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

moment.

He then dressed himself, intending to go to Emily as soon as the

girl had left her; but the girl remained—was, as he believed,

kept in the room purposely by his wife, so that he should have no

moment of private conversation. He went downstairs, therefore, and

found Nora standing by the drawing-room fire.

 

‘So you are dressed first today?’ he said. ‘I thought your turn

always came last.’

 

‘Emily sent Jenny to me first today because she thought you would

be home, and she didn’t go up to dress till the last minute.’

 

This was intended well by Nora, but it did not have the desired

effect. Trevelyan, who had no command over his own features, frowned,

and showed that he was displeased. He hesitated a moment, thinking

whether he would ask Nora any question as to this report about her

father and mother; but, before he had spoken, his wife was in the

room.

 

‘We are all late, I fear,’ said Emily.

 

‘You, at any rate, are the last,’ said her husband.

 

‘About half a minute,’ said the wife.

 

Then they got into the hired brougham which was standing at the

door.

 

Trevelyan, in the sweet days of his early confidence with his wife,

had offered to keep a carriage for her, explaining to her that the

luxury, though costly, would not be beyond his reach. But she had

persuaded him against the carriage, and there had come to be an

agreement that instead of the carriage there should always be an

autumn tour. ‘One learns something from going about; but one learns

nothing from keeping a carriage,’ Emily had said. Those had been

happy days, in which it had been intended that everything should

always be rose-coloured. Now he was meditating whether, in lieu of

that autumn tour, it would not be necessary to take his wife away

to Naples altogether, so that she might be removed from the influence

of, of, of, of—no, not even to himself would he think of Colonel

Osborne as his wife’s lover. The idea was too horrible! And yet,

how dreadful was it that he should have, for any reason, to withdraw

her from the influence of any man!

 

Lady Milborough lived ever so far away, in Eccleston Square, but

Trevelyan did not say a single word to either of his companions

during the journey. He was cross and vexed, and was conscious that

they knew that he was cross and vexed. Mrs Trevelyan and her sister

talked to each other the whole way, but they did so in that tone

which clearly indicates that the conversation is made up, not for

any interest attached to the questions asked or the answers given,

but because it is expedient that there should not be silence. Nora

said something about Marshall and Snellgrove and tried to make believe

that she was very anxious for her sister’s answer. And Emily said

something about the opera at Covent Garden, which was intended

to show that her mind was quite at ease. But both of them failed

altogether, and knew that they failed. Once or twice Trevelyan thought

that he would say a word in token, as it were, of repentance. Like

the naughty child who knew that he was naughty, he was trying to

be good. But he could not do it. The fiend was too strong within

him. She must have known that there was a proposition for her

father’s return through Colonel Osborne’s influence. As that man at

the club had heard it, how could she not have known it? When they

got out at Lady Milborough’s door he had spoken to neither of them.

 

There was a large dull party, made up mostly of old people. Lady

Milborough and Trevelyan’s mother had been bosom friends, and

Lady Milborough had on this account taken upon herself to be much

interested in Trevelyan’s wife. But Louis Trevelyan himself, in

discussing Lady Milborough with Emily, had rather turned his mother’s

old friend into ridicule, and Emily had, of course, followed her

husband’s mode of thinking. Lady Milborough had once or twice given

her some advice on small matters, telling her that this or that

air would be good for her baby, and explaining that a mother during

a certain interesting portion of her life, should refresh herself

with a certain kind of malt liquor. Of all counsel on such domestic

subjects Mrs Trevelyan was impatient, as indeed it was her nature

to be in all matters, and consequently, authorized as she had been

by her husband’s manner of speaking of his mother’s friend, she

had taken a habit of quizzing Lady Milborough behind her back,

and almost of continuing the practice before the old lady’s face.

Lady Milborough, who was the most affectionate old soul alive,

and good-tempered with her friends to a fault, had never resented

this, but had come to fear that Mrs Trevelyan was perhaps a little

flighty. She had never as yet allowed herself to say anything worse

of her young friend’s wife than that. And she would always add that

that kind of thing would cure itself as the nursery became full. It

must be understood therefore that Mrs Trevelyan was not anticipating

much pleasure from Lady Milborough’s party, and that she had accepted

the invitation as a matter of duty.

 

There was present among the guests a certain Honourable Charles

Glascock, the eldest son of Lord Peterborough, who made the affair

more interesting to Nora than it was to her sister. It had been

whispered into Nora’s ears, by more than one person and among others

by Lady Milborough, whose own daughters were all married, that she

might if she thought fit become the Honourable Mrs Charles Glascock.

Now, whether she might think fit, or whether she might not, the

presence of the gentleman under such circumstances, as far as she

was concerned, gave an interest to the evening. And as Lady Milborough

took care that Mr Glascock should take Nora down to dinner, the

interest was very great. Mr Glascock was a good-looking man, just

under forty, in Parliament, heir to a peerage, and known to be

well off in respect to income. Lady Milborough and Mrs Trevelyan

had told Nora Rowley that should encouragement in that direction

come in her way, she ought to allow herself to fall in love with

Mr Glascock. A certain amount of encouragement had come in her

way, but she had not as yet allowed herself to fall in love with

Mr Glascock.

 

It seemed to her that Mr Glascock was quite conscious of the

advantages of his own position, and that his powers of talking about

other matters than those with which he was immediately connected

were limited. She did believe that he had in truth paid her the

compliment of falling in love with her, and this is a compliment

to which few girls are indifferent. Nora might perhaps have tried

to fall in love with Mr Glascock, had she not been forced to make

comparisons between him and another. This other one had not fallen in

love with her, as she well knew; and she certainly had not fallen

in love with him. But still the comparison was forced upon her, and

it did not result in favour of Mr Glascock. On the present occasion

Mr Glascock as he sat next to her almost proposed to her.

 

‘You have never seen Monkhams?’ he said. Monkhams was his father’s

seat, a very grand place in Worcestershire. Of course he knew very

well that she had never seen Monkhams. How should she have seen

it?

 

‘I have never been in that part of England at all,’ she replied.

 

‘I should so like to show you Monkhams. The oaks there are the

finest in the kingdom. Do you like oaks?’

 

‘Who does not like oaks? But we have none in the islands, and nobody

has ever seen so few as I have.’

 

‘I’ll show you Monkhams some day. Shall I? Indeed I hope that some

day I may really show you Monkhams.’

 

Now when an unmarried man talks to a young lady of really showing

her the house in which it will be his destiny to live, he can

hardly mean other than to invite her to live there with him. It

must at least be his purpose to signify that, if duly encouraged,

he will so invite her. But Nora Rowley did not give Mr Glascock

much encouragement on this occasion.

 

‘I’m afraid it is not likely that anything will ever take me into

that part of the country,’ she said. There was something perhaps in

her tone which checked Mr Glascock, so that he did not then press

the invitation.

 

When the ladies were upstairs in the drawing-room, Lady Milborough

contrived to seat herself on a couch intended for two persons only,

close to Mrs Trevelyan. Emily, thinking that she might perhaps hear

some advice about Guinness’s stout, prepared herself to be saucy.

But the matter in hand was graver than that. Lady Milborough’s mind

was uneasy about Colonel Osborne.

 

‘My dear,’ said she, ‘was not your father very intimate with that

Colonel Osborne?’

 

‘He is very intimate with him, Lady Milborough.’

 

‘Ah, yes; I thought I had heard so. That makes it of course natural

that you should know him.’

 

‘We have known him all our lives,’ said Emily, forgetting probably

that out of the twenty-three years and some months which she had

hitherto lived, there had been a consecutive period of more than

twenty years in which she had never seen this man whom she had

known all her life.

 

‘That makes a difference, of course; and I don’t mean to say anything

against him.’

 

‘I hope not, Lady Milborough, because we are all especially fond

of him.’ This was said with so much of purpose, that poor, dear

old Lady Milborough was stopped in her good work. She knew well

the terrible strait to which Augustus Poole had been brought with

his wife, although nobody supposed that Poole’s wife had ever

entertained a wrong thought in her pretty little heart. Nevertheless

he had been compelled to break up his establishment, and take his

wife to Naples, because this horrid Colonel would make himself at

home in Mrs Poole’s drawing-room in Knightsbridge. Augustus Poole,

with courage enough to take any man by the beard, had taking by

the beard been possible, had found it impossible to dislodge the

Colonel. He could not do so without making a row which would have

been disgraceful to himself and injurious to his wife; and therefore

he had taken Mrs Poole to Naples. Lady Milborough knew the whole

story, and thought that she foresaw that the same thing was about

to happen in the drawing-room in Curzon Street. When she attempted

to say a word to the wife, she found herself stopped. She could not

go on in that quarter after the reception with which the beginning

of her word had been met. But perhaps she might succeed better

with the husband. After all, her friendship was with the Trevelyan

side, and not with the Rowleys.

 

‘My dear Louis,’ she said, ‘I want to speak a word to you. Come

here.’ And then she led him into a distant corner, Mrs Trevelyan

watching her all the while, and guessing why her husband was thus

carried away. ‘I just want to give you a little hint, which I am

sure I believe is quite unnecessary,’ continued Lady Milborough.

Then she paused, but Trevelyan would not speak. She looked into his

face, and saw that it was black. But the man was the only child of

her dearest friend, and she persevered. ‘Do you know I don’t quite

like that Colonel Osborne coming so much to