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

lover than the friend

of his elder daughter’s husband.

 

Stanbury had just determined that he must go, that there was no

possibility for him either to say or do anything to promote his cause

at the present moment, when the circumstances were all changed by the

return home of Lady Rowley and Mrs Trevelyan. Lady Rowley knew, and had

for some days known, much more of Stanbury than had come to the ears of

Sir Marmaduke. She understood in the first place that the Stanburys had

been very good to her daughter, and she was aware that Hugh Stanbury

had thoroughly taken her daughter’s part against his old friend

Trevelyan. She would therefore have been prepared to receive him kindly

had he not on this very morning been the subject of special

conversation between her and Emily. But, as it had happened, Mrs

Trevelyan had this very day told Lady Rowley the whole story of Nora’s

love. The elder sister had not intended to be treacherous to the

younger; but in the thorough confidence which mutual grief and close

conference had created between the mother and daughter, everything had

at last come out, and Lady Rowley had learned the story, not only of

Hugh Stanbury’s courtship, but of those rich offers which had been made

by the heir to the barony of Peterborough.

 

It must be acknowledged that Lady Rowley was greatly grieved and

thoroughly dismayed. It was not only that Mr Glascock was the eldest

son of a peer, but that he was represented by the poor suffering wife

of the ill-tempered man to be a man blessed with a disposition sweet as

an angel’s. ‘And she would have liked him,’ Emily had said, ‘if it had

not been for this unfortunate young man.’ Lady Rowley was not worse

than are other mothers, not more ambitious, or more heartless, or more

worldly. She was a good mother, loving her children, and thoroughly

anxious for their welfare. But she would have liked to be the

mother-in-law of Lord Peterborough, and she would have liked, dearly,

to see her second daughter removed from the danger of those rocks

against which her eldest child had been shipwrecked. And when she asked

after Hugh Stanbury, and his means of maintaining a wife, the statement

which Mrs Trevelyan made was not comforting. ‘He writes for a penny

newspaper and, I believe, writes very well,’ Mrs Trevelyan had said.

 

‘For a penny newspaper! Is that respectable?’

 

‘His aunt, Miss Stanbury, seemed to think not. But I suppose men of

education do write for such things now. He says himself that it is very

precarious as an employment.’

 

‘It must be precarious, Emily. And has he got nothing?’

 

‘Not a penny of his own,’ said Mrs Trevelyan.

 

Then Lady Rowley had thought again of Mr Glascock, and of the family

title, and of Markhams. And she thought of her present troubles, and of

the Mandarins, and the state of Sir Marmaduke’s balance at the bankers

and of the other girls, and of all there was before her to do. Here had

been a very Apollo among suitors kneeling at her child’s feet, and the

foolish girl had sent him away for the sake of a young man who wrote

for a penny newspaper! Was it worth the while of any woman to bring up

daughters with such results? Lady Rowley, therefore, when she was first

introduced to Hugh Stanbury, was not prepared to receive him with open

arms.

 

On this occasion the task of introducing him fell to Mrs Trevelyan, and

was done with much graciousness. Emily knew that Hugh Stanbury was her

friend, and would sympathise with her respecting her child. ‘You have

heard what has happened to me?’ she said. Stanbury, however, had heard

nothing of that kidnapping of the child. Though to the Rowleys it

seemed that such a deed of iniquity, done in the middle of London, must

have been known to all the world, he had not as yet been told of it, and

now the story was given to him. Mrs Trevelyan herself told it, with

many tears and an agony of fresh grief; but still she told it as to one

whom she regarded as a sure friend, and from whom she knew that she

would receive sympathy. Sir Marmaduke sat by the while, still gloomy

and out of humour. Why was their family sorrow to be laid bare to this

stranger?

 

‘It is the cruellest thing I ever heard,’ said Hugh.

 

‘A dastardly deed,’ said Lady Rowley.

 

‘But we all feel that for the time he can hardly know what he does,’

said Nora.

 

‘And where is the child?’ Stanbury asked.

 

‘We have not the slightest idea,’ said Lady Rowley. ‘I have seen him,

and he refuses to tell us. He did say that my daughter should see her

boy; but he now accompanies his offer with such conditions that it is

impossible to listen to him.’

 

‘And where is he?’

 

‘We do not know where he lives. We can reach him only through a certain

man.’

 

‘Ah, I know the man,’ said Stanbury; ‘one who was a policeman once. His

name is Bozzle.’

 

‘That is the man,’ said Sir Marmaduke. ‘I have seen him.’

 

‘And of course he will tell us nothing but what he is told to tell us,’

continued Lady Rowley. ‘Can there be anything so horrible as this that

a wife should be bound to communicate with her own husband respecting

her own child through such a man as that?’

 

‘One might possibly find out where he keeps the child,’ said Hugh.

 

‘If you could manage that, Mr Stanbury!’ said Lady Rowley.

 

‘I hardly see that it would do much good,’ said Hugh. ‘Indeed I do not

know why he should keep the place a secret. I suppose he has a right to

the boy until the mother shall have made good her claim before the

court.’ He promised, however, that he would do his best to ascertain

where the child was kept, and where Trevelyan resided, and then having

been nearly an hour at the house he was forced to get up and take his

leave. He had said not a word to any one of the business that had

brought him there. He had not even whispered an assurance of his

affection to Nora. Till the two elder ladies had come in, and the

subject of the taking of the boy had been mooted, he had sat there as a

perfect stranger. He thought that it was manifest enough that Nora had

told her secret to no one. It seemed to him that Mrs Trevelyan must

have forgotten it—that Nora herself must have forgotten it, if such

forgetting could be possible! He got up, however, and took his leave,

and was comforted in some slight degree by seeing that there was a tear

in Nora’s eye.

 

‘Who is he?’ demanded Sir Marmaduke, as soon as the door was closed.

 

‘He is a young man who was an intimate friend of Louis’s,’ answered Mrs

Trevelyan; ‘but he is so no longer, because he sees how infatuated

Louis has been.’

 

‘And why does he come here?’

 

‘We know him very well,’ continued Mrs Trevelyan. ‘It was he that

arranged our journey down to Devonshire. He was very kind about it, and

so were his mother and sister. We have every reason to be grateful to

Mr Stanbury.’ This was all very well, but Nora nevertheless felt that

the interview had been anything but successful.

 

‘Has he any profession?’ asked Sir Marmaduke.

 

‘He writes for the press,’ said Mrs Trevelyan.

 

‘What do you mean—books?’

 

‘No, for a newspaper.’

 

‘For a penny newspaper,’ said Nora boldly ‘for the Daily Record.’

 

‘Then I hope he won’t come here any more,’ said Sir Marmaduke. Nora

paused a moment, striving to find words for some speech which might be

true to her love and yet not unseemly; but finding no such words ready,

she got up from her seat and walked out of the room. ‘What is the

meaning of it all?’ asked Sir Marmaduke. There was a silence for a

while, and then he repeated his question in another form. ‘Is there any

reason for his coming here—about Nora?’

 

‘I think he is attached to Nora,’ said Mrs Trevelyan. ‘My dear,’ said

Lady Rowley, ‘perhaps we had better not speak about it just now.’

 

‘I suppose he has not a penny in the world,’ said Sir Marmaduke.

 

‘He has what he earns,’ said Mrs Trevelyan.

 

‘If Nora understands her duty she will never let me hear his name

again,’ said Sir Marmaduke. Then there was nothing more said, and as

soon as they could escape, both Lady Rowley and Mrs Trevelyan left the

room.

 

‘I should have told you everything,’ said Nora to her mother that

night. ‘I had no intention to keep anything a secret from you. But we

have all been so unhappy about Louey, that we have had no heart to talk

of anything else.’

 

‘I understand all that, my darling.’

 

‘And I had meant that you should tell papa, for I supposed that he

would come. And I meant that he should go to papa himself. He intended

that himself, only, to-day as things turned out.’

 

‘Just so, dearest, but it does not seem that he has got any income. It

would be very rash, wouldn’t it?’

 

‘People must be rash sometimes. Everybody can’t have an income without

earning it. I suppose people in professions do marry without having

fortunes.’

 

‘When they have settled professions, Nora.’

 

‘And why is not his a settled profession? I believe he receives quite

as much at seven and twenty as Uncle Oliphant does at sixty.’

 

‘But your Uncle Oliphant’s income is permanent.’

 

‘Lawyers don’t have permanent incomes, or doctors or merchants.’

 

‘But those professions are regular and sure. They don’t marry, without

fortunes, till they have made their incomes sure.’

 

‘Mr Stanbury’s income is sure. I don’t know why it shouldn’t be sure.

He goes on writing and writing every day, and it seems to me that of

all professions in the world it is the finest. I’d much sooner write

for a newspaper than be one of those old musty, fusty lawyers, who’ll

say anything that they’re paid to say.’

 

‘My dearest Nora, all that is nonsense. You know as well as I do that

you should not marry a man when there is a doubt whether he can keep a

house over your head that is his position.’

 

‘It is good enough for me, mamma.’

 

‘And what is his income from writing?’

 

‘It is quite enough for me, mamma. The truth is I have promised, and I

cannot go back from it. Dear, dear mamma, you won’t quarrel with us,

and oppose us, and make papa hard against us. You can do what you like

with papa. I know that. Look at poor Emily. Plenty of money has not

made her happy.’

 

‘If Mr Glascock had only asked you a week sooner,’ said Lady Rowley,

with a handkerchief to her eyes.

 

‘But you see, he didn’t, mamma.’

 

‘When I think of it I cannot but weep;’ and the poor mother burst out

into a full flood of tears ‘such a man, so good, so gentle, and so

truly devoted to you.’

 

‘Mamma, what’s the good of that now?’

 

‘Going down all the way to Devonshire after you!’

 

‘So did Hugh, mamma.’

 

‘A position that any girl in England would have envied you. I cannot

but feel it. And Emily says she is sure he would come back, if he