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

get about again. Mr Gibson thought that it was all up with his late

friend; and Camilla wished that at their last interview there had been

more of charity on the part of one whom she had regarded in past days

with respect and esteem. Mrs French, despondent about everything, was

quite despondent in this case. Martha almost despaired, and already was

burdened with the cares of a whole wardrobe of solemn funereal

clothing. She was seen peering in for half-an-hour at the windows and

doorway of a large warehouse for the sale of mourning. Giles Hickbody

would not speak above his breath, and took his beer standing; but

Dorothy was hopeful, and really believed that her aunt would recover.

Perhaps Sir Peter had spoken to her in terms less oracular than those

which he used towards the public.

 

Brooke Burgess came, and had an interview with Sir Peter, and to him

Sir Peter was under some obligation to speak plainly, as being the

person whom Miss Stanbury recognised as her heir. So Sir Peter declared

that his patient might perhaps live, and perhaps might die. ‘The truth

is, Mr Burgess,’ said Sir Peter, ‘a doctor doesn’t know so very much

more about these things than other people.’ It was understood that

Brooke was to remain three days in Exeter, and then return to London.

He would, of course, come again if if anything should happen. Sir Peter

had been quite clear in his opinion, that no immediate result was to be

anticipated either in the one direction or the other. His patient was

doomed to a long illness; she might get over it, or she might succumb

to it.

 

Dorothy and Brooke were thus thrown much together during these three

days. Dorothy, indeed, spent most of her hours beside her aunt’s bed,

instigating sleep by the reading of a certain series of sermons in

which Miss Stanbury had great faith; but nevertheless, there were some

minutes in which she and Brooke were necessarily together. They eat

their meals in each other’s company, and there was a period in the

evening, before Dorothy began her night-watch in her aunt’s room, at

which she took her tea while Martha was nurse in the room above. At

this time of the day she would remain an hour or more with Brooke; and

a great deal may be said between a man and a woman in an hour when the

will to say it is there. Brooke Burgess had by no means changed his

mind since he had declared it to Hugh Stanbury under the midnight lamps

of Long Acre, when warmed by the influence of oysters and whisky toddy.

The whisky toddy had in that instance brought out truth and not

falsehood as is ever the nature of whisky toddy and similar dangerous

provocatives. There is no saying truer than that which declares that

there is truth in wine. Wine is a dangerous thing, and should not be

made the exponent of truth, let the truth be good as it may; but it has

the merit of forcing a man to show his true colours. A man who is a

gentleman in his cups may be trusted to be a gentleman at all times. I

trust that the severe censor will not turn upon me, and tell me that no

gentleman in these days is ever to be seen in his cups. There are cups

of different degrees of depth; and cups do exist, even among gentlemen,

and seem disposed to hold their own let the censor be ever so severe.

The gentleman in his cups is a gentleman always; and the man who tells

his friend in his cups that he is in love, does so because the fact has

been very present to himself in his cooler and calmer moments. Brooke

Burgess, who had seen Hugh Stanbury on two or three occasions since

that of the oysters and toddy, had not spoken again of his regard for

Hugh’s sister; but not the less was he determined to carry out his plan

and make Dorothy his wife if she would accept him. But could he ask her

while the old lady was, as it might be, dying in the house? He put this

question to himself as he travelled down to Exeter, and had told

himself that he must be guided for an answer by circumstances as they

might occur. Hugh had met him at the station as he started for Exeter,

and there had been a consultation between them as to the propriety of

bringing about, or of attempting to bring about, an interview between

Hugh and his aunt. ‘Do whatever you like,’ Hugh had said. ‘I would go

down to her at a moment’s warning, if she should express a desire to

see me.’

 

On the first night of Brooke’s arrival this question had been discussed

between him and Dorothy. Dorothy had declared herself unable to give

advice. If any message were given to her she would deliver it to her

aunt; but she thought that anything said to her aunt on the subject had

better come from Brooke himself. ‘You evidently are the person most

important to her,’ Dorothy said, ‘and she would listen to you when she

would not let any one else say a word.’ Brooke promised that he would

think of it; and then Dorothy tripped up to relieve Martha, dreaming

nothing at all of that other doubt to which the important personage

downstairs was now subject. Dorothy was, in truth, very fond of the new

friend she had made; but it had never occurred to her that he might be

a possible suitor to her. Her old conception of herself that she was

beneath the notice of any man had only been partly disturbed by the

absolute fact of Mr Gibson’s courtship. She had now heard of his

engagement with Camilla French, and saw in that complete proof that the

foolish man had been induced to offer his hand to her by the promise of

her aunt’s money. If there had been a moment of exaltation, a period in

which she had allowed herself to think that she was, as other women,

capable of making herself dear to a man, it had been but a moment. And

now she rejoiced greatly that she had not acceded to the wishes of one

to whom it was so manifest that she had not made herself in the least

dear.

 

On the second day of his visit, Brooke was summoned to Miss Stanbury’s

room at noon. She was forbidden to talk, and during a great portion of

the day could hardly speak without an effort; but there would be half

hours now and again in which she would become stronger than usual, at

which time nothing that Martha and Dorothy could say would induce her

to hold her tongue. When Brooke came to her on this occasion he found

her sitting up in bed with a great shawl round her; and he at once

perceived she was much more like her own self than on the former day.

She told him that she had been an old fool for sending for him, that

she had nothing special to say to him, that she had made no alteration

in her will in regard to him ‘except that I have done something for

Dolly that will have to come out of your pocket, Brooke.’ Brooke

declared that too much could not be done for a person so good, and

dear, and excellent as Dorothy Stanbury, let it come out of whose

pocket it might. ‘She is nothing to you, you know,’ said Miss Stanbury.

 

‘She is a great deal to me,’ said Brooke.

 

‘What is she?’ asked Miss Stanbury.

 

‘Oh a friend; a great friend.’

 

‘Well; yes. I hope it may be so. But she won’t have anything that I

haven’t saved,’ said Miss Stanbury. ‘There are two houses at St.

Thomas’s; but I bought them myself, Brooke out of the income.’ Brooke

could only declare that as the whole property was hers, to do what she

liked with it as completely as though she had inherited it from her own

father, no one could have any right to ask questions as to when or how

this or that portion of the property had accrued. ‘But I don’t think

I’m going to die yet, Brooke,’ she said. ‘If it is God’s will, I am

ready. Not that I’m fit, Brooke. God forbid that I should ever think

that. But I doubt whether I shall ever be fitter. I can go without

repining if He thinks best to take me.’ Then he stood up by her

bedside, with his hand upon hers, and after some hesitation asked her

whether she would wish to see her nephew Hugh. ‘No,’ said she, sharply.

Brooke went on to say how pleased Hugh would have been to come to her.

‘I don’t think much of death-bed reconciliations,’ said the old woman

grimly. ‘I loved him dearly, but he didn’t love me, and I don’t know

what good we should do each other.’ Brooke declared that Hugh did love

her; but he could not press the matter, and it was dropped.

 

On that evening at eight Dorothy came down to her tea. She had dined at

the same table with Brooke that afternoon, but a servant had been in

the room all the time and nothing had been said between them. As soon

as Brooke had got his tea he began to tell the story of his failure

about Hugh. He was sorry, he said, that he had spoken on the subject as

it had moved Miss Stanbury to an acrimony which he had not expected.

 

‘She always declares that he never loved her,’ said Dorothy.‘she has

told me so twenty times.’

 

‘There are people who fancy that nobody cares for them,’ said Brooke.

 

‘Indeed there are, Mr Burgess; and it is so natural.’

 

‘Why natural?’

 

‘Just as it is natural that there should be dogs and cats that are

petted and loved and made much of, and others that have to crawl

through life as they can, cuffed and kicked and starved.’

 

‘That depends on the accident of possession,’ said Brooke.

 

‘So does the other. How many people there are that don’t seem to belong

to anybody and if they do, they’re no good to anybody. They’re not

cuffed exactly, or starved; but—’

 

‘You mean that they don’t get their share of affection?’

 

‘They get perhaps as much as they deserve,’ said Dorothy.

 

‘Because they’re cross-grained, or ill-tempered, or disagreeable?’

 

‘Not exactly that.’

 

‘What then?’ asked Brooke.

 

‘Because they’re just nobodies. They are not anything particular to

anybody, and so they go on living till they die. You know what I mean,

Mr Burgess. A man who is a nobody can perhaps make himself somebody or,

at any rate, he can try; but a woman has no means of trying. She is a

nobody and a nobody she must remain. She has her clothes and her food,

but she isn’t wanted anywhere. People put up with her, and that is

about the best of her luck. If she were to die somebody perhaps would

be sorry for her, but nobody would be worse off. She doesn’t earn

anything or do any good. She is just there and that’s all.’

 

Brooke had never heard her speak after this fashion before, had never

known her to utter so many consecutive words, or to put forward any

opinion of her own with so much vigour. And Dorothy herself, when she

had concluded her speech, was frightened by her own energy and grew red

in the face, and shewed very plainly that she was half ashamed of

herself. Brooke thought that he had never seen