The Palliser Novels: Complete Parliamentary Chronicles (All Six Novels in One Volume). Anthony Trollope
next month; but perhaps it was better for them both that the attack and the defence should thus be made suddenly, at their first meeting. It is better to pull the string at once when you are in the shower-bath, and not to stand shivering, thinking of the inevitable shock which you can only postpone for a few minutes. Lady Macleod in this case had pulled the string, and thus reaped the advantage of her alacrity.
“Well, my dear,” said her ladyship, “I suppose you will like to go upstairs and take off your bonnet. Mary shall bring you some tea when you come down.” So Alice escaped, and when she returned to the comfort of her cup of tea in the drawing-room, the fury of the storm had passed away. She sat talking of other things till dinner; and though Lady Macleod did during the evening make one allusion to “poor Mr Grey,” the subject was allowed to drop. Alice was very tender as to her aunt’s ailments, was more than ordinarily attentive to the long list of Cheltenham iniquities which was displayed to her, and refrained from combating any of her aunt’s religious views. After a while they got upon the subject of Aunt Greenow, for whose name Lady Macleod had a special aversion,—as indeed she had for all the Vavasor side of Alice’s family; and then Alice offered to read, and did read to her aunt many pages out of one of those terrible books of wrath, which from time to time come forth and tell us that there is no hope for us. Lady Macleod liked to be so told; and as she now, poor woman, could not read at nights herself, she enjoyed her evening.
Lady Macleod no doubt did enjoy her niece’s sojourn at Cheltenham, but I do not think it could have been pleasant to Alice. On the second day nothing was said about Mr Grey, and Alice hoped that by her continual readings in the book of wrath her aunt’s heart might be softened towards her. But it seemed that Lady Macleod measured the periods of respite, for on the third day and on the fifth she returned to the attack. “Did John Grey still wish that the match should go on?” she asked, categorically. It was in vain that Alice tried to put aside the question, and begged that the matter might not be discussed. Lady Macleod insisted on her right to carry on the examination, and Alice was driven to acknowledge that she believed he did wish it. She could hardly say otherwise, seeing that she had at that moment a letter from him in her pocket, in which he still spoke of his engagement as being absolutely binding on him, and expressed a hope that this change from London to Cheltenham would bring her round and set everything to rights. He certainly did, in a fashion, wave his hand over her, as Kate had said of him. This letter Alice had resolved that she would not answer. He would probably write again, and she would beg him to desist. Instead of Cheltenham bringing her round, Cheltenham had made her firmer than ever in her resolution. I am inclined to think that the best mode of bringing her round at this moment would have been a course of visits from her cousin George, and a series of letters from her cousin Kate. Lady Macleod’s injunctions would certainly not bring her round.
After ten days, ten terrible days, devoted to discussions on matrimony in the morning, and to the book of wrath in the evening,—relieved by two tea-parties, in which the sins of Cheltenham were discussed at length,—Lady Macleod herself got a letter from Mr Grey. Mr Grey’s kindest compliments to Lady Macleod. He believed that Lady Macleod was aware of the circumstances of his engagement with Miss Vavasor. Might he call on Miss Vavasor at Lady Macleod’s house in Cheltenham? and might he also hope to have the pleasure of making Lady Macleod’s acquaintance? Alice had been in the room when her aunt received this letter, but her aunt had said nothing, and Alice had not known from whom the letter had come. When her aunt crept away with it after breakfast she had suspected nothing, and had never imagined that Lady Macleod, in the privacy of her own room looking out upon the stables, had addressed a letter to Nethercoats. But such a letter had been addressed to Nethercoats, and Mr Grey had been informed that he would be received in Paramount Crescent with great pleasure.
Mr Grey had even indicated the day on which he would come, and on the morning of that day Lady Macleod had presided over the two teacups in a state of nervous excitement which was quite visible to Alice. More than once Alice asked little questions, not supposing that she was specially concerned in the matter which had caused her aunt’s fidgety restlessness, but observing it so plainly that it was almost impossible not to allude to it. “There’s nothing the matter, my dear, at all,” at last Lady Macleod said; but as she said so she was making up her mind that the moment had not come in which she must apprise Alice of Mr Grey’s intended visit. As Alice had questioned her at the breakfast table she would say nothing about it then, but waited till the teacups were withdrawn, and till the maid had given her last officious poke to the fire. Then she began. She had Mr Grey’s letter in her pocket, and as she prepared herself to speak, she pulled it out and held it on the little table before her.
“Alice,” she said, “I expect a visitor here to-day.”
Alice knew instantly who was the expected visitor. Probably any girl under such circumstances would have known equally well. “A visitor, aunt,” she said, and managed to hide her knowledge admirably.
“Yes, Alice a visitor. I should have told you before, only I thought,—I thought I had better not. It is Mr—Mr Grey.”
“Indeed, aunt! Is he coming to see you?”
“Well;—he is desirous no doubt of seeing you more especially; but he has expressed a wish to make my acquaintance, which I cannot, under the circumstances, think is unnatural. Of course, Alice, he must want to talk over this affair with your friends.”
“I wish I could have spared them,” said Alice,—”I wish I could.”
“I have brought his letter here, and you can see it if you please. It is very nicely written, and as far as I am concerned I should not think of refusing to see him. And now comes the question. What are we to do with him? Am I to ask him to dinner? I take it for granted that he will not expect me to offer him a bed, as he knows that I live in lodgings.”
“Oh no, aunt; he certainly will not expect that.”
“But ought I to ask him to dinner? I should be most happy to entertain him, though you know how very scanty my means of doing so are;—but I really do not know how it might be,—between you and him, I mean.”
“We should not fight, aunt.”
“No, I suppose not;—but if you cannot be affectionate in your manner to him—”
“I will not answer for my manners, aunt; but you may be sure of this,—that I should be affectionate in my heart. I shall always regard him as a dearly loved friend; though for many years, no doubt, I shall be unable to express my friendship.”
“That may be all very well, Alice, but it will not be what he will want. I think upon the whole that I had better not ask him to dinner.”
“Perhaps not, aunt.”
“It is a period of the day in which any special constraint among people is more disagreeable than at any other time, and then at dinner the servants must see it. I think there might be some awkwardness if he were to dine here.”
“I really think there would,” said Alice, anxious to have the subject dropped.
“I hope he won’t think that I am inhospitable. I should be so happy to do the best I could for him, for I regard him, Alice, quite as though he were to be your husband. And when anybody at all connected with me has come to Cheltenham I always have asked them to dine, and then I have Gubbins’s man to come and wait at table,—as you know.”
“Of all men in the world Mr Grey is the last to think about it.”
“That should only make me the more careful. But I think it would perhaps be more comfortable if he were to come in the evening.”
“Much more comfortable, aunt.”
“I suppose he will be here in the afternoon, before dinner, and we had better wait at home for him. I dare say he’ll want to see you alone, and therefore I’ll retire to my own rooms,”—looking over the stables! Dear old lady. “But if you wish it, I will receive him first—and then Martha,”—Martha was Alice’s maid—”can fetch you down.”
This discussion as to the propriety or impropriety