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

he had been well, anything but a

fashionable young man. Nevertheless, he had seen her often, had sat by

her very frequently, was quite sure that he loved her dearly, and had,

perhaps, some self-flattering idea in his mind that had he stuck to his

honourable profession as a barrister, and were he possessed of some

comfortable little fortune of his own, he might, perhaps, have been

able, after due siege operations, to make this charming young woman his

own. Things were quite changed now. For the present, Miss Rowley

certainly could not be regarded as a fashionable London young lady. The

house in which he would see her was, in some sort, his own. He would be

sleeping under the same roof with her, and would have all the

advantages which such a position could give him. He would have no

difficulty now in asking, if he should choose to ask; and he thought

that she might be somewhat softer, somewhat more likely to yield at

Nuncombe Putney, than she would have been in London. She was at

Nuncombe in weak circumstances, to a certain degree friendless; with

none of the excitement of society around her, with no elder sons

buzzing about her and filling her mind, if not her heart, with the

glories of luxurious primogeniture. Hugh Stanbury certainly did not

dream that any special elder son had as yet been so attracted as to

have made a journey to Nuncombe Putney on Nora’s behalf. But should he

on this account, because she would be, as it were, without means of

defence from his attack, should he therefore take advantage of her

weakness? She would, of course, go back to her London life after some

short absence, and would again, if free, have her chance among the

favoured ones of the earth. What had he to offer to her? He had taken

the Clock House for his mother, and it would be quite as much as he

could do, when Mrs Trevelyan should have left the village, to keep up

that establishment and maintain himself in London, quite as much as he

could do, even though the favours of the ‘D. R.’ should flow upon him

with their fullest tides. In such circumstances, would it be honourable

in him to ask a girl to love him because he found her defenceless in

his mother’s house?

 

‘If there bain’t another for Nuncombe,’ said Mrs. Clegg’s Ostler to Mrs

Clegg’s Boots, as Stanbury was driven off in a gig.

 

‘That be young Stanbury, a-going of whome.’

 

‘They be all a-going for the Clock House. Since the old ‘ooman took to

thick there house, there be folk a-comin’ and a-goin’ every day loike.’

 

‘It’s along of the madam that they keeps there, Dick,’ said the Boots.

 

‘I didn’t care if there’d be madams allays. They’re the best as is

going for trade anyhow,’ said the ostler. What the ostler said was

true. When there comes to be a feeling that a woman’s character is in

any way tarnished, there comes another feeling that everybody on the

one side may charge double, and that everybody on the other side must

pay double, for everything. Hugh Stanbury could not understand why he

was charged a shilling a mile, instead of ninepence, for the gig to

Nuncombe Putney. He got no satisfactory answer, and had to pay the

shilling. The truth was, that gigs to Nuncombe Putney had gone up,

since a lady, separated from her husband, with a colonel running after

her, had been taken in at the Clock House.

 

‘Here’s Hugh!’ said Priscilla, hurrying to the front door. And Mrs

Stanbury hurried after her. Her son Hugh was the apple of her eye, the

best son that ever lived, generous, noble, a thorough man, almost a god!

 

‘Dear, dear, oh dear! Who’d have expected it? God bless you, my boy!

Why didn’t you write? Priscilla, what is there in the house that he can

eat?’

 

‘Plenty of bread and cheese,’ said Priscilla, laughing, with her hand

inside her brother’s arm. For though Priscilla hated all other men, she

did not hate her brother Hugh. ‘If you wanted things nice to eat

directly you got here, you ought to have written.’

 

‘I shall want my dinner, like any other Christian in due time,’ said

Hugh. ‘And how is Mrs Trevelyan and how is Miss Rowley?’

 

He soon found himself in company with those two ladies, and experienced

some immediate difficulty in explaining the cause of his sudden coming.

But this was soon put aside by Mrs Trevelyan.

 

‘When did you see my husband?’ she asked.

 

‘I saw him yesterday. He was quite well.’

 

‘Colonel Osborne has been here,’ she said.

 

‘I know that he has been here. I met him at the station at Exeter.

Perhaps I should not say so, but I wish he had remained away.’

 

‘We all wish it,’ said Priscilla.

 

Then Nora spoke. ‘But what could we do, Mr Stanbury? It seemed so

natural that he should call when he was in the neighbourhood. We have

known him so long; and how could we refuse to see him?’

 

‘I will not let any one think that I’m afraid to see any man on earth,’

said Mrs Trevelyan. ‘If he had ever in his life said a word that he

should not have said, a word that would have been an insult, of course

it would have been different. But the notion of it is preposterous. Why

should I not have seen him?’

 

‘I think he was wrong to come,’ said Hugh.

 

‘Of course he was wrong, wickedly wrong,’ said Priscilla.

 

Stanbury, finding that the subject was openly discussed between them,

declared plainly the mission that had brought him to Nuncombe.

‘Trevelyan heard that he was coming, and asked me to let him know the

truth,’

 

‘Now you can tell him the truth,’ said Mrs Trevelyan, with something of

indignation in her tone, as though she thought that Stanbury had taken

upon himself a task of which he ought to be ashamed.

 

‘But Colonel Osborne came specially to pay a visit to Cockchaffington,’

said Nora, ‘and not to see us. Louis ought to know that.’

 

‘Nora, how can you demean yourself to care about such trash?’ said Mrs

Trevelyan. ‘Who cares why he came here? His visit to me was a thing of

course. If Mr Trevelyan disapproves of it, let him say so, and not send

secret messengers.’

 

‘Am I a secret messenger?’ said Hugh Stanbury.

 

‘There has been a man here, inquiring of the servants,’ said Priscilla.

So that odious Bozzle had made his foul mission known to them!

Stanbury, however, thought it best to say nothing of Bozzle, not to

acknowledge that he had ever heard of Bozzle. ‘I am sure Mrs Trevelyan

does not mean you,’ said Priscilla.

 

‘I do not know what I mean,’ said Mrs Trevelyan.

 

‘I am so harassed and fevered by these suspicions that I am driven

nearly mad.’ Then she left the room for a minute and returned with two

letters. ‘There, Mr Stanbury; I got that note from Colonel Osborne, and

wrote to him that reply. You know all about it now. Can you say that I

was wrong to see him?’

 

‘I am sure that he was wrong to come,’ said Hugh.

 

‘Wickedly wrong,’ said Priscilla, again.

 

‘You can keep the letters, and show, them to my husband,’ said Mrs

Trevelyan; ‘then he will know all about it.’ But Stanbury declined to

keep the letters.

 

He was to remain the Sunday at Nuncombe Putney and return to London on

the Monday. There was, therefore, but one day on which he could say

what he had to say to Nora Rowley. When he came down to breakfast on

the Sunday morning he had almost made up his mind that he had nothing

to say to her. As for Nora, she was in a state of mind much less near

to any fixed purpose. She had told herself that she loved this man—had

indeed done so in the clearest way, by acknowledging the fact of her

love, to another suitor, by pleading to that other suitor the fact of

her love as an insuperable reason why he should be rejected. There was

no longer any doubt about it to her. When Priscilla had declared that

Hugh Stanbury was at the door, her heart had gone into her mouth.

Involuntarily she had pressed her hands to her sides, and had held her

breath. Why had he come there? Had he come there for her? Oh! if he

had come there for her, and if she might dare to forget all the future,

how sweet, sweetest of all things in heaven or earth, might be an August

evening with him among the lanes! But she, too, had endeavoured to be

very prudent. She had told herself that she was quite unfit to be the

wife of a poor man, that she would be only a burden round his neck, and

not an aid to him. And in so telling herself, she had told herself also

that she had been a fool not to accept Mr Glascock. She should have

dragged out from her heart the image of this man who had never even

whispered a word of love in her ears, and should have constrained

herself to receive with affection a man in loving whom there ought to

be no difficulty. But when she had been repeating those lessons to

herself, Hugh Stanbury had not been in the house. Now he was there, and

what must be her answer if he should whisper that word of love? She had

an idea that it would be treason in her to disown the love she felt, if

questioned concerning her heart by the man to whom it had been given.

 

They all went to church on the Sunday morning, and up to that time Nora

had not been a moment alone with the man. It had been decided that they

should dine early, and then ramble out, when the evening would be less

hot than the day had been, to a spot called Niddon Park. This was

nearly three miles from Nuncombe, and was a beautiful wild slope of

ground full of ancient, blighted, blasted, but still half-living oaks,

oaks that still brought forth leaves overlooking a bend of the river

Teign. Park, in the usual sense of the word, there was none, nor did

they who lived round Nuncombe Putney know whether Niddon Park had ever

been enclosed. But of all the spots in that lovely neighbourhood,

Priscilla Stanbury swore that it was the loveliest; and, as it had

never yet been seen by Mrs Trevelyan or her sister, it was determined

that they would walk there on this August afternoon. There were four of

them and as was natural, they fell into parties of two and two. But

Priscilla walked with Nora, and Hugh Stanbury walked with his friend’s

wife. Nora was talkative, but demure in her manner, and speaking now

and again as though she were giving words and not thoughts. She felt

that there was something to hide, and was suffering from disappointment

that their party should not have been otherwise divided. Had Hugh

spoken to her and asked her to be his wife, she could not have accepted

him, because she knew that they were both poor, and that she was not

fit to keep a poor man’s house. She had declared to herself most

plainly that that must be her course but yet she was disappointed, and

talked in the knowledge that she had something to conceal.

 

When they were seated beneath an old riven, withered oak, looking down

upon the river, they were still divided