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

said Griselda, and stared at the coals more perseveringly than before.

“He is a young man of a most excellent disposition⁠—though he is my own son, I will say that⁠—and if there should be anything between you and him⁠—”

“There isn’t, indeed, Lady Lufton.”

“But if there ever should be, I should be delighted to think that Ludovic had made so good a choice.”

“But there will never be anything of the sort, I’m sure, Lady Lufton. He is not thinking of such a thing in the least.”

“Well, perhaps he may, some day. And now, good night, my dear.”

“Good night, Lady Lufton.” And Griselda kissed her with the utmost composure, and betook herself to her own bedroom. Before she retired to sleep she looked carefully to her different articles of dress, discovering what amount of damage the evening’s wear and tear might have inflicted.

XXI Why Puck, the Pony, Was Beaten

Mark Robarts returned home the day after the scene at the Albany, considerably relieved in spirit. He now felt that he might accept the stall without discredit to himself as a clergyman in doing so. Indeed, after what Mr. Sowerby had said, and after Lord Lufton’s assent to it, it would have been madness, he considered, to decline it. And then, too, Mr. Sowerby’s promise about the bills was very comfortable to him. After all, might it not be possible that he might get rid of all these troubles with no other drawback than that of having to pay £130 for a horse that was well worth the money?

On the day after his return he received proper authentic tidings of his presentation to the prebend. He was, in fact, already prebendary, or would be as soon as the dean and chapter had gone through the form of instituting him in his stall. The income was already his own; and the house also would be given up to him in a week’s time⁠—a part of the arrangement with which he would most willingly have dispensed had it been at all possible to do so. His wife congratulated him nicely, with open affection, and apparent satisfaction at the arrangement. The enjoyment of one’s own happiness at such windfalls depends so much on the free and freely expressed enjoyment of others! Lady Lufton’s congratulations had nearly made him throw up the whole thing; but his wife’s smiles re-encouraged him; and Lucy’s warm and eager joy made him feel quite delighted with Mr. Sowerby and the Duke of Omnium. And then that splendid animal, Dandy, came home to the parsonage stables, much to the delight of the groom and gardener, and of the assistant stable boy who had been allowed to creep into the establishment, unawares as it were, since “master” had taken so keenly to hunting. But this satisfaction was not shared in the drawing-room. The horse was seen on his first journey round to the stable gate, and questions were immediately asked. It was a horse, Mark said, “which he had bought from Mr. Sowerby some little time since with the object of obliging him. He, Mark, intended to sell him again, as soon as he could do so judiciously.” This, as I have said above, was not satisfactory. Neither of the two ladies at Framley Parsonage knew much about horses, or of the manner in which one gentleman might think it proper to oblige another by purchasing the superfluities of his stable; but they did both feel that there were horses enough in the parsonage stable without Dandy, and that the purchasing of a hunter with the view of immediately selling him again, was, to say the least of it, an operation hardly congenial with the usual tastes and pursuits of a clergyman.

“I hope you did not give very much money for him, Mark,” said Fanny.

“Not more than I shall get again,” said Mark; and Fanny saw from the form of his countenance that she had better not pursue the subject any further at that moment.

“I suppose I shall have to go into residence almost immediately,” said Mark, recurring to the more agreeable subject of the stall.

“And shall we all have to go and live at Barchester at once?” asked Lucy.

“The house will not be furnished, will it, Mark?” said his wife. “I don’t know how we shall get on.”

“Don’t frighten yourselves. I shall take lodgings in Barchester.”

“And we shall not see you all the time,” said Mrs. Robarts with dismay. But the prebendary explained that he would be backwards and forwards at Framley every week, and that in all probability he would only sleep at Barchester on the Saturdays and Sundays⁠—and, perhaps, not always then.

“It does not seem very hard work, that of a prebendary,” said Lucy.

“But it is very dignified,” said Fanny. “Prebendaries are dignitaries of the Church⁠—are they not, Mark?”

“Decidedly,” said he; “and their wives also, by special canon law. The worst of it is that both of them are obliged to wear wigs.”

“Shall you have a hat, Mark, with curly things at the side, and strings through to hold them up?” asked Lucy.

“I fear that does not come within my perquisites.”

“Nor a rosette? Then I shall never believe that you are a dignitary. Do you mean to say that you will wear a hat like a common parson⁠—like Mr. Crawley, for instance?”

“Well⁠—I believe I may give a twist to the leaf; but I am by no means sure till I shall have consulted the dean in chapter.”

And thus at the parsonage they talked over the good things that were coming to them, and endeavoured to forget the new horse, and the hunting boots that had been used so often during the last winter, and Lady Lufton’s altered countenance. It might be that the evils would vanish away, and the good things alone remain to them.

It was now the month of April, and the fields were beginning to look green, and the wind had got itself out of the east and was soft and genial, and the early spring flowers were showing their