LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

but think of the day of her first arrival at Matching Priory, when she had sat between the Duke of St Bungay and Jeffrey Palliser, and when everybody had been so civil to her! She now occupied one side of the table by herself, away from the fire, where she felt cold and desolate in the gloom of the large half-lighted room. Mr Palliser occupied himself with Mrs Marsham, who talked politics to him; and Mr Bott never lost a moment in his endeavours to say some civil word to Lady Glencora. Lady Glencora gave him no encouragement; but she hardly dared to snub him openly in her husband’s immediate presence. Twenty times during dinner she said some little word to Alice, attempting at first to make the time pleasant, and then, when the matter was too far gone for that, attempting to give some relief. But it was of no avail. There are moments in which conversation seems to be impossible,—in which the very gods interfere to put a seal upon the lips of the unfortunate one. It was such a moment now with Alice. She had never as yet been used to snubbing. Whatever position she had hitherto held, in that she had always stood foremost,—much more so than had been good for her. When she had gone to Matching, she had trembled for her position; but there all had gone well with her; there Lady Glencora’s kindness had at first been able to secure for her a reception that had been flattering, and almost better than flattering. Jeffrey Palliser had been her friend, and would, had she so willed it, have been more than her friend. But now she felt that the halls of the Pallisers were too cold for her, and that the sooner she escaped from their gloom and hard discourtesy the better for her.

      Mrs Marsham, when the three ladies had returned to the drawing-room together, was a little triumphant. She felt that she had put Alice down; and with the energetic prudence of a good general who knows that he should follow up a victory, let the cost of doing so be what it may, she determined to keep her down. Alice had resolved that she would come as seldom as might be to Mr Palliser’s house in Park Lane. That resolution on her part was in close accordance with Mrs Marsham’s own views.

      “Is Miss Vavasor going to walk home?” she asked.

      “Walk home;—all along Oxford Street! Good gracious! no. Why should she walk? The carriage will take her.”

      “Or a cab,” said Alice. “I am quite used to go about London in a cab by myself.”

      “I don’t think they are nice for young ladies after dark,” said Mrs Marsham. “I was going to offer my servant to walk with her. She is an elderly woman, and would not mind it.”

      “I’m sure Alice is very much obliged,” said Lady. Glencora; “but she will have the carriage.”

      “You are very goodnatured,” said Mrs Marsham; “but gentlemen do so dislike having their horses out at night.”

      “No gentleman’s horses will be out,” said Lady Glencora, savagely; “and as for mine, it’s what they are there for.” It was not often that Lady Glencora made any allusion to her own property, or allowed any one near her to suppose that she remembered the fact that her husband’s great wealth was, in truth, her wealth. As to many matters her mind was wrong. In some things her taste was not delicate as should be that of a woman. But, as regarded her money, no woman could have behaved with greater reticence, or a purer delicacy. But now, when she was twitted by her husband’s special friend with ill-usage to her husband’s horses, because she chose to send her own friend home in her own carriage, she did find it hard to bear.

      “I dare say it’s all right,” said Mrs Marsham.

      “It is all right,” said Lady Glencora. “Mr Palliser has given me my horses for my own use, to do as I like with them; and if he thinks I take them out when they ought to be left at home, he can tell me so. Nobody else has a right to do it.” Lady Glencora, by this time, was almost in a passion, and showed that she was so.

      “My dear Lady Glencora, you have mistaken me,” said Mrs Marsham; “I did not mean anything of that kind.”

      “I am so sorry,” said Alice. “And it is such a pity, as I am quite used to going about in cabs.”

      “Of course you are,” said Lady Glencora. “Why shouldn’t you? I’d go home in a wheelbarrow if I couldn’t walk, and had no other conveyance. That’s not the question. Mrs Marsham understands that.”

      “Upon my word, I don’t understand anything,” said that lady.

      “I understand this,” said Lady Glencora; “that in all such matters as that, I intend to follow my own pleasure. Come, Alice, let us have some coffee,”—and she rang the bell. “What a fuss we have made about a stupid old carriage!”

      The gentlemen did not return to the drawing-room that evening, having, no doubt, joint work to do in arranging the great financial calculations of the nation; and, at an early hour, Alice was taken home in Lady Glencora’s brougham, leaving her cousin still in the hands of Mrs Marsham.

Chapter XLIV.

       The Election for the Chelsea Districts

       Table of Contents

      March came, and still the Chancellor of the Exchequer held his position. In the early days of March there was given in the House a certain parliamentary explanation on the subject, which, however, did not explain very much to any person. A statement was made which was declared by the persons making it to be altogether satisfactory, but nobody else seemed to find any satisfaction in it. The big wigs of the Cabinet had made an arrangement which, from the language used by them on this occasion, they must be supposed to have regarded as hardly less permanent than the stars; but everybody else protested that the Government was going to pieces; and Mr Bott was heard to declare in clubs and lobbies, and wherever he could get a semi-public, political hearing, that this kind of thing wouldn’t do. Lord Brock must either blow hot or cold. If he chose to lean upon Mr Palliser, he might lean upon him, and Mr Palliser would not be found wanting. In such case no opposition could touch Lord Brock or the Government. That was Mr Bott’s opinion. But if Lord Brock did not so choose, why, in that case, he must expect that Mr Palliser, and Mr Palliser’s friends, would—. Mr Bott did not say what they would do; but he was supposed by those who understood the matter to hint at an Opposition lobby, and adverse divisions, and to threaten Lord Brock with the open enmity of Mr Palliser,—and of Mr Palliser’s great follower.

      “This kind of thing won’t do long, you know,” repeated Mr Bott for the second or third time, as he stood upon the rug before the fire at his club, with one or two of his young friends around him.

      “I suppose not,” said Calder Jones, the hunting Member of Parliament whom we once met at Roebury. “Planty Pall won’t stand it, I should say.”

      “What can he do?” asked another, an unfledged Member who was not as yet quite settled as to the leadership under which he intended to work.

      “What can he do?” said Mr Bott, who on such an occasion as this could be very great,—who, for a moment, could almost feel that he might become a leader of a party for himself, and some day institute a Bott Ministry. “What can he do? You will very shortly see what he can do. He can make himself the master of the occasion. If Lord Brock doesn’t look about him, he’ll find that Mr Palliser will be in the Cabinet without his help.”

      “You don’t mean to say that the Queen will send for Planty Pall!” said the young Member.

      “I mean to say that the Queen will send for any one that the House of Commons may direct her to call upon,” said Mr Bott, who conceived himself to have gauged the very depths of our glorious Constitution. “How hard it is to make any one understand that the Queen has really nothing to do with it!”

      “Come, Bott, draw it mild,” said Calder Jones, whose loyalty was shocked by the utter Manchesterialism of his political friend.

      “Not if I know it,” said Mr Bott, with something of grandeur in his tone and countenance. “I never drew it mild yet, and I shan’t begin now. All our political offences against civilization have come from men drawing it mild, as you call it. Why is it

Скачать книгу