Can You Forgive Her? (109 page)

‘Good G—I Glencora,’ said he, ‘do you mean to kill yourself?’

He wanted her to eat six or seven times a day; and always told her that she was eating too much, remembering some
ancient proverb about little and often. He watched her now as closely as Mrs Marsham and Mr Bott had watched her before; and she always knew that he was doing so. She made the matter worse by continually proposing to do things which she knew he would not permit, in order that she might enjoy the fun of seeing his agony and amazement But this, though it was fun to her at the moment, produced anything
but fun, as its general result.

‘Upon my word, Alice, I think this will kill me,’ she said.‘ I am not to stir out of the house now, unless I go in the carriage, or he is with me.’

‘It won’t last long.’

‘I don’t know what you call long. As for walking with him, it’s out of the question. He goes about a mile an hour. And then he makes me look so much like a fool. I had no idea that he would be
such an old coddle.’

‘The coddling will all be given to some one else, very soon.’

‘No baby could possibly live through it, if you mean that If there is a baby-’

‘I suppose there will be one, by-and-by,’ said Alice.

‘Don’t be a fool! But, if there is, I shall take that matter into my own hands. He can do what he pleases with me, and I can’t help myself; but I shan’t let him or anybody do what
they please with my baby. I know what I’m about in such matters a great deal better than he does. I’ve no doubt he’s a very clever man in Parliament; but he doesn’t seem to me to understand anything else.’

Alice was making some very wise speech in answer to this, when Lady Glencora interrupted her.

‘Mr Grey wouldn’t make himself so troublesome, I’m quite sure.’ Then Alice held her tongue.

When the first consternation arising from the news had somewhat subsided, – say in a fortnight from the day in which Mr
Palliser was made so triumphant, – and when tidings had been duly sent to the Duke, and an answer from his Grace had come, arrangements were made for the return of the party to England. The Duke’s reply was very short: -

M
Y DEAR
P
LANTAGENET,
– Give my kind love to Glencora. If
it’s a boy, of course I will be one of the godfathers. The Prince, who is very kind, will perhaps oblige me by being the other. I should advise you to return as soon as convenient.

Your affectionate uncle,

                                  O
MNIUM

That was the letter; and short as it was, it was probably the longest that Mr Palliser had ever received from the Duke.

There was great trouble about
the mode of their return.

‘Oh, what nonsense,’ said Glencora. ‘Let us get into an express train, and go right through to London.’ Mr Palliser looked at her with a countenance full of rebuke and sorrow. He was always so looking at her now. ‘If you mean, Plantagenet, that we are to be dragged all across the Continent in that horrible carriage, and be a thousand days on the road, I for one won’t
submit to it’ ‘I wish I had never told him a word about it’ she said afterwards to Alice. ‘He would never have found it out himself, till this thing was all over.’

Mr Palliser did at last consent to take the joint opinion of a Swiss doctor and an English one who was settled at Berne; and who, on the occasion, was summoned to Lucerne. They suggested the railway; and as letters arrived for Mr Palliser,
– medical letters,– in which the same opinion was broached, it was agreed, at last, that they should return by railway; but they were to make various halts on the road, stopping at each halting-place for a day. The first was, of course, Basle, and from Basle they were to go on to Baden.

‘I particularly want to see Baden again,’ Lady Glencora said; ‘and perhaps I may be able to get back my napoleon.’

T
HESE
arrangements as to the return of Mr Palliser’s party to London did not, of course, include Mr Grey. They were generally discussed in Mr Grey’s absence, and communicated to him by Mr Palliser. ‘I suppose we shall see you in England before long?’ said Mr Palliser. ‘I shall be able to tell you that before you go,’ said Grey. ‘Not but that in
any event I shall return to England before the winter.’

‘Then come to us at Matching,’ said Mr Palliser. ‘We shall be most happy to have you. Say that you’ll come for the first fortnight in December. After that we always go to the Duke, in Barsetshire. Though, by-the-by, I don’t suppose we shall go anywhere this year‘ Mr Palliser added, interrupting the warmth of his invitation, and reflecting
that, under the present circumstances, perhaps, it might be improper to have any guests at Matching in December. But he had become very fond of Mr Grey, and on this occasion, as he had done on some others, pressed him warmly to make an attempt at Parliament ‘It isn’t nearly so difficult as you think’ said he, when Grey declared that he would not know where to look for a seat ‘See the men that get
in. There was Mr Vavasor. Even he got a seat’

‘But he had to pay for it very dearly’

‘You might easily find some quiet little borough.’

‘Quiet little boroughs have usually got their own quiet little Members’ said Grey.

‘They’re fond of change; and if you like to spend a thousand pounds, the thing isn’t difficult I’ll put you in the way of it’ But Mr Grey still declined. He was not a man prone
to be talked out of his own way of life, and the very fact that George Vavasor had been in Parliament would of itself have gone far towards preventing any attempt on his part in that direction. Alice had also wanted him to go into public life, but he had put aside her request
as though the thing were quite out of the question, – never giving a moment to its consideration. Had she asked him to
settle himself and her in Central Africa, his manner and mode of refusal would have been the same. It was this immobility on his part, – this absolute want of any of the weakness of indecision, which had frightened her, and driven her away from him. He was partly aware of this; but that which he had declined to do at her solicitation, he certainly would not do at the advice of any one else. So it
was that he argued the matter with himself. Had he now allowed himself to be so counselled, with what terrible acknowledgements of his own faults must he not have presented himself before Alice?

‘I suppose books, then, will be your object in life?’ said Mr Palliser.

‘I hope they will be my aids,’ Grey answered. ‘I almost doubt whether any object such as that you mean is necessary for life, or
even expedient. It seems to me that if a man can so train himself that he may live honestly and die fearlessly, he has done about as much as is necessary.’

‘He has done a great deal, certainly,’ said Mr Palliser, who was not ready enough to carry on the argument as he might have done had more time been given to him to consider it. He knew very well that he himself was working for others, and
not for himself; and he was aware, though he had not analysed his own convictions on the matter, that good men struggle as they do in order that others, besides themselves, may live honestly, and, if possible, die fearlessly. The recluse of Nethercoats had thought much more about all this than the rising star of the House of Commons; but the philosophy of the rising star was the better philosophy
of the two, though he was by far the less brilliant man. ‘I don’t see why a man should not live honestly and be a Member of Parliament as well,’ continued Mr Palliser, when he had been silent for a few minutes.

‘Nor I either,’ said Grey. ‘I am sure that there are such men, and that the country is under great obligation to them. But they are subject to temptations which a prudent man like myself
may perhaps do well to avoid.’ But though he spoke with an assured
tone, he was shaken, and almost regretted that he did not accept the aid which was offered to him. It is astonishing how strong a man may be to those around him, – how impregnable may be his exterior, while within he feels himself to be as weak as water, and as unstable as chaff.

But the object which he had now in view was a renewal
of his engagement with Alice, and he felt that he must obtain an answer from her before they left Lucerne. If she still persisted in refusing to give him her hand, it would not be consistent with his dignity as a man to continue his immediate pursuit of her any longer. In such case he must leave her, and see what future time might bring forth. He believed himself to be aware that he would never
offer his love to another woman; and if Alice were to remain single, he might try again, after the lapse of a year or two. But if he failed now, – then, for that year or two, he would see her no more. Having so resolved, and being averse to anything like a surprise, he asked her, as he left her one evening, whether she would walk with him on the following morning? That morning would be the morning
of her last day at Lucerne; and as she assented he knew well what was to come. She said nothing to Lady Glencora on the subject, but allowed the coming prospects of the Palliser family to form the sole subject of their conversation that night, as it had done on every night since the great news had become known. They were always together for an hour every evening before Alice was allowed to go
to bed, and during this hour the anxieties of the future father and mother were always discussed till Alice Vavasor was almost tired of them. But she was patient with her friend, and on this special night she was patient as ever. But when she was released and was alone, she made a great endeavour to come to some fixed resolution as to what she would do on the morrow, –some resolution which should
be absolutely resolute, and from which no eloquence on the part of any one should move her. But such resolutions are not easily reached, and Alice laboured through half the night almost in vain. She knew that she loved the man. She knew that he was as true to her as the sun is true to the earth. She knew that she would be, in all respects, safe in his hands. She knew that Lady Glencora would be
delighted, and her
father gratified. She knew that the countesses would open their arms to her, – though I doubt whether this knowledge was in itself very persuasive. She knew that by such a marriage she would gain all that women generally look to gain when they give themselves away. But, nevertheless, as far as she could decide at all, she decided against her lover. She had no right of her own
to be taken back after the evil that she had done, and she did not choose to be taken back as an object of pity and forgiveness.

‘Where are you going?’ said her cousin, when she came in with her hat on, soon after breakfast

‘I am going to walk, – with Mr Grey.’

‘By appointment?’

‘Yes, by appointment He asked me yesterday.’

‘Then it’s all settled, and you haven’t told me!’

‘All that is settled
I have told you very often. He asked me yesterday to walk with him this morning, and I could not well refuse him.’

‘Why should you have wished to refuse him?’

‘I haven’t said that I did wish it. But I hate scenes, and I think it would have been pleasanter for us to have parted without any occasion for special words.’

‘Alice, you are such a fool!’

‘So you tell me very often.’

‘Of course he
is now going to say the very thing that he has come all this way for the purpose of saying. He has been wonderfully slow about it; but then slow as he is, you are slower. If you don’t make it up with him now, I really shall think you are very wicked. I am becoming like Lady Midlothian; – I can’t understand it I know you want to be his wife, and I know he wants to be your husband, and the only thing
that keeps you apart is your obstinacy, – just because you have said you wouldn’t have him. My belief is that if Lady Midlothian and the rest of us were to pat you on the back, and tell you how right you were, you’d ask him to take you, out of defiance. You may be sure of this, Alice; if you refuse him now, it’ll be for the last time.’

This, and much more of the same kind, she bore before Mr
Grey came to take her, and she answered to it all as little as she could.
‘You are making me very unhappy, Glencora,’ she said once. ‘I wish I could break you down with unhappiness,’ Lady Glencora answered, ‘so that he might find you less stiff, and hard, and unmanageable.’ Directly upon that he came in, looking as though he had no business on hand more exciting than his ordinary morning’s tranquil
employments. Alice at once got up to start with him. ‘So you and Alice are going to make your adieux,’ said Lady Glencora. ‘It must be done sooner or later,’ said Mr Grey; and then they went off.

Those who know Lucerne, – and almost everybody now does know Lucerne, – will remember the big hotel which has been built close to the landing-pier of the steamers, and will remember also the church
¹
that stands upon a little hill or rising ground, to the left of you, as you come out of the inn upon the lake. The church is immediately over the lake, and round the church there is a burying-ground, and skirting the burying-ground there are cloisters, through the arches and apertures of which they who walk and sit there look down immediately upon the blue water, and across the water upon the frowning
menaces of Mount Pilate
²
. It is one of the prettiest spots in that land of beauty; and its charm is to my feeling enhanced by the sepulchral monuments over which I walk, and by which I am surrounded, as I stand there. Up here, into these cloisters, Alice and John Grey went together. I doubt whether he had formed any purpose of doing so. She certainly would have gone without question in any direction
that he might have led her. The distance from the inn up to the church-gate did not take them ten minutes, and when they were there their walk was over. But the place was solitary, and they were alone; and it might be as well for Mr Grey to speak what words he had to say there as elsewhere. They had often been together in those cloisters before, but on such occasions either Mr Palliser or Lady
Glencora had been with them. On their slow passage up the hill very little was spoken, and that little was of no moment. ‘We will go in here for a few minutes,’ he said. ‘It is the prettiest spot about Lucerne, and we don’t know when we may see it again.’ So they went in, and sat down on one of the embrasures that open from the cloisters over the lake.