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

Stanbury at this time had told nobody that the offer to her niece

had been made and repeated and finally rejected, but she found it very

difficult to hold her tongue.

 

In the meantime Mr Gibson spent a good deal of his time at Heavitree.

It should not perhaps be asserted broadly that he had made up his mind

that marriage would be good for him; but he had made up his mind, at

least, to this, that it was no longer to be postponed without a balance

of disadvantage. The Charybdis in the Close drove him helpless into the

whirlpool of the Heavitree Scylla. He had no longer an escape from the

perils of the latter shore. He had been so mauled by the opposite

waves, that he had neither spirit nor skill left to him to keep in the

middle track. He was almost daily at Heavitree, and did not attempt to

conceal from himself the approach of his doom.

 

But still there were two of them. He knew that he must become a prey,

but was there any choice left to him as to which siren should have him?

He had been quite aware in his more gallant days, before he had been

knocked about on that Charybdis rock, that he might sip, and taste, and

choose between the sweets. He had come to think lately that the younger

young lady was the sweeter. Eight years ago indeed the passages between

him and the elder had been tender; but Camilla had then been simply a

romping girl, hardly more than a year or two beyond her teens. Now,

with her matured charms, Camilla was certainly the more engaging, as

far as outward form went. Arabella’s cheeks were thin and long, and her

front teeth had come to show themselves. Her eyes were no doubt still

bright, and what she had of hair was soft and dark. But it was very

thin in front, and what there was of supplemental mass behind the

bandbox by which Miss Stanbury was so much aggrieved was worn with an

indifference to the lines of beauty, which Mr Gibson himself found to

be very depressing. A man with a fair burden on his back is not a

grievous sight; but when we see a small human being attached to a bale

of goods which he can hardly manage to move, we feel that the poor

fellow has been cruelly over-weighted. Mr Gibson certainly had that

sensation about Arabella’s chignon. And as he regarded it in a nearer

and a dearer light as a chignon that might possibly become his own, as

a burden which in one sense he might himself be called upon to bear, as

a domestic utensil of which he himself might be called upon to inspect,

and, perhaps, to aid the shifting on and the shifting off, he did begin

to think that that side of the Scylla gulf ought to be avoided if

possible. And probably this propensity on his part, this feeling that

he would like to reconsider the matter dispassionately before he gave

himself up for good to his old love, may have been increased by

Camilla’s apparent withdrawal of her claims. He felt mildly grateful to

the Heavitree household in general for accepting him in this time of

his affliction, but he could not admit to himself that they had a right

to decide upon him in private conclave, and allot him either to the one

or to the other nuptials without consultation with himself. To be

swallowed up by Scylla he now recognised as his doom; but he thought he

ought to be asked on which side of the gulf he would prefer to go down.

The way in which Camilla spoke of him as a thing that wasn’t hers, but

another’s; and the way in which Arabella looked at him, as though he

were hers and could never be another’s, wounded his manly pride. He had

always understood that he might have his choice, and he could not

understand that the little mishap which had befallen him in the Close

was to rob him of that privilege.

 

He used to drink tea at Heavitree in those days. On one evening on

going in he found himself alone with Arabella. ‘Oh, Mr Gibson,’ she

said, ‘we weren’t sure whether you’d come. And mamma and Camilla have

gone out to Mrs Camadge’s.’ Mr Gibson muttered some word to the effect

that he hoped he had kept nobody at home; and, as he did so, he

remembered that he had distinctly said that he would come on this

evening. ‘I don’t know that I should have gone,’ sad Arabella, ‘because

I am not quite not quite myself at present. No, not ill; not at all.

Don’t you know what it is, Mr Gibson, to be to be to be not quite

yourself?’ Mr Gibson said that he had very often felt like that. ‘And

one can’t get over it can one?’ continued Arabella. ‘There comes a

presentiment that something is going to happen, and a kind of belief

that something has happened, though you don’t know what; and the heart

refuses to be light, and the spirit becomes abashed, and the mind,

though it creates new thoughts, will not settle itself to its

accustomed work. I suppose it’s what the novels have called

Melancholy.’

 

‘I suppose it is,’ said Mr Gibson. ‘But there’s generally some cause

for it. Debt for instance.’

 

‘It’s nothing of that kind with me. Its no debt, at least, that can be

written down in the figures of ordinary arithmetic. Sit down, Mr

Gibson, and we will have some tea.’ Then, as she stretched forward to

ring the bell, he thought that he never in his life had seen anything

so unshapely as that huge wen at the back of her head. ‘Monstrum

horrendum, informe, ingens!’ He could not help quoting the words to

himself. She was dressed with some attempt at being smart, but her

ribbons were soiled, and her lace was tawdry, and the fabric of her

dress was old and dowdy. He was quite sure that he would feel no pride

in calling her Mrs Gibson, no pleasure in having her all to himself at

his own hearth. ‘I hope we shall escape the bitterness of Miss

Stanbury’s tongue if we drink tea tete-a-tete,’ she said, with her

sweetest smile.

 

‘I don’t suppose she’ll know anything about it.’

 

‘She knows about everything, Mr Gibson. It’s astonishing what she

knows. She has eyes and ears everywhere. I shouldn’t care, if she

didn’t see and hear so very incorrectly. I’m told now that she declares—

but it doesn’t signify.’

 

‘Declares what?’ asked Mr Gibson.

 

‘Never mind. But wasn’t it odd how all Exeter believed that you were

going to be married in that house, and to live there all the rest of

your life, and be one of Miss Stanbury’s slaves. I never believed it,

Mr Gibson.’ This she said with a sad smile, that ought to have brought

him on his knees, in spite of the chignon.

 

‘One can’t help these things,’ said Mr Gibson.

 

‘I never could have believed it, not even if you had not given me an

assurance so solemn, and so sweet, that there was nothing in it.’ The

poor man had given the assurance, and could not deny the solemnity and

the sweetness. ‘That was a happy moment for us, Mr Gibson; because,

though we never believed it, when it was dinned into our ears so

frequently, when it was made such a triumph in the Close, it was

impossible not to fear that there might be something in it.’ He felt

that he ought to make some reply, but he did not know what to say. He

was thoroughly ashamed of the lie he had told, but he could not untell

it. ‘Camilla reproached me afterwards for asking you,’ whispered

Arabella, in her softest, tenderest voice.‘she said that it was

unmaidenly. I hope you did not think it unmaidenly, Mr Gibson?’

 

‘Oh dear, no, not at all,’ said he.

 

Arabella French was painfully alive to the fact that she must do

something. She had her fish on the hook; but of what use is a fish on

your hook, if you cannot land him? When could she have a better

opportunity than this of landing the scaly darling out of the fresh and

free waters of his bachelor stream, and sousing him into the pool of

domestic life, to be ready there for her own household purposes? ‘I had

known you so long, Mr Gibson,’ she said, ‘and had valued your

friendship so so deeply.’ As he looked at her, he could see nothing but

the shapeless excrescence to which his eyes had been so painfully

called by Miss Stanbury’s satire. It is true that he had formerly been

very tender with her, but she had not then carried about with her that

distorted monster. He did not believe himself to be at all bound by

anything which had passed between them in circumstances so very

different. But yet he ought to say something. He ought to have said

something; but he said nothing. She was patient, however, very patient;

and she went on playing him with her hook. ‘I am so glad that I did not

go out tonight with mamma. It has been such a pleasure to me to have

this conversation with you. Camilla, perhaps, would say that I am

unmaidenly.’

 

‘I don’t think so.’

 

‘That is all that I care for, Mr Gibson. If you acquit me, I do not

mind who accuses. I should not like to suppose that you thought me

unmaidenly. Anything would be better than that; but I can throw all

such considerations to the wind when true true friendship is concerned.

Don’t you think that one ought, Mr Gibson?’

 

If it had not been for the thing at the back of her head, he would have

done it now. Nothing but that gave him courage to abstain. It grew

bigger and bigger, more shapeless, monstrous, absurd, and abominable,

as he looked at it. Nothing should force upon him the necessity of

assisting to carry such an abortion through the world. ‘One ought to

sacrifice everything to friendship,’ said Mr Gibson, ‘except

self-respect.’

 

He meant nothing personal. Something special, in the way of an opinion,

was expected of him; and, therefore, he had striven to say something

special. But she was in tears in a moment. ‘Oh, Mr Gibson,’ she

exclaimed; ‘oh, Mr Gibson!’

 

‘What is the matter, Miss French?’

 

‘Have I lost your respect? Is it that that you mean?’

 

‘Certainly not, Miss French.’

 

‘Do not call me Miss French, or I shall be sure that you condemn me.

Miss French sounds so very cold. You used to call me Bella.’ That was

quite true; but it was long ago, thought Mr Gibson, before the monster

had been attached. ‘Will you not call me Bella now?’

 

He thought that he had rather not; and yet, how was he to avoid it? On

a sudden he became very crafty. Had it not been for the sharpness of

his mother-wit, he would certainly have been landed at that moment. ‘As

you truly observed just now,’ he said, ‘the tongues of people are so

malignant. There are little birds that hear everything.’

 

‘I don’t care what the little birds hear,’ said Miss French, through

her tears. ‘I am a very unhappy girl—I know that; and I don’t care what

anybody says. It is nothing to me what anybody says. I know what I

feel.’ At this moment there was some dash of truth about her. The fish

was so very heavy on hand that, do what she would, she could not land

him. Her hopes