‘I don’t know who it is that is big in
this matter.’
’You are big at any rate by comparison.
But now it must go on. The house has been taken,
and my fears are over as regards you. What you
observe in mamma is only the effect, not yet quite
worn out, of what I said before you came. You
may be quite sure of this that we neither of us believe
a word against you. Your position is a very unfortunate
one; but if it can be remedied by your staying here
with us, pray stay with us.’
‘It cannot be remedied,’ said Emily; ’but
we could not be anywhere more comfortable than we
are here.’
WHAT THEY SAID ABOUT IT IN THE CLOSE
When Miss Stanbury, in the Close at Exeter, was first
told of the arrangement that had been made at Nuncombe
Putney, she said some very hard words as to the thing
that had been done. She was quite sure that Mrs
Trevelyan was no better than she should be. Ladies
who were separated from their husbands never were
any better than they should be. And what was
to be thought of any woman, who, when separated from
her husband, would put herself under the protection
of such a Paladin as Hugh Stanbury. She heard
the tidings of course from Dorothy, and spoke her
mind even to Dorothy plainly enough; but it was to
Martha that she expressed herself with her fullest
vehemence.
‘We always knew,’ she said, ’that
my brother had married an addle-pated, silly woman,
one of the most unsuited to be the mistress of a clergyman’s
house that ever a man set eyes on; but I didn’t
think she’d allow herself to be led into such
a stupid thing as this.’
’I don’t suppose the lady has done anything
amiss any more than combing her husband’s hair,
and the like of that,’ said Martha.
‘Don’t tell me! Why, by their own
story, she has got a lover.’
’But he ain’t to come after her down here,
I suppose. And as for lovers, ma’am, I’m
told that the most of ’em have ’em up in
London. But it don’t mean much, only just
idle talking and gallivanting.’
’When women can’t keep themselves from
idle talking with strange gentlemen, they are very
far gone on the road to the devil. That’s
my notion. And that was everybody’s notion
a few years ago. But now, what with divorce bills,
and woman’s rights, and penny papers, and false
hair, and married women being just like giggling girls,
and giggling girls knowing just as much as married
women, when a woman has been married a year or two
she begins to think whether she mayn’t have more
fun for her money by living apart from her husband.’
‘Miss Dorothy says—’
’Oh, bother what Miss Dorothy says! Miss
Dorothy only knows what it has suited that scamp,
her brother, to tell her. I understand this woman
has come away because of a lover; and if that’s
so, my sister-in-law is very wrong to receive her.
The temptation of the Clock House has been too much
for her. It’s not my doing; that’s
all.’
