The Warden

CHAPTER XVII Sir Abraham Haphazard

Mr Hard­ing was shown in­to a com­fort­able in­ner sit­ting-​room, look­ing more like a gen­tle­man’s book-​room than a lawyer’s cham­bers, and there wait­ed for Sir Abra­ham. Nor was he kept wait­ing long: in ten or fif­teen min­utes he heard a clat­ter of voic­es speak­ing quick­ly in the pas­sage, and then the at­tor­ney-​gen­er­al en­tered.

‘Very sor­ry to keep you wait­ing, Mr War­den,’ said Sir Abra­ham, shak­ing hands with him; ‘and sor­ry, too, to name so dis­agree­able an hour; but your no­tice was short, and as you said to­day, I named the very ear­li­est hour that was not dis­posed of.’

Mr Hard­ing as­sured him that he was aware that it was he that should apol­ogise.

Sir Abra­ham was a tall thin man, with hair pre­ma­ture­ly gray, but bear­ing no oth­er sign of age; he had a slight stoop, in his neck rather than his back, ac­quired by his con­stant habit of lean­ing for­ward as he ad­dressed his var­ious au­di­ences. He might be fifty years old, and would have looked young for his age, had not con­stant work hard­ened his fea­tures, and giv­en him the ap­pear­ance of a ma­chine with a mind. His face was full of in­tel­lect, but de­void of nat­ural ex­pres­sion. You would say he was a man to use, and then have done with; a man to be sought for on great emer­gen­cies, but ill-​adapt­ed for or­di­nary ser­vices; a man whom you would ask to de­fend your prop­er­ty, but to whom you would be sor­ry to con­fide your love. He was bright as a di­amond, and as cut­ting, and al­so as unim­pres­sion­able. He knew ev­ery­one whom to know was an hon­our, but he was with­out a friend; he want­ed none, how­ev­er, and knew not the mean­ing of the word in oth­er than its par­lia­men­tary sense. A friend! Had he not al­ways been suf­fi­cient to him­self, and now, at fifty, was it like­ly that he should trust an­oth­er? He was mar­ried, in­deed, and had chil­dren, but what time had he for the soft idle­ness of con­ju­gal fe­lic­ity? His work­ing days or term times were oc­cu­pied from his time of ris­ing to the late hour at which he went to rest, and even his va­ca­tions were more full of labour than the bus­iest days of oth­er men. He nev­er quar­relled with his wife, but he nev­er talked to her–he nev­er had time to talk, he was so tak­en up with speak­ing. She, poor la­dy, was not un­hap­py; she had all that mon­ey could give her, she would prob­ably live to be a peer­ess, and she re­al­ly thought Sir Abra­ham the best of hus­bands.

Sir Abra­ham was a man of wit, and sparkled among the bright­est at the din­ner-​ta­bles of po­lit­ical grandees: in­deed, he al­ways sparkled; whether in so­ci­ety, in the House of Com­mons, or the courts of law, cor­us­ca­tions flew from him; glit­ter­ing sparkles, as from hot steel, but no heat; no cold heart was ev­er cheered by warmth from him, no un­hap­py soul ev­er dropped a por­tion of its bur­den at his door.

With him suc­cess alone was praise­wor­thy, and he knew none so suc­cess­ful as him­self. No one had thrust him for­ward; no pow­er­ful friends had pushed him along on his road to pow­er. No; he was at­tor­ney-​gen­er­al, and would, in all hu­man prob­abil­ity, be lord chan­cel­lor by sheer dint of his own in­dus­try and his own tal­ent. Who else in all the world rose so high with so lit­tle help? A pre­mier, in­deed! Who had ev­er been pre­mier with­out mighty friends? An arch­bish­op! Yes, the son or grand­son of a great no­ble, or else, prob­ably, his tu­tor. But he, Sir Abra­ham, had had no mighty lord at his back; his fa­ther had been a coun­try apothe­cary, his moth­er a farmer’s daugh­ter. Why should he re­spect any but him­self? And so he glit­ters along through the world, the bright­est among the bright; and when his glit­ter is gone, and he is gath­ered to his fa­thers, no eye will be dim with a tear, no heart will mourn for its lost friend.

‘And so, Mr War­den,’ said Sir Abra­ham, ‘all our trou­ble about this law­suit is at an end.’

Mr Hard­ing said he hoped so, but he didn’t at all un­der­stand what Sir Abra­ham meant. Sir Abra­ham, with all his sharp­ness, could not have looked in­to his heart and read his in­ten­tions.

‘All over. You need trou­ble your­self no fur­ther about it; of course they must pay the costs, and the ab­so­lute ex­pense to you and Dr Grant­ly will be tri­fling–that is, com­pared with what it might have been if it had been con­tin­ued.’

‘I fear I don’t quite un­der­stand you, Sir Abra­ham.’

‘Don’t you know that their at­tor­neys have no­ticed us that they have with­drawn the suit?’

Mr Hard­ing ex­plained to the lawyer that he knew noth­ing of this, al­though he had heard in a round­about way that such an in­ten­tion had been talked of; and he al­so at length suc­ceed­ed in mak­ing Sir Abra­ham un­der­stand that even this did not sat­is­fy him. The at­tor­ney-​gen­er­al stood up, put his hands in­to his breech­es’ pock­ets, and raised his eye­brows, as Mr Hard­ing pro­ceed­ed to de­tail the grievance from which he now wished to rid him­self.

‘I know I have no right to trou­ble you per­son­al­ly with this mat­ter, but as it is of most vi­tal im­por­tance to me, as all my hap­pi­ness is con­cerned in it, I thought I might ven­ture to seek your ad­vice.’

Sir Abra­ham bowed, and de­clared his clients were en­ti­tled to the best ad­vice he could give them; par­tic­ular­ly a client so re­spectable in ev­ery way as the War­den of Barch­ester Hos­pi­tal.

‘A spo­ken word, Sir Abra­ham, is of­ten of more val­ue than vol­umes of writ­ten ad­vice. The truth is, I am ill-​sat­is­fied with this mat­ter as it stands at present. I do see–I can­not help see­ing, that the af­fairs of the hos­pi­tal are not ar­ranged ac­cord­ing to the will of the founder.’

‘None of such in­sti­tu­tions are, Mr Hard­ing, nor can they be; the al­tered cir­cum­stances in which we live do not ad­mit of it.’

‘Quite true–that is quite true; but I can’t see that those al­tered cir­cum­stances give me a right to eight hun­dred a year. I don’t know whether I ev­er read John Hi­ram’s will, but were I to read it now I could not un­der­stand it. What I want you, Sir Abra­ham, to tell me, is this–am I, as war­den, legal­ly and dis­tinct­ly en­ti­tled to the pro­ceeds of the prop­er­ty, af­ter the due main­te­nance of the twelve be­des­men?’

Sir Abra­ham de­clared that he couldn’t ex­act­ly say in so many words that Mr Hard­ing was legal­ly en­ti­tled to, &c., &c., &c., and end­ed in ex­press­ing a strong opin­ion that it would be mad­ness to raise any fur­ther ques­tion on the mat­ter, as the suit was to be–nay, was, aban­doned. Mr Hard­ing, seat­ed in his chair, be­gan to play a slow tune on an imag­inary vi­olon­cel­lo.

‘Nay, my dear sir,’ con­tin­ued the at­tor­ney-​gen­er­al, ‘there is no fur­ther ground for any ques­tion; I don’t see that you have the pow­er of rais­ing it.’

‘I can re­sign,’ said Mr Hard­ing, slow­ly play­ing away with his right hand, as though the bow were be­neath the chair in which he was sit­ting.

‘What! throw it up al­to­geth­er?’ said the at­tor­ney-​gen­er­al, gaz­ing with ut­ter as­ton­ish­ment at his client.

‘Did you see those ar­ti­cles in The Jupiter?’ said Mr Hard­ing, piteous­ly, ap­peal­ing to the sym­pa­thy of the lawyer.

Sir Abra­ham said he had seen them. This poor lit­tle cler­gy­man, cowed in­to such an act of ex­treme weak­ness by a news­pa­per ar­ti­cle, was to Sir Abra­ham so con­temptible an ob­ject, that he hard­ly knew how to talk to him as to a ra­tio­nal be­ing.

‘Hadn’t you bet­ter wait,’ said he, ’till Dr Grant­ly is in town with you? Wouldn’t it be bet­ter to post­pone any se­ri­ous step till you can con­sult with him?’

Mr Hard­ing de­clared ve­he­ment­ly that he could not wait, and Sir Abra­ham be­gan se­ri­ous­ly to doubt his san­ity.

‘Of course,’ said the lat­ter, ‘if you have pri­vate means suf­fi­cient for your wants, and if this–’

‘I haven’t a six­pence, Sir Abra­ham,’ said the war­den.

‘God bless me! Why, Mr Hard­ing, how do you mean to live?’

Mr Hard­ing pro­ceed­ed to ex­plain to the man of law that he meant to keep his pre­cen­tor­ship–that was eighty pounds a year; and, al­so, that he meant to fall back up­on his own lit­tle liv­ing of Crab­tree, which was an­oth­er eighty pounds. That, to be sure, the du­ties of the two were hard­ly com­pat­ible; but per­haps he might ef­fect an ex­change. And then, rec­ol­lect­ing that the at­tor­ney-​gen­er­al would hard­ly care to hear how the ser­vice of a cathe­dral church is di­vid­ed among the mi­nor canons, stopped short in his ex­pla­na­tions.

Sir Abra­ham lis­tened in pity­ing won­der. ‘I re­al­ly think, Mr Hard­ing, you had bet­ter wait for the archdea­con. This is a most se­ri­ous step–one for which, in my opin­ion, there is not the slight­est ne­ces­si­ty; and, as you have done me the hon­our of ask­ing my ad­vice, I must im­plore you to do noth­ing with­out the ap­proval of your friends. A man is nev­er the best judge of his own po­si­tion.’

‘A man is the best judge of what he feels him­self. I’d soon­er beg my bread till my death than read such an­oth­er ar­ti­cle as those two that have ap­peared, and feel, as I do, that the writ­er has truth on his side.’

‘Have you not a daugh­ter, Mr Hard­ing–an un­mar­ried daugh­ter?’

‘I have,’ said he, now stand­ing al­so, but still play­ing away on his fid­dle with his hand be­hind his back. ‘I have, Sir Abra­ham; and she and I are com­plete­ly agreed on this sub­ject.’

‘Pray ex­cuse me, Mr Hard­ing, if what I say seems im­per­ti­nent; but sure­ly it is you that should be pru­dent on her be­half. She is young, and does not know the mean­ing of liv­ing on an in­come of a hun­dred and six­ty pounds a year. On her ac­count give up this idea. Be­lieve me, it is sheer Quixo­tism.’

The war­den walked away to the win­dow, and then back to his chair; and then, ir­res­olute what to say, took an­oth­er turn to the win­dow. The at­tor­ney-​gen­er­al was re­al­ly ex­treme­ly pa­tient, but he was be­gin­ning to think that the in­ter­view had been long enough.

‘But if this in­come be not just­ly mine, what if she and I have both to beg?’ said the war­den at last, sharply, and in a voice so dif­fer­ent from that he had hith­er­to used, that Sir Abra­ham was star­tled. ‘If so, it would be bet­ter to beg.’

‘My dear sir, no­body now ques­tions its just­ness.’

‘Yes, Sir Abra­ham, one does ques­tion it–the most im­por­tant of all wit­ness­es against me–I ques­tion it my­self. My God knows whether or no I love my daugh­ter; but I would soon­er that she and I should both beg, than that she should live in com­fort on mon­ey which is tru­ly the prop­er­ty of the poor. It may seem strange to you, Sir Abra­ham, it is strange to my­self, that I should have been ten years in that hap­py home, and not have thought of these things till they were so rough­ly dinned in­to my ears. I can­not boast of my con­science, when it re­quired the vi­olence of a pub­lic news­pa­per to awak­en it; but, now that it is awake, I must obey it. When I came here, I did not know that the suit was with­drawn by Mr Bold, and my ob­ject was to beg you to aban­don my de­fence. As there is no ac­tion, there can be no de­fence; but it is, at any rate, as well that you should know that from to­mor­row I shall cease to be the war­den of the hos­pi­tal. My friends and I dif­fer on this sub­ject, Sir Abra­ham, and that adds much to my sor­row; but it can­not be helped.’ And, as he fin­ished what he had to say, he played up such a tune as nev­er be­fore had graced the cham­bers of any at­tor­ney-​gen­er­al. He was stand­ing up, gal­lant­ly fronting Sir Abra­ham, and his right arm passed with bold and rapid sweeps be­fore him, as though he were em­brac­ing some huge in­stru­ment, which al­lowed him to stand thus erect; and with the fin­gers of his left hand he stopped, with preter­nat­ural ve­loc­ity, a mul­ti­tude of strings, which ranged from the top of his col­lar to the bot­tom of the lap­pet of his coat. Sir Abra­ham lis­tened and looked in won­der. As he had nev­er be­fore seen Mr Hard­ing, the mean­ing of these wild ges­tic­ula­tions was lost up­on him; but he per­ceived that the gen­tle­man who had a few min­utes since been so sub­dued as to be un­able to speak with­out hes­ita­tion, was now im­pas­sioned–nay, al­most vi­olent.

‘You’ll sleep on this, Mr Hard­ing, and to­mor­row–’

‘I have done more than sleep up­on it,’ said the war­den; ‘I have lain awake up­on it, and that night af­ter night. I found I could not sleep up­on it: now I hope to do so.’

The at­tor­ney-​gen­er­al had no an­swer to make to this; so he ex­pressed a qui­et hope that what­ev­er set­tle­ment was fi­nal­ly made would be sat­is­fac­to­ry; and Mr Hard­ing with­drew, thank­ing the great man for his kind at­ten­tion.

Mr Hard­ing was suf­fi­cient­ly sat­is­fied with the in­ter­view to feel a glow of com­fort as he de­scend­ed in­to the small old square of Lin­coln’s Inn. It was a calm, bright, beau­ti­ful night, and by the light of the moon, even the chapel of Lin­coln’s Inn, and the som­bre row of cham­bers, which sur­round the quad­ran­gle, looked well. He stood still a mo­ment to col­lect his thoughts, and re­flect on what he had done, and was about to do. He knew that the at­tor­ney-​gen­er­al re­gard­ed him as lit­tle bet­ter than a fool, but that he did not mind; he and the at­tor­ney- gen­er­al had not much in com­mon be­tween them; he knew al­so that oth­ers, whom he did care about, would think so too; but Eleanor, he was sure, would ex­ult in what he had done, and the bish­op, he trust­ed, would sym­pa­thise with him.

In the mean­time he had to meet the archdea­con, and so he walked slow­ly down Chancery Lane and along Fleet Street, feel­ing sure that his work for the night was not yet over. When he reached the ho­tel he rang the bell qui­et­ly, and with a pal­pi­tat­ing heart; he al­most longed to es­cape round the cor­ner, and de­lay the com­ing storm by a fur­ther walk round St Paul’s Church­yard, but he heard the slow creak­ing shoes of the old wait­er ap­proach­ing, and he stood his ground man­ful­ly.