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

at once, leaning with his back against the

wall. ‘There is not a soul here at all,’ said he.

 

‘The men in the barn told us that there was,’ said Mr Glascock; ‘and,

at any rate, we will try the windows.’ So saying, he walked along the

front of the house, Sir Marmaduke following him slowly, till they came

to a door, the upper half of which was glazed, and through which they

looked into one of the rooms. Two or three of the other windows in this

frontage of the house came down to the ground, and were made for egress

and ingress; but they had all been closed with shutters, as though the

house was deserted. But they now looked into a room which contained

some signs of habitation. There was a small table with a marble top, on

which lay two or three books, and there were two armchairs in the

room, with gilded arms and legs, and a morsel of carpet, and a clock

on, a shelf over a stove, and a rocking-horse. ‘The boy is here, you

may be sure,’ said Mr Glascock. ‘The rocking-horse makes that certain.

But how are we to get at any one!’

 

‘I never saw such a place for an Englishman to come and live in

before,’ said Sir Marmaduke. ‘What on earth can he do here all day!’ As

he spoke the door of the room was opened, and there was Trevelyan

standing before them, looking at them through the window. He wore an

old red English dressing-gown, which came down to his feet, and a small

braided Italian cap on his head. His beard had been allowed to grow,

and he had neither collar nor cravat. His trousers were unbraced, and

he shuffled in with a pair of slippers, which would hardly cling to his

feet. He was paler and still thinner than when he had been visited at

Willesden, and his eyes seemed to be larger, and shone almost with a

brighter brilliancy.

 

Mr Glascock tried to open the door, but found that it was closed. ‘Sir

Marmaduke and I have come to visit you,’ said Mr Glascock, aloud. ‘Is

there any means by which we can get into the house?’ Trevelyan stood

still and stared at them. ‘We knocked at the front door, but nobody

came,’ continued Mr Glascock. ‘I suppose this is the way you usually go

in and out.’

 

‘He does not mean to let us in,’ whispered Sir Marmaduke.

 

‘Can you open this door,’ said Mr Glascock, ‘or shall we go round

again?’ Trevelyan had stood still contemplating them, but at last came

forward and put back the bolt. ‘That is all right,’ said Mr Glascock,

entering. ‘I am sure you will be glad to see Sir Marmaduke.’

 

‘I should be glad to see him or you, if I could entertain you,’ said

Trevelyan. His voice was harsh and hard, and his words were uttered

with a certain amount of intended grandeur. ‘Any of the family would be

welcome were it not—’

 

‘Were it not what?’ asked Mr Glascock.

 

‘It can be nothing to you, sir, what troubles I have here. This is my

own abode, in which I had flattered myself that I could be free from

intruders. I do not want visitors. I am sorry that you should have had

trouble in coming here, but I do not want visitors. I am very sorry

that I have nothing that I can offer you, Mr Glascock.’

 

‘Emily is in Florence,’ said Sir Marmaduke.

 

‘Who brought her? Did I tell her to come? Let her go back to her home.

I have come here to be free from her, and I mean to be free. If she

wants my money, let her take it.’

 

‘She wants her child,’ said Mr Glascock.

 

‘He is my child,’ said Trevelyan, ‘and my right to him is better than

hers. Let her try it in a court of law, and she shall see. Why did she

deceive me with that man? Why has she driven me to this? Look here, Mr

Glascock my whole life is spent in this seclusion, and it is her

fault.’

 

‘Your wife is innocent of all fault, Trevelyan,’ said Mr Glascock.

 

‘Any woman can say as much as that and all women do say it. Yet what

are they worth?’

 

‘Do you mean, sir, to take away your wife’s character?’ said Sir

Marmaduke, coming up in wrath. ‘Remember that she is my daughter, and

that there are things which flesh and blood cannot stand.’

 

‘She is my wife, sir, and that is ten times more. Do you think that you

would do more for her than I would do, drink more of Esill? You had

better go away, Sir Marmaduke. You can do no good by coming here and

talking of your daughter. I would have given the world to save her but

she would not be saved.’

 

‘You are a slanderer!’ said Sir Marmaduke, in his wrath.

 

Mr Glascock turned round to the father, and tried to quiet him. It was

so manifest to him that the balance of the poor man’s mind was gone,

that it seemed to him to be ridiculous to upbraid the sufferer. He was

such a piteous sight to behold, that it was almost impossible to feel

indignation against him. ‘You cannot wonder,’ said Mr Glascock,

advancing close to the master of the house, ‘that the mother should

want to see her only child. You do not wish that your wife should be

the most wretched woman in the world.’

 

‘Am not I the most wretched of men? Can anything be more wretched than

this? Is her life worse than mine? And whose fault was it? Had I any

friend to whom she objected? Was I untrue to her in a single thought?’

 

‘If you say that she was untrue, it is a falsehood,’ said Sir

Marmaduke.

 

‘You allow yourself a liberty of expression, sir, because you are my

wife’s father,’ said Trevelyan, ‘which you would not dare to take in

other circumstances.’

 

‘I say that it is a false calumny, a lie! And I would say so to any man

on earth who should dare to slander my child’s name.’

 

‘Your child, sir! She is my wife, my wife, my wife!’ Trevelyan, as he

spoke, advanced close up to his father-in-law; and at last hissed out

his words, with his lips close to Sir Marmaduke’s face. ‘Your right in

her is gone, sir. She is mine, mine, mine! And you see the way in which

she has treated me, Mr Glascock. Everything I had was hers; but the

words of a grey-haired sinner were sweeter to her than all my love. I

wonder whether you think that it is a pleasant thing for such a one as

I to come out here and live in such a place as this? I have not a

friend, a companion, hardly a book. There is nothing that I can eat or

drink! I do not stir out of the house, and I am ill, very ill! Look at

me. See what she has brought me to! Mr Glascock, on my honour as a man,

I never wronged her in a thought or a word.’

 

Mr Glascock had come to think that his best chance of doing any good

was to get Trevelyan into conversation with himself, free from the

interruption of Sir Marmaduke. The father of the injured woman could

not bring himself to endure the hard words that were spoken of his

daughter. During this last speech he had broken out once or twice; but

Trevelyan, not heeding him, had clung to Mr Glascock’s arm. ‘Sir

Marmaduke,’ said he, ‘would you not like to see the boy?’

 

‘He shall not see the boy,’ said Trevelyan. ‘You may see him. He shall

not. What is he that he should have control over me?’

 

‘This is the most fearful thing I ever heard of,’ said Sir Marmaduke.

‘What are we to do with him?’

 

Mr Glascock whispered a few words to Sir Marmaduke, and then declared

that he was ready to be taken to the child. ‘And he will remain here?’

asked Trevelyan.. A pledge was then given by Sir Marmaduke that he

would not force his way farther into the house, and the two other men

left the chamber together. Sir Marmaduke, as he paced up and down the

room alone, perspiring at every pore, thoroughly uncomfortable and ill

at ease, thought of all the hard positions of which he had ever read,

and that his was harder than them all. Here was a man married to his

daughter, in possession of his daughter’s child, manifestly mad, and yet

he could do nothing to him! He was about to return to the seat of his

government, and he must leave his own child in this madman’s power! Of

course, his daughter could not go with him, leaving her child in this

madman’s hands. He had been told that even were he to attempt to prove

the man to be mad in Italy, the process would be slow; and, before it

could be well commenced, Trevelyan would be off with the child

elsewhere. There never was an embarrassment, thought Sir Marmaduke, out

of which it was so impossible to find a clear way.

 

In the meantime, Mr Glascock and Trevelyan were visiting the child. It

was evident that the father, let him be ever so mad, had discerned the

expediency of allowing some one to see that his son was alive and in

health. Mr Glascock did not know much of children, and could only say

afterwards that the boy was silent and very melancholy, but clean, and

apparently well. It appeared that he was taken out daily by his father

in the cool hours of the morning, and that his father hardly left him

from the time that he was taken up till he was put to bed. But Mr

Glascock’s desire was to see Trevelyan alone, and this he did after

they had left the boy. ‘And now, Trevelyan,’ he said, ‘what do you mean

to do?’

 

‘To do?’

 

‘In what way do you propose to live? I want you to be reasonable with

me.’

 

‘They do not treat me reasonably.’

 

‘Are you going to measure your own conduct by that of other people? In

the first place, you should go back to England. What good can you do

here?’ Trevelyan shook his head, but remained silent. ‘You cannot like

this life.’

 

‘No, indeed. But whither can I go now that I shall like to live?’

 

‘Why not home?’

 

‘I have no home.’

 

‘Why not go back to England? Ask your wife to join you, and return with

her. She would go at a word.’ The poor wretch again shook his head. ‘I

hope you think that I speak as your friend,’ said Mr Glascock.

 

‘I believe you do.’

 

‘I will say nothing of any imprudence; but you cannot believe that she

has been untrue to you?’ Trevelyan would say nothing to this, but stood

silent waiting for Mr Glascock to continue. ‘Let her come back to you

here; and then, as soon as you can arrange it, go to your own home.’

 

‘Shall I tell you something?’ said Trevelyan.

 

‘What is it?’

 

He came up close to Mr Glascock, and put his hand upon his visitor’s

shoulder. ‘I will tell you what she would do at once. I dare say that

she would come to me. I dare say that she would go with me. I am sure

she would. And directly she got me there, she would say that I was mad!

She my