"Certainly not; all that is over."

"And does he know that it is over?"

"I suppose he does."

"You suppose so! Things of that sort are so often over with you!" This was very cruel. Perhaps she had deserved the reproach, but still it was very cruel. The blow struck her with such force that she staggered under it. Tears came into her eyes, and she could hardly speak lest she should betray herself by sobbing.

"I know that I have behaved badly," she said at last; "but I am punished, and you might spare me now!"

"I didn't want to punish you," he said, getting up from his chair and walking about the room. "I don't want to punish you. But, I don't want to see you ruined!"

"I must go to Mr Round then, myself."

Mr Vavasor went on walking about the room, jingling the money in his trousers-pockets, and pushing the chairs about as he chanced to meet them. At last, he made a compromise with her. He would take a day to think whether he would assist her in getting the money, and communicate his decision to her on the following morning.



CHAPTER LXI

The Bills Are Made All Right

Mr Vavasor was at his wits' end about his daughter. She had put her name to four bills for five hundred pounds each, and had demanded from him, almost without an apology, his aid in obtaining money to meet them. And she might put her name to any other number of bills, and for any amount! There was no knowing how a man ought to behave to such a daughter. "I don't want her money," the father said to himself; "and if she had got none of her own, I would make her as comfortable as I could with my own income. But to see her throw her money away in such a fashion as this is enough to break a man's heart."

Mr Vavasor went to his office in Chancery Lane, but he did not go to the chambers of Mr Round, the lawyer. Instead of calling on Mr Round he sent a note by a messenger to Suffolk Street, and the answer to the note came in the person of Mr Grey. John Grey was living in town in these days, and was in the habit of seeing Mr Vavasor frequently. Indeed, he had not left London since the memorable occasion on which he had pitched his rival down the tailor's stairs at his lodgings. He had made himself pretty well conversant with George Vavasor's career, and had often shuddered as he thought what might be the fate of any girl who might trust herself to marry such a man as that.

He had been at home when Mr Vavasor's note had reached his lodgings, and had instantly walked off towards Chancery Lane. He knew his way to Mr Vavasor's signing-office very accurately, for he had acquired a habit of calling there, and of talking to the father about his daughter. He was a patient, persevering man, confident in himself, and apt to trust that he would accomplish those things which he attempted, though he was hardly himself aware of any such aptitude. He had never despaired as to Alice. And though he had openly acknowledged to himself that she had been very foolish,—or rather, that her judgement had failed her,—he had never in truth been angry with her. He had looked upon her rejection of himself, and her subsequent promise to her cousin, as the effects of a mental hallucination, very much to be lamented,—to be wept for, perhaps, through a whole life, as a source of terrible sorrow to himself and to her. But he regarded it all as a disease, of which the cure was yet possible,—as a disease which, though it might never leave the patient as strong as she was before, might still leave her altogether. And as he would still have clung to his love had she been attacked by any of those illnesses for which doctors have well-known names, so would he cling to her now that she was attacked by a malady for which no name was known. He had already heard from Mr Vavasor that Alice had discovered how impossible it was that she should marry her cousin, and, in his quiet, patient, enduring way, was beginning to feel confident that he would, at last, carry his mistress off with him to Nethercoats.

It was certainly a melancholy place, that signing-office, in which Mr John Vavasor was doomed to spend twelve hours a week, during every term time, of his existence. Whether any man could really pass an existence of work in such a workshop, and not have gone mad,—could have endured to work there for seven hours a day, every week-day of his life, I am not prepared to say. I doubt much whether any victims are so doomed. I have so often wandered through those gloomy passages without finding a sign of humanity there,—without hearing any slightest tick of the hammer of labour, that I am disposed to think that Lord Chancellors have been anxious to save their subordinates from suicide, and have mercifully decreed that the whole staff of labourers, down to the very message boys of the office, should be sent away to green fields or palatial clubs during, at any rate, a moiety of their existence.

The dismal set of chambers, in which the most dismal room had been assigned to Mr Vavasor, was not actually in Chancery Lane. Opening off from Chancery Lane are various other small lanes, quiet, dingy nooks, some of them in the guise of streets going no whither, some being thoroughfares to other dingy streets beyond, in which sponging-houses abound, and others existing as the entrances to so-called Inns of Court,—inns of which all knowledge has for years been lost to the outer world of the laity, and, as I believe, lost almost equally to the inner world of the legal profession. Who has ever heard of Symonds' Inn? But an ancestral Symonds, celebrated, no doubt, in his time, did found an inn, and there it is to this day. Of Staples' Inn, who knows the purposes or use? Who are its members, and what do they do as such? And Staples' Inn is an inn with pretensions, having a chapel of its own, or, at any rate, a building which, in its external dimensions, is ecclesiastical, having a garden and architectural proportions; and a facade towards Holborn, somewhat dingy, but respectable, with an old gateway, and with a decided character of its own.

The building in which Mr John Vavasor had a room and a desk was located in one of these side streets, and had, in its infantine days, been regarded with complacency by its founder. It was stone-faced, and strong, and though very ugly, had about it that air of importance which justifies a building in assuming a special name of itself. This building was called the Accountant-General's Record Office, and very probably, in the gloom of its dark cellars, may lie to this day the records of the expenditure of many a fair property which has gotten itself into Chancery, and has never gotten itself out again. It was entered by a dark hall, the door of which was never closed; and which, having another door at its further end leading into another lane, had become itself a thoroughfare. But the passers through it were few in number. Now and then a boy might be seen there carrying on his head or shoulders a huge mass of papers which you would presume to be accounts, or some clerk employed in the purlieus of Chancery Lane who would know the shortest possible way from the chambers of some one attorney to those of some other. But this hall, though open at both ends, was as dark as Erebus; and any who lingered in it would soon find themselves to be growing damp, and would smell mildew, and would become naturally affected by the exhalations arising from those Chancery records beneath their feet.

Up the stone stairs, from this hall, John Grey passed to Mr Vavasor's signing-room. The stairs were broad, and almost of noble proportions, but the darkness and gloom which hung about the hall, hung also about them,—a melancholy set of stairs, up and down which no man can walk with cheerful feet. Here he came upon a long, broad passage, in which no sound was, at first, to be heard. There was no busy noise of doors slamming, no rapid sound of shoes, no passing to and fro of men intent on their daily bread. Pausing for a moment, that he might look round about him and realize the deathlike stillness of the whole, John Grey could just distinguish the heavy breathing of a man, thereby learning that there was a captive in, at any rate, one of those prisons on each side of him. As he drew near to the door of Mr Vavasor's chamber he knew that the breathing came from thence.

On the door there were words inscribed, which were just legible in the gloom—"Signing Room. Mr Vavasor."

How John Vavasor did hate those words! It seemed to him that they had been placed there with the express object of declaring his degradation aloud to the world. Since his grandfather's will had been read to him he had almost made up his mind to go down those melancholy stairs for the last time, to shake the dust off his feet as he left the Accountant-General's Record Office for ever, and content himself with half his official income. But how could he give up so many hundreds a year while his daughter was persisting in throwing away thousands as fast as, or faster than, she could lay her hands on them?

John Grey entered the room and found Mr Vavasor sitting all alone in an arm-chair over the fire. I rather think that that breathing had been the breathing of a man asleep. He was resting himself amidst the labours of his signing. It was a large, dull room, which could not have been painted, I should think, within the memory of man, looking out backwards into some court. The black wall of another building seemed to stand up close to the window,—so close that no direct ray of the sun ever interrupted the signing-clerk at his work. In the middle of the room there was a large mahogany-table, on which lay a pile of huge papers. Across the top of them there was placed a bit of blotting-paper, with a quill pen, the two only tools which were necessary to the performance of the signing-clerk's work. On the table there stood a row of official books, placed lengthways on their edges: the "Post-Office Directory," the "Court Circular," a "Directory to the Inns of Court," a dusty volume of Acts of Parliament, which had reference to Chancery accounts,—a volume which Mr Vavasor never opened; and there were some others; but there was no book there in which any Christian man or woman could take delight, either for amusement or for recreation. There were three or four chairs round the wall, and there was the one arm-chair which the occupant of the chamber had dragged away from its sacred place to the hearth-rug. There was also an old Turkey carpet on the floor. Other furniture there was none. Can it be a matter of surprise to any one that Mr Vavasor preferred his club to his place of business? He was not left quite alone in this deathlike dungeon. Attached to his own large room there was a small closet, in which sat the signing-clerk's clerk,—a lad of perhaps seventeen years of age, who spent the greatest part of his time playing tit-tat-to by himself upon official blotting-paper. Had I been Mr Vavasor I should have sworn a bosom friendship with that lad, have told him all my secrets, and joined his youthful games.

"Come in!" Mr Vavasor had cried when John Grey disturbed his slumber by knocking at the door. "I'm glad to see you,—very. Sit down; won't you? Did you ever see such a wretched fire? The coals they give you in this place are the worst in all London. Did you ever see such coals?" And he gave a wicked poke at the fire.

It was now the 1st of May, and Grey, who had walked from Suffolk Street, was quite warm. "One hardly wants a fire at all, such weather as this," he said.

"Oh; don't you?" said the signing-clerk. "If you had to sit here all day, you'd see if you didn't want a fire. It's the coldest building I ever put my foot in. Sometimes in winter I have to sit here the whole day in a great-coat. I only wish I could shut old Sugden up here for a week or two, after Christmas." The great lawyer whom he had named was the man whom he supposed to have inflicted on him the terrible injury of his life, and he was continually invoking small misfortunes on the head of that tyrant.

"How is Alice?" said Grey, desiring to turn the subject from the ten-times-told tale of his friend's wrongs.

Mr Vavasor sighed. "She is well enough, I believe," he said.

"Is anything the matter in Queen Anne Street?"

"You'll hardly believe it when I tell you; and, indeed, I hardly know whether I ought to tell you or not."

"As you and I have gone so far together, I think that you ought to tell me anything that concerns her nearly."

"That's just it. It's about her money. Do you know, Grey, I'm beginning to think that I've been wrong in allowing you to advance what you have done on her account?"

"Why wrong?"

"Because I foresee there'll be a difficulty about it. How are we to manage about the repayment?"

"If she becomes my wife there will be no management wanted."

"But how if she never becomes your wife? I'm beginning to think she'll never do anything like any other woman."

"I'm not quite sure that you understand her," said Grey; "though of course you ought to do so better than any one else."

"Nobody can understand her," said the angry father. "She told me the other day, as you know, that she was going to have nothing more to do with her cousin—"

"Has she—has she become friends with him again?" said Grey. As he asked the question there came a red spot on each cheek, showing the strong mental anxiety which had prompted it.

"No; I believe not;—that is, certainly not in the way you mean. I think that she is beginning to know that he is a rascal."

"It is a great blessing that she has learned the truth before it was too late."

"But would you believe it;—she has given him her name to bills for two thousand pounds, payable at two weeks' sight? He sent to her only this morning a fellow that he called his clerk, and she has been fool enough to accept them. Two thousand pounds! That comes of leaving money at a young woman's own disposal."

"But we expected that, you know," said Grey, who seemed to take the news with much composure.

"Expected it?"

"Of course we did. You yourself did not suppose that what he had before would have been the last."

"But after she had quarrelled with him!"

"That would make no difference with her. She had promised him her money, and as it seems that he will be content with that, let her keep her promise."

"And give him everything! Not if I can help it. I'll expose him. I will indeed. Such a pitiful rascal as he is!"

"You will do nothing, Mr Vavasor, that will injure your daughter. I'm very sure of that."

"But, by heavens—. Such sheer robbery as that! Two thousand pounds more in fourteen days!" The shortness of the date at which the bills were drawn seemed to afflict Mr Vavasor almost as keenly as the amount. Then he described the whole transaction as accurately as he could do so, and also told how Alice had declared her purpose of going to Mr Round the lawyer, if her father would not undertake to procure the money for her by the time the bills should become due. "Mr Round, you know, has heard nothing about it," he continued. "He doesn't dream of any such thing. If she would take my advice, she would leave the bills, and let them be dishonoured. As it is, I think I shall call at Drummonds', and explain the whole transaction."

"You must not do that," said Grey. "I will call at Drummonds', instead, and see that the money is all right for the bills. As far as they go, let him have his plunder."

"And if she won't take you, at last, Grey? Upon my word, I don't think she ever will. My belief is she'll never get married. She'll never do anything like any other woman."

"The money won't be missed by me if I never get married," said Grey, with a smile. "If she does marry me, of course I shall make her pay me."

"No, by George! that won't do," said Vavasor. "If she were your daughter you'd know that she could not take a man's money in that way."

"And I know it now, though she is not my daughter. I was only joking. As soon as I am certain,—finally certain,—that she can never become my wife, I will take back my money. You need not be afraid. The nature of the arrangement we have made shall then be explained to her."

In this way it was settled; and on the following morning the father informed the daughter that he had done her bidding, and that the money would be placed to her credit at the bankers' before the bills came due. On that Saturday, the day which her cousin had named in his letter, she trudged down to Drummonds', and was informed by a very courteous senior clerk in that establishment, that due preparation for the bills had been made.

So far, I think we may say that Mr George Vavasor was not unfortunate.



CHAPTER LXII

Going Abroad

One morning, early in May, a full week before Alice's visit to the bankers' at Charing Cross, a servant in grand livery, six feet high, got out of a cab at the door in Queen Anne Street, and sent up a note for Miss Vavasor, declaring that he would wait in the cab for her answer. He had come from lady Glencora, and had been specially ordered to go in a cab and come back in a cab, and make himself as like a Mercury, with wings to his feet, as may be possible to a London footman. Mr Palliser had arranged his plans with his wife that morning,—or, I should more correctly say, had given her his orders, and she, in consequence, had sent away her Mercury in hot pressing haste to Queen Anne Street. "Do come;—instantly if you can," the note said. "I have so much to tell you, and so much to ask of you. If you can't come, when shall I find you, and where?" Alice sent back a note, saying that she would be in Park Lane as soon as she could put on her bonnet and walk down; and then the Mercury went home in his cab.

Alice found her friend in the small breakfast-room up-stairs, sitting close by the window. They had not as yet met since the evening of Lady Monk's party, nor had Lady Glencora seen Alice in the mourning which she now wore for her grandfather. "Oh, dear, what a change it makes in you," she said. "I never thought of your being in black."

"I don't know what it is you want, but shan't I do in mourning as well as I would in colours?"

"You'll do in anything, dear. But I have so much to tell you, and I don't know how to begin. And I've so much to ask of you, and I'm so afraid you won't do it."

"You generally find me very complaisant."

"No I don't, dear. It is very seldom you will do anything for me. But I must tell you everything first. Do take your bonnet off, for I shall be hours in doing it."

"Hours in telling me!"

"Yes; and in getting your consent to what I want you to do. But I think I'll tell you that first. I'm to be taken abroad immediately."

"Who is to take you?"

"Ah, you may well ask that. If you could know what questions I have asked myself on that head! I sometimes say things to myself as though they were the most proper and reasonable things in the world, and then within an hour or two I hate myself for having thought of them."

"But why don't you answer me? Who is going abroad with you?"

"Well; you are to be one of the party."

"I!"

"Yes; you. When I have named so very respectable a chaperon for my youth, of course you will understand that my husband is to take us."

"But Mr Palliser can't leave London at this time of the year?"

"That's just it. He is to leave London at this time of the year. Don't look in that way, for it's all settled. Whether you go with me or not, I've got to go. To-day is Tuesday. We are to be off next Tuesday night, if you can make yourself ready. We shall breakfast in Paris on Wednesday morning, and then it will be to us all just as if we were in a new world. Mr Palliser will walk up and down the new court of the Louvre, and you will be on his left arm, and I shall be on his right,—just like English people,—and it will be the most proper thing that ever was seen in life. Then we shall go on to Basle"—Alice shuddered as Basle was mentioned, thinking of the balcony over the river—"and so to Lucerne—. But no; that was the first plan, and Mr Palliser altered it. He spent a whole day up here with maps and Bradshaw's and Murray's guide-books, and he scolded me so because I didn't care whether we went first to Baden or to some other place. How could I care? I told him I would go anywhere he chose to take me. Then he told me I was heartless;—and I acknowledged that I was heartless. 'I am heartless,' I said. 'Tell me something I don't know.'"

"Oh, Cora, why did you say that?"

"I didn't choose to contradict my husband. Besides, it's true. Then he threw the Bradshaw away, and all the maps flew about. So I picked them up again, and said we'd go to Switzerland first. I knew that would settle it, and of course he decided on stopping at Baden. If he had said Jericho, it would have been the same thing to me. Wouldn't you like to go to Jericho?"

"I should have no special objection to Jericho."

"But you are to go to Baden instead."

"I've said nothing about that yet. But you have not told me half your story. Why is Mr Palliser going abroad in the middle of Parliament in this way?"

"Ah; now I must go back to the beginning. And indeed, Alice, I hardly know how to tell you; not that I mind you knowing it, only there are some things that won't get themselves told. You can hardly guess what it is that he is giving up. You must swear that you won't repeat what I'm going to tell you now?"

"I'm not a person apt to tell secrets, but I shan't swear anything."

"What a woman you are for discretion! it is you that ought to be Chancellor of the Exchequer; you are so wise. Only you haven't brought your own pigs to the best market, after all."

"Never mind my own pigs now, Cora."

"I do mind them, very much. But the secret is this. They have asked Mr Palliser to be Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he has—refused. Think of that!"

"But why?"

"Because of me,—of me, and my folly, and wickedness, and abominations. Because he has been fool enough to plague himself with a wife—he who of all men ought to have kept himself free from such troubles. Oh, he has been so good! It is almost impossible to make any one understand it. If you could know how he has longed for this office;—how he has worked for it day and night, wearing his eyes out with figures when everybody else has been asleep, shutting himself up with such creatures as Mr Bott when other men have been shooting and hunting and flirting and spending their money. He has been a slave to it for years,—all his life I believe,—in order that he might sit in the Cabinet, and be a minister and a Chancellor of the Exchequer. He has hoped and feared, and has been, I believe, sometimes half-mad with expectation. This has been his excitement,—what racing and gambling are to other men. At last, the place was there, ready for him, and they offered it to him. They begged him to take it, almost on their knees. The Duke of St Bungay was here all one morning about it; but Mr Palliser sent him away, and refused the place. It's all over now, and the other man, whom they all hate so much, is to remain in."

"But why did he refuse it?"

"I keep on telling you—because of me. He found that I wanted looking after, and that Mrs Marsham and Mr Bott between them couldn't do it."

"Oh, Cora! how can you talk in that way?"

"If you knew all, you might well ask how I could. You remember about Lady Monk's ball, that you would not go to,—as you ought to have done. If you had gone, Mr Palliser would have been Chancellor of the Exchequer at this minute; he would, indeed. Only think of that! But though you did not go, other people did who ought to have remained at home. I went for one,—and you know who was there for another."

"What difference could that make to you?" said Alice, angrily.

"It might have made a great deal of difference. And, for the matter of that, so it did. Mr Palliser was there too, but, of course, he went away immediately. I can't tell you all the trouble there had been about Mrs Marsham,—whether I was to take her with me or not. However, I wouldn't take her, and didn't take her. The carriage went for her first, and there she was when we got there; and Mr Bott was there too. I wonder whether I shall ever make you understand it all."

"There are some things I don't want to understand."

"There they both were watching me,—looking at me the whole evening; and, of course, I resolved that I would not be put down by them."

"I think, if I had been you, I would not have allowed their presence to make any difference to me."

"That is very easily said, my dear, but by no means so easily done. You can't make yourself unconscious of eyes that are always looking at you. I dared them, at any rate, to do their worst, for I stood up to dance with Burgo Fitzgerald."

"Oh, Cora!"

"Why shouldn't I? At any rate I did; and I waltzed with him for half an hour. Alice, I never will waltz again;—never. I have done with dancing now. I don't think, even in my maddest days, I ever kept it up so long as I did then. And I knew that everybody was looking at me. It was not only Mrs Marsham and Mr Bott, but everybody there. I felt myself to be desperate,—mad, like a wild woman. There I was, going round and round and round with the only man for whom I ever cared two straws. It seemed as though everything had been a dream since the old days. Ah! how well I remember the first time I danced with him,—at his aunt's house in Cavendish Square. They had only just brought me out in London then, and I thought that he was a god."

"Cora! I cannot bear to hear you talk like that."

"I know well enough that he is no god now; some people say that he is a devil, but he was like Apollo to me then. Did you ever see anyone so beautiful as he is?"

"I never saw him at all."

"I wish you could have seen him; but you will some day. I don't know whether you care for men being handsome." Alice thought of John Grey, who was the handsomest man that she knew, but she made no answer. "I do; or, rather, I used to do," continued Lady Glencora. "I don't think I care much about anything now; but I don't see why handsome men should not be run after as much as handsome women."

"But you wouldn't have a girl run after any man, would you; whether handsome or ugly?"

"But they do, you know. When I saw him the other night he was just as handsome as ever;—the same look, half wild and half tame, like an animal you cannot catch, but which you think would love you so if you could catch him. In a little while it was just like the old time, and I had made up my mind to care nothing for the people looking at me."

"And you think that was right?"

"No, I don't. Yes, I do; that is. It wasn't right to care about dancing with him, but it was right to disregard all the people gaping round. What was it to them? Why should they care who I danced with?"

"That is nonsense, dear, and you must know that it is so. If you were to see a woman misbehaving herself in public, would not you look on and make your comments? Could you help doing so if you were to try?"

"You are very severe, Alice. Misbehaving in public!"

"Yes, Cora. I am only taking your own story. According to that, you were misbehaving in public."

Lady Glencora got up from her chair near the window, on which she had been crouching close to Alice's knees, and walked away towards the fireplace. "What am I to say to you, or how am I to talk to you?" said Alice. "You would not have me tell you a lie?"

"Of all things in the world, I hate a prude the most," said Lady Glencora.

"Cora, look here. If you consider it prudery on my part to disapprove of your waltzing with Mr Fitzgerald in the manner you have described,—or, indeed, in any other manner,—you and I must differ so totally about the meaning of words and the nature of things that we had better part."

"Alice, you are the unkindest creature that ever lived. You are as cold as stone. I sometimes think that you can have no heart."

"I don't mind your saying that. Whether I have a heart or not I will leave you to find out for yourself; but I won't be called a prude by you. You know you were wrong to dance with that man. What has come of it? What have you told me yourself this morning? In order to preserve you from misery and destruction, Mr Palliser has given up all his dearest hopes. He has had to sacrifice himself that he might save you. That, I take it, is about the truth of it,—and yet you tell me that you have done no wrong."

"I never said so." Now she had come back to her chair by the window, and was again sitting in that crouching form. "I never said that I was not wrong. Of course I was wrong. I have been so wrong throughout that I have never been right yet. Let me tell it on to the end, and then you can go away if you like, and tell me that I am too wicked for your friendship."

"Have I ever said anything like that, Cora?"

"But you will, I dare say, when I have done. Well; what do you think my senior duenna did,—the female one, I mean? She took my own carriage, and posted off after Mr Palliser as hard as ever she could, leaving the male duenna on the watch. I was dancing as hard as I could, but I knew what was going on all the time as well as though I had heard them talking. Of course Mr Palliser came after me. I don't know what else he could do, unless, indeed, he had left me to my fate. He came there, and behaved so well,—so much like a perfect gentleman. Of course I went home, and I was prepared to tell him everything, if he spoke a word to me,—that I intended to leave him, and that cart-ropes should not hold me!"

"To leave him, Cora!"

"Yes, and go with that other man whose name you won't let me mention. I had a letter from him in my pocket asking me to go. He asked me a dozen times that night. I cannot think how it was that I did not consent."

"That you did not consent to your own ruin and disgrace?"

"That I did not consent to go off with him,—anywhere. Of course it would have been my own destruction. I'm not such a fool as not to know that. Do you suppose I have never thought of it;—what it would be to be a man's mistress instead of his wife. If I had not I should be a thing to be hated and despised. When once I had done it I should hate and despise myself. I should feel myself to be loathsome, and, as it were, a beast among women. But why did they not let me marry him, instead of driving me to this? And though I might have destroyed myself, I should have saved the man who is still my husband. Do you know, I told him all that,—told him that if I had gone away with Burgo Fitzgerald he would have another wife, and would have children, and would—?"

"You told your husband that you had thought of leaving him?"

"Yes; I told him everything. I told him that I dearly loved that poor fellow, for whom, as I believe, nobody else on earth cares a single straw."

"And what did he say?"

"I cannot tell you what he said, only that we are all to go to Baden together, and then to Italy. But he did not seem a bit angry; he very seldom is angry, unless at some trumpery thing, as when he threw the book away. And when I told him that he might have another wife and a child, he put his arm round me and whispered to me that he did not care so much about it as I had imagined. I felt more like loving him at that moment than I had ever done before."

"He must be fit to be an angel."

"He's fit to be a cabinet minister, which, I'm quite sure, he'd like much better. And now you know everything; but no,—there is one thing you don't know yet. When I tell you that, you'll want to make him an archangel or a prime minister. 'We'll go abroad,' he said,—and remember, this was his own proposition, made long before I was able to speak a word;—'We'll go abroad, and you shall get your cousin Alice to go with us.' That touched me more than anything. Only think if he had proposed Mrs Marsham!"

"But yet he does not like me."

"You're wrong there, Alice. There has been no question of liking or of disliking. He thought you would be a kind of Mrs Marsham, and when you were not, but went out flirting among the ruins with Jeffrey Palliser, instead—"

"I never went out flirting with Jeffrey Palliser."

"He did with you, which is all the same thing. And when Plantagenet knew of that,—for, of course, Mr Bott told him—"

"Mr Bott can't see everything."

"Those men do. The worst is, they see more than everything. But, at any rate, Mr Palliser has got over all that now. Come, Alice; the fact of the offer having come from himself should disarm you of any such objection as that. As he has held out his hand to you, you have no alternative but to take it."

"I will take his hand willingly."

"And for my sake you will go with us? He understands himself that I am not fit to be his companion, and to have no companion but him. Now there is a spirit of wisdom about you that will do for him, and a spirit of folly that will suit me. I can manage to put myself on a par with a girl who has played such a wild game with her lovers as you have done."

Alice would give no promise then. Her first objection was that she had undertaken to go down to Westmoreland and comfort Kate in the affliction of her broken arm. "And I must go," said Alice, remembering how necessary it was that she should plead her own cause with George Vavasor's sister. But she acknowledged that she had not intended to stay long in Westmoreland, probably not more than a week, and it was at last decided that the Pallisers should postpone their journey for four or five days, and that Alice should go with them immediately upon her return from Vavasor Hall.

"I have no objection;" said her father, speaking with that voice of resignation which men use when they are resolved to consider themselves injured whatever may be done. "I can get along in lodgings. I suppose we had better leave the house, as you have given away so much of your own fortune?" Alice did not think it worth her while to point out to him, in answer to this, that her contribution to their joint housekeeping should still remain the same as ever. Such, however, she knew would be the fact, and she knew also that she would find her father in the old house when she returned from her travels. To her, in her own great troubles, the absence from London would be as serviceable as it could be to Lady Glencora. Indeed, she had already begun to feel the impossibility of staying quietly at home. She could lecture her cousin, whose faults were open, easy to be defined, and almost loud in their nature; but she was not on that account the less aware of her own. She knew that she too had cause to be ashamed of herself. She was half afraid to show her face among her friends, and wept grievously over her own follies. Those cruel words of her father rang in her ears constantly:—"Things of that sort are so often over with you." The reproach, though cruel, was true, and what reproach more galling could be uttered to an unmarried girl such as was Alice Vavasor? She had felt from the first moment in which the proposition was made to her, that it would be well that she should for a while leave her home, and especially that drawing-room in Queen Anne Street, which told her so many tales that she would fain forget, if it were possible.

Mr Palliser would not allow his wife to remain in London for the ten or twelve days which must yet elapse before they started, nor could he send her into the country alone. He took her down to Matching Priory, having obtained leave to be absent from the House for the remainder of the Session, and remained with her there till within two days of their departure. That week down at Matching, as she afterwards told Alice, was very terrible. He never spoke a word to rebuke her. He never hinted that there had been aught in her conduct of which he had cause to complain. He treated her with a respect that was perfect, and indeed with more outward signs of affection than had ever been customary with him. "But," as Lady Glencora afterwards expressed it, "he was always looking after me. I believe he thought that Burgo Fitzgerald had hidden himself among the ruins," she said once to Alice. "He never suspected me, I am sure of that; but he thought that he ought to look after me." And Lady Glencora in this had very nearly hit the truth. Mr Palliser had resolved, from that hour in which he had walked out among the elms in Kensington Gardens, that he would neither suspect his wife, nor treat her as though he suspected her. The blame had been his, perhaps, more than it had been hers. So much he had acknowledged to himself, thinking of the confession she had made to him before their marriage. But it was manifestly his imperative duty,—his duty of duties,—to save her from that pitfall into which, as she herself had told him, she had been so ready to fall. For her sake and for his this must be done. It was a duty so imperative, that in its performance he had found himself forced to abandon his ambition. To have his wife taken from him would be terrible, but the having it said all over the world that such a misfortune had come upon him would be almost more terrible even than that.

So he went with his wife hither and thither, down at Matching, allowing himself to be driven about behind Dandy and Flirt. He himself proposed these little excursions. They were tedious to him, but doubly tedious to his wife, who now found it more difficult than ever to talk to him. She struggled to talk, and he struggled to talk, but the very struggles themselves made the thing impossible. He sat with her in the mornings, and he sat with her in the evenings; he breakfasted with her, lunched with her, and dined with her. He went to bed early, having no figures which now claimed his attention. And so the week at last wore itself away. "I saw him yawning sometimes," Lady Glencora said afterwards, "as though he would fall in pieces."



CHAPTER LXIII

Mr John Grey in Queen Anne Street

Alice was resolved that she would keep her promise to Kate, and pay her visit to Westmoreland before she started with the Pallisers. Kate had written to her three lines with her left hand, begging her to come, and those three lines had been more eloquent than anything she could have written had her right arm been uninjured. Alice had learned something of the truth as to the accident from her father; or, rather, had heard her father's surmises on the subject. She had heard, too, how her cousin George had borne himself when the will was read, and how he had afterwards disappeared, never showing himself again at the hall. After all that had passed she felt that she owed Kate some sympathy. Sympathy may, no doubt, be conveyed by letter; but there are things on which it is almost impossible for any writer to express himself with adequate feeling; and there are things, too, which can be spoken, but which cannot be written. Therefore, though the journey must be a hurried one, Alice sent word down to Westmoreland that she was to be expected there in a day or two. On her return she was to go at once to Park Lane, and sleep there for the two nights which would intervene before the departure of the Pallisers.

On the day before she started for Westmoreland her father came to her in the middle of the day, and told her that John Grey was going to dine with him in Queen Anne Street on that evening.

"To-day, papa?" she asked.

"Yes, to-day. Why not? No man is less particular as to what he eats than Grey."

"I was not thinking of that, papa," she said.

To this Mr Vavasor made no reply, but stood for some minutes looking out of the window. Then he prepared to leave the room, getting himself first as far as the table, where he lifted a book, and then on half-way to the door before Alice arrested him.

"Perhaps, papa, you and Mr Grey had better dine alone."

"What do you mean by alone?"

"I meant without me,—as two men generally like to do."

"If I wanted that I should have asked him to dine at the club," said Mr Vavasor, and then he again attempted to go.

"But, papa—"

"Well, my dear! If you mean to say that because of what has passed you object to meet Mr Grey, I can only tell you it's nonsense,—confounded nonsense. If he chooses to come there can be no reason why you shouldn't receive him."

"It will look as though—"

"Look what?"

"As though he were asked as my guest."

"That's nonsense. I saw him yesterday, and I asked him to come. I saw him again to-day, and he said he would come. He's not such a fool as to suppose after that, that you asked him."

"No; not that I asked him."

"And if you run away you'll only make more of the thing than it's worth. Of course I can't make you dine with me if you don't like."

Alice did not like it, but, after some consideration, she thought that she might be open to the imputation of having made more of the thing than it was worth if she ran away, as her father called it. She was going to leave the country for some six or eight months,—perhaps for a longer time than that, and it might be as well that she should have an opportunity of telling her plans to Mr Grey. She could do it, she thought, in such a way as to make him understand that her last quarrel with George Vavasor was not supposed to alter the footing on which she stood with him. She did not doubt that her father had told everything to Mr Grey. She knew well enough what her father's wishes still were. It was not odd that he should be asking John Grey to his house, though such exercises of domestic hospitality were very unusual with him. But,—so she declared to herself,—such little attempts on his part would be altogether thrown away. It was a pity that he had not yet learned to know her better. She would receive Mr Grey as the mistress of her father's house now, for the last time; and then, on her return in the following year, he would be at Nethercoats, and the whole thing would be over.

She dressed herself very plainly, simply changing one black frock for another, and then sat herself in her drawing-room awaiting the two gentlemen. It was already past the hour of dinner before her father came up-stairs. She knew that he was in the house, and in her heart she accused him of keeping out of the way, in order that John Grey might be alone with her. Whether or no she were right in her suspicions John Grey did not take advantage of the opportunity offered to him. Her father came up first, and had seated himself silently in his arm-chair before the visitor was announced.

As Mr Grey entered the room Alice knew that she was flurried, but still she managed to carry herself with some dignity. His bearing was perfect. But then, as she declared to herself afterwards, no possible position in life would put him beside himself. He came up to her with his usual quiet smile,—a smile that was genial even in its quietness, and took her hand. He took it fairly and fully into his; but there was no squeezing, no special pressure, no love-making. And when he spoke to her he called her Alice, as though his doing so was of all things the most simply a matter of course. There was no tell-tale hesitation in his voice. When did he ever hesitate at anything? "I hear you are going abroad," he said, "with your cousin, Lady Glencora Palliser."

"Yes," said Alice; "I am going with them for a long tour. We shall not return, I fancy, till the end of next winter."

"Plans of that sort are as easily broken as they are made," said her father. "You won't be your own mistress; and I advise you not to count too surely upon getting further than Baden."

"If Mr Palliser changes his mind of course I shall come home," said Alice, with a little attempt at a smile.

"I should think him a man not prone to changes," said Grey. "But all London is talking about his change of mind at this moment. They say at the clubs that he might have been in the Cabinet if he would, but that he has taken up this idea of going abroad at the moment when he was wanted."

"It's his wife's doing, I take it," said Mr Vavasor.

"That's the worst of being in Parliament," said Grey. "A man can't do anything without giving a reason for it. There must be men for public life, of course; but, upon my word, I think we ought to be very much obliged to them."

Alice, as she took her old lover's arm, and walked down with him to dinner, thought of all her former quarrels with him on this very subject. On this very point she had left him. He had never argued the matter with her. He had never asked her to argue with him. He had not condescended so far as that. Had he done so, she thought that she would have brought herself to think as he thought. She would have striven, at any rate, to do so. But she could not become unambitious, tranquil, fond of retirement, and philosophic, without an argument on the matter,—without being allowed even the poor grace of owning herself to be convinced. If a man takes a dog with him from the country up to town, the dog must live a town life without knowing the reason why;—must live a town life or die a town death. But a woman should not be treated like a dog. "Had he deigned to discuss it with me!" Alice had so often said. "But, no; he will read his books, and I am to go there to fetch him his slippers, and make his tea for him." All this came upon her again as she walked down-stairs by his side; and with it there came a consciousness that she had been driven by this usage into the terrible engagement which she had made with her cousin. That, no doubt, was now over. There was no longer to her any question of her marrying George Vavasor. But the fact that she had been mad enough to think and talk of such a marriage, had of itself been enough to ruin her. "Things of that sort are so often over with you!" After such a speech as that to her from her father, Alice told herself that there could be no more "things of that sort" for her. But all her misery had been brought about by this scornful superiority to the ordinary pursuits of the world,—this looking down upon humanity. "It seems to me," she said, very quietly, while her hand was yet upon his arm, "that your pity is hardly needed. I should think that no persons can be happier than those whom you call our public men."

"Ah!" said he, "that is our old quarrel." He said it as though the quarrel had simply been an argument between them, or a dozen arguments,—as arguments do come up between friends; not as though it had served to separate for life two persons who had loved each other dearly. "It's the old story of the town mouse and the country mouse,—as old as the hills. Mice may be civil for a while, and compliment each other; but when they come to speak their minds freely, each likes his own life best." She said nothing more at the moment, and the three sat down to their small dinner-table. It was astonishing to Alice that he should be able to talk in this way, to hint at such things, to allude to their former hopes and present condition, without a quiver in his voice, or, as far as she could perceive, without any feeling in his heart.

"Alice," said her father, "I can't compliment your cook upon her soup."

"You don't encourage her, papa, by eating it often enough. And then you only told me at two o'clock to-day."

"If a cook can't make soup between two and seven, she can't make it in a week."

"I hope Mr Grey will excuse it," said Alice.

"Isn't it good?" said he. "I won't say that it is, because I should be pretending to have an opinion; but I should not have found out anything against it of myself."

"Where do you dine usually, now you are in London?" Mr Vavasor asked.

"At the old club, at the corner of Suffolk Street. It's the oldest club in London, I believe. I never belonged to any other, and therefore can't compare them; but I can't imagine anything much nicer."

"They give you better soup than ours?" said Alice.

"You've an excellent cook," said Mr Vavasor, with great gravity; "one of the best second-class cooks in London. We were very nearly getting him, but you nicked him just in time. I know him well."

"It's a great deal more than I do, or hope to do. There's another branch of public life for which I'm quite unfitted. I'd as soon be called on to choose a Prime Minister for the country, as I would a cook for a club."

"Of course you would," said Mr Vavasor. "There may be as many as a dozen cooks about London to be looked up, but there are never more than two possible Prime Ministers about. And as one of them must be going out when the other is coming in, I don't see that there can be any difficulty. Moreover, now-a-days, people do their politics for themselves, but they expect to have their dinners cooked for them."

The little dinner went on quietly and very easily. Mr Vavasor found fault with nearly everything. But as, on this occasion, the meat and the drink, with the manner of the eating and drinking, did not constitute the difficulty, Alice was indifferent to her father's censures. The thing needed was that she and Mr Grey should be able to sit together at the same table without apparent consciousness of their former ties. Alice felt that she was succeeding indifferently well while she was putting in little mock defences for the cook. And as for John Grey, he succeeded so well that his success almost made Alice angry with him. It required no effort with him at all to be successful in this matter. "If he can forget all that has passed, so much the better," said Alice to herself when she got up into the drawing-room. Then she sat herself down on the sofa, and cried. Oh! what had she not lost! Had any woman ever been so mad, so reckless, so heartless as she had been! And she had done it, knowing that she loved him! She cried bitterly, and then went away to wash her eyes, that she might be ready to give him his coffee when he should come up-stairs.

"She does not look well," said Grey as soon as she had left the room.

"Well;—no: how can she look well after what she has gone through? I sometimes think, that of all the people I ever knew, she has been the most foolish. But, of course, it is not for me to say anything against my own child; and, of all people, not to you."

"Nothing that you could say against her would make any difference to me. I sometimes fancy that I know her better than you do."

"And you think that she'll still come round again?"

"I cannot say that I think so. No one can venture to say whether or not such wounds as hers may be cured. There are hearts and bodies so organized, that in them severe wounds are incurable, whereas in others no injury seems to be fatal. But I can say that if she be not cured it shall not be from want of perseverance on my part."

"Upon my word, Grey, I don't know how to thank you enough. I don't, indeed."

"It doesn't seem to me to be a case for thanking."

"Of course it isn't. I know that well enough. And in the ordinary way of the world no father would think of thanking a man for wanting to marry his daughter. But things have come to such a pass with us, that, by George! I don't feel like any other father. I don't mind saying anything to you, you know. That claret isn't very good, but you might as well take another glass."

"Thank you, I will. I should have said that that was rather good wine, now."

"It's not just the thing. What's the use of my having good wine here, when nobody comes to drink it? But, as I was saying about Alice, of course I've felt all this thing very much. I feel as though I were responsible, and yet what could I do? She's her own mistress through it all. When she told me she was going to marry that horrible miscreant, my nephew, what could I do?"

"That's over now, and we need not talk about it."

"It's very kind of you to say so,—very. I believe she's a good girl. I do, indeed, in spite of it all."

"I've no doubt of her being what you call a good girl,—none in the least. What she has done to me does not impair her goodness. I don't think you have ever understood how much all this has been a matter of conscience with her."

"Conscience!" said the angry father. "I hate such conscience. I like the conscience that makes a girl keep her word, and not bring disgrace upon those she belongs to."

"I shall not think that I am disgraced," said Grey, quietly, "if she will come and be my wife. She has meant to do right, and has endeavoured to take care of the happiness of other people rather than her own."

"She has taken very little care of mine," said Mr Vavasor.

"I shall not be at all afraid to trust mine to her,—if she will let me do so. But she has been wounded sorely, and it must take time."

"And, in the meantime, what are we to do when she tells us that Mr George Vavasor wants another remittance? Two thousand pounds a quarter comes heavy, you know!"

"Let us hope that he has had enough."

"Enough! Did such a man ever have enough?"

"Let us hope, then, that she thinks he has had enough. Come;—may I go up-stairs?"

"Oh, yes. I'll follow you. She'll think that I mean something if I leave you together."

From all this it will be seen that Alice's father and her lover still stood together on confidential terms. Not easily had Mr Vavasor brought himself to speak of his daughter to John Grey, in such language as he had now used; but he had been forced by adverse circumstances to pass the Rubicon of parental delicacy; he had been driven to tell his wished-for son-in-law that he did wish to have him as a son-in-law; he had been compelled to lay aside those little airs of reserve with which a father generally speaks of his daughter,—and now all was open between them.

"And you really start to-morrow?" said Grey, as he stood close over Alice's work-table. Mr Vavasor had followed him into the drawing-room, but had seated himself in an easy-chair on the other side of the fire. There was no tone of whispering in Grey's voice, but yet he spoke in a manner which showed that he did not intend to be audible on the other side of the room.

"I start for Westmoreland to-morrow. We do not leave London for the continent till the latter end of next week."

"But you will not be here again?"

"No; I shall not come back to Queen Anne Street."

"And you will be away for many months?"

"Mr Palliser talked of next Easter as the term of his return. He mentioned Easter to Lady Glencora. I have not seen him myself since I agreed to go with him."

"What should you say if you met me somewhere in your travels?" He had now gently seated himself on the sofa beside her;—not so close to her as to give her just cause to move away, but yet so near as to make his conversation with her quite private.

"I don't think that will be very likely," she replied, not knowing what to say.

"I think it is very likely. For myself, I hate surprises. I could not bring myself to fall in upon your track unawares. I shall go abroad, but it will not be till the late autumn, when the summer heats are gone,—and I shall endeavour to find you."

"To find me, Mr Grey!" There was a quivering in her voice, as she spoke, which she could not prevent, though she would have given worlds to prevent it. "I do not think that will be quite fair."

"It will not be unfair, I think, if I give you notice of my approach. I will not fall upon you and your friends unawares."

"I was not thinking of them. They would be glad to know you, of course."

"And equally, of course! or, rather, much more of course, you will not be glad to see me? That's what you mean?"

"I mean that we had better not meet more than we can help."

"I think differently, Alice,—quite differently. The more we meet the better,—that is what I think. But I will not stop to trouble you now. Good night!" Then he got up and went away, and her father went with him. Mr Vavasor, as he rose from his chair, declared that he would just walk through a couple of streets; but Alice knew that he was gone to his club.



CHAPTER LXIV

The Rocks and Valleys

During these days Mrs Greenow was mistress of the old Hall down in Westmoreland, and was nursing Kate assiduously through the calamity of her broken arm. There had come to be a considerable amount of confidence between the aunt and the niece. Kate had acknowledged to her aunt that her brother had behaved badly,—very badly; and the aunt had confessed to the niece that she regarded Captain Bellfield as a fit subject for compassion.

"And he was violent to you, and broke your arm? I always knew it was so," Mrs Greenow had said, speaking with reference to her nephew. But this Kate had denied. "No," said she; "that was an accident. When he went away and left me, he knew nothing about it. And if he had broken both my arms I should not have cared much. I could have forgiven him that." But that which Kate could not forgive him was the fault which she had herself committed. For his sake she had done her best to separate Alice and John Grey, and George had shown himself to be unworthy of the kindness of her treachery. "I would give all I have in the world to bring them together again," Kate said. "They'll come together fast enough if they like each other," said Mrs Greenow. "Alice is young still, and they tell me she's as good looking as ever. A girl with her money won't have far to seek for a husband, even if this paragon from Cambridgeshire should not turn up again."

"You don't know Alice, aunt."

"No, I don't. But I know what young women are, and I know what young men are. All this nonsense about her cousin George,—what difference will it make? A man like Mr Grey won't care about that,—especially not if she tells him all about it. My belief is that a girl can have anything forgiven her, if she'll only tell it herself."

But Kate preferred the other subject, and so, I think, did Mrs Greenow herself. "Of course, my dear," she would say, "marriage with me, if I should marry again, would be a very different thing to your marriage, or that of any other young person. As for love, that has been all over for me since poor Greenow died. I have known nothing of the softness of affection since I laid him in his cold grave, and never can again. 'Captain Bellfield,' I said to him, 'if you were to kneel at my feet for years, it would not make me care for you in the way of love.'"

"And what did he say to that?"

"How am I to tell you what he said? He talked nonsense about my beauty, as all the men do. If a woman were hump-backed, and had only one eye, they wouldn't be ashamed to tell her she was a Venus."

"But, aunt, you are a handsome woman, you know."

"Laws, my dear, as if I didn't understand all about it; as if I didn't know what makes a woman run after? It isn't beauty,—and it isn't money altogether. I've seen women who had plenty of both, and not a man would come nigh them. They didn't dare. There are some of them, a man would as soon think of putting his arm round a poplar tree, they are so hard and so stiff. You know you're a little that way yourself, Kate, and I've always told you it won't do."

"I'm afraid I'm too old to mend, aunt."

"Not at all, if you'll only set your wits to work and try. You've plenty of money now, and you're good-looking enough, too, when you take the trouble to get yourself up. But, as I said before, it isn't that that's wanted. There's a stand-off about some women,—what the men call a 'nollimy tangere,' that a man must be quite a furious Orlando to attempt to get the better of it. They look as though matrimony itself were improper, and as if they believed that little babies were found about in the hedges and ditches. They talk of women being forward! There are some of them a deal too backward, according to my way of thinking."

"Yours is a comfortable doctrine, aunt."

"That's just what I want it to be. I want things to be comfortable. Why shouldn't things be nice about one when one's got the means? Nobody can say it's a pleasant thing to live alone. I always thought that man in the song hit it off properly. You remember what he says? 'The poker and tongs to each other belongs.' So they do, and that should be the way with men and women."

"But the poker and tongs have but a bad life of it sometimes."

"Not so often as the people say, my dear. Men and women ain't like lumps of sugar. They don't melt because the water is sometimes warm. Now, if I do take Bellfield,—and I really think I shall; but if I do he'll give me a deal of trouble. I know he will. He'll always be wanting my money, and, of course, he'll get more than he ought. I'm not a Solomon, nor yet a Queen of Sheba, no more than anybody else. And he'll smoke too many cigars, and perhaps drink more brandy-and-water than he ought. And he'll be making eyes, too, at some of the girls who'll be fools enough to let him."

"Dear me, aunt, if I thought all that ill of him, I'm sure I wouldn't marry him;—especially as you say you don't love him."

"As for love, my dear, that's gone,—clear gone!" Whereupon Mrs Greenow put up her handkerchief to her eyes. "Some women can love twice, but I am not one of them. I wish I could,—I wish I could!" These last words were spoken in a tone of solemn regret, which, however, she contrived to change as quickly as she had adopted it. "But my dear, marriage is a comfortable thing. And then, though the Captain may be a little free, I don't doubt but what I shall get the upper hand with him at last. I shan't stop his cigars and brandy-and-water you know. Why shouldn't a man smoke and have a glass, if he don't make a beast of himself? I like to see a man enjoy himself. And then," she added, speaking tenderly of her absent lover, "I do think he's fond of me,—I do, indeed."

"So is Mr Cheesacre for the matter of that."

"Poor Cheesy! I believe he was, though he did talk so much about money. I always like to believe the best I can of them. But then there was no poetry about Cheesy. I don't care about saying it now, as you've quite made up your mind not to have him."

"Quite, aunt."

"Your grandfather's will does make a difference, you know. But, as I was saying, I do like a little romance about them,—just a sniff, as I call it, of the rocks and valleys. One knows that it doesn't mean much; but it's like artificial flowers,—it gives a little colour, and takes off the dowdiness. Of course, bread-and-cheese is the real thing. The rocks and valleys are no good at all, if you haven't got that, But enough is as good as a feast. Thanks to dear Greenow,"—here the handkerchief was again used—"Thanks to dear Greenow, I shall never want. Of course I shan't let any of the money go into his hands,—the Captain's, I mean. I know a trick worth two of that, my dear. But, lord love you! I've enough for him and me. What's the good of a woman's wanting to keep it all to herself?"

"And you think you'll really take him, aunt, and pay his washerwoman's bills for him? You remember what you told me when I first saw him?"

"Oh, yes; I remember. And if he can't pay his own washerwoman, isn't that so much more of a reason that I should do it for him? Well; yes; I think I will take him. That is, if he lets me take him just as I choose. Beggars mustn't be choosers, my dear."

In this way the aunt and niece became very confidential, and Mrs Greenow whispered into Kate's ears her belief that Captain Bellfield might possibly make his way across the country to Westmoreland. "There would be no harm in offering him a bed, would there?" Mrs Greenow asked. "You see the inn at Shap is a long way off for morning calls." Kate could not take upon herself to say that there would be any harm, but she did not like the idea of having Captain Bellfield as a visitor. "After all, perhaps he mayn't come," said the widow. "I don't see where he is to raise the money for such a journey, now that he has quarrelled with Mr Cheesacre."

"If Captain Bellfield must come to Vavasor Hall, at any rate let him not come till Alice's visit had been completed." That was Kate's present wish, and so much she ventured to confide to her aunt. But there seemed to be no way of stopping him. "I don't in the least know where he is, my dear, and as for writing to him, I never did such a thing in my life, and I shouldn't know how to begin." Mrs Greenow declared that she had not positively invited the Captain; but on this point Kate hardly gave full credit to her aunt's statement.

Alice arrived, and, for a day or two, the three ladies lived very pleasantly together. Kate still wore her arm in a sling; but she was able to walk out, and would take long walks in spite of the doctor's prohibition. Of course, they went up on the mountains. Indeed, all the walks from Vavasor Hall led to the mountains, unless one chose to take the road to Shap. But they went up, across the beacon hill, as though by mutual consent. There were no questions asked between them as to the route to be taken; and though they did not reach the stone on which they had once sat looking over upon Haweswater, they did reach the spot upon which Kate had encountered her accident. "It was here I fell," she said; "and the last I saw of him was his back, as he made his way down into the valley, there. When I got upon my legs I could still see him. It was one of those evenings when the clouds are dark, but you can see all objects with a peculiar clearness through the air. I stood here ever so long, holding my arm, and watching him; but he never once turned to look back at me. Do you know, Alice, I fancy that I shall never see him again."

"Do you suppose that he means to quarrel with you altogether?"

"I can hardly tell you what I mean! He seemed to me to be going away from me, as though he went into another world. His figure against the light was quite clear, and he walked quickly, and on he went, till the slope of the hill hid him from me. Of course, I thought that he would return to the Hall. At one time I almost feared that he would come upon me through the woods, as I went back myself. But yet, I had a feeling,—what people call a presentiment, that I should never see him again."

"He has never written?"

"No; not a word. You must remember that he did not know that I had hurt myself. I am sure he will not write, and I am sure, also, that I shall not. If he wanted money I would send it to him, but I would not write to him."

"I fear he will always want money, Kate."

"I fear he will. If you could know what I suffered when he made me write that letter to you! But, of course, I was a beast. Of course, I ought not to have written it."

"I thought it a very proper letter."

"It was a mean letter. The whole thing was mean! He should have starved in the street before he had taken your money. He should have given up Parliament, and everything else! I had doubted much about him before, but it was that which first turned my heart against him. I had begun to fear that he was not such a man as I had always thought him,—as I had spoken of him to you."

"I had judged of him for myself," said Alice.

"Of course you did. But I had endeavoured to make you judge kindly. Alice, dear! we have both suffered for him; you more than I, perhaps; but I, too, have given up everything for him. My whole life has been at his service. I have been his creature, to do his bidding, just as he might tell me. He made me do things that I knew to be wrong,—things that were foreign to my own nature; and yet I almost worshipped him. Even now, if he were to come back, I believe that I should forgive him everything."

"I should forgive him, but I could never do more."

"But he will never come back. He will never ask us to forgive him, or even wish it. He has no heart."

"He has longed for money till the Devil has hardened his heart," said Alice.

"And yet how tender he could be in his manner when he chose it;—how soft he could make his words and his looks! Do you remember how he behaved to us in Switzerland? Do you remember that balcony at Basle, and the night we sat there, when the boys were swimming down the river?"

"Yes;—I remember."

"So do I! So do I! Alice, I would give all I have in the world, if I could recall that journey to Switzerland."

"If you mean for my sake, Kate—"

"I do mean for your sake. It made no difference to me. Whether I stayed in Westmoreland or went abroad, I must have found out that my god was made of bricks and clay instead of gold. But there was no need for you to be crushed in the ruins."

"I am not crushed, Kate!"

"Of course, you are too proud to own it?"

"If you mean about Mr Grey, that would have happened just the same, whether I had gone abroad or remained at home."

"Would it, dear?"

"Just the same."

There was nothing more than this said between them about Mr Grey. Even to her cousin, Alice could not bring herself to talk freely on that subject. She would never allow herself to think, for a moment, that she had been persuaded by others to treat him as she had treated him. She was sure that she had acted on her own convictions of what was right and wrong; and now, though she had begun to feel that she had been wrong, she would hardly confess as much even to herself.

They walked back, down the hill, to the Hall in silence for the greater part of the way. Once or twice Kate repeated her conviction that she should never again see her brother. "I do not know what may happen to him," she said in answer to her cousin's questions; "but when he was passing out of my sight into the valley, I felt that I was looking at him for the last time."

"That is simply what people call a presentiment," Alice replied.

"Exactly so; and presentiments, of course, mean nothing," said Kate.

Then they walked on towards the house without further speech; but when they reached the end of the little path which led out of the wood, on to the gravelled sweep before the front door, they were both arrested by a sight that met their eyes. There was a man standing, with a cigar in his mouth, before them, swinging a little cane, and looking about him up at the wood. He had on his head a jaunty little straw-hat, and he wore a jacket with brass buttons, and white trousers. It was now nearly the middle of May, but the summer does not come to Westmoreland so early as that, and the man, as he stood there looking about him, seemed to be cold and almost uncomfortable. He had not as yet seen the two girls, who stood at the end of the walk, arrested by the sight of him. "Who is it?" asked Alice, in a whisper.

"Captain Bellfield," said Kate, speaking with something very like dismay in her voice.

"What! aunt Greenow's Captain?"

"Yes; aunt Greenow's Captain. I have been fearing this, and now, what on earth are we to do with him? Look at him. That's what aunt Greenow calls a sniff of the rocks and valleys."

The Captain began to move,—just to move, as though it were necessary to do something to keep the life in his limbs. He had finished his cigar, and looked at the end of it with manifest regret. As he threw it away among a tuft of shrubs his eye fell upon the two ladies, and he uttered a little exclamation. Then he came forward, waving his little straw-hat in his hand, and made his salutation. "Miss Vavasor, I am delighted," he said. "Miss Alice Vavasor, if I am not mistaken? I have been commissioned by my dear friend Mrs Greenow to go out and seek you, but, upon my word, the woods looked so black that I did not dare to venture;—and then, of course, I shouldn't have found you."

Kate put out her left hand, and then introduced her cousin to the Captain. Again he waved his little straw-hat, and strove to bear himself as though he were at home and comfortable. But he failed, and it was manifest that he failed. He was not the Bellfield who had conquered Mr Cheesacre on the sands at Yarmouth, though he wore the same jacket and waistcoat, and must now have enjoyed the internal satisfaction of feeling that his future maintenance in life was assured to him. But he was not at his ease. His courage had sufficed to enable him to follow his quarry into Westmoreland, but it did not suffice to make him comfortable while he was there. Kate instantly perceived his condition, and wickedly resolved that she would make no effort to assist him. She went through some ceremony of introduction, and then expressed her surprise at seeing him so far north.

"Well," said he; "I am a little surprised myself;—I am, indeed! But I had nothing to do in Norwich,—literally nothing; and your aunt had so often talked to me of the beauties of this place,"—and he waved his hand round at the old house and the dark trees,—"that I thought I'd take the liberty of paying you a flying visit. I didn't mean to intrude in the way of sleeping; I didn't indeed, Miss Vavasor; only Mrs Greenow has been so kind as to say—"

"We are so very far out of the world, Captain Bellfield, that we always give our visitors beds."

"I didn't intend it; I didn't indeed, miss!" Poor Captain Bellfield was becoming very uneasy in his agitation. "I did just put my bag, with a change of things, into the gig, which brought me over, not knowing quite where I might go on to."

"We won't send you any further to-day, at any rate," said Kate.

"Mrs Greenow has been very kind,—very kind, indeed. She has asked me to stay till—Saturday!"

Kate bit her lips in a momentary fit of anger. The house was her house, and not her aunt's. But she remembered that her aunt had been kind to her at Norwich and at Yarmouth, and she allowed this feeling to die away. "We shall be very glad to see you," she said. "We are three women together here, and I'm afraid you will find us rather dull."

"Oh dear, no,—dull with you! That would be impossible!"

"And how have you left your friend, Mr Cheesacre?"

"Quite well;—very well, thank you. That is to say, I haven't seen him much lately. He and I did have a bit of a breeze, you know."

"I can't say that I did know, Captain Bellfield."

"I thought, perhaps, you had heard. He seemed to think that I was too particular in a certain quarter! Ha—ha—ha—ha! That's only my joke, you know, ladies."

They then went into the house, and the Captain straggled in after them. Mrs Greenow was in neither of the two sitting-rooms which they usually occupied. She, too, had been driven somewhat out of the ordinary composure of her manner by the arrival of her lover,—even though she had expected it, and had retired to her room, thinking that she had better see Kate in private before they met in the presence of the Captain. "I suppose you have seen my aunt since you have been here?" said Kate.

"Oh dear, yes. I saw her, and she suggested that I had better walk out and find you. I did find you, you know, though I didn't walk very far."

"And have you seen your room?"

"Yes;—yes. She was kind enough to show me my room. Very nice indeed, thank you;—looking out into the front, and all that kind of thing." The poor fellow was no doubt thinking how much better was his lot at Vavasor Hall than it had been at Oileymead. "I shan't stay long, Miss Vavasor,—only just a night or so; but I did want to see your aunt again,—and you, too, upon my word."

"My aunt is the attraction, Captain Bellfield. We all know that."

He actually simpered,—simpered like a young girl who is half elated and half ashamed when her lover is thrown in her teeth. He fidgeted with the things on the table, and moved himself about uneasily from one leg to the other. Perhaps he was remembering that though he had contrived to bring himself to Vavasor Hall he had not money enough left to take him back to Norwich. The two girls left him and went to their rooms. "I will go to my aunt at once," said Kate, "and find out what is to be done."

"I suppose she means to marry him?"

"Oh, yes; she means to marry him, and the sooner the better now. I knew this was coming, but I did so hope it would not be while you were here. It makes me feel so ashamed of myself that you should see it."

Kate boldly knocked at her aunt's door, and her aunt received her with a conscious smile. "I was waiting for you to come," said Mrs Greenow.

"Here I am, aunt; and, what is more to the purpose, there is Captain Bellfield in the drawing-room."

"Stupid man! I told him to take himself away about the place till dinner-time. I've half a mind to send him back to Shap at once;—upon my word I have."

"Don't do that, aunt; it would be inhospitable."

"But he is such an oaf. I hope you understand, my dear, that I couldn't help it?"

"But you do mean to—to marry him, aunt; don't you?"

"Well, Kate, I really think I do. Why shouldn't I? It's a lonely sort of life being by myself; and, upon my word, I don't think there's very much harm in him."

"I am not saying anything against him; only in that case you can't very well turn him out of the house."

"Could not I, though? I could in a minute; and, if you wish it, you shall see if I can't do it."

"The rocks and valleys would not allow that, aunt."

"It's all very well for you to laugh, my dear. If laughing would break my bones I shouldn't be as whole as I am now. I might have had Cheesacre if I liked, who is a substantial man, and could have kept a carriage for me; but it was the rocks and valleys that prevented that;—and perhaps a little feeling that I might do some good to a poor fellow who has nobody in the world to look after him." Mrs Greenow, as she said this, put her handkerchief up to her eyes, and wiped away the springing moisture. Tears were always easy with her, but on this occasion Kate almost respected her tears. "I'm sure I hope you'll be happy, aunt."

"If he makes me unhappy he shall pay for it;" and Mrs Greenow, having done with the tears, shook her head, as though upon this occasion she quite meant all that she said.

At dinner they were not very comfortable. Either the gloomy air of the place and the neighbourhood of the black pines had depressed the Captain, or else the glorious richness of the prospects before him had made him thoughtful. He had laid aside the jacket with the brass buttons, and had dressed himself for dinner very soberly. And he behaved himself at dinner and after dinner with a wonderful sobriety, being very unlike the Captain who had sat at the head of the table at Mrs Greenow's picnic. When left to himself after dinner he barely swallowed two glasses of the old Squire's port wine before he sauntered out into the garden to join the ladies, whom he had seen there; and when pressed by Kate to light a cigar he positively declined.

On the following morning Mrs Greenow had recovered her composure, but Captain Bellfield was still in a rather disturbed state of mind. He knew that his efforts were to be crowned with success, and that he was sure of his wife, but he did not know how the preliminary difficulties were to be overcome, and he did not know what to do with himself at the Hall. After breakfast he fidgeted about in the parlour, being unable to contrive for himself a mode of escape, and was absolutely thrown upon his beam-ends when the widow asked him what he meant to do with himself between that and dinner.

"I suppose I'd better take a walk," he said; "and perhaps the young ladies—"

"If you mean my two nieces," said Mrs Greenow, "I'm afraid you'll find they are engaged. But if I'm not too old to walk with—" The Captain assured her that she was just of the proper age for a walking companion, as far as his taste went, and then attempted some apology for the awkwardness of his expression, at which the three women laughed heartily. "Never mind, Captain," said Mrs Greenow. "We'll have our walk all the same, and won't mind those young girls. Come along." They started, not up towards the mountains, as Kate always did when she walked in Westmoreland, but mildly, and at a gentle pace, as beseemed their years, along the road towards Shap. The Captain politely opened the old gate for the widow, and then carefully closed it again,—not allowing it to swing, as he would have done at Yarmouth. Then he tripped up to his place beside her, suggested his arm, which she declined, and walked on for some paces in silence. What on earth was he to say to her? He had done his love-making successfully, and what was he to do next?

"Well, Captain Bellfield," said she. They were walking very slowly, and he was cutting the weeds by the roadside with his cane. He knew by her voice that something special was coming, so he left the weeds and ranged himself close up alongside of her. "Well, Captain Bellfield,—so I suppose I'm to be good-natured; am I?"

"Arabella, you'll make me the happiest man in the world."

"That's all fudge." She would have said, "all rocks and valleys," only he would not have understood her.

"Upon my word, you will."

"I hope I shall make you respectable?"

"Oh, yes; certainly. I quite intend that."

"It is the great thing that you should intend. Of course I am going to make a fool of myself."

"No, no; don't say that."

"If I don't say it, all my friends will say it for me. It's lucky for you that I don't much care what people say."

"It is lucky;—I know that I'm lucky. The very first day I saw you I thought what a happy fellow I was to meet you. Then, of course, I was only thinking of your beauty."

"Get along with you!"

"Upon my word, yes. Come, Arabella, as we are to be man and wife, you might as well." At this moment he had got very close to her, and had recovered something of his usual elasticity; but she would not allow him even to put his arm round her waist. "Out in the high road!" she said. "How can you be so impertinent,—and so foolish?"

"You might as well, you know,—just once."

"Captain Bellfield, I brought you out here not for such fooling as that, but in order that we might have a little chat about business. If we are to be man and wife, as you say, we ought to understand on what footing we are to begin together. I'm afraid your own private means are not considerable?"

"Well, no; they are not, Mrs Greenow."

"Have you anything?" The Captain hesitated, and poked the ground with his cane. "Come, Captain Bellfield, let us have the truth at once, and then we shall understand each other." The Captain still hesitated, and said nothing. "You must have had something to live upon, I suppose?" suggested the widow. Then the Captain, by degrees, told his story. He had a married sister by whom a guinea a week was allowed to him. That was all. He had been obliged to sell out of the army, because he was unable to live on his pay as a lieutenant. The price of his commission had gone to pay his debts, and now,—yes, it was too true,—now he was in debt again. He owed ninety pounds to Cheesacre, thirty-two pounds ten to a tailor at Yarmouth, over seventeen pounds at his lodgings in Norwich. At the present moment he had something under thirty shillings in his pocket. The tailor at Yarmouth had lent him three pounds in order that he might make his journey into Westmoreland, and perhaps be enabled to pay his debts by getting a rich wife. In the course of the cross-examination Mrs Greenow got much information out of him; and then, when she was satisfied that she had learned, not exactly all the truth, but certain indications of the truth, she forgave him all his offences.

"And now you will give a fellow a kiss,—just one kiss," said the ecstatic Captain, in the height of his bliss.

"Hush!" said the widow, "there's a carriage coming on the road—close to us."



CHAPTER LXV

The First Kiss

"Hush!" said the widow, "there's a carriage coming on the road—close to us." Mrs Greenow, as she spoke these words, drew back from the Captain's arms before the first kiss of permitted ante-nuptial love had been exchanged. The scene was on the high road from Shap to Vavasor, and as she was still dressed in all the sombre habiliments of early widowhood, and as neither he nor his sweetheart were under forty, perhaps it was as well that they were not caught toying together in so very public a place. But they were only just in time to escape the vigilant eyes of a new visitor. Round the corner of the road, at a sharp trot, came the Shap post-horse, with the Shap gig behind him,—the same gig which had brought Bellfield to Vavasor on the previous day,—and seated in the gig, looming large, with his eyes wide awake to everything round him, was—Mr Cheesacre.

It was a sight terrible to the eyes of Captain Bellfield, and by no means welcome to those of Mrs Greenow. As regarded her, her annoyance had chiefly reference to her two nieces, and especially to Alice. How was she to account for this second lover? Kate, of course, knew all about it; but how could Alice be made to understand that she, Mrs Greenow, was not to blame,—that she had, in sober truth, told this ardent gentleman that there was no hope for him? And even as to Kate,—Kate, whom her aunt had absurdly chosen to regard as the object of Mr Cheesacre's pursuit,—what sort of a welcome would she extend to the owner of Oileymead? Before the wheels had stopped, Mrs Greenow had begun to reflect whether it might be possible that she should send Mr Cheesacre back without letting him go on to the Hall; but if Mrs Greenow was dismayed, what were the feelings of the Captain? For he was aware that Cheesacre knew that of him which he had not told. How ardently did he now wish that he had sailed nearer to the truth in giving in the schedule of his debts to Mrs Greenow.

"That man's wanted by the police," said Cheesacre, speaking while the gig was still in motion. "He's wanted by the police, Mrs Greenow," and in his ardour he stood up in the gig and pointed at Bellfield. Then the gig stopped suddenly, and he fell back into his seat in his effort to prevent his falling forward. "He's wanted by the police," he shouted out again, as soon as he was able to recover his voice.

Mrs Greenow turned pale beneath the widow's veil which she had dropped. What might not her Captain have done? He might have procured things, to be sent to him, out of shops on false pretences; or, urged on by want and famine, he might have committed—forgery. "Oh, my!" she said, and dropped her hand from his arm, which she had taken.

"It's false," said Bellfield.

"It's true," said Cheesacre.

"I'll indict you for slander, my friend," said Bellfield.

"Pay me the money you owe me," said Cheesacre. "You're a swindler!"

Mrs Greenow cared little as to her lover being a swindler in Mr Cheesacre's estimation. Such accusations from him she had heard before. But she did care very much as to this mission of the police against her Captain. If that were true, the Captain could be her Captain no longer. "What is this I hear, Captain Bellfield?" she said.

"It's a lie and a slander. He merely wants to make a quarrel between us. What police are after me, Mr Cheesacre?"

"It's the police, or the sheriff's officer, or something of the kind," said Cheesacre.

"Oh, the sheriff's officers!" exclaimed Mrs Greenow, in a tone of voice which showed how great had been her relief. "Mr Cheesacre, you shouldn't come and say such things;—you shouldn't, indeed. Sheriff's officers can be paid, and there's an end of them."

"I'll indict him for the libel—I will, as sure as I'm alive," said Bellfield.

"Nonsense," said the widow. "Don't you make a fool of yourself. When men can't pay their way they must put up with having things like that said of them. Mr Cheesacre, where were you going?"

"I was going to Vavasor Hall, on purpose to caution you."

"It's too late," said Mrs Greenow, sinking behind her veil.

"Why, you haven't been and married him since yesterday? He only had twenty-four hours' start of me, I know. Or, perhaps, you had it done clandestine in Norwich? Oh, Mrs Greenow!"

He got out of the gig, and the three walked back towards the Hall together, while the boy drove on with Mr Cheesacre's carpetbag. "I hardly know," said Mrs Greenow, "whether we can welcome you. There are other visitors, and the house is full."

"I'm not one to intrude where I'm not wanted. You may be sure of that. If I can't get my supper for love, I can get at for money. That's more than some people can say. I wonder when you're going to pay me what you owe me, Lieutenant Bellfield?"

Nevertheless, the widow had contrived to reconcile the two men before she reached the Hall. They had actually shaken hands, and the lamb Cheesacre had agreed to lie down with the wolf Bellfield. Cheesacre, moreover, had contrived to whisper into the widow's ears the true extent of his errand into Westmoreland. This, however, he did not do altogether in Bellfield's hearing. When Mrs Greenow ascertained that there was something to be said, she made no scruple in sending her betrothed away from her "You won't throw a fellow over, will you, now?" whispered Bellfield into her ear as he went. She merely frowned at him, and bade him begone, so that the walk which Mrs Greenow began with one lover she ended in company with the other.

Bellfield, who was sent on to the house, found Alice and Kate surveying the newly arrived carpet bag. "He knows 'un," said the boy who had driven the gig, pointing to the Captain.