DEAR COUSIN,
I have just come home from Scotland, where they have been telling me something of your little troubles. I had little troubles once too, and you were so good to me! Will you come to us here for a few weeks? We shall be here till Christmas-time, when we go somewhere else. I have told my husband that you are a great friend of mine as well as a cousin, and that he must be good to you. He is very quiet, and works very hard at politics; but I think you will like him. Do come! There will be a good many people here, so that you will not find it dull. If you will name the day we will send the carriage for you at Matching Station, and I dare say I can manage to come myself.
Yours affectionately,
G. PALLISER.
P.S. I know what will be in your mind. You will say, why did not she come to me in London? She knew the way to Queen Anne Street well enough. Dear Alice, don"t say that.
Believe me, I had much to do and think of in London. And if I was wrong, yet you will forgive me. Mr. Palliser says I am to give you his love,--as being a cousin,--and say that you must come!
This letter was certainly better than the other, but Alice, on reading it, came to a resolve that she would not accept the invitation. In the first place, even that allusion to her little troubles jarred upon her feelings; and then she thought that her rejection of Mr. Grey could be no special reason why she should go to Matching Priory. Was it not very possible that she had been invited that she might meet Lady Midlothian there, and encounter all the strength of a personal battery from the Countess? Lady Glencora"s letter she would of course answer, but to Lady Midlothian she would not condescend to make any reply whatever.
About eleven o"clock Lady Macleod came down to her. For half-an-hour or so Alice said nothing; nor did Lady Macleod ask any question. She looked inquisitively at Alice, eyeing the letter which was lying by the side of her niece"s workbasket, but she said no word about Mr.
Grey or the Countess. At last Alice spoke.
"Aunt," she said, "I have had a letter this morning from your friend, Lady Midlothian."
"She is my cousin, Alice; and yours as much as mine."
"Your cousin then, aunt. But it is of more moment that she is your friend. She certainly is not mine, nor can her cousinship afford any justification for her interfering in my affairs."
"Alice,--from her position--"
"Her position can be nothing to me, aunt. I will not submit to it.
There is her letter, which you can read if you please. After that you may burn it. I need hardly say that I shall not answer it."
"And what am I to say to her, Alice?"
"Nothing from me, aunt;--from yourself, whatever you please, of course." Then there was silence between them for a few minutes.
"And I have had another letter, from Lady Glencora, who married Mr.
Palliser, and whom I knew in London last spring."
"And has that offended you, too?"
"No, there is no offence in that. She asks me to go and see her at Matching Priory, her husband"s house; but I shall not go."
But at last Alice agreed to pay this visit, and it may be as well to explain here how she was brought to do so. She wrote to Lady Glencora, declining, and explaining frankly that she did decline, because she thought it probable that she might there meet Lady Midlothian. Lady Midlothian, she said, had interfered very unwarrantably in her affairs, and she did not wish to make her acquaintance. To this Lady Glencora replied, post haste, that she had intended no such horrid treachery as that for Alice; that neither would Lady Midlothian be there, nor any of that set; by which Alice knew that Lady Glencora referred specially to her aunt the Marchioness; that no one would be at Matching who could torment Alice, either with right or without it, "except so far as I myself may do so," Lady Glencora said; and then she named an early day in November, at which she would herself undertake to meet Alice at the Matching Station. On receipt of this letter, Alice, after two days"
doubt, accepted the invitation.
CHAPTER XIX.
Tribute from Oileymead.
Kate Vavasor, in writing to her cousin Alice, felt some little difficulty in excusing herself for remaining in Norfolk with Mrs.
Greenow. She had laughed at Mrs. Greenow before she went to Yarmouth, and had laughed at herself for going there. And in all her letters since, she had spoken of her aunt as a silly, vain, worldly woman, weeping crocodile tears, for an old husband whose death had released her from the tedium of his company, and spreading lures to catch new lovers. But yet she agreed to stay with her aunt, and remain with her in lodgings at Norwich for a month.
But Mrs. Greenow had about her something more than Kate had acknowledged when she first attempted to read her aunt"s character.
She was clever, and in her own way persuasive. She was very generous, and possessed a certain power of making herself pleasant to those around her. In asking Kate to stay with her she had so asked as to make it appear that Kate was to confer the favour. She had told her niece that she was all alone in the world. "I have money," she had said, with more appearance of true feeling than Kate had observed before. "I have money, but I have nothing else in the world. I have no home. Why should I not remain here in Norfolk, where I know a few people? If you"ll say that you"ll go anywhere else with me, I"ll go to any place you"ll name." Kate had believed this to be hardly true.
She had felt sure that her aunt wished to remain in the neighbourhood of her seaside admirers; but, nevertheless, she had yielded, and at the end of October the two ladies, with Jeannette, settled themselves in comfortable lodgings within the precincts of the Close at Norwich.
Mr. Greenow at this time had been dead very nearly six months, but his widow made some mistakes in her dates and appeared to think that the interval had been longer. On the day of their arrival at Norwich it was evident that this error had confirmed itself in her mind. "Only think," she said, as she unpacked a little miniature of the departed one, and sat with it for a moment in her hands, as she pressed her handkerchief to her eyes, "only think, that it is barely nine months since he was with me?"
"Six, you mean, aunt," said Kate, unadvisedly.
"Only nine months" repeated Mrs. Greenow, as though she had not heard her niece. "Only nine months!" After that Kate attempted to correct no more such errors. "It happened in May, Miss," Jeannette said afterwards to Miss Vavasor, "and that, as we reckons, it will be just a twelvemonth come Christmas." But Kate paid no attention to this.
And Jeannette was very ungrateful, and certainly should have indulged herself in no such sarcasms. When Mrs. Greenow made a slight change in her mourning, which she did on her arrival at Norwich, using a little lace among her c.r.a.pes, Jeannette reaped a rich harvest in gifts of clothes. Mrs. Greenow knew well enough that she expected more from a servant than mere service;--that she wanted loyalty, discretion, and perhaps sometimes a little secrecy;--and as she paid for these things, she should have had them.
Kate undertook to stay a month with her aunt at Norwich, and Mrs.
Greenow undertook that Mr. Cheesacre should declare himself as Kate"s lover, before the expiration of the month. It was in vain that Kate protested that she wanted no such lover, and that she would certainly reject him if he came. "That"s all very well, my dear," Aunt Greenow would say. "A girl must settle herself some day, you know;--and you"d have it all your own way at Oileymead."
But the offer certainly showed much generosity on the part of Aunt Greenow, inasmuch as Mr. Cheesacre"s attentions were apparently paid to herself rather than to her niece. Mr. Cheesacre was very attentive.
He had taken the lodgings in the Close, and had sent over fowls and cream from Oileymead, and had called on the morning after their arrival; but in all his attentions he distinguished the aunt more particularly than the niece. "I am all for Mr. Cheesacre, Miss,"
said Jeannette once. "The Captain is perhaps the nicerer-looking gentleman, and he ain"t so podgy like; but what"s good looks if a gentleman hasn"t got nothing? I can"t abide anything that"s poor; neither can"t Missus." From which it was evident that Jeannette gave Miss Vavasor no credit in having Mr. Cheesacre in her train.
Captain Bellfield was also at Norwich, having obtained some quasi-military employment there in the matter of drilling volunteers.
Certain capacities in that line it may be supposed that he possessed, and, as his friend Cheesacre said of him, he was going to earn an honest penny once in his life. The Captain and Mr. Cheesacre had made up any little differences that had existed between them at Yarmouth, and were close allies again when they left that place. Some little compact on matters of business must have been arranged between them,--for the Captain was in funds again. He was in funds again through the liberality of his friend,--and no payment of former loans had been made, nor had there been any speech of such. Mr. Cheesacre had drawn his purse-strings liberally, and had declared that if all went well the hospitality of Oileymead should not be wanting during the winter. Captain Bellfield had nodded his head and declared that all should go well.
"You won"t see much of the Captain, I suppose," said Mr. Cheesacre to Mrs. Greenow on the morning of the day after her arrival at Norwich.
He had come across the whole way from Oileymead to ask her if she found herself comfortable,--and perhaps with an eye to the Norwich markets at the same time. He now wore a pair of black riding boots over his trousers, and a round topped hat, and looked much more at home than he had done by the seaside.
"Not much, I dare say," said the widow. "He tells me that he must be on duty ten or twelve hours a day. Poor fellow!"
"It"s a deuced good thing for him, and he ought to be very much obliged to me for putting him in the way of getting it. But he told me to tell you that if he didn"t call, you were not to be angry with him."
"Oh, no;--I shall remember, of course."
"You see, if he don"t work now he must come to grief. He hasn"t got a shilling that he can call his own."
"Hasn"t he really?"
"Not a shilling, Mrs. Greenow;--and then he"s awfully in debt. He isn"t a bad fellow, you know, only there"s no trusting him for anything." Then after a few further inquiries that were almost tender, and a promise of further supplies from the dairy, Mr.
Cheesacre took his leave, almost forgetting to ask after Miss Vavasor.
But as he left the house he had a word to say to Jeannette. "He hasn"t been here, has he, Jenny?" "We haven"t seen a sight of him yet, sir,--and I have thought it a little odd." Then Mr. Cheesacre gave the girl half-a-crown, and went his way. Jeannette, I think, must have forgotten that the Captain had looked in after leaving his military duties on the preceding evening.
The Captain"s ten or twelve hours of daily work was performed, no doubt, at irregular intervals,--some days late and some days early,--for he might be seen about Norwich almost at all times, during the early part of that November;--and he might be very often seen going into the Close. In Norwich there are two weekly market-days, but on those days the Captain was no doubt kept more entirely to his military employment, for at such times he never was seen near the Close. Now Mr. Cheesacre"s visits to the town were generally made on market-days, and so it happened that they did not meet. On such occasions Mr. Cheesacre always was driven to Mrs. Greenow"s door in a cab,--for he would come into town by railway,--and he would deposit a basket bearing the rich produce of his dairy. It was in vain that Mrs. Greenow protested against these gifts,--for she did protest and declared that if they were continued, they would be sent back. They were, however, continued, and Mrs.
Greenow was at her wits" end about them. Cheesacre would not come up with them; but leaving them, would go about his business, and would return to see the ladies. On such occasions he would be very particular in getting his basket from Jeannette. As he did so he would generally ask some question about the Captain, and Jeannette would give him answers confidentially,--so that there was a strong friendship between these two.
"What am I to do about it?" said Mrs. Greenow, as Kate came into the sitting-room one morning, and saw on the table a small hamper lined with a clean cloth. "It"s as much as Jeannette has been able to carry."
"So it is, ma"am,--quite; and I"m strong in the arm, too, ma"am."
"What am I to do, Kate? He is such a good creature."