Barchester Towers

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"Oh, I am sure he was" said Eleanor. "I am sure he must have been
tipsy."

"Well, I declare I didn't observe it. But what was it, my love?"

"Why, I believe I can hardly tell you. He talked such horrid stuff
that you never heard the like: about religion, and heaven, and love.
Oh, dear--he is such a nasty man."

"I can easily imagine the sort of stuff he would talk. Well--and
then--?"

"And then--he took hold of me."

"Took hold of you?"

"Yes--he somehow got close to me and took hold of me--"

"By the waist?"

"Yes," said Eleanor shuddering.

"And then--"

"Then I jumped away from him, and gave him a slap on the face, and
ran away along the path till I saw you."

"Ha, ha, ha!" Charlotte Stanhope laughed heartily at the finale to
the tragedy. It was delightful to her to think that Mr. Slope had
had his ears boxed. She did not quite appreciate the feeling which
made her friend so unhappy at the result of the interview. To her
thinking the matter had ended happily enough as regarded the widow,
who indeed was entitled to some sort of triumph among her friends.
Whereas to Mr. Slope would be due all those gibes and jeers which
would naturally follow such an affair. His friends would ask him
whether his ears tingled whenever he saw a widow, and he would be
cautioned that beautiful things were made to be looked at and not to
be touched.

Such were Charlotte Stanhope's views on such matters, but she did not
at the present moment clearly explain them to Mrs. Bold. Her object
was to endear herself to her friend, and therefore, having had her
laugh, she was ready enough to offer sympathy. Could Bertie do
anything? Should Bertie speak to the man and warn him that in future
he must behave with more decorum? Bertie indeed, she declared, would
be more angry than anyone else when he heard to what insult Mrs. Bold
had been subjected.

"But you won't tell him?" said Mrs. Bold with a look of horror.

"Not if you don't like it," said Charlotte; "but considering
everything, I would strongly advise it. If, you had a brother, you
know, it would be unnecessary. But it is very right that Mr. Slope
should know that you have somebody by you that will and can protect
you."

"But my father is here."

"Yes, but it is so disagreeable for clergymen to have to quarrel with
each other; and circumstanced as your father is just at this moment,
it would be very inexpedient that there should be anything unpleasant
between him and Mr. Slope. Surely you and Bertie are intimate enough
for you to permit him to take your part."

Charlotte Stanhope was very anxious that her brother should at once
on that very day settle matters with his future wife. Things had now
come to that point between him and his father, and between him and
his creditors, that he must either do so, or leave Barchester; either
do that, or go back to his unwashed associates, dirty lodgings, and
poor living at Carrara. Unless he could provide himself with an
income, he must go to Carrara, or to ----. His father the prebendary
had not said this in so many words, but had he done so, he could not
have signified it more plainly.

Such being the state of the case it was very necessary that no more
time should be lost. Charlotte had seen her brother's apathy, when
he neglected to follow Mrs. Bold out of the room, with anger which
she could hardly suppress. It was grievous to think that Mr. Slope
should have so distanced him. Charlotte felt that she had played her
part with sufficient skill. She had brought them together and induced
such a degree of intimacy that her brother was really relieved from
all trouble and labour in the matter. And moreover it was quite plain
that Mrs. Bold was very fond of Bertie. And now it was plain enough
also that he had nothing to fear from his rival, Mr. Slope.

There was certainly an awkwardness in subjecting Mrs. Bold to a
second offer on the same day. It would have been well perhaps to
have put the matter off for a week, could a week have been spared.
But circumstances are frequently too peremptory to be arranged as we
would wish to arrange them, and such was the case now. This being
so, could not this affair of Mr. Slope's be turned to advantage?
Could it not be made the excuse for bringing Bertie and Mrs. Bold
into still closer connexion--into such close connexion that they
could not fail to throw themselves into each other's arms? Such was
the game which Miss Stanhope now at a moment's notice resolved to
play.

And very well she played it. In the first place it was arranged that
Mr. Slope should not return in the Stanhopes' carriage to Barchester.
It so happened that Mr. Slope was already gone, but of that of course
they knew nothing. The signora should be induced to go first, with
only the servants and her sister, and Bertie should take Mr. Slope's
place in the second journey. Bertie was to be told in confidence of
the whole affair, and when the carriage was gone off with its first
load, Eleanor was to be left under Bertie's special protection, so as
to insure her from any further aggression from Mr. Slope. While the
carriage was getting ready, Bertie was to seek out that gentleman
and make him understand that he must provide himself with another
conveyance back to Barchester. Their immediate object should be to
walk about together in search of Bertie. Bertie in short was to be
the Pegasus on whose wings they were to ride out of their present
dilemma.

There was a warmth of friendship and cordial kindliness in all this
that was very soothing to the widow; but yet, though she gave way
to it, she was hardly reconciled to doing so. It never occurred to
her that, now that she had killed one dragon, another was about to
spring up in her path; she had no remote idea that she would have to
encounter another suitor in her proposed protector, but she hardly
liked the thought of putting herself so much into the hands of young
Stanhope. She felt that if she wanted protection, she should go to
her father. She felt that she should ask him to provide a carriage
for her back to Barchester. Mrs. Clantantram she knew would give her
a seat. She knew that she should not throw herself entirely upon
friends whose friendship dated, as it were, but from yesterday. But
yet she could not say no to one who was so sisterly in her kindness,
so eager in her good nature, so comfortably sympathetic as Charlotte
Stanhope. And thus she gave way to all the propositions made to her.

They first went into the dining-room, looking for their champion, and
from thence to the drawing-room. Here they found Mr. Arabin, still
hanging over the signora's sofa; or rather they found him sitting near
her head, as a physician might have sat had the lady been his patient.
There was no other person in the room. The guests were some in the
tent, some few still in the dining room, some at the bows and arrows,
but most of them walking with Miss Thorne through the park and looking
at the games that were going on.

All that had passed, and was passing between Mr. Arabin and the lady,
it is unnecessary to give in detail. She was doing with him as she
did with all others. It was her mission to make fools of men, and she
was pursuing her mission with Mr. Arabin. She had almost got him to
own his love for Mrs. Bold and had subsequently almost induced him to
acknowledge a passion for herself. He, poor man, was hardly aware what
he was doing or saying, hardly conscious whether was in heaven or in
hell. So little had he known of female attractions of that peculiar
class which the signora owned, that he became affected with a kind
of temporary delirium when first subjected to its power. He lost his
head rather than this heart, and toppled about mentally, reeling in
his ideas as a drunken man does on his legs. She had whispered to him
words that really meant nothing but which, coming from such beautiful
lips and accompanied by such lustrous glances, seemed to have a
mysterious significance, which he felt though he could not understand.

In being thus besirened, Mr. Arabin behaved himself very differently
from Mr. Slope. The signora had said truly that the two men were the
contrasts of each other--that the one was all for action, the other
all for thought. Mr. Slope, when this lady laid upon his senses the
overpowering breath of her charms, immediately attempted to obtain
some fruition, to achieve some mighty triumph. He began by catching
at her hand and progressed by kissing it. He made vows of love and
asked for vows in return. He promised everlasting devotion, knelt
before her, and swore that had she been on Mount Ida, Juno would have
had no cause to hate the offspring of Venus. But Mr. Arabin uttered
no oaths, kept his hand mostly in his trousers pocket, and had no
more thought of kissing Madame Neroni than of kissing the Countess De
Courcy.

As soon as Mr. Arabin saw Mrs. Bold enter the room he blushed and
rose from his chair; then he sat down again, and then again got up.
The signora saw the blush at once and smiled at the poor victim, but
Eleanor was too much confused to see anything.

"Oh, Madeline," said Charlotte, "I want to speak to you particularly;
we must arrange about the carriage, you know," and she stooped down
to whisper to her sister. Mr. Arabin immediately withdrew to a little
distance, and as Charlotte had in fact much to explain before she
could make the new carriage arrangement intelligible, he had nothing
to do but to talk to Mrs. Bold.

"We have had a very pleasant party," said he, using the tone he would
have used had he declared that the sun was shining very brightly, or
the rain falling very fast.

"Very," said Eleanor, who never in her life had passed a more
unpleasant day.

"I hope Mr. Harding has enjoyed himself."

"Oh, yes, very much," said Eleanor, who had not seen her father since
she parted from him soon after her arrival.

"He returns to Barchester to-night, I suppose."

"Yes, I believe so--that is, I think he is staying at Plumstead."

"Oh, staying at Plumstead," said Mr. Arabin.

"He came from there this morning. I believe he is going back, he
didn't exactly say, however."

"I hope Mrs. Grantly is quite well."

"She seemed to be quite well. She is here; that is, unless she has
gone away."

"Oh, yes, to be sure. I was talking to her. Looking very well indeed."
Then there was a considerable pause; for Charlotte could not at once
make Madeline understand why she was to be sent home in a hurry
without her brother.

"Are you returning to Plumstead, Mrs. Bold?" Mr. Arabin merely asked
this by way of making conversation, but he immediately perceived that
he was approaching dangerous ground.

"No," said Mrs. Bold very quietly; "I am going home to Barchester."

"Oh, ah, yes. I had forgotten that you had returned." And then Mr.
Arabin, finding it impossible to say anything further, stood silent
till Charlotte had completed her plans, and Mrs. Bold stood equally
silent, intently occupied as it appeared in the arrangement of her
rings.

And yet these two people were thoroughly in love with each other; and
though one was a middle-aged clergyman, and the other a lady at any
rate past the wishy-washy bread-and-butter period of life, they were
as unable to tell their own minds to each other as any Damon and
Phillis, whose united ages would not make up that to which Mr. Arabin
had already attained.

Madeline Neroni consented to her sister's proposal, and then the two
ladies again went off in quest of Bertie Stanhope.




CHAPTER XLII

Ullathorne Sports--Act III


And now Miss Thorne's guests were beginning to take their departure,
and the amusement of those who remained was becoming slack. It was
getting dark, and ladies in morning costumes were thinking that, if
they were to appear by candlelight, they ought to readjust themselves.
Some young gentlemen had been heard to talk so loud that prudent
mammas determined to retire judiciously, and the more discreet of the
male sex, whose libations had been moderate, felt that there was not
much more left for them to do.

Morning parties, as a rule, are failures. People never know how to
get away from them gracefully. A picnic on an island or a mountain
or in a wood may perhaps be permitted. There is no master of the
mountain bound by courtesy to bid you stay while in his heart he is
longing for your departure. But in a private house or in private
grounds a morning party is a bore. One is called on to eat and drink
at unnatural hours. One is obliged to give up the day, which is
useful, and is then left without resource for the evening, which is
useless. One gets home fagged and _desoeuvre_, and yet at an hour too
early for bed. There is no comfortable resource left. Cards in these
genteel days are among the things tabooed, and a rubber of whist is
impracticable.

All this began now to be felt. Some young people had come with some
amount of hope that they might get up a dance in the evening, and
were unwilling to leave till all such hope was at an end. Others,
fearful of staying longer than was expected, had ordered their
carriages early, and were doing their best to go, solicitous for
their servants and horses. The countess and her noble brood were
among the first to leave, and as regarded the Hon. George, it was
certainly time that he did so. Her ladyship was in a great fret and
fume. Those horrid roads would, she was sure, be the death of her if
unhappily she were caught in them by the dark night. The lamps she
was assured were good, but no lamp could withstand the jolting of the
roads of East Barsetshire. The De Courcy property lay in the western
division of the county.

Mrs. Proudie could not stay when the countess was gone. So the bishop
was searched for by the Revs. Messrs. Grey and Green and found in one
corner of the tent enjoying himself thoroughly in a disquisition on
the hebdomadal board. He obeyed, however, the behests of his lady
without finishing the sentence in which he was promising to Dr.
Gwynne that his authority at Oxford should remain unimpaired, and the
episcopal horses turned their noses towards the palatial stables. Then
the Grantlys went. Before they did so, Mr. Harding managed to whisper
a word into his daughter's ear. Of course, he said, he would undeceive
the Grantlys as to that foolish rumour about Mr. Slope.

"No, no, no," said Eleanor; "pray do not--pray wait till I see you.
You will be home in a day or two, and then I will I explain to you
everything."

"I shall be home to-morrow," said he.

"I am so glad," said Eleanor. "You will come and dine with me, and
then we shall be so comfortable."

Mr. Harding promised. He did not exactly know what there was to be
explained, or why Dr. Grantly's mind should not be disabused of the
mistake into which he had fallen, but nevertheless he promised. He
owed some reparation to his daughter, and he thought that he might
best make it by obedience.

And thus the people were thinning off by degrees as Charlotte and
Eleanor walked about in quest of Bertie. Their search might have been
long had they not happened to hear his voice. He was comfortably
ensconced in the ha-ha, with his back to the sloping side, smoking a
cigar, and eagerly engaged in conversation with some youngster from
the further side of the county, whom he had never met before, who was
also smoking under Bertie's pupilage and listening with open ears to
an account given by his companion of some of the pastimes of Eastern
clime.

"Bertie, I am seeking you everywhere," said Charlotte. "Come up here
at once."

Bertie looked up out of the ha-ha and saw the two ladies before him.
As there was nothing for him but to obey, he got up and threw away
his cigar. From the first moment of his acquaintance with her he had
liked Eleanor Bold. Had he been left to his own devices, had she
been penniless, and had it then been quite out of the question that
he should marry her, he would most probably have fallen violently in
love with her. But now he could not help regarding her somewhat as
he did the marble workshops at Carrara, as he had done his easel and
palette, as he had done the lawyer's chambers in London--in fact, as
he had invariably regarded everything by which it had been proposed
to him to obtain the means of living. Eleanor Bold appeared before
him, no longer as a beautiful woman, but as a new profession called
matrimony. It was a profession indeed requiring but little labour,
and one in which an income was insured to him. But nevertheless he
had been as it were goaded on to it; his sister had talked to him of
Eleanor, just as she had talked of busts and portraits. Bertie did
not dislike money, but he hated the very thought of earning it. He
was now called away from his pleasant cigar to earn it, by offering
himself as a husband to Mrs. Bold. The work indeed was made easy
enough, for in lieu of his having to seek the widow, the widow had
apparently come to seek him.

He made some sudden absurd excuse to his auditor and then, throwing
away his cigar, climbed up the wall of the ha-ha and joined the ladies
on the lawn.

"Come and give Mrs. Bold an arm," said Charlotte, "while I set you on
a piece of duty which, as a _preux chevalier_, you must immediately
perform. Your personal danger will, I fear, be insignificant, as your
antagonist is a clergyman."

Bertie immediately gave his arm to Eleanor, walking between her and
his sister. He had lived too long abroad to fall into the Englishman's
habit of offering each an arm to two ladies at the same time--a habit,
by the by, which foreigners regard as an approach to bigamy, or a sort
of incipient Mormonism.

The little history of Mr. Slope's misconduct was then told to Bertie
by his sister, Eleanor's ears tingling the while. And well they might
tingle. If it were necessary to speak of the outrage at all, why
should it be spoken of to such a person as Mr. Stanhope, and why
in her own hearing? She knew she was wrong, and was unhappy and
dispirited, yet she could think of no way to extricate herself, no way
to set herself right. Charlotte spared her as much as she possibly
could, spoke of the whole thing as though Mr. Slope had taken a glass
of wine too much, said that of course there would be nothing more
about it, but that steps must be taken to exclude Mr. Slope from the
carriage.

"Mrs. Bold need be under no alarm about that," said Bertie, "for
Mr. Slope has gone this hour past. He told me that business made it
necessary that he should start at once for Barchester."

"He is not so tipsy, at any rate, but what he knows his fault," said
Charlotte. "Well, my dear, that is one difficulty over. Now I'll
leave you with your true knight and get Madeline off as quickly as I
can. The carriage is here, I suppose, Bertie?"

"It has been here for the last hour."

"That's well. Good-bye, my dear. Of course you'll come in to tea. I
shall trust to you to bring her, Bertie, even by force if necessary."
And so saying, Charlotte ran off across the lawn, leaving her brother
alone with the widow.

As Miss Stanhope went off, Eleanor bethought herself that, as Mr.
Slope had taken his departure, there no longer existed any necessity
for separating Mr. Stanhope from his sister Madeline, who so much
needed his aid. It had been arranged that he should remain so as to
preoccupy Mr. Slope's place in the carriage, and act as a social
policeman to effect the exclusion of that disagreeable gentleman. But
Mr. Slope had effected his own exclusion, and there was no possible
reason now why Bertie should not go with his sister--at least Eleanor
saw none, and she said as much.

"Oh, let Charlotte have her own way," said he. "She has arranged it,
and there will be no end of confusion if we make another change.
Charlotte always arranges everything in our house and rules us like a
despot."

"But the signora?" said Eleanor.

"Oh, the signora can do very well without me. Indeed, she will have
to do without me," he added, thinking rather of his studies in Carrara
than of his Barchester hymeneals.

"Why, you are not going to leave us?" asked Eleanor.

It has been said that Bertie Stanhope was a man without principle. He
certainly was so. He had no power of using active mental exertion to
keep himself from doing evil. Evil had no ugliness in his eyes; virtue
no beauty. He was void of any of these feelings which actuate men to
do good. But he was perhaps equally void of those which actuate men to
do evil. He got into debt with utter recklessness, thinking nothing
as to whether the tradesmen would ever be paid or not. But he did not
invent active schemes of deceit for the sake of extracting the goods
of others. If a man gave him credit, that was the man's look-out;
Bertie Stanhope troubled himself nothing further. In borrowing money
he did the same; he gave people references to "his governor;" told
them that the "old chap" had a good income; and agreed to pay sixty
per cent for the accommodation. All this he did without a scruple of
conscience; but then he never contrived active villainy.

In this affair of his marriage it had been represented to him as a
matter of duty that he ought to put himself in possession of Mrs.
Bold's hand and fortune, and at first he had so regarded it. About
her he had thought but little. It was the customary thing for men
situated as he was to marry for money, and there was no reason why
he should not do what others around him did. And so he consented.
But now he began to see the matter in another light. He was setting
himself down to catch this woman, as a cat sits to catch a mouse.
He was to catch her, and swallow her up, her and her child, and her
houses and land, in order that he might live on her instead of on
his father. There was a cold, calculating, cautious cunning about
this quite at variance with Bertie's character. The prudence of the
measure was quite as antagonistic to his feelings as the iniquity.

And then, should he be successful, what would be the reward? Having
satisfied his creditors with half of the widow's fortune, he would be
allowed to sit down quietly at Barchester, keeping economical house
with the remainder. His duty would be to rock the cradle of the
late Mr. Bold's child, and his highest excitement a demure party at
Plumstead Rectory, should it ultimately turn out that the archdeacon
would be sufficiently reconciled to receive him.

There was very little in the programme to allure such a man as Bertie
Stanhope. Would not the Carrara workshop, or whatever worldly career
fortune might have in store for him, would not almost anything be
better than this? The lady herself was undoubtedly all that was
desirable, but the most desirable lady becomes nauseous when she has
to be taken as a pill. He was pledged to his sister, however, and let
him quarrel with whom he would, it behoved him not to quarrel with
her. If she were lost to him, all would be lost that he could ever
hope to derive henceforward from the paternal roof-tree. His mother
was apparently indifferent to his weal or woe, to his wants or his
warfare. His father's brow got blacker and blacker from day to day,
as the old man looked at his hopeless son. And as for Madeline--poor
Madeline, whom of all of them he liked the best--she had enough to do
to shift for herself. No; come what might, he must cling to his sister
and obey her behests, let them be ever so stern--or at the very least
seem to obey them. Could not some happy deceit bring him through in
this matter, so that he might save appearances with his sister and
yet not betray the widow to her ruin? What if he made a confederate
of Eleanor? 'Twas in this spirit that Bertie Stanhope set about his
wooing.

"But you are not going to leave Barchester?" asked Eleanor.

"I do not know," he replied; "I hardly know yet what I am going to
do. But it is at any rate certain that I must do something."

"You mean about your profession?" said she.

"Yes, about my profession, if you can call it one."

"And is it not one?" said Eleanor. "Were I a man, I know none I should
prefer to it, except painting. And I believe the one is as much in
your power as the other."

"Yes, just about equally so," said Bertie with a little touch of
inward satire directed at himself. He knew in his heart that he would
never make a penny by either.

"I have often wondered, Mr. Stanhope, why you do not exert yourself
more," said Eleanor, who felt a friendly fondness for the man with
whom she was walking. "But I know it is very impertinent in me to say
so."

"Impertinent!" said he. "Not so, but much too kind. It is much too
kind in you to take any interest in so idle a scamp."

"But you are not a scamp, though you are perhaps idle. And I do take
an interest in you, a very great interest," she added in a voice
which almost made him resolve to change his mind. "And when I call
you idle, I know you are only so for the present moment. Why can't
you settle steadily to work here in Barchester?"

"And make busts of the bishop, dean, and chapter? Or perhaps, if I
achieve a great success, obtain a commission to put up an elaborate
tombstone over a prebendary's widow, a dead lady with a Grecian nose,
a bandeau, and an intricate lace veil; lying of course on a marble
sofa from among the legs of which death will be creeping out and
poking at his victim with a small toasting-fork."