IN MEMORIAM.
[Illustration]
The bishop when he had heard the tidings of his wife's death walked
back to his seat over the fire, and Mrs. Draper, the housekeeper,
came and stood over him without speaking. Thus she stood for ten
minutes looking down at him and listening. But there was no sound;
not a word, nor a moan, nor a sob. It was as though he also were
dead, but that a slight irregular movement of his fingers on the top
of his bald head, told her that his mind and body were still active.
"My lord," she said at last, "would you wish to see the doctor when
he comes?" She spoke very low and he did not answer her. Then, after
another minute of silence, she asked the same question again.
"What doctor?" he said.
"Dr. Filgrave. We sent for him. Perhaps he is here now. Shall I go
and see, my lord?" Mrs. Draper found that her position there was
weary and she wished to escape. Anything on his behalf requiring
trouble or work she would have done willingly; but she could not
stand there for ever watching the motion of his fingers.
"I suppose I must see him," said the bishop. Mrs. Draper took this
as an order for her departure and crept silently out of the room,
closing the door behind her with the long protracted elaborate click
which is always produced by an attempt at silence on such occasions.
He did not care for noise or for silence. Had she slammed the door
he would not have regarded it. A wonderful silence had come upon
him which for the time almost crushed him. He would never hear that
well-known voice again!
He was free now. Even in his misery,--for he was very miserable,--he
could not refrain from telling himself that. No one could now press
uncalled-for into his study, contradict him in the presence of those
before whom he was bound to be authoritative, and rob him of all his
dignity. There was no one else of whom he was afraid. She had at
least kept him out of the hands of other tyrants. He was now his own
master, and there was a feeling,--I may not call it of relief, for as
yet there was more of pain in it than of satisfaction,--a feeling as
though he had escaped from an old trouble at a terrible cost of which
he could not as yet calculate the amount. He knew that he might now
give up all idea of writing to the archbishop.
She had in some ways, and at certain periods of his life, been very
good to him. She had kept his money for him and made things go
straight, when they had been poor. His interests had always been
her interests. Without her he would never have been a bishop. So,
at least, he told himself now, and so told himself probably with
truth. She had been very careful of his children. She had never been
idle. She had never been fond of pleasure. She had neglected no
acknowledged duty. He did not doubt that she was now on her way to
heaven. He took his hands down from his head, and clasping them
together, said a little prayer. It may be doubted whether he quite
knew for what he was praying. The idea of praying for her soul, now
that she was dead, would have scandalized him. He certainly was not
praying for his own soul. I think he was praying that God might save
him from being glad that his wife was dead.
But she was dead;--and, as it were, in a moment! He had not stirred
out of that room since she had been there with him. Then there had
been angry words between them,--perhaps more determined enmity on his
part than ever had before existed; and they had parted for the last
time with bitter animosity. But he told himself that he had certainly
been right in what he had done then. He thought he had been right
then. And so his mind went back to the Crawley and Thumble question,
and he tried to alleviate the misery which that last interview with
his wife now created by assuring himself that he at least had been
justified in what he had done.
But yet his thoughts were very tender to her. Nothing reopens the
springs of love so fully as absence, and no absence so thoroughly as
that which must needs be endless. We want that which we have not; and
especially that which we can never have. She had told him in the very
last moments of her presence with him that he was wishing that she
were dead, and he had made her no reply. At the moment he had felt,
with savage anger, that such was his wish. Her words had now come to
pass, and he was a widower,--and he assured himself that he would
give all that he possessed in the world to bring her back again.
Yes, he was a widower, and he might do as he pleased. The tyrant
was gone, and he was free. The tyrant was gone, and the tyranny had
doubtless been very oppressive. Who had suffered as he had done? But
in thus being left without his tyrant he was wretchedly desolate.
Might it not be that the tyranny had been good for him?--that the
Lord had known best what wife was fit for him? Then he thought of a
story which he had read,--and had well marked as he was reading,--of
some man who had been terribly afflicted by his wife, whose wife had
starved him and beaten him and reviled him; and yet this man had been
able to thank his God for having thus mortified him in the flesh.
Might it not be that the mortification which he himself had doubtless
suffered in his flesh had been intended for his welfare, and had
been very good for him? But if this were so, it might be that the
mortification was now removed because the Lord knew that his servant
had been sufficiently mortified. He had not been starved or beaten,
but the mortification had been certainly severe. Then there came
words--into his mind, not into his mouth--"The Lord sent the thorn,
and the Lord has taken it away. Blessed be the name of the Lord."
After that he was very angry with himself, and tried to pray that he
might be forgiven. While he was so striving there came a low knock at
the door, and Mrs. Draper again entered the room.
"Dr. Filgrave, my lord, was not at home," said Mrs. Draper; "but he
will be sent the very moment he arrives."
"Very well, Mrs. Draper."
"But, my lord, will you not come to your dinner? A little soup, or
a morsel of something to eat, and a glass of wine, will enable your
lordship to bear it better." He allowed Mrs. Draper to persuade him,
and followed her into the dining-room. "Do not go, Mrs. Draper," he
said; "I would rather that you should stay with me." So Mrs. Draper
stayed with him, and administered to his wants. He was desirous of
being seen by as few eyes as possible in these the first moments of
his freedom.
He saw Dr. Filgrave twice, both before and after the doctor had been
upstairs. There was no doubt, Dr. Filgrave said, that it was as Mrs.
Draper had surmised. The poor lady was suffering, and had for years
been suffering, from heart-complaint. To her husband she had never
said a word on the subject. To Mrs. Draper a word had been said now
and again,--a word when some moment of fear would come, when some
sharp stroke of agony would tell of danger. But Mrs. Draper had kept
the secret of her mistress, and none of the family had known that
there was aught to be feared. Dr. Filgrave, indeed, did tell the
bishop that he had dreaded all along exactly that which had happened.
He had said the same to Mr. Rerechild, the surgeon, when they two
had had a consultation together at the palace on the occasion of
a somewhat alarming birth of a grandchild. But he mixed up this
information with so much medical Latin, and was so pompous over it,
and the bishop was so anxious to be rid of him, that his words did
not have much effect. What did it all matter? The thorn was gone, and
the wife was dead, and the widower must balance his gain and loss as
best he might.
He slept well, but when he woke in the morning the dreariness of his
loneliness was very strong on him. He must do something, and must see
somebody, but he felt that he did not know how to bear himself in his
new position. He must send of course for his chaplain, and tell his
chaplain to open all letters and to answer them for a week. Then he
remembered how many of his letters in days of yore had been opened
and been answered by the helpmate who had just gone from him. Since
Dr. Tempest's visit he had insisted that the palace letter-bag should
always be brought in the first instance to him;--and this had been
done, greatly to the annoyance of his wife. In order that it might
be done the bishop had been up every morning an hour before his
usual time; and everybody in the household had known why it was
so. He thought of this now as the bag was brought to him on the
first morning of his freedom. He could have it where he pleased
now;--either in his bedroom or left for him untouched on the
breakfast-table till he should go to it. "Blessed be the name of
the Lord," he said as he thought of all this; but he did not stop
to analyse what he was saying. On this morning he would not enjoy
his liberty, but desired that the letter-bag might be taken to Mr.
Snapper, the chaplain.
The news of Mrs. Proudie's death had spread all over Barchester
on the evening of its occurrence, and had been received with that
feeling of distant awe which is always accompanied by some degree of
pleasurable sensation. There was no one in Barchester to lament a
mother, or a sister, or a friend who was really loved. There were
those, doubtless, who regretted the woman's death,--and even some
who regretted it without any feeling of personal damage done to
themselves. There had come to be around Mrs. Proudie a party who
thought as she thought on church matters, and such people had lost
their head, and thereby their strength. And she had been staunch to
her own party, preferring bad tea from a low-church grocer, to good
tea from a grocer who went to the ritualistic church or to no church
at all. And it is due to her to say that she did not forget those who
were true to her,--looking after them mindfully where looking after
might be profitable, and fighting their battles where fighting might
be more serviceable. I do not think that the appetite for breakfast
of any man or woman in Barchester was disturbed by the news of Mrs.
Proudie's death, but there were some who felt that a trouble had
fallen on them.
Tidings of the catastrophe reached Hiram's Hospital on the evening of
its occurrence,--Hiram's Hospital, where dwelt Mr. and Mrs. Quiverful
with all their children. Now Mrs. Quiverful owed a debt of gratitude
to Mrs. Proudie, having been placed in her present comfortable home
by that lady's patronage. Mrs. Quiverful perhaps understood the
character of the deceased woman, and expressed her opinion respecting
it, as graphically as did any one in Barchester. There was the
natural surprise felt at the Warden's lodge in the Hospital when the
tidings were first received there, and the Quiverful family was at
first too full of dismay, regrets and surmises, to be able to give
themselves impartially to criticism. But on the following morning,
conversation at the breakfast-table naturally referring to the great
loss which the bishop had sustained, Mrs. Quiverful thus pronounced
her opinion of her friend's character: "You'll find that he'll feel
it, Q.," she said to her husband, in answer to some sarcastic remark
made by him as to the removal of the thorn. "He'll feel it, though
she was almost too many for him while she was alive."
"I daresay he'll feel it at first," said Quiverful; "but I think
he'll be more comfortable than he has been."
"Of course he'll feel it, and go on feeling it till he dies, if he's
the man I take him to be. You're not to think that there has been no
love because there used to be some words, that he'll find himself the
happier because he can do things more as he pleases. She was a great
help to him, and he must have known that she was, in spite of the
sharpness of her tongue. No doubt she was sharp. No doubt she was
upsetting. And she could make herself a fool too in her struggles to
have everything her own way. But, Q., there were worse women than
Mrs. Proudie. She was never one of your idle ones, and I'm quite sure
that no man or woman ever heard her say a word against her husband
behind his back."
"All the same, she gave him a terribly bad life of it, if all is true
that we hear."
"There are men who must have what you call a terribly bad life of
it, whatever way it goes with them. The bishop is weak, and he wants
somebody near to him to be strong. She was strong,--perhaps too
strong; but he had his advantage out of it. After all I don't know
that his life has been so terribly bad. I daresay he's had everything
very comfortable about him. And a man ought to be grateful for that,
though very few men ever are."
Mr. Quiverful's predecessor at the Hospital, old Mr. Harding, whose
halcyon days in Barchester had been passed before the coming of the
Proudies, was in bed playing cat's-cradle with Posy seated on the
counterpane, when the tidings of Mrs. Proudie's death were brought to
him by Mrs. Baxter. "Oh, sir," said Mrs. Baxter, seating herself on
a chair by the bed-side. Mr. Harding liked Mrs. Baxter to sit down,
because he was almost sure on such occasions to have the advantage of
a prolonged conversation.
"What is it, Mrs. Baxter?"
"Oh, sir!"
"Is anything the matter?" And the old man attempted to raise himself
in his bed.
"You mustn't frighten grandpa," said Posy.
"No, my dear; and there isn't nothing to frighten him. There isn't
indeed, Mr. Harding. They're all well at Plumstead, and when I heard
from the missus at Venice, everything was going on well."
"But what is it, Mrs. Baxter?"
"God forgive her all her sins--Mrs. Proudie ain't no more." Now there
had been a terrible feud between the palace and the deanery for
years, in carrying on which the persons of the opposed households
were wont to express themselves with eager animosity. Mrs. Baxter and
Mrs. Draper never spoke to each other. The two coachmen each longed
for an opportunity to take the other before a magistrate for some
breach of the law of the road in driving. The footmen abused each
other, and the grooms occasionally fought. The masters and mistresses
contented themselves with simple hatred. Therefore it was not
surprising that Mrs. Baxter, in speaking of the death of Mrs.
Proudie, should remember first her sins.
"Mrs. Proudie dead!" said the old man.
"Indeed she is, Mr. Harding," said Mrs. Baxter, putting both her
hands together piously. "We're just grass, ain't we, sir! and dust
and clay and flowers of the field?" Whether Mrs. Proudie had most
partaken of the clayey nature or of the flowery nature, Mrs. Baxter
did not stop to consider.
"Mrs. Proudie dead!" said Posy, with a solemnity that was all her
own. "Then she won't scold the poor bishop any more."
"No, my dear; she won't scold anybody any more; and it will be a
blessing for some, I must say. Everybody is always so considerate in
this house, Miss Posy, that we none of us know nothing about what
that is."
"Dead!" said Mr. Harding again. "I think, if you please, Mrs. Baxter,
you shall leave me for a little time, and take Miss Posy with you."
He had been in the city of Barchester some fifty years, and here was
one who might have been his daughter, who had come there scarcely ten
years since, and who now had gone before him! He had never loved Mrs.
Proudie. Perhaps he had gone as near to disliking Mrs. Proudie as he
had ever gone to disliking any person. Mrs. Proudie had wounded him
in every part that was most sensitive. It would be long to tell,
nor need it be told now, how she had ridiculed his cathedral work,
how she had made nothing of him, how she had despised him, always
manifesting her contempt plainly. He had been even driven to rebuke
her, and it had perhaps been the only personal rebuke which he had
ever uttered in Barchester. But now she was gone; and he thought of
her simply as an active pious woman, who had been taken away from her
work before her time. And for the bishop, no idea ever entered Mr.
Harding's mind as to the removal of a thorn. The man had lost his
life's companion at that time of life when such a companion is most
needed; and Mr. Harding grieved for him with sincerity.
The news went out to Plumstead Episcopi by the postman, and happened
to reach the archdeacon as he was talking to his sexton at the little
gate leading into the churchyard. "Mrs. Proudie dead!" he almost
shouted, as the postman notified the fact to him. "Impossible!"
"It be so for zartain, yer reverence," said the postman, who was
proud of his news.
"Heavens!" ejaculated the archdeacon, and then hurried in to his
wife. "My dear," he said--and as he spoke he could hardly deliver
himself of his words, so eager was he to speak them--"who do you
think is dead? Gracious heavens! Mrs. Proudie is dead!" Mrs. Grantly
dropped from her hand the teaspoonful of tea that was just going into
the pot, and repeated her husband's words. "Mrs. Proudie dead?" There
was a pause, during which they looked into each other's faces. "My
dear, I don't believe it," said Mrs. Grantly.
But she did believe it very shortly. There were no prayers at
Plumstead rectory that morning. The archdeacon immediately went out
into the village, and soon obtained sufficient evidence of the truth
of that which the postman had told him. Then he rushed back to his
wife. "It's true," he said. "It's quite true. She's dead. There's no
doubt about that. She's dead. It was last night about seven. That was
when they found her, at least, and she may have died about an hour
before. Filgrave says not more than an hour."
"And how did she die?"
"Heart-complaint. She was standing up, taking hold of the bedstead,
and so they found her." Then there was a pause, during which the
archdeacon sat down to his breakfast. "I wonder how he felt when he
heard it?"
"Of course he was terribly shocked."
"I've no doubt he was shocked. Any man would be shocked. But when you
come to think of it, what a relief!"
"How can you speak of it in that way?" said Mrs. Grantly.
"How am I to speak of it in any other way?" said the archdeacon. "Of
course I shouldn't go and say it out in the street."
"I don't think you ought to say it anywhere," said Mrs. Grantly. "The
poor man no doubt feels about his wife in the same way that anybody
else would."
"And if any other poor man has got such a wife as she was, you may be
quite sure that he would be glad to be rid of her. I don't say that
he wished her to die, or that he would have done anything to contrive
her death--"
"Gracious, archdeacon; do, pray, hold your tongue."
"But it stands to reason that her going will be a great relief to
him. What has she done for him? She has made him contemptible to
everybody in the diocese by her interference, and his life has been a
burden to him through her violence."
"Is that the way you carry out your proverb of De mortuis?" said Mrs.
Grantly.
"The proverb of De mortuis is founded on humbug. Humbug out of doors
is necessary. It would not do for you and me to go into the High
Street just now and say what we think about Mrs. Proudie; but I don't
suppose that kind of thing need be kept up in here, between you and
me. She was an uncomfortable woman,--so uncomfortable that I cannot
believe that any one will regret her. Dear me! Only to think that she
has gone! You may as well give me my tea."
I do not think that Mrs. Grantly's opinion differed much from that
expressed by her husband, or that she was, in truth, the least
offended by the archdeacon's plain speech. But it must be remembered
that there was probably no house in the diocese in which Mrs. Proudie
had been so thoroughly hated as she had been at the Plumstead
rectory. There had been hatred at the deanery; but the hatred at the
deanery had been mild in comparison with the hatred at Plumstead. The
archdeacon was a sound friend; but he was also a sound enemy. From
the very first arrival of the Proudies at Barchester, Mrs. Proudie
had thrown down her gauntlet to him, and he had not been slow in
picking it up. The war had been internecine, and each had given the
other terrible wounds. It had been understood that there should be
no quarter, and there had been none. His enemy was now dead, and
the archdeacon could not bring himself to adopt before his wife the
namby-pamby every-day decency of speaking well of one of whom he
had ever thought ill, or of expressing regret when no regret could
be felt. "May all her sins be forgiven her," said Mrs. Grantly.
"Amen," said the archdeacon. There was something in the tone of
his Amen which thoroughly implied that it was uttered only on the
understanding that her departure from the existing world was to be
regarded as an unmitigated good, and that she should, at any rate,
never come back again to Barchester.
When Lady Lufton heard the tidings, she was not so bold in speaking
of it as was her friend the archdeacon. "Mrs. Proudie dead!" she
said to her daughter-in-law. This was some hours after the news had
reached the house, and when the fact of the poor lady's death had
been fully recognized. "What will he do without her?"
"The same as other men do," said young Lady Lufton.
"But, my dear, he is not the same as other men. He is not at all like
other men. He is so weak that he cannot walk without a stick to lean
upon. No doubt she was a virago, a woman who could not control her
temper for a moment! No doubt she had led him a terrible life! I have
often pitied him with all my heart. But, nevertheless, she was useful
to him. I suppose she was useful to him. I can hardly believe that
Mrs. Proudie is dead. Had he gone, it would have seemed so much more
natural. Poor woman. I daresay she had her good points." The reader
will be pleased to remember that the Luftons had ever been strong
partisans on the side of the Grantlys.
The news made its way even to Hogglestock on the same day. Mrs.
Crawley, when she heard it, went out after her husband, who was in
the school. "Dead!" said he, in answer to her whisper. "Do you tell
me that the woman is dead?" Then Mrs. Crawley explained that the
tidings were credible. "May God forgive her all her sins," said Mr.
Crawley. "She was a violent woman, certainly, and I think that she
misunderstood her duties; but I do not say that she was a bad woman.
I am inclined to think that she was earnest in her endeavours to do
good." It never occurred to Mr. Crawley that he and his affair had,
in truth, been the cause of her death.
It was thus that she was spoken of for a few days; and then men and
women ceased to speak much of her, and began to talk of the bishop
instead. A month had not passed before it was surmised that a man so
long accustomed to the comforts of married life would marry again;
and even then one lady connected with low-church clergymen in and
around the city was named as a probable successor to the great lady
who was gone. For myself, I am inclined to think that the bishop will
for the future be content to lean upon his chaplain.
The monument that was put up to our old friend's memory in one of the
side aisles of the choir of the cathedral was supposed to be designed
and executed in good taste. There was a broken column, and on the
column simply the words, "My beloved wife!" Then there was a slab by
the column, bearing Mrs. Proudie's name, with the date of her life
and death. Beneath this was the common inscription,--
"_Requiescat in pace._"