Free The Palliser Novels by Anthony Trollope Page B

this, if they are taken out again you are responsible. And I will not put up your boots, George. What can you have wanted with three pairs of boots at Basle?”
    “When you have completed the list of my wardrobe we’ll go out upon the bridge. That is, if Alice likes it.”
    “Oh, yes; I shall like it.”
    “Come along then,” said Kate. And so they moved away. When they got upon the bridge Alice and Kate were together, while George strolled behind them, close to them, but not taking any part in their conversation, — as though he had merely gone with them as an escort. Kate seemed to be perfectly content with this arrangement, chattering to Alice, so that she might show that there was nothing serious on the minds of any of them. It need hardly be said that Alice at this time made no appeal to George to join them. He followed them at their heels, with his hands behind his back, looking down upon the pavement and simply waiting upon their pleasure.
    “Do you know,” said Kate, “I have a very great mind to run away.”
    “Where do you want to run to?”
    “Well; — that wouldn’t much signify. Perhaps I’d go to the little inn at Handek. It’s a lonely place, where nobody would hear of me, — and I should have the waterfall. I’m afraid they’d want to have their bill paid. That would be the worst of it.”
    “But why run away just now?”
    “I won’t, because you wouldn’t like going home with George alone, — and I suppose he’d be bound to look after me, as he’s doing now. I wonder what he thinks of having to walk over the bridge after us girls. I suppose he’d be in that place down there drinking beer, if we weren’t here.”
    “If he wanted to go, I dare say he would, in spite of us.”
    “That’s ungrateful of you, for I’m sure we’ve never been kept in a moment by his failing us. But as I was saying, I do dread going home. You are going to John Grey, which may be pleasant enough; but I’m going — to Aunt Greenow.”
    “It’s your own choice.”
    “No, it’s not. I haven’t any choice in the matter. Of course I might refuse to speak to Aunt Greenow, and nobody could make me; — but practically I haven’t any choice in the matter. Fancy a month at Yarmouth with no companion but such a woman as that!”
    “I shouldn’t mind it. Aunt Greenow always seems to me to be a very good sort of woman.”
    “She may be a good woman, but I must say I think she’s of a bad sort. You’ve never heard her talk about her husband?”
    “No, never; I think she did cry a little the first day she came to Queen Anne Street, but that wasn’t unnatural.”
    “He was thirty years older than herself.”
    “But still he was her husband. And even if her tears are assumed, what of that? What’s a woman to do? Of course she was wrong to marry him. She was thirty-five, and had nothing, while he was sixty-five, and was very rich. According to all accounts she made him a very good wife, and now that she’s got all his money, you wouldn’t have her go about laughing within three months of his death.”
    “No; I wouldn’t have her laugh; but neither would I have her cry. And she’s quite right to wear weeds; but she needn’t be so very outrageous in the depth of her hems, or so very careful that her caps are becoming. Her eyes will be worn out by their double service. They are always red with weeping, and yet she is ready every minute with a full battery of execution for any man that she sees.”
    “Then why have you consented to go to Yarmouth with her?”
    “Just because she’s got forty thousand pounds. If Mr Greenow had left her with a bare maintenance I don’t suppose I should ever have held out my hand to her.”
    “Then you’re as bad as she is.”
    “Quite as bad; — and that’s what makes me want to run away. But it isn’t my own fault altogether. It’s the fault of the world at large. Does anybody ever drop their rich relatives? When she proposed to take me to Yarmouth, wasn’t