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

his conscience—to protect his conscience unless he went so far

as to make that plea an additional sting to his conscience—he thought

that, as a man, he must follow up the matter. Here was a young, and

fashionable, and very pretty woman banished to the wilds of Dartmoor

for his sake. And, as far as he could understand, she would not have

been so banished had she consented to say that she would give up her

acquaintance with him. In such circumstances as these was it possible

that he should do nothing? Various ideas ran through his head. He began

to think that if Trevelyan were out of the way, he might might perhaps

be almost tempted to make this woman his wife. She was so nice that he

almost thought that he might be rash enough for that, although he knew

well the satisfaction of being a bachelor; but as the thought suggested

itself to him, he was well aware that he was thinking of a thing quite

distant from him. The reader is not to suppose that Colonel Osborne

meditated any making-away with the husband. Our colonel was certainly

not the man for a murder. Nor did he even think of running away with

his friend’s daughter. Though he told himself that he could dispose of

his wrinkles satisfactorily, still he knew himself and his powers

sufficiently to be aware that he was no longer fit to be the hero of

such a romance as that. He acknowledged to himself that there was much

labour to be gone through in running away with another man’s wife; and

that the results, in respect to personal comfort, are not always happy.

But what if Mrs Trevelyan were to divorce herself from her husband on

the score of her husband’s cruelty? Various horrors were related as to

the man’s treatment of his wife. By some it was said that she was in

the prison on Dartmoor or, if not actually in the prison, an

arrangement which the prison discipline might perhaps make difficult,

that she was in the custody of one of the prison warders who possessed

a prim cottage and a grim wife, just outside the prison walls. Colonel

Osborne did not himself believe even so much as this, but he did

believe that Mrs Trevelyan had been banished to some inhospitable

region, to some dreary comfortless abode, of which, as the wife of a

man of fortune, she would have great ground to complain. So thinking,

he did not probably declare to himself that a divorce should be

obtained, and that, in such event, he would marry the lady, but ideas

came across his mind in that direction. Trevelyan was a cruel

Bluebeard; Emily, as he was studious to call Mrs Trevelyan, was a dear

injured saint. And as for himself, though he acknowledged to himself

that the lumbago pinched him now and again, so that he could not rise

from his chair with all the alacrity of youth, yet, when he walked

along Pall Mall with his coat properly buttoned, he could not but

observe that a great many young women looked at him with admiring eyes.

 

It was thus with no settled scheme that the Colonel went to work, and

made inquiries, and ascertained Mrs Trevelyan’s address in Devonshire.

When he learned it, he thought that he had done much; though, in truth,

there had been no secrecy in the matter. Scores of people knew Mrs

Trevelyan’s address besides the newsvendor who supplied her paper, from

whose boy Colonel Osborne’s servant obtained the information. But when

the information had been obtained, it was expedient that it should be

used; and therefore Colonel Osborne wrote the following letter:

 

‘Acrobats Club, July 31, 186-

 

Dear Emily,’

 

Twice the Colonel wrote Dearest Emily, and twice he tore the sheet on

which the words were written. He longed to be ardent, but still it was

so necessary to be prudent! He was not quite sure of the lady. Women

sometimes tell their husbands, even when they have quarrelled with

them. And, although ardent expressions in writing to pretty women are

pleasant to male writers, it is not pleasant for a gentleman to be

asked what on earth he means by that sort of thing at his tune of life.

The Colonel gave half an hour to the consideration, and then began the

letter, Dear Emily. If prudence be the soul of valour, may it not be

considered also the very mainspring, or, perhaps, the pivot of love?

 

‘Dear Emily

 

I need hardly tell you with what dismay I have heard of all that has

taken place in Curzon Street. I fear that you must have suffered much,

and that you are suffering now. It is an inexpressible relief to me to

hear that you have your child with you, and Nora. But, nevertheless, to

have your home taken away from you, to be sent out of London, to be

banished from all society! And for what? The manner in which the minds

of some men work is quite incomprehensible.

 

As for myself, I feel that I have lost the company of a friend whom

indeed I can very ill spare. I have a thousand things to say to you,

and among them one or two which I feel that I must say that I ought to

say. As it happens, an old schoolfellow of mine is Vicar of

Cockchaffington, a village which I find by the map is very near to

Nuncombe Putney. I saw him in town last spring, and he then asked me to

pay him a visit. There is something in his church which people go to

see, and though I don’t understand churches much, I shall go and see

it. I shall run down on Wednesday, and shall sleep at the inn at

Lessboro’. I see that Lessboro’ is a market town, and I suppose there

is an inn. I shall go over to my friend on the Thursday, but shall

return to Lessboro’. Though a man be ever so eager to see a church

doorway, he need not sleep at the parsonage. On the following day, I

will get over to Nuncombe Putney, and I hope that you will see me.

Considering my long friendship with you, and my great attachment to

your father and mother, I do not think that the strictest martinet

would tell you that you need hesitate in the matter.

 

I have seen Mr Trevelyan twice at the club, but he has not spoken to

me. Under such circumstances I could not of course speak to him.

Indeed, I may say that my feelings towards him just at present are of

such a nature as to preclude me from doing so with any appearance of

cordiality.

 

Dear Emily,

 

Believe me now, as always, your affectionate friend,

 

Frederic Osborne.’

 

When he read that letter over to himself a second time he felt quite

sure that he had not committed himself. Even if his friend were to send

the letter to her husband, it could not do him any harm. He was aware

that he might have dilated more on the old friendship between himself

and Sir Marmaduke, but he experienced a certain distaste to the mention

of things appertaining to years long past. It did not quite suit him in

his present frame of mind to speak of his regard in those

quasi-paternal terms which he would have used had it satisfied him to

represent himself simply as her father’s friend. His language therefore

had been a little doubtful, so that the lady might, if she were so

minded, look upon him in that tender light in which her husband had

certainly chosen to regard him.

 

When the letter was handed to Mrs Trevelyan, she at once took it with

her up to her own room, so that she might be alone when she read it.

The handwriting was quite familiar to her, and she did not choose that

even her sister should see it. She had told herself twenty times over

that, while living at Nuncombe Putney, she was not living under the

guardianship of Mrs Stanbury. She would consent to live under the

guardianship of no one, as her husband did not choose to remain with

her and protect her. She had done no wrong, and she would submit to no

other authority, than that of her legal lord and master. Nor, according

to her views of her own position, was it in his power to depute that

authority to others. He had caused the separation, and now she must be

the sole judge of her own actions. In itself, a correspondence between

her and her father’s old friend was in no degree criminal or even

faulty. There was no reason, moral, social, or religious, why an old

man, over fifty, who had known her all her life, should not write to

her. But yet she could not say aloud before Mrs Stanbury, and

Priscilla, and her sister, that she had received a letter from Colonel

Osborne. She felt that the colour had come to her cheek, and that she

could not even walk out of the room as though the letter had been a

matter of indifference to her.

 

And would it have been a matter of indifference had there been nobody

there to see her? Mrs Trevelyan was certainly not in love with Colonel

Osborne. She was not more so now than she had been when her father’s

friend, purposely dressed for the occasion, had kissed her in the

vestry of the church in which she was married, and had given her a

blessing, which was then intended to be semi-paternal as from an old

man to a young woman. She was not in love with him never would be,

never could be in love with him. Reader, you may believe in her so far

as that. But where is the woman, who, when she is neglected, thrown

over, and suspected by the man that she loves, will not feel the desire

of some sympathy, some solicitude, some show of regard from another

man? This woman’s life, too, had not hitherto been of such a nature

that the tranquillity of the Clock House at Nuncombe Putney afforded to

her all that she desired. She had been there now a month, and was

almost sick from the want of excitement. And she was full of wrath

against her husband. Why had he sent her there to break her heart in, a

disgraceful retirement, when she had never wronged him? From morning to

night she had no employment, no amusement, nothing to satisfy her

cravings. Why was she to be doomed to such an existence? She had

declared that as long as she could have her boy with her, she would be

happy. She was allowed to have her boy; but she was anything but happy.

When she received Colonel Osborne’s letter, while she held it in her

hand still unopened, she never for a moment thought that that could

make her happy. But there was in it something of excitement. And she

painted the man to herself in brighter colours now than she had ever

given to him in her former portraits. He cared for her. He was gracious

to her. He appreciated her talents, her beauty, and her conduct. He

knew that she deserved a treatment very different from that accorded to

her by her husband. Why should she reject the sympathy of her father’s

oldest friend, because her husband was madly jealous about an old man?

Her husband had chosen to send her away, and to leave her, so that she

must act on her own judgment. Acting on her own judgment, she read

Colonel Osborne’s letter from first to last. She knew that he was wrong

to speak of coming to Nuncombe Putney;