|
FRAMLEY PARSONAGE
FRAMLEY PARSONAGE ANTHONY TROLLOPE TABLE OF CONTENTS
I 'OMNES OMNIA BONA DICERE'
II THE FRAMLEY SET AND THE CHALDICOTE SET
III CHALDICOTES
IV A MATTER OF CONSCIENCE
V AMANTIUM IRAE AMORES INTEGRATIO
VI MR HAROLD SMITH'S LECTURE
VII SUNDAY MORNING
VIII GATHERUM CASTLE
IX THE VICAR'S RETURN
X LUCY ROBARTS
XI GRISELDA GRANTLY
XII THE LITTLE BILL
XIII DELICATE HINTS
XIV MR CRAWLEY OF HOGGLESTOCK
XV LADY LUFTON'S AMBASSADOR
XVI MRS PODGERS' BABY
XVII MRS PROUDIE'S CONVERSATSIONE
XVIII THE NEW MINISTER'S PATRONAGE
XIX MONEY DEALING
XX HAROLD SMITH IN CABINET
XXI WHY PUCK THE PONY WAS BEATEN
XXII HOGGLESTOCK PARSONAGE
XXIII THE TRIUMPH OF THE GIANTS
XXIV MAGNA EST VERITAS
XXV NON-IMPULSIVE
XXVI IMPULSIVE
XXVII SOUTH AUDLEY STREET
XXVIII DR THORNE
XXIX MISS DUNSTABLE AT HOME
XXX THE GRANTLY TRIUMPH
XXX1 SALMON FISHING IN NORWAY
XXXII THE GOAT AND THE COMPASSES
XXXIII CONSOLATION
XXXIV LADY LUFTON IS TAKEN BY SURPRISE
XXXV THE STORY OF KING COPHETUA
XXXVI KIDNAPPING AT HOGGLESTOCK
XXXVII MR SOWERBY WITHOUT COMPANY
XXXVIII IS THERE CAUSE OR JUST IMPEDIMENT?
XXXIX HOW TO WRITE A LOVE LETTER
XL INTERNECINE
XLI DON QUIXOTE
XLII TOUCHING PITCH
XLIII IS SHE NOT INSIGNIFICANT?
XLIV THE PHILISTINES AT THE PARSONAGE
XLV PALACE BLESSINGS
XLVI LADY LUFTON'S REQUEST
XLVII NEMESIS
XLVIII HOW THEY WERE ALL MARRIED HAD TWO CHILDREN AND
LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER
CHAPTER I
'OMNES OMNIA BONA DICERE'
When young Mark Robarts was leaving college his father might well
declare that all men began to say all good things to him and to
extol his fortune in that he had a son blessed with an excellent
disposition. This father was a physician living at Exeter. He was
a gentleman possessed of no private means but enjoying a lucrative
practice which had enabled him to maintain and educate a family
with all the advantages which money can give in this country. Mark
was his eldest son and second child; and the first page or two of
this narrative must be consumed in giving a catalogue of the good
things which chance and conduct together had heaped upon this young
man's head.
His first step forward in life had arisen from his having been
sent while still very young as a private pupil to the house of a
clergyman who was an old friend and intimate friend of his father's.
This clergyman had one other and only one other pupil--the
young Lord Lufton; and between the two boys there had sprung
up a close alliance. While they were both so placed Lady Lufton
had visited her son and then invited young Robarts to pass
his next holidays at Framley Court. This visit was made; and it
ended in Mark going back to Exeter with a letter full of praise
from the widowed peeress. She had been delighted she said in
having such a companion for her son and expressed a hope that the
boys might remain together during the course of their education.
Dr Robarts was a man who thought much of the breath of peers and
peeresses and was by no means inclined to throw away any advantage
which might arise to his child from such a friendship. When
therefore the young lord was sent to Harrow Mark Robarts went
there also.
That the lord and his friend often quarrelled and occasionally
fought--the fact even that for a period of three months they never
spoke to each other--by no means interfered with the doctor's
hopes. Mark again and again stayed a fortnight at Framley Court
and Lady Lufton always wrote about him in the highest terms. And
then the lads went together to Oxford and here Mark's good fortune
followed him consisting rather in the highly respectable manner in
which he lived than in any wonderful career of collegiate
success. His family was proud of him and the doctor was always
ready to talk of him to his patients; not because he was a
prize-man and had gotten a scholarship but on account of the
excellence of his general conduct. He lived with the best set--he
incurred no debts--he was fond of society but able to avoid low
society--liked his glass of wine but was never known to be drunk;
and above all things was one of the most popular men in the
University. Then came the question of a profession for the young
Hyperion and on this subject Dr Robarts was invited himself to go
over to Framley Court to discuss the matter with Lady Lufton.
Dr Robarts returned with a very strong conception that the Church
was the profession best suited to his son.
Lady Lufton had not sent for Dr Robarts all the way from Exeter for
nothing. The living of Framley was in the gift of Lady Lufton's
family and the next presentation would be in Lady Lufton's hands
if it should fall vacant before the young lord was twenty-five
years of age and in the young lord's hands if it should fall
afterwards. But the mother and the heir consented to give a joint
promise to Dr Robarts. Now as the present incumbent was over
seventy and as the living was worth 900 pounds a year there could
be no doubt as to the eligibility of the clerical profession. And
I must further say that the dowager and the doctor were justified
in their choice by the life and principles of the young man--as
far as any father can be justified in choosing such a profession
for his son and as far as any lay impropriator can be justified in
making such a promise. Had Lady Lufton had a second son that
second son would probably have had the living and no one would
have thought it wrong;--certainly not if that second son had been
such a one as Mark Robarts.
Lady Lufton herself was a woman who thought much on religious
matters and would by no means have been disposed to place any one
in a living merely because such a one had been her son's friend.
Her tendencies were High Church and she was enabled to perceive
that those of young Mark Robarts ran in the same direction. She
was very desirous that her son should make an associate of his
clergyman and by this step she would ensure at any rate that.
She was anxious that the parish vicar should be one with whom she
could herself fully co-operate and was perhaps unconsciously
wishful that he might in some measure be subject to her influence.
Should she appoint an elder man this might probably not be the
case to the same extent; and should her son have the gift it might
probably not be the case at all. And therefore it was resolved
that the living should be given to young Robarts.
He took his degree--not with any brilliancy but quite in the
manner that his father desired; he then travelled for eight or ten
months with Lord Lufton and a college don and almost immediately
after his return home was ordained.
The living of Framley is in the diocese of Barchester; and seeing
what were Mark's hopes with reference to that diocese it was by no
means difficult to get him a curacy within it. But this curacy he
was not allowed long to fill. He had not been in it above a
twelvemonth when poor old Dr Stopford the then vicar of Framley
was gathered to his fathers and the full fruition of his rich
hopes fell upon his shoulders.
But even yet more must be told of his good fortune before we can
come to the actual incidents of our story. Lady Lufton who as I
have said thought much of clerical matters did not carry her High
Church principles so far as to advocate celibacy for the clergy. On
the contrary she had an idea that a man could not be a good parish
parson without a wife. So having given to her favourite a
position in the world and an income sufficient for a gentleman's
wants she set herself to work to find him a partner in those
blessings. And here also as in other matters he fell in with the
views of his patroness--not however that they were declared to
him in that marked manner in which the affair of the living had
been broached. Lady Lufton was much too highly gifted with woman's
craft for that. She never told the young vicar that Miss Monsell
accompanied her ladyship's married daughter to Framley Court
...
|
