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

Lufton’s tarradiddle was of a nature that is usually considered excusable⁠—at least with grown people; but, nevertheless, she would have been nearer to perfection could she have confined herself to the truth. Let us suppose that a boy were to write home from school, saying that another boy had promised to come and stay with him, that other having given no such promise⁠—what a very naughty boy would that first boy be in the eyes of his pastors and masters!

That little conversation between Lord Lufton and his mother⁠—in which nothing was said about his lordship’s parliamentary duties⁠—took place on the evening before he started for London. On that occasion he certainly was not in his best humour, nor did he behave to his mother in his kindest manner. He had then left the room when she began to talk about Miss Grantly; and once again in the course of the evening, when his mother, not very judiciously, said a word or two about Griselda’s beauty, he had remarked that she was no conjuror, and would hardly set the Thames on fire.

“If she were a conjuror!” said Lady Lufton, rather piqued, “I should not now be going to take her out in London. I know many of those sort of girls whom you call conjurors; they can talk forever, and always talk either loudly or in a whisper. I don’t like them, and I am sure that you do not in your heart.”

“Oh, as to liking them in my heart⁠—that is being very particular.”

“Griselda Grantly is a lady, and as such I shall be happy to have her with me in town. She is just the girl that Justinia will like to have with her.”

“Exactly,” said Lord Lufton. “She will do exceedingly well for Justinia.”

Now this was not good-natured on the part of Lord Lufton; and his mother felt it the more strongly, inasmuch as it seemed to signify that he was setting his back up against the Lufton-Grantly alliance. She had been pretty sure that he would do so in the event of his suspecting that a plot was being laid to catch him; and now it almost appeared that he did suspect such a plot. Why else that sarcasm as to Griselda doing very well for his sister?

And now we must go back and describe a little scene at Framley which will account for his lordship’s ill-humour and suspicions, and explain how it came to pass that he so snubbed his mother. This scene took place about ten days after the evening on which Mrs. Robarts and Lucy were walking together in the parsonage garden, and during those ten days Lucy had not once allowed herself to be entrapped into any special conversation with the young peer. She had dined at Framley Court during that interval, and had spent a second evening there; Lord Lufton had also been up at the parsonage on three or four occasions, and had looked for her in her usual walks; but, nevertheless, they had never come together in their old familiar way, since the day on which Lady Lufton had hinted her fears to Mrs. Robarts.

Lord Lufton had very much missed her. At first he had not attributed this change to a purposed scheme of action on the part of anyone; nor, indeed, had he much thought about it, although he had felt himself to be annoyed. But as the period fixed for his departure grew near, it did occur to him as very odd that he should never hear Lucy’s voice unless when she said a few words to his mother, or to her sister-in-law. And then he made up his mind that he would speak to her before he went, and that the mystery should be explained to him.

And he carried out his purpose, calling at the parsonage on one special afternoon; and it was on the evening of the same day that his mother sang the praises of Griselda Grantly so inopportunely. Robarts, he knew, was then absent from home, and Mrs. Robarts was with his mother down at the house, preparing lists of the poor people to be specially attended to in Lady Lufton’s approaching absence. Taking advantage of this, he walked boldly in through the parsonage garden; asked the gardener, with an indifferent voice, whether either of the ladies were at home, and then caught poor Lucy exactly on the doorstep of the house.

“Were you going in or out, Miss Robarts?”

“Well, I was going out,” said Lucy; and she began to consider how best she might get quit of any prolonged encounter.

“Oh, going out, were you? I don’t know whether I may offer to⁠—”

“Well, Lord Lufton, not exactly, seeing that I am about to pay a visit to our near neighbour, Mrs. Podgens. Perhaps you have no particular call towards Mrs. Podgens’ just at present, or to her new baby?”

“And have you any very particular call that way?”

“Yes, and especially to Baby Podgens. Baby Podgens is a real little duck⁠—only just two days old.” And Lucy, as she spoke, progressed a step or two, as though she were determined not to remain there talking on the doorstep.

A slight cloud came across his brow as he saw this, and made him resolve that she should not gain her purpose. He was not going to be foiled in that way by such a girl as Lucy Robarts. He had come there to speak to her, and speak to her he would. There had been enough of intimacy between them to justify him in demanding, at any rate, as much as that.

“Miss Robarts,” he said, “I am starting for London tomorrow, and if I do not say goodbye to you now, I shall not be able to do so at all.”

“Goodbye, Lord Lufton,” she said, giving him her hand, and smiling on him with her old genial, good-humoured, racy smile. “And mind you bring into Parliament that law which you promised me for defending my young chickens.”

He took her hand, but that was not all that