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

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