The Last Chronicle of Barset (9 page)

‘But you don't mean to marry her?'

‘I certainly do not mean to pledge myself not to do so.'

‘Do you mean to tell me, Henry, that you are in love with Miss Crawley?' Then there was another pause, during which the archdeacon sat looking for an answer; but the major said never a word. ‘Am I to suppose that you intend to lower yourself by marrying a young woman who cannot possibly have enjoyed any of the advantages of a lady's education? I say nothing of the imprudence of the thing; nothing of her own want of fortune; nothing of your having to maintain a whole family steeped in poverty; nothing of the debts and character of the father, upon whom, as I understand, at this moment there rests a very grave suspicion of – of – of – what I'm afraid I must call downright theft.'

‘Downright theft, certainly, if he were guilty.'

‘I say nothing of all that; but looking at the young woman herself –'

‘She is simply the best educated girl whom it has ever been my lot to meet.'

‘Henry, I have a right to expect that you will be honest with me.'

‘I am honest with you.'

‘Do you mean to ask this girl to marry you?'

‘I do not think that you have any right to ask me that question, sir.'

‘I have a right at any rate to tell you this, that if you so far disgrace yourself and me, I shall consider myself bound to withdraw from you all the sanction which would be conveyed by my – my – my continued assistance.'

‘Do you intend me to understand that you will stop my income?'

‘Certainly I should.'

‘Then, sir, I think you would behave to me most cruelly. You advised me to give up my profession.'

‘Not in order that you might marry Grace Crawley.'

‘I claim the privilege of a man of my age to do as I please in such a matter as marriage. Miss Crawley is a lady. Her father is a clergyman, as is mine. Her father's oldest friend is my uncle. There is nothing on earth against her except her poverty. I do not think I ever heard of such cruelty on a father's part.'

‘Very well, Henry.'

‘I have endeavoured to do my duty by you, sir, always; and by my mother. You can treat me in this way, if you please, but it will not have any effect on my conduct. You can stop my allowance tomorrow, if you like it. I had not as yet made up my mind to make an offer to Miss Crawley, but I shall now do so tomorrow morning.'

This was very bad indeed, and the archdeacon was extremely unhappy. He was by no means at heart a cruel man. He loved his children dearly. If this disagreeable marriage were to take place, he would doubtless do exactly as his wife had predicted. He would not stop his son's income for a single quarter; and, though he went on telling himself that he would stop it, he knew in his own heart that any such severity was beyond his power. He was a generous man in money matters – having a dislike for poverty which was not generous – and for his own sake could not have endured to see a son of his in want. But he was terribly anxious to exercise the power which the use of the threat might give him. ‘Henry,' he said, ‘you are treating me badly, very badly. My anxiety has always been for the welfare of my children. Do you think that Miss Crawley would be a fitting sister-in-law for that dear girl upstairs?'

‘Certainly I do, or for any other dear girl in the world; excepting that Griselda, who is not clever, would hardly be able to appreciate Miss Crawley, who is clever.'

‘Griselda not clever! Good heavens!' Then there was another pause, and as the major said nothing, the father continued his entreaties. ‘Pray, pray think of what my wishes are, and your mother's. You are not committed as yet. Pray think of us while there is time. I would
rather double your income if I saw you marry anyone that we could name here.'

‘I have enough as it is, if I may only be allowed to know that it will not be capriciously withdrawn.' The archdeacon filled his glass unconsciously, and sipped his wine, while he thought what further he might say. Perhaps it might be better that he should say nothing further at the present moment. The major, however, was indiscreet, and pushed the question. ‘May I understand, sir, that your threat is withdrawn, and that my income is secure?'

‘What, if you marry this girl?'

‘Yes, sir; will my income be continued to me if I marry Miss Crawley?'

‘No, it will not.' Then the father got up hastily, pushed the decanter back angrily from his hand, and without saying another word walked away into the drawing-room. That evening at the rectory was very gloomy. The archdeacon now and again said a word or two to his daughter, and his daughter answered him in monosyllables. The major sat apart moodily, and spoke to no one. Mrs Grantly, understanding well what had passed, knew that nothing could be done at the present moment to restore family comfort; so she sat by the fire and knitted. Exactly at ten they all went to bed.

‘Dear Henry,' said the mother to her son the next morning; ‘think much of yourself, and of your child, and of us, before you take any great step in life.'

‘I will, mother,' said he. Then he went out and put on his wrapper, and got into his dog-cart, and drove himself off to Silverbridge. He had not spoken to his father since they were in the dining-room on the previous evening. When he started, the marchioness had not yet come downstairs; but at eleven she breakfasted, and at twelve she also was taken away. Poor Mrs Grantly had not had much comfort from her children's visits.

*

Mrs Crawley had walked from Hogglestock to Silverbridge on the occasion of her visit to Mr Walker, the attorney, and had been kindly sent back by that gentleman in his wife's little open carriage. The tidings she brought home with her to her husband were very grievous. The magistrates would sit on the next Thursday – it was then Friday – and Mr Crawley had better appear before them to answer the charge made by Mr Soames. He would be served with a summons, which he could obey of his own accord. There had been many points very closely discussed between Walker and Mrs Crawley, as to which there had been great difficulty in the choice of words which should be tender enough in regard to the feelings of the poor lady, and yet strong enough to convey to her the very facts as they stood. Would Mr Crawley come, or must a policeman be sent to fetch him? The magistrates had already issued a warrant for his apprehension. Such in truth was the fact, but they had agreed with Mr Walker, that as there was no reasonable ground for anticipating any attempt at escape on the part of the reverend gentleman, the lawyer might use what gentle means he could for ensuring the clergyman's attendance. Could Mrs Crawley undertake to say that he would appear? Mrs Crawley did undertake either that her husband should appear on the Thursday, or else that she would send over in the early part of the week and declare her inability to ensure his appearance. In that case it was understood the policeman must come. Then Mr Walker had suggested that Mr Crawley had better employ a lawyer. Upon this Mrs Crawley had looked beseechingly up into Mr Walker's face, and had asked him to undertake the duty. He was of course obliged to explain that he was already employed on the other side. Mr Soames had secured his services, and though he was willing to do all in his power to mitigate the sufferings of the family, he could not abandon the duty he had undertaken. He named another attorney, however, and then sent the poor woman home in his wife's
carriage. ‘I fear that unfortunate man is guilty. I fear he is,' Mr Walker had said to his wife within ten minutes of the departure of the visitor.

Mrs Crawley would not allow herself to be driven up to the garden gate before her own house, but had left the carriage some three hundred yards off down the road, and from thence she walked home. It was now quite dark. It was nearly six in the evening on a wet December night, and although cloaks and shawls had been supplied to her, she was wet and cold when she reached her home. But at such a moment, anxious as she was to prevent the additional evil which would come to them all from illness to herself, she could not pass through to her room till she had spoken to her husband. He was sitting in the one sitting-room on the left side of the passage as the house was entered, and with him was their daughter Jane, a girl now nearly sixteen years of age. There was no light in the room, and hardly more than a spark of fire showed in the grate. The father was sitting on one side of the hearth, in an old arm-chair, and there he had sat for the last hour without speaking. His daughter had been in and out of the room, and had endeavoured to gain his attention now and again by a word, but he had never answered her, and had not even noticed her presence. At the moment when Mrs Crawley's step was heard upon the gravel which led to the door, Jane was kneeling before the fire with a hand upon her father's arm. She had tried to get her hand into his, but he had either been unaware of the attempt, or had rejected it.

‘Here is mamma, at last,' said Jane, rising to her feet as her mother entered the house.

‘Are you all in the dark?' said Mrs Crawley, striving to speak in a voice that should not be sorrowful.

‘Yes, mamma; we are in the dark. Papa is here. Oh, mamma, how wet you are!'

‘Yes, dear. It is raining. Get a light out of the kitchen, Jane, and I will go upstairs in two minutes.' Then, when Jane was gone, the wife made her way in the dark over to her husband's side, and spoke a word to him. ‘Josiah,' she said, ‘will you not speak to me?'

‘What should I speak about? Where have you been?'

‘I have been to Silverbridge. I have been to Mr Walker. He, at any rate, is very kind.'

‘I don't want his kindness. I want no man's kindness. Mr Walker is the attorney, I believe. Kind, indeed!'

‘I mean considerate. Josiah, let us do the best we can in this trouble. We have had others as heavy before.'

‘But none to crush me as this will crush me. Well; what am I to do? Am I to go to prison – tonight?' At this moment his daughter returned with a candle, and the mother could not make her answer at once. It was a wretched, poverty-stricken room. By degrees the carpet had disappeared, which had been laid down some nine or ten years since, when they had first come to Hogglestock, and which even then had not been new. Now nothing but a poor fragment of it remained in front of the fire-place. In the middle of the room there was a table which had once been large; but one flap of it was gone altogether, and the other flap sloped grievously towards the floor, the weakness of old age having fallen into its legs. There were two or three smaller tables about, but they stood propped against walls, thence obtaining a security which their own strength would not give them. At the further end of the room there was an ancient piece of furniture, which was always called ‘papa's secretary,' at which Mr Crawley customarily sat and wrote his sermons, and did all work that was done by him within his house. The man who had made it, some time in the last century, had intended it to be a locked guardian for domestic documents, and the receptacle for all that was most private in the house of some paterfamilias. But beneath the hands of Mr Crawley it always stood open; and with the exception of the small space at which he wrote, was covered with dog's-eared books, from nearly all of which the covers had disappeared. There were there two odd volumes of Euripides, a Greek Testament, an Odyssey, a duodecimo Pindar, and a miniature Anacreon. There was half a Horace – the two first books of the Odes at the beginning, and the De Arte Poetica at the end having disappeared. There was a little bit of a volume of Cicero, and there were Caesar's ‘Commentaries,' in two volumes, so stoutly bound that they had defied the combined ill-usage of time and the Crawley family. All these were piled upon the secretary, with
many others – odd volumes of sermons and the like; but the Greek and Latin lay at the top, and showed signs of most frequent use. There was one arm-chair in the room – a Windsor chair, as such used to be called, made soft by an old cushion in the back, in which Mr Crawley sat when both he and his wife were in the room, and Mrs Crawley when he was absent. And there was an old horsehair sofa – now almost denuded of its horsehair – but that, like the tables, required the assistance of a friendly wall. Then there was half a dozen of other chairs – all of different sorts – and they completed the furniture of the room. It was not such a room as one would wish to see inhabited by a beneficed clergyman of the Church of England; but they who know what money will do and what it will not, will understand how easily a man with a family, and with a hundred and thirty pounds a year, may be brought to the need of inhabiting such a chamber. When it is remembered that three pounds of meat a day, at ninepence a pound, will cost over forty pounds a year, there need be no difficulty in understanding that it may be so. Bread for such a family must cost at least twenty-five pounds. Clothes for five persons, of whom one must at any rate wear the raiment of a gentleman, can hardly be found for less than ten pounds a year a head. Then there remains fifteen pounds for tea, sugar, beer, wages, education, amusements, and the like. In such circumstances a gentleman can hardly pay much for the renewal of his furniture!

Mrs Crawley could not answer her husband's question before her daughter, and was therefore obliged to make another excuse for again sending her out of the room. ‘Jane, dear,' she said, ‘bring my things down to the kitchen and I will change them by the fire. I will be there in two minutes, when I have had a word with your papa.' The girl went immediately and then Mrs Crawley answered her husband's question. ‘No, my dear; there is no question of your going to prison.'

‘But there will be.'

‘I have undertaken that you shall attend before the magistrates at Silverbridge on Thursday next, at twelve o'clock. You will do that?'

‘Do it! You mean, I suppose, to say that I must go there. Is anybody to come and fetch me?'