He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope (books you need to read .txt) 📕
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mustn’t repeat it, of course; but we have had such a battle here about
it. We thought that mamma had lost her eyes and her ears and her
knowledge of things in general. And now it has all come out! You won’t
be angry?’
‘Why should I be angry?’
‘Miss Spalding,’ said Lady Rowley, ‘I am really unhappy at what has
occurred, and I hope that there may be nothing more said about it. I am
quite sure that somebody told me wrong, or I should not have fallen
into such an error. I beg your pardon and Mr Glascock’s!’
‘Beg Mr Glascock’s pardon, certainly,’ said Lucy.
Miss Spalding looked very pretty, smiled very gracefully, and coming up
to Lady Rowley to say good-bye, kissed her on her cheeks. This overcame
the spirit of the disappointed mother, and Lady Rowley never said
another word against Caroline Spalding or her marriage. ‘Now, mamma,
what do you think of her?’ said Nora, as soon as Caroline was gone.
‘Was it odd, my dear, that I should be astonished at his wanting to
marry that other woman?’
‘But, mamma, when we told you that she was young and pretty and
bright!’
‘I thought that you were all demented. I did indeed. I still think it a
pity that he should take an American. I think that Miss Spalding is
very nice, but there are English girls quite as nice-looking as her.’
After that there was not another word said by Lady Rowley against
Caroline Spalding.
Nora, when she thought of it all that night, felt that she had hardly
spoken to Miss Spalding as she should have spoken as to the treatment
in England which would be accorded to Mr Glascock’s wife. She became
aware of the effect which her own hesitation must have had, and thought
that it was her duty to endeavour to remove it. Perhaps, too, the
conversion of her mother had some effect in making her feel that she
had been wrong in supposing that there would be any difficulty in
Caroline’s position in England. She had heard so much adverse criticism
from her mother that she had doubted in spite of her own convictions;
but now it had come to light that Lady Rowley’s criticisms had all come
from a most absurd blunder. ‘Only fancy;’ she said to herself ‘Miss
Petrie coming out as Lady Peterborough! Poor mamma!’ And then she
thought of the reception which would be given to Caroline, and of the
place the future Lady Peterborough would fill in the world, and of the
glories of Monkhams! Resolving that she would do her best to counteract
any evil which she might have done, she seated herself at her desk, and
wrote the following letter to Miss Spalding:
‘My Dear Caroline,
I am sure you will let me call you so, as had you not felt towards me
like a friend, you would not have come to me today and told me of your
doubts. I think that I did not answer you as I ought to have done when
you spoke to me. I did not like to say anything off-hand, and in that
way I misled you. I feel quite sure that you will encounter nothing in
England as Mr Glascock’s wife to make you uncomfortable, and that he
will have nothing to repent. Of course Englishmen generally marry
Englishwomen; and, perhaps, there may be some people who will think
that such a prize should not be lost to their countrywomen. But that
will be all. Mr Glascock commands such universal respect that his wife
will certainly be respected, and I do not suppose that anything will
ever come in your way that can possibly make you feel that he is looked
down upon. I hope you will understand what I mean.
As for your changing now, that is quite impossible. If I were you, I
would not say a word about it to any living being; but just go on
straight forward in your own way, and take the good the gods provide
you, as the poet says to the king in the ode. And I think the gods have
provided for you very well and for him.
I do hope that I may see you sometimes. I cannot explain to you how
very much out of your line “we” shall be, for of course there is a “we.”
People are more separated with us than they are, I suppose, with you.
And my “we” is a very poor man, who works hard at writing in a dingy
newspaper office, and we shall live in a garret and have brown sugar in
our tea, and eat hashed mutton. And I shall have nothing a year to buy
my clothes with. Still I mean to do it; and I don’t mean to be long
before I do do it. When a girl has made up her mind to be married, she
had better go on with it at once, and take it all afterwards as it may
come. Nevertheless, perhaps, we may see each other somewhere, and I may
be able to introduce you to the dearest, honestest, very best, and most
affectionate man in the world. And he is very, very clever.
Yours very affectionately,
NORA ROWLEY.
‘Thursday morning.’
MR GLASCOCK IS MASTER
Caroline Spalding, when she received Nora’s letter, was not disposed to
give much weight to it. She declared to herself that the girl’s
unpremeditated expression of opinion was worth more than her studied
words. But she was not the less grateful or the less loving towards her
new friend. She thought how nice it would be to have Nora at that
splendid abode in England of which she had heard so much, but she
thought also that in that splendid abode she herself ought never to
have part or share. If it were the case that this were an unfitting
match, it was clearly her duty to decide that there should be no
marriage. Nora had been quite right in bidding her speak to Mr Glascock
himself, and to Mr Glascock she would go. But it was very difficult for
her to determine on the manner in which she would discuss the subject
with him. She thought that she could be firm if her mind were once made
up. She believed that perhaps she was by nature more firm than he. In
all their intercourse together he had ever yielded to her; and though
she had been always pleased and grateful, there had grown upon her an
idea that he was perhaps too easy, that he was a man as to whom it was
necessary that they who loved him should see that he was not led away
by weakness into folly. But she would want to learn something from him
before her decision was finally reached, and in this she foresaw a
great difficulty. In her trouble she went to her usual counsellor, the
Republican Browning. In such an emergency she could hardly have done
worse. ‘Wally,’ she said, ‘we talk about England, and Italy, and
France, as though we knew all about them; but how hard it is to realise
the difference between one’s own country and others.’
‘We can at least learn a great deal that is satisfactory,’ said
Wallachia. ‘About one out of every five Italians can read a book, about
two out of every five Englishmen can read a book. Out of every five New
Englanders four and four-fifths can read a book. I guess that is
knowing a good deal.’
‘I don’t mean in statistics.’
‘I cannot conceive how you are to learn anything about any country
except by statistics. I have just discovered that the number of
illegitimate children—’
‘Oh, Wally, I can’t talk about that—not now, at least. What I cannot
realise is this, what sort of a life it is that they will lead at
Monkhams.’
‘Plenty to eat and drink, I guess; and you’ll always have to go around
in fine clothes.’
‘And that will be all?’
‘No not all. There will be carriages and horses, and all manner of
people there who won’t care much about you. If he is firm, very firm, if
he have that firmness which one does not often meet, even in an
American man, he will be able, after a while, to give you a position as
an English woman of rank.’ It is to be feared that Wallachia Petrie had
been made aware of Caroline’s idea as to Mr Glascock’s want of purpose.
‘And that will be all?’
‘If you have a baby, they’ll let you go and see it two or three times a
day. I don’t suppose you will be allowed to nurse it, because they
never do in England. You have read what the Saturday Review says. In
every other respect the Saturday Review has been the falsest of all
false periodicals, but I guess it has been pretty true in what it has
said about English women.’
‘I wish I knew more about it really.’
‘When a man has to leap through a window in the dark, Caroline, of
course he doubts whether the feather bed said to be below will be soft
enough for him.’
‘I shouldn’t fear the leap for myself, if it wouldn’t hurt him. Do you
think it possible that society can be so formed that a man should lose
caste because he doesn’t marry just one of his own set?’
‘It has been so all over the world, my dear. If like to like is to be
true anywhere, it should be true in marriage.’
‘Yes but with a difference. He and I are like to like. We come of the
same race, we speak the same language, we worship the same God, we have
the same ideas of culture and of pleasures. The difference is one that
is not patent to the eye or to the ear. It is a difference of
accidental incident, not of nature or of acquirement.’
‘I guess you would find, Caroline, that a jury of English matrons sworn
to try you fairly, would not find you to be entitled to come among them
as one of themselves.’
‘And how will that affect him?’
‘Less powerfully than many others, because he is not impassioned. He
is, perhaps, lethargic.’
‘No, Wally, he is not lethargic.’
‘If you ask me I must speak. It would harass some men almost to death;
it will not do so with him. He would probably find his happiness best
in leaving his old country and coming among your people.’
The idea of Mr Glascock, the future Lord Peterborough, leaving England,
abandoning Monkhams, deserting his duty in the House of Lords, and
going away to live in an American town, in order that he might escape
the miseries which his wife had brought upon him in his own country,
was more than Caroline could bear. She knew that, at any rate, it would
not come to that. The lord of Monkhams would live at Monkhams, though
the heavens should fall in regard to domestic comforts. It was clear to
Caroline that Wallachia Petrie had in truth never brought home to her
own imagination the position of an English peer. ‘I don’t think you
understand the people at all,’ she said angrily.
‘You think that you can understand them better because you are engaged
to this man!’ said Miss Petrie, with well-pronounced irony. ‘You have
found generally that when the sun shines in your eyes your sight is
improved by it! You think that the love-talk of a few weeks gives
clearer instruction than the laborious reading of many
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