Can You Forgive Her? (87 page)

Nevertheless, he went on reading, or pretending to read, as long as the continuance of the breakfast
made it certain that his wife would remain with him. Every now and then he said some word to her of what he was reading, endeavouring to use the tone of voice that was customary to him in his domestic teachings of politics. But through it all there was a certain hesitation, – there were the sure signs of an attempt being made, of which he was himself conscious, and which she understood with
the most perfect accuracy. He was deferring the evil moment, and vainly endeavouring to make himself believe that he was comfortably employed the while. She had no newspaper, and made no endeavour to deceive herself. She, therefore, was the first to begin the conversation.

‘Plantagenet,’ she said, ‘you told me last night, as I was going to bed, that you had something to say about Lady Monk’s
party.’

He put down the newspaper slowly, and turned towards her. ‘Yes, my dear. After what happened, I believe that I must say something.’

‘If you think anything, pray say it,’ said Glencora.

‘It is not always easy for a man to show what he thinks by what he says,’ he replied. ‘My fear is that you should suppose me to think more than I do. And it was for that reason that I determined to sleep
on it before I spoke to you.’

‘If anybody is angry with me I’d much rather they should have it out with me while their anger is hot I hate cold anger.’

‘But I am not angry,’

‘That’s what husbands always say when they’re going to scold.’

‘But I am not going to scold. I am only going to advise you.’

‘I’d sooner be scolded. Advice is to anger just what cold anger is to hot’

‘But, my dear Glencora,
surely if I find it necessary to speak –’

‘I don’t want to stop you, Plantagenet Fray, go on. Only it will be so nice to have it over.’

He was now more than ever averse to the task before him. Husbands, when they give their wives a talking, should do it out of hand, uttering their words hard, sharp, and quick, – and should then go. There are some works that won’t bear a preface, and this work
of marital fault-finding is one of them. Mr Palliser was already beginning to find out the truth of this. ‘Glencora,’ he said, ‘I wish you to be serious with me.’

‘I am very serious,’ she replied, as she settled herself in her chair with an air of mockery, while her eyes and mouth were bright and eloquent with a spirit which her husband did not love to see. Poor girl! There was seriousness enough
in store for her before she would be able to leave the room.

‘You ought to be serious. Do you know why Mrs Marsham came here from Lady Monk’s last night?’

‘Of course I do. She came to tell you that I was waltzing with Burgo Fitzgerald. You might as well ask me whether I knew why Mr Bott was standing at all the doors, glaring at me.’

‘I don’t know anything about Mr Bott’

‘I know something about
him though,’ she said, again moving herself in her chair.

‘I am speaking now of Mrs Marsham.’

‘You should speak of them both together as they hunt in couples.’

‘Glencora, will you listen to me, or will you not? If you say that you will not, I shall know what to do.’

‘I don’t think you would, Plantagenet’ And she nodded her little head at him, as she spoke. ‘I’m sure I don’t know what you would
do. But I will listen to you. Only, as I said before, it will be very nice when it’s over.’

‘Mrs Marsham came here, not simply to tell me that you were waltzing with Mr Fitzgerald, – and I wish that when you mention his name you would call him Mr Fitzgerald.’

‘So I do.’

‘You generally prefix his Christian name, which it would be much better that you should omit.’

‘I will try,’ she said, very
gently; ‘but it’s hard to drop an old habit. Before you married me you knew that I had learned to call him Burgo.’

‘Let me go on,’ said Mr Palliser.

‘Oh, certainly.’

‘It was not simply to tell me that you were waltzing that Mrs Marsham came here.’

‘And it was not simply to see me waltzing that Mr Bott stood in the doorways, for he followed me about, and came down after me to the supper-room.’

‘Glencora, will you oblige me by not speaking of Mr Bott?’

‘I wish you would oblige me by not speaking of Mrs Marsham.’ Mr Palliser rose quickly from his chair with a gesture of anger, stood upright for half a minute, and then sat down again. ‘I beg your pardon, Plantagenet,’ she said. ‘I think I know what you want, and I’ll hold my tongue till you bid me speak.’

‘Mrs Marsham came here because
she saw that every one in the room was regarding you with wonder.’ Lady Glencora twisted herself about in her chair, but she said nothing. ‘She saw that you were not only dancing with Mr Fitzgerald, but that you were dancing with him, – what shall I say?’

‘Upon my word I can’t tell you.’

‘Recklessly.’

‘Oh! recklessly, was I? What was I reckless of?’

‘Reckless of what people might say; reckless
of what I might feel about it; reckless of your own position.’

‘Am I to speak now?’

‘Perhaps you had better let me go on. I think she was right to come to me.’

‘That’s of course. What’s the good of having spies, if they don’t run and tell as soon as they see anything, especially anything –reckless.’

‘Glencora, you are determined to make me angry. I am angry now, – very angry’ I have employed
no spies. When rumours have
reached me, not from spies, as you choose to call them, but through your dearest friends and mine –’

‘What do you mean by rumours from my dearest friends?’

‘Never mind. Let me go on.’

‘No; not when you say my dear friends have spread rumours about me. Tell me who they are. I have no dear friends. Do you mean Alice Vavasor?’

‘It does not signify. But when I was warned
that you had better not go to any house in which you could meet that man, I would not listen to it. I said that you were my wife, and that as such I could trust you anywhere, everywhere, with any person. Others might distrust you, but I would not do so. When I wished you to go to Monkshade, were there to be any spies there? When I left you last night at Lady Monk’s, do you believe in your heart
that I trusted to Mrs Marsham’s eyes rather than to your own truth? Do you think that I have lived in fear of Mr Fitzgerald?’

‘No, Plantagenet; I do not think so.’

‘Do you believe that I have commissioned Mr Bott to watch your conduct? Answer me, Glencora.’

She paused a moment, thinking what actually was her true belief on that subject. ‘He does watch me, certainly’she said.

‘That does not
answer my question. Do you believe that I have commissioned him to do so?’

‘No; I do not’

‘Then it is ignoble in you to talk to me of spies. I have employed no spies. If it were ever to come to that, that I thought spies necessary, it would be all over with me.’

There was something of feeling in his voice as he said this, –something that almost approached to passion which touched his wife’s
heart. Whether or not spies would be of any avail, she knew that she had in truth done that of which he had declared that he had never suspected her. She had listened to words of love from her former lover. She had received, and now carried about with her a letter from this man, in which he asked her to elope with him. She had by no means resolved that she would not do this thing. She had been false
to her husband; and as her husband spoke of his
confidence in her, her own spirit rebelled against the deceit which she herself was practising.

‘I know that I have never made you happy,’ she said. ‘I know that I never can make you happy.’

He looked at her, struck by her altered tone, and saw that her whole manner and demeanour were changed. ‘I do not understand what you mean,’ he said. ‘I have
never complained. You have not made me unhappy.’ He was one of those men to whom this was enough. If his wife caused him no uneasiness, what more was he to expect from her? No doubt she might have done much more for him. She might have given him an heir. But he was a just man, and knew that the blank he had drawn was his misfortune, and not her fault

But now her heart was loosed and she spoke
out, at first slowly, but after a while with all the quietness of strong passion. ‘No, Plantagenet; I shall never make you happy. You have never loved me, nor I you. We have never loved each other for a single moment I have been wrong to talk to you about spies; I was wrong to go to Lady Monk’s; I have been wrong in everything that I have done; but never so wrong as when I let them persuade me to
be your wife!’

‘Glencoral’

‘Let me speak now, Flantagenet It is better that I should tell you everything; and I will. I will tell you everything; – everything! I do love Burgo Fitzgerald. I do! I do! I do! Hew can I help loving him? Have I not loved him from the first, – before I had seen you? Did you not know that it was so? I do love Burgo Fitzgerald, and when I went to Lady Monk’s last night,
I had almost made up my mind that I must tell him so, and that I must go away with him and hide myself. But when he came to speak to me–’

‘He has asked you to go with him, then?’ said the husband, in whose bosom the poison was beginning to take effect, thereby showing that he was neither above nor below humanity.

Glencora was immediately reminded that though she might, if she pleased, tell her
own secrets, she ought not, in accordance with her ideas of honour, tell those of her lover. ‘What need is there of
asking, do you think,’ when people have loved each other as we have done?’

‘You wanted to go with him, then?’

‘Would it not have been the best for you? Plantagenet, I do not love you; – not as women love their husbands when they do love them. But, before God, my first wish is to
free you from the misfortune that I have brought on you.’ As she made this attestation she started up from her chair, and coming close to him, took him by the coat. He was startled, and stepped back a pace, but did not speak; and then stood looking at her as she went on.

‘What matters it whether I drown myself, or throw myself away by going with such a one as him, so that you might marry again,
and have a child? I’d die: – I’d the willingly. How I wish I could die! Plantagenet, I would kill myself if I dared.’

He was a tall man and she was short of stature, so that he stood over her and looked upon her, and now she was looking up into his face with all her eyes. ’I would,’ she said. ‘I would –I would! What is there left for me that I should wish to live?’

Softly, slowly, very gradually,
as though he were afraid of what he was doing, he put his arm round her waist. ‘You are wrong in one thing,’ he said.’ ‘I do love you.’

She shook her head, touching his breast with her hair as she did so.

‘I do love you,’ he repeated. ‘If you mean that I am not apt at telling you so, it is true, I know. My mind is running on other things.’

‘Yes,’ she said; ’your mind is running on other things.’

‘But I do love you. If you cannot love me, it is a great misfortune to us both. But we need not therefore be disgraced. As for that other thing of which you spoke, – of our having, as yet, no child’ – and in saying this he pressed her somewhat closer with his arm – ‘you allow yourself to think too much of it; – much more of it than I do. I have made no complaints on that head, even within my own
breast’

‘I know what your thoughts are, Plantagenet’

‘Believe me that you wrong my thoughts. Of course I have been
anxious, and have, perhaps, shown my anxiety by the struggle I have made to hide it. I have never told you what is false, Glen-cora.’

‘No; you are not false!’

‘I would rather have you for my wife, childless, – if you will try to love me, – than any other woman, though another
might give me an heir. Will you try to love me?’

She was silent. At this moment, after the confession that she had made, she could not bring herself to say that she would even try. Had she said so, she would have seemed to have accepted his forgiveness too easily.

‘I think, dear,’ he said, still holding her by her waist, ‘that we had better leave England for a while. I will give up politics
for this season. Should you like to go to Switzerland for the summer, or perhaps to some of the German baths, and then on to Italy when the weather is cold enough?’ Still she was silent. ‘Perhaps your friend, Miss Vavasor, would go with us?’

He was killing her by his goodness. She could not speak to him yet; but now, as he mentioned Alice’s name, she gently put up her hand and rested it on the
back of his.

At that moment there came a knock at the door; - a sharp knock, which was quickly repeated.

‘Come in,’ said Mr Palliser, dropping his arm from his wife’s waist, and standing away from her a few yards.’

I
T
was the butler who had knocked, – showing that the knock was of more importance than it would have been had it been struck by the knuckles of the footman in livery. ‘If you please, sir, the Duke of St Bungay is here.’

‘The Duke of St Bungay!’ said Mr Palliser, becoming rather red as he heard the announcement

‘Yes, sir, his grace is
in the library. He bade me tell you that he
particularly wanted to see you; so I told him that you were with my lady.’

‘Quite right; tell his grace that I will be with him in two minutes.’ Then the butler retired, and Mr Palliser was again alone with his wife.

‘I must go now, my dear’, he said; ‘and perhaps I shall not see you again till the evening.’

‘Don’t let me put you out in any way,’
she answered.

‘Oh no; – you won’t put me out You will be dressing, I suppose, about nine.’

‘I did not mean as to that,’ she answered. ‘You must not think more of Italy. He has come to tell you that you are wanted in the Cabinet.’

Again he turned very red. ‘It may be so,’ he answered, ‘but though I am wanted, I need not go. But I must not keep the duke waiting. Good-bye.’ And he turned to the
door.

She followed him and took hold of him as he went, so that he was forced to turn to her once again. She managed to get hold of both his hands, and pressed them closely, looking up into his face with her eyes laden with tears. He smiled at her gently, returned the pressure of the hands, and then left her, – without kissing her. It was not that he was minded not to kiss her. He would have
kissed her willingly enough had he thought that the occasion required it. ‘He says that he loves me,’ said Lady Glencora to herself, ‘but he does not know what love means.’