The Warden

CHAPTER XIX The Warden Resigns

The par­ty met the next morn­ing at break­fast; and a very som­bre af­fair it was–very un­like the break­fasts at Plum­stead Epis­copi.

There were three thin, small, dry bits of ba­con, each an inch long, served up un­der a huge old plat­ed cov­er; there were four three-​cor­nered bits of dry toast, and four square bits of but­tered toast; there was a loaf of bread, and some oily- look­ing but­ter; and on the side­board there were the re­mains of a cold shoul­der of mut­ton. The archdea­con, how­ev­er, had not come up from his rec­to­ry to St Paul’s Church­yard to en­joy him­self and there­fore noth­ing was said of the scanty fare.

The guests were as sor­ry as the viands–hard­ly any­thing was said over the break­fast-​ta­ble. The archdea­con munched his toast in omi­nous si­lence, turn­ing over bit­ter thoughts in his deep mind. The war­den tried to talk to his daugh­ter, and she tried to an­swer him; but they both failed. There were no feel­ings at present in com­mon be­tween them. The war­den was think­ing on­ly of get­ting back to Barch­ester, and cal­cu­lat­ing whether the archdea­con would ex­pect him to wait for him; and Mrs Grant­ly was prepar­ing her­self for a grand at­tack which she was to make on her fa­ther, as agreed up­on be­tween her­self and her hus­band dur­ing their cur­tain con­fab­ula­tion of that morn­ing.

When the wait­er had creaked out of the room with the last of the teacups, the archdea­con got up and went to the win­dow as though to ad­mire the view. The room looked out on a nar­row pas­sage which runs from St Paul’s Church­yard to Pa­ter­nos­ter Row; and Dr Grant­ly pa­tient­ly pe­rused the names of the three shop­keep­ers whose doors were in view. The war­den still kept his seat at the ta­ble, and ex­am­ined the pat­tern of the table­cloth; and Mrs Grant­ly, seat­ing her­self on the so­fa, be­gan to knit.

Af­ter a while the war­den pulled his Brad­shaw out of his pock­et, and be­gan la­bo­ri­ous­ly to con­sult it. There was a train for Barch­ester at 10 A.M. That was out of the ques­tion, for it was near­ly ten al­ready. An­oth­er at 3 P.M.; an­oth­er, the night-​mail train, at 9 P.M. The three o’clock train would take him home to tea, and would suit very well.

‘My dear,’ said he, ‘I think I shall go back home at three o’clock to­day. I shall get home at half-​past eight. I don’t think there’s any­thing to keep me in Lon­don.’

‘The archdea­con and I re­turn by the ear­ly train to­mor­row, pa­pa; won’t you wait and go back with us?’

‘Why, Eleanor will ex­pect me tonight; and I’ve so much to do; and–’

‘Much to do!’ said the archdea­con sot­to voce; but the war­den heard him.

‘You’d bet­ter wait for us, pa­pa.’

‘Thank ye, my dear! I think I’ll go this af­ter­noon.’ The tamest an­imal will turn when driv­en too hard, and even Mr Hard­ing was be­gin­ning to fight for his own way.

I sup­pose you won’t be back be­fore three?’ said the la­dy, ad­dress­ing her hus­band.

‘I must leave this at two,’ said the war­den.

‘Quite out of the ques­tion,’ said the archdea­con, an­swer­ing his wife, and still read­ing the shop­keep­ers’ names; ‘I don’t sup­pose I shall be back till five.’

There was an­oth­er long pause, dur­ing which Mr Hard­ing con­tin­ued to study his Brad­shaw.

‘I must go to Cox and Cum­mins,’ said the archdea­con at last.

‘Oh, to Cox and Cum­mins,’ said the war­den. It was quite a mat­ter of in­dif­fer­ence to him where his son-​in-​law went. The names of Cox and Cum­mins had now no in­ter­est in his ears. What had he to do with Cox and Cum­mins fur­ther, hav­ing al­ready had his suit fi­nal­ly ad­ju­di­cat­ed up­on in a court of con­science, a judg­ment with­out pow­er of ap­peal ful­ly reg­is­tered, and the mat­ter set­tled so that all the lawyers in Lon­don could not dis­turb it. The archdea­con could go to Cox and Cum­mins, could re­main there all day in anx­ious dis­cus­sion; but what might be said there was no longer mat­ter of in­ter­est to him, who was so soon to lay aside the name of war­den of Barch­ester Hos­pi­tal.

The archdea­con took up his shin­ing new cler­ical hat, and put on his black new cler­ical gloves, and looked heavy, re­spectable, deco­rous, and op­ulent, a de­cid­ed cler­gy­man of the Church of Eng­land, ev­ery inch of him. ‘I sup­pose I shall see you at Barch­ester the day af­ter to­mor­row,’ said he.

The war­den sup­posed he would.

‘I must once more be­seech you to take no fur­ther steps till you see my fa­ther; if you owe me noth­ing,’ and the archdea­con looked as though he thought a great deal were due to him, ‘at least you owe so much to my fa­ther’; and, with­out wait­ing for a re­ply, Dr Grant­ly wend­ed his way to Cox and Cum­mins.

Mrs Grant­ly wait­ed till the last fall of her hus­band’s foot was heard, as he turned out of the court in­to St Paul’s Church­yard, and then com­menced her task of talk­ing her fa­ther over.

‘Pa­pa,’ she be­gan, ‘this is a most se­ri­ous busi­ness.’

‘In­deed it is,’ said the war­den, ring­ing the bell.

‘I great­ly feel the dis­tress of mind you must have en­dured.’

‘I am sure you do, my dear’; and he or­dered the wait­er to bring him pen, ink, and pa­per.

‘Are you go­ing to write, pa­pa?’

‘Yes, my dear–I am go­ing to write my res­ig­na­tion to the bish­op.’

‘Pray, pray, pa­pa, put it off till our re­turn–pray put it off till you have seen the bish­op–dear pa­pa! for my sake, for Eleanor’s!–’

‘It is for your sake and Eleanor’s that I do this. I hope, at least, that my chil­dren may nev­er have to be ashamed of their fa­ther.’

‘How can you talk about shame, pa­pa?’ and she stopped while the wait­er creaked in with the pa­per, and then slow­ly creaked out again; ‘how can you talk about shame? you know what all your friends think about this ques­tion.’ The war­den spread his pa­per on the ta­ble, plac­ing it on the mea­gre blot­ting-​book which the ho­tel af­ford­ed, and sat him­self down to write.

‘You won’t refuse me one re­quest, pa­pa?’ con­tin­ued his daugh­ter; ‘you won’t refuse to de­lay your let­ter for two short days? Two days can make no pos­si­ble dif­fer­ence.’

‘My dear,’ said he naive­ly, ‘if I wait­ed till I got to Barch­ester, I might, per­haps, be pre­vent­ed.’

‘But sure­ly you would not wish to of­fend the bish­op?’ said she.

‘God for­bid! The bish­op is not apt to take of­fence, and knows me too well to take in bad part any­thing that I may be called on to do.’

‘But, pa­pa–’

‘Su­san,’ said he, ‘my mind on this sub­ject is made up; it is not with­out much re­pug­nance that I act in op­po­si­tion to the ad­vice of such men as Sir Abra­ham Hap­haz­ard and the archdea­con; but in this mat­ter I can take no ad­vice, I can­not al­ter the res­olu­tion to which I have come.’

‘But two days, pa­pa–’

‘No–nor can I de­lay it. You may add to my present un­hap­pi­ness by press­ing me, but you can­not change my pur­pose; it will be a com­fort to me if you will let the mat­ter rest’: and, dip­ping his pen in­to the ink­stand, he fixed his eyes in­tent­ly on the pa­per.

There was some­thing in his man­ner which taught his daugh­ter to per­ceive that he was in earnest; she had at one time ruled supreme in her fa­ther’s house, but she knew that there were mo­ments when, mild and meek as he was, he would have his way, and the present was an oc­ca­sion of the sort. She re­turned, there­fore, to her knit­ting, and very short­ly af­ter left the room.

The war­den was now at lib­er­ty to com­pose his let­ter, and, as it was char­ac­ter­is­tic of the man, it shall be giv­en at full length. The of­fi­cial let­ter, which, when writ­ten, seemed to him to be too for­mal­ly cold to be sent alone to so dear a friend, was ac­com­pa­nied by a pri­vate note; and both are here in­sert­ed.

The let­ter of res­ig­na­tion ran as fol­lows: