The Last Chronicle of Barset

CHAPTER XLIV

‘I SUP­POSE I MUST LET YOU HAVE IT’

Cros­bie had been prepar­ing the ex­act words with which he as­sailed Mr But­ter­well for the last quar­ter of an hour, be­fore they were ut­tered. There is al­ways a dif­fi­cul­ty in the choice, not on­ly of the words with which mon­ey should be bor­rowed, but of the fash­ion af­ter which they should be spo­ken. There is the slow de­lib­er­ate man­ner, in us­ing which the bor­row­er at­tempts to car­ry the wished-​for lender along with him by force of ar­gu­ment, and to prove that the de­sire to bor­row shows no im­pru­dence on his own part, and that a ten­den­cy to lend will show none on the part of the in­tend­ed lender. It may be said that this mode fails of­ten­er than any oth­er. There is the piteous man­ner–the plea for com­mis­er­ation. ‘My dear fel­low, un­less you will see me through now, up­on my word I shall be very bad­ly off.’ And this man­ner may be di­vid­ed again in­to two. There is the plea piteous with a lie, and the plea piteous with a truth. ‘You shall have it again in two months as sure as the sun ris­es.’ That is gen­er­al­ly the plea piteous with a lie. Or it may be as fol­lows; ‘It is on­ly fair to say that I don’t quite know when I can pay it back.’ This is the plea piteous with a truth, and up­on the whole I think that this is gen­er­al­ly the most suc­cess­ful mode of bor­row­ing. And there is the as­sured de­mand–which be­to­kens a close in­ti­ma­cy. ‘Old fel­low, can you let me have thir­ty pounds? No? Just put your name, then, on the back of this, and I’ll get it done in the City.’ The worst of that man­ner is, that the bill so of­ten does not get it­self done in the City. Then there is the sud­den at­tack–that be­ing the man­ner to which Cros­bie had re­course in the present in­stance. That there are oth­er modes of bor­row­ing by means of which youth be­comes in­debt­ed to age, and love to re­spect, and ig­no­rance to ex­pe­ri­ence, is a mat­ter of course. It will be un­der­stood that I am here speak­ing on­ly of bor­row­ing and lend­ing be­tween the But­ter­wells and Cros­bies of the world. ‘I have come to you in great dis­tress,’ said Cros­bie. ‘I won­der whether you can help me. I want you to lend me five hun­dred pounds.’ Mr But­ter­well, when he heard the words, dropped the pa­per which he was read­ing from his hand, and stared at Cros­bie over his spec­ta­cles.

‘Yes it is–a very large sum. Half that is what I want at once; but I shall want the oth­er half in a month.’

‘I thought that you were al­ways so much above the world in mon­ey mat­ters. Gra­cious me;–noth­ing that I have heard for a long time has as­ton­ished me more. I don’t know why, but I al­ways thought you had your things so very snug.’

Cros­bie was aware that he had made one very great step to­wards suc­cess. The idea had been pre­sent­ed to Mr But­ter­well’s mind, and had not been in­stant­ly re­ject­ed as a scan­dalous­ly in­iq­ui­tous idea, as an idea to which no re­cep­tion could be giv­en for a mo­ment. Cros­bie had not been treat­ed as the needy knife-​grinder, and had ground to stand up­on while he urged his re­quest. ‘I have been so pressed since my mar­riage,’ he said, ‘that it has been im­pos­si­ble for me to keep things straight.’

‘But La­dy Alexan­dri­na–’

‘Yes, of course; I know. I do not like to trou­ble you with my pri­vate af­fairs;–there is noth­ing, I think, so bad as wash­ing one’s dirty linen in pub­lic;–but the truth is, that I am on­ly now free from the ra­pac­ity of the De Cour­cys. You would hard­ly be­lieve me if I told you what I’ve had to pay. What do you think of two hun­dred and forty-​five pounds for bring­ing her body over here, and bury­ing it at De Cour­cy?’

‘I’d have left it where it was.’

‘And so would I. You don’t sup­pose I or­dered it to be done. Poor dear thing. If it could do her any good, God knows I would not be­grudge it. We had a bad time of it when we were to­geth­er, but I would have spared noth­ing for her, alive or dead, that was rea­son­able. But to make me pay for bring­ing the body over here, when I nev­er had a shilling with her! By George, it was too bad. And that oaf John De Cour­cy–I had to pay his trav­el­ling bill too.’

‘He didn’t come to be buried;–did he?’

‘It’s too dis­gust­ing to talk of, But­ter­well; it is in­deed. And when I asked for her mon­ey that was set­tled up­on me–it was on­ly two thou­sand pounds–they made me go to law, and it seems there was no two thou­sand pounds to set­tle. If I like, I can have an­oth­er law­suit with the sis­ters, when the moth­er is dead. Oh, But­ter­well, I have made such a fool of my­self. I have come to ship­wreck! Oh, But­ter­well, if you could but know it all.’

‘Are you free from the De Cour­cys now?’

‘I owe Gaze­bee, the man who mar­ried the oth­er wom­an, over a thou­sand pounds. But I pay that off at two hun­dred a year, and he has a pol­icy on my life.’

‘What do you owe that for?’

‘Don’t ask me. Not that I mind telling you;–fur­ni­ture, and the lease of a house, and his bill for the mar­riage set­tle­ment, d– him.’

‘God bless me. They seem to have been very hard up­on you.’

‘A man doesn’t mar­ry an earl’s daugh­ter for noth­ing, But­ter­well. And then to think what I lost! It can’t be helped now, you know. As a man makes his bed he must lie on it. I am some­times so mad with my­self when I think over it all–that I should like to blow my brains out.’

‘You must not talk that way, Cros­bie. I hate to hear a man talk like that.’

‘I don’t mean that I shall. I’m too much of a cow­ard, I fan­cy.’ A man who de­sires to soft­en an­oth­er man’s heart should al­ways abuse him­self. In soft­en­ing a wom­an’s heart, he should abuse her. ‘But life has been so bit­ter with me for the last three years! I haven’t had an hour of com­fort;–not an hour. I don’t know why I should trou­ble you with all this But­ter­well. Oh–about the mon­ey; yes; that’s just how I stand. I owed Gaze­bee some­thing over a thou­sand pounds which is ar­ranged as I have told you. Then there were debts, due by my wife–at least some of them were, I sup­pose–and that hor­rid, ghast­ly fu­ner­al–and debts, I don’t doubt, due by the cursed old count­ess. At any rate, to get my­self clear, I raised some­thing over four hun­dred pounds, and now I owe five which must be paid, part to­mor­row, and the re­main­der this day month.’

‘And you’ve no se­cu­ri­ty?’

‘Not a rag, not a shred, not a line, not an acre. There’s my salary, and af­ter pay­ing Gaze­bee what comes due to him, I can man­age to let you have the mon­ey with­in twelve months–that is, if you can lend it to me. I can just do that and live; and if you will as­sist me with the mon­ey, I will do so. That’s what I’ve brought my­self to by my own fol­ly.’

‘Five hun­dred pounds is such a large sum of mon­ey.’

‘In­deed it is.’

‘And with­out any se­cu­ri­ty!’

‘I know, But­ter­well, that I’ve no right to ask for it. I feel that. Of course I should pay you what in­ter­est you please.’

‘Mon­ey’s about sev­en now,’ said But­ter­well.

‘I’ve not the slight­est ob­jec­tion to sev­en per cent.,’ said Cros­bie.

‘But that’s on se­cu­ri­ty,’ said But­ter­well.

‘You can name your own terms,’ said Cros­bie.

Mr But­ter­well got out of his chair, and walked about the room with his hands in his pock­ets. He was think­ing at the mo­ment of what Mrs But­ter­well would say to him. ‘Will an an­swer do to­mor­row morn­ing?’ he said. ‘I would much rather have it to­day,’ said Cros­bie. Then Mr But­ter­well took an­oth­er turn about the room. ‘I sup­pose I must let you have it.’

‘But­ter­well,’ said Cros­bie, ‘I’m eter­nal­ly obliged to you. It’s hard­ly too much to say that you have saved me from ru­in.’

‘Of course I was jok­ing about in­ter­est,’ said But­ter­well. ‘Five per cent. is the prop­er thing. You’d bet­ter let me have a lit­tle ac­knowl­edge­ment. I’ll give you the first half to­mor­row.’

They were gen­uine tears which filled Cros­bie’s eyes, as he seized hold of the se­nior’s hands. ‘But­ter­well,’ he said, ‘what am I to say to you?’

‘Noth­ing at all–noth­ing at all.’

‘Your kind­ness makes me feel that I ought not to have come to you.’

‘Oh, non­sense. By-​the-​by, would you mind telling Thomp­son to bring those pa­pers to me which I gave him yes­ter­day? I promised Op­ti­mist I would read them be­fore three, and it’s past two now.’ So say­ing he sat him­self down at his ta­ble, and Cros­bie felt that he was bound to leave the room.

Mr But­ter­well, when he was left alone, did not read the pa­pers which Thomp­son brought him; but said, in­stead, think­ing of his five hun­dred pounds. ‘Just put them down,’ he said to Thomp­son. So the pa­pers were put down, and there they lay all that day and all the next. Then Thomp­son took them away again, and it is to be hoped that some­body read them. Five hun­dred pounds! It was a large sum of mon­ey, and Cros­bie was a man for whom Mr But­ter­well in truth felt no very strong af­fec­tion. ‘Of course he must have it now,’ he said to him­self. ‘But where should I be if any­thing should hap­pen to him?’ And then he re­mem­bered that Mrs But­ter­well es­pe­cial­ly dis­liked Mr Cros­bie–dis­liked him be­cause she knew that he snubbed her hus­band. ‘But it’s hard to refuse, when one man has known an­oth­er for more than ten years.’ Then he com­fort­ed him­self some­what with the re­flec­tion, that Cros­bie would no doubt make him­self more pleas­ant for the fu­ture than he had done late­ly, and with a sec­ond re­flec­tion, that Cros­bie’s life was a good life–and with a third, as to his own great good­ness, in as­sist­ing a broth­er of­fi­cer. Nev­er­the­less, as he sat look­ing out of the om­nibus win­dow, on his jour­ney home to Put­ney, he was not al­to­geth­er com­fort­able in his mind. Mrs But­ter­well was a very pru­dent wom­an.

But Cros­bie was very com­fort­able in his mind on that af­ter­noon. He had hard­ly dared to hope for suc­cess, but he had been suc­cess­ful. He had not even thought of But­ter­well as a pos­si­ble foun­tain of sup­ply, till his mind had been brought back to the af­fairs of the of­fice, by the voice of Sir Raf­fle Buf­fle at the cor­ner of the street. The idea that his bill would be dis­hon­oured, and that tid­ings of his in­sol­ven­cy would be con­veyed to the Com­mis­sion­ers at his Board, had been dread­ful to him. The way in which he had been treat­ed by Mus­sel­boro and Dobbs Broughton had made him hate City men, and what he sup­posed to be City ways. Now there had come to him a re­lief which sud­den­ly made ev­ery­thing feel light. He could al­most think of Mr Mor­timer Gaze­bee with­out dis­gust. Per­haps af­ter all there might be some hap­pi­ness yet in store for him. Might it not be pos­si­ble that Lily would yet ac­cept him in spite of the chill­ing let­ter–the freez­ing let­ter which he had re­ceived from Lily’s moth­er? Of one thing he was quite cer­tain. If ev­er he had the op­por­tu­ni­ty of plead­ing his own cause with her, he cer­tain­ly would tell her ev­ery­thing re­spect­ing his mon­ey dif­fi­cul­ties.

In that last re­solve I think we may say that he was right. If Lily would ev­er lis­ten to him again at all, she cer­tain­ly would not be de­terred from mar­ry­ing him by his own sto­ry of his debts.