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

Smith, whatever may be the view taken of her general character as a wife and a member of society, it must be admitted that as a sister she had virtues. XXXIII Consolation

On the next day, at two o’clock punctually, Mark Robarts was at the “Dragon of Wantly,” walking up and down the very room in which the party had breakfasted after Harold Smith’s lecture, and waiting for the arrival of Mr. Sowerby. He had been very well able to divine what was the business on which his friend wished to see him, and he had been rather glad than otherwise to receive the summons. Judging of his friend’s character by what he had hitherto seen, he thought that Mr. Sowerby would have kept out of the way, unless he had it in his power to make some provision for these terrible bills. So he walked up and down the dingy room, impatient for the expected arrival, and thought himself wickedly ill-used in that Mr. Sowerby was not there when the clock struck a quarter to three. But when the clock struck three, Mr. Sowerby was there, and Mark Robarts’s hopes were nearly at an end.

“Do you mean that they will demand nine hundred pounds?” said Robarts, standing up and glaring angrily at the member of Parliament.

“I fear that they will,” said Sowerby. “I think it is best to tell you the worst, in order that we may see what can be done.”

“I can do nothing, and will do nothing,” said Robarts. “They may do what they choose⁠—what the law allows them.”

And then he thought of Fanny and his nursery, and Lucy refusing in her pride Lord Lufton’s offer, and he turned away his face that the hard man of the world before him might not see the tear gathering in his eye.

“But, Mark, my dear fellow⁠—” said Sowerby, trying to have recourse to the power of his cajoling voice.

Robarts, however, would not listen.

“Mr. Sowerby,” said he, with an attempt at calmness which betrayed itself at every syllable, “it seems to me that you have robbed me. That I have been a fool, and worse than a fool, I know well; but⁠—but⁠—but I thought that your position in the world would guarantee me from such treatment as this.”

Mr. Sowerby was by no means without feeling, and the words which he now heard cut him very deeply⁠—the more so because it was impossible that he should answer them with an attempt at indignation. He had robbed his friend, and, with all his wit, knew no words at the present moment sufficiently witty to make it seem that he had not done so.

“Robarts,” said he, “you may say what you like to me now; I shall not resent it.”

“Who would care for your resentment?” said the clergyman, turning on him with ferocity. “The resentment of a gentleman is terrible to a gentleman; and the resentment of one just man is terrible to another. Your resentment!”⁠—and then he walked twice the length of the room, leaving Sowerby dumb in his seat. “I wonder whether you ever thought of my wife and children when you were plotting this ruin for me!” And then again he walked the room.

“I suppose you will be calm enough presently to speak of this with some attempt to make a settlement?”

“No; I will make no such attempt. These friends of yours, you tell me, have a claim on me for nine hundred pounds, of which they demand immediate payment. You shall be asked in a court of law how much of that money I have handled. You know that I have never touched⁠—have never wanted to touch⁠—one shilling. I will make no attempt at any settlement. My person is here, and there is my house. Let them do their worst.”

“But, Mark⁠—”

“Call me by my name, sir, and drop that affectation of regard. What an ass I have been to be so cozened by a sharper!”

Sowerby had by no means expected this. He had always known that Robarts possessed what he, Sowerby, would have called the spirit of a gentleman. He had regarded him as a bold, open, generous fellow, able to take his own part when called on to do so, and by no means disinclined to speak his own mind; but he had not expected from him such a torrent of indignation, or thought that he was capable of such a depth of anger.

“If you use such language as that, Robarts, I can only leave you.”

“You are welcome. Go. You tell me that you are the messenger of these men who intend to work nine hundred pounds out of me. You have done your part in the plot, and have now brought their message. It seems to me that you had better go back to them. As for me, I want my time to prepare my wife for the destiny before her.”

“Robarts, you will be sorry some day for the cruelty of your words.”

“I wonder whether you will ever be sorry for the cruelty of your doings, or whether these things are really a joke to you.”

“I am at this moment a ruined man,” said Sowerby. “Everything is going from me⁠—my place in the world, the estate of my family, my father’s house, my seat in Parliament, the power of living among my countrymen, or, indeed, of living anywhere;⁠—but all this does not oppress me now so much as the misery which I have brought upon you.” And then Sowerby also turned away his face, and wiped from his eyes tears which were not artificial.

Robarts was still walking up and down the room, but it was not possible for him to continue his reproaches after this. This is always the case. Let a man endure to heap contumely on his own head, and he will silence the contumely of others⁠—for the moment. Sowerby, without meditating on the matter, had had some inkling of this, and immediately saw that there was at last an opening for conversation.

“You are unjust to me,”