He Knew He Was Right, Anthony Trollope [children's ebooks free online .TXT] 📗

because her life

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’