

E-text prepared by Delphine Lettau and Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.



LADY ANNA.

by

ANTHONY TROLLOPE.

In Two Volumes.

VOL. I.






London:
Chapman and Hall, 193, Piccadilly.
1874.

[All rights reserved.]

London:
Printed by Virtue and Co.,
City Road.



CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

       I. THE EARLY HISTORY OF LADY LOVEL.
      II. THE EARL'S WILL.
     III. LADY ANNA.
      IV. THE TAILOR OF KESWICK.
       V. THE SOLICITOR-GENERAL MAKES A PROPOSITION.
      VI. YOXHAM RECTORY.
     VII. THE SOLICITOR-GENERAL PERSEVERES.
    VIII. IMPOSSIBLE!
      IX. IT ISN'T LAW.
       X. THE FIRST INTERVIEW.
      XI. IT IS TOO LATE.
     XII. HAVE THEY SURRENDERED?
    XIII. NEW FRIENDS.
     XIV. THE EARL ARRIVES.
      XV. WHARFEDALE.
     XVI. FOR EVER.
    XVII. THE JOURNEY HOME.
   XVIII. TOO HEAVY FOR SECRETS.
     XIX. LADY ANNA RETURNS TO LONDON.
      XX. LADY ANNA'S RECEPTION.
     XXI. DANIEL AND THE LAWYER.
    XXII. THERE IS A GULF FIXED.
   XXIII. BEDFORD SQUARE.
    XXIV. THE DOG IN THE MANGER.




LADY ANNA.

CHAPTER I.

THE EARLY HISTORY OF LADY LOVEL.


Women have often been hardly used by men, but perhaps no harder
usage, no fiercer cruelty was ever experienced by a woman than
that which fell to the lot of Josephine Murray from the hands
of Earl Lovel, to whom she was married in the parish church of
Applethwaite,--a parish without a village, lying among the mountains
of Cumberland,--on the 1st of June, 181--. That her marriage was
valid according to all the forms of the Church, if Lord Lovel were
then capable of marrying, no one ever doubted; nor did the Earl
ever allege that it was not so. Lovel Grange is a small house,
surrounded by a small domain,--small as being the residence of a rich
nobleman, lying among the mountains which separate Cumberland from
Westmoreland, about ten miles from Keswick, very lovely, from the
brightness of its own green sward and the luxuriance of its wild
woodland, from the contiguity of overhanging mountains, and from the
beauty of Lovel Tarn, a small lake belonging to the property, studded
with little islands, each of which is covered with its own thicket
of hollies, birch, and dwarfed oaks. The house itself is poor, ill
built, with straggling passages and low rooms, and is a sombre,
ill-omened looking place. When Josephine Murray was brought there
as a bride she thought it to be very sombre and ill-omened; but she
loved the lakes and mountains, and dreamed of some vague mysterious
joy of life which was to come to her from the wildness of her
domicile.

I fear that she had no other ground, firmer than this, on which to
found her hopes of happiness. She could not have thought Lord Lovel
to be a good man when she married him, and it can hardly be said that
she loved him. She was then twenty-four years old, and he had counted
double as many years. She was very beautiful, dark, with large, bold,
blue eyes, with hair almost black, tall, well made, almost robust, a
well-born, brave, ambitious woman, of whom it must be acknowledged
that she thought it very much to be the wife of a lord. Though our
story will be concerned much with her sufferings, the record of her
bridal days may be very short. It is with struggles that came to
her in after years that we shall be most concerned, and the reader,
therefore, need be troubled with no long description of Josephine
Murray as she was when she became the Countess Lovel. It is hoped
that her wrongs may be thought worthy of sympathy,--and may be felt
in some sort to atone for the ignoble motives of her marriage.

The Earl, when he found his bride, had been living almost in solitude
for a twelvemonth. Among the neighbouring gentry in the lake country
he kept no friendly relations. His property there was small, and