The bishop sighed aloud. The sigh might be taken as expressing grief over the sin of the erring brother whose conduct they were then to discuss, and was not amiss. But when the sigh with its attendant murmurs had passed away it was necessary that some initiative step should be taken. “Dr. Tempest,” said the bishop, “what are we to do about this poor stiff-necked gentleman?” Still Dr. Tempest did not speak. “There is no clergyman in the diocese,” continued the bishop, “in whose prudence and wisdom I have more confidence than in yours. And I know, too, that you are by no means disposed to severity where severe measures are not necessary. What ought we to do? If he has been guilty, he should not surely return to his pulpit after the expiration of such punishment as the law of his country may award him.”
Dr. Tempest looked at Mrs. Proudie, thinking that she might perhaps say a word now; but Mrs. Proudie knew her part better and was silent. Angry as she was, she contrived to hold her peace. Let the debate once begin and she would be able to creep into it, and then to lead it—and so she would hold her own. But she had met a foe as wary as herself. “My lord,” said the doctor, “it will perhaps be well that you should communicate your wishes to me in writing. If it be possible for me to comply with them I will do so.”
“Yes—exactly; no doubt—but I thought that perhaps we might better understand each other if we had a few words of quiet conversation upon the subject. I believe you know the steps that I have—”
But here the bishop was interrupted. Dr. Tempest rose from his chair, and advancing to the table put both hands upon it. “My lord,” he said, “I feel myself compelled to say that which I would very much rather leave unsaid, were it possible. I feel the difficulty, and I may say delicacy, of my position; but I should be untrue to my conscience and to my feeling of what is right in such matters, if I were to take any part in a discussion on this matter in the presence of—a lady.”
“Dr. Tempest, what is your objection?” said Mrs. Proudie, rising from her chair, and coming also to the table, so that from thence she might confront her opponent; and as she stood opposite to Dr. Tempest she also put both her hands upon the table.
“My dear, perhaps you will leave us for a few moments,” said the bishop. Poor bishop! Poor weak bishop! As the words came from his mouth he knew that they would be spoken in vain, and that, if so, it would have been better for him to have left them unspoken.
“Why should I be dismissed from your room without a reason?” said Mrs. Proudie. “Cannot Dr. Tempest understand that a wife may share her husband’s counsels—as she must share his troubles? If he cannot, I pity him very much as to his own household.”
“Dr. Tempest,” said the bishop, “Mrs. Proudie takes the greatest possible interest in everything concerning the diocese.”
“I am sure, my lord,” said the doctor, “that you will see how unseemly it would be that I should interfere in any way between you and Mrs. Proudie. I certainly will not do so. I can only say again that if you will communicate to me your wishes in writing, I will attend to them—if it be possible.”
“You mean to be stubborn,” said Mrs. Proudie, whose prudence was beginning to give way under the great provocation to which her temper was being subjected.
“Yes, madam; if it is to be called stubbornness, I must be stubborn. My lord, Mrs. Proudie spoke to me on this subject in the breakfast-room after you had left it, and I then ventured to explain to her that in accordance with such light as I have on the matter, I could not discuss it in her presence. I greatly grieve that I failed to make myself understood by her—as, otherwise, this unpleasantness might have been spared.”
“I understood you very well, Dr. Tempest, and I think you to be a most unreasonable man. Indeed, I might use a much harsher word.”
“You may use any word you please, Mrs. Proudie,” said the doctor.
“My dear, I really think you had better leave us for a few minutes,” said the bishop.
“No, my lord—no,” said Mrs. Proudie, turning round upon her husband. “Not so. It would be most unbecoming that I should be turned out of a room in this palace by an uncourteous word from a parish clergyman. It would be unseemly. If Dr. Tempest forgets his duty, I will not forget mine. There are other clergymen in the diocese besides Dr. Tempest who can undertake the very easy task of this commission. As for his having been appointed rural dean I don’t know how many years ago, it is a matter of no consequence whatever. In such a preliminary inquiry any three clergymen will suffice. It need not be done by the rural dean at all.”
“My dear!”
“I will not be turned out of this room by Dr. Tempest—and that is enough.”
“My lord,” said the doctor, “you had better write to me as I proposed to you just now.”
“His lordship will not write. His lordship will do nothing of the kind,” said Mrs. Proudie.
“My dear!” said the bishop, driven in his perplexity beyond all carefulness of reticence. “My dear, I do wish you wouldn’t—I do indeed. If you would only go away!”
“I will not go away, my lord,” said Mrs. Proudie.
“But I will,” said Dr. Tempest, feeling true compassion for the unfortunate man whom he saw writhing in agony before him. “It will manifestly be for the best that I should retire. My lord, I wish you good morning. Mrs. Proudie, good morning.” And so he left the room.
“A most stubborn and a most ungentlemanlike man,” said Mrs. Proudie, as soon as the door was closed behind the retreating rural dean. “I do not think that in the whole course of my life I ever met with anyone so insubordinate and so ill-mannered. He is worse than the archdeacon.” As she uttered these words she paced about the room. The bishop said nothing; and when she herself had been silent for a few minutes she turned upon him. “Bishop,” she said, “I hope that you agree with me. I expect that you will agree with me in a matter that is so of much moment to my comfort, and I may say to my position generally in the diocese. Bishop, why do you not speak?”
“You have behaved in such a way that I do not know that I shall ever speak again,” said the bishop.
“What is that you say?”
“I say that I do not know how I shall ever speak again. You have disgraced me.”
“Disgraced you! I disgrace you! It is you that disgrace yourself by saying such words.”
“Very well. Let it be so. Perhaps you will go away now and leave me to myself. I have got a bad headache, and I can’t talk any more. Oh dear, oh dear, what will he think of it!”
“And you mean to tell me that I have been wrong?”
“Yes, you have been wrong—very wrong. Why didn’t you go away when I asked you? You are always being wrong. I wish I had never come to Barchester. In any other position I should not have felt it so much. As it is I do not know how I can ever show my face again.”
“Not have felt what so much, Mr. Proudie?” said the wife, going back in the excitement of her anger to the nomenclature of old days. “And this is to be my return for all my care in your behalf! Allow me to tell you, sir, that in any position in which you may be placed I know what is due to you, and that your dignity will never lose anything in my hands. I wish that you were as well able to take care of it yourself.” Then she stalked out of the room, and left the poor man alone.
Bishop Proudie sat alone in his study throughout the whole day. Once or twice in the course of the morning his chaplain came to him on some matter of business, and was answered with a smile—the peculiar softness of which the chaplain did not fail to attribute the right cause. For it was soon known throughout the household that there had been a quarrel. Could he quite have made up his mind to do so—could he have resolved that it would be altogether better to quarrel with his wife—the bishop would have appealed to the chaplain, and have asked at any rate for sympathy. But even yet he could not bring himself to confess his misery, and to own himself to another to be the wretch that he was. Then during the long hours of the day he sat thinking of it all. How happy could he be if it were only possi
ble for him to go away, and become even a curate in a parish, without his wife! Would there ever come to him a time of freedom? Would she ever die? He was older than she, and of course he would die first. Would it not be a fine thing if he could die at once, and thus escape from his misery?
What could he do, even supposing himself strong enough to fight the battle? He could not lock her up. He could not even very well lock her out of his room. She was his wife, and must have the run of the house. He could not altogether debar her from the society of the diocesan clergymen. He had, on this very morning, taken strong measures with her. More than once or twice he had desired her to leave the room. What was there to be done with a woman who would not obey her husband—who would not even leave him to the performance of his own work? What a blessed thing it would be if a bishop could go away from his home to his work every day like a clerk in a public office—as a stone-mason does! But there was no such escape for him. He could not go away. And how was he to meet her again on this very day?
And then for hours he thought of Dr. Tempest and Mr. Crawley, considering what he had better do to repair the shipwreck of the morning. At last he resolved that he would write to the doctor; and before he had again seen his wife, he did write his letter, and he sent it off. In this letter he made no direct allusion to the occurrence of the morning, but wrote as though there had not been any fixed intention of a personal discussion between them. “I think it will be better that there should be a commission,” he said, “and I would suggest that you should have four other clergymen with you. Perhaps you will select two yourself out of your rural deanery; and, if you do not object, I will name as the other two Mr. Thumble and Mr. Quiverful, who are both resident in the city.” As he wrote these two names he felt ashamed of himself, knowing that he had chosen the two men as being special friends of his wife, and feeling that he should have been brave enough to throw aside all considerations of his wife’s favour—especially at this moment, in which he was putting on his armour to do battle against her. “It is not probable,” he continued to say in his letter, “that you will be able to make your report until after the trial of this unfortunate gentleman shall have taken place, and a verdict shall have been given. Should he be acquitted, that, I imagine, should end the matter. There can be no reason why we should attempt to go beyond the verdict of a jury. But should he be found guilty, I think we ought to be ready with such steps as it will be becoming for us to take at the expiration of any sentence which may be pronounced. It will be, at any rate, expedient that in such a case the matter should be brought before an ecclesiastical court.” he knew well as he wrote this, that he was proposing something much milder than the course intended by his wife when she had instigated him to take proceedings in the matter; but he did not much regard that now. Though he had been weak enough to name certain clergymen as assessors with the rural dean, because he thought that by doing so he would to a certain degree conciliate his wife—though he had been so far a coward, yet he was resolved that he would not sacrifice to her his own judgment and his own conscience in his manner of proceeding. He kept no copy of his letter, so that he might be unable to show her his very words when she should ask to see them. Of course he would tell her what he had done; but in telling her he would keep to himself what he had said as to the result of an acquittal in a civil court. She need not yet be told that he had promised to take such a verdict as sufficing also for an ecclesiastical acquittal. In this spirit his letter was written and sent off before he again saw his wife.
He did not meet her till they came together in the drawing-room before dinner. In explaining the whole truth as to circumstances as they existed at the palace at that moment, it must be acknowledged that Mrs. Proudie herself, great as was her courage, and wide as were the resources which she possessed within herself, was somewhat appalled by the position of affairs. I fear that it may now be too late for me to excite much sympathy in the mind of any reader on behalf of Mrs. Proudie. I shall never be able to make her virtues popular. But she had virtues, and their existence now made her unhappy. She did regard the dignity of her husband, and she felt at the present moment that she had almost compromised it. She did also regard the welfare of the clergymen around her, thinking of course in a general way that certain of them who agreed with her were the clergymen whose welfare should be studied, and that certain of them who disagreed with her were the clergymen whose welfare should be postponed. But now an idea made its way into her bosom that she was not perhaps doing the best for the welfare of the diocese generally. What if it should come to pass that all the clergymen of the diocese should refuse to open their mouths in her presence on ecclesiastical subjects, as Dr. Tempest had done? This special day was not one on which she was well contented with herself, though by no means on that account was her anger mitigated against the offending rural dean.
During dinner she struggled to say a word or two to her husband, as though there had been no quarrel between them. With him the matter had gone so deep that he could not answer her in the same spirit. There were sundry members of the family present—daughters, and a son-in-law, and a daughter’s friend who was staying with them; but even in the hope of appearing to be serene before them he could not struggle through his deep despondence. He was very silent, and to his wife’s words he answered hardly anything. He was courteous and gentle with them all, but he spoke as little as was possible, and during the evening he sat alone, with his head leaning on his hand—not pretending even to read. He was aware that it was too late to make even an attempt to conceal his misery and his disgrace from his own family.
His wife came to him that night in his dressing-room in a spirit of feminine softness that was very unusual with her. “My dear,” said she, “let us forget what occurred this morning. If there has been any anger we are bound as Christians to forget it.” She stood over him as she spoke, and put her hand upon his shoulder almost caressingly.
“When a man’s heart is broken, he cannot forget it,” was his reply. She still stood by him, and still kept her hand upon him: but she could think of no other words of comfort to say. “I will go to bed,” he said. “It is the best place for me.” Then she left him, and he went to bed.
CHAPTER XLVIII
The Softness of Sir Raffle Buffle
We have seen that John Eames was prepared to start on his journey in search of the Arabins, and have seen him after he had taken farewell of his office and of his master there, previous to his departure; but that matter of his departure had not been arranged altogether with comfort as far as his official interests were concerned. He had been perhaps a little abrupt in his mode of informing Sir Raffle Buffle that there was a pressing cause for his official absence, and Sir Raffle had replied to him that no private pressure could be allowed to interfere with his public duties. “I must go, Sir Raffle, at any rate,” Johnny had said; “it is a matter affecting my family, and must not be neglected.” “If you intend to go without leave,” said Sir Raffle, “I presume you will first put your resignation into the hands of Mr. Kissing.” Now Mr. Kissing was the secretary to the Board. This had been serious undoubtedly. John Eames was not specially anxious to keep his present position as private secretary to Sir Raffle, but he certainly had no desire to give up his profession altogether. He said nothing more to the great man on that occasion, but before he left the office he wrote a private note to the chairman expressing the extreme importance of his business, and begging that he might have leave of absence. On the next morning he received it back with a very few words written across it. “It can’t be done,” were the few words which Sir Raffle Buffle had written across the note from his private secretary. Here was a difficulty which Johnny had not anticipated, and which seemed to be insuperable. Sir Raffle would not have answered him in that strain if he had not been very much in earnest.
“I should send him a medical certificate,” said Cradell, his friend of old.
“Nonsense,” said Eames.
“I don’t see that it’s nonsense at
all. They can’t get over a medical certificate from a respectable man; and everybody has got something the matter with him of some kind.”
“I should go and let him do his worst,” said Fisher, who was another clerk. “It wouldn’t be more than putting you down a place or two. As to losing your present berth you don’t mind that, and they would never think of dismissing you.”
The Chronicles of Barsetshire Page 332
