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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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same.

 

‘But you are out of your way for Lincoln’s Inn Fields,’ said

Stanbury.

 

‘I have to call at Twining’s. And where are you going?’

 

‘I have been three times round St. James’s Park to collect my

thoughts,’ said Stanbury, ‘and now I’m on my way to the Daily R.,

250, Fleet Street. It is my custom of an afternoon. I am prepared

to instruct the British public of tomorrow on any subject, as per

order, from the downfall of a European compact to the price of a

London mutton chop.’

 

‘I suppose there is nothing more to be said about it,’ said Trevelyan,

after a pause.

 

‘Not another word. How should there be? Aunt Jemima has already

drawn tight the purse strings, and it would soon be the casual ward

in earnest if it were not for the Daily R. God bless the Daily R.

Only think what a thing it is to have all subjects open to one,

from the destinies of France to the profit proper to a butcher.’

 

‘If you like it!’

 

‘I do like it. It may not be altogether honest. I don’t know what

is. But it’s a deal honester than defending thieves and bamboozling

juries. How is your wife?’

 

‘She’s pretty well, thank you.’

 

Stanbury knew at once from the tone of his friend’s voice that

there was something wrong.

 

‘And Louis the less?’ he said, asking after Trevelyan’s child.

‘He’s all right.’

 

‘And Miss Rowley? When one begins one’s inquiries one is bound to

go through the whole family.’

 

‘Miss Rowley is pretty well,’ said Trevelyan.

 

Previously to this, Trevelyan when speaking of his sister-in-law

to Stanbury, had always called her Nora, and had been wont to speak

of her as though she were almost as much the friend of one of them

as of the other. The change of tone on this occasion was in truth

occasioned by the sadness of the man’s thoughts in reference to

his wife, but Stanbury attributed it to another cause. ‘He need

not be afraid of me,’ he said to himself, ‘and at least he should

not show me that he is.’ Then they parted, Trevelyan going into

Twining’s bank, and Stanbury passing on towards the office of the

Daily R.

 

Stanbury had in truth been altogether mistaken as to the state

of his friend’s mind on that morning. Trevelyan, although he had,

according to his custom, put in a word in condemnation of the

newspaper line of life, was at the moment thinking whether he would

not tell all his trouble to Hugh Stanbury. He knew that he should

not find anywhere, not even in Mr Bideawhile, a more friendly or more

trustworthy listener. When Nora Rowley’s name had been mentioned,

he had not thought of her. He had simply repeated the name with

the usual answer. He was at the moment cautioning himself against

a confidence which after all might not be necessary, and which on

this occasion was not made. When one is in trouble it is a great

ease to tell one’s trouble to a friend; but then one should always

wash one’s dirty linen at home. The latter consideration prevailed,

and Trevelyan allowed his friend to go on without burdening him

with the story of that domestic quarrel. Nor did he on that occasion

tell it to Mr Bideawhile; for Mr Bideawhile was not found at his

chambers.

CHAPTER V

SHEWING HOW THE QUARREL PROGRESSED

 

Trevelyan got back to his own house at about three, and on going

into the library, found on his table a letter to him addressed in

his wife’s handwriting. He opened it quickly, hoping to find that

promise which he had demanded, and resolving that if it were made

he would at once become affectionate, yielding, and gentle to his

wife. But there was not a word written by his wife within the envelope.

It contained simply another letter, already opened, addressed to

her. This letter had been brought up to her during her husband’s

absence from the house, and was as follows:

 

Acrobats, Thursday.

 

‘DEAR EMILY,

 

‘I have just come from the Colonial Office. It is all settled, and

Sir M. has been sent for. Of course, you will tell T. now. Yours,

F.O.

 

The letter was, of course, from Colonel Osborne, and Mrs Trevelyan,

when she received it, had had great doubts whether she would enclose

it to her husband opened or unopened. She had hitherto refused to

make the promise which her husband exacted, but nevertheless, she

was minded to obey him; Had he included in his demand any requirement

that she should receive no letter from Colonel Osborne, she would

not have opened this one. But nothing had been said about letters,

and she would not shew herself to be afraid. So she read the note,

and then sent it down to be put on Mr Trevelyan’s table in an

envelope addressed to him.

 

‘If he is not altogether blinded, it will show him how cruelly he

has wronged me,’ said she to her sister. She was sitting at the time

with her boy in her lap, telling herself that the child’s features

were in all respects the very same as his father’s, and that, come

what come might, the child should always be taught by her to love

and respect his father. And then there came a horrible thought.

What if the child should be taken away from her? If this quarrel,

out of which she saw no present mode of escape, were to lead to

a separation between her and her husband, would not the law, and

the judges, and the courts, and all the Lady Milboroughs of their

joint acquaintance into the bargain, say that the child should go

with his father? The judges, and the courts, and the Lady Milboroughs

would, of course, say that she was the sinner. And what could she

do without her boy? Would not any humility, any grovelling in the

dust be better for her than that? ‘It is a very poor thing to be

a woman,’ she said to her sister.

 

‘It is perhaps better than being a dog,’ said Nora; ‘but, of course,

we can’t compare ourselves to men.’

 

‘It would be better to be a dog. One wouldn’t be made to suffer so

much. When a puppy is taken away from its mother, she is bad enough

for a few days, but she gets over it in a week.’ There was a pause

then for a few moments. Nora knew well which way ran the current

of her sister’s thoughts, and had nothing at the present moment

which she could say on that subject.

 

‘It is very hard for a woman to know what to do,’ continued Emily,

‘but if she is to marry, I think she had better marry a fool. After

all, a fool generally knows that he is a fool, and will trust some

one, though he may not trust his wife.’

 

‘I will never wittingly marry a fool,’ said Nora.

 

‘You will marry Mr Glascock, of course. I don’t say that he is a

fool; but I do not think he has that kind of strength which shows

itself in perversity.’

 

‘If he asked me, I should not have him, and he will never ask me.’

 

‘He will ask you, and, of course, you’ll take him. Why not? You can’t

be otherwise than a woman. And you must marry. And this man is a

gentleman, and will be a peer. There is nothing on earth against

him, except that he does not set the Thames on fire. Louis intends

to set the Thames on fire some day, and see what comes of it.’

 

‘All the same, I shall not marry Mr Glascock. A woman can die, at

any rate,’ said Nora.

 

‘No, she can’t. A woman must be decent; and to die of want is

very indecent. She can’t die, and she mustn’t be in want, and she

oughtn’t to be a burden. I suppose it was thought necessary that

every man should have two to choose from; and therefore there are

so many more of us than the world wants. I wonder whether you’d

mind taking that downstairs to his table? I don’t like to send it

by the servant; and I don’t want to go myself.’

 

Then Nora had taken the letter down, and left it where Louis

Trevelyan would be sure to find it.

 

He did find it, and was sorely disappointed when he perceived that

it contained no word from his wife to himself. He opened Colonel

Osborne’s note, and read it, and became, as he did so, almost more

angry than before. Who was this man that he should dare to address

another man’s wife as ‘Dear Emily’? At the moment Trevelyan

remembered well enough that he had heard the man so call his wife,

that it had been done openly in his presence, and had not given him

a thought. But Lady Rowley and Sir Marmaduke had then been present

also; and that man on that occasion had been the old friend of the

old father, and not the would-be young friend of the young daughter.

Trevelyan could hardly reason about it, but felt that whereas the

one was not improper, the other was grossly impertinent and even

wicked. And then, again, his wife, his Emily, was to show to him,

to her husband, or was not to show to him, the letter which she

received from this man, the letter in which she was addressed as

‘Dear Emily,’ according to this man’s judgment and wish, and not

according to his judgment and wish—not according to the judgment

and wish of him who was her husband, her lord, and her master! ‘Of

course, you will tell T. now.’ This was intolerable to him. It made

him feel that he was to be regarded as second, and this man to be

regarded as first. And then he began to recapitulate all the good

things he had done for his wife, and all the causes which he had

given her for gratitude. Had he not taken her to his bosom, and

bestowed upon her the half of all that he had, simply for herself,

asking for nothing more than her love? He had possessed money,

position, a name all that makes life worth having. He had found her

in a remote corner of the world, with no fortune, with no advantages

of family or social standing, so circumstanced that any friend would

have warned him against such a marriage; but he had given her his

heart, and his hand, and his house, and had asked for nothing in

return but that he should be all in all to her, that he should be

her one god upon earth. And he had done more even than this. ‘Bring

your sister,’ he had said. ‘The house shall be big enough for her

also, and she shall be my sister as well as yours.’ Who had ever

done more for a woman, or shown a more absolute confidence? And

now what was the return he received? She was not contented with her

one god upon earth, but must make to herself other gods—another

god, and that too out of a lump of the basest clay to be found

around her. He thought that he could remember to have heard it said

in early days, long before he himself had had an idea of marrying,

that no man should look for a wife from among the tropics, that

women educated amidst the languors of those sunny climes rarely

came to possess those high ideas of conjugal duty and feminine

truth which a man should regard as the first requisites of a

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