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

MYSTERIOUS AGENCIES

When the thirty-first of March arrived, Exeter had not as yet been made

gay with the marriage festivities of Mr Gibson and Camilla French. And

this delay had not been the fault of Camilla. Camilla had been ready,

and when, about the middle of the month, it was hinted to her that some

postponement was necessary, she spoke her mind out plainly, and

declared that she was not going to stand that kind of thing. The

communication had not been made to her by Mr Gibson in person. For some

days previously he had not been seen at Heavitree, and Camilla had from

day to day become more black, gloomy, and harsh in her manners both to

her mother and her sister. Little notes had come and little notes had

gone, but no one in the house, except Camilla herself, knew what those

notes contained. She would not condescend to complain to Arabella; nor

did she say much in condemnation of her lover to Mrs French, till the

blow came. With unremitting attention she pursued the great business of

her wedding garments, and exacted from the unfortunate Arabella an

amount of work equal to her own, of thankless work, as is the custom of

embryo brides with their unmarried sisters. And she drew with great

audacity on the somewhat slender means of the family for the amount of

feminine gear necessary to enable her to go into Mr Gibson’s house with

something of the eclat of a well-provided bride. When Mrs French

hesitated, and then expostulated, Camilla replied that she did not

expect to be married above once, and that in no cheaper or more

productive way than this could her mother allow her to consume her

share of the family resources. ‘What matter, mamma, if you do have to

borrow a little money? Mr Burgess will let you have it when he knows

why. And as I shan’t be eating and drinking at home any more, nor yet

getting my things here, I have a right to expect it.’ And she ended by

expressing an opinion, in Arabella’s hearing, that any daughter of a

house who proves herself to be capable of getting a husband for

herself, is entitled to expect that those left at home shall pinch

themselves for a time, in order that she may go forth to the world in a

respectable way, and be a credit to the family.

Then came the blow. Mr Gibson had not been at the house for some days,

but the notes had been going and coming. At last Mr Gibson came

himself; but, as it happened, when he came Camilla was out shopping. In

these days she often did go out shopping between eleven and one,

carrying her sister with her. It must have been but a poor pleasure for

Arabella, this witnessing the purchases made, seeing the pleasant

draperies and handling the real linens and admiring the fine cambrics

spread out before them on the shop counters by obsequious attendants.

And the questions asked of her by her sister, whether this was good

enough for so august an occasion, or that sufficiently handsome, must

have been harassing. She could not have failed to remember that it

ought all to have been done for her, that had she not been treated with

monstrous injustice, with most unsisterly cruelty, all these good

things would have been spread on her behoof. But she went on and

endured it, and worked diligently with her needle, and folded and

unfolded as she was desired, and became as it were quite a younger

sister in the house, creeping out by herself now and again into the

purlieus of the city, to find such consolation as she might receive

from her solitary thoughts.

But Arabella and Camilla were both away when Mr Gibson called to tell

Mrs French of his altered plans. And as he asked, not for his

lady-love, but for Mrs French herself, it is probable that he watched

his opportunity and that he knew to what cares his Camilla was then

devoting herself. ‘Perhaps it is quite as well that I should find you

alone,’ he said, after sundry preludes, to his future mother-in-law,

‘because you can make Camilla understand this better than I can. I must

put off the day for about three weeks.’

‘Three weeks, Mr Gibson?’

‘Or a month. Perhaps we had better say the 29th of April.’ Mr Gibson

had by this time thrown off every fear that he might have entertained

of the mother, and could speak to her of such an unwarrantable change

of plans with tolerable equanimity.

‘But I don’t know that that will suit Camilla at all.’

‘She can name any other day she pleases, of course, that is in May.’

‘But why is this to be?’

‘There are things about money, Mrs French, which I cannot arrange

sooner. And I find that unfortunately I must go up to London.’ Though

many other questions were asked, nothing further was got out of Mr

Gibson on that occasion; and he left the house with a perfect

understanding on his own part and on that of Mrs French that the

marriage was postponed till some day still to be fixed, but which could

not and should not be before the 29th of April. Mrs French asked him

why he did not come up and see Camilla. He replied, false man that he

was, that he had hoped to have seen her this morning, and that he would

come again before the week was over.

Then it was that Camilla spoke her mind out plainly. ‘I shall go to his

house at once,’ she said, ‘and find out all about it. I don’t

understand it. I don’t understand it at all; and I won’t put up with

it. He shall know who he has to deal with, if he plays tricks upon me.

Mamma, I wonder you let him out of the house, till you had made him

come back to his old day.’

‘What could I do, my dear?’

‘What could you do? Shake him out of it as I would have done. But he

didn’t dare to tell me because he is a coward.’

Camilla in all this showed her spirit; but she allowed her anger to

hurry her away into an indiscretion. Arabella was present, and Camilla

should have repressed her rage.

‘I don’t think he’s at all a coward,’ said Arabella.

‘That’s my business. I suppose I’m entitled to know what he is better

than you.’

‘All the same I don’t think Mr Gibson is at all a coward,’ said

Arabella, again pleading the cause of the man who had misused her.

‘Now, Arabella, I won’t take any interference from you; mind that. I

say it was cowardly, and he should have come to me. It’s my concern,

and I shall go to him. I’m not going to be stopped by any shilly-shally

nonsense, when my future respectability, perhaps, is at stake. All

Exeter knows that the marriage is to take place on the 31st of this

month.’

On the next day Camilla absolutely did go to Mr Gibson’s house at an

early hour, at nine, when, as she thought, he would surely be at

breakfast. But he had flown. He had left Exeter that morning by an

early train, and his servant thought that he had gone to London. On the

next morning Camilla got a note from him, written in London. It

affected to be very cheery and affectionate, beginning ‘Dearest Cammy,’

and alluding to the postponement of his wedding as though it were a

thing so fixed as to require no further question. Camilla answered this

letter, still in much wrath, complaining, protesting, expostulating