The Last Chronicle of Barset Part 73

"I don't know much about the times. It's the people is worse than the times, I think. They used to like to have a little bit of dinner now and again at a hotel;--and a drop of something to drink after it."

"And don't they like it now?"

"I think they like it well enough, but they don't do it. I suppose it's their wives as don't let 'em come out and enjoy theirselves.

There used to be the Goose and Glee club;--that was once a month.

They've gone and clean done away with themselves,--that club has.

There's old b.u.mpter in the High Street,--he's the last of the old Geese. They died off, you see, and when Mr. Biddle died they wouldn't choose another president. A club for having dinner, sir, ain't nothing without a president."

"I suppose not."

"And there's the Freemasons. They must meet, you know, sir, in course, because of the dooties. But if you'll believe me, sir, they don't so much as wet their whistles. They don't indeed. It always used to be a supper, and that was once a month. Now they pays a rent for the use of the room! Who is to get a living out of that, sir?--not in the way of a waiter, that is."

"If that's the way things are going on I suppose the servants leave their places pretty often?"

"I don't know about that, sir. A man may do a deal worse than 'The Dragon of Wantly.' Them as goes away to better themselves, often worses themselves, as I call it. I've seen a good deal of that."

"And you stick to the old shop?"

"Yes, sir; I've been here fifteen year, I think it is. There's a many goes away, as doesn't go out of their own heads, you know, sir."

"They get the sack, you mean?"

"There's words between them and master,--or more likely, missus.

That's where it is. Servants is so foolish. I often tell 'em how wrong folks are to say that soft words b.u.t.ter no parsnips, and hard words break no bones."

"I think you've lost some of the old hands here since this time last year, John?"

"You knows the house then, sir?"

"Well;--I've been here before."

"There was four of them went, I think it's just about twelve months back, sir."

"There was a man in the yard I used to know, and last time I was down here, I found that he was gone."

"There was one of 'em out of the yard, and two out of the house.

Master and them had got to very high words. There was poor Scuttle, who had been post-boy at 'The Compa.s.ses' before he came here."

"He went away to New Zealand, didn't he?"

"B'leve he did, sir; or to some foreign parts. And Anne, as was under-chambermaid here; she went with him, fool as she was. They got theirselves married and went off, and he was well nigh as old as me.

But seems he'd saved a little money, and that goes a long way with any girl."

"Was he the man who drove Mr. Soames that day the cheque was lost?"

Mr. Toogood asked this question perhaps a little too abruptly. At any rate he obtained no answer to it. The waiter said he knew nothing about Mr. Soames, or the cheque, and the lawyer suspecting that the waiter was suspecting him, finished his brandy-and-water and went to bed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mr. Toogood and the old Waiter.]

Early on the following morning he observed that he was specially regarded by a shabby-looking man, dressed in black, but in a black suit that was very old, with a red nose, whom he had seen in the hotel on the preceding day; and he learned that this man was a cousin of the landlord,--one Dan Stringer,--who acted as a clerk in the hotel bar. He took an opportunity also of saying a word to Mr.

Stringer the landlord,--whom he found to be a somewhat forlorn and gouty individual, seated on cushions in a little parlour behind the bar. After breakfast he went out, and having twice walked round the Cathedral close and inspected the front of the palace and looked up at the windows of the prebendaries' houses, he knocked at the door of the deanery. The dean and Mrs. Arabin were on the Continent, he was told. Then he asked for Mr. Harding, having learned that Mr. Harding was Mrs. Arabin's father, and that he lived at the deanery. Mr.

Harding was at home, but was not very well, the servant said. Mr.

Toogood, however, persevered, sending up his card, and saying that he wished to have a few minutes' conversation with Mr. Harding on very particular business. He wrote a word upon his card before giving it to the servant,--"about Mr. Crawley." In a few minutes he was shown into the library, and had hardly time, while looking at the shelves, to remember what Mr. Crawley had said of his anger at the beautiful bindings, before an old man, very thin and very pale, shuffled into the room. He stooped a good deal, and his black clothes were very loose about his shrunken limbs. He was not decrepit, nor did he seem to be one who had advanced to extreme old age; but yet he shuffled rather than walked, hardly raising his feet from the ground. Mr.

Toogood, as he came forward to meet him, thought that he had never seen a sweeter face. There was very much of melancholy in it, of that soft sadness of age which seems to acknowledge, and in some sort to regret, the waning oil of life; but the regret to be read in such faces has in it nothing of the bitterness of grief; there is no repining that the end has come, but simply a touch of sorrow that so much that is dear must be left behind. Mr. Harding shook hands with his visitor, and invited him to sit down, and then seated himself, folding his hands together over his knees, and he said a few words in a very low voice as to the absence of his daughter and of the dean.

"I hope you will excuse my troubling you," said Mr. Toogood.

"It is no trouble at all,--if I could be of any use. I don't know whether it is proper, but may I ask whether you call as,--as,--as a friend of Mr. Crawley's?"

"Altogether as a friend, Mr. Harding."

"I'm glad of that; though of course I am well aware that the gentlemen engaged on the prosecution must do their duty. Still,--I don't know,--somehow I would rather not hear them speak of this poor gentleman before the trial."

"You know Mr. Crawley, then?"

"Very slightly,--very slightly indeed. He is a gentleman not much given to social habits, and has been but seldom here. But he is an old friend whom my son-in-law loves dearly."

"I'm glad to hear you say that, Mr. Harding. Perhaps before I go any further I ought to tell you that Mrs. Crawley and I are first-cousins."

"Oh, indeed. Then you are a friend."

"I never saw him in my life till a few days ago. He is very queer you know,--very queer indeed. I'm a lawyer, Mr. Harding, practising in London;--an attorney, that is." At each separate announcement Mr. Harding bowed, and when Toogood named his special branch of his profession Mr. Harding bowed lower than before, as though desirous of showing that he had great respect for attorneys. "And of course I'm anxious, if only out of respect for the family, that my wife's cousin should pull through this little difficulty, if possible."

"And for the sake of the poor man himself too, and for his wife, and his children;--and for the sake of the cloth."

"Exactly; taking it all together it's such a pity, you know. I think, Mr. Harding, he can hardly have intended to steal the money."

"I'm sure he did not."

"It's very hard to be sure of anybody, Mr. Harding;--very hard."

"I feel quite sure that he did not. He has been a most pious, hard-working clergyman. I cannot bring myself to think that he is guilty. What does the Latin proverb say? 'No one of a sudden becomes most base.'"

"But the temptation, Mr. Harding, was very strong. He was awfully badgered about his debts. That butcher in Silverbridge was playing the mischief with him."

"All the butchers in Ba.r.s.etshire could not make an honest man steal money, and I think that Mr. Crawley is an honest man. You'll excuse me for being a little hot about one of my own order."

"Why; he's my cousin,--or rather, my wife's. But the fact is, Mr.

Harding, we must get hold of the dean as soon as possible; and I'm going to send a gentleman after him."

"To send a gentleman after him?" said Mr. Harding, almost in dismay.

"Yes; I think that will be best."

"I'm afraid he'll have to go a long way, Mr. Toogood."

"The dean, I'm told, is in Jerusalem."

"I'm afraid he is,--or on his journey there. He's to be there for the Easter week, and Sunday week will be Easter Sunday. But why should the gentleman want to go to Jerusalem after the dean?"