He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope (ebook reader with internet browser txt) 📖
- Author: Anthony Trollope
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Here something would be done very soon; you may take my word for that.
If you will return with me and your wife, you shall choose your own
place of abode. Is not that so, Emily?’
‘He shall choose everything. His boy will be with him, and I will be
with him, and he shall be contradicted in nothing. If he only knew my
heart towards him!’
‘You hear what she says, Trevelyan?’
‘Yes; I hear her.’
‘And you believe her?’
‘I’m not so sure of that, Stanbury; how should you like to be locked up
in a madhouse and grin through the bars till your heart was broken. It
would not take long with me, I know.’
‘You shall never be locked up, never be touched,’ said his wife.
‘I am very harmless here,’ he said, almost crying; ‘very harmless. I do
not think anybody here will touch me,’ he added afterwards. ‘And there
are other places. There are other places. My God, that I should be
driven about the world like this!’ The conference was ended by his
saying that he would take two days to think of it, and by his then
desiring that they would both leave him. They did so, and descended the
hill together, knowing that he was watching them, that he would watch
them till they were out of sight from the gate for, as Mrs Trevelyan
said, he never came down the hill now, knowing that the labour of
ascending it was too much for him. When they were at the carriage they
were met by one of the women of the house, and strict injunctions were
given to her by Mrs Trevelyan to send on word to Siena if the Signore
should prepare to move. ‘He cannot go far without my knowing it,’ said
she, ‘because he draws his money in Siena, and lately I have taken to
him what he wants. He has not enough with him for a long journey.’ For
Stanbury had suggested that he might be off to seek another residence
in another country, and that they would find Casalunga vacant when they
reached it on the following Tuesday. But he told himself almost
immediately, not caring to express such an opinion to Emily, that
Trevelyan would hardly have strength even to prepare for such a journey
by himself.
On the intervening day, the Monday, Stanbury had no occupation
whatever, and he thought that since he was born no day had ever been so
long. Siena contains many monuments of interest, and much that is
valuable in art, having had a school of painting of its own, and still
retaining in its public gallery specimens of its school, of which as a
city it is justly proud. There are palaces there to be beaten for
gloomy majesty by none in Italy. There is a cathedral which was to have
been the largest in the world, and than which few are more worthy of
prolonged inspection. The town is old, and quaint, and picturesque, and
dirty, and attractive, as it becomes a town in Italy to be. But in July
all such charms are thrown away. In July Italy is not a land of charms
to an Englishman. Poor Stanbury did wander into the cathedral, and
finding it the coolest place in the town, went to sleep on a stone
step. He was awoke by the voice of the priests as they began to chant
the vespers. The good-natured Italians had let him sleep, and would
have let him sleep till the doors were closed for the night. At five he
dined with Mrs Trevelyan, and then endeavoured to while away the
evening thinking of Nora with a pipe in his mouth. He was standing in
this way at the hotel gateway, when, on a sudden, all Siena was made
alive by the clatter of an open carriage and four on its way through
the town to the railway. On looking up, Stanbury saw Lord Peterborough
in the carriage with a lady whom he did not doubt to be Lord
Peterborough’s wife. He himself had not been recognised, but he slowly
followed the carriage to the railway station. After the Italian
fashion, the arrival was three-quarters of an hour before the proper
time, and Stanbury had full opportunity of learning their news and
telling his own. They were coming up from Rome, and thought it
preferable to take the route by Siena than to use the railway through
the Maremma; and they intended to reach Florence that night.
‘And do you think he is really mad?’ asked Lady Peterborough.
‘He is undoubtedly so mad as to be unfit to manage anything for
himself, but he is not in such a condition that any one would wish to
see him put into confinement. If he were raving mad there would be less
difficulty, though there might be more distress.’
A great deal was said about Nora, and both Lord Peterborough and his
wife insisted that the marriage should take place at Monkhams. ‘We
shall be home now in less than three weeks,’ said Caroline, ‘and she
must come to us at once. But I will write to her from Florence, and
tell her how we saw you smoking your pipe under the archway. Not that
my husband knew you in the least.’
‘Upon my word no,’ said the husband, ‘one didn’t expect to find you
here. Goodbye. I hope you may succeed in getting him home. I went to
him once, but could do very little.’ Then the train started, and
Stanbury went back to Mrs Trevelyan.
On the next day Stanbury went out to Casalunga alone. He had
calculated, on leaving England, that if any good might be done at Siena
it could be done in three days, and that he would have been able to
start on his return on the Wednesday morning or on Wednesday evening at
the latest. But now there did not seem to be any chance of that, and he
hardly knew how to guess when he might get away. He had sent a telegram
to Lady Rowley after his first visit, in which he had simply said that
things were not at all changed at Casalunga, and he had written to Nora
each day since his arrival. His stay was prolonged at great expense and
inconvenience to himself; and yet it was impossible that he should go
and leave his work half finished. As he walked up the hill to the house
he felt very angry with Trevelyan, and prepared himself to use hard
words and dreadful threats. But at the very moment of his entrance on
the terrace, Trevelyan professed himself ready to go to England.
‘That’s right, old fellow,’ said Hugh. ‘I am so glad.’ But in
expressing his joy he had hardly noticed Trevelyan’s voice and
appearance.
‘I might as well go,’ he said. ‘It matters little where I am, or
whether they say that I am mad or sane.’
‘When we have you over there, nobody shall say a word that is
disagreeable.’
‘I only hope that you may not have the trouble of burying me on the
road. You don’t know, Stanbury, how ill I am. I cannot eat. If I were
at the bottom of that hill, I could no more walk up it than I could
fly. I cannot sleep, and at night my bed is wet through with
perspiration. I can remember nothing nothing but what I ought to
forget.’
‘We’ll put you on your legs again when we get you to your own climate.’
‘I shall be a poor traveller a poor traveller; but I will do my best.’
When would he start? That was the next question. Trevelyan asked for a
week, and Stanbury brought him down at last to three days. They would
go to Florence by the evening train on Friday, and sleep there. Emily
should come out and assist him to arrange his things on the morrow.
Having finished so much of his business, Stanbury returned to Siena.
They both feared that he might be found on the next day to have
departed from his intention; but no such idea seemed to have occurred
to him. He gave instructions as to the notice to be served on the agent
from the Hospital as to his house, and allowed Emily to go among his
things and make preparations for the journey. He did not say much to
her; and when she attempted, with a soft half-uttered word, to assure
him that the threat of Italian interference, which had come from
Stanbury, had not reached Stanbury from her, he simply shook his head
sadly. She could not understand whether he did not believe her, or
whether he simply wished that the subject should be dropped. She could
elicit no sign of affection from him, nor would he willingly accept
such from her, but he allowed her to prepare for the journey, and never
hinted that his purpose might again be liable to change. On the Friday,
Emily with her child, and Hugh with all their baggage, travelled out on
the road to Casalunga, thinking it better that there should be no halt
in the town on their return. At Casalunga, Hugh went up the hill with
the driver, leaving Mrs Trevelyan in the carriage. He had been out at
the house before in the morning, and had given all necessary orders, but
still at the last moment he thought that there might be failure. But
Trevelyan was ready, having dressed himself up with a laced shirt, and
changed his dressing-gown for a blue frockcoat, and his brocaded cap
for a Paris hat, very pointed before and behind, and closely turned up
at the sides. But Stanbury did not in the least care for his friend’s
dress. ‘Take my arm,’ he said, ‘and we will go down, fair and easy.
Emily would not come up because of the heat.’ He suffered himself to be
led, or almost carried down the hill; and three women, and the
coachman, and an old countryman who worked on the farm, followed with
the luggage. It took about an hour and a half to pack the things; but
at last they were all packed, and corded, and bound together with
sticks, as though it were intended that they should travel in that form
to Moscow. Trevelyan the meanwhile sat on a chair which had been
brought out for him from one of the cottages, and his wife stood beside
him with her boy. ‘Now then we are ready,’ said Stanbury. And in that
way they bade farewell to Casalunga. Trevelyan sat speechless in the
carriage, and would not even notice the child. He seemed to be half
dreaming and to fix his eyes on vacancy. ‘He appears to think of
nothing now,’ Emily said that evening to Stanbury. But who can tell how
busy and how troubled are the thoughts of a madman!
They had now succeeded in their object of inducing their patient to
return with them to England; but what were they to do with him when
they had reached home with him? They rested only a night at Florence;
but they found their fellow-traveller so weary, that they were unable
to get beyond Bologna on the second day. Many questions were asked of
him as to where he himself would wish to take up his residence in
England; but it was found almost impossible to get an answer. Once he
suggested that he would like to go back to Mrs Fuller’s cottage at
Willesden, from whence they concluded that he would wish to live
somewhere out of London. On his first day’s journey he was moody and
silent, wilfully assuming the airs of a much-injured person. He spoke
hardly at all, and would
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