He Knew He Was Right, Anthony Trollope [children's ebooks free online .TXT] 📗
- Author: Anthony Trollope
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He then dressed himself, intending to go to Emily as soon as the
girl had left her; but the girl remained—was, as he believed,
kept in the room purposely by his wife, so that he should have no
moment of private conversation. He went downstairs, therefore, and
found Nora standing by the drawing-room fire.
‘So you are dressed first today?’ he said. ‘I thought your turn
always came last.’
‘Emily sent Jenny to me first today because she thought you would
be home, and she didn’t go up to dress till the last minute.’
This was intended well by Nora, but it did not have the desired
effect. Trevelyan, who had no command over his own features, frowned,
and showed that he was displeased. He hesitated a moment, thinking
whether he would ask Nora any question as to this report about her
father and mother; but, before he had spoken, his wife was in the
room.
‘We are all late, I fear,’ said Emily.
‘You, at any rate, are the last,’ said her husband.
‘About half a minute,’ said the wife.
Then they got into the hired brougham which was standing at the
door.
Trevelyan, in the sweet days of his early confidence with his wife,
had offered to keep a carriage for her, explaining to her that the
luxury, though costly, would not be beyond his reach. But she had
persuaded him against the carriage, and there had come to be an
agreement that instead of the carriage there should always be an
autumn tour. ‘One learns something from going about; but one learns
nothing from keeping a carriage,’ Emily had said. Those had been
happy days, in which it had been intended that everything should
always be rose-coloured. Now he was meditating whether, in lieu of
that autumn tour, it would not be necessary to take his wife away
to Naples altogether, so that she might be removed from the influence
of, of, of, of—no, not even to himself would he think of Colonel
Osborne as his wife’s lover. The idea was too horrible! And yet,
how dreadful was it that he should have, for any reason, to withdraw
her from the influence of any man!
Lady Milborough lived ever so far away, in Eccleston Square, but
Trevelyan did not say a single word to either of his companions
during the journey. He was cross and vexed, and was conscious that
they knew that he was cross and vexed. Mrs Trevelyan and her sister
talked to each other the whole way, but they did so in that tone
which clearly indicates that the conversation is made up, not for
any interest attached to the questions asked or the answers given,
but because it is expedient that there should not be silence. Nora
said something about Marshall and Snellgrove and tried to make believe
that she was very anxious for her sister’s answer. And Emily said
something about the opera at Covent Garden, which was intended
to show that her mind was quite at ease. But both of them failed
altogether, and knew that they failed. Once or twice Trevelyan thought
that he would say a word in token, as it were, of repentance. Like
the naughty child who knew that he was naughty, he was trying to
be good. But he could not do it. The fiend was too strong within
him. She must have known that there was a proposition for her
father’s return through Colonel Osborne’s influence. As that man at
the club had heard it, how could she not have known it? When they
got out at Lady Milborough’s door he had spoken to neither of them.
There was a large dull party, made up mostly of old people. Lady
Milborough and Trevelyan’s mother had been bosom friends, and
Lady Milborough had on this account taken upon herself to be much
interested in Trevelyan’s wife. But Louis Trevelyan himself, in
discussing Lady Milborough with Emily, had rather turned his mother’s
old friend into ridicule, and Emily had, of course, followed her
husband’s mode of thinking. Lady Milborough had once or twice given
her some advice on small matters, telling her that this or that
air would be good for her baby, and explaining that a mother during
a certain interesting portion of her life, should refresh herself
with a certain kind of malt liquor. Of all counsel on such domestic
subjects Mrs Trevelyan was impatient, as indeed it was her nature
to be in all matters, and consequently, authorized as she had been
by her husband’s manner of speaking of his mother’s friend, she
had taken a habit of quizzing Lady Milborough behind her back,
and almost of continuing the practice before the old lady’s face.
Lady Milborough, who was the most affectionate old soul alive,
and good-tempered with her friends to a fault, had never resented
this, but had come to fear that Mrs Trevelyan was perhaps a little
flighty. She had never as yet allowed herself to say anything worse
of her young friend’s wife than that. And she would always add that
that kind of thing would cure itself as the nursery became full. It
must be understood therefore that Mrs Trevelyan was not anticipating
much pleasure from Lady Milborough’s party, and that she had accepted
the invitation as a matter of duty.
There was present among the guests a certain Honourable Charles
Glascock, the eldest son of Lord Peterborough, who made the affair
more interesting to Nora than it was to her sister. It had been
whispered into Nora’s ears, by more than one person and among others
by Lady Milborough, whose own daughters were all married, that she
might if she thought fit become the Honourable Mrs Charles Glascock.
Now, whether she might think fit, or whether she might not, the
presence of the gentleman under such circumstances, as far as she
was concerned, gave an interest to the evening. And as Lady Milborough
took care that Mr Glascock should take Nora down to dinner, the
interest was very great. Mr Glascock was a good-looking man, just
under forty, in Parliament, heir to a peerage, and known to be
well off in respect to income. Lady Milborough and Mrs Trevelyan
had told Nora Rowley that should encouragement in that direction
come in her way, she ought to allow herself to fall in love with
Mr Glascock. A certain amount of encouragement had come in her
way, but she had not as yet allowed herself to fall in love with
Mr Glascock.
It seemed to her that Mr Glascock was quite conscious of the
advantages of his own position, and that his powers of talking about
other matters than those with which he was immediately connected
were limited. She did believe that he had in truth paid her the
compliment of falling in love with her, and this is a compliment
to which few girls are indifferent. Nora might perhaps have tried
to fall in love with Mr Glascock, had she not been forced to make
comparisons between him and another. This other one had not fallen in
love with her, as she well knew; and she certainly had not fallen
in love with him. But still the comparison was forced upon her, and
it did not result in favour of Mr Glascock. On the present occasion
Mr Glascock as he sat next to her almost proposed to her.
‘You have never seen Monkhams?’ he said. Monkhams was his father’s
seat, a very grand place in Worcestershire. Of course he knew very
well that she had never seen Monkhams. How should she have seen
it?
‘I have never been in that part of England at all,’ she replied.
‘I should so like to show you Monkhams. The oaks there are the
finest in the kingdom. Do you like oaks?’
‘Who does not like oaks? But we have none in the islands, and nobody
has ever seen so few as I have.’
‘I’ll show you Monkhams some day. Shall I? Indeed I hope that some
day I may really show you Monkhams.’
Now when an unmarried man talks to a young lady of really showing
her the house in which it will be his destiny to live, he can
hardly mean other than to invite her to live there with him. It
must at least be his purpose to signify that, if duly encouraged,
he will so invite her. But Nora Rowley did not give Mr Glascock
much encouragement on this occasion.
‘I’m afraid it is not likely that anything will ever take me into
that part of the country,’ she said. There was something perhaps in
her tone which checked Mr Glascock, so that he did not then press
the invitation.
When the ladies were upstairs in the drawing-room, Lady Milborough
contrived to seat herself on a couch intended for two persons only,
close to Mrs Trevelyan. Emily, thinking that she might perhaps hear
some advice about Guinness’s stout, prepared herself to be saucy.
But the matter in hand was graver than that. Lady Milborough’s mind
was uneasy about Colonel Osborne.
‘My dear,’ said she, ‘was not your father very intimate with that
Colonel Osborne?’
‘He is very intimate with him, Lady Milborough.’
‘Ah, yes; I thought I had heard so. That makes it of course natural
that you should know him.’
‘We have known him all our lives,’ said Emily, forgetting probably
that out of the twenty-three years and some months which she had
hitherto lived, there had been a consecutive period of more than
twenty years in which she had never seen this man whom she had
known all her life.
‘That makes a difference, of course; and I don’t mean to say anything
against him.’
‘I hope not, Lady Milborough, because we are all especially fond
of him.’ This was said with so much of purpose, that poor, dear
old Lady Milborough was stopped in her good work. She knew well
the terrible strait to which Augustus Poole had been brought with
his wife, although nobody supposed that Poole’s wife had ever
entertained a wrong thought in her pretty little heart. Nevertheless
he had been compelled to break up his establishment, and take his
wife to Naples, because this horrid Colonel would make himself at
home in Mrs Poole’s drawing-room in Knightsbridge. Augustus Poole,
with courage enough to take any man by the beard, had taking by
the beard been possible, had found it impossible to dislodge the
Colonel. He could not do so without making a row which would have
been disgraceful to himself and injurious to his wife; and therefore
he had taken Mrs Poole to Naples. Lady Milborough knew the whole
story, and thought that she foresaw that the same thing was about
to happen in the drawing-room in Curzon Street. When she attempted
to say a word to the wife, she found herself stopped. She could not
go on in that quarter after the reception with which the beginning
of her word had been met. But perhaps she might succeed better
with the husband. After all, her friendship was with the Trevelyan
side, and not with the Rowleys.
‘My dear Louis,’ she said, ‘I want to speak a word to you. Come
here.’ And then she led him into a distant corner, Mrs Trevelyan
watching her all the while, and guessing why her husband was thus
carried away. ‘I just want to give you a little hint, which I am
sure I believe is quite unnecessary,’ continued Lady Milborough.
Then she paused, but Trevelyan would not speak. She looked into his
face, and saw that it was black. But the man was the only child of
her dearest friend, and she persevered. ‘Do you know I don’t quite
like that Colonel Osborne coming so much to
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