He Knew He Was Right - Anthony Trollope (rainbow fish read aloud txt) 📗
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had been a failure. Now she was seeking to appease her self-accusations
by sacrificing everything for the happiness of her niece and her chosen
hero; but as she went on with the work she felt that all would be in
vain, unless she could sweep herself altogether from off the scene. She
had told herself that if she could bring Brooke to Exeter, his
prospects would be made infinitely brighter than they would be in
London, and that she in her last days would not be left utterly alone.
But as the prospect of her future life came nearer to her, she saw, or
thought that she saw, that there was still failure before her. Young
people would not want an old woman in the house with them even though
the old woman would declare that she would be no more in the house than
a tame cat. And she knew herself also too well to believe that she
could make herself a tame cat in the home that had so long been subject
to her dominion. Would it not be better that she should go away
somewhere and die?
‘If Mr Brooke is to come here,’ Martha said to her one day, ‘we ought
to begin and make the changes, ma’am’.
‘What changes? You are always wanting to make changes’.
‘If they was never made till I wanted them they’d never be made, ma’am.
But if there is to be a married couple, there should be things proper.
Anyways, ma’am, we ought to know oughtn’t we?’
The truth of this statement was so evident that Miss Stanbury could not
contradict it. But she had not even yet made up her mind. Ideas were
running through her head which she knew to be very wild, but of which
she could not divest herself. ‘Martha,’ she said after a while, ‘I
think I shall go away from this myself.’
‘Leave the house, ma’am?’ said Martha, awestruck.
‘There are other houses in the world, I suppose, in which an old woman
can live and die.’
‘There is houses, ma’am, of course,’
‘And what is the difference between one and another?’
‘I wouldn’t do it, ma’am, if I was you. I wouldn’t do it if it was ever
so. Sure the house is big enough for Mr Brooke and Miss Dorothy along
with you. I wouldn’t go and make such change as that, I wouldn’t indeed,
ma’am.’ Martha spoke out almost with eloquence, so much expression was
there in her face. Miss Stanbury said nothing more at the moment,
beyond signifying her indisposition to make up her mind to anything at
the present moment. Yes the house was big enough as far as rooms were
concerned; but how often had she heard that an old woman must always be
in the way, if attempting to live with a newly-married couple? If a
mother-in-law be unendurable, how much more so one whose connection
would be less near? She could keep her own house no doubt, and let them
go elsewhere; but what then would come of her old dream, that Burgess,
the new banker in the city, should live in the very house that had been
inhabited by the Burgesses, the bankers of old? There was certainly
only one way out of all these troubles, and that way would be that she
should go from them and be at rest.
Her will had now been drawn out and completed for the third or fourth
time, and she had made no secret of is contents either with Brooke or
Dorothy. The whole estate she left to Brooke, including the houses
which were to become his after his uncle’s death; and in regard to the
property she had made no further stipulation. ‘I might have settled it
on your children,’ she said to him, ‘but in doing so I should have
settled it on hers. I don’t know why an old woman should try to
interfere with things after she has gone. I hope you won’t squander it,
Brooke.’
‘I shall be a steady old man by that time,’ he said.
‘I hope you’ll be steady at any rate. But there it is, and God must
direct you in the use of it, if He will. It has been a burthen to me;
but then I have been a solitary old woman.’ Half of what she had saved
she proposed to give Dorothy on her marriage, and for doing this
arrangements had already been made. There were various other legacies,
and the last she announced was one to her nephew, Hugh. ‘I have left
him a thousand pounds,’ she said to Dorothy ‘so that he may remember me
kindly at last’ As to this, however, she exacted a pledge that no
intimation of the legacy was to be made to Hugh. Then it was that
Dorothy told her aunt that Hugh intended to marry Nora Rowley, one of
the ladies who had been at the Clock House during the days in which her
mother had lived in grandeur; and then it was also that Dorothy
obtained leave to invite Hugh to her own wedding. ‘I hope she will be
happier than her sister,’ Miss Stanbury said, when she heard of the
intended marriage.
‘It wasn’t Mrs Trevelyan’s fault, you know, aunt.’
‘I say nothing about anybody’s fault; but this I do say, that it was a
very great misfortune. I fought all that battle with your sister
Priscilla, and I don’t mean to fight it again, my dear. If Hugh marries
the young lady, I hope she will be more happy than her sister. There
can be no harm in saying that.’
Dorothy’s letter to her brother shall be given, because it will inform
the reader of all the arrangements as they were made up to that time,
and will convey the Exeter news respecting various persons with whom
our story is concerned.
‘The Close, July 20, 186-
DEAR HUGH,
The day for my marriage is now fixed, and I wish with all my heart that
it was the same with you. Pray give my love to Nora. It seems so odd
that, though she was living for a while with mamma at Nuncombe Putney,
I never should have seen her yet. I am very glad that Brooke has seen
her, and he declares that she is quite magnificently beautiful. Those
are his own words.
We are to be married on the 10th of August, a Wednesday, and now comes
my great news. Aunt Stanbury says that you are to come and stay in the
house. She bids me tell you so with her love; and that you can have a
room as long as you like. Of course, you must come. In the first place,
you must because you are to give me away, and Brooke wouldn’t have me
if I wasn’t given away properly; and then it will make me so happy that
you and Aunt Stanbury should be friends again. You can stay as long as
you like, but, of course, you must come the day before the wedding. We
are to be married in the Cathedral, and there are to be two clergymen,
but I don’t yet know who they will be—not Mr Gibson, certainly, as you
were good enough to suggest.
Mr Gibson is married to Arabella French, and they have gone away
somewhere into Cornwall. Camilla has come back, and I have seen her
once. She looked ever so fierce, as though she intended to declare that
she didn’t mind what anybody may think. They say that she still
protests that she never will speak to her sister again.
I was introduced to Mr Barty Burgess the other day. Brooke was here,
and we met him in the Close. I hardly knew what he said to me, I was so
frightened; but Brooke said that he meant to be civil, and that he is
going to send me a present. I have got a quantity of things already,
and yesterday Mrs MacHugh sent me such a beautiful cream-jug. If you’ll
come in time on the 9th, you shall see them all before they are put
away.
‘Mamma and Priscilla are to be here, and they will come on the 9th
also. Poor, dear mamma is, I know, terribly flurried about it, and so
is Aunt Stanbury. It is so long since they have seen each other. I
don’t think Priscilla feels it the same way, because she is so brave.
Do you remember when it was first proposed that I should come here? I
am so glad I came because of Brooke. He will come on the 9th, quite
early, and I do so hope you will come with him.
Yours most affectionately,
DOROTHY STANBURY.
Give my best, best love to Nora’
LADY ROWLEY CONQUERED
When the Rowleys were back in London, and began to employ themselves on
the terrible work of making ready for their journey to the Islands,
Lady Rowley gradually gave way about Hugh Stanbury. She had become
aware that Nora would not go back with them unless under an amount of
pressure which she would find it impossible to use. And if Nora did not
go out to the Islands, what was to become of her unless she married
this man? Sir Marmaduke, when all was explained to him, declared that a
girl must do what her parents ordered her to do. ‘Other girls live with
their fathers and mothers, and so must she.’ Lady Rowley endeavoured to
explain that other girls lived with their fathers and mothers, because
they found themselves in established homes from which they are not
disposed to run away; but Nora’s position was, as she alleged, very
different. Nora’s home had latterly been with her sister, and it was
hardly to be expected that the parental authority should not find
itself impaired by the interregnum which had taken place. Sir Marmaduke
would not see the thing in the same light, and was disposed to treat
his daughter with a high hand. If she would not do as she was bidden,
she should no longer be daughter of his. In answer to this Lady Rowley
could only repeat her conviction that Nora would not go out to the
Mandarins; and that as for disinheriting her, casting her out, cursing
her, and the rest, she had no belief in such doings at all. ‘On the
stage they do such things as that’ she said; ‘and, perhaps, they used
to do it once in reality. But you know that it’s out of the question
now. Fancy your standing up and cursing at the dear girl, just as we
are all starting from Southampton!’ Sir Marmaduke knew as well as his
wife that it would be impossible, and only muttered something about the
‘dear girl’ behaving herself with great impropriety.
They were all aware that Nora was not going to leave England, because
no berth had been taken for her on board the ship, and because, while
the other girls were preparing for their long voyage, no preparations
were made for her. Of course she was not going. Sir Marmaduke would
probably have given way altogether immediately on his return to London,
had he not discussed the matter with his friend Colonel Osborne. It
became, of course, his duty to make some inquiry as to the Stanbury
family, and he knew that Osborne had visited Mrs Stanbury when he made
his unfortunate pilgrimage to the porch of Cockchaffington Church. He
told Osborne the whole story of Nora’s engagement, telling also that
other most heartbreaking tale of her conduct in regard to Mr Glascock,
and asked the Colonel what he thought about the Stanburys. Now the
Colonel did not hold the
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