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

wife, perhaps as the man of

whose wife Colonel Osborne was the dear friend. No doubt for a day or

two there had been much of such conversation; but it had died away from

the club long before his consciousness had become callous. At first he

had gone into a lodging in Mayfair; but this had been but for a day or

two. After that he had taken a set of furnished chambers in Lincoln’s

Inn, immediately under those in which Stanbury lived; and thus it came

to pass that he and Stanbury were very much thrown together. As

Trevelyan would always talk of his wife this was rather a bore; but our

friend bore with it, and would even continue to instruct the world

through the columns of the D. R. while Trevelyan was descanting on the

peculiar cruelty of his own position.

 

‘I wish to be just, and even generous; and I do love her with all my

heart,’ he said one afternoon, when Hugh was very hard at work.

 

‘It is all very well for gentlemen to call themselves reformers,’

Hugh was writing, ‘but have these gentlemen ever realised to

themselves the meaning of that word? We think that they have never done

so as long as—’ ‘Of course you love her,’ said Hugh, with his eyes still

on the paper, still leaning on his pen, but finding by the cessation of

sound that Trevelyan had paused, and therefore knowing that it was

necessary that he should speak.

 

‘As much as ever,’ said Trevelyan, with energy.

 

‘As long as they follow such a leader, in such a cause, into whichever

lobby he may choose to take them’—‘Exactly so, exactly,’ said Stanbury;

‘just as much as ever.’

 

‘You are not listening to a word,’ said Trevelyan.

 

‘I haven’t missed a single expression you have used,’ said Stanbury.

‘But a fellow has to do two things at a time when he’s on the daily

press.’

 

‘I beg your pardon for interrupting you,’ said Trevelyan, angrily,

getting up, taking his hat, and stalking off to the house of Lady

Milborough. In this way he became rather a bore to his friends. He

could not divest his mind of the injury which had accrued to him from

his wife’s conduct, nor could he help talking of the grief with which

his mind was laden. And he was troubled with sore suspicions, which, as

far as they concerned his wife, had certainly not been merited. It had

seemed to him that she had persisted in her intimacy with Colonel

Osborne in a manner that was not compatible with that wife-like

indifference which he regarded as her duty. Why had she written to him

and received letters from him when her husband had plainly told her

that any such communication was objectionable? She had done so, and as

far as Trevelyan could remember her words, had plainly declared that

she would continue to do so. He had sent her away, into the most remote

retirement he could find for her; but the post was open to her. He had

heard much of Mrs Stanbury, and Priscilla, from his friend Hugh, and

thoroughly believed that his wife was in respectable hands. But what

was to prevent Colonel Osborne from going after her if he chose to do

so? And if he did so choose, Mrs Stanbury could not prevent their

meeting. He was racked with jealousy, and yet he did not cease to

declare to himself that he knew his wife too well to believe that she

would sin. He could not rid himself of his jealousy, but he tried with

all his might to make the man whom he hated the object of it, rather

than the woman whom he loved.

 

He hated Colonel Osborne with all his heart. It was a regret to him

that the days of duelling were over; so that he could not shoot the

man. And yet, had duelling been possible to him, Colonel Osborne had

done nothing that would have justified him in calling his enemy out or

would even have enabled him to do so with any chance of inducing his

enemy to fight. Circumstances, he thought, were cruel to him beyond

compare, in that he should have been made to suffer so great torment

without having any of the satisfaction of revenge. Even Lady

Milborough, with all her horror as to the Colonel, could not tell him

that the Colonel was amenable to any punishment. He was advised that he

must take his wife away and live at Naples because of this man, that he

must banish himself entirely if he chose to repossess himself of his

wife and child; and yet nothing could be done to the unprincipled rascal

by whom all his wrong and sufferings were occasioned! Thinking it very

possible that Colonel Osborne would follow his wife, he had a watch set

upon the Colonel. He had found a retired policeman, a most discreet man,

as he was assured who, for a consideration, undertook the management of

interesting jobs of this kind. The man was one Bozzle, who had not lived

without a certain reputation in the police courts. In these days of his

madness, therefore, he took Mr Bozzle into his pay; and after a while

he got a letter from Bozzle with the Exeter post-mark. Colonel Osborne

had left London with a ticket for Lessboro’. Bozzle also had taken a

place by the same train for that small town. The letter was written in

the railway carriage, and, as Bozzle explained, would be posted by him

as he passed through Exeter. A further communication should be made by

the next day’s post, in a letter which Mr Bozzle proposed to address to

Z. A., Post-office, Waterloo Place.

 

On receiving this first letter, Trevelyan was in an agony of doubt, as

well as misery. What should he do? Should he go to Lady Milborough, or

to Stanbury; or should he at once follow Colonel Osborne and Mr Bozzle

to Lessboro’. It ended in his resolving at last to wait for the letter

which was to be addressed to Z. A. But he spent an interval of horrible

suspense, and of insane rage. Let the laws say what they might, he

would have the man’s blood, if he found that the man had even attempted

to wrong him. Then, at last, the second letter reached him. Colonel

Osborne and Mr Bozzle had each of them spent the day in the

neighbourhood of Lessboro’, not exactly in each other’s company, but

very near to each other. ‘The Colonel’ had ordered a gig, on the day

after his arrival at Lessboro’, for the village of Cockchaffington;

and, for all Mr Bozzle knew, the Colonel had gone to Cockchaffington.

Mr Bozzle was ultimately inclined to think that the Colonel had really

spent his day in going to Cockchaffington. Mr Bozzle himself, knowing

the wiles of such men as Colonel Osborne, and thinking at first that

that journey to Cockchaffington might only be a deep ruse, had walked

over to Nuncombe Putney. There he had had a pint of beer and some bread

and cheese at Mrs Crocket’s house, and had asked various questions, to

which he did not receive very satisfactory answers. But he inspected

the Clock House very minutely, and came to a decided opinion as to the

point at which it would be attacked, if burglary were the object of the

assailants. And he observed the iron gates, and the steps, and the

shape of the trees, and the old pigeon-house-looking fabric in which

the clock used to be placed. There was no knowing when information

might be wanted, or what information might not be of use. But he made

himself tolerably sure that Colonel Osborne did not visit Nuncombe

Putney on that day; and then he walked back to Lessboro’. Having done

this, he applied himself to the little memorandum book in which he kept

the records of these interesting duties, and entered a claim against

his employer for a conveyance to Nuncombe Putney and back, including

driver and ostler; and then he wrote his letter. After that he had a

hot supper, with three glasses of brandy and water, and went to bed

with a thorough conviction that he had earned his bread on that day.

 

The letter to Z. A. did not give all these particulars, but it did

explain that Colonel Osborne had gone off apparently, to

Cockchaffington, and that he Bozzle had himself visited Nuncombe

Putney. ‘The hawk hasn’t been nigh the dovecot as yet,’ said Mr Bozzle

in his letter, meaning to be both mysterious and facetious.

 

It would be difficult to say whether the wit or the mystery disgusted

Trevelyan the most. He had felt that he was defiling himself with dirt

when he first went to Mr Bozzle. He knew that he was having recourse to

means that were base and low which could not be other than base or low,

let the circumstances be what they might. But Mr Bozzle’s conversation

had not been quite so bad as Mr Bozzle’s letters; as it may have been

that Mr Bozzle’s successful activity was more insupportable than his

futile attempts. But, nevertheless, something must be done. It could

not be that Colonel Osborne should have gone down to the close

neighbourhood of Nuncombe Putney without the intention of seeing the

lady whom his obtrusive pertinacity had driven to that seclusion. It

was terrible to Trevelyan that Colonel Osborne should be there, and not

the less terrible because such a one as Mr Bozzle was watching the

Colonel on his behalf. Should he go to Nuncombe Putney himself? And if

so, when he got to Nuncombe Putney what should he do there? At last, in

his suspense and his grief, he resolved that he would tell the whole to

Hugh Stanbury.

 

‘Do you mean,’ said Hugh, ‘that you have put a policeman on his track?’

 

‘The man was a policeman once.’

 

‘What we call a private detective. I can’t say I think you were right.’

 

‘But you see that it was necessary,’ said Trevelyan.

 

‘I can’t say that it was necessary. To speak out, I can’t understand

that a wife should be worth watching who requires watching.’

 

‘Is a man to do nothing then? And even now it is not my wife whom I

doubt.’

 

‘As for Colonel Osborne, if he chooses to go to Lessboro’, why

shouldn’t he? Nothing that you can do, or that Bozzle can do, can

prevent him. He has a perfect right to go to Lessboro’.’

 

‘But he has not a right to go to my wife.’

 

‘And if your wife refuses to see him; or having seen him—for a man may

force his way in anywhere with a little trouble—if she sends him away

with a flea in his ear, as I believe she would?’

 

‘She is so frightfully indiscreet.’

 

‘I don’t see what Bozzle can do.’

 

‘He has found out at any rate that Osborne is there,’ said Trevelyan.

‘I am not more fond of dealing with such fellows than you are yourself.

But I think it is my duty to know what is going on. What ought I to do

now?’

 

‘I should do nothing except dismiss Bozzle.’

 

‘You know that that is nonsense, Stanbury.’

 

‘Whatever I did I should dismiss Bozzle.’ Stanbury was now quite in

earnest, and, as he repeated his suggestion for the dismissal of the

policeman, pushed his writing things away from him. ‘If you ask my

opinion, you know, I must tell you what I think. I should get rid of

Bozzle as a beginning. If you will only think of it, how can your wife

come back to you if she learns that you have set a