Barchester Towers, Anthony Trollope [top business books of all time .txt] 📗

“George may say what he likes,” continued the countess, urging her excuses to Miss Thorne; “I am sure we were past the castle gate before twelve⁠—weren’t we, Margaretta?”

“Upon my word I don’t know,” said the Lady Margaretta, “for I was half-asleep. But I do know that I was called some time in the middle of the night and was dressing myself before daylight.”

Wise people, when they are in the wrong, always put themselves right by finding fault with the people against whom they have sinned. Lady De Courcy was a wise woman, and therefore, having treated Miss Thorne very badly by staying away till three o’clock, she assumed the offensive and attacked Mr. Thorne’s roads. Her daughter, not less wise, attacked Miss Thorne’s early hours. The art of doing this is among the most precious of those usually cultivated by persons who know how to live. There is no withstanding it. Who can go systematically to work and, having done battle with the primary accusation and settled that, then bring forward a countercharge and support that also? Life is not long enough for such labours. A man in the right relies easily on his rectitude and therefore goes about unarmed. His very strength is his weakness. A man in the wrong knows that he must look to his weapons; his very weakness is his strength. The one is never prepared for combat, the other is always ready. Therefore it is that in this world the man that is in the wrong almost invariably conquers the man that is in the right, and invariably despises him.

A man must be an idiot or else an angel who, after the age of forty, shall attempt to be just to his neighbours. Many like the Lady Margaretta have learnt their lesson at a much earlier age. But this of course depends on the school in which they have been taught.

Poor Miss Thorne was altogether overcome. She knew very well that she had been ill-treated, and yet she found herself making apologies to Lady De Courcy. To do her ladyship justice, she received them very graciously, and allowed herself, with her train of daughters, to be led towards the lawn.

There were two windows in the drawing-room wide open for the countess to pass through, but she saw that there was a woman on a sofa, at the third window, and that that woman had, as it were, a following attached to her. Her ladyship therefore determined to investigate the woman. The De Courcy’s were hereditarily shortsighted, and had been so for thirty centuries at least. So Lady De Courcy, who when she entered the family had adopted the family habits, did as her son had done before her and, taking her glass to investigate the Signora Neroni, pressed in among the gentlemen who surrounded the couch, and bowed slightly to those whom she chose to honour by her acquaintance.

In order to get to the window she had to pass close to the front of the couch, and as she did so she stared hard at the occupant. The occupant, in return, stared hard at the countess. The countess, who, since her countess-ship commenced, had been accustomed to see all eyes not royal, ducal, or marquesal fall before her own, paused as she went on, raised her eyebrows, and stared even harder than before. But she had now to do with one who cared little for countesses. It was, one may say, impossible for mortal man or woman to abash Madeline Neroni. She opened her large, bright, lustrous eyes wider and wider, till she seemed to be all eyes. She gazed up into the lady’s face, not as though she did it with an effort, but as if she delighted in doing it. She used no glass to assist her effrontery, and needed none. The faintest possible smile of derision played round her mouth, and her nostrils were slightly dilated, as if in sure anticipation of her triumph. And it was sure. The Countess De Courcy, in spite of her thirty centuries and De Courcy Castle, and the fact that Lord De Courcy was grand master of the ponies to the Prince of Wales, had not a chance with her. At first the little circlet of gold wavered in the countess’s hand, then the hand shook, then the circlet fell, the countess’s head tossed itself into the air, and the countess’s feet shambled out to the lawn. She did not, however, go so fast but what she heard the signora’s voice, asking:

“Who on earth is that woman, Mr. Slope?”

“That is Lady De Courcy.”

“Oh, ah. I might have supposed so. Ha, ha, ha. Well, that’s as good as a play.”

It was as good as a play to any there who had eyes to observe it and wit to comment on what they observed.

But the Lady De Courcy soon found a congenial spirit on the lawn. There she encountered Mrs. Proudie, and as Mrs. Proudie was not only the wife of a bishop but was also the cousin of an earl, Lady De Courcy considered her to be the fittest companion she was likely to meet in that assemblage. They were accordingly delighted to see each other. Mrs. Proudie by no means despised a countess, and as this countess lived in the county and within a sort of extensive visiting distance of Barchester, she was glad to have this opportunity of ingratiating herself.

“My dear Lady De Courcy, I am so delighted,” said she, looking as little grim as it was in her nature to do. “I hardly expected to see you here. It is such a distance, and then, you know, such a crowd.”

“And such roads, Mrs. Proudie! I really wonder how the people ever get about. But I don’t suppose they ever do.”

“Well, I really don’t know, but I suppose not. The Thornes don’t, I know,” said Mrs. Proudie. “Very nice person, Miss Thorne, isn’t she?”

“Oh, delightful, and so queer; I’ve known her these twenty years. A great pet of