The Last Chronicle of Barset

CHAPTER LXXIV

THE CRAW­LEYS ARE IN­FORMED

Ma­jor Grant­ly made an ear­ly start, know­ing that he had a long day’s work be­fore him. He had writ­ten over-​night to Mr Too­good, nam­ing the hour at which he would reach ‘The Drag­on’, and was there punc­tu­al to the mo­ment. When the at­tor­ney came out and got in­to the open car­riage, while the groom held the steps for him, it was plain to see that the re­spect in which he was held at ‘The Drag­on’ was great­ly in­creased. It was al­ready known that he was go­ing to Plum­stead that night, and it was part­ly un­der­stood that he was en­gaged with the Grant­ly and Ara­bin fac­tion in de­fend­ing Mr Craw­ley the cler­gy­man against the Proudie fac­tion. Dan Stringer, who was still at the inn, as he saw his en­emy get in­to the Plum­stead car­riage, felt him­self to be one of the palace par­ty, and felt that if Mrs Proudie had on­ly lived till af­ter the as­sizes all this heavy trou­ble would not have be­fall­en him. The wait­er with the dirty nap­kin stood at the door and bowed, think­ing per­haps that as the Proudie par­ty was go­ing down in Barch­ester, it might be as well to be civ­il to Mr Too­good. The days of the Stringers were prob­ably draw­ing to a close at the ‘The Drag­on of Want­ly’, and there was no know­ing who might be the new land­lord.

Hen­ry Grant­ly and the lawyer found very lit­tle to say to each oth­er on their long way out to Hog­gle­stock. They were think­ing, prob­ably, much of the com­ing in­ter­view, and hard­ly knew how to ex­press their thoughts to each oth­er. ‘I will not take the car­riage up to the house,’ said the ma­jor, as there were en­ter­ing the parish of Hog­gle­stock; ‘par­tic­ular­ly as the man must feed the hors­es.’ So they got out of a farm­house about half a mile from the church, where the of­fence of the car­riage and the liv­ery-​ser­vant would be well out of Mr Craw­ley’s sight, and from thence walked to­wards the par­son­age. The church, and the school close to it, lay on their way, and as they passed by the school door they heard voic­es with­in. ‘I’ll bet twopence he’s there,’ said Too­good. ‘They tell me he’s al­ways ei­ther in one shop or the oth­er. I’ll slip in and bring him out.’ Mr Too­good had as­sumed a com­fort­able air, as though the day’s work was to be good pas­time, and even made oc­ca­sion­al at­tempts at drollery. He had had his jokes about Dan Stringer, and had at­tempt­ed to de­scribe the ab­sur­di­ties of Mr Craw­ley’s vis­it to Bed­ford Row. All this would have an­gered the ma­jor, had he not seen that it was as­sumed to cov­er some­thing be­low of which Mr Too­good was a lit­tle ashamed, but of which, as the ma­jor thought, Mr Too­good had no cause to be ashamed. When, there­fore, Too­good pro­posed to go in­to the school and bring Mr Craw­ley out, as though the telling of their sto­ry would be the eas­iest thing in the world, the ma­jor did not stop him. In­deed he had no plan of his own ready. His mind was too in­tent on the tragedy which had oc­curred, and which was now to be brought to a close, to en­able him to form any plan as to the best way of get­ting up the last scene. So Mr Too­good, with quick and easy steps, en­tered the school, leav­ing the ma­jor still stand­ing in the road. Mr Craw­ley was in the school–as al­so was Jane Craw­ley. ‘So here you are,’ said Too­good. ‘That’s for­tu­nate. I hope I find you pret­ty well?’

‘If I am not mis­tak­en in the iden­ti­ty, my wife’s rel­ative, Mr Too­good?’ said Mr Craw­ley, step­ping down from his hum­ble desk.

‘Just so, my friend,’ said Too­good, with his hand ex­tend­ed, ‘just so; and there’s an­oth­er gen­tle­man out­side who wants to have a word with you. Per­haps you won’t mind step­ping out. These are the young Hog­gle­stock­ians; are they?’

The young Hog­gle­stock­ians stared at him, and so did Jane. Jane, who had be­fore heard of him, did not like him at first sight, see­ing that her fa­ther was clear­ly dis­pleased by the tone of the vis­itor’s ad­dress. Mr Craw­ley was dis­pleased. There was a fa­mil­iar­ity about Mr Too­good which made him sore, as hav­ing been ex­hib­it­ed be­fore his pupils. ‘If you will be pleased to step out, sir, I will fol­low you,’ he said, wav­ing his hand to­wards the door. ‘Jane, my dear, if you will re­main with the chil­dren I will re­turn to you present­ly. Bob­by Studge has failed in say­ing his Be­lief. You had bet­ter set him on again from the be­gin­ning. Now, Mr Too­good.’ And again he waved his hand to­wards the door.

‘So that’s my young cousin, is it?’ said Too­good, stretch­ing over and just man­ag­ing to touch Jane’s fin­gers–of which act of touch­ing Jane was very chary. Then he went forth, and Mr Craw­ley fol­lowed him. There was the ma­jor stand­ing in the road and Too­good was anx­ious to be the first to com­mu­ni­cate the good news. It was the on­ly re­ward he had pro­posed to him­self for the mon­ey he had ex­pend­ed and the time he had lost and the trou­ble he had tak­en. ‘It’s all right, old fel­low,’ he said, clap­ping his hand on Mr Craw­ley’s shoul­der. ‘We’ve got the right sow by the ear at last. We know all about it.’ Mr Craw­ley could hard­ly re­mem­ber the time when he had been called an old fel­low last, and now he did not like it; nor, in the con­fu­sion of his mind, could he un­der­stand the al­lu­sion to the right sow. He sup­posed that Too­good had come to him about his tri­al, but it did not oc­cur to him that the lawyer might be bring­ing him news which might make the tri­al al­to­geth­er un­nec­es­sary. ‘If my eyes are not mis­tak­en, there is my friend, Ma­jor Grant­ly,’ said Mr Craw­ley.

‘There he is, as large as life,’ said Too­good. ‘But stop a mo­ment be­fore you go to him, and give me your hand. I must have the first shake of it.’ Here­upon Craw­ley ex­tend­ed his hand. ‘That’s right. And now let me tell you we know all about the cheque–Soames’s cheque. We know where you got it. We know who stole it. We know how it came to the per­son who gave it to you. It’s all very well talk­ing, but when you’re in trou­ble al­ways go to a lawyer.’

By this time Mr Craw­ley was look­ing full in­to Mr Too­good’s face, and see­ing that his cousin’s eyes were stream­ing with tears be­gan to get some in­sight in­to the man’s char­ac­ter, and al­so some very dim in­sight in­to the facts which the man in­tend­ed to com­mu­ni­cate to him­self. ‘I do not as yet ful­ly un­der­stand you, sir,’ he said, ‘be­ing per­haps in such mat­ters some­what dull of in­tel­lect, but it seemeth to me that you are the mes­sen­ger of glad tid­ings, whose feet are beau­ti­ful up­on the moun­tains.’

‘Beau­ti­ful!’ said Too­good. ‘By George, I should think they are beau­ti­ful! Don’t you hear me tell you that we have found out all about the cheque, and that you’re as right as a triv­et?’ They were still on the lit­tle cause­way lead­ing from the school up the road, and Hen­ry Grant­ly was wait­ing for them at the small wick­et-​gate. ‘Mr Craw­ley,’ said the ma­jor, ‘I con­grat­ulate you with all my heart. I could not but ac­com­pa­ny my friend, Mr Too­good, when he brought you this good news.’

‘I do not even yet al­to­geth­er com­pre­hend what has been told to me,’ said Craw­ley, now stand­ing out on the road be­tween the oth­er two men. ‘I am doubt­less dull–very dull. May I beg some clear­er word of ex­pla­na­tion be­fore I ask you to go with me to my wife?’

‘The cheque was giv­en to you by my aunt Eleanor.’

‘Your aunt Eleanor!’ said Craw­ley, now al­to­geth­er in the clouds. Who was the ma­jor’s aunt Eleanor? Though he had, no doubt, at dif­fer­ent times heard all the cir­cum­stances of the con­nec­tion, he had nev­er re­alised the fact that his daugh­ter’s lover was the nephew of his old friend Ara­bin.

‘Yes; by my aunt, Mrs Ara­bin.’

‘She put it in­to the en­ve­lope with the notes,’ said Too­good–’slipped it in with­out say­ing a word to any­one. I nev­er heard of a wom­an do­ing such a thing in my life be­fore. If she had died, or if we hadn’t caught her, where should we all have been? Not but what I think I should have run Dan Stringer to ground too, and worked it out of him.’

‘Then, af­ter all, it was giv­en to me by the dean?’ said Craw­ley.

‘It was in the en­ve­lope, but the dean did not know it,’ said the ma­jor.

‘Gen­tle­men,’ said Mr Craw­ley. ‘I was sure of it. I knew it. Weak as my mind may be–and at times it is very weak–I was cer­tain that I could not have erred in such a mat­ter. The more I strug­gled with my mem­ory the more fixed with me be­came the fact–which I had for­got­ten but for a mo­ment–that the doc­ument had formed a part of that small pack­et hand­ed to me by the dean. But look you, sirs–bear with me yet for a mo­ment. I said that it was so, and the dean de­nied it.’

‘The dean did not know it, man,’ said Too­good, al­most in a pas­sion.

‘Bear with me yet awhile. So far have I been mis­doubt­ing the dean–whom I have long known to be in all things a true and hon­est gen­tle­man–that I post­poned the elab­orat­ed re­sult of my own mem­ory to his word. And I felt my­self the more con­strained to do this, be­cause in a mo­ment of for­get­ful­ness, I had al­lowed my­self to make a false state­ment–un­wit­ting­ly false, in­deed, nonethe­less very false, un­par­don­ably false. I had de­clared with­out think­ing, that the mon­ey had come to me from the hands of Mr Soames, there­by seem­ing to cast a re­flec­tion up­on that gen­tle­man. When I had been guilty of so great a blun­der, of so gross a vi­ola­tion of that or­di­nary care which should gov­ern all words be­tween man and man, es­pe­cial­ly when any ques­tion of mon­ey may be in doubt–how could I ex­pect that any­one should ac­cept my state­ment when con­tra­vened by that made by the dean? Gen­tle­men, I did not be­lieve my own mem­ory. Though all the lit­tle cir­cum­stances of that en­ve­lope, with its rich but per­ilous freigh­tage, came back up­on me from time to time with an ex­act­ness that has ap­peared to me to be al­most mar­vel­lous, yet I have told my­self that it was not so! Gen­tle­men, if you please, we will go in­to the house; my wife is there, and should not longer be left in sus­pense.’ They passed on in si­lence for a few steps, till Craw­ley spoke again. ‘Per­haps you will al­low me the priv­ilege to be alone with her for one minute–but for a minute. Her thanks shall not be de­layed, where thanks are so rich­ly due.’

‘Of course,’ said Too­good, wip­ing his eyes with a large red ban­dana hand­ker­chief. ‘By all means. We’ll take a lit­tle walk. Come, along, ma­jor.’ The ma­jor had turned his face away, and he al­so was weep­ing. ‘By George! I nev­er heard such a thing in all my life,’ said Too­good. ‘I wouldn’t have be­lieved it if I hadn’t seen it. I wouldn’t in­deed. If I were to tell that up in Lon­don, no­body would be­lieve me.’

‘I call that man a hero,’ said Grant­ly.

‘I don’t know about be­ing a hero. I nev­er quite knew what makes a hero, if it isn’t hav­ing three or four girls dy­ing in love for you at once. But to find a man who was go­ing to let ev­ery­thing in the world go against him, be­cause he be­lieved an­oth­er fel­low bet­ter than him­self! There’s many a chap thinks an­oth­er man is wool-​gath­er­ing; but this man has thought he was wool-​gath­er­ing him­self! It’s not nat­ural; and the world wouldn’t go on if there many like that. He’s beck­on­ing us, and we had bet­ter go in.’

Mr Too­good went first, and the ma­jor fol­lowed him. When they en­tered the front door at the end of the pas­sage, and on en­ter­ing the room to the left they found Mr Craw­ley alone. ‘She has fled, as though from an en­emy,’ he said, with a lit­tle at­tempt at a laugh; ‘but I will pur­sue her, and bring her back.’

‘No, Mr Craw­ley, no,’ said the lawyer. ‘She’s a lit­tle up­set, and all that kind of thing. We know what wom­en are. Let her alone.’

‘Nay, Mr Too­good; but then she would be an­gered with her­self af­ter­wards, and would lack the com­fort of hav­ing spo­ken a word of grat­itude. Par­don me, Ma­jor Grant­ly; but I would not have you leave us till she has seen you. It is as her cousin says. She is some­what over-​ex­cit­ed. But still, it will be the best that she should see you. Gen­tle­men, you will ex­cuse me.’

Then he went out to fetch his wife, and while he was away not a word was spo­ken. The ma­jor looked out of one win­dow and Mr Too­good out of the oth­er, and they wait­ed pa­tient­ly till they heard the com­ing steps of the hus­band and wife. When the door was opened, Mr Craw­ley ap­peared, lead­ing his wife by the hand. ‘My dear,’ he said, ‘you know Ma­jor Grant­ly. This is your cousin, Mr Too­good. It is well that you know him too, and re­mem­ber his great kind­ness to us.’ But Mrs Craw­ley could not speak. She could on­ly sink on the so­fa, and hide her face, while she strove in vain to re­press her sobs. She had been very strong through all her hus­band’s trou­bles–very strong in bear­ing for him what he could not bear for him­self, and in fight­ing on his be­half bat­tles in which he was al­to­geth­er un­able to couch a lance; but the en­durance of so many trou­bles and the great over­whelm­ing sor­row at last had so near­ly over­pow­ered her, that she could not sus­tain the shock of this turn in their for­tunes. ‘She was nev­er like this, sirs, when ill news came to us,’ said Mr Craw­ley, stand­ing some­what apart from her.

The ma­jor sat him­self by her side, and put his hand up­on hers, and whis­pered some word to her about her daugh­ter. Up­on this she threw her arms around him, and kissed his face, and then his hands, and then looked up in­to his face through her tears. She mur­mured some few words, or at­tempt­ed to do so. I doubt whether the ma­jor un­der­stood their mean­ing, but he knew very well what was in her heart.

‘And now I think we might as well be mov­ing,’ said Mr Too­good. ‘I’ll see about hav­ing the in­dict­ment quashed. I’ll ar­range all that with Walk­er. It may be nec­es­sary that you should go in­to Barch­ester the first day the judges sit; and if so, I’ll come and fetch you. You may be sure I won’t leave the place till it’s all square.’

As they were go­ing, Grant­ly–speak­ing now al­to­geth­er with in­dif­fer­ence to Too­good’s pres­ence–asked Mr Craw­ley’s leave to be the bear­er of these tid­ings to his daugh­ter.

‘She can hear it in no tones that can be more grate­ful to her,’ said Mr Craw­ley.

‘I shall ask her for noth­ing for my­self now,’ said Grant­ly. ‘It would be un­gen­er­ous. But here­after–in a few days–when she shall be more at ease, may I then use your per­mis­sion–?’

‘Ma­jor Grant­ly,’ said Mr Craw­ley solemn­ly. ‘I re­spect you so high­ly, and es­teem you so thor­ough­ly, that I give will­ing­ly that which you ask. If my daugh­ter can bring her­self to re­gard you, as a wom­an should re­gard her hus­band, with the love that can wor­ship and cling and be con­stant, she will, I think, have a fair promise of world­ly hap­pi­ness. And for you, sir, in giv­ing you my girl–if so be it that she is giv­en to you–I shall be­stow up­on you a great trea­sure.’ Had Grace been a king’s daugh­ter, with a queen’s dowry, the per­mis­sion to ad­dress her could not have been im­part­ed to her lover with a more thor­ough ap­pre­ci­ation of the val­ue of priv­ilege con­ferred.

‘He’s a rum one,’ said Mr Too­good, as they got in­to the car­riage to­geth­er; ‘but they say he’s a very good ‘un to go.’

Af­ter their de­par­ture Jane was sent for, that she might hear the fam­ily news; and when she ex­pressed some feel­ing not al­to­geth­er in favour of Mr Too­good, Mr Craw­ley thus strove to cor­rect her views. ‘He is a man, my dear, who con­ceals a warm heart, and an ac­tive spir­it, and healthy sym­pa­thies, un­der an af­fect­ed joc­ular­ity of man­ner, and al­most with a touch of vul­gar­ity. But when the jew­el it­self is good, any fault in the cas­ket may be for­giv­en.’

‘Then, pa­pa, the next time I see him I’ll like him–if I can,’ said Jane.

The vil­lage of Fram­ley lies slight­ly off the road from Hog­gle­stock to Barch­ester–so much so as to add per­haps a mile to the jour­ney if the trav­eller goes by the par­son­age gate. On their route to Hog­gle­stock our two trav­ellers had passed Fram­ley with­out vis­it­ing the vil­lage, but on the re­turn jour­ney the ma­jor asked Mr Too­good’s per­mis­sion to make the de­vi­ation. ‘I’m not in a hur­ry,’ said Too­good. ‘I nev­er was more com­fort­able in my life. I’ll just light a cigar while you go in and see your friends.’ Too­good lit his cigar, and the ma­jor, get­ting down from the car­riage, en­tered the par­son­age. It was his for­tune to find Grace alone. Ro­barts was in Barch­ester, and Mrs Ro­barts was across the road, at Lufton Court. ‘Miss Craw­ley is cer­tain­ly in,’ the ser­vant told him, and he soon found him­self in Miss Craw­ley’s pres­ence.

‘I have on­ly called to tell you the news about your fa­ther,’ said he.

‘What news?’

‘We have just come from Hog­gle­stock–your cousin Mr Too­good, that is, and my­self. They have found out all about the cheque. My aunt, Mrs Ara­bin, the dean’s wife, you know–she gave it to your fa­ther.’

‘Oh, Ma­jor Grant­ly!’

‘It seems so eas­ily set­tled, does it not?’

‘And is it set­tled?’

‘Yes; ev­ery­thing. Ev­ery­thing about that.’ Now he had hold of her hand as if he were go­ing. ‘Good-​bye. I told your fa­ther that I would just call and tell you.’

‘It seems al­most more than I can be­lieve.’

‘You may be­lieve it; in­deed you may.’ He still held her hand. ‘You will write to your moth­er I dare­say tonight. Tell her I was here. Good-​bye now.’

‘Good-​bye,’ she said. Her hand was still in his, as she looked up in­to his face.

‘Dear, dear, Grace! My dar­ling Grace!’ Then he took her in­to his arms and kissed her, and went his way with­out an­oth­er word, feel­ing that he had kept his word to her fa­ther like a gen­tle­man. Grace, when she was left alone, thought that she was the hap­pi­est girl in Chris­ten­dom. If she could on­ly get to her moth­er, and tell ev­ery­thing, and be told ev­ery­thing! She had no idea of any promise that her lover may have made to her fa­ther, nor did she make in­quiry of her own thoughts as to the rea­sons for stay­ing with her so short a time; but look­ing back at it all she thought his con­duct had been per­fect.

In the mean­time, the ma­jor, with Mr Too­good, was driv­en home to din­ner at Barch­ester.