He Knew He Was Right, Anthony Trollope [children's ebooks free online .TXT] 📗
- Author: Anthony Trollope
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Bradshaw; we speak now especially of Bradshaw the Continental because
all the minutest details of the autumn tour, just as the tourist thinks
that it may be made, cannot be made patent to him at once without close
research amidst crowded figures. After much experience we make bold to
say that Bradshaw knows more, and will divulge more in a quarter of an
hour, of the properest mode of getting from any city in Europe to any
other city more than fifty miles distant, than can be learned in that
first city in a single morning with the aid of a courier, a carriage, a
pair of horses, and all the temper that any ordinary tourist possesses.
The Bradshaw was had out, and it was at last discovered that nothing
could be gained in the journey from London to Siena by starting in the
morning. Intending as he did to travel through without sleeping on the
road, Stanbury could not do better than leave London by the night mail
train, and this he determined to do. But when that was arranged, then
came the nature of his commission. What was he to do? No commission
could be given to him. A telegram should be sent to Emily the next
morning to say that he was coming; and then he would hurry on and take
his orders from her.
They were all in doubt, terribly in doubt, whether the aggravated
malady of which the telegram spoke was malady of the mind or of the
body. If of the former nature then the difficulty might be very great
indeed; and it would be highly expedient that Stanbury should have some
one in Italy to assist him. It was Nora who suggested that he should
carry a letter of introduction to Mr Spalding, and it was she who wrote
it. Sir Marmaduke had not foregathered very closely with the English
Minister, and nothing was said of assistance that should be peculiarly
British. Then, at last, about three or four in the morning came the
moment for parting. Sir Marmaduke had suggested that Stanbury should
dine with them on the next day before he started, but Hugh had
declined, alleging that as the day was at his command it must be
devoted to the work of providing for his absence. In truth, Sir
Marmaduke had given the invitation with a surly voice, and Hugh, though
he was ready to go to the North Pole for any others of the family, was
at the moment in an aggressive mood of mind towards Sir Marmaduke.
‘I will send a message directly I get there,’ he said, holding Lady
Rowley by the hand, ‘and will write fully to you immediately.’
‘God bless you, my dear friend!’ said Lady Rowley, crying.
‘Good night, Sir Marmaduke,’ said Hugh.
‘Good night, Mr Stanbury.’
Then he gave a hand to the two girls, each of whom, as she took it,
sobbed, and looked away from Nora. Nora was standing away from them,
by herself, and away from the door, holding on to her chair, and with
her hands clasped together. She had prepared nothing, not a word, or an
attitude, not a thought, for this farewell. But she had felt that it
was coming, and had known that she must trust to him for a cue for her
own demeanour. If he could say adieu with a quiet voice, and simply
with a touch of the hand, then would she do the same and endeavour to
think no worse of him. Nor had he prepared anything; but when the
moment came he could not leave her after that fashion. He stood a
moment hesitating, not approaching her, and merely called her by her
name ‘Nora!’ For a moment she was still; for a moment she held by her
chair; and then she rushed into his arms. He did not much care for her
father now, but kissed her hair and her forehead, and held her closely
to his bosom. ‘My own, own Nora!’
It was necessary that Sir Marmaduke should say something. There was at
first a little scene between all the women, during which he arranged
his deportment.
‘Mr Stanbury,’ he said, ‘let it be so. I could wish for my child’s
sake, and also for your own, that your means of living were less
precarious.’ Hugh accepted this simply as an authority for another
embrace, and then he allowed them all to go to bed.
TREVELYAN DISCOURSES ON LIFE
Stanbury made his journey without pause or hindrance till he reached
Florence, and as the train for Siena made it necessary that he should
remain there for four or five hours, he went to an inn, and dressed and
washed himself, and had a meal, and was then driven to Mr Spalding’s
house. He found the American Minister at home, and was received with
cordiality; but Mr Spalding could tell him little or nothing about
Trevelyan. They went up to Mrs Spalding’s room, and Hugh was told by
her that she had seen Mrs Trevelyan once since her niece’s marriage,
and that then she had represented her husband as being very feeble.
Hugh, in the midst of his troubles, was amused by a second and a third,
perhaps by a fourth, reference to ‘Lady Peterborough.’ Mrs Spalding’s
latest tidings as to the Trevelyans had been received through ‘Lady
Peterborough’ from Nora Rowley.
‘Lady Peterborough’ was at the present moment at Naples, but was
expected to pass north through Florence in a day or two. They, the
Spaldings themselves, were kept in Florence in this very hot weather by
this circumstance. They were going up to the Tyrolese mountains for a
few weeks as soon as ‘Lady Peterborough’ should have left them for
England. ‘Lady Peterborough’ would have been so happy to make Mr
Stanbury’s acquaintance, and to have heard something direct from her
friend Nora. Then Mrs Spalding smiled archly, showing thereby that she
knew all about Hugh Stanbury and his relation to Nora Rowley. From all
which, and in accordance with the teaching which we got alas, now many
years ago from a great master on the subject, we must conclude that
poor, dear Mrs Spalding was a snob. Nevertheless, with all deference to
the memory of that great master, we think that Mrs Spalding’s allusions
to the success in life achieved by her niece were natural and
altogether pardonable; and that reticence on the subject, a calculated
determination to abstain from mentioning a triumph which must have been
very dear to her, would have betrayed on the whole a condition of mind
lower than that which she exhibited. While rank, wealth, and money are
held to be good things by all around us, let them be acknowledged as
such. It is natural that a mother should be as proud when her daughter
marries an Earl’s heir as when her son becomes Senior Wrangler; and
when we meet a lady in Mrs Spalding’s condition who purposely abstains
from mentioning the name of her titled daughter, we shall be disposed
to judge harshly of the secret workings of that lady’s thoughts on the
subject. We prefer the exhibition, which we feel to be natural. Mr
Spalding got our friend by the button-hole, and was making him a speech
on the perilous condition in which Mrs Trevelyan was placed; but
Stanbury, urged by the circumstances of his position, pulled out his
watch, pleaded the hour, and escaped.
He found Mrs Trevelyan waiting for him at the station at Siena. He
would hardly have known her, not from any alteration that was physically
personal to herself, not that she had become older in face, or thin, or
grey, or sickly, but that the trouble of her life had robbed her for the
time of that brightness of apparel, of that pride of feminine gear, of
that sheen of high-bred womanly bearing with which our wives and
daughters are so careful to invest themselves. She knew herself to be a
wretched woman, whose work in life was now to watch over a poor
prostrate wretch, and who had thrown behind her all ideas of grace and
beauty. It was not quickly that this condition had come upon her. She
had been unhappy at Nuncombe Putney; but unhappiness had not then told
upon the outward woman. She had been more wretched still at St.
Diddulph’s, and all the outward circumstances of life in her uncle’s
parsonage had been very wearisome to her; but she had striven against
it all, and the sheen and outward brightness had still been there.
After that her child had been taken from her, and the days which she
had passed in Manchester Street had been very grievous, but even yet she
had not given way. It was not till her child had been brought back to
her, and she had seen the life which her husband was living, and that
her anger—hot anger—had changed to pity, and that with pity love had
returned; it was not till this point had come in her sad life that her
dress became always black and sombre, that a veil habitually covered
her face, that a bonnet took the place of the jaunty hat that she had
worn, and that the prettinesses of her life were lain aside. ‘It is
very good of you to come,’ she said; ‘very good, I hardly knew what to
do, I was so wretched. On the day that I sent he was so bad that I was
obliged to do something.’ Stanbury, of course, inquired after
Trevelyan’s health, as they were being driven up to Mrs Trevelyan’s
lodgings. On the day on which she had sent the telegram her husband had
again been furiously angry with her. She had interfered, or had
endeavoured to interfere, in some arrangements as to his health and
comfort, and he had turned upon her with an order that the child should
be at once sent back to him, and that she should immediately quit
Siena. ‘When I said that Louey could not be sent—and who could send a
child into such keeping?—he told me that I was the basest liar that
ever broke a promise, and the vilest traitor that had ever returned
evil for good. I was never to come to him again, never; and the gate of
the house would be closed against me if I appeared there.’
On the next day she had gone again, however, and had seen him, and had
visited him on every day since. Nothing further had been said about the
child, and he had now become almost too weak for violent anger. ‘I told
him you were coming, and though he would not say so, I think he is glad
of it. He expects you tomorrow.’
‘I will go this evening, if he will let me.’
‘Not tonight. I think he goes to bed almost as the sun sets. I am
never there myself after four or five in the afternoon. I told him that
you should be there tomorrow alone. I have hired a little carriage, and
you can take it. He said specially that I was not to come with you.
Papa goes certainly on next Saturday?’ It was a Saturday now, this day
on which Stanbury had arrived at Siena.
‘He leaves town on Friday.’
‘You must make him believe that. Do not tell him suddenly, but bring it
in by degrees. He thinks that I am deceiving him. He would go back if
he knew that papa were gone.’
They spent a long evening together, and Stanbury learned all that Mrs
Trevelyan could tell him of her husband’s state. There was no doubt,
she said, that his reason was affected; but she thought the state of
his mind was diseased in
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