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Read books online » Fiction » He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope (ebook reader with internet browser txt) 📖

Book online «He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope (ebook reader with internet browser txt) 📖». Author Anthony Trollope



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how should I not be sudden? I have come here on purpose

to say this to you. If I do not say it now—’

 

‘You heard what Emily said.’

 

‘No, what did she say?’

 

‘She said that it would not be for good that you should speak to me

thus.’

 

‘Why not for good? But she is unhappy, and looks gloomily at things.’

 

‘Yes, indeed.’

 

‘But all the world need not be sad for ever because she has been

unfortunate.’

 

‘Not all the world, Mr Stanbury, but you must not be surprised if it

affects me.’

 

‘But would that prevent your loving me if you did love me? But, Nora, I

do not expect you to love me not yet. I do not say that I expect it

ever. But if you would—. Nora, I can do no more than tell you the

simple truth. Just listen to me for a minute. You know how I came to be

intimate with you all in Curzon Street. The first day I saw you I loved

you; and there has come no change yet. It is months now since I first

knew that I loved you. Well; I told myself more than once when I was

down at Nuncombe for instance that I had no right to speak to you. What

right can a poor devil like me have, who lives from hand to mouth, to

ask such a girl as you to be his wife? And so I said nothing though it

was on my lips every moment that I was there.’ Nora remembered at the

moment how she had looked to his lips, and had not seen the words

there. ‘But I think there is something unmanly in this. If you cannot

give me a grain of hope, if you tell me that there never can be hope, it

is my misfortune. It will be very grievous, but I will bear it. But

that will be better than puling and moping about without daring to tell

my tale. I am not ashamed of it. I have fallen in love with you, Nora,

and I think it best to come for an answer.’

 

He held out his arms as though he thought that she might perhaps come

to him. Indeed he had no idea of any such coming on her part; but she,

as she looked at him, almost thought that it was her duty to go. Had

she a right to withhold herself from him, she who loved him so dearly?

Had he stepped forward and taken her in his arms, it might be that all

power of refusal would soon have been beyond her power.

 

‘Mr Stanbury,’ she said, ‘you have confessed yourself that it is

impossible.’

 

‘But do you love me, do you think that it is possible that you should

ever love me?’

 

‘You know, Mr Stanbury, that you should not say anything further. You

know that it cannot be.’

 

‘But do you love me?’

 

‘You are ungenerous not to take an answer without driving me to be

uncourteous.’

 

‘I do not care for courtesy. Tell me the truth. Can you ever love me?

With one word of hope I will wait, and work, and feel myself to be a

hero. I will not go till you tell me that you cannot love me.’

 

‘Then I must tell you so.’

 

‘What is it you will tell me, Nora? Speak it. Say it. If I knew that a

girl disliked me, nothing should make me press myself upon her. Am I

odious to you, Nora?’

 

‘No; not odious, but very, very unfair.’

 

‘I will have the truth if I be ever so unfair,’ he said. And by this

time probably some inkling of the truth had reached his intelligence.

There was already a tear in Nora’s eye, but he did not pity her. She

owed it to him to tell him the truth, and he would have it from her if

it was to be reached. ‘Nora,’ he said, ‘listen to me again. All my

heart and soul are in this. It is everything to me. If you can love me

you are bound to say so. By Jove, I will believe you do, unless you

swear to me that it is not so!’ He was now holding her by the hand and

looking closely into her face.

 

‘Mr Stanbury,’ she said, ‘let me go; pray, pray let me go.’

 

‘Not till you say that you love me. Oh, Nora, I believe that you love

me. You do; yes; you do love me. Dearest, dearest Nora, would you not

say a word to make me the happiest man in the world?’ And now he had

his arm round her waist.

 

‘Let me go,’ she said, struggling through her tears and covering her

face with her hands. ‘You are very, very wicked. I will never speak to

you again. Nay, but you shall let me go!’ And then she was out of his

arms and had escaped from the room before he had managed to touch her

face with his lips.

 

As he was thinking how he also might escape now, might escape and

comfort himself with his triumph, Mrs Outhouse returned to the chamber.

She was very demure, and her manner towards him was considerably

changed since she had left the chamber. ‘Mr Stanbury,’ she said, ‘this

kind of thing mustn’t go any further indeed, at least not in my house.’

 

‘What kind of thing, Mrs Outhouse?’

 

‘Well, what my elder niece has told me. I have not seen Miss Rowley

since she left you. I am quite sure she has behaved with discretion.’

 

‘Indeed she has, Mrs Outhouse.’

 

‘The fact is my nieces are in grief and trouble, and this is no time or

place for lovemaking. I am sorry to be uncivil, but I must ask you not

to come here any more.’

 

‘I will stay away from this house, certainly, if you bid me.’

 

‘I am very sorry; but I must bid you. Sir Marmaduke will be home in the

spring, and if you have anything to say to him of course you can see

him.’

 

Then Hugh Stanbury took his leave of Mrs Outhouse; but as he went home,

again on the knifeboard of an omnibus, he smoked the pipe of triumph

rather than the pipe of contemplation.

CHAPTER XL

‘C. G.’

 

The Miss Spaldings were met at the station at Florence by their uncle,

the American Minister, by their cousin, the American Secretary of

Legation, and by three or four other dear friends and relations, who

were there to welcome the newcomers to sunny Italy. Mr Glascock,

therefore, who ten minutes since had been, and had felt himself to be,

quite indispensable to their comfort, suddenly became as though he were

nothing and nobody. Who is there that has not felt these sudden

disruptions to the intimacies and friendships of a long journey? He

bowed to them, and they to him, and then they were whirled away in

their grandeur. He put himself into a small, open hackney-carriage, and

had himself driven to the York Hotel, feeling himself to be deserted

and desolate. The two Miss Spaldings were the daughters of a very

respectable lawyer at Boston, whereas Mr Glascock was heir to a

peerage, to an enormous fortune, and to one of the finest places in

England. But he thought nothing of this at the time. As he went, he was

meditating which young woman was the most attractive, Nora Rowley or

Caroline Spalding. He had no doubt but that Nora was the prettier, the

pleasanter in manner, the better dressed, the more engaging in all that

concerned the outer woman; but he thought that he had never met any

lady who talked better than Caroline Spalding. And what was Nora

Rowley’s beauty to him? Had she not told him that she was the property

of some one else; or, for the matter of that, what was Miss Spalding to

him? They had parted, and he was going on to Naples in two days. He had

said some half-defined word as to calling at the American Embassy, but

it had not been taken up by either of the ladies. He had not pressed

it, and so they had parted without an understanding as to a future

meeting.

 

The double journey, from Turin to Bologna and from Bologna to Florence,

is very long, and forms ample time for a considerable intimacy. There

had, too, been a long day’s journeying together before that; and with

no women is a speedy intimacy so possible, or indeed so profitable, as

with Americans. They fear nothing, neither you nor themselves; and talk

with as much freedom as though they were men. It may, perhaps, be

assumed to be true as a rule, that women’s society is always more

agreeable to men than that of other men except for the lack of ease. It

undoubtedly is so when the women be young and pretty. There is a

feeling, however, among pretty women in Europe that such freedom is

dangerous, and it is withheld. There is such danger, and more or less

of such withholding is expedient; but the American woman does not

recognise the danger; and, if she withhold the grace of her countenance

and the pearls of her speech, it is because she is not desirous of the

society which is proffered to her. These two American sisters had not

withholden their pearls from Mr Glascock. He was much their senior in

age; he was gentle in his manners, and they probably recognised him to

be a safe companion. They had no idea who he was, and had not heard his

name when they parted from him. But it was not probable that they

should have been with him so long, and that they should leave him

without further thought of him, without curiosity, or a desire to know

more of him. They had seen ‘C. G.’ in large letters, on his

dressing-bag, and that was all they had learned as to his identity. He

had known their names well, and had once called Olivia by hers, in the

hurry of speaking to her sister. He had apologised, and there had been

a little laugh, and a discussion about the use of Christian names such

as is very conducive to intimacy between gentlemen and ladies. When you

can talk to a young lady about her own Christian name, you are almost

entitled for the nonce to use it.

 

Mr Glascock went to his hotel, and was very moody and desolate. His

name was very soon known there, and he received the honours due to his

rank and station. ‘I should like to travel in America,’ he said to

himself, ‘if I could be sure that no one would find out who I was.’ He

had received letters at Turin, stating that his father was better, and,

therefore, he intended to remain two days at Florence. The weather was

still very hot, and Florence in the middle of September is much

preferable to Naples.

 

That night, when the two Miss Spaldings were alone together, they

discussed their fellow-traveller thoroughly. Something, of course, had

been said about him to their uncle the minister, to their aunt the

minister’s wife, and to their cousin the secretary of legation. But

travellers will always observe that the dear new friends they have made

on their journey are not interesting to the dear old friends whom they

meet afterwards. There may be some touch of jealousy in this; and then,

though you, the traveller, are fully aware that there has been

something special in the case which has made this new friendship more

peculiar than others

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