Books: He Knew He Was Right

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Then, as she went home with Dorothy across the Close, she spoke a word
which she intended to be very serious. 'I don't mean to say anything
against your mother for what she has done as yet. Somebody must take
the woman in, and perhaps it was natural. But if that Colonel
what's-his-name makes his way down to Nuncombe Putney, your mother must
send her packing, if she has any respect either for herself or for
Priscilla.'

CHAPTER XVI - DARTMOOR

The well-weighed decision of Miss Stanbury respecting the Stanbury
Trevelyan arrangement at Nuncombe Putney had been communicated to
Dorothy as the two walked home at night across the Close from Mrs
MacHugh's house, and it was accepted by Dorothy as being wise and
proper. It amounted to this. If Mrs Trevelyan should behave herself
with propriety in her retirement at the Clock House, no further blame
in the matter should be attributed to Mrs Stanbury for receiving her at
any rate in Dorothy's hearing. The existing scheme, whether wise or
foolish, should be regarded as an accepted scheme. But if Mrs Trevelyan
should be indiscreet if, for instance, Colonel Osborne should show
himself at Nuncombe Putney then, for the sake of the family, Miss
Stanbury would speak out, and would speak out very loudly. All this
Dorothy understood, and she could perceive that her aunt had strong
suspicion that there would be indiscretion.

'I never knew one like her,' said Miss Stanbury, 'who, when she'd got
away from one man, didn't want to have another dangling after her.'

A week had hardly passed after the party at Mrs MacHugh's, and Mrs
Trevelyan had hardly been three weeks at Nuncombe Putney, before the
tidings which Miss Stanbury almost expected reached her ears.

'The Colonel's been at the Clock House, ma'am,' said Martha.

Now, it was quite understood in the Close by this time that 'the
Colonel' meant Colonel Osborne.

'No!'

'I'm told he has though, ma'am, for sure and certain.'

'Who says so?'

'Giles Hickbody was down at Lessboro', and see'd him hisself a portly,
middle-aged man not one of your young scampish-like lovers.'

'That's the man.'

'Oh, yes. He went over to Nuncombe Putney, as sure as anything hired
Mrs Clegg's chaise and pair, and asked for Mrs Trevelyan's house as
open as anything. When Giles asked in the yard, they told him as how
that was the married lady's young man.'

'I'd like to be at his tail so I would with a mop-handle,' said Miss
Stanbury, whose hatred for those sins by which the comfort and
respectability of the world are destroyed, was not only sincere, but
intense. 'Well; and what then?'

'He came back and slept at Mrs Clegg's that night at least, that was
what he said he should do.'

Miss Stanbury, however, was not so precipitate or uncharitable as to
act strongly upon information such as this. Before she even said a word
to Dorothy, she made further inquiry. She made very minute inquiry,
writing even to her very old and intimate friend Mrs Ellison, of
Lessboro' writing to that lady a most cautious and guarded letter. At
last it became a fact proved to her mind that Colonel Osborne had been
at the Clock House, had been received there, and had remained there for
hours had been allowed access to Mrs Trevelyan, and had slept the night
at the inn at Lessboro'. The thing was so terrible to Miss Stanbury's
mind, that even false hair, Dr Colenso, and penny newspapers did not
account for it.

'I shall begin to believe that the Evil One has been allowed to come
among us in person because of our sins,' she said to Martha and she
meant it.

In the meantime, Mrs Trevelyan, as may be remembered, had hired Mrs
Crocket's open carriage, and the three young women, Mrs Trevelyan,
Nora, and Priscilla, made a little excursion to Princetown, somewhat
after the fashion of a picnic. At Princetown, in the middle of
Dartmoor, about nine miles from Nuncombe Putney, is the prison
establishment at which are kept convicts undergoing penal servitude. It
is regarded by all the country round with great interest, chiefly
because the prisoners now and again escape, and then there comes a
period of interesting excitement until the escaped felon shall have
been again taken. How can you tell where he may be, or whether it may
not suit him to find his rest in your own cupboard, or under your own
bed? And then, as escape without notice will of course be the felon's
object, to attain that he will probably cut your throat, and the throat
of everybody belonging to you. All which considerations give an
interest to Princetown, and excite in the hearts of the Devonians of
these parts a strong affection for the Dartmoor prison. Of those who
visit Princetown comparatively few effect an entrance within the walls
of the gaol. They look at the gloomy place with a mysterious interest,
feeling something akin to envy for the prisoners who have enjoyed the
privilege of solving the mysteries of prison life, and who know how men
feel when they have their hair cut short, and are free from moral
responsibility for their own conduct, and are moved about in gangs, and
treated like wild beasts.

But the journey to Princetown, from whatever side it is approached, has
the charm of wild and beautiful scenery. The spot itself is ugly
enough; but you can go not thither without breathing the sweetest,
freshest air, and encountering that delightful sense of romance which
moorland scenery always produces. The idea of our three friends was to
see the Moor rather than the prison, to learn something of the country
around, and to enjoy the excitement of eating a sandwich sitting on a
hillock, in exchange for the ordinary comforts of a good dinner with
chairs and tables. A bottle of sherry and water and a paper of
sandwiches contained their whole banquet; for ladies, though they like
good things at picnics, and, indeed, at other times, almost as well as
men like them, very seldom prepare dainties for themselves alone. Men
are wiser and more thoughtful, and are careful to have the good things,
even if they are to be enjoyed without companionship.

Mrs Crocket's boy, though he was only about three feet high, was a
miracle of skill and discretion. He used the machine, as the patent
drag is called, in going down the hills with the utmost care. He never
forced the beast beyond a walk if there was the slightest rise in the
ground; and as there was always a rise, the journey was slow. But the
three ladies enjoyed it thoroughly, and Mrs Trevelyan was in better
spirits than she herself had thought to be possible for her in her
present condition. Most of us have recognised the fact that a dram of
spirits will create that a so-called nip of brandy will create
hilarity, or, at least, alacrity, and that a glass of sherry will often
'pick up' and set in order the prostrate animal and mental faculties of
the drinker. But we are not sufficiently alive to the fact that copious
draughts of fresh air of air fresh and unaccustomed will have precisely
the same effect. We do know that now and again it is very essential to
'change the air'; but we generally consider that to do that with any
chance of advantage, it is necessary to go far afield; and we think
also that such change of the air is only needful when sickness of the
body has come upon us, or when it threatens to come. We are seldom
aware that we may imbibe long potations of pleasure and healthy
excitement without perhaps going out of our own county; that such
potations are within a day's journey of most of us; and that they are
to be had for half-a-crown a head, all expenses told. Mrs Trevelyan
probably did not know that the cloud was lifted off her mind, and the
load of her sorrow made light to her, by the special vigour of the air
of the Moor; but she did know that she was enjoying herself, and that
the world was pleasanter to her than it had been for months past.

When they had sat upon their hillocks, and eaten their sandwiches
regretting that the basket of provisions had not been bigger and had
drunk their sherry and water out of the little horn mug which Mrs
Crocket had lent them, Nora started off across the moorland alone. The
horse had been left to be fed in Princetown, and they had walked back
to a bush under which they had rashly left their basket of provender
concealed. It happened, however, that on that day there was no escaped
felon about to watch what they had done, and the food and the drink had
been found secure. Nora had gone off, and as her sister and Priscilla
sat leaning against their hillocks with their backs to the road, she
could be seen standing now on one little eminence and now on another,
thinking, doubtless, as she stood on the one how good it would be to be
Lady Peterborough, and, as she stood on the other, how much better to
be Mrs Hugh Stanbury. Only before she could be Mrs Hugh Stanbury it
would be necessary that Mr Hugh Stanbury should share her opinion and
necessary also that he should be able to maintain a wife. 'I should
never do to be a very poor man's wife,' she said to herself; and
remembered as she said it, that in reference to the prospect of her
being Lady Peterborough, the man who was to be Lord Peterborough was at
any rate ready to make her his wife, and on that side there were none
of those difficulties about house, and money, and position which stood
in the way of the Hugh-Stanbury side of the question. She was not, she
thought, fit to be the wife of a very poor man; but she conceived of
herself that she would do very well as a future Lady Peterborough in
the drawing-rooms of Monkhams. She was so far vain as to fancy that she
could look, and speak, and move, and have her being after the fashion
which is approved for the Lady Peterboroughs of the world. It was not
clear to her that Nature had not expressly intended her to be a Lady
Peterborough; whereas, as far as she could see, Nature had not intended
her to be a Mrs Hugh Stanbury, with a precarious income of perhaps ten
guineas a week when journalism was doing well. So she moved on to
another little eminence to think of it there. It was clear to her that
if she should accept Mr Glascock she would sell herself, and not give
herself away; and she had told herself scores of times before this,
that a young woman should give herself away, and not sell herself
should either give herself away, or keep herself to herself as
circumstances might go. She had been quite sure that she would never
sell herself. But this was a lesson which she had taught herself when
she was very young, before she had come to understand the world and its
hard necessities. Nothing, she now told herself, could be worse than to
hang like a millstone round the neck of a poor man. It might be a very
good thing to give herself away for love but it would not be a good
thing to be the means of ruining the man she loved, even if that man
were willing to be so ruined. And then she thought that she could also
love that other man a little could love him sufficiently for
comfortable domestic purposes. And it would undoubtedly be very
pleasant to have all the troubles of her life settled for her. If she
were Mrs Glascock, known to the world as the future Lady Peterborough,
would it not be within her power to bring her sister and her sister's
husband again together? The tribute of the Monkhams authority and
influence to her sister's side of the question would be most salutary.
She tried to make herself believe that in this way she would be doing a
good deed. Upon the whole, she thought that if Mr Glascock should give
her another chance she would accept him. And he had distinctly promised
that he would give her another chance. It might be that this
unfortunate quarrel in the Trevelyan family would deter him. People do
not wish to ally themselves with family quarrels. But if the chance
came in her way she would accept it. She had made up her mind to that,
when she turned round from off the last knoll on which she had stood,
to return to her sister and Priscilla Stanbury.

They two had sat still under the shade of a thorn bush, looking at Nora
as she was wandering about, and talking together more freely than they
had ever done before on the circumstances that had brought them
together. 'How pretty she looks,' Priscilla had said, as Nora was
standing with her figure clearly marked by the light.

'Yes; she is very pretty, and has been much admired. This terrible
affair of mine is a cruel blow to her.'

'You mean that it is bad for her to come and live here without
society.'

'Not exactly that though of course it would be better for her to go
out. And I don't know how a girl is ever to get settled in the world
unless she goes out. But it is always an injury to be connected in any
way with a woman who is separated from her husband. It must be bad for
you.'

'It won't hurt me,' said Priscilla. 'Nothing of that kind can hurt me.'

'I mean that people say such ill-natured things.'

'I stand alone, and can take care of myself,' said Priscilla. 'I defy
the evil tongues of all the world to hurt me. My personal cares are
limited to an old gown and bread and cheese. I like a pair of gloves to
go to church with, but that is only the remnant of a prejudice. The
world has so very little to give me, that I am pretty nearly sure that
it will take nothing away.'

'And you are contented?'

'Well, no; I can't say that I am contented. I hardly think that anybody
ought to be contented. Should my mother die and Dorothy remain with my
aunt, or get married, I should be utterly alone in the world.
Providence, or whatever you call it, has made me a lady after a
fashion, so that I can't live with the ploughmen's wives, and at the
same time has so used me in other respects, that I can't live with
anybody else.'

'Why should not you get married, as well as Dorothy?'

'Who would have me? And if I had a husband I should want a good one a
man with a head on his shoulders, and a heart. Even if I were young and
good-looking, or rich, I doubt whether I could please myself. As it is
I am as likely to be taken bodily to heaven, as to become any man's
wife.'

'I suppose most women think so of themselves at some time, and yet they
are married.'

'I am not fit to marry. I am often cross, and I like my own way, and I
have a distaste for men. I never in my life saw a man whom I wished
even to make my intimate friend. I should think any man an idiot who to
make soft speeches to me, and I should tell him so.'

'Ah; you might find it different when he went on with it.'

'But I think,' said Priscilla, 'that when a woman is married there is
nothing to which she should not submit on behalf of her husband.'

'You mean that for me.'

'Of course I mean it for you. How should I not be thinking of you,
living as you are under the same roof with us? And I am thinking of
Louey.' Louey was the baby. 'What are you to do when after a year or
two his shall send for him to have him under his own care?'

'Nothing shall separate me from my child,' said Mrs Trevelyan eagerly.

'That is easily said; but I suppose the power of doing pleased would be
with him.'

'Why should it be with him? I do not at all know that it would be with
him. I have not left his house. It is he that has turned me out.'

'There can, I think, be very little doubt what you should do,' said
Priscilla, after a pause, during which she had got up from her seat
under the thorn bush.

'What should I do?' asked Mrs Trevelyan.

'Go back to him.'

'I will to-morrow if he will write and ask me. Nay; how could I help
myself? I am his creature, and must go or come as he bids me. I am here
only because he has sent me.'

'You should write and ask him to take you.'

'Ask him to forgive me because he has ill-treated me?#'

'Never mind about that,' said Priscilla, standing over her companion,
who was still lying under the bush. 'All that is twopenny-halfpenny
pride, which should be thrown to the winds. The more right you have
been hitherto the better you can afford to go on being right. What is
it that we all live upon but self-esteem? When we want praise it is
only because praise enables us to think well of ourselves. Every one to
himself is the centre and pivot of all the' world.'

'It's a very poor world that goes round upon my pivot,' said Mrs
Trevelyan.

'I don't know how this quarrel came up,' exclaimed Priscilla, 'and I
don't care to know. But it seems a trumpery quarrel as to who should
beg each other's pardon first, and all that kind of thing. Sheer and
simple nonsense! Ask him to let it all be forgotten. I suppose he loves
you?'

'How can I know? He did once.'

'And you love him?'

'Yes. I love him certainly.'

'I don't see how you can have a doubt. Here is Jack with the carriage,
and if we don't mind he'll pass us by without seeing us.'

Then Mrs Trevelyan got up, and when they had succeeded in diverting
Jack's attention for a moment from the horse, they called to Nora, who
was still moving about from one knoll to another, and who showed no
desire to abandon the contemplations in which she had been engaged.

It had been mid-day before they left home in the morning, and they were
due to be at home in time for tea which is an epoch in the day
generally allowed to be more elastic than some others. When Mrs
Stanbury lived in the cottage her hour for tea had been six; this had
been stretched to half-past seven when she received Mrs Trevelyan at
the Clock House; and it was half-past eight before Jack landed them at
their door. It was manifest to them all as they entered the house that
there was an air of mystery in the face of the girl who had opened the
door for them. She did not speak, however, till they were all within
the passage. Then she uttered a few words very solemnly. 'There be a
gentleman come,' she said.

'A gentleman!' said Mrs Trevelyan, thinking in the first moment of her
husband, and in the second of Colonel Osborne.

'He be for you, miss,' said the girl, bobbing her head at Nora.

Upon hearing this Nora sank speechless into the chair which stood in
the passage.

CHAPTER XVII - A GENTLEMAN COMES TO NUNCOMBE PUTNEY

It soon became known to them all as they remained clustered in the hall
that Mr Glascock was in the house. Mrs Stanbury came out to them and
informed them that he had been at Nuncombe Putney for the last hours,
and that he had asked for Mrs Trevelyan when he called. It became
evident as the affairs of the evening went on, that Mrs Stanbury had
for a few minutes been thrown into a terrible state of amazement,
thinking that 'the Colonel' had appeared. The strange gentleman,
however, having obtained admittance, explained who he was, saying that
he was very desirous of seeing Mrs Trevelyan and Miss Rowley. It may be
presumed that a glimmer of light did make its way into Mrs Stanbury's
mind on the subject; but up to the moment at which the three travellers
arrived, she had been in doubt on the subject. Mr Glascock had declared
that he would take a walk, and in the course of the afternoon had
expressed high approval of Mrs Crocket's culinary skill. When Mrs
Crocket heard that she had entertained the son of a lord, she was very
loud in her praise of the manner in which he had eaten two mutton chops
and called for a third. He had thought it no disgrace to apply himself
to the second half of an apple pie, and had professed himself to be an
ardent admirer of Devonshire cream. 'It's them counter-skippers as
turns up their little noses at the victuals as is set before them,'
said Mrs Crocket.

After his dinner Mr Glascock had returned to the Clock House, and had
been sitting there for an hour with Mrs Stanbury, not much to her
delight or to his, when the carriage was driven up to the door.

'He is to go back to Lessboro' to-night,' said Mrs Stanbury in a
whisper.

'Of course you must see him before he goes,' said Mrs Trevelyan to her
sister. There had, as was natural, been very much said between the two
sisters about Mr Glascock. Nora had abstained from asserting in any
decided way that she disliked the man, and had always absolutely
refused to allow Hugh Stanbury's name to be mixed up with the question.
'Whatever might be her own thoughts about Hugh Stanbury she had kept
them even from her sister. 'When her sister had told her that she had
refused Mr Glascock because of Hugh, she had shown herself to be
indignant, and had since that said one or two fine things as to her
capacity to refuse a brilliant offer simply because the man who made it
was indifferent to her. Mrs Trevelyan had learned from her that her
Suitor had declared his intention to persevere; and here was
perseverance with a vengeance! 'Of course you must see him at once,'
said Mrs Trevelyan. Nora for a few seconds had remained silent, and
then had run up to her room. Her sister followed her instantly.

'What is the meaning of it all?' said Priscilla to her mother.

'I suppose he is in love with Miss Rowley,' said Mrs Stanbury.

'But who is he?'

Then Mrs Stanbury told all that she knew, She had seen from his card
that he was an Honourable Mr Glascock. She had collected from what he
had said that he was an old friend of the two ladies. Her conviction
was strong in Mr Glascock's favour thinking, as she expressed herself,
that everything was right and proper but she could hardly explain why
she thought so.

'I do wish that they had never come,' said Priscilla, who could not rid
herself of an idea that there must be danger in having to do with women
who had men running after them.

'Of course I'll see him,' said Nora to her sister. 'I have not refused
to see him. Why do you scold me?'

'I have not scolded you, Nora; but I do want you to how immensely
important this is.'

'Of course it is important.'

'And so much the more so because of my misfortunes! Think how good he
must be, how strong must be his attachment, when he comes down here
after you in this way.'

'But I have to think of my own feelings.'

'You know you like him. You have told me so. And only fancy what mamma
will feel! Such a position! And the man so excellent! Everybody says
that he hasn't a fault in any way.'

'I hate people without faults.'

'Oh, Nora, Nora, that is foolish! There, there; you must go down. Pray
pray do not let any absurd fancy stand in your way, and destroy
everything. It will never come again, Nora. And, only think; it is all
now your own if you will only whisper one word.'

'Ah! one word and that a falsehood!'

'No no. Say you will try to love him, and that will enough. And you do
love him?'

'Do I?'

'Yes, you do. It is only the opposition of your nature that makes you
fight against him. Will you go now?'

'Let me be for two minutes by myself,' said Nora, 'and then I'll come
down. Tell him that I'm coming.' Mrs Trevelyan stooped over her, kissed
her, and then left her.

Nora, as soon as she was alone, stood upright in the middle of the room
and held her hands up to her forehead. She had been far from thinking,
when she was considering the matter easily among the hillocks, that the
necessity for an absolute decision would come upon her so
instantaneously. She had told herself only this morning that it would
be wise to accept the man, if he should ever ask a second time and he
had come already. He had been waiting for her in the village while she
had been thinking whether he would ever come across her path again. She
thought that it would have been easier for her now to have gone down
with a 'yes' in her mouth, if her sister had not pressed her so hard to
say that 'yes,' The very pressure from her sister seemed to imply that
such pressure ought to be resisted. Why should there have been
pressure, unless there were reasons against her marrying him? And yet,
if she chose to take him, who would have a right to complain of her?
Hugh Stanbury had never spoken to her a word that would justify her in
even supposing that he would consider himself to be ill-used. All
others of her friends would certainly rejoice, would applaud her, pat
her on the back, cover her with caresses, and tell her that she had
been born under a happy star. And she did like the man. Nay she thought
she loved him. She withdrew her hands from her brow, assured herself
that her lot in life was cast, and with hurrying fingers attempted to
smooth her hair and to arrange her ribbons before the glass. She would
go to the encounter boldly and accept him honestly. It was her duty to
do so. What might she not do for brothers and sisters as the wife of
Lord Peterborough of Monkhams? She saw that that arrangement before the
glass could be of no service, and she stepped quickly to the door. If
he did not like her as she was, he need not ask her. Her mind was made
up, and she would do it. But as she went down the stairs to the room in
which she knew that he was waiting for her, there came over her a cold
feeling of self-accusation almost of disgrace. 'I do not care,' she
said. 'I know that I'm right.' She opened the door quickly, that there
might be no further doubt, and found that she was alone with him.

'Miss Rowley,' he said, 'I am afraid you will think that I am
persecuting you.'