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

HARD WORDS

It is to be feared that men in general do not regret as they should do

any temporary ill-feeling, or irritating jealousy between husbands and

wives, of which they themselves have been the cause. The author is not

speaking now of actual lovemakings, of intrigues and devilish villany,

either perpetrated or imagined; but rather of those passing gusts of

short-lived and unfounded suspicion to which, as to other accidents,

very well-regulated families may occasionally be liable. When such

suspicion rises in the bosom of a wife, some woman intervening or being

believed to intervene between her and the man who is her own, that

woman who has intervened or been supposed to intervene, will either

glory in her position or bewail it bitterly, according to the

circumstances of the case. We will charitably suppose that, in a great

majority of such instances, she will bewail it. But when such painful

jealous doubts annoy the husband, the man who is in the way will almost

always feel himself justified in extracting a slightly pleasurable

sensation from the transaction. He will say to himself probably,

unconsciously indeed, and with no formed words, that the husband is an

ass, an ass if he be in a twitter either for that which he has kept or

for that which he has been unable to keep, that the lady has shewn a

good deal of appreciation, and that he himself is is is quite a Captain

Bold of Halifax! All the while he will not have the slightest intention

of wronging the husband’s honour, and will have received no greater

favour from the intimacy accorded to him than the privilege of running

on one day to Marshall and Snellgrove’s, the haberdashers, and on

another to Handcocks’, the jewellers. If he be allowed to buy a present

or two, or to pay a few shillings here or there, he has achieved much.

Terrible things now and again do occur, even here in England; but

women, with us, are slow to burn their household gods. It happens,

however, occasionally, as we are all aware, that the outward garments

of a domestic deity will be a little scorched; and when this occurs,

the man who is the interloper will generally find a gentle consolation

in his position, let its interest be ever so flaccid and unreal, and

its troubles in running about, and the like, ever so considerable and

time-destructive.

It was so certainly with Colonel Osborne when he became aware that his

intimacy with Mrs Trevelyan had caused her husband uneasiness. He was

not especially a vicious man, and had now, as we know, reached a time

of life when such vice as that in question might be supposed to have

lost its charm for him. A gentleman over fifty, popular in London, with

a seat in Parliament, fond of good dinners, and possessed of everything

which the world has to give, could hardly have wished to run away with

his neighbour’s wife, or to have destroyed the happiness of his old

friend’s daughter. Such wickedness had never come into his head; but he

had a certain pleasure in being the confidential friend of a very

pretty woman; and when he heard that that pretty woman’s husband was

jealous, the pleasure was enhanced rather than otherwise. On that

Sunday, as he had left the house in Curzon Street, he had told Stanbury

that Trevelyan had just gone off in a huff, which was true enough, and

he had walked from thence down Clarges Street, and across Piccadilly to

St. James’s Street, with a jauntier step than usual, because he was

aware that he himself had been the occasion of that trouble. This was

very wrong; but there is reason to believe that many such men as

Colonel Osborne, who are bachelors at fifty, are equally malicious.

He thought a good deal about it on that evening, and was still thinking

about it on the following morning. He had promised to go up to Curzon

Street on the Monday really on some most trivial mission, on a matter

of business which no man could have taken in hand whose time was of the

slightest value to himself or any one else. But now that mission

assumed an importance in his eyes, and seemed to require either a

special observance or a special excuse. There was no real reason why he

should not have stayed away from Curzon Street for the next fortnight;

and had he done so he need have made no excuse to Mrs Trevelyan when he

met her. But the opportunity for a little excitement was not to be

missed, and instead of going he wrote to her the following note:

‘Albany, Monday.

Dear Emily,

What was it all about yesterday? I was to have come up with the words

of that opera, but perhaps it will be better to send it. If it be not

wicked, do tell me whether I am to consider myself as a banished man. I

thought that our little meetings were so innocent and so pleasant! The

green-eyed monster is of all monsters the most monstrous and the most

unreasonable. Pray let me have a line, if it be not forbidden.

Yours always heartily,

F. O.

‘Putting aside all joking, I beg you to remember that I consider myself

always entitled to be regarded by you as your most sincere friend.’

When this was brought to Mrs Trevelyan, about twelve o’clock in the

day, she had already undergone the infliction of those words of wisdom

which her husband had prepared for her, and which were threatened at

the close of the last chapter. Her husband had come up to her while she

was yet in her bedroom, and had striven hard to prevail against her.

But his success had been very doubtful. In regard to the number of

words, Mrs Trevelyan certainly had had the best of it. As far as any

understanding one of another was concerned, the conversation had been

useless. She believed herself to be injured and aggrieved, and would

continue so to assert, let him implore her to listen to him as loudly

as he might. ‘Yes I will listen, and I will obey you,’ she had said,

‘but I will not endure such insults without telling you that I feel

them.’ Then he had left her fully conscious that he had failed, and

went forth out of his house into the City, to his club, to wander about

the streets, not knowing what he had best do to bring back that state

of tranquillity at home which he felt to be so desirable.

Mrs Trevelyan was alone when Colonel Osborne’s note was brought to her,

and was at that moment struggling with herself in anger against her

husband.