The Palliser Novels: Complete Parliamentary Chronicles (All Six Novels in One Volume)
a while over the parapet of the bridge. “Come here, George,” said Kate; and she made room for him between herself and Alice. “Wouldn’t you like to be swimming down there as those boys were doing when we went out into the balcony? The water looks so enticing.”
“I can’t say I should;—unless it might be a pleasant way of swimming into the next world.”
“I should so like to feel myself going with the stream,” said Kate; “particularly by this light. I can’t fancy in the least that I should be drowned.”
“I can’t fancy anything else,” said Alice.
“It would be so pleasant to feel the water gliding along one’s limbs, and to be carried away headlong,—knowing that you were on the direct road to Rotterdam.”
“And so arrive there without your clothes,” said George.
“They would be brought after in a boat. Didn’t you see that those boys had a boat with them? But if I lived here, I’d never do it except by moonlight. The water looks so clear and bright now, and the rushing sound of it is so soft! The sea at Yarmouth won’t be anything like that I suppose.”
Neither of them any longer answered her, and yet she went on talking about the river, and their aunt, and her prospects at Yarmouth. Neither of them answered her, and yet it seemed that they had not a word to say to each other. But still they stood there looking down upon the river, and every now and then Kate’s voice was to be heard, preventing the feeling which might otherwise have arisen that their hearts were too full for speech.
At last Alice seemed to shiver. There was a slight trembling in her arms, which George felt rather than saw. “You are cold,” he said.
“No indeed.”
“If you are let us go in. I thought you shivered with the night air.”
“It wasn’t that. I was thinking of something. Don’t you ever think of things that make you shiver?”
“Indeed I do, very often;—so often that I have to do my shiverings inwardly. Otherwise people would think I had the palsy.”
“I don’t mean things of moment,” said Alice. “Little bits of things make me do it;—perhaps a word that I said and ought not to have said ten years ago;—the most ordinary little mistakes, even my own past thoughts to myself about the merest trifles. They are always making me shiver.”
“It’s not because you have committed any murder then.”
“No; but it’s my conscience all the same, I suppose.”
“Ah! I’m not so good as you. I doubt it’s not my conscience at all. When I think of a chance I’ve let go by, as I have thousands, then it is that I shiver. But, as I tell you, I shiver inwardly. I’ve been in one long shiver ever since we came out because of one chance that I let go by. Come, we’ll go in. We’ve to be up at five o’clock, and now it’s eleven. I’ll do the rest of my shivering in bed.”
“Are you tired of being out?” said Kate, when the other two began to move.
“Not tired of being out, but George reminds me that we have to be up at five.”
“I wish George would hold his tongue. We can’t come to the bridge at Basle every night in our lives. If one found oneself at the top of Sinai I’m afraid the first feeling would be one of fear lest one wouldn’t be down in time to dress for dinner. Are you aware, George, that the king of rivers is running beneath your feet, and that the moon is shining with a brilliance you never see at home?”
“I’ll stay here all night if you’ll put off going tomorrow,” said George.
“Our money wouldn’t hold out,” said Kate.
“Don’t talk about Sinai any more after that,” said he, “but let’s go in to bed.”
They walked across the bridge back to the hotel in the same manner as before, the two girls going together with the young man after them, and so they went up the front steps of the hotel, through the hall, and on to the stairs. Here George handed Alice her candle, and as he did so he whispered a few words to her. “My shivering fit has to come yet,” said he, “and will last me the whole night.” She would have given much to be able to answer him lightly, as though what he had said had meant nothing;—but she couldn’t do it; the light speech would not come to her. She was conscious of all this, and went away to her own room without answering him at all. Here she sat down at the window looking out upon the river till Kate should join her. Their rooms opened through from one to the other, and she would not begin her packing till her cousin should come.
But Kate had gone with her brother, promising, as she did so, that she would be back in half a minute. That half minute was protracted beyond half an hour. “If you’ll take my advice,” said Kate, at last, standing up with her candle in her hand, “you’ll ask her in plain words to give you another chance. Do it tomorrow at Strasbourg; you’ll never have a better opportunity.”
“And bid her throw John Grey over!”
“Don’t say anything about John Grey; leave her to settle that matter with herself. Believe me that she has quite courage enough to dispose of John Grey, if she has courage enough to accept your offer.”
“Kate, you women never understand each other. If I were to do that, all her most powerful feelings would be arrayed in arms against me. I must leave her to find out first that she wishes to be rid of her engagement.”
“She has found that out long ago. Do you think I don’t know what she wishes? But if you can’t bring yourself to speak to her, she’ll marry him in spite of her wishes.”
“Bring myself! I’ve never been very slow in bringing myself to speak to any one when there was need. It isn’t very pleasant sometimes, but I do it, if I find occasion.”
“But surely it must be pleasant with her. You must be glad to find that she still loves you. You still love her, I suppose?”
“Upon my word I don’t know.”
“Don’t provoke me, George. I’m moving heaven and earth to bring you two together; but if I didn’t think you loved her, I’d go to her at once and bid her never see you again.”
“Upon my word, Kate, I sometimes think it would be better if you’d leave heaven and earth alone.”
“Then I will. But of all human beings, surely you’re the most ungrateful.”
“Why shouldn’t she marry John Grey if she likes him?”
“But she doesn’t like him. And I hate him. I hate the sound of his voice, and the turn of his eye, and that slow, steady movement of his,—as though he was always bethinking himself that he wouldn’t wear out his clothes.”
“I don’t see that your hating him ought to have anything to do with it.”
“If you’re going to preach morals, I’ll leave you. It’s the darling wish of my heart that she should be your wife. If you ever loved anybody,—and I sometimes doubt whether you ever did,—but if you did, you loved her.”
“Did and do are different things.”
“Very well, George; then I have done. It has been the same in every twist and turn of my life. In everything that I have striven to do for you, you have thrown yourself over, in order that I might be thrown over too. But I believe you say this merely to vex me.”
“Upon my word, Kate, I think you’d better go to bed.”
“But not till I’ve told her everything. I won’t leave her to be deceived and illused again.”
“Who is illusing her now? Is it not the worst of ill-usage, trying to separate her from that man?”
“No;—if I thought so, I would have no hand in doing it. She