He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope (ebook reader with internet browser txt) 📖

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‘If he wheeled a big barrow, you’d have to wheel a little one,’ said

her sister.

 

‘Then I’d do it. I shouldn’t mind. There has been this advantage in St.

Diddulph’s, that nothing can be triste, nothing dull, nothing ugly

after it.’

 

‘It may be so with you, Nora, that is in imagination.’

 

‘What I mean is that living here has taught me much that I never could

have learned in Curzon Street. I used to think myself such a fine young

woman but, upon my word, I think myself a finer one now.’

 

‘I don’t quite know what you mean.’

 

‘I don’t quite know myself; but I nearly know. I do know this, that

I’ve made up my own mind about what I mean to do.’

 

‘You’ll change it, dear, when mamma is here, and things are comfortable

again. It’s my belief that Mr Glascock would come to you again tomorrow

if you would let him.’ Mrs Trevelyan was, naturally, in complete

ignorance of the experience of transatlantic excellence which Mr

Glascock had encountered in Italy.

 

‘But I certainly should not let him. How would it be possible after

what I wrote to Hugh?’

 

‘All that might pass away,’ said Mrs Trevelyan slowly, after a long

pause.

 

‘All what might pass away? Have I not given him a distinct promise?

Have I not told him that I loved him, and sworn that I would be true to

him? Can that be made to pass away, even if one wished it?’

 

‘Of course it can. Nothing need be fixed for you till you have stood at

the altar with a man and been made his wife. You may choose still. I

can never choose again.’

 

‘I never will, at any rate,’ said Nora.

 

Then there was another pause. ‘It seems strange to me, Nora,’ said the

elder sister, ‘that after what you have seen you should be so keen to

be married to any one.’

 

‘What is a girl to do?’

 

‘Better drown herself than do as I have done. Only think what there is

before me. What I have gone through is nothing to it. Of course I must

go back to the Islands. Where else am I to live? Who else will take

me?’

 

‘Come to us,’ said Nora.

 

‘Us, Nora! Who are the us? But in no way would that be possible. Papa

will be here, perhaps, for six months.’ Nora thought it quite possible

that she might have a home of her own before six months were passed,

even though she might be wheeling the smaller barrow, but she would not

say so. ‘And by that time everything must be decided.’

 

‘I suppose it must.’

 

‘Of course papa and mamma must go back,’ said Mrs Trevelyan.

 

‘Papa might take a pension. He’s entitled to a pension now.’

 

‘He’ll never do that as long as he can have employment. They’ll go

back, and I must go with them. Who else would take me in?’

 

‘I know who would take you in, Emily.’

 

‘My darling, that is romance. As for myself, I should not care where I

went. If it were even to remain here, I could bear it.’

 

‘I could not,’ said Nora, decisively.

 

‘It is so different with you, dear. I don’t suppose it is possible I

should take my boy with me to the Islands; and how am I to go anywhere

without him?’ Then she broke down, and fell into a paroxysm of sobs,

and was in very truth a broken-hearted woman.

 

Nora was silent for some minutes, but at last she spoke. ‘Why do you

not go back to him, Emily?’

 

‘How am I to go back to him? What am I to do to make him take me back?’

At this very moment Trevelyan was in the house, but they did not know

it.

 

‘Write to him,’ said Nora.

 

‘What am I to say? In very truth I do believe that he is mad. If I

write to him, should I defend myself or accuse myself? A dozen times I

have striven to write such a letter, not that I might send it, but that

I might find what I could say should I ever wish to send it. And it is

impossible. I can only tell him how unjust he has been, how cruel, how

mad, how wicked!’

 

‘Could you not say to him simply this? “Let us be together, wherever it

may be; and let bygones be bygones.”’

 

‘While he is watching me with a policeman? While he is still thinking

that I entertain a lover? While he believes that I am the base thing

that he has dared to think me?’

 

‘He has never believed it.’

 

‘Then how can he be such a villain as to treat me like this? I could

not go to him, Nora not unless I went to him as one who was known to be

mad, over whom in his wretched condition it would be my duty to keep

watch. In no other way could I overcome my abhorrence of the outrages

to which he has subjected me.’

 

‘But for the child’s sake, Emily.’

 

‘Ah, yes! If it were simply to grovel in the dust before him it should

be done. If humiliation would suffice, or any self-abasement that were

possible to me! But I should be false if I said that I look forward to

any such possibility. How can he wish to have me back again after what

he has said and done? I am his wife, and he has disgraced me before all

men by his own words. And what have I done, that I should not have done;

what left undone on his behalf that I should have done? It is hard that

the foolish workings of a weak man’s mind should be able so completely

to ruin the prospects of a woman’s life!’

 

Nora was beginning to answer this by attempting to shew that the

husband’s madness was, perhaps, only temporary, when there came a knock

at the door, and Mrs Outhouse was at once in the room. It will be well

that the reader should know what had taken place at the parsonage while

the two sisters had been together upstairs, so that the nature of Mrs

Outhouse’s mission to them may explain itself. Mr Outhouse had been in

his closet downstairs, when the maidservant brought word to him that

Mr Trevelyan was in the parlour, and was desirous of seeing him.

 

‘Mr Trevelyan!’ said the unfortunate clergyman, holding up both his

hands. The servant understood the tragic importance of the occasion

quite as well as did her master, and simply shook her head. ‘Has your

mistress seen him?’ said the master. The girl again shook her head.

‘Ask your mistress to come to me,’ said the clergyman. Then the girl

disappeared; and in a few minutes Mrs Outhouse, equally imbued with the

tragic elements of the day, was with her husband.

 

Mr Outhouse began by declaring that no consideration should induce him

to see Trevelyan, and commissioned his wife to go to the man and tell

him that he must leave the house. When the unfortunate woman expressed

an opinion that Trevelyan had some legal rights upon which he might

probably insist, Mr Outhouse asserted roundly that he could have no

legal right to remain in that parsonage against the will of the rector.

‘If he wants to claim his wife and child, he must do it by law not by

force; and thank God, Sir Marmaduke will be here before he can do

that.’ ‘But I can’t make him go,’ said Mrs Outhouse. ‘Tell him that

you’ll send for a policeman,’ said the clergyman.

 

It had come to pass that there had been messages backwards and forwards

between the visitor and the master of the house, all carried by that

unfortunate lady.

 

Trevelyan did not demand that his wife and child should be given up to

him, did not even, on this occasion, demand that his boy should be

surrendered to him now, at once. He did say, very repeatedly, that of

course he must have his boy, but seemed to imply that, under certain

circumstances, he would be willing to take his wife to live with him

again. This appeared to Mrs Outhouse to be so manifestly the one thing

that was desirable, to be the only solution of the difficulty that could

be admitted as a solution at all, that she went to work on that hint,

and ventured to entertain a hope that a reconciliation might be

effected. She implored her husband to lend a hand to the work, by which

she intended to imply that he should not only see Trevelyan, but

consent to meet the sinner on friendly terms. But Mr Outhouse was on

the occasion ever more than customarily obstinate. His wife might do

what she liked. He would neither meddle nor make. He would not

willingly see Mr Trevelyan in his own house unless, indeed, Mr

Trevelyan should attempt to force his way up into the nursery. Then he

said that which left no doubt on his wife’s mind that, should any

violence be attempted, her husband would manfully join the melee.

 

But it soon became evident that no such attempt was to be made on that

day. Trevelyan was lachrymose, heartbroken, and a sight pitiable to

behold. When Mrs Outhouse loudly asserted that his wife had not sinned

against him in the least ‘not in a tittle, Mr Trevelyan,’ she repeated

over and over again he began to assert himself, declaring that she had

seen the man in Devonshire, and corresponded with him since she had

been at St. Diddulph’s; and when the lady had declared that the latter

assertion was untrue, he had shaken his head, and had told her that

perhaps she did not know all. But the misery of the man had its effect

upon her, and at last she proposed to be the bearer of a message to his

wife. He had demanded to see his child, offering his promise that he

would not attempt to take the boy by force on this occasion saying,

also, that his claim by law was so good, that no force could be

necessary. It was proposed by Mrs Outhouse that he should first see the

mother, and to this he at last assented. How blessed a thing would it be

if these two persons could be induced to forget the troubles of the

last twelve months, and once more to love and trust each other! ‘But,

sir,’ said Mrs Outhouse, putting her hand upon his arm ‘you must not

upbraid her, for she will not bear it. ‘She knows nothing of what is due

to a husband,’ said Trevelyan, gloomily. The task was not hopeful; but,

nevertheless, the poor woman resolved to do her best.

 

And now Mrs Outhouse was in her niece’s room, asking her to go down and

see her husband. Little Louis had at the time been with the nurse, and

the very moment that the mother heard that the child’s father was in

the house, she jumped up and rushed away to get possession of her

treasure. ‘Has he come for baby?’ Nora asked in dismay. Then Mrs

Outhouse, anxious to obtain a convert to her present views, boldly

declared that Mr Trevelyan had no such intention. Mrs Trevelyan came

back at once with the boy, and then listened to all her aunt’s

arguments. ‘But I will not take baby with me,’ she said. At last it was

decided that she should go down alone, and that the child should

afterwards be taken to his father in the drawing-room; Mrs Outhouse