The Palliser Novels (72 page)

“Does it put you in mind of old days?” said Burgo.

She was driven to answer, and she knew that much would be decided by the way in which she might now speak. “You must not talk of that,” she said, very softly.

“May I not?” And now his tongue was unloosed, so that he began to speak quickly. “May I not? And why not? They were happy days, — so happy! Were not you happy when you thought — ? Ah, dear! I suppose it is best not even to think of them?”

“Much the best.”

“Only it is impossible. I wish I knew the inside of your heart, Cora, so that I could see what it is that you really wish.”

In the old days he had always called her Cora, and now the name came from his lips upon her ears as a thing of custom, causing no surprise. They were standing back, behind the circle, almost in a corner, and Burgo knew well how to speak at such moments so that his words should be audible to none but her whom he addressed.

“You should not have come to me at all,” she said.

“And why not? Who has a better right to come to you? Who has ever loved you as I have done? Cora, did you get my letter?”

“Come and dance,” she said; “I see a pair of eyes looking at us.” The pair of eyes which Lady Glencora saw were in the possession of Mr Bott, who was standing alone, leaning against the side of the doorway, every now and then raising his heels from the ground, so that he might look down upon the sinners as from a vantage ground. He was quite alone. Mrs Marsham had left him, and had gotten herself away in Lady Glencora’s own carriage to Park Lane, in order that she might find Mr Palliser there, if by chance he should be at home.

“Won’t it be making mischief?” Mrs Marsham had said when Mr Bott had suggested this line of conduct.

“There’ll be worse mischief if you don’t,” Mr Bott had answered. “He can come back, and then he can do as he likes. I’ll keep my eyes upon them.” And so he did keep his eyes upon them.

Again they went round the room, — or that small portion of the room which the invading crowd had left to the dancers, — as though they were enjoying themselves thoroughly, and in all innocence. But there were others besides Mr Bott who looked on and wondered. The Duchess of St Bungay saw it, and shook her head sorrowing, — for the Duchess was good at heart. Mrs Conway Sparkes saw it, and drank it down with keen appetite, — as a thirsty man with a longing for wine will drink champagne, — for Mrs Conway Sparkes was not good at heart. Lady Hartletop saw it, and just raised her eyebrows. It was nothing to her. She liked to know what was going on, as such knowledge was sometimes useful; but, as for heart, — what she had was, in such a matter, neither good nor bad. Her blood circulated with its ordinary precision, and, in that respect, no woman ever had a better heart. Lady Monk saw it, and a frown gathered on her brow. “The fool!” she said to herself. She knew that Burgo would not help his success by drawing down the eyes of all her guests upon his attempt. In the meantime Mr Bott stood there, mounting still higher on his toes, straightening his back against the wall.

“Did you get my letter?” Burgo said again, as soon as a moment’s pause gave him breath to speak. She did not answer him. Perhaps her breath did not return to her as rapidly as his. But, of course, he knew that she had received it. She would have quickly signified to him that no letter from him had come to her hands had it not reached her. “Let us go out upon the stairs,” he said, “for I must speak to you. Oh, if you could know what I suffered when you did not come to Monkshade! Why did you not come?”

“I wish I had not come here,” she said.

“Because you have seen me? That, at any rate, is not kind of you.”

They were now making their way slowly down the stairs, in the crowd, towards the supper-room. All the world was now intent on food and drink, and they were only doing as others did. Lady Glencora was not thinking where she went, but, glancing upwards, as she stood for a moment wedged upon the stairs, her eyes met those of Mr Bott. “A man that can treat me like that deserves that I should leave him.” That was the thought that crossed her mind at the moment.

“I’ll get you some champagne with water in it,” said Burgo. “I know that is what you like.”

“Do not get me anything,” she said. They had now got into the room, and had therefore escaped Mr Bott’s eyes for the moment. “Mr Fitzgerald,” — and now her words had become a whisper in his ear, — “do what I ask you. For the sake of the old days of which you spoke, the dear old days which can never come
again — “

“By G––––! they can,” said he. “They can come back, and they shall.”

“Never. But you can still do me a kindness. Go away, and leave me. Go to the sideboard, and then do not come back. You are doing me an injury while you remain with me.”

“Cora,” he said,

But she had now recovered her presence of mind, and understood what was going on. She was no longer in a dream, but words and things bore to her again their proper meaning. “I will not have it, Mr Fitzgerald,” she answered, speaking almost passionately. “I will not have it. Do as I bid you. Go and leave me, and do not return. I tell you that we are watched.” This was still true, for Mr Bott had now again got his eyes on them, round the supper-room door. Whatever was the reward for which he was working, private secretaryship or what else, it must be owned that he worked hard for it. But there are labours which are labours of love.

“Who is watching us?” said Burgo; “and what does it matter? If you are minded to do as I have asked
you — “

“But I am not so minded. Do you not know that you insult me by proposing it?”

“Yes; — it is an insult, Cora, — unless such an offer be a joy to you. If you wish to be my wife instead of his, it is no insult.”

“How can I be that?” Her face was not turned to him, and her words were half-pronounced, and in the lowest whisper, but, nevertheless, he heard them.

“Come with me, — abroad, and you shall yet be my wife. You got my letter? Do what I asked you, then. Come with me — to-night.”

The pressing instance of the suggestion, the fixing of a present hour, startled her back to her propriety. “Mr Fitzgerald,” she said, “I asked you to go and leave me. If you do not do so, I must get up and leave you. It will be much more difficult.”

“And is that to be all?”

“All; — at any rate, now.” Oh, Glencora! how could you be so weak? Why did you add that word, “now”? In truth, she added it then, at that moment, simply feeling that she could thus best secure an immediate compliance with her request.

“I will not go,” he said, looking at her sternly, and leaning before her, with earnest face, with utter indifference as to the eyes of any that might see them. “I will not go till you tell me that you will see me again.”

“I will,” she said in that low, all-but-unuttered whisper.

“When, — when, — when?” he asked.

Looking up again towards the doorway, in fear of Mr Bott’s eyes, she saw the face of Mr Palliser as he entered the room. Mr Bott had also seen him, and had tried to clutch him by the arm; but Mr Palliser had shaken him off, apparently with indifference, — had got rid of him, as it were, without noticing him. Lady Glencora, when she saw her husband, immediately recovered her courage. She would not cower before him, or show herself ashamed of what she had done. For the matter of that, if he pressed her on the subject, she could bring herself to tell him that she loved Burgo Fitzgerald much more easily than she could whisper such a word to Burgo himself. Mr Bott’s eyes were odious to her as they watched her; but her husband’s glance she could meet without quailing before it. “Here is Mr Palliser,” said she, speaking again in her ordinary clear-toned voice. Burgo immediately rose from his seat with a start, and turned quickly towards the door; but Lady Glencora kept her chair.

Mr Palliser made his way as best he could through the crowd up to his wife. He, too, kept his countenance without betraying his secret. There was neither anger nor dismay in his face, nor was there any untoward hurry in his movement. Burgo stood aside as he came up, and Lady Glencora was the first to speak. “I thought you were gone home hours ago,” she said.

“I did go home,” he answered, “but I thought I might as well come back for you.”

“What a model of a husband! Well; I am ready. Only, what shall we do about Jane? Mr Fitzgerald, I left a scarf in your aunt’s room, — a little black and yellow scarf, — would you mind getting it for me?”

“I will fetch it,” said Mr Palliser; “and I will tell your cousin that the carriage shall come back for her.”

“If you will allow me — ” said Burgo.

“I will do it,” said Mr Palliser; and away he went, making his slow progress up through the crowd, ordering his carriage as he passed through the hall, and leaving Mr Bott still watching at the door.

Lady Glencora resolved that she would say nothing to Burgo while her husband was gone. There was a touch of chivalry in his leaving them again together, which so far conquered her. He might have bade her leave the scarf, and come at once. She had seen, moreover, that he had not spoken to Mr Bott, and was thankful to him also for that. Burgo also seemed to have become aware that his chance for that time was over. “I will say good-night,” he said. “Good-night, Mr Fitzgerald,” she answered, giving him her hand. He pressed it for a moment, and then turned and went. When Mr Palliser came back he was no more to be seen.

Lady Glencora was at the dining-room door when her husband returned, standing close to Mr Bott. Mr Bott had spoken to her, but she made no reply. He spoke again, but her face remained as immovable as though she had been deaf. “And what shall we do about Mrs Marsham?” she said, quite out loud, as soon as she put her hand on her husband’s arm. “I had forgotten her.”

“Mrs Marsham has gone home,” he replied.

“Have you seen her?”

“Yes.”

“When did you see her?”

“She came to Park Lane.”

“What made her do that?”

These questions were asked and answered as he was putting her into the carriage. She got in just as she asked the last, and he, as he took his seat, did not find it necessary to answer it. But that would not serve her turn. “What made Mrs Marsham go to you at Park Lane after she left Lady Monk’s?” she asked again. Mr Palliser sat silent, not having made up his mind what he would say on the subject. “I suppose she went,” continued Lady Glencora, “to tell you that I was dancing with Mr Fitzgerald. Was that it?”

“I think, Glencora, we had better not discuss it now.”

“I don’t mean to discuss it now, or ever. If you did not wish me to see Mr Fitzgerald you should not have sent me to Lady Monk’s. But, Plantagenet, I hope you will forgive me if I say that no consideration shall induce me to receive again as a guest, in my own house, either Mrs Marsham or Mr Bott.”

Mr Palliser absolutely declined to say anything on the subject on that occasion, and the evening of Lady Monk’s party in this way came to an end.

George Vavasor was not in a very happy mood when he left Queen Anne Street, after having flung his gift ring under the grate. Indeed there was much in his condition, as connected with the house which he was leaving, which could not but make him unhappy. Alice was engaged to be his wife, and had as yet said nothing to show that she meditated any breach of that engagement, but she had treated him in a way which made him long to throw her promise in her teeth. He was a man to whom any personal slight from a woman was unendurable. To slights from men, unless they were of a nature to provoke offence, he was indifferent. There was no man living for whose liking or disliking George Vavasor cared anything. But he did care much for the good opinion, or rather for the personal favour, of any woman to whom he had endeavoured to make himself agreeable. “I will marry you,” Alice had said to him, — not in words, but in acts and looks, which were plainer than words, — “I will marry you for certain reasons of my own, which in my present condition make it seem that that arrangement will be more convenient to me than any other that I can make; but pray understand that there is no love mixed up with this. There is another man whom I love; — only, for those reasons above hinted, I do not care to marry him.” It was thus that he read Alice’s present treatment of him, and he was a man who could not endure this treatment with ease.

But though he could throw his ring under the grate in his passion, he could not so dispose of her. That he would have done so had his hands been free, we need not doubt. And he would have been clever enough to do so in some manner that would have been exquisitely painful to Alice, willing as she might be to be released from her engagement. But he could not do this to a woman whose money he had borrowed, and whose money he could not repay; — to a woman, more of whose money he intended to borrow immediately. As to that latter part of it, he did say to himself over and over again, that he would have no more of it. As he left the house in Queen Anne Street, on that occasion, he swore, that under no circumstances would he be indebted to her for another shilling. But before he had reached Great Marlborough Street, to which his steps took him, he had reminded himself that everything depended on a further advance. He was in Parliament, but Parliament would be dissolved within three months. Having sacrificed so much for his position, should he let it all fall from him now, — now, when success seemed to be within his reach? That wretched old man in Westmoreland, who seemed gifted almost with immortality, — why could he not die and surrender his paltry acres to one who could use them? He turned away from Regent Street into Hanover Square before he crossed to Great Marlborough Street, giving vent to his passion rather than arranging his thoughts. As he walked the four sides of the square he considered how good it would be if some accident should befall the old man. How he would rejoice were he to hear to-morrow that one of the trees of the “accursed place,” had fallen on the “obstinate old idiot,” and put an end to him! I will not say that he meditated the murder of his grandfather. There was a firm conviction on his mind, as he thought of all this, that such a deed as that would never come in his way. But he told himself, that if he chose to make the attempt, he would certainly be able to carry it through without detection. Then he remembered Rush and Palmer — the openly bold murderer and the secret poisoner. Both of them, in Vavasor’s estimation, were great men. He had often said so in company. He had declared that the courage of Rush had never been surpassed. “Think of him,” he would say with admiration, “walking into a man’s house, with pistols sufficient to shoot every one there, and doing it as though he were killing rats! What was Nelson at Trafalgar to that? Nelson had nothing to fear!” And of Palmer he declared that he was a man of genius as well as courage. He had “looked the whole thing in the face,” Vavasor would say, “and told himself that all scruples and squeamishness are bosh, — child’s tales. And so they are. Who lives as though they fear either heaven or hell? And if we do live without such fear or respect, what is the use of telling lies to ourselves? To throw it all to the dogs, as Palmer did, is more manly.” “And be hanged,” some hearer of George’s doctrine replied. “Yes, and be hanged, — if such is your destiny. But you hear of the one who is hanged, but hear nothing of the twenty who are not.”