Lady Anna E-Book

Anthony Trollope

• Herausgeber: Anthony Trollope
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

Novelist, son of Thomas Anthony Trollope, a barrister who ruined himself by speculation, and of Frances Trollope, a well-known writer, was born in London, and educated at Harrow and Winchester. His childhood was an unhappy one, owing to his father’s misfortunes. After a short time in Belgium he obtained an appointment in the Post Office, in which he rose to a responsible position. His first three novels had little success; but in 1855 he found his line, and in The Warden produced the first of his Barsetshire series. It was followed by Barchester Towers [1857], Doctor Thorne [1858], Framley Parsonage [1861], The Small House at Allington [1864], and The Last Chronicle of Barset [1867], which deal with the society of a small cathedral city. Other novels are Orley Farm, Can you forgive Her?, Ralph the Heir, The Claverings, Phineas Finn, He knew he was Right, and The Golden Lion of Grandpré. In all he wrote about 50 novels, besides books about the West Indies, North America, Australia, and South Africa, a translation of Cæsar, and monographs on Cicero and Thackeray. His novels are light of touch, pleasant, amusing, and thoroughly healthy. They make no attempt to sound the depths of character or either to propound or solve problems. Outside of fiction his work was generally superficial and unsatisfactory. But he had the merit of providing a whole generation with wholesome amusement, and enjoyed a great deal of popularity. He is said to have received £70,000 for his writings.

Leseprobe

Lady Anna

Anthony Trollope

Table of Contents

The Early History of Lady Lovel

The Earl’s Will

Lady Anna

The Tailor of Keswick

The Solicitor-General makes a Proposition

Yoxham Rectory

The Solicitor-General perseveres

Impossible!

It isn’t Law

The first Interview

It is too late

Have they Surrendered?

New Friends

The Earl arrives

Wharfedale

For ever

The Journey Home

Too Heavy for Secrets

Lady Anna returns to London

Lady Anna’s Reception

Daniel and the Lawyer

There is a Gulf fixed

Bedford Square

The Dog in the Manger

Daniel Thwaite’s Letter

The Keswick Poet

Lady Anna’s Letter

Lovel v. Murray and Another

Daniel Thwaite Alone

Justice is to be done

The Verdict

Will you Promise?

Daniel Thwaite receives his Money

“I will take your Word for nothing’

The Serjeant and Mrs Bluestone at home

It is still True

Let her Die

Lady Anna’s Bedside

Lady Anna’s Offer

No Disgrace at all

Nearer and Nearer

Daniel Thwaite comes to Keppel Street

Daniel Thwaite comes again

The Attempt and not the Deed confounds us

The Lawyers agree

Hard Lines

Things arrange themselves

The Marriage

Chapter 1

The Early History of Lady Lovel

Women have often been hardly used by men, but perhaps no harder usage, no fiercer cruelty was ever experienced by a woman than that which fell to the lot of Josephine Murray from the hands of Earl Lovel, to whom she was married in the parish church of Applethwaite — a parish without a village, lying among the mountains of Cumberland — on the 1st of June, 181 — . That her marriage was valid according to all the forms of the Church, if Lord Lovel were then capable of marrying, no one ever doubted; nor did the Earl ever allege that it was not so. Lovel Grange is a small house, surrounded by a small domain — small as being the residence of a rich nobleman, lying among the mountains which separate Cumberland from Westmoreland, about ten miles from Keswick, very lovely, from the brightness of its own green sward and the luxuriance of its wild woodland, from the contiguity of overhanging mountains, and from the beauty of Lovel Tarn, a small lake belonging to the property, studded with little islands, each of which is covered with its own thicket of hollies, birch, and dwarfed oaks. The house itself is poor, ill built, with straggling passages and low rooms, and is a sombre, ill-omened looking place. When Josephine Murray was brought there as a bride she thought it to be very sombre and ill-omened; but she loved the lakes and mountains, and dreamed of some vague mysterious joy of life which was to come to her from the wildness of her domicile.

I fear that she had no other ground, firmer than this, on which to found her hopes of happiness. She could not have thought Lord Lovel to be a good man when she married him, and it can hardly be said that she loved him. She was then twenty-four years old, and he had counted double as many years. She was very beautiful, dark, with large, bold, blue eyes, with hair almost black, tall, well made, almost robust, a well-born, brave, ambitious woman, of whom it must be acknowledged that she thought it very much to be the wife of a lord. Though our story will be concerned much with her vsufferings, the record of her bridal days may be very short. It is with struggles that came to her in after years that we shall be most concerned, and the reader, therefore, need be troubled with no long description of Josephine Murray as she was when she became the Countess Lovel. It is hoped that her wrongs may be thought worthy of sympathy — and may be felt in some sort to atone for the ignoble motives of her marriage.

The Earl, when he found his bride, had been living almost in solitude for a twelvemonth. Among the neighbouring gentry in the lake country he kept no friendly relations. His property there was small, and his character was evil. He was an English earl, and as such known in some unfamiliar fashion to those who know all earls; but he was a man never seen in Parliament, who had spent the greater part of his manhood abroad, who had sold estates in other counties, converting unentailed acres into increased wealth, but wealth of a kind much less acceptable to the general English aristocrat than that which comes direct from the land. Lovel Grange was his only remaining English property, and when in London he had rooms at a hotel. He never entertained, and he never accepted hospitality. It was known of him that he was very rich, and men said that he was mad. Such was the man whom Josephine Murray had chosen to marry because he was an earl.

He had found her near Keswick, living with her father in a pretty cottage looking down upon Derwentwater — a thorough gentleman, for Captain Murray had come of the right Murrays — and thence he had carried her to Lovel Grange. She had brought with her no penny of fortune, and no settlement had been made on her. Her father, who was then an old man, had mildly expostulated; but the ambition of the daughter had prevailed, and the marriage was accomplished. The beautiful young woman was carried off as a bride. It will be unnecessary to relate what efforts had been made to take her away from her father’s house without bridal honours; but it must be told that the Earl was a man who had never yet spared a woman in his lust. It had been the rule, almost the creed of his life, that woman was made to gratify the appetite of man, and that the man is but a poor creature who does not lay hold of the sweetness that is offered to him. He had so lived as to teach himself that those men who devote themselves to their wives, as a wife devotes herself to her husband, are the poor lubberly clods of creation, who had lacked the power to reach the only purpose of living which could make life worth having. Women had been to him a prey, as the fox is a prey to the huntsman and the salmon to the angler. But he had acquired great skill in his sport, and could pursue his game with all the craft which experience will give. He could look at a woman as though he saw all heaven in her eyes, and could listen to her as though the music of the spheres was to be heard in her voice. Then he could whisper words which, to many women, were as the music of the spheres, and he could persevere, abandoning all other pleasures, devoting himself to the one wickedness with a perseverance which almost made success certain. But with Josephine Murray he could be successful on no other terms than those which enabled her to walk out of the church with him as Countess Lovel.