Framley Parsonage (21 page)

Mrs Robarts herself was what we call demonstrative. When she was angry with Lady Lufton she showed it. And as since that time her love and admiration for Lady Lufton had increased, she showed that also. When she was in any way displeased with her husband, she could not hide it, even though she
tried to do so, and fancied herself successful; – no more than she could hide her warm, constant, overflowing woman’s love. She could not walk through a room hanging on her husband’s arm without seeming to proclaim to every one there that she thought him
the best man in it. She was demonstrative, and therefore she was the more disappointed in that Lucy did not rush at once with all her cares into
her open heart.

‘She is so quiet,’ Fanny said to her husband.

‘That’s her nature,’ said Mark. ‘She always was quiet as a child. While we were smashing everything, she would never crack a teacup.’

‘I wish she would break something now,’ said Fanny, ‘and then perhaps we should get to talk about it.’ But she did not on this account give over loving her sister-in-law. She probably valued her the
more, unconsciously, for not having those aptitudes with which she herself was endowed.

And then after two days Lady Lufton called; of course it may be supposed that Fanny had said a good deal to her new inmate about Lady Lufton. A neighbour of that kind in the country exercises so large an influence upon the whole tenor of one’s life, that to abstain from such talk is out of the question. Mrs
Robarts had been brought up almost under the dowager’s wing, and of course she regarded her as being worthy of much talking. Do not let persons on this account suppose that Mrs Robarts was a tuft-hunter, or a toadeater. If they do not see the difference they have yet got to study the earliest principles of human nature.

Lady Lufton called, and Lucy was struck dumb. Fanny was particularly anxious
that her ladyship’s first impression should be favourable, and to effect this, she especially endeavoured to throw the two together during that visit. But in this she was unwise. Lady Lufton, however, had woman-craft enough not to be led into any egregious error by Lucy’s silence.

‘And what day will you come and dine with us?’ said Lady Lufton, turning expressly to her old friend Fanny.

‘Oh,
do you name the day. We never have many engagements, you know.’

‘Will Thursday do, Miss Robarts? You will meet nobody, you know, only my son; so you need not regard it as going out. Fanny here will tell you that stepping over to Framley Court is no more going out, than when you go from one room to another in the parsonage. Is it, Fanny?’

Fanny laughed and said that that stepping over to Framley
Court certainly was done so often that perhaps they did not think so much about it as they ought to do.

‘We consider ourselves a sort of happy family here, Miss Robarts, and are delighted to have the opportunity of including you in the
ménage.’

Lucy gave her ladyship one of her sweetest smiles, but what she said at that moment was inaudible. It was plain, however, that she could not bring herself
even to go as far as Framley Court for her dinner just at present. ‘It was very kind of Lady Lufton,’ she said to Fanny; ‘but it was so very soon, and – and – and if they would only go without her, she would be so happy.’ But as the object was to go with her – expressly to take her there – the dinner was adjourned for a short time
– sine die
.

I
T
was nearly a month after this that Lucy was first introduced to Lord Lufton, and then it was brought about only by accident. During that time Lady Lufton had been often at the parsonage, and had in a certain degree learned to know Lucy; but the stranger in the parish had never yet plucked up courage to accept one of the numerous invitations that had reached her.
Mr Robarts and his wife had frequently been at Framley Court, but the dreaded day of Lucy’s initiation had not yet arrived.

She had seen Lord Lufton in church, but hardly so as to know him, and beyond that she had not seen him at all. One day, however – or rather, one evening, for it was already dusk – he overtook her and Mrs Robarts on the road walking towards the vicarage. He had his gun on
his shoulder, three pointers were at his heels, and a gamekeeper followed a little in the rear.

‘How are you, Mrs Robarts?’ he said, almost before he had overtaken them. ‘I have been chasing you along the road for the last half mile. I never knew ladies walk so fast.’

‘We should be frozen if we were to dawdle about as you gentlemen do,’ and then she stopped and shook hands with him. She
forgot
at the moment that Lucy and he had not met, and therefore she did not introduce them.

‘Won’t you make me known to your sister-in-law?’ said he, taking off his hat, and bowing to Lucy. ‘I have never yet had the pleasure of meeting her, though we have been neighbours for a month and more.’

Fanny made her excuses and introduced them, and then they went on till they came to Framley gate, Lord Lufton
talking to them both, and Fanny answering for the two, and there they stopped for a moment.

‘I am surprised to see you alone,’ Mrs Robarts had just said; ‘I thought that Captain Culpepper was with you.’

‘The captain has left me for this one day. If you’ll whisper I’ll tell you where he has gone. I dare not speak it out loud, even to the woods.’

‘To what terrible place can he have taken himself?
I’ll have no whisperings about such horrors.’

‘He has gone to – to – but you’ll promise not to tell my mother?’

‘Not tell your mother! Well now you have excited my curiosity! where can he be?’

‘Do you promise, then?’

‘Oh, yes! I will promise, because I’m sure Lady Lufton won’t ask me as to Captain Culpepper’s whereabouts. We won’t tell; will we, Lucy?’

‘He has gone to Gatherum Castle for
a day’s pheasant-shooting. Now, mind you must not betray us. Her ladyship supposes that he is shut up in his room with a tooth-ache. We did not dare to mention the name to her.’

And then it appeared that Mrs Robarts had some engagement which made it necessary that she should go up and see Lady Lufton, whereas Lucy was intending to walk on to the parsonage alone.

‘And I have promised to go to
your husband,’ said Lord Lufton; ‘or rather to your husband’s dog, Ponto. And I will do two other good things, I will carry a brace of pheasants with me, and protect Miss Robarts from the evil spirits of the Framley roads.’ And so Mrs Robarts turned in at the gate, and Lucy and his lordship walked off together.

Lord Lufton, though he had never before spoken to Miss Robarts, had already found
out that she was by no means plain. Though he had hardly seen her except at church, he had already made himself certain that the owner of that face must be worth knowing, and was not sorry to have the present opportunity of speaking to her. ‘So you have an unknown damsel shut up in your castle,’ he had once said to Mrs Robarts. ‘If she be kept a prisoner much longer, I shall find it my duty to come
and release her by force of arms.’ He had been there twice with the object of seeing her, but on both occasions Lucy had managed to escape. Now we may say she was fairly caught, and Lord Lufton, taking a pair of pheasants from the gamekeeper, and swinging them over his shoulder, walked off with his prey.

‘You have been here a long time,’ he said, ‘without our having had the pleasure of seeing
you.’

‘Yes, my lord,’ said Lucy. Lords had not been frequent among her acquaintance hitherto.

‘I tell Mrs Robarts that she has been confining you illegally, and that we shall release you by force or stratagem.’

‘I – I – 1 have had a great sorrow lately.’

‘Yes, Miss Robarts; I know you have; and I am only joking, you know. But I do hope that now you will be able to come amongst us. My mother
is so anxious that you should do so.’

‘I am sure she is very kind, and you also – my lord.’

‘I never knew my own father,’ said Lord Lufton, speaking gravely. ‘But I can well understand what a loss you have had.’ And then, after pausing a moment, he continued, ‘I remember Dr Robarts well.’

‘Do you, indeed?’ said Lucy, turning sharply towards him, and speaking now with some animation in her voice.
Nobody had yet spoken to her about her father since she had been at Framley. It had been as though the subject were a forbidden one. And how frequently is this the case! When those we love are dead, our friends dread to mention them, though to us who are bereaved no subject would be so pleasant as their names. But we rarely understand how to treat our own sorrow or those of others.

There was
once a people in some land – and they may be still there for what I know – who thought it sacrilegious to stay the
course of a raging fire. If a house were being burned, burn it must, even though there were facilities for saving it. For who would dare to interfere with the course of the god? Our idea of sorrow is much the same. We think it wicked, or at any rate heartless, to put it out. If a
man’s wife be dead, he should go about lugubrious, with long face, for at least two years, or perhaps with full length for eighteen months, decreasing gradually during the other six. If he be a man who can quench his sorrow – put out his fire as it were – in less time than that, let him at any rate not show his power!

‘Yes: I remember him,’ continued Lord Lufton. ‘He came twice to Framley while
I was a boy, consulting with my mother about Mark and myself, – whether the Eton floggings were not more efficacious than those at Harrow. He was very kind to me, foreboding all manner of good things on my behalf.’

‘He was very kind to every one,’ said Lucy.

‘I should think he would have been – a kind, good, genial man – just the man to be adored by his own family.’

‘Exactly; and so he was.
I do not remember that I ever heard an unkind word from him. There was not a harsh tone in his voice. And he was generous as the day.’ Lucy, we have said, was not generally demonstrative, but now, on this subject, and with this absolute stranger, she became almost eloquent.

‘I do not wonder that you should feel his loss, Miss Robarts.’

‘Oh, I do feel it. Mark is the best of brothers, and, as
for Fanny, she is too kind and too good to me. But I had always been specially my father’s friend. For the last year or two we had lived so much together!’

‘He was an old man when he died, was he not?’

‘Just seventy, my lord.’

‘Ah, then he was old. My mother is only fifty, and we sometimes call her the old woman. Do you think she looks older than that? We all say that she makes herself out
to be so much more ancient than she need do.’

‘Lady Lufton does not dress young.’

‘That is it. She never has, in my memory. She always used to wear black when I first recollect her. She has given that up now; but she is still very sombre; is she not?’

‘I do not like ladies to dress very young, that is, ladies of – of–’

‘Ladies of fifty, we will say?’

‘Very well; ladies of fifty, if you like
it.’

‘Then I am sure you will like my mother.’

They had now turned up through the parsonage wicket, a little gate that opened into the garden at a point on the road nearer than the chief entrance.

‘I suppose I shall find Mark up at the house?’ said he.

‘I daresay you will, my lord.’

‘Well, I’ll go round this way, for my business is partly in the stable. You see I am quite at home here, though
you never have seen me before. But, Miss Robarts, now that the ice is broken, I hope that we may be friends.’ He then put out his hand, and when she gave him hers he pressed it almost as an old friend might have done.

And, indeed, Lucy had talked to him almost as though he were an old friend. For a minute or two she had forgotten that he was a lord and a stranger – had forgotten also to be stiff
and guarded as was her wont. Lord Lufton had spoken to her as though he had really cared to know her; and she, unconsciously, had been taken by the compliment. Lord Lufton, indeed, had not thought much about it – excepting as thus, that he liked the glance of a pair of bright eyes, as most other young men do like it. But, on this occasion, the evening had been so dark, that he had hardly seen
Lucy’s eyes at all.

‘Well, Lucy, I hope you liked your companion,’ Mrs Robarts said, as the three of them clustered round the drawing-room fire before dinner.

‘Oh, yes; pretty well,’ said Lucy.

‘That is not at all complimentary to his lordship.’

‘I did not mean to be complimentary, Fanny.’

‘Lucy is a great deal too matter-of-fact for compliments,’ said Mark.

‘What I meant was, that I had
no great opportunity for judging, seeing that I was only with Lord Lufton for about ten minutes.’

‘Ah! but there are girls here who would give their eyes for ten minutes of Lord Lufton to themselves. You do not know how
he’s valued. He has the character of being always able to make himself agreeable to ladies at half a minute’s warning.’

‘Perhaps he had not the half minute’s warning in this
case,’ said Lucy, – hypocrite that she was.

‘Poor Lucy,’ said her brother; ‘he was coming up to see Ponto’s shoulder, and I am afraid he was thinking more about the dog than you.’

‘Very likely,’ said Lucy; and then they went into dinner.

Lucy had been a hypocrite, for she had confessed to herself, while dressing, that Lord Lufton had been very pleasant; but then it is allowed to young ladies
to be hypocrites when the subject under discussion is the character of a young gentleman.

Soon after that, Lucy did dine at Framley Court. Captain Culpepper, in spite of his enormity with reference to Gatherum Castle, was still staying there, as was also a clergyman from the neighbourhood of Barchester with his wife and daughter. This was Archdeacon Grantly, a gentleman whom we have mentioned
before, and who was as well known in the diocese as the bishop himself, – and more thought about by many clergymen than even that illustrious prelate.

Miss Grantly was a young lady not much older than Lucy Robarts, and she also was quiet, and not given to much talking in open company. She was decidedly a beauty, but somewhat statuesque in her loveliness. Her forehead was high and white, but perhaps
too like marble to gratify the taste of those who are fond of flesh and blood. Her eyes were large and exquisitely formed, but they seldom showed much emotion. She, indeed, was impassive herself, and betrayed but little of her feelings. Her nose was nearly Grecian, not coming absolutely in a straight line from her forehead, but doing so nearly enough to entitle it to be considered as classical.
Her mouth, too, was very fine – artists, at least, said so, and connoisseurs in beauty; but to me she always seemed as though she wanted fulness of lip. But the exquisite symmetry of her cheek and chin and lower face no man could deny. Her hair was light, and being always dressed with considerable care, did not detract from her appearance; but it lacked that richness which gives such luxuriance
to feminine loveliness. She was tall and slight, and very graceful in her movements; but there
were those who thought that she wanted the ease and
abandon
of youth. They said that she was too composed and stiff for her age, and that she gave but little to society beyond the beauty of her form and face.