第121章

Mr Crawley had declared to Mr Robarts, that he would summon no legal aid to his assistance at the coming trial. The reader may, perhaps, remember the impetuosity with which he rejected the advice on this subject which was conveyed to him by Mr Robarts with all the authority of Archdeacon Grantly's name. 'Tell the archdeacon,' he had said, 'that I will have none of his advice.' And then Mr Robarts had left him, fully convinced that any further interference on his part could be of no avail.

Nevertheless, the words which had then been spoken were not without effect. This coming trial was ever present to Mr Crawley's mind, and though, when driven to discuss the subject, he would speak of it with high spirit, as he had done both to the bishop and to Mr Robarts, yet in his long hours of privacy, or when alone with his wife, his spirit was anything but high. 'It will kill me,' he would say to her. 'I shall get salvation thus. Death will relieve me, and I shall never be called upon to stand before those cruel eager eyes.' Then she would try to say words of comfort, sometimes soothing him, as though he were a child, and at others bidding him to be a man, and remember that as a man he should have sufficient endurance to bear the eyes of any crowd that might be there to look at him.

'I think I will go up to London,' he said to her one evening, very soon after the day of Mr Robarts's visit.

'Go up to London, Josiah!' Mr Crawley had not been up to London once since they had been settled at Hogglestock, and this sudden resolution on his part frightened his wife. 'Go up to London, dearest! And why?'

'I will tell you why. They all say that I should speak to some man of the law whom I may trust about this coming trial. I trust no one in these parts. Not, mark you, that I say that they are untrustworthy. God forbid that I should so speak or even so think of men whom I know not.

But the matter has become common in men's mouths at Barchester and at Silverbridge, that I cannot endure to go among them and to talk of it. Iwill go up to London, and I will see your cousin, Mr John Toogood, of Gray's Inn.' Now in this scheme there was an amount of everyday prudence which startled Mrs Crawley almost as much as did the prospect of the difficulties to be overcome if the journey were to be made. Her husband in the first place, had never once seen Mr John Toogood; and in days very long back, when he and she were making their first gallant struggle--for in those days it had been gallant--down in their Cornish curacy, he had reprobated certain Toogood civilities--professional civilities--which had been proffered, perhaps, with too plain an intimation that on the score of relationship the professional work should be done without payment. The Mr Toogood of those days, who had been Mrs Crawley's uncle, and the father of Mrs Eames and grandfather or our friend Johnny Eames, had been much angered by some correspondence which had grown up between him and Mr Crawley, and from that day there had been a cessation of all intercourse between the families. Since those days that Toogood had been gathered to the ancient Toogoods of old, and the son reigned on the family throne in Raymond Buildings. The present Toogood was therefore first cousin to Mrs Crawley. But there had been no intimacy between them. Mrs Crawley had not seen her cousin since her marriage--as indeed she had seen none of her relations, having been estranged from them by the singular bearing of her husband. She knew that her cousin stood high in his profession, the firm of Toogood and Crump--Crump and Toogood it should have been properly been called in these days--having always held its head up high above all dirty work;and she felt that her husband could look for advice from no better source. But how would such a one as he manage to tell his story to a stranger? Nay, how would he find his way alone into the lawyer's room, to tell his story at all--so strange was he to the world? And then the expense! 'If you do not wish me to apply to your cousin, say so, and there shall be an end of it,' said Mr Crawley in an angry tone.

'Of course I would wish it. I believe him to be an excellent man, and a good lawyer.'

'Then why should I not go to his chambers? In forma pauperis I must go to him, and must tell him so. I cannot pay him for the labour of his counsel, nor for such minutes of his time as I shall use.'

'Oh, Josiah, you need not speak of that.'

'But I must speak of it. Can I go to a professional man; who keeps as it were his shop open for those who may think fit to come, and purchase of him, and take of his goods, and afterwards, when the goods have been used, tell him that I have not the price in my hand? I will not do that, Mary. You think that I am mad, that I know not what I do. Yes--I see it in your eyes; and you are sometimes partly right. But I am not so mad but that I know what is honest. I will tell your cousin that I am sore straitened, and brought down into the very dust by misfortune. And Iwill beseech him, for what of ancient feeling of family he may bear to you, to listen to me for a while. And I will be very short, and, if need be, will bide his time patiently, and perhaps he may say a word to me that may be of use.'