The Last Chronicle of Barset Part 52

"But, Josiah, my cousin will not be harsh to you."

"Well,--and if he be not?"

"Ill-usage you can bear; and violent ill-usage, such as that which Mrs. Proudie allowed herself to exhibit, you can repay with interest; but kindness seems to be too heavy a burden for you."

"I will struggle. I will endeavour. I will speak but little, and, if possible, I will listen much. Now, my dear, I will write to this man, and you shall give me the address that is proper for him." Then he wrote the letter, not accepting a word in the way of dictation from his wife, but "craving the great kindness of a short interview, for which he ventured to become a solicitor, urged thereto by his wife's a.s.surance that one with whom he was connected by family ties would do as much as this for the possible preservation of the honour of the family." In answer to this, Mr. Toogood wrote back as follows:--"Dear Mr. Crawley, I will be at my office all Thursday morning next from ten to two, and will take care that you shan't be kept waiting for me above ten minutes. You parsons never like waiting. But hadn't you better come and breakfast with me and Maria at nine? then we'd have a talk as we walk to the office. Yours always, THOMAS TOOGOOD." And the letter was dated from the attorney's private house in Tavistock Square.

"I am sure he means to be kind," said Mrs. Crawley.

"Doubtless he means to be kind. But his kindness is rough;--I will not say unmannerly, as the word would be harsh. I have never even seen the lady whom he calls Maria."

"She is his wife!"

"So I would venture to suppose; but she is unknown to me. I will write again, and thank him, and say that I will be with him at ten to the moment."

There were still many things to be settled before the journey could be made. Mr. Crawley, in his first plan, proposed that he should go up by night mail train, travelling in the third cla.s.s, having walked over to Silverbridge to meet it; that he should then walk about London from 5 A.M. to 10 A.M., and afterwards come down by an afternoon train to which a third cla.s.s was also attached. But at last his wife persuaded him that such a task as that, performed in the middle of the winter, would be enough to kill any man, and that, if attempted, it would certainly kill him; and he consented at last to sleep the night in town,--being specially moved thereto by discovering that he could, in conformity with this scheme, get in and out of the train at a station considerably nearer to him than Silverbridge, and that he could get a return-ticket at a third-cla.s.s fare. The whole journey, he found, could be done for a pound, allowing him seven s.h.i.+llings for his night's expenses in London; and out of the resources of the family there were produced two sovereigns, so that in the event of accident he would not utterly be a castaway from want of funds.

So he started on his journey after an early dinner, almost hopeful through the new excitement of a journey to London, and his wife walked with him nearly as far as the station. "Do not reject my cousin's kindness," were the last words she spoke.

"For his professional kindness, if he will extend it to me, I will be most thankful," he replied. She did not dare to say more; nor had she dared to write privately to her cousin, asking for any special help, lest by doing so she should seem to impugn the sufficiency and stability of her husband's judgment. He got up to town late at night, and having made inquiry of one of the porters, he hired a bed for himself in the neighbourhood of the railway station. Here he had a cup of tea and a morsel of bread-and-b.u.t.ter, and in the morning he breakfasted again on the same fare. "No, I have no luggage,"

he had said to the girl at the public-house, who had asked him as to his travelling gear. "If luggage be needed as a certificate of respectability, I will pa.s.s on elsewhere," said he. The girl stared, and a.s.sured him that she did not doubt his respectability. "I am a clergyman of the Church of England," he had said, "but my circ.u.mstances prevent me from seeking a more expensive lodging."

They did their best to make him comfortable, and, I think, almost disappointed him in not heaping further misfortunes on his head.

He was in Raymond's Buildings at half-past nine, and for half an hour walked up and down the umbrageous pavement,--it used to be umbrageous, but perhaps the trees have gone now,--before the doors of the various chambers. He could hear the clock strike from Gray's Inn; and the moment that it had struck he was turning in, but was encountered in the pa.s.sage by Mr. Toogood, who was equally punctual with himself. Strange stories about Mr. Crawley had reached Mr.

Toogood's household, and that Maria, the mention of whose Christian name had been so offensive to the clergyman, had begged her husband not to be a moment late. Poor Mr. Toogood, who on ordinary days did perhaps take a few minutes' grace, was thus hurried away almost with his breakfast in his throat, and, as we have seen, just saved himself. "Perhaps, sir, you are Mr. Crawley?" he said, in a good-humoured, cheery voice. He was a good-humoured, cheery-looking man, about fifty years of age, with grizzled hair and sunburnt face, and large whiskers. n.o.body would have taken him to be a partner in any of those great houses of which we have read in history,--the Quirk, Gammon and Snaps of the profession, or the Dodson and Foggs, who are immortal.

"That is my name, sir," said Mr. Crawley, taking off his hat and bowing low, "and I am here by appointment to meet Mr. Toogood, the solicitor, whose name I see affixed upon the door-post."

"I am Mr. Toogood, the solicitor, and I hope I see you quite well, Mr. Crawley." Then the attorney shook hands with the clergyman and preceded him upstairs to the front room on the first floor. "Here we are, Mr. Crawley, and pray take a chair. I wish you could have made it convenient to come and see us at home. We are rather long, as my wife says,--long in family, she means, and therefore are not very well off for spare beds--"

"Oh, sir."

"I've twelve of 'em living, Mr. Crawley,--from eighteen years, the eldest,--a girl, down to eighteen months the youngest,--a boy, and they go in and out, boy and girl, boy and girl, like the cogs of a wheel. They ain't such far away distant cousins from your own young ones--only first, once, as we call it."

"I am aware that there is a family tie, or I should not have ventured to trouble you."

"Blood is thicker than water; isn't it? I often say that. I heard of one of your girls only yesterday. She is staying somewhere down in the country, not far from where my sister lives--Mrs. Eames, the widow of poor John Eames, who never did any good in this world. I daresay you've heard of her?"

"The name is familiar to me, Mr. Toogood."

"Of course it is. I've a nephew down there just now, and he saw your girl the other day;--very highly he spoke of her too. Let me see;--how many is it you have?"

"Three living, Mr. Toogood."

"I've just four times three;--that's the difference. But I comfort myself with the text about the quiver you know; and I tell them that when they've eat up all the b.u.t.ter, they'll have to take their bread dry."

"I trust the young people take your teaching in a proper spirit."

"I don't know much about spirit. There's spirit enough. My second girl, Lucy, told me that if I came home to-day without tickets for the pantomime I shouldn't have any dinner allowed me. That's the way they treat me. But we understand each other at home. We're all pretty good friends there, thank G.o.d. And there isn't a sick chick among the boiling."

"You have many mercies for which you should indeed be thankful," said Mr. Crawley, gravely.

"Yes, yes, yes; that's true. I think of that sometimes, though perhaps not so much as I ought to do. But the best way to be thankful is to use the goods the G.o.ds provide you. 'The lovely Thais sits beside you. Take the goods the G.o.ds provide you.' I often say that to my wife, till the children have got to calling her Thais. The children have it pretty much their own way with us, Mr. Crawley."

By this time Mr. Crawley was almost beside himself, and was altogether at a loss how to bring in the matter on which he wished to speak. He had expected to find a man who in the hurry of London business might perhaps just manage to spare him five minutes,--who would grapple instantly with the subject that was to be discussed between them, would speak to him half-a-dozen hard words of wisdom, and would then dismiss him and turn on the instant to other matters of important business;--but here was an easy familiar fellow, who seemed to have nothing on earth to do, and who at this first meeting had taken advantage of a distant family connexion to tell him everything about the affairs of his own household. And then how peculiar were the domestic traits which he told! What was Mr. Crawley to say to a man who had taught his own children to call their mother Thais? Of Thais Mr. Crawley did know something, and he forgot to remember that perhaps Mr. Toogood knew less. He felt it, however, to be very difficult to submit the details of his case to a gentleman who talked in such a strain about his own wife and children.

But something must be done. Mr. Crawley, in his present frame of mind, could not sit and talk about Thais all day. "Sir," he said, "the picture of your home is very pleasant, and I presume that plenty abounds there."

"Well, you know, pretty toll-loll for that. With twelve of 'em, Mr.

Crawley, I needn't tell you they are not all going to have castles and parks of their own, unless they can get 'em off their own bats.

But I pay upwards of a hundred a year each for my eldest three boys'

schooling, and I've been paying eighty for the girls. Put that and that together and see what it comes to. Educate, educate, educate; that's my word."

"No better word can be spoken, sir."

"I don't think there's a girl in Tavistock Square that can beat Polly,--she's the eldest, called after her mother, you know;--that can beat her at the piano. And Lucy has read Lord Byron and Tom Moore all through, every word of 'em. By Jove, I believe she knows most of Tom Moore by heart. And the young uns are coming on just as well."

"Perhaps, sir, as your time is, no doubt, precious--"

"Just at this time of the day we don't care so much about it, Mr.

Crawley; and one doesn't catch a new cousin every day, you know."

"However, if you will allow me,--"

"We'll tackle to? Very well; so be it. Now, Mr. Crawley, let me hear what it is that I can do for you." Of a sudden, as Mr. Toogood spoke these last words, the whole tone of his voice seemed to change, and even the position of his body became so much altered as to indicate a different kind of man. "You just tell your story in your own way, and I won't interrupt you till you've done. That's always the best."

"I must first crave your attention to an unfortunate preliminary,"

said Mr. Crawley.

"And what is that?"

"I come before you in forma pauperis." Here Mr. Crawley paused and stood up before the attorney with his hands crossed one upon the other, bending low, as though calling attention to the poorness of his raiment. "I know that I have no justification for my conduct. I have nothing of reason to offer why I should trespa.s.s upon your time.

I am a poor man, and cannot pay you for your services."

"Oh, bother!" said Mr. Toogood, jumping up out of his chair.

"I do not know whether your charity will grant me that which I ask--"

"Don't let's have any more of this," said the attorney. "We none of us like this kind of thing at all. If I can be of any service to you, you're as welcome to it as flowers in May; and as for billing my first-cousin, which your wife is, I should as soon think of sending in an account to my own."

"But, Mr. Toogood,--"

"Do you go on now with your story; I'll put the rest all right."

"I was bound to be explicit, Mr. Toogood."

"Very well; now you have been explicit with a vengeance, and you may heave a-head. Let's hear the story, and if I can help you I will.

When I've said that, you may be sure I mean it. I've heard something of it before; but let me hear it all from you."