He Knew He Was Right Part 33

"What question?" said Trevelyan, almost angrily.

"And there's another thing I must tell you, too, Mr. Trewillian. I come back to town in the same carriage with the Colonel. I thought it better."

"You did not tell him who you were?"

"No, Mr. Trewillian; I didn't tell him that. I don't think he'd say if you was to ask him that I told him much of anything. No, Mr.

Trewillian, I didn't tell him nothing. I don't often tell folks much till the time comes. But I thought it better, and I did have a word or two with the gent,--just a word or two. He's not so very downy, isn't the Colonel;--for one that's been at it so long, Mr.

Trewillian."

"I dare say not. But if you could just let me have the account, Mr.

Bozzle,--"

"The account? Oh, yes;--that is necessary; ain't it? These sort of inquiries do come a little expensive, Mr. Trewillian; because time goes for so much; and when one has to be down on a thing, sharp, you know, and sure, so that counsel on the other side can't part you from it, though he shakes you like a dog does a rat,--and one has to get oneself up ready for all that, you know, Mr. Trewillian,--as I was saying, one can't count one's s.h.i.+llings when one has such a job as this in hand. Clench your nail;--that's what I say; be it even so.

Clench your nail;--that's what you've got to do."

"I dare say we shan't quarrel about the money, Mr. Bozzle."

"Oh dear no. I find I never has any words about the money. But there's that one question. There's a young Mr. Stanbury has gone down, as knows all about it. What's he up to?"

"He's my particular friend," said Trevelyan.

"Oh--h. He do know all about it, then?"

"We needn't talk about that, if you please, Mr. Bozzle."

"Because there was words between him and the Colonel upon the platform;--and very angry words. The young man went at the Colonel quite open-mouthed,--savage-like. It's not the way such things should be done, Mr. Trewillian; and though of course it's not for me to speak;--she's your lady,--still, when you has got a thing of this kind in hand, one head is better than a dozen. As for myself, Mr. Trewillian, I never wouldn't look at a case,--not if I knew it,--unless I was to have it all to myself. But of course there was no bargain, and so I says nothing."

After considerable delay the bill was made out on the spot, Mr.

Bozzle copying down the figures painfully from his memorandum-book, with his head much inclined on one side. Trevelyan asked him, almost in despair, to name the one sum; but this Bozzle declined to do, saying that right was right. He had a scale of pilfering of his own, to which he had easily reconciled his conscience; and beyond that he prided himself on the honesty of his accounts. At last the bill was made out, was paid, and Bozzle was gone. Trevelyan, when he was alone, threw himself back on a sofa, and almost wept in despair. To what a depth of degradation had he not been reduced!

CHAPTER XXIV.

NIDDON PARK.

As Hugh Stanbury went over to Lessboro', and from thence to Nuncombe Putney, he thought more of himself and Nora Rowley than he did of Mr.

and Mrs. Trevelyan. As to Mrs. Trevelyan and Colonel Osborne, he felt that he knew everything that it was necessary that he should know.

The man had been there, and had seen Mrs. Trevelyan. Of that there could be no doubt. That Colonel Osborne had been wickedly indifferent to the evil consequences of such a visit, and that all the women concerned had been most foolish in permitting him to make it, was his present conviction. But he did not for a moment doubt that the visit had in itself been of all things the most innocent. Trevelyan had sworn that if his wife received the man at Nuncombe Putney, he would never see her again. She had seen him, and this oath would be remembered, and there would be increased difficulties. But these difficulties, whatever they might be, must be overcome. When he had told himself this, then he allowed his mind to settle itself on Nora Rowley.

Hitherto he had known Miss Rowley only as a fas.h.i.+onable girl living with the wife of an intimate friend of his own in London. He had never been staying in the same house with her. Circ.u.mstances had never given to him the opportunity of a.s.suming the manner of an intimate friend, justifying him in giving advice, and authorising him to a.s.sume that semi-paternal tone which is by far the easiest preliminary to love-making. When a man can tell a young lady what she ought to read, what she ought to do, and whom she ought to know, nothing can be easier than to a.s.sure her that, of all her duties, her first duty is to prefer himself to all the world. And any young lady who has consented to receive lessons from such a teacher, will generally be willing to receive this special lesson among others.

But Stanbury had hitherto had no such opportunities. In London Miss Rowley had been a fas.h.i.+onable young lady, living in Mayfair, and he had been,--well, anything but a fas.h.i.+onable young man. Nevertheless, he had seen her often, had sat by her very frequently, was quite sure that he loved her dearly, and had, perhaps, some self-flattering idea in his mind that had he stuck to his honourable profession as a barrister, and were he possessed of some comfortable little fortune of his own, he might, perhaps, have been able, after due siege operations, to make this charming young woman his own. Things were quite changed now. For the present, Miss Rowley certainly could not be regarded as a fas.h.i.+onable London young lady. The house in which he would see her was, in some sort, his own. He would be sleeping under the same roof with her, and would have all the advantages which such a position could give him. He would have no difficulty now in asking, if he should choose to ask; and he thought that she might be somewhat softer, somewhat more likely to yield at Nuncombe Putney, than she would have been in London. She was at Nuncombe in weak circ.u.mstances, to a certain degree friendless; with none of the excitement of society around her, with no elder sons buzzing about her and filling her mind, if not her heart, with the glories of luxurious primogeniture. Hugh Stanbury certainly did not dream that any special elder son had as yet been so attracted as to have made a journey to Nuncombe Putney on Nora's behalf. But should he on this account,--because she would be, as it were, without means of defence from his attack,--should he therefore take advantage of her weakness?

She would, of course, go back to her London life after some short absence, and would again, if free, have her chance among the favoured ones of the earth. What had he to offer to her? He had taken the Clock House for his mother, and it would be quite as much as he could do, when Mrs. Trevelyan should have left the village, to keep up that establishment and maintain himself in London,--quite as much as he could do, even though the favours of the "D. R." should flow upon him with their fullest tides. In such circ.u.mstances, would it be honourable in him to ask a girl to love him because he found her defenceless in his mother's house?

"If there bain't another for Nuncombe," said Mrs. Clegg's Ostler to Mrs. Clegg's Boots, as Stanbury was driven off in a gig.

"That be young Stanbury, a-going of whome."

"They be all a-going for the Clock House. Since the old 'ooman took to thick there house, there be folk a-comin' and a-goin' every day loike."

"It's along of the madam that they keeps there, d.i.c.k," said the Boots.

"I didn't care if there'd be madams allays. They're the best as is going for trade anyhow," said the ostler. What the ostler said was true. When there comes to be a feeling that a woman's character is in any way tarnished, there comes another feeling that everybody on the one side may charge double, and that everybody on the other side must pay double, for everything. Hugh Stanbury could not understand why he was charged a s.h.i.+lling a mile, instead of ninepence, for the gig to Nuncombe Putney. He got no satisfactory answer, and had to pay the s.h.i.+lling. The truth was, that gigs to Nuncombe Putney had gone up, since a lady, separated from her husband, with a colonel running after her, had been taken in at the Clock House.

"Here's Hugh!" said Priscilla, hurrying to the front door. And Mrs.

Stanbury hurried after her. Her son Hugh was the apple of her eye, the best son that ever lived, generous, n.o.ble, a thorough man,--almost a G.o.d!

"Dear, dear, oh dear! Who'd have expected it? G.o.d bless you, my boy!

Why didn't you write? Priscilla, what is there in the house that he can eat?"

"Plenty of bread and cheese," said Priscilla, laughing, with her hand inside her brother's arm. For though Priscilla hated all other men, she did not hate her brother Hugh. "If you wanted things nice to eat directly you got here, you ought to have written."

"I shall want my dinner, like any other Christian,--in due time,"

said Hugh. "And how is Mrs. Trevelyan,--and how is Miss Rowley?"

He soon found himself in company with those two ladies, and experienced some immediate difficulty in explaining the cause of his sudden coming. But this was soon put aside by Mrs. Trevelyan.

"When did you see my husband?" she asked.

"I saw him yesterday. He was quite well."

"Colonel Osborne has been here," she said.

"I know that he has been here. I met him at the station at Exeter.

Perhaps I should not say so, but I wish he had remained away."

"We all wish it," said Priscilla.

Then Nora spoke. "But what could we do, Mr. Stanbury? It seemed so natural that he should call when he was in the neighbourhood. We have known him so long; and how could we refuse to see him?"

"I will not let any one think that I'm afraid to see any man on earth," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "If he had ever in his life said a word that he should not have said, a word that would have been an insult, of course it would have been different. But the notion of it is preposterous. Why should I not have seen him?"

"I think he was wrong to come," said Hugh.

"Of course he was wrong;--wickedly wrong," said Priscilla.

Stanbury, finding that the subject was openly discussed between them, declared plainly the mission that had brought him to Nuncombe.

"Trevelyan heard that he was coming, and asked me to let him know the truth."

"Now you can tell him the truth," said Mrs. Trevelyan, with something of indignation in her tone, as though she thought that Stanbury had taken upon himself a task of which he ought to be ashamed.

"But Colonel Osborne came specially to pay a visit to c.o.c.kchaffington," said Nora, "and not to see us. Louis ought to know that."

"Nora, how can you demean yourself to care about such trash?" said Mrs. Trevelyan. "Who cares why he came here? His visit to me was a thing of course. If Mr. Trevelyan disapproves of it, let him say so, and not send secret messengers."

"Am I a secret messenger?" said Hugh Stanbury.