“I did not see him—I refused to do so—because I was a coward. I could not endure to come into this house as your son’s wife, and be coldly looked on by your son’s mother. Much as I loved him, much as I do love him, dearly as I prize the generous offer which he came down here to repeat to me, I could not live with him to be made the object of your scorn. I sent him word, therefore, that I would have him when you would ask me, and not before.”
And, then, having thus pleaded her cause—and pleaded, as she believed, the cause of her lover also—she ceased from speaking, and prepared herself to listen to the story of King Cophetua.
But Lady Lufton felt considerable difficulty in commencing her speech. In the first place she was by no means a hard-hearted or a selfish woman; and were it not that her own son was concerned, and all the glory which was reflected upon her from her son, her sympathies would have been given to Lucy Robarts. As it was, she did sympathize with her, and admire her, and to a certain extent like her. She began also to understand what it was that had brought about her son’s love, and to feel that but for certain unfortunate concomitant circumstances the girl before her might have made a fitting Lady Lufton. Lucy had grown bigger in her eyes while sitting there and talking, and had lost much of that missish want of importance—that lack of social weight—which Lady Lufton in her own opinion had always imputed to her. A girl that could thus speak up and explain her own position now, would be able to speak up and explain her own, and perhaps some other positions at any future time.
But not for all, or any of these reasons did Lady Lufton think of giving way. The power of making or marring this marriage was placed in her hands, as was very fitting, and that power it behoved her to use, as best she might use it, to her son’s advantage. Much as she might admire Lucy, she could not sacrifice her son to that admiration. The unfortunate concomitant circumstances still remained, and were of sufficient force, as she thought, to make such a marriage inexpedient. Lucy was the sister of a gentleman who by his peculiar position as parish clergyman of Framley was unfitted to be the brother-in-law of the owner of Framley. Nobody liked clergymen better than Lady Lufton or was more willing to live with them on terms of affectionate intimacy, but she could not get over the feeling that the clergyman of her own parish—or of her son’s—was a part of her own establishment, of her own appanage—or of his—and that it could not be well that Lord Lufton should marry among his own dependants. Lady Lufton would not have used the word, but she did think it. And then, too, Lucy’s education had been so deficient. She had had no one about her in early life accustomed to the ways of—of what shall I say, without making Lady Lufton appear more worldly than she was? Lucy’s wants in this respect, not to be defined in words, had been exemplified by the very way in which she had just now stated her case. She had shown talent, good temper, and sound judgement; but there had been no quiet, no repose about her. The species of power in young ladies which Lady Lufton most admired was the vis inertiæ belonging to beautiful and dignified reticence; of this poor Lucy had none. Then, too, she had no fortune, which, though a minor evil, was an evil; and she had no birth, in the high-life sense of the word, which was a greater evil. And then, though her eyes had sparkled when she confessed her love, Lady Lufton was not prepared to admit that she was possessed of positive beauty. Such were the unfortunate concomitant circumstances which still induced Lady Lufton to resolve that the match must be marred.
But the performance of her part in this play was much more difficult than she had imagined, and she found herself obliged to sit silent for a minute or two, during which, however, Miss Robarts made no attempt at further speech.
“I am greatly struck,” Lady Lufton said at last, “by the excellent sense you have displayed in the whole of this affair; and you must allow me to say, Miss Robarts, that I now regard you with very different feelings from those which I entertained when I left London.” Upon this Lucy bowed her head, slightly but very stiffly; acknowledging rather the former censure implied than the present eulogium expressed.
“But my feelings,” continued Lady Lufton, “my strongest feelings in this matter, must be those of a mother. What might be my conduct if such a marriage did take place, I need not now consider. But I must confess that I should think such a marriage very—very ill-judged. A better-hearted young man than Lord Lufton does not exist, nor one with better principles, or a deeper regard for his word; but he is exactly the man to be mistaken in any hurried outlook as to his future life. Were you and he to become man and wife, such a marriage would tend to the happiness neither of him nor of you.”
It was clear that the whole lecture was now coming; and as Lucy had openly declared her own weakness, and thrown all the power of decision into the hands of Lady Lufton, she did not see why she should endure this.
“We need not argue about that, Lady Lufton,” she said. “I have told you the only circumstances under which I would marry your son; and you, at any rate, are safe.”
“No; I was not wishing to argue,” answered Lady Lufton, almost humbly; “but I was desirous of excusing myself to you, so that you should not think me cruel in withholding my consent. I wished to make you believe that I was doing the best for my son.”
“I am sure that you think you are, and therefore no excuse is necessary.”
“No, exactly; of course it is a matter of opinion, and I do think so. I cannot believe that this marriage would make either of you happy, and therefore I should be very wrong to express my consent.”
“Then, Lady Lufton,” said Lucy, rising from her chair, “I suppose we have both now said what is necessary, and I will therefore wish you good-bye.”
“Good-bye, Miss Robarts. I wish I could make you understand how very highly I regard your conduct in this matter. It has been above all praise, and so I shall not hesitate to say when speaking of it to your relatives.” This was disagreeable enough to Lucy, who cared but little for any praise which Lady Lufton might express to her relatives in this matter. “And pray,” continued Lady Lufton, “give my best love to Mrs. Robarts, and tell her that I shall hope to see her over here very soon, and Mr. Robarts also. I would name a day for you all to dine; but perhaps it will be better that I should have a little talk with Fanny first.”
Lucy muttered something, which was intended to signify that any such dinner-party had better not be made up with the intention of including her, and then took her leave. She had decidedly had the best of the interview, and there was a consciousness of this in her heart as she allowed Lady Lufton to shake hands with her. She had stopped her antagonist short on each occasion on which an attempt had been made to produce the homily which had been prepared, and during the interview had spoken probably three words for every one which her ladyship had been able to utter. But, nevertheless, there was a bitter feeling of disappointment about her heart as she walked back home; and a feeling, also, that she herself had caused her own unhappiness. Why should she have been so romantic and chivalrous and self-sacrificing, seeing that her romance and chivalry had all been to his detriment as well as to hers—seeing that she sacrificed him as well as herself? Why should she have been so anxious to play into Lady Lufton’s hands? It was not because she thought it right, as a general social rule, that a lady should refuse a gentleman’s hand, unless the gentleman’s mother were a consenting party to the marriage. She would have held any such doctrine as absurd. The lady, she would have said, would have had to look to her own family and no further. It was not virtue but cowardice which had influenced her, and she had none of that solace which may come to us in misfortune from a consciousness that our own conduct has been blameless. Lady Lufton had inspired her with awe, and any such feeling on her part was mean, ignoble, and unbecoming the spirit with which she wished to think that she was endowed. That was the accusation which she brought against herself, and it forbade her to feel any triumph as to the result of her interview.
When she reached the parsonage, Mark was there, and they were of course expecting her. “Well,�
�� said she, in her short, hurried manner, “is Puck ready again? I have no time to lose, and I must go and pack up a few things. Have you settled about the children, Fanny?”
“Yes; I will tell you directly; but you have seen Lady Lufton?”
“Seen her! Oh, yes, of course I have seen her. Did she not send for me? and in that case it was not on the cards that I should disobey her.”
“And what did she say?”
“How green you are, Mark; and not only green, but impolite also, to make me repeat the story of my own disgrace. Of course she told me that she did not intend that I should marry my lord, her son; and of course I said that under those circumstances I should not think of doing such a thing.”
“Lucy, I cannot understand you,” said Fanny, very gravely. “I am sometimes inclined to doubt whether you have any deep feeling in the matter or not. If you have, how can you bring yourself to joke about it?”
“Well, it is singular; and sometimes I doubt myself whether I have. I ought to be pale, ought I not? and very thin, and to go mad by degrees? I have not the least intention of doing anything of the kind, and, therefore, the matter is not worth any further notice.”
“But was she civil to you, Lucy?” asked Mark: “civil In her manner, you know?”
“Oh, uncommonly so. You will hardly believe it, but she actually asked me to dine. She always does, you know, when she wants to show her good humour. If you’d broken your leg, and she wished to commiserate you, she’d ask you to dinner.”
“I suppose she meant to be kind,” said Fanny, who was not disposed to give up her old friend, though she was quite ready to fight Lucy’s battle, if there were any occasion for a battle to be fought.
“Lucy is so perverse,” said Mark, “that it is impossible to learn from her what really has taken place.”
“Upon my word, then, you know it all as well as I can tell you. She asked me if Lord Lufton had made me an offer. I said, yes. She asked next, if I meant to accept it. Not without her approval, I said. And then she asked us all to dinner. That is exactly what took place, and I cannot see that I have been perverse at all.” After that she threw herself into a chair, and Mark and Fanny stood looking at each other.
“Mark,” she said, after a while, “don’t be unkind to me. I make as little of it as I can, for all our sakes. It is better so, Fanny, than that I should go about moaning, like a sick cow;” and then they looked at her, and saw that the tears were already brimming over from her eyes.
“Dearest, dearest Lucy,” said Fanny, immediately going down on her knees before her, “I won’t be unkind to you again.” And then they had a great cry together.
CHAPTER XXXVI
Kidnapping at Hogglestock
The great cry, however, did not take long, and Lucy was soon in the pony-carriage again. On this occasion her brother volunteered to drive her, and it was now understood that he was to bring back with him all the Crawley children. The whole thing had been arranged; the groom and his wife were to be taken into the house, and the big bedroom across the yard, usually occupied by them, was to be converted into a quarantine hospital until such time as it might be safe to pull down the yellow flag. They were about half-way on their road to Hogglestock when they were overtaken by a man on horseback, whom, when he came up beside them, Mr. Robarts recognized as Dr. Arabin, Dean of Barchester, and head of the chapter to which he himself belonged. It immediately appeared that the dean also was going to Hogglestock, having heard of the misfortune that had befallen his friends there; he had, he said, started as soon as the news reached him, in order that he might ascertain how best he might render assistance. To effect this he had undertaken a ride of nearly forty miles, and explained that he did not expect to reach home again much before midnight. “You pass by Framley?” said Robarts.
“Yes, I do,” said the dean.
“Then of course you will dine with us as you go home; you and your horse also, which will be quite as important.” This having been duly settled, and the proper ceremony of introduction having taken place between the dean and Lucy, they proceeded to discuss the character of Mr. Crawley.
“I have known him all my life,” said the dean, “having been at school and college with him, and for years since that I was on terms of the closest intimacy with him; but in spite of that, I do not know how to help him in his need. A prouder-hearted man I never met, or one less willing to share his sorrows with his friends.”
“I have often heard him speak of you,” said Mark.
“One of the bitterest feelings I have is that a man so dear to me should live so near to me, and that I should see so little of him. But what can I do? He will not come to my house; and when I go to his he is angry with me because I wear a shovel hat and ride on horseback.”
“I should leave my hat and my horse at the borders of the last parish,” said Lucy, timidly.
“Well; yes, certainly; one ought not to give offence even in such matters as that; but my coat and waistcoat would then be equally objectionable. I have changed—in outward matters I mean—and he has not. That irritates him, and unless I could be what I was in the old days, he will not look at me with the same eyes;” and then he rode on, in order, as he said, that the first pang of the interview might be over before Robarts and his sister came upon the scene.
Mr. Crawley was standing before his door, leaning over the little wooden railing, when the dean trotted up on his horse. He had come out after hours of close watching to get a few mouthfuls of the sweet summer air, and as he stood there he held the youngest of his children in his arms. The poor little baby sat there, quiet indeed, but hardly happy. This father, though he loved his offspring with an affection as intense as that which human nature can supply, was not gifted with the knack of making children fond of him; for it is hardly more than a knack, that aptitude which some men have of gaining the good graces of the young. Such men are not always the best fathers or the safest guardians; but they carry about with them a certain duc ad me which children recognize, and which in three minutes upsets all the barriers between five and five-and-forty. But Mr. Crawley was a stern man, thinking ever of the souls and minds of his bairns—as a father should do; and thinking also that every season was fitted for operating on these souls and minds—as, perhaps, he should not have done either as a father or as a teacher. And consequently his children avoided him when the choice was given them, thereby adding fresh wounds to his torn heart, but by no means quenching any of the great love with which he regarded them.
He was standing there thus with a placid little baby in his arms—a baby placid enough, but one that would not kiss him eagerly, and stroke his face with her soft little hands, as he would have had her do—when he saw the dean coming towards him. He was sharp-sighted as a lynx out in the open air, though now obliged to pore over his well-fingered books with spectacles on his nose; and thus he knew his friend from a long distance, and had time to meditate the mode of his greeting. He too doubtless had come, if not with jelly and chicken, then with money and advice—with money and advice such as a thriving dean might offer to a poor brother clergyman; and Mr. Crawley, though no husband could possibly be more anxious for a wife’s safety than he was, immediately put his back up and began to bethink himself how these tenders might be rejected.
“How is she?” were the first words which the dean spoke as he pulled up his horse close to the little gate, and put out his hand to take that of his friend.
“How are you, Arabin?” said he. “It is very kind of you to come so far, seeing how much there is to keep you at Barchester. I cannot say that she is any better, but I do not know that she is worse. Sometimes I fancy that she is delirious, though I hardly know. At any rate her mind wanders, and then after that she sleeps.”
“But is the fever less?”
“Sometimes less and sometimes more, I imagine.”
“And the children?”
“Poor things; they are well as yet.”
“They must be taken from this, Crawley, as a
matter of course.”
Mr. Crawley fancied that there was a tone of authority in the dean’s advice, and immediately put himself into opposition.
“I do not know how that may be; I have not yet made up my mind.”
“But, my dear Crawley—”
“Providence does not admit of such removals in all cases,” said he. “Among the poorer classes the children must endure such perils.”
“In many cases it is so,” said the dean, by no means inclined to make an argument of it at the present moment; “but in this case they need not. You must allow me to make arrangements for sending for them, as of course your time is occupied here.”
Miss Robarts, though she had mentioned her intention of staying with Mrs. Crawley, had said nothing of the Framley plan with reference to the children.
“What you mean is that you intend to take the burden off my shoulders—in fact, to pay for them. I cannot allow that, Arabin. They must take the lot of their father and their mother, as it is proper that they should do.”
Again the dean had no inclination for arguing, and thought it might be well to let the question of the children drop for a little while.
“And is there no nurse with her?” said he.
“No, no; I am seeing to her myself at the present moment. A woman will be here just now.”
“What woman?”
“Well; her name is Mrs. Stubbs; she lives in the parish. She will put the younger children to bed, and—and—but it’s no use troubling you with all that. There was a young lady talked of coming, but no doubt she has found it too inconvenient. It will be better as it is.”
“You mean Miss Robarts; she will be here directly; I passed her as I came here;” and as Dr. Arabin was yet speaking, the noise of the carriage wheels was heard upon the road.
“I will go in now,” said Mr. Crawley, “and see if she still sleeps;” and then he entered the house, leaving the dean at the door still seated upon his horse. “He will be afraid of the infection, and I will not ask him to come in,” said Mr. Crawley to himself.
The Chronicles of Barsetshire Page 187
