The Last Chronicle of Barset

CHAPTER LXVII

IN MEMO­RI­AM

The bish­op when he had heard of the tid­ings of his wife’s death walked back to his seat over the fire, and Mrs Drap­er, the house­keep­er came and stood over him with­out speak­ing. Thus she stood for ten min­utes look­ing down at him and lis­ten­ing. But there was no sound; not a word, nor a moan, nor a sob. It was as though he al­so were dead, but that a slight ir­reg­ular move­ment of his fin­gers on the top of his bald head, told her that his mind and body were still ac­tive. ‘My lord,’ she said at last, ‘would you wish to see the doc­tor when he comes?’ She spoke very low and he did not an­swer her. Then, af­ter an­oth­er minute of si­lence, she asked the same ques­tion again.

‘What doc­tor?’ he said.

‘Dr Fil­grave. We sent for him. Per­haps he is here now. Shall I go and see, my lord?’ Mrs Drap­er found that her po­si­tion there was weary and she wished to es­cape. Any­thing on his be­half re­quir­ing trou­ble or work she would have done will­ing­ly; but she could not stand there for ev­er, watch­ing the mo­tion of his fin­gers.

‘I sup­pose I must see him,’ said the bish­op. Mrs Drap­er took this as an or­der for her de­par­ture, and crept silent­ly out of the room, clos­ing the door be­hind her with the long pro­tract­ed elab­orate click which is al­ways pro­duced by an at­tempt at si­lence on such oc­ca­sions. He did not care for noise or for si­lence. Had she slammed the door he would not have re­gard­ed it. A won­der­ful si­lence had come up­on him which for the time al­most crushed him. He would nev­er hear that well-​known voice again!

He was free now. Even in his mis­ery–for he was very mis­er­able–he could not re­frain from telling him­self that. No once could now press un­called-​for in­to his study, con­tra­dict him in the pres­ence of those be­fore whom he was bound to be au­thor­ita­tive, and rob him of all his dig­ni­ty. There was no one else of whom he was afraid. She had at least kept him out of the hands of oth­er tyrants. He was now his own mas­ter, and there was the feel­ing–I may not call it of re­lief, for as yet there was more of pain in it than of sat­is­fac­tion–a feel­ing as though he had es­caped from an old trou­ble at a ter­ri­ble cost of which he could not as yet cal­cu­late the amount. He knew that he might now give up all idea of writ­ing to the arch­bish­op.

She had in some ways, and at cer­tain pe­ri­ods of his life, been very good to him. She had kept his mon­ey for him and made things go straight, when they had been poor. His in­ter­ests had al­ways been her in­ter­ests. With­out her he would nev­er have been a bish­op. So, at least, he told him­self now, and so told him­self prob­ably with truth. She had been very care­ful of his chil­dren. She had nev­er been idle. She had nev­er been fond of plea­sure. She had ne­glect­ed no ac­knowl­edged du­ty. He did not doubt that she was now on her way to heav­en. He took his hands from his head, and clasp­ing them to­geth­er, said a lit­tle prayer. It may be doubt­ed whether he quite knew for what he was pray­ing. The idea of giv­ing up her soul, now that she was dead, would have scan­dalised him. He cer­tain­ly was not pray­ing for his own soul. I think that he was pray­ing that God might save him from be­ing glad that his wife was dead.

But she was dead–and, as it were, in a mo­ment! He had not stirred out of that room since she had been there with him. Then there had been an­gry words be­tween them–per­haps more de­ter­mined en­mi­ty on his part than ev­er had ex­ist­ed; and they had part­ed for the last time with bit­ter an­imos­ity. But he told him­self that he had cer­tain­ly been right in what he had done then. He thought he had been right then. And so his mind went back to the Craw­ley and Thum­ble ques­tion, and he tried to al­le­vi­ate the mis­ery which the last in­ter­view with his wife now cre­at­ed by as­sur­ing him­self that he at least been jus­ti­fied in what he had done.

But yet his thoughts were very ten­der to her. Noth­ing re­opens the springs of love so ful­ly as ab­sence, and no ab­sence so thor­ough­ly as that which must needs be end­less. We want that which we have not; and es­pe­cial­ly that which we nev­er can have. She had told him in the very last mo­ments of her pres­ence with him that he was wish­ing she were dead, and he had made no re­ply. At the mo­ment he had felt, with sav­age anger, that such was his wish. Her words had now come to pass, and he was a wid­ow­er–and he as­sured him­self that he would give all that he pos­sessed in the world to bring her back again.

Yes, he was a wid­ow­er, and he might do as he pleased. The tyrant was gone, and he was free. The tyrant was gone, and the tyran­ny had doubt­less been very op­pres­sive. Who had suf­fered as he had done? But in thus be­ing left with­out his tyrant he was wretched­ly des­olate. Might it not be that the tyran­ny had been good for him?–that the Lord had known best what wife was fit for him? Then he thought of a sto­ry which he had read–and had well marked as he was read­ing–of some man who had been ter­ri­bly af­flict­ed by his wife, whose wife had starved him and beat­en him and re­viled him; and yet this man had been able to thank God for hav­ing mor­ti­fied him in the flesh. Might it not be that the mor­ti­fi­ca­tion which he him­self had doubt­less suf­fered in his flesh had been in­tend­ed for his wel­fare, and had been very good for him? But if this were so, it might be that the mor­ti­fi­ca­tion was now re­moved be­cause the Lord knew that his ser­vant had been suf­fi­cient­ly mor­ti­fied. He had not been starved or beat­en, but the mor­ti­fi­ca­tion had been cer­tain­ly se­vere. Then there came these words–in­to his mind, not in­to his mouth–’The Lord sent the thorn, and the Lord has tak­en it away. Blessed be the Lord.’ Af­ter that he was very an­gry with him­self, and tried to pray that he might be for­giv­en. While he was so striv­ing there came a low knock at the door, and Mrs Drap­er again en­tered the room.

‘Dr Fil­grave, my lord, was not at home,’ said Mrs Drap­er; ‘but he will be sent the mo­ment when he ar­rives.’

‘Very well, Mrs Drap­er.’

‘But, my lord, will you not come out to din­ner? A lit­tle soup, or a morsel of some­thing to eat, and a glass of wine, will en­able your lord­ship to bear it bet­ter.’ He al­lowed Mrs Drap­er to per­suade him, and fol­lowed her in­to the din­ing-​room. ‘Do not go, Mrs Drap­er,’ he said; ‘I would rather that you should stay with me.’ So Mrs Drap­er stayed with him, and ad­min­is­tered to his wants. He was de­sirous of be­ing seen by as few eyes as pos­si­ble in these first mo­ments of his free­dom.

He saw Dr Fil­grave twice, both be­fore and af­ter the doc­tor had been up­stairs. There was no doubt, Dr Fil­grave said, that it was as Mrs Drap­er had sur­mised. The poor la­dy was suf­fer­ing, and had for years been suf­fer­ing, from heart-​com­plaint. To her hus­band she had nev­er said a word on the sub­ject. To Mrs Drap­er a word had been said now and again–a word when some mo­ment of fear would come, when some sharp stroke of agony would tell of dan­ger. But Mrs Drap­er had kept the se­cret of her mis­tress, and none of the fam­ily had known that there was aught to be feared. Dr Fil­grave, in­deed, did tell the bish­op that he had dread­ed all along ex­act­ly that which had hap­pened. He had said the same to Mr Rerechild, the sur­geon, when they two had had a con­sul­ta­tion at the palace on the oc­ca­sion of a some­what alarm­ing birth of a grand­child. But he mixed up this in­for­ma­tion with so much med­ical Latin, and was so pompous over it, and the bish­op was so anx­ious to be rid of him, that his words did not have much ef­fect. What did it all mat­ter? The thorn was gone, and the wife was dead, and the wid­ow­er must bal­ance his gain and the loss as best he might.

He slept well but when he woke in the morn­ing the drea­ri­ness of his lone­li­ness was very strong on him. He must do some­thing, and must see some­body, but he felt that he did not know how to bear him­self in his new po­si­tion. He must send of course for his chap­lain, and tell his chap­lain to open all let­ters and to an­swer them for a week. Then he re­mem­bered how many of his let­ters in days of yore had been opened and an­swered by the help­mate, who had just gone from him. Since Dr Tem­pest’s vis­it he had in­sist­ed that the palace let­ter-​bag should al­ways be brought in the first in­stance to him–and this had been done, great­ly to the an­noy­ance of his wife. In or­der that it might be done the bish­op had been up ev­ery morn­ing an hour be­fore the usu­al time; and ev­ery­body in the house­hold had known why it was so. He thought of this now as the bag was brought to him on the first morn­ing of his free­dom. He could have it where he pleased now–ei­ther in his bed­room or left for him un­touched on the break­fast-​ta­ble till he should go to it. ‘Blessed be the name of the Lord,’ he said as he thought of all this; but he did not stop to anal­yse what he was say­ing. On this morn­ing he would not en­joy his lib­er­ty, but de­sired that the let­ter-​bag might be tak­en to Mr Snap­per, the chap­lain.

The news of Mrs Proudie’s death had spread all over Barch­ester on the evening of its oc­cur­rence, and had been re­ceived with that feel­ing of dis­tant awe which is al­ways ac­com­pa­nied by some de­gree of plea­sur­able sen­sa­tion. There was no one in Barch­ester to lament a moth­er, or a sis­ter, or a friend who was re­al­ly loved. There were those, doubt­less, who re­gret­ted the wom­an’s death–and even some who re­gret­ted it with­out any feel­ing of per­son­al dam­age done to them­selves. There had come to be around Mrs Proudie a par­ty who thought as she thought on church mat­ters, and such peo­ple had lost their head, and there­by their strength. And she had been staunch to her own par­ty, pre­fer­ring bad tea from a low-​church gro­cer, to good tea from a gro­cer who went to the rit­ual­is­tic church or to no church at all. And it is due to her to say that she did not for­get those who were true to her–look­ing af­ter them mind­ful­ly where look­ing af­ter might be prof­itable, and fight­ing their bat­tles where fight­ing might be more ser­vice­able. I do not think that the ap­petite for break­fast of any man or wom­an in Barch­ester was dis­turbed by the news of Mrs Proudie’s death, but there were some who felt that a trou­ble had fall­en on them.

Tid­ings of the catas­tro­phe reached Hi­ram’s Hos­pi­tal on the evening of its oc­cur­rence–Hi­ram’s Hos­pi­tal, where dwelt Mr and Mrs Quiv­er­ful with all their chil­dren. Now Mrs Quiv­er­ful owed a debt of grat­itude to Mrs Proudie, hav­ing been placed in her present com­fort­able home by that la­dy’s pa­tron­age. Mrs Quiv­er­ful per­haps un­der­stood the char­ac­ter of the de­ceased wom­an, and ex­pressed her opin­ion re­spect­ing it, as graph­ical­ly did any­one in Barch­ester. There was the nat­ural sur­prise felt at the War­den’s Lodge in the Hos­pi­tal when the tid­ings were first re­ceived there, and the Quiv­er­ful fam­ily was at first too full of dis­may, re­grets, and sur­mis­es to be able to give them­selves im­par­tial­ly to crit­icism. But on the fol­low­ing morn­ing, con­ver­sa­tion at the break­fast-​ta­ble nat­ural­ly re­fer­ring to the great loss which the bish­op had sus­tained, Mrs Quiv­er­ful thus pro­nounced her opin­ion of her friend’s char­ac­ter: ‘You’ll find that he’ll feel it, Q.,’ she said to her hus­band, in an­swer to some sar­cas­tic re­mark made by him as to the re­moval of the thorn. ‘He’ll feel it, though she was al­most too many for him while she was alive.’

‘I dare­say he’ll feel it at first,’ said Quiv­er­ful; ‘but I think he’ll be more com­fort­able than he has been.’

‘Of course he’ll feel it, and go on feel­ing it till he dies, if he’s the man I take him to be. You’re not to think that there has been no love be­cause there used to be some words, that he’ll find him­self the hap­pi­er he can do more things as he pleas­es. She was a great help to him, and he must have known that she was, in spite of the sharp­ness of her tongue. No doubt her tongue was sharp. No doubt she was up­set­ting. And she could make her­self a fool too in her strug­gles to have ev­ery­thing her own way. But, Q., there were worse wom­en than Mrs Proudie. She was nev­er one of your idle ones, and I’m quite sure that no man or wom­an ev­er heard her say a word against her hus­band be­hind his back.’

‘All the same, she gave him a ter­ri­bly bad life of it, if all is true that we hear.’

‘There are men who must have what you call a ter­ri­bly bad life of it, what­ev­er way it goes with them. The bish­op is weak, and he wants some­body near to him to be strong. She was strong–per­haps too strong; but he had his ad­van­tage of it. Af­ter all I don’t know that his life has been so ter­ri­bly bad. I dare­say he’s had ev­ery­thing very com­fort­able about him. And a man ought to be grate­ful for that, though very few men ev­er are.’

Mr Quiv­er­ful’s pre­de­ces­sor at the Hos­pi­tal, old Mr Hard­ing, whose hal­cy­on days in Barch­ester had been passed be­fore the com­ing of the Proud­ies, was in bed play­ing cat’s-​cra­dle with Posy seat­ed on the coun­ter­pane, when tid­ings of Mrs Proudie’s death were brought to him by Mrs Bax­ter. ‘Oh, sir,’ said Mrs Bax­ter, seat­ing her­self on a chair by the bed-​side. Mr Hard­ing liked Mrs Bax­ter to sit down, be­cause he was al­most sure on such oc­ca­sions to have the ad­van­tage of a pro­longed con­ver­sa­tion.

‘What is it, Mrs Bax­ter?’

‘Oh, sir!’

‘Is any­thing the mat­ter?’ And the old man at­tempt­ed to raise him­self in his bed.

‘You mustn’t fright­en grand­pa,’ said Posy.

‘No, my dear; and there isn’t noth­ing to fright­en him. There isn’t in­deed, Mr Hard­ing. They’re all well at Plum­stead, and when I heard from the mis­sus at Venice, ev­ery­thing was go­ing on well.’

‘But what is it, Mrs Bax­ter?’

‘God for­give all her sins–Mrs Proudie ain’t no more.’ Now there had been a ter­ri­ble feud be­tween the palace and the dean­ery for years, in car­ry­ing on which the per­sons of the op­posed house­holds were wont to ex­press them­selves with ea­ger an­imos­ity. Mrs Bax­ter and Mrs Drap­er nev­er dared speak to each oth­er. The two coach­men each longed for an op­por­tu­ni­ty to take the oth­er be­fore the mag­is­trate for some breach of the law of the road in driv­ing. The foot­men abused each oth­er, and the grooms oc­ca­sion­al­ly fought. The mas­ters and mis­tress­es con­tent­ed them­selves with sim­ple ha­tred. There­fore it was not sur­pris­ing that Mrs Bax­ter in speak­ing of the death of Mrs Proudie, should re­mem­ber first her sins.

‘Mrs Proudie dead!’ said the old man.

‘In­deed, she is, Mr Hard­ing,’ said Mrs Bax­ter, putting both her hands to­geth­er pi­ous­ly. ‘We’re just as grass, ain’t we, sir! An dust and clay and flow­ers of the field?’ Whether Mrs Proudie had most par­tak­en of the clayey na­ture or of the flow­ery na­ture, Mrs Bax­ter did not stop to con­sid­er.

‘Mrs Proudie dead!’ with a solem­ni­ty that was all her own. ‘Then she won’t scold the poor bish­op any more.’

‘No, my dear; she won’t scold any­body any more; and it will be a bless­ing for some, I must say. Ev­ery­body is al­ways so con­sid­er­ate in this house, Miss Posy, that we none of us know noth­ing about what that is.’

‘Dead!’ said Mr Hard­ing again. ‘I think, if you please, Mrs Bax­ter, you shall leave me for lit­tle time, and take Miss Posy with you.’ He had been in the city of Barch­ester some fifty years, and here was one who might have been his daugh­ter, who had come there scarce­ly ten years since, and who had now gone be­fore him! He had nev­er loved Mrs Proudie. Per­haps he had come as near to dis­lik­ing Mrs Proudie as he had ev­er come to dis­lik­ing any per­son. Mrs Proudie had wound­ed him in ev­ery part that was most sen­si­tive. It would be long to tell, nor need it be told now, how she had ridiculed his cathe­dral work, how she had made noth­ing of him, how she had de­spised him, al­ways man­ifest­ing her con­tempt plain­ly. He had been even driv­en to re­buke her, and it had per­haps been the on­ly per­son­al re­buke which he had ev­er ut­tered in Barch­ester. But now she was gone; and he thought of her sim­ply as an ac­tive pi­ous wom­an, who had been tak­en away from her word be­fore her time. And for the bish­op, no idea ev­er en­tered Mr Hard­ing’s mind as to the re­moval of a thorn. The man had lost his life’s com­pan­ion at that time of life when such a com­pan­ion is most need­ed; and Mr Hard­ing grieved for him with sin­cer­ity.

The news went out to Plum­stead Epis­copi by the post­man, and hap­pened to reach the archdea­con as he was talk­ing to his rec­tor at the lit­tle gate lead­ing in­to the church­yard. ‘Mrs Proudie is dead!’ he al­most shout­ed, as the post­man no­ti­fied the fact to him. ‘Im­pos­si­ble!’

‘It be so for zartain, yer rev­er­ence,’ said the post­man, who was proud of his news.

‘Heav­ens!’ ejac­ulat­ed the archdea­con, and then hur­ried in to his wife. ‘My dear,’ he said–and as he spoke he could hard­ly de­liv­er him­self of the words, so ea­ger was he to speak them–’who do you think is dead? Gra­cious heav­ens! Mrs Proudie is dead!’ Mrs Grant­ly dropped from her hand the tea­spoon­ful of tea that was just go­ing in­to the pot, and re­peat­ed her hus­band’s last words. ‘Mrs Proudie dead?’ There was a pause, dur­ing which they looked in­to each oth­er’s faces. ‘My dear, I don’t be­lieve it,’ said Mrs Grant­ly.

But she did be­lieve it very short­ly. There were no prayers at Plum­stead rec­to­ry that morn­ing. The archdea­con im­me­di­ate­ly went out in­to the vil­lage, and soon ob­tained suf­fi­cient ev­idence of the truth of that which the post­man had told him. Then he rushed back to his wife. ‘It’s true,’ he said. ‘It’s quite true. She’s dead. There’s no doubt about that. She’s dead. It was last night about sev­en. That was when they found her, at least, and she may have died about an hour be­fore. Fil­grave says not more than an hour.’

‘And how did she die?’

‘Heart-​com­plaint. She was stand­ing up, tak­ing hold of the bed­stead, and so they found her.’ Then there was a pause, dur­ing which the archdea­con sat down to his break­fast. ‘I won­der how he felt when he heard it?’

‘Of course he was ter­ri­bly shocked.’

‘I’ve no doubt he was shocked. Any man would be shocked. But when you come to think of it, what a re­lief!’

‘How can you speak of it in that way?’ said Mrs Grant­ly.

‘How am I to speak of it in any oth­er way?’ said the archdea­con. ‘Of course I shouldn’t go and say it out in the street.’

‘I don’t think you ought to say it any­where,’ said Mrs Grant­ly. ‘The poor man no doubt feels about his wife in the same way that any­body else would.’

‘And of any oth­er poor man has got such a wife as she was, you may be quite sure that he would be glad to get rid of her. I don’t say that he wished her to die, or that he would have done any­thing to con­trive her death–’

‘Gra­cious, archdea­con; do pray hold your tongue.’

‘But it stands to rea­son that her go­ing will be a great re­lief to him. What has she done for him? She has made him con­temptible to ev­ery­body in the dio­cese by her in­ter­fer­ence, and his life has been a bur­den to him through her vi­olence.’

‘Is that the way you car­ry out your proverb De mor­tu­is?’ asked Mrs Grant­ly.

‘The proverb of De mor­tu­is is found­ed on hum­bug. Hum­bug out of doors is nec­es­sary. It would not do for you and me to go in­to the High Street just now and say what we think about Mrs Proudie; but I don’t sup­pose that kind of thing need to be kept up in here–so un­com­fort­able that I can­not be­lieve that any­one will re­gret her. Dear me! On­ly to think that she has gone! You may as well give me my tea.’

I do not think that Mrs Grant­ly’s opin­ion dif­fered much from that ex­pressed by her hus­band, or that she was, in truth, the least of­fend­ed by the archdea­con’s plain speech. But it must be re­mem­bered that there was prob­ably no house in the dio­cese in which Mrs Proudie had been so thor­ough­ly hat­ed as she had been at the Plum­stead rec­to­ry. There had been ha­tred in the dean­ery; but the ha­tred at the dean­ery had been mild in com­par­ison with the ha­tred at Plum­stead. The archdea­con was a sound friend; but he was al­so a sound en­emy. From the very ar­rival of the Proud­ies at Barch­ester, Mrs Proudie had thrown down her gaunt­let to him, and he had not been slow in pick­ing it up. The war had been in­ternecine, and each had giv­en the oth­er ter­ri­ble wounds. It had been un­der­stood that there should be no quar­ter, and there had been none. His en­emy was now dead, and the archdea­con could not bring him­self to adopt be­fore his wife the nam­by-​pam­by ev­ery­day de­cen­cy of speak­ing well of one of whom he had ev­er thought ill, or ex­press­ing re­gret when no re­gret could be felt. ‘May all her sins be for­giv­en her,’ said Mrs Grant­ly. ‘Amen,’ said the archdea­con. There was some­thing in the tone of his Amen which thor­ough­ly im­plied that it was ut­tered on­ly on the un­der­stand­ing that her de­par­ture from the ex­ist­ing world was to be re­gard­ed as an un­mit­igat­ed good, and that she should, at any rate, nev­er come back again to Barch­ester.

When La­dy Lufton heard the tid­ings, she was not so bold in speak­ing of it as was her friend the archdea­con. ‘Mrs Proudie dead!,’ she said to her daugh­ter-​in-​law. This was some hours af­ter the news had reached the house, and when the fact of the poor la­dy’s death had been ful­ly recog­nised. ‘What will he do with­out her?’

‘The same as oth­er men do,’ said the young La­dy Lufton.

‘But, my dear, he is not the same as oth­er men. He is not at all like oth­er men. No doubt she was a vi­ra­go, a wom­an who could not con­trol her tem­per for a mo­ment! No doubt she had led him a ter­ri­ble life! I have of­ten pitied him with all my heart. But, nev­er­the­less, she was use­ful to him. I sup­pose she was use­ful to him. I can hard­ly be­lieve that Mrs Proudie is dead. Had he gone, it would have seemed so much more nat­ural. Poor wom­an. I dare­say she had her good points.’ The read­er will be pleased to re­mem­ber that the Luftons had ev­er been strong par­ti­sans on the side of the Grantlys.

The news made its way even to Hog­gle­stock on the same day. Mrs Craw­ley, when she heard it, went out af­ter her hus­band, who was in the school. ‘Dead!’ he said in an­swer to her whis­per. ‘Do you tell me that the wom­an is dead?’ Then Mrs Craw­ley ex­plained that the tid­ings were cred­ible. ‘May God for­give her all her sins,’ said Mrs Craw­ley. ‘She was a vi­olent wom­an, cer­tain­ly, and I think that she mis­un­der­stood her du­ties; but I do not say that she was a bad wom­an. I am in­clined to think that she was earnest in her en­deav­ours to do good.’ It nev­er oc­curred to Mr Craw­ley that he and his af­fair, had, in truth, been the cause of her death.

It was thus that she was spo­ken of for a few days; and the men and wom­en ceased to speak much of her, and be­gan to talk of the bish­op in­stead. A month had not passed be­fore it was sur­mised that a man so long ac­cus­tomed to the com­forts of mar­ried life would mar­ry again; and even then one la­dy con­nect­ed with low-​church cler­gy­men in and around the city was named as a prob­able suc­ces­sor to the great la­dy who was gone. For my­self I am in­clined to think that the bish­op will for the fu­ture be con­tent to lean up­on his chap­lain.

The mon­ument that was put up to our friend’s mem­ory in one of the aisles of the choir of the cathe­dral was sup­posed to be de­signed and ex­ecut­ed in good taste. There was a bro­ken col­umn, and on the col­umn sim­ply the words ‘My beloved wife!’ Then there was a slab by the col­umn, bear­ing Mrs Proudie’s name, with the date of her life and death. Be­neath this was the com­mon in­scrip­tion:-

‘Re­qui­escat in pace.’