Framley Parsonage Part 14

"You were in the wrong division of the county," said the gentleman called Frank.

"Of course I was. When I really want to practise hunting I'll go to Greshamsbury; not a doubt about that."

"Or to Boxall Hill," said the lady; "you'll find quite as much zeal there as at Greshamsbury."

"And more discretion, you should add," said the gentleman.

"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Miss Dunstable; "your discretion indeed! But you have not told me a word about Lady Arabella."

"My mother is quite well," said the gentleman.

"And the doctor? By-the-by, my dear, I've had such a letter from the doctor; only two days ago. I'll show it you upstairs to-morrow. But mind, it must be a positive secret. If he goes on in this way he'll get himself into the Tower, or Coventry, or a blue-book, or some dreadful place."

"Why; what has he said?"

"Never you mind, Master Frank: I don't mean to show you the letter, you may be sure of that. But if your wife will swear three times on a poker and tongs that she won't reveal, I'll show it to her. And so you are quite settled at Boxall Hill, are you?"

"Frank's horses are settled; and the dogs nearly so," said Frank's wife; "but I can't boast much of anything else yet."

"Well, there's a good time coming. I must go and change my things now. But, Mary, mind you get near me this evening; I have such a deal to say to you." And then Miss Dunstable marched out of the room.

All this had been said in so loud a voice that it was, as a matter of course, overheard by Mark Robarts--that part of the conversation of course I mean which had come from Miss Dunstable. And then Mark learned that this was young Frank Gresham of Boxall Hill, son of old Mr. Gresham of Greshamsbury. Frank had lately married a great heiress; a greater heiress, men said, even than Miss Dunstable; and as the marriage was hardly as yet more than six months old the Ba.r.s.etshire world was still full of it.

"The two heiresses seem to be very loving, don't they?" said Mr.

Supplehouse. "Birds of a feather flock together, you know. But they did say some little time ago that young Gresham was to have married Miss Dunstable himself."

"Miss Dunstable! why she might almost be his mother," said Mark.

"That makes but little difference. He was obliged to marry money, and I believe there is no doubt that he did at one time propose to Miss Dunstable."

"I have had a letter from Lufton," Mr. Sowerby said to him the next morning. "He declares that the delay was all your fault. You were to have told Lady Lufton before he did anything, and he was waiting to write about it till he heard from you. It seems that you never said a word to her ladyship on the subject."

"I never did, certainly. My commission from Lufton was to break the matter to her when I found her in a proper humour for receiving it.

If you knew Lady Lufton as well as I do, you would know that it is not every day that she would be in a humour for such tidings."

"And so I was to be kept waiting indefinitely because you two between you were afraid of an old woman! However I have not a word to say against her, and the matter is settled now."

"Has the farm been sold?"

"Not a bit of it. The dowager could not bring her mind to suffer such profanation for the Lufton acres, and so she sold five thousand pounds out of the funds and sent the money to Lufton as a present;--sent it to him without saying a word, only hoping that it would suffice for his wants. I wish I had a mother, I know."

Mark found it impossible at the moment to make any remark upon what had been told him, but he felt a sudden qualm of conscience and a wish that he was at Framley instead of at Gatherum Castle at the present moment. He knew a good deal respecting Lady Lufton's income and the manner in which it was spent. It was very handsome for a single lady, but then she lived in a free and open-handed style; her charities were n.o.ble; there was no reason why she should save money, and her annual income was usually spent within the year. Mark knew this, and he knew also that nothing short of an impossibility to maintain them would induce her to lessen her charities. She had now given away a portion of her princ.i.p.al to save the property of her son--her son, who was so much more opulent than herself,--upon whose means, too, the world made fewer effectual claims.

And Mark knew, too, something of the purpose for which this money had gone. There had been unsettled gambling claims between Sowerby and Lord Lufton, originating in affairs of the turf. It had now been going on for four years, almost from the period when Lord Lufton had become of age. He had before now spoken to Robarts on the matter with much bitter anger, alleging that Mr. Sowerby was treating him unfairly, nay, dishonestly--that he was claiming money that was not due to him; and then he declared more than once that he would bring the matter before the Jockey Club. But Mark, knowing that Lord Lufton was not clear-sighted in these matters, and believing it to be impossible that Mr. Sowerby should actually endeavour to defraud his friend, had smoothed down the young lord's anger, and recommended him to get the case referred to some private arbiter. All this had afterwards been discussed between Robarts and Mr. Sowerby himself, and hence had originated their intimacy. The matter was so referred, Mr. Sowerby naming the referee; and Lord Lufton, when the matter was given against him, took it easily. His anger was over by that time.

"I've been clean done among them," he said to Mark, laughing; "but it does not signify; a man must pay for his experience. Of course, Sowerby thinks it all right; I am bound to suppose so." And then there had been some further delay as to the amount, and part of the money had been paid to a third person, and a bill had been given, and heaven and the Jews only know how much money Lord Lufton had paid in all; and now it was ended by his handing over to some wretched villain of a money-dealer, on behalf of Mr. Sowerby, the enormous sum of five thousand pounds, which had been deducted from the means of his mother, Lady Lufton!

Mark, as he thought of all this, could not but feel a certain animosity against Mr. Sowerby--could not but suspect that he was a bad man. Nay, must he not have known that he was very bad? And yet he continued walking with him through the duke's grounds, still talking about Lord Lufton's affairs, and still listening with interest to what Sowerby told him of his own.

"No man was ever robbed as I have been," said he. "But I shall win through yet, in spite of them all. But those Jews, Mark"--he had become very intimate with him in these latter days--"whatever you do, keep clear of them. Why, I could paper a room with their signatures; and yet I never had a claim upon one of them, though they always have claims on me!"

I have said above that this affair of Lord Lufton's was ended; but it now appeared to Mark that it was not _quite_ ended. "Tell Lufton, you know," said Sowerby, "that every bit of paper with his name has been taken up, except what that ruffian Tozer has. Tozer may have one bill, I believe,--something that was not given up when it was renewed. But I'll make my lawyer Gumption get that up. It may cost ten pounds or twenty pounds, not more. You'll remember that when you see Lufton, will you?"

"You'll see Lufton in all probability before I shall."

"Oh, did I not tell you? He's going to Framley Court at once; you'll find him there when you return."

"Find him at Framley!"

"Yes; this little _cadeau_ from his mother has touched his filial heart. He is rushing home to Framley to pay back the dowager's hard moidores in soft caresses. I wish I had a mother; I know that."

And Mark still felt that he feared Mr. Sowerby, but he could not make up his mind to break away from him.

And there was much talk of politics just then at the castle. Not that the duke joined in it with any enthusiasm. He was a Whig--a huge mountain of a colossal Whig--all the world knew that. No opponent would have dreamed of tampering with his whiggery, nor would any brother Whig have dreamed of doubting it. But he was a Whig who gave very little practical support to any set of men, and very little practical opposition to any other set. He was above troubling himself with such sublunar matters. At election time he supported, and always carried, Whig candidates; and in return he had been appointed lord lieutenant of the county by one Whig minister, and had received the Garter from another. But these things were matters of course to a Duke of Omnium. He was born to be a lord lieutenant and a knight of the Garter.

But not the less on account of his apathy, or rather quiescence, was it thought that Gatherum Castle was a fitting place in which politicians might express to each other their present hopes and future aims, and concoct together little plots in a half-serious and half-mocking way. Indeed it was hinted that Mr. Supplehouse and Harold Smith, with one or two others, were at Gatherum for this express purpose. Mr. Fothergill, too, was a noted politician, and was supposed to know the duke's mind well; and Mr. Green Walker, the nephew of the marchioness, was a young man whom the duke desired to have brought forward. Mr. Sowerby also was the duke's own member, and so the occasion suited well for the interchange of a few ideas.

The then prime minister, angry as many men were with him, had not been altogether unsuccessful. He had brought the Russian war to a close, which, if not glorious, was at any rate much more so than Englishmen at one time had ventured to hope. And he had had wonderful luck in that Indian mutiny. It is true that many of those even who voted with him would declare that this was in no way attributable to him. Great men had risen in India and done all that. Even his minister there, the governor whom he had sent out, was not allowed in those days any credit for the success which was achieved under his orders. There was great reason to doubt the man at the helm. But nevertheless he had been lucky. There is no merit in a public man like success!

But now, when the evil days were well nigh over, came the question whether he had not been too successful. When a man has nailed fortune to his chariot-wheels he is apt to travel about in rather a proud fashion. There are servants who think that their masters cannot do without them; and the public also may occasionally have some such servant. What if this too successful minister were one of them!

And then a discreet, commonplace, zealous member of the Lower House does not like to be jeered at, when he does his duty by his const.i.tuents and asks a few questions. An all-successful minister who cannot keep his triumph to himself, but must needs drive about in a proud fashion, laughing at commonplace zealous members--laughing even occasionally at members who are by no means commonplace, which is outrageous!--may it not be as well to ostracize him for awhile?

"Had we not better throw in our sh.e.l.ls against him?" says Mr. Harold Smith.

"Let us throw in our sh.e.l.ls, by all means," says Mr. Supplehouse, mindful as Juno of his despised charms. And when Mr. Supplehouse declares himself an enemy, men know how much it means. They know that that much-belaboured head of affairs must succ.u.mb to the terrible blows which are now in store for him. "Yes, we will throw in our sh.e.l.ls." And Mr. Supplehouse rises from his chair with gleaming eyes. "Has not Greece as n.o.ble sons as him? ay, and much n.o.bler, traitor that he is. We must judge a man by his friends," says Mr.

Supplehouse; and he points away to the East, where our dear allies the French are supposed to live, and where our head of affairs is supposed to have too close an intimacy.

They all understand this, even Mr. Green Walker. "I don't know that he is any good to any of us at all, now," says the talented member for the Crewe Junction. "He's a great deal too uppish to suit my book; and I know a great many people that think so too. There's my uncle--"

"He's the best fellow in the world," said Mr. Fothergill, who felt, perhaps, that that coming revelation about Mr. Green Walker's uncle might not be of use to them; "but the fact is one gets tired of the same man always. One does not like partridge every day. As for me, I have nothing to do with it myself; but I would certainly like to change the dish."

"If we're merely to do as we are bid, and have no voice of our own, I don't see what's the good of going to the shop at all," said Mr.

Sowerby.

"Not the least use," said Mr. Supplehouse. "We are false to our const.i.tuents in submitting to such a dominion."

"Let's have a change, then," said Mr. Sowerby. "The matter's pretty much in our own hands."

"Altogether," said Mr. Green Walker. "That's what my uncle always says."

"The Manchester men will only be too happy for the chance," said Harold Smith.

"And as for the high and dry gentlemen," said Mr. Sowerby, "it's not very likely that they will object to pick up the fruit when we shake the tree."

"As to picking up the fruit, that's as may be," said Mr. Supplehouse.

Was he not the man to save the nation; and if so, why should he not pick up the fruit himself? Had not the greatest power in the country pointed him out as such a saviour? What though the country at the present moment needed no more saving, might there not, nevertheless, be a good time coming? Were there not rumours of other wars still prevalent--if indeed the actual war then going on was being brought to a close without his a.s.sistance by some other species of salvation?

He thought of that country to which he had pointed, and of that friend of his enemies, and remembered that there might be still work for a mighty saviour. The public mind was now awake, and understood what it was about. When a man gets into his head an idea that the public voice calls for him, it is astonishing how great becomes his trust in the wisdom of the public. _Vox populi vox Dei._ "Has it not been so always?" he says to himself, as he gets up and as he goes to bed. And then Mr. Supplehouse felt that he was the master mind there at Gatherum Castle, and that those there were all puppets in his hand. It is such a pleasant thing to feel that one's friends are puppets, and that the strings are in one's own possession. But what if Mr. Supplehouse himself were a puppet?