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

Here something would be done very soon; you may take my word for that.

If you will return with me and your wife, you shall choose your own

place of abode. Is not that so, Emily?’

‘He shall choose everything. His boy will be with him, and I will be

with him, and he shall be contradicted in nothing. If he only knew my

heart towards him!’

‘You hear what she says, Trevelyan?’

‘Yes; I hear her.’

‘And you believe her?’

‘I’m not so sure of that, Stanbury; how should you like to be locked up

in a madhouse and grin through the bars till your heart was broken. It

would not take long with me, I know.’

‘You shall never be locked up, never be touched,’ said his wife.

‘I am very harmless here,’ he said, almost crying; ‘very harmless. I do

not think anybody here will touch me,’ he added afterwards. ‘And there

are other places. There are other places. My God, that I should be

driven about the world like this!’ The conference was ended by his

saying that he would take two days to think of it, and by his then

desiring that they would both leave him. They did so, and descended the

hill together, knowing that he was watching them, that he would watch

them till they were out of sight from the gate for, as Mrs Trevelyan

said, he never came down the hill now, knowing that the labour of

ascending it was too much for him. When they were at the carriage they

were met by one of the women of the house, and strict injunctions were

given to her by Mrs Trevelyan to send on word to Siena if the Signore

should prepare to move. ‘He cannot go far without my knowing it,’ said

she, ‘because he draws his money in Siena, and lately I have taken to

him what he wants. He has not enough with him for a long journey.’ For

Stanbury had suggested that he might be off to seek another residence

in another country, and that they would find Casalunga vacant when they

reached it on the following Tuesday. But he told himself almost

immediately, not caring to express such an opinion to Emily, that

Trevelyan would hardly have strength even to prepare for such a journey

by himself.

On the intervening day, the Monday, Stanbury had no occupation

whatever, and he thought that since he was born no day had ever been so

long. Siena contains many monuments of interest, and much that is

valuable in art, having had a school of painting of its own, and still

retaining in its public gallery specimens of its school, of which as a

city it is justly proud. There are palaces there to be beaten for

gloomy majesty by none in Italy. There is a cathedral which was to have

been the largest in the world, and than which few are more worthy of

prolonged inspection. The town is old, and quaint, and picturesque, and

dirty, and attractive, as it becomes a town in Italy to be. But in July

all such charms are thrown away. In July Italy is not a land of charms

to an Englishman. Poor Stanbury did wander into the cathedral, and

finding it the coolest place in the town, went to sleep on a stone

step. He was awoke by the voice of the priests as they began to chant

the vespers. The good-natured Italians had let him sleep, and would

have let him sleep till the doors were closed for the night. At five he

dined with Mrs Trevelyan, and then endeavoured to while away the

evening thinking of Nora with a pipe in his mouth. He was standing in

this way at the hotel gateway, when, on a sudden, all Siena was made

alive by the clatter of an open carriage and four on its way through

the town to the railway. On looking up, Stanbury saw Lord Peterborough

in the carriage with a lady whom he did not doubt to be Lord

Peterborough’s wife. He himself had not been recognised, but he slowly

followed the carriage to the railway station. After the Italian

fashion, the arrival was three-quarters of an hour before the proper

time, and Stanbury had full opportunity of learning their news and

telling his own. They were coming up from Rome, and thought it

preferable to take the route by Siena than to use the railway through

the Maremma; and they intended to reach Florence that night.

‘And do you think he is really mad?’ asked Lady Peterborough.

‘He is undoubtedly so mad as to be unfit to manage anything for

himself, but he is not in such a condition that any one would wish to

see him put into confinement. If he were raving mad there would be less

difficulty, though there might be more distress.’

A great deal was said about Nora, and both Lord Peterborough and his

wife insisted that the marriage should take place at Monkhams. ‘We

shall be home now in less than three weeks,’ said Caroline, ‘and she

must come to us at once. But I will write to her from Florence, and

tell her how we saw you smoking your pipe under the archway. Not that

my husband knew you in the least.’

‘Upon my word no,’ said the husband, ‘one didn’t expect to find you

here. Goodbye. I hope you may succeed in getting him home. I went to

him once, but could do very little.’ Then the train started, and

Stanbury went back to Mrs Trevelyan.

On the next day Stanbury went out to Casalunga alone. He had

calculated, on leaving England, that if any good might be done at Siena

it could be done in three days, and that he would have been able to

start on his return on the Wednesday morning or on Wednesday evening at

the latest. But now there did not seem to be any chance of that, and he

hardly knew how to guess when he might get away. He had sent a telegram

to Lady Rowley after his first visit, in which he had simply said that

things were not at all changed at Casalunga, and he had written to Nora

each day since his arrival. His stay was prolonged at great expense and

inconvenience to himself; and yet it was impossible that he should go

and leave his work half finished. As he walked up the hill to the house

he felt very angry with Trevelyan, and prepared himself to use hard

words and dreadful threats. But at the very moment of his entrance on

the terrace, Trevelyan professed himself ready to go to England.

‘That’s right, old fellow,’ said Hugh. ‘I am so glad.’ But in

expressing his joy he had hardly noticed Trevelyan’s voice and

appearance.

‘I might as well go,’ he said. ‘It matters little where I am, or

whether they say that I am mad or sane.’

‘When we have you over there, nobody shall say a word that is

disagreeable.’

‘I only hope that you may not have the trouble of burying me on the

road. You don’t know, Stanbury, how ill I am. I cannot eat. If I were

at the bottom of that hill, I could no more walk up it than I could

fly. I cannot sleep, and at night my bed is wet through with

perspiration. I can remember nothing nothing but what I ought to

forget.’

‘We’ll put you on your legs again when we get you to your own climate.’

‘I shall be a poor traveller a poor traveller; but I will do my best.’

When would he start? That was the next question. Trevelyan asked for a

week, and Stanbury brought him down at last to three days. They would

go to Florence by the evening train on Friday, and sleep there. Emily

should come out and assist him to arrange his things on the morrow.

Having finished so much of his business, Stanbury returned to Siena.

They both feared that he might be found on the next day to have

departed from his intention; but no such idea seemed to have occurred

to him. He gave instructions as to the notice to be served on the agent

from the Hospital as to his house, and allowed Emily to go among his

things and make preparations for the journey. He did not say much to

her; and when she attempted, with a soft half-uttered word, to assure

him that the threat of Italian interference, which had come from

Stanbury, had not reached Stanbury from her, he simply shook his head

sadly. She could not understand whether he did not believe her, or

whether he simply wished that the subject should be dropped. She could

elicit no sign of affection from him, nor would he willingly accept

such from her, but he allowed her to prepare for the journey, and never

hinted that his purpose might again be liable to change. On the Friday,

Emily with her child, and Hugh with all their baggage, travelled out on

the road to Casalunga, thinking it better that there should be no halt

in the town on their return. At Casalunga, Hugh went up the hill with

the driver, leaving Mrs Trevelyan in the carriage. He had been out at

the house before in the morning, and had given all necessary orders, but

still at the last moment he thought that there might be failure. But

Trevelyan was ready, having dressed himself up with a laced shirt, and

changed his dressing-gown for a blue frockcoat, and his brocaded cap

for a Paris hat, very pointed before and behind, and closely turned up

at the sides. But Stanbury did not in the least care for his friend’s

dress. ‘Take my arm,’ he said, ‘and we will go down, fair and easy.

Emily would not come up because of the heat.’ He suffered himself to be

led, or almost carried down the hill; and three women, and the

coachman, and an old countryman who worked on the farm, followed with

the luggage. It took about an hour and a half to pack the things; but

at last they were all packed, and corded, and bound together with

sticks, as though it were intended that they should travel in that form

to Moscow. Trevelyan the meanwhile sat on a chair which had been

brought out for him from one of the cottages, and his wife stood beside

him with her boy. ‘Now then we are ready,’ said Stanbury. And in that

way they bade farewell to Casalunga. Trevelyan sat speechless in the

carriage, and would not even notice the child. He seemed to be half

dreaming and to fix his eyes on vacancy. ‘He appears to think of

nothing now,’ Emily said that evening to Stanbury. But who can tell how

busy and how troubled are the thoughts of a madman!

They had now succeeded in their object of inducing their patient to

return with them to England; but what were they to do with him when

they had reached home with him? They rested only a night at Florence;

but they found their fellow-traveller so weary, that they were unable

to get beyond Bologna on the second day. Many questions were asked of

him as to where he himself would wish to take up his residence in

England; but it was found almost impossible to get an answer. Once he

suggested that he would like to go back to Mrs Fuller’s cottage at

Willesden, from whence they concluded that he would wish to live

somewhere out of London. On his first day’s journey he was moody and

silent, wilfully assuming the airs of a much-injured person. He spoke

hardly at all, and would