CHAPTER XXIII.
Dinner at Matching Priory.
Alice found herself seated near to Lady Glencora's end of the table,and, in spite of her resolution to like Mr. Palliser, she was notsorry that such an arrangement had been made. Mr. Palliser had takenthe Duchess out to dinner, and Alice wished to be as far removedas possible from her Grace. She found herself seated between herbespoken friend Jeffrey Palliser and the Duke, and as soon as shewas seated Lady Glencora introduced her to her second neighbour. "Mycousin, Duke," Lady Glencora said, "and a terrible Radical."
"Oh, indeed; I'm glad of that. We're sadly in want of a few leadingRadicals, and perhaps I may be able to gain one now."
Alice thought of her cousin George, and wished that he, instead ofherself, was sitting next to the Duke of St. Bungay. "But I'm afraidI never shall be a leading Radical," she said.
"You shall lead me at any rate, if you will," said he.
"As the little dogs lead the blind men," said Lady Glencora.
"No, Lady Glencora, not so. But as the pretty women lead the menwho have eyes in their head. There is nothing I want so much, MissVavasor, as to become a Radical;--if I only knew how."
"I think it's very easy to know how," said Alice.
"Do you? I don't. I've voted for every liberal measure that has comeseriously before Parliament since I had a seat in either House, andI've not been able to get beyond Whiggery yet."
"Have you voted for the ballot?" asked Alice, almost trembling at herown audacity as she put the question.
"Well; no, I've not. And I suppose that is the crux. But the ballothas never been seriously brought before any House in which I havesat. I hate it with so keen a private hatred, that I doubt whetherI could vote for it."
"But the Radicals love it," said Alice.
"Palliser," said the Duke, speaking loudly from his end of the table,"I'm told you can never be entitled to call yourself a Radical tillyou've voted for the ballot."
"I don't want to be called a Radical," said Mr. Palliser,--"or to becalled anything at all."
"Except Chancellor of the Exchequer," said Lady Glencora in a lowvoice.
"And that's about the finest ambition by which a man can be moved,"said the Duke. "The man who can manage the purse-strings of thiscountry can manage anything." Then that conversation dropped and theDuke ate his dinner.
"I was especially commissioned to amuse you," said Mr. JeffreyPalliser to Alice. "But when I undertook the task I had no conceptionthat you would be calling Cabinet Ministers over the coals abouttheir politics."
"I did nothing of the kind, surely, Mr. Palliser. I suppose allRadicals do vote for the ballot, and that's why I said it."
"Your definition was perfectly just, I dare say, only--"
"Only what?"
"Lady Glencora need not have been so anxious to provide speciallyfor your amusement. Not but what I'm very much obliged to her,--ofcourse. But Miss Vavasor, unfortunately I'm not a politician. Ihaven't a chance of a seat in the House, and so I despise politics."
"Women are not allowed to be politicians in this country."
"Thank God, they can't do much in that way;--not directly, I mean.Only think where we should be if we had a feminine House of Commons,with feminine debates, carried on, of course, with feminine courtesy.My cousins Iphy and Phemy there would of course be members. You don'tknow them yet?"
"No; not yet. Are they politicians?"
"Not especially. They have their tendencies, which are decidedlyliberal. There has never been a Tory Palliser known, you know. Butthey are too clever to give themselves up to anything in which theycan do nothing. Being women they live a depressed life, devotingthemselves to literature, fine arts, social economy, and theabstract sciences. They write wonderful letters; but I believe theircorrespondence lists are quite full, so that you have no chance atpresent of getting on either of them."
"I haven't the slightest pretension to ask for such an honour."
"Oh! if you mean because you don't know them, that has nothing to dowith it."
"But I have no claim either private or public."
"That has nothing to do with it either. They don't at all seek peopleof note as their correspondents. Free communication with all theworld is their motto, and Rowland Hill is the god they worship.Only they have been forced to guard themselves against too great anaccession of paper and ink. Are you fond of writing letters, MissVavasor?"
"Yes, to my friends; but I like getting them better."
"I shrewdly suspect they don't read half what they get. Is itpossible any one should go through two sheets of paper filled by ourfriend the Duchess there? No; their delight is in writing. They siteach at her desk after breakfast, and go on till lunch. There is alittle rivalry between them, not expressed to each other, but visibleto their friends. Iphy certainly does get off the greater number,and I'm told crosses quite as often as Phemy, but then she has theadvantage of a bolder and larger hand."
"Do they write to you?"
"Oh, dear no. I don't think they ever write to any relative. Theydon't discuss family affairs and such topics as that. Architecturegoes a long way with them, and whether women ought to be clerks inpublic offices. Iphy has certain American correspondents that takeup much of her time, but she acknowledges she does not read theirletters."
"Then I certainly shall not write to her."
"But you are not American, I hope. I do hate the Americans. It's theonly strong political feeling I have. I went there once, and found Icouldn't live with them on any terms."
"But they please themselves. I don't see they are to be hated becausethey don't live after our fashion."
"Oh; it's jealousy of course. I know that. I didn't come across acab-driver who wasn't a much better educated man than I am. And asfor their women, they know everything. But I hated them, and I intendto hate them. You haven't been there?"
"Oh no."
"Then I will make bold to say that any English lady who spent a monthwith them and didn't hate them would have very singular tastes. Ibegin to think they'll eat each other up, and then there'll come anentirely new set of people of a different sort. I always regarded theStates as a Sodom and Gomorrah, prospering in wickedness, on whichfire and brimstone were sure to fall sooner or later."
"I think that's wicked."
"I am wicked, as Topsy used to say. Do you hunt?"
"No."
"Do you shoot?"
"Shoot! What; with a gun?"
"Yes. I was staying in a house last week with a lady who shot a gooddeal."
"No; I don't shoot."
"Do you ride?"
"No; I wish I did. I have never ridden because I've no one to ridewith me."
"Do you drive?"
"No; I don't drive either."
"Then what do you do?"
"I sit at home, and--"
"Mend your stockings?"
"No; I don't do that, because it's disagreeable; but I do work a gooddeal. Sometimes I have amused myself by reading."
"Ah; they never do that here. I have heard that there is a library,but the clue to it has been lost, and nobody now knows the way. Idon't believe in libraries. Nobody ever goes into a library to read,any more than you would into a larder to eat. But there is thisdifference;--the food you consume does come out of the larders, butthe books you read never come out of the libraries."
"Except Mudie's," said Alice.
"Ah, yes; he is the great librarian. And you mean to read all thetime you are here, Miss Vavasor?"
"I mean to walk about the priory ruins sometimes."
"Then you must go by moonlight, and I'll go with you. Only isn't itrather late in the year for that?"
"I should think it is,--for you, Mr. Palliser."
Then the Duke spoke to her again, and she found that she got on verywell during dinner. But she could not but feel angry with herselfin that she had any fear on the subject;--and yet she could notdivest herself of that fear. She acknowledged to herself that she wasconscious of a certain infe
riority to Lady Glencora and to Mr. JeffreyPalliser, which almost made her unhappy. As regarded the Duke on theother side of her, she had no such feeling. He was old enough to beher father, and was a Cabinet Minister; therefore he was entitledto her reverence. But how was it that she could not help acceptingthe other people round her as being indeed superior to herself? Wasshe really learning to believe that she could grow upwards by theirsunlight?
"Jeffrey is a pleasant fellow, is he not?" said Lady Glencora to heras they passed back through the billiard-room to the drawing-room.
"Very pleasant;--a little sarcastic, perhaps."
"I should think you would soon find yourself able to get the betterof that if he tries it upon you," said Lady Glencora; and then theladies were all in the drawing-room together.
"It is quite deliciously warm, coming from one room to another," saidthe Duchess, putting her emphasis on the "one" and the "other."
"Then we had better keep continually moving," said a certain Mrs.Conway Sparkes, a literary lady, who had been very handsome, who wasstill very clever, who was not perhaps very good-natured, and of whomthe Duchess of St. Bungay was rather afraid.
"I hope we may be warm here too," said Lady Glencora.
"But not deliciously warm," said Mrs. Conway Sparkes.
"It makes me tremble in every limb when Mrs. Sparkes attacks her,"Lady Glencora said to Alice in Alice's own room that night, "for Iknow she'll tell the Duke; and he'll tell that tall man with red hairwhom you see standing about, and the tall man with red hair will tellMr. Palliser, and then I shall catch it."
"And who is the tall man with red hair?"
"He's a political link between the Duke and Mr. Palliser. His name isBott, and he's a Member of Parliament."
"But why should he interfere?"
"I suppose it's his business. I don't quite understand all the insand outs of it. I believe he's to be one of Mr. Palliser's privatesecretaries if he becomes Chancellor of the Exchequer. Perhaps hedoesn't tell;--only I think he does all the same. He always calls meLady Glen-cowrer. He comes out of Lancashire, and made calico as longas he could get any cotton." But this happened in the bedroom, and wemust go back for a while to the drawing-room.
The Duchess had made no answer to Mrs. Sparkes, and so nothing furtherwas said about the warmth. Nor, indeed, was there any conversationthat was comfortably general. The number of ladies in the room wastoo great for that, and ladies do not divide themselves nicely intosmall parties, as men and women do when they are mixed. Lady Glencorabehaved pretty by telling the Duchess all about her pet pheasants;Mrs. Conway Sparkes told ill-natured tales of some one to MissEuphemia Palliser; one of the Duchess's daughters walked off to adistant piano with an admiring friend and touched a few notes; whileIphigenia Palliser boldly took up a book, and placed herself at atable. Alice, who was sitting opposite to Lady Glencora, began tospeculate whether she might do the same; but her courage failed her,and she sat on, telling herself that she was out of her element."Alice Vavasor," said Lady Glencora after a while, suddenly, and in asomewhat loud voice, "can you play billiards?"
"No," said Alice, rather startled.
"Then you shall learn to-night, and if nobody else will teach you,you shall be my pupil." Whereupon Lady Glencora rang the bell andordered that the billiard-table might be got ready. "You'll play,Duchess, of course," said Lady Glencora.
"It is so nice and warm, that I think I will," said the Duchess; butas she spoke she looked suspiciously to that part of the room whereMrs. Conway Sparkes was sitting.
"Let us all play," said Mrs. Conway Sparkes, "and then it will benicer,--and perhaps warmer, too."
The gentlemen joined them just as they were settling themselves roundthe table, and as many of them stayed there, the billiard-room becamefull. Alice had first a cue put into her hand, and making nothingof that was permitted to play with a mace. The duty of instructingher devolved on Jeffrey Palliser, and the next hour passedpleasantly;--not so pleasantly, she thought afterwards, as did someof those hours in Switzerland when her cousins were with her. Afterall, she could get more out of her life with such associates as them,than she could with any of these people at Matching. She felt quitesure of that;--though Jeffrey Palliser did take great trouble toteach her the game, and once or twice made her laugh heartily byquizzing the Duchess's attitude as she stood up to make her stroke.
"I wish I could play billiards," said Mrs. Sparkes, on one of theseoccasions; "I do indeed."
"I thought you said you were coming to play," said the Duchess,almost majestically, and with a tone of triumph evidently producedby her own successes.
"Only to see your Grace," said Mrs. Sparkes.
"I don't know that there is anything more to see in me than inanybody else," said the Duchess. "Mr. Palliser, that was a cannon.Will you mark that for our side?"
"Mr. Palliser, that was a cannon."]
"Oh no, Duchess, you hit the same ball twice."
"Very well;--then I suppose Miss Vavasor plays now. That was a miss.Will you mark that, if you please?" This latter demand was made withgreat stress, as though she had been defrauded in the matter of thecannon, and was obeyed. Before long, the Duchess, with her partner,Lady Glencora, won the game,--which fact, however, was, I think,owing rather to Alice's ignorance than to her Grace's skill. TheDuchess, however, was very triumphant, and made her way back into thedrawing-room with a step which seemed to declare loudly that she hadtrumped Mrs. Sparkes at last.
Not long after this the ladies went up-stairs on their way to bed.Many of them, perhaps, did not go to their pillows at once, as it wasas yet not eleven o'clock, and it was past ten when they all camedown to breakfast. At any rate, Alice, who had been up at seven, didnot go to bed then, nor for the next two hours. "I'll come into yourroom just for one minute," Lady Glencora said as she passed on fromthe door to her own room; and in about five minutes she was back withher cousin. "Would you mind going into my room--it's just there, andsitting with Ellen for a minute?" This Lady Glencora said in thesweetest possible tone to the girl who was waiting on Alice; andthen, when they were alone together, she got into a little chair bythe fireside and prepared herself for conversation.
"I must keep you up for a quarter of an hour while I tell yousomething. But first of all, how do you like the people? Will yoube able to be comfortable with them?" Alice of course said thatshe thought she would; and then there came that little discussionin which the duties of Mr. Bott, the man with the red hair, weredescribed.
"But I've got something to tell you," said Lady Glencora, when theyhad already been there some twenty minutes. "Sit down opposite to me,and look at the fire while I look at you."
"Is it anything terrible?"
"It's nothing wrong."
"Oh, Lady Glencora, if it's--"
"I won't have you call me Lady Glencora. Don't I call you Alice? Whyare you so unkind to me? I have not come to you now asking you to dofor me anything that you ought not to do."
"But you are going to tell me something." Alice felt sure that thething to be told would have some reference to Mr. Fitzgerald, and shedid not wish to hear Mr. Fitzgerald's name from her cousin's lips.
"Tell you something;--of course I am. I'm going to tell youthat,--that in writing to you the other day I wrote a fib. But itwasn't that I wished to deceive you;--only I couldn't say it all ina letter."
"Say all what?"
"You know I confessed that I had been very bad in not coming to youin London last year."
"I never thought of it for a moment."
"You did not care whether I came or not: was that it? But never mind.Why should you have cared? But I cared. I told you in my letter thatI didn't come because I had so many things on hand. Of course thatwas a fib."
"Everybody makes excuses of that kind," said Alice.
"But they don't make them to the very people of all others whomthey want to know and love. I was longing to come to you every day.But I feared I could not come without speaking of him;--and I haddetermined never to spea
k of him again." This she said in thatpeculiar low voice which she assumed at times.
"Then why do it now, Lady Glencora?"
"I won't be called Lady Glencora. Call me Cora. I had a sister once,older than I, and she used to call me Cora. If she had lived--. Butnever mind that now. She didn't live. I'll tell you why I do it now.Because I cannot help it. Besides, I've met him. I've been in thesame room with him, and have spoken to him. What's the good of anysuch resolution now?"
"And you have met him?"
"Yes; he--Mr. Palliser--knew all about it. When he talked of takingme to the house, I whispered to him that I thought Burgo would bethere."
"Do not call him by his Christian name," said Alice, almost with ashudder.
"Why not?--why not his Christian name? I did when I told my husband.Or perhaps I said Burgo Fitzgerald."
"Well."
"And he bade me go. He said it didn't signify, and that I had betterlearn to bear it. Bear it, indeed! If I am to meet him, and speak tohim, and look at him, surely I may mention his name." And then shepaused for an answer. "May I not?"
"What am I to say?" exclaimed Alice.
"Anything you please, that's not a falsehood. But I've got you herebecause I don't think you will tell a falsehood. Oh, Alice, I do sowant to go right, and it is so hard!"
Hard, indeed, poor creature, for one so weighted as she had been, andsent out into the world with so small advantages of previous trainingor of present friendship! Alice began to feel now that she had beenenticed to Matching Priory because her cousin wanted a friend, andof course she could not refuse to give the friendship that was askedfrom her. She got up from her chair, and kneeling down at the other'sfeet put up her face and kissed her.
"I knew you would be good to me," said Lady Glencora. "I knew youwould. And you may say whatever you like. But I could not bear thatyou should not know the real reason why I neither came to you norsent for you after we went to London. You'll come to me now; won'tyou, dear?"
"Yes;--and you'll come to me," said Alice, making in her mind a sortof bargain that she was not to be received into Mr. Palliser's houseafter the fashion in which Lady Midlothian had proposed to receiveher. But it struck her at once that this was unworthy of her, andungenerous. "But I'll come to you," she added, "whether you come tome or not."
"I will go to you," said Lady Glencora, "of course,--why shouldn't I?But you know what I mean. We shall have dinners and parties and lotsof people."
"And we shall have none," said Alice, smiling.
"And therefore there is so much more excuse for your coming tome;--or rather I mean so much more reason, for I don't want excuses.Well, dear, I'm so glad I've told you. I was afraid to see you inLondon. I should hardly have known how to look at you then. But I'vegot over that now." Then she smiled and returned the kiss which Alicehad given her. It was singular to see her standing on the bedroom rugwith all her magnificence of dress, but with her hair pushed backbehind her ears, and her eyes red with tears,--as though the burdenof the magnificence remained to her after its purpose was over.
"I declare it's ever so much past twelve. Good night, now, dear. Iwonder whether he's come up. But I should have heard his step if hehad. He never treads lightly. He seldom gives over work till afterone, and sometimes goes on till three. It's the only thing he likes,I believe. God bless you! good night. I've such a deal more to say toyou; and Alice, you must tell me something about yourself, too; won'tyou, dear?" Then without waiting for an answer Lady Glencora went,leaving Alice in a maze of bewilderment. She could hardly believethat all she had heard, and all she had done, had happened since sheleft Queen Anne Street that morning.
Can You Forgive Her? Page 25