THE WARDEN
CHAPTER XVI
A Long Day in London
The warden had to make use of all his very moderate powers of
intrigue to give his son-in-law the slip, and get out of Barchester
without being stopped on his road. No schoolboy ever ran away from
school with more precaution and more dread of detection; no
convict, slipping down from a prison wall, ever feared to see the
gaoler more entirely than Mr Harding did to see his son-in-law as
he drove up in the pony carriage to the railway station, on the
morning of his escape to London.
The evening before he went he wrote a note to the archdeacon,
explaining that he should start on the morrow on his journey; that
it was his intention to see the attorney-general if possible, and
to decide on his future plans in accordance with what he heard from
that gentleman; he excused himself for giving Dr Grantly no earlier
notice, by stating that his resolve was very sudden; and having
entrusted this note to Eleanor, with the perfect, though not
expressed, understanding that it was to be sent over to Plumstead
Episcopi without haste, he took his departure.
He also prepared and carried with him a note for Sir Abraham
Haphazard, in which he stated his name, explaining that he was the
defendant in the case of ‘The Queen on behalf of the
Wool-carders of Barchester v. Trustees under the will of the late
John Hiram,’ for so was the suit denominated, and begged the
illustrious and learned gentleman to vouchsafe to him ten
minutes’ audience at any hour on the next day. Mr Harding
calculated that for that one day he was safe; his son-in-law, he
had no doubt, would arrive in town by an early train, but not early
enough to reach the truant till he should have escaped from his
hotel after breakfast; and could he thus manage to see the lawyer
on that very day, the deed might be done before the archdeacon
could interfere.
On his arrival in town the warden drove, as was his wont. to the
Chapter Hotel and Coffee House, near St Paul’s. His visits to
London of late had not been frequent; but in those happy days when
Harding’s Church Music was going through the press, he had
been often there; and as the publisher’s house was in
Paternoster Row, and the printer’s press in Fleet Street, the
Chapter Hotel and Coffee House had been convenient. It was a quiet,
sombre, clerical house, beseeming such a man as the warden, and
thus he afterwards frequented it. Had he dared, he would on this
occasion have gone elsewhere to throw the archdeacon further off
the scent; but he did not know what violent steps his son-in-law
might take for his recovery if he were not found at his usual
haunt, and he deemed it not prudent to make himself the object of a
hunt through London.
Arrived at his inn, he ordered dinner, and went forth to the
attorney-general’s chambers. There he learnt that Sir Abraham
was in Court, and would not probably return that day. He would go
direct from Court to the House; all appointments were, as a rule,
made at the chambers; the clerk could by no means promise an
interview for the next day; was able, on the other hand, to say
that such interview was, he thought, impossible; but that Sir
Abraham would certainly be at the House in the course of the night,
where an answer from himself might possibly be elicited.
To the House Mr Harding went, and left his note, not finding Sir
Abraham there. He added a most piteous entreaty that he might be
favoured with an answer that evening, for which he would return. He
then journeyed back sadly to the Chapter Coffee House, digesting
his great thoughts, as best he might, in a clattering omnibus,
wedged in between a wet old lady and a journeyman glazier returning
from his work with his tools in his lap. In melancholy solitude he
discussed his mutton chop and pint of port. What is there in this
world more melancholy than such a dinner? A dinner, though eaten
alone, in a country hotel may be worthy of some energy; the waiter,
if you are known, will make much of you; the landlord will make you
a bow and perhaps put the fish on the table; if you ring you are
attended to, and there is some life about it. A dinner at a London
eating-house is also lively enough, if it have no other attraction.
There is plenty of noise and stir about it, and the rapid whirl of
voices and rattle of dishes disperses sadness. But a solitary
dinner in an old, respectable, sombre, solid London inn, where
nothing makes any noise but the old waiter’s creaking shoes;
where one plate slowly goes and another slowly comes without a
sound; where the two or three guests would as soon think of
knocking each other down as of speaking; where the servants
whisper, and the whole household is disturbed if an order be given
above the voice— what can be more melancholy than a mutton
chop and a pint of port in such a place?
Having gone through this Mr Harding got into another omnibus,
and again returned to the House. Yes, Sir Abraham was there, and
was that moment on his legs, fighting eagerly for the hundred and
seventh clause of the Convent Custody Bill. Mr Harding’s note
had been delivered to him; and if Mr Harding would wait some two or
three hours, Sir Abraham could be asked whether there was any
answer. The House was not full, and perhaps Mr Harding might get
admittance into the Strangers’ Gallery, which admission, with
the help of five shillings, Mr Harding was able to effect.
This bill of Sir Abraham’s had been read a second time and
passed into committee. A hundred and six clauses had already been
discussed and had occupied only four mornings and five evening
sittings; nine of the hundred and six clauses were passed,
fifty-five were withdrawn by consent, fourteen had been altered so
as to mean the reverse of the original proposition, eleven had been
postponed for further consideration, and seventeen had been
directly negatived. The hundred and seventh ordered the bodily
searching of nuns for jesuitical symbols by aged clergymen, and was
considered to be the real mainstay of the whole bill. No intention
had ever existed to pass such a law as that proposed, but the
government did not intend to abandon it till their object was fully
attained by the discussion of this clause. It was known that it
would be insisted on with terrible vehemence by Protestant Irish
members, and as vehemently denounced by the Roman Catholic; and it
was justly considered that no further union between the parties
would be possible after such a battle. The innocent Irish fell into
the trap as they always do, and whiskey and poplins became a drug
in the market.
A florid-faced gentleman with a nice head of hair, from the
south of Ireland, had succeeded in catching the speaker’s eye
by the time that Mr Harding had got into the gallery, and was
denouncing the proposed sacrilege, his whole face glowing with a
fine theatrical frenzy.
‘And this is a Christian country?’ said he. (Loud
cheers; counter cheers from the ministerial benches. ‘Some
doubt as to that,’ from a voice below the gangway.)
‘No, it can be no Christian country, in which the head of the
bar, the lagal adviser (loud laughter and cheers) —yes, I say
the lagal adviser of the crown (great cheers and
laughter)—can stand up in his seat in this house (prolonged
cheers and laughter), and attempt to lagalise indacent assaults on
the bodies of religious ladies.’ (Deafening cheers and
laughter, which were prolonged till the honourable member resumed
his seat.)
When Mr Harding had listened to this and much more of the same
kind for about three hours, he returned to the door of the House,
and received back from the messenger his own note, with the
following words scrawled in pencil on the back of it:
‘To-morrow, 10 P.M.—my chambers.—A. H.’
He was so far successful—but 10 P.M.: what an hour Sir
Abraham had named for a legal interview! Mr Harding felt perfectly
sure that long before that Dr Grantly would be in London. Dr
Grantly could not, however, know that this interview had been
arranged, nor could he learn it unless he managed to get hold of
Sir Abraham before that hour; and as this was very improbable, Mr
Harding determined to start from his hotel early, merely leaving
word that he should dine out, and unless luck were much against
him, he might still escape the archdeacon till his return from the
attorney-general’s chambers.
He was at breakfast at nine, and for the twentieth time
consulted his Bradshaw, to see at what earliest hour Dr Grantly
could arrive from Barchester. As he examined the columns, he was
nearly petrified by the reflection that perhaps the archdeacon
might come up by the night-mail train! His heart sank within him at
the horrid idea, and for a moment he felt himself dragged back to
Barchester without accomplishing any portion of his object. Then he
remembered that had Dr Grantly done so, he would have been in the
hotel, looking for him long since.
‘Waiter,’ said he, timidly.
The waiter approached, creaking in his shoes, but voiceless.
‘Did any gentleman—a clergyman, arrive here by the
night- mail train ?’
‘No, sir, not one,’ whispered the waiter, putting
his mouth nearly close to the warden’s ear.
Mr Harding was reassured.
‘Waiter,’ said he again, and the waiter again
creaked up. ‘If anyone calls for me, I am going to dine out,
and shall return about eleven o’clock.’
The waiter nodded, but did not this time vouchsafe any reply;
and Mr Harding, taking up his hat, proceeded out to pass a long day
in the best way he could, somewhere out of sight of the
archdeacon.
Bradshaw had told him twenty times that Dr Grantly could not be
at Paddington station till 2 P.M., and our poor friend might
therefore have trusted to the shelter of the hotel for some hours
longer with perfect safety; but he was nervous. There was no
knowing what steps the archdeacon might take for his apprehension:
a message by electric telegraph might desire the landlord of the
hotel to set a watch upon him; some letter might come which he
might find himself unable to disobey; at any rate, he could not
feel himself secure in any place at which the archdeacon could
expect to find him; and at 10 A.M. he started forth to spend twelve
hours in London.
Mr Harding had friends in town had he chosen to seek them; but
he felt that he was in no humour for ordinary calls, and he did not
now wish to consult with anyone as to the great step which he had
determined to take. As he had said to his daughter, no one knows
where the shoe pinches but the wearer. There are some points on
which no man can be contented to follow the advice of
another—some subjects on which a man can consult his own
conscience only. Our warden had made up his mind that it was good
for him at any cost to get rid of this grievance; his daughter was
the only person whose concurrence appeared necessary to him, and
she did concur with him most heartily. Under such circumstances he
would not, if he could help it, consult anyone further, till advice
would be useless. Should the archdeacon catch him, indeed, there
would be much advice, and much consultation of a kind not to be
avoided; but he hoped better things; and as he felt that he could
not now converse on indifferent subjects, he resolved to see no one
till after his interview with the attorney-general.
He determined to take sanctuary in Westminster Abbey, so he
again went thither in an omnibus, and finding that the doors were
not open for morning service, he paid his twopence, and went in as
a sightseer. It occurred to him that he had no definite place of
rest for the day, and that he should be absolutely worn out before
his interview if he attempted to walk about from 10 A.M. to 10
P.M., so he sat himself down on a stone step, and gazed up at the
figure of William Pitt, who looks as though he had just entered the
church for the first time in his life and was anything but pleased
at finding himself there.
He had been sitting unmolested about twenty minutes when the
verger asked him whether he wouldn’t like to walk round. Mr
Harding didn’t want to walk anywhere, and declined, merely
observing that he was waiting for the morning service. The verger,
seeing that he was a clergyman, told him that the doors of the
choir were now open, and showed him into a seat. This was a great
point gained; the archdeacon would certainly not come to morning
service at Westminster Abbey, even though he were in London; and
here the warden could rest quietly, and, when the time came, duly
say his prayers.
He longed to get up from his seat, and examine the music- books
of the choristers, and the copy of the litany from which the
service was chanted, to see how far the little details at
Westminster corresponded with those at Barchester, and whether he
thought his own voice would fill the church well from the
Westminster precentor’s seat. There would, however, be
impropriety in such meddling, and he sat perfectly still, looking
up at the noble roof, and guarding against the coming fatigues of
the day.
By degrees two or three people entered; the very same damp old
woman who had nearly obliterated him in the omnibus, or some other
just like her; a couple of young ladies with their veils down, and
gilt crosses conspicuous on their prayer-books; an old man on
crutches; a party who were seeing the abbey, and thought they might
as well hear the service for their twopence, as opportunity served;
and a young woman with her prayer-book done up in her handkerchief,
who rushed in late, and, in her hurried entry, tumbled over one of
the forms, and made such a noise that everyone, even the
officiating minor canon, was startled, and she herself was so
frightened by the echo of her own catastrophe that she was nearly
thrown into fits by the panic.
Mr Harding was not much edified by the manner of the service.
The minor canon in question hurried in, somewhat late, in a
surplice not in the neatest order, and was followed by a dozen
choristers, who were also not as trim as they might have been: they
all jostled into their places with a quick hurried step, and the
service was soon commenced. Soon commenced and soon over—for
there was no music, and time was not unnecessarily lost in the
chanting. On the whole Mr Harding was of opinion that things were
managed better at Barchester, though even there he knew that there
was room for improvement.
It appears to us a question whether any clergyman can go through
our church service with decorum, morning after morning, in an
immense building, surrounded by not more than a dozen listeners.
The best actors cannot act well before empty benches, and though
there is, of course, a higher motive in one case than the other,
still even the best of clergymen cannot but be influenced by their
audience; and to expect that a duty should be well done under such
circumstances, would be to require from human nature more than
human power.
When the two ladies with the gilt crosses, the old man with his
crutch, and the still palpitating housemaid were going, Mr Harding
found himself obliged to go too. The verger stood in his way, and
looked at him and looked at the door, and so he went. But he
returned again in a few minutes, and re-entered with another
twopence. There was no other sanctuary so good for him.
As he walked slowly down the nave, and then up one aisle, and
then again down the nave and up the other aisle, he tried to think
gravely of the step he was about to take. He was going to give up
eight hundred a year voluntarily; and doom himself to live for the
rest of his life on about a hundred and fifty. He knew that he had
hitherto failed to realise this fact as he ought to do. Could he
maintain his own independence and support his daughter on a hundred
and fifty pounds a year without being a burden on anyone? His
son-in-law was rich, but nothing could induce him to lean on his
son-in-law after acting, as he intended to do, in direct opposition
to his son-in-law’s counsel. The bishop was rich, but he was
about to throw away the bishop’s best gift, and that in a
manner to injure materially the patronage of the giver: he could
neither expect nor accept anything further from the bishop. There
would be not only no merit, but positive disgrace, in giving up his
wardenship, if he were not prepared to meet the world without it.
Yes, he must from this time forward bound all his human wishes for
himself and his daughter to the poor extent of so limited an
income. He knew he had not thought sufficiently of this, that he
had been carried away by enthusiasm, and had hitherto not brought
home to himself the full reality of his position.
He thought most about his daughter, naturally. It was true that
she was engaged, and he knew enough of his proposed son-in-law to
be sure that his own altered circumstances would make no obstacle
to such a marriage; nay, he was sure that the very fact of his
poverty would induce Bold more anxiously to press the matter; but
he disliked counting on Bold in this emergency, brought on, as it
had been, by his doing. He did not like saying to himself, Bold has
turned me out of my house and income, and, therefore, he must
relieve me of my daughter; he preferred reckoning on Eleanor as the
companion of his poverty and exile—as the sharer of his small
income.
Some modest provision for his daughter had been long since made.
His life was insured for three thousand pounds, and this sum was to
go to Eleanor. The archdeacon, for some years past, had paid the
premium, and had secured himself by the immediate possession of a
small property which was to have gone to Mrs Grantly after her
father’s death. This matter, therefore, had been taken out of
the warden’s hands long since, as, indeed, had all the
business transactions of his family, and his anxiety was,
therefore, confined to his own life income.
Yes. A hundred and fifty per annum was very small, but still it
might suffice; but how was he to chant the litany at the cathedral
on Sunday mornings, and get the service done at Crabtree Parva?
True, Crabtree Church was not quite a mile and a half from the
cathedral; but he could not be in two places at once. Crabtree was
a small village, and afternoon service might suffice, but still
this went against his conscience; it was not right that his
parishioners should be robbed of any of their privileges on account
of his poverty. He might, to be sure, make some arrangements for
doing week-day service at the cathedral; but he had chanted the
litany at Barchester so long, and had a conscious feeling that he
did it so well, that he was unwilling to give up the duty.
Thinking of such things, turning over in his own mind together
small desires and grave duties, but never hesitating for a moment
as to the necessity of leaving the hospital, Mr Harding walked up
and down the abbey, or sat still meditating on the same stone step,
hour after hour. One verger went and another came, but they did not
disturb him; every now and then they crept up and looked at him,
but they did so with a reverential stare, and, on the whole, Mr
Harding found his retreat well chosen. About four o’clock his
comfort was disturbed by an enemy in the shape of hunger. It was
necessary that he should dine, and it was clear that he could not
dine in the abbey: so he left his sanctuary not willingly, and
betook himself to the neighbourhood of the Strand to look for
food.
His eyes had become so accustomed to the gloom of the church,
that they were dazed when he got out into the full light of day,
and he felt confused and ashamed of himself, as though people were
staring at him. He hurried along, still in dread of the archdeacon,
till he came to Charing Cross, and then remembered that in one of
his passages through the Strand he had seen the words ‘Chops
and Steaks’ on a placard in a shop window. He remembered the
shop distinctly; it was next door to a trunk-seller’s, and
there was a cigar shop on the other side. He couldn’t go to
his hotel for dinner, which to him hitherto was the only known mode
of dining in London at his own expense; and, therefore, he would
get a steak at the shop in the Strand. Archdeacon Grantly would
certainly not come to such a place for his dinner.
He found the house easily—just as he had observed it,
between the trunks and the cigars. He was rather daunted by the
huge quantity of fish which he saw in the window. There were
barrels of oysters, hecatombs of lobsters, a few tremendous-
looking crabs, and a tub full of pickled salmon; not, however,
being aware of any connection between shell-fish and iniquity, he
entered, and modestly asked a slatternly woman, who was picking
oysters out of a great watery reservoir, whether he could have a
mutton chop and a potato.
The woman looked somewhat surprised, but answered in the
affirmative, and a slipshod girl ushered him into a long back room,
filled with boxes for the accommodation of parties, in one of which
he took his seat. In a more miserably forlorn place he could not
have found himself: the room smelt of fish, and sawdust, and stale
tobacco smoke, with a slight taint of escaped gas; everything was
rough and dirty, and disreputable; the cloth which they put before
him was abominable; the knives and forks were bruised, and hacked,
and filthy; and everything was impregnated with fish. He had one
comfort, however: he was quite alone; there was no one there to
look on his dismay; nor was it probable that anyone would come to
do so. It was a London supper-house. About one o’clock at
night the place would be lively enough, but at the present time his
seclusion was as deep as it had been in the abbey.
In about half an hour the untidy girl, not yet dressed for her
evening labours, brought him his chop and potatoes, and Mr Harding
begged for a pint of sherry. He was impressed with an idea, which
was generally prevalent a few years since, and is not yet wholly
removed from the minds of men, that to order a dinner at any kind
of inn, without also ordering a pint of wine for the benefit of the
landlord, was a kind of fraud—not punishable, indeed, by law,
but not the less abominable on that account. Mr Harding remembered
his coming poverty, and would willingly have saved his half-crown,
but he thought he had no alternative; and he was soon put in
possession of some horrid mixture procured from the neighbouring
public-house.
His chop and potatoes, however, were eatable, and having got
over as best he might the disgust created by the knives and forks,
he contrived to swallow his dinner. He was not much disturbed: one
young man, with pale face and watery fishlike eyes, wearing his hat
ominously on one side, did come in and stare at him, and ask the
girl, audibly enough, ‘Who that old cock was’; but the
annoyance went no further, and the warden was left seated on his
wooden bench in peace, endeavouring to distinguish the different
scents arising from lobsters, oysters, and salmon. Unknowing as Mr
Harding was in the ways of London, he felt that he had somehow
selected an ineligible dining-house, and that he had better leave
it. It was hardly five o’clock— how was he to pass the
time till ten? Five miserable hours! He was already tired, and it
was impossible that he should continue walking so long. He thought
of getting into an omnibus, and going out to Fulham for the sake of
coming back in another: this, however, would be weary work, and as
he paid his bill to the woman in the shop, he asked her if there
were any place near where he could get a cup of coffee. Though she
did keep a shellfish supper-house, she was very civil, and directed
him to the cigar divan on the other side of the street.
Mr Harding had not a much correcter notion of a cigar divan than
he had of a London dinner-house, but he was desperately in want of
rest, and went as he was directed. He thought he must have made
some mistake when he found himself in a cigar shop, but the man
behind the counter saw immediately that he was a stranger, and
understood what he wanted. ‘One shilling, sir—thank ye,
sir—cigar, sir?—ticket for coffee,
sir—you’ll only have to call the waiter. Up those
stairs, if you please, sir. Better take the cigar, sir—you
can always give it to a friend, you know. Well, sir, thank ye,
sir—as you are so good, I’ll smoke it myself.’
And so Mr Harding ascended to the divan, with his ticket for
coffee, but minus the cigar.
The place seemed much more suitable to his requirements than the
room in which he had dined: there was, to be sure, a strong smell
of tobacco, to which he was not accustomed; but after the
shell-fish, the tobacco did not seem disagreeable. There were
quantities of books, and long rows of sofas. What on earth could be
more luxurious than a sofa, a book, and a cup of coffee? An old
waiter came up to him, with a couple of magazines and an evening
paper. Was ever anything so civil? Would he have a cup of coffee,
or would he prefer sherbet? Sherbet! Was he absolutely in an
Eastern divan, with the slight addition of all the London
periodicals? He had, however, an idea that sherbet should be drunk
sitting cross-legged, and as he was not quite up to this, he
ordered the coffee.
The coffee came, and was unexceptionable. Why, this divan was a
paradise! The civil old waiter suggested to him a game of chess:
though a chess player he was not equal to this, so he declined,
and, putting up his weary legs on the sofa, leisurely sipped his
coffee, and turned over the pages of his Blackwood. He might have
been so engaged for about an hour, for the old waiter enticed him
to a second cup of coffee, when a musical clock began to play. Mr
Harding then closed his magazine, keeping his place with his
finger, and lay, listening with closed eyes to the clock. Soon the
clock seemed to turn into a violoncello, with piano accompaniments,
and Mr Harding began to fancy the old waiter was the Bishop of
Barchester; he was inexpressibly shocked that the bishop should
have brought him his coffee with his own hands; then Dr Grantly
came in, with a basket full of lobsters, which he would not be
induced to leave downstairs in the kitchen; and then the warden
couldn’t quite understand why so many people would smoke in
the bishop’s drawing-room; and so he fell fast asleep, and
his dreams wandered away to his accustomed stall in Barchester
Cathedral, and the twelve old men he was so soon about to leave for
ever.
He was fatigued, and slept soundly for some time. Some sudden
stop in the musical clock woke him at length, and he jumped up with
a start, surprised to find the room quite full: it had been nearly
empty when his nap began. With nervous anxiety he pulled out his
watch, and found that it was half- past nine. He seized his hat,
and, hurrying downstairs, started at a rapid pace for
Lincoln’s Inn.
It still wanted twenty minutes to ten when the warden found
himself at the bottom of Sir Abraham’s stairs, so he walked
leisurely up and down the quiet inn to cool himself. It was a
beautiful evening at the end of August. He had recovered from his
fatigue; his sleep and the coffee had refreshed him, and he was
surprised to find that he was absolutely enjoying himself, when the
inn clock struck ten. The sound was hardly over before he knocked
at Sir Abraham’s door, and was informed by the clerk who
received him that the great man would be with him immediately.