The Last Chronicle of Barset

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"But you know that you used to be very fond of her."

He had taken up his hat when he had risen from the sofa, and was
still standing with it ready in his hand. He was even now half-minded
to escape; and the name of Lily Dale in Miss Demolines' mouth was so
distasteful to him that he would have done so,--he would have gone
in sheer disgust, had she not stood in his way, so that he could not
escape without moving her, or going round behind the sofa. She did
not stir to make way for him, and it may be that she understood that
he was her prisoner, in spite of her late command to him to go. It
may be, also, that she understood his vexation and the cause of it,
and that she saw the expediency of leaving Lily Dale alone for the
present. At any rate, she pressed him no more upon the matter. "Are
we to be friends again?" she said.

"I hope so," replied Johnny.

"There is my hand, then." So Johnny took her hand and pressed it,
and held it for a little while,--just long enough to seem to give a
meaning to the action. "You will get to understand me some day," she
said, "and will learn that I do not like to be reckoned among the
everybodies by those for whom I really--really--really have a regard.
When I am angry, I am angry."

"You were very angry just now, when you showed me the way to the
door."

"And I meant it too,--for the minute. Only think,--supposing you had
gone! We should never have seen each other again;--never, never! What
a change one word may make!"

"One word often does make a change."

"Does it not? Just a little 'yes', or 'no'. A 'no' is said when a
'yes' is meant, and then there comes no second chance, and what a
change that may be from bright hopes to desolation! Or, worse again,
a 'yes' is said when a 'no' should be said,--when the speaker knows
that it should be 'no'. What a difference that 'no' makes! When one
thinks of it, one wonders that a woman should ever say anything but
'no'."

"They never did say anything else to me," said Johnny.

"I don't believe it. I daresay the truth is, you never asked
anybody."

"Did anybody ever ask you?"

"What would you give to know? But I will tell you frankly;--yes. And
once,--once I thought that my answer would not have been a 'no'."

"But you changed your mind?"

"When the moment came I could not bring myself to say the word that
should rob me of my liberty for ever. I had said 'no' to him often
enough before,--poor fellow; and on this occasion, he told me that he
asked for the last time. 'I shall not give myself another chance,' he
said, 'for I shall be on board ship within a week.' I merely bade him
good-by. It was the only answer I gave him. He understood me, and
since that day his foot has not pressed his native soil."

"And was it all because you are so fond of your liberty?" said
Johnny.

"Perhaps,--I did not--love him," said Miss Demolines, thoughtfully.
She was now again seated in her chair, and John Eames had gone back
to his corner of the sofa. "If I had really loved him I suppose it
would have been otherwise. He was a gallant fellow, and had two
thousand a year of his own, in India stock and other securities."

"Dear me! And he has not married yet?"

"He wrote me a word to say that he would never marry till I was
married,--but that on the day that he should hear of my wedding, he
would go to the first single woman near him and propose. It was a
droll thing to say; was it not?"

"The single woman ought to feel herself flattered."

"He would find plenty to accept him. Besides being so well off he was
a very handsome fellow, and is connected with people of title. He had
everything to recommend him."

"And yet you refused him so often?"

"Yes. You think I was foolish;--do you not?"

"I don't think you were at all foolish if you didn't care for him."

"It was my destiny, I suppose; I daresay I was wrong. Other girls
marry without violent love, and do very well afterwards. Look at
Maria Clutterbuck."

The name of Maria Clutterbuck had become odious to John Eames. As
long as Miss Demolines would continue to talk about herself he could
listen with some amount of gratification. Conversation on that
subject was the natural progress of the Bayswater romance. And if
Madalina would only call her friend by her present name, he had
no strong objection to an occasional mention of the lady; but the
combined names of Maria Clutterbuck had come to be absolutely
distasteful to him. He did not believe in the Maria Clutterbuck
friendship,--either in its past or present existence, as described
by Madalina. Indeed, he did not put strong faith in anything that
Madalina said to him. In the handsome gentleman with two thousand
a year, he did not believe at all. But the handsome gentleman had
only been mentioned once in the course of his acquaintance with Miss
Demolines, whereas Maria Clutterbuck had come up so often! "Upon my
word I must wish you good-by," he said. "It is going on for eleven
o'clock, and I have to start to-morrow at seven."

"What difference does that make?"

"A fellow wants to get a little sleep, you know."

"Go, then;--go and get your sleep. What a sleepy-headed generation
it is." Johnny longed to ask whether the last generation was less
sleepy-headed, and whether the gentleman with two thousand a year
had sat up talking all night before he pressed his foot for the last
time on his native soil; but he did not dare. As he said to himself
afterwards, "It would not do to bring the Bayswater romance too
suddenly to its termination!" "But before you go," she continued,
"I must say the word to you about that picture. Did you speak to Mr
Dalrymple?"

"I did not. I have been so busy with different things that I have not
seen him."

"And now you are going?"

"Well,--to tell the truth, I think I shall see him to-night, in spite
of my being so sleepy-headed. I wrote him a line that I would look in
and smoke a cigar with him if he chanced to be at home!"

"And that is why you want to go. A gentleman cannot live without his
cigar now."

"It is especially at your bidding that I am going to see him."

"Go then.--and make your friend understand that if he continues this
picture of his, he will bring himself to great trouble, and will
probably ruin the woman for whom he professes, I presume, to feel
something like friendship. You may tell him that Mrs Van Siever has
already heard of it."

"Who told her?" demanded Johnny.

"Never mind. You need not look at me like that. It was not I. Do you
suppose that secrets can be kept when so many people know them? Every
servant in Maria's house knows all about it."

"As for that, I don't suppose Mrs Broughton makes any great secret of
it."

"Do you think she has told Mr Broughton? I am sure she has not. I may
say I know she has not. Maria Clutterbuck is infatuated. There is no
other excuse to be made for her."

"Good-by," said Johnny, hurriedly.

"And you really are going?"

"Well,--yes. I suppose so."

"Go then. I have nothing more to say to you."

"I shall come and call directly I return," said Johnny.

"You may do as you please about that, sir."

"Do you mean that you won't be glad to see me again?"

"I am not going to flatter you, Mr Eames. Mamma will be well by that
time, I hope, and I do not mind telling you that you are a favourite
with her." Johnny thought that this was particularly kind, as he had
seen so very little of the old lady. "If you choose to call upon
her," said Madalina, "of course she will be glad to see you."

"But I was speaking of yourself, you know?" and Johnny permitted
himself for a moment to look tenderly at her.

"Then from myself pray understand that I will say nothing to flatter
your self-love."

"I thought you would be kinder just when I was going away."

"I think I have been quite kind enough. As you observed yourself just
now, it is nearly eleven o'clock, and I must ask you to go away. Bon
voyage, and a happy return to you."

"And you will be glad to see me when I am back? Tell that you will be
glad to see me."

"I will tell you nothing of the kind. Mr Eames, if you do, I will be
very angry with you." And then he went.

On his way back to his own lodgings he did call on Conway Dalrymple,
and in spite of his need for early rising, sat smoking with the
artist for an hour. "If you don't take care, young man," said his
friend, "you will find yourself in a scrape with your Madalina."

"What sort of a scrape?"

"As you walk away from Porchester Terrace some fine day, you will
have to congratulate yourself on having made a successful overture
towards matrimony."

"You don't think I am such a fool as that comes to?"

"Other men as wise as you have done the same sought of thing. Miss
Demolines is very clever, and I daresay you find it amusing."

"It isn't so much that she's clever, and I can hardly say that it is
amusing. One gets awfully tired of it, you know. But a fellow must
have something to do, and that is as good as anything else."

"I suppose you have not heard that one young man levanted last year
to save himself from a breach of promise case?"

"I wonder whether he had any money in Indian securities?"

"What makes you ask that?"

"Nothing particular."

"Whatever little he had he chose to save, and I think I heard that he
went to Canada. His name was Shorter; and they say that, on the eve
of his going, Madalina sent him word that she had no objection to the
colonies, and that, under the pressing emergency of his expatriation,
she was willing to become Mrs Shorter with more expedition than
usually attends fashionable weddings. Shorter, however, escaped, and
has never been seen back again."

Eames declared that he did not believe a word of it. Nevertheless, as
he walked home he came to the conclusion that Mr Shorter must have
been the handsome gentleman with Indian securities, to whom "no" had
been said once too often.

While sitting with Conway Dalrymple, he had forgotten to say a word
about Jael and Sisera.




CHAPTER XLVII

Dr Tempest at the Palace


Intimation had been sent from the palace to Dr Tempest of
Silverbridge of the bishop's intention that a commission should be
held by him, as rural dean, with other neighbouring clergymen, as
assessors with him, that inquiry might be made on the part of the
Church into the question of Mr Crawley's guilt. It must be understood
that by this time the opinion had become very general that Mr Crawley
had been guilty,--that he had found the cheque in his house, and that
he had, after holding it for many months, succumbed to temptation,
and applied it to his own purposes. But various excuses were made for
him by those who so believed. In the first place it was felt by all
who really knew anything of the man's character, that the very fact
of his committing such a crime proved him to be hardly responsible
for his actions. He must have known, had not all judgment in such
matters been taken from him, that the cheque would certainly be
traced back to his hands. No attempt had been made in the disposing
of it to dispose of it in such a way that the trace should be
obliterated. He had simply given it to a neighbour with a direction
to have it cashed, and had written his own name on the back of it.
And therefore, though there could be no doubt as to the theft in the
mind of those who supposed that he had found the cheque in his own
house, yet the guilt of the theft seemed to be almost annihilated by
the folly of the thief. And then his poverty, and his struggles, and
the sufferings of his wife, were remembered; and stories were told
from mouth to mouth of his industry in his profession, of his great
zeal among the brickmakers of Hoggle End, of acts of charity done by
him which startled the people of the district into admiration;--how
he had worked with his own hands for the sick poor to whom he could
not give relief in money, turning a woman's mangle for a couple
of hours, and carrying a boy's load along the lanes. Dr Tempest
and others declared that he had derogated from the dignity of
his position as an English parish clergyman by such acts; but,
nevertheless, the stories of these deeds acted strongly on the minds
of both men and women, creating an admiration for Mr Crawley which
was much stronger than the condemnation of his guilt.

Even Mrs Walker and her daughter, and the Miss Prettymans, had so
far given way that they had ceased to asseverate their belief in
Mr Crawley's innocence. They contented themselves now with simply
expressing a hope that he would be acquitted by a jury, and that when
he should be so acquitted the thing might be allowed to rest. If he
had sinned, no doubt he had repented. And then there were serious
debates whether he might not have stolen the money without much sin,
being mad or half-mad,--touched with madness when he took it; and
whether he might not, in spite of such temporary touch of madness,
be well fitted for his parish duties. Sorrow had afflicted him
grievously; but that sorrow, though it had incapacitated him for the
management of his own affairs, had not rendered him unfit for the
ministrations of his parish. Such were the arguments now used in
his favour by the women around him; and the men were not keen to
contradict them. The wish that he should be acquitted and allowed to
remain in his parsonage was very general.

When therefore it became known that the bishop had decided to put on
foot another investigation, with the view of bringing Mr Crawley's
conduct under ecclesiastical condemnation, almost everybody accused
the bishop of persecution. The world of the diocese declared that Mrs
Proudie was at work, and that the bishop himself was no better than
a puppet. It was in vain that certain clear-headed men among the
clergy, of whom Dr Tempest himself was one, pointed out that the
bishop after all might perhaps be right;--that if Mr Crawley were
guilty, and if he should be found to have been so by a jury, it might
be absolutely necessary that an ecclesiastical court should take some
cognizance of the crime beyond that taken by the civil law. "The
jury," said Dr Tempest, discussing the case with Mr Robarts and other
clerical neighbours,--"the jury may probably find him guilty and
recommend him to mercy. The judge will have heard his character,
and will have been made acquainted with his manner of life, and will
deal as lightly with the case as the law will allow him. For aught
I know he may be imprisoned for a month. I wish it might be for
no more than a day,--or an hour. But when he comes out from his
month's imprisonment,--how then? Surely it should be a case for
ecclesiastical inquiry, whether a clergyman who has committed a theft
should be allowed to go into his pulpit directly he comes out of
prison?" But the answer to this was that Mr Crawley always had been a
good clergyman, was a good clergyman at this moment, and would be a
good clergyman when he did come out of prison.

But Dr Tempest, though he had argued in this way, was by no means
eager for the commencement of the commission over which he was to
be called upon to preside. In spite of such arguments as the above,
which came from the man's head when his head was brought to bear upon
the matter, there was a thorough desire within his heart to oppose
the bishop. He had no strong sympathy with Mr Crawley, as had others.
He would have had Mr Crawley silenced without regret, presuming Mr
Crawley to have been guilty. But he had a much stronger feeling with
regard to the bishop. Had there been any question of silencing the
bishop,--could it have been possible to take any steps in that
direction,--he would have been very active. It may therefore be
understood that in spite of his defence of the bishop's present
proceedings as to the commission, he was anxious that the bishop
should fail, and anxious to put impediments in the bishop's way,
should it appear to him that he could do so with justice. Dr Tempest
was well known among his parishioners to be hard and unsympathetic,
some said unfeeling also, and cruel; but it was admitted by those who
disliked him the most that he was both practical and just, and that
he cared for the welfare of many, though he was rarely touched by the
misery of one. Such was the man who was rector of Silverbridge and
rural dean in the district, and who was now called upon by the bishop
to assist him in making further inquiry as to this wretched cheque
for twenty pounds.

Once at this period Archdeacon Grantly and Dr Tempest met each
other and discussed the question of Mr Crawley's guilt. Both these
men were inimical to the present bishop of the diocese, and both
had perhaps respected the old bishop beyond all other men. But
they were different in this, that the archdeacon hated Dr Proudie
as a partisan,--whereas Dr Tempest opposed the bishop on certain
principles which he endeavoured to make clear, at any rate to
himself. "Wrong!" said the archdeacon, speaking of the bishop's
intention of issuing a commission--"of course he is wrong. How could
anything right come from him or from her? I should be sorry to have
to do his bidding."

"I think you are a little hard upon Bishop Proudie," said Dr Tempest.

"One cannot be hard upon him," said the archdeacon. "He is so
scandalously weak, and she is so radically vicious, that they cannot
but be wrong together. The very fact that such a man should be a
bishop among us is to me terribly strong evidence of evil days
coming."

"You are more impulsive than I am," said Dr Tempest. "In this case I
am sorry for the poor man, who is, I am sure, honest in the main. But
I believe that in such a case your father would have done just what
the present bishop is doing;--that he could have done nothing else;
and as I think that Dr Proudie is right I shall do all that I can to
assist him in the commission."

The bishop's secretary had written to Dr Tempest, telling him of the
bishop's purpose; and now, in one of the last days of March, the
bishop himself wrote to Dr Tempest, asking him to come over to the
palace. The letter was worded most courteously, and expressed very
feelingly the great regret which the writer felt at being obliged to
take these proceedings against a clergyman in his diocese. Bishop
Proudie knew how to write such a letter. By the writing of such
letters, and by the making of speeches in the same strain, he had
become Bishop of Barchester. Now, in this letter, he begged Dr
Tempest to come over to him, saying how delighted Mrs Proudie would
be to see him at the palace. Then he went on to explain the great
difficulty which he felt, and great sorrow also, in dealing with
this matter of Mr Crawley. He looked, therefore, confidently for Dr
Tempest's assistance. Thinking to do the best for Mr Crawley, and
anxious to enable Mr Crawley to remain in quiet retirement till the
trial should be over, he had sent a clergyman over to Hogglestock,
who would have relieved Mr Crawley from the burden of the
church-services;--but Mr Crawley would have none of this relief.
Mr Crawley had been obstinate and overbearing, and had persisted
in claiming his right to his own pulpit. Therefore was the bishop
obliged to interfere legally, and therefore was he under the
necessity of asking Dr Tempest to assist him. Would Dr Tempest come
over on the Monday, and stay till the Wednesday?

The letter was a very good letter, and Dr Tempest was obliged to do
as he was asked. He so far modified the bishop's proposition that he
reduced the sojourn at the palace by one night. He wrote to say that
he would have the pleasure of dining with the bishop and Mrs Proudie
on the Monday, but would return home on the Tuesday, as soon as the
business in hand would permit him. "I shall get on very well with
him," he said to his wife before he started; "but I am afraid of
the woman. If she interferes there will be a row." "Then, my dear,"
said his wife, "there will be a row, for I am told that she always
interferes." On reaching the palace half-an-hour before dinner-time,
Dr Tempest found that other guests were expected, and on descending
to the great yellow drawing-room, which was used only on state
occasions, he encountered Mrs Proudie and two of her daughters
arrayed in a full panoply of female armour. She received him with
her sweetest smiles, and if there had been any former enmity between
Silverbridge and the palace, it was now all forgotten. She regretted
greatly that Mrs Tempest had not accompanied the doctor;--for Mrs
Tempest also had been invited. But Mrs Tempest was not quite as well
as she might have been, the doctor had said, and very rarely slept
away from home. And then the bishop came in and greeted his guest
with his pleasantest good humour. It was quite a sorrow to him that
Silverbridge was so distant, and that he saw so little of Dr Tempest;
but he hoped that that might be somewhat mended now, and that leisure
might be found for social delights;--to all which Dr Tempest said but
little, bowing to the bishop at each separate expression of his
lordship's kindness.

There were guests there that evening who did not often sit at the
bishop's table. The archdeacon and Mrs Grantly had been summoned
from Plumstead, and had obeyed the summons. Great as was the enmity
between the bishop and the archdeacon, it had never quite taken the
form of open palpable hostility. Each, therefore, asked the other to
dinner perhaps once every year; and each went to the other, perhaps,
once in two years. And Dr Thorne from Chaldicotes was there, but
without his wife, who in these days was up in London. Mrs Proudie
always expressed a warm friendship for Mrs Thorne, and on this
occasion loudly regretted her absence. "You must tell her, Dr Thorne,
how exceedingly much we miss her." Dr Thorne, who was accustomed
to hear his wife speak of her dear friend Mrs Proudie with almost
unmeasured ridicule, promised that he would do so. "We are sorry the
Lufton's couldn't come to us," said Mrs Proudie,--not alluding to
the dowager, of whom it was well known that no earthly inducement
would have sufficed to make her put her foot within Mrs Proudie's
room;--"but one of the children is ill, and she could not leave
him." But the Greshams were there from Boxall Hill, and the Thornes
from Ullathorne, and, with the exception of a single chaplain, who
pretended to carve, Dr Tempest and the archdeacon were the only
clerical guests at the table. From all which Dr Tempest knew that the
bishop was anxious to treat him with special consideration on the
present occasion.

The dinner was rather long and ponderous, and occasionally almost
dull. The archdeacon talked a good deal, but a bystander with an
acute ear might have understood from the tone of his voice that he
was not talking as he would have talked among friends. Mrs Proudie
felt this, and understood it, and was angry. She could never find
herself in the presence of the archdeacon without becoming angry.
Her accurate ear would always appreciate the defiance of episcopal
authority, as now existing in Barchester, which was concealed, or
only half concealed, by all the archdeacon's words. But the bishop
was not so keen, nor so easily roused to wrath; and though the
presence of his enemy did to a certain degree cow him, he strove to
fight against the feeling with renewed good-humour.

"You have improved so upon the old days," said the archdeacon,
speaking of some small matter with reference to the cathedral, "that
one hardly knows the old place."

"I hope we have not fallen off," said the bishop, with a smile.

"We have improved, Dr Grantly," said Mrs Proudie, with great emphasis
on her words. "What you say is true. We have improved."

"Not a doubt about that," said the archdeacon. Then Mrs Grantly
interposed, strove to change the subject, and threw oil upon the
waters.

"Talking of improvements," said Mrs Grantly, "what an excellent row
of houses they have built at the bottom of High Street. I wonder who
is to live in them?"

"I remember when that was the very worst part of the town," said Dr
Thorne.

"And now they're asking seventy pounds apiece for houses which
did not cost above six hundred each to build," said Mr Thorne of
Ullathorne, with that seeming dislike of modern success which is
evinced by most of the elders of the world.

"And who is to live in them?" asked Mrs Grantly.

"Two of them have been already taken by clergymen," said the bishop,
in a tone of triumph.

"Yes," said the archdeacon, "and the houses in the Close which used
to be the residences of the prebendaries have been leased out to
tallow-chandlers and retired brewers. That comes of the working of
the Ecclesiastical Commission."

"And why not?" demanded Mrs Proudie.

"Why not, indeed, if you like to have tallow-chandlers next door to
you?" said the archdeacon. "In the old days, we would sooner have had
our brethren near to us."

"There is nothing, Dr Grantly, so objectionable in a cathedral town
as a lot of idle clergymen," said Mrs Proudie.

"It is beginning to be a question to me," said the archdeacon,
"whether there is any use in clergymen at all for the present
generation."