Dinner at Matching Priory.
Alice found herself seated near to Lady Glencora's end of the table,
and, in spite of her resolution to like Mr. Palliser, she was not
sorry that such an arrangement had been made. Mr. Palliser had taken
the Duchess out to dinner, and Alice wished to be as far removed
as possible from her Grace. She found herself seated between her
bespoken friend Jeffrey Palliser and the Duke, and as soon as she
was seated Lady Glencora introduced her to her second neighbour. "My
cousin, Duke," Lady Glencora said, "and a terrible Radical."
"Oh, indeed; I'm glad of that. We're sadly in want of a few leading
Radicals, and perhaps I may be able to gain one now."
Alice thought of her cousin George, and wished that he, instead of
herself, was sitting next to the Duke of St. Bungay. "But I'm afraid
I never shall be a leading Radical," she said.
"You shall lead me at any rate, if you will," said he.
"As the little dogs lead the blind men," said Lady Glencora.
"No, Lady Glencora, not so. But as the pretty women lead the men
who have eyes in their head. There is nothing I want so much, Miss
Vavasor, as to become a Radical;--if I only knew how."
"I think it's very easy to know how," said Alice.
"Do you? I don't. I've voted for every liberal measure that has come
seriously before Parliament since I had a seat in either House, and
I've not been able to get beyond Whiggery yet."
"Have you voted for the ballot?" asked Alice, almost trembling at her
own audacity as she put the question.
"Well; no, I've not. And I suppose that is the crux. But the ballot
has never been seriously brought before any House in which I have
sat. I hate it with so keen a private hatred, that I doubt whether
I could vote for it."
"But the Radicals love it," said Alice.
"Palliser," said the Duke, speaking loudly from his end of the table,
"I'm told you can never be entitled to call yourself a Radical till
you've voted for the ballot."
"I don't want to be called a Radical," said Mr. Palliser,--"or to be
called anything at all."
"Except Chancellor of the Exchequer," said Lady Glencora in a low
voice.
"And that's about the finest ambition by which a man can be moved,"
said the Duke. "The man who can manage the purse-strings of this
country can manage anything." Then that conversation dropped and the
Duke ate his dinner.
"I was especially commissioned to amuse you," said Mr. Jeffrey
Palliser to Alice. "But when I undertook the task I had no conception
that you would be calling Cabinet Ministers over the coals about
their politics."
"I did nothing of the kind, surely, Mr. Palliser. I suppose all
Radicals do vote for the ballot, and that's why I said it."
"Your definition was perfectly just, I dare say, only--"
"Only what?"
"Lady Glencora need not have been so anxious to provide specially
for your amusement. Not but what I'm very much obliged to her,--of
course. But Miss Vavasor, unfortunately I'm not a politician. I
haven't a chance of a seat in the House, and so I despise politics."
"Women are not allowed to be politicians in this country."
"Thank God, they can't do much in that way;--not directly, I mean.
Only think where we should be if we had a feminine House of Commons,
with feminine debates, carried on, of course, with feminine courtesy.
My cousins Iphy and Phemy there would of course be members. You don't
know them yet?"
"No; not yet. Are they politicians?"
"Not especially. They have their tendencies, which are decidedly
liberal. There has never been a Tory Palliser known, you know. But
they are too clever to give themselves up to anything in which they
can do nothing. Being women they live a depressed life, devoting
themselves to literature, fine arts, social economy, and the
abstract sciences. They write wonderful letters; but I believe their
correspondence lists are quite full, so that you have no chance at
present of getting on either of them."
"I haven't the slightest pretension to ask for such an honour."
"Oh! if you mean because you don't know them, that has nothing to do
with it."
"But I have no claim either private or public."
"That has nothing to do with it either. They don't at all seek people
of note as their correspondents. Free communication with all the
world is their motto, and Rowland Hill is the god they worship.
Only they have been forced to guard themselves against too great an
accession of paper and ink. Are you fond of writing letters, Miss
Vavasor?"
"Yes, to my friends; but I like getting them better."
"I shrewdly suspect they don't read half what they get. Is it
possible any one should go through two sheets of paper filled by our
friend the Duchess there? No; their delight is in writing. They sit
each at her desk after breakfast, and go on till lunch. There is a
little rivalry between them, not expressed to each other, but visible
to their friends. Iphy certainly does get off the greater number,
and I'm told crosses quite as often as Phemy, but then she has the
advantage of a bolder and larger hand."
"Do they write to you?"
"Oh, dear no. I don't think they ever write to any relative. They
don't discuss family affairs and such topics as that. Architecture
goes a long way with them, and whether women ought to be clerks in
public offices. Iphy has certain American correspondents that take
up much of her time, but she acknowledges she does not read their
letters."
"Then I certainly shall not write to her."
"But you are not American, I hope. I do hate the Americans. It's the
only strong political feeling I have. I went there once, and found I
couldn't live with them on any terms."
"But they please themselves. I don't see they are to be hated because
they don't live after our fashion."
"Oh; it's jealousy of course. I know that. I didn't come across a
cab-driver who wasn't a much better educated man than I am. And as
for their women, they know everything. But I hated them, and I intend
to hate them. You haven't been there?"
"Oh no."
"Then I will make bold to say that any English lady who spent a month
with them and didn't hate them would have very singular tastes. I
begin to think they'll eat each other up, and then there'll come an
entirely new set of people of a different sort. I always regarded the
States as a Sodom and Gomorrah, prospering in wickedness, on which
fire and brimstone were sure to fall sooner or later."
"I think that's wicked."
"I am wicked, as Topsy used to say. Do you hunt?"
"No."
"Do you shoot?"
"Shoot! What; with a gun?"
"Yes. I was staying in a house last week with a lady who shot a good
deal."
"No; I don't shoot."
"Do you ride?"
"No; I wish I did. I have never ridden because I've no one to ride
with me."
"Do you drive?"
"No; I don't drive either."
"Then what do you do?"
"I sit at home, and--"
"Mend your stockings?"
"No; I don't do that, because it's disagreeable; but I do work a good
deal. Sometimes I have amused myself by reading."
"Ah; they never do that here. I have heard that there is a library,
but the clue to it has been lost, and nobody now knows the way. I
don't believe in libraries. Nobody ever goes into a library to read,
any more than you would into a larder to eat. But there is this
difference;--the food you consume does come out of the larders, but
the books you read never come out of the libraries."
"Except Mudie's," said Alice.
"Ah, yes; he is the great librarian. And you mean to read all the
time you are here, Miss Vavasor?"
"I mean to walk about the priory ruins sometimes."
"Then you must go by moonlight, and I'll go with you. Only isn't it
rather late in the year for that?"
"I should think it is,--for you, Mr. Palliser."
Then the Duke spoke to her again, and she found that she got on very
well during dinner. But she could not but feel angry with herself
in that she had any fear on the subject;--and yet she could not
divest herself of that fear. She acknowledged to herself that she was
conscious of a certain inferiority to Lady Glencora and to Mr. Jeffrey
Palliser, which almost made her unhappy. As regarded the Duke on the
other side of her, she had no such feeling. He was old enough to be
her father, and was a Cabinet Minister; therefore he was entitled
to her reverence. But how was it that she could not help accepting
the other people round her as being indeed superior to herself? Was
she really learning to believe that she could grow upwards by their
sunlight?
"Jeffrey is a pleasant fellow, is he not?" said Lady Glencora to her
as they passed back through the billiard-room to the drawing-room.
"Very pleasant;--a little sarcastic, perhaps."
"I should think you would soon find yourself able to get the better
of that if he tries it upon you," said Lady Glencora; and then the
ladies were all in the drawing-room together.
"It is quite deliciously warm, coming from one room to another," said
the Duchess, putting her emphasis on the "one" and the "other."
"Then we had better keep continually moving," said a certain Mrs.
Conway Sparkes, a literary lady, who had been very handsome, who was
still very clever, who was not perhaps very good-natured, and of whom
the Duchess of St. Bungay was rather afraid.
"I hope we may be warm here too," said Lady Glencora.
"But not deliciously warm," said Mrs. Conway Sparkes.
"It makes me tremble in every limb when Mrs. Sparkes attacks her,"
Lady Glencora said to Alice in Alice's own room that night, "for I
know she'll tell the Duke; and he'll tell that tall man with red hair
whom you see standing about, and the tall man with red hair will tell
Mr. Palliser, and then I shall catch it."
"And who is the tall man with red hair?"
"He's a political link between the Duke and Mr. Palliser. His name is
Bott, and he's a Member of Parliament."
"But why should he interfere?"
"I suppose it's his business. I don't quite understand all the ins
and outs of it. I believe he's to be one of Mr. Palliser's private
secretaries if he becomes Chancellor of the Exchequer. Perhaps he
doesn't tell;--only I think he does all the same. He always calls me
Lady Glen-cowrer. He comes out of Lancashire, and made calico as long
as he could get any cotton." But this happened in the bedroom, and we
must go back for a while to the drawing-room.
The Duchess had made no answer to Mrs. Sparkes, and so nothing further
was said about the warmth. Nor, indeed, was there any conversation
that was comfortably general. The number of ladies in the room was
too great for that, and ladies do not divide themselves nicely into
small parties, as men and women do when they are mixed. Lady Glencora
behaved pretty by telling the Duchess all about her pet pheasants;
Mrs. Conway Sparkes told ill-natured tales of some one to Miss
Euphemia Palliser; one of the Duchess's daughters walked off to a
distant piano with an admiring friend and touched a few notes; while
Iphigenia Palliser boldly took up a book, and placed herself at a
table. Alice, who was sitting opposite to Lady Glencora, began to
speculate whether she might do the same; but her courage failed her,
and she sat on, telling herself that she was out of her element.
"Alice Vavasor," said Lady Glencora after a while, suddenly, and in a
somewhat loud voice, "can you play billiards?"
"No," said Alice, rather startled.
"Then you shall learn to-night, and if nobody else will teach you,
you shall be my pupil." Whereupon Lady Glencora rang the bell and
ordered that the billiard-table might be got ready. "You'll play,
Duchess, of course," said Lady Glencora.
"It is so nice and warm, that I think I will," said the Duchess; but
as she spoke she looked suspiciously to that part of the room where
Mrs. Conway Sparkes was sitting.
"Let us all play," said Mrs. Conway Sparkes, "and then it will be
nicer,--and perhaps warmer, too."
The gentlemen joined them just as they were settling themselves round
the table, and as many of them stayed there, the billiard-room became
full. Alice had first a cue put into her hand, and making nothing
of that was permitted to play with a mace. The duty of instructing
her devolved on Jeffrey Palliser, and the next hour passed
pleasantly;--not so pleasantly, she thought afterwards, as did some
of those hours in Switzerland when her cousins were with her. After
all, she could get more out of her life with such associates as them,
than she could with any of these people at Matching. She felt quite
sure of that;--though Jeffrey Palliser did take great trouble to
teach her the game, and once or twice made her laugh heartily by
quizzing the Duchess's attitude as she stood up to make her stroke.
"I wish I could play billiards," said Mrs. Sparkes, on one of these
occasions; "I do indeed."
"I thought you said you were coming to play," said the Duchess,
almost majestically, and with a tone of triumph evidently produced
by her own successes.
"Only to see your Grace," said Mrs. Sparkes.
"I don't know that there is anything more to see in me than in
anybody else," said the Duchess. "Mr. Palliser, that was a cannon.
Will you mark that for our side?"
[Illustration: "Mr. Palliser, that was a cannon."]
"Oh no, Duchess, you hit the same ball twice."
"Very well;--then I suppose Miss Vavasor plays now. That was a miss.
Will you mark that, if you please?" This latter demand was made with
great stress, as though she had been defrauded in the matter of the
cannon, and was obeyed. Before long, the Duchess, with her partner,
Lady Glencora, won the game,--which fact, however, was, I think,
owing rather to Alice's ignorance than to her Grace's skill. The
Duchess, however, was very triumphant, and made her way back into the
drawing-room with a step which seemed to declare loudly that she had
trumped Mrs. Sparkes at last.
Not long after this the ladies went up-stairs on their way to bed.
Many of them, perhaps, did not go to their pillows at once, as it was
as yet not eleven o'clock, and it was past ten when they all came
down to breakfast. At any rate, Alice, who had been up at seven, did
not go to bed then, nor for the next two hours. "I'll come into your
room just for one minute," Lady Glencora said as she passed on from
the door to her own room; and in about five minutes she was back with
her cousin. "Would you mind going into my room--it's just there, and
sitting with Ellen for a minute?" This Lady Glencora said in the
sweetest possible tone to the girl who was waiting on Alice; and
then, when they were alone together, she got into a little chair by
the fireside and prepared herself for conversation.
"I must keep you up for a quarter of an hour while I tell you
something. But first of all, how do you like the people? Will you
be able to be comfortable with them?" Alice of course said that
she thought she would; and then there came that little discussion
in which the duties of Mr. Bott, the man with the red hair, were
described.
"But I've got something to tell you," said Lady Glencora, when they
had already been there some twenty minutes. "Sit down opposite to me,
and look at the fire while I look at you."
"Is it anything terrible?"
"It's nothing wrong."
"Oh, Lady Glencora, if it's--"
"I won't have you call me Lady Glencora. Don't I call you Alice? Why
are you so unkind to me? I have not come to you now asking you to do
for me anything that you ought not to do."
"But you are going to tell me something." Alice felt sure that the
thing to be told would have some reference to Mr. Fitzgerald, and she
did not wish to hear Mr. Fitzgerald's name from her cousin's lips.
"Tell you something;--of course I am. I'm going to tell you
that,--that in writing to you the other day I wrote a fib. But it
wasn't that I wished to deceive you;--only I couldn't say it all in
a letter."
"Say all what?"
"You know I confessed that I had been very bad in not coming to you
in London last year."
"I never thought of it for a moment."
"You did not care whether I came or not: was that it? But never mind.
Why should you have cared? But I cared. I told you in my letter that
I didn't come because I had so many things on hand. Of course that
was a fib."
"Everybody makes excuses of that kind," said Alice.
"But they don't make them to the very people of all others whom
they want to know and love. I was longing to come to you every day.
But I feared I could not come without speaking of him;--and I had
determined never to speak of him again." This she said in that
peculiar low voice which she assumed at times.
"Then why do it now, Lady Glencora?"
"I won't be called Lady Glencora. Call me Cora. I had a sister once,
older than I, and she used to call me Cora. If she had lived--. But
never mind that now. She didn't live. I'll tell you why I do it now.
Because I cannot help it. Besides, I've met him. I've been in the
same room with him, and have spoken to him. What's the good of any
such resolution now?"
"And you have met him?"
"Yes; he--Mr. Palliser--knew all about it. When he talked of taking
me to the house, I whispered to him that I thought Burgo would be
there."
"Do not call him by his Christian name," said Alice, almost with a
shudder.
"Why not?--why not his Christian name? I did when I told my husband.
Or perhaps I said Burgo Fitzgerald."
"Well."
"And he bade me go. He said it didn't signify, and that I had better
learn to bear it. Bear it, indeed! If I am to meet him, and speak to
him, and look at him, surely I may mention his name." And then she
paused for an answer. "May I not?"
"What am I to say?" exclaimed Alice.
"Anything you please, that's not a falsehood. But I've got you here
because I don't think you will tell a falsehood. Oh, Alice, I do so
want to go right, and it is so hard!"
Hard, indeed, poor creature, for one so weighted as she had been, and
sent out into the world with so small advantages of previous training
or of present friendship! Alice began to feel now that she had been
enticed to Matching Priory because her cousin wanted a friend, and
of course she could not refuse to give the friendship that was asked
from her. She got up from her chair, and kneeling down at the other's
feet put up her face and kissed her.
"I knew you would be good to me," said Lady Glencora. "I knew you
would. And you may say whatever you like. But I could not bear that
you should not know the real reason why I neither came to you nor
sent for you after we went to London. You'll come to me now; won't
you, dear?"
"Yes;--and you'll come to me," said Alice, making in her mind a sort
of bargain that she was not to be received into Mr. Palliser's house
after the fashion in which Lady Midlothian had proposed to receive
her. But it struck her at once that this was unworthy of her, and
ungenerous. "But I'll come to you," she added, "whether you come to
me or not."
"I will go to you," said Lady Glencora, "of course,--why shouldn't I?
But you know what I mean. We shall have dinners and parties and lots
of people."
"And we shall have none," said Alice, smiling.
"And therefore there is so much more excuse for your coming to
me;--or rather I mean so much more reason, for I don't want excuses.
Well, dear, I'm so glad I've told you. I was afraid to see you in
London. I should hardly have known how to look at you then. But I've
got over that now." Then she smiled and returned the kiss which Alice
had given her. It was singular to see her standing on the bedroom rug
with all her magnificence of dress, but with her hair pushed back
behind her ears, and her eyes red with tears,--as though the burden
of the magnificence remained to her after its purpose was over.
"I declare it's ever so much past twelve. Good night, now, dear. I
wonder whether he's come up. But I should have heard his step if he
had. He never treads lightly. He seldom gives over work till after
one, and sometimes goes on till three. It's the only thing he likes,
I believe. God bless you! good night. I've such a deal more to say to
you; and Alice, you must tell me something about yourself, too; won't
you, dear?" Then without waiting for an answer Lady Glencora went,
leaving Alice in a maze of bewilderment. She could hardly believe
that all she had heard, and all she had done, had happened since she
left Queen Anne Street that morning.