He Knew He Was Right

When Louis Trevelyan was twenty-four years old, he had all the world before him where to choose; and, among other things, he chose to go to the Mandarin Islands, and there fell in love with Emily Rowley, the daughter of Sir Marmaduke, the governor. Sir Marmaduke Rowley, at this period of his life, was a respectable middle-aged public servant, in good repute, who had, however, as yet achieved for himself neither an exalted position nor a large fortune. He had been governor of many islands, and had never lacked employment; and now, at the age of fifty, found himself at the Mandarins, with a salary of £3,000 a year, living in a temperature at which 80° in the shade is considered to be cool, with eight daughters, and not a shilling saved. A governor at the Mandarins who is social by nature and hospitable on principle, cannot save money in the islands even on £3,000 a year when he has eight daughters. And at the Mandarins, though hospitality is a duty, the gentlemen who ate Sir Rowley’s dinners were not exactly the men whom he or Lady Rowley desired to welcome to their bosoms as sons-in-law. Nor when Mr. Trevelyan came that way, desirous of seeing everything in the somewhat indefinite course of his travels, had Emily Rowley, the eldest of the flock, then twenty years of age, seen as yet any Mandariner who exactly came up to her fancy. And, as Louis Trevelyan was a remarkably handsome young man, who was well connected, who had been ninth wrangler at Cambridge, who had already published a volume

“If I am suspected,” said Mrs. Trevelyan to her sister one morning, as they sat together in the little back drawing-room, “life will not be worth having.”

“How can you talk of being suspected, Emily?”

“What does he mean then by saying that he would rather not have Colonel Osborne here? A man older than my own father, who has known me since I was a baby!”

“He didn’t mean anything of that kind, Emily. You know he did not, and you should not say so. It would be too horrible to think of.”

“It was a great deal too horrible to be spoken, I know. If he does not beg my pardon, I shall⁠—I shall continue to live with him, of course, as a sort of upper servant, because of baby. But he shall know what I think and feel.”

“If I were you I would forget it.”

“How can I forget it? Nothing that I can do pleases him. He is civil and kind to you because he is not your master; but you don’t know what things he says to me. Am I to tell Colonel Osborne not to come? Heavens and earth! How should I ever hold up my head again if I were driven to do that? He will be here today I have no doubt; and Louis will sit there below in the library, and hear his step, and will not come up.”

“Tell Richard to say you are not at home.”

Martha argued the matter, but was of course beaten, and on the day fixed started early in the morning for Nuncombe Putney, and returned in the afternoon to the Close with her charge. By the time that she had reached the house she had in some degree reconciled herself to the dangerous step that her mistress had taken, partly by perceiving that in face Dorothy Stanbury was very like her brother Hugh, and partly, perhaps, by finding that the young woman’s manner to herself was both gentle and sprightly. She knew well that gentleness alone, without some backbone of strength under it, would not long succeed with Miss Stanbury. “As far as I can judge, ma’am, she’s a sweet young lady,” said Martha, when she reported her arrival to her mistress, who had retired upstairs to her own room, in order that she might thus hear a word of tidings from her lieutenant, before she showed herself on the field of action.

“Sweet! I hate your sweets,” said Miss Stanbury.

“Then why did you send for her, ma’am?”

“Because I was an old fool. But I must go down and receive her, I suppose.”

Then Miss Stanbury went down, almost trembling as she went. The matter to her was one of vital importance. She was going to change the whole tenor of her life for the sake⁠—as she told herself⁠—of doing her duty by a relative whom she did not even know.

Miss Stanbury, as she sipped hers out very slowly, seemed to enjoy it much. Although May had come, there was a fire in the grate, and she sat with her toes on the fender, and her silk dress folded up above her knees. She sat quite silent in this position for a quarter of an hour, every now and then raising her glass to her lips. Dorothy sat silent also. To her, in the newness of her condition, speech was impossible.

“I think it will do,” said Miss Stanbury at last.

As Dorothy had no idea what would do, she could make no reply to this.

“I’m sure it will do,” said Miss Stanbury, after another short interval. “You’re as like my poor sister as two eggs. You don’t have headaches, do you?”

Dorothy said that she was not ordinarily affected in that way.

“When girls have headaches it comes from tight-lacing, and not walking enough, and carrying all manner of nasty smells about with them. I know what headaches mean. How is a woman not to have a headache, when she carries a thing on the back of her poll as big as a gardener’s wheelbarrow? Come, it’s a fine evening, and we’ll go out and look at the towers. You’ve never even seen them yet, I suppose?”

So they went out, and finding the verger at the Cathedral door, he being a great friend of Miss Stanbury’s, they walked up and down the aisles, and Dorothy was instructed as to what would be expected from her in regard to the outward forms of religion. She was to go to the Cathedral service on the morning of every weekday, and on Sundays in the afternoon.

Mr. Glascock, as soon as the door was shut behind Mrs. Trevelyan’s back, took a chair and placed it close beside the head of the sofa on which Nora was sitting. “Miss Rowley,” he said, “you and I have known each other now for some months, and I hope you have learned to regard me as a friend.”

“Oh, yes, indeed,” said Nora, with some spirit.

“It has seemed to me that we have met as friends, and I can most truly say for myself, that I have taken the greatest possible pleasure in your acquaintance. It is not only that I admire you very much,”⁠—he looked straight before him as he said this, and moved about the point of the stick which he was holding in both his hands⁠—“it is not only that⁠—perhaps not chiefly that, though I do admire you very much; but the truth is, that I like everything about you.”

Nora smiled, but she said nothing. It was better, she thought, to let him tell his story; but his mode of telling it was not without its efficacy. It was not the simple praise which made its way with her but a certain tone in the words which seemed to convince her that they were true. If he had really found her, or fancied her to be what he said, there was a manliness in his telling her so in the plainest words that pleased her much.