The Last Chronicle of Barset

CHAPTER LXVIII

THE OB­STI­NA­CY OF MR CRAW­LEY

Dr Tem­pest, when he heard the news, sent im­me­di­ate­ly to Mr Ro­barts, beg­ging him to come over to Sil­ver­bridge. But this mes­sage was not oc­ca­sioned sole­ly by the death of Mrs Proudie. Dr Tem­pest had al­so heard that Mr Craw­ley had sub­mit­ted him­self to the bish­op, that in­stant ad­van­tage–and, as Dr Tem­pest thought,–un­fair ad­van­tage–had been tak­en of Mr Craw­ley’s sub­mis­sion, and that the per­ni­cious Mr Thum­ble had been at once sent over to Hog­gle­stock. Had these palace do­ings with ref­er­ence to Mr Craw­ley been un­ac­com­pa­nied by the catas­tro­phe which had hap­pened, the doc­tor, much as he might have re­gret­ted them, would prob­ably have felt that there was noth­ing to be done. He could not in such case have pre­vent­ed Mr Thum­ble’s jour­ney to Hog­gle­stock on the next Sun­day, and cer­tain­ly he could not have soft­ened the heart of the pre­sid­ing ge­nius at the palace. But things were very dif­fer­ent now. The pre­sid­ing ge­nius was gone. Ev­ery­body at the palace would be for a while weak and vac­il­lat­ing. Thum­ble would be then thor­ough­ly cowed; and it might at any rate be pos­si­ble to make some move­ment in Mr Craw­ley’s favour. Dr Tem­pest, there­fore, sent for Mr Ro­barts.

‘I’m giv­ing you a great deal of trou­ble, Ro­barts,’ said the doc­tor; ‘but then you are so much younger than I am, and I’ve an idea that you would do more for this poor man than any­one else in the dio­cese.’ Mr Ro­barts of course de­clared that he did not be­grudge his trou­ble, and that he would do any­thing in his pow­er for the poor man. ‘I think that you should see him again, and that you should then see Thum­ble al­so. I don’t know whether you can con­de­scend to be civ­il to Thum­ble. I could not.’

‘I am not quite sure that in­ci­vil­ity would not be more ef­fi­ca­cious.’

‘Very like­ly. There are men who are deaf as adders to cour­tesy, but who are com­pelled to obe­di­ence at once by ill-​us­age. Very like­ly Thum­ble is one of them; but of that you will be the best judge your­self. I would see Craw­ley first, and get his con­sent.’

‘That’s the dif­fi­cul­ty.’

‘Then I should go with­out his con­sent, and I would see Thum­ble and the bish­op’s chap­lain Snap­per. I think you might man­age just at this mo­ment, when they will all be abashed and per­plexed by this wom­an’s death, to ar­range that sim­ply noth­ing shall be done. The great thing will be that Craw­ley should go on with the du­ty till the as­sizes. If it should hap­pen that he goes in­to Barch­ester and is ac­quit­ted, and comes back again, the whole thing will be over, and there will be no fur­ther in­ter­fer­ence in the parish. If I were you, I think I would try it.’ Mr Ro­barts said that he would try it. ‘I dare­say Mr Craw­ley will be a lit­tle stiff-​necked with you.’

‘He will be very stiff-​necked with me,’ said Mr Ro­barts.

‘But I can hard­ly think that he will throw away the on­ly means he has of sup­port­ing his wife and chil­dren, when he finds that there can be no oc­ca­sion for his do­ing so. I do not sup­pose that any per­son wish­es him to throw up his work now that the poor wom­an has gone.’

Mr Craw­ley had been al­most in good spir­its since the last vis­it which Mr Thum­ble had made him. It seemed as though the loss of ev­ery­thing in the world was in some way sat­is­fac­to­ry to him. He had now giv­en up his liv­ing by his own do­ing, and had af­ter a fash­ion ac­knowl­edged his guilt by this act. He had pro­claimed to all around him that he did not think him­self to be any longer fit to per­form the sa­cred func­tions of his of­fice. He spoke of his tri­al as though a ver­dict against him must be the re­sult. He knew that in go­ing in­to prison he would leave his wife and chil­dren de­pen­dent on the char­ity of their friends–on char­ity which they must con­de­scend to ac­cept, though he could not con­de­scend to ask it. And yet he was able to car­ry him­self now with a greater show of for­ti­tude than had been with­in his pow­er when the ex­tent of his calami­ty was more doubt­ful. I must not ask the read­er to sup­pose that he was cheer­ful. To have been cheer­ful un­der such cir­cum­stances would have been in­hu­man. But he car­ried his head on high, and walked firm­ly, and gave his or­ders with a clear voice. His wife, who was nec­es­sar­ily more de­spon­dent than ev­er, won­dered at him–but won­dered in si­lence. It cer­tain­ly seemed as though the very ex­trem­ity of ill-​for­tune was good for him. And he was very dili­gent with his school, pass­ing the greater part of the morn­ing with his chil­dren. Mr Thum­ble had told him that he would come on Sun­day, and that he would then take charge of the parish. Up to the com­ing of Mr Thum­ble he would do ev­ery­thing in the parish that could be done by a cler­gy­man with a clear spir­it and a free heart. Mr Thum­ble should not find that spir­itu­al weeds had grown rank in the parish be­cause of his mis­for­tunes.

Mrs Proudie had died on the Tues­day–that hav­ing been the day of Mr Thum­ble’s vis­it to Hog­gle­stock–and Mr Ro­barts had gone over to Sil­ver­bridge, in an­swer to Dr Tem­pest’s in­vi­ta­tion, on the Thurs­day. He had not, there­fore, the com­mand of much time, it be­ing the ex­press ob­ject to pre­vent the ap­pear­ance of Mr Thum­ble at Hog­gle­stock on the next Sun­day. He had gone to Sil­ver­bridge by rail­way, and had, there­fore, been obliged to post­pone his vis­it to Mr Craw­ley till the next day; but ear­ly on the Fri­day morn­ing he rode over to Hog­gle­stock. That he did not ar­rive there with a bro­ken-​kneed horse, the read­er may be quite sure. In all mat­ters of that sort, Mr Ro­barts was ev­er above re­proach. He rode a good horse, and drove a neat gig, and was al­ways well-​dressed. On this ac­count Mr Craw­ley, though he re­al­ly liked Mr Ro­barts, and was thank­ful to him for many kind­ness­es, could nev­er bear his pres­ence with per­fect equa­nim­ity. Ro­barts was no schol­ar, was not a great preach­er, had ob­tained no celebri­ty as a church­man–had, in fact, done noth­ing to mer­it great re­ward; and yet ev­ery­thing had been giv­en to him with an abun­dant hand. With­in the last twelve­month his wife had in­her­it­ed Mr Craw­ley did not care to know how many thou­sand pounds. And yet Mr Ro­barts had won all that he pos­sessed by be­ing a cler­gy­man. Was it pos­si­ble that Mr Craw­ley should re­gard such a man with equa­nim­ity? Ro­barts rode over with a groom be­hind him–re­al­ly tak­ing the groom be­cause he knew that Mr Craw­ley would have no one to hold his horse for him–and the groom was the source of great of­fence. He come up­on Mr Craw­ley stand­ing at the school door, and stop­ping at once, jumped off his nag. There was some­thing in the way in which he sprang out of the sad­dle and threw the reins to the man, which was not cler­ical to Mr Craw­ley’s eyes. No man could be so quick in the mat­ter of a horse who spent as many hours with the poor and with the chil­dren as should be spent by a parish cler­gy­man. It might be prob­able that Mr Ro­barts had nev­er stolen twen­ty pounds–might nev­er be ac­cused of so dis­grace­ful a crime–but, nev­er­the­less, Mr Craw­ley had his own ideas, and made his own com­par­isons.

‘Craw­ley’ said Ro­barts, ‘I am so glad to find you at home.’

‘I am gen­er­al­ly to be found in the parish,’ said the per­pet­ual cu­rate of Hog­gle­stock.

‘I know you are,’ said Ro­barts, who knew the man well, and cared noth­ing for his friend’s pe­cu­liar­ities when he felt his own with­ers to be un­wrung. ‘But you might have been down at Hog­gle End with the brick­mak­ers, and then, I would have had to go af­ter you.’

‘I should have grieved–’ be­gan Craw­ley; but Ro­barts in­ter­rupt­ed him at once.

‘Let us go for a walk, and I’ll leave the man with the hors­es. I’ve some­thing spe­cial to say to you, and I can say it bet­ter out here than in the house. Grace is quite well, and sends her love. She is grow­ing to look so beau­ti­ful!’

‘I hope she may grow in grace with God,’ said Mr Craw­ley.

‘She is as good a girl as ev­er I knew. By-​the-​bye, you had Hen­ry Grant­ly over here the oth­er day?’

‘Ma­jor Grant­ly, whom I can­not name with­out ex­press­ing my es­teem for him, did do us the hon­our of call­ing up­on us not very long since. If it be with ref­er­ence to him that you have tak­en this trou­ble–’

‘No, no; not at all. I’ll al­low him and the ladies to fight out that bat­tle. I’ve not the least doubt in the world how that will go. When I’m told that she made a com­plete con­quest of the archdea­con, there can­not be any doubt about that.’

‘A con­quest of the archdea­con!’

But Mr Ro­barts did not wish to have to ex­plain any­thing fur­ther about the archdea­con. ‘Were you not ter­ri­bly shocked, Craw­ley,’ he asked, ‘when you heard of the death of Mrs Proudie?’

‘It was sud­den and very aw­ful,’ said Mr Craw­ley. ‘Such deaths are al­ways shock­ing. Not more so, per­haps, as re­gards the wife of a bish­op., than with any oth­er wom­an.’

‘On­ly we hap­pen to know her.’

‘No doubt the fi­nite and mea­gre na­ture of our feel­ings does pre­vent us from ex­tend­ing our sym­pa­thies to those whom we have not seen in the flesh. It should not be so, and would not with one who had nur­tured his heart with the prop­er care. And we are prone to per­mit an evil worse than that to canker our re­gards and to fos­ter and to mar our so­lic­itudes. Those who are in high sta­tion strike us more by their joys and sor­rows than do the poor and low­ly. Were some young duke’s wife, wed­ded but the oth­er day, to die, all Eng­land would put on a show of mourn­ing–nay, would feel some true gleam of pity; but no­body cares for the wid­owed brick­mak­er seat­ed with his starv­ing in­fant on his cold hearth.’

‘Of course we hear more of the big peo­ple,’ said Ro­barts.

‘Ay; and think more of them. But do not sup­pose, sir, that I com­plain of this man or that wom­an be­cause his sym­pa­thies, or hers, runs out of that course which my rea­son tells me they should hold. The man with whom it would not be so would sim­ply be a god among men. It is in his per­fec­tion as a man that we recog­nise the di­vin­ity of Christ. It is in the im­per­fec­tion of men that we recog­nise our ne­ces­si­ty for a Christ. Yes, sir, the death of the poor la­dy at Barch­ester was very sud­den. I hope that my lord bears with be­com­ing for­ti­tude the heavy mis­for­tune. They say that he was a man much be­hold­en to his wife–prone to lean up­on her in his go­ings out and com­ings in. For such a man such a loss is more dread­ful than for an­oth­er.’

‘They say she led him a ter­ri­ble life, you know.’

‘I am not prone, sir, to be­lieve much of what I hear about the do­mes­tic­ities of oth­er men, know­ing how lit­tle any oth­er man can know of my own. And I have, me­thinks, ob­served a prone­ness in the world to ridicule that de­pen­dence on a wom­an which ev­ery mar­ried man should ac­knowl­edge in re­gard to the wife of his bo­som, if he cant trust her as well as love her. When I hear jo­cose proverbs spo­ken as to men such as that in this house the grey mare is the bet­ter horse, or that in that house the wife wears that gar­ment which is sup­posed to de­note vir­ile com­mand, know­ing that the joke is easy, and that meek­ness in a man is more tru­ly no­ble than the habit of stern au­thor­ity, I do not al­low them to go far with me in in­flu­enc­ing my judg­ment.’

So spoke Mr Craw­ley, who nev­er per­mit­ted the slight­est in­ter­fer­ence with his own word in his own fam­ily, and who had him­self been a wit­ness of one of those scenes be­tween the bish­op and his wife in which the poor bish­op had been so cru­el­ly mis­used. But to Mr Craw­ley the thing which he him­self had seen un­der such cir­cum­stances was as sa­cred as though it had come to him un­der the seal of con­fes­sion. In speak­ing of the bish­op and Mrs Proudie–nay, as far as was pos­si­ble in think­ing of them–he was bound to speak and to think as though he had not wit­nessed that scene in the palace study.

‘I don’t sup­pose that there is much doubt as to her re­al char­ac­ter,’ said Ro­barts. ‘But you and I need not dis­cuss that.’

‘By no means. Such dis­cus­sion would be both use­less and un­seem­ly.’

‘And just at present there is some­thing else that I spe­cial­ly want to say to you. In­deed, I went to Sil­ver­bridge on the same sub­ject yes­ter­day, and have come here ex­press­ly to have a lit­tle con­ver­sa­tion with you.’

‘If it be about af­fairs of mine, Mr Ro­barts, I am in­deed trou­bled in spir­it that so great labour should have fall­en up­on you.’

‘Nev­er mind my labour. In­deed your say­ing that is a nui­sance to me, be­cause I hoped that by this time you would have un­der­stood that I re­gard you as a friend, and that I think noth­ing any trou­ble that I do for a friend. You po­si­tion just now is so pe­cu­liar that it re­quires a great deal of care.’

‘No care can be of any avail to me.’

‘There I dis­agree with you. You must ex­cuse me, but I do; and so does Dr Tem­pest. We think that you have been a lit­tle too much in a hur­ry since he com­mu­ni­cat­ed to you the re­sult of our first meet­ing.’

‘As how, sir?’

‘It is, per­haps, hard­ly worth while for us to go in­to the whole ques­tion; but that man, Thum­ble, must not come here on next Sun­day.’

‘I can­not say, Mr Ro­barts, that the Rev­erend Mr Thum­ble has rec­om­mend­ed him­self to me strong­ly ei­ther by his out­ward sym­bols of man­hood or by such man­ifes­ta­tion of in­ward men­tal gifts as I have suc­ceed­ed in ob­tain­ing. But my knowl­edge of him has been so slight, and has been ac­quired in a man­ner so like­ly to bias me prej­udi­cial­ly against him, that I am in­clined to think my opin­ion should go for noth­ing. It is, how­ev­er, the fact that the bish­op has nom­inat­ed him to do this du­ty; and that, as I have my­self sim­ply no­ti­fied my de­ci­sion to be re­lieved from the care of the parish, on ac­count of cer­tain un­fit­ness of my own, I am the last man who should in­ter­fere with the bish­op in the choice of my tem­po­rary suc­ces­sor.

‘It was her choice, not his.’

‘Ex­cuse me, Mr Ro­barts, but I can­not al­low that as­ser­tion to pass un­ques­tioned. I must say that I have ad­equate cause for be­liev­ing that he came here by his lord­ship’s au­thor­ity.’

‘No doubt he did. Will you just lis­ten to me for a mo­ment? Ev­er since this un­for­tu­nate af­fair of the cheque be­came known, Mrs Proudie has been anx­ious to get you out of the parish. She was a vi­olent wom­an, and chose to take this mat­ter up vi­olent­ly. Pray hear me out be­fore you in­ter­rupt me. There would have been no com­mis­sion at all but for her.’

‘The com­mis­sion is right and prop­er and just,’ said Mr Craw­ley, who could not keep him­self silent.

‘Very well. Let it be so. But Mr Thum­ble’s com­ing over here is not prop­er or right; and you may be sure the bish­op does not wish it.’

‘Let him send any oth­er cler­gy­man whom he may think more fit­ting,’ said Mr Craw­ley.

‘But we do not want him to send any­body.’

‘Some­body must be sent, Mr Ro­barts.’

‘No, not so. Let me go over and see Thum­ble and Snap­per–Snap­per, you know, is the do­mes­tic chap­lain; and all that you need do is to go on with your ser­vices on Sun­day. If nec­es­sary, I will see the bish­op. I think you may be sure that I can man­age it. If not, I will come back to you.’ Mr Ro­barts paused for an an­swer, but it seemed for a while that all Mr Craw­ley’s im­pa­tient de­sire to speak was over. He walked on silent­ly along the lane by his vis­itor’s side, and when, af­ter some five or six min­utes, Ro­barts stood still in the road, Mr Craw­ley even then said noth­ing. ‘It can­not be but that you should be anx­ious to keep the in­come of the parish for your wife and chil­dren,’ said Mark Ro­barts.

‘Of course, I am anx­ious for my wife and chil­dren,’ Craw­ley an­swered.

‘Then let me do as I say. Why should you throw away a chance, even if it be a bad one? But here the chance is all in your favour. Let me man­age it for you at Barch­ester.’

‘Of course I am anx­ious for my wife and chil­dren,’ said Craw­ley, re­peat­ing his words; ‘how anx­ious, I fan­cy no man can con­ceive who has not been hear enough to ab­so­lute want to know how ter­ri­ble is its ap­proach when it threat­ens those who are weak and who are very dear! But, Mr Ro­barts, you spoke just now of the chance of the thing–the chance of your ar­rang­ing on my be­half that I should for a while longer be left in the en­joy­ment of the free­hold of my parish. It seemeth to me that there should be no chance on such a sub­ject; that in the ad­just­ment of so mo­men­tous a mat­ter there should be a con­sid­er­ation of right and wrong, and no con­sid­er­ation of aught be­side. I have been grow­ing to feel, for some weeks past, that cir­cum­stances–whether through my fault or not is an out­side ques­tion as to which I will not fur­ther de­lay you by of­fer­ing even an opin­ion–that un­for­tu­nate cir­cum­stances have made me un­fit to re­main here as guardian of the souls of the peo­ple of this parish. Then there came to me the let­ter from Dr Tem­pest–for which I am great­ly be­hold­en to him–strength­en­ing me al­to­geth­er in this view. What could I do then, Mr Ro­barts? Could I al­low my­self to think of my wife and my chil­dren when such a ques­tion as that was be­fore me for self- dis­cus­sion?’

‘I would–cer­tain­ly,’ said Ro­barts.

‘No sir! Ex­cuse the blunt­ness of my con­tra­dic­tion, but I feel as­sured that in such emer­gen­cy you would look sole­ly to du­ty–as by God’s help I will en­deav­our to do. Mr Ro­barts, there are many of us who in many things are much worse than we be­lieve our­selves to be. But in oth­er mat­ters, and per­haps of larg­er mo­ment, we can rise to ideas of du­ty as the need for such ideas comes to us. I say not this at all as prais­ing my­self. I speak of men as I be­lieve that they will be found to be;–of your­self, of my­self, and of oth­ers who strive to live with clean hands and a clear con­science. I do not for a mo­ment think that you would re­tain your benefice at Fram­ley if there had come up­on you, af­ter much thought, an as­sured con­vic­tion that you could not re­tain it with­out grievous in­jury to the souls of oth­ers and grievous sin to your own. Wife and chil­dren, dear as they are to you and to me–as dear to me as to you–fade from the sight when the time comes for judg­ment on such a mat­ter as that!’ They were stand­ing quite still now, fac­ing each oth­er, and Craw­ley, as he spoke with a low voice, looked straight in­to his friend’s eyes, and kept his hand firm­ly fixed on his friend’s arm.

‘I can­not in­ter­fere fur­ther,’ said Ro­barts.

‘No–you can­not in­ter­fere fur­ther.’ Ro­barts, when he told the sto­ry of the in­ter­view to his wife that evening, de­clared that he had nev­er heard a voice so plain­tive­ly touch­ing as was the voice of Mr Craw­ley when he ut­tered those last words.

They turned back to the ser­vant and the house al­most with­out a word, and Ro­barts mount­ed with­out of­fer­ing to see Mrs Craw­ley. Nor did Mr Craw­ley ask him to do so. It was bet­ter now that Ro­barts should go. ‘May God send you through all your trou­bles,’ said Mr Ro­barts.

‘Mr Ro­barts, I thank you warm­ly for your friend­ship,’ said Mr Craw­ley. And then they part­ed. In about half an hour Mr Craw­ley re­turned to the house. ‘Now for Pin­dar, Jane,’ he said, seat­ing him­self at his old desk.