Can You Forgive Her?

  CHAPTER XXXVI.

  John Grey Goes a Second Time to London.

  Early in that conversation which Mr. Vavasor had with his daughter,and which was recorded a few pages back, he implored her to pause awhile before she informed Mr. Grey of her engagement with her cousin.Nothing, however, on that point had been settled between them. Mr.Vavasor had wished her to say that she would not write till he shouldhave assented to her doing so. She had declined to bind herself inthis way, and then they had gone off to other things;--to GeorgeVavasor's character and the disposition of her money. Alice, however,had felt herself bound not to write to Mr. Grey quite at once. Indeed,when her cousin left her she had no appetite for writing such aletter as hers was to be. A day or two passed by her in this way, andnothing more was said by her or her father. It was now the middle ofJanuary, and the reader may remember that Mr. Grey had promised thathe would come to her in London in that month, as soon as he shouldknow that she had returned from Westmoreland. She must at any ratedo something to prevent that visit. Mr. Grey would not come withoutgiving her notice. She knew enough of the habits of the man to besure of that. But she desired that her letter to him should be intime to prevent his to her; so when those few days were gone, she satdown to write without speaking to her father again upon the subject.

  It was a terrible job;--perhaps the most difficult of all thedifficult tasks which her adverse fate had imposed upon her. Shefound when she did attempt it, that she could have done it better ifshe had done it at the moment when she was writing the other letterto her cousin George. Then Kate had been near her, and she had beencomforted by Kate's affectionate happiness. She had been strengthenedat that moment by a feeling that she was doing the best in her power,if not for herself, at any rate for others. All that comfort andall that strength had left her now. The atmosphere of the fells hadbuoyed her up, and now the thick air of London depressed her. Shesat for hours with the pen in her hand, and could not write theletter. She let a day go by and a night, and still it was not written.She hardly knew herself in her unnatural weakness. As the mentalphotographs of the two men forced themselves upon her, she couldnot force herself to forget those words--"Look here, upon thispicture--and on this." How was it that she now knew how great wasthe difference between the two men, how immense the pre-eminence ofhim whom she had rejected;--and that she had not before been ableto see this on any of those many previous occasions on which she hadcompared the two together? As she thought of her cousin George's facewhen he left her room a few days since, and remembered Mr. Grey'scountenance when last he held her hand at Cheltenham, the quietdignity of his beauty which would submit to show no consciousnessof injury, she could not but tell herself that when Paradise hadbeen opened to her, she had declared herself to be fit only forPandemonium. In that was her chief misery; that now,--now when it wastoo late,--she could look at it aright.

  But the letter must be written, and on the second day she declaredto herself that she would not rise from her chair till it was done.The letter was written on that day and was posted. I will now ask thereader to go down with me to Nethercoats that we may be present withJohn Grey when he received it. He was sitting at breakfast in hisstudy there, and opposite to him, lounging in an arm-chair, with a_Quarterly_ in his hand, was the most intimate of his friends, FrankSeward, a fellow of the college to which they had both belonged. Mr.Seward was a clergyman, and the tutor of his college, and a man whoworked very hard at Cambridge. In the days of his leisure he spentmuch of his time at Nethercoats, and he was the only man to whom Greyhad told anything of his love for Alice and of his disappointment.Even to Seward he had not told the whole story. He had at firstinformed his friend that he was engaged to be married, and as he hadtold this as no secret,--having even said that he hated secrets onsuch matters,--the engagement had been mentioned in the common roomof their college, and men at Cambridge knew that Mr. Grey was goingto take to himself a wife. Then Mr. Seward had been told that troublehad come, and that it was not improbable that there would be no suchmarriage. Even when saying this Mr. Grey told none of the particulars,though he owned to his friend that a heavy blow had struck him. Hisintimacy with Seward was of that thorough kind which is engenderedonly out of such young and lasting friendship as had existed betweenthem; but even to such a friend as this Mr. Grey could not open hiswhole heart. It was only to a friend who should also be his wife thathe could do that,--as he himself thoroughly understood. He had feltthat such a friend was wanting to him, and he had made the attempt.

  "Don't speak of this as yet," he had said to Mr. Seward. "Of coursewhen the matter is settled, those few people who know me must knowit. But perhaps there may be a doubt as yet, and as long as there isa doubt, it is better that it should not be discussed."

  He had said no more than this,--had imputed no blame to Alice,--hadtold none of the circumstances; but Seward had known that the girlhad jilted his friend, and had made up his mind that she must beheartless and false. He had known also that his friend would neverlook for any other such companion for his home.

  Letters were brought to each of them on this morning, and Seward'sattention was of course occupied by those which he received. Grey,as soon as the envelopes had touched his hand, became aware that oneof them was from Alice, and this he at once opened. He did it verycalmly, but without any of that bravado of indifference with whichGeorge Vavasor had received Alice's letter from Westmoreland. "It isright that I should tell you at once," said Alice, rushing into themiddle of her subject without even the formality of the customaryaddress--"It is right that I should tell you at once that--." Oh,the difficulty which she had encountered when her words had carriedher as far as this!--"that my cousin, George Vavasor, has repeatedto me his offer of marriage, and that I have accepted it. I tellyou, chiefly in order that I may save you from the trouble which youpurposed to take when I last saw you at Cheltenham. I will not tellyou any of the circumstances of this engagement, because I have noright to presume that you will care to hear them. I hardly dareto ask you to believe of me that in all that I have done, I haveendeavoured to act with truth and honesty. That I have been veryignorant, foolish,--what you will that is bad, I know well; otherwisethere could not have been so much in the last few years of my lifeon which I am utterly ashamed to look back. For the injury that Ihave done you, I can only express deep contrition. I do not dare toask you to forgive me.--ALICE VAVASOR." She had tormented herself inwriting this,--had so nearly driven herself distracted with attemptswhich she had destroyed, that she would not even read once to herselfthese last words. "He'll know it, and that is all that is necessary,"she said to herself as she sent the letter away from her.

  Mr. Grey read it twice over, leaving the other letters unnoticed onthe table by his tea-cup. He read it twice over, and the work ofreading it was one to him of intense agony. Hitherto he had fedhimself with hope. That Alice should have been brought to think ofher engagement with him in a spirit of doubt and with a mind sotroubled, that she had been inclined to attempt an escape from it,had been very grievous to him; but it had been in his mind a fantasy,a morbid fear of himself, which might be cured by time. He, at anyrate, would give all his energies towards achieving such a cure.There had been one thing, however, which he most feared;--which hehad chiefly feared, though he had forbidden himself to think that itcould be probable, and this thing had now happened.

  He had ever disliked and feared George Vavasor;--not from any effectwhich the man had upon himself, for as we know his acquaintance withVavasor was of the slightest;--but he had feared and disliked hisinfluence upon Alice. He had also feared the influence of her cousinKate. To have cautioned Alice against her cousins would have been tohim impossible. It was not his nature to express suspicion to one heloved. Is the tone of that letter remembered in which he had answeredAlice when she informed him that her cousin George was to go withKate and her to Switzerland? He had written, with a pleasant joke,words which Alice had been able to read with some little feeling oftriumph to her two friends. He had not so written b
ecause he likedwhat he knew of the man. He disliked all that he knew of him. But ithad not been possible for him to show that he distrusted the prudenceof her, whom, as his future wife, he was prepared to trust in allthings.

  I have said that he read Alice's letter with an agony of sorrow; ashe sat with it in his hand he suffered as, probably, he had neversuffered before. But there was nothing in his countenance to showthat he was in pain. Seward had received some long epistle, crossedfrom end to end,--indicative, I should say, of a not far distanttermination to that college tutorship,--and was reading it withplacid contentment. It did not occur to him to look across at Grey,but had he done so, I doubt whether he would have seen anything toattract his attention. But Grey, though he was wounded, would notallow himself to be dismayed. There was less hope now than before,but there might still be hope;--hope for her, even though there mightbe none for him. Tidings had reached his ears also as to GeorgeVavasor, which had taught him to believe that the man was needy,reckless, and on the brink of ruin. Such a marriage to Alice Vavasorwould be altogether ruinous. Whatever might be his own ultimate fatehe would still seek to save her from that. Her cousin, doubtless,wanted her money. Might it not be possible that he would be satisfiedwith her money, and that thus the woman might be saved?

  "Seward," he said at last, addressing his friend, who had not yetcome to the end of the last crossed page.

  "Is there anything wrong?" said Seward.

  "Well;--yes; there is something a little wrong. I fear I must leaveyou, and go up to town to-day."

  "Nobody ill, I hope?"

  "No;--nobody is ill. But I must go up to London. Mrs. Bole will takecare of you, and you must not be angry with me for leaving you."

  Seward assured him that he would not be in the least angry, andthat he was thoroughly conversant with the capabilities and goodintentions of Mrs. Bole the housekeeper; but added, that as he wasso near his own college, he would of course go back to Cambridge.He longed to say some word as to the purpose of Grey's threatenedjourney; to make some inquiry as to this new trouble; but he knewthat Grey was a man who did not well bear close inquiries, and he wassilent.

  "Why not stay here?" said Grey, after a minute's pause. "I wishyou would, old fellow; I do, indeed." There was a tone of specialaffection in his voice which struck Seward at once. "If I can be ofthe slightest service or comfort to you, I will of course."

  Grey again sat silent for a little while. "I wish you would; I do,indeed."

  "Then I will." And again there was a pause.

  "I have got a letter here from--Miss Vavasor," said Grey.

  "May I hope that--"

  "No;--it does not bring good news to me. I do not know that I cantell it you all. I would if I could, but the whole story is one notto be told in a hurry. I should leave false impressions. There arethings which a man cannot tell."

  "Indeed there are," said Seward.

  "I wish with all my heart that you knew it all as I know it; but thatis impossible. There are things which happen in a day which it wouldtake a lifetime to explain." Then there was another pause. "I haveheard bad news this morning, and I must go up to London at once. Ishall go into Ely so as to be there by twelve; and if you will, youshall drive me over. I may be back in a day; certainly in less thana week; but it will be a comfort to me to know that I shall find youhere."

  The matter was so arranged, and at eleven they started. Duringthe first two miles not a word was spoken between them. "Seward,"Grey said at last, "if I fail in what I am going to attempt, it isprobable that you will never hear Alice Vavasor's name mentioned byme again; but I want you always to bear this in mind;--that at nomoment has my opinion of her ever been changed, nor must you in suchcase imagine from my silence that it has changed. Do you understandme?"

  "I think I do."

  "To my thinking she is the finest of God's creatures that I haveknown. It may be that in her future life she will be severed from mealtogether; but I shall not, therefore, think the less well of her;and I wish that you, as my friend, should know that I so esteem her,even though her name should never be mentioned between us." Seward,in some few words, assured him that it should be so, and then theyfinished their journey in silence.

  From the station at Ely, Grey sent a message by the wires up to JohnVavasor, saying that he would call on him that afternoon at hisoffice in Chancery Lane. The chances were always much against findingMr. Vavasor at his office; but on this occasion the telegram did reachhim there, and he remained till the unaccustomed hour of half pastfour to meet the man who was to have been his son-in-law.

  "Have you heard from her?" he asked as soon as Grey entered the dingylittle room, not in Chancery Lane, but in its neighbourhood, whichwas allocated to him for his signing purposes.

  "Yes,"--said Grey; "she has written to me."

  "And told you about her cousin George. I tried to hinder her fromwriting, but she is very wilful."

  "Why should you have hindered her? If the thing was to be told, it isbetter that it should be done at once."

  "But I hoped that there might be an escape. I don't know what youthink of all this, Grey, but to me it is the bitterest misfortunethat I have known. And I've had some bitter things, too," headded,--thinking of that period of his life, when the work of whichhe was ashamed was first ordained as his future task.

  "What is the escape that you hoped?" asked Grey.

  "I hardly know. The whole thing seems to me to be so mad, that Ipartly trusted that she would see the madness of it. I am not surewhether you know anything of my nephew George?" asked Mr. Vavasor.

  "Very little," said Grey.

  "I believe him to be utterly an adventurer,--a man without means andwithout principle,--upon the whole about as bad a man as you maymeet. I give you my word, Grey, that I don't think I know a worseman. He's going to marry her for her money; then he will beggar her,after that he'll ill-treat her, and yet what can I do?"

  "Prevent the marriage."

  "But how, my dear fellow? Prevent it! It's all very well to say that,and it's the very thing I want to do. But how am I to prevent it?She's as much her own master as you are yours. She can give him everyshilling of her fortune to-morrow. How am I to prevent her frommarrying him?"

  "Let her give him every shilling of her fortune to-morrow," saidGrey.

  "And what is she to do then?" asked Mr. Vavasor.

  "Then--then,--then,--then let her come to me," said John Grey; and ashe spoke there was the fragment of a tear in his eye, and the hint ofquiver in his voice.

  "Then--then,--then let her come to me."]

  Even the worldly, worn-out, unsympathetic nature of John Vavasor wasstruck, and, as it were, warmed by this.

  "God bless you; God bless you, my dear fellow. I heartily wishfor her sake that I could look forward to any such an end to thisaffair."

  "And why not look forward to it? You say that he merely wants hermoney. As he wants it let him have it!"

  "But Grey, you do not know Alice; you do not understand my girl. Whenshe had lost her fortune nothing would induce her to become yourwife."

  "Leave that to follow as it may," said John Grey. "Our first objectmust be to sever her from a man, who is, as you say, himself on theverge of ruin; and who would certainly make her wretched. I am herenow, not because I wish her to be my own wife, but because I wishthat she should not become the wife of such a one as your nephew. IfI were you I would let him have her money."

  "If you were I, you would have nothing more to do with it than theman that is as yet unborn. I know that she will give him her moneybecause she has said so; but I have no power as to her giving it oras to her withholding it. That's the hardship of my position--but itis of no use to think of that now."

  John Grey certainly did not think about it. He knew well that Alicewas independent, and that she was not inclined to give up thatindependence to anyone. He had not expected that her father wouldbe able to do much towards hindering his daughter from becoming thewife of George Vavasor, but he had wished that he hims
elf and herfather should be in accord in their views, and he found that thiswas so. When he left Mr. Vavasor's room nothing had been said aboutthe period of the marriage. Grey thought it improbable that Alicewould find herself able to give herself in marriage to her cousinimmediately,--so soon after her breach with him; but as to this hehad no assurance, and he determined to have the facts from her ownlips, if she would see him. So he wrote to her, naming a day on whichhe would call upon her early in the morning; and having receivedfrom her no prohibition, he was in Queen Anne Street at the hourappointed.

  He had conceived a scheme which he had not made known to Mr. Vavasor,and as to the practicability of which he had much doubt; but which,nevertheless, he was resolved to try if he should find the attemptpossible. He himself would buy off George Vavasor. He had ever been aprudent man, and he had money at command. If Vavasor was such a manas they, who knew him best, represented him, such a purchase might bepossible. But then, before this was attempted, he must be quite surethat he knew his man, and he must satisfy himself also that in doingso he would not, in truth, add to Alice's misery. He could hardlybring himself to think it possible that she did, in truth, love hercousin with passionate love. It seemed to him, as he remembered whatAlice had been to himself, that this must be impossible. But if itwere so, that of course must put an end to his interference. Hethought that if he saw her he might learn all this, and therefore hewent to Queen Anne Street.

  "Of course he must come if he will," she said to herself when shereceived his note. "It can make no matter. He will say nothing halfso hard to me as what I say to myself all day long." But when themorning came, and the hour came, and the knock at the door for whichher ears were on the alert, her heart misgave her, and she felt thatthe present moment of her punishment, though not the heaviest, wouldstill be hard to bear.

  He came slowly up-stairs,--his step was ever slow,--and gently openedthe door for himself. Then, before he even looked at her, he closedit again. I do not know how to explain that it was so; but it wasthis perfect command of himself at all seasons which had in part madeAlice afraid of him, and drove her to believe that they were notfitted for each other. She, when he thus turned for a moment fromher, and then walked slowly towards her, stood with both her handsleaning on the centre table of the room, and with her eyes fixed uponits surface.

  "Alice," he said, walking up to her very slowly.

  Her whole frame shuddered as she heard the sweetness of his voice.Had I not better tell the truth of her at once? Oh, if she could onlyhave been his again! What madness during these last six months haddriven her to such a plight as this! The old love came back uponher. Nay; it had never gone. But that trust in his love returned toher,--that trust which told her that such love and such worth wouldhave sufficed to make her happy. But this confidence in him wasworthless now! Even though he should desire it, she could not changeagain.

  "Alice," he said again. And then, as slowly she looked up at him, heasked her for her hand. "You may give it me," he said, "as to an oldfriend." She put her hand in his hand, and then, withdrawing it, feltthat she must never trust herself to do so again.

  "Alice," he continued, "I do not expect you to say much to me; butthere is a question or two which I think you will answer. Has a daybeen fixed for this marriage?"

  "No," she said.

  "Will it be in a month?"

  "Oh, no;--not for a year," she replied hurriedly;--and he knew atonce by her voice that she already dreaded this new wedlock. Whateverof anger he might before have felt for her was banished. She hadbrought herself by her ill-judgement,--by her ignorance, as she hadconfessed,--to a sad pass; but he believed that she was still worthyof his love.

  "And now one other question, Alice;--but if you are silent, I willnot ask it again. Can you tell me why you have again accepted yourcousin's offer?"

  "Because--," she said very quickly, looking up as though she wereabout to speak with all her old courage. "But you would neverunderstand me," she said,--"and there can be no reason why I shoulddare to hope that you should ever think well of me again."

  He knew that there was no love,--no love for that man to whom shehad pledged her hand. He did not know, on the other hand, how strong,how unchanged, how true was her love for himself. Indeed, of himselfhe was thinking not at all. He desired to learn whether she wouldsuffer, if by any scheme he might succeed in breaking off thismarriage. When he had asked her whether she were to be married atonce, she had shuddered at the thought. When he asked her why shehad accepted her cousin, she had faltered, and hinted at some excusewhich he might fail to understand. Had she loved George Vavasor, hecould have understood that well enough.

  "Alice," he said, speaking still very slowly, "nothing has ever yetbeen done which need to a certainty separate you and me. I am apersistent man, and I do not even yet give up all hope. A year is along time. As you say yourself, I do not as yet quite understand you.But, Alice,--and I think that the position in which we stood a fewmonths since justifies me in saying so without offence,--I love younow as well as ever, and should things change with you, I cannot tellyou with how much joy and eagerness I should take you back to mybosom. My heart is yours now as it has been since I knew you."

  Then he again just touched her hand, and left her before she had beenable to answer a word.