"Where do you want to run to?"
"Well;--that wouldn"t much signify. Perhaps I"d go to the little inn at Handek. It"s a lonely place, where n.o.body would hear of me,--and I should have the waterfall. I"m afraid they"d want to have their bill paid. That would be the worst of it."
"But why run away just now?"
"I won"t, because you wouldn"t like going home with George alone,--and I suppose he"d be bound to look after me, as he"s doing now. I wonder what he thinks of having to walk over the bridge after us girls. I suppose he"d be in that place down there drinking beer, if we weren"t here."
"If he wanted to go, I dare say he would, in spite of us."
"That"s ungrateful of you, for I"m sure we"ve never been kept in a moment by his failing us. But as I was saying, I do dread going home.
You are going to John Grey, which may be pleasant enough; but I"m going--to Aunt Greenow."
"It"s your own choice."
"No, it"s not. I haven"t any choice in the matter. Of course I might refuse to speak to Aunt Greenow, and n.o.body could make me;--but practically I haven"t any choice in the matter. Fancy a month at Yarmouth with no companion but such a woman as that!"
"I shouldn"t mind it. Aunt Greenow always seems to me to be a very good sort of woman."
"She may be a good woman, but I must say I think she"s of a bad sort.
You"ve never heard her talk about her husband?"
"No, never; I think she did cry a little the first day she came to Queen Anne Street, but that wasn"t unnatural."
"He was thirty years older than herself."
"But still he was her husband. And even if her tears are a.s.sumed, what of that? What"s a woman to do? Of course she was wrong to marry him. She was thirty-five, and had nothing, while he was sixty-five, and was very rich. According to all accounts she made him a very good wife, and now that she"s got all his money, you wouldn"t have her go about laughing within three months of his death."
"No; I wouldn"t have her laugh; but neither would I have her cry.
And she"s quite right to wear weeds; but she needn"t be so very outrageous in the depth of her hems, or so very careful that her caps are becoming. Her eyes will be worn out by their double service. They are always red with weeping, and yet she is ready every minute with a full battery of execution for any man that she sees."
"Then why have you consented to go to Yarmouth with her?"
"Just because she"s got forty thousand pounds. If Mr. Greenow had left her with a bare maintenance I don"t suppose I should ever have held out my hand to her."
"Then you"re as bad as she is."
"Quite as bad;--and that"s what makes me want to run away. But it isn"t my own fault altogether. It"s the fault of the world at large.
Does anybody ever drop their rich relatives? When she proposed to take me to Yarmouth, wasn"t it natural that the squire should ask me to go? When I told George, wasn"t it natural that he should say, "Oh, go by all means. She"s got forty thousand pounds!" One can"t pretend to be wiser or better than one"s relatives. And after all what can I expect from her money?"
"Nothing, I should say."
"Not a halfpenny. I"m nearly thirty and she"s only forty, and of course she"ll marry again. I will say of myself, too, that no person living cares less for money."
"I should think no one."
"Yet one sticks to one"s rich relatives. It"s the way of the world."
Then she paused a moment. "But shall I tell you, Alice, why I do stick to her? Perhaps you"ll think the object as mean as though I wanted her money myself."
"Why is it?"
"Because it is on the cards that she may help George in his career. I do not want money, but he may. And for such purposes as his, I think it fair that all the family should contribute. I feel sure that he would make a name for himself in Parliament; and if I had my way I would spend every shilling of Vavasor money in putting him there.
When I told the squire so I thought he would have eaten me. I really did think he would have turned me out of the house."
"And serve you right too after what had happened."
"I didn"t care. Let him turn me out. I was determined he should know what I thought. He swore at me; and then he was so unhappy at what he had done that he came and kissed me that night in my bedroom, and gave me a ten-pound note. What do you think I did with it? I sent it as a contribution to the next election and George has it now locked up in a box. Don"t you tell him that I told you."
Then they stopped and leaned for a while over the parapet of the bridge. "Come here, George," said Kate; and she made room for him between herself and Alice. "Wouldn"t you like to be swimming down there as those boys were doing when we went out into the balcony? The water looks so enticing."
"I can"t say I should;--unless it might be a pleasant way of swimming into the next world."
"I should so like to feel myself going with the stream," said Kate; "particularly by this light. I can"t fancy in the least that I should be drowned."
"I can"t fancy anything else," said Alice.
"It would be so pleasant to feel the water gliding along one"s limbs, and to be carried away headlong,--knowing that you were on the direct road to Rotterdam."
"And so arrive there without your clothes," said George.
"They would be brought after in a boat. Didn"t you see that those boys had a boat with them? But if I lived here, I"d never do it except by moonlight. The water looks so clear and bright now, and the rushing sound of it is so soft! The sea at Yarmouth won"t be anything like that I suppose."
Neither of them any longer answered her, and yet she went on talking about the river, and their aunt, and her prospects at Yarmouth.
Neither of them answered her, and yet it seemed that they had not a word to say to each other. But still they stood there looking down upon the river, and every now and then Kate"s voice was to be heard, preventing the feeling which might otherwise have arisen that their hearts were too full for speech.
At last Alice seemed to shiver. There was a slight trembling in her arms, which George felt rather than saw. "You are cold," he said.
"No indeed."
"If you are let us go in. I thought you shivered with the night air."
"It wasn"t that. I was thinking of something. Don"t you ever think of things that make you shiver?"
"Indeed I do, very often;--so often that I have to do my shiverings inwardly. Otherwise people would think I had the palsy."
"I don"t mean things of moment," said Alice. "Little bits of things make me do it;--perhaps a word that I said and ought not to have said ten years ago;--the most ordinary little mistakes, even my own past thoughts to myself about the merest trifles. They are always making me shiver."
"It"s not because you have committed any murder then."
"No; but it"s my conscience all the same, I suppose."
"Ah! I"m not so good as you. I doubt it"s not my conscience at all.
When I think of a chance I"ve let go by, as I have thousands, then it is that I shiver. But, as I tell you, I shiver inwardly. I"ve been in one long shiver ever since we came out because of one chance that I let go by. Come, we"ll go in. We"ve to be up at five o"clock, and now it"s eleven. I"ll do the rest of my shivering in bed."
"Are you tired of being out?" said Kate, when the other two began to move.
"Not tired of being out, but George reminds me that we have to be up at five."
"I wish George would hold his tongue. We can"t come to the bridge at Basle every night in our lives. If one found oneself at the top of Sinai I"m afraid the first feeling would be one of fear lest one wouldn"t be down in time to dress for dinner. Are you aware, George, that the king of rivers is running beneath your feet, and that the moon is shining with a brilliance you never see at home?"