"They are making out a list of the things," said Mrs. Robarts.
"We must stop that at any rate," said his lordship, walking off towards the scene of the operations; and as he left the room Mrs.
Robarts followed him, leaving her husband by himself.
"Why did you not send down to my mother?" said he, speaking hardly above a whisper, as they stood together in the hall.
"He would not let me."
"But why not go yourself? or why not have written to me,--considering how intimate we are?"
Mrs. Robarts could not explain to him that the peculiar intimacy between him and Lucy must have hindered her from doing so, even if otherwise it might have been possible; but she felt such was the case.
"Well, my men, this is bad work you"re doing here," said he, walking into the drawing-room. Whereupon the cook curtseyed low, and the bailiffs, knowing his lordship, stopped from their business and put their hands to their foreheads. "You must stop this, if you please,--at once. Come, let"s go out into the kitchen, or some place outside. I don"t like to see you here with your big boots and the pen and ink among the furniture."
"We ain"t a-done no harm, my lord, so please your lordship," said Jemima cook.
"And we is only a-doing our bounden dooties," said one of the bailiffs.
"As we is sworn to do, so please your lordship," said the other.
"And is wery sorry to be unconwenient, my lord, to any gen"leman or lady as is a gen"leman or lady. But accidents will happen, and then what can the likes of us do?" said the first.
"Because we is sworn, my lord," said the second. But, nevertheless, in spite of their oaths, and in spite also of the stern necessity which they pleaded, they ceased their operations at the instance of the peer. For the name of a lord is still great in England.
"And now leave this, and let Mrs. Robarts go into her drawing-room."
"And, please your lordship, what is we to do? Who is we to look to?"
In satisfying them absolutely on this point Lord Lufton had to use more than his influence as a peer. It was necessary that he should have pen and paper. But with pen and paper he did satisfy them;--satisfy them so far that they agreed to return to Stubbs"
room, the former hospital, due stipulation having been made for the meals and beer, and there await the order to evacuate the premises which would no doubt, under his lordship"s influence, reach them on the following day. The meaning of all which was that Lord Lufton had undertaken to bear upon his own shoulder the whole debt due by Mr.
Robarts.
And then he returned to the book-room where Mark was still standing almost on the spot in which he had placed himself immediately after breakfast. Mrs. Robarts did not return, but went up among the children to counter-order such directions as she had given for the preparation of the nursery for the Philistines. "Mark," he said, "do not trouble yourself about this more than you can help. The men have ceased doing anything, and they shall leave the place to-morrow morning."
"And how will the money--be paid?" said the poor clergyman.
"Do not bother yourself about that at present. It shall so be managed that the burden shall fall ultimately on yourself--not on any one else. But I am sure it must be a comfort to you to know that your wife need not be driven out of her drawing-room."
"But, Lufton, I cannot allow you--after what has pa.s.sed--and at the present moment--"
"My dear fellow, I know all about it, and I am coming to that just now. You have employed Curling, and he shall settle it; and upon my word, Mark, you shall pay the bill. But, for the present emergency, the money is at my banker"s."
"But, Lufton--"
"And to deal honestly, about Curling"s bill I mean, it ought to be as much my affair as your own. It was I that brought you into this mess with Sowerby, and I know now how unjust about it I was to you up in London. But the truth is that Sowerby"s treachery had nearly driven me wild. It has done the same to you since, I have no doubt."
"He has ruined me," said Robarts.
"No, he has not done that. No thanks to him though; he would not have scrupled to do it had it come in his way. The fact is, Mark, that you and I cannot conceive the depth of fraud in such a man as that. He is always looking for money; I believe that in all his hours of most friendly intercourse,--when he is sitting with you over your wine, and riding beside you in the field,--he is still thinking how he can make use of you to tide him over some difficulty. He has lived in that way till he has a pleasure in cheating, and has become so clever in his line of life that if you or I were with him again to-morrow he would again get the better of us. He is a man that must be absolutely avoided; I, at any rate, have learned to know so much."
In the expression of which opinion Lord Lufton was too hard upon poor Sowerby; as indeed we are all apt to be too hard in forming an opinion upon the rogues of the world. That Mr. Sowerby had been a rogue, I cannot deny. It is roguish to lie, and he had been a great liar. It is roguish to make promises which the promiser knows he cannot perform, and such had been Mr. Sowerby"s daily practice. It is roguish to live on other men"s money, and Mr. Sowerby had long been doing so. It is roguish, at least so I would hold it, to deal willingly with rogues; and Mr. Sowerby had been constant in such dealings. I do not know whether he had not at times fallen even into more palpable roguery than is proved by such practices as those enumerated. Though I have for him some tender feeling, knowing that there was still a touch of gentle bearing round his heart, an abiding taste for better things within him, I cannot acquit him from the great accusation. But, for all that, in spite of his acknowledged roguery, Lord Lufton was too hard upon him in his judgment. There was yet within him the means of repentance, could a _locus penitentiae_ have been supplied to him. He grieved bitterly over his own ill doings, and knew well what changes gentlehood would have demanded from him. Whether or no he had gone too far for all changes--whether the _locus penitentiae_ was for him still a possibility--that was between him and a higher power.
"I have no one to blame but myself," said Mark, still speaking in the same heart-broken tone and with his face averted from his friend.
The debt would now be paid, and the bailiffs would be expelled; but that would not set him right before the world. It would be known to all men--to all clergymen in the diocese--that the sheriff"s officers had been in charge of Framley Parsonage, and he could never again hold up his head in the close of Barchester.
"My dear fellow, if we were all to make ourselves miserable for such a trifle as this--" said Lord Lufton, putting his arm affectionately on his friend"s shoulder.
"But we are not all clergymen," said Mark, and as he spoke he turned away to the window and Lord Lufton knew that the tears were on his cheek.
Nothing was then said between them for some moments, after which Lord Lufton again spoke,--
"Mark, my dear fellow!"
"Well," said Mark, with his face still turned towards the window.
"You must remember one thing; in helping you over this stile, which will be really a matter of no inconvenience to me, I have a better right than that even of an old friend; I look upon you now as my brother-in-law."
Mark turned slowly round, plainly showing the tears upon his face.
"Do you mean," said he, "that anything more has taken place?"
"I mean to make your sister my wife; she sent me word by you to say that she loved me, and I am not going to stand upon any nonsense after that. If she and I are both willing no one alive has a right to stand between us; and, by heavens, no one shall. I will do nothing secretly, so I tell you that, exactly as I have told her ladyship."
"But what does she say?"
"She says nothing; but it cannot go on like that. My mother and I cannot live here together if she opposes me in this way. I do not want to frighten your sister by going over to her at Hogglestock, but I expect you to tell her so much as I now tell you, as coming from me; otherwise she will think that I have forgotten her."
"She will not think that."
"She need not; good-bye, old fellow. I"ll make it all right between you and her ladyship about this affair of Sowerby"s."
And then he took his leave and walked off to settle about the payment of the money.
"Mother," said he to Lady Lufton that evening, "you must not bring this affair of the bailiffs up against Robarts. It has been more my fault than his."
Hitherto not a word had been spoken between Lady Lufton and her son on the subject. She had heard with terrible dismay of what had happened, and had heard also that Lord Lufton had immediately gone to the parsonage. It was impossible, therefore, that she should now interfere. That the necessary money would be forthcoming she was aware, but that would not wipe out the terrible disgrace attached to an execution in a clergyman"s house. And then, too, he was her clergyman,--her own clergyman, selected, and appointed, and brought to Framley by herself, endowed with a wife of her own choosing, filled with good things by her own hand! It was a terrible misadventure, and she began to repent that she had ever heard the name of Robarts. She would not, however, have been slow to put forth the hand to lessen the evil by giving her own money, had this been either necessary or possible. But how could she interfere between Robarts and her son, especially when she remembered the proposed connection between Lucy and Lord Lufton?
"Your fault, Ludovic?"
"Yes, mother. It was I who introduced him to Mr. Sowerby; and, to tell the truth, I do not think he would ever have been intimate with Sowerby if I had not given him some sort of a commission with reference to money matters then pending between Mr. Sowerby and me.
They are all over now,--thanks to you, indeed."
"Mr. Robarts" character as a clergyman should have kept him from such troubles, if no other feeling did so."
"At any rate, mother, oblige me by letting it pa.s.s by."
"Oh, I shall say nothing to him."