But Lady Glencora was not brought to repentance by her husband’s last words. It seemed to her to be so intolerably cruel, this demand of his, that she should be made to pass the whole of her first evening in town with an old woman for whom it was impossible that she should entertain the slightest regard, that she resolved upon rebellion. Had he positively ordered Mrs Marsham, she would have sent for that lady, and have contented herself with enduring her presence in disdainful silence; but Mr Palliser had not given any order. He had made a request, and a request, from its very nature, admits of no obedience. The compliance with a request must be voluntary, and she would not send for Mrs Marsham, except upon compulsion. Had not she also made a request to him, and had not he refused it? It was his prerogative, undoubtedly, to command; but in that matter of requests she had a right to expect that her voice should be as potent as his own. She wrote a line, therefore, to Alice before she went to bed, begging her cousin to come to her early on the following day, so that they might go out together, and then afterwards dine in company with Mr Bott.
“I know that will be an inducement to you,” Lady Glencora said, “because your generous heart will feel of what service you may be to me. Nobody else will be here — unless, indeed, Mrs Marsham should be asked, unknown to myself.”
Then she sat herself down to think — to think especially about the cruelty of husbands. She had been told over and over again, in the days before her marriage, that Burgo would ill-use her if he became her husband. The Marquis of Auld Reekie had gone so far as to suggest that Burgo might probably beat her. But what hard treatment, even what beating, could be so unendurable as this total want of sympathy, as this deadness in life, which her present lot entailed upon her? As for that matter of beating, she ridiculed the idea in her very soul. She sat smiling at the absurdity of the thing as she thought of the beauty of Burgo’s eyes, of the softness of his touch, of the loving, almost worshipping, tones of his voice. Would it not even be better to be beaten by him than to have politics explained to her at one o’clock at night by such a husband as Plantagenet Palliser? The British Constitution, indeed! Had she married Burgo they would have been in sunny Italy, and he would have told her some other tale than that as they sat together under the pale moonlight. She had a little water-coloured drawing called Raphael and Fornarina, and she was infantine enough to tell herself that the so-called Raphael was like her Burgo — no, not her Burgo, but the Burgo that was not hers. At any rate, all the romance of the picture she might have enjoyed had they allowed her to dispose as she had wished of her own hand. She might have sat in marble balconies, while the vines clustered over her head, and he would have been at her knee, hardly speaking to her, but making his presence felt by the halo of its divinity. He would have called upon her for no hard replies. With him near her she would have enjoyed the soft air, and would have sat happy, without trouble, lapped in the delight of loving. It was thus that Fornarina sat. And why should not such a lot have been hers? Her Raphael would have loved her, let them say what they would about his cruelty.
Poor, wretched, overburthened child, to whom the commonest lessons of life had not yet been taught, and who had now fallen into the hands of one who was so ill-fitted to teach them! Who would not pity her? Who could say that the fault was hers? The world had laden her with wealth till she had had no limb free for its ordinary uses, and then had turned her loose to run her race!
“Have you written to your cousin?” her husband asked her the next morning. His voice, as he spoke, clearly showed that his anger was either over or suppressed.
“Yes; I have asked her to come and drive, and then to stay for dinner. I shall send the carriage for her if she can come. The man is to wait for an answer.”
“Very well,” said Mr Palliser, mildly. And then, after a short pause, he added, “As that is settled, perhaps you would have no objection to ask Mrs Marsham also?”
“Won’t she probably be engaged?”
“No; I think not,” said Mr Palliser. And then he added, being ashamed of the tinge of falsehood of which he would otherwise have been guilty, “I know she is not engaged.”
“She expects to come, then?” said Lady Glencora.
“I have not asked her, if you mean that, Glencora. Had I done so, I should have said so. I told her that I did not know what your engagements were.”
“I will write to her, if you please,” said the wife, who felt that she could hardly refuse any longer.
“Do, my dear!” said the husband. So Lady Glencora did write to Mrs Marsham, who promised to come — as did also Alice Vavasor.
Lady Glencora would, at any rate, have Alice to herself for some hours before dinner. At first she took comfort in that reflection; but after a while she bethought herself that she would not know what to tell Alice, or what not to tell. Did she mean to show that letter to her cousin? If she did show it, then — so she argued with herself — she must bring herself to endure the wretchedness of her present lot, and must give up for ever all her dreams about Raphael and Formarina. If she did not show it — or, at any rate, tell of it — then it would come to pass that she would leave her husband under the protection of another man, and she would become — what she did not dare to name even to herself. She declared that so it must be. She knew that she would go with Burgo, should he ever come to her with the means of going at his and her instant command. But should she bring herself to let Alice know that such a letter had been conveyed to her, Burgo would never have such power.
I remember the story of a case of abduction in which a man was tried for his life, and was acquitted, because the lady had acquiesced in the carrying away while it was in progress. She had, as she herself declared, armed herself with a sure and certain charm or talisman against such dangers, which she kept suspended round her neck; but whilst she was in the postchaise she opened the window and threw the charm from her, no longer desiring, as the learned counsel for the defence efficiently alleged, to be kept under the bonds of such protection. Lady Glencora’s state of mind was, in its nature, nearly the same as that of the lady in the post-chaise. Whether or no she would use her charm, she had not yet decided, but the power of doing so was still hers.
Alice came, and the greeting between the cousins was very affectionate. Lady Glencora received her as though they had been playmates from early childhood; and Alice, though such impulsive love was not natural to her as to the other, could not bring herself to be cold to one who was so warm to her. Indeed, had she not promised her love in that meeting at Matching Priory in which her cousin had told her of all her wretchedness? “I will love you!” Alice had said; and though there was much in Lady Glencora that she could not approve — much even that she could not bring herself to like — still she would not allow her heart to contradict her words. They sat so long over the fire in the drawing-room that at last they agreed that the driving should be abandoned.
“What’s the use of it?” said Lady Glencora. “There’s nothing to see, and the wind is as cold as charity. We are much more comfortable here; are we not?” Alice quite acquiesced in this, having no great desire to be driven through the parks in the gloom of a February afternoon.
“If I had Dandy and Flirt up here, there would be some fun in it; but Mr Palliser doesn’t wish me to drive in London.”
“I suppose it would be dangerous?”
“Not in the least. I don’t think it’s that he minds; but he has an idea that it looks fast.”
“So it does. If I were a man I’m sure I shouldn’t like my wife to drive horses about London.”
“And why not? Just because you’d be a tyrant — like other husbands? What’s the harm of looking fast, if one doesn’t do anything improper? Poor Dandy, and dear Flirt! I’m sure they’d like it.”
“Perhaps Mr Palliser doesn’t care for that?”
“I can tell you something else he doesn’t care for. He doesn’t care whether Dandy’s mistress likes it.”
“Don’t say that, Glencora.”
“Why not say it — to you?”
“Don’t teach yourself to think it. That’s what I mean. I believe he would consent to anything that he didn’t think wrong.”
“Such as lectures about the British Constitution! But never mind about that, Alice. Of course the British Constitution is everything to him, and I wish I knew more about it — that’s all. But I haven’t told you whom you are to meet at dinner.”
“Yes, you have — Mr Bott.”
“But there’s another guest, a Mrs Marsham. I thought I’d got rid of her for today, when I wrote to you; but I hadn’t. She’s coming.”
“She won’t hurt me at all,” said Alice.
“She will hurt me very much. She’ll destroy the pleasure of our whole evening, I do believe that she hates you, and that she thinks you instigate me to all manner of iniquity. What fools they all are!”
“Who are they all, Glencora?”
“She and that man, and —. Never mind. It makes me sick when I think that they should be so blind. Alice, I hardly know how much I owe to you; I don’t, indeed. Everything, I believe.” Lady Glencora, as she spoke, put her hand into her pocket, and grasped the letter which lay there.
“That’s nonsense,” said Alice.
“No; it’s not nonsense. Who do you think came to Matching when I was there?”
“What — to the house?” said Alice, feeling almost certain that Mr Fitzgerald was the person to whom Lady Glencora was alluding.
“No; not to the house.”
“If it is the person of whom I am thinking,” said Alice, solemnly, “let me implore you not to speak of him.”
“And why should I not speak of him? Did I not speak of him before to you, and was it not for good? How are you to be my friend, if I may not speak to you of everything?”
“But you should not think of him.”
“What nonsense you talk, Alice! Not think of him! How is one to help one’s thoughts? Look here.”
Her hand was on the letter, and it would have been out in a moment, and thrown upon Alice’s lap, had not the servant opened the door and announced Mrs Marsham.
“Oh, how I do wish we had gone to drive!” said Lady Glencora, in a voice which the servant certainly heard, and which Mrs Marsham would have heard had she not been a little hard of hearing — in her bonnet.
“How do, my dear?” said Mrs Marsham. “I thought I’d just come across from Norfolk Street and see you, though I am coming to dinner in the evening. It’s only just a step, you know. How d’ye do, Miss Vavasor?” and she made a salutation to Alice which was nearly as cold as it could be.
Mrs Marsham was a woman who had many good points. She was poor, and bore her poverty without complaint. She was connected by blood and friendship with people rich and titled; but she paid to none of them egregious respect on account of their wealth or titles. She was stanch in her friendships, and stanch in her enmities. She was no fool, and knew well what was going on in the world. She could talk about the last novel, or — if need be — about the Constitution. She had been a true wife, though sometimes too strong-minded, and a painstaking mother, whose children, however, had never loved her as most mothers like to be loved.
The catalogue of her faults must be quite as long as that of her virtues. She was one of those women who are ambitious of power, and not very scrupulous as to the manner in which they obtain it. She was hard-hearted, and capable of pursuing an object without much regard to the injury she might do. She would not flatter wealth or fawn before a title, but she was not above any artifice by which she might ingratiate herself with those whom it suited her purpose to conciliate. She thought evil rather than good. She was herself untrue in action, if not absolutely in word. I do not say that she would coin lies, but she would willingly leave false impressions. She had been the bosom friend, and in many things the guide in life, of Mr Palliser’s mother; and she took a special interest in Mr Palliser’s welfare. When he married, she heard the story of the loves of Burgo and Lady Glencora; and though she thought well of the money, she was not disposed to think very well of the bride. She made up her mind that the young lady would want watching, and she was of opinion that no one would be so well able to watch Lady Glencora as herself. She had not plainly opened her mind on this matter to Mr Palliser; she had not made any distinct suggestion to him that she would act as Argus to his wife. Mr Palliser would have rejected any such suggestion, and Mrs Marsham knew that he would do so; but she had let a word or two drop, hinting that Lady Glencora was very young — hinting that Lady Glencora’s manners were charming in their childlike simplicity; but hinting also that precaution was, for that reason, the more necessary. Mr Palliser, who suspected nothing as to Burgo or as to any other special peril, whose whole disposition was void of suspicion, whose dry nature realized neither the delights nor the dangers of love, acknowledged that Glencora was young. He especially wished that she should be discreet and matronly; he feared no lovers, but he feared that she might do silly things — that she would catch cold — and not know how to live a life becoming the wife of a Chancellor of the Exchequer. Therefore he submitted Glencora — and, to a certain extent, himself — into the hands of Mrs Marsham.
Lady Glencora had not been twenty-four hours in the house with this lady before she recognised in her a duenna. In all such matters no one could be quicker than Lady Glencora. She might be very ignorant about the British Constitution, and, alas! very ignorant also as to the real elements of right and wrong in a woman’s conduct, but she was no fool. She had an eye that could see, and an ear that could understand, and an abundance of that feminine instinct which teaches a woman to know her friend or her enemy at a glance, at a touch, at a word. In many things Lady Glencora was much quicker, much more clever, than her husband, though he was to be Chancellor of the Exchequer, and though she did know nothing of the Constitution. She knew, too, that he was easily to be deceived — that though his intelligence was keen, his instincts were dull — that he was gifted with no fineness of touch, with no subtle appreciation of the characters of men and women; and, to a certain extent, she looked down upon him for this obtusity, He should have been aware that Burgo was a danger to be avoided; and he should have been aware also that Mrs Marsham was a duenna not to be employed. When a woman knows that she is guarded by a watch-dog, she is bound to deceive her Cerberus, if it be possible, and is usually not ill-disposed to deceive also the owner of Cerberus. Lady Glencora felt that Mrs Marsham was her Cerberus, and she was heartily resolved that if she was to be kept in the proper line at all, she would not be so kept by Mrs Marsham.
Alice rose and accepted Mrs Marsham’s salutation quite as coldly as it had been given, and from that time forward those two ladies were enemies. Mrs Marsham, groping quite in the dark, partly guessed that Alice had in some way interfered to prevent Lady Glencora’s visit to Monkshade, and, though such prevention was, no doubt, good in that lady’s eyes, she resented the interference. She had made up her mind that Alice was not the sort of friend that Lady Glencora should have about her. Alice recognised and accepted the feud.
“I thought I might find you at home,” said Mrs Marsham, “as I know you are lazy about going out in the cold — unless it be for a foolish midnight ramble,” and Mrs Marsham shook her head. She was a little woman, with sharp small eyes, with a permanent colour in her face, and two short, crisp, grey curls at each side of her face; always well dressed, always in good health, and, as Lady Glencora believed, altogether incapable of fatigue.
“The ramble you speak of was very wise, I think,” said Lady Glencora; “but I never could see the use of driving about in London in the middle of winter.”
“One ought to go out of the house every day,” said Mrs Marsham.
“I hate all those rules. Don’t you, Alice?” Alice did not hate them, therefore she said nothing.
“My dear Glencora, one must live by rules in this life. You might as well say that you hated sitting down to dinner.”
“So I do, very often; almost always when there’s company.”
“You’ll get over that feeling after another season in town,” said Mrs Marsham, pretending to suppose that Lady Glencora alluded to some remaining timidity in receiving her own guests.
“Upon my word I don’t think I shall. It’s a thing that seems always to be getting more grievous, instead of less so. Mr Bott is coming to dine here tonight.”
There was no mistaking the meaning of this. There was no pretending even to mistake it. Now, Mrs Marsham had accepted the right hand of fellowship from Mr Bott — not because she especially liked him, but in compliance with the apparent necessities of Mr Palliser’s position. Mr Bott had made good his ground about Mr Palliser; and Mrs Marsham, as she was not strong enough to turn him off from it, had given him the right hand of fellowship.
“Mr Bott is a Member of Parliament, and a very serviceable friend of Mr Palliser’s,” said Mrs Marsham.
“All the same; we do not like Mr Bott — do we, Alice? He is Dr Fell to us; only I think we could tell why.”
“I certainly do not like him,” said Alice.
“It can be but of small matter to you, Miss Vavasor,” said Mrs Marsham, “as you will not probably have to see much of him.”
“Of the very smallest moment,” said Alice. “He did annoy me once, but will never, I dare say, have an opportunity of doing so again.”
“I don’t know what the annoyance may have been.”
“Of course you don’t, Mrs Marsham.”
“But I shouldn’t have thought it likely that a person so fully employed as Mr Bott, and employed, too, on matters of such vast importance, would have gone out of his way to annoy a young lady whom he chanced to meet for a day or two in a country-house.”
“I don’t think that Alice means that he attempted to flirt with her,” said Lady Glencora, laughing. “Fancy Mr Bott’s flirtation!”
“Perhaps he did not attempt,” said Mrs Marsham; and the words, the tone, and the innuendo together were more than Alice was able to bear with equanimity.
“Glencora,” said she, rising from her chair, “I think I’ll leave you alone with Mrs Marsham. I’m not disposed to discuss Mr Bott’s character, and certainly not to hear his name mentioned in disagreeable connection with my own.”
But Lady Glencora would not let her go. “Nonsense, Alice,” she said. “If you and I can’t fight our little battles against Mr Bott and Mrs Marsham without running away, it is odd. There is a warfare in which they who run away never live to fight another day.”
“I hope, Glencora, you do not count me as your enemy?” said Mrs Marsham; drawing herself up,
“But I shall — certainly, if you attack Alice. Love me, love my dog. I beg your pardon, Alice; but what I meant was this, Mrs Marsham; Love me, love the best friend I have in the world.”
“I did not mean to offend Miss Vavasor,” said Mrs Marsham, looking at her very grimly. Alice merely bowed her head. She had been offended, and she would not deny it. After that, Mrs Marsham took herself off, saying that she would be back to dinner. She was angry, but not unhappy. She thought that she could put down Miss Vavasor, and she was prepared to bear a good deal from Lady Glencora — for Mr Palliser’s sake, as she said to herself, with some attempt at a sentimental remembrance of her old friend.
“She’s a nasty old cat,” said Lady Glencora, as soon as the door was closed; and she said these words with so droll a voice, with such a childlike shaking of her head, with so much comedy in her grimace, that Alice could not but laugh. “She is,” said Lady Glencora. “I know her, and you’ll have to know her, too, before you’ve done with her. It won’t at all do for you to run away when she spits at you. You must hold your ground, and show your claws — and make her know that if she spits, you can scratch.”
“But I don’t want to be a cat myself.”
“She’ll find I’m of the genus, but of the tiger kind, if she persecutes me. Alice, there’s one thing I have made up my mind about. I will not be persecuted. If my husband tells me to do anything, as long as he is my husband I’ll do it; but I won’t be persecuted.”
“You should remember that she was a very old friend of Mr Palliser’s mother.”
“I do remember; and that may be a very good reason why she should come here occasionally, or go to Matching, or to any place in which we may be living. It’s a bore, of course; but it’s a natural bore, and one that ought to be borne.”
“And that will be the beginning and the end of it.”
“I’m afraid not, my dear. It may be perhaps the end of it, but I fear it won’t be the beginning. I won’t be persecuted. If she gives me advice, I shall tell her to her face that it’s not wanted; and if she insults any friend of mine, as she did you, I shall tell her that she had better stay away. She’ll go and tell him, of course; but I can’t help that. I’ve made up my mind that I won’t be persecuted.”
After that, Lady Glencora felt no further inclination to show Burgo’s letter to Alice on that occasion. They sat over the drawing-room fire, talking chiefly of Alice’s affairs, till it was time for them to dress. But Alice, though she spoke much of Mr Grey, said no word as to her engagement with George Vavasor. How could she speak of it, inasmuch as she had already resolved — already almost resolved — that that engagement also should be broken?
Alice, when she came down to the drawing-room, before dinner, found Mr Bott there alone. She had dressed more quickly than her friend, and Mr Palliser had not yet made his appearance.
“I did not expect the pleasure of meeting Miss Vavasor today,” he said, as he came up, offering his hand. She gave him her hand, and then sat down, merely muttering some word of reply.
“We spent a very pleasant month down at Matching together — didn’t you think so?”
“I spent a pleasant month there certainly.”
“You left, if I remember, the morning after that late walk out among the ruins? That was unfortunate, was it not? Poor Lady Glencora! It made her very ill; so much so, that she could not go to Monkshade, as she particularly wished. It was very sad. Lady Glencora is very delicate — very delicate, indeed. We, who have the privilege of being near her, ought always to remember that.”
“I don’t think she is at all delicate.”
“Oh! don’t you? I’m afraid that’s your mistake, Miss Vavasor.”
“I believe she has very good health, which is the greatest blessing in the world. By delicate I suppose you mean weak and infirm.”
“Oh, dear, no — not in the least — not infirm certainly! I should be very sorry to be supposed to have said that Lady Glencora is infirm. What I mean is, not robust, Miss Vavasor. Her general organisation, if you understand me, is exquisitely delicate. One can see that, I think, in every glance of her eye.”
Alice was going to protest that she had never seen it at all, when Mr Palliser entered the room along with Mrs Marsham.
The two gentlemen shook hands, and then Mr Palliser turned to Alice. She perceived at once by his face that she was unwelcome, and wished herself away from his house. It might be all very well for Lady Glencora to fight with Mrs Marsham — and with her husband, too, in regard to the Marsham persecution — but there could be no reason why she should do so. He just touched her hand, barely closing his thumb upon her fingers, and asked her how she was. Then he turned away from her side of the fire, and began talking to Mrs Marsham on the other. There was that in his face and in his manner which was positively offensive to her. He made no allusion to his former acquaintance with her — spoke no word about Matching, no word about his wife, as he would naturally have done to his wife’s friend. Alice felt the blood mount into her face, and regretted greatly that she had ever come among these people. Had she not long since made up her mind that she would avoid her great relations, and did not all this prove that it would have been well for her to have clung to that resolution? What was Lady Glencora to her that she should submit herself to be treated as though she were a poor companion — a dependent, who received a salary for her attendance — an indigent cousin, hanging on to the bounty of her rich connection? Alice was proud to a fault. She had nursed her pride till it was very faulty. All her troubles and sorrows in life had come from an overfed craving for independence. Why, then, should she submit to be treated with open want of courtesy by any man; but, of all men, why should she submit to it from such a one as Mr Palliser — the heir of a ducal house, rolling in wealth, and magnificent with all the magnificence of British pomp and pride? No; she would make Lady Glencora understand that the close intimacies of daily Life were not possible to them!
“I declare I’m very much ashamed,” said Lady Glencora, as she entered the room. “I shan’t apologise to you, Alice, for it was you who kept me talking; but I do beg Mrs Marsham’s pardon.”
Mrs Marsham was all smiles and forgiveness, and hoped that Lady Glencora would not make a stranger of her. Then dinner was announced, and Alice had to walk down stairs by herself. She did not care a do it for that, but there had been a disagreeable little contest when the moment came. Lady Glencora had wished to give up Mr Bott to her cousin, but Mr Bott had stuck manfully to Lady Glencora’s side. He hoped to take Lady Glencora down to dinner very often, and was not at all disposed to abate his privilege.
During dinner-time Alice said very little, nor was there given to her opportunity of saying much. She could not but think of the day of her first arrival at Matching Priory, when she had sat between the Duke of St Bungay and Jeffrey Palliser, and when everybody had been so civil to her! She now occupied one side of the table by herself, away from the fire, where she felt cold and desolate in the gloom of the large half-lighted room. Mr Palliser occupied himself with Mrs Marsham, who talked politics to him; and Mr Bott never lost a moment in his endeavours to say some civil word to Lady Glencora. Lady Glencora gave him no encouragement; but she hardly dared to snub him openly in her husband’s immediate presence. Twenty times during dinner she said some little word to Alice, attempting at first to make the time pleasant, and then, when the matter was too far gone for that, attempting to give some relief. But it was of no avail. There are moments in which conversation seems to be impossible — in which the very gods interfere to put a seal upon the lips of the unfortunate one. It was such a moment now with Alice. She had never as yet been used to snubbing. Whatever position she had hitherto held, in that she had always stood foremost — much more so than had been good for her. When she had gone to Matching, she had trembled for her position; but there all had gone well with her; there Lady Glencora’s kindness had at first been able to secure for her a reception that had been flattering, and almost better than flattering. Jeffrey Palliser had been her friend, and would, had she so willed it, have been more than her friend. But now she felt that the halls of the Pallisers were too cold for her, and that the sooner she escaped from their gloom and hard discourtesy the better for her.
Mrs Marsham, when the three ladies had returned to the drawing-room together, was a little triumphant. She felt that she had put Alice down; and with the energetic prudence of a good general who knows that he should follow up a victory, let the cost of doing so be what it may, she determined to keep her down. Alice had resolved that she would come as seldom as might be to Mr Palliser’s house in Park Lane. That resolution on her part was in close accordance with Mrs Marsham’s own views.
“Is Miss Vavasor going to walk home?” she asked.
“Walk home — all along Oxford Street! Good gracious! no. Why should she walk? The carriage will take her.”
“Or a cab,” said Alice. “I am quite used to go about London in a cab by myself.”
“I don’t think they are nice for young ladies after dark,” said Mrs Marsham. “I was going to offer my servant to walk with her. She is an elderly woman, and would not mind it.”
“I’m sure Alice is very much obliged,” said Lady Glencora; “but she will have the carriage.”
“You are very good-natured,” said Mrs Marsham; “but gentlemen do so dislike having their horses out at night.”
“No gentleman’s horses will be out,” said Lady Glencora, savagely; “and as for mine, it’s what they are there for.” It was not often that Lady Glencora made any allusion to her own property, or allowed any one near her to suppose that she remembered the fact that her husband’s great wealth was, in truth, her wealth. As to many matters her mind was wrong. In some things her taste was not delicate as should be that of a woman. But, as regarded her money, no woman could have behaved with greater reticence, or a purer delicacy. But now, when she was twitted by her husband’s special friend with ill-usage to her husband’s horses, because she chose to send her own friend home in her own carriage, she did find it hard to bear.
“I dare say it’s all right,” said Mrs Marsham.
“It is all right,” said Lady Glencora. “Mr Palliser has given me my horses for my own use, to do as I like with them; and if he thinks I take them out when they ought to be left at home, he can tell me so. Nobody else has a right to do it.” Lady Glencora, by this time, was almost in a passion, and showed that she was so.
“My dear Lady Glencora, you have mistaken me,” said Mrs Marsham; “I did not mean anything of that kind.”
“I am so sorry,” said Alice. “And it is such a pity as I am quite used to going about in cabs.”
“Of course you are,” said Lady Glencora. “Why shouldn’t you? I’d go home in a wheelbarrow if I couldn’t walk, and had no other conveyance. That’s not the question. Mrs Marsham understands that.”
“Upon my word, I don’t understand anything,” said that lady.
“I understand this,” said Lady Glencora; “that in all such matters as that, I intend to follow my own pleasure. Come, Alice, let us have some coffee,” — and she rang the bell. “What a fuss we have made about a stupid old carriage!”
The gentlemen did not return to the drawing-room that evening, having, no doubt, joint work to do in arranging the great financial calculations of the nation; and, at an early hour, Alice was taken home in Lady Glencora’s brougham, leaving her cousin still in the hands of Mrs Marsham.
March came, and still the Chancellor of the Exchequer held his position. In the early days of March there was given in the House a certain parliamentary explanation on the subject, which, however, did not explain very much to any person. A statement was made which was declared by the persons making it to be altogether satisfactory, but nobody else seemed to find any satisfaction in it. The big wigs of the Cabinet had made an arrangement which, from the language used by them on this occasion, they must be supposed to have regarded as hardly less permanent than the stars; but everybody else protested that the Government was going to pieces; and Mr Bott was heard to declare in clubs and lobbies, and wherever he could get a semi-public, political hearing, that this kind of thing wouldn’t do. Lord Brock must either blow hot or cold. If he chose to lean upon Mr Palliser, he might lean upon him, and Mr Palliser would not be found wanting. In such case no opposition could touch Lord Brock or the Government. That was Mr Bott’s opinion. But if Lord Brock did not so choose, why, in that case, he must expect that Mr Palliser, and Mr Palliser’s friends, would —. Mr Bott did not say what they would do; but he was supposed by those who understood the matter to hint at an Opposition lobby, and adverse divisions, and to threaten Lord Brock with the open enmity of Mr Palliser — and of Mr Palliser’s great follower.
“This kind of thing won’t do long, you know,” repeated Mr Bott for the second or third time, as he stood upon the rug before the fire at his club, with one or two of his young friends round him.
“I suppose not,” said Calder Jones, the hunting Member of Parliament whom we once met at Roebury. “Planty Pall won’t stand it, I should say.”
“What can he do?” asked another, an unfledged Member who was not as yet quite settled as to the leadership under which he intended to work.
“What can he do?” said Mr Bott, who on such an occasion as this could be very great — who, for a moment, could almost feel that he might become a leader of a party for himself, and some day institute a Bott Ministry. “What can he do? You will very shortly see what he can do. He can make himself the master of the occasion. If Lord Brock doesn’t look about him, he’ll find that Mr Palliser will be in the Cabinet without his help.”
“You don’t mean to say that the Queen will send for Planty Pall!” said the young Member.
“I mean to say that the Queen will send for any one that the House of Commons may direct her to call upon,” said Mr Bott, who conceived himself to have gauged the very depths of our glorious Constitution. “How hard it is to make any one understand that the Queen has really nothing to do with it!”
“Come, Bott, draw it mild,” said Calder Jones, whose loyalty was shocked by the utter Manchesterialism of his political friend.
“Not if I know it,” said Mr Bott, with something of grandeur in his tone and countenance. “I never drew it mild yet, and I shan’t begin now. All our political offences against civilization have come from men drawing it mild, as you call it. Why is it that Englishmen can’t read and write as Americans do? Why can’t they vote as they do even in Imperial France? Why are they serfs, less free than those whose chains were broken the other day in Russia? Why is the Spaniard more happy, and the Italian more contented? Because men in power have been drawing it mild!” And Mr Bott made an action with his hand as though he were drawing up beer from a patent tap.
“But you can’t set aside Her Majesty like that, you know,” said the young Member, who had been presented, and whose mother’s old-world notions about the throne still clung to him.
“I should be very sorry,” said Mr Bott; “I’m no republican.” With all his constitutional lore, Mr Bott did not know what the word republican meant. “I mean no disrespect to the throne. The throne in its place is very well. But the power of governing this great nation does not rest with the throne. It is contained within the four walls of the House of Commons. That is the great truth which all young Members should learn, and take to their hearts.”
“And you think Planty Pall will become Prime Minister?” said Calder Jones.
“I haven’t said that; but there are more unlikely things. Among young men I know no man more likely. But I certainly think this — that if Lord Brock doesn’t take him into the Cabinet, Lord Brock won’t long remain there himself.”
In the meantime the election came on in the Chelsea districts, and the whole of the south-western part of the metropolis was covered with posters bearing George Vavasor’s name. “Vote for Vavasor and the River Bank.” That was the cry with which he went to the electors; and though it must be presumed that it was understood by some portion of the Chelsea electors, it was perfectly unintelligible to the majority of those who read it. His special acquaintances and his general enemies called him Viscount Riverbank, and he was pestered on all sides by questions as to Father Thames. It was Mr Scruby who invented the legend, and who gave George Vavasor an infinity of trouble by the invention. There was a question in those days as to embanking the river from the Houses of Parliament up to the remote desolations of further Pimlico, and Mr Scruby recommended the coming Member to pledge himself that he would have the work carried on even to Battersea Bridge. “You must have a subject,” pleaded Mr Scruby. “No young Member can do anything without a subject. And it should be local — that is to say, if you have anything of a constituency. Such a subject as that, if it’s well worked, may save you thousands of pounds — thousands of pounds at future elections.”
“It won’t save me anything at this one, I take it.”
“But it may secure the seat, Mr Vavasor, and afterwards make you the most popular metropolitan Member in the House; that is, with your own constituency. Only look at the money that would be spent in the districts if that were done! It would come to millions, sir!”
“But it never will be done.”
“What matters that?” and Mr Scruby almost became eloquent as he explained the nature of a good parliamentary subject. “You should work it up, so as to be able to discuss it at all points. Get the figures by heart, and then, as nobody else will do so, nobody can put you down. Of course it won’t be done. If it were done, that would be an end of it, and your bread would be taken out of your mouth. But you can always promise it at the hustings, and can always demand it in the House. I’ve known men who’ve walked into as much as two thousand a year, permanent place, on the strength of a worse subject than that!”
Vavasor allowed Mr Scruby to manage the matter for him, and took up the subject of the River Bank. Vavasor and the River Bank was carried about by an army of men with iron shoulder-straps, and huge pasteboards placards six feet high on the top of them. You would think, as you saw the long rows, that the men were being marshalled to their several routes; but they always kept together — four-and-twenty at the heels of each other. “One placard at a time would strike the eye,” said Mr Vavasor, counting the expense up to himself. “There’s no doubt of it,” said Mr Scruby in reply. “One placard will do that, if it’s big enough; but it takes four-and-twenty to touch the imagination.” And then sides of houses were covered with that shibboleth, “Vavasor and the River Bank”: the same words repeated in columns down the whole sides of houses. Vavasor himself declared that he was ashamed to walk among his future constituents, so conspicuous had his name become. Grimes saw it, and was dismayed. At first, Grimes ridiculed the cry with all his publican’s wit. “Unless he mean to drown hisself in the Reach, it’s hard to say what he do mean by all that gammon about the River Bank,” said Grimes, as he canvassed for the other Liberal candidate. But after a while, Grimes was driven to confess that Mr Scruby knew what he was about. “He is a sharp un, that he is,” said Grimes in the inside bar of the “Handsome Man”; and he almost regretted that he had left the leadership of Mr Scruby, although he knew that on this occasion he would not have gotten his odd money.
George Vavasor, with much labour, actually did get up the subject of the River Bank. He got himself introduced to men belonging to the Metropolitan Board, and went manfully into the matter of pounds, shillings, and pence. He was able even to work himself into an apparent heat when he was told that the thing was out of the question; and soon found that he had disciples who really believed in him. If he could have brought himself to believe in the thing — if he could have been induced himself to care whether Chelsea was to be embanked or no, the work would not have been so difficult to him. In that case it would have done good to him, if to no one else. But such belief was beyond him. He had gone too far in life to be capable of believing in, or of caring for, such things. He was ambitious of having a hand in the government of his country, but he was not capable of caring even for that.
But he worked. He worked hard, and spoke vehemently, and promised the men of Chelsea, Pimlico, and Brompton that the path of London westwards had hardly commenced as yet. Sloane Street should be the new Cheapside. Squares should arise around the Chelsea barracks, with sides open to the water, for which Belgravia would be deserted. There should be palaces there for the rich, because the rich spend their riches; but no rich man’s palace should interfere with the poor man’s right to the River Bank. Three millions and a half should be spent on the noble street to be constructed, the grandest pathway that the world should ever yet have seen; three millions and a half to be drawn from — to be drawn from anywhere except from Chelsea — from the bloated moneybags of the City Corporation, Vavasor once ventured to declare, amidst the encouraging shouts of the men of Chelsea. Mr Scruby was forced to own that his pupil worked the subject well.“Upon my word, that was uncommon good,” he said, almost patting Vavasor on the back, after a speech in which he had vehemently asserted that his ambition to represent the Chelsea districts had all come of his long-fixed idea that the glory of future London would be brought about by the embankment of the river at Chelsea.
But armies of men carrying big boards, and public houses open at every corner, and placards in which the letters are three feet long, cost money. Those few modest hundreds which Mr Scruby had already received before the work began, had been paid on the supposition that the election would not take place till September. Mr Scruby made an early request, a very early request, that a further sum of fifteen hundred pounds should be placed in his hands; and he did this in a tone which clearly signified that not a man would be sent about through the streets, or a poster put upon a wall, till this request had been conceded. Mr Scruby was in possession of two very distinct manners of address. In his jovial moods, when he was instigating his clients to fight their battles well, it might almost be thought that he was doing it really for the love of the thing; and some clients, so thinking, had believed for a few hours that Scruby, in his jolly, passionate eagerness, would pour out his own money like dust, trusting implicitly to future days for its return. But such clients had soon encountered Mr Scruby’s other manner, and had perceived that they were mistaken.
The thing had come so suddenly upon George Vavasor that there was not time for him to carry on his further operations through his sister. Had he written to Kate — let him have written in what language he would — she would have first rejoined by a negative, and there would have been a correspondence before he had induced her to comply. He thought of sending for her by telegram, but even in that there would have been too much delay. He resolved, therefore, to make his application to Alice himself, and he wrote to her, explaining his condition. The election had come upon him quite suddenly, as she knew, he said. He wanted two thousand pounds instantly, and felt little scruple in asking her for it, as he was aware that the old Squire would be only too glad to saddle the property with a legacy to Alice for the repayment of this money, though he would not have advanced a shilling himself for the purpose of the election. Then he said a word or two as to his prolonged absence from Queen Anne Street. He had not been there because he had felt, from her manner when they last met, that she would for a while prefer to be left free from the unavoidable excitement of such interviews. But should he be triumphant in his present contest, he should go to her to share his triumph with her; or, should he fail, he should go to her to console him in his failure.
Within three days he heard from her, saying that the money would be at once placed to his credit. She sent him also her cordial good wishes for success in his enterprise, but beyond this her letter said nothing. There was no word of love — no word of welcome — no expression of a desire to see him. Vavasor, as he perceived all this in the reading of her note, felt a triumph in the possession of her money. She was ill-using him by her coldness, and there was comfort in revenge. “It serves her right,” he said to himself. “She should have married me at once when she said she would do so, and then it would have been my own.”
When Mr Tombe had communicated with John Grey on the matter of this increased demand — this demand which Mr Tombe began to regard as carrying a love affair rather too far — Grey had telegraphed back that Vavasor’s demand for money, if made through Mr John Vavasor, was to be honoured to the extent of five thousand pounds. Mr Tombe raised his eyebrows, and reflected that some men were very foolish. But John Grey’s money matters were of such a nature as to make Mr Tombe know that he must do as he was bidden; and the money was paid to George Vavasor’s account.
He told Kate nothing of this. Why should he trouble himself to do so? Indeed, at this time he wrote no letters to his sister, though she twice sent to him, knowing what his exigencies would be, and made further tenders of her own money. He could not reply to these offers without telling her that money had been forthcoming from that other quarter, and so he left them unanswered.
In the meantime the battle went on gloriously. Mr Travers, the other Liberal candidate, spent his money freely — or else some other person did so on his behalf. When Mr Scruby mentioned this last alternative to George Vavasor, George cursed his own luck in that he had never found such backers. “I don’t call a man half a Member when he’s brought in like that,” said Mr Scruby, comforting him. “He can’t do what he likes with his vote. He ain’t independent. You never hear of those fellows getting anything good. Pay for the article yourself, Mr Vavasor, and then it’s your own. That’s what I always say.”
Mr Grimes went to work strenuously, almost fiercely, in the opposite interest, telling all that he knew, and perhaps more than he knew, of Vavasor’s circumstances, He was at work morning, noon, and night, not only in his own neighbourhood, but among those men on the river bank of whom he had spoken so much in his interview with Vavasor in Cecil Street. The entire Vavasorian army with its placards was entirely upset on more than one occasion, and was once absolutely driven ignominiously into the river mud. And all this was done under the direction of Mr Grimes. Vavasor himself was pelted with offal from the sinking tide, so that the very name of the River Bank became odious to him. He was a man who did not like to have his person touched, and when they hustled him he became angry. “Lord love you, Mr Vavasor,” said Scruby, “that’s nothing! I’ve had a candidate so mauled — it was in the Hamlets, I think — that there wasn’t a spot on him that wasn’t painted with rotten eggs. The smell was something quite awful. But I brought him in, through it all.”
And Mr Scruby at last did as much for George Vavasor as he had done for the hero of the Hamlets. At the close of the poll Vavasor’s name stood at the head by a considerable majority, and Scruby comforted him by saying that Travers certainly wouldn’t stand the expense of a petition, as the seat was to be held only for a few months.
“And you’ve done it very cheap, Mr Vavasor,” said Scruby, “considering that the seat is metropolitan. I do say that you have done it cheap. Another thousand, or twelve hundred, will cover everything — say thirteen, perhaps, at the outside. And when you shall have fought the battle once again, you’ll have paid your footing, and the fellows will let you in almost for nothing after that.”
A further sum of thirteen hundred pounds was wanted at once, and then the whole thing was to be repeated over again in six months’ time! This was not consolatory. But, nevertheless, there was a triumph in the thing itself which George Vavasor was man enough to enjoy. It would be something to have sat in the House of Commons, though it should only have been for half a session.
George Vavasor’s feeling of triumph was not unjustifiable. It is something to have sat in the House of Commons, though it has been but for one session! There is on the left-hand side of our great national hall — on the left-hand side as one enters it, and opposite to the doors leading to the Law Courts — a pair of gilded lamps, with a door between them, near to which a privileged old dame sells her apples and her oranges solely, as I presume, for the accommodation of the Members of the House and of the great policeman who guards the pass. Between those lamps is the entrance to the House of Commons, and none but Members may go that way! It is the only gate before which I have ever stood filled with envy — sorrowing to think that my steps might never pass under it. There are many portals forbidden to me, as there are many forbidden to all men; and forbidden fruit, they say, is sweet; but my lips have watered after no other fruit but that which grows so high, within the sweep of that great policeman’s truncheon.
Ah, my male friend and reader, who earnest thy bread, perhaps, as a country vicar; or sittest, maybe, at some weary desk in Somerset House; or who, perhaps, rulest the yard behind the Cheapside counter, hast thou never stood there and longed — hast thou never confessed, when standing there, that Fate has been unkind to thee in denying thee the one thing that thou hast wanted? I have done so; and as my slow steps have led me up that more than royal staircase, to those passages and halls which require the hallowing breath of centuries to give them the glory in British eyes which they shall one day possess, I have told myself, in anger and in grief, that to die and not to have won that right of way, though but for a session — not to have passed by the narrow entrance through those lamps — is to die and not to have done that which it most becomes an Englishman to have achieved.
There are, doubtless, some who came out by that road, the loss of whose society is not to be regretted. England does not choose her six hundred and fifty-four best men. One comfort’s one’s self, sometimes, with remembering that. The George Vavasors, the Calder Joneses, and the Botts are admitted. Dishonesty, ignorance, and vulgarity do not close the gate of that heaven against aspirants; and it is a consolation to the ambition of the poor to know that the ambition of the rich can attain that glory by the strength of its riches alone. But though England does not send thither none but her best men, the best of her Commoners do find their way there. It is the highest and most legitimate pride of an Englishman to have the letters M.P. written after his name. No selection from the alphabet, no doctorship, no fellowship, be it of ever so learned or royal a society, no knightship — not though it be of the Garter — confers so fair an honour. Mr Bott was right when he declared that this country is governed from between the walls of that House, though the truth was almost defiled by the lips which uttered it. He might have added that from thence flow the waters of the world’s progress — the fullest fountain of advancing civilization.
George Vavasor, as he went in by the lamps and the apple-stall, under the guardianship of Mr Bott, felt all the pride of which I have been speaking. He was a man quite capable of feeling such pride as it should be felt — capable, in certain dreamy moments, of looking at the thing with pure and almost noble eyes; of understanding the ambition of serving with truth so great a nation as that which fate had made his own. Nature, I think, had so fashioned George Vavasor, that he might have been a good, and perhaps a great man; whereas Mr Bott had been born small. Vavasor had educated himself to badness with his eyes open. He had known what was wrong, and had done it, having taught himself to think that bad things were best. But poor Mr Bott had meant to do well, and thought that he had done very well indeed. He was a tuft-hunter and a toady, but he did not know that he was doing amiss in seeking to rise by tuft-hunting and toadying. He was both mean and vain, both a bully and a coward, and in politics, I fear, quite unscrupulous in spite of his grand dogmas; but he believed that he was progressing in public life by the proper and usual means, and was troubled by no idea that he did wrong,
Vavasor, in those dreamy moments of which I have spoken, would sometimes feel tempted to cut his throat and put an end to himself, because he knew that he had taught himself amiss. Again he would sadly ask himself whether it was yet too late; always, however, answering himself that it was too late. Even now, at this moment, as he went in between the lamps, and felt much of the honest pride of which I have spoken, he told himself that it was too late. What could he do now, hampered by such a debt as that which he owed to his cousin, and with the knowledge that it must be almost indefinitely increased, unless he meant to give up this seat in Parliament, which had cost him so dearly, almost before he had begun to enjoy it? But his courage was good, and he was able to resolve that he could go on with the business that he had in hand, and play out his game to the end. He had achieved his seat in the House of Commons, and was so far successful. Men who had ever been gracious to him were now more gracious than ever, and they who had not hitherto treated him with courtesy, now began to smile and to be very civil. It was, no doubt, a great thing to have the privilege of that entrance between the lamps.
Mr Bott had the new Member now in hand, not because there had been any old friendship between them, but Mr Bott was on the look-out for followers and Vavasor was on the look-out for a party. A man gets no great thanks for attaching himself to existing power. Our friend might have enrolled himself among the general supporters of the Government without attracting much attention. He would in such case have been at the bottom of a long list. But Mr Palliser was a rising man, round whom, almost without wish of his own, a party was forming itself. If he came into power — as come he must, according to Mr Bott and many others — then they who had acknowledged the new light before its brightness had been declared, might expect their reward.
Vavasor, as he passed through the lobby to the door of the House, leaning on Mr Bott’s arm, was very silent. He had spoken but little since they had left their cab in Palace Yard, and was not very well pleased by the garrulity of his companion. He was going to sit among the first men of his nation, and to take his chance of making himself one of them. He believed in his own ability; he believed thoroughly in his own courage; but he did not believe in his own conduct. He feared that he had done — feared still more strongly that he would be driven to do — that which would shut men’s ears against his words, and would banish him from high places. No man believes in himself who knows himself to be a rascal, however great may be his talent, or however high his pluck.
“Of course you have heard a debate?” said Mr Bott.
“Yes,” answered Vavasor, who wished to remain silent.
“Many, probably?”
“No.”
“But you have heard debates from the gallery. Now you’ll hear them from the body of the House, and you’ll find how very different it is. There’s no man can know what Parliament is who has never had a seat. Indeed no one can thoroughly understand the British Constitution without it. I felt, very early in life, that that should be my line; and though it’s hard work and no pay, I mean to stick to it. How do, Thompson? You know Vavasor? He’s just returned for the Chelsea Districts, and I’m taking him up. We shan’t divide tonight; shall we? Look! there’s Farringcourt just coming out; he’s listened to better than any man on the House now, but he’ll borrow half-a-crown from you if you’ll lend him one. How d’ye do, my lord? I hope I have the pleasure of seeing you well?” and Bott bowed low to a lord who was hurrying through the lobby as fast as his shuffling feet would carry him. “Of course you know him?”
Vavasor, however, did not know the lord in question, and was obliged to say so.
“I thought you were up to all these things?” said Bott.
“Taking the peerage generally, I am not up to it,” said Vavasor, with a curl on his lip.
“But you ought to have known him, That was Viscount Middlesex; he has got something on tonight about the Irish Church. His father is past ninety, and he’s over sixty. We’ll go in now; but let me give you one bit of advice, my dear fellow — don’t think of speaking this session. A Member can do no good at that work till he has learned something of the forms of the House. The forms of the House are everything; upon my word they are. This is Mr Vavasor, the new Member for the Chelsea Districts.”
Our friend was thus introduced to the doorkeeper, who smiled familiarly, and seemed to wink his eye. Then George Vavasor passed through into the House itself, under the wing of Mr Bott.
Vavasor, as he walked up the House to the Clerk’s table and took the oath and then walked down again, felt himself to be almost taken aback by the little notice which was accorded to him. It was not that he had expected to create a sensation, or that he had for a moment thought on the subject, but the thing which he was doing was so great to him, that the total indifference of those around him was a surprise to him. After he had taken his seat, a few men came up by degrees and shook hands with him; but it seemed, as they did so, merely because they were passing that way. He was anxious not to sit next to Mr Bott, but he found himself unable to avoid this contiguity. That gentleman stuck to him pertinaciously, giving him directions which, at the spur of the moment, he hardly knew how not to obey. So he found himself sitting behind Mr Palliser, a little to the right, while Mr Bott occupied the ear of the rising man.
There was a debate in progress, but it seemed to Vavasor, as soon as he was able to become critical, to be but a dull affair, and yet the Chancellor of the Exchequer was on his legs, and Mr Palliser was watching him as a cat watches a mouse. The speaker was full of figures, as becomes a Chancellor of the Exchequer; and as every new budget of them fell from him, Mr Bott, with audible whispers, poured into the ear of his chief certain calculations of his own most of which went to prove that the financier in office was altogether wrong. Vavasor thought that he could see that Mr Palliser was receiving more of this assistance than was palatable to him. He would listen, if he did listen, without making any sign that he heard, and would occasionally shake his head with symptoms of impatience. But Mr Bott was a man not to be repressed by a trifle. When Mr Palliser shook his head he became more assiduous than ever, and when Mr Palliser slightly moved himself to the left, he boldly followed him.
No general debate arose on the subject which the Minister had in hand, and when he sat down, Mr Palliser would not get up, though Mr Bott counselled him to do so. The matter was over for the night, and the time had arrived for Lord Middlesex. That nobleman got upon his feet, with a roll of papers in his hand, and was proceeding to address the House on certain matters of church reform, with great energy; but, alas, for him and his feelings! Before his energy had got itself into full swing, the Members were swarming away through the doors like a flock of sheep. Mr Palliser got up and went, and was followed at once by Mr Bott, who succeeded in getting hold of his arm in the lobby. Had not Mr Palliser been an even-tempered, calculating man, with a mind and spirit well under his command, he must have learned to hate Mr Bott before this time. Away streamed the Members, but still the noble lord went on speaking, struggling hard to keep up his fire as though no such exodus were in process. There was but little to console him. He knew that the papers would not report one sentence in twenty of those he uttered. He knew that no one would listen to him willingly. He knew that he had worked for weeks and months to get up his facts, and he was beginning to know that he had worked in vain. As he summoned courage to look round, he began to fear that some enemy would count the House, and that all would be over. He had given heart and soul to this affair. His cry was not as Vavasor’s cry about the River Bank. He believed in his own subject with a great faith, thinking that he could make men happier and better, and bring them nearer to their God. I said that he had worked for weeks and months. I might have said that he had been all his life at this work. Though he shuffled with his feet when he walked, and knocked his words together when he talked, he was an earnest man, meaning to do well, seeking no other reward for his work than the appreciation of those whom he desired to serve. But this was never to be his. For him there was in store nothing but disappointment. And yet he will work on to the end, either in this House or in the other, labouring wearily, without visible wages of any kind, and, one may say, very sadly. But when he has been taken to his long rest, men will acknowledge that he has done something, and there will be left on the minds of those who shall remember him a conviction that he served a good cause diligently, and not altogether inefficiently. Invisible are his wages, yet in some coin are they paid. Invisible is the thing he does, and yet it is done. Let us hope that some sense of this tardy appreciation may soothe his spirit beyond the grave. On the present occasion there was nothing to soothe his spirit. The Speaker sat, urbane and courteous, with his eyes turned towards the unfortunate orator; but no other ears in the House seemed to listen to him. The corps of reporters had dwindled down to two, and they used their pens very listlessly, taking down here a sentence and there a sentence, knowing that their work was naught. Vavasor sat it out to the last, as it taught him a lesson in those forms of the House which Mr Bott had truly told him it would be well that he should learn. And at last he did learn the form of a “count-out.” Someone from a back seat muttered something, which the Speaker understood; and that high officer, having had his attention called to a fact of which he would never have taken cognisance without such calling, did count the House, and finding that it contained but twenty-three Members, he put an end to his own labours and to those of poor Lord Middlesex. With what feelings that noble lord must have taken himself home, and sat himself down in his study, vainly opening a book before his eyes, can we not all imagine? A man he was with ample means, with children who would do honour to his name; one whose wife believed in him, if no one else would do so; a man, let us say, with a clear conscience, to whom all good things had been given, But of whom now was he thinking with envy? Early on that same day Farringcourt had spoken in the House — a man to whom no one would lend a shilling, whom the privilege of that House kept out of gaol, whose word no man believed; who was wifeless, childless, and unloved. But three hundred men had hung listening upon his words. When he laughed in his speech, they laughed; when he was indignant against the Minister, they sat breathless, as the Spaniard sits in the critical moment of the bull-killing. Whichever way he turned himself, he carried them with him. Crowds of Members flocked into the House from libraries and smoking rooms when it was known that this ne’er-do-well was on his legs. The Strangers’ Gallery was filled to overflowing. The reporters turned their rapid pages, working their fingers wearily till the sweat drops stood upon their brows. And as the Premier was attacked with some special impetus of redoubled irony, men declared that he would be driven to enrol the speaker among his colleagues, in spite of dishonoured bills and evil reports. A man who could shake the thunderbolts like that must be paid to shake them on the right side. It was of this man, and of his success, that Lord Middlesex was envious, as he sat, wretched and respectable, in his solitary study!
Mr Bott had left the House with Mr Palliser; and Vavasor, after the count-out, was able to walk home by himself, and think of the position which he had achieved. He told himself over and over again that he had done a great thing in obtaining that which he now possessed, and he endeavoured to teach himself that the price he was paying for it was not too dear. But already there had come upon him something of that feeling — that terribly human feeling — which deprives every prize that is gained of half its value. The mere having it robs the diamond of its purity, and mixes vile alloy with the gold. Lord Middlesex, as he had floundered on into terrible disaster, had not been a subject to envy. There had been nothing of brilliance in the debate, and the Members had loomed no larger than ordinary men at ordinary clubs. The very door-keepers had hardly treated them with respect. The great men with whose names the papers are filled had sat silent, gloomy, and apparently idle. As soon as a fair opportunity was given them they escaped out of the House, as boys might escape from school. Everybody had rejoiced in the break-up of the evening, except that one poor old lord who had worked so hard. Vavasor had spent everything that he had to become a Member of that House, and now, as he went alone to his lodgings, he could not but ask himself whether the thing purchased was worth the purchase-money.
But his courage was still high. Though he was gloomy, and almost sad, he knew that he could trust himself to fight out the battle to the last. On the morrow he would go to Queen Anne Street, and would demand sympathy there from her who had professed to sympathise with him so strongly in his political desires. With her, at any rate, the glory of his Membership would not be dimmed by any untoward knowledge of the realities. She had only seen the play acted from the boxes; and to her eyes the dresses would still be of silk velvet, and the swords of bright steel.
When Alice heard of her cousin’s success, and understood that he was actually Member of Parliament for the Chelsea Districts, she resolved that she would be triumphant. She had sacrificed nearly everything to her desire for his success in public life, and now that he had achieved the first great step towards that success, it would have been madness on her part to decline her share in the ovation. If she could not rejoice in that, what source of joy would then be left for her? She had promised to be his wife, and at present she was under the bonds of that promise. She had so promised because she had desired to identify her interests with his — because she wished to share his risks, to assist his struggles, and to aid him in his public career. She had done all this, and he had been successful. She strove, therefore, to be triumphant on his behalf, but she knew that she was striving ineffectually. She had made a mistake, and the days were coming in which she would have to own to herself that she had done so in sackcloth, and to repent with ashes.
But yet she struggled to be triumphant. The tidings were first brought to her by her servant, and then she at once sat down to write him a word or two of congratulation. But she found the task more difficult than she had expected, and she gave it up. She had written no word to him since the day on which he had left her almost in anger, and now she did not know how she was to address him. “I will wait till he comes,” she said, putting away from her the paper and pens. “It will be easier to speak than to write.” But she wrote to Kate, and contrived to put some note of triumph into her letter. Kate had written to her at length, filling her sheet with a loud paean of sincere rejoicing. To Kate, down in Westmoreland, it had seemed that her brother had already done everything. He had already tied Fortune to his chariot wheels. He had made the great leap, and had overcome the only obstacle that Fate had placed in his way. In her great joy she almost forgot whence had come the money with which the contest had been won. She was not enthusiastic in many things — about herself she was never so; but now she was elated with an enthusiasm which seemed to know no bounds. “I am proud,” she said, in her letter to Alice. “No other thing that he could have done would have made me so proud of him. Had the Queen sent for him and made him an earl, it would have been as nothing to this. When I think that he has forced his way into Parliament without any great friend, with nothing to back him but his own wit” — she had, in truth, forgotten Alice’s money as she wrote — “that he has achieved his triumph in the metropolis, among the most wealthy and most fastidious of the richest city in the world, I do feel proud of my brother. And, Alice, I hope that you are proud of your lover.” Poor girl! One cannot but like her pride, nay, almost love her for it, though it was so sorely misplaced. It must be remembered that she had known nothing of Messrs Grimes and Scruby, and the River Bank, and that the means had been wanting to her of learning the principles upon which some metropolitan elections are conducted.
“And, Alice, I hope that you are proud of your lover!” “He is not my lover,” Alice said to herself. “He knows that he is not. He understands it, though she may not.” And if not your lover, Alice Vavasor, what is he then to you? And what are you to him, if not his love? She was beginning to understand that she had put herself in the way of utter destruction — that she had walked to the brink of a precipice, and that she must now topple over it. “He is not my lover,” she said; and then she sat silent and moody, and it took her hours to get her answer written to Kate.
On the same afternoon she saw her father for a moment or two. “So George has got himself returned,” he said, raising his eyebrows.
“Yes, he has been successful. I’m sure you must be glad, papa.”
“Upon my word, I’m not. He has bought a seat for three months; and with whose money has he purchased it?”
“Don’t let us always speak of money, papa.”
“When you discuss the value of a thing just purchased, you must mention the price before you know whether the purchaser has done well or badly. They have let him in for his money because there are only a few months left before the general election. Two thousand pounds he has had, I believe?”
“And if as much more is wanted for the next election he shall have it.”
“Very well, my dear — very well. If you choose to make a beggar of yourself, I cannot help it. Indeed, I shall not complain though he should spend all your money, if you do not marry him at last.” In answer to this, Alice said nothing. On that point her father’s wishes were fast growing to be identical with her own.
“I tell you fairly what are my feelings and my wishes,” he continued. “Nothing, in my opinion, would be so deplorable and ruinous as such a marriage. You tell me that you have made up your mind to take him, and I know well that nothing that I can say will turn you. But I believe that when he has spent all your money he will not take you, and that thus you will be saved. Thinking as I do about him, you can hardly expect that I should triumph because he has got himself into Parliament with your money!”
Then he left her, and it seemed to Alice that he had been very cruel. There had been little, she thought — nay, nothing — of a father’s loving tenderness in his words to her. If he had spoken to her differently, might she not even now have confessed everything to him? But herein Alice accused him wrongfully. Tenderness from him on this subject had, we may say, become impossible. She had made it impossible. Nor could he tell her the extent of his wishes without damaging his own cause. He could not let her know that all that was done was so done with the view of driving her into John Grey’s arms.
But what words were those for a father to speak to a daughter! Had she brought herself to such a state that her own father desired to see her deserted and thrown aside? And was it probable that this wish of his should come to pass? As to that, Alice had already made up her mind. She thought that she had made up her mind that she would never become her cousin’s wife. It needed not her father’s wish to accomplish her salvation, if her salvation lay in being separated from him.
On the next morning George went to her. The reader will, perhaps, remember their last interview. He had come to her after her letter to him from Westmoreland, and had asked her to seal their reconciliation with a kiss; but she had refused him. He had offered to embrace her, and she had shuddered before him, fearing his touch, telling him by signs much more clear than any words, that she felt for him none of the love of a woman. Then he had turned from her in anger, declaring to her honestly that he was angry. Since that he had borrowed her money, — had made two separate assaults upon her purse, — and was now come to tell her of the results. How was he to address her? I beg that it may be also remembered that he was not a man to forget the treatment he had received. When he entered the room, Alice looked at him, at first, almost furtively. She was afraid of him. It must be confessed that she already feared him. Had there been in the man anything of lofty principle he might still have made her his slave, though I doubt whether he could ever again have forced her to love him. She looked at him furtively, and perceived that the gash on his face was nearly closed. The mark of existing anger was not there. He had come to her intending to be gentle, if it might be possible. He had been careful in his dress, as though he wished to try once again if the role of lover might be within his reach.
Alice was the first to speak. “George, I am so glad that you have succeeded! I wish you joy with my whole heart.”
“Thanks, dearest. But before I say another word, let me acknowledge my debt. Unless you had aided me with your money, I could not have succeeded.”
“Oh, George! pray don’t speak of that!”
“Let me rather speak of it at once, and have done. If you will think of it, you will know that I must speak of it sooner or later.” He smiled and looked pleasant, as he used to do in those Swiss days.
“Well, then, speak and have done.”
“I hope you have trusted me in thus giving me the command of your fortune?”
“Oh, yes.”
“I do believe that you have. I need hardly say that I could not have stood for this last election without it; and I must try to make you understand that if I had not come forward at this vacancy, I should have stood no chance for the next; other-wise, I should not have been justified in paying so dearly for a seat for one session. You can understand that; eh, Alice?”
“Yes; I think so.”
“Anybody, even your father, would tell you that; though, probably, he regards my ambition to be a Member of Parliament as a sign of downright madness. But I was obliged to stand now, if I intended to go on with it, as that old lord died so inopportunely. Well, about the money! It is quite upon the cards that I may be forced to ask for another loan when the autumn comes.”
“You shall have it, George.”
“Thanks, Alice. And now I will tell you what I propose. You know that I have been reconciled, — with a sort of reconciliation, — to my grandfather? Well, when the next affair is over, I propose to tell him exactly how you and I then stand.”
“Do not go into that now, George. It is enough for you at present to be assured that such assistance as I can give you is at your command. I want you to feel the full joy of your success, and you will do so more thoroughly if you will banish all these money troubles from your mind for a while.”
“They shall, at any rate, be banished while I am with you,” said he. “There; let them go!” And he lifted up his right hand, and blew at the tips of his fingers. “Let them vanish,” said he. “It is always well to be rid of such troubles for a time.”
It is well to be rid of them at any time, or at all times, if only they can be banished without danger. But when a man has over-used his liver till it will not act for him any longer, it is not well for him to resolve that he will forget the weakness of his organ just as he sits down to dinner
It was a pretty bit of acting, that of Vavasor’s, when he blew away his cares; and, upon the whole, I do not know that he could have done better. But Alice saw through it, and he knew that she did so. The whole thing was uncomfortable to him, except the fact that he had the promise of her further moneys. But he did not intend to rest satisfied with this. He must extract from her some meed of approbation, some show of sympathy, some spark of affection, true or pretended, in order that he might at least affect to be satisfied, and be enabled to speak of the future without open embarrassment. How could even he take her money from her, unless he might presume that he stood with her upon some ground that belonged mutually to them both?
“I have already taken my seat,” said he.
“Yes; I saw that in the newspapers. My acquaintance among Members of Parliament is very small, but I see that you were introduced, as they call it, by one of the few men that I do know. Is Mr. Bott a friend of yours?”
“No, — certainly not a friend. I may probably have to act with him in public.”
“Ah, that’s just what they said of Mr. Palliser when they felt ashamed of his having such a man as his guest. I think if I were in public life I should try to act with people that I could like.”
“Then you dislike Mr. Bott?”
“I do not like him, but my feelings about him are not violent.”
“He is a vulgar ass,” said George, “with no more pretensions to rank himself a gentleman than your footman.”
“If I had one.”
“But he will get on in Parliament, to a certain extent.”
“I’m afraid I don’t quite understand what are the requisitcs for Parliamentary success, or indeed of what it consists. Is his ambition, do you suppose, the same as yours?”
“His ambition, I take it, docs not go beyond a desire to be Parliamentary flunkey to a big man, — with wages, if possible but without, if the wages are impossible.”
“And yours?”
“Oh, as to mine; — there are some things, Alice, that a man does not tell to any one.”
“Are there? They must be very terrible things.”
“The schoolboy, when he sits down to make his rhymes, dares not say, even to his sister, that he hopes to rival Milton; but he nurses such a hope. The preacher, when he prepares his sermon, does not whisper, even to his wife, his belief that thousands may perhaps be turned to repentance by the strength of his words; but he thinks that the thousand converts are possible.”
“And you, though you will not say so, intend to rival Chatham and to make your thousand converts in politics.”
“I like to hear you laugh at me, — I do indeed. It does me good to hear your voice again with some touch of satire in it. It brings back the old days, — the days to which I hope we may soon revert without pain. Shall it not be so, dearest?”
Her playful manner at once deserted her. Why had he made this foolish attempt to be tender? “I do not know,” she said gloomily.
For a few minutes he sat silent, fingering some article belonging to her which was lying on the table. It was a small steel paper-knife, of which the handle was cast and gilt; a thing of no great value, of which the price may have been five shillings. He sat with it, passing it through his fingers, while she went on with her work.
“Who gave ou this paper-cutter?” he said suddenly.
“Goodness me, why do you ask? and especially, why do you ask in that way?”
“I asked simply because if it is a present to you from any one, I will take up something else.”
“It was given me by Mr. Grey.”
He let it drop from his fingers on to the table with a noise, and then pushed it from him, so that it fell on the other side, near to where she sat.
“George,” she said, as she stooped and picked it up, “your violence is unreasonab]e; pray do not repeat it.”
“I did not mean it,” he said, “and I beg your pardon. I was simply unfortunate in the article I selected. And who gave you this?” In saying which he took up a little ivory foot-rule that was folded up so as to bring it within the compass of three inches.
“It so happens that no one gave me that; I bought it at a stupid bazaar.”
“Then this will do. You shall give it me as a present, on the renewal of our love.”
“It is too poor a thing to give,” said she, speaking still more gloomily than she had done before.
“By no means; nothing is too poor, if given in that way. Anything will do; a ribbon, a glove, a broken sixpence. Will you give me something that I may take, and, taking it, may know that your heart is given with it?”
“Take the rule, if you please,” she said.
“And about the heart?” he asked.
He should have been more of a rascal or less. Seeing how very much of a rascal he was already, I think it would have been better that he should have been more, — that he should have been able to content his spirit with the simple acquisition of her money, and that he should have been free from all those remains of a finer feeling which made him desire her love also. But it was not so. It was necessary for his comfort that she should, at any rate, say she loved him. “Well, Alice, and what about the heart?” he asked again.
“I would so much rather talk about politics, George,” said she.
The cicatrice began to make itself very visible in his face, and the debonair manner was fast vanishirg. He had fixed his eyes upon her, and had inserted his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat.
“Alice, that is not quite fair,” he said,
“I do not mean to be unfair.”
“I am not so sure of that. I almost think that you do mean it. You have told me that you intend to become my wife. If, after that, you wilfully make me miserable, will not that be unfair?”
“I am not making you miserable, — certainly not wilfully.” “Did that letter which you wrote to me from Westmoreland mean anything?”
“George, do not strive to make me think that it meant too much.”
“If it did, you had better say so at once.”
But Alice, though she would have said so had she dared, made no answer to this. She sat silent, turning her face away from his gaze, longing that the meeting might be over, and feeling that she had lost her own self-respect.
“Look here, Alice,” he said, “I find it very hard to understand you. When I look back over all that has passed between us, and to that other episode ih your life, summing it all up with your conduct to me at present, I find myself at a loss to read your character.”
“I fear I cannot help you in the reading of it.”
“When you first loved me; — for you did love me. I understood that well enough. There is no young man who in early life does not read with sufficient clearness that sweetest morsel of poetry. — And when you quarrelled with me, judging somewhat harshly of my offences, I understood that also; for it is the custom of women to be hard in their judgment on such sins. When I heard that you had accepted the offer made to you by that gentleman in Cambridgeshire, I thought that I understood you still, — knowing how natural it was that you should seek some cure for your wound. I understood it, and accused myself, not you, in that I had driven you to so fatal a remedy.” Here Alice turned round towards him sharply, as though she were going to interrupt him, but she said nothing, though he paused for her to speak; and then he went on. “And I understood it well when I heard that this cure had been too much for you. By heavens, yes! there was no misunderstanding that. I meant no insult to the man when I upset his little toy just now. I have not a word to say against him. For many women he would make a model husband, but you are not one of them. And when you discovered this yourself, as you did, I understood that without difficulty. Yes, by heavens! if ever woman had been driven to a mistake, you had been driven to one there.” Here she lookcd at him again, and met his eyes. She looked at him with something of his own fierceness in her face, as though she were preparing herself to fight with him; but she said nothing at the moment, and then he again went on. “And, Alice, I understood it also when you again consented to be my wife. I thought that I still understood you then. I may have been vain to think so, but surely it was natural. I believed that the old love had come back upon you, and again warmed your heart. I thought that it had been cold during our separation, and I was pleased to think so. Was that unnatural? Put yourself in my place, and say if you would not have thought so. I told myself that I understood you then, and I told myself that in all that you had done you had acted as a true, and good, and loving woman. I thought of you much, and I saw that your conduct, as a whole, was intelligible and becoming.” The last word grated on Alice’s ears, and she showed her anger by the motion of her foot upon the floor. Her cousin noted it all, but went on as though he had not noted it. “But now your present behaviour makes all the rest a riddle. You have said that you would be my wife, declaring thereby that you had forgiven my offences, and, as I suppose, reassuring me of your love; and yet you receive me with all imaginable coldness. What am I to think of it, and in what way would you have me behave to you? When last I was here I asked you for a kiss.” As he said this he looked at her with all his eyes, with his mouth just open, so as to show the edges of his white teeth, with the wound down his face all wide and purple. The last word came with a stigmatizillg hiss from his lips. Though she did not essay to speak, he paused again, as if he were desirous that she might realize the full purport of such a request. I think that, in thc energy of his speaking, a touch of true passion had come upon him; that he had forgotten his rascaldom, and his need of her money, and that he was punishing her with his whole power of his vengeance for the treatment which he had received from her. “I asked you for a kiss. If you are to be my wife you can have no shame in granting me such a reguest. Within the last two months you have told me that you would marry me. What am I to think of such a promise if you deny me all customary signs of your affection?” Then he paused again, and she found that the time had come in which she must say something to him.
“I wonder you cannot understand,” she said, “that I have suffered much.”
“And is that to be my answer?”
“I don’t know what answer you want.”
“Come, Alice, do not be untrue; you do know what answer I want, and you know also whether my wanting it is unreasonable.”
“No one ever told me that I was untrue before,” she said.
“You do know what it is that I desire. I desire to learn that the woman who is to be my wife, in truth, loves me.”
She was standing up, and so was he also, but still she said nothing. He had in his hand the little rule which she had told him that he might take, but he held it as though in doubt what he would do with it. “Well, Alice, am I to hear anything from you?”
“Not now, George; you are angry, and I will not speak to you in your anger.”
“Have I not cause to be angry? Do you not know that you are treating me badly?”
“I know that my head aches, and that I am very wretched. I wish you would leave me.”
“There, then, is your gift,” said he, and he threw the rule over on to the sofa behind her. “And there is the trumpery trinket which I had hoped you would have worn for my sake.” Whereupon something which he had taken from his waistcoat-pocket was thrown violently into the fender, beneath the fire-grate. He then walked with quick steps to the door; but when his hand was on the handle, he turned. “Alice,” he said, “when I am gone, try to think honestly of your conduct to me.” Then he went, and she remained still, till she heard the front door close behind him.
When she was sure that he was gone, her first movement was made in search of the trinket. I fear that this was not dignified on her part; but I think that it was natural. It was not that she had any desire for the jewel, or any curiosity even to see it. She would very much have preferred that he should have brought nothing of the kind to her. But she had a feminine reluctance that anything of value should be destroyed without a purpose. So she took thc shovel, and poked among the ashes, and found the ring which her cousin had thrown there. It was a valuable ring, bearing a ruby on it between two small diamonds. Such at least, she became aware, had been its bearing; but one of the side stones had been knocked out by the violence with which the ring had been flung. She searched even for this, scorching her face and eyes, but in vain. Then she made up her mind that the diamond should be lost for ever, and that it should go out among the cinders into the huge dust-heaps of the metropolis. Better that, though it was distasteful to her feminine economy, than the other alternative of setting the servants to search, and thereby telling them something of what had been done.
When her search was over, she placed the ring on the mantelpiece; but she knew that it would not do to leave it there, — so she folded it up carefully in a new sheet of note-paner, and put it in the drawer of her desk. After that she sat herself down at the table to think what she would do; but her head was, in truth, racked with pain, and on that occasion she could bring her thoughts to no conclusion.
When Mrs Greenow was left alone in her lodgings, after the little entertainment which she had given to her two lovers, she sat herself down to think seriously over her affairs. There were three paths open before her. She might take Mr Cheesacre, or she might take Captain Bellfield — or she might decide that she would have nothing more to say to either of them in the way of courting. They were very persistent, no doubt; but she thought that she would know how to make them understand her, if she should really make up her mind that she would have neither one nor the other. She was going to leave Norwich after Easter, and they knew that such was her purpose. Something had been said of her returning to Yarmouth in the summer. She was a just woman at heart, and justice required that each of them should know what was to be his prospect if she did so return.
There was a good deal to be said on Mr Cheesacre’s behalf. Mahogany-furnitured bedrooms assist one’s comfort in this life; and heaps of manure, though they are not brilliant in romance, are very efficacious in farming. Mrs Greenow by no means despised these things; and as for the owner of them, though she saw that there was much amiss in his character, she thought that his little foibles were of such a nature that she, as his wife, or any other woman of spirit, might be able to repress them, if not to cure them. But she had already married for money once, as she told herself very plainly on this occasion, and she thought that she might now venture on a little love. Her marriage for money had been altogether successful. The nursing of old Greenow had not been very disagreeable to her, nor had it taken longer than she had anticipated. She had now got all the reward that she had ever promised herself, and she really did feel grateful to his memory. I almost think that among those plentiful tears some few drops belonged to sincerity. She was essentially a happy-tempered woman, blessed with a good digestion, who looked back upon her past life with contentment, and forward to her future life with confidence. She would not be greedy, she said to herself. She did not want more money, and therefore she would have none of Mr Cheesacre. So far she resolved — resolving also that, if possible, the mahogany-furnitured bedrooms should be kept in the family, and made over to her niece, Kate Vavasor.
But should she marry for love; and if so, should Captain Bellfield be the man? Strange to say, his poverty and his scampishness and his lies almost recommended him to her. At any rate, it was not of those things that she was afraid. She had a woman’s true belief in her own power, and thought that she could cure them — as far as they needed cure. As for his stories about Inkerman, and his little debts, she cared nothing about that. She also had her Inkermans, and was quite aware that she made as good use of them as the Captain did of his. And as for the debts — what was a man to do who hadn’t got any money? She also had owed for her gloves and corsets in the ante-Greenow days of her adventures. But there was this danger — that there might be more behind of which she had never heard. Another Mrs Bellfield was not impossible; and what, if instead of being a real captain at all, he should be a returned ticket-of-leave man! Such things had happened. Her chief security was in this — that Cheesacre had known the man for many years, and would certainly have told anything against him that he did know. Under all these circumstances, she could not quite make up her mind either for or against Captain Bellfield. Between nine and ten in the evening, an hour or so after Mr Cheesacre had left her, Jeannette brought to her some arrowroot with a little sherry in it. She usually dined early, and it was her habit to take a light repast before she retired for the night.
“Jeannette,” she said, as she stirred the lumps of white sugar in the bowl, “I’m afraid those two gentlemen have quarrelled.”
“Oh, laws, ma’am, in course they have! How was they to help it?”
Jeannette, on these occasions, was in the habit of standing beside the chair of her mistress, and chatting with her; and then, if the chatting was much prolonged, she would gradually sink down upon the corner of a chair herself — and then the two women would be very comfortable together over the fire, Jeannette never forgetting that she was the servant, and Mrs Greenow never forgetting that she was the mistress.
“And why should they quarrel, Jeannette? It’s very foolish.”
“I don’t know about being foolish, ma’am; but it’s the most natural thing in life. If I had two beaux as was a-courting me together, in course I should expect as they would punch each other’s heads. There’s some girls do it a purpose, because they like to see it. One at a time’s what I say.”
“You’re a young thing, Jeannette.”
“Well, ma’am — yes; I am young, no doubt. But I won’t say but what I’ve had a beau, young as I look.”
“But you don’t suppose that I want beaux, as you call them?”
“I don’t know, ma’am, as you wants ’em exactly. That’s as may be. There they are; and if they was to blow each other’s brains out in the gig tonight, I shouldn’t be a bit surprised for one. There’s nothing won’t quiet them at Oileymead tonight, if brandy and water don’t do it.” As she said this, Jeannette slipped into her chair, and held up her hands in token of the intensity of her fears.
“Why, you silly child, they’re not going home together at all. Did not the Captain go away first?”
“The Captain did go away first, certainly; but I thought perhaps it was to get his pistols and fighting things ready.”
“They won’t fight, Jeannette. Gentlemen have given over fighting.”
“Have they, ma’am? That makes it much easier for ladies, no doubt. Perhaps them peaceable ways will come down to such as us in time. It’d be a comfort, I know, to them as are quiet given, like me. I hate to see men knocking each other’s heads about — I do. So Mr Cheesacre and the Captain won’t fight, ma’am?”
“Of course they won’t, you little fool, you.”
“Dear, dear; I was so sure we should have had the papers all full of it — and perhaps one of them stretched upon his bloody bier! I wonder which it would have been? I always made up my mind that the Captain wouldn’t be wounded in any of his wital parts-unless it was his heart, you know, ma’am.”
“But why should they quarrel at all, Jeannette? It is the most foolish thing.”
“Well, ma’am, I don’t know about that. What else is they to do? There’s some things as you can cry halves about, but there’s no crying halves about this.”
“About what, Jeannette?’ — Why, about you, ma’am.”
“Jeannette, I wonder how you can say such things; as if I, in my position, had ever said a word to encourage either of them. You know it’s not true, Jeannette, and you shouldn’t say so.” Whereupon Mrs Greenow put her handkerchief to her eyes, and Jeannette, probably in token of contrition, put her apron to hers.
“To be sure, ma’am, no lady could have behaved better through it than you have done, and goodness knows you have been tried hard.”
“Indeed I have, Jeannette.”
“And if gentlemen will make fools of themselves, it isn’t your fault; is it, ma’am?”
“But I’m so sorry that they should have quarrelled. They were such dear friends, you know — quite all in all to each other.”
“When you’ve settled which it’s to be, ma’am, that’ll all come right again — seeing that gentlefolks like them have given up fighting, as you say.” Then there was a little pause. “I suppose, ma’am, it won’t be Mr Cheesacre? To be sure, he’s a man as is uncommonly well-to-do in the world.”
“What’s all that to me, Jeannette? I shall ever regard Mr Cheesacre as a dear friend who has been very good to me at a time of trouble; but he’ll never be more than that.”
“Then it’ll be the Captain, ma’am? I’m sure, for my part, I’ve always thought the Captain was the nicer gentleman of the two — and have always said so.”
“He’s nothing to me, girl.”
“And as for money — what’s the good of having more than enough? If he can bring love, you can bring money; can’t you, ma’am?”
“He’s nothing to me, girl,” repeated Mrs Greenow.
“But he will be?” said Jeannette, plainly asking a question,
“Well, I’m sure! What’s the world come to, I wonder, when you sit yourself down there, and cross-examine your mistress in that way! Get to bed, will you? It’s near ten o’clock.”
“I hope I haven’t said anything amiss, ma’am;” and Jeannette rose from her seat.
“It’s my fault for encouraging you,” said Mrs Greenow. “Go downstairs and finish your work, do; and then take yourself off to bed. Next week we shall have to be packing up, and there’ll be all my things to see to before that.” So Jeannette got up and departed, and after some few further thoughts about Captain Bellfield, Mrs Greenow herself went to her bedroom.
Mr Cheesacre, when he drove back to Oileymead alone from Norwich, after dining with Mrs Greenow, had kept himself hot, and almost comfortable, with passion against Bellfield; and his heat, if not his comfort, had been sustained by his seeing the Captain, with his portmanteau, escaping just as he reached his own homestead. But early on the following morning his mind reverted to Mrs Greenow, and he remembered, with anything but satisfaction, some of the hard things which she had said to him. He had made mistakes in his manner of wooing. He was quite aware of that now, and was determined that they should be rectified for the future. She had rebuked him for having said nothing about his love. He would instantly mend that fault. And she had bidden him not to be so communicative about his wealth. Henceforth he would be dumb on that subject. Nevertheless, he could not but think that the knowledge of his circumstances which the lady already possessed, must be of service to him. “She can’t really like a poor beggarly wretch who hasn’t got a shilling,” he said to himself. He was very far from feeling that the battle was already lost. Her last word to him had been an assurance of her friendship; and then why should she have been at so much trouble to tell him the way in which he ought to address her if she were herself indifferent as to his addresses? He was, no doubt, becoming tired of his courtship, and heartily wished that the work were over; but he was not minded to give it up. He therefore prepared himself for another attack, and took himself into Norwich without seeking counsel from any one. He could not trust himself to think that she could really wish to refuse him after all the encouragement she had given him. On this occasion he put on no pink shirt or shiny boots, being deterred from doing so by a remembrance of Captain Bellfield’s ridicule; but, nevertheless, he dressed himself with considerable care. He clothed his nether person in knickerbockers, with tight, leathern, bright-coloured gaiters round his legs, being conscious of certain manly graces and symmetrical proportions which might, as he thought, stand him in good stead. And he put on a new shooting-coat, the buttons on which were elaborate, and a wonderful waistcoat worked over with foxes’ heads. He completed his toilet with a round, low-crowned hat, with dog’s-skin gloves, and a cutting whip. Thus armed he went forth resolved to conquer or to die — as far as death might result from any wound which Mrs Greenow might be able to give him. He waited, on this occasion, for the coming of no market-day; indeed, the journey into the city was altogether special, and he was desirous that she should know that such was the case. He drove at a great pace into the inn-yard, threw his reins to the ostler, took just one glass of cherry-brandy at the bar, and then marched off across the market-place to the Close, with quiet and decisive steps.
“Is that you, Cheesacre?” said a friendly voice, in one of the narrow streets. “Who expected to see you in Norwich on a Thursday!” It was Grimsby, the son of old Grimsby of Hatherwich, a country gentleman, and one, therefore, to whom Cheesacre would generally pay much respect; but on this occasion he did not even pull up for an instant, or moderate his pace. “A little bit of private business,” he said, and marched onwards with his head towards the Close. “I’m not going to be afraid of a woman — not if I know it,” he said to himself; but, nevertheless, at a certain pastrycook’s, of whose shop he had knowledge, he pulled up and had another glass of cherry-brandy.
“Mrs Greenow is at home,” he said to Jeannette, not deigning to ask any question.
“Oh, yes, sir; she is at home,” said Jeannette, conscious that some occasion had arrived; and in another second he was in the presence of his angel.
“Mr Cheesacre, whoever expected to see you in Norwich on a Thursday?” said the lady, as she welcomed him, using almost the same words as his friend had done in the street. Why should not he come into Norwich on a Thursday, as well as any one else? Did they suppose that he was tied for ever to his ploughs and carts? He was minded to conduct himself with a little spirit on this occasion, and to improve the opinion which Mrs Greenow had formed about him. On this account he answered her somewhat boldly.
“There’s no knowing when I may be in Norwich, Mrs Greenow, or when I mayn’t. I’m one of those men of whom nobody knows anything certain, except that I pay as I go.” Then he remembered that he was not to make any more boasts about his money, and he endeavoured to cover the error. “There’s one other thing they may all know if they please, but we won’t say what that is just at present.”
“Won’t you sit down, Mr Cheesacre?”
“Well — thank you — I will sit down for a few minutes if you’ll let me, Mrs Greenow. Mrs Greenow, I’m in such a state of mind that I must put an end to it, or else I shall be going mad, and doing somebody a damage.”
“Dear me! what has happened to you? You’re going out shooting, presently; are you not?” and Mrs Greenow looked down at his garments.
“No, Mrs Greenow, I’m not going out shooting. I put on these things because I thought I might take a shot as I came along. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it, and then I wouldn’t take them off again. What does it matter what a man wears?”
“Not in the least, so long as he is decent.”
“I’m sure I’m always that, Mrs Greenow.”
“Oh, dear, yes. More than that, I should say. I consider you to be rather gay in your attire.”
“I don’t pretend to anything of that kind, Mrs Greenow. I like to be nice, and all that kind of thing. There are people who think that because a man farms his own land, he must be always in the muck. It is the case, of course, with those who have to make their rent and living out of it.” Then he remembered that he was again treading on forbidden ground, and stopped himself. “But it don’t matter what a man wears if his heart isn’t easy within him.”
“I don’t know why you should speak in that way, Mr Cheesacre; but it’s what I have felt every hour since — since Greenow left me.”
Mr Cheesacre was rather at a loss to know how he should begin. This allusion to the departed one did not at all assist him, He had so often told the widow that care killed a cat, and that a live dog was better than a dead lion; and had found so little efficacy in the proverbs, that he did not care to revert to them. He was aware that some more decided method of proceeding was now required. Little hints at love-making had been all very well in the earlier days of their acquaintance; but there must be something more than little hints before he could hope to bring the matter to a favourable conclusion. The widow herself had told him that he ought to talk about love; and he had taken two glasses of cherry-brandy, hoping that they might enable him to do so. He had put on a coat with brilliant buttons, and new knickerbockers, in order that he might be master of the occasion. He was resolved to call a spade a spade, and to speak boldly of his passion; but how was he to begin? There was the difficulty. He was now seated in a chair, and there he remained silent for a minute or two, while she smoothed her eyebrows with her handkerchief after her last slight ebullition of grief.
“Mrs Greenow,” he exclaimed at last, jumping up before her; “dearest Mrs Greenow; darling Mrs Greenow, will you be my wife? There! I have said it at last, and I mean it. Everything that I’ve got shall be yours. Of course I speak specially of my hand and heart. As for love — oh, Arabella, if you only knew me! I don’t think there’s a man in Norfolk better able to love a woman than I am. Ever since I first saw you at Yarmouth, I’ve been in love to that extent that I’ve not known what I’ve been about. If you’ll ask them at home, they’ll tell you that I’ve not been able to look after anything about the place — not as it should be done. I haven’t really. I don’t suppose I’ve opened the wages-book half a dozen times since last July.”
“And has that been my fault, Mr Cheesacre?”
“Upon my word, it has. I can’t move about anywhere without thinking about you. My mind’s made up; I won’t stay at Oileymead unless you will come and be its mistress.”
“Not stay at Oileymead?”
“No, indeed. I’ll let the place, and go and travel somewheres. What’s the use of my hanging on there without the woman of my heart? I couldn’t do it, Mrs Greenow; I couldn’t, indeed. Of course I’ve got everything there that money can buy — but it’s all of no use to a man that’s in love. Do you know, I’ve come quite to despise money and stock, and all that sort of thing. I haven’t had my banker’s book home these last three months. Only think of that now.”
“But how can I help you, Mr Cheesacre?”
“Just say one word, and the thing’ll be done. Say you’ll be my wife? I’ll be so good to you. I will, indeed. As for your fortune, I don’t care that for it! I’m not like somebody else; it’s yourself I want. You shall be my pet, and my poppet, and my dearest little duck all the days of your life.”
“No, Mr Cheesacre; it cannot be.”
“And why not? Look here, Arabella!” At these words he rose from his chair, and coming immediately before her, went down on both knees so close to her as to prevent the possibility of her escaping from him. There could be no doubt as to the efficacy of the cherry-brandy. There he was, well down on his knees; but he had not got down so low without some little cracking and straining on the part of the gaiters with which his legs were encompassed. He, in his passion, had probably omitted to notice this; but Mrs Greenow, who was more cool in her present temperament, was painfully aware that he might not be able to rise with ease.
“Mr Cheesacre, don’t make a fool of yourself. Get up,” said she.
“Never, till you have told me that you will be mine!”
“Then you’ll remain there for ever, which will be inconvenient. I won’t have you take hold of my hand, Mr Cheesacre. I tell you to have done.” Whereupon his grasp upon her hand was released; but he made no attempt to rise.
“I never saw a man look so much like a fool in my life,” said she. “If you don’t get up, I’ll push you over. There; don’t you hear? There’s somebody coming.”
But Cheesacre, whose senses were less acute than the lady’s, did not hear. “I’ll never get up,” said he, “till you have bid me hope.”
“Bid you play the fiddle. Get away from my knees, at any rate. There — he’ll be in the room now before — ”
Cheesacre now did hear a sound of steps, and the door was opened while he made his first futile attempt to get back to a standing position. The door was opened, and Captain Bellfield entered. “I beg ten thousand pardons,” said he; “but as I did not see Jeannette, I ventured to come in. May I venture to congratulate my friend Cheesacre on his success?”
In the meantime Cheesacre had risen; but he had done so slowly, and with evident difficulty. “I’ll trouble you to leave the room, Captain Bellfield,” said he. “I’m particularly engaged with Mrs Greenow, as any gentleman might have seen.”
“There wasn’t the slightest difficulty in seeing it, old fellow,” said the Captain. “Shall I wish you joy?”
“I’ll trouble you to leave the room, sir,” said Cheesacre, walking up to him.
“Certainly, if Mrs Greenow will desire me to do so,” said the Captain.
Then Mrs Greenow felt herself called upon to speak. “Gentlemen, I must beg that you will not make my drawing-room a place for quarrelling. Captain Bellfield, lest there should be any misconception, I must beg you to understand that the position in which you found Mr Cheesacre was one altogether of his own seeking. It was not with my consent that he was there.”
“I can easily believe that, Mrs Greenow,” said the Captain.
“Who cares what you believe, sir?” said Mr Cheesacre.
“Gentlemen! gentlemen! this is really unkind. Captain Bellfield, I think I had better ask you to withdraw.”
“By all means,” said Mr Cheesacre.
“As it is absolutely necessary that I should give Mr Cheesacre a definite answer after what has occurred — ”
“Of course,” said Captain Bellfield, preparing to go. “I’ll take another opportunity of paying my respects to you. Perhaps I might be allowed to come this evening?”
To this Mrs Greenow half assented with an uncertain nod, and then the Captain went. As soon as the door was closed behind his back, Mr Cheesacre again prepared to throw himself into his former position, but to this Mrs Greenow decidedly objected. If he were allowed to go down again, there was no knowing what force might be necessary to raise him. “Mr Cheesacre,” she said, “let there be an end to this little farce between us.”
“Farce!” said he, standing with his hand on his heart, and his legs and knickerbockers well displayed.
“It is certainly either a farce or a mistake. If the latter — and I have been at all to blame — I ask your pardon most sincerely.”
“But you’ll be Mrs Cheesacre, won’t you?”
“No, Mr Cheesacre; no. One husband is enough for any woman, and mine lies buried at Birmingham.”
“Oh, damn it!” said he, in utter disgust at this further reference to Mr Greenow. The expression, at such a moment, militated against courtesy; but even Mrs Greenow herself felt that the poor man had been subjected to provocation.
“Let us part friends,” said she, offering him her hand.
But he turned his back upon her, for there was a something in his eye that he wanted to hide. I believe that he really did love her, and that at this moment he would have taken her, even though he had learned that her fortune was gone. “Will you not give me your hand,” said she, “in token that there is no anger between us?”
“Do think about it again — do!” said he. “If there’s anything you like to have changed, I’ll change it at once. I’ll give up Oileymead altogether, if you don’t like being so near the farmyard. I’ll give up anything; so I will. Mrs Greenow, if you only knew how I’ve set my heart upon it!” And now, though his back was turned, the whimpering of his voice told plainly that tears were in his eyes.
She was a little touched. No woman would feel disposed to marry a man simply because he cried, and perhaps few women would be less likely to give way to such tenderness than Mrs Greenow. She understood men and women too well, and had seen too much both of the world’s rough side and of its smooth side to fall into such a blunder as that; but she was touched. “My friend,” she said, putting her hand upon his arm, “think no more of it.”
“But I can’t help thinking of it,” said he, almost blubbering in his earnestness.
“No, no, no,” said she, still touching him with her hand. “Why, Mr Cheesacre, how can you bring yourself to care for an old woman like me, when so many pretty young ladies would give their eyes to get a kind word from you?”
“I don’t want any young lady,” said he.
“There’s Charlie Fairstairs, who would make as good a wife as any girl I know.”
“Psha! Charlie Fairstairs, indeed!” The very idea of having such a bride palmed off upon him did something to restore him to his manly courage.
“Or my niece, Kate Vavasor, who has a nice little fortune of her own, and who is as accomplished as she is good-looking.”
“She’s nothing to me, Mrs Greenow.”
“That’s because you never asked her to be anything. If I get her to come back to Yarmouth next summer, will you think about it? You want a wife, and you couldn’t do better if you searched all England over. It would be so pleasant for us to be such near friends; wouldn’t it?” And again she put her hand upon his arm.
“Mrs Greenow, just at present there’s only one woman in the world that I can think of.”
“And that’s my niece.”
“And that’s yourself. I’m a broken-hearted man — I am, indeed. I didn’t ever think I should feel so much about a thing of the kind — I didn’t, really. I hardly know what to do with myself; but I suppose I’d better go back to Oileymead.” He had become so painfully unconscious of his new coat and his knickerbockers that it was impossible not to pity him. “I shall always hate the place now,” he said — “always.”
“That will pass away. You’d be as happy as a king there, if you’d take Kate for your queen.”
“And what’ll you do, Mrs Greenow?”
“What shall I do?’ — Yes; what will you do?”
“That is, if you marry Kate? Why, I’ll come and stay with you half my time, and nurse the children, as an old grand-aunt should.”
“But about —.” Then he hesitated, and she asked him of what he was thinking.
“You don’t mean to take that man Bellfield, do you?”
“Come, Mr Cheesacre, that’s rank jealousy. What right can you have to ask me whether I shall take any man or no man? The chances are that I shall remain as I am till I’m carried to my grave; but I’m not going to give any pledge about it to you or to any one.”
“You don’t know that man, Mrs Greenow; you don’t, indeed. I tell it you as your friend. Does not it stand to reason, when he has got nothing in the world, that he must be a beggar? It’s all very well saying that when a man is courting a lady, he shouldn’t say much about his money; but you won’t make me believe that any man will make a good husband who hasn’t got a shilling. And for lies, there’s no beating him!”
“Why, then, has he been such a friend of yours?”
“Well, because I’ve been foolish. I took up with him just because he looked pleasant, I suppose.”
“And you want to prevent me from doing the same thing.”
“If you were to marry him, Mrs Greenow, it’s my belief I should do him a mischief; it is, really. I don’t think I could stand it — a mean, skulking beggar! I suppose I’d better go now?”
“Certainly, if that’s the way you choose to talk about my friends.”
“Friends, indeed! Well, I won’t say any more at present. I suppose if I was to talk for ever it wouldn’t be any good?”
“Come and talk to Kate Vavasor for ever, Mr Cheesacre.”
To this he made no reply, but went forth from the house, and got his gig, and drove himself home to Oileymead, thinking of his disappointment with all the bitterness of a young lover. “I didn’t ever think I should ever care so much about anything,” he said, as he took himself up to bed that night.
That evening Captain Bellfield did call in the Close, as he had said he would do, but he was not admitted. “Her mistress was very bad with a headache,” Jeannette said.
Early in April, the Easter recess being all over, Lady Monk gave a grand party in London. Lady Monk’s town house was in Gloucester Square. It was a large mansion, and Lady Monk’s parties in London were known to be very great affairs. She usually gave two or three in the season, and spent a large portion of her time and energy in so arranging matters that her parties should be successful. As this was her special line in life, a failure would have been very distressing to her — and we may also say very disgraceful, taking into consideration, as we should do in forming our judgment on the subject, the very large sums of Sir Cosmo’s money which she spent in this way. But she seldom did fail. She knew how to select her days, so as not to fall foul of other events. It seldom happened that people could not come to her because of a division which occupied all the Members of Parliament, or that they were drawn away by the superior magnitude of some other attraction in the world of fashion. This giving of parties was her business, and she had learned it thoroughly. She worked at it harder than most men work at their trades, and let us hope that the profits were consolatory.
It was generally acknowledged to be the proper thing to go to Lady Monk’s parties. There were certain people who were asked, and who went as a matter of course — people who were by no means on intimate terms with Lady Monk, or with Sir Cosmo; but they were people to have whom was the proper thing, and they were people who understood that to go to Lady Monk’s was the proper thing for them. The Duchess of St Bungay was always there, though she hated Lady Monk, and Lady Monk always abused her; but a card was sent to the Duchess in the same way as the Lord Mayor invites a Cabinet Minister to dinner, even though the one man might believe the other to lie a thief. And Mrs Conway Sparkes was generally there; she went everywhere. Lady Monk did not at all know why Mrs Conway Sparkes was so favoured by the world; but there was the fact, and she bowed to it. Then there were another set, the members of which were or were not invited, according to circumstances, at the time; and these were the people who were probably the most legitimate recipients of Lady Monk’s hospitality. Old family friends of her husband were among the number. Let the Tuftons come in April, and perhaps again in May; then they will not feel their exclusion from that seventh heaven of glory — the great culminating crush in July. Scores of young ladies who really loved parties belonged to this set. Their mothers and aunts knew Lady Monk’s sisters and cousins. They accepted so much of Lady Monk’s good things as she vouchsafed them, and were thankful. Then there was another lot, which generally became, especially on that great July occasion, the most numerous of the three. It comprised all those who made strong interest to obtain admittance within her ladyship’s house — who struggled and fought almost with tooth and nail to get invitations. Against these people Lady Monk carried on an internecine war. Had she not done so she would have been swamped by them, and her success would have been at an end; but yet she never dreamed of shutting her doors against them altogether, or of saying boldly that none such should hamper her staircases. She knew that she must yield, but her effort was made to yield to as few as might be possible. When she was first told by her factotum in these operations that Mr Bott wanted to come, she positively declined to have him. When it was afterwards intimated to her that the Duchess of St Bungay had made a point of it, she sneered at the Duchess, and did not even then yield. But when at last it was brought home to her understanding that Mr Palliser wished it, and that Mr Palliser probably would not come himself unless his wishes were gratified, she gave way. She was especially anxious that Lady Glencora should come to her gathering, and she knew that Lady Glencora could not be had without Mr Palliser.
It was very much desired by her that Lady Glencora should be there. “Burgo,” said she to her nephew, one morning, “look here.” Burgo was at the time staying with his aunt, in Gloucester Square, much to the annoyance of Sir Cosmo, who had become heartily tired of his nephew. The aunt and the nephew had been closeted together more than once lately, and perhaps they understood each other better now than they had done down at Monkshade. The aunt had handed a little note to Burgo, which he read and then threw back to her. “You see that she is not afraid of coming,” said Lady Monk.
“I suppose she doesn’t think much about it,” said Burgo.
“If that’s what you really believe, you’d better give it up. Nothing on earth would justify such a step on your part except a thorough conviction that she is attached to you.”
Burgo looked at the fireplace, almost savagely, and his aunt looked at him very keenly. “Well,” she said, “if there’s to be an end of it, let there be an end of it.”
“I think I’d better hang myself,” he said.
“Burgo, I will not have you here if you talk to me in that way. I am trying to help you once again; but if you look like that, and talk like that, I will give it up.”
“I think you’d better give it up.”
“Are you becoming cowardly at last? With all your faults I never expected that of you.”
“No; I am not a coward. I’d go out and fight him at two paces’ distance with the greatest pleasure in the world.”
“You know that’s nonsense, Burgo. It’s downright braggadocio. Men do not fight now; nor at any time would a man be called upon to fight, because you simply wanted to take his wife from him. If you had done it, indeed!”
“How am I to do it? I’d do it tomorrow if it depended on me. No one can say that I’m afraid of anybody or of anything.”
“I suppose something in the matter depends on her?”
“I believe she loves me — if you mean that?”
“Look here, Burgo,” and the considerate aunt gave to the impoverished and ruined nephew such counsel as she, in accordance with her lights, was enabled to bestow. “I think you were much wronged in that matter. After what had passed I thought that you had a right to claim Lady Glencora as your wife. Mr Palliser, in my mind, behaved very wrongly in stepping in between you and — you and such a fortune as hers, in that way. He cannot expect that his wife should have any affection for him. There is nobody alive who has a greater horror of anything improper in married women than I have. I have always shown it. When Lady Madeline Madtop left her husband, I would never allow her to come inside my doors again — though I have no doubt he ill-used her dreadfully, and there was nothing ever proved between her and Colonel Graham. One can’t be too particular in such matters. But here, if you — if you can succeed, you know, I shall always regard the Palliser episode in Lady Glencora’s life as a tragical accident. I shall, indeed. Poor dear! It was done exactly as they make nuns of girls in Roman Catholic countries; and as I should think no harm of helping a nun out of her convent, so I should think no harm of helping her now. If you are to say anything to her, I think you might have an opportunity at the party.”
Burgo was still looking at the fireplace; and he sat on, looking and still looking, but he said nothing.
“You can think of what I have said, Burgo,” continued his aunt, meaning that he should get up and go. But he did not go. “Have you anything more that you wish to say to me?” she asked.
“I’ve got no money,” said Burgo, still looking at the fireplace.
Lady Glencora’s property was worth not less than fifty thousand a year. He was a young man ambitious of obtaining that almost incredible amount of wealth, and who once had nearly reached it, by means of her love. His present obstacle consisted in his want of a twenty-pound note! “I’ve got no money.” The words were growled out rather than spoken, and his eyes were never turned even for a moment towards his aunt’s face.
“You’ve never got any money,” said she, speaking almost with passion.
“How can I help it? I can’t make money. If I had a couple of hundred pounds, so that I could take her, I believe that she would go with me. It should not be my fault if she did not. It would have been all right if she had come to Monkshade.”
“I’ve got no money for you, Burgo. I have not five pounds belonging to me.”
“But you’ve got —?”
“What?” said Lady Monk, interrupting him sharply.
“Would Cosmo lend it me?” said he, hesitating to go on with that suggestion which he had been about to make. The Cosmo of whom he spoke was not his uncle, but his cousin. No eloquence could have induced his uncle, Sir Cosmo, to lend him another shilling. But the son of the house was a man rich with his own wealth, and Burgo had not taxed him for some years.
“I do not know,” said Lady Monk. “I never see him. Probably not.”
“It is hard,” said Burgo. “Fancy that a man should be ruined for two hundred pounds, just at such a moment of his life as this!” He was a man bold by nature, and he did make his proposition. “You have jewels, aunt — could you not raise it for me? I would redeem them with the very first money that I got.”
Lady Monk rose in a passion when the suggestion was first made, but before the interview was over she had promised that she would endeavour to do something in the way of raising money for him yet once again. He was her favourite nephew, and the same almost to her as a child of her own. With one of her own children indeed she had quarrelled, and of the other, a married daughter, she rarely saw much. Such love as she had to give she gave to Burgo, and she promised him the money though she knew that she must raise it by some villanous falsehood to her husband.
On the same morning Lady Glencora went to Queen Anne Street with the purpose of inducing Alice to go to Lady Monk’s party; but Alice would not accede to the proposition, though Lady Glencora pressed it with all her eloquence. “I don’t know her,” said Alice.
“My dear,” said Lady Glencora, “that’s absurd. Half the people there won’t know her.”
“But they know her set, or know her friends — or, at any rate, will meet their own friends at her house. I should only bother you, and should not in the least gratify myself.”
“The fact is, everybody will go who can, and I should have no sort of trouble in getting a card for you. Indeed I should simply write a note and say I meant to bring you.”
“Pray don’t do any such thing, for I certainly shall not go. I can’t conceive why you should wish it.”
“Mr Fitzgerald will be there,” said Lady Glencora, altering her voice altogether, and speaking in that low tone with which she used to win Alice’s heart down at Matching. She was sitting close over the fire, leaning low, holding up her little hands as a screen to her face, and looking at her companion earnestly. “I’m sure that he will be there, though nobody has told me.”
“That may be a reason for your staying away,” said Alice, slowly, “but hardly a reason for my going with you.”
Lady Glencora would not condescend to tell her friend in so many words that she wanted her protection. She could not bring herself to say that, though she wished it to be understood. “Ah! I thought you would have gone,” said she.
“It would lie contrary to all my habits,” said Alice. “I never go to people’s houses when I don’t know them. It’s a kind of society which I don’t like. Pray do not ask me.”
“Oh! very well. If it must be so, I won’t press it.” Lady Glencora had moved the position of one of her hands so as to get it to her pocket, and there had grasped a letter, which she still carried; but when Alice said those last cold words, “Pray do not ask me,” she released the grasp, and left the letter where it was. “I suppose he won’t bite me, at any rate,” she said, and she assumed that look of childish drollery which she would sometimes put on, almost with a grimace, but still with so much prettiness that no one who saw her would regret it.
“He certainly can’t bite you, if you will not let him.”
“Do you know, Alice, though they all say that Plantagenet is one of the wisest men in London, I sometimes think that he is one of the greatest fools. Soon after we came to town I told him that we had better not go to that woman’s house. Of course he understood me. He simply said that he wished that I should do so. ‘I hate anything out of the way,’ he said. ‘There can be no reason why my wife should not go to Lady Monk’s house as well as to any other.’ There was an end of it, you know, as far as anything I could do was concerned. But there wasn’t an end of it with him. He insists that I shall go, but he sends my duenna with me. Dear Mrs Marsham is to be there!”
“She’ll do you no harm, I suppose?”
“I’m not so sure of that, Alice. In the first place, one doesn’t like to be followed everywhere by a policeman, even though one isn’t going to pick a pocket. And then, the devil is so strong within me, that I should like to dodge the policeman. I can fancy a woman being driven to do wrong simply by a desire to show her policeman that she can be too many for him.”
“Glencora, you make me so wretched when you talk like that.”
“Will you go with me, then, so that I may have a policeman of my own choosing? He asked me if I would mind taking Mrs Marsham with me in my carriage. So I up and spoke, very boldly, like the proud young porter, and told him I would not; and when he asked why not, I said that I preferred taking a friend of my own — a young friend, I said, and I then named you or my cousin, Lady Jane. I told him I should bring one or the other.”
“And was he angry?”
“No; he took it very quietly — saying something, in his calm way, about hoping that I should get over a prejudice against one of his earliest and dearest friends. He twits at me because I don’t understand Parliament and the British Constitution, but I know more of them than he does about a woman. You are quite sure you won’t go, then?” Alice hesitated a moment. “Do,” said Lady Glencora; and there was an amount of persuasion in her accent which should, I think, have overcome her cousin’s scruples.
“It is against the whole tenor of my life’s way,” she said. “And, Glencora, I am not happy myself. I am not fit for parties. I sometimes think that I shall never go into society again.”
“That’s nonsense, you know.”
“I suppose it is, but I cannot go now. I would if I really thought — ”
“Oh, very well,” said Lady Glencora, interrupting her. “I suppose I shall get through it. If he asks me to dance, I shall stand up with him, just as though I had never seen him before.” Then she remembered the letter in her pocket — remembered that at this moment she bore about with her a written proposition from this man to go off with him and leave her husband’s house. She had intended to show it to Alice on this occasion; but as Alice had refused her request, she was glad that she had not done so. “You’ll come to me the morning after,” said Lady Glencora, as she went. This Alice promised to do; and then she was left alone.
Alice regretted — regretted deeply that she had not consented to go with her cousin. After all, of what importance had been her objection when compared with the cause for which her presence had been desired? Doubtless she would have been uncomfortable at Lady Monk’s house; but could she not have borne some hour or two of discomfort on her friend’s behalf? But, in truth, it was only after Lady Glencora had left her that she began to understand the subject fully, and to feel that she might possibly have been of service in a great danger. But it was too late now, Then she strove to comfort herself with the reflection that a casual meeting at an evening party in London could not be perilous in the same degree as a prolonged sojourn together in a country-house.
Lady Monk’s use in Gloucester Square was admirably well adapted for the giving of parties. It was a larger house and seemed to the eyes of guests to be much larger than it was. The hall was spacious, and the stairs went up in the centre, facing you as you entered the inner hall. Round the top of the stairs there was a broad gallery, with an ornamented railing, and from this opened the doors into the three reception-rooms. There were two on the right, the larger of which looked out backwards, and these two were connected by an archway, as though made for folding doors; but the doors, I believe, never were there. Fronting the top of the staircase there was a smaller room, looking out backwards, very prettily furnished, and much used by Lady Monk when alone. It was here that Burgo had held that conference with his aunt of which mention has been made. Below stairs there was the great dining-room, in which, on these occasions, a huge buffet was erected for refreshments — what I may call a masculine buffet, as it was attended by butlers and men in livery — and there was a smaller room looking out into the square, in which there was a feminine buttery for the dispensing of tea and such like smaller good things, and from which female aid could be attained for the arrangement or mending of dresses in a further sanctum within it. For such purposes as that now on foot the house was most commodious. Lady Monk, on these occasions, was moved by a noble ambition to do something different from that done by her neighbours in similar circumstances, and therefore she never came forward to receive her guests. She ensconced herself, early in the evening, in that room at the head of the stairs, and there they who chose to see her made their way up to her, and spoke their little speeches. They who thought her to be a great woman — and many people did think her to be great — were wont to declare that she never forgot those who did come, or those who did not. And even they who desired to describe her as little — for even Lady Monk had enemies — would hint that though she never came out of the room, she would rise from her chair and make a step towards the door whenever any name very high in fashionable life greeted her ears. So that a mighty Cabinet Minister, or a duchess in great repute, or any special wonder of the season, could not fail of entering her precincts and being seen there for a few moments. It would, of course, happen that the doorway of her chamber would become blocked; but there were precautions taken to avoid this inconvenience as far as possible, and one man in livery was employed to go backwards and forwards between his mistress and the outer world, so as to keep the thread of a passage open.
But though Lady Monk was in this way enabled to rest herself during her labours, there was much in her night’s work which was not altogether exhilarating. Ladies would come into her small room and sit there by the hour, with whom she had not the slightest wish to hold conversation. The Duchess of St Bungay would always be there — so that there was a special seat in one corner of the room which was called the Duchess’ stool. “I shouldn’t care a straw about her”, Lady Monk had been heard to complain, “if she would talk to anybody. But nobody will talk to her, and then she listens to everything.”
There had been another word or two between Burgo Fitzgerald and his aunt before the evening came, a word or two in the speaking of which she had found some difficulty. She was prepared with the money — with that two hundred pounds for which he had asked — obtained with what wiles, and lies, and baseness of subterfuge I need not stop here to describe. But she was by no means willing to give this over into her nephew’s hands without security. She was willing to advance him this money; she had been willing even to go through unusual dirt to get it for him; but she was desirous that he should have it only for a certain purpose. How could she bind him down to spend it as she would have it spent? Could she undertake to hand it to him as soon as Lady Glencora should be in his power? Even though she could have brought herself to say as much — and I think she might almost have done so after what she had said — she could not have carried out such a plan. In that case the want would be instant, and the action must be rapid. She therefore had no alternative but to entrust him with the bank-notes at once. “Burgo,” she said, “if I find that you deceive me now, I will never trust you again.”
“All right,” said Burgo, as he barely counted the money before he thrust it into his breast pocket. “It is lent to you for a certain purpose, should you happen to want it,” she said, solemnly. “I do happen to want it very much,” he answered. She did not dare to say more; but as her nephew turned away from her with a step that was quite light in its gaiety, she almost felt that she was already cozened. Let Burgo’s troubles be as heavy as they might be, there was something to him ecstatic in the touch of ready money which always cured them for the moment. On the morning of Lady Monk’s party a few very uncomfortable words passed between Mr Palliser and his wife.
“Your cousin is not going, then?” said he.
“Alice is not going.”
“Then you can give Mrs Marsham a seat in your carriage?”
“Impossible, Plantagenet. I thought I had told you that I had promised my cousin Jane.”
“But you can take three.”
“Indeed I can’t — unless you would like me to sit out with the coachman.”
There was something in this — a tone of loudness, a touch of what he called to himself vulgarity — which made him very angry. So he turned away from her, and looked as black as a thunder-cloud.
“You must know, Plantagenet,” she went on, “that it is impossible for three women dressed to go out in one carriage. I am sure you wouldn’t like to see me afterwards if I had been one of them.”
“You need not have said anything to Lady Jane when Miss Vavasor refused. I had asked you before that.”
“And I had told you that I liked going with young women, and not with old ones. That’s the long and the short of it.”
“Glencora, I wish you would not use such expressions.”
“What! not the long and the short? It’s good English. Quite as good as Mr Bott’s, when he said in the House the other night that the Government kept their accounts in a higgledy-piggledy way. You see, I have been studying the debates, and you shouldn’t be angry with me.”
“I am not angry with you. You speak like a child to say so. Then, I suppose, the carriage must go for Mrs Marsham after it has taken you?”
“It shall go before. Jane will not be in a hurry, and I am sure I shall not.”
“She will think you very uncivil; that is all. I told her that she could go with you when I heard that Miss Vavasor was not to be there.”
“Then, Plantagenet, you shouldn’t have told her so, and that’s the long —; but I mustn’t say that. The truth is this, if you give me any orders I’ll obey them — as far as I can. If I can’t I’ll say so. But if I’m left to go by my own judgment, it’s not fair that I should be scolded afterwards.”
“I have never scolded you.”
“Yes, you have. You have told me that I was uncivil.”
“I said that she would think you so.”
“Then, if it’s only what she thinks, I don’t care two straws about it. She may have the carriage to herself if she likes, but she shan’t have me in it — not unless I’m ordered to go. I don’t like her, and I won’t pretend to like her. My belief is that she follows me about to tell you if she thinks that I do wrong.”
“Glencora!”
“And that odious baboon with the red bristles does the same thing, only he goes to her because he doesn’t dare to go to you.” Plantagenet Palliser was struck wild with dismay. He understood well who it was whom his wife intended to describe; but that she should have spoken of any man as a baboon with red bristles, was terrible to his mind! He was beginning to think that he hardly knew how to manage his wife. And the picture she had drawn was very distressing to him. She had no mother; neither had he; and he had wished that Mrs Marsham should give to her some of that matronly assistance and guidance which a mother does give to her young married daughter. It was true, too, as he knew, that a word or two as to some socially domestic matters had filtered through to him from Mr Bott, down at Matching Priory, but only in such a way as to enable him to see what counsel it was needful that he should give. As for espionage over his wife — no man could despise it more than he did! No man would be less willing to resort to it! And now his wife was accusing him of keeping spies, both male and female.
“Glencora!” he said again; and then he stopped, not knowing what to say to her.
“Well, my dear, it’s better you should know at once what I feel about it. I don’t suppose I’m very good; indeed I dare say I’m bad enough, but these people about me won’t make me any better. The duennas don’t make the Spanish ladies worth much.”
“Duennas!” After that, Lady Glencora sat herself down, and Mr Palliser stood for some moments looking at her.
It ended in his making her a long speech, in which he said a good deal of his own justice and forbearance, and something also of her frivolity and childishness. He told her that his only complaint of her was that she was too young, and, as he did so, she made a little grimace — not to him, but to herself, as though saying to herself that that was all he knew about it. He did not notice it, or, if he did, his notice did not stop his eloquence. He assured her that he was far from keeping any watch over her, and declared that she had altogether mistaken Mrs Marsham’s character. Then there was another little grimace. “There’s somebody has mistaken it worse than I have,” the grimace said. Of the bristly baboon he condescended to say nothing, and he wound up by giving her a cold kiss, and saying that he would meet her at Lady Monk’s.
When the evening came — or rather the night — the carriage went first for Mrs Marsham, and having deposited her at Lady Monk’s, went back to Park Lane for Lady Glencora. Then she had herself driven to St James’s Square, to pick up Lady Jane, so that altogether the coachman and horses did not have a good time of it. “I wish he’d keep a separate carriage for her,” Lady Glencora said to her cousin Jane — having perceived that her servants were not in a good humour. “That would be expensive,” said Lady Jane. “Yes, it would be expensive,” said Lady Glencora. She would not condescend to make any remark as to the non-importance of such expense to a man so wealthy as her husband, knowing that his wealth was, in fact, hers. Never to him or to any other — not even to herself — had she hinted that much was due to her because she had been magnificent as an heiress. There were many things about this woman that were not altogether what a husband might wish. She was not softly delicate in all her ways; but in disposition and temper she was altogether generous. I do not know that she was at all points a lady, but had Fate so willed it she would have been a thorough gentleman.
Mrs Marsham was by no means satisfied with the way in which she was treated. She would not have cared to go at all to Lady Monk’s party had she supposed that she would have to make her entry there alone. With Lady Glencora she would have seemed to receive some of that homage which would certainly have been paid to her companion. The carriage called, moreover, before she was fully ready, and the footman, as he stood at the door to hand her in, had been very sulky. She understood it all. She knew that Lady Glencora had positively declined her companionship; and if she resolved to be revenged, such resolution on her part was only natural. When she reached Lady Monk’s house, she had to make her way upstairs all alone. The servants called her Mrs Marsh, and under that name she got passed on into the front drawing-room. There she sat down, not having seen Lady Monk, and meditated over her injuries.
It was past eleven before Lady Glencora arrived, and Burgo Fitzgerald had begun to think that his evil stars intended that he should never see her again. He had been wickedly baulked at Monkshade, by what influence he had never yet ascertained; and now he thought that the same influence must be at work to keep her again away from his aunt’s house. He had settled in his mind no accurate plan of a campaign; he had in his thoughts no fixed arrangement by which he might do the thing which he meditated. He had attempted to make some such plan; but, as is the case with all men to whom thinking is an unusual operation, concluded at last that he had better leave it to the course of events. It was, however, obviously necessary that he should see Lady Glencora before the course of events could be made to do anything for him. He had written to her, making his proposition in bold terms, and he felt that if she were utterly decided against him, her anger at his suggestion, or at least her refusal, would have been made known to him in some way. Silence did not absolutely give consent, but it seemed to show that consent was not impossible. From ten o’clock to past eleven he stood about on the staircase of his aunt’s house, waiting for the name which he was desirous of hearing, and which he almost feared to hear. Men spoke to him, and women also, but he hardly answered. His aunt once called him into her room, and with a cautionary frown on her brow, bade him go and dance. “Don’t look so dreadfully preoccupied,” she said to him in a whisper. But he shook his head at her, almost savagely, and went away, and did not dance. Dance! How was he to dance with such an enterprise as that upon his mind? Even to Burgo Fitzgerald the task of running away with another man’s wife had in it something which prevented dancing. Lady Monk was older, and was able to regulate her feelings with more exactness. But Burgo, though he could not dance, went down into the dining-room and drank. He took a large beer-glass full of champagne, and soon after that another. The drink did not flush his cheeks, or make his forehead red, or bring out the sweat-drops on his brow, as it does with some men; but it added a peculiar brightness to his blue eyes. It was by the light of his eyes that men knew when Burgo had been drinking.
At last, while he was still in the supper-room, he heard Lady Glencora’s name announced. He had already seen Mr Palliser come in and make his way upstairs some quarter of an hour before; but as to that he was indifferent. He had known that the husband was to be there. When the long-expected name reached his ears, his heart seemed to jump within him. What, on the spur of the moment, should he do? As he had resolved that he would be doing — that something should be done, let it be what it might — he hurried to the dining-room door, and was just in time to see and be seen as Lady Glencora was passing up the stairs. She was just above him as he got himself out into the hall, so that he could not absolutely greet her with his hand; but he looked up at her, and caught her eye. He looked up, and moved his hand to her in token of salutation. She looked down at him, and the expression of her face altered visibly as her glance met his. She barely bowed to him — with her eyes rather than with her head, but he flattered himself that there was, at any rate, no anger in her countenance. How beautiful he was as he gazed up at her, leaning against the wall as he stood, and watching her as she made her slow way up the stairs! She felt that his eyes were on her, and where the stairs turned she could not restrain herself from one other glance. As her eyes fell on his again, his mouth opened, and she fancied that she could hear the faint sigh that he uttered. It was a glorious mouth, such as the old sculptors gave to their marble gods! And Burgo, if it was so that he had not heart enough to love truly, could look as though he loved. It was not in him deceit — or what men call acting. The expression came to him naturally, though it expressed so much more than there was within; as strong words come to some men who have no knowledge that they are speaking strongly. At this moment Burgo Fitzgerald looked as though it were possible that he might die of love.
Lady Glencora was met at the top of the stairs by Lady Monk, who came out to her, almost into the gallery, with her sweetest smile — so that the newly-arrived guest, of course, entered into the small room. There sat the Duchess of St Bungay on her stool in the corner, and there, next to the Duchess, but at the moment engaged in no conversation, stood Mr Bott. There was another lady there, who stood very high in the world, and whom Lady Monk was very glad to welcome — the young Marchioness of Hartletop. She was in slight mourning; for her father-in-law, the late Marquis, had died not yet quite six months since. Very beautiful she was, and one whose presence at their houses ladies and gentlemen prized alike. She never said silly things, like the Duchess, never was troublesome as to people’s conduct to her, was always gracious, yet was never led away into intimacies, was without peer the best-dressed woman in London, and yet gave herself no airs — and then she was so exquisitely beautiful. Her smile was loveliness itself. There were, indeed, people who said that it meant nothing; but then, what should the smile of a young married woman mean? She had not been born in the purple, like Lady Glencora, her father being a country clergyman who had never reached a higher grade than that of an archdeacon; but she knew the ways of high life, and what an exigeant husband would demand of her, much better than poor Glencora. She would have spoken of no man as a baboon with a bristly beard. She never talked of the long and the short of it. She did not wander out o’ nights in winter among the ruins. She made no fast friendship with ladies whom her lord did not like. She had once, indeed, been approached by a lover since she had been married — Mr Palliser himself having been the offender — but she had turned the affair to infinite credit and profit, had gained her husband’s closest confidence by telling him of it all, had yet not brought on any hostile collision, and had even dismissed her lover without annoying him. But then Lady Hartletop was a miracle of a woman!
Lady Glencora was no miracle. Though born in the purple, she was made of ordinary flesh and blood, and as she entered Lady Monk’s little room, hardly knew how to recover herself sufficiently for the purposes of ordinary conversation. “Dear Lady Glencora, do come in for a moment to my den. We were so sorry not to have you at Monkshade. We heard such terrible things about your health.” Lady Glencora said that it was only a cold — a bad cold. “Oh, yes; we heard — something about moonlight and ruins. So like you, you know. I love that sort of thing, above all people; but it doesn’t do; does it? Circumstances are so exacting. I think you know Lady Hartletop — and there’s the Duchess of St Bungay. Mr Palliser was here five minutes since.” Then Lady Monk was obliged to get to her door again, and Lady Glencora found herself standing close to Lady Hartletop.
“We saw Mr Palliser just pass through,” said Lady Hartletop, who was able to meet and speak of the man who had dared to approach her with his love, without the slightest nervousness.
“Yes; he said he should be here,” said Lady Glencora.
“There’s a great crowd,” said Lady Hartletop. “I didn’t think London was so full.”
“Very great,” said Lady Glencora, and then they had said to each other all that society required. Lady Glencora, as we know, could talk with imprudent vehemence by the hour together if she liked her companion; but the other lady seldom committed herself by more words than she had uttered now — unless it was to her tirewoman.
“How very well you are looking!” said the Duchess. “And I heard you had been so ill.” Of that midnight escapade among the ruins it was fated that Lady Glencora should never hear the last.
“How d’ye do, Lady Glencowrer?” sounded in her ear, and there was a great red paw stuck out for her to take. But after what had passed between Lady Glencora and her husband today about Mr Bott; she was determined that she would not take Mr Bott’s hand.
“How are you, Mr Bott?” she said. “I think I’ll look for Mr Palliser in the back room.”
“Dear Lady Glencora,” whispered the Duchess, in an ecstasy of agony. Lady Glencora turned and bowed her head to her stout friend. “Do let me go away with you. There’s that woman, Mrs Conway Sparkes, coming, and you know how I hate her.” She had nothing to do but to take the Duchess under her wing, and they passed into the large room together. It is, I think, more than probable that Mrs Conway Sparkes had been brought in by Lady Monk as the only way of removing the Duchess from her stool.
Just within the dancing-room Lady Glencora found her husband, standing in a corner, looking as though he were making calculations.
“I’m going away,” said he, coming up to her. “I only just came because I said I would. Shall you be late?”
“Oh, no; I suppose not.”
“Shall you dance?”
“Perhaps once, just to show that I’m not an old woman.”
“Don’t heat yourself. Goodbye.” Then he went, and in the crush of the doorway he passed Burgo Fitzgerald, whose eye was intently fixed upon his wife. He looked at Burgo, and some thought of that young man’s former hopes flashed across his mind — some remembrance, too, of a caution that had been whispered to him; but for no moment did a suspicion come to him that he ought to stop and watch by his wife.