Alice, on her return from Westmoreland, went direct to Park Lane, whither Lady Glencora and Mr. Palliser had also returned before her. She was to remain with them in London one entire day, and on the morning after that they were to start for Paris. She found Mr. Palliser in close attendance upon his wife. Not that there was anything in his manner which at all implied that he was keeping watch over her, or that he was more with her, or closer to her than a loving husband might wish to be with a young wife; but the mode of life was very different from that which Alice had seen at Matching Priory!
On her arrival Mr. Palliser himself received her in the hall, and took her up to his wife before she had taken off her travelling hat. "We are so much obliged to you, Miss Vavasor," he said. "I feel it quite as deeply as Glencora."
"Oh, no," she said; "it is I that am under obligation to you for taking me."
He merely smiled, and shook his head, and then took her up-stairs. On the stairs he said one other word to her: "You must forgive me if I was cross to you that night she went out among the ruins." Alice muttered something,--some little fib of courtesy as to the matter having been forgotten, or never borne in mind; and then they went on to Lady Glencora's room. It seemed to Alice that he was not so big or so much to be dreaded as when she had seen him at Matching. His descent from an expectant, or more than an expectant, Chancellor of the Exchequer, down to a simple, attentive husband, seemed to affect his gait, his voice, and all his demeanour. When he received Alice at the Priory he certainly loomed before her as something great, whereas now his greatness seemed to have fallen from him. We must own that this was hard upon him, seeing that the deed by which he had divested himself of his greatness had been so pure and good!
"Dear Alice, this is so good of you! I am all in the midst of packing, and Plantagenet is helping me." Plantagenet winced a little under this, as the hero of old must have winced when he was found with the distaff. Mr. Palliser had relinquished his sword of state for the distaff which he had assumed, and could take no glory in the change. There was, too, in his wife's voice the slightest hint of mockery, which, slight as it was, he perhaps thought she might have spared. "You have nothing left to pack," continued Glencora, "and I don't know what you can do to amuse yourself."
"I will help you," said Alice.
"But we have so very nearly done. I think we shall have to pull all the things out, and put them up again, or we shall never get through to-morrow. We couldn't start to-morrow;--could we, Plantagenet?"
"Not very well, as your rooms are ordered in Paris for the next day."
"As if we couldn't find rooms at every inn on the road. Men are so particular. Now in travelling I should like never to order rooms,--never to know where I was going or when I was going, and to carry everything I wanted in a market-basket." Alice, who by this time had followed her friend along the passage to her bedroom, and had seen how widely the packages were spread about, bethought herself that the market-basket should be a large one. "And I would never travel among Christians. Christians are so slow, and they wear chimney-pot hats everywhere. The further one goes from London among Christians, the more they wear chimney-pot hats. I want Plantagenet to take us to see the Kurds, but he won't."
"I don't think that would be fair to Miss Vavasor," said Mr. Palliser, who had followed them.
"Don't put the blame on her head," said Lady Glencora. "Women have always pluck for anything. Wouldn't you like to see a live Kurd, Alice?"
"I don't exactly know where they live," said Alice.
"Nor I. I have not the remotest idea of the way to the Kurds. You see my joke, don't you, though Plantagenet doesn't? But one knows that they are Eastern, and the East is such a grand idea!"
"I think we'll content ourselves with Rome, or perhaps Naples, on this occasion," said Mr. Palliser.
The notion of Lady Glencora packing anything for herself was as good a joke as that other one of the Kurds and whey. But she went flitting about from room to room, declaring that this thing must be taken, and that other, till the market-basket would have become very large indeed. Alice was astonished at the extent of the preparations, and the sort of equipage with which they were about to travel. Lady Glencora was taking her own carriage. "Not that I shall ever use it," she said to Alice, "but he insists upon it, to show that I am not supposed to be taken away in disgrace. He is so good;--isn't he?"
"Very good," said Alice. "I know no one better."
"And so dull!" said Lady Glencora. "But I fancy that all husbands are dull from the nature of their position. If I were a young woman's husband, I shouldn't know what to say to her that wasn't dull."
Two women and two men servants were to be taken. Alice had received permission to bring her own maid--"or a dozen, if you want them," Lady Glencora had said. "Mr. Palliser in his present mood would think nothing too much to do for you. If you were to ask him to go among the Kurds, he'd go at once;--or on to Crim Tartary, if you made a point of it." But as both Lady Glencora's servants spoke French, and as her own did not, Alice trusted herself in that respect to her cousin. "You shall have one all to yourself," said Lady Glencora. "I only take two for the same reason that I take the carriage,--just as you let a child go out in her best frock, for a treat, after you've scolded her."
When Alice asked why it was supposed that Mr. Palliser was so specially devoted to her, the thing was explained to her. "You see, my dear, I have told him everything. I always do tell everything. Nobody can say I am not candid. He knows about your not letting me come to your house in the old days. Oh, Alice!--you were wrong then; I shall always say that. But it's done and gone; and things that are done and gone shall be done and gone for me. And I told him all that you said,--about you know what. I have had nothing else to do but make confessions for the last ten days, and when a woman once begins, the more she confesses the better. And I told him that you refused Jeffrey."
"You didn't?"
"I did indeed, and he likes you the better for that. I think he'd let Jeffrey marry you now if you both wished it;--and then, oh dear!--supposing that you had a son and that we adopted it?"
"Cora, if you go on in that way I will not remain with you."
"But you must, my dear. You can't escape now. At any rate, you can't when we once get to Paris. Oh dear! you shouldn't grudge me my little naughtinesses. I have been so proper for the last ten days. Do you know I got into a way of driving Dandy and Flirt at the rate of six miles an hour, till I'm sure the poor beasts thought they were always going to a funeral. Poor Dandy and poor Flirt! I shan't see them now for another year."
On the following morning they breakfasted early, because Mr. Palliser had got into an early habit. He had said that early hours would be good for them. "But he never tells me why," said Lady Glencora. "I think it is pleasant when people are travelling," said Alice. "It isn't that," her cousin answered; "but we are all to be such particularly good children. It's hardly fair, because he went to sleep last night after dinner while you and I kept ourselves awake: but we needn't do that another night, to be sure." After breakfast they all three went to work to do nothing. It was ludicrous and almost painful to see Mr. Palliser wandering about and counting the boxes, as though he could do any good by that. At this special crisis of his life he hated his papers and figures and statistics, and could not apply himself to them. He, whose application had been so unremitting, could apply himself now to nothing. His world had been brought to an abrupt end, and he was awkward at making a new beginning. I believe that they all three were reading novels before one o'clock. Lady Glencora and Alice had determined that they would not leave the house throughout the day. "Nothing has been said about it, but I regard it as part of the bond that I'm not to go out anywhere. Who knows but what I might be found in Gloucester Square?" There was, however, no absolute necessity that Mr. Palliser should remain with them; and, at about three, he prepared himself for a solitary walk. He would not go down to the House. All interest in the House was over with him for the present. He had the Speaker's leave to absent himself for the season. Nor would he call on anyone. All his friends knew, or believed they knew, that he had left town. His death and burial had been already chronicled, and were he now to reappear, he could reappear only as a ghost. He was being talked of as the departed one;--or rather, such talk on all sides had now come nearly to an end. The poor Duke of St. Bungay still thought of him with regret when more than ordinarily annoyed by some special grievance coming to him from Mr. Finespun; but even the Duke had become almost reconciled to the present order of things. Mr. Palliser knew better than to disturb all this by showing himself again in public; and prepared himself, therefore, to take another walk under the elms in Kensington Gardens.
He had his hat on his head in the hall, and was in the act of putting on his gloves, when there came a knock at the front door. The hall-porter was there, a stout, plethoric personage, not given to many words, who was at this moment standing with his master's umbrella in his hand, looking as though he would fain be of some use to somebody, if any such utility were compatible with the purposes of his existence. Now had come this knock at the door, while the umbrella was still in his hand, and the nature of his visage changed, and it was easy to see that he was oppressed by the temporary multiplicity of his duties. "Give me the umbrella, John," said Mr. Palliser. John gave up the umbrella, and opening the door disclosed Burgo Fitzgerald standing upon the door-step. "Is Lady Glencora at home?" asked Burgo, before he had seen the husband. John turned a dismayed face upon his master, as though he knew that the comer ought not to be making a morning call at that house,--as no doubt he did know very well,--and made no instant reply. "I am not sure," said Mr. Palliser, making his way out as he had originally purposed. "The servant will find out for you." Then he went on his way across Park Lane and into the Park, never once turning back his face to see whether Burgo had effected an entrance into the house. Nor did he return a minute earlier than he would otherwise have done. After all, there was something chivalrous about the man.
"Yes; Lady Glencora was at home," said the porter, not stirring to make any further inquiry. It was no business of his if Mr. Palliser chose to receive such a guest. He had not been desired to say that her ladyship was not at home. Burgo was therefore admitted and shown direct up into the room in which Lady Glencora was sitting. As chance would have it, she was alone. Alice had left her and was in her own chamber, and Lady Glencora was sitting at the window of the small room up-stairs that overlooked the Park. She was seated on a footstool with her face between her hands when Burgo was admitted, thinking of him, and of what the world might have been to her had "they left her alone," as she was in the habit of saying to Alice and to herself.
She rose quickly, so that he saw her only as she was rising. "Ask Miss Vavasor to come to me," she said, as the servant left the room; and then she came forward to greet her lover.
"Cora," he said, dashing at once into his subject--hopelessly, but still with a resolve to do as he had said that he would do. "Cora, I have come to you, to ask you to go with me."
"I will not go with you," said she.
"Do not answer me in that way, without a moment's thought. Everything is arranged--"
"Yes, everything is arranged," she said. "Mr. Fitzgerald, let me ask you to leave me alone, and to behave to me with generosity. Everything is arranged. You can see that my boxes are all prepared for going. Mr. Palliser and I, and my friend, are starting to-morrow. Wish me God-speed and go, and be generous."
"And is this to be the end of everything?" He was standing close to her, but hitherto he had only touched her hand at greeting her. "Give me your hand, Cora," he said.
"No;--I will never give you my hand again. You should be generous to me and go. This is to be the end of everything,--of everything that is common to you and to me. Go, when I ask you."
"Cora; did you ever love me?"
"Yes; I did love you. But we were separated, and there was no room for love left between us."
"You are as dear to me now,--dearer than ever you were. Do not look at me like that. Did you not tell me when we last parted that I might come to you again? Are we children, that others should come between us and separate us like that?"
"Yes, Burgo; we are children. Here is my cousin coming. You must leave me now." As she spoke the door was opened and Alice entered the room. "Miss Vavasor, Mr. Fitzgerald," said Lady Glencora. "I have told him to go and leave me. Now that you have come, Alice, he will perhaps obey me."
Alice was dumbfounded, and knew not how to speak either to him or to her; but she stood with her eyes riveted on the face of the man of whom she had heard so much. Yes; certainly he was very beautiful. She had never before seen man's beauty such as that. She found it quite impossible to speak a word to him then--at the spur of the moment, but she acknowledged the introduction with a slight inclination of the head, and then stood silent, as though she were waiting for him to go.
"Mr. Fitzgerald, why do you not leave me and go?" said Lady Glencora.
Poor Burgo also found it difficult enough to speak. What could he say? His cause was one which certainly did not admit of being pleaded in the presence of a strange lady; and he might have known from the moment in which he heard Glencora's request that a third person should be summoned to their meeting--and probably did know, that there was no longer any hope for him. It was not on the cards that he should win. But there remained one thing that he must do. He must get himself out of that room; and how was he to effect that?
"I had hoped," said he, looking at Alice, though he addressed Lady Glencora--"I had hoped to be allowed to speak to you alone for a few minutes."
"No, Mr. Fitzgerald; it cannot be so. Alice do not go. I sent for my cousin when I saw you, because I did not choose to be alone with you. I have asked you to go--"
"You perhaps have not understood me?"
"I understand you well enough."
"Then, Mr. Fitzgerald," said Alice, "why do you not do as Lady Glencora has asked you? You know--you must know, that you ought not to be here."
"I know nothing of the kind," said he, still standing his ground.
"Alice," said Lady Glencora, "we will leave Mr. Fitzgerald here, since he drives us from the room."
In such contests, a woman has ever the best of it at all points. The man plays with a button to his foil, while the woman uses a weapon that can really wound. Burgo knew that he must go,--felt that he must skulk away as best he might, and perhaps hear a low titter of half-suppressed laughter as he went. Even that might be possible. "No, Lady Glencora," he said, "I will not drive you from the room. As one must be driven out, it shall be I. I own I did think that you would at any rate have been--less hard to me." He then turned to go, bowing again very slightly to Miss Vavasor.
He was on the threshold of the door before Glencora's voice recalled him. "Oh my God!" she said, "I am hard,--harder than flint. I am cruel. Burgo!" And he was back with her in a moment, and had taken her by the hand.
"Glencora," said Alice, "pray,--pray let him go. Mr. Fitzgerald, if you are a man, do not take advantage of her folly."
"I will speak to him," said Lady Glencora. "I will speak to him, and then he shall leave me." She was holding him by the hand now and turning to him, away from Alice, who had taken her by the arm. "Burgo," she said, repeating his name twice again, with all the passion that she could throw into the word,--"Burgo, no good can come of this. Now, you must leave me. You must go. I shall stay with my husband as I am bound to do. Because I have wronged you, I will not wrong him also. I loved you;--you know I loved you." She still held him by the hand, and was now gazing up into his face, while the tears were streaming from her eyes.
"Sir," said Alice, "you have heard from her all that you can care to hear. If you have any feeling of honour in you, you will leave her."
"I will never leave her, while she tells me that she loves me!"
"Yes, Burgo, you will;--you must! I shall never tell you that again, never. Do as she bids you. Go, and leave us;--but I could not bear that you should tell me that I was hard."
"You are hard;--hard and cruel, as you said, yourself."
"Am I? May God forgive you for saying that of me!"
"Then why do you send me away?"
"Because I am a man's wife, and because I care for his honour, if not for my own. Alice, let us go."
He still held her, but she would have been gone from him had he not stooped over her, and put his arm round her waist. In doing this, I doubt whether he was quicker than she would have been had she chosen to resist him. As it was, he pressed her to his bosom, and, stooping over her, kissed her lips. Then he left her, and making his way out of the room, and down the stairs, got himself out into the street.
"Thank God, that he is gone!" said Alice.
"You may say so," said Lady Glencora, "for you have lost nothing!"
"And you have gained everything!"
"Have I? I did not know that I had ever gained anything, as yet. The only human being to whom I have ever yet given my whole heart,--the only thing that I have ever really loved, has just gone from me for ever, and you bid me thank God that I have lost him. There is no room for thankfulness in any of it;--either in the love or in the loss. It is all wretchedness from first to last!"
"At any rate, he understands now that you meant it when you told him to leave you."
"Of course I meant it. I am beginning to know myself by degrees. As for running away with him, I have not the courage to do it. I can think of it, scheme for it, wish for it;--but as for doing it, that is beyond me. Mr. Palliser is quite safe. He need not try to coax me to remain."
Alice knew that it was useless to argue with her, so she came and sat over her,--for Lady Glencora had again placed herself on the stool by the window,--and tried to sooth her by smoothing her hair, and nursing her like a child.
"Of course I know that I ought to stay where I am," she said, breaking out, almost with rage, and speaking with quick, eager voice. "I am not such a fool as to mistake what I should be if I left my husband, and went to live with that man as his mistress. You don't suppose that I should think that sort of life very blessed. But why have I been brought to such a pass as this? And, as for female purity! Ah! What was their idea of purity when they forced me, like ogres, to marry a man for whom they knew I never cared? Had I gone with him,--had I now eloped with that man who ought to have been my husband,--whom would a just God have punished worst,--me, or those two old women and my uncle, who tortured me into this marriage?"
"Come, Cora,--be silent."
"I won't be silent! You have had the making of your own lot. You have done what you liked, and no one has interfered with you. You have suffered, too; but you, at any rate, can respect yourself."
"And so can you, Cora,--thoroughly, now."
"How;--when he kissed me, and I could hardly restrain myself from giving him back his kiss tenfold, could I respect myself? But it is all sin. I sin towards my husband, feigning that I love him; and I sin in loving that other man, who should have been my husband. There;--I hear Mr. Palliser at the door. Come away with me; or rather, stay, for he will come up here, and you can keep him in talk while I try to recover myself."
Mr. Palliser did at once as his wife had said, and came up-stairs to the little front room, as soon as he had deposited his hat in the hall. Alice was, in fact, in doubt what she should do, as to mentioning, or omitting to mention, Mr. Fitzgerald's name. In an ordinary way, it would be natural that she should name any visitor who had called, and she specially disliked the idea of remaining silent because that visitor had come as the lover of her host's wife. But, on the other hand, she owed much to Lady Glencora; and there was no imperative reason, as things had gone, why she should make mischief. There was no further danger to be apprehended. But Mr. Palliser at once put an end to her doubts. "You have had a visitor here?" said he.
"Yes," said Alice.
"I saw him as I went out," said Mr. Palliser. "Indeed, I met him at the hall door. He, of course, was wrong to come here;--so wrong, that he deserves punishment, if there were any punishment for such offences."
"He has been punished, I think," said Alice.
"But as for Glencora," continued Mr. Palliser, without any apparent notice of what Alice had said, "I thought it better that she should see him or not, as she should herself decide."
"She had no choice in the matter. As it turned out, he was shown up here at once. She sent for me, and I think she was right to do that."
"Glencora was alone when he came in?"
"For a minute or two,--till I could get to her."
"I have no questions to ask about it," said Mr. Palliser, after waiting for a few moments. He had probably thought that Alice would say something further. "I am very glad that you were within reach of her, as otherwise her position might have been painful. For her, and for me perhaps, it may be as well that he has been here. As for him, I can only say, that I am forced to suppose him to be a villain. What a man does when driven by passion, I can forgive; but that he should deliberately plan schemes to ruin both her and me, is what I can hardly understand." As he made this little speech I wonder whether his conscience said anything to him about Lady Dumbello, and a certain evening in his own life, on which he had ventured to call that lady, Griselda.
The little party of three dined together very quietly, and after dinner they all went to work with their novels. Before long Alice saw that Mr. Palliser was yawning, and she began to understand how much he had given up in order that his wife might be secure. It was then, when he had left the room for a few minutes, in order that he might wake himself by walking about the house, that Glencora told Alice of his yawning down at Matching. "I used to think that he would fall in pieces. What are we to do about it?"
"Don't seem to notice it," said Alice.
"That's all very well," said the other; "but he'll set us off yawning as bad as himself, and then he'll notice it. He has given himself up to politics, till nothing else has any salt in it left for him. I cannot think why such a man as that wanted a wife at all."
"You are very hard upon him, Cora."
"I wish you were his wife, with all my heart. But, of course, I know why he got married. And I ought to feel for him as he has been so grievously disappointed." Then Mr. Palliser having walked off his sleep, returned to the room, and the remainder of the evening was passed in absolute tranquillity.
Burgo Fitzgerald, when he left the house, turned back into Grosvenor Square, not knowing, at first, whither he was going. He took himself as far as his uncle's door, and then, having paused there for a moment, hurried on. For half an hour, or thereabouts, something like true feeling was at work within his heart. He had once more pressed to his bosom the woman he had, at any rate, thought that he had loved. He had had his arm round her, and had kissed her, and the tone with which she had called him by his name was still ringing in his ears, "Burgo!" He repeated his own name audibly to himself, as though in this way he could recall her voice. He comforted himself for a minute with the conviction that she loved him. He felt,--for a moment,--that he could live on such consolation as that! But among mortals there could, in truth, hardly be one with whom such consolation would go a shorter way. He was a man who required to have such comfort backed by pats and curaoa to a very large extent, and now it might be doubted whether the amount of pats and curaoa at his command would last him much longer.
He would not go in and tell his aunt at once of his failure, as he could gain nothing by doing so. Indeed, he thought that he would not tell his aunt at all. So he turned back from Grosvenor Square, and went down to his club in St. James's Street, feeling that billiards and brandy-and-water might, for the present, be the best restorative. But, as he went back, he blamed himself very greatly in the matter of those bank-notes which he had allowed Lady Monk to take from him. How had it come to pass that he had been such a dupe in her hands? When he entered his club in St. James's Street his mind had left Lady Glencora, and was hard at work considering how he might best contrive to get that spoil out of his aunt's possession.

Alice, on her return from Westmorland, went direct to Park Lane, where Lady Glencora and Mr. Palliser were. She was to stay with them in London one full day, and on the morning after that they were to start for Paris.
She found Mr. Palliser in close attendance upon his wife. Nothing in his manner implied that he was keeping watch over her; but it was very different from what Alice had seen at Matching Priory!
On her arrival Mr. Palliser received her in the hall, and took her up to his wife.
"We are so much obliged to you, Miss Vavasor," he said. "I feel it quite as deeply as Glencora."
"Oh, no," she said; "it is I that am under an obligation to you for taking me."
He merely smiled, and shook his head. On the stairs he said one other thing: "You must forgive me if I was cross to you that night she went out among the ruins."
Alice muttered some little fib of courtesy as to the matter having been forgotten; and then they went on to Lady Glencora's room. It seemed to Alice that he was not so big or so much to be dreaded as when she had seen him at Matching. His descent from an expectant Chancellor of the Exchequer, down to a simple, attentive husband, seemed to affect his demeanour.
"Dear Alice, this is so good of you! I am in the midst of packing, and Plantagenet is helping me." Plantagenet winced a little under this. His wife's voice held the slightest hint of mockery, which he perhaps thought she might have spared.
"I will help you," said Alice.
"But we have very nearly finished. I think we shall have to start again, or we shall have nothing to do tomorrow. We couldn't set off tomorrow, could we, Plantagenet?"
"Not very well, as your rooms are ordered in Paris for the next day."
"As if we couldn't find rooms at every inn on the road. Now, in travelling I should like never to book rooms - never to know where I was going. And I would never travel among Christians. Christians are so slow, and they wear chimney-pot hats everywhere. The further one goes from London among Christians, the more they wear chimney-pot hats. I want Plantagenet to take us to see the Kurds, but he won't."
"I don't think that would be fair to Miss Vavasor," said Mr. Palliser.
"Wouldn't you like to see a live Kurd, Alice?"
"I don't exactly know where they live," said Alice.
"Nor I. I have not the remotest idea of the way to the Kurds. But one knows that they are Eastern, and the East is such a grand idea!"
"I think we'll content ourselves with Rome, or perhaps Naples, on this occasion," said Mr. Palliser.
Lady Glencora went flitting about from room to room, declaring that this thing must be taken, and that other, till Alice was astonished at the extent of the preparations. Lady Glencora was taking her own carriage.
"Not that I shall ever use it," she said to Alice, "but he insists upon it, to show that I am not supposed to be taken away in disgrace. He is so good; isn't he?"
"Very good," said Alice. "I know no one better."
"And so dull!" said Lady Glencora. "But I fancy that all husbands are dull. If I were a young woman's husband, I shouldn't know what to say to her that wasn't dull."
Two women and two men servants were to be taken. Both Lady Glencora's servants spoke French, and as Alice's did not, Lady Glencora said, "You shall have one all to yourself."
She then explained Mr. Palliser's kindness to Alice. "You see, my dear, I have told him everything. I always do tell everything. Nobody can say I am not candid. He knows about your not letting me come to your house in the old days. And I told him all that you said - about you know what. I have had nothing else to do but make confessions for the last ten days, and when a woman once begins, the more she confesses the better. And I told him that you refused Jeffrey."
"You didn't?"
"I did indeed, and he likes you the better for that. I think he'd let Jeffrey marry you now if you both wished it - and then supposing that you had a son and we adopted it?"
"Cora, if you go on in that way I will not stay with you."
"But you must, my dear. You can't escape now. You shouldn't grudge me my little naughtinesses. I have been so proper for the last ten days."
On the following morning they breakfasted early, because Mr. Palliser said that early hours would be good for them. After breakfast they all three went to work to do nothing. It was almost painful to see Mr. Palliser wandering about and counting the boxes, as though he could do any good by that. He, whose application to his figures had been so unremitting, could apply himself now to nothing. His world had been brought to an abrupt end, and he was awkward at making a new beginning.
They were all reading novels before one o'clock. Lady Glencora and Alice had decided that they would not leave the house. There was, however, no need for Mr. Palliser to remain with them; and at about three he prepared for a solitary walk. He would not go down to the House. All interest in the House was over with him for the present. Nor would he call on anyone. All his friends believed that he had left town. Therefore Mr. Palliser prepared to take a walk under the elms in Kensington Gardens.
He was in the hall putting on his hat and gloves when there came a knock at the front door. The hall-porter opened the door, and revealed Burgo Fitzgerald standing on the step.
"Is Lady Glencora at home?" asked Burgo, before he had seen the husband.
John turned a dismayed face upon his master, as though he knew that the comer ought not to be there, and made no instant reply.
"I am not sure," said Mr. Palliser, making his way out as he had intended. "The servant will find out for you." Then he went on his way across Park Lane and into the Park, never once turning back to see whether Burgo had entered the house. Nor did he return a minute earlier than he would otherwise have done. After all, there was something chivalrous about the man.
"Yes; Lady Glencora was at home," said the porter. Burgo was therefore admitted and shown direct up into the room in which Lady Glencora was sitting.
As chance would have it, she was alone, sitting on a footstool with her face between her hands. She was thinking of Burgo, and of what the world might have been to her had she been allowed to marry him.
She rose quickly. "Ask Miss Vavasor to come to me," she said, as the servant left the room; and then she came forward to greet her lover.
"Cora," he said, dashing at once into his subject. "Cora, I have come to ask you to go with me."
"I will not go with you," said she.
"Do not answer me in that way, without a moment's thought. Everything is arranged-"
"Yes, everything is arranged," she said. "Mr. Fitzgerald, let me ask you to leave me alone, and to behave to me with generosity. Everything is arranged. You can see that my boxes are all prepared for going. Mr. Palliser and I, and my friend, are starting tomorrow. Wish me God-speed and go, and be generous."
"And is this to be the end of everything? Give me your hand, Cora," he said.
"No; I will never give you my hand again. You should be generous to me and go. This is to be the end of everything. Go, when I ask you."
"Cora; did you ever love me?"
"Yes; I did love you. But we were separated, and there was no room for love left between us."
"You are dearer to me than ever you were. Do not look at me like that. Did you not tell me when we last parted that I might come to you again? Are we children, that others should come separate us like that?"
"Yes, Burgo; we are children. Here is my cousin coming. You must leave me now." As she spoke the door was opened and Alice entered the room.
"Miss Vavasor, Mr. Fitzgerald," said Lady Glencora. "I have told him to go and leave me. Now that you have come, Alice, he will perhaps obey me."
Alice was dumbfounded; but she stood with her eyes riveted on the face of the man of whom she had heard so much. Yes; certainly he was very beautiful. She found it quite impossible to speak a word to him, but she acknowledged the introduction with a slight nod, and then stood silent, as though waiting for him to go.
"Mr. Fitzgerald, why do you not leave me?" said Lady Glencora.
Poor Burgo also found it difficult enough to speak. What could he say?
"I had hoped to talk to you alone for a few minutes."
"No, Mr. Fitzgerald. I sent for my cousin because I did not choose to be alone with you. I have asked you to go-"
"You perhaps have not understood me?"
"I understand you well enough."
"Then, Mr. Fitzgerald," said Alice, "why do you not do as Lady Glencora has asked you? You must know that you ought not to be here."
"I know nothing of the kind," said he, still standing his ground.
"Alice," said Lady Glencora, "we will leave Mr. Fitzgerald here, since he drives us from the room."
Burgo knew then that he must go - must skulk away as best he might. "No, Lady Glencora," he said, "I will not drive you from the room. I did think that you would at any rate have been less hard to me." He then turned to go.
He was on the threshold before Glencora's voice recalled him.
"Oh my God!" she said. "I am hard - harder than flint. I am cruel. Burgo!" And he was back with her in a moment, and had taken her by the hand.
"Glencora," said Alice, "pray - pray let him go. Mr. Fitzgerald, if you are a man, do not take advantage of her folly."
"I will speak to him," said Lady Glencora. "I will speak to him, and then he shall leave me." She was holding him by the hand now. "Burgo," she said, with all the passion that she could throw into the word, "Burgo, no good can come of this. Now, you must go. I shall stay with my husband as I am bound to do. Because I have wronged you, I will not wrong him also. I loved you." She still held him by the hand, and was now gazing up into his face, while the tears were streaming from her eyes.
"Sir," said Alice, "if you have any feeling of honour in you, you will leave her."
"I will never leave her, while she tells me that she loves me!"
"Yes, Burgo, you will; you must! I shall never tell you that again, never. Go, and leave us; but I could not bear that you should tell me that I was hard."
"You are hard and cruel, as you said yourself."
"Am I? May God forgive you for saying that!"
"Then why do you send me away?"
"Because I am a man's wife, and because I care for his honour, if not for my own. Alice, let us go."
He still held her, and before she could pull away he kissed her lips. Then he left her, and making his way out of the room, and down the stairs, got himself out into the street.
"Thank God that he is gone!" said Alice.
"You may say so," said Lady Glencora, "for you have lost nothing!"
"And you have gained everything!"
"Have I? I did not know that I had ever gained anything, as yet. The only human being to whom I have ever yet given my whole heart - the only thing that I have ever really loved - has just gone from me for ever, and you bid me thank God that I have lost him. There is no room for thankfulness. It is all wretchedness from first to last!"
"At any rate, he understands now that you meant it when you told him to leave you."
"Of course I meant it. I am beginning to know myself by degrees. As for running away with him, I have not the courage to do it. I can think of it, but as for doing it, that is beyond me. Mr. Palliser is quite safe."
Alice came and sat by her, and tried to sooth her by smoothing her hair, and nursing her like a child.
"Of course I know that I ought to stay where I am," she said, breaking out almost with rage. "I am not such a fool as to mistake what I should be if I left my husband, and went to live with that man as his mistress. But why have I been brought to such a pass as this? And, as for female purity! Ah! What was their idea of purity when they forced me to marry a man for whom they knew I never cared? If I had eloped with that man who ought to have been my husband, whom would a just God have punished worst - me, or those two old women and my uncle, who tortured me into this marriage?"
"Come, Cora, be silent."
"I won't be silent! You have done what you liked, and no one has interfered with you. You have suffered, too; but at any rate you can respect yourself."
"And so can you, Cora - thoroughly, now."
"How; when he kissed me, and I could hardly restrain myself from giving him back his kiss tenfold? But it is all sin. I sin towards my husband, pretending that I love him; and I sin in loving that other man, who should have been my husband. There; I hear Mr. Palliser at the door. Come away with me; or rather, stay, for he will come up here, and you can keep him talking while I try to recover myself."
Mr. Palliser came upstairs as soon as he had deposited his hat in the hall. Alice was, in fact, in doubt about whether she should mention Mr. Fitzgerald's name. But Mr. Palliser at once put an end to her doubts.
"You have had a visitor here?" said he.
"Yes," said Alice.
"I saw him as I went out," said Mr. Palliser. "Indeed, I met him at the hall door. He was, of course, wrong to come here."
"He has been punished, I think," said Alice.
"But as for Glencora," continued Mr. Palliser, without any apparent notice of what Alice had said, "I thought it better that she should see him or not, as she should herself decide."
"She had no choice in the matter. As it turned out, he was shown up here at once. She sent for me, and I think she was right to do that."
"Glencora was alone when he came in?"
"For a minute or two, till I could get to her."
"I have no questions to ask about it," said Mr. Palliser, after waiting for a few moments. "I am very glad that you were within reach of her, as otherwise her position might have been painful. Perhaps it may be as well that he has been here. I am forced to suppose him to be a villain. What a man does when driven by passion, I can forgive; but that he should deliberately plan schemes to ruin both her and me, is what I can hardly understand." As he made this little speech I wonder whether his conscience said anything to him about Lady Dumbello, and a certain evening in his own life.
The little party of three dined together very quietly, and after dinner they all read their novels. Before long Alice saw that Mr. Palliser was yawning, and she began to understand how much he had given up in order that his wife might be secure. When he left the room for a few minutes to wake himself up by walking about the house, Glencora told Alice of his yawning down at Matching. "I used to think that he would fall in pieces. What are we to do about it?"
"Pretend not to notice it," said Alice.
"That's all very well; but he'll set us off yawning too, and then he'll notice it. He has given himself up to politics, till nothing else has any salt in it left for him. I cannot think why such a man wanted a wife at all."
"You are very hard upon him, Cora."
"I wish you were his wife. But, of course, I know why he got married. And I ought to feel for him as he has been so grievously disappointed." Then Mr. Palliser returned to the room, and the remainder of the evening was passed in tranquillity.
Burgo Fitzgerald, when he left the house, turned back as far as his uncle's door, and then, having paused there for a moment, hurried on. For half an hour, or thereabouts, something like true feeling was at work within his heart. He had once more pressed to his bosom the woman he thought that he had loved. He had kissed her, and her voice was still ringing in his ears. He comforted himself for a minute with the conviction that she loved him. He felt - for a moment - that he could live on such consolation as that! But in truth, there was hardly a man less capable of living on such consolation.
He would not go in and tell his aunt at once of his failure. Indeed, he thought he would not tell his aunt at all. So he turned back from Grosvenor Square, and went to his club in St. James's Street, feeling that billiards and brandy-and-water might be the best restorative. He blamed himself greatly for letting Lady Monk take those banknotes from him. When he entered his club his mind had left Lady Glencora, and was considering how he might best get that spoil out of his aunt's possession.


During these days Mrs. Greenow was mistress of the old Hall down in Westmoreland, and was nursing Kate assiduously through the calamity of her broken arm. There had come to be a considerable amount of confidence between the aunt and the niece. Kate had acknowledged to her aunt that her brother had behaved badly,--very badly; and the aunt had confessed to the niece that she regarded Captain Bellfield as a fit subject for compassion.
"And he was violent to you, and broke your arm? I always knew it was so," Mrs. Greenow had said, speaking with reference to her nephew. But this Kate had denied. "No," said she; "that was an accident. When he went away and left me, he knew nothing about it. And if he had broken both my arms I should not have cared much. I could have forgiven him that." But that which Kate could not forgive him was the fault which she had herself committed. For his sake she had done her best to separate Alice and John Grey, and George had shown himself to be unworthy of the kindness of her treachery. "I would give all I have in the world to bring them together again," Kate said. "They'll come together fast enough if they like each other," said Mrs. Greenow. "Alice is young still, and they tell me she's as good looking as ever. A girl with her money won't have far to seek for a husband, even if this paragon from Cambridgeshire should not turn up again."
"You don't know Alice, aunt."
"No, I don't. But I know what young women are, and I know what young men are. All this nonsense about her cousin George,--what difference will it make? A man like Mr. Grey won't care about that,--especially not if she tells him all about it. My belief is that a girl can have anything forgiven her, if she'll only tell it herself."
But Kate preferred the other subject, and so, I think, did Mrs. Greenow herself. "Of course, my dear," she would say, "marriage with me, if I should marry again, would be a very different thing to your marriage, or that of any other young person. As for love, that has been all over for me since poor Greenow died. I have known nothing of the softness of affection since I laid him in his cold grave, and never can again. 'Captain Bellfield,' I said to him, 'if you were to kneel at my feet for years, it would not make me care for you in the way of love.'"
"And what did he say to that?"
"How am I to tell you what he said? He talked nonsense about my beauty, as all the men do. If a woman were hump-backed, and had only one eye, they wouldn't be ashamed to tell her she was a Venus."
"But, aunt, you are a handsome woman, you know."
"Laws, my dear, as if I didn't understand all about it; as if I didn't know what makes a woman run after? It isn't beauty,--and it isn't money altogether. I've seen women who had plenty of both, and not a man would come nigh them. They didn't dare. There are some of them, a man would as soon think of putting his arm round a poplar tree, they are so hard and so stiff. You know you're a little that way yourself, Kate, and I've always told you it won't do."
"I'm afraid I'm too old to mend, aunt."
"Not at all, if you'll only set your wits to work and try. You've plenty of money now, and you're good-looking enough, too, when you take the trouble to get yourself up. But, as I said before, it isn't that that's wanted. There's a stand-off about some women,--what the men call a 'nollimy tangere,' that a man must be quite a furious Orlando to attempt to get the better of it. They look as though matrimony itself were improper, and as if they believed that little babies were found about in the hedges and ditches. They talk of women being forward! There are some of them a deal too backward, according to my way of thinking."
"Yours is a comfortable doctrine, aunt."
"That's just what I want it to be. I want things to be comfortable. Why shouldn't things be nice about one when one's got the means? Nobody can say it's a pleasant thing to live alone. I always thought that man in the song hit it off properly. You remember what he says? 'The poker and tongs to each other belongs.' So they do, and that should be the way with men and women."
"But the poker and tongs have but a bad life of it sometimes."
"Not so often as the people say, my dear. Men and women ain't like lumps of sugar. They don't melt because the water is sometimes warm. Now, if I do take Bellfield,--and I really think I shall; but if I do he'll give me a deal of trouble. I know he will. He'll always be wanting my money, and, of course, he'll get more than he ought. I'm not a Solomon, nor yet a Queen of Sheba, no more than anybody else. And he'll smoke too many cigars, and perhaps drink more brandy-and-water than he ought. And he'll be making eyes, too, at some of the girls who'll be fools enough to let him."
"Dear me, aunt, if I thought all that ill of him, I'm sure I wouldn't marry him;--especially as you say you don't love him."
"As for love, my dear, that's gone,--clear gone!" Whereupon Mrs. Greenow put up her handkerchief to her eyes. "Some women can love twice, but I am not one of them. I wish I could,--I wish I could!" These last words were spoken in a tone of solemn regret, which, however, she contrived to change as quickly as she had adopted it. "But my dear, marriage is a comfortable thing. And then, though the Captain may be a little free, I don't doubt but what I shall get the upper hand with him at last. I shan't stop his cigars and brandy-and-water you know. Why shouldn't a man smoke and have a glass, if he don't make a beast of himself? I like to see a man enjoy himself. And then," she added, speaking tenderly of her absent lover, "I do think he's fond of me,--I do, indeed."
"So is Mr. Cheesacre for the matter of that."
"Poor Cheesy! I believe he was, though he did talk so much about money. I always like to believe the best I can of them. But then there was no poetry about Cheesy. I don't care about saying it now, as you've quite made up your mind not to have him."
"Quite, aunt."
"Your grandfather's will does make a difference, you know. But, as I was saying, I do like a little romance about them,--just a sniff, as I call it, of the rocks and valleys. One knows that it doesn't mean much; but it's like artificial flowers,--it gives a little colour, and takes off the dowdiness. Of course, bread-and-cheese is the real thing. The rocks and valleys are no good at all, if you haven't got that, But enough is as good as a feast. Thanks to dear Greenow,"--here the handkerchief was again used--"Thanks to dear Greenow, I shall never want. Of course I shan't let any of the money go into his hands,--the Captain's, I mean. I know a trick worth two of that, my dear. But, lord love you! I've enough for him and me. What's the good of a woman's wanting to keep it all to herself?"
[Illustration: A sniff of the rocks and valleys.]
"And you think you'll really take him, aunt, and pay his washerwoman's bills for him? You remember what you told me when I first saw him?"
"Oh, yes; I remember. And if he can't pay his own washerwoman, isn't that so much more of a reason that I should do it for him? Well; yes; I think I will take him. That is, if he lets me take him just as I choose. Beggars mustn't be choosers, my dear."
In this way the aunt and niece became very confidential, and Mrs. Greenow whispered into Kate's ears her belief that Captain Bellfield might possibly make his way across the country to Westmoreland. "There would be no harm in offering him a bed, would there?" Mrs. Greenow asked. "You see the inn at Shap is a long way off for morning calls." Kate could not take upon herself to say that there would be any harm, but she did not like the idea of having Captain Bellfield as a visitor. "After all, perhaps he mayn't come," said the widow. "I don't see where he is to raise the money for such a journey, now that he has quarrelled with Mr. Cheesacre."
"If Captain Bellfield must come to Vavasor Hall, at any rate let him not come till Alice's visit had been completed." That was Kate's present wish, and so much she ventured to confide to her aunt. But there seemed to be no way of stopping him. "I don't in the least know where he is, my dear, and as for writing to him, I never did such a thing in my life, and I shouldn't know how to begin." Mrs. Greenow declared that she had not positively invited the Captain; but on this point Kate hardly gave full credit to her aunt's statement.
Alice arrived, and, for a day or two, the three ladies lived very pleasantly together. Kate still wore her arm in a sling; but she was able to walk out, and would take long walks in spite of the doctor's prohibition. Of course, they went up on the mountains. Indeed, all the walks from Vavasor Hall led to the mountains, unless one chose to take the road to Shap. But they went up, across the beacon hill, as though by mutual consent. There were no questions asked between them as to the route to be taken; and though they did not reach the stone on which they had once sat looking over upon Haweswater, they did reach the spot upon which Kate had encountered her accident. "It was here I fell," she said; "and the last I saw of him was his back, as he made his way down into the valley, there. When I got upon my legs I could still see him. It was one of those evenings when the clouds are dark, but you can see all objects with a peculiar clearness through the air. I stood here ever so long, holding my arm, and watching him; but he never once turned to look back at me. Do you know, Alice, I fancy that I shall never see him again."
"Do you suppose that he means to quarrel with you altogether?"
"I can hardly tell you what I mean! He seemed to me to be going away from me, as though he went into another world. His figure against the light was quite clear, and he walked quickly, and on he went, till the slope of the hill hid him from me. Of course, I thought that he would return to the Hall. At one time I almost feared that he would come upon me through the woods, as I went back myself. But yet, I had a feeling,--what people call a presentiment, that I should never see him again."
"He has never written?"
"No; not a word. You must remember that he did not know that I had hurt myself. I am sure he will not write, and I am sure, also, that I shall not. If he wanted money I would send it to him, but I would not write to him."
"I fear he will always want money, Kate."
"I fear he will. If you could know what I suffered when he made me write that letter to you! But, of course, I was a beast. Of course, I ought not to have written it."
"I thought it a very proper letter."
"It was a mean letter. The whole thing was mean! He should have starved in the street before he had taken your money. He should have given up Parliament, and everything else! I had doubted much about him before, but it was that which first turned my heart against him. I had begun to fear that he was not such a man as I had always thought him,--as I had spoken of him to you."
"I had judged of him for myself," said Alice.
"Of course you did. But I had endeavoured to make you judge kindly. Alice, dear! we have both suffered for him; you more than I, perhaps; but I, too, have given up everything for him. My whole life has been at his service. I have been his creature, to do his bidding, just as he might tell me. He made me do things that I knew to be wrong,--things that were foreign to my own nature; and yet I almost worshipped him. Even now, if he were to come back, I believe that I should forgive him everything."
"I should forgive him, but I could never do more."
"But he will never come back. He will never ask us to forgive him, or even wish it. He has no heart."
"He has longed for money till the Devil has hardened his heart," said Alice.
"And yet how tender he could be in his manner when he chose it;--how soft he could make his words and his looks! Do you remember how he behaved to us in Switzerland? Do you remember that balcony at Basle, and the night we sat there, when the boys were swimming down the river?"
"Yes;--I remember."
"So do I! So do I! Alice, I would give all I have in the world, if I could recall that journey to Switzerland."
"If you mean for my sake, Kate--"
"I do mean for your sake. It made no difference to me. Whether I stayed in Westmoreland or went abroad, I must have found out that my god was made of bricks and clay instead of gold. But there was no need for you to be crushed in the ruins."
"I am not crushed, Kate!"
"Of course, you are too proud to own it?"
"If you mean about Mr. Grey, that would have happened just the same, whether I had gone abroad or remained at home."
"Would it, dear?"
"Just the same."
There was nothing more than this said between them about Mr. Grey. Even to her cousin, Alice could not bring herself to talk freely on that subject. She would never allow herself to think, for a moment, that she had been persuaded by others to treat him as she had treated him. She was sure that she had acted on her own convictions of what was right and wrong; and now, though she had begun to feel that she had been wrong, she would hardly confess as much even to herself.
They walked back, down the hill, to the Hall in silence for the greater part of the way. Once or twice Kate repeated her conviction that she should never again see her brother. "I do not know what may happen to him," she said in answer to her cousin's questions; "but when he was passing out of my sight into the valley, I felt that I was looking at him for the last time."
"That is simply what people call a presentiment," Alice replied.
"Exactly so; and presentiments, of course, mean nothing," said Kate.
Then they walked on towards the house without further speech; but when they reached the end of the little path which led out of the wood, on to the gravelled sweep before the front door, they were both arrested by a sight that met their eyes. There was a man standing, with a cigar in his mouth, before them, swinging a little cane, and looking about him up at the wood. He had on his head a jaunty little straw-hat, and he wore a jacket with brass buttons, and white trousers. It was now nearly the middle of May, but the summer does not come to Westmoreland so early as that, and the man, as he stood there looking about him, seemed to be cold and almost uncomfortable. He had not as yet seen the two girls, who stood at the end of the walk, arrested by the sight of him. "Who is it?" asked Alice, in a whisper.
"Captain Bellfield," said Kate, speaking with something very like dismay in her voice.
"What! aunt Greenow's Captain?"
"Yes; aunt Greenow's Captain. I have been fearing this, and now, what on earth are we to do with him? Look at him. That's what aunt Greenow calls a sniff of the rocks and valleys."
The Captain began to move,--just to move, as though it were necessary to do something to keep the life in his limbs. He had finished his cigar, and looked at the end of it with manifest regret. As he threw it away among a tuft of shrubs his eye fell upon the two ladies, and he uttered a little exclamation. Then he came forward, waving his little straw-hat in his hand, and made his salutation. "Miss Vavasor, I am delighted," he said. "Miss Alice Vavasor, if I am not mistaken? I have been commissioned by my dear friend Mrs. Greenow to go out and seek you, but, upon my word, the woods looked so black that I did not dare to venture;--and then, of course, I shouldn't have found you."
Kate put out her left hand, and then introduced her cousin to the Captain. Again he waved his little straw-hat, and strove to bear himself as though he were at home and comfortable. But he failed, and it was manifest that he failed. He was not the Bellfield who had conquered Mr. Cheesacre on the sands at Yarmouth, though he wore the same jacket and waistcoat, and must now have enjoyed the internal satisfaction of feeling that his future maintenance in life was assured to him. But he was not at his ease. His courage had sufficed to enable him to follow his quarry into Westmoreland, but it did not suffice to make him comfortable while he was there. Kate instantly perceived his condition, and wickedly resolved that she would make no effort to assist him. She went through some ceremony of introduction, and then expressed her surprise at seeing him so far north.
"Well," said he; "I am a little surprised myself;--I am, indeed! But I had nothing to do in Norwich,--literally nothing; and your aunt had so often talked to me of the beauties of this place,"--and he waved his hand round at the old house and the dark trees,--"that I thought I'd take the liberty of paying you a flying visit. I didn't mean to intrude in the way of sleeping; I didn't indeed, Miss Vavasor; only Mrs. Greenow has been so kind as to say--"
"We are so very far out of the world, Captain Bellfield, that we always give our visitors beds."
"I didn't intend it; I didn't indeed, miss!" Poor Captain Bellfield was becoming very uneasy in his agitation. "I did just put my bag, with a change of things, into the gig, which brought me over, not knowing quite where I might go on to."
"We won't send you any further to-day, at any rate," said Kate.
"Mrs. Greenow has been very kind,--very kind, indeed. She has asked me to stay till--Saturday!"
Kate bit her lips in a momentary fit of anger. The house was her house, and not her aunt's. But she remembered that her aunt had been kind to her at Norwich and at Yarmouth, and she allowed this feeling to die away. "We shall be very glad to see you," she said. "We are three women together here, and I'm afraid you will find us rather dull."
"Oh dear, no,--dull with you! That would be impossible!"
"And how have you left your friend, Mr. Cheesacre?"
"Quite well;--very well, thank you. That is to say, I haven't seen him much lately. He and I did have a bit of a breeze, you know."
"I can't say that I did know, Captain Bellfield."
"I thought, perhaps, you had heard. He seemed to think that I was too particular in a certain quarter! Ha--ha--ha--ha! That's only my joke, you know, ladies."
They then went into the house, and the Captain straggled in after them. Mrs. Greenow was in neither of the two sitting-rooms which they usually occupied. She, too, had been driven somewhat out of the ordinary composure of her manner by the arrival of her lover,--even though she had expected it, and had retired to her room, thinking that she had better see Kate in private before they met in the presence of the Captain. "I suppose you have seen my aunt since you have been here?" said Kate.
"Oh dear, yes. I saw her, and she suggested that I had better walk out and find you. I did find you, you know, though I didn't walk very far."
"And have you seen your room?"
"Yes;--yes. She was kind enough to show me my room. Very nice indeed, thank you;--looking out into the front, and all that kind of thing." The poor fellow was no doubt thinking how much better was his lot at Vavasor Hall than it had been at Oileymead. "I shan't stay long, Miss Vavasor,--only just a night or so; but I did want to see your aunt again,--and you, too, upon my word."
"My aunt is the attraction, Captain Bellfield. We all know that."
He actually simpered,--simpered like a young girl who is half elated and half ashamed when her lover is thrown in her teeth. He fidgeted with the things on the table, and moved himself about uneasily from one leg to the other. Perhaps he was remembering that though he had contrived to bring himself to Vavasor Hall he had not money enough left to take him back to Norwich. The two girls left him and went to their rooms. "I will go to my aunt at once," said Kate, "and find out what is to be done."
"I suppose she means to marry him?"
"Oh, yes; she means to marry him, and the sooner the better now. I knew this was coming, but I did so hope it would not be while you were here. It makes me feel so ashamed of myself that you should see it."
Kate boldly knocked at her aunt's door, and her aunt received her with a conscious smile. "I was waiting for you to come," said Mrs. Greenow.
"Here I am, aunt; and, what is more to the purpose, there is Captain Bellfield in the drawing-room."
"Stupid man! I told him to take himself away about the place till dinner-time. I've half a mind to send him back to Shap at once;--upon my word I have."
"Don't do that, aunt; it would be inhospitable."
"But he is such an oaf. I hope you understand, my dear, that I couldn't help it?"
"But you do mean to--to marry him, aunt; don't you?"
"Well, Kate, I really think I do. Why shouldn't I? It's a lonely sort of life being by myself; and, upon my word, I don't think there's very much harm in him."
"I am not saying anything against him; only in that case you can't very well turn him out of the house."
"Could not I, though? I could in a minute; and, if you wish it, you shall see if I can't do it."
"The rocks and valleys would not allow that, aunt."
"It's all very well for you to laugh, my dear. If laughing would break my bones I shouldn't be as whole as I am now. I might have had Cheesacre if I liked, who is a substantial man, and could have kept a carriage for me; but it was the rocks and valleys that prevented that;--and perhaps a little feeling that I might do some good to a poor fellow who has nobody in the world to look after him." Mrs. Greenow, as she said this, put her handkerchief up to her eyes, and wiped away the springing moisture. Tears were always easy with her, but on this occasion Kate almost respected her tears. "I'm sure I hope you'll be happy, aunt."
"If he makes me unhappy he shall pay for it;" and Mrs. Greenow, having done with the tears, shook her head, as though upon this occasion she quite meant all that she said.
At dinner they were not very comfortable. Either the gloomy air of the place and the neighbourhood of the black pines had depressed the Captain, or else the glorious richness of the prospects before him had made him thoughtful. He had laid aside the jacket with the brass buttons, and had dressed himself for dinner very soberly. And he behaved himself at dinner and after dinner with a wonderful sobriety, being very unlike the Captain who had sat at the head of the table at Mrs. Greenow's picnic. When left to himself after dinner he barely swallowed two glasses of the old Squire's port wine before he sauntered out into the garden to join the ladies, whom he had seen there; and when pressed by Kate to light a cigar he positively declined.
On the following morning Mrs. Greenow had recovered her composure, but Captain Bellfield was still in a rather disturbed state of mind. He knew that his efforts were to be crowned with success, and that he was sure of his wife, but he did not know how the preliminary difficulties were to be overcome, and he did not know what to do with himself at the Hall. After breakfast he fidgeted about in the parlour, being unable to contrive for himself a mode of escape, and was absolutely thrown upon his beam-ends when the widow asked him what he meant to do with himself between that and dinner.
"I suppose I'd better take a walk," he said; "and perhaps the young ladies--"
"If you mean my two nieces," said Mrs. Greenow, "I'm afraid you'll find they are engaged. But if I'm not too old to walk with--" The Captain assured her that she was just of the proper age for a walking companion, as far as his taste went, and then attempted some apology for the awkwardness of his expression, at which the three women laughed heartily. "Never mind, Captain," said Mrs. Greenow. "We'll have our walk all the same, and won't mind those young girls. Come along." They started, not up towards the mountains, as Kate always did when she walked in Westmoreland, but mildly, and at a gentle pace, as beseemed their years, along the road towards Shap. The Captain politely opened the old gate for the widow, and then carefully closed it again,--not allowing it to swing, as he would have done at Yarmouth. Then he tripped up to his place beside her, suggested his arm, which she declined, and walked on for some paces in silence. What on earth was he to say to her? He had done his love-making successfully, and what was he to do next?
"Well, Captain Bellfield," said she. They were walking very slowly, and he was cutting the weeds by the roadside with his cane. He knew by her voice that something special was coming, so he left the weeds and ranged himself close up alongside of her. "Well, Captain Bellfield,--so I suppose I'm to be good-natured; am I?"
"Arabella, you'll make me the happiest man in the world."
"That's all fudge." She would have said, "all rocks and valleys," only he would not have understood her.
"Upon my word, you will."
"I hope I shall make you respectable?"
"Oh, yes; certainly. I quite intend that."
"It is the great thing that you should intend. Of course I am going to make a fool of myself."
"No, no; don't say that."
"If I don't say it, all my friends will say it for me. It's lucky for you that I don't much care what people say."
"It is lucky;--I know that I'm lucky. The very first day I saw you I thought what a happy fellow I was to meet you. Then, of course, I was only thinking of your beauty."
"Get along with you!"
"Upon my word, yes. Come, Arabella, as we are to be man and wife, you might as well." At this moment he had got very close to her, and had recovered something of his usual elasticity; but she would not allow him even to put his arm round her waist. "Out in the high road!" she said. "How can you be so impertinent,--and so foolish?"
"You might as well, you know,--just once."
"Captain Bellfield, I brought you out here not for such fooling as that, but in order that we might have a little chat about business. If we are to be man and wife, as you say, we ought to understand on what footing we are to begin together. I'm afraid your own private means are not considerable?"
"Well, no; they are not, Mrs. Greenow."
"Have you anything?" The Captain hesitated, and poked the ground with his cane. "Come, Captain Bellfield, let us have the truth at once, and then we shall understand each other." The Captain still hesitated, and said nothing. "You must have had something to live upon, I suppose?" suggested the widow. Then the Captain, by degrees, told his story. He had a married sister by whom a guinea a week was allowed to him. That was all. He had been obliged to sell out of the army, because he was unable to live on his pay as a lieutenant. The price of his commission had gone to pay his debts, and now,--yes, it was too true,--now he was in debt again. He owed ninety pounds to Cheesacre, thirty-two pounds ten to a tailor at Yarmouth, over seventeen pounds at his lodgings in Norwich. At the present moment he had something under thirty shillings in his pocket. The tailor at Yarmouth had lent him three pounds in order that he might make his journey into Westmoreland, and perhaps be enabled to pay his debts by getting a rich wife. In the course of the cross-examination Mrs. Greenow got much information out of him; and then, when she was satisfied that she had learned, not exactly all the truth, but certain indications of the truth, she forgave him all his offences.
"And now you will give a fellow a kiss,--just one kiss," said the ecstatic Captain, in the height of his bliss.
"Hush!" said the widow, "there's a carriage coming on the road--close to us."

During these days Mrs. Greenow was mistress of the old Hall down in Westmorland, and was nursing Kate. The aunt and the niece had confided much in each other. Kate had acknowledged that her brother had behaved badly; and the aunt had confessed to the niece that she regarded Captain Bellfield as a fit subject for compassion.
"And he broke your arm? I always knew he was violent," Mrs. Greenow had said.
But this Kate had denied. "No, that was an accident. And if he had broken both my arms, I could have forgiven him that." What she could not forgive was the fault which she had herself committed. For his sake she had tried to separate Alice and John Grey, and George had shown himself to be unworthy. "I would give all I have in the world to bring them together again," Kate said.
"They'll come together fast enough if they like each other," said Mrs. Greenow. "Alice is young still, and they tell me she's as good looking as ever. A girl with her money won't have to seek far for a husband."
"You don't know Alice, aunt."
"No, I don't. But I know what young women are, and I know what young men are. A man like Mr. Grey won't care about all that nonsense with her cousin George - especially if she tells him all about it."
But Kate preferred the subject of the Captain, and so, I think, did Mrs. Greenow herself.
"Of course, my dear," she would say, "as for love, that has been all over for me since poor Greenow died. 'Captain Bellfield,' I said to him, 'if you were to kneel at my feet for years, it would not make me love you.'"
"And what did he say?"
"He talked nonsense about my beauty, as all the men do. If a woman were hump-backed, and had only one eye, they wouldn't be ashamed to tell her she was a Venus."
"But, aunt, you are a handsome woman, you know."
"Laws, my dear, it isn't beauty as makes men run after a woman - and it isn't money altogether. I've seen women who had plenty of both, and not a man dared come near them, they were so hard and stiff. You know you're a little that way yourself, Kate."
"I'm afraid I'm too old to mend, aunt."
"Not at all, if you'll only try. You've plenty of money now, and you're good-looking enough, when you take the trouble. But, as I said before, that's not important. There's a stand-off about some women: they look as though marriage itself were improper, and as if they believed that little babies were found in the hedges and ditches. They talk of women being forward! There are some a deal too backward, according to my way of thinking. You remember the song? 'The poker and tongs to each other belongs.' So they do, and that should be the way with men and women."
"But the poker and tongs have a bad life of it sometimes."
"Not so often as people say, my dear. Men and women don't melt because the water is sometimes warm. Now, if I do take Bellfield - and I really think I shall; but I know he'll give me a deal of trouble. He'll always be wanting my money, and, of course, he'll get more than he ought. And he'll smoke too many cigars, and perhaps drink more brandy-and-water than he should. And he'll be making eyes, too, at the girls who are fools enough to let him."
"Dear me, aunt, if I thought that ill of him, I wouldn't marry him - especially as you say you don't love him."
"As for love, my dear, that's gone!" Mrs. Greenow put up her handkerchief to her eyes. "Some women can love twice, but I am not one of them." Then her solemn tone changed as she went on. "But my dear, marriage is a comfortable thing. And I don't doubt that I shall get the upper hand with the Captain at last. I shan't stop his cigars and brandy-and-water. Why shouldn't a man enjoy himself? And then," she added tenderly, "I do think he's fond of me - I do, indeed."
"So is Mr. Cheesacre, for that matter."
"Poor Cheesy! I believe he was, though he did talk so much about money. But there was no poetry about Cheesy. I don't care about saying it now, as you've made up your mind not to have him."
"Quite, aunt."
"Your grandfather's will does make a difference. But, as I was saying, I do like a little romance - just a sniff, as I call it, of the rocks and valleys. One knows that it doesn't mean much; but it's like artificial flowers - it gives a little colour, and takes off the dowdiness. Thanks to dear Greenow, I shall never want. Of course I shan't let any of the money go into the Captain's hands. But, lord love you! I've enough for him and me. What's the good of a woman's wanting to keep it all to herself?"
"And you think you'll really take him, aunt?"
"Well, yes; I think I will." Then Mrs. Greenow whispered to Kate her belief that Captain Bellfield might possibly travel to Westmorland.
"There would be no harm in offering him a bed, would there?" she asked. "The inn at Shap is a long way off for morning calls."
Kate did not like the idea of having Captain Bellfield as a visitor. "If he must come, at least let him not come till after Alice's visit."
But there seemed to be no way of stopping him. "I don't know where he is, my dear, and as for writing to him, I shouldn't know how to begin." Although Mrs. Greenow declared that she had not positively invited the Captain, Kate did not entirely believe her.
Alice arrived, and, for a day or two, the three ladies lived very pleasantly together. Kate wore her arm in a sling; but she was able to walk out, and would take long walks in spite of the doctor's advice. Of course, they went up on the mountains. They walked up the beacon hill, and reached the spot where Kate had met with her accident.
"It was here I fell," she said; "and the last I saw of him was his back, as he went down into the valley. I stood here ever so long, holding my arm, and watching him; but he never once turned to look back at me. Do you know, Alice, I fancy that I shall never see him again."
"Do you suppose that he means to quarrel with you altogether?"
"I hardly know! He seemed to me to be going away from me, as though into another world. Of course, I thought that he would return to the Hall. At one time I almost feared that he would come upon me through the woods, as I went back. But still, I had a feeling that I should never see him again."
"He has never written?"
"Not a word. You must remember that he did not know that I had hurt myself. I am sure he will not write. If he wanted money I would send it to him, but I will not write to him."
"I fear he will always want money, Kate."
"I fear he will. If you could know what I suffered when he made me write that letter to you! Of course, I ought not to have written it. It was a mean letter. The whole thing was mean! He should have starved in the street before he took your money. It was that which first turned my heart against him. I began to fear that he was not such a man as I had always thought him, and spoken of him."
"I had judged him for myself," said Alice.
"Of course you did. But I had tried to make you judge kindly. Alice, dear! we have both suffered for him. I, too, have given up everything for him. My whole life has been at his service. He made me do things that I knew were wrong, and yet I almost worshipped him. Even now, if he came back, I believe that I should forgive him everything."
"I should forgive him, but I could never do more."
"But he will never come back. He will never ask us to forgive him, or even wish it. He has no heart. And yet how tender he could be when he chose! Do you remember Switzerland? Do you remember that balcony at Basle, and the night we sat there?"
"Yes, I remember."
"So do I! Alice, I would give all I have in the world, if I could undo that journey to Switzerland, for your sake."
"Kate, what happened with Mr. Grey would have happened just the same, whether I had gone abroad or remained at home."
"Would it, dear?"
"Just the same."
There was nothing more than this said about Mr. Grey. Alice could not bring herself to talk freely about him. She would never allow herself to think, for a moment, that she had been persuaded by others to treat him as she had. She had acted on her own convictions.
They walked back to the Hall mostly in silence. As they came out of the wood, they were arrested by the sight of a man standing with a cigar in his mouth, swinging a little cane, and looking around. He wore a jaunty little straw-hat, a jacket with brass buttons, and white trousers. It was now nearly the middle of May, but the summer does not come to Westmorland so early as that, and the man seemed to be cold and uncomfortable. He had not yet seen the two girls.
"Who is it?" whispered Alice.
"Captain Bellfield," said Kate, dismayed. "I have been fearing this. What on earth are we to do with him? Look at him. That's what aunt Greenow calls a sniff of the rocks and valleys."
The Captain had finished his cigar, and as he threw it away among the shrubs his eye fell upon the two ladies. He uttered an exclamation, came forward, and saluted them.
"Miss Vavasor, I am delighted," he said. "Miss Alice Vavasor, if I am not mistaken? I have been asked by my dear friend Mrs. Greenow to go out and seek you."
Kate introduced her cousin to the Captain, who strove to bear himself as though he were comfortably at home. But he failed. He was not the Bellfield who had conquered Mr. Cheesacre on the sands at Yarmouth, though he wore the same jacket and waistcoat. Here he was not at his ease. Kate instantly saw this, and wickedly resolved that she would make no effort to help him. She expressed her surprise at seeing him so far north.
"Well," said he; "I am a little surprised myself. But your aunt had so often talked to me of the beauties of this place that I thought I'd take the liberty of paying you a flying visit. I didn't mean to intrude in the way of sleeping; I didn't indeed, Miss Vavasor; only Mrs. Greenow has been so kind as to say-"
"We are so very far out of the world, Captain Bellfield, that we always give our visitors beds."
"I didn't intend it, indeed, miss!" Poor Captain Bellfield was becoming very uneasy. "I did just put my bag, with a change of things, into the gig, not knowing quite where I might go on to."
"We won't send you any further today, at any rate," said Kate.
"Mrs. Greenow has been very kind. She has asked me to stay till - Saturday!"
Kate bit her lips in a momentary fit of anger. The house was not her aunt's. But she remembered that her aunt had been kind to her, and she allowed this feeling to die away. "We shall be very glad to see you," she said, "though I'm afraid you will find us rather dull."
"Oh dear, no - dull with you! That would be impossible!"
"And how have you left your friend, Mr. Cheesacre?"
"Quite well, thank you. That is to say, I haven't seen him much lately. He and I did have a bit of a breeze, you know."
"I can't say that I did know, Captain Bellfield."
"I thought, perhaps, you had heard. He seemed to think that I was too particular in a certain quarter! Ha - ha - ha! That's only my joke, ladies."
They went into the house, and the Captain straggled in after them. Mrs. Greenow, who had been somewhat discomposed by the manner of her lover's arrival - even though she had expected it - had retired to her room.
"Have you seen your room, Captain?" Kate asked him.
"Yes - yes. Mrs. Greenow was kind enough to show me. Very nice indeed, thank you. I shan't stay long, Miss Vavasor - only a night or so; but I did want to see your aunt again - and you, too, upon my word."
"My aunt is the attraction, Captain Bellfield. We all know that."
He actually simpered like a young girl. He fidgeted, and shifted from one leg to the other. Perhaps he was remembering that he had not money enough left to take him back to Norwich.
The two girls left him. "I will go to my aunt at once," said Kate, "and find out what is to be done."
"I suppose she means to marry him?"
"Oh, yes. I knew this was coming, but I did hope it would not be while you were here."
Kate boldly knocked at her aunt's door.
"Here I am, aunt; and, what is more to the purpose, there is Captain Bellfield in the drawing-room."
"Stupid man! I told him to take himself away till dinner-time. I've half a mind to send him back to Shap at once. He is such an oaf."
"But you do mean to - to marry him, aunt; don't you?"
"Well, Kate, I really think I do. Why shouldn't I? It's a lonely sort of life being by myself; and I don't think there's very much harm in him."
"I am not saying anything against him; only in that case you can't very well turn him out of the house."
"Couldn't I, though? I could in a minute."
"The rocks and valleys would not allow that, aunt."
"It's all very well for you to laugh, my dear. I might have had Cheesacre if I liked, who could have kept a carriage for me; but it was the rocks and valleys that prevented that; - and perhaps a feeling that I might do some good to a poor fellow who has nobody in the world to look after him."
"I'm sure I hope you'll be happy, aunt."
"If he makes me unhappy he shall pay for it;" and Mrs. Greenow shook her head, as though she meant it.
At dinner they were not very comfortable. The Captain had laid aside the jacket with the brass buttons, and had dressed himself for dinner very soberly. And he behaved himself with an amazing sobriety, very unlike the Captain of Mrs. Greenow's picnic. After dinner he swallowed only two glasses of the old Squire's port wine before he sauntered out into the garden to join the ladies; and when pressed by Kate to light a cigar, he declined.
On the following morning Mrs. Greenow had recovered her composure, but Captain Bellfield was still in a rather disturbed state of mind. He now knew that his efforts were to be crowned with success, but he did not know how the preliminary difficulties were to be overcome, and he did not know what to do with himself at the Hall. After breakfast he fidgeted about in the parlour, and was flummoxed when the widow asked him what he meant to do before dinner.
"I suppose I'd better take a walk," he said; "and perhaps the young ladies-"
"I'm afraid my nieces are busy," said Mrs. Greenow. "But if I'm not too old to walk with you-"
The Captain assured her that she was just the proper age for a walking companion, and then attempted some apology, at which the three women laughed.
"Never mind, Captain," said Mrs. Greenow. "We'll have our walk, and won't mind those young girls. Come along."
They started at a gentle pace, as beseemed their years, along the road towards Shap. The Captain politely opened the gate for the widow, and then carefully closed it again, not allowing it to swing, as he would have done at Yarmouth. Then he offered her his arm, which she declined, and they walked on slowly in silence. What on earth was he to say to her?
"Well, Captain Bellfield," said she. "So I suppose I'm to be good-natured; am I?"
"Arabella, you'll make me the happiest man in the world."
"That's all fudge."
"Upon my word, you will."
"I hope I shall make you respectable?"
"Oh, yes; certainly. I quite intend that."
"It is the great thing that you should intend. Of course I am going to make a fool of myself."
"No, no; don't say that."
"If I don't say it, all my friends will say it for me. It's lucky for you that I don't much care what people say."
"I know that I'm lucky. The very first day I saw you I thought what a lucky fellow I was to meet you. Then, of course, I was only thinking of your beauty."
"Get along with you!"
"Upon my word, yes. Come, Arabella, as we are to be man and wife, you might as well." At this moment he had got very close to her, and had recovered something of his usual manner; but she would not allow him even to put his arm round her waist.
"Out in the high road!" she said. "How can you be so impertinent - and so foolish?"
"You might as well, you know."
"Captain Bellfield, I brought you out here not for such fooling as that, but in order that we might have a little chat about business. If we are to be man and wife, as you say, we ought to understand on what footing we are to begin together. I'm afraid your own private means are not considerable?"
"Well, no; they are not, Mrs. Greenow."
"Have you anything?" The Captain hesitated, and poked the ground with his cane. "Come, Captain Bellfield, let us have the truth at once, and then we shall understand each other. You must have had something to live upon, I suppose."
Then the Captain told his story. He had a married sister from whom a guinea a week was allowed to him. That was all. He had been obliged to sell out of the army, because he was unable to live on his pay as a lieutenant. The price of his commission had gone to pay his debts, and now he was in debt again. He owed ninety pounds to Cheesacre, thirty-two pounds ten to a tailor at Yarmouth, and seventeen pounds at his lodgings in Norwich. At the present moment he had less than thirty shillings in his pocket. The tailor at Yarmouth had lent him three pounds to make his journey into Westmorland, and perhaps to get a rich wife.
Thus Mrs. Greenow got much information out of him; and then, when she was satisfied that she had learned at least some of the truth, she forgave him his offences.
"And now you will give a fellow a kiss," said the ecstatic Captain.
"Hush!" said the widow, "there's a carriage coming close to us."