The Chronicles of Barsetshire (314 page)

“Should you find it necessary. He will probably be on his way back, and she will know where you can hit him on the road. You must make him understand that it is essential that he should be here some little time before the trial. You can understand, Johnny”—and as he spoke Mr. Toogood lowered his voice to a whisper, though they were walking together on the platform of the railway station, and could not possibly have been overheard by anyone—”you can understand that it may be necessary to prove that he is not exactly compos mentis, and if so it will be essential that he should have some influential friend near him. Otherwise that bishop will trample him into dust.” If Mr. Toogood could have seen the bishop at this time and have read the troubles of the poor man’s heart, he would hardly have spoken of him as being so terrible a tyrant.

“I understand all that,” said Johnny.

“So that, in fact, I shall expect to see you both together,” said Toogood.

“I hope the dean is a good fellow.”

“They tell me he is a very good fellow.”

“I never did see much of bishops or deans as yet,” said Johnny, “and I should feel rather awe-struck travelling with one.”

“I should fancy that a dean is very much like anybody else.”

“But the man’s hat would cow me.”

“I daresay you’ll find him walking about Jerusalem with a wide-awake on, and a big stick in his hand, probably smoking a cigar. Deans contrive to get out of their armour sometimes, as the knights of old used to do. Bishops, I fancy, find it more difficult. Well—good-bye, old fellow. I’m very much obliged to you for going—I am, indeed. I don’t doubt but what we shall pull through, somehow.”

Then Mr. Toogood went home to breakfast, and from his own house he proceeded to his office. When he had been there an hour or two, there came to him a messenger from the Income-tax Office, with an official note addressed to himself by Sir Raffle Buffle—a note which looked to be very official. Sir Raffle Buffle presented his compliments to Mr. Toogood, and could Mr. Toogood favour Sir R. B. with the present address of Mr. John Eames. “Old fox,” said Mr. Toogood—”but then such a stupid old fox! As if it was likely that I should have peached on Johnny if anything was wrong.” So Mr. Toogood sent his compliments to Sir Raffle Buffle, and begged to inform Sir R. B. that Mr. John Eames was away on very particular family business, which would take him in the first instance to Florence—but that from Florence he would probably have to go on to Jerusalem without the loss of an hour. “Stupid old fool!” said Mr. Toogood, as he sent off his reply by the messenger.

CHAPTER XLIX

Near the Close

I wonder whether anyone will read these pages who has never known anything of the bitterness of a family quarrel? If so, I shall have a reader very fortunate, or else very cold-blooded. It would be wrong to say that love produces quarrels; but love does produce those intimate relations of which quarrelling is too often one of the consequences—one of the consequences which frequently seem to be so natural, and sometimes seem to be unavoidable. One brother rebukes the other—and what brothers ever lived together between whom there is no such rebuking?—then some warm word is misunderstood and hotter words follow and there is a quarrel. The husband tyrannizes, knowing that it is his duty to direct, and the wife disobeys, or only partially obeys, thinking that a little independence will become her—and so there is a quarrel. The father, anxious only for his son’s good, looks into that son’s future with other eyes than those of his son himself—and so there is a quarrel. They come very easily, these quarrels, but the quittance from them is sometimes terribly difficult. Much of thought is necessary before the angry man can remember that he too in part may have been wrong; and any attempt at such thinking is almost beyond the power of him who is carefully nursing his wrath, lest it cool! But the nursing of such quarrelling kills all happiness. The very man who is nursing his wrath lest it cool—his wrath against one whom he loves perhaps the best of all whom it has been given him to love—is himself wretched as long as it lasts. His anger poisons every pleasure of his life. He is sullen at his meals, and cannot understand his book as he turns its pages. His work, let it be what it may, is ill done. He is full of his quarrel—nursing it. He is telling himself how much he has loved that wicked one, how many have been his sacrifices for that wicked one, and that now that wicked one is repaying him simply with wickedness! And yet the wicked one is at that very moment dearer to him than ever. If that wicked one could only be forgiven how sweet would the world be again! And yet he nurses his wrath.

So it was in these days with Archdeacon Grantly. He was very angry with his son. It is hardly too much to say that in every moment of his life, whether waking or sleeping, he was thinking of the injury that his son was doing him. He had almost come to forget the fact that his anger had first been roused by the feeling that his son was about to do himself an injury—to cut his own throat. Various other considerations had now added themselves to that, and filled not only his mind but his daily conversation with his wife. How terrible would be the disgrace to Lord Hartletop, how incurable the injury to Griselda, the marchioness, should the brother-in-law of the one, and the brother of the other, marry the daughter of a convicted thief! “Of himself he would say nothing.” So he declared constantly, though of himself he did say a great deal. “Of himself he would say nothing, though of course such a marriage would ruin him in the county.” “My dear,” said his wife, “that is nonsense. That really is nonsense. I feel sure there is not a single person in the county who would think of the marriage in such a light.” Then the archdeacon would have quarrelled with his wife too, had she not been too wise to admit such a quarrel. Mrs. Grantly was very wise and knew that it took two persons to make a quarrel. He told her over and over again that she was in league with her son—that she was encouraging her son to marry Grace Crawley. “I believe that in your heart you wish it,” he once said to her. “No, my dear, I do not wish it. I do not think it a becoming marriage. But if he does marry her, I should wish to receive his wife in my house, and certainly should not quarrel with him.” “I will never receive her,” the archdeacon had replied; “and as for him, I can only say that in such a case I will make no provision for his family.”

It will be remembered that the archdeacon had on a former occasion instructed his wife to write to their son and tell him of his father’s determination. Mrs. Grantly had so manoeuvred that a little time had been gained, and that those instructions had not been insisted upon in all their bitterness. Since that time Major Grantly had renewed his assurance that he would marry Grace Crawley if Grace Crawley would accept him—writing on this occasion direct to his father—and had asked his father whether, in such a case, he was to look forward to be disinherited. “It is essential that I should know,” the major had said, “because in such case I must make immediate measures for leaving this place.” His father had sent back his letter, writing a few words at the bottom of it. “If you do as you propose above, you must expect nothing from me.” The words were written in large round handwriting, very hurriedly, and the son when he received them perfectly understood the mood of his father’s mind when he wrote them.

Then there came tidings, addressed on this occasion to Mrs. Grantly, that Cosby Lodge was to be given up. Lady-day had come, and the notice, necessarily to be given at that period, was so given. “I know this will grieve you,” Major Grantly had said, “but my father has driven me to it.” This, in itself, was a cause of great sorrow, both to the archdeacon and to Mrs. Grantly, as there were circumstances connected with Cosby Lodge which made them think that it was a very desirable residence for their son. “I shall sell everything about the place and go abroad at once,” he said in a subsequent letter. “My present idea is that I shall settle myself at Pau, as my income will suffice for me to live there, and education for Edith will be cheap. At any rate I will not continue in England. I could never be happy here in circumstances so altered. Of course I should not have left my profession, unless I had understood from my father that the income arising from it would not be necessary to me. I do not, however, mean to complain, but simply tell you that I shall go.” There were many letters between the mother and son in those days. “I shall stay till after the trial,” he said. “If she will then go with me, well and good; but whether she will or not, I shall not remain here.” All this seemed to Mrs. Grantly to be peculiarly unfortunate, for had he not resolved to go, things might even yet have righted themselves. From what she could now understand of the character of Miss Crawley, whom she did not know personally, she thought it probable that Grace, in the event of her father being found guilty by the jury, would absolutely and persistently refuse the offer made to her. She would be too good, as Mrs. Grantly put it to herself, to bring misery and disgrace into another family. But should Mr. Crawley be acquitted, and should the marriage then take place, the archdeacon himself might probably be got to forgive it. In either case there would be no necessity for breaking up the house at Cosby Lodge. But her dear son Henry, her best beloved, was obstinate and stiff-necked, and would take no advice. “He is even worse than his father,” she said, in her short-lived anger, to her own father, to whom alone at this time she could unburden her griefs, seeking consolation and encouragement.

It was her habit to go over to the deanery at any rate twice a week at this time, and on the occasion of one of the visits so made, she expressed very strongly her distress at the family quarrel which had come among them. The old man took his grandson’s part through and through. “I do not at all see why he should not marry the young lady if he likes her. As for money, there ought to be enough without his having to look for a wife with a fortune.”

“It is not a question of money, papa.”

“And as to rank,” continued Mr. Harding, “Henry will not at any rate be going lower than his father did when he married you—not so low indeed, for at that time I was only a minor canon, and Mr. Crawley is in possession of a benefice.”

“Papa, all this is nonsense. It is indeed.”

“Very likely, my dear.”

“It is not because Mr. Crawley is only perpetual curate of Hogglestock, that the archdeacon objects to the marriage. It has nothing to do with that at all. At the present moment he is in disgrace.”

“Under a cloud, my dear. Let us pray that it may be only a passing cloud.”

“All the world thinks that he was guilty. And then he is such a man—so singular, so unlike anybody else! You know, papa, that I don’t think very much of money, merely as money.”

“I hope not, my dear. Money is worth thinking of, but it is not worth very much thought.”

“But it does give advantages, and the absence of such advantages must be very much felt in the education of a girl. You would hardly wish Henry to marry a young woman who, from want of money, had not been brought up among ladies. It is not Miss Crawley’s fault, but such has been her lot. We cannot ignore these deficiencies, papa.”

“Certainly not, my dear.”

“You would not, for instance, wish that Henry should marry a kitchen-maid.”

“But is Miss Crawley a kitchen-maid, Susan?”

“I don’t quite say that.”

“I am told that she has been educated infinitely more than most of the young ladies in the neighbourhood,” said Mr. Harding.

“I believe that her papa has taught her Greek; and I suppose she has learned something of French at that school in Silverbridge.”

“Then the kitchen-maid theory is sufficiently disposed of,” said Mr. Harding, with mild triumph.

“You know what I mean, papa. But the fact is, that it is impossible to deal with men. They will never be reasonable. A marriage such as this would be injurious to Henry; but it will not be ruinous; and as to disinheriting him for it, that would be downright wicked.”

“I think so,” said Mr. Harding.

“But the archdeacon will look at it as though it would destroy Henry and Edith altogether, while you speak of it as though it were the best thing in the world.”

“If the young people love each other, I think it would be the best thing in the world,” said Mr. Harding.

“But, papa, you cannot but think that his father’s wish should go for something,” said Mrs. Grantly, who, desirous as she was on the one side to support her son, could not bear that her husband should, on the other side, be declared to be altogether in the wrong.

“I do not know, my dear,” said Mr. Harding; “but I do think, that if the two young people are fond of each other, and if there is anything for them to live upon, it cannot be right to keep them apart. You know, my dear, she is the daughter of a gentleman.” Mrs. Grantly upon this left her father almost brusquely, without speaking another word on the subject; for, though she was opposed to the vehement anger of her husband, she could not endure the proposition now made by her father.

Mr. Harding was at this time living all alone in the deanery. For some few years the deanery had been his home, and as his youngest daughter was the dean’s wife, there could no more comfortable resting-place for the evening of his life. During the last month or two the days had gone tediously with him; for he had had the large house all to himself, and he was a man who did not love solitude. It is hard to conceive that the old, whose thoughts have been all thought out, should ever love to live alone. Solitude is surely for the young, who have time before them for the execution of schemes, and who can, therefore, take delight in thinking. In these days the poor old man would wander about the rooms, shambling from one chamber to another, and would feel ashamed when the servants met him ever on the move. He would make little apologies for his uneasiness, which they would accept graciously, understanding, after a fashion, why it was that he was uneasy. “He ain’t got nothing to do,” said the housemaid to the cook “and as for reading, they say that some of the young ones can read all day sometimes, and all night too; but bless you, when you’re nigh eighty, reading don’t go for much.” The housemaid was right as to Mr. Harding’s reading. He was not one who had read so much in his earlier days as to enable him to make reading go far with him now that he was near eighty. So he wandered about the room, and sat here for a few minutes, and there for a few minutes, and though he did not sleep much, he made the hours of the night as many as possible. Every morning he shambled across from the deanery to the cathedral, and attended the morning service, sitting in the stall which he had occupied for fifty years. The distance was very short, not exceeding, indeed, a hundred yards from a side-door in the deanery to another side-door into the cathedral; but short as it was there had come to be a question whether he should be allowed to go alone. It had been feared that he might fall on his passage and hurt himself; for there was a step here, and a step there, and the light was not very good in the purlieus of the old cathedral. A word or two had been said once, and the offer of an arm to help him had been made; but he had rejected the proffered assistance, softly, indeed, but still firmly—and every day he tottered off by himself, hardly lifting his feet as he went, and aiding himself on his journey by a hand upon the wall when he thought that nobody was looking at him. But many did see him, and they who knew him—ladies generally of the city—would offer him a hand. Nobody was milder in his dislikings than Mr. Harding; but there were ladies in Barchester upon whose arm he would always decline to lean, bowing courteously as he did so, and saying a word or two of constrained civility. There were others whom he would allow to accompany him home to the door of the deanery, with whom he delighted to linger and chat if the morning was warm, and to whom he would tell little stories of his own doings in the cathedral services in the old days, when Bishop Grantly had ruled the diocese. Never a word did he say against Bishop Proudie, or against Bishop Proudie’s wife; but the many words which he did say in praise of Bishop Grantly—who, by his showing, was surely one of the best of churchmen who ever walked through this vale of sorrow—were as eloquent in dispraise of the existing prelate as could ever have been any more clearly-pointed phrases. This daily visit to the cathedral, where he would say his prayers as he had said them for so many years, and listen to the organ, of which he knew all the power and every blemish as though he himself had made the stops and fixed the pipes, was the chief occupation of his life. It was a pity that it could not have been made to cover a larger portion of the day.