The Chronicles of Barsetshire (329 page)

“Conway, what are you going to do?” said Mrs. Broughton.

“I am going to ask Clara Van Siever to be my wife,” said Dalrymple. At that moment the door was opened, and Mrs. Van Siever entered the room.

Clara had not risen from her kneeling posture when Dalrymple began to put off his trappings. She had not seen what he was doing as plainly as Mrs. Broughton had done, having her attention naturally drawn towards her Sisera; and, besides this, she understood that she was to remain as she was placed till orders to move were given to her. Dalrymple would occasionally step aside from his easel to look at her in some altered light, and on such occasions she would simply hold her hammer somewhat more tightly than before. When, therefore, Mrs. Van Siever entered the room Clara was still slaying Sisera, in spite of the artist’s speech. The speech, indeed, and her mother both seemed to come to her at the same time. The old woman stood for a moment holding the open door in her hand. “You fool!” she said, “what are you doing there, dressed up in that way like a guy?” Then Clara got up from her feet and stood before her mother in Jael’s dress and Jael’s turban. Dalrymple thought that the dress and turban did not become her badly. Mrs. Van Siever apparently thought otherwise. “Will you have the goodness to tell me, miss, why you are dressed up after that Mad Bess of Bedlam fashion?”

The reader will no doubt bear in mind that Clara had other words of which to think besides those which were addressed to her by her mother. Dalrymple had asked her to be his wife in the plainest possible language, and she thought that the very plainness of the language became him well. The very taking off of his apron, almost as he said the words, though to himself the action had been so distressing as almost to overcome his purpose, had in it something to her of direct simple determination which pleased her. When he had spoken of having had a nail driven by her right through his heart, she had not been in the least gratified; but the taking off of the apron, and the putting down of the palette, and the downright way in which he had called her Clara Van Siever—attempting to be neither sentimental with Clara, nor polite with Miss Van Siever—did please her. She had often said to herself that she would never give a plain answer to a man who did not ask her a plain question—to a man who, in asking this question, did not say plainly to her, “Clara Van Siever, will you become Mrs. Jones?”—or Mrs. Smith, or Mrs. Tomkins, as the case might be. Now Conway Dalrymple had asked her to become Mrs. Dalrymple very much after this fashion. In spite of the apparition of her mother, all this had passed through her mind. Not the less, however, was she obliged to answer her mother, before she could give any reply to the other questioner. In the meantime Mrs. Dobbs Broughton had untucked her feet.

“Mamma,” said Clara, “who ever expected to see you here?”

“I daresay nobody did,” said Mrs. Van Siever; “but here I am, nevertheless.”

“Madam,” said Mrs. Dobbs Broughton, “you might at any rate have gone through the ceremony of having yourself announced by the servant.”

“Madam,” said the old woman, attempting to mimic the tone of the other, “I thought that on such a very particular occasion as this I might be allowed to announce myself. You tomfool, you, why don’t you take that turban off?” Then Clara, with slow and graceful motion, unwound the turban. If Dalrymple really meant what he had said and would stick to it, she need not mind being called a tomfool by her mother.

“Conway, I am afraid that our last sitting is disturbed,” said Mrs. Broughton, with her little laugh.

“Conway’s last sitting certainly is disturbed,” said Mrs. Van Siever, and then she mimicked the laugh. “And you’ll all be disturbed—I can tell you that. What an ass you must be to go on with this kind of thing, after what I said to you yesterday! Do you know that he got beastly drunk in the City last night, and that he is drunk now, while you are going on with your tomfooleries?” Upon hearing this, Mrs. Dobbs Broughton fainted into Dalrymple’s arms.

Hitherto the artist had not said a word, and had hardly known what part in it would best become him now to play. If he intended to marry Clara—and he certainly did intend to marry her if she would have him—it might be as well not to quarrel with Mrs. Van Siever. At any rate there was nothing in Mrs. Van Siever’s intrusion, disagreeable as it was, which need make him take up his sword to do battle with her. But now, as he held Mrs. Broughton in his arms, and as the horrid words which the old woman had spoken rung in his ears, he could not refrain himself form uttering reproach. “You ought not to have told her in this way, before other people, even if it be true,” said Conway.

“Leave me to be my own judge of what I ought to do, if you please, sir. If she had any feeling at all, what I told her yesterday would have kept her from all this. But some people have no feeling, and will go on being tomfools though the house is on fire.” As these words were spoken, Mrs. Broughton fainted more persistently than ever—so that Dalrymple was convinced that whether she felt or not, at any rate she heard. He had now dragged her across the room, and laid her upon the sofa, and Clara had come to her assistance. “I daresay you think me very hard because I speak plainly, but there are things much harder than plain speaking. How much do you expect to be paid, sir, for this picture of my girl?”

“I do not expect to be paid for it at all,” said Dalrymple.

“And who is it to belong to?”

“It belongs to me at present.”

“Then, sir, it mustn’t belong to you any longer. It won’t do for you to have a picture of my girl to hang up in your painting-room for all your friends to come and make their jokes about, nor yet to make a show of it in any of your exhibitions. My daughter has been a fool, and I can’t help it. If you’ll tell me what’s the cost, I’ll pay you; then I’ll have the picture home, and I’ll treat it as it deserves.”

Dalrymple thought for a moment about his picture and about Mrs. Van Siever. What had he better do? He wanted to behave well, and he felt that the old woman had something of justice on her side. “Madam,” he said, “I will not sell this picture; but it shall be destroyed, if you wish it.”

“I certainly do wish it, but I won’t trust to you. If it’s not sent to my house at once you’ll hear from me through my lawyers.”

Then Dalrymple deliberately opened his penknife and slit the canvas across, through the middle of the picture each way. Clara, as she saw him do it, felt that in truth that she loved him. “There, Mrs. Van Siever,” he said; “now you can take the bits home with you in your basket if you wish it.” At this moment, as the rent canvas fell and fluttered upon the stretcher, there came a loud voice of lamentation from the sofa, a groan of despair and a shriek of wrath. “Very fine indeed,” said Mrs. Van Siever. “When ladies faint they always ought to have their eyes about them. I see that Mrs. Broughton understands that.”

“Take her away, Conway—for God’s sake take her away,” said Mrs. Broughton.

“I shall take myself away very shortly,” said Mrs. Van Siever, “so you needn’t trouble Mr. Conway about that. Not but that I thought the gentleman’s name was Mr. something else.”

“My name is Conway Dalrymple,” said the artist.

“Then I suppose you must be her brother, or her cousin, or something of that sort?” said Mrs. Van Siever.

“Take her away,” screamed Mrs. Dobbs Broughton.

“Wait a moment, madam. As you’ve chopped up your handiwork there, Mr. Conway Dalrymple, and as I suppose my daughter has been more to blame than anybody else—”

“She has not been to blame at all,” said Dalrymple.

“That’s my affair and not yours,” said Mrs. Van Siever, very sharply. “But as you’ve been at all this trouble, and have now chopped it up, I don’t mind paying you for your time and paints; only I shall be glad to know how much it will come to?”

“There will be nothing to pay, Mrs. Van Siever.”

“How long has he been at it, Clara?”

“Mamma, indeed you had better not say anything about paying him.”

“I shall say whatever I please, miss. Will ten pounds do it, sir?”

“If you choose to buy the picture, the price will be seven hundred and fifty,” said Dalrymple with a smile, pointing to the fragments.

“Seven hundred and fifty pounds?” said the old woman.

“But I strongly advise you not to make the purchase,” said Dalrymple.

“Seven hundred and fifty pounds! I certainly shall not give you seven hundred and fifty pounds.”

“I certainly think you could invest your money better, Mrs. Van Siever. But if the thing is to be sold at all, that is my price. I’ve thought that there was some justice in your demand that it should be destroyed—and therefore I have destroyed it.”

Mrs. Van Siever had been standing on the same spot ever since she had entered the room, and now she turned round to leave the room.

“If you have any demand to make, I beg that you will send in your account for work done to Mr. Musselboro. He is my man of business. Clara, are you ready to come home? The cab is waiting at the door—at sixpence the quarter of an hour, if you will be pleased to remember.”

“Mrs. Broughton,” said Clara, thoughtful of her raiment, and remembering that it might not be well that she should return home, even in a cab, dressed as Jael; “if you will allow me, I will go into your room for a minute or two.”

“Certainly, Clara,” said Mrs. Broughton, preparing to accompany her.

“But before you go, Mrs. Broughton,” said Mrs. Van Siever, “it may be as well that I should tell you that my daughter is going to become the wife of Mr. Musselboro. It may simplify matters that you should know this.” And Mrs. Van Siever, as she spoke, looked hard at Conway Dalrymple.

“Mamma!” exclaimed Clara.

“My dear,” said Mrs. Van Siever, “you had better change your dress and come away with me.”

“Not till I have protested against what you have said, mamma.”

“You had better leave your protesting alone, I can tell you.”

“Mrs. Broughton,” said Clara, “I must beg you to understand that mamma has not the slightest right in the world to tell you what she just now said about me. Nothing on earth would induce me to become the wife of Mr. Broughton’s partner.”

There was something which made Clara unwilling even to name the man whom her mother had publicly proposed as her future husband.

“He isn’t Mr. Broughton’s partner,” said Mrs. Van Siever. “Mr. Broughton has not got a partner. Mr. Musselboro is the head of the firm. And as to your marrying him, of course, I can’t make you.”

“No, mamma, you cannot.”

“Mrs. Broughton understands that, no doubt—and so, probably, does Mr. Dalrymple. I can only tell them what are my ideas. If you choose to marry the sweep at the crossing, I can’t help it. Only I don’t see what good you would do the sweep, when he would have to sweep for himself and you too. At any rate, I suppose you mean to go home with me now?” Then Mrs. Broughton and Clara left the room, and Mrs. Van Siever was left with Conway Dalrymple. “Mr. Dalrymple,” said Mrs. Van Siever, “do not deceive yourself. What I told you just now will certainly come to pass.”

“It seems to me that that must depend on the young lady,” said Dalrymple.

“I’ll tell you what certainly will not depend on the young lady,” said Mrs. Van Siever, “and that is whether the man who marries her will have more with her than the clothes she stands up in. You will understand that argument, I suppose?”

“I’m not quite sure that I do,” said Dalrymple.

“Then you’d better try to understand it. Good-morning, sir. I’m sorry you’ve had to slit your picture.” Then she curtseyed low, and walked out on to the landing-place. “Clara,” she cried, “I’m waiting for you—sixpence a quarter of an hour—remember that.” In a minute or two Clara came out to her, and then Mrs. Van Siever and Miss Van Siever took their departure.

“Oh, Conway, what am I to do? what am I to do?” said Mrs. Dobbs Broughton. Dalrymple stood perplexed for a few minutes, and would not tell her what she was to do. She was in such a position that it was very hard to tell her what she was to do. “Do you believe, Conway, that he is really ruined?”

“What am I to say? How am I to know?”

“I see that you believe it,” said the wretched woman.

“I cannot but believe that there is something of truth in what this woman says. Why else should she come here with such a story?” Then there was a pause, during which Mrs. Broughton was burying her face on the arm of the sofa. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” continued he. “I’ll go into the City, and make inquiry. It can hardly be but what I shall learn the truth there.”

Then there was another pause, at the end of which Mrs. Broughton got up from the sofa.

“Tell me,” said she—”what do you mean to do about that girl?”

“You heard me ask her to be my wife?”

“I did! I did!”

“Is it not what you intended?”

“Do not ask me. My mind is bewildered. My brain is on fire! Oh, Conway!”

“Shall I go into the City as I proposed?” said Dalrymple, who felt that he might at any rate improve the position of circumstances by leaving the house.

“Yes—yes; go into the City! Go anywhere. Go. But stay! Oh, Conway!” There was a sudden change in her voice as she spoke. “Hark—there he is, as sure as life.” Then Conway listened, and heard a footstep on the stairs, as to which he had then but little doubt that it was the footstep of Dobbs Broughton. “Oh heavens! He is tipsy!” exclaimed Mrs. Broughton; “and what shall we do?” Then Dalrymple took her hand and pressed it, and left the room, so that he might meet the husband on the stairs. In the one moment that he had for reflection he thought it was better that there should be no concealment.

CHAPTER LXI

“It’s Dogged as Does It”

In accordance with the resolution to which the clerical commission had come on the first day of their sitting, Dr. Tempest wrote the following letter to Mr. Crawley:—

Rectory, Silverbridge, April, 9, 186—

DEAR SIR,

I have been given to understand that you have been informed that the Bishop of Barchester has appointed a commission of clergymen of the diocese to make inquiry respecting certain accusations which, to the great regret of us all, have been made against you, in respect to a cheque for twenty pounds which was passed by you to a tradesman in the town. The clergymen appointed to form this commission are Mr. Oriel, the rector of Greshamsbury, Mr. Robarts, the vicar of Framley, Mr. Quiverful, the warden of Hiram’s Hospital at Barchester, Mr. Thumble, a clergyman established in that city, and myself. We held our first meeting on last Monday, and I now write to you in compliance with a resolution to which we then came. Before taking any other steps we thought it best to ask you to attend us here on next Monday, at two o’clock, and I beg that you will accept this letter as an invitation to that effect.

We are, of course, aware that you are about to stand your trial at the next assizes for the offence in question. I beg you to understand that I do not express any opinion as to your guilt. But I think it right to point out to you that in the event of a jury finding an adverse verdict, the bishop might be placed in great difficulty unless he were fortified with the opinion of a commission formed from your fellow clerical labourers in the diocese. Should such adverse verdict unfortunately be given, the bishop would hardly be justified in allowing a clergyman placed as you then would be placed, to return to his cure after the expiration of such punishment as the judge might award, without a further decision from an ecclesiastical court. This decision he could only obtain by proceeding against you under the Act in reference to clerical offences, which empowers him as bishop of the diocese to bring you before the Court of Arches—unless you would think well to submit yourself entirely to his judgment. You will, I think, understand what I mean. The judge at assizes might find it his duty to imprison a clergyman for a month—regarding that clergyman simply as he would regard any other person found guilty by a jury and thus made subject to his judgment—and might do this for an offence which the ecclesiastical judge would find himself obliged to visit with the severer sentence of prolonged suspension, or even with deprivation.

We are, however, clearly of opinion that should the jury find themselves able to acquit you, no further action whatsoever should be taken. In such case we think that the bishop may regard your innocence to be fully established, and in such case we shall recommend his lordship to look upon the matter as altogether at an end. I can assure you that in such case I shall so regard it myself.

You will perceive that, as a consequence of this resolution, to which we have already come, we are not minded to make any inquiries ourselves into the circumstances of your alleged guilt, till the verdict of the jury shall be given. If you are acquitted, our course will be clear. But should you be convicted, we must in that case advise the bishop to take the proceedings to which I have alluded, or to abstain from taking them. We wish to ask you whether, now that our opinion has been conveyed to you, you will be willing to submit to the bishop’s decision, in the event of an adverse verdict being given by the jury; and we think that it will be better for us all that you should meet us here at the hour I have named on Monday next, the 15th instant. It is not our intention to make any report to the bishop until the trial shall be over.

I have the honour to be,

My dear sir,

Your obedient servant,

MORTIMER TEMPEST.

The Rev. Josiah Crawley,

Hogglestock.

In the same envelope Dr. Tempest sent a short private note, in which he said that he should be very happy to see Mr. Crawley at half-past one on the Monday named, that luncheon would be ready at that hour, and that, as Mr. Crawley’s attendance was required on public grounds, he would take care that a carriage was provided for the day.

Mr. Crawley received this letter in his wife’s presence, and read it in silence. Mrs. Crawley saw that he paid close attention to it, and was sure—she felt that she was sure—that it referred in some way to the terrible subject of the cheque for twenty pounds. Indeed, everything that came into the house, almost every word spoken there, and every thought that came into the breast of any of the family, had more or less reference to the coming trial. How could it be otherwise? There was ruin coming on them all—ruin and complete disgrace coming on father, mother, and children! To have been accused itself was very bad; but now it seemed to be the opinion of everyone that the verdict must be against the man. Mrs. Crawley herself, who was perfectly sure of her husband’s innocence before God, believed that the jury would find him guilty—and believed also that he had become possessed of the money in some manner that would have been dishonest, had he not been so different from other people as to be entitled to be considered innocent where another man would have been plainly guilty. She was full of the cheque for twenty pounds, and of its results. When, therefore, he had read the letter through a second time, and even then had spoken no word about it, of course she could not refrain from questioning him. “My love,” she said, “what is the letter?”

“It is on business,” he answered.

She was silent for a moment before she spoke again. “May I not know the business?”

“No,” said he; “not at present.”

“Is it from the bishop?”

“Have I not answered you? Have I not given you to understand that, for a while at least, I would prefer to keep the contents of this epistle to myself?” Then he looked at her very sternly, and afterwards turned his eyes upon the fireplace and gazed at the fire, as though he were striving to read there something of his future fate. She did not much regard the severity of his speech. That, too, like the taking of the cheque itself, was to be forgiven him, because he was different from other men. His black mood had come upon him, and everything was to be forgiven him now. He was as a child when cutting his teeth. Let the poor wayward sufferer be ever so petulant, the mother simply pities and loves him, and is never angry. “I beg your pardon, Josiah,” she said, “but I thought it would comfort you to speak to me about it.”

“It will not comfort me,” he said. “Nothing comforts me. Nothing can comfort me. Jane, give me my hat and my stick.” His daughter brought to him his hat and stick, and without another word he went out and left them.

As a matter of course he turned his steps towards Hoggle End. When he desired to be long absent from the house, he always went among the brickmakers. His wife, as she stood at the window and watched the direction in which he went, knew that he might be away for hours. The only friends out of his own family with whom he ever spoke freely were some of those rough parishioners. But he was not thinking of the brickmakers when he started. He was simply desirous of reading again Dr. Tempest’s letter, and of considering it, in some spot where no eye could see him. He walked away with long steps, regarding nothing—neither the ruts in the dirty lane, nor the young primroses which were fast showing themselves on the banks, nor the gathering clouds which might have told him of the coming rain. He went on for a couple of miles, till he had nearly reached the outskirts of the colony of Hoggle End, and then he sat himself down upon a gate. He had not been there a minute before a few slow drops began to fall, but he was altogether too much wrapped up in his thoughts to regard the rain. What answer should he make to this letter from the man at Silverbridge?

The position of his own mind in reference to his own guilt or his own innocence was very singular. It was simply the truth that he did not know how the cheque had come to him. He did know that he had blundered about it most egregiously, especially when he had averred that this cheque for twenty pounds had been identical with a cheque for another sum which had been given to him by Mr. Soames. He had blundered since, in saying that the dean had given it to him. There could be no doubt as to this, for the dean had denied that he had done so. And he had come to think it very possible that he had indeed picked the cheque up, and had afterwards used it, having deposited it by some strange accident—not knowing then what he was doing, or what was the nature of the bit of paper in his hand—with the notes which he had accepted from the dean with so much reluctance, with such an agony of spirit. In all these thoughts of his own about his own doings, and his own position, he almost admitted to himself his own insanity, his inability to manage his own affairs with that degree of rational sequence which is taken for granted as belonging to a man when he is made subject to criminal laws. As he puzzled his brain in his efforts to create a memory as to the cheque, and succeeded in bringing to his mind a recollection that he had once known something about the cheque—that the cheque had at one time been the subject of a thought and of a resolution—he admitted to himself that in accordance with all law and all reason he must be regarded as a thief. He had taken and used and spent that which he ought to have known was not his own—which he would have known not to be his own but for some terrible incapacity with which God had afflicted him. What then must be the result? His mind was clear enough about this. If the jury could see everything and know everything—as he would wish that they should do; and if this bishop’s commission, and the bishop himself, and the Court of Arches with its judge, could see and know everything; and if so seeing and so knowing they could act with clear honesty and perfect wisdom—what would they do? They would declare of him that he was not a thief, only because he was so muddy-minded, so addle-pated as not to know the difference between meum and tuum! There could be no other end to it, let all the lawyers and all the clergymen in England put their wits to it. Thought he knew himself to be muddy-minded and addle-pated, he could see that. And could anyone say of such a man that he was fit to be the acting clergyman of a parish—to have freehold possession in a parish as curer of men’s souls! The bishop was in the right of it, let him be ten times as mean a fellow as he was.

And yet as he sat there on the gate, while the rain came down heavily upon him, even when admitting the justice of the bishop, and the truth of the verdict which the jury would no doubt give, and the propriety of the action which that cold, reasonable, prosperous man at Silverbridge would take, he pitied himself with a tenderness of commiseration which knew no bounds. As for those belonging to him, his wife and children, his pity for them was of a different kind. He would have suffered any increase of suffering, could he by such agony have released them. Dearly as he loved them, he would have severed himself from them, had it been possible. Terrible thoughts as to their fate had come into his mind in the worst moments of his moodiness—thoughts which he had had sufficient strength and manliness to put away from him with a strong hand, lest they should drive him to crime indeed; and these had come from the great pity which he had felt for them. But the commiseration which he had felt for himself had been different from this, and had mostly visited him at times when that other pity was for the moment in abeyance. What though he had taken the cheque, and spent the money though it was not his? He might be guilty before the law, but he was not guilty before God. There had never been a thought of theft in his mind, or a desire to steal in his heart. He knew that well enough. No jury could make him guilty of theft before God. And what though this mixture of guilt and innocence had come from madness—from madness which these courts must recognise if they chose to find him innocent of the crime? In spite of his aberrations of intellect, if there were any such, his ministrations in his parish were good. Had he not preached fervently and well—preaching the true gospel? Had he not been very diligent among his people, striving with all his might to lessen the ignorance of the ignorant, and to gild with godliness the learning of the instructed? Had he not been patient, enduring, instant, and in all things amenable to the laws and regulations laid down by the Church for his guidance in his duties as a parish clergyman? Who could point out in what he had been astray, or where he had gone amiss? But for the work which he had done with so much zeal the Church which he served had paid him so miserable a pittance that, though life and soul had been kept together, the reason, or a fragment of the reason, had at moments escaped from his keeping in the scramble. Hence it was that this terrible calamity had fallen upon him! Who had been tried as he had been tried, and had gone through such fire with less loss of intellectual power than he had done? He was still a scholar, though no brother scholar ever came near him, and would make Greek iambics as he walked along the lanes. His memory was stored with poetry, though no book ever came to his hands, except those shorn and tattered volumes which lay upon his table. Old problems in trigonometry were the pleasing relaxations of his mind, and complications of figures were a delight to him. There was not one of those prosperous clergymen around him, and who scorned him, whom he could not have instructed in Hebrew. It was always a gratification to him to remember that his old friend the dean was weak in his Hebrew. He, with these acquirements, with these fitnesses, had been thrust down to the ground—to the very granite—and because in that harsh heartless thrusting his intellect had for moments wavered as to common things, cleaving still to all its grander, nobler possessions, he was now to be rent in pieces and scattered to the winds, as being altogether vile, worthless, and worse than worthless. It was thus that he thought of himself, pitying himself, as he sat upon the gate, while the rain fell ruthlessly on his shoulders.

He pitied himself with a commiseration that was sickly in spite of its truth. It was the fault of the man that he was imbued too strongly with self-consciousness. He could do a great thing or two. He could keep up his courage in positions which would wash all the courage out of most men. He could tell the truth though truth should ruin him. He could sacrifice all that he had to duty. He could do justice though the heaven should fall. But he could not forget to pay a tribute to himself for the greatness of his own actions; nor, when accepting with an effort of meekness the small payment made by the world to him, in return for his great works, could he forget the great payments made to others for small work. It was not sufficient for him to remember that he knew Hebrew, but he must remember also that the dean did not.