The Warden

CHAPTER XII Mr Bold’s Visit to Plumstead

Whether or no the ill-​na­tured pre­dic­tion made by cer­tain ladies in the be­gin­ning of the last chap­ter was or was not car­ried out to the let­ter, I am not in a po­si­tion to state. Eleanor, how­ev­er, cer­tain­ly did feel her­self to have been baf­fled as she re­turned home with all her news to her fa­ther. Cer­tain­ly she had been vic­to­ri­ous, cer­tain­ly she had achieved her ob­ject, cer­tain­ly she was not un­hap­py, and yet she did not feel her­self tri­umphant. Ev­ery­thing would run smooth now. Eleanor was not at all ad­dict­ed to the Ly­di­an school of ro­mance; she by no means ob­ject­ed to her lover be­cause he came in at the door un­der the name of Ab­so­lute, in­stead of pulling her out of a win­dow un­der the name of Bev­er­ley; and yet she felt that she had been im­posed up­on, and could hard­ly think of Mary Bold with sis­ter­ly char­ity. ‘I did think I could have trust­ed Mary,’ she said to her­self over and over again. ‘Oh that she should have dared to keep me in the room when I tried to get out!’ Eleanor, how­ev­er, felt that the game was up, and that she had now noth­ing fur­ther to do but to add to the bud­get of news which was pre­pared for her fa­ther, that John Bold was her ac­cept­ed lover.

We will, how­ev­er, now leave her on her way, and go with John Bold to Plum­stead Epis­copi, mere­ly premis­ing that Eleanor on reach­ing home will not find things so smooth as she fond­ly ex­pect­ed; two mes­sen­gers had come, one to her fa­ther and the oth­er to the archdea­con, and each of them much op­posed to her qui­et mode of solv­ing all their dif­fi­cul­ties; the one in the shape of a num­ber of The Jupiter, and the oth­er in that of a fur­ther opin­ion from Sir Abra­ham Hap­haz­ard.

John Bold got on his horse and rode off to Plum­stead Epis­copi; not briskly and with ea­ger spur, as men do ride when self- sat­is­fied with their own in­ten­tions; but slow­ly, mod­est­ly, thought­ful­ly, and some­what in dread of the com­ing in­ter­view. Now and again he would re­cur to the scene which was just over, sup­port him­self by the re­mem­brance of the si­lence that gives con­sent, and ex­ult as a hap­py lover. But even this feel­ing was not with­out a shade of re­morse. Had he not shown him­self child­ish­ly weak thus to yield up the re­solve of many hours of thought to the tears of a pret­ty girl? How was he to meet his lawyer? How was he to back out of a mat­ter in which his name was al­ready so pub­licly con­cerned? What, oh what! was he to say to Tom Tow­ers? While med­itat­ing these painful things he reached the lodge lead­ing up to the archdea­con’s glebe, and for the first time in his life found him­self with­in the sa­cred precincts.

All the doc­tor’s chil­dren were to­geth­er on the slope of the lawn close to the road, as Bold rode up to the hall door. They were there hold­ing high de­bate on mat­ters ev­ident­ly of deep in­ter­est at Plum­stead Epis­copi, and the voic­es of the boys had been heard be­fore the lodge gate was closed.

Florin­da and Grizzel, fright­ened at the sight of so well- known an en­emy to the fam­ily, fled on the first ap­pear­ance of the horse­man, and ran in ter­ror to their moth­er’s arms; not for them was it, ten­der branch­es, to re­sent in­juries, or as mem­bers of a church mil­itant to put on ar­mour against its en­emies. But the boys stood their ground like heroes, and bold­ly de­mand­ed the busi­ness of the in­trud­er.

‘Do you want to see any­body here, sir?’ said Hen­ry, with a de­fi­ant eye and a hos­tile tone, which plain­ly said that at any rate no one there want­ed to see the per­son so ad­dressed; and as he spoke he bran­dished aloft his gar­den wa­ter-​pot, hold­ing it by the spout, ready for the brain­ing of any­one.

‘Hen­ry,’ said Charles James slow­ly, and with a cer­tain dig­ni­ty of dic­tion, ‘Mr Bold of course would not have come with­out want­ing to see some­one; if Mr Bold has a prop­er ground for want­ing to see some per­son here, of course he has a right to come.’

But Samuel stepped light­ly up to the horse’s head, and of­fered his ser­vices. ‘Oh, Mr Bold,’ said he, ‘pa­pa, I’m sure, will be glad to see you; I sup­pose you want to see pa­pa. Shall I hold your horse for you? Oh what a very pret­ty horse!’ and he turned his head and winked fun­ni­ly at his broth­ers. ‘Pa­pa has heard such good news about the old hos­pi­tal to­day. We know you’ll be glad to hear it, be­cause you’re such a friend of grand­pa­pa Hard­ing, and so much in love with Aunt Nel­ly!’

‘How d’ye do, lads?’ said Bold, dis­mount­ing. ‘I want to see your fa­ther if he’s at home.’

‘Lads!’ said Hen­ry, turn­ing on his heel and ad­dress­ing him­self to his broth­er, but loud enough to be heard by Bold; ‘lads, in­deed! if we’re lads, what does he call him­self?’

Charles James con­de­scend­ed to say noth­ing fur­ther, but cocked his hat with much pre­ci­sion, and left the vis­itor to the care of his youngest broth­er.

Samuel stayed till the ser­vant came, chat­ting and pat­ting the horse; but as soon as Bold had dis­ap­peared through the front door, he stuck a switch un­der the an­imal’s tail to make him kick if pos­si­ble.

The church re­former soon found him­self tete-​a-​tete with the archdea­con in that same room, in that sanc­tum sanc­to­rum of the rec­to­ry, to which we have al­ready been in­tro­duced. As he en­tered he heard the click of a cer­tain patent lock, but it struck him with no sur­prise; the wor­thy cler­gy­man was no doubt hid­ing from eyes pro­fane his last much-​stud­ied ser­mon; for the archdea­con, though he preached but sel­dom, was fa­mous for his ser­mons. No room, Bold thought, could have been more be­com­ing for a dig­ni­tary of the church; each wall was load­ed with the­ol­ogy; over each sep­arate book­case was print­ed in small gold let­ters the names of those great di­vines whose works were ranged be­neath: be­gin­ning from the ear­ly fa­thers in due chrono­log­ical or­der, there were to be found the pre­cious labours of the cho­sen ser­vants of the church down to the last pam­phlet writ­ten in op­po­si­tion to the con­se­cra­tion of Dr Ham­pden; and raised above this were to be seen the busts of the great­est among the great: Chrysos­tom, St Au­gus­tine, Thomas a Beck­et, Car­di­nal Wolsey, Arch­bish­op Laud, and Dr Philpotts.

Ev­ery ap­pli­ance that could make study pleas­ant and give ease to the over­toiled brain was there; chairs made to re­lieve each limb and mus­cle; read­ing-​desks and writ­ing-​desks to suit ev­ery at­ti­tude; lamps and can­dles me­chan­ical­ly con­trived to throw their light on any favoured spot, as the stu­dent might de­sire; a shoal of news­pa­pers to amuse the few leisure mo­ments which might be stolen from the labours of the day; and then from the win­dow a view right through a bosky vista along which ran a broad green path from the rec­to­ry to the church–at the end of which the tawny-​tint­ed fine old tow­er was seen with all its var­ie­gat­ed pin­na­cles and para­pets. Few parish church­es in Eng­land are in bet­ter re­pair, or bet­ter worth keep­ing so, than that at Plum­stead Epis­copi; and yet it is built in a faulty style: the body of the church is low–so low, that the near­ly flat lead­en roof would be vis­ible from the church­yard, were it not for the carved para­pet with which it is sur­round­ed. It is cru­ci­form, though the transepts are ir­reg­ular, one be­ing larg­er than the oth­er; and the tow­er is much too high in pro­por­tion to the church. But the colour of the build­ing is per­fect; it is that rich yel­low gray which one finds nowhere but in the south and west of Eng­land, and which is so strong a char­ac­ter­is­tic of most of our old hous­es of Tu­dor ar­chi­tec­ture. The stone work al­so is beau­ti­ful; the mul­lions of the win­dows and the thick trac­ery of the Goth­ic work­man­ship is as rich as fan­cy can de­sire; and though in gaz­ing on such a struc­ture one knows by rule that the old priests who built it, built it wrong, one can­not bring one­self to wish that they should have made it oth­er than it is.

When Bold was ush­ered in­to the book-​room, he found its own­er stand­ing with his back to the emp­ty fire-​place ready to re­ceive him, and he could not but per­ceive that that ex­pan­sive brow was elat­ed with tri­umph, and that those full heavy lips bore more promi­nent­ly than usu­al an ap­pear­ance of ar­ro­gant suc­cess.

‘Well, Mr Bold,’ said he–’well, what can I do for you? Very hap­py, I can as­sure you, to do any­thing for such a friend of my fa­ther-​in-​law.’

‘I hope you’ll ex­cuse my call­ing, Dr Grant­ly.’

‘Cer­tain­ly, cer­tain­ly,’ said the archdea­con; ‘I can as­sure you, no apol­ogy is nec­es­sary from Mr Bold; on­ly let me know what I can do for him.’

Dr Grant­ly was stand­ing him­self, and he did not ask Bold to sit, and there­fore he had to tell his tale stand­ing, lean­ing on the ta­ble, with his hat in his hand. He did, how­ev­er, man­age to tell it; and as the archdea­con nev­er once in­ter­rupt­ed him, or even en­cour­aged him by a sin­gle word, he was not long in com­ing to the end of it.

‘And so, Mr Bold, I’m to un­der­stand, I be­lieve, that you are de­sirous of aban­don­ing this at­tack up­on Mr Hard­ing.’

‘Oh, Dr Grant­ly, there has been no at­tack, I can as­sure you–’

‘Well, well, we won’t quar­rel about words; I should call it an at­tack–most men would so call an en­deav­our to take away from a man ev­ery shilling of in­come that he has to live up­on; but it sha’n't be an at­tack, if you don’t like it; you wish to aban­don this–this lit­tle game of backgam­mon you’ve be­gun to play.’

‘I in­tend to put an end to the le­gal pro­ceed­ings which I have com­menced.’

‘I un­der­stand,’ said the archdea­con. ‘You’ve al­ready had enough of it; well, I can’t say that I am sur­prised; car­ry­ing on a los­ing law­suit where one has noth­ing to gain, but ev­ery­thing to pay, is not pleas­ant.’

Bold turned very red in the face. ‘You mis­in­ter­pret my mo­tives,’ said he; ‘but, how­ev­er, that is of lit­tle con­se­quence. I did not come to trou­ble you with my mo­tives, but to tell you a mat­ter of fact. Good-​morn­ing, Dr Grant­ly.’

‘One mo­ment–one mo­ment,’ said the oth­er. ‘I don’t ex­act­ly ap­pre­ci­ate the taste which in­duced you to make any per­son­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion to me on the sub­ject; but I dare say I’m wrong, I dare say your judg­ment is the bet­ter of the two; but as you have done me the hon­our–as you have, as it were, forced me in­to a cer­tain amount of con­ver­sa­tion on a sub­ject which had bet­ter, per­haps, have been left to our lawyers, you will ex­cuse me if I ask you to hear my re­ply to your com­mu­ni­ca­tion.’

‘I am in no hur­ry, Dr Grant­ly.’

‘Well, I am, Mr Bold; my time is not ex­act­ly leisure time, and, there­fore, if you please, we’ll go to the point at once–you’re go­ing to aban­don this law­suit?’–and he paused for a re­ply.

‘Yes, Dr Grant­ly, I am.’

‘Hav­ing ex­posed a gen­tle­man who was one of your fa­ther’s warmest friends to all the ig­nominy and in­so­lence which the press could heap up­on his name, hav­ing some­what os­ten­ta­tious­ly de­clared that it was your du­ty as a man of high pub­lic virtue to pro­tect those poor old fools whom you have hum­bugged there at the hos­pi­tal, you now find that the game costs more than it’s worth, and so you make up your mind to have done with it. A pru­dent res­olu­tion, Mr Bold; but it is a pity you should have been so long com­ing to it. Has it struck you that we may not now choose to give over? that we may find it nec­es­sary to pun­ish the in­jury you have done to us? Are you aware, sir, that we have gone to enor­mous ex­pense to re­sist this in­iq­ui­tous at­tempt of yours?’

Bold’s face was now fu­ri­ous­ly red, and he near­ly crushed his hat be­tween his hands; but he said noth­ing.

‘We have found it nec­es­sary to em­ploy the best ad­vice that mon­ey could pro­cure. Are you aware, sir, what may be the prob­able cost of se­cur­ing the ser­vices of the at­tor­ney-​gen­er­al?’

‘Not in the least, Dr Grant­ly.’

‘I dare say not, sir. When you reck­less­ly put this af­fair in­to the hands of your friend Mr Finney, whose six-​and-​eight­pences and thir­teen-​and-​fourpences may, prob­ably, not amount to a large sum, you were in­dif­fer­ent as to the cost and suf­fer­ing which such a pro­ceed­ing might en­tail on oth­ers; but are you aware, sir, that these crush­ing costs must now come out of your own pock­et?’

‘Any de­mand of such a na­ture which Mr Hard­ing’s lawyer may have to make will doubt­less be made to my lawyer.’

‘”Mr Hard­ing’s lawyer and my lawyer!” Did you come here mere­ly to re­fer me to the lawyers? Up­on my word I think the hon­our of your vis­it might have been spared! And now, sir, I’ll tell you what my opin­ion is–my opin­ion is, that we shall not al­low you to with­draw this mat­ter from the courts.’

‘You can do as you please, Dr Grant­ly; good-​morn­ing.’

‘Hear me out, sir,’ said the archdea­con; ‘I have here in my hands the last opin­ion giv­en in this mat­ter by Sir Abra­ham Hap­haz­ard. I dare say you have al­ready heard of this–I dare say it has had some­thing to do with your vis­it here to­day.’

‘I know noth­ing what­ev­er of Sir Abra­ham Hap­haz­ard or his opin­ion.’

‘Be that as it may, here it is; he de­clares most ex­plic­it­ly that un­der no pha­sis of the af­fair what­ev­er have you a leg to stand up­on; that Mr Hard­ing is as safe in his hos­pi­tal as I am here in my rec­to­ry; that a more fu­tile at­tempt to de­stroy a man was nev­er made, than this which you have made to ru­in Mr Hard­ing. Here,’ and he slapped the pa­per on the ta­ble, ‘I have this opin­ion from the very first lawyer in the land; and un­der these cir­cum­stances you ex­pect me to make you a low bow for your kind of­fer to re­lease Mr Hard­ing from the toils of your net! Sir, your net is not strong enough to hold him; sir, your net has fall­en to pieces, and you knew that well enough be­fore I told you–and now, sir, I’ll wish you good- morn­ing, for I’m busy.’

Bold was now chok­ing with pas­sion. He had let the archdea­con run on be­cause he knew not with what words to in­ter­rupt him; but now that he had been so de­fied and in­sult­ed, he could not leave the room with­out some re­ply.

‘Dr Grant­ly,’ he com­menced.

‘I have noth­ing fur­ther to say or to hear,’ said the archdea­con. ‘I’ll do my­self the hon­our to or­der your horse.’ And he rang the bell.

‘I came here, Dr Grant­ly, with the warmest, kind­est feel­ings–’

‘Oh, of course you did; no­body doubts it.’

‘With the kind­est feel­ings–and they have been most gross­ly out­raged by your treat­ment.’

‘Of course they have–I have not cho­sen to see my fa­ther-​in-​law ru­ined; what an out­rage that has been to your feel­ings!’

‘The time will come, Dr Grant­ly, when you will un­der­stand why I called up­on you to­day.’

‘No doubt, no doubt. Is Mr Bold’s horse there? That’s right; open the front door. Good-​morn­ing, Mr Bold’; and the doc­tor stalked in­to his own draw­ing-​room, clos­ing the door be­hind him, and mak­ing it quite im­pos­si­ble that John Bold should speak an­oth­er word.

As he got on his horse, which he was fain to do feel­ing like a dog turned out of a kitchen, he was again greet­ed by lit­tle Sam­my.

‘Good-​bye, Mr Bold; I hope we may have the plea­sure of see­ing you again be­fore long; I am sure pa­pa will al­ways be glad to see you.’

That was cer­tain­ly the bit­ter­est mo­ment in John Bold’s life. Not even the re­mem­brance of his suc­cess­ful love could com­fort him; nay, when he thought of Eleanor he felt that it was that very love which had brought him to such a pass. That he should have been so in­sult­ed, and be un­able to re­ply! That he should have giv­en up so much to the re­quest of a girl, and then have had his mo­tives so mis­un­der­stood! That he should have made so gross a mis­take as this vis­it of his to the archdea­con’s! He bit the top of his whip, till he pen­etrat­ed the horn of which it was made: he struck the poor an­imal in his anger, and then was dou­bly an­gry with him­self at his fu­tile pas­sion. He had been so com­plete­ly check­mat­ed, so pal­pa­bly over­come! and what was he to do? He could not con­tin­ue his ac­tion af­ter pledg­ing him­self to aban­don it; nor was there any re­venge in that–it was the very step to which his en­emy had en­deav­oured to goad him!

He threw the reins to the ser­vant who came to take his horse, and rushed up­stairs in­to his draw­ing-​room, where his sis­ter Mary was sit­ting.

‘If there be a dev­il,’ said he, ‘a re­al dev­il here on earth, it is Dr Grant­ly.’ He vouch­safed her no fur­ther in­tel­li­gence, but again seiz­ing his hat, he rushed out, and took his de­par­ture for Lon­don with­out an­oth­er word to any­one. CHAP­TER XI­II The War­den’s De­ci­sion

The meet­ing be­tween Eleanor and her fa­ther was not so stormy as that de­scribed in the last chap­ter, but it was hard­ly more suc­cess­ful. On her re­turn from Bold’s house she found her fa­ther in a strange state. He was not sor­row­ful and silent as he had been on that mem­orable day when his son-​in-​law lec­tured him as to all that he owed to his or­der; nor was he in his usu­al qui­et mood. When Eleanor reached the hos­pi­tal, he was walk­ing to and fro up­on the lawn, and she soon saw that he was much ex­cit­ed.

‘I am go­ing to Lon­don, my dear,’ he said as soon as he saw her.

‘Lon­don,pa­pa!’

‘Yes, my dear, to Lon­don; I will have this mat­ter set­tled some way; there are some things, Eleanor, which I can­not bear.’

‘Oh, pa­pa, what is it?’ said she, lead­ing him by the arm in­to the house. ‘I had such good news for you, and now you make me fear I am too late. And then, be­fore he could let her know what had caused this sud­den re­solve, or could point to the fa­tal pa­per which lay on the ta­ble, she told him that the law­suit was over, that Bold had com­mis­sioned her to as­sure her fa­ther in his name that it would be aban­doned,–that there was no fur­ther cause for mis­ery, that the whole mat­ter might be looked on as though it had nev­er been dis­cussed. She did not tell him with what de­ter­mined ve­he­mence she had ob­tained this con­ces­sion in his favour, nor did she men­tion the price she was to pay for it.

The war­den did not ex­press him­self pe­cu­liar­ly grat­ified at this in­tel­li­gence, and Eleanor, though she had not worked for thanks, and was by no means dis­posed to mag­ni­fy her own good of­fices, felt hurt at the man­ner in which her news was re­ceived. ‘Mr Bold can act as he thinks prop­er, my love,’ said he; ‘if Mr Bold thinks he has been wrong, of course he will dis­con­tin­ue what he is do­ing; but that can­not change my pur­pose.’

‘Oh, pa­pa!’ she ex­claimed, all but cry­ing with vex­ation; ‘I thought you would have been so hap­py–I thought all would have been right now.’

‘Mr Bold,’ con­tin­ued he, ‘has set great peo­ple to work–so great that I doubt they are now be­yond his con­trol. Read that, my dear.’ The war­den, dou­bling up a num­ber of The Jupiter, point­ed to the pe­cu­liar ar­ti­cle which she was to read. It was to the last of the three lead­ers, which are gen­er­al­ly fur­nished dai­ly for the sup­port of the na­tion, that Mr Hard­ing di­rect­ed her at­ten­tion. It dealt some heavy blows on var­ious cler­ical delin­quents; on fam­ilies who re­ceived their tens of thou­sands year­ly for do­ing noth­ing; on men who, as the ar­ti­cle stat­ed, rolled in wealth which they had nei­ther earned nor in­her­it­ed, and which was in fact stolen from the poor­er cler­gy. It named some sons of bish­ops, and grand­sons of arch­bish­ops; men great in their way, who had re­deemed their dis­grace in the eyes of many by the enor­mi­ty of their plun­der; and then, hav­ing dis­posed of these leviathans, it de­scend­ed to Mr Hard­ing.

‘We al­lud­ed some weeks since to an in­stance of sim­ilar in­jus­tice, though in a more hum­ble scale, in which the war­den of an almshouse at Barch­ester has be­come pos­sessed of the in­come of the greater part of the whole in­sti­tu­tion. Why an almshouse should have a war­den we can­not pre­tend to ex­plain, nor can we say what spe­cial need twelve old men can have for the ser­vices of a sep­arate cler­gy­man, see­ing that they have twelve re­served seats for them­selves in Barch­ester Cathe­dral. But be this as it may, let the gen­tle­man call him­self war­den or pre­cen­tor, or what he will, let him be nev­er so scrupu­lous in ex­act­ing re­li­gious du­ties from his twelve de­pen­dents, or nev­er so neg­li­gent as re­gards the ser­vices of the cathe­dral, it ap­pears pal­pa­bly clear that he can be en­ti­tled to no por­tion of the rev­enue of the hos­pi­tal, ex­cept­ing that which the founder set apart for him; and it is equal­ly clear that the founder did not in­tend that three-​fifths of his char­ity should be so con­sumed.

‘The case is cer­tain­ly a pal­try one af­ter the tens of thou­sands with which we have been deal­ing, for the war­den’s in­come is af­ter all but a poor eight hun­dred a year: eight hun­dred a year is not mag­nif­icent prefer­ment of it­self, and the war­den may, for any­thing we know, be worth much more to the church; but if so, let the church pay him out of funds just­ly at its own dis­pos­al.

‘We al­lude to the ques­tion of the Barch­ester almshouse at the present mo­ment, be­cause we un­der­stand that a plea has been set up which will be pe­cu­liar­ly re­volt­ing to the minds of En­glish church­men. An ac­tion has been tak­en against Mr War­den Hard­ing, on be­half of the alms­men, by a gen­tle­man act­ing sole­ly on pub­lic grounds, and it is to be ar­gued that Mr Hard­ing takes noth­ing but what he re­ceived as a ser­vant of the hos­pi­tal, and that he is not him­self re­spon­si­ble for the amount of stipend giv­en to him for his work. Such a plea would doubt­less be fair, if any­one ques­tioned the dai­ly wages of a brick­lay­er em­ployed on the build­ing, or the fee of the char­wom­an who cleans it; but we can­not en­vy the feel­ing of a cler­gy­man of the Church of Eng­land who could al­low such an ar­gu­ment to be put in his mouth.

‘If this plea be put for­ward we trust Mr Hard­ing will be forced as a wit­ness to state the na­ture of his em­ploy­ment; the amount of work that he does; the in­come which he re­ceives; and the source from whence he ob­tained his ap­point­ment. We do not think he will re­ceive much pub­lic sym­pa­thy to atone for the an­noy­ance of such an ex­am­ina­tion.’

As Eleanor read the ar­ti­cle her face flushed with in­dig­na­tion, and when she had fin­ished it, she al­most feared to look up at her fa­ther.

‘Well, my dear,’ said he, ‘what do you think of that–is it worth while to be a war­den at that price?’

‘Oh, pa­pa;–dear pa­pa!’

‘Mr Bold can’t un-​write that, my dear–Mr Bold can’t say that that sha’n't be read by ev­ery cler­gy­man at Ox­ford; nay, by ev­ery gen­tle­man in the land’: and then he walked up and down the room, while Eleanor in mute de­spair fol­lowed him with her eyes. ‘And I’ll tell you what, my dear,’ he con­tin­ued, speak­ing now very calm­ly, and in a forced man­ner very un­like him­self; ‘Mr Bold can’t dis­pute the truth of ev­ery word in that ar­ti­cle you have just read–nor can I.’ Eleanor stared at him, as though she scarce­ly un­der­stood the words he was speak­ing. ‘Nor can I, Eleanor: that’s the worst of all, or would be so if there were no rem­edy. I have thought much of all this since we were to­geth­er last night’; and he came and sat be­side her, and put his arm round her waist as he had done then. ‘I have thought much of what the archdea­con has said, and of what this pa­per says; and I do be­lieve I have no right to be here.’

‘No right to be war­den of the hos­pi­tal, pa­pa?’

‘No right to be war­den with eight hun­dred a year; no right to be war­den with such a house as this; no right to spend in lux­ury mon­ey that was in­tend­ed for char­ity. Mr Bold may do as he pleas­es about his suit, but I hope he will not aban­don it for my sake.’

Poor Eleanor! this was hard up­on her. Was it for this she had made her great re­solve! For this that she had laid aside her qui­et de­meanour, and tak­en up­on her the rants of a tragedy hero­ine! One may work and not for thanks, but yet feel hurt at not re­ceiv­ing them; and so it was with Eleanor: one may be dis­in­ter­est­ed in one’s good ac­tions, and yet feel dis­con­tent­ed that they are not recog­nised. Char­ity may be giv­en with the left hand so priv­ily that the right hand does not know it, and yet the left hand may re­gret to feel that it has no im­me­di­ate re­ward. Eleanor had had no wish to bur­den her fa­ther with a weight of obli­ga­tion, and yet she had looked for­ward to much de­light from the knowl­edge that she had freed him from his sor­rows: now such hopes were en­tire­ly over: all that she had done was of no avail; she had hum­bled her­self to Bold in vain; the evil was ut­ter­ly be­yond her pow­er to cure!

She had thought al­so how gen­tly she would whis­per to her fa­ther all that her lover had said to her about her­self, and how im­pos­si­ble she had found it to re­ject him: and then she had an­tic­ipat­ed her fa­ther’s kind­ly kiss and close em­brace as he gave his sanc­tion to her love. Alas! she could say noth­ing of this now. In speak­ing of Mr Bold, her fa­ther put him aside as one whose thoughts and say­ings and acts could be of no mo­ment. Gen­tle read­er, did you ev­er feel your­self snubbed? Did you ev­er, when think­ing much of your own im­por­tance, find your­self sud­den­ly re­duced to a nonen­ti­ty? Such was Eleanor’s feel­ing now.

‘They shall not put for­ward this plea on my be­half,’ con­tin­ued the war­den. ‘What­ev­er may be the truth of the mat­ter, that at any rate is not true; and the man who wrote that ar­ti­cle is right in say­ing that such a plea is re­volt­ing to an hon­est mind. I will go up to Lon­don, my dear, and see these lawyers my­self, and if no bet­ter ex­cuse can be made for me than that, I and the hos­pi­tal will part.’

‘But the archdea­con, pa­pa?’

‘I can’t help it, my dear; there are some things which a man can­not bear–I can­not bear that’; and he put his hand up­on the news­pa­per.

‘But will the archdea­con go with you?’

To tell the truth, Mr Hard­ing had made up his mind to steal a march up­on the archdea­con. He was aware that he could take no steps with­out in­form­ing his dread son-​in-​law, but he had re­solved that he would send out a note to Plum­stead Epis­copi de­tail­ing his plans, but that the mes­sen­ger should not leave Barch­ester till he him­self had start­ed for Lon­don; so that he might be a day be­fore the doc­tor, who, he had no doubt, would fol­low him. In that day, if he had luck, he might ar­range it all; he might ex­plain to Sir Abra­ham that he, as war­den, would have noth­ing fur­ther to do with the de­fence about to be set up; he might send in his of­fi­cial res­ig­na­tion to his friend the bish­op, and so make pub­lic the whole trans­ac­tion, that even the doc­tor would not be able to un­do what he had done. He knew too well the doc­tor’s strength and his own weak­ness to sup­pose he could do this, if they both reached Lon­don to­geth­er; in­deed, he would nev­er be able to get to Lon­don, if the doc­tor knew of his in­tend­ed jour­ney in time to pre­vent it.

‘No, I think not,’ said he. ‘I think I shall start be­fore the archdea­con could be ready–I shall go ear­ly to­mor­row morn­ing.’

‘That will be best, pa­pa,’ said Eleanor, show­ing that her fa­ther’s ruse was ap­pre­ci­at­ed.

‘Why yes, my love. The fact is, I wish to do all this be­fore the archdea­con can–can in­ter­fere. There is a great deal of truth in all he says–he ar­gues very well, and I can’t al­ways an­swer him; but there is an old say­ing, Nel­ly: ” Ev­ery­one knows where his own shoe pinch­es!” He’ll say that I want moral courage, and strength of char­ac­ter, and pow­er of en­durance, and it’s all true; but I’m sure I ought not to re­main here, if I have noth­ing bet­ter to put for­ward than a quib­ble: so, Nel­ly, we shall have to leave this pret­ty place.’

Eleanor’s face bright­ened up, as she as­sured her fa­ther how cor­dial­ly she agreed with him.

‘True, my love,’ said he, now again quite hap­py and at ease in his man­ner. ‘What good to us is this place or all the mon­ey, if we are to be ill-​spo­ken of?’

‘Oh, pa­pa, I am so glad!’

‘My dar­ling child! It did cost me a pang at first, Nel­ly, to think that you should lose your pret­ty draw­ing-​room, and your ponies, and your gar­den: the gar­den will be the worst of all– but there is a gar­den at Crab­tree, a very pret­ty gar­den.’

Crab­tree Par­va was the name of the small liv­ing which Mr Hard­ing had held as a mi­nor canon, and which still be­longed to him. It was on­ly worth some eighty pounds a year, and a small house and glebe, all of which were now hand­ed over to Mr Hard­ing’s cu­rate; but it was to Crab­tree glebe that Mr Hard­ing thought of re­tir­ing. This parish must not be mis­tak­en for that oth­er liv­ing, Crab­tree Canon­ico­rum, as it is called. Crab­tree Canon­ico­rum is a very nice thing; there are on­ly two hun­dred parish­ioners; there are four hun­dred acres of glebe; and the great and small tithes, which both go to the rec­tor, are worth four hun­dred pounds a year more. Crab­tree Canon­ico­rum is in the gift of the dean and chap­ter, and is at this time pos­sessed by the Hon­ourable and Rev­erend Dr Vesey Stan­hope, who al­so fills the preben­dal stall of Goosegorge in Barch­ester Chap­ter, and holds the unit­ed rec­to­ry of Ei­der­down and Stog­pingum, or Stoke Pin­quium, as it should be writ­ten. This is the same Dr Vesey Stan­hope whose hos­pitable vil­la on the Lake of Co­mo is so well known to the elite of En­glish trav­ellers, and whose col­lec­tion of Lom­bard but­ter­flies is sup­posed to be unique.

‘Yes,’ said the war­den, mus­ing, ‘there is a very pret­ty gar­den at Crab­tree; but I shall be sor­ry to dis­turb poor Smith.’ Smith was the cu­rate of Crab­tree, a gen­tle­man who was main­tain­ing a wife and half a dozen chil­dren on the in­come aris­ing from his pro­fes­sion.

Eleanor as­sured her fa­ther that, as far as she was con­cerned, she could leave her house and her ponies with­out a sin­gle re­gret. She was on­ly so hap­py that he was go­ing–go­ing where he would es­cape all this dread­ful tur­moil.

‘But we will take the mu­sic, my dear.’

And so they went on plan­ning their fu­ture hap­pi­ness, and plot­ting how they would ar­range it all with­out the in­ter­po­si­tion of the archdea­con, and at last they again be­came con­fi­den­tial, and then the war­den did thank her for what she had done, and Eleanor, ly­ing on her fa­ther’s shoul­der, did find an op­por­tu­ni­ty to tell her se­cret: and the fa­ther gave his bless­ing to his child, and said that the man whom she loved was hon­est, good, and kind-​heart­ed, and right-​think­ing in the main–one who want­ed on­ly a good wife to put him quite up­right–’a man, my love,’ he end­ed by say­ing, ‘to whom I firm­ly be­lieve that I can trust my trea­sure with safe­ty.’

‘But what will Dr Grant­ly say?’

‘Well, my dear, it can’t be helped–we shall be out at Crab­tree then.’

And Eleanor ran up­stairs to pre­pare her fa­ther’s clothes for his jour­ney; and the war­den re­turned to his gar­den to make his last adieux to ev­ery tree, and shrub, and shady nook that he knew so well.