Framley Parsonage, Anthony Trollope [popular e readers txt] 📗

to build, or a dowager laden with the last morsel of town slander, or a poor author who could not get due payment for the efforts of his brain, or a poor governess on whose feeble stamina the weight of the world had borne too hardly. But men who by possibility could be lovers did not make their way thither, nor women who could be bores. In these latter days, that is, during the present London season, the doors of it had been oftener opened to Mrs. Harold Smith than to any other person.

And now the effort was to be made with the object of which all this intimacy had been effected. As she came thither in her carriage, Mrs. Harold Smith herself was not altogether devoid of that sinking of the heart which is so frequently the forerunner of any difficult and hazardous undertaking. She had declared that she would feel no fear in making the little proposition. But she did feel something very like it; and when she made her entrance into the little room she certainly wished that the work was done and over.

“How is poor Mr. Smith today?” asked Miss Dunstable, with an air of mock condolence, as her friend seated herself in her accustomed easy-chair. The downfall of the gods was as yet a history hardly three days old, and it might well be supposed that the late lord of the Petty Bag had hardly recovered from his misfortune.

“Well, he is better, I think, this morning; at least I should judge so from the manner in which he confronted his eggs. But still I don’t like the way he handles the carving-knife. I am sure he is always thinking of Mr. Supplehouse at those moments.”

“Poor man! I mean Supplehouse. After all, why shouldn’t he follow his trade as well as another? Live and let live, that’s what I say.”

“Ay, but it’s kill and let kill with him. That is what Horace says. However, I am tired of all that now, and I came here today to talk about something else.”

“I rather like Mr. Supplehouse myself,” exclaimed Miss Dunstable. “He never makes any bones about the matter. He has a certain work to do, and a certain cause to serve⁠—namely, his own; and in order to do that work, and serve that cause, he uses such weapons as God has placed in his hands.”

“That’s what the wild beasts do.”

“And where will you find men honester than they? The tiger tears you up because he is hungry and wants to eat you. That’s what Supplehouse does. But there are so many among us tearing up one another without any excuse of hunger. The mere pleasure of destroying is reason enough.”

“Well, my dear, my mission to you today is certainly not one of destruction, as you will admit when you hear it. It is one, rather, very absolutely of salvation. I have come to make love to you.”

“Then the salvation, I suppose, is not for myself,” said Miss Dunstable.

It was quite clear to Mrs. Harold Smith that Miss Dunstable had immediately understood the whole purport of this visit, and that she was not in any great measure surprised. It did not seem from the tone of the heiress’s voice, or from the serious look which at once settled on her face, that she would be prepared to give a very ready compliance. But then great objects can only be won with great efforts.

“That’s as may be,” said Mrs. Harold Smith. “For you and another also, I hope. But I trust, at any rate, that I may not offend you?”

“Oh, laws, no; nothing of that kind ever offends me now.”

“Well, I suppose you’re used to it.”

“Like the eels, my dear. I don’t mind it the least in the world⁠—only sometimes, you know, it is a little tedious.”

“I’ll endeavour to avoid that, so I may as well break the ice at once. You know enough of Nathaniel’s affairs to be aware that he is not a very rich man.”

“Since you do ask me about it, I suppose there’s no harm in saying that I believe him to be a very poor man.”

“Not the least harm in the world, but just the reverse. Whatever may come of this, my wish is that the truth should be told scrupulously on all sides; the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

“Magna est veritas,” said Miss Dunstable. “The Bishop of Barchester taught me as much Latin as that at Chaldicotes; and he did add some more, but there was a long word, and I forgot it.”

“The bishop was quite right, my dear, I’m sure. But if you go to your Latin, I’m lost. As we were just now saying, my brother’s pecuniary affairs are in a very bad state. He has a beautiful property of his own, which has been in the family for I can’t say how many centuries⁠—long before the Conquest, I know.”

“I wonder what my ancestors were then?”

“It does not much signify to any of us,” said Mrs. Harold Smith, with a moral shake of her head, “what our ancestors were; but it’s a sad thing to see an old property go to ruin.”

“Yes, indeed; we none of us like to see our property going to ruin, whether it be old or new. I have some of that sort of feeling already, although mine was only made the other day out of an apothecary’s shop.”

“God forbid that I should ever help you to ruin it,” said Mrs. Harold Smith. “I should be sorry to be the means of your losing a ten-pound note.”

“Magna est veritas, as the dear bishop said,” exclaimed Miss Dunstable. “Let us have the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, as we agreed just now.”

Mrs. Harold Smith did begin to find that the task before her was difficult. There was a hardness about Miss Dunstable when matters of business were concerned on which it seemed almost impossible to make any impression. It was not that she had evinced any