Can You Forgive Her? (103 page)

Alice was always angered by any assumption that her conduct to Mr Grey had been affected
by the advice or influence of her cousin Kate. But this very feeling seemed to preserve Kate from the worse anger, which might have been aroused against her, had Alice acknowledged the injury which her cousin had in truth done to her. It was undoubtedly true that had Alice neither seen nor heard from Kate during the progress of John Grey’s courtship, John Grey would not have lost his wife. But against
this truth Alice was always protesting within her own breast She had been weak, foolish, irresolute, – and had finally acted with false judgement. So much she now admitted to herself. But she would not admit that any other woman had persuaded her to such weakness. ‘She mistakes me,’ Alice thought, as she put up her letter. ‘She is not the enemy who has wounded me.’

Mr Palliser, who had brought
her the letter, was seated in the same balcony, and while Alice had been reading, had almost buried himself in newspapers which conveyed intelligence as to the general elections then in progress. He was now seated with a
sheet of
The Times
in his hand, opened to its full extent, – for he had been too impatient to cut the paper, – and as he held it up in his hands before his eyes, was completely
hidden beneath it. Five or six other open papers were around him, and he had not spoken a word since he had commenced his present occupation. Lady Glencora was standing on the other side of him, and she also had received letters. ‘Sophy tells me that you are returned for Silverbridge,’ she said at last.

‘Who? I! yes; I’m returned,’ said Mr Palliser, speaking with something like disdain in his
voice as to the possibility of anybody having stood with a chance of success against him in his own family borough
¹
. For a full appreciation of the advantages of a private seat in the House of Commons let us always go to those great Whig families who were mainly instrumental in carrying the Reform Bill. The house of Omnium had been very great on that occasion. It had given up much, and had retained
for family use simply the single seat at Silverbridge. But that that seat should be seriously disputed hardly suggested itself as possible to the mind of any Palliser. The Pallisers and the other great Whig families have been right in this. They have kept in their hands, as rewards for their own services to the country, no more than the country is manifestly willing to give them. ‘Yes; I have
been returned,’ said Mr Palliser. ‘I’m sorry to see, Miss Vavasor, that your cousin has not been so fortunate.’

‘So I find,’ said Alice. ‘It will be a great misfortune to him.’

‘Ah! I suppose so. Those Metropolitan elections cost so much trouble and so much money, and under the most favourable circumstances, are so doubtful. A man is never sure there till he has fought for his seat three or
four times.’

‘This has been the third time with him,’ said Alice, ‘and he is a poor man.’

‘Dear, dear,’ said Mr Palliser, who himself knew nothing of such misfortunes. ‘I have always thought that those seats should be left to rich commercial men who can afford to spend money upon them. Instead of that, they are generally contested by men of moderate means. Another of my friends in the House
has been thrown out’

‘Who is that unfortunate?’ asked Lady Glencora.

‘Mr Bott,’ said the unthinking husband.

‘Mr Bott out!’ exclaimed Lady Glencora. ‘Mr Bott thrown out! I am so glad. Alice, are you not glad? The red-haired man, that used to stand about, you know, at Matching; – he has lost his seat in Parliament. I suppose he’ll go and stand about somewhere in Lan-cashire, now.’

A very indiscreet
woman was poor Lady Glencora. Mr Palliser’s face became black beneath
The Times
newspaper. ‘I did not know,’ said he, ‘that my friend Mr Bott and Miss Vavasor were enemies.’

‘Enemies! I don’t suppose they were enemies,’ said Glencora. ‘But he was a man whom no one could help observing, – and disliking.’

‘He was a man I specially disliked,’ said Alice, with great courage. ‘He may be very well
in Parliament; but I never met a man who could make himself so disagreeable in society. I really did feel myself constrained to be his enemy.’

‘Bravo, Alice!’ said Lady Glencora.

‘I hope he did nothing at Matching, to – to – to –,’ began Mr Palliser, apologetically.

‘Nothing especially to offend me, Mr Palliser, – except that he had a way that I especially dislike of trying to make little secret
confidences.’

‘And then he was so ugly,’ said Lady Glencor.

‘I felt certain that he endeavoured to do mischief,’ said Alice.

‘Of course he did,’ said Lady Glencora; ‘and he had a habit of rubbing his head against the papers in the rooms, and leaving a mark behind him that was quite unpardonable.’

Mr Palliser was effectually talked down, and felt himself constrained to abandon his political
ally. Perhaps he did this the easier as the loss which Mr Bott had just suffered would materially interfere with his political utility. ‘I suppose he will remain now among his own people,’ said Mr Palliser.

‘Let us hope he will,’ said Lady Glencora, – ‘and that his own people will appreciate the advantage of his presence.’ Then there was nothing more said about Mr Bott.

It was evening, and while
they were still sitting among their letters and newspapers, there came a shout along the water, and the noise of many voices from the bridge. Suddenly, there shot down before them in the swift running stream the heads of many swimmers in the river, and with the swimmers came boats carrying their clothes. They went by almost like a glance of light upon the waters, so rapid was the course of the
current. There was the shout of voices, – the quick passage of the boats, – the uprising, some half a dozen times, of the men’s hands above the surface; and then they were gone down the river, out of sight, – like morsels of wood thrown into a cataract, which are borne away instantly.

‘Oh, how I wish I could do that!’ said Lady Glencora.

‘It seems to be very dangerous,’ said Mr Palliser. ‘I
don’t know how they can stop themselves.’

‘Why should they want to stop themselves?’ said Lady Glencora. Think how cool the water must be; and how beautiful to be carried along so quickly; and to go on, and on, and on! I suppose we couldn’t try it?’

As no encouragement was given to this proposition, Lady Glencora did not repeat it: but stood leaning on the rail of the balcony, and looking enviously
down upon the water. Alice was, of course, thinking of that other evening, when perhaps the same swimmers had come down under the bridge and before the balcony, and where George Vavasor was sitting in her presence. It was, I think, on that evening, that she made up her mind to separate herself from Mr Grey.

On the day after that, Mr Palliser and his party went on to Lucerne, making that journey,
as I have said, by slow stages; taking Schaffhausen and Zurich in their way. At Lucerne, they established themselves for some time, occupying nearly a dozen rooms in the great hotel which overlooks the lake. Here there came to them a visitor, of whose arrival I will speak in the next chapter.

I
AM
inclined to think that Mr Palliser did not much enjoy this part of his tour abroad. When he first reached Lucerne there was no one there with whom he could associate pleasantly, nor had he any occupation capable of making his time run easily. He did not care for scenery. Close at his elbow was the finest to be had in Europe; but it was nothing to him. Had he been simply
journeying through Lucerne at the proper time of the year for such a journey, when the business of the Session was over, and a little change of air needed, he could have enjoyed the thing in a moderate way, looking about him, passing on, and knowing that it was good for him to be there at that moment. But he had none of that passion for mountains and lakes, none of that positive joy in the heather,
which would have compensated many another man for the loss of all that Mr Palliser was losing. His mind was ever at home in the House of Commons, or in that august assembly which men call the Cabinet, and of the meetings of which he read from week to week the simple records. Therein were mentioned the names of those heroes to whom Fortune had been so much kinder than she had been to him; and
he envied them. He took short, solitary walks, about the town, over the bridges, and along the rivers, making to himself the speeches which he would have made to full houses, had not his wife brought ruin upon all his hopes. And as he pictured to himself the glorious successes which probably never would have been his had he remained in London, so did he prophesy to himself an absolute and irremediable
downfall from all political power as the result of his absence, – having, in truth, no sufficient cause for such despair. As yet, he was barely thirty, and had he been able to judge his own case as keenly as he could have judged the case of another, he would have known that a short absence might probably raise his value in the estimation of others rather than lower it But his personal annoyance
was too
great to allow of his making such calculations aright So he became fretful and unhappy: and though he spoke no word of rebuke to his wife, though he never hinted that she had robbed him of his glories, he made her conscious by his manner that she had brought him to this miserable condition.

Lady Glencora herself had a love for the mountains and lakes, but it was a love of that kind which
requires to be stimulated by society, and which is keenest among cold chickens, picnic-pies, and the flying of champagne corks. When they first entered Switzerland she was very enthusiastic, and declared her intention of climbing up all the mountains, and going through all the passes. She endeavoured to induce her husband to promise that she should be taken up Mont Blanc. And I think she would
have carried this on, and would have been taken up Mont Blanc, had Mr Palliser’s aspirations been congenial. But they were not congenial, and Lady Glencora soon lost all her enthusiasm. By the time that they were settled at Lucerne she had voted the mountains to be bores, and had almost learned to hate the lake, which she declared always made her wet through when she got into a small boat, and sea-sick
when she put her foot in a large one. At Lucerne they made no acquaintances, Mr Palliser being a man not apt to new friendships. They did not even dine at the public table, though Lady Glencora had expressed a wish to do so. Mr Palliser did not like it, and of course Lady Glencora gave way. There were, moreover, some marital passages which were not pleasant to a third person. They did not scold
each other; but Lady Glencora would make little speeches of which her husband disapproved. She would purposely irritate him by continuing her tone of badinage, and then Mr Palliser would become fretful, and would look as though the cares of the world were too many for him. I cannot, therefore, say that Alice had much to make the first period of her sojourn at Lucerne a period of enjoyment

But
when they had been there about a fortnight, a stranger arrived, whose coming at any rate lent the grace of some excitement to their lives. Their custom was to breakfast at nine, – or as near nine as Lady Glencora could be induced to appear, – and then Mr Palliser would read till three. At that hour he would walk
forth by himself, after having handed the two ladies into their carriage, and they
would be driven about for two hours. ‘How I do hate this carriage,’ Lady Glencora said one day. ‘I do so wish it would come to grief, and be broken to pieces. I wonder whether the Swiss people think that we are going to be driven about here for ever.’ There were moments, however, which seemed to indicate that Lady Glencora had something to tell her cousin, which, if told, would alter the monotony
of their lives. Alice, however, would not press her for her secret.

‘If you have anything to tell, why don’t you tell it?’ Alice once said.

‘You are so hard,’ said Lady Glencora.

‘So you tell me very often,’ Alice replied; ‘and it is not complimentary. But hard or soft, I won’t make a petition for your confidence.’ Then Lady Glencora said something savage, and the subject was dropped for a
while.

But we must go back to the stranger. Mr Palliser had put the ladies into their carriage, and was standing between the front door of the hotel and the lake on a certain day, doubting whether he would walk up the hill to the left or turn into the town on the right, when he was accosted by an English gentleman, who, raising his hat, said that he believed that he spoke to Mr Palliser.

‘I
am Mr Palliser,’ said our friend, very courteously, returning the salute, and smiling as he spoke. But though he smiled, and though he was courteous, and though he raised his hat, there was something in his look and voice which would not have encouraged any ordinary stranger to persevere. Mr Palliser was not a man with whom it was easy to open an acquaintance.

‘My name is John Grey,’ said the
stranger.

Then the smile was dropped, the look of extreme courtesy disappeared, the tone of Mr Palliser’s voice was altered, and he put out his hand. He knew enough of Mr John Grey’s history to be aware that Mr John Grey was a man with whom he might permit himself to become acquainted. After the interchange of a very few words, the two men started off for a walk together.

‘Perhaps you don’t
wish to meet the carriage?’ said Mr Palliser. ‘If so, we had better go through the town and up the river.’

They went through the town, and up the river, and when Mr Palliser, on his return, was seen by Alice and Lady Glencora, he was alone. They dined together, and nothing was said. Together they sauntered out in the evening, and together came in and drank their tea; but still nothing was said.
At last, Alice and her cousin took their candles from Mr Palliser’s hands and left the sitting-room for the night.

‘Alice,’ said Lady Glencora, as soon as they were in the passage together. ‘I have been dying for this time to come. I could not speak before, or I should have made blunders, and so would you. Let us go into your room at once. Who do you think is here, at Lucerne, in this house,
at this very moment?’