Framley Parsonage (35 page)

‘You have said what you mean to do. You will put the affair into the
hands of your lawyer.’

‘Not with any object of exposing you.’

‘Exposing me, Lord Lufton! Why, one would think that I had had the handling of your money.’

‘You will misunderstand me. I think no such thing. But do you not know yourself that if legal steps be taken in this wretched affair, your arrangements with Sowerby will be brought to light?’

‘My arrangements with Sowerby will consist in
paying or having to pay, on his account, a large sum of money, for which I have never had and shall never have any consideration
²
whatever.’

‘And what will be said about this stall at Barchester?’

‘After the charge which you brought against me just now, I shall decline to accept it.’

At this moment three or four other gentlemen entered the room, and the conversation between our two friends
was stopped. They still remained standing near the fire, but for a few minutes neither of them said anything. Robarts was waiting till Lord Lufton should go away, and Lord Lufton had not yet said that which he had come to say. At last he spoke again, almost in a whisper: ‘I think it will be best to ask Sowerby to come to my rooms to-morrow, and I think also that you should meet him there.’

‘I
do not see any necessity for my presence,’ said Robarts. ‘It seems probable that I shall suffer enough for meddling with your affairs, and I will do so no more.’

‘Of course I cannot make you come; but I think it will be only just to Sowerby, and it will be a favour to me.’

Robarts again walked up and down the room for half-a-dozen times, trying to resolve what it would most become him to do
in the present emergency. If his name were dragged before the courts, – if he should be shown up in the public papers as having been engaged in accommodation bills, that would certainly be ruinous to him. He had already learned from Lord Lufton’s innuendoes what he might expect to hear as the public version of his share in these transactions! And then his wife, – how would she bear such exposure?

‘I will meet Mr Sowerby at your rooms to-morrow, on one condition,’ he at last said.

‘And what is that?’

‘That I receive your positive assurance that I am not suspected by you of having had any pecuniary interest whatever in any money matters with Mr Sowerby, either as concerns your affairs or those of anybody else.’

‘I have never suspected you of any such thing. But I have thought that you
were compromised with him.’

‘And so I am – I am liable for these bills. But you ought to have known, and do know, that I have never received a shilling on account of such liability. I have endeavoured to oblige a man whom I regarded first as your friend, and then as my own; and this has been the result.’

Lord Lufton did at last give him the assurance that he desired, as they sat with their heads
together over one of the coffee-room tables; and then Robarts promised that he would postpone his return to Framley till the Saturday, so that he might meet Sowerby at Lord Lufton’s chambers in the Albany on the following afternoon. As soon as this was arranged, Lord Lufton took his leave and went his way.

After that, poor Mark had a very uneasy night of it. It was clear enough that Lord Lufton
had thought, if he did not still think, that the stall at Barchester was to be given as pecuniary recompense in return for certain money accommodation to be afforded by the nominee to the dispenser of this patronage. Nothing on earth could be worse than this. In the first place it would be simony; and then it would be simony beyond all description mean and simoniacal. The very thought of it filled
Mark’s soul with horror and dismay. It might be that Lord Lufton’s suspicions were now at rest; but others would think the same thing, and their suspicions it would be impossible to allay; those others would consist of the outer world, which is always so eager to gloat over the detected vice of a clergyman.

And then that wretched horse which he had purchased, and the purchase of which should
have prohibited him from saying that nothing of value had accrued to him in these transactions with Mr Sowerby! what was he to do about that? And then of late he had been spending, and had continued to spend more money than he could well afford. This very journey of his up to London would be most imprudent, if it should become necessary for him to give up all hope of holding the prebend. As to that
he had made up his mind; but then again he unmade it, as men always do in such troubles. That line of conduct which he had laid down for himself in the first moments of his indignation
against Lord Lufton, by adopting which he would have to encounter poverty, and ridicule, and discomfort, the annihilation of his high hopes, and the ruin of his ambition – that, he said to himself over and over
again, would now be the best for him. But it is so hard for us to give up our high hopes, and willingly encounter poverty, ridicule, and discomfort!

On the following morning, however, he boldly walked down to the Petty Bag Office, determined to let Harold Smith know that he was no longer desirous of the Barchester stall. He found his brother there, still writing artistic notes to anxious peeresses
on the subject of Buggins’ non-vacant situation; but the great man of the place, the Lord Petty Bag himself, was not there. He might probably look in when the House was beginning to sit, perhaps at four or a little after; but he certainly would not be at the office in the morning. The functions of the Lord Petty Bag he was no doubt performing elsewhere. Perhaps he had carried his work home with
him – a practice which the world should know is not uncommon with civil servants of exceeding zeal.

Mark did think of opening his heart to his brother, and of leaving his message with him. But his courage failed him, or perhaps it might be more correct to say that his prudence prevented him. It would be better for him, he thought, to tell his wife before he told any one else. So he merely chatted
with his brother for half-an-hour and then left him.

The day was very tedious till the hour came at which he was to attend at Lord Lufton’s rooms; but at last it did come, and just as the clock struck, he turned out of Piccadilly into the Albany. As he was going across the court before he entered the building, he was greeted by a voice just behind him.

‘As punctual as the big clock on Barchester
tower,’ said Mr Sowerby. ‘See what it is to have a summons from a great man, Mr Prebendary.’

He turned round and extended his hand mechanically to Mr Sowerby, and as he looked at him he thought he had never before seen him so pleasant in appearance, so free from care, and so joyous in demeanour.

‘You have heard from Lord Lufton,’ said Mark in a voice that was certainly very lugubrious.

‘Heard
from him! oh, yes, of course I have heard from him. I’ll tell you what it is, Mark,’ and he now spoke almost in a whisper as they walked together along the Albany passage, ‘Lufton is a child in money matters – a perfect child. The dearest, finest fellow in the world, you know; but a very baby in money matters.’ And then they entered his lordship’s rooms.

Lord Lufton’s countenance also was lugubrious
enough, but this did not in the least abash Sowerby, who walked quickly up to the young lord with his gait perfectly self-possessed and his face radiant with satisfaction.

‘Well, Lufton, how are you?’ said he. ‘It seems that my worthy friend Tozer has been giving you some trouble?’

Then Lord Lufton with a face by no means radiant with satisfaction again began the story of Tozer’s fraudulent
demand upon him. Sowerby did not interrupt him, but listened patiently to the end; – quite patiently, although Lord Lufton, as he made himself more and more angry by the history of his own wrongs, did not hesitate to pronounce certain threats against Mr Sowerby, as he had pronounced them before against Mark Robarts. He would not, he said, pay a shilling, except through his lawyer; and he would instruct
his lawyer, that before he paid anything, the whole matter should be exposed openly in court. He did not care, he said, what might be the effect on himself or any one else. He was determined that the whole case should go to a jury.

‘To grand jury, and special jury, and common jury, and Old Jewry, if you like,’ said Sowerby. ‘The truth is, Lufton, you lost some money, and as there was some delay
in paying it, you have been harassed.’

‘I have paid more than I lost three times over,’ said Lord Lufton stamping his foot.

‘I will not go into that question now. It was settled, as I thought, some time a o by persons to whom you yourself referred it. But will you tell me this: Why on earth should Robarts be troubled in this matter? What has he done?’

‘Well, I don’t know. He arranged the matter
with you.’

‘No such thing. He was kind enough to carry a message from you to me, and to convey back a return message from me to you. That has been his part in it.’

‘You don’t suppose that I want to implicate him: do you?’

‘I don’t think you want to implicate any one, but you are hotheaded and difficult to deal with, and very irrational into the bargain. And, what is worse, I must say you are
a little suspicious. In all this matter I have harassed myself greatly to oblige you, and in return I have got more kicks than halfpence.’

‘Did not you give this bill to Tozer – the bill which he now holds?’

‘In the first place he does not hold it; and in the next place I did not give it to him. These things pass through scores of hands before they reach the man who makes the application for
payment.’

‘And who came to me the other day?’

‘That, I take it, was Tom Tozer, a brother of our Tozer’s.’

‘Then he holds the bill, for I saw it with him.’

‘Wait a moment; that is very likely. I sent you word that you would have to pay for taking it up. Of course they don’t abandon those sort of things without some consideration.’

‘Ten pounds, you said,’ observed Mark.

‘Ten or twenty; some
such sum as that. But you were hardly so soft as to suppose that the man would ask for such a sum. Of course he would demand the full payment. There is the bill, Lord Lufton,’ and Sowerby, producing a document, handed it across the table to his lordship. ‘I gave five-and-twenty pounds for it this morning.’

Lord Lufton took the paper and looked at it. ‘Yes,’ said he, ‘that’s the bill. What am
I to do with it now?’

‘Put it with the family archives,’ said Sowerby, – ‘or behind the fire, just which you please.’

‘And is this the last of them? Can no other be brought up?’

‘You know better than I do what paper you may have put your hand to. I know of no other. At the last renewal that was the only outstanding bill of which I was aware.’

‘And you have paid five-and-twenty pounds for it?’

‘I have. Only that you have been in such a tantrum about it, and would have made such a noise this afternoon if I had not brought it, I might have had it for fifteen or twenty. In three or four days they would have taken fifteen.’

‘The odd ten pounds does not signify, and I’ll pay you the twenty-five, of course,’ said Lord Lufton, who now began to feel a little ashamed of himself.

‘You may do
as you please about that.’

‘Oh! it’s my affair, as a matter of course. Any amount of that kind I don’t mind,’ and he sat down to fill in a check for the money.

‘Well, now, Lufton, let me say a few words to you,’ said Sowerby, standing with his back against the fireplace, and playing with a small cane which he held in his hand. ‘For heaven’s sake try and be a little more charitable to those around
you. When you become fidgety about anything, you indulge in language which the world won’t stand, though men who know you as well as Robarts and I may consent to put up with it. You have accused me, since I have been here, of all manner of iniquity –’

‘Now, Sowerby –’

‘My dear fellow, let me have my say out. You have accused me, I say, and I believe that you have accused him. But it has never
occurred to you, I daresay, to accuse yourself.’

‘Indeed it has.’

‘Of course you have been wrong in having to do with such men as Tozer. I have also been very wrong. It wants no great moral authority to tell us that. Pattern gentlemen don’t have dealings with Tozer, and very much the better they are for not having them. But a man should have back enough to bear the weight which he himself puts
on it. Keep away from Tozer, if you can, for the future; but if you do deal with him, for heaven’s sake keep your temper.’

‘That’s all very fine, Sowerby; but you know as well as I do –’

‘I know this,’ said the devil, quoting Scripture, as he folded up the check for twenty-five pounds, and put it in his pocket, ‘that when a man sows tares, he won’t reap wheat, and it’s no use to expect it. I
am tough in these matters, and can bear a great deal – that is, if I be not pushed too far,’ and he looked full into Lord Lufton’s face as he spoke; ‘but I think you have been very hard upon Robarts.’

‘Never mind me, Sowerby; Lord Lufton and I are very old friends.’

‘And may therefore take a liberty with each other. Very well. And now I’ve done my sermon. My dear dignitary, allow me to congratulate
you. I hear from Fothergill that that little affair of yours has been definitely settled.’

Mark’s face again became clouded. ‘I rather think,’ said he, ‘that I shall decline the presentation.’

‘Decline it!’ said Sowerby, who, having used his utmost efforts to obtain it, would have been more absolutely offended by such vacillation on the vicar’s part than by any personal abuse which either he
or Lord Lufton could heap upon him.

‘I think I shall,’ said Mark.

‘And why?’

Mark looked up at Lord Lufton, and then remained silent for a moment.

‘There can be no occasion for such a sacrifice under the present circumstances,’ said his lordship.

‘And under what circumstances could there be occasion for it?’ asked Sowerby. ‘The Duke of Omnium has used some little influence to get the place
for you as a parish clergyman belonging to his county, and I should think it monstrous if you were now to reject it.’