The Small House at Allington by Anthony Trollope

Courcy Castle was very full. In the first place, there was a great gathering there of all the Courcy family. The earl was there -- and the countess, of course. At this period of the year Lady De Courcy was always at home; but the presence of the earl himself had heretofore been by no means so certain. He was a man who had been much given to royal visitings and attendances, to parties in the Highlands, to -- no doubt necessary -- prolongations of the London season, to sojournings at certain German watering-places, convenient, probably, in order that he might study the ways and ceremonies of German Courts -- and to various other absences from home, occasioned by a close pursuit of his own special aims in life; for the Earl De Courcy had been a great courtier. But of late gout, lumbago, and perhaps also some diminution in his powers of making himself generally agreeable, had reconciled him to domestic duties, and the earl spent much of his time at home.

The countess, in former days, had been heard to complain of her lord's frequent absence. But it is hard to please some women -- and now she would not always be satisfied with his presence.