Books: He Knew He Was Right

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Nora said what she could to comfort her sister, insisting chiefly on
the promise that, the child should not be taken away. There was no
doubt as to the husband's power in the mind of either of them; and
though, as regarded herself, Mrs Trevelyan would have defied her
husband, let his power be what it might, yet she acknowledged to
herself that she was in some degree restrained by the fear that she
would find herself deprived of her only comfort.

'We must just go where he bids us till papa comes,' said Nora.

'And when papa is here, what help will there be then? He will not let
me go back to the islands with my boy. For myself I might die, or get
out of his way anywhere. I can see that. Priscilla Stanbury is right
when she says that no woman should trust herself to any man. Disgraced!
That I should live to be told by my husband that I had disgraced him by
a lover!'

There was some sort of agreement made between the two sisters as to the
manner in which Priscilla should be interrogated respecting the
sentence of banishment which had been passed. They both agreed that it
would be useless to make inquiry of Mrs Stanbury. If anything had
really been said to justify the statement made in Mr Trevelyan's
letter, it must have come from Priscilla, and have reached Trevelyan
through Priscilla's brother. They, both of them, had sufficiently
learned the ways of the house to be sure that Mrs Stanbury had not been
the person active in the matter. They went down, therefore, together,
and found Priscilla seated at her desk in the parlour. Mrs Stanbury was
also in the room, and it had been presumed between the sisters that the
interrogation should be made in that lady's absence; but Mrs Trevelyan
was too hot in the matter for restraint, and she at once opened out her
budget of grievance.

'I have a letter from my husband,' she said and then paused. But
Priscilla, seeing from the fire in her eyes that she was much moved,
made no reply, but turned to listen to what might further be said. 'I
do not know why I should trouble you with his suspicions,' continued
Mrs Trevelyan, 'or read to you what he says about Colonel Osborne.' As
she spoke she was holding her husband's letter open in her hands.
'There is nothing in it that you do not know. He says I have
corresponded with him. So I have and he shall see the correspondence.
He says that Colonel Osborne visited me. He did come to see me and
Nora.'

'As any other old man might have done,' said Nora.

'It was not likely that I should openly confess myself to be afraid to
see my father's old friend. But the truth is, my husband does not know
what a woman is.'

She had begun by declaring that she would not trouble her friend with
any statement of her husband's complaints against her; but now she had
made her way to the subject, and could hardly refrain herself.
Priscilla understood this, and thought that it would be wise to
interrupt her by a word that might bring her back to her original
purpose. 'Is there anything,' said she, 'which we can do to help you?'

'To help me? No God only can help me. But Louis informs me that I am to
be turned out of this house, because you demand that we should go.'

'Who says that?' exclaimed Mrs Stanbury.

'My husband. Listen; this is what he says "I am greatly grieved to hear
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." Is that true? Is that true?' In her general mode of
carrying herself, and of enduring the troubles of her life, Mrs
Trevelyan was a strong woman; but now her grief was too much for her,
and she burst out into tears. 'I am the most unfortunate woman that
ever was born!' she sobbed out through her tears.

'I never said that you were to go,' said Mrs Stanbury.

'But your son has told Mr Trevelyan that we must go,' said Nora, who
felt that her sense of injury against Hugh Stanbury was greatly
increased by what had taken place. To her mind he was the person most
important in the matter. Why had he desired that they should be sent
away from the Clock House? She was very angry with him, and declared to
herself that she hated him with all her heart. For this man she had
sent away that other lover a lover who had really loved her! And she
had even confessed that it was so!

'There is a misunderstanding about this,' said Priscilla.

'It must be with your brother, then,' said Nora.

'I think not,' said Priscilla: 'I think that it has been with Mr
Trevelyan.' Then she went on to explain, with much difficulty, but
still with a slow distinctness that was peculiar to her, what had
really taken place. 'We have endeavoured,' she said, 'to show you my
mother and I that we have not misjudged you; but it is certainly true
that I told my brother that I did not think the arrangement a good one
quite as a permanence.' It was very difficult, and her cheeks were red
as she spoke, and her lips faltered. It was an exquisite pain to her to
have to give the pain which her words would convey; but there was no
help for it as she said to herself more than once at the time there was
nothing to be done but to tell the truth.

'I never said so,' blurted out Mrs Stanbury, with her usual weakness.

'No, mother. It was my saying. In discussing what was best for us all,
with Hugh, I told him what I have just now explained.'

'Then of course we must go,' said Mrs Trevelyan, who had gulped down
her sobs and was resolved to be firm to give way to no more tears, to
bear all without sign of womanly weakness.

'You will stay with us till your father comes,' said Priscilla.

'Of course you will,' said Mrs Stanbury 'you and Nora. We have got to
be such friends, now.'

'No,' said Mrs Trevelyan. 'As to friendship for me, it is out of the
question. We must pack up, Nora, and go somewhere. Heaven knows where!'

Nora was now sobbing. 'Why your brother should want to turn us out
after he has sent us here !'

'My brother wants nothing of the kind,' said Priscilla. 'Your sister
has no better friend than my brother.'

'It will be better, Nora, to discuss the matter no further,' said Mrs
Trevelyan. 'We must go away somewhere; and the sooner the better. To be
an unwelcome guest is always bad; but to be unwelcome for such a reason
as this is terrible.'

'There is no reason,' said Mrs Stanbury; 'indeed there is none.'

'Mrs Trevelyan will understand us better when she is less excited,'
said Priscilla. 'I am not surprised that she should be indignant now. I
can only say again that we hope you will stay with us till Sir
Marmaduke Rowley shall be in England.'

'That is not what your brother means,' said Nora.

'Nor is it what I mean,' said Mrs Trevelyan. 'Nora, we had better go to
our own room. I suppose I must write to my husband; indeed, of course I
must, 'that I may send him the the correspondence. I fear I cannot walk
out into the street, Mrs Stanbury, and make you quit of me till I hear
from him. And if I were to go to an inn at once, people would speak
evil of me and I have no money.'

'My dear, how can you think of such a thing!' said Mrs Stanbury.

'But you may be quite sure that we shall be gone within three days or
four at the furthest. Indeed, I will pledge myself not to remain longer
than that even though I should have to go to the poor-house. Neither I
nor my sister will stay in any family to contaminate it. Come, Nora.'
And so speaking she sailed out of the room, and her sister followed
her.

'Why did you say anything about, it? Oh dear, oh dear! why did you
speak to Hugh? See what you have done?'

'I am sorry that I did speak,' replied Priscilla, slowly.

'Sorry! Of course you are sorry; but what good is that?'

'But, mother; I do not think that I was wrong. I feel sure that the
real fault in all this is with Mr Trevelyan as it has been all through.
He should not have written to her as he has done.'

'I suppose Hugh did tell him.'

'No doubt and I told Hugh; but not after the fashion in which he has
told her. I blame myself mostly for this that we ever consented to come
to this house. We had no business here. Who is to pay the rent?'

'Hugh insisted upon taking it.'

'Yes and he will pay the rent; and we shall be a drag upon him, as
though he had been fool enough to have a wife and a family of his own.
And what good have we done? We had not strength enough to say that that
wicked man should not see her when he came for he is a wicked man.'

'If we had done that she would have been as bad then as she is now.'

'Mother, we had no business to meddle either with her badness or her
goodness. What had we to do with the wife of such a one as Mr
Trevelyan, or with any woman who was separated from her husband?'

'It was Hugh who thought we should be of service to them.'

'Yes and I do not blame him. He is in a position to be of service to
people. He can do work and earn money, and has a right to think and to
speak. We have a right to think only for ourselves, and we should not
have yielded to him. How are we to get back again out of this house to
our cottage?'

'They are pulling the cottage down, Priscilla.'

'To some other cottage, mother. Do you not feel while we are living
here that we are pretending to be what we are not? After all, Aunt
Stanbury was right, though it was not her business to meddle with us.
We should never have come here. That poor woman now regards us as her
bitter enemies.'

'I meant to do for the best,' said Mrs Stanbury.

'The fault was mine, mother.'

'But you meant it for the best, my dear.'

'Meaning for the best is trash. I don't know that I did mean it for the
best. While we were at the cottage we paid our way and were honest.
What is it people say of us now?'

'They can't say any harm.'

'They say that we are paid by the husband to keep his wife, and paid
again by the lover to betray the husband.'

'Priscilla!'

'Yes it is shocking enough. But that comes of people going out of
their proper course. We were too humble and low to have a right to
take any part in such a matter. How true it is that while one crouches
on the ground, one can never fall.'

The matter was discussed in the Clock House all day, between Mrs
Stanbury and Priscilla, and between Mrs Trevelyan and Nora, in their
rooms and in the garden; but nothing could come of such discussions. No
change could be made till further instructions should have been
received from the angry husband; nor could any kind of argument be even
invented by Priscilla which might be efficacious in inducing the two
ladies to remain at the Clock House, even should Mr Trevelyan allow
them to do so. They all felt the intolerable injustice, as it appeared
to them of their subjection to the caprice of an unreasonable and
ill-conditioned man; but to all of them it seemed plain enough that in
this matter the husband must exercise his own will at any rate, till
Sir Marmaduke should be in England. There were many difficulties
throughout the day. Mrs Trevelyan would not go down to dinner, sending
word that she was ill, and that she would, if she were allowed, have
some tea in her own room. And Nora said that she would remain with her
sister. Priscilla went to them more than once; and late in the evening
they all met in the parlour. But any conversation seemed to he
impossible; and Mrs Trevelyan, as she went up to her room at night,
again declared that she would rid the house of her presence as soon as
possible.

One thing, however, was done on that melancholy day. Mrs Trevelyan
wrote to her husband, and enclosed Colonel Osborne's letter to herself,
and a copy of her reply. The reader will hardly require to be told that
no such further letter had been written by her as that of which Bozzle
had given information to her husband. Men whose business it is to
detect hidden and secret things, are very apt to detect things which
have never been done. What excuse can a detective make even to himself
for his own existence if he can detect nothing? Mr Bozzle was an
active-minded man, who gloried in detecting, and who, in the special
spirit of his trade, had taught himself to believe that all around him
were things secret and hidden, which would be within his power of
unravelling if only the slightest clue were put in his hand. He lived
by the crookednesses of people, and therefore was convinced that
straight doings in the world were quite exceptional. Things dark and
dishonest, fights fought and races run that they might be lost, plants
and crosses, women false to their husbands, sons false to their
fathers, daughters to their mothers, servants to their masters, affairs
always secret, dark, foul, and fraudulent, were to him the normal
condition of life. It was to be presumed that Mrs Trevelyan should
continue to correspond with her lover that old Mrs Stanbury should
betray her trust by conniving at the lover's visit that everybody
concerned should be steeped to the hips in lies and iniquity. When,
therefore, he found at Colonel Osborne's rooms that the Colonel had
received a letter with the Lessboro' post-mark, addressed in the
handwriting of a woman, he did not scruple to declare that Colonel
Osborne had received, on that morning, a letter from Mr Trevelyan's
'lady.' But in sending to her husband what she called with so much
bitterness, 'the correspondence,' Mrs Trevelyan had to enclose simply
the copy of one sheet note from herself.

But she now wrote again to Colonel Osborne, and enclosed to her
husband, not a copy of what she had written, but the note itself. It
was as follows:

'Nuncombe Putney, Wednesday, August 10.

'My dear Colonel Osborne,

'My husband has desired me not to see you, or to write to you, or to
hear from you again. I must therefore beg you to enable me to obey him
at any rate, till papa comes to England.

Yours truly,

Emily Trevelyan.

And then she wrote to her husband, and in the writing of this letter
there was much doubt, much labour, and many changes. We will give it as
it was written when completed:

'I have received your letter, and will obey your commands to the best
of my power. In order that you may not be displeased by any further
unavoidable correspondence between me and Colonel Osborne, I have
written to him a note, which I now send to you. I send it that you may
forward it. If you do not choose to do so, I cannot be answerable
either for his seeing me, or for his writing to me again.

I send also copies of all the correspondence I have had with Colonel
Osborne since you turned me out of your house. When he came to call on
me, Nora remained with me while he was here. I blush while I write this
not for myself, but that I should be so suspected as to make such a
statement necessary.

You say that I have disgraced you and myself. I have done neither. I am
disgraced but it is you that have disgraced me. I have never spoken a
word or done a thing, as regards you, of which I have cause to be
ashamed.

I have told Mrs Stanbury that I and Nora will leave her house as soon
as we can be made to know where we are to go. I beg that this may be
decided instantly, as else we must walk out into the street without a
shelter. After what has been said, I cannot remain here.

My sister bids me say that she will relieve you of all burden
respecting herself as soon as possible. She will probably be able to
find a home with my aunt, Mrs Outhouse, till papa comes to England. As
for myself, I can only say that till he comes, I shall do exactly what
you order.

Emily Trevelyan.

Nuncombe Putney, August 10.

'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 XXIX - MR AND MRS OUTHOUSE

Both Mr Outhouse and his wife were especially timid in taking upon
themselves the cares of other people. Not on that account is it to be
supposed that they were bad or selfish. They were both given much to
charity, and bestowed both in time and money more than is ordinarily
considered necessary even from persons in their position. But what they
gave, they gave away from their own quiet hearth. Had money been
wanting to the daughters of his wife's brother, Mr Outhouse would have
opened such small coffer as he had with a free hand. But he would have
much preferred that his benevolence should be used in a way that would
bring upon him no further responsibility and no questionings from
people whom he did not know and could not understand.

The Rev. Oliphant Outhouse had been Rector of St.
Diddulph's-in-the-East for the last fifteen years, having married the
sister of Sir Marmaduke Rowley then simply Mr Rowley, with a colonial
appointment in Jamaica of 120 pounds per annum twelve years before his
promotion, while he was a curate in one of the populous borough
parishes. He had thus been a London clergyman all his life; but he knew
almost as little of London society as though he had held a cure in a
Westmoreland valley. He had worked hard, but his work had been
altogether among the poor. He had no gift of preaching, and had
acquired neither reputation nor popularity. But he could work and
having been transferred because of that capability to the temporary
curacy of St. Diddulph's out of one diocese into another he had
received the living from the bishop's hands when it became vacant.

A dreary place was the parsonage of St. Diddulph's-in-the-East for the
abode of a gentleman. Mr Outhouse had not, in his whole parish, a
parishioner with whom he could consort. The greatest men around him
were the publicans, and the most numerous were men employed in and
around the docks. Dredgers of mud, navvies employed on suburban canals,
excavators, loaders and unloaders of cargo, cattle drivers, whose
driving, however, was done mostly on board ship such and such like were
the men who were the fathers of the families of St. Diddulph's-in-the-East.
And there was there, not far removed from the muddy estuary of a little
stream that makes its black way from the Essex marshes among the houses
of the poorest of the poor into the Thames, a large commercial
establishment for turning the carcasses of horses into manure. Messrs
Flowsem and Blurt were in truth the great people of St.
Diddulph's-in-the-East; but the closeness of their establishment was
not an additional attraction to the parsonage. They were liberal,
however, with their money, and Mr Outhouse was disposed to think custom
perhaps having made the establishment less objectionable to him than it
was at first that St. Diddulph's-in-the-East would be more of a
Pandemonium than it now was, if by any sanitary law Messrs. Flowsem and
Blurt were compelled to close their doors. 'Non olet,' he would say
with a grim smile when the charitable cheque of the firm would come
punctually to hand on the first Saturday after Christmas.

But such a house as his would be, as he knew, but a poor residence for
his wife's nieces. Indeed, without positively saying that he was
unwilling to receive them, he had, when he first heard of the breaking
up of the house in Curzon Street, shewn that he would rather not take
upon his shoulders so great a responsibility. He and his wife had
discussed the matter between them, and had come to the conclusion that
they did not know what kind of things might have been done in Curzon
Street. They would think no evil, they said; but the very idea of a
married woman with a lover was dreadful to them. It might be that their
niece was free from blame. They hoped so. And even though her sin had
been of ever so deep a dye, they would take her in if it were indeed
necessary. But they hoped that such help from them might not be needed.
They both knew how to give counsel to a poor woman, how to rebuke a
poor man how to comfort, encourage, or to upbraid the poor. Practice
had told them how far they might go with some hope of doing good and at
what stage of demoralisation no good from their hands was any longer
within the scope of fair expectation. But all this was among the poor.
With what words to encourage such a one as their niece Mrs Trevelyan to
encourage her or to rebuke her, as her conduct might seem to make
necessary they both felt that They were altogether ignorant. To them
Mrs Trevelyan was a fine lady. To Mr Outhouse, Sir Marmaduke had ever
been a fine gentleman, given much to worldly things, who cared more for
whist and a glass of wine than for anything else, and who thought that
he had a good excuse for never going to church in England because he
was called upon, as he said, to show himself in the governor's pew
always once on Sundays, and frequently twice, when he was at the seat
of his government. Sir Marmaduke manifestly looked upon church as a
thing in itself notoriously disagreeable. To Mr Outhouse it afforded
the great events of the week. And Mrs Outhouse would declare that to
hear her husband preach was the greatest joy of her life. It may be
understood therefore that though the family connection between the
Rowleys and the Outhouses had been kept up with a semblance of
affection, it had never blossomed forth into cordial friendship.