The Last Chronicle of Barset

CHAPTER LXIV

TRAGEDY AT HOOK COURT

Con­way Dal­rym­ple had hur­ried out of the room in Mrs Broughton’s house in which he had been paint­ing Jael and Sis­era, think­ing that it would be bet­ter to meet an an­gry and per­haps tip­sy hus­band on the stairs, than it would be ei­ther to wait for him till he should make his way in­to his wife’s room, or to hide away from him with the view of es­cap­ing al­to­geth­er from so dis­agree­able an en­counter. He had no fear of the man. He did not think that there would be any vi­olence–nor, as re­gard­ed him­self, did he much care if there was to be vi­olence. But he felt that he was bound, as far as it might be pos­si­ble, to screen the poor wom­an from the ill ef­fects of her hus­band’s tem­per and con­di­tion. He was, there­fore, pre­pared to stop Broughton on the stairs, and to use some force in ar­rest­ing him on his way, should he find the man to be re­al­ly in­tox­icat­ed. But he had not de­scend­ed above a stair or two be­fore he was aware that the man be­low him, whose step had been heard, was not in­tox­icat­ed, and that he was not Dobbs Broughton. It was Mr Mus­sel­boro.

‘It is you, is it?’ said Con­way. ‘I thought it was Broughton.’ then he looked in­to the man’s face and saw that he was ashy pale. All that ap­pear­ance of low-​bred jaun­ti­ness which used to be­long to him seemed to have been washed out of him. His hair had for­got­ten to curl, his gloves had been thrown aside, and even his trin­kets were out of sight. ‘What has hap­pened,’ said Con­way. ‘What is the mat­ter? Some­thing is wrong.’ Then it oc­curred to him that Mus­sel­boro had been sent to the house to tell the wife of the hus­band’s ru­in.

‘The ser­vant told me that I should find you up­stairs,’ said Mus­sel­boro.

‘Yes; I have a paint­ing here. For some time past I have been do­ing a pic­ture of Miss Van Siev­er. Mrs Van Siev­er has been here to­day.’ Con­way thought that this in­for­ma­tion would pro­duce some strong ef­fect on Clara’s pro­posed hus­band; but he did not seem to re­gard the mat­ter of the pic­ture nor the men­tion of Miss Van Siev­er’s name.

‘She knows noth­ing of it?’ said he. ‘She doesn’t know yet?’

‘Know what?’ said Con­way. ‘She knows that her hus­band has lost mon­ey.’

‘Dobbs has–de­stroyed him­self.’

‘What!’

‘Blew his brains out this morn­ing just in­side the en­trance at Hook Court. The hor­ror of drink was on him, and he stood just in the path­way and shot him­self. Ban­gles was stand­ing at the top of their vaults and saw him do it. I don’t think Ban­gles will ev­er be a man again. Oh lord! I shall nev­er get over it my­self. The body was there when I went in.’ Then Mus­sel­boro sank back against the wall of the stair­case, and stared at Dal­rym­ple as though he still saw be­fore him the ter­ri­ble sight of which he had just spo­ken.

Dal­rym­ple seat­ed him­self on the stairs and strove to bring his mind to bear on the tale which he had just heard. What was he to do, and how was that poor wom­an up­stairs to be in­formed? ‘You came here in­tend­ing to tell her,’ he said in a whis­per. He feared ev­ery mo­ment that Mrs Broughton would ap­pear on the stairs, and learn from a word or two what had hap­pened with­out any hint to pre­pare her for the catas­tro­phe.

‘I thought you would be here. I knew you were do­ing the pic­ture. He knew it. He’d a let­ter to say so–one of those anony­mous ones.’

‘But that didn’t in­flu­ence him?’

‘I don’t think it was that,’ said Mus­sel­boro. ‘He meant to have had it out with her; but it wasn’t that as brought this about. Per­haps you didn’t know that he was clean ru­ined?’

‘She had told me.’

‘Then she knew it?’

‘Oh, yes; she knew that. Mrs Van Siev­er had told her. Poor crea­ture! How are we to break this to her?’

‘You and she are very thick,’ said Mus­sel­boro. ‘I sup­pose you’ll do it best.’ By this time they were in the draw­ing-​room, and the door was closed. Dal­rym­ple had put his hand on the oth­er man’s arm, and had led him down­stairs, out of reach of hear­ing from the room above. ‘You’ll tell her–won’t you?’ said Mus­sel­boro. Then Dal­rym­ple tried to think what lov­ing fe­male friend there was who would break the news to the un­for­tu­nate wom­an. He knew of the Van Siev­ers, and he knew of the De­mo­lines, and he al­most knew that there was no oth­er wom­an with­in reach whom he was en­ti­tled to re­gard as close­ly con­nect­ed with Mrs Broughton. He was well aware that the anony­mous let­ter of which Mus­sel­boro had just spo­ken had come from Miss De­mo­lines, and he could not go there for sym­pa­thy and as­sis­tance. Nor could he ap­ply to Mrs Van Siev­er af­ter with had passed this morn­ing. To Clara Van Siev­er he would have ap­plied, but that it was im­pos­si­ble he should reach Clara ex­cept through her moth­er. ‘I sup­pose I had bet­ter go to her,’ he said, af­ter a while. And then he went, leav­ing Mus­sel­boro in the draw­ing-​room. ‘I’m so bad with it,’ said Mus­sel­boro, ‘that I re­al­ly don’t know how I shall ev­er go up that court again.’

Con­way Dal­rym­ple made his way up the stairs with very slow steps, and as he did so he could not but think se­ri­ous­ly of the na­ture of his friend­ship with this wom­an, and could not but con­demn him­self hearti­ly for the fol­ly and in­iq­ui­ty of his own con­duct. Scores of times he had pro­fessed his love to her with half-​ex­pressed words, in­tend­ed to mean noth­ing, as he said to him­self when he tried to ex­cuse him­self, but enough to turn her head, even if they did not reach her heart. Now, this wom­an was a wid­ow, and it came to be his du­ty to tell her that she was so. What if she should claim from him now the love which he had so of­ten prof­fered to her! It was not that he feared that she would claim any­thing from him at this mo­ment–nei­ther now, nor to­mor­row, nor the next day–but the agony of the present meet­ing would pro­duce oth­ers in which there would be some ten­der­ness mixed with the agony; and so from one meet­ing to an­oth­er the thing would progress. But in this dan­ger be­fore him, it was not of him­self that he was think­ing, but of her. How could he as­sist her at such a time with­out do­ing her more in­jury than ben­efit? And, if he did not as­sist her, who would do so? He knew her to be heart­less; but even heart­less peo­ple have hearts which can be touched and al­most bro­ken by cer­tain sor­rows. Her heart would not be bro­ken by her hus­band’s death, but it would be­come very sore if she were ut­ter­ly ne­glect­ed. He was now at the door, with his hand on the lock, and was won­der­ing why she should re­main so long with­in with­out mak­ing her­self heard. Then he opened it, and found her seat­ed in a lounge-​chair, with her back to the door, and he could see that she had a vol­ume of a nov­el in her hand. He un­der­stood it all. She was pre­tend­ing to be in­dif­fer­ent to her hus­band’s re­turn. He walked up to her, think­ing that she would recog­nise his step; but she made no sign of turn­ing to­wards him. He saw the mo­tion of her hair over the back of the chair as she af­fect­ed to make her­self lux­uri­ous­ly com­fort­able. She was striv­ing to let her hus­band see that she cared noth­ing for him, or for his con­di­tion, or for his jeal­ousy, if he were jeal­ous–or even of his ru­in. ‘Mrs Broughton,’ he said, when he was close to her. Then she jumped up quick­ly, and turned round fac­ing him. ‘Where is Dobbs?’ she said. ‘Where is Dobbs?’

‘He is not here.’

‘He is in the house, for I heard him. Why have you come back?’

Dal­rym­ple’s eye fell on the tat­tered can­vas, and he thought of the do­ings of the past month. He thought of the pic­ture of the three Graces, which was hang­ing in the room be­low, and he thor­ough­ly wished that he had nev­er been in­tro­duced to the Broughton es­tab­lish­ment. How was he to get through his present dif­fi­cul­ty? ‘No,’ said he, ‘Broughton did not come. It was Mr Mus­sel­boro whose steps you heard be­low.’

‘What is he here for? What is he do­ing here? Where is Dobbs? Con­way, there is some­thing the mat­ter. Has he gone off?’

‘Yes;–he has gone off.’

‘The cow­ard!’

‘No; he was not a cow­ard;–not in that way.’

The use of the past tense, un­in­ten­tion­al as it had been, told the sto­ry to the wom­an at once. ‘He is dead,’ she said. Then he took both her hands in his and looked in­to her face, with­out speak­ing a word. And she gazed at him with fixed eyes, and rigid mouth, while the quick com­ing breath just moved the curl of her nos­trils. It oc­curred to him at that mo­ment that he had nev­er be­fore seen her so whol­ly un­af­fect­ed, and had nev­er be­fore ob­served that she was so to­tal­ly de­fi­cient in all the el­ements of re­al beau­ty. She was the first to speak again. ‘Con­way,’ she said, ‘tell me all. Why do you not speak to me?’

‘There is noth­ing fur­ther to tell,’ he said.

Then she dropped her hands and walked away from him to the win­dow–and stood there look­ing out up­on the stuc­coed tur­ret of a huge house that stood op­po­site. As she did so she was em­ploy­ing her­self in count­ing the win­dows. Her mind was paral­ysed by the blow, and she knew not how to make any ex­er­tion with it for any pur­pose. Ev­ery­thing was changed with her–and was changed in such a way that she could make no guess as to her fu­ture mode of life. She was sud­den­ly a wid­ow, a pau­per, and ut­ter­ly des­olate–while the on­ly per­son in the whole world that she re­al­ly liked was stand­ing close to her. But in the midst of it all she count­ed the win­dows of the house op­po­site. Had it been pos­si­ble for her she would have put her mind al­to­geth­er to sleep.

He let her stand for a few min­utes and then joined her at the win­dow. ‘My friend,’ he said, ‘what shall I do for you?’

‘Do?’ she said. ‘What do you mean by–do­ing?’

‘Come and sit down and let me talk to you,’ he replied. Then he led her to the so­fa, and as she seat­ed her­self I doubt whether she had not al­most for­got­ten that her hus­band was dead.

‘What a pity it was to cut it up,’ she said, point­ing to the rags of Jael and Sis­era.

‘Nev­er mind the pic­ture now. Dread­ful as it is, you must al­low your­self to think of him for a few min­utes.’

‘Think of what! Oh, God! Yes. Con­way, you must tell me what to do. Was ev­ery­thing gone? It isn’t about my­self. I don’t mind about my­self. I wish it was me in­stead of him. I do. I do.’

‘No wish­ing is of any avail.’

‘But, Con­way, how did it hap­pen? Do you think it is true? That man would say any­thing to gain his ob­ject. Is he here now?’

‘I be­lieve he is here still.’

‘I won’t see him. Re­mem­ber that. Noth­ing on earth can make me see him.’

‘It may be nec­es­sary, but I do not think it will be;–at any rate, not yet.’

‘I will nev­er see him. I be­lieve that he has mur­dered my hus­band. I do. I feel sure of it. Now I think of it I am quite sure of it. And he will mur­der you too;–about that girl. He will. I tell you I know the man.’ Dal­rym­ple sim­ply shook his head, smil­ing sad­ly. ‘Very well! You will see. But, Con­way, how do you know that it is true? Do you be­lieve it your­self?’

‘I do be­lieve it.’

‘And how did it hap­pen?’

‘He could not bear the ru­in that he had brought up­on him­self and you.’

‘Then;–then–’ She went no fur­ther in her speech; but Dal­rym­ple as­sent­ed by a slight mo­tion of his head, and she had been in­formed suf­fi­cient­ly that her hus­band had per­ished by his own hand. ‘What am I to do?’ she said. ‘Oh, Con­way, you must tell me. Was there ev­er so mis­er­able a wom­an! Was it–poi­son?’

He got up and walked quick­ly across the room and back again to the place where she was sit­ting. ‘Nev­er mind about that now. You shall know all that in time. Do not ask me any ques­tions about that. If I were you I think I would go to bed. You will be bet­ter there than up, and this shock will make you sleep.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I will not go to bed. How should I know that that man would not come and kill me? I be­lieve he mur­dered Dobbs;–I do. You are not go­ing to leave me, Con­way?’

‘I think I had bet­ter, for a while. There are things which should be done. Shall I send one of the wom­en for you?’

‘There is not one of them that cares for me in the least. Oh, Con­way, do not go; not yet. I will not be left alone in the house with him. You will be very cru­el if you go and leave me now–when you have so of­ten said that you–that you–that you were my friend.’ And now, at last, she be­gan to weep.

‘I think it will be best,’ he said, ‘that I should go to Mrs Van Siev­er. If I can man­age it, I will get Clara to come to you.’

‘I do not want her,’ said Mrs Broughton. ‘She is a heart­less cold crea­ture, and I do not want to have her near me. My poor hus­band was ru­ined among them;–yes, ru­ined among them. It has all been done that she may mar­ry that hor­rid man and live here in this house. I have known ev­er so long that he has not been safe among them.’

‘You need fear noth­ing from Clara,’ said Dal­rym­ple, with some touch of anger in his voice.

‘Of course you will say so. I can un­der­stand that very well. And it is nat­ural that you should wish to be with her. Pray go.’

Then he sat be­side her, and took her hand, and en­deav­oured to speak to her so se­ri­ous­ly, that she her­self might be­come se­ri­ous, and if it might be pos­si­ble, in some de­gree con­tem­pla­tive. He told her how nec­es­sary it was that she should have some wom­an near her in her trou­ble, and ex­plained to her that as far as he knew her fe­male friends, there would be no one who would be so con­sid­er­ate with her as Clara Van Siev­er. She at one time men­tioned the name of Miss De­mo­lines; but Dal­rym­ple al­to­geth­er op­posed the no­tion of send­ing for that la­dy–ex­press­ing his opin­ion that the ami­able Madali­na had done all in her pow­er to cre­ate quar­rels be­tween Mrs Broughton and her hus­band and be­tween Dobbs Broughton and Mrs Van Siev­er. And he spoke his opin­ion very ful­ly about Miss De­mo­lines. ‘And yet you liked her once,’ said Mrs Broughton. ‘I nev­er liked her,’ said Dal­rym­ple with en­er­gy. ‘But all that mat­ters noth­ing now. Of course you can send for her if you please; but I do not think her trust­wor­thy, and I will not will­ing­ly come in con­tact with her.’ Then Mrs Broughton gave him to un­der­stand that of course she must give way, but that in giv­ing way she felt her­self to be sub­mit­ting to ill-​us­age which is the or­di­nary lot of wom­en, and to which she, among wom­en, had been spe­cial­ly sub­ject­ed. She did not ex­act­ly say as much, fear­ing that if she did he would leave her al­to­geth­er; but that was the gist of he plaints and wails, and fi­nal ac­qui­es­cence.

‘And are you go­ing?’ she said, catch­ing hold of his arm.

‘I will em­ploy my­self al­to­geth­er and on­ly about your af­fairs, till I see you again.’

‘But I want you to stay.’

‘It would be mad­ness. Look here;–lie down till Clara comes or till I re­turn. Do not go be­yond this room and your own. If she can­not come this evening I will re­turn. Good-​bye now. I will see the ser­vants as I go out, and tell them what ought to be told.’

‘Oh, Con­way,’ she said, clutch­ing hold of him again. ‘I know that you de­spise me.’

‘I do not de­spise you, and I will be as good a friend to you as I can. God bless you.’ Then he went, and as he de­scend­ed the stairs he could not re­frain from telling him­self that he did in truth de­spise her.

His first ob­ject was to find Mus­sel­boro, and to dis­miss that gen­tle­man from the house. For though he him­self did not at­tribute to Mrs Van Siev­er’s favourite any of those ter­ri­ble crimes and po­ten­tial­ities for crime with which Mrs Dobbs Broughton had in­vest­ed him, still he thought it rea­son­able that the poor wom­an up­stairs should not be sub­ject­ed to the ne­ces­si­ty of ei­ther see­ing him or hear­ing him. But Mus­sel­boro had gone, and Dal­rym­ple could not learn from the head wom­an-​ser­vant whom he saw, whether be­fore go­ing he had told to any­one in the house the tale of the catas­tro­phe which had hap­pened in the City. Ser­vants are won­der­ful ac­tors, look­ing of­ten as though they knew noth­ing when they knew ev­ery­thing–as though they un­der­stood noth­ing, when they un­der­stood all. Dal­rym­ple made known all that was nec­es­sary, and the dis­creet up­per ser­vant lis­tened to the tale, with the prop­er amount of awe and hor­ror and com­mis­er­ation. ‘Shot his­self in the City;–laws! You’ll ex­cuse me, sir, but we all know’d as mas­ter was com­ing to no good.’ But she promised to do her best with her mis­tress–and kept her promise. It is sel­dom that ser­vants are not good in such straits as that.

From Mrs Broughton’s house Dal­rym­ple went di­rect­ly to Mrs Van Siev­er’s, and learned that Mus­sel­boro had been there about half an hour be­fore, and had then gone off in a cab with Mrs Van Siev­er. It was now near­ly four o’clock in the af­ter­noon, and no one in the house knew when Mrs Van Siev­er would be back. Miss Van Siev­er was out, and had been out when Mr Mus­sel­boro had called, but was ex­pect­ed ev­ery minute. Con­way there­fore said that he would call again, and on re­turn­ing found Clara alone. She had not then heard a word of the fate of Dobbs Broughton. Of course she would go at once to Mrs Broughton, and if nec­es­sary stay with her dur­ing the night. She wrote a line at once to her moth­er, say­ing where she was, and went across to Mrs Broughton lean­ing on Dal­rym­ple’s arm. ‘Be good to her,’ said Con­way, as he left her at the door. ‘I will,’ said Clara. ‘I will be as kind as na­ture will al­low me.’ ‘And re­mem­ber,’ said Con­way, whis­per­ing in­to her ear as he pressed her hand at leav­ing her, ‘that you are the all the world to me.’ It was per­haps not a prop­er time for an ex­pres­sion of love, but Clara Van Siev­er for­gave the im­pro­pri­ety.