Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope (ebook reader with internet browser txt) 📖
- Author: Anthony Trollope
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Book online «He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope (ebook reader with internet browser txt) 📖». Author Anthony Trollope
to the moment of his knocking at the door; but all that was driven out
of his brain at once when he saw Miss Stanbury.
‘Here is Mr Gibson himself,’ said Mrs French.
‘How do you do, Mr Gibson?’ said Miss Stanbury, with a very stately
courtesy. They had never met since the day on which he had been, as he
stated, turned out of Miss Stanbury’s house. He now bowed to her; but
there was no friendly greeting, and the Frenches were able to
congratulate themselves on the apparent loyalty to themselves of the
gentleman who stood among them. ‘I have come here, Mr Gibson,’
continued Miss Stanbury, ‘to put a small matter right in which you are
concerned.’
‘It seems to me to be the most insignificant thing in the world,’ said
Camilla.
‘Very likely,’ said Miss Stanbury. ‘But it is not insignificant to me.
Miss Camilla French has asserted publicly that you have authorised her
to make a statement about my niece Dorothy.’
Mr Gibson looked into Camilla’s face doubtingly, inquisitively, almost
piteously.’ ‘You had better let her go on,’ said Camilla.‘she will make
a great many mistakes, no doubt, but you had better let her go on to
the end.’
‘I have made no mistake as yet, Miss Camilla. She so asserted, Mr
Gibson, in the hearing of a friend of mine, and she repeated the
assertion here in this room to me just before you came in. She says
that you have authorised her to declare that—that—that; I had better
speak it out plainly at once.’
‘Much better,’ said Camilla.
‘That you never entertained an idea of offering your hand to my niece.’
Miss Stanbury paused, and Mr Gibson’s jaw fell visibly. But he was not
expected to speak as yet; and Miss Stanbury continued her accusation.
‘Beyond that, I don’t want to mention my niece’s name, if it can be
avoided.’
‘But it can’t be avoided,’ said Camilla.
‘If you please, I will continue. Mr Gibson will understand me. I will
not, if I can help it, mention my niece’s name again, Mr Gibson. But I
still have that confidence in you that I do not think that you would
have made such a statement in reference to yourself and any young lady
unless it were some young lady who had absolutely thrown herself at
your head.’ And in saying this she paused, and looked very hard at
Camilla.
‘That’s just what Dorothy Stanbury has been doing,’ said Camilla.
‘She has been doing nothing of the kind, and you know she hasn’t,’ said
Miss Stanbury, raising her arm as though she were going to strike her
opponent. ‘But I am quite sure, Mr Gibson, that you never could have
authorised these young ladies to make such an assertion publicly on
your behalf. Whatever there may have been of misunderstanding between
you and me, I can’t believe that of you.’ Then she paused for a reply.
‘If you will be good enough to set us right on that point, I shall be
obliged to you.’
Mr Gibson’s position was one of great discomfort. He had given no
authority to anyone to make such a statement. He had said nothing about
Dorothy Stanbury to Camilla; but he had told Arabella, when hard
pressed by that lady, that he did not mean to propose to Dorothy. He
could not satisfy Miss Stanbury because he feared Arabella. He could
not satisfy the Frenches because he feared Miss Stanbury. ‘I really do
not think,’ said he, ‘that we ought to talk about a young lady in this
way.’
‘That’s my opinion too,’ said Camilla; ‘but Miss Stanbury will.’
‘Exactly so. Miss Stanbury will,’ said that lady. ‘Mr Gibson, I insist
upon it, that you tell me whether you did give any such authority to
Miss Camilla French, or to Miss French.’
‘I wouldn’t answer her, if I were you,’ said Camilla.
‘I really don’t think this can do any good,’ said Mrs French.
‘And it is so very harassing to our nerves,’ said Arabella.
‘Nerves! Pooh!’ exclaimed Miss Stanbury. ‘Now, Mr Gibson, I am waiting
for an answer.’
‘My dear Miss Stanbury, I really think it better the situation is so
peculiar, and, upon my word, I hardly know how not to give offence,
which I wouldn’t do for the world.’
‘Do you mean to tell me that you won’t answer my question?’ demanded
Miss Stanbury.
‘I really think that I had better hold my tongue,’ pleaded Mr Gibson.
‘You are quite right, Mr Gibson,’ said Camilla.
‘Indeed, it is wisest,’ said Mrs French.
‘I don’t see what else he can do,’ said Arabella.
Then was Miss Stanbury driven altogether beyond her powers of
endurance. ‘If that be so,’ said she, ‘I must speak out, though I
should have preferred to hold my tongue. Mr Gibson did offer to my
niece the week before last twice, and was refused by her. My niece,
Dorothy, took it into her head that she did not like him; and, upon my
word, I think she was right. We should have said nothing about this, not
a word; but when these false assertions are made on Mr Gibson’s alleged
authority, and Mr Gibson won’t deny it, I must tell the truth.’ Then
there was silence among them for a few seconds, and Mr Gibson struggled
hard, but vainly, to clothe his face in a pleasant smile. ‘Mr Gibson,
is that true?’ said Miss Stanbury. But Mr Gibson made no reply. ‘It is
as true as heaven,’ said Miss Stanbury, striking her hand upon the
table. ‘And now you had better, all of you, hold your tongues about my
niece, and she will hold her tongue about you. And as for Mr Gibson,
anybody who wants him after this is welcome to him for us.
Good-morning, Mrs French; good-morning, young ladies.’ And so she
stalked out of the room, and out of the house, and walked back to her
house in the Close.
‘Mamma,’ said Arabella as soon as the enemy was gone, ‘I have got such
a headache that I think I will go upstairs.’
‘And I will go with you, dear,’ said Camilla.
Mr Gibson, before he left the house, confided his secret to the
maternal ears of Mrs French. He certainly had been allured into making
an offer to Dorothy Stanbury, but was ready to atone for this crime by
marrying her daughter Camilla as soon as might be convenient. He was
certainly driven to make this declaration by intense cowardice—not to
excuse himself, for in that there could be no excuse—but how else
should he dare to suggest that he might as well leave the house? ‘Shall
I tell the dear girl?’ asked Mrs French. But Mr Gibson requested a
fortnight, in which to consider how the proposition had best be made.
MR BROOKE BURGESS AFTER SUPPER
Brooke Burgess was a clerk in the office of the Ecclesiastical
Commissioners in London, and as such had to do with things very solemn,
grave, and almost melancholy. He had to deal with the rents of
episcopal properties, to correspond with clerical claimants, and to be
at home with the circumstances of underpaid vicars and perpetual
curates with much less than 300 pounds a-year; but yet he was as jolly
and pleasant at his desk as though he were busied about the collection
of the malt tax, or wrote his letters to admirals and captains instead
of to deans and prebendaries. Brooke Burgess had risen to be a senior
clerk, and was held in some respect in his office; but it was not
perhaps for the amount of work he did, nor yet on account of the
gravity of his demeanour, nor for the brilliancy of his intellect. But
if not clever, he was sensible; though he was not a dragon of official
virtue, he had a conscience and he possessed those small but most
valuable gifts by which a man becomes popular among men. And thus it
had come to pass in all those battles as to competitive merit which had
taken place in his as in other public offices, that no one had ever
dreamed of putting a junior over the head of Brooke Burgess. He was
tractable, easy, pleasant, and therefore deservedly successful. All his
brother clerks called him Brooke except the young lads who, for the
first year or two of their service, still denominated him Mr Burgess.
‘Brooke,’ said one of his juniors, coming into his room and standing
before the fireplace with a cigar in his mouth, ‘have you heard who is
to be the new Commissioner?’
‘Colenso, to be sure,’ said Brooke.
‘What a lark that would be. And I don’t see why he shouldn’t. But it
isn’t Colenso. The name has just come down.’
‘And who is it?’
‘Old Proudie, from Barchester.’
‘Why, we had him here years ago, and he resigned.’
‘But he’s to come on again now for a spell. It always seems to me that
the bishops ain’t a bit of use here. They only get blown up, and
snubbed, and shoved into corners by the others.’
‘You young reprobate, to talk of shoving an archbishop into a corner.’
‘Well don’t they? It’s only for the name of it they have them. There’s
the Bishop of Broomsgrove; he’s always sauntering about the place,
looking as though he’d be so much obliged if somebody would give him
something to do. He’s always smiling, and so gracious just as if he
didn’t feel above half sure that he had any right to be where he is,
and he thought that perhaps somebody was going to kick him.’
‘And so old Proudie is coming up again,’ said Brooke.
‘It certainly is very much the same to us whom they send. He’ll get
shoved into a corner, as you call it, only that he’ll go into the corner
without any shoving.’ Then there came in a messenger with a card, and
Brooke learned that Hugh Stanbury was waiting for him in the stranger’s
room. In performing the promise made to Dorothy, he had called upon her
brother as soon as he was back in London, but had not found him. This
now was the return visit.
‘I thought I was sure to find you here,’ said Hugh. ‘Pretty nearly sure
from eleven till five,’ said Brooke. ‘A hard stepmother like the Civil
Service does not allow one much chance of relief. I do get across to
the club sometimes for a glass of sherry and a biscuit but here I am
now, at any rate; and I’m very glad you have come.’ Then there was some
talk between them about affairs at Exeter; but as they were interrupted
before half an hour was over their heads by a summons brought for
Burgess from one of the secretaries, it was agreed that they should
dine together at Burgess’s club on the following day. ‘We can manage a
pretty good beefsteak,’ said Brooke, ‘and have a fair glass of sherry.
I don’t think you can get much more than that anywhere nowadays unless
you want a dinner for eight at three guineas a head. The magnificence
of men has become so intolerable now that one is driven to be humble in
one’s self-defence.’ Stanbury assured his acquaintance that he was
anything but magnificent in his own ideas, that cold beef and beer was
his usual fare, and at last allowed the clerk to wait upon the
secretary.
‘I wouldn’t have any other fellow to meet you,’ said Brooke as they sat
at their dinners, ‘because in this way we can talk over the dear old
woman
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