The Palliser Novels Part 20

"And Lady Macleod has often spoken to me of your ladyship," said Alice.

"Then we know each other's names," said the Countess; "and it will be well that we should be acquainted with each other's persons. I am becoming an old woman, and if I did not learn to know you now, or very shortly, I might never do so."

Alice could not help thinking that even under those circ.u.mstances neither might have had, so far as that was concerned, much cause of sorrow, but she did not say so. She was thinking altogether of Lady Midlothian's letter to her, and trying to calculate whether or no it would be well for her to rush away at once to the subject. That Lady Midlothian would mention the letter, Alice felt well a.s.sured; and when could it be better mentioned than now, in Glencora's presence, - when no other person was near them to listen to her? "You are very kind," said Alice.

"I would wish to be so," said Lady Midlothian. "Blood is thicker than water, my dear; and I know no earthly ties that can bind people together if those of family connection will not do so. Your mother, when she and I were young, was my dearest friend."

"I never knew my mother," said Alice, - feeling, however, as she spoke, that the strength of her resistance to the old woman was beginning to give way.

"No, my dear, you never did; and that is to my thinking another reason why they who loved her should love you. But Lady Macleod is your nearest relative, - on your mother's side, I mean, - and she has done her duty by you well."

"Indeed she has, Lady Midlothian."

"She has, and others, therefore, have been the less called upon to interfere. I only say this, my dear, in my own vindication, - feeling, perhaps, that my conduct needs some excuse."

"I'm sure Alice does not think that," said Lady Glencora.

"It is what I think rather than what Alice thinks that concerns my own shortcomings," said Lady Midlothian, with a smile which was intended to be pleasant. "But I have wished to make up for former lost opportunities." Alice knew that she was about to refer to her letter, and trembled. "I am very anxious now to be reckoned one of Alice Vavasor's friends, if she will allow me to become so."

"I can only be too proud, - if - "

"If what, my dear?" said the old lady. I believe that she meant to be gracious, but there was something in her manner, or, perhaps, rather in her voice, so repellant, that Alice felt that they could hardly become true friends. "If what, my dear?"

"Alice means - " began Lady Glencora.

"Let Alice say what she means herself," said Lady Midlothian.

"I hardly know how to say what I do mean," said Alice, whose spirit within her was rising higher as the occasion for using it came upon her. "I am a.s.sured that you and I, Lady Midlothian, differ very much as to a certain matter; and as it is one in which I must be guided by my own opinion, and not that of any other person, perhaps - "

"You mean about Mr Grey?"

"Yes," said Alice; "I mean about Mr Grey."

"I think so much about that matter, and your happiness as therein concerned, that when I heard that you were here I was determined to take Matching in my way to London, so that I might have an opportunity of speaking to you."

"Then you knew that Alice was here," said Lady Glencora.

"Of course I did. I suppose you have heard all the history, Glencora?"

Lady Glencora was forced to acknowledge that she had heard the history, - "the history" being poor Alice's treatment of Mr Grey.

"And what do you think of it?" Both Alice and her hostess looked round to the further end of the room in which Miss Palliser was reading, intending thus to indicate that the lady knew as yet none of the circ.u.mstances, and that there could be no good reason why she should be instructed in them at this moment. "Perhaps another time and another place may be better," said Lady Midlothian; "but I must go the day after to-morrow, - indeed, I thought of going to-morrow."

"Oh, Lady Midlothian!" exclaimed Lady Glencora.

"You must regard this as merely a pa.s.sing visit, made upon business. But, as I was saying, when shall I get an opportunity of speaking to Alice where we need not be interrupted?"

Lady Glencora suggested her room up-stairs, and offered the use of it then, or on that night when the world should be about to go to bed. But the idea of this premeditated lecture was terrible to Alice, and she determined that she would not endure it.

"Lady Midlothian, it would really be of no use."

"Of no use, my dear!"

"No, indeed. I did get your letter, you know."

"And as you have not answered it, I have come all this way to see you."

"I shall be so sorry if I give offence, but it is a subject which I cannot bring myself to discuss" - she was going to say with a stranger, but she was able to check herself before the offensive word was uttered, - "which I cannot bring myself to discuss with any one."

"But you don't mean to say that you won't see me?"

"I will not talk upon that matter," said Alice. "I will not do it even with Lady Macleod."

"No," said Lady Midlothian, and her sharp grey eyes now began to kindle with anger; "and therefore it is so very necessary that other friends should interfere."

"But I will endure no interference," said Alice, "either from persons who are friends or who are not friends." And as she spoke she rose from her chair. "You must forgive me, Lady Midlothian, if I say that I can have no conversation with you on this matter." Then she walked out of the room, leaving the Countess and Lady Glencora together. As she went Miss Palliser lifted her eyes from her book, and knew that there had been a quarrel, but I doubt if she had heard any of the words which had been spoken.

"The most self-willed young woman I ever met in my life," said Lady Midlothian, as soon as Alice was gone.

"I knew very well how it would be," said Lady Glencora.

"But it is quite frightful, my dear. She has been engaged, with the consent of all her friends, to this young man."

"I know all about it."

"But you must think she is very wrong."

"I don't quite understand her, but I suppose she fears they would not be happy together."

"Understand her! I should think not; n.o.body can understand her. A young woman to become engaged to a gentleman in that way, - before all the world, as one may say; - to go to his house, as I am told, and talk to the servants, and give orders about the furniture and then turn round and simply say that she has changed her mind! She hasn't given the slightest reason to my knowledge." And Lady Midlothian, as she insisted on the absolute iniquity of Alice's proceedings, almost startled Lady Glencora by the eagerness of her countenance. Lady Midlothian had been one of those who, even now not quite two years ago, had a.s.sisted in obtaining the submission of Lady Glencora herself. Lady Midlothian seemed on the present occasion to remember nothing of this, but Lady Glencora remembered it very exactly. "I shall not give it up," continued Lady Midlothian. "I have the greatest possible objection to her father, who contrived to connect himself with our family in a most shameful manner, without the slightest encouragement. I don't think I have spoken to him since, but I shall see him now and tell him my opinion."

Alice held her ground, and avoided all further conversation with Lady Midlothian. A message came to her through Lady Glencora imploring her to give way, but she was quite firm.

"Good-bye to you," Lady Midlothian said to her as she went. "Even yet I hope that things may go right, and if so you will find that I can forget and forgive."

"If perseverance merits success," said Lady Glencora to Alice, "she ought to succeed." "But she won't succeed," said Alice.

CHAPTER XXVII.

The Priory Ruins Lady Midlothian went away on her road to London on the Wednesday morning, and Alice was to follow her on the next day. It was now December, and the weather was very clear and frosty, but at night there was bright moonlight. On this special night the moon would be full, and Lady Glencora had declared that she and Alice would go out amidst the ruins. It was no secret engagement, having been canva.s.sed in public, and having been met with considerable discouragement by some of the party. Mr Palliser had remarked that the night air would be very cold, and Mr Bott had suggested all manner of evil consequences. Had Mr Palliser alone objected, Lady Glencora might have given way, but Mr Bott's word riveted her purpose.

"We are not going to be frightened," Lady Glencora said.

"People do not generally walk out at night in December," Mr Palliser observed.

"That's just the reason why we want to do it," said Lady Glencora. "But we shall wrap ourselves up, and n.o.body need be afraid. Jeffrey, we shall expect you to stand sentinel at the old gate, and guard us from the ghosts."

Jeffrey Palliser, bargaining that he might be allowed a cigar, promised that he would do as he was bidden.

The party at Matching Priory had by this time become very small. There were indeed no guests left, not counting those of the Palliser family, excepting Miss Vavasor, Mr Bott, and an old lady who had been a great friend of Mr Palliser's mother. It was past ten in the evening when Lady Glencora declared that the time had arrived for them to carry out their purpose. She invited the two Miss Pallisers to join her, but they declined, urging their fear of the night air, and showing by their manner that they thought the proposition a very imprudent one. Mr Bott offered to accompany them, but Lady Glencora declined his attendance very stoutly.

"No, indeed, Mr Bott; you were one of those who preached a sermon against my dissipation in the morning, and I'm not going to allow you to join it, now the time for its enjoyment has come."

"My dear Lady Glencora, if I were you, indeed I wouldn't," said the old lady, looking round towards Mr Palliser.

"My dear Mrs Marsham, if you were me, indeed you would," and Lady Glencora also looked at her husband.

"I think it a foolish thing to do," said Mr Palliser, sternly.

"If you forbid it, of course we won't go," said Lady Glencora.

"Forbid it: - no; I shall not forbid it."

"Allons donc," said Lady Glencora.

She and Alice were already m.u.f.fled in cloaks and thick shawls, and Alice now followed her out of the room. There was a door which opened from the billiard-room out on to the grand terrace, which ran in front of the house, and here they found Jeffrey Palliser already armed with his cigar. Alice, to tell the truth, would much have preferred to abandon the expedition, but she had felt that it would be cowardly in her to desert Lady Glencora. There had not arisen any very close intimacy between her and Mr Palliser, but she entertained a certain feeling that Mr Palliser trusted her, and liked her to be with his wife. She would have wished to justify this supposed confidence, and was almost sure that Mr Palliser expected her to do so in this instance. She did say a word or two to her cousin up-stairs, urging that perhaps her husband would nat like it.

"Let him say so plainly," said Lady Glencora, "and I'll give it up instantly. But I'm not going to be lectured out of my purposes secondhand by Mr Bott or old Mother Marsham. I understand all these people, my dear. And if you throw me over, Alice, I'll never forgive you," Lady Glencora added.

After this Alice resolved that she would not throw her friend over. She was afraid to do so. But she was also becoming a little afraid of her friend, - afraid that she would be driven some day either to throw her over, or to say words to her that would be very unpalatable.

"Now, Jeffrey," said Lady Glencora as they walked abreast along the broad terrace towards the ruins, "when we get under the old gateway you must let me and Alice go round the dormitory and the chapel alone. Then we'll come back by the cloisters, and we'll take another turn outside with you. The outside is the finest by this light, - only I want to show Alice something by ourselves."

"You're not afraid, I know, and if Miss Vavasor is not - "

"Miss Vavasor, - who, I think, would have allowed you to call her by her other name on such an occasion as this, - is never afraid."

"Glencora, how dare you say so?" said Alice. "I really think we had better go back."

She felt herself to be very angry with her cousin. She almost began to fear that she had mistaken her, and had thought better of her than she had deserved. What she had now said struck Alice as being vulgar, - as being premeditated vulgarity, and her annoyance was excessive. Of course Mr Palliser would think that she was a consenting party to the proposition made to him.

"Go back!" said Glencora. "No, indeed. We'll go on, and leave him here. Then he can call n.o.body anything. Don't be angry with me," she said, as soon as they were out of hearing. "The truth is this; - if you choose to have him for your husband, you may."

"But if I do not choose."

"Then there can be no harm done, and I will tell him so. But, Alice, - think of this. Whom will you meet that would suit you better? And you need not decide now. You need not say a word, but leave me to tell him, that if it is to be thought of at all, it cannot be thought of till he meets you in London. Trust me, you will be safe with me."

"You shall tell him nothing of the kind," said Alice. "I believe you to be joking throughout, and I think the joke is a bad one."

"No; there you wrong me. Indeed I am not joking. I know that in what I am saying I am telling you the simple truth. He has said enough to me to justify me in saying so. Alice, think of it all. It would reconcile me to much, and it would be something to be the mother of the future Duke of Omnium."

"To me it would be nothing," said Alice; "less than nothing. I mean to say that the temptation is one so easily resisted that it acts in the other way. Don't say anything more about it, Glencora."

"If you don't wish it, I will not."

"No; - I do not wish it. I don't think I ever saw moonlight so bright as this. Look at the lines of that window against the light. They are clearer than you ever see them in the day."

They were now standing just within the gateway of the old cruciform chapel, having entered the transept from a ruined pa.s.sage which was supposed to have connected the church with the dormitory. The church was altogether roofless, but the entire walls were standing. The small clerestory windows of the nave were perfect, and the large windows of the two transepts and of the west end were nearly so. Of the opposite window, which had formed the back of the choir, very little remained. The top of it, with all its tracery, was gone, and three broken upright mullions of uneven heights alone remained. This was all that remained of the old window, but a transom or cross-bar of stone had been added to protect the carved stone-work of the sides, and save the form of the aperture from further ruin. That this transom was modern was to be seen from the magnificent height and light grace of the workmanship in the other windows, in which the long slender mullions rose from the lower stage or foundation of the whole up into the middle tracery of the arch without protection or support, and then lost themselves among the curves, not running up into the roof or soffit, and there holding on as though unable to stand alone. Such weakness as that had not as yet shown itself in English church architecture when Matching Priory was built.

"Is it not beautiful!" said Glencora. "I do love it so! And there is a peculiar feeling of cold about the chill of the moon, different from any other cold. It makes you wrap yourself up tight, but it does not make your teeth chatter; and it seems to go into your senses rather than into your bones. But I suppose that's nonsense," she added, after a pause.

"Not more so than what people are supposed to talk by moonlight."

"That's unkind. I'd like what I say on such an occasion to be more poetical or else more nonsensical than what other people say under the same circ.u.mstances. And now I'll tell you why I always think of you when I come here by moonlight."

"But I suppose you don't often come."

"Yes, I do; that is to say, I did come very often when we had the full moon in August. The weather wasn't like this, and I used to run out through the open windows and n.o.body knew where I was gone. I made him come once, but he didn't seem to care about it. I told him that part of the refectory wall was falling; so he looked at that, and had a mason sent the next day. If anything is out of order he has it put to rights at once. There would have been no ruins if all the Pallisers had been like him."

"So much the better for the world."

"No; - I say no. Things may live too long. But now I'm going to tell you. Do you remember that night I brought you home from the play to Queen Anne Street?"

"Indeed I do, - very well."

Alice had occasion to remember it, for it had been in the carriage on that evening that she had positively refused to give any aid to her cousin in that matter relating to Burgo Fitzgerald.

"And do you remember how the moon shone then?"

"Yes, I think I do."

"I know I do. As we came round the corner out of Cavendish Square he was standing there, - and a friend of yours was standing with him."

"What friend of mine?"

"Never mind that; it does not matter now."

"Do you mean my cousin George?"

"Yes, I do mean your cousin; and oh, Alice! dear Alice! I don't know why I should love you, for if you had not been hardhearted that night, - stony cruel in your hard propriety, I should have gone with him then, and all this icy coldness would have been prevented."

She was standing quite close to Alice, and as she spake she shook with shivering and wrapped her furs closer and still closer about her.

"You are very cold," said Alice. "We had better go in."

"No, I am not cold, - not in that way. I won't go in yet. Jeffrey will come to us directly. Yes; - we should have escaped that night if you would have allowed him to come into your house. Ah, well! we didn't, and there's an end of it."

"But Glencora, - you cannot regret it."

"Not regret it! Alice, where can your heart be? Or have you a heart? Not regret it! I would give everything I have in the world to have been true to him. They told me that he would spend my money. Though he should have spent every farthing of it, I regret it; though he should have made me a beggar, I regret it. They told me that he would ill-use me, and desert me, - perhaps beat me. I do not believe it; but even though that should have been so, I regret it. It is better to have a false husband than to be a false wife."

"Glencora, do not speak like that. Do not try to make me think that anything could tempt you to be false to your vows."