The Last Chronicle of Barset

CHAPTER XIX

WHERE DID IT COME FROM?

When Christ­mas morn­ing came no emis­sary from the bish­op ap­peared at Hog­gle­stock to in­ter­fere with the or­di­nary per­for­mance of the day’s ser­vices. ‘I think we need fear no fur­ther dis­tur­bance,’ Mr Craw­ley said to his wife–and there was no fur­ther dis­tur­bance.

On the day af­ter his walk from Fram­ley to Barch­ester, and from Barch­ester back to Hog­gle­stock, Mr Craw­ley had risen not much the worse for his labour, and had grad­ual­ly giv­en to his wife a full ac­count of what had tak­en place. ‘A poor weak man,’ he said, speak­ing of the bish­op. ‘A poor weak crea­ture, and much to be pitied.’

‘I have al­ways heard that she is a vi­olent wom­an.’

‘Very vi­olent, and very ig­no­rant; and most in­tru­sive with­al.’

‘And you did not an­swer her a word?’

‘At last my for­bear­ance with her broke down, and I bade her mind her distaff.’

‘What;–re­al­ly? Did you say those words to her?’

‘Nay; as for the ex­act words I can­not re­mem­ber them. I was think­ing more of the word which it might be fit­ting that I should an­swer the bish­op. But I cer­tain­ly told her that she had bet­ter mind her distaff.’

‘And how did she be­have then?’

‘I did not wait to see. The bish­op had spo­ken, and I had replied; and why should I tar­ry to be­hold the wom­an’s vi­olence? I had told him that he was wrong in law, and that I at least would not sub­mit to usurped au­thor­ity. There was noth­ing to keep me longer, and so I went with­out much cer­emo­ny of leave-​tak­ing. There had been lit­tle cer­emo­ny of greet­ing on their part, and there was less in the mak­ing of adieux on mine. They had told me that I was a thief–’

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

‘I say they did;–they did use that 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,’ 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 to me now, that she called me a thief to my face? Do I not know that, all the coun­try round, men and wom­an are call­ing me the same be­hind my back?’

‘No, Josi­ah, you do not know that. They say 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 on 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 the man Soames–he who ac­cus­es me. And yet, as the Lord 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 were spo­ken 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, as 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 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, my mind has not been able to keep its even tenor 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 the 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 the fib he was telling was at all in­com­pat­ible with the Holy Sacra­ment in which he had just tak­en 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 had 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 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 that 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?’

‘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.