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

determination to refuse the tender of Mr. Sowerby’s hand; but she was so painfully resolute not to have dust thrown in her eyes! Mrs. Harold Smith had commenced with a mind fixed upon avoiding what she called humbug; but this sort of humbug had become so prominent a part of her usual rhetoric, that she found it very hard to abandon it.

“And that’s what I wish,” said she. “Of course my chief object is to secure my brother’s happiness.”

“That’s very unkind to poor Mr. Harold Smith.”

“Well, well, well⁠—you know what I mean.”

“Yes, I think I do know what you mean. Your brother is a gentleman of good family, but of no means.”

“Not quite so bad as that.”

“Of embarrassed means, then, or anything that you will; whereas I am a lady of no family, but of sufficient wealth. You think that if you brought us together and made a match of it, it would be a very good thing for⁠—for whom?” said Miss Dunstable.

“Yes, exactly,” said Mrs. Harold Smith.

“For which of us? Remember the bishop now and his nice little bit of Latin.”

“For Nathaniel then,” said Mrs. Harold Smith, boldly. “It would be a very good thing for him.” And a slight smile came across her face as she said it. “Now that’s honest, or the mischief is in it.”

“Yes, that’s honest enough. And did he send you here to tell me this?”

“Well, he did that, and something else.”

“And now let’s have the something else. The really important part, I have no doubt, has been spoken.”

“No, by no means, by no means all of it. But you are so hard on one, my dear, with your running after honesty, that one is not able to tell the real facts as they are. You make one speak in such a bald, naked way.”

“Ah, you think that anything naked must be indecent; even truth.”

“I think it is more proper-looking, and better suited, too, for the world’s work, when it goes about with some sort of a garment on it. We are so used to a leaven of falsehood in all we hear and say, nowadays, that nothing is more likely to deceive us than the absolute truth. If a shopkeeper told me that his wares were simply middling, of course, I should think that they were not worth a farthing. But all that has nothing to do with my poor brother. Well, what was I saying?”

“You were going to tell me how well he would use me, no doubt.”

“Something of that kind.”

“That he wouldn’t beat me; or spend all my money if I managed to have it tied up out of his power; or look down on me with contempt because my father was an apothecary! Was not that what you were going to say?”

“I was going to tell you that you might be more happy as Mrs. Sowerby of Chaldicotes than you can be as Miss Dunstable⁠—”

“Of Mount Lebanon. And had Mr. Sowerby no other message to send?⁠—nothing about love, or anything of that sort? I should like, you know, to understand what his feelings are before I take such a leap.”

“I do believe he has as true a regard for you as any man of his age ever does have⁠—”

“For any woman of mine. That is not putting it in a very devoted way certainly; but I am glad to see that you remember the bishop’s maxim.”

“What would you have me say? If I told you that he was dying for love, you would say, I was trying to cheat you; and now because I don’t tell you so, you say that he is wanting in devotion. I must say you are hard to please.”

“Perhaps I am, and very unreasonable into the bargain. I ought to ask no questions of the kind when your brother proposes to do me so much honour. As for my expecting the love of a man who condescends to wish to be my husband, that, of course, would be monstrous. What right can I have to think that any man should love me? It ought to be enough for me to know that as I am rich, I can get a husband. What business can such as I have to inquire whether the gentleman who would so honour me really would like my company, or would only deign to put up with my presence in his household?”

“Now, my dear Miss Dunstable⁠—”

“Of course I am not such an ass as to expect that any gentleman should love me; and I feel that I ought to be obliged to your brother for sparing me the string of complimentary declarations which are usual on such occasions. He, at any rate, is not tedious⁠—or rather you on his behalf; for no doubt his own time is so occupied with his parliamentary duties that he cannot attend to this little matter himself. I do feel grateful to him; and perhaps nothing more will be necessary than to give him a schedule of the property, and name an early day for putting him in possession.”

Mrs. Smith did feel that she was rather badly used. This Miss Dunstable, in their mutual confidences, had so often ridiculed the lovemaking grimaces of her mercenary suitors⁠—had spoken so fiercely against those who had persecuted her, not because they had desired her money, but on account of their ill-judgment in thinking her to be a fool⁠—that Mrs. Smith had a right to expect that the method she had adopted for opening the negotiation would be taken in a better spirit. Could it be possible, after all, thought Mrs. Smith to herself, that Miss Dunstable was like other women, and that she did like to have men kneeling at her feet? Could it be the case that she had advised her brother badly, and that it would have been better for him to have gone about his work in the old-fashioned way? “They are very hard to manage,” said Mrs. Harold Smith to herself, thinking of her own sex.

“He was coming here himself,” said she, “but I advised him