LXV. MISS VAN SIEVER MAKES HER CHOICE…

LXV. MISS VAN SIEVER MAKES HER CHOICE

Clara Van Siever did stay all that night with Mrs. Broughton. In the course of the evening she received a note from her mother, in which she was told to come home to breakfast. "You can go back to her afterwards," said Mrs. Van Siever; "and I will see her myself in the course of the day, if she will let me." The note was written on a scrap of paper, and had neither beginning nor end; but this was after the manner of Mrs. Van Siever, and Clara was not in the least hurt or surprised. "My mother will come to see you after breakfast," said Clara, as she was taking her leave.

"Oh, goodness! And what shall I say to her?"

"You will have to say very little. She will speak to you."

"I suppose everything belongs to her now," said Mrs. Broughton.

"I know nothing about that. I never do know anything of mamma's money matters."

"Of course she'll turn me out. I do not mind a bit about that,--only I hope she'll let me have some mourning." Then she made Clara promise that she would return as soon as possible, having in Clara's presence overcome all that feeling of dislike which she had expressed to Conway Dalrymple. Mrs. Broughton was generally affectionate to those who were near to her. Had Musselboro forced himself into her presence, she would have become quite confidential with him before he left her.

"Mr. Musselboro will be here directly," said Mrs. Van Siever, as she was starting for Mrs. Broughton's house. "You had better tell him to come to me there; or, stop,--perhaps you had better keep him here till I come back. Tell him to be sure and wait for me."

"Very well, mamma. I suppose he can wait below?"

"Why should he wait below?" said Mrs. Van Siever, very angrily.

Clara had made the uncourteous proposition to her mother with the express intention of making it understood that she would have nothing to say to him. "He can come upstairs if he likes it," said Clara; "and I will go up to my room."

"If you fight shy of him, miss, you may remember this,--that you will fight shy of me at the same time."

"I am sorry for that, mamma, for I shall certainly fight shy of Mr. Musselboro."

"You can do as you please. I can't force you, and I shan't try. But I can make your life a burden to you,--and I will. What's the matter with the man that he isn't good enough for you? He's as good as any of your own people ever was. I hate your new-fangled airs,--with pictures painted on the sly, and all the rest of it. I hate such ways. See what they have brought that wretched man to, and the poor fool his wife. If you go and marry that painter, some of these days you'll be very much like what she is. Only I doubt whether he has got courage enough to blow his brains out." With these comfortable words, the old woman took herself off, leaving Clara to entertain her lover as best she might choose.

Mr. Musselboro was not long in coming, and, in accordance with Mrs. Van Siever's implied directions to her daughter, was shown up into the drawing-room. Clara gave him her mother's message in a very few words. "I was expressly told, sir, to ask you to stop, if it is not inconvenient, as she very much wants to see you." Mr. Musselboro declared that of course he would stop. He was only too happy to have an opportunity of remaining in such delightful society. As Clara answered nothing to this, he went on to say that he hoped that the melancholy occasion of Mrs. Van Siever's visit to Mrs. Broughton might make a long absence necessary,--he did not, indeed, care how long it might be. He had recovered now from that paleness, and that want of gloves and jewellery which had befallen him on the previous day immediately after the sight he had seen in the City. Clara made no answer to the last speech, but, putting some things together in her work-basket, prepared to leave the room. "I hope you are not going to leave me?" he said, in a voice that was intended to convey much of love, and something of melancholy.

"I am so shocked by what has happened, Mr. Musselboro, that I am altogether unfit for conversation. I was with poor Mrs. Broughton last night, and I shall return to her when mamma comes home."

"It is sad, certainly; but what was there to be expected? If you'd only seen how he used to go on." To this Clara made no answer. "Don't go yet," said he; "there is something that I want to say to you. There is, indeed."

Clara Van Siever was a young woman whose presence of mind rarely deserted her. It occurred to her now that she must undergo on some occasion the nuisance of a direct offer from this man, and that she could have no better opportunity of answering him after her own fashion than the present. Her mother was absent, and the field was her own. And, moreover, it was a point in her favour that the tragedy which had so lately occurred, and to which she had just now alluded, would give her a fair excuse for additional severity. At such a moment no man could, she told herself, be justified in making an offer of his love, and therefore she might rebuke him with the less remorse. I wonder whether the last words which Conway Dalrymple had spoken to her stung her conscience as she thought of this! She had now reached the door, and was standing close to it. As Mr. Musselboro did not at once begin, she encouraged him. "If you have anything special to tell me, of course I will hear you," she said.

"Miss Clara," he began, rising from his chair, and coming into the middle of the room, "I think you know what my wishes are." Then he put his hand upon his heart. "And your respected mother is the same way of thinking. It's that that emboldens me to be so sudden. Not but what my heart has been yours and yours only all along, before the old lady so much as mentioned it." Clara would give him no assistance, not even the aid of a negative, but stood there quite passive, with her hand on the door. "Since I first had the pleasure of seeing you I have always said to myself, 'Augustus Musselboro, that is the woman for you, if you can only win her.' But then there was so much against me,--wasn't there?" She would not even take advantage of this by assuring him that there certainly always had been much against him, but allowed him to go on till he should run out all the length of his tether. "I mean, of course, in the way of money," he continued. "I hadn't much that I could call my own when your respected mamma first allowed me to become acquainted with you. But it's different now; and I think I may say that I'm all right in that respect. Poor Broughton's going in this way will make it a deal smoother to me; and I may say that I and your mamma will be all in all to each other now about money." Then he stopped.

"I don't quite understand what you mean by all this," said Clara.

"I mean that there isn't a more devoted fellow in all London than what I am to you." Then he was about to go down on one knee, but it occurred to him that it would not be convenient to kneel to a lady who would stand quite close to the door. "One and one, if they're put together well, will often make more than two, and so they shall with us," said Musselboro, who began to feel that it might be expedient to throw a little spirit into his words.

"If you have done," said Clara, "you may as well hear me for a minute. And I hope you will have sense to understand that I really mean what I say."

"I hope you will remember what are your mamma's wishes."

"Mamma's wishes have no influence whatsoever with me in such matters as this. Mamma's arrangements with you are for her own convenience, and I am not a party to them. I do not know anything about mamma's money, and I do not want to know. But under no possible circumstances will I consent to become your wife. Nothing that mamma could say or do would induce me even to think of it. I hope you will be man enough to take this for an answer, and say nothing more about it."

"But, Miss Clara--"

"It's no good your Miss Claraing me, sir. What I have said you may be sure I mean. Good-morning, sir." Then she opened the door, and left him.

"By Jove, she is a Tartar," said Musselboro to himself, when he was alone. "They're both Tartars, but the younger is the worse." Then he began to speculate whether Fortune was not doing the best for him in so arranging that he might have the use of the Tartar-mother's money without binding himself to endure for life the Tartar qualities of the daughter.

It had been understood that Clara was to wait at home till her mother should return before she again went across to Mrs. Broughton. At about eleven Mrs. Van Siever came in, and her daughter intercepted her at the dining-room door before she had made her way upstairs to Mr. Musselboro. "How is she, mamma?" said Clara with something of hypocrisy in her assumed interest for Mrs. Broughton.

"She is an idiot," said Mrs. Van Siever.

"She has had a terrible misfortune!"

"That is no reason why she should be an idiot; and she is heartless too. She never cared a bit for him;--not a bit."

"He was a man whom it was impossible to care for much. I will go to her now, mamma."

"Where is Musselboro?"

"He is upstairs."

"Well?"

"Mamma, that is quite out of the question. Quite. I would not marry him to save myself from starving."

"You do not know what starving is yet, my dear. Tell me the truth at once. Are you engaged to that painter?" Clara paused a moment before she answered, not hesitating as to the expediency of telling her mother any truth on the matter in question, but doubting what the truth might really be. Could she say that she was engaged to Mr. Dalrymple, or could she say that she was not? "If you tell me a lie, miss, I'll have you put out of the house."

"I certainly shall not tell you a lie. Mr. Dalrymple has asked me to be his wife, and I have made him no answer. If he asks me again I shall accept him."

"Then I order you not to leave this house," said Mrs. Van Siever.

"Surely I may go to Mrs. Broughton?"

"I order you not to leave this house," said Mrs. Van Siever again,--and thereupon she stalked out of the dining-room and went upstairs. Clara had been standing with her bonnet on, ready dressed to go out, and the mother made no attempt to send the daughter up to her room. That she did not expect to be obeyed in her order may be inferred from the first words which she spoke to Mr. Musselboro. "She has gone off to that man now. You are no good, Musselboro, at this kind of work."

"You see, Mrs. Van, he had the start of me so much. And then being at the West End, and all that, gives a man such a standing with a girl!"

"Bother!" said Mrs. Van Siever, as her quick ear caught the sound of the closing hall-door. Clara had stood a minute or two to consider, and then had resolved that she would disobey her mother. She tried to excuse her own conduct to her own satisfaction as she went. "There are some things," she said, "which even a daughter cannot hear from her mother. If she chooses to close the door against me, she must do so."

She found Mrs. Broughton still in bed, and could not but agree with her mother that the woman was both silly and heartless.

"Your mother says that everything must be sold up," said Mrs. Broughton.

"At any rate you would hardly choose to remain here," said Clara.

"But I hope she'll let me have my own things. A great many of them are altogether my own. I know there's a law that a woman may have her own things, even though her husband has,--done what poor Dobbs did. And I think she was hard upon me about the mourning. They never do mind giving credit for such things as that, and though there is a bill due to Mrs. Morell now, she has had a deal of Dobbs's money." Clara promised her that she should have mourning to her heart's content. "I will see to that myself," she said.

Presently there was a knock at the door, and the discreet head-servant beckoned Clara out of the room. "You are not going away," said Mrs. Broughton. Clara promised her that she would not go without coming back again. "He will be here soon, I suppose, and perhaps you had better see him; though, for the matter of that, perhaps you had better not, because he is so much cut up about poor Dobbs." The servant had come up to tell Clara that the "he" in question was at the present moment waiting for her below stairs.

The first words which passed between Dalrymple and Clara had reference to the widow. He told her what he had learned in the City,--that Broughton's property had never been great, and that his personal liabilities at the time of his death were supposed to be small. But he had fallen lately altogether into the hands of Musselboro, who, though penniless himself in the way of capital, was backed by the money of Mrs. Van Siever. There was no doubt that Broughton had destroyed himself in the manner told by Musselboro, but the opinion in the City was that he had done so rather through the effects of drink than because of his losses. As to the widow, Dalrymple thought that Mrs. Van Siever, or nominally, perhaps, Musselboro, might be induced to settle an annuity on her, if she would give up everything quietly. "I doubt whether your mother is not responsible for everything Broughton owed when he died,--for everything, that is, in the way of business; and if so, Mrs. Broughton will certainly have a claim upon the estate." It occurred to Dalrymple once or twice that he was talking to Clara about Mrs. Van Siever as though he and Clara were more closely bound together than were Clara and her mother; but Clara seemed to take this in good part, and was as solicitous as was he himself in the matter of Mrs. Broughton's interest.

Then the discreet head-servant knocked and told them that Mrs. Broughton was very anxious to see Mr. Dalrymple, but that Miss Van Siever was on no account to go away. She was up, and in her dressing-gown, and had gone into the sitting-room. "I will come directly," said Dalrymple, and the discreet head-servant retired.

"Clara," said Conway, "I do not know when I may have another chance of asking for an answer to my question. You heard my question?"

"Yes, I heard it."

"And will you answer it?"

"If you wish it, I will."

"Of course I wish it. You understood what I said upon the doorstep yesterday?"

"I don't think much of that; men say those things so often. What you said before was serious, I suppose?"

"Serious! Heavens! do you think that I am joking?"

"Mamma wants me to marry Mr. Musselboro."

"He is a vulgar brute. It would be impossible."

"It is impossible; but mamma is very obstinate. I have no fortune of my own,--not a shilling. She told me to-day that she would turn me into the street. She forbade me to come here, thinking I should meet you; but I came, because I had promised Mrs. Broughton. I am sure that she will never give me one shilling."

Dalrymple paused for a moment. It was certainly true that he had regarded Clara Van Siever as an heiress, and had at first been attracted to her because he thought it expedient to marry an heiress. But there had since come something beyond that, and there was perhaps less of regret than most men would have felt as he gave up his golden hopes. He took her into his arms and kissed her, and called her his own. "Now we understand each other," he said.

"If you wish it to be so."

"I do wish it."

"And I shall tell my mother to-day that I am engaged to you,--unless she refuses to see me. Go to Mrs. Broughton now. I feel that we are almost cruel to be thinking of ourselves in this house at such a time." Upon this Dalrymple went, and Clara Van Siever was left to her reflections. She had never before had a lover. She had never had even a friend whom she loved and trusted. Her life had been passed at school till she was nearly twenty, and since then she had been vainly endeavouring to accommodate herself and her feelings to her mother. Now she was about to throw herself into the absolute power of a man who was nearly a stranger to her! But she did love him, as she had never loved any one else;--and then, on the other side, there was Mr. Musselboro!

Dalrymple was upstairs for an hour, and Clara did not see him again before he left the house. It was clear to her, from Mrs. Broughton's first words, that Conway had told her what had passed. "Of course I shall never see anything more of either of you now?" said Mrs. Broughton.

"I should say that probably you will see a great deal of us both."

"There are some people," said Mrs. Broughton, "who can do well for their friends, but can never do well for themselves. I am one of them. I saw at once how great a thing it would be for both of you to bring you two together,--especially for you, Clara; and therefore I did it. I may say that I never had it out of my mind for months past. Poor Dobbs misunderstood what I was doing. God knows how far that may have brought about what has happened."

"Oh, Mrs. Broughton!"

"Of course he could not be blind to one thing;--nor was I. I mention it now because it is right, but I shall never, never allude to it again. Of course he saw, and I saw, that Conway--was attached to me. Poor Conway meant no harm. I was aware of that. But there was the terrible fact. I knew at once that the only cure for him was a marriage with some girl that he could respect. Admiring you as I do, I immediately resolved on bringing you two together. My dear, I have been successful, and I heartily trust that you may be happier than Maria Broughton."

Miss Van Siever knew the woman, understood all the facts, and pitying the condition of the wretched creature, bore all this without a word of rebuke. She scorned to put out her strength against one who was in truth so weak.

LXVI. REQUIESCAT IN PACE

Things were very gloomy at the palace. It has been already said that for many days after Dr. Tempest's visit to Barchester the intercourse between the bishop and Mrs. Proudie had not been of a pleasant nature. He had become so silent, so sullen, and so solitary in his ways, that even her courage had been almost cowed, and for a while she had condescended to use gentler measures, with the hope that she might thus bring her lord round to his usual state of active submission; or perhaps, if we strive to do her full justice, we may say of her that her effort was made conscientiously, with the idea of inducing him to do his duty with proper activity. For she was a woman not without a conscience, and by no means indifferent to the real service which her husband, as bishop of the diocese, was bound to render to the affairs of the Church around her. Of her own struggles after personal dominion she was herself unconscious; and no doubt they gave her, when recognized and acknowledged by herself, many stabs to her inner self, of which no single being in the world knew anything. And now, as after a while she failed in producing any amelioration in the bishop's mood, her temper also gave way, and things were becoming very gloomy and very unpleasant.

The bishop and his wife were at present alone in the palace. Their married daughter and her husband had left them, and their unmarried daughter was also away. How far the bishop's mood may have produced this solitude in the vast house I will not say. Probably Mrs. Proudie's state of mind may have prevented her from having other guests in the place of those who were gone. She felt herself to be almost disgraced in the eyes of all those around her by her husband's long absence from the common rooms of the house and by his dogged silence at meals. It was better, she thought, that they two should be alone in the palace.

Her own efforts to bring him back to something like life, to some activity of mind if not of body, were made constantly; and when she failed, as she did fail day after day, she would go slowly to her own room, and lock her door, and look back in her solitude at all the days of her life. She had agonies in these minutes of which no one near her knew anything. She would seize with her arm the part of the bed near which she would stand, and hold by it, grasping it, as though she were afraid to fall; and then, when it was at the worst with her, she would go to her closet,--a closet that no eyes ever saw unlocked but her own,--and fill for herself and swallow some draught; and then she would sit down with the Bible before her, and read it sedulously. She spent hours every day with her Bible before her, repeating to herself whole chapters, which she almost knew by heart.

It cannot be said that she was a bad woman, though she had in her time done an indescribable amount of evil. She had endeavoured to do good, failing partly by ignorance and partly from the effects of an unbridled, ambitious temper. And now, even amidst her keenest sufferings, her ambition was by no means dead. She still longed to rule the diocese by means of her husband,--but was made to pause and hesitate by the unwonted mood that had fallen upon him. Before this, on more than one occasion, and on one very memorable occasion, he had endeavoured to combat her. He had fought with her, striving to put her down. He had failed, and given up the hope of any escape for himself in that direction. On those occasions her courage had never quailed for a moment. While he openly struggled to be master, she could openly struggle to be mistress,--and could enjoy the struggle. But nothing like this moodiness had ever come upon him before.

She had yielded to it for many days, striving to coax him by little softnesses of which she herself had been ashamed as she practised them. They had served her nothing, and at last she determined that something else must be done. If only for his sake, to keep some life in him, something else must be done. Were he to continue as he was now, he must give up his diocese, or, at any rate, declare himself too ill to keep the working of it in his own hands. How she hated Mr. Crawley for all the sorrow that he had brought upon her and her house!

And it was still the affair of Mr. Crawley which urged her on to further action. When the bishop received Mr. Crawley's letter he said nothing of it to her; but he handed it over to his chaplain. The chaplain, fearing to act upon it himself, handed it to Mr. Thumble, whom he knew to be one of the bishop's commission, and Mr. Thumble, equally fearing responsibility in the present state of affairs at the palace, found himself obliged to consult Mrs. Proudie. Mrs. Proudie had no doubt as to what should be done. The man had abdicated his living, and of course some provision must be made for the services. She would again make an attempt upon her husband, and therefore she went into his room holding Mr. Crawley's letter in her hand.

"My dear," she said, "here is Mr. Crawley's letter. I suppose you have read it?"

"Yes," said the bishop; "I have read it."

"And what will you do about it? Something must be done."

"I don't know," said he. He did not even look at her as he spoke. He had not turned his eyes upon her since she had entered the room.

"But, bishop, it is a letter that requires to be acted upon at once. We cannot doubt that the man is doing right at last. He is submitting himself where his submission is due; but his submission will be of no avail unless you take some action upon his letter. Do you not think that Mr. Thumble had better go over?"

"No, I don't. I think Mr. Thumble had better stay where he is," said the irritated bishop.

"What, then, would you wish to have done?"

"Never mind," said he.

"But, bishop, that is nonsense," said Mrs. Proudie, adding something of severity to the tone of her voice.

"No, it isn't nonsense," said he. Still he did not look at her, nor had he done so for a moment since she had entered the room. Mrs. Proudie could not bear this, and as her anger became strong within her breast, she told herself that she would be wrong to bear it. She had tried what gentleness would do, and she had failed. It was now imperatively necessary that she should resort to sterner measures. She must make him understand that he must give her authority to send Mr. Thumble to Hogglestock.

"Why do you not turn round and speak to me properly?" she said.

"I do not want to speak to you at all," the bishop answered.

This was very bad;--almost anything would be better than this. He was sitting now over the fire, with his elbows on his knees, and his face buried in his hands. She had gone round the room so as to face him, and was now standing almost over him, but still she could not see his countenance. "This will not do at all," she said. "My dear, do you know that you are forgetting yourself altogether?"

"I wish I could forget myself."

"That might be all very well if you were in a position in which you owed no service to any one; or, rather, it would not be well then, but the evil would not be so manifest. You cannot do your duty in the diocese if you continue to sit there doing nothing, with your head upon your hands. Why do you not rally, and get to your work like a man?"

"I wish you would go away and leave me," he said.

"No, bishop, I will not go away and leave you. You have brought yourself to such a condition that it is my duty as your wife to stay by you; and if you neglect your duty, I will not neglect mine."

"It was you that brought me to it."

"No, sir, that is not true. I did not bring you to it."

"It is the truth." And now he got up and looked at her. For a moment he stood upon his legs, and then again he sat down with his face turned towards her. "It is the truth. You have brought on me such disgrace that I cannot hold up my head. You have ruined me. I wish I were dead; and it is all through you that I am driven to wish it."

Of all that she had suffered in her life this was the worst. She clasped both her hands to her side as she listened to him, and for a minute or two she made no reply. When he ceased from speaking he again put his elbows on his knees and again buried his face in his hands. What had she better do, or how was it expedient that she should treat him? At this crisis the whole thing was so important to her that she would have postponed her own ambition and would have curbed her temper had she thought that by doing so she might in any degree have benefited him. But it seemed to her that she could not rouse him by conciliation. Neither could she leave him as he was. Something must be done. "Bishop," she said, "the words that you speak are sinful, very sinful."

"You have made them sinful," he replied.

"I will not hear that from you. I will not indeed. I have endeavoured to do my duty by you, and I do not deserve it. I am endeavouring to do my duty now, and you must know that it would ill become me to remain quiescent while you are in such a state. The world around you is observing you, and knows that you are not doing your work. All I want of you is that you should arouse yourself, and go to your work."

"I could do my work very well," he said, "if you were not here."

"I suppose, then, you wish that I were dead?" said Mrs. Proudie. To this he made no reply, nor did he stir himself. How could flesh and blood bear this,--female flesh and blood,--Mrs. Proudie's flesh and blood? Now, at last, her temper once more got the better of her judgment, probably much to her immediate satisfaction, and she spoke out. "I'll tell you what it is, my lord; if you are imbecile, I must be active. It is very sad that I should have to assume your authority--"

"I will not allow you to assume my authority."

"I must do so, or must else obtain a medical certificate as to your incapacity, and beg that some neighbouring bishop may administer the diocese. Things shall not go on as they are now. I, at any rate, will do my duty. I shall tell Mr. Thumble that he must go over to Hogglestock, and arrange for the duties of the parish."

"I desire that you will do no such thing," said the bishop, now again looking up at her.

"You may be sure that I shall," said Mrs. Proudie, and then she left the room.

He did not even yet suppose that she would go about this work at once. The condition of his mind was in truth bad, and was becoming worse, probably, from day to day; but still he did make his calculations about things, and now reflected that it would be sufficient if he spoke to his chaplain to-morrow about Mr. Crawley's letter. Since the terrible scene that Dr. Tempest had witnessed, he had never been able to make up his mind as to what great step he would take, but he had made up his mind that some great step was necessary. There were moments in which he thought that he would resign his bishopric. For such resignation, without acknowledged incompetence on the score of infirmity, the precedents were very few; but even if there were no precedents, it would be better to do that than to remain where he was. Of course there would be disgrace. But then it would be disgrace from which he could hide himself. Now there was equal disgrace; and he could not hide himself. And then such a measure as that would bring punishment where punishment was due. It would bring his wife to the ground,--her who had brought him to the ground. The suffering should not be all his own. When she found that her income, and her palace, and her position were all gone, then perhaps she might repent the evil that she had done him. Now, when he was left alone, his mind went back to this, and he did not think of taking immediate measures,--measures on that very day,--to prevent the action of Mr. Thumble.

But Mrs. Proudie did take immediate steps. Mr. Thumble was at this moment in the palace waiting for instructions. It was he who had brought Mr. Crawley's letter to Mrs. Proudie, and she now returned to him with that letter in her hand. The reader will know what was the result. Mr. Thumble was sent off to Hogglestock at once on the bishop's old cob, and,--as will be remembered,--fell into trouble on the road. Late in the afternoon he entered the palace yard, having led the cob by the bridle the whole way home from Hogglestock.

Some hour or two before Mr. Thumble's return Mrs. Proudie returned to her husband, thinking it better to let him know what she had done. She resolved to be very firm with him, but at the same time she determined not to use harsh language if it could be avoided. "My dear," she said, "I have arranged with Mr. Thumble." She found him on this occasion sitting at his desk with papers before him, with a pen in his hand; and she could see at a glance that nothing had been written on the paper. What would she have thought had she known that when he placed the sheet before him he was proposing to consult the archbishop as to the propriety of his resignation! He had not, however, progressed so far as to write even the date of his letter.

"You have done what?" said he, throwing down the pen.

"I have arranged with Mr. Thumble as to going out to Hogglestock," said she firmly. "Indeed he has gone already." Then the bishop jumped up from his seat, and rang the bell with violence. "What are you going to do?" said Mrs. Proudie.

"I am going to depart from here," said he. "I will not stay here to be the mark of scorn for all men's fingers. I will resign the diocese."

"You cannot do that," said his wife.

"I can try, at any rate," said he. Then the servant entered. "John," said he, addressing the man, "let Mr. Thumble know the moment he returns to the palace that I wish to see him here. Perhaps he may not come to the palace. In that case let word be sent to his house."

Mrs. Proudie allowed the man to go before she addressed her husband again. "What do you mean to say to Mr. Thumble when you see him?"

"That is nothing to you."

She came up to him and put her hand upon his shoulder, and spoke to him very gently. "Tom," she said, "is that the way in which you speak to your wife?"

"Yes, it is. You have driven me to it. Why have you taken upon yourself to send that man to Hogglestock?"

"Because it was right to do so. I came to you for instructions, and you would give none."

"I should have given what instructions I pleased in proper time. Thumble shall not go to Hogglestock next Sunday."

"Who shall go, then?"

"Never mind. Nobody. It does not matter to you. If you will leave me now I shall be obliged to you. There will be an end of all this very soon,--very soon."

Mrs. Proudie after this stood for a while thinking what she would say; but she left the room without uttering another word. As she looked at him a hundred different thoughts came into her mind. She had loved him dearly, and she loved him still; but she knew now,--at this moment felt absolutely sure,--that by him she was hated! In spite of all her roughness and temper, Mrs. Proudie was in this like other women,--that she would fain have been loved had it been possible. She had always meant to serve him. She was conscious of that; conscious also in a way that, although she had been industrious, although she had been faithful, although she was clever, yet she had failed. At the bottom of her heart she knew that she had been a bad wife. And yet she had meant to be a pattern wife! She had meant to be a good Christian; but she had so exercised her Christianity that not a soul in the world loved her, or would endure her presence if it could be avoided! She had sufficient insight to the minds and feelings of those around her to be aware of this. And now her husband had told her that her tyranny to him was so overbearing that he must throw up his great position, and retire to an obscurity that would be exceptionally disgraceful to them both, because he could no longer endure the public disgrace which her conduct brought upon him in his high place before the world! Her heart was too full for speech; and she left him, very quietly closing the door behind her.

She was preparing to go up to her chamber, with her hand on the banisters and with her foot on the stairs, when she saw the servant who had answered the bishop's bell. "John," she said, "when Mr. Thumble comes to the palace, let me see him before he goes to my lord."

"Yes, ma'am," said John, who well understood the nature of these quarrels between his master and his mistress. But the commands of the mistress were still paramount among the servants, and John proceeded on his mission with the view of accomplishing Mrs. Proudie's behests. Then Mrs. Proudie went upstairs to her chamber, and locked her door.

Mr. Thumble returned to Barchester that day, leading the broken-down cob; and a dreadful walk he had. He was not good at walking, and before he came near Barchester had come to entertain a violent hatred for the beast he was leading. The leading of a horse that is tired, or in pain, or lame, or even stiff in his limbs, is not pleasant work. The brute will not accommodate his paces to the man, and will contrive to make his head very heavy on the bridle. And he will not walk on the part of the road which the man intends for him, but will lean against the man, and will make himself altogether very disagreeable. It may be understood, therefore, that Mr. Thumble was not in a good humour when he entered the palace yard. Nor was he altogether quiet in his mind as to the injury which he had done to the animal. "It was the brute's fault," said Mr. Thumble. "It comes generally of not knowing how to ride 'em," said the groom. For Mr. Thumble, though he often had a horse out of the episcopal stables, was not ready with his shillings to the man who waited upon him with the steed.

He had not, however, come to any satisfactory understanding respecting the broken knees when the footman from the palace told him he was wanted. It was in vain that Mr. Thumble pleaded that he was nearly dead with fatigue, that he had walked all the way from Hogglestock and must go home to change his clothes. John was peremptory with him, insisting that he must wait first upon Mrs. Proudie and then upon the bishop. Mr. Thumble might perhaps have turned a deaf ear to the latter command, but the former was one which he felt himself bound to obey. So he entered the palace, rather cross, very much soiled as to his outer man; and in this condition went up a certain small staircase which was familiar to him, to a small parlour which adjoined Mrs. Proudie's room, and there awaited the arrival of the lady. That he should be required to wait some quarter of an hour was not surprising to him; but when half an hour was gone, and he remembered himself of his own wife at home, and of the dinner which he had not yet eaten, he ventured to ring the bell. Mrs. Proudie's own maid, Mrs. Draper by name, came to him and said that she had knocked twice at Mrs. Proudie's door and would knock again. Two minutes after that she returned, running into the room with her arms extended, and exclaiming, "Oh, heavens, sir; mistress is dead!" Mr. Thumble, hardly knowing what he was about, followed the woman into the bedroom, and there he found himself standing awestruck before the corpse of her who had so lately been the presiding spirit of the palace.

The body was still resting on its legs, leaning against the end of the side of the bed, while one of the arms was close clasped round the bed-post. The mouth was rigidly closed, but the eyes were open as though staring at him. Nevertheless there could be no doubt from the first glance that the woman was dead. He went up close to it, but did not dare to touch it. There was no one as yet there but he and Mrs. Draper;--no one else knew what had happened.

"It's her heart," said Mrs. Draper.

"Did she suffer from heart complaint?" he asked.

"We suspected it, sir, though nobody knew it. She was very shy of talking about herself."

"We must send for the doctor at once," said Mr. Thumble. "We had better touch nothing till he is here." Then they retreated and the door was locked.

In ten minutes everybody in the house knew it except the bishop; and in twenty minutes the nearest apothecary with his assistant were in the room, and the body had been properly laid upon the bed. Even then the husband had not been told,--did not know either his relief or his loss. It was now past seven, which was the usual hour for dinner at the palace, and it was probable that he would come out of his room among the servants, if he were not summoned. When it was proposed to Mr. Thumble that he should go in to him and tell him, he positively declined, saying that the sight which he had just seen and the exertions of the day together, had so unnerved him, that he had not physical strength for the task. The apothecary, who had been summoned in a hurry, had escaped, probably being equally unwilling to be the bearer of such a communication. The duty therefore fell to Mrs. Draper, and under the pressing instance of the other servants she descended to her master's room. Had it not been that the hour of dinner had come, so that the bishop could not have been left much longer to himself, the evil time would have been still postponed.

She went very slowly along the passage, and was just going to pause ere she reached the room, when the door was opened and the bishop stood close before her. It was easy to be seen that he was cross. His hands and face were unwashed and his face was haggard. In these days he would not even go through the ceremony of dressing himself before dinner. "Mrs. Draper," he said, "why don't they tell me that dinner is ready? Are they going to give me any dinner?" She stood a moment without answering him, while the tears streamed down her face. "What is the matter?" said he. "Has your mistress sent you here?"

"Oh, laws!" said Mrs. Draper,--and she put out her hands to support him if such support should be necessary.

"What is the matter?" he demanded angrily.

"Oh, my lord;--bear it like a Christian. Mistress isn't no more." He leaned back against the door-post, and she took hold of him by the arm. "It was the heart, my lord. Dr. Filgrave hisself has not been yet; but that's what it was." The bishop did not say a word, but walked back to his chair before the fire.

LXVII. IN MEMORIAM

The bishop when he had heard the tidings of his wife's death walked back to his seat over the fire, and Mrs. Draper, the housekeeper, came and stood over him without speaking. Thus she stood for ten minutes looking down at him and listening. But there was no sound; not a word, nor a moan, nor a sob. It was as though he also were dead, but that a slight irregular movement of his fingers on the top of his bald head, told her that his mind and body were still active. "My lord," she said at last, "would you wish to see the doctor when he comes?" She spoke very low and he did not answer her. Then, after another minute of silence, she asked the same question again.

"What doctor?" he said.

"Dr. Filgrave. We sent for him. Perhaps he is here now. Shall I go and see, my lord?" Mrs. Draper found that her position there was weary and she wished to escape. Anything on his behalf requiring trouble or work she would have done willingly; but she could not stand there for ever watching the motion of his fingers.

"I suppose I must see him," said the bishop. Mrs. Draper took this as an order for her departure and crept silently out of the room, closing the door behind her with the long protracted elaborate click which is always produced by an attempt at silence on such occasions. He did not care for noise or for silence. Had she slammed the door he would not have regarded it. A wonderful silence had come upon him which for the time almost crushed him. He would never hear that well-known voice again!

He was free now. Even in his misery,--for he was very miserable,--he could not refrain from telling himself that. No one could now press uncalled-for into his study, contradict him in the presence of those before whom he was bound to be authoritative, and rob him of all his dignity. There was no one else of whom he was afraid. She had at least kept him out of the hands of other tyrants. He was now his own master, and there was a feeling,--I may not call it of relief, for as yet there was more of pain in it than of satisfaction,--a feeling as though he had escaped from an old trouble at a terrible cost of which he could not as yet calculate the amount. He knew that he might now give up all idea of writing to the archbishop.

She had in some ways, and at certain periods of his life, been very good to him. She had kept his money for him and made things go straight, when they had been poor. His interests had always been her interests. Without her he would never have been a bishop. So, at least, he told himself now, and so told himself probably with truth. She had been very careful of his children. She had never been idle. She had never been fond of pleasure. She had neglected no acknowledged duty. He did not doubt that she was now on her way to heaven. He took his hands down from his head, and clasping them together, said a little prayer. It may be doubted whether he quite knew for what he was praying. The idea of praying for her soul, now that she was dead, would have scandalized him. He certainly was not praying for his own soul. I think he was praying that God might save him from being glad that his wife was dead.

But she was dead;--and, as it were, in a moment! He had not stirred out of that room since she had been there with him. Then there had been angry words between them,--perhaps more determined enmity on his part than ever had before existed; and they had parted for the last time with bitter animosity. But he told himself that he had certainly been right in what he had done then. He thought he had been right then. And so his mind went back to the Crawley and Thumble question, and he tried to alleviate the misery which that last interview with his wife now created by assuring himself that he at least had been justified in what he had done.

But yet his thoughts were very tender to her. Nothing reopens the springs of love so fully as absence, and no absence so thoroughly as that which must needs be endless. We want that which we have not; and especially that which we can never have. She had told him in the very last moments of her presence with him that he was wishing that she were dead, and he had made her no reply. At the moment he had felt, with savage anger, that such was his wish. Her words had now come to pass, and he was a widower,--and he assured himself that he would give all that he possessed in the world to bring her back again.

Yes, he was a widower, and he might do as he pleased. The tyrant was gone, and he was free. The tyrant was gone, and the tyranny had doubtless been very oppressive. Who had suffered as he had done? But in thus being left without his tyrant he was wretchedly desolate. Might it not be that the tyranny had been good for him?--that the Lord had known best what wife was fit for him? Then he thought of a story which he had read,--and had well marked as he was reading,--of some man who had been terribly afflicted by his wife, whose wife had starved him and beaten him and reviled him; and yet this man had been able to thank his God for having thus mortified him in the flesh. Might it not be that the mortification which he himself had doubtless suffered in his flesh had been intended for his welfare, and had been very good for him? But if this were so, it might be that the mortification was now removed because the Lord knew that his servant had been sufficiently mortified. He had not been starved or beaten, but the mortification had been certainly severe. Then there came words--into his mind, not into his mouth--"The Lord sent the thorn, and the Lord has taken it away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." After that he was very angry with himself, and tried to pray that he might be forgiven. While he was so striving there came a low knock at the door, and Mrs. Draper again entered the room.

"Dr. Filgrave, my lord, was not at home," said Mrs. Draper; "but he will be sent the very moment he arrives."

"Very well, Mrs. Draper."

"But, my lord, will you not come to your dinner? A little soup, or a morsel of something to eat, and a glass of wine, will enable your lordship to bear it better." He allowed Mrs. Draper to persuade him, and followed her into the dining-room. "Do not go, Mrs. Draper," he said; "I would rather that you should stay with me." So Mrs. Draper stayed with him, and administered to his wants. He was desirous of being seen by as few eyes as possible in these the first moments of his freedom.

He saw Dr. Filgrave twice, both before and after the doctor had been upstairs. There was no doubt, Dr. Filgrave said, that it was as Mrs. Draper had surmised. The poor lady was suffering, and had for years been suffering, from heart-complaint. To her husband she had never said a word on the subject. To Mrs. Draper a word had been said now and again,--a word when some moment of fear would come, when some sharp stroke of agony would tell of danger. But Mrs. Draper had kept the secret of her mistress, and none of the family had known that there was aught to be feared. Dr. Filgrave, indeed, did tell the bishop that he had dreaded all along exactly that which had happened. He had said the same to Mr. Rerechild, the surgeon, when they two had had a consultation together at the palace on the occasion of a somewhat alarming birth of a grandchild. But he mixed up this information with so much medical Latin, and was so pompous over it, and the bishop was so anxious to be rid of him, that his words did not have much effect. What did it all matter? The thorn was gone, and the wife was dead, and the widower must balance his gain and loss as best he might.

He slept well, but when he woke in the morning the dreariness of his loneliness was very strong on him. He must do something, and must see somebody, but he felt that he did not know how to bear himself in his new position. He must send of course for his chaplain, and tell his chaplain to open all letters and to answer them for a week. Then he remembered how many of his letters in days of yore had been opened and been answered by the helpmate who had just gone from him. Since Dr. Tempest's visit he had insisted that the palace letter-bag should always be brought in the first instance to him;--and this had been done, greatly to the annoyance of his wife. In order that it might be done the bishop had been up every morning an hour before his usual time; and everybody in the household had known why it was so. He thought of this now as the bag was brought to him on the first morning of his freedom. He could have it where he pleased now;--either in his bedroom or left for him untouched on the breakfast-table till he should go to it. "Blessed be the name of the Lord," he said as he thought of all this; but he did not stop to analyse what he was saying. On this morning he would not enjoy his liberty, but desired that the letter-bag might be taken to Mr. Snapper, the chaplain.

The news of Mrs. Proudie's death had spread all over Barchester on the evening of its occurrence, and had been received with that feeling of distant awe which is always accompanied by some degree of pleasurable sensation. There was no one in Barchester to lament a mother, or a sister, or a friend who was really loved. There were those, doubtless, who regretted the woman's death,--and even some who regretted it without any feeling of personal damage done to themselves. There had come to be around Mrs. Proudie a party who thought as she thought on church matters, and such people had lost their head, and thereby their strength. And she had been staunch to her own party, preferring bad tea from a low-church grocer, to good tea from a grocer who went to the ritualistic church or to no church at all. And it is due to her to say that she did not forget those who were true to her,--looking after them mindfully where looking after might be profitable, and fighting their battles where fighting might be more serviceable. I do not think that the appetite for breakfast of any man or woman in Barchester was disturbed by the news of Mrs. Proudie's death, but there were some who felt that a trouble had fallen on them.

Tidings of the catastrophe reached Hiram's Hospital on the evening of its occurrence,--Hiram's Hospital, where dwelt Mr. and Mrs. Quiverful with all their children. Now Mrs. Quiverful owed a debt of gratitude to Mrs. Proudie, having been placed in her present comfortable home by that lady's patronage. Mrs. Quiverful perhaps understood the character of the deceased woman, and expressed her opinion respecting it, as graphically as did any one in Barchester. There was the natural surprise felt at the Warden's lodge in the Hospital when the tidings were first received there, and the Quiverful family was at first too full of dismay, regrets and surmises, to be able to give themselves impartially to criticism. But on the following morning, conversation at the breakfast-table naturally referring to the great loss which the bishop had sustained, Mrs. Quiverful thus pronounced her opinion of her friend's character: "You'll find that he'll feel it, Q.," she said to her husband, in answer to some sarcastic remark made by him as to the removal of the thorn. "He'll feel it, though she was almost too many for him while she was alive."

"I daresay he'll feel it at first," said Quiverful; "but I think he'll be more comfortable than he has been."

"Of course he'll feel it, and go on feeling it till he dies, if he's the man I take him to be. You're not to think that there has been no love because there used to be some words, that he'll find himself the happier because he can do things more as he pleases. She was a great help to him, and he must have known that she was, in spite of the sharpness of her tongue. No doubt she was sharp. No doubt she was upsetting. And she could make herself a fool too in her struggles to have everything her own way. But, Q., there were worse women than Mrs. Proudie. She was never one of your idle ones, and I'm quite sure that no man or woman ever heard her say a word against her husband behind his back."

"All the same, she gave him a terribly bad life of it, if all is true that we hear."

"There are men who must have what you call a terribly bad life of it, whatever way it goes with them. The bishop is weak, and he wants somebody near to him to be strong. She was strong,--perhaps too strong; but he had his advantage out of it. After all I don't know that his life has been so terribly bad. I daresay he's had everything very comfortable about him. And a man ought to be grateful for that, though very few men ever are."

Mr. Quiverful's predecessor at the Hospital, old Mr. Harding, whose halcyon days in Barchester had been passed before the coming of the Proudies, was in bed playing cat's-cradle with Posy seated on the counterpane, when the tidings of Mrs. Proudie's death were brought to him by Mrs. Baxter. "Oh, sir," said Mrs. Baxter, seating herself on a chair by the bed-side. Mr. Harding liked Mrs. Baxter to sit down, because he was almost sure on such occasions to have the advantage of a prolonged conversation.

"What is it, Mrs. Baxter?"

"Oh, sir!"

"Is anything the matter?" And the old man attempted to raise himself in his bed.

"You mustn't frighten grandpa," said Posy.

"No, my dear; and there isn't nothing to frighten him. There isn't indeed, Mr. Harding. They're all well at Plumstead, and when I heard from the missus at Venice, everything was going on well."

"But what is it, Mrs. Baxter?"

"God forgive her all her sins--Mrs. Proudie ain't no more." Now there had been a terrible feud between the palace and the deanery for years, in carrying on which the persons of the opposed households were wont to express themselves with eager animosity. Mrs. Baxter and Mrs. Draper never spoke to each other. The two coachmen each longed for an opportunity to take the other before a magistrate for some breach of the law of the road in driving. The footmen abused each other, and the grooms occasionally fought. The masters and mistresses contented themselves with simple hatred. Therefore it was not surprising that Mrs. Baxter, in speaking of the death of Mrs. Proudie, should remember first her sins.

"Mrs. Proudie dead!" said the old man.

"Indeed she is, Mr. Harding," said Mrs. Baxter, putting both her hands together piously. "We're just grass, ain't we, sir! and dust and clay and flowers of the field?" Whether Mrs. Proudie had most partaken of the clayey nature or of the flowery nature, Mrs. Baxter did not stop to consider.

"Mrs. Proudie dead!" said Posy, with a solemnity that was all her own. "Then she won't scold the poor bishop any more."

"No, my dear; she won't scold anybody any more; and it will be a blessing for some, I must say. Everybody is always so considerate in this house, Miss Posy, that we none of us know nothing about what that is."

"Dead!" said Mr. Harding again. "I think, if you please, Mrs. Baxter, you shall leave me for a little time, and take Miss Posy with you." He had been in the city of Barchester some fifty years, and here was one who might have been his daughter, who had come there scarcely ten years since, and who now had gone before him! He had never loved Mrs. Proudie. Perhaps he had gone as near to disliking Mrs. Proudie as he had ever gone to disliking any person. Mrs. Proudie had wounded him in every part that was most sensitive. It would be long to tell, nor need it be told now, how she had ridiculed his cathedral work, how she had made nothing of him, how she had despised him, always manifesting her contempt plainly. He had been even driven to rebuke her, and it had perhaps been the only personal rebuke which he had ever uttered in Barchester. But now she was gone; and he thought of her simply as an active pious woman, who had been taken away from her work before her time. And for the bishop, no idea ever entered Mr. Harding's mind as to the removal of a thorn. The man had lost his life's companion at that time of life when such a companion is most needed; and Mr. Harding grieved for him with sincerity.

The news went out to Plumstead Episcopi by the postman, and happened to reach the archdeacon as he was talking to his sexton at the little gate leading into the churchyard. "Mrs. Proudie dead!" he almost shouted, as the postman notified the fact to him. "Impossible!"

"It be so for zartain, yer reverence," said the postman, who was proud of his news.

"Heavens!" ejaculated the archdeacon, and then hurried in to his wife. "My dear," he said--and as he spoke he could hardly deliver himself of his words, so eager was he to speak them--"who do you think is dead? Gracious heavens! Mrs. Proudie is dead!" Mrs. Grantly dropped from her hand the teaspoonful of tea that was just going into the pot, and repeated her husband's words. "Mrs. Proudie dead?" There was a pause, during which they looked into each other's faces. "My dear, I don't believe it," said Mrs. Grantly.

But she did believe it very shortly. There were no prayers at Plumstead rectory that morning. The archdeacon immediately went out into the village, and soon obtained sufficient evidence of the truth of that which the postman had told him. Then he rushed back to his wife. "It's true," he said. "It's quite true. She's dead. There's no doubt about that. She's dead. It was last night about seven. That was when they found her, at least, and she may have died about an hour before. Filgrave says not more than an hour."

"And how did she die?"

"Heart-complaint. She was standing up, taking hold of the bedstead, and so they found her." Then there was a pause, during which the archdeacon sat down to his breakfast. "I wonder how he felt when he heard it?"

"Of course he was terribly shocked."

"I've no doubt he was shocked. Any man would be shocked. But when you come to think of it, what a relief!"

"How can you speak of it in that way?" said Mrs. Grantly.

"How am I to speak of it in any other way?" said the archdeacon. "Of course I shouldn't go and say it out in the street."

"I don't think you ought to say it anywhere," said Mrs. Grantly. "The poor man no doubt feels about his wife in the same way that anybody else would."

"And if any other poor man has got such a wife as she was, you may be quite sure that he would be glad to be rid of her. I don't say that he wished her to die, or that he would have done anything to contrive her death--"

"Gracious, archdeacon; do, pray, hold your tongue."

"But it stands to reason that her going will be a great relief to him. What has she done for him? She has made him contemptible to everybody in the diocese by her interference, and his life has been a burden to him through her violence."

"Is that the way you carry out your proverb of De mortuis?" said Mrs. Grantly.

"The proverb of De mortuis is founded on humbug. Humbug out of doors is necessary. It would not do for you and me to go into the High Street just now and say what we think about Mrs. Proudie; but I don't suppose that kind of thing need be kept up in here, between you and me. She was an uncomfortable woman,--so uncomfortable that I cannot believe that any one will regret her. Dear me! Only to think that she has gone! You may as well give me my tea."

I do not think that Mrs. Grantly's opinion differed much from that expressed by her husband, or that she was, in truth, the least offended by the archdeacon's plain speech. But it must be remembered that there was probably no house in the diocese in which Mrs. Proudie had been so thoroughly hated as she had been at the Plumstead rectory. There had been hatred at the deanery; but the hatred at the deanery had been mild in comparison with the hatred at Plumstead. The archdeacon was a sound friend; but he was also a sound enemy. From the very first arrival of the Proudies at Barchester, Mrs. Proudie had thrown down her gauntlet to him, and he had not been slow in picking it up. The war had been internecine, and each had given the other terrible wounds. It had been understood that there should be no quarter, and there had been none. His enemy was now dead, and the archdeacon could not bring himself to adopt before his wife the namby-pamby every-day decency of speaking well of one of whom he had ever thought ill, or of expressing regret when no regret could be felt. "May all her sins be forgiven her," said Mrs. Grantly. "Amen," said the archdeacon. There was something in the tone of his Amen which thoroughly implied that it was uttered only on the understanding that her departure from the existing world was to be regarded as an unmitigated good, and that she should, at any rate, never come back again to Barchester.

When Lady Lufton heard the tidings, she was not so bold in speaking of it as was her friend the archdeacon. "Mrs. Proudie dead!" she said to her daughter-in-law. This was some hours after the news had reached the house, and when the fact of the poor lady's death had been fully recognized. "What will he do without her?"

"The same as other men do," said young Lady Lufton.

"But, my dear, he is not the same as other men. He is not at all like other men. He is so weak that he cannot walk without a stick to lean upon. No doubt she was a virago, a woman who could not control her temper for a moment! No doubt she had led him a terrible life! I have often pitied him with all my heart. But, nevertheless, she was useful to him. I suppose she was useful to him. I can hardly believe that Mrs. Proudie is dead. Had he gone, it would have seemed so much more natural. Poor woman. I daresay she had her good points." The reader will be pleased to remember that the Luftons had ever been strong partisans on the side of the Grantlys.

The news made its way even to Hogglestock on the same day. Mrs. Crawley, when she heard it, went out after her husband, who was in the school. "Dead!" said he, in answer to her whisper. "Do you tell me that the woman is dead?" Then Mrs. Crawley explained that the tidings were credible. "May God forgive her all her sins," said Mr. Crawley. "She was a violent woman, certainly, and I think that she misunderstood her duties; but I do not say that she was a bad woman. I am inclined to think that she was earnest in her endeavours to do good." It never occurred to Mr. Crawley that he and his affair had, in truth, been the cause of her death.

It was thus that she was spoken of for a few days; and then men and women ceased to speak much of her, and began to talk of the bishop instead. A month had not passed before it was surmised that a man so long accustomed to the comforts of married life would marry again; and even then one lady connected with low-church clergymen in and around the city was named as a probable successor to the great lady who was gone. For myself, I am inclined to think that the bishop will for the future be content to lean upon his chaplain.

The monument that was put up to our old friend's memory in one of the side aisles of the choir of the cathedral was supposed to be designed and executed in good taste. There was a broken column, and on the column simply the words, "My beloved wife!" Then there was a slab by the column, bearing Mrs. Proudie's name, with the date of her life and death. Beneath this was the common inscription,--

"Requiescat in pace."

LXVIII. THE OBSTINACY OF MR. CRAWLEY

Dr. Tempest, when he heard the news, sent immediately to Mr. Robarts, begging him to come over to Silverbridge. But this message was not occasioned solely by the death of Mrs. Proudie. Dr. Tempest had also heard that Mr. Crawley had submitted himself to the bishop, that instant advantage,--and as Dr. Tempest thought, unfair advantage,--had been taken of Mr. Crawley's submission, and that the pernicious Thumble had been at once sent over to Hogglestock. Had these palace doings with reference to Mr. Crawley been unaccompanied by the catastrophe which had happened, the doctor, much as he might have regretted them, would probably have felt that there was nothing to be done. He could not in such case have prevented Thumble's journey to Hogglestock on the next Sunday, and certainly he could not have softened the heart of the presiding genius at the palace. But things were very different now. The presiding genius was gone. Everybody at the palace would for a while be weak and vacillating. Thumble would be then thoroughly cowed; and it might at any rate be possible to make some movement in Mr. Crawley's favour. Dr. Tempest, therefore, sent for Mr. Robarts.

"I'm giving you a great deal of trouble, Robarts," said the doctor; "but then you are so much younger than I am, and I've an idea that you would do more for this poor man than any one else in the diocese." Mr. Robarts of course declared that he did not begrudge his trouble, and that he would do anything in his power for the poor man. "I think that you should see him again, and that you should then see Thumble also. I don't know whether you can condescend to be civil to Thumble. I could not."

"I am not quite sure that incivility would not be more efficacious," said Mr. Robarts.

"Very likely. There are men who are deaf as adders to courtesy, but who are compelled to obedience at once by ill-usage. Very likely Thumble is one of them; but of that you will be the best judge yourself. I would see Crawley first, and get his consent."

"That's the difficulty."

"Then I should go on without his consent, and I would see Thumble and the bishop's chaplain, Snapper. I think you might manage just at this moment, when they will all be a little abashed and perplexed by this woman's death, to arrange that simply nothing shall be done. The great thing will be that Crawley should go on with the duty till the assizes. If it should then happen that he goes into Barchester, is acquitted, and comes back again, the whole thing will be over, and there will be no further interference in the parish. If I were you, I think I would try it." Mr. Robarts said that he would try it. "I daresay Mr. Crawley will be a little stiff-necked with you."

"He will be very stiff-necked with me," said Mr. Robarts.

"But I can hardly think that he will throw away the only means he has of supporting his wife and children, when he finds that there can be no occasion for his doing so. I do not suppose that any person wishes him to throw up his work now that that poor woman has gone."

Mr. Crawley had been almost in good spirits since the last visit which Mr. Thumble had made to him. It seemed as though the loss of everything in the world was in some way satisfactory to him. He had now given up his living by his own doing, and had after a fashion acknowledged his guilt by this act. He had proclaimed to all around him that he did not think himself to be any longer fit to perform the sacred functions of his office. He spoke of his trial as though a verdict against him must be the result. He knew that in going into prison he would leave his wife and children dependent on the charity of their friends,--on charity which they must condescend to accept, though he could not condescend to ask it. And yet he was able to carry himself now with a greater show of fortitude than had been within his power when the extent of his calamity was more doubtful. I must not ask the reader to suppose that he was cheerful. To have been cheerful under such circumstances would have been inhuman. But he carried his head on high, and walked firmly, and gave his orders at home with a clear voice. His wife, who was necessarily more despondent than ever, wondered at him,--but wondered in silence. It certainly seemed as though the very extremity of ill-fortune was good for him. And he was very diligent with his school, passing the greater part of the morning with the children. Mr. Thumble had told him that he would come on Sunday, and that he would then take charge of the parish. Up to the coming of Mr. Thumble he would do everything in the parish that could be done by a clergyman with a clear spirit and a free heart. Mr. Thumble should not find that spiritual weeds had grown rank in the parish because of his misfortunes.

Mrs. Proudie had died on the Tuesday,--that having been the day of Mr. Thumble's visit to Hogglestock,--and Mr. Robarts had gone over to Silverbridge, in answer to Dr. Tempest's invitation, on the Thursday. He had not, therefore, the command of much time, it being his express object to prevent the appearance of Mr. Thumble at Hogglestock on the next Sunday. He had gone to Silverbridge by railway, and had, therefore, been obliged to postpone his visit to Mr. Crawley till the next day; but early on the Friday morning he rode over to Hogglestock. That he did not arrive there with a broken-knee'd horse, the reader may be quite sure. In all matters of that sort, Mr. Robarts was ever above reproach. He rode a good horse, and drove a neat gig, and was always well dressed. On this account Mr. Crawley, though he really liked Mr. Robarts, and was thankful to him for many kindnesses, could never bear his presence with perfect equanimity. Robarts was no scholar, was not a great preacher, had obtained no celebrity as a churchman,--had, in fact, done nothing to merit great reward; and yet everything had been given to him with an abundant hand. Within the last twelvemonth his wife had inherited Mr. Crawley did not care to know how many thousand pounds. And yet Mr. Robarts had won all that he possessed by being a clergyman. Was it possible that Mr. Crawley should regard such a man with equanimity? Robarts rode over with a groom behind him,--really taking the groom because he knew that Mr. Crawley would have no one to hold his horse for him;--and the groom was the source of great offence. He came upon Mr. Crawley standing at the school door, and stopping at once, jumped off his nag. There was something in the way in which he sprang out of the saddle and threw the reins to the man, which was not clerical in Mr. Crawley's eyes. No man could be so quick in the matter of a horse who spent as many hours with the poor and with the children as should be spent by a parish clergyman. It might be probable that Mr. Robarts had never stolen twenty pounds,--might never be accused of so disgraceful a crime,--but, nevertheless, Mr. Crawley had his own ideas, and made his own comparisons.

"Crawley," said Robarts, "I am so glad to find you at home."

"I am generally to be found in the parish," said the perpetual curate of Hogglestock.

"I know you are," said Robarts, who knew the man well, and cared nothing for his friend's peculiarities when he felt his own withers to be unwrung. "But you might have been down at Hoggle End with the brickmakers, and then I should have had to go after you."

"I should have grieved--," began Crawley; but Robarts interrupted him at once.

"Let us go for a walk, and I'll leave the man with the horses. I've something special to say to you, and I can say it better out here than in the house. Grace is quite well, and sends her love. She is growing to look so beautiful!"

"I hope she may grow in grace with God," said Mr. Crawley.

"She's as good a girl as I ever knew. By-the-by, you had Henry Grantly over here the other day?"

"Major Grantly, whom I cannot name without expressing my esteem for him, did do us the honour of calling upon us not very long since. If it be with reference to him that you have taken this trouble--"

"No, no; not at all. I'll allow him and the ladies to fight out that battle. I've not the least doubt in the world how that will go. When I'm told that she made a complete conquest of the archdeacon, there cannot be a doubt about that."

"A conquest of the archdeacon!"

But Mr. Robarts did not wish to have to explain anything further about the archdeacon. "Were you not terribly shocked, Crawley," he asked, "when you heard of the death of Mrs. Proudie?"

"It was sudden and very awful," said Mr. Crawley. "Such deaths are always shocking. Not more so, perhaps, as regards the wife of a bishop, than with any other woman."

"Only we happened to know her."

"No doubt the finite and meagre nature of our feelings does prevent us from extending our sympathies to those whom we have not seen in the flesh. It should not be so, and would not with one who had nurtured his heart with proper care. And we are prone to permit an evil worse than that to canker our regards and to foster and to mar our solicitudes. Those who are high in station strike us more by their joys and sorrows than do the poor and lowly. Were some young duke's wife, wedded but the other day, to die, all England would put on some show of mourning,--nay, would feel some true gleam of pity; but nobody cares for the widowed brickmaker seated with his starving infant on his cold hearth."

"Of course we hear more of the big people," said Robarts.

"Ay; and think more of them. But do not suppose, sir, that I complain of this man or that woman because his sympathies, or hers, run out of that course which my reason tells me they should hold. The man with whom it would not be so would simply be a god among men. It is in his perfection as a man that we recognize the divinity of Christ. It is in the imperfection of men that we recognize our necessity for a Christ. Yes, sir, the death of the poor lady at Barchester was very sudden. I hope that my lord the bishop bears with becoming fortitude the heavy misfortune. They say that he was a man much beholden to his wife,--prone to lean upon her in his goings out and comings in. For such a man such a loss is more dreadful perhaps than for another."

"They say she led him a terrible life, you know."

"I am not prone, sir, to believe much of what I hear about the domesticities of other men, knowing how little any other man can know of my own. And I have, methinks, observed a proneness in the world to ridicule that dependence on a woman which every married man should acknowledge in regard to the wife of his bosom, if he can trust her as well as love her. When I hear jocose proverbs spoken as to men, such as that in this house the gray mare is the better horse, or that in that house the wife wears that garment which is supposed to denote virile command, knowing that the joke is easy, and that meekness in a man is more truly noble than a habit of stern authority, I do not allow them to go far with me in influencing my judgment."

So spoke Mr. Crawley, who never permitted the slightest interference with his own word in his own family, and who had himself been a witness of one of those scenes between the bishop and his wife in which the poor bishop had been so cruelly misused. But to Mr. Crawley the thing which he himself had seen under such circumstances was as sacred as though it had come to him under the seal of confession. In speaking of the bishop and Mrs. Proudie,--nay, as far as was possible in thinking of them,--he was bound to speak and to think as though he had not witnessed that scene in the palace study.

"I don't suppose that there is much doubt about her real character," said Robarts. "But you and I need not discuss that."

"By no means. Such discussion would be both useless and unseemly."

"And just at present there is something else that I specially want to say to you. Indeed, I went to Silverbridge on the same subject yesterday, and have come here expressly to have a little conversation with you."

"If it be about affairs of mine, Mr. Robarts, I am indeed troubled in spirit that so great labour should have fallen upon you."

"Never mind my labour. Indeed your saying that is a nuisance to me, because I hoped that by this time you would have understood that I regard you as a friend, and that I think nothing any trouble that I do for a friend. Your position just now is so peculiar that it requires a great deal of care."

"No care can be of any avail to me."

"There I disagree with you. You must excuse me, but I do; and so does Dr. Tempest. We think that you have been a little too much in a hurry since he communicated to you the result of our first meeting."

"As how, sir?"

"It is, perhaps, hardly worth while for us to go into the whole question; but that man, Thumble, must not come here on next Sunday."

"I cannot say, Mr. Robarts, that the Reverend Mr. Thumble has recommended himself to me strongly either by his outward symbols of manhood or by such manifestation of his inward mental gifts as I have succeeded in obtaining. But my knowledge of him has been so slight, and has been acquired in a manner so likely to bias me prejudicially against him, that I am inclined to think my opinion should go for nothing. It is, however, the fact that the bishop has nominated him to this duty; and that, as I have myself simply notified my desire to be relieved from the care of the parish, on account of certain unfitness of my own, I am the last man who should interfere with the bishop in the choice of my temporary successor."

"It was her choice, not his."

"Excuse me, Mr. Robarts, but I cannot allow that assertion to pass unquestioned. I must say that I have adequate cause for believing that he came here by his lordship's authority."

"No doubt he did. Will you just listen to me for a moment? Ever since this unfortunate affair of the cheque became known, Mrs. Proudie has been anxious to get you out of this parish. She was a violent woman, and chose to take this matter up violently. Pray hear me out before you interrupt me. There would have been no commission at all but for her."

"The commission is right and proper and just," said Mr. Crawley, who could not keep himself silent.

"Very well. Let it be so. But Mr. Thumble's coming over here is not proper or right; and you may be sure the bishop does not wish it."

"Let him send any other clergyman whom he may think more fitting," said Mr. Crawley.

"But we do not want him to send anybody."

"Somebody must be sent, Mr. Robarts."

"No, not so. Let me go over and see Thumble and Snapper,--Snapper, you know, is the domestic chaplain; and all that you need do is to go on with your services on Sunday. If necessary, I will see the bishop. I think you may be sure that I can manage it. If not, I will come back to you." Mr. Robarts paused for an answer, but it seemed for awhile that all Mr. Crawley's impatient desire to speak was over. He walked on silently along the lane by his visitor's side, and when, after some five or six minutes, Robarts stood still in the road, Mr. Crawley even then said nothing. "It cannot be but that you should be anxious to keep the income of the parish for your wife and children," said Mark Robarts.

"Of course, I am anxious for my wife and children," Crawley answered.

"Then let me do as I say. Why should you throw away a chance, even if it be a bad one? But here the chance is all in your favour. Let me manage it for you at Barchester."

"Of course I am anxious for my wife and children," said Crawley, repeating his words; "how anxious, I fancy no man can conceive who has not been near enough to absolute want to know how terrible is its approach when it threatens those who are weak and who are very dear! But, Mr. Robarts, you spoke just now of the chance of the thing,--the chance of your arranging on my behalf that I should for a while longer be left in the enjoyment of the freehold of my parish. It seemeth to me that there should be no chance on such a subject; that in the adjustment of so momentous a matter there should be a consideration of right and wrong, and no consideration of aught beside. I have been growing to feel, for some weeks past, that circumstances,--whether through my own fault or not is an outside question as to which I will not further delay you by offering even an opinion,--that unfortunate circumstances have made me unfit to remain here as guardian of the souls of the people of this parish. Then there came to me the letter from Dr. Tempest,--for which I am greatly beholden to him,--strengthening me altogether in this view. What could I do then, Mr. Robarts? Could I allow myself to think of my wife and my children when such a question as that was before me for self-discussion?"

"I would,--certainly," said Robarts.

"No, sir! Excuse the bluntness of my contradiction, but I feel assured that in such emergency you would look solely to duty,--as by God's help, I will endeavour to do. Mr. Robarts, there are many of us who in many things, are much worse than we believe ourselves to be. But in other matters, and perhaps of larger moment, we can rise to ideas of duty as the need for such ideas comes upon us. I say not this at all as praising myself. I speak of men as I believe that they will be found to be;--of yourself, of myself, and of others who strive to live with clean hands and a clear conscience. I do not for a moment think that you would retain your benefice at Framley if there had come upon you, after much thought, an assured conviction that you could not retain it without grievous injury to the souls of others and grievous sin to your own. Wife and children, dear as they are to you and to me,--as dear to me as to you,--fade from the sight when the time comes for judgment on such a matter as that!" They were standing quite still now, facing each other, and Crawley, as he spoke with a low voice, looked straight into his friend's eyes, and kept his hand firmly fixed on his friend's arm.

"I cannot interfere further," said Robarts.

"No,--you cannot interfere further." Robarts, when he told the story of the interview to his wife that evening, declared that he had never heard a voice so plaintively touching as was the voice of Mr. Crawley when he uttered those last words.

They returned back to the servant and the house almost without a word, and Robarts mounted without offering to see Mrs. Crawley. Nor did Mr. Crawley ask him to do so. It was better now that Robarts should go. "May God send you through all your troubles," said Mr. Robarts.

"Mr. Robarts, I thank you warmly, for your friendship," said Mr. Crawley. And then they parted. In about half an hour Mr. Crawley returned to the house. "Now for Pindar, Jane," he said, seating himself at his old desk.

LXIX. MR. CRAWLEY'S LAST APPEARANCE IN HIS OWN PULPIT

No word or message from Mr. Crawley reached Barchester throughout the week, and on the Sunday morning Mr. Thumble was under a positive engagement to go out to Hogglestock, and perform the services of the church. Dr. Tempest had been quite right in saying that Mr. Thumble would be awed by the death of his patroness. Such was altogether the case, and he was very anxious to escape from the task he had undertaken at her instance, if it were possible. In the first place, he had never been a favourite with the bishop himself, and had now, therefore, nothing to expect in the diocese. The crusts from bits of loaves and the morsels of broken fishes which had come in his way had all come from the bounty of Mrs. Proudie. And then, as regarded this special Hogglestock job, how was he to get paid for it? Whence, indeed, was he to seek repayment for the actual money which he would be out of pocket in finding his way to Hogglestock and back again? But he could not get to speak to the bishop, nor could he induce any one who had access to his lordship to touch upon the subject. Mr. Snapper avoided him as much as possible; and Mr. Snapper, when he was caught and interrogated, declared that he regarded the matter as settled. Nothing could be in worse taste, Mr. Snapper thought, than to undo, immediately after the poor lady's death, work in the diocese which had been arranged and done by her. Mr. Snapper expressed his opinion that Mr. Thumble was bound to go out to Hogglestock; and, when Mr. Thumble declared petulantly that he would not stir a step out of Barchester, Mr. Snapper protested that Mr. Thumble would have to answer for it in this world and in the next if there were no services at Hogglestock on that Sunday. On the Saturday evening Mr. Thumble made a desperate attempt to see the bishop, but was told by Mrs. Draper that the bishop had positively declined to see him. The bishop himself probably felt unwilling to interfere with his wife's doings so soon after her death! So Mr. Thumble, with a heavy heart, went across to "The Dragon of Wantly," and ordered a gig, resolving that the bill should be sent in to the palace. He was not going to trust himself again upon the bishop's cob!

Up to Saturday evening Mr. Crawley did the work of his parish, and on the Saturday evening he made an address to his parishioners from his pulpit. He had given notice among the brickmakers and labourers that he wished to say a few words to them in the school-room; but the farmers also heard of this and came with their wives and daughters, and all the brickmakers came, and most of the labourers were there, so that there was no room for them in the school-house. The congregation was much larger than was customary even in the church. "They will come," he said to his wife, "to hear a ruined man declare his own ruin, but they will not come to hear the word of God." When it was found that the persons assembled were too many for the school-room, the meeting was adjourned to the church, and Mr. Crawley was forced to get into his pulpit. He said a short prayer, and then he began his story.

His story as he told it then shall not be repeated now, as the same story has been told too often already in these pages. Surely it was a singular story for a parish clergyman to tell of himself in so solemn a manner. That he had applied the cheque to his own purposes, and was unable to account for the possession of it, was certain. He did not know when or how he had got it. Speaking to them then in God's house he told them that. He was to be tried by a jury, and all he could do was to tell the jury the same. He would not expect the jury to believe him. The jury would, of course, believe only that which was proved to them. But he did expect his old friends at Hogglestock, who had known him so long, to take his word as true. That there was no sufficient excuse for his conduct, even in his own sight, this, his voluntary resignation of his parish, was, he said, sufficient evidence. Then he explained to them, as clearly as he was able, what the bishop had done, what the commission had done, and what he had done himself. That he spoke no word of Mrs. Proudie to that audience need hardly be mentioned here. "And now, dearest friends, I leave you," he said, with that weighty solemnity which was so peculiar to the man, and which he was able to make singularly impressive even on such a congregation as that of Hogglestock, "and I trust that the heavy but pleasing burden of the charge which I have had over you may fall into hands better fitted than mine have been for such work. I have always known my own unfitness, by reason of the worldly cares with which I have been laden. Poverty makes the spirit poor, and the hands weak, and the heart sore,--and too often makes the conscience dull. May the latter never be the case with any of you." Then he uttered another short prayer, and, stepping down from the pulpit, walked out of the church, with his weeping wife hanging on his arm, and his daughter following them, almost dissolved in tears. He never again entered that church as the pastor of the congregation.

There was an old lame man from Hoggle End leaning on his stick near the door as Mr. Crawley went out, and with him was his old lame wife. "He'll pull through yet," said the old man to his wife; "you'll see else. He'll pull through because he's so dogged. It's dogged as does it."

On that night the position of the members of Mr. Crawley's household seemed to have been changed. There was something almost of elation in his mode of speaking, and he said soft loving words, striving to comfort his wife. She, on the other hand, could say nothing to comfort him. She had been averse to the step he was taking, but had been unable to press her objection in opposition to his great argument as to duty. Since he had spoken to her in that strain which he had used with Robarts, she also had felt that she must be silent. But she could not even feign to feel the pride which comes from the performance of a duty. "What will he do when he comes out?" she said to her daughter. The coming out spoken of by her was the coming out of prison. It was natural enough that she should feel no elation.

The breakfast on Sunday morning was to her, perhaps, the saddest scene of her life. They sat down, the three together, at the usual hour,--nine o'clock,--but the morning had not been passed as was customary on Sundays. It had been Mr. Crawley's practice to go into the school from eight to nine; but on this Sunday he felt, as he told his wife, that his presence would be an intrusion there. But he requested Jane to go and perform her usual task. "If Mr. Thumble should come," he said to her, "be submissive to him in all things." Then he stood at his door, watching to see at what hour Mr. Thumble would reach the school. But Mr. Thumble did not attend the school on that morning. "And yet he was very express to me in his desire that I would not myself meddle with the duties," said Mr. Crawley to his wife as he stood at the door,--"unnecessarily urgent, as I must say I thought at the time." If Mrs. Crawley could have spoken out her thoughts about Mr. Thumble at that moment, her words would, I think, have surprised her husband.

At breakfast there was hardly a word spoken. Mr. Crawley took his crust and eat it mournfully,--almost ostentatiously. Jane tried and failed, and tried to hide her failure, failing in that also. Mrs. Crawley made no attempt. She sat behind her old teapot, with her hands clasped and her eyes fixed. It was as though some last day had come upon her,--this, the first Sunday of her husband's degradation. "Mary," he said to her, "why do you not eat?"

"I cannot," she replied, speaking not in a whisper, but in words which would hardly get themselves articulated. "I cannot. Do not ask me."

"For the honour of the Lord you will want the strength which bread alone can give you," he said, intimating to her that he wished her to attend the service.

"Do not ask me to be there, Josiah. I cannot. It is too much for me."

"Nay; I will not press it," he said. "I can go alone." He uttered no word expressive of a wish that his daughter should attend the church; but when the moment came, Jane accompanied him. "What shall I do, mamma," she said, "if I find I cannot bear it?" "Try to bear it," the mother said. "Try, for his sake. You are stronger now than I am."

The tinkle of the church bell was heard at the usual time, and Mr. Crawley, hat in hand, stood ready to go forth. He had heard nothing of Mr. Thumble, but had made up his mind that Mr. Thumble would not trouble him. He had taken the precaution to request his churchwarden to be early at the church, so that Mr. Thumble might encounter no difficulty. The church was very near to the house, and any vehicle arriving might have been seen had Mr. Crawley watched closely. But no one had cared to watch Mr. Thumble's arrival at the church. He did not doubt that Mr. Thumble would be at the church. With reference to the school, he had had some doubt.

But just as he was about to start he heard the clatter of a gig. Up came Mr. Thumble to the door of the parsonage, and having come down from his gig was about to enter the house as though it were his own. Mr. Crawley greeted him in the pathway, raising his hat from his head, and expressing a wish that Mr. Thumble might not feel himself fatigued with his drive. "I will not ask you into my poor house," he said, standing in the middle of the pathway; "for that my wife is ill."

"Nothing catching, I hope?" said Mr. Thumble.

"Her malady is of the spirit rather than of the flesh," said Mr. Crawley. "Shall we go on to the church?"

"Certainly,--by all means. How about the surplice?"

"You will find, I trust, that the churchwarden has everything in readiness. I have notified to him expressly your coming, with the purport that it may be so."

"You'll take a part in the service, I suppose?" said Mr. Thumble.

"No part,--no part whatever," said Mr. Crawley, standing still for a moment as he spoke, and showing plainly by the tone of his voice how dismayed he was, how indignant he had been made, by so indecent a proposition. Was he giving up his pulpit to a stranger for any reason less cogent than one which made it absolutely imperative on him to be silent in that church which had so long been his own?

"Just as you please," said Mr. Thumble. "Only it's rather hard lines to have to do it all myself after coming all the way from Barchester this morning." To this Mr. Crawley condescended to make no reply whatever.

In the porch of the church, which was the only entrance, Mr. Crawley introduced Mr. Thumble to the churchwarden, simply by a wave of the hand, and then passed on with his daughter to a seat which opened upon the aisle. Jane was going on to that which she had hitherto always occupied with her mother in the little chancel; but Mr. Crawley would not allow this. Neither to him nor to any of his family was there attached any longer the privilege of using the chancel of the church of Hogglestock.

Mr. Thumble scrambled into the reading-desk some ten minutes after the proper time, and went through the morning service under, what must be admitted to be, serious difficulties. There were the eyes of Mr. Crawley fixed upon him throughout the work, and a feeling pervaded him that everybody there regarded him as an intruder. At first this was so strong upon him that Mr. Crawley pitied him, and would have encouraged him had it been possible. But as the work progressed, and as custom and the sound of his own voice emboldened him, there came to the man some touches of the arrogance which so generally accompanies cowardice, and Mr. Crawley's acute ear detected the moment when it was so. An observer might have seen that the motion of his hands was altered as they were lifted in prayer. Though he was praying, even in prayer he could not forget the man who was occupying his desk.

Then came the sermon, preached very often before, lasting exactly half-an-hour, and then Mr. Thumble's work was done. Itinerant clergymen, who preach now here and now there, as it had been the lot of Mr. Thumble to do, have at any rate this relief,--that they can preach their sermons often. From the communion-table Mr. Thumble had stated that, in the present peculiar circumstances of the parish, there would be no second service at Hogglestock for the present; and this was all he said or did peculiar to the occasion. The moment the service was over he got into his gig, and was driven back to Barchester.

"Mamma," said Jane, as they sat at their dinner, "such a sermon I am sure was never heard in Hogglestock before. Indeed, you can hardly call it a sermon. It was downright nonsense."

"My dear," said Mr. Crawley, energetically, "keep your criticisms for matters that are profane; then, though they be childish and silly, they may at least be innocent. Be critical on Euripides, if you must be critical." But when Jane kissed her father after dinner, she, knowing his humour well, felt assured that her remarks had not been taken altogether in ill part.

Mr. Thumble was neither seen nor heard of again in the parish during the entire week.

LXX. MRS. ARABIN IS CAUGHT

One morning about the middle of April Mr. Toogood received a telegram from Venice which caused him instantly to leave his business in Bedford Row and take the first train for Silverbridge. "It seems to me that this job will be a deal of time and very little money," said his partner to him, when Toogood on the spur of the moment was making arrangements for his sudden departure and uncertain period of absence. "That's about it," said Toogood. "A deal of time, some expense, and no returns. It's not the kind of business a man can live upon; is it?" The partner growled, and Toogood went. But as we must go with Mr. Toogood down to Silverbridge, and as we cannot make the journey in this chapter, we will just indicate his departure and then go back to John Eames, who, as will be remembered, was just starting for Florence when we last saw him.

Our dear old friend Johnny had been rather proud of himself as he started from London. He had gotten an absolute victory over Sir Raffle Buffle, and that alone was gratifying to his feelings. He liked the excitement of a journey, and especially of a journey to Italy; and the importance of the cause of his journey was satisfactory to him. But above all things he was delighted at having found that Lily Dale was pleased at his going. He had seen clearly that she was much pleased, and that she made something of a hero of him because of his alacrity in the cause of his cousin. He had partially understood,--had understood in a dim sort of way,--that his want of favour in Lily's eyes had come from some deficiency of his own in this respect. She had not found him to be a hero. She had known him first as a boy, with boyish belongings around him, and she had seen him from time to time as he became a man, almost with too much intimacy for the creation of that love with which he wished to fill her heart. His rival had come before her eyes for the first time with all the glories of Pall Mall heroism about him, and Lily in her weakness had been conquered by them. Since that she had learned how weak she had been,--how silly, how childish, she would say to herself when she allowed her memory to go back to the details of her own story; but not the less on that account did she feel the want of something heroic in a man before she could teach herself to look upon him as more worthy of her regard than other men. She had still unconsciously hoped in regard to Crosbie, but now that hope had been dispelled as unconsciously, simply by his appearance. There had been moments in which John Eames had almost risen to the necessary point,--had almost made good his footing on the top of some moderate, but still sufficient mountain. But there had still been a succession of little tumbles,--unfortunate slips for which he himself should not always have been held responsible; and he had never quite stood upright on his pinnacle, visible to Lily's eyes as being really excelsior. Of all this John Eames himself had an inkling which had often made him very uncomfortable. What the mischief was it she wanted of him; and what was he to do? The days for plucking glory from the nettle danger were clean gone by. He was well dressed. He knew a good many of the right sort of people. He was not in debt. He had saved an old nobleman's life once upon a time, and had been a good deal talked about on that score. He had even thrashed the man who had ill-treated her. His constancy had been as the constancy of a Jacob! What was it that she wanted of him? But in a certain way he did know what was wanted; and now, as he started for Florence, intending to stop nowhere till he reached that city, he hoped that by this chivalrous journey he might even yet achieve the thing necessary.

But on reaching Paris he heard tidings of Mrs. Arabin which induced him to change his plans and make for Venice instead of for Florence. A banker at Paris, to whom he brought a letter, told him that Mrs. Arabin would now be found at Venice. This did not perplex him at all. It would have been delightful to see Florence,--but was more delightful still to see Venice. His journey was the same as far as Turin; but from Turin he proceeded through Milan to Venice, instead of going by Bologna to Florence. He had fortunately come armed with an Austrian passport,--as was necessary in those bygone days of Venetia's thraldom. He was almost proud of himself, as though he had done something great, when he tumbled in to his inn at Venice, without having been in a bed since he left London.

But he was barely allowed to swim in a gondola, for on reaching Venice he found that Mrs. Arabin had gone back to Florence. He had been directed to the hotel which Mrs. Arabin had used, and was there told that she had started the day before. She had received some letter, from her husband as the landlord thought, and had done so. That was all the landlord knew. Johnny was vexed, but became a little prouder than before as he felt it to be his duty to go on to Florence before he went to bed. There would be another night in a railway carriage, but he would live through it. There was just time to have a tub and a breakfast, to swim in a gondola, to look at the outside of the Doge's palace, and to walk up and down the piazza before he started again. It was hard work, but I think he would have been pleased had he heard that Mrs. Arabin had retreated from Florence to Rome. Had such been the case, he would have folded his cloak around him, and have gone on,--regardless of brigands,--thinking of Lily, and wondering whether anybody else had ever done so much before without going to bed. As it was, he found that Mrs. Arabin was at the hotel in Florence,--still in bed, as he had arrived early in the morning. So he had another tub, another breakfast, and sent up his card. "Mr. John Eames,"--and across the top of it he wrote, "has come from England about Mr. Crawley." Then he threw himself on to a sofa in the hotel reading-room, and went fast to sleep.

John had found an opportunity of talking to a young lady in the breakfast-room, and had told her of his deeds. "I only left London on Tuesday night, and I have come here taking Venice on the road."

"Then you have travelled fast," said the young lady.

"I haven't seen a bed, of course," said John.

The young lady immediately afterwards told her father. "I suppose he must be one of those Foreign Office messengers," said the young lady.

"Anything but that," said the gentleman. "People never talk about their own trades. He's probably a clerk with a fortnight's leave of absence, seeing how many towns he can do in the time. It's the usual way of travelling now-a-days. When I was young and there were no railways, I remember going from Paris to Vienna without sleeping." Luckily for his present happiness, John did not hear this.

He was still fast asleep when a servant came to him from Mrs. Arabin to say that she would see him at once. "Yes, yes; I'm quite ready to go on," said Johnny, jumping up, and thinking of the journey to Rome. But there was no journey to Rome before him. Mrs. Arabin was almost in the next room, and there he found her.

The reader will understand that they had never met before, and hitherto knew nothing of each other. Mrs. Arabin had never heard the name of John Eames till John's card was put into her hands, and would not have known his business with her had he not written those few words upon it. "You have come about Mr. Crawley?" she said to him, eagerly. "I have heard from my father that somebody was coming."

"Yes, Mrs. Arabin; as hard as I could travel. I had expected to find you at Venice."

"Have you been at Venice?"

"I have just arrived from Venice. They told me at Paris I should find you there. However, that does not matter, as I have found you here. I wonder whether you can help us?"

"Do you know Mr. Crawley? Are you a friend of his?"

"I never saw him in my life; but he married my cousin."

"I gave him the cheque, you know," said Mrs. Arabin.

"What!" exclaimed Eames, literally almost knocked backwards by the easiness of the words which contained a solution for so terrible a difficulty. The Crawley case had assumed such magnitude, and the troubles of the Crawley family had been so terrible, that it seemed to him to be almost sacrilegious that words so simply uttered should suffice to cure everything. He had hardly hoped,--had at least barely hoped,--that Mrs. Arabin might be able to suggest something which would put them all on a track towards discovery of the truth. But he found that she had the clue in her hand, and that the clue was one which required no further delicacy of investigation. There would be nothing more to unravel; no journey to Jerusalem would be necessary!

"Yes," said Mrs. Arabin, "I gave it to him. They have been writing to my husband about it, and never wrote to me; and till I received a letter about it from my father, and another from my sister, at Venice the day before yesterday, I knew nothing of the particulars of Mr. Crawley's trouble."

"Had you not heard that he had been taken before the magistrates?"

"No; not so much even as that. I had seen in 'Galignani' something about a clergyman, but I did not know what clergyman; and I heard that there was something wrong about Mr. Crawley's money, but there has always been something wrong about money with poor Mr. Crawley; and as I knew that my husband had been written to also, I did not interfere, further than to ask the particulars. My letters have followed me about, and I only learned at Venice, just before I came here, what was the nature of the case."

"And did you do anything?"

"I telegraphed at once to Mr. Toogood, who I understand is acting as Mr. Crawley's solicitor. My sister sent me his address."

"He is my uncle."

"I telegraphed to him, telling him that I had given Mr. Crawley the cheque, and then I wrote to Archdeacon Grantly giving him the whole history. I was obliged to come here before I could return home, but I intended to start this evening."

"And what is the whole history?" asked John Eames.

The history of the gift of the cheque was very simple. It has been told how Mr. Crawley in his dire distress had called upon his old friend at the deanery asking for pecuniary assistance. This he had done with so much reluctance that his spirit had given way while he was waiting in the dean's library, and he had wished to depart without accepting what the dean was quite willing to bestow upon him. From this cause it had come to pass there had been no time for explanatory words, even between the dean and his wife,--from whose private funds had in truth come the money which had been given to Mr. Crawley. For the private wealth of the family belonged to Mrs. Arabin, and not to the dean; and was left entirely in Mrs. Arabin's hands, to be disposed of as she might please. Previously to Mr. Crawley's arrival at the deanery this matter had been discussed between the dean and his wife, and it had been agreed between them that a sum of fifty pounds should be given. It should be given by Mrs. Arabin, but it was thought that the gift would come with more comfort to the recipient from the hands of his old friend than from those of his wife. There had been much discussion between them as to the mode in which this might be done with least offence to the man's feelings,--for they knew Mr. Crawley and his peculiarities well. At last it was agreed that the notes should be put into an envelope, which envelope the dean should have ready with him. But when the moment came the dean did not have the envelope ready, and was obliged to leave the room to seek his wife. And Mrs. Arabin explained to John Eames that even she had not had it ready, and had been forced to go to her own desk to fetch it. Then, at the last moment, with the desire of increasing the good to be done to people who were so terribly in want, she put the cheque for twenty pounds, which was in her possession as money of her own, along with the notes, and in this way the cheque had been given by the dean to Mr. Crawley. "I shall never forgive myself for not telling the dean," she said. "Had I done that all this trouble would have been saved!"

"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 now 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 once 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'd 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 that 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 specially 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 Mrs. Arabin 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!

"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 patronized by bishops and deans of the better sort, expecting to find a message there from her husband. And there was the 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 to-morrow. "I suppose I may wait for him, Mr. Eames?" said Mrs. Arabin.

"I will see Mr. Toogood to-night, and I will call here to-morrow, 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 to-morrow, 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.

LXXI. MR. TOOGOOD AT SILVERBRIDGE

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 to-day, 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 to-night," 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."

"I wonder whether he has found anything out," said Mrs. Walker. "May he not come up here?" Then Mr. Toogood was summoned into the drawing-room, to the maid's astonishment; for Mr. Toogood had made no toilet sacrifices to the goddess or grace who presides over evening society in provincial towns,--and presented himself with the telegram in his hand. "We have found out all about poor Crawley's cheque," he said, before the maid-servant had closed the door. "Look at that," and he handed the telegram to Mr. Walker. The poor girl was obliged to go, though she would have given one of her ears to know the exact contents of that bit of paper.

"Walker, what is it?" said his wife, before Walker had had time to make the contents of the document his own.

"He got it from Mrs. Arabin," said Toogood.

"No!" said Mrs. Walker. "I thought that was it all along."

"It's a pity you didn't say so before," said Mr. Walker.

"So I did; but a lawyer thinks that nobody can ever see anything but himself;--begging your pardon, Mr. Toogood, but I forgot you were one of us. But, Walker, do read it." Then the telegram was read. "I gave cheque to Mr. Crawley. It was part of a sum of money,"--with the rest of it. "I knew it would come out," said Mrs. Walker. "I was quite sure of it."

"But why the mischief didn't he say so?" said Walker.

"He did say that he got it from the dean," said Toogood.

"But he didn't get it from the dean; and the dean clearly knew nothing about it."

"I'll tell you what it is," said Mrs. Walker; "it has been some private transaction between Mr. Crawley and Mrs. Arabin, which the dean was to know nothing about; and so he wouldn't tell. I must say I honour him."

"I don't think it has been that," said Walker. "Had he known all through that it had come from Mrs. Arabin, he would never have said that Mr. Soames gave it to him, and then that the dean gave it him."

"The truth has been that he has known nothing about it," said Toogood; "and we shall have to tell him."

At that moment Mary Walker came into the room, and Mrs. Walker could not constrain herself. "Mary, Mr. Crawley is all right. He didn't steal the cheque. Mrs. Arabin gave it to him."

"Who says so? How do you know? Oh, dear; I am so happy, if it's true." Then she saw Mr. Toogood, and curtseyed.

"It is quite true, my dear," said Mr. Walker. "Mr. Toogood has had a message by the wires from Mrs. Arabin at Venice. She is coming home at once, and no doubt everything will be put right. In the meantime, it may be a question whether we should not hold our tongues. Mr. Crawley himself, I suppose, knows nothing of it yet?"

"Not a word," said Toogood.

"Papa, I must tell Miss Prettyman," said Mary.

"I should think that probably all Silverbridge knows it by this time," said Mrs. Walker, "because Jane was in the room when the announcement was made. You may be sure that every servant in the house has been told." Mary Walker, not waiting for any further command from her father, hurried out of the room to convey the secret to her special circle of friends.

It was known throughout Silverbridge that night, and indeed it made so much commotion that it kept many people for an hour out of their beds. Ladies who were not in the habit of going out late at night without the fly from the "George and Vulture," tied their heads up in their handkerchiefs, and hurried up and down the street to tell each other that the great secret had been discovered, and that in truth Mr. Crawley had not stolen the cheque. The solution of the mystery was not known to all,--was known on that night only to the very select portion of the aristocracy of Silverbridge to whom it was communicated by Mary Walker or Miss Anne Prettyman. For Mary Walker, when earnestly entreated by Jane, the parlour-maid, to tell her something more of the great news, had so far respected her father's caution as to say not a word about Mrs. Arabin. "Is it true, Miss Mary, that he didn't steal it?" Jane asked imploringly. "It is true. He did not steal it." "And who did, Miss Mary? Indeed I won't tell anybody." "Nobody. But don't ask any more questions, for I won't answer them. Get me my hat at once, for I want to go up to Miss Prettyman's." Then Jane got Miss Walker's hat, and immediately afterwards scampered into the kitchen with the news. "Oh, law, cook, it's all come out! Mr. Crawley's as innocent as the unborn babe. The gentleman upstairs what's just come, and was here once before,--for I know'd him immediate,--I heard him say so. And master said so too."

"Did master say so his own self?" asked the cook.

"Indeed he did; and Miss Mary told me the same this moment."

"If master said so, then there ain't a doubt as they'll find him innocent. And who took'd it, Jane?"

"Miss Mary says as nobody didn't steal it."

"That's nonsense, Jane. It stands to reason as somebody had it as hadn't ought to have had it. But I'm as glad as anything as how that poor reverend gent 'll come off;--I am. They tells me it's weeks sometimes before a bit of butcher's meat finds its way into his house." Then the groom and the housemaid and the cook, one after another, took occasion to slip out of the back-door, and poor Jane, who had really been the owner of the news, was left alone to answer the bell.

Miss Walker found the two Miss Prettymans sitting together over their accounts in the elder Miss Prettyman's private room. And she could see at once by signs which were not unfamiliar to her that Miss Anne Prettyman was being scolded. It often happened that Miss Anne Prettyman was scolded, especially when the accounts were brought out upon the table. "Sister, they are illegible," Mary Walker heard, as the servant opened the door for her.

"I don't think it's quite so bad as that," said Miss Anne, unable to restrain her defence. Then, as Mary entered the room, Miss Prettyman the elder laid her hands down on certain books and papers as though to hide them from profane eyes.

"I am glad to see you, Mary," said Miss Prettyman, gravely.

"I've brought such a piece of news," said Mary. "I knew you'd be glad to hear it, so I ventured to disturb you."

"Is it good news?" said Anne Prettyman.

"Very good news. Mr. Crawley is innocent."

Both the ladies sprung on to their legs. Even Miss Prettyman herself jumped up on to her legs. "No!" said Anne. "Your father has discovered it?" said Miss Prettyman.

"Not exactly that. Mr. Toogood has come down from London to tell him. Mr. Toogood, you know, is Mr. Crawley's cousin; and he is a lawyer, like papa." It may be observed that ladies belonging to the families of solicitors always talk about lawyers, and never about attorneys or barristers.

"And does Mr. Toogood say that Mr. Crawley is innocent?" asked Miss Prettyman.

"He has heard it by a message from Mrs. Arabin. But you mustn't mention this. You won't, please, because papa has asked me not. I told him that I should tell you." Then, for the first time, the frown passed away entirely from Miss Prettyman's face, and the papers and account-books were pushed aside, as being of no moment. The news had been momentous enough to satisfy her. Mary continued her story almost in a whisper. "It was Mrs. Arabin who sent the cheque to Mr. Crawley. She says so herself. So that makes Mr. Crawley quite innocent. I am so glad."

"But isn't it odd he didn't say so?" said Miss Prettyman.

"Nevertheless, it's true," said Mary.

"Perhaps he forgot," said Anne Prettyman.

"Men don't forget such things as that," said the elder sister.

"I really do think Mr. Crawley could forget anything," said the younger sister.

"You may be sure it's true," said Mary Walker, "because papa said so."

"If he said so, it must be true," said Miss Prettyman; "and I am rejoiced. I really am rejoiced. Poor man! Poor ill-used man! And nobody has ever believed that he has really been guilty, even though they may have thought that he spent the money without any proper right to it. And now he will get off. But dear me, Mary, Mr. Smithe told me yesterday that he had already given up his living, and that Mr. Spooner, the minor canon, was trying to get it from the dean. But that was because Mr. Spooner and Mrs. Proudie had quarrelled; and as Mrs. Proudie is gone, Mr. Spooner very likely won't want to move now."

"They'll never go and put anybody into Hogglestock, Annabella, over Mr. Crawley's head," said Anne.

"I didn't say that they would. Surely I may be allowed to repeat what I hear, like another person, without being snapped up."

"I didn't mean to snap you up, Annabella."

"You're always snapping me up. But if this is true, I cannot say how glad I am. My poor Grace! Now, I suppose, there will be no difficulty, and Grace will become a great lady." Then they discussed very minutely the chances of Grace Crawley's promotion.

John Walker, Mr. Winthrop, and several others of the chosen spirits of Silverbridge, were playing whist at a provincial club, which had established itself in the town, when the news was brought to them. Though Mr. Winthrop was the partner of the great Walker, and though John Walker was the great man's son, I fear that the news reached their ears in but an underhand sort of way. As for the great man himself, he never went near the club, preferring his slippers and tea at home. The Walkerian groom, rushing up the street to the "George and Vulture," paused a moment to tell his tidings to the club porter; from the club porter it was whispered respectfully to the Silverbridge apothecary, who, by special grace, was a member of the club;--and was by him repeated with much cautious solemnity over the card-table. "Who told you that, Balsam?" said John Walker, throwing down his cards.

"I've just heard it," said Balsam.

"I don't believe it," said John.

"I shouldn't wonder if it's true," said Winthrop. "I always said that something would turn up."

"Will you bet three to one he is not found guilty?" said John Walker.

"Done," said Winthrop; "in pounds." That morning the odds in the club against the event had been only two to one. But as the matter was discussed, the men in the club began to believe the tidings, and before he went home, John Walker would have been glad to hedge his bet on any terms. After he had spoken to his father, he gave his money up for lost.

But Mr. Walker,--the great Walker,--had more to do that night before his son came home from the club. He and Mr. Toogood agreed that it would be right that they should see Dr. Tempest at once, and they went over together to the rectory. It was past ten at this time, and they found the doctor almost in the act of putting out the candles for the night. "I could not but come to you, doctor," said Mr. Walker, "with the news my friend has brought. Mrs. Arabin gave the cheque to Crawley. Here is a telegram from her saying so." And the telegram was handed to the doctor.

He stood perfectly silent for a few minutes, reading it over and over again. "I see it all," he said, when he spoke at last. "I see it all now; and I must own I was never before so much puzzled in my life."

"I own I can't see why she should have given him Mr. Soames's cheque," said Mr. Walker.

"I can't say where she got it, and I own I don't much care," said Dr. Tempest. "But I don't doubt but what she gave it him without telling the dean, and that Crawley thought it came from the dean. I'm very glad. I am, indeed, very glad. I do not know that I ever pitied a man so much in my life as I have pitied Mr. Crawley."

"It must have been a hard case when it has moved him," said Mr. Walker to Mr. Toogood as they left the clergyman's house; and then the Silverbridge attorney saw the attorney from London home to his inn.

It was the general opinion at Silverbridge that the news from Venice ought to be communicated to the Crawleys by Major Grantly. Mary Walker had expressed this opinion very strongly, and her mother had agreed with her. Miss Prettyman also felt that poetical justice, or, at least, the romance of justice, demanded this; and, as she told her sister Anne after Mary Walker left her, she was of opinion that such an arrangement might tend to make things safe. "I do think he is an honest man and a fine fellow," said Miss Prettyman; "but, my dear, you know what the proverb says, 'There's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip.'" Miss Prettyman thought that anything which might be done to prevent a slip ought to be done. The idea that the pleasant task of taking the news out to Hogglestock ought to be confided to Major Grantly was very general; but then Mr. Walker was of opinion that the news ought not to be taken to Hogglestock at all till something more certain than the telegram had reached them. Early on the following morning the two lawyers again met, and it was arranged between them that the London lawyer should go over at once to Barchester, and that the Silverbridge lawyer should see Major Grantly. Mr. Toogood was still of opinion that with due diligence something might yet be learned as to the cheque, by inquiry among the denizens of "The Dragon of Wantly;" and his opinion to this effect was stronger than ever when he learned from Mr. Walker that "The Dragon of Wantly" belonged to Mrs. Arabin.

Mr. Walker, after breakfast, had himself driven up in his open carriage to Cosby Lodge, and, as he entered the gates, observed that the auctioneer's bills as to the sale had been pulled down. The Mr. Walkers of the world know everything, and our Mr. Walker had quite understood that the major was leaving Cosby Lodge because of some misunderstanding with his father. The exact nature of the misunderstanding he did not know, even though he was Mr. Walker, but had little doubt that it referred in some way to Grace Crawley. If the archdeacon's objection to Grace arose from the imputation against the father, that objection would now be removed, but the abolition of the posters could not as yet have been owing to any such cause as that. Mr. Walker found the major at the gate of the farmyard attached to Cosby Lodge, and perceived that at that very moment he was engaged in superintending the abolition of sundry other auctioneer's bills from sundry other posts. "What is all this about?" said Mr. Walker, greeting the major. "Is there to be no sale after all?"

"It has been postponed," said the major.

"Postponed for good, I hope? Bill to be read again this day six months!" said Mr. Walker.

"I rather think not. But circumstances have induced me to have it put off."

Mr. Walker had got out of the carriage and had taken Major Grantly aside. "Just come a little further," he said; "I've something special to tell you. News reached me last night which will clear Mr. Crawley altogether. We know now where he got the cheque."

"You don't tell me so!"

"Yes, I do. And though the news has reached us in such a way that we cannot act upon it till it's confirmed, I do not in the least doubt it."

"And how did he get it?"

"You cannot guess?"

"Not in the least," said the major; "unless, after all, Soames gave it to him."

"Soames did not give it to him, but Mrs. Arabin did."

"Mrs. Arabin?"

"Yes, Mrs. Arabin."

"Not the dean?"

"No, not the dean. What we know is this, that your aunt has telegraphed to Crawley's cousin, Toogood, to say that she gave Crawley that cheque, and that she has written to your father about it at length. We do not like to tell Crawley till that letter has been received. It is so easy, you know, to misunderstand a telegram, and the wrong copying of a word may make such a mistake!"

"When was it received?"

"Toogood received it in London only yesterday morning. Your father will not get his letter, as I calculate, till the day after to-morrow. But, perhaps, you had better go over and see him, and prepare him for it. Toogood has gone to Barchester this morning." To this proposition Grantly made no immediate answer. He could not but remember the terms on which he had left his father; and though he had, most unwillingly, pulled down the auctioneer's bills, in compliance with his mother's last prayer to him,--and, indeed, had angrily told the auctioneer to send him in his bill when the auctioneer had demurred to these proceedings,--nevertheless he was hardly prepared to discuss the matter of Mr. Crawley with his father in pleasant words,--in words which should be full of rejoicing. It was a great thing for him, Henry Grantly, that Mr. Crawley should be innocent, and he did rejoice; but he had intended his father to understand that he meant to persevere, whether Mr. Crawley were innocent or guilty, and thus he would now lose an opportunity for exhibiting his obstinacy,--an opportunity which had not been without a charm for him. He must console himself as best he might with the returning prospect of assured prosperity, and with his renewed hopes as to the Plumstead foxes! "We think, major, that when the time comes you ought to be the bearer of the news to Hogglestock," said Mr. Walker. Then the major did undertake to convey the news to Hogglestock, but he made no promise as to going over to Plumstead.

LXXII. MR. TOOGOOD AT "THE DRAGON OF WANTLY."

In accordance with his arrangement with Mr. Walker, Mr. Toogood went over to Barchester early in the morning and put himself up at "The Dragon of Wantly." He now knew the following facts: that Mr. Soames, when he lost his cheque, had had with him one of the servants from that inn,--that the man who had been with Mr. Soames had gone to New Zealand,--that the cheque had found its way into the hands of Mrs. Arabin, and that Mrs. Arabin was the owner of the inn in question. So much he believed to be within his knowledge, and if his knowledge should prove to be correct, his work would be done as far as Mr. Crawley was concerned. If Mr. Crawley had not stolen the cheque, and if that could be proved, it would be a question of no great moment to Mr. Toogood who had stolen it. But he was a sportsman in his own line who liked to account for his own fox. As he was down at Barchester, he thought that he might as well learn how the cheque had got into Mrs. Arabin's hands. No doubt that for her own personal possession of it she would be able to account on her return. Probably such account would be given in her first letter home. But it might be well that he should be prepared with any small circumstantial details which he might be able to pick up at the inn.

He reached Barchester before breakfast, and in ordering his tea and toast, reminded the old waiter with the dirty towel of his former acquaintance with him. "I remember you, sir," said the old waiter. "I remember you very well. You was asking questions about the cheque which Mr. Soames lost afore Christmas." Mr. Toogood certainly had asked one question on the subject. He had inquired whether a certain man who had gone to New Zealand had been the post-boy who accompanied Mr. Soames when the cheque was lost; and the waiter had professed to know nothing about Mr. Soames or the cheque. He now perceived at once that the gist of the question had remained on the old man's mind, and that he was recognized as being in some way connected with the lost money.

"Did I? Ah, yes; I think I did. And I think you told me that he was the man?"

"No, sir; I never told you that."

"Then you told me that he wasn't."

"Nor I didn't tell you that neither," said the waiter angrily.

"Then what the devil did you tell me?" To this further question the waiter sulkily declined to give any answer, and soon afterwards left the room. Toogood, as soon as he had done his breakfast, rang the bell, and the same man appeared. "Will you tell Mr. Stringer that I should be glad to see him if he's disengaged," said Mr. Toogood. "I know he's bad with the gout, and therefore if he'll allow me, I'll go to him instead of his coming to me." Mr. Stringer was the landlord of the inn. The waiter hesitated a moment, and then declared that to the best of his belief his master was not down. He would go and see. Toogood, however, would not wait for that; but rising quickly and passing the waiter, crossed the hall from the coffee-room, and entered what was called the bar. The bar was a small room connected with the hall by a large open window, at which orders for rooms were given and cash was paid, and glasses of beer were consumed,--and a good deal of miscellaneous conversation was carried on. The barmaid was here at the window, and there was also, in a corner of the room, a man at a desk with a red nose. Toogood knew that the man at the desk with the red nose was Mr. Stringer's clerk. So much he had learned in his former rummaging about the inn. And he also remembered at this moment that he had observed the man with the red nose standing under a narrow archway in the close as he was coming out of the deanery, on the occasion of his visit to Mr. Harding. It had not occurred to him then that the man with the red nose was watching him, but it did occur to him now that the man with the red nose had been there, under the arch, with the express purpose of watching him on that occasion. Mr. Toogood passed quickly through the bar into an inner parlour, in which was sitting Mr. Stringer, the landlord, propped among his cushions. Toogood, as he had entered the hotel, had seen Mr. Stringer so placed, through the two doors, which at that moment had both happened to be open. He knew therefore that his old friend the waiter had not been quite true to him in suggesting that his master was not as yet down. As Toogood cast a glance of his eye on the man with the red nose, he told himself the old story of the apparition under the archway.

"Mr. Stringer," said Mr. Toogood to the landlord, "I hope I'm not intruding."

"O dear, no, sir," said the forlorn man. "Nobody ever intrudes coming in here. I'm always happy to see gentlemen,--only, mostly, I'm so bad with the gout."

"Have you got a sharp touch of it just now, Mr. Stringer?"

"Not just to-day, sir. I've been a little easier since Saturday. The worst of this burst is over. But Lord bless you, sir, it don't leave me,--not for a fortnight at a time, now; it don't. And it ain't what I drink, nor it ain't what I eat."

"Constitutional, I suppose?" said Toogood.

"Look here, sir;" and Mr. Stringer shewed his visitor the chalk stones in all his knuckles. "They say I'm all a mass of chalk. I sometimes think they'll break me up to mark the scores behind my own door with." And Mr. Stringer laughed at his own wit.

Mr. Toogood laughed too. He laughed loud and cheerily. And then he asked a sudden question, keeping his eye as he did so upon a little square open window, which communicated between the landlord's private room and the bar. Through this small aperture he could see as he stood a portion of the hat worn by the man with the red nose. Since he had been in the room with the landlord, the man with the red nose had moved his head twice, on each occasion drawing himself closer into his corner; but Mr. Toogood, by moving also, had still contrived to keep a morsel of the hat in sight. He laughed cheerily at the landlord's joke, and then he asked a sudden question,--looking well at the morsel of the hat as he did so. "Mr. Stringer," said he, "how do you pay your rent, and to whom do you pay it?" There was immediately a jerk in the hat, and then it disappeared. Toogood, stepping to the open door, saw that the red-nosed clerk had taken his hat off and was very busy at his accounts.

"How do I pay my rent?" said Mr. Stringer, the landlord. "Well, sir, since this cursed gout has been so bad, it's hard enough to pay it at all sometimes. You ain't sent here to look for it, sir, are you?"

"Not I," said Toogood. "It was only a chance question." He felt that he had nothing more to do with Mr. Stringer, the landlord. Mr. Stringer, the landlord, knew nothing about Mr. Soames's cheque. "What's the name of your clerk?" said he.

"The name of my clerk?" said Mr. Stringer. "Why do you want to know the name of my clerk?"

"Does he ever pay your rent for you?"

"Well, yes; he does, at times. He pays it into the bank for the lady as owns the house. Is there any reason for your asking these questions, sir? It isn't usual, you know, for a stranger, sir."

Toogood during the whole of this time was standing with his eye upon the red-nosed man, and the red-nosed man could not move. The red-nosed man heard all the questions and the landlord's answers, and could not even pretend that he did not hear them. "I am my cousin's clerk," said he, putting on his hat, and coming up to Mr. Toogood with a swagger. "My name is Dan Stringer, and I'm Mr. John Stringer's cousin. I've lived with Mr. John Stringer for twelve year and more, and I'm a'most as well known in Barchester as himself. Have you anything to say to me, sir?"

"Well, yes; I have," said Toogood.

"I believe you're one of them attorneys from London?" said Mr. Dan Stringer.

"That's true. I am an attorney from London."

"I hope there's nothing wrong?" said the gouty man, trying to get off his chair, but not succeeding. "If there is anything wronger than usual, Dan, do tell me. Is there anything wrong, sir?" and the landlord appealed piteously to Mr. Toogood.

"Never you mind, John," said Dan. "You keep yourself quiet, and don't answer none of his questions. He's one of them low sort, he is. I know him. I knowed him for what he is directly I saw him. Ferreting about,--that's his game; to see if there's anything to be got."

"But what is he ferreting here for?" said Mr. John Stringer.

"I'm ferreting for Mr. Soames's cheque for twenty pounds," said Mr. Toogood.

"That's the cheque that the parson stole," said Dan Stringer. "He's to be tried for it at the 'sizes."

"You've heard about Mr. Soames and his cheque, and about Mr. Crawley, I daresay?" said Toogood.

"I've heard a deal about them," said the landlord.

"And so, I daresay, have you?" said Toogood, turning to Dan Stringer. But Dan Stringer did not seem inclined to carry on the conversation any further. When he was hardly pressed, he declared that he just had heard that there was some parson in trouble about a sum of money; but that he knew no more about it than that. He didn't know whether it was a cheque or a note that the parson had taken, and had never been sufficiently interested in the matter to make any inquiry.

"But you've just said that Mr. Soames's cheque was the cheque the parson stole," said the astonished landlord, turning with open eyes upon his cousin.

"You be blowed," said Dan Stringer, the clerk, to Mr. John Stringer, the landlord; and then walked out of the room back to the bar.

"I understand nothing about it,--nothing at all," said the gouty man.

"I understand pretty nearly all about it," said Mr. Toogood, following the red-nosed clerk. There was no necessity that he should trouble the landlord any further. He left the room, and went through the bar, and as he passed out along the hall, he found Dan Stringer with his hat on talking to the waiter. The waiter immediately pulled himself up, and adjusted his dirty napkin under his arm, after the fashion of waiters, and showed that he intended to be civil to the customers of the house. But he of the red nose cocked his hat, and looked with insolence at Mr. Toogood, and defied him. "There's nothing I do hate so much as them low-bred Old Bailey attorneys," said Mr. Dan Stringer to the waiter, in a voice intended to reach Mr. Toogood's ears. Then Mr. Toogood told himself that Dan Stringer was not the thief himself, and that it might be very difficult to prove that Dan had even been the receiver of stolen goods. He had, however, no doubt in his own mind but that such was the case.

He first went to the police office, and there explained his business. Nobody at the police office pretended to forget Mr. Soames's cheque, or Mr. Crawley's position. The constable went so far as to swear that there wasn't a man, woman, or child in all Barchester who was not talking of Mr. Crawley at that very moment. Then Mr. Toogood went with the constable to the private house of the mayor, and had a little conversation with the mayor. "Not guilty!" said the mayor, with incredulity, when he first heard the news about Crawley. But when he heard Mr. Toogood's story, or as much of it as it was necessary that he should hear, he yielded reluctantly. "Dear, dear!" he said. "I'd have bet anything 'twas he who stole it." And after that the mayor was quite sad. Only let us think what a comfortable excitement it would create throughout England if it was surmised that an archbishop had forged a deed; and how much England would lose when it was discovered that the archbishop was innocent! As the archbishop and his forgery would be to England, so was Mr. Crawley and the cheque for twenty pounds to Barchester and its mayor. Nevertheless, the mayor promised his assistance to Mr. Toogood.

Mr. Toogood, still neglecting his red-nosed friend, went next to the deanery, hoping that he might again see Mr. Harding. Mr. Harding was, he was told, too ill to be seen. Mr. Harding, Mrs. Baxter said, could never be seen now by strangers, nor yet by friends, unless they were very old friends. "There's been a deal of change since you were here last, sir. I remember your coming, sir. You were talking to Mr. Harding about the poor clergyman as is to be tried." He did not stop to tell Mrs. Baxter the whole story of Mr. Crawley's innocence; but having learned that a message had been received to say that Mrs. Arabin would be home on the next Tuesday,--this being Friday,--he took his leave of Mrs. Baxter. His next visit was to Mr. Soames, who lived three miles out in the country.

He found it very difficult to convince Mr. Soames. Mr. Soames was more staunch in his belief of Mr. Crawley's guilt than any one whom Toogood had yet encountered. "I never took the cheque out of his house," said Mr. Soames. "But you have not stated that on oath," said Mr. Toogood. "No," rejoined the other; "and I never will. I can't swear to it; but yet I'm sure of it." He acknowledged that he had been driven by a man named Scuttle, and that Scuttle might have picked up the cheque, if it had been dropped in the gig. But the cheque had not been dropped in the gig. The cheque had been dropped in Mr. Crawley's house. "Why did he say then that I paid it to him?" said Mr. Soames, when Mr. Toogood spoke confidently of Crawley's innocence. "Ah, why indeed?" answered Toogood. "If he had not been fool enough to do that, we should have been saved all this trouble. All the same, he did not steal your money, Mr. Soames; and Jem Scuttle did steal it. Unfortunately, Jem Scuttle is in New Zealand by this time." "Of course, it is possible," said Mr. Soames, as he bowed Mr. Toogood out. Mr. Soames did not like Mr. Toogood.

That evening a gentleman with a red nose asked at the Barchester station for a second-class ticket for London by the up night-mail train. He was well known at the station, and the station-master made some little inquiry. "All the way to London to-night, Mr. Stringer?" he said.

"Yes,--all the way," said the red-nosed man, sulkily.

"I don't think you'd better go to London to-night, Mr. Stringer," said a tall man, stepping out of the door of the booking-office. "I think you'd better come back with me to Barchester. I do indeed." There was some little argument on the occasion; but the stranger, who was a detective policeman, carried his point, and Mr. Dan Stringer did return to Barchester.

LXXIII. THERE IS COMFORT AT PLUMSTEAD

Henry Grantly had written the following short letter to Mrs. Grantly when he made up his mind to pull down the auctioneer's bills.

DEAR MOTHER,--

I have postponed the sale, not liking to refuse you anything. As far as I can see, I shall still be forced to leave Cosby Lodge, as I certainly shall do all I can to make Grace Crawley my wife. I say this that there may be no misunderstanding with my father. The auctioneer has promised to have the bills removed.

Your affectionate son,

HENRY GRANTLY.

This had been written by the major on the Friday before Mr. Walker had brought up to him the tidings of Mr. Toogood and Mrs. Arabin's solution of the Crawley difficulty; but it did not reach Plumstead till the following morning. Mrs. Grantly immediately took the good news about the sale to her husband,--not of course showing him the letter, being far too wise for that, and giving him credit for being too wise to ask for it. "Henry has arranged with the auctioneer," she said joyfully; "and the bills have been all pulled down."

"How do you know?"

"I've just heard from him. He has told me so. Come, my dear, let me have the pleasure of hearing you say that things shall be pleasant again between you and him. He has yielded."

"I don't see much yielding in it."

"He has done what you wanted. What more can he do?"

"I want him to come over here, and take an interest in things, and not treat me as though I were nobody." Within an hour of this the major had arrived at Plumstead, laden with the story of Mrs. Arabin and the cheque, and of Mr. Crawley's innocence,--laden not only with such tidings as he had received from Mr. Walker, but also with further details, which he had received from Mr. Toogood. For he had come through Barchester, and had seen Mr. Toogood on his way. This was on the Saturday morning, and he had breakfasted with Mr. Toogood at "The Dragon of Wantly." Mr. Toogood had told him of his suspicions,--how the red-nosed man had been stopped, and had been summoned as a witness for Mr. Crawley's trial,--and how he was now under the surveillance of the police. Grantly had not cared very much about the red-nosed man, confining his present solicitude to the question whether Grace Crawley's father would certainly be shown to have been innocent of the theft. "There's not a doubt about it, major," said Mr. Toogood; "not a doubt on earth. But we'd better be a little quiet till your aunt comes home,--just a little quiet. She'll be here in a day or two, and I won't budge till she comes." In spite of his desire for quiescence Mr. Toogood consented to a revelation being at once made to the archdeacon and Mrs. Grantly. "And I'll tell you what, major; as soon as ever Mrs. Arabin is here, and has given us her own word to act on, you and I will go over to Hogglestock and astonish them. I should like to go myself, because, you see, Mrs. Crawley is my cousin, and we have taken a little trouble about this matter." To this the major assented; but he altogether declined to assist in Mr. Toogood's speculations respecting the unfortunate Dan Stringer. It was agreed between them that for the present no visit should be made to the palace, as it was thought that Mr. Thumble had better be allowed to do the Hogglestock duties on the next Sunday. As matters went, however, Mr. Thumble did not do so. He had paid his last visit to Hogglestock.

It may be as well to explain here that the unfortunate Mr. Snapper was constrained to go out to Hogglestock on the Sunday which was now approaching,--which fell out as follows. It might be all very well for Mr. Toogood to arrange that he would not tell this person or that person of the news which he had brought down from London; but as he had told various people in Silverbridge, as he had told Mr. Soames, and as he had told the police at Barchester, of course the tale found its way to the palace. Mr. Thumble heard it, and having come by this time thoroughly to hate Hogglestock and all that belonged to it, he pleaded to Mr. Snapper that this report afforded ample reason why he need not again visit that detestable parish. Mr. Snapper did not see it in the same light. "You may be sure Mr. Crawley will not get into the pulpit after his resignation, Mr. Thumble," said he.

"His resignation means nothing," said Thumble.

"It means a great deal," said Snapper; "and the duties must be provided for."

"I won't provide for them," said Thumble; "and so you may tell the bishop." In these days Mr. Thumble was very angry with the bishop, for the bishop had not yet seen him since the death of Mrs. Proudie.

Mr. Snapper had no alternative but to go to the bishop. The bishop in these days was very mild to those whom he saw, given but to few words, and a little astray,--as though he had had one of his limbs cut off,--as Mr. Snapper expressed it to Mrs. Snapper. "I shouldn't wonder if he felt as though all his limbs were cut off," said Mrs. Snapper; "you must give him time, and he'll come round by-and-by." I am inclined to think that Mrs. Snapper's opinion of the bishop's feelings and condition was correct. In his difficulty respecting Hogglestock and Mr. Thumble Mr. Snapper went to the bishop, and spoke perhaps a little harshly of Mr. Thumble.

"I think, upon the whole, Snapper, that you had better go yourself," said the bishop.

"Do you think so, my lord?" said Snapper. "It will be inconvenient."

"Everything is inconvenient; but you'd better go. And look here, Snapper, if I were you, I wouldn't say anything out at Hogglestock about the cheque. We don't know what it may come to yet." Mr. Snapper, with a heavy heart, left his patron, not at all liking the task that was before him. But his wife encouraged him to be obedient. He was the owner of a one-horse carriage, and the work was not, therefore, so hard to him as it would have been and had been to poor Mr. Thumble. And, moreover, his wife promised to go with him. Mr. Snapper and Mrs. Snapper did go over to Hogglestock, and the duty was done. Mrs. Snapper spoke a word or two to Mrs. Crawley, and Mr. Snapper spoke a word or two to Mr. Crawley; but not a word was said about the new news as to Mr. Soames's cheque, which were now almost current in Barchester. Indeed, no whisper about it had as yet reached Hogglestock.

"One word with you, reverend sir," said Mr. Crawley to the chaplain, as the latter was coming out of the church, "as to the parish work, sir, during the week;--I should be glad if you would favour me with your opinion."

"About what, Mr. Crawley?"

"Whether you think that I may be allowed, without scandal, to visit the sick,--and to give instruction in the school."

"Surely;--surely, Mr. Crawley. Why not?"

"Mr. Thumble gave me to understand that the bishop was very urgent that I should interfere in no way in the ministrations of the parish. Twice did he enjoin on me that I should not interfere,--unnecessarily, as it seemed to me."

"Quite unnecessary," said Mr. Snapper. "And the bishop will be obliged to you, Mr. Crawley, if you'll just see that the things go on all straight."

"I wish it were possible to know with accuracy what his idea of straightness is," said Mr. Crawley to his wife. "It may be that things are straight to him when they are buried as it were out of sight, and put away without trouble. I hope it be not so with the bishop." When he went into his school and remembered,--as he did remember through every minute of his teaching--that he was to receive no portion of the poor stipend which was allotted for the clerical duties of the parish, he told himself that there was gross injustice in the way in which things were being made straight at Hogglestock.

But we must go back to the major and to the archdeacon at Plumstead,--in which comfortable parish things were generally made straight more easily than at Hogglestock. Henry Grantly went over from Barchester to Plumstead in a gig from the "Dragon," and made his way at once into his father's study. The archdeacon was seated there with sundry manuscripts before him, and with one half-finished manuscript,--as was his wont on every Saturday morning. "Halloo, Harry," he said. "I didn't expect you in the least." It was barely an hour since he had told Mrs. Grantly that his complaint against his son was that he wouldn't come and make himself comfortable at the rectory.

"Father," said he, giving the archdeacon his hand, "you have heard nothing yet about Mr. Crawley?"

"No," said the archdeacon jumping up; "nothing new;--what is it?" Many ideas about Mr. Crawley at that moment flitted across the archdeacon's mind. Could it be that the unfortunate man had committed suicide, overcome by his troubles?

"It has all come out. He got the cheque from my aunt."

"From your aunt Eleanor?"

"Yes; from my aunt Eleanor. She has telegraphed over from Venice to say that she gave the identical cheque to Crawley. That is all we know at present,--except that she has written an account of the matter to you, and that she will be here herself as quick as she can come."

"Who got the message, Henry?"

"Crawley's lawyer,--a fellow named Toogood, a cousin of his wife's;--a very decent fellow," added the major, remembering how necessary it was that he should reconcile his father to all the Crawley belongings. "He's to be over here on Monday, and then will arrange what is to be done."

"Done in what way, Henry?"

"There's a great deal to be done yet. Crawley does not know himself at this moment how the cheque got into his hands. He must be told, and something must be settled about the living. They've taken the living away from him among them. And then the indictment must be quashed, or something of that kind done. Toogood has got hold of the scoundrel at Barchester who really stole the cheque from Soames;--or thinks that he has. It's that Dan Stringer."

"He's got hold of a regular scamp then. I never knew any good of Dan Stringer," said the archdeacon.

Then Mrs. Grantly was told, and the whole story was repeated again, with many expressions of commiseration in reference to all the Crawleys. The archdeacon did not join in these at first, being rather shy on that head. It was very hard for him to have to speak to his son about the Crawleys as though they were people in all respects estimable and well-conducted, and satisfactory. Mrs. Grantly understood this so well, that every now and then she said some half-laughing word respecting Mr. Crawley's peculiarities, feeling that in this way she might ease her husband's difficulties. "He must be the oddest man that ever lived," said Mrs. Grantly, "not to have known where he got the cheque." The archdeacon shook his head, and rubbed his hands as he walked about the room. "I suppose too much learning has upset him," said the archdeacon. "They say he's not very good at talking English, but put him on in Greek and he never stops."

The archdeacon was perfectly aware that he had to admit Mr. Crawley to his goodwill, and that as for Grace Crawley,--it was essentially necessary that she should be admitted to his heart of hearts. He had promised as much. It must be acknowledged that Archdeacon Grantly always kept his promises, and especially such promises as these. And indeed it was the nature of the man that when he had been very angry with those he loved, he should be unhappy until he had found some escape from his anger. He could not endure to have to own himself to have been in the wrong, but he could be content with a very incomplete recognition of his having been in the right. The posters had been pulled down and Mr. Crawley, as he was now told, had not stolen the cheque. That was sufficient. If his son would only drink a glass or two of wine with him comfortably, and talk dutifully about the Plumstead foxes, all should be held to be right, and Grace Crawley should be received with lavish paternal embraces. The archdeacon had kissed Grace once, and felt that he could do so again without an unpleasant strain upon his feelings.

"Say something to your father about the property after dinner," said Mrs. Grantly to her son when they were alone together.

"About what property?"

"About this property, or any property; you know what I mean;--something to show that you are interested about his affairs. He is doing the best he can to make things right." After dinner, over the claret, Mr. Thorne's terrible sin in reference to the trapping of foxes was accordingly again brought up, and the archdeacon became beautifully irate, and expressed his animosity,--which he did not in the least feel,--against an old friend with an energy which would have delighted his wife, if she could have heard him. "I shall tell Thorne my mind, certainly. He and I are very old friends; we have known each other all our lives; but I cannot put up with this kind of thing,--and I will not. It's all because he's afraid of his own gamekeeper." And yet the archdeacon had never ridden after a fox in his life, and never meant to do so. Nor had he in truth been always so very anxious that foxes should be found in his covers. That fox which had been so fortunately trapped just outside the Plumstead property afforded a most pleasant escape for the steam of his anger. When he began to talk to his wife that evening about Mr. Thorne's wicked gamekeeper, she was so sure that all was right, that she said a word of her extreme desire to see Grace Crawley.

"If he is to marry her, we might as well have her over here," said the archdeacon.

"That's just what I was thinking," said Mrs. Grantly. And thus things at the rectory got themselves arranged.

On the Sunday morning the expected letter from Venice came to hand, and was read on that morning very anxiously, not only by Mrs. Grantly and the major, but by the archdeacon also, in spite of the sanctity of the day. Indeed the archdeacon had been very stoutly anti-sabbatarial when the question of stopping the Sunday post to Plumstead had been mooted in the village, giving those who on that occasion were the special friends of the postman to understand that he considered them to be numskulls, and little better than idiots. The postman, finding the parson to be against him, had seen that there was no chance for him, and had allowed the matter to drop. Mrs. Arabin's letter was long and eager, and full of repetitions, but it did explain clearly to them the exact manner in which the cheque had found its way into Mr. Crawley's hand. "Francis came up to me," she said in her letter,--Francis being her husband, the dean,--"and asked me for the money, which I had promised to make up in a packet. The packet was not ready, and he would not wait, declaring that Mr. Crawley was in such a flurry that he did not like to leave him. I was therefore to bring it down to the door. I went to my desk, and thinking that I could spare the twenty pounds as well as the fifty, I put the cheque into the envelope, together with the notes, and handed the packet to Francis at the door. I think I told Francis afterwards that I put seventy pounds into the envelope, instead of fifty, but of this I will not be sure. At any rate, Mr. Crawley got Mr. Soames's cheque from me." These last words she underscored, and then went on to explain how the cheque had been paid to her a short time before by Dan Stringer.

"Then Toogood has been right about the fellow," said the archdeacon.

"I hope they'll hang him," said Mrs. Grantly. "He must have known all the time what dreadful misery he was bringing upon this unfortunate family."

"I don't suppose Dan Stringer cared much about that," said the major.

"Not a straw," said the archdeacon, and then all hurried off to church; and the archdeacon preached the sermon in the fabrication of which he had been interrupted by his son, and which therefore barely enabled him to turn the quarter of an hour from the giving out of his text. It was his constant practice to preach for full twenty minutes.

As Barchester lay on the direct road from Plumstead to Hogglestock, it was thought well that word should be sent to Mr. Toogood, desiring him not to come out to Plumstead on the Monday morning. Major Grantly proposed to call for him at "The Dragon," and to take him on from thence to Hogglestock. "You had better take your mother's horses all through," said the archdeacon. The distance was very nearly twenty miles, and it was felt both by the mother and the son, that the archdeacon must be in a good humour when he made such a proposition as that. It was not often that the rectory carriage-horses were allowed to make long journeys. A run into Barchester and back, which altogether was under ten miles, was generally the extent of their work. "I meant to have posted from Barchester," said the major. "You may as well take the horses through," said the archdeacon. "Your mother will not want them. And I suppose you might as well bring your friend Toogood back to dinner. We'll give him a bed."

"He must be a good sort of man," said Mrs. Grantly; "for I suppose he has done all this for love?"

"Yes; and spent a lot of money out of his own pocket too!" said the major enthusiastically. "And the joke of it is, that he has been defending Crawley in Crawley's teeth. Mr. Crawley had refused to employ counsel; but Toogood had made up his mind to have a barrister, on purpose that there might be a fuss about it in court. He thought that it would tell with the jury in Crawley's favour."

"Bring him here, and we'll hear all about that from himself," said the archdeacon. The major, before he started, told his mother that he should call at Framley Parsonage on his way back; but he said nothing on this subject to his father.

"I'll write to her in a day or two," said Mrs. Grantly, "and we'll have things settled pleasantly."

LXXIV. THE CRAWLEYS ARE INFORMED

Major Grantly made an early start, knowing that he had a long day's work before him. He had written over-night to Mr. Toogood, naming the hour at which he would reach "The Dragon," and was there punctual to the moment. When the attorney came out and got into the open carriage, while the groom held the steps for him, it was plain to be seen that the respect in which he was held at "The Dragon" was greatly increased. It was already known that he was going to Plumstead that night, and it was partly understood that he was engaged with the Grantly and Arabin faction in defending Mr. Crawley the clergyman against the Proudie faction. Dan Stringer, who was still at the inn, as he saw his enemy get into the Plumstead carriage, felt himself to be one of the palace party, and felt that if Mrs. Proudie had only lived till after the assizes all this heavy trouble would not have befallen him. The waiter with the dirty napkin stood at the door and bowed, thinking perhaps that as the Proudie party was going down in Barchester, it might be as well to be civil to Mr. Toogood. The days of the Stringers were probably drawing to a close at "The Dragon of Wantly," and there was no knowing who might be the new landlord.

Henry Grantly and the lawyer found very little to say to each other on their long way out to Hogglestock. They were thinking, probably, much of the coming interview, and hardly knew how to express their thoughts to each other. "I will not take the carriage up to the house," said the major, as they were entering the parish of Hogglestock; "particularly as the man must feed the horses." So they got out at a farmhouse about half a mile from the church, where the offence of the carriage and livery-servant would be well out of Mr. Crawley's sight, and from thence walked towards the parsonage. The church, and the school close to it, lay on their way, and as they passed by the school door they heard voices within. "I'll bet twopence he's there," said Toogood. "They tell me he's always either in one shop or the other. I'll slip in and bring him out." Mr. Toogood had assumed a comfortable air, as though the day's work was to be good pastime, and even made occasional attempts at drollery. He had had his jokes about Dan Stringer, and had attempted to describe the absurdities of Mr. Crawley's visit to Bedford Row. All this would have angered the major, had he not seen that it was assumed to cover something below of which Mr. Toogood was a little ashamed, but of which, as the major thought, Mr. Toogood had no cause to be ashamed. When, therefore, Toogood proposed to go into the school and bring Mr. Crawley out, as though the telling of their story would be the easiest thing in the world, the major did not stop him. Indeed he had no plan of his own ready. His mind was too intent on the tragedy which had occurred, and which was now to be brought to a close, to enable him to form any plan as to the best way of getting up the last scene. So Mr. Toogood, with quick and easy steps, entered the school, leaving the major still standing in the road. Mr. Crawley was in the school;--as was also Jane Crawley. "So here you are," said Toogood. "That's fortunate. I hope I find you pretty well?"

"If I am not mistaken in the identity, my wife's relative, Mr. Toogood?" said Mr. Crawley, stepping down from his humble desk.

"Just so, my friend," said Toogood, with his hand extended, "just so; and there's another gentleman outside who wants to have a word with you also. Perhaps you won't mind stepping out. These are the young Hogglestockians; are they?"

The young Hogglestockians stared at him, and so did Jane. Jane, who had before heard of him, did not like him at first sight, seeing that her father was clearly displeased by the tone of the visitor's address. Mr. Crawley was displeased. There was a familiarity about Mr. Toogood which made him sore, as having been exhibited before his pupils. "If you will be pleased to step out, sir, I will follow you," he said, waving his hand towards the door. "Jane, my dear, if you will remain with the children, I will return to you presently. Bobby Studge has failed in saying his Belief. You had better set him on again from the beginning. Now, Mr. Toogood." And again he waved with his hand towards the door.

"So that's my young cousin, is it?" said Toogood, stretching over and just managing to touch Jane's fingers,--of which act of touching Jane was very chary. Then he went forth, and Mr. Crawley followed him. There was the major standing in the road, and Toogood was anxious to be the first to communicate the good news. It was the only reward he had proposed to himself for the money he had expended and the time he had lost and the trouble he had taken. "It's all right, old fellow," he said, clapping his hand on Crawley's shoulder. "We've got the right sow by the ear at last. We know all about it." Mr. Crawley could hardly remember the time when he had been called an old fellow last, and now he did not like it; nor, in the confusion of his mind, could he understand the allusion to the right sow. He supposed that Mr. Toogood had come to him about his trial, but it did not occur to him that the lawyer might be bringing him news which might make the trial altogether unnecessary. "If my eyes are not mistaken, there is my friend, Major Grantly," said Mr. Crawley.

"There he is, as large as life," said Toogood. "But stop a moment before you go to him, and give me your hand. I must have the first shake of it." Hereupon Crawley extended his hand. "That's right. And now let me tell you we know all about the cheque,--Soames's cheque. We know where you got it. We know who stole it. We know how it came to the person who gave it to you. It's all very well talking, but when you're in trouble always go to a lawyer."

By this time Mr. Crawley was looking full into Mr. Toogood's face, and seeing that his cousin's eyes were streaming with tears, began to get some insight into the man's character, and also some very dim insight into the facts which the man intended to communicate to himself. "I do not as yet fully understand you, sir," said he, "being perhaps in such matters somewhat dull of intellect, but it seemeth to me that you are a messenger of glad tidings, whose feet are beautiful upon the mountains."

"Beautiful!" said Toogood. "By George, I should think they are beautiful! Don't you hear me tell you that we have found out all about the cheque, and that you're as right as a trivet?" They were still on the little causeway leading from the school up to the road, and Henry Grantly was waiting for them at the small wicket-gate. "Mr. Crawley," said the major, "I congratulate you with all my heart. I could not but accompany my friend, Mr. Toogood, when he brought you this good news."

"I do not even yet altogether comprehend what has been told to me," said Crawley, now standing out on the road between the other two men. "I am doubtless dull,--very dull. May I beg some clearer word of explanation before I ask you to go with me to my wife?"

"The cheque was given to you by my aunt Eleanor."

"Your aunt Eleanor!" said Crawley, now altogether in the clouds. Who was the major's aunt Eleanor? Though he had, no doubt, at different times heard all the circumstances of the connection, he had never realized the fact that his daughter's lover was the nephew of his old friend, Arabin.

"Yes; by my aunt, Mrs. Arabin."

"She put it into the envelope with the notes," said Toogood;--"slipped it in without saying a word to any one. I never heard of a woman doing such a mad thing in my life before. If she had died, or if we hadn't caught her, where should we all have been? Not but what I think I should have run Dan Stringer to ground too, and worked it out of him."

"Then, after all, it was given to me by the dean?" said Crawley, drawing himself up.

"It was in the envelope, but the dean did not know it," said the major.

"Gentlemen," said Mr. Crawley, "I was sure of it. I knew it. Weak as my mind may be,--and at times it is very weak,--I was certain that I could not have erred in such a matter. The more I struggled with my memory, the more fixed with me became the fact,--which I had forgotten but for a moment,--that the document had formed a part of that small packet handed to me by the dean. But look you, sirs,--bear with me yet for a moment. I said that it was so, and the dean denied it."

"The dean did not know it, man," said Toogood, almost in a passion.

"Bear with me yet awhile. So far have I been from misdoubting the dean,--whom I have long known to be in all things a true and honest gentleman,--that I postponed the elaborated result of my own memory to his word. And I felt myself the more constrained to do this, because, in a moment of forgetfulness, in the wantonness of inconsiderate haste, with wicked thoughtlessness, I had allowed myself to make a false statement,--unwittingly false, indeed, nathless very false, unpardonably false. I had declared, without thinking, that the money had come to me from the hands of Mr. Soames, thereby seeming to cast a reflection upon that gentleman. When I had been guilty of so great a blunder, of so gross a violation of that ordinary care which should govern all words between man and man, especially when any question of money may be in doubt,--how could I expect that any one should accept my statement when contravened by that made by the dean? How, in such an embarrassment, could I believe my own memory? Gentlemen, I did not believe my own memory. Though all the little circumstances of that envelope, with its rich but perilous freightage, came back upon me from time to time with an exactness that has appeared to me to be almost marvellous, yet I have told myself that it was not so! Gentlemen, if you please, we will go into the house; my wife is there, and should no longer be left in suspense." They passed on in silence for a few steps, till Crawley spoke again. "Perhaps you will allow me the privilege to be alone with her for one minute,--but for a minute. Her thanks shall not be delayed, where thanks are so richly due."

"Of course," said Toogood, wiping his eyes with a large red bandana handkerchief. "By all means. We'll take a little walk. Come along, major." The major had turned his face away, and he also was weeping. "By George! I never heard such a thing in all my life," said Toogood. "I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it. I wouldn't, indeed. If I were to tell that up in London, nobody would believe me."

"I call that man a hero," said Grantly.

"I don't know about being a hero. I never quite knew what makes a hero, if it isn't having three or four girls dying in love for you at once. But to find a man who was going to let everything in the world go against him, because he believed another fellow better than himself! There's many a chap thinks another man is wool-gathering; but this man has thought he was wool-gathering himself! It's not natural; and the world wouldn't go on if there were many like that. He's beckoning, and we had better go in."

Mr. Toogood went first, and the major followed him. When they entered the front door they saw the skirt of a woman's dress flitting away through the door at the end of the passage, and on entering the room to the left they found Mr. Crawley alone. "She has fled, as though from an enemy," he said, with a little attempt at a laugh; "but I will pursue her, and bring her back."

"No, Crawley, no," said the lawyer. "She's a little upset, and all that kind of thing. We know what women are. Let her alone."

"Nay, Mr. Toogood; but then she would be angered with herself afterwards, and would lack the comfort of having spoken a word of gratitude. Pardon me, Major Grantly; but I would not have you leave us till she has seen you. It is as her cousin says. She is somewhat over-excited. But still it will be best that she should see you. Gentlemen, you will excuse me."

Then he went out to fetch his wife, and while he was away not a word was spoken. The major looked out of one window and Mr. Toogood out of the other, and they waited patiently till they heard the coming steps of the husband and wife. When the door was opened, Mr. Crawley appeared, leading his wife by the hand. "My dear," he said, "you know Major Grantly. This is your cousin, Mr. Toogood. It is well that you know him too, and remember his great kindness to us." But Mrs. Crawley could not speak. She could only sink on the sofa, and hide her face, while she strove in vain to repress her sobs. She had been very strong through all her husband's troubles,--very strong in bearing for him what he could not bear for himself, and in fighting on his behalf battles in which he was altogether unable to couch a lance; but the endurance of so many troubles, and the great overwhelming sorrow at last, had so nearly overpowered her, that she could not sustain the shock of this turn in their fortunes. "She was never like this, sirs, when ill news came to us," said Mr. Crawley, standing somewhat apart from her.

The major sat himself by her side, and put his hand upon hers, and whispered some word to her about her daughter. Upon this she threw her arms around him, and kissed his face, and then his hands, and then looked up into his face through her tears. She murmured some few words, or attempted to do so. I doubt whether the major understood their meaning, but he knew very well what was in her heart.

"And now I think we might as well be moving," said Mr. Toogood. "I'll see about having the indictment quashed. I'll arrange all that with Walker. It may be necessary that you should go into Barchester the first day the judges sit; and if so, I'll come and fetch you. You may be sure I won't leave the place till it's all square."

As they were going, Grantly,--speaking now altogether with indifference as to Toogood's presence,--asked Mr. Crawley's leave to be the bearer of these tidings to his daughter.

"She can hear it in no tones that can be more grateful to her," said Mr. Crawley.

"I shall ask her for nothing for myself now," said Grantly. "It would be ungenerous. But hereafter,--in a few days,--when she shall be more at ease, may I then use your permission--?"

"Major Grantly," said Mr. Crawley, solemnly, "I respect you so highly, and esteem you so thoroughly, that I give willingly that which you ask. If my daughter can bring herself to regard you, as a woman should regard her husband, with the love that can worship and cling and be constant, she will, I think, have a fair promise of worldly happiness. And for you, sir, in giving to you my girl,--if so it be that she is given to you,--I shall bestow upon you a great treasure." Had Grace been a king's daughter, with a queen's dowry, the permission to address her could not have been imparted to her lover with a more thorough appreciation of the value of the privilege conferred.

"He is a rum 'un," said Mr. Toogood, as they got into the carriage together; "but they say he's a very good 'un to go."

After their departure Jane was sent for, that she might hear the family news; and when she expressed some feeling not altogether in favour of Mr. Toogood, Mr. Crawley thus strove to correct her views. "He is a man, my dear, who conceals a warm heart, and an active spirit, and healthy sympathies, under an affected jocularity of manner, and almost with a touch of assumed vulgarity. But when the jewel itself is good, any fault in the casket may be forgiven."

"Then, papa, the next time I see him I'll like him,--if I can," said Jane.

The village of Framley lies slightly off the road from Hogglestock to Barchester,--so much so as to add perhaps a mile to the journey if the traveller goes by the parsonage gate. On their route to Hogglestock our two travellers had passed Framley without visiting the village, but on the return journey the major asked Mr. Toogood's permission to make the deviation. "I'm not in a hurry," said Toogood. "I never was more comfortable in my life. I'll just light a cigar while you go in and see your friends." Toogood lit his cigar, and the major, getting down from the carriage, entered the parsonage. It was his fortune to find Grace alone. Robarts was in Barchester, and Mrs. Robarts was across the road, at Lufton Court. "Miss Crawley was certainly in," the servant told him, and he soon found himself in Miss Crawley's presence.

"I have only called to tell you the news about your father," said he.

"What news?"

"We have just come from Hogglestock,--your cousin, Mr. Toogood, that is, and myself. They have found out all about the cheque. My aunt, Mrs. Arabin, the dean's wife, you know,--she gave it to your father."

"Oh, Major Grantly!"

"It seems so easily settled, does it not?"

"And is it settled?"

"Yes; everything. Everything about that." Now he had hold of her hand as if he were going. "Good-by. I told your father that I would just call and tell you."

"It seems almost more than I can believe."

"You may believe it; indeed you may." He still held her hand. "You will write to your mother I daresay to-night. Tell her I was here. Good-by now."

"Good-by," she said. Her hand was still in his, as she looked up into his face.

"Dear, dear, dearest Grace! My darling Grace!" Then he took her into his arms and kissed her, and went his way without another word, feeling that he had kept his word to her father like a gentleman. Grace, when she was left alone, thought that she was the happiest girl in Christendom. If she could only get to her mother, and tell everything, and be told everything! She had no idea of any promise that her lover might have made to her father, nor did she make inquiry of her own thoughts as to his reasons for staying with her so short a time; but looking back at it all she thought his conduct had been perfect.

In the meantime the major, with Mr. Toogood, was driven home to dinner at Plumstead.

LXXV. MADALINA'S HEART IS BLEEDING

John Eames, as soon as he had left Mrs. Arabin at the hotel and had taken his travelling-bag to his own lodgings, started off for his uncle Toogood's house. There he found Mrs. Toogood, not in the most serene state of mind as to her husband's absence. Mr. Toogood had now been at Barchester for the best part of a week,--spending a good deal of money at the inn. Mrs. Toogood was quite sure that he must be doing that. Indeed, how could he help himself? Johnny remarked that he did not see how in such circumstances his uncle was to help himself. And then Mr. Toogood had only written one short scrap of a letter,--just three words, and they were written in triumph. "Crawley is all right, and I think I've got the real Simon Pure by the heels." "It's all very well, John," Mrs. Toogood said; "and of course it would be a terrible thing to the family if anybody connected with it were made out to be a thief." "It would be quite dreadful," said Johnny. "Not that I ever looked upon the Crawleys as connections of ours. But, however, let that pass. I'm sure I'm very glad that your uncle should have been able to be of service to them. But there's reason in the roasting of eggs, and I can tell you that money is not so plenty in this house, that your uncle can afford to throw it into the Barchester gutters. Think what twelve children are, John. It might be all very well if Toogood were a bachelor, and if some lord had left him a fortune." John Eames did not stay very long in Tavistock Square. His cousins Polly and Lucy were gone to the play with Mr. Summerkin, and his aunt was not in one of her best humours. He took his uncle's part as well as he could, and then left Mrs. Toogood. The little allusion to Lord De Guest's generosity had not been pleasant to him. It seemed to rob him of all his own merit. He had been rather proud of his journey to Italy, having contrived to spend nearly forty pounds in ten days. He had done everything in the most expensive way, feeling that every napoleon wasted had been laid out on behalf of Mr. Crawley. But, as Mrs. Toogood had just told him, all this was nothing to what Toogood was doing. Toogood with twelve children was living at his own charges at Barchester, and was neglecting his business besides. "There's Mr. Crump," said Mrs. Toogood. "Of course he doesn't like it, and what can I say to him when he comes to me?" This was not quite fair on the part of Mrs. Toogood, as Mr. Crump had not troubled her even once as yet since her husband's departure.

What was Johnny to do, when he left Tavistock Square? His club was open to him. Should he go to his club, play a game of billiards, and have some supper? When he asked himself the question he knew that he would not go to his club, and yet he pretended to doubt about it, as he made his way to a cabstand in Tottenham Court Road. It would be slow, he told himself, to go to his club. He would have gone to see Lily Dale, only that his intimacy with Mrs. Thorne was not sufficient to justify his calling at her house between nine and ten o'clock at night. But, as he must go somewhere,--and as his intimacy with Lady Demolines was, he thought, sufficient to justify almost anything,--he would go to Bayswater. I regret to say that he had written a mysterious note from Paris to Madalina Demolines, saying that he should be in London on this very night, and that it was just on the cards that he might make his way up to Porchester Terrace before he went to bed. The note was mysterious, because it had neither beginning nor ending. It did not contain even initials. It was written like a telegraph message, and was about as long. It was the kind of thing Miss Demolines liked, Johnny thought; and there could be no reason why he should not gratify her. It was her favourite game. Some people like whist, some like croquet, and some like intrigue. Madalina would probably have called it romance,--because by nature she was romantic. John, who was made of sterner stuff, laughed at this. He knew that there was no romance in it. He knew that he was only amusing himself, and gratifying her at the same time, by a little innocent pretence. He told himself that it was his nature to prefer the society of women to that of men. He would have liked the society of Lily Dale, no doubt, much better than that of Miss Demolines; but as the society of Lily Dale was not to be had at that moment, the society of Miss Demolines was the best substitute within his reach. So he got into a cab and had himself driven to Porchester Terrace. "Is Lady Demolines at home?" he said to the servant. He always asked for Lady Demolines. But the page who was accustomed to open the door for him was less false, being young, and would now tell him, without any further fiction, that Miss Madalina was in the drawing-room. Such was the answer he got from the page on this evening. What Madalina did with her mother on these occasions he had never yet discovered. There used to be some little excuses given about Lady Demolines' state of health, but latterly Madalina had discontinued her references to her mother's headaches. She was standing in the centre of the drawing-room when he entered it, with both her hands raised, and an almost terrible expression of mystery in her face. Her hair, however, had been very carefully arranged so as to fall with copious carelessness down her shoulders, and altogether she was looking her best. "Oh, John," she said. She called him John by accident in the tumult of the moment. "Have you heard what has happened? But of course you have heard it."

"Heard what? I have heard nothing," said Johnny, arrested almost in the doorway by the nature of the question,--and partly also, no doubt, by the tumult of the moment. He had no idea how terrible a tragedy was in truth in store for him; but he perceived that the moment was to be tumultuous, and that he must carry himself accordingly.

"Come in, and close the door," she said. He came in and closed the door. "Do you mean to say that you haven't heard what has happened in Hook Court?"

"No;--what has happened in Hook Court?" Miss Demolines threw herself back into an arm-chair, closed her eyes, and clasped both her hands upon her forehead. "What has happened in Hook Court?" said Johnny, walking up to her.

"I do not think I can bring myself to tell you," she answered.

Then he took one of her hands down from her forehead and held it in his,--which she allowed passively. She was thinking, no doubt, of something far different from that.

"I never saw you looking better in my life," said Johnny.

"Don't," said she. "How can you talk in that way, when my heart is bleeding,--bleeding." Then she pulled away her hand, and again clasped it with the other upon her forehead.

"But why is your heart bleeding? What has happened in Hook Court?" Still she answered nothing, but she sobbed violently and the heaving of her bosom showed how tumultuous was the tumult within it. "You don't mean to say that Dobbs Broughton has come to grief;--that he's to be sold out?"

"Man," said Madalina, jumping from her chair, standing at her full height, and stretching out both her arms, "he has destroyed himself!" The revelation was at last made with so much tragic propriety, in so excellent a tone, and with such an absence of all the customary redundances of commonplace relation, that I think that she must have rehearsed the scene,--either with her mother or with the page. Then there was a minute's silence, during which she did not move even an eyelid. She held her outstretched hands without dropping a finger half an inch. Her face was thrust forward, her chin projecting, with tragic horror; but there was no vacillation even in her chin. She did not wink an eye, or alter to the breadth of a hair the aperture of her lips. Surely she was a great genius if she did it all without previous rehearsal. Then, before he had thought of words in which to answer her, she let her hands fall by her side, she closed her eyes, and shook her head, and fell back again into her chair. "It is too horrible to be spoken of,--to be thought about," she said. "I could not have brought myself to tell the tale to a living being,--except to you."

This would naturally have been flattering to Johnny had it not been that he was in truth absorbed by the story which he had heard.

"Do you mean to tell me," he said, "that Broughton has--committed suicide?" She could not speak of it again, but nodded her head at him thrice, while her eyes were still closed. "And how was the manner of it?" said he, asking the question in a low voice. He could not even as yet quite bring himself to believe it. Madalina was so fond of a little playful intrigue, that even this story might have something in it of the nature of fiction. He was not quite sure of the facts, and yet he was shocked by what he had heard.

"Would you have me repeat to you all the bloody details of that terrible scene?" she said. "It is impossible. Go to your friend Dalrymple. He will tell you. He knows it all. He has been with Maria all through. I wish,--I wish it had not been so." But nevertheless she did bring herself to narrate all the details with something more of circumstance than Eames desired. She soon succeeded in making him understand that the tragedy of Hook Court was a reality, and that poor Dobbs Broughton had brought his career to an untimely end. She had heard everything,--having indeed gone to Musselboro in the City, and having penetrated even to the sanctum of Mr. Bangles. To Mr. Bangles she had explained that she was bosom-friend of the widow of the unfortunate man, and that it was her miserable duty to make herself the mistress of all the circumstances. Mr. Bangles,--the reader may remember him, Burton and Bangles, who kept the stores for Himalaya wines at 22_s._ 6_d._ the dozen, in Hook Court,--was a bachelor, and rather liked the visit, and told Miss Demolines very freely all he had seen. And when she suggested that it might be expedient for the sake of the family that she should come back to Mr. Bangles for further information at a subsequent period, he very politely assured her that she would "do him proud," whenever she might please to call in Hook Court. And then he saw her into Lombard Street, and put her into an omnibus. She was therefore well qualified to tell Johnny all the particulars of the tragedy,--and she did so far overcome her horror as to tell them all. She told her tale somewhat after the manner of Æneas, not forgetting the "quorum pars magna fui." "I feel that it almost makes an old woman of me," said she, when she had finished.

"No," said Johnny, remonstrating;--"not that."

"But it does. To have been concerned in so terrible a tragedy takes more of life out of one than years of tranquil existence." As she had told him nothing of her intercourse with Bangles,--with Bangles who had literally picked the poor wretch up,--he did not see how she herself had been concerned in the matter; but he said nothing about that, knowing the character of his Madalina. "I shall see--that--body, floating before my eyes while I live," she said, "and the gory wound, and,--and--" "Don't," said Johnny, recoiling in truth from the picture, by which he was revolted. "Never again," she said; "never again! But you forced it from me, and now I shall not close my eyes for a week."

She then became very comfortably confidential, and discussed the affairs of poor Mrs. Dobbs Broughton with a great deal of satisfaction. "I went to see her, of course, but she sent me down word to say that the shock would be too much for her. I do not wonder that she should not see me. Poor Maria! She came to me for advice, you know, when Dobbs Broughton first proposed to her; and I was obliged to tell her what I really thought. I knew her character so well! 'Dear Maria,' I said, 'if you think that you can love him, take him!' 'I think I can,' she replied. 'But,' said I, 'make yourself quite sure about the business.' And how has it turned out? She never loved him. What heart she has she has given to that wretched Dalrymple."

"I don't see that he is particularly wretched," said Johnny, pleading for his friend.

"He is wretched, and so you'll find. She gave him her heart after giving her hand to poor Dobbs; and as for the business, there isn't as much left as will pay for her mourning. I don't wonder that she could not bring herself to see me."

"And what has become of the business?"

"It belongs to Mrs. Van Siever,--to her and Musselboro. Poor Broughton had some little money, and it has gone among them. Musselboro, who never had a penny, will be a rich man. Of course you know that he is going to marry Clara?"

"Nonsense!"

"I always told you that it would be so. And now you may perhaps acknowledge that Conway Dalrymple's prospects are not very brilliant. I hope he likes being cut out by Mr. Musselboro! Of course he will have to marry Maria. I do not see how he can escape. Indeed, she is too good for him;--only after such a marriage as that, there would be an end to all his prospects as an artist. The best thing for them would be to go to New Zealand."

John Eames certainly liked these evenings with Miss Demolines. He sat at his ease in a comfortable chair, and amused himself by watching her different little plots. And then she had bright eyes, and she flattered him, and allowed him to scold her occasionally. And now and again there might be some more potent attraction, when she would admit him to take her hand,--or the like. It was better than to sit smoking with men at the club. But he could not sit all night even with Madalina Demolines, and at eleven he got up to take his leave. "When shall you see Miss Dale?" she asked him suddenly.

"I do not know," he answered, frowning at her. He always frowned at her when she spoke to him of Miss Dale.

"I do not in the least care for your frowns," she said playfully, putting up her hands to smooth his brows. "I think I know you intimately enough to name your goddess to you."

"She isn't my goddess."

"A very cold goddess, I should think, from what I hear. I wish to ask you for a promise respecting her."

"What promise?"

"Will you grant it me?"

"How can I tell till I hear?"

"You must promise me not to speak of me to her when you see her."

"But why must I promise that?"

"Promise me."

"Not unless you tell me why." Johnny had already assured himself that nothing could be more improbable than that he should mention the name of Miss Demolines to Lily Dale.

"Very well, sir. Then you may go. And I must say that unless you can comply with so slight a request as that, I shall not care to see you here again. Mr. Eames, why should you want to speak evil of me to Miss Dale?"

"I do not want to speak evil of you."

"I know that you could not speak of me to her without at least ridicule. Come, promise me. You shall come here on Thursday evening, and I will tell you why I have asked you."

"Tell me now."

She hesitated a moment, and then shook her head. "No. I cannot tell you now. My heart is still bleeding with the memory of that poor man's fate. I will not tell you now. And yet it is now that you must give me the promise. Will you not trust me so far as that?"

"I will not speak of you to Miss Dale."

"There is my own friend! And now, John, mind you are here at half-past eight on Thursday. Punctually at half-past eight. There is a thing I have to tell you, which I will tell you then if you will come. I had thought to have told you to-day."

"And why not now?"

"I cannot. My feelings are too many for me. I should never go through with it after all that has passed between us about poor Broughton. I should break down; indeed I should. Go now, for I am tired." Then, having probably taken a momentary advantage of that more potent attraction to which we have before alluded, he left the room very suddenly.

He left the room very suddenly because Madalina's movements had been so sudden, and her words so full of impulse. He had become aware that in this little game which he was playing in Porchester Terrace everything ought to be done after some unaccustomed and special fashion. So,--having clasped Madalina for one moment in his arms,--he made a rush at the room door, and was out on the landing in a second. He was a little too quick for old Lady Demolines, the skirt of whose night-dress,--as it seemed to Johnny,--he saw whisking away, in at another door. It was nothing, however, to him if old Lady Demolines, who was always too ill to be seen, chose to roam about her own house in her night-dress.

When he found himself alone in the street, his mind reverted to Dobbs Broughton and the fate of the wretched man, and he sauntered slowly down Palace Gardens, that he might look at the house in which he had dined with a man who had destroyed himself by his own hands. He stood for a moment looking up at the windows, in which there was now no light, thinking of the poor woman whom he had seen in the midst of luxury, and who was now left a widow in such miserable circumstances! As for the suggestion that his friend Conway would marry her, he did not believe it for a moment. He knew too well what the suggestions of his Madalina were worth, and the motives from which they sprung. But he thought it might be true that Mrs. Van Siever had absorbed all there was of property, and possibly, also, that Musselboro was to marry her daughter. At any rate, he would go to Dalrymple's rooms, and if he could find him, would learn the truth. He knew enough of Dalrymple's ways of life, and of the ways of his friend's chambers and studio, to care nothing for the lateness of the hour, and in a very few minutes he was sitting in Dalrymple's arm-chair. He found Siph Dunn there, smoking in unperturbed tranquillity, and as long as that lasted he could ask no questions about Mrs. Broughton. He told them, therefore, of his adventures abroad, and of Crawley's escape. But at last, having finished his third pipe, Siph Dunn took his leave.

"Tell me," said John, as soon as Dunn had closed the door, "what is this I hear about Dobbs Broughton?"

"He has blown his brains out. That is all."

"How terribly shocking!"

"Yes; it shocked us all at first. We are used to it now."

"And the business?"

"That had gone to the dogs. They say at least that his share of it had done so."

"And he was ruined?"

"They say so. That is, Musselboro says so, and Mrs. Van Siever."

"And what do you say, Conway?"

"The less I say the better. I have my hopes,--only you're such a talkative fellow, one can't trust you."

"I never told any secret of yours, old fellow."

"Well;--the fact is, I have an idea that something may be saved for the poor woman. I think that they are wronging her. Of course all I can do is to put the matter into a lawyer's hands, and pay the lawyer's bill. So I went to your cousin, and he has taken the case up. I hope he won't ruin me."

"Then I suppose you are quarrelling with Mrs. Van?"

"That doesn't matter. She has quarrelled with me."

"And what about Jael, Conway? They tell me that Jael is going to become Mrs. Musselboro."

"Who has told you that?"

"A bird."

"Yes; I know who the bird is. I don't think that Jael will become Mrs. Musselboro. I don't think that Jael would become Mrs. Musselboro, if Jael were the only woman, and Musselboro the only man in London. To tell you a little bit of secret, Johnny, I think that Jael will become the wife of one Conway Dalrymple. That is my opinion; and as far as I can judge, it is the opinion of Jael also."

"But not the opinion of Mrs. Van. The bird told me another thing, Conway."

"What was the other thing?"

"The bird hinted that all this would end in your marrying the widow of that poor wretch who destroyed himself."

"Johnny, my boy," said the artist, after a moment's silence, "if I give you a bit of advice, will you profit by it?"

"I'll try, if it's not disagreeable."

"Whether you profit by it, or whether you do not, keep it to yourself. I know the bird better than you do, and I strongly caution you to beware of the bird. The bird is a bird of prey, and altogether an unclean bird. The bird wants a mate and doesn't much care how she finds one. And the bird wants money, and doesn't much care how she gets it. The bird is a decidedly bad bird, and not at all fit to take the place of domestic hen in a decent farmyard. In plain English, Johnny, you'll find some day, if you go over too often to Porchester Terrace, either that you are going to marry the bird, or else that you are employing your cousin Toogood for your defence in an action for breach of promise, brought against you by that venerable old bird, the bird's mamma."

"If it's to be either, it will be the latter," said Johnny as he took up his hat to go away.