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

a great deal of difference to me. And I’m told that what

they call ink comes off on your fingers like lamp-black. I never

touched one, thank God; but they tell me so. All the same; it isn’t

your fault.’

 

‘I’ve nothing to do with it, Aunt Stanbury.’

 

‘Of course you’ve not. And as he is your brother it wouldn’t be natural

that you should like to throw him off. And, my dear, I like you for

taking his part. Only you needn’t have been so fierce with an old

woman.’

 

‘Indeed indeed I didn’t mean to be fierce, Aunt Stanbury.’

 

‘I never was taken up so short in my life. But we won’t mind that.

There; he shall come and see you. I suppose he won’t insist on leaving

any of his nastiness about.’

 

‘But is he to come here, Aunt Stanbury?’

 

‘He may if he pleases.’

 

‘Oh, Aunt Stanbury!’

 

‘When he was here last he generally had a pipe in his mouth, and I dare

say he never puts it down at all now. Those things grow upon young

people so fast. But if he could leave it on the doorstep just while

he’s here I should be obliged to him.’

 

‘But, dear aunt, couldn’t I see him in the street?’

 

‘Out in the street! No, my dear. All the world is not to know that he’s

your brother; and he is dressed in such a rapscallion manner that the

people would think you were talking to a house-breaker.’ Dorothy’s face

became again red as she heard this, and the angry words were very

nearly spoken. ‘The last time I saw him,’ continued Miss Stanbury, ‘he

had on a short, rough jacket, with enormous buttons, and one of those

flipperty-flopperty things on his head, that the butcher-boys wear.

And, oh, the smell of tobacco! As he had been up in London I suppose he

thought Exeter was no better than a village, and he might do just as he

pleased. But he knew that if I’m particular about anything, it is about

a gentleman’s hat in the streets. And he wanted me me to walk with him

across to Mrs MacHugh’s! We should have been hooted about the Close

like a pair of mad dogs and so I told him.’

 

‘All the young men seem to dress like that now, Aunt Stanbury.’

 

‘No, they don’t. Mr Gibson doesn’t dress like that.’

 

‘But he’s a clergyman, Aunt Stanbury.’

 

‘Perhaps I’m an old fool. I dare say I am, and of course that’s what

you mean. At any rate I’m too old to change, and I don’t mean to try. I

like to see a difference between a gentleman and a house-breaker. For

the matter of that I’m told that there is a difference, and that the

house-breakers all look like gentlemen now. It may be proper to make us

all stand on our heads, with our legs sticking up in the air; but I for

one don’t like being topsy-turvey, and I won’t try it. When is he to

reach Exeter?’

 

‘He is coming on Tuesday next, by the last train.’

 

‘Then you can’t see him that night. That’s out of the question. No

doubt he’ll sleep at the Nag’s Head, as that’s the lowest radical

public-house in the city. Martha shall try to find him. She knows more

about his doings than I do. If he chooses to come here the following

morning before he goes down to Nuncombe Putney, well and good. I shall

wait up till Martha comes back from the train on Tuesday night, and

hear.’ Dorothy was of course full of gratitude and thanks; but yet she

felt almost disappointed by the result of her aunt’s clemency on the

matter. She had desired to take her brother’s part, and it had seemed

to her as though she had done so in a very lukewarm manner. She had

listened to an immense number of accusations against him, and had been

unable to reply to them because she had been conquered by the promise

of a visit. And now it was out of the question that she should speak of

going. Her aunt had given way to her, and of course had conquered her.

 

Late on the Tuesday evening, after ten o’clock, Hugh Stanbury was

walking round the Close with his aunt’s old servant. He had not put up

at that dreadfully radical establishment of which Miss Stanbury was so

much afraid, but had taken a bedroom at the Railway Inn. From there he

had walked up to the Close with Martha, and now was having a few last

words with her before he would allow her to return to the house.

 

‘I suppose she’d as soon see the devil as see me,’ said Hugh.

 

‘If you speak in that way, Mr Hugh, I won’t listen to you.’

 

‘And yet I did everything I could to please her; and I don’t think any

boy ever loved an old woman better than I did her.’

 

‘That was while she used to send you cakes, and ham, and jam to school,

Mr Hugh.’

 

‘Of course it was, and while she sent me flannel waistcoats to Oxford.

But when I didn’t care any longer for cakes or flannel then she got

tired of me. It is much better as it is, if she’ll only be good to

Dorothy.’

 

‘She never was bad to any body, Mr Hugh. But I don’t think an old lady

like her ever takes to a woman as she does to a young man, if only

he’ll let her have a little more of her own way than you would. It’s my

belief that you might have had it all for your own some day, if you’d

done as you ought.’

 

‘That’s nonsense, Martha. She means to leave it all to the Burgesses.

I’ve heard her say so.’

 

‘Say so; yes. People don’t always do what they say. If you’d managed

rightly you might have it all and so you might now.’

 

‘I’ll tell you what, old girl; I shan’t try. Live for the next twenty

years under her apron strings, that I may have the chance at the end of

it of cutting some poor devil out of his money! Do you know the meaning

of making a score off your own bat, Martha?’

 

‘No, I don’t; and if it’s anything you’re like to do, I don’t think I

should be the better for learning by all accounts. And now if you

please, I’ll go in.’

 

‘Good night, Martha. My love to them both, and say I’ll be there

tomorrow exactly at half-past nine. You’d better take it. It won’t turn

to slate-stone. It hasn’t come from the old gentleman.’

 

‘I don’t want anything of that kind, Mr Hugh indeed I don’t.’

 

‘Nonsense. If you don’t take it you’ll offend me. I believe you think

I’m not much better than a schoolboy still.’

 

‘I don’t think you’re half so good, Mr Hugh,’ said the old servant,

sticking the sovereign which Hugh had given her in under her glove as

she spoke.

 

On the next morning that other visit was made at the brick house, and

Miss Stanbury was again in a fuss. On this occasion, however, she was

in a much better humour than before, and was full of little jokes as to

the nature of the visitation. Of course, she was not to see her nephew

herself, and no message was to be delivered from her, and none was to

be given to her from him. But an accurate report was to be made to her

as to his appearance, and Dorothy was to be enabled to answer a variety

of questions respecting him after he was gone. ‘Of course, I don’t want

to know anything about his money,’ Miss Stanbury said, ‘only I should

like to know how much these people can afford to pay for their penny

trash.’ On this occasion she had left the room and gone upstairs

before the knock came at the door, but she managed, by peeping over the

balcony, to catch a glimpse of the ‘flipperty-flopperty’ hat which her

nephew certainly had with him on this occasion.

 

Hugh Stanbury had great news for his sister. The cottage in which Mrs

Stanbury lived at Nuncombe Putney, was the tiniest little dwelling in

which a lady and her two daughters ever sheltered themselves. There

was, indeed, a sitting-room, two bedrooms, and a kitchen; but they

were all so diminutive in size that the cottage was little more than a

cabin. But there was a house in the village, not large indeed, but

eminently respectable, three stories high, covered with ivy, having a

garden behind it, and generally called the Clock House, because there

had once been a clock upon it. This house had been lately vacated, and

Hugh informed his sister that he was thinking of taking it for his

mother’s accommodation. Now, the late occupants of the Clock House, at

Nuncombe Putney, had been people with five or six hundred a-year. Had

other matters been in accordance, the house would almost have entitled

them to consider themselves as county people. A gardener had always

been kept there and a cow!

 

‘The Clock House for mamma!’

 

‘Well, yes. Don’t say a word about it as yet to Aunt Stanbury, as

she’ll think that I’ve sold myself altogether to the old gentleman.’

 

‘But, Hugh, how can mamma live there?’

 

‘The fact is, Dorothy, there is a secret. I can’t tell you quite yet.

Of course, you’ll know it, and everybody will know it, if the thing

comes about. But as you won’t talk, I will tell you what most concerns

ourselves.’

 

‘And am I to go back?’

 

‘Certainly not if you will take my advice. Stick to your aunt. You

don’t want to smoke pipes, and wear Tom-and-Jerry hats, and write for

the penny newspapers.’

 

Now Hugh Stanbury’s secret was this, that Louis Trevelyan’s wife and

sister-in-law were to leave the house in Curzon Street, and come and

live at Nuncombe Putney, with Mrs Stanbury and Priscilla. Such, at

least, was the plan to be carried out, if Hugh Stanbury should be

successful in his present negotiations.