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

from time to time there arose in her heart a feeling that such softness was unworthy of her. Who had ever been soft to her? Who had spared her? Had she not long since found out that she must fight with her very nails and teeth for every inch of ground, if she did not mean to be trodden into the dust? Had she not held her own among rough people after a very rough fashion, and should she now simply retire that she might weep in a corner like a lovesick schoolgirl? And she had been so stoutly determined that she would at any rate avenge her own wrongs, if she could not turn those wrongs into triumph! There were moments in which she thought that she could still seize the man by the throat, where all the world might see her, and dare him to deny that he was false, perjured, and mean.

Then she received a long passionate letter from Paul Montague, written at the same time as those other letters to Roger Carbury and Hetta, in which he told her all the circumstances of his engagement to Hetta Carbury, and implored her to substantiate the truth of his own story. It was certainly marvellous to her that the man who had so long been her own lover and who had parted with her after such a fashion should write such a letter to her. But it had no tendency to increase either her anger or her sorrow. Of course she had known that it was so, and at certain times she had told herself that it was only natural⁠—had almost told herself that it was right. She and this young Englishman were not fit to be mated. He was to her thinking a tame, sleek household animal, whereas she knew herself to be wild⁠—fitter for the woods than for polished cities. It had been one of the faults of her life that she had allowed herself to be bound by tenderness of feeling to this soft over-civilised man. The result had been disastrous, as might have been expected. She was angry with him⁠—almost to the extent of tearing him to pieces⁠—but she did not become more angry because he wrote to her of her rival.

Her only present friend was Mrs. Pipkin, who treated her with the greatest deference, but who was never tired of asking questions about the lost lover. “That letter was from Mr. Montague?” said Mrs. Pipkin on the morning after it had been received.

“How can you know that?”

“I’m sure it was. One does get to know handwritings when letters come frequent.”

“It was from him. And why not?”

“Oh dear no;⁠—why not certainly? I wish he’d write every day of his life, so that things would come round again. Nothing ever troubles me so much as broken love. Why don’t he come again himself, Mrs. Hurtle?”

“It is not at all likely that he should come again. It is all over, and there is no good in talking of it. I shall return to New York on Saturday week.”

“Oh, Mrs. Hurtle!”

“I can’t remain here, you know, all my life doing nothing. I came over here for a certain purpose, and that has⁠—gone by. Now I may just go back again.”

“I know he has ill-treated you. I know he has.”

“I am not disposed to talk about it, Mrs. Pipkin.”

“I should have thought it would have done you good to speak your mind out free. I know it would me if I’d been served in that way.”

“If I had anything to say at all after that fashion it would be to the gentleman, and not to any other else. As it is I shall never speak of it again to anyone. You have been very kind to me, Mrs. Pipkin, and I shall be sorry to leave you.”

“Oh, Mrs. Hurtle, you can’t understand what it is to me. It isn’t only my feelings. The likes of me can’t stand by their feelings only, as their betters do. I’ve never been above telling you what a godsend you’ve been to me this summer;⁠—have I? I’ve paid everything, butcher, baker, rates and all, just like clockwork. And now you’re going away!” Then Mrs. Pipkin began to sob.

“I suppose I shall see Mr. Crumb before I go,” said Mrs. Hurtle.

“She don’t deserve it; do she? And even now she never says a word about him that I call respectful. She looks on him as just being better than Mrs. Buggins’s children. That’s all.”

“She’ll be all right when he has once got her home.”

“And I shall be all alone by myself,” said Mrs. Pipkin, with her apron up to her eyes.

It was after this that Mrs. Hurtle received Hetta’s letter. She had as yet returned no answer to Paul Montague⁠—nor had she intended to send any written answer. Were she to comply with his request she could do so best by writing to the girl who was concerned rather than to him. And though she wrote no such letter she thought of it⁠—of the words she would use were she to write it, and of the tale which she would have to tell. She sat for hours thinking of it, trying to resolve whether she would tell the tale⁠—if she told it at all⁠—in a manner to suit Paul’s purpose, or so as to bring that purpose utterly to shipwreck. She did not doubt that she could cause the shipwreck were she so minded. She could certainly have her revenge after that fashion. But it was a woman’s fashion, and, as such, did not recommend itself to Mrs. Hurtle’s feelings. A pistol or a horsewhip, a violent seizing by the neck, with sharp taunts and bitter-ringing words, would have made the fitting revenge. If she abandoned that she could do herself no good by telling a story of her wrongs to another woman.

Then came Hetta’s note, so stiff, so cold, so true⁠—so like the letter of an Englishwoman, as Mrs. Hurtle said to herself. Mrs. Hurtle smiled as she read the letter. “I make this proposition not thinking that anything