The Warden

CHAPTER X Tribulation

Mr Hard­ing was a sad­der man than he had ev­er yet been when he re­turned to his own house. He had been wretched enough on that well-​re­mem­bered morn­ing when he was forced to ex­pose be­fore his son-​in-​law the pub­lish­er’s ac­count for ush­er­ing in­to the world his dear book of sa­cred mu­sic: when af­ter mak­ing such pay­ments as he could do unas­sist­ed, he found that he was a debtor of more than three hun­dred pounds; but his suf­fer­ings then were as noth­ing to his present mis­ery;–then he had done wrong, and he knew it, and was able to re­solve that he would not sin in like man­ner again; but now he could make no res­olu­tion, and com­fort him­self by no promis­es of firm­ness. He had been forced to think that his lot had placed him in a false po­si­tion, and he was about to main­tain that po­si­tion against the opin­ion of the world and against his own con­vic­tions.

He had read with pity, amount­ing al­most to hor­ror, the stric­tures which had ap­peared from time to time against the Earl of Guild­ford as mas­ter of St Cross, and the in­vec­tives that had been heaped on rich dioce­san dig­ni­taries and over­grown sinecure plu­ral­ists. In judg­ing of them, he judged le­nient­ly; the whole bias of his pro­fes­sion had taught him to think that they were more sinned against than sin­ning, and that the an­imos­ity with which they had been pur­sued was ven­omous and un­just; but he had not the less re­gard­ed their plight as most mis­er­able. His hair had stood on end and his flesh had crept as he read the things which had been writ­ten; he had won­dered how men could live un­der such a load of dis­grace; how they could face their fel­low-​crea­tures while their names were bandied about so in­ju­ri­ous­ly and so pub­licly–and now this lot was to be his–he, that shy, re­tir­ing man, who had so com­fort­ed him­self in the hid­den ob­scu­ri­ty of his lot, who had so en­joyed the unas­sum­ing warmth of his own lit­tle cor­ner, he was now dragged forth in­to the glar­ing day, and gib­bet­ed be­fore fe­ro­cious mul­ti­tudes. He en­tered his own house a crest­fall­en, hu­mil­iat­ed man, with­out a hope of over­com­ing the wretched­ness which af­fect­ed him.

He wan­dered in­to the draw­ing-​room where was his daugh­ter; but he could not speak to her now, so he left it, and went in­to the book-​room. He was not quick enough to es­cape Eleanor’s glance, or to pre­vent her from see­ing that he was dis­turbed; and in a lit­tle while she fol­lowed him. She found him seat­ed in his ac­cus­tomed chair with no book open be­fore him, no pen ready in his hand, no ill-​shapen notes of blot­ted mu­sic ly­ing be­fore him as was usu­al, none of those hos­pi­tal ac­counts with which he was so pre­cise and yet so un­me­thod­ical: he was do­ing noth­ing, think­ing of noth­ing, look­ing at noth­ing; he was mere­ly suf­fer­ing.

‘Leave me, Eleanor, my dear,’ he said; ‘leave me, my dar­ling, for a few min­utes, for I am busy.’

Eleanor saw well how it was, but she did leave him, and glid­ed silent­ly back to her draw­ing-​room. When he had sat a while, thus alone and un­oc­cu­pied, he got up to walk again– he could make more of his thoughts walk­ing than sit­ting, and was creep­ing out in­to his gar­den, when he met Bunce on the thresh­old.

‘Well, Bunce,’ said he, in a tone that for him was sharp, ‘what is it? do you want me?’

‘I was on­ly com­ing to ask af­ter your rev­er­ence,’ said the old be­des­man, touch­ing his hat; ‘and to in­quire about the news from Lon­don,’ he added af­ter a pause.

The war­den winced, and put his hand to his fore­head and felt be­wil­dered.

‘At­tor­ney Finney has been there this morn­ing,’ con­tin­ued Bunce, ‘and by his looks I guess he is not so well pleased as he once was, and it has got abroad some­how that the archdea­con has had down great news from Lon­don, and Handy and Moody are both as black as dev­ils. And I hope,’ said the man, try­ing to as­sume a cheery tone, ‘that things are look­ing up, and that there’ll be an end soon to all this stuff which both­ers your rev­er­ence so sore­ly.’

‘Well, I wish there may be, Bunce.’

‘But about the news, your rev­er­ence?’ said the old man, al­most whis­per­ing.

Mr Hard­ing walked on, and shook his head im­pa­tient­ly. Poor Bunce lit­tle knew how he was tor­ment­ing his pa­tron.

‘If there was any­thing to cheer you, I should be so glad to know it,’ said he, with a tone of af­fec­tion which the war­den in all his mis­ery could not re­sist.

He stopped, and took both the old man’s hands in his. ‘My friend,’ said he, ‘my dear old friend, there is noth­ing; there is no news to cheer me–God’s will be done’: and two small hot tears broke away from his eyes and stole down his fur­rowed cheeks.

‘Then God’s will be done,’ said the oth­er solemn­ly; ‘but they told me that there was good news from Lon­don, and I came to wish your rev­er­ence joy; but God’s will be done,’ and so the war­den again walked on, and the be­des­man, look­ing wist­ful­ly af­ter him and re­ceiv­ing no en­cour­age­ment to fol­low, re­turned sad­ly to his own abode.

For a cou­ple of hours the war­den re­mained thus in the gar­den, now walk­ing, now stand­ing mo­tion­less on the turf, and then, as his legs got weary, sit­ting un­con­scious­ly on the gar­den seats, and then walk­ing again. And Eleanor, hid­den be­hind the muslin cur­tains of the win­dow, watched him through the trees as he now came in sight, and then again was con­cealed by the turn­ings of the walk; and thus the time passed away till five, when the war­den crept back to the house and pre­pared for din­ner.

It was but a sor­ry meal. The de­mure par­lour-​maid, as she hand­ed the dish­es and changed the plates, saw that all was not right, and was more de­mure than ev­er: nei­ther fa­ther nor daugh­ter could eat, and the hate­ful food was soon cleared away, and the bot­tle of port placed up­on the ta­ble.

‘Would you like Bunce to come in, pa­pa?’said Eleanor, think­ing that the com­pa­ny of the old man might light­en his sor­row.

‘No, my dear, thank you, not to­day; but are not you go­ing out, Eleanor, this love­ly af­ter­noon? don’t stay in for me, my dear.’

‘I thought you seemed so sad, pa­pa.’

‘Sad,’ said he, ir­ri­tat­ed; ‘well, peo­ple must all have their share of sad­ness here; I am not more ex­empt than an­oth­er: but kiss me, dear­est, and go now; I will, if pos­si­ble, be more so­cia­ble when you re­turn.’

And Eleanor was again ban­ished from her fa­ther’s sor­row. Ah! her de­sire now was not to find him hap­py, but to be al­lowed to share his sor­rows; not to force him to be so­cia­ble, but to per­suade him to be trust­ful.

She put on her bon­net as de­sired, and went up to Mary Bold; this was now her dai­ly haunt, for John Bold was up in Lon­don among lawyers and church re­form­ers, div­ing deep in­to oth­er ques­tions than that of the war­den­ship of Barch­ester; sup­ply­ing in­for­ma­tion to one mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, and din­ing with an­oth­er; sub­scrib­ing to funds for the abo­li­tion of cler­ical in­comes, and sec­ond­ing at that great na­tion­al meet­ing at the Crown and An­chor a res­olu­tion to the ef­fect, that no cler­gy­man of the Church of Eng­land, be he who he might, should have more than a thou­sand a year, and none less than two hun­dred and fifty. His speech on this oc­ca­sion was short, for fif­teen had to speak, and the room was hired for two hours on­ly, at the ex­pi­ra­tion of which the Quak­ers and Mr Cob­den were to make use of it for an ap­peal to the pub­lic in aid of the Em­per­or of Rus­sia; but it was sharp and ef­fec­tive; at least he was told so by a com­pan­ion with whom he now lived much, and on whom he great­ly de­pend­ed–one Tom Tow­ers, a very lead­ing ge­nius, and sup­posed to have high em­ploy­ment on the staff of The Jupiter.

So Eleanor, as was now her wont, went up to Mary Bold, and Mary lis­tened kind­ly, while the daugh­ter spoke much of her fa­ther, and, per­haps kinder still, found a lis­ten­er in Eleanor, while she spoke about her broth­er. In the mean­time the war­den sat alone, lean­ing on the arm of his chair; he had poured out a glass of wine, but had done so mere­ly from habit, for he left it un­touched; there he sat gaz­ing at the open win­dow, and think­ing, if he can be said to have thought, of the hap­pi­ness of his past life. All man­ner of past de­lights came be­fore his mind, which at the time he had en­joyed with­out con­sid­er­ing them; his easy days, his ab­sence of all kind of hard work, his pleas­ant shady home, those twelve old neigh­bours whose wel­fare till now had been the source of so much pleas­ant care, the ex­cel­lence of his chil­dren, the friend­ship of the dear old bish­op, the solemn grandeur of those vault­ed aisles, through which he loved to hear his own voice peal­ing; and then that friend of friends, that choice al­ly that had nev­er de­sert­ed him, that elo­quent com­pan­ion that would al­ways, when asked, dis­course such pleas­ant mu­sic, that vi­olon­cel­lo of his–ah, how hap­py he had been! but it was over now; his easy days and ab­sence of work had been the crime which brought on him his tribu­la­tion; his shady home was pleas­ant no longer; maybe it was no longer his; the old neigh­bours, whose wel­fare had been so de­sired by him, were his en­emies; his daugh­ter was as wretched as him­self; and even the bish­op was made mis­er­able by his po­si­tion. He could nev­er again lift up his voice bold­ly as he had hith­er­to done among his brethren, for he felt that he was dis­graced; and he feared even to touch his bow, for he knew how grievous a sound of wail­ing, how piteous a lamen­ta­tion, it would pro­duce.

He was still sit­ting in the same chair and the same pos­ture, hav­ing hard­ly moved a limb for two hours, when Eleanor came back to tea, and suc­ceed­ed in bring­ing him with her in­to the draw­ing-​room.

The tea seemed as com­fort­less as the din­ner, though the war­den, who had hith­er­to eat­en noth­ing all day, de­voured the plate­ful of bread and but­ter, un­con­scious of what he was do­ing.

Eleanor had made up her mind to force him to talk to her, but she hard­ly knew how to com­mence: she must wait till the urn was gone, till the ser­vant would no longer be com­ing in and out.

At last ev­ery­thing was gone, and the draw­ing-​room door was per­ma­nent­ly closed; then Eleanor, get­ting up and go­ing round to her fa­ther, put her arm round his neck, and said, ‘Pa­pa, won’t you tell me what it is?’

‘What what is, my dear?’

‘This new sor­row that tor­ments you; I know you are un­hap­py,pa­pa.’

‘New sor­row! it’s no new sor­row, my dear; we have all our cares some­times’; and he tried to smile, but it was a ghast­ly fail­ure; ‘but I shouldn’t be so dull a com­pan­ion; come, we’ll have some mu­sic.’

‘No, pa­pa, not tonight–it would on­ly trou­ble you tonight’; and she sat up­on his knee, as she some­times would in their gayest moods, and with her arm round his neck, she said: ‘Pa­pa, I will not leave you till you talk to me; oh, if you on­ly knew how much good it would do to you, to tell me of it all.’

The fa­ther kissed his daugh­ter, and pressed her to his heart; but still he said noth­ing: it was so hard to him to speak of his own sor­rows; he was so shy a man even with his own child!

‘Oh, pa­pa, do tell me what it is; I know it is about the hos­pi­tal, and what they are do­ing up in Lon­don, and what that cru­el news­pa­per has said; but if there be such cause for sor­row, let us be sor­row­ful to­geth­er; we are all in all to each oth­er now: dear, dear pa­pa, do speak to me.’

Mr Hard­ing could not well speak now, for the warm tears were run­ning down his cheeks like rain in May, but he held his child close to his heart, and squeezed her hand as a lover might, and she kissed his fore­head and his wet cheeks, and lay up­on his bo­som, and com­fort­ed him as a wom­an on­ly can do.

, My own child,’ he said, as soon as his tears would let him speak, ‘my own, own child, why should you too be un­hap­py be­fore it is nec­es­sary? It may come to that, that we must leave this place, but till that time comes, why should your young days be cloud­ed?’

‘And is that all, pa­pa? If that be all, let us leave it, and have light hearts else­where: if that be all, let us go. Oh, pa­pa, you and I could be hap­py if we had on­ly bread to eat, so long as our hearts were light.’

And Eleanor’s face was light­ed up with en­thu­si­asm as she told her fa­ther how he might ban­ish all his care; and a gleam of joy shot across his brow as this idea of es­cape again pre­sent­ed it­self, and he again fan­cied for a mo­ment that he could spurn away from him the in­come which the world en­vied him; that he could give the lie to that wield­er of the tom­ahawk who had dared to write such things of him in The Jupiter; that he could leave Sir Abra­ham, and the archdea­con, and Bold, and the rest of them with their law­suit among them, and wipe his hands al­to­geth­er of so sor­row-​stir­ring a con­cern. Ah, what hap­pi­ness might there be in the dis­tance, with Eleanor and him in some small cot­tage, and noth­ing left of their for­mer grandeur but their mu­sic! Yes, they would walk forth with their mu­sic books, and their in­stru­ments, and shak­ing the dust from off their feet as they went, leave the un­grate­ful place. Nev­er did a poor cler­gy­man sigh for a warm benefice more anx­ious­ly than our war­den did now to be rid of his.

‘Give it up, pa­pa,’ she said again, jump­ing from his knees and stand­ing on her feet be­fore him, look­ing bold­ly in­to his face; ‘give it up, pa­pa.’

Oh, it was sad to see how that mo­men­tary gleam of joy passed away; how the look of hope was dis­persed from that sor­row­ful face, as the re­mem­brance of the archdea­con came back up­on our poor war­den, and he re­flect­ed that he could not stir from his now hat­ed post. He was as a man bound with iron, fet­tered with adamant: he was in no re­spect a free agent; he had no choice. ‘Give it up!’ Oh if he on­ly could: what an easy way that were out of all his trou­bles!

‘Pa­pa, don’t doubt about it,’ she con­tin­ued, think­ing that his hes­ita­tion arose from his un­will­ing­ness to aban­don so com­fort­able a home; ‘is it on my ac­count that you would stay here? Do you think that I can­not be hap­py with­out a pony- car­riage and a fine draw­ing-​room? Pa­pa, I nev­er can be hap­py here, as long as there is a ques­tion as to your hon­our in stay­ing here; but I could be gay as the day is long in the small­est tiny lit­tle cot­tage, if I could see you come in and go out with a light heart. Oh! pa­pa, your face tells so much; though you won’t speak to me with your voice, I know how it is with you ev­ery time I look at you.’

How he pressed her to his heart again with al­most a spas­mod­ic pres­sure! How he kissed her as the tears fell like rain from his old eyes! How he blessed her, and called her by a hun­dred soft sweet names which now came new to his lips! How he chid him­self for ev­er hav­ing been un­hap­py with such a trea­sure in his house, such a jew­el on his bo­som, with so sweet a flow­er in the choice gar­den of his heart! And then the flood­gates of his tongue were loosed, and, at length, with un­spar­ing de­tail of cir­cum­stances, he told her all that he wished, and all that he could not do. He re­peat­ed those ar­gu­ments of the archdea­con, not agree­ing in their truth, but ex­plain­ing his in­abil­ity to es­cape from them–how it had been de­clared to him that he was bound to re­main where he was by the in­ter­ests of his or­der, by grat­itude to the bish­op, by the wish­es of his friends, by a sense of du­ty, which, though he could not un­der­stand it, he was fain to ac­knowl­edge. He told her how he had been ac­cused of cow­ardice, and though he was not a man to make much of such a charge be­fore the world, now in the full can­dour of his heart he ex­plained to her that such an ac­cu­sa­tion was grievous to him; that he did think it would be un­man­ly to desert his post, mere­ly to es­cape his present suf­fer­ings, and that, there­fore, he must bear as best he might the mis­ery which was pre­pared for him.

And did she find these de­tails te­dious? Oh, no; she en­cour­aged him to di­late on ev­ery feel­ing he ex­pressed, till he laid bare the in­most cor­ners of his heart to her. They spoke to­geth­er of the archdea­con, as two chil­dren might of a stern, un­pop­ular, but still re­spect­ed school­mas­ter, and of the bish­op as a par­ent kind as kind could be, but pow­er­less against an om­nipo­tent ped­agogue.

And then when they had dis­cussed all this, when the fa­ther had told all to the child, she could not be less con­fid­ing than he had been; and as John Bold’s name was men­tioned be­tween them, she owned how well she had learned to love him–’had loved him once,’ she said, ‘but she would not, could not do so now–no, even had her troth been plight­ed to him, she would have tak­en it back again–had she sworn to love him as his wife, she would have dis­card­ed him, and not felt her­self for­sworn, when he proved him­self the en­emy of her fa­ther.’

But the war­den de­clared that Bold was no en­emy of his, and en­cour­aged her love; and gen­tly re­buked, as he kissed her, the stern re­solve she had made to cast him off; and then he spoke to her of hap­pi­er days when their tri­als would all be over; and de­clared that her young heart should not be torn asun­der to please ei­ther priest or prelate, dean or archdea­con. No, not if all Ox­ford were to con­vo­cate to­geth­er, and agree as to the ne­ces­si­ty of the sac­ri­fice.

And so they great­ly com­fort­ed each oth­er–and in what sor­row will not such mu­tu­al con­fi­dence give con­so­la­tion!– and with a last ex­pres­sion of ten­der love they part­ed, and went com­par­ative­ly hap­py to their rooms.