He Knew He Was Right - Anthony Trollope (rainbow fish read aloud txt) 📗
- Author: Anthony Trollope
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gentleman of whom you have been speaking is an old friend of my
father’s, and has become my friend. Nevertheless, had Mr Trevelyan
given me any plain order about him, I should have obeyed him. A wife
does not feel that her chances of happiness are increased when she
finds that her husband suspects her of being too intimate with another
man. It is a thing very hard to bear. But I would have endeavoured to
bear it, knowing how important it is for both our sakes, and more
especially for our child. I would have made excuses, and would have
endeavoured to think that this horrid feeling on his part is nothing
more than a short delusion.’
‘But, my dear—’
‘I must ask you to hear me out, Lady Milborough. But when he tells me
first that I am not to meet the man, and so instructs the servants;
then tells me that I am to meet him, and go on just as I was going
before, and then again tells me that I am not to see him, and again
instructs the servants and, above all, the cook that Colonel Osborne is
not to come into the house, then obedience becomes rather difficult.’
‘Just say now that you will do what he wants, and then all will be
right.’
‘I will not say so to you, Lady Milborough. It is not to you that I
ought to say it. But as he has chosen to send you here, I will explain
to you that I have never disobeyed him. When I was free, in accordance
with Mr Trevelyan’s wishes, to have what intercourse I pleased with
Colonel Osborne, I received a note from that gentleman on a most
trivial matter. I answered it as trivially. My husband saw my letter,
closed, and questioned me about it. I told him that the letter was
still there, and that if he chose to be a spy upon my actions he could
open it and read it.’
‘My dear, how could you bring yourself to use the word spy to your
husband?’
‘How could he bring himself to accuse me as he did? If he cares for me
let him come and beg my pardon for the insult he has offered me.’
‘Oh, Mrs Trevelyan!’
‘Yes; that seems very wrong to you, who have not had to bear it. It is
very easy for a stranger to take a husband’s part, and help to put down
a poor woman who has been ill used. I have done nothing wrong, nothing
to be ashamed of; and I will not say that I have. I never have spoken a
word to Colonel Osborne that all the world might not hear.’
‘Nobody has accused you, my dear.’
‘Yes; he has accused me, and you have accused me, and you will make all
the world accuse me. He may put me out of his house if he likes, but he
shall not make me say I have been wrong, when I know I have been right.
He cannot take my child from me.’
‘But he will.’
‘No,’ shouted Mrs Trevelyan, jumping up from her chair, ‘no; he shall
never do that. I will cling to him so that he cannot separate us. He
will never be so wicked, such a monster as that. I would go about the
world saying what a monster he had been to me.’ The passion of the
interview was becoming too great for Lady Milborough’s power of
moderating it, and she was beginning to feel herself to be in a
difficulty. ‘Lady Milborough,’ continued Mrs Trevelyan, ‘tell him from
me that I will bear anything but that. That I will not bear.’
‘Dear Mrs Trevelyan, do not let us talk about it.’
‘Who wants to talk about it? Why do you come here and threaten me with
a thing so horrible? I do not believe you. He would not dare to
separate me and my child.’
‘But you have only to say that you will submit yourself to him.’
‘I have submitted myself to him, and I will submit no further. What
does he want? Why does he send you here? He does not know what he
wants. He has made himself miserable by an absurd idea, and he wants
everybody to tell him that he has been right. He has been very wrong;
and if he desires to be wise now, he will come back to his home, and
say nothing further about it. He will gain nothing by sending
messengers here.’
Lady Milborough, who had undertaken a most disagreeable task from the
purest motives of old friendship, did not like being called a
messenger; but the woman before her was so strong in her words, so
eager, and so passionate, that she did not know how to resent the
injury. And there was coming over her an idea, of which she herself was
hardly conscious, that after all, perhaps, the husband was not in the
right. She had come there with the general idea that wives, and
especially young wives, should be submissive. She had naturally taken
the husband’s part; and having a preconceived dislike to Colonel
Osborne, she had been willing enough to think that precautionary
measures were necessary in reference to so eminent, and notorious, and
experienced a Lothario. She had never altogether loved Mrs Trevelyan,
and had always been a little in dread of her. But she had thought that
the authority with which she would be invested on this occasion, the
manifest right on her side, and the undeniable truth of her grand
argument, that a wife should obey, would carry her, if not easily,
still successfully through all difficulties. It was probably the case
that Lady Milborough when preparing for her visit, had anticipated a
triumph. But when she had been closeted for an hour with Mrs Trevelyan,
she found that she was not triumphant. She was told that she was a
messenger, and an unwelcome messenger; and she began to feel that she
did not know how she was to take herself away.
‘I am sure I have done everything for the best,’ she said, getting up
from her chair.
‘The best will be to send him back, and make him feel the truth.’
‘The best for you, my dear, will be to consider well what should be the
duty of a wife.’
‘I have considered, Lady Milborough. It cannot be a wife’s duty to
acknowledge that she has been wrong in such a matter as this.’
Then Lady Milborough made her curtsey and got herself away in some
manner that was sufficiently awkward, and Mrs Trevelyan curtseyed also
as she rang the bell; and, though she was sore and wretched, and, in
truth, sadly frightened, she was not awkward. In that encounter, so far
as it had gone, she had been the victor.
As soon as she was alone and the carriage had been driven well away
from the door, Mrs Trevelyan left the drawing-room and went up to the
nursery. As she entered she clothed her face with her sweetest smile.
‘How is his own mother’s dearest, dearest, darling duck’ she said,
putting out her arms and taking the boy from the nurse. The child was
at this time about ten months old, and was a strong, hearty, happy
infant, always laughing when he was awake and always sleeping when he
did not laugh, because his little limbs were free from pain and his
little stomach was not annoyed by internal troubles. He kicked, and
crowed, and sputtered, when his mother took him, and put up his little
fingers to clutch her hair, and was to her as a young god upon the
earth. Nothing in the world had ever been created so beautiful, so
joyous, so satisfactory, so divine! And they told her that this apple
of her eye was to be taken away from her! No that must be impossible.
‘I will take him into my own room, nurse, for a little while—you have
had him all the morning,’ she said; as though the ‘having baby’ was a
privilege over which there might almost be a quarrel. Then she took her
boy away with her, and when she was alone with him, went through such a
service in baby-worship as most mothers will understand. Divide these
two! No; nobody should do that. Sooner than that, she, the mother,
would consent to be no more than a servant in her husband’s house. Was
not her baby all the world to her?
On the evening of that day the husband and wife had an interview
together in the library, which, unfortunately, was as unsatisfactory as
Lady Milborough’s visit. The cause of the failure of them all lay
probably in this, that there was no decided point which, if conceded,
would have brought about a reconciliation. Trevelyan asked for general
submission, which he regarded as his right, and which in the existing
circumstances he thought it necessary to claim, and though Mrs
Trevelyan did not refuse to be submissive she would make no promise on
the subject. But the truth was that each desired that the other should
acknowledge a fault, and that neither of them would make that
acknowledgment. Emily Trevelyan felt acutely that she had been
illused, not only by her husband’s suspicion, but by the manner in
which he had talked of his suspicion to others, to Lady Milborough and
the cook, and she was quite convinced that she was right herself,
because he had been so vacillating in his conduct about Colonel
Osborne. But Trevelyan was equally sure that justice was on his side.
Emily must have known his real wishes about Colonel Osborne; but when
she had found that he had rescinded his verbal orders about the
admission of the man to the house, which he had done to save himself and
her from slander and gossip, she had taken advantage of this and had
thrown herself more entirely than ever into the intimacy of which he
disapproved!
When they met, each was so sore that no approach to terms was made by
them.
‘If I am to be treated in that way, I would rather not live with you,’
said the wife. ‘It is impossible to live with a husband who is
jealous.’
‘All I ask of you is that you shall promise me to have no further
communication with this man.’
‘I will make no promise that implies my own disgrace.’
‘Then we must part; and if that be so, this house will be given up. You
may live where you please in the country, not in London; but I shall
take steps that Colonel Osborne does not see you.’
‘I will not remain in the room with you to be insulted thus,’ said Mrs
Trevelyan. And she did not remain, but left the chamber, slamming the
door after her as she went.
‘It will be better that she should go,’ said Trevelyan, when he found
himself alone. And so it came to pass that that blessing of a rich
marriage, which had as it were fallen upon them at the Mandarins from
out of heaven, had become, after an interval of but two short years,
anything but an unmixed blessing.
MISS STANBURY’S GENEROSITY
On one Wednesday morning early in June, great preparations were being
made at the brick house in the Close at Exeter for an event which can
hardly be said to have required any preparation at all. Mrs Stanbury
and her elder daughter were coming into Exeter from Nuncombe Putney to
visit Dorothy. The reader may perhaps remember that when Miss
Stanbury’s invitation was sent to
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