He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope (books you need to read .txt) 📕
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them to do so. They all felt the intolerable injustice, as it appeared
to them, of their subjection to the caprice of an unreasonable and
ill-conditioned man; but to all of them it seemed plain enough that in
this matter the husband must exercise his own will at any rate, till
Sir Marmaduke should be in England. There were many difficulties
throughout the day. Mrs Trevelyan would not go down to dinner, sending
word that she was ill, and that she would, if she were allowed, have
some tea in her own room. And Nora said that she would remain with her
sister. Priscilla went to them more than once; and late in the evening
they all met in the parlour. But any conversation seemed to he
impossible; and Mrs Trevelyan, as she went up to her room at night,
again declared that she would rid the house of her presence as soon as
possible.
One thing, however, was done on that melancholy day. Mrs Trevelyan
wrote to her husband, and enclosed Colonel Osborne’s letter to herself,
and a copy of her reply. The reader will hardly require to be told that
no such further letter had been written by her as that of which Bozzle
had given information to her husband. Men whose business it is to
detect hidden and secret things, are very apt to detect things which
have never been done. What excuse can a detective make even to himself
for his own existence if he can detect nothing? Mr Bozzle was an
active-minded man, who gloried in detecting, and who, in the special
spirit of his trade, had taught himself to believe that all around him
were things secret and hidden, which would be within his power of
unravelling if only the slightest clue were put in his hand. He lived
by the crookednesses of people, and therefore was convinced that
straight doings in the world were quite exceptional. Things dark and
dishonest, fights fought and races run that they might be lost, plants
and crosses, women false to their husbands, sons false to their
fathers, daughters to their mothers, servants to their masters, affairs
always secret, dark, foul, and fraudulent, were to him the normal
condition of life. It was to be presumed that Mrs Trevelyan should
continue to correspond with her lover, that old Mrs Stanbury should
betray her trust by conniving at the lover’s visit, that everybody
concerned should be steeped to the hips in lies and iniquity. When,
therefore, he found at Colonel Osborne’s rooms that the Colonel had
received a letter with the Lessboro’ post-mark, addressed in the
handwriting of a woman, he did not scruple to declare that Colonel
Osborne had received, on that morning, a letter from Mr Trevelyan’s
‘lady.’ But in sending to her husband what she called with so much
bitterness, ‘the correspondence,’ Mrs Trevelyan had to enclose simply
the copy of one sheet note from herself.
But she now wrote again to Colonel Osborne, and enclosed to her
husband, not a copy of what she had written, but the note itself. It
was as follows:
‘Nuncombe Putney, Wednesday, August 10.
‘My dear Colonel Osborne,
‘My husband has desired me not to see you, or to write to you, or to
hear from you again. I must therefore beg you to enable me to obey him
at any rate, till papa comes to England.
Yours truly,
Emily Trevelyan.
And then she wrote to her husband, and in the writing of this letter
there was much doubt, much labour, and many changes. We will give it as
it was written when completed:
‘I have received your letter, and will obey your commands to the best
of my power. In order that you may not be displeased by any further
unavoidable correspondence between me and Colonel Osborne, I have
written to him a note, which I now send to you. I send it that you may
forward it. If you do not choose to do so, I cannot be answerable
either for his seeing me, or for his writing to me again.
I send also copies of all the correspondence I have had with Colonel
Osborne since you turned me out of your house. When he came to call on
me, Nora remained with me while he was here. I blush while I write this
not for myself, but that I should be so suspected as to make such a
statement necessary.
You say that I have disgraced you and myself. I have done neither. I am
disgraced but it is you that have disgraced me. I have never spoken a
word or done a thing, as regards you, of which I have cause to be
ashamed.
I have told Mrs Stanbury that I and Nora will leave her house as soon
as we can be made to know where we are to go. I beg that this may be
decided instantly, as else we must walk out into the street without a
shelter. After what has been said, I cannot remain here.
My sister bids me say that she will relieve you of all burden
respecting herself as soon as possible. She will probably be able to
find a home with my aunt, Mrs Outhouse, till papa comes to England. As
for myself, I can only say that till he comes, I shall do exactly what
you order.
Emily Trevelyan.
Nuncombe Putney, August 10.
MR AND MRS OUTHOUSE
Both Mr Outhouse and his wife were especially timid in taking upon
themselves the cares of other people. Not on that account is it to be
supposed that they were bad or selfish. They were both given much to
charity, and bestowed both in time and money more than is ordinarily
considered necessary even from persons in their position. But what they
gave, they gave away from their own quiet hearth. Had money been
wanting to the daughters of his wife’s brother, Mr Outhouse would have
opened such small coffer as he had with a free hand. But he would have
much preferred that his benevolence should be used in a way that would
bring upon him no further responsibility and no questionings from
people whom he did not know and could not understand.
The Rev. Oliphant Outhouse had been Rector of St.
Diddulph’s-in-the-East for the last fifteen years, having married the
sister of Sir Marmaduke Rowley then simply Mr Rowley, with a colonial
appointment in Jamaica of 120 pounds per annum twelve years before his
promotion, while he was a curate in one of the populous borough
parishes. He had thus been a London clergyman all his life; but he knew
almost as little of London society as though he had held a cure in a
Westmoreland valley. He had worked hard, but his work had been
altogether among the poor. He had no gift of preaching, and had
acquired neither reputation nor popularity. But he could work, and
having been transferred because of that capability to the temporary
curacy of St. Diddulph’s out of one diocese into another, he had
received the living from the bishop’s hands when it became vacant.
A dreary place was the parsonage of St. Diddulph’s-in-the-East for the
abode of a gentleman. Mr Outhouse had not, in his whole parish, a
parishioner with whom he could consort. The greatest men around him
were the publicans, and the most numerous were men employed in and
around the docks. Dredgers of mud, navvies employed on suburban canals,
excavators, loaders and unloaders of cargo, cattle drivers, whose
driving, however, was done mostly on board ship—such and such like were
the men who were the fathers of the families of St. Diddulph’s-in-the-East.
And there was there, not far removed from the muddy estuary of a little
stream that makes its black way from the Essex marshes among the houses
of the poorest of the poor into the Thames, a large commercial
establishment for turning the carcasses of horses into manure. Messrs
Flowsem and Blurt were in truth the great people of St.
Diddulph’s-in-the-East; but the closeness of their establishment was
not an additional attraction to the parsonage. They were liberal,
however, with their money, and Mr Outhouse was disposed to think, custom
perhaps having made the establishment less objectionable to him than it
was at first, that St. Diddulph’s-in-the-East would be more of a
Pandemonium than it now was, if by any sanitary law Messrs Flowsem and
Blurt were compelled to close their doors. ‘Non olet,’ he would say
with a grim smile when the charitable cheque of the firm would come
punctually to hand on the first Saturday after Christmas.
But such a house as his would be, as he knew, but a poor residence for
his wife’s nieces. Indeed, without positively saying that he was
unwilling to receive them, he had, when he first heard of the breaking
up of the house in Curzon Street, shewn that he would rather not take
upon his shoulders so great a responsibility. He and his wife had
discussed the matter between them, and had come to the conclusion that
they did not know what kind of things might have been done in Curzon
Street. They would think no evil, they said; but the very idea of a
married woman with a lover was dreadful to them. It might be that their
niece was free from blame. They hoped so. And even though her sin had
been of ever so deep a dye, they would take her in if it were indeed
necessary. But they hoped that such help from them might not be needed.
They both knew how to give counsel to a poor woman, how to rebuke a
poor man, how to comfort, encourage, or to upbraid the poor. Practice
had told them how far they might go with some hope of doing good and at
what stage of demoralisation no good from their hands was any longer
within the scope of fair expectation. But all this was among the poor.
With what words to encourage such a one as their niece Mrs Trevelyan, to
encourage her or to rebuke her, as her conduct might seem to make
necessary, they both felt that They were altogether ignorant. To them
Mrs Trevelyan was a fine lady. To Mr Outhouse, Sir Marmaduke had ever
been a fine gentleman, given much to worldly things, who cared more for
whist and a glass of wine than for anything else, and who thought that
he had a good excuse for never going to church in England because he
was called upon, as he said, to show himself in the governor’s pew
always once on Sundays, and frequently twice, when he was at the seat
of his government. Sir Marmaduke manifestly looked upon church as a
thing in itself notoriously disagreeable. To Mr Outhouse it afforded
the great events of the week. And Mrs Outhouse would declare that to
hear her husband preach was the greatest joy of her life. It may be
understood therefore that though the family connection between the
Rowleys and the Outhouses had been kept up with a semblance of
affection, it had never blossomed forth into cordial friendship.
When therefore the clergyman of St. Diddulph’s received a letter from
his niece, Nora, begging him to take her into his parsonage till Sir
Marmaduke should arrive in the course of the spring, and hinting also a
wish that her uncle Oliphant should see Mr Trevelyan and if possible
arrange that his other niece should also come to the parsonage, he was
very much perturbed in spirit. There was a long consultation between
him and his wife before anything could be settled, and it may be
doubted whether anything would have been settled, had not Mr Trevelyan
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