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

>will also limit the allowance to be made to you to a bare sustenance.

In such case, I shall put the matter into the hands of a lawyer, and

shall probably feel myself driven to take steps towards freeing myself

from a connection which will be disgraceful to my name.

 

For myself, I shall live abroad during the greater part of the year.

London has become to me uninhabitable, and all English pleasures are

distasteful.

 

Yours affectionately,

 

Louis Trevelyan.’

 

When he had finished this he read it twice, and believed that he had

written, if not an affectionate, at any rate a considerate letter. He

had no bounds to the pity which he felt for himself in reference to the

injury which was being done to him, and he thought that the offers

which he was making, both in respect to his child and the money, were

such as to entitle him to his wife’s warmest gratitude. He hardly

recognised the force of the language which he used when he told her

that her conduct was disgraceful, and that she had disgraced his name.

He was quite unable to look at the whole question between him and his

wife from her point of view. He conceived it possible that such a woman

as his wife should be told that her conduct would be watched, and that

she should be threatened with the Divorce Court, with an effect that

should, upon the whole, be salutary. There be men, and not bad men

either, and men neither uneducated, or unintelligent, or irrational in

ordinary matters, who seem to be absolutely unfitted by nature to have

the custody or guardianship of others. A woman in the hands of such a

man can hardly save herself or him from endless trouble. It may be

that between such a one and his wife, events shall flow on so evenly

that no ruling, no constraint is necessary that even the giving of

advice is never called for by the circumstances of the day. If the man

be happily forced to labour daily for his living till he be weary, and

the wife be laden with many ordinary cares, the routine of life may run

on without storms; but for such a one, if he be without work, the

management of a wife will be a task full of peril. The lesson may be

learned at last; he may after years come to perceive how much and how

little of guidance the partner of his life requires at his hands; and

he may be taught how that guidance should be given, but in the learning

of the lesson there will be sorrow and gnashing of teeth. It was so now

with this man. He loved his wife. To a certain extent he still trusted

her. He did not believe that she would be faithless to him after the

fashion of women who are faithless altogether But he was jealous of

authority, fearful of slights, self-conscious, afraid of the world, and

utterly ignorant of the nature of a woman’s mind.

 

He carried the letter with him in his pocket throughout the next

morning, and in the course of the day he called upon Lady Milborough.

Though he was obstinately bent on acting in accordance with his own

views, yet he was morbidly desirous of discussing the grievousness of

his position with his friends. He went to Lady Milborough, asking for

her advice, but desirous simply of being encouraged by her to do that

which he was resolved to do on his own judgment.

 

‘Down after her to Nuncombe Putney!’ said Lady Milborough, holding up

both her hands.

 

‘Yes; he has been there. And she has been weak enough to see him.’

 

‘My dear Louis, take her to Naples at once—at once.’

 

‘It is too late for that now, Lady Milborough.’

 

‘Too late! Oh no. She has been foolish, indiscreet, disobedient—what

you will of that kind. But, Louis, don’t send her away; don’t send your

young wife away from you. Those whom God has joined together, let no

man put asunder.’

 

‘I cannot consent to live with a wife with whom neither my wishes nor

my word have the slightest effect. I may believe of her what I please;

but, think what the world will believe! I cannot disgrace myself by

living with a woman who persists in holding intercourse with a man whom

the world speaks of as her lover.’

 

‘Take her to Naples,’ said Lady Milborough, with all the energy of

which she was capable.

 

‘I can take her nowhere, nor will I see her, till she has given proof

that her whole conduct towards me has been altered. I have written a

letter to her, and I have brought it. Will you excuse me if I ask you

to take the trouble to read it?’

 

Then he handed Lady Milborough the letter, which she read very slowly,

and with much care.

 

‘I don’t think I would—would—would—’

 

‘Would what?’ demanded Trevelyan.

 

‘Don’t you think that what you say is a little—just a little—prone to

make to make the breach perhaps wider?’

 

‘No, Lady Milborough. In the first place, how can it be wider?’

 

‘You might take her back, you know; and then if you could only get to

Naples!’

 

‘How can I take her back while she is corresponding with this man?’

 

‘She wouldn’t correspond with him at Naples.’

 

Trevelyan shook his head and became cross. His old friend would not at

all do as old friends are expected to do when called upon for advice.

 

‘I think,’ said he, ‘that what I have proposed is both just and

generous.’

 

‘But, Louis, why should there be any separation?’

 

‘She has forced it upon me. She is headstrong, and will not be ruled.’

 

‘But this about disgracing you. Do you think that you must say that?’

 

‘I think I must, because it is true. If I do not tell her the truth,

who is there that will do so? It may be bitter now, but I think that it

is for her welfare.’

 

‘Dear, dear, dear!’

 

‘I want nothing for myself, Lady Milborough.’

 

‘I am sure of that, Louis.’

 

‘My whole happiness was in my home. No man cared less for going out

than I did. My child and my wife were everything to me. I don’t suppose

that I was ever seen at a club in the evening once throughout a season.

And she might have had anything that she liked—anything! It is hard;

Lady Milborough; is it not?’

 

Lady Milborough, who had seen the angry brow, did not dare to suggest

Naples again. But yet, if any word might be spoken to prevent this

utter wreck of a home, how good a thing it would be! He had got up to

leave her, but she stopped him by holding his hand.

 

‘For better, for worse, Louis; remember that.’

 

‘Why has she forgotten it?’

 

‘She is flesh of your flesh, bone of your bone. And for the boy’s sake!

Think of your boy, Louis. Do not send that letter. Sleep on it, Louis,

and think of it.’

 

‘I have slept on it.’

 

‘There is no promise in it of forgiveness after a while. It is written

as though you intended that she should never come back to you.’.

 

‘That shall be as she behaves herself.’

 

‘But tell her so. Let there be some one bright spot in what you say to

her, on which her mind may fix itself. If she be not altogether

hardened, that letter will drive her to despair.’

 

But Trevelyan would not give up the letter, nor indicate by a word that

he would reconsider the question of its propriety. He escaped as soon

as he could from Lady Milborough’s room, and almost declared as he did

so, that he would never enter her doors again. She had utterly failed

to see the matter in the proper light. When she talked of Naples she

must surely have been unable to comprehend the extent of the ill-usage

to which he, the husband, had been subjected. How was it possible that

he should live under the same roof with a wife who claimed to herself

the right of receiving visitors of whom he disapproved—a visitor, a

gentleman, one whom the world called her lover? He gnashed his teeth and

clenched his fist as he thought of his old friend’s ignorance of the

very first law in a married man’s code of laws.

 

But yet when he was out in the streets he did not post his letter at

once; but thought of it throughout the whole day, trying to prove the

weight of every phrase that he had used. Once or twice his heart almost

relented. Once he had the letter in his hand, that he might tear it.

But he did not tear it. He put it back into his pocket, and thought

again of his grievance. Surely it was his first duty in such an

emergency to be firm!

 

It was certainly a wretched life that he was leading. In the evening he

went all alone to an eating-house for his dinner, and then, sitting

with a miserable glass of sherry before him, he again read and re-read

the epistle which he had written. Every harsh word that it contained

was, in some sort, pleasant to his ear. She had hit him hard, and

should he not hit her again? And then, was it not his bounden duty to

let her know the truth? Yes; it was his duty to be firm.

 

So he went out and posted the letter.