The Chronicles of Barsetshire (9 page)

He was left undisturbed at his studies for an hour or two, when a knock came to the door, and Mr. Chadwick was announced. Rabelais retired into the secret drawer, the easy-chair seemed knowingly to betake itself off, and when the archdeacon quickly undid his bolt, he was discovered by the steward working, as usual, for that church of which he was so useful a pillar. Mr. Chadwick had just come from London, and was, therefore, known to be the bearer of important news.

“We’ve got Sir Abraham’s opinion at last,” said Mr. Chadwick, as he seated himself.

“Well, well, well!” exclaimed the archdeacon impatiently.

“Oh, it’s as long as my arm,” said the other; “it can’t be told in a word, but you can read it;” and he handed him a copy, in heaven knows how many spun-out folios, of the opinion which the attorney-general had managed to cram on the back and sides of the case as originally submitted to him.

“The upshot is,” said Chadwick, “that there’s a screw loose in their case, and we had better do nothing. They are proceeding against Mr. Harding and myself, and Sir Abraham holds that, under the wording of the will, and subsequent arrangements legally sanctioned, Mr. Harding and I are only paid servants. The defendants should have been either the Corporation of Barchester, or possibly the chapter or your father.”

“W—hoo!” said the archdeacon; “so Master Bold is on the wrong scent, is he?”

“That’s Sir Abraham’s opinion; but any scent almost would be a wrong scent. Sir Abraham thinks that if they’d taken the corporation, or the chapter, we could have baffled them. The bishop, he thinks, would be the surest shot; but even there we could plead that the bishop is only a visitor, and that he has never made himself a consenting party to the performance of other duties.”

“That’s quite clear,” said the archdeacon.

“Not quite so clear,” said the other. “You see the will says, ‘My lord, the bishop, being graciously pleased to see that due justice be done.’ Now, it may be a question whether, in accepting and administering the patronage, your father has not accepted also the other duties assigned. It is doubtful, however; but even if they hit that nail—and they are far off from that yet—the point is so nice, as Sir Abraham says, that you would force them into fifteen thousand pounds’ cost before they could bring it to an issue! and where’s that sum of money to come from?”

The archdeacon rubbed his hands with delight; he had never doubted the justice of his case, but he had begun to have some dread of unjust success on the part of his enemies. It was delightful to him thus to hear that their cause was surrounded with such rocks and shoals; such causes of shipwreck unseen by the landsman’s eye, but visible enough to the keen eyes of practical law mariners. How wrong his wife was to wish that Bold should marry Eleanor! Bold! why, if he should be ass enough to persevere, he would be a beggar before he knew whom he was at law with!

“That’s excellent, Chadwick—that’s excellent! I told you Sir Abraham was the man for us;” and he put down on the table the copy of the opinion, and patted it fondly.

“Don’t you let that be seen, though, archdeacon.”

“Who?—I!—not for worlds,” said the doctor.

“People will talk, you know, archdeacon.”

“Of course, of course,” said the doctor.

“Because, if that gets abroad, it would teach them how to fight their own battle.”

“Quite true,” said the doctor.

“No one here in Barchester ought to see that but you and I, archdeacon.”

“No, no, certainly no one else,” said the archdeacon, pleased with the closeness of the confidence; “no one else shall.”

“Mrs. Grantly is very interested in the matter, I know,” said Mr. Chadwick.

Did the archdeacon wink, or did he not? I am inclined to think he did not quite wink; but that without such, perhaps, unseemly gesture he communicated to Mr. Chadwick, with the corner of his eye, intimation that, deep as was Mrs. Grantly’s interest in the matter, it should not procure for her a perusal of that document; and at the same time he partly opened the small drawer, above spoken of, deposited the paper on the volume of Rabelais, and showed to Mr. Chadwick the nature of the key which guarded these hidden treasures. The careful steward then expressed himself contented. Ah! vain man! he could fasten up his Rabelais, and other things secret, with all the skill of Bramah or of Chubb; but where could he fasten up the key which solved these mechanical mysteries? It is probable to us that the contents of no drawer in that house were unknown to its mistress, and we think, moreover, that she was entitled to all such knowledge.

“But,” said Mr. Chadwick, “we must, of course, tell your father and Mr. Harding so much of Sir Abraham’s opinion as will satisfy them that the matter is doing well.”

“Oh, certainly—yes, of course,” said the doctor.

“You had better let them know that Sir Abraham is of opinion that there is no case at any rate against Mr. Harding; and that as the action is worded at present, it must fall to the ground; they must be nonsuited, if they carry it on; you had better tell Mr. Harding, that Sir Abraham is clearly of opinion that he is only a servant, and as such not liable—or if you like it, I’ll see Mr. Harding myself.”

“Oh, I must see him to-morrow, and my father too, and I’ll explain to them exactly so much—you won’t go before lunch, Mr. Chadwick: well, if you will, you must, for I know your time is precious;” and he shook hands with the diocesan steward, and bowed him out.

The archdeacon had again recourse to his drawer, and twice read through the essence of Sir Abraham Haphazard’s law-enlightened and law-bewildered brains. It was very clear that to Sir Abraham, the justice of the old men’s claim or the justice of Mr. Harding’s defence were ideas that had never presented themselves. A legal victory over an opposing party was the service for which Sir Abraham was, as he imagined, to be paid; and that he, according to his lights, had diligently laboured to achieve, and with probable hope of success. Of the intense desire which Mr. Harding felt to be assured on fit authority that he was wronging no man, that he was entitled in true equity to his income, that he might sleep at night without pangs of conscience, that he was no robber, no spoiler of the poor; that he and all the world might be openly convinced that he was not the man which
The Jupiter
had described him to be; of such longings on the part of Mr. Harding, Sir Abraham was entirely ignorant; nor, indeed, could it be looked on as part of his business to gratify such desires. Such was not the system on which his battles were fought, and victories gained. Success was his object, and he was generally successful. He conquered his enemies by their weakness rather than by his own strength, and it had been found almost impossible to make up a case in which Sir Abraham, as an antagonist, would not find a flaw.

The archdeacon was delighted with the closeness of the reasoning. To do him justice, it was not a selfish triumph that he desired; he would personally lose nothing by defeat, or at least what he might lose did not actuate him; but neither was it love of justice which made him so anxious, nor even mainly solicitude for his father-in-law. He was fighting a part of a never-ending battle against a never-conquered foe—that of the Church against its enemies.

He knew Mr. Harding could not pay all the expense of these doings: for these long opinions of Sir Abraham’s, these causes to be pleaded, these speeches to be made, these various courts through which the case was, he presumed, to be dragged. He knew that he and his father must at least bear the heavier portion of this tremendous cost; but to do the archdeacon justice, he did not recoil from this. He was a man fond of obtaining money, greedy of a large income, but open-handed enough in expending it, and it was a triumph to him to foresee the success of this measure, although he might be called on to pay so dearly for it himself.

CHAPTER 9

The Conference

On the following morning the archdeacon was with his father betimes, and a note was sent down to the warden begging his attendance at the palace. Dr. Grantly, as he cogitated on the matter, leaning back in his brougham as he journeyed into Barchester, felt that it would be difficult to communicate his own satisfaction either to his father or his father-in-law. He wanted success on his own side and discomfiture on that of his enemies. The bishop wanted peace on the subject; a settled peace if possible, but peace at any rate till the short remainder of his own days had spun itself out. Mr. Harding required, not only success and peace, but he also demanded that he might stand justified before the world.

The bishop, however, was comparatively easy to deal with; and before the arrival of the other, the dutiful son had persuaded his father that all was going on well, and then the warden arrived.

It was Mr. Harding’s wont, whenever he spent a morning at the palace, to seat himself immediately at the bishop’s elbow, the bishop occupying a huge armchair fitted up with candle-sticks, a reading table, a drawer, and other paraphernalia, the position of which chair was never moved, summer or winter; and when, as was usual, the archdeacon was there also, he confronted the two elders, who thus were enabled to fight the battle against him together; and together submit to defeat, for such was their constant fate.

Our warden now took his accustomed place, having greeted his son-in-law as he entered, and then affectionately inquired after his friend’s health. There was a gentleness about the bishop to which the soft womanly affection of Mr. Harding particularly endeared itself, and it was quaint to see how the two mild old priests pressed each other’s hand, and smiled and made little signs of love.

“Sir Abraham’s opinion has come at last,” began the archdeacon. Mr. Harding had heard so much, and was most anxious to know the result.

“It is quite favourable,” said the bishop, pressing his friend’s arm. “I am so glad.”

Mr. Harding looked at the mighty bearer of the important news for confirmation of these glad tidings.

“Yes,” said the archdeacon; “Sir Abraham has given most minute attention to the case; indeed, I knew he would—most minute attention; and his opinion is—and as to his opinion on such a subject being correct, no one who knows Sir Abraham’s character can doubt—his opinion is, that they hav’n’t got a leg to stand on.”

“But as how, archdeacon?”

“Why, in the first place:—but you’re no lawyer, warden, and I doubt you won’t understand it; the gist of the matter is this:—under Hiram’s will two paid guardians have been selected for the hospital; the law will say two paid servants, and you and I won’t quarrel with the name.”

“At any rate I will not if I am one of the servants,” said Mr. Harding. “A rose, you know—”

“Yes, yes,” said the archdeacon, impatient of poetry at such a time. “Well, two paid servants, we’ll say; one to look after the men, and the other to look after the money. You and Chadwick are these two servants, and whether either of you be paid too much, or too little, more or less in fact than the founder willed, it’s as clear as daylight that no one can fall foul of either of you for receiving an allotted stipend.”

“That does seem clear,” said the bishop, who had winced visibly at the words servants and stipend, which, however, appeared to have caused no uneasiness to the archdeacon.

“Quite clear,” said he, “and very satisfactory. In point of fact, it being necessary to select such servants for the use of the hospital, the pay to be given to them must depend on the rate of pay for such services, according to their market value at the period in question; and those who manage the hospital must be the only judges of this.”

“And who does manage the hospital?” asked the warden.

“Oh, let them find that out; that’s another question: the action is brought against you and Chadwick; that’s your defence, and a perfect and full defence it is. Now that I think very satisfactory.”

“Well,” said the bishop, looking inquiringly up into his friend’s face, who sat silent awhile, and apparently not so well satisfied.

“And conclusive,” continued the archdeacon; “if they press it to a jury, which they won’t do, no twelve men in England will take five minutes to decide against them.”

“But according to that” said Mr. Harding, “I might as well have sixteen hundred a year as eight, if the managers choose to allot it to me; and as I am one of the managers, if not the chief manager, myself, that can hardly be a just arrangement.”

“Oh, well; all that’s nothing to the question. The question is, whether this intruding fellow, and a lot of cheating attorneys and pestilent dissenters, are to interfere with an arrangement which everyone knows is essentially just and serviceable to the Church. Pray don’t let us be splitting hairs, and that amongst ourselves, or there’ll never be an end of the cause or the cost.”

Mr. Harding again sat silent for a while, during which the bishop once and again pressed his arm, and looked in his face to see if he could catch a gleam of a contented and eased mind; but there was no such gleam, and the poor warden continued playing sad dirges on invisible stringed instruments in all manner of positions; he was ruminating in his mind on this opinion of Sir Abraham, looking to it wearily and earnestly for satisfaction, but finding none. At last he said, “Did you see the opinion, archdeacon?”

The archdeacon said he had not—that was to say, he had—that was, he had not seen the opinion itself; he had seen what had been called a copy, but he could not say whether of a whole or part; nor could he say that what he had seen were the
ipsissima verba
of the great man himself; but what he had seen contained exactly the decision which he had announced, and which he again declared to be to his mind extremely satisfactory.

“I should like to see the opinion,” said the warden; “that is, a copy of it.”

“Well, I suppose you can if you make a point of it; but I don’t see the use myself; of course it is essential that the purport of it should not be known, and it is therefore unadvisable to multiply copies.”

“Why should it not be known?” asked the warden.

“What a question for a man to ask!” said the archdeacon, throwing up his hands in token of his surprise; “but it is like you:—a child is not more innocent than you are in matters of business. Can’t you see that if we tell them that no action will lie against you, but that one may possibly lie against some other person or persons, that we shall be putting weapons into their hands, and be teaching them how to cut our own throats?”

The warden again sat silent, and the bishop again looked at him wistfully: “The only thing we have now to do,” continued the archdeacon, “is to remain quiet, hold our peace, and let them play their own game as they please.”

“We are not to make known then,” said the warden, “that we have consulted the attorney-general, and that we are advised by him that the founder’s will is fully and fairly carried out.”

“God bless my soul!” said the archdeacon, “how odd it is that you will not see that all we are to do is to do nothing: why should we say anything about the founder’s will? We are in possession; and we know that they are not in a position to put us out; surely that is enough for the present.”

Mr. Harding rose from his seat and paced thoughtfully up and down the library, the bishop the while watching him painfully at every turn, and the archdeacon continuing to pour forth his convictions that the affair was in a state to satisfy any prudent mind.

“And
The Jupiter
?” said the warden, stopping suddenly.

“Oh!
The Jupiter
,” answered the other. “
The Jupiter
can break no bones. You must bear with that; there is much, of course, which it is our bounden duty to bear; it cannot be all roses for us here,” and the archdeacon looked exceedingly moral; “besides, the matter is too trivial, of too little general interest to be mentioned again in
The Jupiter
, unless we stir up the subject.” And the archdeacon again looked exceedingly knowing and worldly wise.

The warden continued his walk; the hard and stinging words of that newspaper article, each one of which had thrust a thorn as it were into his inmost soul, were fresh in his memory; he had read it more than once, word by word, and what was worse, he fancied it was as well known to everyone as to himself. Was he to be looked on as the unjust griping priest he had been there described? Was he to be pointed at as the consumer of the bread of the poor, and to be allowed no means of refuting such charges, of clearing his begrimed name, of standing innocent in the world, as hitherto he had stood? Was he to bear all this, to receive as usual his now hated income, and be known as one of those greedy priests who by their rapacity have brought disgrace on their church? And why? Why should he bear all this? Why should he die, for he felt that he could not live, under such a weight of obloquy? As he paced up and down the room he resolved in his misery and enthusiasm that he could with pleasure, if he were allowed, give up his place, abandon his pleasant home, leave the hospital, and live poorly, happily, and with an unsullied name, on the small remainder of his means.

He was a man somewhat shy of speaking of himself, even before those who knew him best, and whom he loved the most; but at last it burst forth from him, and with a somewhat jerking eloquence he declared that he could not, would not, bear this misery any longer.

“If it can be proved,” said he at last, “that I have a just and honest right to this, as God well knows I always deemed I had; if this salary or stipend be really my due, I am not less anxious than another to retain it. I have the well-being of my child to look to. I am too old to miss without some pain the comforts to which I have been used; and I am, as others are, anxious to prove to the world that I have been right, and to uphold the place I have held; but I cannot do it at such a cost as this. I cannot bear this. Could you tell me to do so?” And he appealed, almost in tears, to the bishop, who had left his chair, and was now leaning on the warden’s arm as he stood on the further side of the table facing the archdeacon. “Could you tell me to sit there at ease, indifferent, and satisfied, while such things as these are said loudly of me in the world?”

The bishop could feel for him and sympathise with him, but he could not advise him; he could only say, “No, no, you shall be asked to do nothing that is painful; you shall do just what your heart tells you to be right; you shall do whatever you think best yourself. Theophilus, don’t advise him, pray don’t advise the warden to do anything which is painful.”

But the archdeacon, though he could not sympathise, could advise; and he saw that the time had come when it behoved him to do so in a somewhat peremptory manner.

“Why, my lord,” he said, speaking to his father—and when he called his father “my lord,” the good old bishop shook in his shoes, for he knew that an evil time was coming. “Why, my lord, there are two ways of giving advice: there is advice that may be good for the present day; and there is advice that may be good for days to come: now I cannot bring myself to give the former, if it be incompatible with the other.”

“No, no, no, I suppose not,” said the bishop, re-seating himself, and shading his face with his hands. Mr. Harding sat down with his back to the further wall, playing to himself some air fitted for so calamitous an occasion, and the archdeacon said out his say standing, with his back to the empty fireplace.

“It is not to be supposed but that much pain will spring out of this unnecessarily raised question. We must all have foreseen that, and the matter has in no wise gone on worse than we expected; but it will be weak, yes, and wicked also, to abandon the cause and own ourselves wrong, because the inquiry is painful. It is not only ourselves we have to look to; to a certain extent the interest of the Church is in our keeping. Should it be found that one after another of those who hold preferment abandoned it whenever it might be attacked, is it not plain that such attacks would be renewed till nothing was left us? and, that if so deserted, the Church of England must fall to the ground altogether? If this be true of many, it is true of one. Were you, accused as you now are, to throw up the wardenship, and to relinquish the preferment which is your property, with the vain object of proving yourself disinterested, you would fail in that object, you would inflict a desperate blow on your brother clergymen, you would encourage every cantankerous dissenter in England to make a similar charge against some source of clerical revenue, and you would do your best to dishearten those who are most anxious to defend you and uphold your position. I can fancy nothing more weak, or more wrong. It is not that you think that there is any justice in these charges, or that you doubt your own right to the wardenship: you are convinced of your own honesty, and yet would yield to them through cowardice.”

“Cowardice!” said the bishop, expostulating. Mr. Harding sat unmoved, gazing on his son-in-law.

“Well; would it not be cowardice? Would he not do so because he is afraid to endure the evil things which will be falsely spoken of him? Would that not be cowardice? And now let us see the extent of the evil which you dread.
The Jupiter
publishes an article which a great many, no doubt, will read; but of those who understand the subject how many will believe
The Jupiter
? Everyone knows what its object is: it has taken up the case against Lord Guildford and against the Dean of Rochester, and that against half a dozen bishops; and does not everyone know that it would take up any case of the kind, right or wrong, false or true, with known justice or known injustice, if by doing so it could further its own views? Does not all the world know this of
The Jupiter
? Who that really knows you will think the worse of you for what
The Jupiter
says? And why care for those who do not know you? I will say nothing of your own comfort, but I do say that you could not be justified in throwing up, in a fit of passion, for such it would be, the only maintenance that Eleanor has; and if you did so, if you really did vacate the wardenship, and submit to ruin, what would that profit you? If you have no future right to the income, you have had no past right to it; and the very fact of your abandoning your position would create a demand for repayment of that which you have already received and spent.”