LITMIR.BIZ

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grasped the letter which lay there.

      “That’s nonsense,” said Alice.

      “No; it’s not nonsense. Who do you think came to Matching when I was there?”

      “What;—to the house?” said Alice, feeling almost certain that Mr Fitzgerald was the person to whom Lady Glencora was alluding.

      “No; not to the house.”

      “If it is the person of whom I am thinking,” said Alice, solemnly, “let me implore you not to speak of him.”

      “And why should I not speak of him? Did I not speak of him before to you, and was it not for good? How are you to be my friend, if I may not speak to you of everything?”

      “But you should not think of him.”

      “What nonsense you talk, Alice! Not think of him! How is one to help one’s thoughts? Look here.”

      Her hand was on the letter, and it would have been out in a moment, and thrown upon Alice’s lap, had not the servant opened the door and announced Mrs Marsham.

      “Oh, how I do wish we had gone to drive!” said Lady Glencora, in a voice which the servant certainly heard, and which Mrs Marsham would have heard had she not been a little hard of hearing,—in her bonnet.

      “How do, my dear?” said Mrs Marsham. “I thought I’d just come across from Norfolk Street and see you, though I am coming to dinner in the evening. It’s only just a step, you know. How d’ye do, Miss Vavasor?” and she made a salutation to Alice which was nearly as cold as it could be.

      Mrs Marsham was a woman who had many good points. She was poor, and bore her poverty without complaint She was connected by blood and friendship with people rich and titled; but she paid to none of them egregious respect on account of their wealth or titles. She was staunch in her friendships, and staunch in her enmities. She was no fool, and knew well what was going on in the world. She could talk about the last novel, or—if need be—about the Constitution. She had been a true wife, though sometimes too strong-minded, and a painstaking mother, whose children, however, had never loved her as most mothers like to be loved.

      The catalogue of her faults must be quite as long as that of her virtues. She was one of those women who are ambitious of power, and not very scrupulous as to the manner in which they obtain it. She was hardhearted, and capable of pursuing an object without much regard to the injury she might do. She would not flatter wealth or fawn before a title, but she was not above any artifice by which she might ingratiate herself with those whom it suited her purpose to conciliate. She thought evil rather than good. She was herself untrue in action, if not absolutely in word. I do not say that she would coin lies, but she would willingly leave false impressions. She had been the bosom friend, and in many things the guide in life, of Mr Palliser’s mother; and she took a special interest in Mr Palliser’s welfare. When he married, she heard the story of the loves of Burgo and Lady Glencora; and though she thought well of the money, she was not disposed to think very well of the bride. She made up her mind that the young lady would want watching, and she was of opinion that no one would be so well able to watch Lady Glencora as herself. She had not plainly opened her mind on this matter to Mr Palliser; she had not made any distinct suggestion to him that she would act as Argus to his wife. Mr Palliser would have rejected any such suggestion, and Mrs Marsham knew that he would do so; but she had let a word or two drop, hinting that Lady Glencora was very young,—hinting that Lady Glencora’s manners were charming in their childlike simplicity; but hinting also that precaution was, for that reason, the more necessary. Mr Palliser, who suspected nothing as to Burgo or as to any other special peril, whose whole disposition was void of suspicion, whose dry nature realized neither the delights nor the dangers of love, acknowledged that Glencora was young. He especially wished that she should be discreet and matronly; he feared no lovers, but he feared that she might do silly things,—that she would catch cold,—and not know how to live a life becoming the wife of a Chancellor of the Exchequer. Therefore he submitted Glencora,—and, to a certain extent, himself,—into the hands of Mrs Marsham.

      Lady Glencora had not been twenty-four hours in the house with this lady before she recognized in her a duenna. In all such matters no one could be quicker than Lady Glencora. She might be very ignorant about the British Constitution, and, alas! very ignorant also as to the real elements of right and wrong in a woman’s conduct, but she was no fool. She had an eye that could see, and an ear that could understand, and an abundance of that feminine instinct which teaches a woman to know her friend or her enemy at a glance, at a touch, at a word. In many things Lady Glencora was much quicker, much more clever, than her husband, though he was to be Chancellor of the Exchequer, and though she did know nothing of the Constitution. She knew, too, that he was easily to be deceived,—that though his intelligence was keen, his instincts were dull,—that he was gifted with no fineness of touch, with no subtle appreciation of the characters of men and women; and, to a certain extent, she looked down upon him for his obtusity. He should have been aware that Burgo was a danger to be avoided; and he should have been aware also that Mrs Marsham was a duenna not to be employed. When a woman knows that she is guarded by a watch-dog, she is bound to deceive her Cerberus, if it be possible, and is usually not ill-disposed to deceive also the owner of Cerberus. Lady Glencora felt that Mrs Marsham was her Cerberus, and she was heartily resolved that if she was to be kept in the proper line at all, she would not be so kept by Mrs Marsham.

      Alice rose and accepted Mrs Marsham’s salutation quite as coldly as it had been given, and from that time forward those two ladies were enemies. Mrs Marsham, groping quite in the dark, partly guessed that Alice had in some way interfered to prevent Lady Glencora’s visit to Monkshade, and, though such prevention was, no doubt, good in that lady’s eyes, she resented the interference. She had made up her mind that Alice was not the sort of friend that Lady Glencora should have about her. Alice recognized and accepted the feud.

      “I thought I might find you at home,” said Mrs Marsham, “as I know you are lazy about going out in the cold,—unless it be for a foolish midnight ramble,” and Mrs Marsham shook her head. She was a little woman, with sharp small eyes, with a permanent colour in her face, and two short, crisp, grey curls at each side of her face; always well dressed, always in good health, and, as Lady Glencora believed, altogether incapable of fatigue.

      “The ramble you speak of was very wise, I think,” said Lady Glencora; “but I never could see the use of driving about in London in the middle of winter.”

      “One ought to go out of the house every day,” said Mrs Marsham.

      “I hate all those rules. Don’t you, Alice?” Alice did not hate them, therefore she said nothing.

      “My dear Glencora, one must live by rules in this life. You might as well say that you hated sitting down to dinner.”

      “So I do, very often; almost always when there’s company.”

      “You’ll get over that feeling after another season in town,” said Mrs Marsham, pretending to suppose that Lady Glencora alluded to some remaining timidity in receiving her own guests.

      “Upon my word I don’t think I shall. It’s a thing that seems always to be getting more grievous, instead of less so. Mr Bott is coming to dine here tonight.”

      There was no mistaking the meaning of this. There was no pretending even to mistake it. Now, Mrs Marsham had accepted the right hand of fellowship from Mr Bott,—not because she especially liked him, but in compliance with the apparent necessities of Mr Palliser’s position. Mr Bott had made good his ground about Mr Palliser; and Mrs Marsham, as she was not strong enough to turn him off from it, had given him the right hand of fellowship.

      “Mr Bott is a Member of Parliament, and a very serviceable friend of Mr Palliser’s,” said Mrs Marsham.

      “All the same; we do not like Mr Bott—do we, Alice? He is Doctor Fell to us; only I think we could tell why.”

      “I certainly do not like him,” said Alice.

      “It can be but of small matter to you, Miss Vavasor,”

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