The Chronicles of Barsetshire (350 page)

John had now risen from his chair, and coming up to her took her by the arm and spoke a word. “Compose yourself,” he said. He spoke in his most affectionate voice, and he stood very close to her.

“How easy it is to bid me to do that,” said Madalina. “Tell the sea to compose itself when it rages.”

“Madalina!” said he.

“Well—what of Madalina? Madalina has lost her own respect—for ever.”

“Do not say that.”

“Oh, John—why did you ever come here? Why? Why did we meet at that fatal woman’s house? Or, meeting so, why did we not part as strangers? Sir, why have you come here to my mother’s house day after day, evening after evening, if—. Oh, heavens, what am I saying? I wonder whether you will scorn me always?”

“I will never scorn you.”

“And you will pardon me?”

“Madalina, there is nothing to pardon.”

“And—you will love me?” Then, without waiting for any more encouraging reply—unable, probably, to wait a moment longer, she sunk upon his bosom. He caught her, of course—and at that moment the drawing-room door was opened, and Lady Demolines entered the chamber. John Eames detected at a glance the skirt of the old white dressing gown which he had seen whisking away on the occasion of his last visit at Porchester Terrace. But on the present occasion Lady Demolines wore over it a short red opera cloak, and the cap on her head was ornamented with coloured ribbons. “What is this,” she said, “and why am I thus disturbed?” Madalina lay motionless in Johnny’s arms, while the old woman glowered at him from under the coloured ribbons. “Mr. Eames, what is it that I behold?” she said.

“Your daughter, madam, seems to be a little unwell,” said Johnny. Madalina kept her feet firm upon the ground, but did not for a moment lose her purchase against Johnny’s waistcoat. Her respirations came very strong, but they came a good deal stronger when he mentioned the fact that she was not so well as she might be.

“Unwell!” said Lady Demolines. And John was stricken at the moment with a conviction that her ladyship must have passed the early part of her life upon the stage. “You would trifle with me, sir. Beware that you do not trifle with her—with Madalina.”

“My mother,” said Madalina; but still she did not give up her purchase, and the voice seemed to come half from her and half from Johnny. “Come to me, my mother.” Then Lady Demolines hastened to her daughter, and Madalina between them was gradually laid at her length upon the sofa. The work of laying her out, however, was left almost entirely to the stronger arm of Mr. John Eames. “Thanks, mother,” said Madalina; but she had not as yet opened her eyes, even for an instant. “Perhaps I had better go now,” said Johnny. The old woman looked at him with eyes which asked whether “he didn’t wish he might get it” as plainly as though the words had been pronounced. “Of course I’ll wait if I can be of any service,” said Johnny.

“I must know more of this, sir, before you leave the house,” said Lady Demolines. He saw that between them both there might probably be a very bad quarter of an hour in store for him; but he swore to himself that no union of dragon and tigress should extract from him a word that could be taken as a promise of marriage.

The old woman was now kneeling by the head of the sofa, and Johnny was standing close by her side. Suddenly Madalina opened her eyes—opened them very wide and gazed around her. Then slowly she raised herself on the sofa, and turned her face first upon her mother and then upon Johnny. “You here, mamma!” she said.

“Dearest one, I am near you. Be not afraid,” said her ladyship.

“Afraid! Why should I be afraid? John! My own John! Mamma, he is my own.” And she put out her arms to him, as though calling to him to come to her. Things were now very bad with John Eames—so bad that he would have given a considerable lump out of Lord De Guest’s legacy to be able to escape at once into the street. The power of a woman, when she chooses to use it recklessly, is, for the moment, almost unbounded.

“I hope you find yourself a little better,” said John, struggling to speak, as though he were not utterly crushed by the occasion.

Lady Demolines slowly raised herself from her knees, helping herself with her hands against the shoulder of the sofa—for though still very clever, she was old and stiff—and then offered both her hands to Johnny. Johnny cautiously took one of them, finding himself unable to decline them both. “My son!” she exclaimed; and before he knew where he was the old woman had succeeded in kissing his nose and whiskers. “My son!” she said again.

Now that the time had come for facing the dragon and the tigress in their wrath. If they were to be faced at all, the time for facing them had certainly arrived. I fear that John’s heart sank low in his bosom at that moment. “I don’t quite understand,” he said, almost in a whisper. Madalina put out one arm towards him, and the fingers trembled. Her lips were opened, and the white row of interior ivory might be seen plainly; but at the present conjuncture of affairs she spoke not a word. She spoke not a word; but her arm remained stretched out towards him, and her fingers did not cease to tremble.

“You do not understand!” said Lady Demolines, drawing herself back, and looking, in her short open cloak, like a knight who has donned his cuirass, but has forgotten to put on his leg-gear. And she shook the bright ribbons of her cap, as a knight in his wrath shakes the crest of his helmet. “You do not understand, Mr. Eames! What is it, sir, that you do not understand?”

“There is some misconception, I mean,” said Johnny.

“Mother!” said Madalina, turning her eyes from her recent lover to her tender parent; trembling all over, but still keeping her hand extended. “Mother!”

“My darling! But leave him to me, dearest. Compose yourself.”

“‘Twas the word that he said—this moment; before he pressed me to his heart.”

“I thought you were fainting,” said Johnny.

“Sir!” And Lady Demolines, as she spoke, shook her crest, and glared at him, and almost flew at him in her armour.

“It may be that nature has given way with me, and that I have been in a dream,” said Madalina.

“That which mine eyes saw was no dream,” said Lady Demolines. “Mr. Eames, I have given to you the sweetest name that can fall from an old woman’s lips. I have called you my son.”

“Yes, you did, I know. But, as I said before, there is some mistake. I know how proud I ought to be, and how happy, and all that kind of thing. But—” Then there came a screech from Madalina, which would have awakened the dead, had there been any dead in that house. The page and cook, however, took no notice of it, whether they were awakened or not. And having screeched, Madalina stood erect upon the floor, and she also glared upon her recreant lover. The dragon and the tigress were there before him now, and he knew that it behoved him to look to himself. As he had a battle to fight, might it not be best to put a bold face upon it? “The truth is,” said he, “that I don’t understand this kind of thing at all.”

“Not understand it, sir?” said the dragon.

“Leave him to me, mother,” said the tigress, shaking her head again, but with a kind of shake differing from that which she had used before. “This is my business, and I’ll have it out for myself. If he thinks I’m going to put up with his nonsense he’s mistaken. I’ve been straightforward and above board with you, Mr. Eames, and I expect to be treated in the same way in return. Do you mean to tell my mother that you deny that we are engaged?”

“Well; yes; I do. I’m very sorry, you know, if I seem to be uncivil—”

“It’s because I’ve no brother,” said the tigress. “He thinks that I have no man near me to protect me. But he shall find that I can protect myself. John Eames, why are you treating me like this?”

“I shall consult my cousin the serjeant to-morrow,” said the dragon. “In the meantime he must remain in this house. I shall not allow the front door to be unlocked for him.”

This, I think, was the bitterest moment of all to Johnny. To be confined all night in Lady Demolines’s drawing-room would, of itself, be an intolerable nuisance. And then the absurdity of the thing, and the story that would go abroad! And what would he say to the dragon’s cousin the serjeant, if the serjeant should be brought upon the field before he was able to escape from it? He did not know what a serjeant might not do to him in such circumstances. There was one thing no serjeant should do, and no dragon! Between them all they should never force him to marry the tigress. At this moment Johnny heard a tramp along the pavement, and he rushed to the window. Before the dragon or even the tigress could arrest him, he had thrown up the sash, and had appealed in his difficulty to the guardian of the night. “I say, old fellow,” said Johnny, “don’t you stir from that till I tell you.” The policeman turned his bull’s-eye upon the window, and stood perfectly motionless. “Now, if you please, I’ll say good-night,” said Johnny. But, as he spoke he still held the open window in his hand.

“What means this violence in my house?” said the dragon.

“Mamma, you had better let him go,” said the tigress. “We shall know where to find him.”

“You will certainly be able to find me,” said Johnny.

“Go,” said the dragon, shaking her crest—shaking all her armour at him—”dastard, go!”

“Policeman,” shouted Johnny, while he still held the open window in his hand, “mind you don’t stir till I come out.” The bull’s-eye was shifted a little, but the policeman spoke never a word.

“I wish you good-night, Lady Demolines,” said Johnny. “Good-night, Miss Demolines.” Then he left the window and made a run for the door. But the dragon was there before him.

“Let him go, mamma,” said the tigress as she closed the window. “We shall only have a rumpus.”

“That will be all,” said Johnny. “There isn’t the slightest use in your trying to keep me here.”

“And are we never to see you again?” said the tigress, almost languishing again with one eye.

“Well; no. What would be the use? No man likes to be shut in, you know.”

“Go, then,” said the tigress; “but if you think that this is to be the end of it you’ll find yourself wonderfully mistaken. You poor false, drivelling creature! Lily Dale won’t touch you with a pair of tongs. It’s no use your going to her.”

“Go away, sir, this moment, and don’t contaminate my room an instant longer by your presence,” said the dragon, who had observed through the window that the bull’s-eye was still in full force before the house. Then John Eames withdrew, and descending into the hall made his way in the dark to the front door. For aught he knew there might still be treachery in regard to the lock; but his heart was comforted as he heard the footfall of the policeman on the door-step. With much fumbling he succeeded at last in turning the key and drawing the bolt, and then he found himself at liberty in the street. Before he even spoke a word to the policeman he went out into the road and looked up at the window. He could just see the figure of the dragon’s helmet as she was closing the shutters. It was the last he ever saw of Lady Demolines or of her daughter.

“What was it all about?” said the policeman.

“I don’t know that I can just tell you,” said Johnny, searching in his pocket-book for half a sovereign which he tendered to the man. “There was a little difficulty, and I’m obliged to you for waiting.”

“There ain’t nothing wrong?” said the man suspiciously, hesitating for a moment before he accepted the coin.

“Nothing on earth. I’ll wait with you, while you have the house opened and inquire, if you wish it. The truth is somebody inside refused to have the door opened, and I didn’t want to stay there all night.”

“They’re a rummy couple, if what I hear is true.”

“They are a rummy couple,” said Johnny.

“I suppose it’s all right,” said the policeman, taking the money. And then John walked off home by himself, turning in his mind all the circumstances of his connection with Miss Demolines. Taking his own conduct as a whole, he was rather proud of it; but he acknowledged to himself that it would be well that he should keep himself free from the society of Madalinas for the future.

CHAPTER LXXXI

Barchester Cloisters

On the morning of the Sunday after the dean’s return Mr. Harding was lying in his bed, and Posy was sitting on the bed beside him. It was manifest to all now that he became feebler and feebler from day to day, and that he would never leave his bed again. Even the archdeacon had shaken his head, and had acknowledged to his wife that the last day for her father was near at hand. It would very soon be necessary that he should select another vicar for St. Ewold’s.

“Grandpa won’t play cat’s-cradle,” said Posy, as Mrs. Arabin entered the room.

“No, darling—not this morning,” said the old man. He himself well knew that he would never play cat’s-cradle again. Even that was over for him now.

“She teases you, papa,” said Mrs. Arabin.

“No, indeed,” said he. “Posy never teases me;” and he slowly moved his withered hand down outside the bed, so as to hold the child by her frock. “Let her stay with me, my dear.”

“Dr. Filgrave is downstairs, papa. You will see him, if he comes up?” Now Dr. Filgrave was the leading physician of Barchester, and nobody of note in the city—or for the matter of that in the eastern division of the county—was allowed to start upon the last great journey without some assistance from him as the hour of going drew nigh. I do not know that he had much reputation for prolonging life, but he was supposed to add a grace to the hour of departure. Mr. Harding expressed no wish to see the doctor—had rather declared his conviction that Dr. Filgrave could be of no possible service to him. But he was not a man to persevere in his objection in opposition to the wishes of his friends around him; and as soon as the archdeacon had spoken a word on the subject he assented.

“Of course, my dear, I will see him.”

“And Posy shall come back when he has gone,” said Mrs. Arabin.

“Posy will do me more good than Dr. Filgrave I am quite sure—but Posy shall go now.” So Posy scrambled off the bed, and the doctor was ushered into the room.

“A day or two will see the end of it, Mr. Archdeacon—I should say a day or two,” said the doctor, as he met Dr. Grantly in the hall. “I should say that a day or two will see the end of it. Indeed I will not undertake that twenty-four hours may not see the close of his earthly troubles. He has no suffering, no pain, no disturbing cause. Nature simply retires to rest.” Dr. Filgrave, as he said this, made a slow falling motion with his hands, which alone on various occasions had been thought to be worth all the money paid for his attendance. “Perhaps you would wish that I should step in in the evening, Mr. Dean? As it happens, I shall be at liberty.” The dean of course said that he would take it as an additional favour. Neither the dean nor the archdeacon had the slightest belief in Dr. Filgrave, and yet they would hardly have been contented that their father-in-law should have departed without him.

“Look at that man, now,” said the archdeacon, when the doctor had gone, “who talks so glibly about nature going to rest. I’ve known him all my life. He’s an older man by some months than our dear old friend upstairs. And he looks as if he were going to attend death-beds in Barchester for ever.”

“I suppose he is right in what he tells us now?” said the dean.

“No doubt he is; but my belief doesn’t come from his saying it.” Then there was a pause as the two church dignitaries sat together, doing nothing, feeling that the solemnity of the moment was such that it would be hardly becoming that they should even attempt to read. “His going will make an old man of me,” said the archdeacon. “It will be different with you.”

“It will make an old woman of Eleanor, I fear.”

“I seem to have known him all my life,” said the archdeacon. “I have known him ever since I left college; and I have known him as one man seldom does know another. There is nothing that he has done—as I believe nothing that he has thought—with which I have not been cognisant. I feel sure that he never had an impure fancy in his mind, or a faulty wish in his heart. His tenderness has surpassed the tenderness of woman; and yet, when occasion came for showing it, he had all the spirit of a hero. I shall never forget his resignation of the hospital, and all that I did and said to make him keep it.”

“But he was right?”

“As Septimus Harding he was, I think, right; but it would have been wrong in any other man. And he was right, too, about the deanery.” For promotion had once come in Mr. Harding’s way, and he, too, might have been Dean of Barchester. “The fact is, he never was wrong. He couldn’t go wrong. He lacked guile, and he feared God—and a man who does both will never go far astray. I don’t think he ever coveted aught in his life—except a new case for his violoncello and somebody to listen to him when he played it.” Then the archdeacon got up, and walked about the room in his enthusiasm; and, perhaps, as he walked some thoughts as to the sterner ambition of his own life passed through his mind. What things had he coveted? Had he lacked guile? He told himself that he had feared God—but he was not sure that he was telling himself true even in that.

During the whole of the morning Mrs. Arabin and Mrs. Grantly were with their father, and during the greater part of the day there was absolute silence in the room. He seemed to sleep; and they, though they knew that in truth that he was not sleeping, feared to disturb him by a word. About two Mrs. Baxter brought him his dinner, and he did rouse himself, and swallowed a spoonful of soup and half a glass of wine. At this time Posy came to him, and stood at the bedside, looking at him with her great wide eyes. She seemed to be aware that life had now gone so far with her dear old friend that she must not be allowed to sit upon his bed again. But he put his hand out to her, and she held it, standing quite still and silent. When Mrs. Baxter came to take away the tray, Posy’s mother got up, and whispered a word to the child. Then Posy went away, and her eyes never beheld the old man again. That was a day which Posy never forgot—not though she should live to be much older than her grandfather was when she thus left him.

“It is so sweet to have you both here,” he said, when he had been lying silent for nearly an hour after the child had gone. Then they got up, and came and stood close to him. “There is nothing left for me to wish, my dears—nothing.” Not long after that he expressed a desire that the two husbands—his two sons-in-law—should come to him; and Mrs. Arabin went to them, and brought them to the room. As he took their hands he merely repeated the same words again. “There is nothing left for me to wish, my dears—nothing.” He never spoke again above his breath; but ever and anon his daughters, who watched him, could see that he was praying. The two men did not stay with him long, but returned to the gloom of the library. The gloom had almost become the darkness of the night, and they were still sitting there without any light, when Mrs. Baxter entered the room. “The dear gentleman is no more,” said Mrs. Baxter; and it seemed to the archdeacon that the very moment of his father’s death had repeated itself. When Dr. Filgrave called he was told that his services could be of no further use. “Dear, dear!” said the doctor. “We are all dust, Mrs. Baxter; are we not?” There were people in Barchester who pretended to know how often the doctor had repeated this little formula during the last thirty years.

There was no violence of sorrow in the house that night; but there were aching hearts, and one heart so sore that it seemed that no cure for its anguish could ever reach it. “He has always been with me,” Mrs. Arabin said to her husband, as he strove to console her. “It was not that I loved him better than Susan, but I have felt so much more of his loving tenderness. The sweetness of his voice has been in my ears almost daily since I was born.”

They buried him in the cathedral which he had loved so well, and in which nearly all the work of his life had been done; and all Barchester was there to see him laid in his grave within the cloisters. There was no procession of coaches, no hearse, nor was there any attempt at funereal pomp. From the dean’s side door, across the vaulted passage, and into the transept—over the little step upon which he had so nearly fallen when last he made his way out of the building—the coffin was carried on men’s shoulders. It was but a short journey from his bedroom to his grave. But the bell had been tolling sadly all the morning, and the nave and the aisles and the transepts, close up to the door leading from the transept into the cloister, were crowded with those who had known the name and the figure and the voice of Mr. Harding as long as they had known anything. Up to this day no one would have said specially that Mr. Harding was a favourite in the town. He had never been forward enough in anything to become the acknowledged possessor of popularity. But, now that he was gone, men and women told each other how good he had been. They remembered the sweetness of his smile, and talked of loving little words which he had spoken to them—either years ago or the other day, for his words had always been loving. The dean and the archdeacon came first, shoulder to shoulder, and after them came their wives. I do not know that it was the proper order for mourning, but it was a touching sight to be seen, and was long remembered in Barchester. Painful as it was for them, the two women would be there, and the two sisters would walk together—nor would they go before their husbands. Then there were the archdeacon’s two sons—for the Rev. Charles Grantly had come to Plumstead on the occasion. And in the vaulted passage which runs between the deanery and the end of the transept all the chapter, with the choir, the prebendaries, with the fat old chancellor, the precentor, and the minor canons down to the little choristers—they were all there, and followed in at the transept door, two by two. And in the transept they were joined by another clergyman who no one had expected to see that day. The bishop was there, looking old and worn—almost as though he were unconscious of what he was doing. Since his wife’s death no one had seen him out of the palace or of the palace grounds till that day. But there he was—and they made way for him into the procession behind the two ladies—and the archdeacon, when he saw it, resolved that there should be peace in his heart, if peace might be possible.

They made their way into the cloisters where the grave had been dug—as many as might be allowed to follow. The place indeed was open to all who chose to come; but they who had only slightly known the man, refrained from pressing upon those who had a right to stand around his coffin. But there was one other there whom the faithful chronicler of Barchester should mention. Before any other one had reached the spot, the sexton and the verger between them had led in between them, among the graves beneath the cloisters, a blind man, very old, with a wondrous stoop, but who must have owned a grand stature before extreme old age had bent him, and they placed him sitting on a stone in the corner of the archway. But as soon as the shuffling of steps reached his ears, he raised himself with the aid of his stick, and stood during the service leaning against the pillar. The blind man was so old that he might almost have been Mr. Harding’s father. This was John Bunce, bedesman from Hiram’s Hospital—and none perhaps there had known Mr. Harding better than he had known him. When the earth had been thrown on to the coffin, and the service was over, and they were about to disperse, Mrs. Arabin went up to the old man, and taking his hand between hers whispered a word into his ear. “Oh, Miss Eleanor!”, he said. “Oh, Miss Eleanor,” he said. “Oh, Miss Eleanor!” Within a fortnight he also was lying within the cathedral precincts.

And so they buried Mr. Septimus Harding, formerly Warden of Hiram’s Hospital in the city of Barchester, of whom the chronicler may say that that city never knew a sweeter gentleman or a better Christian.