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

keep them till they were called for; but, to the best of his knowledge,

he had never seen or heard the name. At the guard-house of the

gendarmerie they could not, or would not, give him any information, and

Sir Marmaduke came back with an impression that everybody at Siena was

ignorant, idiotic, and brutal. Mrs Trevelyan was so dispirited as to be

ill, and both Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley were disposed to think that

the world was all against them. ‘You have no conception of the sort of

woman that man is going to marry,’ said Lady Rowley.

‘What man?’

‘Mr Glascock! A horrid American female, as old almost as I am, who

talks through her nose, and preaches sermons about the rights of women.

It is incredible! And Nora might have had him just for lifting up her

hand.’ But Sir Marmaduke could not interest himself much about Mr

Glascock. When he had been told that his daughter had refused the heir

to a great estate and a peerage, it had been matter of regret; but he

had looked upon the affair as done, and cared nothing now though Mr

Glascock should marry a transatlantic Xantippe. He was angry with Nora

because by her obstinacy she was adding to the general perplexities of

the family, but he could not make comparisons on Mr Glascock’s behalf

between her and Miss Spalding as his wife was doing, either mentally or

aloud, from hour to hour. ‘I suppose it ‘is too late now,’ said Lady

Rowley, shaking her head.

‘Of course it is too late. The man must marry whom he pleases. I am

beginning to wonder that anybody should ever want to get married. I am

indeed.’

‘But what are the girls to do?’

‘I don’t know what anybody is to do. Here is a man as mad as a March

hare, and yet nobody can touch him. If it was not for the child, I

should advise Emily to put him out of her head altogether.’

But though Sir Marmaduke could not bring himself to take any interest

in Mr Glascock’s affairs, and would not ask a single question

respecting the fearful American female whom this unfortunate man was

about to translate to the position of an English peeress, yet

circumstances so fell out that before three days were over he and Mr

Glascock were thrown together in very intimate relations. Sir Marmaduke

had learned that Mr Glascock was the only Englishman in Florence to

whom Trevelyan had been known, and that he was the only person with

whom Trevelyan had been seen to speak while passing through the city.

In his despair, therefore, Sir Marmaduke had gone to Mr Glascock, and

it was soon arranged that the two gentlemen should renew the search at

Siena together, without having with them either Mrs Trevelyan or the

courier. Mr Glascock knew the ways of the people better than did Sir

Marmaduke, and could speak the language. He obtained a passport to the

good offices of the police at Siena, and went prepared to demand rather

than to ask for assistance. They started very early, before breakfast,

and on arriving at Siena at about noon, first employed themselves in

recruiting exhausted nature. By the time that they had both declared

that the hotel at Siena was the very worst in all Italy, and that a

breakfast without eatable butter was not to be considered a breakfast

at all, they had become so intimate that Mr Glascock spoke of his own

intended marriage. He must have done this with the conviction on his

mind that Nora Rowley would have told her mother of his former

intention, and that Lady Rowley would have told Sir Marmaduke; but he

did not feel it to be incumbent on himself to say anything on that

subject. He had nothing to excuse. He had behaved fairly and

honourably. It was not to be expected that he should remain unmarried

for ever for the sake of a girl who had twice refused him. ‘Of course

there are very many in England,’ he said, ‘who will think me foolish to

marry a girl from another country.’

‘It is done every day,’ said Sir Marmaduke.

‘No doubt it is. I admit, however, that I ought to be more careful than

some other persons. There is a title and an estate to be perpetuated,

and I cannot, perhaps, be justified in taking quite so much liberty as

some other men may do; but I think I have chosen a woman born to have a

high position, and who will make her own way in any society in which

she may be placed.’

‘I have no doubt she will,’ said Sir Marmaduke, who had still sounding

in his ears the alarming description which his wife had given him of

this infatuated man’s proposed bride. But he would have been bound to

say as much had Mr Glascock intended to marry as lowly as did King

Cophetua.

‘She is highly educated, gentle-mannered, as sweetly soft as any

English girl I ever met, and very pretty. You have met her, I think.’

‘I do not remember that I have observed her.’

‘She is too young for me, perhaps,’ said Mr Glascock; ‘but that is a

fault on the right side.’ Sir Marmaduke, as he wiped his beard after

his breakfast, remembered what his wife had told him about the lady’s

age. But it was nothing to him.‘she is four-and-twenty, I think,’ said

Mr Glascock. If Mr Glascock chose to believe that his intended wife was

four-and-twenty instead of something over forty, that was nothing to

Sir Marmaduke.

‘The very best age in the world,’ said he.

They had sent for an officer of the police, and before they had been

three hours in Siena they had been told that Trevelyan lived about

seven miles from the town, in a small and very remote country house,

which he had hired for twelve months from one of the city hospitals. He

had hired it furnished, and had purchased a horse and small carriage

from a man in the town. To this man they went, and it soon became

evident to them that he of whom they were in search was living at this

house, which was called Casalunga, and was not, as the police officer

told them, on the way to any place. They must leave Siena by the road

for Rome, take a turn to the left about a mile beyond the city gate,

and continue on along the country lane till they saw a certain round

hill to the right. On the top of that round hill was Casalunga. As the

country about Siena all lies in round hills, this was no adequate

description, but it was suggested that the country people would know all

about it. They got a small open carriage in the market-place, and were

driven out. Their driver knew nothing of Casalunga, and simply went

whither he was told. But by the aid of the country people they got

along over the unmade lanes, and in little more than an hour were told,

at the bottom of the hill, that they must now walk up to Casalunga.

Though the hill was round-topped, and no more than a hill, still the

ascent at last was very steep, and was paved with stones set edgeway in

a manner that could hardly have been intended to accommodate wheels.

When Mr Glascock asserted that the signor who lived there had a

carriage of his own, the driver suggested that he must keep it at the

bottom of the hill. It was clearly not his intention to attempt to

drive up the ascent, and Sir Marmaduke and Mr Glascock were therefore

obliged to walk. It was now in the latter half of May, and there was a

blazing Italian sky over their heads. Mr Glascock was acclimated to

Italian skies, and did not much mind the work; but Sir Marmaduke, who

never did much in walking, declared that Italy was infinitely hotter

than the Mandarins, and could hardly make his way as far as the house

door.

It seemed to both of them to be a most singular abode for such a man as

Trevelyan. At the top of the hill there was a huge entrance through a

wooden gateway, which seemed to have been constructed with the

intention of defying any intruders not provided with warlike

ammunition. The gates were, indeed, open at the period of their visit,

but it must be supposed that they were intended to be closed at any

rate at night. Immediately on the right, as they entered through the

gates, there was a large barn, in which two men were coopering wine

vats. From thence a path led slanting to the house, of which the door

was shut, and all the front windows blocked with shutters. The house

was very long, and only of one story for a portion of its length. Over

that end at which the door was placed there were upper rooms, and there

must have been space enough for a large family with many domestics.

There was nothing round or near the residence which could be called a

garden, so that its look of desolation was extreme. There were various

large barns and outhouses, as though it had been intended by the

builder that corn and hay and cattle should be kept there; but it

seemed now that there was nothing there except the empty vats at which

the two men were coopering. Had the Englishmen gone farther into the

granary, they would have seen that there were wine-presses stored away

in the dark corners.

They stopped and looked at the men, and the men halted for a moment

from their work and looked at them; but the men spoke never a word. Mr

Glascock then asked after Mr Trevelyan, and one of the coopers pointed

to the house. Then they crossed over to the door, and Mr Glascock

finding there neither knocker nor bell, first tapped with his knuckles,

and then struck with his stick. But no one came. There was not a sound

in the house, and no shutter was removed. ‘I don’t believe that there

is a soul here,’ said Sir Marmaduke.

‘We’ll not give it up till we’ve seen it all at any rate,’ said Mr

Glascock. And so they went round to the other front.

On this side of the house the tilled ground, either ploughed or dug

with the spade, came up to the very windows. There was hardly even a

particle of grass to be seen. A short way down the hill there were rows

of olive trees, standing in prim order and at regular distances, from

which hung the vines that made the coopering of the vats necessary.

Olives and vines have pretty names, and call up associations of

landscape beauty. But here they were in no way beautiful. The ground

beneath them was turned up, and brown, and arid, so that there was not

a blade of grass to be seen. On some furrows the maize or Indian corn

was sprouting, and there were patches of growth of other kinds, each

patch closely marked by its own straight lines; and there were narrow

paths, so constructed as to take as little room as possible. But all

that had been done had been done for economy, and nothing for beauty.

The occupiers of Casalunga had thought more of the produce of their

land than of picturesque or attractive appearance.

The sun was blazing fiercely hot, hotter on this side, Sir Marmaduke

thought, even than on the other; and there was not a wavelet of a cloud

in the sky. A balcony ran the whole length of the house, and under this

Sir Marmaduke took shelter