第131章

There was great dismay in Barchester Palace after the visit paid to the bishop and Mrs Proudie by that terrible clerical offender, Mr Crawley.

It will be remembered, perhaps, how he had defied the bishop with spoken words, and how he had defied the bishop's wife by speaking words to her.

For the moment, no doubt, Mr Crawley had the best of it. Mrs Proudie acknowledged to herself that this was the case; but as she was a woman who had never yet succumbed to an enemy, who had never--if on such an occasion I may be allowed to use a schoolboy's slang--taken a licking from anyone, it was not likely that Mr Crawley would be allowed to enjoy his triumph in peace. It would be odd if all the weight of the palace would not be able to silence a wretch of a perpetual curate who had already been committed to take his trial for thieving;--and Mrs Proudie was determined that all the weight of the palace should be used. As for the bishop, though he was not as angry as his wife, he was quite unhappy, and therefore quite as hostile to Mr Crawley; and was fully conscious that there could be no peace for him now until Mr Crawley should be crushed. If only the assizes would come at once, and get him condemned out of the way, what a blessed thing it would be! But unluckily it still wanted three months to the assizes, and during those three months Mr Crawley would be at large and subject only to the episcopal authority. During that time he could not be silenced by the arm of the civil law. His wife was not long in expressing her opinion after Mr Crawley had left the palace. 'You must proceed against him in the Court of Arches--and that at once,' said Mrs Proudie. 'You can do that, of course? I know that it will be expensive. Of course it will be expensive. I suppose it may cost us some three hundred pounds; but duty is duty, my lord, and in such a case as this your duty as a bishop is paramount.'

The poor bishop knew that it was useless to explain to her the various mistakes which she made--which she was ever making--as to the extent of his powers and the modes of procedure which were open to him. When he would to so she would only rail at him for being lukewarm in his office, poor in spirit, and afraid of dealing roundly with those below him. On the present occasion he did say a word, but she would not even hear him to the end. 'Don't tell me about rural deans, as if I didn't know. The rural dean has nothing to do with such a case. The man has been committed for trial. Send for Mr Chadwick at once, and let steps be taken before you are an hour older.'

'But, my dear, Mr Chadwick can do nothing.'

'The I will see Mr Chadwick.' And in her anger she did sit down and write a note to Mr Chadwick, begging him to come over to her at the palace.

Mr Chadwick was a lawyer, living in Barchester, who earned his bread from ecclesiastical business. His father, and his uncle, and his grandfather and granduncles, had all been concerned in the affairs of the diocese of Barchester. His uncle had been bailiff to the episcopal estates, or steward as he had been called, in Bishop Grantly's time, and still contrived to draw his income in some shape from the property of the see. The nephew had also been the legal assistant of the bishop in his latter days, and had been continued in that position by Bishop Proudie, not from love, but from expediency. Mr John Chadwick was one of those gentlemen, two or three of whom are to be seen in connexion with every see--who seem to be hybrids--half-lay, half-cleric. They dress like clergymen, and affect that mixture of clerical solemnity and clerical waggishness which is generally to be found among minor canons and vicars choral of a cathedral. They live, or at least have their offices, half in the Close and half out of it--dwelling as it were just on the borders of holy orders. They always wear white neck-handkerchiefs and black gloves; and would be altogether clerical in their appearance, were it not that as regards the outward man they impinge somewhat on the characteristics of the undertaker. They savour of the church but the savour is of the church's exterior. Any stranger thrown into chance contact with one of them would, from instinct, begin to talk about things ecclesiastical without any reference to things theological or things religious. They are always most worthy men, much respected in the society of the Close, and I never heard of one of them whose wife was not comfortable or whose children were left without provision.

Such a one was Mr John Chadwick, and as it was a portion of his duties to accompany the bishop to consecrations and ordinations, he knew Dr Proudie very well. Having been brought up, as it were, under the very wing of Bishop Grantly, it could not well be that he should love Bishop Grantly's successor. The old bishop and the new bishop had been so different that no man could like, or even esteem, them both. But Mr Chadwick was a prudent man, who knew well the source from which he earned his bread, and he had never quarrelled with Bishop Proudie. He knew Mrs Proudie also--of necessity--and when I say of him that he had hitherto avoided any open quarrel with her, it will I think be allowed that he was a man of prudence and sagacity.

But he had sometimes been sorely tried, and he felt when he got her note that he was now about to encounter a very sore trial. He muttered something which might have been taken for an oath, were it not that the outwards signs of the man gave warranty that no oath could proceed from such a one. Then he wrote a short note presenting his compliments to Mrs Proudie, and saying that he would call at the palace at eleven o'clock on the following morning.

But, in the meantime, Mrs Proudie, who could not be silent on the subject for a moment, did learn something of the truth from her husband.

The information did not come to her in the way of instruction, but was teased out of the unfortunate man. 'I know that you can proceed against him in the Court of Arches, under the "Church Discipline Act",' she said.

'No, my dear; no,' said the bishop, shaking his head in his misery.