Some ten or twelve days after George Vavasor's return to London from Westmoreland he appeared at Mr. Scruby's offices with four small slips of paper in his hand. Mr. Scruby, as usual, was pressing for money. The third election was coming on, and money was already being spent very freely among the men of the River Bank. So, at least, Mr. Scruby declared. Mr. Grimes, of the "Handsome Man," had shown signs of returning allegiance. But Mr. Grimes could not afford to be loyal without money. He had his little family to protect. Mr. Scruby, too, had his little family, and was not ashamed to use it on this occasion. "I'm a family man, Mr. Vavasor, and therefore I never run any risks. I never go a yard further than I can see my way back." This he had said in answer to a proposition that he should take George's note of hand for the expenses of the next election, payable in three months' time. "It is so very hard to realize," said George, "immediately upon a death, when all the property left is real property." "Very hard indeed," said Mr. Scruby, who had heard with accuracy all the particulars of the old Squire's will. Vavasor understood the lawyer, cursed him inwardly, and suggested to himself that some day he might murder Mr. Scruby as well as John Grey,—and perhaps also a few more of his enemies. Two days after the interview in which his own note of hand had been refused, he again called in Great Marlborough Street. Upon this occasion he tendered to Mr. Scruby for his approval the four slips of paper which have been mentioned. Mr. Scruby regarded them with attention, looking first at one side horizontally, and then at the other side perpendicularly. But before we learn the judgement pronounced by Mr. Scruby as to these four slips of paper, we must go back to their earlier history. As they were still in their infancy, we shall not have to go back far.
One morning, at about eleven o'clock the parlour-maid came up to Alice, as she sat alone in the drawing-room in Queen Anne Street, and told her there was a "gentleman" in the hall waiting to be seen by her. We all know the tone in which servants announce a gentleman when they know that the gentleman is not a gentleman.
"A gentleman wanting to see me! What sort of a gentleman?"
"Well, miss, I don't think he's just of our sort; but he's decent to look at."
Alice Vavasor had no desire to deny herself to any person but one. She was well aware that the gentleman in the hall could not be her cousin George, and therefore she did not refuse to see him.
"Let him come up," she said. "But I think, Jane, you ought to ask him his name." Jane did ask him his name, and came back immediately, announcing Mr. Levy.
This occurred immediately after the return of Mr. John Vavasor from Westmoreland. He had reached home late on the preceding evening, and at the moment of Mr. Levy's call was in his dressing-room.
Alice got up to receive her visitor, and at once understood the tone of her maid's voice. Mr. Levy was certainly not a gentleman of the sort to which she had been most accustomed. He was a little dark man, with sharp eyes, set very near to each other in his head, with a beaked nose, thick at the bridge, and a black moustache, but no other beard. Alice did not at all like the look of Mr. Levy, but she stood up to receive him, made him a little bow, and asked him to sit down.
"Is papa dressed yet?" Alice asked the servant.
"Well, miss, I don't think he is,—not to say dressed."
Alice had thought it might be as well that Mr. Levy should know that there was a gentleman in the house with her.
"I've called about a little bit of business, miss," said Mr. Levy, when they were alone. "Nothing as you need disturb yourself about. You'll find it all square, I think." Then he took a case out of his breast-pocket, and produced a note, which he handed to her. Alice took the note, and saw immediately that it was addressed to her by her cousin George. "Yes, Mr. George Vavasor," said Mr. Levy. "I dare say you never saw me before, miss?"
"No, sir; I think not," said Alice.
"I am your cousin's clerk."
"Oh, you're Mr. Vavasor's clerk. I'll read his letter, if you please, sir."
"If you please, miss."
George Vavasor's letter to his cousin was as follows:—
Dear Alice,After what passed between us when I last saw you I thought that on my return from Westmoreland I should learn that you had paid in at my bankers' the money that I require. But I find that this is not so; and of course I excuse you, because women so seldom know when or how to do that which business demands of them. You have, no doubt, heard the injustice which my grandfather has done me, and will probably feel as indignant as I do. I only mention this now, because the nature of his will makes it more than ever incumbent on you that you should be true to your pledge to me.Till there shall be some ground for a better understanding between us,—and this I do not doubt will come,—I think it wiser not to call, myself, at Queen Anne Street. I therefore send my confidential clerk with four bills, each of five hundred pounds, drawn at fourteen days' date, across which I will get you to write your name. Mr. Levy will show you the way in which this should be done. Your name must come under the word "accepted," and just above the name of Messrs. Drummonds, where the money must be lying ready, at any rate, not later than Monday fortnight. Indeed, the money must be there some time on the Saturday. They know you so well at Drummonds' that you will not object to call on the Saturday afternoon, and ask if it is all right.I have certainly been inconvenienced by not finding the money as I expected on my return to town. If these bills are not properly provided for, the result will be very disastrous to me. I feel, however, sure that this will be done, both for your own sake and for mine.Affectionately yours,George Vavasor.
Dear Alice,
After what passed between us when I last saw you I thought that on my return from Westmoreland I should learn that you had paid in at my bankers' the money that I require. But I find that this is not so; and of course I excuse you, because women so seldom know when or how to do that which business demands of them. You have, no doubt, heard the injustice which my grandfather has done me, and will probably feel as indignant as I do. I only mention this now, because the nature of his will makes it more than ever incumbent on you that you should be true to your pledge to me.
Till there shall be some ground for a better understanding between us,—and this I do not doubt will come,—I think it wiser not to call, myself, at Queen Anne Street. I therefore send my confidential clerk with four bills, each of five hundred pounds, drawn at fourteen days' date, across which I will get you to write your name. Mr. Levy will show you the way in which this should be done. Your name must come under the word "accepted," and just above the name of Messrs. Drummonds, where the money must be lying ready, at any rate, not later than Monday fortnight. Indeed, the money must be there some time on the Saturday. They know you so well at Drummonds' that you will not object to call on the Saturday afternoon, and ask if it is all right.
I have certainly been inconvenienced by not finding the money as I expected on my return to town. If these bills are not properly provided for, the result will be very disastrous to me. I feel, however, sure that this will be done, both for your own sake and for mine.
Affectionately yours,
George Vavasor.
The unparalleled impudence of this letter had the effect which the writer had intended. It made Alice think immediately of her own remissness,—if she had been remiss,—rather than of the enormity of his claim upon her. The decision with which he asked for her money, without any pretence at an excuse on his part, did for the time induce her to believe that she had no alternative but to give it to him, and that she had been wrong in delaying it. She had told him that he should have it, and she ought to have been as good as her word. She should not have forced upon him the necessity of demanding it.
But the idea of signing four bills was terrible to her, and she felt sure that she ought not to put her name to orders for so large an amount and then intrust them to such a man as Mr. Levy. Her father was in the house, and she might have asked him. The thought that she would do so of course occurred to her. But then it occurred to her also that were she to speak to her father as to this advancing of money to her cousin,—to this giving of money, for she now well understood that it would be a gift;—were she to consult her father in any way about it, he would hinder her, not only from signing the bills for Mr. Levy, but, as far as he could do so, from keeping the promise made to her cousin. She was resolved that George should have the money, and she knew that she could give it to him in spite of her father. But her father might probably be able to delay the gift, and thus rob it of its chief value. If she were to sign the bills, the money must be made to be forthcoming. So much she understood.
Mr. Levy had taken out the four bills from the same case, and had placed them on the table before him. "Mr. Vavasor has explained, I believe, miss, what it is you have to do?" he said.
"Yes, sir; my cousin has explained."
"And there is nothing else to trouble you with, I believe. If you will just write your name across them, here, I need not detain you by staying any longer." Mr. Levy was very anxious to make his visit as short as possible, since he had heard that Mr. John Vavasor was in the house.
But Alice hesitated. Two thousand pounds is a very serious sum of money. She had heard much of sharpers, and thought that she ought to be cautious. What if this man, of whom she had never before heard, should steal the bills after she had signed them? She looked again at her cousin's letter, chiefly with the object of gaining time.
"It's all right, miss," said Mr. Levy.
"Could you not leave them with me, sir?" said Alice.
"Well; not very well, miss. No doubt Mr. Vavasor has explained it all; but the fact is, he must have them this afternoon. He has got a heavy sum to put down on the nail about this here election, and if it ain't down to-day, them on whom he has to depend will be all abroad."
"But, sir, the money will not be payable to-day. If I understand it, they are not cheques."
"No, miss, no; they are not cheques. But your name, miss, at fourteen days, is the same as ready money;—just the same."
She paused, and while she paused, he reached a pen for her from the writing-table, and then she signed the four bills as he held them before her. She was quick enough at doing this when she had once commenced the work. Her object, then, was that the man should be gone from the house before her father could meet him.
These were the four bits of paper which George Vavasor tendered to Mr. Scruby's notice on the occasion which we have now in hand. In doing so, he made use of them after the manner of a grand capitalist, who knows that he may assume certain airs as he allows the odours of the sweetness of his wealth to drop from him.
"You insisted on ready money, with your d–––– suspicions," said he; "and there it is. You're not afraid of fourteen days, I dare say."
"Fourteen days is neither here nor there," said Mr. Scruby. "We can let our payments stand over as long as that, without doing any harm. I'll send one of my men down to Grimes, and tell him I can't see him, till,—let me see," and he looked at one of the bills, "till the 15th."
But this was not exactly what George Vavasor wanted. He was desirous that the bills should be immediately turned into money, so that the necessity of forcing payments from Alice, should due provision for the bills not be made, might fall into other hands than his.
"We can wait till the 15th," said Scruby, as he handed the bits of paper back to his customer.
"You will want a thousand, you say?" said George.
"A thousand to begin with. Certainly not less."
"Then you had better keep two of them."
"Well—no! I don't see the use of that. You had better collect them through your own banker, and let me have a cheque on the 15th or 16th."
"How cursed suspicious you are, Scruby."
"No, I ain't. I'm not a bit suspicious. I don't deal in such articles; that's all!"
"What doubt can there be about such bills as those? Everybody knows that my cousin has a considerable fortune, altogether at her own disposal."
"The truth is, Mr. Vavasor, that bills with ladies' names on them,—ladies who are no way connected with business,—ain't just the paper that people like."
"Nothing on earth can be surer."
"You take them into the City for discount, and see if the bankers don't tell you the same. They may be done, of course, upon your name. I say nothing about that."
"I can explain to you the nature of the family arrangement, but I can't do that to a stranger. However, I don't mind."
"Of course not. The time is so short that it does not signify. Have them collected through your own bankers, and then, if it don't suit you to call, send me a cheque for a thousand pounds when the time is up." Then Mr. Scruby turned to some papers on his right hand, as though the interview had been long enough. Vavasor looked at him angrily, opening his wound at him and cursing him inwardly. Mr. Scruby went on with his paper, by no means regarding either the wound or the unspoken curses. Thereupon Vavasor got up and went away without any word of farewell.
As he walked along Great Marlborough Street, and through those unalluring streets which surround the Soho district, and so on to the Strand and his own lodgings, he still continued to think of some wide scheme of revenge,—of some scheme in which Mr. Scruby might be included. There had appeared something latterly in Mr. Scruby's manner to him, something of mingled impatience and familiarity, which made him feel that he had fallen in the attorney's estimation. It was not that the lawyer thought him to be less honourable, or less clever, than he had before thought him; but that the man was like a rat, and knew a falling house by the instinct that was in him. So George Vavasor cursed Mr. Scruby, and calculated some method of murdering him without detection.
The reader is not to suppose that the Member for the Chelsea Districts had, in truth, resolved to gratify his revenge by murder,—by murdering any of those persons whom he hated so vigorously. He did not, himself, think it probable that he would become a murderer. But he received some secret satisfaction in allowing his mind to dwell upon the subject, and in making those calculations. He reflected that it would not do to take off Scruby and John Grey at the same time, as it would be known that he was connected with both of them; unless, indeed, he was to take off a third person at the same time,—a third person, as to the expediency of ending whose career he made his calculations quite as often as he did in regard to any of those persons whom he cursed so often. It need hardly be explained to the reader that this third person was the sitting Member for the Chelsea Districts.
As he was himself in want of instant ready money Mr. Scruby's proposition that he should leave the four bills at his own bankers', to be collected when they came to maturity, did not suit him. He doubted much, also, whether at the end of the fourteen days the money would be forthcoming. Alice would be driven to tell her father, in order that the money might be procured, and John Vavasor would probably succeed in putting impediments in the way of the payment. He must take the bills into the City, and do the best there that he could with them. He was too late for this to-day, and therefore he went to his lodgings, and then down to the House. In the House he sat all the night with his hat over his eyes, making those little calculations of which I have spoken.
"You have heard the news; haven't you?" said Mr. Bott to him, whispering in his ear.
"News; no. I haven't heard any news."
"Finespun has resigned, and Palliser is at this moment with the Duke of St. Bungay in the Lords' library."
"They may both be at the bottom of the Lords' fishpond, for what I care," said Vavasor.
"That's nonsense, you know," said Bott. "Still, you know Palliser is Chancellor of the Exchequer at this moment. What a lucky fellow you are to have such a chance come to you directly you get in. As soon as he takes his seat down there, of course we shall go up behind him."
"We shall have another election in a month's time," said George. "I'm safe enough," said Bott. "It never hurts a man at elections to be closely connected with the Government."
George Vavasor was in the City by times the next morning, but he found that the City did not look with favourable eyes on his four bills. The City took them up, first horizontally, and then, with a twist of its hand, perpendicularly, and looked at them with distrustful eyes. The City repeated the name, Alice Vavasor, as though it were not esteemed a good name on Change. The City suggested that as the time was so short, the holder of the bills would be wise to hold them till he could collect the amount. It was very clear that the City suspected something wrong in the transaction. The City, by one of its mouths, asserted plainly that ladies' bills never meant business. George Vavasor cursed the City, and made his calculation about murdering it. Might not a river of strychnine be turned on round the Exchange about luncheon time? Three of the bills he left at last with his own bankers for collection, and retained the fourth in his breast-pocket, intending on the morrow to descend with it into those lower depths of the money market which he had not as yet visited. Again, on the next day, he went to work and succeeded to some extent. Among those lower depths he found a capitalist who was willing to advance him two hundred pounds, keeping that fourth bill in his possession as security. The capitalist was to have forty pounds for the transaction, and George cursed him as he took his cheque. George Vavasor knew quite enough of the commercial world to enable him to understand that a man must be in a very bad condition when he consents to pay forty pounds for the use of two hundred for fourteen days. He cursed the City. He cursed the House of Commons. He cursed his cousin Alice and his sister Kate. He cursed the memory of his grandfather. And he cursed himself.
Mr. Levy had hardly left the house in Queen Anne Street, before Alice had told her father what she had done. "The money must be forthcoming," said Alice. To this her father made no immediate reply, but turning himself in his chair away from her with a sudden start, sat looking at the fire and shaking his head. "The money must be made to be forthcoming," said Alice. "Papa, will you see that it is done?" This was very hard upon poor John Vavasor, and so he felt it to be. "Papa, if you will not promise, I must go to Mr. Round about it myself, and must find out a broker to sell out for me. You would not wish that my name should be dishonoured."
"You will be ruined," said he, "and for such a rascal as that!"
"Never mind whether he is a rascal or not, papa. You must acknowledge that he has been treated harshly by his grandfather."
"I think that will was the wisest thing my father ever did. Had he left the estate to George, there wouldn't have been an acre of it left in the family in six months' time."
"But the life interest, papa!"
"He would have raised all he could upon that, and it would have done him no good."
"At any rate, papa, he must have this two thousand pounds. You must promise me that."
"And then he will want more."
"No; I do not think he will ask for more. At any rate, I do not think that I am bound to give him all that I have."
"I should think not. I should like to know how you can be bound to give him anything?"
"Because I promised it. I have signed the bills now, and it must be done." Still Mr. Vavasor made no promise. "Papa, if you will not say that you will do it, I must go down to Mr. Round at once."
"I don't know that I can do it. I don't know that Mr. Round can do it. Your money is chiefly on mortgage." Then there was a pause for a moment in the conversation. "Upon my word, I never heard of such a thing in my life," said Mr. Vavasor; "I never did. Four thousand pounds given away to such a man as that, in three months! Four thousand pounds! And you say you do not intend to marry him."
"Certainly not; all that is over."
"And does he know that it is over?"
"I suppose he does."
"You suppose so! Things of that sort are so often over with you!" This was very cruel. Perhaps she had deserved the reproach, but still it was very cruel. The blow struck her with such force that she staggered under it. Tears came into her eyes, and she could hardly speak lest she should betray herself by sobbing.
"I know that I have behaved badly," she said at last; "but I am punished, and you might spare me now!"
"I didn't want to punish you," he said, getting up from his chair and walking about the room. "I don't want to punish you. But, I don't want to see you ruined!"
"I must go to Mr. Round then, myself."
Mr. Vavasor went on walking about the room, jingling the money in his trousers-pockets, and pushing the chairs about as he chanced to meet them. At last, he made a compromise with her. He would take a day to think whether he would assist her in getting the money, and communicate his decision to her on the following morning.
Mr. Vavasor was at his wits' end about his daughter. She had put her name to four bills for five hundred pounds each, and had demanded from him, almost without an apology, his aid in obtaining money to meet them. And she might put her name to any other number of bills, and for any amount! There was no knowing how a man ought to behave to such a daughter. "I don't want her money," the father said to himself; "and if she had got none of her own, I would make her as comfortable as I could with my own income. But to see her throw her money away in such a fashion as this is enough to break a man's heart."
Mr. Vavasor went to his office in Chancery Lane, but he did not go to the chambers of Mr. Round, the lawyer. Instead of calling on Mr. Round he sent a note by a messenger to Suffolk Street, and the answer to the note came in the person of Mr. Grey. John Grey was living in town in these days, and was in the habit of seeing Mr. Vavasor frequently. Indeed, he had not left London since the memorable occasion on which he had pitched his rival down the tailor's stairs at his lodgings. He had made himself pretty well conversant with George Vavasor's career, and had often shuddered as he thought what might be the fate of any girl who might trust herself to marry such a man as that.
He had been at home when Mr. Vavasor's note had reached his lodgings, and had instantly walked off towards Chancery Lane. He knew his way to Mr. Vavasor's signing-office very accurately, for he had acquired a habit of calling there, and of talking to the father about his daughter. He was a patient, persevering man, confident in himself, and apt to trust that he would accomplish those things which he attempted, though he was hardly himself aware of any such aptitude. He had never despaired as to Alice. And though he had openly acknowledged to himself that she had been very foolish,—or rather, that her judgement had failed her,—he had never in truth been angry with her. He had looked upon her rejection of himself, and her subsequent promise to her cousin, as the effects of a mental hallucination, very much to be lamented,—to be wept for, perhaps, through a whole life, as a source of terrible sorrow to himself and to her. But he regarded it all as a disease, of which the cure was yet possible,—as a disease which, though it might never leave the patient as strong as she was before, might still leave her altogether. And as he would still have clung to his love had she been attacked by any of those illnesses for which doctors have well-known names, so would he cling to her now that she was attacked by a malady for which no name was known. He had already heard from Mr. Vavasor that Alice had discovered how impossible it was that she should marry her cousin, and, in his quiet, patient, enduring way, was beginning to feel confident that he would, at last, carry his mistress off with him to Nethercoats.
It was certainly a melancholy place, that signing-office, in which Mr. John Vavasor was doomed to spend twelve hours a week, during every term time, of his existence. Whether any man could really pass an existence of work in such a workshop, and not have gone mad,—could have endured to work there for seven hours a day, every week-day of his life, I am not prepared to say. I doubt much whether any victims are so doomed. I have so often wandered through those gloomy passages without finding a sign of humanity there,—without hearing any slightest tick of the hammer of labour, that I am disposed to think that Lord Chancellors have been anxious to save their subordinates from suicide, and have mercifully decreed that the whole staff of labourers, down to the very message boys of the office, should be sent away to green fields or palatial clubs during, at any rate, a moiety of their existence.
The dismal set of chambers, in which the most dismal room had been assigned to Mr. Vavasor, was not actually in Chancery Lane. Opening off from Chancery Lane are various other small lanes, quiet, dingy nooks, some of them in the guise of streets going no whither, some being thoroughfares to other dingy streets beyond, in which sponging-houses abound, and others existing as the entrances to so-called Inns of Court,—inns of which all knowledge has for years been lost to the outer world of the laity, and, as I believe, lost almost equally to the inner world of the legal profession. Who has ever heard of Symonds' Inn? But an ancestral Symonds, celebrated, no doubt, in his time, did found an inn, and there it is to this day. Of Staples' Inn, who knows the purposes or use? Who are its members, and what do they do as such? And Staples' Inn is an inn with pretensions, having a chapel of its own, or, at any rate, a building which, in its external dimensions, is ecclesiastical, having a garden and architectural proportions; and a façade towards Holborn, somewhat dingy, but respectable, with an old gateway, and with a decided character of its own.
The building in which Mr. John Vavasor had a room and a desk was located in one of these side streets, and had, in its infantine days, been regarded with complacency by its founder. It was stone-faced, and strong, and though very ugly, had about it that air of importance which justifies a building in assuming a special name of itself. This building was called the Accountant-General's Record Office, and very probably, in the gloom of its dark cellars, may lie to this day the records of the expenditure of many a fair property which has gotten itself into Chancery, and has never gotten itself out again. It was entered by a dark hall, the door of which was never closed; and which, having another door at its further end leading into another lane, had become itself a thoroughfare. But the passers through it were few in number. Now and then a boy might be seen there carrying on his head or shoulders a huge mass of papers which you would presume to be accounts, or some clerk employed in the purlieus of Chancery Lane who would know the shortest possible way from the chambers of some one attorney to those of some other. But this hall, though open at both ends, was as dark as Erebus; and any who lingered in it would soon find themselves to be growing damp, and would smell mildew, and would become naturally affected by the exhalations arising from those Chancery records beneath their feet.
Up the stone stairs, from this hall, John Grey passed to Mr. Vavasor's signing-room. The stairs were broad, and almost of noble proportions, but the darkness and gloom which hung about the hall, hung also about them,—a melancholy set of stairs, up and down which no man can walk with cheerful feet. Here he came upon a long, broad passage, in which no sound was, at first, to be heard. There was no busy noise of doors slamming, no rapid sound of shoes, no passing to and fro of men intent on their daily bread. Pausing for a moment, that he might look round about him and realize the deathlike stillness of the whole, John Grey could just distinguish the heavy breathing of a man, thereby learning that there was a captive in, at any rate, one of those prisons on each side of him. As he drew near to the door of Mr. Vavasor's chamber he knew that the breathing came from thence.
On the door there were words inscribed, which were just legible in the gloom—"Signing Room. Mr. Vavasor."
How John Vavasor did hate those words! It seemed to him that they had been placed there with the express object of declaring his degradation aloud to the world. Since his grandfather's will had been read to him he had almost made up his mind to go down those melancholy stairs for the last time, to shake the dust off his feet as he left the Accountant-General's Record Office for ever, and content himself with half his official income. But how could he give up so many hundreds a year while his daughter was persisting in throwing away thousands as fast as, or faster than, she could lay her hands on them?
John Grey entered the room and found Mr. Vavasor sitting all alone in an arm-chair over the fire. I rather think that that breathing had been the breathing of a man asleep. He was resting himself amidst the labours of his signing. It was a large, dull room, which could not have been painted, I should think, within the memory of man, looking out backwards into some court. The black wall of another building seemed to stand up close to the window,—so close that no direct ray of the sun ever interrupted the signing-clerk at his work. In the middle of the room there was a large mahogany-table, on which lay a pile of huge papers. Across the top of them there was placed a bit of blotting-paper, with a quill pen, the two only tools which were necessary to the performance of the signing-clerk's work. On the table there stood a row of official books, placed lengthways on their edges: the "Post-Office Directory," the "Court Circular," a "Directory to the Inns of Court," a dusty volume of Acts of Parliament, which had reference to Chancery accounts,—a volume which Mr. Vavasor never opened; and there were some others; but there was no book there in which any Christian man or woman could take delight, either for amusement or for recreation. There were three or four chairs round the wall, and there was the one arm-chair which the occupant of the chamber had dragged away from its sacred place to the hearth-rug. There was also an old Turkey carpet on the floor. Other furniture there was none. Can it be a matter of surprise to any one that Mr. Vavasor preferred his club to his place of business? He was not left quite alone in this deathlike dungeon. Attached to his own large room there was a small closet, in which sat the signing-clerk's clerk,—a lad of perhaps seventeen years of age, who spent the greatest part of his time playing tit-tat-to by himself upon official blotting-paper. Had I been Mr. Vavasor I should have sworn a bosom friendship with that lad, have told him all my secrets, and joined his youthful games.
"Come in!" Mr. Vavasor had cried when John Grey disturbed his slumber by knocking at the door. "I'm glad to see you,—very. Sit down; won't you? Did you ever see such a wretched fire? The coals they give you in this place are the worst in all London. Did you ever see such coals?" And he gave a wicked poke at the fire.
It was now the 1st of May, and Grey, who had walked from Suffolk Street, was quite warm. "One hardly wants a fire at all, such weather as this," he said.
"Oh; don't you?" said the signing-clerk. "If you had to sit here all day, you'd see if you didn't want a fire. It's the coldest building I ever put my foot in. Sometimes in winter I have to sit here the whole day in a great-coat. I only wish I could shut old Sugden up here for a week or two, after Christmas." The great lawyer whom he had named was the man whom he supposed to have inflicted on him the terrible injury of his life, and he was continually invoking small misfortunes on the head of that tyrant.
"How is Alice?" said Grey, desiring to turn the subject from the ten-times-told tale of his friend's wrongs.
Mr. Vavasor sighed. "She is well enough, I believe," he said.
"Is anything the matter in Queen Anne Street?"
"You'll hardly believe it when I tell you; and, indeed, I hardly know whether I ought to tell you or not."
"As you and I have gone so far together, I think that you ought to tell me anything that concerns her nearly."
"That's just it. It's about her money. Do you know, Grey, I'm beginning to think that I've been wrong in allowing you to advance what you have done on her account?"
"Why wrong?"
"Because I foresee there'll be a difficulty about it. How are we to manage about the repayment?"
"If she becomes my wife there will be no management wanted."
"But how if she never becomes your wife? I'm beginning to think she'll never do anything like any other woman."
"I'm not quite sure that you understand her," said Grey; "though of course you ought to do so better than any one else."
"Nobody can understand her," said the angry father. "She told me the other day, as you know, that she was going to have nothing more to do with hercousin—"
"Has she—has she become friends with him again?" said Grey. As he asked the question there came a red spot on each cheek, showing the strong mental anxiety which had prompted it.
"No; I believe not;—that is, certainly not in the way you mean. I think that she is beginning to know that he is a rascal."
"It is a great blessing that she has learned the truth before it was too late."
"But would you believe it;—she has given him her name to bills for two thousand pounds, payable at two weeks' sight? He sent to her only this morning a fellow that he called his clerk, and she has been fool enough to accept them. Two thousand pounds! That comes of leaving money at a young woman's own disposal."
"But we expected that, you know," said Grey, who seemed to take the news with much composure.
"Expected it?"
"Of course we did. You yourself did not suppose that what he had before would have been the last."
"But after she had quarrelled with him!"
"That would make no difference with her. She had promised him her money, and as it seems that he will be content with that, let her keep her promise."
"And give him everything! Not if I can help it. I'll expose him. I will indeed. Such a pitiful rascal as he is!"
"You will do nothing, Mr. Vavasor, that will injure your daughter. I'm very sure of that."
"But, by heavens—. Such sheer robbery as that! Two thousand pounds more in fourteen days!" The shortness of the date at which the bills were drawn seemed to afflict Mr. Vavasor almost as keenly as the amount. Then he described the whole transaction as accurately as he could do so, and also told how Alice had declared her purpose of going to Mr. Round the lawyer, if her father would not undertake to procure the money for her by the time the bills should become due. "Mr. Round, you know, has heard nothing about it," he continued. "He doesn't dream of any such thing. If she would take my advice, she would leave the bills, and let them be dishonoured. As it is, I think I shall call at Drummonds', and explain the whole transaction."
"You must not do that," said Grey. "I will call at Drummonds', instead, and see that the money is all right for the bills. As far as they go, let him have his plunder."
"And if she won't take you, at last, Grey? Upon my word, I don't think she ever will. My belief is she'll never get married. She'll never do anything like any other woman."
"The money won't be missed by me if I never get married," said Grey, with a smile. "If she does marry me, of course I shall make her pay me."
"No, by George! that won't do," said Vavasor. "If she were your daughter you'd know that she could not take a man's money in that way."
"And I know it now, though she is not my daughter. I was only joking. As soon as I am certain,—finally certain,—that she can never become my wife, I will take back my money. You need not be afraid. The nature of the arrangement we have made shall then be explained to her."
In this way it was settled; and on the following morning the father informed the daughter that he had done her bidding, and that the money would be placed to her credit at the bankers' before the bills came due. On that Saturday, the day which her cousin had named in his letter, she trudged down to Drummonds', and was informed by a very courteous senior clerk in that establishment, that due preparation for the bills had been made.
So far, I think we may say that Mr. George Vavasor was not unfortunate.
One morning, early in May, a full week before Alice's visit to the bankers' at Charing Cross, a servant in grand livery, six feet high, got out of a cab at the door in Queen Anne Street, and sent up a note for Miss Vavasor, declaring that he would wait in the cab for her answer. He had come from Lady Glencora, and had been specially ordered to go in a cab and come back in a cab, and make himself as like a Mercury, with wings to his feet, as may be possible to a London footman. Mr. Palliser had arranged his plans with his wife that morning,—or, I should more correctly say, had given her his orders, and she, in consequence, had sent away her Mercury in hot pressing haste to Queen Anne Street. "Do come;—instantly if you can," the note said. "I have so much to tell you, and so much to ask of you. If you can't come, when shall I find you, and where?" Alice sent back a note, saying that she would be in Park Lane as soon as she could put on her bonnet and walk down; and then the Mercury went home in his cab.
Alice found her friend in the small breakfast-room up-stairs, sitting close by the window. They had not as yet met since the evening of Lady Monk's party, nor had Lady Glencora seen Alice in the mourning which she now wore for her grandfather. "Oh, dear, what a change it makes in you," she said. "I never thought of your being in black."
"I don't know what it is you want, but shan't I do in mourning as well as I would in colours?"
"You'll do in anything, dear. But I have so much to tell you, and I don't know how to begin. And I've so much to ask of you, and I'm so afraid you won't do it."
"You generally find me very complaisant."
"No I don't, dear. It is very seldom you will do anything for me. But I must tell you everything first. Do take your bonnet off, for I shall be hours in doing it."
"Hours in telling me!"
"Yes; and in getting your consent to what I want you to do. But I think I'll tell you that first. I'm to be taken abroad immediately."
"Who is to take you?"
"Ah, you may well ask that. If you could know what questions I have asked myself on that head! I sometimes say things to myself as though they were the most proper and reasonable things in the world, and then within an hour or two I hate myself for having thought of them."
"But why don't you answer me? Who is going abroad with you?"
"Well; you are to be one of the party."
"I!"
"Yes; you. When I have named so very respectable a chaperon for my youth, of course you will understand that my husband is to take us."
"But Mr. Palliser can't leave London at this time of the year?"
"That's just it. He is to leave London at this time of the year. Don't look in that way, for it's all settled. Whether you go with me or not, I've got to go. To-day is Tuesday. We are to be off next Tuesday night, if you can make yourself ready. We shall breakfast in Paris on Wednesday morning, and then it will be to us all just as if we were in a new world. Mr. Palliser will walk up and down the new court of the Louvre, and you will be on his left arm, and I shall be on his right,—just like English people,—and it will be the most proper thing that ever was seen in life. Then we shall go on to Basle"—Alice shuddered as Basle was mentioned, thinking of the balcony over the river—"and so toLucerne—.But no; that was the first plan, and Mr. Palliser altered it. He spent a whole day up here with maps and Bradshaw's and Murray's guide-books, and he scolded me so because I didn't care whether we went first to Baden or to some other place. How could I care? I told him I would go anywhere he chose to take me. Then he told me I was heartless;—and I acknowledged that I was heartless. 'I am heartless,' I said. 'Tell me something I don't know.'"
"Oh, Cora, why did you say that?"
"I didn't choose to contradict my husband. Besides, it's true. Then he threw the Bradshaw away, and all the maps flew about. So I picked them up again, and said we'd go to Switzerland first. I knew that would settle it, and of course he decided on stopping at Baden. If he had said Jericho, it would have been the same thing to me. Wouldn't you like to go to Jericho?"
"I should have no special objection to Jericho."
"But you are to go to Baden instead."
"I've said nothing about that yet. But you have not told me half your story. Why is Mr. Palliser going abroad in the middle of Parliament in this way?"
"Ah; now I must go back to the beginning. And indeed, Alice, I hardly know how to tell you; not that I mind you knowing it, only there are some things that won't get themselves told. You can hardly guess what it is that he is giving up. You must swear that you won't repeat what I'm going to tell you now?"
"I'm not a person apt to tell secrets, but I shan't swear anything."
"What a woman you are for discretion! it is you that ought to be Chancellor of the Exchequer; you are so wise. Only you haven't brought your own pigs to the best market, after all."
"Never mind my own pigs now, Cora."
"I do mind them, very much. But the secret is this. They have asked Mr. Palliser to be Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he has—refused. Think of that!"
"But why?"
"Because of me,—of me, and my folly, and wickedness, and abominations. Because he has been fool enough to plague himself with a wife—he who of all men ought to have kept himself free from such troubles. Oh, he has been so good! It is almost impossible to make any one understand it. If you could know how he has longed for this office;—how he has worked for it day and night, wearing his eyes out with figures when everybody else has been asleep, shutting himself up with such creatures as Mr. Bott when other men have been shooting and hunting and flirting and spending their money. He has been a slave to it for years,—all his life I believe,—in order that he might sit in the Cabinet, and be a minister and a Chancellor of the Exchequer. He has hoped and feared, and has been, I believe, sometimes half-mad with expectation. This has been his excitement,—what racing and gambling are to other men. At last, the place was there, ready for him, and they offered it to him. They begged him to take it, almost on their knees. The Duke of St. Bungay was here all one morning about it; but Mr. Palliser sent him away, and refused the place. It's all over now, and the other man, whom they all hate so much, is to remain in."
"But why did he refuse it?"
"I keep on telling you—because of me. He found that I wanted looking after, and that Mrs. Marsham and Mr. Bott between them couldn't do it."
"Oh, Cora! how can you talk in that way?"
"If you knew all, you might well ask how I could. You remember about Lady Monk's ball, that you would not go to,—as you ought to have done. If you had gone, Mr. Palliser would have been Chancellor of the Exchequer at this minute; he would, indeed. Only think of that! But though you did not go, other people did who ought to have remained at home. I went for one,—and you know who was there for another."
"What difference could that make to you?" said Alice, angrily.
"It might have made a great deal of difference. And, for the matter of that, so it did. Mr. Palliser was there too, but, of course, he went away immediately. I can't tell you all the trouble there had been about Mrs. Marsham,—whether I was to take her with me or not. However, I wouldn't take her, and didn't take her. The carriage went for her first, and there she was when we got there; and Mr. Bott was there too. I wonder whether I shall ever make you understand it all."
"There are some things I don't want to understand."
"There they both were watching me,—looking at me the whole evening; and, of course, I resolved that I would not be put down by them."
"I think, if I had been you, I would not have allowed their presence to make any difference to me."
"That is very easily said, my dear, but by no means so easily done. You can't make yourself unconscious of eyes that are always looking at you. I dared them, at any rate, to do their worst, for I stood up to dance with Burgo Fitzgerald."
"Oh, Cora!"
"Why shouldn't I? At any rate I did; and I waltzed with him for half an hour. Alice, I never will waltz again;—never. I have done with dancing now. I don't think, even in my maddest days, I ever kept it up so long as I did then. And I knew that everybody was looking at me. It was not only Mrs. Marsham and Mr. Bott, but everybody there. I felt myself to be desperate,—mad, like a wild woman. There I was, going round and round and round with the only man for whom I ever cared two straws. It seemed as though everything had been a dream since the old days. Ah! how well I remember the first time I danced with him,—at his aunt's house in Cavendish Square. They had only just brought me out in London then, and I thought that he was a god."
"Cora! I cannot bear to hear you talk like that."
"I know well enough that he is no god now; some people say that he is a devil, but he was like Apollo to me then. Did you ever see anyone so beautiful as he is?"
"I never saw him at all."
"I wish you could have seen him; but you will some day. I don't know whether you care for men being handsome." Alice thought of John Grey, who was the handsomest man that she knew, but she made no answer. "I do; or, rather, I used to do," continued Lady Glencora. "I don't think I care much about anything now; but I don't see why handsome men should not be run after as much as handsome women."
"But you wouldn't have a girl run after any man, would you; whether handsome or ugly?"
"But they do, you know. When I saw him the other night he was just as handsome as ever;—the same look, half wild and half tame, like an animal you cannot catch, but which you think would love you so if you could catch him. In a little while it was just like the old time, and I had made up my mind to care nothing for the people looking at me."
"And you think that was right?"
"No, I don't. Yes, I do; that is. It wasn't right to care about dancing with him, but it was right to disregard all the people gaping round. What was it to them? Why should they care who I danced with?"
"That is nonsense, dear, and you must know that it is so. If you were to see a woman misbehaving herself in public, would not you look on and make your comments? Could you help doing so if you were to try?"
"You are very severe, Alice. Misbehaving in public!"
"Yes, Cora. I am only taking your own story. According to that, you were misbehaving in public."
Lady Glencora got up from her chair near the window, on which she had been crouching close to Alice's knees, and walked away towards the fireplace. "What am I to say to you, or how am I to talk to you?" said Alice. "You would not have me tell you a lie?"
"Of all things in the world, I hate a prude the most," said Lady Glencora.
"Cora, look here. If you consider it prudery on my part to disapprove of your waltzing with Mr. Fitzgerald in the manner you have described,—or, indeed, in any other manner,—you and I must differ so totally about the meaning of words and the nature of things that we had better part."
"Alice, you are the unkindest creature that ever lived. You are as cold as stone. I sometimes think that you can have no heart."
"I don't mind your saying that. Whether I have a heart or not I will leave you to find out for yourself; but I won't be called a prude by you. You know you were wrong to dance with that man. What has come of it? What have you told me yourself this morning? In order to preserve you from misery and destruction, Mr. Palliser has given up all his dearest hopes. He has had to sacrifice himself that he might save you. That, I take it, is about the truth of it,—and yet you tell me that you have done no wrong."
"I never said so." Now she had come back to her chair by the window, and was again sitting in that crouching form. "I never said that I was not wrong. Of course I was wrong. I have been so wrong throughout that I have never been right yet. Let me tell it on to the end, and then you can go away if you like, and tell me that I am too wicked for your friendship."
"Have I ever said anything like that, Cora?"
"But you will, I dare say, when I have done. Well; what do you think my senior duenna did,—the female one, I mean? She took my own carriage, and posted off after Mr. Palliser as hard as ever she could, leaving the male duenna on the watch. I was dancing as hard as I could, but I knew what was going on all the time as well as though I had heard them talking. Of course Mr. Palliser came after me. I don't know what else he could do, unless, indeed, he had left me to my fate. He came there, and behaved so well,—so much like a perfect gentleman. Of course I went home, and I was prepared to tell him everything, if he spoke a word to me,—that I intended to leave him, and that cart-ropes should not hold me!"
"To leave him, Cora!"
"Yes, and go with that other man whose name you won't let me mention. I had a letter from him in my pocket asking me to go. He asked me a dozen times that night. I cannot think how it was that I did not consent."
"That you did not consent to your own ruin and disgrace?"
"That I did not consent to go off with him,—anywhere. Of course it would have been my own destruction. I'm not such a fool as not to know that. Do you suppose I have never thought of it;—what it would be to be a man's mistress instead of his wife. If I had not I should be a thing to be hated and despised. When once I had done it I should hate and despise myself. I should feel myself to be loathsome, and, as it were, a beast among women. But why did they not let me marry him, instead of driving me to this? And though I might have destroyed myself, I should have saved the man who is still my husband. Do you know, I told him all that,—told him that if I had gone away with Burgo Fitzgerald he would have another wife, and would have children, andwould—?"
"You told your husband that you had thought of leaving him?"
"Yes; I told him everything. I told him that I dearly loved that poor fellow, for whom, as I believe, nobody else on earth cares a single straw."
"And what did he say?"
"I cannot tell you what he said, only that we are all to go to Baden together, and then to Italy. But he did not seem a bit angry; he very seldom is angry, unless at some trumpery thing, as when he threw the book away. And when I told him that he might have another wife and a child, he put his arm round me and whispered to me that he did not care so much about it as I had imagined. I felt more like loving him at that moment than I had ever done before."
"He must be fit to be an angel."
"He's fit to be a cabinet minister, which, I'm quite sure, he'd like much better. And now you know everything; but no,—there is one thing you don't know yet. When I tell you that, you'll want to make him an archangel or a prime minister. 'We'll go abroad,' he said,—and remember, this was his own proposition, made long before I was able to speak a word;—'We'll go abroad, and you shall get your cousin Alice to go with us.' That touched me more than anything. Only think if he had proposed Mrs. Marsham!"
"But yet he does not like me."
"You're wrong there, Alice. There has been no question of liking or of disliking. He thought you would be a kind of Mrs. Marsham, and when you were not, but went out flirting among the ruins with Jeffrey Palliser,instead—"
"I never went out flirting with Jeffrey Palliser."
"He did with you, which is all the same thing. And when Plantagenet knew of that,—for, of course, Mr. Bott toldhim—"
"Mr. Bott can't see everything."
"Those men do. The worst is, they see more than everything. But, at any rate, Mr. Palliser has got over all that now. Come, Alice; the fact of the offer having come from himself should disarm you of any such objection as that. As he has held out his hand to you, you have no alternative but to take it."
"I will take his hand willingly."
"And for my sake you will go with us? He understands himself that I am not fit to be his companion, and to have no companion but him. Now there is a spirit of wisdom about you that will do for him, and a spirit of folly that will suit me. I can manage to put myself on a par with a girl who has played such a wild game with her lovers as you have done."
Alice would give no promise then. Her first objection was that she had undertaken to go down to Westmoreland and comfort Kate in the affliction of her broken arm. "And I must go," said Alice, remembering how necessary it was that she should plead her own cause with George Vavasor's sister. But she acknowledged that she had not intended to stay long in Westmoreland, probably not more than a week, and it was at last decided that the Pallisers should postpone their journey for four or five days, and that Alice should go with them immediately upon her return from Vavasor Hall.
"I have no objection;" said her father, speaking with that voice of resignation which men use when they are resolved to consider themselves injured whatever may be done. "I can get along in lodgings. I suppose we had better leave the house, as you have given away so much of your own fortune?" Alice did not think it worth her while to point out to him, in answer to this, that her contribution to their joint housekeeping should still remain the same as ever. Such, however, she knew would be the fact, and she knew also that she would find her father in the old house when she returned from her travels. To her, in her own great troubles, the absence from London would be as serviceable as it could be to Lady Glencora. Indeed, she had already begun to feel the impossibility of staying quietly at home. She could lecture her cousin, whose faults were open, easy to be defined, and almost loud in their nature; but she was not on that account the less aware of her own. She knew that she too had cause to be ashamed of herself. She was half afraid to show her face among her friends, and wept grievously over her own follies. Those cruel words of her father rang in her ears constantly:—"Things of that sort are so often over with you." The reproach, though cruel, was true, and what reproach more galling could be uttered to an unmarried girl such as was Alice Vavasor? She had felt from the first moment in which the proposition was made to her, that it would be well that she should for a while leave her home, and especially that drawing-room in Queen Anne Street, which told her so many tales that she would fain forget, if it were possible.
Mr. Palliser would not allow his wife to remain in London for the ten or twelve days which must yet elapse before they started, nor could he send her into the country alone. He took her down to Matching Priory, having obtained leave to be absent from the House for the remainder of the Session, and remained with her there till within two days of their departure. That week down at Matching, as she afterwards told Alice, was very terrible. He never spoke a word to rebuke her. He never hinted that there had been aught in her conduct of which he had cause to complain. He treated her with a respect that was perfect, and indeed with more outward signs of affection than had ever been customary with him. "But," as Lady Glencora afterwards expressed it, "he was always looking after me. I believe he thought that Burgo Fitzgerald had hidden himself among the ruins," she said once to Alice. "He never suspected me, I am sure of that; but he thought that he ought to look after me." And Lady Glencora in this had very nearly hit the truth. Mr. Palliser had resolved, from that hour in which he had walked out among the elms in Kensington Gardens, that he would neither suspect his wife, nor treat her as though he suspected her. The blame had been his, perhaps, more than it had been hers. So much he had acknowledged to himself, thinking of the confession she had made to him before their marriage. But it was manifestly his imperative duty,—his duty of duties,—to save her from that pitfall into which, as she herself had told him, she had been so ready to fall. For her sake and for his this must be done. It was a duty so imperative, that in its performance he had found himself forced to abandon his ambition. To have his wife taken from him would be terrible, but the having it said all over the world that such a misfortune had come upon him would be almost more terrible even than that.
So he went with his wife hither and thither, down at Matching, allowing himself to be driven about behind Dandy and Flirt. He himself proposed these little excursions. They were tedious to him, but doubly tedious to his wife, who now found it more difficult than ever to talk to him. She struggled to talk, and he struggled to talk, but the very struggles themselves made the thing impossible. He sat with her in the mornings, and he sat with her in the evenings; he breakfasted with her, lunched with her, and dined with her. He went to bed early, having no figures which now claimed his attention. And so the week at last wore itself away. "I saw him yawning sometimes," Lady Glencora said afterwards, "as though he would fall in pieces."
Alice was resolved that she would keep her promise to Kate, and pay her visit to Westmoreland before she started with the Pallisers. Kate had written to her three lines with her left hand, begging her to come, and those three lines had been more eloquent than anything she could have written had her right arm been uninjured. Alice had learned something of the truth as to the accident from her father; or, rather, had heard her father's surmises on the subject. She had heard, too, how her cousin George had borne himself when the will was read, and how he had afterwards disappeared, never showing himself again at the hall. After all that had passed she felt that she owed Kate some sympathy. Sympathy may, no doubt, be conveyed by letter; but there are things on which it is almost impossible for any writer to express himself with adequate feeling; and there are things, too, which can be spoken, but which cannot be written. Therefore, though the journey must be a hurried one, Alice sent word down to Westmoreland that she was to be expected there in a day or two. On her return she was to go at once to Park Lane, and sleep there for the two nights which would intervene before the departure of the Pallisers.
On the day before she started for Westmoreland her father came to her in the middle of the day, and told her that John Grey was going to dine with him in Queen Anne Street on that evening.
"To-day, papa?" she asked.
"Yes, to-day. Why not? No man is less particular as to what he eats than Grey."
"I was not thinking of that, papa," she said.
To this Mr. Vavasor made no reply, but stood for some minutes looking out of the window. Then he prepared to leave the room, getting himself first as far as the table, where he lifted a book, and then on half-way to the door before Alice arrested him.
"Perhaps, papa, you and Mr. Grey had better dine alone."
"What do you mean by alone?"
"I meant without me,—as two men generally like to do."
"If I wanted that I should have asked him to dine at the club," said Mr. Vavasor, and then he again attempted to go.
"But, papa—"
"Well, my dear! If you mean to say that because of what has passed you object to meet Mr. Grey, I can only tell you it's nonsense,—confounded nonsense. If he chooses to come there can be no reason why you shouldn't receive him."
"It will look as though—"
"Look what?"
"As though he were asked as my guest."
"That's nonsense. I saw him yesterday, and I asked him to come. I saw him again to-day, and he said he would come. He's not such a fool as to suppose after that, that you asked him."
"No; not that I asked him."
"And if you run away you'll only make more of the thing than it's worth. Of course I can't make you dine with me if you don't like."
Alice did not like it, but, after some consideration, she thought that she might be open to the imputation of having made more of the thing than it was worth if she ran away, as her father called it. She was going to leave the country for some six or eight months,—perhaps for a longer time than that, and it might be as well that she should have an opportunity of telling her plans to Mr. Grey. She could do it, she thought, in such a way as to make him understand that her last quarrel with George Vavasor was not supposed to alter the footing on which she stood with him. She did not doubt that her father had told everything to Mr. Grey. She knew well enough what her father's wishes still were. It was not odd that he should be asking John Grey to his house, though such exercises of domestic hospitality were very unusual with him. But,—so she declared to herself,—such little attempts on his part would be altogether thrown away. It was a pity that he had not yet learned to know her better. She would receive Mr. Grey as the mistress of her father's house now, for the last time; and then, on her return in the following year, he would be at Nethercoats, and the whole thing would be over.
She dressed herself very plainly, simply changing one black frock for another, and then sat herself in her drawing-room awaiting the two gentlemen. It was already past the hour of dinner before her father came up-stairs. She knew that he was in the house, and in her heart she accused him of keeping out of the way, in order that John Grey might be alone with her. Whether or no she were right in her suspicions John Grey did not take advantage of the opportunity offered to him. Her father came up first, and had seated himself silently in his arm-chair before the visitor was announced.
As Mr. Grey entered the room Alice knew that she was flurried, but still she managed to carry herself with some dignity. His bearing was perfect. But then, as she declared to herself afterwards, no possible position in life would put him beside himself. He came up to her with his usual quiet smile,—a smile that was genial even in its quietness, and took her hand. He took it fairly and fully into his; but there was no squeezing, no special pressure, no love-making. And when he spoke to her he called her Alice, as though his doing so was of all things the most simply a matter of course. There was no tell-tale hesitation in his voice. When did he ever hesitate at anything? "I hear you are going abroad," he said, "with your cousin, Lady Glencora Palliser."