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

what he was pleased to call residence, almost at once. That is, he took his month of preaching, aiding also in some slight and very dignified way, in the general Sunday morning services. He did not exactly live at Barchester, because the house was not ready. That at least was the assumed reason. The chattels of Dr. Stanhope, the late prebendary, had not been as yet removed, and there was likely to be some little delay, creditors asserting their right to them. This might have been very inconvenient to a gentleman anxiously expecting the excellent house which the liberality of past ages had provided for his use; but it was not so felt by Mr. Robarts. If Dr. Stanhope’s family or creditors would keep the house for the next twelve months, he would be well pleased. And by this arrangement he was enabled to get through his first month of absence from the church of Framley without any notice from Lady Lufton, seeing that Lady Lufton was in London all the time. This also was convenient, and taught our young prebendary to look on his new preferment more favourably than he had hitherto done.

Fanny and Lucy were thus left much alone: and as out of the full head the mouth speaks, so is the full heart more prone to speak at such periods of confidence as these. Lucy, when she first thought of her own state, determined to endow herself with a powerful gift of reticence. She would never tell her love, certainly; but neither would she let concealment feed on her damask cheek, nor would she ever be found for a moment sitting like Patience on a monument. She would fight her own fight bravely within her own bosom, and conquer her enemy altogether. She would either preach, or starve, or weary her love into subjection, and no one should be a bit the wiser. She would teach herself to shake hands with Lord Lufton without a quiver, and would be prepared to like his wife amazingly⁠—unless indeed that wife should be Griselda Grantly. Such were her resolutions; but at the end of the first week they were broken into shivers and scattered to the winds.

They had been sitting in the house together the whole of one wet day; and as Mark was to dine in Barchester with the dean, they had had dinner early, eating with the children almost in their laps. It is so that ladies do, when their husbands leave them to themselves. It was getting dusk towards evening, and they were still sitting in the drawing-room, the children now having retired, when Mrs. Robarts for the fifth time since her visit to Hogglestock began to express her wish that she could do some good to the Crawleys⁠—to Grace Crawley in particular, who, standing up there at her father’s elbow, learning Greek irregular verbs, had appeared to Mrs. Robarts to be an especial object of pity.

“I don’t know how to set about it,” said Mrs. Robarts.

Now any allusion to that visit to Hogglestock always drove Lucy’s mind back to the consideration of the subject which had most occupied it at the time. She at such moments remembered how she had beaten Puck, and how in her half-bantering but still too serious manner she had apologized for doing so, and had explained the reason. And therefore she could not interest herself about Grace Crawley as vividly as she should have done.

“No; one never does,” she said.

“I was thinking about it all that day as I drove home,” said Fanny. “The difficulty is this: What can we do with her?”

“Exactly,” said Lucy, remembering the very point of the road at which she had declared that she did like Lord Lufton very much.

“If we could have her here for a month or so and then send her to school;⁠—but I know Mr. Crawley would not allow us to pay for her schooling.”

“I don’t think he would,” said Lucy, with her thoughts far removed from Mr. Crawley and his daughter Grace.

“And then we should not know what to do with her; should we?”

“No; you would not.”

“It would never do to have the poor girl about the house here, with no one to teach her anything. Mark would not teach her Greek verbs, you know.”

“I suppose not.”

“Lucy, you are not attending to a word I say to you, and I don’t think you have for the last hour. I don’t believe you know what I am talking about.”

“Oh, yes, I do⁠—Grace Crawley; I’ll try and teach her if you like, only I don’t know anything myself.”

“That’s not what I mean at all, and you know I would not ask you to take such a task as that on yourself. But I do think you might talk it over with me.”

“Might I? very well; I will. What is it? Oh, Grace Crawley⁠—you want to know who is to teach her the irregular Greek verbs. Oh dear, Fanny, my head does ache so: pray don’t be angry with me.” And then Lucy, throwing herself back on the sofa, put one hand up painfully to her forehead, and altogether gave up the battle.

Mrs. Robarts was by her side in a moment. “Dearest Lucy, what is it makes your head ache so often now? you used not to have those headaches.”

“It’s because I’m growing stupid: never mind. We will go on about poor Grace. It would not do to have a governess, would it?”

“I can see that you are not well, Lucy,” said Mrs. Robarts, with a look of deep concern. “What is it, dearest? I can see that something is the matter.”

“Something the matter! No, there’s not; nothing worth talking of. Sometimes I think I’ll go back to Devonshire and live there. I could stay with Blanche for a time, and then get a lodging in Exeter.”

“Go back to Devonshire!” and Mrs. Robarts looked as though she thought that her sister-in-law was going mad. “Why do you want to go away from us? This is to be your own, own home, always now.”

“Is it? Then