Alice was going to protest that she had never seen it at all, when Mr Palliser entered the room along with Mrs Marsham.
The two gentlemen shook hands, and then Mr Palliser turned to Alice. She perceived at once by his face that she was unwelcome, and wished herself away from his house. It might be all very well for Lady Glencora to fight with Mrs Marsham, — and with her husband, too, in regard to the Marsham persecution, — but there could be no reason why she should do so. He just touched her hand, barely closing his thumb upon her fingers, and asked her how she was. Then he turned away from her side of the fire, and began talking to Mrs Marsham on the other. There was that in his face and in his manner which was positively offensive to her. He made no allusion to his former acquaintance with her, — spoke no word about Matching, no word about his wife, as he would naturally have done to his wife’s friend. Alice felt the blood mount into her face, and regretted greatly that she had ever come among these people. Had she not long since made up her mind that she would avoid her great relations, and did not all this prove that it would have been well for her to have clung to that resolution? What was Lady Glencora to her that she should submit herself to be treated as though she were a poor companion, — a dependent, who received a salary for her attendance, — an indigent cousin, hanging on to the bounty of her rich connection? Alice was proud to a fault. She had nursed her pride till it was very faulty. All her troubles and sorrows in life had come from an overfed craving for independence. Why, then, should she submit to be treated with open want of courtesy by any man; but, of all men, why should she submit to it from such a one as Mr Palliser, — the heir of a ducal house, rolling in wealth, and magnificent with all the magnificence of British pomp and pride? No; she would make Lady Glencora understand that the close intimacies of daily life were not possible to them!
“I declare I’m very much ashamed,” said Lady Glencora, as she entered the room. “I shan’t apologize to you, Alice, for it was you who kept me talking; but I do beg Mrs Marsham’s pardon.”
Mrs Marsham was all smiles and forgiveness, and hoped that Lady Glencora would not make a stranger of her. Then dinner was announced, and Alice had to walk down stairs by herself. She did not care a doit for that, but there had been a disagreeable little contest when the moment came. Lady Glencora had wished to give up Mr Bott to her cousin, but Mr Bott had stuck manfully to Lady Glencora’s side. He hoped to take Lady Glencora down to dinner very often, and was not at all disposed to abate his privilege.
During dinner-time Alice said very little, nor was there given to her opportunity of saying much. She could not 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 good-natured,” 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
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 that Englishmen can’t read and write as Americans do? Why can’t they vote as they do even in Imperial France? Why are they serfs, less free than those whose chains were broken the other day in Russia? Why is the Spaniard more happy, and the Italian more contented? Because men in power have been drawing it mild!” And Mr Bott made an action with his hand as though he were drawing up beer from a patent tap.
“But you can’t set aside Her Majesty like that, you know,” said the young Member, who had been presented, and whose mother’s old-world notions about the throne still clung to him.
“I should be very sorry,” said Mr Bott; “I’m no republican.” With all his constitutional love, Mr Bott did not know what the word republican meant. “I mean no disrespect to the throne. The throne in its place is very well. But the power of governing this great nation does not rest with the throne. It is contained within the four walls of the House of Commons. That is the great truth which all young Members should learn, and take to their hearts.”
“And you think Planty Pall will become Prime Minister?” said Calder Jones.
“I haven’t said that; but there are more unlikely things. Among young men I know no man more likely. But I certainly think this, — that if Lord Brock doesn’t take him into the Cabinet, Lord Brock won’t long remain there himself.”
In the meantime the election came on in the Chelsea districts, and the whole of the south-western part of the metropolis was covered with posters bearing George Vavasor’s name. “Vote for Vavasor and the River Bank.” That was the cry with which he went to the electors; and though it must be presumed that it was understood by some portion of the Chelsea electors, it was perfectly unintelligible to the majority of those who read it. His special acquaintances and his general enemies called him Viscount Riverbank, and he was pestered on all sides by questions as to Father Thames. It was Mr Scruby who invented the legend, and who gave George Vavasor an infinity of trouble by the invention. There was a question in those clays as to embanking the river from the Houses of Parliament up to the remote desolations of further Pimlico, and Mr Scruby recommended the coming Member to pledge himself that he would have the work carried on even to Battersea Bridge. “You must have a subject,” pleaded Mr Scruby. “No young Member can do anything without a subject. And it should be local; — that is to say, if you have anything of a constituency. Such a subject as that, if it’s well worked, may save you thousands of pounds — thousands of pounds at future elections.”
“It won’t save me anything at this one, I take it.”
“But it may secure the seat, Mr Vavasor, and afterwards make you the most popular metropolitan Member in the House; that is, with your own constituency. Only look at the money that would be spent in the districts if that were done! It would come to millions, sir!”
“But it never will be done.”
“What matters that?” and Mr Scruby almost became eloquent as he explained the nature of a good parliamentary subject. “You should work it up, so as to be able to discuss it at all points. Get the figures by heart, and then, as nobody else will do so, nobody can put you down. Of course it won’t be done. If it were done, that would be an end of it, and your bread would be taken out of your mouth. But you can always promise it at the hustings, and can always demand it in the House. I’ve known men who’ve walked into as much as two thousand a year, permanent place, on the strength of a worse subject than that!”
Vavasor allowed Mr Scruby to manage the matter for him, and took up the subject of the River Bank. “Vavasor and the River Bank” was carried about by an army of men with iron shoulder-straps, and huge pasteboard placards six feet high on the top of them. You would think, as you saw the long rows, that the men were being marshalled to their several routes; but they always kept together — four-and-twenty at the heels of each other. “One placard at a time would strike the eye,” said Mr Vavasor, counting the expense up to himself. “There’s no doubt of it,” said Mr Scruby in reply. “One placard will do that, if it’s big enough; but it takes four-and-twenty to touch the imagination.” And then sides of houses were covered with that shibboleth — “Vavasor and the River Bank” — the same words repeated in columns down the whole sides of houses. Vavasor himself declared that he was ashamed to walk among his future constituents, so conspicuous had his name become. Grimes saw it, and was dismayed. At first, Grimes ridiculed the cry with all his publican’s wit. “Unless he mean to drown hisself in the Reach, it’s hard to say what he do mean by all that gammon about the River Bank,” said Grimes, as he canvassed for the other Liberal candidate. But, after a while, Grimes was driven to confess that Mr Scruby knew what he was about. “He is a sharp ‘un, that he is,” said Grimes in the inside bar of the “Handsome Man;” and he almost regretted that he had left the leadership of Mr Scruby, although he knew that on this occasion he would not have gotten his odd money.
George Vavasor, with much labour, actually did get up the subject of the River Bank. He got himself introduced to men belonging to the Metropolitan Board, and went manfully into the matter of pounds, shillings, and pence. He was able even to work himself into an apparent heat when he was told that the thing was out of the question; and soon found that he had disciples who really believed in him. If he could have brought himself to believe in the thing, — if he could have been induced himself to care whether Chelsea was to be embanked or no, the work would not have been so difficult to him. In that case it would have done good to him, if to no one else. But such belief was beyond him. He had gone too far in life to be capable of believing in, or of caring for, such things. He was ambitious of having a hand
in the government of his country, but he was not capable of caring even for that.
But he worked. He worked hard, and spoke vehemently, and promised the men of Chelsea, Pimlico, and Brompton that the path of London westwards had hardly commenced as yet. Sloane Street should be the new Cheapside. Squares should arise around the Chelsea barracks, with sides open to the water, for which Belgravia would be deserted. There should be palaces there for the rich, because the rich spend their riches; but no rich man’s palace should interfere with the poor man’s right to the River Bank. Three millions and a half should be spent on the noble street to be constructed, the grandest pathway that the world should ever yet have seen; three millions and a half to be drawn from, — to be drawn from anywhere except from Chelsea; — from the bloated money-bags of the City Corporation, Vavasor once ventured to declare, amidst the encouraging shouts of the men of Chelsea. Mr Scruby was forced to own that his pupil worked the subject well. “Upon my word, that was uncommon good,” he said, almost patting Vavasor on the back, after a speech in which he had vehemently asserted that his ambition to represent the Chelsea districts had all come of his long-fixed idea that the glory of future London would be brought about by the embankment of the river at Chelsea.
But armies of men carrying big boards, and public-houses open at every corner, and placards in which the letters are three feet long, cost money. Those few modest hundreds which Mr Scruby had already received before the work began, had been paid on the supposition that the election would not take place till September. Mr Scruby made an early request, a very early request, that a further sum of fifteen hundred pounds should be placed in his hands; and he did this in a tone which clearly signified that not a man would be sent about through the streets, or a poster put upon a wall, till this request had been conceded. Mr Scruby was in possession of two very distinct manners of address. In his jovial moods, when he was instigating his clients to fight their battles well, it might almost be thought that he was doing it really for the love of the thing; and some clients, so thinking, had believed for a few hours that Scruby, in his jolly, passionate eagerness, would pour out his own money like dust, trusting implicitly to future days for its return. But such clients had soon encountered Mr Scruby’s other manner, and had perceived that they were mistaken.
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