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

among their friends, and excited no surprise; but a stranger

to the locality once asked of the elder why Miss Matilda, the younger,

always went first out of the room? ‘Matilda once had an offer of

marriage,’ said the dear simple old lady, who had never been so graced,

and who felt that such an episode in life was quite sufficient to

bestow brevet rank. It was believed by Mrs Stanbury that Dorothy’s

honours would be carried further than those of Miss Matilda, but there

was much of the same feeling in the bosom of the mother towards the

fortunate daughter, who, in the eyes of a man, had seemed goodly enough

to be his wife.

 

With this swelling happiness round her heart, Dorothy read her aunt’s

letter, and was infinitely softened. ‘I had gotten somehow to love to

see your pretty face.’ Dorothy had thought little enough of her own

beauty, but she liked being told by her aunt that her face had been

found to be pretty. ‘I am very desolate and solitary here,’ her aunt

said; and then had come those words about the state of maiden women and

then those other words, about women’s duties, and her aunt’s prayer on

her behalf. ‘Dear Dorothy, be not such a one.’ She held the letter to

her lips and to her bosom, and could hardly continue its perusal

because of her tears. Such prayers from the aged addressed to the young

are generally held in light esteem, but this adjuration was valued by

the girl to whom it was addressed. She put together the invitation or

rather the permission accorded to her, to make a visit to Exeter and

the intimation in the postscript that Martha knew her mistress’s mind;

and then she returned to the sitting-room, in which Martha was still

seated with her mother, and took the old servant apart. ‘Martha,’ she

said, ‘is my aunt happy now?’

 

‘Well, miss.’

 

‘She is strong again; is she not?’

 

‘Sir Peter says she is getting well; and Mr Martin; but Mr Martin isn’t

much account.’

 

‘She eats and drinks again?’

 

‘Pretty well not as it used to be, you know, miss. I tell her she ought

to go somewheres but she don’t like moving nohow. She never did. I tell

her if she’d go to Dawlish just for a week. But she don’t think there’s

a bed fit to sleep on, nowhere, except just her own.’

 

‘She would go if Sir Peter told her.’

 

‘She says that these movings are newfangled fashions, and that the air

didn’t use to want changing for folk when she was young. I heard her

tell Sir Peter herself, that if she couldn’t live at Exeter, she would

die there. She won’t go nowheres, Miss Dorothy. She ain’t careful to

live.’

 

‘Tell me something, Martha; will you?’

 

‘What is it, Miss Dorothy?’

 

‘Be a dear good woman now, and tell me true. Would she be better if I

were with her?’

 

‘She don’t like being alone, miss. I don’t know nobody as does.’

 

‘But now, about Mr Brooke, you know.’

 

‘Yes; Mr Brooke! That’s it.’

 

‘Of course, Martha, I love him better than anything in all the world. I

can’t tell you how it was, but I think I loved him the very first

moment I saw him.’

 

‘Dear, dear, dear!’

 

‘I couldn’t help it, Martha but it’s no good talking about it, for of

course I shan’t try to help it now. Only this, that I would do anything

in the world for my aunt except that.’

 

‘But she don’t like it, Miss Dorothy. That is the truth, you know.’

 

‘It can’t be helped now, Martha; and of course she’ll be told at once.

Shall I go and tell her? I’d go today if you think she would like it.’

 

‘And Mr Brooke?’

 

‘He is to go tomorrow.’

 

‘And will you leave him here?’

 

‘Why not? Nobody will hurt him. I don’t mind a bit about having him

with me now. But I can tell you this. When he went away from us once, it

made me very unhappy. Would Aunt Stanbury be glad to see me, Martha?’

 

Martha’s reserve was at last broken down, and she expressed herself in

strong language. There was nothing on earth her mistress wanted so much

as to have her favourite niece back again. Martha acknowledged that

there were great difficulties about Brooke Burgess, and she did not see

her way clearly through them. Dorothy declared her purpose of telling

her aunt boldly at once. Martha shook her head, admiring the honesty

and courage, but doubting the result. She understood better than did

any one else the peculiarity of mind which made her mistress specially

anxious that none of the Stanbury family should enjoy any portion of

the Burgess money, beyond that which she herself had saved out of the

income. There had been moments in which Martha had hoped that this

prejudice might be overcome in favour of Hugh; but it had become

stronger as the old woman grew to be older and more feeble, and it was

believed now to be settled as Fate. ‘She’d sooner give it all to old

Barty over the way,’ Martha had once said, ‘than let it go to her own

kith and kin. And if she do hate any human creature, she do hate Barty

Burgess.’ She assented, however, to Dorothy’s proposal; and, though Mrs

Stanbury and Priscilla were astounded by the precipitancy of the

measure, they did not attempt to oppose it.

 

‘And what am I to do?’ said Brooke, when he was told.

 

‘You’ll come tomorrow, of course,’ said Dorothy.

 

‘But it may be that the two of us together will be too many for the

dear old lunatic.’

 

‘You shan’t call her a lunatic, Brooke. She isn’t so much a lunatic as

you are, to run counter to her, and disobey her, and all that kind of

thing.’

 

‘And how about yourself?’

 

‘How can I help it, Brooke? It is you that say it must be so.’

 

‘Of course it must. Who is to be stayed from doing what is reasonable

because an old woman has a bee on her bonnet. I don’t believe in

people’s wills.’

 

‘She can do what she likes about it, Brooke.’

 

‘Of course she can, and of course she will. What I mean is that it

never pays to do this or that because somebody may alter his will, or

may make a will, or may not make a will. You become a slave for life,

and then your dead tyrant leaves you a mourning-ring, and grins at you

out of his grave. All the same she’ll kick up a row, I fancy, and

you’ll have to bear the worst of it.’

 

‘I’ll tell her the truth; and if she be very angry, I’ll just come home

again. But I think I’ll come home tomorrow any way, so that I’ll pass

you on the road. That will be best. She won’t want us both together.

Only then, Brooke, I shan’t see you again.’

 

‘Not till June.’

 

‘And is it to be really in June?’

 

‘You say you don’t like May.’

 

‘You are such a goose, Brooke. It will be May almost tomorrow. I shall

be such a poor wife for you, Brooke. As for getting my things ready, I

shall not bring hardly any things at all. Have you thought what it is

to take a body so very poor?’

 

‘I own I haven’t thought as much about it, Dolly, as I ought to have

done, perhaps.’

 

‘It is too late now, Brooke.’

 

‘I suppose it is.’

 

‘Quite too late. A week ago I could have borne it. I had almost got

myself to think that it would be better that I should bear it. But you

have come, and banished all the virtue out of my head. I am ashamed of

myself, because I am so unworthy; but I would put up with that shame

rather than lose you now. Brooke, Brooke, I will so try to be good to

you!’

 

In the afternoon Martha and Dorothy started together for Exeter, Brooke

and Priscilla accompanying them as far as Mrs Crocket’s, where the

Lessboro’ fly was awaiting them. Dorothy said little or nothing during

the walk, nor, indeed, was she very communicative during the journey

into Exeter. She was going to her aunt, instigated simply by the

affection of her full heart; but she was going with a tale in her mouth

which she knew would be very unwelcome. She could not save herself from

feeling that, in having accepted Brooke, and in having not only

accepted him but even fixed the day for her marriage, she had been

ungrateful to her aunt. Had it not been for her aunt’s kindness and

hospitality, she would never have seen Brooke Burgess. And as she had

been under her aunt’s care at Exeter, she doubted whether she had not

been guilty of some great fault in falling in love with this man, in

opposition as it were to express orders. Should her aunt still declare

that she would in no way countenance the marriage, that she would still

oppose it and use her influence with Brooke to break it off, then would

Dorothy return on the morrow to her mother’s cottage at Nuncombe

Putney, so that her lover might be free to act with her aunt as he

might think fit. And should he yield, she would endeavour, she would

struggle hard, to think that he was still acting for the best. ‘I must

tell her myself, Martha,’ said Dorothy, as they came near to Exeter.

 

‘Certainly, miss, only you’ll do it tonight.’

 

‘Yes at once. As soon after I get there as possible.’