'There are men who must have what you call a terribly bad life of it, whatever way it goes with them. The bishop is weak, and he wants somebody near to him to be strong. She was strong--perhaps too strong;but he had his advantage of it. After all I don't know that his life has been so terribly bad. I daresay he's had everything very comfortable about him. And a man ought to be grateful for that, though very few men ever are.'
Mr Quiverful's predecessor at the Hospital, old Mr Harding, whose halcyon days in Barchester had been passed before the coming of the Proudies, was in bed playing cat's-cradle with Posy seated on the counterpane, when tidings of Mrs Proudie's death were brought to him by Mrs Baxter. 'Oh, sir,' said Mrs Baxter, seating herself on a chair by the bed-side. Mr Harding liked Mrs Baxter to sit down, because he was almost sure on such occasions to have the advantage of a prolonged conversation.
'What is it, Mrs Baxter?'
'Oh, sir!'
'Is anything the matter?' And the old man attempted to raise himself in his bed.
'You mustn't frighten grandpa,' said Posy.
'No, my dear; and there isn't nothing to frighten him. There isn't indeed, Mr Harding. They're all well at Plumstead, and when I heard from the missus at Venice, everything was going on well.'
'But what is it, Mrs Baxter?'
'God forgive all her sins--Mrs Proudie ain't no more.' Now there had been a terrible feud between the palace and the deanery for years, in carrying on which the persons of the opposed households were wont to express themselves with eager animosity. Mrs Baxter and Mrs Draper never dared speak to each other. The two coachmen each longed for an opportunity to take the other before the magistrate for some breach of the law of the road in driving. The footmen abused each other, and the grooms occasionally fought. The masters and mistresses contented themselves with simple hatred. Therefore it was not surprising that Mrs Baxter in speaking of the death of Mrs Proudie, should remember first her sins.
'Mrs Proudie dead!' said the old man.
'Indeed, she is, Mr Harding,' said Mrs Baxter, putting both her hands together piously. 'We're just as grass, ain't we, sir! An dust and clay and flowers of the field?' Whether Mrs Proudie had most partaken of the clayey nature or of the flowery nature, Mrs Baxter did not stop to consider.
'Mrs Proudie dead!' with a solemnity that was all her own. 'Then she won't scold the poor bishop any more.'
'No, my dear; she won't scold anybody any more; and it will be a blessing for some, I must say. Everybody is always so considerate in this house, Miss Posy, that we none of us know nothing about what that is.'
'Dead!' said Mr Harding again. 'I think, if you please, Mrs Baxter, you shall leave me for little time, and take Miss Posy with you.' He had been in the city of Barchester some fifty years, and here was one who might have been his daughter, who had come there scarcely ten years since, and who had now gone before him! He had never loved Mrs Proudie.
Perhaps he had come as near to disliking Mrs Proudie as he had ever come to disliking any person. Mrs Proudie had wounded him in every part that was most sensitive. It would be long to tell, nor need it be told now, how she had ridiculed his cathedral work, how she had made nothing of him, how she had despised him, always manifesting her contempt plainly.
He had been even driven to rebuke her, and it had perhaps been the only personal rebuke which he had ever uttered in Barchester. But now she was gone; and he thought of her simply as an active pious woman, who had been taken away from her word before her time. And for the bishop, no idea ever entered Mr Harding's mind as to the removal of a thorn. The man had lost his life's companion at that time of life when such a companion is most needed; and Mr Harding grieved for him with sincerity.
The news went out to Plumstead Episcopi by the postman, and happened to reach the archdeacon as he was talking to his rector at the little gate leading into the churchyard. 'Mrs Proudie is dead!' he almost shouted, as the postman notified the fact to him. 'Impossible!'
'It be so for zartain, yer reverence,' said the postman, who was proud of his news.
'Heavens!' ejaculated the archdeacon, and then hurried in to his wife.
'My dear,' he said--and as he spoke he could hardly deliver himself of the words, so eager was he to speak them--'who do you think is dead?
Gracious heavens! Mrs Proudie is dead!' Mrs Grantly dropped from her hand the teaspoonful of tea that was just going into the pot, and repeated her husband's last words. 'Mrs Proudie dead?' There was a pause, during which they looked into each other's faces. 'My dear, Idon't believe it,' said Mrs Grantly.
But she did believe it very shortly. There were no prayers at Plumstead rectory that morning. The archdeacon immediately went out into the village, and soon obtained sufficient evidence of the truth of that which the postman had told him. Then he rushed back to his wife. 'It's true,' he said. 'It's quite true. She's dead. There's no doubt about that. She's dead. It was last night about seven. That was when they found her, at least, and she may have died about an hour before.
Filgrave says not more than an hour.'
'And how did she die?'
