Can You Forgive Her? (40 page)

‘What am I to do?’ said Jeffrey.

‘At any rate you Might marry.’

‘Oh, yes; -I could marry. There’s no man so poor but what he can do that. The question would be how I might like the
subsequent starvation.’

‘I don’t see that you need starve. Though your own fortune is small, it is something, – and many girls have fortunes of their own.’

Jeffrey thought of Lady Glencora, but he made no allusion to her in speech. ‘I don’t think I’m very good at that kind of thing,‘ he said. ’When the father and mother came to ask of my house and my home I should break down. I don’t say it
as praising
myself; – indeed, quite the reverse; but I fear I have not a mercenary tendency.’

‘That’s nonsense.’

‘Oh, yes; quite so. I admit that’

‘Men must have mercenary tendencies or they would not have bread. The man who ploughs that he may live does so because he, luckily, has a mercenary tendency.’

‘Just so. But you see I am less lucky than the ploughman.’

‘There is no vulgar error
so vulgar, – that is to say, common or erroneous, as that by which men have been taught to say that mercenary tendencies are bad. A desire for wealth is the source of all progress. Civilization comes from what men call greed. Let your mercenary tendencies be combined with honesty and they cannot take you astray.’ This the future Chancellor of the Exchequer said with much of that air and tone of wisdom
which a Chancellor of the Exchequer ought to possess.

‘But I haven’t got any such tendencies,’ said Jeffrey.

‘Would you like to occupy a farm in Scotland?’ said Plantagenet Palliser.

‘And pay rent?’

‘You would have to pay rent of course.’

‘Thank you, no. It would be dishonest, as I know I should never pay it’

‘You are too old, I fear, for the public service.’

‘You mean a desk in the Treasury,
– with a hundred a year. Yes; I think I am too old.’

‘But have you no plan of your own?’

‘Not much of one. Sometimes I have thought I would go to New Zealand.’

‘You would have to be a farmer there.’

‘No; – I shouldn’t do that. I should get up an opposition to the Government and that sort of thing, and then they would buy me off and give me a place.’

‘That does very well here, Jeffrey, if
a man can get into Parliament and has capital enough to wait; but I don’t think it would do out there. Would you like to go into Parliament?’

‘What; here? Of course I should. Only I should be sure to get
terribly into debt I don’t owe very much, now, – not to speak of, – except what I owe you.’

‘You owe nothing to me,’ said Plantagenet, with some little touch of magniloquence in his tone. ‘No;
don’t speak of it. I have no brother, and between you and me it means nothing. You see, Jeffrey, it may be that I shall have to look to you as My – My – My heir, in short,’ Hereupon Jeffrey muttered something as to the small probability of such necessity, and as to the great remoteness of any result even if it were so.

‘That’s all true,’ said the elder heir of the Pallisers, ‘but still -. In
short, I wish you would do something. Do you think about it; and then some day speak to me again.’

Jeffrey, as he left his cousin with a cheque for 500l. in his waist-coat pocket, thought that the interview which had at one time taken important dimensions, had not been concluded altogether satisfactorily. A seat in Parliament Yes, indeed! If his cousin would so far use his political, monetary,
or ducal interest as to do that for him; – as to give him something of the status properly belonging to the younger son of the House, then indeed life would have some charms for him! But as for the farm in Scotland, or a desk at an office in London, – his own New Zealand plan would be better than those. And then as he went along of course he bethought himself that it might be his lot yet to die,
and at least to be buried, in the purple, as a Duke of Omnium. If so, certainly it would be his duty to prepare another heir, and leave a duke behind him, – if it were possible.

‘Are you going to ride with us after lunch?’ said Lady Glencora to him as he strolled into the drawing-room.

‘No,’ said Jeffrey; ‘I’m going to study.’

‘To do what?’ said Lady Glencora.

‘To study; – or rather I shall
spend today in sitting down and considering what I will study. My cousin has just been telling me that I ought to do something.’

‘So you ought,’ said Iphigenia energetically from her writing-desk.

‘But he didn’t seem to have any clear opinion what it ought to be. You see there can’t be two Chancellors of the Exchequer at the
same time. Mrs Sparkes, what ought a young man like me to set about
doing?’

‘Go into Parliament, I should say,’ said Mrs Sparkes.

‘Ah, yes; exactly. He had some notion of that kind, too, but he didn’t name any particular place. I think I’ll try the City of London. They’ve four there, and of course the chance of getting in would thereby be doubled.’

‘I thought that commercial men were generally preferred in the City,’ said the Duchess, taking a strong and good-natured
interest in the matter.

‘Mr Palliser means to make a fortune in trade as a preliminary,’ said Mrs Sparkes.

‘I don’t think he meant anything of the kind,’ said the Duchess.

‘At any rate I have got to do something, so I can’t go and ride,’ said Jeffrey.

‘And you ought to do something,’ said Iphigenia from her desk.

Twice during this little conversation Lady Glencora had looked up, catching
Alice’s eye, and Alice had well known what she had meant. ‘You see,’ the glance had said, ‘Plantagenet is beginning to take an interest in his cousin, and you know why. The man who is to be the father of the future dukes must not be allowed to fritter away his time in obscurity. Had I that cradle upstairs Jeffrey might be as idle as he pleased.’ Alice understood it well.

Of course Jeffrey did
join the riding party. ‘What is a man like me to do who Wants to do something?’ he said to Alice. Alice was quite aware that Lady Glencora had contrived some little scheme that Mr Palliser should be riding next to her. She liked Mr Palliser, and therefore had no objection; but she declared to herself that her cousin was a goose for her pains.

‘Mrs Sparkes says you ought to go into Parliament’

‘Yes; – and the dear Duchess would perhaps suggest a house in Belgrave Square. I want to hear your advice now.’

‘I can only say ditto to Miss Palliser.’

‘What! Iphy? About procrastination? But you see the more of my time he steals the better it is for me.’

That’s the evil you have got to cure.’

‘My cousin Plantagenet suggested – marriage.’

‘A very good thing too, I’m sure,’ said Alice; ‘only
it depends something on the sort of wife you get.’

‘You mean, of course, how much money she has.’

‘Not altogether.’

‘Looking at it from my cousin’s point of view, I suppose that it is the only important point. Who are there coming up this year, – in the way of heiresses?’

‘Upon my word I don’t know. In the first place, how much money makes an heiress?’

‘For such a fellow as me, I suppose
ten thousand pounds ought to do.’

‘That’s not much,’ said Alice, who had exactly that amount of her own.

‘No – ; perhaps that’s too moderate. But the lower one went in the money speculation, the greater would be the number to choose from, and the better the chance of getting something decent in the woman herself. I have something of my own, – not much you know; so with the lady’s ten thousand
pounds we might be able to live,– in some second-rate French town perhaps.’

‘But I don’t see what you would gain by that’

‘My people here would have got rid of me. That seems to be the great thing. If you hear of any girl with about that sum, moderately good–looking, not too young so that she might know something of the world, decently born, and able to read and write, perhaps you will bear
me in mind.’

‘Yes, I will,’ said Alice, who was quite aware that he had made an accurate picture of her own position. ’When I meet such a one, I will send for you at once.’

‘You know no such person now?’

‘Well, no; not just at present.’

‘I declare I don’t think he could do anything better,’ her cousin said to her that night Lady Glencora was now in the habit of having Alice with her in what
she called her dressing–room every evening, and then they would sit till the small hours came upon them. Mr Palliser always burnt the midnight oil and came to bed
with the owls. They would often talk of him and his prospects till Alice had perhaps inspired his wife with more of interest in him and them than she had before felt. And Alice had managed generally to drive her friend away from those
topics which were so dangerous, – those allusions to her childlessness, and those hints that Burgo Fitzgerald was still in her thoughts. And sometimes, of course, they had spoken of Alice’s own prospects, till she got into a way of telling her cousin freely all that she felt. On such occasions Lady Glencora would always tell her that she had been right,– if she did not love the man. Though your
finger were put out for the ring,’ said Lady Glencora on one such occasion, ‘you should go back, if you did not love him.’

‘But I did love him,’ said Alice.

‘Then I don’t understand it,’ said Lady Glencora; and, in truth, close as was their intimacy, they did not perfectly understand each other.

But on this occasion they were speaking of Jeffrey Palliser. ’I declare I don’t think he could do
any better,’ said Lady Glencora.

‘If you talk such nonsense, I will not stay,’ said Alice.

‘But why should it be nonsense? You would be very comfortable with your joint incomes. He is one of the best fellows in the world. It is clear that he likes you; and then we should be so near to each other. I am sure Mr Palliser would do something for him if he married,– and especially if I asked him.’

‘I only know of two things against it.’

‘And what are they?’

‘That he would not take me for his wife, and that I would not take him for my husband.’

‘Why not? What do you dislike in him?’

‘I don’t dislike him at all. I like him very much indeed. But one can’t marry all the people one likes.’

‘But what reason is there why you shouldn’t marry him?’

‘This chiefly,’ said Alice, after a pause;
’that I have just separated myself from a man whom I certainly did love truly, and that I cannot transfer my affections quite so quickly as that’

As soon as the words were out of her mouth she knew that they
should not have been spoken. It was exactly what Glencora had done. She had loved a man and had separated herself from him and had married another, all within a month or two. Lady Glencora
first became red as fire over her whole face and shoulders, and Alice afterwards did the same as she looked up, as though searching in her cousin’s eyes for pardon.

‘It is an unmaidenly thing to do, certainly,’ said Lady Glencora very slowly, and in her lowest voice. ‘Nay, it is unwomanly; but one may be driven. One may be so driven that all gentleness of womanhood is driven out of one.’

‘Oh,
Glencora!’

‘I did not propose that you should do it as a sudden thing.’

‘Glencora!’

‘I did do it suddenly. I know it. I did it like a beast that is driven as its owner chooses. I know it I was a beast Oh, Alice, if you know how I hate myself I’

‘But I love you with all my heart,’ said Alice. ‘Glencora, I have learned to love you so dearly!’

‘Then you are the only being that does. He can’t
love me. How is it possible? You,– and perhaps another.’

‘There are many who love you. He loves you. Mr Palliser loves you.’

‘It is impossible. I have never said a word to him that could make him love me. I have never done a thing for him that can make him love me. The mother of his child he might have loved, because of that. Why should he love me? We were told to marry each other and did it.
When could he have learned to love me? But, Alice, he requires no loving, either to take it or to give it I wish it were so with me.’

Alice said what she could to comfort her, but her words were but of little avail as regarded those marriage sorrows.

‘Forgive you!’ at last Glencora said. ’What have I to forgive? You don’t suppose I do not know it all, and think of it all without the chance of
some stray word like that! Forgive you! I am so grateful that you love me! Some one’s love I must have found, – or I could not have remained here.’

A
WEEK
or ten days after this, Alice, when she came down to the breakfast–parlour one morning, found herself alone with Mr Bott It was the fashion at Matching Priory for people to assemble rather late in the day. The nominal hour for breakfast was ten, and none of the ladies of the party were ever seen before that Some of the gentlemen would breakfast earlier, especially
on hunting mornings; and on some occasions the ladies, when they came together, would find themselves altogether deserted by their husbands and brothers. On this day it was fated that Mr Bott alone should represent the sterner sex, and when Alice entered the room he was standing on the rug with his back to the fire, waiting till the appearance of some other guest should give him the sanction
necessary for the commencement of his morning meal. Alice, when she saw him, would have retreated had it been possible, for she had learned to dislike him greatly, and was, indeed, almost afraid of him; but she could not do so without making her flight too conspicuous.

‘Do you intend to prolong your stay here, Miss Vavasor?’ said Mr Bott, taking advantage of the first moment at which she looked
up from a letter which she was reading.

‘For a few more days, I think,’ said Alice.

‘Ah – I’m glad of that Mr Palliser has pressed me so much to remain till he goes to the Duke’s, that I cannot get away sooner. As I am an unmarried man myself, I can employ my time as well in one place as in another; – at this time of the year at least.’

‘You must find that very convenient,’ said Alice.

‘Yes,
it is convenient. You see in my position, – Parliamentary position, I mean, – I am obliged, as a public man, to act in concert with others. A public man can be of no service unless he is prepared to do that We must give and take, you know, Miss Vavasor.’