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

‘I must go in,’ she said; ‘I will go in;’ and rushing on she tried to

push aside her husband. Her mother aided her, nor did Trevelyan attempt

to stop her with violence, and in a moment she was kneeling at the foot

of a small sofa, with her child in her arms. ‘I had not intended to

hinder you,’ said Trevelyan, ‘but I require from you a promise that you

will not attempt to remove him.’

‘Why should she not take him home with her?’ said Lady Rowley.

‘Because I will not have it so,’ replied Trevelyan. ‘Because I choose

that it should be understood that I am to be the master of my own

affairs.’

Mrs Trevelyan had now thrown aside her bonnet and her veil, and was

covering her child with caresses. The poor little fellow, whose mind

had been utterly dismayed by the events which had occurred to him since

his capture, though he returned her kisses, did so in fear and

trembling. And he was still sobbing, rubbing his eyes with his

knuckles, and by no means yielding himself with his whole heart to his

mother’s tenderness as she would have had him do. ‘Louey,’ she said,

whispering to him, ‘you know mamma; you haven’t forgotten mamma?’ He

half murmured some little infantine word through his sobs, and then put

his cheek up to be pressed against his mother’s face. ‘Louey will

never, never forget his own mamma will he, Louey?’ The poor boy had no

assurances to give, and could only raise his cheek again to be kissed.

In the meantime Lady Rowley and Trevelyan were standing by, not

speaking to each other, regarding the scene in silence.

She, Lady Rowley, could see that he was frightfully altered in

appearance, even since the day on which she had so lately met him in

the City. His cheeks were thin and haggard, and his eyes were deep and

very bright, and he moved them quickly from side to side, as though ever

suspecting something. He seemed to be smaller in stature, withered, as

it were, as though he had melted away. And, though he stood looking

upon his wife and child, he was not for a moment still. He would change

the posture of his hands and arms, moving them quickly with little

surreptitious jerks; and would shuffle his feet upon the floor, almost

without altering his position. His clothes hung about him, and his

linen was soiled and worn. Lady Rowley noticed this especially, as he

had been a man peculiarly given to neatness of apparel. He was the

first to speak. ‘You have come down here in a cab?’ said he.

‘Yes in a cab, from London,’ said Lady Rowley.

‘Of course you will go back in it? You cannot stay here. There is no

accommodation. It is a wretched place, but it suits the boy. As for me,

all places are now alike.’

‘Louis,’ said his wife, springing up from her knees, coming to him, and

taking his right hand between both her own, ‘you will let me take him

with me. I know you will let me take him with me.’

‘I cannot do that, Emily; it would be wrong.’

‘Wrong to restore a child to his mother? Oh, Louis, think of it, What

must my life be without him or you?’

‘Don’t talk of me. It is too late for that.’

‘Not if you will be reasonable, Louis, and listen to me. Oh, heavens,

how ill you are!’ As she said this she drew nearer to him, so that her

face was almost close to his. ‘Louis, come back; come back, and let it

all be forgotten. It shall be a dream, a horrid dream, and nobody shall

speak of it.’ He left his hand within hers and stood looking into her

face. He was well aware that his life since he had left her had been

one long hour of misery. There had been to him no alleviation, no

comfort, no consolation. He had not a friend left to him. Even his

satellite, the policeman, was becoming weary of him and manifestly

suspicious. The woman with whom he was now lodging, and whose resources

were infinitely benefited by his payments to her, had already thrown

out hints that she was afraid of him. And as he looked at his wife, he

knew that he loved her. Everything for him now was hot and dry and poor

and bitter. How sweet would it be again to sit with her soft hand in

his, to feel her cool brow against his own, to have the comfort of her

care, and to hear the music of loving words! The companionship of his

wife had once been to him everything in the world; but now, for many

months past, he had known no companion. She bade him come to her, and

look upon all this trouble as a dream not to be mentioned. Could it be

possible that it should be so, and that they might yet be happy

together, perhaps in some distant country, where the story of all their

misery might not be known? He felt all this truly and with a keen

accuracy. If he were mad, he was not all mad. ‘I will tell you of

nothing that is past,’ said she, hanging to him, and coming still

nearer to him, and embracing his arm.

Could she have condescended to ask him not to tell her of the past, had

it occurred to her so to word her request, she might perhaps have

prevailed. But who can say how long the tenderness of his heart would

have saved him from further outbreak and whether such prevailing on her

part would have been of permanent service? As it was, her words wounded

him in that spot of his inner self which was most sensitive, on that

spot from whence had come all his fury. A black cloud came upon his

brow, and he made an effort to withdraw himself from her grasp. It was

necessary to him that she should in some fashion own that he had been

right, and now she was promising him that she would not tell him of his

fault! He could not thus swallow down all the convictions by which he

had fortified himself to bear the misfortunes which he had endured. Had

he not quarrelled with every friend he possessed on this score; and

should he now stultify himself in all those quarrels by admitting that

he had been cruel, unjust, and needlessly jealous? And did not truth

demand of him that he should cling to his old assurances? Had she not

been disobedient, ill-conditioned, and rebellious? Had she not received

the man, both him personally and his letters, after he had explained to

her that his honour demanded that it should not be so? How could he

come into such terms as those now proposed to him, simply because he

longed to enjoy the rich sweetness of her soft hand, to feel the

fragrance of her breath, and to quench the heat of his forehead in the

cool atmosphere of her beauty? ‘Why have you driven me to this by your

intercourse with that man?’ he said. ‘Why, why, why did you do it?’

She was still clinging to him. ‘Louis,’ she said, ‘I am your wife.’

‘Yes; you are my wife.’

‘And will you still believe such evil of me without any cause?’

‘There has been cause horrible cause. You must repent, repent, repent.’

‘Heaven help me,’ said the woman, falling back from him, and returning

to the boy who was now seated in Lady Rowley’s lap. ‘Mamma, do you

speak to him. What can I say? Would he think better of me were I to own

myself to have been guilty, when there has been no guilt, no slightest

fault? Does he wish me to purchase my child by saying that I am not fit

to be his mother?’

‘Louis,’ said Lady Rowley, ‘if any man was ever wrong, mad, madly

mistaken, you are so now.’

‘Have you come out here to accuse me again, as you did, before in

London?’ he asked. ‘Is that the way in which you and she intend to let

the past be, as she says, like a dream? She tells me that I am ill. It

is true. I am ill and she is killing me, killing me, by her obstinacy.’

‘What would you have me do?’ said the wife, again rising from her

child.

‘Acknowledge your transgressions, and say that you will amend your

conduct for the future.’

‘Mamma, mamma what shall I say to him?’

‘Who can speak to a man that is beside himself?’ replied Lady Rowley.

‘I am not so beside myself as yet, Lady Rowley, but that I know how to

guard my own honour and to protect my own child. I have told you,

Emily, the terms on which you can come back to me. You had better now

return to your mother’s house; and if you wish again to have a house of

your own, and your husband, and your boy, you know by what means you

may acquire them. For another week I shall remain here; after that I

shall remove far from hence.’

‘And where will you go, Louis?’

‘As yet I know not. To Italy, I think, or perhaps to America. It matters

little where for me.’

‘And will Louey be taken with you?’

‘Certainly he will go with me. To strive to bring him up so that he may

be a happier man than his father is all that there is now left for me

in life.’ Mrs Trevelyan had now got the boy in her arms, and her mother

was seated by her on the sofa. Trevelyan was standing away from them,

but so near the door that no sudden motion on their part would enable

them to escape with the boy without his interposition. It now again

occurred to the mother to carry off her prize in opposition to her

husband, but she had no scheme to that effect laid with her mother, and

she could not reconcile herself to the idea of a contest with him in

which personal violence would be necessary. The woman of the house had,

indeed, seemed to sympathise with her, but she could not dare in such a

matter to trust to assistance from a stranger. ‘I do not wish to be

uncourteous,’ said Trevelyan, ‘but if you have no assurance to give me,

you had better leave me.’

Then there came to be a bargaining about time, and the poor woman

begged almost on her knees that she might be allowed to take her child

upstairs and be with him alone for a few minutes. It seemed to her that

she had not seen her boy till she had had him to herself, in absolute

privacy, till she had kissed his limbs, and had her hand upon his

smooth back, and seen that he was white and clean and bright as he had

ever been. And the bargain was made. She was asked to pledge her word

that she would not take him out of the house, and she pledged her word,

feeling that there was no strength in her for that action which she had

meditated. He, knowing that he might still guard the passage at the

bottom of the stairs, allowed her to go with the boy to his bedroom,

while he remained below with Lady Rowley. A quarter of an hour was

allowed to her, and she humbly promised that she would return when that

time was expired.

Trevelyan