The Warden

CHAPTER VI The Warden’s Tea Party

Af­ter much painful doubt­ing, on one thing on­ly could Mr Hard­ing re­solve. He de­ter­mined that at any rate he would take no of­fence, and that he would make this ques­tion no cause of quar­rel ei­ther with Bold or with the be­des­men. In fur­ther­ance of this res­olu­tion, he him­self wrote a note to Mr Bold, the same af­ter­noon, invit­ing him to meet a few friends and hear some mu­sic on an evening named in the next week. Had not this lit­tle par­ty been promised to Eleanor, in his present state of mind he would prob­ably have avoid­ed such gai­ety; but the promise had been giv­en, the in­vi­ta­tions were to be writ­ten, and when Eleanor con­sult­ed her fa­ther on the sub­ject, she was not ill pleased to hear him say, ‘Oh, I was think­ing of Bold, so I took it in­to my head to write to him my­self, but you must write to his sis­ter.’

Mary Bold was old­er than her broth­er, and, at the time of our sto­ry, was just over thir­ty. She was not an unattrac­tive young wom­an, though by no means beau­ti­ful. Her great mer­it was the kind­li­ness of her dis­po­si­tion. She was not very clever, nor very an­imat­ed, nor had she ap­par­ent­ly the en­er­gy of her broth­er; but she was guid­ed by a high prin­ci­ple of right and wrong; her tem­per was sweet, and her faults were few­er in num­ber than her virtues. Those who ca­su­al­ly met Mary Bold thought lit­tle of her; but those who knew her well loved her well, and the longer they knew her the more they loved her. Among those who were fond­est of her was Eleanor Hard­ing; and though Eleanor had nev­er open­ly talked to her of her broth­er, each un­der­stood the oth­er’s feel­ings about him. The broth­er and sis­ter were sit­ting to­geth­er when the two notes were brought in.

‘How odd,’ said Mary, ‘that they should send two notes. Well, if Mr Hard­ing be­comes fash­ion­able, the world is go­ing to change.’

Her broth­er un­der­stood im­me­di­ate­ly the na­ture and in­ten­tion of the peace-​of­fer­ing; but it was not so easy for him to be­have well in the mat­ter, as it was for Mr Hard­ing. It is much less dif­fi­cult for the suf­fer­er to be gen­er­ous than for the op­pres­sor. John Bold felt that he could not go to the war­den’s par­ty: he nev­er loved Eleanor bet­ter than he did now; he had nev­er so strong­ly felt how anx­ious he was to make her his wife as now, when so many ob­sta­cles to his do­ing so ap­peared in view. Yet here was her fa­ther him­self, as it were, clear­ing away those very ob­sta­cles, and still he felt that he could not go to the house any more as an open friend.

As he sat think­ing of these things with the note in his hand, his sis­ter was wait­ing for his de­ci­sion.

‘Well,’ said she, ‘I sup­pose we must write sep­arate an­swers, and both say we shall be very hap­py.’

‘You’ll go, of course, Mary,’ said he; to which she read­ily as­sent­ed. ‘I can­not,’ he con­tin­ued, look­ing se­ri­ous and gloomy. ‘I wish I could, with all my heart.’

‘And why not, John?’ said she. She had as yet heard noth­ing of the new-​found abuse which her broth­er was about to re­form–at least noth­ing which con­nect­ed it with her broth­er’s name.

He sat think­ing for a while till he de­ter­mined that it would be best to tell her at once what it was that he was about: it must be done soon­er or lat­er.

‘I fear I can­not go to Mr Hard­ing’s house any more as a friend, just at present.’

‘Oh, John! Why not? Ah, you’ve quar­relled with Eleanor!’

‘No, in­deed,’ said he; ‘I’ve no quar­rel with her as yet.’

‘What is it, John?’ said she, look­ing at him with an anx­ious, lov­ing face, for she knew well how much of his heart was there in that house which he said he could no longer en­ter.

‘Why,’ said he at last, ‘I’ve tak­en up the case of these twelve old men of Hi­ram’s Hos­pi­tal, and of course that brings me in­to con­tact with Mr Hard­ing. I may have to op­pose him, in­ter­fere with him, per­haps in­jure him.’

Mary looked at him steadi­ly for some time be­fore she com­mit­ted her­self to re­ply, and then mere­ly asked him what he meant to do for the old men. ‘Why, it’s a long sto­ry, and I don’t know that I can make you un­der­stand it. John Hi­ram made a will, and left his prop­er­ty in char­ity for cer­tain poor old men, and the pro­ceeds, in­stead of go­ing to the ben­efit of these men, goes chiefly in­to the pock­et of the war­den and the bish­op’s stew­ard.’

‘And you mean to take away from Mr Hard­ing his share of it?’

‘I don’t know what I mean yet. I mean to in­quire about it. I mean to see who is en­ti­tled to this prop­er­ty. I mean to see, if I can, that jus­tice be done to the poor of the city of Barch­ester gen­er­al­ly, who are, in fact, the lega­tees un­der the will. I mean, in short, to put the mat­ter right, if I can.’

‘And why are you to do this, John?’

‘You might ask the same ques­tion of any­body else,’ said he; ‘and ac­cord­ing to that the du­ty of right­ing these poor men would be­long to no­body. If we are to act on that prin­ci­ple, the weak are nev­er to be pro­tect­ed, in­jus­tice is nev­er to be op­posed, and no one is to strug­gle for the poor!’ And Bold be­gan to com­fort him­self in the warmth of his own virtue.

‘But is there no one to do this but you, who have known Mr Hard­ing so long? Sure­ly, John, as a friend, as a young friend, so much younger than Mr Hard­ing–’

‘That’s wom­an’s log­ic, all over, Mary. What has age to do with it? An­oth­er man might plead that he was too old; and as to his friend­ship, if the thing it­self be right, pri­vate mo­tives should nev­er be al­lowed to in­ter­fere. Be­cause I es­teem Mr Hard­ing, is that a rea­son that I should ne­glect a du­ty which I owe to these old men? or should I give up a work which my con­science tells me is a good one, be­cause I re­gret the loss of his so­ci­ety?’

‘And Eleanor, John?’ said the sis­ter, look­ing timid­ly in­to her broth­er’s face.

‘Eleanor, that is, Miss Hard­ing, if she thinks fit–that is, if her fa­ther–or, rather, if she–or, in­deed, he–if they find it nec­es­sary–but there is no ne­ces­si­ty now to talk about Eleanor Hard­ing; but this I will say, that if she has the kind of spir­it for which I give her cred­it, she will not con­demn me for do­ing what I think to be a du­ty.’ And Bold con­soled him­self with the con­so­la­tion of a Ro­man.

Mary sat silent for a while, till at last her broth­er re­mind­ed her that the notes must be an­swered, and she got up, and placed her desk be­fore her, took out her pen and pa­per, wrote on it slow­ly:

‘PAK­EN­HAM VIL­LAS ‘Tues­day morn­ing ‘MY DEAR ELEANOR,

‘I–’

and then stopped, and looked at her broth­er.

‘Well, Mary, why don’t you write it?’

‘Oh, John,’ said she, ‘dear John, pray think bet­ter of this.’

‘Think bet­ter of what?’ said he.

‘Of this about the hos­pi­tal–of all this about Mr Hard­ing– of what you say about those old men. Noth­ing can call up­on you–no du­ty can re­quire you to set your­self against your old­est, your best friend. Oh, John, think of Eleanor. You’ll break her heart, and your own.’

‘Non­sense, Mary; Miss Hard­ing’s heart is as safe as yours.’

‘Pray, pray, for my sake, John, give it up. You know how dear­ly you love her.’ And she came and knelt be­fore him on the rug. ‘Pray give it up. You are go­ing to make your­self, and her, and her fa­ther mis­er­able: you are go­ing to make us all mis­er­able. And for what? For a dream of jus­tice. You will nev­er make those twelve men hap­pi­er than they now are.’

‘You don’t un­der­stand it, my dear girl,’ said he, smooth­ing her hair with his hand.

‘I do un­der­stand it, John. I un­der­stand that this is a chimera–a dream that you have got. I know well that no du­ty can re­quire you to do this mad–this sui­ci­dal thing. I know you love Eleanor Hard­ing with all your heart, and I tell you now that she loves you as well. If there was a plain, a pos­itive du­ty be­fore you, I would be the last to bid you ne­glect it for any wom­an’s love; but this–oh, think again, be­fore you do any­thing to make it nec­es­sary that you and Mr Hard­ing should be at vari­ance.’ He did not an­swer, as she knelt there, lean­ing on his knees, but by his face she thought that he was in­clined to yield. ‘At any rate let me say that you will go to this par­ty. At any rate do not break with them while your mind is in doubt.’ And she got up, hop­ing to con­clude her note in the way she de­sired.

‘My mind is not in doubt,’ at last he said, ris­ing. ‘I could nev­er re­spect my­self again were I to give way now, be­cause Eleanor Hard­ing is beau­ti­ful. I do love her: I would give a hand to hear her tell me what you have said, speak­ing on her be­half; but I can­not for her sake go back from the task which I have com­menced. I hope she may here­after ac­knowl­edge and re­spect my mo­tives, but I can­not now go as a guest to her fa­ther’s house.’ And the Barch­ester Bru­tus went out to for­ti­fy his own res­olu­tion by med­ita­tions on his own virtue. Poor Mary Bold sat down, and sad­ly fin­ished her note, say­ing that she would her­self at­tend the par­ty, but that her broth­er was un­avoid­ably pre­vent­ed from do­ing so. I fear that she did not ad­mire as she should have done the self-​de­vo­tion of his sin­gu­lar virtue.

The par­ty went off as such par­ties do. There were fat old ladies, in fine silk dress­es, and slim young ladies, in gauzy muslin frocks; old gen­tle­men stood up with their backs to the emp­ty fire-​place, look­ing by no means so com­fort­able as they would have done in their own arm-​chairs at home; and young gen­tle­men, rather stiff about the neck, clus­tered near the door, not as yet suf­fi­cient­ly in courage to at­tack the muslin frocks, who await­ed the bat­tle, drawn up in a semi­cir­cu­lar ar­ray. The war­den en­deav­oured to in­duce a charge, but failed sig­nal­ly, not hav­ing the tact of a gen­er­al; his daugh­ter did what she could to com­fort the forces un­der her com­mand, who took in re­fresh­ing ra­tions of cake and tea, and pa­tient­ly looked for the com­ing en­gage­ment: but she her­self, Eleanor, had no spir­it for the work ; the on­ly en­emy whose lance she cared to en­counter was not there, and she and oth­ers were some­what dull.

Loud above all voic­es was heard the clear sonorous tones of the archdea­con as he di­lat­ed to broth­er par­sons of the dan­ger of the church, of the fear­ful ru­mours of mad re­forms even at Ox­ford, and of the damnable here­sies of Dr Whis­ton.

Soon, how­ev­er, sweet­er sounds be­gan timid­ly to make them­selves au­di­ble. Lit­tle move­ments were made in a quar­ter no­table for round stools and mu­sic stands. Wax can­dles were ar­ranged in sconces, big books were brought from hid­den re­cess­es, and the work of the evening com­menced.

How of­ten were those pegs twist­ed and re-​twist­ed be­fore our friend found that he had twist­ed them enough; how many dis­cor­dant scrapes gave promise of the com­ing har­mo­ny. How much the muslin flut­tered and crum­pled be­fore Eleanor and an­oth­er nymph were du­ly seat­ed at the pi­ano; how close­ly did that tall Apol­lo pack him­self against the wall, with his flute, long as him­self, ex­tend­ing high over the heads of his pret­ty neigh­bours; in­to how small a cor­ner crept that round and florid lit­tle mi­nor canon, and there with skill amaz­ing found room to tune his ac­cus­tomed fid­dle!

And now the crash be­gins: away they go in full flow of har­mo­ny to­geth­er–up hill and down dale–now loud­er and loud­er, then low­er and low­er; now loud, as though stir­ring the bat­tle; then low, as though mourn­ing the slain. In all, through all, and above all, is heard the vi­olon­cel­lo. Ah, not for noth­ing were those pegs so twist­ed and re-​twist­ed–lis­ten, lis­ten! Now alone that sad­dest of in­stru­ments tells its touch­ing tale. Silent, and in awe, stand fid­dle, flute, and pi­ano, to hear the sor­rows of their wail­ing broth­er. ‘Tis but for a mo­ment: be­fore the melan­choly of those low notes has been ful­ly re­alised, again comes the full force of all the band–down go the ped­als, away rush twen­ty fin­gers scour­ing over the bass notes with all the im­pe­tus of pas­sion. Apol­lo blows till his stiff neck­cloth is no bet­ter than a rope, and the mi­nor canon works with both arms till he falls in a syn­cope of ex­haus­tion against the wall.

How comes it that now, when all should be silent, when cour­tesy, if not taste, should make men lis­ten–how is it at this mo­ment the black-​coat­ed corps leave their re­treat and be­gin skir­mish­ing? One by one they creep forth, and fire off lit­tle guns timid­ly, and with­out pre­ci­sion. Ah, my men, ef­forts such as these will take no cities, even though the en­emy should be nev­er so open to as­sault. At length a more dead­ly ar­tillery is brought to bear; slow­ly, but with ef­fect, the ad­vance is made; the muslin ranks are bro­ken, and fall in­to con­fu­sion; the formidable ar­ray of chairs gives way; the bat­tle is no longer be­tween op­pos­ing reg­iments, but hand to hand, and foot to foot with sin­gle com­bat­ants, as in the glo­ri­ous days of old, when fight­ing was re­al­ly no­ble. In cor­ners, and un­der the shad­ow of cur­tains, be­hind so­fas and half hid­den by doors, in re­tir­ing win­dows, and shel­tered by hang­ing tapestry, are blows giv­en and re­turned, fa­tal, in­cur­able, deal­ing death.

Apart from this an­oth­er com­bat aris­es, more sober and more se­ri­ous. The archdea­con is en­gaged against two preben­daries, a pursy full-​blown rec­tor as­sist­ing him, in all the per­ils and all the en­joy­ments of short whist. With solemn en­er­gy do they watch the shuf­fled pack, and, all-​ex­pec­tant, eye the com­ing trump. With what anx­ious nice­ty do they ar­range their cards, jeal­ous of each oth­er’s eyes! Why is that lean doc­tor so slow– ca­dav­er­ous man with hol­low jaw and sunken eye, ill be­seem­ing the rich­ness of his moth­er church! Ah, why so slow, thou mea­gre doc­tor? See how the archdea­con, speech­less in his agony, de­posits on the board his cards, and looks to heav­en or to the ceil­ing for sup­port. Hark, how he sighs, as with thumbs in his waist­coat pock­et he seems to sig­ni­fy that the end of such tor­ment is not yet even nigh at hand! Vain is the hope, if hope there be, to dis­turb that mea­gre doc­tor. With care pre­cise he places ev­ery card, weighs well the val­ue of each mighty ace, each guard­ed king, and com­fort-​giv­ing queen; spec­ulates on knave and ten, counts all his suits, and sets his price up­on the whole. At length a card is led, and quick three oth­ers fall up­on the board. The lit­tle doc­tor leads again, while with lus­trous eye his part­ner ab­sorbs the trick. Now thrice has this been done–thrice has con­stant for­tune favoured the brace of preben­daries, ere the archdea­con rous­es him­self to the bat­tle; but at the fourth as­sault he pins to the earth a pros­trate king, lay­ing low his crown and scep­tre, bushy beard, and low­er­ing brow, with a poor deuce.

‘As David did Go­liath,’ says the archdea­con, push­ing over the four cards to his part­ner. And then a trump is led, then an­oth­er trump; then a king–and then an ace–and then a long ten, which brings down from the mea­gre doc­tor his on­ly re­main­ing tow­er of strength–his cher­ished queen of trumps.

‘What, no sec­ond club?’ says the archdea­con to his part­ner.

‘On­ly one club,’ mut­ters from his in­most stom­ach the pursy rec­tor, who sits there red-​faced, silent, im­per­vi­ous, care­ful, a safe but not a bril­liant al­ly.

But the archdea­con cares not for many clubs, or for none. He dash­es out his re­main­ing cards with a speed most an­noy­ing to his an­tag­onists, push­es over to them some four cards as their al­lot­ted por­tion, shoves the re­main­der across the ta­ble to the red-​faced rec­tor; calls out ‘two by cards and two by hon­ours, and the odd trick last time,’ marks a tre­ble un­der the can­dle- stick, and has dealt round the sec­ond pack be­fore the mea­gre doc­tor has cal­cu­lat­ed his loss­es.

And so went off the war­den’s par­ty, and men and wom­en ar­rang­ing shawls and shoes de­clared how pleas­ant it had been; and Mrs Good­enough, the red-​faced rec­tor’s wife, press­ing the war­den’s hand, de­clared she had nev­er en­joyed her­self bet­ter; which showed how lit­tle plea­sure she al­lowed her­self in this world, as she had sat the whole evening through in the same chair with­out oc­cu­pa­tion, not speak­ing, and un­spo­ken to. And Matil­da John­son, when she al­lowed young Dick­son of the bank to fas­ten her cloak round her neck, thought that two hun­dred pounds a year and a lit­tle cot­tage would re­al­ly do for hap­pi­ness; be­sides, he was sure to be man­ag­er some day. And Apol­lo, fold­ing his flute in­to his pock­et, felt that he had ac­quit­ted him­self with hon­our; and the archdea­con pleas­ant­ly jin­gled his gains; but the mea­gre doc­tor went off with­out much au­di­ble speech, mut­ter­ing ev­er and anon as he went, ‘three and thir­ty points!’ ‘three and thir­ty points!’

And so they all were gone, and Mr Hard­ing was left alone with his daugh­ter.

What had passed be­tween Eleanor Hard­ing and Mary Bold need not be told. It is in­deed a mat­ter of thank­ful­ness that nei­ther the his­to­ri­an nor the nov­el­ist hears all that is said by their heroes or hero­ines, or how would three vol­umes or twen­ty suf­fice! In the present case so lit­tle of this sort have I over­heard, that I live in hopes of fin­ish­ing my work with­in 300 pages, and of com­plet­ing that pleas­ant task–a nov­el in one vol­ume; but some­thing had passed be­tween them, and as the war­den blew out the wax can­dles, and put his in­stru­ment in­to its case, his daugh­ter stood sad and thought­ful by the emp­ty fire-​place, de­ter­mined to speak to her fa­ther, but ir­res­olute as to what she would say.

‘Well, Eleanor,’ said he, ‘are you for bed?’ ‘Yes,’ said she, mov­ing, ‘I sup­pose so; but pa­pa–Mr Bold was not here tonight; do you know why not?’

‘He was asked; I wrote to him my­self,’ said the war­den.

‘But do you know why he did not come, pa­pa?’

‘Well, Eleanor, I could guess; but it’s no use guess­ing at such things, my dear. What makes you look so earnest about it?’

‘Oh, pa­pa, do tell me,’ she ex­claimed, throw­ing her arms round him, and look­ing in­to his face; ‘what is it he is go­ing to do? What is it all about? Is there any–any–any–’ she didn’t well know what word to use–’any dan­ger?’

‘Dan­ger, my dear, what sort of dan­ger?’

‘Dan­ger to you, dan­ger of trou­ble, and of loss, and of– Oh, pa­pa, why haven’t you told me of all this be­fore?’

Mr Hard­ing was not the man to judge harsh­ly of any­one, much less of the daugh­ter whom he now loved bet­ter than any liv­ing crea­ture; but still he did judge her wrong­ly at this mo­ment. He knew that she loved John Bold; he ful­ly sym­pa­thised in her af­fec­tion; day af­ter day he thought more of the mat­ter, and, with the ten­der care of a lov­ing fa­ther, tried to ar­range in his own mind how mat­ters might be so man­aged that his daugh­ter’s heart should not be made the sac­ri­fice to the dis­pute which was like­ly to ex­ist be­tween him and Bold. Now, when she spoke to him for the first time on the sub­ject, it was nat­ural that he should think more of her than of him­self, and that he should imag­ine that her own cares, and not his, were trou­bling her.

He stood silent be­fore her awhile, as she gazed up in­to his face, and then kiss­ing her fore­head he placed her on the so­fa.

‘Tell me, Nel­ly,’ he said (he on­ly called her Nel­ly in his kind­est, soft­est, sweet­est moods, and yet all his moods were kind and sweet), ‘tell me, Nel­ly, do you like Mr Bold–much?’

She was quite tak­en aback by the ques­tion. I will not say that she had for­got­ten her­self, and her own love in think­ing about John Bold, and while con­vers­ing with Mary: she cer­tain­ly had not done so. She had been sick at heart to think that a man of whom she could not but own to her­self that she loved him, of whose re­gard she had been so proud, that such a man should turn against her fa­ther to ru­in him. She had felt her van­ity hurt, that his af­fec­tion for her had not kept him from such a course; had he re­al­ly cared for her, he would not have risked her love by such an out­rage. But her main fear had been for her fa­ther, and when she spoke of dan­ger, it was of dan­ger to him and not to her­self.

She was tak­en aback by the ques­tion al­to­geth­er: ‘Do I like him, pa­pa?’

‘Yes, Nel­ly, do you like him? Why shouldn’t you like him? but that’s a poor word–do you love him?’ She sat still in his arms with­out an­swer­ing him. She cer­tain­ly had not pre­pared her­self for an avow­al of af­fec­tion, in­tend­ing, as she had done, to abuse John Bold her­self, and to hear her fa­ther do so al­so. ‘Come, my love,’ said he, ‘let us make a clean breast of it: do you tell me what con­cerns your­self, and I will tell you what con­cerns me and the hos­pi­tal.’

And then, with­out wait­ing for an an­swer, he de­scribed to her, as he best could, the ac­cu­sa­tion that was made about Hi­ram’s will; the claims which the old men put for­ward; what he con­sid­ered the strength and what the weak­ness of his own po­si­tion; the course which Bold had tak­en, and that which he pre­sumed he was about to take; and then by de­grees, with­out fur­ther ques­tion, he pre­sumed on the fact of Eleanor’s love, and spoke of that love as a feel­ing which he could in no way dis­ap­prove: he apol­ogised for Bold, ex­cused what he was do­ing; nay, praised him for his en­er­gy and in­ten­tions; made much of his good qual­ities, and harped on none of his foibles; then, re­mind­ing his daugh­ter how late it was, and com­fort­ing her with much as­sur­ance which he hard­ly felt him­self, he sent her to her room, with flow­ing eyes and a full heart.

When Mr Hard­ing met his daugh­ter at break­fast the next morn­ing, there was no fur­ther dis­cus­sion on the mat­ter, nor was the sub­ject men­tioned be­tween them for some days. Soon af­ter the par­ty Mary Bold called at the hos­pi­tal, but there were var­ious per­sons in the draw­ing-​room at the time, and she there­fore said noth­ing about her broth­er. On the day fol­low­ing, John Bold met Miss Hard­ing in one of the qui­et, som­bre, shad­ed walks of the close. He was most anx­ious to see her, but un­will­ing to call at the war­den’s house, and had in truth way­laid her in her pri­vate haunts.

‘My sis­ter tells me,’ said he, abrupt­ly hur­ry­ing on with his pre­med­itat­ed speech, ‘my sis­ter tells me that you had a de­light­ful par­ty the oth­er evening. I was so sor­ry I could not be there.’

‘We were all sor­ry,’ said Eleanor, with dig­ni­fied com­po­sure.

‘I be­lieve, Miss Hard­ing, you un­der­stand why, at this mo­ment–’ And Bold hes­itat­ed, mut­tered, stopped, com­menced his ex­pla­na­tion again, and again broke down.

Eleanor would not help him in the least.

‘I think my sis­ter ex­plained to you, Miss Hard­ing?’

‘Pray don’t apol­ogise, Mr Bold; my fa­ther will, I am sure, al­ways be glad to see you, if you like to come to the house now as for­mer­ly; noth­ing has oc­curred to al­ter his feel­ings: of your own views you are, of course, the best judge.’

‘Your fa­ther is all that is kind and gen­er­ous; he al­ways was so; but you, Miss Hard­ing, your­self–I hope you will not judge me harsh­ly, be­cause–’

‘Mr Bold,’ said she, ‘you may be sure of one thing; I shall al­ways judge my fa­ther to be right, and those who op­pose him I shall judge to be wrong. If those who do not know him op­pose him, I shall have char­ity enough to be­lieve that they are wrong, through er­ror of judg­ment; but should I see him at­tacked by those who ought to know him, and to love him, and re­vere him, of such I shall be con­strained to form a dif­fer­ent opin­ion.’ And then curt­sey­ing low she sailed on, leav­ing her lover in any­thing but a hap­py state of mind.