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

to him about it. Of course I talked to him.”

“And what did you tell him?”

“I told him⁠—”

“Well, out with it. Let me have the real facts. Mind, I tell you fairly that you had no right to tell him anything. What passed between us, passed in confidence. But let us hear what you did say.”

“I told him that you would have him if he offered.” And Mrs. Gresham, as she spoke, looked into her friend’s face doubtingly, not knowing whether in very truth Miss Dunstable were pleased with her or displeased. If she were displeased, then how had her uncle been deceived!

“You told him that as a fact?”

“I told him that I thought so.”

“Then I suppose I am bound to have him,” said Miss Dunstable, dropping the letter on to the floor in mock despair.

“My dear, dear, dearest woman!” said Mrs. Gresham, bursting into tears, and throwing herself on to her friend’s neck.

“Mind you are a dutiful niece,” said Miss Dunstable. “And now let me go and finish dressing.”

In the course of the afternoon, an answer was sent back to Greshamsbury, in these words:⁠—

Dear Dr. Thorne⁠—I do and will trust you in everything; and it shall be as you would have it. Mary writes to you; but do not believe a word she says. I never will again, for she has behaved so bad in this matter.

Yours affectionately and very truly,

Martha Dunstable.

“And so I am going to marry the richest woman in England,” said Dr. Thorne to himself, as he sat down that day to his mutton-chop.

XL Internecine

It must be conceived that there was some feeling of triumph at Plumstead Episcopi, when the wife of the rector returned home with her daughter, the bride elect of the Lord Dumbello. The heir of the Marquis of Hartletop was, in wealth, the most considerable unmarried young nobleman of the day; he was noted, too, as a man difficult to be pleased, as one who was very fine and who gave himself airs⁠—and to have been selected as the wife of such a man as this was a great thing for the daughter of a parish clergyman. We have seen in what manner the happy girl’s mother communicated the fact to Lady Lufton, hiding, as it were, her pride under a veil; and we have seen also how meekly the happy girl bore her own great fortune, applying herself humbly to the packing of her clothes, as though she ignored her own glory.

But nevertheless there was triumph at Plumstead Episcopi. The mother, when she returned home, began to feel that she had been thoroughly successful in the great object of her life. While she was yet in London she had hardly realized her satisfaction, and there were doubts then whether the cup might not be dashed from her lips before it was tasted. It might be that even the son of the Marquis of Hartletop was subject to parental authority, and that barriers should spring up between Griselda and her coronet; but there had been nothing of the kind. The archdeacon had been closeted with the marquis, and Mrs. Grantly had been closeted with the marchioness; and though neither of those noble persons had expressed themselves gratified by their son’s proposed marriage, so also neither of them had made any attempt to prevent it. Lord Dumbello was a man who had a will of his own⁠—as the Grantlys boasted amongst themselves. Poor Griselda! the day may perhaps come when this fact of her lord’s masterful will may not to her be matter of much boasting. But in London, as I was saying, there had been no time for an appreciation of the family joy. The work to be done was nervous in its nature, and self-glorification might have been fatal; but now, when they were safe at Plumstead, the great truth burst upon them in all its splendour.

Mrs. Grantly had but one daughter, and the formation of that child’s character and her establishment in the world had been the one main object of the mother’s life. Of Griselda’s great beauty the Plumstead household had long been conscious; of her discretion also, of her conduct, and of her demeanour there had been no doubt. But the father had sometimes hinted to the mother that he did not think that Grizzy was quite so clever as her brothers. “I don’t agree with you at all,” Mrs. Grantly had answered. “Besides, what you call cleverness is not at all necessary in a girl; she is perfectly ladylike; even you won’t deny that.” The archdeacon had never wished to deny it, and was now fain to admit that what he had called cleverness was not necessary in a young lady.

At this period of the family glory the archdeacon himself was kept a little in abeyance, and was hardly allowed free intercourse with his own magnificent child. Indeed, to give him his due, it must be said of him that he would not consent to walk in the triumphal procession which moved with stately step, to and fro, through the Barchester regions. He kissed his daughter and blessed her, and bade her love her husband and be a good wife; but such injunctions as these, seeing how splendidly she had done her duty in securing to herself a marquis, seemed out of place and almost vulgar. Girls about to marry curates or sucking barristers should be told to do their duty in that station of life to which God might be calling them; but it seemed to be almost an impertinence in a father to give such an injunction to a future marchioness.

“I do not think that you have any ground for fear on her behalf,” said Mrs. Grantly, “seeing in what way she has hitherto conducted herself.”

“She has been a good girl,” said the archdeacon, “but she is about to be placed in a position of great temptation.”

“She has a strength of mind suited for any position,” replied Mrs. Grantly, vain-gloriously.

But nevertheless even the archdeacon