Can You Forgive Her? (46 page)

We know what was the mode which now, at this moment, was suggesting itself to him. He was proposing to himself, as the best thing that
he could do, to take away another man‘s wife and make himself happy with her! What he had said to Vavasor as to disregarding Lady Glencora‘s money had been perfectly true. That in the event of her going off with him, some portion of her enormous wealth would still cling to her, he did believe. Seeing that she had no children he could not understand where else it should all go. But he thought of
this as it regarded her, not as it regarded him. When he had before made his suit to her, – a suit which was then honourable, however disadvantageous it might have seemed to be to her, – he had made in his mind certain calculations as to the good things which would result to him if he were successful. He would keep hounds, and have three or four horses every day for his own riding, and he would
have no more interviews with Magruin, waiting in that rogue‘s dingy back parlour for many a weary wretched half-hour, till the rogue should be pleased to show himself. So far he had been mercenary; but he had learned to love the girl, and to care more for her than for her money, and when the day of disappointment came upon him, – the day on which she had told him that all between them was to be over
for ever,–he had, for a few hours, felt the loss of his love more than the loss of his money.

Then he had had no further hope. No such idea as that which now filled his mind had then come upon him. The girl had gone from him and married another man, and there was an end of it. But by degrees tidings had reached him that she was not happy, – reaching him through the mouths of people who were glad
to exaggerate all that they had heard. A whole tribe of his female relatives had been anxious to promote his marriage with Lady Glencora M‘Cluskie, declaring that, after all that was come and gone, Burgo would come forth from his troubles as a man of great wealth. So great was the wealth of the heiress that it might

withstand even his propensities for spending. That whole tribe had been bitterly
disappointed; and when they heard that Mr Palliser’s marriage had given him no child, and that Lady Glencora was unhappy, – they made their remarks in triumph rather than in sorrow. I will not say that they looked forward approvingly to such a step as that which Burgo now wished to take, – though as regarded his aunt, Lady Monk, he himself had accused her; but they whispered that such things had
been done and must be expected, when marriages were made up as had been that marriage between Mr Palliser and his bride.

As he walked on, thinking of his project, he strove hard to cheat himself into a belief that he would do a good thing in carrying Lady Glencora away from her husband. Bad as had been his life he had never before done aught so bad as that. The more fixed his intention became,
the more thoroughly he came to perceive how great and grievous was the crime which he contemplated. To elope with another man’s wife no longer appeared to him to be a joke at which such men as he might smile. But he tried to think that in this case there would be special circumstances which would almost justify him, and also her. They had loved each other and had sworn to love each other with constancy.
There had been no change in the feelings or even in the wishes of either of them. But cold people had come between them with cold calculations, and had separated them. She had been, he told himself, made to many a man she did not love. If they two loved each other truly, would it not still be better that they should come together? Would not the sin be forgiven on account of the injustice
which had been done to them? Had Mr Palliser a right to expect more from a wife who had been made to marry him without loving him? Then he reverted to those dreams of a life of love, in some sunny country, of which he had spoken to Vavasor, and he strove to nourish them. Vavasor had laughed at him, talking of Juan and Haidée. But Vavasor, he said to himself, was a hard cold man, who had no touch of
romance in his character. He would not be laughed out of his plan by such as he, – nor would he be frightened by the threat of any Lambro who might come after him, whether he might come in the guise of indignant uncle or injured husband.

He had crossed from Regent Street through Hanover Square, and as he came out by the iron gates into Oxford Street, a poor wretched girl, lightly clad in thin
raiment, into whose bones the sharp freezing air was penetrating, asked him for money. Would he give her something to get drink, so that for a moment she might feel the warmth of her life renewed? Such midnight petitions were common enough in his ears, and he was passing on without thinking of her. But she was urgent, and took hold of him. ‘For love of God,’ she said, ‘if it’s only a penny to get
a glass of gin! Feel my hand, – how cold it is.’ And she strove to put it up against his face.

He looked round at her and saw that she was very young, – sixteen, perhaps, at the most, and that she had once, – nay very lately, – been exquisitely pretty. There still lingered about her eyes some remains of that look of perfect innocency and pure faith which had been hers not more than twelve months
since. And now, at midnight, in the middle of the streets, she was praying for a pennyworth of gin, as the only comfort she knew, or could expect!

‘You are cold!’ said he, trying to speak to her cheerily.

‘Cold!’ said she, repeating the word, and striving to wrap herself closer in her rags, as she shivered – ‘Oh God! if you knew what it was to be as cold as I am! I have nothing in the world,
– not one penny, – not a hole to lie in!’

‘We are alike then,’ said Burgo, with a slight low laugh. ‘I also have nothing. You cannot be poorer than I am.’

‘You poor!’ she said. And then she looked up into his face. ‘Gracious; how beautiful you are! Such as you are never poor.’

He laughed again, – in a different tone. He always laughed when any one told him of his beauty. ‘I am a deal poorer
than you, my girl,’ he said. ‘You have nothing. I have thirty thousand pounds worse than nothing. But come along, and I will get you something to cat.’

‘Will you?’ said she, eagerly. Then looking up at him again, she exclaimed – ‘Oh, you are so handsome!’

He took her to a public-house and gave her bread and meat and beer, and stood by her while she ate it. She was shy with him
then, and would
fain have taken it to a comer by herself, had he allowed her. He perceived this, and turned his back to her, but still spoke to her a word or two as she ate. The woman at the bar who served him looked at him wonderingly, staring into his face; and the pot-boy woke himself thoroughly that he might look at Burgo; and the waterman from the cab-stand stared at him; and women who came in for gin looked
almost lovingly up into his eyes. He regarded them all not at all, showing no feeling of disgrace at his position, and no desire to carry himself as a ruffler
²
. He quietly paid what was due when the girl had finished her meal, and then walked with her out of the shop. ‘And now,’ said he, ‘what must I do with you? If I give you a shilling can you get a bed?’ She told him that she could get a bed
for sixpence. ‘Then keep the other sixpence for your breakfast,’ said he. ‘But you must promise me that you will buy no gin tonight’ She promised him, and then he gave her his hand as he wished her good night; – his hand, which it had been the dearest wish of Lady Glencora to call her own. She took it and pressed it to her lips. ‘I wish I might once see you again,’ she said, ‘because you are so
good and so beautiful.’ He laughed again cheerily, and walked on, crossing the street towards Cavendish Square. She stood looking at him till he was out of sight, and then as she moved away, – let us hope to the bed which his bounty had provided, and not to a gin-shop, – she exclaimed to herself again and again1 – ‘Gracious, how beautiful he was!’ ‘He’s a good un,’ the woman at the public-house had
said as soon as he left it; ‘but, my! did you ever see a man’s face handsome as that fellow’s?’

Poor Burgo! All who had seen him since life had begun with him had loved him and striven to cherish him. And with it all, to what a state had he come! Poor Burgo! had his eyes been less brightly blue, and his face less godlike in form, it may be that things would have gone better with him. A sweeter-tempered
man than he never lived, – nor one who was of a kinder nature. At this moment he had barely money about him to take him down to his aunf s house at Monkshade, and as he had promised to be there before Christmas Day, he was bound to start on the next morning, before help from Mr Magruin was possible. Nevertheless, out of
his very narrow funds he had given half a crown to comfort the poor creature
who had spoken to him in the street.

V
AVASOR
, as he sat alone in his room, after Fitzgerald had left him, began to think of the days in which he had before wished to assist his friend in his views with reference to Lady Glencora; – or rather he began to think of Alice’s behaviour then, and of Alice’s words. Alice had steadfastly refused to give any aid. No less likely assistant for such a purpose
could have been selected. But she had been very earnest in declaring that it was Glencora’s duty to stand by her promise to Burgo. ‘He is a desperate spendthrift,’ Kate Vavasor had said to her. ‘Then let her teach him to be otherwise,’ Alice had answered. ‘That might have been a good reason for refusing his offer when he first made it; but it can be no excuse for untruth, now that she has told
him that she loves him!’ ‘If a woman,’ she had said again, ‘won’t venture her fortune for the man she loves, her love is not worth having.’ All this George Vavasor remembered now; and as he remembered it he asked himself whether the woman that had once loved him would venture her fortune for him still.

Though his sister had pressed him on the subject with all the vehemence that she could use,
he had hardly hitherto made up his mind that he really desired to marry Alice. There had grown upon him lately certain Bohemian propensities, – a love of absolute independence in his thoughts as well as actions, – which, were antagonistic to marriage. He was almost inclined to think that marriage was an old-fashioned custom, fitted indeed well enough for the usual dull life of the world at large,
– as many men both in heathen and in Christian ages have taught themselves to think of religion, – but which was not adapted to his advanced intelligence. If he loved any woman he loved his cousin Alice. If he thoroughly respected any woman he respected her. But that idea of tying
himself down to a household was in itself distasteful to him. ‘It is a thing terrible to think of,’ he once said
to a congenial friend in these days of his life, ‘that a man should give permission to a priest, [ILL] him to another human being like a Siamese twin, so [ILL] power of separate and solitary action should be taken from him for ever! The beasts of the field do not treat each other so badly. They neither drink themselves drunk, nor eat themselves stupid; – nor do they bind themselves together in a union
which both would have to hate.’ In this way George Vavasor, trying to imitate the wisdom of the brutes, had taught himself some theories of a peculiar nature. But, nevertheless, as he thought of Alice Vavasor on this occasion, he began to feel that if a Siamese twin were necessary for him, she of all others was the woman to whom he would wish to be so bound.

And if he did it at all, he must do
it now. Under the joint instigation of himself and his sister, – as he thought, and perhaps not altogether without reason, – she had broken her engagement with Mr Grey. That she would renew it again if left to herself, he believed probable. And then, despite that advanced intelligence which had taught him to regard all forms and ceremonies with the eye of a philosopher, he had still enough of human
frailty about him to feel keenly alive to the pleasure of taking from John Grey the prize which John Grey had so nearly taken from him. If Alice could have been taught to think as he did as to the absurdity of those indissoluble ties, that would have been better. But nothing would have been more impossible than the teaching of such a lesson to his cousin Alice. George Vavasor was a man of courage,
and dared do most things; – but he would not have dared to commence the teaching of such a lesson to her.

And now, at this moment, what was his outlook into life generally? He had very high ambition, and a fair hope of gratifying it if he could only provide that things should go well with him for a year or so. He was still a poor man, having been once nearly a rich man; but still so much of the
result of his nearly acquired riches remained to him, that on the strength of them he might probably find his way into Parliament. He had paid the cost of the last attempt, and might, in a great degree, carry on this present attempt
on credit If he succeeded there would be open to him a mode of life, agreeable in itself, and honourable among men. But how was he to bear the cost of this for the
next year, or the next two years? His grandfather was still alive, and would probably live over that period. If he married Alice he would do so with no idea of cheating her out of her money. She should learn, – nay, she had already learned from his own lips, – how perilous was his enterprise. But he knew her to be a woman who would boldly risk all in money, though no consideration would induce her
to stir a hair’s breadth towards danger in reputation. Towards teaching her that doctrine at which I have hinted, he would not have dared to make an attempt; but he felt that he should have no repugnance to telling her that he wanted to spend all her money in the first year or two of their married life!

He was still in his arm-chair, thinking of all this, with that small untasted modicum of brandy
and water beside him, when he heard some distant Lambeth clock strike three from over the river. Then he rose from his seat, and taking the candles in his hand, sat himself down at a writing-desk on the other side of the room. ‘I needn’t send it when its written,’ he said to himself, ‘and the chances are that I won’t’ Then he took his paper, and wrote as follows:

D
EAR
A
LICE
,