“Why do you say ‘oh dear’?”
“Because—; I don’t think I mean to tell you.”
“Then I’m sure I won’t ask.”
“That’s so like you, Alice. But I can be as firm as you, and I’m sure I won’t tell you unless you do ask.” But Alice did not ask, and it was not long before Lady Glencora’s firmness gave way.
But, as I have said, Alice had become quite comfortable at Matching Priory. Perhaps she was already growing upwards towards the light. At any rate she could listen with pleasure to the few words the Duke would say to her. She could even chat a little to the Duchess—so that her Grace had observed to Lady Glencora that “her cousin was a very nice person—a very nice person indeed. What a pity it was that she had been so ill-treated by that gentleman in Oxfordshire!” Lady Glencora had to explain that the gentleman lived in Cambridgeshire, and that he, at any rate, had not treated anybody ill. “Do you mean that she—jilted him?” said the Duchess, almost whistling, and opening her eyes very wide. “Dear me, I’m sorry for that. I shouldn’t have thought it.” And when she next spoke to Alice she assumed rather a severe tone of emphasis;—but this was soon abandoned when Alice listened to her with complacency.
Alice also had learned to ride—or rather had resumed her riding, which for years had been abandoned. Jeffrey Palliser had been her squire, and she had become intimate with him so as to learn to quarrel with him and to like him—to such an extent that Lady Glencora had laughingly told her that she was going to do more.
“I rather think not,” said Alice.
“But what has thinking to do with it? Who ever thinks about it?”
“I don’t just at present—at any rate.”
“Upon my word it would be very nice;—and then perhaps some day you’d be the Duchess.”
“Glencora, don’t talk such nonsense.”
“Those are the speculations which people make. Only I should spite you by killing myself, so that he might marry again.”
“How can you say such horrid things?”
“I think I shall—some day. What right have I to stand in his way? He spoke to me the other day about Jeffrey’s altered position, and I knew what he meant;—or rather what he didn’t mean to say, but what he thought. But I shan’t kill myself.”
“I should think not.”
“I only know one other way,” said Lady Glencora.
“You are thinking of things which should never be in your thoughts,” said Alice vehemently. “Have you no trust in God’s providence? Cannot you accept what has been done for you?”
Mr. Bott had gone away, much to Lady Glencora’s delight, but had unfortunately come back again. On his return Alice heard more of the feud between the Duchess and Mrs. Conway Sparkes. “I did not tell you,” said Lady Glencora to her friend;—“I did not tell you before he went that I was right about his talebearing.”
“And did he bear tales?”
“Yes; I did get the scolding, and I know very well that it came through him, though Mr. Palliser did not say so. But he told me that the Duchess had felt herself hurt by that other woman’s way of talking.”
“But it was not your fault.”
“No; that’s what I said. It was he who desired me to ask Mrs. Conway Sparkes to come here. I didn’t want her. She goes everywhere, and it is thought a catch to get her; but if she had been drowned in the Red Sea I shouldn’t have minded. When I told him that, he said it was nonsense—which of course it was; and then he said I ought to make her hold her tongue. Of course I said I couldn’t. Mrs. Conway Sparkes wouldn’t care for me. If she quizzed me, myself, I told him that I could take care of myself, though she were ten times Mrs. Conway Sparkes, and had written finer poetry than Tennyson.”
“It is fine;—some of it,” said Alice.
“Oh, I dare say! I know a great deal of it by heart, only I wouldn’t give her the pleasure of supposing that I had ever thought so much about her poetry. And then I told him that I couldn’t take care of the Duchess—and he told me that I was a child.”
“He only meant that in love.”
“I am a child; I know that. Why didn’t he marry some strong-minded, ferocious woman that could keep his house in order, and frown Mrs. Sparkes out of her impudence? It wasn’t my fault.”
“You didn’t tell him that.”
“But I did. Then he kissed me, and said it was all right, and told me that I should grow older. ‘And Mrs. Sparkes will grow more impudent,’ I said, ‘and the Duchess more silly.’ And after that I went away. Now this horrid Mr. Bott has come back again, and only that it would be mean in me to condescend so far, I would punish him. He grins and smiles at me, and rubs his big hands more than ever, because he feels that he has behaved badly. Is it not horrid to have to live in the house with such people?”
“I don’t think you need mind him much.”
“Yes; but I am the mistress here, and am told that I am to entertain the people. Fancy entertaining the Duchess of St. Bungay and Mr. Bott!”
Alice had now become so intimate with Lady Glencora that she did not scruple to read her wise lectures—telling her that she allowed herself to think too much of little things—and too much also of some big things. “As regards
