He Knew He Was Right, Anthony Trollope [children's ebooks free online .TXT] 📗
- Author: Anthony Trollope
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the reader may perhaps remember, and had had some intercourse with the
young man, which had not been quite agreeable to him, on the platform
of the railway station at Exeter. And he had also heard something of
the ladies at Nuncombe Putney during his short sojourn at the house of
Mrs Crocket. ‘My belief is, they are beggars,’ said Colonel Osborne.
‘I suppose so,’ said Sir Marmaduke, shaking his head.
‘When I went over to call on Emily that time I was at Cockchaffington,
you know, when Trevelyan made himself such a d fool, I found the mother
and sister living in a decentish house enough; but it wasn’t their
house.’
‘Not their own, you mean?’
‘It was a place that Trevelyan had got this young man to take for
Emily, and they had merely gone there to be with her. They had been
living in a little bit of a cottage; a sort of place that any any
ploughman would live in. Just that kind of cottage.’
‘Goodness gracious!’
‘And they’ve gone to another just like it so I’m told.’
‘And can’t he do anything better for them than that?’ asked Sir
Marmaduke.
‘I know nothing about him. I have met him, you know. He used to be with
Trevelyan; that was when Nora took a fancy for him, of course. And I saw
him once down in Devonshire, when I must say he behaved uncommonly
badly, doing all he could to foster Trevelyan’s stupid jealousy.’
‘He has changed his mind about that, I think.’
‘Perhaps he has; but he behaved very badly then. Let him shew up his
income; that, I take it, is the question in such a case as this. His
father was a clergyman, and therefore I suppose he must be considered
to he a gentleman. But has he means to support a wife, and keep up a
house in London? If he has not, that is an end to it, I should say.’
But Sir Marmaduke could not see his way to any such end, and, although
he still looked black upon Nora, and talked to his wife of his
determination to stand no contumacy, and hinted at cursing,
disinheriting, and the like, he began to perceive that Nora would have
her own way. In his unhappiness he regretted this visit to England, and
almost thought that the Mandarins were a pleasanter residence than
London. He could do pretty much as he pleased there, and could live
quietly, without the trouble which encountered him now on every side.
Nora, immediately on her return to London, had written a note to Hugh,
simply telling him of her arrival and begging him to come and see her.
‘Mamma,’ she said, ‘I must see him, and it would be nonsense to say
that he must not come here. I have done what I have said I would do,
and you ought not to make difficulties.’ Lady Rowley declared that Sir
Marmaduke would be very angry if Hugh were admitted without his express
permission. ‘I don’t want to do anything in the dark,’ continued Nora,
‘but of course I must see him. I suppose it will be better that he
should come to me than that I should go to him?’ Lady Rowley quite
understood the threat that was conveyed in this. It would be much
better that Hugh should come to the hotel, and that he should be
treated then as an accepted lover. She had come to that conclusion. But
she was obliged to vacillate for awhile between her husband and her
daughter. Hugh came of course, and Sir Marmaduke, by his wife’s advice,
kept out of the way. Lady Rowley, though she was at home, kept herself
also out of the way, remaining above with her two other daughters. Nora
thus achieved the glory and happiness of receiving her lover alone.
‘My own true girl!’ he said, speaking with his arms still round her
waist.
‘I am true enough; but whether I am your own, that is another question.’
‘You mean to be?’
‘But papa doesn’t mean it. Papa says that you are nobody, and that you
haven’t got an income; and thinks that I had better go back and be an
old maid at the Mandarins.’
‘And what do you think yourself, Nora?’
‘What do I think? As far as I can understand, young ladies are not
allowed to think at all. They have to do what their papas tell them.
That will do, Hugh. You can talk without taking hold of me.’
‘It is such a time since I have had a hold of you as you call it.’
‘It will be much longer before you can do so again, if I go back to the
Islands with papa. I shall expect you to be true, you know; and it will
be ten years at the least before I can hope to be home again.’
‘I don’t think you mean to go, Nora.’
‘But what am I to do? That idea of yours of walking out to the next
church and getting ourselves married sounds very nice and independent,
but you know that it is not practicable.’
‘On the other hand, I know it is.’
‘It is not practicable for me, Hugh. Of all things in the world I don’t
want to be a Lydia. I won’t do anything that anybody shall ever say
that your wife ought not to have done. Young women when they are
married ought to have their papas’ and mammas’ consent. I have been
thinking about it a great deal for the last month or two, and I have
made up my mind to that.’
‘What is it all to come to, then?’
‘I mean to get papa’s consent. That is what it is to come to.’
‘And if he is obstinate?’
‘I shall coax him round at last. When the time for going comes, he’ll
yield then.’
‘But you will not go with them?’ As he asked this he came to her and
tried again to take her by the waist; but she retreated from him, and
got herself clear from us arm. ‘If you are afraid of me, I shall know
that you think it possible that we may be parted.’
‘I am not a bit afraid of you, Hugh.’
‘Nora, I think you ought to tell me something definitely.’
‘I think I have been definite enough, sir. You may be sure of this,
however I will not go back to the Islands.’
‘Give me your hand on that.’
‘There is my hand. But, remember, I had told you just as much before. I
don’t mean to go back. I mean to stay here. I mean—but I do not think I
will tell you all the things I mean to do.’
‘You mean to be my wife?’
‘Certainly, some day, when the difficulty about the chairs and tables
can settle itself. The real question now is what am I to do with myself
when papa and mamma are gone?’
‘Become Mrs H. Stanbury at once. Chairs and tables! You shall have
chairs and tables as many as you want. You won’t be too proud to live
in lodgings for a few months?’
‘There must be preliminaries, Hugh even for lodgings, though they may
be very slender. Papa goes in less than three weeks now, and mamma has
got something else to think of than my marriage garments. And then
there are all manner of difficulties, money difficulties and others,
out of which I don’t see my way yet’. Hugh began to asseverate that it
was his business to help her through all money difficulties as well as
others; but she soon stopped his eloquence. ‘It will be by-and-by,
Hugh, and I hope you’ll support the burden like a man; but just at
present there is a hitch. I shouldn’t have come over at all; I should
have stayed with Emily in Italy, had I not thought that I was bound to
see you’
‘My own darling!’
‘When papa goes, I think that I had better go back to her.’
‘I’ll take you!’ said Hugh, picturing to himself all the pleasures of
such a tour together, over the Alps.
‘No you won’t, because that would be improper. When we travel together
we must go Darby and Joan fashion, as man and wife. I think I had
better go back to Emily, because her position there is so terrible.
There must come some end to it, I suppose soon. He will be better, or
he will become so bad that that medical interference will be
unavoidable. But I do not like that she should be alone. She gave me a
home when she had one, and I must always remember that I met you there.’
After this there was of course another attempt with Hugh’s right arm,
which on this occasion was not altogether unsuccessful. And then she
told him of her friendship for Mr Glascock’s wife, and of her intention
at some future time to visit them at Monkhams.
‘And see all the glories that might have been your own,’ he said.
‘And think of the young man who has robbed me of them all! And you are
to go there too, so that you may see what you have done. There was a
time, Hugh, when I was very nearly pleasing all my friends and shewing
myself to be a young lady of high taste and noble fortune and an
obedient, good girl.’
‘And why didn’t you?’
‘I thought I would wait just a little longer. Because, because, because—
Oh, Hugh, how cross you were to me afterwards when you came down to
Nuncombe and would hardly speak to me!’
‘And why didn’t I speak to you?’
‘I don’t know. Because you were cross, and surly, and thinking of
nothing but your tobacco, I believe. Do you remember how we walked to
Liddon, and you hadn’t a word for anybody?’
‘I remember I wanted you to go down to the river with me, and you
wouldn’t go.’
‘You asked me only once, and I did so long to go with you. Do you
remember the rocks in the river? I remember the place as though I saw
it now; and how I longed to jump from one stone to another. Hugh, if we
are ever married, you must take me there, and let me jump on those
stones.’
‘You pretended that you could not think of wetting your feet.’
‘Of course I pretended, because you were so cross, and so cold. Oh,
dear! I wonder whether you will ever know it all.’
‘Don’t I know it all now?’
‘I suppose you do, nearly. There is mighty little of a secret in it,
and it is the same thing that is going on always. Only it seems so
strange to me that I should ever have loved any one so dearly and that
for next to no reason at all. You never made yourself very charming
that I know of, did you?’
‘I did my best. It wasn’t much, I dare say.’
‘You did nothing, sir, except just let me fall in love with you. And you
were not quite sure that you would let me do that.’
‘Nora, I don’t think you do understand.’
‘I do perfectly. Why were you cross with me, instead of saying one nice
word when you were down at Nuncombe? I do understand.’
‘Why was it?’
‘Because you did not think well enough of me to believe that I would
give
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