The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope (best fiction novels of all time .TXT) 📕

it would be very difficult for him to extricate himself he was well aware;⁠—but if it were true that Mr. Hurtle was alive, that fact might help him. She certainly had declared him to be⁠—not separated, or even divorced⁠—but dead. And if it were true also that she had fought a duel with one husband, that also ought to be a reason why a gentleman should object to become her second husband. These facts would at any rate justify himself to himself, and would enable himself to break from his engagement without thinking himself to be a false traitor.

But he must make up his mind as to some line of conduct. She must be made to know the truth. If he meant to reject the lady finally on the score of her being a wild cat, he must tell her so. He felt very strongly that he must not flinch from the wild cat’s claws. That he would have to undergo some severe handling, an amount of clawing which might perhaps go near his life, he could perceive. Having done what he had done he would have no right to shrink from such usage. He must tell her to her face that he was not satisfied with her past life, and that therefore he would not marry her. Of course he might write to her;⁠—but when summoned to her presence he would be unable to excuse himself, even to himself, for not going. It was his misfortune⁠—and also his fault⁠—that he had submitted to be loved by a wild cat.

But it might be well that before he saw her he should get hold of information that might have the appearance of real evidence. He returned from Liverpool to London on the morning of the Friday on which the Board was held, and thought even more of all this than he did of the attack which he was prepared to make on Mr. Melmotte. If he could come across that traveller he might learn something. The husband’s name had been Caradoc Carson Hurtle. If Caradoc Carson Hurtle had been seen in the State of Kansas within the last two years, that certainly would be sufficient evidence. As to the duel he felt that it might be very hard to prove that, and that if proved, it might be hard to found upon the fact any absolute right on his part to withdraw from the engagement. But there was a rumour also, though not corroborated during his last visit to Liverpool, that she had shot a gentleman in Oregon. Could he get at the truth of that story? If they were all true, surely he could justify himself to himself.

But this detective’s work was very distasteful to him. After having had the woman in his arms how could he undertake such inquiries as these? And it would be almost necessary that he should take her in his arms again while he was making them⁠—unless indeed he made them with her knowledge. Was it not his duty, as a man, to tell everything to herself? To speak to her thus;⁠—“I am told that your life with your last husband was, to say the least of it, eccentric; that you even fought a duel with him. I could not marry a woman who had fought a duel⁠—certainly not a woman who had fought with her own husband. I am told also that you shot another gentleman in Oregon. It may well be that the gentleman deserved to be shot; but there is something in the deed so repulsive to me⁠—no doubt irrationally⁠—that, on that score also, I must decline to marry you. I am told also that Mr. Hurtle has been seen alive quite lately. I had understood from you that he is dead. No doubt you may have been deceived. But as I should not have engaged myself to you had I known the truth, so now I consider myself justified in absolving myself from an engagement which was based on a misconception.” It would no doubt be difficult to get through all these details; but it might be accomplished gradually⁠—unless in the process of doing so he should incur the fate of the gentleman in Oregon. At any rate he would declare to her as well as he could the ground on which he claimed a right to consider himself free, and would bear the consequences. Such was the resolve which he made on his journey up from Liverpool, and that trouble was also on his mind when he rose up to attack Mr. Melmotte single-handed at the Board.

When the Board was over, he also went down to the Beargarden. Perhaps, with reference to the Board, the feeling which hurt him most was the conviction that he was spending money which he would never have had to spend had there been no Board. He had been twitted with this at the Board-meeting, and had justified himself by referring to the money which had been invested in the Company of Fisker, Montague, and Montague, which money was now supposed to have been made over to the railway. But the money which he was spending had come to him after a loose fashion, and he knew that if called upon for an account, he could hardly make out one which would be square and intelligible to all parties. Nevertheless he spent much of his time at the Beargarden, dining there when no engagement carried him elsewhere. On this evening he joined his table with Nidderdale’s, at the young lord’s instigation. “What made you so savage at old Melmotte today?” said the young lord.

“I didn’t mean to be savage, but I think that as we call ourselves Directors we ought to know something about it.”

“I suppose we ought. I don’t know, you know. I’ll tell you what I’ve been thinking. I can’t make out why the mischief they made me a Director.”

“Because you’re a lord,” said Paul bluntly.

“I suppose there’s something in that. But what good can I do