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

CHAPTER LXI

PARKER’S HOTEL, MOWBRAY STREET

 

Within a week of the occurrence which is related in the last chapter,

there came a telegram from Southampton to the parsonage at St.

Diddulph’s, saying that Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley had reached

England. On the evening of that day they were to lodge at a small

family hotel in Baker Street, and both Mrs Trevelyan and Nora were to

be with them. The leave-taking at the parsonage was painful, as on both

sides there existed a feeling that affection and sympathy were wanting.

The uncle and aunt had done their duty, and both Mrs Trevelyan and Nora

felt that they ought to have been demonstrative and cordial in their

gratitude, but they found it impossible to become so. And the rector

could not pretend but that he was glad to be rid of his guests. There

were, too, some last words about money to be spoken, which were

grievous thorns in the poor man’s flesh. Two bank notes, however, were

put upon his table, and he knew that unless he took them he could not

pay for the provisions which his unwelcome visitors had consumed.

Surely there never was a man so cruelly illused as had been Mr

Outhouse in all this matter. ‘Another such winter as that would put me

in my grave,’ he said, when his wife tried to comfort him after they

were gone. ‘I know that they have both been very good to us,’ said Mrs

Trevelyan, as she and her sister, together with the child and the

nurse, hurried away toward Baker Street in a cab, ‘but I have never for

a moment felt that they were glad to have us.’ ‘But how could they have

been glad to have us,’ she added afterwards, ‘when we brought such

trouble with us?’ But they to whom they were going now would receive

her with joy, would make her welcome with all her load of sorrows, would

give to her a sympathy which it was impossible that she should receive

from others. Though she might not be happy now, for in truth how could

she be ever really happy again, there would be a joy to her in placing

her child in her mother’s arms, and in receiving her father’s warm

caresses. That her father would be very vehement in his anger against

her husband she knew well, for Sir Marmaduke was a vehement man. But

there would be some support for her in the very violence of his wrath,

and at this moment it was such support that she most needed. As they

journeyed together in the cab, the married sister seemed to be in the

higher spirits of the two. She was sure, at any rate, that those to

whom she was going would place themselves on her side. Nora had her own

story to tell about Hugh Stanbury, and was by no means so sure that her

tale would be received with cordial agreement. ‘Let me tell them

myself,’ she whispered to her sister. ‘Not tonight, because they will

have so much to say to you; but I shall tell mamma tomorrow.’

 

The train by which the Rowleys were to reach London was due at the

station at 7.30 p.m., and the two sisters timed their despatch from St.

Diddulph’s so as to enable them to reach the hotel at eight. ‘We shall

be there now before mamma,’ said Nora, ‘because they will have so much

luggage, and so many things, and the trains are always late.’ When they

started from the door of the parsonage, Mr Outhouse gave the direction

to the cabman, ‘Gregg’s Hotel, Baker Street.’ Then at once he began to

console himself in that they were gone.

 

It was a long drive from St. Diddulph’s in the east, to Marylebone in

the west, of London. None of the party in the cab knew anything of the

region through which they passed. The cabman took the line by the back

of the Bank, and Finsbury Square and the City Road, thinking it best,

probably, to avoid the crush at Holborn Hill, though at the expense of

something of a circuit. But of this Mrs Trevelyan and Nora knew

nothing. Had their way taken them along Piccadilly, or through Mayfair,

or across Grosvenor Square, they would have known where they were; but

at present they were not thinking of those once much-loved localities.

The cab passed the Angel, and up and down the hill at Pentonville, and

by the King’s Cross stations, and through Euston Square and then it

turned up Gower Street. Surely the man should have gone on along the

New Road, now that he had come so far out of his way. But of this the

two ladies knew nothing nor did the nurse. It was a dark, windy night,

but the lamps in the streets had given them light, so that they had not

noticed the night. Nor did they notice it now as the streets became

narrower and darker. They were hardly thinking that their journey was

yet at an end, and the mother was in the act of covering her boy’s face

as he lay asleep on the nurse’s lap, when the cab was stopped. Nora

looking out through the window, saw the word ‘Hotel’ over a doorway,

and was satisfied.‘shall I take the child, ma’am?’ said a man in black,

and the child was handed out. Nora was the first to follow, and she

then perceived that the door of the hotel was not open. Mrs Trevelyan

followed; and then they looked round them and the child was gone. They

heard the rattle of another cab as it was carried away at a gallop

round a distant corner and then some inkling of what had happened came

upon them. The father had succeeded in getting possession of his child.

 

It was a narrow, dark street, very quiet, having about it a certain air

of poor respectability an obscure, noiseless street, without even a

sign of life. Some unfortunate one had endeavoured here to keep an

hotel, but there was no hotel kept there now. There had been much craft

in selecting the place in which the child had been taken from them. As

they looked around them, perceiving the terrible misfortune which had

befallen them, there was not a human being near them save the cabman,

who was occupied in unchaining, or pretending to unchain the heavy mass

of luggage on the roof. The windows of the house before which they were

stopping, were closed, and Nora perceived at once that the hotel was

not inhabited. The cabman must have perceived it also. As for the man

who had taken the child, the nurse could only say that he was dressed

in black, like a waiter, that he had a napkin under his arm, and no hat

on his head. He had taken the boy tenderly in his arms and then she had

seen nothing further. The first thing that Nora had seen, as she stood

on the pavement, was the other cab moving off rapidly.

 

Mrs Trevelyan had staggered against the railings, and was soon

screaming in her wretchedness. Before long there was a small crowd

around them, comprising three or four women, a few boys, an old man or

two and a policeman. To the policeman Nora had soon told the whole

story, and the cabman was of course attacked. But the cabman played his

part very well. He declared that he had done just what he had been told

to do. Nora was indeed sure that she had heard her uncle desire him to

drive to Gregg’s Hotel in Baker Street. The cabman in answer to this,

declared that he had not clearly heard the old gentleman’s directions;

but that a man whom he had conceived to be a servant, had very plainly

told him to drive to Parker’s Hotel, Mowbray Street, Gower Street. ‘I

comed ever so far out of my way,’ said the cabman, ‘to avoid the rumpus

with the homnibuses at the hill cause the ladies things is so heavy

we’d never got up if the ‘otherwise had once jibbed.’ All which, though

it had nothing to do with the matter, seemed to impress the policeman

with the idea that the cabman, if not a true man, was going to be too

clever for them on this occasion. And the crafty cabman