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

‘To Niddon Park again?’

‘Yes; it is so beautiful! And I should like to see it by the morning

light. There is plenty of time.’

So they walked to Niddon Park in the morning, as they had done on the

preceding evening. Their conversation at first regarded Trevelyan and

his wife, and the old trouble; but Nora could not keep herself from

speaking of Hugh Stanbury.

‘He would not have come,’ she said, ‘unless Louis had sent him.’

‘He would not have come now, I think.’

‘Of course not; why should he before Parliament was hardly over, too?

But he won’t remain in town now, will he?’

‘He says somebody must remain and I think he will be in London till

near Christmas.’

‘How disagreeable! But I suppose he doesn’t care. It’s all the same to

a man like him. They don’t shut the clubs up, I dare say. Will he come

here at Christmas?’

‘Either then or for the New Year—just for a day or two.’

‘We shall be gone then, I suppose?’ said Nora.

‘That must depend on Mr Trevelyan,’ said Priscilla.

‘What a life for two women to lead to depend upon the caprice of a man

who must be mad! Do you think that Mr Trevelyan will care for what your

brother says to him?’

‘I do not know Mr Trevelyan’.

‘He is very fond of your brother, and I suppose men friends do listen

to each other. They never seem to listen to women. Don’t you think

that, after all, they despise women? They look on them as dainty,

foolish things.’

‘Sometimes women despise men,’ said Priscilla.

‘Not very often do they? And then women are so dependent on men. A

woman can get nothing without a man.’

‘I manage to get on somehow,’ said Priscilla.

‘No, you don’t, Miss Stanbury, if you think of it. You want mutton. And

who kills the sheep?’

‘But who cooks it?’

‘But the men-cooks are the best,’ said Nora; ‘and the men-tailors, and

the men to wait at table, and the men poets, and the men-painters, and

the men-nurses. All the things that women do, men do better.’

‘There are two things they can’t do,’ said Priscilla.

‘What are they?’

‘They can’t suckle babies, and they can’t forget themselves.’

‘About the babies, of course not. As for forgetting themselves I am not

quite so sure that I can forget myself. That is just where your brother

went down last night.’

They had at this moment reached the top of the steep slope below which

the river ran brawling among the rocks, and Nora seated herself exactly

where she had sat on the previous evening.

‘I have been down scores of times,’ said Priscilla.

‘Let us go now.’

‘You wouldn’t go when Hugh asked you yesterday.’

‘I didn’t care then. But do come now if you don’t mind the climb.’ Then

they went down the slope and reached the spot from whence Hugh Stanbury

had jumped from rock to rock across the stream. ‘You have never been

out there, have you?’ said Nora.

‘On the rocks? Oh, dear, no! I should be sure to fall.’

‘But he went; just like a goat.’

‘That’s one of the things that men can do, I suppose,’ said Priscilla.

‘But I don’t see any great glory in being like a goat.’

‘I do. I should like to be able to go, and I think I’ll try. It is so

mean to be dainty and weak.’

‘I don’t think it at all dainty to keep dry feet.’

‘But he didn’t get his feet wet,’ said Nora. ‘Or if he did, he didn’t

mind. I can see at once that I should be giddy and tumble down if I

tried it.’

‘Of course you would.’

‘But he didn’t tumble down.’

‘He has been doing it all his life,’ said Priscilla.

‘He can’t do it up in London. When I think of myself, Miss Stanbury, I

am so ashamed. There is nothing that I can do. I couldn’t write an

article for a newspaper.’

‘I think I could. But I fear no one would read it.’

‘They read his,’ said Nora, ‘or else he wouldn’t be paid for writing

them.’ Then they climbed back again up the hill, and during the

climbing there were no words spoken. The slope was not much of a hill,

was no more than the fall from the low ground of the valley to the

course which the river had cut for itself; but it was steep while it

lasted; and both the young women were forced to pause for a minute

before they could proceed upon their journey. As they walked home

Priscilla spoke of the scenery, and of the country, and of the nature

of the life which she and her mother and sister had passed at Nuncombe

Putney. Nora said but little till they were just entering the village,

and then she went back to the subject of her thoughts. ‘I would

sooner,’ said she, ‘write for a newspaper than do anything else in the

world.’

‘Why so?’

‘Because it is so noble to teach people everything! And then a man who

writes for a newspaper must know so many things himself! I believe

there are women who do it, but very few. One or two have done it, I

know.’

‘Go and tell that to Aunt Stanbury, and hear what she will say about

such women.’

‘I suppose she is very prejudiced.’

‘Yes; she is; but she is a clever woman. I am inclined to think women

had better not write for newspapers.’

‘And why not?’ Nora asked.

‘My reasons would take me a week to explain, and I doubt whether I have

them very clear in my own head. In the first place there is that

difficulty about the babies. Most of them must get married, you know.’

‘But not all,’ said Nora.

‘No; thank God; not all.’

‘And if you are not married you might write for a newspaper. At any

rate, if I were you, I should be very proud of my brother.’

‘Aunt Stanbury is not at all proud of her nephew,’ said Priscilla, as

they entered the house.