The Last Chronicle of Barset

CHAPTER X

DIN­NER AT FRAM­LEY COURT

Lord Lufton, as he drove home to Fram­ley af­ter the meet­ing of the mag­is­trates at Sil­ver­bridge, dis­cussed the mat­ter with his broth­er-​in-​law, Mark Ro­barts, the cler­gy­man. Lord Lufton was driv­ing a dog-​cart, and went along the road at the rate of twelve miles an hour. ‘I’ll tell you what it is, Mark,’ he said, ‘that man is in­no­cent; but if he won’t em­ploy lawyers at his tri­al, the ju­ry will find him guilty.’

‘I don’t know what to think about it,’ said the cler­gy­man.

‘Were you in the room when he protest­ed so ve­he­ment­ly that he did not know where he got the mon­ey?’

‘I was in the room all the time.’

‘And you did not be­lieve him when he said that?’

‘Yes, I think I did.’

‘Any­body must have be­lieved him–ex­cept old Tem­pest, who nev­er be­lieves any­body, and Fothergill, who al­ways sus­pects ev­ery­body. The truth is, that he found the cheque and put it by, and did not re­mem­ber any­thing about it.’

‘But, Lufton, sure­ly that would amount to steal­ing it?’

‘Yes, if it wasn’t that he is such a poor, cracked, crazy crea­ture, with his mind all abroad. I think Soames did drop his book in his house. I’m sure Soames would not say so un­less he was quite con­fi­dent. Some­body has picked it up, and in some way the cheque has got in­to Craw­ley’s hand. Then he has locked it up and for­got­ten all about it; and when that butch­er threat­ened him, he has put his hand up­on it, and he thought, or be­lieved, that it had come from Soames or the dean or from heav­en, if you will. When a man is so crazy as that, you can’t judge of him as you do of oth­ers.’

‘But a ju­ry must judge him as it would of oth­ers.’

‘And there­fore there should be a lawyer to tell the ju­ry what to do. They should have some­body up out of the parish to show that he is be­side him­self half the time. His wife would be the best per­son, on­ly it would be hard lines on her.’

‘Very hard. And af­ter all he would on­ly es­cape by be­ing shown to be mad.’

‘And he is mad.’

‘Mrs Proudie would come up­on him in such a case as that, and se­quester his liv­ing.’

‘And what will Mrs Proudie do when he’s a con­vict­ed thief? Sim­ply un­frock him, and take away his liv­ing al­to­geth­er. Noth­ing on earth should in­duce me to find him guilty if I were on a ju­ry.’

‘But you have com­mit­ted him.’

‘Yes–I’ve been one, at least, in do­ing so. I sim­ply did that which Walk­er told us we must do. A mag­is­trate is not left to him­self as a ju­ry­man is. I’d eat the biggest pair of boots in Barch­ester be­fore I found him guilty. I say, Mark, you must talk it over with the wom­en, and see what can be done for them. Lucy tells me that they’re so poor, that if they have bread to eat, it’s as much as they have.’

On this evening Archdea­con Grant­ly and his wife dined and slept at Fram­ley Court, there hav­ing been a very long fam­ily friend­ship be­tween old La­dy Lufton and the Grantlys, and Dr Thorne with his wife, from Chaldicotes, al­so dined at Fram­ley. There was al­so there an­oth­er cler­gy­man from Barch­ester, one Mr Cham­pi­on, one of the prebends of the cathe­dral. There were on­ly three now who had hous­es in the city since the re­trench­ments of the ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal com­mis­sion had come in­to full force. And this Mr Cham­pi­on was dear to the Dowa­ger La­dy Lufton, be­cause he car­ried on worthi­ly the cler­ical war against the bish­op which had raged in Barch­ester ev­er since Dr Proudie had come there–which war old La­dy Lufton, good and pi­ous and char­ita­ble as she was, con­sid­ered that she was bound to keep up, even to the knife, till Dr Proudie and all his satel­lites should have been ban­ished in­to the out­er dark­ness. As the light of the Proud­ies still shone bright­ly, it was prob­able that poor old La­dy Lufton might die be­fore her bat­tle was ac­com­plished. She of­ten said that it would be so, but when so say­ing, al­ways ex­pressed a wish that is might be car­ried on af­ter her death. ‘I shall nev­er, nev­er rest in my grave,’ she had once said to the archdea­con, ‘while that wom­an sits in your fa­ther’s palace.’ For the archdea­con’s fa­ther had been Bish­op of Barch­ester be­fore Dr Proudie. What mode of get­ting rid of the bish­op or his wife La­dy Lufton pro­posed to her­self, I am un­able to say; but I think she lived in hopes that in some way it might be done. If on­ly the bish­op could have been found to have stolen a cheque for twen­ty pounds in­stead of poor Mr Craw­ley, La­dy Lufton would, I think, have been sat­is­fied.

In the course of these bat­tles Fram­ley Court would some­times as­sume a cler­ical as­pect–hav­ing a pre­vail­ing hue, as it were, of black coats, which was not al­to­geth­er to the taste of Lord Lufton, and as to which he would make com­plaint to his wife, and to Mark Ro­barts, him­self a cler­gy­man. ‘There’s more of this than I can stand,’ he’d say to the lat­ter. ‘There’s deuced more of it than you like your­self, I know.’

‘It’s not for me to like or dis­like. It’s a great thing hav­ing your moth­er in the parish.’

‘That’s all very well; and of course she’ll do as she likes. She may ask whom she pleas­es here, and I shan’t in­ter­fere. It’s the same as though it was her own house. But I shall take Lucy to Lufton.’ Now Lord Lufton had been build­ing his house at Lufton for the last sev­en years and it was not yet fin­ished–or near­ly fin­ished, if all that his wife had said were true. And if they could have their way, it nev­er would be fin­ished. And so, in or­der that Lord Lufton might not ac­tu­al­ly be driv­en away by the tur­moils of ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal con­test, the younger La­dy Lufton would en­deav­our to mod­er­ate both the wrath and the zeal of the el­der one, and would strug­gle against the com­ing cler­gy­men. On this day, how­ev­er, three sat at the board at Fram­ley, and La­dy Lufton, in her jus­ti­fi­ca­tion to her son, swore that the in­vi­ta­tion had been giv­en by her daugh­ter-​in-​law. ‘You know, my dear,’ the dowa­ger said to Lord Lufton, ’some­thing must be done for these poor Craw­leys; and as the dean is away, Lucy wants to speak to the archdea­con about them.’

‘And the archdea­con could not sub­scribe his ten-​pound note with­out hav­ing Cham­pi­on to back him?’

‘My dear Lu­dovic, you do put it in such a way.’

‘Nev­er mind, moth­er. I’ve no spe­cial dis­like for Cham­pi­on, on­ly as you are not paid five thou­sand pound a year for your trou­ble, it is rather hard that you should have to do all the work of op­po­si­tion bish­op in the dio­cese.’

It was felt by them all–in­clud­ing Lord Lufton him­self, who be­came so in­ter­est­ed in the mat­ter as to for­give the black coats be­fore the evening was over–that this mat­ter of Mr Craw­ley’s com­mit­tal was very se­ri­ous, and de­mand­ed the full en­er­gies of their par­ty. It was known to them all that the feel­ing at the palace was in­im­ical to Mr Craw­ley. ‘That she-​Beelze­bub hates him for his pover­ty, and be­cause Ara­bin brought him in­to the dio­cese,’ said the archdea­con, per­mit­ting him­self to use very strong lan­guage in his al­lu­sion to the bish­op’s wife. It must be record­ed on his be­half that he used the phrase in the pres­ence on­ly of the gen­tle­men of the par­ty. I think he might have whis­pered the word in the ear of his con­fi­den­tial friend old La­dy Lufton, and per­haps have giv­en no of­fence; but he would not have ven­tured to use such words aloud in the pres­ence of ladies.

‘You for­get, archdea­con,’ said Dr Thorne, laugh­ing, ‘that the she-​Beelze­bub is my wife’s par­tic­ular friend.’

‘Not a bit of it,’ said the archdea­con. ‘Your wife knows bet­ter than that. You tell her what I call her, and if she com­plains of the name I’ll un­say it.’ It may there­fore be sup­posed that Dr Thorne, and Mrs Thorne, and the archdea­con, knew each oth­er in­ti­mate­ly, and un­der­stood each oth­er’s feel­ings on these mat­ters.

It was quite true that the palace par­ty was in­im­ical to Mr Craw­ley. Mr Craw­ley un­doubt­ed­ly was poor, and had not been so sub­mis­sive to epis­co­pal au­thor­ity as it be­hoves any cler­gy­man to be whose loaves and fish­es are scanty. He had raised his back more than once against or­ders em­anat­ing from the palace in a man­ner that had made the hairs on the head of the bish­op’s wife to stand al­most on end, and had tak­en as much up­on him­self as though his liv­ing had been worth twelve hun­dred a year. Mrs Proudie, al­most as en­er­get­ic in her lan­guage as the archdea­con, had called him a beg­gar­ly per­pet­ual cu­rate. ‘We must have per­pet­ual cu­rates, my dear,’ the bish­op had said. ‘They should know their places then. But what can you ex­pect of a crea­ture from the dean­ery? All that ought to be al­tered. The dean should have no pa­tron­age in the dio­cese. No dean should have any pa­tron­age. It is an abuse from the be­gin­ning to the end. Dean Ara­bin, if he had any con­science, would be do­ing the du­ty at Hog­gle­stock him­self.’ How the bish­op strove to teach his wife, with the mildest words, what re­al­ly ought to be a dean’s du­ty, and how the wife re­joined by teach­ing her hus­band, not in the mildest words, what ought to be a bish­op’s du­ty, we will not fur­ther in­quire here. The fact that such di­alogues took place at the palace is record­ed sim­ply to show that the pala­tial feel­ing in Barch­ester ran counter to Mr Craw­ley.

And this was cause enough, if no oth­er cause ex­ist­ed, for par­tial­ity to Mr Craw­ley at Fram­ley Court. But, as has been part­ly ex­plained, there ex­ist­ed, if pos­si­ble, even stronger ground than this for ad­her­ence to the Craw­ley cause. The younger La­dy Lufton had known the Craw­leys in­ti­mate­ly, and the el­der La­dy Lufton had reck­oned them among the neigh­bour­ing cler­ical fam­ilies of her ac­quain­tance. Both these ladies were there­fore staunch in their de­fence of Mr Craw­ley. The archdea­con him­self had his own rea­sons–rea­sons which at present he kept al­to­geth­er with­in his own bo­som–for wish­ing that Mr Craw­ley had nev­er en­tered the dio­cese. Whether the per­pet­ual cu­rate should or should not be de­clared a thief, it would ter­ri­ble to him to have to call the child of that per­pet­ual cu­rate his daugh­ter-​in-​law. But not the less on this oc­ca­sion was he true to his or­der, true to his side of the dio­cese, true to his ha­tred of the palace.

‘I don’t be­lieve it for a mo­ment,’ he said, as he took his place on the rug be­fore the fire in the draw­ing-​room when the gen­tle­men came in from their wine. The ladies un­der­stood at once what it was that he couldn’t be­lieve. Mr Craw­ley had for the mo­ment so usurped the coun­ty that no­body thought of talk­ing of any­thing else.

‘How is it then,’ said Mrs Thorne, ‘that Lord Lufton, and my hus­band, and the oth­er wiseacres at Sil­ver­bridge, have com­mit­ted him for tri­al?’

‘Be­cause we are told to do so by the lawyer,’ said Dr Thorne.

‘Ladies will nev­er un­der­stand that mag­is­trates must act in ac­cor­dance with the law,’ said Lord Lufton.

‘But you all say he’s not guilty,’ said Mrs Ro­barts.

‘The fact is, that the mag­is­trate can­not try the ques­tion,’ said the archdea­con; ‘they on­ly hear pri­ma­ry ev­idence. In this case I don’t be­lieve Craw­ley would ev­er have been com­mit­ted if he had em­ployed an at­tor­ney, in­stead of speak­ing for him­self.’

‘Why didn’t some­body make him have an at­tor­ney?’ said La­dy Lufton.

‘I don’t think any at­tor­ney in the world could have spo­ken for him bet­ter than he spoke for him­self,’ said Dr Thorne.

‘And yet you com­mit­ted him,’ said his wife. ‘What can we do for him? Can’t we pay the bail and send him off to Amer­ica?’

‘A ju­ry will nev­er find him guilty,’ said Lord Lufton.

‘And what is the truth of it?’ asked the younger La­dy Lufton.

Then the whole mat­ter was dis­cussed again, and it was set­tled among them all that Mr Craw­ley had un­doubt­ed­ly ap­pro­pri­at­ed the cheque through tem­po­rary obliq­ui­ty of judg­ment–obliq­ui­ty of judg­ment and for­get­ful­ness as to the source from whence the cheque had come to him. ‘He has picked it up about the house, and then has thought that it was his own,’ said Lord Lufton. Had they come to the con­clu­sion that such an ap­pro­pri­ation of mon­ey had been made by one of the cler­gy of the palace, by one of the Proudieian par­ty, they would doubt­less have been very loud and very bit­ter as to the in­iq­ui­ty of the of­fend­er. They would have said as much as to the weak­ness of the bish­op and the wicked­ness of the bish­op’s wife, and would have de­clared the ap­pro­pri­ator to have been as very a thief as ev­er picked a pock­et or opened a bill;–but they were unan­imous in their ac­quit­tal of Mr Craw­ley. It had not been his in­ten­tion, they said, to be a thief, and a man should be judged on­ly by his in­ten­tion. It must now be their ob­ject to in­duce a Barch­ester ju­ry to look at the mat­ter in the same light.

‘When they come to un­der­stand how the land lies,’ said the archdea­con, ‘they will be all right. There’s not a trades­man in the city who does not hate that wom­an as though she were–’

‘Archdea­con,’ said his wife, cau­tion­ing him to re­press his en­er­gy.

‘Their bills are all paid by this new chap­lain they’ve got, and he is made to claim dis­count on ev­ery leg of mut­ton,’ said the archdea­con. Ar­gu­ing from which fact–or from which as­ser­tion, he came to the con­clu­sion that no Barch­ester ju­ry would find Mr Craw­ley guilty.

But it was agreed on all sides that it would not be well to trust to the unas­sist­ed friend­ship of the Barch­ester trades­men. Mr Craw­ley must be pro­vid­ed with le­gal as­sis­tance, and this must be fur­nished to him whether he should be will­ing or un­will­ing to re­ceive it. That there would be a dif­fi­cul­ty was ac­knowl­edged. Mr Craw­ley was known to be a man not easy of per­sua­sion, with a will of his own, with a great en­er­gy of ob­sti­na­cy on points which he chose to take as be­ing of im­por­tance to his call­ing, or to his own pro­fes­sion­al sta­tus. He had plead­ed his own cause be­fore the mag­is­trates, and it might be that he would in­sist on do­ing the same thing be­fore the judge. At last Mr Ro­barts, the cler­gy­man from Fram­ley, was de­put­ed from the knot of Crawleian ad­vo­cates as­sem­bled at La­dy Lufton’s draw­ing-​room, to un­der­take the du­ty of see­ing Mr Craw­ley, and of ex­plain­ing to him that his prop­er de­fence was re­gard­ed as a mat­ter ap­per­tain­ing to the cler­gy and gen­try gen­er­al­ly of that part of the coun­try, and that for the sake of the cler­gy and gen­try the de­fence must of course be prop­er­ly con­duct­ed. In such cir­cum­stances the ex­pense of the de­fence would of course be borne by the cler­gy and gen­try con­cerned. It was thought that Mr Ro­barts could put the mat­ter to Mr Craw­ley with such a mix­ture of the strength of man­ly friend­ship and the soft­ness of cler­ical per­sua­sion, as to over­come the recog­nised dif­fi­cul­ties of the task.