table, and began to munch his toast. He threw it carelessly from him, as though taking a certain pride in his carelessness. “Very well,” said he; “so be it. It is probably the best thing that I could do, whatever the effect may be on her.” Then he took up his newspaper. But before the day was over he had made many plans,—plans made almost unconsciously,—as to the benefit which might accrue to him from the offer which she had made of her money. And before night he had written that reply to her of which we have heard the contents; and had written also to his sister Kate a letter, of which Kate had kept the contents to herself.
Chapter XXXIII.
Monkshade
When the first of the new year came round Lady Glencora was not keeping her appointment at Lady Monk’s house. She went to Gatherum Castle, and let us hope that she enjoyed the magnificent Christmas hospitality of the Duke; but when the time came for moving on to Monkshade, she was indisposed, and Mr Palliser went thither alone. Lady Glencora returned to Matching and remained at home, while her husband was away, in company with the two Miss Pallisers.
When the tidings reached Monkshade that Lady Glencora was not to be expected, Burgo Fitzgerald was already there, armed with such pecuniary assistance as George Vavasor had been able to wrench out of the hands of Mr Magruin. “Burgo,” said his aunt, catching him one morning near his bedroom door as he was about to go downstairs in hunting trim, “Burgo, your old flame, Lady Glencora, is not coming here.”
“Lady Glencora not coming!” said Burgo, betraying by his look and the tone of his voice too clearly that this change in the purpose of a married lady was to him of more importance than it should have been. Such betrayal, however, to Lady Monk was not perhaps matter of much moment.
“No; she is not coming. It can’t be matter of any moment to you now.”
“But, by heavens, it is,” said he, putting his hand up to his forehead, and leaning back against the wall of the passage as though in despair. “It is matter of moment to me. I am the most unfortunate devil that ever lived.”
“Fie, Burgo, fie! You must not speak in that way of a married woman. I begin to think it is better that she should not come.” At this moment another man booted and spurred came down the passage, upon whom Lady Monk smiled sweetly, speaking some pretty little word as he passed. Burgo spoke never a word, but still stood leaning against the wall, with his hand to his forehead, showing that he had heard something which had moved him greatly. “Come back into your room, Burgo,” said his aunt; and they both went in at the door that was nearest to them, for Lady Monk had been on the lookout for him, and had caught him as soon as he appeared in the passage. “If this does annoy you, you should keep it to yourself! What will people say?”
“How can I help what they say?”
“But you would not wish to injure her, I suppose? I thought it best to tell you, for fear you should show any special sign of surprise if you heard of it first in public. It is very weak in you to allow yourself to feel that sort of regard for a married woman. If you cannot constrain yourself I shall be afraid to let you meet her in Brook Street.”
Burgo looked for a moment into his aunt’s face without answering her, and then turned away towards the door. “You can do as you please about that,” said he; “but you know as well as I do what I have made up my mind to do.”
“Nonsense, Burgo; I know nothing of the kind. But do you go downstairs to breakfast, and don’t look like that when you go among the people there.”
Lady Monk was a woman now about fifty years of age, who had been a great beauty, and who was still handsome in her advanced age. Her figure was very good. She was tall and of fine proportion, though by no means verging to that state of body which our excellent American friend and critic Mr Hawthorne has described as beefy and has declared to be the general condition of English ladies of Lady Monk’s age. Lady Monk was not beefy. She was a comely, handsome, upright, dame,—one of whom, as regards her outward appearance, England might be proud,—and of whom Sir Cosmo Monk was very proud. She had come of the family of the Worcestershire Fitzgeralds, of whom it used to be said that there never was one who was not beautiful and worthless. Looking at Lady Monk you would hardly think that she could be a worthless woman; but there were one or two who professed to know her, and who declared that she was a true scion of the family to which she belonged;—that even her husband’s ample fortune had suffered from her extravagance, that she had quarrelled with her only son, and had succeeded in marrying her daughter to the greatest fool in the peerage. She had striven very hard to bring about a marriage between her nephew and the great heiress, and was a woman not likely to pardon those who had foiled her.
At this moment Burgo felt very certain that his aunt was aware of his purpose, and could not forgive her for pretending to be innocent of it. In this he was most ungrateful, as well as unreasonable,—and very indiscreet also. Had he been a man who ever reflected he must have known that such a woman as his aunt could only assist him as long as she might be presumed to be ignorant of his intention. But Burgo never reflected. The Fitzgeralds never reflected till they were nearer forty than thirty, and then people began to think worse of them than they had thought before.
When Burgo reached the dining-room there were many men there, but no ladies. Sir Cosmo Monk, a fine bald-headed hale man of about sixty, was standing up at the sideboard, cutting a huge game pie. He was a man also who did not reflect much, but who contrived to keep straight in his course through the world without much reflection. “Palliser is coming without her,” he said in his loud clear voice, thinking nothing of his wife’s nephew. “She’s ill, she says.”
“I’m sorry for it,” said one man. “She’s a deal the better fellow of the two.”
“She has twice more go in her than Planty Pall,” said another.
“Planty is no fool, I can tell you,” said Sir Cosmo, coming to the table with his plate full of pie. “We think he’s about the most rising man we have.” Sir Cosmo was the member for his county, and was a Liberal. He had once, when a much younger man, been at the Treasury, and had since always spoken of the Whig Government as though he himself were in some sort a part of it.
“Burgo, do you hear that Palliser is coming without his wife?” said one man,—a very young man, who hardly knew what had been the circumstances of the case. The others, when they saw Burgo enter, had been silent on the subject of Lady Glencora.
“I have heard,—and be d––––d to him,” said Burgo. Then there was suddenly a silence in the room, and everyone seemed to attend assiduously to his breakfast. It was very terrible, this clear expression of a guilty meaning with reference to the wife of another man! Burgo regarded neither his plate nor his cup, but thrusting his hands into his breeches pockets, sat back in his chair with the blackness as of a thunder cloud upon his brow.
“Burgo, you had better eat your breakfast,” said Sir Cosmo.
“I don’t want any breakfast.” He took, however, a bit of toast, and crumbling it up in his hand as he put a morsel into his mouth, went away to the sideboard and filled for himself a glass of cherry brandy.
“If you don’t eat any breakfast the less of that you take the better,” said Sir Cosmo.
“I’m all right now,” said he, and coming back to the table, went through some form of making a meal with a roll and a cup of tea.
They who were then present used afterwards to say that they should never forget that breakfast. There had been something, they declared, in the tone of Burgo’s voice when he uttered his curse against Mr Palliser, which had struck them all with dread. There had, too, they said, been a blackness in his face, so terrible to be seen, that it had taken from them all the power of conversation. Sir Cosmo, when he had broken the ominous silence, had done so with a manifest struggle. The loud clatter of glasses with which Burgo had swallowed his dram, as though resolved to show that he was regardless