The Chronicles of Barsetshire (18 page)

CHAPTER 18

The Warden is Very Obstinate

“Dr. Grantly is here, sir,” greeted his ears before the door was well open, “and Mrs. Grantly. They have a sitting-room above, and are waiting up for you.”

There was something in the tone of the man’s voice which seemed to indicate that even he looked upon the warden as a runaway schoolboy, just recaptured by his guardian, and that he pitied the culprit, though he could not but be horrified at the crime.

The warden endeavoured to appear unconcerned, as he said, “Oh, indeed! I’ll go upstairs at once;” but he failed signally; there was, perhaps, a ray of comfort in the presence of his married daughter; that is to say, of comparative comfort, seeing that his son-in-law was there; but how much would he have preferred that they should both have been safe at Plumstead Episcopi! However, upstairs he went, the waiter slowly preceding him; and on the door being opened the archdeacon was discovered standing in the middle of the room, erect, indeed, as usual, but oh! how sorrowful! and on the dingy sofa behind him reclined his patient wife.

“Papa, I thought you were never coming back,” said the lady; “it’s twelve o’clock.”

“Yes, my dear,” said the warden. “The attorney-general named ten for my meeting; to be sure ten is late, but what could I do, you know? Great men will have their own way.”

And he gave his daughter a kiss, and shook hands with the doctor, and again tried to look unconcerned.

“And you have absolutely been with the attorney-general?” asked the archdeacon.

Mr. Harding signified that he had.

“Good heavens, how unfortunate!” And the archdeacon raised his huge hands in the manner in which his friends are so accustomed to see him express disapprobation and astonishment. “What will Sir Abraham think of it? Did you not know that it is not customary for clients to go direct to their counsel?”

“Isn’t it?” asked the warden, innocently. “Well, at any rate, I’ve done it now. Sir Abraham didn’t seem to think it so very strange.”

The archdeacon gave a sigh that would have moved a man-of-war.

“But, papa, what did you say to Sir Abraham?” asked the lady.

“I asked him, my dear, to explain John Hiram’s will to me. He couldn’t explain it in the only way which would have satisfied me, and so I resigned the wardenship.”

“Resigned it!” said the archdeacon, in a solemn voice, sad and low, but yet sufficiently audible; a sort of whisper that Macready would have envied, and the galleries have applauded with a couple of rounds. “Resigned it! Good heavens!” And the dignitary of the Church sank back horrified into a horsehair armchair.

“At least I told Sir Abraham that I would resign; and of course I must now do so.”

“Not at all,” said the archdeacon, catching a ray of hope. “Nothing that you say in such a way to your own counsel can be in any way binding on you; of course you were there to ask his advice. I’m sure Sir Abraham did not advise any such step.”

Mr. Harding could not say that he had.

“I am sure he disadvised you from it,” continued the reverend cross-examiner.

Mr. Harding could not deny this.

“I’m sure Sir Abraham must have advised you to consult your friends.”

To this proposition also Mr. Harding was obliged to assent.

“Then your threat of resignation amounts to nothing, and we are just where we were before.”

Mr. Harding was now standing on the rug, moving uneasily from one foot to the other. He made no distinct answer to the archdeacon’s last proposition, for his mind was chiefly engaged on thinking how he could escape to bed. That his resignation was a thing finally fixed on, a fact all but completed, was not in his mind a matter of any doubt; he knew his own weakness; he knew how prone he was to be led; but he was not weak enough to give way now, to go back from the position to which his conscience had driven him, after having purposely come to London to declare his determination: he did not in the least doubt his resolution, but he greatly doubted his power of defending it against his son-in-law.

“You must be very tired, Susan,” said he: “wouldn’t you like to go to bed?”

But Susan didn’t want to go till her husband went—she had an idea that her papa might be bullied if she were away: she wasn’t tired at all, or at least she said so.

The archdeacon was pacing the room, expressing, by certain nods of his head, his opinion of the utter fatuity of his father-in-law.

“Why,” at last he said—and angels might have blushed at the rebuke expressed in his tone and emphasis—”Why did you go off from Barchester so suddenly? Why did you take such a step without giving us notice, after what had passed at the palace?”

The warden hung his head, and made no reply: he could not condescend to say that he had not intended to give his son-in-law the slip; and as he had not the courage to avow it, he said nothing.

“Papa has been too much for you,” said the lady.

The archdeacon took another turn, and again ejaculated, “Good heavens!” this time in a very low whisper, but still audible.

“I think I’ll go to bed,” said the warden, taking up a side candle.

“At any rate, you’ll promise me to take no further step without consultation,” said the archdeacon. Mr. Harding made no answer, but slowly proceeded to light his candle. “Of course,” continued the other, “such a declaration as that you made to Sir Abraham means nothing. Come, warden, promise me this. The whole affair, you see, is already settled, and that with very little trouble or expense. Bold has been compelled to abandon his action, and all you have to do is to remain quiet at the hospital.” Mr. Harding still made no reply, but looked meekly into his son-in-law’s face. The archdeacon thought he knew his father-in-law, but he was mistaken; he thought that he had already talked over a vacillating man to resign his promise. “Come,” said he, “promise Susan to give up this idea of resigning the wardenship.”

The warden looked at his daughter, thinking probably at the moment that if Eleanor were contented with him, he need not so much regard his other child, and said, “I am sure Susan will not ask me to break my word, or to do what I know to be wrong.”

“Papa,” said she, “it would be madness in you to throw up your preferment. What are you to live on?”

“God, that feeds the young ravens, will take care of me also,” said Mr. Harding, with a smile, as though afraid of giving offence by making his reference to scripture too solemn.

“Pish!” said the archdeacon, turning away rapidly. “If the ravens persisted in refusing the food prepared for them, they wouldn’t be fed.” A clergyman generally dislikes to be met in argument by any scriptural quotation; he feels as affronted as a doctor does, when recommended by an old woman to take some favourite dose, or as a lawyer when an unprofessional man attempts to put him down by a quibble.

“I shall have the living of Crabtree,” modestly suggested the warden.

“Eighty pounds a year!” sneered the archdeacon.

“And the precentorship,” said the father-in-law.

“It goes with the wardenship,” said the son-in-law. Mr. Harding was prepared to argue this point, and began to do so, but Dr. Grantly stopped him. “My dear warden,” said he, “this is all nonsense. Eighty pounds or a hundred and sixty makes very little difference. You can’t live on it—you can’t ruin Eleanor’s prospects for ever. In point of fact, you can’t resign; the bishop wouldn’t accept it; the whole thing is settled. What I now want to do is to prevent any inconvenient tittle-tattle—any more newspaper articles.”

“That’s what I want, too,” said the warden.

“And to prevent that,” continued the other, “we mustn’t let any talk of resignation get abroad.”

“But I shall resign,” said the warden, very, very meekly.

“Good heavens! Susan, my dear, what can I say to him?”

“But, papa,” said Mrs. Grantly, getting up, and putting her arm through that of her father, “what is Eleanor to do if you throw away your income?”

A hot tear stood in each of the warden’s eyes as he looked round upon his married daughter. Why should one sister who was so rich predict poverty for another? Some such idea as this was on his mind, but he gave no utterance to it. Then he thought of the pelican feeding its young with blood from its own breast, but he gave no utterance to that either; and then of Eleanor waiting for him at home, waiting to congratulate him on the end of all his trouble.

“Think of Eleanor, papa,” said Mrs. Grantly.

“I do think of her,” said her father.

“And you will not do this rash thing?” The lady was really moved beyond her usual calm composure.

“It can never be rash to do right,” said he. “I shall certainly resign this wardenship.”

“Then, Mr. Harding, there is nothing before you but ruin,” said the archdeacon, now moved beyond all endurance. “Ruin both for you and Eleanor. How do you mean to pay the monstrous expenses of this action?”

Mrs. Grantly suggested that, as the action was abandoned, the costs would not be heavy.

“Indeed they will, my dear,” continued he. “One cannot have the attorney-general up at twelve o’clock at night for nothing—but of course your father has not thought of this.”

“I will sell my furniture,” said the warden.

“Furniture!” ejaculated the other, with a most powerful sneer.

“Come, archdeacon,” said the lady, “we needn’t mind that at present. You know you never expected papa to pay the costs.”

“Such absurdity is enough to provoke Job,” said the archdeacon, marching quickly up and down the room. “Your father is like a child. Eight hundred pounds a year!—eight hundred and eighty with the house—with nothing to do. The very place for him. And to throw that up because some scoundrel writes an article in a newspaper! Well—I have done my duty. If he chooses to ruin his child I cannot help it;” and he stood still at the fireplace, and looked at himself in a dingy mirror which stood on the chimney-piece.

There was a pause for about a minute, and then the warden, finding that nothing else was coming, lighted his candle, and quietly said, “Good-night.”

“Good-night, papa,” said the lady.

And so the warden retired; but, as he closed the door behind him, he heard the well-known ejaculation—slower, lower, more solemn, more ponderous than ever—”Good heavens!”

CHAPTER 19

The Warden Resigns

The party met the next morning at breakfast; and a very sombre affair it was—very unlike the breakfasts at Plumstead Episcopi.

There were three thin, small, dry bits of bacon, each an inch long, served up under a huge old plated cover; there were four three-cornered bits of dry toast, and four square bits of buttered toast; there was a loaf of bread, and some oily-looking butter; and on the sideboard there were the remains of a cold shoulder of mutton. The archdeacon, however, had not come up from his rectory to St. Paul’s Churchyard to enjoy himself, and therefore nothing was said of the scanty fare.

The guests were as sorry as the viands—hardly anything was said over the breakfast-table. The archdeacon munched his toast in ominous silence, turning over bitter thoughts in his deep mind. The warden tried to talk to his daughter, and she tried to answer him; but they both failed. There were no feelings at present in common between them. The warden was thinking only of getting back to Barchester, and calculating whether the archdeacon would expect him to wait for him; and Mrs. Grantly was preparing herself for a grand attack which she was to make on her father, as agreed upon between herself and her husband during their curtain confabulation of that morning.

When the waiter had creaked out of the room with the last of the teacups, the archdeacon got up and went to the window as though to admire the view. The room looked out on a narrow passage which runs from St. Paul’s Churchyard to Paternoster Row; and Dr. Grantly patiently perused the names of the three shopkeepers whose doors were in view. The warden still kept his seat at the table, and examined the pattern of the tablecloth; and Mrs. Grantly, seating herself on the sofa, began to knit.

After a while the warden pulled his
Bradshaw
out of his pocket, and began laboriously to consult it. There was a train for Barchester at 10 a.m. That was out of the question, for it was nearly ten already. Another at 3 p.m.; another, the night mail-train, at 9 p.m. The three o’clock train would take him home to tea, and would suit very well.

“My dear,” said he, “I think I shall go back home at three o’clock to-day. I shall get home at half-past eight. I don’t think there’s anything to keep me in London.”

“The archdeacon and I return by the early train to-morrow, papa; won’t you wait and go back with us?”

“Why, Eleanor will expect me tonight; and I’ve so much to do; and—”

“Much to do!” said the archdeacon
sotto voce;
but the warden heard him.

“You’d better wait for us, papa.”

“Thank ye, my dear! I think I’ll go this afternoon.” The tamest animal will turn when driven too hard, and even Mr. Harding was beginning to fight for his own way.

“I suppose you won’t be back before three?” said the lady, addressing her husband.

“I must leave this at two,” said the warden.

“Quite out of the question,” said the archdeacon, answering his wife, and still reading the shopkeepers’ names; “I don’t suppose I shall be back till five.”

There was another long pause, during which Mr. Harding continued to study his
Bradshaw
.

“I must go to Cox and Cummins,” said the archdeacon at last.

“Oh, to Cox and Cummins,” said the warden. It was quite a matter of indifference to him where his son-in-law went. The names of Cox and Cummins had now no interest in his ears. What had he to do with Cox and Cummins further, having already had his suit finally adjudicated upon in a court of conscience, a judgment without power of appeal fully registered, and the matter settled so that all the lawyers in London could not disturb it. The archdeacon could go to Cox and Cummins, could remain there all day in anxious discussion; but what might be said there was no longer matter of interest to him, who was so soon to lay aside the name of Warden of Barchester Hospital.

The archdeacon took up his shining new clerical hat, and put on his black new clerical gloves, and looked heavy, respectable, decorous, and opulent, a decided clergyman of the Church of England, every inch of him. “I suppose I shall see you at Barchester the day after to-morrow,” said he.

The warden supposed he would.

“I must once more beseech you to take no further steps till you see my father; if you owe me nothing,” and the archdeacon looked as though he thought a great deal were due to him, “at least you owe so much to my father;” and, without waiting for a reply, Dr. Grantly wended his way to Cox and Cummins.

Mrs. Grantly waited till the last fall of her husband’s foot was heard, as he turned out of the court into St. Paul’s Churchyard, and then commenced her task of talking her father over.

“Papa,” she began, “this is a most serious business.”

“Indeed it is,” said the warden, ringing the bell.

“I greatly feel the distress of mind you must have endured.”

“I am sure you do, my dear;” and he ordered the waiter to bring him pen, ink, and paper.

“Are you going to write, papa?”

“Yes, my dear—I am going to write my resignation to the bishop.”

“Pray, pray, papa, put it off till our return—pray put it off till you have seen the bishop—dear papa! for my sake, for Eleanor’s!—”

“It is for your sake and Eleanor’s that I do this. I hope, at least, that my children may never have to be ashamed of their father.”

“How can you talk about shame, papa?” and she stopped while the waiter creaked in with the paper, and then slowly creaked out again; “how can you talk about shame? you know what all your friends think about this question.”

The warden spread his paper on the table, placing it on the meagre blotting-book which the hotel afforded, and sat himself down to write.

“You won’t refuse me one request, papa?” continued his daughter; “you won’t refuse to delay your letter for two short days? Two days can make no possible difference.”

“My dear,” said he naïvely, “if I waited till I got to Barchester, I might, perhaps, be prevented.”

“But surely you would not wish to offend the bishop?” said she.

“God forbid! The bishop is not apt to take offence, and knows me too well to take in bad part anything that I may be called on to do.”

“But, papa—”

“Susan,” said he, “my mind on this subject is made up; it is not without much repugnance that I act in opposition to the advice of such men as Sir Abraham Haphazard and the archdeacon; but in this matter I can take no advice, I cannot alter the resolution to which I have come.”

“But two days, papa—”

“No—nor can I delay it. You may add to my present unhappiness by pressing me, but you cannot change my purpose; it will be a comfort to me if you will let the matter rest”: and, dipping his pen into the inkstand, he fixed his eyes intently on the paper.

There was something in his manner which taught his daughter to perceive that he was in earnest; she had at one time ruled supreme in her father’s house, but she knew that there were moments when, mild and meek as he was, he would have his way, and the present was an occasion of the sort. She returned, therefore, to her knitting, and very shortly after left the room.

The warden was now at liberty to compose his letter, and, as it was characteristic of the man, it shall be given at full length. The official letter, which, when written, seemed to him to be too formally cold to be sent alone to so dear a friend, was accompanied by a private note; and both are here inserted.

The letter of resignation ran as follows:

Chapter Hotel, St. Paul’s, London, August, 18—

MY LORD BISHOP, It is with the greatest pain that I feel myself constrained to resign into your Lordship’s hands the wardenship of the hospital at Barchester, which you so kindly conferred upon me, now nearly twelve years since.

I need not explain the circumstances which have made this step appear necessary to me. You are aware that a question has arisen as to the right of the warden to the income which has been allotted to the wardenship; it has seemed to me that this right is not well made out, and I hesitate to incur the risk of taking an income to which my legal claim appears doubtful.

The office of precentor of the cathedral is, as your Lordship is aware, joined to that of the warden; that is to say, the precentor has for many years been the warden of the hospital; there is, however, nothing to make the junction of the two offices necessary, and, unless you or the dean and chapter object to such an arrangement, I would wish to keep the precentorship. The income of this office will now be necessary to me; indeed, I do not know why I should be ashamed to say that I should have difficulty in supporting myself without it.

Your Lordship, and such others as you may please to consult on the matter, will at once see that my resignation of the wardenship need offer not the slightest bar to its occupation by another person. I am thought in the wrong by all those whom I have consulted in the matter; I have very little but an inward and an unguided conviction of my own to bring me to this step, and I shall, indeed, be hurt to find that any slur is thrown on the preferment which your kindness bestowed on me, by my resignation of it. I, at any rate for one, shall look on any successor whom you may appoint as enjoying a clerical situation of the highest respectability, and one to which your Lordship’s nomination gives an indefeasible right.

I cannot finish this official letter without again thanking your Lordship for all your great kindness, and I beg to subscribe myself—Your Lordship’s most obedient servant, Septimus Harding,

Warden of Barchester Hospital, and Precentor of the Cathedral

He then wrote the following private note:

MY DEAR BISHOP, I cannot send you the accompanying official letter without a warmer expression of thanks for all your kindness than would befit a document which may to a certain degree be made public. You, I know, will understand the feeling, and, perhaps, pity the weakness which makes me resign the hospital. I am not made of calibre strong enough to withstand public attack. Were I convinced that I stood on ground perfectly firm, that I was certainly justified in taking eight hundred a year under Hiram’s will, I should feel bound by duty to retain the position, however unendurable might be the nature of the assault; but, as I do not feel this conviction, I cannot believe that you will think me wrong in what I am doing.

I had at one time an idea of keeping only some moderate portion of the income; perhaps three hundred a year, and of remitting the remainder to the trustees; but it occurred to me, and I think with reason, that by so doing I should place my successors in an invidious position, and greatly damage your patronage.

My dear friend, let me have a line from you to say that you do not blame me for what I am doing, and that the officiating vicar of Crabtree Parva will be the same to you as the warden of the hospital.

I am very anxious about the precentorship: the archdeacon thinks it must go with the wardenship; I think not, and, that, having it, I cannot be ousted. I will, however, be guided by you and the dean. No other duty will suit me so well, or come so much within my power of adequate performance.

I thank you from my heart for the preferment which I am now giving up, and for all your kindness, and am, dear bishop, now as always, Yours most sincerely, Septimus Harding

London, August, 18—

Having written these letters and made a copy of the former one for the benefit of the archdeacon, Mr. Harding, whom we must now cease to call the warden, he having designated himself so for the last time, found that it was nearly two o’clock, and that he must prepare for his journey. Yes, from this time he never again admitted the name by which he had been so familiarly known, and in which, to tell the truth, he had rejoiced. The love of titles is common to all men, and a vicar or fellow is as pleased at becoming Mr. Archdeacon or Mr. Provost, as a lieutenant at getting his captaincy, or a city tallow-chandler in becoming Sir John on the occasion of a Queen’s visit to a new bridge. But warden he was no longer, and the name of precentor, though the office was to him so dear, confers in itself no sufficient distinction; our friend, therefore, again became Mr. Harding.

Mrs. Grantly had gone out; he had, therefore, no one to delay him by further entreaties to postpone his journey; he had soon arranged his bag, and paid his bill, and, leaving a note for his daughter, in which he put the copy of his official letter, he got into a cab and drove away to the station with something of triumph in his heart.

Had he not cause for triumph? Had he not been supremely successful? Had he not for the first time in his life held his own purpose against that of his son-in-law, and manfully combated against great odds—against the archdeacon’s wife as well as the archdeacon? Had he not gained a great victory, and was it not fit that he should step into his cab with triumph?

He had not told Eleanor when he would return, but she was on the look-out for him by every train by which he could arrive, and the pony-carriage was at the Barchester station when the train drew up at the platform.

“My dear,” said he, sitting beside her, as she steered her little vessel to one side of the road to make room for the clattering omnibus as they passed from the station into the town, “I hope you’ll be able to feel a proper degree of respect for the vicar of Crabtree.”

“Dear papa,” said she, “I am so glad.”

There was great comfort in returning home to that pleasant house, though he was to leave it so soon, and in discussing with his daughter all that he had done, and all that he had to do. It must take some time to get out of one house into another; the curate at Crabtree could not be abolished under six months, that is, unless other provision could be made for him; and then the furniture—the most of that must be sold to pay Sir Abraham Haphazard for sitting up till twelve at night. Mr. Harding was strangely ignorant as to lawyers’ bills; he had no idea, from twenty pounds to two thousand, as to the sum in which he was indebted for legal assistance. True, he had called in no lawyer himself; true, he had been no consenting party to the employment of either Cox and Cummins, or Sir Abraham; he had never been consulted on such matters—the archdeacon had managed all this himself, never for a moment suspecting that Mr. Harding would take upon him to end the matter in a way of his own. Had the lawyers’ bills been ten thousand pounds, Mr. Harding could not have helped it; but he was not on that account disposed to dispute his own liability. The question never occurred to him; but it did occur to him that he had very little money at his banker’s, that he could receive nothing further from the hospital, and that the sale of the furniture was his only resource.