Barchester Towers

A >> Anthony Trollope >> Barchester Towers


"Four hundred and fifty," said she, "instead of eight hundred! Well,
that is rather shabby. But still, Papa, you'll have the dear old
house and the garden?"

"My dear," said he, "it's worth twice the money;" and as he spoke he
showed a jaunty kind of satisfaction in his tone and manner and in
the quick, pleasant way in which he paced Eleanor's drawing-room.
"It's worth twice the money. I shall have the house and the garden
and a larger income than I can possibly want."

"At any rate, you'll have no extravagant daughter to provide for;"
and as she spoke, the young widow put her arm within his, and made
him sit on the sofa beside her; "at any rate, you'll not have that
expense."

"No, my dear, and I shall be rather lonely without her; but we won't
think of that now. As regards income, I shall have plenty for all I
want. I shall have my old house, and I don't mind owning now that I
have felt sometimes the inconvenience of living in a lodging. Lodgings
are very nice for young men, but at my time of life there is a want
of--I hardly know what to call it, perhaps not respectability--"

"Oh, Papa! I'm sure there's been nothing like that. Nobody has
thought it; nobody in all Barchester has been more respected than
you have been since you took those rooms in High Street. Nobody! Not
the dean in his deanery, or the archdeacon out at Plumstead."

"The archdeacon would not be much obliged to you if he heard you,"
said he, smiling somewhat at the exclusive manner in which his
daughter confined her illustration to the church dignitaries of
the chapter of Barchester; "but at any rate I shall be glad to get
back to the old house. Since I heard that it was all settled, I
have begun to fancy that I can't be comfortable without my two
sitting-rooms."

"Come and stay with me, Papa, till it is settled--there's a dear
Papa."

"Thank ye, Nelly. But no, I won't do that. It would make two
movings. I shall be very glad to get back to my old men again.
Alas! alas! There have six of them gone in these few last years.
Six out of twelve! And the others I fear have had but a sorry life
of it there. Poor Bunce, poor old Bunce!"

Bunce was one of the surviving recipients of Hiram's charity, an old
man, now over ninety, who had long been a favourite of Mr. Harding's.

"How happy old Bunce will be," said Mrs. Bold, clapping her soft
hands softly. "How happy they all will be to have you back again.
You may be sure there will soon be friendship among them again when
you are there."

"But," said he, half-laughing, "I am to have new troubles, which will
be terrible to me. There are to be twelve old women, and a matron.
How shall I manage twelve women and a matron!"

"The matron will manage the women, of course."

"And who'll manage the matron?" said he.

"She won't want to be managed. She'll be a great lady herself, I
suppose. But, Papa, where will the matron live? She is not to live
in the warden's house with you, is she?"

"Well, I hope not, my dear."

"Oh, Papa, I tell you fairly, I won't have a matron for a new
stepmother."

"You shan't, my dear; that is, if I can help it. But they are going
to build another house for the matron and the women, and I believe
they haven't even fixed yet on the site of the building."

"And have they appointed the matron?" said Eleanor.

"They haven't appointed the warden yet," replied he.

"But there's no doubt about that, I suppose," said his daughter.

Mr. Harding explained that he thought there was no doubt; that the
archdeacon had declared as much, saying that the bishop and his
chaplain between them had not the power to appoint anyone else, even
if they had the will to do so, and sufficient impudence to carry out
such a will. The archdeacon was of opinion that, though Mr. Harding
had resigned his wardenship, and had done so unconditionally, he had
done so under circumstances which left the bishop no choice as to his
reappointment, now that the affair of the hospital had been settled
on a new basis by act of Parliament. Such was the archdeacon's
opinion, and his father-in-law received it without a shadow of doubt.

Dr. Grantly had always been strongly opposed to Mr. Harding's
resignation of the place. He had done all in his power to dissuade
him from it. He had considered that Mr. Harding was bound to
withstand the popular clamour with which he was attacked for
receiving so large an income as eight hundred a year from such a
charity, and was not even yet satisfied that his father-in-law's
conduct had not been pusillanimous and undignified. He looked also
on this reduction of the warden's income as a shabby, paltry scheme
on the part of government for escaping from a difficulty into which
it had been brought by the public press. Dr. Grantly observed that
the government had no more right to dispose of a sum of four hundred
and fifty pounds a year out of the income of Hiram's legacy than of
nine hundred; whereas, as he said, the bishop, dean, and chapter
clearly had a right to settle what sum should be paid. He also
declared that the government had no more right to saddle the
charity with twelve old women than with twelve hundred; and he was,
therefore, very indignant on the matter. He probably forgot when so
talking that government had done nothing of the kind, and had never
assumed any such might or any such right. He made the common mistake
of attributing to the government, which in such matters is powerless,
the doings of Parliament, which in such matters is omnipotent.

But though he felt that the glory and honour of the situation of
warden of Barchester Hospital were indeed curtailed by the new
arrangement; that the whole establishment had to a certain degree
been made vile by the touch of Whig commissioners; that the place,
with its lessened income, its old women, and other innovations, was
very different from the hospital of former days; still the archdeacon
was too practical a man of the world to wish that his father-in-law,
who had at present little more than L200 per annum for all his
wants, should refuse the situation, defiled, undignified, and
commission-ridden as it was.

Mr. Harding had, accordingly, made up his mind that he would return
to his old home at the hospital, and, to tell the truth, had
experienced almost a childish pleasure in the idea of doing so. The
diminished income was to him not even the source of momentary regret.
The matron and the old women did rather go against the grain, but he
was able to console himself with the reflection that, after all, such
an arrangement might be of real service to the poor of the city. The
thought that he must receive his reappointment as the gift of the
new bishop, and probably through the hands of Mr. Slope, annoyed
him a little, but his mind was set at rest by the assurance of the
archdeacon that there would be no favour in such a presentation. The
reappointment of the old warden would be regarded by all the world
as a matter of course. Mr. Harding, therefore, felt no hesitation in
telling his daughter that they might look upon his return to his old
quarters as a settled matter.

"And you won't have to ask for it, Papa?"

"Certainly not, my dear. There is no ground on which I could ask for
any favour from the bishop, whom, indeed, I hardly know. Nor would I
ask a favour, the granting of which might possibly be made a question
to be settled by Mr. Slope. No," said he, moved for a moment by
a spirit very unlike his own, "I certainly shall be very glad to
go back to the hospital; but I should never go there if it were
necessary that my doing so should be the subject of a request to Mr.
Slope."

This little outbreak of her father's anger jarred on the present tone
of Eleanor's mind. She had not learnt to like Mr. Slope, but she had
learnt to think that he had much respect for her father; and she
would, therefore, willingly use her efforts to induce something like
good feeling between them.

"Papa," said she, "I think you somewhat mistake Mr. Slope's
character."

"Do I?" said he placidly.

"I think you do, Papa. I think he intended no personal disrespect to
you when he preached the sermon which made the archdeacon and the
dean so angry!"

"I never supposed he did, my dear. I hope I never inquired within
myself whether he did or no. Such a matter would be unworthy of any
inquiry, and very unworthy of the consideration of the chapter. But I
fear he intended disrespect to the ministration of God's services, as
conducted in conformity with the rules of the Church of England."

"But might it not be that he thought it his duty to express his
dissent from that which you, and the dean, and all of us here so much
approve?"

"It can hardly be the duty of a young man rudely to assail the
religious convictions of his elders in the church. Courtesy should
have kept him silent, even if neither charity nor modesty could do
so."

"But Mr. Slope would say that on such a subject the commands of his
heavenly Master do not admit of his being silent."

"Nor of his being courteous, Eleanor?"

"He did not say that, Papa."

"Believe me, my child, that Christian ministers are never called on
by God's word to insult the convictions, or even the prejudices of
their brethren, and that religion is at any rate not less susceptible
of urbane and courteous conduct among men than any other study which
men may take up. I am sorry to say that I cannot defend Mr. Slope's
sermon in the cathedral. But come, my dear, put on your bonnet and
let us walk round the dear old gardens at the hospital. I have never
yet had the heart to go beyond the courtyard since we left the place.
Now I think I can venture to enter."

Eleanor rang the bell and gave a variety of imperative charges as to
the welfare of the precious baby, whom, all but unwillingly, she was
about to leave for an hour or so, and then sauntered forth with her
father to revisit the old hospital. It had been forbidden ground to
her as well as to him since the day on which they had walked forth
together from its walls.




CHAPTER IX

The Stanhope Family


It is now three months since Dr. Proudie began his reign, and changes
have already been effected in the diocese which show at least the
energy of an active mind. Among other things absentee clergymen have
been favoured with hints much too strong to be overlooked. Poor dear
old Bishop Grantly had on this matter been too lenient, and the
archdeacon had never been inclined to be severe with those who were
absent on reputable pretences, and who provided for their duties in a
liberal way.

Among the greatest of the diocesan sinners in this respect was Dr.
Vesey Stanhope. Years had now passed since he had done a day's duty,
and yet there was no reason against his doing duty except a want
of inclination on his own part. He held a prebendal stall in the
diocese, one of the best residences in the close, and the two large
rectories of Crabtree Canonicorum and Stogpingum. Indeed, he had
the cure of three parishes, for that of Eiderdown was joined to
Stogpingum. He had resided in Italy for twelve years. His first
going there had been attributed to a sore throat, and that sore
throat, though never repeated in any violent manner, had stood him
in such stead that it had enabled him to live in easy idleness ever
since.

He had now been summoned home--not, indeed, with rough violence, or
by any peremptory command, but by a mandate which he found himself
unable to disregard. Mr. Slope had written to him by the bishop's
desire. In the first place, the bishop much wanted the valuable
co-operation of Dr. Vesey Stanhope in the diocese; in the next, the
bishop thought it his imperative duty to become personally acquainted
with the most conspicuous of his diocesan clergy; then the bishop
thought it essentially necessary for Dr. Stanhope's own interests
that Dr. Stanhope should, at any rate for a time, return to
Barchester; and lastly, it was said that so strong a feeling was
at the present moment evinced by the hierarchs of the church with
reference to the absence of its clerical members, that it behoved Dr.
Vesey Stanhope not to allow his name to stand among those which would
probably in a few months be submitted to the councils of the nation.

There was something so ambiguously frightful in this last threat
that Dr. Stanhope determined to spend two or three summer months at
his residence in Barchester. His rectories were inhabited by his
curates, and he felt himself from disuse to be unfit for parochial
duty; but his prebendal home was kept empty for him, and he thought
it probable that he might be able now and again to preach a prebendal
sermon. He arrived, therefore, with all his family at Barchester,
and he and they must be introduced to my readers.

The great family characteristic of the Stanhopes might probably be
said to be heartlessness, but this want of feeling was, in most of
them, accompanied by so great an amount of good nature as to make
itself but little noticeable to the world. They were so prone to
oblige their neighbours that their neighbours failed to perceive how
indifferent to them was the happiness and well-being of those around
them. The Stanhopes would visit you in your sickness (provided it
were not contagious), would bring you oranges, French novels, and the
last new bit of scandal, and then hear of your death or your recovery
with an equally indifferent composure. Their conduct to each other
was the same as to the world; they bore and forbore; and there was
sometimes, as will be seen, much necessity for forbearing; but their
love among themselves rarely reached above this. It is astonishing
how much each of the family was able to do, and how much each did, to
prevent the well-being of the other four.

For there were five in all; the doctor, namely, and Mrs. Stanhope,
two daughters, and one son. The doctor, perhaps, was the least
singular and most estimable of them all, and yet such good qualities
as he possessed were all negative. He was a good-looking rather
plethoric gentleman of about sixty years of age. His hair was
snow-white, very plentiful, and somewhat like wool of the finest
description. His whiskers were very large and very white, and gave to
his face the appearance of a benevolent, sleepy old lion. His dress
was always unexceptionable. Although he had lived so many years in
Italy it was invariably of a decent clerical hue, but it never was
hyperclerical. He was a man not given to much talking, but what
little he did say was generally well said. His reading seldom went
beyond romances and poetry of the lightest and not always most moral
description. He was thoroughly a _bon vivant_; an accomplished judge
of wine, though he never drank to excess; and a most inexorable
critic in all affairs touching the kitchen. He had had much to
forgive in his own family, since a family had grown up around him,
and had forgiven everything--except inattention to his dinner. His
weakness in that respect was now fully understood, and his temper but
seldom tried. As Dr. Stanhope was a clergyman, it may be supposed
that his religious convictions made up a considerable part of his
character, but this was not so. That he had religious convictions
must be believed, but he rarely obtruded them, even on his
children. This abstinence on his part was not systematic, but very
characteristic of the man. It was not that he had predetermined
never to influence their thoughts, but he was so habitually idle that
his time for doing so had never come till the opportunity for doing
so was gone forever. Whatever conviction the father may have had,
the children were at any rate but indifferent members of the church
from which he drew his income.

Such was Dr. Stanhope. The features of Mrs. Stanhope's character
were even less plainly marked than those of her lord. The _far
niente_ of her Italian life had entered into her very soul, and
brought her to regard a state of inactivity as the only earthly good.
In manner and appearance she was exceedingly prepossessing. She had
been a beauty, and even now, at fifty-five, she was a handsome woman.
Her dress was always perfect: she never dressed but once in the day,
and never appeared till between three and four; but when she did
appear, she appeared at her best. Whether the toil rested partly
with her, or wholly with her handmaid, it is not for such a one as
the author even to imagine. The structure of her attire was always
elaborate and yet never over-laboured. She was rich in apparel but
not bedizened with finery; her ornaments were costly, rare, and such
as could not fail to attract notice, but they did not look as though
worn with that purpose. She well knew the great architectural secret
of decorating her constructions, and never descended to construct
a decoration. But when we have said that Mrs. Stanhope knew how to
dress and used her knowledge daily, we have said all. Other purpose
in life she had none. It was something, indeed, that she did not
interfere with the purposes of others. In early life she had
undergone great trials with reference to the doctor's dinners, but
for the last ten or twelve years her elder daughter Charlotte had
taken that labour off her hands, and she had had little to trouble
her--little, that is, till the edict for this terrible English
journey had gone forth: since then, indeed, her life had been
laborious enough. For such a one, the toil of being carried from the
shores of Como to the city of Barchester is more than labour enough,
let the care of the carriers be ever so vigilant. Mrs. Stanhope had
been obliged to have every one of her dresses taken in from the
effects of the journey.

Charlotte Stanhope was at this time about thirty-five years old, and
whatever may have been her faults, she had none of those which belong
particularly to old young ladies. She neither dressed young, nor
talked young, nor indeed looked young. She appeared to be perfectly
content with her time of life, and in no way affected the graces of
youth. She was a fine young woman, and had she been a man, would
have been a very fine young man. All that was done in the house, and
that was not done by servants, was done by her. She gave the orders,
paid the bills, hired and dismissed the domestics, made the tea,
carved the meat, and managed everything in the Stanhope household.
She, and she alone, could ever induce her father to look into the
state of his worldly concerns. She, and she alone, could in any
degree control the absurdities of her sister. She, and she alone,
prevented the whole family from falling into utter disrepute and
beggary. It was by her advice that they now found themselves very
unpleasantly situated in Barchester.

So far, the character of Charlotte Stanhope is not unprepossessing.
But it remains to be said that the influence which she had in her
family, though it had been used to a certain extent for their worldly
well-being, had not been used to their real benefit, as it might
have been. She had aided her father in his indifference to his
professional duties, counselling him that his livings were as much
his individual property as the estates of his elder brother were the
property of that worthy peer. She had for years past stifled every
little rising wish for a return to England which the doctor had
from time to time expressed. She had encouraged her mother in her
idleness, in order that she herself might be mistress and manager of
the Stanhope household. She had encouraged and fostered the follies
of her sister, though she was always willing, and often able, to
protect her from their probable result. She had done her best, and
had thoroughly succeeded in spoiling her brother, and turning him
loose upon the world an idle man without a profession and without a
shilling that he could call his own.

Miss Stanhope was a clever woman, able to talk on most subjects, and
quite indifferent as to what the subject was. She prided herself on
her freedom from English prejudice, and, she might have added, from
feminine delicacy. On religion she was a pure free-thinker, and with
much want of true affection, delighted to throw out her own views
before the troubled mind of her father. To have shaken what remained
of his Church of England faith would have gratified her much, but the
idea of his abandoning his preferment in the church had never once
presented itself to her mind. How could he indeed, when he had no
income from any other source?

But the two most prominent members of the family still remain to be
described. The second child had been christened Madeline and had
been a great beauty. We need not say had been, for she was never
more beautiful than at the time of which we write, though her person
for many years had been disfigured by an accident. It is unnecessary
that we should give in detail the early history of Madeline Stanhope.
She had gone to Italy when about seventeen years of age, and had been
allowed to make the most of her surpassing beauty in the salons of
Milan and among the crowded villas along the shores of the Lake of
Como. She had become famous for adventures in which her character
was just not lost, and had destroyed the hearts of a dozen cavaliers
without once being touched in her own. Blood had flowed in quarrels
about her charms, and she had heard of these encounters with
pleasurable excitement. It had been told of her that on one occasion
she had stood by in the disguise of a page and had seen her lover
fall.

As is so often the case, she had married the very worst of those who
sought her hand. Why she had chosen Paulo Neroni, a man of no birth
and no property, a mere captain in the Pope's guard, one who had come
up to Milan either simply as an adventurer or else as a spy, a man of
harsh temper and oily manners, mean in figure, swarthy in face, and
so false in words as to be hourly detected, need not now be told.
When the moment for doing so came, she had probably no alternative.
He, at any rate, had become her husband, and after a prolonged
honeymoon among the lakes, they had gone together to Rome, the papal
captain having vainly endeavoured to induce his wife to remain behind
him.

Six months afterwards she arrived at her father's house a cripple,
and a mother. She had arrived without even notice, with hardly
clothes to cover her, and without one of those many ornaments which
had graced her bridal trousseau. Her baby was in the arms of a poor
girl from Milan, whom she had taken in exchange for the Roman maid
who had accompanied her thus far, and who had then, as her mistress
said, become homesick and had returned. It was clear that the lady
had determined that there should be no witness to tell stories of her
life in Rome.

She had fallen, she said, in ascending a ruin, and had fatally
injured the sinews of her knee; so fatally that when she stood, she
lost eight inches of her accustomed height; so fatally that when she
essayed to move, she could only drag herself painfully along, with
protruded hip and extended foot, in a manner less graceful than
that of a hunchback. She had consequently made up her mind, once
and forever, that she would never stand and never attempt to move
herself.

Stories were not slow to follow her, averring that she had been
cruelly ill-used by Neroni, and that to his violence had she owed her
accident. Be that as it may, little had been said about her husband,
but that little had made it clearly intelligible to the family that
Signor Neroni was to be seen and heard of no more. There was no
question as to readmitting the poor, ill-used beauty to her old
family rights, no question as to adopting her infant daughter beneath
the Stanhope roof-tree. Though heartless, the Stanhopes were not
selfish. The two were taken in, petted, made much of, for a time all
but adored, and then felt by the two parents to be great nuisances
in the house. But in the house the lady was, and there she remained,
having her own way, though that way was not very conformable with the
customary usages of an English clergyman.

Madame Neroni, though forced to give up all motion in the world,
had no intention whatever of giving up the world itself. The beauty
of her face was uninjured, and that beauty was of a peculiar kind.
Her copious rich brown hair was worn in Grecian bandeaux round her
head, displaying as much as possible of her forehead and cheeks. Her
forehead, though rather low, was very beautiful from its perfect
contour and pearly whiteness. Her eyes were long and large, and
marvellously bright; might I venture to say bright as Lucifer's, I
should perhaps best express the depth of their brilliancy. They were
dreadful eyes to look at, such as would absolutely deter any man of
quiet mind and easy spirit from attempting a passage of arms with
such foes. There was talent in them, and the fire of passion and the
play of wit, but there was no love. Cruelty was there instead, and
courage, a desire of masterhood, cunning, and a wish for mischief.
And yet, as eyes, they were very beautiful. The eyelashes were
long and perfect, and the long, steady, unabashed gaze with which
she would look into the face of her admirer fascinated while it
frightened him. She was a basilisk from whom an ardent lover of
beauty could make no escape. Her nose and mouth and teeth and chin
and neck and bust were perfect, much more so at twenty-eight than
they had been at eighteen. What wonder that with such charms still
glowing in her face, and with such deformity destroying her figure,
she should resolve to be seen, but only to be seen reclining on a
sofa.