Barchester Towers

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But here she objected strenuously. She had a great wish, she said,
to go alone; a great desire that it might be seen that her father was
not implicated in her quarrel with Dr. Grantly. To this at last he
gave way; but not a word passed between them about Mr. Slope--not a
word was said, not a question asked as to the serious interview on
the preceding evening. There was, indeed, very little confidence
between them, though neither of them knew why it should be so. Eleanor
once asked him whether he would not call upon the bishop, but he
answered rather tartly that he did not know--he did not think he
should, but he could not say just at present. And so they parted. Each
was miserably anxious for some show of affection, for some return
of confidence, for some sign of the feeling that usually bound them
together. But none was given. The father could not bring himself to
question his daughter about her supposed lover, and the daughter
would not sully her mouth by repeating the odious word with which Dr.
Grantly had roused her wrath. And so they parted.

There was some trouble in arranging the method of Eleanor's return.
She begged her father to send for a post-chaise, but when Mrs.
Grantly heard of this, she objected strongly. If Eleanor would go
away in dudgeon with the archdeacon, why should she let all the
servants and all the neighbourhood know that she had done so? So at
last Eleanor consented to make use of the Plumstead carriage, and
as the archdeacon had gone out immediately after breakfast and was
not to return till dinner-time, she also consented to postpone her
journey till after lunch, and to join the family at that time. As to
the subject of the quarrel not a word was said by anyone. The affair
of the carriage was arranged by Mr. Harding, who acted as Mercury
between the two ladies; they, when they met, kissed each other very
lovingly and then sat down each to her crochet work as though nothing
was amiss in all the world.




CHAPTER XXX

Another Love Scene


But there was another visitor at the rectory whose feelings in this
unfortunate matter must be somewhat strictly analysed. Mr. Arabin
had heard from his friend of the probability of Eleanor's marriage
with Mr. Slope with amazement, but not with incredulity. It has been
said that he was not in love with Eleanor, and up to this period
this certainly had been true. But as soon as he heard that she loved
someone else, he began to be very fond of her himself. He did not
make up his mind that he wished to have her for his wife; he had
never thought of her, and did not now think of her, in connexion with
himself; but he experienced an inward, indefinable feeling of deep
regret, a gnawing sorrow, an unconquerable depression of spirits,
and also a species of self-abasement that he--he, Mr. Arabin--had
not done something to prevent that other he, that vile he whom he so
thoroughly despised, from carrying off this sweet prize.

Whatever man may have reached the age of forty unmarried without
knowing something of such feelings must have been very successful or
else very cold-hearted.

Mr. Arabin had never thought of trimming the sails of his bark so
that he might sail as convoy to this rich argosy. He had seen that
Mrs. Bold was beautiful, but he had not dreamt of making her beauty
his own. He knew that Mrs. Bold was rich, but he had had no more
idea of appropriating her wealth than that of Dr. Grantly. He had
discovered that Mrs. Bold was intelligent, warm-hearted, agreeable,
sensible, all in fact that a man could wish his wife to be; but the
higher were her attractions, the greater her claims to consideration,
the less had he imagined that he might possibly become the possessor
of them. Such had been his instinct rather than his thoughts, so
humble and so diffident. Now his diffidence was to be rewarded by
his seeing this woman, whose beauty was to his eyes perfect, whose
wealth was such as to have deterred him from thinking of her, whose
widowhood would have silenced him had he not been so deterred, by his
seeing her become the prey of--Obadiah Slope!

On the morning of Mrs. Bold's departure he got on his horse to ride
over to St. Ewold's. As he rode he kept muttering to himself a line
from Van Artevelde,


How little flattering is woman's love.


And then he strove to recall his mind and to think of other
affairs--his parish, his college, his creed--but his thoughts would
revert to Mr. Slope and the Flemish chieftain.


When we think upon it,
How little flattering is woman's love,
Given commonly to whosoe'er is nearest
And propped with most advantage.


It was not that Mrs. Bold should marry anyone but him--he had not put
himself forward as a suitor--but that she should marry Mr. Slope; and
so he repeated over again--


Outward grace
Nor inward light is needful--day by day
Men wanting both are mated with the best
And loftiest of God's feminine creation,
Whose love takes no distinction but of gender,
And ridicules the very name of choice.


And so he went on, troubled much in his mind.

He had but an uneasy ride of it that morning, and little good did he
do at St. Ewold's.

The necessary alterations in his house were being fast completed, and
he walked through the rooms, and went up and down the stairs, and
rambled through the garden, but he could not wake himself to much
interest about them. He stood still at every window to look out and
think upon Mr. Slope. At almost every window he had before stood and
chatted with Eleanor. She and Mrs. Grantly had been there continually;
and while Mrs. Grantly had been giving orders, and seeing that orders
had been complied with, he and Eleanor had conversed on all things
appertaining to a clergyman's profession. He thought how often
he had laid down the law to her and how sweetly she had borne with
his somewhat dictatorial decrees. He remembered her listening
intelligence, her gentle but quick replies, her interest in all that
concerned the church, in all that concerned him; and then he struck
his riding-whip against the window-sill and declared to himself that
it was impossible that Eleanor Bold should marry Mr. Slope.

And yet he did not really believe, as he should have done, that it
was impossible. He should have known her well enough to feel that it
was truly impossible. He should have been aware that Eleanor had
that within her which would surely protect her from such degradation.
But he, like so many others, was deficient in confidence in woman.
He said to himself over and over again that it was impossible that
Eleanor Bold should become Mrs. Slope, and yet he believed that she
would do so. And so he rambled about, and could do and think of
nothing. He was thoroughly uncomfortable, thoroughly ill at ease,
cross with himself and everybody else, and feeding in his heart on
animosity towards Mr. Slope. This was not as it should be, as he
knew and felt, but he could not help himself. In truth Mr. Arabin
was now in love with Mrs. Bold, though ignorant of the fact himself.
He was in love and, though forty years old, was in love without being
aware of it. He fumed and fretted and did not know what was the
matter, as a youth might do at one-and-twenty. And so having done no
good at St. Ewold's, he rode back much earlier than was usual with
him, instigated by some inward, unacknowledged hope that he might see
Mrs. Bold before she left.

Eleanor had not passed a pleasant morning. She was irritated with
everyone, and not least with herself. She felt that she had been
hardly used, but she felt also that she had not played her own cards
well. She should have held herself so far above suspicion as to have
received her sister's innuendoes and the archdeacon's lecture with
indifference. She had not done this, but had shown herself angry
and sore, and was now ashamed of her own petulance, yet unable to
discontinue it.

The greater part of the morning she had spent alone, but after awhile
her father joined her. He had fully made up his mind that, come what
come might, nothing should separate him from his younger daughter.
It was a hard task for him to reconcile himself to the idea of seeing
her at the head of Mr. Slope's table, but he got through it. Mr.
Slope, as he argued to himself, was a respectable man and a clergyman,
and he, as Eleanor's father, had no right even to endeavour to prevent
her from marrying such a one. He longed to tell her how he had
determined to prefer her to all the world, how he was prepared to
admit that she was not wrong, how thoroughly he differed from Dr.
Grantly; but he could not bring himself to mention Mr. Slope's name.
There was yet a chance that they were all wrong in their surmise, and
being thus in doubt, he could not bring himself to speak openly to her
on the subject.

He was sitting with her in the drawing-room, with his arm round her
waist, saying every now and then some little soft words of affection
and working hard with his imaginary fiddle-bow, when Mr. Arabin
entered the room. He immediately got up, and the two made some trite
remarks to each other, neither thinking of what he was saying, while
Eleanor kept her seat on the sofa, mute and moody. Mr. Arabin was
included in the list of those against whom her anger was excited.
He, too, had dared to talk about her acquaintance with Mr. Slope; he,
too, had dared to blame her for not making an enemy of his enemy.
She had not intended to see him before her departure, and was now but
little inclined to be gracious.

There was a feeling through the whole house that something was wrong.
Mr. Arabin, when he saw Eleanor, could not succeed in looking or
in speaking as though he knew nothing of all this. He could not be
cheerful and positive and contradictory with her, as was his wont.
He had not been two minutes in the room before he felt that he had
done wrong to return; and the moment he heard her voice, he thoroughly
wished himself back at St. Ewold's. Why, indeed, should he have wished
to have aught further to say to the future wife of Mr. Slope?

"I am sorry to hear that you are to leave us so soon," said he,
striving in vain to use his ordinary voice. In answer to this she
muttered something about the necessity of her being in Barchester,
and betook herself most industriously to her crochet work.

Then there was a little more trite conversation between Mr. Arabin
and Mr. Harding--trite, and hard, and vapid, and senseless. Neither
of them had anything to say to the other, and yet neither at such a
moment liked to remain silent. At last Mr. Harding, taking advantage
of a pause, escaped out of the room, and Eleanor and Mr. Arabin were
left together.

"Your going will be a great break-up to our party," said he.

She again muttered something which was all but inaudible, but kept
her eyes fixed upon her work.

"We have had a very pleasant month here," said he; "at least I have;
and I am sorry it should be so soon over."

"I have already been from home longer than I intended," said she,
"and it is time that I should return."

"Well, pleasant hours and pleasant days must come to an end. It is a
pity that so few of them are pleasant; or perhaps, rather--"

"It is a pity, certainly, that men and women do so much to destroy
the pleasantness of their days," said she, interrupting him. "It is
a pity that there should be so little charity abroad."

"Charity should begin at home," said he, and he was proceeding to
explain that he as a clergyman could not be what she would call
charitable at the expense of those principles which he considered it
his duty to teach, when he remembered that it would be worse than vain
to argue on such a matter with the future wife of Mr. Slope. "But
you are just leaving us," he continued, "and I will not weary your
last hour with another lecture. As it is, I fear I have given you
too many."

"You should practise as well as preach, Mr. Arabin."

"Undoubtedly I should. So should we all. All of us who presume to
teach are bound to do our utmost towards fulfilling our own lessons.
I thoroughly allow my deficiency in doing so, but I do not quite know
now to what you allude. Have you any special reason for telling me
now that I should practise as well as preach?"

Eleanor made no answer. She longed to let him know the cause of her
anger, to upbraid him for speaking of her disrespectfully, and then
at last to forgive him, and so part friends. She felt that she would
be unhappy to leave him in her present frame of mind, but yet she
could hardly bring herself to speak to him of Mr. Slope. And how
could she allude to the innuendo thrown out by the archdeacon, and
thrown out, as she believed, at the instigation of Mr. Arabin? She
wanted to make him know that he was wrong, to make him aware that he
had ill-treated her, in order that the sweetness of her forgiveness
might be enhanced. She felt that she liked him too well to be
contented to part with him in displeasure, yet she could not get over
her deep displeasure without some explanation, some acknowledgement
on his part, some assurance that he would never again so sin against
her.

"Why do you tell me that I should practise what I preach?" continued
he.

"All men should do so."

"Certainly. That is as it were understood and acknowledged. But you
do not say so to all men, or to all clergymen. The advice, good as
it is, is not given except in allusion to some special deficiency.
If you will tell me my special deficiency, I will endeavour to profit
by the advice."

She paused for awhile and then, looking full in his face, she said,
"You are not bold enough, Mr. Arabin, to speak out to me openly and
plainly, and yet you expect me, a woman, to speak openly to you. Why
did you speak calumny of me to Dr. Grantly behind my back?"

"Calumny!" said he, and his whole face became suffused with blood.
"What calumny? If I have spoken calumny of you, I will beg your
pardon, and his to whom I spoke it, and God's pardon also. But what
calumny have I spoken of you to Dr. Grantly?"

She also blushed deeply. She could not bring herself to ask him
whether he had not spoken of her as another man's wife. "You know
that best yourself," said she. "But I ask you as a man of honour, if
you have not spoken of me as you would not have spoken of your own
sister--or rather I will not ask you," she continued, finding that he
did not immediately answer her. "I will not put you to the necessity
of answering such a question. Dr. Grantly has told me what you
said."

"Dr. Grantly certainly asked me for my advice, and I gave it. He
asked me--"

"I know he did, Mr. Arabin. He asked you whether he would be doing
right to receive me at Plumstead if I continued my acquaintance with
a gentleman who happens to be personally disagreeable to yourself and
to him."

"You are mistaken, Mrs. Bold. I have no personal knowledge of Mr.
Slope; I never met him in my life."

"You are not the less individually hostile to him. It is not for me
to question the propriety of your enmity, but I had a right to expect
that my name should not have been mixed up in your hostilities. This
has been done, and been done by you in a manner the most injurious
and the most distressing to me as a woman. I must confess, Mr. Arabin,
that from you I expected a different sort of usage."

As she spoke she with difficulty restrained her tears--but she did
restrain them. Had she given way and sobbed aloud, as in such cases
a woman should do, he would have melted at once, implored her pardon,
perhaps knelt at her feet and declared his love. Everything would
have been explained, and Eleanor would have gone back to Barchester
with a contented mind. How easily would she have forgiven and
forgotten the archdeacon's suspicions had she but heard the whole
truth from Mr. Arabin. But then where would have been my novel?
She did not cry, and Mr. Arabin did not melt.

"You do me an injustice," said he. "My advice was asked by Dr.
Grantly, and I was obliged to give it."

"Dr. Grantly has been most officious, most impertinent. I have as
complete a right to form my acquaintance as he has to form his. What
would you have said had I consulted you as to the propriety of my
banishing Dr. Grantly from my house because he knows Lord Tattenham
Corner? I am sure Lord Tattenham is quite as objectionable an
acquaintance for a clergyman as Mr. Slope is for a clergyman's
daughter."

"I do not know Lord Tattenham Corner."

"No, but Dr. Grantly does. It is nothing to me if he knows all the
young lords on every race-course in England. I shall not interfere
with him, nor shall he with me."

"I am sorry to differ with you, Mrs. Bold, but as you have spoken to
me on this matter, and especially as you blame me for what little I
said on the subject, I must tell you that I do differ from you. Dr.
Grantly's position as a man in the world gives him a right to choose
his own acquaintances, subject to certain influences. If he chooses
them badly, those influences will be used. If he consorts with
persons unsuitable to him, his bishop will interfere. What the
bishop is to Dr. Grantly, Dr. Grantly is to you."

"I deny it. I utterly deny it," said Eleanor, jumping from her
seat and literally flashing before Mr. Arabin, as she stood on the
drawing-room floor. He had never seen her so excited, he had never
seen her look half so beautiful.

"I utterly deny it," said she. "Dr. Grantly has no sort of
jurisdiction over me whatsoever. Do you and he forget that I am not
altogether alone in the world? Do you forget that I have a father?
Dr. Grantly, I believe, always has forgotten it.

"From you, Mr. Arabin," she continued, "I would have listened to
advice because I should have expected it to have been given as one
friend may advise another--not as a schoolmaster gives an order to
a pupil. I might have differed from you--on this matter I should
have done so--but had you spoken to me in your usual manner and
with your usual freedom, I should not have been angry. But now--was
it manly of you, Mr. Arabin, to speak of me in this way--so
disrespectful--so--? I cannot bring myself to repeat what you said.
You must understand what I feel. Was it just of you to speak of me
in such a way and to advise my sister's husband to turn me out of my
sister's house because I chose to know a man of whose doctrine you
disapprove?"

"I have no alternative left to me, Mrs. Bold," said he, standing
with his back to the fire-place, looking down intently at the carpet
pattern, and speaking with a slow, measured voice, "but to tell you
plainly what did take place between me and Dr. Grantly."

"Well," said she, finding that he paused for a moment.

"I am afraid that what I may say may pain you."

"It cannot well do so more than what you have already done," said
she.

"Dr. Grantly asked me whether I thought it would be prudent for him
to receive you in his house as the wife of Mr. Slope, and I told him
that I thought it would be imprudent. Believing it to be utterly
impossible that Mr. Slope and--"

"Thank you, Mr. Arabin, that is sufficient. I do not want to know
your reasons," said she, speaking with a terribly calm voice. "I
have shown to this gentleman the commonplace civility of a neighbour;
and because I have done so, because I have not indulged against him
in all the rancour and hatred which you and Dr. Grantly consider due
to all clergymen who do not agree with yourselves, you conclude that
I am to marry him; or rather you do not conclude so--no rational man
could really come to such an outrageous conclusion without better
ground; you have not thought so, but, as I am in a position in which
such an accusation must be peculiarly painful, it is made in order
that I may be terrified into hostility against this enemy of yours."

As she finished speaking, she walked to the drawing-room window and
stepped out into the garden. Mr. Arabin was left in the room, still
occupied in counting the pattern on the carpet. He had, however,
distinctly heard and accurately marked every word that she had
spoken. Was it not clear from what she had said that the archdeacon
had been wrong in imputing to her any attachment to Mr. Slope? Was
it not clear that Eleanor was still free to make another choice? It
may seem strange that he should for a moment have had a doubt, and
yet he did doubt. She had not absolutely denied the charge; she had
not expressly said that it was untrue. Mr. Arabin understood little
of the nature of a woman's feelings, or he would have known how
improbable it was that she should make any clearer declaration than
she had done. Few men do understand the nature of a woman's heart,
till years have robbed such understanding of its value. And it is
well that it should be so, or men would triumph too easily.

Mr. Arabin stood counting the carpet, unhappy, wretchedly unhappy,
at the hard words that had been spoken to him, and yet happy,
exquisitely happy, as he thought that after all the woman whom he
so regarded was not to become the wife of the man whom he so much
disliked. As he stood there he began to be aware that he was himself
in love. Forty years had passed over his head, and as yet woman's
beauty had never given him an uneasy hour. His present hour was very
uneasy.

Not that he remained there for half or a quarter of that time. In
spite of what Eleanor had said, Mr. Arabin was, in truth, a manly man.
Having ascertained that he loved this woman, and having now reason
to believe that she was free to receive his love, at least if she
pleased to do so, he followed her into the garden to make such wooing
as he could.

He was not long in finding her. She was walking to and fro beneath
the avenue of elms that stood in the archdeacon's grounds, skirting
the churchyard. What had passed between her and Mr. Arabin had not,
alas, tended to lessen the acerbity of her spirit. She was very
angry--more angry with him than with anyone. How could he have so
misunderstood her? She had been so intimate with him, had allowed
him such latitude in what he had chosen to say to her, had complied
with his ideas, cherished his views, fostered his precepts, cared for
his comforts, made much of him in every way in which a pretty woman
can make much of an unmarried man without committing herself or her
feelings! She had been doing this, and while she had been doing it
he had regarded her as the affianced wife of another man.

As she passed along the avenue, every now and then an unbidden tear
would force itself on her cheek, and as she raised her hand to brush
it away, she stamped with her little foot upon the sward with very
spite to think that she had been so treated.

Mr. Arabin was very near to her when she first saw him, and she
turned short round and retraced her steps down the avenue, trying to
rid her cheeks of all trace of the tell-tale tears. It was a needless
endeavour, for Mr. Arabin was in a state of mind that hardly allowed
him to observe such trifles. He followed her down the walk and
overtook her just as she reached the end of it.

He had not considered how he would address her; he had not thought
what he would say. He had only felt that it was wretchedness to him
to quarrel with her, and that it would be happiness to be allowed to
love her. And yet he could not lower himself by asking her pardon.
He had done her no wrong. He had not calumniated her, not injured
her, as she had accused him of doing. He could not confess sins of
which he had not been guilty. He could only let the past be past and
ask her as to her and his hopes for the future.

"I hope we are not to part as enemies?" said he.

"There shall be no enmity on my part," said Eleanor; "I endeavour to
avoid all enmities. It would be a hollow pretence were I to say that
there can be true friendship between us, after what has just passed.
People cannot make their friends of those whom they despise."

"And am I despised?"

"I must have been so before you could have spoken of me as you did.
And I was deceived, cruelly deceived. I believed that you thought
well of me; I believed that you esteemed me."

"Thought well of you and esteemed you!" said he. "In justifying
myself before you, I must use stronger words than those." He paused
for a moment, and Eleanor's heart beat with painful violence within
her bosom as she waited for him to go on. "I have esteemed, do
esteem you, as I never yet esteemed any woman. Think well of you!
I never thought to think so well, so much of any human creature.
Speak calumny of you! Insult you! Wilfully injure you! I wish it
were my privilege to shield you from calumny, insult, and injury.
Calumny! Ah me! 'Twere almost better that it were so. Better than
to worship with a sinful worship; sinful and vain also." And then
he walked along beside her, with his hands clasped behind his back,
looking down on the grass beneath his feet and utterly at a loss how
to express his meaning. And Eleanor walked beside him determined at
least to give him no assistance.

"Ah me!" he uttered at last, speaking rather to himself than to her.
"Ah me! These Plumstead walks were pleasant enough, if one could
have but heart's ease, but without that the dull, dead stones of
Oxford were far preferable--and St. Ewold's, too. Mrs. Bold, I am
beginning to think that I mistook myself when I came hither. A
Romish priest now would have escaped all this. Oh, Father of heaven,
how good for us would it be if thou couldest vouchsafe to us a
certain rule."