Barchester Towers

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Eleanor laughed, but yet she thought that if the surviving prebendary
paid the bill, the object of the artist as a professional man would
in a great measure be obtained.

"I don't know about the dean and chapter and the prebendary's widow,"
said Eleanor. "Of course you must take them as they come. But the fact
of your having a great cathedral in which such ornaments are required
could not but be in your favour."

"No real artist could descend to the ornamentation of a cathedral,"
said Bertie, who had his ideas of the high ecstatic ambition of art,
as indeed all artists have who are not in receipt of a good income.
"Buildings should be fitted to grace the sculpture, not the sculpture
to grace the building."

"Yes, when the work of art is good enough to merit it. Do you, Mr.
Stanhope, do something sufficiently excellent and we ladies of
Barchester will erect for it a fitting receptacle. Come, what shall
the subject be?"

"I'll put you in your pony chair, Mrs. Bold, as Dannecker put Ariadne
on her lion. Only you must promise to sit for me."

"My ponies are too tame, I fear, and my broad-brimmed straw hat will
not look so well in marble as the lace veil of the prebendary's wife."

"If you will not consent to that, Mrs. Bold, I will consent to try no
other subject in Barchester."

"You are determined then to push your fortune in other lands?"

"I am determined," said Bertie slowly and significantly, as he tried
to bring up his mind to a great resolve; "I am determined in this
matter to be guided wholly by you."

"Wholly by me?" said Eleanor, astonished at, and not quite liking, his
altered manner.

"Wholly by you," said Bertie, dropping his companion's arm and
standing before her on the path. In their walk they had come exactly
to the spot in which Eleanor had been provoked into slapping Mr.
Slope's face. Could it be possible that this place was peculiarly
unpropitious to her comfort? Could it be possible that she should
here have to encounter yet another amorous swain?

"If you will be guided by me, Mr. Stanhope, you will set yourself
down to steady and persevering work, and you will be ruled by your
father as to the place in which it will be most advisable for you to
do so."

"Nothing could be more prudent, if only it were practicable. But now,
if you will let me, I will tell you how it is that I will be guided
by you, and why. Will you let me tell you?"

"I really do not know what you can have to tell."

"No, you cannot know. It is impossible that you should. But we have
been very good friends, Mrs. Bold, have we not?"

"Yes, I think we have," said she, observing in his demeanour an
earnestness very unusual with him.

"You were kind enough to say just now that you took an interest in me,
and I was perhaps vain enough to believe you."

"There is no vanity in that; I do so as your sister's brother--and as
my own friend also."

"Well, I don't deserve that you should feel so kindly towards me,"
said Bertie, "but upon my word I am very grateful for it," and he
paused awhile, hardly knowing how to introduce the subject that he
had in hand.

And it was no wonder that he found it difficult. He had to make known
to his companion the scheme that had been prepared to rob her of her
wealth, he had to tell her that he had intended to marry her without
loving her, or else that he loved her without intending to marry her;
and he had also to bespeak from her not only his own pardon, but also
that of his sister, and induce Mrs. Bold to protest in her future
communion with Charlotte that an offer had been duly made to her and
duly rejected.

Bertie Stanhope was not prone to be very diffident of his own
conversational powers, but it did seem to him that he was about to
tax them almost too far. He hardly knew where to begin, and he hardly
knew where he should end.

By this time Eleanor was again walking on slowly by his side, not
taking his arm as she had heretofore done but listening very intently
for whatever Bertie might have to say to her.

"I wish to be guided by you," said he; "indeed, in this matter there
is no one else who can set me right."

"Oh, that must be nonsense," said she.

"Well, listen to me now, Mrs. Bold, and if you can help it, pray don't
be angry with me."

"Angry!" said she.

"Oh, indeed you will have cause to be so. You know how very much
attached to you my sister Charlotte is."

Eleanor acknowledged that she did.

"Indeed she is; I never knew her to love anyone so warmly on so short
an acquaintance. You know also how well she loves me?"

Eleanor now made no answer, but she felt the blood tingle in her
cheek as she gathered from what he said the probable result of this
double-barrelled love on the part of Miss Stanhope.

"I am her only brother, Mrs. Bold, and it is not to be wondered at
that she should love me. But you do not yet know Charlotte--you do
not know how entirely the well-being of our family hangs on her.
Without her to manage for us, I do not know how we should get on from
day to day. You cannot yet have observed all this."

Eleanor had indeed observed a good deal of this; she did not, however,
now say so, but allowed him to proceed with his story.

"You cannot therefore be surprised that Charlotte should be most
anxious to do the best for us all."

Eleanor said that she was not at all surprised.

"And she has had a very difficult game to play, Mrs. Bold--a very
difficult game. Poor Madeline's unfortunate marriage and terrible
accident, my mother's ill-health, my father's absence from England,
and last, and worse perhaps, my own roving, idle spirit have almost
been too much for her. You cannot wonder if among all her cares one
of the foremost is to see me settled in the world."

Eleanor on this occasion expressed no acquiescence. She certainly
supposed that a formal offer was to be made and could not but think
that so singular an exordium was never before made by a gentleman in
a similar position. Mr. Slope had annoyed her by the excess of his
ardour. It was quite clear that no such danger was to be feared from
Mr. Stanhope. Prudential motives alone actuated him. Not only was
he about to make love because his sister told him, but he also took
the precaution of explaining all this before he began. 'Twas thus,
we may presume, that the matter presented itself to Mrs. Bold.

When he had got so far, Bertie began poking the gravel with a little
cane which he carried. He still kept moving on, but very slowly, and
his companion moved slowly by his side, not inclined to assist him in
the task the performance of which appeared to be difficult to him.

"Knowing how fond she is of yourself, Mrs. Bold, cannot you imagine
what scheme should have occurred to her?"

"I can imagine no better scheme, Mr. Stanhope, than the one I
proposed to you just now."

"No," said he somewhat lackadaisically; "I suppose that would be the
best, but Charlotte thinks another plan might be joined with it. She
wants me to marry you."

A thousand remembrances flashed across Eleanor's mind all in a
moment--how Charlotte had talked about and praised her brother, how
she had continually contrived to throw the two of them together,
how she had encouraged all manner of little intimacies, how she had
with singular cordiality persisted in treating Eleanor as one of the
family. All this had been done to secure her comfortable income for
the benefit of one of the family!

Such a feeling as this is very bitter when it first impresses itself
on a young mind. To the old, such plots and plans, such matured
schemes for obtaining the goods of this world without the trouble of
earning them, such long-headed attempts to convert "tuum" into "meum"
are the ways of life to which they are accustomed. 'Tis thus that
many live, and it therefore behoves all those who are well-to-do in
the world to be on their guard against those who are not. With them
it is the success that disgusts, not the attempt. But Eleanor had
not yet learnt to look on her money as a source of danger; she had
not begun to regard herself as fair game to be hunted down by hungry
gentlemen. She had enjoyed the society of the Stanhopes, she had
greatly liked the cordiality of Charlotte, and had been happy in her
new friends. Now she saw the cause of all this kindness, and her
mind was opened to a new phase of human life.

"Miss Stanhope," said she haughtily, "has been contriving for me a
great deal of honour, but she might have saved herself the trouble.
I am not sufficiently ambitious."

"Pray don't be angry with her, Mrs. Bold," said he, "or with me
either."

"Certainly not with you, Mr. Stanhope," said she with considerable
sarcasm in her tone. "Certainly not with you."

"No--nor with her," said he imploringly.

"And why, may I ask you, Mr. Stanhope, have you told me this singular
story? For I may presume I may judge by your manner of telling it
that--that--that you and your sister are not exactly of one mind on
the subject."

"No, we are not."

"And if so," said Mrs. Bold, who was now really angry with the
unnecessary insult which she thought had been offered to her. "And
if so, why has it been worth your while to tell me all this?"

"I did once think, Mrs. Bold--that you--that you--"

The widow now again became entirely impassive, and would not lend the
slightest assistance to her companion.

"I did once think that you perhaps might--might have been taught to
regard me as more than a friend."

"Never!" said Mrs. Bold, "never. If I have ever allowed myself to
do anything to encourage such an idea, I have been very much to
blame--very much to blame indeed."

"You never have," said Bertie, who really had a good-natured anxiety
to make what he said as little unpleasant as possible. "You never
have, and I have seen for some time that I had no chance--but my
sister's hopes ran higher. I have not mistaken you, Mrs. Bold, though
perhaps she has."

"Then why have you said all this to me?"

"Because I must not anger her."

"And will not this anger her? Upon my word, Mr. Stanhope, I do not
understand the policy of your family. Oh, how I wish I was at home!"
And as she expressed the wish she could restrain herself no longer
and burst out into a flood of tears.

Poor Bertie was greatly moved. "You shall have the carriage to
yourself going home," said he; "at least you and my father. As for
me, I can walk, or for the matter of that it does not much signify
what I do." He perfectly understood that part of Eleanor's grief
arose from the apparent necessity of her going back to Barchester
in the carriage with her second suitor.

This somewhat mollified her. "Oh, Mr. Stanhope," said she, "why
should you have made me so miserable? What will you have gained by
telling me all this?"

He had not even yet explained to her the most difficult part of his
proposition; he had not told her that she was to be a party to the
little deception which he intended to play off upon his sister. This
suggestion had still to be made, and as it was absolutely necessary,
he proceeded to make it.

We need not follow him through the whole of his statement. At last,
and not without considerable difficulty, he made Eleanor understand
why he had let her into his confidence, seeing that he no longer
intended her the honour of a formal offer. At last he made her
comprehend the part which she was destined to play in this little
family comedy.

But when she did understand it, she was only more angry with him than
ever; more angry, not only with him, but with Charlotte also. Her fair
name was to be bandied about between them in different senses, and
each sense false. She was to be played off by the sister against the
father, and then by the brother against the sister. Her dear friend
Charlotte, with all her agreeable sympathy and affection, was striving
to sacrifice her for the Stanhope family welfare; and Bertie, who, as
he now proclaimed himself, was over head and ears in debt, completed
the compliment of owning that he did not care to have his debts paid
at so great a sacrifice of himself. Then she was asked to conspire
together with this unwilling suitor for the sake of making the family
believe that he had in obedience to their commands done his best to
throw himself thus away!

She lifted up her face when he had finished, and looking at him with
much dignity, even through her tears, she said:

"I regret to say it, Mr. Stanhope, but after what has passed I believe
that all intercourse between your family and myself had better cease."

"Well, perhaps it had," said Bertie naively; "perhaps that will be
better at any rate for a time; and then Charlotte will think you are
offended at what I have done."

"And now I will go back to the house, if you please," said Eleanor.
"I can find my way by myself, Mr. Stanhope: after what has passed,"
she added, "I would rather go alone."

"But I must find the carriage for you, Mrs. Bold; and I must tell
my father that you will return with him alone; and I must make some
excuse to him for not going with you; and I must bid the servant put
you down at your own house, for I suppose you will not now choose to
see them again in the close."

There was a truth about this, and a perspicuity in making arrangements
for lessening her immediate embarrassment, which had some effect in
softening Eleanor's anger. So she suffered herself to walk by his side
over the now deserted lawn, till they came to the drawing-room window.
There was something about Bertie Stanhope which gave him, in the
estimation of everyone, a different standing from that which any other
man would occupy under similar circumstances. Angry as Eleanor was,
and great as was her cause for anger, she was not half as angry with
him as she would have been with anyone else. He was apparently so
simple, so good-natured, so unaffected and easy to talk to, that
she had already half-forgiven him before he was at the drawing-room
window.

When they arrived there, Dr. Stanhope was sitting nearly alone with
Mr. and Miss Thorne; one or two other unfortunates were there, who
from one cause or another were still delayed in getting away, but
they were every moment getting fewer in number.

As soon as he had handed Eleanor over to his father, Bertie started
off to the front gate in search of the carriage, and there he waited
leaning patiently against the front wall, comfortably smoking a
cigar, till it came up. When he returned to the room, Dr. Stanhope
and Eleanor were alone with their hosts.

"At last, Miss Thorne," said he cheerily, "I have come to relieve
you. Mrs. Bold and my father are the last roses of the very delightful
summer you have given us, and desirable as Mrs. Bold's society always
is, now at least you must be glad to see the last flowers plucked from
the tree."

Miss Thorne declared that she was delighted to have Mrs. Bold and Dr.
Stanhope still with her, and Mr. Thorne would have said the same, had
he not been checked by a yawn, which he could not suppress.

"Father, will you give your arm to Mrs. Bold?" said Bertie: and so
the last adieux were made, and the prebendary led out Mrs. Bold,
followed by his son.

"I shall be home soon after you," said he as the two got into the
carriage.

"Are you not coming in the carriage?" said the father.

"No, no; I have someone to see on the road, and shall walk. John,
mind you drive to Mrs. Bold's house first."

Eleanor, looking out of the window, saw him with his hat in his hand,
bowing to her with his usual gay smile, as though nothing had happened
to mar the tranquillity of the day. It was many a long year before
she saw him again. Dr. Stanhope hardly spoke to her on her way home,
and she was safely deposited by John at her own hall-door before the
carriage drove into the close.

And thus our heroine played the last act of that day's melodrama.




CHAPTER XLIII

Mr. and Mrs. Quiverful Are Made Happy.
Mr. Slope is Encouraged by the Press


Before she started for Ullathorne, Mrs. Proudie, careful soul, caused
two letters to be written, one by herself and one by her lord, to the
inhabitants of Puddingdale vicarage, which made happy the hearth of
those within it.

As soon as the departure of the horses left the bishop's stable-groom
free for other services, that humble denizen of the diocese started
on the bishop's own pony with the two dispatches. We have had so
many letters lately that we will spare ourselves these. That from
the bishop was simply a request that Mr. Quiverful would wait upon
his lordship the next morning at 11 A.M.; that from the lady was as
simply a request that Mrs. Quiverful would do the same by her, though
it was couched in somewhat longer and more grandiloquent phraseology.

It had become a point of conscience with Mrs. Proudie to urge the
settlement of this great hospital question. She was resolved that
Mr. Quiverful should have it. She was resolved that there should be
no more doubt or delay, no more refusals and resignations, no more
secret negotiations carried on by Mr. Slope on his own account in
opposition to her behests.

"Bishop," she said immediately after breakfast on the morning of that
eventful day, "have you signed the appointment yet?"

"No, my dear, not yet; it is not exactly signed as yet."

"Then do it," said the lady.

The bishop did it, and a very pleasant day indeed he spent at
Ullathorne. And when he got home, he had a glass of hot negus in his
wife's sitting-room, and read the last number of the Little Dorrit of
the day with great inward satisfaction. Oh, husbands, oh, my marital
friends, what great comfort is there to be derived from a wife well
obeyed!

Much perturbation and flutter, high expectation and renewed hopes,
were occasioned at Puddingdale, by the receipt of these episcopal
dispatches. Mrs. Quiverful, whose careful ear caught the sound of
the pony's feet as he trotted up to the vicarage kitchen door,
brought them in hurriedly to her husband. She was at the moment
concocting the Irish stew destined to satisfy the noonday wants of
fourteen young birds, let alone the parent couple. She had taken the
letters from the man's hands between the folds of her capacious apron
so as to save them from the contamination of the stew, and in this
guise she brought them to her husband's desk.

They at once divided the spoil, each taking that addressed to the
other. "Quiverful," said she with impressive voice, "you are to be
at the palace at eleven to-morrow."

"And so are you, my dear," said he, almost gasping with the
importance of the tidings--and then they exchanged letters.

"She'd never have sent for me again," said the lady, "if it wasn't
all right."

"Oh, my dear, don't be too certain," said the gentleman, "Only think
if it should be wrong."

"She'd never have sent for me, Q., if it wasn't all right," again
argued the lady. "She's stiff and hard and proud as piecrust, but I
think she's right at bottom." Such was Mrs. Quiverful's verdict about
Mrs. Proudie, to which in after times she always adhered. People
when they get their income doubled usually think that those through
whose instrumentality this little ceremony is performed are right at
bottom.

"Oh, Letty!" said Mr. Quiverful, rising from his well-worn seat.

"Oh, Q.!" said Mrs. Quiverful, and then the two, unmindful of the
kitchen apron, the greasy fingers, and the adherent Irish stew, threw
themselves warmly into each other's arms.

"For heaven's sake, don't let anyone cajole you out of it again,"
said the wife.

"Let me alone for that," said the husband with a look of almost
fierce determination, pressing his fist as he spoke rigidly on his
desk, as though he had Mr. Slope's head below his knuckles and meant
to keep it there.

"I wonder how soon it will be?" said she.

"I wonder whether it will be at all?" said he, still doubtful.

"Well, I won't say too much," said the lady. "The cup has slipped
twice before, and it may fall altogether this time, but I'll not
believe it. He'll give you the appointment to-morrow. You'll find
he will."

"Heaven send he may," said Mr. Quiverful solemnly. And who that
considers the weight of the burden on this man's back will say that
the prayer was an improper one? There were fourteen of them--fourteen
of them living--as Mrs. Quiverful had so powerfully urged in the
presence of the bishop's wife. As long as promotion cometh from any
human source, whether north or south, east or west, will not such a
claim as this hold good, in spite of all our examination tests, _detur
digniori's_, and optimist tendencies? It is fervently to be hoped that
it may. Till we can become divine, we must be content to be human,
lest in our hurry for a change we sink to something lower.

And then the pair, sitting down lovingly together, talked over all
their difficulties, as they so often did, and all their hopes, as they
so seldom were enabled to do.

"You had better call on that man, Q., as you come away from the
palace," said Mrs. Quiverful, pointing to an angry call for money
from the Barchester draper, which the postman had left at the
vicarage that morning. Cormorant that he was, unjust, hungry
cormorant! When rumour first got abroad that the Quiverfuls were to
go to the hospital, this fellow with fawning eagerness had pressed
his goods upon the wants of the poor clergyman. He had done so,
feeling that he should be paid from the hospital funds, and
flattering himself that a man with fourteen children, and money
wherewithal to clothe them, could not but be an excellent customer.
As soon as the second rumour reached him, he applied for his money
angrily.

And "the fourteen"--or such of them as were old enough to hope and
discuss their hopes--talked over their golden future. The tall grown
girls whispered to each other of possible Barchester parties, of
possible allowances for dress, of a possible piano--the one they had
in the vicarage was so weather-beaten with the storms of years and
children as to be no longer worthy of the name--of the pretty garden,
and the pretty house. 'Twas of such things it most behoved them to
whisper.

And the younger fry, they did not content themselves with whispers,
but shouted to each other of their new playground beneath our dear
ex-warden's well-loved elms, of their future own gardens, of marbles
to be procured in the wished-for city, and of the rumour which had
reached them of a Barchester school.

'Twas in vain that their cautious mother tried to instil into their
breasts the very feeling she had striven to banish from that of their
father; 'twas in vain that she repeated to the girls that "there's
many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip;" 'twas in vain she attempted
to make the children believe that they were to live at Puddingdale
all their lives. Hopes mounted high, and would not have themselves
quelled. The neighbouring farmers heard the news and came in to
congratulate them. 'Twas Mrs. Quiverful herself who had kindled the
fire, and in the first outbreak of her renewed expectations she did
it so thoroughly that it was quite past her power to put it out
again.

Poor matron! Good, honest matron, doing thy duty in the state to
which thou hast been called, heartily if not contentedly; let the
fire burn on; on this occasion the flames will not scorch; they shall
warm thee and thine. 'Tis ordained that that husband of thine, that
Q. of thy bosom, shall reign supreme for years to come over the
bedesmen of Hiram's Hospital.

And the last in all Barchester to mar their hopes, had he heard and
seen all that passed at Puddingdale that day, would have been Mr.
Harding. What wants had he to set in opposition to those of such a
regiment of young ravens? There are fourteen of them living! With
him, at any rate, let us say that that argument would have been
sufficient for the appointment of Mr. Quiverful.

In the morning Q. and his wife kept their appointments with that
punctuality which bespeaks an expectant mind. The friendly farmer's
gig was borrowed, and in that they went, discussing many things by
the way. They had instructed the household to expect them back by
one, and injunctions were given to the eldest pledge to have ready
by that accustomed hour the remainder of the huge stew which the
provident mother had prepared on the previous day. The hands of the
kitchen clock came round to two, three, four, before the farmer's gig
wheels were again heard at the vicarage gate. With what palpitating
hearts were the returning wanderers greeted!

"I suppose, children, you all thought we were never coming back any
more?" said the mother as she slowly let down her solid foot till it
rested on the step of the gig. "Well, such a day as we've had!" and
then leaning heavily on a big boy's shoulder, she stepped once more
on terra firma.

There was no need for more than the tone of her voice to tell them
that all was right. The Irish stew might burn itself to cinders now.

Then there was such kissing and hugging, such crying and laughing.
Mr. Quiverful could not sit still at all, but kept walking from room
to room, then out into the garden, then down the avenue into the
road, and then back again to his wife. She, however, lost no time so
idly.