The Last Chronicle of Barset

by Anthony Trollope

The bishop's secretary had written to Dr. Tempest, telling him of the bishop's purpose; and now, in one of the last days of March, the bishop himself wrote to Dr. Tempest, asking him to come over to the palace. The letter was worded most courteously, and expressed very feelingly the great regret which the writer felt at being obliged to take these proceedings against a clergyman in his diocese. Bishop Proudie knew how to write such a letter. By the writing of such letters, and by the making of speeches in the same strain, he had become Bishop of Barchester. Now, in this letter, he begged Dr. Tempest to come over to him, saying how delighted Mrs. Proudie would be to see him at the palace. Then he went on to explain the great difficulty which he felt, and great sorrow also, in dealing with this matter of Mr. Crawley. He looked, therefore, confidently for Dr. Tempest's assistance. Thinking to do the best for Mr. Crawley, and anxious to enable Mr. Crawley to remain in quiet retirement till the trial should be over, he had sent a clergyman over to Hogglestock, who would have relieved Mr. Crawley from the burden of the church-services;—but Mr. Crawley would have none of this relief. Mr. Crawley had been obstinate and overbearing, and had persisted in claiming his right to his own pulpit. Therefore was the bishop obliged to interfere legally, and therefore was he under the necessity of asking Dr. Tempest to assist him. Would Dr. Tempest come over on the Monday, and stay till the Wednesday?

The letter was a very good letter, and Dr. Tempest was obliged to do as he was asked. He so far modified the bishop's proposition that he reduced the sojourn at the palace by one night. He wrote to say that he would have the pleasure of dining with the bishop and Mrs. Proudie on the Monday, but would return home on the Tuesday, as soon as the business in hand would permit him. "I shall get on very well with him," he said to his wife before he started; "but I am afraid of the woman. If she interferes, there will be a row." "Then, my dear," said his wife, "there will be a row, for I am told that she always interferes." On reaching the palace about half-an-hour before dinner-time, Dr. Tempest found that other guests were expected, and on descending to the great yellow drawing-room, which was used only on state occasions, he encountered Mrs. Proudie and two of her daughters arrayed in a full panoply of female armour. She received him with her sweetest smiles, and if there had been any former enmity between Silverbridge and the palace, it was now all forgotten. She regretted greatly that Mrs. Tempest had not accompanied the doctor;—for Mrs. Tempest also had been invited. But Mrs. Tempest was not quite as well as she might have been, the doctor had said, and very rarely slept away from home. And then the bishop came in and greeted his guest with his pleasantest good-humour. It was quite a sorrow to him that Silverbridge was so distant, and that he saw so little of Dr. Tempest; but he hoped that that might be somewhat mended now, and that leisure might be found for social delights;—to all which Dr. Tempest said but little, bowing to the bishop at each separate expression of his lordship's kindness.

There were guests there that evening who did not often sit at the bishop's table. The archdeacon and Mrs. Grantly had been summoned from Plumstead, and had obeyed the summons. Great as was the enmity between the bishop and the archdeacon, it had never quite taken the form of open palpable hostility. Each, therefore, asked the other to dinner perhaps once every year; and each went to the other, perhaps, once in two years. And Dr. Thorne from Chaldicotes was there, but without his wife, who in these days was up in London. Mrs. Proudie always expressed a warm friendship for Mrs. Thorne, and on this occasion loudly regretted her absence. "You must tell her, Dr. Thorne, how exceedingly much we miss her." Dr. Thorne, who was accustomed to hear his wife speak of her dear friend Mrs. Proudie with almost unmeasured ridicule, promised that he would do so. "We are so sorry the Luftons couldn't come to us," said Mrs. Proudie,—not alluding to the dowager, of whom it was well known that no earthly inducement would have sufficed to make her put her foot within Mrs. Proudie's room;—"but one of the children is ill, and she could not leave him." But the Greshams were there from Boxall Hill, and the Thornes from Ullathorne, and, with the exception of a single chaplain, who pretended to carve, Dr. Tempest and the archdeacon were the only clerical guests at the table. From all which Dr. Tempest knew that the bishop was anxious to treat him with special consideration on the present occasion.

The dinner was rather long and ponderous, and occasionally almost dull. The archdeacon talked a good deal, but a bystander with an acute ear might have understood from the tone of his voice that he was not talking as he would have talked among friends. Mrs. Proudie felt this, and understood it, and was angry. She could never find herself in the presence of the archdeacon without becoming angry. Her accurate ear would always appreciate the defiance of episcopal authority, as now existing in Barchester, which was concealed, or only half concealed, by all the archdeacon's words. But the bishop was not so keen, nor so easily roused to wrath; and though the presence of his enemy did to a certain degree cow him, he strove to fight against the feeling with renewed good-humour.

"You have improved so upon the old days," said the archdeacon, speaking of some small matter with reference to the cathedral, "that one hardly knows the old place."

"I hope we have not fallen off," said the bishop, with a smile.

"We have improved, Dr. Grantly," said Mrs. Proudie, with great emphasis on her words. "What you say is true. We have improved."

"Not a doubt about that," said the archdeacon. Then Mrs. Grantly interposed, strove to change the subject, and threw oil upon the waters.

"Talking of improvements," said Mrs. Grantly, "what an excellent row of houses they have built at the bottom of High Street. I wonder who is to live in them?"

"I remember when that was the very worst part of the town," said Dr. Thorne.