第40章

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 did not know where he got the money?'

'I was in the room all the time.'

'And you did 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 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 forgotten all about it; and when that butcher threatened him, he has put his hand upon it, and he thought, or believed, that it had come from Soames or 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 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 the 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 Ifound 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, one 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 Barchester 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 the 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 is 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--having 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 deuced 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 had said were true. And if they could have their way, it never would be finished. And so, in order that Lord Lufton might not actually be 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 Champion to back him?'

'My dear Ludovic, you do put it in such a way.'