He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope (ebook reader with internet browser txt) 📖
- Author: Anthony Trollope
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to some one else. Nora had been quite anxious to know how Dorothy
had been received by that old conservative warrior, as Hugh Stanbury
had called his aunt, and Hugh had now come to Curzon Street with a
letter from Dorothy in his pocket. But when he saw that there had
been some cause for trouble, he hardly knew how to introduce his
subject.
‘Trevelyan is not at home?’ he asked.
‘No,’ said Emily, with her face turned away. ‘He went out and left
us a quarter of an hour since. Did you meet Colonel Osborne?’
‘I was speaking to him in the street not a moment since.’ As he
answered he could see that Nora was making some sign to her sister.
Nora was most anxious that Emily should not speak of what had just
occurred, but her signs were all thrown away. ‘Somebody must tell
him,’ said Mrs Trevelyan, ‘and I don’t know who can do so better
than so old a friend as Mr Stanbury.’
‘Tell what, and to whom?’ he asked.
‘No, no, no,’ said Nora.
‘Then I must tell him myself,’ said she, ‘that is all. As for
standing this kind of life, it is out of the question. I should
either destroy myself or go mad.’
‘If I could do any good I should be so happy,’ said Stanbury.
‘Nobody can do any good between a man and wife,’ said Nora.
Then Mrs Trevelyan began to tell her story, putting aside, with an
impatient motion of her hands, the efforts which her sister made
to stop her. She was very angry, and as she told it, standing up,
all trace of sobbing soon disappeared from her voice. ‘The fact
is,’ she said, ‘he does not know his own mind, or what to fear or
what not to fear. He told me that I was never to see Colonel Osborne
again.
‘What is the use, Emily, of your repeating that to Mr Stanbury?’
‘Why should I not repeat it? Colonel Osborne is papa’s oldest
friend, and mine too. He is a man I like very much, who is a real
friend to me. As he is old enough to be my father, one would have
thought that my husband could have found no objection.’
‘I don’t know much about his age,’ said Stanbury.
‘It does make a difference. It must make a difference. I should
not think of becoming so intimate with a younger man. But, however,
when my husband told me that I was to see him no more, though the
insult nearly killed me, I determined to obey him. An order was
given that Colonel Osborne should not be admitted. You may imagine
how painful it was; but it was given, and I was prepared to bear
it.’
‘But he had been lunching with you on that Sunday.’
‘Yes; that is just it. As soon as it was given Louis would rescind
it, because he was ashamed of what he had done. He was so jealous
that he did not want me to see the man; and yet he was so afraid
that it should be known that he ordered me to see him. He ordered
him into the house at last, and I—I went away upstairs.’
‘That was on the Sunday that we met you in the park?’ asked Stanbury.
‘What is the use of going back to all that?’ said Nora.
‘Then I met him by chance in the park,’ continued Mrs Trevelyan,
‘and because he said a word which I knew would anger my husband,
I left him abruptly. Since that my husband has begged that things
might go on as they were before. He could not bear that Colonel
Osborne himself should think that he was jealous. Well; I gave
way, and the man has been here as before. And now there has been
a scene which has been disgraceful to us all. I cannot stand it,
and I won’t. If he does not behave himself with more manliness I
will leave him.’
‘But what can I do?’
‘Nothing, Mr Stanbury,’ said Nora.
‘Yes; you can do this. You can go to him from me, and can tell him
that I have chosen you as a messenger because you are his friend.
You can tell him that I am willing to obey him in anything. If he
chooses, I will consent that Colonel Osborne shall be asked never
to come into my presence again. It will be very absurd; but if he
chooses, I will consent. Or I will let things go on as they are,
and continue to receive my father’s old friend when he comes. But
if I do, I will not put up with an imputation on my conduct because
he does not like the way in which the gentleman thinks fit to
address me. I take upon myself to say that if any man alive spoke
to me as he ought not to speak, I should know how to resent it
myself. But I cannot fly into a passion with an old gentleman for
calling me by my Christian name, when he has done so habitually
for years.’
From all this it will appear that the great godsend of a rich
marriage, with all manner of attendant comforts, which had come in
the way of the Rowley family as they were living at the Mandarins,
had not turned out to be an unmixed blessing. In the matter of the
quarrel, as it had hitherto progressed, the husband had perhaps
been more in the wrong than his wife; but the wife, in spite of
all her promises of perfect obedience, had proved herself to be
a woman very hard to manage. Had she been earnest in her desire
to please her lord and master in this matter of Colonel Osborne’s
visits, to please him even after he had so vacillated in his own
behests, she might probably have so received the man as to have
quelled all feeling of jealousy in her husband’s bosom. But instead
of doing so she had told herself that as she was innocent, and as
her innocence had been acknowledged, and as she had been specially
instructed to receive this man whom she had before been specially
instructed not to receive, she would now fall back exactly into her
old manner with him. She had told Colonel Osborne never to allude
to that meeting in the park, and to ask no creature as to what had
occasioned her conduct on that Sunday; thus having a mystery with
him, which of course he understood as well as she did. And then
she had again taken to writing notes to him and receiving notes
from him—none of which she showed to her husband. She was more
intimate with him than ever, and yet she hardly ever mentioned his
name to her husband. Trevelyan, acknowledging to himself that he
had done no good by his former interference, feeling that he had
put himself in the wrong on that occasion, and that his wife had
got the better of him, had borne with all this with soreness and
a moody savageness of general conduct, but still without further
words of anger with reference to the man himself. But now, on this
Sunday, when his wife had been closeted with Colonel Osborne in the
back drawing-room, leaving him with his sister-in-law, his temper
had become too hot for him, and he had suddenly left the house,
declaring that he would not walk with the two women on that day.
‘Why not, Louis?’ his wife had said, coming up to him. ‘Never
mind why not, but I shall not,’ he had answered; and then he left
the room.
‘What is the matter with him?’ Colonel Osborne had asked.
‘It is impossible to say what is the matter with him,’ Mrs Trevelyan
had replied. After that she had at once gone upstairs to her child,
telling herself that she was doing all that the strictest propriety
could require in leaving the man’s society as soon as her husband
was gone. Then there was an awkward minute or two between Nora and
Colonel Osborne, and he took his leave.
Stanbury at last promised that he would see Trevelyan, repeating,
however, very frequently that often used assertion, that no task
is so hopeless as that of interfering between a man and his wife.
Nevertheless he promised, and undertook to look for Trevelyan at
the Acrobats on that afternoon. At last he got a moment in which
to produce the letter from his sister, and was able to turn the
conversation for a few minutes to his own affairs. Dorothy’s letter
was read and discussed by both the ladies with much zeal. ‘It is
quite a strange world to me,’ said Dorothy, ‘but I am beginning to
find myself more at my ease than I was at first. Aunt Stanbury is
very good-natured, and when I know what she wants, I think I shall
be able to please her. What you said of her disposition is not so
bad to me, as of course a girl in my position does not expect to
have her own way.’
‘Why shouldn’t she have her share of her own way as well as anybody
else?’ said Mrs Trevelyan.
‘Poor Dorothy would never want to have her own way,’ said Hugh.
‘She ought to want it,’ said Mrs Trevelyan.
‘She has spirit enough to turn if she’s trodden on,’ said Hugh.
‘That’s more than what most women have,’ said Mrs Trevelyan.
Then he went on with the letter. ‘She is very generous, and has
given me 6 pounds 5s in advance of my allowance. When I said I
would send part of it home to mamma, she seemed to be angry, and
said that she wanted me always to look nice about my clothes. She
told me afterwards to do as I pleased, and that I might try my
own way for the first quarter. So I was frightened, and only sent
thirty shillings. We went out the other evening to drink tea with
Mrs MacHugh, an old lady whose husband was once dean. I had to go,
and it was all very nice. There were a great many clergymen there,
but many of them were young men.’ ‘Poor Dorothy,’ exclaimed Nora.
‘One of them was the minor canon who chants the service every
morning. He is a bachelor.’ ‘Then there is a hope for her,’ said
Nora ‘and he always talks a little as though he were singing the
Litany.’ ‘That’s very bad,’ said Nora; ‘fancy having a husband to
sing the Litany to you always.’ ‘Better that, perhaps, than having
him always singing something else,’ said Mrs Trevelyan.
It was decided between them that Dorothy’s state might on the whole
be considered as flourishing, but that Hugh was bound as a brother
to go down to Exeter and look after her. He explained, however,
that he was expressly debarred from calling on his sister, even
between the hours of half-past nine and half-past twelve on Wednesday
mornings, and that he could not see her at all unless he did so
surreptitiously.
‘If I were you I would see my sister in spite of all the old viragos
in Exeter,’ said Mrs Trevelyan. ‘I have no idea of anybody taking
so much upon themselves.’
‘You must remember, Mrs Trevelyan, that she has taken upon herself
much also in the way of kindness, in doing what perhaps I ought
to call charity. I wonder what I should have been doing now if it
were not for my Aunt Stanbury.’
He took his leave, and went at once from Curzon Street to Trevelyan’s
club, and found that
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