The Last Chronicle of Barset (33 page)

‘But Soames wanted to find out the truth.'

‘Yes – that was just it. Soames couldn't bear to think that he should be left in the dark, and then, when the poor man said that Soames had paid the cheque to him in the way of business – it was not odd that Soames's back should have been up, was it? But, Mr Robarts, I should have thought a deal about it before I should have brought such a man as Mr Crawley before a bench of magistrates on that charge.'

‘But between me and you, Mr Walker, did he steal the money?'

‘Well, Mr Robarts, you know how I'm placed.'

‘Mr Crawley is my friend, and of course I want to assist him. I was under a great obligation to Mr Crawley once, and I wish to befriend him, whether he took the money or not. But I could act so much better if I felt sure one way or the other.'

‘If you ask me, I think he did take it.'

‘What! – stole it?'

‘I think he knew it was not his own when he took it. You see I don't think he meant to use it when he took it. He perhaps had some queer idea that Soames had been hard on him, or his lordship, and that the money was fairly his due. Then he kept the cheque by him till he was absolutely badgered out of his life by the butcher up the street there. That was about the long and the short of it, Mr Robarts.'

‘I suppose so. And now what had he better do?'

‘Well; if you ask me – He is in very bad health, isn't he?'

‘No; I should say not. He walked to Barchester and back the other day.'

‘Did he? But he's very queer, isn't he?'

‘Very odd-mannered indeed.'

‘And does and says all manner of odd things?'

‘I think you'd find the bishop would say so after that interview.'

‘Well; if it would do any good, you might have the bishop examined.'

‘Examined for what, Mr Walker?'

‘If you could show, you know, that Crawley has got a bee in his bonnet; that the
mens sana
¹
is not there, in short – I think you might manage to have the trial postponed.'

‘But then somebody must take charge of his living.'

‘You parsons could manage that among you – you and the dean
and the archdeacon. The archdeacon has always got half-a-dozen curates about somewhere. And then – after the assizes, Mr Crawley might come to his senses; and I think – mind it's only an idea – but I think the committal might be quashed. It would have been temporary insanity, and, though mind I don't give my word for it, I think he might go on and keep his living. I think so, Mr Robarts.'

‘That has never occurred to me.'

‘No – I daresay not. You see the difficulty is this. He's so stiffnecked – will do nothing himself. Well, that will do for one proof of temporary insanity. The real truth is, Mr Robarts, he is as mad as a hatter.'

‘Upon my word I've often thought so.'

‘And you wouldn't mind saying so in evidence – would you? Well, you see, there is no helping such a man in any other way. He won't even employ a lawyer to defend him.'

‘That was what I had come to you about.'

‘I'm told he won't. Now a man must be mad who won't employ a lawyer when he wants one. You see, the point we should gain would be this – if we tried to get him through as being a little touched in the upper storey – whatever we could do for him, we could do against his own will. The more he opposed us the stronger our case would be. He would swear he was not mad at all, and we should say that that was the greatest sign of his madness. But when I say we, of course I mean you. I must not appear in it.'

‘I wish you could, Mr Walker.'

‘Of course I can't; but that won't make any difference.'

‘I suppose he must have a lawyer?'

‘Yes, he must have a lawyer – or rather his friends must.'

‘And who should employ him, ostensibly?'

‘Ah – there's the difficulty. His wife wouldn't do it, I suppose? She couldn't do him a better turn.'

‘He would never forgive her. And she would never consent to act against him.'

‘Could you interfere?'

‘If necessary, I will – but I hardly know him well enough.'

‘Has he no father or mother, or uncles or aunts? He must have somebody belonging to him,' said Mr Walker.

Then it occurred to Mr Robarts that Dean Arabin would be the proper person to interfere. Dean Arabin and Mr Crawley had been intimate friends in early life, and Dean Arabin knew more of him than did any man, at least in those parts. All this Mr Robarts explained to Mr Walker, and Mr Walker agreed with him that the services of Dean Arabin should if possible be obtained. Mr Robarts would at once write to Dean Arabin and explain at length all the circumstances of the case. ‘The worst of it is, he will hardly be home in time,' said Mr Walker. ‘Perhaps he would come a little sooner if you were to press it?'

‘But we could act in his name in his absence, I suppose? – of course with his authority?'

‘I wish he could be here a month before the assizes, Mr Robarts. It would be better.'

‘And in the meantime shall I say anything to Mr Crawley, myself, about employing a lawyer?'

‘I think I would. If he turns upon you, as like enough he may, and abuses you, that will help us in one way. If he should consent, and perhaps he may, that would help us in the other way. I'm told he's been over and upset the whole coach at the palace.'

‘I shouldn't think the bishop got much out of him,' said the parson.

‘I don't like Crawley the less for speaking his mind free to the bishop,' said the attorney, laughing. ‘And he'll speak it free to you too, Mr Robarts.'

‘He won't break any of my bones. Tell me, Mr Walker, what lawyer shall I name to him?'

‘You can't have a better man than Mr Mason, up the street there.'

‘Winthrop proposed Borleys at Barchester.'

‘No, no, no. Borleys and Bonstock are capital people to push a fellow through on a charge of horse-stealing, or to squeeze a man for a little money; but they are not the people for Mr Crawley in such a case as this. Mason is a better man; and then Mason and I know each other.' In saying which Mr Walker winked.

There was then a discussion between them whether Mr Robarts should go at once to Mr Mason; but it was decided at last that he
should see Mr Crawley and also write to the dean before he did so. The dean might wish to employ his own lawyer, and if so the double expense should be avoided. ‘Always remember, Mr Robarts, that when you go into an attorney's office door, you will have to pay for it, first or last. In here, you see, the dingy old mahogany, bare as it is, makes you safe. Or else it's the salt-cellar, which will not allow itself to be polluted by six-and-eightpenny considerations. But there is the other kind of tax to be paid. You must go up and see Mrs Walker, or you won't have her help in this matter.'

Mr Walker returned to his work, either to some private den within his house, or to his office, and Mr Robarts was taken upstairs to the drawing-room. There he found Mrs Walker and her daughter, and Miss Anne Prettyman, who had just looked in, full of the story of Mr Crawley's walk to Barchester. Mr Thumble had seen one of Dr Tempest's curates, and had told the whole story – he, Mr Thumble, having heard Mrs Proudie's version of what had occurred, and having, of course, drawn his own deductions from her premises. And it seemed that Mr Crawley had been watched as he passed through the close out of Barchester. A minor canon had seen him, and had declared that he was going at the rate of a hunt, swinging his arms high and speaking very loud, though – as the minor canon said with regret – the words were hardly audible. But there had been no doubt as to the man. Mr Crawley's old hat, and short rusty cloak, and dirty boots, had been duly observed and chronicled by the minor canon; and Mr Thumble had been enabled to put together a not altogether false picture of what had occurred. As soon as the greetings between Mr Robarts and the ladies had been made, Miss Anne Prettyman broke out again, just where she had left off when Mr Robarts came in. ‘They say that Mrs Proudie declared that she will have him sent to Botany Bay!'

‘Luckily Mrs Proudie won't have much to do in the matter,' said Miss Walker, who ranged herself, as to church matters, in ranks altogether opposed to those commanded by Mrs Proudie.

‘She will have nothing to do with it, my dear,' said Mrs Walker; ‘and I daresay Mrs Proudie was not foolish enough to say anything of the kind.'

‘Mamma, she would be foolish enough to say anything. Would she not, Mr Robarts?'

‘You forget, Miss Walker, that Mrs Proudie is in authority over me.'

‘So she is, for the matter of that,' said the young lady; ‘but I know very well what you all think of her, and say of her too, at Framley. Your friend, Lady Lufton, loves her dearly. I wish I could have been hidden behind a curtain in the palace, to hear what Mr Crawley said to her.'

‘Mr Smillie declares,' said Miss Prettyman, ‘that the bishop has been ill ever since. Mr Smillie went over to his mother's at Barchester for Christmas, and took part of the cathedral duty, and we had Mr Spooner over here in his place. So Mr Smillie of course heard all about it. Only fancy, poor Mr Crawley walking all the way from Hogglestock to Barchester and back – and I am told he hardly had a shoe to his foot! Is it not a shame, Mr Robarts?'

‘I don't think it was quite so bad as you say, Miss Prettyman; but, upon the whole, I do think it is a shame. But what can we do?'

‘I suppose there are tithes at Hogglestock. Why are they not given up to the church, as they ought to be?'

‘My dear Miss Prettyman, that is a very large subject, and I am afraid it cannot be settled in time to relieve our poor friend from his distress.' Then Mr Robarts escaped from the ladies in Mr Walker's house, who, as it seemed to him, were touching upon dangerous ground, and went back to the yard of the George Inn for his gig – the George and Vulture it was properly called, and was the house in which the magistrates had sat when they committed Mr Crawley for trial.

‘Footed it every inch of the way, blowed if he didn't,' the ostler was saying to a gentleman's groom, whom Mr Robarts recognised to be the servant of his friend, Major Grantly; and Mr Robarts knew that they also were talking about Mr Crawley. Everybody in the county was talking about Mr Crawley. At home, at Framley, there was no other subject of discourse. Lady Lufton, the dowager, was full of it, being firmly convinced that Mr Crawley was innocent, because the bishop was supposed to regard him as guilty. There had been a family
conclave held at Framley Court over the basket of provisions which had been sent for the Christmas cheer of the Hogglestock parsonage, each of the three ladies, the two Lady Luftons and Mrs Robarts, having special views of their own. How the pork had been substituted for the beef by old Lady Lufton, young Lady Lufton thinking that after all the beef would be less dangerous, and how a small turkey had been rashly suggested by Mrs Robarts, and how certain small articles had been inserted in the bottom of the basket which Mrs Crawley had never shown to her husband, need not here be told at length. But Mr Robarts, as he heard the two grooms talking about Mr Crawley, began to feel that Mr Crawley had achieved at least celebrity.

The groom touched his hat as Mr Robarts walked up. ‘Has the major returned home yet?' Mr Robarts asked. The groom said that his master was still at Plumstead, and that he was to go over to Plumstead to fetch the major and Miss Edith in a day or two. Then Mr Robarts got into his gig, and as he drove out of the yard he heard the words of the men as they returned to the same subject. ‘Footed it all the way,' said one. ‘And yet he's a gen'leman, too,' said the other. Mr Robarts thought of this as he drove on, intending to call at Hogglestock on that very day on his way home. It was undoubtedly the fact that Mr Crawley was recognised to be a gentleman by all who knew him, high or low, rich or poor, by those who thought well of him and by those who thought ill. These grooms, who had been telling each other that this parson, who was to be tried as a thief, had been constrained to walk from Hogglestock to Barchester and back, because he could not afford to travel in any other way, and that his boots were cracked and his clothes ragged, had still known him to be a gentleman! Nobody doubted it; not even they who thought he had stolen the money. Mr Robarts himself was certain of it, and told himself that he knew it by evidences which his own education made clear to him. But how was it that the grooms knew it? For my part I think that there are no better judges of the article than the grooms.

Thinking still of all which he had heard, Mr Robarts found himself at Mr Crawley's gate at Hogglestock.

Mr Robarts was not altogether easy in his mind as he approached Mr Crawley's house. He was aware that the task before him was a very difficult one, and he had not confidence in himself – that he was exactly the man fitted for the performance of such a task. He was a little afraid of Mr Crawley, acknowledging tacitly to himself that the man had a power of ascendancy with which he would hardly be able to cope successfully. In old days he had once been rebuked by Mr Crawley, and had been cowed by the rebuke; and though there was no touch of rancour in his heart on this account, no slightest remaining venom – but rather increased respect and friendship – still he was unable to overcome the remembrance of the scene in which the perpetual curate of Hogglestock had undoubtedly had the mastery of him. So, when two dogs have fought and one has conquered, the conquered dog will always show an unconscious submission to the conqueror.

He hailed a boy on the road as he drew near to the house, knowing that he would find no one at the parsonage to hold his horse for him, and was thus able without delay to walk through the garden and knock at the door. ‘Papa was not at home,' Jane said. ‘Papa was at the school. But papa could certainly be summoned. She herself would run across to the school if Mr Robarts would come in.' So Mr Robarts entered, and found Mrs Crawley in the sitting-room. Mr Crawley would be in directly, she said. And then, hurrying on to the subject with confused haste, in order that a word or two might be spoken before her husband came back, she expressed her thanks and his for the good things which had been sent to them at Christmas-tide.