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

wrong⁠—. But never mind. I’ll tell you what I mean to do. I have been thinking of it for the last week⁠—only I shall have to tell Mark.”

“If I were you I would tell him all.”

“What, Mark! If you do, Fanny, I’ll never, never, never speak to you again. Would you⁠—when I have given you all my heart in true sisterly love?”

Mrs. Robarts had to explain that she had not proposed to tell anything to Mark herself, and was persuaded, moreover, to give a solemn promise that she would not tell anything to him unless specially authorized to do so.

“I’ll go into a home, I think,” continued Lucy. “You know what those homes are?” Mrs. Robarts assured her that she knew very well, and then Lucy went on: “A year ago I should have said that I was the last girl in England to think of such a life, but I do believe now that it would be the best thing for me. And then I’ll starve myself, and flog myself, and in that way I’ll get back my own mind and my own soul.”

“Your own soul, Lucy!” said Mrs. Robarts, in a tone of horror.

“Well, my own heart, if you like it better; but I hate to hear myself talking about hearts. I don’t care for my heart. I’d let it go⁠—with this young popinjay lord or anyone else, so that I could read, and talk, and walk, and sleep, and eat, without always feeling that I was wrong here⁠—here⁠—here,” and she pressed her hand vehemently against her side. “What is it that I feel, Fanny? Why am I so weak in body that I cannot take exercise? Why cannot I keep my mind on a book for one moment? Why can I not write two sentences together? Why should every mouthful that I eat stick in my throat? Oh, Fanny, is it his legs, think you, or is it his title?”

Through all her sorrow⁠—and she was very sorrowful⁠—Mrs. Robarts could not help smiling. And, indeed, there was every now and then something even in Lucy’s look that was almost comic. She acted the irony so well with which she strove to throw ridicule on herself! “Do laugh at me,” she said. “Nothing on earth will do me so much good as that; nothing, unless it be starvation and a whip. If you would only tell me that I must be a sneak and an idiot to care for a man because he is good-looking and a lord!”

“But that has not been the reason. There is a great deal more in Lord Lufton than that; and since I must speak, dear Lucy, I cannot but say that I should not wonder at your being in love with him, only⁠—only that⁠—”

“Only what? Come, out with it. Do not mince matters, or think that I shall be angry with you because you scold me.”

“Only that I should have thought that you would have been too guarded to have⁠—have cared for any gentleman till⁠—till he had shown that he cared for you.”

“Guarded! Yes, that’s it; that’s just the word. But it’s he that should have been guarded. He should have had a fireguard hung before him⁠—or a love-guard, if you will. Guarded! Was I not guarded, till you all would drag me out? Did I want to go there? And when I was there, did I not make a fool of myself, sitting in a corner, and thinking how much better placed I should have been down in the servants’ hall. Lady Lufton⁠—she dragged me out, and then cautioned me, and then, then⁠—Why is Lady Lufton to have it all her own way? Why am I to be sacrificed for her? I did not want to know Lady Lufton, or anyone belonging to her.”

“I cannot think that you have any cause to blame Lady Lufton, nor, perhaps, to blame anybody very much.”

“Well, no, it has been all my own fault; though for the life of me, Fanny, going back and back, I cannot see where I took the first false step. I do not know where I went wrong. One wrong thing I did, and it is the only thing that I do not regret.”

“What was that, Lucy?”

“I told him a lie.”

Mrs. Robarts was altogether in the dark, and feeling that she was so, she knew that she could not give counsel as a friend or a sister. Lucy had begun by declaring⁠—so Mrs. Robarts thought⁠—that nothing had passed between her and Lord Lufton but words of most trivial import, and yet she now accused herself of falsehood, and declared that that falsehood was the only thing which she did not regret!

“I hope not,” said Mrs. Robarts. “If you did, you were very unlike yourself.”

“But I did, and were he here again, speaking to me in the same way, I should repeat it. I know I should. If I did not, I should have all the world on me. You would frown on me, and be cold. My darling Fanny, how would you look if I really displeasured you?”

“I don’t think you will do that, Lucy.”

“But if I told him the truth I should, should I not? Speak now. But no, Fanny, you need not speak. It was not the fear of you; no, nor even of her: though Heaven knows that her terrible glumness would be quite unendurable.”

“I cannot understand you, Lucy. What truth or what untruth can you have told him if, as you say, there has been nothing between you but ordinary conversation?”

Lucy then got up from the sofa, and walked twice the length of the room before she spoke. Mrs. Robarts had all the ordinary curiosity⁠—I was going to say, of a woman, but I mean to say, of humanity; and she had, moreover, all the love of a sister. She was both curious and anxious, and remained sitting where she was, silent, and with her eyes fixed on her companion.

“Did I say so?” Lucy said at last. “No, Fanny; you have mistaken me: I did