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

horse had been left to be fed in Princetown, and they had walked back

to a bush under which they had rashly left their basket of provender

concealed. It happened, however, that on that day there was no escaped

felon about to watch what they had done, and the food and the drink had

been found secure. Nora had gone off, and as her sister and Priscilla

sat leaning against their hillocks with their backs to the road, she

could be seen standing now on one little eminence and now on another,

thinking, doubtless, as she stood on the one how good it would be to be

Lady Peterborough, and, as she stood on the other, how much better to

be Mrs Hugh Stanbury. Only before she could be Mrs Hugh Stanbury it

would be necessary that Mr Hugh Stanbury should share her opinion and

necessary also that he should be able to maintain a wife. ‘I should

never do to be a very poor man’s wife,’ she said to herself; and

remembered as she said it, that in reference to the prospect of her

being Lady Peterborough, the man who was to be Lord Peterborough was at

any rate ready to make her his wife, and on that side there were none

of those difficulties about house, and money, and position which stood

in the way of the Hugh-Stanbury side of the question. She was not, she

thought, fit to be the wife of a very poor man; but she conceived of

herself that she would do very well as a future Lady Peterborough in

the drawing-rooms of Monkhams. She was so far vain as to fancy that she

could look, and speak, and move, and have her being after the fashion

which is approved for the Lady Peterboroughs of the world. It was not

clear to her that Nature had not expressly intended her to be a Lady

Peterborough; whereas, as far as she could see, Nature had not intended

her to be a Mrs Hugh Stanbury, with a precarious income of perhaps ten

guineas a week when journalism was doing well. So she moved on to

another little eminence to think of it there. It was clear to her that

if she should accept Mr Glascock she would sell herself, and not give

herself away; and she had told herself scores of times before this,

that a young woman should give herself away, and not sell herself—

should either give herself away, or keep herself to herself, as

circumstances might go. She had been quite sure that she would never

sell herself. But this was a lesson which she had taught herself when

she was very young, before she had come to understand the world and its

hard necessities. Nothing, she now told herself, could be worse than to

hang like a millstone round the neck of a poor man. It might be a very

good thing to give herself away for love but it would not be a good

thing to be the means of ruining the man she loved, even if that man

were willing to be so ruined. And then she thought that she could also

love that other man a little—could love him sufficiently for

comfortable domestic purposes. And it would undoubtedly be very

pleasant to have all the troubles of her life settled for her. If she

were Mrs Glascock, known to the world as the future Lady Peterborough,

would it not be within her power to bring her sister and her sister’s

husband again together? The tribute of the Monkhams authority and

influence to her sister’s side of the question would be most salutary.

She tried to make herself believe that in this way she would be doing a

good deed. Upon the whole, she thought that if Mr Glascock should give

her another chance she would accept him. And he had distinctly promised

that he would give her another chance. It might be that this

unfortunate quarrel in the Trevelyan family would deter him. People do

not wish to ally themselves with family quarrels. But if the chance

came in her way she would accept it. She had made up her mind to that,

when she turned round from off the last knoll on which she had stood,

to return to her sister and Priscilla Stanbury.

They two had sat still under the shade of a thorn bush, looking at Nora

as she was wandering about, and talking together more freely than they

had ever done before on the circumstances that had brought them

together. ‘How pretty she looks,’ Priscilla had said, as Nora was

standing with her figure clearly marked by the light.

‘Yes; she is very pretty, and has been much admired. This terrible

affair of mine is a cruel blow to her.’

‘You mean that it is bad for her to come and live here without

society.’

‘Not exactly that though of course it would be better for her to go

out. And I don’t know how a girl is ever to get settled in the world

unless she goes out. But it is always an injury to be connected in any

way with a woman who is separated from her husband. It must be bad for

you.’

‘It won’t hurt me,’ said Priscilla. ‘Nothing of that kind can hurt me.’

‘I mean that people say such ill-natured things.’

‘I stand alone, and can take care of myself,’ said Priscilla. ‘I defy

the evil tongues of all the world to hurt me. My personal cares are

limited to an old gown and bread and cheese. I like a pair of gloves to

go to church with, but that is only the remnant of a prejudice. The

world has so very little to give me, that I am pretty nearly sure that

it will take nothing away.’

‘And you are contented?’

‘Well, no; I can’t say that I am contented. I hardly think that anybody

ought to be contented. Should my mother die and Dorothy remain with my

aunt, or get married, I should be utterly alone in the world.

Providence, or whatever you call it, has made me a lady after a

fashion, so that I can’t live with the ploughmen’s wives, and at the

same time has so used me in other respects, that I can’t live with

anybody else.’

‘Why should not you get married, as well as Dorothy?’

‘Who would have me? And if I had a husband I should want a good one, a

man with a head on his shoulders, and a heart. Even if I were young and

good-looking, or rich, I doubt whether I could please myself. As it is,

I am as likely to be taken bodily to heaven, as to become any man’s

wife.’

‘I suppose most women think so of themselves at some time, and yet they

are married.’

‘I am not fit to marry. I am often cross, and I like my own way, and I

have a distaste for men. I never in my life saw a man whom I wished

even to make my intimate friend. I should think any man an idiot who to

make soft speeches to me, and I should tell him so.’

‘Ah; you might find it different when he went on with it.’

‘But I think,’ said Priscilla, ‘that when a woman is married there is

nothing to which she should not submit on behalf of her husband.’

‘You mean that for me.’

‘Of course I mean it for you. How should I not be thinking of you,

living as you are under the same roof with us? And I am thinking of

Louey.’ Louey was the baby. ‘What are you to do when after a year or

two his father shall send for him to have him under his own care?’

‘Nothing shall separate me from my child,’ said Mrs Trevelyan eagerly.

‘That is easily said; but I suppose the power of doing as he pleased

would be with him.’

‘Why should it be with him? I do not at all know that it would be with

him. I have not left his house. It is he that has turned me out.’

‘There can, I think, be very little doubt what you should do,’ said

Priscilla, after a pause, during which she had got up from her seat

under the thorn bush.

‘What should I do?’ asked Mrs Trevelyan.

‘Go back to him.’

‘I will tomorrow if he will write and ask me. Nay; how could I help

myself? I am his creature, and must go or come as he bids me. I am here

only because he has sent me.’

‘You should write and ask him to take you.’

‘Ask him to forgive me because he has ill-treated me?’

‘Never mind about that,’ said Priscilla, standing over her companion,

who was still lying under the bush. ‘All that is twopenny-halfpenny

pride, which should be thrown to the winds. The more right you have

been hitherto the better you can afford to go on being right. What is

it that we all live upon but self-esteem? When we want praise it is

only because praise enables us to think well of ourselves. Every one to

himself is the centre and pivot of all the world.’

‘It’s a very poor world that goes round upon my pivot,’ said Mrs

Trevelyan.

‘I don’t know how this quarrel came up,’ exclaimed Priscilla, ‘and I

don’t care to know. But it seems a trumpery quarrel as to who should

beg each other’s pardon first, and all that kind of thing. Sheer and

simple nonsense! Ask him to let it all be forgotten. I suppose he loves

you?’

‘How can I know? He did once.’

‘And you love him?’

‘Yes. I love him certainly.’

‘I don’t see how you can have a doubt. Here is Jack with the carriage,

and if we don’t mind he’ll pass us by without seeing us.’

Then Mrs Trevelyan got up, and when they had succeeded in diverting

Jack’s attention for a moment from the horse, they called to Nora, who

was still moving about from one knoll to another, and who showed no

desire to abandon the contemplations in which she had been engaged.

It had been mid-day before they left home in the morning, and they were

due to be at home in time for tea, which is an epoch in the day

generally allowed to be more elastic than some others. When Mrs

Stanbury lived in the cottage her hour for tea had been six; this had

been stretched to half-past seven when she received Mrs Trevelyan at

the Clock House; and it was half-past eight before Jack landed them at

their door. It was manifest to them all as they entered the house that

there was an air of mystery in the face of the girl who had opened the

door for them. She did not speak, however, till they were all within

the passage. Then she uttered a few words very solemnly. ‘There be a

gentleman come,’ she said.

‘A gentleman!’ said Mrs Trevelyan, thinking in the first moment of her

husband, and in the second of Colonel Osborne.

‘He be for you, miss,’ said the girl, bobbing her head at Nora.

Upon hearing this Nora sank speechless into the chair which stood in

the passage.