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

Chaldicotes with ready money; but that he, Gresham, could do so⁠—he and his wife between them⁠—no man did doubt. And then Mr. Gresham thought of a former day when he had once been at Gatherum Castle. He had been poor enough then, and the duke had not treated him in the most courteous manner in the world. How hard it is for a rich man not to lean upon his riches! harder, indeed, than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.

All Barsetshire knew⁠—at any rate all West Barsetshire⁠—that Miss Dunstable had been brought down in those parts in order that Mr. Sowerby might marry her. It was not surmised that Miss Dunstable herself had had any previous notice of this arrangement, but it was supposed that the thing would turn out as a matter of course. Mr. Sowerby had no money, but then he was witty, clever, good-looking, and a member of Parliament. He lived before the world, represented an old family, and had an old place. How could Miss Dunstable possibly do better? She was not so young now, and it was time that she should look about her.

The suggestion as regarded Mr. Sowerby was certainly true, and was not the less so as regarded some of Mr. Sowerby’s friends. His sister, Mrs. Harold Smith, had devoted herself to the work, and with this view had run up a dear friendship with Miss Dunstable. The bishop had intimated, nodding his head knowingly, that it would be a very good thing. Mrs. Proudie had given in her adherence. Mr. Supplehouse had been made to understand that it must be a case of “Paws off” with him, as long as he remained in that part of the world; and even the duke himself had desired Fothergill to manage it.

“He owes me an enormous sum of money,” said the duke, who held all Mr. Sowerby’s title-deeds, “and I doubt whether the security will be sufficient.”

“Your grace will find the security quite sufficient,” said Mr. Fothergill; “but nevertheless it would be a good match.”

“Very good,” said the duke. And then it became Mr. Fothergill’s duty to see that Mr. Sowerby and Miss Dunstable became man and wife as speedily as possible.

Some of the party, who were more wide awake than others, declared that he had made the offer; others, that he was just going to do so; and one very knowing lady went so far at one time as to say that he was making it at that moment. Bets also were laid as to the lady’s answer, as to the terms of the settlement, and as to the period of the marriage⁠—of all which poor Miss Dunstable of course knew nothing.

Mr. Sowerby, in spite of the publicity of his proceedings, proceeded in the matter very well. He said little about it to those who joked with him, but carried on the fight with what best knowledge he had in such matters. But so much it is given to us to declare with certainty, that he had not proposed on the evening previous to the morning fixed for the departure of Mark Robarts.

During the last two days Mr. Sowerby’s intimacy with Mark had grown warmer and warmer. He had talked to the vicar confidentially about the doings of these bigwigs now present at the castle, as though there were no other guest there with whom he could speak in so free a manner. He confided, it seemed, much more in Mark than in his brother-in-law, Harold Smith, or in any of his brother members of Parliament, and had altogether opened his heart to him in this affair of his anticipated marriage. Now Mr. Sowerby was a man of mark in the world, and all this flattered our young clergyman not a little.

On that evening before Robarts went away Sowerby asked him to come up into his bedroom when the whole party was breaking up, and there got him into an easy-chair while he, Sowerby, walked up and down the room.

“You can hardly tell, my dear fellow,” said he, “the state of nervous anxiety in which this puts me.”

“Why don’t you ask her and have done with it? She seems to me to be fond of your society.”

“Ah, it is not that only; there are wheels within wheels;” and then he walked once or twice up and down the room, during which Mark thought that he might as well go to bed.

“Not that I mind telling you everything,” said Sowerby. “I am infernally hard up for a little ready money just at the present moment. It may be, and indeed I think it will be, the case that I shall be ruined in this matter for the want of it.”

“Could not Harold Smith give it you?”

“Ha, ha, ha! you don’t know Harold Smith. Did you ever hear of his lending a man a shilling in his life?”

“Or Supplehouse?”

“Lord love you! You see me and Supplehouse together here, and he comes and stays at my house, and all that; but Supplehouse and I are no friends. Look you here, Mark⁠—I would do more for your little finger than for his whole hand, including the pen which he holds in it. Fothergill indeed might⁠—but then I know Fothergill is pressed himself at the present moment. It is deuced hard, isn’t it? I must give up the whole game if I can’t put my hand upon £400 within the next two days.”

“Ask her for it, herself.”

“What, the woman I wish to marry! No, Mark, I’m not quite come to that. I would sooner lose her than that.”

Mark sat silent, gazing at the fire and wishing that he was in his own bedroom. He had an idea that Mr. Sowerby wished him to produce this £400; and he knew also that he had not £400 in the world, and that if he had he would be acting very foolishly to give it to Mr. Sowerby. But nevertheless he felt half fascinated by the man, and half afraid of him.

“Lufton owes it to me to do more than this,” continued Mr. Sowerby; “but