Framley Parsonage (18 page)

‘Ask her for it, herself.’

‘What, the woman I wish to marry! No, Mark, I’m not quite come to that. I would sooner lose her than that.’

Mark sat silent, gazing at the fire
and wishing that he was in his own bedroom. He had an idea that Mr Sowerby wished him to produce this 400
l
.; and he knew also that he had not 400
l
.; in the world, and that if he had he would be acting very foolishly to give it to Mr Sowerby. But nevertheless he felt half fascinated by the man, and half afraid of him.

‘Lufton owes it to me to do more than this,’ continued Mr Sowerby; ‘but then
Lufton is not here.’

‘Why, he has just paid five thousand pounds for you.’

‘Paid five thousand pounds for me! Indeed he has done no such thing: not a sixpence of it came into my hands. Believe me, Mark, you don’t know the whole of that yet. Not that I mean to say a word against Lufton. He is the soul of honour; though so deucedly dilatory in money matters. He thought he was right all through
that affair, but no man was ever so confoundedly wrong. Why, don’t you remember that that was the very view you took of it yourself?’

‘I remember saying that I thought he was mistaken.’

‘Of course he was mistaken. And dearly the mistake cost me. I had to make good the money for two or three years. And my property is not like his. I wish it were.’

‘Marry Miss Dunstable, and that will set it
all right for you.’

‘Ah! so I would if I had this money. At any rate I would bring it to the point. Now, I tell you what, Mark; if you’ll assist me at this strait I’ll never forget it. And the time will come round when I may be able to do something for you.’

‘I have not got a hundred, no, not fifty pounds by me in the world.’

‘Of course you’ve not. Men don’t walk about the streets with 400
l
. in their pockets. I don’t suppose there’s a single man here in the house with such a sum at his bankers’, unless it be the duke.’

‘What is it you want, then?’

‘Why, your name, to be sure. Believe me, my dear fellow, I would not ask you really to put your hand into your pocket to such a tune as that. Allow me to draw on you for that amount at three months. Long before that time I shall be flush
enough.’ And then, before Mark could answer, he had a bill stamp and pen and ink out on the table before him, and was filling in the bill as though his friend had already given his consent.

‘Upon my word, Sowerby, I had rather not do that.’

‘Why! what are you afraid of?’ – Mr Sowerby asked this very sharply. ‘Did you ever hear of my having neglected to take up a bill when it fell due?’ Robarts
thought that he had heard of such a thing; but in his confusion he was not exactly sure, and so he said nothing.

‘No, my boy; I have not come to that. Look here: just you write, “Accepted, Mark Robarts,” across that, and then you shall never hear of the transaction again; – and you will have obliged me for ever.’

‘As a clergyman it would be wrong of me,’ said Robarts.

‘As a clergyman! Come,
Mark! If you don’t like to do as much as that for a friend, say so; but don’t let us have that sort of humbug. If there be one class of men whose names would be found more frequent on the backs of bills in the provincial banks than another, clergymen are that class. Come, old fellow, you won’t throw me over when I am so hard pushed.’

Mark Robarts took the pen and signed the bill. It was the first
time in his life that he had ever done such an act. Sowerby then shook him cordially by the hand, and he walked off to his own bedroom a wretched man.

T
HE
next morning Mr Robarts took leave of all his grand friends with a heavy heart. He had lain awake half the night thinking of what he had done and trying to reconcile himself to his position.
He had not well left Mr Sowerby’s room before he felt certain that at the end of three months he would again be troubled about that 400
l
. As he went along the passage, all
the man’s known antecedents crowded upon him much quicker than he could remember them when seated in that arm-chair with the bill stamp before him, and the pen and ink ready to his hand. He remembered what Lord Lufton had told him – how he had complained of having been left in the lurch: he thought of all the stories current through the entire county as to the impossibility of getting money from Chaldicotes;
he brought to mind the known character of the man, and then he knew that he must prepare himself to make good a portion at least of that heavy payment.

Why had he come to this horrid place? Had he not everything at home at Framley which the heart of man could desire? No; the heart of man can desire deaneries – the heart, that is, of the man vicar; and the heart of the man dean can desire bishoprics;
and before the eyes of the man bishop does there not loom the transcendental glory of Lambeth? He had owned to himself that he was ambitious; but he had to own to himself now also that he had hitherto taken but a sorry path towards the object of his ambition.

On the next morning at breakfast-time, before his horse and gig arrived for him, no one was so bright as his friend Sowerby. ‘So you are
off, are you?’ said he.

‘Yes, I shall go this morning.’

‘Say everything that’s kind from me to Lufton. I may possibly see him out hunting; otherwise we shan’t meet till the spring. As to my going to Framley, that’s out of the question. Her ladyship would look for my tail, and swear that she smelt brimstone. By-bye, old fellow!’

The German student when he first made his bargain with the devil
¹
felt an indescribable attraction to his new friend; and such was the case now with Robarts. He shook Sowerby’s hand very warmly, said that he hoped he should meet him soon somewhere, and professed himself specially anxious to hear how that affair with the lady came off. As he had made his bargain – as he had undertaken to pay nearly half-a-year’s income for his dear friend, ought he not to have
as much value as possible for his money?
If the dear friendship of this flash member of Parliament did not represent that value, what else did do so? But then he felt, or fancied that he felt, that Mr Sowerby did not care for him so much this morning as he had done on the previous evening. ‘By-bye,’ said Mr Sowerby, but he spoke no word as to such future meetings, nor did he even promise to write.
My Sowerby probably had many things on his mind; and it might be that it behoved him, having finished one piece of business, immediately to look to another.

The sum for which Robarts had made himself responsible – which he so much feared that he would be called upon to pay, was very nearly half-a-year’s income; and as yet he had not put by one shilling since he had been married. When he found
himself settled in his parsonage, he found also that all the world regarded him as a rich man. He had taken the dictum of all the world as true, and had set himself to work to live comfortably. He had no absolute need of a curate; but he could afford the 70
l
. – as Lady Lufton had said rather injudiciously; and by keeping Jones in the parish he would be acting charitably to a brother clergyman,
and would also place himself in a more independent position. Lady Lufton had wished to see her pet clergyman well-to-do and comfortable; but now, as matters had turned out, she much regretted this affair of the curate. Mr Jones, she said to herself, more than once, must be made to depart from Framley.

He had given his wife a pony-carriage, and for himself he had a saddle-horse, and a second horse
for his gig. A man in his position, well-to-do as he was, required as much as that. He had a footman also, and a gardener, and a groom. The two latter were absolutely necessary, but about the former there had been a question. His wife had been decidedly hostile to the footman; but, in all such matters as that, to doubt is to be lost. When the footman had been discussed for a week it became quite
clear to the master that he also was a necessary.

As he drove home that morning he pronounced to himself the doom of that footman, and the doom also of that saddle-horse. They at any rate should go. And then he would spend no more money in trips to Scotland; and above all, he would keep out of the bedrooms of impoverished members of Parliament at the witching hour of midnight. Such resolves did
he make to himself
as he drove home; and bethought himself wearily how that 400
l
. might be made to be forthcoming. As to any assistance in the matter from Sowerby, – of that he gave himself no promise.

But he almost felt himself happy again as his wife came out into the porch to meet him, with a silk shawl over her head, and pretending to shiver as she watched him descending from his gig.

‘My
dear old man,’ she said, as she led him into the warm drawing-room with all his wrappings still about him, ‘you must be starved.’ But Mark during the whole drive had been thinking too much of that transaction in Mr Sowerby’s bedroom to remember that the air was cold. Now he had his arm round his own dear Fanny’s waist; but was he to tell her of that transaction? At any rate he would not do it now,
while his two boys were in his arms, rubbing the moisture from his whiskers with their kisses. After all, what is there equal to that coming home?

‘And so Lufton is here. I say, Frank, gently old boy,’ – Frank was his eldest son – ‘you’ll have baby into the fender.’

‘Let me take baby; it’s impossible to hold the two of them, they are so strong,’ said the proud mother. ‘Oh, yes, he came home
early yesterday.’

‘Have you seen him?’

‘He was here yesterday, with her ladyship; and I lunched there to-day. The letter came, you know, in time to stop the Merediths. They don’t go till to-morrow, so you will meet them after all. Sir George is wild about it, but Lady Lufton would have her way. You never saw her in such a state as she is.’

‘Good spirits, eh?’

‘I should think so. All Lord Lufton’s
horses are coming and he’s to be here till March.’

‘Till March!’

‘So her ladyship whispered to me. She could not conceal her triumph at his coming. He’s going to give up Leicestershire this year altogether. I wonder what has brought it all about?’ Mark knew very well what had brought it about; he had been made acquainted, as the reader has also, with the price at which Lady Lufton had purchased
her son’s visit. But no one had told Mrs Robarts that the mother had made her son a present of five thousand pounds.

‘She’s in a good humour about everything now,’ continued Fanny; ‘so you need say nothing at all about Gatherum Castle.’

‘But she was very angry when she first heard it; was she not?’

‘Well, Mark, to tell the truth she was; and we had quite a scene there up in her own room upstairs,
– Justinia and I. She had heard something else that she did not like at the same time; and then – but you know her way. She blazed up quite hot.’

‘And said all manner of horrid things about me.’

‘About the duke she did. You know she never did like the duke; and for the matter of that, neither do I.I tell you that fairly, Master Mark!’

‘The duke is not so bad as he’s painted.’

‘Ah, that’s what
you say about another great person. However, he won’t come here to trouble us, I suppose. And then I left her, not in the best temper in the world; for I blazed up too, you must know.’

‘I am sure you did,’ said Mark, pressing his arm round her waist.

‘And then we were going to have a dreadful war, I thought; and I came home and wrote such a doleful letter to you. But what should happen when
I had just closed it, but in came her ladyship – all alone, and –. But I can’t tell you what she did or said, only she behaved beautifully; just like herself too; so full of love and truth and honesty. There’s nobody like her, Mark; and she’s better than all the dukes that ever wore – whatever dukes do wear.’

‘Horns and hoofs; that’s their usual apparel, according to you and Lady Lufton,’ said
he, remembering what Mr Sowerby had said of himself.

‘You may say what you like about me, Mark, but you shan’t abuse Lady Lufton. And if horns and hoofs mean wickedness and dissipation, I believe it’s not far wrong. But get off your big coat and make yourself comfortable.’ And that was all the scolding that Mark Robarts got from his wife on the occasion of his great iniquity.

‘I will certainly
tell her about this bill transaction,’ he said to himself; ‘but not to-day; not till after I have seen Lufton.’

That evening they dined at Framley Court, and there they met
the young lord; they found also Lady Lufton still in high good humour. Lord Lufton himself was a fine bright-looking young man; not so tall as Mark Robarts, and with perhaps less intelligence marked on his face; but his features
were finer, and there was in his countenance a thorough appearance of good humour and sweet temper. It was, indeed, a pleasant face to look upon, and dearly Lady Lufton loved to gaze at it.

‘Well, Mark, so you have been among the Philistines?’ that was his lordship’s first remark. Robarts laughed as he took his friend’s hands, and bethought himself how truly that was the case; that he was, in
very truth, already ‘himself in bonds under Philistian yoke.’
²
Alas, alas, it is very hard to break asunder the bonds of the latter-day Philistines. When a Samson does now and then pull a temple down about their ears, is he not sure to be engulfed in the ruin with them? There is no horseleech that sticks so fast as your latter-day Philistine.

‘So you have caught Sir George, after all,’ said Lady
Lufton, and that was nearly all she did say in allusion to his absence. There was afterwards some conversation about the lecture, and from her ladyship’s remarks, it certainly was apparent that she did not like the people among whom the vicar had been lately staying; but she said no word that was personal to him himself, or that could be taken as a reproach. The little episode of Mrs Proudie’s
address in the lecture-room had already reached Framley, and it was only to be expected that Lady Lufton should enjoy the joke. She would affect to believe that the body of the lecture had been given by the bishop’s wife; and afterwards when Mark described her costume at that Sunday morning breakfast-table, Lady Lufton would assume that such had been the dress in which she had exercised her faculties
in public.