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

think it is from Mr Stanbury.’

‘Give it me,’ said Nora greedily.

‘Of course I will give it you. But I hope you do not intend to

correspond with him.’

‘If he has written to me I shall answer him of course,’ said Nora,

holding her treasure.

‘Aunt Mary thinks that you should not do so till papa and mamma have

arrived.’

‘If Aunt Mary is afraid of me let her tell me so, and I will contrive

to go somewhere else.’ Poor Nora knew that this threat was futile.

There was no house to which she could take herself.

‘She is not afraid of you at all, Nora. She only says that she thinks

you should not write to Mr Stanbury.’ Then Nora escaped to the cold but

solitary seclusion of her bedroom and there she read her letter.

The reader may remember that Hugh Stanbury when he last left St

Diddulph’s had not been oppressed by any of the gloomy reveries of a

despairing lover. He had spoken his mind freely to Nora, and had felt

himself justified in believing that he had not spoken in vain. He had

had her in his arms, and she had found it impossible to say that she

did not love him. But then she had been quite firm in her purpose to

give him no encouragement that she could avoid. She had said no word

that would justify him in considering that there was any engagement

between them; and, moreover, he had been warned not to come to the

house by its mistress. From day to day he thought of it all, now

telling himself that there was nothing to be done but to trust in her

fidelity till he should be in a position to offer her a fitting home,

and then reflecting that he could not expect such a girl as Nora Rowley

to wait for him, unless he could succeed in making her understand that

he at any rate intended to wait for her. On one day he would think that

good faith and proper consideration for Nora herself required him to

keep silent; on the next he would tell himself that such maudlin

chivalry as he was proposing to himself was sure to go to the wall and

be neither rewarded nor recognised. So at last he sat down and wrote

the following letter:

‘Lincoln’s Inn Fields, January, 186-.

Dearest Nora,

Ever since I last saw you at St Diddulph’s, I have been trying to teach

myself what I ought to do in reference to you. Sometimes I think that

because I am poor I ought to hold my tongue. At others I feel sure that

I ought to speak out loud, because I love you so dearly. You may

presume that just at this moment the latter opinion is in the

ascendant.

As I do write I mean to be very bold—so bold that if I am wrong you

will be thoroughly disgusted with me and will never willingly see me

again. But I think it best to be true, and to say what I think. I do

believe that you love me. According to all precedent I ought not to say

so, but I do believe it. Ever since I was at St Diddulph’s that belief

has made me happy though there have been moments of doubt. If I thought

that you did not love me, I would trouble you no further. A man may win

his way to love when social circumstances are such as to throw him and

the girl together; but such is not the case with us; and unless you

love me now, you never will love me.’ ‘I do I do!’ said Nora, pressing

the letter to her bosom. ‘If you do, I think that you owe it me to say

so, and to let me have all the joy and all the feeling of

responsibility which such am assurance will give me.’ ‘I will tell him

so,’ said Nora; ‘I don’t care what may come afterwards, but I will tell

him the truth.’ ‘I know,’ continued Hugh, ‘that an engagement with me

now would be hazardous, because what I earn is both scanty and

precarious; but it seems to me that nothing could ever be done without

some risk. There are risks of different kinds.’ She wondered whether he

was thinking when he wrote this of the rock on which her sister’s

barque had been split to pieces ‘and we may hardly hope to avoid them

all. For myself, I own that life would be tame to me, if there were no

dangers to be overcome.

If you do love me, and will say so, I will not ask you to be my wife

till I can give you a proper home; but the knowledge that I am the

master of the treasure which I desire will give me a double energy, and

will make me feel that when I have gained so much I cannot fail of

adding to it all other smaller things that may be necessary.

Pray, pray send me an answer. I cannot reach you except by writing, as I

was told by your aunt not to come to the house again.

Dearest Nora, pray believe

That I shall always be truly yours only,

HUGH STANBURY.’

Write to him! Of course she would write to him. Of course she would

confess to him the truth. ‘He tells me that I owe it to him to say so,

and I acknowledge the debt,’ she said aloud to herself. ‘And as for a

proper home, he shall be the judge of that.’ She resolved that she

would not be a fine lady, not fastidious, not coy, not afraid to take

her full share of the risk of which he spoke in such manly terms. ‘It

is quite true. As he has been able to make me love him, I have no right

to stand aloof even if I wished it.’ As she was walking up and down the

room so resolving her sister came to her.

‘Well, dear!’ said Emily. ‘May I ask what it is he says?’

Nora paused a moment, holding the letter tight in her hand, and then

she held it out to her sister. ‘There it is. You may read it.’ Mrs

Trevelyan took the letter and read it slowly, during which Nora stood

looking out of the window. She would not watch her sister’s face, as

she did not wish to have to reply to any outward signs of disapproval.

‘Give it me back,’ she said, when she heard by the refolding of the

paper that the perusal was finished.

‘Of course I shall give it you back, dear.’

‘Yes thanks. I did not mean to doubt you.’

‘And what will you do, Nora?’

‘Answer it of course.’

‘I would think a little before I answered it,’ said Mrs Trevelyan.

‘I have thought a great deal, already.’

‘And how will you answer it?’

Nora paused again before she replied. ‘As nearly as I know how to do in

such words as he would put into my mouth. I shall strive to write just

what I think he would wish me to write.’

‘Then you will engage yourself to him, Nora?’

‘Certainly I shall. I am engaged to him already. I have been ever since

he came here.’

‘You told me that there was nothing of the kind.’

‘I told you that I loved him better than anybody in the world, and that

ought to have made you know what it must come to. When I am thinking of

him every day, and every hour, how can I not be glad to have an

engagement settled with him? I couldn’t marry anybody else, and I don’t

want to remain as I am.’ The tears came into the married sister’s eyes,

and rolled down her cheeks, as this was said to her. Would it not have

been better for her had she remained as she was? ‘Dear Emily,’ said

Nora, ‘you have got Louey still.’

‘Yes and they mean to take him from me. But I do not wish to speak of

myself. Will you postpone your answer till mamma is here?’

‘I cannot do that, Emily. What; receive such a letter as that, and send

no reply to it!’

‘I would write a line for you, and explain—’

‘No, indeed, Emily. I choose to answer my own letters. I have shewn you

that, because I trust you; but I have fully made up my mind as to what

I shall write. It will have been written and sent before dinner.’

‘I think you will be wrong, Nora.’

‘Why wrong! When I came over here to stay with you, would mamma ever

have thought of directing me not to accept any offer till her consent

had been obtained all the way from the Mandarins? She would never have

dreamed of such a thing.’

‘Will you ask Aunt Mary?’

‘Certainly not. What is Aunt Mary to me? We are here in her house for a

time, under the press of circumstances; but I owe her no obedience. She

told Mr Stanbury not to come here; and he has not come; and I shall not

ask him to come. I would not willingly bring any one into Uncle

Oliphant’s house that he and she do not wish to see. But I will not

admit that either of them have any authority over me.’

‘Then who has, dearest?’

‘Nobody except papa and mamma; and they have chosen to leave me to

myself.’

Mrs Trevelyan found it impossible to shake her sister’s firmness, and

could herself do nothing, except tell Mrs Outhouse what was the state

of affairs. When she said that she should do this, there almost came

to be a flow of high words between the sisters; but at last Nora

assented. ‘As for knowing, I don’t care if all the world knows it. I

shall do nothing in a corner. I don’t suppose Aunt Mary will endeavour

to prevent my posting my letter.’

Emily at last went to seek Mrs Outhouse, and Nora at once sat down to

her desk. Neither of the sisters felt at all sure that Mrs Outhouse

would not attempt to stop the emission of the letter from her house;

but, as it happened, she was out, and did not return till Nora had come

back from her journey to the neighbouring post-office. She would trust

her letter, when written, to no hands but her own; and as she herself

dropped it into the safe custody of the Postmaster-General, it also

shall be revealed to the public:

‘Parsonage, St Diddulph’s, January, 186-.

DEAR HUGH,

For I suppose I may as well write to you in that way now. I have been

made so happy by your affectionate letter. Is not that a candid

confession for a young lady? But you tell me that I owe you the truth,

and so I tell you the truth. Nobody will ever be anything to me, except

you; and you are everything. I do love you; and should it ever be

possible, I will become your wife.

I have said so much, because I feel that I ought to obey the order you

have given me; but pray do not try to see me or write to me till mamma

has arrived. She and papa will be here in the spring, quite early in the

spring, we hope; and then you may come to us. What they may say, of

course, I cannot tell; but I shall be true to you.

Your own, with truest