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

leaving the office of

the D.R.

 

‘250, Fleet Street,

 

20th April.

 

My Dear Sir Marmaduke Rowley

 

‘I have just received your letter, and am indeed sorry that its

contents should be so little favourable to my hopes. I understand that

your objection to me is simply in regard to the smallness and

insecurity of my income. On the first point I may say that I have fair

hopes that it may be at once increased. As to the second, I believe I

may assert that it is as sure at least as the income of other

professional men, such as barristers, merchants, and doctors. I cannot

promise to say that I will not see your daughter. If she desires me to

do so, of course I shall be guided by her views. I wish that I might be

allowed an opportunity of seeing you, as think I could reverse or at

least mitigate some of the objections which you feel to our marriage.’

 

Yours most faithfully,

 

Hugh Stanbury.’

 

On the next day but one Sir Marmaduke came to him. He was sitting at

the office of the D. R., in a very small and dirty room at the back of

the house, and Sir Marmaduke found his way thither through a confused

crowd of compositors, pressmen, and printers’ boys. He thought that he

had never before been in a place so foul, so dark, so crowded, and so

comfortless. He himself was accustomed to do his work, out in the

Islands, with many of the appanages of vice-royalty around him. He had

his secretary, and his private secretary, and his inner-room, and his

waiting-room; and not unfrequently he had the honour of a dusky

sentinel walking before the door through which he was to be approached.

He had an idea that all gentlemen at their work had comfortable

appurtenances around them such as carpets, dispatch-boxes, unlimited

stationery, easy chairs for temporary leisure, big table-space, and a

small world of books around them to give at least a look of erudition

to their pursuits. There was nothing of the kind in the miserably dark

room occupied ‘by Stanbury. He was sitting at a wretched little table

on which there was nothing but a morsel of blotting paper, a small

inkbottle, and the paper on which he was scribbling. There was no

carpet there, and no dispatch box, and the only book in the room was a

little dog’s-eared dictionary.‘Sir Marmaduke, I am so much obliged to

you for coming,’ said Hugh. ‘I fear you will find this place a little

rough, but we shall be all alone.’

 

‘The place, Mr Stanbury, will not signify, I think’

 

‘Not in the least—if you don’t mind it. I got your letter, you know,

Sir Marmaduke.’

 

‘And I have had your reply. I have come to you because you have

expressed a wish for an interview, but I do not see that it will do any

good.’

 

‘You are very kind for coming, indeed, Sir Marmaduke, very kind. I

thought I might explain something to you about my income.’

 

‘Can you tell me that you have any permanent income?’

 

‘It goes on regularly from month to month;’ Sir Marmaduke did not feel

the slightest respect for an income that was paid monthly. According to

his ideas, a gentleman’s income should be paid quarterly, or perhaps

half-yearly. According to his view, a monthly salary was only one

degree better than weekly wages ‘and I suppose that is permanence,’

said Hugh Stanbury.

 

‘I cannot say that I so regard it.’

 

‘A barrister gets his, you know, very irregularly. There is no saying

when he may have it.’

 

‘But a barrister’s profession is recognised as a profession among

gentlemen, Mr Stanbury.’

 

‘And is not ours recognised? Which of us, barristers or men of

literature, have the most effect on the world at large? Who is most

thought of in London, Sir Marmaduke, the Lord Chancellor or the Editor

of the “Jupiter”?’

 

‘The Lord Chancellor a great deal,’ said Sir Marmaduke, quite dismayed

by the audacity of the question.

 

‘By no means, Sir Marmaduke,’ said Stanbury, throwing out his hand

before him so as to give the energy of action to his words. ‘He has the

higher rank. I will admit that.’

 

‘I should think so,’ said Sir Marmaduke.

 

‘And the larger income.’

 

‘Very much larger, I should say,’ said Sir Marmaduke, with a smile.

 

‘And he wears a wig.’

 

‘Yes he wears a wig,’ said Sir Marmaduke, hardly knowing in what spirit

to accept this assertion.

 

‘And nobody cares one brass button for him or his opinions,’ said

Stanbury, bringing down his hand heavily on the little table for the

sake of emphasis.

 

‘What, sir?’

 

‘If you’ll think of it, it is so.’

 

‘Nobody cares for the Lord Chancellor!’ It certainly is the fact that

gentlemen living in the Mandarin Islands do think more of the Lord

Chancellor, and the Lord Mayor, and the Lord-Lieutenant, and the Lord

Chamberlain, than they whose spheres of life bring them into closer

contact with those august functionaries. ‘I presume, Mr Stanbury, that

a connection with a penny newspaper makes such opinions as these almost

a necessity.’

 

‘Quite a necessity, Sir Marmaduke. No man can hold his own in print,

now-a-days, unless he can see the difference between tinsel and gold.’

 

‘And the Lord Chancellor, of course, is tinsel.’

 

‘I do not say so. He may be a great lawyer and very useful. But his

lordship, and his wig, and his woolsack, are tinsel in comparison with

the real power possessed by the editor of a leading newspaper. If the

Lord Chancellor were to go to bed for a month, would he be much

missed?’

 

‘I don’t know, sir. I’m not in the secrets of the Cabinet. I should

think he would.’

 

‘About as much as my grandmother; but if the Editor of the Jupiter were

to be taken ill, it would work quite a commotion. For myself I should

be glad on public grounds because I don’t like his mode of business.

But it would have an effect because he is a leading man.’

 

‘I don’t see what all this leads to, Mr Stanbury.’

 

‘Only to this, that we who write for the press think that our calling is

recognised, and must be recognised, as a profession. Talk of permanence,

Sir Marmaduke; are not the newspapers permanent? Do not they come out

regularly every day, and more of them, and still more of them, are

always coming out? You do not expect a collapse among them.’

 

‘There will be plenty of newspapers, I do not doubt more than plenty,

perhaps.’

 

‘Somebody must write them, and the writers will be paid.’

 

‘Anybody could write the most of them, I should say.’

 

‘I wish you would try, Sir Marmaduke. Just try your hand at a leading

article tonight, and read it yourself tomorrow morning.’

 

‘I’ve a great deal too much to do, Mr Stanbury.’

 

‘Just so. You have, no doubt, the affairs of your Government to look

to. We are all so apt to ignore the work of our neighbours! It seems to

me that I could go over and govern the Mandarins without the slightest

trouble in the world. But, no doubt, I am mistaken, just as you are

about writing for the newspapers.’

 

‘I do not know,’ said Sir Marmaduke, rising from his chair with

dignity, ‘that I called here to discuss such matters as these. As it

happens, you, Mr Stanbury, are not the Governor of the Mandarins, and I

have not the honour to write for the columns of the penny newspaper

with which you are associated. It is therefore useless to discuss what

either of us might do in the position held by the other.’

 

‘Altogether useless, Sir Marmaduke, except just for the fun of the

thing.’

 

‘I do not see the fun, Mr Stanbury. I came here, at your request, to

hear what you might have to urge against the decision which I

expressed to you in reference to my daughter. As it seems that you have

nothing to urge, I will not take up your time further.’

 

‘But I have a great deal to urge, and have urged a great deal.’

 

‘Have you, indeed?’

 

‘You have complained that my work is not permanent. I have shewn that

it is so permanent that there is no possibility of its coming to an

end. There must be newspapers, and the people trained to write them

must be employed. I have been at it now about two years. You know what

I earn. Could I have got so far in so short a time as a lawyer, a

doctor, a clergyman, a soldier, a sailor, a Government clerk, or in any

of those employments which you choose to call professions? I think that

is urging a great deal. I think it is urging everything.’

 

‘Very well, Mr Stanbury. I have listened to you, and in a certain

degree I admire your your your zeal and ingenuity, shall I say.’

 

‘I didn’t mean to call for admiration, Sir Marmaduke; but suppose you

say good sense and discrimination.’

 

‘Let that pass. You must permit me to remark that your position is not

such as to justify me in trusting my daughter to your care. As my mind

on that matter is quite made up, as is that also of Lady Rowley, I must

ask you to give me your promise that your suit to my daughter shall be

discontinued.’

 

‘What does she say about it, Sir Marmaduke?’

 

‘What she has said to me has been for my ears, and not for yours.’

 

‘What I say is for her ears and for yours, and for her mother’s ears,

and for the ears of any who may choose to hear it. I will never give up

my suit to your daughter till I am forced to do so, by a full

conviction given me up. It is best to be plain, Sir Marmaduke, of

course.’

 

‘I do not understand this, Mr Stanbury.’

 

‘I mean to be quite clear.’

 

‘I have always thought that when a gentleman was told by the head of a

family that he could not be made welcome in that family, it was

considered to be the duty of that gentleman, as a gentleman, to abandon

his vain pursuit. I have been brought up with that idea.’

 

‘And I, Sir Marmaduke, have been brought up in the idea that when a man

has won the affections of a woman, it is the duty of that man, as a man,

to stick to her through thick and thin; and I mean to do my duty,

according to my idea.’

 

‘Then, sir, I have nothing further to say, but to take my leave. I must

only caution you not to enter my doors.’ As the passages were dark and

intricate, it was necessary that Stanbury should shew Sir Marmaduke

out, and this he did in silence. When they parted each of them lifted

his hat, and not a word more was said.

 

That same night there was a note put into Nora’s hands as she was

following her mother out of one of the theatres. In the confusion she

did not even see the messenger who had handed it to her. Her sister

Lucy saw that she had taken the note, and questioned her about it

afterwards with discretion, however, and in privacy. This was the note:

 

‘Dearest Love,

 

I have seen your father, who is stern after the manner of fathers. What

granite equals a parent’s flinty bosom! For myself,