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Read books online » Fiction » He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope (ebook reader with internet browser txt) 📖

Book online «He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope (ebook reader with internet browser txt) 📖». Author Anthony Trollope



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letter quicker than he had

intended when it was written, and was now with his prime minister,

before his prime minister had been able to take any action on the last

instruction received. ‘Does one Mr Samuel Bozzle live here?’ asked

Trevelyan. Then Bozzle came forward and introduced his wife. There was

no one else present except the baby, and Bozzle intimated that let

matters be as delicate as they might, they could be discussed with

perfect security in his wife’s presence. But Trevelyan was of a

different opinion, and he was disgusted and revolted most unreasonably

by the appearance of his minister’s domestic arrangements. Bozzle had

always waited upon him with a decent coat, and a well-brushed hat, and

clean shoes. It is very much easier for such men as Mr Bozzle to carry

decency of appearance about with them than to keep it at home.

Trevelyan had never believed his ally to be more than an ordinary

ex-policeman, but he had not considered how unattractive might be the

interior of a private detective’s private residence. Mrs Bozzle had set

a chair for him, but he had declined to sit down. The room was dirty,

and very close as though no breath of air was ever allowed to find

entrance there. ‘Perhaps you could put on your coat, and walk out with

me for a few minutes,’ said Trevelyan. Mrs Bozzle, who well understood

that business was business, and that wives were not business, felt no

anger at this, and handed her husband his best coat. The well-brushed

hat was fetched from a cupboard, and it was astonishing to see how

easily and how quickly the outer respectability of Bozzle was restored.

 

‘Well?’ said Trevelyan, as soon as they were together in the middle of

Stony Walk.

 

‘There hasn’t been nothing to be done, sir,’ said Bozzle.

 

‘Why not?’ Trevelyan could perceive at once that the authority which he

had once respected had gone from the man. Bozzle away from his own

home, out on business, with his coat buttoned over his breast, and his

best hat in his hand, was aware that he commanded respect and he could

carry himself accordingly. He knew himself to be somebody, and could be

easy, self-confident, confidential, severe, authoritative, or even

arrogant, as the circumstances of the moment might demand. But he had

been found with his coat off, and a baby in his arms, and he could not

recover himself. ‘I do not suppose that anybody will question my right

to have the care of my own child,’ said Trevelyan.

 

‘If you would have gone to Mr Skint, sir ,’ suggested Bozzle. ‘There

ain’t no smarter gent in all the profession, sir, than Mr Skint.’

 

Mr Trevelyan made no reply to this, but walked on in silence, with his

minister at his elbow. He was very wretched, understanding well the

degradation to which he was subjecting himself in discussing his wife’s

conduct with this man; but with whom else could he discuss it? The man

seemed to be meaner now than he had been before he had been seen in his

own home. And Trevelyan was conscious too that he himself was not in

outward appearance as he used to be, that he was ill-dressed, and

haggard, and worn, and visibly a wretched being. How can any man care

to dress himself with attention who is always alone, and always

miserable when alone? During the months which had passed over him since

he had sent his wife away from him, his very nature had been altered,

and he himself was aware of the change. As he went about, his eyes were

ever cast downwards, and he walked with a quick shuffling gait, and he

suspected others, feeling that he himself was suspected. And all work

had ceased with him. Since she had left him he had not read a single

book that was worth the reading. And he knew it all. He was conscious

that he was becoming disgraced and degraded. He would sooner have shot

himself than have walked into his club, or even have allowed himself to

be seen by daylight in Pall Mall, or Piccadilly. He had taken in his

misery to drinking little drops of brandy in the morning, although he

knew well that there was no shorter road to the devil than that opened

by such a habit. He looked up for a moment at Bozzle, and then asked

him a question. ‘Where is he now?’

 

‘You mean the Colonel, sir. He up in town, sir, a minding of his

parliamentary duties. He have been up all this month, sir.’

 

‘They haven’t met?’

 

Bozzle paused a moment before he replied, and then smiled as he spoke.

‘It is so hard, to say, sir. Ladies is so cute and cunning. I’ve

watched as sharp as watching can go, pretty near. I’ve put a youngster

on at each bend, and both of ‘em’d hear a mouse stirring in his sleep.

I ain’t got no evidence, Mr Trevelyan. But if you ask me my opinion,

why in course they’ve been together somewhere. It stands to reason, Mr

Trevelyan; don’t it?’ And Bozzle as he said this smiled almost aloud.

 

‘D n and b t it all for ever!’ said Trevelyan, gnashing his teeth, and

moving away into Union Street as fast as he could walk. And he did go

away, leaving Bozzle standing in the middle of Stony Walk.

 

‘He’s disturbed in his mind quite ‘orrid,’ Bozzle said when he got back

to his wife. ‘He cursed and swore as made even me feel bad.’

 

‘B.,’ said is wife, ‘do you listen to me. Get in what’s a howing and

don’t you have any more to do with it.’

CHAPTER LX

ANOTHER STRUGGLE

 

Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley were to reach England about the end of

March or the beginning of April, and both Mrs Trevelyan and Nora Rowley

were almost sick for their arrival. Both their uncle and aunt had done

very much for them, had been true to them in their need, and had

submitted to endless discomforts in order that their nieces might have

respectable shelter in their great need; but nevertheless their conduct

had not been of a kind to produce either love or friendship. Each of

the sisters felt that she had been much better off at Nuncombe Putney;

and that either the weakness of Mrs Stanbury, or the hardness of

Priscilla, was preferable to the repulsive forbearance of their

clerical host. He did not scold them. He never threw it in Mrs

Trevelyan’s teeth that she had been separated from her husband by her

own fault; he did not tell them of his own discomfort. But he showed it

in every gesture, and spoke of it in every tone of his voice, so that

Mrs Trevelyan could not refrain from apologising for the misfortune of

her presence.

 

‘My dear,’ he said, ‘things can’t be pleasant and unpleasant at the

same time. You were quite right to come here. I am glad for all our

sakes that Sir Marmaduke will be with us so soon.’

 

She had almost given up in her mind the hope that she had long

cherished, that she might some day be able to live again with her

husband. Every step which he now took in reference to her seemed to be

prompted by so bitter an hostility, that she could not but believe that

she was hateful to him. How was it possible that a husband and his wife

should again come together, when there had been between them such an

emissary as a detective policeman? Mrs Trevelyan had gradually come to

learn that Bozzle had been at Nuncombe Putney, watching her, and to be

aware that she was still under the surveillance of his eye. For some

months past now she had neither seen Colonel Osborne, nor heard from

him. He had certainly by his folly done much to produce the ruin which

had fallen upon her; but it never occurred to her to blame him. Indeed

she did not know that he was liable to blame. Mr Outhouse always spoke

of him with indignant scorn, and Nora had learned to think that much of

their misery was due to his imprudence. But Mrs Trevelyan would not see

this, and, not seeing it, was more widely separated from her husband

than she would have been had she acknowledged that any excuse for his

misconduct had been afforded by the vanity and folly of the other man.

 

Lady Rowley had written to have a furnished house taken for them from

the first of April, and a house had been secured in Manchester Street.

The situation in question is not one which is of itself very charming,

nor is it supposed to be in a high degree fashionable; but Nora looked

forward to her escape from St. Diddulph’s to Manchester Street as

though Paradise were to be re-opened to her as soon as she should be

there with her father and mother. She was quite clear now as to her

course about Hugh Stanbury. She did not doubt that that she could so

argue the matter as to get the consent of her father and mother. She

felt herself to be altogether altered in her views of life, since

experience had come upon her, first at Nuncombe Putney, and after that,

much more heavily and seriously, at St. Diddulph’s. She looked back as

though to a childish dream to the ideas which had prevailed with her

when she had told herself, as she used to do so frequently, that she

was unfit to be a poor man’s wife. Why should she be more unfit for

such a position than another? Of course there were many thoughts in her

mind, much of memory if nothing of regret, in regard to Mr Glascock and

the splendour that had been offered to her. She had had her chance of

being a rich man’s wife, and had rejected it—had rejected it twice,

with her eyes open. Readers will say that if she loved Hugh Stanbury

with all her heart, there could be nothing of regret in her

reflections. But we are perhaps accustomed in judging for ourselves and

of others to draw the lines too sharply, and to say that on this side

lie vice, folly, heartlessness, and greed and on the other honour,

love, truth, and wisdom, the good and the bad each in its own domain.

But the good and the bad mix themselves so thoroughly in our thoughts,

even in our aspirations, that we must look for excellence rather in

overcoming evil than in freeing ourselves from its influence. There had

been many moments of regret with Nora but none of remorse. At the very

moment in which she had sent Mr Glascock away from her, and had felt

that he had now been sent away for always, she had been full of regret.

Since that there had been many hours in which she had thought of her

own self-lesson, of that teaching by which she had striven to convince

herself that she could never fitly become a poor man’s wife. But the

upshot of it all was a healthy pride in what she had done, and a strong

resolution that she would make shirts and hem towels for her husband if

he required it. It had been given her to choose, and she had chosen.

She had found herself unable to tell a man that she loved him when she

did not love him and equally unable to conceal the love which she did

feel. ‘If he wheeled a barrow of turnips about the street, I’d marry

him tomorrow,’ she said to her sister one afternoon as they were

sitting together in the room which ought to have been her uncle’s

study.

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