Having finally treated myself to the DVD set of The Pallisers I am now having to be very strict and not gulp them all down at once, which is a great temptation. As soon as I watched the first episode I knew that I was going to have to start reading the novels again. I discovered Anthony Trollope about ten years ago and, having read the Barchester Chronicles and thinking that nothing could surpass them, I then discovered his 'political' novels and now am not sure which I prefer.
In Can you Forgive Her? we meet Alice Vavasour who, for a woman who is obviously intelligent, seems to behave in an extraordinarily idiotic way. I have to be honest and say that I do find her rather irritating. At the beginning of the book she is engaged to John Grey, a well off gentleman who lives in the Fens in Cambridge and who is, by all accounts, strikingly handsome and nice to boot. For some reason, Alice allows herself to be lured back into an engagement with her cousin George, a pretty nasty piece of work, who she had broken with some years before, and to give Mr Grey his marching orders. As soon as she does this, she then realises that she doesn't love her cousin, in fact, she is rather scared of his violent temper and realises she has made a terrible mistake and that she loves Mr Grey after all. I think the main problem is that Mr Grey is probably just a bit too nice. Rotters and bounders are always more attractive that a model of probity and understanding.
(I love this Victorian illustration from this novel. Not sure if it is Alice and George or Alice and Mr Grey. Just look at those mustaches!)
Anthony Trollope is very tolerant with her - it is the author who asks the reader Can you Forgive Her? and I suppose we have to. Alice is pretty much alone in the world, apart from her somewhat distant father, and her nearest relation is her cousin, Lady Glencora Palliser, newly married to Plantaganet Palliser, but still in love with the feckless Burgo Latimer. Glencora sees a strength in Alice despite her indecision in her private life and clings to her as she fights the impulse to leave her husband and run off with her former lover.
Glencora feels that he has made a mistake in marrying her, that he would be better off without her:
"Would it not have been the best for you? I do not love you, not as women love their husbands when they do love them. But before God my first wish is to free you from the misfortune that I have brought upon you............what matters it whether I drown myself, or throw myself away so that you might marry again and have a child? ....what is there left that I should wish to live?
Slowly, very gradually as though he were afraid of what he was doing, he put his arm around her waist 'You are wrong in one thing' he said 'I do love you. If you cannot love me it is a great misfortune to us both.....I would rather have you for my wife, childless - if you will try to love me - than any other woman, though another might give me an heir. Will you try to love me?"
I found this scene, when watching it, most touching and wondered if it was true to the book and perhaps the dramatist had changed the dialog somewhat. Not so. It was exactly as the pages I have just read coming home on the train tonight.
After this, Plantagenet turns down the offer of becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer to be with his wife and to take her abroad, giving a whole new meaning to the phrase that we know so well in the UK when a politician resigns or leaves office ' to spend more time with his family'
Plantagent is a good man, I can think of no other word to use to describe this wonderful central character who appears in all of the Palliser novels . To be able to write a sentence using the words 'politician' and 'good' in the same line is a truly amazing thing, let's face and I find myself becoming more and more fond of him the more I read. I am so glad I am embarking on this rediscovery and I am not going to rush it but spread the reading and the watching over several months. Well, that is the idea anyway.
And, of course, we forgive Alice....
