He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope (ebook reader with internet browser txt) 📖
- Author: Anthony Trollope
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thinking of the manner in which he had been brought home by her from
Italy, and of the story she had told him of her mode of inducing him to
come. Hugh Stanbury had been her partner in that struggle, and would
probably be received, if not with sullen silence, then with some
attempt at rebuke. But Hugh did see Dr. Nevill, and learned from him
that it was hardly possible that Trevelyan should live many hours. ‘He
has worn himself out,’ said the doctor, ‘and there is nothing left in
him by which he can lay hold of life again.’ Of Nora her brother-in-law
took but little notice, and never again referred in her hearing to the
great trouble of his life. He said to her a word or two about Monkhams,
and asked a question now and again as to Lord Peterborough, whom,
however, he always called Mr Glascock; but Hugh Stanbury’s name was
never mentioned by him. There was a feeling in his mind that at the
very last he had been duped in being brought to England, and that
Stanbury had assisted in the deception. To his wife he would whisper
little petulant regrets for the loss of the comforts of Casalunga, and
would speak of the air of Italy and of Italian skies and of the Italian
sun, as though he had enjoyed at his Sienese villa all the luxuries
which climate can give, and would have enjoyed them still had he been
allowed to remain there. To all this she would say nothing. She knew
now that he was failing quickly, and there was only one subject on
which she either feared or hoped to hear him speak. Before he left her
for ever and ever would he tell her that he had not doubted her faith?
She had long discussions with Nora on the matter, as though all the
future of her life depended on it. It was in vain that Nora tried to
make her understand that if hereafter the spirit of her husband could
know anything of the troubles of his mortal life, could ever look back
to the things which he had done in the flesh, then would he certainly
know the truth, and all suspicion would be at an end. And if not, if
there was to be no such retrospect, what did it matter now, for these
few last hours before the coil should be shaken off, and all doubt and
all sorrow should be at an end? But the wife, who was soon to be a
widow, yearned to be acquitted in this world by him to whom her guilt
or her innocence had been matter of such vital importance. ‘He has
never thought it,’ said Nora.
‘But if he would say so! If he would only look it! It will be all in
all to me as long as I live in this world.’ And then, though they had
determined between themselves in spoken words never to regard him again
as one who had been mad, in all their thoughts and actions towards him
they treated him as though he were less responsible than an infant. And
he was mad mad though every doctor in England had called him sane. Had
he not been mad he must have been a fiend or he could not have
tortured, as he had done, the woman to whom he owed the closest
protection which one human being can give to another.
During these last days and nights she never left him. She had done her
duty to him well, at any rate since the time when she had been enabled
to come near him in Italy. It may be that in the first days of their
quarrel, she had not been regardful, as she should have been, of a
husband’s will, that she might have escaped this tragedy by submitting
herself to the man’s wishes, as she had always been ready to submit
herself to his words. Had she been able always to keep her neck in the
dust under his foot, their married life might have been passed without
outward calamity, and it is possible that he might still have lived.
But if she erred, surely she had been scourged for her error with
scorpions. As she sat at his bedside watching him, she thought of her
wasted youth, of her faded beauty, of her shattered happiness, of her
fallen hopes. She had still her child, but she felt towards him that she
herself was so sad a creature, so sombre, so dark, so necessarily
wretched from this time forth till the day of her death, that it would
be better for the boy that she should never be with him. There could be
nothing left for her but garments dark with woe, eyes red with weeping,
hours sad from solitude, thoughts weary with memory. And even yet, if he
would only now say that he did not believe her to have been guilty, how
great would be the change in her future life!
Then came an evening in which he seemed to be somewhat stronger than he
had been. He had taken some refreshment that had been prepared for him,
and, stimulated by its strength, had spoken a word or two both to Nora
and to his wife. His words had been of no especial interest alluding to
some small detail of his own condition, such as are generally the
chosen topics of conversation with invalids. But he had been pronounced
to be better, and Nora spoke to him cheerfully, when he was taken into
the next room by the man who was always at hand to move him. His wife
followed him, and soon afterwards returned, and bade Nora good night.
She would sit by her husband, and Nora was to go to the room below,
that she might receive her lover there. He was expected out that
evening, but Mrs Trevelyan said that she would not see him. Hugh came
and went, and Nora took herself to her chamber. The hours of the night
went on, and Mrs Trevelyan was still sitting by her husband’s bed. It
was still September, and the weather was very warm. But the windows had
been all closed since an hour before sunset. She was sitting there
thinking, thinking, thinking. Dr. Nevill had told her that the time now
was very near. She was not thinking now how very near it might be, but
whether there might yet be time for him to say that one word to her.
‘Emily,’ he said, in the lowest whisper.
‘Darling!’ she answered, turning round and touching him with her hand.
‘My feet are cold. There are no clothes on them.’
She took a thick shawl and spread it double across the bottom of the
bed, and put her hand upon his arm. Though it was clammy with
perspiration, it was chill, and she brought the warm clothes up close
round his shoulders. ‘I can’t sleep,’ he said. ‘If I could sleep, I
shouldn’t mind.’ Then he was silent again, and her thoughts went
harping on, still on the same subject. She told herself that if ever
that act of justice were to be done for her, it must be done that
night. After a while she turned round over him ever so gently, and saw
that his large eyes were open and fixed upon the wall.
She was kneeling now on the chair close by the bed-head, and her hand
was on the rail of the bedstead supporting her. ‘Louis,’ she said, ever
so softly.
‘Well.’
‘Can you say one word for your wife, dear, dear, dearest husband?’
‘What word?’
‘I have not been a harlot to you, have I?’
‘What name is that?’
‘But what a thing, Louis! Kiss my hand, Louis, if you believe me.’ And
very gently she laid the tips of her fingers on his lips. For a moment
or two she waited, and the kiss did not come. Would he spare her in
this the last moment left to him either for justice or for mercy? For a
moment or two the bitterness of her despair was almost unendurable. She
had time to think that were she once to withdraw her hand, she would be
condemned for ever and that it must be withdrawn. But at length the
lips moved, and with struggling ear she could hear the sound of the
tongue within, and the verdict of the dying man had been given in her
favour. He never spoke a word more either to annul it or to enforce it.
Some time after that she crept into Nora’s room. ‘Nora,’ she said,
waking the sleeping girl, ‘it is all over.’
‘Is he dead?’
‘It is all over. Mrs Richards is there. It is better than an hour since
now. Let me come in.’ She got into her sister’s bed, and there she told
the tale of her tardy triumph. ‘He declared to me at last that he
trusted me,’ she said, almost believing that real words had come from
his lips to that effect. Then she fell into a flood of tears, and after
a while she also slept.
CONCLUSION
At last the maniac was dead, and in his last moments he had made such
reparation as was in his power for the evil that he had done. With that
slight touch of his dry fevered lips he had made the assertion on which
was to depend the future peace and comfort of the woman whom he had so
cruelly misused. To her mind the acquittal was perfect; but she never
explained to human ears, not even to those of her sister, the manner in
which it had been given. Her life, as far as we are concerned with it,
has been told. For the rest, it cannot be but that it should be better
than that which was passed. If there be any retribution for such
sufferings in money, liberty, and outward comfort, such retribution she
possessed, for all that had been his, was now hers. He had once
suggested what she should do, were she ever to be married again; and
she felt that of such a career there could be no possibility. Anything
but that! We all know that widows’ practices in this matter do not
always tally with wives’ vows; but, as regards Mrs Trevelyan, we are
disposed to think that the promise will be kept. She has her child, and
he will give her sufficient interest to make life worth having.
Early in the following spring Hugh Stanbury was married to Nora Rowley
in the parish church of Monkhams, at which place by that time Nora found
herself to be almost as much at home as she might have been under other
circumstances. They had prayed that the marriage might be very private,
but when the day arrived there was no very close privacy. The parish
church was quite full, there were half-a-dozen bridesmaids, there was a
great breakfast, Mrs Crutch had a new brown silk gown given to her,
there was a long article in the county gazette, and there were short
paragraphs in various metropolitan newspapers. It was generally thought
among his compeers that Hugh Stanbury had married into the aristocracy,
and that the fact was a triumph for the profession to which he
belonged. It shewed what a Bohemian could do, and that men of the press
in England might gradually hope to force their way almost anywhere. So
great was the name of Monkhams! He and his wife took for themselves a
very small house near the Regent’s Park, at which they intend to remain
until Hugh shall have enabled himself to earn an additional two hundred
a-year. Mrs Trevelyan did not come
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