Anthony Trollope: Barchester Towers

42. CHAPTER XLII: ULLATHORNE SPORTS--ACT III (continued)

And then, should he be successful, what would be the reward? Having satisfied his creditors with half of the widow's fortune, he would be allowed to sit down quietly at Barchester, keeping economical house with the remainder. His duty would be to rock the cradle of the late Mr Bold's child, and his highest excitement a demure party at Plumstead rectory, should it ultimately turn out that the archdeacon be sufficiently reconciled to receive him.

There was little in the programme to allure such a man as Bertie Stanhope. Would not the Carrara workshop, or whatever worldly career fortune might have in store for him, would not almost anything be better than this? The lady herself was undoubtedly all that was desirable; but the most desirable lady becomes nauseous when she has to be taken as a pill. He was pledged to his sister, however, and let him quarrel with whom he would, it behoved him not to quarrel with her. If she were lost to him all would be lost that he could ever hope to derive henceforward from the paternal roof-tree. His mother was apparently indifferent to his weal or woe, to his wants or to his warfare. His father's brow got blacker and blacker from day to day, as the old man looked at his hopeless son. And as for Madeline--poor Madeline, whom of all of them he liked the best,--she had enough to do to shift for herself. No; come what might, he must cling to his sister and obey her behests, let them be ever so stern; or at the very least be seen to obey them. Could not some happy deceit bring him through in this matter, so that he might save appearances with his sister, and yet not betray the widow to her ruin? What if he made a confidence of Eleanor?

'Twas in this spirit that Bertie Stanhope set about his wooing.

'But you are not going to leave Barchester?' asked Eleanor.

'I do not know,' he replied. 'I hardly know yet what I am going to do. But it is at any rate certain that I must do something.'

'You mean about your profession?' said she.