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

not expected that Priscilla would have been so much opposed to the

arrangement which he had made about the house, and then he had been

buoyed up by the anticipation of some delight in meeting Nora Rowley.

There was, at any rate, the excitement of seeing her to keep his

spirits from flagging. He had seen her, and had had the opportunity of

which he had so long been thinking. He had seen her and had had every

possible advantage on his side. What could any man desire better than

the privilege of walking home with the girl he loved through country

lanes of a summer evening? They had been an hour together or might have

been, had he chosen to prolong the interview. But the words which had

been spoken between them had had not the slightest interest unless it

were that they had tended to make the interval between him and her

wider than ever. He had asked her—he thought that he had asked—whether

it would grieve her to abandon that delicate, dainty mode of life to

which she had been accustomed; and she had replied that she would never

abandon it of her own accord. Of course she had intended him to take

her at her word.

 

He blew forth quick clouds of heavy smoke, as he attempted to make

himself believe that this was all for the best. What would such a one

as he was do with a wife? Or, seeing as he did see, that marriage

itself was quite out of the question, how could it be good either for

him or her that they should be tied together by a long engagement? Such

a future would not at all suit the purpose of his life. In his life

absolute freedom would be needed, freedom from unnecessary ties, freedom

from unnecessary burdens. His income was most precarious and he

certainly would not make it less so by submission to any closer

literary thraldom. And he believed himself to be a Bohemian, too much of

a Bohemian to enjoy a domestic fireside with children and slippers. To

be free to go where he liked, and when he liked, to think as he

pleased, to be driven nowhere by conventional rules, to use his days,

Sundays as well as Mondays, as he pleased to use them; to turn

Republican, if his mind should take him that way or Quaker, or Mormon

or Red Indian, if he wished it, and in so turning to do no damage to

any one but himself—that was the life which he had planned for himself.

His aunt Stanbury had not read his character altogether wrongly, as he

thought, when she had once declared that decency and godliness were

both distasteful to him. Would it not be destruction to such a one as

he was, to fall into an interminable engagement with any girl, let her

be ever so sweet?

 

But yet, he felt as he sat there filling pipe after pipe, smoking away

till past midnight, that though he could not bear the idea of trammels,

though he was totally unfit for matrimony, either present or in

prospect, he felt that he had within his breast a double identity, and

that that other division of himself would be utterly crushed if it were

driven to divest itself of the idea of love. Whence was to come his

poetry, the romance of his life, the springs of clear water in which

his ignoble thoughts were to be dipped till they should become pure,

if love was to be banished altogether from the list of delights that

were possible to him? And then he began to speculate on love—that love

of which poets wrote, and of which he found that some sparkle was

necessary to give light to his life. Was it not the one particle of

divine breath given to man, of which he had heard since he was a boy?

And how was this love to be come at, and was it to be a thing of

reality, or merely an idea? Was it a pleasure to be attained or a

mystery that, charmed by the difficulties of the distance, a distance

that never could be so passed, that the thing should really be reached?

Was love to be ever a delight, vague as is that feeling of unattainable

beauty which far-off mountains give, when you know that you can never

place yourself amidst their unseen valleys? And if love could be

reached, the love of which the poets sing, and of which his own heart

was ever singing, what were to be its pleasures? To press a hand, to

kiss a lip, to clasp a waist, to hear even the low voice of the

vanquished, confessing loved one as she hides her blushing cheek upon

your shoulder—what is it all but to have reached the once mysterious

valley of your far-off mountain, and to have found that it is as other

valleys, rocks and stones, with a little grass, and a thin stream of

running water? But beyond that pressing of the hand, and that kissing

of the lips, beyond that short-lived pressure of the plumage which is

common to birds and men, what could love do beyond that? There were

children with dirty faces and household bills, and a wife, who must,

perhaps, always darn the stockings and be sometimes cross. Was love to

lead only to this, a dull life, with a woman who had lost the beauty

from her cheeks, and the gloss from her hair, and the music from her

voice, and the fire from her eye and the grace from her step, and whose

waist an arm should no longer be able to span? Did the love of the

poets lead to that, and that only? Then, through the cloud of smoke,

there came upon him some dim idea of self-abnegation that the

mysterious valley among the mountains, the far-off prospect of which

was so charming to him, which made the poetry of his life, was, in fact,

the capacity of caring more for other human beings than for himself.

The beauty of it all was not so much in the thing loved, as in the

loving. ‘Were she a cripple, hunchbacked, eyeless’ he said to, himself,

‘it might be the same. Only she must be a woman.’ Then he blew off a

great cloud of smoke, and went into bed lost amid poetry, philosophy,

love, and tobacco.

 

It had been arranged overnight that he was to start the next morning at

half-past seven, and Priscilla had promised to give him his breakfast

before he went. Priscilla, of course, kept her word. She was one of

those women who would take a grim pleasure in coming down to make the

tea at any possible hour, at five, at four, if it were needed, and who

would never want to go to bed again when the ceremony was performed.

But when Nora made her appearance—Nora, who had been dainty—both

Priscilla and Hugh were surprised. They could not say why she was there

nor could Nora tell herself. She had not forgiven him. She had no

thought of being gentle and loving to him. She declared to herself that

she had no wish of saying good-bye to him once again. But yet she was

in the room, waiting for him, when he came down to his breakfast. She

had been unable to sleep, and had reasoned with herself as to the

absurdity of lying in bed awake, when she preferred to be up and out

of the house. It was true that she had not been out of her bed at seven

any morning since she had been at Nuncombe Putney; but that was no

reason why she should not be more active on this special morning.

There was a noise in the house, and she never could sleep when there

was a noise. She was quite sure that she was not going down because she

wished to see Hugh Stanbury, but she was equally sure that it would be

a disgrace to her to be deterred from going down, simply because the

man was there. So she descended to the parlour, and was standing near

the open window when Stanbury bustled into the room, some quarter of an

hour after the proper time. Priscilla was there also, guessing

something of the truth, and speculating whether these two young people,

should they love each other, would be the better or the worse for such

love. There must be marriages if only that the world might go on in

accordance with the Creator’s purpose. But, as Priscilla could see,

blessed were they who were not called upon to assist in the scheme. To

her eyes all days seemed to be days of wrath, and all times, times of

tribulation. And it was all mere vanity and vexation of spirit. To go

on and bear it till one was dead, helping others to bear it, if such

help might be of avail, that was her theory of life. To make it pleasant

by eating, and drinking, and dancing, or even by falling in love, was,

to her mind, a vain crunching of ashes between the teeth. Not to have

ill things said of her and of hers, not to be disgraced, not to be

rendered incapable of some human effort, not to have actually to starve,

such was the extent of her ambition in this world. And for the next she

felt so assured of the goodness of God that she could not bring

herself to doubt of happiness in a world that was to be eternal. Her

doubt was this, whether it was really the next world which would be

eternal. Of eternity she did not doubt, but might there not be many

worlds? These, things, however, she kept almost entirely to herself.

‘You, down!’ Priscilla had said.

 

‘Well, yes; I could not sleep when I heard you all moving. And the

morning is so fine, and I thought that perhaps you would go out and

walk after your brother has gone.’ Priscilla promised that she would

walk, and then the tea was made.

 

‘Your sister and I are going out for an early walk,’ said Nora, when she

was greeted by Stanbury. Priscilla said nothing but thought she

understood it all.

 

‘I wish I were going with you,’ said Hugh. Nora, remembering how very

little he had made of his opportunity on the evening before, did not

believe him.

 

The eggs and fried bacon were eaten in a hurry, and very little was

said. Then there came the moment for parting. The brother and sister

kissed each other, and Hugh took Nora by the hand. ‘I hope you make

yourself happy here,’ he said.

 

‘Oh, yes, if it were only for myself I should want nothing.’

 

‘I will do the best I can with Trevelyan.’

 

‘The best will be to make him and every one understand that the fault

is altogether his, and not Emily’s.’

 

‘The best will be to make each think that there has been no real

fault,’ said Hugh.

 

‘There should be no talking of faults,’ said Priscilla. ‘Let the

husband take his wife back as he is bound to do.’

 

These words occupied hardly a minute in the saying, but during that

minute Hugh Stanbury held Nora by the hand. He held it fast. She would

not attempt to withdraw it, but neither would she return his pressure

by the muscle of a single finger. What right had he to press her hand;

or to make any sign of love, any pretence of loving, when he had gone

out of his way to tell her that she was not good enough for him? Then

he started, and Nora and Priscilla put on their hats and left the

house.

 

‘Let