He Knew He Was Right
Trollope, Anthony, 1815-1882
English
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HE KNEW HE WAS RIGHT
CHAPTER I
SHEWING HOW WRATH BEGAN
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 pounds 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 pounds 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 of poems, and who possessed 3,000 pounds a year of his own,
arising from various perfectly secure investments, he was not forced
to sigh long in vain. Indeed, the Rowleys, one and all, felt that
providence had been very good to them in sending young Trevelyan
on his travels in that direction, for he seemed to be a very pearl
among men. Both Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley felt that there might
be objections to such a marriage as that proposed to them, raised
by the Trevelyan family. Lady Rowley would not have liked her daughter
to go to England, to be received with cold looks by strangers. But
it soon appeared that there was no one to make objections. Louis,
the lover, had no living relative nearer than cousins. His father,
a barrister of repute, had died a widower, and had left the money
which he had made to an only child. The head of the family was a
first cousin who lived in Cornwall on a moderate property, a very
good sort of stupid fellow, as Louis said, who would be quite
indifferent as to any marriage that his cousin might make. No man
could be more independent or more clearly justified in pleasing
himself than was this lover. And then he himself proposed that the
second daughter, Nora, should come and live with them in London.
What a lover to fall suddenly from the heavens into such a dovecote!
'I haven't a penny-piece to give either of them,' said Sir Rowley.
'It is my idea that girls should not have fortunes,' said Trevelyan.
'At any rate, I am quite sure that men should never look for money.
A man must be more comfortable, and, I think, is likely to be more
affectionate, when the money has belonged to himself.'
Sir Rowley was a high-minded gentleman, who would have liked to
have handed over a few thousand pounds on giving up his daughters;
but, having no thousands of pounds to hand over, he could not but
admire the principles of his proposed son-in-law. As it was about
time for him to have his leave of absence, he and sundry of the girls
went to England with Mr Trevelyan, and the wedding was celebrated
in London by the Rev. Oliphant Outhouse, of Saint Diddulph-in-the-East,
who had married Sir Rowley's sister. Then a small house was taken
and furnished in Curzon Street, Mayfair, and the Rowleys went back
to the seat of their government, leaving Nora, the second girl, in
charge of her elder sister.
The Rowleys had found, on reaching London, that they had lighted
upon a pearl indeed. Louis Trevelyan was a man of whom all people
said all good things. He might have been a fellow of his college
had he not been a man of fortune. He might already, so Sir Rowley
was told, have been in Parliament, had he not thought it to be
wiser to wait awhile. Indeed, he was very wise in many things. He
had gone out on his travels thus young, not in search of excitement,
to kill beasts, or to encounter he knew not what novelty and
amusement, but that he might see men and know the world. He had
been on his travels for more than a year when the winds blew him
to the Mandarins. Oh, how blessed were the winds! And, moreover,
Sir Rowley found that his son-in-law was well spoken of at the
clubs by those who had known him during his university career, as
a man popular as well as wise, not a book-worm, or a dry philosopher,
or a prig. He could talk on all subjects, was very generous, a
man sure to be honoured and respected; and then such a handsome,
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