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

CHAPTER VIII

‘I KNOW IT WILL DO’

 

Miss Stanbury carried her letter all the way to the chief post-office

in the city, having no faith whatever in those little subsidiary

receiving houses which are established in different parts of the

city. As for the iron pillar boxes which had been erected of late

years for the receipt of letters, one of which—a most hateful

thing to her—stood almost close to her own hall door, she had not

the faintest belief that any letter put into one of them would ever

reach its destination. She could not understand why people should

not walk with their letters to a respectable post-office instead

of chucking them into an iron stump as she called it out in the

middle of the street with nobody to look after it. Positive orders

had been given that no letter from her house should ever be put

into the iron post. Her epistle to her sister-in-law, of whom she

never spoke otherwise than as Mrs Stanbury, was as follows:

 

The Close, Exeter, 22nd April, 186

 

My dear Sister Stanbury,

 

Your son, Hugh, has taken to courses of which I do not approve, and

therefore I have put an end to my connection with him. I shall be

happy to entertain your daughter Dorothy in my house if you and

she approve of such a plan. Should you agree to this, she will be

welcome to receive you or her sister, not her brother, in my house

any Wednesday morning between half-past nine and half-past twelve.

I will endeavour to make my house pleasant to her and useful, and

will make her an allowance of 25 pounds per annum for her clothes

as long as she may remain with me. I shall expect her to be regular

at meals, to be constant in going to church, and not to read modern

novels.

 

I intend the arrangement to be permanent, but of course I must

retain the power of closing it if, and when, I shall see fit.

Its permanence must be contingent on my life. I have no power of

providing for any one after my death,

 

Yours truly,

 

JEMIMA STANBURY.

 

I hope the young lady does not have any false hair about her.’

 

When this note was received at Nuncombe Putney the amazement which

it occasioned was extreme. Mrs Stanbury, the widow of the late

vicar, lived in a little morsel of a cottage on the outskirts of

the village, with her two daughters, Priscilla and Dorothy. Their

whole income, out of which it was necessary that they should pay

rent for their cottage, was less than 70 pounds per annum. During

the last few months a five-pound note now and again had found its

way to Nuncombe Putney out of the coffers of the ‘D. R.’; but the

ladies there were most unwilling to be so relieved, thinking that

their brother’s career was of infinitely more importance than their

comforts or even than their living. They were very poor, but they

were accustomed to poverty. The elder sister was older than Hugh,

but Dorothy, the younger, to whom this strange invitation was now

made, was two years younger than her brother, and was now nearly

twenty-six. How they had lived, and dressed themselves, and had

continued to be called ladies by the inhabitants of the village was,

and is, and will be a mystery to those who have had the spending

of much larger incomes, but have still been always poor. But they

had lived, had gone to church every Sunday in decent apparel, and

had kept up friendly relations with the family of the present vicar,

and with one or two other neighbours.

 

When the letter had been read first by the mother, and then aloud,

and then by each of them separately, in the little sitting-room

in the cottage, there was silence among them for neither of them

desired to be the first to express an opinion. Nothing could be

more natural than the proposed arrangement, had it not been made

unnatural by a quarrel existing nearly throughout the whole life

of the person most nearly concerned. Priscilla, the elder daughter,

was the one of the family who was generally the ruler, and she at

last expressed an opinion adverse to the arrangement. ‘My dear,

you would never be able to bear it,’ said Priscilla.

 

‘I suppose not,’ said Mrs Stanbury, plaintively.

 

‘I could try,’ said Dorothy.

 

‘My dear, you don’t know that woman,’ said Priscilla.

 

‘Of course I don’t know her,’ said Dorothy.

 

‘She has always been very good to Hugh,’ said Mrs Stanbury.

 

‘I don’t think she has been good to him at all,’ said Priscilla.

 

‘But think what a saving it would be,’ said Dorothy. ‘And I could

send home half of what Aunt Stanbury says she would give me.’

 

‘You must not think of that,’ said Priscilla, ‘because she expects

you to be dressed.’

 

‘I should like to try,’ she said, before the morning was over ‘if

you and mamma don’t think it would be wrong.’

 

The conference that day ended in a written request to Aunt Stanbury

that a week might be allowed for consideration, the letter being

written by Priscilla, but signed with her mother’s name, and with

a very long epistle to Hugh, in which each of the ladies took a

part, and in which advice and decision were demanded. It was very

evident to Hugh that his mother and Dorothy were for compliance, and

that Priscilla was for refusal. But he never doubted for a moment.

‘Of course she will go,’ he said in his answer to Priscilla; ‘and

she must understand that Aunt Stanbury is a most excellent woman,

as true as the sun, thoroughly honest, with no fault but this, that

she likes her own way. Of course Dolly can go back again if she

finds the house too hard for her.’ Then he sent another five-pound

note, observing that Dolly’s journey to Exeter would cost money,

and that her wardrobe would want some improvement.

 

‘I’m very glad that it isn’t me,’ said Priscilla, who, however,

did not attempt to oppose the decision of the man of the family.

Dorothy was greatly gratified by the excitement of the proposed

change in her life, and the following letter, the product of the

wisdom of the family, was written by Mrs Stanbury.

 

‘Nuncombe Putney, 1st May, 186

 

My dear Sister Stanbury,

 

We are all very thankful for the kindness of your offer, which my

daughter Dorothy will accept with feelings of affectionate gratitude.

I think you will find her docile, good-tempered, and amiable; but

a mother, of course, speaks well of her own child. She will endeavour

to comply with your wishes in all things reasonable. She; of course,

understands that should the arrangement not suit, she will come

back home on the expression of your wish that it should be so. And

she will, of course, do the same, if she should find that living in

Exeter does not suit herself.’ (This sentence was inserted at the

instance of Priscilla, after much urgent expostulation.) ‘Dorothy

will be ready to go to you on any day you may fix after the 7th of

this month.

 

Believe me to remain,

 

Your affectionate sister-in-law,

 

P. STANBURY.’

 

‘She’s going to come,’ said Miss Stanbury to Martha, holding the

letter in her hand.

 

‘I never doubted her coming, ma’am,’ said Martha.

 

‘And I mean her to stay, unless it’s her own fault. She’ll have

the small room upstairs, looking out front, next to mine. And you

must go and fetch her.’

 

‘Go and fetch her, ma’am?’

 

‘Yes. If you won’t, I must.’

 

‘She ain’t a child, ma’am. She’s twenty-five years old, and surely

she can come to Exeter by herself, with a railroad all the way from

Lessboro’.’

 

‘There’s no place a young woman is insulted in so bad as those

railway carriages, and I won’t have her come by herself. If she is

to live with me, she shall begin decently at any rate.’

 

Martha argued the matter, but was of course beaten, and on the day

fixed started early in the morning for Nuncombe Putney, and returned

in the afternoon to the Close with her charge. By the time that she

had reached the house she had in some degree reconciled herself to

the dangerous step that her mistress had taken, partly by perceiving

that in face Dorothy Stanbury was very like her brother Hugh, and

partly, perhaps, by finding that the young woman’s manner to herself

was both gentle and sprightly. She knew well that gentleness alone,

without some back-bone of strength under it, would not long succeed

with Miss Stanbury. ‘As far as I can judge, ma’am, she’s a sweet

young lady,’ said Martha, when she reported her arrival to her

mistress, who had retired upstairs to her own room, in order that

she might thus hear a word of tidings from her lieutenant, before

she showed herself on the field of action.

 

‘Sweet! I hate your sweets,’ said Miss Stanbury. ‘Then why did

you send for her, ma’am?’

 

‘Because I was an old fool. But I must go down and receive her, I

suppose.’

 

Then Miss Stanbury went down, almost trembling as she went The

matter to