The Last Chronicle of Barset

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE PLUM­STEAD FOX­ES

The let­ters had been brought in­to the break­fast-​par­lour at Plum­stead Rec­to­ry one morn­ing, and the archdea­con had in­spect­ed them all, and then thrown over to his wife her share of the spoil–as was the cus­tom of the house. As to most of Mrs Grant­ly’s let­ters, he nev­er made any fur­ther in­quiry. To let­ters from her sis­ter, the dean’s wife, he was pro­found­ly in­dif­fer­ent, and rarely made any in­quiry as to those which were di­rect­ed in writ­ing with which he was not fa­mil­iar. But there were oth­ers as to which, as Mrs Grant­ly knew, he would be sure to ask her ques­tions if she did not show them. No note ev­er reached her from La­dy Hartel­top as to which he was not cu­ri­ous, and yet La­dy Hartle­top’s notes very sel­dom con­tained much that was of in­ter­est. Now, on this morn­ing, there came a let­ter which, as a mat­ter of course, Mrs Grant­ly read at break­fast, and which, she knew, would not be al­lowed to dis­ap­pear with­out in­quiry. Nor, in­deed, did she wish to keep the let­ter from her hus­band. It was too im­por­tant to be so treat­ed. But she would have been glad to gain time to think in what spir­it she would dis­cuss the con­tents of the let­ter–if on­ly such time might be al­lowed to her. But the archdea­con would al­low her no time. ‘What does Hen­ry say, my dear?’ he asked, be­fore the break­fast things had been tak­en away.

‘What does he say? Well, he says–I’ll give you his let­ter to read by-​and-​by.’

‘And why not now?’

‘I thought I’d read it again my­self, first.’

‘But if you have read it, I sup­pose you know what’s in it?’

‘Not very clear­ly, as yet. How­ev­er, there it is.’ She knew very well that when she had once been asked for it, no peace would be al­lowed her till he had seen it. And, alas! there was not much prob­abil­ity of peace in the house for some time af­ter he had seen it.

The archdea­con read the three or first lines in si­lence–and then burst out. ‘He has, has he? Then, by heav­ens–’

‘Stop, dear­est; stop,’ said his wife, ris­ing from her chair and com­ing over to him; ‘do not say words which you will sure­ly re­pent.’

‘I will say words which shall make him re­pent. He shall nev­er have from me a son’s por­tion.’

‘Do not make threats in anger. Do not! You know that it is wrong. If he has of­fend­ed you, say noth­ing about it–even to your­self—as to threat­ened pun­ish­ments, till you can judge of the of­fence in cool blood.’

‘I am cool,’ said the archdea­con.

‘No, my dear; no; you are an­gry. And you have not even read his let­ter through.’

‘I will read his let­ter.’

‘You will see that the mar­riage is not im­mi­nent. It may be that even yet it will nev­er take place. The young la­dy has re­fused him.’

‘Psha!’

‘You will see that she has done so. He tells us so him­self. And she has be­haved very prop­er­ly.’

‘Why has she re­fused him?’

‘There can be no doubt about the rea­son. She feels that, with this charge hang­ing over her fa­ther, she is not in a po­si­tion to be­come the wife of any gen­tle­man. You can­not but re­spect her for that.’

The archdea­con fin­ished his son’s let­ter, ut­ter­ing sundry in­ter­jec­tions and ejac­ula­tions as he did so.

‘Of course; I knew it. I un­der­stood it all,’ he said at last. ‘I’ve noth­ing to do with the girl. I don’t care whether she be good or bad.’

‘Oh, my dear!’

‘I care not at all–with ref­er­ence to my own con­cerns. Of course I would wish that the daugh­ter of a neigh­bour­ing cler­gy­man–that the daugh­ter of any neigh­bour–that the daugh­ter of any­one what­so­ev­er–should be good rather than bad. But as re­gards Hen­ry and me, and our mu­tu­al re­la­tion, her good­ness can make no dif­fer­ence. Let her be an­oth­er Grizel, and still such a mar­riage must es­trange him from me, and me from him.’

‘But she has re­fused him.’

‘Yes; and what does he say?–that he has told her that he will not ac­cept her re­fusal. Of course we know what it all means. The girl I am not judg­ing. The girl I will not judge. But my own son, to whom I have ev­er done a fa­ther’s du­ty with a fa­ther’s af­fec­tion­ate in­dul­gence–him I will judge. I have warned him, and he de­clares him­self to be care­less of my warn­ing. I shall take no no­tice of this let­ter. I shall nei­ther write to him about it or speak to him about it. But I charge you to write to him and tell him that if he does this thing he shall not have a child’s por­tion from me. It is not that I will short­en that which would have been his; but he shall have–noth­ing!’ Then, hav­ing spo­ken these words with a solem­ni­ty which for the mo­ment si­lenced his wife, he got up and left the room. He left the room and closed the door, but, be­fore he had gone half the length of the hall to­wards his own study, he re­turned and ad­dressed his wife again. ‘You un­der­stand my in­struc­tions, I hope?’

‘What in­struc­tions?’

‘That you write to Hen­ry and tell him what I say.’

‘I will speak again to you about it by-​and-​by.’

‘I will speak no more about it–not a word more. Let there be not a word more said, but oblige me by do­ing as I ask you.’

Then he was again about to leave the room, but she stopped him. ‘Wait a mo­ment, my dear.’

‘Why should I wait?’

‘That you may lis­ten to me. Sure­ly you will do that, when I ask you. I will write to Hen­ry, of course, if you bid me; and I will give him your mes­sage, what­ev­er it may be; but not to­day, my dear.’

‘Why not to­day?’

‘Be­cause the sun shall go down on your wrath be­fore I be­come its mes­sen­ger. If you choose to write that your­self, I can­not help it. I can­not hin­der you. If I am to write to him on your be­half I will take my in­struc­tions from you to­mor­row morn­ing. When to­mor­row morn­ing comes you will not be an­gry with me be­cause of the de­lay.’

The archdea­con was by no means sat­is­fied; but he knew his wife too well, and him­self too well, and the world too well, to in­sist on the im­me­di­ate grat­ifi­ca­tion of his pas­sion. Over his bo­som’s mis­tress he did ex­er­cise a cer­tain mar­ital con­trol–which was, for in­stance, quite suf­fi­cient­ly fixed to en­able him to look down with thor­ough con­tempt on such a one a Bish­op Proudie; but he was not a despot who could ex­act a pas­sive obe­di­ence to ev­ery fan­ta­sy. His wife would not have writ­ten the let­ter for him on that day, and he knew very well that she would not do so. He knew al­so that she was right;–and yet he re­gret­ted his want of pow­er. His anger at the present mo­ment was very hot–so hot that he wished to wreak it. He knew that it would cool be­fore the mor­row;–and, no doubt, knew al­so the­oret­ical­ly, that it would be most fit­ting that it should be cool. But not the less was it a mat­ter of re­gret to him that so much good hot anger should be wast­ed, and that he could not have his will of his dis­obe­di­ent son while it last­ed. He might, no doubt, have writ­ten him­self, but to have done so would not have suit­ed him. Even in his anger he could not have writ­ten to his son with­out us­ing the or­di­nary terms of af­fec­tion, and in his anger he could not bring him­self to use those terms. ‘You will find that I shall be of the same mind to­mor­row–ex­act­ly,’ he said to his wife. ‘I have re­solved about it long since; and it is not like­ly that I shall change in a day.’ Then he went out, about his parish, in­tend­ing to con­tin­ue to think of his son’s in­iq­ui­ty, so that he might keep his anger hot–red hot. Then he re­mem­bered that the evening would come, and that he would say his prayers; and he shook his head in re­gret–in a re­gret of which he was on­ly half con­scious, though it was very keen, and which he did not at­tempt to anal­yse–as he re­flect­ed that his rage would hard­ly be able to sur­vive that or­deal. How com­mon with us it is to re­pine that the dev­il is not stronger over us than he is.

The archdea­con, who was a very wealthy man, had pur­chased a prop­er­ty at Plum­stead, con­tigu­ous to the glebe-​land, and had thus come to ex­er­cise in the parish the dou­ble du­ty of rec­tor and squire. And of this es­tate in Barset­shire, which ex­tend­ed be­yond the con­fines of Plum­stead in­to the neigh­bour­ing parish of Stog­pingum–Stoke Pin­guium would have been the prop­er name had not the bar­barous Sax­on tongues clipped it of its prop­er pro­por­tions–he had al­ways in­tend­ed that his son Charles should en­joy the in­her­itance. There was oth­er prop­er­ty, both in land and in mon­ey, for his el­der son, and oth­er again for the main­te­nance of his wife, for the archdea­con’s fa­ther had been for many years Bish­op of Barch­ester, and such a bish­opric as that of Barch­ester had been in those days worth mon­ey. Of his in­ten­tion in this re­spect he had nev­er spo­ken in plain lan­guage to ei­ther of his sons; but the ma­jor had for the last year or two en­joyed the shoot­ing of the Barset­shire cov­ers, giv­ing what or­ders he pleased about the game; and the fa­ther had en­cour­aged him to take some­thing like the man­age­ment of the prop­er­ty in­to his hands. There might have been some fif­teen hun­dred acres of it al­to­geth­er, and the archdea­con had re­joiced over it with his wife scores of times, say­ing that there was many a squire in the coun­ty whose el­der son would nev­er find him­self so well placed as would his own younger son. Now there was a string of nar­row woods called Plum­stead Cop­pices which ran from a point near the church right across the parish, di­vid­ing the archdea­con’s land from the Ul­lathorne es­tate, and these cop­pices, or belts of wood­land, be­longed to the archdea­con. On the morn­ing of which we are speak­ing, the archdea­con mount­ed on his cob, still think­ing of his son’s in­iq­ui­ty and of his own fixed re­solve to pun­ish him as he had said that he would pun­ish him, opened with his whip a wood­land gate, from which a green mud­dy lane led through the trees up to the house of the game­keep­er. The man’s wife was ill, and in his or­di­nary way of busi­ness the archdea­con was about to call and ask af­ter her health. At the door of the cot­tage he found the man, who was wood­man as well as game­keep­er, and was re­spon­si­ble for fences and fag­gots, as well as for the fox­es and pheas­ants’ eggs.

‘How’s Martha, Flur­ry?’ said the archdea­con.

‘Thank­ing your rev­er­ence, she be a deal im­proved since the mis­tress was here–last Tues­day it was, I think.’

‘I’m glad of that. It was on­ly rheuma­tism, I sup­pose?’

‘Just a tich of fever with it, your rev­er­ence, the doc­tor said,’

‘Tell her I was ask­ing af­ter it. I won’t mind get­ting down to­day, as I am rather busy. She has had what she want­ed from the house?’

‘The mis­tress has been very good in that way. She al­ways is, God bless her!’

‘Good-​day to you, Flur­ry. I’ll ask Mr Sims to come and read to her a bit this af­ter­noon, or to­mor­row morn­ing.’ The archdea­con kept two cu­rates, and Mr Sims was one of them.’

‘She’ll take it very kind­ly, your rev­er­ence. But while you are here, sir, there’s just a word I’d like to say. I didn’t hap­pen to catch Mr Hen­ry when he was here the oth­er day.’

‘Nev­er mind Mr Hen­ry–what is it you have to say?’

‘I do think, I do in­deed, sire, that Mr Thorne’s man ain’t deal­ing fair­ly along of the fox­es. I wouldn’t say a word about it, on­ly that Mr Hen­ry is so par­tic­ular.’

‘What about the fox­es? What is he do­ing with the fox­es?’

‘Well, sire, he’s a trap­ping on ‘em. He is, in­deed, your rev­er­ence. I wouldn’t speak if I warn’t well nigh mor­tal sure.’

Now the archdea­con had nev­er been a hunt­ing man, though in his ear­ly days many a cler­gy­man had been in the habit of hunt­ing with­out los­ing his cler­ical char­ac­ter by do­ing so; but he had lived all his life among gen­tle­men in a hunt­ing coun­ty, and had his own very strong ideas about the trap­ping of fox­es. Fox­es first, and pheas­ants af­ter­wards, had al­ways been the rule with him as to any land of which he him­self had the man­age­ment. And no man un­der­stood bet­ter than he did how to deal with keep­ers as to this mat­ter of fox-​pre­serv­ing, or knew bet­ter that keep­ers will in truth obey not the words of their em­ploy­ers, but their sym­pa­thies. ‘Wish them to have fox­es, and pay them, and they will have them.’ Mr Sower­by of Chaldicotes used to say, and he in his day was reck­oned to be the best pre­serv­er of fox­es in Barset­shire. ‘Tell them to have them, and don’t wish it, and pay them well, and you won’t have a fox to in­ter­fere with your game. I don’t care what a man says to me, I can read it all like a book when I see his cov­ers drawn.’ That was what poor Mr Sower­by of Chaldicotes used to say, and the archdea­con had heard him say it a score of time, and had learned the les­son. But now his heart was not with the fox­es–and es­pe­cial­ly not with the fox­es on be­half of his son Hen­ry. ‘I can’t have any med­dling with Mr Thorne,’ he said; ‘I can’t; and I won’t.’

‘But I don’t sup­pose it can be Mr Thorne’s or­der, your rev­er­ence; and Mr Hen­ry is so par­tic­ular.’

‘Of course it isn’t Mr Thorne’s or­der. Mr Thorne has been a hunt­ing man all his life.’

‘But he have guv’ up now, your rev­er­ence. He ain’t hunt­ed these two years.’

‘I’m sure he wouldn’t have the fox­es trapped.’

‘Not if he knowed it, he wouldn’t, your rev­er­ence. A gen­tle­man of the likes of him, who’s been a hunt­ing over fifty year, wouldn’t do the likes of that; but the fox­es is trapped, and Mr Hen­ry’ll be a putting it on me if I don’t speak out. They is Plum­stead fox­es, too; and a vix­en was trapped just across the field yon­der, in Goshall Springs, no lat­er than yes­ter­day morn­ing.’ Flur­ry was now thor­ough­ly in earnest; and, in­deed, the trap­ping of a vix­en in Febru­ary is a se­ri­ous thing.

‘Goshall Springs don’t be­long to me,’ said the archdea­con.

‘No, your rev­er­ence; they’re on the Ul­lathorne prop­er­ty. But a word from your rev­er­ence would do it. Mr Hen­ry thinks more of the fox­es than any­thing. The last word he told me was that it would break his heart if he saw the cop­pices drawn blank.’

‘Then he must break his heart.’ The words were pro­nounced, but the archdea­con had so much com­mand over him­self as to speak them in such a voice that the man should not hear them. But it was in­cum­bent on him to say some­thing that the man should hear. ‘I will have no med­dling in the mat­ter, Flur­ry. Whether there are fox­es or whether there are not, is a mat­ter of no great mo­ment. I will not have a word said to an­noy Mr Thorne.’ Then he rode away, back through the wood and out on to the road, and the horse walked with him leisure­ly on, whith­er the archdea­con hard­ly knew–for he was think­ing, think­ing, think­ing. ‘Well;–if that ain’t the darn’dest thing that ev­er was,’ said Flur­ry; ‘but I’ll tell the squire about Thorne’s man–darned if I don’t.’ now, ‘the squire’ was young Squire Gre­sham, the mas­ter of the East Barset­shire hounds.

But the archdea­con went on think­ing, think­ing, think­ing. He could have heard noth­ing of his son to stir him more in his favour than this strong ev­idence of his par­tial­ity for fox­es. I do not mean it to be un­der­stood that the archdea­con re­gard­ed fox­es as bet­ter than ac­tive char­ity, of a con­tent­ed mind, or a meek spir­it, or than self-​deny­ing tem­per­ance. No doubt all these virtues did hold in his mind their prop­er places, al­to­geth­er be­yond con­tam­ina­tion of fox­es. But he had prid­ed him­self on think­ing that his son should be a coun­try gen­tle­man, and prob­ably noth­ing doubt­ing as to the ma­jor’s ac­tive char­ity and oth­er virtues, was de­light­ed to re­ceive ev­idence of those tastes which he had ev­er wished to en­cour­age in his son’s char­ac­ter. Or rather, such ev­idence would have de­light­ed him at any oth­er time than the present. Now it on­ly added more gall to his cup. ‘Why should he teach him­self to care for such things, when he has not the spir­it to en­joy them,’ said the archdea­con to him­self. ‘He is a fool–a fool. A man that has been mar­ried once, to go crazy af­ter a lit­tle girl, that has hard­ly a dress to her back, and who nev­er was in a draw­ing-​room in her life! Charles is the el­dest, and he shall be the el­dest. It will be bet­ter to keep it to­geth­er. It is the way in which the coun­try has be­come what it is.’ He was out near­ly all day, and did not see his wife till din­ner-​time. Her fa­ther, Mr Hard­ing, was still with them, but had break­fast­ed in his own room. Not a word, there­fore, was said about Hen­ry Grant­ly be­tween the fa­ther and moth­er on that evening.

Mrs Grant­ly was de­ter­mined that, un­less pro­voked, she would say noth­ing to him till the fol­low­ing morn­ing. He should sleep up­on his wrath be­fore she spoke to him again. And he was equal­ly un­will­ing to re­cur to the sub­ject. Had she per­mit­ted, the next morn­ing would have passed away, and no word would have been spo­ken. But this would not have suit­ed her. She had his or­ders to write, and she had un­der­tak­en to obey these or­ders–with the de­lay of one day. Were she not to write at all–or in writ­ing to send no mes­sage from the fa­ther, there would be cause for fur­ther anger. And yet this, I think, was what the archdea­con wished.

‘Archdea­con,’ she said, ‘I shall write to Hen­ry to­day.’

‘Very well.’

‘And what am I to say from you?’

‘I told you yes­ter­day what are my in­ten­tions.’

‘I am not ask­ing about that now. We hope there will be years and years to come, in which you may change them, and shape them as you will. What shall I tell him now from you?’

‘I have noth­ing to say to him–noth­ing; not a word. He knows what he has to ex­pect from me, for I have told him. He is act­ing with his eyes open, and so am I. If he mar­ried Miss Craw­ley, he must live on his own means. I told him that so plain­ly, that he can want no fur­ther in­ti­ma­tion.’ Then Mrs Grant­ly knew that she was ab­solved from the bur­den of yes­ter­day’s mes­sage, and she plumed her­self on the pru­dence of her con­duct. On the same morn­ing the archdea­con wrote the fol­low­ing note:–

‘DEAR THORNE,– ‘My man tells me that fox­es have been trapped on Darvell’s farm, just out­side the cop­pices. I know noth­ing of it my­self, but I am sure you’ll look to it.

‘Yours al­ways, ‘T. GRANT­LY.’