“Yes, my lord,” said Lucy. Lords had not been frequent among her acquaintance hitherto.
“I tell Mrs. Robarts that she has been confining you illegally, and that we shall release you by force or stratagem.”
“I—I—I have had a great sorrow lately.”
“Yes, Miss Robarts; I know you have; and I am only joking, you know. But I do hope that now you will be able to come amongst us. My mother is so anxious that you should do so.”
“I am sure she is very kind, and you also—my lord.”
“I never knew my own father,” said Lord Lufton, speaking gravely. “But I can well understand what a loss you have had.” And then, after pausing a moment, he continued, “I remember Dr. Robarts well.”
“Do you, indeed?” said Lucy, turning sharply towards him, and speaking now with some animation in her voice. Nobody had yet spoken to her about her father since she had been at Framley. It had been as though the subject were a forbidden one. And how frequently is this the case! When those we love are dead, our friends dread to mention them, though to us who are bereaved no subject would be so pleasant as their names. But we rarely understand how to treat our own sorrow or those of others.
There was once a people in some land—and they may be still there for what I know—who thought it sacrilegious to stay the course of a raging fire. If a house were being burned, burn it must, even though there were facilities for saving it. For who would dare to interfere with the course of the god? Our idea of sorrow is much the same. We think it wicked, or at any rate heartless, to put it out. If a man’s wife be dead, he should go about lugubrious, with long face, for at least two years, or perhaps with full length for eighteen months, decreasing gradually during the other six. If he be a man who can quench his sorrow—put out his fire as it were—in less time than that, let him at any rate not show his power!
“Yes: I remember him,” continued Lord Lufton. “He came twice to Framley while I was a boy, consulting with my mother about Mark and myself,—whether the Eton floggings were not more efficacious than those at Harrow. He was very kind to me, foreboding all manner of good things on my behalf.”
“He was very kind to every one,” said Lucy.