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

only man friend with whom I was ever intimate, and I cannot bear to think that he should throw himself away. It’s horridly improper to care about such a thing, I have no doubt.”

“I think we might acknowledge that if he and his mother are both satisfied, we may be satisfied also.”

“I shall not be satisfied. It’s no use your looking at me, Fanny. You will make me talk of it, and I won’t tell a lie on the subject. I do like Lord Lufton very much; and I do dislike Griselda Grantly almost as much. Therefore I shall not be satisfied if they become man and wife. However, I do not suppose that either of them will ask my consent; nor is it probable that Lady Lufton will do so.” And then they went on for perhaps a quarter of a mile without speaking.

“Poor Puck!” at last Lucy said. “He shan’t be whipped any more, shall he, because Miss Grantly looks like a statue? And, Fanny, don’t tell Mark to put me into a lunatic asylum. I also know a hawk from a heron, and that’s why I don’t like to see such a very unfitting marriage.” There was then nothing more said on the subject, and in two minutes they arrived at the house of the Hogglestock clergyman.

Mrs. Crawley had brought two children with her when she came from the Cornish curacy to Hogglestock, and two other babies had been added to her cares since then. One of these was now ill with croup, and it was with the object of offering to the mother some comfort and solace, that the present visit was made. The two ladies got down from their carriage, having obtained the services of a boy to hold Puck, and soon found themselves in Mrs. Crawley’s single sitting-room. She was sitting there with her foot on the board of a child’s cradle, rocking it, while an infant about three months old was lying in her lap. For the elder one, who was the sufferer, had in her illness usurped the baby’s place. Two other children, considerably older, were also in the room. The eldest was a girl, perhaps nine years of age, and the other a boy three years her junior. These were standing at their father’s elbow, who was studiously endeavouring to initiate them in the early mysteries of grammar. To tell the truth Mrs. Robarts would much have preferred that Mr. Crawley had not been there, for she had with her and about her certain contraband articles, presents for the children, as they were to be called, but in truth relief for that poor, much-tasked mother, which they knew it would be impossible to introduce in Mr. Crawley’s presence.

She, as we have said, was not quite so gaunt, not altogether so haggard as in the latter of those dreadful Cornish days. Lady Lufton and Mrs. Arabin between them, and the scanty comfort of their improved, though still wretched income, had done something towards bringing her back to the world in which she had lived in the soft days of her childhood. But even the liberal stipend of a hundred and thirty pounds a-year⁠—liberal according to the scale by which the incomes of clergymen in some of our new districts are now apportioned⁠—would not admit of a gentleman with his wife and four children living with the ordinary comforts of an artisan’s family. As regards the mere eating and drinking, the amounts of butcher’s meat and tea and butter, they of course were used in quantities which any artisan would have regarded as compatible only with demi-starvation. Better clothing for her children was necessary, and better clothing for him. As for her own raiment, the wives of few artisans would have been content to put up with Mrs. Crawley’s best gown. The stuff of which it was made had been paid for by her mother when she with much difficulty bestowed upon her daughter her modest wedding trousseau.

Lucy had never seen Mrs. Crawley. These visits to Hogglestock were not frequent, and had generally been made by Lady Lufton and Mrs. Robarts together. It was known that they were distasteful to Mr. Crawley, who felt a savage satisfaction in being left to himself. It may almost be said of him that he felt angry with those who relieved him, and he had certainly never as yet forgiven the Dean of Barchester for paying his debts. The dean had also given him his present living; and consequently his old friend was not now so dear to him as when in old days he would come down to that farmhouse, almost as penniless as the curate himself. Then they would walk together for hours along the rockbound shore, listening to the waves, discussing deep polemical mysteries, sometimes with hot fury, then again with tender, loving charity, but always with a mutual acknowledgment of each other’s truth. Now they lived comparatively near together, but no opportunities arose for such discussions. At any rate once a quarter Mr. Crawley was pressed by his old friend to visit him at the deanery, and Dr. Arabin had promised that no one else should be in the house if Mr. Crawley objected to society. But this was not what he wanted. The finery and grandeur of the deanery, and the comfort of that warm, snug library, would silence him at once. Why did not Dr. Arabin come out there to Hogglestock, and tramp with him through the dirty lanes as they used to tramp? Then he could have enjoyed himself; then he could have talked; then old days would have come back to them. But now!⁠—“Arabin always rides on a sleek, fine horse, nowadays,” he once said to his wife with a sneer. His poverty had been so terrible to himself that it was not in his heart to love a rich friend.

XXII Hogglestock Parsonage

At the end of the last chapter, we left Lucy Robarts waiting for an introduction to Mrs. Crawley, who was sitting with one baby in her