Marion Fay E-Book

Anthony Trollope

• Herausgeber: Anthony Trollope
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

Novelist, son of Thomas Anthony Trollope, a barrister who ruined himself by speculation, and of Frances Trollope, a well-known writer, was born in London, and educated at Harrow and Winchester. His childhood was an unhappy one, owing to his father’s misfortunes. After a short time in Belgium he obtained an appointment in the Post Office, in which he rose to a responsible position. His first three novels had little success; but in 1855 he found his line, and in The Warden produced the first of his Barsetshire series. It was followed by Barchester Towers [1857], Doctor Thorne [1858], Framley Parsonage [1861], The Small House at Allington [1864], and The Last Chronicle of Barset [1867], which deal with the society of a small cathedral city. Other novels are Orley Farm, Can you forgive Her?, Ralph the Heir, The Claverings, Phineas Finn, He knew he was Right, and The Golden Lion of Grandpré. In all he wrote about 50 novels, besides books about the West Indies, North America, Australia, and South Africa, a translation of Cæsar, and monographs on Cicero and Thackeray. His novels are light of touch, pleasant, amusing, and thoroughly healthy. They make no attempt to sound the depths of character or either to propound or solve problems. Outside of fiction his work was generally superficial and unsatisfactory. But he had the merit of providing a whole generation with wholesome amusement, and enjoyed a great deal of popularity. He is said to have received £70,000 for his writings.

Leseprobe

Marion Fay

Anthony Trollope

Table of Contents

The Marquis of Kingsbury.

Lord Hampstead.

The Marchioness.

Lady Frances.

Mrs. Roden.

Paradise Row.

The Post Office.

Mr. Greenwood.

At Königsgraaf.

“Noblesse Oblige.”

Lady Persiflage.

Castle Hautboy.

The Braeside Harriers.

Coming Home from Hunting.

Marion Fay and her Father.

The Walk Back to Hendon.

Lord Hampstead’s Scheme.

How they Lived at Trafford Park.

Lady Amaldina’s Lover.

The Scheme is Successful.

What they All Thought as they Went Home.

Again at Trafford.

The Irrepressible Crocker.

Mrs. Roden’s Eloquence.

Marion’s Views about Marriage.

Lord Hampstead is Impatient.

The Quaker’s Eloquence.

Marion’s Obstinacy.

Mrs. Demijohn’s Party.

New Year’s Day.

Miss Demijohn’s Ingenuity.

King’s Court, Old Broad Street

Mr. Greenwood Becomes Ambitious.

Like the Poor Cat I’ the Adage.

Lady Frances Sees her Lover.

Mr. Greenwood’s Feelings.

“That Would Be Disagreeable.”

“I Do.”

At Gorse Hall.

Poor Walker.

False Tidings.

Never, Never, to Come Again.

Di Crinola.

“I Will Come Back as I Went.”

True Tidings.

All the World Knows it.

“It Shall Be Done.”

Marion Will Certainly have her Way.

“But he is;—He is.”

The Great Question.

“I Cannot Compel her.”

In Park Lane.

After All he Isn’t.

“Of Course There was A Bitterness.”

Lord Hampstead Again with Mrs. Roden.

Lord Hampstead Again with Marion.

Crocker’s Distress.

“Dismissal. B. B.”

Pegwell Bay.

Lady Amaldina’s Wedding.

Crocker’s Tale.

“My Marion.”

Mr. Greenwood’s Last Battle.

The Registrar of State Records.

Chapter 1. The Marquis of Kingsbury.

When Mr. Lionel Trafford went into Parliament for the Borough of Wednesbury as an advanced Radical, it nearly broke the heart of his uncle, the old Marquis of Kingsbury. Among Tories of his day the Marquis had been hyper-Tory,—as were his friends, the Duke of Newcastle, who thought that a man should be allowed to do what he liked with his own, and the Marquis of Londonderry, who, when some such falling-off in the family politics came near him, spoke with indignation of the family treasure which had been expended in defending the family seat. Wednesbury had never been the Marquis’s own; but his nephew was so in a peculiar sense. His nephew was necessarily his heir,—the future Marquis,—and the old Marquis never again, politically, held up his head. He was an old man when this occurred, and luckily for him he did not live to see the worse things which came afterwards.

The Member for Wednesbury became Marquis and owner of the large family property, but still he kept his politics. He was a Radical Marquis, wedded to all popular measures, not ashamed of his Charter days, and still clamorous for further Parliamentary reform, although it was regularly noted in Dod that the Marquis of Kingsbury was supposed to have strong influence in the Borough of Edgeware. It was so strong that both he and his uncle had put in whom they pleased. His uncle had declined to put him in because of his renegade theories, but he revenged himself by giving the seat to a glib-mouthed tailor, who, to tell the truth, had not done much credit to his choice.

But it came to pass that the shade of his uncle was avenged, if it can be supposed that such feelings will affect the eternal rest of a dead Marquis. There grew up a young Lord Hampstead, the son and heir of the Radical Marquis, promising in intelligence and satisfactory in externals, but very difficult to deal with as to the use of his thoughts. They could not keep him at Harrow or at Oxford, because he not only rejected, but would talk openly against, Christian doctrines; a religious boy, but determined not to believe in revealed mysteries. And at twenty-one he declared himself a Republican,—explaining thereby that he disapproved altogether of hereditary honours. He was quite as bad to this Marquis as had been this Marquis to the other. The tailor kept his seat because Lord Hampstead would not even condescend to sit for the family borough. He explained to his father that he had doubts about a Parliament of which one section was hereditary, but was sure that at present he was too young for it. There must surely have been gratification in this to the shade of the departed Marquis.

But there was worse than this,—infinitely worse. Lord Hampstead formed a close friendship with a young man, five years older than himself, who was but a clerk in the Post Office. In George Roden, as a man and a companion, there was no special fault to be found. There may be those who think that a Marquis’s heir should look for his most intimate friend in a somewhat higher scale of social rank, and that he would more probably serve the purposes of his future life by associating with his equals;—that like to like in friendship is advantageous. The Marquis, his father, certainly thought so in spite of his Radicalism. But he might have been pardoned on the score of Roden’s general good gifts,—might have been pardoned even though it were true, as supposed, that to Roden’s strong convictions Lord Hampstead owed much of the ultra virus of his political convictions,—might have been pardoned had not there been worse again. At Hendon Hall, the Marquis’s lovely suburban seat, the Post Office clerk was made acquainted with Lady Frances Trafford, and they became lovers.

The radicalism of a Marquis is apt to be tainted by special considerations in regard to his own family. This Marquis, though he had his exoteric politics, had his esoteric feelings. With him, Liberal as he was, his own blood possessed a peculiar ichor. Though it might be well that men in the mass should be as nearly equal as possible, yet, looking at the state of possibilities and realities as existent, it was clear to him that a Marquis of Kingsbury had been placed on a pedestal. It might be that the state of things was matter for regret. In his grander moments he was certain that it was so. Why should there be a ploughboy unable to open his mouth because of his infirmity, and a Marquis with his own voice very resonant in the House of Lords, and a deputy voice dependent on him in the House of Commons? He had said so very frequently before his son, not knowing then what might be the effect of his own teaching. There had been a certain pride in his heart as he taught these lessons, wrong though it might be that there should be a Marquis and a ploughboy so far reversed by the injustice of Fate. There had been a comfort to him in feeling that Fate had made him the Marquis, and had made some one else the ploughboy. He knew what it was to be a Marquis down to the last inch of aristocratic admeasurement. He would fain that his children should have understood this also. But his lesson had gone deeper than he had intended, and great grief had come of it.

The Marquis had been first married to a lady altogether unconnected with noble blood, but whose father had held a position of remarkable ascendancy in the House of Commons. He had never been a Cabinet Minister, because he had persisted in thinking that he could better serve his country by independence. He had been possessed of wealth, and had filled a great place in the social world. In marrying the only daughter of this gentleman the Marquis of Kingsbury had indulged his peculiar taste in regard to Liberalism, and was at the same time held not to have derogated from his rank. She had been a woman of great beauty and of many intellectual gifts,—thoroughly imbued with her father’s views, but altogether free from feminine pedantry and that ambition which begrudges to men the rewards of male labour. Had she lived, Lady Frances might probably not have fallen in with the Post Office clerk; nevertheless, had she lived, she would have known the Post Office clerk to be a worthy gentleman.

But she had died when her son was about sixteen and her daughter no more than fifteen. Two years afterwards our Marquis had gone among the dukes, and had found for himself another wife. Perhaps the freshness and edge of his political convictions had been blunted by that gradual sinking down among the great peers in general which was natural to his advanced years. A man who has spouted at twenty-five becomes tired of spouting at fifty, if nothing special has come from his spouting. He had been glad when he married Lady Clara Mountressor to think that circumstances as they had occurred at the last election would not make it necessary for him to deliver up the borough to the tailor on any further occasion. The tailor had been drunk at the hustings, and he ventured to hope that before six months were over Lord Hampstead would have so far rectified his frontiers as to be able to take a seat in the House of Commons.