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Lady Lufton's congratulations had nearly made him throw up the whole thing; but his wife's smiles re-encouraged him; and Lucy's warm and eager joy made him feel quite delighted with Mr. Sowerby and the Duke of Omnium.
But the young lady's excellent good sense and sterling qualities made the task comparatively an easy one. She neither cried, nor was impassioned, nor went into hysterics, nor showed any emotion. She did not even talk of her noble Dumbello, her generous Dumbello. She took Lady Lufton's kisses almost in silence, thanked her gently for her kindness, and made no allusion to her own future grandeur.
Some six weeks after this, inquiry began to be made as to a certain cheque for twenty pounds drawn by Lord Lufton on his bankers in London, which cheque had been lost in the early spring by Mr Soames, Lord Lufton's man of business in Barsetshire, together with a pocket-book in which it had been folded.
Fanny, when she read it, hardly at first realized to herself the idea that her husband, the clergyman of Framley, the family clerical friend of Lady Lufton's establishment, was going to stay with the Duke of Omnium. It was so thoroughly understood at Framley Court that the duke and all belonging to him was noxious and damnable.
To such overtures as that Griselda Grantly was as cold as any Diana. But little as all this was, it was sufficient to fill Lady Lufton's mind and heart. No mother with six daughters was ever more anxious to get them off her hands, than Lady Lufton was to see her son married, married, that is, to some girl of the right sort.
"We are sorry the Lufton's couldn't come to us," said Mrs Proudie, not alluding to the dowager, of whom it was well known that no earthly inducement would have sufficed to make her put her foot within Mrs Proudie's room; "but one of the children is ill, and she could not leave him."
I never knew the duke go so much out of his way to be civil to a clergyman as he has done in this instance." "I am sure I am very much obliged to him." "The fact is, that you may, if you please, make yourself popular in the county; but you cannot do it by obeying all Lady Lufton's behests. She is a dear old woman, I am sure." "She is, Sowerby; and you would say so, if you knew her."
It was very painful to him to hear Lady Lufton called an old woman, and hardly less so to discuss the propriety of Lord Lufton's parting with his property. This was irksome to him, till habit made it easy. But by degrees his feelings became less acute, and he accustomed himself to his friend Sowerby's mode of talking. And then on Saturday afternoon they all went over to Barchester.
Must it not, therefore, be the case that this call to a meeting in the study had arisen out of Lord Lufton's arrival at Framley? and yet, how could it have done so? Had Fanny betrayed her in order to prevent the dinner invitation? It could not be possible that Lord Lufton himself should have spoken on the subject!
"But I don't think she is in such a hurry this year, mamma," said Griselda, who in the month of May preferred Bruton Street to Plumstead, and had no objection whatever to the coronet on the panels of Lady Lufton's coach. And then Mrs. Grantly commenced her explanation very cautiously. "No, my dear, I dare say she is not in such a hurry this year, that is, as long as you remain with her."
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