Framley Parsonage (64 page)

When Mr Sowerby reached his house he found that a message by telegraph had arrived for him in his absence. It was from his sister, and it informed him that she would be with him that night. She was
coming down by the mail train, had telegraphed to Barchester for post-horses, and would be at Chaldicotes about two hours after midnight. It was therefore manifest enough that her business was of importance.

Exactly at two the Barchester post-chaise did arrive, and Mrs Harold Smith, before she retired to her bed, was closeted for about an hour with her brother.

‘Well,’ she said, the following
morning, as they sat together at the breakfast-table, ‘what do you say to it now? If you accept her offer you should be with her lawyer this afternoon.’

‘I suppose I must accept it,’ said he.

‘Certainly, I think so. No doubt it will take the property out of your own hands as completely as though the duke had it, but it will leave you the house, at any rate for your life.’

‘What good will the
house be, when I can’t keep it up?’

‘But I am not so sure of that. She will not want more than her fair interest; and as it will be thoroughly well managed, I should think that there would be something over – something enough to keep up the house. And then, you know, we must have some place in the country.’

‘I tell you fairly, Harriett, that I will have nothing further to do with Harold in the
way of money.’

‘Ah! that was because you would go to him. Why did you not come to me? And then, Nathaniel, it is the only way in which you can have a chance of keeping the seat. She is the queerest woman I ever met, but she seems resolved on beating the duke.’

‘I do not quite understand it, but I have not the slightest objection.’

‘She thinks that he is interfering with young Gresham about
the Crown property. I had no idea that she had so much business at her fingers’ ends. When I first proposed the matter she took it up quite as a lawyer might, and seemed to have forgotten altogether what occurred about that other matter.’

‘I wish I could forget it also,’ said Mr Sowerby.

‘I really think that she does. When I was obliged to make some allusion to it – at least, I felt myself obliged,
and was sorry afterwards that I did – she merely laughed – a great loud laugh as she always does, and then went on about the business. However, she was clear about this, that all the expenses of the election should be added to the sum to be advanced by her, and that the house should be left to you without any rent. If you choose to take the land round the house you must pay for it, by the
acre, as the tenants do. She was as clear about it all as though she had passed her life in a lawyer’s office.’

My readers will now pretty well understand what last step that excellent sister, Mrs Harold Smith, had taken on her brother’s behalf, nor will they be surprised to learn that in the course of the day Mr Sowerby hurried back to town and put himself into communication with Miss Dunstable’s
lawyer.

I
NOW
purpose to visit another country house in Barsetshire, but on this occasion our sojourn shall be in the eastern division, in which, as in every other county in England, electioneering matters are paramount at the present moment. It has been
mentioned that Mr Gresham, junior, young Frank Gresham as he was always called, lived at a place called
Boxall Hill. This property had come to his wife by will, and he was now settled there, – seeing that his father still held the family seat of the Greshams at Greshamsbury.

At the present moment Miss Dunstable was staying at Boxall Hill with Mrs Frank Gresham. They had left London, – as, indeed, all the world had done, to the terrible dismay of the London tradesmen. This dissolution of Parliament
was ruining everybody except the country publicans, and had of course destroyed the London season among other things.

Mrs Harold Smith had only just managed to catch Miss Dunstable before she left London; but she did do so, and the great heiress had at once seen her lawyers, and instructed them how to act with reference to the mortgages on the Chaldicotes property. Miss Dunstable was in the habit
of speaking of herself and her own pecuniary concerns as though she herself were rarely allowed to meddle in their management; but this was one of those small jokes which she ordinarily perpetrated; for in truth few ladies, and perhaps not many gentlemen, have a more thorough knowledge of their own concerns or a more potent voice in their own affairs, than was possessed by Miss Dunstable. Circumstances
had lately brought her much into Barsetshire and she had there contracted very intimate friendships. She was now disposed to become, if possible, a Barsetshire proprietor, and with this view had lately agreed with young Mr Gresham that she would become the purchaser of the Crown property. As, however, the purchase had been commenced in his name, it was so to be continued; but now, as we
are aware, it was rumoured that, after all, the duke, or, if not the duke, then the Marquis of Hartletop,
²
was to be the future owner of the chase. Miss Dunstable, however, was not a person to give up her object if she could attain it, nor, under the circumstances, was she at all displeased at finding herself endowed with the power of rescuing the Sowerby portion of the Chaldicotes property from
the duke’s clutches. Why had the duke meddled with her, or with her friend, as to the other property? Therefore it was arranged that the full amount due to the duke on mortgage should be ready for immediate payment; but
it was arranged also that the security as held by Miss Dunstable should be very valid.

Miss Dunstable, at Boxall Hill or at Greshamsbury, was a very different person from Miss
Dunstable in London; and it was this difference which so much vexed Mrs Gresham; not that her friend omitted to bring with her into the country her London wit and aptitude for fun, but that she did not take with her up to town the genuine goodness and love of honesty which made her love-able in the country. She was as it were two persons, and Mrs Gresham could not understand that any lady should
permit herself to be more worldly at one time of the year than at another – or in one place than in any other.

‘Well, my dear, I am heartily glad we’ve done with that,’ Miss Dunstable said to her, as she sat herself down to her desk in the drawing-room on the first morning after her arrival at Boxall Hill.

‘What does “that” mean?’ said Mrs Gresham.

‘Why, London and smoke and late hours, and
standing on one’s legs for four hours at a stretch on the top of one’s own staircase, to be bowed at by any one who chooses to come. That’s all done – for one year, at any rate.’

‘You know you like it.’

‘No, Mary; that’s just what I don’t know. I don’t know whether I like it or not. Sometimes, when the spirit of that dearest of all women, Mrs Harold Smith, is upon me, I think that I do like
it; but then again, when other spirits are on me, I think that I don’t.’

‘And who are the owners of the other spirits?’

‘Oh! you are one, of course. But you are a weak little thing, by no means able to contend with such a Samson as Mrs Harold. And then you are a little given to wickedness yourself, you know. You’ve learned to like London well enough since you sat down to the table of Dives.
Your uncle, – he’s the real impracticable, unapproachable Lazarus who declares that he can’t come down because of the big gulf. I wonder how he’d behave, if somebody left him ten thousand a year?’

‘Uncommonly well, I am sure.’

‘Oh, yes; he is a Lazarus now, so of course we are bound to speak well of him; but I should like to see him tried. I don’t doubt
but what he’d have a house in Belgrave
Square, and become noted for his little dinners before the first year of his trial was over.’

‘Well, and why not? You would not wish him to be an anchorite?’

‘I am told that he is going to try his luck, – not with ten thousand a year, but with one or two.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Jane tells me that they all say at Greshamsbury that he is going to marry Lady Scatcherd.’ Now Lady Scatcherd was
a widow living in those parts; an excellent woman, but one not formed by nature to grace society of the highest order.

‘What!’ exclaimed Mrs Gresham, rising up from her chair while her eyes flashed with anger at such a rumour.

‘Well, my dear, don’t eat me. I don’t say it is so; I only say that Jane said so.’

‘Then you ought to send Jane out of the house.’

‘You may be sure of this, my dear:
Jane would not have told me if somebody had not told her.’

‘And you believed it?’

‘I have said nothing about that.’

‘But you look as if you had believed it.’

‘Do I? Let us see what sort of a look it is, this look of faith.’ And Miss Dunstable got up and went to the glass over the fireplace. ‘But Mary, my dear, ain’t you old enough to know that you should not credit people’s looks? You should
believe nothing now-a-days; and I did not believe the story about poor Lady Scatcherd. I know the doctor well enough to be sure that he is not a marrying man.’

‘What a nasty, hackneyed, false phrase that is – that of a marrying man! It sounds as though some men were in the habit of getting married three or four times a month.’

‘It means a great deal all the same. One can tell very soon whether
a man is likely to marry or no.’

‘And can one tell the same of a woman?’

‘The thing is so different. All unmarried women are necessarily in the market; but if they behave themselves properly they make no signs. Now there was Griselda Grantly; of course she intended to get herself a husband, and a very grand one she has got; but
she always looked as though butter would not melt in her mouth.
It would have been very wrong to call her a marrying girl.’

‘Oh, of course she was,’ says Mrs Gresham, with that sort of acrimony which one pretty young woman so frequently expresses with reference to another. ‘But if one could always tell of a woman, as you say you can of a man, I should be able to tell of you. Now, I wonder whether you are a marrying woman. I have never been able to make up
my mind yet.’

Miss Dunstable remained silent for a few moments, as though she were at first minded to take the question as being, in some sort, one made in earnest; but then she attempted to laugh it off. ‘Well, I wonder at that,’ said she, ‘as it was only the other day I told you how many offers I had refused.’

‘Yes; but you did not tell me whether any had been made that you meant to accept.’

‘None such was ever made to me. Talking of that, I shall never forget your cousin, the Honourable George.’

‘He is not my cousin.’

‘Well, your husband’s. It would not be fair to show a man’s letters; but I should like to show you his.’

‘You are determined, then, to remain single?’

‘I didn’t say that. But why do you cross-question me so?’

‘Because I think so much about you. I am afraid that
you will become so afraid of men’s motives as to doubt that any one can be honest. And yet sometimes I think you would be a happier woman and a better woman, if you were married.’

‘To such an one as the Honourable George, for instance?’

‘No, not to such an one as him; you have probably picked out the worst.’

‘Or to Mr Sowerby?’

‘Well, no; not to Mr Sowerby, either. I would not have you marry
any man that looked to you for your money principally.’

‘And how is it possible that I should expect any one to look to me principally for anything else? You don’t see my difficulty, my dear. If I had only five hundred a year, I might come across some decent middle-aged personage, like myself, who would like me, myself, pretty well, and would like my little income – pretty well also. He would
not tell me any violent lie, and perhaps no
lie at all. I should take to him in the same sort of way, and we might do very well. But, as it is, how is it possible that any disinterested person should learn to like me? How could such a man set about it? If a sheep have two heads, is not the fact of the two heads the first and, indeed, only thing which the world regards in that sheep? Must it not
be so as a matter of course? I am a sheep with two heads. All this money which my father put together and which has been growing since like grass under May showers, has turned me into an abortion. I am not the giantess eight feet high, or the dwarf that stands in the man’s hand, –’

‘Or the two-headed sheep –’

‘But I am the unmarried woman with – half a dozen millions of money – as I believe
some people think. Under such circumstances have I a fair chance of getting my own sweet bit of grass to nibble, like any ordinary animal with one head? I never was very beautiful, and I am not more so now than I was fifteen years ago.’

‘I am quite sure it is not that which hinders it. You would not call yourself plain; and even plain women are married every day, and are loved, too, as well as
pretty women.’

‘Are they? Well, we won’t say more about that; but I don’t expect a great many lovers on account of my beauty. If ever you hear of such an one, mind you tell me.’

It was almost on Mrs Gresham’s tongue to say that she did know of one such – meaning her uncle. But in truth, she did not know any such thing; nor could she boast to herself that she had good grounds for feeling that
it was so – certainly none sufficient to justify her in speaking of it. Her uncle had said no word to her on the matter, and had been confused and embarrassed when the idea of such a marriage was hinted to him. But, nevertheless, Mrs Gresham did think that each of these two was well inclined to love the other, and that they would be happier together than they would be single. The difficulty, however,
was very great, for the doctor would be terribly afraid of being thought covetous in regard to Miss Dunstable’s money; and it would hardly be expected that she should be induced to make the first overture to the doctor.

‘My uncle would be the only man that I can think of that would be at all fit for you,’ said Mrs Gresham, boldly.

‘What, and rob poor Lady Scatcherd!’ said Miss Dunstable.