第225章

By some of these unseen telegraphic wires which carry news about the country and make no charge for the conveyance, Archdeacon Grantly heard that his son the major was at Framley. Now in that itself there would have been nothing singular. There had been for years much intimacy between the Lufton family and the Grantly family--so much that an alliance between the two houses had once been planned, the elders having considered it expedient that the young lord should marry that Griselda who had since mounted higher in the world even than the elders had then projected for her. There had come no such alliance; but the intimacy had not ceased, and there was nothing in itself surprising in the fact that Major Grantly should be staying at Framley Court. But the archdeacon, when he heard the news, bethought him at once of Grace Crawley. Could it be possible that his old friend Lady Lufton--Lady Lufton whom he had known and trusted all his life, whom he had ever regarded as a pillar of the Church in Barsetshire--should be now untrue to him in a matter so closely affecting his interests? Men when they are worried by fears and teased by adverse circumstances become suspicious of those on whom suspicion should never rest. It was hardly possible, the archdeacon thought, that Lady Lufton should treat him so unworthily--but the circumstances were strong against his friend. Lady Lufton had induced Miss Crawley to go to Framley, much against his advice, at a time when such a visit seemed to him to be very improper; and it now appeared that his son was to be there at the same time--a fact of which Lady Lufton had made no mention to him whatever. Why had not Lady Lufton told him that Henry Grantly was coming to Framley Court? The reader, whose interest in the matter will be less keen than was the archdeacon's, will know very well why Lady Lufton had said nothing about the major's visit.

The reader will remember that Lady Lufton, when she saw the archdeacon, was as ignorant as to the intended visit as was the archdeacon himself.

But the archdeacon was uneasy, troubled, and suspicious;--and he suspected his old friend unworthily.

He spoke to his wife about it within a very few hours of the arrival of the tidings by those invisible wires. He had already told her that Miss Crawley was to go to Framley parsonage, and that he thought that Mrs Robarts was wrong to receive her at such a time. 'It is only intended for good-nature,' Mrs Grantly had said. 'It is misplaced good-nature at the present moment,' the archdeacon had replied. Mrs Grantly had not thought it worth her while to undertake at the moment any strong defence of the Framley people. She knew well how odious was the name of Crawley in her husband's ears, and she felt that the less that was said at the present about the Crawleys the better for the peace of the rectory at Plumstead. She had therefore allowed the expression of his disapproval to pass unchallenged. But now he came upon her with a more bitter grievance and she was obliged to argue the matter with him.

'What do you think?' said he: 'Henry is at Framley.'

'He can hardly be staying there,' said Mrs Grantly, 'because I know that he is so very busy at home.' The business at home of which the major's mother was speaking was his projected moving from Cosby Lodge, a subject which was also very odious to the archdeacon. He did not wish his son to move from Cosby Lodge. He could not endure the idea that his son should be known throughout the county to be giving up a residence because he could not afford to keep it. The archdeacon could have afforded to keep up two Cosby Lodges for his son, and would have been well pleased to do so, if only his son would not misbehave against him so shamefully! He could not bear that his son should be punished openly, before the eyes of all Barsetshire. Indeed he did not wish that his son should be punished at all. He simply desired that his son should recognise his father's power to inflict punishment. It would be henbane to Archdeacon Grantly to have a poor son--a son living at Pau--among Frenchmen!--because he could not afford to live in England. Why had the archdeacon been careful of his money, adding house to house and field to field? He himself was contented--so he told himself--to die as he had lived in a country parsonage, working with the collar round his neck up to the day of his death, if God would allow him to do so. He was ambitious of no grandeur for himself. So he would tell himself--being partly oblivious of certain episodes in his own life. All his wealth had been got together for his children. He desired that his sons should be fitting brothers for their august sister. And now the son who was nearest to him, whom he was bent upon making a squire in his own county, wanted to marry the daughter of a man who had stolen twenty pounds, and when objection was made to so discreditable a connexion, replied by packing up all his things and saying that he would go and live--at Pau!

The archdeacon therefore did not like to hear of his son being very busy at home.

'I don't know whether he is busy or not,' said the archdeacon, 'but Itell you he is staying at Framley.'

'From whom have you heard it?'

'What matter does that make if it is so? I heard it from Flurry.'

'Flurry may have been mistaken,' said Mrs Grantly.

'It is not at all likely. Those people always know about such things.

He heard it from the Framley people. I don't doubt but it's true, and Ithink that it's a great shame.'

'A great shame that Henry should be at Framley! He has been there two or three times every year since he has lived in the county.'

'It is a great shame that he should be had over there just at the time when that girl is there also. It is impossible to believe that such a thing is an accident.'

'But, archdeacon, you do not mean to say that you think that Lady Lufton has arranged it?'

'I don't know who arranged it. Somebody has arranged it. If it is Robarts, that is almost worse. One could forgive a woman in such a matter better than one could a man.'