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

CHAPTER LIV

MR GIBSON’S THREAT

 

Miss Stanbury for a long time persisted in being neither better nor

worse. Sir Peter would not declare her state to be precarious, nor

would he say that she was out of danger; and Mr Martin had been so

utterly prostrated by the nearly-fatal effects of his own mistake that

he was quite unable to rally himself and talk on the subject with any

spirit or confidence. When interrogated he would simply reply that Sir

Peter said this and Sir Peter said that, and thus add to, rather than

diminish, the doubt, and excitement, and varied opinion which prevailed

through the city. On one morning it was absolutely asserted within the

limits of the Close that Miss Stanbury was dying, and it was believed

for half a day at the bank that she was then lying in articulo mortis.

There had got about, too, a report that a portion of the property had

only been left to Miss Stanbury for her life, that the Burgesses would

be able to reclaim the houses in the city, and that a will had been

made altogether in favour of Dorothy, cutting out even Brooke from any

share in the inheritance; and thus Exeter had a good deal to say

respecting the affairs and state of health of our old friend. Miss

Stanbury’s illness, however, was true enough. She was much too ill to

hear anything of what was going on, too ill to allow Martha to talk to

her at all about the outside public. When the invalid herself would ask

questions about the affairs of the world, Martha would be very discreet

and turn away from the subject. Miss Stanbury, for instance, ill as she

was, exhibited a most mundane interest, not exactly in Camilla French’s

marriage, but in the delay which that marriage seemed destined to

encounter. ‘I dare say he’ll slip out of it yet,’ said the sick lady to

her confidential servant. Then Martha had thought it right to change

the subject, feeling it to be wrong that an old lady on her death-bed

should be taking joy in the disappointment of her young neighbour.

Martha changed the subject, first to jelly, and then to the psalms of

the day. Miss Stanbury was too weak to resist; but the last verse of

the last psalm of the evening had hardly been finished before she

remarked that she would never believe it till she saw it. ‘It’s all in

the hands of Him as is on high, mum,’ said Martha, turning her eyes up

to the ceiling, and closing the book at the same time, with a look

strongly indicative of displeasure.

 

Miss Stanbury understood it all as well as though she were in perfect

health. She knew her own failings, was conscious of her worldly

tendencies, and perceived that her old servant was thinking of it. And

then sundry odd thoughts, half-digested thoughts, ideas too difficult

for her present strength, crossed her brain. Had it been wicked of her

when she was well to hope that a scheming woman should not succeed in

betraying a man by her schemes into an ill-assorted marriage; and if

not wicked then, was it wicked now because she was ill? And from that

thought her mind travelled on to the ordinary practices of death-bed

piety. Could an assumed devotion be of use to her now, such a devotion

as Martha was enjoining upon her from hour to hour, in pure and

affectionate solicitude for her soul? She had spoken one evening of a

game of cards, saying that a game of cribbage would have consoled her.

Then Martha, with a shudder, had suggested a hymn, and had had recourse

at once to a sleeping draught. Miss Stanbury had submitted, but had

understood it all. If cards were wicked, she had indeed been a terrible

sinner. What hope could there be now, on her death-bed, for one so

sinful? And she could not repent of her cards, and would not try to

repent of them, not seeing the evil of them; and if they were innocent,

why should she not have the consolation now when she so much wanted it?

Yet she knew that the whole household, even Dorothy, would be in arms

against her, were she to suggest such a thing. She took the hymn and

the sleeping draught, telling herself that it would be best for her to

banish such ideas from her mind. Pastors and masters had laid down for

her a mode of living, which she had followed, but indifferently

perhaps, but still with an intention of obedience. They had also laid

down a mode of dying, and it would be well that she should follow that

as closely as possible. She would say nothing more about cards. She

would think nothing more of Camilla French. But, as she so resolved,

with intellect half asleep, with her mind wandering between fact and

dream, she was unconsciously comfortable with an assurance that if Mr

Gibson did marry Camilla French, Camilla French would lead him the very

devil of a life.

 

During three days Dorothy went about the house as quiet as a mouse,

sitting nightly at her aunt’s bedside, and tending the sick woman with

the closest care. She, too, had been now and again somewhat startled by

the seeming worldliness of her aunt in her illness. Her aunt talked to

her about rents, and gave her messages for Brooke Burgess on subjects

which seemed to Dorothy to be profane when spoken of on what might

perhaps be a death-bed. And this struck her the more strongly, because

she had a matter of her own on which she would have much wished to

ascertain her aunt’s opinion, if she had not thought that it would have

been exceedingly wrong of her to trouble her aunt’s mind at such a time

by any such matter. Hitherto she had said not a word of Brooke’s

proposal to any living being. At present it was a secret with herself,

but a secret so big that it almost caused her bosom to burst with the

load that it bore. She could not, she thought, write to Priscilla till

she had told her aunt. If she were to write a word on the subject to

any one, she could not fail to make manifest the extreme longing of her

own heart. She could not have written Brooke’s name on paper, in

reference to his words to herself without covering it with epithets of

love. But all that must be known to no one if her love was to be of no

avail to her. And she had an idea that her aunt would not wish Brooke

to marry her, would think that Brooke should do better; and she was

quite clear that in such a matter as this her aunt’s wishes must be

law. Had not her aunt the power of disinheriting Brooke altogether? And

what then if her aunt should die, should die now, leaving Brooke at

liberty to do as he pleased? There was something so distasteful to her

in this view of the matter that she would not look at it. She would not

allow herself to think of any success which might possibly accrue to

herself by reason of her aunt’s death. Intense as was the longing in

her heart for permission from those in authority over her to give

herself to Brooke Burgess, perfect as was the earthly Paradise which

appeared to be open to her when she thought of the good thing which had

befallen her in that matter, she conceived that she would be guilty of

the grossest ingratitude were she in any degree to curtail even her own

estimate of her aunt’s prohibitory powers because of her aunt’s

illness. The remembrance of the words which Brooke had spoken to her

was with her quite perfect. She was entirely conscious of the joy which

would he hers, if she might accept those words as properly sanctioned;

but she was a creature in her aunt’s hands according to her own ideas

of her own duties; and while her aunt was ill she could not even learn

what might be the behests which she would be called on to obey.

 

She was sitting one evening alone, thinking of all this, having left

Martha with her aunt, and was trying to reconcile the circumstances of

her life as it now existed with the circumstances as they had been with

her in the old days at Nuncombe Putney, wondering at herself in that

she should have a lover, and trying to convince herself that for her

this little episode of romance could mean nothing serious, when Martha

crept down into the room to her. Of late days—the alteration might

perhaps be dated from the rejection of Mr Gibson—Martha, who had always

been very kind, had become more respectful in her manner to Dorothy

than had heretofore been usual with her. Dorothy was quite aware of it,

and was not unconscious of a certain rise in the world which was

thereby indicated. ‘If you please, miss,’ said Martha, ‘who do you

think is here?’

 

‘But there is nobody with my aunt?’ said Dorothy.

 

‘She is sleeping like a babby, and I came down just for a moment. Mr

Gibson is here, miss in the house! He asked for your aunt, and when, of

course, he could not see her, he asked for you.’ Dorothy for a few

minutes was utterly disconcerted, but at last she consented to see Mr

Gibson. ‘I think it is best,’ said Martha, ‘because it is bad to be

fighting, and missus so ill. “Blessed are the peace-makers,” miss, “for

they shall be called the children of God.”’ Convinced by this argument,

or by the working of her own mind, Dorothy directed that Mr Gibson

might be shewn into the room.