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

during her absence. There was hardly a word said between him and Lady

Rowley, but he paced from the passage into the room and from the room

into the passage with his hands behind his back. ‘It is cruel,’ he said

once. ‘It is very cruel.’

‘It is you that are cruel,’ said Lady Rowley.

‘Of course, of course. That is natural from you. I expect that from

you.’ To this she made no answer, and he did not open his lips again.

After a while Mrs Trevelyan called to her mother, and Lady Rowley was

allowed to go upstairs. The quarter of an hour was of course greatly

stretched, and all the time Trevelyan continued to pace in and out of

the room. He was patient, for he did not summon them; but went on

pacing backwards and forwards, looking now and again to see that the

cab was at its place, that no deceit was being attempted, no second act

of kidnapping being perpetrated. At last the two ladies came down the

stairs, and the boy was with them and the woman of the house.

‘Louis,’ said the wife, going quickly up to her husband, ‘I will do

anything, if you will give me my child.’

‘What will you do?’

‘Anything; say what you want. He is all the world to me, and I cannot

live if he be taken from me.’

‘Acknowledge that you have been wrong.’

‘But how, in what words, how am I to speak it?’

‘Say that you have sinned and that you will sin no more.’

‘Sinned, Louis, as the woman did in the Scripture?

‘He cannot think that it is so,’ said Lady Rowley.

But Trevelyan had not understood her. ‘Lady Rowley, I should have

fancied that my thoughts at any rate were my own. But this is useless

now. The child cannot go with you to-day, nor can you remain here. Go

home and think of what I have said. If then you will do as I would have

you, you shall return.’

With many embraces, with promises of motherly love, and with prayers

for love in return, the poor woman did at last leave the house, and

return to the cab. As she went there was a doubt on her own mind

whether she should ask to kiss her husband; but he made no sign, and

she at last passed out without any mark of tenderness. He stood by the

cab as they entered it, and closed the door upon them, and then went

slowly back to his room. ‘My poor bairn,’ he said to the boy; ‘my poor

bairn.’

‘Why for mamma go?’ sobbed the child.

‘Mamma goes; oh, heaven and earth, why should she go? She goes because

her spirit is obstinate, and she will not bend. She is stiff-necked,

and will not submit herself. But Louey must love mamma always, and mamma

some day will come back to him, and be good to him.’

‘Mamma is good always,’ said the child. Trevelyan had intended on this

very afternoon to have gone up to town to transact business with

Bozzle; for he still believed, though the aspect of the man was bitter

to him as wormwood, that Bozzle was necessary to him in all his

business. And he still made appointments with the man, sometimes at

Stony Walk, in the Borough, and sometimes at the tavern in Poulter’s

Court, even though Bozzle not unfrequently neglected to attend the

summons of his employer. And he would go to his banker’s and draw out

money, and then walk about the crowded lanes of the City, and

afterwards return to his desolate lodgings at Willesden, thinking that

he had been transacting business and that this business was exacted

from him by the unfortunate position of his affairs. But now he gave up

his journey. His retreat had been discovered; and there came upon him

at once a fear that if he left the house his child would be taken. His

landlady told him on this very day that the boy ought to be sent to his

mother, and had made him understand that it would not suit her to find

a home any longer for one who was so singular in his proceedings. He

believed that his child would be given up at once, if he were not there

to guard it. He stayed at home, therefore, turning in his mind many

schemes. He had told his wife that he should go either to Italy or to

America at once; but in doing so he had had no formed plan in his head.

He had simply imagined at the moment that such a threat would bring her

to submission. But now it became a question whether he would do better

than go to America. He suggested to himself that he should go to

Canada, and fix himself with his boy on some remote farm, far away from

any city; and would then invite his wife to join him if she would. She

was too obstinate, as he told himself, ever to yield, unless she should

be absolutely softened and brought down to the ground by the loss of

her child. What would do this so effectually as the interposition of

the broad ocean between him and her? He sat thinking of this for the

rest of the day, and Louey was left to the charge of the mistress of

River’s Cottage.

‘Do you think he believes it, mamma?’ Mrs Trevelyan said to her mother

when they had already made nearly half their journey home in the cab.

There had been nothing spoken hitherto between them, except some

half-formed words of affection intended for consolation to the young

mother in her great affliction.

‘He does not know what he believes, dearest.’

‘You heard what he said. I was to own that I had sinned.’

‘Sinned yes; because you will not obey him like a slave. That is sin to

him.’

‘But I asked him, mamma. Did you not hear me? I could not say the word

plainer but I asked him whether he meant that sin. He must have known,

and he would not answer me. And he spoke of my transgression. Mamma, if

he believed that, he would not let me come back at all.’

‘He did not believe it, Emily.’

‘Could he possibly then so accuse me, the mother of his child! If his

heart be utterly hard and false towards me, if it is possible that he

should be cruel to me with such cruelty as that, still he must love his

boy. Why did he not answer me, and say that he did not think it?’

‘Simply because his reason has left him.’

‘But if he be mad, mamma, ought we to leave him like that? And, then,

did you see his eyes, and his face, and his hands? Did you observe how

thin he is and his back, how bent? And his clothes, how they were torn

and soiled. It cannot be right that he should be left like that.’

‘We will tell papa when we get home,’ said Lady Rowley, who was herself

beginning to be somewhat frightened by what she had seen. It is all

very well to declare that a friend is mad when one simply desires to

justify one’s self in opposition to that friend, but the matter becomes

much more serious when evidence of the friend’s insanity becomes true

and circumstantial. ‘I certainly think that a physician should see

him,’ continued Lady Rowley. On their return home Sir Marmaduke was

told of what had occurred, and there was a long family discussion in

which it was decided that Lady Milborough should be consulted, as being

the oldest friend of Louis Trevelyan himself with whom they were

acquainted. Trevelyan had relatives of his own name living in Cornwall;

but Mrs Trevelyan herself had never even met one of that branch of the

family.

Sir Marmaduke, however, resolved that he himself would go out to see

his son-in-law. He too had called Trevelyan mad, but he did not believe

that the madness was of such a nature as to interfere with his own

duties in punishing the man who had ill used his daughter. He would at

any rate see Trevelyan himself; but of this he said nothing either to

his wife or to his child.