The Last Chronicle of Barset (130 page)

Mr Harding's curate at St Ewold's was nominated to Hogglestock, and the dean urged upon his friend Crawley the expediency of giving up the house as quickly as he could do so. Gradually at this time Mr Crawley had been forced into a certain amount of intimacy with the haunts of men. He had been twice or thrice at Barchester, and had lunched with the dean. He had been at Framley for an hour or two, and had been forced into some communication with old Mr Thorne, the squire of his new parish. The end of this had been that he had at last consented to transfer himself and wife and daughter to the deanery for a fortnight. He had preached one farewell sermon at Hogglestock – not, as he told his audience, as their pastor, which he had ceased to be now for some two or three months – but as their old and loving friend, to whom the use of his former pulpit had been lent, that he might express himself thus among them for the last time. His sermon was very short, and was preached without book or notes – but he never once paused for a word or halted in the string or rhythm of his discourse. The dean was there and declared afterwards that he had not given him credit for such powers of utterance. ‘Any man can utter out of a full heart,' Crawley had answered. ‘In this trumpery affair about myself, my heart is full! If we could only have our hearts full
in other matters, our utterances there would receive more attention.' To all of which the dean made no reply.

On the day after this the Crawleys took their final departure from Hogglestock, all the brickmakers from Hoggle End having assembled on the occasion, with a purse containing seventeen pounds seven shillings and sixpence, which they insisted on presenting to Mr Crawley, and as to which there was a little difficulty. And at the deanery they remained for a fortnight. How Mrs Crawley, under the guidance of Mrs Arabin, had there so far trenched upon the revenues of St Ewold's as to provide for her husband and herself raiment fitting for the worldly splendour of Plumstead, need not here be told in detail. Suffice to say, the raiment was forthcoming, and Mr Crawley found himself to be the perplexed possessor of a black dress coat, in addition to the long frock, coming nearly to his feet, which was provided for his daily wear. Touching this garment, there had been some discussion between the dean and the new vicar. The dean had desired that it should be curtailed in length.
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The vicar had remonstrated – but still with something of the weakness of compliance in his eye. Then the dean had persisted. ‘Surely the price of the cloth wanted to perfect the comeliness of the garment cannot be much,' said the vicar, almost woefully. After that, the dean relented, and the comeliness of the coat was made perfect. The new black long frock, I think, Mr Crawley liked; but the dress coat, with the suit complete, perplexed him sorely.

With his new coats, and something also, of new manners, he and his wife went over to Plumstead, leaving Jane at the deanery with Mrs Arabin. The dean also went to Plumstead. They arrived there not much before dinner, and as Grace was there before them the first moments were not so bad. Before Mr Crawley had had time to feel himself lost in the drawing-room, he was summoned away to prepare himself for dinner – for dinner, and for the coat, which at the deanery he had been allowed to leave unworn. ‘I would with all my heart that I might retire to rest,' he said to his wife, when the ceremony had been perfected.

‘Do not say so. Go down and take your place with them, and speak
your mind with them – as you so well know how. Who among them can do it so well?'

‘I have been told,' said Mr Crawley, ‘that you shall take a cock which is lord of the farmyard – the cock of all that walk – and when you have daubed his feathers with mud, he shall be thrashed by every dunghill coward. I say not that I was ever the cock of the walk, but I know that they have daubed my feathers.' Then he went down among the other poultry into the farmyard.

At dinner he was very silent, answering, however, with a sort of graceful stateliness any word that Mrs Grantly addressed to him. Mr Thorne, from Ullathorne, was there also to meet his new vicar, as was also Mr Thorne's very old sister, Miss Monica Thorne. And Lady Anne Grantly was there – she having come with the expressed intention that the wives of the two brothers should know each other but with a warmer desire, I think, of seeing Mr Crawley, of whom the clerical world had been talking much since some notice of the accusation against him had become general. There were, therefore, ten or twelve at the dinner-table, and Mr Crawley had not made one at such a board certainly since his marriage. All went fairly smooth with him till the ladies left the room; for though Lady Anne, who sat at his left hand, had perplexed him somewhat with clerical questions, he had found that he was not called upon for much more than monosyllabic responses. But in his heart he feared the archdeacon, and he felt that when the ladies were gone the archdeacon would not leave him alone in his silence.

As soon as the door was closed, the first subject mooted was that of the Plumstead fox, which had been so basely murdered on Mr Thorne's ground. Mr Thorne had confessed the iniquity, had dismissed the murderous gamekeeper, and all was serene. But the greater on that account was the feasibility of discussing the question, and the archdeacon had a good deal to say about it. Then Mr Thorne turned to the new vicar, and asked him whether foxes abounded in Hogglestock. Had he been asked as to the rats or the moles, he would have known more about it. ‘Indeed, sir, I know not whether or no there be any foxes in the
parish of Hogglestock. I do not remember me that I ever saw one. It is an animal whose habits I have not watched.' ‘There is an earth at Hoggle Bushes,' said the major; ‘and I never knew it without a litter.'

‘I think I know the domestic whereabouts of every fox in Plumstead,' said the archdeacon, with an ill-natured intention of astonishing Mr Crawley.

‘Of foxes with two legs our friend is speaking, without doubt,' said the vicar of St Ewold's, with an attempt at grim pleasantry.

‘Of them we have none at Plumstead. No – I was speaking of the dear old fellow with the brush. Pass the bottle, Mr Crawley. Won't you fill your glass?' Mr Crawley passed the bottle, but would not fill his glass. Then the dean, looking up slyly, saw the vexation written in the archdeacon's face. The parson whom the archdeacon feared most of all parsons was the parson who wouldn't fill his glass.

Then the subject was changed. ‘I'm told that the bishop has at last made his reappearance on his throne,' said the archdeacon.

‘He was in the cathedral last Sunday,' said the dean.

‘Does he ever mean to preach again?'

‘He never did preach very often,' said the dean.

‘A great deal too often, from all that people say,' said the archdeacon. ‘I never heard him myself, and never shall, I daresay. You have heard him, Mr Crawley?'

‘I have never had that good fortune, Mr Archdeacon. But living as I shall now do, so near to the city, I may perhaps be enabled to attend the cathedral service on some holy-day of the Church, which may not require prayers in my own rural parish. I think that the clergy of the diocese should be acquainted with the opinions, and with the voice, and with the very manner and words of their bishop. As things are now done, this is not possible. I could wish that there were occasions on which a bishop might assemble his clergy, and preach to them sermons adapted to their use.'

‘What do you call a bishop's charge, then?'

‘It is usually in the printed form that I have received it,' said Mr Crawley.

‘I think we have quite enough of that kind of thing,' said the archdeacon.

‘He is a man whose conversation is not pleasing to me,' Mr Crawley said to his wife that night.

‘Do not judge of him too quickly, Josiah,' his wife said. ‘There is so much of good in him! He is kind, and generous, and I think affectionate.'

‘But he is of the earth, earthy. When you and the other ladies had retired, the conversation at first fell on the habits and value of – foxes. I have been informed that in these parts the fox is greatly prized, as without a fox to run before the dogs, that scampering over the country which is called hunting, and which delights by the quickness and perhaps by the peril of the exercise, is not relished by the riders. Of the wisdom or taste herein displayed by the hunters of the day I say nothing. But it seemed to me that in talking of foxes Dr Grantly was master of his subject. Thence the topic glided to the duties of a bishop and to questions of preaching, as to which Dr Grantly was not slow in offering his opinion. But I thought that I would rather have heard him talk about the foxes for a week together.' She said nothing more to him, knowing well how useless it was to attempt to turn him by any argument. To her thinking the kindness of the archdeacon to them personally demanded some indulgence in the expression, and even in the formation, of an opinion, respecting his clerical peculiarities.

On the next day, however, Mr Crawley, having been summoned by the archdeacon into the library for a little private conversation, found that he got on better with him. How the archdeacon conquered him may perhaps be best described by a further narration of what Mr Crawley said to his wife. ‘I told him that in regard to money matters, as he called them, I had nothing to say. I only trusted that his son was aware that my daughter had no money, and never would have any. “My dear Crawley,” the archdeacon said – for of late there seems to have grown up in the world a habit of greater familiarity than that which I think did prevail when last I moved much among men – “my dear Crawley, I have enough for both.” “I would we stood on more
equal grounds,” I said. Then as he answered me, he rose from his chair. “We stand,” said he, “on the only perfect level on which such men can meet each other. We are both gentlemen.” “Sir,” I said, rising also, “from the bottom of my heart I agree with you. I could not have spoken such words; but coming from you who are rich to me who am poor, they are honourable to the one and comfortable to the other.” '

‘And after that?'

‘He took down from the shelves a volume of sermons which his father published many years ago, and presented it to me. I have it now under my arm. It hath the old bishop's manuscript notes, which I will study carefully.' And thus the archdeacon had hit his bird on both wings.

It now only remains for me to gather together a few loose strings, and tie them together in a knot, so that my work may not become untwisted. Early in July, Henry Grantly and Grace Crawley were married in the parish church of Plumstead – a great impropriety, as to which neither Archdeacon Grantly nor Mr Crawley could be got to assent for a long time, but which was at last carried, not simply by a union of Mrs Grantly and Mrs Crawley, nor even by the assistance of Mrs Arabin, but by the strong intervention of old Lady Lufton herself. ‘Of course Miss Crawley ought to be married from St Ewold's vicarage; but when the furniture has only been half got in, how is it possible?' When Lady Lufton thus spoke, the archdeacon gave way, and Mr Crawley hadn't a leg to stand upon. Henry Grantly had not an opinion upon the matter. He told his father that he expected that they would marry him among them, and that that would be enough for him. As for Grace, nobody even thought of asking her; and I doubt whether she would have heard anything about the contest, had not
some tidings of it reached her from her lover. Married they were at Plumstead – and the breakfast was given with all that luxuriance of plenty which was so dear to the archdeacon's mind. Mr Crawley was the officiating priest. With his hands dropping before him, folded humbly, he told the archdeacon – when that Plumstead question had been finally settled in opposition to his wishes – that he would fain himself perform the ceremony by which his dearest daughter would be bound to her marriage duties. ‘And who else should?' said the archdeacon. Mr Crawley muttered that he had not known how far his reverend brother might have been willing to waive his rights. But the archdeacon, who was in high good-humour – having just bestowed a little pony carriage on his new daughter-in-law – only laughed at him; and, if the rumour which was handed about the families be true, the archdeacon, before the interview was over, had poked Mr Crawley in the ribs. Mr Crawley married them; but the archdeacon assisted – and the dean gave away the bride. The Rev. Charles Grantly was there also; and as there was, as a matter of course, a cloud of curates floating in the distance, Henry Grantly was perhaps to be excused for declaring to his wife, when the pair had escaped, that surely no couple had ever been so tightly buckled since marriage had first become a Church ceremony.

Soon after that, Mr and Mrs Crawley became quiet at St Ewold's, and, as I think, contented. Her happiness began very quickly. Though she had been greatly broken by her troubles, the first sight she had of her husband in his new long frock-coat went far to restore her, and while he was declaring himself to be a cock so daubed with mud as to be incapable of crowing, she was congratulating herself on seeing her husband once more clothed as became his position. And they were lucky, too, as regarded the squire's house; for Mr Thorne was old, and quiet, and old-fashioned; and Miss Thorne was older, and though she was not exactly quiet, she was very old-fashioned indeed. So that there grew to be a pleasant friendship between Miss Thorne and Mrs Crawley.

Johnny Eames, when last I heard of him, was still a bachelor, and, as I think, likely to remain so. At last he had utterly thrown over Sir Raffle Buffle, declaring to his friends that the special duties of private
secretaryship were not exactly to his taste. ‘You get so sick at the thirteenth private note,' he said, ‘that you find yourself unable to carry on the humbug any farther.' But he did not leave his office. ‘I'm the head of a room, you know,' he told Lady Julia De Guest; ‘and there's nothing to trouble me – and a fellow, you know, ought to have something to do.' Lady Julia told him, with a great deal of energy, that she would never forgive him if he gave up his office. After that eventful night when he escaped ignominiously from the house of Lady Demolines under the protection of the policeman's lantern, he did hear more than once from Porchester Terrace, and from allies employed by the enemy who was there resident. ‘My cousin, the serjeant' proved to be a myth. Johnny found out all about that Serjeant Runter, who was distantly connected, indeed, with the late husband of Lady Demolines, but had always persistently declined to have any intercourse whatever with her ladyship. For the serjeant was a rising man, and Lady Demolines was not exactly progressing in the world. Johnny heard nothing from the serjeant; but from Madalina he got letter after letter. In the first she asked him not to think too much of the little joke that had occurred. In the second she described the vehemence of her love. In her third the bitterness of her wrath. Her fourth simply invited him to come and dine in Porchester Terrace. Her fifth was the outpouring of injured innocence. And then came letters from an attorney. Johnny answered not a word to any of them, and gradually the letters were discontinued. Within six months of the receipt of the last, he was delighted by reading among the marriages in the newspapers a notice that Peter Bangles, Esq., of the firm Burton and Bangles, wine merchants, of Hook Court, had been united to Madalina, daughter of the late Sir Confucius Demolines, at the church of Peter the Martyr. ‘Most appropriate,' said Johnny, as he read the notice to Conway Dalrymple, who was then back from his wedding tour; ‘for most assuredly there will be now another Peter the Martyr.'