The Last Chronicle of Barset

CHAPTER LXXVIII

THE ARA­BINS RE­TURN TO BARCH­ESTER

In these days Mr Hard­ing was keep­ing his bed at the dean­ery, and most of those who saw him de­clared that he would nev­er again leave it. The archdea­con had been slow to be­lieve so, be­cause he had still found his fa­ther-​in-​law able to talk to him; not in­deed with en­er­gy–but then Mr Hard­ing had nev­er been en­er­get­ic on or­di­nary mat­ters–but with the same soft cor­dial in­ter­est in things which had ev­er been cus­tom­ary with him. He had lat­ter­ly been much in­ter­est­ed about Mr Craw­ley, and would make both the archdea­con and Mrs Grant­ly tell him all that they had heard, and what they thought of the case. This of course had been be­fore the all-​im­por­tant news had been re­ceived from Mrs Ara­bin. Mr Hard­ing was very anx­ious. ‘First­ly,’ he said, ‘for the wel­fare of the poor man, of whom I can­not bring my­self to think ill; and then for the hon­our of the cloth in Barch­ester.’ ‘We are as li­able to have black sheep here as any­where,’ the archdea­con had replied. ‘But, my dear, I do not think the sheep is black; and we nev­er have had black sheep in Barch­ester.’ ‘Haven’t we, though?’ said the archdea­con, think­ing, how­ev­er, of sheep who were black of a dif­fer­ent kind of black­ness from this which was now at­tribut­ed to Mr Craw­ley–of a black­ness which was not ab­so­lute black­ness to Mr Hard­ing’s milder eyes. The archdea­con, when he heard his fa­ther-​in-​law talk af­ter this fash­ion, ex­pressed his opin­ion that he might live for years. He was just the man to linger on, liv­ing in bed–as in­deed he had lin­gered all his life out of bed. But the doc­tor who at­tend­ed him thought oth­er­wise, as did al­so Mrs Grant­ly, and as did Mrs Bax­ter, and as al­so did Posy. ‘Grand­pa won’t get up any more, will he?’ Posy said to Mrs Bax­ter. ‘I hope he will, my dear; and that very soon.’ ‘I don’t think he will,’ said Posy, ‘be­cause he said he would nev­er see the big fid­dle again.’ ‘That comes of be­ing a lit­tle melan­choly like, my dear,’ said Mrs Bax­ter.

Mrs Grant­ly at this time went in­to Barch­ester al­most ev­ery day, and the archdea­con, who was very of­ten in the city, nev­er went there with­out pass­ing half-​an-​hour with the old man. These two cler­gy­men, es­sen­tial­ly dif­fer­ent in their char­ac­ters and in ev­ery de­tail of con­duct, had been so much thrown to­geth­er by cir­cum­stances that the life of each al­most be­came part of the life of the oth­er. Al­though the fact of Mr Hard­ing’s res­idence at the dean­ery had of late years thrown him of­ten­er in­to the so­ci­ety of the dean than that of his oth­er son-​in-​law, yet his in­ti­ma­cy with the archdea­con had been so much ear­li­er, and his mem­ories of the archdea­con were so much clear­er, that he de­pend­ed al­most more up­on the rec­tor of Plum­stead, who was ab­sent, than he did up­on the dean, whom he cus­tom­ar­ily saw ev­ery day. It was not so with the daugh­ters. His Nel­ly, as he used to call her, had ev­er been his favourite, and the cir­cum­stances of their joint lives had ev­er been such, that they had nev­er been fur­ther sep­arat­ed than from one street of Barch­ester to an­oth­er–and that on­ly for a very short pe­ri­od of the mar­ried life of Mrs Ara­bin’s first hus­band. For all that was soft and ten­der there­fore–which with Mr Hard­ing was all in the world that was charm­ing to him–he looked to his youngest daugh­ter; but for au­thor­ity and guid­ance and wis­dom, and for in­for­ma­tion as to what was go­ing on in the world, he had still turned to his son-​in-​law the archdea­con–as he had done for al­most forty years. For so long had the archdea­con been po­tent as a cler­gy­man in the dio­cese, and through­out the whole du­ra­tion of such po­ten­cy his word had been law to Mr Hard­ing in most of the af­fairs of life–a law gen­er­al­ly to be obeyed, and if some­times bro­ken, still a law. And now, when all was so near­ly over, he would be­come un­hap­py if the archdea­con’s vis­its were far be­tween. Dr Grant­ly, when he found that this was so, would not al­low that they should be far be­tween.

‘He puts me so much in mind of my fa­ther,’ the archdea­con said to his wife one day.

‘He is not so old as your fa­ther was when he died, by many years,’ said Mrs Grant­ly, ‘and I think one sees that dif­fer­ence.’

‘Yes; and there­fore I say that he may still live for years. My fa­ther, when he took to his bed at last, was man­ifest­ly near his death. The won­der with him was that he con­tin­ued to live so long. Do you not re­mem­ber how the Lon­don doc­tor was put out be­cause his prophe­cies were not ful­filled?’

‘I re­mem­ber it well–as if it were yes­ter­day.’

‘And in that way there is a great dif­fer­ence. My fa­ther, who was phys­ical­ly a much stronger man, did not suc­cumb so eas­ily. But the like­ness is in their char­ac­ters. There is the same mild sweet­ness, be­com­ing milder and sweet­er as they in­creased in age–a sweet­ness that nev­er could be­lieve much evil, but that could be­lieve less, and still less, as the weak­ness of age came up­on them. No amount of ev­idence would in­duce your fa­ther to think that Mr Craw­ley stole that mon­ey.’ This was said of course be­fore the tele­gram had come from Venice.

‘As far as that goes, I agree with him,’ said Mrs Grant­ly, who had her own rea­sons for choos­ing to be­lieve Mr Craw­ley to be in­no­cent. ‘If your son, my dear, is to mar­ry the man’s daugh­ter, it will be as well that you should at least be able to say that you do not be­lieve that man to be a thief.’

‘That is nei­ther here nor there,’ said the archdea­con. ‘A ju­ry must de­cide it.’

‘No ju­ry in Barset­shire shall de­cide it for me,’ said Mrs Grant­ly.

‘I’m sick of Mr Craw­ley, and I’m sor­ry I spoke of him,’ said the archdea­con. ‘But look at Mrs Proudie. You’ll agree that she was not the most charm­ing wom­an in the world.’

‘She cer­tain­ly was not,’ said Mrs Grant­ly, who was anx­ious to en­cour­age her hus­band, if she could do so with­out ad­mit­ting any­thing which might in­jure her­self af­ter­wards.

‘And she was at one time vi­olent­ly in­so­lent to your fa­ther. And even the bish­op thought to tram­ple on him. Do you re­mem­ber the bish­op’s preach­ing against your fa­ther’s chant­ing? If I ev­er for­get it!’ And the archdea­con slapped his closed fist against his open hand.

‘Don’t, dear, don’t. What is the good of be­ing vi­olent now?’

‘Pal­try lit­tle fool! It will be long enough be­fore such a chaunt as that is heard in and En­glish cathe­dral again.’ Then Mrs Grant­ly got up and kissed her hus­band, but he, some­what neg­li­gent of the kiss, went on with his speech. ‘But your fa­ther re­mem­bers noth­ing of it, and if there was a sin­gle hu­man be­ing who shed a tear in Barch­ester for that wom­an, I be­lieve it was your fa­ther. And it was the same with mine. It came to that at last, that I could not bear to speak to him of any short­com­ings as to one of his own cler­gy­men. I might as well have pricked him with a penknife. And yet they say men be­come heart­less and un­feel­ing as they grow old.’

‘Some do, I sup­pose.’

‘Yes; the heart­less and un­feel­ing do. As the bod­ily strength fails and the pow­er of con­trol be­comes less­ened, the nat­ural ap­ti­tude of the man pro­nounces it­self more clear­ly. I take it that that is it. Had Mrs Proudie lived to be and hun­dred and fifty, she would have spo­ken spite­ful lies on her deathbed.’ Then Mrs Grant­ly told her­self that her hus­band, should he live to be hun­dred and fifty, would still be ex­press­ing his hor­ror of Mrs Proudie–even on his deathbed.

As soon as the let­ter from Mrs Ara­bin had reached Plum­stead, the archdea­con and his wife ar­ranged that they would both go to­geth­er to the dean­ery. There were the dou­ble tid­ings to be told–those of Mr Craw­ley’s as­sured in­no­cence, and those al­so of Mrs Ara­bin’s in­stant re­turn. And as they went to­geth­er var­ious ideas were pass­ing through their minds in ref­er­ence to the mar­riage of their son with Grace Craw­ley. They were both now rec­on­ciled to it. Mrs Grant­ly had long ceased to feel any op­po­si­tion to it, even though she had not seen Grace; and the archdea­con was pre­pared to give way. Had he not promised that in a cer­tain case he would give way, and had not that case come to pass? He had no wish to go back from his word. But he had a dif­fi­cul­ty in this–that he liked to make all the af­fairs of his life mat­ter for en­joy­ment, al­most for tri­umph; but how was he to be tri­umphant over this mar­riage, or how even was he to en­joy it, see­ing that he had op­posed it so bit­ter­ly? Those posters, though they were now pulled down, had been up on a barn ends and walls patent–alas, too patent–to all the world of Barset­shire!

‘What will Mr Craw­ley do now, do you sup­pose?’ said Mrs Grant­ly.

‘What will he do?’

‘Yes; must he go on at Hog­gle­stock?’

‘What else?’ said the archdea­con.

‘It is a pity some­thing could not be done for him af­ter all he has un­der­gone. How on earth can he be ex­pect­ed to live there with a wife and fam­ily, and no pri­vate means?’ To this the archdea­con made no an­swer. Mrs Grant­ly had spo­ken al­most im­me­di­ate­ly up­on their quit­ting Plum­stead, and the si­lence was con­tin­ued till the car­riage had en­tered the sub­urbs of the city. Then Mrs Grant­ly spoke again, ask­ing a ques­tion, with some in­ter­nal trep­ida­tion which, how­ev­er, she man­aged to hide from her hus­band. ‘When poor pa­pa does go, what shall you do about St Ewold’s?’ Now, St Ewold’s was a ru­ral parish ly­ing about two miles out of Barch­ester, the liv­ing of which was in the gift of the archdea­con, and to which the archdea­con had pre­sent­ed to his fa­ther-​in-​law, un­der cer­tain cir­cum­stances, which need not be re­peat­ed in this last chron­icle of Barset­shire. Have they not been writ­ten in oth­er chron­icles? ‘When poor pa­pa does go, what will you do about St Ewold’s?’ said Mrs Grant­ly, trem­bling in­ward­ly. A word too much might, as she well knew, set­tle the ques­tion against Mr Craw­ley for ev­er. But were she to post­pone the word till too late, the ques­tion would be set­tled as fa­tal­ly.

‘I haven’t thought about it,’ he said sharply. ‘I don’t like think­ing of such things while the in­cum­bent is still liv­ing.’ Oh, archdea­con, archdea­con! Un­less that oth­er chron­icle be a false chron­icle, how hast thou for­got­ten thy­self and thy past life! ‘Par­tic­ular­ly not, when that in­cum­bent is your fa­ther,’ said the archdea­con. Mrs Grant­ly said noth­ing more about St Ewold’s. She would have said as much as she had in­tend­ed to say if she had suc­ceed­ed in mak­ing the archdea­con un­der­stand that St Ewold’s would be a very nice refuge for Mr Craw­ley af­ter all the mis­eries which he had en­dured at Hog­gle­stock.

They learned as they en­tered the dean­ery that Mrs Bax­ter had al­ready heard of Mrs Ara­bin’s re­turn. ‘Oh yes, ma’am. Mr Hard­ing got a let­ter his­self, and I got an­oth­er–sep­arate; both from Venice, ma’am. But when mas­ter come no­body seems to know.’ Mrs Bax­ter knew that the dean had gone to Jerusalem, and was in­clined to think that from such dis­tant bournes there was not re­turn to any trav­eller. The East is al­ways fur­ther than the West in the es­ti­ma­tion of the Mrs Bax­ters of the world. Had the dean gone to Cana­da, she would have thought that he might come back to­mor­row. But still there was the news to be told of Mr Craw­ley, and there was al­so joy to be ex­pressed at the sud­den com­ing back of the much-​wished-​for mis­tress of the dean­ery.

‘It’s so good of you to come both to­geth­er,’ said Mr Hard­ing.

‘We thought that we should be too many for you,’ said the archdea­con.

‘Too many! Oh dear no. I like to have peo­ple by me; and as for voic­es and noise, and all that, the more the bet­ter. But I am weak. I’m weak in my legs. I don’t think I shall ev­er stand again.’

‘Yes, you will,’ said the archdea­con.

‘We have brought good news,’ said Mrs Grant­ly.

‘It is not good news that Nel­ly will be home this week? You can’t un­der­stand what a joy it is to me. I used to think some­times, at night, that I should nev­er see her again. That she would come back in time was all I have wished for.’ He was ly­ing on his back, and as he spoke he pressed his with­ered hands to­geth­er above the bed-​clothes. They could not be­gin im­me­di­ate­ly to tell him of Mr Craw­ley, but as soon as his mind had turned it­self away from the thoughts of his ab­sent daugh­ter, Mrs Grant­ly again re­vert­ed to the news.’

‘We have come to tell you about Mr Craw­ley, pa­pa.’

‘What about him?’

‘He is quite in­no­cent.’

‘I knew it, my dear. I al­ways said so. Did I not al­ways say so, archdea­con?’

‘In­deed you did. I’ll give you that cred­it.’

‘And is it all found out?’ asked Mr Hard­ing.

‘As far as he is con­cerned, ev­ery­thing is found out,’ said Mrs Grant­ly. ‘Eleanor gave him the cheque her­self.’

‘Nel­ly gave it to him?’

‘Yes, pa­pa. The dean meant her to give him fifty pounds. But it seems she got to be soft of heart and made it sev­en­ty. She had the cheque by her, and put it in­to the en­ve­lope with the notes.’

‘Some of Stringer’s peo­ple seem to have stolen the cheque from Mr Soames,’ said the archdea­con.

‘Oh dear, I hope not.’

‘Some­body must have stolen it, pa­pa.’

‘I had hoped not, Su­san,’ said Mr Hard­ing. Both the archdea­con and Mrs Grant­ly knew that it was use­less to ar­gue with him on such a point, and so they let that go.

Then they came to dis­cuss Mr Craw­ley’s present po­si­tion, and Mr Hard­ing ven­tured to ask a ques­tion or two as to Grace’s chance of mar­riage. He did not of­ten in­ter­fere in the fam­ily ar­range­ments of his son-​in-​law and nev­er did so when those fam­ily ar­range­ments were con­cerned with high mat­ters. He had hard­ly opened his mouth in ref­er­ence to the mar­riage of that au­gust la­dy who was now the Mar­chioness of Hartle­top. And of the La­dy Anne, the wife of the Rev Charles Grant­ly, who was al­ways prodi­gious­ly civ­il to him, speak­ing to him very loud, as though he were deaf be­cause he was old, and bring­ing cheap presents from Lon­don of which he did not take much heed–of her he rarely said a word, or of her chil­dren, to ei­ther of his daugh­ters. But now his grand­son, Hen­ry Grant­ly, was go­ing to mar­ry a girl of whom he felt that he might speak with­out im­pro­pri­ety. ‘I sup­pose it will be a match; won’t it, my dears?’

‘Not a doubt about it,’ said Mrs Grant­ly. Mr Hard­ing looked at his son-​in-​law, but his son-​in-​law said noth­ing. The archdea­con did not even frown–but on­ly moved a lit­tle un­easi­ly in his chair.

‘Dear, dear! What a com­fort it must be,’ said the old man.

‘I have not seen yet,’ said Mrs Grant­ly; ‘but the archdea­con de­clares that she is all the graces rolled in­to one.’

‘I nev­er said any­thing half so ab­surd,’ said the archdea­con.

‘But he is re­al­ly in love with her, pa­pa,’ said Mrs Grant­ly. ‘He con­fessed to me that he gave her a kiss, and he on­ly saw her once for five min­utes.’

‘I should like to give her a kiss,’ said Mr Hard­ing.

‘So you shall, pa­pa, and I’ll bring her here on pur­pose. As soon as ev­er the thing is set­tled, we mean to ask her to Plum­stead.’

‘Do you, though? How nice! How hap­py Hen­ry will be.’

‘And if she comes–and of course she will–I’ll lose no time in bring­ing her over to you. Nel­ly must see her, of course.’

As they were leav­ing the room Mr Hard­ing called the archdea­con back, and tak­ing him by the hand, spoke one word to him in a whis­per. ‘I don’t like to in­ter­fere,’ he said; ‘but might not Mr Craw­ley have St Ewold’s?’ The archdea­con took up the old man’s hand and kissed it. Then he fol­lowed his wife out of the room, with­out mak­ing any an­swer to Mr Hard­ing’s ques­tion.

Three days af­ter this Mrs Ara­bin reached the dean­ery, and the joy at her re­turn was very great. ‘My dear, I have been sick for you,’ said Mr Hard­ing.

‘Oh, pa­pa, I ought not to have gone.’

‘Nay, my dear; do not say that. Would it make my hap­py that you should be a pris­on­er here for ev­er? It was on­ly when I seemed to get so weak that I thought about it. I felt that it must be near when they bade me not to go to the cathe­dral any more.’

‘If I had been here, I could have gone with you, pa­pa.’

‘It is bet­ter as it is. I know now that I was not fit for it. When your sis­ter came to me, I nev­er thought of re­mon­strat­ing. I knew then that I had seen it for the last time.’

‘We need not say that yet, pa­pa.’

‘I did think that when you came home we might crawl there to­geth­er some warm morn­ing. I did think of that for a time. But it will nev­er be so, dear. I shall nev­er see any­thing now that I do not see from here–and that not for long. Do not cry, Nel­ly. I have noth­ing to re­gret, noth­ing to make me un­hap­py. I know how poor and weak has been my life; but I know how rich and strong is that oth­er life. Do not cry, Nel­ly–not till I am gone; and then not be­yond mea­sure. Why should any­one weep for those who go away full of years–and full of hope?’

On the day but one fol­low­ing the dean reached his home. The fi­nal ar­range­ments of his tour, as well as those of his wife, had been made to de­pend on Mr Craw­ley’s tri­al; for he al­so had been hur­ried back by John Eames’s vis­it to Flo­rence. ‘I should have come back at once,’ he said to his wife, ‘when they wrote to ask me whether Craw­ley had tak­en the cheque from me, had any­body told me that he was in ac­tu­al trou­ble; but I had no idea that they were charg­ing him with the theft.’

‘As far as I can learn, they nev­er re­al­ly sus­pect­ed him un­til af­ter your an­swer had come. They had been quite sure that your an­swer would be in the af­fir­ma­tive.’

‘What he must have en­dured it is im­pos­si­ble to con­ceive. I shall go out to him to­mor­row.’

‘Would he not come to us?’ said Mrs Ara­bin.

‘I doubt it. I will ask him, of course. I will ask them all here. This about Hen­ry and the girl may make a dif­fer­ence. He has re­signed the liv­ing, and some of the palace peo­ple are do­ing the du­ty.’

‘But he can have it again?’

‘Oh, yes; he can have it again. For the mat­ter of that, I need sim­ply to give him back his let­ter. On­ly he is so odd–so un­like oth­er peo­ple! And he has tried to live there, and has failed; and is now in debt. I won­der whether Grant­ly will give him St Ewold’s?’

‘I wish he would. But you must ask him. I should not dare.’

As to the mat­ter of the cheque, the dean ac­knowl­edged to his wife at last that he had some rec­ol­lec­tion of her hav­ing told him that she had made the sum of mon­ey up to sev­en­ty pounds. ‘I don’t feel cer­tain of it now; but I think you must have done so.’ ‘I am quite sure I could have done it with­out telling you,’ she replied. ‘At any rate you said noth­ing of the cheque,’ plead­ed the dean. ‘I don’t sup­pose I did,’ said Mrs Ara­bin. ‘I thought that cheques were like any oth­er mon­ey; but I shall know bet­ter for the fu­ture.’

On the fol­low­ing morn­ing the dean rode over to Hog­gle­stock, and as he drew near to the house of his old friend, his spir­its flagged–for to tell the truth, he dread­ed the meet­ing. Since the day on which he had brought Mr Craw­ley from a cu­ra­cy in Corn­wall in­to the dio­cese of Barch­ester, his friend had been a trou­ble to him rather than a joy. The trou­ble had been a trou­ble of spir­it al­to­geth­er–not all of pock­et. He would will­ing­ly have picked the Craw­leys out from the pe­cu­niary mud in­to which they were for ev­er falling, time af­ter time, had it been pos­si­ble. For, though the dean was hard­ly to be called a rich man, his lines had fall­en to him not on­ly in pleas­ant places, but in easy cir­cum­stances–and Mr Craw­ley’s em­bar­rass­ments, though over­whelm­ing to him, were not so great as to have been heavy to the dean. But in striv­ing to do this he had al­ways failed, had al­ways suf­fered, and had gen­er­al­ly been re­buked. Craw­ley would at­tempt to ar­gue with him as to the im­prop­er al­lot­ment of Church en­dow­ments–declar­ing that he did not do so with any ref­er­ence to his own cir­cum­stances, but sim­ply be­cause the sub­ject was one nat­ural­ly in­ter­est­ing to cler­gy­men. And this he would do, as he was wav­ing off with his hand of­fers of im­me­di­ate as­sis­tance which were in­dis­pens­able. Then there had been scenes be­tween the dean and Mrs Craw­ley–ter­ri­bly painful–and which had tak­en place in di­rect dis­obe­di­ence to the hus­band’s pos­itive in­junc­tions. ‘Sir,’ he had once said to the dean, ‘I re­quest that noth­ing may pass from your hands to the hands of my wife.’ ‘Tush, tush,’ the dean had an­swered. ‘I will have no tush­ing or pshaw­ing on such a mat­ter. A man’s wife is his very own, the breath of his nos­tril, the blood of his heart, the rib from his body. It is for me to rule my wife, and I tell you that I will not have it.’ Af­ter that the gifts had come from the hand of Mrs Ara­bin; and then again, af­ter that, in the direst hour of his need, Craw­ley had him­self come and tak­en mon­ey from the dean’s hands! The in­ter­view had been so painful that Ara­bin would hard­ly have been able to count the mon­ey or to know of what it had con­sist­ed, had he tak­en the notes and cheque out of the en­ve­lope in which his wife had put them. Since that day the two had not met each oth­er, and since that day these new trou­bles had come. Ara­bin as yet knew but lit­tle of the man­ner in which they had been borne, ex­cept that Craw­ley had felt him­self com­pelled to re­sign the liv­ing of Hog­gle­stock. He knew noth­ing of Mrs Proudie’s per­se­cu­tion, ex­cept what he gath­ered from the fact of the cler­ical com­mis­sion of which he had been in­formed; but he could imag­ine that Mrs Proudie would not lie easy in her bed while a cler­gy­man was do­ing du­ty al­most un­der her nose, who was guilty of the dou­ble of­fence of be­ing ac­cused of theft, and of hav­ing been put in­to his liv­ing by the dean. The dean, there­fore, as he rode on, pic­tured to him­self his old friend in a ter­ri­ble con­di­tion. And it might be that even now that con­di­tion would hard­ly have been im­proved. He was no longer sus­pect­ed of be­ing a thief; but he could have no mon­ey in his pock­et; and it might well be that his suf­fer­ings would have made him al­most mad.

The dean al­so got down and left his horse at a farm­yard, as Grant­ly had done with his car­riage; and walked on first to the school. He had voic­es in­side, but could not dis­tin­guish from them whether Mr Craw­ley was there or not. Slow­ly he opened the door, and look­ing round saw that Jane Craw­ley was in the as­cen­dant. Jane did not know him at once, but told him when he had in­tro­duced him­self that her fa­ther had gone down to Hog­gle End. He had start­ed two hours ago, but it was im­pos­si­ble to say when he might be back. ‘He some­times stays all day long with the brick­mak­ers,’ said Jane. Her moth­er was at home, and she would take the dean in­to the house. As she said this she told him that her fa­ther was some­times bet­ter and some­times worse. ‘But he has nev­er been so very, very bad, since Hen­ry Grant­ly and mam­ma’s cousin came and told us about the cheque.’ Those words Hen­ry Grant­ly made the dean un­der­stand that there might yet be a ray of sun­shine among the Craw­leys.

‘There is pa­pa,’ said Jane, as they got to the gate. Then they wait­ed for a few min­utes till Mr Craw­ley came up, very hot, wip­ing the sweat from his fore­head.

‘Craw­ley,’ said the dean, ‘I can­not tell you how glad I am to see you, and how re­joiced I am that this ac­cu­sa­tion has fall­en from you.’

‘Ver­ily the news came in time, Ara­bin,’ said the oth­er, ‘but it was a nar­row pinch–a nar­row pinch. Will you en­ter, and see my wife?’