“And then I will go on to Jerusalem, after him.”
“Should you find it necessary. He will probably be on his way back, and she will know where you can hit him on the road. You must make him understand that it is essential that he should be here some little time before the trial. You can understand, Johnny,”—and as he spoke Mr. Toogood lowered his voice to a whisper, though they were walking together on the platform of the railway station, and could not possibly have been overheard by anyone. “You can understand that it may be necessary to prove that he is not exactly compos mentis, and if so it will be essential that he should have some influential friend near him. Otherwise that bishop will trample him into dust.” If Mr. Toogood could have seen the bishop at this time and have read the troubles of the poor man’s heart, he would hardly have spoken of him as being so terrible a tyrant.
“I understand all that,” said Johnny.
“So that, in fact, I shall expect to see you both together,” said Toogood.
“I hope the dean is a good fellow.”
“They tell me he is a very good fellow.”
“I never did see much of bishops or deans as yet,” said Johnny, “and I should feel rather awestruck travelling with one.”
“I should fancy that a dean is very much like anybody else.”
“But the man’s hat would cow me.”
“I daresay you’ll find him walking about Jerusalem with a wide-awake on, and a big stick in his hand, probably smoking a cigar. Deans contrive to get out of their armour sometimes, as the knights of old used to do. Bishops, I fancy, find it more difficult. Well;—goodbye, old fellow. I’m very much obliged to you for going—I am, indeed. I don’t doubt but what we shall pull through, somehow.”
Then Mr. Toogood went home to breakfast, and from his own house he proceeded to his office. When he had been there an hour or two, there came to him a messenger from the Income-tax Office, with an official note addressed to himself by Sir Raffle Buffle—a note which looked to be very official. Sir Raffle Buffle presented his compliments to Mr. Toogood, and could Mr. Toogood favour Sir R. B. with the present address of Mr. John Eames. “Old fox,” said Mr. Toogood;—“but then such a stupid old fox! As if it was likely that I should have peached on Johnny if anything was wrong.” So Mr. Toogood sent his compliments to Sir Raffle Buffle, and begged to inform Sir R. B. that Mr. John Eames was away on very particular family business, which would take him in the first instance to Florence;—but that from Florence he would probably have to go on to Jerusalem without the loss of an hour. “Stupid old fool!” said Mr. Toogood, as he sent off his reply by the messenger.
XLIX
Near the Close
I wonder whether anyone will read these pages who has never known anything of the bitterness of a family quarrel? If so, I shall have a reader very fortunate, or else very cold-blooded. It would be wrong to say that love produces quarrels; but love does produce those intimate relations of which quarrelling is too often one of the consequences—one of the consequences which frequently seem to be so natural, and sometimes seem to be unavoidable. One brother rebukes the other—and what brothers ever lived together between whom there was no such rebuking?—then some warm word is misunderstood and hotter words follow and there is a quarrel. The husband tyrannizes, knowing that it is his duty to direct, and the wife disobeys, or only partially obeys, thinking that a little independence will become her—and so there is a quarrel. The father, anxious only for his son’s good, looks into that son’s future with other eyes than those of his son himself—and so there is a quarrel. They come very easily, these quarrels, but the quittance from them is sometimes terribly difficult. Much of thought is necessary before the angry man can remember that he too in part may have been wrong; and any attempt at such thinking is almost beyond the power of him who is carefully nursing his wrath, lest it cool! But the nursing of such quarrelling kills all happiness. The very man who is nursing his wrath lest it cool—his wrath against one whom he loves perhaps the best of all whom it has been given him to love—is himself wretched as long as it lasts. His anger poisons every pleasure of his life. He is sullen at his meals, and cannot understand his book as he turns its pages. His work, let it be what it may, is ill done. He is full of his quarrel—nursing it. He is telling himself how much he has loved that wicked one, how many have been his sacrifices for that wicked one, and that now that wicked one is repaying him simply with wickedness! And yet the wicked one is at that very moment dearer to him than ever. If that wicked one could only be forgiven how sweet would the world be again! And yet he nurses his wrath.
So it was in these days with Archdeacon Grantly. He was very angry with his son. It is hardly too much to say that in every moment of his life, whether waking or sleeping, he was thinking of the injury that his son was doing him. He had almost come to forget the fact that his anger had first been roused by the feeling that his son was about to do himself an injury—to cut his own throat. Various other considerations had now added themselves to that, and filled not only his mind but his daily conversation with his wife. How terrible would
