This discussion as to the propriety or impropriety of giving her lover a dinner had not been pleasant to Alice, but, nevertheless, when it was over she felt grateful to Lady Macleod. There was an attempt in the arrangement to make Mr Grey’s visit as little painful as possible; and though such a discussion at such a time might as well have been avoided, the decision to which her ladyship had at last come with reference both to the dinner and the management of the visit was, no doubt, the right one.
Lady Macleod had been quite correct in all her anticipations. At three o’clock Mr Grey was announced, and Lady Macleod, alone, received him in her drawing-room. She had intended to give him a great deal of good advice, to bid him still keep up his heart and as it were hold up his head, to confess to him how very badly Alice was behaving, and to express her entire concurrence with that theory of bodily ailment as the cause and origin of her conduct. But she found that Mr Grey was a man to whom she could not give much advice. It was he who did the speaking at this conference, and not she. She was overawed by him after the first three minutes. Indeed her first glance at him had awed her. He was so handsome, — and then, in his beauty, he had so quiet and almost saddened an air! Strange to say that after she had seen him, Lady Macleod entertained for him an infinitely higher admiration than before, and yet she was less surprised than she had been at Alice’s refusal of him. The conference was very short; and Mr Grey had not been a quarter of an hour in the house before Martha attended upon her mistress with her summons.
Alice was ready and came down instantly. She found Mr Grey standing in the middle of the room waiting to receive her, and the look of majesty which had cowed Lady Macleod had gone from his countenance. He could not have received her with a kinder smile, had she come to him with a promise that she would at this meeting name the day for their marriage. “At any rate it does not make him unhappy,” she said to herself.
“You are not angry,” he said, “that I should have followed you all the way here, to see you.”
“No, certainly; not angry, Mr Grey. All anger that there may be between us must be on your side. I feel that thoroughly.”
“Then there shall be none on either side. Whatever may be done, I will not be angry with you. Your father advised me to come down here to you.”
“You have seen him, then?”
“Yes, I have seen him. I was in London the day you left.”
“It is so terrible to think that I should have brought upon you all this trouble.”
“You will bring upon me much worse trouble than that unless — . But I have not now come down here to tell you that. I believe that according to rule in such matters I should not have come to you at all, but I don’t know that I care much about such rules.”
“It is I that have broken all rules.”
“When a lady tells a gentleman that she does not wish to see more of him — “
“Oh, Mr Grey, I have not told you that.”
“Have you not? I am glad at any rate to hear you deny it. But you will understand what I mean. When a gentleman gets his dismissal from a lady he should accept it, — that is, his dismissal under such circumstances as I have received mine. But I cannot lay down my love in that way; nor, maintaining my love, can I give up the battle. It seems to me that I have a right at any rate to know something of your comings and goings as long as, — unless, Alice, you should take another name than mine.”
“My intention is to keep my own.” This she said in the lowest possible tone, — almost in a whisper, — with her eyes fixed upon the ground.
“And you will not deny me that right?”
“I cannot hinder you. Whatever you may do, I myself have sinned so against you that I can have no right to blame you.”
“There shall be no question between us of injury from one to the other. In any conversation that we may have, or in any correspondence — “
“Oh, Mr Grey, do not ask me to write.”
“Listen to me. Should there be any on either side, there shall be no idea of any wrong done.”
“But I have done you wrong; — great wrong.”
“No, Alice; I will not have it so. When I asked you to accept my hand, — begging the greatest boon which it could ever come to my lot to ask from a fellow-mortal, — I knew well how great was your goodness to me when you told me that it should be mine. Now that you refuse it, I know also that you are good, thinking that in doing so you are acting for my welfare, — thinking more of my welfare than of your own.”
“Oh yes, yes; it is so, Mr Grey; indeed it is so.”
“Believing that, how can I talk of wrong? That you are wrong in your thinking on this subject, — that your mind has become twisted by false impressions, — that I believe. But I cannot therefore love you less, — nor, so believing, can I consider myself to be injured. Nor am I even so little selfish as you are. I think if you were my wife that I could make you happy; but I feel sure that my happiness depends on your being my wife.”
She looked up into his face, but it was still serene in all its manly beauty. Her cousin George, if he were moved to strong feeling, showed it at once in his eyes, — in his mouth, in the whole visage of his countenance. He glared in his anger, and was impassioned in his love. But Mr Grey when speaking of the happiness of his entire life, when confessing that it was now at stake with a decision against him that would be ruinous to it, spoke without a quiver in his voice, and had no more sign of passion in his face than if he were telling his gardener to move a rose tree.
“I hope — and believe that you will find your happiness elsewhere, Mr Grey.”
“Well; we can but differ, Alice. In that we do differ. And now I will say one word to explain why I have come here. If I were to write to you against your will, it would seem that I were persecuting you. I cannot bring myself to do that, even though I had the right. But if I were to let you go from me, taking what you have said to me and doing nothing, it would seem that I had accepted your decision as final. I do not do so. I will not do so. I come simply to tell you that I am still your suitor. If you will let me, I will see you again early in January, — as soon as you have returned to town. You will hardly refuse to see me.”
“No,” she said; “I cannot refuse to see you.”
“Then it shall be so,” he said, “and I will not trouble you with letters, nor will I trouble you longer now with words. Tell your aunt that I have said what I came to say, and that I give her my kindest thanks.” Then he took her hand and pressed it, — not as George Vavasor had pressed it, — and was gone. When Lady Macleod returned, she found that the question of the evening’s tea arrangements had settled itself.
CHAPTER XVI
The Roebury Club
It has been said that George Vavasor had a little establishment at Roebury, down in Oxfordshire, and thither he betook himself about the middle of November. He had been long known in this county, and whether or no men spoke well of him as a man of business in London, men spoke well of him down there, as one who knew how to ride to hounds. Not that Vavasor was popular among fellow-sportsmen. It was quite otherwise. He was not a man that made himself really popular in any social meetings of men. He did not himself care for the loose little talkings, half flat and half sharp, of men when they meet together in idleness. He was not open enough in his nature for such popularity. Some men were afraid of him, and some suspected him. There were others who made up to him, seeking his intimacy, but these he usually snubbed, and always kept at a distance. Though he had indulged in all the ordinary pleasures of young men, he had never been a jovial man. In his conversations with men he always seemed to think that he should use his time towards serving some purpose of business. With women he was quite the reverse. With women he could be happy. With women he could really associate. A woman he could really love; — but I doubt whether for all that he could treat a woman well.
But he was known in the Oxfordshire country as a man who knew what he was about, and such men are always welcome. It is the man who does not kn
ow how to ride that is made uncomfortable in the hunting field by cold looks or expressed censure. And yet it is very rarely that such men do any real harm. Such a one may now and then get among the hounds or override the hunt, but it is not often so. Many such complaints are made; but in truth the too forward man, who presses the dogs, is generally one who can ride, but is too eager or too selfish to keep in his proper place. The bad rider, like the bad whist player, pays highly for what he does not enjoy, and should be thanked. But at both games he gets cruelly snubbed. At both games George Vavasor was great and he never got snubbed.
There were men who lived together at Roebury in a kind of club, — four or five of them, who came thither from London, running backwards and forwards as hunting arrangements enabled them to do so, — a brewer or two and a banker, with a would-be fast attorney, a sporting literary gentleman, and a young unmarried Member of Parliament who had no particular home of his own in the country. These men formed the Roebury Club, and a jolly life they had of it. They had their own wine closet at the King’s Head, — or Roebury Inn as the house had come to be popularly called, — and supplied their own game. The landlord found everything else; and as they were not very particular about their bills, they were allowed to do pretty much as they liked in the house. They were rather imperious, very late in their hours, sometimes, though not often, noisy, and once there had been a hasty quarrel which had made the landlord in his anger say that the club should be turned out of his house. But they paid well, chaffed the servants much oftener than they bullied them, and on the whole were very popular.
To this club Vavasor did not belong, alleging that he could not afford to live at their pace, and alleging, also, that his stays at Roebury were not long enough to make him a desirable member. The invitation to him was not repeated and he lodged elsewhere in the little town. But he occasionally went in of an evening, and would make up with the members a table at whist.
He had come down to Roebury by mail train, ready for hunting the next morning, and walked into the club-room just at midnight. There he found Maxwell the banker, Grindley the would-be fast attorney, and Calder Jones the Member of Parliament, playing dummy. Neither of the brewers were there, nor was the sporting literary gentleman.
“Here’s Vavasor,” said Maxwell, “and now we won’t play this blackguard game any longer. Somebody told me, Vavasor, that you were gone away.”
“Gone away; — what, like a fox?”
“I don’t know what it was; that something had happened to you since last season; that you were married, or dead, or gone abroad. By George, I’ve lost the trick after all! I hate dummy like the devil. I never hold a card in dummy’s hand. Yes, I know; that’s seven points on each side. Vavasor, come and cut. Upon my word if any one had asked me, I should have said you were dead.”
“But you see, nobody ever does think of asking you anything.”
“What you probably mean,” said Grindley, “is that Vavasor was not returned for Chelsea last February; but you’ve seen him since that. Are you going to try it again, Vavasor?”
“If you’ll lend me the money I will.”
“I don’t see what on earth a man gains by going into the house,” said Calder Jones. “I couldn’t help myself as it happened, but, upon my word it’s a deuce of a bore. A fellow thinks he can do as he likes about going, — but he can’t. It wouldn’t do for me to give it up, because — “
“Oh no, of course not; where should we all be?” said Vavasor.
“It’s you and me, Grindems,” said Maxwell. “D–––– parliament, and now let’s have a rubber.”
They played till three and Mr Calder Jones lost a good deal of money, — a good deal of money in a little way, for they never played above ten-shilling points, and no bet was made for more than a pound or two. But Vavasor was the winner, and when he left the room he became the subject of some ill-natured remarks.
“I wonder he likes coming in here,” said Grindley, who had himself been the man to invite him to belong to the club, and who had at one time indulged the ambition of an intimacy with George Vavasor.
“I can’t understand it,” said Calder Jones, who was a little bitter about his money. “Last year he seemed to walk in just when he liked, as though he were one of us.”
“He’s a bad sort of fellow,” said Grindley; “he’s so uncommonly dark. I don’t know where on earth he gets his money from, He was heir to some small property in the north, but he lost every shilling of that when he was in the wine trade.”
“You’re wrong there, Grindems,” said Maxwell, — making use of a playful nickname which he had invented for his friend. “He made a pot of money at the wine business, and had he stuck to it he would have been a rich man.”
“He’s lost it all since then, and that place in the north into the bargain.”
“Wrong again, Grindems, my boy. If old Vavasor were to die to-morrow, Vavasor Hall would go just as he might choose to leave it. George may be a ruined man for aught I know — “
“There’s no doubt about that, I believe,” said Grindley.
“Perhaps not, Grindems; but he can’t have lost Vavasor Hall because he has never as yet had an interest in it. He’s the natural heir, and will probably get it some day.”
“All the same,” said Calder Jones, “isn’t it rather odd he should come in here?”
“We’ve asked him often enough,” said Maxwell; “not because we like him, but because we want him so often to make up a rubber. I don’t like George Vavasor, and I don’t know who does; but I like him better than dummy. And I’d sooner play whist with men I don’t like, Grindems, than I’d not play at all.” A bystander might have thought from the tone of Mr Maxwell’s voice that he was alluding to Mr Grindley himself, but Mr Grindley didn’t seem to take it in that light.
“That’s true, of course,” said he. “We can’t pick men just as we please. But I certainly didn’t think that he’d make it out for another season.”
The club breakfasted the next morning at nine o’clock, in order that they might start at half-past for the meet at Edgehill. Edgehill is twelve miles from Roebury, and the hacks would do it in an hour and a half, — or perhaps a little less. “Does anybody know anything about that brown horse of Vavasor’s?” said Maxwell. “I saw him coming into the yard yesterday with that old groom of his.”
“He had a brown horse last season,” said Grindley; — “a little thing that went very fast, but wasn’t quite sound on the road.”
“That was a mare,” said Maxwell, “and he sold her to Cinquebars.”*
[*Ah, my friend, from whom I have borrowed this scion of the nobility! Had he been left with us he would have forgiven me my little theft, and now that he has gone I will not change the name.]
“For a hundred and fifty,” said Calder Jones, “and she wasn’t worth the odd fifty.”
“He won seventy with her at Leamington,” said Maxwell, “and I doubt whether he’d take his money now.”
“Is Cinquebars coming down here this year?”
“I don’t know,” said Maxwell. “I hope not. He’s the best fellow in the world, but he can’t ride, and he don’t care for hunting, and he makes more row than any fellow I ever met. I wish some fellow could tell me something about that fellow’s brown horse.”
“I’d never buy a horse of Vavasor’s if I were you,” said Grindley. “He never has anything that’s all right all round.”
“And who has?” said Maxwell, as he took into his plate a second mutton chop, which had just been brought up hot into the room especially for him. “That’s the mistake men make about horses, and that’s why there’s so much cheating. I never ask for a warranty with a horse, and don’t very often have a horse examined. Yet I do as well as others. You can’t have perfect horses any more than you can perfect men, or perfect women. You put up with red hair, or bad teeth, or big feet, — or sometimes with the devil of a voice. But a man when he wants a horse won’t put up with anything! Therefore those who’ve got horses
to sell must lie. When I go into the market with three hundred pounds I expect a perfect animal. As I never do that now I never expect a perfect animal. I like ‘em to see; I like ‘em to have four legs; and I like ‘em to have a little wind. I don’t much mind anything else.”
“By Jove you’re about right,” said Calder Jones. The reader will therefore readily see that Mr Maxwell the banker reigned as king in that club.
Vavasor had sent two horses on in charge of Bat Smithers, and followed on a pony about fourteen hands high, which he had ridden as a cover hack for the last four years. He did not start till near ten, but he was able to catch Bat with his two horses about a mile and a half on that side of Edgehill. “Have you managed to come along pretty clean?” the master asked as he came up with his servant.
“They be the most beastly roads in all England,” said Bat, who always found fault with any county in which he happened to be located. “But I’ll warrant I’m cleaner than most on ‘em. What for any county should make such roads as them I never could tell.”
“The roads about there are bad, certainly; — very bad. But I suppose they would have been better had Providence sent better materials. And what do you think of the brown horse, Bat?”
“Well, sir.” He said no more, and that he said with a drawl.
“He’s as fine an animal to look at as ever I put my eye on,” said George.
“He’s all that,” said Bat.
“He’s got lots of pace too.”
“I’m sure he has, sir.”
“And they tell me you can’t beat him at jumping.”
“They can mostly do that, sir, if they’re well handled.”
The Palliser Novels Page 18
