Framley Parsonage by Anthony Trollope Read Free Book Online

come forth upon the canvas, showing to the beholder the nature of the man inwardly and outwardly. Hereit may suffice to say that he was no born heaven’s cherub, neither was he a born fallen devil’s spirit. Such as his training made him, such he was. He had large capabilities for good – and aptitudes also for evil, quite enough: quite enough to make it needful that he should repel temptation as temptation only can be repelled. Much had been done to spoil him, but in the ordinary acceptation of theword he was not spoiled. He had too much tact, too much common sense, to believe himself to be the paragon which his mother thought him. Self-conceit was not, perhaps, his greatest danger. Had he possessed more of it, he might have been a less agreeable man, but his course before him might on that account have been the safer.
    In person he was manly, tall, and fair-haired, with a square forehead,denoting intelligence rather than thought, with clear white hands, filbert nails, and a power of dressing himself in such a manner that no one should ever observe of him that his clothes were either good or bad, shabby or smart.
    Such was Mark Robarts when at the age of twenty-five, or a little more, he married Fanny Monsell. The marriage was celebrated in his own church, for Miss Monsell hadno home of her own, and had been staying for the last three months at Framley Court. She was given away by Sir George Meredith, and Lady Lufton herself saw that the wedding was what it should be, with almost as much care as she had bestowed on that of her own daughter. The deed of marrying, the absolute tying of the knot, was performed by the Very Reverend the Dean of Barchester, an esteemed friendof Lady Lufton’s. And Mrs Arabin, the dean’s wife, was of the party, though the distance from Barchester to Framley is long, and the roads deep, and no railway lends its assistance. And Lord Lufton was there of course; and people protested that he would surely fall in love with one of thefour beautiful bridesmaids, of whom Blanche Robarts, the vicar’s second sister, was by common acknowledgmentby far the most beautiful.
    And there was there another and a younger sister of Mark’s who did not officiate at the ceremony, though she was present and of whom no prediction was made, seeing that she was then only sixteen, but of whom mention is made here, as it will come to pass that my readers will know her hereafter. Her name was Lucy Robarts.
    And then the vicar and his wife went off on theirwedding tour, the old curate taking care of the Framley souls the while.
    And in due time they returned; and after a further interval, in due course, a child was born to them; and then another; and after that came the period at which we will begin our story. But before doing so, may I not assert that all men were right in saying all manner of good things to the Devonshire physician, and in praisinghis luck in having such a son?
    ‘You were up at the house to-day, I suppose?’ said Mark to his wife, as he sat stretching himself in an easy-chair in the drawing-room, before the fire, previously to his dressing for dinner. It was a November evening, and he had been out all day, and on such occasions the aptitude for delay in dressing is very powerful. A strong-minded man goes direct from thehall-door to his chamber without encountering the temptation of the drawing-room fire.
    ‘No; but Lady Lufton was down here.’
    ‘Full of arguments in favour of Sarah Thompson?’
    ‘Exactly so, Mark.’
    ‘And what did you say about Sarah Thompson?’
    ‘Very little as coming from myself; but I did hint that you thought, or that I thought that you thought, that one of the regular trained school-mistresseswould be better.’
    ‘But her ladyship did not agree?’
    ‘Well, I won’t exactly say that; – though I think that perhaps she did not.’
    ‘I am sure she did not. When she has a point to carry, she is very fond of carrying it.’
    ‘But then, Mark, her points are