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

TREVELYAN AT VENICE

Trevelyan passed on moodily and alone from Turin to Venice, always

expecting letters from Bozzle, and receiving from time to time the

dispatches which that functionary forwarded to him, as must be

acknowledged, with great punctuality. For Mr Bozzle did his work, not

only with a conscience, but with a will. He was now, as he had declared

more than once, altogether devoted to Mr Trevelyan’s interest; and as

he was an active, enterprising man, always on the alert to be doing

something, and as he loved the work of writing dispatches, Trevelyan

received a great many letters from Bozzle. It is not exaggeration to

say that every letter made him for the time a very wretched man. This

ex-policeman wrote of the wife of his bosom, of her who had been the

wife of his bosom, and who was the mother of his child, who was at this

very time the only woman whom he loved with an entire absence of

delicacy. Bozzle would have thought reticence on his part to he

dishonest. We remember Othello’s demand of Iago. That was the demand

which Bozzle understood that Trevelyan had made of him, and he was

minded to obey that order. But Trevelvan, though he had in truth given

the order, was like Othello also in this that he would have preferred

before all the prizes of the world to have had proof brought home to

him exactly opposite to that which he demanded. But there was nothing

so terrible to him as the grinding suspicion that he was to be kept in

the dark. Bozzle could find out facts. Therefore he gave, in effect,

the same order that Othello gave and Bozzle went to work determined to

obey it. There came many dispatches to Venice, and at last there came

one, which created a correspondence which shall be given here at

length. The first is a letter from Mr Bozzle to his employer:

‘55, Stony Walk, Union Street, Borough,

September 29, 186-, 4.30 p.m.

HOND. SIR,

Since I wrote yesterday morning, something has occurred which, it may

be, and I think it will, will help to bring this melancholy affair to a

satisfactory termination and conclusion. I had better explain, Mr

Trewilyan, how I have been at work from the beginning about watching

the Colonel. I couldn’t do nothing with the porter at the Albany, which

he is always mostly muzzled with beer, and he wouldn’t have taken my

money, not on the square. So, when it was tellegrammed to me as the

Colonel was on the move in the North, I put on two boys as knows the

Colonel, at eighteenpence a day, at each end, one Piccadilly end, and

the other Saville Row end, and yesterday morning, as quick as ever

could be, after the Limited Express Edinburgh Male Up was in, there

comes the Saville Row End Boy here to say as the Colonel was lodged

safe in his downey. Then I was off immediate myself to St. Diddulph’s,

because I knows what it is to trust to inferiors when matters gets

delicate. Now, there hadn’t been no letters from the Colonel, nor none

to him as I could make out, though that mightn’t be so sure. She might

have had ‘em addressed to A. Z., or the like of that, at any of the

Post-offices as was distant, as nobody could give the notice to ‘em

all. Barring the money, which I know ain’t an object when the end is so

desirable, it don’t do to be too ubiketous, because things will go

astray. But I’ve kept my eye uncommon open, and I don’t think there

have been no letters since that last which was sent, Mr Trewilyan, let

any of ‘em, parsons or what not, say what they will. And I don’t see as

parsons are better than other folk when they has to do with a lady as

likes her fancy-man.’

Trevelyan, when he had read as far as this, threw down the letter and

tore his hair in despair. ‘My wife,’ he exclaimed, ‘Oh, my wife!’ But

it was essential that he should read Bozzle’s letter, and he

persevered.

‘Well; I took to the ground myself as soon as ever I heard that the

Colonel was among us, and I hung out at the Full Moon. They had been

quite on the square with me at the Full Moon, which I mention, because,

of course, it has to be remembered, and it do come up as a hitem. And

I’m proud, Mr Trewilyan, as I did take to the ground myself; for what

should happen but I see the Colonel as large as life ringing at the

parson’s bell at 1.47 p.m. He was let in at 1.49, and he was let out at

2.17. He went away in a cab which it was kept, and I followed him till

he was put down at the Arcade, and I left him having his ‘ed washed and

greased at Trufitt’s rooms, half-way up. It was a wonder to me when I

see this, Mr Trewilyan, as he didn’t have his ‘ed done first, as they

most of ‘em does when they’re going to see their ladies; but I couldn’t

make nothing of that, though I did try to put too and too together, as

I always does.

What he did at the parson’s, Mr Trewilyan, I won’t say I saw, and I

won’t say I know. It’s my opinion the young woman there isn’t on the

square, though she’s been remembered too, and is a hitem of course.

And, Mr Trewilyan, it do go against the grain with me when they’re

remembered and ain’t on the square. I doesn’t expect too much of Human

Nature, which is poor, as the saying goes; but when they’re remembered

and ain’t on the square after that, it’s too bad for Human Nature. It’s

more than poor. It’s what I calls beggarly.

He ain’t been there since, Mr Trewilyan, and he goes out of town

tomorrow by the 1.15 p.m. express to Bridport. So he lets on; but of

course I shall see to that. That he’s been at St. Diddulph’s, in the

house from 1.47 to 2.17, you may take as a fact. There won’t be no

shaking of that, because I have it in my mem. book, and no Counsel can

get the better of it. Of course he went there to see her, and it’s my

belief he did. The young woman as was remembered says he didn’t, but

she isn’t on the square. They never is when a lady wants to see her

gentleman, though they comes round afterwards, and tells up everything

when it comes before his ordinary lordship.

If you ask me, Mr Trewilyan, I don’t think it’s ripe yet for the court,

but we’ll have it ripe before long. I’ll keep a look-out, because it’s

just possible she may leave town. If she do, I’ll be down upon them

together, and no mistake.

Yours most respectful,

S. BOZZLE.’

Every word in the letter had been a dagger to Trevelyan, and yet he

felt himself to be under an obligation to the man who had written it.

No one else would or could make facts known to him. If she were

innocent, let him know that she were innocent, and he would proclaim

her innocence, and believe in her innocence and sacrifice himself to

her innocence, if such sacrifice were necessary. But if she were

guilty, let him also know that. He knew how bad it was, all that

bribing of postmen and maidservants, who took his money, and her money

also, very likely. It was dirt, all of it. But who had put him into the

dirt? His wife had, at least, deceived him had deceived him and

disobeyed him, and it was necessary that he should know the facts. Life

without a Bozzle would now have been to him a perfect blank.

The Colonel had been to the parsonage at St. Diddulph’s, and had been

admitted! As to that he had no doubt. Nor did he really doubt that his

wife had seen the visitor. He had sent his wife first into a remote

village on Dartmoor, and there she had been visited by her lover! How

was he to use any other word? Iago, oh, Iago! The pity of it, Iago!

Then, when she had learned that this was discovered, she had left the

retreat in which he had placed her without permission from him and had

taken herself to the house of a relative of hers. Here she was visited

again by her lover! Oh, Iago; the pity of it, Iago! And then there had

been between them an almost constant correspondence. So much he had

ascertained as fact; but he did not for a moment believe that Bozzle

had learned all the facts. There might be correspondence, or even

visits, of which Bozzle could learn nothing. How could Bozzle know

where Mrs Trevelyan was during all those hours which Colonel Osborne

passed in London? That which he knew, he knew absolutely, and on that

he could act; but there was, of course, much of which he knew nothing.

Gradually the truth would unveil itself, and then he would act. He

would tear that Colonel into fragments, and throw his wife from him

with all the ignominy which the law made possible to him.

But in the meantime he wrote a letter to Mr Outhouse. Colonel Osborne,

after all that had been said, had been admitted at the parsonage, and

Trevelyan was determined to let the clergyman know what he thought

about it. The oftener he turned the matter in his mind, as he walked

slowly up and down the piazza of St. Mark, the more absurd it appeared

to him to doubt that his wife had seen the man. Of course she had seen

him. He walked there nearly the whole night, thinking of it, and as he

dragged himself off at last to his inn, had almost come to have but one

desire namely, that he should find her out, that the evidence should be

conclusive, that it should be proved, and so brought to an end. Then he

would destroy her, and destroy that man and afterwards destroy himself,

so bitter to him would be his ignominy. He almost revelled in the idea

of the tragedy he would make. It was three o’clock before he was in his

bedroom, and then he wrote his letter to Mr Outhouse before he took

himself to his bed. It was as follows:

‘Venice, Oct. 4, 186-.

Sir

Information of a certain kind, on which I can place a firm reliance,

has reached me, to the effect that Colonel Osborne has been allowed to

visit at