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

few minutes," he said. "It is the prettiest spot about Lucerne, and we don't know when we may see it again." So they went in, and sat down on one of the embrasures that open from the cloisters over the lake.

"Probably never again," said Alice. "And yet I have been here now two years running."

She shuddered as she remembered that in that former year George Vavasor had been with her. As she thought of it all she hated herself. Over and over again she had told herself that she had so mismanaged the latter years of her life that it was impossible for her not to hate herself. No woman had a clearer idea of feminine constancy than she had, and no woman had sinned against that idea more deeply. He gave her time to think of all this as he sat there looking down upon the water.

"And yet I would sooner live in Cambridgeshire," were the first words he spoke.

"Why so?"

"Partly because all beauty is best enjoyed when it is sought for with some trouble and difficulty, and partly because such beauty, and the romance which is attached to it, should not make up the staple of one's life. Romance, if it is to come at all, should always come by fits and starts."

"I should like to live in a pretty country."

"And would like to live a romantic life,—no doubt; but all those things lose their charm if they are made common. When a man has to go to Vienna or St. Petersburg two or three times a month, you don't suppose he enjoys travelling?"

"All the same, I should like to live in a pretty country," said Alice.

"And I want you to come and live in a very ugly country." Then he paused for a minute or two, not looking at her, but gazing still on the mountain opposite. She did not speak a word, but looked as he was looking. She knew that the request was coming, and had been thinking about it all night; but now that it had come she did not know how to bear herself. "I don't think," he went on to say, "that you would let that consideration stand in your way, if on other grounds you were willing to become my wife."

"What consideration?"

"Because Nethercoats is not so pretty as Lucerne."

"It would have nothing to do with it," said Alice.

"It should have nothing to do with it."

"Nothing; nothing at all," repeated Alice.

"Will you come, then? Will you come and be my wife, and help me to be happy amidst all that ugliness? Will you come and be my one beautiful thing, my treasure, my joy, my comfort, my counsellor?"

"You want no counsellor, Mr. Grey."

"No man ever wanted one more. Alice, this has been a bad year to me, and I do not think that it has been a happy one for you."

"Indeed, no."

"Let us forget it,—or rather, let us treat it as though it were forgotten. Twelve months ago you were mine. You were, at any rate, so much mine that I had a right to boast of my possession among my friends."

"It was a poor boast."

"They did not seem to think so. I had but one or two to whom I could speak of you, but they told me that I was going to be a happy man. As to myself, I was sure that I was to be so. No man was ever better contented with his bargain than I was with mine. Let us go back to it, and the last twelve months shall be as though they had never been."

"That cannot be, Mr. Grey. If it could, I should be worse even than I am."

"Why cannot it be?"

"Because I cannot forgive myself what I have done, and because you ought not to forgive me."

"But I do. There has never been an hour with me in which there has been an offence of yours rankling in my bosom unforgiven. I think you have been foolish, misguided,—led away by a vain ambition, and that in the difficulty to which these things brought you, you endeavoured to constrain yourself to do an act, which, when it came near to you,—when the doing of it had to be more closely considered, you found to be contrary to your nature." Now, as he spoke thus, she turned her eyes upon him, and looked at him, wondering that he should have had power to read her heart so accurately. "I never believed that you would marry your cousin. When I was told of it, I knew that trouble had blinded you for awhile. You had driven yourself to revolt against me, and upon that your heart misgave you, and you said to yourself that it did not matter then how you might throw away all your sweetness. You see that I speak of your old love for me with the frank conceit of a happy lover."

"No;—no, no!" she ejaculated.

"But the storm passes over the tree and does not tear it up by the roots or spoil it of all its symmetry. When we hear the winds blowing, and see how the poor thing is shaken, we think that its days are numbered and its destruction at hand. Alice, when the winds were shaking you, and you were torn and buffeted, I never thought so. There may be some who will forgive you slowly. Your own self-forgiveness will be slow. But I, who have known you better than any one,—yes, better than any one,—I have forgiven you everything, have forgiven you instantly. Come to me, Alice, and comfort me. Come to me, for I want you sorely." She sat quite still, looking at the lake and the mountain beyond, but she said nothing. What could she say to him? "My need of you is much greater now," he went on to say, "than when I first asked you to share the world with me. Then I could have borne to lose you, as I had never boasted to myself that you were my own,—had never pictured to myself the life that might be mine if you were always to be with me. But since that day I have had no other hope,—no other hope but this for which I plead now. Am I to plead in vain?"

"You do not know me," she said; "how vile I have been! You do not think what it is,—for a woman to have promised herself to one man while she loved another."

"But it was me you loved. Ah! Alice, I can forgive that. Do I not tell you that I did forgive it the moment that I heard it? Do you not hear me say that I never for a moment thought that you would marry him? Alice, you should scold me for my vanity, for I have believed all through that you loved me, and me only. Come to me, dear, and tell me that it is so, and the past shall be only as a dream."

"I am dreaming it always," said Alice.

"They will cease to be bitter dreams if your head be upon my shoulder. You will cease to reproach yourself when you know that you have made me happy."

"I shall never cease to reproach myself. I have done that which no woman can do and honour herself afterwards. I have been—a jilt."

"The noblest jilt that ever yet halted between two minds! There has been no touch of selfishness in your fickleness. I think I could be hard enough upon a woman who had left me for greater wealth, for a higher rank,—who had left me even that she might be gay and merry. It has not been so with you."

"Yes, it has. I thought you were too firm in your own will, and—"

"And you think so still. Is that it?"

"It does not matter what I think now. I am a fallen creature, and have no longer a right to such thoughts. It will be better for us both that you should leave me,—and forget me. There are things which, if a woman does them, should never be forgotten;—which she should never permit herself to forget."

"And am I to be punished, then, because of your fault? Is that your sense of justice?" He got up, and standing before her, looked down upon her. "Alice, if you will tell me that you do not love me, I will believe you, and will trouble you no more. I know that you will say nothing to me that is false. Through it all you have spoken no word of falsehood. If you love me, after what has passed, I have a right to demand your hand. My happiness requires it, and I have a right to expect your compliance. I do demand it. If you love me, Alice, I tell you that you dare not refuse me. If you do so, you will fail hereafter to reconcile it to your conscience before God."

Then he stopped his speech, and waited for a reply; but Alice sat silent beneath his gaze, with her eyes turned upon the tombstones beneath her feet. Of course she had no choice but to yield. He, possessed of power and force infinitely greater than hers, had left her no alternative but to be happy. But there still clung to her what I fear we must call a perverseness of obstinacy, a desire to maintain the resolution she had made,—a wish that she might be allowed to undergo the punishment she had deserved. She was as a prisoner who would fain cling to his prison after pardon has reached him, because he is conscious that the pardon is undeserved. And it may be that there was still left within her bosom some remnant of that feeling of rebellion which his masterful spirit had ever produced in her. He was so imperious in his tranquillity, he argued his question of love with such a manifest preponderance of right on his side, that she had always felt that to yield to him would be to confess the omnipotence of his power. She knew now that she must yield to him,—that his power over her was omnipotent. She was pressed by him as in some countries the prisoner is pressed by the judge,—so pressed that she acknowledged to herself silently that any further antagonism to him was impossible. Nevertheless, the word which she had to speak still remained unspoken, and he stood over her, waiting for her answer. Then slowly he sat down beside her, and gradually he put his arm round her waist. She shrank from him, back against the stonework of the embrasure, but she could not shrink away from his grasp. She put up her hand to impede his, but his hand, like his character and his words, was full of power. It would not be impeded. "Alice," he said, as he pressed her close with his arm, "the battle is over now, and I have won it."

"You win everything,—always," she said, whispering to him, as she still shrank from his embrace.

"In winning you I have won everything." Then he put his face over her and pressed his lips to hers. I wonder whether he was made happier when he knew that no other touch had profaned those lips since last he had pressed them?

 

 

CHAPTER LXXV. Rouge et Noir.
 

Alice insisted on being left up in the churchyard, urging that she wanted to "think about it all," but, in truth, fearing that she might not be able to carry herself well, if she were to walk down with her lover to the hotel. To this he made no objection, and, on reaching the inn, met Mr. Palliser in the hall. Mr. Palliser was already inspecting the arrangement of certain large trunks which had been brought down-stairs, and was preparing for their departure. He was going about the house, with a nervous solicitude to do something, and was flattering himself that he was of use. As he could