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

English title, which was but the clatter of a

sounding brass, should be regarded as a drawback rather than as an

advantage. Mrs Spalding, who was no poetess, would undoubtedly have

welcomed Mr Glascock as her niece’s husband with all an aunt’s energy.

When told by Miss Petrie that old Lord Peterborough was a tinkling

cymbal she snapped angrily at her gifted countrywoman. But she was too

honest a woman, and too conscious also of her niece’s strength, to say

a word to urge her on. Mr Spalding as an American minister, with full

powers at the court of a European sovereign, felt that he had full as

much to give as to receive; but he was well inclined to do both. He

would have been much pleased to talk about his nephew Lord

Peterborough, and he loved his niece dearly. But by the middle of

February he was beginning to think that the matter had been long enough

in training. If the Honourable Glascock meant anything, why did he not

speak out his mind plainly? The American Minister in such matters was

accustomed to fewer ambages than were common in the circles among which

Mr Glascock had lived.

 

In the meantime Caroline Spalding was suffering. She had allowed

herself to think that Mr Glascock intended to propose to her, and had

acknowledged to herself that were he to do so she would certainly

accept him. All that she had seen of him, since the day on which he had

been courteous to her about the seat in the diligence, had been

pleasant to her. She had felt the charm of his manner, his education,

and his gentleness; and had told herself that with all her love for her

own country, she would willingly become an Englishwoman for the sake of

being that man’s wife. But nevertheless the warnings of her great

friend, the poetess, had not been thrown away upon her. She would put

away from herself as far as she could any desire to become Lady

Peterborough. There should be no bias in the man’s favour on that

score. The tinkling cymbal and the sounding brass should be nothing to

her. But yet—yet what a chance was there here for her? ‘They are

dishonest, and rotten at the core,’ said Miss Petrie, trying to make

her friend understand that a free American should under no

circumstances place trust in an English aristocrat. ‘Their country,

Carry, is a game played out, while we are still breasting the hill with

our young lungs full of air.’ Carry Spalding was proud of her intimacy

with the Republican Browning; but nevertheless she liked Mr Glascock;

and when Mr Glascock had been ten days in Florence, on his third visit

to the city, and had been four or five times at the embassy without

expressing his intentions in the proper form, Carry Spalding began to

think that she had better save herself from a heartbreak while

salvation might be within her reach. She perceived that her uncle was

gloomy and almost angry when he spoke of Mr Glascock, and that her aunt

was fretful with disappointment. The Republican Browning had uttered

almost a note of triumph; and had it not been that Olivia persisted,

Carry Spalding would have consented to go away with Miss Petrie to

Rome. ‘The old stones are rotten too,’ said the poetess; ‘but their

dust tells no lies.’ That well known piece of hers ‘Ancient Marbles,

while ye crumble,’ was written at this time, and contained an occult

reference to Mr Glascock and her friend.

 

But Livy Spalding clung to the alliance. She probably knew her sister’s

heart better than did the others; and perhaps also had a clearer

insight into Mr Glascock’s character. She was at any rate clearly of

opinion that there should be no running away. ‘Either you do like him,

or you don’t. If you do, what are you to get by going to Rome?’ said

Livy.

 

‘I shall get quit of doubt and trouble.’

 

‘I call that cowardice. I would never run away from a man, Carry. Aunt

Sophie forgets that they don’t manage these things in England just as

we do.’

 

‘I don’t know why there should be a difference.’

 

‘Nor do I, only that there is. You haven’t read so many of their novels

as I have.’

 

‘Who would ever think of learning to live out of an English novel?’

said Carry.

 

‘I am not saying that. You may teach him to live how you like

afterwards. But if you have anything to do with people it must be well

to know what their manners are. I think the richer sort of people in

England slide into these things more gradually than we do. You stand

your ground, Carry, and hold your own, and take the goods the gods

provide you.’ Though Caroline Spalding opposed her sister’s arguments,

and was particularly hard upon that allusion to ‘the richer sort of

people,’ which, as she knew, Miss Petrie would have regarded as

evidence of reverence for sounding brasses and tinkling cymbals,

nevertheless she loved Livy dearly for what she said, and kissed the

sweet counsellor, and resolved that she would for the present decline

the invitation of the poetess. Then was Miss Petrie somewhat indignant

with her friend, and threw out her scorn in those lines which have been

mentioned.

 

But the American Minister hardly knew how to behave himself when he met

Mr Glascock, or even when he was called upon to speak of him. Florence

no doubt is a large city, and is now the capital of a great kingdom;

but still people meet in Florence much more frequently than they do in

Paris or in London. It may almost be said that they whose habit it is

to go into society, and whose circumstances bring them into the same

circles, will see each other every day. Now the American Minister

delighted to see and to be seen in all places frequented by persons of

a certain rank and position in Florence. Having considered the matter

much, he had convinced himself that he could thus best do his duty as

minister from the great Republic of Free States to the newest and as he

called it ‘the free-est of the European kingdoms.’ The minister from

France was a marquis; he from England was an earl; from Spain had come

a count and so on. In the domestic privacy of his embassy Mr Spalding

would be severe enough upon the sounding brasses and the tinkling

cymbals, and was quite content himself to be the Honourable Jonas G.

Spalding—Honourable because selected by his country for a post of

honour; but he liked to be heard among the cymbals and seen among the

brasses, and to feel that his position was as high as theirs. Mr

Glascock also was frequently in the same circles, and thus it came to

pass that the two gentlemen saw each other almost daily. That Mr

Spalding knew well how to bear himself in his high place no one could

doubt; but he did not quite know how to carry himself before Mr

Glascock. At home at Boston he would have been more completely master

of the situation.

 

He thought too that he began to perceive that Mr Glascock avoided him,

though he would hear on his return home that that gentleman had been at

the embassy, or had been walking in the Cascine with his nieces. That

their young ladies should walk in public places with unmarried

gentlemen is nothing to American fathers and guardians. American young

ladies are accustomed to choose their own companions. But the minister

was tormented by his doubts as to the ways of Englishmen, and as to the

phase in which English habits might most properly exhibit themselves in

Italy. He knew that people were talking about Mr Glascock and his

niece. Why then did Mr Glascock avoid him? It was perhaps natural that

Mr Spalding should have omitted to observe that Mr Glascock was not

delighted by those lectures on the American constitution which formed

so large a part of his ordinary conversation with Englishmen.

 

It happened one afternoon that they were thrown together so closely for

nearly an hour that neither could avoid the other. They were both at

the old palace in which the Italian parliament is held, and were kept

waiting during some long delay in the ceremonies of the place. They

were seated next to each other, and during such delay there was nothing

for them but to talk. On the other side of each of them was a stranger,

and not to talk in such circumstances would be to quarrel. Mr Glascock

began by asking after the ladies.

 

‘They are quite well, sir, thank you,’ said the minister. ‘I hope that

Lord Peterborough was pretty well when last you heard from Naples, Mr

Glascock.’ Mr Glascock explained that his father’s condition was not

much altered, and then there was silence for a moment.

 

‘Your nieces will remain with you through the spring I suppose?’ said

Mr Glascock.

 

‘Such is their intention, sir.’

 

‘They seem to like Florence, I think.’

 

‘Yes yes; I think they do like Florence. They see this capital, sir,

perhaps under more favourable circumstances than are accorded to most

of my countrywomen. Our republican simplicity, Mr Glascock, has this

drawback, that away from home it subjects us somewhat to the cold shade

of unobserved obscurity. That it possesses merits which much more than

compensate for this trifling evil I should be the last man in Europe to

deny.’ It is to be observed that American citizens are always prone to

talk of Europe. It affords the best counterpoise they know to that

other term, America, and America and the United States are of course the

same. To speak of France or of England as weighing equally against

their own country seems to an American to be an absurdity and almost an

insult to himself. With Europe he can compare himself, but even this is

done generally in the style of the Republican Browning when she

addressed the Ancient Marbles.

 

‘Undoubtedly,’ said Mr Glascock, ‘the family of a minister abroad has

great advantages in seeing the country to which he is accredited.’

 

‘That is my meaning, sir. But, as I was remarking, we carry with us as

a people no external symbols of our standing at home. The wives and

daughters, sir, of the most honoured of our citizens have no

nomenclature different than that which belongs to the least noted among

us. It is perhaps a consequence of this that Europeans who are

accustomed in their social intercourse to the assistance of titles,

will not always trouble themselves to inquire who and what are the

American citizens who may sit opposite to them at table. I have known,

Mr Glascock, the wife and daughter of a gentleman who has been thrice

sent as senator from his native State to Washington, to remain as

disregarded in the intercourse of a European city, as though they had

formed part of the family of some grocer from your Russell Square!’

 

‘Let the Miss Spaldings go where they will,’ said Mr Glascock, ‘they

will not fare in that way.’

 

‘The Miss Spaldings, sir, are very much obliged to you,’ said the

minister with a bow.

 

‘I regard it as one of the luckiest chances of my life that I was

thrown in with them at St Michael as I was,’ said Mr Glascock with

something like warmth.

 

‘I am sure, sir, they will never forget the courtesy displayed by you

on that occasion,’ said the minister bowing again.

 

‘That was a matter of course. I and my friend would have done the same

for the grocer’s wife and daughter of whom you spoke. Little services