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

acknowledged to herself that she had no pretension to beauty such as that which this woman owned. “And so you have come to see me,” said Mrs. Hurtle. “Sit down so that I may look at you. I am glad that you have come to see me, Miss Carbury.”

“I am glad at any rate that you are not angry.”

“Why should I be angry? Had the idea been distasteful to me I should have declined. I know not why, but it is a sort of pleasure to me to see you. It is a poor time we women have⁠—is it not⁠—in becoming playthings to men? So this Lothario that was once mine, is behaving badly to you also. Is it so? He is no longer mine, and you may ask me freely for aid, if there be any that I can give you. If he were an American I should say that he had behaved badly to me;⁠—but as he is an Englishman perhaps it is different. Now tell me;⁠—what can I do, or what can I say?”

“He told me that you could tell me the truth.”

“What truth? I will certainly tell you nothing that is not true. You have quarrelled with him too. Is it not so?”

“Certainly I have quarrelled with him.”

“I am not curious;⁠—but perhaps you had better tell me of that. I know him so well that I can guess that he should give offence. He can be full of youthful ardour one day, and cautious as old age itself the next. But I do not suppose that there has been need for such caution with you. What is it, Miss Carbury?”

Hetta found the telling of her story to be very difficult. “Mrs. Hurtle,” she said, “I had never heard your name when he first asked me to be his wife.”

“I dare say not. Why should he have told you anything of me?”

“Because⁠—oh, because⁠—. Surely he ought, if it is true that he had once promised to marry you.”

“That certainly is true.”

“And you were here, and I knew nothing of it. Of course I should have been very different to him had I known that⁠—that⁠—that⁠—”

“That there was such a woman as Winifrid Hurtle interfering with him. Then you heard it by chance, and you were offended. Was it not so?”

“And now he tells me that I have been unjust to him and he bids me ask you. I have not been unjust.”

“I am not so sure of that. Shall I tell you what I think? I think that he has been unjust to me, and that therefore your injustice to him is no more than his due. I cannot plead for him, Miss Carbury. To me he has been the last and worst of a long series of, I think, undeserved misfortune. But whether you will avenge my wrongs must be for you to decide.”

“Why did he go with you to Lowestoft?”

“Because I asked him⁠—and because, like many men, he cannot be ill-natured although he can be cruel. He would have given a hand not to have gone, but he could not say me nay. As you have come here, Miss Carbury, you may as well know the truth. He did love me, but he had been talked out of his love by my enemies and his own friends long before he had ever seen you. I am almost ashamed to tell you my own part of the story, and yet I know not why I should be ashamed. I followed him here to England⁠—because I loved him. I came after him, as perhaps a woman should not do, because I was true of heart. He had told me that he did not want me;⁠—but I wanted to be wanted, and I hoped that I might lure him back to his troth. I have utterly failed, and I must return to my own country⁠—I will not say a brokenhearted woman, for I will not admit of such a condition⁠—but a creature with a broken spirit. He has misused me foully, and I have simply forgiven him; not because I am a Christian, but because I am not strong enough to punish one that I still love. I could not put a dagger into him⁠—or I would; or a bullet⁠—or I would. He has reduced me to a nothing by his falseness, and yet I cannot injure him! I, who have sworn to myself that no man should ever lay a finger on me in scorn without feeling my wrath in return, I cannot punish him. But if you choose to do so it is not for me to set you against such an act of justice.” Then she paused and looked up to Hetta as though expecting a reply.

But Hetta had no reply to make. All had been said that she had come to hear. Every word that the woman had spoken had in truth been a comfort to her. She had told herself that her visit was to be made in order that she might be justified in her condemnation of her lover. She had believed that it was her intention to arm herself with proof that she had done right in rejecting him. Now she was told that however false her lover might have been to this other woman he had been absolutely true to her. The woman had not spoken kindly of Paul⁠—had seemed to intend to speak of him with the utmost severity; but she had so spoken as to acquit him of all sin against Hetta. What was it to Hetta that her lover had been false to this American stranger? It did not seem to her to be at all necessary that she should be angry with her lover on that head. Mrs. Hurtle had told her that she herself must decide whether she would take upon herself to avenge her rival’s wrongs. In saying that Mrs. Hurtle had taught her to feel that there were no other wrongs which she need avenge. It was all