The Last Chronicle of Barset (109 page)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘What is it, Mrs Baxter?'

‘Oh, sir!'

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

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

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

‘But what is it, Mrs Baxter?'

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

‘Mrs Proudie dead!' said the old man.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘And how did she die?'

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

‘Of course he was terribly shocked.'

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

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

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

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

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

‘Gracious, archdeacon; do, pray, hold your tongue.'

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

‘Is that the way you carry out your proverb of De mortuis?'
³
said Mrs Grantly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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