He Knew He Was Right - Anthony Trollope (rainbow fish read aloud txt) 📗
- Author: Anthony Trollope
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‘But you are out of your way for Lincoln’s Inn Fields,’ said
Stanbury.
‘I have to call at Twining’s. And where are you going?’
‘I have been three times round St. James’s Park to collect my
thoughts,’ said Stanbury, ‘and now I’m on my way to the Daily R.,
250, Fleet Street. It is my custom of an afternoon. I am prepared
to instruct the British public of tomorrow on any subject, as per
order, from the downfall of a European compact to the price of a
London mutton chop.’
‘I suppose there is nothing more to be said about it,’ said Trevelyan,
after a pause.
‘Not another word. How should there be? Aunt Jemima has already
drawn tight the purse strings, and it would soon be the casual ward
in earnest if it were not for the Daily R. God bless the Daily R.
Only think what a thing it is to have all subjects open to one,
from the destinies of France to the profit proper to a butcher.’
‘If you like it!’
‘I do like it. It may not be altogether honest. I don’t know what
is. But it’s a deal honester than defending thieves and bamboozling
juries. How is your wife?’
‘She’s pretty well, thank you.’
Stanbury knew at once from the tone of his friend’s voice that
there was something wrong.
‘And Louis the less?’ he said, asking after Trevelyan’s child.
‘He’s all right.’
‘And Miss Rowley? When one begins one’s inquiries one is bound to
go through the whole family.’
‘Miss Rowley is pretty well,’ said Trevelyan.
Previously to this, Trevelyan when speaking of his sister-in-law
to Stanbury, had always called her Nora, and had been wont to speak
of her as though she were almost as much the friend of one of them
as of the other. The change of tone on this occasion was in truth
occasioned by the sadness of the man’s thoughts in reference to
his wife, but Stanbury attributed it to another cause. ‘He need
not be afraid of me,’ he said to himself, ‘and at least he should
not show me that he is.’ Then they parted, Trevelyan going into
Twining’s bank, and Stanbury passing on towards the office of the
Daily R.
Stanbury had in truth been altogether mistaken as to the state
of his friend’s mind on that morning. Trevelyan, although he had,
according to his custom, put in a word in condemnation of the
newspaper line of life, was at the moment thinking whether he would
not tell all his trouble to Hugh Stanbury. He knew that he should
not find anywhere, not even in Mr Bideawhile, a more friendly or more
trustworthy listener. When Nora Rowley’s name had been mentioned,
he had not thought of her. He had simply repeated the name with
the usual answer. He was at the moment cautioning himself against
a confidence which after all might not be necessary, and which on
this occasion was not made. When one is in trouble it is a great
ease to tell one’s trouble to a friend; but then one should always
wash one’s dirty linen at home. The latter consideration prevailed,
and Trevelyan allowed his friend to go on without burdening him
with the story of that domestic quarrel. Nor did he on that occasion
tell it to Mr Bideawhile; for Mr Bideawhile was not found at his
chambers.
SHEWING HOW THE QUARREL PROGRESSED
Trevelyan got back to his own house at about three, and on going
into the library, found on his table a letter to him addressed in
his wife’s handwriting. He opened it quickly, hoping to find that
promise which he had demanded, and resolving that if it were made
he would at once become affectionate, yielding, and gentle to his
wife. But there was not a word written by his wife within the envelope.
It contained simply another letter, already opened, addressed to
her. This letter had been brought up to her during her husband’s
absence from the house, and was as follows:
Acrobats, Thursday.
‘DEAR EMILY,
‘I have just come from the Colonial Office. It is all settled, and
Sir M. has been sent for. Of course, you will tell T. now. Yours,
F.O.
The letter was, of course, from Colonel Osborne, and Mrs Trevelyan,
when she received it, had had great doubts whether she would enclose
it to her husband opened or unopened. She had hitherto refused to
make the promise which her husband exacted, but nevertheless, she
was minded to obey him; Had he included in his demand any requirement
that she should receive no letter from Colonel Osborne, she would
not have opened this one. But nothing had been said about letters,
and she would not shew herself to be afraid. So she read the note,
and then sent it down to be put on Mr Trevelyan’s table in an
envelope addressed to him.
‘If he is not altogether blinded, it will show him how cruelly he
has wronged me,’ said she to her sister. She was sitting at the time
with her boy in her lap, telling herself that the child’s features
were in all respects the very same as his father’s, and that, come
what come might, the child should always be taught by her to love
and respect his father. And then there came a horrible thought.
What if the child should be taken away from her? If this quarrel,
out of which she saw no present mode of escape, were to lead to
a separation between her and her husband, would not the law, and
the judges, and the courts, and all the Lady Milboroughs of their
joint acquaintance into the bargain, say that the child should go
with his father? The judges, and the courts, and the Lady Milboroughs
would, of course, say that she was the sinner. And what could she
do without her boy? Would not any humility, any grovelling in the
dust be better for her than that? ‘It is a very poor thing to be
a woman,’ she said to her sister.
‘It is perhaps better than being a dog,’ said Nora; ‘but, of course,
we can’t compare ourselves to men.’
‘It would be better to be a dog. One wouldn’t be made to suffer so
much. When a puppy is taken away from its mother, she is bad enough
for a few days, but she gets over it in a week.’ There was a pause
then for a few moments. Nora knew well which way ran the current
of her sister’s thoughts, and had nothing at the present moment
which she could say on that subject.
‘It is very hard for a woman to know what to do,’ continued Emily,
‘but if she is to marry, I think she had better marry a fool. After
all, a fool generally knows that he is a fool, and will trust some
one, though he may not trust his wife.’
‘I will never wittingly marry a fool,’ said Nora.
‘You will marry Mr Glascock, of course. I don’t say that he is a
fool; but I do not think he has that kind of strength which shows
itself in perversity.’
‘If he asked me, I should not have him, and he will never ask me.’
‘He will ask you, and, of course, you’ll take him. Why not? You can’t
be otherwise than a woman. And you must marry. And this man is a
gentleman, and will be a peer. There is nothing on earth against
him, except that he does not set the Thames on fire. Louis intends
to set the Thames on fire some day, and see what comes of it.’
‘All the same, I shall not marry Mr Glascock. A woman can die, at
any rate,’ said Nora.
‘No, she can’t. A woman must be decent; and to die of want is
very indecent. She can’t die, and she mustn’t be in want, and she
oughtn’t to be a burden. I suppose it was thought necessary that
every man should have two to choose from; and therefore there are
so many more of us than the world wants. I wonder whether you’d
mind taking that downstairs to his table? I don’t like to send it
by the servant; and I don’t want to go myself.’
Then Nora had taken the letter down, and left it where Louis
Trevelyan would be sure to find it.
He did find it, and was sorely disappointed when he perceived that
it contained no word from his wife to himself. He opened Colonel
Osborne’s note, and read it, and became, as he did so, almost more
angry than before. Who was this man that he should dare to address
another man’s wife as ‘Dear Emily’? At the moment Trevelyan
remembered well enough that he had heard the man so call his wife,
that it had been done openly in his presence, and had not given him
a thought. But Lady Rowley and Sir Marmaduke had then been present
also; and that man on that occasion had been the old friend of the
old father, and not the would-be young friend of the young daughter.
Trevelyan could hardly reason about it, but felt that whereas the
one was not improper, the other was grossly impertinent and even
wicked. And then, again, his wife, his Emily, was to show to him,
to her husband, or was not to show to him, the letter which she
received from this man, the letter in which she was addressed as
‘Dear Emily,’ according to this man’s judgment and wish, and not
according to his judgment and wish—not according to the judgment
and wish of him who was her husband, her lord, and her master! ‘Of
course, you will tell T. now.’ This was intolerable to him. It made
him feel that he was to be regarded as second, and this man to be
regarded as first. And then he began to recapitulate all the good
things he had done for his wife, and all the causes which he had
given her for gratitude. Had he not taken her to his bosom, and
bestowed upon her the half of all that he had, simply for herself,
asking for nothing more than her love? He had possessed money,
position, a name all that makes life worth having. He had found her
in a remote corner of the world, with no fortune, with no advantages
of family or social standing, so circumstanced that any friend would
have warned him against such a marriage; but he had given her his
heart, and his hand, and his house, and had asked for nothing in
return but that he should be all in all to her, that he should be
her one god upon earth. And he had done more even than this. ‘Bring
your sister,’ he had said. ‘The house shall be big enough for her
also, and she shall be my sister as well as yours.’ Who had ever
done more for a woman, or shown a more absolute confidence? And
now what was the return he received? She was not contented with her
one god upon earth, but must make to herself other gods—another
god, and that too out of a lump of the basest clay to be found
around her. He thought that he could remember to have heard it said
in early days, long before he himself had had an idea of marrying,
that no man should look for a wife from among the tropics, that
women educated amidst the languors of those sunny climes rarely
came to possess those high ideas of conjugal duty and feminine
truth which a man should regard as the first requisites of a
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