 56 When Caroline Spalding perceived how direct an attempt had been made by her sister to take the Poetess away, in order that she might thus be left alone with Mr. Glasscock, her spirit revolted against the maneuver, and she took herself away amidst the crowd. If Mr. Glasscock should wish to find her again, he could do so. And there came across her mind something of a half-formed idea that, perhaps after all, her friend Wallachia was right. Were this man ready to take her, and she ready to be taken, would such an arrangement be a happy one for both of them? His high-born, wealthy friends might very probably despise her, and it was quite possible that she also might despise them. To be Lady Peterborough, and have the spending of a large fortune, would not suffice for her happiness. She was sure of that. It would be a leap in the dark, and all such leaps must needs be dangerous, and therefore should be avoided. But she did like the man. Her friend was untrue to her, and cruel in those illusions to tinkling symbols. It might be well for her to get over her liking, and to think no more of one who was to her a foreigner and a stranger, of whose ways of living in his own home she knew so little, whose people might be antipathetic to her, enemies instead of friends, among whom her life would be one long misery. But it was not on that ground that Miss Petrie had recommended her to start for Rome as soon as Mr. Glasscock had reached Florence. There is no reason, she said to herself, why I should not marry a man if I like him, even though he be a Lord, and of him I should not be the least afraid—it's the women that I fear—and then she called to mind all that she had ever heard of English countesses and duchesses. She thought that she knew that they were generally cold and proud, and very little given to receive outsiders graciously within their ranks. Mr. Glasscock had an aunt who was a duchess, and a sister who would be a countess. Caroline Spalding felt how her back would rise against these new relations, if it should come to pass that they should look unkindly upon her when she was taken to her own home, how she would fight with them giving them scorn for scorn, how unutterably miserable she would be, how she would long to be back among her own equals, in spite even of her love for her husband, how grand a thing it is, she said, to be equal with those whom you love. And yet she was to some extent allured by the social position of the man. She could perceive that he had a charm of manner which her countrymen lacked. He had read perhaps less than her uncle, knew perhaps less than those men with whom she had been want to associate in her own city life at home, was not braver, or more virtuous, or more self-denying than they, but there was a softness and an ease in his manner which was palatable to her, and an absence of that too visible effort of the intellect which is so apt to mark and mar the conversation of Americans. She almost wished that she had been English, in order that the man's home and friends might have suited her. She was thinking of all this as she stood pretending to talk to an American lady, who was very eloquent on the delights of Florence. In the meantime Olivia and Mr. Glasscock had moved away together, and Miss Petrie was left alone. This was no injury to Miss Petrie, as her mind at once set itself to work on a sonnet touching the frivolity of modern social gatherings. And when she complained afterwards to Caroline that it was the curse of their mode of life that no moment could be allowed for thought, in which she referred specially to a few words that Mr. Gore had addressed to her at this moment of her meditations. She was not willfully a hypocrite. She was painfully turning her second set of rhymes, and really believed that she had been subjected to a hardship. In the meantime Olivia and Mr. Glasscock were discussing her at a distance. You were being put through your facings, Mr. Glasscock, Olivia had said. Well, yes, and your dear friend Miss Petrie is rather a stern examiner. She is Carrie's ally, not mine, said Olivia. Then she remembered that by saying this she might be doing her sister an injury. Mr. Glasscock might object to such a bosom friend for his wife. That is to say, of course we are all intimate with her, but just at this moment Carrie is most in favour. She is very clever, I am quite sure, said he. Oh yes, she's a genius. You must not doubt that on the peril of making every American in Italy your enemy. She is a poet, is she not? Mr. Glasscock! Have I said anything wrong? he asked. Do you mean to look me in the face and tell me that you are not acquainted with her works, that you don't know pages of them by heart, that you don't sleep with them under your pillow, don't travel about with them in your dressing-bag? I'm afraid we have mistaken you, Mr. Glasscock. Is it so great a sin? If you'll own up honestly I'll tell you something, in a whisper. You have not read a word of her poems. Not a word. Neither have I. Isn't it horrible? But perhaps if I heard Tennyson talking every day I shouldn't read Tennyson. Familiarity does breed contempt, doesn't it? And then poor dear Wallachia is such a bore, I sometimes wonder when English people are listening to her whether they think that American girls generally talk like that. Not all perhaps with that perfected eloquence. I daresay you do, continued Olivia craftily, that is just the way in which people form their opinions about foreigners. Some specially self-asserting American speaks his mind louder than other people, and then you say that all Americans are self-asserting. But you are a little that way given, Miss Balding. Because we are always called upon to answer accusations against us, expressed or unexpressed, we don't think ourselves a bit better than you, or if the truth we're known half is good. We are always struggling to be as polished and easy as the French, or as sensible and dignified as the English, but when our defects are thrown in our teeth. Who throws them in your teeth, Miss Balding? You look at all of you if you do not speak it out. You do assume a superiority, Mr. Glasscock, and that we cannot endure. I do not feel that I assume anything, said Mr. Glasscock meekly. If three gentlemen be together, an Englishman, a Frenchman, and an American, is not the American obliged to be on his metal to prove that he is somebody among the three. I admit that he is always claiming to be the first, but he does so only that he may not be too evidently the last. If you knew us, Mr. Glasscock, you would find us to be very mild, and humble, and nice, and good, and clever, and kind, and charitable, and beautiful. In short, the finest people that have as yet been created on the broad face of God's smiling earth. These last words she pronounced with a nasal twang, and in a tone of voice which almost seemed to him to be a direct mimicry of the American minister. The upshot of the conversation, however, was that the disgust against Americans, which to a certain degree had been excited in Mr. Glasscock's mind by the united efforts of Mr. Spalding and the Poetess, had been almost entirely dispelled, from all of which the reader ought to understand that Miss Olivia Spalding was a very clever young woman. But nevertheless Mr. Glasscock had not quite made up his mind to ask the elder sister to be his wife. He was one of those men to whom love-making does not come very easy, although he was never so much at his ease as when he was in company with ladies. He was sorely in want of a wife, but he was aware that at different periods during the last fifteen years he had been angled for as a fish. Mothers in England had tried to catch him, and of such mothers he had come to have the strongest possible detestation. He had seen the hooks, or perhaps had fancied that he saw them when they were not there. Lady Jane's and Lady Sarah's had been hard upon him, till he learned to buckle himself into triple armor when he went amongst them, and yet he wanted a wife, no man more sorely wanted one. The reader will perhaps remember how he went down to Nuncomputney in quest of a wife, but all in vain. The lady in that case had been so explicit with him that he could not hope for a more favourable answer, and indeed he would not have cared to marry a girl who had told him that she preferred another man to himself, even if it had been possible for him to do so. Now he had met a lady very different from those with whom he had hitherto associated, but not the less manifestly a lady. Caroline Spalding was bright, pleasant, attractive, very easy to talk to, and yet quite able to hold her own. But the American minister was abhor, and Miss Petrie was unbearable. He had often told himself that in this matter of marrying a wife he would please himself altogether, that he would allow himself to be tied down by no consideration of family pride, that he would consult nothing but his own heart and feelings. As for rank, he could give that to his wife. As for money, he had plenty of that also. He wanted a woman that was not blasé with the world, that was not a fool and who would respect him. The more he thought of it, the more sure he was that he had seen none who pleased him so well as Caroline Spalding, and yet he was a little afraid of taking a step that would be irrevocable. Perhaps the American minister might express a wish to end his days at Moncoms, and might think it desirable to have Miss Petrie always with him as a private secretary in poetry. Between you and us, Mr. Glasscock, the spark of sympathy does not pass with a strong flash, said a voice in his ear. As he turned round rapidly to face his foe, he was quite sure for the moment that under no possible circumstances would he ever take an American woman to his bosom as his wife. No, said he, no, no, I rather think that I agree with you. The antipathy is one, continued Miss Petrie, which has been common on the face of the earth since the clown first trod upon the courtiers' heels. It is the instinct of fallen men to hate equality, to desire ascendancy, to crush, to oppress, to tyrannize, to enslave. Then when the slave is at last free, and in his freedom demands equality, man is not great enough to take his enfranchised brother to his bosom. You mean Negroes, said Mr. Glasscock, looking round and planning for himself a mode of escape. Not Negroes only, not the enslaved blacks who are now enslaved no more, but the rising nations of white men wherever they are to be seen. You English have no sympathy with the people who claim to be at least your equals. The clown has trod upon the courtiers' heels till the clown is clown no longer, and the courtier has hardly a court in which he may dangle his sword not. If so, the clown might as well spare the courtier, not meaning the rebuke which his words implied. Ah! But the clown will not spare the courtier, Mr. Glasscock. I understand the jib, and I tell you that the courtier shall be spared no longer, because he is useless. He shall be cut down, together with the withered grasses, and thrown into the oven, and there shall be an end of him. Then she turned round to appeal to an American gentleman who had joined them, and Mr. Glasscock made his escape. I hold it to be the holiest duty which I owe to my country, never to spare one of them when I meet him. They are all very well in their way, said the American gentleman. Down with them! Down with them! exclaimed the poetess, with a beautiful enthusiasm. In the meantime Mr. Glasscock had made up his mind that he could not dare to ask Caroline Spalding to be his wife. There were certain forms of the American female so dreadful that no wise man would willfully come in contact with them. Miss Petrie's ferocity was distressing to him, but her eloquence and enthusiasm were worse even than her ferocity. The personal incivility of which she had been guilty in calling him a withered grass was distasteful to him, as being opposed to his ideas of the customs of society. But what would be his fate if his wife's chosen friend should be forever dinning her denunciation of withered grasses into his ear? He was still thinking of all this when he was accosted by Mrs. Spalding. Are you going to dear Lady Banbury's to-morrow? she asked. Lady Banbury was the wife of the English minister. I suppose I shall be there in the course of the evening. How very nice she is! Is she not? I do like Lady Banbury, so soft and gentle and kind. One of the pleasantest old ladies I know, said Mr. Glasscock. It does not strike you so much as it does me, said Mrs. Spalding, with one of her sweetest smiles. The truth is, we all value what we have not got. There are no Lady Banbury's in our country, and therefore we think the more of them when we meet them here. She is talking of going to Rome for the carnival, and has asked Caroline to go with her. I am so pleased to find that my dear girl is such a favourite. Mr. Glasscock immediately told himself that he saw the hook. If he were to be fished for by this American aunt, as he had been fished for by English mothers, all his pleasure in the society of Caroline Spalding would be at once over. It would be too much indeed if in this American household he were to find the old vices of an aristocracy super-added to young Republican sins. Nevertheless, Lady Banbury was, as he knew well, a person whose opinion about young people was supposed to be very good. She noticed those only who were worthy of notice, and to have been taken by the hand of Lady Banbury was acknowledged to be a passport into good society. If Caroline Spalding was in truth going to Rome with Lady Banbury, that fact was in itself a great confirmation of Mr. Glasscock's good opinion of her. Mrs. Spalding had perhaps understood this, but had not understood that having just hinted that it was so, she should have abstained from saying a word more about her dear girl. Clever and well-practiced must indeed be the hand of the fisherwoman in matrimonial waters, who is able to throw her fly without showing any glimpse of the hook to the fish for whom she angles. Before Mrs. Spalding, though with kindly instincts toward her niece, she did on this occasion make some slight attempted angling, was innocent of any concerted plan. It seemed to her to be so natural to say a good word in praise of her niece to the man whom she believed to be in love with her niece. Caroline and Mr. Glasscock did not meet each other again till late in the evening, and just as he was about to take his leave. As they came together, each of them involuntarily looked round to see whether Miss Petrie was near. Had she been there nothing would have been said beyond the shortest farewell greeting. But Miss Petrie was afar off, electrifying some Italian by the vehemence of her sentiments, and the audacious volubility of a language in which all arbitrary restrictions were ignored. �Are you going?� she asked. �Well, I believe I am. Since I saw you last I've encountered Miss Petrie again, and I'm rather depressed. Ah, you don't know her. If you did you wouldn't laugh at her. Laugh at her? And I do not do that, but when I'm told that I'm to be thrown into the oven and burned because I'm such a worn-out old institution. You don't mean to say that you mined that? Not much when it comes up in the ordinary course of conversation, but it polls upon one when it is asserted for the fourth or fifth time in an evening. �Alas! Alas!� exclaimed Miss Spalding, with mock energy. And why alas? Because it is so impossible to make the oil and vinegar of the old world and of the new mix together and suit each other. You think it is impossible, Miss Spalding? I fear so. We are so terribly tender, and you are always pinching us on our most tender spot, and we never meet you without treading on your gouty toes. �I don't think my toes are gouty� said he. �I apologize to your own individually, Mr. Glasscock, but I must assert that nationally you are subject to the gout. That is, when I'm told over and over again that I am to be cut down and thrown into the oven. Never mind the oven now, Mr. Glasscock, if my friend has been overzealous I will beg pardon for her. But it does seem to me, indeed it does, with all the reverence and partiality I have for everything European� the word European was an offence to him, and he showed that it was so by his countenance � that the idiosyncrasies of you and of us are so radically different that we cannot be made to amalgamate and sympathize with each other thoroughly. He paused for some seconds before he answered her, but it was so evident by his manner that he was going to speak that she could neither leave him nor interrupt him. �I had thought that it might have been otherwise� he said at last, and the tone of his voice was so changed as to make her know that he was in earnest. But she did not change her voice by a single note. �I'm afraid it cannot be so� she said, speaking after her old fashion, half in earnest, half in banter. �We may make up our minds to be very civil to each other when we meet. The threats of the oven may no doubt be dropped on our side, and you may abstain from expressing in words your sense of our inferiority. �I never expressed anything of the kind� he said, quite in anger. �I am taking you simply as the sample Englishman, not as Mr. Glasscock, who helped me and my sister over the mountains. Such of us as have to meet in society may agree to be very courteous, but courtesy and cordiality are not only not the same, but they are incompatible. Courtesy is an effort, and cordiality is free. I must be allowed to contradict the friend that I love, but I assent, too often falsely, to what is said to me by a passing acquaintance. In spite of what the scripture says, I think it is one of the greatest privileges of a brother that he may call his brother a fool. Shall you desire to call your husband a fool? My husband? He will, I suppose, be at least as dear to you as a brother. I never had a brother. Or sister, then, it is the same, I suppose. If I were to have a husband, I hope he would be the dearest to me of all, unless he were so he certainly would not be my husband. But between a man and his wife there does not spring up that playful, violent intimacy admitting of all liberties, which comes from early nursery associations, and then there is the difference of sex. �I should not like my wife to call me a fool,� he said. �I hope she may never have occasion to do so, Mr. Glasscock. Marry an English wife in your own class, as of course you will, and then you will be safe. But I have set my heart fast on marrying an American wife,� he said. �Then I can't tell what may befall you. It's like enough, if you do that, that you may be called by some name you will think hard to bear. But you'll think better of it. Like should pair with like, Mr. Glasscock. If you were to marry one of our young women, you would lose indignity as much as she would lose in comfort. Then they parted, and she went off to say farewell to the other guests. The manner in which she had answered what he had said to her had certainly been of a nature to stop any further speech of the same kind. Had she been gentle with him, then he would certainly have told her that she was the American woman whom he desired to take with him to his home in England. End of Chapter 56 Chapter 57 of He Knew He Was Right. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. He knew he was right by Anthony Trollope. Chapter 57 Dorothy's Fate Towards the end of February Sir Peter Mann Crudy declared Miss Danbury to be out of danger, and Mr. Martin began to be sprightly on the subject, taking to himself no inconsiderable share of the praise accruing to the medical faculty in Exeter generally, for the saving of a life so valuable to the city. �Yes, Mr. Burgess,� Sir Peter said to old Barty of the bank, �our friend will get over it this time, and without any serious damage to her constitution, if she will only take care of herself�. Barty made some inaudible grunt, intended to indicate his own indifference on the subject. And expressed his opinion to the chief clerk that old Jemima wide awake, as he was pleased to call her, was one of those tough customers who would never die. �It would be nothing to us, Mr. Barty, one way or the other� said the clerk, to which Barty Burgess assented with another grunt. Camilla French declared that she was delighted to hear the news. At this time there had been some sort of a reconciliation between her and her lover. Mrs. French had extracted from him a promise that he would not go to Natal, and Camilla had commenced the preparations for her wedding. His visits to Hevetry were as few and far between as he could make them with any regard to decency, but the 31st of March was coming on quickly, and as he was to be made a possession of them forever, it was considered to be safe and well to allow him some liberty in his present condition. �My dear, if they are driven, there is no knowing what they won't do,� Mrs. French said to her daughter. Camilla had submitted with compressed lips and a slight nod of her head. She had worked very hard, but her day of reward was coming. It was impossible not to perceive, both for her and her mother, that the scantiness of Mr. Gibson's attention to his future bride was cause of some weak triumph to Arabella. She said that it was very odd that he did not come. He had once eluded with a little sigh that he used to come in former days, eluding to those happy days in which another love was paramount. Camilla could not endure this with an equal mind. �Bella, dear� she said, �we know what all that means. He has made his choice, and if I am satisfied with what he does now, surely you need not grumble.� Miss Standbury's illness had undoubtedly been a great source of contentment to the family at Hevetry, as they had all been able to argue that her impending demise was the natural consequence of her great sin in the matter of Dorothy's proposed marriage. When, however, they heard from Mr. Martin that she would certainly recover, that Sir Peter's edict to that effect had gone forth, they were willing to acknowledge that Providence, having so far punished the sinner, was right in staying at hand and abstaining from the final blow. �I am sure we are delighted,� said Mrs. French, �for though she has said cruel things of us, and so untrue, too, yet of course it is our duty to forgive her, and we do forgive her.� Dorothy had written three or four notes to Brooke since his departure, which contained simple bulletins of her aunt's health. She always began her letters with �my dear Mr. Burgess� and ended them with �yours truly�. She never made any allusion to Brooke's declaration of love, or gave the slightest sign in her letters to show that she even remembered it. At last she wrote to say that her aunt was convalescent, and in making this announcement she allowed herself some enthusiasm of expression. She was so happy, and was so sure that Mr. Burgess would be equally so. And her aunt had asked after her dear Brooke, expressing her great satisfaction with him, in that he had come down to see her when she had been almost too ill to see any one. In answer to this there came to her a real love letter from Brooke Burgess. It was the first occasion on which she had written to her. The little bulletins had demanded no replies, and had received none. Thus there had been a shade of disappointment on Dorothy's side in that she had written thrice, and had been made rich with no word in return. But although her heart had palpitated on hearing the postman's knock, and had palpitated in vain, she had told herself that it was all as it should be. She wrote to him, because she possessed information which it was necessary that she should communicate. He did not write to her, because there was nothing for him to tell. Then had come the love letter, and in the love letter there was an imperative demand for a reply. What was she to do? To have recourse to Priscilla for advice was her first idea, but she herself believed that she owed a debt of gratitude to her aunt, which Priscilla would not take into account, the existence of which Priscilla would by no means admit. She knew Priscilla's mind in this matter, and was sure that Priscilla's advice, whatever it might be, would be given without any regard to her aunt's views. And then Dorothy was altogether ignorant of her aunt's views. Her aunt had been very anxious that she should marry Mr. Gibson. But had clearly never admitted into her mind the idea that she might possibly marry Brooke Burgess. And it seemed to her that she herself would be dishonest, both to her aunt and to her lover, if she were to bind this man to herself without her aunt's knowledge. He was to be her aunt's heir, and she was maintained by her aunt's liberality. Thinking of all this, she at last resolved that she would take the bull by the horns and tell her aunt. She felt that the task would be one almost beyond her strength. Thrice she went into her aunt's room. Intending to make a clean breast, Thrice her courage failed her, and she left the room with her tale untold, excusing herself on various pretexts. Her aunt had seemed to be not quite so well, or had declared herself to be tired, or had been a little cross, or else Martha had come in at the nick of time. But there was Brooke Burgess's letter unanswered, a letter that was read night and morning, and which was never for an instant out of her mind. He had demanded a reply, and he had a right at least to that. The letter had been with her for four entire days before she had ventured to speak to her aunt on the subject. On the first of March Miss Stanbury came out of her bedroom for the first time. Dorothy, on the previous day, had decided on postponing her communication for this occasion, but when she found herself sitting in the little sitting-room upstairs, close at her aunt's elbow, and perceived the signs of weakness which the new move had made conspicuous, and heard the invalid declare that the little journey had been almost too much for her, her heart misgave her, she ought to have told her tale while her aunt was still in bed. But presently there came a question, which put her into such a flutter that she was for the time devoid of all resolution. "'Has Brooke written?' said Miss Stanbury. "'Yes, aunt. He has written. And what did he say?' Dorothy was struck quite dumb. "'Is there anything wrong?' And now, as Miss Stanbury asked the question, she seemed herself to have forgotten that she had two minutes before declared herself to be almost too feeble to speak. "'I'm sure there is something wrong. What is it? I will know.' "'There is nothing wrong, aunt Stanbury. Where is the letter? Let me see it. I mean, there is nothing wrong about him. What is it, then? He is quite well, aunt Stanbury. Show me the letter. I will see the letter. I know that there is something the matter. Do you mean to say you won't show me Brooke's letter?' There was a moment's pause before Dorothy answered. "'I will show you his letter, though I am sure he didn't mean that I should show it to anyone. He hasn't written evil of me. No! No, no! He would sooner cut his hand off than say a word bad of you. He never says or writes anything bad of anybody. But—' "'Oh, aunt, I'll tell you everything. I should have told you before, only that you were ill.' Then Miss Stanbury was frightened. What is it?' she said hoarsely, clasping the arms of the great chair each with a thin, shriveled hand. "'Aunt Stanbury, Brooke—' "'Brooke wants me to be his wife.' "'What? You cannot be more surprised than I have been aunt Stanbury, and there has been no fault of mine.' "'I don't believe it,' said the old woman. "'Now you may read the letter,' said Dorothy, standing up. She was quite prepared to be obedient, but she felt that her aunt's manner of receiving the information was almost an insult. "'He must be a fool,' said Miss Stanbury. This was hard to bear, and the color went and came rapidly across Dorothy's cheeks as she gave herself a few moments to prepare an answer. She already perceived that her aunt would be altogether adverse to the marriage, and that therefore the marriage could never take place. She had never for a moment allowed herself to think otherwise, but nevertheless the blow was heavy on her. We all know how constantly hope and expectation will rise high within our own bosoms, in opposition to our own judgment, how we become sanguine in regard to events which we almost know can never come to pass.' So it had been with Dorothy. Her heart had been almost in a flutter of happiness, since she had had Brooke's letter in her possession, and yet she never ceased to declare to herself her own conviction that that letter could lead to no good result. In regard to her own wishes on the subject, she had never asked herself a single question. As it had been quite beyond her power to bring herself to endure the idea of marrying Mr. Gibson, so it had been quite impossible to her not to long to be Brooke's wife from the moment in which a suggestion to that effect had fallen from his lips. This was a state of things so certain, so much a matter of course, that though she had not spoken a word to him in which she owned her love, she had never for a moment doubted that he knew the truth, and that everybody else concerned would know it too. But she did not suppose that her wishes would go for anything with her aunt. Brooke Burgess was to become a rich man as her aunt's heir, and her aunt would of course have her own ideas about Brooke's advancement in life. She was quite prepared to submit without quarreling when her aunt should tell her that the idea must not be entertained. But the order might be given, the prohibition might be pronounced, without an insult to her own feelings as a woman. He must be a fool, Miss Stanbury had said, and Dorothy took time to collect her thoughts before she would reply. In the meantime her aunt finished the reading of the letter. He may be foolish in this, Dorothy said, but I don't think you should call him a fool. I shall call him what I please. I suppose this was going on at the time when you refused Mr. Gibson. Nothing was going on. Nothing has gone on at all, said Dorothy, with as much indignation as she was able to assume. How can you tell me that? That is an untruth. It is not an untruth, said Dorothy, almost sobbing, but driven at the same time to much anger. Do you mean to say that this is the first you ever heard of it? And she held out the letter, shaking it in her thin hand. I have never said so, Aunt Stanbury. Yes, you did. I said that nothing was going on when Mr. Gibson was—if you choose to suspect me, Aunt Stanbury, I'll go away. I won't stay here if you suspect me. When Brooke spoke to me I told him you wouldn't like it. Of course I don't like it. But she gave no reason why she did not like it. And there was nothing more till this letter came. I couldn't help his writing to me. It wasn't my fault. Pshaw! If you are angry I am very sorry, but you haven't a right to be angry. Go on, Dorothy. Go on. I'm so weak that I can hardly stir myself. It's the first moment that I've been out of my bed for weeks, and of course you can say what you please. I know what it will be. I shall have to take to my bed again, and then, in a very little time, you can both make fools of yourselves just as you like. This was an argument against which Dorothy, of course, found it to be quite impossible to make continued combat. She could only shuffle her letter back into her pocket, and be, if possible, more assiduous than ever in her attentions to the Invalid. She knew that she had been treated most unjustly, and there would be a question to be answered as soon as her aunt should be well, as to the possibility of her remaining in the close subject to such injustice. But let her aunt say what she might, or do what she might. Dorothy could not leave her for the present. Miss Standbury sat for a considerable time quite motionless, with her eyes closed, and did not stir or make signs of life till Dorothy touched her arm, asking her whether she would not take some broth which had been prepared for her. Here's Martha. Why does not Martha come, said Miss Standbury. This was a hard blow, and from that moment Dorothy believed that it would be expedient that she should return to Nuncomputney. The broth, however, was taken, while Dorothy sat in silence. Only one word further was said that evening by Miss Standbury about Brooke and his love affair. There must be nothing more about this, Dorothy. Remember that. Nothing at all. I won't have it." Dorothy made no reply. Brooke's letter was in her pocket, and it should be answered that night. On the following day she would let her aunt know what she had said to Brooke. Her aunt should not see the letter, but should be made acquainted with its purport in reference to Brooke's proposal of marriage. I won't have it. That had been her aunt's command. What right had her aunt to give any command upon the matter? Then crossed Dorothy's mind as she thought of this, a glimmering of an idea that no one can be entitled to issue commands who cannot enforce obedience. If Brooke and she chose to become man and wife by mutual consent, how could her aunt prohibit the marriage? Then there followed another idea, that commands are enforced by the threatening and if necessary by the enforcement of penalties. Her aunt had within her hand no penalty of which Dorothy was afraid on her own behalf, but she had the power of inflicting a terrible punishment on Brooke Burgess. Now Dorothy conceived that she herself would be the meanest creature alive if she were actuated by fears as to money in her acceptance or rejection of a man whom she loved as she did Brooke Burgess. Brooke had an income of his own which seemed to her to be ample for all purposes. But that which would have been sordid in her did not seem to her to have any stain of sordidness for him. He was a man and was bound to be rich if he could, and moreover what had she to offer in herself, such a poor thing as was she, to make compensation to him for the loss of fortune. Her aunt could inflict this penalty, and therefore the power was hers and the power must be obeyed. She would write to Brooke in a manner that should convey to him her firm decision. But not the less on that account would she let her aunt know that she thought herself to have been ill-used. It was an insult to her, a most ill-natured insult, that telling her that Brooke had been a fool for loving her, and then that accusation against her of having been false, of having given one reason for refusing Mr. Gibson while there was another reason in her heart, of having been cunning and then untrue was not to be endured. What would her aunt think of her if she were to bear such allegations without indignant protest? She would write her letter, and speak her mind to her aunt as soon as her aunt should be well enough to hear it. As she had resolved, she wrote her letter that night before she went to bed. She wrote it with floods of tears, and a bitterness of heart which almost conquered her. She too had heard of love, and had been taught to feel that the success or failure of a woman's life depended upon that, whether she did, or whether she did not, by such gifts as God might have given to her, attract to herself some man strong enough, and good enough, and loving enough to make straight for her her paths, to bear for her her burdens, to be the father of her children, the staff on which she might lean, and the wall against which she might grow, feeling the sunshine and sheltered from the wind. She had ever estimated her own value so lowly as to have told herself often that such success could never come in her way. From her earliest years she had regarded herself as outside the pale within which such joys are to be found. She had so strictly taught herself to look forward to a blank existence that she had learned to do so without active misery. But not the less did she know where happiness lay, and when the good thing came almost within her reach, when it seemed that God had given her gifts which might have sufficed, when a man had sought her hand, whose nature was such that she could have leaned on him with a true worship, could have grown against him as against a wall with perfect confidence, could have lain with her head upon his bosom, and have felt that of all spots that in the world was the most fitting for her. When this was all but grasped and must yet be abandoned, there came upon her spirit and agony so bitter that she had not before known how great might be the depth of human disappointment. But the letter was at last written, and when finished was as follows. The Close, Exeter, March 1st, 1860 Blank Dear Brooke, there had been many doubts about this, but at last they were conquered, and the name was written. I have shown your letter to my aunt, as I am sure you will think was best. I should have answered it before, only that I thought that she was not quite well enough to talk about it. She says, as I was sure she would, that what you propose is quite out of the question. I am aware that I am bound to obey her, and as I think that you also ought to do so, I shall think no more of what you have said to me, and have written. It is quite impossible now, even if it might have been possible under other circumstances. I shall always remember your great kindness to me. Perhaps I ought to say that I am very grateful for the compliment you have paid me. I shall think of you always, till I die. Believe me to be your very sincere friend, Dorothy Stanbury. The next day Miss Stanbury again came out of her room, and on the third day she was manifestly becoming stronger. Dorothy had as yet not spoken of her letter, but was prepared to do so as soon as she thought that a fitting opportunity had come. She had a word or two to say for herself, but she must not again subject herself to being told that she was taking her will of her aunt, because her aunt was too ill to defend herself. But on the third day Miss Stanbury herself asked the question, Have you written anything to Brooke? she asked. I have answered his letter, Aunt Stanbury. And what have you said to him? I have told him that you disapproved of it, and that nothing more must be said about it. Yes, of course you made me out to be an ogre. I don't know what you mean by that, Aunt. I am sure that I told him the truth. May I see the letter? It has gone. But you have kept a copy, said Miss Stanbury. Yes, I have got a copy, replied Dorothy, but I would rather not show it. I told him just what I tell you. Dorothy, it is not at all becoming that you should have a correspondence with any young man of such a nature that you should be ashamed to show it to your aunt. I am not ashamed of anything, said Dorothy sturdily. I don't know what young women in these days have come to, continued Miss Stanbury. There is no respect, no subjection, no obedience, and too often no modesty. Does that mean me, Aunt Stanbury? asked Dorothy. To tell you the truth, Dorothy, I don't think you ought to have been receiving love letters from Brooke Burgess when I was lying ill in bed. I didn't expect it of you. I tell you fairly that I didn't expect it of you. Then Dorothy spoke out her mind. As you think that, Aunt Stanbury, I had better go away, and if you please I will, when you are well enough to spare me. Pray don't think of me at all, said her aunt. And as for love letters, Mr. Burgess has written to me once. I don't think that there can be anything immodest in opening a letter when it comes by the post. And as soon as I had it I determined to show it to you. As for what happened before, when Mr. Burgess spoke to me, which was a long, long after all that about Mr. Gibson was over, I told him that it couldn't be so, and I thought there would be no more about it. You were so ill that I could not tell you. Now you know it all. I have not seen your letter to him. I shall never show it to anybody, but you have said things Aunt Stanbury that are very cruel. Of course, everything I say is wrong. You have told me that I was telling untruths, and you have called me immodest. That is a terrible word. You shouldn't deserve it then. I never have deserved it, and I won't bear it. No I won't. If Hugh heard me called that word, I believe he'd tear the house down. Hugh, indeed, he's to be brought in between us, is he? He's my brother, and of course I'm obliged to think of him. And if you please I'll go home as soon as you are well enough to spare me. Day after this there were very many letters coming and going between the house in the close and the ladies at Nuncomputney and Hugh Stanbury and Brooke Burgess. The correspondent of Brooke Burgess was of course Miss Stanbury herself. The letters to Hugh and to Nuncomputney were written by Dorothy. Of the former we need be told nothing at the present moment, but the upshot of all Poor Dolly's letters was that on the tenth of March she was to return home to Nuncomputney, share once more her sister's bed and mother's poverty, and abandon the comforts of the close. Before this became a definite arrangement Miss Stanbury had given way in a certain small degree. She had acknowledged that Dorothy had intended no harm, but this was not enough for Dorothy, who was conscious of no harm either done or intended. She did not specify her terms, or require specifically that her aunt should make apology for that word immodest, or at least withdraw it, but she resolved that she would go unless it was most absolutely declared to have been applied to her without the slightest reason. She felt, moreover, that her aunt's house ought to be open to Brooke Burgess, and that it could not be open to them both, and so she went, having resided under her aunt's roof between nine and ten months. Good-bye, aunt's Stanbury, said Dorothy, kissing her aunt with a tear in her eye and a sob in her throat. Good-bye, my dear, good-bye, and Miss Stanbury, as she pressed her niece's hand, left in it a bank note. I'm much obliged, aunt. I am indeed, but I'd rather not, and the bank note was left on the parlor table. CHAPTER XVIII Dorothy was received at home with so much affection, and such expressions of esteem as to afford her much consolation in her misery. Both her mother and her sister approved of her conduct. The Stanbury's approval was indeed accompanied by many expressions of regret as to the good things lost. She was fully alive to the fact that life in the close at Exeter was better for her daughter than life in their little cottage at Nuncomputney. The outward appearance which Dorothy bore on her return home was proof of this. Her clothes, the set of her hair, her very gestures and motions had framed themselves on town ideas. The faded, wilderness-washed outlook, the uncertain purposeless bearing which had come from her secluded life and subjection to her sister, had vanished from her. She had lived among people, and had learned something of their gait and carriage. Money we know will do almost everything, and no doubt money had had much to do with this. It is very pretty to talk of the alluring simplicity of a clean calico gown, but poverty will show itself to be meager, dowdy, and draggled in a woman's dress, let the woman be ever so simple, ever so neat, ever so independent, and ever so high-hearted. Mrs. Stenbury was quite alive to all that her younger daughter was losing. Had she not received two offers of marriage while she was at Exeter, there was no possibility that offers of marriage should be made in the cottage at Nuncomputney. A man within the walls of the cottage would have been considered as much out of place as a wild bull. It had been matter of deep regret to Mrs. Stenbury that her daughter should not have found herself able to marry Mr. Gibson. She knew that there was no matter for reproach in this, but it was a misfortune. A great misfortune. And in the mother's breast there had been a sad, unrepressed feeling of regret, that young people should so often lose their chances in the world through over-fancifulness, and ignorance as to their own good. Now when she heard the story of Brooke Burgess, she could not but think that had Dorothy remained at Exeter, enduring patiently such hard words as her aunt might speak, the love affair might have been brought at some future time to a happy conclusion. She did not say all this, but there came on her a silent melancholy, made expressive by constant little shakings of the head, and a continued reproachful sadness of demeanor, which was quite as intelligible to Priscilla as would have been any spoken words. But Priscilla's approval of her sister's conduct was clear, outspoken, and satisfactory. She had been quite sure that her sister had been right about Mr. Gibson, and was equally sure that she was now right about Brooke Burgess. Priscilla had in her mind an idea that if B.B., as they called him, was half as good as her sister represented him to be, for indeed Dorothy endowed him with every virtue consistent with humanity, he would not be deterred from his pursuit either by Dolly's letter or by Aunt Standbury's commands, but of this she thought it wise to say nothing. She paid Dolly the warm and hitherto unaccustomed complement of equality, assuming to regard her sister's judgment and persistent independence to be equally strong with her own, and as she knew well she could not have gone further than this. I never shall agree with you about Aunt Standbury, she said. To me she seems to be so imperious, so exacting, and also so unjust as to be unbearable. But she is affectionate, said Dolly. So is the dog that bites you, and for ought I know the horse that kicks you, but it is ill living with biting dogs and kicking horses. But all that matters little is you are still your own mistress. How strange these nine months have been with you and Exeter while we have been in the clock-house. And here we are, together again in the old way, just as though nothing had happened. But Dorothy knew well that a great deal had happened, and that her life could never be as it had been here to fore. The very tone in which her sister spoke to her was proof of this. She had an infinitely greater possession in herself than had belonged to her before her residence at Exeter, but that possession was so heavily mortgaged, and so burdened, as to make her believe that the change was to be regretted. At the end of the first week there came a letter from Aunt Stanbury to Dorothy. It began by saying that Dolly had left behind her certain small properties which had now been made up in a parcel and sent by the railway carriage-paid. But they weren't mine at all, said Dolly, alluding to certain books in which she had taken delight. She means to give them to you, said Priscilla, and I think you must take them. And the shawl is no more mine than it is yours, though I wore it two or three times in the winter. Dolly was of opinion that the shawl must be taken also. Then the letter spoke of the writer's health, and at last fell into such a strain of confidential gossip that Mrs. Stanbury, when she read it, could not understand that there had been a quarrel. Martha says that she saw Camilla French in the street today, such a guy in her new finery as never was seen before except on May Day. Then in the post-script Dorothy was enjoined to answer this letter quickly. None of your short scraps, my dear, said Aunt Stanbury. She must mean you to go back to her, said Mrs. Stanbury. No doubt she does, said Priscilla, but Dolly need not go because my aunt means it. We are not her creatures. But Dorothy answered her aunt's letter in the spirit in which it had been written. She asked after her aunt's health, thanked her aunt for the gift of the books, in each of which her name had been clearly written, protested about the shawl, sent her love to Martha and her kind regards to Jane, and expressed a hope that C. F. enjoyed her new clothes. She described the cottage and was funny about the cabbage-stumps in the garden, and at last succeeded in concocting a long epistle. I suppose there will be a regular correspondence, said Priscilla. Two days afterwards, however, the correspondence took all together another form. The cottage in which they now lived was supposed to be beyond the beat of the wooden-legged postman, and therefore it was necessary that they should call it the post office for their letters. On the morning in question, Priscilla obtained a thick letter from Exeter for her mother, and knew that it had come from her aunt. Her aunt could hardly have found it necessary to correspond with Dorothy's mother, so soon after that letter to Dorothy had been written, had there not arisen some very peculiar cause. Priscilla, after much meditation, thought it better that the letter should be opened in Dorothy's absence, and in Dorothy's absence the following letter was read both by Priscilla and her mother. To Close March 19th, 1860 Blank Dear Sister Stanbury After much consideration, I think it best to send undercover to you the enclosed letter from Mr. Brooke Burgess intended for your daughter Dorothy. You will see that I have opened it and read it, as I was clearly entitled to do the letter having been addressed to my niece while she was supposed to be under my care. I do not like to destroy the letter, though perhaps that would be best, but I would advise you to do so if it be possible, without showing it to Dorothy. I have told Mr. Brooke Burgess what I have done. I have also told him that I cannot sanction a marriage between him and your daughter. There are many reasons of old date, not to speak of present reasons also, which would make such a marriage highly inexpedient. Mr. Brooke Burgess is of course his own master, but your daughter understands completely how the matter stands. Yours truly, Jemima Stanbury. What a wicked old woman, said Priscilla. Then there arose a question whether they should read Brooke's letter or whether they should give it unread to Dorothy. Priscilla denounced her aunt in the strongest language she could use for having broken the seal. Clearly entitled, because Dorothy had been living with her, exclaimed Priscilla, she can have no proper conception of honour or of honesty. She had no more right to open Dorothy's letter than she had to take her money. Mrs. Stanbury was very anxious to read Brooke's letter, alleging that they would then be able to judge whether it should be handed over to Dorothy. But Priscilla's sense of right would not admit of this. Dorothy must receive the letter from her lover, with no further stain from unauthorized eyes than that to which it had been already subjected. She was called in therefore from the kitchen, and the whole packet was given to her. Your aunt has read the enclosure, Dolly, but we have not opened it. Dorothy took the packet without a word and sat herself down. She first read her aunt's letter very slowly. I understand perfectly, she said, folding it up almost listlessly, while Brooke's letter lay still unopened on her lap. Then she took it up, and held it a while in both hands, while her mother and Priscilla watched her. Priscilla, she said, do you read it first? Priscilla was immediately at her side, kissing her. No, my darling, no, she said, it is for you to read it. Then Dorothy took the precious contents from the envelope, and opened the folds of the paper. When she had read a dozen words, her eyes were so suffused with tears that she could hardly make herself mistress of the contents of the letter, but she knew that it contained renewed assurances of her lover's love, and assurance on his part that he would take no refusal from her, based on any other ground than that of her own indifference to him. He had written to Miss Stanbury to the same effect, but he had not thought it necessary to explain this to Dorothy, nor did Miss Stanbury and her letter tell them that she had received any communication from him. Shall I read it now, said Priscilla, as soon as Dorothy again allowed the letter to fall into her lap. Both Priscilla and Mrs. Stanbury read it, and for a while they sat with the two letters among them without much speech about them. Mrs. Stanbury was endeavouring to make herself believe that her sister-in-law's opposition might be overcome, and that then Dorothy might be married. Priscilla was inquiring of herself whether it would be well that Dorothy should defy her aunt, so much at any rate would be well, and marry the man, even to his deprivation of the old woman's fortune. Priscilla had her doubts about this, being very strong in her ideas of self-denial, that her sister should put up with the bitterest disappointment rather than injure the man she loved was right, but then it would also be so extremely right to defy Aunt Stanbury to her teeth. But Dorothy, in whose character was mixed with her mother's softness much of the old Stanbury's strength, had no doubt in her mind. It was very sweet to be so loved. What gratitude did she not owe to a man who was so true to her? What was she that she should stand in his way? To lay herself down that she might be crushed in his path was no more than she owed to him. Mrs. Stanbury was the first to speak. I suppose he is a very good young man, she said. I am sure he is—a noble, true-hearted man, said Priscilla. And why shouldn't he marry whom he pleases, as long as she is respectable, said Mrs. Stanbury? In some people's eyes poverty is more disreputable than vice, said Priscilla. Your aunt has been so fond of Dorothy, pleaded Mrs. Stanbury. Just as she is of her servants, said Priscilla. But Dorothy said nothing. Her heart was too full to enable her to defend her aunt, nor at the present moment was she strong enough to make her mother understand that no hope was to be entertained. In the course of the day she walked out with her sister on the road towards Ridley, and there, standing among the rocks and ferns, looking down upon the river, with the buzz of the little mill within her ears, she explained the feelings of her heart and her many thoughts with a flow of words stronger, as Priscilla thought, than she had ever used before. It is not what he would suffer now, Pris, or what he would feel, but what he would feel ten, twenty years hence, when he would know that his children would have been all provided for, that he not lost his fortune by marrying me. He must be the only judge whether he prefers you to the old woman's money, said Priscilla. No, dear, not the only judge. And it isn't that, Pris, not which he likes best now, but which it is best for him that he should have. What could I do for him? You can love him. Yes, I can do that. And Dorothy paused a moment, to think how exceedingly well she could do that one thing. But what is that? As you said the other day, a dog can do that. I am not clever. I can't play or talk French, or do things that men like their wives to do, and I have lived here all my life. And what am I that for me he should lose a great fortune? That is his look-out. No, dearest, it is mine, and I will look out. I shall be able at any rate to remember always that I have loved him and have not injured him. He may be angry with me now." And there was a feeling of pride at her heart, as she thought that he would be angry with her, because she did not go to him. But he will know at last that I have been as good to him as I knew how to be. Then Priscilla wound her arms round Dorothy and kissed her. My sister, she said, my own sister. They walked on further, discussing the matter in all its bearings. Talking of the act of self-denial which Dorothy was called on to perform, as though it were some abstract thing, the performance of which was, or perhaps was not, imperatively demanded by the laws which should govern humanity, but with no idea on the mind of either of them that there was any longer a doubt as to this special matter in hand. They were away from home over three hours, and when they returned, Dorothy at once wrote her two letters. They were very simple and very short. She told Brooke, whom she now addressed as Dear Mr. Burgess, that it could not be as he would have it, and she told her aunt, with some terse independence of expression which Miss Standbury quite understood, that she had considered the matter, and had thought it right to refuse Mr. Burgess's offer. Don't you think she has very much changed, said Mrs. Standbury to her eldest daughter? Not changed in the least, mother, but the sun has opened the bud, and now we see the fruit. CHAPTER 59 It had now come to pass that Trevelyan had not a friend in the world to whom he could apply in the matter of his wife and family. In the last communication which he had received from Lady Milbra, she had scolded him in terms that were for her severe, because he had not returned to his wife and taken her off with him to Naples. Mr. Bidowile had found himself obliged to decline to move in the matter at all. With Hugh Standbury Trevelyan had had a direct quarrel. Mr. and Mrs. Outhouse he regarded as bitter enemies, who had taken the part of his wife without any regard to the decencies of life. And now it had come to pass that his sole remaining ally, Mr. Samuel Boswell, the ex-policeman, was becoming weary of his service. Trevelyan remained in the north of Italy up to the middle of March, spending a fortune in sending telegrams to Boswell, instigating Boswell by all the means in his power to obtain possession of the child, desiring him at one time to pounce down upon the parsonage of St. Diddolf's, with a battalion of policemen armed to the teeth with the law's authority, and at another time suggesting to him to find his way by stratagem into Mr. Outhouse's castle and carry off the child in his arms. At last he sent word to say that he himself would be in England before the end of March, and would see that the majesty of the law should be vindicated in his favour. Boswell had in truth made but one personal application for the child at St. Diddolf's. In making this he had expected no success, though from the energetic nature of his disposition he had made the attempt with some zeal. But he had never applied again at the parsonage, disregarding the letters, the telegrams, and even the promises which had come to him from his employer with such frequency. The truth was that Mrs. Boswell was opposed to the proposed separation of the mother and the child, and that Boswell was a man who listened to the words of his wife. Mrs. Boswell was quite prepared to admit that Madame T., as Mrs. Trevelyan had come to be called at number fifty-five Stoney Walk, was no better than she should be. Mrs. Boswell was disposed to think that ladies of quality, among whom Madame T. was entitled in her estimation to take rank, were seldom better than they ought to be, and she was quite willing that her husband should earn his bread by watching the lady or the lady's lover. She had participated in Boswell's triumph when he had discovered that the Colonel had gone to Devonshire, and again when he had learned that the Lethario had been at St. Diddolf's, and had the case been brought before the judge ordinary by means of her husband's exertions, she would have taken pleasure in reading every word of the evidence, even though her husband should have been ever so roughly handled by the lawyers. But now, when a demand was made upon Boswell to violate the sanctity of the clergyman's house, and withdraw the child by force or stratagem, she began to perceive that the palmy days of the Trevelyan affair were over for them, and that it would be wise on her husband's part gradually to back out of the gentleman's employment. Put it on the fire-back, Boswell, she said one morning, as her husband stood before her reading for the second time a somewhat lengthy epistle which had reached him from Italy, while he held the baby over his shoulder with his left arm. He had just washed himself at the sink, and though his face was clean, his hair was rough and his shirt sleeves were tucked up. That's all very well, Marianne, but when a party has took a gents' money a party is bound to go through with the job. Gamin, Boswell. It's all very well to say Gamin, but his money has been took, and there's more to come. And ain't you worked for the money? Down to Hexeter one time, across the water pretty well day and night, watching that hear clergyman's house like a cat. What more'd he have? As to the child, I won't hear of it be. The child shan't come here. We'd all be showed up in the papers as that black that they'd hood us along the streets. It ain't the regular line of business, Boswell, and there ain't no good to be got never by going off the regular line. Whereupon Boswell scratched his head and again read the letter. A distinct promise of a hundred pounds was made to him, if he would have the child ready to hand over to Trevelyan on Trevelyan's arrival in England. It ain't to be done, you know, said Boswell. Of course it ain't, said Mrs. Boswell. It ain't to be done any ways, not in my way of business. Why didn't he go to skint as I told him when his own lawyer was too dainty for the job? The paternal parent has a right to his infants, no doubt. That was Boswell's law. I don't believe it be, but he have, I tell you. He can't suckle him, Kenny. I don't believe a bit of his rights. When a married woman has followers, and the husband don't go the wrong side of the post, too, or it ain't proved again him that he do, they'll never let her have nothing to do with the children. It's been before the court a hundred times. He'll get the child fast enough if he'll go before the court. Is it ain't your business, Boswell, and don't you meddle nor make? The money's good money as long as it's honest earned, but when you come to rampaging and breaking into a gent's house, then I say money may be had a deal too hard. In this special letter, which had now come to hand, Boswell was not instructed to rampage. He was simply desired to make a further official requisition for the boy at the parsonage, and to explain to Mr. Outhouse, Mrs. Outhouse, and Mrs. Trevelyan, or to as many of them as he could contrive to see, that Mr. Trevelyan was immediately about to return to London, and that he would put the law into execution if his son were not given up to him at once. I'll tell you what it is, B, exclaimed Mrs. Boswell. It's my belief as he ain't quite right up here, and Mrs. Boswell touched her forehead. It's love for her as has done it, then, said Boswell, shaking his head. I'm not a taking of her part, B. A woman has had a husband as finds her with her widdles regular, and with what's decent and comfortable beside ought to be contented. I've never said no other than that. I ain't no patience with your saucy madams as can't remember as they're eating an honest man's bread. Dread'em all! What is it they want? They don't know what they want. It's just hideleness, because there ain't a hay-perth firm to do. It's that as makes them, and I won't say what. But as for this here child, B, at that moment there came a knock at the door. Mrs. Boswell going into the passage opened it herself, and saw a strange gentleman, Boswell, who had stood at the inner door, saw that the gentleman was Mr. Trevelyan. The letter, which was still in the ex-policeman's hand, had reached Stony Walk on the previous day, but the master of the house had been absent, finding out facts, following up his profession, and earning an honest penny. Trevelyan had followed his letter quicker than he had intended when it was written, and was now with his prime minister, before his prime minister had been able to take any action on the last instruction received. Does one Mr. Samuel Boswell live here? asked Trevelyan. Then Boswell came forward and introduced his wife. There was no one else present except the baby, and Boswell intimated that let matters be as delicate as they might, they could be discussed with perfect security in his wife's presence. But Trevelyan was of a different opinion, and he was disgusted and revolted, most unreasonably, by the appearance of his minister's domestic arrangements. Boswell had always waited upon him with a decent coat and a well-brushed hat and clean shoes. It is very much easier for such men as Mr. Boswell to carry decency of appearance about with them than to keep it at home. Trevelyan had never believed his ally to be more than an ordinary ex-policeman, but he had not considered how unattractive might be the interior of a private detective's private residence. Mrs. Boswell had set a chair for him, but he had declined to sit down. The room was dirty and very close, as though no breath of air was ever allowed to find entrance there. "'Perhaps you could put on your coat and walk out with me for a few minutes,' said Trevelyan. Mrs. Boswell, who well understood that business was business and that wives were not business, felt no anger at this, and handed her husband his best coat. The well-brushed hat was fetched from a cupboard, and it was astonishing to see how easily and how quickly the outer respectability of Boswell was restored. "'Well,' said Trevelyan, as soon as they were together in the middle of Stony Walk, "'there hasn't been nothing to be done, sir,' said Boswell. "'Why not?' Trevelyan could perceive at once that the authority which he had once respected had gone from the man. Boswell, away from his own home, out on business with his coat buttoned over his breast and his best hat in his hand, was aware that he commanded respect, and he could carry himself accordingly. He knew himself to be somebody, and could be easy, self-confident, confidential, severe, authoritative, or even arrogant, as the circumstances of the moment might demand. But he had been found with his coat off and a baby in his arms, and he could not recover himself. "'I do not suppose that anybody will question my right to have the care of my own child,' said Trevelyan. "'If you would have gone to Mr. Skint, sir,' suggested Boswell, "'there ain't no smarter gent in all the profession, sir, than Mr. Skint.' Mr. Trevelyan made no reply to this, but walked on in silence with his minister at his elbow. He was very wretched, understanding well the degradation to which he was subjecting himself in discussing his wife's conduct with this man, but with whom else could he discuss it? The man seemed to be meaner now than he had been before he had been seen in his own home. And Trevelyan was conscious, too, that he himself was not in outward appearance as he used to be, that he was ill-dressed, and haggard, and worn, and visibly a wretched being. How can any man care to dress himself with a tension who is always alone, and always miserable when alone? During the months which had passed over him since he had sent his wife away from him, his very nature had been altered, and he himself was aware of the change. As he went about, his eyes were ever cast downwards, and he walked with a quick shuffling gait, and he suspected others, feeling that he himself was suspected. And all work had ceased with him. Since she had left him he had not read a single book that was worth the reading, and he knew it all. He was conscious that he was becoming disgraced and degraded. He would sooner have shot himself than have walked into his club, or even have allowed himself to be seen by daylight in Paul Mall or Piccadilly. He had taken, in his misery, to drinking little drops of brandy in the morning, although he knew well that there was no shorter road to the devil than that opened by such a habit. He looked up for a moment at Basel, and then asked him a question. Where is he now? You mean the Colonel, sir? He's up in town, sir, a-minding of his parliamentary duties. He have been up all this month, sir. They haven't met? Basel paused a moment before he replied, and then smiled as he spoke. It is so hard to say, sir. Ladies is so cute and cunning. I've watched as sharp as watchin' can go pretty near. I've put a youngster on at each hand, and both of them hear a mouse stirring in his sleep. I ain't got no evidence, Mr. Trevelyan, but if you ask me my opinion, why, in course, they've been together somewhere. It stands to reason, Mr. Trevelyan, don't it? And Basel, as he said this, smiled almost aloud. Damn and blast it all forever, said Trevelyan, gnashing his teeth and moving away into Union Street as fast as he could walk. And he did go away, leaving Basel standing in the middle of Stony Walk. He's disturbed in his mind. Quite horrid, Basel said when he got back to his wife. He cursed and swore as made even me feel bad. B. said his wife, do you listen to me? Get in what's a-hoeing, and don't you have nothing more to do with it. End of chapter 59. Chapter 60 of He Knew He Was Right. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. He knew he was right by Anthony Trollop. Chapter 60. Another Struggle. Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley were to reach England about the end of March or the beginning of April, and both Mrs. Trevelyan and Nora Rowley were almost sick for their arrival. Both their uncle and aunt had done very much for them, had been true to them in their need, and had submitted to endless discomforts in order that their nieces might have respectable shelter in their great need. But nevertheless, their conduct had not been of a kind to produce either love or friendship. Each of the sisters felt that she had been much better off at noncomputny, and that either the weakness of Mrs. Stanbury or the hardness of Priscilla was preferable to the repulsive forbearance of their clerical host. He did not scold them. He never threw it in Mrs. Trevelyan's teeth that she had been separated from her husband by her own fault. He did not tell them of his own discomfort. But he showed it in every gesture and spoke of it in every tone of his voice, so that Mrs. Trevelyan could not refrain from apologizing for the misfortune of her presence. My dear, he said, things can't be pleasant and unpleasant at the same time. You are quite right to come here. I am glad for all our sakes that Sir Marmaduke will be with us so soon. She had almost given up in her mind the hope that she had long cherished, that she might someday be able to live again with her husband. Every step which he now took in reference to her seemed to be prompted by so bitter a hostility that she could not but believe that she was hateful to him. How was it possible that a husband and his wife should again come together when there had been between them such an emissary as a detective policeman? Mrs. Trevelyan had gradually come to learn that Basel had been at noncomputny, watching her, and to be aware that she was still under the surveillance of his eye. For some months past now she had neither seen Colonel Osborne nor heard from him. He had, certainly by his folly, done much to produce the ruin which had fallen upon her. But it never occurred to her to blame him. Indeed she did not know that he was liable to blame. Mr. Outhouse always spoke of him with indignant scorn and Nora had learned to think that much of their misery was due to his imprudence. But Mrs. Trevelyan would not see this, and not seeing it, was more widely separated from her husband than she would have been, had she acknowledged that any excuse for his misconduct had been afforded by the vanity and folly of the other man. Lady Rowley had written to have a furnished house taken for them from the first of April, and a house had been secured in Manchester Street. The situation in question is not one which is of itself very charming, nor is it supposed to be in a high degree fashionable. But Nora looked forward to her escape from St. Diddalf's to Manchester Street, as though paradise were to be reopened to her as soon as she should be there with her father and mother. She was quite clear now as to her course about Hugh Stanbury. She did not doubt but that she could so argue the matter as to get the consent of her father and mother. She felt herself to be altogether altered in her views of life, since experience had come upon her. First at Nuncomputney, and after that much more heavily and seriously at St. Diddalf's. She looked back as though to a childish dream to the ideas which had prevailed with her when she had told herself as she used to do so frequently that she was unfit to be a poor man's wife. Why should she be more unfit for such a position than another? Of course there were many thoughts in her mind, much of memory if nothing of regret in regard to Mr. Glasscock and the splendor that had been offered to her. She had had her chance of being a rich man's wife and had rejected it, had rejected it twice with her eyes open. Readers will say that if she loved Hugh Stanbury with all her heart there could be nothing of regret in her reflections. But we are perhaps accustomed in judging for ourselves and of others to draw the lines too sharply and to say that on this side lie vice, folly, heartlessness, and greed. And on the other, honor, love, truth, and wisdom, the good and the bad each in its own domain. But the good and the bad mix themselves so thoroughly in our thoughts, even in our aspirations, that we must look for excellence rather in overcoming evil than in freeing ourselves from its influence. There had been many moments of regret with Nora, but none of remorse. At the very moment in which she had sent Mr. Glasscock away from her and had felt that he had now been sent away for always, she had been full of regret. Since that there had been many hours in which she had thought of her own self-lesson, of that teaching by which she had striven to convince herself that she could never fitly become a poor man's wife. But the upshot of it all was a healthy pride in what she had done, and a strong resolution that she would make shirts and hem towels for her husband if he required it. It had been given to her to choose, and she had chosen. She had found herself unable to tell a man that she loved him when she did not love him, and equally unable to conceal the love which she did feel. If he wheeled a barrow of turnips about the street I'd marry him to-morrow, she said to her sister one afternoon, as they were sitting together in the room which ought to have been their uncle's study. If he wheeled a big-barrow you'd have to wheel a little one, said her sister. Then I'd do it, I shouldn't mind. There has been this advantage in St. Diddalf's that nothing can be treased, nothing dull, nothing ugly after it. It may be so with you, Nora. That is an imagination. What I mean is that living here has taught me much that I never could have learned in Curson Street. I used to think myself such a fine young woman, but upon my word I think myself a finer one now. I don't quite know what you mean. I don't quite know myself, but I nearly know. I do know this that I've made of my own mind about what I mean to do. You'll change it, dear, when Mama is here and things are comfortable again. It's my belief that Mr. Glasscock would come to you again to-morrow if you would let him. Mrs. Trevelyan was, naturally, in complete ignorance of the experience of transatlantic excellence which Mr. Glasscock had encountered in Italy. But I certainly should not let him. How would it be possible after what I wrote to Hugh? All that might pass away, said Mrs. Trevelyan, slowly after a long pause. All what might pass away? Have I not given him a distinct promise? Have I not told him that I loved him, and sworn that I would be true to him? Can that be made to pass away, even if one wished it? Of course it can. Nothing need be fixed for you till you have stood at the altar with a man and been made his wife. You may choose still. I can never choose again. I never will at any rate, said Nora. Then there was another pause. It seems strange to me, Nora, said the elder sister, that after what you have seen you should be so keen to be married to anyone. What is a girl to do? Better drown herself than do as I have done. Only think what there is before me. What I have gone through is nothing to it. Of course I must go back to the islands. Where else am I to live? Who else will take me? Come to us, said Nora. Us, Nora, who are the us? But in no way would that be possible. Papa will be here perhaps for six months. Nora thought it quite possible that she might have a home of her own before six months were passed, even though she might be wheeling the smaller barrow, but she would not say so. And by that time everything must be decided. I suppose it must. Of course Papa and Mama must go back, said Mrs. Trevelyan. Papa might take a pension. He is entitled to a pension now. He'll never do that as long as he can have employment. They'll go back and I must go with them. Who else would take me in? I know who would take you in, Emily. My darling, that is romance. As for myself, I should not care where I went. If it were even to remain here I could bear it. I could not, said Nora decisively. It is so different with you, dear. I don't suppose it is possible I should take my boy with me to the islands. How am I to go anywhere without him? Then she broke down and fell into a paroxysm of sobs and was in very truth a broken-hearted woman. Nora was silent for some moments, but at last she spoke. Why do you not go back to him, Emily? How am I to go back to him? What am I to do to make him take me back? At this very moment Trevelyan was in the house, but they did not know it. Right to him, said Nora. What am I to say? In very truth I do believe that he is mad. If I write to him, should I defend myself or accuse myself? A dozen times I have striven to write such a letter. Not that I might send it, but that I might find what I could say, should I ever wish to send it? And it is impossible. I can only tell him how unjust he has been, how cruel, how mad, how wicked. Could you not say to him simply this? Let us be together wherever it may be, and let bygones be bygones. While he is watching me with a policeman, while he is still thinking that I entertain a lover, while he believes that I am the base thing that he has dared to think me, he has never believed it. Then how can he be such a villain as to treat me like this? I could not go to him, Nora, not unless I went to him as one who was known to be mad over whom in his wretched condition it would be my duty to keep watch. In no other way could I overcome my abhorrence of the outrages to which he has subjected me. But for the child's sake, Emily—ah, yes, if it were simply to grovel in the dust before him it should be done, if humiliation would suffice, or any self-abasement that were possible to me. But I should be false if I said that I look forward to any such possibility. How can he wish to have me back again after what he has said and done? I am his wife, and he has disgraced me before all men by his own words. And what have I done, that I should not have done? What left undone on his behalf that I should have done? It is hard that the foolish workings of a weak man's mind should be able so completely to ruin the prospects of a woman's life. Nora was beginning to answer this by attempting to show that the husband's madness was perhaps only temporary when there came a knock at the door and Mrs. Outhouse was at once in the room. It will be well that the reader should know what had taken place at the parsonage while the two sisters had been together upstairs, so that the nature of Mrs. Outhouse's mission to them may explain itself. Mr. Outhouse had been in his closet downstairs when the maid-servant brought word to him that Mr. Travellian was in the parlor and was desirous of seeing him. Mr. Travellian, said the unfortunate clergyman, holding up both his hands. The servant understood the tragic importance of the occasion quite as well as did her master and simply shook her head. Has your mistress seen him? said the master. The girl again shook her head. Ask your mistress to come to me, said the clergyman. Then the girl disappeared, and in a few minutes Mrs. Outhouse, equally imbued with the tragic elements of the day, was with her husband. Mr. Outhouse began by declaring that no consideration should induce him to see Travellian and commissioned his wife to go to the man and tell him that he must leave the house. When the unfortunate woman expressed an opinion that Travellian had some legal rights upon which he might probably insist, Mr. Outhouse asserted roundly that he could have no legal right to remain in that parsonage against the will of the rector. If he wants to claim his wife and child he must do it by law, not by force, and thank God Sir Marmaduke will be here before he can do that. But I can't make him go, said Mrs. Outhouse. Tell him that you'll send for a policeman, said the clergyman. It had come to pass that there had been messages backwards and forwards between the visitor and the master of the house, all carried by that unfortunate lady. Travellian did not demand that his wife and child should be given up to him, did not even on this occasion demand that his boy should be surrendered to him, now at once. He did say, very repeatedly, that of course he must have his boy, but seem to imply that under certain circumstances he would be willing to take his wife to live with him again. This appeared to Mrs. Outhouse to be so manifestly the one thing that was desirable to be the only solution of the difficulty that could be admitted as a solution at all, that she went to work on that hint, and ventured to entertain a hope that a reconciliation might be affected. She implored her husband to lend a hand to the work, by which she intended to imply that he should not only see Travellian, but consent to meet the sinner on friendly terms. But Mr. Outhouse was on the occasion even more than customarily obstinate. His wife might do what she liked. He would neither meddle nor make. He would not willingly see Mr. Travellian in his own house, unless indeed Mr. Travellian should attempt to force his way up into the nursery. Then he said that, which left no doubt on his wife's mind that, should any violence be attempted, her husband would manfully join the melee. But it soon became evident that no such attempt was to be made on that day. Travellian was lacrimose, heartbroken, and a sight pityable to behold, when Mrs. Outhouse loudly asserted that his wife had not sinned against him in the least. Not in a tittle, Mr. Travellian, she repeated over and over. He began to assert himself, declaring that she had seen the man in Devonshire, and corresponded with him since she had been at St. Diddalf's, and when the lady had declared that the latter assertion was untrue, he had shaken his head, and had told her that perhaps she did not know all. But the misery of the man had its effect upon her. And at last she proposed to be the bearer of a message to his wife. He had demanded to see his child, offering to promise that he would not attempt to take the boy by force on this occasion, saying also that his claim by law was so good that no force could be necessary. It was proposed by Mrs. Outhouse that he should first see the mother, and to this he at last assented. How blessed a thing would it be if these two persons could be induced to forget the troubles of the last twelve months, and once more to love and trust each other. But sir, said Mrs. Outhouse, putting her hand upon his arm, you must not up braid her for she will not bear it. She knows nothing of what is due to a husband, said Travellian gloomily. The task was not hopeful, but nevertheless the poor woman resolved to do her best. And now Mrs. Outhouse was in her niece's room, asking her to go down and see her husband. Mrs. Lewis had at the time been with the nurse, and the very moment that the mother heard that the child's father was in the house, she jumped up and rushed away to get possession of her treasure. Has he come for baby? Nora asked in dismay. Then Mrs. Outhouse, anxious to obtain a convert to her present views, boldly declared that Mr. Travellian had no such intention. Mrs. Travellian came back at once with the boy, and then listened to all her aunt's arguments. But I will not take baby with me, she said. At last it was decided that she should go down alone, and that the child should afterwards be taken to his father in the drawing-room. Mrs. Outhouse pledging herself that the whole household should combine in her defense if Mr. Travellian should attempt to take the child out of that room. But what am I to say to him, she asked? Say, as little as possible, said Mrs. Outhouse, except to make him understand that he has been in error in imputing fault to you. He will never understand that, said Mrs. Travellian. A considerable time elapsed after that before she could bring herself to descend the stairs. Now that her husband was so near her, and that her aunt had assured her that she might reinstate herself in her position, if she could only abstain from saying hard words to him, she wished that he was away from her again in Italy. She knew that she could not refrain from hard words. How was it possible that she should vindicate her own honour, without asserting with all her strength that she had been ill-used, and to speak truth on the matter, her love for the man, which had once been true and eager, had been quelled by the treatment she had received? She had clung to her love in some shape, in spite of the accusations made against her, till she had heard that the policeman had been set upon her heels. Could it be possible that any woman should love a man, or at least that any wife should love a husband after such usage as that? At last she crept gently down the stairs, and stood at the parlor door. She listened, and could hear his steps as he paced backwards and forwards through the room. She looked back, and could see the face of the servant peering round from the kitchen stairs. She could not endure to be watched in her misery, and thus driven she opened the parlor door. "'Louis,' she said, walking into the room, "'Ant Mary has desired me to come to you.' "'Emily,' he exclaimed, and ran to her and embraced her. She did not seek to stop him, but she did not return the kiss which she gave her. Then he held her by her hands, and looked into her face, and she could see how strangely he was altered. She thought that she would hardly have known him, had she not been sure that it was he. She herself was also changed. Who can bear sorrow without such change, till age has fixed the lines of the face, or till care has made them hard and unmaliable? But the effect on her was as nothing to that which grief, remorse, and desolation had made on him. He had had no child with him, no sister, no friend. Basel had been his only refuge, a refuge not adapted to make life easier to such a man as Travellian, and he, in spite of the accusations made by himself against his wife, within his own breast hourly since he had left her, had found it to be very difficult to satisfy his own conscience. He told himself from hour to hour that he knew that he was right, but in very truth he was ever doubting his own conduct. You have been ill, Louis, she said, looking at him. Ill at ease, Emily, very ill at ease. A sore heart will make the face thin as well as fever or ague. Since we parted I have not had much to comfort me. Nor have I, nor any of us, said she. How was comfort to come from such a parting? Then they both stood silent together. He was still holding her by the hand, but she was careful not to return his pressure. She would not take her hand away from him, but she would show him no sign of softness till he should have absolutely acquitted her of the accusation he had made against her. We are man and wife, he said after a while. In spite of all that has come and gone, I am yours and you are mine. You should have remembered that always, Louis. I have never forgotten it, never. In no thought have I been untrue to you. My heart has never changed since first I gave it you. There came a bitter frown upon her face, of which she was so conscious herself that she turned her face away from him. She still remembered her lesson, that she was not to anger him, and therefore she refrained from answering him at all. But the answer was there, hot within her bosom. Had he loved her, and yet suspected that she was false to him into her vows, simply because she had been on terms of intimacy with an old friend, had he loved her and yet turned her from his house, had he loved her and set a policeman to watch her, had he loved her and yet spoken evil of her to all their friends, had he loved her and yet striven to rob her of her child? Will you come to me? he said. I suppose it will be better so, she answered slowly. Then you will promise me. He paused and attempted to turn her towards him, so that he might look her in the face. Promise what? she said, quickly glancing round at him and drawing her hand away from him as she did so. That all intercourse with Colonel Osborn shall be at an end. I will make no promise. You come to me to add one insult to another. Had you been a man, you would not have named him to me after what you have done to me. That is absurd. I have a right to demand from you such a pledge. I am willing to believe that you have not—have not what? That you have not utterly disgraced me. God in heaven that I should hear this! she exclaimed. Louis Trevelyan I have not disgraced you at all. In thought, in word, in deed, in look, or in gesture, it is you that have disgraced yourself and ruined me and degraded even your own child. Is this the way in which you welcome me? Certainly it is, in this way and in no other if you speak to me of what is past without acknowledging your error. Her brow became blacker and blacker as she continued to speak to him. It would be best that nothing should be said, not a word, that it should all be regarded as an ugly dream. But when you come to me and at once go back to it all and ask me for a promise, am I to understand then that all idea of submission to your husband is to be at an end? I will submit to no imputation on my honour, even from you. One would have thought that it would have been for you to preserve it untarnished. And you will give me no assurance as to your future life? None. Certainly none. If you want promises from me there can be no hope for the future. What am I to promise, that I will not have a lover? What respect can I enjoy as your wife if such a promise be needed? If you should choose to fancy that it had been broken, you would set your policeman to watch me again. Louis, we can never live together again ever with comfort, unless you acknowledge in your own heart that you have used me shamefully. Were you right to see him in Devonshire? Of course I was right. Why should I not see him or anyone? And you will see him again. When papa comes, of course I shall see him. Then it is hopeless, said he, turning away from her. If that man is to be a source of disquiet to you, it is hopeless, she answered. If you cannot so school yourself that he shall be the same to you as other men, it is quite hopeless. You must still be mad, as you have been mad hitherto. He walked about the room restlessly for a time, while she stood with assumed composure near the window. Send me, my child, he said at last. He shall come to you, Louis, for a little, but he is not to be taken out from hence. Is that a promise? You are to exact promises from me where my own rights are concerned, while you refuse to give me any, though I am entitled to demand them. I order you to send the boy to me. Is he not my own? Is he not mine, too? And is he not all that you have left to me? He paused again, and then gave the promise. Let him be brought to me. He shall not be removed now. I intend to have him. I tell you so fairly. He shall be taken from you unless you come back to me with such assurances as to your future conduct, as I have a right to demand. There is much that the law cannot give me. It cannot procure wife-like submission, love, gratitude, or even decent matronly conduct, but that which it can give me I will have. She walked off to the door, and then as she was quitting the room she spoke to him once again. Alas, Louis, she said, neither can the law nor medicine nor religion restore to you that fine intellect which foolish suspicions have destroyed. Then she left him, and returned to the room in which her aunt and Nora and the child were all clustered together, waiting to learn the effects of the interview. The two women asked their questions with their eyes rather than with spoken words. It is all over, said Mrs. Trevelyan. There is nothing left for me but to go back to papa. I only hear the same accusations, repeated again and again, and make myself subject to the old insults. Then Mrs. Outhouse knew that she could interfere no further, and that in truth nothing could be done till the return of Sir Marmaduke should relieve her and her husband from all further active concern in the matter. But Trevelyan was still downstairs waiting for the child. At last it was arranged that Nora should take the boy into the drawing-room, and that Mrs. Outhouse should fetch the father up from the parlor to the room above it. Angry as was Mrs. Trevelyan with her husband, not the less was she anxious to make the boy good-looking and seemly in his father's eyes. She washed the child's face, put on him a clean frill and a pretty ribbon, and as she did so she bade him kisses papa and speak nicely to him and love him. Poor papa is unhappy, she said, and Louis must be very good to him. The boy, child though he was, understood much more of what was passing around him than his mother knew. How was he to love papa when Mamma did not do so? In some shape that idea had framed itself in his mind, and as he was taken down he knew it was impossible that he should speak nicely to his papa. Nora did as she was bitten, and went down to the first floor. Mrs. Outhouse, promising that even if she were put out of the room by Mr. Trevelyan she would not stir from the landing outside the door, descended to the parlor and quickly returned with the unfortunate father. Mr. Outhouse in the meantime was still sitting in his closet, tormented with curiosity, but yet determined not to be seen till the intruder should have left his house. I hope you are well, Nora, he said, as he entered the room with Mrs. Outhouse. Quite well, thank you, Louis. I am sorry that our troubles should have deprived you of the home you had been taught to expect. To this Nora made no reply, but escaped, and went up to her sister. My poor little boy, said Trevelyan, taking the child and placing it on his knee, I suppose you have forgotten your unfortunate father. The child, of course, said nothing, but just allowed himself to be kissed. He is looking very well, said Mrs. Outhouse. Is he? I dare say he is well. Louis, my boy, are you happy? The question was asked in a voice that was dismal beyond compare, and it also remained unanswered. He had been desired to speak nicely to his papa, but how was it possible that a child should speak nicely under such a load of melancholy? He will not speak to me, said Trevelyan. I suppose it is what I might have expected. Then the child was put off his knee onto the floor and began to whimper. A few months since he would sit there for hours with his head upon my breast, said Trevelyan. A few months is a long time in the life of such an infant, said Mrs. Outhouse. He may go away, said Trevelyan. Then the child was led out of the room and sent up to his mother. Emily has done all she can to make the child love your memory, said Mrs. Outhouse. To love my memory? What is though I were dead? I will teach him to love me as I am, Mrs. Outhouse. I do not think that it is too late. Will you tell your husband from me, with my compliments, that I shall cause him to be served with a legal demand for the restitution of my child? But Sir Marmaduke will be here in a few days. I know nothing of that. Sir Marmaduke is nothing to me now. My child is my own, and so is my wife. Sir Marmaduke has no authority over either one or the other. I find my child here, and it is here that I must look for him. I am sorry that you should be troubled, but the fault does not rest with me. Mr. Outhouse has refused to give me up my own child, and I am driven to take such steps for his recovery as the law has put within my reach. Why did you turn your wife out of doors, Mr. Travalion? asked Mrs. Outhouse boldly. I did not turn her out of doors. I provided a fitting shelter for her. I gave her everything that she could want. You know what happened. That man went down and was received there. I defy you, Mrs. Outhouse, to say that it was my fault. Mrs. Outhouse did attempt to show him that it was his fault, but while she was doing so he left the house. I don't think she could go back to him, said Mrs. Outhouse to her husband. He is quite insane upon this matter. I shall be insane, I know, said Mr. Outhouse, if Sir Marmaduke does not come home very quickly. Nevertheless, he quite ignored any legal power that might be brought to bear against him as to the restitution of the child to its father. CHAPTER 61 PARKERS HOTEL MOBERY STREET Within a week of the occurrence which is related in the last chapter there came a telegram from Southampton to the parsonage at St. Diddalf's, saying that Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley had reached England. On the evening of that day they were to lodge at a small family hotel in Baker Street, and both Mrs. Trevelyan and Nora were to be with them. The leave-taking at the parsonage was painful, as on both sides there existed a feeling that affection and sympathy were wanting. The uncle and aunt had done their duty, and both Mrs. Trevelyan and Nora felt that they ought to have been demonstrative and cordial in their gratitude, but they found it impossible to become so. And the rector could not pretend but that he was glad to be rid of his guests. There were, too, some last words about money to be spoken, which were grievous thorns in the poor man's flesh. Two bank notes, however, were put upon his table, and he knew that unless he took them he could not pay for the provisions which his unwelcome visitors had consumed. Surely there never was a man so cruelly ill-used as had been Mr. Outhouse in all this matter. Neither such winter as that would put me in my grave, he said, when his wife tried to comfort him after they were gone. I know that they have been very good to us, said Mrs. Trevelyan, as she and her sister, together with the child and the nurse, hurried away towards Baker Street in a cab, but I have never for a moment felt that they were glad to have us. But how could they have been glad to have us, she added afterwards, when we brought such trouble with us? But they to whom they were going now would receive her with joy, would make her welcome with all her load of sorrows, would give to her a sympathy which it was impossible that she should receive from others. Though she might not be happy now, for in truth how could she be ever really happy again? There would be a joy to her in placing her child in her mother's arms, and in receiving her father's warm caresses. That her father would be very vehement in his anger against her husband she knew well, for Sir Marmaduke was a vehement man, but there would be some support for her in the very violence of his wrath. And at this moment it was such support that she most needed. As they journeyed together in the cab, the married sister seemed to be in the higher spirits of the two. She was sure at any rate that those to whom she was going would place themselves on her side. Nora had her own story to tell about Hugh Stanbury, and was by no means so sure that her tale would be received with cordial agreement. Let me tell them myself, she whispered to her sister, not to-night, because they will have so much to say to you, but I shall tell Mama tomorrow. The train by which the Rowleys were to reach London was due at the station at 7.30 p.m., and the two sisters timed their dispatch from St. Diddalf's so as to enable them to reach the hotel at eight. We shall be there now before Mama, said Nora, because they will have so much luggage, and so many things, and the trains are always late. When they started from the door of the parsonage, Mr. Outhouse gave the direction to the cab man, Greg's Hotel Baker Street. Then at once he began to console himself in that they were gone. It was a long drive from St. Diddalf's in the east to Marleybone in the west of London. None of the party in the cab knew anything of the region through which they passed. The cab man took the line by the back of the bank and Finsbury Square in the city road, thinking it best probably to avoid the crush at Holburn Hill, though at the expense of something of a circuit. But if this Mrs. Trevelyan and Nora knew nothing, had their way taken them along Piccadilly, or through Mayfair, or across Grovener Square, they would have known where they were, but at present they were not thinking of those once much loved localities. The cab passed the angel, and up and down the hill at Pentonville, and by the king's cross stations and through Euston Square, and then it turned up Gower Street. Surely the man should have gone on along the new road now that he had come so far out of his way. But of this the two ladies knew nothing, nor did the nurse. It was a dark windy night, but the lamps in the streets had given them light so that they had not noticed the night, nor did they notice it now as the streets became narrower and darker. They were hardly thinking that their journey was yet at an end, and the mother was in the act of covering her boy's face as he lay asleep on the nurse's lap, when the cab was stopped. Nora, looking out through the window, saw the word Hotel over a doorway, and was satisfied. Shall I take the child, ma'am? said a man in black, and the child was handed out. Nora was the first to follow, and she then perceived that the door of the hotel was not open. Mrs. Trevelyan followed, and then they looked round them, and the child was gone. They heard the rattle of another cab as it was carried away at a gallop round a distant corner, and then some inkling of what had happened came upon them. The father had succeeded in getting possession of his child. It was a narrow, dark street, very quiet, having about it a certain air of poor respectability, an obscure, noiseless street without even a sign of life. Some unfortunate one had endeavored here to keep a hotel, but there was no hotel kept there now. There had been much craft in selecting the place in which the child had been taken from them. As they looked around them, perceiving the terrible misfortune which had befallen them, there was not a human being near them save the cab man, who was occupied in unchaining, or pretending to unchain the heavy mass of luggage on the roof. The windows of the house before which they were stopping were closed, and Nora perceived it once that the hotel was not inhabited. The cab man must have perceived it also. As for the man who had taken the child, the nurse could only say that he was dressed in black, like a waiter, that he had a napkin under his arm and no hat on his head. He had taken the boy tenderly in his arms, and then she had seen nothing further. The first thing that Nora had seen as she stood on the pavement was the other cab moving off rapidly. Mrs. Trevelyan had staggered against the railings and was soon screaming in her wretchedness, before long there was a small crowd around them, comprising three or four women, a few boys, an old man or two, and a policeman. To the policeman Nora had soon told the whole story, and the cab man was of course attacked. But the cab man played his part very well. He declared that he had done just what he had been told to do. Nora was indeed sure that she had heard her uncle desire him to drive to Gregg's Hotel in Baker Street. The cab man, in answer to this, declared that he had not clearly heard the old gentleman's directions, but a man whom he had conceived to be a servant had very plainly told him to drive to Parker's Hotel, Mobury Street, Gower Street. I come ever so far out of my way, said the cab man, to avoid the rumpus with the hominy buses at the hill, because the lady's things is so heavy we'd never got up if the orc had once jibbed. All which, though it had nothing to do with the matter, seemed to impress the policeman with the idea that the cab man, if not a true man, was going to be too clever for them on this occasion. And the crafty cab man went on to declare that his horse was so tired with the load that he could not go on to Baker Street. They must get another cab. Take his number. Of course they could take his number. There was his number. His fare was four and six. That is, if the ladies wouldn't pay him anything extra for the terrible load, and he meant to have it, it would be six pence more if they kept him there many minutes longer. The number was taken, and another cab was got, and the luggage was transferred and the money was paid, while the unhappy mother was still screaming in hysterics against the railings. What had been done was soon clear enough to all those around her. Nora had told the policeman, and had told one of the women, thinking to obtain their sympathy and assistance. It's the kid's data, as has taken it, said one man, and there ain't nothing to be done. There was nothing to be done. Nothing at any rate then and there. Nora had been very eager that the cab man should be arrested, but the policeman assured her that such an arrest was out of the question, and would have been useless had it been possible. The man would be forthcoming if his presence should be again desired, but he had probably, so said the policeman, really been desired to drive to Mobury Street. They knows where to find me if they want me, only I must be paid my time, said the cab man confidently. And the policeman was of opinion that as the boy had been kidnapped on behalf of the father, no legal steps could be taken either for the recovery of the child or for the punishment of the perpetrators of the act. He got up, however, on the box of the cab, and accompanied the party to the hotel in Baker Street. They reached it almost exactly at the same time with Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley, and the reader must imagine the confusion, the anguish, and the disappointment of that meeting. Mrs. Trevelyan was hardly in possession of her senses when she reached her mother, and could not be induced to be tranquil, even when she was assured by her father that her son would suffer no immediate evil by being transferred to his father's hands. She and her frenzy declared that she would never see her little one again, and seemed to think that the father might not improbably destroy the child. He is mad, papa, and does not know what he does. Do you mean to say that a madman may do as he pleases, that he may rob my child from me in the streets, that he may take him out of my very arms in that way? And she was almost angry with her father because no attempt was made that night to recover the boy. Sir Marmaduke, who was not himself a good lawyer, had been closeted with the policeman for a quarter of an hour, and had learned the policeman's views. Of course the father of the child was the person who had done the deed. Whether the cabman had been in the plot or not was not a matter of much consequence. There could be no doubt that someone had told the man to go to Parker's hotel as the cab was starting, and it would probably be impossible to punish him in the teeth of such instructions. Sir Marmaduke, however, could doubtless have the cabman and ask for the absolute abduction of the child. The policeman was of opinion that a father could not be punished for obtaining possession of his son by such a stratagem, unless the custody of the child had been made over to the mother by some court of law. The policeman, indeed, seemed to think that nothing could be done, and Sir Marmaduke was inclined to agree with him. When this was explained to Mrs. Travellian by her mother, she again became hysterical in her agony and could hardly be restrained from going forth herself to look for her lost treasure. It need hardly be further explained that Travellian had planned the stratagem in concert with Mr. Basel. Basel, though strongly cautioned by his wife to keep himself out of danger in the matter, was sorely tempted by his employer's offer of a hundred pounds. He positively refused to be a party to any attempted violence at St. Diddalf's, but when he learned, as he did learn, that Mrs. Travellian, with her sister and baby, were to be transferred from St. Diddalf's in a cab to Baker Street, and that the journey was luckily to be made during the shades of evening, his active mind went to work, and he arranged the plan. There were many difficulties, and even some pecuniary difficulty. He bargained that he should have his hundred pounds clear of all deduction for expenses, and then the attendant expenses were not insignificant. It was necessary that there should be four men in the service, all good and true, and men required to be well paid for such goodness and truth. There was the man, himself an ex-policeman, who gave the instructions to the first cabman as he was starting. The cabman would not undertake the job at all unless he were so instructed on the spot, asserting that in this way he would be able to prove that the orders he obeyed came from the lady's husband. And there was the crafty pseudo-waiter, with the napkin and no hat, who had carried the boy to the cab in which his father was sitting. And there were the two cabmen. Basel planned it all, and with some difficulty arranged the preliminaries. How successful was the scheme we have seen, and Basel, for a month, was able to assume a superiority over his wife, which that honest woman found to be very disagreeable. There ain't no fraudulent abduction in it at all, Basel exclaimed, because a wife ain't got no rights again her husband, not in such a matter as that. Mrs. Basel implied that if her husband were to take her child away from her without her leave, she'd let him know something about it. But as the husband had in his possession the note for a hundred pounds, realized, Mrs. Basel had not much to say in support of her view of the case. On the morning after the occurrence, while Sir Marmaduke was waiting with his solicitor upon a magistrate to find whether anything could be done, the following letter was brought to Mrs. Trevelyan at Greg's Hotel. Our child is safe with me and will remain so. If you care to obtain legal advice you will find that I, as his father, have a right to keep him under my protection. I shall do so, but will allow you to see him as soon as I shall have received a full guarantee that you have no idea of withdrawing him from my charge. A home for yourself with me is still open to you, on condition that you will give me the promise that I have demanded from you, and as long as I shall not hear that you again see or communicate with the person to whose acquaintance I object. While you remain away from me I will cause you to be paid fifty pounds a month, as I do not wish that you should be a burden on others. But this payment will depend also on your not seeing or holding any communication with the person to whom I have alluded. Your affectionate and offended husband, Louis Trevelyan, a letter addressed to the Acrobat's Club will reach me. Sir Rowley came home dispirited and unhappy, and could not give much comfort to his daughter. The magistrate had told him that though the cabman might probably be punished for taking the ladies otherwise than as directed, if the direction to Baker Street could be proved, nothing could be done to punish the father. The magistrate explained that under a certain act of parliament the mother might apply to the Court of Chancery for the custody of any children under seven years of age, and that the court would probably grant such custody, unless it were shown that the wife had left her husband without sufficient cause. The magistrate could not undertake to say whether or no sufficient cause had here been given, or whether the husband was in fault or the wife. It was, however, clear that nothing could be done without an application to the Court of Chancery. It appeared, so said the magistrate, that the husband had offered a home to his wife, and that in offering it he had attempted to impose no conditions which could be shown to be cruel before a judge. The magistrate thought that Mr. Trevelyan had done nothing illegal in taking the child from the cab. Sir Marmaduke, on hearing this, was of opinion that nothing could be gained by legal interference. His private desire was to get hold of Trevelyan and pull him limb from limb. Lady Rowley thought that her daughter had better go back to her husband, let the future consequences be what they might. And the poor desolate mother herself had almost brought herself to offer to do so, having in her brain some idea that she would after a while be able to escape with her boy. As for love for her husband, certainly there was none now left in her bosom. Nor could she teach herself to think it possible that she should ever live with him again on friendly terms. But she would submit to anything with the object of getting back her boy. Three or four letters were written to Mr. Trevelyan in as many days from his wife, from Lady Rowley and from Nora, in which various overtures were made. Trevelyan wrote once again to his wife. She knew, he said, already the terms on which she might come back. These terms were still open to her. As for the boy, he certainly should not leave his father. A meeting might be planned on condition that he, Trevelyan, were provided with a written assurance from his wife that she would not endeavor to remove the boy, and that he himself should be present at the meeting. Thus the first week was passed after Sir Marmaduke's return, and a most wretched time it was for all the party at