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AYALA’S ANGEL
“I have not a word to say against it. If a man can be independent it is so much the better. If a man can do everything for
himself, so as to require neither to beg nor to borrow, it will be
much better for him. But, my dear, you must understand that
a man cannot be independent with one hand, and accept assistance with the other, at one and the same time.”
“That is not his character, I am sure,” said Lucy, striving to
hide her indignation while she defended her lover’s character.
“I do not think it is. Therefore he must remain independent, and I can do nothing for him.”
“He knows that, Uncle Tom.”
“Very well. Then there’s an end of it. I only want to make
you understand that I was willing to assist him, but that he
was unwilling to be assisted. I like him all the better for it, but
there must be an end of it.”
“I quite understand, Uncle Tom.”
“Then there’s one other thing I’ve got to say. He accused
me of having threatened to turn you out of my house. Now,
my dear — “ Hereupon Lucy struggled to say a word, hardly
knowing what word she ought to say, but he interrupted
her, — “Just hear me out till I’ve done, and then there need
not be another word about it. I never threatened to turn
you out.”
“Not you, Uncle Tom,” she said, endeavouring to press his
arm with her hand.
“If your aunt said a word in her anger you should not have
made enough of it to write and tell him.”
“I thought she meant me to go, and then I didn’t know
whom else to ask.”
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ANTHONY TROLLOPE
“Neither I nor she, nor anybody else, ever intended to
turn you out. I have meant to be kind to you both, — to you
and Ayala; and if things have gone wrong I cannot say that it
has been my fault. Now, you had better stay here, and not say
a word more about it till he is ready to take you. That can’t be
yet for a long time. He is making, at present, not more than two
hundred a year. And I am sure it must be quite as much as he
can do to keep a coat on his back with such an income as that.
You must make up your mind to wait, — probably for some
years. As I told you before, if a man chooses to have the glory of independence he must also bear the inconvenience. Now,
my dear, let there be an end of this, and never say again that
I want to turn you out of my house.”
CHAPTER XXXV
TOM TRINGLE SENDS
A CHALLENGE
The next six weeks went on tranquilly at Merle Park
without a word spoken about Hamel. Sir Thomas, who was in
the country as little as possible, showed his scorn to his son-inlaw simply by the paucity of his words, speaking to him, when
he did speak to him, with a deliberate courtesy which Mr.
Traffick perfectly understood. It was that dangerous serenity
which so often presages a storm. “There is something going to
be up with your father,” he said to Augusta. Augusta replied
that she had never seen her father so civil before. “It would be
a great convenience,” continued the Member of Parliament, “if
he could be made to hold his tongue till Parliament meets; but
I’m afraid that’s too good to expect.” In other respects things
were comfortable at Merle Park, though they were not always
comfortable up in London. Tom, as the reader knows, was misbehaving himself sadly at the Mountaineers. This was the period of unlimited champagne, and of almost total absence
from Lombard Street. It was seldom that Sir Thomas could get
hold of his son, and when he did that broken-hearted youth
would reply to his expostulations simply by asserting that if
his father would induce Ayala to marry him everything should
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ANTHONY TROLLOPE
go straight in Lombard Street. Then came the final blow. Tom
was of course expected at Merle Park on Christmas Eve, but
did not make his appearance either then or on Christmas
Day. Christmas fell on a Wednesday, and it was intended
that the family should remain in the country till the following Monday. On the Thursday Sir Thomas went up to town to
make inquiries respecting his heir, as to whom Lady Tringle
had then become absolutely unhappy. In London he heard
the disastrous truth. Tom, in his sportive mood, had caused
serious inconvenience to a most respectable policeman, and
was destined to remain another week in the hands of the Philistines. Then, for a time, all the other Tringle troubles were
buried and forgotten in this great trouble respecting Tom.
Lady Tringle was unable to leave her room during the period of incarceration. Mr. Traffick promised to have the victim
liberated by the direct interference of the Secretary of State,
but failed to get anything of the kind accomplished. The girls
were completely cowed by the enormity of the misfortune; so
that Tom’s name was hardly mentioned except in sad and confidential whispers. But of all the sufferers Sir Thomas suffered
the most. To him it was a positive disgrace, weighing down
every moment of his life. At Travers and Treason he could
not hold up his head boldly and open his mouth loudly as
had always been his wont. At Travers and Treason there was
not a clerk who did not know that “the governor” was an altered man since this misfortune had happened to the hope of
the firm. What passed between Sir Thomas and his son on
the occasion has already been told in a previous chapter. That
Sir Thomas, on the whole, behaved with indulgence must be
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AYALA’S ANGEL
acknowledged; but he felt that his son must in truth absent
himself from Lombard Street for a time.
Tom had been advised by his father to go forth and see
the world. A prolonged tour had been proposed to him which to
most young men might seem to have great attraction. To him
it would have had attraction enough, had it not been for Ayala. There would have been hardly any limit to the allowance
made to him, and he would have gone forth armed with introductions, which would have made every port a happy home to
him. But as soon as the tour was suggested he resolved at once
that he could not move himself to a distance from Ayala. What
he expected, — what he even hoped, — he could not tell himself. But while Ayala was in London, and Ayala was unmarried,
he could not be made to take himself far away.
He was thoroughly ashamed of himself. He was not at
all the man who could bear a week of imprisonment and
not think himself disgraced. For a day or two he shut himself up altogether in his lodgings, and never once showed
himself at the Mountaineers. Faddle came to him, but he
snubbed Faddle at first, remembering all the severe things
his father had said about the Faddles in general. But he soon
allowed that feeling to die away when the choice seemed to
be between Faddle and solitude. Then he crept out in
the dark and ate his dinners with Faddle at some tavern,
generally paying the bill for both of them. After dinner he
would play half-a-dozen games of billiards with his friend at
some unknown billiard-room, and then creep home to his
lodgings, — a blighted human being!
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ANTHONY TROLLOPE
At last, about the end of the first week in January, he was
induced to go down to Merle Park. There Mr. and Mrs. Traffick were still sojourning, the real grief which had afflicted Sir
Thomas having caused him to postpone his intention in regard to his son-in-law. At Merle Park Tom was cosseted and
spoilt by the women very injudiciously. It was not perhaps
the fact that they regarded him as a hero simply because he had
punched a policeman in the stomach and then been locked up
in vindication of the injured laws of his country; but that incident in combination with his unhappy love did seem to make
him heroic. Even Lucy regarded him with favour because of
his constancy to her sister; whereas the other ladies measured
their admiration for his persistency by the warmth of their
anger against the silly girl who was causing so much trouble.
His mother told him over and over again that his cousin was
not worth his regard; but then, when he would throw himself on the sofa in an agony of despair, — weakened perhaps
as much by the course of champagne as by the course of his
love, — then she, too, would bid him hope, and at last promised that she herself would endeavour to persuade Ayala to
look at the matter in a more favourable light. “It would all
be right if it were not for that accursed Stubbs,” poor Tom
would say to his mother. “The man whom I called my friend!
The man I lent a horse to when he couldn’t get one anywhere
else! The man to whom I confided everything, even about
the necklace! If it hadn’t been for Stubbs I never should have
hurt that policeman! When I was striking him I thought that it
was Stubbs!” Then the mother would heap feminine maledic-
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AYALA’S ANGEL
tions on the poor Colonel’s head, and so together they would
weep and think of revenge.
From the moment Tom had heard Colonel Stubbs’s name
mentioned as that of his rival he had meditated revenge. It was
quite true when he said that he had been thinking of Stubbs
when he struck the policeman. He had consumed the period of
his confinement in gnashing his teeth, all in regard to our
poor friend Jonathan. He told his father that he could not go
upon his long tour because of Ayala. But in truth his love was
now so mixed up with ideas of vengeance that he did not himself know which prevailed. If he could first have slaughtered
Stubbs then perhaps he might have started! But how was he to
slaughter Stubbs? Various ideas occurred to his mind. At first
he thought that he would go down to Aldershot with the biggest cutting-whip he could find in any shop in Piccadilly; but
then it occurred to him that at Aldershot he would have all
the British army against him, and that the British army might
do something to him worse even than the London magistrate.
Then he would wait till the Colonel could be met elsewhere.
He ascertained that the Colonel was still at Stalham, where he
had passed the Christmas, and he thought how it might be if
he were to attack the Colonel in the presence of his friends,
the Alburys. He assured himself that, as far as personal injury
went, he feared nothing. He had no disinclination to be hit
over the head himself, if he could be sure of hitting the Colonel over the head. If it could be managed that they two should
fly at each other with their fists, and be allowed to do the worst
they could to each other for an hour, without interference,
he would be quite satisfied. But down at Stalham that would
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ANTHONY TROLLOPE
not be allowed. All the world would be against him, and nobody there to see that he got fair play. If he could encounter the man in the streets of London it would be better; but
were he to seek the man down at Stalham he would probably
find himself in the County Lunatic Asylum. What must he do
for his revenge? He was surely entitled to it. By all the laws of
chivalry, as to which he had his own ideas, he had a right to
inflict an injury upon a successful — even upon an unsuccessful — rival. Was it not a shame that so excellent an institution
as duelling should have been stamped out? Wandering about
the lawns and shrubberies at Merle Park he thought of all this,
and at last he came to a resolution.
The institution had been stamped out, as far as Great
Britain was concerned. He was aware of that. But it seemed to
him that it had not been stamped out in other more generous
countries. He had happened to notice that a certain enthusiastic politician in France had enjoyed many duels, and had never
been severely repressed by the laws of his country. Newspaper
writers were always fighting in France, and were never guillotined. The idea of being hanged was horrible to him, — so
distasteful that he saw at a glance that a duel in England was
out of the question. But to have his head cut off, even if it
should come to that, would be a much less affair. But in Belgium, in Italy, in Germany, they never did cut off the heads of
the very numerous gentlemen who fought duels. And there
were the Southern States of the American Union, where
he fancied that men might fight duels just as they pleased.
He would be ready to go even to New Orleans at a day’s notice if only he could induce Colonel Stubbs to meet him there.
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AYALA’S ANGEL
And he thought that, if Colonel Stubbs really possessed half
the spirit which seemed to be attributed to him by the British
army generally, he would come, if properly invoked, and fight
such a duel as this, whether at New Orleans or at some other
well-chosen blood-allowing spot on the world’s surface. Tom
was prepared to go anywhere for blood.
But the invocation must be properly made. When he had
wanted another letter of another kind to be written for him,
the Colonel himself was the man to whom he had gone for
assistance. And, had his present enemy been any other than
the Colonel himself, he would have gone to the Colonel in
preference to any one else for aid in this matter. There was
no one, in truth, in whom he believed so thoroughly as in
the Colonel. But that was out of the question. Then he reflected what friend might now stand him in stead. He would have
gone to Houston, who wanted to marry his sister; but Houston
seemed to have disappeared, and he did not know where he
might be found. There was his brother-in-law, Traffick, — but
he feared lest Traffick might give him over once more into
the hands of the police. He thought of Hamel, as being in
a way connected with the family; but he had seen so little of
Hamel, and had so much disliked what he had seen, that he
was obliged to let that hope go by. There was no one left but
Faddle whom he could trust. Faddle would do anything he was
told to do. Faddle would carry the letter, no doubt, or allow
himself to be named as a proposed second. But Faddle could
not write the letter. He felt that he could write the letter himself better than Faddle.
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ANTHONY TROLLOPE
He went up to town, having sent a mysterious letter to
Faddle, bidding his friend attend him in his lodgings. He did
not yet dare to go to the Mountaineers, where Faddle would
have been found. But Faddle came, true to the appointment.
“What is it, now?” said the faithful friend. “I hope you are going back to Travers and Treason’s. That is what I should do,
and walk in just as though nothing had happened.”
“Not if you were me, you wouldn’t.”
“That does make a difference, of course.”
“There is something else to be done before I can again
darken the doors of Travers and Treason, — if I should
ever do so!”
“Something particular?”
“Something very particular. Faddle, I do think you are
a true friend.”
“You may say that. I have stuck to you always, — though
you don’t know the kind of things my people say to me about
it. They say I am going to ruin myself because of you. The governor threatened to put me out of the business altogether. But
I’m a man who will be true to my friend, whatever happens.
I think you have been a little cool to me, lately; but even that
don’t matter.”
“Cool! If you knew the state that I’m in you wouldn’t talk of
a fellow being cool! I’m so knocked about it all that I don’t
know what I’m doing.”
“I do take that into consideration.”
“Now, I’ll tell you what I am going to do.” Then he stood
still, and looked Faddle full in the face. Faddle, sitting awestruck on his chair, returned the gaze. He knew that a mo-
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