"I was grieved. I must confess that I never could understand why you treated Mr. Grey as you have done."
"Oh, papa, that"s done and past. Pray let that be among the bygones."
"Does he know yet of your engagement with your cousin?"
"He will know it by this time to-morrow."
"Then I beg of you, as a great favour, to postpone your letter to him." To this Alice made no answer. "I have not troubled you with many such requests, Alice. Will you tell me that this one shall be granted?"
"I think that I owe it to him as an imperative duty to let him know the truth."
"But you may change your mind again." Alice found that this was hard to bear and hard to answer; but there was a certain amount of truth in the grievous reproach conveyed in her father"s words, which made her bow her neck to it. "I have no right to say that it is impossible," she replied, in words that were barely audible.
"No;--exactly so," said her father. "And therefore it will be better that you should postpone any such communication."
"For how long do you mean?"
"Till you and I shall have agreed together that he should be told."
"No, papa; I will not consent to that. I consider myself bound to let him know the truth without delay. I have done him a great injury, and I must put an end to that as soon as possible."
"You have done him an injury certainly, my dear;--a very great injury," said Mr. Vavasor, going away from his object about the proposed letter; "and I believe he will feel it as such to the last day of his life, if this goes on."
"I hope not. I believe that it will not be so. I feel sure that it will not be so."
"But of course what I am thinking of now is your welfare,--not his.
When you simply told me that you intended to--." Alice winced, for she feared to hear from her father that odious word which her grandfather had used to her; and indeed the word had been on her father"s lips, but he had refrained and spared her--"that you intended to break your engagement with Mr. Grey," he continued, "I said little or nothing to you. I would not ask you to marry any man, even though you had yourself promised to marry him. But when you tell me that you are engaged to your cousin George, the matter is very different. I do not think well of your cousin. Indeed I think anything but well of him. It is my duty to tell you that the world speaks very ill of him." He paused, but Alice remained silent. "When you were about to travel with him," he continued, "I ought perhaps to have told you the same. But I did not wish to pain you or his sister; and, moreover, I have heard worse of him since then,--much worse than I had heard before."
"As you did not tell me before, I think you might spare me now," said Alice.
"No, my dear; I cannot allow you to sacrifice yourself without telling you that you are doing so. If it were not for your money he would never think of marrying you."
"Of that I am well aware," said Alice. "He has told me so himself very plainly."
"And yet you will marry him?"
"Certainly I will. It seems to me, papa, that there is a great deal of false feeling about this matter of money in marriage,--or rather, perhaps, a great deal of pretended feeling. Why should I be angry with a man for wishing to get that for which every man is struggling?
At this point of George"s career the use of money is essential to him. He could not marry without it."
"You had better then give him your money without yourself," said her father, speaking in irony.
"That is just what I mean to do, papa," said Alice.
"What!" said Mr. Vavasor, jumping up from his seat. "You mean to give him your money before you marry him?"
"Certainly I do;--if he should want it;--or, I should rather say, as much as he may want of it."
"Heavens and earth!" exclaimed Mr. Vavasor. "Alice, you must be mad."
"To part with my money to my friend?" said she. "It is a kind of madness of which I need not at any rate be ashamed."
"Tell me this, Alice; has he got any of it as yet?"
"Not a shilling. Papa, pray do not look at me like that. If I had no thought of marrying him you would not call me mad because I lent to my cousin what money he might need."
"I should only say that so much of your fortune was thrown away, and if it were not much that would be an end of it. I would sooner see you surrender to him the half of all you have, without any engagement to marry him, than know that he had received a shilling from you under such a promise."
"You are prejudiced against him, sir."
"Was it prejudice that made you reject him once before? Did you condemn him then through prejudice? Had you not ascertained that he was altogether unworthy of you?"
"We were both younger, then," said Alice, speaking very softly, but very seriously. "We were both much younger then, and looked at life with other eyes than those which we now use. For myself I expected much then, which I now seem hardly to regard at all; and as for him, he was then attached to pleasures to which I believe he has now learned to be indifferent."
"Psha!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the father.
"I can only speak as I believe," continued Alice. "And I think I may perhaps know more of his manner of life than you do, papa. But I am prepared to run risks now which I feared before. Even though he were all that you think him to be, I would still endeavour to do my duty to him, and to bring him to other things."
"What is it you expect to get by marrying him?" asked Mr. Vavasor.
"A husband whose mode of thinking is congenial to my own," answered Alice. "A husband who proposes to himself a career in life with which I can sympathize. I think that I may perhaps help my cousin in the career which he has chosen, and that alone is a great reason why I should attempt to do so."
"With your money?" said Mr. Vavasor with a sneer.
"Partly with my money," said Alice, disdaining to answer the sneer.
"Though it were only with my money, even that would be something."
"Well, Alice, as your father, I can only implore you to pause before you commit yourself to his hands. If he demands money from you, and you are minded to give it to him, let him have it in moderation.
Anything will be better than marrying him. I know that I cannot hinder you; you are as much your own mistress as I am my own master,--or rather a great deal more, as my income depends on my going to that horrid place in Chancery Lane. But yet I suppose you must think something of your father"s wishes and your father"s opinion. It will not be pleasant for you to stand at the altar without my being there near you."
To this Alice made no answer; but she told herself that it had not been pleasant to her to have stood at so many places during the last four years,--and to have found herself so often alone,--without her father being near to her. That had been his fault, and it was not now in her power to remedy the ill-effects of it.
"Has any day been fixed between you and him?" he asked.
"No, papa."
"Nothing has been said about that?"
"Yes; something has been said. I have told him that it cannot be for a year yet. It is because I told him that, that I told him also that he should have my money when he wanted it."
"Not all of it?" said Mr. Vavasor.
"I don"t suppose he will need it all. He intends to stand again for Chelsea, and it is the great expense of the election which makes him want money. You are not to suppose that he has asked me for it.
When I made him understand that I did not wish to marry quite yet, I offered him the use of that which would be ultimately his own."
"And he has accepted it?"
"He answered me just as I had intended,--that when the need came he would take me at my word."
"Then, Alice, I will tell you what is my belief. He will drain you of every shilling of your money, and when that is gone, there will be no more heard of the marriage. We must take a small house in some cheap part of the town and live on my income as best we may. I shall go and insure my life, so that you may not absolutely starve when I die." Having said this, Mr. Vavasor went away, not immediately to the insurance office, as his words seemed to imply, but to his club where he sat alone, reading the newspaper, very gloomily, till the time came for his afternoon rubber of whist, and the club dinner bill for the day was brought under his eye.