The Last Chronicle of Barset (80 page)

‘Oh, no, Lady Lufton; I have no feeling of that kind.'

‘I have asked your daughter and Mrs Robarts to go out because I can speak more easily to you alone. I wish I could teach you to trust me.'

‘I do trust you.'

‘As a friend, I mean – as a real friend. If it should be the case, Mrs Crawley, that a jury should give a verdict against your husband –
what will you do then? Perhaps I ought not to suppose that it is possible.'

‘Of course we know that it is possible,' said Mrs Crawley. Her voice was stern, and there was in it a tone almost of offence. As she spoke she did not look at her visitor, but sat with her face averted and her arms akimbo on the table.

‘Yes – it is possible,' said Lady Lufton. ‘I suppose there is not one in the county who does not truly wish that it may not be so. But it is right to be prepared for all alternatives. In such case have you thought what you will do?'

‘I do not know what they would do to him,' said she.

‘I suppose that for some time he would be –'

‘Put in prison,' said Mrs Crawley, speaking very quickly, bringing out the words with a sharp eagerness that was quite unusual to her. ‘They will send him to gaol. Is it not so, Lady Lufton?'

‘I suppose it would be so; not for long I should hope; but I presume that such would be the sentence for some short period.'

‘And I might not go with him?'

‘No, that would be impossible.'

‘And the house, and the living; would they let him have them again when he came out?'

‘Ah; that I cannot say. That will depend much, probably, on what these clergymen will report. I hope he will not put himself in opposition to them.'

‘I do not know. I cannot say. It is probable that he may do so. It is not easy for a man so injured as he has been, and one at the same time so great in intelligence, to submit himself gently to such inquiries. When ill is being done to himself or others he is very prone to oppose it.'

‘But these gentlemen do not wish to do him ill, Mrs Crawley.'

‘I cannot say. I do not know. When I think of it I see that there is nothing but ruin on every side. What is the use of talking of it? Do not be angry, Lady Lufton, if I say that it is of no use.'

‘But I desire to be of use – of real use. If it should be the case, Mrs Crawley, that your husband should be – detained at Barchester –'

‘You mean imprisoned, Lady Lufton.'

‘Yes, I mean imprisoned. If it should be so, then do you bring yourself and your children – all of them – over to Framley, and I will find a home for you while he is lost to you.'

‘Oh, Lady Lufton; I could not do that.'

‘Yes, you can. You have not heard me yet. It would not be a comfort to you in such a home as that to sit at table with people who are partly strangers to you. But there is a cottage nearly adjoining to the house, which you shall have all to yourself. The bailiff lived in it once, and others have lived in it who belong to the place; but it is empty now and it shall be made comfortable.' The tears were now running down Mrs Crawley's face, so that she could not answer a word. ‘Of course it is my son's property, and not mine, but he has commissioned me to say that it is most heartily at your service. He begs that in such case you will occupy it. And I beg the same. And your old friend Lucy has desired me also to ask you in her name.'

‘Lady Lufton, I could not do that,' said Mrs Crawley through her tears.

‘You must think better of it, my dear. I do not scruple to advise you, because I am older than you, and have experience of the world.' This, I think, taken in the ordinary sense of the words, was a boast on the part of Lady Lufton, for which but little true pretence existed. Lady Lufton's experience of the world at large was not perhaps extensive. Nevertheless she knew what one woman might offer to another, and what one woman might receive from another. ‘You would be better over with me, my dear, than you could be elsewhere. You will not misunderstand me if I say that, under such circumstances, it would do your husband good that you and your children should be under our protection during his period of temporary seclusion. We stand well in the county. Perhaps I ought not to say so, but I do not know how otherwise to explain myself; and when it is known, by the bishop and others, that you have come to us during that sad time, it will be understood that we think well of Mr Crawley, in spite of anything that a jury may say of him. Do you see that, my dear? And we do think well of him. I have known of your husband for many years, though I have not personally had the pleasure of much acquaintance
with him. He was over at Framley once at my request, and I had great occasion then to respect him.
¹
I do respect him; and I shall feel grateful to him if he will allow you to put yourself and your children under my wing, as being an old woman, should this misfortune fall upon him. We hope that it will not fall upon him; but it is always well to be provided for the worst.'

In this way Lady Lufton at last made her speech and opened out the proposal with which she had come laden to Hogglestock. While she was speaking Mrs Crawley's shoulder was still turned to her; but the speaker could see that the quick tears were pouring themselves down the cheeks of the woman whom she addressed. There was a downright honesty of thorough-going well-wishing charity about the proposition which overcame Mrs Crawley altogether. She did not feel for a moment that it would be possible for her to go to Framley in such circumstances as those which had been suggested. As she thought of it all at the present moment, it seemed to her that her only appropriate home during the terrible period which was coming upon her, would be under the walls of the prison in which her husband would be incarcerated. But she fully appreciated the kindness which had suggested a measure, which, if carried into execution, would make the outside world feel that her husband was respected in the county, despite the degradation to which he was subjected. She felt all this, but her heart was too full to speak.

‘Say that it shall be so, my dear,' continued Lady Lufton. ‘Just give me one nod of assent, and the cottage shall be ready for you should it so chance that you should require it.'

But Mrs Crawley did not give the nod of assent. With her face still averted, while the tears were still running down her cheeks, she muttered but a word or two. ‘I could not do that, Lady Lufton; I could not do that.'

‘You know at any rate what my wishes are, and as you become calmer you will think of it. There is quite time enough, and I am speaking of an alternative which may never happen. My dear friend Mrs Robarts, who is now with your daughter, wishes Miss Crawley to go over to Framley Parsonage while this inquiry among the clergymen is going on. They all say it is the most ridiculous thing in
the world – this inquiry. But the bishop you know is so silly! We all think that if Miss Crawley would go for a week or so to Framley Parsonage, that it will show how happy we all are to receive her. It should be while Mr Robarts is employed in his part of the work. What do you say, Mrs Crawley? We at Framley are all clearly of opinion that it will be best that it should be known that the people in the county uphold your husband. Miss Crawley would be back, you know, before the trial comes on. I hope you will let her come, Mrs Crawley?'

But even to this proposition Mrs Crawley could give no assent, though she expressed no direct dissent. As regarded her own feelings, she would much have preferred to have been left to live through her misery alone; but she could not but appreciate the kindness which endeavoured to throw over her and hers in their trouble the ægis of first-rate county respectability. She was saved from the necessity of giving a direct answer to this suggestion by the return of Mrs Robarts and Grace herself. The door was opened slowly, and they crept into the room as though they were aware that their presence would be hardly welcomed.

‘Is the carriage there, Fanny?' said Lady Lufton. ‘It is almost time for us to think of returning home.'

Mrs Robarts said that the carriage was standing within twenty yards of the door.

‘Then I think we will make a start,' said Lady Lufton. ‘Have you succeeded in persuading Miss Crawley to come over to Framley in April?'

Mrs Robarts made no answer to this, but looked at Grace; and Grace looked down upon the ground.

‘I have spoken to Mrs Crawley,' said Lady Lufton, ‘and they will think of it.' Then the two ladies took their leave, and walked out to their carriage.

‘What does she say about your plan?' Mrs Robarts asked.

‘She is too broken-hearted to say anything,' Lady Lufton answered. ‘Should it happen that he is convicted, we must come over and take her. She will have no power then to resist us in anything.'

*

The picture still progressed up in Mrs Dobbs Broughton's room, and the secret was still kept, or supposed to be kept. Miss Van Siever was, at any rate, certain that her mother had heard nothing of it, and Mrs Broughton reported from day to day that her husband had not as yet interfered. Nevertheless, there was in these days a great gloom upon the Dobbs Broughton household, so much so that Conway Dalrymple had more than once suggested to Mrs Broughton that the work should be discontinued. But the mistress of the house would not consent to this. In answer to these offers, she was wont to declare in somewhat mysterious language, that any misery coming upon herself was matter of moment to nobody – hardly even to herself, as she was quite prepared to encounter moral and social death without delay, if not absolute physical demise; as to which latter alternative, she seemed to think that even that might not be so far distant as some people chose to believe. What was the cause of the gloom over the house neither Conway Dalrymple nor Miss Van Siever understood, and to speak the truth Mrs Broughton did not quite understand the cause herself. She knew well enough, no doubt, that her husband came home always sullen, and sometimes tipsy, and that things were not going well in the City. She had never understood much about the City, being satisfied with an assurance that had come to her in early days from her friends, that there was a mine of wealth in Hook Court, from whence would always come for her use, house and furniture, a carriage and horses, dresses and jewels, which latter, if not quite real, should be manufactured of the best sham substitute known. Soon after her brilliant marriage with Mr Dobbs Broughton, she had discovered that the carriage and horses, and the sham jewels, did not lift her so completely into a terrestrial paradise as she had taught herself to expect that they would do. Her brilliant drawing-room, with Dobbs Broughton for a companion, was not an elysium. But though she had found out early in her married life that something
was still wanting to her, she had by no means confessed to herself that the carriage and horses and sham jewels were bad, and it can hardly be said that she had repented. She had endeavoured to patch up matters with a little romance, and then had fallen upon Conway Dalrymple – meaning no harm. Indeed, love with her, as it never could have meant much good, was not likely to mean much harm. That somebody should pretend to love her, to which pretence she might reply by a pretence of friendship – this was the little excitement which she craved, and by which she had once flattered herself that something of an elysium might yet be created for her. Mr Dobbs Broughton had unreasonably expressed a dislike to this innocent amusement – very unreasonably, knowing, as he ought to have known, that he himself did so very little towards providing the necessary elysium by any qualities of his own. For a few weeks this interference from her husband had enhanced the amusement, giving an additional excitement to the game. She felt herself to be a woman misunderstood and ill-used; and to some women there is nothing so charming as a little mild ill-usage, which does not interfere with their creature comforts, with their clothes, or their carriage, or their sham jewels; but suffices to afford them the indulgence of a grievance. Of late, however, Mr Dobbs Broughton had become a little too rough in his language, and things had gone uncomfortably. She suspected that Conway Dalrymple was not the only cause of all this. She had an idea that Mr Musselboro and Mrs Van Siever had it in their power to make themselves unpleasant, and that they were exercising this power. Of his business in the City her husband never spoke to her, nor she to him. Her own fortune had been very small, some couple of thousand pounds or so, and she conceived that she had no pretext on which she could, unasked, interrogate him about his money. She had no knowledge that marriage of itself had given her the right to such interference; and had such knowledge been hers she would have had no desire to interfere. She hoped that the carriage and sham jewels would be continued to her; but she did not know how to frame any question on the subject. Touching the other difficulty – the Conway Dalrymple difficulty – she had her ideas. The tenderness of her friendship had been trodden upon and outraged by the rough
foot of an overbearing husband, and she was ill-used. She would obey. It was becoming to her as a wife that she should submit. She would give up Conway Dalrymple, and would induce him – in spite of his violent attachment to herself – to take a wife. She herself would choose a wife for him. She herself would, with suicidal hands, destroy the romance of her own life, since an overbearing, brutal husband demanded that it should be destroyed. She would sacrifice her own feelings, and do all in her power to bring Conway Dalrymple and Clara Van Siever together. If, after that, some poet did not immortalise her friendship in Byronic verse, she certainly would not get her due. Perhaps Conway Dalrymple would himself become a poet in order that this might be done properly. For it must be understood that, though she expected Conway Dalrymple to marry, she expected also that he should be Byronically wretched after his marriage on account of his love for herself.