The Chronicles of Barsetshire (317 page)

“I do not know what they would do to him,” said she.

“I suppose that for some time he would be—”

“Put in prison,” said Mrs. Crawley, speaking very quickly, bringing out the words with a sharp eagerness that was quite unusual to her. “They will send him to gaol. Is it not so, Lady Lufton?”

“I suppose it would be so; not for long I should hope; but I presume that such would be the sentence for some short period.”

“And I might not go with him?”

“No, that would be impossible.”

“And the house, and the living; would they let him have them again when he came out?”

“Ah; that I cannot say. That will depend much, probably, on what these clergymen will report. I hope he will not put himself in opposition to them.”

“I do not know. I cannot say. It is probable that he may do so. It is not easy for a man so injured as he has been, and one at the same time so great in intelligence, to submit himself gently to such inquiries. When ill is being done to himself or others he is very prone to oppose it.”

“But these gentlemen do not wish to do him ill, Mrs. Crawley.”

“I cannot say. I do not know. When I think of it I see that there is nothing but ruin on every side. What is the use of talking of it? Do not be angry, Lady Lufton, if I say that it is of no use.”

“But I desire to be of use—of real use. If it should be the case, Mrs. Crawley, that your husband should be—detained at Barchester—”

“You mean imprisoned, Lady Lufton.”

“Yes, I mean imprisoned. If it should be so, then do you bring yourself and your children—all of them—over to Framley, and I will find a home for you while he is lost to you.”

“Oh, Lady Lufton; I could not do that.”

“Yes, you can. You have not heard me yet. It would not be a comfort to you in such a home as that to sit at table with people who are partly strangers to you. But there is a cottage nearly adjoining to the house, which you shall have all to yourself. The bailiff lived in it once, and others have lived in it who belong to the place; but it is empty now and it shall be made comfortable.” The tears were now running down Mrs. Crawley’s face, so that she could not answer a word. “Of course it is my son’s property, and not mine, but he has commissioned me to say that it is most heartily at your service. He begs that in such a case you will occupy it. And I beg the same. And your old friend Lucy has desired me also to ask you in her name.”

“Lady Lufton, I could not do that,” said Mrs. Crawley through her tears.

“You must think better of it, my dear. I do not scruple to advise you, because I am older than you, and have experience of the world.” This, I think, taken in the ordinary sense of the words, was a boast on the part of Lady Lufton, for which but little true pretence existed. Lady Lufton’s experience of the world at large was not perhaps extensive. Nevertheless she knew what one woman might offer to another, and what one woman might receive from another. “You would be better over with me, my dear, than you could be elsewhere. You will not misunderstand me if I say that, under such circumstances, it would do your husband good that you and your children should be under our protection during his period of temporary seclusion. We stand well in the county. Perhaps I ought not to say so, but I do not know how otherwise to explain myself; and when it is known, by the bishop and others, that you have come to us during that sad time, it will be understood that we think well of Mr. Crawley, in spite of anything a jury may say of him. Do you see that, my dear? And we do think well of him. I have known of your husband for many years, though I have not personally had the pleasure of much acquaintance with him. He was over at Framley once at my request, and I had great occasion then to respect him. I do respect him; and I shall feel grateful to him if he will allow you to put yourself and your children under my wing, as being an old woman, should this misfortune fall upon him. We hope that it will not fall upon him; but it is always well to be provided for the worst.”

In this way Lady Lufton at last made her speech and opened out the proposal with which she had come laden to Hogglestock. While she was speaking Mrs. Crawley’s shoulder was still turned to her; but the speaker could see that the quick tears were pouring themselves down the cheeks of the woman whom she addressed. There was a downright honesty of thorough-going well-wishing charity about the proposition which overcame Mrs. Crawley altogether. She did not feel for a moment that it would be possible for her to go to Framley in such circumstances as those which had been suggested. As she thought of it all at the present moment, it seemed to her that her only appropriate home during the terrible period which was coming upon her, would be under the walls of the prison in which her husband would be incarcerated. But she fully appreciated the kindness which had suggested a measure, which, if carried into execution, would make the outside world feel that her husband was respected in the county, despite the degradation to which he was subjected. She felt all this, but her heart was too full to speak.

“Say that it shall be so, my dear,” continued Lady Lufton. “Just give me one nod of assent, and the cottage shall be ready for you should it so chance that you should require it.”

But Mrs. Crawley did not give the nod of assent. With her face still averted, while the tears were still running down her cheeks, she muttered but a word or two. “I could not do that, Lady Lufton; I could not do that.”

“You know at any rate what my wishes are, and as you become calmer you will think of it. There is quite time enough, and I am speaking of an alternative which may never happen. My dear friend Mrs. Robarts, who is now with your daughter, wishes Miss Crawley to go over to Framley Parsonage while this inquiry among the clergymen is going on. They all say it is the most ridiculous thing in the world—this inquiry. But the bishop you know is so silly! We all think that if Miss Crawley would go for a week or so to Framley Parsonage, that it will show how happy we all are to receive her. It should be while Mr. Robarts is employed in his part of the work. What do you say, Mrs. Crawley? We at Framley are all clearly of opinion that it will be best that it should be known that the people in the county uphold your husband. Miss Crawley would be back, you know, before the trial comes on. I hope you will let her come, Mrs. Crawley?”

But even to this proposition Mrs. Crawley could give no assent, though she expressed no direct dissent. As regarded her own feelings, she would much preferred to have been left to live through her misery alone; but she could not but appreciate the kindness which endeavoured to throw over her and hers in their trouble the ægis of first-rate county respectability. She was saved from the necessity of giving a direct answer to this suggestion by the return of Mrs. Robarts and Grace herself. The door was opened slowly, and they crept into the room as though they were aware that their presence would be hardly welcomed.

“Is the carriage there, Fanny?” said Lady Lufton. “It is almost time for us to think of returning home.”

Mrs. Robarts said that the carriage was standing within twenty yards of the door.

“Then I think we will make a start,” said Lady Lufton. “Have you succeeded in persuading Miss Crawley to come over to Framley in April?”

Mrs. Robarts made no answer to this, but looked at Grace; and Grace looked down upon the ground.

“I have spoken to Mrs. Crawley,” said Lady Lufton, “and they will think of it.” Then the two ladies took their leave, and walked out to their carriage.

“What does she say about your plan?” Mrs. Robarts asked.

“She is too broken-hearted to say anything.” Lady Lufton answered. “Should it happen that he is convicted, we must come over and take her. She will have no power to resist us in anything.”

CHAPTER LI

Mrs. Dobbs Broughton Piles her Fagots

The picture still progressed up in Mrs. Dobbs Broughton’s room, and the secret was still kept, or supposed to be kept. Miss Van Siever was, at any rate, certain that her mother had heard nothing of it, and Mrs. Broughton reported from day to day that her husband had not as yet interfered. Nevertheless, there was in these days a great gloom upon the Dobbs Broughton household, so much so that Conway Dalrymple had more than once suggested to Mrs. Broughton that the work should be discontinued. But the mistress of the house would not consent to this. In answer to these offers, she was wont to declare in somewhat mysterious language, that any misery coming upon herself was a matter of moment to nobody—hardly even to herself, as she was quite prepared to encounter moral and social death without delay, if not an absolute physical demise; as to which latter alternative, she seemed to think that even that might not be so far distant as some people chose to believe. What was the cause of the gloom over the house neither Conway Dalrymple nor Miss Van Siever understood, and to speak the truth Mrs. Broughton did not quite understand the cause herself. She knew well enough, no doubt, that her husband came home always sullen, and sometimes tipsy, and that things were not going well in the City. She had never understood much about the City, being satisfied with an assurance that had come to her in the early days from her friends, that there was a mine of wealth in Hook Court, from whence would always come for her use, house and furniture, a carriage and horses, dresses and jewels, which latter, if not quite real, should be manufactured of the best sham substitute known. Soon after her brilliant marriage with Mr. Dobbs Broughton, she had discovered that the carriage and horses, and the sham jewels, did not lift her so completely into a terrestrial paradise as she had taught herself to expect that they would do. Her brilliant drawing-room, with Dobbs Broughton for a companion, was not an elysium. But though she had found out early in her married life that something was still wanting to her, she had by no means confessed to herself that the carriage and horses and sham jewels were bad, and it can hardly be said that she had repented. She had endeavoured to patch up matters with a little romance, and then had fallen upon Conway Dalrymple—meaning no harm. Indeed, love with her, as it never could have meant much good, was not likely to mean much harm. That somebody should pretend to love her, to which pretence she might reply by a pretence of friendship—this was the little excitement which she craved, and by which she had once flattered herself that something of an elysium might yet be created for her. Mr. Dobbs Broughton had unreasonably expressed a dislike to this innocent amusement—very unreasonably, knowing, as he ought to have known, that he himself did so very little towards providing the necessary elysium by any qualities of his own. For a few weeks this interference from her husband had enhanced the amusement, giving an additional excitement to the game. She felt herself to be a woman misunderstood and ill-used; and to some women there is nothing so charming as a little mild ill-usage, which does not interfere with their creature comforts, with their clothes, or their carriage, or their sham jewels; but suffices to afford them the indulgence of a grievance. Of late, however, Mr. Dobbs Broughton had become a little too rough in his language, and things had gone uncomfortably. She suspected that Conway Dalrymple was not the only cause of all this. She had an idea that Mr. Musselboro and Mrs. Van Siever had it in their power to make themselves unpleasant, and that they were exercising this power. Of his business in the City her husband never spoke to her, nor she to him. Her own fortune had been very small, some couple of thousand pounds or so, and she conceived that she had no pretext on which she could, unasked, interrogate him about his money. She had no knowledge that marriage of itself had given her the right to such interference; and had such knowledge been hers she would have had no desire to interfere. She hoped that the carriage and sham jewels would be continued to her; but she did not know how to frame any question on the subject. Touching the other difficulty—the Conway Dalrymple difficulty—she had her ideas. The tenderness of her friendship had been trodden upon by and outraged by the rough foot of an overbearing husband, and she was ill-used. She would obey. It was becoming to her as a wife that she should submit. She would give up Conway Dalrymple, and would induce him—in spite of his violent attachment to herself—to take a wife. She herself would choose a wife for him. She herself would, with suicidal hands, destroy the romance of her own life, since an overbearing, brutal husband demanded that it should be destroyed. She would sacrifice her own feelings, and do all in her power to bring Conway Dalrymple and Clara Van Siever together. If, after that, some poet did not immortalise her friendship in Byronic verse, she certainly would not get her due. Perhaps Conway Dalrymple would himself become a poet in order that this might be done properly. For it must be understood that, though she expected Conway Dalrymple to marry, she expected also that he should be Byronically wretched after his marriage on account of his love for herself.

But there was certainly something wrong over and beyond the Dalrymple difficulty. The servants were not as civil as they used to be, and her husband, when she suggested to him a little dinner-party, snubbed her most unmercifully. The giving of dinner-parties had been his glory, and she had made the suggestion simply with the view of pleasing him. “If the world were going round the wrong way, a woman would still want a party,” he had said, sneering at her. “It was of you I was thinking, Dobbs,” she replied; “not of myself. I care little for such gatherings.” After that she retired to her own room with a romantic tear in each eye, and told herself that, had chance thrown Conway Dalrymple into her way before she had seen Dobbs Broughton, she would have been the happiest woman in the world. She sat for a while looking into vacancy, and thinking that it would be very nice to break her heart. How should she set about it? Should she take to her bed and grow thin? She would begin by eating no dinner for ever so may days together. At lunch her husband was never present, and therefore the broken heart could be displayed at dinner without much positive suffering. In the meantime she would implore Conway Dalrymple to get himself married with as little delay as possible, and she would lay upon him her positive order to restrain himself from any word of affection addressed to herself. She, at any rate, would be pure, high-minded, and self-sacrificing—although romantic and poetic also, as was her nature.

The picture was progressing, and so also, as it had come about, was the love-affair between the artist and his model. Conway Dalrymple had begun to think that he might, after all, do worse than make Clara Van Siever his wife. Clara Van Siever was handsome, and undoubtedly clever, and Clara Van Siever’s mother was certainly rich. And, in addition to this, the young lady herself began to like the man into whose society she was thrown. The affair seemed to flourish, and Mrs. Dobbs Broughton should have been delighted. She told Clara, with a very serious air, that she was delighted, bidding Clara, at the same time, to be very cautious, as men were so fickle, and as Conway Dalrymple, though the best fellow in the world, was not, perhaps, altogether free from that common vice of men. Indeed, it might have been surmised, from a word or two which Mrs. Broughton allowed to escape, that she considered poor Conway to be more than ordinarily afflicted in that way. Miss Van Siever at first only pouted, and said that there was nothing in it. “There is something in it, my dear, certainly,” said Mrs. Dobbs Broughton; “and there can be no earthly reason why there should not be a great deal in it.” “There is nothing in it,” said Miss Van Siever, impetuously; “and if you will continue to speak of Mr. Dalrymple in that way, I must give up the picture.” “As for that,” said Mrs. Broughton, “I conceive that we are both of us bound to the young man now, seeing that he has given so much time to the work.” “I am not bound to him at all,” said Miss Van Siever.

Mrs. Broughton also told Conway Dalrymple that she was delighted—oh, so much delighted! He had obtained permission to come in one morning before the time of sitting, so that he might work at his canvas independently of his model. As was his custom, he made his own way upstairs and commenced his work alone—having been expressly told by Mrs. Broughton that she would not come to him till she brought Clara with her. But she did go up to the room in which the artist was painting, without waiting for Miss Van Siever. Indeed, she was at this time so anxious as to the future welfare of her two young friends that she could not restrain herself from speaking either to the one or to the other, whenever any opportunity for such speech came round. To have left Conway Dalrymple at work upstairs without going to him was impossible to her. So she went, and then took the opportunity of expressing to her friend her ideas as to his past and future conduct.

“Yes, it is very good; very good, indeed,” she said, standing before the easel, and looking at the half-completed work. “I do not know that you ever did anything better.”

“I never can tell myself till a picture is finished whether it is going to be good or not,” said Dalrymple, thinking really of his picture and of nothing else.

“I am sure this will be good,” she said, “and I suppose it is because you have thrown so much heart into it. It is not mere industry that will produce good work, nor yet skill, nor even genius; more than this is required. The heart of the artist must be thrust with all its gushing tides into the performance.” By this time he knew all the tones of her voice and their various meanings, and immediately became aware that at the present moment she was intent upon something beyond the picture. She was preparing for a little scene, and was going to give him some advice. He understood it all, but as he was really desirous of working at his canvas, and was rather averse to having a scene at the moment, he made a little attempt to disconcert her. “It is the heart that gives success,” she said, while he was considering how he might best put an extinguisher upon her romance for the occasion.

“Not at all, Mrs. Broughton; success depends on elbow-grease.”

“On what, Conway?”

“On elbow-grease—hard work, that is—and I must work hard now if I mean to take advantage of to-day’s sitting. The truth is, I don’t give enough hours of work to it.” And he leaned upon his stick, and daubed away briskly at the background, and then stood for a moment looking at his canvas with his head a little on one side, as though he could not withdraw his attention for a moment from the thing he was doing.

“You mean to say, Conway, that you would rather that I should not speak to you.”

“Oh, no, Mrs. Broughton, I did not mean that at all.”

“I won’t interrupt you at your work. What I have to say is perhaps of no great moment. Indeed, words between you and me never can have much importance now. Can they, Conway?”

“I don’t see that at all,” said he, still working away with his brush.

“Do you not? I do. They should never amount to more—they can never amount to more than the common ordinary courtesies of life; what I call the greetings and good-byings of conversation.” She said this in a low, melancholy tone of voice, not intending to be in any degree jocose. “How seldom is it that conversation between ordinary friends goes beyond that.”

“Don’t you think it does?” said Conway, stepping back and taking another look at his picture. “I find myself talking to all manner of people about all manner of things.”

“You are different from me. I cannot talk to all manner of people.”

“Politics, you know, and art, and a little scandal, and the wars, with a dozen other things, make talking easy enough, I think. I grant you this, that it is very often a great bore. Hardly a day passes that I don’t wish to cut out somebody’s tongue.”

“Do you wish to cut out my tongue, Conway?”

He began to perceive that she was determined to talk about herself, and that there was no remedy. He dreaded it, not because he did not like the woman, but from a conviction that she was going to make some comparison between herself and Clara Van Siever. In his ordinary humour he liked a little pretence at romance, and was rather good at that sort of love-making which in truth means anything but love. But just now he was really thinking of matrimony, and had on this very morning acknowledged to himself that he had become sufficiently attached to Clara Van Siever to justify him in asking her to be his wife. In his present mood he was not anxious for one of those tilts with blunted swords and half-severed lances in the lists of Cupid of which Mrs. Dobbs Broughton was so fond. Nevertheless, if she insisted that he should now descend into the arena and go through the paraphernalia of a mock tournament, he must obey her. It is the hardship of men that when called upon by women for romance, they are bound to be romantic, whether the opportunity serves them or not. A man must produce romance, or at least submit to it, when duly summoned, even though he should have a sore throat or a headache. He is a brute if he decline such an encounter—and feels that, should he so decline persistently, he will ever after be treated as a brute. There are many Potiphar’s wives who never dream of any mischief, and Josephs who are very anxious to escape, though they are asked to return only whisper for whisper. Mrs. Dobbs Broughton had asked him whether he wished that her tongue should be cut out, and he had of course replied that her words had always been a joy to him—never a trouble. It occurred to him as he made his little speech that it would only have served her right if he had answered her quite in another strain; but she was a woman, and was young and pretty, and was entitled to flattery. “They have always been a joy to me,” he said, repeating his last words as he strove to continue his work.

“A deadly joy,” she replied, not quite knowing what she herself meant. “A deadly joy, Conway. I wish with all my heart that we had never known each other.”

“I do not. I will never wish away the happiness of my life, even should it be followed by misery.”