Can You Forgive Her? (105 page)

W
E
must go back for a few pages to scenes which happened in London during this summer, so that the reader may understand Mr Grey’s position when he reached Lucerne. He had undergone another quarrel with George Vavasor, and something of the circumstances of that quarrel must be told.

It has been already said that George Vavasor lost his election
for the Chelsea Districts, after all the money which he had spent, – money which he had been so ill able to spend, and on which he had laid his hands in a manner so disreputable! He had received two thousand pounds from the bills which Alice had executed on his behalf, – or rather, had received the full value of three out of the four bills, and a part of the value of the fourth, on which he
had been driven to raise what immediate money he had wanted by means of a Jew bill-discounter. One thousand pounds he had paid over at once into the hands of Mr Scruby, his Parliamentary election agent, towards the expenses of his election; and when the day of polling arrived had exactly in his hands the sum of five hundred pounds. Where he was to get more when this was gone he did not know. If he
were successful, – if the enlightened constituents of the Chelsea Districts, contented with his efforts on behalf of the River Bank, should again send him to Parliament, he thought that
he might still carry on the war. A sum of ready money he would have in hand; and, as to his debts, he would be grandly indifferent to any consideration of them. Then there might be pickings in the way of a Member
of Parliament of his calibre. Companies, – mercantile companies, – would be glad to have him as a director, paying him a guinea a day, or perhaps more, for his hour’s attendance. Railways in want of vice-chairmen might bid for his services; and in the City he might turn that ‘M.P.’ which belonged to him to good account in various ways. With such a knowledge of the City world as he possessed, he
thought that he could pick up a living in London, if only he could retain his seat in Parliament.

But what was he to do if he could not retain it? No sooner had Mr Scruby got the thousand pounds into his clutches than he pressed for still more money. George Vavasor, with some show of justice on his side, pointed out to this all-devouring agent that the sum demanded had already been paid. This
Mr Scruby admitted, declaring that he was quite prepared to go on without any further immediate remittance, although by doing so might subject himself to considerable risk. But another five hundred pounds, paid at once, would add greatly to the safety of the seat; whereas eight hundred judiciously thrown in at the present moment would make the thing quite secure. But Vavasor swore to himself that
he would not part with another shilling. Never had he felt such love for money as he did for that five hundred pounds which he now held in his pocket. ‘It’s no use,’ he said to Mr Scruby. ‘I have done what you asked, and would have done more had you asked for more at that time. As it is, I cannot make another payment before the election.’ Mr Scruby shrugged his shoulders, and said that he would do
his best. But George Vavasor soon knew that the man was not doing his best, – that the man had, in truth, abandoned his cause. The landlord of the ‘Handsome Man’ jeered him when he went there canvassing. ‘Laws, Mr Vavasor!’ said the landlord of the ‘Handsome Man’, ‘you’re not at all the fellow for us chaps along the river, – you ain’t. You’re afraid to come down with the stumpy
¹
, – that’s what
you are.’ George put his hand upon his purse, and acknowledged to himself that he had been afraid to come down with the stumpy.

For the last five days of the affair George Vavasor knew that his chance was gone. Mr Scruby’s face, manner, and words, told the result of the election as plainly as any subsequent figures could do. He would be absent when Vavasor called, or the clerk would say that
he was absent. He would answer in very few words, constantly shrugging his shoulders. He would even go away and leave the anxious candidate while he was in the middle of some discussion as to his plans. It was easy to see that Mr Scruby no longer regarded him as a successful man, and the day of the poll showed very plainly how right Mr Scruby had been.

George Vavasor was rejected, but he still
had his five hundred pounds in his pocket. Of course he was subject to that mortification which a man feels when he reflects that some little additional outlay would have secured his object Whether it might have been so, or not, who can say? But there he was, with the gateway between the lamps barred against him, ex-Member of Parliament for the Chelsea Districts, with five hundred pounds in his
pocket, and little or nothing else that he could call his own. What was he to do with himself?

After trying to make himself heard upon the hustings when he was rejected, and pledging himself to stand again at the next election, he went home to his lodgings in Cecil Street, and endeavoured to consider calmly his position in the world. He had lost his inheritance. He had abandoned one profession
after another, and was now beyond the pale of another chance in that direction. His ambition had betrayed him, and there were no longer possible to him any hopes of political activity. He had estranged from himself every friend that he had ever possessed. He had driven from him with violence the devotion even of his sister. He had robbed the girl whom he intended to marry of her money, and had so
insulted her that no feeling of amity between them was any longer possible. He had nothing now but himself and that five hundred pounds, which he still held in his pocket. What should he do with himself and his money? He thought over it all with outer calmness for awhile, as he sat there in his arm-chair.

From the moment in which he had first become convinced that the election would go against
him, and that he was therefore
ruined on all sides, he had resolved that he would be calm amidst his ruin. Sometimes he assumed a little smile, as though he were laughing at his own position. Mr Bott’s day of rejection had come before his own, and he had written to Mr Bott a drolling note of consolation and mock sympathy. He had shaken hands with Mr Scruby, and had poked his fun at the agent,
bidding him be sure to send in his little bill soon. To all who accosted him, he replied in a subrisive tone; and he bantered Calder Jones, whose seat was quite sure, till Calder Jones began to have fears that were quite unnecessary. And now, as he sat himself down, intending to come to some final decision as to what he would do, he maintained the same calmness. He smiled in the same way, though there
was no one there to see the smile. He laughed even audibly once or twice, as he vainly endeavoured to persuade himself that he was able to regard the world and all that belonged to it as a bubble.

There came to him a moment in which he laughed out very audibly. ‘Ha! ha!’ he shouted, rising up from his chair, and he walked about the room, holding a large paper-knife in his hand. ‘Ha! ha!’ Then
he threw the knife away’from him, and thrusting his hands into his trousers-pockets, laughed again – ‘Ha! ha!’ He stood still in the centre of the room, and the laughter was very plainly visible on his face, had there been anybody there to see it.

But suddenly there was a change upon his face, as he stood there all alone, and his eyes became fierce, and the cicatrice that marred his countenance
grew to be red and ghastly, and he grinned with his teeth, and he clenched his fists as he still held them within his pockets. ‘Curse him!’ he said out loud. ‘Curse him, now and for ever!’ He had broken down in his calmness, when he thought of that old man who had opposed him during his life, and had ruined him at his death. ‘May all the evils which the dead can feel cling to him for ever and ever!’
His laughter was all gone, and his-assumed tranquillity had deserted him. Walking across the room, he struck his foot against a chair; upon this, he took the chair in his hands, and threw it across the room. But he hardly arrested the torrent of his maledictions as he did so. What good was it that he should lie to himself by that mock tranquillity, or that false laughter? He lied to himself
no longer, but uttered a song of
despair that was true enough. What should he do? Where should he go? From what fountain should he attempt to draw such small draughts of the water of comfort as might support him at the present moment? Unless a man have some such fountain to which he can turn, the burden of life cannot be borne. For the moment, Vavasor tried to find such fountain in a bottle of
brandy which stood near him. He half filled a tumbler, and then, dashing some water on it, swallowed it greedily. ‘By—!’ he said, ‘I believe it is the best thing a man can do.’

But where was he to go? to whom was he to turn himself? He went to a high desk which stood in one corner of the room, and unlocking it, took out a revolving pistol, and for a while carried it about with him in his hand.
He turned it up, and looked at it, and tried the lock, and snapped it without caps, to see that the barrel went round fairly. ‘It’s a beggarly thing to do,’he said, and then he turned the pistol down again; ‘and if I do do it, I’ll use it first for another purpose,’ Then he poured out for himself more brandy-and-water, and having drunk it, he threw himself upon the sofa, and seemed to sleep.

But he did not sleep, and by-and-by there came a slight single knock at the door, which he instantly answered. But he did not answer it in the usual way by bidding the comer to come in. ‘Who’s there?’ he said. Then the comer attempted to enter, turning the handle of the door. But the door had been locked, and the key was on Vavasor’s side. ‘Who’s there?’ he asked again, speaking out loudly, but in
an angry voice. ‘It is I,’ said a woman’s voice. ‘D—ation!’ said George Vavasor.

The woman heard him, but she made no sign of having heard him. She simply remained standing where she was till something further should be done within. She knew the man well, and knew that she must bide his time. She was very patient, – and for the time was meek, though it might be that there would come an end to
her meekness. Vavasor, when he had heard her voice, and knew who was there, had again thrown himself on the sofa. There flashed across his mind another thought or two as to his future career, – another idea about the pistol, which still lay upon the table. Why should he let the intruder in, and undergo the nuisance
of a disagreeable interview, if the end of all things might come in time to save
him from such trouble? There he lay for ten minutes thinking, and then the low single knock was heard again. He jumped upon his feet, and his eyes were full of fire. He knew that it was useless to bid her go and leave him. She would sit there, if it were through the whole night. Should he open the door and strangle her, and pass out over her with the pistol in his hand, so that he might make that
other reckoning which he desired to accomplish, and then never come back any more?

He took a turn through the room, and then walked gently up to the door, and undid the lock. He did not open the door, nor did he bid his visitor enter, but having made the way easy for her if she chose to come in, he walked back to the sofa and threw himself on it again. As he did so, he passed his hand across
the table so as to bring the pistol near to himself at the place where he would be lying. She paused a moment after she had heard the sound of the key, and then she made her way into the room. He did not at first speak to her. She closed the door very gently, and then, looking around, came up to the foot of the sofa. She paused a moment, waiting for him to address her; but as he said nothing, but
lay there looking at her, she was the first to speak. ‘George,’ she said, ‘what am I to do?’

She was a woman of about thirty years of age, dressed poorly, in old garments, but still with decency, and with some attempt at feminine prettiness. There were flowers in the bonnet on her head, though the bonnet had that unmistakable look of age which is quite as distressing to bonnets as it is to women,
and the flowers themselves were battered and faded. She had long black ringlets on each cheek, hanging down much below her face, and brought forward so as to hide in some degree the hollowness of her jaws. Her eyes had a peculiar brightness, but now they left on those who looked ‘at her cursorily no special impression as to their colour. They had been blue, – that dark violet blue, which is so
rare, but is sometimes so lovely. Her forehead was narrow, her mouth was small, and her lips were thin; but her nose was perfect in its shape, and, by the delicacy of its modelling, had given a peculiar grace to her face in the days when things had gone well with her, when
her cheeks had been full with youth and good living, and had been dimpled by the softness of love and mirth. There were no
dimples there now, and all the softness which still remained was that softness which sorrow and continual melancholy give to suffering women. On her shoulders she wore a light shawl, which was fastened to her bosom with a large clasp brooch. Her faded dress was supported by a wide crinoline, but the under garment had lost all the grace of its ancient shape, and now told that woman’s tale of poverty
and taste for dress which is to be read in the outward garb of so many of Eve’s daughters. The whole story was told so that those who ran might read it. When she had left her home this afternoon, she had struggled hard to dress herself so that something of the charm of apparel might be left to her; but she had known of her own failure at every twist that she had given to her gown, and at every
jerk with which she had settled her shawl. She had despaired at every push she had given to her old flowers, vainly striving to bring them back to their old forms; but still she had persevered. With long tedious care she had mended the old gloves which would hardly hold her fingers. She had carefully hidden the rags of her sleeves. She had washed her little shrivelled collar, and had smoothed it out
painfully. It had been a separate grief to her that she could find no cuffs to put round her wrists; -and yet she knew that no cuffs could have availed her anything. Nothing could avail her now. She expected nothing from her visit; yet she had come forth anxiously, and would have waited there throughout the whole night had access to his room been debarred to her. ‘George,’ she said, standing at
the bottom of the sofa, ‘what am I to do?’