The Last Chronicle of Barset (11 page)

‘It is quite impossible, my dear,' the old woman said to her daughter-in-law.

‘Quite impossible, my lady.' The dowager was always called ‘my lady,' both by her own daughter and by her son's wife, except in the presence of their children, when she was addressed as ‘grandmamma.' ‘Think how well I knew him. It's no use talking of evidence. No evidence would make me believe it.'

‘Nor me; and I think it a great shame that such a report should be spread about.'

‘I suppose Mr Soames could not help himself?' said the younger lady, who was not herself very fond of Mr Soames.

‘Ludovic says that he has only done what he was obliged to do.' The Ludovic spoken of was Lord Lufton.

This took place in the morning, but in the evening the affair was again discussed at Framley Hall. Indeed, for some days, there was hardly any other subject held to be worthy of discussion in the county. Mr Robarts, the clergyman of the parish and the brother of the younger Lady Lufton, was dining at the hall with his wife, and the three ladies had together expressed their perfect conviction of the falseness of the accusation. But when Lord Lufton and Mr Robarts were together after the ladies had left them there was much less of this certainty expressed. ‘By Jove,' said Lord Lufton, ‘I don't know what to think of it. I wish with all my heart that Soames had said nothing about it, and that the cheque had passed without remark.'

‘That was impossible. When the banker sent to Soames, he was obliged to take the matter up.'

‘Of course he was. But I'm sorry that it was so. For the life of me I can't conceive how the cheque got into Crawley's hands.'

‘I imagine that it had been lying in the house, and that Crawley had come to think that it was his own.'

‘But, my dear Mark,' said Lord Lufton, ‘excuse me if I say that that's nonsense. What do we do when a poor man has come to think
that another man's property is his own? We send him to prison for making the mistake.'

‘I hope they won't send Crawley to prison.'

‘I hope so too; but what is a jury to do?'

‘You think it will go to a jury, then?'

‘I do,' said Lord Lufton. ‘I don't see how the magistrates can save themselves from committing him. It is one of those cases in which everyone concerned would wish to drop it if it were only possible. But it is not possible. On the evidence, as one sees it at present, one is bound to say that it is a case for a jury.'

‘I believe that he is mad,' said the brother parson.

‘He always was, as far as I could learn,' said the lord. ‘I never knew him, myself. You do, I think?'

‘Oh yes. I know him.' And the vicar of Framley became silent and thoughtful as the memory of a certain interview
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between himself and Mr Crawley came back upon his mind. At that time the waters had nearly closed over his head and Mr Crawley had given him some assistance. When the gentlemen had again found the ladies, they kept their own doubts to themselves; for at Framley Hall, as at present tenanted, female voices and female influences predominated over those which came from the other sex.

At Barchester, the cathedral city of the county in which the Crawleys lived, opinion was violently against Mr Crawley. In the city Mrs Proudie, the wife of the bishop, was the leader of opinion in general, and she was very strong in her belief of the man's guilt. She had known much of clergymen all her life, as it behoved a bishop's wife to do, and she had none of that mingled weakness and ignorance which taught so many ladies in Barsetshire to suppose that an ordained clergyman could not become a thief. She hated old Lady Lufton with all her heart, and old Lady Lufton hated her as warmly. Mrs Proudie would say frequently that Lady Lufton was a conceited old idiot, and Lady Lufton would declare as frequently that Mrs Proudie was a vulgar virago. It was known at the palace in Barchester, that kindness had been shown to the Crawleys by the family at Framley Hall, and this alone would have been sufficient to make Mrs Proudie believe that Mr Crawley could have been guilty of any
crime. And as Mrs Proudie believed, so did the bishop believe. ‘It is a terrible disgrace to the diocese,' said the bishop, shaking his head, and patting his apron as he sat by his study fire.

‘Fiddlestick!' said Mrs Proudie.

‘But, my dear – a beneficed clergyman!'

‘You must get rid of him; that's all. You must be firm whether he be acquitted or convicted.'

‘But if he be acquitted, I cannot get rid of him, my dear.'

‘Yes, you can, if you are firm. And you must be firm. Is it not true that he has been disgracefully involved in debt ever since he has been there; that you have been pestered by letters from unfortunate tradesmen who cannot get their money from him?'

‘That is true, my dear, certainly.'

‘And is that kind of thing to go on? He cannot come to the palace as all clergymen should do, because he has got no clothes to come in. I saw him once about the lanes, and I never set my eyes on such an object in my life! I would not believe that the man was a clergyman till John told me. He is a disgrace to the diocese, and he must be got rid of. I feel sure of his guilt, and I hope he will be convicted. One is bound to hope that a guilty man should be convicted. But if he escape conviction, you must sequestrate the living because of the debts. The income is high enough to get an excellent curate. It would just do for Thumble.' To all of which the bishop made no further reply, but simply nodded his head and patted his apron. He knew that he could not do exactly what his wife required of him; but if it should so turn out that poor Crawley was found to be guilty, then the matter would be comparatively easy.

‘It should be an example to us, that we should look to our own steps, my dear,' said the bishop.

‘That's all very well,' said Mrs Proudie, ‘but it has become your duty, and mine too, to look to the steps of other people; and that duty we must do.'

‘Of course, my dear; of course.' That was the tone in which the question of Mr Crawley's alleged guilt was discussed at the palace.

We have already heard what was said on the subject at the house of Archdeacon Grantly. As the days passed by, and as other tidings
came in, confirmatory of those which had before reached him, the archdeacon felt himself unable not to believe in the man's guilt. And the fear which he entertained as to his son's intended marriage with Grace Crawley, tended to increase the strength of his belief. Dr Grantly had been a very successful man in the world, and on all ordinary occasions had been able to show that bold front with which success endows a man. But he still had his moments of weakness, and feared greatly lest anything of misfortune should touch him and mar the comely roundness of his prosperity. He was very wealthy. The wife of his bosom had been to him all that a wife should be. His reputation in the clerical world stood very high. He had lived all his life on terms of equality with the best of the gentry around him. His only daughter had made a splendid marriage. His two sons had hitherto done well in the world, not only as regarded their happiness, but as to marriage also, and as to social standing. But how great would be the fall if his son should at last marry the daughter of a convicted thief! How would the Proudies rejoice over him – the Proudies who had been crushed to the ground by the success of the Hartletop alliance; and how would the low-church curates, who swarmed in Barsetshire, gather together and scream in delight over his dismay! ‘But why should we say that he is guilty?' said Mrs Grantly.

‘It hardly matters as far as we are concerned, whether they find him guilty or not,' said the archdeacon; ‘if Henry marries that girl my heart will be broken.'

But perhaps to no one except to the Crawleys themselves had the matter caused so much terrible anxiety as to the archdeacon's son. He had told his father that he had made no offer of marriage to Grace Crawley, and he had told the truth. But there are perhaps few men who make such offers in direct terms without having already said and done that which make such offers simply necessary as the final closing of an accepted bargain. It was so at any rate between Major Grantly and Miss Crawley, and Major Grantly acknowledged to himself that it was so. He acknowledged also to himself that as regarded Grace herself he had no wish to go back from his implied intentions. Nothing that either his father or mother might say would shake him in that. But could it be his duty to bind himself to the
family of a convicted thief? Could it be right that he should disgrace his father and mother and his sister and his one child by such a connexion? He had a man's heart, and the poverty of the Crawleys caused him no solicitude. But he shrank from the contamination of a prison.

It has already been said that Grace Crawley was at this time living with the two Miss Prettymans, who kept a girls' school at Silverbridge. Two more benignant ladies than the Miss Prettymans never presided over such an establishment. The younger was fat, and fresh, and fair, and seemed to be always running over with the milk of human kindness. The other was very thin and very small, and somewhat afflicted with bad health – was weak too, in the eyes, and subject to racking headaches, so that it was considered generally that she was unable to take much active part in the education of the pupils. But it was considered as generally that she did all the thinking, that she knew more than any other woman in Barsetshire, and that all the Prettyman schemes for education emanated from her mind. It was said, too, by those who knew them best, that her sister's good-nature was as nothing to hers; that she was the most charitable, the most loving, and the most conscientious of school-mistresses. This was Miss Annabella Prettyman, the elder; and perhaps it may be inferred that some portion of her great character for virtue may have been due to the fact that nobody ever saw her out of her own house. She could not even go to church, because the open air brought on neuralgia. She was therefore perhaps taken to be magnificent, partly because she was unknown. Miss Anne Prettyman, the younger, went about frequently to tea-parties – would go, indeed, to any party to which she might be invited; and was known to have a pleasant taste
for poundcake and sweetmeats. Being seen so much in the outer world, she became common, and her character did not stand so high as did that of her sister. Some people were ill-natured enough to say that she wanted to marry Mr Winthrop; but of what maiden lady that goes out into the world are not such stories told? And all such stories in Silverbridge were told with special reference to Mr Winthrop.

Miss Crawley, at present, lived with the Miss Prettymans, and assisted them in the school. This arrangement had been going on for the last twelve months, since the time in which Grace would have left the school in the natural course of things. There had been no bargain made, and no intention that Grace should stay. She had been invited to fill the place of an absent superintendent, first for one month, then for another, and then for two more months; and when the assistant came back, the Miss Prettymans thought there were reasons why Grace should be asked to remain a little longer. But they took great care to let the fashionable world of Silverbridge know that Grace Crawley was a visitor with them, and not a teacher. ‘We pay her no salary, or anything of that kind,' said Miss Anne Prettyman; a statement, however, which was by no means true, for during those four months the regular stipend had been paid to her; and twice since then, Miss Annabella Prettyman, who managed all the money matters, had called Grace into her little room, and had made a little speech, and had put a little bit of paper into her hand. ‘I know I ought not to take it,' Grace had said to her friend Anne. ‘If I was not here, there would be no one in my place.' ‘Nonsense, my dear,' Anne Prettyman had said; ‘it is the greatest comfort to us in the world. And you should make yourself nice, you know, for his sake. All the gentlemen like it.' Then Grace had been very angry, and had sworn that she would give the money back again. Nevertheless, I think she did make herself as nice as she knew how to do. And from all this it may be seen that the Miss Prettymans had hitherto quite approved of Major Grantly's attentions.

But when this terrible affair came on about the cheque which had been lost and found and traced to Mr Crawley's hands, Miss Anne Prettyman said nothing further to Grace Crawley about Major Grantly. It was not that she thought that Mr Crawley was guilty, but she knew enough of the world to be aware that suspicion of such
guilt might compel such a man as Major Grantly to change his mind. ‘If he had only popped,' Anne said to her sister, ‘it would have been all right. He would never have gone back from his word.' ‘My dear,' said Annabella, ‘I wish you would not talk about popping. It is a terrible word.' ‘I shouldn't, to anyone except you,' said Anne.

There had come to Silverbridge some few months since, on a visit to Mrs Walker, a young lady from Allington, in the neighbouring county, between whom and Grace Crawley there had grown up from circumstances a warm friendship. Grace had a cousin in London – a clerk high up and well-to-do in a public office, a nephew of her mother's – and this cousin was, and for years had been, violently smitten in love for this young lady. But the young lady's tale had been sad, and though she acknowledged feelings of most affectionate friendship for the cousin, she could not bring herself to acknowledge more.
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Grace Crawley had met the young lady at Silverbridge, and words had been spoken about the cousin; and though the young lady from Allington was some years older than Grace, there had grown up to be a friendship, and, as is not uncommon between young ladies, there had been an agreement that they would correspond. The name of the lady was Miss Lily Dale, and the name of the well-to-do cousin in London was Mr John Eames.

At the present moment Miss Dale was at home with her mother at Allington, and Grace Crawley in her terrible sorrow wrote to her friend, pouring out her whole heart. As Grace's letter and Miss Dale's answer will assist us in our story, I will venture to give them both.