Framley Parsonage

by Anthony Trollope

  The boy took the bag, peeped into it, and then looked up into her face.

  ‘What is that, Bob?’ said Mr Crawley.

  ‘Gingerbread,’ faltered Bobby, feeling that a sin had been committed, though, probably, feeling also that he himself could hardly as yet be accounted as deeply guilty.

  ‘Miss Robarts,’ said the father, ‘we are very much obliged to you; but our children are hardly used to such things.’

  ‘I am a lady with a weak mind, Mr Crawley, and always carry things of this sort about with me when I go to visit children; so you must forgive me, and allow your little boy to accept them.’

  ‘Oh, certainly. Bob, my child, give the bag to your mamma, and she will let you and Grace have them, one at a time.’ And then the bag in a solemn manner was carried over to their mother, who, taking it from her son’s hands, laid it high on a bookshelf.

  ‘And not one now?’ said Lucy Robarts, very piteously. ‘Don’t be so hard, Mr Crawley, – not upon them, but upon me. May I not learn whether they are good of their kind?’

  ‘I am sure they are very good; but I think their mamma will prefer their being put by for the present.’

  This was very discouraging to Lucy. If one small bag of gingerbread-nuts created so great a difficulty, how was she to dispose of the pot of guava jelly and box of bonbons, which were still in her muff; or how distribute the packet of oranges with which the pony-carriage was laden? And there was jelly for the sick child, and chicken broth, which was, indeed, another jelly; and, to tell the truth openly, there was also a joint of fresh pork and a basket of eggs from the Framley Parsonage farmyard, which Mrs Robarts was to introduce, should she find herself capable of doing so; but which would certainly be cast out with utter scorn by Mr Crawley, if tendered in his immediate presence. There had also been a suggestion as to adding two or three bottles of port; but the courage of the ladies had failed them on that head, and the wine was not now added to their difficulties.

  Lucy found it very difficult to keep up a conversation with Mr Crawley – the more so, as Mrs Robarts and Mrs Crawley presently withdrew into a bedroom, taking the two younger children with them. ‘How unlucky,’ thought Lucy, ‘that she has not got my muff with her!’ But the muff lay in her lap, ponderous with its rich enclosures.

  ‘I suppose you will live in Barchester for a portion of the year now,’ said Mr Crawley.

  ‘I really do not know as yet; Mark talks of taking lodgings for his first month’s residence.’

  ‘But he will have the house, will he not?’

  ‘Oh, yes; I suppose so.’

  ‘I fear he will find it interfere with his own parish – with his general utility there: the schools, for instance.’

  ‘Mark thinks that, as he is so near, he need not be much absent from Framley, even during his residence. And then Lady Lufton is so good about the schools.’

  ‘Ah! yes; but Lady Lufton is not a clergyman, Miss Robarts.’

  It was on Lucy’s tongue to say that her ladyship was pretty nearly as bad, but she stopped herself.

  At this moment Providence sent great relief to Miss Robarts in the shape of Mrs Crawley’s red-armed maid-of-all-work, who, walking up to her master, whispered into his ear that he was wanted. It was the time of day at which his attendance was always required in his parish school; and that attendance being so punctually given, those who wanted him looked for him there at this hour, and if he were absent, did not scruple to send for him.

  ‘Miss Robarts, I am afraid you must excuse me,’ said he, getting up and taking his hat and stick. Lucy begged that she might not be at all in the way, and already began to speculate how she might best unload her treasures. ‘Will you make my compliments to Mrs Robarts, and say that I am sorry to miss the pleasure of wishing her good-bye? But I shall probably see her as she passes the school-house.’ And then, stick in hand, he walked forth, and Lucy fancied that Bobby’s eyes immediately rested on the bag of gingerbread-nuts.

  ‘Bob,’ said she, almost in a whisper, ‘do you like sugarplums?’

  ‘Very much indeed,’ said Bob, with exceeding gravity, and with his eye upon the window to see whether his father had passed.

  ‘Then come here,’ said Lucy. But as she spoke the door again opened, and Mr Crawley reappeared. ‘I have left a book behind me,’ he said; and, coming back through the room, he took up the well-worn prayer-book which accompanied him in all his wanderings through the parish. Bobby, when he saw his father, had retreated a few steps back, as also did Grace, who, to confess the truth, had been attracted by the sound of sugar-plums, in spite of the irregular verbs. And Lucy withdrew her hand from her muff, and looked guilty. Was she not deceiving the good man – nay, teaching his own children to deceive him? But there are men made of such stuff that an angel could hardly live with them without some deceit.

  ‘Papa’s gone now,’ whispered Bobby; ‘I saw him turn round the corner.’ He, at any rate, had learned his lesson – as it was natural that he should do.

  Some one else, also, had learned that papa was gone; for while Bob and Grace were still counting the big lumps of sugar-candy, each employed the while for inward solace with an inch of barley-sugar, the front-door opened, and a big basket, and a bundle done up in a kitchen-cloth, made surreptitious entrance into the house, and were quickly unpacked by Mrs Robarts herself on the table in Mrs Crawley’s bedroom.

  ‘I did venture to bring them,’ said Fanny, with a look of shame, ‘for I know how a sick child occupies the whole house.’

  ‘Ah! my friend,’ said Mrs Crawley, taking hold of Mrs Robarts’ arm and looking into her face, ‘that sort of shame is over with me. God has tried us with want, and for my children’s sake I am glad of such relief.’

  ‘But will he be angry?’

  ‘I will manage it. Dear Mrs Robarts, you must not be surprised at him. His lot is sometimes very hard to bear: such things are so much worse for a man than for a woman.’

  Fanny was not quite prepared to admit this in her own heart, but she made no reply on that head. ‘I am sure I hope we may be able to be of use to you,’ she said, ‘if you will only look upon me as an old friend, and write to me if you want me. I hesitate to come frequently for fear that I should offend him.’

  And then, by degrees, there was confidence between them, and the poverty-stricken helpmate of the perpetual curate was able to speak of the weight of her burden to the well-to-do young wife of the Barchester prebendary. ‘It was hard,’ the former said, ‘to feel herself so different from the wives of other clergymen around her – to know that they lived softly, while she, with all the work of her hands, and unceasing struggle of her energies, could hardly manage to place wholesome food before her husband and children. It was a terrible thing – a grievous thing to think of, that all the work of her mind should be given up to such subjects as these. But, nevertheless, she could bear it,’ she said, ‘as long as he would carry himself like a man, and face his lot boldly before the world.’ And then she told how he had been better there at Hogglestock than in their former residence down in Cornwall, and in warm language she expressed her thanks to the friend who had done so much for them.

  ‘Mrs Arabin told me that she was so anxious you should go to them,’ said Mrs Robarts.

  ‘Ah, yes; but that I fear is impossible. The children, you know, Mrs Robarts.’

  ‘I would take care of two of them for you.’

  ‘Oh, no; I could not punish you for your goodness in that way. But he would not go. He could go and leave me at home. Sometimes I have thought that it might be so, and I have done all in my power to persuade him. I have told him that if he could mix once more with the world, with the clerical world, you know, that he would be better fitted for the performance of his own duties. But he answers me angrily, that it is impossible – that his coat is not fit for the dean’s table,’ and Mrs Crawley almost blushed as she spoke of such a reason.

  ‘What! with an old friend like Dr Arabin? Surely that must be nonsense.’

&n
bsp; ‘I know that it is. The dean would be glad to see him with any coat. But the fact is that he cannot bear to enter the house of a rich man unless his duty calls him there.’

  ‘But surely that is a mistake?’

  ‘It is a mistake. But what can I do? I fear that he regards the rich as his enemies. He is pining for the solace of some friend to whom he could talk – for some equal, with a mind educated like his own, to whose thoughts he could listen, and to whom he could speak his own thoughts. But such a friend must be equal, not only in mind, but in purse; and where can he ever find such a man as that?’

  ‘But you may get better preferment.’

  ‘Ah, no; and if he did, we are hardly fit for it now. If I could think that I could educate my children; if I could only do something for my poor Grace –’

  In answer to this Mrs Robarts said a word or two, but not much. She resolved, however, that if she could get her husband’s leave, something should be done for Grace. Would it not be a good work? and was it not incumbent on her to make some kindly use of all the goods with which Providence had blessed herself?

  And then they went back to the sitting-room, each again with a young child in her arms, Mrs Crawley having stowed away in the kitchen the chicken broth and the leg of pork and the supply of eggs. Lucy had been engaged the while with the children, and when the two married ladies entered, they found that a shop had been opened at which all manner of luxuries were being readily sold and purchased at marvellously easy prices; the guava jelly was there, and the oranges, and the sugar-plums, red and yellow and striped; and, moreover, the gingerbread had been taken down in the audacity of their commercial speculations, and the nuts were spread out upon a board, behind which Lucy stood as shop-girl, disposing of them for kisses.

  ‘Mamma, mamma,’ said Bobby, running up to his mother, ‘you must buy something of her,’ and he pointed with his fingers at the shop-girl. ‘You must give her two kisses for that heap of barley-sugar.’ Looking at Bobby’s mouth at the time, one would have said that his kisses might be dispensed with.

  When they were again in the pony-carriage, behind the impatient Puck, and were well away from the door, Fanny was the first to speak.

  ‘How very different those two are,’ she said; ‘different in their minds and in their spirit!’

  ‘But how much higher toned is her mind than his! How weak he is in many things, and how strong she is in everything! How false is his pride, and how false his shame!’

  ‘But we must remember what he has to bear. It is not every one that can endure such a life as his without false pride and false shame.’

  ‘But she has neither,’ said Lucy.

  ‘Because you have one hero in a family, does that give you a right to expect another?’ said Mrs Robarts. ‘Of all my own acquaintance, Mrs Crawley, I think, comes nearest to heroism.’

  And then they passed by the Hogglestock school, and Mr Crawley, when he heard the noise of the wheels, came out.

  ‘You have been very kind,’ said he, ‘to remain so long with my poor wife.’

  ‘We had a great many things to talk about, after you went.’

  ‘It is very kind of you, for she does not often see a friend, now-a-days. Will you have the goodness to tell Mr Robarts that I shall be here at the school, at eleven o’clock to-morrow?’

  And then he bowed, taking off his hat to them, and they drove on.

  ‘If he really does care about her comfort, I shall not think so badly of him,’ said Lucy.

  CHAPTER 23

  The Triumph of the Giants1

  AND now about the end of April news arrived almost simultaneously in all quarters of the habitable globe that was terrible in its import to one of the chief persons of our history; – some may think to the chief person in it. All high parliamentary people will doubtless so think, and the wives and daughters of such. The Titans warring against the gods had been for awhile successful. Typhoeus and Mimas, Porphyrion and Rhoecus, the giant brood of old, steeped in ignorance and wedded to corruption, had scaled the heights of Olympus, assisted by that audacious flinger of deadly ponderous missiles, who stands ever ready armed with his terrific sling – Supplehouse, the Enceladus of the press. And in this universal cataclasm of the starry councils, what could a poor Diana do, Diana of the Petty Bag, but abandon her pride of place to some rude Orion? In other words, the ministry had been compelled to resign, and with them Mr Harold Smith.

  ‘And so poor Harold is out, before he has well tasted the sweets of office,’ said Sowerby, writing to his friend the parson; ‘and as far as I know, the only piece of Church patronage which has fallen in the way of the ministry since he joined it, has made its way down to Framley – to my great joy and contentment.’ But it hardly tended to Mark’s joy and contentment on the same subject that he should be so often reminded of the benefit conferred upon him.

  Terrible was this break-down of the ministry, and especially to Harold Smith, who to the last had had confidence in that theory of new blood. He could hardly believe that a large majority of the House should vote against a government which he had only just joined. ‘If we are to go on in this way,’ he said to his young friend Green Walker, ‘the Queen’s government cannot be carried on.’ That alleged difficulty as to carrying on the Queen’s government has been frequently mooted in late years since a certain great man first introduced the idea.2 Nevertheless, the Queen’s government is carried on, and the propensity and aptitude of men for this work seems to be not at all on the decrease. If we have but few young statesmen, it is because the old stagers are so fond of the rattle of their harness.

  ‘I really do not see how the Queen’s government is to be carried on,’ said Harold Smith to Green Walker, standing in a corner of one of the lobbies of the House of Commons on the first of those days of awful interest, in which the Queen was sending for one crack statesman after another; and some anxious men were beginning to doubt whether or no we should, in truth, be able to obtain the blessing of another cabinet. The gods had all vanished from their places. Would the giants be good enough to do anything for us or no? There were men who seemed to think that the giants would refuse to do anything for us. ‘The House will now be adjourned over till Monday, and I would not be in her Majesty’s shoes for something,’ said Mr Harold Smith.

  ‘By Jove! no,’ said Green Walker, who in these days was a staunch Harold Smithian, having felt a pride in joining himself on as a substantial support to a cabinet minister. Had he contented himself with being merely a Brockite, he would have counted as nobody. ‘By Jove! no,’ and Green Walker opened his eyes and shook his head, as he thought of the perilous condition in which her Majesty must be placed. ‘I happen to know that Lord — won’t join them unless he has the Foreign Office,’ and he mentioned some hundred-handed Gyas supposed to be of the utmost importance to the counsels of the Titans.

  ‘And that, of course, is impossible. I don’t see what on earth they are to do. There’s Sidonia; they do say that he’s making some difficulty now.’ Now Sidonia was another giant, supposed to be very powerful.

  ‘We all know that the Queen won’t see him,’ said Green Walker, who, being a member of Parliament for the Crewe Junction, and nephew to Lady Hartletop, of course had perfectly correct means of ascertaining what the Queen would do, and what she would not.

  ‘The fact is,’ said Harold Smith, recurring again to his own situation as an ejected god, ‘that the House does not in the least understand what it is about; – doesn’t know what it wants. The question I should like to ask them is this: do they intend that the Queen shall have a government, or do they not? Are they prepared to support such men as Sidonia and Lord De Terrier?3 If so, I am their obedient humble servant; but I shall be very much surprised, that’s all.’ Lord De Terrier was at this time recognized by all men as the leader of the giants.

  ‘And so shall I, – deucedly surprised. They can’t do it, you know. There are the Manchester men. I ought to know something about them down in my country; and I say they c
an’t support Lord De Terrier. It wouldn’t be natural.’

  ‘Natural! Human nature has come to an end, I think,’ said Harold Smith, who could hardly understand that the world should conspire to throw over a government which he had joined, and that, too, before the world had waited to see how much he would do for it; ‘the fact is this, Walker, we have no longer among us any strong feeling of party.’

  ‘No, not a d—,’ said Green Walker, who was very energetic in his present political aspirations.

  ‘And till we can recover that, we shall never be able to have a government firm-seated and sure-handed. Nobody can count on men from one week to another. The very members who in one month place a minister in power, are the very first to vote against him in the next.’

  ‘We must put a stop to that sort of thing, otherwise we shall never do any good.’

  ‘I don’t mean to deny that Brock was wrong with reference to Lord Brittleback. I think that he was wrong, and I said so all through. But, heavens on earth – !’ and instead of completing his speech Harold Smith turned away his head, and struck his hands together in token of his astonishment at the fatuity of the age. What he probably meant to express was this: that if such a good deed as that late appointment made at the Petty Bag Office were not held sufficient to atone for that other evil deed to which he had alluded, there would be an end of all justice in sublunary matters. Was no offence to be forgiven, even when so great virtue had been displayed?

  ‘I attribute it all to Supplehouse,’ said Green Walker, trying to console his friend.

  ‘Yes,’ said Harold Smith, now verging on the bounds of parliamentary eloquence, although he still spoke with bated breath, and to one solitary hearer. ‘Yes; we are becoming the slaves of a mercenary and irresponsible press – of one single newspaper. There is a man endowed with no great talent, enjoying no public confidence, untrusted as a politician, and unheard of even as a writer by the world at large, and yet, because he is on the staff of the Jupiter, he is able to overturn the government and throw the whole country into dismay. It is astonishing to me that a man like Lord Brock should allow himself to be so timid.’ And nevertheless it was not yet a month since Harold Smith had been counselling with Supplehouse how a series of strong articles in the Jupiter, together with the expected support of the Manchester men, might probably be effective in hurling the minister from his seat. But at that time the minister had not revigorated himself with young blood. ‘How the Queen’s government is to be carried on, that is the question now,’ Harold Smith repeated. A difficulty which had not caused him much dismay at that period, about a month since, to which we have alluded.