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

party⁠—not a pure-minded conversazione like Mrs. Proudie, but a downright wicked worldly dance, at which there were fiddles, ices, and champagne sufficient to run away with the first quarter’s salary accruing to Harold from the Petty Bag Office. To us this ball is chiefly memorable from the fact that Lady Lufton was among the guests. Immediately on her arrival in town she received cards from Mrs. H. Smith for herself and Griselda, and was about to send back a reply at once declining the honour. What had she to do at the house of Mr. Sowerby’s sister? But it so happened that at that moment her son was with her, and as he expressed a wish that she should go, she yielded. Had there been nothing in his tone of persuasion more than ordinary⁠—had it merely had reference to herself⁠—she would have smiled on him for his kind solicitude, have made out some occasion for kissing his forehead as she thanked him, and would still have declined. But he had reminded her both of himself and Griselda. “You might as well go, mother, for the sake of meeting me,” he said; “Mrs. Harold caught me the other day, and would not liberate me till I had given her a promise.”

“That is an attraction certainly,” said Lady Lufton. “I do like going to a house when I know that you will be there.”

“And now that Miss Grantly is with you⁠—you owe it to her to do the best you can for her.”

“I certainly do, Ludovic; and I have to thank you for reminding me of my duty so gallantly.” And so she said that she would go to Mrs. Harold Smith’s. Poor lady! She gave much more weight to those few words about Miss Grantly than they deserved. It rejoiced her heart to think that her son was anxious to meet Griselda⁠—that he should perpetrate this little ruse in order to gain his wish. But he had spoken out of the mere emptiness of his mind, without thought of what he was saying, excepting that he wished to please his mother.

But nevertheless he went to Mrs. Harold Smith’s, and when there he did dance more than once with Griselda Grantly⁠—to the manifest discomfiture of Lord Dumbello. He came in late, and at the moment Lord Dumbello was moving slowly up the room, with Griselda on his arm, while Lady Lufton was sitting near looking on with unhappy eyes. And then Griselda sat down, and Lord Dumbello stood mute at her elbow.

“Ludovic,” whispered his mother, “Griselda is absolutely bored by that man, who follows her like a ghost. Do go and rescue her.”

He did go and rescue her, and afterwards danced with her for the best part of an hour consecutively. He knew that the world gave Lord Dumbello the credit of admiring the young lady, and was quite alive to the pleasure of filling his brother nobleman’s heart with jealousy and anger. Moreover, Griselda was in his eyes very beautiful, and had she been one whit more animated, or had his mother’s tactics been but a thought better concealed, Griselda might have been asked that night to share the vacant throne at Lufton, in spite of all that had been said and sworn in the drawing-room of Framley Parsonage.

It must be remembered that our gallant, gay Lothario had passed some considerable number of days with Miss Grantly in his mother’s house, and the danger of such contiguity must be remembered also. Lord Lufton was by no means a man capable of seeing beauty unmoved or of spending hours with a young lady without some approach to tenderness. Had there been no such approach, it is probable that Lady Lufton would not have pursued the matter. But, according to her ideas on such subjects, her son Ludovic had on some occasions shown quite sufficient partiality for Miss Grantly to justify her in her hopes, and to lead her to think that nothing but opportunity was wanted. Now, at this ball of Mrs. Smith’s, he did, for a while, seem to be taking advantage of such opportunity, and his mother’s heart was glad. If things should turn out well on this evening she would forgive Mrs. Harold Smith all her sins.

And for a while it looked as though things would turn out well. Not that it must be supposed that Lord Lufton had come there with any intention of making love to Griselda, or that he ever had any fixed thought that he was doing so. Young men in such matters are so often without any fixed thoughts! They are such absolute moths. They amuse themselves with the light of the beautiful candle, fluttering about, on and off, in and out of the flame with dazzled eyes, till in a rash moment they rush in too near the wick, and then fall with singed wings and crippled legs, burnt up and reduced to tinder by the consuming fire of matrimony. Happy marriages, men say, are made in heaven, and I believe it. Most marriages are fairly happy, in spite of Sir Cresswell Cresswell; and yet how little care is taken on earth towards such a result!

“I hope my mother is using you well?” said Lord Lufton to Griselda, as they were standing together in a doorway between the dances.

“Oh, yes: she is very kind.”

“You have been rash to trust yourself in the hands of so very staid and demure a person. And, indeed, you owe your presence here at Mrs. Harold Smith’s first cabinet ball altogether to me. I don’t know whether you are aware of that.”

“Oh, yes: Lady Lufton told me.”

“And are you grateful or otherwise? Have I done you an injury or a benefit? Which do you find best, sitting with a novel in the corner of a sofa in Bruton Street, or pretending to dance polkas here with Lord Dumbello?”

“I don’t know what you mean. I haven’t stood up with Lord Dumbello all the evening. We were going to dance a quadrille, but we didn’t.”

“Exactly; just what I