第278章

'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 of any other poor man has got such a wife as she was, you may be quite sure that he would be glad to get 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 De mortuis?' asked 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 to be kept up in here --so uncomfortable that Icannot believe that anyone 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 in 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 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 everyday decency of speaking well of one of whom he had ever thought ill, or 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 recognised. 'What will he do without her?'

'The same as other men do,' said the young Lady Lufton.

'But, my dear, he is not the same as other men. He is not at all like other men. 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!' he said 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 Mrs Crawley. 'She was a violent woman, certainly, and I think that she misunderstood her duties; but Ido 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 the men and women ceased to speak much of her, and began to talk of the bishop instead. Amonth 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 friend's memory in one of the 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.'