I was going to say that I had seen her name in a score of charity lists, and knew her as a patroness of the Destitute Orange-Girls, the Neglected Washerwomen, and the Distressed Muffin-Men. But she shook her head; and then, looking up at me with eyes like a saint’s (if our privileges permitted us to believe in these fabulous beings of the Romish superstition), she said, “Ah, no! I have always been in the wrong. The beautiful address of the Bishop of Barchester has awakened me, and convinced me that the path does not lie through Fancy Fairs. I have to begin again. Who shall guide me?”
I trust I am not subject to vanity; but the news that I (for I composed the Charge, as I may almost call it) had been the instrument of so affecting a change did not fail to please me. I thanked Lady Crawley, and expressed my deep interest in her altered convictions. Finally she promised to come on a visit to us at the Palace (she usually resides at Bath or Cheltenham), and has been three days an inmate. Never have I met a more singular example of what the Truth can do for one who, as she admits, was long ago a worldling. “I have seen the vanity of it,” she tells me, with tears in her eyes; and from her example I expect an awakening among our worldlings. They will follow the path of a titled person. Tom is much interested in his convert, as he thinks her. Not to me be the glory!—Your assured friend,
Emily Barnum. [60a]
From Mrs. Proudie to Mrs. Quiverful.
The Palace, Barchester, July 22.
Dear Letitia,—My hand trembles so with indignation that I can hardly direct my pen. Pray burn my letter of July 17 at once, if you have not already done so. [60b] We have been deceived in that woman! She is a brazenfaced, painted daughter of Heth, and has no more right to the title of Lady Crawley than you have. I am told that she was at one time the paramour of Lord Steyne, and that her conduct made it impossible for her husband to live with her. And this is the woman who has come within the gates of the palace of a Christian prelate; nay, more, who has secured his signature to a cheque of very considerable value. I think my suspicions were first excited by the disappearance of the brandy in the liqueur-stand, and by meeting “her ladyship’s” maid carrying the bottle up to her room! I spoke to the Bishop, but he would not listen to me—quite unlike himself; and even turned on me in her defence.
Entering his study hastily on the following day, I found her kneeling at his feet, her yellow hair (dyed, no doubt, for she must be sixty if she is a day) about her shoulders, doing what do you suppose—? Confessing herself to the Bishop of Barchester!
And he was listening to her “confession” with an appearance of interest, and with one of her hands in his.
“Serpent!” I said—and her green eyes glittered just like one—“unhand his lordship!” She gave a little laugh and said, “Dear Mrs. Proudie, do not let me monopolise the Bishop’s time. Perhaps I am in the way?”
“And you shall go out of it,” I said. “You are one of those who cause Israel to sin. You bring the Confessional, for it is no better, into the house of a Prelate of the Protestant Church of England!” Would you believe that she had the assurance to answer me with a passage from the Prayer Book, which I have often felt certain must be mistranslated?