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!’