Framley Parsonage - Anthony Trollope (mobi reader android .txt) 📗

“I don’t mean to say that I think it will; God forbid! but it is just possible. I daresay that I am very wrong to tell you of this, but I know that you have sense enough to bear it. Papa has gone to London and we shall hear from him soon.”

“Then, mamma, I had better give them orders not to go on with the marking.”

The bailiffs on that day had their meals regular⁠—and their beer, which state of things, together with an absence of all duty in the way of making inventories and the like, I take to be the earthly paradise of bailiffs; and on the next morning they walked off with civil speeches and many apologies as to their intrusion. “They was very sorry,” they said, “to have troubled a gen’leman as were a gen’leman, but in their way of business what could they do?” To which one of them added a remark that, “business is business.” This statement I am not prepared to contradict, but I would recommend all men in choosing a profession to avoid any that may require an apology at every turn;⁠—either an apology or else a somewhat violent assertion of right. Each younger male reader may perhaps reply that he has no thought of becoming a sheriff’s officer; but then are there not other cognate lines of life to which perhaps the attention of some such may be attracted?

On the evening of the day on which they went Mark received a note from Lady Lufton begging him to call early on the following morning, and immediately after breakfast he went across to Framley Court. It may be imagined that he was not in a very happy frame of mind, but he felt the truth of his wife’s remark that the first plunge into cold water was always the worst. Lady Lufton was not a woman who would continually throw his disgrace into his teeth, however terribly cold might be the first words with which she spoke of it. He strove hard as he entered her room to carry his usual look and bearing, and to put out his hand to greet her with his customary freedom, but he knew that he failed. And it may be said that no good man who has broken down in his goodness can carry the disgrace of his fall without some look of shame. When a man is able to do that, he ceases to be in any way good.

“This has been a distressing affair,” said Lady Lufton after her first salutation.

“Yes, indeed,” said he. “It has been very sad for poor Fanny.”

“Well; we must all have our little periods of grief; and it may perhaps be fortunate if none of us have worse than this. She will not complain, herself, I am sure.”

“She complain!”

“No, I am sure she will not. And now all I’ve got to say, Mr. Robarts, is this: I hope you and Lufton have had enough to do with black sheep to last you your lives; for I must protest that your late friend Mr. Sowerby is a black sheep.”

In no possible way could Lady Lufton have alluded to the matter with greater kindness than in thus joining Mark’s name with that of her son. It took away all the bitterness of the rebuke, and made the subject one on which even he might have spoken without difficulty. But now, seeing that she was so gentle to him, he could not but lean the more hardly on himself.

“I have been very foolish,” said he, “very foolish and very wrong, and very wicked.”

“Very foolish, I believe, Mr. Robarts⁠—to speak frankly and once for all; but, as I also believe, nothing worse. I thought it best for both of us that we should just have one word about it, and now I recommend that the matter be never mentioned between us again.”

“God bless you, Lady Lufton,” he said. “I think no man ever had such a friend as you are.”

She had been very quiet during the interview, and almost subdued, not speaking with the animation that was usual to her; for this affair with Mr. Robarts was not the only one she had to complete that day, nor, perhaps, the one most difficult of completion. But she cheered up a little under the praise now bestowed on her, for it was the sort of praise she loved best. She did hope, and, perhaps, flatter herself, that she was a good friend.

“You must be good enough, then, to gratify my friendship by coming up to dinner this evening; and Fanny, too, of course. I cannot take any excuse, for the matter is completely arranged. I have a particular reason for wishing it.” These last violent injunctions had been added because Lady Lufton had seen a refusal rising in the parson’s face. Poor Lady Lufton! Her enemies⁠—for even she had enemies⁠—used to declare of her, that an invitation to dinner was the only method of showing itself of which her good-humour was cognizant. But let me ask of her enemies whether it is not as good a method as any other known to be extant? Under such orders as these obedience was of course a necessity, and he promised that he, with his wife, would come across to dinner. And then, when he went away, Lady Lufton ordered her carriage.

During these doings at Framley, Lucy Robarts still remained at Hogglestock, nursing Mrs. Crawley. Nothing occurred to take her back to Framley, for the same note from Fanny which gave her the first tidings of the arrival of the Philistines told her also of their departure⁠—and also of the source from whence relief had reached them. “Don’t come, therefore, for that reason,” said the note, “but, nevertheless, do come as quickly as you can, for the whole house is sad without you.”

On the morning after the receipt of this note Lucy was sitting, as was now usual with her, beside an old