Part 26 (1/2)

”Anything wrong--no. I don't know whether it would be anything wrong, even if I were to fall in love with him. I wonder whether they cautioned Griselda Grantly when she was here? I suppose when young lords go about, all the girls are cautioned as a matter of course.

Why do they not label him 'dangerous'?” And then again they were silent for a moment, as Mrs. Robarts did not feel that she had anything further to say on the matter.

”'Poison' should be the word with any one so fatal as Lord Lufton; and he ought to be made up of some particular colour, for fear he should be swallowed in mistake.”

”You will be safe, you see,” said f.a.n.n.y, laughing, ”as you have been specially cautioned as to this individual bottle.”

”Ah! but what's the use of that after I have had so many doses? It is no good telling me about it now, when the mischief is done,--after I have been taking it for I don't know how long. Dear! dear! dear! and I regarded it as a mere commonplace powder, good for the complexion.

I wonder whether it's too late, or whether there's any antidote?”

Mrs. Robarts did not always quite understand her sister-in-law, and now she was a little at a loss. ”I don't think there's much harm done yet on either side,” she said, cheerily.

”Ah! you don't know, f.a.n.n.y. But I do think that if I die--as I shall--I feel I shall;--and if so, I do think it ought to go very hard with Lady Lufton. Why didn't she label him 'dangerous' in time?”

And then they went into the house and up to their own rooms.

It was difficult for any one to understand Lucy's state of mind at present, and it can hardly be said that she understood it herself.

She felt that she had received a severe blow in having been thus made the subject of remark with reference to Lord Lufton. She knew that her pleasant evenings at Framley Court were now over, and that she could not again talk to him in an unrestrained tone and without embarra.s.sment. She had felt the air of the whole place to be very cold before her intimacy with him, and now it must be cold again.

Two homes had been open to her, Framley Court and the parsonage; and now, as far as comfort was concerned, she must confine herself to the latter. She could not again be comfortable in Lady Lufton's drawing-room.

But then she could not help asking herself whether Lady Lufton was not right. She had had courage enough, and presence of mind, to joke about the matter when her sister-in-law spoke to her, and yet she was quite aware that it was no joking matter. Lord Lufton had not absolutely made love to her, but he had latterly spoken to her in a manner which she knew was not compatible with that ordinary comfortable masculine friends.h.i.+p with the idea of which she had once satisfied herself. Was not f.a.n.n.y right when she said that intimate friends.h.i.+ps of that nature were dangerous things?

Yes, Lucy, very dangerous. Lucy, before she went to bed that night, had owned to herself that they were so; and lying there with sleepless eyes and a moist pillow, she was driven to confess that the label would in truth be now too late, that the caution had come to her after the poison had been swallowed. Was there any antidote? That was all that was left for her to consider. But, nevertheless, on the following morning she could appear quite at her ease. And when Mark had left the house after breakfast, she could still joke with f.a.n.n.y as to Lady Lufton's poison cupboard.

CHAPTER XIV.

MR. CRAWLEY OF HOGGLESTOCK.

And then there was that other trouble in Lady Lufton's mind, the sins, namely, of her selected parson. She had selected him, and she was by no means inclined to give him up, even though his sins against parsondom were grievous. Indeed she was a woman not p.r.o.ne to give up anything, and of all things not p.r.o.ne to give up a _protege_.

The very fact that she herself had selected him was the strongest argument in his favour.

But his sins against parsondom were becoming very grievous in her eyes, and she was at a loss to know what steps to take. She hardly dared to take him to task, him himself. Were she to do so, and should he then tell her to mind her own business--as he probably might do, though not in those words--there would be a schism in the parish; and almost anything would be better than that. The whole work of her life would be upset, all the outlets of her energy would be impeded if not absolutely closed, if a state of things were to come to pa.s.s in which she and the parson of her parish should not be on good terms.

But what was to be done? Early in the winter he had gone to Chaldicotes and to Gatherum Castle, consorting with gamblers, Whigs, atheists, men of loose pleasure, and Proudieites. That she had condoned; and now he was turning out a hunting parson on her hands.

It was all very well for f.a.n.n.y to say that he merely looked at the hounds as he rode about his parish. f.a.n.n.y might be deceived. Being his wife, it might be her duty not to see her husband's iniquities.

But Lady Lufton could not be deceived. She knew very well in what part of the county Cobbold's Ashes lay. It was not in Framley parish, nor in the next parish to it. It was half-way across to Chaldicotes--in the western division; and she had heard of that run in which two horses had been killed, and in which Parson Robarts had won such immortal glory among West Ba.r.s.ets.h.i.+re sportsmen. It was not easy to keep Lady Lufton in the dark as to matters occurring in her own county.

All these things she knew, but as yet had not noticed, grieving over them in her own heart the more on that account. Spoken grief relieves itself; and when one can give counsel, one always hopes at least that that counsel will be effective. To her son she had said, more than once, that it was a pity that Mr. Robarts should follow the hounds.--”The world has agreed that it is unbecoming in a clergyman,”

she would urge, in her deprecatory tone. But her son would by no means give her any comfort. ”He doesn't hunt, you know--not as I do,”

he would say. ”And if he did, I really don't see the harm of it. A man must have some amus.e.m.e.nt, even if he be an archbishop.” ”He has amus.e.m.e.nt at home,” Lady Lufton would answer. ”What does his wife do--and his sister?” This allusion to Lucy, however, was very soon dropped.

Lord Lufton would in no wise help her. He would not even pa.s.sively discourage the vicar, or refrain from offering to give him a seat in going to the meets. Mark and Lord Lufton had been boys together, and his lords.h.i.+p knew that Mark in his heart would enjoy a brush across the country quite as well as he himself; and then what was the harm of it?

Lady Lufton's best aid had been in Mark's own conscience. He had taken himself to task more than once, and had promised himself that he would not become a sporting parson. Indeed, where would be his hopes of ulterior promotion, if he allowed himself to degenerate so far as that? It had been his intention, in reviewing what he considered to be the necessary proprieties of clerical life, in laying out his own future mode of living, to a.s.sume no peculiar sacerdotal strictness; he would not be known as a denouncer of dancing or of card-tables, of theatres or of novel-reading; he would take the world around him as he found it, endeavouring by precept and practice to lend a hand to the gradual amelioration which Christianity is producing; but he would attempt no sudden or majestic reforms. Cake and ale would still be popular, and ginger be hot in the mouth, let him preach ever so--let him be never so solemn a hermit; but a bright face, a true trusting heart, a strong arm, and an humble mind, might do much in teaching those around him that men may be gay and yet not profligate, that women may be devout and yet not dead to the world.

Such had been his ideas as to his own future life; and though many would think that as a clergyman he should have gone about his work with more serious devotion of thought, nevertheless there was some wisdom in them;--some folly also, undoubtedly, as appeared by the troubles into which they led him.