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

been there twice with the object of seeing her, but on both occasions Lucy had managed to escape. Now we may say she was fairly caught, and Lord Lufton, taking a pair of pheasants from the gamekeeper, and swinging them over his shoulder, walked off with his prey.

“You have been here a long time,” he said, “without our having had the pleasure of seeing you.”

“Yes, my lord,” said Lucy. Lords had not been frequent among her acquaintance hitherto.

“I tell Mrs. Robarts that she has been confining you illegally, and that we shall release you by force or stratagem.”

“I⁠—I⁠—I have had a great sorrow lately.”

“Yes, Miss Robarts; I know you have; and I am only joking, you know. But I do hope that now you will be able to come amongst us. My mother is so anxious that you should do so.”

“I am sure she is very kind, and you also⁠—my lord.”

“I never knew my own father,” said Lord Lufton, speaking gravely. “But I can well understand what a loss you have had.” And then, after pausing a moment, he continued, “I remember Dr. Robarts well.”

“Do you, indeed?” said Lucy, turning sharply towards him, and speaking now with some animation in her voice. Nobody had yet spoken to her about her father since she had been at Framley. It had been as though the subject were a forbidden one. And how frequently is this the case! When those we love are dead, our friends dread to mention them, though to us who are bereaved no subject would be so pleasant as their names. But we rarely understand how to treat our own sorrow or those of others.

There was once a people in some land⁠—and they may be still there for what I know⁠—who thought it sacrilegious to stay the course of a raging fire. If a house were being burned, burn it must, even though there were facilities for saving it. For who would dare to interfere with the course of the god? Our idea of sorrow is much the same. We think it wicked, or at any rate heartless, to put it out. If a man’s wife be dead, he should go about lugubrious, with long face, for at least two years, or perhaps with full length for eighteen months, decreasing gradually during the other six. If he be a man who can quench his sorrow⁠—put out his fire as it were⁠—in less time than that, let him at any rate not show his power!

“Yes: I remember him,” continued Lord Lufton. “He came twice to Framley while I was a boy, consulting with my mother about Mark and myself⁠—whether the Eton floggings were not more efficacious than those at Harrow. He was very kind to me, foreboding all manner of good things on my behalf.”

“He was very kind to everyone,” said Lucy.

“I should think he would have been⁠—a kind, good, genial man⁠—just the man to be adored by his own family.”

“Exactly; and so he was. I do not remember that I ever heard an unkind word from him. There was not a harsh tone in his voice. And he was generous as the day.” Lucy, we have said, was not generally demonstrative, but now, on this subject, and with this absolute stranger, she became almost eloquent.

“I do not wonder that you should feel his loss, Miss Robarts.”

“Oh, I do feel it. Mark is the best of brothers, and, as for Fanny, she is too kind and too good to me. But I had always been specially my father’s friend. For the last year or two we had lived so much together!”

“He was an old man when he died, was he not?”

“Just seventy, my lord.”

“Ah, then he was old. My mother is only fifty, and we sometimes call her the old woman. Do you think she looks older than that? We all say that she makes herself out to be so much more ancient than she need do.”

“Lady Lufton does not dress young.”

“That is it. She never has, in my memory. She always used to wear black when I first recollect her. She has given that up now; but she is still very sombre; is she not?”

“I do not like ladies to dress very young, that is, ladies of⁠—of⁠—”

“Ladies of fifty, we will say?”

“Very well; ladies of fifty, if you like it.”

“Then I am sure you will like my mother.”

They had now turned up through the parsonage wicket, a little gate that opened into the garden at a point on the road nearer than the chief entrance.

“I suppose I shall find Mark up at the house?” said he.

“I daresay you will, my lord.”

“Well, I’ll go round this way, for my business is partly in the stable. You see I am quite at home here, though you never have seen me before. But, Miss Robarts, now that the ice is broken, I hope that we may be friends.” He then put out his hand, and when she gave him hers he pressed it almost as an old friend might have done.

And, indeed, Lucy had talked to him almost as though he were an old friend. For a minute or two she had forgotten that he was a lord and a stranger⁠—had forgotten also to be stiff and guarded as was her wont. Lord Lufton had spoken to her as though he had really cared to know her; and she, unconsciously, had been taken by the compliment. Lord Lufton, indeed, had not thought much about it⁠—excepting as thus, that he liked the glance of a pair of bright eyes, as most other young men do like it. But, on this occasion, the evening had been so dark, that he had hardly seen Lucy’s eyes at all.

“Well, Lucy, I hope you liked your companion,” Mrs. Robarts said, as the three of them clustered round the drawing-room fire before dinner.

“Oh, yes; pretty well,” said Lucy.

“That is not at all complimentary to his lordship.”

“I did not mean to be complimentary, Fanny.”

“Lucy is a great deal too matter-of-fact for compliments,”