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

TREVELYAN DISCOURSES ON LIFE

Stanbury made his journey without pause or hindrance till he reached

Florence, and as the train for Siena made it necessary that he should

remain there for four or five hours, he went to an inn, and dressed and

washed himself, and had a meal, and was then driven to Mr Spalding’s

house. He found the American Minister at home, and was received with

cordiality; but Mr Spalding could tell him little or nothing about

Trevelyan. They went up to Mrs Spalding’s room, and Hugh was told by

her that she had seen Mrs Trevelyan once since her niece’s marriage,

and that then she had represented her husband as being very feeble.

Hugh, in the midst of his troubles, was amused by a second and a third,

perhaps by a fourth, reference to ‘Lady Peterborough.’ Mrs Spalding’s

latest tidings as to the Trevelyans had been received through ‘Lady

Peterborough’ from Nora Rowley.

‘Lady Peterborough’ was at the present moment at Naples, but was

expected to pass north through Florence in a day or two. They, the

Spaldings themselves, were kept in Florence in this very hot weather by

this circumstance. They were going up to the Tyrolese mountains for a

few weeks as soon as ‘Lady Peterborough’ should have left them for

England. ‘Lady Peterborough’ would have been so happy to make Mr

Stanbury’s acquaintance, and to have heard something direct from her

friend Nora. Then Mrs Spalding smiled archly, showing thereby that she

knew all about Hugh Stanbury and his relation to Nora Rowley. From all

which, and in accordance with the teaching which we got alas, now many

years ago from a great master on the subject, we must conclude that

poor, dear Mrs Spalding was a snob. Nevertheless, with all deference to

the memory of that great master, we think that Mrs Spalding’s allusions

to the success in life achieved by her niece were natural and

altogether pardonable; and that reticence on the subject, a calculated

determination to abstain from mentioning a triumph which must have been

very dear to her, would have betrayed on the whole a condition of mind

lower than that which she exhibited. While rank, wealth, and money are

held to be good things by all around us, let them be acknowledged as

such. It is natural that a mother should be as proud when her daughter

marries an Earl’s heir as when her son becomes Senior Wrangler; and

when we meet a lady in Mrs Spalding’s condition who purposely abstains

from mentioning the name of her titled daughter, we shall be disposed

to judge harshly of the secret workings of that lady’s thoughts on the

subject. We prefer the exhibition, which we feel to be natural. Mr

Spalding got our friend by the button-hole, and was making him a speech

on the perilous condition in which Mrs Trevelyan was placed; but

Stanbury, urged by the circumstances of his position, pulled out his

watch, pleaded the hour, and escaped.

He found Mrs Trevelyan waiting for him at the station at Siena. He

would hardly have known her, not from any alteration that was physically

personal to herself, not that she had become older in face, or thin, or

grey, or sickly, but that the trouble of her life had robbed her for the

time of that brightness of apparel, of that pride of feminine gear, of

that sheen of high-bred womanly bearing with which our wives and

daughters are so careful to invest themselves. She knew herself to be a

wretched woman, whose work in life was now to watch over a poor

prostrate wretch, and who had thrown behind her all ideas of grace and

beauty. It was not quickly that this condition had come upon her. She

had been unhappy at Nuncombe Putney; but unhappiness had not then told

upon the outward woman. She had been more wretched still at St.

Diddulph’s, and all the outward circumstances of life in her uncle’s

parsonage had been very wearisome to her; but she had striven against

it all, and the sheen and outward brightness had still been there.

After that her child had been taken from her, and the days which she

had passed in Manchester Street had been very grievous, but even yet she

had not given way. It was not till her child had been brought back to

her, and she had seen the life which her husband was living, and that

her anger—hot anger—had changed to pity, and that with pity love had

returned; it was not till this point had come in her sad life that her

dress became always black and sombre, that a veil habitually covered

her face, that a bonnet took the place of the jaunty hat that she had

worn, and that the prettinesses of her life were lain aside. ‘It is

very good of you to come,’ she said; ‘very good, I hardly knew what to

do, I was so wretched. On the day that I sent he was so bad that I was

obliged to do something.’ Stanbury, of course, inquired after

Trevelyan’s health, as they were being driven up to Mrs Trevelyan’s

lodgings. On the day on which she had sent the telegram her husband had

again been furiously angry with her. She had interfered, or had

endeavoured to interfere, in some arrangements as to his health and

comfort, and he had turned upon her with an order that the child should

be at once sent back to him, and that she should immediately quit

Siena. ‘When I said that Louey could not be sent—and who could send a

child into such keeping?—he told me that I was the basest liar that

ever broke a promise, and the vilest traitor that had ever returned

evil for good. I was never to come to him again, never; and the gate of

the house would be closed against me if I appeared there.’

On the next day she had gone again, however, and had seen him, and had

visited him on every day since. Nothing further had been said about the

child, and he had now become almost too weak for violent anger. ‘I told

him you were coming, and though he would not say so, I think he is glad

of it. He expects you tomorrow.’

‘I will go this evening, if he will let me.’

‘Not tonight. I think he goes to bed almost as the sun sets. I am

never there myself after four or five in the afternoon. I told him that

you should be there tomorrow alone. I have hired a little carriage, and

you can take it. He said specially that I was not to come with you.

Papa goes certainly on next Saturday?’ It was a Saturday now, this day

on which Stanbury had arrived at Siena.

‘He leaves town on Friday.’

‘You must make him believe that. Do not tell him suddenly, but bring it

in by degrees. He thinks that I am deceiving him. He would go back if

he knew that papa were gone.’

They spent a long evening together, and Stanbury learned all that Mrs

Trevelyan could tell him of her husband’s state. There was no doubt,

she said, that his reason was affected; but she thought the state of

his mind was diseased in