Books: He Knew He Was Right

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'Oh dear no not at all,' said he.

'Oh dear no not at all,' said

Arabella French was painfully alive to the fact that she must do
something. She had her fish on the hook; but of what use is a fish on
your hook, if you cannot land him? When could she have a better
opportunity than this of landing the scaly darling out of the fresh and
free waters of his bachelor stream, and sousing him into the pool of
domestic life, to be ready there for her own household purposes? 'I had
known you so long, Mr Gibson,' she said, 'and had valued your
friendship so so deeply.' As he looked at her, he could see nothing but
the shapeless excrescence to which his eyes had been so painfully
called by Miss Stanbury's satire. It is true that he had formerly been
very tender with her, but she had not then carried about with her that
distorted monster. He did not believe himself to be at all bound by
anything which had passed between them in circumstances so very
different. But yet he ought to say something. He ought to have said
something; but he said nothing. She was patient, however, very patient;
and she went on playing him with her hook. 'I am so glad that I did not
go out to-night with mamma. It has been such a pleasure to me to have
this conversation with you. Camilla, perhaps, would say that I am
unmaidenly.'

'I don't think so.'

'That is all that I care for, Mr Gibson. If you acquit me, I do not
mind who accuses. I should not like to suppose that you thought me
unmaidenly. Anything would be better than that; but I can throw all
such considerations to the wind when true true friendship is concerned.
Don't you think that one ought, Mr Gibson?'

If it had not been for the thing at the back of her head, he would have
done it now. Nothing but that gave him courage to abstain. It grew
bigger and bigger, more shapeless, monstrous, absurd, and abominable,
as he looked at it. Nothing should force upon him the necessity of
assisting to carry such an abortion through the world. 'One ought to
sacrifice everything to friendship,' said Mr Gibson, 'except
self-respect.'

He meant nothing personal. Something special, in the way of an opinion,
was expected of him; and, therefore, he had striven to say something
special. But she was in tears in a moment. 'Oh, Mr Gibson,' she
exclaimed; 'oh, Mr Gibson!'

'What is the matter, Miss French?'

'Have I lost your respect? Is it that that you mean?'

'Certainly not, Miss French.'

'Do not call me Miss French, or I shall be sure that you condemn me.
Miss French sounds so very cold. You used to call me Bella.' That was
quite true; but it was long ago, thought Mr Gibson, before the monster
had been attached. 'Will you not call me Bella now?'

He thought that he had rather not; and yet, how was he to avoid it? On
a sudden he became very crafty. Had it not been for the sharpness of
his mother-wit, he would certainly have been landed at that moment. 'As
you truly observed just now,' he said, 'the tongues of people are so
malignant. There are little birds that hear everything.'

'I don't care what the little birds hear,' said Miss French, through
her tears. 'I am a very unhappy girl I know that; and I don't care what
anybody says. It is nothing to me what anybody says. I know what I
feel.' At this moment there was some dash of truth about her. The fish
was so very heavy on hand that, do what she would, she could not land
him. Her hopes before this had been very low hopes that had once been
high; but they had been depressed gradually; and, in the slow, dull
routine of her daily life, she had learned to bear disappointment by
degrees, without sign of outward suffering, without consciousness of
acute pain. The task of her life had been weary, and the wished-for
goal was ever becoming more and more distant; but there had been still
a chance, and she had fallen away into a lethargy of lessening
expectation, from which joy, indeed, had been banished, but in which
there had been nothing of agony. Then had come upon the whole house at
Heavitree the great Stanbury peril, and, arising out of that, had
sprung new hopes to Arabella, which made her again capable of all the
miseries of a foiled ambition. She could again be patient, if patience
might be of any service; but in such a condition an eternity of
patience is simply suicidal. She was willing to work hard, but how
could she work harder than she had worked. Poor young woman perishing
beneath an incubus which a false idea of fashion had imposed on her!

'I hope I have said nothing that makes you unhappy,' pleaded Mr Gibson.
'I'm sure I haven't meant it.'

'But you have,' she said. 'You make me very unhappy. You condemn me. I
see you do. And if I have done wrong it had been all because Oh dear,
oh dear, oh dear!'

'But who says you have done wrong?'

'You won't call me Bella because you say the little birds will hear it.
If I don't care for the little birds, why should you?'

There is no question more difficult than this for a gentleman to
answer. Circumstances do not often admit of its being asked by a lady
with that courageous simplicity which had come upon Miss French in this
moment of her agonising struggle; but nevertheless it is one which, in
a more complicated form, is often put, and to which some reply, more or
less complicated, is expected. 'If I, a woman, can dare, for your sake,
to encounter the public tongue, will you, a man, be afraid?' The true
answer, if it could be given, would probably be this; 'I am afraid,
though a man, because I have much to lose and little to get. You are
not afraid, though a woman, because you have much to get and little to
lose.' But such an answer would be uncivil, and is not often given.
Therefore men shuffle and lie, and tell themselves that in love love
here being taken to mean all antenuptial contests between man and woman
everything is fair. Mr Gibson had the above answer in his mind, though
he did not frame it into words. He was neither sufficiently brave nor
sufficiently cruel to speak to her in such language. There was nothing
for him, therefore, but that he must shuffle and lie.

'I only meant,' said he, 'that I would not for worlds do anything to
make you uneasy.'

She did not see how she could again revert to the subject of her own
Christian name. She had made her little tender, loving request, and it
had been refused. Of course she knew that it had been refused as a
matter of caution. She was not angry with him because of his caution,
as she had expected him to be cautious. The barriers over which she had
to climb were no more than she had expected to find in her way but they
were so very high and so very difficult! Of course she was aware that
he would escape if he could. She was not angry with him on that
account. Anger could not have helped her. Indeed, she did not price
herself highly enough to make her feel that she would be justified in
being angry. It was natural enough that he shouldn't want her. She knew
herself to be a poor, thin, vapid, tawdry creature, with nothing to
recommend her to any man except a sort of second-rate, provincial-town
fashion which infatuated as she was she attributed in a great degree to
the thing she carried on her head. She knew nothing. She could do
nothing. She possessed nothing. She was not angry with him because he
so evidently wished to avoid her. But she thought that if she could
only be successful she would be good and loving and obedient and that
it was fair for her at any rate to try. Each created animal must live
and get its food by the gifts which the Creator has given to it, let
those gifts be as poor, as they may let them be even as distasteful as
they may to other members of the great created family The rat, the
toad, the slug, the flea, must each live according to its appointed
mode of existence. Animals which are parasites by nature can only live
by attaching themselves to life that is strong. To Arabella Mr Gibson
would be strong enough, and it seemed to her that it she could fix
herself permanently upon his strength, that would be her proper mode of
living. She was not angry with him because he resisted the attempt, but
she had nothing of conscience to tell her that she should spare him as
long as there remained to her a chance of success. And should not her
plea of excuse, her justification be admitted? There are tormentors as
to which no man argues that they are iniquitous, though they be very
troublesome. He either rids himself of them, or suffers as quiescently
as he may.

'We used to be such great friends, she said, still crying, 'and I am
afraid you don't like me a bit now.'

'Indeed, I do I have always liked you. But--'

'But what? Do tell me what the but means. I will do anything that you
bid me.'

Then it occurred to him that if, after such a promise, he were to
confide to her his feeling that the chignon which she wore was ugly and
unbecoming, she would probably be induced to change her mode of
head-dress. It was a foolish idea, because, had he followed it out, he
would have seen that compliance on her part in such a matter could only
be given with the distinct understanding that a certain reward should
be the consequence. When an unmarried gentleman calls upon an unmarried
lady to change the fashion of her personal adornments, the unmarried
lady has a right to expect that the unmarried gentleman means to make
her his wife. But Mr Gibson had no such meaning; and was led into error
by the necessity for sudden action. When she offered to do anything
that he might bid her do, he could not take up his hat and go away he
looked up into his face, expecting that he would give her some order
and he fell into the temptation that was spread for him.

'If I might say a word,' he began.

'You may say anything,' she exclaimed.

'If I were you I don't think--'

'You don't think what, Mr Gibson?'

He found it to be a matter very difficult of approach. 'Do you know, I
don't think the fashion that has come up about wearing your hair quite
suits you not so well as the way you used to do it.' She became on a
sudden very red in the face, and he thought that she was angry. Vexed
she was, but still, accompanying her vexation, there was a remembrance
that she was achieving victory even by her own humiliation. She loved
her chignon; but she was ready to abandon even that for him.
Nevertheless she could not speak for a moment or two, and he was forced
to continue his criticism. 'I have no doubt those things are very
becoming and all that, and I dare say they are comfortable.'

'Oh, very,' she said.

'But there was a simplicity that I liked about the other.'

Could it be then that for the last five years he had stood aloof from
her because she had arrayed herself in fashionable attire? She was
still very red in the face, still suffering from wounded vanity, still
conscious of that soreness which affects us all when we are made to
understand that we are considered to have failed there, where we have
most thought that we excelled. But her woman art enabled her quickly to
conceal the pain. 'I have made a promise,' she said, 'and you will find
that I will keep it.'

'What promise?' asked Mr Gibson.

'I said that I would do as you bade me, and so I will. I would have
done it sooner if I had known that you wished it. I would never have
worn it at all if I had thought that you disliked it.'

'I think that a little of them is very nice,' said Mr Gibson. Mr Gibson
was certainly an awkward man. But there are men so awkward that it
seems to be their especial province to say always the very worst thing
at the very worst moment.

She became redder than ever as she was thus told of the hugeness of her
favourite ornament. She was almost angry now. But she restrained
herself, thinking perhaps of how she might teach him taste in days to
come as he was teaching her now. 'I will change it tomorrow,' she said
with a smile. 'You come and see to-morrow.'

Upon this he got up and took his hat and made his escape, assuring her
that he would come and see her on the morrow. She let him go now
without any attempt at further tenderness. Certainly she had gained
much during the interview. He had as good a told her in what had been
her offence, and of course, when she had remedied that offence, he
could hardly refuse to return to her. She got up as soon as she was
alone, and looked at her head in the glass, and told herself that the
pity would be great. It was not that the chignon was in itself a thing
of beauty, but that it imparted so unmistakable an air of fashion! It
divested her of that dowdiness which she feared above all things, and
enabled her to hold her own among other young women, without feeling
that she was absolutely destitute of attraction. There had been a
certain homage paid to it, which she had recognised and enjoyed. But it
was her ambition to hold her own, not among young women, but among
clergymen's wives, and she would certainly obey his orders. She could
not make the attempt now because of the complications; but she
certainly would make it before she laid her head on the pillow--and
would explain to Camilla that it was a little joke between herself and
Mr Gibson.

CHAPTER XLVIII - MR GIBSON IS PUNISHED

Miss Stanbury was divine in her wrath, and became more and more so
daily as new testimony reached her of dishonesty on the part of the
Frenches and of treachery on the part of Mr Gibson. And these people,
so empty, so vain, so weak, were getting the better of her, were
conquering her, were robbing her of her prestige and her ancient glory,
imply because she herself was too generous to speak out and tell the
truth! There was a martyrdom to her in this which was almost
unendurable.

Now there came to her one day at luncheon time on the day succeeding
that on which Miss French had promised to sacrifice her chignon a
certain Mrs Clifford from Budleigh Salterton, to whom she was much
attached. Perhaps the distance of Budleigh Salterton from Exeter added
somewhat to this affection, so that Mrs Clifford was almost closer to
our friend's heart even than Mrs MacHugh, who lived just at the other
end of the cathedral. And in truth Mrs Clifford was a woman more
serious in her mode of thought than Mrs MacHugh, and one who had more
in common with Miss Stanbury than that other lady. Mrs Clifford had
been a Miss Noel of Doddiscombe Leigh, and she and Miss Stanbury had
been engaged to be married at the same time each to a man of fortune.
One match had been completed in the ordinary course of matches. What
had been the course of the other we already know. But the friendship
had been maintained on very close terms. Mrs MacHugh was a Gallio at
heart, anxious chiefly to remove from herself and from her friends also
all the troubles of life, and make things smooth and easy. She was one
who disregarded great questions; who cared little or nothing what
people said of her; who considered nothing worth the trouble of a fight
Epicuri de grege porca. But there was nothing swinish about Mrs
Clifford of Budleigh Salterton. She took life thoroughly in earnest.
She was a Tory who sorrowed heartily for her country, believing that it
was being brought to ruin by the counsels of evil men. She prayed daily
to be delivered from dissenters, radicals, and wolves in sheep's
clothing by which latter bad name she meant especially a certain
leading politician of the day who had, with the cunning of the devil,
tempted and perverted the virtue of her own political friends. And she
was one who thought that the slightest breath of scandal on a young
woman's name should be stopped at once. An antique, pure-minded,
anxious, self-sacrificing matron was Mrs Clifford, and very dear to the
heart of Miss Stanbury.

After lunch was over on the day in question Mrs Clifford got Miss
Stanbury into some closet retirement, and there spoke her mind as to
the things which were being said. It had been asserted in her presence
by Camilla French that she, Camilla, was authorised by Mr Gibson to
declare that he had never thought of proposing to Dorothy Stanbury, and
that Miss Stanbury had been 'labouring under some strange
misapprehension in the matter.' 'Now, my dear, I don't care very much
for the young lady in question,' said Mrs Clifford, alluding to Camilla
French.

'Very little, indeed, I should think,' said Miss Stanbury, with a shake
of her head.

'Quite true, my dear but that does not make the words out of her mouth
the less efficacious for evil. She clearly insinuated that you had
endeavoured to make up a match between this gentleman and your niece,
and that you had failed.' So much was at least true. Miss Stanbury felt
this, and felt also that she could not explain the truth, even to her
dear old friend. In the midst of her divine wrath she had acknowledged
to herself that she had brought Mr Gibson into his difficulty, and that
it would not become her to tell any one of his failure. And in this
matter she did not herself accuse Mr Gibson. She believed that the lie
originated with Camilla French, and it was against Camilla that her
wrath raged the fiercest.

'She is a poor, mean, disappointed thing,' said Miss Stanbury.

'Very probably but I think I should ask her to hold her tongue about
Miss Dorothy,' said Mrs Clifford.

The consultation in the closet was carried on for about half-an-hour,
and then Miss Stanbury put on her bonnet and shawl and descended into
Mrs Clifford's carriage. The carriage took the Heavitree road, and
deposited Miss Stanbury at the door of Mrs French's house. The walk
home from Heavitree would be nothing, and Mrs Clifford proceeded on her
way, having given this little help in counsel, and conveyance to her
friend. Mrs French was at home, and Miss Stanbury was shown up into the
room in which, the three ladies were sitting.

The reader will doubtless remember the promise which Arabella had made
to Mr Gibson. That promise she had already fulfilled to the amazement
of her mother and sister; and when Miss Stanbury entered the room the
elder daughter of the family was seen without her accustomed head-gear.
If the truth is to be owned, Miss Stanbury gave the poor young woman no
credit for her new simplicity, but put down the deficiency to the
charge of domestic slatternliness. She was unjust enough to declare
afterwards that she, had found Arabella French only half dressed at
between three and four o'clock in the afternoon! From which this lesson
may surely be learned that though the way down Avernus may be, and
customarily is, made with great celerity, the return journey, if made
at all, must be made slowly. A young woman may commence in chignons by
attaching any amount of an edifice to her head; but the reduction
should be made by degrees. Arabella's edifice had, in Miss Stanbury's
eyes, been the ugliest thing in art that she had known; but, now, its
absence offended her, and she most untruly declared that she had come
upon the young woman in the middle of the day just out of her bed-room
and almost in her dressing-gown.

And the whole French family suffered a diminution of power from the
strange phantasy which had come upon Arabella. They all felt, in sight
of the enemy, that they had to a certain degree lowered their flag. One
of the ships, at least, had shown signs of striking, and this element
of weakness made itself felt through the whole fleet. Arabella,
herself, when she saw Miss Stanbury, was painfully conscious of her
head, and wished that she had postponed the operation till the evening.
She smiled with a faint watery smile, and was aware that something
ailed her.

The greetings at first were civil, but very formal, as are those
between nations which are nominally at peace, but which are waiting for
a sign at which each may spring at the other's throat. In this instance
the Juno from the Close had come quite prepared to declare her casus
belli as complete, and to fling down. her gauntlet, unless the enemy
should at once yield to her everything demanded with an abject
submission. 'Mrs French,' she said, 'I have called to-day for a
particular purpose, and I must address myself chiefly to Miss Camilla.'

'Oh, certainly,' said Mrs French.

'I shall be delighted to hear anything from you, Miss Stanbury,' said
Camilla not without an air of bravado. Arabella said nothing, but she
put her hand up almost convulsively to the back of her head.

'I have been told to-day by a friend of mine, Miss Camilla,' began Miss
Stanbury, 'that you declared yourself, in her presence, authorised by
Mr Gibson to make a statement about my niece Dorothy.'

'May I ask who was your friend?' demanded Mrs French.

'It was Mrs Clifford, of course,' said Camilla. 'There is nobody else
would try to make difficulties.'

'There need be no difficulty at all, Miss Camilla,' said Miss Stanbury,
'if you will promise me that you will not repeat the statement. It
can't be true.'

'But it is true,' said Camilla.

'What is true?' asked Miss Stanbury, surprised by the audacity of the
girl.

'It is true that Mr Gibson authorised us to state what I did state when
Mrs Clifford heard me.'

'And what was that?'

'Only this that people had been saying all about Exeter that he was
going to be married to a young lady, and that as the report was
incorrect, and as he had never had the remotest idea in his mind of
making the young lady his wife.' Camilla, as she said this, spoke with
a great deal of emphasis, putting forward her chin and shaking her head,
'and as he thought it was uncomfortable both for the young lady and for
himself, and as there was nothing in it the least in the world nothing
at all, no glimmer of a foundation for the report, it would be better
to have it denied everywhere. That is what I said: and we had authority
from the gentleman himself. Arabella can say the same, and so can mamma
only mamma did not hear him.' Nor had Camilla heard him, but that
incident she did not mention.

The circumstances were, in Miss Stanbury's judgment, becoming very
remarkable. She did not for a moment believe Camilla. She did not
believe that Mr Gibson had given to either of the Frenches any
justification for the statement just made. But Camilla had been so much
more audacious than Miss Stanbury had expected, that that lady was for
a moment struck dumb. 'I'm sure, Miss Stanbury,' said Mrs French, 'we
don't want to give any offence to your niece very far from it.'

'My niece doesn't care about it two straws,' said Miss Stanbury. 'It is
I that care. And I care very much. The things that have been said have
been altogether false.'

'How false, Miss Stanbury?' asked Camilla.

'Altogether false as false as they can be.'

'Mr Gibson must know his own mind,' said Camilla.

'My dear, there's a little disappointment,' said Miss French, 'and it
don't signify.'

'There's no disappointment at all,' said Miss Stanbury, 'and it does
signify very much. Now that I've begun, I'll go to the bottom of it. If
you say that Mr Gibson told you to make these statements, I'll go to Mr
Gibson. I'll have it out somehow.'

'You may have what you like out for us, Miss Stanbury,' said Camilla.

'I don't believe Mr Gibson said anything of the kind.'

'That's civil,' said Camilla.

'But why shouldn't he?' asked Arabella.

'There were the reports, you know,' said Mrs French.

'And why shouldn't he deny them when there wasn't a word of truth in
them?' continued Camilla. 'For my part, I think the gentleman is bound
for the lady's sake to declare that there's nothing in it when there is
nothing in it.' This was more than Miss Stanbury could bear. Hitherto
the enemy had seemed to have the best of it. Camilla was firing
broadside after broadside, as though she was assured of victory. Even
Mrs French was becoming courageous; and Arabella was forgetting the
place where her chignon ought to have been. 'I really do not know what
else there is for me to say,' remarked Camilla, with a toss of her
head, 'and an air of impudence that almost drove poor Miss Stanbury
frantic.

It was on her tongue to declare the whole truth, but she refrained. She
had schooled herself on this subject vigorously. She would not betray
Mr Gibson.' Had she known all the truth or had she believed Camilla
French's version of the story there would have been no betrayal. But
looking at the matter with such knowledge as she had at present, she
did not even yet feel herself justified in declaring that Mr Gibson had
offered his hand to her niece, and had been refused. She was, however,
sorely tempted. 'Very well, ladies,' she said. 'I shall now see Mr
Gibson, and ask him whether he did give you authority to make such
statements as you have been spreading abroad everywhere.' Then the door
of the room was opened, and in a moment Mr Gibson was among them. He
was true to his promise, and had come to see Arabella with her altered
headdress but he had come at this hour thinking that escape in the
morning would be easier and quicker than it might have been in the
evening. His mind had been full of Arabella and her head-dress even up
to the moment of his knocking at the door; but all that was driven out
of his brain at once when he saw Miss Stanbury.