He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope (books you need to read .txt) 📕

‘Because Louis has made me promise that I will never willingly be

in his company again,’ said Mrs Trevelyan. ‘I would have given the

world to avoid a promise so disgraceful to me; but it was exacted,

and it shall be kept.’ Having so spoken, she swept out of the room,

and went upstairs to the nursery. Trevelyan sat for an hour with

his book before him, reading or pretending to read, but his wife

did not come downstairs. Then Nora went up to her, and he descended

to his solitude below. So far he had hardly gained much by the

enforced obedience of his wife.

On the next morning the three went to church together; as they were

walking home Trevelyan’s heart was filled with returning gentleness

towards his wife. He could not bear to be at wrath with her after

the church service which they had just heard together. But he was

softer-hearted than was she, and knowing this, was almost afraid

to say anything that would again bring forth from her expressions

of scorn. As soon as they were alone within the house he took her

by the hand and led her apart. ‘Let all this be,’ said he, ‘as

though it had never been.’

‘That will hardly be possible, Louis,’ she answered. ‘I cannot

forget that I have been cautioned.’ ‘But cannot you bring yourself

to believe that I have meant it all for your good?’

‘I have never doubted it, Louis never for a moment. But it has hurt

me to find that you should think that such caution was needed for

my good.’

It was almost on his tongue to beg her pardon, to acknowledge that

he had made a mistake, and to implore her to forget that he had

ever made an objection to Colonel Osborne’s visit. He remembered

at this moment the painful odiousness of that ‘Dear Emily;’ but he

had to reconcile himself even to that, telling himself that, after

all, Colonel Osborne was an old man, a man older even than his

wife’s father. If she would only have met him with gentleness, he

would have withdrawn his command, and have acknowledged that he had

been wrong. But she was hard, dignified, obedient, and resentful.

‘It will, I think,’ he said, ‘be better for both of us that he

should be asked in to lunch today.’

‘You must judge of that,’ said Emily. ‘Perhaps, upon the whole,

it will be best. I can only say that I will not be present. I will

lunch upstairs with baby, and you can make what excuse for me you

please.’ This was all very bad, but it was in this way that things

were allowed to arrange themselves. Richard was told that Colonel

Osborne was coming to lunch, and when he came something was muttered

to him about Mrs Trevelyan being not quite well. It was Nora who

told the innocent fib, and though she did not tell it well, she did

her very best. She felt that her brother-in-law was very wretched,

and she was most anxious to relieve him. Colonel Osborne did not

stay long, and then Nora went upstairs to her sister.

Louis Trevelyan felt that he had disgraced himself. He had meant

to have been strong, and he had, as he knew, been very weak. He

had meant to have acted in a high-minded, honest, manly manner;

but circumstances had been so untoward with him, that on looking

at his own conduct, it seemed to him to have been mean, and almost

false and cowardly. As the order for the exclusion of this hated man

from his house had been given, he should at any rate have stuck to

the order. At the moment of his vacillation he had simply intended

to make things easy for his wife; but she had taken advantage of

his vacillation, and had now clearly conquered him. Perhaps he

respected her more than he had done when he was resolving, three

or four days since, that he would be the master in his own house;

but it may be feared that the tenderness of his love for her had

been impaired.

Late in the afternoon his wife and sister-in-law came down dressed

for walking, and, finding Trevelyan in the library, they asked him

to join them; it was a custom with them to walk in the park on a

Sunday afternoon, and he at once assented, and went out with them.

Emily, who had had her triumph, was very gracious. There should not

be a word more said by her about Colonel Osborne. She would avoid

that gentleman, never receiving him in Curzon Street, and having

as little to say to him as possible elsewhere; but she would not

throw his name in her husband’s teeth, or make any reference to

the injury which had so manifestly been done to her. Unless Louis

should be indiscreet, it should be as though it had been forgotten.

As they walked by Chesterfield House and Stanhope Street into the

park, she began to discuss the sermon they had heard that morning,

and when she found that that subject was not alluring, she spoke

of a dinner to which they were to go at Mrs Fairfax’s house. Louis

Trevelyan was quite aware that he was being treated as a naughty

boy, who was to be forgiven.

They went across Hyde Park into Kensington Gardens, and still the

same thing was going on. Nora found it to be almost impossible

to say a word. Trevelyan answered his wife’s questions, but was

otherwise silent. Emily worked very hard at her mission of forgiveness,

and hardly ceased in her efforts at conciliatory conversation. Women

can work so much harder in this way than men find it possible to

do! She never flagged, but continued to be fluent, conciliatory,

and intolerably wearisome. On a sudden they came across two men

together, who, as they all knew, were barely acquainted with each

other. These were Colonel Osborne and Hugh Stanbury. ‘I am glad

to find you are able to be out,’ said the Colonel.

‘Thanks; yes. I think my seclusion just now was almost as much due

to baby as to anything else. Mr Stanbury, how is it we never see

you now?’

‘It is the D.R., Mrs Trevelyan nothing else. The D.R. is a most

grateful mistress, but somewhat exacting. I am allowed a couple of

hours on Sundays, but otherwise my time is wholly passed in Fleet

Street.’

‘How very unpleasant.’

‘Well; yes. The unpleasantness of this world consists chiefly in the

fact that when a man wants wages, he must earn them. The Christian

philosophers have a theory about it. Don’t they call it the primeval

fall, original sin, and that kind of thing?’

‘Mr Stanbury, I won’t have irreligion. I hope that doesn’t come

from writing for the newspapers.’

‘Certainly not with me, Mrs Trevelyan. I have never been put on

to take that branch yet. Scruby does that with us, and does it

excellently. It was he who touched up the Ritualists, and then the

Commission, and then the Low Church bishops, till he didn’t leave

one of them a leg to stand upon.’

‘What is it, then, that the Daily Record upholds?’

‘It upholds the Daily Record. Believe in that and you will surely

be saved.’ Then he turned to Miss Rowley, and they two were soon

walking on together, each manifestly interested in what the other

was saying, though there was no word of tenderness spoken between

them.

Colonel Osborne was now between Mr and Mrs Trevelyan. She would

have avoided the position had it been possible for her to do so.

While they were falling into their present places, she had made a

little mute appeal to her husband to take her away from the spot,

to give her his arm and return with her, to save her in some way

from remaining in company with the man to whose company for her he

had objected; but he took no such step. It had seemed to him that

he could take no such step without showing his hostility to Colonel

Osborne.

They walked on along the broad path together, and the Colonel was

between them.

‘I hope you think it satisfactory about Sir Rowley,’ he said.

‘Beggars must not be choosers, you know, Colonel Osborne. I felt a

little disappointed when I found that we were not to see them till

February next.’

‘They will stay longer then, you know, than they could now.’

‘I have no doubt when the time comes we shall all believe it to be

better.’

‘I suppose you think, Emily, that a little pudding today is better

than much tomorrow.’

Colonel Osborne certainly had a caressing, would-be affectionate

mode of talking to women, which, unless it were reciprocated and

enjoyed, was likely to make itself disagreeable. No possible words

could have been more innocent than those he had now spoken; but he

had turned his face down close to her face, and had almost whispered

them. And then, too, he had again called her by her Christian name.

Trevelyan had not heard the words. He had walked on, making the

distance between him and the other man greater than was necessary,

anxious to show to his wife that he had no jealousy at such a meeting

as this. But his wife was determined that she would put an end to

this state of things, let the cost be what it might. She did not

say a word to Colonel Osborne, but addressed herself at once to her

husband. ‘Louis,’ she said, ‘will you give me your arm? We will

go back, if you please.’ Then she took her husband’s arm and turned

herself and him abruptly away from their companion.

The thing was done in such a manner that it was impossible

that Colonel Osborne should not perceive that he had been left in

anger. When Trevelyan and his wife had gone back a few yards, he

was obliged to return for Nora. He did so, and then rejoined his

wife.

‘It was quite unnecessary, Emily,’ he said, ‘that you should behave

like that.’

‘Your suspicions,’ she said, ‘have made it almost impossible for

me to behave with propriety.’

‘You have told him everything now,’ said Trevelyan.

‘And it was requisite that he should be told,’ said his wife. Then

they walked home without interchanging another word. When they

reached their house, Emily at once went up to her own room, and

Trevelyan to his. They parted as though they had no common interest

which was worthy of a moment’s conversation. And she by her step,

and gait, and every movement of her body showed to him that she was

not his wife now in any sense that could bring to him a feeling of

domestic happiness. Her compliance with his command was of no use

to him unless she could be brought to comply in spirit. Unless she

would be soft to him he could not be happy. He walked about his

room uneasily for half-an-hour, trying to shake off his sorrow,

and then he went up to her room. ‘Emily,’ he said, ‘for God’s sake

let all this pass away.’

‘What is to pass away?’

‘This feeling of rancour between you and me. What is the world to

us unless we can love one another? At any rate it will be nothing

to me.’

‘Do you doubt my love?’ said she.

‘No; certainly not.’

‘Nor I yours. Without love, Louis, you and I can not be happy.

But love alone will not make us so. There must be trust, and there

must also be forbearance. My feeling of annoyance will pass away