In our world, therefore, few would have much difficulty in accepting the propriety of a small portion of a large estate being left to a younger son, when the elder son is well provided for. Nor, we learn, did a jury of her peers find any problem with this arrangement. Lady Mason, who had been a loyal, faithful, and attractive wife to old Sir Joseph, was acquitted of the crime of forgery, and she continued to live in the home place and raise their son to the age of majority when he might assume control of it.
We only learn the truth about the forgery about halfway through the book, some twenty years after the crime and acquittal. And then we find ourselves sympathizing with the guilty woman as she fights through a second trial.
The older son, who was now the young Sir Joseph, lived on the extensive Yorkshire holdings, under the rule of a wife too stingy to put adequate food on the table, either for her lord or for their guests when they should have any. And he nursed his grudge against the widow, whom he considered to have cheated him of his rightful inheritance.
Some of Trollope's most effective humor is sometimes inserted into an unlikely place. The first chapters, the ones that set the scene, are often so long, detailed, and tedious that they have almost disappeared in today's writing. One has to read opening chapters carefully, however, and sometimes reread them, in order to understand the setting. This is made easier in the case of the Masons of Groby Park, the large holding in Yorkshire, as Trollope continues with his introduction of the characters:
He was severe to his children, and was not loved by them; but nevertheless they were dear to him, and he endeavored to do his duty by them. The wife of his bosom was not a pleasant woman, but nevertheless he did his duty by her; that is, he neither deserted her, nor beat her, nor locked her up. I am not sure that he would not have been justified in doing one of these three things, or even all the three; for Mrs. Mason of Groby Park was not a pleasant woman.
The old quarrel resurfaces when an old tenant is dispossessed by Lady Mason's son, now old enough to begin managing the home place and aspiring to farm it in a scientific, though expensive, fashion.
With energy and perseverance the tenant discovers another paper signed by old Sir Joseph on the same day as the codicil was dated, and he finds a witness to the signature, Bridget Bolster, who will testify that she only witnessed the signing of one document.
How can Lady Mason defend herself against this attack? We see that her primary motive is to shield her proud young son from disgrace, and in this effort she deploys all the resources available to her. A small but not unattractive woman (think of Barbara Stanwyck in this role), she consults the barrister, Mr. Furnival, who defended her in the first trial, and she wraps him around her finger so effectively that Mrs. Furnival is driven by jealousy to leave home in one of the great comic episodes of the book.
Mr. Furnival sees that unusual skill will be required to defend Lady Mason successfully, and she consents to his employment of that famous defense attorney, Mr. Chaffanbrass, and another clever defense attorney, Mr. Solomon Aram. Lucius, convinced of his mother's innocence, is offended by the retaining of these sharp attorneys, and he objects that a simple portrayal of the truth of the matter will be more than sufficient. But his mother, whom we often see sitting alone in her room brooding over these matters (we can only conclude from this and other novels of the period that people spent more time sitting and brooding than is done now) quietly declines her son's advice and, much to his frustration, excludes him from the decision-making process. Here the reader begins to suspect that since she knows what she really did, she realizes she had better have some sharp legal assistance.
She also cultivates the friendship of a noble neighbor, Sir Peregrine Orme, father of her son Lucius's friend young Peregrine Orme. Sir Peregrine is an old man, but he responds to her presence in his house by falling in love with her. He rashly makes her an offer of marriage, which is opposed by his son, her son, and a brother nobleman, all of whom attempt to dissuade him.