The Way We Live Now, Anthony Trollope [good story books to read .txt] 📗

certain Mrs. Hurtle in London which were of a nature to make it inexpedient that Hetta should accept Paul Montague as her betrothed lover? Of course he did. The facts were all familiar to him. But how was he to tell the facts? In what words was he to answer such a letter? If he told the truth as he knew it how was he to secure himself against the suspicion of telling a story against his rival in order that he might assist himself, or at any rate, punish the rival?

As he could not trust himself to write an answer to Lady Carbury’s letter he determined that he would go to London. If he must tell the story he could tell it better face to face than by any written words. So he made the journey, arrived in town late in the evening, and knocked at the door in Welbeck Street between ten and eleven on the morning after the unfortunate meeting which took place between Sir Felix and John Crumb. The page when he opened the door looked as a page should look when the family to which he is attached is suffering from some terrible calamity. “My lady” had been summoned to the hospital to see Sir Felix who was⁠—as the page reported⁠—in a very bad way indeed. The page did not exactly know what had happened, but supposed that Sir Felix had lost most of his limbs by this time. Yes; Miss Carbury was upstairs; and would no doubt see her cousin, though she, too, was in a very bad condition; and dreadfully put about. That poor Hetta should be “put about” with her brother in the hospital and her lover in the toils of an abominable American woman was natural enough.

“What’s this about Felix?” asked Roger. The new trouble always has precedence over those which are of earlier date.

“Oh Roger, I am so glad to see you. Felix did not come home last night, and this morning there came a man from the hospital in the city to say that he is there.”

“What has happened to him?”

“Somebody⁠—somebody has⁠—beaten him,” said Hetta whimpering. Then she told the story as far as she knew it. The messenger from the hospital had declared that the young man was in no danger and that none of his bones were broken, but that he was terribly bruised about the face, that his eyes were in a frightful condition, sundry of his teeth knocked out, and his lips cut open. But, the messenger had gone on to say, the house surgeon had seen no reason why the young gentleman should not be taken home. “And mamma has gone to fetch him,” said Hetta.

“That’s John Crumb,” said Roger. Hetta had never heard of John Crumb, and simply stared into her cousin’s face. “You have not been told about John Crumb? No;⁠—you would not hear of him.”

“Why should John Crumb beat Felix like that?”

“They say, Hetta, that women are the cause of most troubles that occur in the world.” The girl blushed up to her eyes, as though the whole story of Felix’s sin and folly had been told to her. “If it be as I suppose,” continued Roger, “John Crumb has considered himself to be aggrieved and has thus avenged himself.”

“Did you⁠—know of him before?”

“Yes indeed;⁠—very well. He is a neighbour of mine and was in love with a girl, with all his heart; and he would have made her his wife and have been good to her. He had a home to offer her, and is an honest man with whom she would have been safe and respected and happy. Your brother saw her and, though he knew the story, though he had been told by myself that this honest fellow had placed his happiness on the girl’s love, he thought⁠—well, I suppose he thought that such a pretty thing as this girl was too good for John Crumb.”

“But Felix has been going to marry Miss Melmotte!”

“You’re old-fashioned, Hetta. It used to be the way⁠—to be off with the old love before you are on with the new; but that seems to be all changed now. Such fine young fellows as there are now can be in love with two at once. That I fear is what Felix has thought;⁠—and now he has been punished.”

“You know all about it then?”

“No;⁠—I don’t know. But I think it has been so. I do know that John Crumb had threatened to do this thing, and I felt sure that sooner or later he would be as good as his word. If it has been so, who is to blame him?”

Hetta as she heard the story hardly knew whether her cousin, in his manner of telling the story, was speaking of that other man, of that stranger of whom she had never heard, or of himself. He would have made her his wife and have been good to her. He had a home to offer her. He was an honest man with whom she would have been safe and respected and happy! He had looked at her while speaking as though it were her own case of which he spoke. And then, when he talked of the old-fashioned way, of being off with the old love before you are on with the new, had he not alluded to Paul Montague and this story of the American woman? But, if so, it was not for Hetta to notice it by words. He must speak more plainly than that before she could be supposed to know that he alluded to her own condition. “It is very shocking,” she said.

“Shocking;⁠—yes. One is shocked at it all. I pity your mother, and I pity you.”

“It seems to me that nothing ever will be happy for us,” said Hetta. She was longing to be told something of Mrs. Hurtle, but she did not as yet dare to ask the question.

“I do not know whether to wait for your mother or not,” said