The Chronicles of Barsetshire (258 page)

“That she is—Saturdays or Sundays,” said Johnny, not knowing exactly what he ought to say.

“So she is; and if he does his duty by her she won’t go astray in hers by him. And as for you, Mr. Eames, I am sure I’ve always felt it an honour and a pleasure to have you in the house; and if ever you could use a good word in sending to me any of your young men, I’d do by them as a mother should; I would indeed. I know I’ve been to blame about those Lupexes, but haven’t I suffered for it, Mr. Eames? And it was difficult to know at first; wasn’t it? And as to you and Amelia, if you would send any of your young men to try, there couldn’t be anything more of that kind, could there? I know it hasn’t all been just as it should have been—that is as regards you; but I should like to hear you say that you’ve found me honest before you went. I have tried to be honest, I have indeed.”

Eames assured her that he was convinced of her honesty, and that he had never thought of impugning her character either in regard to those unfortunate people, the Lupexes, or in reference to other matters. “He did not think,” he said, “that any young men would consult him as to their lodgings; but if he could be of any service to her, he would.” Then he bade her good-bye, and having bestowed half-a-sovereign on the faithful Jemima, he took a long farewell of Burton Crescent. Amelia had told him not to come and see her when she should be married, and he had resolved that he would take her at her word. So he walked off from the Crescent, not exactly shaking the dust from his feet, but resolving that he would know no more either of its dust or of its dirt. Dirt enough he had encountered there certainly, and he was now old enough to feel that the inmates of Mrs. Roper’s house had not been those among whom a resting-place for his early years should judiciously have been sought. But he had come out of the fire comparatively unharmed, and I regret to say that he felt but little for the terrible scorchings to which his friend had been subjected and was about to subject himself. He was quite content to look at the matter exactly as it was looked at by Mrs. Roper. Amelia was good enough for Joseph Cradell—any day of the week. Poor Cradell, of whom in these pages after this notice no more will be heard! I cannot but think that a hard measure of justice was meted out to him, in proportion to the extent of his sins. More weak and foolish than our friend and hero he had been, but not to my knowledge more wicked. But it is to the vain and foolish that the punishments fall—and to them they fall so thickly and constantly that the thinker is driven to think that vanity and folly are of all sins those which may be the least forgiven. As for Cradell I may declare that he did marry Amelia, that he did, with some pride, take the place of master of the house at the bottom of Mrs. Roper’s table, and that he did make himself responsible for all Mrs. Roper’s debts. Of his future fortunes there is not space to speak in these pages.

Going away from the Crescent, Eames had himself driven to his office, which he reached just as the men were leaving it, at four o’clock. Cradell was gone, so that he did not see him on that afternoon; but he had an opportunity of shaking hands with Mr. Love, who treated him with all the smiling courtesy due to an official big-wig—for a private secretary, if not absolutely a big-wig, is semi-big, and entitled to a certain amount of reverence—and he passed Mr. Kissing in the passage, hurrying along as usual with a huge book under his arm. Mr. Kissing, hurried as he was, stopped his shuffling feet; but Eames only looked at him, hardly honouring him with the acknowledgment of a nod of his head. Mr. Kissing, however, was not offended; he knew that the private secretary of the First Commissioner had been the guest of an earl; and what more than a nod could be expected from him? After that John made his way into the august presence of Sir Raffle, and found that great man putting on his shoes in the presence of FitzHoward. FitzHoward blushed; but the shoes had not been touched by him, as he took occasion afterwards to inform John Eames.

Sir Raffle was all smiles and civility. “Delighted to see you back, Eames: am, upon my word; though I and FitzHoward have got on capitally in your absence; haven’t we, FitzHoward?”

“Oh, yes,” drawled FitzHoward. “I haven’t minded it for a time, just while Eames has been away.”

“You’re much too idle to keep at it, I know; but your bread will be buttered for you elsewhere, so it doesn’t signify. My compliments to the duchess when you see her.” Then FitzHoward went. “And how’s my dear old friend?” asked Sir Raffle, as though of all men living Lord De Guest were the one for whom he had the strongest and the oldest love. And yet he must have known that John Eames knew as much about it as he did himself. But there are men who have the most lively gratification in calling lords and marquises their friends, though they know that nobody believes a word of what they say—even though they know how great is the odium they incur, and how lasting is the ridicule which their vanity produces. It is a gentle insanity which prevails in the outer courts of every aristocracy; and as it brings with itself considerable annoyance and but a lukewarm pleasure, it should not be treated with too keen a severity.

“And how’s my dear old friend?” Eames assured him that his dear old friend was all right, that Lady Julia was all right, that the dear old place was all right. Sir Raffle now spoke as though the “dear old place” were quite well known to him. “Was the game doing pretty well? Was there a promise of birds?” Sir Raffle’s anxiety was quite intense, and expressed with almost familiar affection. “And, by-the-by, Eames, where are you living at present?”

“Well, I’m not settled. I’m at the Great Western Railway Hotel at this moment.”

“Capital house, very; only it’s expensive if you stay there the whole season.” Johnny had no idea of remaining there beyond one night, but he said nothing as to this. “By-the-by, you might as well come and dine with us to-morrow. Lady Buffle is most anxious to know you. There’ll be one or two with us. I did ask my friend Dumbello, but there’s some nonsense going on in the House, and he thinks that he can’t get away.” Johnny was more gracious than Lord Dumbello, and accepted the invitation. “I wonder what Lady Buffle will be like?” he said to himself, as he walked away from the office.

He had turned into the Great Western Hotel, not as yet knowing where to look for a home; and there we will leave him, eating his solitary mutton-chop at one of those tables which are so comfortable to the eye, but which are so comfortless in reality. I speak not now with reference to the excellent establishment which has been named, but to the nature of such tables in general. A solitary mutton-chop in an hotel coffee-room is not a banquet to be envied by any god; and if the mutton-chop be converted into soup, fish, little dishes, big dishes, and the rest, the matter becomes worse and not better. What comfort are you to have, seated alone on that horsehair chair, staring into the room and watching the waiters as they whisk about their towels? No one but an Englishman has ever yet thought of subjecting himself to such a position as that! But here we will leave John Eames, and in doing so I must be allowed to declare that only now, at this moment, has he entered on his manhood. Hitherto he has been a hobbledehoy—a calf, as it were, who had carried his calfishness later into life than is common with calves; but who did not, perhaps, on that account, give promise of making a worse ox than the rest of them. His life hitherto, as recorded in these pages, had afforded him no brilliant success, had hardly qualified him for the role of hero which he has been made to play. I feel that I have been in fault in giving such prominence to a hobbledehoy, and that I should have told my story better had I brought Mr. Crosbie more conspicuously forward on my canvas. He at any rate has gotten to himself a wife—as a hero always should do; whereas I must leave my poor friend Johnny without any matrimonial prospects.

It was thus that he thought of himself as he sat moping over his solitary table in the hotel coffee-room. He acknowledged to himself that he had not hitherto been a man; but at the same time he made some resolution which, I trust, may assist him in commencing his manhood from this date.

CHAPTER LX

Conclusion

It was early in June that Lily went up to her uncle at the Great House, pleading for Hopkins—pleading that to Hopkins might be restored all the privileges of head gardener at the Great House. There was some absurdity in this, seeing that he had never really relinquished his privileges; but the manner of the quarrel had been in this wise.

There was in those days, and had been for years, a vexed question between Hopkins and Jolliffe the bailiff on the matter of—stable manure. Hopkins had pretended to the right of taking what he required from the farmyard, without asking leave of anyone. Jolliffe in return had hinted, that if this were so, Hopkins would take it all. “But I can’t eat it,” Hopkins had said. Jolliffe merely grunted, signifying by the grunt, as Hopkins thought, that though a gardener couldn’t eat a mountain of manure fifty feet long and fifteen high—couldn’t eat in the body—he might convert it into things edible for his own personal use. And so there had been a great feud. The unfortunate squire had of course been called on to arbitrate, and having postponed his decision by every contrivance possible to him, had at last been driven by Jolliffe to declare that Hopkins should take nothing that was not assigned to him. Hopkins, when the decision was made known to him by his master, bit his old lips, and turned round upon his old heel, speechless. “You’ll find it’s so at all other places,” said the squire, apologetically. “Other places!” sneered Hopkins. Where would he find other gardeners like himself? It is hardly necessary to declare that from that moment he resolved that he would abide by no such order. Jolliffe on the next morning informed the squire that the order had been broken, and the squire fretted and fumed, wishing that Jolliffe were well buried under the mountain in question. “If they all is to do as they like,” said Jolliffe, “then nobody won’t care for nobody.” The squire understood than an order if given must be obeyed, and therefore, with many inner groanings of the spirit, resolved that war must be waged against Hopkins.

On the following morning he found the old man himself wheeling a huge barrow of manure round from the yard into the kitchen-garden. Now, on ordinary occasions, Hopkins was not required to do with his own hands work of that description. He had a man under him who hewed wood, and carried water, and wheeled barrows—one man always, and often two. The squire knew when he saw him that he was sinning, and bade him stop upon his road.

“Hopkins,” he said, “why didn’t you ask for what you wanted, before you took it?” The old man put down the barrow on the ground, looked up in his master’s face, spat into his hands, and then again resumed his barrow. “Hopkins, that won’t do,” said the squire. “Stop where you are.”

“What won’t do?” said Hopkins, still holding the barrow from the ground, but not as yet progressing.

“Put it down, Hopkins,” and Hopkins did put it down. “Don’t you know that you are flatly disobeying my orders?”

“Squire, I’ve been here about this place going on nigh seventy years.”

“If you’ve been going on a hundred and seventy it wouldn’t do that there should be more than one master. I’m the master here, and I intend to be so to the end. Take that manure back into the yard.”

“Back into the yard?” said Hopkins, very slowly.

“Yes; back into the yard.”

“What—afore all their faces?”

“Yes; you’ve disobeyed me before all their faces?”

Hopkins paused a moment, looking away from the squire, and shaking his head as though he had need of deep thought, but by the aid of deep thought had come at last to a right conclusion. Then he resumed the barrow, and putting himself almost into a trot, carried away his prize into the kitchen-garden. At the pace which he went it would have been beyond the squire’s power to stop him, nor would Mr. Dale have wished to come to a personal encounter with his servant. But he called after the man in dire wrath that if he were not obeyed the disobedient servant should rue the consequences for ever. Hopkins, equal to the occasion, shook his head as he trotted on, deposited his load at the foot of the cucumber-frames, and then at once returning to his master, tendered to him the key of the greenhouse.

“Master,” said Hopkins, speaking as best he could with his scanty breath, “there it is—there’s the key; of course I don’t want no warning, and doesn’t care about my week’s wages. I’ll be out of the cottage afore night, and as for the work’us, I suppose they’ll let me in at once, if your honour’ll give ‘em a line.”

Now as Hopkins was well known by the squire to be the owner of three or four hundred pounds, the hint about the workhouse must be allowed to have been melodramatic.

“Don’t be a fool,” said the squire, almost gnashing his teeth.

“I know I’ve been a fool,” said Hopkins, “about that ‘ere doong; my feelings has been too much for me. When a man’s feelings has been too much for him, he’d better just take hisself off, and lie in the work’us till he dies.” And then he again tendered the key. But the squire did not take the key, and so Hopkins went on. “I s’pose I’d better just see to the lights and the like of that, till you’ve suited yourself, Mr. Dale. It ‘ud be a pity all them grapes should go off, and they, as you may say, all one as fit for the table. It’s a long way the best crop I ever see on ‘em. I’ve been that careful with ‘em that I haven’t had a natural night’s rest, not since February. There ain’t nobody about this place as understands grapes, nor yet anywhere nigh that could be got at. My lord’s head man is wery ignorant; but even if he knew ever so, of course he couldn’t come here. I suppose I’d better keep the key till you’re suited, Mr. Dale.”

Then for a fortnight there was an interregnum in the gardens, terrible in the annals of Allington. Hopkins lived in his cottage indeed, and looked most sedulously after the grapes. In looking after the grapes, too, he took the greenhouses under his care; but he would have nothing to do with the outer gardens, took no wages, returning the amount sent to him back to the squire, and insisted with everybody that he had been dismissed. He went about with some terrible horticultural implement always in his hand, with which it was said that he intended to attack Jolliffe; but Jolliffe prudently kept out of his way.

As soon as it had been resolved by Mrs. Dale and Lily that the flitting from the Small House at Allington was not to be accomplished, Lily communicated the fact to Hopkins.

“Miss,” said he, “when I said them few words to you and your mamma, I knew that you would listen to reason.”

This was no more than Lily had expected; that Hopkins should claim the honour of having prevailed by his arguments was a matter of course.

“Yes,” said Lily; “we’ve made up our minds to stay. Uncle wishes it.”

“Wishes it! Laws, miss; it ain’t only wishes. And we all wishes it. Why, now, look at the reason of the thing. Here’s this here house—”

“But, Hopkins, it’s decided. We’re going to stay. What I want to know is this; can you come at once and help me to unpack?”

“What! this very evening, as is—”

“Yes, now; we want to have the things about again before they come back from Guestwick.”

Hopkins scratched his head and hesitated, not wishing to yield to any proposition that could be considered as childish; but he gave way at last, feeling that the work itself was a good work. Mrs. Dale also assented, laughing at Lily for her folly as she did so, and in this way the things were unpacked very quickly, and the alliance between Lily and Hopkins became, for the time, very close. This work of unpacking and resettling was not yet over, when the battle of the manure broke out, and therefore it was that Hopkins, when his feelings had become altogether too much for him “about the doong,” came at last to Lily, and laying down at her feet all the weight and all the glory of his sixty odd years of life, implored her to make matters straight for him. “It’s been a killing me, miss, so it has; to see the way they’ve been a cutting that ‘sparagus. It ain’t cutting at all. It’s just hocking it up—what is fit, and what isn’t, all together. And they’ve been a-putting the plants in where I didn’t mean ‘em, though they know’d I didn’t mean ‘em. I’ve stood by, miss, and said never a word. I’d a died sooner. But, Miss Lily, what my sufferings have been, ‘cause of my feelings getting the better of me about that—you know, miss—nobody will ever tell—nobody—nobody—nobody.” Then Hopkins turned away and wept.

“Uncle,” said Lily, creeping close up against his chair, “I want to ask you a great favour.”

“A great favour. Well, I don’t think I shall refuse you anything at present. It isn’t to ask another earl to the house—is it?”

“Another earl!” said Lily.

“Yes; haven’t you heard? Miss Bell has been here this morning, insisting that I should have over Lord De Guest and his sister for the marriage. It seems that there was some scheming between Bell and Lady Julia.”

“Of course you will ask them.”

“Of course I must. I’ve no way out of it. It’ll be all very well for Bell, who’ll be off to Wales with her lover; but what am I to do with the earl and Lady Julia, when they’re gone? Will you come and help me?”

In answer to this, Lily of course promised that she would come and help. “Indeed,” said she, “I thought we were all asked up for the day. And now for my favour. Uncle, you must forgive poor Hopkins.”

“Forgive a fiddlestick!” said the squire.

“No, but you must. You can’t think how unhappy he is.”

“How can I forgive a man who won’t forgive me. He goes prowling about the place doing nothing; and he sends me back his wages, and he looks as though he were going to murder some one; and all because he wouldn’t do as he was told. How am I to forgive such a man as that?”

“But, uncle, why not?”

“It would be his forgiving me. He knows very well that he may come back whenever he pleases; and, indeed, for the matter of that he has never gone away.”

“But he is so very unhappy.”

“What can I do to make him happier?”

“Just go down to his cottage and tell him that you forgive him.”

“Then he’ll argue with me.”

“No; I don’t think he will. He is too much down in the world for arguing now.”

“Ah! you don’t know him as I do. All the misfortunes in the world wouldn’t stop that man’s conceit. Of course I’ll go if you ask me, but it seems to me that I’m made to knock under to everybody. I hear a great deal about other people’s feelings, but I don’t know that mine are very much thought of.” He was not altogether in a happy mood, and Lily almost regretted that she had persevered; but she did succeed in carrying him off across the garden to the cottage, and as they went together she promised him that she would think of him always—always. The scene with Hopkins cannot be described now, as it would take too many of our few remaining pages. It resulted, I am afraid I must confess, in nothing more triumphant to the squire than a treaty of mutual forgiveness. Hopkins acknowledged, with much self-reproach, that his feelings had been too many for him; but then, look at his provocation! He could not keep his tongue from that matter, and certainly said as much in his own defence as he did in confession of his sins. The substantial triumph was altogether his, for nobody again ever dared to interfere with his operations in the farmyard. He showed his submission to his master mainly by consenting to receive his wages for the two weeks which he had passed in idleness.

Owing to this little accident, Lily was not so much oppressed by Hopkins as she had expected to be in that matter of their altered plans; but this salvation did not extend to Mrs. Hearn, to Mrs. Crump, or, above all, to Mrs. Boyce. They, all of them, took an interest more or less strong in the Hopkins controversy; but their interest in the occupation of the Small House was much stronger, and it was found useless to put Mrs. Hearn off with the gardener’s persistent refusal of his wages, when she was big with inquiry whether the house was to be painted inside, as well as out. “Ah,” said she, “I think I’ll go and look at lodgings at Guestwick myself, and pack up some of my beds.” Lily made no answer to this, feeling that it was a part of that punishment which she had expected. “Dear, dear,” said Mrs. Crump to the two girls; “well, to be sure, we should ‘a been ‘lone without ‘ee, and mayhap we might ‘a got worse in your place; but why did ‘ee go and fasten up all your things in them big boxes, just to unfasten ‘em all again?”

“We changed our minds, Mrs. Crump,” said Bell, with some severity.

“Yees, I know ye changed your mindses. Well, it’s all right for loiks o’ ye, no doubt; but if we changes our mindses, we hears of it.”

“So, it seems, do we!” said Lily. “But never mind, Mrs. Crump. Do you send us our letters up early, and then we won’t quarrel.”

“Oh, letters! Drat them for letters. I wish there weren’t no sich things. There was a man here yesterday with his imperence. I don’t know where he come from—down from Lun’on, I b’leeve: and this was wrong, and that was wrong, and everything was wrong; and then he said he’d have me discharged the sarvice.”

“Dear me, Mrs. Crump; that wouldn’t do at all.”

“Discharged the sarvice! Tuppence farden a day. So I told ‘un to discharge hisself, and take all the old bundles and things away upon his shoulders. Letters indeed! What business have they with post-missusses, if they cannot pay ‘em better nor tuppence farden a day?” And in this way, under the shelter of Mrs. Crump’s storm of wrath against the inspector who had visited her, Lily and Bell escaped much that would have fallen upon their own heads; but Mrs. Boyce still remained. I may here add, in order that Mrs. Crump’s history may be carried on to the farthest possible point, that she was not “discharged the sarvice,” and that she still receives her twopence farthing a day from the Crown. “That’s a bitter old lady,” said the inspector to the man who was driving him. “Yes, sir; they all says the same about she. There ain’t none of ‘em get much change out of Mrs. Crump.”

Bell and Lily went together also to Mrs. Boyce’s. “If she makes herself very disagreeable, I shall insist upon talking of your marriage,” said Lily.

“I’ve not the slightest objection,” said Bell; “only I don’t know what there can be to say about it. Marrying the doctor is such a very commonplace sort of thing.”