The Last Chronicle of Barset (49 page)

‘I don't suppose he can have been guilty,' said Johnny.

‘Certainly not in the ordinary sense of the word. I heard all the evidence against him.'

‘Oh, you did?'

‘Yes,' said the major. ‘I live near them in Barsetshire, and I am one of his bailsmen.'

‘Then you are an old friend, I suppose?'

‘Not exactly that; but circumstances make me very much interested about them. I fancy that the cheque was left in his house by accident, and that it got into his hands he didn't know how, and that when he used it he thought it was his.'

‘That's queer,' said Johnny.

‘He is very odd, you know.'

‘But it's a kind of oddity that they don't like at the assizes.'

‘The great cruelty is,' said the major, ‘that whatever may be the result, the punishment will fall so heavily upon his wife and daughters. I think the whole county ought to come forward and take them by the hand. Well, good-bye. I'll drive on, as I'm a little in a hurry.'

‘Good-bye,' said Johnny. ‘I'm very glad to have had the pleasure of meeting you.' ‘He's a good sort of a fellow after all,' he said to himself when the gig had passed on. ‘He wouldn't have talked in that way if he had meant to hang back.'

*

Mr Crawley had declared to Mr Robarts, that he would summon no legal aid to his assistance at the coming trial. The reader may, perhaps, remember the impetuosity with which he rejected the advice on this subject which was conveyed to him by Mr Robarts with all the authority of Archdeacon Grantly's name. ‘Tell the archdeacon,' he had said, ‘that I will have none of his advice.' And then Mr Robarts had left him, fully convinced that any further interference on his part could be of no avail. Nevertheless, the words which had then been spoken were not without effect. This coming trial was ever present to Mr Crawley's mind, and though, when driven to discuss the subject, he would speak of it with high spirit, as he had done both to the bishop and to Mr Robarts, yet in his long hours of privacy, or when alone with his wife, his spirit was anything but high. ‘It will kill me,' he would say to her. ‘I shall get salvation thus. Death will relieve me, and I shall never be called upon to stand before those cruel eager eyes.' Then would she try to say words of comfort, sometimes soothing
him as though he were a child, and at others bidding him be a man, and remember that as a man he should have sufficient endurance to bear the eyes of any crowd that might be there to look at him.

‘I think I will go up to London,' he said to her one evening, very soon after the day of Mr Robarts's visit.

‘Go up to London, Josiah!' Mr Crawley had not been up to London once since they had been settled at Hogglestock, and this sudden resolution on his part frightened his wife. ‘Go up to London, dearest! and why?'

‘I will tell you why. They all say that I should speak to some man of the law whom I may trust about this coming trial. I trust no one in these parts. Not, mark you, that I say that they are untrustworthy. God forbid that I should so speak or even so think of men whom I know not. But the matter has become so common in men's mouths at Barchester and at Silverbridge, that I cannot endure to go among them and to talk of it. I will go up to London, and I will see your cousin, Mr John Toogood, of Gray's Inn.' Now in this scheme there was an amount of everyday prudence which startled Mrs Crawley almost as much as did the prospect of the difficulties to be overcome if the journey were to be made. Her husband, in the first place, had never once seen Mr John Toogood; and in days very long back, when he and she were making their first gallant struggle – for in those days it had been gallant – down in their Cornish curacy, he had reprobated certain Toogood civilities – professional civilities – which had been proffered, perhaps, with too plain intimation that on the score of relationship the professional work should be done without payment. The Mr Toogood of those days, who had been Mrs Crawley's uncle, and the father of Mrs Eames and grandfather of our friend Johnny Eames, had been much angered by some correspondence which had grown up between him and Mr Crawley, and from that day there had been a cessation of all intercourse between the families. Since those days that Toogood had been gathered to the ancient Toogoods of old, and the son reigned on the family throne in Raymond's Buildings. The present Toogood was therefore first-cousin to Mrs Crawley. But there had been no intimacy between them. Mrs Crawley had not seen her cousin since her marriage – as indeed she had seen none of
her relations, having been estranged from them by the singular bearing of her husband. She knew that her cousin stood high in his profession, the firm of Toogood and Crump – Crump and Toogood it should have been properly called in these days – having always held its head up high above all dirty work; and she felt that her husband could look for advice from no better source. But how would such a one as he manage to tell his story to a stranger? Nay, how would he find his way alone into the lawyer's room, to tell his story at all – so strange was he to the world? And then the expense! ‘If you do not wish me to apply to your cousin, say so, and there shall be an end of it,' said Mr Crawley in an angry tone.

‘Of course I would wish it. I believe him to be an excellent man, and a good lawyer.'

‘Then why should I not go to his chambers?
In formâ pauperis
¹
I must go to him, and must tell him so. I cannot pay him for the labour of his counsel, nor for such minutes of his time as I shall use.'

‘Oh, Josiah, you need not speak of that.'

‘But I must speak of it. Can I go to a professional man, who keeps as it were his shop open for those who may think fit to come, and purchase of him, and take of his goods, and afterwards, when the goods have been used, tell him that I have not the price in my hand? I will not do that, Mary. You think that I am mad, that I know not what I do. Yes – I see it in your eyes; and you are sometimes partly right. But I am not so mad but that I know what is honest. I will tell your cousin that I am sore straitened, and brought down into the very dust by misfortune. And I will beseech him, for what of ancient feeling of family he may bear to you, to listen to me for a while. And I will be very short, and, if need be, will bide his time patiently, and perhaps he may say a word to me that may be of use.'

There was certainly very much in this to provoke Mrs Crawley. It was not only that she knew well that her cousin would give ample and immediate attention, and lend himself thoroughly to the matter without any idea of payment – but that she could not quite believe that her husband's humility was true humility. She strove to believe it, but knew that she failed. After all it was only a feeling on her part. There was no argument within herself about it. An unpleasant taste
came across the palate of her mind, as such a savour will sometimes, from some unexpected source, come across the palate of the mouth. Well; she could only gulp at it, and swallow it and excuse it. Among the salad that comes from your garden a bitter leaf will now and then make its way into your salad-bowl. Alas, there were so many bitter leaves ever making their way into her bowl! ‘What I mean is, Josiah, that no long explanation will be needed. I think, from what I remember of him, that he would do for us anything that he could do.'

‘Then I will go to the man, and will humble myself before him. Even that, hard as it is to me, may be a duty that I owe.' Mr Crawley as he said this was remembering the fact that he was a clergyman of the Church of England, and that he had a rank of his own in the country, which, did he ever do such a thing as go out to dinner in company, would establish for him a certain right of precedence; whereas this attorney, of whom he was speaking, was, so to say, nobody in the eyes of the world.

‘There need be no humbling, Josiah, other than that which is due from man to man in all circumstances. But never mind; we will not talk about that. If it seems good to you, go to Mr Toogood. I think that it is good. May I write to him and say that you will go?'

‘I will write myself; it will be more seemly.'

Then the wife paused before she asked the next question – paused for some minute or two, and then asked it with anxious doubt – ‘And may I go with you, Josiah?'

‘Why should two go when one can do the work?' he answered sharply. ‘Have we money so much at command?'

‘Indeed, no.'

‘You should go and do it all, for you are wiser in these things than I am, were it not that I may not dare to show – that I submit myself to my wife.'

‘Nay, my dear!'

‘But it is ay, my dear. It is so. This is a thing such as men do; not such as women do, unless they be forlorn and unaided of men. I know that I am weak where you are strong; that I am crazed where you are clear-witted.'

‘I meant not that, Josiah. It was of your health that I thought.'

‘Nevertheless it is as I say; but, for all that, it may not be that you should do my work. There are those watching me who would say, “Lo! he confesses himself incapable.” And then someone would whisper something of a madhouse. Mary, I fear that worse than a prison.'

‘May God in His mercy forbid such cruelty!'

‘But I must look to it, my dear. Do you think that that woman, who sits there at Barchester in high places, disgracing herself and that puny ecclesiastical lord who is her husband – do you think that she would not immure me if she could? She is a she-wolf – only less reasonable than the dumb brute as she sharpens her teeth in malice coming from anger, and not in malice coming from hunger as do the other wolves of the forest. I tell you, Mary, that if she had a colourable ground for her action, she would swear tomorrow that I am mad.'

‘You shall go alone to London?'

‘Yes, I will go alone. They shall not say that I cannot yet do my own work as a man should do it. I stood up before him, the puny man who is called a bishop, and before her who makes herself great by his littleness, and I scorned them both to their faces. Though the shoes which I had on were all broken, as I myself could not but see when I stood, yet I was greater than they were with all their purple and fine linen.'

‘But, Josiah, my cousin will not be harsh to you.'

‘Well – and if he be not?'

‘Ill-usage you can bear; and violent ill-usage, such as that which Mrs Proudie allowed herself to exhibit, you can repay with interest; but kindness seems to be too heavy a burden for you.'

‘I will struggle. I will endeavour. I will speak but little, and, if possible, I will listen much. Now, my dear, I will write to this man, and you shall give me the address that is proper for him.' Then he wrote the letter, not accepting a word in the way of dictation from his wife, but ‘craving the great kindness of a short interview, for which he ventured to become a solicitor, urged thereto by his wife's assurance that one with whom he was connected by family ties would do as much as this for the possible preservation of the honour of the family.' In answer to this, Mr Toogood wrote back as follows:— ‘Dear
Mr Crawley, I will be at my office all Thursday morning next from ten to two, and will take care that you shan't be kept waiting for me above ten minutes. You parsons never like waiting. But hadn't you better come and breakfast with me and Maria at nine? then we'd have a talk as we walk to the office. Yours always, T
HOMAS
T
OOGOOD
.' And the letter was dated from the attorney's private house in Tavistock Square.

‘I am sure he means to be kind,' said Mrs Crawley.

‘Doubtless he means to be kind. But his kindness is rough – I will not say unmannerly, as the word would be harsh. I have never even seen the lady whom he calls Maria.'

‘She is his wife!'

‘So I would venture to suppose; but she is unknown to me. I will write again, and thank him, and say that I will be with him at ten to the moment.'

There were still many things to be settled before the journey could be made. Mr Crawley, in his first plan, proposed that he should go up by night mail train, travelling in the third class, having walked over to Silverbridge to meet it; that he should then walk about London from 5 a.m. to 10 a.m., and afterwards come down by an afternoon train to which a third class was also attached. But at last his wife persuaded him that such a task as that, performed in the middle of the winter, would be enough to kill any man, and that, if attempted, it would certainly kill him; and he consented at last to sleep the night in town – being specially moved thereto by discovering that he could, in conformity with this scheme, get in and out of the train at a station considerably nearer to him than Silverbridge, and that he could get a return-ticket at a third-class fare. The whole journey, he found, could be done for a pound, allowing him seven shillings for his night's expenses in London; and out of the resources of the family there were produced two sovereigns, so that in the event of accident he would not utterly be a castaway from want of funds.

So he started on his journey after an early dinner, almost hopeful through the new excitement of a journey to London, and his wife walked with him nearly as far as the station. ‘Do not reject my cousin's kindness,' were the last words she spoke.

‘For his professional kindness, if he will extend it to me, I will be most thankful,' he replied. She did not dare to say more; nor had she dared to write privately to her cousin, asking for any special help, lest by doing so she should seem to impugn the sufficiency and stability of her husband's judgment. He got up to town late at night, and having made inquiry of one of the porters, he hired a bed for himself in the neighbourhood of the railway station. Here he had a cup of tea and a morsel of bread-and-butter, and in the morning he breakfasted again on the same fare. ‘No, I have no luggage,' he had said to the girl at the public-house, who had asked him as to his travelling gear. ‘If luggage be needed as a certificate of respectability, I will pass on elsewhere,' said he. The girl stared, and assured him that she did not doubt his respectability. ‘I am a clergyman of the Church of England,' he had said, ‘but my circumstances prevent me from seeking a more expensive lodging.' They did their best to make him comfortable, and, I think, almost disappointed him in not heaping further misfortunes on his head.