The Last Chronicle of Barset (86 page)

‘I think I saw you in the Park riding?' he said.

‘Yes, I was there; we go nearly every day.'

‘I never ride; I was walking.'

‘It seems to me that the people don't go there to walk, but to stand still,' said Lily. ‘I cannot understand how so many people can bear to loiter about in that way – leaning on the rails and doing nothing.'

‘It is about as good as the riding, and costs less money. That is all that can be said for it. Do you live chiefly in town?'

‘Oh dear, no; I live altogether in the country. I'm only up here because a cousin is going to be married.'

‘Captain Dale, you mean – to Miss Dunstable?' said Fowler Pratt.

‘When they have been joined together in holy matrimony, I shall go down to the country, and never, I suppose, come up to London again.'

‘You do not like London?'

‘Not as a residence, I think,' said Lily. ‘But of course one's likings and dislikings on such a matter depend on circumstances. I live with my mother, and all my relatives live near us. Of course I like the country best, because they are there.'

‘Young ladies so often have a different way of looking at this subject. I shouldn't wonder if Miss Dunstable's views about it were altogether
of another sort. Young ladies generally expect to be taken away from their fathers and mothers, and uncles and aunts.'

‘But you see I expect to be left with mine,' said Lily. After that she turned away as much from Mr Fowler Pratt as she could, having taken an aversion to him. What business had he to talk to her about being taken away from her uncles and aunts? She had seen him with Mr Crosbie, and it might be possible that they were intimate friends. It might be that Mr Pratt was asking questions in Mr Crosbie's interest. Let that be as it might, she would answer no more questions from him further than ordinary good breeding should require of her.

‘She is a nice girl, certainly,' said Fowler Pratt to himself, as he walked home, ‘and I have no doubt would make a good, ordinary, everyday wife. But she is not such a paragon that a man should condescend to grovel in the dirt for her.'

That night Lily told Emily Dunstable the whole of Mr Crosbie's history as far as she knew it, and also explained her new aversion to Mr Fowler Pratt. ‘They are very great friends,' said Emily. ‘Bernard has told me so; and you may be sure that Mr Pratt knew the whole history before he came here. I am so sorry that my aunt asked him.'

‘It does not signify in the least,' said Lily. ‘Even if I were to meet Mr Crosbie I don't think I should make such a fool of myself again. As it is, I can only hope he did not see it.'

‘I am sure he did not.'

Then there was a pause, during which Lily sat with her face resting on both her hands. ‘It is wonderful how much he is altered,' she said at last.

‘Think how much he has suffered.'

‘I suppose I am altered as much, only I do not see it in myself.'

‘I don't know what you were, but I don't think you can have changed much. You no doubt have suffered too, but not as he has done.'

‘Oh, as for that, I have done very well. I think I'll go to bed now. The riding makes me so sleepy.'

It was at last arranged that the five clergymen selected should meet at Dr Tempest's house in Silverbridge to make inquiry and report to the bishop whether the circumstances connected with the cheque for twenty pounds were of such a nature as to make it incumbent on him to institute proceedings against Mr Crawley in the Court of Arches. Dr Tempest had acted upon the letter which he had received from the bishop, exactly as though there had been no meeting at the palace, no quarrel to the death between him and Mrs Proudie. He was a prudent man, gifted with the great power of holding his tongue, and had not spoken a word, even to his wife, of what had occurred. After such a victory our old friend the archdeacon would have blown his own trumpet loudly among his friends. Plumstead would have heard of it instantly, and the pæan would have been sung out in the neighbouring parishes of Eiderdown, Stogpingum, and St Ewolds. The High Street of Barchester would have known of it, and the very bedesmen in Hiram's Hospital would have told among themselves the terrible discomfiture of the bishop and his lady. But Dr Tempest spoke no word of it to anybody. He wrote letters to the two clergymen named by the bishop, and himself selected two others out of his own rural deanery, and suggested to them all a day at which a preliminary meeting should be held at his own house. The two who were invited by him were Mr Oriel, the rector of Greshamsbury, and Mr Robarts, the vicar of Framley. They all assented to the proposition, and on the day named assembled themselves at Silverbridge.

It was now April, and the judges were to come into Barchester before the end of the month. What then could be the use of this ecclesiastical inquiry exactly at the same time? Men and women declared that it was a double prosecution, and that a double prosecution for the same offence was a course of action opposed to the feelings and traditions of the country. Miss Anne Prettyman went so far as to say that it was unconstitutional, and Mary Walker declared
that no human being except Mrs Proudie would ever have been guilty of such cruelty. ‘Don't tell me about the bishop, John,' she said, ‘the bishop is a cypher.' ‘You may be sure Dr Tempest would not have a hand in it if it were not right,' said John Walker. ‘My dear Mr John,' said Anne Prettyman, ‘Dr Tempest is as hard as a bar of iron, and always was. But I am surprised that Mr Robarts should take a part in it.'

In the meantime, at the palace, Mrs Proudie had been reduced to learn what was going on from Mr Thumble. The bishop had never spoken a word to her respecting Mr Crawley since that terrible day on which Dr Tempest had witnessed his imbecility – having absolutely declined to answer when his wife had mentioned the subject. ‘You won't speak to me about it, my dear?' she had said to him, when he had thus declined, remonstrating more in sorrow than in anger. ‘No! I won't,' the bishop had replied; ‘there has been a great deal too much talking about it. It has broken my heart already, I know.' These were very bad days in the palace. Mrs Proudie affected to be satisfied with what was being done. She talked to Mr Thumble about Mr Crawley and the cheque, as though everything were arranged quite to her satisfaction – as though everything, indeed, had been arranged by herself. But everybody about the house could see that the manner of the woman was altogether altered. She was milder than usual with the servants and was almost too gentle in her usage of her husband. It seemed as though something had happened to frighten her and break her spirit, and it was whispered about through the palace that she was afraid that the bishop was dying. As for him, he hardly left his own sitting-room in these days, except when he joined the family at breakfast and at dinner. And in his study he did little or nothing. He would smile when his chaplain went to him, and give some trifling verbal directions; but for days he scarcely ever took a pen in his hands, and though he took up many books he read hardly a page. How often he told his wife in those days that he was broken-hearted, no one but his wife ever knew.

‘What has happened that you should speak like that?' she said to him once. ‘What has broken your heart?'

‘You,' he replied. ‘You; you have done it.'

‘Oh, Tom,' she said, going back into the memory of very far distant days in her nomenclature, ‘how can you speak to me so cruelly as that! That it should come to that between you and me, after all!'

‘Why did you not go away and leave me that day when I told you?'

‘Did you ever know a woman who liked to be turned out of a room in her own house?' said Mrs Proudie. When Mrs Proudie had condescended so far as this, it must be admitted that in those days there was great trouble in the palace.

Mr Thumble, on the day before he went to Silverbridge, asked for an audience with the bishop in order that he might receive instructions. He had been strictly desired to do this by Mrs Proudie, and had not dared to disobey her injunctions – thinking, however, himself, that his doing so was inexpedient. ‘I have got nothing to say to you about it; not a word,' said the bishop crossly. ‘I thought that perhaps you might like to see me before I started,' pleaded Mr Thumble very humbly. ‘I don't want to see you at all,' said the bishop; ‘you are going there to exercise your own judgment – if you have got any; and you ought not to come to me.' After that Mr Thumble began to think that Mrs Proudie was right, and that the bishop was near his dissolution.

Mr Thumble and Mr Quiverful went over to Silverbridge together in a gig, hired from ‘The Dragon of Wantly' – as to the cost of which there arose among them a not unnatural apprehension which amounted at last almost to dismay. ‘I don't mind it so much for once,' said Mr Quiverful, ‘but if many such meetings are necessary, I for one can't afford it, and I won't do it. A man with my family can't allow himself to be money out of pocket in that way.' ‘It is hard,' said Mr Thumble. ‘She ought to pay it herself, out of her own pocket,' said Mr Quiverful. He had had many concerns with the palace when Mrs Proudie was in the full swing of her dominion, and had not as yet begun to suspect that there might possibly be a change.

Mr Oriel and Mr Robarts were already sitting with Dr Tempest when the other two clergymen were shown into the room. When the first greetings were over luncheon was announced, and while they were eating not a word was said about Mr Crawley. The ladies of the family were not present, and the five clergymen sat round the table
alone. It would have been difficult to have got together five gentlemen less likely to act with one mind and one spirit – and perhaps it was all the better for Mr Crawley that it should be so. Dr Tempest himself was a man peculiarly capable of exercising the functions of a judge in such a matter, had he sat alone as a judge; but he was one who would be almost sure to differ from others who sat as equal assessors with him. Mr Oriel was a gentleman at all points; but he was very shy, very reticent, and altogether uninstructed in the ordinary daily intercourse of man with man. Anyone knowing him might have predicted of him that he would be sure on such an occasion as this to be found floundering in a sea of doubts. Mr Quiverful was the father of a large family, whose whole life had been devoted to fighting a cruel world on behalf of his wife and children. That fight he had fought bravely; but it had left him no energy for any other business. Mr Thumble was a poor creature – so poor a creature that, in spite of a small restless ambition to be doing something, he was almost cowed by the hard lines of Dr Tempest's brow. The Rev. Mark Robarts was a man of the world, and a clever fellow, and did not stand in awe of anybody – unless it might be, in a very moderate degree, of his patrons the Luftons, whom he was bound to respect; but his cleverness was not the cleverness needed by a judge. He was essentially a partisan, and would be sure to vote against the bishop in such a matter as this now before him. There was a palace faction in the diocese, and an anti-palace faction. Mr Thumble and Mr Quiverful belonged to one, and Mr Oriel and Mr Robarts to the other. Mr Thumble was too weak to stick to his faction against the strength of such a man as Dr Tempest. Mr Quiverful would be too indifferent to do so – unless his interest was concerned. Mr Oriel would be too conscientious to regard his own side on such an occasion as this. But Mark Robarts would be sure to support his friends and oppose his enemies, let the case be what it might. ‘Now, gentlemen, if you please, we will go into the other room,' said Dr Tempest. They went into the other room, and there they found five chairs arranged for them round the table. Not a word had as yet been said about Mr Crawley, and no one of the four strangers knew whether Mr Crawley was to appear before them on that day or not.

‘Gentlemen,' said Dr Tempest, seating himself at once in an armchair placed at the middle of the table, ‘I think it will be well to explain to you at first what, as I regard the matter, is the extent of the work which we are called upon to perform. It is of its nature very disagreeable. It cannot but be so, let it be ever so limited. Here is a brother clergyman and a gentleman, living among us, and doing his duty, as we are told, in a most exemplary manner; and suddenly we hear that he is accused of theft. The matter is brought before the magistrates, of whom I myself was one, and he was committed for trial. There is therefore primâ facie evidence of his guilt. But I do not think that we need go into the question of his guilt at all.' When he said this, the other four all looked up at him in astonishment. ‘I thought that we had been summoned here for that purpose,' said Mr Robarts. ‘Not at all, as I take it,' said the doctor. ‘Were we to commence any such inquiry, the jury would have given their verdict before we could come to any conclusion; and it would be impossible for us to oppose that verdict, whether it declares this unfortunate gentleman to be innocent or to be guilty. If the jury shall say that he is innocent, there is an end of the matter altogether. He would go back to his parish amidst the sympathy and congratulations of his friends. That is what we should all wish.'

‘Of course it is,' said Mr Robarts. They all declared that was their desire, as a matter of course; and Mr Thumble said it louder than anyone else.

‘But if he be found guilty, then will come that difficulty to the bishop, in which we are bound to give him any assistance within our power.'

‘Of course we are,' said Mr Thumble, who, having heard his own voice once, and having liked the sound, thought that he might creep into a little importance by using it on any occasion that opened itself for him.

‘If you will allow me, sir, I will venture to state my views as shortly as I can,' said Dr Tempest. ‘That may perhaps be the most expeditious course for us all in the end.'

‘Oh, certainly,' said Mr Thumble. ‘I didn't mean to interrupt.'