The Chronicles of Barsetshire (253 page)

“Well, Gustavus,” she said at last. “You must say what answer I shall make, or whether I shall make any answer.” But he was not even yet ready to instruct her. So he unfolded the letter and read it again, and she poured out for herself a cup of tea.

“It’s a very serious matter,” said he.

“Yes, it is serious; I could not but think such a letter from my mother to be serious. Had it come from anyone else I doubt whether I should have troubled you; unless, indeed, it had been from any as near to you as she is to me. As it is, you cannot but feel that I am right.”

“Right! Oh, yes, you are right—quite right to tell me; you should tell me everything. D—— them!” But whom he meant to condemn he did not explain.

“I am above all things averse to cause you trouble,” she said. “I have seen some little things of late—”

“Has he ever said anything to you?”

“Who—Mr. Palliser? Never a word.”

“He has hinted at nothing of this kind?”

“Never a word. Had he done so, I must have made you understand that he could not have been allowed again into my drawing-room.” Then again he read the letter, or pretended to do so.

“Your mother means well,” he said.

“Oh, yes, she means well. She has been foolish to believe the tittle-tattle that has reached her—very foolish to oblige me to give you this annoyance.”

“Oh, as for that, I’m not annoyed. By Jove, no. Come, Griselda, let us have it all out; other people have said this, and I have been unhappy. Now, you know it all.”

“Have I made you unhappy?”

“Well, no; not you. Don’t be hard upon me when I tell you the whole truth. Fools and brutes have whispered things that have vexed me. They may whisper till the devil fetches them, but they shan’t annoy me again. Give me a kiss, my girl.” And he absolutely put out his arms and embraced her. “Write a good-natured letter to your mother, and ask her to come up for a week in May. That’ll be the best thing; and then she’ll understand. By Jove, it’s twelve o’clock. Good-bye.”

Lady Dumbello was well aware that she had triumphed, and that her mother’s letter had been invaluable to her. But it had been used, and therefore she did not read it again. She ate her breakfast in quiet comfort, looking over a milliner’s French circular as she did so; and then, when the time for such an operation had fully come, she got to her writing-table and answered her mother’s letter.

DEAR MAMMA [she said], I thought it best to show your letter at once to Lord Dumbello. He said that people would be ill-natured, and seemed to think that the telling of such stories could not be helped. As regards you, he was not a bit angry, but said that you and papa had better come to us for a week about the end of next month. Do come. We are to have rather a large dinner-party on the 23rd. His Royal Highness is coming, and I think papa would like to meet him. Have you observed that those very high bonnets have all gone out: I never liked them; and as I had got a hint from Paris, I have been doing my best to put them down. I do hope nothing will prevent your coming.

Your affectionate daughter, G. DUMBELLO

Carlton Gardens, Wednesday

Mrs. Grantly was aware, from the moment in which she received the letter, that she had wronged her daughter by her suspicions. It did not occur to her to disbelieve a word that was said in the letter, or an inference that was implied. She had been wrong, and rejoiced that it was so. But nevertheless there was that in the letter which annoyed and irritated her, though she could not explain to herself the cause of her annoyance. She had thrown all her heart into that which she had written, but in the words which her child had written, not a vestige of heart was to be found. In that reconciling of God and Mammon which Mrs. Grantly had carried on so successfully in the education of her daughter, the organ had not been required, and had become withered, if not defunct, through want of use.

“We will not go there, I think,” said Mrs. Grantly, speaking to her husband.

“Oh dear, no; certainly not. If you want to go to town at all, I will take rooms for you. And as for his Royal Highness—! I have a great respect for his Royal Highness, but I do not in the least desire to meet him at Dumbello’s table.”

And so that matter was settled, as regarded the inhabitants of Plumstead Episcopi.

And whither did Lord Dumbello betake himself when he left his wife’s room in so great a hurry at twelve o’clock? Not to the Park, nor to Tattersall’s, nor to a committee-room of the House of Commons, nor yet to the bow-window of his club. But he went straight to a great jeweller’s in Ludgate Hill, and there purchased a wonderful green necklace, very rare and curious, heavy with green sparkling drops, with three rows of shining green stones embedded in chaste gold—a necklace amounting almost to a jewelled cuirass in weight and extent. It had been in all the exhibitions, and was very costly and magnificent. While Lady Dumbello was still dressing in the evening this was brought to her with her lord’s love, as his token of renewed confidence; and Lady Dumbello, as she counted the sparkles, triumphed inwardly, telling herself that she had played her cards well.

But while she counted the sparkles produced by her full reconciliation with her lord, poor Plantagenet Palliser was still trembling in his ignorance. If only he could have been allowed to see Mrs. Grantly’s letter, and the lady’s answer, and the lord’s present! But no such seeing was vouchsafed to him, and he was carried off in his brougham to Lady de Courcy’s house, twittering with expectant love, and trembling with expectant ruin. To this conclusion he had come at any rate, that if anything was to be done, it should be done now. He would speak a word of love, and prepare his future in accordance with the acceptance it might receive.

Lady de Courcy’s rooms were very crowded when he arrived there. It was the first great crushing party of the season, and all the world had been collected into Portman Square. Lady de Courcy was smiling as though her lord had no teeth, as though her eldest son’s condition was quite happy, and all things were going well with the De Courcy interests. Lady Margaretta was there behind her, bland without and bitter within; and Lady Rosina also, at some further distance, reconciled to this world’s vanity and finery because there was to be no dancing. And the married daughters of the house were there also, striving to maintain their positions on the strength of their undoubted birth, but subjected to some snubbing by the lowness of their absolute circumstances. Gazebee was there, happy in the absolute fact of his connection with an earl, and blessed with the consideration that was extended to him as an earl’s son-in-law. And Crosbie, also, was in the rooms—was present there, though he had sworn to himself that he would no longer dance attendance on the countess, and that he would sever himself away from the wretchedness of the family. But if he gave up them and their ways, what else would then be left to him? He had come, therefore, and now stood alone, sullen in a corner, telling himself that all was vanity. Yes; to the vain all will be vanity; and to the poor of heart all will be poor.

Lady Dumbello was there in a small inner room, seated on a couch to which she had been brought on her first arrival at the house, and on which she would remain till she departed. From time to time some very noble or very elevated personage would come before her and say a word, and she would answer that elevated personage with another word; but nobody had attempted with her the task of conversation. It was understood that Lady Dumbello did not converse—unless it were occasionally with Mr. Palliser.

She knew well that Mr. Palliser was to meet her there. He had told her expressly that he should do so, having inquired, with much solicitude, whether she intended to obey the invitation of the countess. “I shall probably be there,” she had said, and now had determined that her mother’s letter and her husband’s conduct to her should not cause her to break her word. Should Mr. Palliser “forget” himself, she would know how to say a word to him as she had known how to say a word to her husband. Forget himself! She was very sure that Mr. Palliser had been making up his mind to forget himself for some months past.

He did come to her, and stood over her, looking unutterable things. His unutterable things, however, were so looked, that they did not absolutely demand notice from the lady. He did not sigh like a furnace, nor open his eyes upon her as though there were two suns in the firmament above her head, nor did he beat his breast or tear his hair. Mr. Palliser had been brought up in a school which delights in tranquillity, and never allows its pupils to commit themselves either to the sublime or to the ridiculous. He did look an unutterable thing or two; but he did it with so decorous an eye, that the lady, who was measuring it all with great accuracy, could not, as yet, declare that Mr. Palliser had “forgotten himself.”

There was room by her on the couch, and once or twice, at Hartlebury, he had ventured so to seat himself. On the present occasion, however, he could not do so without placing himself manifestly on her dress. She would have known how to fill a larger couch even than that—as she would have known, also, how to make room—had it been her mind to do so. So he stood still over her, and she smiled at him. Such a smile! It was cold as death, flattering no one, saying nothing, hideous in its unmeaning, unreal grace. Ah! how I hate the smile of a woman who smiles by rote! It made Mr. Palliser feel very uncomfortable—but he did not analyse it, and persevered.

“Lady Dumbello,” he said, and his voice was very low, “I have been looking forward to meeting you here.”

“Have you, Mr. Palliser? Yes; I remember that you asked me whether I was coming.”

“I did. Hm—Lady Dumbello!” and he almost trenched upon the outside verge of that schooling which had taught him to avoid both the sublime and the ridiculous. But he had not forgotten himself as yet, and so she smiled again.

“Lady Dumbello, in this world in which we live, it is so hard to get a moment in which we can speak.” He had thought that she would move her dress, but she did not.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said; “one doesn’t often want to say very much, I think.”

“Ah, no; not often, perhaps. But when one does want! How I do hate these crowded rooms!” Yet, when he had been at Hartlebury he had resolved that the only ground for him would be the crowded drawing-room of some large London house. “I wonder whether you ever desire anything beyond them?”

“Oh, yes,” said she; “but I confess that I am fond of parties.”

Mr. Palliser looked round and thought that he saw that he was unobserved. He had made up his mind as to what he would do, and he was determined to do it. He had in him none of that readiness which enables some men to make love and carry off their Dulcineas at a moment’s notice, but he had that pluck which would have made himself disgraceful in his own eyes if he omitted to do that as to the doing of which he had made a solemn resolution. He would have preferred to do it sitting, but,
faute de mieux
, seeing that a seat was denied to him, he would do it standing.

“Griselda,” he said—and it must be admitted that his tone was not bad. The word sank softly into her ear, like small rain upon moss, and it sank into no other ear. “Griselda!”

“Mr. Palliser!” said she—and though she made no scene, though she merely glanced upon him once, he could see that he was wrong.

“May I not call you so?”

“Certainly not. Shall I ask you to see if my people are there?” He stood a moment before her, hesitating. “My carriage, I mean.” As she gave the command she glanced at him again, and then he obeyed her orders.

When he returned she had left her seat; but he heard her name announced on the stairs, and caught a glance of the back of her head as she made her way gracefully down through the crowd. He never attempted to make love to her again, utterly disappointing the hopes of Lady de Courcy, Mrs. Proudie, and Lady Clandidlem.

As I would wish those who are interested in Mr. Palliser’s fortunes to know the ultimate result of this adventure, and as we shall not have space to return to his affairs in this little history, I may, perhaps, be allowed to press somewhat forward, and tell what Fortune did for him before the close of that London season. Everybody knows that in that spring Lady Glencora MacCluskie was brought out before the world, and it is equally well known that she, as the only child of the late Lord of the Isles, was the great heiress of the day. It is true that the hereditary possession of Skye, Staffa, Mull, Arran, and Bute went, with the title, to the Marquis of Auldreekie, together with the counties of Caithness and Ross-shire. But the property in Fife, Aberdeen, Perth, and Kincardineshire, comprising the greater part of those counties, and the coal-mines in Lanark, as well as the enormous estate within the city of Glasgow, were unentailed, and went to the Lady Glencora. She was a fair girl, with bright blue eyes and short wavy flaxen hair, very soft to the eye. The Lady Glencora was small in stature, and her happy round face lacked, perhaps, the highest grace of female beauty. But there was ever a smile upon it, at which it was very pleasant to look; and the intense interest with which she would dance, and talk, and follow up every amusement that was offered her, was very charming. The horse she rode was the dearest love—oh! she loved him so dearly! And she had a little dog that was almost as dear as the horse. The friend of her youth, Sabrina Scott, was—oh, such a girl! And her cousin, the little Lord of the Isles, the heir of the marquis, was so gracious and beautiful that she was always covering him with kisses. Unfortunately he was only six, so that there was hardly a possibility that the properties should be brought together.

But Lady Glencora, though she was so charming, had even in this, her first outset upon the world, given great uneasiness to her friends, and caused the Marquis of Auldreekie to be almost wild with dismay. There was a terribly handsome man about town, who had spent every shilling that anybody would give him, who was very fond of brandy, who was known, but not trusted, at Newmarket, who was said to be deep in every vice, whose father would not speak to him—and with him the Lady Glencora was never tired of dancing. One morning she had told her cousin the marquis, with a flashing eye—for the round blue eye could flash—that Burgo Fitzgerald was more sinned against than sinning. Ah me! what was a guardian marquis, anxious for the fate of the family property, to do under such circumstances as that?