Lucy Robarts
And now, how was he to tell his wife?
That was the consideration heavy on Mark Robarts’s
mind when last we left him; and he turned the matter
often in his thoughts before he could bring himself
to a resolution. At last he did do so, and one
may say that it was not altogether a bad one, if only
he could carry it out. He would ascertain in
what bank that bill of his had been discounted.
He would ask Sowerby, and if he could not learn from
him, he would go to the three banks in Barchester.
That it had been taken to one of them he felt tolerably
certain. He would explain to the manager his
conviction that he would have to make good the amount,
his inability to do so at the end of the three months,
and the whole state of his income; and then the banker
would explain to him how the matter might be arranged.
He thought that he could pay L50 every three months
with interest. As soon as this should have been
concerted with the banker, he would let his wife know
all about it. Were he to tell her at the present
moment, while the matter was all unsettled, the intelligence
would frighten her into illness. But on the next
morning there came to him tidings by the hands of
Robin postman, which for a long while upset all his
plans. The letter was from Exeter. His father
had been taken ill, and had very quickly been pronounced
to be in danger. That evening the
evening on which his sister wrote the old
man was much worse, and it was desirable that Mark
should go off to Exeter as quickly as possible.
Of course he went to Exeter again leaving
the Framley souls at the mercy of the Welsh Low Churchman.
Framley is only four miles from Silverbridge, and
at Silverbridge he was on the direct road to the West.
He was, therefore, at Exeter before nightfall on that
day. But, nevertheless, he arrived there too late
to see his father again alive. The old man’s
illness had been sudden and rapid, and he expired
without again seeing his eldest son. Mark arrived
at the house of mourning just as they were learning
to realize the full change in their position.
The doctor’s career had been
on the whole successful, but nevertheless he did not
leave behind him as much money as the world had given
him credit for possessing. Who ever does?
Dr. Robarts had educated a large family, had always
lived with every comfort, and had never possessed
a shilling but what he had earned himself. A
physician’s fees come in, no doubt, with comfortable
rapidity as soon as rich old gentlemen and middle-aged
ladies begin to put their faith in him; but fees run
out almost with equal rapidity when a wife and seven
children are treated to everything that the world considers
most desirable. Mark, we have seen, had been educated
at Harrow and Oxford, and it may be said, therefore,
that he had received his patrimony early in life.
For Gerald Robarts, the second brother, a commission
had been bought in a crack regiment. He also had
been lucky, having lived and become a captain in the
Crimea; and the purchase-money was lodged for his
majority. And John Robarts, the youngest, was
a clerk in the Petty Bag Office, and was already assistant
private secretary to the Lord Petty Bag himself a
place of considerable trust, if not hitherto of large
emolument; and on his education money had been spent
freely, for in these days a young man cannot get into
the Petty Bag Office without knowing at least three
modern languages; and he must be well up in trigonometry
too, in Bible theology, or in one dead language at
his option. And the doctor had four daughters.
The two elder were married, including that Blanche
with whom Lord Lufton was to have fallen in love at
the vicar’s wedding. A Devonshire squire
had done this in the lord’s place; but on marrying
her it was necessary that he should have a few thousand
pounds, two or three perhaps, and the old doctor had
managed that they should be forthcoming. The
elder also had not been sent away from the paternal
mansion quite empty-handed. There were, therefore,
at the time of the doctor’s death two children
left at home, of whom one only, Lucy, the younger,
will come much across us in the course of our story.
Mark stayed for ten days at Exeter,
he and the Devonshire squire having been named as
executors in the will. In this document it was
explained that the doctor trusted that provision had
been made for most of his children. As for his
dear son Mark, he said, he was aware that he need
be under no uneasiness. On hearing this read Mark
smiled sweetly, and looked very gracious; but, nevertheless,
his heart did sink somewhat within him, for there
had been a hope that a small windfall, coming now
so opportunely, might enable him to rid himself at
once of that dreadful Sowerby incubus. And then
the will went on to declare that Mary, and Gerald,
and Blanche, had also, by God’s providence,
been placed beyond want. And here, looking into
the squire’s face, one might have thought that
his heart fell a little also; for he had not so full
a command of his feelings as his brother-in-law, who
had been so much more before the world. To John,
the assistant private secretary, was left a legacy
of a thousand pounds; and to Jane and Lucy certain
sums in certain four per cents., which were quite
sufficient to add an efficient value to the hands
of those young ladies in the eyes of most prudent young
would-be Benedicts. Over and beyond this there
was nothing but the furniture, which he desired might
be sold, and the proceeds divided among them all.
It might come to sixty or seventy pounds a piece, and
pay the expenses incidental on his death. And
then all men and women there and thereabouts said
that old Dr. Robarts had done well. His life
had been good and prosperous, and his will was just.
And Mark, among others, so declared and
was so convinced in spite of his own little disappointment.
And on the third morning after the reading of the
will Squire Crowdy, of Creamclotted Hall, altogether
got over his grief, and said that it was all right.
And then it was decided that Jane should go home with
him for there was a brother squire who,
it was thought, might have an eye to Jane; and
Lucy, the younger, should be taken to Framley parsonage.
In a fortnight from the receipt of that letter Mark
arrived at his own house with his sister Lucy under
his wing.
All this interfered greatly with Mark’s
wise resolution as to the Sowerby-bill incubus.
In the first place, he could not get to Barchester
as soon as he had intended, and then an idea came across
him that possibly it might be well that he should borrow
the money of his brother John, explaining the circumstances,
of course, and paying him due interest. But he
had not liked to broach the subject when they were
there in Exeter, standing, as it were, over their father’s
grave, and so the matter was postponed. There
was still ample time for arrangement before the bill
would come due, and he would not tell Fanny till he
had made up his mind what that arrangement would be.
It would kill her, he said to himself over and over
again, were he to tell her of it without being able
to tell her also that the means of liquidating the
debt were to be forthcoming.
And now I must say a word about Lucy
Robarts. If one might only go on without those
descriptions how pleasant it would all be! But
Lucy Robarts has to play a forward part in this little
drama, and those who care for such matters must be
made to understand something of her form and likeness.
When last we mentioned her as appearing, though not
in any prominent position, at her brother’s wedding,
she was only sixteen; but now, at the time of her
father’s death, somewhat over two years having
since elapsed, she was nearly nineteen. Laying
aside for the sake of clearness that indefinite term
of girl for girls are girls from the age
of three up to forty-three, if not previously married dropping
that generic word, we may say that then, at that wedding
of her brother, she was a child; and now, at the death
of her father, she was a woman. Nothing, perhaps,
adds so much to womanhood, turns the child so quickly
into a woman, as such death-bed scenes as these.
Hitherto but little had fallen to Lucy to do in the
way of woman’s duties. Of money transactions
she had known nothing, beyond a jocose attempt to
make her annual allowance of twenty-five pounds cover
all her personal wants an attempt which
was made jocose by the loving bounty of her father.
Her sister, who was three years her elder for
John came in between them had managed the
house; that is, she had made the tea and talked to
the house-keeper about the dinners. But Lucy
had sat at her father’s elbow, had read to him
of evenings when he went to sleep, had brought him
his slippers and looked after the comforts of his
easy chair. All this she had done as a child;
but when she stood at the coffin head, and knelt at
the coffin side, then she was a woman.
She was smaller in stature than either
of her three sisters, to all of whom had been acceded
the praise of being fine women a eulogy
which the people of Exeter, looking back at the elder
sisters, and the general remembrance of them which
pervaded the city, were not willing to extend to Lucy.
“Dear dear!” had been said of
her; “poor Lucy is not like a Robarts at all;
is she, now, Mrs. Pole?” for as the
daughters had become fine women, so had the sons grown
into stalwart men. And then Mrs. Pole had answered:
“Not a bit; is she, now? Only think what
Blanche was at her age. But she has fine eyes,
for all that; and they do say she is the cleverest
of them all.” And that, too, is so true
a description of her that I do not know that I can
add much to it. She was not like Blanche; for
Blanche had a bright complexion, and a fine neck,
and a noble bust, et vera incessu patuit Dea a
true goddess, that is, as far as the eye went.
She had a grand idea, moreover, of an apple-pie, and
had not reigned eighteen months at Creamclotted Hall
before she knew all the mysteries of pigs and milk,
and most of those appertaining to cider and green
cheese.
Lucy had no neck at all worth speaking
of, no neck, I mean, that ever produced
eloquence; she was brown, too, and had addicted herself
in nowise, as she undoubtedly should have done, to
larder utility. In regard to the neck and colour,
poor girl, she could not help herself; but in that
other respect she must be held as having wasted her
opportunities. But then what eyes she had!
Mrs. Pole was right there. They flashed upon
you, not always softly; indeed not often softly if
you were a stranger to her; but whether softly or savagely,
with a brilliancy that dazzled you as you looked at
them. And who shall say of what colour they were?
Green, probably, for most eyes are green green
or grey, if green be thought uncomely for an eye-colour.
But it was not their colour, but their fire, which
struck one with such surprise.
Lucy Robarts was thoroughly a brunette.
Sometimes the dark tint of her cheek was exquisitely
rich and lovely, and the fringes of her eyes were
long and soft, and her small teeth, which one so seldom
saw, were white as pearls, and her hair, though short,
was beautifully soft by no means black,
but yet of so dark a shade of brown. Blanche,
too, was noted for fine teeth. They were white
and regular and lofty as a new row of houses in a
French city. But then when she laughed she was
all teeth; as she was all neck when she sat at the
piano. But Lucy’s teeth! it was
only now and again, when in some sudden burst of wonder
she would sit for a moment with her lips apart, that
the fine finished lines and dainty pearl-white colour
of that perfect set of ivory could be seen. Mrs.
Pole would have said a word of her teeth also, but
that to her they had never been made visible.
“But they do say that she is the cleverest of
them all,” Mrs. Pole had added, very properly.
The people of Exeter had expressed such an opinion,
and had been quite just in doing so. I do not
know how it happens, but it always does happen, that
everybody in every small town knows which is the brightest-witted
in every family. In this respect Mrs. Pole had
only expressed public opinion, and public opinion
was right. Lucy Robarts was blessed with an intelligence
keener than that of her brothers or sisters.
“To tell the truth, Mark, I
admire Lucy more than I do Blanche.” This
had been said by Mrs. Robarts within a few hours of
her having assumed that name. “She’s
not a beauty, I know, but yet I do.”
“My dearest Fanny!” Mark
had answered in a tone of surprise.
“I do then; of course people
won’t think so; but I never seem to care about
regular beauties. Perhaps I envy them too much.”
What Mark said next need not be repeated, but everybody
may be sure that it contained some gross flattery
for his young bride. He remembered this, however,
and had always called Lucy his wife’s pet.
Neither of the sisters had since that been at Framley;
and though Fanny had spent a week at Exeter on the
occasion of Blanche’s marriage, it could hardly
be said that she was very intimate with them.
Nevertheless, when it became expedient that one of
them should go to Framley, the remembrance of what
his wife had said immediately induced Mark to make
the offer to Lucy; and Jane, who was of a kindred
soul with Blanche, was delighted to go to Creamclotted
Hall. The acres of Heavybed House, down in that
fat Totnes country, adjoined those of Creamclotted
Hall, and Heavybed House still wanted a mistress.
Fanny was delighted when the news
reached her. It would of course be proper that
one of his sisters should live with Mark under their
present circumstances, and she was happy to think that
that quiet little bright-eyed creature was to come
and nestle with her under the same roof. The
children should so love her only not quite
so much as they loved mamma; and the snug little room
that looks out over the porch, in which the chimney
never smokes, should be made ready for her; and she
should be allowed her share of driving the pony which
was a great sacrifice of self on the part of Mrs. Robarts and
Lady Lufton’s best good-will should be bespoken.
In fact, Lucy was not unfortunate in the destination
that was laid out for her. Lady Lufton had of
course heard of the doctor’s death, and had sent
all manner of kind messages to Mark, advising him
not to hurry home by any means until everything was
settled at Exeter. And then she was told of the
new-comer that was expected in the parish. When
she heard that it was Lucy, the younger, she also
was satisfied; for Blanche’s charms, though
indisputable, had not been altogether to her taste.
If a second Blanche were to arrive there what danger
might there not be for young Lord Lufton! “Quite
right,” said her ladyship, “just what
he ought to do. I think I remember the young lady;
rather small, is she not, and very retiring?”
“Rather small and very retiring.
What a description!” said Lord Lufton.
“Never mind, Ludovic; some young
ladies must be small, and some at least ought to be
retiring. We shall be delighted to make her acquaintance.”
“I remember your other sister-in-law
very well,” said Lord Lufton. “She
was a beautiful woman.”
“I don’t think you will
consider Lucy a beauty,” said Mrs. Robarts.
“Small, retiring, and ”
so far Lord Lufton had gone, when Mrs. Robarts finished
by the word, “plain.” She had liked
Lucy’s face, but she had thought that others
probably did not do so.
“Upon my word,” said Lady
Lufton, “you don’t deserve to have a sister-in-law.
I remember her very well, and can say that she is not
plain. I was very much taken with her manner at
your wedding, my dear, and thought more of her than
I did of the beauty, I can tell you.”
“I must confess I do not remember
her at all,” said his lordship. And so
the conversation ended. And then at the end of
the fortnight Mark arrived with his sister. They
did not reach Framley till long after dark somewhere
between six and seven and by this time it
was December. There was snow on the ground, and
frost in the air, and no moon, and cautious men when
they went on the roads had their horses’ shoes
cocked. Such being the state of the weather Mark’s
gig had been nearly filled with cloaks and shawls
when it was sent over to Silverbridge. And a
cart was sent for Lucy’s luggage, and all manner
of preparations had been made. Three times had
Fanny gone herself to see that the fire burned brightly
in the little room over the porch, and at the moment
that the sound of the wheels was heard she was engaged
in opening her son’s mind as to the nature of
an aunt. Hitherto papa and mamma and Lady Lufton
were all that he had known, excepting, of course,
the satellites of the nursery. And then in three
minutes Lucy was standing by the fire. Those three
minutes had been taken up in embraces between the
husband and the wife. Let who would be brought
as a visitor to the house, after a fortnight’s
absence, she would kiss him before she welcomed any
one else. But then she turned to Lucy, and began
to assist her with her cloaks.
“Oh, thank you,” said
Lucy; “I’m not cold, not very
at least. Don’t trouble yourself:
I can do it.” But here she had made a false
boast, for her fingers had been so numbed that she
could not do nor undo anything. They were all
in black, of course; but the sombreness of Lucy’s
clothes struck Fanny much more than her own. They
seemed to have swallowed her up in their blackness,
and to have made her almost an emblem of death.
She did not look up, but kept her face turned towards
the fire, and seemed almost afraid of her position.
“She may say what she likes,
Fanny,” said Mark, “but she is very cold.
And so am I, cold enough. You had better
go up with her to her room. We won’t do
much in the dressing way to-night; eh, Lucy?”
In the bedroom Lucy thawed a little, and Fanny, as
she kissed her, said to herself that she had been
wrong as to that word “plain.” Lucy,
at any rate, was not plain.
“You will be used to us soon,”
said Fanny, “and then I hope we shall make you
comfortable.” And she took her sister-in-law’s
hand and pressed it. Lucy looked up at her, and
her eyes then were tender enough. “I am
sure I shall be happy here,” she said, “with
you. But but dear papa!”
And then they got into each other’s arms, and
had a great bout of kissing and crying. “Plain,”
said Fanny to herself, as at last she got her guest’s
hair smoothed and the tears washed from her eyes “plain!
She has the loveliest countenance that I ever looked
at in my life!”
“Your sister is quite beautiful,”
she said to Mark, as they talked her over alone before
they went to sleep that night.
“No, she’s not beautiful;
but she’s a very good girl, and clever enough
too, in her sort of way.”
“I think her perfectly lovely.
I never saw such eyes in my life before.”
“I’ll leave her in your
hands, then; you shall get her a husband.”
“That mayn’t be so easy.
I don’t think she’d marry anybody.”
“Well, I hope not. But
she seems to me to be exactly cut out for an old maid; to
be Aunt Lucy for ever and ever to your bairns.”
“And so she shall, with all
my heart. But I don’t think she will, very
long. I have no doubt she will be hard to please;
but if I were a man I should fall in love with her
at once. Did you ever observe her teeth, Mark?”
“I don’t think I ever did.”
“You wouldn’t know whether
any one had a tooth in their head, I believe.”
“No one except you, my dear;
and I know all yours by heart.”
“You are a goose.”
“And a very sleepy one; so,
if you please, I’ll go to roost.”
And thus there was nothing more said about Lucy’s
beauty on that occasion.
For the first two days Mrs. Robarts
did not make much of her sister-in-law. Lucy,
indeed, was not demonstrative: and she was, moreover,
one of those few persons for they are very
few who are contented to go on with their
existence without making themselves the centre of
any special outward circle. To the ordinary run
of minds it is impossible not to do this. A man’s
own dinner is to himself so important that he cannot
bring himself to believe that it is a matter utterly
indifferent to every one else. A lady’s
collection of baby-clothes, in early years, and of
house linen and curtain-fringes in later life, is
so very interesting to her own eyes, that she cannot
believe but what other people will rejoice to behold
it. I would not, however, be held as regarding
this tendency as evil. It leads to conversation
of some sort among people, and perhaps to a kind of
sympathy. Mrs. Jones will look at Mrs. White’s
linen chest, hoping that Mrs. White may be induced
to look at hers. One can only pour out of a jug
that which is in it. For the most of us, if we
do not talk of ourselves, or at any rate of the individual
circles of which we are the centres, we can talk of
nothing. I cannot hold with those who wish to
put down the insignificant chatter of the world.
As for myself, I am always happy to look at Mrs. Jones’s
linen, and never omit an opportunity of giving her
the details of my own dinners. But Lucy Robarts
had not this gift. She had come there as a stranger
into her sister-in-law’s house, and at first
seemed as though she would be contented in simply
having her corner in the drawing-room and her place
at the parlour-table. She did not seem to need
the comforts of condolence and open-hearted talking.
I do not mean to say that she was moody, that she
did not answer when she was spoken to, or that she
took no notice of the children; but she did not at
once throw herself and all her hopes and sorrows into
Fanny’s heart, as Fanny would have had her do.
Mrs. Robarts herself was what we call
demonstrative. When she was angry with Lady Lufton
she showed it. And as since that time her love
and admiration for Lady Lufton had increased, she showed
that also. When she was in any way displeased
with her husband, she could not hide it, even though
she tried to do so, and fancied herself successful; no
more than she could hide her warm, constant, overflowing
woman’s love. She could not walk through
a room hanging on her husband’s arm without
seeming to proclaim to every one there that she thought
him the best man in it. She was demonstrative,
and therefore she was the more disappointed in that
Lucy did not rush at once with all her cares into
her open heart. “She is so quiet,”
Fanny said to her husband.
“That’s her nature,”
said Mark. “She always was quiet as a child.
While we were smashing everything, she would never
crack a teacup.”
“I wish she would break something
now,” said Fanny, “and then perhaps we
should get to talk about it.” But she did
not on this account give over loving her sister-in-law.
She probably valued her the more, unconsciously, for
not having those aptitudes with which she herself
was endowed. And then after two days Lady Lufton
called: of course it may be supposed that Fanny
had said a good deal to her new inmate about Lady
Lufton. A neighbour of that kind in the country
exercises so large an influence upon the whole tenor
of one’s life, that to abstain from such talk
is out of the question. Mrs. Robarts had been
brought up almost under the dowager’s wing, and
of course she regarded her as being worthy of much
talking. Do not let persons on this account suppose
that Mrs. Robarts was a tuft-hunter, or a toad-eater.
If they do not see the difference they have yet got
to study the earliest principles of human nature.
Lady Lufton called, and Lucy was struck
dumb. Fanny was particularly anxious that her
ladyship’s first impression should be favourable,
and to effect this, she especially endeavoured to throw
the two together during that visit. But in this
she was unwise. Lady Lufton, however, had woman-craft
enough not to be led into any egregious error by Lucy’s
silence. “And what day will you come and
dine with us?” said Lady Lufton, turning expressly
to her old friend Fanny.
“Oh, do you name the day.
We never have many engagements, you know.”
“Will Thursday do, Miss Robarts?
You will meet nobody you know, only my son; so you
need not regard it as going out. Fanny here will
tell you that stepping over to Framley Court is no
more going out, than when you go from one room to
another in the parsonage. Is it, Fanny?”
Fanny laughed, and said that that stepping over to
Framley Court certainly was done so often that perhaps
they did not think so much about it as they ought
to do.
“We consider ourselves a sort
of happy family here, Miss Robarts, and are delighted
to have the opportunity of including you in the ménage.”
Lucy gave her ladyship one of her sweetest smiles,
but what she said at that moment was inaudible.
It was plain, however, that she could not bring herself
even to go as far as Framley Court for her dinner
just at present. “It was very kind of Lady
Lufton,” she said to Fanny; “but it was
so very soon, and and and if
they would only go without her, she would be so happy.”
But as the object was to go with her expressly
to take her there the dinner was adjourned
for a short time sine die.