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

with instructions to him to ascertain from counsel what

severest steps I can take.’

 

‘How I hate that word severe, when applied to a woman.’

 

‘I dare say you do when applied to another man’s wife. But there will

be no severity in my first proposition. As for the child, if I approve

of the place in which she lives, as I do at present, he shall remain

with her for nine months in the year till he is six years old. Then he

must come to me. And he shall come to me altogether if she sees or

hears from that man. I believe that 800 pounds a year will enable her

to live with all comfort under your mother’s roof.”

 

‘As to that,’ said Stanbury, slowly, ‘I suppose I had better tell you

at once, that the Nuncombe Putney arrangement cannot be considered as

permanent.’

 

‘Why not?’

 

‘Because my mother is timid, and nervous, and altogether unused to the

world.’

 

‘That unfortunate woman is to be sent away even from Nuncombe Putney!’

 

‘Understand me, Trevelyan.’

 

‘I understand you. I understand you most thoroughly. Nor do I wonder at

it in the least. Do not suppose that I am angry with your mother, or

with you, or with your sister. I have no right to expect that they

should keep her after that man has made his way into their house. I can

well conceive that no honest, high-minded lady would do so.’

 

‘It is not that at all.’

 

‘But it is that. How can you tell me that it isn’t? And yet you would

have me believe that I am not disgraced!’ As he said this Trevelyan got

up, and walked about the room, tearing his hair with his hands. He was

in truth a wretched man, from whose mind all expectation of happiness,

was banished, who regarded his own position as one of incurable

ignominy, looking upon himself as one who had been made unfit for

society by no fault of his own. What was he to do with the wretched

woman who could be kept from the evil of her pernicious vanity by no

gentle custody, whom no most distant retirement would make safe from

the effects of her own ignorance, folly, and obstinacy? ‘When is she to

go?’ he asked in a low, sepulchral tone as though these new tidings

that had come upon him had been fatal laden with doom, and finally

subversive of all chance even of tranquillity.

 

‘When you and she may please.’

 

‘That is all very well but let me know the truth. I would not have your

mother’s house contaminated; but may she remain there for a week?’

 

Stanbury jumped from his seat with an oath. ‘I tell you what it is,

Trevelyan if you speak of your wife in that way, I will not listen to

you. It is unmanly and untrue to say that her presence can contaminate

any house.’

 

‘That is very fine. It may be chivalrous in you to tell me on her

behalf that I am a liar and that I am not a man.’

 

‘You drive me to it.’

 

‘But what am I to think when you are forced to declare that this

unfortunate woman can not be allowed to remain at your mother’s house, a

house which has been especially taken with reference to a shelter for

her? She has been received with the idea that she would be discreet.

She has been indiscreet, past belief, and she is to be turned out most

deservedly. Heaven and earth! Where shall I find a roof for her head?’

Trevelyan as he said this was walking about the room with his hands

stretched up towards the ceiling; and as his friend was attempting to

make him comprehend that there was no intention on the part of anyone

to banish Mrs Trevelyan from the Clock House, at least for some months

to come, not even till after Christmas unless some satisfactory

arrangement could be sooner made, the door of the room was opened by the

boy, who called himself a clerk, and who acted as Trevelyan’s servant

in the chambers, and a third person was shown into the room. That third

person was Mr Bozzle. As no name was given, Stanbury did not at first

know Mr Bozzle, but he had not had his eye on Mr Bozzle for half a

minute before he recognised the ex-policeman by the outward attributes

and signs of his profession. ‘Oh; is that you, Mr Bozzle?’ said

Trevelyan, as soon as the great man had made his bow of salutation.

‘Well what is it?’

 

‘Mr Hugh Stanbury, I think,’ said Bozzle, making another bow to the

young barrister.

 

‘That’s my name,’ said Stanbury.

 

‘Exactly so, Mr S. The identity is one as I could prove on oath in any

court in England. You was on the railway platform at Exeter on Saturday

when we was waiting for the 12 express ‘buss wasn’t you now, Mr S?’

 

‘What’s that to you?’

 

‘Well as it do happen, it is something to me. And, Mr S, if you was

asked that question in any court in England or before even one of the

metropolitan bekes, you wouldn’t deny it.’

 

‘Why the devil should I deny it? What’s all this about, Trevelyan?’

 

‘Of course you can’t deny it, Mr S. When I’m down on a fact, I am down

on it. Nothing else wouldn’t do in my profession.’

 

‘Have you anything to say to me, Mr Bozzle?’ asked Trevelyan.

 

‘Well I have; just a word.’

 

‘About your journey to Devonshire?’

 

‘Well in a way it is about my journey to Devonshire. It’s all along of

the same job, Mr Trewillian.’

 

‘You can speak before my friend here,’ said Trevelyan. Bozzle had taken

a great dislike to Hugh Stanbury, regarding the barrister with a

correct instinct as one who was engaged for the time in the same

service with himself and who was his rival in that service. When thus

instigated to make as it were a party of three in this delicate and

most confidential matter, and to take his rival into his confidence,

he shook his head slowly and looked Trevelyan hard in the face. ‘Mr

Stanbury is my particular friend,’ said Trevelyan, ‘and knows well the

circumstances of this unfortunate affair. You can say anything before

him.’

 

Bozzle shook his head again. ‘I’d rayther not, Mr Trewillian,’ said he.

‘Indeed I’d rayther not. It’s something very particular.’

 

‘If you take my advice,’ said Stanbury, ‘you will not hear him

yourself.’

 

‘That’s your advice, Mr S.?’ asked Mr Bozzle.

 

‘Yes that’s my advice. I’d never have anything to do with such a fellow

as you as long as I could help it.’

 

‘I dare say not, Mr S.; I dare say not. We’re hexpensive, and we’re

haccurate—neither of which is much in your line, Mr S., if I understand

about it rightly.’

 

‘Mr Bozzle, if you’ve got anything to tell, tell it,’ said Trevelyan,

angrily.

 

‘A third party is so objectionable,’ pleaded Bozzle.

 

‘Never mind. That is my affair.’

 

‘It is your affair, Mr Trewillian. There’s not a doubt of that. The

lady is your wife.’

 

‘Damnation!’ shouted Trevelyan.

 

‘But the credit, sir,’ said Bozzle. ‘The credit is mine. And here is Mr

S. has been down a interfering with me, and doing no ‘varsal good, as

I’ll undertake to prove by evidence before the affair is over.’

 

‘The affair is over,’ said Stanbury.

 

‘That’s as you think, Mr S. That’s where your information goes to, Mr

S. Mine goes a little beyond that, Mr S. I’ve means as you can know

nothing about, Mr S. I’ve irons in the fire, what you’re as ignorant on

as the babe as isn’t born.’

 

‘No doubt you have, Mr Bozzle,’ said Stanbury.

 

‘I has. And now if it be that I must speak before a third party, Mr

Trewillian, I’m ready. It ain’t that I’m no ways ashamed. I’ve done my

duty, and knows how to do it. And let a counsel be ever so sharp, I

never yet was so ‘posed but what I could stand up and hold my own. The

Colonel, Mr Trewillian, got a letter from your lady this morning.’

 

‘I don’t believe it,’ said Stanbury, sharply.

 

‘Very likely not, Mr S. It ain’t in my power to say anything whatever

about you believing or not believing. But Mr T.‘s lady has wrote the

letter; and the Colonel he has received it. You don’t look after these

things, Mr S. You don’t know the ways of ‘em. But it’s my business. The

lady has wrote the letter, and the Colonel why, he has received it.’

Trevelyan had become white with rage when Bozzle first mentioned this

continued correspondence between his wife and Colonel Osborne. It never

occurred to him to doubt the correctness of the policeman’s

information, and he regarded Stanbury’s assertion of incredulity as

being simply of a piece with his general obstinacy in the matter. At

this moment he began to regret that he had called in the assistance of

his friend, and that he had not left the affair altogether in the hands

of that much more satisfactory, but still more painful, agent, Mr

Bozzle. He had again seated himself, and for a moment or two remained

silent on his chair. ‘It ain’t my fault, Mr Trewillian,’ continued

Bozzle, ‘if this little matter oughtn’t never to have been mentioned

before a third party.’

 

‘It is of no moment,’ said Trevelyan, in a low voice. ‘What does it

signify who knows it now?’

 

‘Do not believe it, Trevelyan,’ said Stanbury.

 

‘Very well, Mr S. Very well. Just as you like. Don’t believe it. Only

it’s true, and it’s my business to find them things out. It’s my

business, and I finds ‘em out. Mr Trewillian can do as he likes about

it. If it’s right, why, then it is right. It ain’t for me to say

nothing about that. But there’s the fact. The lady, she has wrote

another letter; and the Colonel why, he has received it. There ain’t

nothing wrong about the post-office. If I was to say what was inside of

that billydou why, then I should be proving what I didn’t know; and

when it came to standing up in court, I shouldn’t be able to hold my

own. But as for the letter, the lady wrote it, and the Colonel he

received it.’

 

‘That will do, Mr Bozzle,’ said Trevelyan.

 

‘Shall I call again, Mr Trewillian?’

 

‘No; yes. I’ll send to you, when I want you. You shall hear from me.’

 

‘I suppose I’d better be keeping my eyes open about the Colonel’s

place, Mr Trewillian?’

 

‘For God’s sake, Trevelyan, do not have anything more to do with this

man!’

 

‘That’s all very well for you, Mr S.,’ said Bozzle. ‘The lady ain’t

your wife.’

 

‘Can you imagine anything more disgraceful than all this?’ said

Stanbury.

 

‘Nothing; nothing; nothing!’ answered Trevelyan.

 

‘And I’m to keep stirring, and be on the move?’ again suggested Bozzle,

who prudently required to be fortified by instructions before he

devoted his time and talents even to so agreeable a pursuit as that in

which he had been engaged.

 

‘You shall hear from me,’ said Trevelyan.

 

‘Very well very well. I wish you good-day, Mr Trewillian. Mr S., yours

most obedient. There was one other point, Mr Trewillian.’

 

‘What point?’ asked Trevelyan, angrily.

 

‘If the lady was to join the Colonel—’

 

‘That will do, Mr Bozzle,’ said Trevelyan, again jumping up from his

chair. ‘That will do.’ So