LITMIR.BIZ

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may be to me. Nobody else will be here,—unless, indeed, Mrs Marsham should be asked, unknown to myself.”

      Then she sat herself down to think,—to think especially about the cruelty of husbands. She had been told over and over again, in the days before her marriage, that Burgo would ill-use her if he became her husband. The Marquis of Auld Reekie had gone so far as to suggest that Burgo might probably beat her. But what hard treatment, even what beating, could be so unendurable as this total want of sympathy, as this deadness in life, which her present lot entailed upon her? As for that matter of beating, she ridiculed the idea in her very soul. She sat smiling at the absurdity of the thing as she thought of the beauty of Burgo’s eyes, of the softness of his touch, of the loving, almost worshipping, tones of his voice. Would it not even be better to be beaten by him than to have politics explained to her at one o’clock at night by such a husband as Plantagenet Palliser? The British Constitution, indeed! Had she married Burgo they would have been in sunny Italy, and he would have told her some other tale than that as they sat together under the pale moonlight. She had a little water-coloured drawing called Raphael and Fornarina, and she was infantine enough to tell herself that the so-called Raphael was like her Burgo—no, not her Burgo, but the Burgo that was not hers. At any rate, all the romance of the picture she might have enjoyed had they allowed her to dispose as she had wished of her own hand. She might have sat in marble balconies, while the vines clustered over her head, and he would have been at her knee, hardly speaking to her, but making his presence felt by the halo of its divinity. He would have called upon her for no hard replies. With him near her she would have enjoyed the soft air, and would have sat happy, without trouble, lapped in the delight of loving. It was thus that Fornarina sat. And why should not such a lot have been hers? Her Raphael would have loved her, let them say what they would about his cruelty.

      Poor, wretched, overburthened child, to whom the commonest lessons of life had not yet been taught, and who had now fallen into the hands of one who was so ill-fitted to teach them! Who would not pity her? Who could say that the fault was hers? The world had laden her with wealth till she had had no limb free for its ordinary uses, and then had turned her loose to run her race!

      “Have you written to your cousin?” her husband asked her the next morning. His voice, as he spoke, clearly showed that his anger was either over or suppressed.

      “Yes; I have asked her to come and drive, and then to stay for dinner. I shall send the carriage for her if she can come. The man is to wait for an answer.”

      “Very well,” said Mr Palliser, mildly. And then, after a short pause, he added, “As that is settled, perhaps you would have no objection to ask Mrs Marsham also?”

      “Won’t she probably be engaged?”

      “No; I think not,” said Mr Palliser. And then he added, being ashamed of the tinge of falsehood of which he would otherwise have been guilty, “I know she is not engaged.”

      “She expects to come, then?” said Lady Glencora.

      “I have not asked her, if you mean that, Glencora. Had I done so, I should have said so. I told her that I did not know what your engagements were.”

      “I will write to her, if you please,” said the wife, who felt that she could hardly refuse any longer.

      “Do, my dear!” said the husband. So Lady Glencora did write to Mrs Marsham, who promised to come,—as did also Alice Vavasor.

      Lady Glencora would, at any rate, have Alice to herself for some hours before dinner. At first she took comfort in that reflection; but after a while she bethought herself that she would not know what to tell Alice, or what not to tell. Did she mean to show that letter to her cousin? If she did show it, then,—so she argued with herself,—she must bring herself to endure the wretchedness of her present lot, and must give up for ever all her dreams about Raphael and Fornarina. If she did not show it,—or, at any rate, tell of it,—then it would come to pass that she would leave her husband under the protection of another man, and she would become—what she did not dare to name even to herself. She declared that so it must be. She knew that she would go with Burgo, should he ever come to her with the means of going at his and her instant command. But should she bring herself to let Alice know that such a letter had been conveyed to her, Burgo would never have such power.

      I remember the story of a case of abduction in which a man was tried for his life, and was acquitted, because the lady had acquiesced in the carrying away while it was in progress. She had, as she herself declared, armed herself with a sure and certain charm or talisman against such dangers, which she kept suspended round her neck; but whilst she was in the postchaise she opened the window and threw the charm from her, no longer desiring, as the learned counsel for the defence efficiently alleged, to be kept under the bonds of such protection. Lady Glencora’s state of mind was, in its nature, nearly the same as that of the lady in the postchaise. Whether or no she would use her charm, she had not yet decided, but the power of doing so was still hers.

      Alice came, and the greeting between the cousins was very affectionate. Lady Glencora received her as though they had been playmates from early childhood; and Alice, though such impulsive love was not natural to her as to the other, could not bring herself to be cold to one who was so warm to her. Indeed, had she not promised her love in that meeting at Matching Priory in which her cousin had told her of all her wretchedness? “I will love you!” Alice had said; and though there was much in Lady Glencora that she could not approve,—much even that she could not bring herself to like,—still she would not allow her heart to contradict her words.

      They sat so long over the fire in the drawing-room that at last they agreed that the driving should be abandoned.

      “What’s the use of it?” said Lady Glencora. “There’s nothing to see, and the wind is as cold as charity. We are much more comfortable here; are we not?” Alice quite acquiesced in this, having no great desire to be driven through the parks in the gloom of a February afternoon.

      “If I had Dandy and Flirt up here, there would be some fun in it; but Mr Palliser doesn’t wish me to drive in London.”

      “I suppose it would be dangerous?”

      “Not in the least. I don’t think it’s that he minds; but he has an idea that it looks fast.”

      “So it does. If I were a man, I’m sure I shouldn’t like my wife to drive horses about London.”

      “And why not? Just because you’d be a tyrant,—like other husbands? What’s the harm of looking fast, if one doesn’t do anything improper? Poor Dandy, and dear Flirt! I’m sure they’d like it.”

      “Perhaps Mr Palliser doesn’t care for that?”

      “I can tell you something else he doesn’t care for. He doesn’t care whether Dandy’s mistress likes it.”

      “Don’t say that, Glencora.”

      “Why not say it,—to you?”

      “Don’t teach yourself to think it. That’s what I mean. I believe he would consent to anything that he didn’t think wrong.”

      “Such as lectures about the British Constitution! But never mind about that, Alice. Of course the British Constitution is everything to him, and I wish I knew more about it;—that’s all. But I haven’t told you whom you are to meet at dinner.”

      “Yes, you have—Mr Bott.”

      “But there’s another guest, a Mrs Marsham. I thought I’d got rid of her for to-day, when I wrote to you; but I hadn’t. She’s coming.”

      “She won’t hurt me at all,” said Alice.

      “She will hurt me very much. She’ll destroy the pleasure of our whole evening. I do believe that she hates you, and that she thinks you instigate me to all manner of iniquity. What fools they all are!”

      “Who are they all, Glencora?”

      “She and that man, and—. Never mind. It makes me sick when I think that

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