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

to some one else. Nora had been quite anxious to know how Dorothy

had been received by that old conservative warrior, as Hugh Stanbury

had called his aunt, and Hugh had now come to Curzon Street with a

letter from Dorothy in his pocket. But when he saw that there had

been some cause for trouble, he hardly knew how to introduce his

subject.

‘Trevelyan is not at home?’ he asked.

‘No,’ said Emily, with her face turned away. ‘He went out and left

us a quarter of an hour since. Did you meet Colonel Osborne?’

‘I was speaking to him in the street not a moment since.’ As he

answered he could see that Nora was making some sign to her sister.

Nora was most anxious that Emily should not speak of what had just

occurred, but her signs were all thrown away. ‘Somebody must tell

him,’ said Mrs Trevelyan, ‘and I don’t know who can do so better

than so old a friend as Mr Stanbury.’

‘Tell what, and to whom?’ he asked.

‘No, no, no,’ said Nora.

‘Then I must tell him myself,’ said she, ‘that is all. As for

standing this kind of life, it is out of the question. I should

either destroy myself or go mad.’

‘If I could do any good I should be so happy,’ said Stanbury.

‘Nobody can do any good between a man and wife,’ said Nora.

Then Mrs Trevelyan began to tell her story, putting aside, with an

impatient motion of her hands, the efforts which her sister made

to stop her. She was very angry, and as she told it, standing up,

all trace of sobbing soon disappeared from her voice. ‘The fact

is,’ she said, ‘he does not know his own mind, or what to fear or

what not to fear. He told me that I was never to see Colonel Osborne

again.

‘What is the use, Emily, of your repeating that to Mr Stanbury?’

‘Why should I not repeat it? Colonel Osborne is papa’s oldest

friend, and mine too. He is a man I like very much, who is a real

friend to me. As he is old enough to be my father, one would have

thought that my husband could have found no objection.’

‘I don’t know much about his age,’ said Stanbury.

‘It does make a difference. It must make a difference. I should

not think of becoming so intimate with a younger man. But, however,

when my husband told me that I was to see him no more, though the

insult nearly killed me, I determined to obey him. An order was

given that Colonel Osborne should not be admitted. You may imagine

how painful it was; but it was given, and I was prepared to bear

it.’

‘But he had been lunching with you on that Sunday.’

‘Yes; that is just it. As soon as it was given Louis would rescind

it, because he was ashamed of what he had done. He was so jealous

that he did not want me to see the man; and yet he was so afraid

that it should be known that he ordered me to see him. He ordered

him into the house at last, and I—I went away upstairs.’

‘That was on the Sunday that we met you in the park?’ asked Stanbury.

‘What is the use of going back to all that?’ said Nora.

‘Then I met him by chance in the park,’ continued Mrs Trevelyan,

‘and because he said a word which I knew would anger my husband,

I left him abruptly. Since that my husband has begged that things

might go on as they were before. He could not bear that Colonel

Osborne himself should think that he was jealous. Well; I gave

way, and the man has been here as before. And now there has been

a scene which has been disgraceful to us all. I cannot stand it,

and I won’t. If he does not behave himself with more manliness I

will leave him.’

‘But what can I do?’

‘Nothing, Mr Stanbury,’ said Nora.

‘Yes; you can do this. You can go to him from me, and can tell him

that I have chosen you as a messenger because you are his friend.

You can tell him that I am willing to obey him in anything. If he

chooses, I will consent that Colonel Osborne shall be asked never

to come into my presence again. It will be very absurd; but if he

chooses, I will consent. Or I will let things go on as they are,

and continue to receive my father’s old friend when he comes. But

if I do, I will not put up with an imputation on my conduct because

he does not like the way in which the gentleman thinks fit to

address me. I take upon myself to say that if any man alive spoke

to me as he ought not to speak, I should know how to resent it

myself. But I cannot fly into a passion with an old gentleman for

calling me by my Christian name, when he has done so habitually

for years.’

From all this it will appear that the great godsend of a rich

marriage, with all manner of attendant comforts, which had come in

the way of the Rowley family as they were living at the Mandarins,

had not turned out to be an unmixed blessing. In the matter of the

quarrel, as it had hitherto progressed, the husband had perhaps

been more in the wrong than his wife; but the wife, in spite of

all her promises of perfect obedience, had proved herself to be

a woman very hard to manage. Had she been earnest in her desire

to please her lord and master in this matter of Colonel Osborne’s

visits, to please him even after he had so vacillated in his own

behests, she might probably have so received the man as to have

quelled all feeling of jealousy in her husband’s bosom. But instead

of doing so she had told herself that as she was innocent, and as

her innocence had been acknowledged, and as she had been specially

instructed to receive this man whom she had before been specially

instructed not to receive, she would now fall back exactly into her

old manner with him. She had told Colonel Osborne never to allude

to that meeting in the park, and to ask no creature as to what had

occasioned her conduct on that Sunday; thus having a mystery with

him, which of course he understood as well as she did. And then

she had again taken to writing notes to him and receiving notes

from him—none of which she showed to her husband. She was more

intimate with him than ever, and yet she hardly ever mentioned his

name to her husband. Trevelyan, acknowledging to himself that he

had done no good by his former interference, feeling that he had

put himself in the wrong on that occasion, and that his wife had

got the better of him, had borne with all this with soreness and

a moody savageness of general conduct, but still without further

words of anger with reference to the man himself. But now, on this

Sunday, when his wife had been closeted with Colonel Osborne in the

back drawing-room, leaving him with his sister-in-law, his temper

had become too hot for him, and he had suddenly left the house,

declaring that he would not walk with the two women on that day.

‘Why not, Louis?’ his wife had said, coming up to him. ‘Never

mind why not, but I shall not,’ he had answered; and then he left

the room.

‘What is the matter with him?’ Colonel Osborne had asked.

‘It is impossible to say what is the matter with him,’ Mrs Trevelyan

had replied. After that she had at once gone upstairs to her child,

telling herself that she was doing all that the strictest propriety

could require in leaving the man’s society as soon as her husband

was gone. Then there was an awkward minute or two between Nora and

Colonel Osborne, and he took his leave.

Stanbury at last promised that he would see Trevelyan, repeating,

however, very frequently that often used assertion, that no task

is so hopeless as that of interfering between a man and his wife.

Nevertheless he promised, and undertook to look for Trevelyan at

the Acrobats on that afternoon. At last he got a moment in which

to produce the letter from his sister, and was able to turn the

conversation for a few minutes to his own affairs. Dorothy’s letter

was read and discussed by both the ladies with much zeal. ‘It is

quite a strange world to me,’ said Dorothy, ‘but I am beginning to

find myself more at my ease than I was at first. Aunt Stanbury is

very good-natured, and when I know what she wants, I think I shall

be able to please her. What you said of her disposition is not so

bad to me, as of course a girl in my position does not expect to

have her own way.’

‘Why shouldn’t she have her share of her own way as well as anybody

else?’ said Mrs Trevelyan.

‘Poor Dorothy would never want to have her own way,’ said Hugh.

‘She ought to want it,’ said Mrs Trevelyan.

‘She has spirit enough to turn if she’s trodden on,’ said Hugh.

‘That’s more than what most women have,’ said Mrs Trevelyan.

Then he went on with the letter. ‘She is very generous, and has

given me 6 pounds 5s in advance of my allowance. When I said I

would send part of it home to mamma, she seemed to be angry, and

said that she wanted me always to look nice about my clothes. She

told me afterwards to do as I pleased, and that I might try my

own way for the first quarter. So I was frightened, and only sent

thirty shillings. We went out the other evening to drink tea with

Mrs MacHugh, an old lady whose husband was once dean. I had to go,

and it was all very nice. There were a great many clergymen there,

but many of them were young men.’ ‘Poor Dorothy,’ exclaimed Nora.

‘One of them was the minor canon who chants the service every

morning. He is a bachelor.’ ‘Then there is a hope for her,’ said

Nora ‘and he always talks a little as though he were singing the

Litany.’ ‘That’s very bad,’ said Nora; ‘fancy having a husband to

sing the Litany to you always.’ ‘Better that, perhaps, than having

him always singing something else,’ said Mrs Trevelyan.

It was decided between them that Dorothy’s state might on the whole

be considered as flourishing, but that Hugh was bound as a brother

to go down to Exeter and look after her. He explained, however,

that he was expressly debarred from calling on his sister, even

between the hours of half-past nine and half-past twelve on Wednesday

mornings, and that he could not see her at all unless he did so

surreptitiously.

‘If I were you I would see my sister in spite of all the old viragos

in Exeter,’ said Mrs Trevelyan. ‘I have no idea of anybody taking

so much upon themselves.’

‘You must remember, Mrs Trevelyan, that she has taken upon herself

much also in the way of kindness, in doing what perhaps I ought

to call charity. I wonder what I should have been doing now if it

were not for my Aunt Stanbury.’

He took his leave, and went at once from Curzon Street to Trevelyan’s

club, and found that