Framley Parsonage (4 page)
Authors: Anthony Trollope
Since the
Cornhill
printing a number of words and phrases have dropped out of the text of
Framley Parsonage
, and other readings, through slight misrepresentation, have lost their pointedness or even been totally reversed in meaning. While one
printing may have Lady Lufton (redundantly – and astonishingly naively) ask whether there has been any ‘encouragement’ between Lucy Robarts and Lord Lufton, the
Cornhill
has her ladyship pose the far more relevant and pressing question of whether there has been any ‘engagement’ (
Chapter 35
).
38
Some texts present a remark of Miss Dunstable’s, on her first appearance in the novel, as being made
by ‘the lady, with a loud voice’; the
Cornhill
preserves a more vivid touch of characterization encoded in the expression ‘the lady with the loud voice’ (
Chapter 3
).
39
A hint of ironic fantasy in speculation about Lord Lufton making an ‘excursion’ to the Hudson Bay Territories is lost when the term is replaced by the sadly straight-faced word ‘expedition’ (
Chapter 34
).
40
And it is certainly disturbing
to have found Lady Lufton’s gracious hope that ‘it may be long before any cloud comes across the brightness’ of Fanny’s heaven corrupted to a hope that it will
not
be long before such an occurrence (
Chapter 41
).
41
On these occasions the
Cornhill
is on the side of the angels.
Most remarkable, however, has been the compression of Trollope’s text into long, unwieldy paragraphs. The paragraphing
of the
Cornhill
printing largely reflects that of the manuscript but subsequent editions of the novel eroded this feature to a point where, for example, one recent edition indents some eight hundred fewer times than does Trollope in the
Cornhill
. And Trollope most certainly did want his paragraphs in
Framley Parsonage
: ‘Were I to lessen the number of paragraphs it would make it read heavy’ wrote
author to publisher.
42
More than making it read ‘heavy’, running Trollope’s text together has tended to disguise the nature of the novel’s local movement and
has masked numerous local nuances of dramatic timing, of irony, contrast and emphasis, in which lies much of the enjoyment of reading Trollope, and something of the essence of his art. In restoring Trollope’s paragraphs it is hoped that the
Penguin edition will restore access to more of these qualities of his writing.
Nevertheless, the Penguin text is an emended version of the
Cornhill
printing. Spelling, capitalization and italicization have generally been regularized to conform with that printing’s own dominant practices. Obvious mistakes have been corrected, but there has been no thoroughgoing attempt to impose a formal consistency
upon the
Cornhill
’s free – and sometimes idiosyncratic – punctuation scheme. A small amount of punctuation has been introduced where there is risk of ambiguity in the
Cornhill’s
readings. A few readings from the manuscript have been newly restored. These include the word ‘successfully’ for ‘unsuccessfully’ in the first paragraph of
Chapter 20
, a point on which Trollope angrily and specifically
wrote to his publisher – though to no avail.
43
A few readings have been newly emended by the present editors in the interests of logic and consistency. At one point Trollope misremembered the name of Mark Robarts’s Welsh curate, and at another he forgot that he had earlier changed the price of Sowerby’s horse from £150 (the original manuscript reading) to the resonant figure of £130 – presumably,
again, in the proofs.
44
Where contextual considerations make emendations of inconsistencies impracticable (as, for example, in Trollope’s confusion about Burslem and Stanhope)
45
the
Cornhill’s
readings have been allowed to stand and the terms of the inconsistency indicated in the notes. Individual instalments, as they appear in the
Cornhill
, have been numbered throughout in sequence. Our aim has
been to provide the modern reader with a consistent text of
Framley Parsonage
closer than any currently available to the form in which Trollope expected his first Victorian readers to encounter it – and which, indeed, he showed little inclination thereafter to change.
Peter Miles
David Skilton
2 The Framley Set, and the Chaldicotes Set
5 Amantium Irae Amoris Integratio
17 Mrs Proudie’s Conversazione
18 The New Minister’s Patronage
20 Harold Smith in the Cabinet
21 Why Puck, the Pony, was Beaten
34 Lady Lufton is taken by Surprise
38 Is there Cause or Just Impediment?
44 The Philistines at the Parsonage
48 How they were all Married, had Two Children, and lived Happy ever after
CHAPTER 1
Omnes omnia bona dicere
1
W
HEN
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 so excellent a 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 one 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 prizeman, and had gotten medals and scholarships, 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 this 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 the Lufton 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
l
. 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 expressly that he, Mark, might fall in love with her; but such was in truth the case.
Lady Lufton had but two children. The eldest, a daughter, had been married some four or five years to Sir George
Meredith, and this Miss Monsell was a dear friend of hers. And now looms before me the novelist’s great difficulty. Miss Monsell, – or, rather, Mrs Mark Robarts, – must be described. As Miss Monsell, our tale will have to take no prolonged note of her. And yet we will call her Fanny Monsell, when we declare that she was one of the pleasantest companions that could be brought near to a man, as the
future partner of his home, and owner of his heart. And if high principles without asperity, female gentleness without weakness, a love of laughter without malice, and a true loving heart, can qualify a woman to be a parson’s wife, then was Fanny Monsell qualified to fill that station.