GRISELDA GRANTLY.
It was nearly a month after this that Lucy was first introduced to Lord
Lufton, and then it was brought about only by accident. During that
time Lady Lufton had been often at the parsonage, and had in a certain
degree learned to know Lucy; but the stranger in the parish had never
yet plucked up courage to accept one of the numerous invitations that
had reached her. Mr. Robarts and his wife had frequently been at Framley
Court, but the dreaded day of Lucy’s initiation had not yet arrived.
She had seen Lord Lufton in church, but hardly so as to know him, and
beyond that she had not seen him at all. One day, however—or rather, one
evening, for it was already dusk—he overtook her and Mrs. Robarts on the
road walking towards the vicarage. He had his gun on his shoulder, three
pointers were at his heels, and a gamekeeper followed a little in the
rear.
“How are you, Mrs. Robarts?” he said, almost before he had overtaken
them. “I have been chasing you along the road for the last half mile. I
never knew ladies walk so fast.”
“We should be frozen if we were to dawdle about as you gentlemen do,” and
then she stopped and shook hands with him. She forgot at the moment that
Lucy and he had not met, and therefore she did not introduce them.
“Won’t you make me known to your sister-in-law?” said he, taking off his
hat, and bowing to Lucy. “I have never yet had the pleasure of meeting
her, though we have been neighbours for a month and more.”
Fanny made her excuses and introduced them, and then they went on till
they came to Framley Gate, Lord Lufton talking to them both, and Fanny
answering for the two, and there they stopped for a moment.
“I am surprised to see you alone,” Mrs. Robarts had just said; “I thought
that Captain Culpepper was with you.”
“The captain has left me for this one day. If you’ll whisper I’ll tell
you where he has gone. I dare not speak it out loud, even to the woods.”
“To what terrible place can he have taken himself? I’ll have no
whisperings about such horrors.”
“He has gone to—to—but you’ll promise not to tell my mother?”
“Not tell your mother! Well now you have excited my curiosity! where can
he be?”
“Do you promise, then?”
“Oh, yes! I will promise, because I’m sure Lady Lufton won’t ask me as to
Captain Culpepper’s whereabouts. We won’t tell; will we, Lucy?”
“He has gone to Gatherum Castle for a day’s pheasant-shooting. Now, mind
you must not betray us. Her ladyship supposes that he is shut up in his
room with a toothache. We did not dare to mention the name to her.”
And then it appeared that Mrs. Robarts had some engagement which made it
necessary that she should go up and see Lady Lufton, whereas Lucy was
intending to walk on to the parsonage alone.
“And I have promised to go to your husband,” said Lord Lufton; “or rather
to your husband’s dog, Ponto. And I will do two other good things, I will
carry a brace of pheasants with me, and protect Miss Robarts from the
evil spirits of the Framley roads.” And so Mrs. Robarts turned in at the
gate, and Lucy and his lordship walked off together.
Lord Lufton, though he had never before spoken to Miss Robarts, had
already found out that she was by no means plain. Though he had hardly
seen her except at church, he had already made himself certain that the
owner of that face must be worth knowing, and was not sorry to have the
present opportunity of speaking to her. “So you have an unknown damsel
shut up in your castle,” he had once said to Mrs. Robarts. “If she be
kept a prisoner much longer, I shall find it my duty to come and release
her by force of arms.” He had been there twice with the object of seeing
her, but on both occasions Lucy had managed to escape. Now we may say she
was fairly caught, and Lord Lufton, taking a pair of pheasants from the
gamekeeper, and swinging them over his shoulder, walked off with his prey.
“You have been here a long time,” he said, “without our having had the
pleasure of seeing you.”
“Yes, my lord,” said Lucy. Lords had not been frequent among her
acquaintance hitherto.
“I tell Mrs. Robarts that she has been confining you illegally, and that
we shall release you by force or stratagem.”
“I—I—I have had a great sorrow lately.”
“Yes, Miss Robarts; I know you have; and I am only joking, you know. But
I do hope that now you will be able to come amongst us. My mother is so
anxious that you should do so.”
“I am sure she is very kind, and you also—my lord.”
“I never knew my own father,” said Lord Lufton, speaking gravely. “But I
can well understand what a loss you have had.” And then, after pausing a
moment, he continued, “I remember Dr. Robarts well.”
“Do you, indeed?” said Lucy, turning sharply towards him, and speaking
now with some animation in her voice. Nobody had yet spoken to her about
her father since she had been at Framley. It had been as though the
subject were a forbidden one. And how frequently is this the case! When
those we love are dead, our friends dread to mention them, though to us
who are bereaved no subject would be so pleasant as their names. But we
rarely understand how to treat our own sorrow or those of others.
There was once a people in some land—and they may be still there for
what I know—who thought it sacrilegious to stay the course of a raging
fire. If a house were being burned, burn it must, even though there were
facilities for saving it. For who would dare to interfere with the course
of the god? Our idea of sorrow is much the same. We think it wicked, or
at any rate heartless, to put it out. If a man’s wife be dead, he should
go about lugubrious, with long face, for at least two years, or perhaps
with full length for eighteen months, decreasing gradually during the
other six. If he be a man who can quench his sorrow—put out his fire as
it were—in less time than that, let him at any rate not show his power!
“Yes: I remember him,” continued Lord Lufton. “He came twice to
Framley while I was a boy, consulting with my mother about Mark and
myself,—whether the Eton floggings were not more efficacious than those
at Harrow. He was very kind to me, foreboding all manner of good things
on my behalf.”
“He was very kind to every one,” said Lucy.
“I should think he would have been—a kind, good, genial man—just the man
to be adored by his own family.”
“Exactly; and so he was. I do not remember that I ever heard an
unkind word from him. There was not a harsh tone in his voice. And
he was generous as the day.” Lucy, we have said, was not generally
demonstrative, but now, on this subject, and with this absolute stranger,
she became almost eloquent.
“I do not wonder that you should feel his loss, Miss Robarts.”
“Oh, I do feel it. Mark is the best of brothers, and, as for Fanny,
she is too kind and too good to me. But I had always been specially my
father’s friend. For the last year or two we had lived so much together!”
“He was an old man when he died, was he not?”
“Just seventy, my lord.”
“Ah, then he was old. My mother is only fifty, and we sometimes call her
the old woman. Do you think she looks older than that? We all say that
she makes herself out to be so much more ancient than she need do.”
“Lady Lufton does not dress young.”
“That is it. She never has, in my memory. She always used to wear black
when I first recollect her. She has given that up now; but she is still
very sombre; is she not?”
“I do not like ladies to dress very young, that is, ladies of—of——”
“Ladies of fifty, we will say?”
“Very well; ladies of fifty, if you like it.”
“Then I am sure you will like my mother.”
They had now turned up through the parsonage wicket, a little gate that
opened into the garden at a point on the road nearer than the chief
entrance.
“I suppose I shall find Mark up at the house?” said he.
“I daresay you will, my lord.”
“Well, I’ll go round this way, for my business is partly in the stable.
You see I am quite at home here, though you never have seen me before.
But, Miss Robarts, now that the ice is broken, I hope that we may be
friends.” He then put out his hand, and when she gave him hers he pressed
it almost as an old friend might have done.
And, indeed, Lucy had talked to him almost as though he were an old
friend. For a minute or two she had forgotten that he was a lord and a
stranger—had forgotten also to be stiff and guarded as was her wont.
Lord Lufton had spoken to her as though he had really cared to know her;
and she, unconsciously, had been taken by the compliment. Lord Lufton,
indeed, had not thought much about it—excepting as thus, that he liked
the glance of a pair of bright eyes, as most other young men do like it.
But, on this occasion, the evening had been so dark, that he had hardly
seen Lucy’s eyes at all.
“Well, Lucy, I hope you liked your companion,” Mrs. Robarts said, as the
three of them clustered round the drawing-room fire before dinner.
“Oh, yes; pretty well,” said Lucy.
“That is not at all complimentary to his lordship.”
“I did not mean to be complimentary, Fanny.”
“Lucy is a great deal too matter-of-fact for compliments,” said Mark.
“What I meant was, that I had no great opportunity for judging, seeing
that I was only with Lord Lufton for about ten minutes.”
“Ah! but there are girls here who would give their eyes for ten minutes
of Lord Lufton to themselves. You do not know how he’s valued. He has the
character of being always able to make himself agreeable to ladies at
half a minute’s warning.”
“Perhaps he had not the half minute’s warning in this case,” said
Lucy,—hypocrite that she was.
“Poor Lucy,” said her brother; “he was coming up to see Ponto’s shoulder,
and I am afraid he was thinking more about the dog than you.”
“Very likely,” said Lucy; and then they went into dinner.
Lucy had been a hypocrite, for she had confessed to herself, while
dressing, that Lord Lufton had been very pleasant; but then it is allowed
to young ladies to be hypocrites when the subject under discussion is the
character of a young gentleman.
Soon after that, Lucy did dine at Framley Court. Captain Culpepper,
in spite of his enormity with reference to Gatherum Castle, was still
staying there, as was also a clergyman from the neighbourhood of
Barchester with his wife and daughter. This was Archdeacon Grantly, a
gentleman whom we have mentioned before, and who was as well known in the
diocese as the bishop himself,—and more thought about by many clergymen
than even that illustrious prelate.
Miss Grantly was a young lady not much older than Lucy Robarts, and
she also was quiet, and not given to much talking in open company. She
was decidedly a beauty, but somewhat statuesque in her loveliness. Her
forehead was high and white, but perhaps too like marble to gratify the
taste of those who are fond of flesh and blood. Her eyes were large and
exquisitely formed, but they seldom showed much emotion. She, indeed,
was impassive herself, and betrayed but little of her feelings. Her nose
was nearly Grecian, not coming absolutely in a straight line from her
forehead, but doing so nearly enough to entitle it to be considered as
classical. Her mouth, too, was very fine—artists, at least, said so,
and connoisseurs in beauty; but to me she always seemed as though she
wanted fulness of lip. But the exquisite symmetry of her cheek and chin
and lower face no man could deny. Her hair was light, and being always
dressed with considerable care, did not detract from her appearance;
but it lacked that richness which gives such luxuriance to feminine
loveliness. She was tall and slight, and very graceful in her movements;
but there were those who thought that she wanted the ease and _abandon_
of youth. They said that she was too composed and stiff for her age, and
that she gave but little to society beyond the beauty of her form and
face.
There can be no doubt, however, that she was considered by most men
and women to be the beauty of Barsetshire, and that gentlemen from
neighbouring counties would come many miles through dirty roads on the
mere hope of being able to dance with her. Whatever attractions she may
have lacked, she had at any rate created for herself a great reputation.
She had spent two months of the last spring in London, and even there
she had made a sensation; and people had said that Lord Dumbello, Lady
Hartletop’s eldest son, had been peculiarly struck with her.
It may be imagined that the archdeacon was proud of her, and so indeed
was Mrs. Grantly—more proud, perhaps, of her daughter’s beauty, than so
excellent a woman should have allowed herself to be of such an attribute.
Griselda—that was her name—was now an only daughter. One sister she had
had, but that sister had died. There were two brothers also left, one
in the church and the other in the army. That was the extent of the
archdeacon’s family, and as the archdeacon was a very rich man—he was the
only child of his father, who had been Bishop of Barchester for a great
many years; and in those years it had been worth a man’s while to be
Bishop of Barchester—it was supposed that Miss Grantly would have a large
fortune. Mrs. Grantly, however, had been heard to say, that she was in no
hurry to see her daughter established in the world;—ordinary young ladies
are merely married, but those of real importance are established:—and
this, if anything, added to the value of the prize. Mothers sometimes
depreciate their wares by an undue solicitude to dispose of them.
But to tell the truth openly and at once—a virtue for which a novelist
does not receive very much commendation—Griselda Grantly was, to a
certain extent, already given away. Not that she, Griselda, knew anything
about it, or that the thrice happy gentleman had been made aware of his
good fortune; nor even had the archdeacon been told. But Mrs. Grantly
and Lady Lufton had been closeted together more than once, and terms had
been signed and sealed between them. Not signed on parchment, and sealed
with wax, as is the case with treaties made by kings and diplomats,—to be
broken by the same; but signed with little words, and sealed with certain
pressings of the hand,—a treaty which between two such contracting
parties would be binding enough. And by the terms of this treaty Griselda
Grantly was to become Lady Lufton.
Lady Lufton had hitherto been fortunate in her matrimonial speculations.
She had selected Sir George for her daughter, and Sir George, with the
utmost good nature, had fallen in with her views. She had selected Fanny
Monsell for Mr. Robarts, and Fanny Monsell had not rebelled against her
for a moment. There was a prestige of success about her doings, and she
felt almost confident that her dear son Ludovic must fall in love with
Griselda.
As to the lady herself, nothing, Lady Lufton thought, could be much
better than such a match for her son. Lady Lufton, I have said, was a
good churchwoman, and the archdeacon was the very type of that branch
of the church which she venerated. The Grantlys, too, were of a good
family,—not noble indeed; but in such matters Lady Lufton did not want
everything. She was one of those persons who, in placing their hopes at
a moderate pitch, may fairly trust to see them realized. She would fain
that her son’s wife should be handsome; this she wished for his sake,
that he might be proud of his wife, and because men love to look on
beauty. But she was afraid of vivacious beauty, of those soft, sparkling
feminine charms which are spread out as lures for all the world, soft
dimples, laughing eyes, luscious lips, conscious smiles, and easy
whispers. What if her son should bring her home a rattling, rapid-spoken,
painted piece of Eve’s flesh such as this? Would not the glory and joy
of her life be over, even though such child of their first mother should
have come forth to the present day ennobled by the blood of two dozen
successive British peers?
And then, too, Griselda’s money would not be useless. Lady Lufton, with
all her high-flown ideas, was not an imprudent woman. She knew that her
son had been extravagant, though she did not believe that he had been
reckless; and she was well content to think that some balsam from the old
bishop’s coffers should be made to cure the slight wounds which his early
imprudence might have inflicted on the carcase of the family property.
And thus, in this way, and for these reasons, Griselda Grantly had been
chosen out from all the world to be the future Lady Lufton.
Lord Lufton had met Griselda more than once already; had met her before
these high contracting parties had come to any terms whatsoever, and
had evidently admired her. Lord Dumbello had remained silent one whole
evening in London with ineffable disgust, because Lord Lufton had been
rather particular in his attentions; but then Lord Dumbello’s muteness
was his most eloquent mode of expression. Both Lady Hartletop and Mrs.
Grantly, when they saw him, knew very well what he meant. But that match
would not exactly have suited Mrs. Grantly’s views. The Hartletop people
were not in her line. They belonged altogether to another set, being
connected, as we have heard before, with the Omnium interest—“those
_horrid_ Gatherum people,” as Lady Lufton would say to her, raising her
hands and eyebrows, and shaking her head. Lady Lufton probably thought
that they ate babies in pies during their midnight orgies at Gatherum
Castle; and that widows were kept in cells, and occasionally put on racks
for the amusement of the duke’s guests.
When the Robarts’s party entered the drawing-room the Grantlys were
already there, and the archdeacon’s voice sounded loud and imposing in
Lucy’s ears, as she heard him speaking while she was yet on the threshold
of the door.
“My dear Lady Lufton, I would believe anything on earth about
her—anything. There is nothing too outrageous for her. Had she insisted
on going there with the bishop’s apron on, I should not have been
surprised.” And then they all knew that the archdeacon was talking about
Mrs. Proudie, for Mrs. Proudie was his bugbear.
Lady Lufton after receiving her guests introduced Lucy to Griselda
Grantly. Miss Grantly smiled graciously, bowed slightly, and then
remarked in the lowest voice possible that it was exceedingly cold. A low
voice, we know, is an excellent thing in woman.
Lucy, who thought that she was bound to speak, said that it was cold, but
that she did not mind it when she was walking. And then Griselda smiled
again, somewhat less graciously than before, and so the conversation
ended. Miss Grantly was the elder of the two, and having seen most of the
world, should have been the best able to talk, but perhaps she was not
very anxious for a conversation with Miss Robarts.
“So, Robarts, I hear that you have been preaching at Chaldicotes,” said
the archdeacon, still rather loudly. “I saw Sowerby the other day, and he
told me that you gave them the fag end of Mrs. Proudie’s lecture.”
“It was ill-natured of Sowerby to say the fag end,” said Robarts. “We
divided the matter into thirds. Harold Smith took the first part, I the
last——”
“And the lady the intervening portion. You have electrified the county
between you; but I am told that she had the best of it.”
“I was so sorry that Mr. Robarts went there,” said Lady Lufton, as she
walked into the dining-room leaning on the archdeacon’s arm.
“I am inclined to think he could not very well have helped himself,”
said the archdeacon, who was never willing to lean heavily on a brother
parson, unless on one who had utterly and irrevocably gone away from his
side of the church.
“Do you think not, archdeacon?”
“Why, no: Sowerby is a friend of Lufton’s——”
“Not particularly,” said poor Lady Lufton, in a deprecating tone.
“Well, they have been intimate; and Robarts, when he was asked to preach
at Chaldicotes, could not well refuse.”
“But then he went afterwards to Gatherum Castle. Not that I am vexed with
him at all now, you understand. But it is such a dangerous house, you
know.”
“So it is.—But the very fact of the duke’s wishing to have a clergyman
there, should always be taken as a sign of grace, Lady Lufton. The air
was impure, no doubt; but it was less impure with Robarts there than it
would have been without him. But, gracious heavens! what blasphemy have I
been saying about impure air? Why, the bishop was there!”
“Yes, the bishop was there,” said Lady Lufton, and they both understood
each other thoroughly.
Lord Lufton took out Mrs. Grantly to dinner, and matters were so managed
that Miss Grantly sat on his other side. There was no management
apparent in this to anybody; but there she was, while Lucy was placed
between her brother and Captain Culpepper. Captain Culpepper was a man
with an enormous moustache, and a great aptitude for slaughtering game;
but as he had no other strong characteristics, it was not probable that
he would make himself very agreeable to poor Lucy.
She had seen Lord Lufton once, for two minutes, since the day of that
walk, and then he had addressed her quite like an old friend. It had been
in the parsonage drawing-room, and Fanny had been there. Fanny now was so
well accustomed to his lordship, that she thought but little of this, but
to Lucy it had been very pleasant. He was not forward or familiar, but
kind, and gentle, and pleasant; and Lucy did feel that she liked him.
Now, on this evening, he had hitherto hardly spoken to her; but then she
knew that there were other people in the company to whom he was bound to
speak. She was not exactly humble-minded in the usual sense of the word;
but she did recognize the fact that her position was less important than
that of other people there, and that therefore it was probable that to a
certain extent she would be overlooked. But not the less would she have
liked to occupy the seat to which Miss Grantly had found her way. She did
not want to flirt with Lord Lufton; she was not such a fool as that; but
she would have liked to have heard the sound of his voice close to her
ear, instead of that of Captain Culpepper’s knife and fork.
This was the first occasion on which she had endeavoured to dress herself
with care since her father had died; and now sombre though she was in her
deep mourning, she did look very well.
“There is an expression about her forehead that is full of poetry,” Fanny
had said to her husband.
“Don’t you turn her head, Fanny, and make her believe that she is a
beauty,” Mark had answered.
“I doubt it is not so easy to turn her head, Mark. There is more in Lucy
than you imagine, and so you will find out before long.” It was thus that
Mrs. Robarts prophesied about her sister-in-law. Had she been asked she
might perhaps have said that Lucy’s presence would be dangerous to the
Grantly interest at Framley Court.
Lord Lufton’s voice was audible enough as he went on talking to Miss
Grantly—his voice but not his words. He talked in such a way that there
was no appearance of whispering, and yet the person to whom he spoke,
and she only, could hear what he said. Mrs. Grantly the while conversed
constantly with Lucy’s brother, who sat at Lucy’s left hand. She never
lacked for subjects on which to speak to a country clergyman of the right
sort, and thus Griselda was left quite uninterrupted.
But Lucy could not but observe that Griselda herself seemed to have
very little to say,—or at any rate to say very little. Every now and
then she did open her mouth, and some word or brace of words would fall
from it. But for the most part she seemed to be content in the fact
that Lord Lufton was paying her attention. She showed no animation, but
sat there still and graceful, composed and classical, as she always
was. Lucy, who could not keep her ears from listening or her eyes from
looking, thought that had she been there she would have endeavoured to
take a more prominent part in the conversation. But then Griselda Grantly
probably knew much better than Lucy did how to comport herself in such a
situation. Perhaps it might be that young men, such as Lord Lufton, liked
to hear the sound of their own voices.
“Immense deal of game about here,” Captain Culpepper said to her towards
the end of the dinner. It was the second attempt he had made; on the
former he had asked her whether site knew any of the fellows of the 9th.
“Is there?” said Lucy. “Oh! I saw Lord Lufton the other day with a great
armful of pheasants.”
“An armful! Why we had seven cartloads the other day at Gatherum.”
“Seven carts full of pheasants!” said Lucy, amazed.
“That’s not so much. We had eight guns, you know. Eight guns will do a
deal of work when the game has been well got together. They manage all
that capitally at Gatherum. Been at the duke’s, eh?”
Lucy had heard the Framley report as to Gatherum Castle, and said with
a sort of shudder that she had never been at that place. After this,
Captain Culpepper troubled her no further.
When the ladies had taken themselves to the drawing-room Lucy found
herself hardly better off than she had been at the dinner table. Lady
Lufton and Mrs. Grantly got themselves on to a sofa together, and
there chatted confidentially into each other’s ears. Her ladyship had
introduced Lucy and Miss Grantly, and then she naturally thought that
the young people might do very well together. Mrs. Robarts did attempt
to bring about a joint conversation, which should include the three, and
for ten minutes or so she worked hard at it. But it did not thrive. Miss
Grantly was monosyllabic, smiling however at every monosyllable; and Lucy
found that nothing would occur to her at that moment worthy of being
spoken. There she sat still and motionless, afraid to take up a book,
and thinking in her heart how much happier she would have been at home
at the parsonage. She was not made for society; she felt sure of that;
and another time site would let Mark and Fanny come to Framley Court by
themselves.
And then the gentlemen came in, and there was another stir in the room.
Lady Lufton got up and bustled about; she poked the fire and shifted
the candles, spoke a few words to Dr. Grantly, whispered something to
her son, patted Lucy on the cheek, told Fanny, who was a musician, that
they would have a little music; and ended by putting her two hands on
Griselda’s shoulders and telling her that the fit of her frock was
perfect. For Lady Lufton, though she did dress old herself, as Lucy had
said, delighted to see those around her neat and pretty, jaunty and
graceful.
“Dear Lady Lufton!” said Griselda, putting up her hand so as to press the
end of her ladyship’s fingers. It was the first piece of animation she
had shown, and Lucy Robarts watched it all.
And then there was music. Lucy neither played nor sang; Fanny did both,
and for an amateur did both well. Griselda did not sing, but she played;
and did so in a manner that showed that neither her own labour nor her
father’s money had been spared in her instruction. Lord Lufton sang also,
a little, and Captain Culpepper a very little; so that they got up a
concert among them. In the meantime the doctor and Mark stood talking
together on the rug before the fire; the two mothers sat contented,
watching the billings and the cooings of their offspring—and Lucy sat
alone, turning over the leaves of a book of pictures. She made up her
mind fully, then and there, that she was quite unfitted by disposition
for such work as this. She cared for no one, and no one cared for her.
Well, she must go through with it now; but another time she would know
better. With her own book and a fireside she never felt herself to be
miserable as she was now.
She had turned her back to the music, for she was sick of seeing Lord
Lufton watch the artistic motion of Miss Grantly’s fingers, and was
sitting at a small table as far away from the piano as a long room would
permit, when she was suddenly roused from a reverie of self-reproach by a
voice close behind her: “Miss Robarts,” said the voice, “why have you cut
us all?” and Lucy felt that though she heard the words plainly, nobody
else did. Lord Lufton was now speaking to her as he had before spoken to
Miss Grantly.
“I don’t play, my lord,” said Lucy, “nor yet sing.”
“That would have made your company so much more valuable to us, for we
are terribly badly off for listeners. Perhaps you don’t like music?”
“I do like it,—sometimes very much.”
“And when are the sometimes? But we shall find it all out in time. We
shall have unravelled all your mysteries, and read all your riddles,
by—when shall I say?—by the end of the winter. Shall we not?”
“I do not know that I have got any mysteries.”
“Oh, but you have! It is very mysterious in you to come and sit here,
with your back to us all——”
“Oh, Lord Lufton; if I have done wrong——!” and poor Lucy almost started
from her chair, and a deep flush came across her dark cheek.
“No—no; you have done no wrong. I was only joking. It is we who have done
wrong in leaving you to yourself—you who are the greatest stranger among
us.”
“I have been very well, thank you. I don’t care about being left alone. I
have always been used to it.”
“Ah! but we must break you of the habit. We won’t allow you to make a
hermit of yourself. But the truth is, Miss Robarts, you don’t know us
yet, and therefore you are not quite happy among us.”
“Oh! yes, I am; you are all very good to me.”
“You must let us be good to you. At any rate, you must let me be so. You
know, don’t you, that Mark and I have been dear friends since we were
seven years old. His wife has been my sister’s dearest friend almost as
long; and now that you are with them, you must be a dear friend too. You
won’t refuse the offer; will you?”
“Oh, no,” she said, quite in a whisper; and, indeed, she could hardly
raise her voice above a whisper, fearing that tears would fall from her
tell-tale eyes.
“Dr. and Mrs. Grantly will have gone in a couple of days, and then we
must get you down here. Miss Grantly is to remain for Christmas, and you
two must become bosom friends.”
Lucy smiled, and tried to look pleased, but she felt that she and
Griselda Grantly could never be bosom friends—could never have anything
in common between them. She felt sure that Griselda despised her, little,
brown, plain, and unimportant as she was. She herself could not despise
Griselda in turn; indeed she could not but admire Miss Grantly’s great
beauty and dignity of demeanour; but she knew that she could never love
her. It is hardly possible that the proud-hearted should love those who
despise them; and Lucy Robarts was very proud-hearted.
“Don’t you think she is very handsome?” said Lord Lufton.
“Oh, very,” said Lucy. “Nobody can doubt that.”
“Ludovic,” said Lady Lufton—not quite approving of her son’s remaining
so long at the back of Lucy’s chair—“won’t you give us another song—Mrs.
Robarts and Miss Grantly are still at the piano?”
“I have sung away all that I knew, mother. There’s Culpepper has not had
a chance yet. He has got to give us his dream—how he ‘dreamt that he
dwelt in marble halls!’”
“I sang that an hour ago,” said the captain, not over pleased.
“But you certainly have not told us how ‘your little lovers came!’”
The captain, however, would not sing any more. And then the party was
broken up, and the Robarts’s went home to their parsonage.