第284章

On that night the position of the members of Mr Crawley's household seemed to have changed. There was something almost of elation in his mode of speaking, and he said soft loving words, striving to comfort his wife. She, on the other hand, could say nothing to comfort him. She had been averse to the step he was taking, but had been unable to press her objection in opposition to his great argument as to duty. Since he had spoken to her in that strain which he had used with Robarts, she also had felt that she must be silent. But she could not even feign to feel the pride which comes from the performance of a duty. 'What will he do when he comes out?' she said to her daughter. The coming out spoken of her was the coming out of prison. It was natural enough that she should feel no elation.

The breakfast on Sunday morning was to her, perhaps, the saddest scene of her life. They sat down, the three together, at the usual hour--nine o'clock--but the morning had not been passed as was customary on Sundays. It had been Mr Crawley's practice to go into the school from eight to nine; but on this Sunday he felt, as he told his wife, that his presence would be an intrusion there. But he requested Jane to go and perform her usual task. 'If Mr Thumble should come,' he said to her, 'be submissive to him in all things.' Then he stood at his door, watching to see at what hour Mr Thumble would reach the school. But Mr Thumble did not attend the school on that morning. 'And yet he was very express to me in his desire that I would not meddle with the duties,' said Mr Crawley to his wife as he stood at the door--'unnecessarily urgent, as Imay say I thought at the time.' If Mrs Crawley could have spoken out her thoughts about Mr Thumble at that moment, her words would, I think have surprised her husband.

At breakfast there was hardly a word spoken. Mr Crawley took his crust and ate it mournfully--almost ostentatiously. Jane tried and failed, and tried to hide her failure, failing in that also. Mrs Crawley made no attempt. She sat behind her teapot, with her hands clasped and her eyes fixed. It was as though some last day had come upon her--this, the first Sunday of her husband's degradation.

'Mary,' he said to her, 'why do you not eat?'

'I cannot,' she replied, speaking not in a whisper, but in words which would hardly get themselves articulated. 'I cannot. Do not ask me.'

'For the honour of the lord, you will want the strength which bread can give you,' he said, intimating to her that he wished her to attend the service.

'Do not ask me to be there, Josiah. I cannot. It is too much for me.'

'Nay, I will not press it,' he said. 'I can go alone.' He uttered no word expressive of a wish that his daughter should attend the church;but when the moment came, Jane accompanied him. 'What shall I do, mamma?' she said, 'if I find that I cannot bear it?' 'Try to bear it,' the mother said. 'Try for his sake. You are stronger than I am.'

The tinkle of the church bell was heard at the usual time, and Mr Crawley, hat in hand, stood ready to go forth. He had heard nothing of Mr Thumble, but had made up his mind that Mr Thumble would not trouble him. He had taken the precaution to request his churchwarden to be early at the church, so that Mr Thumble might encounter no difficulty. The church was very near to the house, and any vehicle arriving might have been heard had Mr Crawley watched closely. But no one had cared to watch Mr Thumble's arrival at the church. He did not doubt that Mr Thumble would be at the church. With reference to the school, he had had some doubt.