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

FOUR O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

Another week went by and Sir Marmaduke had even yet not surrendered. He

quite understood that Nora was not to go back to the Islands and had

visited Mr and Mrs Outhouse at St. Diddulph’s in order to secure a home

for her there, if it might be possible. Mr Outhouse did not refuse, but

gave the permission in such a fashion as to make it almost equal to a

refusal. ‘He was,’ he said, ‘much attached to his niece Nora, but he

had heard that there was a love affair.’ Sir Marmaduke, of course,

could not deny the love affair. There was certainly a love affair of

which he did not personally approve, as the gentleman had no fixed

income and as far as he could understand no fixed profession. ‘Such a

love affair,’ thought Mr Outhouse, ‘was a sort of thing that he didn’t

know how to manage at all. If Nora came to him, was the young man to

visit at the house, or was he not?’ Then Mrs Outhouse said something as

to the necessity of an anti-Stanbury pledge on Nora’s part, and Sir

Marmaduke found that that scheme must be abandoned. Mrs Trevelyan had

written from Florence more than once or twice, and in her last letter

had said that she would prefer not to have Nora with her. She was at

that time living in lodgings at Siena and had her boy there also. She

saw her husband every other day; but nevertheless, according to her

statements, her visits to Casalunga were made in opposition to his

wishes. He had even expressed a desire that she should leave Siena and

return to England. He had once gone so far as to say that if she would

do so, he would follow her. But she clearly did not believe him, and in

all her letters spoke of him as one whom she could not regard as being

under the guidance of reason. She had taken her child with her once or

twice to the house, and on the first occasion Trevelyan had made much

of his son, had wept over him, and professed that in losing him he had

lost his only treasure; but after that he had not noticed the boy, and

latterly she had gone alone. She thought that perhaps her visits

cheered him, breaking the intensity of his solitude; but he never

expressed himself gratified by them, never asked her to remain at the

house, never returned with her into Siena, and continually spoke of her

return to England as a step which must be taken soon, and the sooner the

better. He intended to follow her, he said; and she explained very

fully how manifest was his wish that she should go, by the temptation

to do so which he thought that he held out by this promise. He had

spoken, on every occasion of her presence with him, of Sir Marmaduke’s

attempt to prove him to be a madman; but declared that he was afraid of

no one in England, and would face all the lawyers in Chancery Lane and

all the doctors in Savile Row. Nevertheless, so said Mrs Trevelyan, he

would undoubtedly remain at Casalunga till after Sir Marmaduke should

have sailed. He was not so mad but that he knew that no one else would

be so keen to take steps against him as would Sir Marmaduke. As for his

health, her account of him was very sad. ‘He seemed,’ she said, ‘to be

withering away.’ His hand was mere skin and bone. His hair and beard so

covered his thin long cheeks, that there was nothing left of his face

but his bright, large, melancholy eyes. His legs had become so frail

and weak that they would hardly bear his weight as he walked; and his

clothes, though he had taken a fancy to throw aside all that he had

brought with him from England, hung so loose about him that they seemed

as though they would fall from him. Once she had ventured to send out

to him from Siena a doctor to whom she had been recommended in

Florence; but he had taken the visit in very bad part, had told the

gentleman that he had no need for any medical services, and had been

furious with her, because of her offence in having sent such a visitor.

He had told her that if ever she ventured to take such a liberty again,

he would demand the child back, and refuse her permission inside the

gates of Casalunga. ‘Don’t come, at any rate, till I send for you,’ Mrs

Trevelyan said in her last letter to her sister. ‘Your being here would

do no good, and would, I think, make him feel that he was being

watched. My hope is, at last, to get him to return with me. If you were

here, I think this would be less likely. And then why should you be

mixed up with such unutterable sadness and distress more than is

essentially necessary? My health stands wonderfully well, though the

heat here is very great. It is cooler at Casalunga than in the town, of

which I am glad for his sake. He perspires so profusely that it seems

to me he cannot stand the waste much longer. I know he will not go to

England as long as papa is there, but I hope that he may be induced to

do so by slow stages as soon as he knows that papa has gone. Mind you

send me a newspaper, so that he may see it stated in print that papa

has sailed.’

It followed as one consequence of these letters from Florence that Nora

was debarred from the Italian scheme as a mode of passing her time till

some house should be open for her reception. She had suggested to Hugh

that she might go for a few weeks to Nuncombe Putney, but he had

explained to her the nature of his mother’s cottage, and had told her

that there was no hole there in which she could lay her head. ‘There

never was such a forlorn young woman,’ she said. ‘When papa goes I

shall literally be without shelter.’ There had come a letter from Mrs

Glascock, at least it was signed Caroline Glascock, though another name

might have been used, dated from Milan, saying that they were hurrying

back to Naples even at that season of the year, because Lord

Peterborough was dead. ‘And she is Lady Peterborough!’ said