Framley Parsonage

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The matter was still left open to him. Mr. Fothergill had especially
explained that; and therefore his ultimate decision was as yet within
his own power. Such a visit would cost him some money, for he knew
that a man does not stay at great houses without expense; and then,
in spite of his good income, he was not very flush of money. He had
been down this year with Lord Lufton in Scotland. Perhaps it might
be more prudent for him to return home. But then an idea came to
him that it behoved him as a man and a priest to break through
that Framley thraldom under which he felt that he did to a certain
extent exist. Was it not the fact that he was about to decline this
invitation from fear of Lady Lufton? and if so, was that a motive by
which he ought to be actuated? It was incumbent on him to rid himself
of that feeling. And in this spirit he got up and dressed.

There was hunting again on that day; and as the hounds were to meet
near Chaldicotes, and to draw some coverts lying on the verge of the
chase, the ladies were to go in carriages through the drives of the
forest, and Mr. Robarts was to escort them on horseback. Indeed it
was one of those hunting-days got up rather for the ladies than for
the sport. Great nuisances they are to steady, middle-aged hunting
men; but the young fellows like them because they have thereby an
opportunity of showing off their sporting finery, and of doing a
little flirtation on horseback. The bishop, also, had been minded to
be of the party: so, at least, he had said on the previous evening;
and a place in one of the carriages had been set apart for him: but
since that, he and Mrs. Proudie had discussed the matter in private,
and at breakfast his lordship declared that he had changed his mind.

Mr. Sowerby was one of those men who are known to be very poor--as
poor as debt can make a man--but who, nevertheless, enjoy all the
luxuries which money can give. It was believed that he could not
live in England out of jail but for his protection as a member of
Parliament; and yet it seemed that there was no end to his horses
and carriages, his servants and retinue. He had been at this work
for a great many years, and practice, they say, makes perfect. Such
companions are very dangerous. There is no cholera, no yellow-fever,
no small-pox, more contagious than debt. If one lives habitually
among embarrassed men, one catches it to a certainty. No one had
injured the community in this way more fatally than Mr. Sowerby.
But still he carried on the game himself; and now, on this morning,
carriages and horses thronged at his gate, as though he were as
substantially rich as his friend the Duke of Omnium.

"Robarts, my dear fellow," said Mr. Sowerby, when they were well
under way down one of the glades of the forest,--for the place
where the hounds met was some four or five miles from the house of
Chaldicotes,--"ride on with me a moment. I want to speak to you; and
if I stay behind we shall never get to the hounds." So Mark, who had
come expressly to escort the ladies, rode on alongside of Mr. Sowerby
in his pink coat.

"My dear fellow, Fothergill tells me that you have some hesitation
about going to Gatherum Castle."

"Well, I did decline, certainly. You know I am not a man of pleasure,
as you are. I have some duties to attend to."

"Gammon!" said Mr. Sowerby; and as he said it, he looked with a kind
of derisive smile into the clergyman's face.

"It is easy enough to say that, Sowerby; and perhaps I have no right
to expect that you should understand me."

"Ah, but I do understand you; and I say it is gammon. I would be the
last man in the world to ridicule your scruples about duty, if this
hesitation on your part arose from any such scruple. But answer me
honestly, do you not know that such is not the case?"

"I know nothing of the kind."

"Ah, but I think you do. If you persist in refusing this invitation
will it not be because you are afraid of making Lady Lufton angry? I
do not know what there can be in that woman that she is able to hold
both you and Lufton in leading-strings." Robarts, of course, denied
the charge, and protested that he was not to be taken back to his own
parsonage by any fear of Lady Lufton. But though he made such protest
with warmth, he knew that he did so ineffectually. Sowerby only
smiled, and said that the proof of the pudding was in the eating.

"What is the good of a man keeping a curate if it be not to save him
from that sort of drudgery?" he asked.

"Drudgery! If I were a drudge how could I be here to-day?"

"Well, Robarts, look here. I am speaking now, perhaps, with more of
the energy of an old friend than circumstances fully warrant; but I
am an older man than you, and as I have a regard for you I do not
like to see you throw up a good game when it is in your hands."

"Oh, as far as that goes, Sowerby, I need hardly tell you that I
appreciate your kindness."

"If you are content," continued the man of the world, "to live at
Framley all your life, and to warm yourself in the sunshine of the
dowager there, why, in such case, it may perhaps be useless for you
to extend the circle of your friends; but if you have higher ideas
than these, you will be very wrong to omit the present opportunity of
going to the duke's. I never knew the duke go so much out of his way
to be civil to a clergyman as he has done in this instance."

"I am sure I am very much obliged to him."

"The fact is, that you may, if you please, make yourself popular
in the county; but you cannot do it by obeying all Lady Lufton's
behests. She is a dear old woman, I am sure."

"She is, Sowerby; and you would say so, if you knew her."

"I don't doubt it; but it would not do for you or me to live exactly
according to her ideas. Now, here, in this case, the bishop of the
diocese is to be one of the party, and he has, I believe, already
expressed a wish that you should be another."

"He asked me if I were going."

"Exactly; and Archdeacon Grantly will be there."

"Will he?" asked Mark. Now, that would be a great point gained, for
Archdeacon Grantly was a close friend of Lady Lufton.

"So I understand from Fothergill. Indeed, it will be very wrong of
you not to go, and I tell you so plainly; and what is more, when you
talk about your duty--you having a curate as you have--why, it is
gammon." These last words he spoke looking back over his shoulder
as he stood up in his stirrups, for he had caught the eye of the
huntsman, who was surrounded by his bounds, and was now trotting on
to join him. During a great portion of the day, Mark found himself
riding by the side of Mrs. Proudie, as that lady leaned back in
her carriage. And Mrs. Proudie smiled on him graciously, though
her daughter would not do so. Mrs. Proudie was fond of having an
attendant clergyman; and as it was evident that Mr. Robarts lived
among nice people--titled dowagers, members of Parliament, and people
of that sort--she was quite willing to install him as a sort of
honorary chaplain _pro tem_.

"I'll tell you what we have settled, Mrs. Harold Smith and I," said
Mrs. Proudie to him. "This lecture at Barchester will be so late on
Saturday evening, that you had all better come and dine with us."
Mark bowed and thanked her, and declared that he should be very happy
to make one of such a party. Even Lady Lufton could not object to
this, although she was not especially fond of Mrs. Proudie.

"And then they are to sleep at the hotel. It will really be too late
for ladies to think of going back so far at this time of the year. I
told Mrs. Harold Smith, and Miss Dunstable, too, that we could manage
to make room at any rate for them. But they will not leave the other
ladies; so they go to the hotel for that night. But, Mr. Robarts, the
bishop will never allow you to stay at the inn, so of course you will
take a bed at the palace."

It immediately occurred to Mark that as the lecture was to be given
on Saturday evening, the next morning would be Sunday; and, on that
Sunday, he would have to preach at Chaldicotes. "I thought they were
all going to return the same night," said he.

"Well, they did intend it; but you see Mrs. Smith is afraid."

"I should have to get back here on the Sunday morning, Mrs. Proudie."

"Ah, yes, that is bad--very bad indeed. No one dislikes any
interference with the Sabbath more than I do. Indeed, if I am
particular about anything it is about that. But some works are works
of necessity, Mr. Robarts; are they not? Now you must necessarily
be back at Chaldicotes on Sunday morning!" And so the matter was
settled. Mrs. Proudie was very firm in general in the matter of
Sabbath-day observances; but when she had to deal with such persons
as Mrs. Harold Smith, it was expedient that she should give way a
little. "You can start as soon as it's daylight, you know, if you
like it, Mr. Robarts," said Mrs. Proudie.

There was not much to boast of as to the hunting, but it was a very
pleasant day for the ladies. The men rode up and down the grass roads
through the chase, sometimes in the greatest possible hurry as though
they never could go quick enough; and then the coachmen would drive
very fast also, though they did not know why, for a fast pace of
movement is another of those contagious diseases. And then again
the sportsmen would move at an undertaker's pace, when the fox had
traversed and the hounds would be at a loss to know which was the
hunt and which was the heel; and then the carriage also would go
slowly, and the ladies would stand up and talk. And then the time for
lunch came; and altogether the day went by pleasantly enough.

"And so that's hunting, is it?" said Miss Dunstable.

"Yes, that's hunting," said Mr. Sowerby.

"I did not see any gentleman do anything that I could not do myself,
except there was one young man slipped off into the mud; and I
shouldn't like that."

"But there was no breaking of bones, was there, my dear?" said Mrs.
Harold Smith.

"And nobody caught any foxes," said Miss Dunstable. "The fact is,
Mrs. Smith, that I don't think much more of their sport than I do of
their business. I shall take to hunting a pack of hounds myself after
this."

"Do, my dear, and I'll be your whipper-in. I wonder whether Mrs.
Proudie would join us."

"I shall be writing to the duke to-night," said Mr. Fothergill to
Mark, as they were all riding up to the stable-yard together. "You
will let me tell his grace that you will accept his invitation--will
you not?"

"Upon my word, the duke is very kind," said Mark.

"He is very anxious to know you, I can assure you," said Fothergill.
What could a young flattered fool of a parson do, but say that he
would go? Mark did say that he would go; and in the course of the
evening his friend Mr. Sowerby congratulated him, and the bishop
joked with him and said that he knew that he would not give up good
company so soon; and Miss Dunstable said she would make him her
chaplain as soon as Parliament would allow quack doctors to have such
articles--an allusion which Mark did not understand, till he learned
that Miss Dunstable was herself the proprietress of the celebrated
Oil of Lebanon, invented by her late respected father, and patented
by him with such wonderful results in the way of accumulated fortune;
and Mrs. Proudie made him quite one of their party, talking to him
about all manner of Church subjects; and then at last, even Miss
Proudie smiled on him, when she learned that he had been thought
worthy of a bed at a duke's castle. And all the world seemed to be
open to him.

But he could not make himself happy that evening. On the next morning
he must write to his wife; and he could already see the look of
painful sorrow which would fall upon his Fanny's brow when she
learned that her husband was going to be a guest at the Duke of
Omnium's. And he must tell her to send him money, and money was
scarce. And then, as to Lady Lufton, should he send her some message,
or should he not? In either case he must declare war against her. And
then did he not owe everything to Lady Lufton? And thus in spite of
all his triumphs he could not get himself to bed in a happy frame of
mind.

On the next day, which was Friday, he postponed the disagreeable
task of writing. Saturday would do as well; and on Saturday morning,
before they all started for Barchester, he did write. And his letter
ran as follows:--


Chaldicotes,--November, 185--.

DEAREST LOVE,

You will be astonished when I tell you how gay we all are
here, and what further dissipations are in store for us.
The Arabins, as you supposed, are not of our party; but
the Proudies are,--as you supposed also. Your suppositions
are always right. And what will you think when I tell you
that I am to sleep at the palace on Saturday? You know
that there is to be a lecture in Barchester on that day.
Well; we must all go, of course, as Harold Smith, one of
our set here, is to give it. And now it turns out that we
cannot get back the same night because there is no moon;
and Mrs. Bishop would not allow that my cloth should be
contaminated by an hotel;--very kind and considerate, is
it not?

But I have a more astounding piece of news for you than
this. There is to be a great party at Gatherum Castle
next week, and they have talked me over into accepting an
invitation which the duke sent expressly to me. I refused
at first; but everybody here said that my doing so would
be so strange; and then they all wanted to know my reason.
When I came to render it, I did not know what reason I had
to give. The bishop is going, and he thought it very odd
that I should not go also, seeing that I was asked. I
know what my own darling will think, and I know that she
will not be pleased, and I must put off my defence till I
return to her from this ogre-land,--if ever I do get back
alive. But joking apart, Fanny, I think that I should
have been wrong to stand out, when so much was said about
it. I should have been seeming to take upon myself to
sit in judgement upon the duke. I doubt if there be a
single clergyman in the diocese, under fifty years of
age, who would have refused the invitation under such
circumstances,--unless it be Crawley, who is so mad on the
subject that he thinks it almost wrong to take a walk out
of his own parish. I must stay at Gatherum Castle over
Sunday week--indeed, we only go there on Friday. I have
written to Jones about the duties. I can make it up to
him, as I know he wishes to go into Wales at Christmas.
My wanderings will all be over then, and he may go for a
couple of months if he pleases. I suppose you will take my
classes in the school on Sunday, as well as your own; but
pray make them have a good fire. If this is too much for
you, make Mrs. Podgens take the boys. Indeed I think that
will be better.

Of course you will tell her ladyship of my whereabouts.
Tell her from me, that as regards the bishop, as well as
regarding another great personage, the colour has been
laid on perhaps a little too thickly. Not that Lady Lufton
would ever like him. Make her understand that my going to
the duke's has almost become a matter of conscience with
me. I have not known how to make it appear that it would
be right for me to refuse, without absolutely making a
party matter of it. I saw that it would be said, that I,
coming from Lady Lufton's parish, could not go to the Duke
of Omnium's. This I did not choose.

I find that I shall want a little more money before I
leave here, five or ten pounds--say ten pounds. If you
cannot spare it, get it from Davis. He owes me more than
that, a good deal. And now, God bless and preserve you, my
own love. Kiss my darling bairns for papa, and give them
my blessing.

Always and ever your own,

M. R.


And then there was written, on an outside scrap which was folded
round the full-written sheet of paper, "Make it as smooth at Framley
Court as possible." However strong, and reasonable, and unanswerable
the body of Mark's letter may have been, all his hesitation,
weakness, doubt, and fear, were expressed in this short postscript.




CHAPTER V

Amantium Irae Amoris Integratio


And now, with my reader's consent, I will follow the postman with
that letter to Framley; not by its own circuitous route indeed, or by
the same mode of conveyance; for that letter went into Barchester by
the Courcy night mail-cart, which, on its road, passes through the
villages of Uffley and Chaldicotes, reaching Barchester in time for
the up mail-train to London. By that train, the letter was sent
towards the metropolis as far as the junction of the Barset branch
line, but there it was turned in its course, and came down again by
the main line as far as Silverbridge; at which place, between six
and seven in the morning, it was shouldered by the Framley footpost
messenger, and in due course delivered at the Framley Parsonage
exactly as Mrs. Robarts had finished reading prayers to the four
servants. Or, I should say rather, that such would in its usual
course have been that letter's destiny. As it was, however, it
reached Silverbridge on Sunday, and lay there till the Monday, as
the Framley people have declined their Sunday post. And then again,
when the letter was delivered at the parsonage, on that wet Monday
morning, Mrs. Robarts was not at home. As we are all aware, she was
staying with her ladyship at Framley Court.

"Oh, but it's mortial wet," said the shivering postman as he handed
in that and the vicar's newspaper. The vicar was a man of the world,
and took the _Jupiter_.

"Come in, Robin postman, and warm theeself awhile," said Jemima the
cook, pushing a stool a little to one side, but still well in front
of the big kitchen fire.

"Well, I dudna jist know how it'll be. The wery 'edges 'as eyes
and tells on me in Silverbridge, if I so much as stops to pick a
blackberry."

"There bain't no hedges here, mon, nor yet no blackberries; so sit
thee down and warm theeself. That's better nor blackberries, I'm
thinking," and she handed him a bowl of tea with a slice of buttered
toast. Robin postman took the proffered tea, put his dripping hat on
the ground, and thanked Jemima cook. "But I dudna jist know how it'll
be," said he; "only it do pour so tarnation heavy." Which among us, O
my readers, could have withstood that temptation?

Such was the circuitous course of Mark's letter; but as it left
Chaldicotes on Saturday evening, and reached Mrs. Robarts on the
following morning, or would have done, but for that intervening
Sunday, doing all its peregrinations during the night, it may be held
that its course of transport was not inconveniently arranged. We,
however, will travel by a much shorter route. Robin, in the course of
his daily travels, passed, first the post-office at Framley, then the
Framley Court back entrance, and then the vicar's house, so that on
this wet morning Jemima cook was not able to make use of his services
in transporting this letter back to her mistress; for Robin had got
another village before him, expectant of its letters.

"Why didn't thee leave it, mon, with Mr. Applejohn at the Court?" Mr.
Applejohn was the butler who took the letter-bag. "Thee know'st as
how missus was there." And then Robin, mindful of the tea and toast,
explained to her courteously how the law made it imperative on him to
bring the letter to the very house that was indicated, let the owner
of the letter be where she might; and he laid down the law very
satisfactorily with sundry long-worded quotations. Not to much
effect, however, for the housemaid called him an oaf; and Robin would
decidedly have had the worst of it had not the gardener come in and
taken his part. "They women knows nothin', and understands nothin',"
said the gardener. "Give us hold of the letter. I'll take it up to
the house. It's the master's fist." And then Robin postman went on
one way, and the gardener, he went the other. The gardener never
disliked an excuse for going up to the Court gardens, even on so wet
a day as this.

Mrs. Robarts was sitting over the drawing-room fire with Lady
Meredith, when her husband's letter was brought to her. The Framley
Court letter-bag had been discussed at breakfast; but that was now
nearly an hour since, and Lady Lufton, as was her wont, was away
in her own room writing her own letters, and looking after her own
matters: for Lady Lufton was a person who dealt in figures herself,
and understood business almost as well as Harold Smith. And on that
morning she also had received a letter which had displeased her not a
little. Whence arose this displeasure neither Mrs. Robarts nor Lady
Meredith knew; but her ladyship's brow had grown black at breakfast
time; she had bundled up an ominous-looking epistle into her bag
without speaking of it, and had left the room immediately that
breakfast was over.

"There's something wrong," said Sir George.

"Mamma does fret herself so much about Ludovic's money matters," said
Lady Meredith. Ludovic was Lord Lufton,--Ludovic Lufton, Baron Lufton
of Lufton, in the county of Oxfordshire.

"And yet I don't think Lufton gets much astray," said Sir George,
as he sauntered out of the room. "Well, Justy; we'll put off going
then till to-morrow; but remember, it must be the first train."
Lady Meredith said she would remember, and then they went into the
drawing-room, and there Mrs. Robarts received her letter. Fanny, when
she read it, hardly at first realized to herself the idea that her
husband, the clergyman of Framley, the family clerical friend of Lady
Lufton's establishment, was going to stay with the Duke of Omnium. It
was so thoroughly understood at Framley Court that the duke and all
belonging to him was noxious and damnable. He was a Whig, he was a
bachelor, he was a gambler, he was immoral in every way, he was a man
of no Church principle, a corrupter of youth, a sworn foe of young
wives, a swallower up of small men's patrimonies; a man whom mothers
feared for their sons, and sisters for their brothers; and worse
again, whom fathers had cause to fear for their daughters, and
brothers for their sisters;--a man who, with his belongings, dwelt,
and must dwell, poles asunder from Lady Lufton and her belongings!
And it must be remembered that all these evil things were fully
believed by Mrs. Robarts. Could it really be that her husband was
going to dwell in the halls of Apollyon, to shelter himself beneath
the wings of this very Lucifer? A cloud of sorrow settled upon her
face, and then she read the letter again very slowly, not omitting
the tell-tale postscript.

"Oh, Justinia!" at last she said.

"What, have you got bad news, too?"

"I hardly know how to tell you what has occurred. There; I suppose
you had better read it;" and she handed her husband's epistle to Lady
Meredith,--keeping back, however, the postscript.

"What on earth will her ladyship say now?" said Lady Meredith, as she
folded the paper, and replaced it in the envelope.

"What had I better do, Justinia? how had I better tell her?" And
then the two ladies put their heads together, bethinking themselves
how they might best deprecate the wrath of Lady Lufton. It had been
arranged that Mrs. Robarts should go back to the parsonage after
lunch, and she had persisted in her intention after it had been
settled that the Merediths were to stay over that evening. Lady
Meredith now advised her friend to carry out this determination
without saying anything about her husband's terrible iniquities, and
then to send the letter up to Lady Lufton as soon as she reached the
parsonage. "Mamma will never know that you received it here," said
Lady Meredith. But Mrs. Robarts would not consent to this. Such a
course seemed to her to be cowardly. She knew that her husband was
doing wrong; she felt that he knew it himself; but still it was
necessary that she should defend him. However terrible might be the
storm, it must break upon her own head. So she at once went up and
tapped at Lady Lufton's private door; and as she did so Lady Meredith
followed her.

"Come in," said Lady Lufton, and the voice did not sound soft and
pleasant. When they entered, they found her sitting at her little
writing-table, with her head resting on her arm, and that letter
which she had received that morning was lying open on the table
before her. Indeed there were two letters now there, one from a
London lawyer to herself, and the other from her son to that London
lawyer. It needs only be explained that the subject of those letters
was the immediate sale of that outlying portion of the Lufton
property in Oxfordshire, as to which Mr. Sowerby once spoke. Lord
Lufton had told the lawyer that the thing must be done at once,
adding that his friend Robarts would have explained the whole affair
to his mother. And then the lawyer had written to Lady Lufton, as
indeed was necessary; but unfortunately Lady Lufton had not hitherto
heard a word of the matter. In her eyes the sale of family property
was horrible; the fact that a young man with some fifteen or twenty
thousand a year should require subsidiary money was horrible; that
her own son should have not written to her himself was horrible;
and it was also horrible that her own pet, the clergyman whom she
had brought there to be her son's friend, should be mixed up in the
matter; should be cognizant of it while she was not cognizant; should
be employed in it as a go-between and agent in her son's bad courses.
It was all horrible, and Lady Lufton was sitting there with a black
brow and an uneasy heart. As regarded our poor parson, we may say
that in this matter he was blameless, except that he had hitherto
lacked the courage to execute his friend's commission.