He Knew He Was Right - Anthony Trollope (rainbow fish read aloud txt) 📗

sit still and do nothing. He is not at

all an idle man; at least I am told so.’

 

‘But he is as old as Methuselah,’ said Lucy.

 

‘He is between thirty and forty,’ said Lady Rowley.

 

‘Of course we know that from the peerage.’ Lady Rowley, however, was

wrong. Had she consulted the peerage, she would have seen that Mr

Glascock was over forty.

 

Nora, as soon as she was alone and could think about it all, felt quite

sure that Mr Glascock would never make her another offer. This ought

not to have caused her any sorrow, as she was very well aware that she

would not accept him, should he do so. Yet, perhaps, there was a moment

of some feeling akin to disappointment. Of course she would not have

accepted him. How could she? Her faith was so plighted to Hugh Stanbury

that she would be a by-word among women for ever, were she to be so

false. And, as she told herself, she had not the slightest feeling of

affection for Mr Glascock. It was quite out of the question, and a

matter simply for speculation. Nevertheless it would have been a very

grand thing to be Lady Peterborough, and she almost regretted that she

had a heart in her bosom.

 

She had become fully aware during that interview that her mother still

entertained hopes, and almost suspected that Lady Rowley had known

something of Mr Glascock’s residence in Florence. She had seen that her

mother had met Mr Glascock almost as though some such meeting had been

expected, and had spoken to him almost as though she had expected to

have to speak to him. Would it not be better that she should at once

make her mother understand that all this could be of no avail? If she

were to declare plainly that nothing could bring about such a marriage,

would not her mother desist? She almost made up her mind to do so; but

as her mother said nothing to her before they started for Mr Spalding’s

house, neither did she say anything to her mother. She did not wish to

have angry words if they could be avoided, and she felt that there

might be anger and unpleasant words were she to insist upon her

devotion to Hugh Stanbury while this rich prize was in sight. If her

mother should speak to her, then, indeed, she would declare her own

settled purpose; but she would do nothing to accelerate the evil hour.

 

There were but few people in Mrs Spalding’s drawing-room when they were

announced, and Mr Glascock was not among them. Miss Wallachia Petrie

was there, and in the confusion of the introduction was presumed by

Lady Rowley to be one of the nieces introduced. She had been distinctly

told that Mr Glascock was to marry the eldest, and this lady was

certainly older than the other two. In this way Lady Rowley decided

that Miss Wallachia Petrie was her daughter’s hated rival, and she

certainly was much surprised at the gentleman’s taste. But there is

nothing nothing in the way of an absurd matrimonial engagement into

which a man will not allow himself to be entrapped by pique. Nora would

have a great deal to answer for, Lady Rowley thought, if the

unfortunate man should be driven by her cruelty to marry such a woman

as this one now before her.

 

It happened that Lady Rowley soon found herself seated by Miss Petrie,

and she at once commenced her questionings. She intended to be very

discreet, but the subject was too near her heart to allow her to be

altogether silent. ‘I believe you know Mr Glascock?’ she said.

 

‘Yes,’ said Wallachia, ‘I do know him.’ Now the peculiar nasal twang

which our cousins over the water have learned to use, and which has

grown out of a certain national instinct which coerces them to express

themselves with self-assertion—let the reader go into his closet and

talk through his nose for awhile with steady attention to the effect

which his own voice will have, and he will find that this theory is

correct—this intonation, which is so peculiar among intelligent

Americans, had been adopted con amore, and, as it were, taken to her

bosom by Miss Petrie. Her ears had taught themselves to feel that there

could be no vitality in speech without it, and that all utterance

unsustained by such tone was effeminate, vapid, useless, unpersuasive,

unmusical and English. It was a complaint frequently made by her

against her friends Caroline and Olivia that they debased their voices,

and taught themselves the puling British mode of speech. ‘I do know the

gentleman,’ said Wallachia, and Lady Rowley shuddered. Could it be that

such a woman as this was to reign over Monkhams, and become the future

Lady Peterborough?

 

‘He told me that he is acquainted with the family,’ said Lady Rowley.

‘He is staying at our hotel, and my daughter knew him very well when he

was living in London.’

 

‘I dare say. I believe that in London the titled aristocrats do hang

pretty much together.’ It had never occurred to poor Lady Rowley, since

the day in which her husband had been made a knight, at the advice of

the Colonial Minister, in order that the inhabitants of some island

might be gratified by the opportunity of using the title, that she and

her children had thereby become aristocrats. Were her daughter Nora to

marry Mr Glascock, Nora would become an aristocrat or would, rather, be

ennobled, all which Lady Rowley understood perfectly.

 

‘I don’t know that London society is very exclusive in that respect,’

said Lady Rowley.

 

‘I guess you are pretty particular,’ said Miss Petrie, ‘and it seems to

me you don’t have much regard to intellect or erudition but fix things

up straight according to birth and money.’

 

‘I hope we are not quite so bad as that,’ said Lady Rowley. ‘I do not

know London well myself, as I have passed my life in very distant

places.’

 

‘The distant places are, in my estimation, the best. The further the

mind is removed from the contamination incidental to the centres of

long-established luxury, the more chance it has of developing itself

according to the intention of the Creator, when he bestowed his gifts

of intellect upon us.’ Lady Rowley, when she heard this eloquence,

could hardly believe that such a man as Mr Glascock should really be

intent upon marrying such a lady as this who was sitting next to her.

 

In the meantime, Nora and the real rival were together, and they also

were talking of Mr Glascock. Caroline Spalding had said that Mr

Glascock had spoken to her of Nora Rowley, and Nora acknowledged that

there had been some acquaintance between them in London. ‘Almost more

than that, I should have thought,’ said Miss Spalding, ‘if one might

judge by his manner of speaking of you.’

 

‘He is a little given to be enthusiastic,’ said Nora, laughing.

 

‘The least so of all mankind, I should have said. You must know he is

very intimate in this house. It begun in this way. Olivia and I were

travelling together, and there was a difficulty, as we say in our

country when three or four gentlemen shoot each other. Then there came

up Mr Glascock and another gentleman. By-the-bye, the other gentleman

was your brother-in-law.’

 

‘Poor Mr Trevelyan!’

 

‘He is very ill, is he not?’

 

‘We think so. My sister is with us, you know. That is to say, she is at

Siena today.’

 

‘I have heard about him, and it is so sad. Mr Glascock knows him. As I

said, they were travelling together, when Mr Glascock came to our

assistance. Since that, we have seen him very frequently. I don’t think

he is enthusiastic except when he talks of you.’

 

‘I ought to be very proud,’ said Nora.

 

‘I think you ought, as Mr Glascock is a man whose good opinion is

certainly worth having. Here he is. Mr Glascock, I hope your ears are

tingling. They ought to do so, because we are saying all manner of fine

things about you.’

 

‘I could not be well spoken of by two on whose good word I should set a

higher value,’ said he.

 

‘And whose do you value the most?’ said Caroline.

 

‘I must first know whose eulogium will run the highest.’

 

Then Nora answered him. ‘Mr Glascock, other people may praise you

louder than I can do, but no one will ever do so with more sincerity.’

There was a pretty earnestness about her as she spoke, which Lady

Rowley ought to have heard. Mr Glascock bowed, and Miss Spalding

smiled, and Nora blushed.

 

‘If you are not overwhelmed now,’ said Miss Spalding, ‘you must be so

used to flattery, that it has no longer any effect upon you. You must

be like a drunkard, to whom wine is as water, and who thinks that

brandy is not strong enough.’

 

‘I think I had better go away,’ said Mr Glascock, ‘for fear the brandy

should be watered by degrees.’ And so he left them.

 

Nora had become quite aware, without much process of thinking about it,

that her former lover and this American young lady were very intimate

with each other. The tone of the conversation had shewn that it was so

and, then, how had it come to pass that Mr Glascock had spoken to this

American girl about her, Nora Rowley? It was evident that he had spoken

of her with warmth, and had done so in a manner to impress his hearer.

For a minute or two they sat together in silence after Mr Glascock had

left them, but neither of them stirred. Then Caroline Spalding turned

suddenly upon Nora, and took her by the hand. ‘I must tell you

something,’ said she, ‘only it must be a secret for awhile.’

 

‘I will not repeat it.’

 

‘Thank you, dear. I am engaged to him as his wife. He asked me this

very afternoon, and nobody knows it but my aunt. When I had accepted

him, he told me all the story about you. He had very often spoken of

you before, and I had guessed how it must have been. He wears his heart

so open for those whom he loves, that there is nothing concealed. He

had seen you just before he came to me. But perhaps I am wrong to tell

you that now. He ought to have been thinking of you again at such a

time.’

 

‘I did not want him to think of me again.’

 

‘Of course you did not. Of course I am joking. You might have been his

wife if you wished it. He has told me all that. And he especially wants

us to be friends. Is there anything to prevent it?’

 

‘On my part? Oh, dear, no except that you will be such grand folk, and

we shall be so poor.’

 

‘We!’ said Caroline, laughing. ‘I am so glad that there is a “we.”’