Money is money, certainly,” said Mr Scruby. “There’s no doubt in the world about that, Grimes — and a deal of it you had out of the last election.”
“No, I hadn’t; begging your pardon, Mr Scruby, for making so free. What I had to my own cheek wasn’t nothing to speak of. I wasn’t paid for my time; that’s what I wasn’t. You look how a publican’s business gets cut up at them elections — and then the state of the house afterwards! What would the governor say to me if I was to put down painting inside and out in my little bill?”
“It doesn’t seem to make much difference how you put it down,” said Vavasor. “The total is what I look at.”
“Just so, Mr Vavasor; just so. The total is what I looks at too. And I has to look at it a deuced long time before I gets it. I ain’t a got it yet; have I, Mr Vavasor?”
“Well; if you ask me I should say you had,” said George. “I know I paid Mr Scruby three hundred pounds on your account.”
“And I got every shilling of it, Mr Vavasor. I’m not a going to deny the money, Mr Vavasor. You’ll never find me doing that. I’m as round as your hat, and as square as your elbow — I am. Mr Scruby knows me; don’t you, Mr Scruby?”
“Perhaps I know you too well, Grimes.”
“No, you don’t, Mr Scruby; not a bit too well. Nor I don’t know you too well, either. I respect you, Mr Scruby, because you’re a man as understands your business. But as I was saying, what’s three hundred pounds when a man’s bill is three hundred and ninety-two thirteen and fourpence?”
“I thought that was all settled, Mr Scruby,” said Vavasor.
“Why, you see, Mr Vavasor, it’s very hard to settle these things. If you ask me whether Mr Grimes here can sue you for the balance, I tell you very plainly that he can’t. We were a little short of money when we came to a settlement, as is generally the case at such times, and so we took Mr Grimes’s receipt for three hundred pounds.”
“Of course you did, Mr Scruby.”
“Not on account, but in full of all demands.”
“Now, Mr Scruby!” and the publican as he made this appeal looked at the attorney with an expression of countenance which was absolutely eloquent. “Are you going to put me off with such an excuse as that?” so the look spoke plainly enough. “Are you going to bring up my own signature against me, when you know very well that I shouldn’t have got a shilling at all for the next twelve months if I hadn’t given it? Oh, Mr Scruby!” That’s what Mr Grimes’ look said, and both Mr Scruby and Mr Vavasor understood it perfectly,
“In full of all demands,” said Mr Scruby, with a slight tone of triumph in his voice, as though to show that Grimes’ appeal had no effect at all upon his conscience. “If you were to go into a court of law, Grimes, you wouldn’t have a leg to stand upon.”
“A court of law? Who’s a going to law with the governor, I should like to know? not I; not if he didn’t pay me them ninety-two pounds thirteen and fourpence for the next five years.”
“Five years or fifteen would make no difference,” said Scruby. “You couldn’t do it.”
“And I ain’t a going to try. That’s not the ticket I’ve come here about, Mr Vavasor, this blessed Sunday morning. Going to law, indeed! But, Mr Scruby, I’ve got a family.”
“Not in the vale of Taunton, I hope,” said George.
“They is at the Handsome Man in the Brompton Road, Mr Vavasor; and I always feels that I owes my first duty to them. If a man don’t work for his family, what do he work for?”
“Come, come, Grimes,” said Mr Scruby. “What is it you’re at? Out with it, and don’t keep us here all day.”
“What is it I’m at, Mr Scruby? As if you didn’t know very well what I’m at. There’s my house — in all them Chelsea Districts it’s the most convenientest of any public as is open for all manner of election purposes. That’s given up to it.”
“And what next?” said Scruby.
“The next is, I myself. There isn’t one of the lot of ’em can work them Chelsea fellows down along the river unless it is me. Mr Scruby knows that. Why, I’ve been a getting of them up with a view to this very job ever since — why, ever since they was a talking of the Chelsea Districts. When Lord Robert was a coming in for the county on the religious dodge, he couldn’t have worked them fellows anyhow, only for me. Mr Scruby knows that.”
“Let’s take it all for granted, Mr Grimes,” said Vavasor. “What comes next?”
“Well — them Bunratty people; it is them as come next. They know which side their bread is like to be buttered; they do. They’re a bidding for the Handsome Man already; they are.”
“And you’d let your house to the Tory party, Grimes!” said Mr Scruby, in a tone in which disgust and anger were blended.
“Who said anything of my letting my house to the Tory party, Mr Scruby? I’m as round as your hat, Mr Scruby, and as square as your elbow; I am. But suppose as all the Liberal gents as employs you, Mr Scruby, was to turn again you and not pay you your little bills, wouldn’t you have your eyes open for customers of another kind? Come now, Mr Scruby?”
“You won’t make much of that game, Grimes.”
“Perhaps not; perhaps not. There’s a risk in all these things; isn’t there, Mr Vavasor? I should like to see you a Parliament gent; I should indeed. You’d be a credit to the Districts; I really think you would.”
“I’m much obliged by your good opinion, Mr Grimes,” said George.
“When I sees a gent coming forward I knows whether he’s fit for Parliament, or whether he ain’t. I says you are fit. But, lord love you, Mr Vavasor; it’s a thing a gentleman always has to pay for.”
“That’s true enough; a deal more than it’s worth, generally.”
“A thing’s worth what it fetches. I’m worth what I’ll fetch; that’s the long and the short of it. I want to have my balance, that’s the truth. It’s the odd money in a man’s bill as always carries the profit. You ask Mr Scruby else; only with a lawyer it’s all profit, I believe.”
“That’s what you know about it,” said Scruby.
“If you cut off a man’s odd money,” continued the publican, “you break his heart. He’d almost sooner have that and leave the other standing. He’d call the hundreds capital, and if he lost them at last, why, he’d put it down as being in the way of trade. But the odd money — he looks at that, Mr Vavasor, as in a manner the very sweat of his brow, the work of his own hand; that’s what goes to his family, and keeps the pot a boiling downstairs. Never stop a man’s odd money, Mr Vavasor; that is, unless he comes it very strong indeed.”
“And what is it you want now?” said Scruby.
“I wants ninety-two pounds thirteen and fourpence, Mr Scruby, and then we’ll go to work for the new fight with contented hearts. If we’re to begin at all, it’s quite time; it is indeed, Mr Vavasor.”
“And what you mean us to understand is, that you won’t begin at all without your money,” said the lawyer.
“That’s about it, Mr Scruby.”
“Take a fifty-pound note, Grimes,” said the lawyer.
“Fifty-pound notes are not so ready,” said George.
“Oh, he’ll be only too happy to have your acceptance; won’t you, Grimes?”
“Not for fifty pounds, Mr Scruby. It’s the odd money that I wants. I don’t mind the thirteen and four, because that’s neither here nor there among friends, but if I didn’t get all them ninety-two pounds I should be a broken-hearted man; I should indeed, Mr Vavasor. I couldn’t go about your work for next year so as to do you justice among the electors. I couldn’t indeed.”
“You’d better give him a bill for ninety pounds at three months, Mr Vavasor. I have no doubt he has got a stamp in his pocket.”
“That I have, Mr Scruby; there ain’t no mistake about that. A bill stamp is a thing that often turns up convenient with gents as mean business like Mr Vavasor and you. But you must make it ninety-two; you must indeed, Mr Vavasor. And do make it two months if you can, Mr Vavasor; they do charge so unconscionable on ninety days at them branch banks; they do indeed.”
George Vavasor and Mr Scruby, between them, yielded at last, so far as to allow the bill to be drawn for ninety-two pounds, but they were stanch as to the time. “If it must be, it must,” said the publican, with a deep sigh, as he folded up the paper and put it into the pocket of a huge case which he carried. “And now, gents, I’ll tell you what it is. We’ll make safe work of this here next election. We know what’s to be our little game in time, and if we don’t go in and win, my name ain’t Jacob Grimes, and I ain’t the landlord of the Handsome Man. As you gents has perhaps got something to say among yourselves, I’ll make so bold as to wish you good morning.” So, with that, Mr Grimes lifted his hat from the floor, and bowed himself out of the room.
“You couldn’t have done it cheaper; you couldn’t, indeed,” said the lawyer, as soon as the sound of the closing front door had been heard.
“Perhaps not; but what a thief the man is! I remember your telling me that the bill was about the most preposterous you had ever seen.”
“So it was, and if we hadn’t wanted him again of course we shouldn’t have paid him. But we’ll have it all off his next account, Mr Vavasor — every shilling of it. It’s only lent; that’s all — it’s only lent.”
“But one doesn’t want to lend such a man money, if one could help it.”
“That’s true. If you look at it in that light, it’s quite true. But you see we cannot do without him. If he hadn’t got your bill, he’d have gone over to the other fellows before the week was over; and the worst of it would have been that he knows our hand. Looking at it all round you’ve got him cheap, Mr Vavasor — you have, indeed.”
“Looking at it all round is just what I don’t like, Mr Scruby. But if a man will have a whistle, he must pay for it.”
“You can’t do it cheap for any of these metropolitan seats; you can’t, indeed, Mr Vavasor. That is, a new man can’t. When you’ve been in four or five times, like old Duncombe, why then, of course, you may snap your fingers at such men as Grimes. But the Chelsea Districts ain’t dear. I don’t call them by any means dear. Now Marylebone is dear — and so is Southwark. It’s dear, and nasty; that’s what the Borough is. Only that I never tell tales, I could tell you a tale, Mr Vavasor, that’d make your hair stand on end; I could indeed.”
“Ah! the game is hardly worth the candle, I believe.”
“That depends on what way you choose to look at it. A seat in Parliament is a great thing to a man who wants to make his way — a very great thing — specially when a man’s young, like you, Mr Vavasor.”
“Young!” said George. “Sometimes it seems to me as though I’ve been living for a hundred years. But I won’t trouble you with that, Mr Scruby, and I believe I needn’t keep you any longer.” With that, he got up and bowed the attorney out of the room, with just a little more ceremony than he had shown to the publican.
“Young!” said Vavasor to himself, when he was left alone. “There’s my uncle, or the old squire — they’re both younger men than I am. One cares for his dinner, and the other for his bullocks and his trees. But what is there that I care for, unless it is not getting among the sheriff’s officers for debt?” Then he took out a little memorandum book from his breast pocket, and having made in it an entry as to the amount and date of that bill which he had just accepted on the publican’s behalf, he conned over the particulars of its pages. “Very blue; very blue, indeed,” he said to himself when he had completed the study. “But nobody shall say I hadn’t the courage to play the game out, and that old fellow must die some day, one supposes. If I were not a fool, I should make it up with him before he went; but I am a fool, and shall remain so to the last.” Soon after that he dressed himself slowly, reading a little every now and then as he did so. When his toilet was completed, and his Sunday newspapers sufficiently perused, he took up his hat and umbrella and sauntered out.
Kate Vavasor had sent to her brother only the first half of her cousin’s letter, that half in which Alice had attempted to describe what had taken place between her and Mr Grey. In doing this, Kate had been a wicked traitor — a traitor to that feminine faith against which treason on the part of one woman is always unpardonable in the eyes of other women. But her treason would have been of a deeper dye had she sent the latter portion, for in that Alice had spoken of George Vavasor himself. But even of this treason, Kate would, I think, have been guilty, had the words which Alice wrote been of a nature to serve her own purpose if read by her brother. But they had not been of this nature. They had spoken of George as a man with whom any closer connection than that which existed at present was impossible, and had been written with the view of begging Kate to desist from making futile attempts in that direction. “I feel myself driven”, Alice had said, “to write all this, as otherwise — if I were simply to tell you that I have resolved to part from Mr Grey — you would think that the other thing might follow. The other thing cannot follow. I should think myself untrue in my friendship to you if I did not tell you about Mr Grey; and you will be untrue in your friendship to me if you take advantage of my confidence by saying more about your brother.” This part of Alice’s letter Kate had not sent to George Vavasor — “But the other thing shall follow,” Kate had said, as she read the words for the second time, and then put the papers into her desk. “It shall follow.”
To give Kate Vavasor her due, she was, at any rate, unselfish in her intrigues. She was obstinately persistent, and she was moreover unscrupulous, but she was not selfish. Many years ago she had made up her mind that George and Alice should be man and wife, feeling that such a marriage would be good at any rate for her brother. It had been almost brought about, and had then been hindered altogether through a fault on her brother’s part. But she had forgiven him this sin as she had forgiven many others, and she was now at work in his behalf again, determined that they two should be married, even though neither of them might be now anxious that it should be so. The intrigue itself was dear to her, and success in it was necessary to her self-respect.
She answered Alice’s letter with a pleasant, gossiping epistle which shall be recorded, as it will tell us something of Mrs Greenow’s proceedings at Yarmouth. Kate had promised to stay at Yarmouth for a month, but she had already been there six weeks, and was still under her aunt’s wing.
Yarmouth, October, 186-.
DEAREST ALICE,
Of course I am delighted. It is no good saying that I am not. I know how difficult it is to deal with you, and therefore I sit down to answer your letter with fear and trembling, lest I should say a word too much, and thereby drive you back, or not say quite enough and thereby fail to encourage you on. Of course I am glad. I have long thought that Mr Grey could not make you happy, and as I have thought so, how can I not be glad? It is no use saying that he is good and noble, and all that sort of thing. I have never denied it. But he was not suited to you, and his life would have made you wretched. Ergo, I rejoice. And as you are the dearest friend I have, of course I rejoice mightily.
I can understand accurately the sort of way in which the interview went. Of course he had the best of it. I can see him so plainly as he stood up in unruffled self-possession, ignoring all that you said, suggesting that you were feverish or perhaps bilious, waving his hand over you a little, as though that might possibly do you some small good, and then taking his leave with an assurance that it would be all right as soon as the wind changed. I suppose it’s very noble in him, not taking you at your word, and giving you, as it were, another chance; but there is a kind of nobility which is almost too great for this world. I think very well of you, my dear, as women go, but I do not think well enough of you to believe that you are fit to be Mr John Grey’s wife.
Of course I’m very glad. You have known my mind from the first to the last, and, therefore, what would be the good of my mincing matters? No woman wishes her dearest friend to marry a man to whom she herself is antipathetic. You would have been as much lost to me, had you become Mrs Grey of Nethercoats, Cambridgeshire, as though you had gone to heaven. I don’t say but what Nethercoats may be a kind of heaven — but then one doesn’t wish one’s friend that distant sort of happiness. A flat Eden I can fancy it, hemmed in by broad dykes, in which cream and eggs are very plentiful, where an Adam and an Eve might drink the choicest tea out of the finest china, with toast buttered to perfection, from year’s end to year’s end; into which no money troubles would ever find their way, nor yet any naughty novels. But such an Eden is not tempting to me, nor, as I think, to you. I can fancy you stretching your poor neck over the dyke, longing to fly away that you might cease to be at rest, but knowing that the matrimonial dragon was too strong for any such flight. If ever bird banged his wings to pieces against gilded bars, you would have banged yours to pieces in that cage.
You say that you have failed to make him understand that the matter is settled. I need not say that of course it is settled, and that he must be made to understand it. You owe it to him now to put him out of all doubt. He is, I suppose, accessible to the words of a mortal, god though he be. But I do not fear about this, for, after all, you have as much firmness about you as most people — perhaps as much as he has at bottom, though you may not have so many occasions to show it.
As to that other matter I can only say that you shall be obliged, as far as it is in my power to obey you. For what may come out from me by word of mouth when we are together, I will not answer with certainty. But my pen is under better control, and it shall not write the offending name.
And now I must tell you a little about myself — or rather, I am inclined to spin a yarn, and tell you a great deal. I have got such a lover! But I did describe him before. Of course it’s Mr Cheesacre. If I were to say that he hasn’t declared himself, I should hardly give you a fair idea of my success. And yet he has not declared himself — and, which is worse, is very anxious to marry a rival. But it’s a strong point in my favour that my rival wants him to take me, and that he will assuredly be driven to make me an offer sooner or later, in obedience to her orders. My aunt is my rival, and I do not feel the least doubt as to his having offered to her half a dozen times. But then she has another lover, Captain Bellfield, and I see that she prefers him. He is a penniless scamp and looks as though he drank. He paints his whiskers too, which I don’t like; and, being forty, tries to look like twenty-five. Otherwise he is agreeable enough, and I rather approve of my aunt’s taste in preferring him.
But my lover has solid attractions, and allures me on by a description of the fat cattle which he sends to market. He is a man of substance, and should I ever become Mrs Cheesacre, I have reason to think that I shall not be left in want. We went up to his place on a visit the other day. Oileymead is the name of my future home: not so pretty as Nethercoats, is it? And we had such a time there! We reached the place at ten and left it at four, and he managed to give us three meals. I’m sure we had before our eyes at different times every bit of china, delf, glass, and plate in the establishment. He made us go into the cellar, and told us how much wine he had got there, and how much beer. ‘It’s all paid for, Mrs Greenow, every bottle of it,’ he said, turning round to my aunt, with a pathetic earnestness, for which I had hardly given him credit. ‘Everything in this house is my own; it’s all paid for. I don’t call anything a man’s own till it is paid for. Now that jacket that Bellfield swells about with on the sands at Yarmouth — that’s not his own — and it’s not like to be either.’ And then he winked his eye as though bidding my aunt to think of that before she encouraged such a lover as Bellfield. He took us into every bedroom, and disclosed to us all the glories of his upper chambers. It would have done you good to see him lifting the counterpanes, and bidding my aunt feel the texture of the blankets! And then to see her turn round to me and say: ‘Kate, it’s simply the best furnished house I ever went over in my life!’ — ‘It does seem very comfortable,’ said I. ‘Comfortable!’ said he. ‘Yes, I don’t think there’s anybody can say that Oileymead isn’t comfortable.’ I did so think of you and Nethercoats. The attractions are the same — only in the one place you would have a god for your keeper, and in the other a brute. For myself, if ever I’m to have a keeper at all, I shall prefer a man. But when we got to the farmyard his eloquence reached the highest pitch. ‘Mrs Greenow,’ said he, ‘look at that,’ and he pointed to heaps of manure raised like the streets of a little city. ‘Look at that!’ ‘There’s a great deal,’ said my aunt. ‘I believe you,’ said he. ‘I’ve more muck upon this place here than any farmer in Norfolk, gentle or simple; I don’t care who the other is.’ Only fancy, Alice; it may all be mine; the blankets, the wine, the muck, and the rest of it. So my aunt assured me when we got home that evening. When I remarked that the wealth had been exhibited to her and not to me, she did not affect to deny it, but treated that as a matter of no moment. ‘He wants a wife, my dear,’ she said, ‘and you may pick him up tomorrow by putting out your hand.’ When I remarked that his mind seemed to be intent on low things, and specially named the muck, she only laughed at me. ‘Money’s never dirty,’ she said, ‘nor yet what makes money.’ She talks of taking lodgings in Norwich for the winter, saying that in her widowed state she will be as well there as anywhere else, and she wants me to stay with her up to Christmas. Indeed she first proposed the Norwich plan on the ground that it might be useful to me — with a view to Mr Cheesacre, of course; but I fancy that she is unwilling to tear herself away from Captain Bellfield. At any rate to Norwich she will go, and I have promised not to leave her before the second week in November. With all her absurdities I like her. Her faults are terrible faults, but she has not the fault of hiding them by falsehood. She is never stupid, and she is very good-natured. She would have allowed me to equip myself from head to foot at her expense, if I would have accepted her liberality, and absolutely offered to give me my trousseau if I would marry Mr Cheesacre.
I live in the hope that you will come down to the old place at Christmas. I won’t offend you more than I can help. At any rate he won’t be there. And if I don’t see you there, where am I to see you? If I were you I would certainly not go to Cheltenham. You are never happy there.
Do you ever dream of the river at Basle? I do — so often.
Most affectionately yours, KATE VAVASOR.
Alice had almost lost the sensation created by the former portion of Kate’s letter by the fun of the latter, before she had quite made that sensation her own. The picture of the Cambridgeshire Eden would have displeased her had she dwelt upon it, and the allusion to the cream and toast would have had the very opposite effect to that which Kate had intended. Perhaps Kate had felt this, and had therefore merged it all in her stories about Mr Cheesacre. “I will go to Cheltenham,” she said to herself. “He has recommended it. I shall never be his wife — but, till we have parted altogether, I will show him that I think well of his advice.” That same afternoon she told her father that she would go to Lady Macleod’s at Cheltenham before the end of the month. She was, in truth, prompted to this by a resolution, of which she was herself hardly conscious, that she would not at this period of her life be in any way guided by her cousin. Having made up her mind about Mr Grey, it was right that she should let her cousin know her purpose; but she would never be driven to confess to herself that Kate had influenced her in the matter. She would go to Cheltenham. Lady Macleod would no doubt vex her by hourly solicitations that the match might be renewed; but, if she knew herself, she had strength to withstand Lady Macleod.
She received one letter from Mr Grey before the time came for her departure, and she answered it, telling him of her intention — telling him also that she now felt herself bound to explain to her father her present position. “I tell you this,” she said, “in consequence of what you said to me on the matter. My father will know it tomorrow, and on the following morning I shall start for Cheltenham. I have heard from Lady Macleod and she expects me.”
On the following morning she did tell her father, standing by him as he sat at his breakfast. “What!” said he, putting down his teacup and looking up into her face; “What! not marry John Grey!”
“No, papa; I know how strange you must think it.”
“And you say that there has been no quarrel.”
“No — there has been no quarrel. By degrees I have learned to feel that I should not make him happy as his wife.”
“It’s d — d nonsense,” said Mr Vavasor. Now such an expression as this from him, addressed to his daughter, showed that he was very deeply moved.
“Oh, papa! don’t talk to me in that way.”
“But it is. I never heard such trash in my life. If he comes to me I shall tell him so. Not make him happy! Why can’t you make him happy?”
“We are not suited to each other.”
“But what’s the matter with him? He’s a gentleman.”
“Yes; he’s a gentleman.”
“And a man of honour, and with good means, and with all that knowledge and reading which you profess to like. Look here, Alice; I am not going to interfere, nor shall I attempt to make you marry anyone. You are your own mistress as far as that is concerned. But I do hope, for your sake and for mine — I do hope that there is nothing again between you and your cousin.”
“There is nothing, papa.”
“I did not like your going abroad with him, though I didn’t choose to interrupt your plan by saying so. But if there were anything of that kind going on, I should be bound to tell you that your cousin’s position at present is not a good one. Men do not speak well of him.”
“There is nothing between us, papa; but if there were, men speaking ill of him would not deter me.”
“And men speaking well of Mr Grey will not do the other thing. I know very well that women can be obstinate.”
“I haven’t come to this resolution without thinking much about it, papa.”
“I suppose not. Well — I can’t say anything more. You are your own mistress, and your fortune is in your own keeping. I can’t make you marry John Grey. I think you very foolish, and if he comes to me I shall tell him so. You are going down to Cheltenham, are you?”
“Yes, papa; I have promised Lady Macleod.”
“Very well. I’d sooner it should be you than me; that’s all I can say.” Then he took up his newspaper, thereby showing that he had nothing further to say on the matter, and Alice left him alone.
The whole thing was so vexatious that even Mr Vavasor was disturbed by it. As it was not term time he had no signing to do in Chancery Lane, and could not, therefore, bury his unhappiness in his daily labour — or rather in his labour that was by no means daily. So he sat at home till four o’clock, expressing to himself in various phrases his wonder that “any man alive should ever rear a daughter.” And when he got to his club the waiters found him quite unmanageable about his dinner, which he ate alone, rejecting all propositions of companionship. But later in the evening he regained his composure over a glass of whiskey-toddy and a cigar. “She’s got her own money,” he said to himself, “and what does it matter? I don’t suppose she’ll marry her cousin. I don’t think she’s fool enough for that. And after all she’ll probably make it up again with John Grey.” And in this way he determined that he might let this annoyance run off him, and that he need not as a father take the trouble of any interference.
But while he was at his club there came a visitor to Queen Anne Street, and that visitor was the dangerous cousin of whom, according to his uncle’s testimony, men at present did not speak well, Alice had not seen him since they had parted on the day of their arrival in London — nor, indeed, had heard of his whereabouts. In the consternation of her mind at this step which she was taking — a step which she had taught herself to regard as essentially her duty before it was taken, but which seemed to herself to be false and treacherous the moment she had taken it — she had become aware that she had been wrong to travel with her cousin. She felt sure — she thought that she was sure — that her doing so had in no wise affected her dealings with Mr Grey. She was very certain — she thought that she was certain — that she would have rejected him just the same had she never gone to Switzerland. But everyone would say of her that her journey to Switzerland with such companions had produced that result. It had been unlucky and she was sorry for it, and she now wished to avoid all communication with her cousin till this affair should be altogether over. She was especially unwilling to see him; but she had not felt it necessary to give any special injunctions as to his admittance; and now, before she had time to think of it — on the eve of her departure for Cheltenham — he was in the room with her, just as the dusk of the October evening was coming on. She was sitting away from the fire, almost behind the window-curtains, thinking of John Grey and very unhappy in her thoughts, when George Vavasor was announced. It will of course be understood that Vavasor had at this time received his sister’s letter. He had received it, and had had time to consider the matter since the Sunday morning on which we saw him in his own rooms in Cecil Street. “She can turn it all into capital tomorrow, if she pleases,” he had said to himself when thinking of her income. But he had also reminded himself that her grandfather would probably enable him to settle an income out of the property upon Alice, in the event of their being married. And then he had also felt that he could have no greater triumph than “walking atop of John Grey”, as he called it. His return for the Chelsea Districts would hardly be sweeter to him than that.
“You must have thought I had vanished out of the world,” said George, coming up to her with his extended hand.
Alice was confused, and hardly knew how to address him. “Somebody told me that you were shooting,” she said after a pause.
“So I was, but my shooting is not like the shooting of your great Nimrods — men who are hunters upon the earth. Two days among the grouse and two more among the partridges are about the extent of it. Capel Court is the preserve in which I am usually to be found.”
Alice knew nothing of Capel Court, and said, “Oh, indeed.”
“Have you heard from Kate?” George asked.
“Yes, once or twice; she is still at Yarmouth with Aunt Greenow.”
“And is going to Norwich, as she says. Kate seems to have made a league with Aunt Greenow. I, who don’t pretend to be very disinterested in money matters, think that she is quite right. No doubt Aunt Greenow may marry again, but friends with forty thousand pounds are always agreeable.”
“I don’t believe that Kate thinks much of that,” said Alice.
“Not so much as she ought, I dare say. Poor Kate is not a rich woman, or, I fear, likely to become one. She doesn’t seem to dream of getting married, and her own fortune is less than a hundred a year.”
“Girls who never dream of getting married are just those who make the best marriages at last,” said Alice.
“Perhaps so, but I wish I was easier about Kate. She is the best sister a man ever had.”
“Indeed she is.”
“And I have done nothing for her as yet. I did think, while I was in that wine husiness, that I could have done anything I pleased for her. But my grandfather’s obstinacy put me out of that; and now I’m beginning the world again — that is, comparatively. I wonder whether you think I’m wrong in trying to get into Parliament?”
“No; quite right. I admire you for it. It is just what I would do in your place. You are unmarried, and have a right to run the risk.”
“I am so glad to hear you speak like that,” said he. He had now managed to take up that friendly, confidential, almost affectionate tone of talking which he had so often used when abroad with her, and which he had failed to assume when first entering the room.
“I have always thought so.”
“But you have never said it.”
“Haven’t I? I thought I had.”
“Not heartily like that. I know that people abuse me — my own people, my grandfather, and probably your father — saying that I am reckless and the rest of it. I do risk everything for my object; but I do not know that any one can blame me — unless it be Kate. To whom else do I owe anything?”
“Kate does not blame you.”
“No; she sympathises with me; she, and she only, unless it be you.” Then he paused for an answer, but she made him none. “She is brave enough to give me her hearty sympathy. But perhaps for that very reason I ought to be the more chary in endangering the only support that she is like to have. What is ninety pounds a year for the maintenance of a single lady?”
“I hope that Kate will always live with me,” said Alice; “that is, as soon as she has lost her home at Vavasor Hall.”
He had been very crafty and had laid a trap for her. He had laid a trap for her, and she had fallen into it. She had determined not to be induced to talk of herself; but he had brought the thing round so cunningly that the words were out of her mouth before she remembered whither they would lead her. She did remember this as she was speaking them, but then it was too late.
“What — at Nethercoats?” said he. “Neither she nor I doubt your love, but few men would like such an intruder as that into their household, and of all men Mr Grey, whose nature is retiring, would like it the least.”
“I was not thinking of Nethercoats,” said Alice.
“Ah, no; that is it, you see. Kate says so often to me that when you are married she will be alone in the world.”
“I don’t think she will ever find that I shall separate myself from her.”
“No; not by any will of your own. Poor Kate! You cannot be surprised that she should think of your marriage with dread. How much of her life has been made up of her companionship with you — and all the best of it too! You ought not to be angry with her for regarding your withdrawal into Cambridgeshire with dismay.”
Alice could not act the lie which now seemed to be incumbent on her. She could not let him talk of Nethercoats as though it were to be her future home. She made the struggle, and she found that she could not do it. She was unable to find the words which should tell no lie to the ear, and which should yet deceive him. “Kate may still live with me,” she said slowly. “Everything is over between me and Mr Grey.”
“Alice! — is that true?”
“Yes, George; it is true. If you will allow me to say so, I would rather not talk about it — not just at present.”
“And does Kate know it?”
“Yes, Kate knows it.”
“And my uncle?”
“Yes, papa knows it also.”
“Alice, how can I help speaking of it? How can I not tell you that I am rejoiced that you are saved from a thraldom which I have long felt sure would break your heart?”
“Pray do not talk of it further.”
“Well; if I am forbidden I shall of course obey. But I own it is hard to me. How can I not congratulate you?” To this she answered nothing, but beat with her foot upon the floor as though she were impatient of his words. “Yes, Alice, I understand. You are angry with me,” he continued. “And yet you have no right to be surprised that when you tell me this I should think of all that passed between us in Switzerland. Surely the cousin who was with you then has a right to say what he thinks of this change in your life; at any rate he may do so, if as in this case he approves altogether of what you are doing.”
“I am glad of your approval, George; but pray let that be an end to it.”
After that the two sat silent for a minute or two. She was waiting for him to go, but she could not bid him leave the house. She was angry with herself, in that she had allowed herself to tell him of her altered plans, and she was angry with him because he would not understand that she ought to be spared all conversation on the subject. So she sat looking through the window at the row of gaslights as they were being lit, and he remained in his chair with his elbow on the table and his head resting on his hand.
“Do you remember asking me whether I ever shivered,” he said at last; “whether I ever thought of things that made me shiver? Don’t you remember; on the bridge at Basle?”
“Yes; I remember.”
“Well, Alice — one cause for my shivering is over. I won’t say more than that now. Shall you remain long at Cheltenham?”
“Just a month.”
“And then you come back here?”
“I suppose so. Papa and I will probably go down to Vavasor Hall before Christmas. How much before I cannot say.”
“I shall see you at any rate after your return from Cheltenham? Of course Kate will know, and she will tell me.”
“Yes; Kate will know. I suppose she will stay here when she comes up from Norfolk. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye, Alice. I shall have fewer fits of that inward shivering that you spoke of — many less, on account of what I have now heard. God bless you, Alice; goodbye.”
“Good-bye, George.”
As he went he took her hand and pressed it closely between his own. In those days when they were lovers — engaged lovers, a close, long-continued pressure of her hand had been his most eloquent speech of love. He had not been given to many kisses — not even to many words of love. But he would take her hand and hold it, even as he looked away from her, and she remembered well the touch of his palm. It was ever cool — cool, and with a surface smooth as a woman’s — a small hand that had a firm grip. There had been days when she had loved to feel that her own was within it, when she trusted in it, and intended that it should be her staff through life. Now she distrusted it; and as the thoughts of the old days came upon her, and the remembrance of that touch was recalled, she drew her hand away rapidly. Not for that had she driven from her as honest a man as had ever wished to mate with a woman. He, George Vavasor, had never so held her hand since the day when they had parted, and now on this first occasion of her freedom she felt it again. What did he think of her? Did he suppose that she could transfer her love in that way, as a flower may be taken from one buttonhole and placed in another? He read it all, and knew that he was hurrying on too quickly. “I can understand well,” he said in a whisper, “what your present feelings are; but I do not think you will be really angry with me because I have been unable to repress my joy at what I cannot but regard as your release from a great misfortune.” Then he went.
“My release!” she said, seating herself on the chair from which he had risen. “My release from a misfortune! No — but my fall from heaven! Oh, what a man he is! That he should have loved me, and that I should have driven him away from me!” Her thoughts travelled off to the sweetness of that home at Nethercoats, to the excellence of that master who might have been hers; and then in an agony of despair she told herself that she had been an idiot and a fool, as well as a traitor. What had she wanted in life that she should have thus quarrelled with as happy a lot as ever had been offered to a woman? Had she not been mad, when she sent from her side the only man that she loved — the only man that she had ever truly respected? For hours she sat there, all alone, putting out the candles which the servant had lighted for her, and leaving untasted the tea that was brought to her.
Poor Alice! I hope that she may be forgiven. It was her special fault, that when at Rome she longed for Tibur, and when at Tibur she regretted Rome. Not that her cousin George is to be taken as representing the joys of the great capital, though Mr Grey may be presumed to form no inconsiderable part of the promised delights of the country. Now that she had sacrificed her Tibur, because it had seemed to her that the sunny quiet of its pastures lacked the excitement necessary for the happiness of life, she was again prepared to quarrel with the heartlessness of Rome, and already was again sighing for the tranquility of the country.
Sitting there, full of these regrets, she declared to herself that she would wait for her father’s return, and then, throwing herself upon his love and upon his mercy, would beg him to go to Mr Grey and ask for pardon for her. “I should be very humble to him,” she said; “but he is so good, that I may dare to be humble before him.” So she waited for her father. She waited till twelve, till one, till two — but still he did not come. Later than that she did not dare to wait for him. She feared to trust him on such business returning so late as that — after so many cigars; after, perhaps, some superfluous beakers of club nectar. His temper at such a moment would not be fit for such work as hers. But if he was late in coming home, who had sent him away from his home in unhappiness? Between two and three she went to bed, and on the following morning she left Queen Anne Street for the Great Western Station before her father was up.