Can You Forgive Her? (24 page)

‘You
must have thought I had vanished out of the world,’ said George, coming up to her with his extended hand.

Alice was confused, and hardly knew how to address him. ‘Somebody told me that you were shooting,’ she said after a pause.

‘So I was, but my shooting is not like the shooting of your great Nimrods, – men who are hunters upon the earth. Two days among the grouse and two more among the partridges
are about the extent of it Capel Court
¹
is the preserve in which I am usually to be found.’

Alice knew nothing of Capel Court, and said, ‘Oh, indeed.’

‘Have you heard from Kate?’ George asked.

‘Yes, once or twice; she is still at Yarmouth with Aunt Greenow.’

‘And is going to Norwich, as she says. Kate seems to have made a league with Aunt Greenow. I, who don’t pretend to be very disinterested
in money matters, think that she is quite right No doubt Aunt Greenow may marry again, but friends with forty thousand pounds are always agreeable.’

‘I don’t believe that Kate thinks much of that,’ said Alice.

‘Not so much as she ought, I dare say. Poor Kate is not a rich woman, or, I fear, likely to become one. She doesn’t seem to dream of getting married, and her own fortune is less than a
hundred a year.’

‘Girls who never dream of getting married are just those who make the best marriages at last,’ said Alice.

‘Perhaps so, but I wish I was easier about Kate. She is the best sister a man ever had.’

‘Indeed she is.’

‘And I have done nothing for her as yet I did think, while I was in that wine business, that I could have done anything I pleased for her. But my grandfather’s obstinacy
put me out of that; and now I’m beginning the world again, – that is, comparatively. I wonder whether you think I’m wrong in trying to get into Parliament?’

‘No; quite right. I admire you for it. It is just what I would do in your place. You are unmarried, and have a right to run the risk.’

‘I am so glad to hear you speak like that,’ said he. He had now managed to take up that friendly, confidential,
almost affectionate tone of talking which he had so often used when abroad with her, and which he had failed to assume when first entering the room.

‘I have always thought so.’

“But you have never said it.’

‘Haven’t I? I thought I had.’

‘Not heartily like that. I know that people abuse me; – my own people, my grandfather, and probably your father, – saying that I am reckless and the rest
of it I do risk everything for my object; but I do not know that any one can blame me, – unless it be Kate. To whom else do I owe anything?’

‘Kate does not blame you.’

‘No; she sympathizes with me; she, and she only, unless it be you.’ Then he paused for an answer, but she made him none. ‘She is brave enough to give me her hearty sympathy. But perhaps for that very reason I ought to be the more
chary in endangering the only support that she is like to have. What is ninety pounds a year for the maintenance of a single lady?’

‘I hope that Kate will always live with me,’ said Alice; ‘that is, as soon as she has lost her home at Vavasor Hall.’

He had been very crafty and had laid a trap for her. He had laid a trap for her, and she had fallen into it. She had determined not to be induced
to talk of herself; but he had brought the thing round so cunningly that the words were out of her mouth before she remembered whither they would lead her. She did remember this as she was speaking them, but then it was too late.

‘What; – at Nethercoats?’ said he. ‘Neither she nor I doubt your love, but few men would like such an intruder as that into their household, and of all men Mr Grey,
whose nature is retiring, would like it the least.’

‘I was not thinking of Nethercoats,’ said Alice.

‘Ah, no; that is it, you see. Kate says so often to me that when you are married she will be alone in the world.’

‘I don’t think she will ever find that I shall separate myself from her.’

‘No; not by any will of your own. Poor Kate! You cannot be surprised that she should think of your marriage
with dread. How much of her life has been made up of her companionship with you; – and all the best of it too! You ought not to be angry with her for regarding your withdrawal into Cambridgeshire with dismay.’

Alice could not act the He which now seemed to be incumbent on her. She could not let him talk of Nethercoats as though it were to be her future home. She made the struggle, and she found
that she could not do it. She was unable to find the words which should tell no lie to the ear, and which should yet deceive him. ‘Kate may still live with me,’ she said slowly. ‘Everything is over between me and Mr Grey.’

‘Alice! – is that true?’

‘Yes, George; it is true. If you will allow me to say so, I would rather not talk about it; – not just at present’

‘And does Kate know it?’

‘Yes,
Kate knows it’

‘And my uncle?’

‘Yes, papa knows it also.’

‘Alice, how can I help speaking of it? How can I not tell you that I am rejoiced that you are saved from a thraldom which I have long felt sure would break your heart?’

‘Pray do not talk of it further.’

‘Well; if I am forbidden I shall of course obey. But I own it is hard to me. How can I not congratulate you?’ To this she answered
nothing, but beat with her foot upon the floor as though she were impatient of his words. ‘Yes, Alice, I understand. You are
angry with me,’ he continued. ‘And yet you have no right to be surprised that when you tell me this I should think of all that passed between us in Switzerland. Surely the cousin who was with you then has a right to say what he thinks of this change in your life; at any
rate he may do so, if as in this case he approves altogether of what you are doing.’

‘I am glad of your approval, George; but pray let that be an end to it.’

After that the two sat silent for a minute or two. She was waiting for him to go, but she could not bid him leave the house. She was angry with herself, in that she had allowed herself to tell him of her altered plans, and she was angry
with him because he would not understand that she ought to be spared all conversation on the subject. So she sat looking through the window at the row of gaslights as they were being lit, and he remained in his chair with his elbow on the table and his head resting on his hand.

‘Do you remember asking me whether I ever shivered,’ he said at last; ‘ – whether I ever thought of things that made
me shiver? Don’t you remember; on the bridge at Basle?’

‘Yes; I remember.’

‘Well, Alice; – one cause for my shivering is over. I won’t say more than that now. Shall you remain long at Cheltenham?’

‘Just a month.’

‘And then you come back here?’

‘I suppose so. Papa and I will probably go down to Vavasor Hall before Christmas. How much before I cannot say.’

‘I shall see you at any rate after
your return from Cheltenham? Of course Kate will know, and she will tell me.’

‘Yes; Kate will know. I suppose she will stay here when she comes up from Norfolk. Good-bye.’

‘Good-bye, Alice, I shall have fewer fits of that inward shivering that you spoke of, – many less, on account of what I have now heard. God bless you, Alice; good-bye.’

‘Good-bye, George.’

As he went he took her hand and
pressed it closely between his own. In those days when they were lovers, – engaged lovers, a close, long-continued pressure of her hand had been his most eloquent
speech of love. He had not been given to many kisses, – not even to many words of love. But he would take her hand and hold it, even as he looked away from her, and she remembered well the touch of his palm. It was ever cool, – cool,
and with a surface smooth as a woman’s, – a small hand that had a firm grip. There had been days when she had loved to feel that her own was within it, when she trusted in it, and intended that it should be her staff through life. Now she distrusted it; and as the thoughts of the old days came upon, her, and the remembrance of that touch was recalled, she drew her hand away rapidly. Not for that
had she driven from her as honest a man as had ever wished to mate with a woman. He, George Vavasor, had never so held her hand since the day when they had parted, and now on this first occasion of her freedom she felt it again. What did he think of her? Did he suppose that she could transfer her love in that way, as a flower may be taken from one buttonhole and placed in another? He read it all,
and knew that he was hurrying on too quickly. ’I can understand well,’ he said in a whisper, ‘what your present feelings are; but I do not think you will be really angry with me because I have been unable to repress my joy at what I cannot but regard as your release from a great misfortune.’ Then he went.

‘My release!’ she said, seating herself on the chair from which he had risen. ‘My release
from a misfortune! No; – but my fall from heaven! Oh, what a man he is! That he should have loved me, and that I should have driven him away from me!’ Her thoughts travelled off to the sweetness of that home at Nethercoats, to the excellence of that master who might have been hers; and then in an agony of despair she told herself that she had been an idiot and a fool, as well as a traitor. What
had she wanted in life that she should have thus quarrelled with as happy a lot as ever had been offered to a woman? Had she not been mad, when she sent from her side the only man that she loved, – the only man that she had ever truly respected? For hours she sat there, all alone, putting out the candles which the servant had lighted for her, and leaving untasted the tea that was brought to her.

Poor Alice! I hope that she may be forgiven. It was her special fault, that when at Rome she longed for Tibur
²
, and when at
Tibur she regretted Rome. Not that her cousin George is to be taken as representing the joys of the great capital, though Mr Grey may be presumed to form no inconsiderable part of the promised delights of the country. Now that she had sacrificed her Tibur, because it had
seemed to her that the sunny quiet of its pastures lacked the excitement necessary for the happiness of life, she was again prepared to quarrel with the heartlessness of Rome, and already was again sighing for the tranquillity of the country.

Sitting there, full of these regrets, she declared to herself that she would wait for her father’s return, and then, throwing herself upon his love and
upon his mercy, would beg him to go to Mr Grey and ask for pardon for her. ‘I should be very humble to him,’ she said; ‘but he is so good, that I may dare to be humble before him.’ So she waited for her father. She waited till twelve, till one, till two; – but still he did not come. Later than that she did not dare to wait for him. She feared to trust him on such business returning so late as that,
– after so many cigars; after, perhaps, some superfluous beakers of club nectar. His temper at such a moment would not be fit for such work as hers. But if he was late hi coming home, who had sent him away from his home in un-happiness? Between two and three she went to bed, and on the following morning she left Queen Anne Street for the Great Western Station before her father was up.

L
ADY MACLEOD
lived at No. 3, Paramount Crescent, in Cheltenham, where she occupied a very handsome first-floor drawing-room, with a bedroom behind it, looking over a stable-yard, and a small room which would have been the dressing-room had the late Sir Archibald been alive, but which was at present called the dining-room: and in it Lady Macleod did dine whenever her
larger room was to be used for any purposes of evening company. The
vicinity of the stable-yard was not regarded by the tenant as among the attractions of the house; but it had the effect of lowering the rent, and Lady Macleod was a woman who regarded such matters. Her income, though small, would have sufficed to enable her to live removed from such discomforts; but she was one of those women
who regard it as a duty to leave something behind them, – even though it be left to those who do not at all want it; and Lady Macleod was a woman who wilfully neglected no duty. So she pinched herself, and inhaled the effluvia of the stables, and squabbled with the cabmen, in order that she might bequeath a thousand pounds or two to some Lady Midlothian, who cared, perhaps, little for her, and would
hardly thank her memory for the money.

Had Alice consented to live with her, she would have merged that duty of leaving money behind her in that other duty of finding a home for her adopted niece. But Alice had gone away, and therefore the money was due to Lady Midlothian rather than to her. The saving, however, was postponed whenever Alice would consent to visit Cheltenham; and a bedroom was
secured for her which did not look out over the stables. Accommodation was also found for her maid much better than that provided for Lady Macleod’s own maid. She was a hospitable, good old woman, painfully struggling to do the best she could in the world. It was a pity that she was such a bore, a pity that she was so hard to cabmen and others, a pity that she suspected all tradesmen, servants, and
people generally of a rank of life inferior to her own, a pity that she was disposed to condemn for ever and ever so many of her own rank because they played cards on week days, and did not go to church on Sundays, – and a pity, as I think above all, that while she was so suspicious of the poor she was so lenient to the vices of earl’s, earl’s sons, and such like.

Alice, having fully considered
the matter, had thought it most prudent to tell Lady Macleod by letter what she had done hi regard to Mr Grey. There had been many objections to the writing of such a letter, but there appeared to be stronger objection to that telling it face to face which would have been forced upon her had she not written. There would in such case have arisen on Lady

Macleod’s countenance a sternness of rebuke
which Alice did not choose to encounter. The same sternness of rebuke would come upon the countenance on receipt of the written information; but it would come in its most aggravated form on the immediate receipt of the letter, and some of its bitterness would have passed away before Alice’s arrival. I think that Alice was right. It is better for both parties that any great offence should be confessed
by letter.