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

the parsonage, Mark was there, and they were of course expecting her. “Well,” said she, in her short, hurried manner, “is Puck ready again? I have no time to lose, and I must go and pack up a few things. Have you settled about the children, Fanny?”

“Yes; I will tell you directly; but you have seen Lady Lufton?”

“Seen her! Oh, yes, of course I have seen her. Did she not send for me? and in that case it was not on the cards that I should disobey her.”

“And what did she say?”

“How green you are, Mark; and not only green, but impolite also, to make me repeat the story of my own disgrace. Of course she told me that she did not intend that I should marry my lord, her son; and of course I said that under those circumstances I should not think of doing such a thing.”

“Lucy, I cannot understand you,” said Fanny, very gravely. “I am sometimes inclined to doubt whether you have any deep feeling in the matter or not. If you have, how can you bring yourself to joke about it?”

“Well, it is singular; and sometimes I doubt myself whether I have. I ought to be pale, ought I not? and very thin, and to go mad by degrees? I have not the least intention of doing anything of the kind, and, therefore, the matter is not worth any further notice.”

“But was she civil to you, Lucy?” asked Mark; “civil in her manner, you know?”

“Oh, uncommonly so. You will hardly believe it, but she actually asked me to dine. She always does, you know, when she wants to show her good-humour. If you’d broken your leg, and she wished to commiserate you, she’d ask you to dinner.”

“I suppose she meant to be kind,” said Fanny, who was not disposed to give up her old friend, though she was quite ready to fight Lucy’s battle, if there were any occasion for a battle to be fought.

“Lucy is so perverse,” said Mark, “that it is impossible to learn from her what really has taken place.”

“Upon my word, then, you know it all as well as I can tell you. She asked me if Lord Lufton had made me an offer. I said, yes. She asked next, if I meant to accept it. Not without her approval, I said. And then she asked us all to dinner. That is exactly what took place, and I cannot see that I have been perverse at all.” After that she threw herself into a chair, and Mark and Fanny stood looking at each other.

“Mark,” she said, after a while, “don’t be unkind to me. I make as little of it as I can, for all our sakes. It is better so, Fanny, than that I should go about moaning, like a sick cow;” and then they looked at her, and saw that the tears were already brimming over from her eyes.

“Dearest, dearest Lucy,” said Fanny, immediately going down on her knees before her, “I won’t be unkind to you again.” And then they had a great cry together.

XXXVI Kidnapping at Hogglestock

The great cry, however, did not take long, and Lucy was soon in the pony-carriage again. On this occasion her brother volunteered to drive her, and it was now understood that he was to bring back with him all the Crawley children. The whole thing had been arranged; the groom and his wife were to be taken into the house, and the big bedroom across the yard, usually occupied by them, was to be converted into a quarantine hospital until such time as it might be safe to pull down the yellow flag. They were about half way on their road to Hogglestock when they were overtaken by a man on horseback, whom, when he came up beside them, Mr. Robarts recognized as Dr. Arabin, Dean of Barchester, and head of the chapter to which he himself belonged. It immediately appeared that the dean also was going to Hogglestock, having heard of the misfortune that had befallen his friends there; he had, he said, started as soon as the news reached him, in order that he might ascertain how best he might render assistance. To effect this he had undertaken a ride of nearly forty miles, and explained that he did not expect to reach home again much before midnight.

“You pass by Framley?” said Robarts.

“Yes, I do,” said the dean.

“Then of course you will dine with us as you go home; you and your horse also, which will be quite as important.” This having been duly settled, and the proper ceremony of introduction having taken place between the dean and Lucy, they proceeded to discuss the character of Mr. Crawley.

“I have known him all my life,” said the dean, “having been at school and college with him, and for years since that I was on terms of the closest intimacy with him; but in spite of that, I do not know how to help him in his need. A prouder-hearted man I never met, or one less willing to share his sorrows with his friends.”

“I have often heard him speak of you,” said Mark.

“One of the bitterest feelings I have is that a man so dear to me should live so near to me, and that I should see so little of him. But what can I do? He will not come to my house; and when I go to his he is angry with me because I wear a shovel hat and ride on horseback.”

“I should leave my hat and my horse at the borders of the last parish,” said Lucy, timidly.

“Well; yes, certainly; one ought not to give offence even in such matters as that; but my coat and waistcoat would then be equally objectionable. I have changed⁠—in outward matters I mean⁠—and he has not. That irritates him, and unless I could be what I was in the old days, he will not look at me