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Framley Parsonage
Anthony Trollope
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Framley Parsonage
Anthony Trollope
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About This Book
The enduring love story and satirical comedy by a master of the English novel. A young vicar's ambition drives him into a costly bargain in this classic tale from one of the Victorian era's finest novelists. Set in rural England in the fictitious county of Barsetshire, the fourth novel in the Chronicles of Barsetshire brilliantly examines the intersection of romance and social class. Mark Robarts is a young, ambitious vicar from the village of Framley, who is living off a benefice provided by Lady Lufton, the mother of his childhood friend, Ludovic. When Robarts decides to try his hand at advancing his wealth and social standing by seeking connections and business opportunities among the county's upper crust, he is pressured into providing a loan to Mr. Sowerby, a member of Parliament and notorious debtor. All the while, Ludovic, Lord Lufton, pursues Robarts's sister Lucy, despite objections from Lady Lufton, who urges her son to enter into courtship with a girl better suited to his title and social class. As debt collectors look to inventory Robarts's possessionsâand as Lucy vows to avoid Lord Lufton if she cannot receive his mother's blessingâthe stage is set for a hilarious and unforgettable climax. Comparing, Framley Parsonage to the other novels in the Chronicles of Barsetshire, its author noted, "There was much Church, but more love-making." Filled with realistic detail and delightful turns of phrase, Framley Parsonage is a testament to Anthony Trollope's unique ability to combine high-minded insight with popular appeal. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
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CHAPTER I
âOmnes Omnia Bona Dicereâ
When 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 manâs 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 fatherâs. This clergyman had one other, and only one other, pupilâthe 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,âthe fact even that for one period of three months they never spoke to each otherâby no means interfered with the doctorâs 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 Markâs 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 setâhe incurred no debtsâhe was fond of society, but able to avoid low societyâliked 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 Luftonâs hands, if it should fall vacant before the young lord was twenty-five years of age, and in the young lordâs 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 ÂŁ900 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 manâas 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;âcertainly 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 sonâs 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 insure, 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 degreeânot 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 Markâs 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 gentlemanâs 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 patronessânot, 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 womanâs craft for that. She never told the young vicar that Miss Monsell accompanied her ladyshipâs 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 novelistâs great difficulty. Miss Monsell,âor, rather, Mrs. Mark Robarts,âmust 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 parsonâs wife, then was Fanny Monsell qualified to fill that station.
In person she was somewhat larger than common. Her face would have been beautiful but that her mouth was large. Her hair, which was copious, was of a bright brown; her eyes also were brown, and, being so, were the distinctive feature of her face, for brown eyes are not common. They were liquid, large, and full either of tenderness or of mirth. Mark Robarts still had his accustomed luck, when such a girl as this was brought to Framley for his wooing.
And he did woo herâand won her. For Mark himself was a handsome fellow. At this time the vicar was about twenty-five years of age, and the future Mrs. Robarts was two or three years younger. Nor did she come quite empty-handed to the vicarage. It cannot be said that Fanny Monsell was an heiress, but she had been left with a provision of some few thousand pounds. This was so settled, that the interest of his wifeâs money paid the heavy insurance on his life which young Robarts effected, and there was left to him, over and above, sufficient to furnish his parsonage in the very best style of clerical comfort,âand to start him on the road of life rejoicing.
So much did Lady Lufton do for her protégé, and it may well be imagined that the Devonshire physician, sitting meditative over his parlour fire, looking back, as men will look back on the upshot of their life, was well contented with that upshot, as regarded his eldest offshoot, the Rev. Mark Robarts, the vicar of Framley.
But little has as yet been said, personally, as to our hero himself, and perhaps it may not be necessary to say much. Let us hope that by degrees he may come forth upon the canvas, showing to the beholder the nature of the man inwardly and outwardly. Here it may suffice to say that he was no born heavenâs cherub, neither was he a born fallen devilâs spirit. Such...