The Last Chronicle of Barset

CHAPTER LXXIX

MR CRAW­LEY SPEAKS OF HIS COAT

At this time Grace had re­turned from Fram­ley. As long as the ter­ri­ble tragedy of the forth­com­ing tri­al was drag­ging it­self on she had been con­tent to stay away, at her moth­er’s bid­ding. It has not been pos­si­ble in these pages to tell of all the ad­vice that had been giv­en to the ladies of the Craw­ley fam­ily in their great dif­fi­cul­ty, and of all the as­sis­tance that had been of­fered. The el­der La­dy Lufton and the younger, and Mrs Ro­barts had con­tin­ual­ly been in con­sul­ta­tion on the sub­ject; Mrs Grant­ly’s opin­ion had been asked and giv­en; and even the Miss Pret­ty­mans and Mrs Walk­er had found means of ex­press­ing them­selves. The com­mu­ni­ca­tions to Mrs Craw­ley had been very fre­quent–though they had not of course been al­lowed to reach the ears of Mr Craw­ley. What was to be done when the liv­ing should be gone and Mr Craw­ley should be in prison? Some said that he might be there for six weeks, and some for two years. Old La­dy Lufton made anx­ious in­quiries about Judge Medli­cote, be­fore whom it was said that the tri­al would be tak­en. Judge Medli­cote was a Dis­senter, and old La­dy Lufton was in de­spair. When she was as­sured by some lib­er­al­ly-​dis­posed friend that this would cer­tain­ly make no dif­fer­ence, she shook her head woe­ful­ly. ‘I don’t know why we are to have Dis­senteres at all,’ she said, ‘to try peo­ple who be­long to the Es­tab­lished Church.’ When she heard that Judge Medli­cote would cer­tain­ly be the judge, she made up her mind that two years would be the least of it. She would not have mind­ed, she said, if he had been a Ro­man Catholic. And whether the pun­ish­ment might be for six weeks or for two years, what should be done with the fam­ily? Where should they be housed? How should they be fed? What should be done with the poor man when he came out of prison? It was a case in which the gen­er­ous, soft-​heart­ed old La­dy Lufton was al­most be­side her­self. ‘As for Grace,’ said young La­dy Lufton, ‘it will be a great deal bet­ter that we should keep her amongst us. Of course she will be­come Mrs Grant­ly, and it will be nicer for her that it should be so.’ In those days the posters had been seen, and the flit­ting to Pau had been talked of, and the Fram­ley opin­ion was that Grace had bet­ter re­main at Fram­ley till she should be car­ried off to Pau. There were schemes, too, about Jane, but what was to be done for the wife? And what was to be done for Mr Craw­ley? Then came the news from Mrs Ara­bin, and all in­ter­est in Judge Medli­cote was at an end.

But even now, af­ter this great es­cape, what was to be done? As to Grace, she had felt the ab­so­lute ne­ces­si­ty of be­ing obe­di­ent to her friends–with the con­sent of course of her moth­er–dur­ing the great tribu­la­tion of her fam­ily. Things were so bad that she had not the heart to make them worse by giv­ing any un­nec­es­sary trou­ble as to her­self. Hav­ing re­solved–and hav­ing made her moth­er so un­der­stand–that on one point she would guide her­self by her own feel­ings, she was con­tent­ed to go hith­er and thith­er as she was told, and to do as she was bid. Her hope was that Miss Pret­ty­man would al­low her to go back to her teach­ing, but it had come to be un­der­stood among them all that noth­ing was to be said on that sub­ject till the tri­al should be over. Till that time she would be pas­sive. But then, as I have said, had come the news from Mrs Ara­bin, and Grace, with all the oth­ers, un­der­stood that there would be no tri­al. When this was known and ac­knowl­edged, she de­clared her pur­pose of go­ing back to Hog­gle­stock. She would go back at once. When asked both by La­dy Lufton and Mrs Ro­barts why she was in so great a haste, she mere­ly said that it must be so. She was, as it were, ab­solved from her pas­sive obe­di­ence to Fram­ley au­thor­ities by the diminu­tion of the fam­ily mis­for­tunes.

Mrs Ro­barts un­der­stood the feel­ing by which Grace was hur­ried away. ‘Do you know why she is so ob­sti­nate?’ La­dy Lufton asked.

‘I think I do,’ said Mrs Ro­barts.

‘And what is it?’

‘Should Ma­jor Grant­ly re­new his of­fer to her she is un­der a pledge to ac­cept him now.’

‘Of course he will re­new it, and of course she will ac­cept him.’

‘Just so. But she prefers that he should come for her to her own house–be­cause of the pover­ty. If he choos­es to seek her there, I don’t think she will make much dif­fi­cul­ty.’ La­dy Lufton de­murred at this, not how­ev­er with anger, and ex­pressed a cer­tain amount of mild dis­plea­sure. She did not quite see why Ma­jor Grant­ly should not be al­lowed to come and do his love-​mak­ing com­fort­ably, where there was a de­cent din­ner for him to eat, and chairs and ta­bles and so­fas and car­pets. She said that she thought that some­thing was due to Ma­jor Grant­ly. She was in truth a lit­tle dis­ap­point­ed that she was not al­lowed to have her own way, and to ar­range the mar­riage at Fram­ley un­der her own eye. But, through it all, she ap­pre­ci­at­ed Grace; and they who knew her well and heard what she said up­on the oc­ca­sion, un­der­stood that her favour was not to be with­drawn. All young wom­en were di­vid­ed by the old La­dy Lufton in­to sheep and goats–very white sheep and very black goats–and Grace was to be a sheep. Thus it came to pass that Grace Craw­ley was at home when the dean vis­it­ed Hog­gle­stock. ‘Mam­ma,’ she said, look­ing out of the win­dow, ‘there is the dean with pa­pa at the gate.’

‘It was a nar­row squeak–a very nar­row squeak,’ Mr Craw­ley had said when his friend had con­grat­ulat­ed him on his es­cape. The dean felt at the mo­ment that not for many years had he heard the in­cum­bent of Hog­gle­stock speak ei­ther of him­self or of any­thing else with so man­ifest an at­tempt at joc­ular­ity. Ara­bin had ex­pect­ed to find the man bro­ken down by the weight of his sor­rows, and lo! at the first mo­ment of their first in­ter­view he him­self be­gan to ridicule them! Craw­ley hav­ing thus al­lud­ed to the nar­row squeak had asked his vis­itor to en­ter the house and see his wife.

‘Of course I will,’ said Ara­bin, ‘but I will speak just a word to you first.’ Jane who had ac­com­pa­nied the dean from the school, now left them, and went in­to the house to her moth­er. ‘My wife can­not for­give her­self about the cheque,’ con­tin­ued he.

‘There is noth­ing to be for­giv­en,’ said Mr Craw­ley; ‘noth­ing.’

‘She feels that what she did was awk­ward and fool­ish. She ought nev­er to have paid the cheque away in such a man­ner. She knows that now.’

‘It was giv­en–not paid,’ said Craw­ley; and as he spoke some­thing of the black cloud came back on his face. ‘And I am well aware hard Mrs Ara­bin strove to take away from the alms she be­stowed the bit­ter­ness of the sting of eleemosy­nary aid. If you please, Ara­bin, we will not talk any more of that. I can nev­er for­get that I have been a beg­gar, but I need not make my beg­gary the mat­ter of con­ver­sa­tion. I hope the Holy Land has ful­filled your ex­pec­ta­tion?’

‘It has more than done so,’ said the dean, be­wil­dered by the sud­den change.

‘For my­self, it is, of course, im­pos­si­ble that I should ev­er vis­it any scenes ex­cept those to which my im­me­di­ate work may call me–nev­er in this world. The new Jerusalem is still with­in my reach–if it be not for­feit­ed by pride and ob­sti­na­cy; but the old Jerusalem I can nev­er be­hold. Me­thinks, be­cause it is so, I would soon­er stand with my foot on Mount Olivet, or drink a cup of wa­ter in the vil­lage of Bethany, than vis­it any oth­er spot with­in the trav­eller’s com­pass. The sources of the Nile, of which men talk so much–I see it in the pa­pers and re­views which the ladies at Fram­ley are so good as to send to my wife–do not in­ter­est me much. I have no am­bi­tion to climb Mont Blanc or the Mat­ter­horn; Rome makes my mouth wa­ter but lit­tle, nor even Athens much. I can re­alise with­out see­ing all that Athens could show me, and can fan­cy that the ex­ist­ing truth would de­stroy more than it would build up. But to have stood on Cal­vary!’

‘We don’t know where Cal­vary was,’ said the dean.

‘I fan­cy that I should know–should know enough,’ said the il­log­ical and un­rea­son­able Mr Craw­ley. ‘Is it true that you can look over from the spot on which He stood as He came across the brow of the hill, and see the huge stones of the tem­ple placed there by Solomon’s men–as He saw them–right across the brook Ce­dron, is it not?’

‘It’s all there, Craw­ley–just as your knowl­edge of it tells you.’

‘In the priv­ilege of see­ing those places I can al­most en­vy a man his–mon­ey.’ The last words he ut­tered af­ter a pause. He had been about to say that un­der­neath temp­ta­tion he could al­most en­vy a man his pro­mo­tion; but he bethought him­self that on such an oc­ca­sion as this it would be bet­ter that he should spare the dean. ‘And now, if you wish it, we will go in. I fan­cy that I see my wife at the win­dow, as though she were wait­ing for us.’ So say­ing, he strode on along the lit­tle path, and the dean was fain to fol­low him, even though he had said so lit­tle of all that he had in­tend­ed to say.

As soon as he was in with Mrs Craw­ley he re­peat­ed his apol­ogy about the cheque, and found him­self bet­ter able to ex­plain him­self than he could do when he was alone with the hus­band. ‘Of course, it has been our fault,’ he said.

‘Oh, no,’ said Mrs Craw­ley, ‘how can you have been at fault when your on­ly ob­ject was to do us good?’ But, nev­er­the­less, the dean took the blame up­on his own shoul­ders, or, rather, up­on those of his wife, and de­clared him­self to be re­spon­si­ble for all the trou­ble about the cheque.

‘Let it go,’ said Craw­ley, af­ter sit­ting awhile in si­lence; ‘let it pass.’

‘You can­not won­der, Craw­ley,’ said the dean, ‘that I should have felt my­self obliged to speak of it.’

‘For the fu­ture it will be well that it should be for­got­ten,’ said Craw­ley; ‘or, if not for­got­ten, treat­ed as though for­got­ten. And now, dean, what must I do about the liv­ing?’

‘Just re­sume it, as though noth­ing hap­pened.’

‘But that may hard­ly be done with­out the bish­op’s au­thor­ity. I speak, of course, with def­er­ence to your high­er and bet­ter in­for­ma­tion on such sub­jects. My ex­pe­ri­ence in the tak­ing up and lay­ing down of liv­ings has not been ex­tend­ed. But it seemeth to me that though it may cer­tain­ly be in your pow­er to nom­inate me again to the per­pet­ual cu­ra­cy of the parish–pre­sum­ing your pa­tron­age to be un­lim­it­ed and not to reach you in ro­ta­tion on­ly–yet the bish­op may de­mand to in­sti­tute again, and must so de­mand, un­less he pleas­es to per­mit that my let­ter to him shall be re­voked and can­celled.’

‘Of course he will do any­thing of that kind. He must know the cir­cum­stances as well as you and I do.’

‘At present they tell me he is much af­flict­ed by the death of his wife, and, there­fore, can hard­ly be ex­pect­ed to take im­me­di­ate ac­tion. There came on the last Sun­day one Mr Snap­per, his chap­lain.’

‘We all know Snap­per,’ said the dean. ‘Snap­per is not a bad lit­tle fel­low.’

‘I say noth­ing of his be­ing bad, my friend, but mere­ly men­tion the fact that on Sun­day morn­ing last he per­formed the ser­vice in our church. On the Sun­day pre­vi­ous Mr Thum­ble was here.’

‘We all know Thum­ble, too,’ said the dean; ‘or, at least, we know some­thing about him.’

‘He has been a thorn in our sides,’ said Mrs Craw­ley, un­able to re­strain the ex­pres­sion of her dis­like when Mr Thum­ble’s name was men­tioned.

‘Nay, my dear, nay;–do not al­low your­self the use of lan­guage so strong against a broth­er. Our flesh at that time was some­what prone to fes­ter, and lit­tle thorns made us very sore.’

‘He is a hor­ri­ble man,’ said Jane, al­most in a whis­per; but the words were dis­tinct­ly au­di­ble to the dean.

‘They need not come any more,’ said Ara­bin.

‘That is where I fear we dif­fer. I think they must come–or some oth­ers in their place–till the bish­op shall have ex­pressed his plea­sure to the con­trary. I have sub­mit­ted my­self to his lord­ship, and, hav­ing done so, I feel that I can­not again go up in­to my pul­pit till he shall have au­tho­rised me to do so. For a time, Ara­bin, I com­bat­ted the bish­op, be­liev­ing–then as now–that he put forth his hand against me af­ter a fash­ion which the law had not sanc­tioned. And I made bold to stand in his pres­ence and tell him that I would not obey him, ex­cept in things le­gal. But af­ter­wards, when he pro­ceed­ed for­mal­ly, through the ac­tion of a com­mis­sion, I sub­mit­ted my­self. And I re­gard my­self still as be­ing un­der his sub­mis­sion.’

It was im­pos­si­ble to shake him. Ara­bin re­mained there for more than an hour, try­ing to pass on to an­oth­er sub­ject, but be­ing con­stant­ly brought back by Mr Craw­ley him­self to the fact of his own de­pen­dent po­si­tion. Nor would he con­de­scend to sup­pli­cate the bish­op. It was, he sur­mised, the du­ty of Dr Tem­pest, to­geth­er with the oth­er four cler­gy­men, to re­port to the bish­op on the ques­tion of the al­leged theft; and then doubt­less the bish­op, when he had du­ly con­sid­ered the re­port, and–as Mr Craw­ley seemed to think was es­sen­tial­ly nec­es­sary–had suf­fi­cient­ly re­cov­ered from the grief of his wife’s death, would, at his leisure, com­mu­ni­cate his de­ci­sion to Mr Craw­ley. Noth­ing could be more com­plete than Mr Craw­ley’s hu­mil­ity with re­spect to the bish­op; and he nev­er seemed to be tired of declar­ing that he had sub­mit­ted him­self!

And then the dean, find­ing it to be vain to ex­pect to be left alone with Mr Craw­ley for a mo­ment–in vain al­so to wait for a prop­er open­ing for that which he had to say–rushed vi­olent­ly at his oth­er sub­ject. ‘And now, Mrs Craw­ley,’ he said. ‘Mrs Ara­bin wish­es you all to come over to the dean­ery for a while and stay with us.’

‘Mrs Ara­bin is too kind,’ said Mrs Craw­ley, look­ing across at her hus­band.

‘We should like of all things,’ said the dean, with per­haps more of good na­ture than of truth. ‘Of course you must have been knocked about a good deal.’

‘In­deed we have,’ said Mrs Craw­ley.

‘And till you are some­what set­tled again, I think that the change of scene would be good for all of you. Come, Craw­ley, I’ll talk to you ev­ery evening about Jerusalem for as long as you please; and then there will per­haps come back to us some­thing of the pleas­ant­ness of old days.’ As she heard this Mrs Craw­ley’s eyes be­came full of tears, and she could not al­to­geth­er hide them. What she had en­dured dur­ing the last four months had al­most bro­ken her spir­it. The bur­den had at last been too heavy for her strength. ‘You can­not fan­cy, Craw­ley, how of­ten I have thought of the old days and wished that they might re­turn. I have found it very hard to get an op­por­tu­ni­ty of say­ing so much to you; but I will say it now.’

‘It may hard­ly be as you say,’ said Craw­ley, grim­ly.

‘You mean that the old days can nev­er be brought back?’

‘As­sured­ly they can­not. But it was not that I meant. It may not be that I and mine should trans­fer our­selves to your roof and so­journ there.’

‘Why should you not?’

‘The rea­sons are many, and on the face of things. The rea­son, per­haps, the most on the face of it is to be found in my wife’s gown, and in my coat.’ This Mr Craw­ley said very grave­ly, look­ing nei­ther to the right nor to the left nor at the face of any of them, nor at his own gar­ment, nor hers, but straight be­fore him; and when he had so spo­ken he said not a word fur­ther–not go­ing on to di­late on his pover­ty as the dean ex­pect­ed that he would do.

‘At such a time such rea­sons should stand for noth­ing,’ said the dean.

‘And why not now as they al­ways do, and al­ways must till the pow­er of tai­lors shall have waned, and the daugh­ters of Eve shall toil and spin no more? Like to like is true, and should be held to be true, of all so­ci­eties and of all com­pacts for co-​op­er­ation and mu­tu­al liv­ing. Here, where, if I may ven­ture to say so, you and I are like to like;–for the new gloss of your coat;–the dean, as it hap­pened, had on at the mo­ment a very old coat, his old­est coat, se­lect­ed per­haps with some view to this spe­cial vis­it–’does not ob­trude it­self in my house­hold, as would be the thread­bare tex­ture of mine in yours;–I can open my mouth to you and con­verse with you at my ease; you are now to me that Frank Ara­bin who has so com­fort­ed me and so of­ten con­fut­ed me; whom I may per­haps on oc­ca­sion have con­fut­ed–and per­haps have com­fort­ed. But were I sit­ting with you in your li­brary in Barch­ester, my thread­bare coat would be too much for me. I should be silent, if not sullen. I should feel the weight of all my pover­ty, and the greater weight of all your wealth. For my chil­dren let them go. I have come to know that they will be bet­ter from me.’

‘Pa­pa!’ said Jane.

‘Pa­pa does not mean it,’ said Grace, com­ing up to him and stand­ing close to him.

There was si­lence amongst them for a few mo­ments, and then the mas­ter of the house shook him­self–lit­er­al­ly shook him­self, till he had shak­en off the cloud. He had tak­en Grace by the hand, and thrust­ing out the oth­er arm had got it round Jane’s waist. ‘When a man has girls, Ara­bin,’ he said, ‘as you have, but not big girls yet like Grace here, of course he knows that they will fly away.’

‘I shall not fly away,’ said Jane.

‘I don’t know what pa­pa means,’ said Grace.

Up­on the whole the dean thought it the pleas­an­test vis­it he had ev­er made to Hog­gle­stock, and when he got home he told his wife that he be­lieved that the ac­cu­sa­tion made against Mr Craw­ley had done him good. ‘I could not say a word in pri­vate to her,’ he said, ‘but I did promise that you would go over and see her. On the very next day, Mrs Ara­bin went over, and I think that the vis­it was a com­fort to Mrs Craw­ley.