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<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
<h3>Lady Macleod.<br/> </h3>
<p>I cannot say that the house in Queen Anne Street was a pleasant
house. I am now speaking of the material house, made up of the walls
and furniture, and not of any pleasantness or unpleasantness supplied
by the inmates. It was a small house on the south side of the street,
squeezed in between two large mansions which seemed to crush it, and
by which its fair proportion of doorstep and area was in truth
curtailed. The stairs were narrow; the dining-room was dark, and
possessed none of those appearances of plenteous hospitality which a
dining-room should have. But all this would have been as nothing if
the drawing-room had been pretty as it is the bounden duty of all
drawing-rooms to be. But Alice Vavasor's drawing-room was not pretty.
Her father had had the care of furnishing the house, and he had
intrusted the duty to a tradesman who had chosen green paper, a green
carpet, green curtains, and green damask chairs. There was a green
damask sofa, and two green arm-chairs opposite to each other at the
two sides of the fireplace. The room was altogether green, and was
not enticing. In shape it was nearly square, the very small back room
on the same floor not having been, as is usual, added to it. This had
been fitted up as a "study" for Mr. Vavasor, and was very rarely used
for any purpose.</p>
<p>Most of us know when we enter a drawing-room whether it is a pretty
room or no; but how few of us know how to make a drawing-room pretty!
There has come up in London in these latter days a form of room so
monstrously ugly that I will venture to say that no other people on
earth but Londoners would put up with it. Londoners, as a rule, take
their houses as they can get them, looking only to situation, size,
and price. What Grecian, what Roman, what Turk, what Italian would
endure, or would ever have endured, to use a room with a monstrous
cantle in the form of a parallelogram cut sheerly out of one corner
of it? This is the shape of room we have now adopted,—or rather
which the builders have adopted for us,—in order to throw the whole
first floor into one apartment which may be presumed to have noble
dimensions,—with such drawback from it as the necessities of the
staircase may require. A sharp unadorned corner projects itself into
these would-be noble dimensions, and as ugly a form of chamber is
produced as any upon which the eye can look. I would say more on the
subject if I dared to do so here, but I am bound now to confine
myself to Miss Vavasor's room. The monstrous deformity of which I
have spoken was not known when that house in Queen Anne Street was
built. There is to be found no such abomination of shape in the
buildings of our ancestors,—not even in the days of George the
Second. But yet the drawing-room of which I speak was ugly, and Alice
knew that it was so. She knew that it was ugly, and she would greatly
have liked to banish the green sofa, to have re-papered the wall, and
to have hung up curtains with a dash of pink through them. With the
green carpet she would have been contented. But her father was an
extravagant man; and from the day on which she had come of age she
had determined that it was her special duty to avoid extravagance.</p>
<p>"It's the ugliest room I ever saw in my life," her father once said
to her.</p>
<p>"It is not very pretty," Alice replied.</p>
<p>"I'll go halves with you in the expense of redoing it," said Mr..
Vavasor.</p>
<p>"Wouldn't that be extravagant, papa? The things have not been here
quite four years yet."</p>
<p>Then Mr. Vavasor had shrugged his shoulders and said nothing more
about it. It was little to him whether the drawing-room in Queen Anne
Street was ugly or pretty. He was on the committee of his club, and
he took care that the furniture there should be in all respects
comfortable.</p>
<p>It was now June; and that month Lady Macleod was in the habit of
spending among her noble relatives in London when she had succeeded
in making both ends so far overlap each other at Cheltenham as to
give her the fifty pounds necessary for this purpose. For though she
spent her month in London among her noble friends, it must not be
supposed that her noble friends gave her bed or board. They sometimes
gave her tea, such as it was, and once or twice in the month they
gave the old lady a second-rate dinner. On these occasions she hired
a little parlour and bedroom behind it in King Street, Saint James's,
and lived a hot, uncomfortable life, going about at nights to
gatherings of fashionable people of which she in her heart
disapproved, seeking for smiles which seldom came to her, and which
she excused herself for desiring because they were the smiles of her
kith and her kin, telling herself always that she made this vain
journey to the modern Babylon for the good of Alice Vavasor, and
telling herself as often that she now made it for the last time. On
the occasion of her preceding visit she had reminded herself that she
was then seventy-five years old, and had sworn to herself that she
would come to London no more; but here she was again in London,
having justified the journey to herself on the plea that there were
circumstances in Alice's engagement which made it desirable that she
should for a while be near her niece. Her niece, as she thought, was
hardly managing her own affairs discreetly.</p>
<p>"Well, aunt," said Alice, as the old lady walked into the
drawing-room one morning at eleven o'clock. Alice always called Lady
Macleod her aunt, though, as has been before explained, there was no
such close connexion between them. During Lady Macleod's sojourn in
London these morning visits were made almost every day. Alice never
denied herself, and even made a point of remaining at home to receive
them unless she had previously explained that she would be out; but I
am not prepared to say that they were, of their own nature, agreeable
to her.</p>
<p>"Would you mind shutting the window, my dear?" said Lady Macleod,
seating herself stiffly on one of the small ugly green chairs. She
had been educated at a time when easy-chairs were considered vicious,
and among people who regarded all easy postures as being so; and she
could still boast, at seventy-six, that she never leaned back. "Would
you mind shutting the window? I'm so warm that I'm afraid of the
draught."</p>
<ANTIMG src="images/ill02-t.jpg" height-obs="500" alt='"Would you mind shutting the window?"' />
<p>"You don't mean to say that you've walked from King Street," said
Alice, doing as she was desired.</p>
<p>"Indeed I do,—every step of the way. Cabs are so ruinous. It's a
most unfortunate thing; they always say it's just over the two miles
here. I don't believe a word of it, because I'm only a little more
than the half-hour walking it; and those men will say anything. But
how can I prove it, you know?"</p>
<p>"I really think it's too far for you to walk when it's so warm."</p>
<p>"But what can I do, my dear? I must come, when I've specially come up
to London to see you. I shall have a cab back again, because it'll be
hotter then, and dear Lady Midlothian has promised to send her
carriage at three to take me to the concert. I do so wish you'd go,
Alice."</p>
<p>"It's out of the question, aunt. The idea of my going in that way at
the last moment, without any invitation!"</p>
<p>"It wouldn't be without an invitation, Alice. The marchioness has
said to me over and over again how glad she would be to see you, if I
would bring you."</p>
<p>"Why doesn't she come and call if she is so anxious to know me?"</p>
<p>"My dear, you've no right to expect it; you haven't indeed. She never
calls even on me."</p>
<p>"I know I've no right, and I don't expect it, and I don't want it.
But neither has she a right to suppose that, under such
circumstances, I shall go to her house. You might as well give it up,
aunt. Cart ropes wouldn't drag me there."</p>
<p>"I think you are very wrong,—particularly under your present
circumstances. A young woman that is going to be married, as you
<span class="nowrap">are—"</span></p>
<p>"As I am,—perhaps."</p>
<p>"That's nonsense, Alice. Of course you are; and for his sake you are
bound to cultivate any advantages that naturally belong to you. As to
Lady Midlothian or the marchioness coming to call on you here in your
father's house, after all that has passed, you really have no right
to look for it."</p>
<p>"And I don't look for it."</p>
<p>"That sort of people are not expected to call. If you'll think of it,
how could they do it with all the demands they have on their time?"</p>
<p>"My dear aunt, I wouldn't interfere with their time for worlds."</p>
<p>"Nobody can say of me, I'm sure, that I run after great people or
rich people. It does happen that some of the nearest relations I
have,—indeed I may say the nearest relations,—are people of high
rank; and I do not see that I'm bound to turn away from my own flesh
and blood because of that, particularly when they are always so
anxious to keep up the connexion."</p>
<p>"I was only speaking of myself, aunt. It is very different with you.
You have known them all your life."</p>
<p>"And how are you to know them if you won't begin? Lady Midlothian
said to me only yesterday that she was glad to hear that you were
going to be married so respectably, and
<span class="nowrap">then—"</span></p>
<p>"Upon my word I'm very much obliged to her ladyship. I wonder whether
she considered that she married respectably when she took Lord
Midlothian?"</p>
<p>Now Lady Midlothian had been unfortunate in her marriage, having
united herself to a man of bad character, who had used her ill, and
from whom she had now been for some years separated. Alice might have
spared her allusion to this misfortune when speaking of the countess
to the cousin who was so fond of her, but she was angered by the
application of that odious word respectable to her own prospects; and
perhaps the more angered as she was somewhat inclined to feel that
the epithet did suit her own position. Her engagement, she had
sometimes told herself, was very respectable, and had as often told
herself that it lacked other attractions which it should have
possessed. She was not quite pleased with herself in having accepted
John Grey,—or rather perhaps was not satisfied with herself in
having loved him. In her many thoughts on the subject, she always
admitted to herself that she had accepted him simply because she
loved him;—that she had given her quick assent to his quick proposal
simply because he had won her heart. But she was sometimes almost
angry with herself that she had permitted her heart to be thus easily
taken from her, and had rebuked herself for her girlish facility. But
the marriage would be at any rate respectable. Mr. Grey was a man of
high character, of good though moderate means; he was, too, well
educated, of good birth, a gentleman, and a man of talent. No one
could deny that the marriage would be highly respectable, and her
father had been more than satisfied. Why Miss Vavasor herself was not
quite satisfied will, I hope, in time make itself appear. In the
meanwhile it can be understood that Lady Midlothian's praise would
gall her.</p>
<p>"Alice, don't be uncharitable," said Lady Macleod severely. "Whatever
may have been Lady Midlothian's misfortunes no one can say they have
resulted from her own fault."</p>
<p>"Yes they can, aunt, if she married a man whom she knew to be a
scapegrace because he was very rich and an earl."</p>
<p>"She was the daughter of a nobleman herself, and only married in her
own degree. But I don't want to discuss that. She meant to be
good-natured when she mentioned your marriage, and you should take it
as it was meant. After all she was only your mother's second
<span class="nowrap">cousin—"</span></p>
<p>"Dear aunt, I make no claim on her cousinship."</p>
<p>"But she admits the claim, and is quite anxious that you should know
her. She has been at the trouble to find out everything about Mr..
Grey, and told me that nothing could be more satisfactory."</p>
<p>"Upon my word I am very much obliged to her."</p>
<p>Lady Macleod was a woman of much patience, and possessed also of
considerable perseverance. For another half-hour she went on
expatiating on the advantages which would accrue to Alice as a
married woman from an acquaintance with her noble relatives, and
endeavouring to persuade her that no better opportunity than the
present would present itself. There would be a place in Lady
Midlothian's carriage, as none other of the daughters were going but
Lady Jane. Lady Midlothian would take it quite as a compliment, and a
concert was not like a ball or any customary party. An unmarried girl
might very properly go to a concert under such circumstances as now
existed without any special invitation. Lady Macleod ought to have
known her adopted niece better. Alice was immoveable. As a matter of
course she was immoveable. Lady Macleod had seldom been able to
persuade her to anything, and ought to have been well sure that, of
all things, she could not have persuaded her to this.</p>
<p>Then, at last, they came to another subject, as to which Lady Macleod
declared that she had specially come on this special morning,
forgetting, probably, that she had already made the same assertion
with reference to the concert. But in truth the last assertion was
the correct one, and on that other subject she had been hurried on to
say more than she meant by the eagerness of the moment. All the
morning she had been full of the matter on which she was now about to
speak. She had discussed it quite at length with Lady
Midlothian;—though she was by no means prepared to tell Alice
Vavasor that any such discussion had taken place. From the concert,
and the effect which Lady Midlothian's countenance might have upon Mr..
Grey's future welfare, she got herself by degrees round to a
projected Swiss tour which Alice was about to make. Of this Swiss
tour she had heard before, but had not heard who were to be Miss
Vavasor's companions until Lady Midlothian had told her. How it had
come to pass that Lady Midlothian had interested herself so much in
the concerns of a person whom she did not know, and on whom she in
her greatness could not be expected to call, I cannot say; but from
some quarter she had learned who were the proposed companions of
Alice Vavasor's tour, and she had told Lady Macleod that she did not
at all approve of the arrangement.</p>
<p>"And when do you go, Alice?" said Lady Macleod.</p>
<p>"Early in July, I believe. It will be very hot, but Kate must be back
by the middle of August." Kate Vavasor was Alice's first cousin.</p>
<p>"Oh! Kate is to go with you?"</p>
<p>"Of course she is. I could not go alone, or with no one but George.
Indeed it was Kate who made up the party."</p>
<p>"Of course you could not go alone with George," said Lady Macleod,
very grimly. Now George Vavasor was Kate's brother, and was therefore
also first cousin to Alice. He was heir to the old squire down in
Westmoreland, with whom Kate lived, their father being dead. Nothing,
it would seem, could be more rational than that Alice should go to
Switzerland with her cousins; but Lady Macleod was clearly not of
this opinion; she looked very grim as she made this allusion to
cousin George, and seemed to be preparing herself for a fight.</p>
<p>"That is exactly what I say," answered Alice. "But, indeed, he is
simply going as an escort to me and Kate, as we don't like the rôle
of unprotected females. It is very good-natured of him, seeing how
much his time is taken up."</p>
<p>"I thought he never did anything."</p>
<p>"That's because you don't know him, aunt."</p>
<p>"No; certainly I don't know him." She did not add that she had no
wish to know Mr. George Vavasor, but she looked it. "And has your
father been told that he is going?"</p>
<p>"Of course he has."</p>
<p>"And does—" Lady Macleod hesitated a little before she went on, and
then finished her question with a little spasmodic assumption of
courage. "And does Mr. Grey know that he is going?"</p>
<p>Alice remained silent for a full minute before she answered this
question, during which Lady Macleod sat watching her grimly, with her
eyes very intent upon her niece's face. If she supposed such silence
to have been in any degree produced by shame in answering the
question, she was much mistaken. But it may be doubted whether she
understood the character of the girl whom she thought she knew so
well, and it is probable that she did make such mistake.</p>
<p>"I might tell you simply that he does," said Alice at last, "seeing
that I wrote to him yesterday, letting him know that such were our
arrangements; but I feel that I should not thus answer the question
you mean to ask. You want to know whether Mr. Grey will approve of it.
As I only wrote yesterday of course I have not heard, and therefore
cannot say. But I can say this, aunt, that much as I might regret his
disapproval, it would make no change in my plans."</p>
<p>"Would it not? Then I must tell you, you are very wrong. It ought to
make a change. What! the disapproval of the man you are going to
marry make no change in your plans?"</p>
<p>"Not in that matter. Come, aunt, if we must discuss this matter let
us do it at any rate fairly. In an ordinary way, if Mr. Grey had asked
me to give up for any reason my trip altogether, I should have given
it up certainly, as I would give up any other indifferent project at
the request of so dear a friend,—a friend with whom I am so—so—so
closely connected. But if he asked me not to travel with my cousin
George, I should refuse him absolutely, without a word of parley on
the subject, simply because of the nature and closeness of my
connection with him. I suppose you understand what I mean, aunt?"</p>
<p>"I suppose I do. You mean that you would refuse to obey him on the
very subject on which he has a right to claim your obedience."</p>
<p>"He has no right to claim my obedience on any subject," said Alice;
and as she spoke Aunt Macleod jumped up with a little start at the
vehemence of the words, and of the tone in which they were expressed.
She had heard that tone before, and might have been used to it; but,
nevertheless, the little jump was involuntary. "At present he has no
right to my obedience on any subject, but least of all on that," said
Alice. "His advice he may give me, but I am quite sure he will not
ask for obedience."</p>
<p>"And if he advises you you will slight his advice."</p>
<p>"If he tells me that I had better not travel with my cousin George I
shall certainly not take his advice. Moreover, I should be careful to
let him know how much I was offended by any such counsel from him. It
would show a littleness on his part, and a suspicion of which I
cannot suppose him to be capable." Alice, as she said this, got up
from her seat and walked about the room. When she had finished she
stood at one of the windows with her back to her visitor. There was
silence between them for a minute or two, during which Lady Macleod
was deeply considering how best she might speak the terrible words,
which, as Alice's nearest female relative, she felt herself bound to
utter. At last she collected her thoughts and her courage, and spoke
out.</p>
<p>"My dear Alice, I need hardly say that if you had a mother living, or
any person with you filling the place of a mother, I should not
interfere in this matter."</p>
<p>"Of course, Aunt Macleod, if you think I am wrong you have quite a
right to say so."</p>
<p>"I do think you are wrong,—very wrong, indeed; and if you persist in
this I am afraid I must say that I shall think you wicked. Of course
Mr. Grey cannot like you to travel with George Vavasor."</p>
<p>"And why not, aunt?" Alice, as she asked this question, turned round
and confronted Lady Macleod boldly. She spoke with a steady voice,
and fixed her eyes upon the old lady's face, as though determined to
show that she had no fear of what might be said to her.</p>
<p>"Why not, Alice? Surely you do not wish me to say why not."</p>
<p>"But I do wish you to say why not. How can I defend myself till the
accusation is made?"</p>
<p>"You are now engaged to marry Mr. Grey, with the consent and
approbation of all your friends. Two years ago you
had—<span class="nowrap">had—"</span></p>
<p>"Had what, aunt? If you mean to say that two years ago I was engaged
to my cousin George you are mistaken. Three years ago I told him that
under certain conditions I would become engaged to him. But my
conditions did not suit him, nor his me, and no engagement was ever
made. Mr. Grey knows the history of the whole thing. As far as it was
possible I have told him everything that took place."</p>
<p>"The fact was, Alice, that George Vavasor's mode of life was such
that an engagement with him would have been absolute madness."</p>
<p>"Dear aunt, you must excuse me if I say that I cannot discuss George
Vavasor's mode of life. If I were thinking of becoming his wife you
would have a perfect right to discuss it, because of your constant
kindness to me. But as matters are he is simply a cousin; and as I
like him and you do not, we had better say nothing about him."</p>
<p>"I must say this—that after what has passed, and at the present
crisis of your <span class="nowrap">life—"</span></p>
<p>"Dear aunt, I'm not in any crisis."</p>
<p>"Yes you are, Alice; in the most special crisis of a girl's life. You
are still a girl, but you are the promised wife of a very worthy man,
who will look to you for all his domestic happiness. George Vavasor
has the name, at least, of being very wild."</p>
<p>"The worthy man and the wild man must fight it out between them. If I
were going away with George by himself, there might be something in
what you say."</p>
<p>"That would be monstrous."</p>
<p>"Monstrous or not, it isn't what I'm about to do. Kate and I have put
our purses together, and are going to have an outing for our special
fun and gratification. As we should be poor travellers alone, George
has promised to go with his sister. Papa knows all about it, and
never thought of making any objection."</p>
<p>Lady Macleod shook her head. She did not like to say anything against
Mr. Vavasor before his daughter; but the shaking of her head was
intended to signify that Mr. Vavasor's assent in such a matter was
worth nothing.</p>
<p>"I can only say again," said Lady Macleod, "that I think Mr. Grey will
be displeased,—and that he will have very great cause for
displeasure. And I think, moreover, that his approbation ought to be
your chief study. I believe, my dear, I'll ask you to let Jane get me
a cab. I shan't have a bit too much time to dress for the concert."</p>
<p>Alice simply rang the bell, and said no further word on the subject
which they had been discussing. When Lady Macleod got up to go away,
Alice kissed her, as was customary with them, and the old lady as she
went uttered her customary valediction. "God bless you, my dear.
Good-bye! I'll come to-morrow if I can." There was therefore no
quarrel between them. But both of them felt that words had been
spoken which must probably lead to some diminution of their past
intimacy.</p>
<p>When Lady Macleod had gone Alice sat alone for an hour thinking of
what had passed between them,—thinking rather of those two men, the
worthy man and the wild man, whose names had been mentioned in close
connection with herself. John Grey was a worthy man, a man worthy at
all points, as far as she knew him. She told herself it was so. And
she told herself, also, that her cousin George was wild,—very wild.
And yet her thoughts were, I fear, on the whole more kindly towards
her cousin than towards her lover. She had declared to her aunt that
John Grey would be incapable of such suspicion as would be shown by
any objection on his part to the arrangements made for the tour. She
had said so, and had so believed; and yet she continued to brood over
the position which her affairs would take, if he did make the
objection which Lady Macleod anticipated. She told herself over and
over again, that under such circumstances she would not give way an
inch. "He is free to go," she said to herself. "If he does not trust
me he is quite free to go." It may almost be said that she came at
last to anticipate from her lover that very answer to her own letter
which she had declared him to be incapable of making.</p>
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