Some of the party, who were more wide awake than others, declared that he had made the offer; others, that he was just going to do so; and one very knowing lady went so far at one time as to say that he was making it at that moment. Bets also were laid as to the lady's answer, as to the terms of the settlement, and as to the period of the marriage,--of all which poor Miss Dunstable of course knew nothing.

Mr. Sowerby, in spite of the publicity of his proceedings, proceeded in the matter very well. He said little about it to those who joked with him, but carried on the fight with what best knowledge he had in such matters. But so much it is given to us to declare with certainty, that he had not proposed on the evening previous to the morning fixed for the departure of Mark Robarts.

During the last two days Mr. Sowerby's intimacy with Mark had grown warmer and warmer. He had talked to the vicar confidentially about the doings of these bigwigs now present at the castle, as though there were no other guest there with whom he could speak in so free a manner. He confided, it seemed, much more in Mark than in his brother-in-law, Harold Smith, or in any of his brother members of Parliament, and had altogether opened his heart to him in this affair of his antic.i.p.ated marriage. Now Mr. Sowerby was a man of mark in the world, and all this flattered our young clergyman not a little.

On that evening before Robarts went away Sowerby asked him to come up into his bedroom when the whole party was breaking up, and there got him into an easy-chair while he, Sowerby, walked up and down the room.

"You can hardly tell, my dear fellow," said he, "the state of nervous anxiety in which this puts me."

"Why don't you ask her and have done with it? She seems to me to be fond of your society."

"Ah, it is not that only; there are wheels within wheels;" and then he walked once or twice up and down the room, during which Mark thought that he might as well go to bed.

"Not that I mind telling you everything," said Sowerby. "I am infernally hard up for a little ready money just at the present moment. It may be, and indeed I think it will be, the case that I shall be ruined in this matter for the want of it."

"Could not Harold Smith give it you?"

"Ha, ha, ha! you don't know Harold Smith. Did you ever hear of his lending a man a shilling in his life?"

"Or Supplehouse?"

"Lord love you! You see me and Supplehouse together here, and he comes and stays at my house, and all that; but Supplehouse and I are no friends. Look you here, Mark--I would do more for your little finger than for his whole hand, including the pen which he holds in it. Fothergill indeed might--but then I know Fothergill is pressed himself at the present moment. It is deuced hard, isn't it? I must give up the whole game if I can't put my hand upon 400 within the next two days."

"Ask her for it, herself."

"What, the woman I wish to marry! No, Mark, I'm not quite come to that. I would sooner lose her than that."

Mark sat silent, gazing at the fire and wishing that he was in his own bedroom. He had an idea that Mr. Sowerby wished him to produce this 400; and he knew also that he had not 400 in the world, and that if he had he would be acting very foolishly to give it to Mr.

Sowerby. But nevertheless he felt half fascinated by the man, and half afraid of him.

"Lufton owes it to me to do more than this," continued Mr. Sowerby; "but then Lufton is not here."

"Why, he has just paid five thousand pounds for you."

"Paid five thousand pounds for me! Indeed he has done no such thing: not a sixpence of it came into my hands. Believe me, Mark, you don't know the whole of that yet. Not that I mean to say a word against Lufton. He is the soul of honour; though so deucedly dilatory in money matters. He thought he was right all through that affair, but no man was ever so confoundedly wrong. Why, don't you remember that that was the very view you took of it yourself?"

"I remember saying that I thought he was mistaken."

"Of course he was mistaken. And dearly the mistake cost me. I had to make good the money for two or three years. And my property is not like his--I wish it were."

"Marry Miss Dunstable, and that will set it all right for you."

"Ah! so I would if I had this money. At any rate I would bring it to the point. Now, I tell you what, Mark; if you'll a.s.sist me at this strait I'll never forget it. And the time will come round when I may be able to do something for you."

"I have not got a hundred, no, not fifty pounds by me in the world."

"Of course you've not. Men don't walk about the streets with 400 in their pockets. I don't suppose there's a single man here in the house with such a sum at his bankers', unless it be the duke."

"What is it you want then?"

"Why, your name, to be sure. Believe me, my dear fellow, I would not ask you really to put your hand into your pocket to such a tune as that. Allow me to draw on you for that amount at three months. Long before that time I shall be flush enough." And then, before Mark could answer, he had a bill stamp and pen and ink out on the table before him, and was filling in the bill as though his friend had already given his consent.

"Upon my word, Sowerby, I had rather not do that."

"Why! what are you afraid of?"--Mr. Sowerby asked this very sharply.

"Did you ever hear of my having neglected to take up a bill when it fell due?" Robarts thought that he had heard of such a thing; but in his confusion he was not exactly sure, and so he said nothing.

"No, my boy; I have not come to that. Look here: just you write, 'Accepted, Mark Robarts,' across that, and then you shall never hear of the transaction again;--and you will have obliged me for ever."

"As a clergyman it would be wrong of me," said Robarts.

"As a clergyman! Come, Mark! If you don't like to do as much as that for a friend, say so; but don't let us have that sort of humbug. If there be one cla.s.s of men whose names would be found more frequent on the backs of bills in the provincial banks than another, clergymen are that cla.s.s. Come, old fellow, you won't throw me over when I am so hard pushed."

Mark Robarts took the pen and signed the bill. It was the first time in his life that he had ever done such an act. Sowerby then shook him cordially by the hand, and he walked off to his own bedroom a wretched man.

CHAPTER IX.

THE VICAR'S RETURN.

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 pa.s.sage all the man's known antecedents crowded upon him much quicker than he could remember them when seated in that arm-chair 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 county 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 a.s.sistance 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 f.a.n.n.y'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?