He Knew He Was Right - Anthony Trollope (rainbow fish read aloud txt) 📗
- Author: Anthony Trollope
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that we should speak of the innkeeper as a dear friend; but you must
remember that we have been poor among the poorest and are so indeed
now. We only came into our present house to receive you. That is where
we used to live,’ and she pointed to the tiny cottage, which now that
it was dismantled and desolate, looked to be doubly poor. ‘There have
been times when we should have gone to bed very hungry if it had not
been for Mrs Crocket.’
Later in the day Mrs Trevelyan, finding Priscilla alone, had apologized
for what she had said about the old woman. ‘I was very thoughtless and
forgetful, but I hope you will not be angry with me. I will be ever so
fond of her if you will forgive me.’
‘Very well,’ said Priscilla, smiling; ‘on those conditions I will
forgive you.’ And from that time there sprang up something like a
feeling of friendship between Priscilla and Mrs Trevelyan. Nevertheless
Priscilla was still of opinion that the Clock House arrangement was
dangerous, and should never have been made; and Mrs Stanbury, always
timid of her own nature, began to fear that it must be so, as soon as
she was removed from the influence of her son. She did not see much
even of the few neighbours who lived around her, but she fancied that
people looked at her in church as though she had done that which she
ought not to have done, in taking herself to a big and comfortable
house for the sake of lending her protection to a lady who was
separated from her husband. It was not that she believed that Mrs
Trevelyan had been wrong; but that, knowing herself to be weak, she
fancied that she and her daughter would be enveloped in the danger and
suspicion which could not but attach themselves to the lady’s
condition, instead of raising the lady out of the cloud as would have
been the case had she herself been strong. Mrs Trevelyan, who was
sharpsighted and clear-witted, soon saw that it was so, and spoke to
Priscilla on the subject before she had been a fortnight in the house.
‘I am afraid your mother does not like our being here,’ she said.
‘How am I to answer that?’ Priscilla replied.
‘Just tell the truth.’
‘The truth is so uncivil. At first I did not like it. I disliked it
very much.’
‘Why did you give way?’
‘I didn’t give way. Hugh talked my mother over. Mamma does what I tell
her, except when Hugh tells her something else. I was afraid, because,
down here, knowing nothing of the world, I didn’t wish that we, little
people, should be mixed up in the quarrels and disagreements of those
who are so much bigger.’
‘I don’t know who it is that is big in this matter.’
‘You are big at any rate by comparison. But now it must go on. The
house has been taken, and my fears are over as regards you. What you
observe in mamma is only the effect, not yet quite worn out, of what I
said before you came. You may be quite sure of this that we neither of
us believe a word against you. Your position is a very unfortunate one;
but if it can be remedied by your staying here with us, pray stay with
us.’
‘It cannot be remedied,’ said Emily; ‘but we could not be anywhere more
comfortable than we are here.’
WHAT THEY SAID ABOUT IT IN THE CLOSE
When Miss Stanbury, in the Close at Exeter, was first told of the
arrangement that had been made at Nuncombe Putney, she said some very
hard words as to the thing that had been done. She was quite sure that
Mrs Trevelyan was no better than she should be. Ladies who were
separated from their husbands never were any better than they should
be. And what was to be thought of any woman, who, when separated from
her husband, would put herself under the protection of such a Paladin
as Hugh Stanbury. She heard the tidings of course from Dorothy, and
spoke her mind even to Dorothy plainly enough; but it was to Martha
that she expressed herself with her fullest vehemence.
‘We always knew,’ she said, ‘that my brother had married an
addle-pated, silly woman, one of the most unsuited to be the mistress
of a clergyman’s house that ever a man set eyes on; but I didn’t think
she’d allow herself to be led into such a stupid thing as this.’
‘I don’t suppose the lady has done anything amiss any more than
combing her husband’s hair, and the like of that,’ said Martha.
‘Don’t tell me! Why, by their own story, she has got a lover.’
‘But he ain’t to come after her down here, I suppose. And as for
lovers, ma’am, I’m told that the most of ‘em have ‘em up in London. But
it don’t mean much, only just idle talking and gallivanting.’
‘When women can’t keep themselves from idle talking with strange
gentlemen, they are very far gone on the road to the devil. That’s my
notion. And that was everybody’s notion a few years ago. But now, what
with divorce bills, and woman’s rights, and penny papers, and false
hair, and married women being just like giggling girls, and giggling
girls knowing just as much as married women, when a woman has been
married a year or two she begins to think whether she mayn’t have more
fun for her money by living apart from her husband.’
‘Miss Dorothy says—’
‘Oh, bother what Miss Dorothy says! Miss Dorothy only knows what it has
suited that scamp, her brother, to tell her. I understand this woman
has come away because of a lover; and if that’s so, my sister-in-law is
very wrong to receive her. The temptation of the Clock House has been
too much for her. It’s not my doing; that’s all.’
That evening Miss Stanbury and Dorothy went out to tea at the house of
Mrs MacHugh, and there the matter was very much discussed. The family
of the Trevelyans was known by name in these parts, and the fact of Mrs
Trevelyan having been sent to live in a Devonshire village, with
Devonshire ladies who had a relation in Exeter so well esteemed as Miss
Stanbury of the Close, were circumstances of themselves sufficient to
ensure a considerable amount of prestige at the city tea-table for the
tidings of this unfortunate family quarrel. Some reticence was of
course necessary because of the presence of Miss Stanbury and of
Dorothy. To Miss Stanbury herself Mrs MacHugh and Mrs Crumbie, of
Cronstadt House, did not scruple to express themselves very plainly,
and to whisper a question as to what was to be done should the lover
make his appearance at Nuncombe Putney; but they who spoke of the
matter before Dorothy, were at first more charitable, or, at least,
more forbearing. Mr Gibson, who was one of the minor canons, and the
two Miss Frenches from Heavitree, who had the reputation of hunting
unmarried clergymen in couples, seemed to have heard all about it. When
Mrs MacHugh and Miss Stanbury, with Mr and Mrs Crumbie, had seated
themselves at their whist-table, the younger people were able to
express their opinions without danger of interruption or of rebuke. It
was known to all Exeter by this time, that Dorothy Stanbury’s mother
had gone to the Clock House, and that she had done so in order that Mrs
Trevelyan might have a home. But it was not yet known whether anybody
had called upon them. There was Mrs Merton, the wife of the present
parson of Nuncombe, who had known the Stanburys for the last twenty
years; and there was Mrs Ellison of Lessboro’, who lived only four
miles from Nuncombe, and who kept a pony-carriage. It would be a great
thing to know how these ladies had behaved in so difficult and
embarrassing a position. Mrs Trevelyan and her sister had now been at
Nuncombe Putney for more than a fortnight, and something in that matter
of calling must have been done or have been left undone. In answer to
an ingeniously-framed question asked by Camilla French, Dorothy at once
set the matter at rest. ‘Mrs Merton,’ said Camilla French, ‘must find
it a great thing to have two new ladies come to the village, especially
now that she has lost you, Miss Stanbury?’
‘Mamma tells me,’ said Dorothy, ‘that Mrs Trevelyan and Miss Rowley do
not mean to know anybody. They have given it out quite plainly, so that
there should be no mistake.’
‘Dear, dear!’ said Camilla French.
‘I dare say it’s for the best,’ said Arabella French, who was the
elder, and who looked very meek and soft. Miss French almost always
looked meek and soft.
‘I’m afraid it will make it very dull for your mother not seeing her
old friends,’ said Mr Gibson.
‘Mamma won’t feel that at all,’ said Dorothy.
‘Mrs Stanbury, I suppose, will see her own friends at her own house
just the same,’ said Camilla.
‘There would be great difficulty in that, when there is a lady who is
to remain unknown,’ said Arabella. ‘Don’t you think so, Mr Gibson?’ Mr
Gibson replied that perhaps there might be a difficulty, but he wasn’t
sure. The difficulty, he thought, might be got over if the ladies did
not always occupy the same room.
‘You have never seen Mrs Trevelyan, have you, Miss Stanbury?’ asked
Camilla.
‘Never.’
‘She is not an old family friend, then or anything of that sort?’
‘Oh, dear, no.’
‘Because,’ said Arabella, ‘it is so odd how different people get
together sometimes.’ Then Dorothy explained that Mr Trevelyan and her
brother Hugh had long been friends.
‘Oh! of Mr Trevelyan,’ said Camilla. ‘Then it is he that has sent his
wife to Nuncombe, not she that has come there?’
‘I suppose there has been some agreement,’ said Dorothy.
‘Just so; just so,’ said Arabella, the meek. ‘I should like to see her.
They say that she is very beautiful; don’t they?’
‘My brother says that she is handsome.’
‘Exceedingly lovely, I’m told,’ said Camilla. ‘I should like to see her
shouldn’t you, Mr Gibson?’
‘I always like to see a pretty woman,’ said Mr Gibson, with a polite
bow, which the sisters shared between them.
‘I suppose she’ll go to church,’ said Camilla.
‘Very likely not,’ said Arabella. ‘Ladies of that sort very often don’t
go to church. I dare say you’ll find that she’ll never stir out of the
place at all, and that not a soul in Nuncombe will ever see her except
the gardener. It is such a thing for a woman to be separated from her
husband! Don’t you think so, Mr Gibson?’
‘Of course it is,’ said he, with a shake of his head, which was
intended to imply that the censure of the church must of course attend
any sundering of those whom the church had bound together; but which
implied also by the absence from it of any intense clerical severity,
that as the separated wife was allowed to live with so very respectable
a lady as Mrs Stanbury, there must probably be some mitigating
circumstances attending this special separation.
‘I wonder what he is like?’ said Camilla, after a pause.
‘Who?’ asked Arabella.
‘The gentleman,’ said Camilla.
‘What gentleman?’ demanded Arabella.
‘I don’t mean Mr Trevelyan,’ said Camilla.
‘I don’t believe there really is eh is there?’ said Mr
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