He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope (ebook reader with internet browser txt) 📖
- Author: Anthony Trollope
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within the tropics, had become at fifty what many people call
quite a middle-aged man. That is to say, he was one from whom the
effervescence and elasticity and salt of youth had altogether passed
away. He was fat and slow, thinking much of his wife and eight
daughters, thinking much also of his dinner. Now Colonel Osborne
was a bachelor, with no burdens but those imposed upon him by his
position as a member of Parliament, a man of fortune to whom the
world had been very easy. It was not therefore said so decidedly
of him as of Sir Marmaduke, that he was a middle-aged man, although
he had probably already lived more than two-thirds of his life.
And he was a good-looking man of his age, bald indeed at the top of
his head, and with a considerable sprinkling of grey hair through
his bushy beard; but upright in his carriage, active, and quick
in his step, who dressed well, and was clearly determined to make
the most he could of what remained to him of the advantages of youth.
Colonel Osborne was always so dressed that no one ever observed
the nature of his garments, being no doubt well aware that no man
after twenty-five can afford to call special attention to his coat,
his hat, his cravat, or his trousers; but nevertheless the matter
was one to which he paid much attention, and he was by no means
lax in ascertaining what his tailor did for him. He always rode a
pretty horse, and mounted his groom on one at any rate as pretty.
He was known to have an excellent stud down in the shires, and had
the reputation of going well with hounds. Poor Sir Marmaduke could
not have ridden a hunt to save either his government or his credit.
When, therefore, Mrs Trevelyan declared to her sister that Colonel
Osborne was a man whom she was entitled to regard with semi-parental
feelings of veneration because he was older than her father, she
made a comparison which was more true in the letter than in the
spirit. And when she asserted that Colonel Osborne had known her
since she was a baby, she fell again into the same mistake. Colonel
Osborne had indeed known her when she was a baby, and had in old
days been the very intimate friend of her father; but of herself
he had seen little or nothing since those baby days, till he had
met her just as she was about to become Mrs Trevelyan; and though
it was natural that so old a friend should come to her and congratulate
her and renew his friendship, nevertheless it was not true that
he made his appearance in her husband’s house in the guise of the
useful old family friend, who gives silver cups to the children and
kisses the little girls for the sake of the old affection which he
has borne for the parents. We all know the appearance of that old
gentleman, how pleasant and dear a fellow he is, how welcome is his
face within the gate, how free he makes with our wine, generally
abusing it, how he tells our eldest daughter to light his candle
for him, how he gave silver cups when the girls were born, and now
bestows tea-services as they get married—a most useful, safe, and
charming fellow, not a year younger-looking or more nimble than
ourselves, without whom life would be very blank. We all know that
man; but such a man was not Colonel Osborne in the house of Mr
Trevelyan’s young bride.
Emily Rowley, when she was brought home from the Mandarin Islands
to be the wife of Louis Trevelyan, was a very handsome young woman,
tall, with a bust rather full for her age, with dark eyes eyes that
looked to be dark because her eyebrows and eye-lashes were nearly
black, but which were in truth so varying in colour that you could
not tell their hue. Her brown hair was very dark and very soft;
and the tint of her complexion was brown also, though the colour
of her cheeks was often so bright as to induce her enemies to say
falsely of her that she painted them. And she was very strong,
as are some girls who come from the tropics, and whom a tropical
climate has suited. She could sit on her horse the whole day long,
and would never be weary with dancing at the Government House balls.
When Colonel Osborne was introduced to her as the baby whom he had
known, he thought it would be very pleasant to be intimate with so
pleasant a friend, meaning no harm indeed, as but few men do mean
harm on such occasions, but still, not regarding the beautiful
young woman whom he had seen as one of a generation succeeding to
that of his own, to whom it would be his duty to make himself useful
on account of the old friendship which he bore to her father.
It was, moreover, well known in London though not known at all
to Mrs Trevelyan that this ancient Lothario had before this made
himself troublesome in more than one family. He was fond of intimacies
with married ladies, and perhaps was not averse to the excitement
of marital hostility. It must be remembered, however, that the
hostility to which allusion is here made was not the hostility of the
pistol or the horsewhip nor indeed was it generally the hostility
of a word of spoken anger. A young husband may dislike the too-friendly
bearing of a friend, and may yet abstain from that outrage on his
own dignity and on his wife, which is conveyed by a word of suspicion.
Louis Trevelyan having taken a strong dislike to Colonel Osborne,
and having failed to make his wife understand that this dislike
should have induced her to throw cold water upon the Colonel’s
friendship, had allowed himself to speak a word which probably he
would have willingly recalled as soon as spoken. But words spoken
cannot be recalled, and many a man and many a woman who has spoken
a word at once regretted, are far too proud to express that regret.
So it was with Louis Trevelyan when he told his wife that he did
not wish Colonel Osborne to come so often to his house. He had said
it with a flashing eye and an angry tone; and though she had seen
the eye flash before, and was familiar with the angry tone, she
had never before felt herself to be insulted by her husband. As
soon as the word had been spoken Trevelyan had left the room and
had gone down among his books. But when he was alone he knew that
he had insulted his wife. He was quite aware that he should have
spoken to her gently, and have explained to her, with his arm
round her waist, that it would be better for both of them that this
friend’s friendship should be limited. There is so much in a turn
of the eye and in the tone given to a word when such things have to
be said, so much more of importance than in the words themselves.
As Trevelyan thought of this, and remembered what his manner had
been, how much anger he had expressed, how far he had been from
having his arm round his wife’s waist as he spoke to her, he almost
made up his mind to go upstairs and to apologise. But he was one
to whose nature the giving of any apology was repulsive. He could
not bear to have to own himself to have been wrong. And then his
wife had been most provoking in her manner to him. When he had
endeavoured to make her understand his wishes by certain disparaging
hints which he had thrown out as to Colonel Osborne, saying that
he was a dangerous man, one who did not show his true character,
a snake in the grass, a man without settled principles, and such
like, his wife had taken up the cudgels for her friend, and had
openly declared that she did not believe a word of the things that
were alleged against him. ‘But still for all that it is true,’
the husband had said. ‘I have no doubt that you think so,’ the wife
had replied. ‘Men do believe evil of one another, very often. But
you must excuse me if I say that I think you are mistaken. I have
known Colonel Osborne much longer than you have done, Louis, and
papa has always had the highest opinion of him.’ Then Mr Trevelyan
had become very angry, and had spoken those words which he could
not recall. As he walked to and fro among his books downstairs,
he almost felt that he ought to beg his wife’s pardon. He knew his
wife well enough to be sure that she would not forgive him unless he
did so. He would do so, he thought, but not exactly now. A moment
would come in which it might be easier than at present. He would
be able to assure her when he went up to dress for dinner, that
he had meant no harm. They were going out to dine at the house of
a lady of rank, the Countess Dowager of Milborough, a lady standing
high in the world’s esteem, of whom his wife stood a little in awe;
and he calculated that this feeling, if it did not make his task
easy would yet take from it some of its difficulty. Emily would
be, not exactly cowed, by the prospect of Lady Milborough’s dinner,
but perhaps a little reduced from her usual self-assertion. He would
say a word to her when he was dressing, assuring her that he had
not intended to animadvert in the slightest degree upon her own
conduct.
Luncheon was served, and the two ladies went down into the dining-room.
Mr Trevelyan did not appear. There was nothing in itself singular
in that, as he was accustomed to declare that luncheon was a meal
too much in the day, and that a man should eat nothing beyond a
biscuit between breakfast and dinner. But he would sometimes come
in and eat his biscuit standing on the hearth-rug, and drink what
he would call half a quarter of a glass of sherry. It would probably
have been well that he should have done so now; but he remained
in his library behind the dining-room, and when his wife and his
sister-in-law had gone upstairs, he became anxious to learn whether,
Colonel Osborne would come on that day, and, if so, whether he would
be admitted. He had been told that Nora Rowley was to be called
for by another lady, a Mrs Fairfax, to go out and look at pictures.
His wife had declined to join Mrs Fairfax’s party, having declared
that, as she was going to dine out, she would not leave her baby
all the afternoon. Louis Trevelyan, though he strove to apply his
mind to an article which he was writing for a scientific quarterly
review, could not keep himself from anxiety as to this expected visit
from Colonel Osborne. He was not in the least jealous. He swore to
himself fifty times over that any such feeling on his part would
be a monstrous injury to his wife. Nevertheless he knew that he
would be gratified if on that special day Colonel Osborne should
be informed that his wife was not at home. Whether the man were
admitted or not, he would beg his wife’s pardon; but he could, he
thought, do so with more thorough efficacy and affection if she
should have shown a disposition to comply with his wishes on this
day.
‘Do say a word to Richard,’
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