In the evening there came to him a messenger from Plumstead, with a letter from his father and some present for the child. He knew at once that the present had been thus sent as an excuse for the letter. His father might have written by the post, of course; but that would have given to his letter a certain air and tone which he had not wished it to bear. After some message from the major’s mother, and some allusion to Edith, the archdeacon struck off upon the matter that was near his heart.
“I fear it is all up with that unfortunate man at Hogglestock,” he said. “From what I hear of the evidence which came out before the magistrates, there can, I think, be no doubt as to his guilt. Have you heard that the bishop sent over on the following day to stop him from preaching? He did so, and sent again on the Sunday. But Crawley would not give way, and so far I respect the man; for, as a matter of course, whatever the bishop did, or attempted to do, he would do with an extreme of bad taste, probably with gross ignorance as to his own duty and as to the duty of the man under him. I am told that on the first day Crawley turned out of his house the messenger sent to him—some stray clergyman whom Mrs. Proudie keeps about the house; and that on Sunday the stairs to the reading-desk and pulpit were occupied by a lot of brickmakers, among whom the parson from Barchester did not venture to attempt to make his way, although he was fortified by the presence of one of the cathedral vergers and by one of the palace footmen. I can hardly believe about the verger and the footman. As for the rest, I have no doubt it is all true. I pity Crawley from my heart. Poor, unfortunate man! The general opinion seems to be that he is not in truth responsible for what he does. As for his victory over the bishop, nothing on earth could be better.
“Your mother particularly wishes you to come over to us before the end of the week, and to bring Edith. Your grandfather will be here, and he is becoming so infirm that he will never come to us for another Christmas. Of course you will stay over the new year.”
Though the letter was full of Mr. Crawley and his affairs there was not a word in it about Grace. This, however, was quite natural. Major Grantly perfectly well understood his father’s anxiety to carry his point without seeming to allude to the disagreeable subject. “My father is very clever,” he said to himself, “very clever. But he isn’t so clever but one can see how clever he is.”
On the next day he went into Silverbridge, intending to call on Miss Prettyman. He had not quite made up his mind what he would say to Miss Prettyman; nor was he called upon to do so, as he never got as far as that lady’s house. While walking up the High street he saw Mrs. Thorne in her carriage, and, as a matter of course, he stopped to speak to her. He knew Mrs. Thorne quite as intimately as he did her husband, and liked her quite as well. “Major Grantly,” she said, speaking out loud to him, half across the street; “I was very angry with you yesterday. Why did you not come up to dinner? We had a room ready for you and everything.”
“I was not quite well, Mrs. Thorne.”
“Fiddlestick. Don’t tell me of not being well. There was Emily breaking her heart about you.”
“I’m sure Miss Dunstable—”
“To tell you the truth, I think she’ll get over it. It won’t be mortal with her. But do tell me, Major Grantly, what are we to think about this poor Mr. Crawley? It was so good of you to be one of his bailsmen.”
“He would have found twenty in Silverbridge, if he had wanted them.”
“And do you hear that he has defied the bishop? I do so like him for that. Not but what poor Mrs. Proudie is the dearest friend I have in the world, and I’m always fighting a battle with old Lady Lufton on her behalf. But one likes to see one’s friends worsted sometimes, you know.”
“I don’t quite understand what did happen at Hogglestock on the Sunday,” said the major.
“Some say he had the bishop’s chaplain put under the pump. I don’t believe that; but there is no doubt that when the poor fellow tried to get into the pulpit, they took him and carried him neck and heels out of the church. But, tell me, Major Grantly, what is to become of the family?”
“Heaven knows!”
“Is it not sad? And that eldest girl is so nice! They tell me that she is perfect—not only in beauty, but in manners and accomplishments. Everybody says that she talks Greek just as well as she does English, and that she understands philosophy from the top to the bottom.”
“At any rate, she is so good and so lovely that one cannot but pity her now,” said the major.
“You know her, then, Major Grantly? By-the-by, of course you do, as you were staying with her at Framley.”
“Yes, I know her.”
“What is to become of her? I’m going your way. You might as well get into the carriage, and I’ll drive you home. If he is sent to prison—and they say he must be sent to prison—what is to become of them?” Then Major Grantly did get into the carriage, and, before he got out again, he had told Mrs. Thorne the whole story of his love.
She listened to him with the closest attention; only interrupting him now and then with little words, intended to signify her approval. He, as he told his tale, did not look her in the face, but sat with his eyes fixed upon her muff. “And now,” he said, glancing up at her almost for the first time as he finished his speech, “and now, Mrs. Thorne, what am I to do?”
“Marry her, of course,” said she, raising her hand aloft and bringing it down heavily upon his knee as she gave her decisive reply.
“H—sh—h,” he exclaimed, looking back in dismay towards the servants.
“Oh, they never hear anything up there. They’re thinking about the last pot of porter they had, or the next they’re to get. Deary me, I am so glad! Of course you’ll marry her.”
“You forget my father.”
“No, I don’t. What has a father to do with it? You’re old enough to please yourself without asking your father. Besides, Lord bless me, the archdeacon isn’t the man to bear malice. He’ll storm and threaten and stop the supplies for a month or so. Then he’ll double them, and take your wife to his bosom, and kiss and bless her, and all that kind of thing. We all know what parental wrath means in such cases as that.”
“But my sister—”
“As for your sister, don’t talk to me about her. I don’t care two straws about your sister. You must excuse me, Major Grantly, but Lady Hartletop is really too big for my powers of vision.”
“And Edith—of course, Mrs. Thorne, I can’t be blind to the fact that in many ways such a marriage would be injurious to her. No man wishes to be connected with a convicted thief.”
“No, Major Grantly; but a man does wish to marry the girl that he loves. At least, I suppose so. And what man ever was able to give a more touching proof of his affection than you can do now? If I were you, I’d be at Allington before twelve o’clock to-morrow—I would indeed. What does it matter about the trumpery cheque? Everybody knows it was a mistake, if he did take it. And surely you would not punish her for that?”
“No—no; but I don’t suppose she’d think it a punishment.”
“You go and ask her then. And I’ll tell you what. If she hasn’t a house of her own to be married from, she shall be married from Chaldicotes. We’ll have such a breakfast! And I’ll make as much of her as if she were the daughter of my old friend, the bishop himself—I will indeed.”
This was Mrs. Thorne’s advice. Before it was completed, Major Grantly had been carried half-way to Chaldicotes. When he left his impetuous friend he was too prudent to make any promise, but he declared that what she had said should have much weight with him.
“You won’t mention it to anybody,” said the Major.
“Certainly not, without your leave,” said Mrs. Thorne. “Don’t you know that I’m the soul of honour?”
CHAPTER XV
Up in London
Some kind and attentive reader may perhaps remember that Miss Grace Crawley, in a letter written by her to her friend Miss Lily Dale, said a word or two of a certain John. “If it can only be as John wishes
it!” And the same reader, if there be one so kind and attentive, may also remember that Miss Lily Dale had declared, in reply, that “about that other subject she would rather say nothing,”—,and then she added, “When one thinks of going beyond friendship—even if one tries to do so—there are so many barriers!” From which words the kind and attentive reader, if such reader be in such matters intelligent as well as kind and attentive, may have learned a great deal in reference to Miss Lily Dale.
We will now pay a visit to the John in question—a certain Mr. John Eames, living in London, a bachelor, as the intelligent reader will certainly have discovered, and cousin to Miss Grace Crawley. Mr. John Eames at the time of our story was a young man, some seven or eight and twenty years of age, living in London, where he was supposed by his friends in the country to have made his mark, and to be something a little out of the common way. But I do not know that he was very much out of the common way, except in the fact that he had some few thousand pounds left him by an old nobleman, who had been in no way related to him, but who had regarded him with great affection, and who had died some two years since. Before this, John Eames had not been a very poor man, as he filled the comfortable official position of private secretary to the Chief Commissioner of the Income-tax Board, and drew a salary of three hundred and fifty pounds a year from the resources of his country; but when, in addition to this source of official wealth, he became known as the undoubted possessor of a hundred and twenty-eight shares in one of the most prosperous joint-stock banks in the metropolis, which property had been left to him free of legacy duty by the lamented nobleman above named, then Mr. John Eames rose very high indeed as a young man in the estimation of those who knew him, and was supposed to be something a good deal out of the common way. His mother, who lived in the country, was obedient to his slightest word, never venturing to impose upon him any sign of parental authority; and to his sister, Mary Eames, who lived with her mother, he was almost a god upon earth. To sisters who have nothing of their own—not even some special god for their own individual worship—generous, affectionate, unmarried brothers, with sufficient incomes, are gods upon earth.
And even up in London Mr. John Eames was somebody. He was so especially at his office; although, indeed, it was remembered by many a man how raw a lad he had been when he first came there, not so very many years ago; and how they had laughed at him and played him tricks; and how he had customarily been known to be without a shilling for the last week before pay-day, during which period he would borrow sixpence here and a shilling there with energy, from men who now felt themselves to be honoured when he smiled upon them. Little stories of his former days would often be told of him behind his back; but they were not told with ill-nature, because he was very constant in referring to the same matters himself. And it was acknowledged by everyone at the office, that neither the friendship of the nobleman, nor that fact of the private secretaryship, nor the acquisition of his wealth, had made him proud to his old companions or forgetful of old friendships. To the young men, lads who had lately been appointed, he was perhaps a little cold; but then it was only reasonable to conceive that such a one as Mr. John Eames was now could not be expected to make an intimate acquaintance with every new clerk that might be brought into the office. Since competitive examinations had come into vogue, there was no knowing who might be introduced; and it was understood generally through the establishment—and I may almost say by the civil service at large, so wide was his fame—that Mr. Eames was very averse to the whole theory of competition. The “Devil take the hindmost” scheme he called it; and would then go on to explain that hindmost candidates were often the best gentlemen, and that, in this way, the Devil got the pick of the flock. And he was respected the more for this because it was known that on this subject he had fought some hard battles with the chief commissioner. The chief commissioner was a great believer in competition, wrote papers about it, which he read aloud to various bodies of the civil service—not at all to their delight—which he got to be printed here and there, and which he sent by post all over the kingdom. More than once this chief commissioner had told his private secretary that they must part company, unless the private secretary could see fit to alter his view, or could, at least, keep his views to himself. But the private secretary would do neither; and, nevertheless, there he was, still private secretary. “It’s because Johnny has got money,” said one of the young clerks, who was discussing this singular state of things with his brethren at the office. “When a chap has got money, he may do what he likes. Johnny has got lots of money, you know.” The young clerk in question was by no means on intimate terms with Mr. Eames, but there had grown up in the office a way of calling him Johnny behind his back, which had probably come down from the early days of his scrapes and his poverty.
Now the entire life of Mr. John Eames was pervaded by a great secret; and although he never, in those days, alluded to the subject in conversation with any man belonging to the office, yet the secret was known to them all. It had been historical for the last four or five years, and was now regarded as a thing of course. Mr. John Eames was in love, and his love was not happy. He was in love, and had long been in love, and the lady of his love was not kind to him. The little history had grown to be very touching and pathetic, having received, no doubt, some embellishments from the imaginations of the gentlemen of the Income-tax Office. It was said of him that he had been in love from his early boyhood, that at sixteen he had been engaged, under the sanction of the nobleman now deceased and of the young lady’s parents, that contracts of betrothal had been drawn up, and things done very unusual in private families in these days, and that then there had come a stranger into the neighbourhood just as the young lady was beginning to reflect whether she had a heart of her own or not, and that she had thrown her parents, and the noble lord, and the contract, and poor Johnny Eames to the winds, and had— Here the story took different directions, as told by different men. Some said the lady had gone off with the stranger and that there had been a clandestine marriage, which afterwards turned out to be no marriage at all; others, that the stranger suddenly took himself off, and was no more seen by the young lady; others that he owned at last to having another wife—and so on. The stranger was very well known to be one Mr. Crosbie, belonging to another public office; and there were circumstances in his life, only half known, which gave rise to these various rumours. But there was one thing certain, one point as to which no clerk in the Income-tax Office had a doubt, one fact which had conduced much to the high position which Mr. John Eames now held in the estimation of his brother clerks—he had given this Mr. Crosbie such a thrashing that no man had ever received such treatment before and lived through it. Wonderful stories were told about that thrashing, so that it was believed, even by the least enthusiastic in such matters, that the poor victim had only dragged on a crippled existence since the encounter. “For nine weeks he never said a word or ate a mouthful,” said one young clerk to a younger clerk who was just entering the office; “and even now he can’t speak above a whisper, and has to take all his food in pap.” It will be seen, therefore, that Mr. John Eames had about him much of the heroic.
That he was still in love, and in love with the same lady, was known to everyone in the office. When it was declared of him that in the way of amatory expressions he had never in his life opened his mouth to another woman, there were those in the office who knew this was an exaggeration. Mr. Cradell, for instance, who in his early years had been very intimate with John Eames, and who still kept up the old friendship—although, being a domestic man, with a wife and six young children, and living on a small income, he did not go out much among his friends—could have told a very different story; for Mrs. Cradell herself had, in days before Cradell had made good his claim upon her, been not unadmired by Cradell’s fellow-clerk. But the constancy of Mr. Eames’s present love was doubted by none who knew him. It was not that he went about with his stockings ungartered, or any of the old acknowledged signs of un
requited affection. In his manner he was rather jovial than otherwise, and seemed to live a happy, somewhat luxurious life, well contented with himself and the world around him. But still he had this passion within his bosom, and I am inclined to think that he was a little proud of his own constancy.
It might be presumed that when Miss Dale wrote to her friend Grace Crawley about going beyond friendship, pleading that there were so many “barriers”, she had probably seen her way over most of them. But this was not so; nor did John Eames himself at all believe that the barriers were in a way to be overcome. I will not say that he had given the whole thing up as a bad job, because it was the law of his life that the thing never should be abandoned as long as hope was possible. Unless Miss Dale should become the wife of somebody else, he would always regard himself as affianced to her. He had so declared to Miss Dale herself and to Miss Dale’s mother, and to all the Dale people who had ever been interested in the matter. And there was an old lady living in Miss Dale’s neighbourhood, the sister of the lord who had left Johnny Eames the bank shares, who always fought his battles for him, and kept a close lookout, fully resolved that John Eames should be rewarded at last. This old lady was connected with the Dales by family ties, and therefore had means of close observation. She was in constant correspondence with John Eames, and never failed to acquaint him when any of the barriers were, in her judgment, giving way. The nature of some of the barriers may possibly be made intelligible to my readers by the following letter from Lady Julia De Guest to her young friend.
The Chronicles of Barsetshire Page 293