The Last Chronicle of Barset

CHAPTER XXXIV

MRS PROUDIE SENDS FOR HER LAWYER

There was great dis­may in Barch­ester Palace af­ter the vis­it paid to the bish­op and Mrs Proudie by that ter­ri­ble cler­ical of­fend­er, Mr Craw­ley. It will be re­mem­bered, per­haps, how he had de­fied the bish­op with spo­ken words, and how he had de­fied the bish­op’s wife by speak­ing words to her. For the mo­ment, no doubt, Mr Craw­ley had the best of it. Mrs Proudie ac­knowl­edged to her­self that this was the case; but as she was a wom­an who had nev­er yet suc­cumbed to an en­emy, who had nev­er–if on such an oc­ca­sion I may be al­lowed to use a school­boy’s slang–tak­en a lick­ing from any­one, it was not like­ly that Mr Craw­ley would be al­lowed to en­joy his tri­umph in peace. It would be odd if all the weight of the palace would not be able to si­lence a wretch of a per­pet­ual cu­rate who had al­ready been com­mit­ted to take his tri­al for thiev­ing;–and Mrs Proudie was de­ter­mined that all the weight of the palace should be used. As for the bish­op, though he was not as an­gry as his wife, he was quite un­hap­py, and there­fore quite as hos­tile to Mr Craw­ley; and was ful­ly con­scious that there could be no peace for him now un­til Mr Craw­ley should be crushed. If on­ly the as­sizes would come at once, and get him con­demned out of the way, what a blessed thing it would be! But un­luck­ily it still want­ed three months to the as­sizes, and dur­ing those three months Mr Craw­ley would be at large and sub­ject on­ly to the epis­co­pal au­thor­ity. Dur­ing that time he could not be si­lenced by the arm of the civ­il law. His wife was not long in ex­press­ing her opin­ion af­ter Mr Craw­ley had left the palace. ‘You must pro­ceed against him in the Court of Arch­es–and that at once,’ said Mrs Proudie. ‘You can do that, of course? I know that it will be ex­pen­sive. Of course it will be ex­pen­sive. I sup­pose it may cost us some three hun­dred pounds; but du­ty is du­ty, my lord, and in such a case as this your du­ty as a bish­op is paramount.’

The poor bish­op knew that it was use­less to ex­plain to her the var­ious mis­takes which she made–which she was ev­er mak­ing–as to the ex­tent of his pow­ers and the modes of pro­ce­dure which were open to him. When he would do so she would on­ly rail at him for be­ing luke­warm in his of­fice, poor in spir­it, and afraid of deal­ing round­ly with those be­low him. On the present oc­ca­sion he did say a word, but she would not even hear him to the end. ‘Don’t tell me about ru­ral deans, as if I didn’t know. The ru­ral dean has noth­ing to do with such a case. The man has been com­mit­ted for tri­al. Send for Mr Chad­wick at once, and let steps be tak­en be­fore you are an hour old­er.’

‘But, my dear, Mr Chad­wick can do noth­ing.’

‘Then I will see Mr Chad­wick.’ And in her anger she did sit down and write a note to Mr Chad­wick, beg­ging him to come over to her at the palace.

Mr Chad­wick was a lawyer, liv­ing in Barch­ester, who earned his bread from ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal busi­ness. His fa­ther, and his un­cle, and his grand­fa­ther and grandun­cles, had all been con­cerned in the af­fairs of the dio­cese of Barch­ester. His un­cle had been bailiff to the epis­co­pal es­tates, or stew­ard as he had been called, in Bish­op Grant­ly’s time, and still con­trived to draw his in­come in some shape from the prop­er­ty of the see. The nephew had al­so been the le­gal as­sis­tant of the bish­op in his lat­ter days, and had been con­tin­ued in that po­si­tion by Bish­op Proudie, not from love, but from ex­pe­di­en­cy. Mr John Chad­wick was one of those gen­tle­men, two or three of whom are to be seen in con­nex­ion with ev­ery see–who seem to be hy­brids–half-​lay, half-​cler­ic. They dress like cler­gy­men, and af­fect that mix­ture of cler­ical solem­ni­ty and cler­ical wag­gish­ness which is gen­er­al­ly to be found among mi­nor canons and vi­cars choral of a cathe­dral. They live, or at least have their of­fices, half in the Close and half out of it–dwelling as it were just on the bor­ders of holy or­ders. They al­ways wear white neck-​hand­ker­chiefs and black gloves; and would be al­to­geth­er cler­ical in their ap­pear­ance, were it not that as re­gards the out­ward man they im­pinge some­what on the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the un­der­tak­er. They savour of the church but the savour is of the church’s ex­te­ri­or. Any stranger thrown in­to chance con­tact with one of them would, from in­stinct, be­gin to talk about things ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal with­out any ref­er­ence to things the­olog­ical or things re­li­gious. They are al­ways most wor­thy men, much re­spect­ed in the so­ci­ety of the Close, and I nev­er heard of one of them whose wife was not com­fort­able or whose chil­dren were left with­out pro­vi­sion.

Such a one was Mr John Chad­wick, and as it was a por­tion of his du­ties to ac­com­pa­ny the bish­op to con­se­cra­tions and or­di­na­tions, he knew Dr Proudie very well. Hav­ing been brought up, as it were, un­der the very wing of Bish­op Grant­ly, it could not well be that he should love Bish­op Grant­ly’s suc­ces­sor. The old bish­op and the new bish­op had been so dif­fer­ent that no man could like, or even es­teem, them both. But Mr Chad­wick was a pru­dent man, who knew well the source from which he earned his bread, and he had nev­er quar­relled with Bish­op Proudie. He knew Mrs Proudie al­so–of ne­ces­si­ty–and when I say of him that he had hith­er­to avoid­ed any open quar­rel with her, it will I think be al­lowed that he was a man of pru­dence and sagac­ity.

But he had some­times been sore­ly tried, and he felt when he got her note that he was now about to en­counter a very sore tri­al. He mut­tered some­thing which might have been tak­en for an oath, were it not that the out­wards signs of the man gave war­ran­ty that no oath could pro­ceed from such a one. Then he wrote a short note pre­sent­ing his com­pli­ments to Mrs Proudie, and say­ing that he would call at the palace at eleven o’clock on the fol­low­ing morn­ing.

But, in the mean­time, Mrs Proudie, who could not be silent on the sub­ject for a mo­ment, did learn some­thing of the truth from her hus­band. The in­for­ma­tion did not come to her in the way of in­struc­tion, but was teased out of the un­for­tu­nate man. ‘I know that you can pro­ceed against him in the Court of Arch­es, un­der the “Church Dis­ci­pline Act”,’ she said.

‘No, my dear; no,’ said the bish­op, shak­ing his head in his mis­ery.

‘Or in the Con­sis­to­ri­al Court. It’s all the same thing.’

‘There must be an in­quiry first–by his broth­er cler­gy. There must in­deed. It’s the on­ly way of pro­ceed­ing.’

‘But there has been an in­quiry, and he has been com­mit­ted.’

‘That doesn’t sig­ni­fy, my dear. That’s the Civ­il Law.’

‘And if the Civ­il Law con­demns him, and locks him up in prison–as it most cer­tain­ly will do?’

‘But it hasn’t done so yet, my dear. I re­al­ly think that as it has gone so far, it will be best to leave it as it is till he has tak­en his tri­al.’

‘What! Leave him there af­ter what has oc­curred this morn­ing in this palace?’ The palace with Mrs Proudie was al­ways a palace, and nev­er a house. ‘No; no; ten thou­sand times no. Are you not aware that he in­sult­ed you, and gross­ly, most gross­ly in­sult­ed me? Since I first came to this palace;–nev­er, nev­er. And we know the man to be a thief;–we ab­so­lute­ly know it. Think, my lord, of the souls of his peo­ple!’

‘Oh, dear; oh, dear; oh, dear,’ said the bish­op.

‘Why do you fret your­self in that way?’

‘Be­cause you will get me in­to trou­ble. I tell you the on­ly thing to be done is to is­sue a com­mis­sion with the ru­ral dean at the head of it.’

‘Then is­sue a com­mis­sion.’

‘And they will take three months.’

‘Why should they take three months? Why should they take more than three days–or three hours? It is all plain sail­ing.’

‘More shame for them who make it so.’

‘But it is so. If I were to take le­gal pro­ceed­ings against him, it would cost–oh dear–more than a thou­sand pounds, I should say.’

‘If it costs two, you must do it,’ Mrs Proudie’s anger was still very hot, or she would not have spo­ken of an un­re­mu­ner­ative out­lay of mon­ey in such lan­guage as that.

In this man­ner she did not come to un­der­stand, be­fore the ar­rival of Mr Chad­wick, that her hus­band could take no le­gal steps to­wards si­lenc­ing Mr Craw­ley un­til a com­mis­sion of cler­gy­men had been ap­point­ed to in­quire in­to the mat­ter, and that the com­mis­sion should be head­ed by the ru­ral dean with­in the lim­its of whose ru­ral dean­ery the parish of Hog­gle­stock was sit­uat­ed, or by some beneficed parochial cler­gy­man of re­pute in the neigh­bour­hood. Now the ru­ral dean was Dr Tem­pest of Sil­ver­bridge–who had held that po­si­tion be­fore the com­ing of Dr Proudie to the dio­cese; and there had grown up in the bo­som of Mrs Proudie a strong feel­ing that un­due mer­cy had been shown to Mr Craw­ley by the mag­is­trates of Sil­ver­bridge, of whom Dr Tem­pest had been one. ‘These mag­is­trates had tak­en bail for his ap­pear­ance at the as­sizes, in­stead of com­mit­ting him to prison at once–as they were bound to do, when such an of­fence as that had been com­mit­ted by a cler­gy­man. But, no;–even though there was a cler­gy­men among them, they had thought noth­ing of the souls of the poor peo­ple!’ In such lan­guage, Mrs Proudie had spo­ken of the af­fair at Sil­ver­bridge, and hav­ing once com­mit­ted her­self to such an opin­ion, of course she thought that Dr Tem­pest would go through fire and wa­ter and would omit no stretch of what lit­tle ju­di­cial pow­er might be com­mit­ted to his hands–with the view of op­pos­ing his bish­op, and main­tain­ing the cul­prit in is po­si­tion. ‘In such a case as this, can not you name an act­ing ru­ral dean your­self? Dr Tem­pest, you know, is very old.’ ‘No, my dear; no; I can­not.’ ‘You can ask Mr Chad­wick, at any rate, and then you could name Mr Thum­ble.’ ‘But Mr Thum­ble doesn’t even hold a liv­ing in the dio­cese. Oh, dear; oh, dear; oh, dear!’ And so the mat­ter rest­ed till Mr Chad­wick came.

Mrs Proudie had no doubt in­tend­ed to have Mr Chad­wick all to her­self–at any rate so as to en­counter him in the first in­stance. But hav­ing been at length con­vinced that the in­quiry by the ru­ral dean was re­al­ly nec­es­sary as a pre­lim­inary, and hav­ing al­so slept up­on the ques­tion of ex­pen­di­ture, she gave di­rec­tion that the lawyer should be shown in­to the bish­op’s study, and she took care to be ab­sent at the mo­ment of his ar­rival. Of course she did not in­tend that Mr Chad­wick should leave the palace with­out hav­ing heard what she had to say, but she thought that it would be well that he should be made to con­ceive that though the sum­mons had been writ­ten by her, it had re­al­ly been in­tend­ed on the part of the bish­op. ‘Mr Chad­wick will be with you at eleven, bish­op,’ she said, as she got up from the break­fast-​ta­ble, at which she left his lord­ship with two of his daugh­ters and with a mar­ried son-​in-​law, a cler­gy­man who was stay­ing in the house. ‘Very well, my dear,’ said the bish­op, with a smile–for he was anx­ious not to be­tray any vex­ation at his wife’s in­ter­fer­ence be­fore his daugh­ters or the Rev Mr Tick­ler. But he un­der­stood it all. Mr Chad­wick had been sent for with ref­er­ence to Mr Craw­ley, and he was driv­en–ab­so­lute­ly driv­en, to pro­pose to his lawyer that this com­mis­sion of in­quiry should be is­sued.

Punc­tu­al­ly at eleven Mr Chad­wick came, wear­ing a very long face as he en­tered the palace door–for he felt that he would in all prob­abil­ity be now com­pelled to quar­rel with Mrs Proudie. Much he could bear, but there was a lim­it to his en­durance. She had nev­er ab­so­lute­ly sent for him be­fore, though she had of­ten in­ter­fered with him. ‘I shall have to tell her a bit of my mind,’ he said, as he stepped across the Close, habit­ed in his best suit of black, with most ex­act white cra­vat, and yet look­ing not quite like a cler­gy­man–with some touch of the un­der­tak­er in his gait. When he found that he was shown in­to the bish­op’s room, and that the bish­op was there–the bish­op on­ly–his mind was re­lieved. It would have been bet­ter that the bish­op should have writ­ten him­self, or that the chap­lain should have writ­ten in his lord­ship’s name; that, how­ev­er, was a tri­fle.

But the bish­op did not know what to say to him. If he in­tend­ed to di­rect an in­quiry to be made by the ru­ral dean, it would be by no means be­com­ing that he should con­sult Mr Chad­wick as to do­ing so. It might be well, or if not well at any rate not im­prop­er, that he should make ap­pli­ca­tion to Dr Tem­pest through Mr Chad­wick; but in that case he must give the or­der at once, and he still wished to avoid it if it were pos­si­ble. Since he had been in the dio­cese no case so grave as this had been pushed up­on him. The in­ter­ven­tion of the ru­ral dean in an or­di­nary way he had used–had been made to use–more than once, by his wife. A vicar had been ab­sent a lit­tle too long from one parish, and there had been ru­mours about brandy-​and-​wa­ter in an­oth­er. Once he had been very near­ly in deep wa­ter be­cause Mrs Proudie had tak­en it in dud­geon that a cer­tain young rec­tor, who had been left a wid­ow­er, had a pret­ty gov­erness for his chil­dren; and there had been that case, sad­ly no­to­ri­ous in the dio­cese at the time, of our ex­cel­lent friend Mr Ro­barts of Fram­ley, when the bailiffs were in the house be­cause he couldn’t pay his debts–or rather, the debts of his friend for whom he had signed bills. But in all these cas­es some good for­tune had in­ter­vened, and he had been saved from the ter­ri­ble ne­ces­si­ty of any ul­te­ri­or pro­cess. But now–now he was be­ing driv­en be­yond him­self, and all to no pur­pose. If Mrs Proudie would on­ly wait three months the civ­il law would do it all for him. But here was Mr Chad­wick in the room, and he knew that it would be use­less for him to at­tempt to talk to Mr Chad­wich about oth­er mat­ters, and so dis­miss him. The wife of his bo­som would be down up­on them be­fore Chad­wick could be out of the room.

‘H-​m-​ha. How d’ye do, Mr Chad­wick–won’t you sit down?’ Mr Chad­wick thanked his lord­ship, and sat down. ‘It’s very cold, isn’t it, Mr Chad­wick?’

‘A hard frost, my lord, but a beau­ti­ful day.’

‘Won’t you come near the fire?’ The bish­op knew that Mrs Proudie was on the road, and had an eye to the prop­er strate­gi­cal po­si­tion of his forces. Mrs Proudie would cer­tain­ly take up her po­si­tion in a cer­tain chair from whence the light en­abled her to rake her hus­band thor­ough­ly. What ad­van­tage she might have from this he could not pre­vent;–but he could so place Mr Chad­wick, that the lawyer should be more than with­in reach of his eye than that of his wife. So the bish­op point­ed to an arm-​chair op­po­site to him­self and near the fire, and Mr Chad­wick seat­ed him­self ac­cord­ing­ly.

‘This is a very sad af­fair about Mr Craw­ley,’ said the bish­op.

‘Very said in­deed,’ said the lawyer. ‘I nev­er pitied a man so much in my life, my lord.’

This was not ex­act­ly the line which the bish­op was de­sirous of tak­ing. ‘Of course he is to be pitied;–of course he is. But from all I hear, Mr Chad­wick, I am afraid–I am afraid we must not ac­quit him.’

‘As to that, my lord, he has to stand his tri­al, of course.’

‘But, you see, Mr Chad­wick, re­gard­ing him as a beneficed cler­gy­man–with a cure of souls–the ques­tion is whether I should be jus­ti­fied in leav­ing him where he is till his tri­al shall come on.’

‘Of course your lord­ship knows best about that, but–’

‘I know there is a dif­fi­cul­ty. I know that. But I am in­clined to think that in the in­ter­ests of the parish I am bound to is­sue a com­mis­sion of in­quiry.’

‘I be­liev­er your lord­ship has at­tempt­ed to si­lence him, and that he has re­fused to com­ply.’

‘I thought it bet­ter for ev­ery­body’s sake–es­pe­cial­ly for his own, that he should for a while be re­lieved from his du­ties; but he is an ob­sti­nate man, a very ob­sti­nate man. I made the at­tempt with all con­sid­er­ation for his feel­ings.’

‘He is hard put to it, my lord. I know the man and his pride. The dean has spo­ken of him to me more than once, and no­body knows him so well as the dean. If I might ven­ture to of­fer an opin­ion–’

‘Good morn­ing, Mr Chad­wick,’ said Mrs Proudie, com­ing in­to the room and tak­ing her ac­cus­tomed seat. ‘No thank you, no; I will stay away from the fire, if you please. His lord­ship has spo­ken to you no doubt about this un­for­tu­nate wretched man.’

‘We are speak­ing of him now, my dear.’

‘Some­thing must of course be done to put a stop to the cry­ing dis­grace of hav­ing such a man preach­ing from a pul­pit in this dio­cese. When I think of the souls of the peo­ple in that poor vil­lage, my hair lit­er­al­ly stands on end. And then he is dis­obe­di­ent!’

‘That is the worst of it,’ said the bish­op. ‘It would have been so much bet­ter for him­self if he would have al­lowed me to pro­vide qui­et­ly for the ser­vices till the tri­al be over.’

‘I could have told you that, my lord, that he would not do that, from what I knew of him,’ said Mr Chad­wick.

‘But he must do it,’ said Mrs Proudie. ‘He must be made to do it.’

‘His lord­ship will find it dif­fi­cult,’ said Mr Chad­wick.

‘I can is­sue a com­mis­sion, you know, to the ru­ral dean,’ said the bish­op mild­ly.

‘Yes, you can do that. And Dr Tem­pest in two months’ time will have named his as­ses­sors–’

‘Dr Tem­pest must not name them; the bish­op must name them,’ said Mrs Proudie.

‘It is cus­tom­ary to leave that to the ru­ral dean,’ said Mr Chad­wick. ‘The bish­op no doubt can ob­ject to any­one named.’

‘And can spe­cial­ly se­lect any cler­gy­man he pleas­es from the archdea­con­ry,’ said the bish­op. ‘I have known it done.’

‘The ru­ral dean in such a case has prob­ably been an old man, and not ac­tive,’ said the lawyer.

‘And Dr Tem­pest is a very old man,’ said Mrs Proudie, ‘and in such a mat­ter not at all trust­wor­thy. He was one of the mag­is­trates who took bail.’

‘His lord­ship could hard­ly set him aside,’ said the lawyer. ‘At any rate I would not rec­om­mend him to try. I think you might sug­gest a com­mis­sion of five, and pro­pose two of the num­ber your­self. I do not think that in such a case Dr Tem­pest would raise any ques­tion.’

At last it was set­tled in this way. Mr Chad­wick was to pre­pare a let­ter to Dr Tem­pest, for the bish­op’s sig­na­ture, in which the doc­tor should be re­quest­ed, as the ru­ral dean to whom Mr Craw­ley was sub­ject, to hold a com­mis­sion of five to in­quire in­to Mr Craw­ley’s con­duct. The let­ter was to ex­plain to Dr Tem­pest that the bish­op, moved by his so­lic­itude for the souls of the peo­ple of Hog­gle­stock, had en­deav­oured, ‘in a friend­ly way,’ to in­duce Mr Craw­ley to de­sist from his min­is­tra­tions; but that hav­ing failed through Mr Craw­ley’s ob­sti­na­cy, he had no al­ter­na­tive but to pro­ceed in this way. ‘You had bet­ter say that his lord­ship, as bish­op of the dio­cese, can take no heed of the com­ing tri­al,’ said Mrs Proudie. ‘I think his lord­ship had bet­ter say noth­ing at all about the tri­al,’ said Mr Chad­wick. ‘I think it will be best,’ said the bish­op.

‘But if they re­port against him,’ said Mr Chad­wick, ‘you can on­ly then pro­ceed in the ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal court–at your own ex­pense.’

‘He’ll hard­ly be so ob­sti­nate as that,’ said the bish­op.

‘I’m afraid you don’t know him, my lord,’ said the lawyer. The bish­op, think­ing of the scene which had tak­en place in that very room on­ly yes­ter­day, felt that he did know Mr Craw­ley, and felt al­so that the hope which he had just ex­pressed was one in which he him­self put no trust. But some­thing might turn up; and it was de­vout­ly to be hoped that Dr Tem­pest would take a long time over his in­quiry. The as­sizes might come on as soon as it was ter­mi­nat­ed, or very short­ly af­ter­wards; and then ev­ery­thing might be well. ‘You won’t find Dr Tem­pest very ready at it,’ said Mr Chad­wick. The bish­op in his heart was com­fort­ed by the words. ‘But he must be made to be ready to do his du­ty,’ said Mrs Proudie, im­pe­ri­ous­ly. Mr Chad­wick shrugged his shoul­ders, then got up, spoke his farewell lit­tle speech­es, and left the palace.