Marion Fay: A Novel

by Anthony Trollope

"I ain't well enough to talk business, and I won't do it. Mr. Roberts will be here to-morrow, and you can see him."

Mr. Roberts was a man of business, or agent to the property, who lived at Shrewsbury, and whom Mr. Greenwood especially disliked. Mr. Greenwood being a clergyman was, of course, supposed to be a gentleman, and regarded Mr. Roberts as being much beneath himself. It was not customary for Mr. Roberts to dine at the house, and he was therefore regarded by the chaplain as being hardly more than an upper servant. It was therefore very grievous to him to be told that he must discuss his own private affairs and make his renewed request as to the living through Mr. Roberts. It was evidently intended that he should have no opportunity of discussing his private affairs. Whatever the Marquis might offer him he must take; and that, as far as he could see, without any power of redress on his side. If Mr. Roberts were to offer him a thousand pounds, he could only accept the cheque and depart with it from Trafford Park, shaking off from his feet the dust which such ingratitude would forbid him to carry with him.

He was in the habit of walking daily for an hour before sunset, moving very slowly up and down the driest of the roads near the house, generally with his hands clasped behind his back, believing that in doing so he was consulting his health, and maintaining that bodily vigour which might be necessary to him for the performance of the parochial duties at Appleslocombe. Now when he had left the bed-room of the Marquis he went out of the front door, and proceeded on his walk at a somewhat quicker pace than usual. He was full of wrath, and his passion gave some alacrity to his movements. He was of course incensed against the Marquis; but his anger burnt hottest against Lord Hampstead. In this he was altogether unreasonable, for Lord Hampstead had said nothing and done nothing that could injure his position. Lord Hampstead disliked him and, perhaps, despised him, but had been anxious that the Marquis should be liberal in the mode of severing a connection which had lasted so long. But to Mr. Greenwood himself it was manifest that all his troubles came from the iniquities of his patron's two elder children; and he remembered at every moment that Lord Hampstead had insulted him when they were both together. He was certainly not a man to forgive an enemy, or to lose any opportunity for revenge which might come in his way.

Certainly it would be good if the young man could be got to break his neck out hunting;—or good if the yacht could be made to founder, or go to pieces on a rock, or come to any other fatal maritime misfortune. But these were accidents which he personally could have no power to produce. Such wishing was infantine, and fit only for a weak woman, such as the Marchioness. If anything were to be done it must be done by some great endeavour; and the endeavour must come from himself. Then he reflected how far the Marchioness would certainly be in his power, if both the Marquis and his eldest son were dead. He did believe that he had obtained great influence over her. That she should rebel against him was of course on the cards. But he was aware that within the last month, since the date, indeed, at which the Marquis had threatened to turn him out of the house, he had made considerable progress in imposing himself upon her as a master. He gave himself in this respect much more credit than was in truth due to him. Lady Kingsbury, though she had learnt to fear him, had not so subjected herself to his influence as not to be able to throw him off should a time come at which it might be essential to her comfort to do so. But he had misread the symptoms, and had misread also the fretfulness of her impatience. He now assured himself that if anything could be done he might rely entirely on her support. After all that she had said to him, it would be impossible that she should throw him over. Thinking of all this, and thinking also how expedient it was that something should be done, he returned to the house when he had taken the exact amount of exercise which he supposed necessary for his health.

CHAPTER XII.

LIKE THE POOR CAT I' THE ADAGE.

Wishing will do nothing. If a man has sufficient cause for action he should act. "Letting I dare not wait upon I would, Like the poor cat i' the adage," never can produce results. Cherries will not fall into your mouth without picking. "If it were done, when 'tis done then 'twere well it were done quickly." If grapes hang too high what is the use of thinking of them? Nevertheless,—"Where there's a will there's a way." But certainly no way will be found amidst difficulties, unless a man set himself to work seriously to look for it. With such self-given admonitions, counsels, and tags of old quotations as these, Mr. Greenwood went to work with himself on Monday night, and came to a conclusion that if anything were to be done it must be done at once.

Then came the question—what was the thing to be done, and what at once meant? When a thing has to be done which requires a special summoning of resolution, it is too often something which ought not to be done. To virtuous deeds, if they recommend themselves to us at all, we can generally make up our minds more easily. It was pleasanter to Mr. Greenwood to think of the thing as something in the future, as something which might possibly get itself done for him by accident, than as an act the doing of which must fall into his own hands. Then came the "cat i' the adage," and the "when 'tis done then 'twere well," and the rest of it. Thursday morning, between four and five o' clock, when it would be pitch dark, with neither star nor moon in the heavens, when Lord Hampstead would certainly be alone in a certain spot, unattended and easily assailable;—would Thursday morning be the fittest time for any such deed as that which he had now in truth began to contemplate?

When the thing presented itself to him in this new form, he recoiled from it. It cannot be said that Mr. Greenwood was a man of any strong religious feelings. He had been ordained early in life to a curacy, having probably followed, in choosing his profession, the bent given to him by his family connections, and had thus from circumstances fallen into the household of his present patron's uncle. From that to this he had never performed a service in a church, and his domestic services as chaplain had very soon become nothing.