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

that when he was weakest in health, then were his ideas the most clear

and rational. He never now mentioned Colonel Osborne’s name, but would

refer to the affairs of the last two years as though they had been

governed by an inexorable Fate which had utterly destroyed his

happiness without any fault on his part. ‘You may be sure,’ she said,

‘that I never accuse him. Even when he says terrible things of me, which

he does, I never excuse myself. I do not think I should answer a word

if he called me the vilest thing on earth.’ Before they parted for the

night many questions were of course asked about Nora, and Hugh

described the condition in which he and she stood to each other. ‘Papa

has consented, then?’

‘Yes, at four o’clock in the morning, just as I was leaving them.’

‘And when is it to be?’

‘Nothing has been settled, and I do not as yet know where she will go

to when they leave London. I think she will visit Monkhams when the

Glascock people return to England.’

‘What an episode in life to go and see the place, when it might all now

have been hers!’

‘I suppose I ought to feel dreadfully ashamed of myself for having

marred such promotion,’ said Hugh.

‘Nora is such a singular girl, so firm, so headstrong, so good, and so

self-reliant, that she will do as well with a poor man as she would have

done with a rich. Shall I confess to you that I did wish that she

should accept Mr Glascock, and that I pressed it on her very strongly?

You will not be angry with me?’

‘I am only the more proud of her and of myself.’

‘When she was told of all that he had to give in the way of wealth and

rank, she took the bit between her teeth and would not be turned an

inch. Of course she was in love.’

‘I hope she may never regret it, that is all.’

‘She must change her nature first. Everything she sees at Monkhams will

make her stronger in her choice. With all her girlish ways, she is like

a rock; nothing can move her.’

Early on the next morning Hugh started alone for Casalunga, having

first, however, seen Mrs Trevelyan. He took out with him certain little

things for the sick man’s table as to which, however, he was cautioned

to say not a word to the sick man himself. And it was arranged that he

should endeavour to fix a day for Trevelyan’s return to England. That

was to be the one object in view. ‘If we could get him to England,’ she

said, ‘he and I would, at any rate, be together, and gradually he would

be taught to submit himself to advice.’ Before ten in the morning,

Stanbury was walking up the hill to the house, and wondering at the

dreary, hot, hopeless desolation of the spot. It seemed to him that no

one could live alone in such a place, in such weather, without being

driven to madness. The soil was parched and dusty, as though no drop of

rain had fallen there for months. The lizards, glancing in and out of

the broken walls, added to the appearance of heat. The vegetation

itself was of a faded yellowish green, as though the glare of the sun

had taken the fresh colour out of it. There was a noise of grasshoppers

and a hum of flies in the air, hardly audible, but all giving evidence

of the heat. Not a human voice was to be heard, nor the sound of a

human foot, and there was no shelter; but the sun blazed down full upon

everything. He took off his hat, and rubbed his head with his

handkerchief as he struck the door with his stick. Oh God, to what

misery had a little folly brought two human beings who had had every

blessing that the world could give within their reach!

In a few minutes he was conducted through the house, and found

Trevelyan seated in a chair under the verandah which looked down upon

the olive trees. He did not even get up from his seat, but put out his

left hand and welcomed his old friend. ‘Stanbury,’ he said, ‘I am glad

to see you for auld lang syne’s sake. When I found out this retreat, I

did not mean to have friends round me here. I wanted to try what

solitude was and, by heaven, I’ve tried it!’ He was dressed in a bright

Italian dressing-gown, or woollen paletot—Italian, as having been

bought in Italy, though, doubtless, it had come from France—and on his

feet he had green worked slippers, and on his head a brocaded cap. He

had made but little other preparation for his friend in the way of

dressing. His long dishevelled hair came down over his neck, and his

beard covered his face. Beneath his dressing-gown he had on a

night-shirt and drawers, and was as dirty in appearance as he was gaudy

in colours.‘sit down and let us two moralise,’ he said. ‘I spend my

life here doing nothing, nothing, nothing; while ‘you cudgel your brain

from day to day to mislead the British public. Which of us two is

taking the nearest road to the devil?’

Stanbury seated himself in a second armchair, which there was there in

the verandah, and looked as carefully as he dared to do at his friend.

There could be no mistake as to the restless gleam of that eye. And

then the affected air of ease, and the would-be cynicism, and the

pretence of false motives, all told the same story. ‘They used to tell

us,’ said Stanbury, ‘that idleness is the root of all evil.’

‘They have been telling us since the world began so many lies, that I

for one have determined never to believe anything again. Labour leads

to greed, and greed to selfishness, and selfishness to treachery, and

treachery straight to the devil, straight to the devil. Ha, my friend,

all your leading articles won’t lead you out of that. What’s the news?

Who’s alive? Who dead? Who in? Who out? What think you of a man who has

not seen a newspaper for two months; and who holds no conversation with

the world further than is needed for the cooking of his polenta and the

cooling of his modest wine-flask?’

‘You see your wife sometimes,’ said Stanbury.

‘My wife! Now, my friend, let us drop that subject. Of all topics of

talk it is the most distressing to man in general, and I own that I am

no exception to the lot. Wives, Stanbury, are an evil, more or less

necessary to humanity, and I own to being one who has not escaped. The

world must be populated, though for what reason one does not see. I

have helped to the extent of one male bantling; and if you are one who

consider population desirable, I will express my regret that I should

have done no more.’

It was very difficult to force Trevelyan out of this humour, and it was

not till Stanbury had risen apparently to take his leave that he found

it possible to say a word as to his mission there. ‘Don’t you think you

would be happier at home?’ he asked.

‘Where is my home, Sir Knight of the midnight pen?’

‘England is your home, Trevelyan.’

‘No, sir; England was my home once; but I have taken the liberty

accorded to me by my Creator of choosing a new country. Italy is now my

nation, and Casalunga is my home.’

‘Every tie you have in the world is in England.’

‘I have no tie, sir, no tie anywhere. It has been my study to untie all

the ties; and, by Jove, I have succeeded. Look at me here. I have got

rid of the trammels pretty well haven’t I? have unshackled myself, and

thrown off the paddings, and the wrappings, and the swaddling clothes.

I have got rid of the conventionalities, and can look Nature straight

in the face. I don’t even want the Daily Record, Stanbury think of

that!’

Stanbury paced the length of the terrace, and then stopped for a moment

down under the blaze of the sun, in order that he might think how to

address this philosopher. ‘Have you heard,’ he said at last, ‘that I am

going to marry your sister-in-law, Nora Rowley?’

‘Then there will be two more full-grown fools in the world certainly,

and probably an infinity of young fools coming afterwards. Excuse me,

Stanbury, but this solitude is apt to make one plain-spoken.’

‘I got Sir Marmaduke’s sanction the day before I left.’

‘Then you got the sanction of an illiterate, ignorant, self-sufficient,

and most contemptible old man; and much good may it do you.’

‘Let him be what he may, I was glad to have it. Most probably I shall

never see him again. He sails from Southampton for the Mandarins on

this day week.’

‘He does, does he? May the devil sail along with him! that is all I say.

And does my much respected and ever-to-be-beloved mother-in-law sail

with him?’

‘They all return together except Nora.’

‘Who remains to comfort you? I hope you may be comforted that is all.

Don’t be too particular. Let her choose her own friends, and go her own

gait, and have her own way, and do you be blind and deaf and dumb and

properly submissive; and it may be that she’ll give you your breakfast

and dinner in your own house so long as your hours don’t interfere with

her pleasures. If she should even urge you beside yourself by her

vanity, folly, and disobedience, so that at last you are driven to

express your feeling, no doubt she will come to you after a while and

tell you with the sweetest condescension that she forgives you. When

she has been out of your house for a twelvemonth or more, she will

offer to come back to you, and to forget everything on condition that

you will do exactly as she bids you for the future.’

This attempt at satire, so fatuous, so plain, so false, together with

the would-be jaunty manner of the speaker, who, however, failed

repeatedly in his utterances from sheer physical exhaustion, was

excessively painful to Stanbury. What can one do at any time with a

madman? ‘I mentioned my marriage,’ said he, ‘to prove my right to have

an additional interest in your wife’s happiness.’

‘You are quite welcome, whether you marry the other one or not, welcome

to take any interest you please. I have got beyond all that, Stanbury,

yes, by Jove, a long way beyond all that.’

‘You have not got beyond loving your wife, and your child, Trevelyan?’

‘Upon my word, yes I think I have. There may be a grain of weakness

left, you know. But what have you to do with my love for my wife?’

‘I was thinking more just now of her love for you. There she is at

Siena. You cannot mean that she should remain there?’

‘Certainly not. What the deuce is there to keep her there?’

‘Come with her then to England.’

‘Why should I go to England with her? Because you bid me, or because

she wishes it, or simply because England is the most damnable,

puritanical, God-forgotten, and stupid country on the face of the

globe? I know no other reason for going to England. Will you take a

glass of wine, Stanbury?’ Hugh declined