The Last Chronicle of Barset (113 page)

‘But where did you get the cheque?' Eames asked with natural curiosity.

‘Exactly,' said Mrs Arabin. ‘I have got to show now that I did not steal it – have I not? Mr Soames will indict me now. And, indeed, I have had some trouble to refresh my memory as to all the particulars, for you see it is more than a year past.' But Mrs Arabin's mind was clearer on such matters than Mr Crawley's, and she was able to explain that she had taken the cheque as part of the rent due to her from the landlord of ‘The Dragon of Wantly,' which inn was her property, having been the property of her first husband. For some years past there had been a difficulty about the rent, things not having gone at ‘The Dragon of Wantly' as smoothly as they had used to go. At one time the money had been paid half-yearly by the landlord's cheque on the bank at Barchester. For the last year-and-a-half this had not been done, and the money had come into Mrs Arabin's hands at irregular periods and in irregular sums. There was at this moment rent due for twelve months, and Mrs Arabin expressed her doubt whether she would get it on her return to Barchester. On the occasion to which she was now alluding, the money had been paid into her own hands, in the deanery breakfast-parlour, by a man she knew very well – not the landlord himself, but one bearing the landlord's name, whom she believed to be the landlord's brother, or at least his cousin. The man in question was named Daniel Stringer, and he had been employed in ‘The Dragon of Wantly,' as a sort of clerk or managing man, as long as she had known it. The rent had been paid to her by Daniel Stringer quite as often as by Daniel's brother or cousin, John Stringer, who was, in truth, the landlord of the hotel. When questioned by John respecting the persons employed at the inn, she said that she did believe that there had been rumours of something wrong. The house had been in the hands of the Stringers for many years – before the property had been purchased by her husband's father – and
therefore there had been an unwillingness to move them; but gradually, so she said, there had come upon her and her husband a feeling that the house must be put into other hands. ‘But did you say nothing about the cheque?' John asked. ‘Yes, I said a good deal about it. I asked why a cheque of Mr Soames's was brought to me, instead of being taken to the bank for money; and Stringer explained to me that they were not very fond of going to the bank, as they owed money there, but that I could pay it into my account. Only I kept my account at the other bank.'

‘You might have paid it in there?' said Johnny.

‘I suppose I might, but I didn't. I gave it to poor Mr Crawley instead – like a fool, as I know that I was. And so I have brought all this trouble on him and on her; and now I must rush home, without waiting for the dean, as fast as the trains will carry me.'

Eames offered to accompany her, and this offer was accepted. ‘It is hard upon you, though,' she said; ‘you will see nothing of Florence. Three hours in Venice, and six in Florence, and no hours at all anywhere else, will be a hard fate to you on your first trip to Italy.' But Johnny said ‘Excelsior' to himself once more, and thought of Lily Dale, who was still in London, hoping that she might hear of his exertions; and he felt, perhaps, also, that it would be pleasant to return with a dean's wife, and never hesitated. Nor would it do, he thought, for him to be absent in the excitement caused by the news of Mr Crawley's innocence and injuries. ‘I don't care a bit about that,' he said. ‘Of course, I should like to see Florence, and, of course, I should like to go to bed; but I will live in hopes that I may do both some day.' And so there grew to be a friendship between him and Mrs Arabin even before they had started.

He was driven through Florence; he saw the Venus de' Medici, and he saw the Seggiola; he looked up from the side of the Duomo to the top of the Campanile, and he walked round the back of the cathedral itself; he tried to inspect the doors of the Baptistery, and declared that the ‘David' was very fine. Then he went back to the hotel, dined with Mrs Arabin, and started for England.

The dean was to have joined his wife at Venice, and then they were to have returned together, coming round by Florence. Mrs Arabin
had not, therefore, taken her things away from Florence when she left it, and had been obliged to return to pick them up on her journey homewards. He – the dean – had been delayed in his Eastern travels. Neither Syria nor Constantinople had got themselves done as quickly as he had expected, and he had, consequently, twice written to his wife, begging her to pardon the transgression of his absence for even yet a few days longer. ‘Everything, therefore,' as Mrs Arabin said, ‘has conspired to perpetuate this mystery, which a word from me would have solved. I owe more to Mr Crawley than I can ever pay him.'

‘He will be very well paid, I think,' said John, ‘when he hears the truth. If you could see inside his mind at this moment, I'm sure you'll find that he thinks he stole the cheque.'

‘He cannot think that, Mr Eames. Besides, at this moment I hope he has heard the truth.'

‘That may be, but he did think so. I do believe that he had not the slightest notion where he got it; and, which is more, not a single person in the whole county had a notion. People thought that he had picked it up, and used it in his despair. And the bishop has been so hard upon him.'

‘Oh, Mr Eames, that is the worst of all.'

‘So I am told. The bishop has a wife, I believe.'

‘Yes, he has a wife, certainly,' said Mrs Arabin.

‘And people say that she is not very good-natured.'

‘There are some of us at Barchester who do not love her very dearly. I cannot say that she is one of my own especial friends.'

‘I believe she has been hard to Mr Crawley,' said John Eames.

‘I should not be in the least surprised,' said Mrs Arabin.

Then they reached Turin, and there, taking up ‘Galignani's Messenger' in the reading-room of Trompetta's Hotel, John Eames saw that Mrs Proudie was dead. ‘Look at that,' said he, taking the paragraph to Mrs Arabin; ‘Mrs Proudie is dead!' ‘Mrs Proudie dead!' she exclaimed. ‘Poor woman! Then there will be peace at Barchester!' ‘I never knew her very intimately,' she afterwards said to her companion, ‘and I do not know that I have a right to say she ever did me an injury. But I remember well her first coming into Barchester. My sister's father-in-law, the late bishop, was just dead. He was a mild,
kind, dear old man, whom my father loved beyond all the world, except his own children. You may suppose we were all a little sad. I was not especially connected with the cathedral then, except through my father' – and Mrs Arabin, as she told all this, remembered that in the days of which she was speaking she was a young mourning widow – ‘but I think I can never forget the sort of harsh-toned pæan of low-church trumpets with which that poor woman made her entry into the city. She might have been more lenient, as we had never sinned by being very high. She might, at any rate, have been more gentle with us at first. I think we had never attempted much beyond decency, good-will and comfort. Our comfort she utterly destroyed. Good-will was not to her taste. And as for decency, when I remember some things, I must say that when the comfort and good-will went, the decency went along with them. And now she is dead! I wonder how the bishop will get on without her.'

‘Like a house on fire, I should think,' said Johnny.

‘Fie, Mr Eames; you shouldn't speak in such a way on such a subject.'

Mrs Arabin and Johnny became fast friends as they journeyed home. There was a sweetness in his character which endeared him readily to women; though, as we have seen, there was a want of something to make one woman cling to him. He could be soft and pleasant-mannered. He was fond of making himself useful, and was a perfect master of all those little caressing modes of behaviour in which the caress is quite impalpable, and of which most women know the value and appreciate the comfort. By the time that they had reached Paris John had told the whole story of Lily Dale and Crosbie, and Mrs Arabin had promised to assist him, if any assistance might be in her power.

‘Of course I have heard of Miss Dale,' she said, ‘because we know the De Courcys.' Then she turned away her face, almost blushing, as she remembered the first time that she had seen that Lady Alexandrina De Courcy whom Mr Crosbie had married. It had been at Mr Thorne's house at Ullathorne, and on that day she had done a thing which she had never since remembered without blushing. But it was an old story now, and a story of which her companion knew nothing – of which he never could know anything. That day at
Ullathorne Mrs Arabin, the wife of the Dean of Barchester, than whom there was no more discreet clerical matron in the diocese, had – boxed a clergyman's ears!
⁴

‘Yes,' said John, speaking of Crosbie, ‘he was a wise fellow; he knew what he was about; he married an earl's daughter.'

‘And now I remember hearing that somebody gave him a terrible beating. Perhaps it was you?'

‘It wasn't terrible at all,' said Johnny.

‘Then it was you?'

‘Oh, yes; it was I.'

‘Then it was you who saved poor old Lord De Guest from the bull?'

‘Go on, Mrs Arabin. There is no end of the grand things I've done.'

‘You're quite a hero of romance.'

He bit his lip as he told himself that he was not enough of a hero. ‘I don't know about that,' said Johnny. ‘I think what a man ought to do in these days is to seem not to care what he eats and drinks, and to have his linen very well got up. Then he'll be a hero.' But that was hard upon Lily.

‘Is that what Miss Dale requires?' said Mrs Arabin.

‘I was not thinking about her particularly,' said Johnny, lying.

They slept a night in Paris, as they had done also at Turin – Mrs Arabin not finding herself able to accomplish such marvels in the way of travelling as her companion had achieved – and then arrived in London in the evening. She was taken to a certain quiet clerical hotel at the top of Suffolk Street, much patronised by bishops and deans of the better sort, expecting to find a message there from her husband. And there was a message – just arrived. The dean had reached Florence three days after her departure; and as he would do the journey home in twenty-four hours less than she had taken, he would be there, at the hotel, on the day after tomorrow. ‘I suppose I may wait for him, Mr Eames?' said Mrs Arabin.

‘I will see Mr Toogood tonight, and I will call here tomorrow, whether I see him or not. At what hour will you be in?'

‘Don't trouble yourself to do that. You must take care of Sir Raffle Buffle, you know.'

‘I shan't go near Sir Raffle Buffle tomorrow, nor yet the next day. You mustn't suppose that I am afraid of Sir Raffle Buffle.'

‘You are only afraid of Lily Dale.' From all which it may be seen that Mrs Arabin and John Eames had become very intimate on their way home.

It was then arranged that he should call on Mr Toogood that same night or early the next morning, and that he should come to the hotel at twelve o'clock on the next day. Going along one of the passages he passed two gentlemen in shovel hats, with very black new coats and knee-breeches; and Johnny could not but hear a few words which one clerical gentleman said to the other. ‘She was a woman of great energy, of wonderful spirit, but a firebrand, my lord – a complete firebrand!' Then Johnny knew that the Dean of A. was talking to the Bishop of B. about the late Mrs Proudie.

We will now go back to Mr Toogood as he started for Silverbridge, on the receipt of Mrs Arabin's telegram from Venice. ‘I gave cheque to Mr Crawley. It was part of a sum of money. Will write to Archdeacon Grantly today, and return home at once.' That was the telegram which Mr Toogood received at his office, and on receiving which he resolved that he must start to Barchester immediately. ‘It isn't certainly what you may call a paying business,' he said to his partner, who continued to grumble; ‘but it must be done all the same. If it don't get into the ledger in one way it will in another.' So Mr Toogood started for Silverbridge, having sent to his house in Tavistock Square for a small bag, a clean shirt, and a toothbrush. And as he went down in the railway-carriage, before he went to sleep, he turned it all over in his mind. ‘Poor devil! I wonder whether any man ever suffered so much before. And as for that woman – it's ten thousand pities that
she should have died before she heard it. Talk of heart-complaint; she'd have had a touch of heart-complaint if she had known this!' Then, as he was speculating how Mrs Arabin could have become possessed of the cheque, he went to sleep.

He made up his mind that the first person to be seen was Mr Walker, and after that he would, if possible, go to Archdeacon Grantly. He was at first minded to go at once out to Hogglestock; but when he remembered how very strange Mr Crawley was in all his ways, and told himself professionally that telegrams were but bad sources of evidence on which to depend for details, he thought that it would be safer if he were first to see Mr Walker. There would be very little delay. In a day or two the archdeacon would receive his letter, and in a day or two after that Mrs Arabin would probably be at home.

It was late in the evening before Mr Toogood reached the house of the Silverbridge solicitor, having the telegram carefully folded in his pocket; and he was shown into the dining-room while the servant took his name up to Mr Walker. The clerks were gone, and the office was closed; and persons coming on business at such times – as they often did come to that house – were always shown into the parlour. ‘I don't know whether master can see you tonight,' said the girl; ‘but if he can, he'll come down.'

When the card was brought up to Mr Walker he was sitting alone with his wife. ‘It's Toogood,' said he; ‘poor Crawley's cousin.'