The Last Chronicle of Barset

CHAPTER XLVII

DR TEM­PEST AT THE PALACE.

In­ti­ma­tion had been sent from the palace to Dr Tem­pest of Sil­ver­bridge of the bish­op’s in­ten­tion that a com­mis­sion should be held by him, as ru­ral dean, with oth­er neigh­bour­ing cler­gy­men, as as­ses­sors with him, that in­quiry might be made on the part of the Church in­to the ques­tion of Mr Craw­ley’s guilt. It must be un­der­stood that by this time the opin­ion had be­come very gen­er­al that Mr Craw­ley had been guilty–that he had found the cheque in his house, and that he had, af­ter hold­ing it for many months, suc­cumbed to temp­ta­tion, and ap­plied it to his own pur­pos­es. But var­ious ex­cus­es were made for him by those who so be­lieved. In the first place it was felt by all who re­al­ly knew any­thing of the man’s char­ac­ter, that the very fact of his com­mit­ting such a crime proved him to be hard­ly re­spon­si­ble for his ac­tions. He must have known, had not all judg­ment in such mat­ters been tak­en from him, that the cheque would cer­tain­ly be traced back to his hands. No at­tempt had been made in the dis­pos­ing of it to dis­pose of it in such a way that the trace should be oblit­er­at­ed. He had sim­ply giv­en it to a neigh­bour with a di­rec­tion to have it cashed, and had writ­ten his own name on the back of it. And there­fore, though there could be no doubt as to the theft in the mind of those who sup­posed that he had found the cheque in his own house, yet the guilt of the theft seemed to be al­most an­ni­hi­lat­ed by the fol­ly of the thief. And then his pover­ty, and his strug­gles, and the suf­fer­ings of his wife, were re­mem­bered; and sto­ries were told from mouth to mouth of his in­dus­try in his pro­fes­sion, of his great zeal among the brick­mak­ers of Hog­gle End, of acts of char­ity done by him which star­tled the peo­ple of the dis­trict in­to ad­mi­ra­tion:–how he had worked with his own hands for the sick poor to whom he could not give re­lief in mon­ey, turn­ing a wom­an’s man­gle for a cou­ple of hours, and car­ry­ing a boy’s load along the lanes. Dr Tem­pest and oth­ers de­clared that he had dero­gat­ed from the dig­ni­ty of his po­si­tion as an En­glish parish cler­gy­man by such acts; but, nev­er­the­less, the sto­ries of these deeds act­ed strong­ly on the minds of both men and wom­en, cre­at­ing an ad­mi­ra­tion for Mr Craw­ley which was much stronger than the con­dem­na­tion of his guilt.

Even Mrs Walk­er and her daugh­ter, and the Miss Pret­ty­mans, had so far giv­en way that they had ceased to as­sev­er­ate their be­lief in Mr Craw­ley’s in­no­cence. They con­tent­ed them­selves with sim­ply ex­press­ing a hope that he would be ac­quit­ted by a ju­ry, and that when he should be so ac­quit­ted the thing might be al­lowed to rest. If he had sinned, no doubt he had re­pent­ed. And then there were se­ri­ous de­bates whether he might not have stolen the mon­ey with­out much sin, be­ing mad or half-​mad–touched with mad­ness when he took it; and whether he might not, in spite of such tem­po­rary touch of mad­ness, be well fit­ted for his parish du­ties. Sor­row had af­flict­ed him grievous­ly; but that sor­row, though it had in­ca­pac­itat­ed him for the man­age­ment of his own af­fairs, had not ren­dered him un­fit for the min­is­tra­tion of his parish. Such were the ar­gu­ments now used in his favour by the wom­en around him; and the men were not keen to con­tra­dict them. The wish that he should be ac­quit­ted and al­lowed to re­main in his par­son­age was very gen­er­al.

When there­fore it be­came known that the bish­op had de­cid­ed to put on foot an­oth­er in­ves­ti­ga­tion, with the view of bring­ing Mr Craw­ley’s con­duct un­der ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal con­dem­na­tion, al­most ev­ery­body ac­cused the bish­op of per­se­cu­tion. The world of the dio­cese de­clared that Mrs Proudie was at work, and that the bish­op him­self was no bet­ter than a pup­pet. It was in vain that cer­tain clear head­ed men among the cler­gy, of whom Dr Tem­pest him­self was one, point­ed out that the bish­op af­ter all might per­haps be right;–that if Mr Craw­ley were guilty, and if he should be found to have been so by a ju­ry, it might be ab­so­lute­ly nec­es­sary that an ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal court should take some cog­nizance of the crime be­yond that of tak­en by the civ­il law. ‘The ju­ry,’ said Dr Tem­pest, dis­cussing the case with Mr Ro­barts and oth­er cler­ical neigh­bours–’the ju­ry may prob­ably find him guilty and rec­om­mend to him mer­cy. The judge will have heard his char­ac­ter, and will have been made ac­quaint­ed with the man­ner of his life, and will deal as light­ly with the case as the law will al­low him. For aught I know he may be im­pris­oned for a month. I wish it might be for no more than a day–or an hour. But when he comes out from his month’s im­pris­on­ment–how then? Sure­ly it should be a case for ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal in­quiry, whether a cler­gy­man who has com­mit­ted a theft should be al­lowed to go in­to his pul­pit di­rect­ly he comes out of prison?’ But the an­swer to this was that Mr Craw­ley had al­ways been a good cler­gy­man, was a good cler­gy­man at this mo­ment, and would be a good cler­gy­man when he did come out of prison.

But Dr Tem­pest, though he had ar­gued in this way, was by no means ea­ger for the com­mence­ment of the com­mis­sion over which he was to be called up­on to pre­side. In spite of such ar­gu­ments as the above, which came from the man’s head when his head was brought to bear on the mat­ter, there was a thor­ough de­sire with­in his heart to op­pose the bish­op. He had no strong sym­pa­thy with Mr Craw­ley, as had oth­ers. He would have had Mr Craw­ley si­lenced with­out re­gret, pre­sum­ing Mr Craw­ley to be guilty. But he had a much stronger feel­ing with re­gard to the bish­op. Had there been any ques­tion of si­lenc­ing the bish­op–could it have been pos­si­ble to take steps in that di­rec­tion–he would have been very ac­tive. It may there­fore be un­der­stood that in spite of his de­fence of the bish­op’s present pro­ceed­ings as to the com­mis­sion, he was anx­ious that the bish­op should fail, and anx­ious to put im­ped­iments in the bish­op’s way, should it ap­pear to him that he could do so with jus­tice. Dr Tem­pest was well known among his parish­ioners to be hard and un­sym­pa­thet­ic, some said un­feel­ing al­so, and cru­el; but it was ad­mit­ted by those who dis­liked him the most that he was both prac­ti­cal and just, and that he cared for the wel­fare of many, though he was rarely touched by the mis­ery of one. Such was the man who was rec­tor of Sil­ver­bridge and ru­ral dean in the dis­trict, and who was now called up­on by the bish­op to as­sist him in mak­ing fur­ther in­quiry as to this wretched cheque for twen­ty pounds.

Once at this pe­ri­od Archdea­con Grant­ly and Dr Tem­pest met each oth­er and dis­cussed the ques­tion of Mr Craw­ley’s guilt. Both these men were in­im­ical to the present bish­op of the dio­cese, and both had per­haps re­spect­ed the old bish­op be­yond all oth­er men. But they were dif­fer­ent in this, that the archdea­con hat­ed Dr Proudie as a par­ti­san–where­as Dr Tem­pest op­posed the bish­op on cer­tain prin­ci­ples which he en­deav­oured to make clear, at any rate to him­self. ‘Wrong!’ said the archdea­con, speak­ing of the bish­op’s in­ten­tion of is­su­ing a com­mis­sion–’of course he’s wrong. How could any­thing right come from him or from her? I should be sor­ry to have to do his bid­ding.’

‘I think you are a lit­tle hard up­on Bish­op Proudie,’ said Dr Tem­pest.

‘One can­not be hard up­on him,’ said the archdea­con. ‘He is so scan­dalous­ly weak, and she is so rad­ical­ly vi­cious, that they can­not but be wrong to­geth­er. The very fact that such a man should be a bish­op among us is to me ter­ri­bly strong ev­idence of evil days com­ing.’

‘You are more im­pul­sive than I am,’ said Dr Tem­pest. ‘In this case I am sor­ry for the poor man, who is, I am sure, hon­est in the main. But I be­lieve that in such a case your fa­ther would have done just what the present bish­op is do­ing;–that he could have done noth­ing else; and as I think that Dr Proudie is right I shall do all that I can to as­sist him in the com­mis­sion.’

The bish­op’s sec­re­tary had writ­ten to Dr Tem­pest, telling him of the bish­op’s pur­pose; and now, in one of the last days in March, the bish­op him­self wrote to Dr Tem­pest, ask­ing him to come over to the palace. The let­ter was word­ed most cour­te­ous­ly, and ex­pressed very feel­ing­ly the great re­gret which the writ­er felt at be­ing obliged to take these pro­ceed­ings against a cler­gy­man in his dio­cese. Bish­op Proudie knew how to write such a let­ter. By the writ­ing of such let­ters, and by the mak­ing of speech­es in the same strain, he had be­come Bish­op of Barch­ester. Now, in this let­ter, he begged Dr Tem­pest to come over to him, say­ing how de­light­ed Mrs Proudie would be to see him at the palace. Then he went on to ex­plain the great dif­fi­cul­ty which he felt, and great sor­row al­so, in deal­ing with this mat­ter of Mr Craw­ley. He looked, there­fore, con­fi­dent­ly for Dr Tem­pest’s as­sis­tance. Think­ing to do the best for Mr Craw­ley, and anx­ious to en­able Mr Craw­ley to re­main in qui­et re­tire­ment till the tri­al should be over, he had sent a cler­gy­man over to Hog­gle­stock, who would have re­lieved Mr Craw­ley from the bur­den of the church-​ser­vices;–but Mr Craw­ley would have none of this re­lief. Mr Craw­ley had been ob­sti­nate and over­bear­ing, and had per­sist­ed in claim­ing his right to his own pul­pit. There­fore was the bish­op obliged to in­ter­fere legal­ly, and there­fore was he un­der the ne­ces­si­ty of ask­ing Dr Tem­pest to as­sist him. Would Dr Tem­pest come over on the Mon­day, and stay till Wednes­day?

The let­ter was a very good let­ter, and Dr Tem­pest was obliged to do as he was asked. He so far mod­ified the bish­op’s propo­si­tion that he re­duced the so­journ at the palace by one night. He wrote to say that he would have the plea­sure of din­ing with the bish­op and Mrs Proudie on the Mon­day, but would re­turn home on the Tues­day, as soon as the busi­ness in hand would per­mit him. ‘I shall get on very well with him,’ he said to his wife, be­fore he start­ed; ‘but I am afraid of the wom­an. If she in­ter­feres there will be a row.’ ‘Then, my dear,’ said his wife, ‘there will be a row, for I am told that she al­ways in­ter­feres.’ On reach­ing the palace half-​an-​hour be­fore din­ner-​time, Dr Tem­pest found that oth­er guests were ex­pect­ed, and on de­scend­ing to the great yel­low draw­ing-​room, which was used on­ly on state oc­ca­sions, he en­coun­tered Mrs Proudie, and two of her daugh­ters ar­rayed in full panoply of fe­male ar­mour. She re­ceived him with her sweet­est smiles, and if there had been any for­mer en­mi­ty be­tween Sil­ver­bridge and the palace, it was now all for­got­ten. She re­gret­ted great­ly that Mrs Tem­pest had not ac­com­pa­nied the doc­tor;–for Mrs Tem­pest al­so had been in­vit­ed. But Mrs Tem­pest was not quite as well as she might have been, the doc­tor had said, and very rarely slept away from home. And then the bish­op came in and greet­ed his guest with his pleas­an­test good hu­mour. It was quite a sor­row to him that Sil­ver­bridge was so dis­tant, and that he saw so lit­tle of Dr Tem­pest; but he hoped that that might be some­what mend­ed now, and that leisure might be found for so­cial de­lights;–to all which Dr Tem­pest said but lit­tle, bow­ing to the bish­op at each sep­arate ex­pres­sion of his lord­ship’s kind­ness.

There were guests there that evening who did not of­ten sit at the bish­op’s ta­ble. The archdea­con and Mrs Grant­ly had been sum­moned from Plum­stead, and had obeyed the sum­mons. Great as was the en­mi­ty be­tween the bish­op and the archdea­con, it had nev­er quite tak­en the form of open pal­pa­ble hos­til­ity. Each, there­fore, asked the oth­er to din­ner per­haps once ev­ery year; and each went to the oth­er, per­haps, once in two years. And Dr Thorne from Chaldicotes was there but with­out his wife, who in these days was up in Lon­don. Mrs Proudie al­ways ex­pressed a warm friend­ship for Mrs Thorne, and on this oc­ca­sion loud­ly re­gret­ted her ab­sence. ‘You must tell her, Dr Thorne, how ex­ceed­ing­ly much we miss her.’ Dr Thorne, who was ac­cus­tomed to hear his wife speak of her dear friend Mrs Proudie with al­most un­mea­sured ridicule, promised that he would do so. ‘We are sor­ry the Lufton’s couldn’t come to us,’ said Mrs Proudie–not al­lud­ing to the dowa­ger, of whom it was well known that no earth­ly in­duce­ment would have suf­ficed to make her put her foot with­in Mrs Proudie’s room–’but one of the chil­dren is ill, and she couldn’t leave him.’ But the Gre­shams were there from Box­all Hill, and the Thornes from Ul­lathorne, and, with the ex­cep­tion of a sin­gle chap­lain, who pre­tend­ed to carve, Dr Tem­pest and the archdea­con were the on­ly cler­ical guests at the ta­ble. From all which Dr Tem­ple knew that the bish­op was anx­ious to treat him with spe­cial con­sid­er­ation on the present oc­ca­sion.

The din­ner was rather long and pon­der­ous, and oc­ca­sion­al­ly, most dull. The archdea­con talked a good deal, but a by­stander with an acute ear might have un­der­stood from the tone of his voice that he was not talk­ing as he would have talked among friends. Mrs Proudie felt this, and un­der­stood it, and was an­gry. She could nev­er find her­self in the pres­ence of the archdea­con with­out be­com­ing an­gry. Her ac­cu­rate ear would al­ways ap­pre­ci­ate the de­fi­ance of epis­co­pal au­thor­ity, as now ex­ist­ing in Barch­ester, which was con­cealed, or on­ly half con­cealed, by all the archdea­con’s words. But the bish­op was not so keen, nor so eas­ily roused, to wrath; and though the pres­ence of the en­emy did to a cer­tain de­gree cow him, he strove to fight against the feel­ing with re­newed good-​hu­mour.

‘You have im­proved so up­on the old days,’ said the archdea­con, speak­ing of some small mat­ter with ref­er­ence to the cathe­dral, ‘that one hard­ly knows the old place.’

‘I hope we have not fall­en off,’ said the bish­op, with a smile.

‘We have im­proved, Dr Grant­ly,’ said Mrs Proudie, with great em­pha­sis on her words. ‘What you say is true. We have im­proved.’

‘Not a doubt about that,’ said the archdea­con. Then Mrs Grant­ly in­ter­posed, strove to change the sub­ject, and threw oil up­on the wa­ters.

‘Talk­ing of im­prove­ments,’ said Mrs Grant­ly, ‘what an ex­cel­lent row of hous­es they have built at the bot­tom of High Street. ‘I won­der who is to live in them?’

‘I re­mem­ber when that was the very worst part of town,’ said Dr Thorne.

‘And now they’re ask­ing sev­en­ty pounds apiece for hous­es which did not cost above six hun­dred each to build,’ said Mr Thorne of Ul­lathorne, with that seem­ing dis­like of mod­ern suc­cess which is evinced by most of the el­ders of the world.

‘And who is to live in them,’ asked Mrs Grant­ly.

‘Two have them have been al­ready tak­en by cler­gy­men,’ said the bish­op, in a tone of tri­umph.

‘Yes,’ said the archdea­con, ‘and the hous­es in the Close which used to be the res­idences of the preben­daries have been leased out to tal­low-​chan­dlers and re­tired brew­ers. That comes of the work­ing of the Ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal Com­mis­sion.’

‘And why not?’ de­mand­ed Mrs Proudie.

‘Why not, in­deed, if you like to have tal­low-​chan­dlers next door to you?’ said the archdea­con. ‘In the old days, we would soon­er have had our brethren near to us.’

‘There is noth­ing, Dr Grant­ly, so ob­jec­tion­able in a cathe­dral town as a lot of idle cler­gy­men,’ said Mrs Proudie.

‘It is be­gin­ning to be a ques­tion to me,’ said the archdea­con, ‘whether there is any use in cler­gy­men at all for the present gen­er­ation.’

‘Dr Grant­ly, those can­not be your re­al sen­ti­ments,’ said Mrs Proudie. Then Mrs Grant­ly, work­ing hard in her vo­ca­tion as a peace­mak­er, changed the con­ver­sa­tion again and be­gan to talk of the Amer­ican war. But even that was made a mat­ter of dis­cord on church mat­ters–the archdea­con pro­fess­ing an opin­ion that the South­ern­ers were Chris­tian gen­tle­men, and the North­ern­ers idle snobs; where­as Mrs Proudie had an idea that the Gospel was preached with gen­uine zeal in the North­ern States. And at each such out­break the poor bish­op would laugh un­easi­ly, and say a word or two to which no one paid much at­ten­tion. And so the din­ner went on, not al­ways in the most pleas­ant man­ner for those who pre­ferred con­tin­ued good-​hu­mour to the oc­ca­sion­al ex­cite­ment of a half-​sup­pressed bat­tle.

Not a word was said about Mr Craw­ley. When Mrs Proudie and the ladies left the din­ing-​room, the bish­op strove to get up a lit­tle lay con­ver­sa­tion. He spoke to Mr Thorne about his game, and to Dr Thorne about his tim­ber, and even to Mr Gre­sham about his hounds. ‘It is not so very many years, Mr Gre­sham,’ said he, ’since the Bish­op of Barch­ester was ex­pect­ed to keep hounds him­self,’ and the bish­op laughed at his own joke.

‘Your lord­ship shall have them back at the palace next sea­son,’ said young Frank Gre­sham, ‘if you will promise to do the coun­ty jus­tice.’

‘Ha, ha, ha!’ laughed the bish­op. ‘What do you say, Mr Toz­er?’ Mr Toz­er was the chap­lain on du­ty.

‘I have not least ob­jec­tion in the world, my lord,’ said Mr Toz­er, ‘to act as sec­ond whip.’

‘I’m afraid you’ll find them an ex­pen­sive ad­junct to the epis­co­pate,’ said the archdea­con. And then the joke was over; for there had been a ru­mour, now for some years preva­lent in Barch­ester, that Bish­op Proudie was not lib­er­al in his ex­pen­di­ture. As Mr Thorne said af­ter­wards to his cousin the doc­tor, the archdea­con might have spared that sneer. ‘The archdea­con will nev­er spare the man who sits in his fa­ther’s seat,’ said the doc­tor. ‘The pity of it is that men who are so thor­ough­ly dif­fer­ent in all their sym­pa­thies should ev­er be brought in­to con­tact.’ ‘Dear, dear,’ said the archdea­con, as he stood af­ter­wards on the rug be­fore the draw­ing-​room fire, ‘how many of rub­bers of whist I have seen played in this room.’ ‘I sin­cere­ly hope that you will nev­er see an­oth­er played here,’ said Mrs Proudie. ‘I’m quite sure that I shall not,’ said the archdea­con. For this last sal­ly his wife scold­ed him bit­ter­ly on the way home. ‘You know very well,’ she said, ‘that the times are changed, and that if you were Bish­op of Barch­ester your­self, you would not have whist played in the palace.’ ‘I on­ly know,’ said he, ‘that when we had the whist we had the true re­li­gion along with it, and some good sense and good feel­ing al­so.’ ‘You can­not be right to sneer at oth­ers for do­ing what you would do your­self,’ said his wife. Then the archdea­con threw him­self sulk­ily in­to the cor­ner of his car­riage, and noth­ing more was said be­tween him and his wife about the bish­op’s din­ner-​par­ty.

Not a word was spo­ken that night about Mr Craw­ley; and when that ob­nox­ious guest from Plum­stead was gone, Mrs Proudie re­sumed her good-​hu­mour to­wards Dr Tem­pest. So in­tent was she on con­cil­iat­ing him that she re­frained even from abus­ing the archdea­con, whom she knew to have been in­ti­mate for very many years with the rec­tor of Sil­ver­bridge. In her ac­cus­tomed moods she would have bro­ken forth in loud anger, car­ing noth­ing for old friend­ships; but at present she was thought­ful of the mor­row, and de­sirous that Dr Tem­pest should, if pos­si­ble, meet her in a friend­ly hu­mour when the great dis­cus­sion as to Hog­gle­stock should be opened be­tween them. But Dr Tem­pest un­der­stood her bear­ing, and as he pulled on his night­cap made cer­tain res­olu­tions of his own as to the mor­row’s pro­ceed­ings. ‘I don’t sup­pose she will dare to in­ter­fere,’ he had said to his wife; ‘but if she does I shall cer­tain­ly tell the bish­op that I can­not speak on the sub­ject in her pres­ence.’

At break­fast on the fol­low­ing morn­ing there was no one present but the bish­op, Mrs Proudie, and Dr Tem­pest. Very lit­tle was said at the meal. Mr Craw­ley’s name was not men­tioned, but there seemed to be a gen­er­al feel­ing among them that there was a task hang­ing over them which pre­vent­ed any gen­er­al con­ver­sa­tion. The eggs were eat­en and the cof­fee was drunk, but the eggs and the cof­fee dis­ap­peared al­most in si­lence. When these cer­emonies had been al­to­geth­er com­plet­ed, and it was clear­ly nec­es­sary that some­thing fur­ther should be done, the bish­op spoke: ‘Dr Tem­pest,’ he said, ‘per­haps you will join me in my study at eleven. We can then say a few words to each oth­er about the un­for­tu­nate mat­ter on which I shall have to trou­ble you.’ Dr Tem­pest said he would be punc­tu­al to his ap­point­ment, and then the bish­op with­drew, mut­ter­ing some­thing as to the ne­ces­si­ty of look­ing at his let­ters. Dr Tem­pest took a news­pa­per in his hand, which had been brought in by a ser­vant, but Mrs Proudie did not al­low him to read it. ‘Dr Tem­pest,’ she said, ‘this is a mat­ter of most vi­tal im­por­tance. I am quite sure that you feel that it is so.’

‘What mat­ter, madam?’ said the doc­tor.

‘This ter­ri­ble af­fair of Mr Craw­ley’s. If some­thing is not done the whole dio­cese will be dis­graced.’ Then she turned for an an­swer, but re­ceiv­ing none she was obliged to con­tin­ue. ‘Of the poor man’s guilt there can, I fear, be no doubt.’ Then there was an­oth­er pause, but still the doc­tor made no an­swer. ‘And if he be guilty,’ said Mrs Proudie, re­solv­ing that she would ask a ques­tion that must bring forth some re­ply, ‘can any ex­pe­ri­enced cler­gy­man think that he can be fit to preach from the pul­pit of a parish church? I am sure that you must agree with me, Dr Tem­pest? Con­sid­er the souls of the peo­ple!’

‘Mrs Proudie,’ said he, ‘I think that we had bet­ter not dis­cuss the mat­ter.’

‘Not dis­cuss it?’

‘I think that we had bet­ter not do so. If I un­der­stand the bish­op aright, he wish­es it that I should take some step in the mat­ter.’

‘Of course he does.’

‘And there­fore I must de­cline to make it a mat­ter of com­mon con­ver­sa­tion.’

‘Com­mon con­ver­sa­tion, Dr Tem­pest! I should be the last per­son in the world to make it a mat­ter of com­mon con­ver­sa­tion. I re­gard this as by no means a com­mon con­ver­sa­tion. God for­bid that it should be a com­mon con­ver­sa­tion. I am speak­ing very se­ri­ous­ly with ref­er­ence to the in­ter­ests of the Church, which I think will be en­dan­gered by hav­ing among her ac­tive ser­vants a man who has been guilty of so base a crime as theft. Think of it, Dr Tem­pest. Theft! Steal­ing mon­ey! Ap­pro­pri­at­ing to his own use a cheque for twen­ty pounds which did not be­long to him! And then telling such ter­ri­ble false­hoods about it! Can any­thing be worse, any­thing more scan­dalous, any­thing more dan­ger­ous? In­deed, Dr Tem­pest, I do not re­gard this as any com­mon con­ver­sa­tion.’ The whole of this speech was not made at once, flu­ent­ly, or with­out a break. From stop to stop Mrs Proudie paused, wait­ing for her com­pan­ion’s words; but as he would not speak she was obliged to con­tin­ue. ‘I am sure that you can­not but agree with me, Dr Tem­pest?’ she said.

‘I am quite sure I will not dis­cuss it with you,’ said the doc­tor, very brusque­ly.

‘And why not? Are you not here to dis­cuss it?’

‘Not with you, Mrs Proudie. You must ex­cuse me for say­ing so, but I am not here to dis­cuss any such mat­ter with you. Were I to do so, I should be guilty of a very great im­pro­pri­ety.’

‘All these things are in com­mon be­tween me and the bish­op,’ said Mrs Proudie, with an air that was in­tend­ed to be dig­ni­fied, but which nev­er­the­less dis­played her ris­ing anger.

‘As to that I know noth­ing, but they can­not be in com­mon be­tween you and me. It grieves me much that I should have to speak to you in such a strain, but my du­ty al­lows me no al­ter­na­tive. I think, if you will per­mit me, I will take a turn round the gar­den be­fore I keep my ap­point­ment with his lord­ship.’ And so say­ing he es­caped from the la­dy with­out hear­ing her fur­ther re­mon­strance.

It still want­ed an hour to the time named by the bish­op, and Dr Tem­pest used it in prepar­ing for his with­draw­al from the palace as soon as his in­ter­view with the bish­op should be over. Af­ter what had passed he thought he would be jus­ti­fied in tak­ing his de­par­ture with­out bid­ding adieu for­mal­ly to Mrs Proudie. He would say a word or two, ex­plain­ing his haste, to the bish­op; and then, if he could get out of the house at once, it might be that he would nev­er see Mrs Proudie again. He was rather proud of his suc­cess in their late bat­tle, but he felt that, hav­ing been so com­plete­ly vic­to­ri­ous, it would be fool­ish in him to risk his lau­rels in the chance of an­oth­er en­counter. He would say not a word of what had hap­pened to the bish­op, and he thought it prob­able that nei­ther would Mrs Proudie speak of it–at any rate till af­ter he was gone. Gen­er­als who are beat­en out of the field are not quick to talk of their own re­puls­es. He, in­deed, had not beat­en Mrs Proudie out of the field. He had, in fact, him­self run away. But he had left his foe si­lenced; and with such a foe, and in such a con­test, that was ev­ery­thing. He put up his port­man­teau, there­fore, and pre­pared for his fi­nal re­treat. Then he rang his bell and de­sired the ser­vant to show him to the bish­op’s study. The ser­vant did so, and when he en­tered the room the first thing he saw was Mrs Proudie sit­ting in an arm-​chair near the win­dow. The bish­op was al­so in the room, sit­ting with his arms up­on the writ­ing-​ta­ble, and his head up­on his hands. It was very ev­ident that Mrs Proudie did not con­sid­er her­self to have been beat­en and that she was pre­pared for an­oth­er bat­tle. ‘Will you sit down, Dr Tem­pest?’ she said, mo­tion­ing him with her hand to a chair op­po­site to that oc­cu­pied by the bish­op. Dr Tem­pest sat down. He felt that at the mo­ment he had noth­ing else to do, and that he must re­strain any re­mon­strance that he might make till Mr Craw­ley’s name should be men­tioned. He was al­most lost in ad­mi­ra­tion of the wom­an. He had left her, as he thought, ut­ter­ly van­quished and pros­trat­ed by his de­ter­mined but un­cour­te­ous us­age of her; and here she was, present again on the field of bat­tle as though she had nev­er been wound­ed. He could see that there had been words be­tween her and the bish­op, and that she had car­ried a point on which the bish­op had been very anx­ious to have his own way. He could per­ceive at once that the bish­op had begged her to ab­sent her­self and was great­ly cha­grined that he should not have pre­vailed with her. There she was–and as Dr Tem­pest was re­solved that he would nei­ther give ad­vice nor re­ceive in­struc­tions re­spect­ing Mr Craw­ley in her pres­ence, he could on­ly draw up­on his courage and his strat­egy for the com­ing war­fare. For a few mo­ments no one said a word. The bish­op felt that if Dr Tem­pest would on­ly be­gin, the work on hand might be got through, even in his wife’s pres­ence. Mrs Proudie was aware that her hus­band should be­gin. If he would do so, and if Dr Tem­pest would lis­ten and then re­ply, she might grad­ual­ly make her way in­to the con­ver­sa­tion; and if her words were once ac­cept­ed then she could say all that she de­sired to say; then she could play her part and be­come some­body in the epis­co­pal work. When once she should have been al­lowed lib­er­ty of speech, the en­emy would be pow­er­less to stop her. But all this Dr Tem­pest un­der­stood quite as well as she un­der­stood it, and had they wait­ed till night he would not have been the first to men­tion Mr Craw­ley’s name.

The bish­op sighed aloud. The sigh might be tak­en as ex­press­ing grief over the sin of an erring broth­er whose con­duct they were then to dis­cuss, and was not amiss. But when the sigh with its at­ten­dant mur­murs had passed away it was nec­es­sary that some ini­tia­tive step should be tak­en. ‘Dr Tem­pest,’ said the bish­op, ‘what are we to do about this poor stiff-​necked gen­tle­man?’ Still Dr Tem­pest did not speak. ‘There is no cler­gy­man in the dio­cese,’ con­tin­ued the bish­op, ‘in whose pru­dence and wis­dom I have more con­fi­dence than in yours. And I know, too, that you are by no means dis­posed to sever­ity where se­vere mea­sures are not nec­es­sary. What ought we to do? If he has been guilty, he should not sure­ly re­turn to his pul­pit af­ter the ex­pi­ra­tion of such pun­ish­ment as the law of this coun­try may award him.’

Dr Tem­pest looked at Mrs Proudie, think­ing that she might per­haps say a word now; but Mrs Proudie knew her part bet­ter and was silent. An­gry as she was, she con­trived to hold her peace. Let the de­bate once be­gin and she would be able to creep in­to it, and then to lead it–and so she would hold her own. But she had met a foe as wary as her­self. ‘My lord,’ said the doc­tor, ‘it will per­haps be well that you should com­mu­ni­cate your wish­es to me in writ­ing. If it be pos­si­ble for me to com­ply with them I will do so.’

‘Yes;–ex­act­ly; no doubt;–but I thought that per­haps we might bet­ter un­der­stand each oth­er if we had a few words of qui­et con­ver­sa­tion up­on the sub­ject. I be­lieve you know the steps that I have–’

But here the bish­op was in­ter­rupt­ed. Dr Tem­pest rose from his chair, and ad­vanc­ing to the ta­ble put both hands up­on it. ‘My lord,’ he said, ‘I feel my­self com­pelled to say that which I would very much rather leave un­said, were it pos­si­ble. I feel the dif­fi­cul­ty, and I may say del­ica­cy, of my po­si­tion; but I should be un­true to my con­science and to my feel­ing of what is right in such mat­ters, if I were take any part on a dis­cus­sion on this mat­ter in the pres­ence of–a la­dy.’

‘Dr Tem­pest, what is your ob­jec­tion?’ said Mrs Proudie, ris­ing from her chair, and com­ing al­so to the ta­ble, so that from thence she might con­front her op­po­nent; and as she stood op­po­site to Dr Tem­pest she al­so put both her hands up­on the ta­ble.

‘My dear, per­haps you will leave us for a few mo­ments,’ said the bish­op. Poor bish­op! Poor weak bish­op! As the words came from his mouth he knew that they would be spo­ken in vain, and that if so, it would have been bet­ter for him to have left them un­spo­ken.

‘Why should I be dis­missed from your room with­out a rea­son?’ said Mrs Proudie. ‘Can­not Dr Tem­pest un­der­stand that a wife may share her hus­band’s coun­sels–as she must share his trou­bles? If he can­not, I pity him very much as to his own house­hold.’

‘Dr Tem­pest,’ said the bish­op, ‘Mrs Proudie takes the great­est pos­si­ble in­ter­est in ev­ery­thing con­cern­ing the dio­cese.’

‘I am sure, my lord,’ said the doc­tor, ‘that you will see how un­seem­ly it would be that I should in­ter­fere in any way be­tween you and Mrs Proudie. I cer­tain­ly will not do so. I can on­ly say again that if you will com­mu­ni­cate with me your wish­es in writ­ing, I will at­tend to them–if it be pos­si­ble.’

‘You mean to be stub­born,’ said Mrs Proudie, whose pru­dence was be­gin­ning to give way un­der the great provo­ca­tion to which her tem­per was be­ing sub­ject­ed.

‘Yes, madam; if it is to be called stub­born­ness, I must be stub­born. My lord, Mrs Proudie spoke to me on this sub­ject in the break­fast-​room af­ter you had left it, and I then ven­tured to ex­plain to her that in ac­cor­dance with such light as I have on the mat­ter, I could not dis­cuss it in her pres­ence. I great­ly grieve that I failed to make my­self un­der­stood by her–as, oth­er­wise, this un­pleas­ant­ness might have been spared.’

‘I un­der­stood you very well, Dr Tem­pest, and I think you to be a most un­rea­son­able man. In­deed, I might use a much harsh­er word.’

‘You may use any word you please, Mrs Proudie,’ said the doc­tor.

‘My dear, I re­al­ly think you had bet­ter leave us for a few min­utes,’ said the bish­op.

‘No, my lord–no,’ said Mrs Proudie, turn­ing round up­on her hus­band. ‘Not so. It would be most un­be­com­ing that I should be turned out of a room in this palace by an un­cour­te­ous word from a parish cler­gy­man. It would be un­seem­ly. If Dr Tem­pest for­gets his du­ty, I will not for­get mine. There are oth­er cler­gy­men in the dio­cese be­sides Dr Tem­pest who can un­der­take the very easy task of this com­mis­sion. As for his hav­ing been ap­point­ed ru­ral dean I don’t know how many years ago, it is mat­ter of no con­se­quence what­ev­er. In such a pre­lim­inary in­quiry any three cler­gy­men will suf­fice. It need not be done by the ru­ral dean at all.’

‘My dear!’

‘I will not be turned out of this room by Dr Tem­pest;–and that is enough.’

‘My lord,’ said the doc­tor, ‘you had bet­ter write to me as I pro­posed to you just now.’

‘His lord­ship will not write. His lord­ship will do noth­ing of the kind,’ said Mrs Proudie.

‘My dear!’ said the bish­op, driv­en in his per­plex­ity be­yond all care­ful­ness of ret­icence. ‘My dear, I do wish you wouldn’t–I do in­deed. If you would on­ly go away!’

‘I will not go away, my lord,’ said Mrs Proudie.

‘But I will,’ said Dr Tem­pest, feel­ing true com­pas­sion for the un­for­tu­nate man whom he saw writhing in agony be­fore him. ‘It will man­ifest­ly be for the best that I should re­tire. My lord, I wish you good morn­ing. Mrs Proudie, good morn­ing.’ And so he left the room.

‘A most stub­born and a most un­gentle­man­like man,’ said Mrs Proudie, as soon as the door was closed be­hind the re­treat­ing ru­ral dean. ‘I do not think that in the whole course of my life I ev­er met with any­one so in­sub­or­di­nate and so ill-​man­nered. He is worse than the archdea­con.’ As she ut­tered these words she paced about the room. The bish­op said noth­ing; and when she her­self had been silent for a few min­utes she turned up­on him. ‘Bish­op,’ she said, ‘I hope that you agree with me. I ex­pect that will agree with me in a mat­ter that is so of much mo­ment to my com­fort, and I may say to my po­si­tion gen­er­al­ly in the dio­cese. Bish­op, why do you not speak?’

‘You have be­haved in such a way that I do not know that I shall ev­er speak again,’ said the bish­op.

‘What is that you say?’

‘I say that I do not know how I shall ev­er speak again. You have dis­graced me.’

‘Dis­graced you! I dis­grace you! It is you that dis­grace your­self by say­ing such words.’

‘Very well. Let it be so. Per­haps you will go away now and leave me to my­self. I have got a bad headache, and I can’t talk any more. Oh dear, oh dear, what will he think of it?’

‘And you mean to tell me that I have been wrong?’

‘Yes, you have been wrong–very wrong. Why didn’t you go away when I asked you? You are al­ways be­ing wrong. I wish I had nev­er come to Barch­ester. In any oth­er po­si­tion I should not have felt it so much. As it is I do not know how I can ev­er show my face again.’

‘Not have felt what so much, Mr Proudie?’ said the wife, go­ing back in the ex­cite­ment of her anger to the nomen­cla­ture of old days. ‘And this is to be my re­turn for all my care in your be­half! Al­low me to tell you, sir, that in any po­si­tion in which you may be placed I know what is due to you, and that your dig­ni­ty will nev­er lose any­thing in my hands. I wish that you were as well able to take care of it your­self.’ Then she stalked out of the room, and left the poor man alone.

Bish­op Proudie sat alone in his study through­out the whole day. Once or twice in the course of the morn­ing his chap­lain came to him on some mat­ter of busi­ness, and was an­swered with a smile–the pe­cu­liar soft­ness of which the chap­lain did not fail to at­tribute the right cause. For it was soon known through­out the house­hold that there had been a quar­rel. Could he quite have made up his mind to do so–could he have re­solved that it would be al­to­geth­er bet­ter to quar­rel with his wife–the bish­op would have ap­pealed to the chap­lain, and have asked at any rate for sym­pa­thy. But even yet he could not bring him­self to con­fess his mis­ery, and to own him­self to an­oth­er to be the wretch that he was. Then dur­ing the long hours of the day he sat think­ing of it all. How hap­py could he be if it were on­ly pos­si­ble for him to go away, and be­come even a cu­rate in a parish, with­out his wife! Would there ev­er come to him a time of free­dom? Would she ev­er die? He was old­er than she, and of course he would die first. Would it not be a fine thing if he could die at once, and thus es­cape from his mis­ery.

What could he do, even sup­pos­ing him­self strong enough to fight the bat­tle? He could not lock her up. He could not even very well lock her out of his room. She was his wife, and must have the run of the house. He could not al­to­geth­er de­bar her from the so­ci­ety of the dioce­san cler­gy­men. He had, on this very morn­ing, tak­en strong mea­sures with her. More than once or twice he had de­sired her to leave the room. What was there to be done with a wom­an who would not obey her hus­band–who would not even leave him to the per­for­mance of his own work? What a blessed thing it would be if a bish­op could go away from his home to his work ev­ery day like a clerk in a pub­lic of­fice–as a stone-​ma­son does! But there was no such es­cape for him. He could not go away. And how was he to meet her again on this very day?

And then for hours he thought of Dr Tem­pest and Mr Craw­ley, con­sid­er­ing what he had bet­ter do to re­pair the ship­wreck of the morn­ing. At last he re­solved that he would write to the doc­tor; and be­fore he had again seen his wife, he did write his let­ter, and he sent it off. In this let­ter he made no di­rect il­lu­sion to the oc­cur­rence of the morn­ing, but wrote as though there had not been any fixed in­ten­tion of a per­son­al dis­cus­sion be­tween them. ‘I think it will be bet­ter that there should be a com­mis­sion,’ he said, ‘and I would sug­gest that you should have four oth­er cler­gy­men with you. Per­haps you will se­lect two your­self out of your ru­ral dean­ery; and, if you do not ob­ject, I will name as the oth­er two Mr Thum­ble and Mr Quiver, who are both res­ident in the city.’ As he wrote these two names he felt ashamed of him­self, know­ing that he had cho­sen the two men as be­ing spe­cial friends of his wife, and feel­ing that he should have been brave enough to throw aside all con­sid­er­ations of his wife’s favour–es­pe­cial­ly at this mo­ment, in which he was putting on his ar­mour to do bat­tle against her. ‘It is not prob­able,’ he con­tin­ued to say in his let­ter, ‘that you will be able to make your re­port un­til af­ter the tri­al of this un­for­tu­nate gen­tle­man shall have tak­en place, and a ver­dict shall have been giv­en. Should he be ac­quit­ted, that, I imag­ine, should end the mat­ter. There can be no rea­son why we should at­tempt to go be­yond the ver­dict of a ju­ry. But should he be found guilty, I think we ought to be ready with such steps as it will be be­com­ing for us to take at the ex­pi­ra­tion of any sen­tence which may be pro­nounced. It will be, at any rate, ex­pe­di­ent that in such a case the mat­ter should be brought be­fore an ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal court.’ he knew well as he wrote this, that he was propos­ing some­thing much milder than the course in­tend­ed by his wife when she had in­sti­gat­ed him to take pro­ceed­ings in the mat­ter; but he did not much re­gard that now. Though he had been weak enough to name cer­tain cler­gy­men as as­ses­sors with the ru­ral dean, be­cause he thought that by do­ing so he would to a cer­tain de­gree con­cil­iate his wife–though he had been so far a cow­ard, yet he was re­solved that he would not sac­ri­fice to her his own judg­ment and his own con­science in his man­ner of pro­ceed­ing. He kept no copy of his let­ter, so that he might be un­able to show her his very words when she should ask to see them. Of course he would tell her what he had done; but in telling her he would keep to him­self what he had said as to the re­sult of an ac­quit­tal in a civ­il court. She need not yet be told that he had promised to take such a ver­dict as suf­fic­ing al­so for an ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal ac­quit­tal. In this spir­it his let­ter was writ­ten and sent off be­fore he again saw his wife.

He did not meet her till they came to­geth­er in the draw­ing-​room be­fore din­ner. In ex­plain­ing the whole truth as to cir­cum­stances as they ex­ist­ed at the palace at the mo­ment, it must be ac­knowl­edged that Mrs Proudie her­self, great as was her courage, and wide as were the re­sources which she pos­sessed with­in her­self, was some­what ap­palled by the po­si­tion of af­fairs. I fear that it may now be too late for me to ex­cite much sym­pa­thy in the mind of any read­er on be­half of Mrs Proudie. I shall nev­er be able to make her pop­ular. But she had virtues, and their ex­is­tence now made her un­hap­py. She did re­gard the dig­ni­ty of her hus­band, and she felt at the present mo­ment that she had al­most com­pro­mised it. She did al­so re­gard the wel­fare of the cler­gy­men around her, think­ing of course in a gen­er­al way that cer­tain of them who agreed with her were the cler­gy­men whose wel­fare should be stud­ied, and that cer­tain of them who dis­agreed with her were the cler­gy­men whose wel­fare should be post­poned. But now an idea made its way in­to her bo­som that she was not per­haps do­ing the best for the wel­fare of the dio­cese gen­er­al­ly. What if it should come to pass that all the cler­gy­men of the dio­cese should refuse to open their mouths in her pres­ence on ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal sub­jects, as Dr Tem­pest had done? This spe­cial day was not one on which she was well con­tent­ed with her­self, though by no means on that ac­count was her anger mit­igat­ed against the of­fend­ing ru­ral dean.

Dur­ing din­ner she strug­gled to say a word or two to her hus­band, as though there had been no quar­rel be­tween them. With him the mat­ter had gone so deep that he could not an­swer her in the same spir­it. There were sundry mem­bers of the fam­ily present–daugh­ters, and a son-​in-​law, and a daugh­ter’s friend who was stay­ing with them; but even in the hope of ap­pear­ing to be serene be­fore them he could not strug­gle through his deep de­spon­dence. He was very silent, and to his wife’s words he an­swered hard­ly any­thing. He was cour­te­ous and gen­tle with them all, but he spoke as lit­tle as was pos­si­ble, and dur­ing the evening he sat alone, with his head lean­ing on his hand–not pre­tend­ing even to read. He was aware that it was too late to make even an at­tempt to con­ceal his mis­ery and his dis­grace from his own fam­ily.

His wife came to him that night in his dress­ing-​room in a spir­it of fem­inine soft­ness that was very un­usu­al with her. ‘My dear,’ said she, ‘let us for­get what oc­curred this morn­ing. If there has been anger, we are bound as Chris­tians to for­get it.’ She stood over him as she spoke, and put her hand up­on his shoul­der al­most ca­ress­ing­ly.

‘When a man’s heart is bro­ken, he can­not for­get it,’ was his re­ply. She still stood by him, and still kept her hand up­on him: but she could think of no oth­er words of com­fort to say. ‘I will go to bed,’ he said. ‘It is the best place for me.’ Then she left him, and he went to bed.