Mr. Scarborough's Family

by Anthony Trollope

"To Mr. Harry Annesley."

"Oh-h-h! I remember the gentleman's name. I had thought—"

"Well, yes; there were objections, but they have luckily disappeared." Though Mrs. Mountjoy was only as yet happy in a melancholy manner, rejoicing with but bated joy at her girl's joys, she was too loyal to say a word now against Harry Annesley.

"I should not have troubled you, but—"

"I am sure of that, M. Grascour; and we are both of us grateful to you for your good opinion. I know very well how high is the honor which you are doing Florence, and she will quite understand it. But you see the thing is fixed; it's only a week." Florence was said, at the moment, to be not at home, though she was up-stairs, looking at four dozen new pocket-handkerchiefs which had just come from the pocket-handkerchief merchant, with the letters F.A. upon them. She had much more pleasure in looking at them than she would have had in listening to the congratulations of M. Grascour.

"He's a very good man, no doubt, mamma; a deal better, perhaps, than Harry." That, however, was not her true opinion. "But one can't marry all the good men."

There was almost more trouble taken down at Buston about Harry's marriage than his sister's, though Harry was to be married at Cheltenham; and only his father, and one of his sisters as a bride's maid, were to go down to assist upon the occasion. His father was to marry them. And his mother had at last consented to postpone the joy of seeing Florence till she was brought home from her travels, a bride three months old. Nevertheless, a great fuss was made, especially at Buston Hall. Mr. Prosper had become comparatively light in heart since the duty of providing a wife for Buston, and a future mother for Buston's heirs, had been taken off his shoulders and thrown upon those of his nephew. The more he looked back upon the days of his own courtship the more did his own deliverance appear to him to be almost a work of Heaven. Where would he have been had Miss Thoroughbung made good her footing in Buston Hall? He used to shut his eyes and gently raise his left hand toward the skies as he told himself that this evil thing had passed by him.

But it had passed by, and it was expected that there should be a lunch of some sort at Buston; and as, with all his diligent inquiry, he had heard nothing but good of Florence, she should be received with as hearty a welcome as he could give her. There was one point which troubled him more than all others. He was determined to refurnish the drawing-room and also the bedroom in which Florence was destined to sleep. He told his sister in the most solemn manner that he had at last made up his mind thoroughly. The thing should be done. She understood how great a thing it was for him to do. "The two centre rooms!" he said, with an almost tragic air. Then he sent for her the next day, and told her that, on farther considerations, he had determined to add in the dressing-room.

The whole parish felt the effect. It was not so much that the parish was struck by the expenditure proposed,—because the squire was known to be a man who had not for years spent all his income,—but that he had given way so far on behalf of a nephew whom he had lately been so anxious to disinherit. Rumor had already reached Buntingford of what the squire had intended to do on the receipt of his own wife,—rumors which had of course since faded away into nothing. It had been positively notified to Buntingford that there should be really a new carpet and new curtains in the drawing-room. Miss Thoroughbung had been known to have declared at the brewery that the whole thing should be done before she had been there twelve months.

"He shall go the whole hog," she had said. And there had been a little bet about it between her and her brother, who entertained an idea that Mr. Prosper was an obstinate man. And Joe had brought tidings of the bet to the parsonage, so that there had been much commotion on the subject. When the best room had been included, and then the dressing-room, even Matthew had been alarmed. "It'll come to as much as five hundred pounds!" he had whispered to Mrs. Annesley. Matthew seemed to think that it was quite time that there should be somebody to control his master. "Why, ma'am, it's only the other day, because I can remember it myself, when that loo-table came into the house new!" Matthew had been in the place over twenty years. When Mrs. Annesley reminded him that fashions were changed, and that other kinds of table were required, he only shook his head.