The Last Chronicle of Barset. Anthony TrollopeЧитать онлайн книгу.
should leave all that to Nature, if I were you,” said Mrs. Dale.
Chapter X.
Dinner at Framley Court.
Lord Lufton, as he drove home to Framley after the meeting of the magistrates at Silverbridge, discussed the matter with his brother-in-law, Mark Robarts, the clergyman. Lord Lufton was driving a dog-cart, and went along the road at the rate of twelve miles an hour. “I’ll tell you what it is, Mark,” he said, “that man is innocent; but if he won’t employ lawyers at his trial, the jury will find him guilty.”
“I don’t know what to think about it,” said the clergyman.
“Were you in the room when he protested so vehemently that he didn’t know where he got the money?”
“I was in the room all the time.”
“And did you not believe him when he said that?”
“Yes,—I think I did.”
“Anybody must have believed him,—except old Tempest, who never believes anybody, and Fothergill, who always suspects everybody. The truth is, that he had found the cheque and put it by, and did not remember anything about it.”
“But, Lufton, surely that would amount to stealing it.”
“Yes, if it wasn’t that he is such a poor, cracked, crazy creature, with his mind all abroad. I think Soames did drop his book in his house. I’m sure Soames would not say so unless he was quite confident. Somebody has picked it up, and in some way the cheque has got into Crawley’s hand. Then he has locked it up and has forgotten all about it; and when that butcher threatened him, he has put his hand upon it, and he has thought, or believed, that it had come from Soames or from the dean, or from heaven, if you will. When a man is so crazy as that, you can’t judge of him as you do of others.”
“But a jury must judge of him as it would of others.”
“And therefore there should be a lawyer to tell the jury what to do. They should have somebody up out of the parish to show that he is beside himself half his time. His wife would be the best person, only it would be hard lines on her.”
“Very hard. And after all he would only escape by being shown to be mad.”
“And he is mad.”
“Mrs. Proudie would come upon him in such a case as that, and sequester his living.”
“And what will Mrs. Proudie do when he’s a convicted thief? Simply unfrock him, and take away his living altogether. Nothing on earth should induce me to find him guilty if I were on a jury.”
“But you have committed him.”
“Yes,—I’ve been one, at least, in doing so. I simply did that which Walker told us we must do. A magistrate is not left to himself as a juryman is. I’d eat the biggest pair of boots in Barchester before I found him guilty. I say, Mark, you must talk it over with the women, and see what can be done for them. Lucy tells me that they’re so poor, that if they have bread to eat, it’s as much as they have.”
On this evening Archdeacon Grantly and his wife dined and slept at Framley Court, there having been a very long family friendship between old Lady Lufton and the Grantlys, and Dr. Thorne with his wife, from Chaldicotes, also dined at Framley. There was also there another clergyman from Barchester, Mr. Champion, one of the prebends of the cathedral. There were only three now who had houses in the city since the retrenchments of the ecclesiastical commission had come into full force. And this Mr. Champion was dear to the Dowager Lady Lufton, because he carried on worthily the clerical war against the bishop which had raged in Barsetshire ever since Dr. Proudie had come there,—which war old Lady Lufton, good and pious and charitable as she was, considered that she was bound to keep up, even to the knife, till Dr. Proudie and all his satellites should have been banished into outer darkness. As the light of the Proudies still shone brightly, it was probable that poor old Lady Lufton might die before her battle was accomplished. She often said that it would be so, but when so saying, always expressed a wish that the fight might be carried on after her death. “I shall never, never rest in my grave,” she had once said to the archdeacon, “while that woman sits in your father’s palace.” For the archdeacon’s father had been Bishop of Barchester before Dr. Proudie. What mode of getting rid of the bishop or his wife Lady Lufton proposed to herself, I am unable to say; but I think she lived in hopes that in some way it might be done. If only the bishop could have been found to have stolen a cheque for twenty pounds instead of poor Mr. Crawley, Lady Lufton would, I think, have been satisfied.
In the course of these battles Framley Court would sometimes assume a clerical aspect,—have a prevailing hue, as it were, of black coats, which was not altogether to the taste of Lord Lufton, and as to which he would make complaint to his wife, and to Mark Robarts, himself a clergyman. “There’s more of this than I can stand,” he’d say to the latter. “There’s a deuced deal more of it than you like yourself, I know.”
“It’s not for me to like or dislike. It’s a great thing having your mother in the parish.”
“That’s all very well; and of course she’ll do as she likes. She may ask whom she pleases here, and I shan’t interfere. It’s the same as though it was her own house. But I shall take Lucy to Lufton.” Now Lord Lufton had been building his house at Lufton for the last seven years, and it was not yet finished,—or nearly finished, if all that his wife and mother said was true. And if they could have their way, it never would be finished. And so, in order that Lord Lufton might not be actually driven away by the turmoils of ecclesiastical contest, the younger Lady Lufton would endeavour to moderate both the wrath and the zeal of the elder one, and would struggle against the coming clergymen. On this day, however, three sat at the board at Framley, and Lady Lufton, in her justification to her son, swore that the invitation had been given by her daughter-in-law. “You know, my dear,” the dowager said to Lord Lufton, “something must be done for these poor Crawleys; and as the dean is away, Lucy wants to speak to the archdeacon about them.”
“And the archdeacon could not subscribe his ten-pound note without having Mr. Champion to back him?”
“My dear Ludovic, you do put it in such a way.”
“Never mind, mother. I’ve no special dislike to Champion; only as you are not paid five thousand a year for your trouble, it is rather hard that you should have to do all the work of opposition bishop in the diocese.”
It was felt by them all,—including Lord Lufton himself, who became so interested in the matter as to forgive the black coats before the evening was over,—that this matter of Mr. Crawley’s committal was very serious, and demanded the full energies of their party. It was known to them all that the feeling at the palace was inimical to Mr. Crawley. “That she-Beelzebub hates him for his poverty, and because Arabin brought him into the diocese,” said the archdeacon, permitting himself to use very strong language in his allusion to the bishop’s wife. It must be recorded on his behalf that he used the phrase in the presence only of the gentlemen of the party. I think he might have whispered the word into the ear of his confidential friend old Lady Lufton, and perhaps have given no offence; but he would not have ventured to use such words aloud in the presence of ladies.
“You forget, archdeacon,” said Dr. Thorne, laughing, “that the she-Beelzebub is my wife’s particular friend.”
“Not a bit of it,” said the archdeacon. “Your wife knows better than that. You tell her what I call her, and if she complains of the name I’ll unsay it.” It may therefore be supposed that Dr. Thorne, and Mrs. Thorne, and the archdeacon, knew each other intimately, and understood each other’s feelings on these matters.
It was quite true that the palace party was inimical to Mr. Crawley. Mr. Crawley undoubtedly was poor, and had not been so submissive to episcopal authority as it behoves any clergyman to be whose loaves and fishes are scanty. He had raised his back more than once against orders emanating from the palace in a manner that had made the hairs on the head of the bishop’s wife to stand almost on end, and