The Chronicles of Barsetshire (44 page)

The archdeacon made a very good lunch, and talked to his host about turnip-drillers and new machines for reaping, while the host, thinking it only polite to attend to a stranger, and fearing that perhaps he might not care about turnip crops on a Sunday, mooted all manner of ecclesiastical subjects.

“I never saw a heavier lot of wheat, Thorne, than you’ve got there in that field beyond the copse. I suppose that’s guano,” said the archdeacon.

“Yes, guano. I get it from Bristol myself. You’ll find you often have a tolerable congregation of Barchester people out here, Mr. Arabin. They are very fond of St. Ewold’s, particularly of an afternoon, when the weather is not too hot for the walk.”

“I am under an obligation to them for staying away to-day, at any rate,” said the vicar. “The congregation can never be too small for a maiden sermon.”

“I got a ton and a half at Bradley’s in High Street,” said the archdeacon, “and it was a complete take in. I don’t believe there was five hundredweight of guano in it.”

“That Bradley never has anything good,” said Miss Thorne, who had just caught the name during her whisperings with Eleanor. “And such a nice shop as there used to be in that very house before he came. Wilfred, don’t you remember what good things old Ambleoff used to have?”

“There have been three men since Ambleoff’s time,” said the archdeacon, “and each as bad as the other. But who gets it for you at Bristol, Thorne?”

“I ran up myself this year and bought it out of the ship. I am afraid as the evenings get shorter, Mr. Arabin, you’ll find the reading-desk too dark. I must send a fellow with an axe and make him lop off some of those branches.”

Mr. Arabin declared that the morning light at any rate was perfect, and deprecated any interference with the lime-trees. And then they took a stroll out among the trim parterres, and Mr. Arabin explained to Mrs. Bold the difference between a naiad and a dryad, and dilated on vases and the shapes of urns. Miss Thorne busied herself among her pansies, and her brother, finding it quite impracticable to give anything of a peculiarly Sunday tone to the conversation, abandoned the attempt and had it out with the archdeacon about the Bristol guano.

At three o’clock they again went into church, and now Mr. Arabin read the service and the archdeacon preached. Nearly the same congregation was present, with some adventurous pedestrians from the city, who had not thought the heat of the midday August sun too great to deter them. The archdeacon took his text from the epistle to Philemon. “I beseech thee for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds.” From such a text it may be imagined the kind of sermon which Dr. Grantly preached, and on the whole it was neither dull, nor bad, nor out of place.

He told them that it had become his duty to look about for a pastor for them, to supply the place of one who had been long among them, and that in this manner he regarded as a son him whom he had selected, as St. Paul had regarded the young disciple whom he sent forth. Then he took a little merit to himself for having studiously provided the best man he could without reference to patronage or favour; but he did not say that the best man according to his views was he who was best able to subdue Mr. Slope, and make that gentleman’s situation in Barchester too hot to be comfortable. As to the bonds, they had consisted in the exceeding struggle which he had made to get a good clergyman for them. He deprecated any comparison between himself and St. Paul, but said that he was entitled to beseech them for their good-will towards Mr. Arabin, in the same manner that the apostle had besought Philemon and his household with regard to Onesimus.

The archdeacon’s sermon—text, blessing, and all—was concluded within the half-hour. Then they shook hands with their Ullathorne friends, and returned to Plumstead. ‘Twas thus that Mr. Arabin read himself in at St. Ewold’s.

CHAPTER 5

Mr. Slope Manages Matters Very Cleverly at Puddingdale

The next two weeks passed pleasantly enough at Plumstead. The whole party there assembled seemed to get on well together. Eleanor made the house agreeable, and the archdeacon and Mr. Grantly seemed to have forgotten her iniquity as regarded Mr. Slope. Mr. Harding had his violoncello, and played to them while his daughters accompanied him. Johnny Bold, by the help either of Mr. Rerechild or else by that of his coral and carrot-juice, got through his teething troubles. There had been gaieties, too, of all sorts. They had dined at Ullathorne, and the Thornes had dined at the rectory. Eleanor had been duly put to stand on her box, and in that position had found herself quite unable to express her opinion on the merits of flounces, such having been the subject given to try her elocution. Mr. Arabin had of course been much in his own parish, looking to the doings at his vicarage, calling on his parishioners, and taking on himself the duties of his new calling. But still he had been every evening at Plumstead, and Mrs. Grantly was partly willing to agree with her husband that he was a pleasant inmate in a house.

They had also been at a dinner-party at Dr. Stanhope’s, of which Mr. Arabin had made one. He also, moth-like, burnt his wings in the flames of the signora’s candle. Mrs. Bold, too, had been there, and had felt somewhat displeased with the taste—want of taste she called it—shown by Mr. Arabin in paying so much attention to Madame Neroni. It was as infallible that Madeline should displease and irritate the women as that she should charm and captivate the men. The one result followed naturally on the other. It was quite true that Mr. Arabin had been charmed. He thought her a very clever and a very handsome woman; he thought also that her peculiar affliction entitled her to the sympathy of all. He had never, he said, met so much suffering joined to such perfect beauty and so clear a mind. ‘Twas thus he spoke of the signora, coming home in the archdeacon’s carriage, and Eleanor by no means liked to hear the praise. It was, however, exceedingly unjust of her to be angry with Mr. Arabin, as she had herself spent a very pleasant evening with Bertie Stanhope, who had taken her down to dinner and had not left her side for one moment after the gentlemen came out of the dining-room. It was unfair that she should amuse herself with Bertie and yet begrudge her new friend his license of amusing himself with Bertie’s sister. And yet she did so. She was half-angry with him in the carriage, and said something about meretricious manners. Mr. Arabin did not understand the ways of women very well, or else he might have flattered himself that Eleanor was in love with him.

But Eleanor was not in love with him. How many shades there are between love and indifference, and how little the graduated scale is understood! She had now been nearly three weeks in the same house with Mr. Arabin, and had received much of his attention and listened daily to his conversation. He had usually devoted at least some portion of his evening to her exclusively. At Dr. Stanhope’s he had devoted himself exclusively to another. It does not require that a woman should be in love to be irritated at this; it does not require that she should even acknowledge to herself that it is unpleasant to her. Eleanor had no such self-knowledge. She thought in her own heart that it was only on Mr. Arabin’s account that she regretted that he could condescend to be amused by the signora. “I thought he had more mind,” she said to herself as she sat watching her baby’s cradle on her return from the party. “After all, I believe Mr. Stanhope is the pleasanter man of the two.” Alas for the memory of poor John Bold! Eleanor was not in love with Bertie Stanhope, nor was she in love with Mr. Arabin. But her devotion to her late husband was fast fading when she could revolve in her mind, over the cradle of his infant, the faults and failings of other aspirants to her favour.

Will anyone blame my heroine for this? Let him or her rather thank God for all His goodness—for His mercy endureth forever.

Eleanor, in truth, was not in love; neither was Mr. Arabin. Neither indeed was Bertie Stanhope, though he had already found occasion to say nearly as much as that he was. The widow’s cap had prevented him from making a positive declaration, when otherwise he would have considered himself entitled to do so on a third or fourth interview. It was, after all, but a small cap now, and had but little of the weeping willow left in its construction. It is singular how these emblems of grief fade away by unseen gradations. Each pretends to be the counterpart of the forerunner, and yet the last little bit of crimped white crêpe that sits so jauntily on the back of the head is as dissimilar to the first huge mountain of woe which disfigured the face of the weeper, as the state of the Hindu is to the jointure of the English dowager.

But let it be clearly understood that Eleanor was in love with no one, and that no one was in love with Eleanor. Under these circumstances her anger against Mr. Arabin did not last long, and before two days were over they were both as good friends as ever. She could not but like him, for every hour spent in his company was spent pleasantly. And yet she could not quite like him, for there was always apparent in his conversation a certain feeling on his part that he hardly thought it worth his while to be in earnest. It was almost as though he were playing with a child. She knew well enough that he was in truth a sober, thoughtful man who, in some matters and on some occasions, could endure an agony of earnestness. And yet to her he was always gently playful. Could she have seen his brow once clouded, she might have learnt to love him.

So things went on at Plumstead, and on the whole not unpleasantly, till a huge storm darkened the horizon and came down upon the inhabitants of the rectory with all the fury of a water-spout. It was astonishing how in a few minutes the whole face of the heavens was changed. The party broke up from breakfast in perfect harmony, but fierce passions had arisen before the evening which did not admit of their sitting at the same board for dinner. To explain this it will be necessary to go back a little.

It will be remembered that the bishop expressed to Mr. Slope in his dressing-room his determination that Mr. Quiverful should be confirmed in his appointment to the hospital, and that his lordship requested Mr. Slope to communicate this decision to the archdeacon. It will also be remembered that the archdeacon had indignantly declined seeing Mr. Slope, and had, instead, written a strong letter to the bishop in which he all but demanded the situation of warden for Mr. Harding. To this letter the archdeacon received an immediate formal reply from Mr. Slope, in which it was stated that the bishop had received and would give his best consideration to the archdeacon’s letter.

The archdeacon felt himself somewhat checkmated by this reply. What could he do with a man who would neither see him, nor argue with him by letter, and who had undoubtedly the power of appointing any clergyman he pleased? He had consulted with Mr. Arabin, who had suggested the propriety of calling in the aid of the Master of Lazarus. “If,” said he, “you and Dr. Gwynne formally declare your intention of waiting upon the bishop, the bishop will not dare to refuse to see you; and if two such men as you are see him together, you will probably not leave him without carrying your point.”

The archdeacon did not quite like admitting the necessity of his being backed by the Master of Lazarus before he could obtain admission into the episcopal palace of Barchester, but still he felt that the advice was good, and he resolved to take it. He wrote again to the bishop, expressing a hope that nothing further would be done in the matter of the hospital till the consideration promised by his lordship had been given, and then sent off a warm appeal to his friend the master, imploring him to come to Plumstead and assist in driving the bishop into compliance. The master had rejoined, raising some difficulty, but not declining, and the archdeacon had again pressed his point, insisting on the necessity for immediate action. Dr. Gwynne unfortunately had the gout, and could therefore name no immediate day, but still agreed to come, if it should be finally found necessary. So the matter stood, as regarded the party at Plumstead.

But Mr. Harding had another friend fighting his battle for him, quite as powerful as the Master of Lazarus, and this was Mr. Slope. Though the bishop had so pertinaciously insisted on giving way to his wife in the matter of the hospital, Mr. Slope did not think it necessary to abandon his object. He had, he thought, daily more and more reason to imagine that the widow would receive his overtures favourably, and he could not but feel that Mr. Harding at the hospital, and placed there by his means, would be more likely to receive him as a son-in-law than Mr. Harding growling in opposition and disappointment under the archdeacon’s wing at Plumstead. Moreover, to give Mr. Slope due credit, he was actuated by greater motives even than these. He wanted a wife, and he wanted money, but he wanted power more than either. He had fully realized the fact that he must come to blows with Mrs. Proudie. He had no desire to remain in Barchester as her chaplain. Sooner than do so, he would risk the loss of his whole connexion with the diocese. What! Was he to feel within him the possession of no ordinary talents—was he to know himself to be courageous, firm, and, in matters where his conscience did not interfere, unscrupulous—and yet he contented to be the working factotum of a woman prelate? Mr. Slope had higher ideas of his own destiny. Either he or Mrs. Proudie must go to the wall, and now had come the time when he would try which it should be.

The bishop had declared that Mr. Quiverful should be the new warden. As Mr. Slope went downstairs, prepared to see the archdeacon, if necessary, but fully satisfied that no such necessity would arise, he declared to himself that Mr. Harding should be warden. With the object of carrying this point, he rode over to Puddingdale, and had a further interview with the worthy expectant of clerical good things. Mr. Quiverful was on the whole a worthy man. The impossible task of bringing up as ladies and gentlemen fourteen children on an income which was insufficient to give them with decency the common necessaries of life, had had an effect upon him not beneficial either to his spirit or his keen sense of honour. Who can boast that he would have supported such a burden with a different result? Mr. Quiverful was an honest, painstaking, drudging man, anxious indeed for bread and meat, anxious for means to quiet his butcher and cover with returning smiles the now sour countenance of the baker’s wife; but anxious also to be right with his own conscience. He was not careful, as another might be who sat on an easier worldly seat, to stand well with those around him, to shun a breath which might sully his name or a rumour which might affect his honour. He could not afford such niceties of conduct, such moral luxuries. It must suffice for him to be ordinarily honest according to the ordinary honesty of the world’s ways, and to let men’s tongues wag as they would.

He had felt that his brother clergymen, men whom he had known for the last twenty years, looked coldly on him from the first moment that he had shown himself willing to sit at the feet of Mr. Slope; he had seen that their looks grew colder still when it became bruited about that he was to be the bishop’s new warden at Hiram’s Hospital. This was painful enough, but it was the cross which he was doomed to bear. He thought of his wife, whose last new silk dress was six years in wear. He thought of all his young flock, whom he could hardly take to church with him on Sundays, for there were not decent shoes and stockings for them all to wear. He thought of the well-worn sleeves of his own black coat and of the stern face of the draper, from whom he would fain ask for cloth to make another, did he not know that the credit would be refused him. Then he thought of the comfortable house in Barchester, of the comfortable income, of his boys sent to school, of his girls with books in their hands instead of darning needles, of his wife’s face again covered with smiles, and of his daily board again covered with plenty. He thought of these things; and do thou also, reader, think of them, and then wonder, if thou canst, that Mr. Slope had appeared to him to possess all those good gifts which could grace a bishop’s chaplain. “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings.”

Why, moreover, should the Barchester clergy have looked coldly on Mr. Quiverful? Had they not all shown that they regarded with complacency the loaves and fishes of their mother church? Had they not all, by some hook or crook, done better for themselves than he had done? They were not burdened as he was burdened. Dr. Grantly had five children and nearly as many thousands a year on which to feed them. It was very well for him to turn up his nose at a new bishop who could do nothing for him, and a chaplain who was beneath his notice; but it was cruel in a man so circumstanced to set the world against the father of fourteen children because he was anxious to obtain for them an honourable support! He, Mr. Quiverful, had not asked for the wardenship; he had not even accepted it till he had been assured that Mr. Harding had refused it. How hard then that he should be blamed for doing that which not to have done would have argued a most insane imprudence!

Thus in this matter of the hospital poor Mr. Quiverful had his trials, and he had also his consolations. On the whole the consolations were the more vivid of the two. The stern draper heard of the coming promotion, and the wealth of his warehouse was at Mr. Quiverful’s disposal. Coming events cast their shadows before, and the coming event of Mr. Quiverful’s transference to Barchester produced a delicious shadow in the shape of a new outfit for Mrs. Quiverful and her three elder daughters. Such consolations come home to the heart of a man, and quite home to the heart of a woman. Whatever the husband might feel, the wife cared nothing for frowns of dean, archdeacon, or prebendary. To her the outsides and insides of her husband and fourteen children were everything. In her bosom every other ambition had been swallowed up in that maternal ambition of seeing them and him and herself duly clad and properly fed. It had come to that with her that life had now no other purpose. She recked nothing of the imaginary rights of others. She had no patience with her husband when he declared to her that he could not accept the hospital unless he knew that Mr. Harding had refused it. Her husband had no right to be Quixotic at the expense of fourteen children. The narrow escape of throwing away his good fortune which her lord had had, almost paralysed her. Now, indeed, they had received a full promise, not only from Mr. Slope, but also from Mrs. Proudie. Now, indeed, they might reckon with safety on their good fortune. But what if all had been lost? What if her fourteen bairns had been resteeped to the hips in poverty by the morbid sentimentality of their father? Mrs. Quiverful was just at present a happy woman, but yet it nearly took her breath away when she thought of the risk they had run.