The Last Chronicle of Barset (74 page)

Not a word was spoken that night at the palace about Mr Crawley; and when that obnoxious guest from Plumstead was gone, Mrs Proudie resumed her good-humour towards Dr Tempest. So intent was she on conciliating him that she refrained even from abusing the archdeacon, whom she knew to have been intimate for very many years with the rector of Silverbridge. In her accustomed moods she would have broken forth in loud anger, caring nothing for old friendships; but at present she was thoughtful of the morrow,
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and desirous that Dr Tempest should, if possible, meet her in a friendly humour when the great discussion as to Hogglestock should be opened between them. But Dr Tempest understood her bearing, and as he pulled on his night-cap made certain resolutions of his own as to the morrow's proceedings. ‘I don't suppose she will dare to interfere,' he had said to his wife; ‘but if she does, I shall certainly tell the bishop that I cannot speak on the subject in her presence.'

At breakfast on the following morning there was no one present but the bishop, Mrs Proudie, and Dr Tempest. Very little was said at the meal. Mr Crawley's name was not mentioned, but there seemed to be a general feeling among them that there was a task hanging over them which prevented any general conversation. The eggs were eaten and the coffee was drunk, but the eggs and the coffee disappeared almost in silence. When these ceremonies had been altogether completed, and it was clearly necessary that something further should be done, the bishop spoke: ‘Dr Tempest,' he said, ‘perhaps you will join me in my study at eleven. We can then say a few words to each other about the unfortunate matter on which I shall have to trouble you.' Dr Tempest said he would be punctual to his appointment, and then the bishop withdrew, muttering something as to the necessity of looking at his letters. Dr Tempest took a newspaper in his hand, which had been brought in by a servant, but Mrs Proudie did not allow him to read it. ‘Dr Tempest,' she said, ‘this is a matter of most vital importance. I am quite sure that you feel that it is so.'

‘What matter, madam?' said the doctor.

‘This terrible affair of Mr Crawley's. If something be not done the whole diocese will be disgraced.' Then she waited for an answer, but receiving none she was obliged to continue. ‘Of the poor man's guilt there can, I fear, be no doubt.' Then there was another pause, but still the doctor made no answer. ‘And if he be guilty,' said Mrs Proudie, resolving that she would ask a question that must bring forth some reply, ‘can any experienced clergyman think that he can be fit to preach from the pulpit of a parish church? I am sure that you must agree with me, Dr Tempest? Consider the souls of the people!'

‘Mrs Proudie,' said he, ‘I think that we had better not discuss the matter.'

‘Not discuss it?'

‘I think that we had better not do so. If I understand the bishop aright, he wishes that I should take some step in the matter.'

‘Of course he does.'

‘And therefore I must decline to make it a matter of common conversation.'

‘Common conversation, Dr Tempest! I should be the last person in the world to make it a matter of common conversation. I regard this as by no means a common conversation. God forbid that it should be a common conversation. I am speaking now very seriously with reference to the interests of the Church, which I think will be endangered by having among her active servants a man who has been guilty of so base a crime as theft. Think of it, Dr Tempest. Theft! Stealing money! Appropriating to his own use a cheque for twenty pounds which did not belong to him! And then telling such terrible falsehoods about it! Can anything be worse, anything more scandalous, anything more dangerous? Indeed, Dr Tempest, I do not regard this as any common conversation.' The whole of this speech was not made at once, fluently, or without a break. From stop to stop Mrs Proudie paused, waiting for her companion's words; but as he would not speak she was obliged to continue. ‘I am sure that you cannot but agree with me, Dr Tempest?' she said.

‘I am quite sure that I shall not discuss it with you,' said the doctor, very brusquely.

‘And why not? Are you not here to discuss it?'

‘Not with you, Mrs Proudie. You must excuse me for saying so, but I am not here to discuss any such matter with you. Were I to do so, I should be guilty of a very great impropriety.'

‘All these things are in common between me and the bishop,' said Mrs Proudie, with an air that was intended to be dignified, but which nevertheless displayed her rising anger.

‘As to that I know nothing, but they cannot be in common between you and me. It grieves me much that I should have to speak to you in such a strain, but my duty allows me no alternative. I think, if you will permit me, I will take a turn round the garden before I keep my appointment with his lordship.' And so saying he escaped from the lady without hearing her further remonstrance.

It still wanted nearly an hour to the time named by the bishop, and Dr Tempest used it in preparing for his withdrawal from the palace as soon as his interview with the bishop should be over. After what had passed he thought he would be justified in taking his departure without bidding adieu formally to Mrs Proudie. He would say a word or two, explaining his haste, to the bishop; and then, if he could get out of the house at once, it might be that he would never see Mrs Proudie again. He was rather proud of his success in their late battle, but he felt that, having been so completely victorious, it would be foolish in him to risk his laurels in the chance of another encounter. He would say not a word of what had happened to the bishop, and he thought it probable that neither would Mrs Proudie speak of it – at any rate till after he was gone. Generals who are beaten out of the field are not quick to talk of their own repulses. He, indeed, had not beaten Mrs Proudie out of the field. He had, in fact, himself run away. But he had left his foe silenced; and with such a foe, and in such a contest, that was everything. He put up his portmanteau, therefore, and prepared for his final retreat. Then he rang his bell and desired the servant to show him to the bishop's study. The servant did so, and when he entered the room the first thing he saw was Mrs Proudie sitting in an armchair near the window. The bishop was also in the room, sitting with his arms upon the writing-table, and his head upon his hands. It was very evident that Mrs Proudie did not consider
herself to have been beaten, and that she was prepared to fight another battle. ‘Will you sit down, Dr Tempest?' she said, motioning him with her hand to a chair opposite to that occupied by the bishop. Dr Tempest sat down. He felt that at the moment he had nothing else to do, and that he must restrain any remonstrance that he might make till Mr Crawley's name should be mentioned. He was almost lost in admiration of the woman. He had left her, as he thought, utterly vanquished and prostrated by his determined but uncourteous usage of her; and here she was, present again on the field of battle as though she had never even been wounded. He could see that there had been words between her and the bishop, and that she had carried a point on which the bishop had been very anxious to have his own way. He could perceive at once that the bishop had begged her to absent herself and was greatly chagrined that he should not have prevailed with her. There she was – and as Dr Tempest was resolved that he would neither give advice nor receive instructions respecting Mr Crawley in her presence, he could only draw upon his courage and his strategy for the coming warfare. For a few moments no one said a word. The bishop felt that if Dr Tempest would only begin, the work on hand might be got through, even in his wife's presence. Mrs Proudie was aware that her husband should begin. If he would do so, and if Dr Tempest would listen and then reply, she might gradually make her way into the conversation; and if her words were once accepted then she could say all that she desired to say; then she could play her part and become somebody in the episcopal work. When once she should have been allowed liberty of speech, the enemy would be powerless to stop her. But all this Dr Tempest understood quite as well as she understood it, and had they waited till night he would not have been the first to mention Mr Crawley's name.

The bishop sighed aloud. The sigh might be taken as expressing grief over the sin of the erring brother whose conduct they were then to discuss, and was not amiss. But when the sigh with its attendant murmurs had passed away it was necessary that some initiative step should be taken. ‘Dr Tempest,' said the bishop, ‘what are we to do about this poor stiff-necked gentleman?' Still Dr Tempest did not speak. ‘There is no clergyman in the diocese,' continued the bishop,
‘in whose prudence and wisdom I have more confidence than in yours. And I know, too, that you are by no means disposed to severity where severe measures are not necessary. What ought we to do? If he has been guilty, he should not surely return to his pulpit after the expiration of such punishment as the law of his country may award him.'

Dr Tempest looked at Mrs Proudie, thinking that she might perhaps say a word now; but Mrs Proudie knew her part better and was silent. Angry as she was, she contrived to hold her peace. Let the debate once begin and she would be able to creep into it, and then to lead it – and so she would hold her own. But she had met a foe as wary as herself. ‘My lord,' said the doctor, ‘it will perhaps be well that you should communicate your wishes to me in writing. If it be possible for me to comply with them I will do so.'

‘Yes – exactly; no doubt – but I thought that perhaps we might better understand each other if we had a few words of quiet conversation upon the subject. I believe you know the steps that I have –'

But here the bishop was interrupted. Dr Tempest rose from his chair, and advancing to the table put both hands upon it. ‘My lord,' he said, ‘I feel myself compelled to say that which I would very much rather leave unsaid, were it possible. I feel the difficulty, and I may say delicacy, of my position; but I should be untrue to my conscience and to my feeling of what is right in such matters, if I were to take any part in a discussion on this matter in the presence of – a lady.'

‘Dr Tempest, what is your objection?' said Mrs Proudie, rising from her chair, and coming also to the table, so that from thence she might confront her opponent; and as she stood opposite to Dr Tempest she also put both her hands upon the table.

‘My dear, perhaps you will leave us for a few moments,' said the bishop. Poor bishop! Poor weak bishop! As the words came from his mouth he knew that they would be spoken in vain, and that, if so, it would have been better for him to have left them unspoken.

‘Why should I be dismissed from your room without a reason?' said Mrs Proudie. ‘Cannot Dr Tempest understand that a wife may share her husband's counsels – as she must share his troubles? If he cannot, I pity him very much as to his own household.'

‘Dr Tempest,' said the bishop, ‘Mrs Proudie takes the greatest possible interest in everything concerning the diocese.'

‘I am sure, my lord,' said the doctor, ‘that you will see how unseemly it would be that I should interfere in any way between you and Mrs Proudie. I certainly will not do so. I can only say again that if you will communicate to me your wishes in writing, I will attend to them– if it be possible.'

‘You mean to be stubborn,' said Mrs Proudie, whose prudence was beginning to give way under the great provocation to which her temper was being subjected.

‘Yes, madam; if it is to be called stubbornness, I must be stubborn. My lord, Mrs Proudie spoke to me on this subject in the breakfast-room after you had left it, and I then ventured to explain to her that in accordance with such light as I have on the matter, I could not discuss it in her presence. I greatly grieve that I failed to make myself understood by her – as, otherwise, this unpleasantness might have been spared.'

‘I understood you very well, Dr Tempest, and I think you to be a most unreasonable man. Indeed, I might use a much harsher word.'

‘You may use any word you please, Mrs Proudie,' said the doctor.

‘My dear, I really think you had better leave us for a few minutes,' said the bishop.

‘No, my lord – no,' said Mrs Proudie, turning round upon her husband. ‘Not so. It would be most unbecoming that I should be turned out of a room in this palace by an uncourteous word from a parish clergyman. It would be unseemly. If Dr Tempest forgets his duty, I will not forget mine. There are other clergymen in the diocese besides Dr Tempest who can undertake the very easy task of this commission. As for his having been appointed rural dean I don't know how many years ago, it is a matter of no consequence whatever. In such a preliminary inquiry any three clergymen will suffice. It need not be done by the rural dean at all.'

‘My dear!'

‘I will not be turned out of this room by Dr Tempest – and that is enough.'

‘My lord,' said the doctor, ‘you had better write to me as I proposed to you just now.'

‘His lordship will not write. His lordship will do nothing of the kind,' said Mrs Proudie.

‘My dear!' said the bishop, driven in his perplexity beyond all carefulness of reticence. ‘My dear, I do wish you wouldn't – I do indeed. If you would only go away!'

‘I will not go away, my lord,' said Mrs Proudie.

‘But I will,' said Dr Tempest, feeling true compassion for the unfortunate man whom he saw writhing in agony before him. ‘It will manifestly be for the best that I should retire. My lord, I wish you good morning, Mrs Proudie, good morning.' And so he left the room.

‘A most stubborn and a most ungentlemanlike man,' said Mrs Proudie, as soon as the door was closed behind the retreating rural dean. ‘I do not think that in the whole course of my life I ever met with anyone so insubordinate and so ill-mannered. He is worse than the archdeacon.' As she uttered these words she paced about the room. The bishop said nothing; and when she herself had been silent for a few minutes she turned upon him. ‘Bishop,' she said, ‘I hope that you agree with me. I expect that you will agree with me in a matter that is of so much moment to my comfort, and I may say to my position generally in the diocese. Bishop, why do you not speak?'