The Warden

CHAPTER XVIII The Warden is Very Obstinate

‘Dr Grant­ly is here, sir,’ greet­ed his ears be­fore the door was well open, ‘and Mrs Grant­ly. They have a sit­ting-​room above, and are wait­ing up for you.’

There was some­thing in the tone of the man’s voice which seemed to in­di­cate that even he looked up­on the war­den as a run­away school­boy, just re­cap­tured by his guardian, and that he pitied the cul­prit, though he could not but be hor­ri­fied at the crime.

The war­den en­deav­oured to ap­pear un­con­cerned, as he said, ‘Oh, in­deed! I’ll go up­stairs at once’; but he failed sig­nal­ly. There was, per­haps, a ray of com­fort in the pres­ence of his mar­ried daugh­ter; that is to say, of com­par­ative com­fort, see­ing that his son-​in-​law was there; but how much would he have pre­ferred that they should both have been safe at Plum­stead Epis­copi! How­ev­er, up­stairs he went, the wait­er slow­ly pre­ced­ing him; and on the door be­ing opened the archdea­con was dis­cov­ered stand­ing in the mid­dle of the room, erect, in­deed, as usu­al, but oh! how sor­row­ful! and on the dingy so­fa be­hind him re­clined his pa­tient wife.

‘Pa­pa, I thought you were nev­er com­ing back,’ said the la­dy; ‘it’s twelve o’clock.’

‘Yes, my dear,’ said the war­den. ‘The at­tor­ney-​gen­er­al named ten for my meet­ing; to be sure ten is late, but what could I do, you know? Great men will have their own way.’

And he gave his daugh­ter a kiss, and shook hands with the doc­tor, and again tried to look un­con­cerned.

‘And you have ab­so­lute­ly been with the at­tor­ney-​gen­er­al?’ asked the archdea­con.

Mr Hard­ing sig­ni­fied that he had.

‘Good heav­ens, how un­for­tu­nate!’ And the archdea­con raised his huge hands in the man­ner in which his friends are so ac­cus­tomed to see him ex­press dis­ap­pro­ba­tion and as­ton­ish­ment. ‘What will Sir Abra­ham think of it? Did you not know that it is not cus­tom­ary for clients to go di­rect to their coun­sel?’

‘Isn’t it?’ asked the war­den, in­no­cent­ly. ‘Well, at any rate, I’ve done it now. Sir Abra­ham didn’t seem to think it so very strange.’

The archdea­con gave a sigh that would have moved a man-​of-​war.

‘But, pa­pa, what did you say to Sir Abra­ham?’ asked the la­dy.

‘I asked him, my dear, to ex­plain John Hi­ram’s will to me. He couldn’t ex­plain it in the on­ly way which would have sat­is­fied me, and so I re­signed the war­den­ship.’

‘Re­signed it!’ said the archdea­con, in a solemn voice, sad and low, but yet suf­fi­cient­ly au­di­ble–a sort of whis­per that Macready would have en­vied, and the gal­leries have ap­plaud­ed with a cou­ple of rounds. ‘Re­signed it! Good heav­ens!’ And the dig­ni­tary of the church sank back hor­ri­fied in­to a horse­hair arm-​chair.

‘At least I told Sir Abra­ham that I would re­sign; and of course I must now do so.’

‘Not at all,’ said the archdea­con, catch­ing a ray of hope. ‘Noth­ing that you say in such a way to your own coun­sel can be in any way bind­ing on you; of course you were there to ask his ad­vice. I’m sure Sir Abra­ham did not ad­vise any such step.’

Mr Hard­ing could not say that he had.

‘I am sure he dis­ad­vised you from it,’ con­tin­ued the rev­erend cross-​ex­am­in­er.

Mr Hard­ing could not de­ny this.

‘I’m sure Sir Abra­ham must have ad­vised you to con­sult your friends.’

To this propo­si­tion al­so Mr Hard­ing was obliged to as­sent.

‘Then your threat of res­ig­na­tion amounts to noth­ing, and we are just where we were be­fore.’

Mr Hard­ing was now stand­ing on the rug, mov­ing un­easi­ly from one foot to the oth­er. He made no dis­tinct an­swer to the archdea­con’s last propo­si­tion, for his mind was chiefly en­gaged on think­ing how he could es­cape to bed. That his res­ig­na­tion was a thing fi­nal­ly fixed on, a fact all but com­plet­ed, was not in his mind a mat­ter of any doubt; he knew his own weak­ness; he knew how prone he was to be led; but he was not weak enough to give way now, to go back from the po­si­tion to which his con­science had driv­en him, af­ter hav­ing pur­pose­ly come to Lon­don to de­clare his de­ter­mi­na­tion: he did not in the least doubt his res­olu­tion, but he great­ly doubt­ed his pow­er of de­fend­ing it against his son-​in-​law.

‘You must be very tired, Su­san,’ said he: ‘wouldn’t you like to go to bed?’

But Su­san didn’t want to go till her hus­band went.–She had an idea that her pa­pa might be bul­lied if she were away: she wasn’t tired at all, or at least she said so.

The archdea­con was pac­ing the room, ex­press­ing, by cer­tain nod­dles of his head, his opin­ion of the ut­ter fa­tu­ity of his fa­ther-​in-​law.

‘Why,’ at last he said–and an­gels might have blushed at the re­buke ex­pressed in his tone and em­pha­sis–’Why did you go off from Barch­ester so sud­den­ly? Why did you take such a step with­out giv­ing us no­tice, af­ter what had passed at the palace?’

The war­den hung his head, and made no re­ply: he could not con­de­scend to say that he had not in­tend­ed to give his son-​in-​law the slip; and as he had not the courage to avow it, he said noth­ing.

‘Pa­pa has been too much for you,’ said the la­dy.

The archdea­con took an­oth­er turn, and again ejac­ulat­ed, ‘Good heav­ens!’ this time in a very low whis­per, but still au­di­ble.

‘I think I’ll go to bed,’ said the war­den, tak­ing up a side can­dle.

‘At any rate, you’ll promise me to take no fur­ther step with­out con­sul­ta­tion,’ said the archdea­con. Mr Hard­ing made no an­swer, but slow­ly pro­ceed­ed to light his can­dle.

‘Of course,’ con­tin­ued the oth­er, ’such a dec­la­ra­tion as that you made to Sir Abra­ham means noth­ing. Come, war­den, promise me this. The whole af­fair, you see, is al­ready set­tled, and that with very lit­tle trou­ble or ex­pense. Bold has been com­pelled to aban­don his ac­tion, and all you have to do is to re­main qui­et at the hos­pi­tal.’ Mr Hard­ing still made no re­ply, but looked meek­ly in­to his son-​in-​law’s face. The archdea­con thought he knew his fa­ther-​in-​law, but he was mis­tak­en; he thought that he had al­ready talked over a vac­il­lat­ing man to re­sign his promise. ‘Come,’ said he, ‘promise Su­san to give up this idea of re­sign­ing the war­den­ship.’

The war­den looked at his daugh­ter, think­ing prob­ably at the mo­ment that if Eleanor were con­tent­ed with him, he need not so much re­gard his oth­er child, and said, ‘I am sure Su­san will not ask me to break my word, or to do what I know to be wrong.’

‘Pa­pa,’ said she, ‘it would be mad­ness in you to throw up your prefer­ment. What are you to live on?’

‘God, that feeds the young ravens, will take care of me al­so,’ said Mr Hard­ing, with a smile, as though afraid of giv­ing of­fence by mak­ing his ref­er­ence to scrip­ture too solemn.

‘Pish!’ said the archdea­con, turn­ing away rapid­ly. ‘If the ravens per­sist­ed in re­fus­ing the food pre­pared for them, they wouldn’t be fed.’ A cler­gy­man gen­er­al­ly dis­likes to be met in ar­gu­ment by any scrip­tural quo­ta­tion; he feels as af­front­ed as a doc­tor does, when rec­om­mend­ed by an old wom­an to take some favourite dose, or as a lawyer when an un­pro­fes­sion­al man at­tempts to put him down by a quib­ble.

‘I shall have the liv­ing of Crab­tree,’ mod­est­ly sug­gest­ed the war­den. ‘Eighty pounds a year!’ sneered the archdea­con.

‘And the pre­cen­tor­ship,’ said the fa­ther-​in-​law.

‘It goes with the war­den­ship,’ said the son-​in-​law. Mr Hard­ing was pre­pared to ar­gue this point, and be­gan to do so, but Dr Grant­ly stopped him. ‘My dear war­den,’ said he, ‘this is all non­sense. Eighty pounds or a hun­dred and six­ty makes very lit­tle dif­fer­ence. You can’t live on it–you can’t ru­in Eleanor’s prospects for ev­er. In point of fact, you can’t re­sign; the bish­op wouldn’t ac­cept it; the whole thing is set­tled. What I now want to do is to pre­vent any in­con­ve­nient tit­tle-​tat­tle–any more news­pa­per ar­ti­cles.’

‘That’s what I want, too,’ said the war­den.

‘And to pre­vent that,’ con­tin­ued the oth­er, ‘we mustn’t let any talk of res­ig­na­tion get abroad.’

‘But I shall re­sign,’ said the war­den, very, very meek­ly.

‘Good heav­ens! Su­san, my dear, what can I say to him?’

‘But, pa­pa,’ said Mrs Grant­ly, get­ting up, and putting her arm through that of her fa­ther, ‘what is Eleanor to do if you throw away your in­come?’

A hot tear stood in each of the war­den’s eyes as he looked round up­on his mar­ried daugh­ter. Why should one sis­ter who was so rich pre­dict pover­ty for an­oth­er? Some such idea as this was on his mind, but he gave no ut­ter­ance to it. Then he thought of the pel­ican feed­ing its young with blood from its own breast, but he gave no ut­ter­ance to that ei­ther; and then of Eleanor wait­ing for him at home, wait­ing to con­grat­ulate him on the end of all his trou­ble.

‘Think of Eleanor, pa­pa,’ said Mrs Grant­ly.

‘I do think of her,’ said her fa­ther.

‘And you will not do this rash thing?’ The la­dy was re­al­ly moved be­yond her usu­al calm com­po­sure.

‘It can nev­er be rash to do right,’ said he. ‘I shall cer­tain­ly re­sign this war­den­ship.’

‘Then, Mr Hard­ing, there is noth­ing be­fore you but ru­in,’ said the archdea­con, now moved be­yond all en­durance. ‘Ru­in both for you and Eleanor. How do you mean to pay the mon­strous ex­pens­es of this ac­tion?’

Mrs Grant­ly sug­gest­ed that, as the ac­tion was aban­doned, the costs would not be heavy.

‘In­deed they will, my dear,’ con­tin­ued he. ‘One can­not have the at­tor­ney-​gen­er­al up at twelve o’clock at night for noth­ing–but of course your fa­ther has not thought of this.’

‘I will sell my fur­ni­ture,’ said the war­den. ‘Fur­ni­ture!’ ejac­ulat­ed the oth­er, with a most pow­er­ful sneer.

Come, archdea­con,’ said the la­dy, ‘we needn’t mind that at present. You know you nev­er ex­pect­ed pa­pa to pay the costs.’

‘Such ab­sur­di­ty is enough to pro­voke job,’ said the archdea­con, march­ing quick­ly up and down the room. ‘Your fa­ther is like a child. Eight hun­dred pounds a year!–eight hun­dred and eighty with the house–with noth­ing to do. The very place for him. And to throw that up be­cause some scoundrel writes an ar­ti­cle in a news­pa­per! Well–I have done my du­ty. If he choos­es to ru­in his child I can­not help it’; and he stood still at the fire-​place, and looked at him­self in a dingy mir­ror which stood on the chim­ney-​piece.

There was a pause for about a minute, and then the war­den, find­ing that noth­ing else was com­ing, light­ed his can­dle, and qui­et­ly said, ‘Good-​night.’

‘Good-​night, pa­pa,’ said the la­dy.

And so the war­den re­tired; but, as he closed the door be­hind him, he heard the well-​known ejac­ula­tion–slow­er, low­er, more solemn, more pon­der­ous than ev­er–’Good heav­ens!’