Can You Forgive Her? (99 page)

‘Dear Alice, this is so good of you! I am all in the midst of packing, and Plantagenet is helping me.’ Plantagenet winced
a little under this, as the hero of old
¹
must have winced when he was found with the distaff. Mr Palliser had relinquished his sword of state for the distaff which he had assumed, and could take no glory in the change. There was, too, in his wife’s voice the slightest hint of mockery, which, slight as it was, he perhaps thought she might have spared. ‘You have nothing left to pack,’ continued
Glencora, ‘and I don’t know what you can do to amuse yourself.’

‘I will help you,’ said Alice.

‘But we have so very nearly done. I think we shall have to pull all the things out, and put them up again, or we shall never get through tomorrow. We couldn’t start tomorrow; – could we, Plantagenet?’

‘Not very well, as your rooms are ordered in Paris for the next day.’

‘As if we couldn’t find rooms
at every inn on the road. Men are so particular. Now in travelling I should like never to order rooms, – never to know where I was going or when I was going, and to
carry everything I wanted in a market-basket’ Alice, who by this time had followed her friend along the passage to her bedroom, and had seen how widely the packages were spread about, bethought herself that the market-basket should
be a large one. ‘And I would never travel among Christians. Christians are so slow, and they wear chimney-pot hats everywhere. The further one goes from London among Christians, the more they wear chimney-pot hats. I want Plantagenet to take us to see the Kurds, but he won’t.’

‘I don’t think that would be fair to Miss Vavasor,’ said Mr Palliser, who had followed them.

‘Don’t put the blame on
her head,’ said Lady Glencora. ‘Women have always pluck for anything. Wouldn’t you like to see a live Kurd, Alice?’

‘I don’t exactly know where they live,’ said Alice.

‘Nor I. I have not the remotest idea of the way to the Kurds. You see my joke, don’t you, though Plantagenet doesn’t? But one knows that they are Eastern, and the East is such a grand idea!’

‘I think we’ll content ourselves with
Rome, or perhaps Naples, on this occasion,’ said Mr Palliser.

The notion of Lady Glencora packing anything for herself was as good a joke as that other one of the Kurds and whey. But she went flitting about from room to room, declaring that this thing must be taken, and that other, till the market-basket would have become very large indeed. Alice was astonished at the extent of the preparations,
and the sort of equipage with which they were about to travel Lady Glencora was taking her own carriage. ‘Not that I shall ever use it,’ she said to Alice, ‘but he insists upon it, to show that I am not supposed to be taken away in disgrace. He is so good; – isn’t he?’

‘Very good,’ said Alice. ‘I know no one better.’

‘And so dull!’ said Lady Glencora. ‘But I fancy that all husbands are dull
from the nature of their position. If I were a young woman’s husband, I shouldn’t know what to say to her that wasn’t dull.’

Two women and two men servants were to be taken. Alice had received permission to bring her own maid – ‘or a dozen, if you
want them,’ Lady Glencora had said. ‘Mr Palliser in his present mood would think nothing too much to do for you. If you were to ask him to go among
the Kurds, he’d go at once; – or on to Crim Tartary, if you made a point of it.’ But as both Lady Glencora’s servants spoke French, and as her own did not, Alice trusted herself in that respect to her cousin. ‘You shall have one all to yourself,’ said Lady Glencora. ‘I only take two for the same reason that I take the carriage, – just as you let a child go out in her best frock, for a treat, after
you’ve scolded her.’

When Alice asked why it was supposed that Mr Palliser was so specially devoted to her, the thing was explained to her. ‘You see, my dear, I have told him everything. I always do tell everything. Nobody can say I am not candid. He knows about your not letting me come to your house in the old days. Oh, Alice! – you were wrong then; I shall always say that But it’s done and
gone; and things that are done and gone shall be done and gone for me. And I told him all that you said,–about you know what. I have had nothing else to do but make confessions for the last ten days, and when a woman once begins, the more she confesses the better. And I told him that you refused Jeffrey.’

‘You didn’t?’

‘I did indeed, and he likes you the better for that. I think he’d let Jeffrey
marry you now if you both wished it; – and then, oh dear!–supposing that you had a son and that we adopted it?’

‘Cora, if you go on in that way I will not remain with you.’

‘But you must, my dear. You can’t escape now. At any rate, you can’t when we once get to Paris. Oh dear! you shouldn’t grudge me my little naughtinesses. I have been so proper for the last ten days. Do you know I got into
a way of driving Dandy and Flirt at the rate of six miles an hour, till I’m sure the poor beasts thought they were always going to a funeral. Poor Dandy and poor Firtl I shan’t see them now for another year.’

On the following morning they breakfasted early, because Mr Palliser had got into an early habit. He had said that early hours would be good for them. ‘But he never tells me why,’ said Lady
Glencora. ‘I think it is pleasant when people are travelling,’ said Alice. ‘It isn’t that,’ her cousin answered; ‘but we are all to be such
particularly good children. It’s hardly fair, because he went to sleep last night after dinner while you and I kept ourselves awake: but we needn’t do that another night, to be sure.’ After breakfast they all three went to work to do nothing. It was ludicrous
and almost painful to see Mr Palliser wandering about and counting the boxes, as though he could do any good by that. At this special crisis of his life he hated his papers and figures and statistics, and could not apply himself to them. He, whose application had been so unremitting, could apply himself now to nothing. His world had been brought to an abrupt end, and he was awkward at making a
new beginning. I believe that they all three were reading novels before one o’clock. Lady Glencora and Alice had determined that they would not leave the house throughout the day. ‘Nothing has been said about it, but I regard it as part of the bond that I’m not to go out anywhere. Who knows but what I might be found in Gloucester Square?’ There was, however, no absolute necessity that Mr Palliser
should remain with them; and, at about three, he prepared himself for a solitary walk. He would not go down to the House. All interest in the House was over with him for the present. He had the Speaker’s leave to absent himself for the season. Nor would he call on anyone. All his friends knew, or believed they knew, that he had left town. His death and burial had been already chronicled, and were
he now to reappear, he could reappear only as a ghost. He was being talked of as the departed one; – or rather, such talk on all sides had now come nearly to an end. The poor Duke of St Bungay still thought of him with regret when more than ordinarily annoyed by some special grievance coming to him from Mr Finespun; but even the Duke had become almost reconciled to the present order of things. Mr
Palliser knew better than to disturb all this by showing himself again in public; and prepared himself, therefore, to take another walk under the elms in Kensington Gardens.

He had his hat on his head in the hall, and was in the act of putting on his gloves, when there came a knock at the front door. The hall-porter was there, a stout, plethoric personage, not given to many words, who was at
this moment standing with his master’s umbrella in his hand, looking as though he would fain be
of some use to somebody, if any such utility were compatible with the purposes of his existence. Now had come this knock at the door, while the umbrella was still in his hand, and the nature of his visage changed, and it was easy to see that he was oppressed by the temporary multiplicity of his duties.
‘Give me the umbrella, John,’ said Mr Palliser. John gave up the umbrella, and opening the door disclosed Burgo Fitzgerald ‘standing upon the door-step. Is Lady Glencora at home?’ asked Burgo, before he had seen the husband. John turned a dismayed face upon his master, as though he knew that the comer ought not to be making a morning call at that house, – as no doubt he did know very well, – and
made no instant reply. ‘I am not sure,’ said Mr Palliser, making his way out as he had originally purposed. ‘The servant will find out for you.’ Then he went on his way across Park Lane and into the Park never once turning back his face to see whether Burgo had effected an entrance into the house. Nor did he return a minute earlier than he would otherwise have done. After all, there was something
chivalrous about the man.

‘Yes; Lady Glencora was at home,’ said the porter, not stirring to make any further inquiry. It was no business of his if Mr Palliser chose to receive such a guest. He had not been desired to say that her ladyship was not at home. Burgo was therefore admitted and shown direct up into the room in which Lady Glencora was sitting. As chance would have it, she was alone.
Alice had left her and was in her own chamber, and Lady Glencora was sitting at the window of the small room upstairs that overlooked the Park. She was seated on a footstool with her face between her hands when Burgo was admitted, thinking of him, and of what the world might have been to her had ‘they left her alone’, as she was in the habit of saying to Alice and to herself.

She rose quickly,
so that he saw her only as she was rising. ‘Ask Miss Vavasor to come to me,’ she said, as the servant left the room; and then she came forward to greet her lover.

‘Cora,’ he said, dashing at once into his subject – hopelessly, but still with a resolve to do as he had said that he would do. ‘Cora, I have come to you, to ask you to go with me.’

‘I will not go with you,’ said she.

‘Do not answer
me in that way, without a moment’s thought Everything is arranged – ’

‘Yes, everything is arranged,’ she said. ‘Mr Fitzgerald, let me ask you to leave me alone, and to behave to me with generosity. Everything is arranged. You can see that my boxes are all prepared for going. Mr Palliser and I, and my friend, are starting tomorrow. Wish me God-speed and go, and be generous.’

‘And is this to be
the end of everything?’ He was standing close to her, but hitherto he had only touched her hand at greeting her. ‘Give me your hand, Cora,’ he said.

‘No; – I will never give you my hand again. You should be generous to me and go. This is to be the end of everything, – of everything that is common to you and to me. Go, when I ask you.’

‘Cora; did you ever love me?’

‘Yes; I did love you. But
we were separated, and there was no room for love left between us.’

‘You are as dear to me now, – dearer than ever you were. Do not look at me like that. Did you not tell me when we last parted that I might come to you again? Are we children, that others should come between us and separate us like that?’

‘Yes, Burgo; we are children. Here is my cousin coming. You must leave me now.’ As she spoke
the door was opened and Alice entered the room. ‘Miss Vavasor, Mr Fitzgerald,’ said Lady Glencora. ‘I have told him to go and leave me. Now that you have come, Alice, he will perhaps obey me.’

Alice was dumbfounded, and knew not how to speak either to him or to her; but she stood with her eyes riveted on the face of the man of whom she had heard so much. Yes; certainly he was very beautiful.
She had never before seen man’s beauty such as that. She found it quite impossible to speak a word to him then – at the spur of the moment, but she acknowledged the introduction with a slight inclination of the head, and then stood silent, as though she were waiting for him to go.

‘Mr Fitzgerald, why do you not leave me and go?’ said Lady Glencora.

Poor Burgo also found it difficult enough to
speak. What could
he say? His cause was one which certainly did not admit of being pleaded in the presence of a strange lady; and he might have known from the moment in which he heard Glencora’s request that a third person should be summoned to their meeting – and probably did know, that there was no longer any hope for him. It was not on the cards that he should win. But there remained one tiling
that he must do. He must get himself out of that room; and how was he to effect that?

‘I had hoped,’ said he, looking at Alice, though he addressed Lady Glencora – ‘I had hoped to be allowed to speak to you alone fox a few minutes.’

‘No, Mr Fitzgerald; it cannot be so. Alice do not go. I sent for my cousin when I saw you, because I did not choose to be alone with you. I have asked you to go
– ’

‘You perhaps have not understood me?’

‘I understand you well enough.’

‘Then, Mr Fitzgerald,’ said Alice, ‘why do you not do as Lady Glencora has asked you? You know – you must know, that you ought not to be here.’

‘I know nothing of the kind,’ said he, still standing his ground.

‘Alice,’ said Lady Glencora, ‘we will leave Mr Fitzgerald here, since he drives us from the room.’

In such
contests, a woman has ever the best of it at all points. The man plays with a button to his foil, while the woman uses a weapon that can really wound. Burgo knew that he must go, – felt that he must skulk away as best he might, and perhaps hear a low titter of half-suppressed laughter as he went. Even that might be possible. ‘No, Lady Glencora,’ he said, ‘I will not drive you from the room. As one
must be driven out, it shall be I. I own I did think that you would at any rate have been – less hard to me.’ He then turned to go, bowing again very slightly to Miss Vavasor.

He was on the threshold of the door before Glencora’s voice recalled him. ‘Oh my God!’ she said, ‘I am hard, – harder than flint. I am cruel. Burgo!’ And he was back with her in a moment, and had taken her by the hand.

‘Glencora,’ said Alice, ‘pray, – pray let him go. Mr Fitzgerald, if you are a man, do not take advantage of her folly.’

‘I will speak to him,’ said Lady Glencora. ‘I will speak to him, and then he shall leave me.’ She was holding him by the hand now and turning to him, away from Alice, who had taken her by the arm. ‘Burgo,’ she said, repeating his name twice again, with all the passion that she
could throw into the word, – ‘Burgo, no good can come of this. Now, you must leave me. You must go. I shall stay with my husband as I am bound to do. Because I have wronged you, I will not wrong him also. I loved you; – you know I loved you.’ She still held him by the hand, and was now gazing up into his face, while the tears were streaming from her eyes.