Can You Forgive Her?, Anthony Trollope [simple ebook reader TXT] 📗

She asked herself the question, and did not answer it; but still she felt that it might not be so. She had no right to such happiness after the evil that she had done. She had been driven by a frenzy to do that which she herself could not pardon; and having done it, she could not bring herself to accept the position which should have been the reward of good conduct. She could not analyse the causes which made her feel that she must still refuse the love that was proffered to her; she could not clearly read her own thoughts; but the causes were as I have said, and such was the true reading of her thoughts. Had she simply refused his hand after she had once accepted it,—had she refused it, and then again changed her mind, she could have brought herself to ask him to forgive her. But she had done so much more than this, and so much worse! She had affianced herself to another man since she had belonged to him,—since she had been his, as his future wife. What must he not think of her, and what not suspect? Then she remembered those interviews which she had had with her cousin since she had written to him, accepting his offer. When he had been with her in Queen Anne Street she had shrunk from all outward signs of a love which she did not feel. There had been no caress between them. She had not allowed him to touch her with his lips. But it was impossible that the nature of that mad engagement between her and her cousin George should ever be made known to Mr. Grey. She sat there wiping the tears from her eyes as she looked for his figure among the figures by the lake-side; but, as she sat there, she promised herself no happiness from his coming. Oh! reader, can you forgive her in that she had sinned against the softness of her feminine nature? I think that she may be forgiven, in that she had never brought herself to think lightly of her own fault.

If he were there, by the lake-side, she did not see him. I think we may say that John Grey was not a man to console himself in his love by looking up at his lady's candle. He was one who was capable of doing as much as most men in the pursuit of his love,—as he proved to be the case when he followed Alice to Cheltenham, and again to London, and now again to Lucerne; but I doubt whether a glimmer from her bedroom-window, had it been unmistakably her own glimmer, and not that of some ugly old French woman who might chance to sleep next to her, would have done him much good. He had come to Lucerne with a purpose, which purpose, if it might be possible, he meant to carry out; but I think he was already in bed, being tired with long travel, before Lady Glencora had left Alice's room.

At breakfast the next morning nothing was said for a while about the new arrival. At last Mr. Palliser ventured to speak. "Glencora has told you, I think, that Mr. Grey is here? Mr. Grey is an old friend of yours, I believe?"

Alice, keeping her countenance as well as she was able, said Mr. Grey had been, and, indeed, was, a very dear friend of hers. Mr. Palliser knew the whole story, and what was the use of any little attempt at dissimulation? "I shall be glad to see him,—if you will allow me?" she went on to say.

"Glencora suggests that we should ask him to dinner," said Mr. Palliser; and then that matter was settled.

But Mr. Grey did not wait till dinner-time to see Alice. Early in the morning his card was brought up, and Lady Glencora, as soon as she saw the name, immediately ran away.

"Indeed you need not go," said Alice.

"Indeed I shall go," said her ladyship. "I know what's proper on these occasions, if you don't."

So she went, whisking herself along the passages with a little run; and Mr. Grey, as he was shown into her ladyship's usual sitting-room, saw the skirt of her ladyship's dress as she whisked herself off towards her husband.

"I told you I should come," he said, with his ordinary sweet smile. "I told you that I should follow you, and here I am."

He took her hand, and held it, pressing it warmly. She hardly knew with what words first to address him, or how to get her hand back from him.

"I am very glad to see you,—as an old friend," she said; "but I hope—"

"Well;—you hope what?"

"I hope you have had some better cause for travelling than a desire to see me?"

"No, dearest; no. I have had no better cause, and, indeed, none other. I have come on purpose to see you; and had Mr. Palliser taken you off to Asia or Africa, I think I should have felt myself compelled to follow him. You know why I follow you?"

"Hardly," said she,—not finding at the moment any other word that she could say.

"Because I love you. You see what a plain-spoken John Bull I am, and how I come to the point at once. I want you to be my wife; and they say that perseverance is the best way when a man has such a want as that."

"You ought not to want it," she said, whispering the words as though she were unable to speak them out loud.

"But I do, you see. And why should I not want it?"

"I am not fit to be your wife."

"I am the best judge of that, Alice. You have to make up your mind whether I am fit to be your husband."

"You would be disgraced if you were to take me, after all that has passed;—after what I have done. What would other men say of you when they knew the story?"

"Other men, I hope, would be just enough to say, that when I had made up my mind, I was tolerably constant in keeping to it. I do not think they could say much worse of me than that."

"They would say that you had been jilted, and had forgiven the jilt."

"As far as the forgiveness goes, they would tell the truth. But, indeed, Alice, I don't very much care what men do say of me."

"But I care, Mr. Grey;—and though you may forgive me, I cannot forgive myself. Indeed I know now, as I have known all along, that I am not fit to be your wife. I am not good enough. And I have done that which makes me feel that I have no right to marry anyone." These words she said, jerking out the different sentences almost in convulsions; and when she had come to the end of them, the tears were streaming down her cheeks. "I have thought about it, and I will not. I will not. After what has passed, I know that it will be better,—more seemly, that I should remain as I am."

Soon after that she left him, not, however, till she had told him that she would meet him again at dinner, and had begged him to treat her simply as a friend. "In spite of everything, I hope that we may always be friends,—dear friends," she said.

"I hope we may," he answered;—"the very dearest." And then he left her.

In the afternoon he again encountered Mr. Palliser, and having thought over the matter since his interview with Alice, he resolved to tell his whole story to his new acquaintance,—not in order that he might ask for counsel from him, for in this matter he wanted no man's advice,—but that he might get some assistance. So the two men walked off