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

they should

live apart, it must be so. She could not force him to remain with her.

She could not compel him to keep up the house in Curzon Street. She had

certain rights, she believed. She spoke then, she said, of pecuniary

rights not of those other rights which her husband was determined, and

was no doubt able, to ignore. She did not really know what those

pecuniary rights might be, nor was she careful to learn their exact

extent. She would thank Mr Bideawhile to see that things were properly

arranged. But of this her husband, and Mr Bideawhile, might be quite

sure; she would take nothing as a favour. She would not go to her

uncle’s house. She declined to tell Mr Bideawhile why she had so

decided; but she had decided. She was ready to listen to any suggestion

that her husband might make as to her residence, but she must claim to

have some choice in the matter. As to her sister, of course she

intended to give Nora a home as long as such a home might be wanted. It

would be very sad for Nora, but in existing circumstances such an

arrangement would be expedient. She would not go into details as to

expense. Her husband was driving her away from him, and it was for him

to say what proportion of his income he would choose to give for her

maintenance for hers and for that of the child. She was not desirous of

anything beyond the means of decent living, but of course she must for

the present find a home for her sister as well as for herself. When

speaking of her baby she had striven hard so to speak that Mr

Bideawhile should find no trace of doubt in the tones of her voice. And

yet she had been full of doubt full of fear. As Mr Bideawhile had

uttered nothing antagonistic to her wishes in this matter had seemed to

agree that wherever the mother went thither the child would go also Mrs

Trevelyan had considered herself to be successful in this interview.

 

The idea of a residence at Nuncombe Putney had occurred first to

Trevelyan himself, and he had spoken of it to Hugh Stanbury. There had

been some difficulty in this, because he had snubbed Stanbury

grievously when his friend had attempted to do some work of gentle

interference between him and his wife; and when he began the

conversation, he took the trouble of stating, in the first instance,

that the separation was a thing fixed so that nothing might be urged on

that subject. ‘It is to be. You will understand that,’ he said; ‘and if

you think that your mother would agree to the arrangement, it would be

satisfactory to me, and might, I think, be made pleasant to her. Of

course, your mother would be made to understand that the only fault

with which my wife is charged is that of indomitable disobedience to my

wishes.’

 

‘Incompatibility of temper,’ suggested Stanbury.

 

‘You may call it that if you please; though I must say for myself that

I do not think that I have displayed any temper to which a woman has a

right to object. Then he had gone on to explain what he was prepared to

do about money. He would pay, through Stanbury’s hands, so much for

maintenance and so much for house rent, on the understanding that the

money was not to go into his wife’s hands. ‘I shall prefer,’ he said,

‘to make myself, on her behalf, what disbursements may be necessary. I

will take care that she receives a proper sum quarterly through Mr

Bideawhile for her own clothes and for those of our poor boy.’ Then

Stanbury had told him of the Clock House, and there had been an

agreement made between them; an agreement which was then, of course,

subject to the approval of the ladies at Nuncombe Putney. When the

suggestion was made to Mrs Trevelyan with a proposition that the Clock

House should be taken for one year, and that for that year, at least,

her boy should remain with her she assented to it. She did so with all

the calmness that she was able to assume; but, in truth, almost

everything seemed to have been gained, when she found that she was not

to be separated from her baby. ‘I have no objection to living in

Devonshire if Mr Trevelyan wishes it,’ she said, in her most stately

manner; ‘and certainly no objection to living with Mr Stanbury’s

mother.’ Then Mr Bideawhile explained to her that Nuncombe Putney was

not a large town was, in fact, a very small and a very remote village.

‘That will make no difference whatsoever as far as I am concerned,’ she

answered; ‘and as for my sister, she must put up with it till my father

and my mother are here. I believe the scenery at Nuncombe Putney is

very pretty.’ ‘Lovely!’ said Mr Bideawhile, who had a general idea that

Devonshire is supposed to be a picturesque county. ‘With such a life

before me as I must lead,’ continued Mrs Trevelyan, ‘an ugly

neighbourhood, one that would itself have had no interest for a

stranger, would certainly have been an additional sorrow.’ So it had

been settled, and by the end of July, Mrs Trevelyan, with her sister

and baby, was established at the Clock House, under the protection of

Mrs Stanbury. Mrs Trevelyan had brought down her own maid and her own

nurse, and had found that the arrangements made by her husband had, in

truth, been liberal. The house in Curzon Street had been given up, the

furniture had been sent to a warehouse, and Mr Trevelyan had gone into

lodgings. ‘There never were two young people so insane since the world

began,’ said Lady Milborough to her old friend, Mrs Fairfax, when the

thing was done.

 

‘They will be together again before next April,’ Mrs Fairfax had

replied. But Mrs Fairfax was a jolly dame who made the best of

everything. Lady Milborough raised her hands in despair and shook her

head. ‘I don’t suppose, though, that Mr Glascock will go to Devonshire

after his lady love,’ said Mrs Fairfax. Lady Milborough again raised

her hands, and again shook her head.

 

Mrs Stanbury had given an easy assent when her son proposed to her this

new mode of life, but Priscilla had had her doubts. Like all women, she

thought that when a man was to be separated from his wife, the woman

must he in the wrong. And though it must be doubtless comfortable to go

from the cottage to the Clock House, it would, she said, with much

prudence, be very uncomfortable to go back from the Clock House to the

cottage. Hugh replied very cavalierly generously, that is, rashly, and

somewhat impetuously that he would guarantee them against any such

degradation.

 

‘We don’t want to be a burden upon you, my dear,’ said the mother.

 

‘You would be a great burden on me,’ he replied, ‘if you were living

uncomfortably while I am able to make you comfortable.’

 

Mrs Stanbury was soon won over by Mrs Trevelyan, by Nora, and

especially by the baby; and even Priscilla, after a week or two, began

to feel that she liked their company. Priscilla was a young woman who

read a great deal, and even had some gifts of understanding what she

read. She borrowed books from the clergyman, and paid a penny a week to

the landlady of the Stag and Antlers for the hire during half a day of

the weekly newspaper. But now there came a box of books from Exeter,

and a daily paper from London, and to improve all this both the new

corners were able to talk with her about the things she read. She soon

declared to her mother that she liked Miss Rowley much the best of the

two. Mrs Trevelyan was too fond of having her own way. She began to

understand, she would say to her mother, that a man might find it

difficult to live with Mrs Trevelyan. ‘She hardly ever yields about

anything,’ said Priscilla. As Miss Priscilla Stanbury was also very

fond of having her own way, it was not surprising that she should

object to that quality in this lady, who had come to live under the

same roof with her.

 

The country about Nuncombe Putney is perhaps as pretty as any in

England. It is beyond the river Teign, between that and Dartmoor, and

is so lovely in all its variations of rivers, rivulets, broken ground,

hills and dales, old broken, battered, time-worn timber, green knolls,

rich pastures, and heathy common, that the wonder is that English

lovers of scenery know so little of it. At the Stag and Antlers old Mrs

Crocket, than whom no old woman in the public line was ever more

generous, more peppery, or more kind, kept two clean bedrooms, and

could cook a leg of Dartmoor mutton and make an apple pie against any

woman in Devonshire. ‘Drat your fish!’ she would say, when some self-indulgent and exacting traveller would wish for more than these

accustomed viands. ‘Cock you up with dainties! If you can’t eat your

victuals without fish, you must go to Exeter. And then you’ll get it

stinking may-hap.’ Now Priscilla Stanbury and Mrs Crocket were great

friends, and there had been times of deep want, in which Mrs Crocket’s

friendship had been very serviceable to the ladies at the cottage. The

three young women had been to the inn one morning to ask after a

conveyance from Nuncombe Putney to Princetown, and had found that a

four-wheeled open carriage with an old horse and a very young driver

could be hired there. ‘We have never dreamed of such a thing,’

Priscilla Stanbury had said, ‘and the only time I was at Princetown I

walked there and back.’ So they had called at the Stag and Antlers, and

Mrs Crocket had told them her mind upon several matters.

 

‘What a dear old woman!’ said Nora, as they came away, having made

their bargain for the open carriage.

 

‘I think she takes quite enough upon herself, you know,’ said Mrs

Trevelyan.

 

‘She is a dear old woman,’ said Priscilla, not attending at all to the

last words that had been spoken. ‘She is one of the best friends I have

in the world. If I were to say the best out of my own family, perhaps I

should not be wrong.’

 

‘But she uses such very odd language for a woman,’ said Mrs Trevelyan.

Now Mrs Crocket had certainly ‘dratted’ and ‘darned’ the boy, who

wouldn’t come as fast as she had wished, and had laughed at Mrs

Trevelyan very contemptuously, when that lady had suggested that the

urchin, who was at last brought forth, might not be a safe charioteer

down some of the hills.

 

‘I suppose I’m used to it,’ said Priscilla. ‘At any rate I know I like

it. And I like her.’

 

‘I dare say she’s a good sort of woman,’ said Mrs Trevelyan, ‘only—’

 

‘I am not saying anything about her being a good woman now,’ said

Priscilla, interrupting the other with some vehemence, ‘but only that

she is my friend.’

 

‘I liked her of all things,’ said Nora. ‘Has she lived here always?’

 

‘Yes; all her life. The house belonged to her father and to her

grandfather before her, and I think she says she has never slept out of

it a dozen times in her life. Her husband is dead, and her daughters

are married away, and she has the great grief and trouble of a

ne’er-do-well son. He’s away now, and she’s all alone.’ Then after a

pause, she continued; ‘I dare