The Last Chronicle of Barset (103 page)

He drove over to Hogglestock, feeling himself to be anything but comfortable as he came near to the house. And when he did reach the spot he was somewhat disconcerted to find that another visitor was in the house before him. He presumed this to be the case, because there stood a little pony horse – an animal which did not recommend itself to his instructed eye – attached by its rein to the palings. It was a poor humble-looking beast, whose knees had very lately become acquainted with the hard and sharp stones of a newly-mended highway. The blood was even now red upon the wounds.

‘He'll never be much good again,' said the major to his servant.

‘That he won't, sir,' said the man. ‘But I don't think he's been very much good for some time back.'

‘I shouldn't like to have to ride him into Silverbridge,' said the major, descending from the gig, and instructing his servant to move the horse and gig about as long as he might remain within the house. Then he walked across the little garden and knocked at the door. The door was immediately opened, and in the passage he found Mr Crawley and another clergyman whom the reader will recognise as Mr Thumble. Mr Thumble had come over to make arrangements as to the Sunday services and the parochial work, and had been very urgent in impressing on Mr Crawley that the duties were to be left entirely to himself. Hence had come some bitter words, in which Mr Crawley, though no doubt he said the sharper things of the two, had not been able to vanquish his enemy so completely as he had done on former occasions.

‘There must be no interference, my dear sir – none whatever, if you please,' Mr Thumble had said.

‘There shall be none of which the bishop shall have reason to complain,' Mr Crawley had replied.

‘There must be none at all, Mr Crawley, if you please. It is only on that understanding that I have consented to take the parish temporarily into my hands. Mrs Crawley, I hope that there may be no
mistake about the schools. It must be exactly as though I were residing on the spot.'

‘Sir,' said Mr Crawley, very irate at this appeal to his wife, and speaking in a loud voice, ‘do you misdoubt my word; or do you think that if I were minded to be false to you, that I should be corrected in my falsehood by the firmer faith of my wife?'

‘I meant nothing about falsehood, Mr Crawley.'

‘Having resigned this benefice for certain reasons of my own, with which I shall not trouble you, and acknowledging as I do – and have done in writing under my hand to the bishop – the propriety of his lordship's interference in providing for the services of the parish till my successor shall have been instituted, I shall, with what feelings of regret I need not say, leave you to the performance of your temporary duties.'

‘That is all that I require, Mr Crawley.'

‘But it is wholly unnecessary that you should instruct me in mine.'

‘The bishop especially desires' – began Mr Thumble. But Mr Crawley interrupted him instantly –

‘If the bishop has directed you to give me such instruction, the bishop has been much in error. I will submit to receive none from him through you, sir. If you please, sir, let there be an end of it'; and Mr Crawley waved his hand. I hope the reader will conceive the tone of Mr Crawley's voice, and will appreciate the aspect of his face, and will see the motion of his hand, as he spoke these latter words. Mr Thumble felt the power of the man so sensibly that he was unable to carry on the contest. Though Mr Crawley was now but a broken reed, and was beneath his feet, yet Mr Thumble acknowledged to himself that he could not hold his own in debate with this broken reed. But the words had been spoken, and the tone of the voice had died away, and the fire in the eyes had burned itself out before the moment of the major's arrival. Mr Thumble was now returning to his horse, and having enjoyed – if he did enjoy – his little triumph about the parish, was becoming unhappy at the future dangers that awaited him. Perhaps he was the more unhappy because it had been proposed to him by authorities at the palace that he should repeatedly ride on the same animal from Barchester to Hogglestock and back. Mr
Crawley was in the act of replying to lamentations on this subject, with his hand on the latch, when the major arrived – ‘I regret to say, sir, that I cannot assist you by supplying any other steed.' Then the major had knocked, and Mr Crawley had at once opened the door.

‘You probably do not remember me, Mr Crawley?' said the major. ‘I am Major Grantly.' Mrs Crawley, who heard these words inside the room, sprang up from her chair, and could hardly resist the temptation to rush into the passage. She too had barely seen Major Grantly; and now the only bright gleam which appeared on her horizon depended on his constancy under circumstances which would have justified his inconstancy. But had he meant to be inconstant, surely he would never have come to Hogglestock!

‘I remember you well, sir,' said Mr Crawley. ‘I am under no common obligation to you. You are at present one of my bailsmen.'

‘There's nothing in that,' said the major.

Mr Thumble, who had caught the name of Grantly, took off his hat, which he had put on his head. He had not been particular in keeping off his hat before Mr Crawley. But he knew very well that Archdeacon Grantly was a big man in the diocese; and though the Grantlys and the Proudies were opposed to each other, still it might be well to take off his hat before anyone who had to do with the big ones of the diocese. ‘I hope your respected father is well, sir?' said Mr Thumble.

‘Pretty well, I thank you.' The major stood close up against the wall of the passage, so as to allow room for Mr Thumble to pass out. His business was one on which he could hardly begin to speak until the other visitor had gone. Mr Crawley was standing with the door wide open in his hand. He also was anxious to be rid of Mr Thumble – and was perhaps not so solicitous as a brother clergyman should have been touching the future fate of Mr Thumble in the matter of the bishop's old cob.

‘Really I don't know what to do as to getting upon him again,' said Mr Thumble.

‘If you will allow him to progress slowly,' said Mr Crawley, ‘he will probably travel with the greater safety.'

‘I don't know what you call slow, Mr Crawley. I was ever so much
over two hours coming here from Barchester. He stumbled almost at

every step.'

‘Did he fall while you were on him?' asked the major.

‘Indeed he did, sir. You never saw such a thing, Major Grantly. Look here.' Then Mr Thumble, turning round, showed that the rear portion of his clothes had not escaped without injury.

‘It was well he was not going fast, or you would have come on to your head,' said Grantly.

‘It was a mercy,' said Thumble. ‘But, sir, as it was, I came to the ground with much violence. It was on Spigglewick Hill, where the road is covered with loose stones. I see, sir, you have a gig and horse here, with a servant. Perhaps, as the circumstances are so very peculiar –' Then Mr Thumble stopped, and looked up into the major's face with imploring eyes. But the major had no tenderness for such sufferings. ‘I'm sorry to say that I am going quite the other way,' he said. ‘I am returning to Silverbridge.'

Mr Thumble hesitated, and then made a renewed request. ‘If you would not mind taking me to Silverbridge, I could get home from thence by railway; and perhaps you would allow your servant to take the horse to Barchester.'

Major Grantly was for a moment dumbfounded. ‘The request is most unreasonable, sir,' said Mr Crawley.

‘That is as Major Grantly pleases to look at it,' said Mr Thumble.

‘I am sorry to say that it is quite out of my power,' said the major.

‘You can surely walk, leading the beast, if you fear to mount him,' said Mr Crawley.

‘I shall do as I please about that,' said Mr Thumble. ‘And, Mr Crawley, if you will have the kindness to leave things in the parish just as they are – just as they are, I will be obliged to you. It is the bishop's wish that you should touch nothing.' Mr Thumble was by this time on the step, and Mr Crawley instantly slammed the door. ‘The gentleman is a clergyman from Barchester,' said Mr Crawley, modestly folding his hands upon his breast, ‘whom the bishop has sent over here to take upon himself temporarily the services of the church, and, as it appears, the duties also of the parish. I refrain from animadverting upon his lordship's choice.'

‘And are you leaving Hogglestock?'

‘When I have found a shelter for my wife and children I shall do so; nay, peradventure, I must do so before any such shelter can be found. I shall proceed in that matter as I am bid. I am one who can regard myself as no longer possessing the privilege of free action in anything. But while I have a room at your service, permit me to ask you to enter it.' Then Mr Crawley motioned him in with his hand, and Major Grantly found himself in the presence of Mrs Crawley and her younger daughter.

He looked at them both for a moment, and could trace much of the lines of that face which he loved so well. But the troubles of life had almost robbed the elder lady of her beauty; and with the younger, the awkward thinness of the last years of feminine childhood had not yet given place to the fulfilment of feminine grace. But the likeness in each was quite enough to make him feel that he ought to be at home in that room. He thought that he could love the woman as his mother, and the girl as his sister. He found it very difficult to begin any conversation in their presence, and yet it seemed to be his duty to begin. Mr Crawley had marshalled him into the room, and having done so, stood aside near the door. Mrs Crawley had received him very graciously, and having done so, seemed to be ashamed of her own hospitality. Poor Jane had shrunk back into a distant corner, near the open standing desk at which she was accustomed to read Greek to her father, and, of course, could not be expected to speak. If Major Grantly could have found himself alone with any one of the three – nay, if he could have been there with any two, he could have opened his budget at once; but, before all the family, he felt the difficulty of his situation. ‘Mrs Crawley,' said he, ‘I have been most anxious to make your acquaintance, and I trust you will excuse the liberty I have taken in calling.'

‘I feel grateful to you, as I am sure does also my husband.' So much she said, and then felt angry with herself for saying so much. Was she not expressing her strong hope that he might stand fast by her child, whereby the whole Crawley family would gain so much – and the Grantly family lose much, in the same proportion?

‘Sir,' said Mr Crawley, ‘I owe you thanks, still unexpressed, in that
you came forward together with Mr Robarts of Framley, to satisfy the not unnatural requisition of the magistrates before whom I was called upon to appear in the early winter. I know not why anyone should have ventured into such jeopardy on my account.'

‘There was no jeopardy, Mr Crawley. Anyone in the county would have done it.'

‘I know not that; nor can I see that there was no jeopardy. I trust that I may assure you that there is no danger – none, I mean, to you. The danger to myself and those belonging to me is, alas, very urgent. The facts of my position are pressing close upon me. Methinks I suffer more from the visit of the gentleman who has just departed from me than from anything that has yet happened to me. And yet he is in his right – he is altogether in his right.'

‘No, papa; he is not,' said Jane, from her standing ground near the upright desk.

‘My dear,' said her father, ‘you should be silent on such a subject. It is a matter hard to be understood in all its bearings – even by those who are most conversant with them. But as to this we need not trouble Major Grantly.'

After that there was silence among them, and for a while it seemed as though there could be no approach to the subject on which Grantly had come hither to express himself. Mrs Crawley, in her despair, said something about the weather; and the major, trying to draw near the special subject, became bold enough to remark ‘that he had had the pleasure of seeing Miss Crawley at Framley.' ‘Mrs Robarts has been very kind,' said Mrs Crawley, ‘very kind indeed. You can understand, Major Grantly, that this must be a very sad house for any young person.' ‘I don't think it is at all sad,' said Jane, still standing in the corner by the upright desk.

Then Major Grantly rose from his seat and walked across to the girl and took her hand. ‘You are so like your sister,' said he. ‘Your sister is a great friend of mine. She has often spoken to me of you. I hope we shall be friends some day.' But Jane could make no answer to this, though she had been able to vindicate the general character of the house while she was left in her corner by herself. ‘I wonder whether you would be angry with me,' continued the major, ‘if I told
you that I wanted to speak a word to your father and mother alone?' To this Jane made no reply, but was out of the room almost before the words had reached the ears of her father and mother. Though she was only sixteen, and had as yet read nothing but Latin and Greek – unless we are to count the twelve books of Euclid and Wood's Algebra, and sundry smaller exercises of the same description – she understood, as well as anyone then present, the reason why her absence was required.

As she closed the door the major paused for a moment, expecting, or perhaps hoping, that the father or the mother would say a word. But neither of them had a word to say. They sat silent, and as though conscience-stricken. Here was a rich man come, of whom they had heard that he might probably wish to wed their daughter. It was manifest enough to both of them that no man could marry into their family without subjecting himself to a heavy portion of that reproach and disgrace which was attached to them. But how was it possible that they should not care more for their daughter – for their own flesh and blood, than for the incidental welfare of this rich man? As regarded the man himself they had heard everything that was good. Such a marriage was like the opening of paradise to their child. ‘Nil conscire sibi,' said the father to himself, as he buckled on his armour for the fight.