He Knew He Was Right Part 86

That was Bozzle's law.

"I don't believe it, B."

"But he have, I tell you."

"He can't suckle 'em;--can he? I don't believe a bit of his rights."

"When a married woman has followers, and the husband don't go the wrong side of the post too, or it ain't proved again him that he do, they'll never let her have nothing to do with the children. It's been before the court a hundred times. He'll get the child fast enough if he'll go before the court."

"Anyways it ain't your business, Bozzle, and don't you meddle nor make. The money's good money as long as it's honest earned; but when you come to rampaging and breaking into a gent's house, then I say money may be had a deal too hard." In this special letter, which had now come to hand, Bozzle was not instructed to "rampage." He was simply desired to make a further official requisition for the boy at the parsonage, and to explain to Mr. Outhouse, Mrs. Outhouse, and Mrs. Trevelyan, or to as many of them as he could contrive to see, that Mr. Trevelyan was immediately about to return to London, and that he would put the law into execution if his son were not given up to him at once. "I'll tell you what it is, B.," exclaimed Mrs.

Bozzle, "it's my belief as he ain't quite right up here;" and Mrs.

Bozzle touched her forehead.

"It's love for her as has done it then," said Bozzle, shaking his head.

"I'm not a taking of her part, B. A woman as has a husband as finds her with her wittels regular, and with what's decent and comfortable beside, ought to be contented. I've never said no other than that.

I ain't no patience with your saucy madames as can't remember as they're eating an honest man's bread. Drat 'em all; what is it they wants? They don't know what they wants. It's just hidleness,--cause there ain't a ha'porth for 'em to do. It's that as makes 'em--, I won't say what. But as for this here child, B.--." At that moment there came a knock at the door. Mrs. Bozzle going into the pa.s.sage, opened it herself, and saw a strange gentleman. Bozzle, who had stood at the inner door, saw that the gentleman was Mr. Trevelyan.

The letter, which was still in the ex-policeman's hand, had reached Stony Walk on the previous day; but the master of the house had been absent, finding out facts, following up his profession, and earning an honest penny. Trevelyan had followed his letter quicker than he had intended when it was written, and was now with his prime minister, before his prime minister had been able to take any action on the last instruction received. "Does one Mr. Samuel Bozzle live here?" asked Trevelyan. Then Bozzle came forward and introduced his wife. There was no one else present except the baby, and Bozzle intimated that let matters be as delicate as they might, they could be discussed with perfect security in his wife's presence. But Trevelyan was of a different opinion, and he was disgusted and revolted,--most unreasonably,--by the appearance of his minister's domestic arrangements. Bozzle had always waited upon him with a decent coat, and a well-brushed hat, and clean shoes. It is very much easier for such men as Mr. Bozzle to carry decency of appearance about with them than to keep it at home. Trevelyan had never believed his ally to be more than an ordinary ex-policeman, but he had not considered how unattractive might be the interior of a private detective's private residence. Mrs. Bozzle had set a chair for him, but he had declined to sit down. The room was dirty, and very close,--as though no breath of air was ever allowed to find entrance there. "Perhaps you could put on your coat, and walk out with me for a few minutes," said Trevelyan. Mrs. Bozzle, who well understood that business was business, and that wives were not business, felt no anger at this, and handed her husband his best coat. The well-brushed hat was fetched from a cupboard, and it was astonishing to see how easily and how quickly the outer respectability of Bozzle was restored.

"Well?" said Trevelyan, as soon as they were together in the middle of Stony Walk.

"There hasn't been nothing to be done, sir," said Bozzle.

"Why not?" Trevelyan could perceive at once that the authority which he had once respected had gone from the man. Bozzle away from his own home, out on business, with his coat b.u.t.toned over his breast, and his best hat in his hand, was aware that he commanded respect,--and he could carry himself accordingly. He knew himself to be somebody, and could be easy, self-confident, confidential, severe, authoritative, or even arrogant, as the circ.u.mstances of the moment might demand. But he had been found with his coat off, and a baby in his arms, and he could not recover himself. "I do not suppose that anybody will question my right to have the care of my own child,"

said Trevelyan.

"If you would have gone to Mr. Skint, sir--," suggested Bozzle.

"There ain't no smarter gent in all the profession, sir, than Mr.

Skint."

Mr. Trevelyan made no reply to this, but walked on in silence, with his minister at his elbow. He was very wretched, understanding well the degradation to which he was subjecting himself in discussing his wife's conduct with this man;--but with whom else could he discuss it? The man seemed to be meaner now than he had been before he had been seen in his own home. And Trevelyan was conscious too that he himself was not in outward appearance as he used to be; that he was ill-dressed, and haggard, and worn, and visibly a wretched being. How can any man care to dress himself with attention who is always alone, and always miserable when alone? During the months which had pa.s.sed over him since he had sent his wife away from him, his very nature had been altered, and he himself was aware of the change. As he went about, his eyes were ever cast downwards, and he walked with a quick shuffling gait, and he suspected others, feeling that he himself was suspected. And all work had ceased with him. Since she had left him he had not read a single book that was worth the reading. And he knew it all. He was conscious that he was becoming disgraced and degraded.

He would sooner have shot himself than have walked into his club, or even have allowed himself to be seen by daylight in Pall Mall, or Piccadilly. He had taken in his misery to drinking little drops of brandy in the morning, although he knew well that there was no shorter road to the devil than that opened by such a habit. He looked up for a moment at Bozzle, and then asked him a question. "Where is he now?"

"You mean the Colonel, sir. He's up in town, sir, a minding of his parliamentary duties. He have been up all this month, sir."

"They haven't met?"

Bozzle paused a moment before he replied, and then smiled as he spoke. "It is so hard to say, sir. Ladies is so cute and cunning.

I've watched as sharp as watching can go, pretty near. I've put a youngster on at each hend, and both of 'em 'd hear a mouse stirring in his sleep. I ain't got no evidence, Mr. Trevelyan. But if you ask me my opinion, why in course they've been together somewhere. It stands to reason, Mr. Trevelyan; don't it?" And Bozzle as he said this smiled almost aloud.

"D----n and b----t it all for ever!" said Trevelyan, gnashing his teeth, and moving away into Union Street as fast as he could walk.

And he did go away, leaving Bozzle standing in the middle of Stony Walk.

"He's disturbed in his mind,--quite 'orrid," Bozzle said when he got back to his wife. "He cursed and swore as made even me feel bad."

"B.," said his wife, "do you listen to me. Get in what's a howing, and don't you have nothing more to do with it."

CHAPTER LX.

ANOTHER STRUGGLE.

Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley were to reach England about the end of March or the beginning of April, and both Mrs. Trevelyan and Nora Rowley were almost sick for their arrival. Both their uncle and aunt had done very much for them, had been true to them in their need, and had submitted to endless discomforts in order that their nieces might have respectable shelter in their great need; but nevertheless their conduct had not been of a kind to produce either love or friendship.

Each of the sisters felt that she had been much better off at Nuncombe Putney, and that either the weakness of Mrs. Stanbury, or the hardness of Priscilla, was preferable to the repulsive forbearance of their clerical host. He did not scold them. He never threw it in Mrs. Trevelyan's teeth that she had been separated from her husband by her own fault; he did not tell them of his own discomfort. But he showed it in every gesture, and spoke of it in every tone of his voice;--so that Mrs. Trevelyan could not refrain from apologising for the misfortune of her presence.

"My dear," he said, "things can't be pleasant and unpleasant at the same time. You were quite right to come here. I am glad for all our sakes that Sir Marmaduke will be with us so soon."

She had almost given up in her mind the hope that she had long cherished, that she might some day be able to live again with her husband. Every step which he now took in reference to her seemed to be prompted by so bitter an hostility, that she could not but believe that she was hateful to him. How was it possible that a husband and his wife should again come together, when there had been between them such an emissary as a detective policeman? Mrs. Trevelyan had gradually come to learn that Bozzle had been at Nuncombe Putney, watching her, and to be aware that she was still under the surveillance of his eye. For some months past now she had neither seen Colonel Osborne, nor heard from him. He had certainly by his folly done much to produce the ruin which had fallen upon her; but it never occurred to her to blame him. Indeed she did not know that he was liable to blame. Mr. Outhouse always spoke of him with indignant scorn, and Nora had learned to think that much of their misery was due to his imprudence. But Mrs. Trevelyan would not see this, and, not seeing it, was more widely separated from her husband than she would have been had she acknowledged that any excuse for his misconduct had been afforded by the vanity and folly of the other man.

Lady Rowley had written to have a furnished house taken for them from the first of April, and a house had been secured in Manchester Street. The situation in question is not one which is of itself very charming, nor is it supposed to be in a high degree fashionable; but Nora looked forward to her escape from St. Diddulph's to Manchester Street as though Paradise were to be re-opened to her as soon as she should be there with her father and mother. She was quite clear now as to her course about Hugh Stanbury. She did not doubt but that she could so argue the matter as to get the consent of her father and mother. She felt herself to be altogether altered in her views of life, since experience had come upon her, first at Nuncombe Putney, and after that, much more heavily and seriously, at St. Diddulph's.

She looked back as though to a childish dream to the ideas which had prevailed with her when she had told herself, as she used to do so frequently, that she was unfit to be a poor man's wife. Why should she be more unfit for such a position than another? Of course there were many thoughts in her mind, much of memory if nothing of regret, in regard to Mr. Glasc.o.c.k and the splendour that had been offered to her. She had had her chance of being a rich man's wife, and had rejected it,--had rejected it twice, with her eyes open. Readers will say that if she loved Hugh Stanbury with all her heart, there could be nothing of regret in her reflections. But we are perhaps accustomed in judging for ourselves and of others to draw the lines too sharply, and to say that on this side lie vice, folly, heartlessness, and greed,--and on the other honour, love, truth, and wisdom,--the good and the bad each in its own domain. But the good and the bad mix themselves so thoroughly in our thoughts, even in our aspirations, that we must look for excellence rather in overcoming evil than in freeing ourselves from its influence. There had been many moments of regret with Nora;--but none of remorse. At the very moment in which she had sent Mr. Glasc.o.c.k away from her, and had felt that he had now been sent away for always, she had been full of regret. Since that there had been many hours in which she had thought of her own self-lesson, of that teaching by which she had striven to convince herself that she could never fitly become a poor man's wife.

But the upshot of it all was a healthy pride in what she had done, and a strong resolution that she would make shirts and hem towels for her husband if he required it. It had been given her to choose, and she had chosen. She had found herself unable to tell a man that she loved him when she did not love him,--and equally unable to conceal the love which she did feel. "If he wheeled a barrow of turnips about the street, I'd marry him to-morrow," she said to her sister one afternoon as they were sitting together in the room which ought to have been their uncle's study.

"If he wheeled a big barrow, you'd have to wheel a little one," said her sister.

"Then I'd do it. I shouldn't mind. There has been this advantage in St. Diddulph's, that nothing can be triste, nothing dull, nothing ugly after it."

"It may be so with you, Nora;--that is in imagination."

"What I mean is that living here has taught me much that I never could have learned in Curzon Street. I used to think myself such a fine young woman,--but, upon my word, I think myself a finer one now."

"I don't quite know what you mean."

"I don't quite know myself; but I nearly know. I do know this, that I've made up my own mind about what I mean to do."

"You'll change it, dear, when mamma is here, and things are comfortable again. It's my belief that Mr. Glasc.o.c.k would come to you again to-morrow if you would let him." Mrs. Trevelyan was, naturally, in complete ignorance of the experience of transatlantic excellence which Mr. Glasc.o.c.k had encountered in Italy.

"But I certainly should not let him. How would it be possible after what I wrote to Hugh?"

"All that might pa.s.s away," said Mrs. Trevelyan,--slowly, after a long pause.

"All what might pa.s.s away? Have I not given him a distinct promise?

Have I not told him that I loved him, and sworn that I would be true to him? Can that be made to pa.s.s away,--even if one wished it?"

"Of course it can. Nothing need be fixed for you till you have stood at the altar with a man and been made his wife. You may choose still.

I can never choose again."

"I never will, at any rate," said Nora.

Then there was another pause. "It seems strange to me, Nora," said the elder sister, "that after what you have seen you should be so keen to be married to any one."

"What is a girl to do?"

"Better drown herself than do as I have done. Only think what there is before me. What I have gone through is nothing to it. Of course I must go back to the Islands. Where else am I to live? Who else will take me?"