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

suggesting to her that there might come some day some one who would

suit her taste better than Mr Gibson. ‘I’m not very fond of parsons

myself,’ said Hugh, ‘but you must not tell that to Aunt Stanbury.’

Then he suggested that as he was going down to Nuncombe, Dorothy should

get leave of absence and come over and meet him at the Clock House.

Dorothy demanded the leave of absence somewhat imperiously, and was at

home at the Clock House when Hugh arrived.

‘And so that little affair couldn’t come off?’ said Hugh at their first

family meeting.

‘It was a pity,’ said Mrs Stanbury, plaintively. She had been very

plaintive on the subject. What a thing it would have been for her,

could she have seen Dorothy so well established!

‘There’s no help for spilt milk, mother,’ said Hugh. Mrs Stanbury shook

her head.

‘Dorothy was quite right,’ said Priscilla.

‘Of course she was right,’ said Hugh. ‘Who doubts her being right?

Bless my soul! “What’s any girl to do if she don’t like a man except to

tell him so?” I honour you, Dolly, not that I ever should have doubted

you. You’re too much of a chip of the old block to say you liked a man

when you didn’t.’

‘He is a very excellent young man,’ said Mrs Stanbury.

‘An excellent fiddlestick, mother. Loving and liking don’t go by

excellence. Besides, I don’t know about his being any better than

anybody else, just because he’s a clergyman.’

‘A clergyman is more likely to be steady than other men,’ said the

mother.

‘Steady, yes; and as selfish as you please.’

‘Your father was a clergyman, Hugh.’

‘I don’t mean to say that they are not as good as others; but I won’t

have it that they are better. They are always dealing with the Bible,

till they think themselves apostles. But when money comes up; or

comfort, or for the matter of that either, a pretty woman with a little

money, then they are as human as the rest of us.’

If the truth had been told on that occasion, Hugh Stanbury would have

had to own that he had written lately two or three rather stinging

articles in the ‘Daily Record,’ as ‘to the assumed merits and actual

demerits of the clergy of the Church of England.’ It is astonishing how

fluent a man is on a subject when he has lately delivered himself

respecting it in this fashion.

Nothing on that evening was said about the Clock House, or about

Priscilla’s intentions. Priscilla was up early on the next morning,

intending to discuss it in the garden with Hugh before breakfast; but

Hugh was aware of her purpose and avoided her. It was his intention to

speak first to his mother; and though his mother was, as he knew, very

much in awe of her daughter, he thought that he might carry his point,

at any rate for the next three months, by forcing an assent from the

elder lady. So he managed to waylay Mrs Stanbury before she descended

to the parlour.

‘We can’t afford it, my dear, indeed we can’t,’ said Mrs Stanbury.

‘That’s not the question, mother. The rent must be paid up to

Christmas, and you can live here as cheap as you can anywhere.’

‘But Priscilla—’

‘Oh, Priscilla! Of course we know what Priscilla says. Priscilla has

been writing to me about it in the most sensible manner in the world;

but what does it all come to? If you are ashamed of taking assistance

from me, I don’t know who is to do anything for anybody. You are

comfortable here?’

‘Very comfortable; only Priscilla feels—’

‘Priscilla is a tyrant, mother; and a very stern one. Just make up your

mind to stay here till Christmas. If I tell you that I can afford it,

surely that ought to be enough.’ Then Dorothy entered the room, and

Hugh appealed to her. Dorothy had come to Nuncombe only on the day

before, and had not been consulted on the subject. She had been told

that the Clock House was to be abandoned, and had been taken down to

inspect the cottage in which old Soames had lived but her opinion had

not been asked. Priscilla had quite made up her mind, and why should

she ask an opinion of any one? But now Dorothy’s opinion was demanded.

‘It’s what I call the rhodomontade of independence,’ said Hugh.

‘I suppose it is very expensive,’ suggested Dorothy.

‘The house must be paid for,’ said Hugh ‘and if I say that I’ve got the

money, is not that enough? A miserable, dirty little place, where

you’ll catch your death of lumbago, mother.’

‘Of course it’s not a comfortable house;’ said Mrs Stanbury who, of

herself, was not at all indifferent to the comforts of her present

residence.

‘And it is very dirty,’ said Dorothy.

‘The nastiest place I ever saw in my life. Come, mother; if I say that

I can afford it, ought not that to be enough for you? If you think you

can’t trust me, there’s an end of everything, you now.’ And Hugh, as he

thus expressed himself, assumed an air of injured virtue.

Mrs Stanbury had very nearly yielded, when Priscilla came in among

them. It was impossible not to continue the conversation, though Hugh

would much have preferred to have forced an assent from his mother

before he opened his mouth on the subject to his sister. ‘My mother

agrees with me,’ said he abruptly, ‘and so does Dolly, that it will be

absurd to move away from this house at present.’

‘Mamma!’ exclaimed Priscilla.

‘I don’t think I said that, Hugh,’ murmured Dorothy, softly.

‘I am sure I don’t want anything for myself,’ said Mrs Stanbury.

‘It’s I that want it,’ said Hugh. ‘And I think that I’ve a right to

have my wishes respected, so far as that goes.’

‘My dear Hugh,’ said Priscilla, ‘the cottage is already taken, and we

shall certainly go into it. I spoke to Mrs Crocket yesterday about a

cart for moving the things. I’m sure mamma agrees with me. What

possible business can people have to live in such a house as this with

about twenty-four shillings a week for every thing? I won’t do it. And

as the thing is settled, it is only making trouble to disturb it.’

‘I suppose, Priscilla,’ said Hugh, ‘you’ll do as your mother chooses?’

‘Mamma chooses to go. She has told me so already.’

‘You have talked her into it.’

‘We had better go, Hugh,’ said Mrs Stanbury. ‘I’m sure we had better

go.’

‘Of course we shall go,’ said Priscilla. ‘Hugh is very kind and very

generous, but he is only giving trouble for nothing about this. Had we

not better go down to breakfast?’

And so Priscilla carried the day. They went down to breakfast, and

during the meal Hugh would speak to nobody. When the gloomy meal was

over he took his pipe and walked out to the cottage. It was an

untidy-looking, rickety place, small and desolate, with a pretension

about it of the lowest order, a pretension that was evidently ashamed

of itself. There was a porch. And the one sitting-room had what the

late Mr Soames had always called his bow window. But the porch looked

as though it were tumbling down, and the bow window looked as though it

were tumbling out. The parlour and the bedroom over it had been papered

but the paper was torn and soiled, and in sundry places was hanging

loose. There was a miserable little room called a kitchen to the right

as you entered the door, in which the grate was worn out, and behind

this was a shed with a copper. In the garden there remained the stumps

and stalks of Mr Soames’s cabbages, and there were weeds in plenty, and

a damp hole among some elder bushes called an arbour. It was named

Laburnum Cottage, from a shrub that grew at the end of the house. Hugh

Stanbury shuddered as he stood smoking among the cabbage-stalks. How

could a man ask such a girl as Nora Rowley to be his wife, whose mother

lived in a place like this? While he was still standing in the garden,

and thinking of Priscilla’s obstinacy and his own ten guineas a week,

and the sort of life which he lived in London where he dined usually at

his club, and denied himself nothing in the way of pipes, beer, and

beefsteaks, he heard a step behind him, and turning round, saw his

elder sister.

‘Hugh,’ she said, ‘you must not be angry with me.’

‘But I am angry with you.’

‘I know you are; but you are unjust. I am doing what I am sure is

right.’

‘I never saw such a beastly hole as this in all my life.’

‘I don’t think it beastly at all. You’ll find that I’ll make it nice.

Whatever we want here you shall give us. You are not to think that I am

too proud to take anything at your hands. It is not that.’

‘It’s very like it.’

‘I have never refused anything that is reasonable, but it is quite

unreasonable that we should go on living in such a place as that, as

though we had three or four hundred a year of our own. If mamma got

used to the comfort of it, it would be hard then upon her to move. You

shall give her what you can afford, and what is reasonable; but it is

madness to think of living there. I couldn’t do it.’

‘You’re to have your way at any rate, it seems.’

‘But you must not quarrel with me, Hugh. Give me a kiss. I don’t have

you often with me; and yet you are the only man in the world that I

ever speak to, or even know. I sometimes half think that the bread is

so hard and the water so bitter, that life will become impossible. I

try to get over it; but if you were to go away from me in anger, I

should be so beaten for a week or two that I could do nothing.’

‘Why won’t you let me do anything?’

‘I will whatever you please. But kiss me.’ Then he kissed her, as he

stood among Mr Soames’s cabbage-stalks. ‘Dear Hugh; you are such a god

to me!’

‘You don’t treat me like a divinity.’

‘But I think of you as one when you are absent. The gods were never

obeyed when they showed themselves. Let us go and have a walk. Come;

shall we get as far as Ridleigh Mill?’

Then they started together, and all unpleasantness was over between

them when they returned to the Clock House.