Framley Parsonage.
CHAPTER XVI.
Mrs. Podgens’ Baby.
The hunting season had now nearly passed away, and the great ones of the Barsetshire world were thinking of the glories of London. Of these glories Lady Lufton always thought with much inquietude of mind. She would fain have remained throughout the whole year at Framley Court, did not certain grave considerations render such a course on her part improper in her own estimation. All the Lady Luftons of whom she had heard, dowager and anti-dowager, had always had their seasons in London, till old age had incapacitated them for such doings—sometimes for clearly long after the arrival of such period. And then she had an idea, perhaps not altogether erroneous, that she annually imported back with her into the country somewhat of the passing civilization of the times:—may we not say an idea that certainly was not erroneous? for how otherwise is it that the forms of new caps and remodelled shapes for women’s waists find their way down into agricultural parts, and that the rural eye learns to appreciate grace and beauty? There are those who think that remodelled waists and new caps had better be kept to the towns; but such people, if they would follow out their own argument, would wish to see ploughboys painted with ruddle and milkmaids covered with skins.
For these and other reasons Lady Lufton always went to London in April, and stayed there till the beginning of June. But for her this was usually a period of penance. In London she was no very great personage. She had never laid herself out for greatness of that sort, and did not shine as a lady-patroness or state secretary in the female cabinet of fashion. She was dull and listless, and without congenial pursuits in London, and spent her happiest moments in reading accounts of what was being done at Framley, and in writing orders for further local information of the same kind.
But on this occasion there was a matter of vital import to give an interest of its own to her visit to town. She was to entertain Griselda Grantly, and as far as might be possible to induce her son to remain in Griselda’s society. The plan of the campaign was to be as follows. Mrs. Grantly and the archdeacon were in the first place to go up to London for a month, taking Griselda with them; and then, when they returned to Plumpstead, Griselda was to go to Lady Lufton. This arrangement was not at all points agreeable to Lady Lufton, for she knew that Mrs. Grantly did not turn her back on the Hartletop people quite as cordially as she should do, considering the terms of the Lufton-Grantly family treaty. But then Mrs. Grantly might have alleged in excuse the slow manner in which Lord Lufton proceeded in the making and declaring of his love, and the absolute necessity which there is for two strings to one’s bow, when one string may be in any way doubtful. Could it be possible that Mrs. Grantly had heard anything of that unfortunate Platonic friendship with Lucy Robarts?
“WAS IT NOT A LIE?”
There came a letter from Mrs. Grantly just about the end of March, which added much to Lady Lufton’s uneasiness, and made her more than ever anxious to be herself on the scene of action and to have Griselda in her own hands. After some communications of mere ordinary importance with reference to the London world in general and the Lufton-Grantly world in particular, Mrs. Grantly wrote confidentially about her daughter:
“It would be useless to deny,” she said, with a mother’s pride and a mother’s humility, “that she is very much admired. She is asked out a great deal more than I can take her, and to houses to which I myself by no means wish to go. I could not refuse her as to Lady Hartletop’s first ball, for there will be nothing else this year like them; and of course when with you, dear Lady Lufton, that house will be out of the question. So indeed would it be with me, were I myself only concerned. The duke was there, of course, and I really wonder Lady Hartletop should not be more discreet in her own drawing-room when all the world is there. It is clear to me that Lord Dumbello admires Griselda much more than I could wish. She, dear girl, has such excellent sense that I do not think it likely that her head should be turned by it; but with how many girls would not the admiration of such a man be irresistible? The marquis, you know, is very feeble, and I am told that since this rage for building has come on, the Lancashire property is over two hundred thousand a year!! I do not think that Lord Dumbello has said much to her. Indeed it seems to me that he never does say much to any one. But he always stands up to dance with her, and I see that he is uneasy and fidgetty when she stands up with any other partner whom he could care about. It was really embarrassing to see him the other night at Miss Dunstable’s, when Griselda was dancing with a certain friend of ours. But she did look very well that evening, and I have seldom seen her more animated!”
All this, and a great deal more of the same sort in the same letter, tended to make Lady Lufton anxious to be in London. It was quite certain—there was no doubt of that, at any rate—that Griselda would see no more of Lady Hartletop’s meretricious grandeur when she had been transferred to Lady Lufton’s guardianship. And she, Lady Lufton, did wonder that Mrs. Grantly should have taken her daughter to such a house. All about Lady Hartletop was known to all the world. It was known that it was almost the only house in London at which the Duke of Omnium was constantly to be met. Lady Lufton herself would almost as soon think of taking a young girl to Gatherum Castle; and on these accounts she did feel rather angry with her friend Mrs. Grantly. But then perhaps she did not sufficiently calculate that Mrs. Grantly’s letter had been written purposely to produce such feelings—with the express view of awakening her ladyship to the necessity of action. Indeed in such a matter as this Mrs. Grantly was a more able woman than Lady Lufton—more able to see her way and to follow it out. The Lufton-Grantly alliance was in her mind the best, seeing that she did not regard money as everything. But failing that, the Hartletop-Grantly alliance was not bad. Regarding it as a second string to her bow, she thought that it was not at all bad.
Lady Lufton’s reply was very affectionate. She declared how happy she was to know that Griselda was enjoying herself; she insinuated that Lord Dumbello was known to the world as a fool, and his mother as——being not a bit better than she ought to be; and then she added that circumstances would bring herself up to town four days sooner than she had expected, and that she hoped her dear Griselda would come to her at once. Lord Lufton, she said, though he would not sleep in Bruton Street—Lady Lufton lived in Bruton Street—had promised to pass there as much of his time as his parliamentary duties would permit.
O Lady Lufton! Lady Lufton! did it not occur to you, when you wrote those last words, intending that they should have so strong an effect on the mind of your correspondent, that you were telling a——tarradiddle? Was it not the case that you had said to your son, in your own dear, kind, motherly way: “Ludovic, we shall see something of you in Bruton Street this year, shall we not? Griselda Grantly will be with me, and we must not let her be dull—must we?” And then had he not answered, “Oh, of course, mother,” and sauntered out of the room, not altogether graciously? Had he, or you, said a word about his parliamentary duties? Not a word! O Lady Lufton! have you not now written a tarradiddle to your friend?
In these days we are becoming very strict about truth with our children; terribly strict occasionally, when we consider the natural weakness of the moral courage at the ages of ten, twelve, and fourteen. But I do not know that we are at all increasing the measure of strictness with which we, grown-up people, regulate our own truth and falsehood. Heaven forbid that I should be thought to advocate falsehood in children; but an untruth is more pardonable in them than in their parents. Lady Lufton’s tarradiddle was of a nature that is usually considered excusable—at least with grown people; but, nevertheless, she would have been nearer to perfection could she have confined herself to the truth. Let us suppose that a boy were to write home from school, saying that another boy had promised to come and stay with him, that other having given no such promise—what a very naughty boy would that first boy be in the eyes of his pastors and masters!
That little conversation between Lord Lufton and his mother—in which nothing was said about his lordship’s parliamentary duties—took place on the evening before he started for London. On that occasion he certainly was not in his best humour, nor did he behave to his mother in his kindest manner. He had then left the room when she began to talk about Miss Grantly; and once again in the course of the evening, when his mother, not very judiciously, said a word or two about Griselda’s beauty, he had remarked that she was no conjuror, and would hardly set the Thames on fire.
“If she were a conjuror!” said Lady Lufton, rather piqued, “I should not now be going to take her out in London. I know many of those sort of girls whom you call conjurors; they can talk for ever, and always talk either loudly or in a whisper. I don’t like them, and I am sure that you do not in your heart.”
“Oh, as to liking them in my heart—that is being very particular.”
“Griselda Grantly is a lady, and as such I shall be happy to have her with me in town. She is just the girl that Justinia will like to have with her.”
“Exactly,” said Lord Lufton. “She will do exceedingly well for Justinia.”
Now this was not good-natured on the part of Lord Lufton; and his mother felt it the more strongly, inasmuch as it seemed to signify that he was setting his back up against the Lufton-Grantly alliance. She had been pretty sure that he would do so in the event of his suspecting that a plot was being laid to watch him; and now it almost appeared that he did suspect such a plot. Why else that sarcasm as to Griselda doing very well for his sister?
And now we must go back and describe a little scene at Framley which will account for his lordship’s ill-humour and suspicions, and explain how it came to pass that he so snubbed his mother. This scene took place about ten days after the evening on which Mrs. Robarts and Lucy were walking together in the Parsonage garden, and during those ten days Lucy had not once allowed herself to be entrapped into any special conversation with the young peer. She had dined at Framley Court during that interval, and had spent a second evening there; Lord Lufton had also been up at the Parsonage on three or four occasions, and had looked for her in her usual walks; but, nevertheless, they had never come together in their old familiar way, since the day on which Lady Lufton had hinted her fears to Mrs. Robarts.
Lord Lufton had very much missed her. At first he had not attributed this change to a purposed scheme of action on the part of any one; nor, indeed, had he much thought about it, although he had felt himself to be annoyed. But as the period fixed for his departure grew near, it did occur to him as very odd that he should never hear Lucy’s voice unless when she said a few words to his mother, or to her sister-in-law. And then he made up his mind that he would speak to her before he went, and that the mystery should be explained to him.
And he carried out his purpose, calling at the Parsonage on one special afternoon; and it was on the evening of the same day that his mother sang the praises of Griselda Grantly so inopportunely. Robarts, he knew, was then absent from home, and Mrs. Robarts was with his mother down at the house, preparing lists of the poor people to be specially attended to in Lady Lufton’s approaching absence. Taking advantage of this, he walked boldly in through the Parsonage garden; asked the gardener, with an indifferent voice, whether either of the ladies were at home, and then caught poor Lucy exactly on the doorstep of the house.
“Were you going in or out, Miss Robarts?”
“Well, I was going out,” said Lucy; and she began to consider how best she might get quit of any prolonged encounter.
“Oh, going out, were you? I don’t know whether I may offer to——”
“Well, Lord Lufton, not exactly, seeing that I am about to pay a visit to our near neighbour, Mrs. Podgens. Perhaps, you have no particular call towards Mrs. Podgens’ just at present, or to her new baby?”
“And have you any very particular call that way?”
“Yes, and especially to Baby Podgens. Baby Podgens is a real little duck—only just two days old.” And Lucy, as she spoke, progressed a step or two, as though she were determined not to remain there talking on the doorstep.
A slight cloud came across his brow as he saw this, and made him resolve that she should not gain her purpose. He was not going to be foiled in that way by such a girl as Lucy Robarts. He had come there to speak to her, and speak to her he would. There had been enough of intimacy between them to justify him in demanding, at any rate, as much as that.
“Miss Robarts,” he said, “I am starting for London to-morrow, and if I do not say good-bye to you now, I shall not be able to do so at all.”
“Good-bye, Lord Lufton,” she said, giving him her hand, and smiling on him with her old genial, good-humoured, racy smile. “And mind you bring into parliament that law which you promised me for defending my young chickens.”
He took her hand, but that was not all that he wanted. “Surely Mrs. Podgens and her baby can wait ten minutes. I shall not see you again for months to come, and yet you seem to begrudge me two words.”
“Not two hundred if they can be of any service to you,” said she, walking cheerily back into the drawing-room; “only I did not think it worth while to waste your time, as Fanny is not here.”
She was infinitely more collected, more master of herself than he was. Inwardly, she did tremble at the idea of what was coming, but outwardly she showed no agitation—none as yet; if only she could so possess herself as to refrain from doing so, when she heard what he might have to say to her.
He hardly knew what it was for the saying of which he had so resolutely come thither. He had by no means made up his mind that he loved Lucy Robarts; nor had he made up his mind that, loving her, he would, or that, loving her, he would not, make her his wife. He had never used his mind in the matter in any way, either for good or evil. He had learned to like her and to think that she was very pretty. He had found out that it was very pleasant to talk to her; whereas, talking to Griselda Grantly, and, indeed, to some other young ladies of his acquaintance, was often hard work. The half hours which he had spent with Lucy had always been satisfactory to him. He had found himself to be more bright with her than with other people, and more apt to discuss subjects worth discussing; and thus it had come about that he thoroughly liked Lucy Robarts. As to whether his affection was Platonic or anti-Platonic he had never asked himself; but he had spoken words to her, shortly before that sudden cessation of their intimacy, which might have been taken as anti-Platonic by any girl so disposed to regard them. He had not thrown himself at her feet, and declared himself to be devoured by a consuming passion; but he had touched her hand as lovers touch those of women whom they love; he had had his confidences with her, talking to her of his own mother, of his sister, and of his friends; and he had called her his own dear friend Lucy.
All this had been very sweet to her, but very poisonous also. She had declared to herself very frequently that her liking for this young nobleman was as purely a feeling of mere friendship as was that of her brother; and she had professed to herself that she would give the lie to the world’s cold sarcasms on such subjects. But she had now acknowledged that the sarcasms of the world on that matter, cold though they may be, are not the less true; and having so acknowledged, she had resolved that all close alliance between herself and Lord Lufton must be at an end. She had come to a conclusion, but he had come to none; and in this frame of mind he was now there with the object of reopening that dangerous friendship which she had had the sense to close.
“And so you are going to-morrow?” she said, as soon as they were both within the drawing-room.
“Yes: I’m off by the early train to-morrow morning, and Heaven knows when we may meet again.”
“Next winter, shall we not?”
“Yes, for a day or two, I suppose. I do not know whether I shall pass another winter here. Indeed, one can never say where one will be.”
“No, one can’t; such as you, at least, cannot. I am not of a migratory tribe myself.”
“I wish you were.”
“I’m not a bit obliged to you. Your nomade life does not agree with young ladies.”
“I think they are taking to it pretty freely, then. We have unprotected young women all about the world.”
“And great bores you find them, I suppose?”
“No; I like it. The more we can get out of old-fashioned grooves the better I am pleased. I should be a radical to-morrow—a regular man of the people,—only I should break my mother’s heart.”
“Whatever you do, Lord Lufton, do not do that.”
“That is why I have liked you so much,” he continued, “because you get out of the grooves.”
“Do I?”
“Yes; and go along by yourself, guiding your own footsteps; not carried hither and thither, just as your grandmother’s old tramway may chance to take you.”
“Do you know I have a strong idea that my grandmother’s old tramway will be the safest and the best after all? I have not left it very far, and I certainly mean to go back to it.”
“That’s impossible! An army of old women, with coils of ropes made out of time-honoured prejudices, could not drag you back.”
“No, Lord Lufton; that is true. But one——” and then she stopped herself. She could not tell him that one loving mother, anxious for her only son, had sufficed to do it. She could not explain to him that this departure from the established tramway had already broken her own rest, and turned her peaceful happy life into a grievous battle.
“I know that you are trying to go back,” he said. “Do you think that I have eyes and cannot see? Come, Lucy, you and I have been friends, and we must not part in this way. My mother is a paragon among women. I say it in earnest;—a paragon among women: and her love for me is the perfection of motherly love.”
“It is, it is; and I am so glad that you acknowledge it.”
“I should be worse than a brute did I not do so; but, nevertheless, I cannot allow her to lead me in all things. Were I to do so, I should cease to be a man.”
“Where can you find any one who will counsel you so truly?”
“But, nevertheless, I must rule myself. I do not know whether my suspicions may be perfectly just, but I fancy that she has created this estrangement between you and me. Has it not been so?”
“Certainly not by speaking to me,” said Lucy, blushing ruby-red through every vein of her deep tinted face. But though she could not command her blood, her voice was still under her control—her voice and her manner.
“But has she not done so? You, I know, will tell me nothing but the truth.”
“I will tell you nothing on this matter, Lord Lufton, whether true or false. It is a subject on which it does not concern me to speak.”
“Ah! I understand,” he said; and rising from his chair, he stood against the chimney-piece with his back to the fire. “She cannot leave me alone to choose for myself my own friends, and my own——;” but he did not fill up the void.
“But why tell me this, Lord Lufton?”
“No! I am not to choose my own friends, though they be among the best and purest of God’s creatures. Lucy, I cannot think that you have ceased to have a regard for me. That you had a regard for me, I am sure.”
She felt that it was almost unmanly of him thus to seek her out, and hunt her down, and then throw upon her the whole weight of the explanation that his coming thither made necessary. But, nevertheless, the truth must be told, and with God’s help she would find strength for the telling of it.
“Yes, Lord Lufton, I had a regard for you—and have. By that word you mean something more than the customary feeling of acquaintance which may ordinarily prevail between a gentleman and lady of different families, who have known each other so short a time as we have done?”
“Yes, something much more,” said he, with energy.
“Well, I will not define the much—something closer than that.”
“Yes, and warmer, and dearer, and more worthy of two human creatures who value each other’s minds and hearts.”
“Some such closer regard I have felt for you—very foolishly. Stop! You have made me speak, and do not interrupt me now. Does not your conscience tell you that in doing so I have unwisely deserted those wise old grandmother’s tramways of which you spoke just now? It has been pleasant to me to do so. I have liked the feeling of independence with which I have thought that I might indulge in an open friendship with such as you are. And your rank, so different from my own, has doubtless made this more attractive.”
“Nonsense!”
“Ah! but it has. I know it now. But what will the world say of me as to such an alliance?”
“The world!”
“Yes, the world! I am not such a philosopher as to disregard it, though you may afford to do so. The world will say that I, the parson’s sister, set my cap at the young lord, and that the young lord had made a fool of me.”
“The world shall say no such thing!” said Lord Lufton, very imperiously.
“Ah I but it will. You can no more stop it, than King Canute could the waters. Your mother has interfered wisely to spare me from this; and the only favour that I can ask you is, that you will spare me also.” And then she got up as though she intended at once to walk forth to her visit to Mrs. Podgens’ baby.
“Stop, Lucy!” he said, putting himself between her and the door.
“It must not be Lucy any longer, Lord Lufton; I was madly foolish when I first allowed it.”
“By heavens! but it shall be Lucy—Lucy before all the world. My Lucy, my own Lucy—my heart’s best friend, and chosen love. Lucy, there is my hand. How long you may have had my heart, it matters not to say now.”
The game was at her feet now, and no doubt she felt her triumph. Her ready wit and speaking lip, not her beauty, had brought him to her side; and now he was forced to acknowledge that her power over him had been supreme. Sooner than leave her he would risk all. She did feel her triumph; but there was nothing in her face to tell him that she did so.
As to what she would now do she did not for a moment doubt. He had been precipitated into the declaration he had made, not by his love, but by his embarrassment. She had thrown in his teeth the injury which he had done her, and he had then been moved by his generosity to repair that injury by the noblest sacrifice which he could make. But Lucy Robarts was not the girl to accept a sacrifice.
He had stepped forward as though he were going to clasp her round the waist, but she receded, and got beyond the reach of his hand. “Lord Lufton!” she said, “when you are more cool you will know that this is wrong. The best thing for both of us now is to part.”
“Not the best thing, but the very worst, till we perfectly understand each other.”
“Then perfectly understand me, that I cannot be your wife.”
“Lucy! do you mean that you cannot learn to love me?”
“I mean that I shall not try. Do not persevere in this, or you will have to hate yourself for your own folly.”
“But I will persevere, till you accept my love, or say, with your hand on your heart, that you cannot and will not love me.”
“Then I must beg you to let me go,” and having so said, she paused while he walked once or twice hurriedly up and down the room. “And, Lord Lufton,” she continued, “if you will leave me now, the words that you have spoken shall be as though they had never been uttered.”
“I care not who knows that they have been uttered. The sooner that they are known to all the world, the better I shall be pleased, unless indeed——”
“Think of your mother, Lord Lufton.”
“What can I do better than give her as a daughter the best and sweetest girl I have ever met? When my mother really knows you, she will love you as I do. Lucy, say one word to me of comfort.”
“I will say no word to you that shall injure your future comfort. It is impossible that I should be your wife.”
“Do you mean that you cannot love me?”
“You have no right to press me any further,” she said; and sat down upon the sofa, with an angry frown upon her forehead.
“By heavens,” he said, “I will take no such answer from you till you put your hand upon your heart, and say that you cannot love me.”
“Oh, why should you press me so, Lord Lufton?”
“Why! because my happiness depends upon it; because it behoves me to know the very truth. It has come to this, that I love you with my whole heart, and I must know how your heart stands towards me.”
She had now again risen from the sofa, and was looking steadily in his face.
“Lord Lufton,” she said, “I cannot love you,” and as she spoke she did put her hand, as he had desired, upon her heart.
“Then God help me! for I am very wretched. Good-bye, Lucy,” and he stretched out his hand to her.
“Good-bye, my Lord. Do not be angry with me.”
“No, no, no!” and without further speech he left the room and the house, and hurried home. It was hardly surprising that he should that evening tell his mother that Griselda Grantly would be a companion sufficiently good for his sister. He wanted no such companion.
And when he was well gone—absolutely out of sight from the window—Lucy walked steadily up to her room, locked the door, and then threw herself on the bed. Why—oh! why had she told such a falsehood? Could anything justify her in a lie? Was it not a lie—knowing as she did that she loved him with all her loving heart?
But, then, his mother! and the sneers of the world, which would have declared that she had set her trap, and caught the foolish young lord! Her pride would not have submitted to that. Strong as her love was, yet her pride was, perhaps, stronger—stronger at any rate during that interview.
But how was she to forgive herself the falsehood she had told?
CHAPTER XVII.
Mrs. Proudie’s Conversazione.
It was grievous to think of the mischief and danger into which Griselda Grantly was brought by the worldliness of her mother in those few weeks previous to Lady Lufton’s arrival in town—very grievous, at least, to her ladyship, as from time to time she heard of what was done in London. Lady Hartletop’s was not the only objectionable house at which Griselda was allowed to reap fresh fashionable laurels. It had been stated openly in the Morning Post that that young lady had been the most admired among the beautiful at one of Miss Dunstable’s celebrated soirées, and then she was heard of as gracing the drawing-room at Mrs. Proudie’s conversazione.
Of Miss Dunstable herself Lady Lufton was not able openly to allege any evil. She was acquainted, Lady Lufton knew, with very many people of the right sort, and was the dear friend of Lady Lufton’s highly conservative and not very distant neighbours, the Greshams. But then she was also acquainted with so many people of the bad sort. Indeed, she was intimate with everybody, from the Duke of Omnium to old Dowager Lady Goodygaffer, who had represented all the cardinal virtues for the last quarter of a century. She smiled with equal sweetness on treacle and on brimstone; was quite at home at Exeter Hall, having been consulted—so the world said, probably not with exact truth—as to the selection of more than one disagreeably Low Church bishop; and was not less frequent in her attendance at the ecclesiastical doings of a certain terrible prelate in the Midland counties, who was supposed to favour stoles and vespers, and to have no proper Protestant hatred for auricular confession and fish on Fridays. Lady Lufton, who was very stanch, did not like this, and would say of Miss Dunstable that it was impossible to serve both God and Mammon.
But Mrs. Proudie was much more objectionable to her. Seeing how sharp was the feud between the Proudies and the Grantlys down in Barsetshire, how absolutely unable they had always been to carry a decent face towards each other in church matters, how they headed two parties in the diocese, which were, when brought together, as oil and vinegar, in which battles the whole Lufton influence had always been brought to bear on the Grantly side;—seeing all this, I say, Lady Lufton was surprised to hear that Griselda had been taken to Mrs. Proudie’s evening exhibition. “Had the archdeacon been consulted about it,” she said to herself, “this would never have happened.” But there she was wrong, for in matters concerning his daughter’s introduction to the world the archdeacon never interfered.
On the whole, I am inclined to think that Mrs. Grantly understood the world better than did Lady Lufton. In her heart of hearts Mrs. Grantly hated Mrs. Proudie—that is, with that sort of hatred one Christian lady allows herself to feel towards another. Of course Mrs. Grantly forgave Mrs. Proudie all her offences, and wished her well, and was at peace with her, in the Christian sense of the word, as with all other women. But under this forbearance and meekness, and perhaps, we may say, wholly unconnected with it, there was certainly a current of antagonistic feeling which, in the ordinary unconsidered language of every day, men and women do call hatred. This raged and was strong throughout the whole year in Barsetshire, before the eyes of all mankind. But, nevertheless, Mrs. Grantly took Griselda to Mrs. Proudie’s evening parties in London.
In these days Mrs. Proudie considered herself to be by no means the least among bishops’ wives. She had opened the season this year in a new house in Gloucester Place, at which the reception rooms, at any rate, were all that a lady bishop could desire. Here she had a front drawing-room of very noble dimensions, a second drawing-room rather noble also, though it had lost one of its back corners awkwardly enough, apparently in a jostle with the neighbouring house; and then there was a third—shall we say drawing-room, or closet?—in which Mrs. Proudie delighted to be seen sitting, in order that the world might know that there was a third room; altogether a noble suite, as Mrs. Proudie herself said in confidence to more than one clergyman’s wife from Barsetshire. “A noble suite, indeed, Mrs. Proudie!” the clergymen’s wives from Barsetshire would usually answer.
For some time Mrs. Proudie was much at a loss to know by what sort of party or entertainment she would make herself famous. Balls and suppers were of course out of the question. She did not object to her daughters dancing all night at other houses—at least, of late she had not objected, for the fashionable world required it, and the young ladies had perhaps a will of their own—but dancing at her house—absolutely under the shade of the bishop’s apron—would be a sin and a scandal. And then as to suppers—of all modes in which one may extend one’s hospitality to a large acquaintance, they are the most costly.
“It is horrid to think that we should go out among our friends for the mere sake of eating and drinking,” Mrs. Proudie would say to the clergymen’s wives from Barsetshire. “It shows such a sensual propensity.”
“Indeed it does, Mrs. Proudie; and is so vulgar too!” those ladies would reply.
But the elder among them would remember with regret the unsparing, open-handed hospitality of Barchester palace in the good old days of Bishop Grantly—God rest his soul! One old vicar’s wife there was whose answer had not been so courteous—
“When we are hungry, Mrs. Proudie,” she had said, “we do all have sensual propensities.”
“It would be much better, Mrs. Athill, if the world would provide for all that at home,” Mrs. Proudie had rapidly replied; with which opinion I must here profess that I cannot by any means bring myself to coincide.
But a conversazione would give play to no sensual propensity, nor occasion that intolerable expense which the gratification of sensual propensities too often produces. Mrs. Proudie felt that the word was not all that she could have desired. It was a little faded by old use and present oblivion, and seemed to address itself to that portion of the London world that is considered blue, rather than fashionable. But, nevertheless, there was a spirituality about it which suited her, and one may also say an economy. And then as regarded fashion, it might perhaps not be beyond the power of a Mrs. Proudie to regild the word with a newly burnished gilding. Some leading person must produce fashion at first hand, and why not Mrs. Proudie?
Her plan was to set the people by the ears talking, if talk they would, or to induce them to show themselves there inert if no more could be got from them. To accommodate with chairs and sofas as many as the furniture of her noble suite of rooms would allow, especially with the two chairs and padded bench against the wall in the back closet—the small inner drawing-room, as she would call it to the clergymen’s wives from Barsetshire—and to let the others stand about upright, or “group themselves,” as she described it. Then four times during the two hours’ period of her conversazione tea and cake was to be handed round on salvers. It is astonishing how far a very little cake will go in this way, particularly if administered tolerably early after dinner. The men can’t eat it, and the women, having no plates and no table, are obliged to abstain. Mrs. Jones knows that she cannot hold a piece of crumbly cake in her hand till it be consumed without doing serious injury to her best dress. When Mrs. Proudie, with her weekly books before her, looked into the financial upshot of her conversazione, her conscience told her that she had done the right thing.
Going out to tea is not a bad thing, if one can contrive to dine early, and then be allowed to sit round a big table with a tea urn in the middle. I would, however, suggest that breakfast cups should always be provided for the gentlemen. And then with pleasant neighbours,—or more especially with a pleasant neighbour, the affair is not, according to my taste, by any means the worst phase of society. But I do dislike that handing round, unless it be of a subsidiary thimbleful when the business of the social intercourse has been dinner.
And indeed this handing round has become a vulgar and an intolerable nuisance among us second-class gentry with our eight hundred a year—there or thereabouts;—doubly intolerable as being destructive of our natural comforts, and a wretchedly vulgar aping of men with large incomes. The Duke of Omnium and Lady Hartletop are undoubtedly wise to have everything handed round. Friends of mine who occasionally dine at such houses tell me that they get their wine quite as quickly as they can drink it, that their mutton is brought to them without delay, and that the potato-bearer follows quick upon the heels of carnifer. Nothing can be more comfortable, and we may no doubt acknowledge that these first-class grandees do understand their material comforts. But we of the eight hundred can no more come up to them in this than we can in their opera-boxes and equipages. May I not say that the usual tether of this class, in the way of carnifers, cup-bearers, and the rest, does not reach beyond neat-handed Phyllis and the greengrocer? and that Phyllis, neat-handed as she probably is, and the greengrocer, though he be ever so active, cannot administer a dinner to twelve people who are prohibited by a Medo-Persian law from all self-administration whatever? And may I not further say that the lamentable consequence to us eight hundreders dining out among each other is this, that we too often get no dinner at all. Phyllis, with the potatoes, cannot reach us till our mutton is devoured, or in a lukewarm state past our power of managing; and Ganymede, the greengrocer, though we admire the skill of his necktie and the whiteness of his unexceptionable gloves, fails to keep us going in sherry.
Seeing a lady the other day in this strait, left without the small modicum of stimulus which was no doubt necessary for her good digestion, I ventured to ask her to drink wine with me. But when I bowed my head at her, she looked at me withall her eyes, struck with amazement. Had I suggested that she should join me in a wild Indian war-dance, with nothing on but my paint, her face could not have shown greater astonishment. And yet I should have thought she might have remembered the days when Christian men and women used to drink wine with each other.
God be with the good old days when I could hobnob with my friend over the table as often as I was inclined to lift my glass to my lips, and make a long arm for a hot potato whenever the exigencies of my plate required it.
I think it may be laid down as a rule in affairs of hospitality, that whatever extra luxury or grandeur we introduce at our tables when guests are with us, should be introduced for the advantage of the guest and not for our own. If, for instance, our dinner be served in a manner different from that usual to us, it should be so served in order that our friends may with more satisfaction eat our repast than our everyday practice would produce on them. But the change should by no means be made to their material detriment in order that our fashion may be acknowledged. Again, if I decorate my sideboard and table, wishing that the eyes of my visitors may rest on that which is elegant and pleasant to the sight, I act in that matter with a becoming sense of hospitality; but if my object be to kill Mrs. Jones with envy at the sight of all my silver trinkets, I am a very mean-spirited fellow. This, in a broad way, will be acknowledged; but if we would bear in mind the same idea at all times,—on occasions when the way perhaps may not be so broad, when more thinking may be required to ascertain what is true hospitality, I think we of the eight hundred would make a greater advance towards really entertaining our own friends than by any rearrangement of the actual meats and dishes which we set before them.
Knowing, as we do, that the terms of the Lufton-Grantly alliance had been so solemnly ratified between the two mothers, it is perhaps hardly open to us to suppose that Mrs. Grantly was induced to take her daughter to Mrs. Proudie’s by any knowledge which she may have acquired that Lord Dumbello had promised to grace the bishop’s assembly. It is certainly the fact that high contracting parties do sometimes allow themselves a latitude which would be considered dishonest by contractors of a lower sort; and it may be possible that the archdeacon’s wife did think of that second string with which her bow was furnished. Be that as it may, Lord Dumbello was at Mrs. Proudie’s, and it did so come to pass that Griselda was seated at the corner of a sofa close to which was a vacant space in which his lordship could—“group himself.”
They had not been long there before Lord Dumbello did group himself. “Fine day,” he said, coming up and occupying the vacant position by Miss Grantly’s elbow.
“We were driving to-day, and we thought it rather cold,” said Griselda.
“Deuced cold,” said Lord Dumbello, and then he adjusted his white cravat and touched up his whiskers. Having got so far, he did not proceed to any other immediate conversational efforts; nor did Griselda. But he grouped himself again as became a marquis, and gave very intense satisfaction to Mrs. Proudie.
“This is so kind of you, Lord Dumbello,” said that lady, coming up to him and shaking his hand warmly; “so very kind of you to come to my poor little tea-party.”
“Uncommon pleasant, I call it,” said his lordship. “I like this sort of thing—no trouble, you know.”
“No; that is the charm of it: isn’t it? no trouble, or fuss, or parade. That’s what I always say. According to my ideas, society consists in giving people facility for an interchange of thoughts—what we call conversation.”
“Aw, yes, exactly.”
“Not in eating and drinking together—eh, Lord Dumbello? And yet the practice of our lives would seem to show that the indulgence of those animal propensities can alone suffice to bring people together. The world in this has surely made a great mistake.”
“I like a good dinner all the same,” said Lord Dumbello.
“Oh, yes, of course—of course. I am by no means one of those who would pretend to preach that our tastes have not been given to us for our enjoyment. Why should things be nice if we are not to like them?”
“A man who can really give a good dinner has learned a great deal,” said Lord Dumbello, with unusual animation.
“An immense deal. It is quite an art in itself; and one which I, at any rate, by no means despise. But we cannot always be eating—can we?”
“No,” said Lord Dumbello, “not always.” And he looked as though he lamented that his powers should be so circumscribed.
And then Mrs. Proudie passed on to Mrs. Grantly. The two ladies were quite friendly in London; though down in their own neighbourhood they waged a war so internecine in its nature. But nevertheless Mrs. Proudie’s manner might have showed to a very close observer that she knew the difference between a bishop and an archdeacon. “I am so delighted to see you,” said she. “No, don’t mind moving; I won’t sit down just at present. But why didn’t the archdeacon come?”
“It was quite impossible; it was indeed,” said Mrs. Grantly. “The archdeacon never has a moment in London that he can call his own.”
“You don’t stay up very long, I believe.”
“A good deal longer than we either of us like, I can assure you. London life is a perfect nuisance to me.”
“But people in a certain position must go through with it, you know,” said Mrs. Proudie. “The bishop, for instance, must attend the house.”
“Must he?” asked Mrs. Grantly, as though she were not at all well informed with reference to this branch of a bishop’s business. “I am very glad that archdeacons are under no such liability.”
“Oh, no; there’s nothing of that sort,” said Mrs. Proudie, very seriously. “But how uncommonly well Miss Grantly is looking! I do hear that she has quite been admired.”
This phrase certainly was a little hard for the mother to bear. All the world had acknowledged, so Mrs. Grantly had taught herself to believe, that Griselda was undoubtedly the beauty of the season. Marquises and lords were already contending for her smiles, and paragraphs had been written in newspapers as to her profile. It was too hard to be told, after that, that her daughter had been “quite admired.” Such a phrase might suit a pretty little red-cheeked milkmaid of a girl.
“She cannot, of course, come near your girls in that respect,” said Mrs. Grantly, very quietly. Now the Miss Proudies had not elicited from the fashionable world any very loud encomiums on their beauty. Their mother felt the taunt in its fullest force, but she would not essay to do battle on the present arena. She jotted down the item in her mind, and kept it over for Barchester and the chapter. Such debts as those she usually paid on some day, if the means of doing so were at all within her power.
“But there is Miss Dunstable, I declare,” she said, seeing that that lady had entered the room; and away went Mrs. Proudie to welcome her distinguished guest.
“And so this is a conversazione, is it?” said that lady, speaking, as usual, not in a suppressed voice. “Well, I declare, it’s very nice. It means conversation, don’t it, Mrs. Proudie?”
“Ha, ha, ha! Miss Dunstable. There is nobody like you, I declare.”
“Well, but don’t it? and tea and cake? and then, when we’re tired of talking, we go away,—isn’t that it?”
“But you must not be tired for these three hours yet.”
“Oh, I’m never tired of talking; all the world knows that. How do, bishop? A very nice sort of thing this conversazione, isn’t it now?”
The bishop rubbed his hands together and smiled, and said that he thought it was rather nice.
“Mrs. Proudie is so fortunate in all her little arrangements,” said Miss Dunstable.
“Yes, yes,” said the bishop. “I think she is happy in these matters. I do flatter myself that she is so. Of course, Miss Dunstable, you are accustomed to things on a much grander scale.”
“I! Lord bless you, no! Nobody hates grandeur so much as I do. Of course I must do as I am told. I must live in a big house, and have three footmen six feet high. I must have a coachman with a top-heavy wig, and horses so big that they frighten me. If I did not, I should be made out a lunatic and declared unable to manage my own affairs. But as for grandeur, I hate it. I certainly think that I shall have some of these conversaziones. I wonder whether Mrs. Proudie would come and put me up to a wrinkle or two.”
The bishop again rubbed his hands, and said that he was sure she would. He never felt quite at his ease with Miss Dunstable, as he rarely could ascertain whether or no she was earnest in what she was saying. So he trotted off, muttering some excuse as he went, and Miss Dunstable chuckled with an inward chuckle at his too evident bewilderment. Miss Dunstable was by nature kind, generous, and open-hearted; but she was living now very much with people on whom kindness, generosity, and open-heartedness were thrown away. She was clever also, and could be sarcastic; and she found that those qualities told better in the world around her than generosity and an open heart. And so she went on from month to month, and year to year, not progressing in a good spirit as she might have done, but still carrying within her bosom a warm affection for those she could really love. And she knew that she was hardly living as she should live,—that the wealth which she affected to despise was eating into the soundness of her character, not by its splendour, but by the style of life which it had seemed to produce as a necessity. She knew that she was gradually becoming irreverent, scornful, and prone to ridicule; but yet, knowing this and hating it, she hardly knew how to break from it.
She had seen so much of the blacker side of human nature that blackness no longer startled her as it should do. She had been the prize at which so many ruined spendthrifts had aimed; so many pirates had endeavoured to run her down while sailing in the open waters of life, that she had ceased to regard such attempts on her money-bags as unmanly or over-covetous. She was content to fight her own battle with her own weapons, feeling secure in her own strength of purpose and strength of wit.
Some few friends she had whom she really loved,—among whom her inner self could come out and speak boldly what it had to say with its own true voice. And the woman who thus so spoke was very different from that Miss Dunstable whom Mrs. Proudie courted, and the Duke of Omnium fêted, and Mrs. Harold Smith claimed as her bosom friend. If only she could find among such one special companion on whom her heart might rest, who would help her to bear the heavy burdens of her world! But where was she to find such a friend?—she with her keen wit, her untold money, and loud laughing voice. Everything about her was calculated to attract those whom she could not value, and to scare from her the sort of friend to whom she would fain have linked her lot.
And then she met Mrs. Harold Smith, who had taken Mrs. Proudie’s noble suite of rooms in her tour for the evening, and was devoting to them a period of twenty minutes. “And so I may congratulate you,” Miss Dunstable said eagerly to her friend.
“No, in mercy’s name do no such thing, or you may too probably have to uncongratulate me again; and that will be so unpleasant.”
“But they told me that Lord Brock had sent for him yesterday.” Now at this period Lord Brock was Prime Minister.
“So he did, and Harold was with him backwards and forwards all the day. But he can’t shut his eyes and open his mouth, and see what God will send him, as a wise and prudent man should do. He is always for bargaining, and no Prime Minister likes that.”
“I would not be in his shoes if, after all, he has to come home and say that the bargain is off.”
“Ha, ha, ha! Well, I should not take it very quietly. But what can we poor women do, you know? When it is settled, my dear, I’ll send you a line at once.” And then Mrs. Harold Smith finished her course round the rooms, and regained her carriage within the twenty minutes.
“Beautiful profile, has she not?” said Miss Dunstable, somewhat later in the evening, to Mrs. Proudie. Of course, the profile spoken of belonged to Miss Grantly.
“Yes, it is beautiful, certainly,” said Mrs. Proudie. “The pity is that it means nothing.”
“The gentlemen seem to think that it means a good deal.”
“I am not sure of that. She has no conversation, you see; not a word. She has been sitting there with Lord Dumbello at her elbow for the last hour, and yet she has hardly opened her mouth three times.”
“But, my dear Mrs. Proudie, who on earth could talk to Lord Dumbello?”
Mrs. Proudie thought that her own daughter Olivia would undoubtedly be able to do so, if only she could get the opportunity. But, then, Olivia had so much conversation.
And while the two ladies were yet looking at the youthful pair, Lord Dumbello did speak again. “I think I have had enough of this now,” said he, addressing himself to Griselda.
“I suppose you have other engagements,” said she.
“Oh, yes; and I believe I shall go to Lady Clantelbrocks.” And then he took his departure. No other word was spoken that evening between him and Miss Grantly beyond those given in this chronicle, and yet the world declared that he and that young lady had passed the evening in so close a flirtation as to make the matter more than ordinarily particular; and Mrs. Grantly, as she was driven home to her lodgings, began to have doubts in her mind whether it would be wise to discountenance so great an alliance as that which the head of the great Hartletop family now seemed so desirous to establish. The prudent mother had not yet spoken a word to her daughter on these subjects, but it might soon become necessary to do so. It was all very well for Lady Lufton to hurry up to town, but of what service would that be, if Lord Lufton were not to be found in Bruton Street?
CHAPTER XVIII.
The New Minister’s Patronage.
At that time, just as Lady Lufton was about to leave Framley for London, Mark Robarts received a pressing letter, inviting him also to go up to the metropolis for a day or two—not for pleasure, but on business. The letter was from his indefatigable friend Sowerby.
“My dear Robarts,” the letter ran:—
“I have just heard that poor little Burslem, the Barsetshire prebendary, is dead. We must all die some day, you know,—as you have told your parishioners from the Framley pulpit more than once, no doubt. The stall must be filled up, and why should not you have it as well as another? It is six hundred a year and a house. Little Burslem had nine, but the good old times are gone. Whether the house is letable or not under the present ecclesiastical régime, I do not know. It used to be so, for I remember Mrs. Wiggins, the tallow-chandler’s widow, living in old Stanhope’s House.
“Harold Smith has just joined the Government as Lord Petty Bag, and could, I think, at the present moment get this for asking. He cannot well refuse me, and, if you will say the word, I will speak to him. You had better come up yourself; but say the word ‘Yes,’ or ‘No,’ by the wires.
“If you say ‘Yes,’ as of course you will, do not fail to come up. You will find me at the ‘Travellers,’ or at the House. The stall will just suit you,—will give you no trouble, improve your position, and give some little assistance towards bed and board, and rack and manger.
“Yours ever faithfully,
“N. Sowerby.
“Singularly enough, I hear that your brother is private secretary to the new Lord Petty Bag. I am told that his chief duty will consist in desiring the servants to call my sister’s carriage. I have only seen Harold once since he accepted office; but my Lady Petty Bag says that he has certainly grown an inch since that occurrence.”
This was certainly very good-natured on the part of Mr. Sowerby, and showed that he had a feeling within his bosom that he owed something to his friend the parson for the injury he had done him. And such was in truth the case. A more reckless being than the member for West Barsetshire could not exist. He was reckless for himself, and reckless for all others with whom he might be concerned. He could ruin his friends with as little remorse as he had ruined himself. All was fair game that came in the way of his net. But, nevertheless, he was good-natured, and willing to move heaven and earth to do a friend a good turn, if it came in his way to do so.
He did really love Mark Robarts as much as it was given him to love any among his acquaintance. He knew that he had already done him an almost irreparable injury, and might very probably injure him still deeper before he had done with him. That he would undoubtedly do so, if it came in his way, was very certain. But then, if it also came in his way to repay his friend by any side blow, he would also undoubtedly do that. Such an occasion had now come, and he had desired his sister to give the new Lord Petty Bag no rest till he should have promised to use all his influence in getting the vacant prebend for Mark Robarts.
This letter of Sowerby’s Mark immediately showed to his wife. How lucky, thought he to himself, that not a word was said in it about those accursed money transactions! Had he understood Sowerby better he would have known that that gentleman never said anything about money transactions until it became absolutely necessary. “I know you don’t like Mr. Sowerby,” he said; “but you must own that this is very good-natured.”
“It is the character I hear of him that I don’t like,” said Mrs. Robarts.
“But what shall I do now, Fanny? As he says, why should not I have the stall as well as another?”
“I suppose it would not interfere with your parish?” she asked.
“Not in the least, at the distance at which we are. I did think of giving up old Jones; but if I take this, of course I must keep a curate.”
His wife could not find it in her heart to dissuade him from accepting promotion when it came in his way—what vicar’s wife would have so persuaded her husband? But yet she did not altogether like it. She feared that Greek from Chaldicotes, even when he came with the present of a prebendal stall in his hands. And then what would Lady Lufton say?
“And do you think that you must go up to London, Mark?”
“Oh, certainly; that is, if I intend to accept Harold Smith’s kind offices in the matter.”
“I suppose it will be better to accept them,” said Fanny, feeling perhaps that it would be useless in her to hope that they should not be accepted.
“Prebendal stalls, Fanny, don’t generally go begging long among parish clergymen. How could I reconcile it to the duty I owe to my children to refuse such an increase to my income?” And so it was settled that he should at once drive to Silverbridge and send off a message by telegraph, and that he should himself proceed to London on the following day. “But you must see Lady Lufton first, of course,” said Fanny, as soon as all this was settled.
Mark would have avoided this if he could have decently done so, but he felt that it would be impolitic, as well as indecent. And why should he be afraid to tell Lady Lufton that he hoped to receive this piece of promotion from the present government? There was nothing disgraceful in a clergyman becoming a prebendary of Barchester. Lady Lufton herself had always been very civil to the prebendaries, and especially to little Dr. Burslem, the meagre little man who had just now paid the debt of nature. She had always been very fond of the chapter, and her original dislike to Bishop Proudie had been chiefly founded on his interference with the cathedral clergy,—on his interference, or on that of his wife or chaplain. Considering these things Mark Robarts tried to make himself believe that Lady Lufton would be delighted at his good fortune. But yet he did not believe it. She at any rate would revolt from the gift of the Greek of Chaldicotes.
“Oh, indeed,” she said, when the vicar had with some difficulty explained to her all the circumstances of the case. “Well, I congratulate you, Mr. Robarts, on your powerful new patron.”
“You will probably feel with me, Lady Lufton, that the benefice is one which I can hold without any detriment to me in my position here at Framley,” said he, prudently resolving to let the slur upon his friends pass by unheeded.
“Well, I hope so. Of course, you are a very young man, Mr. Robarts, and these things have generally been given to clergymen more advanced in life.”
“But you do not mean to say that you think I ought to refuse it?”
“What my advice to you might be if you really came to me for advice, I am hardly prepared to say at so very short a notice. You seem to have made up your mind, and therefore I need not consider it. As it is, I wish you joy, and hope that it may turn out to your advantage in every way.”
“You understand, Lady Lufton, that I have by no means got it as yet.”
“Oh, I thought it had been offered to you: I thought you spoke of this new minister as having all that in his own hand.”
“Oh, dear, no. What may be the amount of his influence in that respect, I do not at all know. But my correspondent assures me——”
“Mr. Sowerby, you mean. Why don’t you call him by his name?”
“Mr. Sowerby assures me that Mr. Smith will ask for it; and thinks it most probable that his request will be successful.”
“Oh, of course. Mr. Sowerby and Mr. Harold Smith together would no doubt be successful in anything. They are the sort of men who are successful nowadays. Well, Mr. Robarts, I wish you joy.” And she gave him her hand in token of her sincerity.
Mark took her hand, resolving to say nothing further on that occasion. That Lady Lufton was not now cordial with him, as she used to be, he was well aware; and sooner or later he was determined to have the matter out with her. He would ask her why she now so constantly met him with a taunt, and so seldom greeted him with that kind old affectionate smile which he knew and appreciated so well. That she was honest and true, he was quite sure. If he asked her the question plainly, she would answer him openly. And if he could induce her to say that she would return to her old ways, return to them she would in a hearty manner. But he could not do this just at present. It was but a day or two since Mr. Crawley had been with him; and was it not probable that Mr. Crawley had been sent thither by Lady Lufton? His own hands were not clean enough for a remonstrance at the present moment He would cleanse them, and then he would remonstrate.
“Would you like to live part of the year in Barchester?” he said to his wife and sister that evening.
“I think that two houses are only a trouble,” said his wife. “And we have been very happy here.”
“I have always liked a cathedral town,” said Lucy; “and I am particularly fond of the close.”
“And Barchester-close is the closest of all closes,” said Mark. “There is not a single house within the gateways that does not belong to the chapter.”
“But if we are to keep up two houses, the additional income will soon be wasted,” said Fanny prudently.
“The thing would be, to let the house furnished every summer,” said Lucy.
“But I must take my residence as the terms come,” said the vicar; “and I certainly should not like to be away from Framley all the winter; I should never see anything of Lufton.” And perhaps he thought of his hunting, and then thought again of that cleansing of his hands.
“I should not a bit mind being away during the winter,” said Lucy, thinking of what the last winter had done for her.
“But where on earth should we find money to furnish one of those large, old-fashioned houses? Pray, Mark, do not do anything rash.” And the wife laid her hand affectionately on her husband’s arm. In this manner the question of the prebend was discussed between them on the evening before he started for London.
Success had at last crowned the earnest effort with which Harold Smith had carried on the political battle of his life for the last ten years. The late Lord Petty Bag had resigned in disgust, having been unable to digest the Prime Minister’s ideas on Indian Reform, and Mr. Harold Smith, after sundry hitches in the business, was installed in his place. It was said that Harold Smith was not exactly the man whom the Premier would himself have chosen for that high office; but the Premier’s hands were a good deal tied by circumstances. The last great appointment he had made had been terribly unpopular,—so much so as to subject him, popular as he undoubtedly was himself, to a screech from the whole nation. The Jupiter, with withering scorn, had asked whether vice of every kind was to be considered, in these days of Queen Victoria, as a passport to the cabinet. Adverse members of both Houses had arrayed themselves in a pure panoply of morality, and thundered forth their sarcasms with the indignant virtue and keen discontent of political Juvenals; and even his own friends had held up their hands in dismay. Under these circumstances he had thought himself obliged in the present instance to select a man who would not be especially objectionable to any party. Now Harold Smith lived with his wife, and his circumstances were not more than ordinarily embarrassed. He kept no race-horses; and, as Lord Brock now heard for the first time, gave lectures in provincial towns on popular subjects. He had a seat which was tolerably secure, and could talk to the House by the yard if required to do so. Moreover, Lord Brock had a great idea that the whole machinery of his own ministry would break to pieces very speedily. His own reputation was not bad, but it was insufficient for himself and that lately selected friend of his. Under all these circumstances combined, he chose Harold Smith to fill the vacant office of Lord Petty Bag.
And very proud the Lord Petty Bag was. For the last three or four months, he and Mr. Supplehouse had been agreeing to consign the ministry to speedy perdition. “This sort of dictatorship will never do,” Harold Smith had himself said, justifying that future vote of his as to want of confidence in the Queen’s government. And Mr. Supplehouse in this matter had fully agreed with him. He was a Juno whose form that wicked old Paris had utterly despised, and he, too, had quite made up his mind as to the lobby in which he would be found when that day of vengeance should arrive. But now things were much altered in Harold Smith’s views. The Premier had shown his wisdom in seeking for new strength where strength ought to be sought, and introducing new blood into the body of his ministry. The people would now feel fresh confidence, and probably the House also. As to Mr. Supplehouse—he would use all his influence on Supplehouse. But, after all, Mr. Supplehouse was not everything.
On the morning after our vicar’s arrival in London he attended at the Petty Bag office. It was situated in the close neighbourhood of Downing Street and the higher governmental gods; and though the building itself was not much, seeing that it was shored up on one side, that it bulged out in the front, was foul with smoke, dingy with dirt, and was devoid of any single architectural grace or modern scientific improvement, nevertheless its position gave it a status in the world which made the clerks in the Lord Petty Bag’s office quite respectable in their walk in life. Mark had seen his friend Sowerby on the previous evening, and had then made an appointment with him for the following morning at the new Minister’s office. And now he was there a little before his time, in order that he might have a few moments’ chat with his brother.
When Mark found himself in the private secretary’s room he was quite astonished to see the change in his brother’s appearance which the change in his official rank had produced. Jack Robarts had been a well-built, straight-legged, lissome young fellow, pleasant to the eye because of his natural advantages, but rather given to a harum-skarum style of gait, and occasionally careless, not to say slovenly, in his dress. But now he was the very pink of perfection. His jaunty frock-coat fitted him to perfection; not a hair of his head was out of place; his waistcoat and trousers were glossy and new, and his umbrella, which stood in the umbrella-stand in the corner, was tight, and neat, and small, and natty.
“Well, John, you’ve become quite a great man,” said his brother.
“I don’t know much about that,” said John; “but I find that I have an enormous deal of fagging to go through.”
“Do you mean work? I thought you had about the easiest berth in the whole Civil Service.”
“Ah! that’s just the mistake that people make. Because we don’t cover whole reams of foolscap paper at the rate of fifteen lines to a page, and five words to a line, people think that we, private secretaries, have got nothing to do. Look here,” and he tossed over scornfully a dozen or so of little notes. “I tell you what, Mark; it is no easy matter to manage the patronage of a cabinet minister. Now I am bound to write to every one of these fellows a letter that will please him; and yet I shall refuse to every one of them the request which he asks.”
“That must be difficult.”
“Difficult is no word for it. But, after all, it consists chiefly in the knack of the thing. One must have the wit ‘from such a sharp and waspish word as No to pluck the sting.’ I do it every day, and I really think that the people like it.”
“Perhaps your refusals are better than other people’s acquiescences.”
“I don’t mean that at all. We, private secretaries, have all to do the same thing. Now, would you believe it? I have used up three lifts of notepaper already in telling people that there is no vacancy for a lobby messenger in the Petty Bag office. Seven peeresses have asked for it for their favourite footmen. But there—there’s the Lord Petty Bag!”
A bell rang and the private secretary, jumping up from his notepaper, tripped away quickly to the great man’s room.
“He’ll see you at once,” said he, returning. “Buggins, show the Reverend Mr. Robarts to the Lord Petty Bag.”
Buggins was the messenger for whose not vacant place all the peeresses were striving with so much animation. And then Mark, following Buggins for two steps, was ushered into the next room.
If a man be altered by becoming a private secretary, he is much more altered by being made a cabinet minister. Robarts, as he entered the room, could hardly believe that this was the same Harold Smith whom Mrs. Proudie bothered so cruelly in the lecture-room at Barchester. Then he was cross, and touchy, and uneasy, and insignificant. Now, as he stood smiling on the hearthrug of his official fireplace, it was quite pleasant to see the kind, patronizing smile which lighted up his features. He delighted to stand there, with his hands in his trousers’ pocket, the great man of the place, conscious of his lordship, and feeling himself every inch a minister. Sowerby had come with him, and was standing a little in the background, from which position he winked occasionally at the parson over the minister’s shoulder.
“Ah, Robarts, delighted to see you. How odd, by-the-by, that your brother should be my private secretary!”
Mark said that it was a singular coincidence.
“A very smart young fellow, and, if he minds himself, he’ll do well.”
“I’m quite sure he’ll do well,” said Mark.
“Ah! well, yes; I think he will. And now, what can I do for you, Robarts?”
Hereupon Mr. Sowerby struck in, making it apparent by his explanation that Mr. Robarts himself by no means intended to ask for anything; but that, as his friends had thought that this stall at Barchester might be put into his hands with more fitness than in those of any other clergyman of the day, he was willing to accept the piece of preferment from a man whom he respected so much as he did the new Lord Petty Bag.
The minister did not quite like this, as it restricted him from much of his condescension, and robbed him of the incense of a petition which he had expected Mark Robarts would make to him. But, nevertheless, he was very gracious.
“He could not take upon himself to declare,” he said, “what might be Lord Brock’s pleasure with reference to the preferment at Barchester which was vacant. He had certainly already spoken to his lordship on the subject, and had perhaps some reason to believe that his own wishes would be consulted. No distinct promise had been made, but he might perhaps go so far as to say that he expected such result. If so, it would give him the greatest pleasure in the world to congratulate Mr. Robarts on the possession of the stall—a stall which he was sure Mr. Robarts would fill with dignity, piety, and brotherly love.” And then, when he had finished, Mr. Sowerby gave a final wink, and said that he regarded the matter as settled.
“No, not settled, Nathaniel,” said the cautious minister.
“It’s the same thing,” rejoined Sowerby. “We all know what all that flummery means. Men in office, Mark, never do make a distinct promise,—not even to themselves of the leg of mutton which is roasting before their kitchen fires. It is so necessary in these days to be safe; is it not, Harold?”
“Most expedient,” said Harold Smith, shaking his head wisely. “Well, Robarts, who is it now?” This he said to his private secretary, who came to notice the arrival of some bigwig. “Well, yes. I will say good morning, with your leave, for I am a little hurried. And remember, Mr. Robarts, I will do what I can for you; but you must distinctly understand that there is no promise.”
“Oh, no promise at all,” said Sowerby—“of course not.” And then, as he sauntered up Whitehall towards Charing Cross, with Robarts on his arm, he again pressed upon him the sale of that invaluable hunter, who was eating his head off his shoulders in the stable at Chaldicotes.