Books: He Knew He Was Right

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'I am so thankful to you for bringing him to me,' she said.

'I told you that you should see him,' he said. 'Perhaps it might have
been better that I should have sent him by a servant; but there are
circumstances which make me fear to let him out of my sight.'

'Do you think that I did not wish to see you also? Louis, why do you do
me so much wrong? Why do you treat me with such cruelty?' Then she
threw her arms round his neck, and before he could repulse her before
he could reflect whether it would be well that he should repulse her or
not she had covered his brow and cheeks and lips with kisses. 'Louis,'
she said; 'Louis, speak to me!'

'It is hard to speak sometimes,' he said.

'You love me, Louis?'

'Yes I love you. But I am afraid of you!'

'What is it that you fear? I would give my life for you, if you would
only come back to me and let me feel that you believed me to be true.'
He shook his head, and began to think while she still clung to him. He
was quite sure that her father and mother had intended to bring a mad
doctor down upon him, and he knew that his wife was in her mother's
hands. Should he yield to her now should he make her any promise might
not the result be that he would be shut up in dark rooms, robbed of his
liberty, robbed of what he loved better than his liberty his power as a
man. She would thus get the better of him and take the child, and the
world would say that in this contest between him and her he had been
the sinning one, and she the one against whom the sin had been done. It
was the chief object of his mind, the one thing for which he was eager,
that this should never come to pass. Let it once be conceded to him
from all sides that he had been right, and then she might do with him
almost as she willed. He knew well that he was ill. When he thought of
his child, he would tell himself that he was dying. He was at some
moments of his miserable existence fearfully anxious to come to terms
with his wife, in order that at his death his boy might not be without
a protector. Were he to die, then it would be better that his child
should be with its mother. In his happy days, immediately after his
marriage, he had made a will, in which he had left his entire property
to his wife for her life, providing for its subsequent descent to his
child or children. It had never even occurred to his poor shattered
brain that it would be well for him to alter his will. Had he really
believed that his wife had betrayed him, doubtless he would have done
so. He would have hated her, have distrusted her altogether, and have
believed her to be an evil thing. He had no such belief. But in his
desire to achieve empire, and in the sorrows which had come upon him in
his unsuccessful struggle, his mind had wavered so frequently, that his
spoken words were no true indicators of his thoughts; and in all his
arguments he failed to express either his convictions or his desires.
When he would say something stronger than he intended, and it would be
put to him by his wife, by her father or mother, or by some friend of
hers, whether he did believe that she had been untrue to him, he would
recoil from the answer which his heart would dictate, lest he should
seem to make an acknowledgment that might weaken the ground upon which
he stood. Then he would satisfy his own conscience by assuring himself
that he had never accused her of such sin. She was still clinging to
him now as his mind was working after this fashion. 'Louis,' she said,
'let it all be as though there had been nothing.'

'How can that be, my dear?'

'Not to others but to us it can be so. There shall be no word spoken of
the past.' Again he shook his head. 'Will it not be best that there
should be no word spoken?'

'"Forgiveness may be spoken with the tongue,"' he said, beginning to
quote from a poem which had formerly been frequent in his hands.

'Cannot there be real forgiveness between you and me between husband
and wife who, in truth, love each other? Do you think that I would tell
you of it again?' He felt that in all that she said there was an
assumption that she had been right, and that he had been wrong. She was
promising to forgive. She was undertaking to forget. She was willing to
take him back to the warmth of her love, and the comfort of her
kindness but was not asking to be taken back. This was what he could
not and would not endure. He had determined that if she behaved well to
him, he would not be harsh to her, and he was struggling to keep up to
his resolve. He would accuse her of nothing if he could help it. But he
could not say a word that would even imply that she need forget that
she should forgive. It was for him to forgive and he was willing to do
it, if she would accept forgiveness: 'I will never speak a word,
Louis,' she said, laying her head upon his shoulder.

'Your heart is still hardened,' he replied slowly.

'Hard to you?'

'And your mind is dark. You do not see what you have done. In our
religion, Emily, forgiveness is sure, not after penitence, but with
repentance.'

'What does that mean?'

'It means this, that though I would welcome you back to my arms with
joy, I cannot do so, till you have confessed your fault.'

'What fault, Louis? If I have made you unhappy, I do, indeed, grieve
that it has been so.'

'It is of no use,' said he. 'I cannot talk about it. Do you suppose
that it does not tear me to the very soul to think of it?'

'What is it that you think, Louis?' As she had been travelling thither,
she had determined that she would say anything that he wished her to
say make any admission that might satisfy him. That she could be happy
again as other women are happy, she did not expect; but if it could be
conceded between them that bygones should be bygones, she might live
with him and do her duty, and, at least, have her child with her.

Her father had told her that her husband was mad; but she was willing
to put up with his madness on such terms as these. What could her
husband do to her in his madness that he could not do also to the
child? 'Tell me what you want me to say, and I will say it,' she said.

'You have sinned against me,' he said, raising her head gently from his
shoulder.

'Never!' she exclaimed. 'As God is my judge, I never have!' As she said
this, she retreated and took the sobbing boy again into her arms.

He was at once placed upon his guard, telling himself that he saw the
necessity of holding by his child. How could he tell? Might there not
be policemen down from Florence, ready round the house, to seize the
boy and carry him away. Though all his remaining life should be a
torment to him, though infinite plagues should be poured upon his head,
though he should die like a dog, alone, unfriended, and in despair,
while he was fighting this battle of his, he would not give way. 'That
is sufficient,' he said. 'Louey must return now to his own chamber.'

'I may go with him?'

'No, Emily. You cannot go with him now. I will thank you to release
him, that I may take him.' She still held the little fellow closely
pressed in her arms. 'Do not reward me for my courtesy by further
disobedience,' he said.

'You will let me come again?' To this he made no reply. 'Tell me that I
may come again.'

'I do not think that I shall remain here long.'

'And I may not stay now?'

'That would be impossible. There is no accommodation for you.'

'I could sleep on the boards beside his cot,' said Mrs Trevelyan.

'That is my place,' he replied. 'You may know that he is not
disregarded. With my own hands I tend him every morning. I take him out
myself. I feed him myself. He says his prayers to me. He learns from
me, and can say his letters nicely. You need not fear for him. No
mother was ever more tender with her child than I am with him.' Then he
gently withdrew the boy from her arms, and she let her child go, lest
he should learn to know that there was a quarrel between his father and
his mother. 'If you will excuse me,' he said, 'I will not come down to
you again today. My servant will see you to your carriage.'

So he left her; and she, with an Italian girl at her heels, got into
her vehicle, and was taken back to Siena. There she passed the night
alone at the inn, and on the next morning returned to Florence by the
railway.

CHAPTER LXXX - 'WILL THEY DESPISE HIM?'

Gradually the news of the intended marriage between Mr Glascock and
Miss Spalding spread itself over Florence, and people talked about it
with that energy which subjects of such moment certainly deserve. That
Caroline Spalding had achieved a very great triumph, was, of course,
the verdict of all men and of all women; and I fear that there was a
corresponding feeling that poor Mr Glascock had been triumphed over,
and, as it were, subjugated. In some respects he had been remiss in his
duties as a bachelor visitor to Florence as a visitor to Florence who
had manifestly been much in want of a wife. He had not given other
girls a fair chance, but had thrown himself down at the feet of this
American female in the weakest possible manner. And then it got about
the town that he had been refused over and over again by Nora Rowley.
It is too probable that Lady Rowley in her despair and dismay had been
indiscreet, and had told secrets which should never have been mentioned
by her. And the wife of the English minister, who had some grudges of
her own, lifted her eyebrows and shook her head and declared that all
the Glascocks at home would be outraged to the last degree. 'My dear
Lady Rowley,' she said, 'I don't know whether it won't become a
question with them whether they should issue a commission de lunatico.'
Lady Rowley did not know what a commission de lunatico meant, but was
quite willing to regard poor Mr Glascock as a lunatic. 'And there is
poor Lord Peterborough at Naples just at death's door,' continued the
British Ministers wife. In this she was perhaps nearly correct; but as
Lord Peterborough had now been in the same condition for many months,
as his mind had altogether gone, and as the doctor declared that he
might live in his present condition for a year, or for years, it could
not fairly be said that Mr Glascock was acting without due filial
feeling in engaging himself to marry a young lady. 'And she such a
creature!' said Lady Rowley, with emphasis. This the British Minister's
wife noticed simply by shaking her head. Caroline Spalding was
undoubtedly a pretty girl; but, as the British Minister's wife said
afterwards, it was not surprising that poor Lady Rowley should be
nearly out of her mind.

This had occurred a full week after the evening spent at Mr Spalding's
house; and even yet Lady Rowley had never been put right as to that
mistake of hers about Wallachia Petrie. That other trouble of hers, and
her eldest daughter's journey to Siena, had prevented them from going
out; and though the matter had often been discussed between Lady Rowley
and Nora, there had not as yet come between them any proper
explanation. Nora would declare that the future bride was very pretty
and very delightful; and Lady Rowley would throw up her hands in
despair and protest that her daughter was insane. 'Why should he not
marry whom he likes, mamma?' Nora once said, almost with indignation.

'Because he will disgrace his family.'

'I cannot understand what you mean, mamma. They are, at any rate, as
good as we are. Mr Spalding stands quite as high as papa does.'

'She is an American,' said Lady Rowley.

'And her family might say that he is an Englishman,' said Nora.

'My dear, if you do not understand the incongruity between an English
peer and a Yankee female, I cannot help you. I suppose it is because
you have been brought up within the limited society of a small colony.
If so, it is not your fault. But I had hoped you had been in Europe
long enough to have learned what was what. Do you think, my dear, that
she will look well when she is presented to her Majesty as Lord
Peterborough's wife?'

'Splendid,' said Nora.'she has just the brow for a coronet.'

'Heavens and earth!' said Lady Rowley, throwing up her hands. 'And you
believe that he will be proud of her in England?'

'I am sure he will.'

'My belief is that he will leave her behind him, or that they will
settle somewhere in the wilds of America out in Mexico, or
Massachusetts, or the Rocky Mountains. I do not think that he will have
the courage to shew her in London.'

The marriage was to take place in the Protestant church at Florence
early in June, and then the bride and bridegroom were to go over the
Alps, and to remain there subject to tidings as to the health of the
old man at Naples. Mr Glascock had thrown up his seat in Parliament,
some month or two ago, knowing that he could not get back to his duties
during the present session, and feeling that he would shortly be called
upon to sit in the other House. He was thus free to use his time and to
fix his days as he pleased; and it was certainly clear to those who
knew him, that he was not ashamed of his American bride. He spent much
of his time at the Spaldings' house, and was always to be seen with
them in the Casino and at the Opera. Mrs Spalding, the aunt, was, of
course, in great glory. A triumphant, happy, or even simply a splendid
marriage, for the rising girl of a family is a great glory to the
maternal mind. Mrs Spalding could not but be aware that the very air
around her seemed to breathe congratulations into her ears. Her friends
spoke to her, even on indifferent subjects, as though everything was
going well with her better with her than with anybody else; and there
came upon her in these days a dangerous feeling, that in spite of all
the preachings of the preachers, the next world might perhaps be not
so. very much better than this. She was, in fact, the reverse of the
medal of which poor Lady Rowley filled the obverse. And the American
Minister was certainly an inch taller than before, and made longer
speeches, being much more regardless of interruption. Olivia was
delighted at her sister's success, and heard with rapture the
description of Monkhams, which came to her second-hand through her
sister. It was already settled that she was to spend her next Christmas
at Monkhams, and perhaps there might be an idea in her mind that there
were other eldest sons of old lords who would like American brides.
Everything around Caroline Spalding was pleasant except the words of
Wallachia Petrie.

Everything around her was pleasant till there came to her a touch of a
suspicion that the marriage which Mr Glascock was going to make would
be detrimental to her intended husband in his own country. There were
many in Florence who were saying this besides the wife of the English
Minister and Lady Rowley. Of course Caroline Spalding herself was the
last to hear it, and to her the idea was brought by Wallachia Petrie.
'I wish I could think you would make yourself happy or him,' Wallachia
had said, croaking.

'Why should I fail to make him happy?'

'Because you are not of the same blood, or race, or manners as himself.
They say that he is very wealthy in his own country, and that those who
live around him will look coldly on you.'

'So that he does not look coldly, I do not care how others may look,'
said Caroline proudly.

'But when he finds that he has injured himself by such a marriage in
the estimation of all his friends how will it be then?'

This set Caroline Spalding thinking of what she was doing. She began to
realise the feeling that perhaps she might not be a fit bride for an
English lord's son, and in her agony she came to Nora Rowley for
counsel. After all, how little was it that she knew of the home and the
country to which she was to be carried! She might not, perhaps, get
adequate advice from Nora, but she would probably learn something on
which she could act. There was no one else among the English at
Florence to whom she could speak with freedom. When she mentioned her
fears to her aunt, her aunt of course laughed at her. Mrs Spalding told
her that Mr Glascock might be presumed to know his own business best,
and that she, as an American lady of high standing the niece of a
minister! was a fitting match for any Englishman, let him be ever so
much a lord. But Caroline was not comforted by this, and in her
suspense she went to Nora Rowley. She wrote a line to Nora, and when
she called at the hotel, was taken up to her friend's bedroom. She
found great difficulty in telling her story, but she did tell it. 'Miss
Rowley,' she said, 'if this is a silly thing that he is going to do, I
am bound to save him from his own folly. You know your own country
better than I do. Will they think that he has disgraced himself?'

'Certainly not that,' said Nora.

'Shall I be a load round his neck? Miss Rowley, for my own sake I would
not endure such a position as that, not even though I love him. But for
his sake! Think of that. If I find that people think ill of him because
of me!'

'No one will think ill of him.'

'Is it esteemed needful that such a one as he should marry a woman of
his own rank. I can bear to end it all now; but I shall not be able to
bear his humiliation, and my own despair, if I find that I have injured
him. Tell me plainly is it a marriage that he should not make?' Nora
paused for a while before she answered, and as she sat silent the other
girl watched her face carefully. Nora on being thus consulted, was very
careful that her tongue should utter nothing that was not her true
opinion as best she knew how to express it. Her sympathy would have
prompted her to give such an answer as would at once have made Caroline
happy in her mind. She would have been delighted to have been able to
declare that these doubts were utterly groundless, and this hesitation
needless. But she conceived that she owed it as a duty from one woman
to another to speak the truth as she conceived it on so momentous an
occasion, and she was not sure but that Mr Glascock would be considered
by his friends in England to be doing badly in marrying an American
girl. What she did not remember was this that her very hesitation was
in fact an answer, and such an answer as she was most unwilling to
give. 'I see that it would be so,' said Caroline Spalding.

'No not that.'

'What then? Will they despise him and me?'

'No one who knows you can despise you. No one who sees you can fail to
admire you.' Nora, as she said this, thought of her mother, but told
herself at once that in this matter her mother's judgment had been
altogether destroyed by her disappointment. 'What I think will take
place will be this. His family, when first they hear of it, will be
sorry.'

'Then,' said Caroline, 'I will put an end to it.'

'You can't do that, dear. You are engaged, and you haven't a right. I
am engaged to a man, and all my friends object to it. But I shan't put
an end to it. I don't think I have a right. I shall not do it any way,
however.'

'But if it were for his good?'

'It couldn't be for his good. He and I have got to go along together
somehow.'

'You wouldn't hurt him,' said Caroline.

'I won't if I can help it, but he has got to take me along with him any
how; and Mr Glascock has got to take you. If I were you, I shouldn't
ask any more questions.'

'It isn't the same. You said that you were to be poor, but he is very
rich. And I am beginning to understand that these titles of yours are
something like kings' crowns. The man who has to wear them can't do
just as he pleases with them. Noblesse oblige. I can see the meaning of
that, even when the obligation itself is trumpery in its nature. If it
is a man's duty to marry a Talbot because he's a Howard, I suppose he
ought to do his duty.' After a pause she went on again. 'I do believe
that I have made a mistake. It seemed to be absurd at the first to
think of it, but I do believe it now. Even what you say to me makes me
think it.'

'At any rate you can't go back,' said Nora enthusiastically.

'I will try.'

'Go to himself and ask him. You must leave him to decide it at last. I
don't see how a girl when she is engaged, is to throw a man over unless
he consents. Of course you can throw yourself into the Arno.'

'And get the water into my shoes for it wouldn't do much more at
present.'

'And you can jilt him,' said Nora.

'It would not be jilting him.'

'He must decide that. If he so regards it, it will be so. I advise you
to think no more about it; but if you speak to anybody it should be to
him.' This was at last the result of Nora's wisdom, and then the two
girls descended together to the room in which Lady Rowley was sitting
with her other daughters. Lady Rowley was very careful in asking after
Miss Spalding's sister, and Miss Spalding assured her that Olivia was
quite well. Then Lady Rowley made some inquiry about Olivia and Mr
Glascock, and Miss Spalding assured her that no two persons were ever
such allies, and that she believed that they were together at this
moment investigating some old church. Lady Rowley simpered, and
declared that nothing could be more proper, and expressed a hope that
Olivia would like England. Caroline Spalding, having still in her mind
the trouble that had brought her to Nora, had not much to say about
this. 'If she goes again to England I am sure she will like it,'
replied Miss Spalding.

'But of course she is going,' said Lady Rowley.

'Of course she will some day, and of course she'll like it,' said Miss
Spalding. 'We both of us have been there already.'

'But I mean Monkhams,' said Lady Rowley, still simpering.

'I declare I believe mamma thinks that your sister is to be married to
Mr Glascock!' said Lucy.

'And so she is isn't she?' said Lady Rowley.

'Oh, mamma!' said Nora, jumping up. 'It is Caroline this one, this one,
this one,' and Nora took her friend by the arm as she spoke 'it is this
one that is to be Mrs Glascock.'

'It is a most natural mistake to make,' said Caroline. Lady Rowley
became very red in the face, and was unhappy. 'I declare,' she said,
'that they told me it was your elder sister.'

'But I have no elder sister,' said Caroline, laughing. 'Of course she
is oldest,' said Nora 'and looks to be so, ever so much. Don't you,
Miss Spalding?'

'I have always supposed so.'

'I don't understand it at all,' said Lady Rowley, who had no image
before her mind's eye but that of Wallachia Petrie, and who was
beginning to feel that she had disgraced her own judgment by the
criticisms she had expressed everywhere as to Mr Glascock's bride. 'I
don't understand it at all. Do you mean that both your sisters are
younger than you, Miss Spalding?'

'I have only got one, Lady Rowley.'

'Mamma, you are thinking of Miss Petrie,' said Nora, clapping both her
hands together.

'I mean the lady that wears the black bugles.'

'Of course you do Miss Petrie. Mamma has all along thought that Mr
Glascock was going to carry away with him the republican Browning!'

'Oh, mamma, how can you have made such a blunder!' said Sophie Rowley.
'Mamma does make such delicious blunders.'

'Sophie, my dear, that is not a proper way of speaking.'

'But, dear mamma, don't you?'

'If somebody has told me wrong, that has not been my fault,' said Lady
Rowley.

The poor woman was so evidently disconcerted that Caroline Spalding was
quite unhappy.

'My dear Lady Rowley, there has been no fault. And why shouldn't it
have been so. Wallachia is so clever, that it is the most natural thing
in the world to have thought.'

'I cannot say that I agree with you there,' said Lady Rowley, somewhat
recovering herself.

'You must know the whole truth now,' said Nora, turning to her friend,
'and you must not be angry with us if we laugh a little at your
poetess. Mamma has been frantic with Mr Glascock because he has been
going to marry whom shall I say her edition of you. She has sworn that
he must be insane. When we have sworn how beautiful you were, and how
nice, and how jolly, and all the rest of it she has sworn that you were
at least a hundred and that you had a red nose. You must admit that
Miss Petrie has a red nose.'

'Is that a sin?'

'Not at all in the woman who has it; but in the man who is going to
marry it yes. Can't you see how we have all been at cross-purposes, and
what mamma has been thinking and saying of poor Mr Glascock? You
mustn't repeat it, of course; but we have had such a battle here about
it. We thought that mamma had lost her eyes and her ears and her
knowledge of things in general. And now it has all come out! You won't
be angry?'

'Why should I be angry?'

'Miss Spalding,' said Lady Rowley, 'I am really unhappy at what has
occurred, and I hope that there may be nothing more said about it. I am
quite sure that somebody told me wrong, or I should not have fallen
into such an error. I beg your pardon and Mr Glascock's!'

'Beg Mr Glascock's pardon, certainly,' said Lucy.

Miss Spalding looked very pretty, smiled very gracefully, and coming up
to Lady Rowley to say good-bye, kissed her on her cheeks. This overcame
the spirit of the disappointed mother, and Lady Rowley never said
another word against Caroline Spalding or her marriage. 'Now, mamma,
what do you think of her?' said Nora, as soon as Caroline was gone.