Showing What Happened in the Churchyard.
These arrangements as to the return of Mr. Palliser's party to London
did not, of course, include Mr. Grey. They were generally discussed in
Mr. Grey's absence, and communicated to him by Mr. Palliser. "I suppose
we shall see you in England before long?" said Mr. Palliser. "I shall
be able to tell you that before you go," said Grey. "Not but that in
any event I shall return to England before the winter."
"Then come to us at Matching," said Mr. Palliser. "We shall be most
happy to have you. Say that you'll come for the first fortnight
in December. After that we always go to the Duke, in Barsetshire.
Though, by-the-by, I don't suppose we shall go anywhere this year,"
Mr. Palliser added, interrupting the warmth of his invitation, and
reflecting that, under the present circumstances, perhaps, it might
be improper to have any guests at Matching in December. But he had
become very fond of Mr. Grey, and on this occasion, as he had done on
some others, pressed him warmly to make an attempt at Parliament. "It
isn't nearly so difficult as you think," said he, when Grey declared
that he would not know where to look for a seat. "See the men that
get in. There was Mr. Vavasor. Even he got a seat."
"But he had to pay for it very dearly."
"You might easily find some quiet little borough."
"Quiet little boroughs have usually got their own quiet little
Members," said Grey.
"They're fond of change; and if you like to spend a thousand pounds,
the thing isn't difficult. I'll put you in the way of it." But Mr.
Grey still declined. He was not a man prone to be talked out of his
own way of life, and the very fact that George Vavasor had been in
Parliament would of itself have gone far towards preventing any
attempt on his part in that direction. Alice had also wanted him to
go into public life, but he had put aside her request as though the
thing were quite out of the question,--never giving a moment to its
consideration. Had she asked him to settle himself and her in Central
Africa, his manner and mode of refusal would have been the same. It
was this immobility on his part,--this absolute want of any of the
weakness of indecision, which had frightened her, and driven her away
from him. He was partly aware of this; but that which he had declined
to do at her solicitation, he certainly would not do at the advice
of any one else. So it was that he argued the matter with himself.
Had he now allowed himself to be so counselled, with what terrible
acknowledgements of his own faults must he not have presented himself
before Alice?
"I suppose books, then, will be your object in life?" said Mr.
Palliser.
"I hope they will be my aids," Grey answered. "I almost doubt whether
any object such as that you mean is necessary for life, or even
expedient. It seems to me that if a man can so train himself that he
may live honestly and die fearlessly, he has done about as much as is
necessary."
"He has done a great deal, certainly," said Mr. Palliser, who was
not ready enough to carry on the argument as he might have done had
more time been given to him to consider it. He knew very well that
he himself was working for others, and not for himself; and he was
aware, though he had not analysed his own convictions on the matter,
that good men struggle as they do in order that others, besides
themselves, may live honestly, and, if possible, die fearlessly. The
recluse of Nethercoats had thought much more about all this than the
rising star of the House of Commons; but the philosophy of the rising
star was the better philosophy of the two, though he was by far the
less brilliant man. "I don't see why a man should not live honestly
and be a Member of Parliament as well," continued Mr. Palliser, when
he had been silent for a few minutes.
"Nor I either," said Grey. "I am sure that there are such men, and
that the country is under great obligation to them. But they are
subject to temptations which a prudent man like myself may perhaps
do well to avoid." But though he spoke with an assured tone, he was
shaken, and almost regretted that he did not accept the aid which was
offered to him. It is astonishing how strong a man may be to those
around him,--how impregnable may be his exterior, while within he
feels himself to be as weak as water, and as unstable as chaff.
But the object which he had now in view was a renewal of his
engagement with Alice, and he felt that he must obtain an answer from
her before they left Lucerne. If she still persisted in refusing to
give him her hand, it would not be consistent with his dignity as
a man to continue his immediate pursuit of her any longer. In such
case he must leave her, and see what future time might bring forth.
He believed himself to be aware that he would never offer his love
to another woman; and if Alice were to remain single, he might try
again, after the lapse of a year or two. But if he failed now,--then,
for that year or two, he would see her no more. Having so resolved,
and being averse to anything like a surprise, he asked her, as
he left her one evening, whether she would walk with him on the
following morning. That morning would be the morning of her last day
at Lucerne; and as she assented she knew well what was to come. She
said nothing to Lady Glencora on the subject, but allowed the coming
prospects of the Palliser family to form the sole subject of their
conversation that night, as it had done on every night since the
great news had become known. They were always together for an hour
every evening before Alice was allowed to go to bed, and during
this hour the anxieties of the future father and mother were always
discussed till Alice Vavasor was almost tired of them. But she was
patient with her friend, and on this special night she was patient
as ever. But when she was released and was alone, she made a great
endeavour to come to some fixed resolution as to what she would do on
the morrow,--some resolution which should be absolutely resolute, and
from which no eloquence on the part of any one should move her. But
such resolutions are not easily reached, and Alice laboured through
half the night almost in vain. She knew that she loved the man. She
knew that he was as true to her as the sun is true to the earth. She
knew that she would be, in all respects, safe in his hands. She knew
that Lady Glencora would be delighted, and her father gratified. She
knew that the countesses would open their arms to her,--though I
doubt whether this knowledge was in itself very persuasive. She knew
that by such a marriage she would gain all that women generally look
to gain when they give themselves away. But, nevertheless, as far as
she could decide at all, she decided against her lover. She had no
right of her own to be taken back after the evil that she had done,
and she did not choose to be taken back as an object of pity and
forgiveness.
"Where are you going?" said her cousin, when she came in with her hat
on, soon after breakfast.
"I am going to walk,--with Mr. Grey."
"By appointment?"
"Yes, by appointment. He asked me yesterday."
"Then it's all settled, and you haven't told me!"
"All that is settled I have told you very often. He asked me
yesterday to walk with him this morning, and I could not well refuse
him."
"Why should you have wished to refuse him?"
"I haven't said that I did wish it. But I hate scenes, and I think it
would have been pleasanter for us to have parted without any occasion
for special words."
"Alice, you are such a fool!"
"So you tell me very often."
"Of course he is now going to say the very thing that he has come
all this way for the purpose of saying. He has been wonderfully slow
about it; but then slow as he is, you are slower. If you don't make
it up with him now, I really shall think you are very wicked. I am
becoming like Lady Midlothian;--I can't understand it. I know you
want to be his wife, and I know he wants to be your husband, and the
only thing that keeps you apart is your obstinacy,--just because you
have said you wouldn't have him. My belief is that if Lady Midlothian
and the rest of us were to pat you on the back, and tell you how
right you were, you'd ask him to take you, out of defiance. You may
be sure of this, Alice; if you refuse him now, it'll be for the last
time."
This, and much more of the same kind, she bore before Mr. Grey came
to take her, and she answered to it all as little as she could. "You
are making me very unhappy, Glencora," she said once. "I wish I could
break you down with unhappiness," Lady Glencora answered, "so that he
might find you less stiff, and hard, and unmanageable." Directly upon
that he came in, looking as though he had no business on hand more
exciting than his ordinary morning's tranquil employments. Alice at
once got up to start with him. "So you and Alice are going to make
your adieux," said Lady Glencora. "It must be done sooner or later,"
said Mr. Grey; and then they went off.
Those who know Lucerne,--and almost everybody now does know
Lucerne,--will remember the big hotel which has been built close to
the landing-pier of the steamers, and will remember also the church
that stands upon a little hill or rising ground, to the left of you,
as you come out of the inn upon the lake. The church is immediately
over the lake, and round the church there is a burying-ground,
and skirting the burying-ground there are cloisters, through the
arches and apertures of which they who walk and sit there look down
immediately upon the blue water, and across the water upon the
frowning menaces of Mount Pilate. It is one of the prettiest spots in
that land of beauty; and its charm is to my feeling enhanced by the
sepulchral monuments over which I walk, and by which I am surrounded,
as I stand there. Up here, into these cloisters, Alice and John Grey
went together. I doubt whether he had formed any purpose of doing
so. She certainly would have gone without question in any direction
that he might have led her. The distance from the inn up to the
church-gate did not take them ten minutes, and when they were there
their walk was over. But the place was solitary, and they were alone;
and it might be as well for Mr. Grey to speak what words he had to say
there as elsewhere. They had often been together in those cloisters
before, but on such occasions either Mr. Palliser or Lady Glencora
had been with them. On their slow passage up the hill very little was
spoken, and that little was of no moment. "We will go in here for a
few minutes," he said. "It is the prettiest spot about Lucerne, and
we don't know when we may see it again." So they went in, and sat
down on one of the embrasures that open from the cloisters over the
lake.
"Probably never again," said Alice. "And yet I have been here now two
years running."
She shuddered as she remembered that in that former year George
Vavasor had been with her. As she thought of it all she hated
herself. Over and over again she had told herself that she had so
mismanaged the latter years of her life that it was impossible for
her not to hate herself. No woman had a clearer idea of feminine
constancy than she had, and no woman had sinned against that idea
more deeply. He gave her time to think of all this as he sat there
looking down upon the water.
"And yet I would sooner live in Cambridgeshire," were the first words
he spoke.
"Why so?"
"Partly because all beauty is best enjoyed when it is sought for with
some trouble and difficulty, and partly because such beauty, and the
romance which is attached to it, should not make up the staple of
one's life. Romance, if it is to come at all, should always come by
fits and starts."
"I should like to live in a pretty country."
"And would like to live a romantic life,--no doubt; but all those
things lose their charm if they are made common. When a man has to
go to Vienna or St. Petersburg two or three times a month, you don't
suppose he enjoys travelling?"
"All the same, I should like to live in a pretty country," said
Alice.
"And I want you to come and live in a very ugly country." Then he
paused for a minute or two, not looking at her, but gazing still on
the mountain opposite. She did not speak a word, but looked as he was
looking. She knew that the request was coming, and had been thinking
about it all night; but now that it had come she did not know how to
bear herself. "I don't think," he went on to say, "that you would let
that consideration stand in your way, if on other grounds you were
willing to become my wife."
"What consideration?"
"Because Nethercoats is not so pretty as Lucerne."
"It would have nothing to do with it," said Alice.
"It should have nothing to do with it."
"Nothing; nothing at all," repeated Alice.
"Will you come, then? Will you come and be my wife, and help me to be
happy amidst all that ugliness? Will you come and be my one beautiful
thing, my treasure, my joy, my comfort, my counsellor?"
"You want no counsellor, Mr. Grey."
"No man ever wanted one more. Alice, this has been a bad year to me,
and I do not think that it has been a happy one for you."
"Indeed, no."
"Let us forget it,--or rather, let us treat it as though it were
forgotten. Twelve months ago you were mine. You were, at any rate,
so much mine that I had a right to boast of my possession among my
friends."
"It was a poor boast."
"They did not seem to think so. I had but one or two to whom I could
speak of you, but they told me that I was going to be a happy man.
As to myself, I was sure that I was to be so. No man was ever better
contented with his bargain than I was with mine. Let us go back to
it, and the last twelve months shall be as though they had never
been."
"That cannot be, Mr. Grey. If it could, I should be worse even than
I am."
"Why cannot it be?"
"Because I cannot forgive myself what I have done, and because you
ought not to forgive me."
"But I do. There has never been an hour with me in which there has
been an offence of yours rankling in my bosom unforgiven. I think you
have been foolish, misguided,--led away by a vain ambition, and that
in the difficulty to which these things brought you, you endeavoured
to constrain yourself to do an act, which, when it came near to
you,--when the doing of it had to be more closely considered, you
found to be contrary to your nature." Now, as he spoke thus, she
turned her eyes upon him, and looked at him, wondering that he should
have had power to read her heart so accurately. "I never believed
that you would marry your cousin. When I was told of it, I knew that
trouble had blinded you for awhile. You had driven yourself to revolt
against me, and upon that your heart misgave you, and you said to
yourself that it did not matter then how you might throw away all
your sweetness. You see that I speak of your old love for me with the
frank conceit of a happy lover."
"No;--no, no!" she ejaculated.
"But the storm passes over the tree and does not tear it up by
the roots or spoil it of all its symmetry. When we hear the winds
blowing, and see how the poor thing is shaken, we think that its
days are numbered and its destruction at hand. Alice, when the
winds were shaking you, and you were torn and buffeted, I never
thought so. There may be some who will forgive you slowly. Your own
self-forgiveness will be slow. But I, who have known you better than
any one,--yes, better than any one,--I have forgiven you everything,
have forgiven you instantly. Come to me, Alice, and comfort me. Come
to me, for I want you sorely." She sat quite still, looking at the
lake and the mountain beyond, but she said nothing. What could she
say to him? "My need of you is much greater now," he went on to say,
"than when I first asked you to share the world with me. Then I could
have borne to lose you, as I had never boasted to myself that you
were my own,--had never pictured to myself the life that might be
mine if you were always to be with me. But since that day I have had
no other hope,--no other hope but this for which I plead now. Am I to
plead in vain?"
"You do not know me," she said; "how vile I have been! You do not
think what it is,--for a woman to have promised herself to one man
while she loved another."
"But it was me you loved. Ah! Alice, I can forgive that. Do I not
tell you that I did forgive it the moment that I heard it? Do you not
hear me say that I never for a moment thought that you would marry
him? Alice, you should scold me for my vanity, for I have believed
all through that you loved me, and me only. Come to me, dear, and
tell me that it is so, and the past shall be only as a dream."
"I am dreaming it always," said Alice.
"They will cease to be bitter dreams if your head be upon my
shoulder. You will cease to reproach yourself when you know that you
have made me happy."
"I shall never cease to reproach myself. I have done that which no
woman can do and honour herself afterwards. I have been--a jilt."
"The noblest jilt that ever yet halted between two minds! There has
been no touch of selfishness in your fickleness. I think I could be
hard enough upon a woman who had left me for greater wealth, for a
higher rank,--who had left me even that she might be gay and merry.
It has not been so with you."
"Yes, it has. I thought you were too firm in your own will, and--"
"And you think so still. Is that it?"
"It does not matter what I think now. I am a fallen creature, and
have no longer a right to such thoughts. It will be better for us
both that you should leave me,--and forget me. There are things
which, if a woman does them, should never be forgotten;--which she
should never permit herself to forget."
"And am I to be punished, then, because of your fault? Is that your
sense of justice?" He got up, and standing before her, looked down
upon her. "Alice, if you will tell me that you do not love me, I will
believe you, and will trouble you no more. I know that you will say
nothing to me that is false. Through it all you have spoken no word
of falsehood. If you love me, after what has passed, I have a right
to demand your hand. My happiness requires it, and I have a right
to expect your compliance. I do demand it. If you love me, Alice,
I tell you that you dare not refuse me. If you do so, you will fail
hereafter to reconcile it to your conscience before God."
Then he stopped his speech, and waited for a reply; but Alice sat
silent beneath his gaze, with her eyes turned upon the tombstones
beneath her feet. Of course she had no choice but to yield. He,
possessed of power and force infinitely greater than hers, had left
her no alternative but to be happy. But there still clung to her what
I fear we must call a perverseness of obstinacy, a desire to maintain
the resolution she had made,--a wish that she might be allowed to
undergo the punishment she had deserved. She was as a prisoner who
would fain cling to his prison after pardon has reached him, because
he is conscious that the pardon is undeserved. And it may be that
there was still left within her bosom some remnant of that feeling
of rebellion which his masterful spirit had ever produced in her. He
was so imperious in his tranquillity, he argued his question of love
with such a manifest preponderance of right on his side, that she had
always felt that to yield to him would be to confess the omnipotence
of his power. She knew now that she must yield to him,--that his
power over her was omnipotent. She was pressed by him as in some
countries the prisoner is pressed by the judge,--so pressed that she
acknowledged to herself silently that any further antagonism to him
was impossible. Nevertheless, the word which she had to speak still
remained unspoken, and he stood over her, waiting for her answer.
Then slowly he sat down beside her, and gradually he put his arm
round her waist. She shrank from him, back against the stonework of
the embrasure, but she could not shrink away from his grasp. She put
up her hand to impede his, but his hand, like his character and his
words, was full of power. It would not be impeded. "Alice," he said,
as he pressed her close with his arm, "the battle is over now, and I
have won it."
"You win everything,--always," she said, whispering to him, as she
still shrank from his embrace.
"In winning you I have won everything." Then he put his face over her
and pressed his lips to hers. I wonder whether he was made happier
when he knew that no other touch had profaned those lips since last
he had pressed them?