Books: He Knew He Was Right

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'If this goes on much longer,' said he, 'I shall be in Bedlam.'

'My dear, don't speak of it in that way!'

'That's all very well. I suppose I ought to say that I like it. There
has been a policeman here who is going to bring an action against me.'

'A policeman!'

'Some one that her husband has sent for the child.'

'The boy must not be given up, Oliphant.'

'It's all very well to say that, but I suppose we must obey the law.
The Parsonage of St Diddulph's isn't a castle in the Apennines. When it
comes to this, that a policeman is sent here to fetch any man's child,
and threatens me with an action because I tell him to leave my house,
it is very hard upon me, seeing how very little I've had to do with it.
It's all over the parish now that my niece is kept here away from her
husband, and that a lover comes to see her. This about a policeman will
be known now, of course. I only say it is hard; that's all.' The wife
did all that she could to comfort him, reminding him that Sir Marmaduke
would be home soon, and that then the burden would be taken from his
shoulders. But she was forced to admit that it was very hard.

CHAPTER LIII - HUGH STANBURY IS SHEWN TO BE NO CONJUROR

Many weeks had now passed since Hugh Stanbury had paid his visit to St
Diddulph's, and Nora Rowley was beginning to believe that her rejection
of her lover had been so firm and decided that she would never see him
or hear from him more and she had long since confessed to herself that
if she did not see him or hear from him soon, life would not be worth a
straw to her. To all of us a single treasure counts for much more when
the outward circumstances of our life are dull, unvaried, and
melancholy, than it does when our days are full of pleasure, or
excitement, or even of business. With Nora Rowley at St Diddulph's life
at present was very melancholy. There was little or no society to
enliven her. Her sister was sick at heart, and becoming ill in health
under the burden of her troubles. Mr Outhouse was moody and wretched;
and Mrs Outhouse, though she did her best to make her house comfortable
to her unwelcome inmates, could not make it appear that their presence
there was a pleasure to her. Nora understood better than did her sister
how distasteful the present arrangement was to their uncle, and was
consequently very uncomfortable on that score. And in the midst of that
unhappiness, she of course told herself that she was a young woman
miserable and unfortunate altogether. It is always so with us. The
heart when it is burdened, though it may have ample strength to bear
the burden, loses its buoyancy and doubts its own power. It is like the
springs of a carriage which are pressed flat by the superincumbent
weight. But, because the springs are good, the weight is carried
safely, and they are the better afterwards for their required purposes
because of the trial to which they have been subjected.

Nora had sent her lover away, and now at the end of three months from
the day of his dismissal she had taught herself to believe that he
would never come again. Amidst the sadness of her life at St Diddulph's
some confidence in a lover expected to come again would have done much
to cheer her. The more she thought of Hugh Stanbury, the more fully she
became convinced that he was the man who as a lover, as a husband, and
as a companion, would just suit all her tastes. She endowed him
liberally with a hundred good gifts in the disposal of which Nature had
been much more sparing. She made for herself a mental portrait of him
more gracious in its flattery than ever was canvas coming from the hand
of a Court limner. She gave him all gifts of manliness, honesty, truth,
and energy, and felt regarding him that he was a Paladin such as
Paladins are in this age, that he was indomitable, sure of success, and
fitted in all respects to take the high position which he would
certainly win for himself. But she did not presume him to be endowed
with such a constancy as would make him come to seek her hand again.
Had Nora at this time of her life been living at the West-end of
London, and going out to parties three or four times a week, she would
have been quite easy about his coming. The springs would not have been
weighted so heavily, and her heart would have been elastic.

No doubt she had forgotten many of the circumstances of his visit and
of his departure. Immediately on his going she had told her sister that
he would certainly come again, but had said at the same time that his
coming could be of no use. He was so poor a man; and she though poorer
than he had been so little accustomed to poverty of life, that she had
then acknowledged to herself that she was not fit to be his wife.
Gradually, as the slow weeks went by her, there had come a change in
her ideas. She now thought that he never would come again; but that if
he did she would confess to him that her own views about life were
changed. 'I would tell him frankly that I could eat a crust with him in
any garret in London.' But this was said to herself never to her
sister. Emily and Mrs Outhouse had determined together that it would be
wise to abstain from all mention of Hugh Stanbury's name. Nora had felt
that her sister had so abstained, and this reticence had assisted in
producing the despair which had come upon her. Hugh, when he had left
her, had certainly given her encouragement to expect that he would
return. She had been sure then that he would return. She had been sure
of it, though she had told him that it would be useless. But now, when
these sad weeks had slowly crept over her head, when during the long
hours of the long days she had thought of him continually telling
herself that it was impossible that she should ever become the wife of
any man if she did not become his she assured herself that she had seen
and heard the last of him. She must surely have forgotten his hot words
and that daring embrace.

Then there came a letter to her. The question of the management of
letters for young ladies is handled very differently in different
houses. In some establishments the post is as free to young ladies as
it is to the reverend seniors of the household. In others it is
considered to be quite a matter of course that some experienced
discretion should sit in judgment on the correspondence of the
daughters of the family. When Nora Rowley was living with her sister in
Curzon Street, she would have been very indignant indeed had it been
suggested to her that there was any authority over her letters vested
in her sister. But now, circumstanced as she was at St Diddulph's, she
did understand that no letter would reach her without her aunt knowing
that it had come. All this was distasteful to her as were indeed all
the details of her life at St Diddulph's but she could not help
herself. Had her aunt told her that she should never be allowed to
receive a letter at all, she must have submitted till her mother had
come to her relief. The letter which reached her now was put into her
hands by her sister, but it had been given to Mrs Trevelyan by Mrs
Outhouse. 'Nora,' said Mrs Trevelyan, 'here is a letter for you. I
think it is from Mr Stanbury.'

'Give it me,' said Nora greedily.

'Of course I will give it you. But I hope you do not intend to
correspond with him.'

'If he has written to me I shall answer him of course,' said Nora,
holding her treasure.

'Aunt Mary thinks that you should not do so till papa and mamma have
arrived.'

'If Aunt Mary is afraid of me let her tell me so, and I will contrive
to go somewhere else.' Poor Nora knew that this threat was futile.
There was no house to which she could take herself.

'She is not afraid of you at all, Nora. She only says that she thinks
you should not write to Mr Stanbury.' Then Nora escaped to the cold but
solitary seclusion of her bed-room and there she read her letter.

The reader may remember that Hugh Stanbury when he last left St
Diddulph's had not been oppressed by any of the gloomy reveries of a
despairing lover. He had spoken his mind freely to Nora, and had felt
himself justified in believing that he had not spoken in vain. He had
had her in his arms, and she had found it impossible to say that she
did not love him. But then she had been quite firm in her purpose to
give him no encouragement that she could avoid. She had said no word
that would justify him in considering that there was any engagement
between them; and, moreover, he had been warned not to come to the
house by its mistress. From day to day he thought of it all, now
telling himself that there was nothing to be done but to trust in her
fidelity till he should be in a position to offer her a fitting home,
and then reflecting that he could not expect such a girl as Nora Rowley
to wait for him, unless he could succeed in making her understand that
he at any rate intended to wait for her. On one day he would think that
good faith and proper consideration for Nora herself required him to
keep silent; on the next he would tell himself that such maudlin
chivalry as he was proposing to himself was sure to go to the wall and
be neither rewarded nor recognised. So at last he sat down and wrote
the following letter:

'Lincoln's Inn Fields, January, 186-.

Dearest Nora,

Ever since I last saw you at St Diddulph's, I have been trying to teach
myself what I ought to do in reference to you. Sometimes I think that
because I am poor I ought to hold my tongue. At others I feel sure that
I ought to speak out loud, because I love you so dearly. You may
presume that just at this moment the latter opinion is in the
ascendant.

As I do write I mean to be very bold so bold that if I am wrong you
will be thoroughly disgusted with me and will never willingly see me
again. But I think it best to be true, and to say what I think. I do
believe that you love me. According to all precedent I ought not to say
so but I do believe it. Ever since I was at St Diddulph's that belief
has made me happy though there have been moments of doubt. If I thought
that you did not love me, I would trouble you no further. A man may win
his way to love when social circumstances are such as to throw him and
the girl together; but such is not the case with us; and unless you
love me now, you never will love me.' 'I do I do!' said Nora, pressing
the letter to her bosom. 'If you do, I think that you owe it me to say
so, and to let me have all the joy and all the feeling of
responsibility which such arm assurance will give me.' 'I will tell him
so,' said Nora; 'I don't care what may come afterwards, but I will tell
him the truth.' 'I know,' continued Hugh, 'that an engagement with me
now would be hazardous, because what I earn is both scanty and
precarious; but it seems to me that nothing could ever be done without
some risk. There are risks of different kinds.' She wondered whether he
was thinking when he wrote this of the rock on which her sister's
barque had been split to pieces 'and we may hardly hope to avoid them
all. For myself, I own that life would be tame to me, if there were no
dangers to be overcome.

If you do love me, and will say so, I will not ask you to be my wife
till I can give you a proper home; but the knowledge that I am the
master of the treasure which I desire will give me a double energy, and
will make me feel that when I have gained so much I cannot fail of
adding to it all other smaller things that may be necessary.

Pray pray send me an answer. I cannot reach you except by writing, as I
was told by your aunt not to come to the house again.

Dearest Nora, pray believe

That I shall always be truly yours only,

HUGH STANBURY.'

Write to him! Of course she would write to him. Of course she would
confess to him the truth. 'He tells me that I owe it to him to say so,
and I acknowledge the debt,' she said aloud to herself. 'And as for a
proper home, he shall be the judge of that.' She resolved that she
would not be a fine lady, not fastidious, not coy, not afraid to take
her full share of the risk of which he spoke in such manly terms. 'It
is quite true. As he has been able to make me love him, I have no right
to stand aloof even if I wished it.' As she was walking up and down the
room so resolving her sister came to her.

'Well, dear!' said Emily. 'May I ask what it is he says?'

Nora paused a moment, holding the letter tight in her hand, and then
she held it out to her sister. 'There it is. You may read it.' Mrs
Trevelyan took the letter and read it slowly, during which Nora stood
looking out of the window. She would not watch her sister's face, as
she did not wish to have to reply to any outward signs of disapproval.
'Give it me back,' she said, when she heard by the refolding of the
paper that the perusal was finished.

'Of course I shall give it you back, dear.'

'Yes thanks. I did not mean to doubt you.'

'And what will you do, Nora?'

'Answer it of course.'

'I would think a little before I answered it,' said Mrs Trevelyan.

'I have thought a great deal, already.'

'And how will you answer it?'

Nora paused again before she replied. 'As nearly as I know how to do in
such words as he would put into my mouth. I shall strive to write just
what I think he would wish me to write.'

'Then you will engage yourself to him, Nora?'

'Certainly I shall. I am engaged to him already. I have been ever since
he came here.'

'You told me that there was nothing of the kind.'

'I told you that I loved him better than anybody in the world, and that
ought to have made you know what it must come to. When I am thinking of
him every day, and every hour, how can I not be glad to have an
engagement settled with him? I couldn't marry anybody else, and I don't
want to remain as I am.' The tears came into the married sister's eyes,
and rolled down her cheeks, as this was said to her. Would it not have
been better for her had she remained as she was? 'Dear Emily,' said
Nora, 'you have got Louey still.'

'Yes and they mean to take him from me. But I do not wish to speak of
myself. Will you postpone your answer till mamma is here?'

'I cannot do that, Emily. What; receive such a letter as that, and send
no reply to it!'

'I would write a line for you, and explain--'

'No, indeed, Emily. I choose to answer my own letters. I have shewn you
that, because I trust you; but I have fully made up my mind as to what
I shall write. It will have been written and sent before dinner.'

'I think you will be wrong, Nora.'

'Why wrong! When I came over here to stay with you, would mamma ever
have thought of directing me not to accept any offer till her consent
had been obtained all the way from the Mandarins? She would never have
dreamed of such a thing.'

'Will you ask Aunt Mary?'

'Certainly not. What is Aunt Mary to me? We are here in her house for a
time, under the press of circumstances; but I owe her no obedience. She
told Mr Stanbury not to come here; and he has not come; and I shall not
ask him to come. I would not willingly bring any one into Uncle
Oliphant's house that he and she do not wish to see. But I will not
admit that either of them have any authority over me.'

'Then who has, dearest?'

'Nobody except papa and mamma; and they have chosen to leave me to
myself.'

Mrs Trevelyan found it impossible to shake her sister's firmness, and
could herself do nothing, except tell Mrs Outhouse what was the state
of affairs. 'When she said that she should do this, there almost came
to be a flow of high words between the sisters; but at last Nora
assented. 'As for knowing, I don't care if all the world knows it. I
shall do nothing in a corner. I don't suppose Aunt Mary will endeavour
to prevent my posting my letter.'

Emily at last went to seek Mrs Outhouse, and Nora at once sat down to
her desk. Neither of the sisters felt at all sure that Mrs Outhouse
would not attempt to stop the emission of the letter from her house;
but, as it happened, she was out, and did not return till Nora had come
back from her journey to the neighbouring post-office. She would trust
her letter, when written, to no hands but her own; and as she herself
dropped it into the safe custody of the Postmaster-General, it also
shall be revealed to the public:

'Parsonage, St Diddulph's, January, 186-.

DEAR HUGH,

For I suppose I may as well write to you in that way now. I have been
made so happy by your affectionate letter. Is not that a candid
confession for a young lady? But you tell me that I owe you the truth,
and so I tell you the truth. Nobody will ever be anything to me, except
you; and you are everything. I do love you; and should it ever be
possible, I will become your wife.

I have said so much, because I feel that I ought to obey the order you
have given me; but pray do not try to see me or write to me till mamma
has arrived. She and papa will be here in the spring quite early in the
spring, we hope; and then you may come to us. What they may say, of
course, I cannot tell; but I shall be true to you.

Your own, with truest affection,

NORA.

Of course, you knew that I loved you, and I don't think that you are a
conjuror at all.'

As soon as ever the letter was written, she put on her bonnet, and went
forth with it herself to the post-office. Mrs Trevelyan stopped her on
the stairs, and endeavoured to detain her, but Nora would not be
detained. 'I must judge for myself about this,' she said. 'If mamma
were here, it would be different, but, as she is not here, I must judge
for myself.'

What Mrs Outhouse might have done had she been at home at the time, it
would be useless to surmise. She was told what had happened when it
occurred, and questioned Nora on the subject. 'I thought I understood
from you,' she said, with something of severity in her countenance,
'that there was to be nothing between you and Mr Stanbury at any rate,
till my brother came home?'

'I never pledged myself to anything of the kind, Aunt Mary,' Nora said.
'I think he promised that he would not come here, and I don't suppose
that he means to come. If he should do so, I shall not see him.'

With this Mrs Outhouse was obliged to be content. The letter was gone,
and could not be stopped. Nor, indeed, had any authority been delegated
to her by which she would have been justified in stopping it. She could
only join her husband in wishing that they both might be relieved, as
soon as possible, from the terrible burden which had been thrown upon
them. 'I call it very hard,' said Mr Outhouse 'very hard, indeed. If we
were to desire them to leave the house, everybody would cry out upon us
for our cruelty; and yet, while they remain here, they will submit
themselves to no authority. As far as I can see, they may, both of
them, do just what they please, and we can't stop it.'

CHAPTER LIV - MR GIBSON'S THREAT

Miss Stanbury for a long time persisted in being neither better nor
worse. Sir Peter would not declare her state to be precarious, nor
would he say that she was out of danger; and Mr Martin had been so
utterly prostrated by the nearly-fatal effects of his own mistake that
he was quite unable to rally himself and talk on the subject with any
spirit or confidence. When interrogated he would simply reply that Sir
Peter said this and Sir Peter said that, and thus add to, rather than
diminish, the doubt, and excitement, and varied opinion which prevailed
through the city. On one morning it was absolutely asserted within the
limits of the Close that Miss Stanbury was dying and it was believed
for half a day at the bank that she was then lying in articulo mortis.
There had got about, too, a report that a portion of the property had
only been left to Miss Stanbury for her life, that the Burgesses would
be able to reclaim the houses in the city, and that a will had been
made altogether in favour of Dorothy, cutting out even Brooke from any
share in the inheritance and thus Exeter had a good deal to say
respecting the affairs and state of health of our old friend. Miss
Stanbury's illness, however, was true enough. She was much too ill to
hear anything of what was going on too ill to allow Martha to talk to
her at all about the outside public. When the invalid herself would ask
questions about the affairs of the world, Martha would be very discreet
and turn away from the subject. Miss Stanbury, for instance, ill as she
was, exhibited a most mundane interest, not exactly in Camilla French's
marriage, but in the delay which that marriage seemed destined to
encounter. 'I dare say he'll slip out of it yet,' said the sick lady to
her confidential servant. Then Martha had thought it right to change
the subject, feeling it to be wrong that an old lady on her death-bed
should be taking joy in the disappointment of her young neighbour.
Martha changed the subject, first to jelly, and then to the psalms of
the day. Miss Stanbury was too weak to resist; but the last verse of
the last psalm of the evening had hardly been finished before she
remarked that she would never believe it till she saw it. 'It's all in
the hands of Him as is on high, mum,' said Martha, turning her eyes up
to the ceiling, and closing the book at the same time, with a look
strongly indicative of displeasure.

Miss Stanbury understood it all as well as though she were in perfect
health. She knew her own failings, was conscious of her worldly
tendencies, and perceived that her old servant was thinking of it. And
then sundry odd thoughts, half-digested thoughts, ideas too difficult
for her present strength, crossed her brain. Had it been wicked of her
when she was well to hope that a scheming woman should not succeed in
betraying a man by her schemes into an ill-assorted marriage; and if
not wicked then, was it wicked now because she was ill? And from that
thought her mind travelled on to the ordinary practices of death-bed
piety. Could an assumed devotion be of use to her now such a devotion
as Martha was enjoining upon her from hour to hour, in pure and
affectionate solicitude for her soul? She had spoken one evening of a
game of cards, saying that a game of cribbage would have consoled her.
Then Martha, with a shudder, had suggested a hymn, and had had recourse
at once to a sleeping draught. Miss Stanbury had submitted, but had
understood it all. If cards were wicked, she had indeed been a terrible
sinner. What hope could there be now, on her death-bed, for one so
sinful? And she could not repent of her cards, and would not try to
repent of them, not seeing the evil of them; and if they were innocent,
why should she not have the consolation now when she so much wanted it?
Yet she knew that the whole household, even Dorothy, would be in arms
against her, were she to suggest such a thing. She took the hymn and
the sleeping draught, telling herself that it would be best for her to
banish such ideas from her mind. Pastors and masters had laid down for
her a mode of living, which she had followed, but indifferently
perhaps, but still with an intention of obedience. They had also laid
down a mode of dying, and it would be well that she should follow that
as closely as possible. She would say nothing more about cards. She
would think nothing more of Camilla French. But, as she so resolved,
with intellect half asleep, with her mind wandering between fact and
dream, she was unconsciously comfortable with an assurance that if Mr
Gibson did marry Camilla French, Camilla French would lead him the very
devil of a life.

During three days Dorothy went about the house as quiet as a mouse,
sitting nightly at her aunt's bedside, and tending the sick woman with
the closest care. She, too, had been now and again somewhat startled by
the seeming worldliness of her aunt in her illness. Her aunt talked to
her about rents, and gave her messages for Brooke Burgess on subjects
which seemed to Dorothy to be profane when spoken of on what might
perhaps be a death-bed. And this struck her the more strongly, because
she had a matter of her own on which she would have much wished to
ascertain her aunt's opinion, if she had not thought that it would have
been exceedingly wrong of her to trouble her aunt's mind at such a time
by any such matter. Hitherto she had said not a word of Brooke's
proposal to any living being. At present it was a secret with herself,
but a secret so big that it almost caused her bosom to burst with the
load that it bore. She could not, she thought, write to Priscilla till
she had told her aunt. If she were to write a word on the subject to
any one, she could not fail to make manifest the extreme longing of her
own heart. She could not have written Brooke's name on paper, in
reference to his words to herself without covering it with epithets of
love. But all that must be known to no one if her love was to be of no
avail to her. And she had an idea that her aunt would not wish Brooke
to marry her would think that Brooke should do better; and she was
quite clear that in such a matter as this her aunt's wishes must be
law. Had not her aunt the power of disinheriting Brooke altogether? And
what then if her aunt should die should die now leaving Brooke at
liberty to do as he pleased? There was something so distasteful to her
in this view of the matter that she would not look at it. She would not
allow herself to think of any success which might possibly accrue to
herself by reason of her aunt's death. Intense as was the longing in
her heart for permission from those in authority over her to give
herself to Brooke Burgess, perfect as was the earthly Paradise which
appeared to be open to her when she thought of the good thing which had
befallen her in that matter, she conceived that she would be guilty of
the grossest ingratitude were she in any degree to curtail even her own
estimate of her aunt's prohibitory powers because of her aunt's
illness. The remembrance of the words which Brooke had spoken to her
was with her quite perfect. She was entirely conscious of the joy which
would he hers, if she might accept those words as properly sanctioned;
but she was a creature in her aunt's hands according to her own ideas
of her own duties; and while her aunt was ill she could not even learn
what might be the behests which she would be called on to obey.