Part 8 (1/2)
”Here is the letter, Lady Lufton; perhaps you had better read it;”
and f.a.n.n.y handed it to her, again keeping back the postscript. She had read and re-read the letter downstairs, but could not make out whether her husband had intended her to show it. From the line of the argument she thought that he must have done so. At any rate he said for himself more than she could say for him, and so, probably, it was best that her ladys.h.i.+p should see it.
Lady Lufton took it, and read it, and her face grew blacker and blacker. Her mind was set against the writer before she began it, and every word in it tended to make her feel more estranged from him.
”Oh, he is going to the palace, is he?--well; he must choose his own friends. Harold Smith one of his party! It's a pity, my dear, he did not see Miss Proudie before he met you, he might have lived to be the bishop's chaplain. Gatherum Castle! You don't mean to tell me that he is going there? Then I tell you fairly, f.a.n.n.y, that I have done with him.”
”Oh, Lady Lufton, don't say that,” said Mrs. Robarts, with tears in her eyes.
”Mamma, mamma, don't speak in that way,” said Lady Meredith.
”But my dear, what am I to say? I must speak in that way. You would not wish me to speak falsehoods, would you? A man must choose for himself, but he can't live with two different sets of people; at least, not if I belong to one and the Duke of Omnium to the other.
The bishop going indeed! If there be anything that I hate it is hypocrisy.”
”There is no hypocrisy in that, Lady Lufton.”
”But I say there is, f.a.n.n.y. Very strange, indeed! 'Put off his defence!' Why should a man need any defence to his wife if he acts in a straightforward way? His own language condemns him: 'Wrong to stand out!' Now, will either of you tell me that Mr. Robarts would really have thought it wrong to refuse that invitation? I say that that is hypocrisy. There is no other word for it.”
By this time the poor wife, who had been in tears, was wiping them away and preparing for action. Lady Lufton's extreme severity gave her courage. She knew that it behoved her to fight for her husband when he was thus attacked. Had Lady Lufton been moderate in her remarks Mrs. Robarts would not have had a word to say.
”My husband may have been ill-judged,” she said, ”but he is no hypocrite.”
”Very well, my dear, I dare say you know better than I; but to me it looks extremely like hypocrisy: eh, Justinia?”
”Oh, mamma, do be moderate.”
”Moderate! That's all very well. How is one to moderate one's feelings when one has been betrayed?”
”You do not mean that Mr. Robarts has betrayed you?” said the wife.
”Oh, no; of course not.” And then she went on reading the letter: ”'Seem to have been standing in judgment upon the duke.' Might he not use the same argument as to going into any house in the kingdom, however infamous? We must all stand in judgment one upon another in that sense. 'Crawley!' Yes; if he were a little more like Mr. Crawley it would be a good thing for me, and for the parish, and for you too, my dear. G.o.d forgive me for bringing him here; that's all.”
”Lady Lufton, I must say that you are very hard upon him--very hard.
I did not expect it from such a friend.”
”My dear, you ought to know me well enough to be sure that I shall speak my mind. 'Written to Jones'--yes; it is easy enough to write to poor Jones. He had better write to Jones, and bid him do the whole duty. Then he can go and be the duke's domestic chaplain.”
”I believe my husband does as much of his own duty as any clergyman in the whole diocese,” said Mrs. Robarts, now again in tears.
”And you are to take his work in the school; you and Mrs. Podgens.
What with his curate and his wife and Mrs. Podgens, I don't see why he should come back at all.”
”Oh, mamma,” said Justinia, ”pray, pray don't be so harsh to her.”
”Let me finish it, my dear;--oh, here I come. 'Tell her ladys.h.i.+p my whereabouts.' He little thought you'd show me this letter.”
”Didn't he?” said Mrs. Robarts, putting out her hand to get it back, but in vain. ”I thought it was for the best; I did indeed.”
”I had better finish it now, if you please. What is this? How does he dare send his ribald jokes to me in such a matter? No, I do not suppose I ever shall like Dr. Proudie; I have never expected it. A matter of conscience with him! Well--well, well. Had I not read it myself, I could not have believed it of him. I would not positively have believed it. 'Coming from my parish he could not go to the Duke of Omnium!' And it is what I would wish to have said. People fit for this parish should not be fit for the Duke of Omnium's house. And I had trusted that he would have this feeling more strongly than any one else in it. I have been deceived--that's all.”
”He has done nothing to deceive you, Lady Lufton.”