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

Fanny, generously. “Mark and I know how well you have behaved, for I have told him everything.” Lucy shuddered and leaned closer against her sister as this was said to her. “I had no alternative, dearest, but to tell him. It was best so; was it not? But nothing has been told to Lord Lufton. Mark would not let him come here today, because it would have flurried you, and he wished to give you time to think. But you can see him tomorrow morning⁠—can you not? and then answer him.”

Lucy now stood perfectly silent, feeling that she dearly loved her sister-in-law for her sisterly kindness⁠—for that sisterly wish to promote a sister’s love; but still there was in her mind a strong resolve not to allow Lord Lufton to come there under the idea that he would be received as a favoured lover. Her love was powerful, but so also was her pride; and she could not bring herself to bear the scorn which would lay in Lady Lufton’s eyes. “His mother will despise me, and then he will despise me too,” she said to herself; and with a strong gulp of disappointed love and ambition she determined to persist.

“Shall we leave you now, dear; and speak of it again tomorrow morning, before he comes?” said Fanny.

“That will be the best,” said Mark. “Turn it in your mind every way tonight. Think of it when you have said your prayers⁠—and, Lucy, come here to me;”⁠—then, taking her in his arms, he kissed her with a tenderness that was not customary with him towards her. “It is fair,” said he, “that I should tell you this: that I have perfect confidence in your judgment and feeling; and that I will stand by you as your brother in whatever decision you may come to. Fanny and I both think that you have behaved excellently, and are both of us sure that you will do what is best. Whatever you do I will stick to you;⁠—and so will Fanny.”

“Dearest, dearest Mark!”

“And now we will say nothing more about it till tomorrow morning,” said Fanny.

But Lucy felt that this saying nothing more about it till tomorrow morning would be tantamount to an acceptance on her part of Lord Lufton’s offer. Mrs. Robarts knew, and Mr. Robarts also now knew, the secret of her heart; and if, such being the case, she allowed Lord Lufton to come there with the acknowledged purpose of pleading his own suit, it would be impossible for her not to yield. If she were resolved that she would not yield, now was the time for her to stand her ground and make her fight.

“Do not go, Fanny; at least not quite yet,” she said.

“Well, dear?”

“I want you to stay while I tell Mark. He must not let Lord Lufton come here tomorrow.”

“Not let him!” said Mrs. Robarts.

Mr. Robarts said nothing, but he felt that his sister was rising in his esteem from minute to minute.

“No; Mark must bid him not come. He will not wish to pain me when it can do no good. Look here, Mark;” and she walked over to her brother, and put both her hands upon his arm. “I do love Lord Lufton. I had no such meaning or thought when I first knew him. But I do love him⁠—I love him dearly;⁠—almost as well as Fanny loves you, I suppose. You may tell him so if you think proper⁠—nay, you must tell him so, or he will not understand me. But tell him this, as coming from me: that I will never marry him, unless his mother asks me.”

“She will not do that, I fear,” said Mark, sorrowfully.

“No; I suppose not,” said Lucy, now regaining all her courage. “If I thought it probable that she should wish me to be her daughter-in-law, it would not be necessary that I should make such a stipulation. It is because she will not wish it; because she would regard me as unfit to⁠—to⁠—to mate with her son. She would hate me, and scorn me; and then he would begin to scorn me, and perhaps would cease to love me. I could not bear her eye upon me, if she thought that I had injured her son. Mark, you will go to him now; will you not? and explain this to him;⁠—as much of it as is necessary. Tell him, that if his mother asks me I will⁠—consent. But that as I know that she never will, he is to look upon all that he has said as forgotten. With me it shall be the same as though it were forgotten.”

Such was her verdict, and so confident were they both of her firmness⁠—of her obstinacy Mark would have called it on any other occasion⁠—that they, neither of them, sought to make her alter it.

“You will go to him now⁠—this afternoon; will you not?” she said; and Mark promised that he would. He could not but feel that he himself was greatly relieved. Lady Lufton might probably hear that her son had been fool enough to fall in love with the parson’s sister, but under existing circumstances she could not consider herself aggrieved either by the parson or by his sister. Lucy was behaving well, and Mark was proud of her. Lucy was behaving with fierce spirit, and Fanny was grieving for her.

“I’d rather be by myself till dinnertime,” said Lucy, as Mrs. Robarts prepared to go with her out of the room. “Dear Fanny, don’t look unhappy; there’s nothing to make us unhappy. I told you I should want goat’s milk, and that will be all.”

Robarts, after sitting for an hour with his wife, did return again to Framley Court; and, after a considerable search, found Lord Lufton returning home to a late dinner.

“Unless my mother asks her,” said he, when the story had been told him. “That is nonsense. Surely you told her that such is not the way of the world.”

Robarts endeavoured to explain to him that Lucy could not endure