Chapter IX.

       The Vicar’s Return

       Table of Contents

      The next morning Mr. Robarts took leave of all his grand friends with a heavy heart. He had lain awake half the night thinking of what he had done and trying to reconcile himself to his position. He had not well left Mr. Sowerby’s room before he felt certain that at the end of three months he would again be troubled about that £400. As he went along the passage, all the man’s known antecedents crowded upon him much quicker than he could remember them when seated in that armchair with the bill stamp before him, and the pen and ink ready to his hand. He remembered what Lord Lufton had told him—how he had complained of having been left in the lurch; he thought of all the stories current through the entire country as to the impossibility of getting money from Chaldicotes; he brought to mind the known character of the man, and then he knew that he must prepare himself to make good a portion at least of that heavy payment. Why had he come to this horrid place? Had he not everything at home at Framley which the heart of man could desire? No; the heart of man can desire deaneries—the heart, that is, of the man vicar; and the heart of the man dean can desire bishoprics; and before the eyes of the man bishop does there not loom the transcendental glory of Lambeth? He had owned to himself that he was ambitious; but he had to own to himself now also that he had hitherto taken but a sorry path towards the object of his ambition. On the next morning at breakfast-time, before his horse and gig arrived for him, no one was so bright as his friend Sowerby. “So you are off, are you?” said he.

      “Yes, I shall go this morning.”

      “Say everything that’s kind from me to Lufton. I may possibly see him out hunting; otherwise we shan’t meet till the spring. As to my going to Framley, that’s out of the question. Her ladyship would look for my tail, and swear that she smelt brimstone. By-bye, old fellow!”

      The German student when he first made his bargain with the devil felt an indescribable attraction to his new friend; and such was the case now with Robarts. He shook Sowerby’s hand very warmly, said that he hoped he should meet him soon somewhere, and professed himself specially anxious to hear how that affair with the lady came off. As he had made his bargain—as he had undertaken to pay nearly half a year’s income for his dear friend—ought he not to have as much value as possible for his money? If the dear friendship of this flash member of Parliament did not represent that value, what else did do so? But then he felt, or fancied that he felt, that Mr. Sowerby did not care for him so much this morning as he had done on the previous evening. “By-bye,” said Mr. Sowerby, but he spoke no word as to such future meetings, nor did he even promise to write. Mr. Sowerby probably had many things on his mind; and it might be that it behoved him, having finished one piece of business, immediately to look to another.

      The sum for which Robarts had made himself responsible—which he so much feared that he would be called upon to pay—was very nearly half a year’s income; and as yet he had not put by one shilling since he had been married. When he found himself settled in his parsonage, he found also that all the world regarded him as a rich man. He had taken the dictum of all the world as true, and had set himself to work to live comfortably. He had no absolute need of a curate; but he could afford the £70—as Lady Lufton had said rather injudiciously; and by keeping Jones in the parish he would be acting charitably to a brother clergyman, and would also place himself in a more independent position. Lady Lufton had wished to see her pet clergyman well-to-do and comfortable; but now, as matters had turned out, she much regretted this affair of the curate. Mr. Jones, she said to herself, more than once, must be made to depart from Framley. He had given his wife a pony-carriage, and for himself he had a saddle-horse, and a second horse for his gig. A man in his position, well-to-do as he was, required as much as that. He had a footman also, and a gardener, and a groom. The two latter were absolutely necessary, but about the former there had been a question. His wife had been decidedly hostile to the footman; but in all such matters as that, to doubt is to be lost. When the footman had been discussed for a week it became quite clear to the master that he also was a necessary.

      As he drove home that morning he pronounced to himself the doom of that footman, and the doom also of that saddle-horse. They at any rate should go. And then he would spend no more money in trips to Scotland; and above all, he would keep out of the bedrooms of impoverished members of Parliament at the witching hour of midnight. Such resolves did he make to himself as he drove home; and bethought himself wearily how that £400 might be made to be forthcoming. As to any assistance in the matter from Sowerby,—of that he gave himself no promise. But he almost felt himself happy again as his wife came out into the porch to meet him with a silk shawl over her head, and pretending to shiver as she watched him descending from his gig. “My dear old man,” she said, as she led him into the warm drawing-room with all his wrappings still about him, “you must be starved.” But Mark during the whole drive had been thinking too much of that transaction in Mr. Sowerby’s bedroom to remember that the air was cold. Now he had his arm round his own dear Fanny’s waist; but was he to tell her of that transaction? At any rate he would not do it now, while his two boys were in his arms, rubbing the moisture from his whiskers with their kisses. After all, what is there equal to that coming home?

      “And so Lufton is here. I say, Frank, gently, old boy,”—Frank was his eldest son—”you’ll have baby into the fender.”

      “Let me take baby; it’s impossible to hold the two of them, they are so strong,” said the proud mother. “Oh, yes, he came home early yesterday.”

      “Have you seen him?”

      “He was here yesterday, with her ladyship; and I lunched there to-day. The letter came, you know, in time to stop the Merediths. They don’t go till tomorrow, so you will meet them after all. Sir George is wild about it, but Lady Lufton would have her way. You never saw her in such a state as she is.”

      “Good spirits, eh?”

      “I should think so. All Lord Lufton’s horses are coming, and he’s to be here till March.”

      “Till March!”

      “So her ladyship whispered to me. She could not conceal her triumph at his coming. He’s going to give up Leicestershire this year altogether. I wonder what has brought it all about?” Mark knew very well what had brought it about; he had been made acquainted, as the reader has also, with the price at which Lady Lufton had purchased her son’s visit. But no one had told Mrs. Robarts that the mother had made her son a present of five thousand pounds.

      “She’s in a good humour about everything now,” continued Fanny; “so you need say nothing at all about Gatherum Castle.”

      “But she was very angry when she first heard it; was she not?”

      “Well, Mark, to tell the truth, she was; and we had quite a scene there up in her own room upstairs—Justinia and I. She had heard something else that she did not like at the same time; and then—but you know her way. She blazed up quite hot.”

      “And said all manner of horrid things about me.”

      “About