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

Trevelyan would by no means assent without some assurance, which he

might regard as a guarantee, prescribing retirement to a small town in

the west of France, if Naples would not suffice; but she could effect

nothing.

Mrs Trevelyan, indeed, did a thing which was sure of itself to render

any steps taken for a reconciliation ineffectual. In the midst of all

this turmoil while she and her husband were still living in the same

house, but apart because of their absurd quarrel respecting Colonel

Osborne, she wrote another letter to that gentleman. The argument by

which she justified this to herself, and to her sister after it was

done, was the real propriety of her own conduct throughout her whole

intimacy with Colonel Osborne. ‘But that is just what Louis doesn’t

want you to do,’ Nora had said, filled with anger and dismay. ‘Then let

Louis give me an order to that effect, and behave to me like a husband,

and I will obey him,’ Emily had answered. And she had gone on to plead

that in her present condition she was under no orders from her husband.

She was left to judge for herself, and judging for herself she knew, as

she said, that it best that she should write to Colonel Osborne.

Unfortunately there was no ground for hoping that Colonel Osborne was

ignorant of this insane jealousy on the part of her husband. It was

better, therefore, she said, that she should write to him whom on the

occasion she took care to name to her sister as ‘papa’s old friend’ and

explain to him what she would wish him to do, and what not to do.

Colonel Osborne answered the letter very quickly, throwing much more of

demonstrative affection than he should have done into his ‘Dear Emily’

and his ‘Dearest Friend.’ Of course Mrs Trevelyan had burned this

answer, and of course Mr Trevelyan had been told of the correspondence.

His wife, indeed, had been especially careful that there should be

nothing secret about the matter that it should be so known in the house

that Mr Trevelyan should be sure to hear of it. And he had heard of it,

and been driven almost mad by it. He had flown off to Lady Milborough,

and had reduced his old friend to despair by declaring that, after all,

he began to fear that his wife was was was infatuated by that d

scoundrel. Lady Milborough forgave the language, but protested that he

was wrong in his suspicion. ‘To continue to correspond with him after

what I have said to her!’ exclaimed Trevelyan. ‘Take her to Naples at

once,’ said Lady Milborough, ‘at once!’ ‘And have him after me?’ said

Trevelyan. Lady Milborough had no answer ready, and not having thought

of this looked very blank. ‘I should find it harder to deal with her

there even than here,’ continued Trevelyan. Then it was that Lady

Milborough spoke of the small town in the west of France, urging as her

reason that such a man as Colonel Osborne would certainly not follow

them there; but Trevelyan had become indignant at this, declaring that

if his wife’s good name could be preserved in no other manner than

that, it would not be worth preserving at all. Then Lady Milborough had

begun to cry, and had continued crying for a very long time. She was

very unhappy as unhappy as her nature would allow her to be. She would

have made almost any sacrifice to bring the two young people together,

would have willingly given her time, her money, her labour in the cause,

would probably herself have gone to the little town in the west of

France, had her going been of any service. But, nevertheless, after her

own fashion, she extracted no small enjoyment out of the circumstances

of this miserable quarrel. The Lady Milboroughs of the day hate the

Colonel Osbornes from the very bottoms of their warm hearts and pure

souls; but they respect the Colonel Osbornes almost as much as they

hate them, and find it to be an inestimable privilege to be brought

into some contact with these roaring lions.

But there arose to dear Lady Milborough a great trouble out of this

quarrel, irrespective of the absolute horror of the separation of a

young husband from his young wife. And the excess of her trouble on

this head was great proof of the real goodness of her heart. For, in

this matter, the welfare of Trevelyan himself was not concerned but

rather that of the Rowley family. Now the Rowleys had not given Lady

Milborough any special reason for loving them. When she had first heard

that her dear young friend Louis was going to marry a girl from the

Mandarins, she had been almost in despair. It was her opinion that had

he properly understood his own position, he would have promoted his

welfare by falling in love with the daughter of some English country

gentleman or some English peer, to which honour, with his advantages,

Lady Milborough thought that he might have aspired. Nevertheless, when

the girl from the Mandarins had been brought home as Mrs Trevelyan,

Lady Milborough had received her with open arms—had received even the

sister-in-law with arms partly open. Had either of them shown any

tendency to regard her as a mother, she would have showered motherly

cares upon them. For Lady Milborough was like an old hen, in her

capacity for taking many under her wings. The two sisters had hardly

done more than bear with her, Nora, indeed, bearing with her more

graciously than Mrs Trevelyan; and in return, even for this, the old

dowager was full of motherly regard. Now she knew well that Mr Glascock

was over head and ears in love with Nora Rowley. It only wanted the

slightest management and the easiest discretion to bring him on his

knees, with an offer of his hand. And, then, how much that hand

contained, how much, indeed, as compared with that other hand, which was

to be given in return, and which was to speak the truth completely

empty! Mr Glascock was the heir to a peer, was the heir to a rich peer,

was the heir to a very, very old peer. He was in Parliament. The world

spoke well of him. He was not, so to say, by any means an old man

himself. He was good-tempered, reasonable, easily led, and yet by no

means despicable. On all subjects connected with land, he held an

opinion that was very much respected, and was supposed to be a

thoroughly good specimen of an upper-class Englishman. Here was a

suitor! But it was not to be supposed that such a man as Mr Glascock

would be so violently in love as to propose to a girl whose nearest

known friend and female relation was misbehaving herself?

Only they who have closely watched the natural uneasinesses of human

hens can understand how great was Lady Milborough’s anxiety on this

occasion. Marriage to her was a thing always delightful to contemplate.

Though she had never been sordidly a matchmaker, the course of the

world around her had taught her to regard men as fish to be caught, and

girls as the anglers who ought to catch them. Or, rather, could her

mind have been accurately analysed, it would have been found that the

girl was regarded as half-angler and half-bait. Any girl that angled

visibly with her own hook, with a manifestly expressed desire to catch

a fish, was odious to her. And she was very gentle-hearted in regard to

the fishes, thinking that every fish in the river should have the hook

and bait presented to him in the mildest, pleasantest form. But still,

when the trout was well in the basket, her joy was great; and then came

across her unlaborious mind some half-formed idea that a great

ordinance of nature was being accomplished in the teeth of

difficulties. For as she well knew there is a difficulty in the

catching of fish.

Lady Milborough, in her kind anxiety on Nora’s behalf that the fish

should be landed before Nora might be swept away in her sister’s ruin

hardly knew what step she might safely take. Mrs Trevelyan would not

see her again having already declared that any further interview would

be painful and useless. She had spoken to Trevelyan, but Trevelyan had

declared that he could do nothing. What was there that he could have

done? He could not, as he said, overlook the gross improprieties of his

wife’s conduct, because his wife’s sister had, or might possibly have,

a lover. And then as to speaking to Mr Glascock himself nobody knew

better than Lady Milborough how very apt fish are to be frightened.

But at last Lady Milborough did speak to Mr Glascock making no allusion

whatever to the hook prepared for himself, but saying a word or two as

to the affairs of that other fish, whose circumstances, as he

floundered about in the bucket of matrimony, were not as happy as they

might have been. The care, the discretion, nay, the wisdom with which

she did this were most excellent. She had become aware that Mr Glascock

had already heard of the unfortunate affair in Curzon Street. Indeed,

every one who knew the Trevelyans had heard of it, and a great many who

did not know them. No harm, therefore, could be done by mentioning the

circumstance. Lady Milborough did mention it, explaining that the only

person really in fault was that odious destroyer of the peace of

families, Colonel Osborne, of whom Lady Milborough, on that occasion,

said some very severe things indeed. Poor dear Mrs Trevelyan was

foolish, obstinate, and self-reliant but as innocent as the babe

unborn. That things would come right before long no one who knew the

affair—and she knew it from beginning to end—could for a moment doubt.

The real victim would be that sweetest of all girls, Nora Rowley. Mr

Glascock innocently asked why Nora Rowley should be a victim. ‘Don’t

you understand, Mr Glascock, how the most remote connection with a

thing of that kind tarnishes a young woman’s standing in the world?’ Mr

Glascock was almost angry with the well-pleased Countess as he declared

that he could not see that Miss Rowley’s standing was at all tarnished;

and old Lady Milborough, when he got up and left her, felt that she had

done a good morning’s work. If Nora could have known it all, Nora ought

to have been very grateful, for Mr Glascock got into a cab in Eccleston

Square and had himself driven direct to Curzon Street. He himself

believed that he was at that moment only doing the thing which he had

for some time past resolved that he would do; but we perhaps may be

justified in thinking that the actual resolution was first fixed by the

discretion of Lady Milborough’s communication. At any rate he arrived

in Curzon Street with his mind fully resolved, and had spent the

minutes in the cab considering how he had better perform the business

in hand.

He was at once shown into the drawing-room, where he found the two

sisters, and Mrs Trevelyan, as soon as she saw him, understood the

purpose of his coming. There was an air of determination about him, a

manifest intention of doing something, an absence of that vagueness

which almost always flavours a morning visit. This was so strongly

marked that Mrs Trevelyan felt that she would have been almost

justified in getting up and declaring that, as this visit was paid to

her sister, she would retire. But, any such declaration on her part was

unnecessary, as Mr Glascock had not been in the room three minutes

before he asked her to go. By some clever