The Last Chronicle of Barset (32 page)

‘No, Josiah – surely not so? They did not use that very word?'

‘I say they did – they did use the very word. But stop. I am wrong. I wrong his lordship, and I crave pardon for having done so. If my memory serve me, no expression so harsh escaped from the bishop's mouth. He gave me, indeed, to understand more than once that the action taken by the magistrates was tantamount to a conviction, and that I must be guilty because they had decided that there was evidence sufficient to justify a trial. But all that arose from my lord's ignorance of the administration of the laws of his country. He was very ignorant – puzzle-pated, as you may call it – led by the nose by his wife, weak as water, timid, and vacillating. But he did not wish, I think, to be insolent. It was Mrs Proudie who told me to my face that I was a – thief.'

‘May she be punished for the cruel word!' said Mrs Crawley. ‘May the remembrance that she has spoken it come, some day, heavily upon her heart!'

‘ “Vengeance is mine. I will repay,” saith the Lord,'
¹
answered Mr Crawley. ‘We may safely leave all that alone, and rid our minds of such wishes, if it be possible. It is well, I think, that violent offences, when committed, should be met by instant rebuke. To turn the other cheek instantly to the smiter can hardly be suitable in these days, when the hands of so many are raised to strike. But the return blow should be given only while the smart remains. She hurt me then; but what is it to me now, that she called me a thief to my face? Do I not know that, all the country round, men and women are calling me the same behind my back?'

‘No, Josiah, you do not know that. They say that the thing is very strange – so strange that it requires a trial; but no one thinks you have taken that which was not your own.'

‘I think I did. I myself think I took that which was not my own. My poor head suffers so – so many grievous thoughts distract me, that I am like a child, and know not what I do.' As he spoke thus he put
both hands up to his head, leaning forward as though in anxious thought – as though he were striving to bring his mind to bear with accuracy upon past events. ‘It could not have been mine, and yet –' Then he sat silent, and made no effort to continue his speech.

‘And yet?' – said his wife, encouraging him to proceed. If she could only learn the real truth, she thought that she might perhaps yet save him, with assistance from their friends.

‘When I said that I had gotten it from that man I must have been mad.'

‘From which man, love?'

‘From that man Soames – he who accuses me. And yet, as the Lords hears me, I thought so then. The truth is, that there are times when I am not – sane. I am not a thief – not before God; but I am – mad at times.' These last words he spoke very slowly, in a whisper – without any excitement – indeed with a composure which was horrible to witness. And what he said was the more terrible because she was so well convinced of the truth of his words. Of course he was no thief. She wanted no one to tell her that. As he himself had expressed it, he was no thief before God, however the money might have come into his possession. That there were times when his reason, once so fine and clear, could not act, could not be trusted to guide him right, she had gradually come to know with fear and trembling. But he himself had never before hinted his own consciousness of this calamity. Indeed he had been so unwilling to speak of himself and of his own state, that she had been unable even to ask him a question about the money – lest he should suspect that she suspected him. Now he was speaking – but speaking with such heartrending sadness that she could hardly urge him to go on.

‘You have sometimes been ill, Josiah, as any of us may be,' she said, ‘and that has been the cause.'

‘There are different kinds of sickness. There is sickness of the body, and sickness of the heart, and sickness of the spirit – and then there is sickness of the mind, the worst of all.'

‘With you, Josiah, it has chiefly been the first.'

‘With me, Mary, it has been all of them – every one! My spirit is broken, and my mind has not been able to keep its even tenour amidst
the ruins. But I will strive. I will strive. I will strive still. And if God helps me, I will prevail.' Then he took up his hat and cloak, and went forth among the lanes; and on this occasion his wife was glad that he should go alone.

This occurred a day or two before Christmas, and Mrs Crawley during those days said nothing more to her husband on the subject which he had so unexpectedly discussed. She asked him no questions about the money, or as to the possibility of his exercising his memory, nor did she counsel him to plead that the false excuses given by him for his possession of the cheque had been occasioned by the sad slip to which sorrow had in those days subjected his memory and his intellect. But the matter had always been on her mind. Might it not be her paramount duty to do something of this at the present moment? Might it not be that his acquittal or conviction would depend on what she might now learn from him? It was clear to her that he was brighter in spirit since his encounter with the Proudies than he had ever been since the accusation had been first made against him. And she knew well that his present mood would not be of long continuance. He would fall again into his moody silent ways, and then the chance of learning aught from him would be past, and perhaps, for ever.

He performed the Christmas services with nothing of special despondency in his tone or manner, and his wife thought that she had never heard him give the sacrament with more impressive dignity. After the service he stood awhile at the churchyard gate, and exchanged a word of courtesy as to the season with such of the families of the farmers as had stayed for the Lord's Supper.

‘I waited at Framley for your reverence till arter six – so I did,' said farmer Mangle.

‘I kept the road, and walked the whole way,' said Mr Crawley. ‘I think I told you that I should not return to the mill. But I am not the less obliged by your great kindness.'

‘Say nowt o' that,' said the farmer. ‘No doubt I had business at the mill – lots to do at the mill.' Nor did he think that the fib he was telling was at all incompatible with the Holy Sacrament in which he had just taken a part.

The Christmas dinner at the parsonage was not a repast that did much honour to the season, but it was a better dinner than the inhabitants of that house usually saw on the board before them. There was roast pork and mince-pies, and a bottle of wine. As Mrs Crawley with her own hand put the meat upon the table, and then, as was her custom in their house, proceeded to cut it up, she looked at her husband's face to see whether he was scrutinising the food with painful eye. It was better that she should tell the truth at once than she should be made to tell it, in answer to a question. Everything on the table, except the bread and potatoes, had come in a basket from Framley Court. Pork had been sent instead of beef, because people in the country, when they kill their pigs, do sometimes give each other pork – but do not exchange joints of beef, when they slay their oxen. All this was understood by Mrs Crawley, but she almost wished that beef had been sent, because beef would have attracted less attention. He said, however, nothing to the meat; but when his wife proposed to him that he should eat a mince-pie he resented it. ‘The bare food,' said he, ‘is bitter enough, coming as it does; but that would choke me.' She did not press it, but ate one herself, as otherwise her girl would have been forced also to refuse the dainty.

That evening, as soon as Jane was in bed, she resolved to ask him some further questions. ‘You will have a lawyer, Josiah – will you not?' she said.

‘Why should I have a lawyer?'

‘Because he will know what questions to ask, and how questions on the other side should be answered.'

‘I have no questions to ask, and there is only one way in which questions should be answered. I have no money to pay a lawyer.'

‘But, Josiah, in such a case as this, where your honour, and our very life depend upon it –'

‘Depend on what?'

‘On your acquittal.'

‘I shall not be acquitted. It is as well to look it in the face at once. Lawyer, or no lawyer, they will say that I took the money. Were I upon the jury, trying the case myself, knowing all that I know now,' – and as he said this he struck forth with his hands into the air – ‘I
think that I should say so myself. A lawyer will do no good. It is here. It is here.' And again he put his hands up to his head.

So far she had been successful. At this moment it had in truth been her object to induce him to speak of his own memory, and not of the aid that a lawyer might give. The proposition of the lawyer had been brought in to introduce the subject.

‘But, Josiah –'

‘Well?'

It was very hard for her to speak. She could not bear to torment him by any allusion to his own deficiencies. She could not endure to make him think that she suspected him of any frailty either in intellect or thought. Wifelike, she desired to worship him, and that he should know that she worshipped him. But if a word might save him! ‘Josiah, where did it come from?'

‘Yes,' said he; ‘yes; that is the question. Where did it come from?' – and he turned sharp upon her, looking at her with all the power of his eyes. ‘It is because I cannot tell you where it came from that I ought to be – either in Bedlam, as a madman, or in the county gaol as a thief.' The words were so dreadful to her that she could not utter at the moment another syllable. ‘How is a man – to think himself – fit – for a man's work, when he cannot answer his wife such a plain question as that?' Then he paused again. ‘They should take me to Bedlam at once – at once – at once. That would not disgrace the children as the gaol will do.'

Mrs Crawley could ask no further questions on that evening.

*

It had been suggested to Mr Robarts, the parson of Framley, that he should endeavour to induce his old acquaintance, Mr Crawley, to employ a lawyer to defend him at his trial, and Mr Robarts had not forgotten the commission which he had undertaken. But there were difficulties in the matter of which he was well aware. In the first place Mr Crawley was a man whom it had not at any time been easy to advise on matters private to himself; and, in the next place, this was a matter on which it was very hard to speak to the man implicated, let him be who he would. Mr Robarts had come round to the generally accepted idea that Mr Crawley had obtained possession of the cheque illegally – acquitting his friend in his own mind of theft, simply by supposing that he was wool-gathering when the cheque came in his way. But in speaking to Mr Crawley, it would be necessary – so he thought – to pretend a conviction that Mr Crawley was as innocent in fact as in intention.

He had almost made up his mind to dash at the subject when he met Mr Crawley walking through Framley to Barchester, but he had abstained, chiefly because Mr Crawley had been too quick for him, and had got away. After that he resolved that it would be almost useless for him to go to work unless he should be provided with a lawyer ready and willing to undertake the task; and as he was not so provided at present, he made up his mind that he would go into Silverbridge, and see Mr Walker, the attorney there. Mr Walker always advised everybody in those parts about everything, and would be sure to know what would be the proper thing to be done in this case. So Mr Robarts got into his gig, and drove himself into Silverbridge, passing very close to Mr Crawley's house on his road. He drove at once to Mr Walker's office, and on arriving there found that the attorney was not at that moment within. But Mr Winthrop was within. Would Mr Robarts see Mr Winthrop? Now, seeing Mr Winthrop was a very different thing from seeing Mr Walker, although
the two gentlemen were partners. But still Mr Robarts said that he would see Mr Winthrop. Perhaps Mr Walker might return while he was there.

‘Is there anything I can do for you, Mr Robarts?' asked Mr Winthrop. Mr Robarts said that he had wished to see Mr Walker about that poor fellow Crawley. ‘Ah, yes; very sad case! So much sadder being a clergyman, Mr Robarts. We are really quite sorry for him – we are indeed. We wouldn't have touched the case ourselves if we could have helped ourselves. We wouldn't indeed. But we are obliged to take all that business here. At any rate he'll get nothing but fair usage from us.'

‘I am sure of that. You don't know whether he has employed any lawyer as yet to defend him?'

‘I can't say. We don't know, you know. I should say he had – probably some Barchester attorney. Borleys and Bonstock in Barchester are very good people – very good people indeed – for that sort of business I mean, Mr Robarts. I don't suppose they have much county property in their hands.'

Mr Robarts knew that Mr Winthrop was a fool, and that he could get no useful advice from him. So he suggested that he would take his gig down to the inn, and call back again before long. ‘You'll find that Walker knows no more than I do about it,' said Mr Winthrop, ‘but of course he'll be glad to see you if he happens to come in.' So Mr Robarts went to the inn, put up his horse, and then, as he sauntered back up the street, met Mr Walker coming out of the private door of his house.

‘I've been at home all the morning,' he said, ‘but I've had a stiff job of work on hand, and told them to say in the office that I was not in. Seen Winthrop, have you? I don't suppose he did know that I was here. The clerks often know more than the partners. About Mr Crawley, is it? Come into my dining-room, Mr Robarts, where we shall be alone. Yes – it is a bad case; a very bad case. The pity is that anybody should ever have said anything about it. Lord bless me, if I'd been Soames I'd have let him have the twenty pounds. Lord Lufton would never have allowed Soames to lose it.'