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

detective to watch

her?’

 

‘But I haven’t set the man to watch her.’

 

‘Colonel Osborne is nothing to you, except as he is concerned with her.

This man is now down in her neighbourhood; and, if she learns that, how

can she help feeling it as a deep insult? Of course the man watches her

as a cat watches a mouse.’

 

‘But what am I to do? I can’t write to the man and tell him to come

away. Osborne is down there, and I must do something. Will you go down

to Nuncombe Putney yourself, and let me know the truth?’

 

After much debating of the subject, Hugh Stansbury said that he would

himself go down to Nuncombe Putney alone. There were difficulties about

the D. R.; but he would go to the office of the newspaper and overcome

them. How far the presence of Nora Rowley at his mother’s house may

have assisted in bringing him to undertake the journey, perhaps need

not be accurately stated. He acknowledged to himself that the claims of

friendship were strong upon him; and that as he had loudly disapproved

of the Bozzle arrangement, he ought to lend a hand to some other scheme

of action.

 

Moreover, having professed his conviction that no improper visiting

could possibly take place under his mother’s roof, he felt bound to

shew that he was not afraid to trust to that conviction himself. He

declared that he would be ready to proceed to Nuncombe Putney tomorrow

but only on condition that he might have plenary power to dismiss

Bozzle.

 

‘There can be no reason why you should take any notice of the man,’

said Trevelyan.

 

‘How can I help noticing him when I find him prowling about the place?

Of course I shall know who he is.’

 

‘I don’t see that you need know anything about him.’

 

‘My dear Trevelyan, you cannot have two ambassadors engaged in the same

service without communication with each other. And any communication

with Mr Bozzle, except that of sending him back to London, I will not

have.’ The controversy was ended by the writing of a letter from

Trevelyan to Bozzle, which was confided to Stanbury, in which the

ex-policeman was thanked for his activity and requested to return to

London for the present ‘As we are now aware that Colonel Osborne is in

the neighbourhood,’ said the letter, ‘my friend Mr Stanbury will know

what to do.’

 

As soon as this was settled Stanbury went to the office of the D. R.

and made arrangement as to his work for three days. Jones could do the

article on the Irish Church upon a pinch like this, although he had not

given much study to the subject as yet; and Puddlethwaite, who was

great in City matters, would try his hand on the present state of

society in Rome, a subject on which it was essential that the D. R.

should express itself at once. Having settled these little troubles

Stanbury returned to his friend, and in the evening they dined together

at a tavern.

 

‘And now, Trevelyan, let me know fairly what it is that you wish,’ said

Stanbury.

 

‘I wish to have my wife back again.’

 

‘Simply that. If she will agree to come back, you will make no

difficulty.’

 

‘No; not quite simply that. I shall desire that she shall be guided by

my wishes as to any intimacies she may form.’

 

‘That is all very well; but is she to give any undertaking? Do you

intend to exact any promise from her? It is my opinion that she will be

willing enough to come back, and that when she is with you there will

be no further cause for quarrelling. But I don’t think she will bind

herself by any exacted promise; and certainly not through a third

person.’

 

‘Then say nothing about it. Let her write a letter to me proposing to

come and she shall come.’

 

‘Very well. So far I understand. And now what about Colonel Osborne?

You don’t want me to quarrel with him I suppose?’

 

‘I should like to keep that for myself,’ said Trevelyan, grimly.

 

‘If you will take my advice you will not trouble yourself about him,’

said Stanbury. ‘But as far as I am concerned, I am not to meddle or

make with him? Of course,’ continued Stanbury, after a pause, ‘if I

find that he is intruding himself in my mother’s house, I shall tell

him that he must not come there.’

 

‘But if you find him installed in your mother’s house as a visitor how

then?’

 

‘I do not regard that as possible.’

 

‘I don’t mean living there,’ said Trevelyan, ‘but coming backwards and

forwards going on in habits of intimacy with with ?’ His voice trembled

so as he asked these questions, that he could not pronounce the word

which was to complete them.

 

‘With Mrs Trevelyan, you mean.’

 

‘Yes; with my wife. I don’t say that it is so; but it may be so. You

will be bound to tell me the truth.’

 

‘I will certainly tell you the truth.’

 

‘And the whole truth.’

 

‘Yes; the whole truth.’

 

‘Should it be so I will never see her again never. And as for him—but

never mind.’ Then there was another short period of silence, during

which Stanbury smoked his pipe and sipped his whisky toddy. ‘You must

see,’ continued Trevelyan, ‘that it is absolutely necessary that I

should do something. It is all very well for you to say that you do not

like detectives. Neither do I like them. But what was I to do? When you

condemn me you hardly realise the difficulties of my position.’

 

‘It is the deuce of a nuisance certainly,’ said Stansbury, through the

cloud of smoke, thinking now not at all of Mrs Trevelyan, but of Mrs

Trevelyan’s sister.

 

‘It makes a man almost feel that he had better not marry at all,’ said

Trevelyan.

 

‘I don’t see that. Of course there may come troubles. The tiles may

fall on your head, you know, as you walk through the streets. As far as

I can see, women go straight enough nineteen times out of twenty. But

they don’t like being what I call looked after.’

 

‘And did I look after my wife more than I ought?’

 

‘I don’t mean that; but if I were married, which I never shall be, for I

shall never attain to the respectability of a fixed income, I fancy I

shouldn’t look after my wife at all. It seems to me that women hate to

be told about their duties.’

 

‘But if you saw your wife, quite innocently, falling into an improper

intimacy, taking up with people she ought not to know, doing that in

ignorance, which could not but compromise yourself, wouldn’t you speak a

word then?’

 

‘Oh! I might just say, in an off-hand way, that Jones was a rascal, or

a liar, or a fool, or anything of that sort. But I would never caution

her against Jones. By George, I believe a woman can stand anything

better than that.’

 

‘You have never tried it, my friend.’

 

‘And I don’t suppose I ever shall. As for me, I believe Aunt Stanbury

was right when she said that I was a radical vagabond. I dare say I

shall never try the thing myself, and therefore it’s very easy to have

a theory. But! must be off. Good night, old fellow. I’ll do the best I

can; and, at any rate, I’ll let you know the truth.’

 

There had been a question during the day as to whether Stanbury should

let his sister know by letter that he was expected; but it had been

decided that he should appear at Nuncombe without any previous

notification of his arrival. Trevelyan had thought that this was very

necessary, and when Stanbury had urged that such a measure seemed to

imply suspicion, he had declared that in no other way could the truth

be obtained. He, Trevelyan, simply wanted to know the facts as they

were occurring. It was a fact that Colonel Osborne was down in

the neighbourhood of Nuncombe Putney. That, at least, had been

ascertained. It might very possibly be the case that he would be

refused admittance to the Clock House, that all the ladies there would

combine to keep him out. But, so Trevelyan urged, the truth on this point

was desired. It was essentially necessary to his happiness that he

should know what was being done.

 

‘Your mother and sister,’ said he, ‘cannot be afraid of your coming

suddenly among them.’

 

Stanbury, so urged, had found it necessary to yield, but yet he had

felt that he himself was almost acting like a detective policeman, in

purposely falling down upon them without a word of announcement. Had

chance circumstances made it necessary that he should go in such a

manner he would have thought nothing of it. It would simply have been a

pleasant joke to him.

 

As he went down by the train on the following day, he almost felt

ashamed of the part which he had been called upon to perform.