‘They’ll come in due time,’ said the duke.
‘But the due time won’t be in my days. And so they’re going to cut down Chaldicotes forest; are they, Mr Sowerby?’
‘Well, I can’t tell you that. They are going to disforest it. I have been ranger since I was twenty-two, and I don’t yet know whether that means cutting down.’
‘Not only cutting down, but rooting up,’ said Mr Fothergill.
‘It’s a murderous shame,’ said Frank Gresham; ‘and I will say one thing, I don’t think any but a Whig government would do it.’
‘Ha, ha, ha!’ laughed his grace. ‘At any rate I’m sure of this,’ he said, ‘that if a Conservative government did do so, the Whigs would be just as indignant as you are now.’
‘I’ll tell you what you ought to do, Mr Gresham,’ said Sowerby: ‘put in an offer for the whole of the West Barsetshire Crown property; they will be very glad to sell it.’
‘And we should be delighted to welcome you on this side of the border,’ said the duke.
Young Gresham did feel rather flattered. There were not many men in the county to whom such an offer could be made without an absurdity. It might be doubted whether the duke himself could purchase the Chase of Chaldicotes with ready money; but that he, Gresham, could do so – he and his wife between them – no man did doubt. And then Mr Gresham thought of a former day when he had once been at Gatherum Castle. He had been poor enough then, and the duke had not treated him in the most courteous manner in the world. How hard it is for a rich man not to lean upon his riches! harder, indeed, than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.17
All Barsetshire knew – at any rate all West Barsetshire – that Miss Dunstable had been brought down in those parts in order that Mr Sowerby might marry her. It was not surmised that Miss Dunstable herself had had any previous notice of this arrangement, but it was supposed that the thing would turn out as a matter of course. Mr Sowerby had no money, but then he was witty, clever, good-looking, and a member of Parliament. He lived before the world, represented an old family, and had an old place. How could Miss Dunstable possibly do better? She was not so young now, and it was time that she should look about her.
The suggestion as regarded Mr Sowerby was certainly true, and was not the less so as regarded some of Mr Sowerby’s friends. His sister, Mrs Harold Smith, had devoted herself to the work, and with this view had run up a dear friendship with Miss Dunstable. The bishop had intimated, nodding his head knowingly, that it would be a very good thing. Mrs Proudie had given in her adherence. Mr Supplehouse had been made to understand that it must be a case of ‘Paws off’ with him, as long as he remained in that part of the world; and even the duke himself had desired Fothergill to manage it.
‘He owes me an enormous sum of money,’ said the duke, who held all Mr Sowerby’s title-deeds, ‘and I doubt whether the security will be sufficient.’
‘Your grace will find the security quite sufficient,’ said Mr Fothergill; ‘but nevertheless it would be a good match.’
‘Very good,’ said the duke. And then it became Mr Fothergill’s duty to see that Mr Sowerby and Miss Dunstable became man and wife as speedily as possible.
Some of the party, who were more wide awake than others, declared that he had made the offer; others, that he was just going to do so; and one very knowing lady went so far at one time as to say that he was making it at that moment. Bets also were laid as to the lady’s answer, as to the terms of the settlement, and as to the period of the marriage, – of all which poor Miss Dunstable of course knew nothing.
Mr Sowerby, in spite of the publicity of his proceedings, proceeded in the matter very well. He said little about it to those who joked with him, but carried on the fight with what best knowledge he had in such matters. But so much it is given to us to declare with certainty, that he had not proposed on the evening previous to the morning fixed for the departure of Mark Robarts.
During the last two days Mr Sowerby’s intimacy with Mark had grown warmer and warmer. He had talked to the vicar confidentially about the doings of these bigwigs now present at the castle, as though there were no other guest there with whom he could speak in so free a manner. He confided, it seemed, much more in Mark than in his brother-in-law, Harold Smith, or in any of his brother members of Parliament, and had altogether opened his heart to him in this affair of his anticipated marriage. Now Mr Sowerby was a man of mark in the world, and all this flattered our young clergyman not a little.
On that evening before Robarts went away Sowerby asked him to come up into his bedroom when the whole party was breaking up, and there got him into an easy-chair while he, Sowerby, walked up and down the room.
‘You can hardly tell, my dear fellow,’ said he, ‘the state of nervous anxiety in which this puts me.’
‘Why don’t you ask her and have done with it? She seems to me to be fond of your society.’
‘Ah, it is not that only; there are wheels within wheels;’ and then he walked once or twice up and down the room, during which Mark thought that he might as well go to bed.
‘Not that I mind telling you everything,’ said Sowerby. ‘I am infernally hard up for a little ready money just at the present moment. It may be, and indeed I think it will be, the case that I shall be ruined in this matter for the want of it.’
‘Could not Harold Smith give it you?’
‘Ha, ha, ha! you don’t know Harold Smith. Did you ever hear of his lending a man a shilling in his life?’
‘Or Supplehouse?’
‘Lord love you! You see me and Supplehouse together here, and he comes and stays at my house, and all that; but Supplehouse and I are no friends. Look you here, Mark. I would do more for your little finger than for his whole hand, including the pen which he holds in it. Fothergill indeed might – but then I know Fothergill is pressed himself at the present moment. It is deuced hard, isn’t it? I must give up the whole game if I can’t put my hand upon 400l. within the next two days.’
‘Ask her for it, herself.’
‘What, the woman I wish to marry! No, Mark, I’m not quite come to that. I would sooner lose her than that.’
Mark sat silent, gazing at the fire and wishing that he was in his own bedroom. He had an idea that Mr Sowerby wished him to produce this 400l.; and he knew also that he had not 400l.; in the world, and that if he had he would be acting very foolishly to give it to Mr Sowerby. But nevertheless he felt half fascinated by the man, and half afraid of him.
‘Lufton owes it to me to do more than this,’ continued Mr Sowerby; ‘but then Lufton is not here.’
‘Why, he has just paid five thousand pounds for you.’
‘Paid five thousand pounds for me! Indeed he has done no such thing: not a sixpence of it came into my hands. Believe me, Mark, you don’t know the whole of that yet. Not that I mean to say a word against Lufton. He is the soul of honour; though so deucedly dilatory in money matters. He thought he was right all through that affair, but no man was ever so confoundedly wrong. Why, don’t you remember that that was the very view you took of it yourself?’
‘I remember saying that I thought he was mistaken.’
‘Of course he was mistaken. And dearly the mistake cost me. I had to make good the money for two or three years. And my property is not like his. I wish it were.’
‘Marry Miss Dunstable, and that will set it all right for you.’
‘Ah! so I would if I had this money. At any rate I would bring it to the point. Now, I tell you what, Mark; if you’ll assist me at this strait I’ll never forget it. And the time will come round when I may be able to do something for you.’
‘I have not got a hundred, no, not fifty pounds by me in the world.’
‘Of course you’ve not. Men don’t walk about the streets with 400l. in their pockets. I don’t suppose there’s a single man here in the house with such a sum at his bankers’, unless it be the duke.’
‘What is it you want, then?’
‘Why, your name, to b
e sure. Believe me, my dear fellow, I would not ask you really to put your hand into your pocket to such a tune as that. Allow me to draw on you for that amount at three months. Long before that time I shall be flush enough.’ And then, before Mark could answer, he had a bill stamp and pen and ink out on the table before him, and was filling in the bill as though his friend had already given his consent.
‘Upon my word, Sowerby, I had rather not do that.’
‘Why! what are you afraid of?’ – Mr Sowerby asked this very sharply. ‘Did you ever hear of my having neglected to take up a bill when it fell due?’ Robarts thought that he had heard of such a thing; but in his confusion he was not exactly sure, and so he said nothing.
‘No, my boy; I have not come to that. Look here: just you write, “Accepted, Mark Robarts,” across that, and then you shall never hear of the transaction again; – and you will have obliged me for ever.’
‘As a clergyman it would be wrong of me,’ said Robarts.
‘As a clergyman! Come, Mark! If you don’t like to do as much as that for a friend, say so; but don’t let us have that sort of humbug. If there be one class of men whose names would be found more frequent on the backs of bills in the provincial banks than another, clergymen are that class. Come, old fellow, you won’t throw me over when I am so hard pushed.’
Mark Robarts took the pen and signed the bill. It was the first time in his life that he had ever done such an act. Sowerby then shook him cordially by the hand, and he walked off to his own bedroom a wretched man.
CHAPTER 9
The Vicar’s Return
THE next morning Mr Robarts took leave of all his grand friends with a heavy heart. He had lain awake half the night thinking of what he had done and trying to reconcile himself to his position. He had not well left Mr Sowerby’s room before he felt certain that at the end of three months he would again be troubled about that 400l. As he went along the passage, all the man’s known antecedents crowded upon him much quicker than he could remember them when seated in that arm-chair with the bill stamp before him, and the pen and ink ready to his hand. He remembered what Lord Lufton had told him – how he had complained of having been left in the lurch: he thought of all the stories current through the entire county as to the impossibility of getting money from Chaldicotes; he brought to mind the known character of the man, and then he knew that he must prepare himself to make good a portion at least of that heavy payment.
Why had he come to this horrid place? Had he not everything at home at Framley which the heart of man could desire? No; the heart of man can desire deaneries – the heart, that is, of the man vicar; and the heart of the man dean can desire bishoprics; and before the eyes of the man bishop does there not loom the transcendental glory of Lambeth? He had owned to himself that he was ambitious; but he had to own to himself now also that he had hitherto taken but a sorry path towards the object of his ambition.
On the next morning at breakfast-time, before his horse and gig arrived for him, no one was so bright as his friend Sowerby. ‘So you are off, are you?’ said he.
‘Yes, I shall go this morning.’
‘Say everything that’s kind from me to Lufton. I may possibly see him out hunting; otherwise we shan’t meet till the spring. As to my going to Framley, that’s out of the question. Her ladyship would look for my tail, and swear that she smelt brimstone. By-bye, old fellow!’
The German student when he first made his bargain with the devil1 felt an indescribable attraction to his new friend; and such was the case now with Robarts. He shook Sowerby’s hand very warmly, said that he hoped he should meet him soon somewhere, and professed himself specially anxious to hear how that affair with the lady came off. As he had made his bargain – as he had undertaken to pay nearly half-a-year’s income for his dear friend, ought he not to have as much value as possible for his money? If the dear friendship of this flash member of Parliament did not represent that value, what else did do so? But then he felt, or fancied that he felt, that Mr Sowerby did not care for him so much this morning as he had done on the previous evening. ‘By-bye,’ said Mr Sowerby, but he spoke no word as to such future meetings, nor did he even promise to write. My Sowerby probably had many things on his mind; and it might be that it behoved him, having finished one piece of business, immediately to look to another.
The sum for which Robarts had made himself responsible – which he so much feared that he would be called upon to pay, was very nearly half-a-year’s income; and as yet he had not put by one shilling since he had been married. When he found himself settled in his parsonage, he found also that all the world regarded him as a rich man. He had taken the dictum of all the world as true, and had set himself to work to live comfortably. He had no absolute need of a curate; but he could afford the 70l. – as Lady Lufton had said rather injudiciously; and by keeping Jones in the parish he would be acting charitably to a brother clergyman, and would also place himself in a more independent position. Lady Lufton had wished to see her pet clergyman well-to-do and comfortable; but now, as matters had turned out, she much regretted this affair of the curate. Mr Jones, she said to herself, more than once, must be made to depart from Framley.
He had given his wife a pony-carriage, and for himself he had a saddle-horse, and a second horse for his gig. A man in his position, well-to-do as he was, required as much as that. He had a footman also, and a gardener, and a groom. The two latter were absolutely necessary, but about the former there had been a question. His wife had been decidedly hostile to the footman; but, in all such matters as that, to doubt is to be lost. When the footman had been discussed for a week it became quite clear to the master that he also was a necessary.
As he drove home that morning he pronounced to himself the doom of that footman, and the doom also of that saddle-horse. They at any rate should go. And then he would spend no more money in trips to Scotland; and above all, he would keep out of the bedrooms of impoverished members of Parliament at the witching hour of midnight. Such resolves did he make to himself as he drove home; and bethought himself wearily how that 400l. might be made to be forthcoming. As to any assistance in the matter from Sowerby, – of that he gave himself no promise.
But he almost felt himself happy again as his wife came out into the porch to meet him, with a silk shawl over her head, and pretending to shiver as she watched him descending from his gig.
‘My dear old man,’ she said, as she led him into the warm drawing-room with all his wrappings still about him, ‘you must be starved.’ But Mark during the whole drive had been thinking too much of that transaction in Mr Sowerby’s bedroom to remember that the air was cold. Now he had his arm round his own dear Fanny’s waist; but was he to tell her of that transaction? At any rate he would not do it now, while his two boys were in his arms, rubbing the moisture from his whiskers with their kisses. After all, what is there equal to that coming home?
‘And so Lufton is here. I say, Frank, gently old boy,’ – Frank was his eldest son – ‘you’ll have baby into the fender.’
‘Let me take baby; it’s impossible to hold the two of them, they are so strong,’ said the proud mother. ‘Oh, yes, he came home early yesterday.’
‘Have you seen him?’
‘He was here yesterday, with her ladyship; and I lunched there to-day. The letter came, you know, in time to stop the Merediths. They don’t go till to-morrow, so you will meet them after all. Sir George is wild about it, but Lady Lufton would have her way. You never saw her in such a state as she is.’
‘Good spirits, eh?’
‘I should think so. All Lord Lufton’s horses are coming and he’s to be here till March.’
‘Till March!’
‘So her ladyship whispered to me. She could not conceal her triumph at his coming. He’s going to give up Leicestershire this year altogether. I wonder what has brought it all about?’ Mark knew very well what had brought it about; he had been made acquainted, as the reader has also, with the price at which Lady Lufton had pu
rchased her son’s visit. But no one had told Mrs Robarts that the mother had made her son a present of five thousand pounds.
‘She’s in a good humour about everything now,’ continued Fanny; ‘so you need say nothing at all about Gatherum Castle.’
‘But she was very angry when she first heard it; was she not?’
‘Well, Mark, to tell the truth she was; and we had quite a scene there up in her own room upstairs, – Justinia and I. She had heard something else that she did not like at the same time; and then – but you know her way. She blazed up quite hot.’
‘And said all manner of horrid things about me.’
‘About the duke she did. You know she never did like the duke; and for the matter of that, neither do I.I tell you that fairly, Master Mark!’
‘The duke is not so bad as he’s painted.’
‘Ah, that’s what you say about another great person. However, he won’t come here to trouble us, I suppose. And then I left her, not in the best temper in the world; for I blazed up too, you must know.’
‘I am sure you did,’ said Mark, pressing his arm round her waist.
‘And then we were going to have a dreadful war, I thought; and I came home and wrote such a doleful letter to you. But what should happen when I had just closed it, but in came her ladyship – all alone, and –. But I can’t tell you what she did or said, only she behaved beautifully; just like herself too; so full of love and truth and honesty. There’s nobody like her, Mark; and she’s better than all the dukes that ever wore – whatever dukes do wear.’
‘Horns and hoofs; that’s their usual apparel, according to you and Lady Lufton,’ said he, remembering what Mr Sowerby had said of himself.
‘You may say what you like about me, Mark, but you shan’t abuse Lady Lufton. And if horns and hoofs mean wickedness and dissipation, I believe it’s not far wrong. But get off your big coat and make yourself comfortable.’ And that was all the scolding that Mark Robarts got from his wife on the occasion of his great iniquity.
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