The Last Chronicle of Barset

CHAPTER LIV

THE CLER­ICAL COM­MIS­SION

It was at last ar­ranged that the five cler­gy­men se­lect­ed should meet at Dr Tem­pest’s house at Sil­ver­bridge to make in­quiry and re­port to the bish­op whether the cir­cum­stances con­nect­ed with the cheque for twen­ty pounds were of such a na­ture as to make it in­cum­bent on him to in­sti­tute pro­ceed­ings against Mr Craw­ley in the Court of Arch­es. Dr Tem­pest had act­ed up­on the let­ter which he had re­ceived from the bish­op, ex­act­ly as though there had been no meet­ing at the palace, no quar­rel to the death be­tween him and Mrs Proudie. He was a pru­dent man, gift­ed with the great pow­er of hold­ing his tongue, and had not spo­ken a word, even to his wife, of what had oc­curred. Af­ter such a vic­to­ry our old friend the archdea­con would have blown his own trum­pet loud­ly among his friends. Plum­stead would have heard of it in­stant­ly, and the paean would have been sung out in the neigh­bour­ing parish­es of Ei­der­down, Stog­pingum, and St Ewolds. The High Street of Barch­ester would have known of it, and the very be­des­men in Hi­ram’s Hos­pi­tal would have told among them­selves the ter­ri­ble dis­com­fi­ture of the bish­op and his la­dy. But Dr Tem­pest spoke no word of it to any­body. He wrote let­ters to the two cler­gy­men named by the bish­op, and him­self se­lect­ed two oth­ers out of his own ru­ral dean­ery, and sug­gest­ed to them all a day at which a pre­lim­inary meet­ing should be held at his own house. The two who were in­vit­ed by him were Mr Oriel, the rec­tor of Gre­shams­bury, and Mr Ro­barts, the vicar of Fram­ley. They all as­sent­ed to the propo­si­tion, and on the day named as­sem­bled them­selves at Sil­ver­bridge.

It was now April, and the judges were to come in­to Barch­ester be­fore the end of the month. What then could be the use of this ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal in­quiry ex­act­ly at the same time? Men and wom­en de­clared that it was a dou­ble pros­ecu­tion, and that a dou­ble pros­ecu­tion for the same of­fence was a course of ac­tion op­posed to the feel­ings and the tra­di­tions of the coun­try. Miss Anne Pret­ty­man went so far as to say that it was un­con­sti­tu­tion­al, and Mary Walk­er de­clared that no hu­man be­ing ex­cept Mrs Proudie would ev­er have been guilty of such cru­el­ty. ‘Don’t tell me about the bish­op, John,’ she said, ‘the bish­op is a cypher.’ ‘You may be sure Dr Tem­pest would not have a hand in it if it were not right,’ said John Walk­er. ‘My dear Mr John,’ said Miss Anne Pret­ty­man, ‘Dr Tem­pest is as hard as a bar of iron, and al­ways was. But I am sur­prised that Mr Ro­barts should take a part in it.’

In the mean­time, at the palace, Mrs Proudie had been re­duced to learn what was go­ing on from Mr Thum­ble. The bish­op had nev­er spoke a word to her re­spect­ing Mr Craw­ley since that ter­ri­ble day on which Dr Tem­pest had wit­nessed his im­be­cil­ity–hav­ing ab­so­lute­ly de­clined to an­swer when his wife had men­tioned the sub­ject. ‘You won’t speak to me about it, my dear?’ she had said to him, when he had thus de­clined, re­mon­strat­ing more in sor­row than in anger. ‘No; I won’t,’ the bish­op had replied; ‘there has been a great deal too much talk­ing about it. It has bro­ken my heart al­ready, I know.’ These were very bad days in the palace. Mrs Proudie af­fect­ed to be sat­is­fied with what was be­ing done. She talked to Mr Thum­ble about Mr Craw­ley and the cheque, as though ev­ery­thing were ar­ranged quite to her sat­is­fac­tion–as though ev­ery­thing, in­deed, had been ar­ranged by her­self. But ev­ery­body about the house could see that the man­ner of the wom­an was al­to­geth­er al­tered. She was milder than usu­al with the ser­vants and was al­most too gen­tle in her us­age of her hus­band. It seemed as though some­thing had hap­pened to fright­en her and break her spir­it, and it was whis­pered about through the palace that she was afraid that the bish­op was dy­ing. As for him, he hard­ly left his own sit­ting-​room in these days, ex­cept when he joined the fam­ily at break­fast and at din­ner. And in his study he did lit­tle or noth­ing. He would smile when his chap­lain went to him, and give some tri­fling ver­bal di­rec­tions; but for days he scarce­ly ev­er took a pen in his hands, and though he took up many books he read hard­ly a page. How of­ten he told his wife in those days that he was bro­ken-​heart­ed, no one but his wife ev­er knew.

‘What has hap­pened that you should speak like that?’ she said to him once. ‘What has bro­ken your heart?’

‘You,’ he replied. ‘You; you have done it.’

‘Oh, Tom,’ she said, go­ing back in­to the mem­ory of very far dis­tant days in her nomen­cla­ture, ‘how can you speak to me so cru­el­ly as that! That it should come to that be­tween you and me af­ter all!’

‘Why did you not go away and leave me that day when I told you?’

‘Did you ev­er know a wom­an who liked to be turned out of a room in her own house?’ said Mrs Proudie. When Mrs Proudie had con­de­scend­ed so far as this, it must be ad­mit­ted that in those days there was a great deal of trou­ble in the palace.

Mr Thum­ble, on the day be­fore he went to Sil­ver­bridge, asked for an au­di­ence with the bish­op in or­der that he might re­ceive in­struc­tions. He had been strict­ly de­sired to do this by Mrs Proudie, and had not dared to dis­obey her in­junc­tions–think­ing, how­ev­er, him­self, that his do­ing so was in­ex­pe­di­ent. ‘I have got noth­ing to say to you about it; not a word,’ said the bish­op cross­ly. ‘I thought that per­haps you might like to see me be­fore I start­ed,’ plead­ed Mr Thum­ble very humbly. ‘I don’t want to see you at all,’ said the bish­op; ‘you are go­ing there to ex­er­cise your own judg­ment–if you have got any; and you ought not to come to me.’ Af­ter that Mr Thum­ble be­gan to think that Mrs Proudie was right, and that the bish­op was near dis­so­lu­tion.

Mr Thum­ble and Mr Quiv­er­ful went over to Sil­ver­bridge to­geth­er in a gig, hired from the Drag­on of Want­ly–as to the cost of which there arose among them a not un­nat­ural ap­pre­hen­sion which amount­ed to dis­may. ‘I don’t mind it so much for once,’ said Mr Quiv­er­ful, ‘but if many such meet­ings are nec­es­sary, I for one can’t af­ford it, and I won’t do it. A man with my fam­ily can’t al­low him­self to be mon­ey out of pock­et in that way.’ ‘It is hard,’ said Mr Thum­ble. ‘She ought to pay it her­self, out of her own pock­et,’ said Mr Quiv­er­ful. He had had many con­cerns with the palace when Mrs Proudie was in the full swing of her do­min­ion, and had not as yet be­gun to sus­pect that there might pos­si­bly be change.

Mr Oriel and Mr Ro­barts were al­ready sit­ting with Dr Tem­pest when the oth­er two cler­gy­men were shown in­to the room. When the first greet­ings were over lun­cheon was an­nounced, and while they were eat­ing not a word was said about Mr Craw­ley. The ladies of the fam­ily were not present, and the five cler­gy­men sat round the ta­ble alone. It would have been dif­fi­cult to have got to­geth­er five gen­tle­men less like­ly to act with one mind and spir­it;–and per­haps it was all the bet­ter for Mr Craw­ley that it should be so. Dr Tem­pest him­self was a man pe­cu­liar­ly ca­pa­ble of ex­er­cis­ing the func­tion of a judge in the mat­ter, had he sat alone as a judge; but he was one who would be al­most sure to dif­fer from oth­ers who sat as equal as­ses­sors with him. Mr Oriel was a gen­tle­man at all points; but he was very shy, very ret­icent, and al­to­geth­er unin­struct­ed in the or­di­nary dai­ly in­ter­course of man with man. Any­one know­ing him might have pre­dict­ed of him that he would be sure on such an oc­ca­sion as this to be found floun­der­ing in a sea of doubts. Mr Quiv­er­ful was the fa­ther of a large fam­ily, whose life had been de­vot­ed to fight­ing a cru­el world on be­half of his wife and chil­dren. That fight he had fought brave­ly; but it had left him no en­er­gy for any oth­er busi­ness. Mr Thum­ble was a poor crea­ture–so poor a crea­ture that, in spite of a small rest­less am­bi­tion to be do­ing some­thing, he was al­most cowed by the hard lines of Dr Tem­pest’s brow. The Rev. Mr Ro­barts was a man of the world, and a clever fel­low, and did not stand in awe of any­body–un­less it might be, in a very mod­er­ate de­gree, of his pa­trons the Luftons, whom he was bound to re­spect; but his clev­er­ness was not of the clev­er­ness need­ed by a judge. He was es­sen­tial­ly a par­ti­san, and would be sure to vote against the bish­op in such a mat­ter as this now be­fore him. There was a palace fac­tion in the dio­cese, and an an­ti-​palace fac­tion. Mr Thum­ble and Mr Quiv­er­ful be­longed to one, and Mr Oriel and Mr Ro­barts to the oth­er. Mr Thum­ble was too weak to stick to his fac­tion against the strength of such a man as Dr Tem­pest. Mr Quiv­er­ful would be too in­dif­fer­ent to do so–un­less his in­ter­est was con­cerned. Mr Oriel would be too con­sci­en­tious to re­gard his own side on such an oc­ca­sion as this. But Mark Ro­barts would be sure to sup­port his friends and op­pose his en­emies, let the case be what it might. ‘Now, gen­tle­men, if you please, we will go in­to the oth­er room,’ said Dr Tem­pest. They went in­to the oth­er room, and there they found five chairs ar­ranged for them round the ta­ble. Not a word had as yet been said about Mr Craw­ley, and no one of the four strangers knew whether Mr Craw­ley was to ap­pear be­fore them on that day or not.

‘Gen­tle­men,’ said Dr Tem­pest, seat­ing him­self at once in an arm­chair placed at the mid­dle of the ta­ble, ‘I think it will be well to ex­plain to you at first what, as I re­gard the mat­ter, is the ex­tent of the work which we are called up­on to per­form. It is of its na­ture very dis­agree­able. It can­not but be so, be it ev­er so lim­it­ed. Here is a broth­er cler­gy­man and a gen­tle­man, liv­ing among us, and do­ing his du­ty, as we are told, in a most ex­em­plary man­ner; and sud­den­ly we hear that he is ac­cused of theft. The mat­ter is brought be­fore the mag­is­trates, of whom I my­self was one, and he was com­mit­ted for tri­al. There is there­fore pri­ma fa­cie ev­idence of his guilt. But I do not think that we need to go in­to the ques­tion of his guilt at all.’ When he said this, the oth­er four all looked up at him in as­ton­ish­ment. ‘I thought that we had been sum­moned here for that pur­pose,’ said Mr Ro­barts. ‘Not at all, as I take it,’ said the doc­tor. ‘Were we to com­mence any such in­quiry, the ju­ry would have giv­en their ver­dict be­fore we could come to any con­clu­sion; and it would be im­pos­si­ble for us to op­pose that ver­dict whether it de­clares this un­for­tu­nate gen­tle­man to be in­no­cent or to be guilty. If the ju­ry shall say that he is in­no­cent, there is an end of the mat­ter al­to­geth­er. He would go back to his parish amidst the sym­pa­thy and con­grat­ula­tions of his friends. That is what we all should wish.’

‘Of course it is,’ said Mr Ro­barts. They all de­clared that was their de­sire, as a mat­ter of course; and Mr Thum­ble said it loud­er than any­one else.

‘But if he is found guilty, then will come that dif­fi­cul­ty to the bish­op, in which we are bound to give him any as­sis­tance with­in our pow­er.’

‘Of course we are,’ said Mr Thum­ble, who, hav­ing heard his own voice once, and hav­ing liked the sound, thought that he might creep in­to a lit­tle im­por­tance by us­ing it on any oc­ca­sion that opened it­self for him.

‘If you will al­low me, sir, I will ven­ture to state my views short­ly as I can,’ said Dr Tem­pest. ‘That may per­haps be the most ex­pe­di­ent course for us all in the end.’

‘Oh, cer­tain­ly,’ said Mr Thum­ble. ‘I didn’t mean to in­ter­rupt.’

‘In the case of his be­ing found guilty,’ con­tin­ued the doc­tor, ‘there will arise the ques­tion whether the pun­ish­ment award­ed to him by the judge should suf­fice for ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal pur­pos­es. Sup­pose, for in­stance, that he should be im­pris­oned for two months, should he be al­lowed to re­turn to his liv­ing at the ex­pi­ra­tion of that term?’

‘I think he ought,’ said Mr Ro­barts:–’con­sid­er­ing all things.’

‘I don’t see why he shouldn’t,’ said Mr Quiv­er­ful.

Mr Oriel sat lis­ten­ing pa­tient­ly, and Mr Thum­ble looked up to the doc­tor, ex­pect­ing to hear some opin­ion ex­pressed by him with which he might co­in­cide.

‘There cer­tain­ly are rea­sons why he should not,’ said Dr Tem­pest; ‘though I by no means say that those rea­sons are con­clu­sive in the present case. In the first place, a man who has stolen mon­ey can hard­ly be a fit­ting per­son to teach oth­ers not to steal.’

‘You must look to the cir­cum­stances,’ said Ro­barts.

‘Yes, that is true; but just bear with me for a mo­ment. It can­not, at any rate, be thought that a cler­gy­man should come out of prison and go to his liv­ing with­out any no­tice from his bish­op, sim­ply be­cause he has al­ready been pun­ished by the com­mon law. If this were so, a cler­gy­man might be fined ten days run­ning for be­ing drunk in the street–five shillings each time–and at the end of that time might set his bish­op at de­fi­ance. When a cler­gy­man has shown him­self to be ut­ter­ly un­fit for cler­ical du­ties, he must not be held to be pro­tect­ed from ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal cen­sure or from de­pri­va­tion by the ac­tion of the com­mon law.’

‘But Mr Craw­ley has not shown him­self to be un­fit,’ said Ro­barts.

‘That is beg­ging the ques­tion, Ro­barts,’ said the doc­tor.

‘Just so,’ said Mr Thum­ble. Then Mr Ro­barts gave a look at Mr Thum­ble, and Mr Thum­ble re­tired in­to his shoes.

‘That is the ques­tion as to which we are called up­on to ad­vise the bish­op,’ con­tin­ued Dr Tem­pest. ‘And I must say that I think the bish­op is right. If he were to al­low the mat­ter to pass by with­out no­tice–that is to say, in the event of Mr Craw­ley be­ing pro­nounced guilty by a ju­ry–he would, I think, ne­glect in his du­ty. Now I have been in­formed that the bish­op has rec­om­mend­ed Mr Craw­ley to de­sist from his du­ties till the tri­al be over, and that Mr Craw­ley has de­clined to take the bish­op’s ad­vice.’

‘That is true,’ said Mr Thum­ble. ‘He al­to­geth­er dis­re­gard­ed the bish­op.’

‘I think he was quite right,’ said Mr Ro­barts.

‘A bish­op in al­most all cas­es is en­ti­tled to the obe­di­ence of his cler­gy,’ said Mr Oriel.

‘I must say I agree with you, sir,’ said Mr Thum­ble.

‘Be that as it may,’ con­tin­ued the doc­tor, ‘the bish­op feels that it may be his du­ty to op­pose the re­turn of Mr Craw­ley to his pul­pit, and that he can op­pose it in no oth­er way than by pro­ceed­ing against Mr Craw­ley un­der the Cler­ical Of­fences Act. I pro­pose, there­fore, that we should in­vite Mr Craw­ley to at­tend here–’

‘Mr Craw­ley is not com­ing here to­day, then?’ said Mr Ro­barts.

‘I thought it use­less to ask for his at­ten­dance un­til we had set­tled on our own course of ac­tion,’ said Dr Tem­pest. ‘If we are all agreed, I will beg him to come here on this day week, when we will meet again. And we will then ask him whether he will sub­mit him­self to the bish­op’s de­ci­sion, in the event of the ju­ry find­ing him guilty. If he should de­cline to do so, we can on­ly then form our opin­ion as to what will be the bish­op’s du­ty by ref­er­ence to the facts as they are elicit­ed at the tri­al. If Mr Craw­ley should choose to make to us any state­ment as to his own case, of course we shall be will­ing to re­ceive it. That is my idea of what had bet­ter be done; and now, if any gen­tle­man has any oth­er propo­si­tion to make, of course we shall be pleased to hear him.’ Dr Tem­pest, as he said this, looked round up­on his com­pan­ions, as though his plea­sure, un­der the cir­cum­stances sug­gest­ed by him­self, would be very doubt­ful.

‘I don’t sup­pose we can do any­thing bet­ter,’ said Mr Ro­barts. ‘I think it a pity, how­ev­er, that any steps should have been tak­en by the bish­op be­fore the tri­al.’

‘The bish­op has been placed in a very del­icate po­si­tion,’ said Mr Thum­ble, plead­ing for his pa­tron.

‘I don’t know the mean­ing of the word “del­icate”,’ said Ro­barts. ‘I think his du­ty was very clear, to avoid in­ter­fer­ence whilst the mat­ter is, so to say, be­fore the judge.’

‘No­body has any­thing else to pro­pose?’ said Dr Tem­pest. ‘Then I will write to Mr Craw­ley and you, gen­tle­men, will per­haps do me the hon­our of meet­ing me here at one o’clock this day week.’ Then the meet­ing was over, and the four cler­gy­men hav­ing shak­en hands with Dr Tem­pest in the hall, all promised that they would re­turn on that day week. So far, Dr Tem­pest had car­ried his point ex­act­ly as he might have done had the four gen­tle­men been rep­re­sent­ed by the chairs on which they sat.

‘I shan’t come again all the same, un­less I know where I’m to get my ex­pens­es,’ said Mr Quiv­er­ful, as he got in­to the gig.

‘I shall come,’ said Mr Thum­ble, ‘be­cause I think it a du­ty. Of course it is a hard­ship.’ Mr Thum­ble liked the idea of be­ing joined with such men as Dr Tem­pest, and Mr Oriel, and Mr Ro­barts, and would any day have paid the ex­pense of a gig from Barch­ester to Sil­ver­bridge out of his own pock­et, for the sake of sit­ting with such bench­fel­lows on any cler­ical in­quiry.

‘One’s first du­ty is to one’s own wife and fam­ily,’ said Mr Quiv­er­ful.

‘Well, yes; in a way, of course, that is quite true, Mr Quiv­er­ful; and when we know how very in­ad­equate are the in­comes of the work­ing cler­gy, we can­not but feel our­selves to be, if I may so say, put up­on, when we have to de­fray the ex­pens­es in­ci­den­tal to spe­cial du­ties out of our own pock­ets. I think, you know–I don’t mind say­ing this to you–that the palace should have pro­vid­ed us with a chaise and pair.’ This was un­grate­ful on the part of Mr Thum­ble, who had been per­mit­ted to ride miles up­on miles to var­ious out­ly­ing cler­ical du­ties up­on the bish­op’s worn-​out cob. ‘You see,’ con­tin­ued Mr Thum­ble, ‘you and I go spe­cial­ly to rep­re­sent the palace, and the palace ought to re­mem­ber that. I think there ought to have been a chaise and pair; I do in­deed.’

‘I don’t care much what the con­veyance is,’ said Mr Quiv­er­ful; ‘but I cer­tain­ly shall pay noth­ing more out of my own pock­et;–cer­tain­ly I shall not.’

‘The re­sult will be that the palace will be thrown over if they don’t take care,’ said Mr Thum­ble. ‘Tem­pest, how­ev­er, seems to be pret­ty steady. Tem­pest, I think, is steady. You see he is get­ting tired of parish work, and would like to go in­to the close. That’s what he is look­ing out for. Did you ev­er see such a fel­low as that Ro­barts–just look at him;–quite in­de­cent, wasn’t he? He thinks he can have his own way in ev­ery­thing just be­cause his sis­ter is mar­ried to a lord. I do hate to see all that mean­ness.’

Mark Ro­barts and Caleb Oriel left Sil­ver­bridge in an­oth­er gig by the same road, and soon passed their brethren, as Mr Ro­barts was in the habit of driv­ing a large, quick-​step­ping horse. The last re­marks were be­ing made as the dust from the vicar of Fram­ley’s wheels salut­ed the faces of the two slow­er cler­gy­men. Mr Oriel had promised to dine and sleep at Fram­ley, and there­fore re­turned in Mr Ro­barts’s gig.

‘Quite un­nec­es­sary, all this fuss; don’t you think so?’ said Mr Ro­barts.

‘I am not quite sure,’ said Mr Oriel. ‘I can un­der­stand that the bish­op may have found a dif­fi­cul­ty.’

‘The bish­op in­deed! The bish­op doesn’t care two straws about it. It’s Mrs Proudie! She has put her fin­ger on the poor man’s neck be­cause he has not put his neck be­neath her feet; and now she thinks she can crush him–as she would crush you or me, if it were in her pow­er. That’s about the long and the short of the bish­op’s so­lic­itude.’

‘You are very hard on him,’ said Mr Oriel.

‘I know him;–and am not all hard on him. She is hard up­on him if you like. Tem­pest is fair. He is very fair, and as long as no one med­dles with him he won’t do amiss. I can’t hold my tongue al­ways, but I of­ten know that it is bet­ter that I should.’

Dr Tem­pest said not a word to any­one on the sub­ject, not even in his own de­fence. And yet he was sore­ly tempt­ed. On the very day of the meet­ing he dined at Mr Walk­er’s in Sil­ver­bridge, and there sub­mit­ted to be talked to by all the ladies and most of the gen­tle­men present, with­out say­ing a word in his own de­fence. And yet a word or two would have been so easy and so con­clu­sive.

‘Oh, Dr Tem­pest,’ said Mary Walk­er, ‘I am so sor­ry that you have joined the bish­op.’

‘Are you, my dear?’ said he. ‘It is gen­er­al­ly thought well that a parish cler­gy­man should agree with his bish­op.’

‘But you know, Mr Tem­pest, that you don’t agree with your bish­op gen­er­al­ly.’

‘Then it is the more for­tu­nate that I shall be able to agree with him on this oc­ca­sion.’

Ma­jor Grant­ly was present at the din­ner, and ven­tured to ask the doc­tor in the course of the evening what he thought would be done. ‘I should not ven­ture to ask such a ques­tion, Dr Tem­pest,’ he said, ‘un­less I had the strongest pos­si­ble rea­son to jus­ti­fy my anx­iety.’

‘I don’t know that I can tell you any­thing, Ma­jor Grant­ly,’ said the doc­tor. ‘We did not even see Mr Craw­ley to­day. But the re­al truth is that he must stand or fall as the ju­ry shall find him guilty or not guilty. It would be the same in any pro­fes­sion. Could a cap­tain in the army hold up his head in his reg­iment af­ter he had been tried and found guilty of steal­ing twen­ty pounds?’

‘I don’t think he could,’ said the ma­jor.

‘Nei­ther can a cler­gy­man,’ said the doc­tor. ‘The bish­op can nei­ther make him nor mar him. It is the ju­ry that must do it.’