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

and I shall always say so unless he breaks it. I

don’t care a bit about fortune. I thought I did once, but I have

changed all that.’

 

‘Because this scoundrel has talked sedition to you.’

 

‘He is not a scoundrel, papa, and he has not talked sedition. I don’t

know what sedition is. I thought it meant treason, and I’m sure he is

not a traitor. He has made me love him, and I shall be true to him.’

 

Hereupon Sir Marmaduke began almost to weep. There came first a

half-smothered oath and then a sob, and he walked about the room, and

struck the table with his fist, and rubbed his bald head impatiently

with his hand. ‘Nora,’ he said, ‘I thought you were so different from

this! If I had believed this of you, you never should have come to

England with Emily.’

 

‘It is too late for that now, papa.’

 

‘Your mamma always told me that you had such excellent ideas about

marriage.’

 

‘So I have, I think,’ said she, smiling.

 

‘She always believed that you would make a match that would be a credit

to the family.’

 

‘I tried it, papa, the sort of match that you mean. Indeed I was

mercenary enough in what I believed to be my views of life. I meant to

marry a rich man if I could, and did not think much whether I should

love him or not. But when the rich man came—’

 

‘What rich man?’

 

‘I suppose mamma has told you about Mr Glascock.’

 

‘Who is Mr Glascock? I have not heard a word about Mr Glascock.’ Then

Nora was forced to tell the story, was called upon to tell it with all

its aggravating details. By degrees Sir Marmaduke learned that this Mr

Glascock, who had desired to be his son-in-law, was in very truth the

heir to the Peterborough title and estates, would have been such a

son-in-law as almost to compensate, by the brilliance of the

connection, for that other unfortunate alliance. He could hardly

control his agony when he was made to understand that this embryo peer

had in truth been in earnest.

 

‘Do you mean that he went down after you into Devonshire?’

 

‘Yes, papa.’

 

‘And you refused him then a second time?’

 

‘Yes, papa.’

 

‘Why, why, why? You say yourself that you liked him, that you thought that

you would accept him.’

 

‘When it came to speaking the word, papa, I found that I could not

pretend to love him when I did not love him. I did not care for him, and

I liked somebody else so much better! I just told him the plain truth

and so he went away.’

 

The thought of all that he had lost, of all that might so easily have

been his, for a time overwhelmed Sir Marmaduke, and drove the very

memory of Hugh Stanbury almost out of his head; He could understand

that a girl should not marry a man whom she did not like; but he could

not understand how any girl should not love such a suitor as was Mr

Glascock. And had she accepted this pearl of men, with her position,

with her manners and beauty and appearance, such a connection would

have been as good as an assured marriage for every one of Sir

Marmaduke’s numerous daughters. Nora was just the woman to look like a

great lady, a lady of high rank such a lady as could almost command men

to come and throw themselves at her unmarried sisters’ feet. Sir

Marmaduke had believed in his daughter Nora, had looked forward to see

her do much for the family; and, when the crash had come upon the

Trevelyan household, had thought almost as much of her injured

prospects as he had of the misfortune of her sister. But now it seemed

that more than all the good things of what he had dreamed had been

proposed to this unruly girl, in spite of that great crash, and had been

rejected! And he saw more than this as he thought. These good things

would have been accepted had it not been for this rascal of a

penny-a-liner, this friend of that other rascal Trevelyan, who had come

in the way of their family to destroy the happiness of them all! Sir

Marmaduke, in speaking of Stanbury after this, would constantly call

him a penny-a-liner, thinking that the contamination of the penny

communicated itself to all transactions of the Daily Record.

 

‘You have made your bed for yourself, Nora, and you must lie upon it.’

 

‘Just so, papa.’

 

‘I mean that, as you have refused Mr Glascock’s offer, you can never

again hope for such an opening in life.’

 

‘Of course I cannot. I am not such a child as to suppose that there are

many Mr Glascocks to come and run after me. And if there were ever so

many, papa, it would be no good. As you say, I have chosen for myself,

and I must put up with it. When I see the carriages going about in the

streets, and remember how often shall have to go home in an omnibus, I

do think about it a good deal.’

 

‘I’m afraid you will think when it is too late.’

 

‘It isn’t that I don’t like carriages, papa. I do like them; and pretty

dresses, and brooches, and men and women who have nothing to do, and

balls, and the opera; but I love this man, and that is more to me than

all the rest. I cannot help myself if it were ever so. Papa, you

mustn’t be angry with me. Pray, pray, pray do not say that horrid word

again.’

 

This was the end of the interview. Sir Marmaduke found that he had

nothing further to say. Nora, when she reached her last prayer to her

father, referring to that curse with which he had threatened her, was

herself in tears, and was leaning on him with her head against his

shoulder. Of course he did not say a word which could be understood as

sanctioning her engagement with Stanbury. He was as strongly determined

as ever that it was his duty to save her from the perils of such a

marriage as that. But, nevertheless, he was so far overcome by her as

to be softened in his manners towards her. He kissed her as he left

her, and told her to go to her mother. Then he went out and thought of

it all, and felt as though Paradise had been opened to his child and

she had refused to enter the gate.