Barchester Towers

A >> Anthony Trollope >> Barchester Towers


Then came the lunch at Ullathorne. As soon as they were in the
hall Miss Thorne took Mr. Arabin's hand and assured him that she
received him into her house, into the temple, she said, in which she
worshipped, and bade him God-speed with all her heart. Mr. Arabin
was touched and squeezed the spinster's hand without uttering a word
in reply. Then Mr. Thorne expressed a hope that Mr. Arabin found the
church well adapted for articulation, and Mr. Arabin having replied
that he had no doubt he should as soon as he had learnt to pitch his
voice to the building, they all sat down to the good things before
them.

Miss Thorne took special care of Mrs. Bold. Eleanor still wore her
widow's weeds, and therefore had about her that air of grave and sad
maternity which is the lot of recent widows. This opened the soft
heart of Miss Thorne, and made her look on her young guest as though
too much could not be done for her. She heaped chicken and ham upon
her plate and poured out for her a full bumper of port wine. When
Eleanor, who was not sorry to get it, had drunk a little of it, Miss
Thorne at once essayed to fill it again. To this Eleanor objected,
but in vain. Miss Thorne winked and nodded and whispered, saying
that it was the proper thing and must be done, and that she knew all
about it; and so she desired Mrs. Bold to drink it up and not mind
anybody.

"It is your duty, you know, to support yourself," she said into the
ear of the young mother; "there's more than yourself depending on
it;" and thus she coshered up Eleanor with cold fowl and port wine.
How it is that poor men's wives, who have no cold fowl and port wine
on which to be coshered up, nurse their children without difficulty,
whereas the wives of rich men, who eat and drink everything that is
good, cannot do so, we will for the present leave to the doctors and
the mothers to settle between them.

And then Miss Thorne was great about teeth. Little Johnny Bold
had been troubled for the last few days with his first incipient
masticator, and with that freemasonry which exists among ladies, Miss
Thorne became aware of the fact before Eleanor had half-finished her
wing. The old lady prescribed at once a receipt which had been much
in vogue in the young days of her grandmother, and warned Eleanor with
solemn voice against the fallacies of modern medicine.

"Take his coral, my dear," said she, "and rub it well with
carrot-juice; rub it till the juice dries on it, and then give it him
to play with--"

"But he hasn't got a coral," said Eleanor.

"Not got a coral!" said Miss Thorne with almost angry vehemence.
"Not got a coral--how can you expect that he should cut his teeth?
Have you got Daffy's Elixir?"

Eleanor explained that she had not. It had not been ordered by Mr.
Rerechild, the Barchester doctor whom she employed; and then the
young mother mentioned some shockingly modern succedaneum which Mr.
Rerechild's new lights had taught him to recommend.

Miss Thorne looked awfully severe. "Take care, my dear," said she,
"that the man knows what he's about; take care he doesn't destroy
your little boy. But"--and she softened into sorrow, as she said it,
and spoke more in pity than in anger--"but I don't know who there is
in Barchester now that you can trust. Poor dear old Doctor Bumpwell,
indeed--"

"Why, Miss Thorne, he died when I was a little girl."

"Yes, my dear, he did, and an unfortunate day it was for Barchester.
As to those young men that have come up since"--Mr. Rerechild, by the
by, was quite as old as Miss Thorne herself--"one doesn't know where
they came from or who they are, or whether they know anything about
their business or not."

"I think there are very clever men in Barchester," said Eleanor.

"Perhaps there may be; only I don't know them: and it's admitted
on all sides that medical men aren't now what they used to be.
They used to be talented, observing, educated men. But now any
whipper-snapper out of an apothecary's shop can call himself a doctor.
I believe no kind of education is now thought necessary."

Eleanor was herself the widow of a medical man and felt a little
inclined to resent all these hard sayings. But Miss Thorne was so
essentially good-natured that it was impossible to resent anything
she said. She therefore sipped her wine and finished her chicken.

"At any rate, my dear, don't forget the carrot-juice, and by all
means get him a coral at once. My grandmother Thorne had the best
teeth in the county and carried them to the grave with her at eighty.
I have heard her say it was all the carrot-juice. She couldn't bear
the Barchester doctors. Even poor old Dr. Bumpwell didn't please
her." It clearly never occurred to Miss Thorne that some fifty years
ago Dr. Bumpwell was only a rising man and therefore as much in need
of character in the eyes of the then ladies of Ullathorne as the
present doctors were in her own.

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 goodwill 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 XXIV

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, mothlike, 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 crape 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.

"I don't know what your father means when he talks so much of what is
due to Mr. Harding," she said to her eldest daughter. "Does he think
that Mr. Harding would give him L450 a year out of fine feeling? And
what signifies it whom he offends, as long as he gets the place?
He does not expect anything better. It passes me to think how your
father can be so soft, while everybody around him is so griping."

Thus, while the outer world was accusing Mr. Quiverful of rapacity
for promotion and of disregard to his honour, the inner world of his
own household was falling foul of him, with equal vehemence, for
his willingness to sacrifice their interests to a false feeling of
sentimental pride. It is astonishing how much difference the point
of view makes in the aspect of all that we look at!