Books: He Knew He Was Right

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'God bless her, poor child,' said Sir Marmaduke, rubbing the tears away
from his eyes with his red silk pocket-handkerchief.

'I will acknowledge that those letters there may have been one or two
were the beginning of the trouble. It was these that made this man show
himself to be a lunatic. I do admit that. I was bound not to talk about
your coming, and I told her to keep the secret. He went spying about,
and found her letters, I suppose and then he took fire, because there
was to be a secret from him. Dirty, mean dog! And now I'm to be told by
such a fellow as Outhouse that it's my fault, that I have caused all
the trouble, because, when I happened to be in Devonshire, I went to
see your daughter!' We must do the Colonel the justice of supposing
that he had by this time quite taught himself to believe that the
church porch at Cockchaffington had been the motive cause of his
journey into Devonshire. 'Upon my word it is too hard,' continued he
indignantly. 'As for Outhouse only for the gown upon his hack, I'd pull
his nose. And I wish that you would tell him that I say so.'

'There is trouble enough without that,' said Sir Marmaduke.

'But it is hard. By G--, it is hard. There is this comfort if it hadn't
been me, it would have been some one else. Such a man as that couldn't
have gone two or three years, without being jealous of some one. And as
for poor Emily, she is better off perhaps with an accusation so absurd
as this, than she might have been had her name been joined with a
younger man, or with one whom you would have less reason for trusting.'

There was so much that seemed to be sensible in this, and it was spoken
with so well assumed a tone of injured innocence, that Sir Marmaduke
felt that he had nothing more to say. He muttered something further
about the cruelty of the case, and then slunk away out of the club, and
made his way home to the dull gloomy house in Manchester Street. There
was no comfort for him there but neither was there any comfort for him
at the club. And why did that vexatious Secretary of State send him
messages about blue books? As he went, he expressed sundry wishes that
he was back at the Mandarins, and told himself that it would be well
that he should remain there till he died.

CHAPTER LXV - MYSTERIOUS AGENCIES

When the thirty-first of March arrived, Exeter had not as yet been made
gay with the marriage festivities of Mr Gibson and Camilla French. And
this delay had not been the fault of Camilla. Camilla had been ready,
and when, about the middle of the month, it was hinted to her that some
postponement was necessary, she spoke her mind out plainly, and
declared that she was not going to stand that kind of thing. The
communication had not been made to her by Mr Gibson in person. For some
days previously he had not been seen at Heavitree, and Camilla had from
day to day become more black, gloomy, and harsh in her manners both to
her mother and her sister. Little notes had come and little notes had
gone, but no one in the house, except Camilla herself, knew what those
notes contained. She would not condescend to complain to Arabella; nor
did she say much in condemnation of her lover to Mrs French, till the
blow came. With unremitting attention she pursued the great business of
her wedding garments, and exacted from the unfortunate Arabella an
amount of work equal to her own of thankless work, as is the custom of
embryo brides with their unmarried sisters. And she drew with great
audacity on the somewhat slender means of the family for the amount of
feminine gear necessary to enable her to go into Mr Gibson's house with
something of the eclat of a well-provided bride. When Mrs French
hesitated, and then expostulated, Camilla replied that she did not
expect to be married above once, and that in no cheaper or more
productive way than this could her mother allow her to consume her
share of the family resources. 'What matter, mamma, if you do have to
borrow a little money? Mr Burgess will let you have it when he knows
why. And as I shan't be eating and drinking at home any more, nor yet
getting my things here, I have a right to expect it.' And she ended by
expressing an opinion, in Arabella's hearing, that any daughter of a
house who proves herself to be capable of getting a husband for
herself, is entitled to expect that those left at home shall pinch
themselves for a time, in order that she may go forth to the world in a
respectable way, and be a credit to the family.

Then came the blow. Mr Gibson had not been at the house for some days,
but the notes had been going and coming. At last Mr Gibson came
himself; but, as it happened, when he came Camilla was out shopping. In
these days she often did go out shopping between eleven and one,
carrying her sister with her. It must have been but a poor pleasure for
Arabella, this witnessing the purchases made, seeing the pleasant
draperies and handling the real linens and admiring the fine cambrics
spread out before them on the shop counters by obsequious attendants.
And the questions asked of her by her sister, whether this was good
enough for so august an occasion, or that sufficiently handsome, must
have been harassing. She could not have failed to remember that it
ought all to have been done for her that had she not been treated with
monstrous injustice, with most unsisterly cruelty, all these good
things would have been spread on her behoof. But she went on and
endured it, and worked diligently with her needle, and folded and
unfolded as she was desired, and became as it were quite a younger
sister in the house creeping out by herself now and again into the
purlieus of the city, to find such consolation as she might receive
from her solitary thoughts.

But Arabella and Camilla were both away when Mr Gibson called to tell
Mrs French of his altered plans. And as he asked, not for his
lady-love, but for Mrs French herself, it is probable that he watched
his opportunity and that he knew to what cares his Camilla was then
devoting herself. 'Perhaps it is quite as well that I should find you
alone,' he said, after sundry preludes, to his future mother-in-law,
'because you can make Camilla understand this better than I can. I must
put off the day for about three weeks.'

'Three weeks, Mr Gibson?'

'Or a month. Perhaps we had better say the 29th of April.' Mr Gibson
had by this time thrown off every fear that he might have entertained
of the mother, and could speak to her of such an unwarrantable change
of plans with tolerable equanimity.

'But I don't know that that will suit Camilla at all.'

'She can name any other day she pleases, of course that is, in May.'

'But why is this to be?'

'There are things about money, Mrs French, which I cannot arrange
sooner. And I find that unfortunately I must go up to London.' Though
many other questions were asked, nothing further was got out of Mr
Gibson on that occasion; and he left the house with a perfect
understanding on his own part and on that of Mrs French that the
marriage was postponed till some day still to be fixed, but which could
not and should not be before the 29th of April. Mrs French asked him
why he did not come up and see Camilla. He replied false man that he
was that he had hoped to have seen her this morning, and that he would
come again before the week was over.

Then it was that Camilla spoke her mind out plainly. 'I shall go to his
house at once,' she said, 'and find out all about it. I don't
understand it. I don't understand it at all; and I won't put up with
it. He shall know who he has to deal with, if he plays tricks upon me.
Mamma, I wonder you let him out of the house, till you had made him
come back to his old day.'

'What could I do, my dear?'

'What could you do? Shake him out of it as I would have done. But he
didn't dare to tell me because he is a coward.'

Camilla in all this showed her spirit; but she allowed her anger to
hurry her away into an indiscretion. Arabella was present, and Camilla
should have repressed her rage.

'I don't think he's at all a coward,' said Arabella.

'That's my business. I suppose I'm entitled to know what he is better
than you.'

'All the same I don't think Mr Gibson is at all a coward,' said
Arabella, again pleading the cause of the man who had misused her.

'Now, Arabella, I won't take any interference from you; mind that. I
say it was cowardly, and he should have come to me. It's my concern,
and I shall go to him. I'm not going to be stopped by any shilly-shally
nonsense, when my future respectability, perhaps, is at stake. All
Exeter knows that the marriage is to take place on the 31st of this
month.'

On the next day Camilla absolutely did go to Mr Gibson's house at an
early hour, at nine, when, as she thought, he would surely be at
breakfast. But he had flown. He had left Exeter that morning by an
early train, and his servant thought that he had gone to London. On the
next morning Camilla got a note from him, written in London. It
affected to be very cheery and affectionate, beginning 'Dearest Cammy,'
and alluding to the postponement of his wedding as though it were a
thing so fixed as to require no further question. Camilla answered this
letter, still in much wrath, complaining, protesting, expostulating
throwing in his teeth the fact that the day had been fixed by him, and
not by her. And she added a postscript in the following momentous words
'If you have any respect for the name of your future wife, you will
fall back upon your first arrangement.' To this she got simply a line
of an answer, declaring that this falling back was impossible, and then
nothing was heard of him for ten days.

He had gone from Tuesday to Saturday week and the first that Camilla
saw of him was his presence in the reading desk when he chaunted the
cathedral service as priest-vicar on the Sunday.

At this time Arabella was very ill, and was confined to her bed. Mr
Martin declared that her system had become low from over anxiety that
she was nervous, weak, and liable to hysterics that her feelings were
in fact too many for her and that her efforts to overcome them, and to
face the realities of the world, had exhausted her. This was, of
course, not said openly, at the town-cross of Exeter; but such was the
opinion which Mr Martin gave in confidence to the mother.
'Fiddle-de-dee!' said Camilla, when she was told of feelings,
susceptibilities, and hysterics. At the present moment she had a claim
to the undivided interest of the family, and she believed that her
sister's illness was feigned in order to defraud her of her rights. 'My
dear, she is ill,' said Mrs French. 'Then let her have a dose of
salts,' said the stern Camilla. This was on the Sunday afternoon.
Camilla had endeavoured to see Mr Gibson as he came out of the
cathedral, but had failed. Mr Gibson had been detained within the
building no doubt by duties connected with the choral services. On that
evening he got a note from Camilla, and quite early on the Monday
morning he came up to Heavitree.

'You will find her in the drawing-room,' said Mrs French, as she opened
the hall-door for him. There was a smile on her face as she spoke, but
it was a forced smile. Mr Gibson did not smile at all.

'Is it all right with her?' he asked.

'Well you had better go to her. You see, Mr Gibson, young ladies, when
they are going to be married, think that they ought to have their own
way a little, just for the last time, you know.' He took no notice of
the joke, but went with slow steps up to the drawing-room. It would be
inquiring too curiously to ask whether Camilla, when she embraced him,
discerned that he had fortified his courage that morning with a glass
of curacoa.

'What does all this mean, Thomas?' was the first question that Camilla
asked when the embrace was over.

'All what mean, dear?'

'This untoward delay? Thomas, you have almost broken my heart. You have
been away, and I have not heard from you.'

'I wrote twice, Camilla.'

'And what sort of letters? If there is anything the matter, Thomas, you
had better tell me at once.' She paused, but Thomas held his tongue. 'I
don't suppose you want to kill me.'

'God forbid,' said Thomas.

'But you will. What must everybody think of me in the city when they
find that it is put off. Poor mamma has been dreadful quite dreadful!
And here is Arabella now laid up on a bed of sickness.' This, too, was
indiscreet. Camilla should have said nothing about her sister's
sickness.

'I have been so sorry to hear about dear Bella,' said Mr Gibson.

'I don't suppose she's very bad,' said Camilla, 'but of course we all
feel it. Of course we're upset. As for me, I bear up; because I've that
spirit that I won't give way if it's ever so; but, upon my word, it
tries me hard. What is the meaning of it, Thomas?'

But Thomas had nothing to say beyond what he had said before to Mrs
French. He was very particular, he said, about money; and certain money
matters made it incumbent on him not to marry before the 29th of April.
When Camilla suggested to him that as she was to be his wife, she ought
to know all about his money matters, he told her that she should some
day. When they were married, he would tell her all. Camilla talked a
great deal, and said some things that were very severe. Mr Gibson did
not enjoy his morning, but he endured the upbraidings of his fair one
with more firmness than might perhaps have been expected from him. He
left all the talking to Camilla; but when he got up to leave her, the
29th of April had been fixed, with some sort of assent from her, as the
day on which she was really to become Mrs Gibson.

When he left the room, he again met Mrs French on the landing-place.
She hesitated a moment, waiting to see whether the door would be shut;
but the door could not be shut, as Camilla was standing in the
entrance. 'Mr Gibson,' said Mrs French, in a voice that was scarcely a
whisper, 'would you mind stepping in and seeing poor Bella for a
moment?'

'Why she is in bed,' said Camilla.

'Yes she is in bed; but she thinks it would be a comfort to her. She
has seen nobody these four days except Mr Martin, and she thinks it
would comfort her to have a word or two with Mr Gibson.' Now Mr Gibson
was not only going to be Bella's brother-in-law, but he was also a
clergyman. Camilla in her heart believed that the half-clerical aspect
which her mother had given to the request was false and hypocritical.
There were special reasons why Bella should not have wished to see Mr
Gibson in her bedroom, at any rate till Mr Gibson had become her
brother-in-law. The expression of such a wish at the present moment was
almost indecent.

'You'll be there with them?' said Camilla. Mr Gibson blushed up to his
ears as he heard the suggestion. 'Of course you'll be there with them,
mamma.'

'No, my dear, I think not. I fancy she wishes him to read to her or
something of that sort.' Then Mr Gibson, without speaking a word, but
still blushing up to his ears, was taken to Arabella's room; and
Camilla, flouncing into the drawing-room, banged the door behind her.
She had hitherto fought her battle with considerable skill and with
great courage but her very success had made her imprudent. She had
become so imperious in the great position which she had reached, that
she could not control her temper or wait till her power was confirmed.
The banging of that door was heard through the whole house, and every
one knew why it was banged. She threw herself on to a sofa, and then,
instantly rising again, paced the room with quick step. Could it be
possible that there was treachery? Was it on the cards that that weak,
poor creature, Bella, was intriguing once again to defraud her of her
husband? There were different things that she now remembered. Arabella,
in that moment of bliss in which she had conceived herself to be
engaged to Mr Gibson, had discarded her chignon. Then she had resumed
it in all its monstrous proportions. Since that it had been lessened by
degrees, and brought down, through various interesting but abnormal
shapes, to a size which would hardly have drawn forth any anathema from
Miss Stanbury. And now, on this very morning, Arabella had put on a
clean nightcap, with muslin frills. It is perhaps not unnatural that a
sick lady, preparing to receive a clergyman in her bedroom, should put
on a clean nightcap but to suspicious eyes small causes suffice to
create alarm. And if there were any such hideous wickedness in the
wind, had Arabella any colleague in her villainy? Could it be that the
mother was plotting against her daughter's happiness and
respectability? Camilla was well aware that her mamma would at first
have preferred to give Arabella to Mr Gibson, had the choice in the
matter been left to her. But now, when the thing had been settled
before all the world, would not such treatment on a mother's part be
equal to infanticide? And then as to Mr Gibson himself! Camilla was not
prone to think little of her own charms, but she had been unable not to
perceive that her lover had become negligent in his personal attentions
to her. An accepted lover, who deserves to have been accepted, should
devote every hour at his command to his mistress. But Mr Gibson had of
late been so chary of his presence at Heavitree, that Camilla could not
but have known that he took no delight in coming thither. She had
acknowledged this to herself; but she had consoled herself with the
reflection that marriage would make this all right. Mr Gibson was not
the man to stray from his wife, and she could trust herself to obtain a
sufficient hold upon her husband hereafter, partly by the strength of
her tongue, partly by the ascendancy of her spirit, and partly, also,
by the coin-forts which she would provide for him. She had not doubted
but that it would be all well when they should be married but how if,
even now, there should be no marriage for her? Camilla French had never
heard of Creusa and of Jason, but as she paced her mother's
drawing-room that morning she was a Medea in spirit. If any plot of
that kind should be in the wind, she would do such things that all
Devonshire should hear of her wrongs and of her revenge!

In the meantime Mr Gibson was sitting by Arabella's bedside, while Mrs
French was trying to make herself busy in her own chamber, next door.
There had been a reading of some chapter of the Bible or of some
portion of a chapter. And Mr Gibson, as he read, and Arabella, as she
listened, had endeavoured to take to their hearts and to make use of
the word which they heard. The poor young woman, when she begged her
mother to send to her the man who was so dear to her, did so with some
half-formed condition that it would be good for her to hear a clergyman
read to her. But now the chapter had been read, and the book was back
in Mr Gibson's pocket, and he was sitting with his hand on the bed.'she
is so very arrogant,' said Bella,' and so domineering.' To this Mr
Gibson made no reply. 'I'm sure I have endeavoured to bear it well,
though you must have known what I have suffered, Thomas. Nobody can
understand it so well as you do.'

'I wish I had never been born,' said Mr Gibson tragically.

'Don't say that, Thomas because it's wicked.'

'But I do. See all the harm I have done and yet I did not mean it.'

'You must try and do the best you can now. I am not saying what that
should be. I am not dictating to you. You are a man, and, of course,
you must judge for yourself. But I will say this. You shouldn't do
anything just because it is the easiest. I don't suppose I should live
after it. I don't indeed. But that should not signify to you.'

'I don't suppose that any man was ever before in such a terrible
position since the world began.'

'It is difficult I am sure of that, Thomas.'

'And I have meant to be so true. I fancy sometimes that some mysterious
agency interferes with the affairs of a man and drives him on and on
and on almost till he doesn't know where it drives him.' As he said
this in a voice that was quite sepulchral in its tone, he felt some
consolation in the conviction that this mysterious agency could not
affect a man without imbuing him with a certain amount of grandeur very
uncomfortable, indeed, in its nature, but still having considerable
value as a counterpoise. Pride must bear pain but pain is recompensed
by pride.

'She is so strong, Thomas, that she can put up with anything,' said
Arabella, in a whisper.

'Strong yes,' said he, with a shudder 'she is strong enough.'

'And as for love--'

'Don't talk about it,' said he, getting up from his chair. 'Don't talk
about it. You will drive me frantic.'

'You know what my feelings are, Thomas; you have always known them.
There has been no change since I was the young thing you first knew
me.' As she spoke, she just touched his hand with hers; but he did not
seem to notice this, sitting with his elbow on the arm of his chair and
his forehead on his hand. In reply to what she said to him, he merely
shook his head not intending to imply thereby any doubt of the truth of
her assertion. 'You have now to make up your mind, and to be bold,
Thomas,' continued Arabella.'she says that you are a coward; but I know
that you are no coward. I told her so, and she said that I was
interfering. Oh that she should be able to tell me that I interfere
when I defend you!'

'I must go,' said Mr Gibson, jumping up from his chair. 'I must go.
Bella, I cannot stand this any longer. It is too much for me. I will
pray that I may decide aright. God bless you!' Then he kissed her brow
as she lay in bed, and hurried out of the room.

He had hoped to go from the house without further converse with any of
its inmates; for his mind was disturbed, and he longed to be at rest.
But he was not allowed to escape so easily. Camilla met him at the
dining-room door, and accosted him with a smile. There had been time
for much meditation during the last half hour, and Camilla had
meditated. 'How do you find her, Thomas?' she asked.

'She seems weak, but I believe she is better. I have been reading to
her.'

'Come in, Thomas will you not? It is bad for us to stand talking on the
stairs. Dear Thomas, don't let us be so cold to each other.' He had no
alternative but to put his arm round her waist, and kiss her, thinking,
as he did so, of the mysterious agency which afflicted him. 'Tell me
that you love me, Thomas,' she said.

'Of course I love you.' The question is not a pleasant one when put by
a lady to a gentleman whose affections towards her are not strong, and
it requires a very good actor to produce an efficient answer.

'I hope you do, Thomas. It would be sad, indeed, if you did not. You
are not weary of your Camilla are you?'

For a moment there came upon him an idea that he would confess that he
was weary of her, but he found at once that such an effort was beyond
his powers. 'How can you ask such a question?' he said.

'Because you do not come to me.' Camilla, as she spoke, laid her head
upon his shoulder and wept. 'And now you have been five minutes with me
and nearly an hour with Bella.'

'She wanted me to read to her,' said Mr Gibson and he hated himself
thoroughly as he said it.

'And now you want to get away as fast as you can,' continued Camilla.

'Because of the morning service,' said Mr Gibson. This was quite true,
and yet he hated himself again for saying it. As Camilla knew the truth
of the last plea, she was obliged to let him go; but she made him swear
before he went that he loved her dearly. 'I think it's all right,' she
said to herself as he went down the stairs. 'I don't think he'd dare
make it wrong. If he does o-oh!'

Mr Gibson, as he walked into Exeter, endeavoured to justify his own
conduct to himself. There was no moment, he declared to himself, in
which he had not endeavoured to do right. Seeing the manner in which he
had been placed among these two young women, both of whom had fallen in
love with him, how could he have saved himself from vacillation? And by
what untoward chance had it come to pass that he had now learned to
dislike so vigorously, almost to hate, the one with whom he had been
for a moment sufficiently infatuated to think that he loved?

But with all his arguments he did not succeed in justifying to himself
his own conduct, and he hated himself.

CHAPTER LXVI - OF A QUARTER OF LAMB

Miss Stanbury, looking out of her parlour window, saw Mr Gibson
hurrying towards the cathedral, down the passage which leads from
Southernhay into the Close. 'He's just come from Heavitree, I'll be
bound,' said Miss Stanbury to Martha, who was behind her.

'Like enough, ma'am.'

'Though they do say that the poor fool of a man has become quite sick
of his bargain already.'

'He'll have to be sicker yet, ma'am,' said Martha.

'They were to have been married last week, and nobody ever knew why it
was put off. It's my belief he'll never marry her. And she'll be served
right quite right.'

'He must marry her now, ma'am. She's been buying things all over
Exeter, as though there was no end of their money.'