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

together; ‘I want to speak to you.’ Priscilla, without answering,

folded up her work and put on her hat. ‘Come down to the green walk,’

said Nora. ‘I was savage to you last night, and I want to beg your

pardon.’

‘You were savage,’ said Priscilla, smiling, ‘and you shall have my

pardon. Who would not pardon you any offence, if you asked it?’

‘I am so miserable!’ she said.

‘But why?’

‘I don’t know. I can’t tell. And it is of no use talking about it now,

for it is all over. But I ought not to have been cross to you, and I am

very sorry.’

‘That does not signify a straw; only so far, that when I have been

cross, and have begged a person’s pardon, which I don’t do as often as I

ought, I always feel that it begets kindness. If I could help you in

your trouble I would.’

‘You can’t fetch him back again.’

‘You mean Mr Glascock. Shall I go and try?’

Nora smiled and shook her head. ‘I wonder what he would say if you

asked him. But if he came, I should do the same thing.’

‘I do not in the least know what you have done, my dear. I only see

that you mope about, and are more down in the mouth than any one ought

to be, unless some great trouble has come.’

‘A great trouble has come.’

‘I suppose you have had your choice either to accept your lover or to

reject him.’

‘No; I have not had my choice.’

‘It seems to me that no one has dictated to you; or, at least, that you

have obeyed no dictation.’

‘Of course, I can’t explain it to you. It is impossible that I should.’

‘If you mean that you regret what you have done because you have been

false to the man, I can sympathise with you. No one has ever a right to

be false, and if you are repenting a falsehood, I will willingly help

you to eat your ashes and to wear your sackcloth. But if you are

repenting a truth—’

‘I am.’

‘Then you must eat your ashes by yourself, for me; and I do not think

that you will ever be able to digest them.’

‘I do not want anybody to help me,’ said Nora proudly.

‘Nobody can help you, if I understand the matter rightly. You have got

to get the better of your own covetousness and evil desires, and you

are in the fair way to get the better of them if you have already

refused to be this man’s wife because you could not bring yourself to

commit the sin of marrying him when you did not love him. I suppose

that is about the truth of it; and indeed, indeed, I do sympathise with

you. If you have done that, though it is no more than the plainest

duty, I will love you for it. One finds so few people that will do any

duty that taxes their self-indulgence.’

‘But he did not ask me to marry him.’

‘Then I do not understand anything about it.’

‘He asked me to love him.’

‘But he meant you to be his wife?’

‘Oh yes he meant that of course.’

‘And what did you say?’ asked Priscilla.

‘That I didn’t love him,’ replied Nora.

‘And that was the truth?’

‘Yes it was the truth.’

‘And what do you regret? that you didn’t tell him a lie?’

‘No not that,’ said Nora slowly.

‘What then? You cannot regret that you have not basely deceived a man

who has treated you with a loving generosity?’ They walked on silent

for a few yards, and then Priscilla repeated her question. ‘You cannot

mean that you are sorry that you did not persuade yourself to do evil?’

‘I don’t want to go back to the islands, and to lose myself there, and

to be nobody; that is what I mean. And I might have been so much! Could

one step from the very highest rung of the ladder to the very lowest

and not feel it?’

‘But you have gone up the ladder if you only knew it,’ said Priscilla.

‘There was a choice given to you between the foulest mire of the clay

of the world, and the sunlight of the very God. You have chosen the

sunlight, and you are crying after the clay! I cannot pity you; but I

can esteem you, and love you, and believe in you. And I do. You’ll ‘get

yourself right at last, and there’s my hand on it, if you’ll take it.’

Nora took the hand that was offered to her, held it in her own for some

seconds, and then walked back to the house and up to her own room in

silence.

The post used to come into Nuncombe Putney at about eight in the

morning, carried thither by a wooden-legged man who rode a donkey.

There is a general understanding that the wooden-legged men in country

parishes should be employed as postmen, owing to the great steadiness

of demeanour which a wooden leg is generally found to produce. It may

be that such men are slower in their operations than would be biped

postmen; but as all private employers of labour demand labourers with

two legs, it is well that the lame and halt should find a refuge in the

less exacting service of the government. The one-legged man who rode

his donkey into Nuncombe Putney would reach his post-office not above

half an hour after his proper time; but he was very slow in stumping

round the village, and seldom reached the Clock House much before ten.

On a certain morning two or three days after the conversation just

recorded it was past ten when he brought two letters to the door, one

for Mrs Trevelyan, and one for Mrs Stanbury. The ladies had finished

their breakfast, and were seated together at an open window. As was

usual, the letters were given into Priscilla’s hands, and the newspaper

which accompanied them into those of Mrs Trevelyan, its undoubted

owner. When her letter was handed to her, she looked at the address

closely and then walked away with it into her own room.

‘I think it’s from Louis,’ said Nora, as soon as the door was closed.

‘If so, he is telling her to come back.’

‘Mamma, this is for you,’ said Priscilla. ‘It is from Aunt Stanbury. I

know her handwriting.’

‘From your aunt? What can she be writing about? There is something

wrong with Dorothy.’ Mrs Stanbury held the letter but did not open it.

‘You had better read it, my dear. If she is ill, pray let her come

home.’

But the letter spoke of nothing amiss as regarded Dorothy, and did not

indeed even mention Dorothy’s name. Luckily Priscilla read the letter

in silence, for it was an angry letter. ‘What is it, Priscilla? Why

don’t you tell me? Is anything wrong?’ said Mrs Stanbury.

‘Nothing is wrong, mamma except that my aunt is a silly woman.’

‘Goodness me! what is it?’

‘It is a family matter,’ said Nora smiling, ‘and I will go.

‘What can it be?’ demanded Mrs Stanbury again as soon as Nora had left

the room.

‘You shall hear what it can be. I will read it to you,’ said Priscilla.

‘It seems to me that of all the women that ever lived my Aunt Stanbury

is the most prejudiced, the most unjust, and the most given to evil

thinking of her neighbours. This is what she has thought fit to write

to you, mamma.’ Then Priscilla read her aunt’s letter, which was as

follows:

‘The Close, Exeter, July 31, 186-.

Dear Sister Stanbury,

I am informed that the lady who is living with you because she could

not continue to live under the same roof with her lawful husband, has

received a visit at your house from a gentleman who was named as her

lover before she left her own. I am given to understand that it was

because of this gentleman’s visits to her in London, and because she

would not give up seeing him, that her husband would not live with her

any longer.’

‘But the man has never been here at all,’ said Mrs Stanbury, in dismay.

‘Of course he has not been here. But let me go on.’

‘I have got nothing to do with your visitors,’ continued the letter,

‘and I should not interfere but for the credit of the family. There

ought to be somebody to explain to you that much of the abominable

disgrace of the whole proceeding will rest upon you, if you permit such

goings on in your house. I suppose it is your house. At any rate you

are regarded as the mistress of the establishment, and it is for you to

tell the lady that she must go elsewhere. I do hope that you have done

so, or at least that you will do so now. It is intolerable that the

widow of my brother a clergyman should harbour a lady who is separated

from her husband and who receives visits from a gentleman who is

reputed to be her lover. I wonder much that your eldest daughter should

countenance such a proceeding.

Yours truly,

JEMIMA STANBURY.’

Mrs Stanbury, when the letter had been read to her, held up both her

hands in despair. ‘Dear, dear,’ she exclaimed. ‘Oh, dear!’

‘She had such pleasure in writing it,’ said Priscilla, ‘that one ought

hardly to begrudge it her.’ The blackest spot in the character of

Priscilla Stanbury was her hatred for her aunt in Exeter. She knew that

her aunt had high qualities, and yet she hated her aunt. She was well

aware that her aunt was regarded as a shining light by very many good

people in the county, and yet she hated her aunt. She could not but

acknowledge that her aunt had been generous to her brother, and was now

very generous to her sister, and yet she hated her aunt. It was now a

triumph to her that her aunt had fallen into so terrible a quagmire,

and she was by no means disposed to let the sinning old woman easily

out of it.

‘It is as pretty a specimen,’ she said, ‘as I ever knew of malice and

eaves-dropping combined.’

‘Don’t use such hard words, my dear.’

‘Look at her words to us,’ said Priscilla. ‘What business has she to

talk to you about the credit of the family and abominable disgrace? You

have held your head up in poverty, while she has been rolling in

money.’

‘She has been very good to Hugh and now to Dorothy.’

‘If I were Dorothy I would have none of her goodness. She likes some

one to trample on some one of the name to patronise. She shan’t trample

on you and me, mamma.’

Then there was a discussion as to what should be done; or rather a

discourse in which Priscilla explained what she thought fit to do.

Nothing, she decided, should be said to Mrs Trevelyan on the subject;

but an answer should be sent to Aunt Stanbury. Priscilla herself would

write this answer, and herself would sign it. There was some difference

of opinion on this point, as Mrs Stanbury thought that if she might be

allowed to put her name to it, even though Priscilla should write it,

the wording of it would be made, in