nothing, as he said to himself when he tried to excuse himself, but enough to turn her head, even if they did not reach her heart. Now, this woman was a widow, and it came to be his duty to tell her that she was so. What if she should claim from him now the love which he had so often proffered to her! It was not that he feared that she would claim anything from him at this moment–neither now, nor tomorrow, nor the next day–but the agony of the present meeting would produce others in which there would be some tenderness mixed with the agony; and so from one meeting to another the thing would progress. But in this danger before him, it was not of himself that he was thinking, but of her. How could he assist her at such a time without doing her more injury than benefit? And, if he did not assist her, who would do so? He knew her to be heartless; but even heartless people have hearts which can be touched and almost broken by certain sorrows. Her heart would not be broken by her husband’s death, but it would become very sore if she were utterly neglected. He was now at the door, with his hand on the lock, and was wondering why she should remain so long within without making herself heard. Then he opened it, and found her seated in a lounge-chair, with her back to the door, and he could see that she had a volume of a novel in her hand. He understood it all. She was pretending to be indifferent to her husband’s return. He walked up to her, thinking that she would recognise his step; but she made no sign of turning towards him. He saw the motion of her hair over the back of the chair as she affected to make herself luxuriously comfortable. She was striving to let her husband see that she cared nothing for him, or for his condition, or for his jealousy, if he were jealous–or even of his ruin. ‘Mrs Broughton,’ he said, when he was close to her. Then she jumped up quickly, and turned round facing him. ‘Where is Dobbs?’ she said. ‘Where is Dobbs?’
‘He is not here.’
‘He is in the house, for I heard him. Why have you come back?’
Dalrymple’s eye fell on the tattered canvas, and he thought of the doings of the past month. He thought of the picture of the three Graces, which was hanging in the room below, and he thoroughly wished that he had never been introduced to the Broughton establishment. How was he to get through his present difficulty? ‘No,’ said he, ‘Broughton did not come. It was Mr Musselboro whose steps you heard below.’
‘What is he here for? What is he doing here? Where is Dobbs? Conway, there is something the matter. Has he gone off?’
‘Yes;–he has gone off.’
‘The coward!’
‘No; he was not a coward;–not in that way.’
The use of the past tense, unintentional as it had been, told the story to the woman at once. ‘He is dead,’ she said. Then he took both her hands in his and looked into her face, without speaking a word. And she gazed at him with fixed eyes, and rigid mouth, while the quick coming breath just moved the curl of her nostrils. It occurred to him at that moment that he had never before seen her so wholly unaffected, and had never before observed that she was so totally deficient in all the elements of real beauty. She was the first to speak again. ‘Conway,’ she said, ‘tell me all. Why do you not speak to me?’
‘There is nothing further to tell,’ he said.
Then she dropped her hands and walked away from him to the window–and stood there looking out upon the stuccoed turret of a huge house that stood opposite. As she did so she was employing herself in counting the windows. Her mind was paralysed by the blow, and she knew not how to make any exertion with it for any purpose. Everything was changed with her–and was changed in such a way that she could make no guess as to her future mode of life. She was suddenly a widow, a pauper, and utterly desolate–while the only person in the whole world that she really liked was standing close to her. But in the midst of it all she counted the windows of the house opposite. Had it been possible for her she would have put her mind altogether to sleep.
He let her stand for a few minutes and then joined her at the window. ‘My friend,’ he said, ‘what shall I do for you?’
‘Do?’ she said. ‘What do you mean by–doing?’
‘Come and sit down and let me talk to you,’ he replied. Then he led her to the sofa, and as she seated herself I doubt whether she had not almost forgotten that her husband was dead.
‘What a pity it was to cut it up,’ she said, pointing to the rags of Jael and Sisera.
‘Never mind the picture now. Dreadful as it is, you must allow yourself to think of him for a few minutes.’
‘Think of what! Oh, God! Yes. Conway, you must tell me what to do. Was everything gone? It isn’t about myself. I don’t mind about myself. I wish it was me instead of him. I do. I do.’
‘No wishing is of any avail.’
‘But, Conway, how did it happen? Do you think it is true? That man would say anything to gain his object. Is he here now?’
‘I believe he is here still.’
‘I won’t see him. Remember that. Nothing on earth can make me see him.’
‘It may be necessary, but I do not think it will be;–at any rate, not yet.’
‘I will never see him. I believe that he has murdered my husband. I do. I feel sure of it. Now I think of it I am quite sure of it. And he will murder you too;–about that girl. He will. I tell you I know the man.’ Dalrymple simply shook his head, smiling sadly. ‘Very well! You will see. But, Conway, how do you know that it is true? Do you believe it yourself?’
‘I do believe it.’
‘And how did it happen?’
‘He could not bear the ruin that he had brought upon himself and you.’
‘Then;–then–‘ She went no further in her speech; but Dalrymple assented by a slight motion of his head, and she had been informed sufficiently that her husband had perished by his own hand. ‘What am I to do?’ she said. ‘Oh, Conway, you must tell me. Was there ever so miserable a woman! Was it–poison?’
He got up and walked quickly across the room and back again to the place where she was sitting. ‘Never mind about that now. You shall know all that in time. Do not ask me any questions about that. If I were you I think I would go to bed. You will be better there than up, and this shock will make you sleep.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I will not go to bed. How should I know that that man would not come and kill me? I believe he murdered Dobbs;–I do. You are not going to leave me, Conway?’
‘I think I had better, for a while. There are things which should be done. Shall I send one of the women for you?’
‘There is not one of them that cares for me in the least. Oh, Conway, do not go; not yet. I will not be left alone in the house with him. You will be very cruel if you go and leave me now–when you have so often said that you–that you–that you were my friend.’ And now, at last, she began to weep.
‘I think it will be best,’ he said, ‘that I should go to Mrs Van Siever. If I can manage it, I will get Clara to come to you.’
‘I do not want her,’ said Mrs Broughton. ‘She is a heartless cold creature, and I do not want to have her near me. My poor husband was ruined among them;–yes, ruined among them. It has all been done that she may marry that horrid man and live here in this house. I have known ever so long that he has not been safe among them.’
‘You need fear nothing from Clara,’ said Dalrymple, with some touch of anger in his voice.
‘Of course you will say so. I can understand that very well. And it is natural that you should wish to be with her. Pray go.’
Then he sat beside her, and took her hand, and endeavoured to speak to her so seriously, that she herself might become serious, and if it might be possible, in some degree contemplative. He told her how necessary it was that she should have some woman near her in her trouble, and explained to her that as far as he knew her female friends, there would be no one who would be so considerate with her as Clara Van Siever. She at one time mentioned the name of Miss Demolines; but Dalrymple altogether opposed the notion of sending for that lady–expressing his opinion that the amiable Madalina had done all in her power to create quarrels between Mrs Broughton and her husband and between Dobbs Broughton and Mrs Van Siever. And he spoke his opinion very fully about Miss Demolines. ‘And yet you liked her once,’ said Mrs Broughton. ‘I never liked her,’ said Dalrymple with energy. ‘But all that matters nothing now. Of course you can send for her if you please; but I do not think her trustworthy, and I will not willingly come in contact with her.’ Then Mrs Broughton gave him to understand that of course she must give way, but that in giving way she felt herself to be submitting to ill-usage which is the ordinary lot of women, and to which she, among women, had been specially subjected. She did not exactly say as much, fearing that if she did he would leave her altogether; but that was the gist of he plaints and wails, and final acquiescence.
‘And are you going?’ she said, catching hold of his arm.
‘I will employ myself altogether and only about your affairs, till I see you again.’
‘But I want you to stay.’
‘It would be madness. Look here;–lie down till Clara comes or till I return. Do not go beyond this room and your own. If she cannot come this evening I will return. Good-bye now. I will see the servants as I go out, and tell them what ought to be told.’
‘Oh, Conway,’ she said, clutching hold of him again. ‘I know that you despise me.’
‘I do not despise you, and I will be as good a friend to you as I can. God bless you.’ Then he went, and as he descended the stairs he could not refrain from telling himself that he did in truth despise her.
His first object was to find Musselboro, and to dismiss that gentleman from the house. For though he himself did not attribute to Mrs Van Siever’s favourite any of those terrible crimes and potentialities for crime with which Mrs Dobbs Broughton had invested him, still he thought it reasonable that the poor woman upstairs should not be subjected to the necessity of either seeing him or hearing him. But Musselboro had gone, and Dalrymple could not learn from the head woman-servant whom he saw, whether before going he had told to anyone in the house the tale of the catastrophe which had happened in the City. Servants are wonderful actors, looking often as though they knew nothing when they knew everything–as though they understood nothing, when they understood all. Dalrymple made known all that was necessary, and the discreet upper servant listened to the tale, with the proper amount of awe and horror and commiseration. ‘Shot hisself in the City;–laws! You’ll excuse me, sir, but we all know’d as master was coming to no good.’ But she promised to do her best with her mistress–and kept her promise. It is seldom that servants are not good in such straits as that.
From Mrs Broughton’s house Dalrymple went directly to Mrs Van Siever’s, and learned that Musselboro had been there about half an hour before, and had then gone off in a cab with Mrs Van Siever. It was now nearly four o’clock in the afternoon, and no one in the house knew when Mrs Van Siever would be back. Miss Van Siever was out, and had been out when Mr Musselboro had called, but was expected every minute. Conway therefore said that he would call again, and on returning found Clara alone. She had not then heard a word of the fate of Dobbs Broughton. Of course she would go at once to Mrs Broughton, and if necessary stay with her during the night. She wrote a line at once to her mother, saying where she was, and went across to Mrs Broughton leaning on Dalrymple’s arm. ‘Be good to her,’ said Conway, as he left her at the door. ‘I will,’ said Clara. ‘I will be as kind as nature will allow me.’ ‘And remember,’ said Conway, whispering into her ear as he pressed her hand at leaving her, ‘that you are the all the world to me.’ It was perhaps not a proper time for an expression of love, but Clara Van Siever forgave the impropriety.
CHAPTER LXV
MISS VAN SIEVER MAKES HER CHOICE
Clara Van Siever did stay all night with Mrs Broughton. In the course of the evening she received a note from her mother, in which she was told to come home to breakfast. ‘You can go back to her afterwards,’ said Mrs Van Siever; ‘and I will see her myself in the course of the day, if she will let me.’ The note was written on a scrap of paper, and had neither beginning nor end; but this was after the manner of Mrs Van Siever, and Clara was not in the least hurt or surprised. ‘My mother will come to see you after breakfast,’ said Clara, as she was taking her leave.
‘Oh, goodness! And what shall I say to her?’
‘You will have to say very little. She will speak to you.’
‘I suppose everything belongs to her now,’ said Mrs Broughton.
‘I know nothing about that. I never do know anything of mamma’s money matters.’
‘Of course she’ll turn me out. I do not mind a bit about that–only I hope she’ll let me have some mourning.’ Then she made Clara promise that she would return as soon as possible, having in Clara’s presence overcome all that feeling of dislike which she had expressed to Conway Dalrymple. Mrs Broughton was generally affectionate to those who were near her. Had Musselboro forced himself into her presence, she would have become quite confidential with him before he left her.
‘Mr Musselboro will be here directly,’ said Mrs Van Siever, as she was starting for Mrs Broughton’s house. ‘You had better tell him to come to me up here; or, stop–perhaps you had better keep him here till I come back. Tell him to be sure and wait for me.’
‘Very well, mamma. I suppose he can wait below?’
‘Why should he wait below?,’ said Mrs Van Siever, very angrily.
Clara had made the uncourteous proposition to her mother with the express intention of making it understood that she would have nothing to say to him. ‘He can come upstairs if he likes,’ said Clara; ‘and I will go up to my room.’
‘If you fight shy of him, miss, you may remember this–that you will fight shy of me at the same time.’
‘I am sorry for that, mamma, for I shall certainly fight shy of Mr Musselboro.’
‘You can do as you please. I can’t force you, and I shan’t try. But I can make your life a burden to you–and I will. What’s the matter with the man that he isn’t good enough for you? He’s as good as any of your own people ever was. I hate your new-fangled airs–with pictures painted on the sly, and all the rest of it. I hate such ways. See what they have brought that wretched man to, and the poor fool his wife. If you go and marry that painter, some of these days you’ll be very much like what she is. Only I doubt whether he has got the courage enough to blow his brains out.’ With these comfortable words, the old woman took herself off, leaving Clara to entertain her lover as best she might choose.
Mr Musselboro was not long in coming, and, in accordance with Mrs Van Siever’s implied directions to her daughter, was shown up into the drawing-room. Clara gave him her mother’s message in a very few words. ‘I was expressly told, sir, to ask you to stop, if it is not inconvenient, as she very much wants to see you.’ Mr Musselboro declared that of course he would stop. He was only too happy to have the opportunity of remaining in such delightful society. As Clara answered nothing to this, he went on to say that he hoped that the melancholy occasion of Mrs Van Siever’s visit to Mrs Broughton might make a long absence necessary–he did not, indeed, care how long it might be. He had recovered now from that paleness, and that want of gloves and jewellery which had befallen him on the previous day immediately after the sight he had seen in the City. Clara made no answer to the last speech, but, putting some things together in her work-basket, prepared to leave the room. ‘I hope you are not going to leave me?’ he said, in a voice that was intended to convey much of love, and something of melancholy.
‘I am so shocked by what has happened, Mr Musselboro, that I am altogether unfit for conversation. I was with poor Mrs Broughton last night, and I shall return to her when mamma comes home.’
‘It is sad, certainly; but what was there to be expected? If you’d only seen how he used to go on.’ To this Clara made no answer. ‘Don’t go yet,’ said he; ‘there is something that I want to say to you. There is, indeed.’
Clara Van Siever was a young person whose presence of mind rarely deserted her. It occurred to her now that she must undergo on some occasion the nuisance of a direct offer from him, and that she could have no better opportunity of answering him after her own fashion than the present. Her mother was absent, and the field was her own. And, moreover, it was a point in her favour that the tragedy which had so lately occurred, and to which she had just now alluded, would give her a fair excuse for additional severity. At such a moment no man could, she told herself, be justified in making an offer of his love, and therefore she might rebuke him with the less remorse. I wonder whether the last words which Conway Dalrymple had spoken to her stung her conscience as she thought of this! She had now reached the door, and was standing close to it. As Mr Musselboro did not at once, begin, she encouraged him. ‘If you have anything special to tell me, I will hear you,’ she said.
‘Miss Clara,’ he began, rising from his chair, and coming into the middle of the room. ‘I think you know what my wishes are.’ Then he put his hand upon his heart. ‘And your respected mother is the same way of thinking. It’s that that emboldens me to be so sudden. Not but what my heart has been yours and yours only all along, before the old lady so much as mentioned it.’ Clara would give him no assistance, not even the aid of a negative, but stood there quite passive, with her hand on the door. ‘Since I first had the pleasure of seeing you I have always said to myself, “Augustus Musselboro, that is the woman for you, if you can only win her.” But there was so much against me–wasn’t there?’ She would not even take advantage of this by assuring him that there certainly always had been much against him, but allowed him to go on till he should run out all the length of his tether. ‘I mean, of course, in the way of money,’ he continued. ‘I hadn’t much that I could call my own when your respected mother first allowed me to become acquainted with you. But it’s different now; and I think I may say that I’m all right in that respect. Poor Broughton’s going this way will make it a deal smoother to me; and I may say that I and your mamma will be all in all to each other now about money.’ Then he stopped.
‘I don’t quite understand what you mean by all this,’ said Clara.
‘I mean that there isn’t a more devoted fellow in all London than what I am to you.’ Then he was about to go down on one knee, but it occurred to him that it would not be convenient to kneel to a lady who would stand quite close to the door. ‘One and one, if they’re put together well, will often make more than two. And so they shall with us,’ said Musselboro, who began to feel that it might be expedient to throw a little spirit into his words.
‘If you have done,’ said Clara, ‘you may as well hear from me for a minute. And I hope you will have the sense to understand that I really mean what I say.’
‘I hope you will remember what are your mamma’s wishes.’
‘Mamma’s wishes have no influence whatsoever with me in such matters as this. Mamma’s arrangements with you are for her own convenience, and I am not party to them. I do not know anything about mamma’s money, and I do not want to know. But under no possible circumstances will I consent to become your wife. Nothing that mamma could say or do would induce me even to think of it. I hope you will be man enough to take this for an answer, and say nothing more about it.’
‘But, Miss Clara–‘
‘It’s no good your Miss Claraing me, sir. What I have said to you may be sure I mean. Good-morning, sir.’ Then she opened the door, and left him.
‘By Jove, she is a Tartar,’ said Musselboro to himself, when he was alone. ‘They’re both Tartars, but the younger is the worse.’ Then he began to speculate whether Fortune was not doing the best for him in so arranging that he might have use of the Tartar-mother’s money without binding himself to endure for life the Tartar qualities of the daughter.
It had been understood that Clara was to wait at home till her mother should return before she again went to Mrs Broughton. At about eleven Mrs Van Siever came in, and her daughter intercepted her at the dining-room door before she made her way upstairs to Mr Musselboro. ‘How is she, mamma?’ said Clara with something of hypocrisy in her assumed interest for Mrs Broughton.
‘She is an idiot!’ said Mrs Van Siever.
‘She has had a terrible misfortune!’
‘That is no reason why she should be an idiot; and she is heartless too. She never cared a bit for him–not a bit.’
‘He was a man whom it was impossible to care for much. I will go to her now, mamma.’
‘Where is Musselboro?’
‘He is upstairs.’
‘Well?’
‘Mamma, that is quite out of the question. Quite. I would not marry him to save myself from starving.’
‘You do not know what starving is yet, my dear. Tell me the truth at once. Are you engaged to that painter?’ Clara paused a moment before she answered, not hesitating as to the expediency of telling her mother any truth on the matter in question, but doubting what the truth might really be. Could she say that she was engaged to Mr Dalrymple, or could she say that she was not? ‘If you tell me a lie, miss, I’ll have you put out at once.’
‘I certainly shall not tell you a lie. Mr Dalrymple has asked me to be his wife, and I have made him no answer. If he asks me again I shall accept him.’
‘Then I order you not to leave this house,’ said Mrs Van Siever.
‘Surely I may go to Mrs Broughton?’
‘I order you not to leave this house,’ said Mrs Van Siever again–and thereupon she stalked out of the dining-room and went upstairs. Clara had been standing with her bonnet on, ready dressed to go out, and the mother made no attempt to send the daughter up to her room. That she did not expect to be obeyed in her order may be inferred from the first words which she spoke to Mr Musselboro. ‘She has gone off to that man now. You are not good, Musselboro, at this kind of work.’
‘You see, Mrs Van, he had the start of me so much. And then being at the West End, and all that, gives a man such a standing with a girl.’
‘Bother!’ said Mrs Van Siever, as he quick ear caught the sound of the closing hall-door. Clara had stood a minute or two to consider, and then had resolved that she would disobey her mother. She tried to excuse her own conduct to her own satisfaction as she went. ‘There are some things,’ she said, ‘which even a daughter cannot hear from her mother. If she chooses to close the door against me, she must do so.’
She found Mrs Broughton still in bed, and could not but agree with her mother that the woman was both silly and heartless.
‘Your mother says that everything must be sold up,’ said Mrs Broughton.
‘At any rate you would hardly choose to remain here,’ said Clara.
‘But I hope she will let me have my own things. A great many of them are altogether my own. I know there’s a law that a woman may have her own things, even though her husband has–done what poor Dobbs did. And I think she was hard upon me about the mourning. They never do mind giving credit for such things as that, and though there is a bill due to Mrs Morell now, she has had a deal of Dobbs’s money.’ Clara promised her that she would have mourning to her heart’s content. ‘I will see to that myself,’ she said.
Presently there was a knock at the door, and the discreet head-servant beckoned Clara out of the room. ‘You are not going away,’ said Mrs Broughton. Clara promised her that she would not go without coming back again. ‘He will be here soon, I suppose, and perhaps you had better see him; though, for the matter of that, perhaps you had better not, because he is so much cut up about poor Dobbs.’ The servant had come to tell Clara that the ‘he’ in question was at the present moment waiting for her below stairs.
The first words which passed between Dalrymple and Clara had reference to the widow. He told her what he had learned in the City–that Broughton’s property had never been great, and that his personal liabilities at the time of his death were supposed to be small. But he had fallen lately altogether into the hands of Musselboro, who, though penniless himself in the way of capital, was backed by the money of Mrs Van Siever. There was not doubt that Broughton had destroyed himself in the manner told by Musselboro, but the opinion in the City was that he had done so rather through the effects of drink than because of his losses. As to the widow, Dalrymple thought that Mrs Van Siever, or nominally, perhaps, Musselboro, might be induced to settle an annuity on her, or she would give up everything quietly. ‘Doubt whether your mother is not responsible for everything that Broughton owed when he died–for everything, that is, in the way of business; and if so, Mrs Broughton will certainly have a claim on the estate.’ It occurred to Dalrymple once or twice that he was talking to Clara about Mrs Van Siever as though he and Clara were more closely bound together than were Clara and her mother; but Clara seemed to take this in good part, and was as solicitous as was he himself in the manner of Mrs Broughton’s interest.
Then the discreet head-servant knocked and told them that Mrs Broughton was very anxious to see Mr Dalrymple, but that Miss Van Siever was on no account to go away. She was up, and in her dressing-gown, and had gone into the sitting-room. ‘I will come directly,’ said Dalrymple, and the discreet head-servant retired.
‘Clara,’ said Conway, ‘I do not know when I may have another chance of asking for an answer to my question. You heard my question?’
‘Yes, I heard it.’
‘And will you answer it?’
‘If you wish it, I will.’
‘Of course I wish it. You understand what I said upon the door-step yesterday?’
‘I don’t think much of that; men say those things so often. What you said before was serious, I suppose?’
‘Serious! Heavens! Do you think that I am joking?’
‘Mamma wants me to marry Mr Musselboro.’
‘He is a vulgar brute. It would be impossible.’
‘It is impossible; but mamma is very obstinate. I have no fortune of my own–not a shilling. She told me today that she would turn me out into the street. She forbade me to come here, thinking I should meet you; but I came, because I had promised Mrs Broughton. I am sure that she will never give me one shilling.’
Dalrymple paused for a moment. It was certainly true that he had regarded Clara Van Siever as an heiress, and had at first been attracted to her because he thought it expedient to marry an heiress. But there had since come something beyond that, and there was perhaps less of regret than most men would have felt as he gave up his golden hopes. He took her into his arms and kissed her, and called her his own. ‘Now we understand each other,’ he said.
‘If you wish it to be so.’
‘I do wish it.’
‘And I shall tell my mother today that I am engaged to you–unless she refuses to see me. Go to Mrs Broughton now. I feel that we are almost cruel to be thinking of ourselves in this house at such a time.’ Upon this Dalrymple went, and Clara Van Siever was left to her reflections. She had never before had a lover. She had never had even a friend whom she loved and trusted. Her life had been passed at school till she was nearly twenty, and since then had been vainly endeavouring to accommodate herself into the absolute power of a man who was nearly a strange to her! But she did love him, as she had never loved anyone else;–and then, on the other side, there was Mr Musselboro!
Dalrymple went upstairs for an hour, and Clara did not see him again before he left the house. It was clear to her, from Mrs Broughton’s first words, that Conway had told her what had passed. ‘Of course I shall never seen anything more of either of you now?’ said Mrs Broughton.
‘I should say that probably you will see a great deal of us both.’
‘There are some people,’ said Mrs Broughton, ‘who can do well for their friends, but can never do well for themselves. I am one of them. I saw at once how great a thing it would be for both of you to bring you two together–especially for you, Clara; and therefore I did it. I may say that I never had it out of my mind for months past. Poor Dobbs misunderstood what I was doing. God knows how far that may have brought about what has happened.’
‘Oh, Mrs Broughton!’
‘Of course he could not be blind to one thing;–nor was I. I mention it now because it is right, but I shall never, never allude to again. Of course he saw, and I saw, that Conway–was attached to me. Poor Conway meant no harm. I was aware of that. But there was the terrible fact. I knew at once that the only cure for him was a marriage with some girl he could respect. Admiring you as I do, I immediately resolved on bringing you to together. My dear, I have been successful, and I heartily trust that you may be happier than Maria Broughton.’
Miss Van Siever knew the woman, understood all the facts, and pitying the condition of the wretched creature, bore all this without a word of rebuke. She scorned to put out her strength against one who was in truth so weak.
CHAPTER LXVI
REQUIESCAT IN PACE
Things were gloomy at the palace. It has already been said that for may days after Dr Tempest’s visit to Barchester the intercourse between the bishop and Mrs Proudie had not been of a pleasant nature. He had become so silent, so sullen, and so solitary in his ways, that even her courage had been almost cowed, and for a while she had condescended to use gentler methods, with the hope that she might thus bring her lord round to his usual state of active submission; or perhaps, if we strive to do her full justice, we may say of her that her effort was made conscientiously, with the idea of inducing him to do his duty with proper activity. For she was a woman not without a conscience, and by no means indifferent to the real service which her husband, as bishop of the diocese, was bound to render to the affairs of the Church around her. Of her own struggles after personal dominion she was herself unconscious; and no doubt they gave her, when recognised and acknowledged by herself, many stabs to her inner self, of which no single being in the world knew anything. And now, as after a while she failed in producing any amelioration in the bishop’s mood, her temper also gave way, and things were becoming very gloomy and unpleasant.
The bishop and his wife were at present alone in the palace. Their married daughter and her husband had left them, and the unmarried daughter was also away. How far the bishop’s mood may have produced this solitude in the vast house I will not say. Probably Mrs Proudie’s state of mind may have prevented her from having other guests in the place of those who had gone. She felt herself to be almost disgraced in the eyes of all those around her by her husband’s long absence from the common rooms of the house and by his dogged silence at meals. It was better, she thought, that they two should be alone in the palace.
Her own efforts to bring him back to something like life, to some activity of mind if not body, were made constantly; and when she failed, as she did fail day after day, she would go slowly to her own room, and lock her door, and look back in solitude at all the days of her life. She had agonies in these minutes of which no one near her knew anything. She would seize with her arm the part of the bed near which she would stand, and hold by it, grasping it, as though she were afraid to fall; and then, when it was at the worst with her, she would go to her closet–a closet that no eyes ever saw unlocked but her own–and fill for herself and swallow some draught and then she would sit down with the Bible before her, and read it sedulously. She spent hours every day with her Bible before her, repeating to herself whole chapters, which she knew almost by heart.
It cannot be said that she was a bad woman, though she had in her time done an indescribable amount of evil. She had endeavoured to do good, failing partly by ignorance and partly from the effects of an unbridled, ambitious temper. And now, even amidst her keenest sufferings, her ambition was by no means dead. She still longed to rule the diocese by means of her husband, but was made to pause and hesitate by the unwonted mood that had fallen upon him. Before this, on more than one occasion, and on one very memorable occasion, he had endeavoured to combat her. He had fought with her, striving to put her down. He had failed, and given up the hope of any escape fro himself in that direction. On those occasions her courage had never quailed for a moment. While he openly struggled to be master, she could openly struggle to be mistress–and could enjoy the struggle. But nothing like this had ever come upon him before.
She had yielded to it for many days, striving to coax him by little softnesses of which she herself had been ashamed as she practised them. They had served her nothing, and at last she determined that something else must be done. If only for his sake, to keep some life in him, something else must be done. Were he to continue as he was now, he must give up the diocese, or, at any rate, declare himself too ill to keep up the working of it in his own hands. How she hated Mr Crawley for all the sorrow that he had brought upon her and her house!
And it was still the affair of Mr Crawley which urged her on to further action. When the bishop received Mr Crawley’s letter he said nothing of it to her; but he handed it over to his chaplain. The chaplain, fearing to act upon it himself, handed it to Mr Thumble, who he knew to be one of the bishop’s commission, and Mr Thumble, equally fearing responsibility in the present state of affairs at the palace, found himself obliged to consult Mrs Proudie. Mrs Proudie had no doubt as to what should be done. The man had abdicated his living, and of course some provision must be made for the services. She would again make an attempt upon her husband, and therefore she went into his room holding Mr Crawley’s letter in her hand.
‘My dear,’ she said, ‘here is Mr Crawley’s letter. I suppose you have read it.’
‘Yes,’ said the bishop; ‘I have read it.’
‘And what will you do about it? Something must be done.’
‘I don’t know,’ said he. He did not even look at her as he spoke. He had not turned his eyes upon her since she had entered the room.
‘But, bishop, it is a letter that requires to be acted upon at once. We cannot doubt that the man is doing right at last. He is submitting himself where his submission is due; but his submission will be of no avail unless you take some action upon his letter. Do you not think that Mr Thumble had better go over?’
‘No, I don’t. I think Mr Thumble had better stay where he is,’ said the irritated bishop.
‘What, then, would you wish to be done?’
‘Never mind,’ said he.
‘But, bishop, that is nonsense,’ said Mrs Proudie, adding something of severity to the tone of her voice.
‘No, it isn’t nonsense,’ said he. Still he did not look at her, nor had he done so for a moment since she had entered the room. Mrs Proudie could not bear this, and her anger became stronger within her breast, she told herself that she would be wrong to bear it. She had tried what gentleness would do, and she had failed. It was now imperatively necessary that she should resort to sterner measures. She must make him understand that he must give her authority to send Mr Thumble to Hogglestock.
‘Why do you not turn round and speak to me properly?’ she said.
‘I do not want to speak to you at all,’ the bishop answered.
This was very bad;–almost anything would be better than this. He was sitting now over the fire, with his elbows on his knees, and his face buried in his hands. She had gone round the room so as to face him, and was now standing almost over him, but still she could not see his countenance. ‘This will not do at all,’ she said. ‘My dear, do you know that you are forgetting yourself altogether?’
‘I wish I could forget myself.’
‘That might be all very well if you were in a position in which you owed no service to anyone; or, rather, it would not be well then, but the evil would not be so manifest. You cannot do your duty in the diocese if you continue to sit there doing nothing, with your head upon your hands. Why do you not rally, and get to your work like a man?’
‘I wish you would go away and leave me,’ he said.
‘No, bishop. I will not go away and leave you. You have brought yourself into such a condition that it is my duty as your wife to stay by you; and if you neglect your duty, I will not neglect mine.’
‘It was you that brought me to it.’
‘No sir, that is not true. I did not bring you to it.’
‘It is the truth.’ And now he got up and looked at her. For a moment he stood upon his legs, and then sat down again with his face turned towards her. ‘It is the truth. You have brought on me such disgrace that I cannot hold up my head. You have ruined me. I wish I were dead; and it is all through you that I am driven to wish it.’
Of all that she had suffered in her life this was the worst. She clasped both her hands to her side as she listened to him, and for a minute or two she made no reply. When he ceased from speaking he again put his elbows in his knees and again buried his face in his hands. What had she better do, or how was it expedient that she should treat him? At this crisis the whole thing was so important to her that she would have postponed her own ambition and would have curbed her temper had she thought that by doing so she might in any degree have benefited him. But it seemed to her that she could not rouse him by conciliation. Neither could she leave him as he was. Something must be done. ‘Bishop,’ she said, ‘the words that you speak are very sinful, very sinful.’
‘You have made them sinful,’ he said.
‘I will not hear that from you. I will not indeed. I have endeavoured to do my duty by you, and I do not deserve it. I am endeavouring to do my duty now, and you must know that it would ill become me to remain quiescent while you are in such a state. The world around you is observing you, and knows that you are not doing your work. All I want of you is that you should arouse yourself, and go to your work.’
‘I could do my work very well,’ he said, ‘if you were not here.’
‘I suppose, then, you wish that I were dead?’ said Mrs Proudie. To this he made no reply, nor did he stir himself. How could flesh and blood bear this–female flesh and blood–Mrs Proudie’s flesh and blood? Now, at last, her temper once more got the better of her judgment, probably much to her immediate satisfaction, and she spoke out. ‘I’ll tell you what it is, my lord, if you are imbecile, I must be active. It is very sad that I should have to assume your authority–‘
‘I will not allow you to assume my authority.’
‘I must do so, or else must obtain a medical certificate as to your incapacity, and beg that some neighbouring bishop may administer the diocese. Things shall not go on as they are now. I, at any rate, will do my duty. I shall tell Mr Thumble that he must go over to Hogglestock, and arrange for the duties of the parish.’
‘I desire that you will do no such thing,’ said the bishop, now again looking up at her.
‘You may be sure that I shall,’ said Mrs Proudie, and then she left the room.
He did not even yet suppose that she would go about his this work at once. The condition of his mind was in truth bad, and was becoming worse, probably, from day to day; but still he did make his calculations about things, and now reflected that it would be sufficient if he spoke to his chaplain tomorrow about Mr Crawley’s letter. Since the terrible scene that Dr Tempest had witnessed, he had never been able to make up his mind that some great step was necessary. There were moments in which he thought that he would resign his bishopric. For such resignation, without acknowledged incompetence on the score of infirmity, the precedents were very few; but even if there were no precedents, it would be better to do that then to remain where he was. Of course there would be disgrace. But then it would be disgrace from which he could hide himself. Now there was equal disgrace; and he could not hide himself. And then such a measure as that would bring punishment where punishment was due. It would bring his wife to the ground–her who had brought him to the ground. The suffering should not be all his own. When she found that her income, and her palace, and her position were all gone, then perhaps she might repent the evil that she had done him. Now, when he was left alone, his mind went back to this, and he did not think of taking immediate measures–measures on that very day–to prevent the action of Mr Thumble.
But Mrs Proudie did take immediate steps. Mr Thumble was at this moment in the palace waiting for instructions. It was he who had brought Mr Crawley’s letter to Mrs Proudie, and she now returned to him with that letter in her hand. The reader will know what was the result. Mr Thumble was sent off to Hogglestock at once on the bishop’s old cob, and–as will be remembered, fell into trouble on the road. Late in the afternoon, he entered the palace yard having led the cob by the bridle the whole way home from Hogglestock.
Some hour or two before Mr Thumble’s return Mrs Proudie returned to her husband, thinking it better to let him know what she had done. She resolved to be very firm with him, but at the same time she determined not to use harsh language if it could be avoided. ‘My dear,’ she said, ‘I have arranged with Mr Thumble.’ She found him on this occasion sitting at his desk with papers before him, with a pen in his hand; and she could see at a glance that nothing had been written on the paper. What would she have thought had she known that when he placed the sheet before him he was proposing to consult the archbishop as to the propriety of his resignation! He had not, however, progressed so far as to write even the date of his letter.
‘You have done what?’ said he, throwing down his pen.
‘I have arranged with Mr Thumble as to going out to Hogglestock,’ she said firmly. ‘Indeed he has gone already.’ Then the bishop jumped up from his seat, and rang the bell with violence. ‘What are you going to do?’ said Mrs Proudie.
‘I am going to depart from here,’ he said. ‘I will not stay here to be the mark of scorn for all men’s fingers. I will resign the diocese.’
‘You cannot do that,’ said his wife.
‘I can try, at any rate,’ said he. Then the servant entered. ‘John,’ said he, addressing the man, ‘let Mr Thumble know the moment he returns to the palace I wish to see him here. Perhaps he may not come to the palace. In that case let word be sent to his house.’
Mrs Proudie allowed the man to go before she addressed her husband again. ‘What do you mean to say to Mr Thumble when you see him?’
‘That is nothing to you.’
She came up to him and put her hand upon his shoulder, and spoke to him very gently. ‘Tom,’ she said, ‘is that the way in which you speak to your wife?’
‘Yes, it is. You have driven me to it. Why have you taken upon yourself to send that man to Hogglestock?’
‘Because it was right to do so. I came to you for instructions, and you would give none.’
‘I should have given what instructions I pleased in proper time. Thumble shall not go to Hogglestock next Sunday.’
‘Who shall go, then?’
‘Never mind. Nobody. It does not matter to you. If you will leave me now I shall be obliged to you. There will be an end of all this very soon–very soon.’
Mrs Proudie stood for a while thinking what she would say; but she left the room without uttering another word. As she looked at him a hundred different thoughts came into her mind. She had loved him dearly, and she loved him still; but she knew now–at this moment felt absolutely sure–that by him she was hated! In spite of all her roughness and temper, Mrs Proudie was in this like other women–that she would fain have been loved had it been possible. She had always meant to serve him. She was conscious of that; conscious also in a way that, although she had been industrious, although she had been faithful, although she was clever, yet she had failed. At the bottom of her heart she knew that she had been a bad wife. And yet she had meant to be a pattern wife! She had meant to be a good Christian; but she had so exercised her Christianity that not a soul in the world loved her, or would endure her presence if it could be avoided! She had sufficient insight to the minds and feelings of those around her to be aware of this. And now her husband had told her that her tyranny to him was so overbearing that he must throw up his great position, and retire to an obscurity that would be exceptionally disgraceful to them both, because he could no longer endure the public disgrace which her conduct brought upon him in his high place before the world! Her heart was too full for speech; and she left him, very quietly closing the door behind her.
She was preparing to go up to her chamber, with her hand on the banisters and with her foot upon the stairs, when she saw the servant who had answered the bishop’s bell. ‘John,’ she said, ‘when Mr Thumble comes to the palace, let me see him before he goes to my lord.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ said John, who well understood the nature of those quarrels between his master and his mistress. But the commands of the mistress were still paramount among the servants, and John proceeded on his mission with the view of accomplishing Mrs Proudie’s behests. Then Mrs Proudie went upstairs to her chamber, and locked her door.
Mr Thumble returned to Barchester that day, leading the broken-down cob; and a dreadful walk he had. He was not good at walking, and before he came near Barchester had come to entertain a violent hatred for the beast that he was leading. The leading of a horse that is tired, or in pain, or even stiff in his limbs, is not pleasant work. The brute will not accommodate his paces to the man, and will contrive to make his head very heavy on the bridle. And he will not walk on the part of the road which the man intends for him, but will lean against the man, and will make himself altogether disagreeable. It may be understood, therefore, that Mr Thumble was not in a good humour when he entered the palace yard. Nor was altogether quiet in his mind as to the injury which he had done to the animal. ‘It was the brute’s fault,’ said Mr Thumble. ‘It comes generally of not knowing how to ride ’em,’ said the groom. For Mr Thumble, though he often had a horse out of the episcopal stables, was not ready with his shillings to the man who waited upon him with the steed.
He had not, however, come to any satisfactory understanding respecting the broken knees when the footman from the palace told him that he was wanted. It was in vain that Mr Thumble pleaded that he was nearly dead with fatigue, that he had walked all the way from Hogglestock and must go home to change his clothes. John was peremptory with him, insisting that he must wait first upon Mrs Proudie and then wait upon the bishop. Mr Thumble might perhaps have turned a deaf ear to the latter command, but the former was one which he felt himself bound to obey. So he entered the palace, rather cross, very much soiled as to his outer man; and in this condition went up a certain small staircase which was familiar to him, to a small parlour which adjoined Mrs Proudie’s room, and there awaited the arrival of the lady. That he should be required to wait some quarter of an hour was not surprising to him; but when half an hour was gone, and he remembered himself of his own wife at home, and of the dinner which he had not yet eaten, he ventured to ring the bell. Mrs Proudie’s own maid, Mrs Draper by name, came to him and said that she had knocked twice at Mrs Proudie’s door and would knock again. Two minutes after that she returned, running into the room with her arms extended, and exclaiming, ‘Oh heavens, sir; mistress is dead!’ Mr Thumble, hardly knowing what he was about, followed the woman into the bedroom, and there he found himself standing awe-struck before the corpse of her who had so lately been the presiding spirit of the palace.
The body was still resting on its legs, leaning against the end of the side of the bed, while one of the arms was close clasped round the bed-post. The mouth was rigidly close, but the eyes were open as thought staring at him. Nevertheless there could be no doubt from the first glance that the woman was dead. He went up close to it, but did not dare to touch it. There was no one there as yet but he and Mrs Draper;–no one else knew what had happened.
‘It’s her heart,’ said Mrs Draper.
‘Did she suffer from heart complaint?’ he asked.
‘We suspected it, sir, though nobody knew it. She was very shy of talking about herself.’
‘We must send for the doctor at once,’ said Mr Thumble. ‘We had better touch nothing till he is here.’ Then they retreated and the door was locked.
In ten minutes everybody in the house knew it except the bishop; and in twenty minutes the nearest apothecary with his assistant were in the room, and the body had been properly laid upon the bed. Even then the husband had not been told–did not know either his relief or his loss. It was now past seven, which was the usual hour for dinner at the palace, and it was probable that he would come out of his room among the servants, if he were not summoned. When it was proposed to Mr Thumble that he should go in and tell him, he positively declined, saying that the sight which he had just seen and the exertions of the day together, had so unnerved him, that he had not physical strength for the task. The apothecary, who had been summoned in a hurry, had escaped, probably being equally unwilling to be the bearer of such a communication. The duty therefore fell to Mrs Draper, and under the pressing instance of the other servants she descended to her master’s room. Had it not been that the hour of dinner had come, so that the bishop could not have been left much longer to himself, the evil time would have been still postponed.
She went very slowly along the passage, and was just going to pause ere she reached the room when the door was opened and the bishop stood close before her. It was easy to be seen that he was cross. His hands and face were unwashed and his face was haggard. In these days he would not even go through the ceremony of dressing himself before dinner. ‘Mrs Draper,’ he said, ‘why don’t they tell me that dinner is ready? Are they going to give me any dinner?’ She stood a moment without answering him, while the tears streamed down her face. ‘What is the matter?’ said he. ‘Has your mistress sent you here?’
‘Oh laws!’ said Mrs Draper–and she put out her hands to support him if such support should be necessary.
‘What is the matter?’ he demanded angrily.
‘Oh, my lord–bear it like a Christian. Mistress isn’t no more.’ He leaned back against the door-post and she took hold of him by the arms. ‘It was the heart, my lord. Dr Filgrave hisself has not been yet; but that’s what it was.’ The bishop did not say a word, but walked back to his chair before the fire.
CHAPTER LXVII
IN MEMORIAM
The bishop when he had heard of the tidings of his wife’s death walked back to his seat over the fire, and Mrs Draper, the housekeeper came and stood over him without speaking. Thus she stood for ten minutes looking down at him and listening. But there was no sound; not a word, nor a moan, nor a sob. It was as though he also were dead, but that a slight irregular movement of his fingers on the top of his bald head, told her that his mind and body were still active. ‘My lord,’ she said at last, ‘would you wish to see the doctor when he comes?’ She spoke very low and he did not answer her. Then, after another minute of silence, she asked the same question again.
‘What doctor?’ he said.
‘Dr Filgrave. We sent for him. Perhaps he is here now. Shall I go and see, my lord?’ Mrs Draper found that her position there was weary and she wished to escape. Anything on his behalf requiring trouble or work she would have done willingly; but she could not stand there for ever, watching the motion of his fingers.
‘I suppose I must see him,’ said the bishop. Mrs Draper took this as an order for her departure, and crept silently out of the room, closing the door behind her with the long protracted elaborate click which is always produced by an attempt at silence on such occasions. He did not care for noise or for silence. Had she slammed the door he would not have regarded it. A wonderful silence had come upon him which for the time almost crushed him. He would never hear that well-known voice again!
He was free now. Even in his misery–for he was very miserable–he could not refrain from telling himself that. No once could now press uncalled-for into his study, contradict him in the presence of those before whom he was bound to be authoritative, and rob him of all his dignity. There was no one else of whom he was afraid. She had at least kept him out of the hands of other tyrants. He was now his own master, and there was the feeling–I may not call it of relief, for as yet there was more of pain in it than of satisfaction–a feeling as though he had escaped from an old trouble at a terrible cost of which he could not as yet calculate the amount. He knew that he might now give up all idea of writing to the archbishop.
She had in some ways, and at certain periods of his life, been very good to him. She had kept his money for him and made things go straight, when they had been poor. His interests had always been her interests. Without her he would never have been a bishop. So, at least, he told himself now, and so told himself probably with truth. She had been very careful of his children. She had never been idle. She had never been fond of pleasure. She had neglected no acknowledged duty. He did not doubt that she was now on her way to heaven. He took his hands from his head, and clasping them together, said a little prayer. It may be doubted whether he quite knew for what he was praying. The idea of giving up her soul, now that she was dead, would have scandalised him. He certainly was not praying for his own soul. I think that he was praying that God might save him from being glad that his wife was dead.
But she was dead–and, as it were, in a moment! He had not stirred out of that room since she had been there with him. Then there had been angry words between them–perhaps more determined enmity on his part than ever had existed; and they had parted for the last time with bitter animosity. But he told himself that he had certainly been right in what he had done then. He thought he had been right then. And so his mind went back to the Crawley and Thumble question, and he tried to alleviate the misery which the last interview with his wife now created by assuring himself that he at least been justified in what he had done.
But yet his thoughts were very tender to her. Nothing reopens the springs of love so fully as absence, and no absence so thoroughly as that which must needs be endless. We want that which we have not; and especially that which we never can have. She had told him in the very last moments of her presence with him that he was wishing she were dead, and he had made no reply. At the moment he had felt, with savage anger, that such was his wish. Her words had now come to pass, and he was a widower–and he assured himself that he would give all that he possessed in the world to bring her back again.
Yes, he was a widower, and he might do as he pleased. The tyrant was gone, and he was free. The tyrant was gone, and the tyranny had doubtless been very oppressive. Who had suffered as he had done? But in thus being left without his tyrant he was wretchedly desolate. Might it not be that the tyranny had been good for him?–that the Lord had known best what wife was fit for him? Then he thought of a story which he had read–and had well marked as he was reading–of some man who had been terribly afflicted by his wife, whose wife had starved him and beaten him and reviled him; and yet this man had been able to thank God for having mortified him in the flesh. Might it not be that the mortification which he himself had doubtless suffered in his flesh had been intended for his welfare, and had been very good for him? But if this were so, it might be that the mortification was now removed because the Lord knew that his servant had been sufficiently mortified. He had not been starved or beaten, but the mortification had been certainly severe. Then there came these words–into his mind, not into his mouth–‘The Lord sent the thorn, and the Lord has taken it away. Blessed be the Lord.’ After that he was very angry with himself, and tried to pray that he might be forgiven. While he was so striving there came a low knock at the door, and Mrs Draper again entered the room.
‘Dr Filgrave, my lord, was not at home,’ said Mrs Draper; ‘but he will be sent the moment when he arrives.’
‘Very well, Mrs Draper.’
‘But, my lord, will you not come out to dinner? A little soup, or a morsel of something to eat, and a glass of wine, will enable your lordship to bear it better.’ He allowed Mrs Draper to persuade him, and followed her into the dining-room. ‘Do not go, Mrs Draper,’ he said; ‘I would rather that you should stay with me.’ So Mrs Draper stayed with him, and administered to his wants. He was desirous of being seen by as few eyes as possible in these first moments of his freedom.
He saw Dr Filgrave twice, both before and after the doctor had been upstairs. There was no doubt, Dr Filgrave said, that it was as Mrs Draper had surmised. The poor lady was suffering, and had for years been suffering, from heart-complaint. To her husband she had never said a word on the subject. To Mrs Draper a word had been said now and again–a word when some moment of fear would come, when some sharp stroke of agony would tell of danger. But Mrs Draper had kept the secret of her mistress, and none of the family had known that there was aught to be feared. Dr Filgrave, indeed, did tell the bishop that he had dreaded all along exactly that which had happened. He had said the same to Mr Rerechild, the surgeon, when they two had had a consultation at the palace on the occasion of a somewhat alarming birth of a grandchild. But he mixed up this information with so much medical Latin, and was so pompous over it, and the bishop was so anxious to be rid of him, that his words did not have much effect. What did it all matter? The thorn was gone, and the wife was dead, and the widower must balance his gain and the loss as best he might.
He slept well but when he woke in the morning the dreariness of his loneliness was very strong on him. He must do something, and must see somebody, but he felt that he did not know how to bear himself in his new position. He must send of course for his chaplain, and tell his chaplain to open all letters and to answer them for a week. Then he remembered how many of his letters in days of yore had been opened and answered by the helpmate, who had just gone from him. Since Dr Tempest’s visit he had insisted that the palace letter-bag should always be brought in the first instance to him–and this had been done, greatly to the annoyance of his wife. In order that it might be done the bishop had been up every morning an hour before the usual time; and everybody in the household had known why it was so. He thought of this now as the bag was brought to him on the first morning of his freedom. He could have it where he pleased now–either in his bedroom or left for him untouched on the breakfast-table till he should go to it. ‘Blessed be the name of the Lord,’ he said as he thought of all this; but he did not stop to analyse what he was saying. On this morning he would not enjoy his liberty, but desired that the letter-bag might be taken to Mr Snapper, the chaplain.
The news of Mrs Proudie’s death had spread all over Barchester on the evening of its occurrence, and had been received with that feeling of distant awe which is always accompanied by some degree of pleasurable sensation. There was no one in Barchester to lament a mother, or a sister, or a friend who was really loved. There were those, doubtless, who regretted the woman’s death–and even some who regretted it without any feeling of personal damage done to themselves. There had come to be around Mrs Proudie a party who thought as she thought on church matters, and such people had lost their head, and thereby their strength. And she had been staunch to her own party, preferring bad tea from a low-church grocer, to good tea from a grocer who went to the ritualistic church or to no church at all. And it is due to her to say that she did not forget those who were true to her–looking after them mindfully where looking after might be profitable, and fighting their battles where fighting might be more serviceable. I do not think that the appetite for breakfast of any man or woman in Barchester was disturbed by the news of Mrs Proudie’s death, but there were some who felt that a trouble had fallen on them.
Tidings of the catastrophe reached Hiram’s Hospital on the evening of its occurrence–Hiram’s Hospital, where dwelt Mr and Mrs Quiverful with all their children. Now Mrs Quiverful owed a debt of gratitude to Mrs Proudie, having been placed in her present comfortable home by that lady’s patronage. Mrs Quiverful perhaps understood the character of the deceased woman, and expressed her opinion respecting it, as graphically did anyone in Barchester. There was the natural surprise felt at the Warden’s Lodge in the Hospital when the tidings were first received there, and the Quiverful family was at first too full of dismay, regrets, and surmises to be able to give themselves impartially to criticism. But on the following morning, conversation at the breakfast-table naturally referring to the great loss which the bishop had sustained, Mrs Quiverful thus pronounced her opinion of her friend’s character: ‘You’ll find that he’ll feel it, Q.,’ she said to her husband, in answer to some sarcastic remark made by him as to the removal of the thorn. ‘He’ll feel it, though she was almost too many for him while she was alive.’
‘I daresay he’ll feel it at first,’ said Quiverful; ‘but I think he’ll be more comfortable than he has been.’
‘Of course he’ll feel it, and go on feeling it till he dies, if he’s the man I take him to be. You’re not to think that there has been no love because there used to be some words, that he’ll find himself the happier he can do more things as he pleases. She was a great help to him, and he must have known that she was, in spite of the sharpness of her tongue. No doubt her tongue was sharp. No doubt she was upsetting. And she could make herself a fool too in her struggles to have everything her own way. But, Q., there were worse women than Mrs Proudie. She was never one of your idle ones, and I’m quite sure that no man or woman ever heard her say a word against her husband behind his back.’
‘All the same, she gave him a terribly bad life of it, if all is true that we hear.’
‘There are men who must have what you call a terribly bad life of it, whatever way it goes with them. The bishop is weak, and he wants somebody near to him to be strong. She was strong–perhaps too strong; but he had his advantage of it. After all I don’t know that his life has been so terribly bad. I daresay he’s had everything very comfortable about him. And a man ought to be grateful for that, though very few men ever are.’
Mr Quiverful’s predecessor at the Hospital, old Mr Harding, whose halcyon days in Barchester had been passed before the coming of the Proudies, was in bed playing cat’s-cradle with Posy seated on the counterpane, when tidings of Mrs Proudie’s death were brought to him by Mrs Baxter. ‘Oh, sir,’ said Mrs Baxter, seating herself on a chair by the bed-side. Mr Harding liked Mrs Baxter to sit down, because he was almost sure on such occasions to have the advantage of a prolonged conversation.
‘What is it, Mrs Baxter?’
‘Oh, sir!’
‘Is anything the matter?’ And the old man attempted to raise himself in his bed.
‘You mustn’t frighten grandpa,’ said Posy.
‘No, my dear; and there isn’t nothing to frighten him. There isn’t indeed, Mr Harding. They’re all well at Plumstead, and when I heard from the missus at Venice, everything was going on well.’
‘But what is it, Mrs Baxter?’
‘God forgive all her sins–Mrs Proudie ain’t no more.’ Now there had been a terrible feud between the palace and the deanery for years, in carrying on which the persons of the opposed households were wont to express themselves with eager animosity. Mrs Baxter and Mrs Draper never dared speak to each other. The two coachmen each longed for an opportunity to take the other before the magistrate for some breach of the law of the road in driving. The footmen abused each other, and the grooms occasionally fought. The masters and mistresses contented themselves with simple hatred. Therefore it was not surprising that Mrs Baxter in speaking of the death of Mrs Proudie, should remember first her sins.
‘Mrs Proudie dead!’ said the old man.
‘Indeed, she is, Mr Harding,’ said Mrs Baxter, putting both her hands together piously. ‘We’re just as grass, ain’t we, sir! An dust and clay and flowers of the field?’ Whether Mrs Proudie had most partaken of the clayey nature or of the flowery nature, Mrs Baxter did not stop to consider.
‘Mrs Proudie dead!’ with a solemnity that was all her own. ‘Then she won’t scold the poor bishop any more.’
‘No, my dear; she won’t scold anybody any more; and it will be a blessing for some, I must say. Everybody is always so considerate in this house, Miss Posy, that we none of us know nothing about what that is.’
‘Dead!’ said Mr Harding again. ‘I think, if you please, Mrs Baxter, you shall leave me for little time, and take Miss Posy with you.’ He had been in the city of Barchester some fifty years, and here was one who might have been his daughter, who had come there scarcely ten years since, and who had now gone before him! He had never loved Mrs Proudie. Perhaps he had come as near to disliking Mrs Proudie as he had ever come to disliking any person. Mrs Proudie had wounded him in every part that was most sensitive. It would be long to tell, nor need it be told now, how she had ridiculed his cathedral work, how she had made nothing of him, how she had despised him, always manifesting her contempt plainly. He had been even driven to rebuke her, and it had perhaps been the only personal rebuke which he had ever uttered in Barchester. But now she was gone; and he thought of her simply as an active pious woman, who had been taken away from her word before her time. And for the bishop, no idea ever entered Mr Harding’s mind as to the removal of a thorn. The man had lost his life’s companion at that time of life when such a companion is most needed; and Mr Harding grieved for him with sincerity.
The news went out to Plumstead Episcopi by the postman, and happened to reach the archdeacon as he was talking to his rector at the little gate leading into the churchyard. ‘Mrs Proudie is dead!’ he almost shouted, as the postman notified the fact to him. ‘Impossible!’
‘It be so for zartain, yer reverence,’ said the postman, who was proud of his news.
‘Heavens!’ ejaculated the archdeacon, and then hurried in to his wife. ‘My dear,’ he said–and as he spoke he could hardly deliver himself of the words, so eager was he to speak them–‘who do you think is dead? Gracious heavens! Mrs Proudie is dead!’ Mrs Grantly dropped from her hand the teaspoonful of tea that was just going into the pot, and repeated her husband’s last words. ‘Mrs Proudie dead?’ There was a pause, during which they looked into each other’s faces. ‘My dear, I don’t believe it,’ said Mrs Grantly.
But she did believe it very shortly. There were no prayers at Plumstead rectory that morning. The archdeacon immediately went out into the village, and soon obtained sufficient evidence of the truth of that which the postman had told him. Then he rushed back to his wife. ‘It’s true,’ he said. ‘It’s quite true. She’s dead. There’s no doubt about that. She’s dead. It was last night about seven. That was when they found her, at least, and she may have died about an hour before. Filgrave says not more than an hour.’
‘And how did she die?’
‘Heart-complaint. She was standing up, taking hold of the bedstead, and so they found her.’ Then there was a pause, during which the archdeacon sat down to his breakfast. ‘I wonder how he felt when he heard it?’
‘Of course he was terribly shocked.’
‘I’ve no doubt he was shocked. Any man would be shocked. But when you come to think of it, what a relief!’
‘How can you speak of it in that way?’ said Mrs Grantly.
‘How am I to speak of it in any other way?’ said the archdeacon. ‘Of course I shouldn’t go and say it out in the street.’
‘I don’t think you ought to say it anywhere,’ said Mrs Grantly. ‘The poor man no doubt feels about his wife in the same way that anybody else would.’
‘And of any other poor man has got such a wife as she was, you may be quite sure that he would be glad to get rid of her. I don’t say that he wished her to die, or that he would have done anything to contrive her death–‘
‘Gracious, archdeacon; do pray hold your tongue.’
‘But it stands to reason that her going will be a great relief to him. What has she done for him? She has made him contemptible to everybody in the diocese by her interference, and his life has been a burden to him through her violence.’
‘Is that the way you carry out your proverb De mortuis?’ asked Mrs Grantly.
‘The proverb of De mortuis is founded on humbug. Humbug out of doors is necessary. It would not do for you and me to go into the High Street just now and say what we think about Mrs Proudie; but I don’t suppose that kind of thing need to be kept up in here–so uncomfortable that I cannot believe that anyone will regret her. Dear me! Only to think that she has gone! You may as well give me my tea.’
I do not think that Mrs Grantly’s opinion differed much from that expressed by her husband, or that she was, in truth, the least offended by the archdeacon’s plain speech. But it must be remembered that there was probably no house in the diocese in which Mrs Proudie had been so thoroughly hated as she had been at the Plumstead rectory. There had been hatred in the deanery; but the hatred at the deanery had been mild in comparison with the hatred at Plumstead. The archdeacon was a sound friend; but he was also a sound enemy. From the very arrival of the Proudies at Barchester, Mrs Proudie had thrown down her gauntlet to him, and he had not been slow in picking it up. The war had been internecine, and each had given the other terrible wounds. It had been understood that there should be no quarter, and there had been none. His enemy was now dead, and the archdeacon could not bring himself to adopt before his wife the namby-pamby everyday decency of speaking well of one of whom he had ever thought ill, or expressing regret when no regret could be felt. ‘May all her sins be forgiven her,’ said Mrs Grantly. ‘Amen,’ said the archdeacon. There was something in the tone of his Amen which thoroughly implied that it was uttered only on the understanding that her departure from the existing world was to be regarded as an unmitigated good, and that she should, at any rate, never come back again to Barchester.
When Lady Lufton heard the tidings, she was not so bold in speaking of it as was her friend the archdeacon. ‘Mrs Proudie dead!,’ she said to her daughter-in-law. This was some hours after the news had reached the house, and when the fact of the poor lady’s death had been fully recognised. ‘What will he do without her?’
‘The same as other men do,’ said the young Lady Lufton.
‘But, my dear, he is not the same as other men. He is not at all like other men. No doubt she was a virago, a woman who could not control her temper for a moment! No doubt she had led him a terrible life! I have often pitied him with all my heart. But, nevertheless, she was useful to him. I suppose she was useful to him. I can hardly believe that Mrs Proudie is dead. Had he gone, it would have seemed so much more natural. Poor woman. I daresay she had her good points.’ The reader will be pleased to remember that the Luftons had ever been strong partisans on the side of the Grantlys.
The news made its way even to Hogglestock on the same day. Mrs Crawley, when she heard it, went out after her husband, who was in the school. ‘Dead!’ he said in answer to her whisper. ‘Do you tell me that the woman is dead?’ Then Mrs Crawley explained that the tidings were credible. ‘May God forgive her all her sins,’ said Mrs Crawley. ‘She was a violent woman, certainly, and I think that she misunderstood her duties; but I do not say that she was a bad woman. I am inclined to think that she was earnest in her endeavours to do good.’ It never occurred to Mr Crawley that he and his affair, had, in truth, been the cause of her death.
It was thus that she was spoken of for a few days; and the men and women ceased to speak much of her, and began to talk of the bishop instead. A month had not passed before it was surmised that a man so long accustomed to the comforts of married life would marry again; and even then one lady connected with low-church clergymen in and around the city was named as a probable successor to the great lady who was gone. For myself I am inclined to think that the bishop will for the future be content to lean upon his chaplain.
The monument that was put up to our friend’s memory in one of the aisles of the choir of the cathedral was supposed to be designed and executed in good taste. There was a broken column, and on the column simply the words ‘My beloved wife!’ Then there was a slab by the column, bearing Mrs Proudie’s name, with the date of her life and death. Beneath this was the common inscription:-
‘Requiescat in pace.’
CHAPTER LXVIII
THE OBSTINACY OF MR CRAWLEY
Dr Tempest, when he heard the news, sent immediately to Mr Robarts, begging him to come over to Silverbridge. But this message was not occasioned solely by the death of Mrs Proudie. Dr Tempest had also heard that Mr Crawley had submitted himself to the bishop, that instant advantage–and, as Dr Tempest thought,–unfair advantage–had been taken of Mr Crawley’s submission, and that the pernicious Mr Thumble had been at once sent over to Hogglestock. Had these palace doings with reference to Mr Crawley been unaccompanied by the catastrophe which had happened, the doctor, much as he might have regretted them, would probably have felt that there was nothing to be done. He could not in such case have prevented Mr Thumble’s journey to Hogglestock on the next Sunday, and certainly he could not have softened the heart of the presiding genius at the palace. But things were very different now. The presiding genius was gone. Everybody at the palace would be for a while weak and vacillating. Thumble would be then thoroughly cowed; and it might at any rate be possible to make some movement in Mr Crawley’s favour. Dr Tempest, therefore, sent for Mr Robarts.
‘I’m giving you a great deal of trouble, Robarts,’ said the doctor; ‘but then you are so much younger than I am, and I’ve an idea that you would do more for this poor man than anyone else in the diocese.’ Mr Robarts of course declared that he did not begrudge his trouble, and that he would do anything in his power for the poor man. ‘I think that you should see him again, and that you should then see Thumble also. I don’t know whether you can condescend to be civil to Thumble. I could not.’
‘I am not quite sure that incivility would not be more efficacious.’
‘Very likely. There are men who are deaf as adders to courtesy, but who are compelled to obedience at once by ill-usage. Very likely Thumble is one of them; but of that you will be the best judge yourself. I would see Crawley first, and get his consent.’
‘That’s the difficulty.’
‘Then I should go without his consent, and I would see Thumble and the bishop’s chaplain Snapper. I think you might manage just at this moment, when they will all be abashed and perplexed by this woman’s death, to arrange that simply nothing shall be done. The great thing will be that Crawley should go on with the duty till the assizes. If it should happen that he goes into Barchester and is acquitted, and comes back again, the whole thing will be over, and there will be no further interference in the parish. If I were you, I think I would try it.’ Mr Robarts said that he would try it. ‘I daresay Mr Crawley will be a little stiff-necked with you.’
‘He will be very stiff-necked with me,’ said Mr Robarts.
‘But I can hardly think that he will throw away the only means he has of supporting his wife and children, when he finds that there can be no occasion for his doing so. I do not suppose that any person wishes him to throw up his work now that the poor woman has gone.’
Mr Crawley had been almost in good spirits since the last visit which Mr Thumble had made him. It seemed as though the loss of everything in the world was in some way satisfactory to him. He had now given up his living by his own doing, and had after a fashion acknowledged his guilt by this act. He had proclaimed to all around him that he did not think himself to be any longer fit to perform the sacred functions of his office. He spoke of his trial as though a verdict against him must be the result. He knew that in going into prison he would leave his wife and children dependent on the charity of their friends–on charity which they must condescend to accept, though he could not condescend to ask it. And yet he was able to carry himself now with a greater show of fortitude than had been within his power when the extent of his calamity was more doubtful. I must not ask the reader to suppose that he was cheerful. To have been cheerful under such circumstances would have been inhuman. But he carried his head on high, and walked firmly, and gave his orders with a clear voice. His wife, who was necessarily more despondent than ever, wondered at him–but wondered in silence. It certainly seemed as though the very extremity of ill-fortune was good for him. And he was very diligent with his school, passing the greater part of the morning with his children. Mr Thumble had told him that he would come on Sunday, and that he would then take charge of the parish. Up to the coming of Mr Thumble he would do everything in the parish that could be done by a clergyman with a clear spirit and a free heart. Mr Thumble should not find that spiritual weeds had grown rank in the parish because of his misfortunes.
Mrs Proudie had died on the Tuesday–that having been the day of Mr Thumble’s visit to Hogglestock–and Mr Robarts had gone over to Silverbridge, in answer to Dr Tempest’s invitation, on the Thursday. He had not, therefore, the command of much time, it being the express object to prevent the appearance of Mr Thumble at Hogglestock on the next Sunday. He had gone to Silverbridge by railway, and had, therefore, been obliged to postpone his visit to Mr Crawley till the next day; but early on the Friday morning he rode over to Hogglestock. That he did not arrive there with a broken-kneed horse, the reader may be quite sure. In all matters of that sort, Mr Robarts was ever above reproach. He rode a good horse, and drove a neat gig, and was always well-dressed. On this account Mr Crawley, though he really liked Mr Robarts, and was thankful to him for many kindnesses, could never bear his presence with perfect equanimity. Robarts was no scholar, was not a great preacher, had obtained no celebrity as a churchman–had, in fact, done nothing to merit great reward; and yet everything had been given to him with an abundant hand. Within the last twelvemonth his wife had inherited Mr Crawley did not care to know how many thousand pounds. And yet Mr Robarts had won all that he possessed by being a clergyman. Was it possible that Mr Crawley should regard such a man with equanimity? Robarts rode over with a groom behind him–really taking the groom because he knew that Mr Crawley would have no one to hold his horse for him–and the groom was the source of great offence. He come upon Mr Crawley standing at the school door, and stopping at once, jumped off his nag. There was something in the way in which he sprang out of the saddle and threw the reins to the man, which was not clerical to Mr Crawley’s eyes. No man could be so quick in the matter of a horse who spent as many hours with the poor and with the children as should be spent by a parish clergyman. It might be probable that Mr Robarts had never stolen twenty pounds–might never be accused of so disgraceful a crime–but, nevertheless, Mr Crawley had his own ideas, and made his own comparisons.
‘Crawley’ said Robarts, ‘I am so glad to find you at home.’
‘I am generally to be found in the parish,’ said the perpetual curate of Hogglestock.
‘I know you are,’ said Robarts, who knew the man well, and cared nothing for his friend’s peculiarities when he felt his own withers to be unwrung. ‘But you might have been down at Hoggle End with the brickmakers, and then, I would have had to go after you.’
‘I should have grieved–‘ began Crawley; but Robarts interrupted him at once.
‘Let us go for a walk, and I’ll leave the man with the horses. I’ve something special to say to you, and I can say it better out here than in the house. Grace is quite well, and sends her love. She is growing to look so beautiful!’
‘I hope she may grow in grace with God,’ said Mr Crawley.
‘She is as good a girl as ever I knew. By-the-bye, you had Henry Grantly over here the other day?’
‘Major Grantly, whom I cannot name without expressing my esteem for him, did do us the honour of calling upon us not very long since. If it be with reference to him that you have taken this trouble–‘
‘No, no; not at all. I’ll allow him and the ladies to fight out that battle. I’ve not the least doubt in the world how that will go. When I’m told that she made a complete conquest of the archdeacon, there cannot be any doubt about that.’
‘A conquest of the archdeacon!’
But Mr Robarts did not wish to have to explain anything further about the archdeacon. ‘Were you not terribly shocked, Crawley,’ he asked, ‘when you heard of the death of Mrs Proudie?’
‘It was sudden and very awful,’ said Mr Crawley. ‘Such deaths are always shocking. Not more so, perhaps, as regards the wife of a bishop., than with any other woman.’
‘Only we happen to know her.’
‘No doubt the finite and meagre nature of our feelings does prevent us from extending our sympathies to those whom we have not seen in the flesh. It should not be so, and would not with one who had nurtured his heart with the proper care. And we are prone to permit an evil worse than that to canker our regards and to foster and to mar our solicitudes. Those who are in high station strike us more by their joys and sorrows than do the poor and lowly. Were some young duke’s wife, wedded but the other day, to die, all England would put on a show of mourning–nay, would feel some true gleam of pity; but nobody cares for the widowed brickmaker seated with his starving infant on his cold hearth.’
‘Of course we hear more of the big people,’ said Robarts.
‘Ay; and think more of them. But do not suppose, sir, that I complain of this man or that woman because his sympathies, or hers, runs out of that course which my reason tells me they should hold. The man with whom it would not be so would simply be a god among men. It is in his perfection as a man that we recognise the divinity of Christ. It is in the imperfection of men that we recognise our necessity for a Christ. Yes, sir, the death of the poor lady at Barchester was very sudden. I hope that my lord bears with becoming fortitude the heavy misfortune. They say that he was a man much beholden to his wife–prone to lean upon her in his goings out and comings in. For such a man such a loss is more dreadful than for another.’
‘They say she led him a terrible life, you know.’
‘I am not prone, sir, to believe much of what I hear about the domesticities of other men, knowing how little any other man can know of my own. And I have, methinks, observed a proneness in the world to ridicule that dependence on a woman which every married man should acknowledge in regard to the wife of his bosom, if he cant trust her as well as love her. When I hear jocose proverbs spoken as to men such as that in this house the grey mare is the better horse, or that in that house the wife wears that garment which is supposed to denote virile command, knowing that the joke is easy, and that meekness in a man is more truly noble than the habit of stern authority, I do not allow them to go far with me in influencing my judgment.’
So spoke Mr Crawley, who never permitted the slightest interference with his own word in his own family, and who had himself been a witness of one of those scenes between the bishop and his wife in which the poor bishop had been so cruelly misused. But to Mr Crawley the thing which he himself had seen under such circumstances was as sacred as though it had come to him under the seal of confession. In speaking of the bishop and Mrs Proudie–nay, as far as was possible in thinking of them–he was bound to speak and to think as though he had not witnessed that scene in the palace study.
‘I don’t suppose that there is much doubt as to her real character,’ said Robarts. ‘But you and I need not discuss that.’
‘By no means. Such discussion would be both useless and unseemly.’
‘And just at present there is something else that I specially want to say to you. Indeed, I went to Silverbridge on the same subject yesterday, and have come here expressly to have a little conversation with you.’
‘If it be about affairs of mine, Mr Robarts, I am indeed troubled in spirit that so great labour should have fallen upon you.’
‘Never mind my labour. Indeed your saying that is a nuisance to me, because I hoped that by this time you would have understood that I regard you as a friend, and that I think nothing any trouble that I do for a friend. You position just now is so peculiar that it requires a great deal of care.’
‘No care can be of any avail to me.’
‘There I disagree with you. You must excuse me, but I do; and so does Dr Tempest. We think that you have been a little too much in a hurry since he communicated to you the result of our first meeting.’
‘As how, sir?’
‘It is, perhaps, hardly worth while for us to go into the whole question; but that man, Thumble, must not come here on next Sunday.’
‘I cannot say, Mr Robarts, that the Reverend Mr Thumble has recommended himself to me strongly either by his outward symbols of manhood or by such manifestation of inward mental gifts as I have succeeded in obtaining. But my knowledge of him has been so slight, and has been acquired in a manner so likely to bias me prejudicially against him, that I am inclined to think my opinion should go for nothing. It is, however, the fact that the bishop has nominated him to do this duty; and that, as I have myself simply notified my decision to be relieved from the care of the parish, on account of certain unfitness of my own, I am the last man who should interfere with the bishop in the choice of my temporary successor.
‘It was her choice, not his.’
‘Excuse me, Mr Robarts, but I cannot allow that assertion to pass unquestioned. I must say that I have adequate cause for believing that he came here by his lordship’s authority.’
‘No doubt he did. Will you just listen to me for a moment? Ever since this unfortunate affair of the cheque became known, Mrs Proudie has been anxious to get you out of the parish. She was a violent woman, and chose to take this matter up violently. Pray hear me out before you interrupt me. There would have been no commission at all but for her.’
‘The commission is right and proper and just,’ said Mr Crawley, who could not keep himself silent.
‘Very well. Let it be so. But Mr Thumble’s coming over here is not proper or right; and you may be sure the bishop does not wish it.’
‘Let him send any other clergyman whom he may think more fitting,’ said Mr Crawley.
‘But we do not want him to send anybody.’
‘Somebody must be sent, Mr Robarts.’
‘No, not so. Let me go over and see Thumble and Snapper–Snapper, you know, is the domestic chaplain; and all that you need do is to go on with your services on Sunday. If necessary, I will see the bishop. I think you may be sure that I can manage it. If not, I will come back to you.’ Mr Robarts paused for an answer, but it seemed for a while that all Mr Crawley’s impatient desire to speak was over. He walked on silently along the lane by his visitor’s side, and when, after some five or six minutes, Robarts stood still in the road, Mr Crawley even then said nothing. ‘It cannot be but that you should be anxious to keep the income of the parish for your wife and children,’ said Mark Robarts.
‘Of course, I am anxious for my wife and children,’ Crawley answered.
‘Then let me do as I say. Why should you throw away a chance, even if it be a bad one? But here the chance is all in your favour. Let me manage it for you at Barchester.’
‘Of course I am anxious for my wife and children,’ said Crawley, repeating his words; ‘how anxious, I fancy no man can conceive who has not been hear enough to absolute want to know how terrible is its approach when it threatens those who are weak and who are very dear! But, Mr Robarts, you spoke just now of the chance of the thing–the chance of your arranging on my behalf that I should for a while longer be left in the enjoyment of the freehold of my parish. It seemeth to me that there should be no chance on such a subject; that in the adjustment of so momentous a matter there should be a consideration of right and wrong, and no consideration of aught beside. I have been growing to feel, for some weeks past, that circumstances–whether through my fault or not is an outside question as to which I will not further delay you by offering even an opinion–that unfortunate circumstances have made me unfit to remain here as guardian of the souls of the people of this parish. Then there came to me the letter from Dr Tempest–for which I am greatly beholden to him–strengthening me altogether in this view. What could I do then, Mr Robarts? Could I allow myself to think of my wife and my children when such a question as that was before me for self- discussion?’
‘I would–certainly,’ said Robarts.
‘No sir! Excuse the bluntness of my contradiction, but I feel assured that in such emergency you would look solely to duty–as by God’s help I will endeavour to do. Mr Robarts, there are many of us who in many things are much worse than we believe ourselves to be. But in other matters, and perhaps of larger moment, we can rise to ideas of duty as the need for such ideas comes to us. I say not this at all as praising myself. I speak of men as I believe that they will be found to be;–of yourself, of myself, and of others who strive to live with clean hands and a clear conscience. I do not for a moment think that you would retain your benefice at Framley if there had come upon you, after much thought, an assured conviction that you could not retain it without grievous injury to the souls of others and grievous sin to your own. Wife and children, dear as they are to you and to me–as dear to me as to you–fade from the sight when the time comes for judgment on such a matter as that!’ They were standing quite still now, facing each other, and Crawley, as he spoke with a low voice, looked straight into his friend’s eyes, and kept his hand firmly fixed on his friend’s arm.
‘I cannot interfere further,’ said Robarts.
‘No–you cannot interfere further.’ Robarts, when he told the story of the interview to his wife that evening, declared that he had never heard a voice so plaintively touching as was the voice of Mr Crawley when he uttered those last words.
They turned back to the servant and the house almost without a word, and Robarts mounted without offering to see Mrs Crawley. Nor did Mr Crawley ask him to do so. It was better now that Robarts should go. ‘May God send you through all your troubles,’ said Mr Robarts.
‘Mr Robarts, I thank you warmly for your friendship,’ said Mr Crawley. And then they parted. In about half an hour Mr Crawley returned to the house. ‘Now for Pindar, Jane,’ he said, seating himself at his old desk.
CHAPTER LXIX
MR CRAWLEY’S LAST APPEARANCE IN HIS OWN PULPIT
No word or message from Mr Crawley reached Barchester throughout the week, and on the Sunday morning Mr Thumble was under a positive engagement to go out to Hogglestock, and to perform the services of the church. Dr Tempest had been quite right in saying that Mr Thumble would be awed by the death of his patroness. Such was altogether the case, and he was very anxious to escape from the task he had undertaken at her instance, if it were possible. In the first place, he had never been a favourite with the bishop himself, and had now, therefore, nothing to expect in the diocese. The crusts and bits of loaves and the morsels of broken fishes which had come his way had all come from the bounty of Mrs Proudie. And then, as regarded this special Hogglestock job, how was he to get paid for it? Whence, indeed, was he to seek repayment for the actual money which he would be out of pocket in finding his way to Hogglestock and back again? But he could not get to speak to the bishop, nor could he induce anyone who had access to his lordship to touch upon the subject. Mr Snapper avoided him as much as possible; and Mr Snapper, when he was caught and interrogated, declared that he regarded the matter as settled. Nothing could be in worse taste, Mr Snapper thought, than to undo, immediately after the poor lady’s death, work in the diocese which had been arranged and done by her. Mr Snapper expressed his opinion that Mr Thumble was bound to go to Hogglestock; and, when Mr Thumble declared petulantly the he would not stir a step out of Barchester, Mr Snapper protested that Mr Thumble would have to answer for it in this world and in the next if there was no services at Hogglestock on that Sunday. On the Saturday evening Mr Thumble made a desperate attempt to see the bishop, but was told by Mrs Draper that the bishop had positively declined to see him. The bishop himself probably felt unwilling to interfere with his wife’s doings so soon after her death! So Mr Thumble, with a heavy heart, went across to the ‘Dragon of Wantly’, and ordered a gig, resolving that the bill should be sent to the palace. He was not going to trust himself again on the bishop’s cob!
Up to Saturday evening Mr Crawley did the work of the parish, and on the Saturday evening he made an address to his parishioners from his pulpit. He had given notice among the brickmakers and labourers that he wished to say a few words to them in the schoolroom; but the farmers also heard of this and came with their wives and daughters, and all the brickmakers came and most of the labourers were there, so that there was no room for them in the schoolhouse. The congregation was much larger than was customary even in the church. ‘They will come,’ he said to his wife, ‘to hear a ruined man declare his own ruin, but they will not come to hear the word of God.’ When it was found that the persons assembled were too many for the school-room, the meeting was adjourned to the church, and Mr Crawley was forced to get into his pulpit. He said a short prayer, and then he began his story.
His story as he told it then shall not be repeated now, as the same story has been told too often already in these pages. Surely it was a singular story for a parish clergyman to tell himself in so solemn a manner. That he had applied the cheque to his own purposes, and was unable to account for its possession of it, was certain. He did not know when or how he had got it. Speaking to them then in God’s house he told them that. He was to be tried by a jury, and all he could do was to tell the jury the same. He would not expect the jury to believe him. The jury would, of course, believe only that which was proved to them. But he did expect his old friends at Hogglestock, who had known him so long, to take his word as true. That there was no sufficient excuse for his conduct, even in his own sight, this, his voluntary resignation of his parish, was, he said, sufficient evidence. Then he explained to them, as clearly as he was able, what the bishop had done, what the commission had done, and what he had done himself. That he spoke no word of Mrs Proudie to that audience need hardly be mentioned here. ‘And now, dearest friends, I leave you,’ he said, with that weighty solemnity which was so peculiar to the man, and which he was able to make singularly impressive even on such a congregation as that of Hogglestock, ‘and I trust that the heavy burden but pleasing burden of the charge which I have had over you may fall into hands better fitted than mine have been for such work. I have always known my own unfitness, by reason of the worldly cares with which I have been laden. Poverty makes the spirit poor, and the hands weak, and the heart sore–and too often makes the conscience dull. May the latter never be the case with any of you.’ Then he uttered another short prayer, and, stepping down from the pulpit, walked out of the church, with his weeping wife hanging on his arm, and his daughter following them, almost dissolved in tears. He never again entered that church as the pastor of the congregation.
There was an old lame man from Hoggle End leaning on his stick near the door as Mr Crawley went out, and with him was his old lame wife. ‘He’ll pull through yet,’ said the old man to his wife; ‘you’ll see else. He’ll pull through because he’s so dogged. It’s dogged as does it.’
On that night the position of the members of Mr Crawley’s household seemed to have changed. There was something almost of elation in his mode of speaking, and he said soft loving words, striving to comfort his wife. She, on the other hand, could say nothing to comfort him. She had been averse to the step he was taking, but had been unable to press her objection in opposition to his great argument as to duty. Since he had spoken to her in that strain which he had used with Robarts, she also had felt that she must be silent. But she could not even feign to feel the pride which comes from the performance of a duty. ‘What will he do when he comes out?’ she said to her daughter. The coming out spoken of her was the coming out of prison. It was natural enough that she should feel no elation.
The breakfast on Sunday morning was to her, perhaps, the saddest scene of her life. They sat down, the three together, at the usual hour–nine o’clock–but the morning had not been passed as was customary on Sundays. It had been Mr Crawley’s practice to go into the school from eight to nine; but on this Sunday he felt, as he told his wife, that his presence would be an intrusion there. But he requested Jane to go and perform her usual task. ‘If Mr Thumble should come,’ he said to her, ‘be submissive to him in all things.’ Then he stood at his door, watching to see at what hour Mr Thumble would reach the school. But Mr Thumble did not attend the school on that morning. ‘And yet he was very express to me in his desire that I would not meddle with the duties,’ said Mr Crawley to his wife as he stood at the door–‘unnecessarily urgent, as I may say I thought at the time.’ If Mrs Crawley could have spoken out her thoughts about Mr Thumble at that moment, her words would, I think have surprised her husband.
At breakfast there was hardly a word spoken. Mr Crawley took his crust and ate it mournfully–almost ostentatiously. Jane tried and failed, and tried to hide her failure, failing in that also. Mrs Crawley made no attempt. She sat behind her teapot, with her hands clasped and her eyes fixed. It was as though some last day had come upon her–this, the first Sunday of her husband’s degradation.
‘Mary,’ he said to her, ‘why do you not eat?’
‘I cannot,’ she replied, speaking not in a whisper, but in words which would hardly get themselves articulated. ‘I cannot. Do not ask me.’
‘For the honour of the lord, you will want the strength which bread can give you,’ he said, intimating to her that he wished her to attend the service.
‘Do not ask me to be there, Josiah. I cannot. It is too much for me.’
‘Nay, I will not press it,’ he said. ‘I can go alone.’ He uttered no word expressive of a wish that his daughter should attend the church; but when the moment came, Jane accompanied him. ‘What shall I do, mamma?’ she said, ‘if I find that I cannot bear it?’ ‘Try to bear it,’ the mother said. ‘Try for his sake. You are stronger than I am.’
The tinkle of the church bell was heard at the usual time, and Mr Crawley, hat in hand, stood ready to go forth. He had heard nothing of Mr Thumble, but had made up his mind that Mr Thumble would not trouble him. He had taken the precaution to request his churchwarden to be early at the church, so that Mr Thumble might encounter no difficulty. The church was very near to the house, and any vehicle arriving might have been heard had Mr Crawley watched closely. But no one had cared to watch Mr Thumble’s arrival at the church. He did not doubt that Mr Thumble would be at the church. With reference to the school, he had had some doubt.
But just as he was about to start he heard the clatter of a gig. Up came Mr Thumble to the door of the parsonage, and having come down from his gig was about to enter the house as though it were his own. Mr Crawley greeted him in the pathway, raising his hat from his head, and expressing a wish that Mr Thumble might not feel himself fatigued with his drive. ‘I will not ask you into my poor house,’ he said, standing in the middle of the pathway; ‘for that my wife is ill.’
‘Nothing catching, I hope?’ said Mr Thumble.
‘Her malady is of the spirit rather than of the flesh,’ said Mr Crawley. ‘Shall we go to the church?’
‘Certainly–by all means. How about the surplice?’
‘You will find, I trust, that the churchwarden has everything in readiness. I have notified him expressly your coming, with the purport that it may be so.’
‘You’ll take part in the service, I suppose?’ said Mr Thumble.
‘No part–no part whatever,’ said Mr Crawley, standing still for a moment as he spoke, and showing plainly by the tone of his voice how dismayed he was, how indignant he had been made, by so indecent a proposition. Was he giving up his pulpit to a stranger for any reason less cogent than one which made it absolutely imperative of him to be silent in that church which had so long been his own?
‘Just as you please,’ said Mr Thumble. ‘Only it’s rather hard lines to have to do it all myself after coming all the way from Barchester this morning.’ To this Mr Crawley condescended to make no reply whatever.
In the porch of the church, which was the only entrance, Mr Crawley introduced Mr Thumble to the churchwarden, simply by a wave of the hand, and then passed on with his daughter to a seat which opened upon the aisle. Jane was going on to that which she had hitherto always occupied with her mother in the little chancel; but Mr Crawley would not allow this. Neither to him nor to any of his family was there attached any longer the privilege of using the chancel of the church of Hogglestock.
Mr Thumble scrambled into the reading-desk some ten minutes after the proper time, and went through the morning service under, what must be admitted to be, serious difficulties. There were the eyes of Mr Crawley fixed upon him throughout the work, and a feeling pervaded him that everybody there regarded him as an intruder. At first this was so strong upon him that Mr Crawley pitied him, and would have encouraged him had it been possible. But as the work progressed, and as custom and the sound of his own voice emboldened him, there came to the man some touches of the arrogance which so generally accompanies cowardice, and Mr Crawley’s acute ear detected the moment when it was so. An observer might have seen that the motion of his hands was altered as they were lifted in prayer. Though he was praying, even in prayer he could not forget the man who was occupying the desk.
Then came the sermon, preached very often before, lasting exactly half-an-hour, and then Mr Thumble’s work was done. Itinerant clergymen, who preach now here and now there, as it had been the lot of Mr Thumble to do, have at any rate this relief–that they can preach their sermons often. From the communion-table Mr Thumble had stated that, in the present peculiar circumstances of the parish, there would be no second service at Hogglestock for the present; and this was all he said or did peculiar to the occasion. The moment of the service was over and he got into his gig, and was driven back to Barchester.
‘Mamma,’ said Jane, as they sat at dinner, ‘such a sermon I am sure was never heard in Hogglestock before. Indeed, you can hardly call it a sermon. It was downright nonsense.’
‘My dear,’ said Mr Crawley energetically, ‘keep your criticisms for matters that are profane; then, though they be childish and silly, they may at least be innocent. Be critical of Eurypides, if you must be critical.’ But when Jane kissed her father after dinner, she, knowing his humour well, felt assured that her remarks had not been taken altogether in ill part.