“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.
XXIV
Three Politicians
Mr. Palliser was one of those politicians in possessing whom England has perhaps more reason to be proud than
