Anthony Trollope - The Palliser Novels - Complete Series - All 6 Books in One Edition

“I haven’t the slightest pretension to ask for such an honour.”

“Oh! if you mean because you don’t know them, that has nothing to do with it.”

“But I have no claim either private or public.”

“That has nothing to do with it either. They don’t at all seek people of note as their correspondents. Free communication with all the world is their motto, and Rowland Hill is the god they worship. Only they have been forced to guard themselves against too great an accession of paper and ink. Are you fond of writing letters, Miss Vavasor?”

“Yes, to my friends; but I like getting them better.”

“I shrewdly suspect they don’t read half what they get. Is it possible any one should go through two sheets of paper filled by our friend the Duchess there? No; their delight is in writing. They sit each at her desk after breakfast, and go on till lunch. There is a little rivalry between them, not expressed to each other, but visible to their friends. Iphy certainly does get off the greater number, and I’m told crosses quite as often as Phemy, but then she has the advantage of a bolder and larger hand.”

“Do they write to you?”

“Oh, dear no. I don’t think they ever write to any relative. They don’t discuss family affairs and such topics as that. Architecture goes a long way with them, and whether women ought to be clerks in public offices. Iphy has certain American correspondents that take up much of her time, but she acknowledges she does not read their letters.”

“Then I certainly shall not write to her.”

“But you are not American, I hope. I do hate the Americans. It’s the only strong political feeling I have. I went there once, and found I couldn’t live with them on any terms.”

“But they please themselves. I don’t see they are to be hated because they don’t live after our fashion.”

“Oh; it’s jealousy of course. I know that. I didn’t come across a cab-driver who wasn’t a much better educated man than I am. And as for their women, they know everything. But I hated them, and I intend to hate them. You haven’t been there?”

“Oh no.”

“Then I will make bold to say that any English lady who spent a month with them and didn’t hate them would have very singular tastes. I begin to think they’ll eat each other up, and then there’ll come an entirely new set of people of a different sort. I always regarded the States as a Sodom and Gomorrah, prospering in wickedness, on which fire and brimstone were sure to fall sooner or later.”

“I think that’s wicked.”

“I am wicked, as Topsy used to say. Do you hunt?”

“No.”

“Do you shoot?”

“Shoot! What; with a gun?”

“Yes. I was staying in a house last week with a lady who shot a good deal.”

“No; I don’t shoot.”

“Do you ride?”

“No; I wish I did. I have never ridden because I’ve no one to ride with me.”

“Do you drive?”

“No; I don’t drive either.”

“Then what do you do?”

“I sit at home, and—”

“Mend your stockings?”

“No; I don’t do that, because it’s disagreeable; but I do work a good deal. Sometimes I have amused myself by reading.”

“Ah; they never do that here. I have heard that there is a library, but the clue to it has been lost, and nobody now knows the way. I don’t believe in libraries. Nobody ever goes into a library to read, any more than you would into a larder to eat. But there is this difference;—the food you consume does come out of the larders, but the books you read never come out of the libraries.”

“Except Mudie’s,” said Alice.

“Ah, yes; he is the great librarian. And you mean to read all the time you are here, Miss Vavasor?”

“I mean to walk about the priory ruins sometimes.”

“Then you must go by moonlight, and I’ll go with you. Only isn’t it rather late in the year for that?”

“I should think it is,—for you, Mr Palliser.”

Then the Duke spoke to her again, and she found that she got on very well during dinner. But she could not but feel angry with herself in that she had any fear on the subject;—and yet she could not divest herself of that fear. She acknowledged to herself that she was conscious of a certain inferiority to Lady Glencora and to Mr Jeffrey Palliser, which almost made her unhappy. As regarded the Duke on the other side of her, she had no such feeling. He was old enough to be her father, and was a Cabinet Minister; therefore he was entitled to her reverence. But how was it that she could not help accepting the other people round her as being indeed superior to herself? Was she really learning to believe that she could grow upwards by their sunlight?

“Jeffrey is a pleasant fellow, is he not?” said Lady Glencora to her as they passed back through the billiard-room to the drawing-room.

“Very pleasant;—a little sarcastic, perhaps.”

“I should think you would soon find yourself able to get the better of that if he tries it upon you,” said Lady Glencora; and then the ladies were all in the drawing-room together.

“It is quite deliciously warm, coming from one room to another,” said the Duchess, putting her emphasis on the “one” and the “other.”

“Then we had better keep continually moving,” said a certain Mrs Conway Sparkes, a literary lady, who had been very handsome, who was still very clever, who was not perhaps very goodnatured, and of whom the Duchess of St Bungay was rather afraid.

“I hope we may be warm here too,” said Lady Glencora.

“But not deliciously warm,” said Mrs Conway Sparkes.

“It makes me tremble in every limb when Mrs Sparkes attacks her,” Lady Glencora said to Alice in Alice’s own room that night, “for I know she’ll tell the Duke; and he’ll tell that tall man with red hair whom you see standing about, and the tall man with red hair will tell Mr Palliser, and then I shall catch it.”

“And who is the tall man with red hair?”

“He’s a political link between the Duke and Mr Palliser. His name is Bott, and he’s a Member of Parliament.”

“But why should he interfere?”

“I suppose it’s his business. I don’t quite understand all the ins and outs of it. I believe he’s to be one of Mr Palliser’s private secretaries if he becomes Chancellor of the Exchequer. Perhaps he doesn’t tell;—only I think he does all the same. He always calls me Lady Glencowrer. He comes out of Lancashire, and made calico as long as he could get any cotton.” But this happened in the bedroom, and we must go back for a while to the drawing-room.

The Duchess had made no answer to Mrs Sparkes, and so nothing further was said about the warmth. Nor, indeed, was there any conversation that was comfortably general. The number of ladies in the room was too great for that, and ladies do not divide themselves nicely into small parties, as men and women do when they are mixed. Lady Glencora behaved pretty by telling the Duchess all about her pet pheasants; Mrs Conway Sparkes told illnatured tales of some one to Miss Euphemia Palliser; one of the Duchess’s daughters walked off to a distant piano with an admiring friend and touched a few notes; while Iphigenia Palliser boldly took up a book, and placed herself at a table. Alice, who was sitting opposite to Lady Glencora, began to speculate whether she might do the same; but her courage failed her, and she sat on, telling herself that she was out of her element. “Alice Vavasor,” said Lady Glencora after a while, suddenly, and in a somewhat loud voice, “can you play billiards?”

“No,” said Alice, rather startled.

“Then you shall learn tonight, and if nobody else will teach you, you shall be my pupil.” Whereupon Lady Glencora rang the bell and ordered that the billiard-table might be got ready. “You’ll play, Duchess, of course,” said Lady Glencora.