THE WARDEN
CHAPTER XII
Mr Bold’s Visit to Plumstead
Whether or no the ill-natured prediction made by certain ladies
in the beginning of the last chapter was or was not carried out to
the letter, I am not in a position to state. Eleanor, however,
certainly did feel herself to have been baffled as she returned
home with all her news to her father. Certainly she had been
victorious, certainly she had achieved her object, certainly she
was not unhappy, and yet she did not feel herself triumphant.
Everything would run smooth now. Eleanor was not at all addicted to
the Lydian school of romance; she by no means objected to her lover
because he came in at the door under the name of Absolute, instead
of pulling her out of a window under the name of Beverley; and yet
she felt that she had been imposed upon, and could hardly think of
Mary Bold with sisterly charity. ‘I did think I could have
trusted Mary,’ she said to herself over and over again.
‘Oh that she should have dared to keep me in the room when I
tried to get out!’ Eleanor, however, felt that the game was
up, and that she had now nothing further to do but to add to the
budget of news which was prepared for her father, that John Bold
was her accepted lover.
We will, however, now leave her on her way, and go with John
Bold to Plumstead Episcopi, merely premising that Eleanor on
reaching home will not find things so smooth as she fondly
expected; two messengers had come, one to her father and the other
to the archdeacon, and each of them much opposed to her quiet mode
of solving all their difficulties; the one in the shape of a number
of The Jupiter, and the other in that of a further opinion from Sir
Abraham Haphazard.
John Bold got on his horse and rode off to Plumstead Episcopi;
not briskly and with eager spur, as men do ride when self-
satisfied with their own intentions; but slowly, modestly,
thoughtfully, and somewhat in dread of the coming interview. Now
and again he would recur to the scene which was just over, support
himself by the remembrance of the silence that gives consent, and
exult as a happy lover. But even this feeling was not without a
shade of remorse. Had he not shown himself childishly weak thus to
yield up the resolve of many hours of thought to the tears of a
pretty girl? How was he to meet his lawyer? How was he to back out
of a matter in which his name was already so publicly concerned?
What, oh what! was he to say to Tom Towers? While meditating these
painful things he reached the lodge leading up to the
archdeacon’s glebe, and for the first time in his life found
himself within the sacred precincts.
All the doctor’s children were together on the slope of
the lawn close to the road, as Bold rode up to the hall door. They
were there holding high debate on matters evidently of deep
interest at Plumstead Episcopi, and the voices of the boys had been
heard before the lodge gate was closed.
Florinda and Grizzel, frightened at the sight of so well- known
an enemy to the family, fled on the first appearance of the
horseman, and ran in terror to their mother’s arms; not for
them was it, tender branches, to resent injuries, or as members of
a church militant to put on armour against its enemies. But the
boys stood their ground like heroes, and boldly demanded the
business of the intruder.
‘Do you want to see anybody here, sir?’ said Henry,
with a defiant eye and a hostile tone, which plainly said that at
any rate no one there wanted to see the person so addressed; and as
he spoke he brandished aloft his garden water-pot, holding it by
the spout, ready for the braining of anyone.
‘Henry,’ said Charles James slowly, and with a
certain dignity of diction, ‘Mr Bold of course would not have
come without wanting to see someone; if Mr Bold has a proper ground
for wanting to see some person here, of course he has a right to
come.’
But Samuel stepped lightly up to the horse’s head, and
offered his services. ‘Oh, Mr Bold,’ said he,
‘papa, I’m sure, will be glad to see you; I suppose you
want to see papa. Shall I hold your horse for you? Oh what a very
pretty horse!’ and he turned his head and winked funnily at
his brothers. ‘Papa has heard such good news about the old
hospital today. We know you’ll be glad to hear it, because
you’re such a friend of grandpapa Harding, and so much in
love with Aunt Nelly!’
‘How d’ye do, lads?’ said Bold, dismounting.
‘I want to see your father if he’s at home.’
‘Lads!’ said Henry, turning on his heel and
addressing himself to his brother, but loud enough to be heard by
Bold; ‘lads, indeed! if we’re lads, what does he call
himself?’
Charles James condescended to say nothing further, but cocked
his hat with much precision, and left the visitor to the care of
his youngest brother.
Samuel stayed till the servant came, chatting and patting the
horse; but as soon as Bold had disappeared through the front door,
he stuck a switch under the animal’s tail to make him kick if
possible.
The church reformer soon found himself tete-a-tete with the
archdeacon in that same room, in that sanctum sanctorum of the
rectory, to which we have already been introduced. As he entered he
heard the click of a certain patent lock, but it struck him with no
surprise; the worthy clergyman was no doubt hiding from eyes
profane his last much-studied sermon; for the archdeacon, though he
preached but seldom, was famous for his sermons. No room, Bold
thought, could have been more becoming for a dignitary of the
church; each wall was loaded with theology; over each separate
bookcase was printed in small gold letters the names of those great
divines whose works were ranged beneath: beginning from the early
fathers in due chronological order, there were to be found the
precious labours of the chosen servants of the church down to the
last pamphlet written in opposition to the consecration of Dr
Hampden; and raised above this were to be seen the busts of the
greatest among the great: Chrysostom, St Augustine, Thomas a
Becket, Cardinal Wolsey, Archbishop Laud, and Dr Philpotts.
Every appliance that could make study pleasant and give ease to
the overtoiled brain was there; chairs made to relieve each limb
and muscle; reading-desks and writing-desks to suit every attitude;
lamps and candles mechanically contrived to throw their light on
any favoured spot, as the student might desire; a shoal of
newspapers to amuse the few leisure moments which might be stolen
from the labours of the day; and then from the window a view right
through a bosky vista along which ran a broad green path from the
rectory to the church—at the end of which the tawny-tinted
fine old tower was seen with all its variegated pinnacles and
parapets. Few parish churches in England are in better repair, or
better worth keeping so, than that at Plumstead Episcopi; and yet
it is built in a faulty style: the body of the church is
low—so low, that the nearly flat leaden roof would be visible
from the churchyard, were it not for the carved parapet with which
it is surrounded. It is cruciform, though the transepts are
irregular, one being larger than the other; and the tower is much
too high in proportion to the church. But the colour of the
building is perfect; it is that rich yellow gray which one finds
nowhere but in the south and west of England, and which is so
strong a characteristic of most of our old houses of Tudor
architecture. The stone work also is beautiful; the mullions of the
windows and the thick tracery of the Gothic workmanship is as rich
as fancy can desire; and though in gazing on such a structure one
knows by rule that the old priests who built it, built it wrong,
one cannot bring oneself to wish that they should have made it
other than it is.
When Bold was ushered into the book-room, he found its owner
standing with his back to the empty fire-place ready to receive
him, and he could not but perceive that that expansive brow was
elated with triumph, and that those full heavy lips bore more
prominently than usual an appearance of arrogant success.
‘Well, Mr Bold,’ said he—‘well, what can
I do for you? Very happy, I can assure you, to do anything for such
a friend of my father-in-law.’
‘I hope you’ll excuse my calling, Dr
Grantly.’
‘Certainly, certainly,’ said the archdeacon;
‘I can assure you, no apology is necessary from Mr Bold; only
let me know what I can do for him.’
Dr Grantly was standing himself, and he did not ask Bold to sit,
and therefore he had to tell his tale standing, leaning on the
table, with his hat in his hand. He did, however, manage to tell
it; and as the archdeacon never once interrupted him, or even
encouraged him by a single word, he was not long in coming to the
end of it.
‘And so, Mr Bold, I’m to understand, I believe, that
you are desirous of abandoning this attack upon Mr
Harding.’
‘Oh, Dr Grantly, there has been no attack, I can assure
you—’
‘Well, well, we won’t quarrel about words; I should
call it an attack—most men would so call an endeavour to take
away from a man every shilling of income that he has to live upon;
but it sha’n’t be an attack, if you don’t like
it; you wish to abandon this—this little game of backgammon
you’ve begun to play.’
‘I intend to put an end to the legal proceedings which I
have commenced.’
‘I understand,’ said the archdeacon.
‘You’ve already had enough of it; well, I can’t
say that I am surprised; carrying on a losing lawsuit where one has
nothing to gain, but everything to pay, is not pleasant.’
Bold turned very red in the face. ‘You misinterpret my
motives,’ said he; ‘but, however, that is of little
consequence. I did not come to trouble you with my motives, but to
tell you a matter of fact. Good-morning, Dr Grantly.’
‘One moment—one moment,’ said the other.
‘I don’t exactly appreciate the taste which induced you
to make any personal communication to me on the subject; but I dare
say I’m wrong, I dare say your judgment is the better of the
two; but as you have done me the honour—as you have, as it
were, forced me into a certain amount of conversation on a subject
which had better, perhaps, have been left to our lawyers, you will
excuse me if I ask you to hear my reply to your
communication.’
‘I am in no hurry, Dr Grantly.’
‘Well, I am, Mr Bold; my time is not exactly leisure time,
and, therefore, if you please, we’ll go to the point at
once—you’re going to abandon this
lawsuit?’—and he paused for a reply.
‘Yes, Dr Grantly, I am.’
‘Having exposed a gentleman who was one of your
father’s warmest friends to all the ignominy and insolence
which the press could heap upon his name, having somewhat
ostentatiously declared that it was your duty as a man of high
public virtue to protect those poor old fools whom you have
humbugged there at the hospital, you now find that the game costs
more than it’s worth, and so you make up your mind to have
done with it. A prudent resolution, Mr Bold; but it is a pity you
should have been so long coming to it. Has it struck you that we
may not now choose to give over? that we may find it necessary to
punish the injury you have done to us? Are you aware, sir, that we
have gone to enormous expense to resist this iniquitous attempt of
yours?’
Bold’s face was now furiously red, and he nearly crushed
his hat between his hands; but he said nothing.
‘We have found it necessary to employ the best advice that
money could procure. Are you aware, sir, what may be the probable
cost of securing the services of the attorney-general?’
‘Not in the least, Dr Grantly.’
‘I dare say not, sir. When you recklessly put this affair
into the hands of your friend Mr Finney, whose six-and-eightpences
and thirteen-and-fourpences may, probably, not amount to a large
sum, you were indifferent as to the cost and suffering which such a
proceeding might entail on others; but are you aware, sir, that
these crushing costs must now come out of your own
pocket?’
‘Any demand of such a nature which Mr Harding’s
lawyer may have to make will doubtless be made to my
lawyer.’
‘“Mr Harding’s lawyer and my lawyer!”
Did you come here merely to refer me to the lawyers? Upon my word I
think the honour of your visit might have been spared! And now,
sir, I’ll tell you what my opinion is—my opinion is,
that we shall not allow you to withdraw this matter from the
courts.’
‘You can do as you please, Dr Grantly;
good-morning.’
‘Hear me out, sir,’ said the archdeacon; ‘I
have here in my hands the last opinion given in this matter by Sir
Abraham Haphazard. I dare say you have already heard of
this—I dare say it has had something to do with your visit
here today.’
‘I know nothing whatever of Sir Abraham Haphazard or his
opinion.’
‘Be that as it may, here it is; he declares most
explicitly that under no phasis of the affair whatever have you a
leg to stand upon; that Mr Harding is as safe in his hospital as I
am here in my rectory; that a more futile attempt to destroy a man
was never made, than this which you have made to ruin Mr Harding.
Here,’ and he slapped the paper on the table, ‘I have
this opinion from the very first lawyer in the land; and under
these circumstances you expect me to make you a low bow for your
kind offer to release Mr Harding from the toils of your net! Sir,
your net is not strong enough to hold him; sir, your net has fallen
to pieces, and you knew that well enough before I told
you—and now, sir, I’ll wish you good- morning, for
I’m busy.’
Bold was now choking with passion. He had let the archdeacon run
on because he knew not with what words to interrupt him; but now
that he had been so defied and insulted, he could not leave the
room without some reply.
‘Dr Grantly,’ he commenced.
‘I have nothing further to say or to hear,’ said the
archdeacon. ‘I’ll do myself the honour to order your
horse.’ And he rang the bell.
‘I came here, Dr Grantly, with the warmest, kindest
feelings—’
‘Oh, of course you did; nobody doubts it.’
‘With the kindest feelings—and they have been most
grossly outraged by your treatment.’
‘Of course they have—I have not chosen to see my
father-in-law ruined; what an outrage that has been to your
feelings!’
‘The time will come, Dr Grantly, when you will understand
why I called upon you today.’
‘No doubt, no doubt. Is Mr Bold’s horse there?
That’s right; open the front door. Good-morning, Mr
Bold’; and the doctor stalked into his own drawing-room,
closing the door behind him, and making it quite impossible that
John Bold should speak another word.
As he got on his horse, which he was fain to do feeling like a
dog turned out of a kitchen, he was again greeted by little
Sammy.
‘Good-bye, Mr Bold; I hope we may have the pleasure of
seeing you again before long; I am sure papa will always be glad to
see you.’
That was certainly the bitterest moment in John Bold’s
life. Not even the remembrance of his successful love could comfort
him; nay, when he thought of Eleanor he felt that it was that very
love which had brought him to such a pass. That he should have been
so insulted, and be unable to reply! That he should have given up
so much to the request of a girl, and then have had his motives so
misunderstood! That he should have made so gross a mistake as this
visit of his to the archdeacon’s! He bit the top of his whip,
till he penetrated the horn of which it was made: he struck the
poor animal in his anger, and then was doubly angry with himself at
his futile passion. He had been so completely checkmated, so
palpably overcome! and what was he to do? He could not continue his
action after pledging himself to abandon it; nor was there any
revenge in that—it was the very step to which his enemy had
endeavoured to goad him!
He threw the reins to the servant who came to take his horse,
and rushed upstairs into his drawing-room, where his sister Mary
was sitting.
‘If there be a devil,’ said he, ‘a real devil
here on earth, it is Dr Grantly.’ He vouchsafed her no
further intelligence, but again seizing his hat, he rushed out, and
took his departure for London without another word to anyone.