The Chronicles of Barsetshire (294 page)

“That is my name, sir,” said Mr. Crawley, taking off his hat and bowing low, “and I am here by appointment to meet Mr. Toogood, the solicitor, whose name I see affixed upon the door-post.”

“I am Mr. Toogood, the solicitor, and I hope I see you quite well, Mr. Crawley.” Then the attorney shook hands with the clergyman and preceded him upstairs to the front room on the first floor. “Here we are, Mr. Crawley, and pray take a chair. I wish you could have made it convenient to come and see us at home. We are rather long, as my wife says—long in family, she means, and therefore are not very well off for spare beds—”

“Oh, sir.”

“I’ve twelve of ‘em living, Mr. Crawley—from eighteen years, the eldest—a girl, down to eighteen months the youngest—a boy, and they go in and out, boy and girl, boy and girl, like the cogs of a wheel. They ain’t such far away distant cousins from your own young ones—only first, once, as we call it.”

“I am aware that there is a family tie, or I should not have ventured to trouble you.”

“Blood is thicker than water, isn’t it? I often say that. I heard of one of your girls only yesterday. She is staying somewhere down in the country, not far from where my sister lives—Mrs. Eames, the widow of poor John Eames, who never did any good in this world. I daresay you’ve heard of her?”

“The name is familiar to me, Mr. Toogood.”

“Of course it is. I’ve a nephew down there just now, and he saw your girl the other day—very highly he spoke of her too. Let me see—how many is it you have?”

“Three living, Mr. Toogood.”

“I’ve just four times three—that’s the difference. But I comfort myself with the text about the quiver you know; and I tell them that when they’ve eat up all the butter, they’ll have to take their bread dry.”

“I trust the young people take your teaching in the proper spirit.”

“I don’t know much about spirit. There’s spirit enough. My second girl, Lucy, told me that if I came home to-day without tickets for the pantomime I shouldn’t have any dinner allowed me. That’s the way they treat me. But we understand each other at home. We’re all pretty good friends there, thank God. And there isn’t a sick chick among the boiling.”

“You have many mercies for which you should indeed be thankful,” said Mr. Crawley, gravely.

“Yes, yes, yes; that’s true. I think of that sometimes, though perhaps not so much as I ought to do. But the best way to be thankful is to use the goods the gods provide you. ‘The lovely Thais sits beside you. Take the goods the gods provide you.’ I often say that to my wife, till the children have got to calling her Thais. The children have it pretty much their own way with us, Mr. Crawley.”

By this time Mr. Crawley was almost beside himself, and was altogether at a loss how to bring in the matter on which he wished to speak. He had expected to find a man who in the hurry of London business might perhaps just manage to spare him five minutes—who would grapple instantly with the subject that was to be discussed between them, would speak to him half-a-dozen hard words of wisdom, and would then dismiss him and turn on the instant to other matters of important business—but here was an easy familiar fellow, who seemed to have nothing on earth to do, and who at this first meeting had taken advantage of a distant family connexion to tell him everything about the affairs of his own household. And then how peculiar were the domestic traits which he told! What was Mr. Crawley to say to a man who had taught his own children to call their mother Thais? Of Thais Mr. Crawley did know something, and he forgot to remember that perhaps Mr. Toogood knew less. He felt it, however, to be very difficult to submit the details of his case to a gentleman who talked in such a strain about his own wife and children.

But something must be done. Mr. Crawley, in his present frame of mind, could not sit and talk about Thais all day. “Sir,” he said, “the picture of your home is very pleasant, and I presume that plenty abounds there.”

“Well, you know, pretty toll-loll for that. With twelve of ‘em, Mr. Crawley, I needn’t tell you they are not going to have castles and parks of their own, unless they can get ‘em off their own bats. But I pay upwards of a hundred a year each for my eldest three boys’ schooling, and I’ve been paying eighty for the girls. Put that and that together and see what it comes to. Educate, educate, educate; that’s my word.”

“No better word can be spoken, sir.”

“I don’t think there’s a girl in Tavistock Square that can beat Polly—she’s the eldest, called after her mother, you know—that can beat her at the piano. And Lucy has read Lord Byron and Tom Moore all through, every word of ‘em. By Jove, I believe she knows most of Tom Moore by heart. And the young uns are coming on just as well.”

“Perhaps, sir, as your time is, no doubt, precious—”

“Just at this time of the day we don’t care so much about it, Mr. Crawley; and one doesn’t catch a new cousin every day, you know.”

“However, if you will allow me—”

“We’ll tackle to? Very well; so be it. Now, Mr. Crawley, let me hear what it is that I can do for you.” Of a sudden, as Mr. Toogood spoke these last words, the whole tone of his voice seemed to change, and even the position of his body became so much altered as to indicate a different kind of man. “You just tell your story in your own way, and I won’t interrupt you till you’ve done. That’s always the best.”

“I must first crave your attention to an unfortunate preliminary,” said Mr. Crawley.

“And what is that?”

“I come before you
in formâ pauperis.
” Here Mr. Crawley paused and stood up before the attorney with his hands crossed one upon the other, bending low, as though calling attention to the poorness of his raiment. “I know that I have no justification for my conduct. I have nothing of reason to offer why I should trespass upon your time. I am a poor man, and cannot pay you for your services.”

“Oh, bother!” said Mr. Toogood, jumping up out of his chair.

“I do not know whether your charity will grant me that which I ask—”

“Don’t let’s have any more of this,” said the attorney. “We none of us like this kind of thing at all. If I can be of any service to you, you’re as welcome to it as flowers in May; and as for billing my first-cousin, which your wife is, I should as soon think of sending in an account to my own.”

“But, Mr. Toogood—”

“Do you go on now with your story; I’ll put the rest all right.”

“I was bound to be explicit, Mr. Toogood.”

“Very well; now you have been explicit with a vengeance, and you may heave ahead. Let’s hear the story, and if I can help you I will. When I’ve said that, you may be sure I mean it. I’ve heard something of it before; but let me hear it all from you.”

Then Mr. Crawley began and told the story. Mr. Toogood was actually true to his promise and let the narrator go on with his narrative without interruption. When Mr. Crawley came to his own statement that the cheque had been paid to him by Mr. Soames, and went on to say that that statement had been false—”I told him that, but I told him so wrongly,” and then paused, thinking that the lawyer would ask some question, Mr. Toogood simply said, “Go on; go on. I’ll come back to all that when you’ve done.” And he merely nodded his head when Mr. Crawley spoke of his second statement, that the money had come from the dean. “We had been bound together by close ties of early familiarity,” said Mr. Crawley, “and in former years our estates in life were the same. But he has prospered and I have failed. And when creditors were importunate, I consented to accept relief in money which had previously been often offered. And I must acknowledge, Mr. Toogood, while saying this, that I have known—have known with heartfelt agony—that at former times my wife has taken that from my friend Mr. Arabin, with hand half-hidden from me, which I have refused. Whether it be better to eat—the bread of charity—or not to eat bread at all, I, for myself, have no doubt,” he said; “but when the want strikes one’s wife and children, and the charity strikes only oneself, then there is a doubt.” When he spoke thus, Mr. Toogood got up, and thrusting his hands into his waistcoat pockets walked about the room, exclaiming, “By George, by George, by George!” But he still let the man go on with his story, and heard him out at last to the end.

“And they committed you for trial at the next Barchester assizes?” said the lawyer.

“They did.”

“And you employed no lawyer before the magistrates?”

“None—I refused to employ anyone.”

“You were wrong there, Mr. Crawley. I must be allowed to say that you were wrong there.”

“I may possibly have been so from your point of view, Mr. Toogood; but permit me to explain. I—”

“It’s no good explaining now. Of course you must employ a lawyer for your defence—an attorney who will put the case into the hands of counsel.”

“But that I cannot do, Mr. Toogood.”

“You must do it. If you don’t do it, your friends should do it for you. If you don’t do it, everybody will say you’re mad. There isn’t a single solicitor you could find within a half a mile of you at this moment who wouldn’t give you the same advice—not a single man, either, who had got a head on his shoulders worth a turnip.”

When Mr. Crawley was told that madness would be laid to his charge if he did not do as he was bid, his face became very black, and assumed something of that look of determined obstinacy which it had worn when he was standing in the presence of the bishop and Mrs. Proudie. “It may be so,” he said. “It may be as you say, Mr. Toogood. But these neighbours of yours, as to whose collected wisdom you speak with so much certainty, would hardly recommend me to indulge in a luxury for which I have no means of paying.”

“Who thinks about paying under such circumstances as these?”

“I do, Mr. Toogood.”

“The wretchedest costermonger that comes to grief has a barrister in a wig and gown to give him his chance of escape.”

“But I am not a costermonger, Mr. Toogood—though more wretched perhaps than any costermonger now in existence. It is my lot to have to endure the sufferings of poverty, and at the same time not to be exempt from those feelings of honour to which poverty is seldom subject. I cannot afford to call in legal assistance for which I cannot pay—and I will not do it.”

“I’ll carry the case through for you. It certainly is not just my line of business—but I’ll see it carried through for you.”

“Out of your own pocket?”

“Never mind; when I say I’ll do a thing, I’ll do it.”

“No, Mr. Toogood; this thing you can not do. But do not suppose I am the less grateful.”

“What is it I can do then? Why do you come to me if you won’t take my advice?”

After this the conversation went on for a considerable time without touching on any point which need be brought palpably before the reader’s eye. The attorney continued to beg the clergyman to have his case managed in the usual way, and went so far as to tell him that he would be ill-treating his wife and family if he continued to be obstinate. But the clergyman was not shaken from his resolve, and was at last able to ask Mr. Toogood what he had better do—how he had better attempt to defend himself—on the understanding that no legal aid was to be employed. When this question was at last asked in such a way as to demand an answer, Mr. Toogood sat for a moment or two in silence. He felt that an answer was not only demanded, but almost enforced; and yet there might be much difficulty in giving it.

“Mr. Toogood,” said Mr. Crawley, seeing the attorney’s hesitation, “I declare to you before God, that my only object will be to enable the jury to know about this sad matter all that I know myself. If I could open my breast to them I should be satisfied. But then a prisoner can say nothing; and what he does say is ever accounted false.”

“That is why you should have legal assistance.”

“We had already come to a conclusion on that matter, as I thought,” said Mr. Crawley.

Mr. Toogood paused for a another moment or two, and then dashed at his answer; or rather, dashed at a counter question. “Mr. Crawley, where did you get the cheque? You must pardon me, you know; or, if you wish it, I will not press the question. But so much hangs on that, you know.”

“Everything would hang on it—if I only knew.”

“You mean that you forget?”

“Absolutely; totally. I wish, Mr. Toogood, I could explain to you the toilsome perseverance with which I have cudgelled my poor brains, endeavouring to extract from them some scintilla of memory that would aid me.”

“Could you have picked it up in the house?”

“No—no; that I did not do. Dull as I am, I know so much. It was mine of right, from whatever source it came to me. I know myself as no one else can know me, in spite of the wise man’s motto. Had I picked up a cheque in my house, or on the road, I should not have slept till I had taken steps to restore it to the seeming owner. So much I can say. But, otherwise, I am in such matters so shandy-pated, that I can trust myself to be sure of nothing. I thought—I certainly thought—”

“You thought what?”

“I thought that it had been given to me by my friend the dean. I remember well that I was in his library at Barchester, and I was somewhat provoked in spirit. There were lying on the floor hundreds of volumes, all glittering with gold, and reeking with new leather from the binders. He asked me to look at his toys. Why should I look at them? There was a time, but the other day it seemed, when he had been glad to borrow from me such treasures as I had. And it seemed to me that he was heartless in showing me these things. Well; I need not trouble you with all that.”

“Go on—go on. Let me hear it all, and I shall learn something.”

“I know now how vain, how vile I was. I always know afterwards how low the spirit has grovelled. I had gone to him then because I had resolved to humble myself, and, for my wife’s sake, to ask my friend—for money. With words which were very awkward—which no doubt were ungracious—I had asked him, and he had bid me follow him from his hall into his library. There he left me a while, and on returning told me with a smile that he had sent for money—and, if I can remember, the sum he named was fifty pounds.”

“But it has turned out, as you say, that you have paid fifty pounds with his money—besides the cheque.”