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The Vicar of Bullhampton, a novel by Anthony Trollope |
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Chapter 56. The Vicar's Vengeance |
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_ CHAPTER LVI. THE VICAR'S VENGEANCE No eloquence on the part of the two ladies at the vicarage, or of the Squire, could turn Mr. Fenwick from his purpose, but he did consent at last to go over with the Squire to Salisbury, and to consult Mr. Chamberlaine. A proposition was made to him as to consulting the bishop, for whom personally he always expressed a liking, and whose office he declared that he held in the highest veneration; but he explained that this was not a matter in which the bishop should be invited to exercise authority. "The bishop has nothing to do with my freehold," he said. "But if you want an opinion," said the Squire, "why not go to a man whose opinion will be worth having?" Then the Vicar explained again. His respect for the bishop was so great, that any opinion coming from his lordship would, to him, be more than advice; it would be law. So great was his mingled admiration of the man and respect for the office! "What he means," said Mrs. Fenwick, "is, that he won't go to the bishop, because he has made up his mind already. You are, both of you, throwing away your time and money in going to Salisbury at all." "I'm not sure but what she's right there," said the Vicar. Nevertheless they went to Salisbury. The Rev. Henry Fitzackerly Chamberlaine was very eloquent, clear, and argumentative on the subject, and perhaps a little overbearing. He insisted that the chapel should be removed without a moment's delay; and that notice as to its removal should be served upon all the persons concerned,--upon Mr. Puddleham, upon the builder, upon the chapel trustees, the elders of the congregation,--"if there be any elders," said Mr. Chamberlaine, with a delightful touch of irony,--and upon the Marquis and the Marquis's agent. He was eloquent, authoritative and loud. When the Vicar remarked that after all the chapel had been built for a good purpose, Mr. Chamberlaine became quite excited in his eloquence. "The glebe of Bullhampton, Mr. Fenwick," said he, "has not been confided to your care for the propagation of dissent." "Nor has the vicarage house been confided to me for the reading of novels; but that is what goes on there." "The house is for your private comfort," said the prebendary. "And so is the glebe," said the Vicar; "and I shall not be comfortable if I make these people put down a house of prayer." And there was another argument against the Vicar's views, very strong. This glebe was only given to him in trust. He was bound so to use it, that it should fall into the hands of his successor unimpaired and with full capability for fruition. "You have no right to leave to another the demolition of a building, the erection of which you should have prevented." This argument was more difficult of answer than the other, but Mr. Fenwick did answer it. "I feel all that," said he; "and I think it likely that my estate may be liable for the expense of removal. The chapel may be brought in as a dilapidation. But that which I can answer with my purse, need not lie upon my conscience. I could let the bit of land, I have no doubt,--though not on a building lease." "But they have built on it," said Mr. Chamberlaine. "No doubt, they have; and I can see that my estate may be called upon to restore the bit of ground to its former position. What I can't see is, that I am bound to enforce the removal now." Mr. Chamberlaine took up the matter with great spirit, and gave a couple of hours to the discussion, but the Vicar was not shaken. The Vicar was not shaken, but his manner as he went out from the prebendary's presence, left some doubt as to his firmness in the mind both of that dignitary and of the Squire. He thanked Mr. Chamberlaine very courteously, and acknowledged that there was a great deal in the arguments which had been used. "I am sure you will find it best to clear your ground of the nuisance at once," said Mr. Chamberlaine, with that high tone which he knew so well how to assume; and these were the last words spoken. "Well?" said the Squire, as soon as they were out in the Close, asking his friend as to his decision. "It's a very knotty point," said Fenwick. "I don't much like my uncle's tone," said the Squire; "I never do. But I think he is right." "I won't say but what he may be." "It'll have to come down, Frank," said the Squire. "No doubt, some day. But I am quite sure as to this, Harry; that when you have a doubt as to your duty, you can't be wrong in delaying that, the doing of which would gratify your own ill will. Don't you go and tell this to the women; but to my eyes that conventicle at Bullhampton is the most hideous, abominable, and disagreeable object that ever was placed upon the earth!" "So it is to mine," said the Squire. "And therefore I won't touch a brick of it. It shall be my hair shirt, my fast day, my sacrifice of a broken heart, my little pet good work. It will enable me to take all the good things of the world that come in my way, and flatter myself that I am not self-indulgent. There is not a dissenter in Bullhampton will get so much out of the chapel as I will." "I fancy they can make you have it pulled down." "Then their making me shall be my hair shirt, and I shall be fitted just as well." Upon that they went back to Bullhampton, and the Squire told the two ladies what had passed; as to the hair shirt and all. Mr. Fenwick in making for himself his hair shirt did not think it necessary to abstain from writing to the Marquis of Trowbridge. This he did on that same day after his return from Salisbury. In the middle of the winter he had written a letter to the Marquis, remonstrating against the building of the chapel opposite to his own gate. He now took out his copy of that letter, and the answer to it, in which the agent of the Marquis had told him that the Marquis considered that the spot in question was the most eligible site which his lordship could bestow for the purpose in question. Our Vicar was very anxious not to disturb the chapel now that it was built; but he was quite as anxious to disturb the Marquis. In the formation of that hair shirt which he was minded to wear, he did not intend to weave in any mercy towards the Marquis. It behoved him to punish the Marquis,--for the good of society in general. As a trespasser he forgave the Marquis, in a Christian point of view; but as a pestilent wasp on the earth, stinging folks right and left with an arrogance, the ignorance of which was the only excuse to be made for his cruelty, he thought it to be his duty to set his heel upon the Marquis; which he did by writing the following letter. MY LORD MARQUIS, On the 3rd of January last I ventured to write to your I have now learned that the land which you have given The chapel is there, and though it is a pity that it I will not conclude this letter without expressing my I have the honour to be FRANCIS FENWICK.
"Isn't malice a very strong word?" she said. "I hope so," answered the Vicar. "What I mean is, might you not soften it without hurting your cause?" "I think not. I conscientiously believe the accusation to be true. I endeavour so to live among my neighbours that I may not disgrace them, or you, or myself. This man has dared to accuse me openly of the grossest immorality and hypocrisy, when I am only doing my duty as I best know how to do it; and I do now believe in my heart that in making these charges he did not himself credit them. At any rate, no man can be justified in making such charges without evidence." "But all that had nothing to do with the bit of ground, Frank." "It is part and parcel of the same thing. He has chosen to treat me as an enemy, and has used all the influence of his wealth and rank to injure me. Now he must look to himself. I will not say a word of him, or to him, that is untrue; but as he has said evil of me behind my back which he did not believe, so will I say the evil of him, which I do believe, to his face." The letter was sent, and before the day was over the Vicar had recovered his good humour. And before the day was over the news was all through the parish. There was a certain ancient shoemaker in the village who had carried on business in Devizes, and had now retired to spend the evening of his life in his native place. Mr. Bolt was a quiet, inoffensive old man, but he was a dissenter, and was one of the elders and trustees who had been concerned in raising money for the chapel. To him the Vicar had told the whole story, declaring at the same time that, as far as he was concerned, Mr. Puddleham and his congregation should, at any rate for the present, be made welcome to their chapel. This he had done immediately on his return from Salisbury, and before the letter to the Marquis was written. Mr. Bolt, not unnaturally, saw his minister the same evening, and the thing was discussed in full conclave by the Puddlehamites. At the end of that discussion, Mr. Puddleham expressed his conviction that the story was a mare's nest from beginning to end. He didn't believe a word of it. The Marquis was not the man to give away anything that did not belong to him. Somebody had hoaxed the Vicar, or the Vicar had hoaxed Mr. Bolt; or else,--which Mr. Puddleham thought to be most likely,--the Vicar had gone mad with vexation at the glory and the triumph of the new chapel. "He was uncommon civil," said Mr. Bolt, who at this moment was somewhat inclined to favour the Vicar. "No doubt, Mr. Bolt; no doubt," said Mr. Puddleham, who had quite recovered from his first dismay, and had worked himself up to a state of eloquent enthusiasm. "I dare say he was civil. Why not? In old days when we hardly dared to talk of having a decent house of prayer of our own in which to worship our God, he was always civil. No one has ever heard me accuse Mr. Fenwick of incivility. But will any one tell me that he is a friend to our mode of worship? Gentlemen, we must look to ourselves, and I for one tell you that that chapel is ours. You won't find that his ban will keep me out of my pulpit. Glebe, indeed! why should the Vicar have glebe on the other side of the road from his house? Or, for the matter of that, why should he have glebe at all?" This was so decisive that no one at the meeting had a word to say after Mr. Puddleham had finished his speech. When the Marquis received his letter he was up in London. Lord Trowbridge was not much given to London life, but was usually compelled by circumstances,--the circumstances being the custom of society as pleaded by his two daughters,--to spend the months of May, June, and July at the family mansion in Grosvenor Square. Moreover, though the Marquis never opened his mouth in the House of Lords, it was, as he thought, imperative on him to give to the leader of his party the occasional support of his personal presence. Our Vicar, knowing this, had addressed his letter to Grosvenor Square, and it had thus reached its destination without loss of time. Lord Trowbridge by this time knew the handwriting of his enemy; and, as he broke the envelope, there came upon him an idea that it might be wise to refuse the letter, and to let it go back to its writer unopened. It was beneath his dignity to correspond with a man, or to receive letters from a man who would probably insult him. But before he could make up his mind, the envelope had been opened, and the letter had been read. His wrath, when he had read it, no writer of a simple prose narration should attempt to describe. "Disgrace," "insult," "ignorance," and "malice,"--these were the words with which the Marquis found himself pelted by this pestilent, abominable, and most improper clergyman. As to the gist of the letter itself, it was some time before he understood it. And when he did begin to understand it, he did not as yet begin to believe it. His intelligence worked slowly, whereas his wrath worked quickly. But at last he began to ask himself whether the accusation made against him could possibly be based on truth. When the question of giving the land had been under consideration, it had never occurred to any one concerned that it could belong to the glebe. There had been some momentary suspicion that the spot might possibly have been so long used as common land as to give room for a question on that side; but no one had dreamed that any other claimant could arise. That the whole village of Bullhampton belonged to the Marquis was notorious. Of course there was the glebe. But who could think that the morsel of neglected land lying on the other side of the road belonged to the vicarage? The Marquis did not believe it now. This was some piece of wickedness concocted by the venomous brain of the iniquitous Vicar, more abominable than all his other wickednesses. The Marquis did not believe it; but he walked up and down his room all the morning thinking of it. The Marquis was sure that it was not true, and yet he could not for a moment get the idea out of his mind. Of course he must tell St. George. The language of the letter which had been sent to him was so wicked, that St. George must at least agree with him now in his anger against this man. And could nothing be done to punish the man? Prosecutions in regard to anonymous letters, threatening letters, begging letters, passed through his mind. He knew that punishment had been inflicted on the writers of insolent letters to royalty. And letters had been proved to be criminal as being libellous,--only then they must be published; and letters were sometimes held to form a conspiracy;--but he could not quite see his way to that. He knew that he was not royal; and he knew that the Vicar neither threatened him or begged aught from him. What if St. George should tell him again that this Vicar had right on his side! He cast the matter about in his mind all the day; and then, late in the afternoon, he got into his carriage, and had himself driven to the chambers of Messrs. Boothby, the family lawyers. _ |
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