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

If I choose to decline to take anything that is pleasant, and

nice, and comfortable, nobody has a right to scold me. And I won’t be

scolded.’

 

‘But, my child, who is scolding you?’

 

‘You mean to scold me. But it is of no use. The man has gone, and there

is an end of it. Nothing that you can say or I can think will bring him

back again. I don’t want anybody to tell me that it would be better to

be Lady Peterborough, with everything that the world has to give, than

to live here without a soul to speak to, and to have to go back to

those horrible islands next year. You can’t think that I am very

comfortable.’

 

‘But what did you say to him, Nora?’

 

‘What did I say to him? What could I say to him? Why didn’t he ask me

to be his wife without saying anything about love? He asked me if I

loved him. Of course I don’t love him. I would have said I did, but it

stuck in my throat. I am willing enough, I believe, to sell myself to

the devil, but I don’t know how to do it. Never mind. It’s done, and

now I’ll go to bed.’

 

She did go to bed, and Mrs Trevelyan explained to the two ladies as

much as was necessary of what had occurred. When Mrs Stanbury came to

understand that the gentleman who had been closeted with her would,

probably, in a few months be a lord himself, that he was a very rich

man, a member of Parliament, and one of those who are decidedly born

with gold spoons in their mouths, and understood also that Nora Rowley

had refused him, she was lost in amazement. Mr Glascock was about forty

years of age, and appeared to Nora Rowley, who was nearly twenty years

his junior, to be almost an old man. But to Mrs Stanbury, who was over

sixty, Mr Glascock seemed to be quite in the flower of his age. The

bald place at the top of his head simply showed that he had passed his

boyhood, and the grey hairs at the back of his whiskers were no more

than outward signs of manly discretion. She could not understand why

any girl should refuse such an offer, unless the man were himself bad

in morals, or in temper. But Mrs Trevelyan had told her while Nora and

Mr Glascock were closeted together, that he was believed by them all to

be good and gentle. Nevertheless she felt a considerable increase of

respect for a young lady who had refused the eldest son of a lord.

Priscilla, when she heard what had occurred, expressed to her mother a

moderated approval. According to her views a girl would much more often

be right to refuse an offer of marriage than to accept it, let him who

made the offer be who he might. And the fact of the man having been

sent away with a refusal somewhat softened Priscilla’s anger at his

coming there at all.

 

‘I suppose he is a goose,’ said she to her mother, ‘and I hope there

won’t be any more of this kind running after them while they are with

us.’

 

Nora, when she was alone, wept till her heart was almost broken. It was

done, and the man was gone, and the thing was over. She had quite

sufficient knowledge of the world to realise perfectly the difference

between such a position as that which had been offered to her, and the

position which in all probability she would now be called upon to fill.

She had had her chance, and Fortune had placed great things at her

disposal. It must said of her also that the great things which Fortune

had offered to her were treasures very valuable in her eyes. Whether it

be right and wise to covet or to desire wealth and rank, there was no

doubt but that she coveted them. She had been instructed to believe in

them, and she did believe in them. In some mysterious manner of which

she herself knew nothing, taught by some preceptor the nobility of

whose lessons she had not recognised though she had accepted them, she

had learned other things also: to revere truth and love, and to be

ambitious as regarded herself of conferring the gift of her whole heart

upon some one whom she could worship as a hero. She had spoken the

simple truth when she had told her sister that she had been willing to

sell herself to the devil, but that she had failed in her attempt to

execute the contract. But now as she lay weeping on her bed, tearing

herself with remorse, picturing to herself in the most vivid colours

all that she had thrown away, telling herself of all that she might

have done and all she might have been, had she not allowed the insane

folly of a moment to get the better of her, she received little or no

comfort from the reflection that she had been true to her better

instincts. She had told the man that she had refused him because she

loved Hugh Stanbury at least, as far as she could remember what had

passed, she had so told him. And how mean it was of her to allow

herself to be actuated by an insane passion for a man who had never

spoken to her of love, and how silly of her afterwards to confess it!

Of what service could such a passion be to her life? Even were it

returned, she could not marry such a one as Hugh Stanbury. She knew

enough of herself to be quite sure that were he to ask her to do so

tomorrow, she would refuse him. Better go and be scorched, and bored to

death, and buried at the Mandarins, than attempt to regulate a poor

household which, as soon as she made one of its number, would be on the

sure road to ruin! For a moment there came upon her, not a thought,

hardly an idea, something of a waking dream that she would write to Mr

Glascock and withdraw all that she had said. Were she to do so he would

probably despise her, and tell her that he despised her but there might

be a chance. It was possible that such a declaration would bring him

back to her and did it not bring him back to her she would only be

where she was, a poor lost, shipwrecked creature, who had flung herself

upon the rocks and thrown away her only chance of a prosperous voyage

across the ocean of life; her only chance, for she was not like other

girls, who at any rate remain on the scene of action, and may refit

their spars and still win their way. For there were to be no more

seasons in London, no more living in Curzon Street, no renewed power of

entering the ball-rooms and crowded staircases in which high-born

wealthy lovers can be conquered. A great prospect had been given to

her, and she had flung it aside! That letter of retractation was,

however, quite out of the question. The reader must not suppose that

she had ever thought that she could write it. She thought of nothing

but of coming misery and remorse. In her wretchedness she fancied that

she had absolutely disclosed to the man who loved her the name of him

whom she had been mad enough to say that she loved. But what did it

matter? Let it be as it might, she was destroyed.

 

The next morning she came down to breakfast pale as a ghost; and they

who saw her knew at once that she had done that which had made her a

wretched woman.