Barsetshire and the War

‘Trollope,’ writes a recent Contributor, ‘has the most fascinating, compensating, curing nurses that could possibly cross the Channel. Nobody more useful ever stepped into a hospital ward than Lily Dale, or Mary Thorne, or Lucy Robarts. But Barsetshire is rather to seek when it comes to soldiers — chaplains, yes, but warriors, no.’

I read with mixed feelings. As to the nurses, I agree with all my heart, and as to chaplains, I can see Mark Robarts going out with a cavalry regiment, grumbling at giving up horses for trenches, but carrying on manfully, and Caleb Oriel doing his duty quietly, but not rousing the enthusiasm of his men as did Mr. Crawley. That beloved chaplain was refused at first, as too old. But after he went on foot from St. Ewolds to Hoggle End, recruited a whole company of brick-makers, and marched them into the Silverbridge recruiting-office, his application could no longer be denied. Tommies of other companies might wonder, as he tramped the miry Flemish roads chanting Euripides or heartening his men with tales of Troy town, but they found that Hoggle End fists were very quick at closing the mouths of the disrespectful.

As for our other clerical friends of Barsetshire, were not most of them beyond military age? A cloud of young curates doubtless frequented Mrs. Proudie’s drawing-room, but only the face of Mr. Slope is clear to the mind’s eye. That eloquent preacher was at first a pacifist; but quickly sensing the unpopularity of that course, shifted to preaching patriotic sermons that were the most stirring to be heard in the vicinity of the New Road. It was not necessary for him to go to the front; he could do his duty without quitting his comfortable house in Baker Street.

No, the young heroes of the Barsetshire chronicles, the lovers of Mary Thorne and Lucy Robarts, Lily Dale and Grace Crawley, were not curates; they were more at home in pink coats than black. Do you think those straightriding country gentlemen, Lord Lufton and Frank Gresham, funked the call to arms? Where Frank Gresham led, Harry Baker followed. As for John Eames, I see him on Vimy Ridge, and fancy that it was in a hospital behind the lines that Lily Dale found there was something god-like about Johnny, and scratched the ‘O.M.’ from her book.

Those trained and tried soldiers, Captain Bernard Dale and Major Henry Grantley, were early on Flanders fields. The cautious captain is one of the few survivors of the First Expeditionary Force, but the major did not come back.

The day her husband sailed, Grace Grantley entered a London hospital for training, and served in France throughout the war. She and her sister Jane were decorated at Buckingham Palace for heroic service under fire. Both are back in Barsetshire, and both are widows. For before the sailing of the illfated expedition to the Dardanelles, Dean Arabin performed a double marriage ceremony in Barchester Cathedral, for Jane and his stepson, young Johnny Bold, and his daughter Posy and Bobby Crawley. The names of the two young lieutenants are on the Roll of Honor of Marlborough School.

The major and his wife were not the only Granlleys to be of use. The Archdeacon, after being refused for age, threw himself into the work of increasing the food-production, where he was ably seconded by Lord de Guest, Squire Gresham, Squire Dale, and Mr. Wilfrid Thorne. Mrs. Grantley headed the Red Cross for the county. Mrs. Proudie was assigned merely the chairmanship for the city of Barchester. The two ladies, however, rising to the spirit of the times, buried the hatchet, and Mrs. Quiverful is no longer the only person who knows that Mrs. Proudie has a heart.

Griselda Grantley also made her sacrifices to the cause. I do not refer to Lord Dumbello’s going to the front, which she met as serenely as she did an earlier expedition of his to France, but to her nobly cutting down her establishment. For the period of the war she had only two women to dress her.

Others of the county families did their share as characteristically. Old Lady Lufton and Fanny Robarts turned Framley Court into a refuge for Belgian orphans. Dr. Thorne had a hospital for gas cases at Chaldicotes, while Mrs. Thorne’s head, hand, purse, and tongue were at the service of every branch of war-relief. Gatherum Castle is also a hospital, with Dr. Crofts in charge. In its great hall hang the swords of the two sons of the house of Palliser, but they are passing their convalescence at that most comfortable country house, Matching Priory. Their father, Plantagenet, Duke of Omnium, served as faithfully at the Exchequer as his wife did energetically as head of the V.A.D. for the Empire. It was her daughter who sent to her from a hospital in France a dying message from a soldier of the Legion, Burgo Fitzgerald.

Only one of the great houses of Barsetshire was found wanting. Courcy Castle sheltered no one but the gouty earl, and no scion of that stock took the field. As for the Countess and Lady Alexandrina, they were interned in Baden Baden, without even one horse to their carriage.