Books: He Knew He Was Right

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'If you take my advice,' said Stanbury, 'you will not hear him
yourself.'

'That's your advice, Mr S.?' asked Mr Bozzle.

'Yes that's my advice. I'd never have anything to do with such a fellow
as you as long as I could help it.'

'I dare say not, Mr S.; I dare say not. We're hexpensive, and we're
haccurate neither of which is much in your line, Mr S., if I understand
about it rightly.'

'Mr Bozzle, if you've got anything to tell, tell it,' said Trevelyan,
angrily.

'A third party is so objectionable,' pleaded Bozzle.

'Never mind. That is my affair.'

'It is your affair, Mr Trewillian. There's not a doubt of that. The
lady is your wife.'

'Damnation!' shouted Trevelyan.

'But the credit, sir,' said Bozzle. 'The credit is mine. And here is Mr
S. has been down a interfering with me, and doing no 'varsal good, as
I'll undertake to prove by evidence before the affair is over.'

'The affair is over,' said Stanbury.

'That's as you think, Mr S. That's where your information goes to, Mr
S. Mine goes a little beyond that, Mr S. I've means as you can know
nothing about, Mr S. I've irons in the fire, what you're as ignorant on
as the babe as isn't born.'

'No doubt you have, Mr Bozzle,' said Stanbury.

'I has. And now if it be that I must speak before a third party, Mr
Trewillian, I'm ready. It ain't that I'm no ways ashamed. I've done my
duty, and knows how to do it. And let a counsel be ever so sharp, I
never yet was so 'posed but what I could stand up and hold my own. The
Colonel, Mr Trewillian got a letter from your lady this morning.'

'I don't believe it,' said Stanbury, sharply.

'Very likely not, Mr S. It ain't in my power to say anything whatever
about you believing or not believing. But Mr T.'s lady has wrote the
letter; and the Colonel he has received it. You don't look after these
things, Mr S. You don't know the ways of 'em. But it's my business. The
lady has wrote the letter, and the Colonel why, he has received it.'
Trevelyan had become white with rage when Bozzle first mentioned this
continued correspondence between his wife and Colonel Osborne. It never
occurred to him to doubt the correctness of the policeman's
information, and he regarded Stanbury's assertion of incredulity as
being simply of a piece with his general obstinacy in the matter. At
this moment he began to regret that he had called in the assistance of
his friend, and that he had not left the affair altogether in the hands
of that much more satisfactory, but still more painful, agent, Mr
Bozzle. He had again seated himself, and for a moment or two remained
silent on his chair. 'It ain't my fault, Mr Trewillian,' continued
Bozzle, 'if this little matter oughtn't never to have been mentioned
before a third party.'

'It is of no moment,' said Trevelyan, in a low voice. 'What does it
signify who knows it now?'

'Do not believe it, Trevelyan,' said Stanbury.

'Very well, Mr S. Very well. Just as you like. Don't believe it. Only
it's true, and it's my business to find them things out. It's my
business, and I finds 'em out. Mr Trewillian can do as he likes about
it. If it's right, why, then it is right. It ain't for me to say
nothing about that. But there's the fact. The lady, she has wrote
another letter; and the Colonel why, he has received it. There ain't
nothing wrong about the post-office. If I was to say what was inside of
that billydou why, then I should be proving what I didn't know; and
when it came to standing up in court, I shouldn't be able to hold my
own. But as for the letter, the lady wrote it, and the Colonel he
received it.'

'That will do, Mr Bozzle,' said Trevelyan.

'Shall I call again, Mr Trewillian?'

'No yes. I'll send to you, when I want you. You shall hear from me.'

'I suppose I'd better be keeping my eyes open about the Colonel's
place, Mr Trewillian?'

'For God's sake, Trevelyan, do not have anything more to do with this
man!'

'That's all very well for you, Mr S.,' said Bozzle. 'The lady ain't
your wife.'

'Can you imagine anything more disgraceful than all this?' said
Stanbury.

'Nothing; nothing; nothing!' answered Trevelyan.

'And I'm to keep stirring, and be on the move?' again suggested Bozzle,
who prudently required to be fortified by instructions before he
devoted his time and talents even to so agreeable a pursuit as that in
which he had been engaged.

'You shall hear from me,' said Trevelyan.

'Very well very well. I wish you good-day, Mr Trewillian. Mr S., yours
most obedient. There was one other point, Mr Trewillian.'

'What point?' asked Trevelyan, angrily.

'If the lady was to join the Colonel--'

'That will do, Mr Bozzle,' said Trevelyan, again jumping up from his
chair. 'That will do.' So saying, he opened the door, and Bozzle, with
a bow, took his departure. 'What on earth am I to do? How am I to save
her?' said the wretched husband, appealing to his friend.

Stanbury endeavoured with all his eloquence to prove that this latter
piece of information from the spy must be incorrect. If such a letter
had been written by Mrs Trevelyan to Colonel Osborne, it must have been
done while he, Stanbury, was staying at the Clock House. This seemed to
him to be impossible; but he could hardly explain why it should be
impossible. She had written to the man before, and had received him
when he came to Nuncombe Putney. Why was it even improbable that she
should have written to him again? Nevertheless, Stanbury felt sure that
she had sent no such letter. 'I think I understand her feelings and her
mind,' said he; 'and if so, any such correspondence would be
incompatible with her previous conduct.' Trevelyan only smiled at this
or pretended to smile. He would not discuss the question; but believed
implicitly what Bozzle had told him in spite of all Stanbury's
arguments. 'I can say nothing further,' said Stanbury.

'No, my dear fellow. There is nothing further to be said, except this,
that I will have my unfortunate wife removed from the decent protection
of your mother's roof with the least possible delay. I feel that I owe
Mrs Stanbury the deepest apology for having sent such an inmate to
trouble her repose.'

'Nonsense!'

'That is what I feel.'

'And I say that it is nonsense. If you had never sent that wretched
blackguard down to fabricate lies at Nuncombe Putney, my mother's
repose would have been all right. As it is, Mrs Trevelyan can remain
where she is till after Christmas. There is not the least necessity for
removing her at once. I only meant to say that the arrangement should
not be regarded as altogether permanent. I must go to my work now.
Goodbye.'

'Good-bye, Stanbury.'

Stanbury paused at the door, and then once more turned round. 'I
suppose it is of no use my saying anything further; but I wish you to
understand fully that I regard your wife as a woman much ill-used, and
I think you are punishing her, and yourself, too, with a cruel severity
for an indiscretion of the very slightest kind.'

CHAPTER XXVII - MR TREVELYAN'S LETTER TO HIS WIFE

Trevelyan, when he was left alone, sat for above a couple of hours
contemplating the misery of his; position, and endeavouring to teach
himself by thinking what ought to be his future conduct. It never
occurred to him during these thoughts that it would be well that he
should at once take back his wife, either as a matter of duty, or of
welfare, for himself or for her. He had taught himself to believe that
she had disgraced him; and, though this feeling of disgrace made him so
wretched that he wished that he were dead, he would allow himself to
make no attempt at questioning the correctness of his conviction.
Though he were to be shipwrecked for ever, even that seemed to be
preferable to supposing that he had been wrong. Nevertheless, he loved
his wife dearly, and, in the white heat of his anger endeavoured to be
merciful to her. When Stanbury accused him of severity, he would not
condescend to defend himself; but he told himself then of his great
mercy. Was he not as fond of his own boy as any other father, and had
he not allowed her to take the child because he had felt that a
mother's love was more imperious, more craving in its nature, than the
love of a father? Had that been severe? And had he not resolved to
allow her every comfort which her unfortunate position the self-imposed
misfortune of her position would allow her to enjoy? She had come to
him without a shilling; and yet, bad as her treatment of him had been,
he was willing to give enough not only to support her, but her sister
also, with every comfort. Severe! No; that, at least, was an undeserved
accusation. He had been anything but severe. Foolish he might have
been, in taking a wife from a home in which she had been unable to
learn the discretion of a matron; too trusting he had been, and too
generous but certainly not severe. But, of course, as he said to
himself, a young man like Stanbury would take the part of a woman with
whose sister he was in love. Then he turned his thoughts upon Bozzle,
and there came over him a crushing feeling of ignominy, shame, moral
dirt, and utter degradation, as he reconsidered his dealings with that
ingenious gentleman. He was paying a rogue to watch the steps of a man
whom he hated, to pry into the home secrets, to read the letters, to
bribe the servants, to record the movements of this rival, this
successful rival, in his wife's affections! It was a filthy thing and
yet what could he do? Gentlemen of old, his own grandfather or his
father, would have taken such a fellow as Colonel Osborne by the throat
and have caned him, and afterwards would have shot him, or have stood
to be shot.

All that was changed now but it was not his, fault that it was changed.
He was willing enough to risk his life, could any opportunity of
risking it in this cause be obtained for him. But were he to cudgel
Colonel Osborne, he would be simply arrested, and he would then be told
that he had disgraced himself foully by striking a man old enough to be
his father!

How was he to have avoided the employment of some such man as Bozzle?
He had also employed a gentleman, his friend, Stanbury; and what was
the result? The facts were not altered. Even Stanbury did not attempt
to deny that there had been a correspondence, and that there had been a
visit. But Stanbury was so blind to all impropriety, or pretended such
blindness, that he defended that which all the world agreed in
condemning. Of what use had Stanbury been to him? He had wanted facts,
not advice. Stanbury had found out no facts for him; but Bozzle, either
by fair means or foul, did get at the truth. He did not doubt but that
Bozzle was right about that letter written only yesterday, and received
on that very morning. His wife, who had probably been complaining of
her wrongs to Stanbury, must have retired from that conversation to her
chamber, and immediately have written this letter to her lover! With
such a woman as that what can be done in these days otherwise than by
the aid of such a one as Bozzle? He could not confine his wife in a
dungeon. He could not save himself from the disgrace of her misconduct,
by any rigours of surveillance on his own part. As wives are managed
nowadays, he could not forbid to her the use of the post-office could
not hinder her from seeing this hypocritical scoundrel, who carried on
his wickedness under the false guise of family friendship. He had given
her every chance to amend her conduct; but, if she were resolved on
disobedience, he had no means of enforcing obedience. The facts,
however, it was necessary that he should know.

And now, what should he do? How should he go to work to make her
understand that she could not write even a letter without his knowing
it; and that if she did either write to the man or see him he would
immediately take the child from her, and provide for her only in such
fashion as the law should demand from him? For himself, and his won
live, he thought that he had determined what he would do. It was
impossible that he should continue to live in London. He was ashamed to
enter a club. He had hardly a friend to whom it was not an agony to
speak. They who knew of him, knew also of his disgrace, and no longer
asked him to their houses. For days past he had eaten alone, and sat
alone, and walked alone. All study was impossible to him. No pursuit
was open to him. He spend his time in thinking of his wife, and of the
disgrace which she had brought upon him. Such a life as this, he knew,
was unmanly and shameful, and it was absolutely necessary for him that
he should in some way change it. He would go out of England, and would
travel if only he could so dispose of his wife that she might be safe
from any possible communication with Colonel Osborne. If that could be
effected, nothing that money could do should be spared for her. If that
could not be effected he would remain at home and crush her.

That night before he went to bed he wrote a letter to his wife, which
was as follows:

Dear Emily,

I have learned, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that you have
corresponded with Colonel Osborne since you have been at Nuncombe
Putney, and also that you have seen him there. This has been done in
direct opposition to my expressed wishes, and I feel myself compelled
to tell you that such conduct is disgraceful to you, and disgracing to
me. I am quite at a loss to understand how you can reconcile to
yourself so flagrant a disobedience of my instructions, and so perverse
a disregard to the opinion of the world at large.

But I do not write now for the sake of finding fault with you. It is
too late for me to have any hope that I can do so with good effect,
either as regards your credit or my happiness. Nevertheless, it is my
duty to protect both you and myself from further shame; and I wish to
tell you what are my intentions with that view. In the first place, I
warn you that I keep a watch on you. The doing so is very painful to
me, but it is absolutely necessary. You cannot see Colonel Osborne, or
write to him, without my knowing it. I pledge you my word that in
either case that is, if you correspond with him or see him I will at
once take our boy away from you. I will not allow him to remain, even
with a mother, who shall so misconduct herself. Should Colonel Osborne
address a letter to you, I desire that you will put it under an
envelope addressed to me.

If you obey my commands on this head I will leave our boy with you nine
months out of every year till he shall be six years old. Such, at
least, is my present idea, though I will not positively bind myself to
adhere to it. And I will allow you 800 pounds per year, for your own
maintenance and that of your sister. I am greatly grieved to find from
my friend Mr Stanbury that your conduct in reference to Colonel Osborne
has been such as to make it necessary that you should leave Mrs
Stanbury's house. I do not wonder that it should be so. I shall
immediately seek for a future home for you, and when I have found one
that is suitable, I will have you conveyed to it.

I must now further explain my purposes and I must beg you to remember
that I am driven to do so by your direct disobedience to my expressed
wishes. Should there be any further communication between you and
Colonel Osborne, not only will I take your child away from you, but I
will also limit the allowance to be made to you to a bare sustenance.
In such case, I shall put the matter into the hands of a lawyer, and
shall probably feel myself driven to take steps towards freeing myself
from a connection which will be disgraceful to my name.

For myself, I shall live abroad during the greater part of the year.
London has become to me uninhabitable, and all English pleasures are
distasteful.

Yours affectionately,

Louis Trevelyan.'

When he had finished this he read it twice, and believed that he had
written, if not an affectionate, at any rate a considerate letter. He
had no bounds to the pity which he felt for himself in reference to the
injury which was being done to him, and he thought that the offers
which he was making, both in respect to his child and the money, were
such as to entitle him to his wife's warmest gratitude. He hardly
recognised the force of the language which he used when he told her
that her conduct was disgraceful, and that she had disgraced his name.
He was quite unable to look at the whole question between him and his
wife from her point of view. He conceived it possible that such a woman
as his wife should be told that her conduct would be watched, and that
she should be threatened with the Divorce Court, with an effect that
should, upon the whole, be salutary. There be men, and not bad men
either, and men neither uneducated, or unintelligent, or irrational in
ordinary matters, who seem to be absolutely unfitted by nature to have
the custody or guardianship of others. A woman in the hands of such a
man can hardly. save herself or him from endless trouble. It may be
that between such a one and his wife, events shall flow on so evenly
that no ruling, no constraint is necessary that even the giving of
advice is never called for by the circumstances of the day. If the man
be happily forced to labour daily for his living till he be weary, and
the wife be laden with many ordinary cares, the routine of life may run
on without storms but for, such a one, if he be without work, the
management of a wife will be a task full of peril. The lesson may be
learned at last; he may after years come to perceive how much and how
little of guidance the partner of his life requires at his hands; and
he may be taught how that guidance should be given but in the learning
of the lesson there will be sorrow and gnashing of teeth. It was so now
with this man. He loved his wife. To a certain extent he still trusted
her. He did not believe that she would be faithless to him after the
fashion of women who are faithless altogether But he was jealous of
authority, fearful of slights, self-conscious, afraid of the world, and
utterly ignorant of the nature of a woman's mind.

He carried the letter with him in his pocket throughout the next
morning, and in the course of the day he called upon Lady Milborough.
Though he was obstinately bent on acting in accordance with his own
views, yet he was morbidly desirous of discussing the grievousness of
his position with his friends. He went to Lady Milborough, asking for
her advice, but desirous simply of being encouraged by her to do that
which he was resolved to do on his own judgment.

'Down after her to Nuncombe Putney!' said Lady Milborough, holding up
both her hands.

'Yes; he has been there. And she has been weak enough to see him.'

'My dear Louis, take her to Naples at once at once.'

'It is too late for that now, Lady Milborough.'

'Too late! Oh no. She has been foolish, indiscreet, disobedient what
you will of that kind. But, Louis, don't send her away; don't send your
young wife away from you. Those whom God has joined together, let no
man put asunder.'

'I cannot consent to live with a wife with whom neither my wishes nor
my word have the slightest effect. I may believe of her what I please;
but, think what the world will believe! I cannot disgrace myself by
living with a woman who persists in holding intercourse with a man whom
the world speaks of as her lover.'

'Take her to Naples,' said Lady Milborough, with all the energy of
which she was capable.

'I can take her nowhere, nor will I see her, till she has given proof
that her whole conduct towards me has been altered. I have written a
letter to her, and I have brought it. Will you excuse me if I ask you
to take the trouble to read it?'

Then he handed Lady Milborough the letter, which she read very slowly,
and with much care.

'I don't think I would--would--would--'

'Would what?' demanded Trevelyan.

'Don't you think that what you say is a little just a little prone to
make to make the breach perhaps wider?'

'No, Lady Milborough. In the first place, how can it be wider?'

'You might take her back, you know; and then if you could only get to
Naples!'

'How can I take her back while she is corresponding with this man?'

'She wouldn't correspond with him at Naples.'

Trevelyan shook his head and became cross. His old friend would not at
all do as old friends are expected to do when called upon for advice.

'I think,' said he, 'that what I have proposed is both just and
generous.'

'But, Louis, why should there be any separation?'

'She has forced it upon me. She is headstrong, and will not be ruled.'

'But this about disgracing you. Do you think that you must say that?'

'I think I must, because it is true. If I do not tell her the truth,
who is there that will do so? It may be bitter now, but I think that it
is for her welfare.'

'Dear, dear, dear!'

'I want nothing for myself, Lady Milborough.'

'I am sure of that, Louis.'

'My whole happiness was in my home. No man cared less for going out
than I did. My child and my wife were everything to me. I don't suppose
that I was ever seen at a club in the evening once throughout a season.
And she might have had anything that she liked anything! It is hard;
Lady Milborough; is it not?'

Lady Milborough, who had seen the angry brow, did not dare to suggest
Naples again. But yet, if any word might be spoken to prevent this
utter wreck of a home, how good a thing it would be! He had got up to
leave her, but she stopped him by holding his hand.

'For better, for worse, Louis; remember that.'

'Why has she forgotten it?'

'She is flesh of your flesh, bone of your bone. And for the boy's sake!
Think of your boy, Louis. Do not send that letter. Sleep on it, Louis,
and think of it.'

'I have slept on it.'

'There is no promise in it of forgiveness after a while. It is written
as though you intended that she should never come back to you.'.

'That shall be as she behaves herself.'

'But tell her so. Let there be some one bright spot in what you say to
her, on which her mind may fix itself. If she be not altogether
hardened, that letter will drive her to despair.'

But Trevelyan would not give up the letter, nor indicate by a word that
he would reconsider the question of its propriety. He escaped as soon
as he could from Lady Milborough's room, and almost declared as he did
so, that he would never enter her doors again. She, had utterly failed
to see the matter in the proper light. When she talked of Naples she
must surely have been unable to comprehend the extent of the ill-usage
to which he, the husband, had been subjected. How was it possible that
he should live under the same roof with a wife who claimed to herself
the right of receiving visitors of whom he disapproved a visitor a
gentleman one whom the world called her lover? He gnashed his teeth and
clenched his fist as he thought of his old friend's ignorance of the
very first law in a married man's code of laws.

But yet when he was out in the streets he did not post his letter at
once; but thought of it throughout the whole day, trying to prove the
weight of every phrase that he had used. Once or twice his heart almost
relented. Once he had the letter in his hand, that he might tear it.
But he did not tear it. He put it back into his pocket, and thought
again of his grievance. Surely it was his first duty in such an
emergency to be firm!

It was certainly a wretched life that he was leading. In the evening he
went all alone to an eating-house for his dinner, and then, sitting
with a miserable glass of sherry before him, he again read and re-read
the epistle which he had written. Every harsh word that it contained
was, in some sort, pleasant to his ear. She had hit him hard, and
should he not hit her again? And then, was it not his bounden duty to
let her know the truth? Yes; it was his duty to be firm.

So he went out and posted the letter.

CHAPTER XXVIII - GREAT TRIBULATION

Trevelyan's letter to his wife fell like a thunderbolt among them at
Nuncombe Putney. Mrs Trevelyan was altogether unable to keep it to
herself indeed she made no attempt at doing so. Her husband had told
her that she was to be banished from the Clock House because her
present hostess was unable to endure her misconduct, and of course she
demanded the reasons of the charge that was thus brought against her.
When she first read the letter, which she did in the presence of her
sister, she towered in her passion.

'Disgraced him! I have never disgraced him. It is he that has disgraced
me. Correspondence! Yes he shall see it all. Unjust, ignorant, foolish
man! He does not remember that the last instructions he really gave me,
were to bid me see Colonel Osborne. Take my boy away! Yes. Of course, I
am a woman and must suffer. I will write to Colonel Osborne, and will
tell him the truth, and will send my letter to Louis. He shall know how
he has ill-treated me! I will not take a penny of his money not a
penny. Maintain you! I believe he thinks that we are beggars. Leave
this house because of my conduct! What can Mrs Stanbury have said? What
can any of them have said? I will demand to be told. Free himself from
the connection! Oh, Nora, Nora! that it should come to this! that I
should be thus threatened, who have been as innocent as a baby! If it
were not for my child, I think that I should destroy myself!'