today without his apron; but when arranging his easel and his brushes, he had put it on from the force of habit, and was now disgusted with himself as he remembered it. He put down his brush, divested his thumb of his palette, then took off his cap, and after that untied the apron.
‘Conway, what are you going to do?’ said Mrs Broughton.
‘I am going to ask Clara Van Siever to be my wife,’ said Dalrymple. At that moment the door was opened, and Mrs Van Siever entered the room.
Clara had not risen from her kneeling posture when Dalrymple began to put off his trappings. She had not seen what he was doing as plainly as Mrs Broughton had done, having her attention naturally drawn towards he Sisera; and, besides this, she understood that she was to remain as she was placed till orders to move were given to her. Dalrymple would occasionally step aside from his easel to look at her in some altered light, and such occasions she would simply hold her hammer somewhat more tightly than before. When, therefore, Mrs Van Siever entered the room Clara was still slaying Sisera, in spite of the artist’s speech. the speech, indeed, and her mother both seemed to come to her at the same time. The old woman stood for a moment holding the open door in her hand. ‘You fool!’ she said, ‘what are you doing there, dressed up in that way like a guy?’ Then Clara got up from her feet and stood before her mother in Jael’s dress and Jael’s turban. Dalrymple thought that the dress and turban did not become her badly. Mrs Van Siever apparently thought otherwise. ‘Will you have the goodness to tell me, miss, why you are dressed up after that Mad Bess of Bedlam fashion?’
The reader will no doubt bear in mind that Clara had other words of which to think besides those which were addressed to her by her mother. Dalrymple had asked her to be his wife in the plainest language, and she thought that the very plainness of the language became him well. The very taking off of his apron, almost as he said the words, though to himself the action had been so distressing as almost to overcome his purpose, had in it something to her of direct simple determination which pleased her. When he had spoken of having a nail driven by her right through his heart, she had not been in the least gratified; by the taking off of the apron, and the putting down of the palette, and the downright way in which he had called her Clara Van Siever–attempting to be neither sentimental with Clara, nor polite with Miss Van Siever–did please her. She had often said to herself that she would never give a plain answer to a man who did not ask her a plain question;–to a man who, in asking this question, did not say plainly to her, ‘Clara Van Siever, will you become Mrs Jones?’–or Mrs Smith, or Mrs Tomkins, as the case might be. Now Conway Dalrymple had asked her to become Mrs Dalrymple very much after this fashion. In spite of the apparition of her mother, all this had passed through her mind. Not the less, however, was she obliged to answer her mother, before she could give any reply to the other questioner. In the meantime Mrs Dobbs Broughton had untucked her feet.
‘Mamma,’ said Clara, ‘who ever expected to see you here?’
‘I daresay nobody did,’ said Mrs Van Siever; ‘but here I am, nevertheless.’
‘Madam,’ said Mrs Dobbs Broughton, ‘you might at any rate have gone through the ceremony of having yourself announced by the servant.’
‘Madam,’ said the old woman attempting to mimic the tone of the other, ‘I thought that on such a very particular occasion as this I might be allowed to announce myself. You tomfool, you why don’t you take that turban off?’ Then Clara, with slow and graceful motion, unwound the turban. If Dalrymple really meant what he had said and would stick to it, she need not mind being called a tomfool by her mother.
‘Conway, I am afraid that our last sitting is disturbed,’ said Mrs Broughton, with her little laugh.
‘Conway’s last sitting is certainly disturbed,’ said Mrs Van Siever, and then she mimicked the laugh. ‘And you’ll all be disturbed–I can tell you that. What an ass you must be to go on with this kind of thing, after what I said to you yesterday! Do you know that he got beastly drunk in the City last night, and that he is drunk now, while you are going on with your tomfooleries?’ Upon hearing this Mrs Dobbs Broughton fainted in Dalrymple’s arms.
Hitherto the artist had not said a word, and had hardly known what part in it would best become him to play. If he intended to marry Clara–and he certainly did intend to marry her if she would have him–it might be as well not to quarrel with Mrs Van Siever. At any rate there was nothing in Mrs Van Siever’s intrusion, disagreeable that it was, which need make him take up his sword to do battle with her. But now, as he held Mrs Broughton in his arms, and as the horrid words which the old woman had spoken rung in his ears, he could not refrain himself form uttering reproach. ‘You ought not to have told her in this way, before other people, even if it be true,’ said Conway.
‘Leave me to be my own judge of what I ought to do, if you please, sir. If she had any feeling at all, what I told her yesterday would have kept her from all this. But some people have no feeling, and will go on being tomfools though the house is on fire.’ As these words were spoken, Mrs Broughton fainted more persistently than ever–so that Dalrymple was convinced that whether she felt or not, at any rate she heard. He had now dragged her across the room, and laid her upon the sofa, and Clara had come to her assistance. ‘I daresay you think me very hard because I speak plainly, but there are things much harder than plain speaking. How much do you expect to be paid, sir, for this picture of my girl?’
‘I do not expect to be paid for it at all,’ said Dalrymple.
‘And who is it to belong to?’
‘It belongs to me at present.’
‘Then, sir, it mustn’t belong to you any longer. It won’t do for you to have a picture of my girl to hang up in your painting-room for all your friends to come and make their jokes about, nor yet to make a show of it in any of your exhibitions. My daughter has been a fool, and I can’t help it. If you’ll tell me what’s the cost, I’ll pay you; then I’ll have the picture home, and I’ll treat it as it deserves.’
Dalrymple thought for a moment about his picture and about Mrs Van Siever. What had he better do? He wanted to behave well, and he felt that the old woman had something of justice on her side. ‘Madam,’ he said, ‘I will not sell this picture; but it shall be destroyed, if you wish it.’
‘I certainly do wish it, but I won’t trust you. If it’s not sent to my house at once you’ll hear from me through my lawyers.’
Then Dalrymple deliberately opened his penknife and slit the canvas across, through the middle of the picture each way. Clara, as she saw him do it, felt that in truth that she loved him. ‘There, Mrs Van Siever,’ he said; ‘now you can take the bits home with you in your basket if you wish it.’ At this moment, as the rent canvas fell and fluttered upon the stretcher, there came a loud voice of lamentation from the sofa, a groan of despair and a shriek of wrath. ‘Very fine indeed,’ said Mrs Van Siever. ‘When ladies faint they always ought to have their eyes about them. I see that Mrs Broughton understands that.’
‘Take her away, Conway–for God’s sake take her away,’ said Mrs Broughton.
‘I shall take myself away very shortly,’ said Mrs Van Siever, ‘so you needn’t trouble Mr Conway about that. Not but that I thought the gentleman’s name was something else.’
‘My name is Conway Dalrymple,’ said the artist.
‘Then I suppose you must be her brother, or her cousin, or something.’
‘Take her away,’ screamed Mrs Dobbs Broughton.
‘Wait a moment, madam. As you’ve chopped up your handiwork there, Mr Conway Dalrymple, and as I suppose my daughter has been more to blame than anybody else–‘
‘She has not been to blame at all,’ said Dalrymple.
‘That’s my affair and not yours,’ said Mrs Van Siever, very sharply. ‘But as you’ve been at all this trouble, and have now chopped it up, I don’t mind paying you for your time and paints; only I shall be glad to know how much it will come to?’
‘There will be nothing to pay, Mrs Van Siever.’
‘How long has he been at it, Clara?’
‘Mamma, indeed you had better not say anything about paying him.’
‘I shall say whatever I please, miss. Will ten pounds do it, sir?’
‘If you choose to buy the picture, the price will be seven hundred and fifty,’ said Dalrymple with a smile, pointing to the fragments.
‘Seven hundred and fifty pounds?’ said the old woman.
‘But I strongly advise you not to make the purchase,’ said Dalrymple.
‘Seven hundred and fifty pounds! I certainly shall not give you seven hundred and fifty pounds.’
‘I certainly think you could invest your money better, Mrs Van Siever. But if the thing is to be sold at all, that is my price. I’ve thought that there was some justice in your demand that it should be destroyed–and therefore I have destroyed it.’
Mrs Van Siever had been standing on the same spot ever since she had entered the room, and now she turned round to leave the room.
‘If you have any demand to make, I beg that you will send it in your account for work done to Mr Musselboro. He is my man of business. Clara, are you ready to come home? The cab is waiting at the door–at sixpence the quarter of an hour, if you will be pleased to remember.’
‘Mrs Broughton,’ said Clara, thoughtful of her raiment, and remembering that it might not be well that she should return home, even in a cab, dressed as Jael, ‘if you will allow me, I will go into your room for a minute or two.’
‘Certainly, Clara,’ said Mrs Broughton, preparing to accompany her.
‘But before you go, Mrs Broughton,’ said Mrs Van Siever, ‘it may be as well that I should tell you that my daughter is going to become the wife of Mr Musselboro. It may simplify matters that you should know this.’ And Mrs Van Siever, as she spoke, looked hard at Conway Dalrymple.
‘Mamma!’ exclaimed Clara.
‘My dear,’ said Mrs Van Siever, ‘you had better change your dress and come away with me.’
‘Not till I have protested against what you have said, mamma.’
‘You had better leave your protesting alone, I can tell you.’
‘Mrs Broughton,’ said Clara, ‘I must beg you to understand that mamma has not the slightest right in the world to tell you what she just now said about me. Nothing on earth would induce me to become the wife of Mr Broughton’s partner.’
There was something which made Clara unwilling even to name the man whom her mother had publicly proposed as her future husband.
‘He isn’t Mr Broughton’s partner,’ said Mrs Van Siever. ‘Mr Broughton has not got a partner. Mr Musselboro is the head of the firm. And as to your marrying him, of course, I can’t make you.’
‘No, mamma, you cannot.’
‘Mrs Broughton understands that, no doubt;–and so, probably, does Mr Dalrymple. I can only tell them what are my ideas. If you choose to marry the sweep at the crossing, I can’t help it. Only I don’t see what good you would do the sweep, when he would have to sweep for himself and you too. At any rate, I suppose you mean to go home with me now?’ Then Mrs Broughton and Clara left the room, and Mrs Van Siever was left with Conway Dalrymple. ‘Mr Dalrymple,’ said Mrs Van Siever, ‘do not deceive yourself. What I told you just now will certainly come to pass.’
‘It seems to me that that must depend on the young lady,’ said Dalrymple.
‘I’ll tell you what certainly will not depend on the young lady,’ said Mrs Van Siever, ‘and that is whether the man who marries her will have more with her than the clothes she stands up in. You will understand that argument, I suppose?’
‘I’m not quite sure that I do,’ said Dalrymple.
‘Then you’d better try to understand it. Good-morning, sir. I’m sorry you’ve had to slit your picture.’ Then she curtseyed low, and walked out on to the landing-place. ‘Clara,’ she cried, ‘I’m waiting for you–sixpence a quarter of an hour–remember that.’ In a minute or two Clara came out to her, and then Mrs Van Siever and Miss Van Siever took their departure.
‘Oh, Conway, what am I to do? What am I to do?’ said Mrs Dobbs Broughton. Dalrymple stood perplexed for a few minutes, and could not tell her what she was to do. She was in such a position that it was very hard to tell her what she was to do. ‘Do you believe, Conway, that he is really ruined?’
‘What am I to say? How am I to know?’
‘I see that you believe it,’ said the wretched woman.
‘I cannot but believe that there is something of truth in what this woman says. Why else should she come here with such a story?’ Then there was a pause, during which Mrs Broughton was burying her face on the arm of the sofa. ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do,’ continued he. ‘I’ll go into the City and make inquiry. It can hardly be but what I shall learn the truth there.’
Then there was another pause, at the end of which Mrs Broughton got up from the sofa.
‘Tell me,’ said she:–‘what do you mean about that girl?’
‘You heard me ask her to be my wife?’
‘I did! I did!’
‘Is it not what you intended?’
‘Do not ask me. My mind is bewildered. My brain is on fire! Oh, Conway!’
‘Shall I go into the City as I proposed?’ said Dalrymple, who felt that he might at any rate improve the position of circumstances by leaving the house.
‘Yes;–yes; go into the City! Go anywhere. Go. But stay! Oh, Conway!’ There was a sudden change in her voice as she spoke. ‘Hark–there he is, as sure as life.’ Then Conway listened, and heard a footstep on the stairs, as to which he had then but little doubt that it was the footstep of Dobbs Broughton. ‘O heavens! He is tipsy!’ exclaimed Mrs Broughton; ‘and what shall we do?’ Then Dalrymple took her hand and pressed it; and left the room, so that he might meet the husband on the stairs. In the one moment that he had for reflection he thought it was better that there should be no concealment.
CHAPTER LXI
‘IT’S DOGGED AS DOES IT’
In accordance with the resolution to which the clerical commission had come on the first day of their sitting, Dr Tempest wrote the following letter to Mr Crawley:-
‘RECTORY, SILVERBRIDGE, April, 9, 186- ‘DEAR SIR,
‘I have been given to understand that you have been informed that the Bishop of Barchester has appointed a commission of clergymen of the diocese to make inquiry respecting certain accusations which, to the great regret of us all, have been made against you, in respect of a cheque for twenty pounds which was passed by you to a tradesman of the town. The clergymen appointed to form this commission are Mr Oriel, the rector of Greshamsbury, Mr Robarts, the vicar of Framley, Mr Quiverful, the warden of Hiram’s Hospital at Barchester, and Mr Thumble, a clergyman established in that city, and myself. We held our first meeting on last Monday, and I now write to you in compliance with a resolution to which we came. Before taking any other steps we thought it best to ask you to attend us here on next Monday, at two o’clock, and I beg that you will accept this letter as an invitation to that effect.
‘We are, of course, aware that you are about to stand your trial at the next assizes for the offence in question. I beg you to understand that I do not express any opinion as to your guilt. But I think it right to point out to you that in the event of a jury finding an adverse verdict, the bishop will be placed in great difficulty unless he were fortified with the opinion of a commission formed from your fellow clerical labourers in the diocese. Should such adverse verdict unfortunately be given, the bishop would hardly be justified in allowing a clergyman placed as you then would be placed, to return to his cure after the expiration of such punishment as the judge might award, without a further decision from an ecclesiastical court. This decision he could only obtain by proceeding against you under the Act in reference to clerical offences, which empowers him as bishop of the diocese to bring you before the Court of Arches–unless you would think well to submit yourself entirely to his judgment. You will, I think, understand what I mean. The judge at assizes might find it his duty to imprison a clergyman for a month–regarding tat clergyman simply as he would regard any other person found guilty by a jury and thus made subject to his judgment–and might do this for an offence which the ecclesiastical judge would find himself obliged to visit with the severer sentence of prolonged suspension, or even with deprivation.
‘We are, however, clearly of the opinion that should the jury find themselves able to acquit you, no further action whatsoever should be taken. In such case we think that the bishop may regard your innocence to be fully established, and in such case we shall recommend his lordship to look upon the matter as altogether at an end. I can assure you that in such case I shall so regard it myself.
‘You will perceive that, as a consequence of this resolution, to which we have already come, we are not minded to take any inquiries ourselves into the circumstances of your alleged guilt, till the verdict of the jury shall be given. But should you be convicted, we must in that case advise the bishop to take the proceedings to which I have alluded, or to abstain from taking them. We wish to ask you whether, now that our opinion has been conveyed to you, you will be willing to submit the bishop’s decision, in the event of an adverse verdict being given by the jury; and we think that it will be better for us all that you should meet us here at the hour I have named on Monday next, the fifteenth instant. It is not our intention to make any report to the bishop until the trial shall be over.–I have the honour to be, my dear sir, your obedient servant,
‘MORTIMER TEMPEST
‘The Rev. Josiah Crawley,
‘Hogglestock.’
In the same envelope Dr Tempest sent a short private note, in which he said that he should be very happy to see Mr Crawley at half-past one on the Monday named, that luncheon would be ready at that hour, and that, as Mr Crawley’s attendance was required on public grounds, he would take care that a carriage was provided for the day.
Mr Crawley received this letter in his wife’s presence, and read it in silence. Mrs Crawley saw that he paid close attention to it, and was sure–she felt that she was sure–that it referred in some way to the terrible subject of the cheque for twenty pounds. Indeed, everything that came into the house, almost every word spoken there, and every thought that came into the breast of any of the family, had more or less reference to the coming trial. How could it be otherwise? There was ruin coming on them all–ruin and complete disgrace coming on father, mother, and children! To have been accused itself was very bad; but now it seemed to be the opinion of everyone that the verdict must be against the man. Mrs Crawley herself, who was perfectly sure of her husband’s innocence before God, believed that the jury would find him guilty–and believed also that he had become possessed of the money in some manner that would have been dishonest, had he not been so different from other people as to be entitled to be considered innocent where another man would have been plainly guilty. She was full of the cheque for twenty pounds, and of its results. When, therefore, he had read the letter through a second time, and even then had spoken no word about it, of course she could not refrain from questioning him. ‘My love,’ she said, ‘what is the letter?’
‘It is on business,’ he answered.
She was silent for a moment before she spoke again. ‘May I not know the business?’
‘No,’ said he; ‘not at present.’
‘Is it from the bishop?’
‘Have I not answered you? Have I not given you to understand that, for a while at least, I would prefer to keep the contents of this epistle to myself?’ Then he looked at her very sternly, and afterwards turned his eyes upon the fireplace and gazed at the fire, as though he were striving to read there something of his future fate. She did not much regard the severity of his speech. That, too, like the taking of the cheque itself, was to be forgiven him, because he was different from other men. His black mood had come upon him, cutting his teeth. Let the poor wayward sufferer be ever so petulant, the mother simply pities and loves him, and is never angry. ‘I beg your pardon, Josiah,’ she said, ‘but I thought it would comfort you to speak to me about it.’
‘It will not comfort me,’ he said. ‘Nothing comforts me. Nothing can comfort me. Jane, give me my hat and my stick.’ His daughter brought to him his hat and stick, and without another word he went out and left them.
As a matter of course he turned his steps towards Hoggle End. When he desired to be long absent from the house, he always went among the brickmakers. His wife, as she stood at the window and watched the direction in which he went, knew that he might be away for hours. The only friends out of his own family with whom he ever spoke freely were some of those rough parishioners. But he was not thinking of the brickmakers when he started. He was simply desirous of reading again Dr Tempest’s letter, and of considering it, in some spot where no eye could see him. He walked away with long steps, regarding nothing–neither the ruts in the dirty lane, nor the young primroses which were fast showing themselves on the banks, nor the gathering clouds which might have told him of the coming rain. He went on for a couple of miles, till he had nearly reached the outskirts of the colony of Hoggle End, and then he sat himself down upon a gate. He had not been there a minute before a few slow drops began to fall, but he was altogether too much wrapped up in his thoughts to regard the rain. What answer should he make to this letter from the man from Silverbridge?
The position of his own mind in reference to his own guilt or his own innocence was very singular. It was simply the truth that he did not know how the cheque had come to him. He did know that he had blundered about it most egregiously, especially when he had averred that this cheque for twenty pounds had been identical with a cheque for another sum which had been given to him by Mr Soames. He had blundered since, in saying that the dean had given it to him. There could be no doubt as to this, for the dean had denied that he had done so. And he had come to think it very possible that he had indeed picked the cheque up, and had afterwards used it, having deposited it by some strange accident–not knowing then what he was doing, or what was the nature of the bit of paper in his hand–with the notes which he had accepted from the dean with so much reluctance, and with such an agony of spirit. In all these thoughts of his own doings, and his own position, he almost admitted to himself his own insanity, his inability to manage his own affairs with that degree of rational sequence which is taken for granted as belonging to a man when he is made subject to criminal laws. As he puzzled his brain in his efforts to create a memory as to the cheque, and succeeded in bringing to his mind a recollection that he had once known something about the cheque–that the cheque had at one time been the subject of a thought and a resolution–he admitted to himself that in accordance with all law and all reason he must be regarded as a thief. He had taken and used and spent that which he ought to have known was not his own–which he would have known not to be his own but for some terrible incapacity with which God had inflicted him. What then must be the result? His mind was clear enough about this. If the jury should see everything and know everything–as he would wish that they should do; and if the bishop’s commission, and the bishop himself, and the Court of Arches with its judge, could see and know everything; and if so seeing and so knowing they could act with clear honesty and perfect wisdom–what would they do? They would declare of him that he was not a thief, only because he was so muddy-minded, so addle-pated as not to know the difference between meum and tuum! There could be no other end to it, let all the lawyers and all the clergymen in England put their wits to it. Thought he knew himself to be muddy-minded and addle-pated, he could see that. And could anyone say of such a man that he was fit to be the acting-clergyman of a parish–to have freehold possession in a parish as curer of men’s souls! The bishop was in the right of it, let him be ten times as mean a fellow as he was.
And yet as he sat there on the gate, while the rain came down heavily upon him, even when admitting the justice of the bishop, and the truth of the verdict which the jury would no doubt give, and the propriety of the action which that cold, reasonable, prosperous man at Silverbridge would take, he pitied himself with a tenderness of commiseration which knew no bounds. As for those belonging to him, his wife and children, his pity for them was of a different kind. He would have suffered any increase of suffering, could he by such agony have released them. Dearly as he loved them, he would have severed himself from them, had it been possible. Terrible thoughts as to their fate had come into his mind in the worst moments of his moodiness–thoughts which he had sufficient strength and manliness to put away from him with a strong hand, lest they should drive him to crime indeed; and these had come from the great pity he had felt for them. But the commiseration which he had felt for himself had been different from this, and had mostly visited him at times when that other pity was for the moment in abeyance. What though he had taken the cheque, and spent the money though it was not his? He might be guilty before the law, but he was not guilty before God. There had never been a thought of theft in his mind, or a desire to steal in his heart. He knew that well enough. No jury could make him guilty of theft before God. And what though this mixture of guilt and innocence had come from madness–from madness which these courts must recognise if they chose to find him innocent of the crime? In spite of his aberrations of intellect, if there were any such, his ministrations in his parish were good. Had he not preached fervently and well–preaching the true gospel? Had he not been very diligent among his people, striving with all his might to lessen the ignorance of the ignorant, and to gild with godliness the learning of the instructed? Had he not been patient, enduring, instant, and in all things amenable to the laws and regulations laid down by the Church for his guidance in his duties as a parish clergyman? Who could point out in what he had been astray, or where he had gone amiss? But for the work which he had done with so much zeal the Church which he served had paid him so miserable a pittance that, though life and soul had been kept together, the reason, or a fragment of the reason, had at moments escaped from his keeping in the scramble. Hence it was that this terrible calamity had fallen upon him! Who had been tried as he had been tried, and had gone through such fire with less loss of intellectual power than he had done? He was still a scholar, though no brother scholar ever came near him, and would make Greek iambics as he walked through the lanes. His memory was stored with poetry, though no book ever came into his hands, except those shorn and tattered volumes which lay upon his table. Old problems in trigonometry were the pleasing relaxations of his mind, and complications of figures were a delight to him. There was not one of those prosperous clergymen around him, and who scorned him, whom he could not have instructed in Hebrew. It was always a gratification to him to remember that his old friend the dean was weak in his Hebrew. He, with these acquirements, with these fitnesses, had been thrust down to the ground–to the very granite–and because in that harsh heartless thrusting his intellect had for moments wavered as to common things, cleaving still to all its grander, nobler possessions, he was now to be rent in pieces and scattered to the winds, as being altogether vile, worthless, and worse than worthless. It was thus that he thought of himself, pitying himself, as he sat upon the gate, while the rain fell ruthlessly on his shoulders.
He pitied himself with a commiseration that was sickly in spite of its truth. It was the fault of the man that he was imbued too strongly with self-consciousness. He could do a great thing or two. He could keep up his courage in positions which would wash all the courage out of most men. He could tell the truth though truth should ruin him. He could sacrifice all that he had to duty. He could do justice though the heaven should fall. But he could not forget to pay tribute to himself for the greatness of his own actions; nor, when accepting with an effort of meekness the small payment made by the world to him, in return for his great works, could he forget the great payments made to others for small work. It was not sufficient for him to remember that he knew Hebrew, but he must remember also that the dean did not.
Nevertheless, as he sat there under the rain, he made up his mind with a clearness that certainly had in it nothing of that muddiness of mind of which he had often accused himself. Indeed, the intellect of this man was essentially clear. It was simply that his memory that would play him tricks–his memory as to things which at the moment were not important to him. The fact that the dean had given him money was very important, and he remembered it well. But the amount of the money, and its form, at a moment in which he had flattered himself that he might have strength to leave it unused, had not been important to him. Now, he resolved that he would go to Dr Tempest, and that he would tell Dr Tempest that there was not occasion for any further inquiry. He would submit to the bishop, let the bishop’s decision be what it might. Things were different since the day on which he had refused Mr Thumble admission to his pulpit. At that time people believed him to be innocent, and he so believed of himself. Now, people believed him to be guilty, and it could not be right that a man held in such slight esteem could exercise the functions of a parish priest, let his own opinion of himself be what it might. He would submit himself, and go anywhere–to the galleys or the workhouse, if they wished it. As for his wife and children, they would, he said to himself, be better without him than with him. The world would never be so hard to a woman or to children as it had been to him.
He was sitting saturated with rain–saturated also with thinking–and quite unobservant of anything around him, when he was accosted by an old man from Hoggle End, with whom he was well acquainted. ‘Thee be wat, Master Crawley,’ said the old man.
‘Wet!’ said Crawley, recalled suddenly back to the realities of life. ‘Well–yes. I am wet. That’s because it’s raining.’
‘Thee be teeming o’wat. Hadn’t thee better go home?’
‘And are you not wet also,’ said Mr Crawley, looking at the old man, who had been at work in the brickfield, and who was soaked with mire, and from whom there seemed to come a steam of muddy mist.
‘Is it me, yer reverence? I’m wat of course. The loikes of us is always wat–that is barring the insides of us. It comes to us natural to have the rheumatics. How is one of us to help hisself against having on ’em? But there ain’t no call for the loikes of you to have the rheumatics.’
‘My friend,’ said Crawley, who was now standing on the road–and as he spoke he put out his arm and took the brickmaker by the hand, ‘there is a worse complaint than rheumatism–there is, indeed.’
‘There’s what they calls the collerer,’ said Giles Hoggett, looking up into Crawley’s face. ‘That ain’t a-got hold of yer?’
‘Ay, and worse than the cholera. A man is killed all over when he is struck with pride–and yet he lives.’
‘Maybe that’s bad enough too,’ said Giles, with his hand still held by the other.
‘It is bad enough,’ said Crawley, striking his breast with his left hand. ‘It is bad enough.’
‘Tell ‘ee what, Master Crawley;–and yer reverence mustn’t think as I means to be preaching; there ain’t nowt a man can’t bear if he’ll only be dogged. You to whome, Master Crawley, and think o’ that, and maybe it’ll do ye a good yet. It’s dogged as does it. It ain’t thinking about it.’ Then Giles Hoggett withdrew his hand from the clergyman’s, and walked away towards his home at Hoggle End. Mr Crawley also turned away homewards, and as he made his way through the lanes, he repeated to himself Giles Hoggett’s words. ‘It’s dogged as does it. It’s not thinking about it.’
He did not say a word to his wife on that afternoon about Dr Tempest; and she was so much taken up with his outward condition when he returned, as almost to have forgotten the letter. He allowed himself, but barely allowed himself, to be made dry, and then for the remainder of the day applied himself to learn the lesson which Hoggett had endeavoured to teach him. But the learning of it was not easy, and hardly became more easy when he had worked the problem out in his own mind, and discovered that the brickmaker’s doggedness simply meant self-abnegation–that a man should force himself to endure anything that might be sent upon him, not only without outward grumbling, but also without grumbling inwardly.
Early on the next morning, he told his wife that he was going into Silverbridge. ‘It is that letter–the letter which I got yesterday that calls me,’ he said. And then he handed her the letter as to which he had refused to speak to her on the preceding day.
‘But this speaks of your going next Monday, Josiah,’ said Mrs Crawley.
‘I find it more suitable that I should go today,’ said he. ‘Some duty I do owe in this matter, both to the bishop, and to Dr Tempest, who, after a fashion is, as regards my present business, the bishop’s representative. But I do not perceive that I owe it as a duty to either to obey implicitly their injunctions, and I will not submit myself to the cross-questioning of the man Thumble. As I am purposed at present I shall express my willingness to give up the parish.’
‘Give up the parish altogether?’
‘Yes, altogether.’ As he spoke he clasped both his hands together, and having held them for a moment on high, allowed them to fall thus clasped before him. ‘I cannot give it up in part; I cannot abandon the duties and reserve the honorarium. Nor would I if I could.’
‘I did not mean that, Josiah. But pray think of it before you speak.’
‘I have thought of it, and I will think of it. Farewell, my dear.’ Then he came up to her and kissed her, and started on his journey on foot to Silverbridge.
It was about noon when he reached Silverbridge, and he was told that Doctor Tempest was at home. The servant asked him for a card. ‘I have no card,’ said Mr Crawley, ‘but I will write my name for your behoof if your master’s hospitality will allow me paper and pencil.’ The name was written, and as Crawley waited in the drawing-room he spent his time in hating Dr Tempest because the door had been opened by a man-servant dressed in black. Had the man been in livery he would have hated Dr Tempest all the same. And he would have hated him a little had the door been opened by a smart maid.
‘Your letter came to hand yesterday morning, Dr Tempest,’ said Mr Crawley, still standing, though the doctor had pointed to a chair for him after shaking hands with him; ‘and having given yesterday to the consideration of it, with what judgment I have been able to exercise, I have felt it to be incumbent upon me to wait upon you without further delay, as by doing so I may perhaps assist your views and save labour to those gentlemen who are joined with you in this commission of which you have spoken. To some of them it may possibly be troublesome that they should be brought here on next Monday.
Dr Tempest had been looking at him during this speech, and could see by his shoes and trousers that he had walked from Hogglestock to Silverbridge. ‘Mr Crawley, will you not sit down?’ said he, and then he rang his bell. Mr Crawley sat down, not on the chair indicated, but on the further removed and at the other side of the table. When the servant came–the objectionable butler in black clothes that were so much smarter than Mr Crawley’s own–his master’s orders were communicated without any audible word, and the man returned with a decanter and wine-glasses.
‘After your walk, Mr Crawley,’ said Dr Tempest, getting up from his seat to pour out wine.
‘None, I thank you.’
‘Pray let me persuade you. I know the length of the miles so well.’
‘I will take none if you please, sir,’ said Mr Crawley.
‘Now, Mr Crawley,’ said Dr Tempest, ‘do let me speak to you as a friend. You have walked eight miles, and are going to talk to me on a subject which is of vital importance to yourself. I won’t discuss it unless you’ll take a glass of wine and a biscuit.’
‘Dr Tempest!’
‘I’m quite in earnest. I won’t. If you do as I ask, you shall talk to me till dinner-time, if you like. There. Now you may begin.’
Mr Crawley did eat the biscuit and did drink the wine, and as he did so, he acknowledged to himself that Dr Tempest was right. He felt that the wine had made him stronger to speak. ‘I hardly know why you have preferred today to next Monday,’ said Dr Tempest; ‘but if anything can be done by your presence here today, your time shall not be thrown away.’
‘I have preferred today to Monday,’ said Crawley, ‘partly because I would sooner talk to one man than to five.’
‘There is something in that, certainly,’ said Dr Tempest.
‘And as I have made up my mind as to the course of action which it is my duty to take in the matter to which your letter of the ninth of this month refers, there can be no reason why I should postpone the declaration of my purpose. Dr Tempest, I have determined to resign my preferment at Hogglestock, and shall today write to the Dean of Barchester, who is the patron, acquainting him of my purpose.’
‘You mean in the event–in the event–‘
‘I mean, sir, to do this without reference to any event that is future. The bishop, Dr Tempest, when I shall have been proved to be a thief, shall have no trouble either in causing my suspension or my deprivation. The name and fame of a parish clergyman should be unstained. Mine have become foul with infamy. I will not wait to be deprived by any court, by any bishop, or by any commission. I will bow my head to that public opinion which has reached me, and I will deprive myself.’
He had got up from his chair, and was standing as he pronounced the final sentence against himself. Dr Tempest still remained seated in his chair, looking at him, and for a few moments there was silence. ‘You must not do that, Mr Crawley,’ said Dr Tempest, at last.
‘But I shall do it.’
‘Then the dean must not take your resignation. Speaking to you frankly, I tell you that there is no prevailing opinion as to the verdict which the jury may give.’
‘My decision has nothing to do with the jury’s verdict. My decision–‘
‘Stop a moment, Mr Crawley. It is possible that you might say that which should not be said.’
‘There is nothing to be said–nothing which I could say, which I would not say at the Town Cross if it were possible. As to this money, I do not know whether I stole it or whether I did not.’
‘That is just what I have thought.’
‘It is so.’
‘Then you did not steal it. There can be no doubt about that.’
‘Thank you, Dr Tempest. I thank you heartily for saying so much. But, sir, you are not the jury. Nor, if you were, could you whitewash me from the infamy which has been cast upon me. Against the opinion expressed at the beginning of these proceedings by the bishop of this diocese–or rather against that expressed by his wife–I did venture to make a stand. Neither the opinion which came from the palace, nor the vehicle by which it was expressed, commanded my respect. Since that, others have spoken to whom I feel myself bound to yield–yourself not the least among them, Dr Tempest–and to them I shall yield. You may tell the Bishop of Barchester, that I shall at once resign the perpetual curacy of Hogglestock into the hands of the Dean of Barchester, by whom I was appointed.’
‘No, Mr Crawley; I shall not do that. I cannot control you, but thinking you to be wrong, I shall not make that communication to the bishop.’
‘Then I shall do it myself.’
‘And your wife, Mr Crawley, and your children?’
At that moment Mr Crawley called to mind the advice of his friend Giles Hoggett. ‘It’d dogged as does it.’ He certainly wanted something very strong to sustain him in this difficulty. He found that this reference to his wife and children required him to be dogged in a very marked manner. ‘I can only trust that the wind may be tempered to them,’ he said. ‘They will, indeed, be shorn lambs.’
Dr Tempest got up from his chair, and took a couple of turns about the room before he spoke again. ‘Man,’ he said, addressing Mr Crawley with all his energy, ‘if you do this thing, you will then at least be very wicked. If the jury find a verdict in your favour you are safe, and the chances are that the verdict will be in your favour.’
‘I care nothing now for the verdict,’ said Mr Crawley.
‘And you will turn your wife into the poorhouse for an idea!’
‘It’s dogged as does it,’ said Mr Crawley to himself. ‘I have thought of that,’ he said aloud. ‘That my wife is dear to me, and that my children are dear, I will not deny. She was softly nurtured, Dr Tempest, and came from a house in which want was never known. Since she has shared my board she has had some experience of that nature. That I should have brought her to all this is very terrible to me–so terrible, that I often wonder how it is that I live. But, sir, you will agree with me, that my duty as a clergyman is above everything. I do not dare, even for their sake, to remain in the parish. Good morning, Dr Tempest.’ Dr Tempest, finding that he could not prevail with him, bade him adieu, feeling that any service to the Crawleys within in his power might be best done by intercession with the bishop and with the dean.
Then Mr Crawley walked back to Hogglestock, repeating to himself Giles Hoggett’s words, ‘It’s dogged as does it.’
CHAPTER LXII
MR CRAWLEY’S LETTER TO THE DEAN
Mr Crawley, when he got home after his walk to Silverbridge, denied that he was at all tired. ‘The man at Silverbridge, whom I went to see administered refreshment to me;–nay, he administered it with salutary violence,’ he said, affecting even to laugh. ‘And I am bound to speak well of him on behalf of mercies over and beyond that exhibited by the persistent tender of some wine. That I should find him judicious I had expected. What little I have known of him taught me so to think of him. But I found with him also a softness of heart for which I had not looked.’
‘And you will not give up the living, Josiah?’
‘Most certainly I will. A duty, when it is clear before a man, should never be made less so by any tenderness in others.’ He was still thinking of Giles Hoggett. ‘It’s dogged as does it.’ The poor woman could not answer him. She knew well that it was vain to argue with him. She could only hope that in the event of his being acquitted at the trial, the dean, whose friendship she did not doubt, might re-endow him with the small benefice which was their only source of bread.
On the following morning there came by post a short note from Dr Tempest. ‘My dear Mr Crawley,’ the note ran, ‘I implore you, if there be yet time, to do nothing rashly. And even though you should have written to the bishop or to the dean, your letters need have no effect, if you will allow me to make them inoperative. Permit me to say that I am a man much older than you, and one who has mixed much both with clergymen and with the world at large. I tell you with absolute confidence, that it is not your duty in your present position to give up your living. Should your conduct ever be called in question on this matter you will be at perfect liberty to say that you were guided by my advice. You should take no step till after the trial. Then, if the verdict be against you, you should submit to the bishop’s judgment. If the verdict be in your favour, the bishop’s interference will be over.’
‘And you must remember that if it is not your duty as a clergyman to give up your living, you can have no right, seeing that you have a wife and family, to throw it away as an indulgence to your pride. Consult any other friend you please–Mr Robarts, or the dean himself. I am quite sure that any friend who knows many of the circumstances as I know will advise you to hold the living, at any rate till after the trial. You can refer any such friend to me.–Believe me, to be yours very truly, MORTIMER TEMPEST’
Mr Crawley walked about again with this letter in his pocket, but on this occasion he did not go in the direction of Hoggle End. From Hoggle End he could hardly hope to pick up further lessons of wisdom. What could any Giles Hoggett say to him beyond what he had said to him already? If he were to read the doctor’s letter to Hoggett, and to succeed in making Hoggett understand it, Hoggett could only caution him to be dogged. But it seemed to him that Hoggett and his new friend at Silverbridge did not agree in their doctrines, and it might be well that he should endeavour to find out which of them had most of justice on his side. He was quite sure that Hoggett would advise him to adhere to his project of giving up the living–if only Hoggett could me made to understand the circumstances.
‘He had written, but had not as yet sent away his letter to the dean.
His letter to the bishop would be but a note, and he had postponed the writing of that till the other should be copied and made complete.
He had sat up late into the night composing and altering his letter to his old friend, and now that the composition was finished he was loth to throw it away. Early in this morning, before the postman had brought to him Dr Tempest’s urgent remonstrance, he had shown to his wife the draft of his letter to the dean. ‘I cannot say that it is not true,’ she had said.
‘It is certainly true.’
‘But I wish, my dear, you would not send it. Why should you take any step till the trial be over?’
‘I shall assuredly send it,’ he had replied. ‘If you will peruse it again, you will see that the epistle would be futile were it kept till I shall have been proved to be a thief.’
‘Oh, Josiah, such words kill me.’
‘They are not pleasant, but it will be well that you should become used to them. As for the letter, I have taken some trouble to express myself with perspicuity, and I trust that I may have succeeded.’ At that time Hoggett was altogether in the ascendant; but now, as he started on his walk, his mind was somewhat perturbed by the contrary advice of one, who after all, might be as wise as Hoggett. There would be nothing dogged in the conduct recommended to him by Dr Tempest. Were he to follow the doctor’s advice, he would be trimming his sails, so as to catch any slant of a breeze that might be favourable to him. There could be no doggedness in a character that would submit to such trimming.
The postman came to Hogglestock but once a day, so that he could not despatch his letter till the next morning–unless, indeed, he chose to send it a distance of four miles to the nearest post-office. As there was nothing to justify this, there was another night for the copying of his letter–should he at last determine to send it. He had sworn to his wife that it should go. He had taken much trouble with it. He believed in Hoggett. But, nevertheless, this incumbency of Hogglestock was his all in the world. It might be that he could still hold it, and have bread at least for his wife to eat. Dr Tempest had told him that he would be probably acquitted. Dr Tempest knew as much of all the circumstances as he did himself, and had told him that he was not guilty. After all, Dr Tempest knew more about it that Hoggett knew.
If he resigned the living, what would become of him–of him–of him and his wife? Whither would they first go when they turned their back upon the door inside which there had at any rate been shelter for them for so many years? He calculated everything that he had, and found that at the end of April, even when he should have received his rent-charge, there would not be five pounds in hand among them. As for his furniture, he still owed enough to make it impossible that he should get anything out of that. And these thoughts all had reference to his position if he should be acquitted. What would become of his wife if he should be convicted? And as for himself, whither would he go when he came out of prison?
He had completely realised the idea that Hoggett’s counsel was opposed to that given to him by Dr Tempest; but then it might certainly be the case that Hoggett had not known all the facts. A man should, no doubt, be dogged when the evils of life are insuperable; but need he be so when the evils can be overcome? Would not Hoggett himself undergo any treatment which he believed to be specific for rheumatism? Yes; Hoggett would undergo any treatment that was not in itself opposed to his duty. The best treatment for rheumatism might be to stay away from the brick- field on a rainy day; but if so, there would be no money to keep the pot boiling, and Hoggett would certainly go to the brick-field, rheumatism and all, as long as his limbs would carry him there. Yes; he would send his letter. It was his duty, and he would do it. Men looked askance at him, and pointed at him as a thief. He would send the letter, in spite of Dr Tempest. Let justice be done, though the heaven may fall.
He had heard of Lady Lufton’s to his wife. The offers of the Lady Luftons of the world had been sorely distressing to his spirit, since it had first come to pass that such offers had reached him in consequence of his poverty. But now there was something almost of relief to him in the thought that the Lady Luftons would, after some fashion, save his wife and children from starvation–would save his wife from the poorhouse, and enable his children to have a start in the world. For one of his children a brilliant marriage might be provided–if only he himself were out of the way. How could he take himself out of the way? It had been whispered to him that he might be imprisoned for two months–or for two years. Would it not be a grand thing if the judge would condemn him to be imprisoned for life? Was thee ever a man whose existence was so purposeless, so useless, so deleterious, as his own? And yet he knew Hebrew well, whereas the dean knew but very little Hebrew. He could make Greek iambics, and doubted whether the bishop knew the difference between an iambus and a trochee. He could disport himself with trigonometry, feeling confident that Dr Tempest had forgotten his way over the asses’ bridge. He knew ‘Lycidas’ by heart; and as for Thumble, he felt quite sure that Thumble was incompetent of understanding a single allusion in that divine poem. Nevertheless, though all his wealth of acquirement was his, it would be better for himself, better for those who belonged to him, better for the world at large, that he should be put an end to. A sentence of penal servitude for life, without any trial, would be of all things the most desirable. Then there would be ample room for the practice of the virtue that Hoggett had taught him.
When he returned home the Hoggethan doctrine prevailed, and he prepared to copy his letter. But before he commenced his task, he sat down with his youngest daughter, and read–or made her read to him–a passage of a Greek poem, in which are described the troubles and agonies of a blind giant. No giant would have been more powerful–only that he was blind, and could not see to avenge himself on those who had injured him. ‘The same story is always coming up,’ he said, stopping the girl in her reading. ‘We have it in various versions, because it is true to life.
“Ask for this great deliverer now, and find him Eyeless in Gaza, at the mill with slaves.”
It is the same story. Great power reduced to impotence, great glory to misery, by the hand of Fate–Necessity, as the Greeks called her; to goddess that will not be shunned. At the mill with slaves! People, when they read it, do not appreciate the horror of the picture. Go on my dear. It may be a question whether Polyphemus had mind enough to suffer; but, from the description of his power, I should think he had. “At the mill with slaves!” Can any picture be more dreadful than that? Go on, my dear. Of course you remember Milton’s Samson Agonistes. Agonistes indeed!’ His wife was sitting stitching at the other side of the room; but she heard his words–heard and understood them; and before Jane could again get herself into the swing of the Greek verse, she was over at her husband’s side, with her arms round his neck. ‘My love!’ she said. ‘My love!’
He turned to her, and smiled as he spoke to her. ‘These are old thoughts with me. Polyphemus and Belisarius, and Samson and Milton, have always been pets of mine. The mind of the strong blind creature must be sensible of the injury that he has been done to him! The impotency, combined with the strength, or rather the impotency with the misery of former strength and former aspirations, is so essentially tragic!’
She looked into his eyes as he spoke, and there was something of the flash of old days, when the world was young to them, and when he would tell her of his hopes, and repeat to her long passages of poetry, and would criticise for her advantage the works of the old writers. ‘Thank God,’ she said, ‘that you are not blind. It may yet be all right with you.’
‘Yes–it may be,’ he said.
‘And you shall not be at the mill with slaves.’
‘Or, at any rate, not eyeless in Gaza, if the Lord is good to me. Come, Jane, we will go on.’ Then he took up the passage himself, and read it on with clear, sonorous voice, every now and then explaining some passage or expressing his own ideas upon it, as though he were really happy with his poetry.
It was late in the evening before he got out his small stock of best letter-paper, and sat down to work at his letter. He first addressed himself to the bishop; and what he wrote down to the bishop was as follows:-
‘HOGGLESTOCK PARSONAGE, April 11, 186-
‘MY LORD BISHOP,
‘I have been in communication with Dr Tempest, of Silverbridge, from whom I have learned that your lordship has been pleased to appoint a commission of inquiry–of which commission he is the chairman–with reference to the proceedings which it may be necessary that you should take, as bishop of the diocese, after my forthcoming trial at the approaching Barchester assizes. My lord, I think it right to inform you, partly with a view to the comfort of the gentlemen named on that commission, and partly with the purport of giving you the information which I think that a bishop should possess in regard to the clerical affairs of his own diocese, that I have by this post resigned my preferment at Hogglestock into the hands of the Dean of Barchester, by whom it was given to me. In these circumstances, it will, I suppose, be unnecessary for you to continue the commission which you have set in force; but as to that, your lordship will, of course, be the only judge.–I have the honour to be, my Lord Bishop, your most obedient and very humble servant,
‘JOSIAH CRAWLEY
Perpetual Curate of Hogglestock
‘The Right Reverend
‘The Bishop of Barchester,
‘&c, &c, &c
The Palace, Barchester’
But the letter which was of real importance–which was intended to say something–was that to the dean, and that also shall be given to the reader. Mr Crawley had been for a while in doubt how he should address his old friend in commencing this letter, understanding that its tone throughout must be, in a great degree, be mad conformable with its first words. He would fain, in his pride, have begun ‘Sir’. The question was between that and ‘My dear Arabin’. It had once between them always been ‘Dear Frank,’ and Dear Joe” but the occasions for ‘Dear Frank’ and ‘Dear Joe’ between them had long been past. Crawley would have been very angry had he now been called Joe by the dean, and would have bitten his tongue out before he would have called the dean Frank. His better nature, however, now prevailed, and he began his letter, and completed it as follows:-
‘MY DEAR ARABIN,
‘Circumstances, of which you have probably heard something, compel me to write to you, as I fear, at some length. I am sorry that the trouble of such a letter should be forced upon you during your holidays’;–Mr Crawley, as he wrote this, did not forget to remind himself that he never had any holidays;–‘but I think you will admit, if you will bear with me to the end, that I have no alternative.
‘I have been accused of stealing a cheque for twenty pounds, which cheque was drawn by Lord Lufton on his London bankers, and was lost out of his pocket by Mr Soames, his lordship’s agent, and was so lost, as Mr Soames states–but with an absolute assertion–during a visit which he made to my parsonage here at Hogglestock. Of the fact that I paid the cheque to a tradesman in Silverbridge there is no doubt. When questioned about it, I first gave an answer which was so manifestly incorrect that it has seemed odd to me that I should not have had credit for a mistake from those who must have seen that detection was so evident. The blunder was undoubtedly stupid, and it now bears heavily on me. I then, as I have learned, made another error–of which I am aware that you have been informed. I said that the cheque had come from you, and in saying so, I thought that it had formed a portion of that alms which your open-handed benevolence bestowed upon me when I attended on you, not long before your departure, in your library. I have striven to remember the facts. It may be–nay, it probably is the case–that such struggles to catch some accurate glimpse of bygone things do not trouble you. You mind is, no doubt, clearer and stronger than mine, having been kept to its proper tune by greater and fitter work. With me, memory is all but gone, and the power of thinking is on the wane! I struggled to remember, and I thought that the cheque had been in an envelope which you handed to me–and I said so. I have since learned, from tidings received, as I am told, direct from yourself, that I was wrong in the second statement as I had been in the first. The double blunder has, of course, been very heavy on me.
‘I was taken before the magistrates at Silverbridge, and was by them committed to stand my trial at the assizes to be holden in Barchester on the twenty-eighth of this month. Without doubt, the magistrates had not alternative but to commit me, and I am indebted to them that they have allowed me my present liberty upon bail. That my sufferings in all this should have been grievous, you will understand. But on that head I shall not touch, were it not that I am bound to explain to you that my troubles with reference to this parish of Hogglestock, to which I was appointed by you, have not been the slightest of those sufferings. I felt at first, believing then that the world around me would think it unlikely that such a one as I had wilfully stolen a sum of money, that it was my duty to maintain myself in my church. I did so maintain myself against an attack made upon me by the bishop, who sent over to Hogglestock one Mr Thumble, a gentleman doubtless in holy orders, though I know nothing and can learn nothing of the place of his cure, to dispossess me of my pulpit and to remove me from my ministrations among my people. To Mr Thumble I turned a deaf ear, and would not let him so much as open his mouth inside the porch of my church. Up to this time I myself have read the services, and have preached to the people, and have continued, as best I could, my visits to the poor and my labours in the school, though I know–no one knows as well–how unfitted I am for such work by the grief which has fallen upon me.
‘Then the bishop sent for me, and I thought it becoming on my part to go to him. I presented myself to his lordship at his palace, and was minded to be much governed in my conduct by what he might say to me, remembering that I am bound to respect the office, even though I may not approve of the man; and I humbled myself before his lordship, waiting patiently for any directions which he in his discretion might think it proper to bestow on me. But there arose up between us that very pestilent woman, his wife–to his dismay, seemingly, as much as to mine–and she would let there place for no speech but her own. If there be aught clear to me in ecclesiastical matters, it is this–that no authority can be delegated to a female. The special laws of this and of some other countries do allow that women shall sit upon the temporal thrones of the earth, but on the lowest step of the throne of the Church no woman has been allowed to sit as bearing authority, the romantic tale of the woman Pope notwithstanding. Thereupon, I left the palace in wrath, feeling myself aggrieved that a woman should have attempted to dictate to me, and finding it hopeless to get a clear instruction from his lordship–the woman taking up the word whenever I put a question to my lord the bishop. Nothing, therefore, came of that interview but fruitless labour to myself, and anger, of which I have since been ashamed.
‘Since that time I have continued in my parish–working, not without zeal, though, in truth, almost without hope–and learning even from day to day that the opinion of men around me have declared me to be guilty of the crime imputed to me. And now the bishop has issued a commission as preparatory to proceedings against me under the Act for the punishment for clerical offences. In doing this, I cannot say that the bishop has been ill-advised, even though the advice may have come from that evil-tongued lady, his wife. And I hold that a woman may be called upon for advice, with most salutary effect, in affairs as to which any show of female authority should be equally false and pernicious. With me it has ever been so, and I have had a counsellor by me as wise as she has been devoted.’ It must be noticed that in the draft copy of his letter which Mr Crawley gave to his wife to read this last sentence was not inserted. Intending that she should read his letter, he omitted it till he made the fair copy. ‘Over this commission his lordship has appointed Dr Tempest of Silverbridge to preside, and with him I have been in communication. I trust that the labours of the gentlemen of whom it is composed may be brought to a speedy close; and, having regard to their trouble, I have informed Dr Tempest that I should write this letter to you with the intent and assured purpose of resigning the perpetual curacy of Hogglestock in your hands.
‘You will be good enough, therefore, to understand that I do so resign the living, and that I shall continue to administer the services of the Church only till some clergyman, certified to me as coming from you or from the bishop, may present himself in the parish, and shall declare himself prepared to undertake the cure. Should it be so that Mr Thumble be sent hither again, I will sit under him, endeavouring to catch improvement from his teaching, and striving to overcome the contempt which I felt for him when he before visited this parish. I annex beneath my signature a copy of the letter which I have written to the bishop on this subject.
‘And now it behoves me, as the guardianship of the souls of those was placed in my hands by you, to explain to you as shortly as may be possible the reasons which had induced me to abandon my work. One or two whose judgment I do not discredit–and I am allowed to name Dr Tempest of Silverbridge as one–have suggested to me that I should take no step till after my trial. They think that I should have regard to the chance of the verdict, so that the preferment may still be mine should I be acquitted; and they say, that should I be acquitted, the bishop’s action against me must of necessity cease. That they are right in these facts I do not doubt; but in giving such advice they look only to the facts, having no regard to the conscience. I do not blame them. I should give such advice myself, knowing that a friend may give counsel as to outer things, but that a man must satisfy his inner conscience by his own perceptions of what is right and what is wrong.
‘I find myself to be ill-spoken of, to be regarded with hard eyes by those around me, my people thinking that I have stolen this money. Two farmers in this parish, have, as I am aware, expressed opinions that no jury could acquit me honestly, and neither of these men have appeared in my church since the expression of that opinion. I doubt whether they have gone to other churches; and if not they have been deterred from all public worship by my presence. If this be so, how can I with a clear conscience remain among these men? Shall I take from their hands wages for those administrations, which their deliberately formed opinions will not allow them to accept from my hands?’ And yet, though he thus pleaded against himself, he knew that the two men of whom he was speaking were thick-headed dolts who were always tipsy in Saturday nights, and who came to church perhaps once in three weeks.
‘Your kind heart will doubtless prompt you to tell me that no clergyman could be safe in his parish if he were to allow the opinion of chance parishioners to prevail against him; and you would probably lay down for my guidance the grand old doctrine “Nil conscire sibi; nulla pallescere culpa.” Presuming that you may do so, I will acknowledge such guidance to be good. If my mind were clear in this matter, I would not budge an inch for any farmer–no, nor for any bishop, further than he might by law compel me! But my mind is not clear. I do grow pale, and my hairs stands on end with horror, as I confess to myself that I do not know whether I stole this money or no! Such is the fact. In all sincerity I tell you that I know not whether I be guilty or innocent. It may be that I picked up the cheque from the floor of my room, and afterwards took it out and used it, not knowing whence it had come to me. If it be so, I stole it, and am guilty before the laws of my country. If it be so, I am not fit to administer the Lord’s sacraments to these people. When the cup was last in my hand and I was blessing them, I felt that I was not fit, and I almost dropped the chalice. That God will know my weakness and pardon me the perplexity of my mind–that is between Him and His creature.
‘As I read my letter over to myself I feel how weak are my words, and how inefficient to explain to you the exact position in which I stand; but they will suffice to convince you that I am assuredly purposed to resign this parish of Hogglestock, and that it is therefore incumbent on you, as patron of the living, to nominate my successor to the benefice. I have only further to ask your pardon for this long letter, and to thank you again for the many and great marks of friendship which you have conferred on me. Alas, could you have foreseen in those old days how barren of all good would have been the life of him you then esteemed, you might perhaps have escaped the disgrace of being called the friend of one whom no one now regards with esteem.– Nevertheless, I may still say that I am, with all affection, yours truly,
‘JOSIAH CRAWLEY’
The last paragraph of the letter was also added, since his wife had read it. When he had first composed the letter, he had been somewhat proud of his words, thinking that he had clearly told his story. But, when sitting alone at his desk, he read it again, filling his mind as he went on with ideas which he would fain have expressed to his old friend, were it not that he feared to indulge himself with too many words, he began to tell himself that his story was anything but well told. There was no expression there of the Hoggethan doctrine. In answer to such a letter as that the dean might well say, ‘Think again of it. Try yet to save yourself. Never mind the two farmers, or Mr Thumble, or the bishop. Stick to the ship while there is a plank above the water.’ Whereas it had been his desire to use words that should make the dean clearly understand that the thing was decided. He had failed–as he had failed in everything throughout his life; but nevertheless the letter must go. Were he to begin again he would not do it better. So he added to what he had written a copy of his note to the bishop, and the letter was fastened and sent.
Mrs Crawley might probably have been more instant in her efforts to stop the letter, had she not felt that it would not decide everything. In the first place it was improbable that the letter might not reach the dean till after his return home–and Mrs Crawley had long since made up her mind that she would see the dean as soon as possible after his return. She had heard from Lady Lufton that it was not doubted in Barchester that he would be back at any rate before the judges came into the city. And then, in the next place, was it probable that the dean would act upon such a letter by filling up the vacancy, even if he did get it? She trusted in the dean, and knew that he would help them, if any help were possible. Should the verdict go against her husband, then indeed it might be that no help would be possible. In such case she thought that the bishop with his commission might prevail. But she still believed that the verdict would be favourable, if not with an assured belief, still with a hope that was sufficient to stand in lieu of a belief. No single man, let alone no twelve men, could think that her husband had intended to appropriate the money dishonestly. That he had taken it improperly–without real possession–she herself believed; but he had not taken it as a thief, and could not merit a thief’s punishment. After two days he got a reply from the bishop’s chaplain, in which the chaplain expressed the bishop’s commendation of Mr Crawley’s present conduct. ‘Mr Thumble shall proceed from hence to Hogglestock on next Sunday,’ said the chaplain, ‘and shall relieve you for the present from the burden of your duties. As to the future status of the parish, it will perhaps be best that nothing shall be done till the dean returns –or perhaps till the assizes shall be over. This is the bishop’s opinion.’ It need hardly be explained that the promised visit of Mr Thumble to Hogglestock was gall and wormwood to Mr Crawley. He had told the dean that should Mr Thumble come, he would endeavour to learn something even from him. But it may be doubted whether Mr Crawley in his present mood could learn anything useful from Mr Thumble. Giles Hoggett was a much more effective teacher.
‘I will endure even that,’ he said to his wife, as she handed to him back the letter from the bishop’s chaplain.
CHAPTER LXIII
TWO VISITORS TO HOGGLESTOCK
The cross-grainedness of men is so great that things will often be forced to go wrong, even when they have the strongest possible natural tendency of their own to go right. It was now in these affairs between the archdeacon and his son. The original difficulty was solved by the good feeling of the young lady–by that and by the real kindness of the archdeacon’s nature. They had come to terms which were satisfactory to both of them, and those terms admitted of perfect reconciliation between the father and his son. Whether the major did marry the lady or whether he did not, his allowance was to be continued to him, the archdeacon being perfectly willing to trust himself in the matter to the pledge which had received from Miss Crawley. All that he had required from his son was simply this–that he should pull down the bills advertising the sale of his effects. Was any desire more rational? The sale had been advertised for a day just one week in advance of the assizes, and the time must have been selected–so thought the archdeacon–with a malicious intention. Why, at any rate, should the things be sold before anyone knew whether the father of the young lady was or was not to be regarded as a thief? And why should the things be sold at all, when the archdeacon had tacitly withdrawn his threats–when he had given his son to understand that the allowance would still be paid quarterly with the customary archidiaconal regularity, and that no alteration was intended in those settlements under which the Plumstead foxes would, in the ripeness of time, become the property of the major himself. It was thus that the archdeacon looked at it, and as he did so, he thought that his son was the most cross-grained of men.
But the major had his own way of looking at the matter. He had, he flattered himself, dealt very fairly with his father. When he had first made up his mind to make Miss Crawley his wife, he had told his father of his intention. The archdeacon declared that, if he did so, such and such results would follow–results which, as was apparent to everyone, would make it indispensable that the major should leave Cosby Lodge. The major had never complained. So he told himself. He had simply said to his father–‘I shall do as I have said. You can do as you have said. Therefore, I shall prepare to leave Cosby Lodge.’ He had so prepared; and as a part of that preparation, the auctioneer’s bills had been stuck up on the posts and walls. Then the archdeacon had gone to work surreptitiously with the lady–the reader will understand that we are still following the workings of the major’s mind–and having succeeded in obtaining a pledge which he had been wrong to demand, came forward very graciously to withdraw his threats. He withdrew his threats because he had succeeded in his object by other means. The major knew nothing of the kiss that had been given, of the two tears that had trickled down his father’s nose, of the generous epithets which the archdeacon had applied to Grace. He did not guess how nearly his father had yielded altogether beneath the pressure of Grace’s charms–how willing he was to yield altogether at the first decent opportunity. His father had obtained a pledge from Grace that she would not marry in certain circumstances–as to which circumstances the major was strongly resolved that they should form no bar to his marriage–and then came forward with his eager demand that the sale should be stopped! The major could not submit to so much indignity. He had resolved that his father should have nothing to do with his marriage one way or the other. He would not accept anything from his father on the understanding that his father had any such right. His father had asserted such right with threats, and he, the major, taking such threats as meaning something, had seen that he must leave Cosby Lodge. Let his father come forward, and say that they meant nothing that he abandoned all right to any interference as to his son’s marriage, and that the son–would dutifully consent to accept his father’s bounty! They were both cross-grained, as Mrs Grantly declared; but I think that the major was the most cross-grained of the two.
Something of the truth made its way to Henry Grantly’s mind as he drove home from Barchester after seeing his grandfather. It was not that he began to think that his father was right, but that he almost perceived that it might be becoming to him to forgive some fault in his father. He had been implored to honour his father, and he was willing to do so, understanding that such honour must, to a certain degree, imply obedience–if it could be done at no more than a moderate expense of his feelings. The threatened auctioneer was the cause of offence to his father, and he might see whether it would not be possible to have the sale postponed. There would, of course, be a pecuniary loss, and that in his diminished circumstances–might be inconvenient. But so much he thought himself bound to endure on his father’s behalf. At any rate, he would consult the auctioneer at Silverbridge.
But he would not make any pause in the measures which he had proposed to himself as likely to be conducive to his marriage. As for Grace’s pledge, such pledges from young ladies never went for anything. It was out of the question that she should be sacrificed, even though his father had taken the money. And, moreover, the very gist of the major’s generosity was to consist in his marrying her whether her father were guilty or innocent. He understood that perfectly, and understood also that it was his duty to make his purpose in this respect known to Grace’s family. He determined, therefore, that he would go over to Hogglestock, and see Mr Crawley before he saw the auctioneer.
Hitherto Major Grantly had never spoken to Mr Crawley. It may be remembered that the major was at the present moment one of the bailsmen for the due appearance of Mr Crawley before the judge, and that he had been present when the magistrates sat at the inn in Silverbridge. He therefore knew the man’s presence, but except on that occasion he had never even seen his intended future father-in-law. From that moment when he had first allowed himself to think of Grace, he had desired, yet almost feared, to make acquaintance with the father; but had been debarred from doing so by the peculiar position in which Mr Crawley was placed. He had felt that it would be impossible to speak to the father of his affection for the daughter without any allusion to the coming trial; and he did not know how such allusion could be made. Thinking of this, he had at different times almost resolved not to call at Hogglestock till the trial might be over. Then he would go there, let the result of the trial have been what it might. But it had now become necessary for him to go on at once. His father had precipitated matters by his appeal to Grace. He would appeal to Grace’s father, and reach Grace through his influence.
He drove over to Hogglestock, feeling himself to be anything but comfortable as he came near to the house. And when he did reach the spot he was somewhat disconcerted to find that another visitor was in the house before him. He presumed this to be the case, because there stood a little pony horse–an animal which did not recommend itself to his instructed eye–attached by its rein to the palings. It was a poor humble-looking beast, whose knees had very lately become acquainted with the hard and sharp stones of a newly-mended highway. The blood was even now red upon the wounds.
‘He’ll never be much good again,’ said the major to his servant.
‘That he won’t, sir,’ said the man. ‘But I don’t think he’s been very much good for some time back.’
‘I shouldn’t like to have to ride him into Silverbridge,’ said the major, descending from the gig, and instructing his servant to move the horse and gig about as long as he might remain within the house. Then he walked across the little garden and knocked at the door. The door was immediately opened, and in the passage he found Mr Crawley and another clergyman whom the reader will recognise as Mr Thumble. Mr Thumble had come over to make arrangements as to the Sunday services and the parochial work, and had been very urgent in impressing on Mr Crawley that the duties were to be left entirely to himself. Hence had come some bitter words, in which Mr Crawley, though no doubt he said the sharper things of the two, had not been able to vanquish his enemy so completely as he had done of former occasions.
‘There must be no interference, my dear sir–not whatever, if you please,’ Mr Thumble had said.
‘There shall be none of which the bishop shall have reason to complain,’ Mr Crawley had replied.
‘There must be none at all, Mr Crawley, if you please. It is only on that understanding that I have consented to take the parish temporarily into my hands. Mrs Crawley, I hope that there may be no mistake about the schools. It must be exactly as though I were residing on the spot.’
‘Sir,’ said Mr Crawley, very irate at this appeal to his wife, and speaking in a loud voice, ‘do you misdoubt my word; or do you think that if I were minded to be false to you, that I should be corrected in my falsehood by the firmer faith of my wife?’
‘I meant nothing about falsehood, Mr Crawley.’
‘Having resigned the benefice for certain reasons of my own, with which I shall not trouble you, and acknowledging as I do–and have done in writing under my hand to the bishop–the propriety of his lordship’s interference in providing for the services of the parish till any successor shall have been instituted, I shall, with what feelings of regret, I need not say, leave you to the performance of your temporary duties.’
‘That is all that I require, Mr Crawley.’
‘But it is wholly unnecessary that you should instruct me in mine.’
‘The bishop especially desires–‘ began Mr Thumble. But Mr Crawley interrupted him instantly.
‘If the bishop has directed you to give me such instructions, the bishop is much in error. I will submit to receive none from him through you, sir. If you please, sir, let there be an end of it’; and Mr Crawley waved his hand. I hope the reader will conceive the tone of Mr Crawley’s voice, and will appreciate the aspect of his face, and will see the motion of his hand, as he spoke these latter words. Mr Thumble felt the power of the man so sensibly that he was unable to carry on the contest. Thought Mr Crawley was now but a broken reed, and was beneath his feet, yet Mr Thumble acknowledged to himself that he could not hold his own in debate with this broken reed. But the words had been spoken, and the tone of the voice had died away, and the fire in the eyes had burned itself out before the moment of the major’s arrival. Mr Thumble was now returning to his horse, and having enjoyed–if he did enjoy–his little triumph about the parish, was becoming unhappy at the future dangers that awaited him. Perhaps he was the more unhappy because it had been proposed to him by the authorities at the palace that he should repeatedly ride on the same animal from Barchester to Hogglestock and back. Mr Crawley was in the act of replying to his lamentations on this subject with his hand on the latch, when the major arrived–‘I regret to say, sir that I cannot assist you by supplying any other steed.’ Then the major had knocked, and Mr Crawley had at once opened the door.
‘You probably do not remember me, Mr Crawley?’ said the major. ‘I am Major Grantly.’ Mrs Crawley, who heard these words inside the room, sprang up from her chair, and could hardly resist the temptation to rush into the passage. She too had barely seen Major Grantly; and now the only bright gleam which appeared on her horizon depended on his constancy under circumstances which would have justified his inconstancy. But had he meant to be inconstant, surely he would never have come to Hogglestock!’
‘I remember you well, sir,’ said Mr Crawley. ‘I am under no common obligation to you. You are at present one of my bailsmen.’
‘There’s nothing in that,’ said the major.
Mr Thumble had caught the name of Grantly, took off his hat, which he had put on his head. He had not been particular in keeping off his hat before Mr Crawley. But he knew well that Archdeacon Grantly was a big man in the diocese; and though the Grantlys and the Proudies were opposed to each other, still it might be well to take off his hat before anyone who had to do with the big ones of the diocese. ‘I hope your respected father is well, sir?’ said Mr Thumble.
‘Pretty well, I thank you.’ The major stood close up against the wall of the passage, so as to allow room for Mr Thumble to pass out. His business was one on which he could hardly begin to speak until the visitor had gone. Mr Crawley was standing with the door wide open in his hand. He also was anxious to be rid of Mr Thumble–and was perhaps not so solicitous as a brother clergyman should have touching the future fate of Mr Thumble in the matter of the bishop’s old cob.
‘Really, I don’t know what to do as to getting upon him again,’ said Mr Thumble.
‘If you will allow him to progress slowly,’ said Mr Crawley, ‘he will probably travel with greater safety.’
‘I don’t know what you call slow, Mr Crawley. I was ever so much over two hours coming here from Barchester. He stumbled almost at every step.’
‘Did he fall while you were on him?’ asked the major.
‘Indeed he did, sir. You never saw such a thing, Major Grantly. Look here.’ Then Mr Thumble, turning round, showed that the rear portion of his clothes had not escaped without injury.
‘It was well that he was not going fast, or you would have come on to your head,’ said Grantly.
‘It was a mercy,’ said Thumble. ‘But, sir, as it was, I came to the ground with much violence. It was on Spigglewick Hill, where the road is covered with loose stones. I see, sir, you have a gig and horse here, with a servant. Perhaps, as the circumstances are so very peculiar–‘ Then Mr Thumble stopped, and looked up into the major’s face with imploring eyes. But the major had no tenderness for such sufferings. ‘I’m sorry to say that I am going quite the other way,’ he said. ‘I am returning to Silverbridge.’
Mr Thumble hesitated, and then made a renewed request. ‘If you would not mind taking me to Silverbridge, I could get home from thence by railway; and perhaps you would allow your servant to take the horse to Barchester.’
Major Grantly was for a moment dumbfounded. ‘The request is most unreasonable, sir.’ said Mr Crawley.
‘That is as Major Grantly pleases to look at it,’ said Mr Thumble.
‘I am sorry to say that it is quite out of my power,’ said the major.
‘You can surely walk, leading the beast, if you fear to mount him,’ said Mr Crawley.
‘I shall do as I please about that,’ said Mr Thumble. ‘And, Mr Crawley, if you will have the kindness to leave things in the parish just as they are–just as they are, I will be obliged to you. It is the bishop’s wish that you should touch nothing.’ Mr Thumble was by this time on the step, and Mr Crawley instantly slammed the door. ‘The gentleman is a clergyman from Barchester,’ said Mr Crawley, modestly folding his hands upon his breast, ‘whom the bishop has sent over here to take upon himself temporarily the services of the church, and it appears, the duties also of the parish. I refrain from animadverting upon his lordship’s choice.’
‘And you are leaving Hogglestock?’
‘When I have found a shelter for my wife and children I shall do so; nay, peradventure, I must do so before any such shelter can be found. I shall proceed in that matter as I am bid. I am one who can regard myself as no longer possessing the privilege of free action in anything. But while I have a room at your service, permit me to ask you to enter it.’ Then Mr Crawley motioned him in with his hand, and Major Grantly found himself in the presence of Mrs Crawley and her younger daughter.
He looked at them both for a moment, and could trace much of the lines of that face which he loved so well. But the troubles of life had almost robbed the elder lady of her beauty; and with the younger, the awkward thinness of the last years of feminine childhood had not yet given place to the fulfilment of feminine grace. But the likeness in each was quite enough to make him feel that he ought to be at home in that room. He thought that he could love the woman as his mother, and the girl as his sister. He found it very difficult to begin any conversation in their presence, and yet it seemed to be his duty to begin. Mr Crawley had marshalled him into the room, and having done so, stood aside near the door. Mrs Crawley had received him very graciously, and having done so, seemed to be ashamed of her own hospitality. Poor Jane had shrunk back into a distant corner, near the open standing desk at which she was accustomed to read Greek to her father, and, of course, could not be expected to speak. If Major Grantly could have found himself alone with any one of the three–nay, if he could have been there with any two, he could have opened his budget at once; but, before all the family, he felt the difficulty of his situation. ‘Mrs Crawley,’ said he, ‘I have been most anxious to make your acquaintance, and I trust you will excuse the liberty I have taken in calling.’
‘I feel grateful to you, as I am sure does also my husband.’ So much she said, and then felt angry with herself for saying so much. Was she not expressing the strong hope that he might stand fast by her child, whereby the whole Crawley family would gain so much–and the Grantly family lose much, in the same proportion?
‘Sir,’ said Mr Crawley, ‘I owe you thanks, still unexpressed, in that you came forward together with Mr Robarts of Framley, to satisfy the not unnatural requisition of the magistrates before whom I was called upon to appear in the early winter. I know not why anyone should have ventured into such jeopardy on my account.’
‘There was no jeopardy, Mr Crawley. Anyone in the county would have done it.’
‘I know not that; nor can I see that there was no jeopardy. I trust that I may assure you that there is no danger;–none, I mean, to you. The danger to myself and those belonging to me, is, alas, very urgent. The facts of my position are pressing close upon me. Methinks I suffer more from the visit of the gentleman who has just departed from me than anything that has yet happened to me. And yet he is right;–he is altogether right.’
‘No, papa; he is not,’ said Jane, from her standing ground near the upright desk.
‘My dear,’ said her father, ‘you should be silent on such a subject. It is a matter hard to be understood in all its bearings–even by those who are most conversant with them. But as this we need not trouble Major Grantly.’
After that there was silence among them, and for a while it seemed as though there could be no approach to the subject on which Grantly had come hither to express himself. Mrs Crawley, in her despair, said something about the weather; and the major, trying to draw near the special subject, became bold enough to remark ‘that he had the pleasure of seeing Miss Crawley at Framley.’ ‘Mrs Robarts has been very kind,’ said Mrs Crawley, ‘very kind indeed. You can understand, Major Grantly, that this must be a very sad house for a young person.’ ‘I don’t think it is at all sad,’ said Jane, still standing in the corner by the upright desk.
Then Major Grantly rose from his seat and walked across to the girl and shook her hand. ‘You are so like your sister,’ said he. ‘Your sister is a great friend of mine. She has often spoken to me of you. I hope we shall be friends some day.’ But Jane could make no answer to this, though she had been able to vindicate the general character of the house while she was left in the corner by herself. ‘I wonder whether you would be angry with me,’ continued the major, ‘if I told you I wanted to speak a word to your father and mother alone?’ To this Jane made no reply, but was out of the room almost before the words had reached the ears of her father and mother. Though she was only sixteen, and had as yet read nothing but Latin and Greek–unless we are to count the twelve books of Euclid and Wood’s Algebra, and sundry smaller exercises of the same description–she understood, as well as anyone present, the reason why her absence was required.
As she closed the door the major paused for a moment, expecting, or perhaps hoping, that the father or the mother would say a word. But neither of them had a word to say. They sat silent, and as though conscience-stricken. Here was a rich man, of whom they had heard that he might probably wish to wed their daughter. It was manifest enough to both of them that no man could marry into their family without subjecting himself to a heavy portion of that reproach and disgrace which was attached to them. But how was it possible that they should not care more for their daughter–for their own flesh and blood, than for the incidental welfare of this rich man? As regarded the man himself they had heard everything that was good. Such a marriage was like the opening of a paradise to their child. ‘Nil conscire sibi,’ said the father to himself, as he buckled on his armour for the fight.
When he had waited for a moment or two, he began. ‘Mrs Crawley,’ he said, addressing himself to the mother, ‘I do not quite know how far you may be aware that I–that I have for some time been–been acquainted with your eldest daughter.’
‘I have heard from her that she is acquainted with you,’ said Mrs Crawley, almost panting with anxiety.
‘I may as well make a clean breast of it at once,’ said the major, smiling, ‘and say outright that I have come here to request your permission and her father’s to ask her to be my wife.’ Then he was silent, and for a few moments neither Mr nor Mrs Crawley replied to him. She looked at her husband, and he gazed at the fire, and the smile died away from the major’s face, as he watched the solemnity of them both. There was something almost forbidding in the peculiar gravity of Mr Crawley’s countenance when, as at present, something operated within him to cause him to express dissent from any proposition that was made to him. ‘I do not know how far this may be altogether new to you, Mrs Crawley,’ said the major, waiting for a reply.
‘It is not new to me,’ said Mrs Crawley.
‘May I hope, then, that you will not disapprove?’
‘Sir,’ said Mr Crawley, ‘I am so placed by the untoward circumstances of my life that I can hardly claim to exercise over my own daughter that authority which should belong to a parent.’
‘My dear, do not say that,’ said Mrs Crawley.
‘But I do say it. Within three weeks of this time I may be a prisoner, subject to the criminal laws of my country. At this moment I am without power of earning bread for myself, or for my wife, or for my children. Major Grantly, you have even now seen the departure of the gentleman who has been sent here to take my place in this parish. I am, as it were, an outlaw here, and entitled neither to obedience nor respect from those who under other circumstances would be bound to give both.’
‘Major Grantly,’ said the poor woman, ‘no husband or father in the county is more closely obeyed or more thoroughly respected and loved.’
‘I am sure of it,’ said the major.
‘All this, however, matters nothing,’ said Mr Crawley, ‘and all speech on such homely matters would amount to an impertinence before you, sir, were it not that you have hinted at the purpose of connecting yourself at some future time with this unfortunate family.’
‘I meant to be plain-spoken, Mr Crawley.’
‘I did not mean to insinuate, sir, that there was aught of reticence in your words, so contrived that you might fall back on the vagueness of your expression for protection, should you hereafter see fit to change your purpose. I should have wronged you much by such a suggestion. I rather was minded to make known to you that I–or, I should rather say, we,’ and Mr Crawley pointed to his wife–‘shall not accept your plainness of speech as betokening aught beyond a conceived idea in furtherance of which you have thought it expedient to make certain inquiries.’
‘I don’t quite follow you,’ said the major. ‘But what I want you to do is to give me your consent to visit your daughter; and I want Mrs Crawley to write to Grace and tell her that it’s all right.’ Mrs Crawley was quite sure that it was all right, and was ready to sit down and write the letter that moment, if her husband would permit her to do so.
‘I am sorry that I have not been explicit,’ said Mr Crawley, ‘but I will endeavour to make myself more plainly intelligible. My daughter, sir, is so circumstanced in reference to her father, that I, as her father and a gentleman, cannot encourage any man to make a tender to her of his hand.’
‘But I have made up my mind about all that.’
‘And I, sir, have made up mine. I dare not tell my girl that I think she will do well to place her hand in yours. A lady, when she does that, should feel at least that her hand is clean.’
‘It is the cleanest and the sweetest and fairest hand in Barsetshire,’ said the major. Mrs Crawley could not restrain herself, but running up to him, took his hand in hers and kissed it.
‘There is unfortunately a stain, which is vicarial,’ began Mr Crawley, sustaining up to that point his voice with Roman fortitude–with a fortitude which would have been Roman had it not at that moment broken down under the pressure of human feeling. He could keep it up no longer, but continued his speech with broken sobs, and with a voice altogether changed in its tone–rapid now, whereas it had before been slow–natural, whereas it had hitherto been affected–human, whereas it had hitherto been Roman. ‘Major Grantly,’ he said. ‘I am sore beset; but what can I say to you? My darling is as pure as the light of day–only that she is soiled with my impurity. She is fit to grace the house of the best gentleman in England, had I not made her unfit.’
‘She shall grace mine,’ said the major. ‘By God she shall!–tomorrow, if she’ll have me.’ Mrs Crawley, who was standing beside him, again raised his hand and kissed it.
‘It may not be so. As I began by saying–or rather strove to say, for I have been overtaken by weakness, and cannot speak my mind–I cannot claim authority over my child as would another man. How can I exercise authority from between a prison’s bars?’
‘She would obey your slightest wish,’ said Mrs Crawley.
‘I could express no wish,’ said he. ‘But I know my girl, and I am sure that she will not consent to take infamy with her into the house of the man who loves her.’
‘There will be no infamy,’ said the major. ‘Infamy! I tell you that I shall be proud of the connexion.’
‘You, sir, are generous in your prosperity. We will strive to be at least just in our adversity. My wife and children are to be pitied–because of the husband and father.’
‘No!’ said Mrs Crawley. ‘I will not hear that said, without denying it.’
‘But they must take their lot as it has been given to them,’ continued he. ‘Such a position in life as that which you have proposed to bestow upon my child would be to her, as regards human affairs, great elevation. And from what I have heard–I may be permitted to add also from what I now know from personal experience–such a marriage would be laden with fair promise and future happiness. But if you ask my mind, I think that my child is not free to make it. You, sir, have many relatives, who are not in love, as you are, all of whom would be affected by the stain of my disgrace. No one should go to your house as your second wife who cannot feel that she will serve your child. My daughter would feel that she was bringing injury upon the babe. I cannot bid her do this–and I will not. Nor do I believe that she would do so if I bid her.’ Then he turned his chair round, and sat with his face to the wall, wiping away the tears with a tattered handkerchief.
Mrs Crawley led the major to the further window, and there stood looking up into his face. It need hardly be said that they also were crying. Whose eyes could have been dry after such a scene–upon hearing such words? ‘You had better go,’ said Mrs Crawley. ‘I know him so well. You had better go.’
‘Mrs Crawley,’ he said whispering to her, ‘if I ever desert her, may all that I love desert me! But will you help me?’
‘You would want no help, were it not for this trouble.’
‘But you will help me?’
Then she paused for a moment, ‘I can do nothing,’ she said, ‘but what he bids me.’
‘You will trust me, at any rate,’ said the major.
‘I do trust you,’ she replied. Then he went without saying a word further to Mr Crawley. As soon as he was gone, the wife went over to her husband, and put her arm gently round his neck as he was sitting. For a while the husband took no notice of his wife’s caress, but sat motionless, with his face turned to the wall. Then she spoke to him a word or two, telling him that their visitor was gone. ‘My child!’ he said. ‘My poor child!, my darling! She has found grace in this man’s sight; but even of that has her father robbed her! The Lord has visited upon the children the sins of the father, and will do so to the third and fourth generation.’
CHAPTER LXIV
TRAGEDY AT HOOK COURT
Conway Dalrymple had hurried out of the room in Mrs Broughton’s house in which he had been painting Jael and Sisera, thinking that it would be better to meet an angry and perhaps tipsy husband on the stairs, than it would be either to wait for him till he should make his way into his wife’s room, or to hide away from him with the view of escaping altogether from so disagreeable an encounter. He had no fear of the man. He did not think that there would be any violence–nor, as regarded himself, did he much care if there was to be violence. But he felt that he was bound, as far as it might be possible, to screen the poor woman from the ill effects of her husband’s temper and condition. He was, therefore, prepared to stop Broughton on the stairs, and to use some force in arresting him on his way, should he find the man to be really intoxicated. But he had not descended above a stair or two before he was aware that the man below him, whose step had been heard, was not intoxicated, and that he was not Dobbs Broughton. It was Mr Musselboro.
‘It is you, is it?’ said Conway. ‘I thought it was Broughton.’ then he looked into the man’s face and saw that he was ashy pale. All that appearance of low-bred jauntiness which used to belong to him seemed to have been washed out of him. His hair had forgotten to curl, his gloves had been thrown aside, and even his trinkets were out of sight. ‘What has happened,’ said Conway. ‘What is the matter? Something is wrong.’ Then it occurred to him that Musselboro had been sent to the house to tell the wife of the husband’s ruin.
‘The servant told me that I should find you upstairs,’ said Musselboro.
‘Yes; I have a painting here. For some time past I have been doing a picture of Miss Van Siever. Mrs Van Siever has been here today.’ Conway thought that this information would produce some strong effect on Clara’s proposed husband; but he did not seem to regard the matter of the picture nor the mention of Miss Van Siever’s name.
‘She knows nothing of it?’ said he. ‘She doesn’t know yet?’
‘Know what?’ said Conway. ‘She knows that her husband has lost money.’
‘Dobbs has–destroyed himself.’
‘What!’
‘Blew his brains out this morning just inside the entrance at Hook Court. The horror of drink was on him, and he stood just in the pathway and shot himself. Bangles was standing at the top of their vaults and saw him do it. I don’t think Bangles will ever be a man again. Oh lord! I shall never get over it myself. The body was there when I went in.’ Then Musselboro sank back against the wall of the staircase, and stared at Dalrymple as though he still saw before him the terrible sight of which he had just spoken.
Dalrymple seated himself on the stairs and strove to bring his mind to bear on the tale which he had just heard. What was he to do, and how was that poor woman upstairs to be informed? ‘You came here intending to tell her,’ he said in a whisper. He feared every moment that Mrs Broughton would appear on the stairs, and learn from a word or two what had happened without any hint to prepare her for the catastrophe.
‘I thought you would be here. I knew you were doing the picture. He knew it. He’d a letter to say so–one of those anonymous ones.’
‘But that didn’t influence him?’
‘I don’t think it was that,’ said Musselboro. ‘He meant to have had it out with her; but it wasn’t that as brought this about. Perhaps you didn’t know that he was clean ruined?’
‘She had told me.’
‘Then she knew it?’
‘Oh, yes; she knew that. Mrs Van Siever had told her. Poor creature! How are we to break this to her?’
‘You and she are very thick,’ said Musselboro. ‘I suppose you’ll do it best.’ By this time they were in the drawing-room, and the door was closed. Dalrymple had put his hand on the other man’s arm, and had led him downstairs, out of reach of hearing from the room above. ‘You’ll tell her–won’t you?’ said Musselboro. Then Dalrymple tried to think what loving female friend there was who would break the news to the unfortunate woman. He knew of the Van Sievers, and he knew of the Demolines, and he almost knew that there was no other woman within reach whom he was entitled to regard as closely connected with Mrs Broughton. He was well aware that the anonymous letter of which Musselboro had just spoken had come from Miss Demolines, and he could not go there for sympathy and assistance. Nor could he apply to Mrs Van Siever after with had passed this morning. To Clara Van Siever he would have applied, but that it was impossible he should reach Clara except through her mother. ‘I suppose I had better go to her,’ he said, after a while. And then he went, leaving Musselboro in the drawing-room. ‘I’m so bad with it,’ said Musselboro, ‘that I really don’t know how I shall ever go up that court again.’
Conway Dalrymple made his way up the stairs with very slow steps, and as he did so he could not but think seriously of the nature of his friendship with this woman, and could not but condemn himself heartily for the folly and iniquity of his own conduct. Scores of times he had professed his love to her with half-expressed words, intended to mean