The Last Chronicle of Barset

CHAPTER XL

MR TOO­GOOD’S IDEAS ABOUT SO­CI­ETY

A day or two af­ter the in­ter­view which was de­scribed in the last chap­ter John Eames dined with his un­cle Mr Thomas Too­good, in Tavi­stock Square. He was in the habit of do­ing this about once a month, and was a great favourite both with his cousins and with their moth­er. Mr Too­good did not give din­ner-​par­ties; al­ways beg­ging those whom he asked to en­joy his hos­pi­tal­ity, to take pot luck, and telling young men whom he could treat with fa­mil­iar­ity–such as his nephew–that if they want­ed to be re­galed a la Russe they must not come to Num­ber 75 Tavi­stock Square. ‘A leg of mut­ton and trim­mings; that will be about the out­side of it,’ he would say; but he would add in a whis­per–’and a glass of port such as you don’t get ev­ery day of your life.’ Pol­ly and Lucy Too­good were pret­ty girls, and mer­ry with­al, and cer­tain young men were well con­tent­ed to ac­cept the at­tor­ney’s in­vi­ta­tion–whether at­tract­ed by the promised leg of mut­ton, or the port wine, or the young ladies, I will not at­tempt to say. But it had so hap­pened that one young man, a clerk from John Eames’s of­fice, had par­tak­en so of­ten of the put luck and port wine that Pol­ly Too­good had con­quered him by her charms, and he was now a slave, wait­ing an ap­pro­pri­ate time for mat­ri­mo­ni­al sac­ri­fice. William Sum­merkin was the young man’s name; and as it was known that Mr Sum­merkin was to in­her­it a for­tune amount­ing to three hun­dred pounds from his maid­en aunt, it was con­sid­ered that Pol­ly Too­good was not do­ing amiss. ‘I’ll give you three hun­dred pounds, my boy, just to put a few sheets on the beds,’ said Too­good the fa­ther, ‘and when the old birds are both dead she’ll have a thou­sand pounds out of the nest. That’s the ex­tent of Pol­ly’s for­tune;–so now you know.’ Sum­merkin was, how­ev­er, quite con­tent­ed to have his own mon­ey set­tled on his dar­ling Pol­ly, and the whole thing was looked at with pleas­ant and pro­pi­tious eyes by the Too­good con­nex­ion.

When John Eames en­tered the draw­ing-​room Sum­merkin and Pol­ly were al­ready there. Sum­merkin blushed up to his eyes, of course, but Pol­ly sat as de­mure­ly as though she had been ac­cus­tomed to hav­ing lovers all her life. ‘Mam­ma will be down al­most im­me­di­ate­ly, John,’ said Pol­ly as soon as the first greet­ings were over, ‘and pa­pa has come in, I know.’

‘Sum­merkin,’ said John­ny, ‘I’m afraid you left the of­fice be­fore four o’clock.’

‘No, I did not,’ said Sum­merkin. ‘I de­ny it.’

‘Pol­ly,’ said her cousin, ‘you should keep him in bet­ter or­der. He will cer­tain­ly come to grief if he goes on like this. I sup­pose you could do with­out him for half an hour.’

‘I don’t want him I as­sure you,’ said Pol­ly.

‘I have on­ly been here just five min­utes,’ said Sum­merkin, ‘and I came be­cause Mrs Too­good asked me to do a com­mis­sion.’

‘That’s civ­il to you, Pol­ly,’ said John.

‘It’s quite as civ­il as I wish him to be,’ said Pol­ly. ‘And as for you, John, ev­ery­body knows that you’re a goose, and that you al­ways were a goose. Isn’t he al­ways do­ing fool­ish things at the of­fice, William?’ But as John Eames was rather a great man at the In­come-​Tax Of­fice, Sum­merkin could not fall in­to his sweet­heart’s joke on this sub­ject, find­ing it eas­ier and per­haps safer to twid­dle the bod­kins of Pol­ly’s work-​bas­ket. Then Too­good and Mrs Too­good en­tered the room to­geth­er, and the lovers were able to be alone again dur­ing the gen­er­al greet­ings with which John­ny was wel­comed.

‘You don’t know the Sil­ver­bridge peo­ple–do you?’ asked Mr Too­good. Eames said that he did not. He had been at Sil­ver­bridge more than once, but did not know very much of the Sil­ver­brid­gians. ‘Be­cause Walk­er is com­ing here to dine here. Walk­er is the lead­ing man in Sil­ver­bridge.’

‘And what is Walk­er;–be­sides be­ing the lead­ing man in Sil­ver­bridge?’

‘He’s a lawyer. Walk­er and Winthrop. Ev­ery­body knows Walk­er in Barset­shire. I’ve been down at Barch­ester since I saw you.’

‘Have you in­deed?’ said John­ny.

‘And I’ll tell you what I’ve been about. You know Mr Craw­ley; don’t you?’

‘The Hog­gle­stock cler­gy­man that has come to grief? I don’t know him per­son­al­ly. He’s a sort of cousin by mar­riage, you know.’

‘Of course he is,’ said Too­good. ‘His wife is my first-​cousin, and your moth­er’s first cousin. He came here to me the oth­er day;–or rather to the shop. I had nev­er seen the man be­fore in my life, and a very queer fel­low he is too. He came to me about this trou­ble of his, and of course I must do what I can for him. I got my­self in­tro­duced to Walk­er, who has the man­age­ment of the pros­ecu­tion, and I asked him to come and dine tonight.’

‘And what sort of fel­low did you find Craw­ley, Un­cle Tom?’

‘Such a queer fish;–so un­like any­body else in the world.’

‘But I sup­pose he did take the mon­ey,’ said John­ny.

‘I don’t know what to say about it. I don’t in­deed. If he took it he didn’t mean to steal it. I’m as sure that man didn’t mean to steal twen­ty pounds as I ev­er could be of any­thing. Per­haps I shall get some­thing about it out of Walk­er af­ter din­ner.’ Then Mr Walk­er en­tered the room. ‘This is very kind of you, Mr Walk­er; very in­deed. I take it quite as a com­pli­ment, your com­ing in in this sort of way. It’s just pot luck, you know, and noth­ing else.’ Mr Walk­er of course as­sured his host that he was de­light­ed. ‘Just a leg of mut­ton and a bot­tle of old port, Mr Walk­er,’ con­tin­ued Too­good. ‘We nev­er get be­yond that in the way of din­ner-​giv­ing; do, we, Maria?’

But Maria was at this mo­ment des­cant­ing on the good luck of the fam­ily to her nephew–and on one spe­cial piece of good luck which had just oc­curred. Mr Sum­merkin’s maid­en aunt had de­clared her in­ten­tion of giv­ing up the for­tune to the young peo­ple at once. She had enough to live up­on, she said, and would there­fore make two lovers hap­py. ‘And they’re to be mar­ried on the first day of May,’ said Lucy–that Lucy of whom her fa­ther had boast­ed to Mr Craw­ley that she knew By­ron by heart–’and won’t that be jol­ly? Mam­ma is go­ing out to look for a house for them to­mor­row. Fan­cy Pol­ly with a house of her own! Won’t it be stun­ning? I wish you were go­ing to be mar­ried too, John­ny.’

‘Don’t be a fool, Lucy.’

‘Of course I know that you are in love. I hope you are not go­ing to give over be­ing in love, John­ny, be­cause it is such fun.’

‘Wait till you’ve caught your­self, my girl.’

‘I don’t mean to be caught till some great swell comes this way. And as great swells nev­er do come to Tavi­stock Square, I shan’t have a chance. I’ll tell you what I would like; I’d like to have a Cor­sair–or else a Gi­aour;–I think a Gi­aour would be nicest. On­ly a Gi­aour wouldn’t be a Gi­aour here, you know. Fan­cy a lover “who thun­der­ing comes on black­est steed, With slack­ened bit and hoof of speed.” Were not those days to live in! But all that is over now, you know, and young peo­ple take hous­es in Woburn Place, in­stead of be­ing locked up, or drowned, or mar­ried to a hideous mon­ster be­hind a veil. I sup­pose it’s bet­ter as it is, for some rea­sons.’

‘I think it must be more jol­ly, as you call it, Lucy.’

‘I’m not quite sure. I know I’d go back and be Medo­ra, if I could. Mam­ma is al­ways telling Pol­ly that she must be care­ful about William’s din­ner. But Con­rad didn’t care for his din­ner. “Light toil! to cull and dress my fru­gal fare! See, I have plucked the fruit that promised best.”‘

‘And how of­ten do you think Con­rad got drunk?’

‘I don’t think he got drunk at all. There is no rea­son why he should any more than William. Come along, and take me down to din­ner. Af­ter all, pa­pa’s leg of mut­ton is bet­ter than Medo­ra’s ap­ples, when one is as hun­gry as I am.’

The leg of mut­ton on this oc­ca­sion con­sist­ed of soup, fish, and a bit of roast beef, and a cou­ple of boiled fowls. ‘If I had on­ly two chil­dren in­stead of twelve,’ Mr Walk­er,’ said the host, ‘I’d give you a din­ner a la Russe.’

‘I don’t be­grudge Mrs Too­good a sin­gle ar­row in her quiver on that score,’ said Mr Walk­er.

‘Peo­ple are get­ting to be so lux­uri­ous that one can’t live up to them at all,’ said Mrs Too­good. ‘We dined out here with some new­com­ers in the square on­ly last week. We had asked them be­fore, and they came quite in a qui­et way–just like this; and when we got there we found they’d four kinds of ices af­ter din­ner!’

‘And not a morsel of food on the ta­ble fit to eat,’ said Too­good. ‘I nev­er was so poi­soned in my life. As for soup–it was just the wash­ings of the pas­trycook’s ket­tle next door.’

‘And how is one to live with such peo­ple, Mr Walk­er?’ con­tin­ued Mrs Too­good. ‘Of course we can’t ask them back again. We can’t give them four kinds of ices.’

‘But would that be nec­es­sary? Per­haps they haven’t got twelve chil­dren.’

‘They haven’t got any at all,’ said Too­good, tri­umph­ing; ‘not a chick be­long­ing to them. But you see one must do as oth­er peo­ple do. I hate any­thing grand. I wouldn’t want more than this for my­self, if bank-​notes were as plen­ty as curl-​pa­pers.’

‘No­body has any curl-​pa­pers now, pa­pa,’ said Lucy.

‘But I can’t bear to be out­done,’ said Mr Too­good. ‘I think it’s very un­pleas­ant–peo­ple liv­ing in that sort of way. It’s all very well telling me that I needn’t live so too;–and of course I don’t. I can’t af­ford to have four men in from the con­fec­tion­er’s dressed a sight bet­ter than my­self, at ten shillings a head. I can’t af­ford it, and I don’t do it. But the worst of it is that I suf­fer be­cause oth­er peo­ple do it. It stands to rea­son that I must ei­ther be driv­en along with the crowd, or else be left be­hind. Now, I don’t like ei­ther. And what’s the end of it? Why I’m half car­ried away and half left be­hind.’

‘Up­on my word, pa­pa, I don’t think you’re car­ried away at all, said Lucy.

‘Yes, I am; and I’m ashamed of my­self. Mr Walk­er, I don’t dare to ask you to drink a glass of wine with me in my own house–that’s what I don’t–be­cause it’s the prop­er thing for you to wait till some­body brings it to you, and then drink it by your­self. There is no know­ing whether I mightn’t of­fend you.’ And Mr Too­good as he spoke grasped the de­canter at his el­bow. Mr Walk­er grasped an­oth­er at his el­bow, and the two at­tor­neys took their glass of wine to­geth­er.

‘A very queer case this is of my cousin Craw­ley’s,’ said Too­good to Walk­er, when the ladies had left the din­ing-​room.

‘A most dis­tress­ing case. I nev­er knew any­thing so much talked of in our part of the coun­try.’

‘He can’t have been a pop­ular man, I should say.’

‘No; not pop­ular–not in the or­di­nary way;–any­thing but that. No­body knew him per­son­al­ly be­fore this mat­ter came up.’

‘But a good cler­gy­man, prob­ably? I’m in­ter­est­ed in the case, of course as his wife is my first-​cousin. You will un­der­stand, how­ev­er, that I know noth­ing of him. My fa­ther tried to be civ­il to him once, but Craw­ley wouldn’t have it at all. We all thought he was mad then. I sup­pose he has done his du­ty in his parish?’

‘He has quar­relled with the bish­op, you know,–out and out.’

‘Has he, in­deed? But I’m not sure that I think very much about bish­ops, Walk­er.’

‘That de­pends very much on the par­tic­ular bish­op. Some peo­ple say ours isn’t all that a bish­op ought to be, while oth­ers are very fond of him.’

‘And Mr Craw­ley be­longs to the for­mer set, that’s all?’ said Mr Too­good.

‘No, Mr Too­good; that isn’t all. The worst of your cousin is that he has an ap­ti­tude to quar­rel with ev­ery­body. He is one of those men who al­ways think them­selves to be ill-​used. Now our dean, Dr Ara­bin, has been his very old friend–and as far as I can learn, a very good friend; but it seems that Mr Craw­ley has done his best to quar­rel with him too.’

‘He spoke of the dean in the high­est terms to me.’

‘He may do that–and yet quar­rel with him. He’d quar­rel with his own right hand, if he noth­ing else to quar­rel with. That makes the dif­fi­cul­ty, you see. He’ll take no­body’s ad­vice. He thinks we’re all against him.’

‘I sup­pose the world has been heavy on him, Mr Walk­er?’

‘The world has been very heavy on him,’ said John Eames, who had now been left free to join the con­ver­sa­tion, Mr Sum­merkin hav­ing gone away to his la­dy-​love. ‘You must not judge him as you do oth­er men.’

‘That is just it,’ said Mr Walk­er. ‘And to what re­sult will that bring us?’

‘That we ought to stretch a point in his favour,’ said Too­good.

‘But why?’ asked the at­tor­ney from Sil­ver­bridge. ‘What do we mean when we say that one man isn’t to be trust­ed as an­oth­er? We sim­ply im­ply that he is not what we call re­spon­si­ble.’

‘And I don’t think Mr Craw­ley is re­spon­si­ble,’ said John­ny.

‘Then how can he be fit to have charge of a parish?’ said Mr Walk­er. ‘You see where the dif­fi­cul­ty is. How it em­bar­rass­es one all round. The amount of ev­idence as to the cheque is, I think, suf­fi­cient to get a ver­dict in an or­di­nary case, and the Crown has no al­ter­na­tive but so to treat it. Then his friends come for­ward–and from sym­pa­thy with his suf­fer­ings, I de­sire to be ranked among the num­ber–and say, ‘Ah, but you should spare this man, be­cause he is not re­spon­si­ble.’ Were he one who filled no po­si­tion re­quir­ing spe­cial re­spon­si­bil­ity, that might be very well. His friends might un­der­take to look af­ter him, and the pros­ecu­tion might per­haps be smoth­ered. But Mr Craw­ley holds a liv­ing, and if he es­cape he will be tri­umphant–es­pe­cial­ly tri­umphant over the bish­op. Now, if he has re­al­ly tak­en this mon­ey, and if his on­ly ex­cuse be that he did not know when he took it whether he was steal­ing or whether he was not–for the sake of jus­tice that ought not to be al­lowed.’

‘You think he cer­tain­ly did steal the mon­ey?’ said John­ny.

‘You have heard the ev­idence, no doubt?’ said Mr Walk­er.

‘I don’t feel quite sure about it, yet,’ said Mr Too­good.

‘Quite sure of what?’ said Mr Walk­er.

‘That the cheque got dropped in his house.’

‘It was at any rate traced to his hands.’

‘I have no doubt about that,’ said Too­good.

‘And he can’t ac­count for it,’ said Walk­er.

‘A man isn’t bound to show where he got his mon­ey,’ said John­ny. ‘Sup­pose that sovereign is marked,’ and John­ny pro­duced a coin from his pock­et, ‘and I don’t know but what it is; and sup­pose it is proved to have be­longed to some­one who lost it, and then to be traced to my own hands–how am I to say where I got it? If I were asked I should sim­ply de­cline to an­swer.’

‘But a cheque is not a sovereign, Mr Eames,’ said Walk­er. ‘It is pre­sumed that a man can ac­count for the pos­ses­sion of a cheque. It may be that a man should have a cheque in his pos­ses­sion and not be able to ac­count for it, and should yet be open to no grave sus­pi­cion. In such a case a ju­ry has to judge. Here is the fact: that Mr Craw­ley has the cheque, and brings it in to use some con­sid­er­able time af­ter it is drawn; and the ad­di­tion­al fact that the draw­er of the cheque had lost it, as he thought, in Mr Craw­ley’s house, and had looked for it there, soon af­ter it was drawn, and long be­fore it was paid. A ju­ry must judge; but, as a lawyer, I should say that the bur­den of dis­proof lies with Mr Craw­ley.’

‘Did you find out any­thing, Mr Walk­er,’ said Too­good, ‘about the man who drove Mr Soames that day?’

‘No–noth­ing.’

‘The trap was from “The Drag­on” at Barch­ester, I think?’

‘Yes–from “The Drag­on of Want­ly”.’

‘A re­spectable sort of house?’

‘Pret­ty well for that, I be­lieve. I’ve heard that the peo­ple are poor,’ said Walk­er.

‘Some­body told me that they’d had a queer lot about the house, and that three or four of them left just then. I think I heard that two or three men from the place went to New Zealand to­geth­er. It just came out in con­ver­sa­tion while I was in the inn-​yard.’

‘I have nev­er heard any­thing of it,’ said Walk­er.

‘I don’t say that it can help us.’

‘I don’t see that it can,’ said Walk­er.

Af­ter that there was a pause, and Mr Too­good pushed about the old port, and made some very sting­ing re­mark as to the claret-​drink­ing propen­si­ties of the age. ‘Glad­stone claret the most of it is, I fan­cy,’ said Mr Too­good. ‘I find that port wine which my fa­ther bought in the wood five-​and-​twen­ty years ago is good enough for me.’ Mr Walk­er said that it was quite good enough for him, al­most too good, and that he thought that he had had enough of it. The host threat­ened an­oth­er bot­tle, and was up to draw the cork–rather to the sat­is­fac­tion of John Eames, who liked his un­cle’s port–but Mr Walk­er stopped him. ‘Not a drop more for me,’ he said. ‘You are quite sure?’ ‘Quite sure.’ And Mr Walk­er moved to­wards the door.

‘It’s a great pity, Mr Walk­er,’ said Too­good, go­ing back to that old sub­ject, ‘that the dean and his wife should be away.’

‘I un­der­stand that they both will be home be­fore the tri­al,’ said Mr Walk­er.

‘Yes–but you know how very im­por­tant it is to learn be­fore­hand ex­act­ly what your wit­ness­es can prove and what they can’t prove. And more­over, though nei­ther the dean nor his wife might per­haps be able to tell us any­thing them­selves, they might help to put us on the prop­er scent. I think I’ll send some­body af­ter them. I think I will.’

‘It would be a heavy ex­pense, Mr Too­good.’

‘Yes,’ said Too­good mourn­ful­ly, think­ing of his twelve chil­dren; ‘it would be a heavy ex­pense. But I nev­er like to stick at a thing when it ought to be done. I think I shall send a fel­low af­ter them.’

‘I’ll go,’ said John­ny.

‘How can you go?’

‘I’ll make old Snuf­fle give me leave.’

‘But will that lessen the ex­pense?’ said Mr Walk­er.

‘Well, yes, I think it will,’ said John, mod­est­ly.

‘My nephew is a rich man, Mr Walk­er,’ said Mr Too­good.

‘That al­ters the case,’ said Mr Walk­er. And thus, be­fore they left the din­ing-​room, it was set­tled that John Eames should be taught his les­son and should seek both Mrs Ara­bin and Dr Ara­bin on their trav­els.