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

He looked round at her and saw that she was very young,—sixteen, perhaps, at the most, and that she had once,—nay very lately,—been exquisitely pretty. There still lingered about her eyes some remains of that look of perfect innocency and pure faith which had been hers not more than twelve months since. And now, at midnight, in the middle of the streets, she was praying for a pennyworth of gin, as the only comfort she knew, or could expect!

“You are cold!” said he, trying to speak to her cheerily.

“Cold!” said she, repeating the word, and striving to wrap herself closer in her rags, as she shivered—”Oh God! if you knew what it was to be as cold as I am! I have nothing in the world,—not one penny,—not a hole to lie in!”

“We are alike then,” said Burgo, with a slight low laugh. “I also have nothing. You cannot be poorer than I am.”

“You poor!” she said. And then she looked up into his face. “Gracious; how beautiful you are! Such as you are never poor.”

He laughed again,—in a different tone. He always laughed when any one told him of his beauty. “I am a deal poorer than you, my girl,” he said. “You have nothing. I have thirty thousand pounds worse than nothing. But come along, and I will get you something to eat.”

“Will you?” said she, eagerly. Then looking up at him again, she exclaimed—”Oh, you are so handsome!”

He took her to a public-house and gave her bread and meat and beer, and stood by her while she ate it. She was shy with him then, and would fain have taken it to a corner by herself, had he allowed her. He perceived this, and turned his back to her, but still spoke to her a word or two as she ate. The woman at the bar who served him looked at him wonderingly, staring into his face; and the pot-boy woke himself thoroughly that he might look at Burgo; and the waterman from the cabstand stared at him; and women who came in for gin looked almost lovingly up into his eyes. He regarded them all not at all, showing no feeling of disgrace at his position, and no desire to carry himself as a ruffler. He quietly paid what was due when the girl had finished her meal, and then walked with her out of the shop. “And now,” said he, “what must I do with you? If I give you a shilling can you get a bed?” She told him that she could get a bed for sixpence. “Then keep the other sixpence for your breakfast,” said he. “But you must promise me that you will buy no gin tonight.” She promised him, and then he gave her his hand as he wished her good night;—his hand, which it had been the dearest wish of Lady Glencora to call her own. She took it and pressed it to her lips. “I wish I might once see you again,” she said, “because you are so good and so beautiful.” He laughed again cheerily, and walked on, crossing the street towards Cavendish Square. She stood looking at him till he was out of sight, and then as she moved away,—let us hope to the bed which his bounty had provided, and not to a gin-shop,—she exclaimed to herself again and again—”Gracious, how beautiful he was!” “He’s a good un,” the woman at the public-house had said as soon as he left it; “but, my! did you ever see a man’s face handsome as that fellow’s?”

Poor Burgo! All who had seen him since life had begun with him had loved him and striven to cherish him. And with it all, to what a state had he come! Poor Burgo! had his eyes been less brightly blue, and his face less godlike in form, it may be that things would have gone better with him. A sweeter-tempered man than he never lived,—nor one who was of a kinder nature. At this moment he had barely money about him to take him down to his aunt’s house at Monkshade, and as he had promised to be there before Christmas Day, he was bound to start on the next morning, before help from Mr Magruin was possible. Nevertheless, out of his very narrow funds he had given half a crown to comfort the poor creature who had spoken to him in the street.

Table of Contents Table of Contents Can You Forgive Her? Phineas Finn The Eustace Diamonds Phineas Redux The Prime Minister The Duke’s Children

Vavasor, as he sat alone in his room, after Fitzgerald had left him, began to think of the days in which he had before wished to assist his friend in his views with reference to Lady Glencora;—or rather he began to think of Alice’s behaviour then, and of Alice’s words. Alice had steadfastly refused to give any aid. No less likely assistant for such a purpose could have been selected. But she had been very earnest in declaring that it was Glencora’s duty to stand by her promise to Burgo. “He is a desperate spendthrift,” Kate Vavasor had said to her. “Then let her teach him to be otherwise,” Alice had answered. “That might have been a good reason for refusing his offer when he first made it; but it can be no excuse for untruth, now that she has told him that she loves him!” “If a woman,” she had said again, “won’t venture her fortune for the man she loves, her love is not worth having.” All this George Vavasor remembered now; and as he remembered it he asked himself whether the woman that had once loved him would venture her fortune for him still.

Though his sister had pressed him on the subject with all the vehemence that she could use, he had hardly hitherto made up his mind that he really desired to marry Alice. There had grown upon him lately certain Bohemian propensities,—a love of absolute independence in his thoughts as well as actions,—which were antagonistic to marriage. He was almost inclined to think that marriage was an old-fashioned custom, fitted indeed well enough for the usual dull life of the world at large,—as many men both in heathen and in Christian ages have taught themselves to think of religion,—but which was not adapted to his advanced intelligence. If he loved any woman he loved his cousin Alice. If he thoroughly respected any woman he respected her. But that idea of tying himself down to a household was in itself distasteful to him. “It is a thing terrible to think of,” he once said to a congenial friend in these days of his life, “that a man should give permission to a priest to tie him to another human being like a Siamese twin, so that all power of separate and solitary action should be taken from him for ever! The beasts of the field do not treat each other so badly. They neither drink themselves drunk, nor eat themselves stupid;—nor do they bind themselves together in a union which both would have to hate.” In this way George Vavasor, trying to imitate the wisdom of the brutes, had taught himself some theories of a peculiar nature. But, nevertheless, as he thought of Alice Vavasor on this occasion, he began to feel that if a Siamese twin were necessary for him, she of all others was the woman to whom he would wish to be so bound.

And if he did it at all, he must do it now. Under the joint instigation of himself and his sister,—as he thought, and perhaps not altogether without reason,—she had broken her engagement with Mr Grey. That she would renew it again if left to herself, he believed probable. And then, despite that advanced intelligence which had taught him to regard all forms and ceremonies with the eye of a philosopher, he had still enough of human frailty about him to feel keenly alive to the pleasure of taking from John Grey the prize which John Grey had so nearly taken from him. If Alice could have been taught to think as he did as to the absurdity of those indissoluble ties, that would have been better. But nothing would have been more impossible than the teaching of such a lesson to his cousin Alice. George Vavasor was a man of courage, and dared do most things;—but he would not have dared to commence the teaching of such a lesson to her.