“If we’re merely to do as we are bid, and have no voice of our own, I don’t see what’s the good of going to the shop at all,” said Mr. Sowerby.
“Not the least use,” said Mr. Supplehouse. “We are false to our constituents in submitting to such a dominion.”
“Let’s have a change, then,” said Mr. Sowerby. “The matter’s pretty much in our own hands.”
“Altogether,” said Mr. Green Walker. “That’s what my uncle always says.”
“The Manchester men will only be too happy for the chance,” said Harold Smith.
“And as for the high and dry gentlemen,” said Mr. Sowerby, “it’s not very likely that they will object to pick up the fruit when we shake the tree.”
“As to picking up the fruit, that’s as may be,” said Mr. Supplehouse. Was he not the man to save the nation; and if so, why should he not pick up the fruit himself? Had not the greatest power in the country pointed him out as such a saviour? What though the country at the present moment needed no more saving, might there not, nevertheless, be a good time coming? Were there not rumours of other wars still prevalent—if indeed the actual war then going on was being brought to a close without his assistance by some other species of salvation? He thought of that country to which he had pointed, and of that friend of his enemies, and remembered that there might be still work for a mighty saviour. The public mind was now awake, and understood what it was about. When a man gets into his head an idea that the public voice calls for him, it is astonishing how greet becomes his trust in the wisdom of the public. Vox populi, vox Dei. “Has it not been so always?” he says to himself, as he gets up and as he goes to bed. And then Mr. Supplehouse felt that he was the master mind there at Gatherum Castle, and that those there were all puppets in his hand. It is such a pleasant thing to feel that one’s friends are puppets, and that the strings are in one’s own possession. But what if Mr. Supplehouse himself were a puppet?
Some months afterwards, when the much-belaboured Head of Affairs was in very truth made to retire, when unkind shells were thrown in against him in great numbers, when he exclaimed, “Et tu, Brute!” till the words were stereotyped upon his lips, all men in all places talked much about the great Gatherum Castle confederation. The Duke of Omnium, the world said, had taken into his high consideration the state of affairs, and seeing with his eagle’s eye that the welfare of his countrymen at large required that some great step should be initiated, he had at once summoned to his mansion many members of the Lower House, and some also of the House of Lords—mention was here especially made of the all-venerable and all-wise Lord Boanerges; and men went on to say that there, in deep conclave, he had made known to them his views. It was thus agreed that the Head of Affairs, Whig as he was, must fall. The country required it, and the duke did his duty. This was the beginning, the world said, of that celebrated confederation, by which the ministry was overturned, and—as the Goody Twoshoes added—the country saved. But the Jupiter took all the credit to itself; and the Jupiter was not far wrong. All the credit was due to the Jupiter—in that, as in everything else.
In the meantime the Duke of Omnium entertained his guests in the quiet princely style, but did not condescend to have much conversation on politics either with Mr. Supplehouse or with Mr. Harold Smith. And as for Lord Boanerges, he spent the morning on which the above-described conversation took place in teaching Miss Dunstable to blow soap-bubbles on scientific principles.
“Dear, dear!” said Miss Dunstable, as sparks of knowledge came flying in upon her mind. “I always thought that a soap-bubble was a soap-bubble, and I never asked the reason why. One doesn’t, you know, my lord.”
“Pardon me, Miss Dunstable,” said the old lord, “one does; but nine hundred and ninety-nine do not.”
“And the nine hundred and ninety-nine have the best of it,” said Miss Dunstable. “What pleasure can one have in a ghost after one has seen the phosphorus rubbed on?”
“Quite true, my dear lady. ‘If ignorance be bliss, ‘tis folly to be wise.’ It all lies in the ‘if.’”
Then Miss Dunstable began to sing—
“‘What tho’ I trace each herb and flower That sips the morning dew—’
—you know the rest, my lord.”
Lord Boanerges did know almost everything, but he did not know that; and so Miss Dunstable went on—
“‘Did I not own Jehovah’s power How vain were all I knew.’”
“Exactly, exactly, Miss Dunstable,” said his lordship; “but why not own the power and trace the flower as well? perhaps one might help the other.”
Upon the whole, I am afraid that Lord Boanerges got the best of it. But, then, that is his line. He has been getting the best of it all his life.
It was observed by all that the duke was especially attentive to young Mr. Frank Gresham, the gentleman on whom and on whose wife Miss Dunstable had seized so vehemently. This Mr. Gresham was the richest commoner in the county, and it was rumoured that at the next election he would be one of the members for the East Riding. Now the duke had little or nothing to do with the East Riding, and it was well known that young Gresham would be brought forward as a strong Conservative. But, nevertheless, his acres were so extensive and his money so plentiful that he was worth a duke’s notice. Mr. Sowerby, also, was almost more than civil to him, as was natural, seeing that this very young man by a mere scratch of his pen could turn a scrap of paper into a bank-note of almost fabulous value.
“So you have the East Barsetshire hounds at Boxall Hill; have you not?” said the duke.
“The hounds are there,” said Frank. “But I am not the master.”
“Oh! I understood—”
“My father has them. But he finds Boxall Hill more centrical than Greshamsbury. The dogs and horses have to go shorter distances.”
“Boxall Hill is very centrical.”
“Oh, exactly!”
“And your young gorse coverts are doing well?”
“Pretty well—gorse won’t thrive everywhere, I find. I wish it would.”
“That’s just what I say to Fothergill; and then where there’s much woodland you can’t get the vermin to leave it.”
“But we haven’t a tree at Boxall Hill,” said Mrs. Gresham.
“Ah, yes; you’re new there, certainly; you’ve enough of it at Greshamsbury in all conscience. There’s a larger extent of wood there than we have; isn’t there, Fothergill?”
Mr. Fothergill said that the Greshamsbury woods were very extensive, but that, perhaps, he thought—”Oh, ah! I know,” said the duke. “The Black Forest in its old days was nothing to Gatherum woods, according to Fothergill. And then, again, nothing in East Barsetshire could be equal to anything in West Barsetshire. Isn’t that it; eh, Fothergill?”
Mr. Fothergill professed that he had been brought up in that faith and intended to die in it.
“Your exotics at Boxall Hill are very fine, magnificent!” said Mr. Sowerby.
“I’d sooner have one full-grown oak standing in its pride alone,” said young Gresham, rather grandiloquently, “than all the exotics in the world.”
“They’ll come in due time,” said the duke.
“But the due time won’t be in my days. And so they’re going to cut down Chaldicotes Forest, are they, Mr. Sowerby?”
“Well, I can’t tell you that. They are going to disforest it. I have been ranger since I was twenty-two, and I don’t yet know whether that means cutting down.”
“Not only cutting down, but rooting up,” said Mr. Fothergill.
“It’s a murderous shame,” said Frank Gresham; “and I will say one thing, I don’t think any but a Whig government would do it.”
“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed his grace. “At any rate, I’m sure of this,” he said, “that if a Conservative government did do so, the Whigs would be just as indignant as you are now.”
“I’ll tell you what you ought to do, Mr. Gresham,” said Sowerby: “put in an offer for the whole of the West Barsetshire Crown
property; they will be very glad to sell it.”
“And we should be delighted to welcome you on this side of the border,” said the duke.
Young Gresham did feel rather flattered. There were not many men in the county to whom such an offer could be made without an absurdity. It might be doubted whether the duke himself could purchase the Chase of Chaldicotes with ready money; but that he, Gresham, could do so—he and his wife between them—no man did doubt. And then Mr. Gresham thought of a former day when he had once been at Gatherum Castle. He had been poor enough then, and the duke had not treated him in the most courteous manner in the world. How hard it is for a rich man not to lean upon his riches! harder, indeed, than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.
All Barsetshire knew—at any rate all West Barsetshire—that Miss Dunstable had been brought down in those parts in order that Mr. Sowerby might marry her. It was not surmised that Miss Dunstable herself had had any previous notice of this arrangement, but it was supposed that the thing would turn out as a matter of course. Mr. Sowerby had no money, but then he was witty, clever, good-looking, and a member of Parliament. He lived before the world, represented an old family, and had an old place. How could Miss Dunstable possibly do better? She was not so young now, and it was time that she should look about her.
The suggestion, as regarded Mr. Sowerby, was certainly true, and was not the less so as regarded some of Mr. Sowerby’s friends. His sister, Mrs. Harold Smith, had devoted herself to the work, and with this view had run up a dear friendship with Miss Dunstable. The bishop had intimated, nodding his head knowingly, that it would be a very good thing. Mrs. Proudie had given in her adherence. Mr. Supplehouse had been made to understand that it must be a case of “Paws off” with him, as long as he remained in that part of the world; and even the duke himself had desired Fothergill to manage it.
“He owes me an enormous sum of money,” said the duke, who held all Mr. Sowerby’s title-deeds, “and I doubt whether the security will be sufficient.”
“Your grace will find the security quite sufficient,” said Mr. Fothergill; “but nevertheless it would be a good match.”
“Very good,” said the duke. And then it became Mr. Fothergill’s duty to see that Mr. Sowerby and Miss Dunstable became man and wife as speedily as possible.
Some of the party, who were more wide awake than others, declared that he had made the offer; others, that he was just going to do so; and one very knowing lady went so far at one time as to say that he was making it at that moment. Bets also were laid as to the lady’s answer, as to the terms of the settlement, and as to the period of the marriage—of all which poor Miss Dunstable of course knew nothing.
Mr. Sowerby, in spite of the publicity of his proceedings, proceeded in the matter very well. He said little about it to those who joked with him, but carried on the fight with what best knowledge he had in such matters. But so much it is given to us to declare with certainty, that he had not proposed on the evening previous to the morning fixed for the departure of Mark Robarts.
During the last two days Mr. Sowerby’s intimacy with Mark had grown warmer and warmer. He had talked to the vicar confidentially about the doings of these bigwigs now present at the castle, as though there were no other guest there with whom he could speak in so free a manner. He confided, it seemed, much more in Mark than in his brother-in-law, Harold Smith, or in any of his brother members of Parliament, and had altogether opened his heart to him in this affair of his anticipated marriage. Now Mr. Sowerby was a man of mark in the world, and all this flattered our young clergyman not a little.
On that evening before Robarts went away Sowerby asked him to come up into his bedroom when the whole party was breaking up, and there got him into an easy-chair, while he, Sowerby, walked up and down the room.
“You can hardly tell, my dear fellow,” said he, “the state of nervous anxiety in which this puts me.”
“Why don’t you ask her and have done with it? She seems to me to be fond of your society.”
“Ah, it is not that only; there are wheels within wheels:” and then he walked once or twice up and down the room, during which Mark thought that he might as well go to bed.
“Not that I mind telling you everything,” said Sowerby. “I am infernally hard up for a little ready money just at the present moment. It may be, and indeed I think it will be, the case that I shall be ruined in this matter for the want of it.”
“Could not Harold Smith give it you?”
“Ha, ha, ha! you don’t know Harold Smith. Did you ever hear of his lending a man a shilling in his life.”
“Or Supplehouse?”
“Lord love you! You see me and Supplehouse together here, and he comes and stays at my house, and all that; but Supplehouse and I are no friends. Look you here, Mark—I would do more for your little finger than for his whole hand, including the pen which he holds in it. Fothergill indeed might—but then I know Fothergill is pressed himself at the present moment. It is deuced hard, isn’t it? I must give up the whole game if I can’t put my hand upon £400 within the next two days.”
“Ask her for it, herself.”
“What, the woman I wish to marry! No, Mark, I’m not quite come to that. I would sooner lose her than that.”
Mark sat silent, gazing at the fire and wishing that he was in his own bedroom. He had an idea that Mr. Sowerby wished him to produce this £400, and he knew also that he had not £400 in the world, and that if he had he would be acting very foolishly to give it to Mr. Sowerby. But nevertheless he felt half fascinated by the man, and half afraid of him.
“Lufton owes it to me to do more than this,” continued Mr. Sowerby, “but then Lufton is not here.”
“Why, he has just paid five thousand pounds for you.”
“Paid five thousand pounds for me! Indeed he has done no such thing: not a sixpence of it came into my hands. Believe me, Mark, you don’t know the whole of that yet. Not that I mean to say a word against Lufton. He is the soul of honour; though so deucedly dilatory in money matters. He thought he was right all through that affair, but no man was ever so confoundedly wrong. Why, don’t you remember that that was the very view you took of it yourself?”
“I remember saying that I thought he was mistaken.”
“Of course he was mistaken. And dearly the mistake cost me; I had to make good the money for two or three years. And my property is not like his—I wish it were.”
“Marry Miss Dunstable, and that will set it all right for you.”
“Ah! so I would if I had this money. At any rate I would bring it to the point. Now, I tell you what, Mark, if you’ll assist me at this strait I’ll never forget it. And the time will come round when I may be able to do something for you.”
“I have not got a hundred, no, not fifty pounds by me in the world.”
“Of course you’ve not. Men don’t walk about the streets with £400 in their pockets. I don’t suppose there’s a single man here in the house with such a sum at his bankers’, unless it be the duke.”
“What is it you want, then?”
“Why, your name, to be sure. Believe me, my dear fellow, I would not ask you really to put your hand into your pocket to such a tune as that. Allow me to draw on you for that amount at three months. Long before that time I shall be flush enough.” And then, before Mark could answer, he had a bill stamp and pen and ink out on the table before him, and was filling in the bill as though his friend had already given his consent.
“Upon my word, Sowerby, I had rather not do that.”
“Why? what are you afraid of?”—Mr. Sowerby asked this very sharply. “Did you ever hear of my having neglected to take up a bill when it fell due?” Robarts thought that he had heard of such a thing; but in his confusion he was not exactly sure, and so he said nothing.
“No, my boy; I have not come to that. Look here: just you write, ‘Accepted, Mark Robarts,’ across that, and then you shall never hear of the transaction again; and you will have obliged m
e for ever.”
“As a clergyman it would be wrong of me,” said Robarts.
“As a clergyman! Come, Mark! If you don’t like to do as much as that for a friend, say so; but don’t let us have that sort of humbug. If there be one class of men whose names would be found more frequent on the backs of bills in the provincial banks than another, clergymen are that class. Come, old fellow, you won’t throw me over when I am so hard pushed.”
Mark Robarts took the pen and signed the bill. It was the first time in his life that he had ever done such an act. Sowerby then shook him cordially by the hand, and he walked off to his own bedroom a wretched man.
CHAPTER IX
The Vicar’s Return
The next morning Mr. Robarts took leave of all his grand friends with a heavy heart. He had lain awake half the night thinking of what he had done and trying to reconcile himself to his position. He had not well left Mr. Sowerby’s room before he felt certain that at the end of three months he would again be troubled about that £400. As he went along the passage, all the man’s known antecedents crowded upon him much quicker than he could remember them when seated in that arm-chair with the bill stamp before him, and the pen and ink ready to his hand. He remembered what Lord Lufton had told him—how he had complained of having been left in the lurch; he thought of all the stories current through the entire country as to the impossibility of getting money from Chaldicotes; he brought to mind the known character of the man, and then he knew that he must prepare himself to make good a portion at least of that heavy payment.
Why had he come to this horrid place? Had he not everything at home at Framley which the heart of man could desire? No; the heart of man can desire deaneries—the heart, that is, of the man vicar; and the heart of the man dean can desire bishoprics; and before the eyes of the man bishop does there not loom the transcendental glory of Lambeth? He had owned to himself that he was ambitious; but he had to own to himself now also that he had hitherto taken but a sorry path towards the object of his ambition.
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