“It should be no trial, Miss Vavasor.”
“How can it be otherwise? Come, Miss Palliser; if you are her friend, be fair to her.”
“I am her friend;—but I am, above everything, my cousin’s friend. He has told me that she has complained of having to meet this man. He declares that it should be nothing to her, and that the fear is an idle folly. It should be nothing to her, but still the fear may not be idle. Is there any reason,—any real reason,—why she should not go? Miss Vavasor, I conjure you to tell me,—even though in doing so you must cast so deep reproach upon her name! Anything will be better than utter disgrace and sin!”
“I conceive that I cast no reproach upon her in saying that there is great reason why she should not go to Monkshade.”
“You think there is absolute grounds for interference? I must tell him, you know, openly what he would have to fear.”
“I think,—nay, Miss Palliser, I know,—that there is ample reason why you should save her from being taken to Monkshade, if you have the power to do so.”
“I can only do it, or attempt to do it, by telling him just what you tell me.”
“Then tell him. You must have thought of that, I suppose, before you came to me.”
“Yes;—yes, Miss Vavasor. I had thought of it. No doubt I had thought of it. But I had believed all through that you would assure me that there was no danger. I believed that you would have said that she was innocent.”
“And she is innocent,” said Alice, rising from her chair, as though she might thus give emphasis to words which she hardly dared to speak above a whisper. “She is innocent. Who accuses her of guilt? You ask me a question on his behalf—”
“On hers—and on his, Miss Vavasor.”
“A question which I feel myself bound to answer truly,—to answer with reference to the welfare of them both; but I will not have it said that I accuse her. She had been attached to Mr Fitzgerald when your cousin married her. He knew that this had been the case. She told him the whole truth. In a worldly point of view her marriage with Mr Fitzgerald would probably have been very imprudent.”
“It would have been utterly ruinous.”
“Perhaps so; I say nothing about that. But as it turned out, she gave up her own wishes and married your cousin.”
“I don’t know about her own wishes, Miss Vavasor.”
“It is what she did. She would have married Mr Fitzgerald, had she not been hindered by the advice of those around her. It cannot be supposed that she has forgotten him in so short a time. There can be no guilt in her remembrance.”
“There is guilt in loving any other than her husband.”
“Then, Miss Palliser, it was her marriage that was guilty, and not her love. But all that is done and past. It should be your cousin’s object to teach her to forget Mr Fitzgerald, and he will not do that by taking her to a house where that gentleman is staying.”
“She has said so much to you herself?”
“I do not know that I need declare to you what she has said herself. You have asked me a question, and I have answered it, and I am thankful to you for having asked it. What object can either of us have but to assist her in her position?”
“And to save him from dishonour. I had so hoped that this was simply a childish dread on her part.”
“It is not so. It is no childish dread. If you have the power to prevent her going to Lady Monk’s, I implore you to use it. Indeed, I will ask you to promise me that you will do so.”
“After what you have said, I have no alternative.”
“Exactly. There is no alternative. Either for his sake or for hers, there is none.”
Thereupon Miss Palliser got up, and wishing her companion good night, took her departure. Throughout the interview there had been no cordiality of feeling between them. There was no pretence of friendship, even as they were parting. They acknowledged that their objects were different. That of Alice was to save Lady Glencora from ruin. That of Miss Palliser was to save her cousin from disgrace,—with perhaps some further honest desire to prevent sorrow and sin. One loved Lady Glencora, and the other clearly did not love her. But, nevertheless, Alice felt that Miss Palliser, in coming to her, had acted well, and that to herself this coming had afforded immense relief. Some step would now be taken to prevent that meeting which she had so deprecated, and it would be taken without any great violation of confidence on her part. She had said nothing as to which Lady Glencora could feel herself aggrieved.
On the next morning she was down in the breakfast-room soon after nine, and had not been in the room many minutes before Mr Palliser entered. “The carriage is ordered for you at a quarter before ten,” he said, “and I have come down to give you your breakfast.” There was a smile on his face as he spoke, and Alice could see that he intended to make himself pleasant.
“Will you allow me to give you yours instead?” said she. But as it happened, no giving on either side was needed, as Alice’s breakfast was brought to her separately.
“Glencora bids me say that she will be down immediately,” said Mr Palliser.
Alice then made some inquiry with reference to the effects of last night’s imprudence, which received only a half-pronounced reply. Mr Palliser was willing to be gracious, but did not intend to be understood as having forgiven the offence. The Miss Pallisers then came in together, and after them Mr Bott, closely followed by Mrs Marsham, and all of them made inquiries after Lady Glencora, as though it was to be supposed that she might probably be in a perilous state after what she had undergone on the previous evening. Mr Bott was particularly anxious. “The frost was so uncommonly severe,” said he, “that any delicate person like Lady Glencora must have suffered in remaining out so long.”
The insinuation that Alice was not a delicate person and that, as regarded her, the severity of the frost was of no moment, was very open, and was duly appreciated. Mr Bott was aware that his great patron had in some sort changed his opinion about Miss Vavasor, and he was of course disposed to change his own. A fortnight since Alice might have been as delicate as she pleased in Mr Bott’s estimation.
“I hope you do not consider Lady Glencora delicate,” said Alice to Mr Palliser.
“She is not robust,” said the husband.
“By no means,” said Mrs Marsham.
“Indeed, no,” said Mr Bott.
Alice knew that she was being accused of being robust herself; but she bore it in silence. Ploughboys and milkmaids are robust, and the accusation was a heavy one. Alice, however, thought that she would not have minded it, if she could have allowed herself to reply; but this at the moment of her going away she could not do.
“I think she is as strong as the rest of us,” said Iphigenia Palliser, who felt that after last night she owed something to Miss Vavasor.
“As some of us,” said Mr Bott, determined to persevere in his accusation.
At this moment Lady Glencora entered, and encountered the eager inquiries of her two duennas. These, however, she quickly put aside, and made her way up to Alice. “The last morning has come, then,” she said.
“Yes, indeed,” said Alice. “Mr Palliser must have thought that I was never going.”
“On the other hand,” said he, “I have felt much obliged to you for staying.” But he said it coldly; and Alice began to wish that she had never seen Matching Priory.
“Obliged!” exclaimed Lady Glencora. “I can’t tell you how much obliged I am.