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Books: He Knew He Was Right

A >> Anthony Trollope >> He Knew He Was Right



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HE KNEW HE WAS RIGHT



CHAPTER I - SHEWING HOW WRATH BEGAN

When Louis Trevelyan was twenty-four years old, he had all the world
before him where to choose; and, among other things, he chose to go to
the Mandarin Islands, and there fell in love with Emily Rowley, the
daughter of Sir Marmaduke, the governor. Sir Marmaduke Rowley, at this
period of his life, was a respectable middle-aged public servant, in
good repute, who had, however, as yet achieved for himself neither an
exalted position nor a large fortune. He had been governor of many
islands, and had never lacked employment; and now, at the age of fifty,
found himself at the Mandarins, with a salary of 3,000 pounds a year,
living in a temperature at which 80 in the shade is considered to be
cool, with eight daughters, and not a shilling saved. A governor at the
Mandarins who is social by nature and hospitable on principle, cannot
save money in the islands even on 3,000 pounds a year when he has eight
daughters. And at the Mandarins, though hospitality is a duty, the
gentlemen who ate Sir Rowley's dinners were not exactly the men whom he
or Lady Rowley desired to welcome to their bosoms as sons-in-law. Nor
when Mr Trevelyan came that way, desirous of seeing everything in the
somewhat indefinite course of his travels, had Emily Rowley, the eldest
of the flock, then twenty years of age, seen as yet any Mandariner who
exactly came up to her fancy. And, as Louis Trevelyan was a remarkably
handsome young man, who was well connected, who had been ninth wrangler
at Cambridge, who had already published a volume of poems, and who
possessed 3,000 pounds a year of his own, arising from various
perfectly secure investments, he was not forced to sigh long in vain.
Indeed, the Rowleys, one and all, felt that providence had been very
good to them in sending young Trevelyan on his travels in that
direction, for he seemed to be a very pearl among men. Both Sir
Marmaduke and Lady Rowley felt that there might be objections to such a
marriage as that proposed to them, raised by the Trevelyan family. Lady
Rowley would not have liked her daughter to go to England, to be
received with cold looks by strangers. But it soon appeared that there
was no one to make objections. Louis, the lover, had no living relative
nearer than cousins. His father, a barrister of repute, had died a
widower, and had left the money which he had made to an only child. The
head of the family was a first cousin who lived in Cornwall on a
moderate, property a very good sort of stupid fellow, as Louis said,
who would be quite indifferent as to any marriage that his cousin might
make. No man could be more independent or more clearly justified in
pleasing himself than was this lover. And then he himself proposed that
the second daughter, Nora, should come and live with them in London.
What a lover to fall suddenly from the heavens into such a dovecote!

'I haven't a penny-piece to give either of them,' said Sir Rowley.

'It is my idea that girls should not have fortunes,' said Trevelyan.
'At any rate, I am quite sure that men should never look for money. A
man must be more comfortable, and, I think, is likely to be more
affectionate, when the money has belonged to himself.'

Sir Rowley was a high-minded gentleman, who would have liked to have
handed over a few thousand pounds on giving up his daughters; but,
having no thousands of pounds to hand over, he could not but admire the
principles of his proposed son-in-law. As it was about time for him to
have his leave of absence, he and sundry of the girls went to England
with Mr Trevelyan, and the wedding was celebrated in London by the Rev.
Oliphant Outhouse, of Saint Diddulph-in-the-East, who had married Sir
Rowley's sister. Then a small house was taken and furnished in Curzon
Street, Mayfair, and the Rowleys went back to the seat of their
government, leaving Nora, the second girl, in charge of her elder
sister.

The Rowleys had found, on reaching London, that they had lighted upon a
pearl indeed. Louis Trevelyan was a man of whom all people said all
good things. He might have been a fellow of his college had he not been
a man of fortune. He might already so Sir Rowley was told have been in
Parliament, had he not thought it to be wiser to wait awhile. Indeed,
he was very wise in many things. He had gone out on his travels thus
young not in search of excitement, to kill beasts, or to encounter he
knew not what novelty and amusement but that he might see men and know
the world. He had been on his travels for more than a year when the
winds blew him to the Mandarins. Oh, how blessed were the winds! And,
moreover, Sir Rowley found that his son-in-law was well spoken of at
the clubs by those who had known him during his university career, as a
man popular as well as wise, not a book-worm, or a dry philosopher, or
a prig. He could talk on all subjects, was very generous, a man sure to
be honoured and respected; and then such a handsome, manly fellow, with
short brown hair, a nose divinely chiselled, an Apollo's mouth, six
feet high, with shoulders and legs and arms in proportion a pearl of
pearls! Only, as Lady Rowley was the first to find out, he liked to
have his own way.

'But his way is such a good way,' said Sir Marmaduke. 'He will be such
a good guide for the girls!'

'But Emily likes her way too,' said Lady Rowley.

Sir Marmaduke argued the matter no further, but thought, no doubt, that
such a husband as Louis Trevelyan was entitled to have his own way. He
probably had not observed his daughter's temper so accurately as his
wife had done. With eight of them coming up around him, how should he
have observed their tempers? At any rate, if there were anything amiss
with Emily's temper, it would be well that she should find her master
in such a husband as Louis Trevelyan.

For nearly two years the little household in Curzon Street went on
well, or if anything was the matter no one outside of the little
household was aware of it. And there was a baby, a boy, a young Louis,
and a baby in such a household is apt to make things go sweetly.

The marriage had taken place in July, and after the wedding tour there
had been a winter and a spring in London; and then they passed a month
or two at the sea-side, after which the baby had been born. And then
there came another winter and another spring. Nora Rowley was with them
in London, and by this time Mr Trevelyan had begun to think that he
should like to have his own way completely. His baby was very nice, and
his wife was clever, pretty, and attractive. Nora was all that an
unmarried sister should be. But but there had come to be trouble and
bitter words. Lady Rowley had been right when she said that her
daughter Emily also liked to have her own way.

'If I am suspected,' said Mrs Trevelyan to her sister one morning, as
they sat together in the little back drawing-room, 'life will not be
worth having.'

'How can you talk of being suspected, Emily?'

'What does he mean then by saying that he would rather not have Colonel
Osborne here? A man older than my own father, who has known me since I
was a baby!'

'He didn't mean anything of that kind, Emily. You know he did not, and
you should not say so. It would be too horrible to think of.'

'It was a great deal too horrible to be spoken, I know. If he does not
beg my pardon, I shall I shall continue to live with him, of course, as
a sort of upper servant, because of baby. But he shall know what I
think and feel.'

'If I were you I would forget it.'

'How can I forget it? Nothing that I can do pleases him. He is civil
and kind to you because he is not your master; but you don't know what
things he says to me. Am I to tell Colonel Osborne not to come? Heavens
and earth! How should I ever hold up my head again if I were driven to
do that? He will be here today I have no doubt; and Louis will sit
there below in the library, and hear his step, and will not come up.'

'Tell Richard to say you are not at home.'

'Yes; and everybody will understand why. And for what am I to deny
myself in that way to the best and oldest friend I have? If any such
orders are to be given, let him give them and then see what will come
of it.'

Mrs Trevelyan had described Colonel Osborne truly as far as words went,
in saying that he had known her since she was a baby, and that he was
an older man than her father. Colonel Osborne's age exceeded her
father's by about a month, and as he was now past fifty, he might be
considered perhaps, in that respect, to be a safe friend for a young
married woman. But he was in every respect a man very different from
Sir Marmaduke. Sir Marmaduke, blessed and at the same time burdened as
he was with a wife and eight daughters, and condemned as he had been to
pass a large portion of his life within the tropics, had become at
fifty what many people call quite a middle-aged man. That is to say, he
was one from whom the effervescence and elasticity and salt of youth
had altogether passed away. He was fat and slow, thinking much of his
wife and eight daughters, thinking much also of his dinner. Now Colonel
Osborne was a bachelor, with no burdens but those imposed upon him by
his position as a member of Parliament a man of fortune to whom the
world had been very easy. It was not therefore said so decidedly of him
as of Sir Marmaduke, that he was a middle-aged man, although he had
probably already lived more than two-thirds of his life. And he was a
good-looking man of his age, bald indeed at the top of his head, and
with a considerable sprinkling of grey hair through his bushy beard;
but upright in his carriage, active, and quick in his step, who dressed
well, and was clearly determined to make the most he could of what
remained to him of the advantages of youth. Colonel Osborne was always
so dressed that no one ever observed the nature of his garments, being
no doubt well aware that no man after twenty-five can afford to call
special attention to his coat, his hat, his cravat, or his trousers;
but nevertheless the matter was one to which he paid much attention,
and he was by no means lax in ascertaining what his tailor did for him.
He always rode a pretty horse, and mounted his groom on one at any rate
as pretty. He was known to have an excellent stud down in the shires,
and had the reputation of going well with hounds. Poor Sir Marmaduke
could not have ridden a hunt to save either his government or his
credit. When, therefore, Mrs Trevelyan declared to her sister that
Colonel Osborne was a man whom she was entitled to regard with semi-
parental feelings of veneration because he was older than her father,
she made a comparison which was more true in the letter than in the
spirit. And when she asserted that Colonel Osborne had known her since
she was a baby, she fell again into the same mistake. Colonel Osborne
had indeed known her when she was a baby, and had in old days been the
very intimate friend of her father; but of herself he had seen little
or nothing since those baby days, till he had met her just as she was
about to become Mrs Trevelyan; and though it was natural that so old a
friend should come to her and congratulate her and renew his
friendship, nevertheless it was not true that he made his appearance in
her husband's house in the guise of the useful old family friend, who
gives silver cups to the children and kisses the little girls for the
sake of the old affection which he has borne for the parents. We all
know the appearance of that old gentleman, how pleasant and dear a
fellow he is, how welcome is his face within the gate, how free he
makes with our wine, generally abusing it, how he tells our eldest
daughter to light his candle for him, how he gave silver cups when the
girls were born, and now bestows tea-services as they get married a
most useful, safe, and charming fellow, not a year younger-looking or
more nimble than ourselves, without whom life would be very blank. We
all know that man; but such a man was not Colonel Osborne in the house
of Mr Trevelyan's young bride.

Emily Rowley, when she was brought home from the Mandarin Islands to be
the wife of Louis Trevelyan, was a very handsome young woman, tall,
with a bust rather full for her age, with dark eyes eyes that looked to
be dark because her eye-brows and eye-lashes were nearly black, but
which were in truth so varying in colour, that you could not tell their
hue. Her brown hair was very dark and very soft; and the tint of her
complexion was brown also, though the colour of her cheeks was often so
bright as to induce her enemies to say falsely of her that she painted
them. And she was very strong, as are some girls who come from the
tropics, and whom a tropical climate has suited. She could sit on her
horse the whole day long, and would never be weary with dancing at the
Government House balls. When Colonel Osborne was introduced to her as
the baby whom he had known, he thought it would be very pleasant to be
intimate with so pleasant a friend meaning no harm indeed, as but few
men do mean harm on such occasions but still, not regarding the
beautiful young woman whom he had seen as one of a generation
succeeding to that of his own, to whom it would be his duty to make
himself useful on account of the old friendship which he bore to her
father.

It was, moreover, well known in London though not known at all to Mrs
Trevelyan that this ancient Lothario had before this made himself
troublesome in more than one family. He was fond of intimacies with
married ladies, and perhaps was not averse to the excitement of marital
hostility. It must be remembered, however, that the hostility to which
allusion is here made was not the hostility of the pistol or the
horsewhip nor indeed was it generally the hostility of a word of spoken
anger. A young husband may dislike the too-friendly bearing of a
friend, and may yet abstain from that outrage on his own dignity and on
his wife, which is conveyed by a word of suspicion. Louis Trevelyan
having taken a strong dislike to Colonel Osborne, and having failed to
make his wife understand that this dislike should have induced her to
throw cold water upon the Colonel's friendship, had allowed himself to
speak a word which probably he would have willingly recalled as soon as
spoken. But words spoken cannot be recalled, and many a man and many a
woman who has spoken a word at once regretted, are far too proud to
express that regret. So it was with Louis Trevelyan when he told his
wife that he did not wish Colonel Osborne to come so often to his
house. He had said it with a flashing eye and an angry tone; and though
she had seen the eye flash before, and was familiar with the angry
tone, she had never before felt herself to be insulted by her husband.
As soon as the word had been spoken Trevelyan had left the room and had
gone down among his books. But when he was alone he knew that he had
insulted his wife. He was quite aware that he should have spoken to her
gently, and have explained to her, with his arm round her waist, that
it would be better for both of them that this friend's friendship
should be limited. There is so much in a turn of the eye and in the
tone given to a word when such things have to be said so much more of
importance than in the words themselves. As Trevelyan thought of this,
and remembered what his manner had been, how much anger he had
expressed, how far he had been from having his arm round his wife's
waist as he spoke to her, he almost made up his mind to go upstairs and
to apologise. But he was one to whose nature the giving of any apology
was repulsive. He could not bear to have to own himself to have been
wrong. And then his wife had been most provoking in her manner to him.
When he had endeavoured to make her understand his wishes by certain
disparaging hints which he had thrown out as to Colonel Osborne, saying
that he was a dangerous man, one who did not show his true character, a
snake in the grass, a man without settled principles, and such like,
his wife had taken up the cudgels for her friend, and had openly
declared that she did not believe a word of the things that were
alleged against him. 'But still for all that it is true,' the husband
had said. 'I have no doubt that you think so,' the wife had replied.
'Men do believe evil of one another, very often. But you must excuse me
if I say that I think you are mistaken. I have known Colonel Osborne
much longer than you have done, Louis, and papa has always had the
highest opinion of him.' Then Mr Trevelyan had become very angry, and
had spoken those words which he could not recall. As he walked to and
fro among his books downstairs, he almost felt that he ought to beg his
wife's pardon. He knew his wife well enough to be sure that she would
not forgive him unless he did so. He would do so, he thought, but not
exactly now. A moment would come in which it might be easier than at
present. He would be able to assure her when he went up to dress for
dinner, that he had meant no harm. They were going out to dine at the
house of a lady of rank, the Countess Dowager of Milborough, a lady
standing high in the world's esteem, of whom his wife stood a little in
awe; and he calculated that this feeling, if it did not make his task
easy would yet take from it some of its difficulty. Emily would be, not
exactly cowed, by the prospect of Lady Milborough's dinner, but perhaps
a little reduced from her usual self-assertion. He would say a word to
her when he was dressing, assuring her that he had not intended to
animadvert in the slightest degree upon her own conduct.

Luncheon was served, and the two ladies went down into the dining-room.
Mr Trevelyan did not appear. There was nothing in itself singular in
that, as he was accustomed to declare that luncheon was a meal too much
in the day, and that a man should eat nothing beyond a biscuit between
breakfast and dinner. But he would sometimes come in and eat his
biscuit standing on the hearth-rug, and drink what he would call half a
quarter of a glass of sherry. It would probably have been well that he
should have done so now; but he remained in his library behind the
dining-room, and when his wife and his sister-in-law had gone upstairs,
he became anxious to learn whether, Colonel Osborne would come on that
day, and, if so, whether he would be admitted. He had been told that
Nora Rowley was to be called for by another lady, a Mrs Fairfax, to go
out and look at pictures. His wife had declined to join Mrs Fairfax's
party, having declared that, as she was going to dine out, she would
not leave her baby all the afternoon. Louis Trevelyan, though he strove
to apply his mind to an article which he was writing for a scientific
quarterly review, could not keep himself from anxiety as to this
expected visit from Colonel Osborne. He was not in the least jealous.
He swore to himself fifty times over that any such feeling on his part
would be a monstrous injury to his wife. Nevertheless he knew that he
would be gratified if on that special day Colonel Osborne should be
informed that his wife was not at home. Whether the man were admitted
or not, he would beg his wife's pardon; but he could, he thought, do so
with more thorough efficacy and affection if she should have shown a
disposition to comply with his wishes on this day.

'Do say a word to Richard,' said Nora to her sister in a whisper as
they were going upstairs after luncheon.

'I will not,' said Mrs Trevelyan.

'May I do it?'

'Certainly not, Nora. I should feel that I were demeaning myself were I
to allow what was said to me in such a manner to have any effect upon
me.'

'I think you are so wrong, Emily. I do indeed.'

'You must allow me to be the best judge what to do in my own house, and
with my own husband.'

'Oh, yes; certainly.'

'If he gives me any command I will obey it. Or if he had expressed his
wish in any other words I would have complied. But to be told that he
would rather not have Colonel Osborne here! If you had seen his manner
and heard his words, you would not have been surprised that I should
feel it as I do. It was a gross insult and it was not the first.'

As she spoke the fire flashed from her eye, and the bright red colour
of her cheek told a tale of her anger which her sister well knew how to
read. Then there was a knock at the door, and they both knew that
Colonel Osborne was there. Louis Trevelyan, sitting in his library,
also knew of whose coming that knock gave notice.



CHAPTER II - COLONEL OSBORNE

It has been already said that Colonel Osborne was a bachelor, a man of
fortune, a member of Parliament, and one who carried his half century
of years lightly on his shoulders. It will only be necessary to say
further of him that he was a man popular with those among whom he
lived, as a politician, as a sportsman, and as a member of society. He
could speak well in the House, though he spoke but seldom, and it was
generally thought of him that he might have been something
considerable, had it not suited him better to be nothing at all. He was
supposed to be a Conservative, and generally voted with the
conservative party; but he could boast that he was altogether
independent, and on an occasion would take the trouble of proving
himself to be so. He was in possession of excellent health; had all
that the world could give; was fond of books, pictures, architecture,
and china; had various tastes, and the means of indulging them, and was
one of those few men on whom it seems that every pleasant thing has
been lavished. There was that little slur on his good name to which
allusion has been made; but those who knew Colonel Osborne best were
generally willing to declare that no harm was intended, and that the
evils which arose were always to be attributed to mistaken jealousy. He
had, his friends said, a free and pleasant way with women which women
like a pleasant way of free friendship; that there was no more, and
that the harm which had come had always come from false suspicion. But
there were certain ladies about the town good, motherly, discreet women
who hated the name of Colonel Osborne, who would not admit him within
their doors, who would not bow to him in other people's houses, who
would always speak of him as a serpent, a hyena, a kite, or a shark.
Old Lady Milborough was one of these, a daughter of a friend of hers
having once admitted the serpent to her intimacy.

'Augustus Poole was wise enough to take his wife abroad,' said old Lady
Milborough, discussing about this time with a gossip of hers the danger
of Mrs Trevelyan's position, 'or there would have been a breakup there;
and yet there never was a better girl in the world than Jane Marriott.'

The reader may be quite certain that Colonel Osborne had no
premeditated evil intention when he allowed himself to become the
intimate friend of his old friend's daughter. There was nothing
fiendish in his nature. He was not a man who boasted of his conquests.
He was not a ravening wolf going about seeking whom he might devour,
and determined to devour whatever might come in his way; but he liked
that which was pleasant; and of all pleasant things the company of a
pretty clever woman was to him the pleasantest. At this exact period of
his life no woman was so pleasantly pretty to him, and so agreeably
clever, as Mrs Trevelyan.

When Louis Trevelyan heard on the stairs the step of the dangerous man,
he got up from his chair as though he too would have gone into the
drawing-room, and it would perhaps have been well had he done so. Could
he have done this, and kept his temper with the man, he would have
paved the way for an easy reconciliation with his wife. But when he
reached the door of his room, and had placed his hand upon the lock, he
withdrew again. He told himself he withdrew because he would not allow
himself to be jealous; but in truth he did so because he knew he could
not have brought himself to be civil to the man he hated. So he sat
down, and took up his pen, and began to cudgel his brain about the
scientific article. He was intent on raising a dispute with some
learned pundit about the waves of sound but he could think of no other
sound than that of the light steps of Colonel Osborne as he had gone
upstairs. He put down his pen, and clenched his fist, and allowed a
black frown to settle upon his brow. 'What right had the man to come
there, unasked by him, and disturb his happiness? And then this poor
wife of his, who knew so little of English life, who had lived in the
Mandarin Islands almost since she had been a child, who had lived in
one colony or another almost since she had been born, who had had so
few of those advantages for which he should have looked in marrying a
wife, how was the poor girl to conduct herself properly when subjected
to the arts and practised villanies of this viper? And yet the poor
girl was so stiff in her temper, had picked up such a trick of
obstinacy in those tropical regions, that Louis Trevelyan felt that he
did not know how to manage her. He too had heard how Jane Marriott had
been carried off to Naples after she had become Mrs Poole. Must he too
carry off his wife to Naples in order to place her out of the reach of
this hyena? It was terrible to him to think that he must pack up
everything and run away from such a one as Colonel Osborne. And even
were he to consent to do this, how could he explain it all to that very
wife for whose sake he would do it? If she got a hint of the reason she
would, he did not doubt, refuse to go. As he thought of it, and as that
visit upstairs prolonged itself, he almost thought it would be best for
him to be round with her! We all know what a husband means when he
resolves to be round with his wife. He began to think that he would not
apologise at all for the words he had spoken but would speak them again
somewhat more sharply than before. She would be very wrathful with him;
there would be a silent enduring indignation, which, as he understood
well, would be infinitely worse than any torrent of words. But was he,
a man, to abstain from doing that which he believed to be his duty
because he was afraid of his wife's anger? Should he be deterred from
saying that which he conceived it would be right that he should say,
because she was stiff-necked? No. He would not apologise, but would
tell her again that it was necessary, both for his happiness and for
hers, that all intimacy with Colonel Osborne should be discontinued.