The Last Chronicle of Barset

CHAPTER LXXV

MADALI­NA’S HEART IS BLEED­ING

John Eames, as soon as he had left Mrs Ara­bin at the ho­tel and had tak­en his trav­el­ling-​bag to his own lodg­ings, start­ed off for his un­cle Too­good’s house. There he found Mrs Too­good, not in the most serene state of mind as to her hus­band’s ab­sence. Mr Too­good had now been at Barch­ester for the best part of a week–spend­ing a good deal of mon­ey at the inn. Mrs Too­good was quite sure that he must be do­ing that. In­deed, how could he help him­self? John­ny re­marked that he did not see how in such cir­cum­stances his un­cle was to help him­self. And then Mr Too­good had on­ly writ­ten one short scrap of a let­ter–just three words, and they were writ­ten in tri­umph. ‘Craw­ley is all right, and I think I’ve got the re­al Si­mon Pure by the heels.’ ‘It’s all very well, John,’ Mrs Too­good said; ‘and of course it would be a ter­ri­ble thing of the fam­ily if any­body con­nect­ed with it were made out to be a thief.’ ‘It would be quite dread­ful,’ said John­ny. ‘Not that I ev­er looked up­on the Craw­leys as con­nec­tions of ours. But, how­ev­er, let that pass. I’m sure I’m very glad that your un­cle should have been able to be of ser­vice to them. But there’s rea­son in the roast­ing of eggs, and I can tell you that mon­ey is not so plen­ty in this house that your un­cle can af­ford to throw it in the Barch­ester gut­ters. Think what twelve chil­dren are, John. It might be all very well if Too­good were a bach­elor, and if some lord had left him a for­tune.’ John Eames did not stay very long in Tavi­stock Square. His cousins Pol­ly and Lucy were gone to the play with Mr Sum­merkin, and his aunt was not in one of her best hu­mours. He took his un­cle’s part as well as he could, and then left Mrs Too­good. The lit­tle al­lu­sion to Lord De Guest’s gen­eros­ity had not been pleas­ant to him. It seemed to rob him of all his own mer­it. He had been rather proud of his jour­ney to Italy, hav­ing con­trived to spend near­ly forty pounds in ten days. He had done ev­ery­thing in the most ex­pen­sive way, feel­ing that ev­ery napoleon wast­ed had been laid out on be­half Mr Craw­ley. But, as Mrs Too­good had just told him, all this was noth­ing to what Too­good was do­ing. Too­good with twelve chil­dren was liv­ing at his own charges at Barch­ester and was ne­glect­ing his busi­ness be­sides. ‘There’s Mr Crump,’ said Mrs Too­good. ‘Of course he doesn’t like it, and what can I say when he comes to me?’ This was not quite fair on the part of Mrs Too­good, as Mr Crump had not trou­bled her even once as yet since her hus­band’s de­par­ture.

What was John­ny to do, when he left Tavi­stock Square? His club was open to him. Should he go to his club, play a game of bil­liards, and have some sup­per? When he asked him­self the ques­tion he knew that he would not go to his club, and yet he pre­tend­ed to doubt about it, as he made his way to a cab­stand in Tot­ten­ham Court Road. It would be slow, he told him­self, to go to his club. He would have gone to Lily Dale, on­ly that his in­ti­ma­cy with Mrs Thorne was not suf­fi­cient to jus­ti­fy his call­ing at her house be­tween nine and ten o’clock at night. But, as he must go some­where–and as his in­ti­ma­cy with La­dy De­mo­lines was, he thought, suf­fi­cient to jus­ti­fy al­most any­thing–he would go to Bayswa­ter. I re­gret to say that he had writ­ten a mys­te­ri­ous not from Paris to Madali­na De­mo­lines, say­ing that he should be in Lon­don on this very night, and that it was just on the cards that he might make his way up to Porch­ester Ter­race be­fore he went to bed. The note was mys­te­ri­ous, be­cause it had nei­ther be­gin­ning nor end­ing. It did not con­tain even ini­tials. It was writ­ten like a tele­graph mes­sage, and was about as long. It was the kind of thing Miss De­mo­lines liked, John­ny thought; and there could be no rea­son why he should not grat­ify her. It was her favourite game. Some peo­ple like whist, some like cro­quet, and some like in­trigue. Madali­na prob­ably would have called it ro­mance–be­cause she was by na­ture ro­man­tic. John, who was made of stern­er stuff, laughed at this. He knew that there was no ro­mance in it. He knew that he was on­ly amus­ing him­self, and grat­ify­ing her at the same time, by a lit­tle in­no­cent pre­tence. He told him­self that it was his na­ture to pre­fer the so­ci­ety of wom­en to that of men. He would have liked the so­ci­ety of Lily Dale, no doubt, much bet­ter than that of Miss De­mo­lines; but as the so­ci­ety of Lily Dale was not to be had at that mo­ment, the so­ci­ety of Miss De­mo­lines was the best sub­sti­tute with­in his reach. So he got in­to a cab and had him­self driv­en to Porch­ester Ter­race. ‘Is La­dy De­mo­lines at home?’ he said to the ser­vant. He al­ways asked for La­dy De­mo­lines. But the page who was ac­cus­tomed to open the door for him was less false, be­ing young, and would now tell him, with­out any fur­ther fic­tion, that Miss Madali­na was in the draw­ing-​room. Such was the an­swer he got from the page on this evening. What Madali­na did with her moth­er on these oc­ca­sions he had nev­er yet dis­cov­ered. There used to be some lit­tle ex­cus­es giv­en about La­dy De­mo­lines’ state of health, but lat­ter­ly Madali­na had dis­con­tin­ued her ref­er­ences to her moth­er’s headaches. She was stand­ing in the cen­tre of the draw­ing-​room when he en­tered it, with both her hands raised, and an al­most ter­ri­ble ex­pres­sion of mys­tery in her face. Her hair, how­ev­er, had been very care­ful­ly ar­ranged so as to fall with co­pi­ous care­less­ness down her shoul­ders, and al­to­geth­er she was look­ing her best. ‘Oh, John,’ she said. She called him John by ac­ci­dent in the tu­mult of the mo­ment. ‘Have you heard what has hap­pened? But of course you have heard it.’

‘Heard what? I have heard noth­ing,’ said John­ny, ar­rest­ed al­most in the door­way by the na­ture of the ques­tion–and part­ly al­so, no doubt, by the tu­mult of the mo­ment. He had no idea how ter­ri­ble a tragedy was in truth in store for him; but he per­ceived that the mo­ment was to be tu­mul­tuous, and that he must car­ry him­self ac­cord­ing­ly.

‘Come in and close the door,’ she said. He came in and closed the door. ‘Do you mean to say that you haven’t heard what has hap­pened in Hook Court?’

‘No;–what has hap­pened in Hook Court?’ Miss De­mo­lines threw her­self back in­to an arm-​chair, closed her eyes, and clasped both her hands up­on her fore­head. ‘What has hap­pened in Hook Court?’ said John­ny, walk­ing up to her.

‘I do not think I can bring my­self to tell you.’

Then he took one of her hands down from her fore­head and held it in his–which she al­lowed pas­sive­ly. She was think­ing, no doubt, of some­thing far dif­fer­ent from that.

‘I nev­er saw you look­ing bet­ter in your life,’ said John­ny.

‘Don’t,’ said she. ‘How can you talk in that way, when my heart is bleed­ing–bleed­ing.’ Then she pulled away her hand, and again clasped it with the oth­er up­on her fore­head.

‘But why is your heart bleed­ing? What has hap­pened in Hook Court?’ Still she an­swered noth­ing, but she sobbed vi­olent­ly and the heav­ing of her bo­som showed how tu­mul­tuous was the tu­mult with­in it. ‘You don’t mean to say that Dobbs Broughton has come to grief–that he’s to be sold out?’

‘Man,’ said Madali­na, jump­ing up from her chair, stand­ing at her full height, and stretch­ing out both her arms, ‘he has de­stroyed him­self!’ The rev­ela­tion was at last made with so much trag­ic pro­pri­ety, in so ex­cel­lent a tone, and with such an ab­sence of all the cus­tom­ary re­dun­dan­cies of com­mon­place re­la­tion, that I think that she must have re­hearsed the scene–ei­ther with her moth­er or with the page. Then there was a minute’s si­lence, dur­ing which she did not move even an eye­lid. She held her out­stretched hands with­out drop­ping a fin­ger half an inch. Her face was thrust for­ward, her chin pro­ject­ing, with trag­ic hor­ror; but there was no vac­il­la­tion even in her chin. She did not wink an eye, or al­ter to the breadth of a hair the aper­ture of her lips. Sure­ly she was a great ge­nius if she did it all with­out pre­vi­ous re­hearsal. Then, be­fore he had thought of words in which to an­swer her, she let her hands fall to her side, she closed her eyes, and shook her head, and fell back again in­to her chair. ‘It’s too hor­ri­ble to be spo­ken of–or to be thought about,’ she said. ‘I could not have brought my­self to tell the tale to a liv­ing be­ing–ex­cept to you.’

This would nat­ural­ly have been flat­ter­ing to John­ny had it not been that he was in truth ab­sorbed by the sto­ry which he had heard.

‘Do you mean to tell me,’ he said, ‘that Broughton has–com­mit­ted sui­cide?’ She could not speak of it again, but nod­ded her head at him thrice, while her eyes were still closed. ‘And how was the man­ner of it?’ said he, ask­ing the ques­tion in a low voice. He could not even as yet bring him­self to be­lieve it. Madali­na was so fond of a lit­tle play­ful in­trigue, that even this sto­ry might have some­thing in the na­ture of fic­tion. He was not quite sure of the facts, and yet he was shocked by what he had heard.

‘Would you have me re­peat to you all the bloody de­tails of that ter­ri­ble scene?’ she said. ‘It is im­pos­si­ble. Go to your friend Dal­rym­ple. He will tell you. He knows it all. He has been with Maria all through. I wish–I wish it had not been so.’ But nev­er­the­less she did bring her­self to nar­rate all the de­tails with some­thing more of cir­cum­stance than Eames de­sired. She soon suc­ceed­ed in mak­ing him un­der­stand the tragedy of Hook Court was a re­al­ity, and that poor Dobbs Broughton had brought his ca­reer to an un­time­ly end. She had heard ev­ery­thing–hav­ing in­deed gone to Mus­sel­boro in the City, and hav­ing pen­etrat­ed even to the sanc­tum of Mr Ban­gles–the read­er may re­mem­ber him, Bur­ton and Ban­gles, who kept the stores for Hi­malaya wines at 22 shillings and 6 pence the dozen, in Hook Court–was a bach­elor, and rather liked the vis­it, and told Miss De­mo­lines very freely all he had seen. And when she sug­gest­ed that it might be ex­pe­di­ent for the sake of the fam­ily that she should come back to Mr Ban­gles for fur­ther in­for­ma­tion at a sub­se­quent pe­ri­od, he very po­lite­ly as­sured her that she would ‘do him proud’, when­ev­er she might please to call at Hook Court. And then he saw her in Lom­bard Street, and put her in­to an om­nibus. She was there­fore well qual­ified to tell John­ny all the par­tic­ulars of the tragedy–and she did so far over­come her hor­ror as to tell them all. She told her tale some­what af­ter the man­ner of Ae­neas, not for­get­ting the ‘quo­rum pars magna fui.’ ‘I feel that it al­most makes an old wom­an of me,’ she said, when she had fin­ished.

‘No,’ said John­ny, re­mon­strat­ing, ‘not that.’

‘But it does. To have been con­cerned in so ter­ri­ble a tragedy takes more of life out of one than ten years of tran­quil ex­is­tence.’ As she had told him noth­ing of her in­ter­course with Ban­gles–with Ban­gles who had lit­er­al­ly picked the poor wretch up–he did not see how she her­self had been con­cerned in the mat­ter; but he said noth­ing about that, know­ing the char­ac­ter of Madali­na. ‘I shall see–that–body, float­ing be­fore my eyes while I live,’ she said, ‘and the gory wound, and–and–’ ‘Don’t,’ said John­ny, re­coil­ing in truth from the pic­ture by which he was re­volt­ed. ‘Nev­er again,’ she said, ‘nev­er again! But you forced it from me, and now I shall not close my eyes for a week.’

She then be­came very com­fort­ably con­fi­den­tial, and dis­cussed the af­fairs of poor Mrs Dobbs Broughton with a great deal of sat­is­fac­tion. ‘I went to see her, of course, but she sent me down word to say that the shock would be too much for her. I do not won­der that she should not see me. Poor Maria! She came to me for ad­vice, you know, when Dobbs Broughton first pro­posed to her; and I was obliged to tell her what I re­al­ly thought. I knew her char­ac­ter well? “Dear Maria,” I said, “if you think that you can love him, take him!” “I think I can,” she replied. “But,” said I, “make your­self quite sure about the busi­ness.” And how has it turned out? She nev­er loved him. What heart she has she has giv­en to that wretched Dal­rym­ple.’

‘I don’t see that he is par­tic­ular­ly wretched,’ said John­ny, plead­ing for his friend.

‘He is wretched, and so you’ll find. She gave him her heart af­ter giv­ing her hand to poor Dobbs; and as for the busi­ness, there isn’t as much left as will pay for her mourn­ing. I don’t won­der that she could not bring her­self to see me.’

‘And what has be­come of the busi­ness?’

‘It be­longs to Mrs Van Siev­er–to her and Mus­sel­boro. Poor Broughton had some lit­tle mon­ey, and it has gone among them. Mus­sel­boro, who nev­er had a pen­ny, will be a rich man. Of course you know that he is go­ing to mar­ry Clara?’

‘Non­sense!’

‘I al­ways told you that it would be so. And now you may per­haps ac­knowl­edge that Con­way Dal­rym­ple’s prospects are not very bril­liant. I hope he likes be­ing cut out by Mr Mus­sel­boro! Of course he will have to mar­ry Maria. I do not see how he can es­cape. In­deed, she is too good for him;–on­ly af­ter such a mar­riage as that, there would be an end to all his prospects as an artist. The best thing for them would be to go to New Zealand.’

John Eames cer­tain­ly liked these evenings with Miss De­mo­lines. He sat at his ease in a com­fort­able chair, and amused him­self by watch­ing her dif­fer­ent lit­tle plots. And then she had bright eyes, and she flat­tered him, and al­lowed him to scold her oc­ca­sion­al­ly. And now and again there might be some more at­trac­tion, when she would ad­mit him to take her hand–or the like. It was bet­ter than to sit smok­ing with men at his club. But he could not sit up all night even with Madali­na De­mo­lines, and at eleven he got up to take his leave. ‘When shall you see Miss Dale?’ she asked him sud­den­ly.

‘I do not know,’ he an­swered, frown­ing at her. He al­ways frowned at her when she spoke to him of Miss Dale.

‘I do not in the least care for your frowns,’ she said play­ful­ly, putting up her hands to smooth his brows. ‘I think I know you in­ti­mate­ly enough to name your god­dess to you.’

‘She isn’t my god­dess.’

‘A very cold god­dess, I should think, from what I hear. I wish to ask you for a promise re­spect­ing her.’

‘What promise?’

‘Will you grant it to me?’

‘How can I tell till I hear?’

‘You must promise me not to speak of me when you see her.’

‘But why must I promise that?’

‘Promise me.’

‘Not un­less you tell me why.’ John­ny had al­ready as­sured him­self that noth­ing could be more im­prob­able than that he should men­tion the name of Miss De­mo­lines to Lily Dale.

‘Very well, sir. Then you may go. And I must say that un­less you can com­ply with so slight a re­quest as that, I shall not care to see you here again. Mr Eames, why should you want to speak evil of me to Miss Dale?’

‘I do not want to speak evil of you.’

‘I know that you could not speak of me to her with­out at least ridicule. Come, promise me. You shall come here Thurs­day evening, and I will tell you why I have asked you.’

‘Tell me now.’

She hes­itat­ed a mo­ment, and then shook her head. ‘No. I can­not tell you now. My heart is still bleed­ing with the mem­ory of that poor man’s face. I will not tell you now. And yet is not that you must give me the promise. Will you not trust me so far as that?’

‘I will not speak of you to Miss Dale.’

‘There is my own friend! And now, John, mind you are here at half-​past eight on Thurs­day. Punc­tu­al­ly at half-​past eight. There is a thing I have to tell you, which I will tell you then if you will come. I had thought to have told you to­day.’

‘And why not now?’

‘I can­not. My feel­ings are too many for me. I should nev­er go through with it af­ter all that has be­tween us about poor Broughton. I should break down; in­deed I should. Go now, for I am tired.’ Then hav­ing prob­ably tak­en a mo­men­tary ad­van­tage of that more po­tent at­trac­tion to which we have be­fore al­lud­ed, he left the room very sud­den­ly.

He left the room very sud­den­ly be­cause Madali­na’s move­ments had been so sud­den, and her words so full of im­pulse. He had be­come aware that in this lit­tle game in which he was play­ing in Porch­ester Ter­race ev­ery­thing ought to be done af­ter some un­ac­cus­tomed and spe­cial fash­ion. So–hav­ing clasped Madali­na for one mo­ment in his arms–he made a rush at the room door, and was out on the land­ing in a sec­ond. He was a lit­tle too quick for old La­dy De­mo­lines. The skirt of whose night-​dress–as it seemed to John­ny–he saw whisk­ing away, in at an­oth­er door. It was noth­ing, how­ev­er, to him if old La­dy De­mo­lines, who was al­ways too ill to be seen, chose to roam about her own house in her night-​dress.

When he found him­self alone in the street, his mind re­vert­ed to Dobbs Broughton and the fate of the wretched man, and he saun­tered slow­ly down Paris Gar­dens, that he might look at the house in which he had dined with a man who had de­stroyed him­self by his own hands. He stood for a mo­ment look­ing up at the win­dows, in which there was now no light, think­ing of the poor wom­an whom he had seen in the midst of lux­ury, and who was now left a wid­ow in such mis­er­able cir­cum­stances! As for the sug­ges­tion that his friend Con­way would mar­ry her, he did not be­lieve it for a mo­ment. He knew too well what the sug­ges­tions of his Madali­na were worth, and the mo­tives from which they sprung. But he thought it might be true that Mrs Van Siev­er had ab­sorbed all there was of the prop­er­ty, and pos­si­bly, al­so, that Mus­sel­boro was to mar­ry her daugh­ter. At any rate, he would go to Dal­rym­ple’s rooms, and if he could find him, would learn the truth. He knew enough of Dal­rym­ple’s ways of life, and of the ways of his friend’s cham­bers and stu­dio, to care noth­ing for the late­ness of the hour, and in a very few min­utes he was sit­ting in Dal­rym­ple’s arm-​chair. He found Siph Dunn there, smok­ing in un­per­turbed tran­quil­li­ty, and as long as that last­ed he could ask no ques­tions about Mrs Broughton. He told them, there­fore, of his ad­ven­tures abroad, and of Craw­ley’s es­cape. But at last, hav­ing fin­ished his third pipe, Siph Dunn took his leave.

‘Tell me,’ said John, as soon as Dunn had closed the door, ‘what is this I hear about Dobbs Broughton?’

‘He has blown his brains out. That is all.’

‘How ter­ri­bly shock­ing!’

‘Yes; it shocked us all at first. We are used to it now.’

‘And the busi­ness?’

‘That has gone to the dogs. They say at least that his share of it had done so.’

‘And he was ru­ined?’

‘They say so. That is, Mus­sel­boro says so, and Mrs Van Siev­er.’

‘And what do you say, Con­way?’

‘The less I say the bet­ter. I have my hopes–on­ly you’re such a talkative fel­low, one can’t trust you.’

‘I nev­er told any se­cret of yours, old fel­low.’

‘Well–that fact is, I have an idea that some­thing may be saved for the poor wom­an. I think that they are wrong­ing her. Of course all I can do is put the mat­ter in­to lawyer’s hands and pay the lawyer’s bill. So I went to your cousin, and he has tak­en the case up. I hope he won’t ru­in me.’

‘Then I sup­pose you are quar­relling with Mrs Van?’

‘That doesn’t mat­ter. She has quar­relled with me.’

‘And what about Jael, Con­way? They tell me Jael is go­ing to be­come Mrs Mus­sel­boro.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘A bird.’

‘Yes; I know who the bird is. I don’t think that Jael will be­come Mrs Mus­sel­boro. I don’t think Jael would be­come Mrs Mus­sel­boro, if Jael were the on­ly wom­an, and Mus­sel­boro the on­ly man in Lon­don. To tell you a lit­tle bit of a se­cret, John­ny, I think that Jael will be­come the wife of Con­way Dal­rym­ple. That is my opin­ion; and as far as I can judge, it is the opin­ion of Jael al­so.’

‘But not the opin­ion of Mrs Van. The bird told me an­oth­er thing, Con­way.’

‘What oth­er thing?’

‘The bird hint­ed that all this would end in your mar­ry­ing the wid­ow of that poor wretch who de­stroyed him­self.’

‘John­ny, my boy,’ said the artist af­ter a mo­ment’s si­lence, ‘if I give you a bit of ad­vice, will you prof­it by it?’

‘I’ll try, if it’s not dis­agree­able.’

‘Whether you prof­it by it, or whether not, keep it to your­self. I know the bird bet­ter than you do, and I strong­ly cau­tion you to be­ware of the bird. The bird is a bird of prey, and al­to­geth­er an un­clean bird. The bird wants a mate, and doesn’t much care how she gets it. And the bird wants mon­ey, and doesn’t care how she gets it. The bird is a de­cid­ed­ly bad bird, and not at all fit to take the place of do­mes­tic hen in a de­cent farm­yard. In plain En­glish, John­ny, you’ll find some day, if you go over to of­ten to Porch­ester Ter­race, ei­ther that you are go­ing to mar­ry the bird, or else that you are em­ploy­ing your cousin Too­good for you de­fence in an ac­tion for breach of promise, brought against you by that ven­er­able old bird, the bird’s mam­ma.’

‘If it’s to be ei­ther, it will be the lat­ter,’ said John­ny, as he took up his hat to go away.