“Oh, yes: Lady Lufton told me.”
“And are you grateful or otherwise? Have I done you an injury or a benefit? Which do you find best, sitting with a novel in the corner of a sofa in Bruton Street, or pretending to dance polkas here with Lord Dumbello?”
“I don’t know what you mean. I haven’t stood up with Lord Dumbello all the evening. We were going to dance a quadrille, but we didn’t.”
“Exactly; just what I say—pretending to do it. Even that’s a good deal for Lord Dumbello; isn’t it?” And then Lord Lufton, not being a pretender himself, put his arm round her waist, and away they went up and down the room, and across and about, with an energy which showed that what Griselda lacked in her tongue she made up with her feet. Lord Dumbello, in the meantime, stood by, observant, thinking to himself that Lord Lufton was a glib-tongued, empty-headed ass, and reflecting that if his rival were to break the tendons of his leg in one of those rapid evolutions, or suddenly come by any other dreadful misfortune, such as the loss of all his property, absolute blindness, or chronic lumbago, it would only serve him right. And in that frame of mind he went to bed, in spite of the prayer which no doubt he said as to his forgiveness of other people’s trespasses.
And then, when they were again standing, Lord Lufton, in the little intervals between his violent gasps for fresh breath, asked Griselda if she liked London. “Pretty well,” said Griselda, gasping also a little herself.
“I am afraid—you were very dull—down at Framley.”
“Oh, no—I liked it—particularly.”
“It was a great bore when you went—away, I know. There wasn’t a soul—about the house worth speaking to.” And they remained silent for a minute till their lungs had become quiescent.
“Not a soul,” he continued—not of falsehood prepense, for he was not in fact thinking of what he was saying. It did not occur to him at the moment that he had truly found Griselda’s going a great relief, and that he had been able to do more in the way of conversation with Lucy Robarts in one hour than with Miss Grantly during a month of intercourse in the same house. But, nevertheless, we should not be hard upon him. All is fair in love and war; and if this was not love, it was the usual thing that stands as a counterpart for it.
“Not a soul,” said Lord Lufton. “I was very nearly hanging myself in the Park next morning—only it rained.”
“What nonsense! You had your mother to talk to.”
“Oh, my mother—yes; and you may tell me too, if you please, that Captain Culpepper was there. I do love my mother dearly; but do you think that she could make up for your absence?” And his voice was very tender, and so were his eyes.
“And Miss Robarts; I thought you admired her very much?”
“What, Lucy Robarts?” said Lord Lufton, feeling that Lucy’s name was more than he at present knew how to manage. Indeed that name destroyed all the life there was in that little flirtation. “I do like Lucy Robarts, certainly. She is very clever; but it so happened that I saw little or nothing of her after you were gone.”
To this Griselda made no answer, but drew herself up, and looked as cold as Diana when she froze Orion in the cave. Nor could she be got to give more than monosyllabic answers to the three or four succeeding attempts at conversation which Lord Lufton made. And then they danced again, but Griselda’s steps were by no means so lively as before.
What took place between them on that occasion was very little more than what has been here related. There may have been an ice or a glass of lemonade into the bargain, and perhaps the faintest possible attempt at hand-pressing. But if so, it was all on one side. To such overtures as that Griselda Grantly was as cold as any Diana.
But little as all this was, it was sufficient to fill Lady Lufton’s mind and heart. No mother with six daughters was ever more anxious to get them off her hands, than Lady Lufton was to see her son married—married, that is, to some girl of the right sort. And now it really did seem as though he were actually going to comply with her wishes. She had watched him during the whole evening, painfully endeavouring not to be observed in doing so. She had seen Lord Dumbello’s failure and wrath, and she had seen her son’s victory and pride. Could it be the case that he had already said something, which was still allowed to be indecisive only through Griselda’s coldness? Might it not be the case, that by some judicious aid on her part, that indecision might be turned into certainty, and that coldness into warmth? But then any such interference requires so delicate a touch—as Lady Lufton was well aware.
“Have you had a pleasant evening?” Lady Lufton said, when she and Griselda were seated together with their feet on the fender of her ladyship’s dressing-room. Lady Lufton had especially invited her guest into this, her most private sanctum, to which as a rule none had admittance but her daughter, and sometimes Fanny Robarts. But to what sanctum might not such a daughter-in-law as Griselda have admittance?
“Oh, yes—very,” said Griselda.
“It seemed to me that you bestowed most of your smiles upon Ludovic.” And Lady Lufton put on a look of good pleasure that such should have been the case.
“Oh! I don’t know,” said Griselda; “I did dance with him two or three times.”
“Not once too often to please me, my dear. I like to see Ludovic dancing with my friends.”
“I am sure I am very much obliged to you, Lady Lufton.”
“Not at all, my dear. I don’t know where he could get so nice a partner.” And then she paused a moment, not feeling how far she might go. In the meantime Griselda sat still, staring at the hot coals. “Indeed, I know that he admires you very much,” continued Lady Lufton.
“Oh! no, I am sure he doesn’t,” said Griselda; and then there was another pause.
“I can only say this,” said Lady Lufton, “that if he does do so—and I believe he does—it would give me very great pleasure. For you know, my dear, that I am very fond of you myself.”
“Oh! thank you,” said Griselda, and stared at the coals more perseveringly than before.
“He is a young man of a most excellent disposition—though he is my own son, I will say that—and if there should be anything between you and him—”
“There isn’t, indeed, Lady Lufton.”
“But if there ever should be, I should be delighted to think that Ludovic had made so good a choice.”
“But there will never be anything of the sort, I’m sure, Lady Lufton. He is not thinking of such a thing in the least.”
“Well, perhaps he may, some day. And now, good night, my dear.”
“Good night, Lady Lufton.” And Griselda kissed her with the utmost composure, and betook herself to her own bedroom. Before she retired to sleep she looked carefully to her different articles of dress, discovering what amount of damage the evening’s wear and tear might have inflicted.
CHAPTER XXI
Why Puck, the Pony, Was Beaten
Mark Robarts returned home the day after the scene at the Albany, considerably relieved in spirit. He now felt that he might accept the stall without discredit to himself as a clergyman in doing so. Indeed, after what Mr. Sowerby had said, and after Lord Lufton’s assent to it, it would have been madness, he considered, to decline it. And then, too, Mr. Sowerby’s promise about the bills was very comfortable to him. After all, might it not be possible that he might get rid of all these troubles with no other drawback than that of having to pay £130 for a horse that was well worth the money?
On the day after his return he received proper authentic tidings of his presentation to the prebend. He was, in fact, already prebendary, or would be as soon as the dean and chapter had gone through the form of instituting him in his stall. The income was already his own; and the house also would be given up to him in a week’s time—a part of the arrangement with which he would most willingly have dispensed had it been at all possible to do so. His wife congratulated him nicely, with open affection, and apparent satisfaction at the arrangement. The enjoyment of one’s own happiness at such windfalls depends so much on the free and freely expressed enjoyment of others! Lady Lufton’s congratulations had nearly made him throw up the whole thing; but his wife’s smiles re-encouraged him; and Lucy’s warm and eager joy made him feel quite delighted with Mr. Sowerby and the Duke of Omnium. And then that splendid animal, Dandy, came home to the parsonage stables, much to the delight of the groom and gardener, and of the assistant stable boy who had been allowed to creep into the establishment, unawares, as it were, since “master” had taken so keenly to hunting. But this satisfaction was not shared in the drawing-room. The horse was seen on his first journey round to the stable gate, and questions were immediately asked. It was a horse, Mark said, “which he had bought from Mr. Sowerby some little time since, with the object of obliging him. He, Mark, intended to sell him again, as soon as he could do so judiciously.” This, as I have said above, was not satisfactory. Neither of the two ladies at Framley parsonage knew much about horses, or of the manner in which one gentleman might think it proper to oblige another by purchasing the superfluities of his stable; but they did both feel that there were horses enough in the parsonage stable without Dandy, and that the purchasing of a hunter with a view of immediately selling him again, was, to say the least of it, an operation hardly congenial with the usual tastes and pursuits of a clergyman.
“I hope you did not give very much money for him, Mark,” said Fanny.
“Not more than I shall get again,” said Mark; and Fanny saw from the form of his countenance that she had better not pursue the subject any further at that moment.
“I suppose I shall have to go into residence almost immediately,” said Mark, recurring to the more agreeable subject of the stall.
“And shall we all have to go and live at Barchester at once?” asked Lucy.
“The house will not be furnished, will it, Mark!” said his wife. “I don’t know how we shall get on.”
“Don’t frighten yourselves. I shall take lodgings in Barchester.”
“And we shall not see you all the time,” said Mrs. Robarts with dismay. But the prebendary explained that he would be backwards and forwards at Framley every week, and that in all probability he would only sleep at Barchester on the Saturdays, and Sundays—and, perhaps, not always then.
“It does not seem very hard work, that of a prebendary,” said Lucy.
“But it is very dignified,” said Fanny. “Prebendaries are dignitaries of the Church—are they not, Mark?”
“Decidedly,” said he; “and their wives also, by special canon law. The worst of it is that both of them are obliged to wear wigs.”
“Shall you have a hat, Mark, with curly things at the side, and strings through to hold them up?” asked Lucy.
“I fear that does not come within my perquisites.”
“Nor a rosette? Then I shall never believe that you are a dignitary. Do you mean to say that you will wear a hat like a common parson—like Mr. Crawley, for instance?”
“Well—I believe I may give a twist to the leaf; but I am by no means sure till I shall have consulted the dean in chapter.”
And thus at the parsonage they talked over the good things that were coming to them, and endeavoured to forget the new horse, and the hunting boots that had been used so often during the last winter, and Lady Lufton’s altered countenance. It might be that the evils would vanish away, and the good things alone remain to them.
It was now the month of April, and the fields were beginning to look green, and the wind had got itself out of the east and was soft and genial, and the early spring flowers were showing their bright colours in the parsonage garden, and all things were sweet and pleasant. This was a period of the year that was usually dear to Mrs. Robarts. Her husband was always a better parson when the warm months came than he had been during the winter. The distant county friends whom she did not know and of whom she did not approve, went away when the spring came, leaving their houses innocent and empty. The parish duty was better attended to, and perhaps domestic duties also. At such period he was a pattern parson and a pattern husband, atoning to his own conscience for past shortcomings by present zeal. And then, though she had never acknowledged it to herself, the absence of her dear friend Lady Lufton was perhaps in itself not disagreeable. Mrs. Robarts did love Lady Lufton heartily; but it must be acknowledged of her ladyship, that with all her good qualities, she was inclined to be masterful. She liked to rule, and she made people feel that she liked it. Mrs. Robarts would never have confessed that she laboured under a sense of thraldom; but perhaps she was mouse enough to enjoy the temporary absence of her kind-hearted cat. When Lady Lufton was away Mrs. Robarts herself had more play in the parish.
And Mark also was not unhappy, though he did not find it practicable immediately to turn Dandy into money. Indeed, just at this moment, when he was a good deal over at Barchester, going through those deep mysteries and rigid ecclesiastical examinations which are necessary before a clergyman can become one of a chapter, Dandy was rather a thorn in his side. Those wretched bills were to come due early in May, and before the end of April Sowerby wrote to him saying that he was doing his utmost to provide for the evil day; but that if the price of Dandy could be remitted to him
at once,
it would greatly facilitate his object. Nothing could be more different than Mr. Sowerby’s tone about money at different times. When he wanted to raise the wind, everything was so important; haste and superhuman efforts, and men running to and fro with blank acceptances in their hands, could alone stave off the crack of doom; but at other times, when retaliatory applications were made to him, he could prove with the easiest voice and most jaunty manner that everything was quite serene. Now, at this period, he was in that mood of superhuman efforts, and he called loudly for the hundred and thirty pounds for Dandy. After what had passed, Mark could not bring himself to say that he would pay nothing till the bills were safe; and therefore with the assistance of Mr. Forrest of the Bank, he did remit the price of Dandy to his friend Sowerby in London.
And Lucy Robarts—we must now say a word of her. We have seen how, on that occasion, when the world was at her feet, she had sent her noble suitor away, not only dismissed, but so dismissed that he might be taught never again to offer to her the sweet incense of his vows. She had declared to him plainly that she did not love him and could not love him, and had thus thrown away not only riches and honour and high station, but more than that—much worse than that—she had flung away from her the lover to whose love her warm heart clung. That her love did cling to him, she knew even then, and owned more thoroughly as soon as he was gone. So much her pride had done for her, and that strong resolve that Lady Lufton should not scowl on her and tell her that she had entrapped her son.
I know it will be said of Lord Lufton himself that, putting aside his peerage and broad acres, and handsome, sonsy face, he was not worth a girl’s care and love. That will be said because people think that heroes in books should be so much better than heroes got up for the world’s common wear and tear. I may as well confess that of absolute, true heroism there was only a moderate admixture in Lord Lufton’s composition; but what would the world come to if none but absolute true heroes were to be thought worthy of women’s love? What would the men do? and what—oh! what would become of the women? Lucy Robarts in her heart did not give her dismissed lover credit for much more heroism than did truly appertain to him—did not, perhaps, give him full credit for a certain amount of heroism which did really appertain to him; but, nevertheless, she would have been very glad to take him could she have done so without wounding her pride.
That girls should not marry for money we are all agreed. A lady who can sell herself for a title or an estate, for an income or a set of family diamonds, treats herself as a farmer treats his sheep and oxen—makes hardly more of herself, of her own inner self, in which are comprised a mind and soul, than the poor wretch of her own sex who earns her bread in the lowest stage of degradation. But a title, and an estate, and an income, are matters which will weigh in the balance with all Eve’s daughters—as they do with all Adam’s sons. Pride of place, and the power of living well in front of the world’s eye, are dear to us all—are, doubtless, intended to be dear. Only in acknowledging so much, let us remember that there are prices at which these good things may be too costly. Therefore, being desirous, too, of telling the truth in this matter, I must confess that Lucy did speculate with some regret on what it would have been to be Lady Lufton. To have been the wife of such a man, the owner of such a heart, the mistress of such a destiny—what more or what better could the world have done for her? And now she had thrown all that aside because she would not endure that Lady Lufton should call her a scheming, artful girl! Actuated by that fear she had repulsed him with a falsehood, though the matter was one on which it was so terribly expedient that she should tell the truth.
And yet she was cheerful with her brother and sister-in-law. It was when she was quite alone, at night in her own room, or in her solitary walks, that a single silent tear would gather in the corner of her eye and gradually moisten her eyelids. “She never told her love,” nor did she allow concealment to “feed on her damask cheek.” In all her employments, in her ways about the house, and her accustomed quiet mirth, she was the same as ever. In this she showed the peculiar strength which God had given her. But not the less did she in truth mourn for her lost love and spoiled ambition.
“We are going to drive over to Hogglestock this morning,” Fanny said one day at breakfast. “I suppose, Mark, you won’t go with us?”
“Well, no; I think not. The pony carriage is wretched for three.”
“Oh, as for that, I should have thought the new horse might have been able to carry you as far as that. I heard you say you wanted to see Mr. Crawley.”
“So I do; and the new horse, as you call him, shall carry me there to-morrow. Will you say that I’ll be over about twelve o’clock?”
“You had better say earlier, as he is always out about the parish.”
“Very well, say eleven. It is parish business about which I am going, so it need not irk his conscience to stay in for me.”
“Well, Lucy, we must drive ourselves, that’s all. You shall be charioteer going, and then we’ll change coming back.” To all which Lucy agreed, and as soon as their work in the school was over they started.
Not a word had been spoken between them about Lord Lufton since that evening, now more than a month ago, on which they had been walking together in the garden. Lucy had so demeaned herself on that occasion as to make her sister-in-law quite sure that there had been no love passages up to that time; and nothing had since occurred which had created any suspicion in Mrs. Robarts’s mind. She had seen at once that all the close intimacy between them was over, and thought that everything was as it should be.
“Do you know, I have an idea,” she said in the pony carriage that day, “that Lord Lufton will marry Griselda Grantly.”
Lucy could not refrain from giving a little check at the reins which she was holding, and she felt that the blood rushed quickly to her heart. But she did not betray herself. “Perhaps he may,” she said, and then gave the pony a little touch with her whip.
“Oh, Lucy, I won’t have Puck beaten. He was going very nicely.”
“I beg Puck’s pardon. But you see when one is trusted with a whip one feels such a longing to use it.”
“Oh, but you should keep it still. I feel almost certain that Lady Lufton would like such a match.”
“I dare say she might. Miss Grantly will have a large fortune, I believe.”
“It is not that altogether: but she is the sort of young lady that Lady Lufton likes. She is ladylike and very beautiful—”
“Come, Fanny!”
“I really think she is; not what I should call lovely, you know, but very beautiful. And then she is quiet and reserved; she does not require excitement, and I am sure is conscientious in the performance of her duties.”
“Very conscientious, I have no doubt,” said Lucy, with something like a sneer in her tone. “But the question, I suppose, is, whether Lord Lufton likes her.”
“I think he does—in a sort of way. He did not talk to her so much as he did to you—”
“Ah! that was all Lady Lufton’s fault, because she didn’t have him properly labelled.”
“There does not seem to have been much harm done?”
“Oh! by God’s mercy, very little. As for me, I shall get over it in three or four years I don’t doubt—that’s if I can get ass’s milk and change of air.”
“We’ll take you to Barchester for that. But as I was saying, I really do think Lord Lufton likes Griselda Grantly.”
“Then I really do think that he has uncommon bad taste,” said Lucy, with a reality in her voice differing much from the tone of banter she had hitherto used.