THE WARDEN
CHAPTER IX
The Conference
On the following morning the archdeacon was with his father
betimes, and a note was sent down to the warden begging his
attendance at the palace. Dr Grantly, as he cogitated on the
matter, leaning back in his brougham as he journeyed into
Barchester, felt that it would be difficult to communicate his own
satisfaction either to his father or his father-in-law. He wanted
success on his own side and discomfiture on that of his enemies.
The bishop wanted peace on the subject; a settled peace if
possible, but peace at any rate till the short remainder of his own
days had spun itself out. Mr Harding required not only success and
peace, but he also demanded that he might stand justified before
the world.
The bishop, however, was comparatively easy to deal with; and
before the arrival of the other, the dutiful son had persuaded his
father that all was going on well, and then the warden arrived.
It was Mr Harding’s wont, whenever he spent a morning at
the palace, to seat himself immediately at the bishop’s
elbow, the bishop occupying a huge arm-chair fitted up with candle-
sticks, a reading table, a drawer, and other paraphernalia, the
position of which chair was never moved, summer or winter; and
when, as was usual, the archdeacon was there also, he confronted
the two elders, who thus were enabled to fight the battle against
him together; and together submit to defeat, for such was their
constant fate.
Our warden now took his accustomed place, having greeted his
son-in-law as he entered, and then affectionately inquired after
his friend’s health. There was a gentleness about the bishop
to which the soft womanly affection of Mr Harding particularly
endeared itself, and it was quaint to see how the two mild old
priests pressed each other’s hand, and smiled and made little
signs of love.
‘Sir Abraham’s opinion has come at last,’
began the archdeacon. Mr Harding had heard so much, and was most
anxious to know the result.
‘It is quite favourable,’ said the bishop, pressing
his friend’s arm. ‘I am so glad.’
Mr Harding looked at the mighty bearer of the important news for
confirmation of these glad tidings.
‘Yes,’ said the archdeacon; ‘Sir Abraham has
given most minute attention to the case; indeed, I knew he
would—most minute attention; and his opinion is—and as
to his opinion on such a subject being correct, no one who knows
Sir Abraham’s character can doubt—his opinion is, that
they hav’n’t got a leg to stand on.’
‘But as how, archdeacon?’
‘Why, in the first place:—but you’re no
lawyer, warden, and I doubt you won’t understand it; the gist
of the matter is this:—under Hiram’s will two paid
guardians have been selected for the hospital; the law will say two
paid servants, and you and I won’t quarrel with the
name.’
‘At any rate I will not if I am one of the
servants,’ said Mr Harding. ‘A rose, you
know—’
‘Yes, yes,’ said the archdeacon, impatient of poetry
at such a time. ‘Well, two paid servants, we’ll say;
one to look after the men, and the other to look after the money.
You and Chadwick are these two servants, and whether either of you
be paid too much, or too little, more or less in fact than the
founder willed, it’s as clear as daylight that no one can
fall foul of either of you for receiving an allotted
stipend.’
‘That does seem clear,’ said the bishop, who had
winced visibly at the words servants and stipend, which, however,
appeared to have caused no uneasiness to the archdeacon.
‘Quite clear,’ said he, ‘and very
satisfactory. In point of fact, it being necessary to select such
servants for the use of the hospital, the pay to be given to them
must depend on the rate of pay for such services, according to
their market value at the period in question; and those who manage
the hospital must be the only judges of this.’
‘And who does manage the hospital?’ asked the
warden. ‘Oh, let them find that out; that’s another
question: the action is brought against you and Chadwick;
that’s your defence, and a perfect and full defence it is.
Now that I think very satisfactory.’
‘Well,’ said the bishop, looking inquiringly up into
his friend’s face, who sat silent awhile, and apparently not
so well satisfied.
‘And conclusive,’ continued the archdeacon;
‘if they press it to a jury, which they won’t do, no
twelve men in England will take five minutes to decide against
them.’
‘But according to that’ said Mr Harding, ‘I
might as well have sixteen hundred a year as eight, if the managers
choose to allot it to me; and as I am one of the managers, if not
the chief manager, myself, that can hardly be a just
arrangement.’
‘Oh, well; all that’s nothing to the question. The
question is, whether this intruding fellow, and a lot of cheating
attorneys and pestilent dissenters, are to interfere with an
arrangement which everyone knows is essentially just and
serviceable to the church. Pray don’t let us be splitting
hairs, and that amongst ourselves, or there’ll never be an
end of the cause or the cost.’
Mr Harding again sat silent for a while, during which the bishop
once and again pressed his arm, and looked in his face to see if he
could catch a gleam of a contented and eased mind; but there was no
such gleam, and the poor warden continued playing sad dirges on
invisible stringed instruments in all manner of positions; he was
ruminating in his mind on this opinion of Sir Abraham, looking to
it wearily and earnestly for satisfaction, but finding none. At
last he said, ‘Did you see the opinion,
archdeacon?’
The archdeacon said he had not—that was to say, he
—had- that was, he had not seen the opinion itself; he had
seen what had been called a copy, but he could not say whether of a
whole or part; nor could he say that what he had seen were the
ipsissima verba of the great man himself; but what he had seen
contained exactly the decision which he had announced, and which he
again declared to be to his mind extremely satisfactory.
‘I should like to see the opinion,’ said the warden;
‘that is, a copy of it.’
‘Well, I suppose you can if you make a point of it; but I
don’t see the use myself; of course it is essential that the
purport of it should not be known, and it is therefore unadvisable
to multiply copies.’
‘Why should it not be known?’ asked the warden.
‘What a question for a man to ask!’ said the
archdeacon, throwing up his hands in token of his surprise;
‘but it is like you—a child is not more innocent than
you are in matters of business. Can’t you see that if we tell
them that no action will lie against you, but that one may possibly
lie against some other person or persons, that we shall be putting
weapons into their hands, and be teaching them how to cut our own
throats?’
The warden again sat silent, and the bishop again looked at him
wistfully: ‘The only thing we have now to do,’
continued the archdeacon, ‘is to remain quiet, hold our
peace, and let them play their own game as they please.’
‘We are not to make known then,’ said the warden,
‘that we have consulted the attorney-general, and that we are
advised by him that the founder’s will is fully and fairly
carried out.’
‘God bless my soul!’ said the archdeacon, ‘how
odd it is that you will not see that all we are to do is to do
nothing: why should we say anything about the founder’s will?
We are in possession; and we know that they are not in a position
to put us out; surely that is enough for the present.’
Mr Harding rose from his seat and paced thoughtfully up and down
the library, the bishop the while watching him painfully at every
turn, and the archdeacon continuing to pour forth his convictions
that the affair was in a state to satisfy any prudent mind.
‘And The Jupiter?’ said the warden, stopping
suddenly.
‘Oh! The Jupiter,’ answered the other. ‘The
Jupiter can break no bones. You must bear with that; there is much,
of course, which it is our bounden duty to bear; it cannot be all
roses for us here,’ and the archdeacon looked exceedingly
moral; ‘besides, the matter is too trivial, of too little
general interest to be mentioned again in The Jupiter, unless we
stir up the subject.’ And the archdeacon again looked
exceedingly knowing and worldly wise.
The warden continued his walk; the hard and stinging words of
that newspaper article, each one of which had thrust a thorn as it
were into his inmost soul, were fresh in his memory; he had read it
more than once, word by word, and what was worse, he fancied it was
as well known to everyone as to himself. Was he to be looked on as
the unjust griping priest he had been there described? Was he to be
pointed at as the consumer of the bread of the poor, and to be
allowed no means of refuting such charges, of clearing his begrimed
name, of standing innocent in the world, as hitherto he had stood?
Was he to bear all this, to receive as usual his now hated income,
and be known as one of those greedy priests who by their rapacity
have brought disgrace on their church? And why? Why should he bear
all this? Why should he die, for he felt that he could not live,
under such a weight of obloquy? As he paced up and down the room he
resolved in his misery and enthusiasm that he could with pleasure,
if he were allowed, give up his place, abandon his pleasant home,
leave the hospital, and live poorly, happily, and with an unsullied
name, on the small remainder of his means.
He was a man somewhat shy of speaking of himself, even before
those who knew him best, and whom he loved the most; but at last it
burst forth from him, and with a somewhat jerking eloquence he
declared that he could not, would not, bear this misery any
longer.
‘If it can be proved,’ said he at last, ‘that
I have a just and honest right to this, as God well knows I always
deemed I had; if this salary or stipend be really my due, I am not
less anxious than another to retain it. I have the well-being of my
child to look to. I am too old to miss without some pain the
comforts to which I have been used; and I am, as others are,
anxious to prove to the world that I have been right, and to uphold
the place I have held; but I cannot do it at such a cost as this. I
cannot bear this. Could you tell me to do so?’ And he
appealed, almost in tears, to the bishop, who had left his chair,
and was now leaning on the warden’s arm as he stood on the
further side of the table facing the archdeacon. ‘Could you
tell me to sit there at ease, indifferent, and satisfied, while
such things as these are said loudly of me in the world?’
The bishop could feel for him and sympathise with him, but he
could not advise him, he could only say, ‘No, no, you shall
be asked to do nothing that is painful; you shall do just what your
heart tells you to be right; you shall do whatever you think best
yourself. Theophilus, don’t advise him, pray don’t
advise the warden to do anything which is painful.’
But the archdeacon, though he could not sympathise, could
advise; and he saw that the time had come when it behoved him to do
so in a somewhat peremptory manner.
‘Why, my lord,’ he said, speaking to his father: and
when he called his father ‘my lord,’ the good old
bishop shook in his shoes, for he knew that an evil time was
coming. ‘Why, my lord, there are two ways of giving advice:
there is advice that may be good for the present day; and there is
advice that may be good for days to come: now I cannot bring myself
to give the former, if it be incompatible with the
other.’
‘No, no, no, I suppose not,’ said the bishop,
re-seating himself, and shading his face with his hands. Mr Harding
sat down with his back to the further wall, playing to himself some
air fitted for so calamitous an occasion, and the archdeacon said
out his say standing, with his back to the empty fire-place.
‘It is not to be supposed but that much pain will spring
out of this unnecessarily raised question. We must all have
foreseen that, and the matter has in no wise gone on worse than we
expected; but it will be weak, yes, and wicked also, to abandon the
cause and own ourselves wrong, because the inquiry is painful. It
is not only ourselves we have to look to; to a certain extent the
interest of the church is in our keeping. Should it be found that
one after another of those who hold preferment abandoned it
whenever it might be attacked, is it not plain that such attacks
would be renewed till nothing was left us? and, that if so
deserted, the Church of England must fall to the ground altogether?
If this be true of many, it is true of one. Were you, accused as
you now are, to throw up the wardenship, and to relinquish the
preferment which is your property, with the vain object of proving
yourself disinterested, you would fail in that object, you would
inflict a desperate blow on your brother clergymen, you would
encourage every cantankerous dissenter in England to make a similar
charge against some source of clerical revenue, and you would do
your best to dishearten those who are most anxious to defend you
and uphold your position. I can fancy nothing more weak, or more
wrong. It is not that you think that there is any justice in these
charges, or that you doubt your own right to the wardenship: you
are convinced of your own honesty, and yet would yield to them
through cowardice.’
‘Cowardice!’ said the bishop, expostulating. Mr
Harding sat unmoved, gazing on his son-in-law.
‘Well; would it not be cowardice? Would he not do so
because he is afraid to endure the evil things which will be
falsely spoken of him? Would that not be cowardice? And now let us
see the extent of the evil which you dread. The Jupiter publishes
an article which a great many, no doubt, will read; but of those
who understand the subject how many will believe The Jupiter?
Everyone knows what its object is: it has taken up the case against
Lord Guildford and against the Dean of Rochester, and that against
half a dozen bishops; and does not everyone know that it would take
up any case of the kind, right or wrong, false or true, with known
justice or known injustice, if by doing so it could further its own
views? Does not all the world know this of The Jupiter? Who that
really knows you will think the worse of you for what The Jupiter
says? And why care for those who do not know you? I will say
nothing of your own comfort, but I do say that you could not be
justified in throwing up, in a fit of passion, for such it would
be, the only maintenance that Eleanor has; and if you did so, if
you really did vacate the wardenship, and submit to ruin, what
would that profit you? If you have no future right to the income,
you have had no past right to it; and the very fact of your
abandoning your position would create a demand for repayment of
that which you have already received and spent.’
The poor warden groaned as he sat perfectly still, looking up at
the hard-hearted orator who thus tormented him, and the bishop
echoed the sound faintly from behind his hands; but the archdeacon
cared little for such signs of weakness, and completed his
exhortation.
‘But let us suppose the office to be left vacant, and that
your own troubles concerning it were over; would that satisfy you?
Are your only aspirations in the matter confined to yourself and
family? I know they are not. I know you are as anxious as any of us
for the church to which we belong; and what a grievous blow would
such an act of apostacy give her! You owe it to the church of which
you are a member and a minister, to bear with this affliction,
however severe it may be: you owe it to my father, who instituted
you, to support his rights: you owe it to those who preceded you to
assert the legality of their position; you owe it to those who are
to come after you, to maintain uninjured for them that which you
received uninjured from others; and you owe to us all the
unflinching assistance of perfect brotherhood in this matter, so
that upholding one another we may support our great cause without
blushing and without disgrace.’
And so the archdeacon ceased, and stood self-satisfied, watching
the effect of his spoken wisdom.
The warden felt himself, to a certain extent, stifled; he would
have given the world to get himself out into the open air without
speaking to, or noticing those who were in the room with him; but
this was impossible. He could not leave without saying something,
and he felt himself confounded by the archdeacon’s eloquence.
There was a heavy, unfeeling, unanswerable truth in what he had
said; there was so much practical, but odious common sense in it,
that he neither knew how to assent or to differ. If it were
necessary for him to suffer, he felt that he could endure without
complaint and without cowardice, providing that he was
self-satisfied of the justice of his own cause. What he could not
endure was, that he should be accused by others, and not acquitted
by himself. Doubting, as he had begun to doubt, the justice of his
own position in the hospital, he knew that his own self-confidence
would not be restored because Mr Bold had been in error as to some
legal form; nor could he be satisfied to escape, because, through
some legal fiction, he who received the greatest benefit from the
hospital might be considered only as one of its servants.
The archdeacon’s speech had silenced him—stupefied
him —annihilated him; anything but satisfied him. With the
bishop it fared not much better. He did not discern clearly how
things were, but he saw enough to know that a battle was to be
prepared for; a battle that would destroy his few remaining
comforts, and bring him with sorrow to the grave.
The warden still sat, and still looked at the archdeacon, till
his thoughts fixed themselves wholly on the means of escape from
his present position, and he felt like a bird fascinated by gazing
on a snake.
‘I hope you agree with me,’ said the archdeacon at
last, breaking the dread silence; ‘my lord, I hope you agree
with me.’
Oh, what a sigh the bishop gave! ‘My lord, I hope you
agree with me,’ again repeated the merciless tyrant.
‘Yes, I suppose so,’ groaned the poor old man,
slowly.
‘And you, warden?’
Mr Harding was now stirred to action—he must speak and
move, so he got up and took one turn before he answered.
‘Do not press me for an answer just at present; I will do
nothing lightly in the matter, and of whatever I do I will give you
and the bishop notice.’ And so without another word he took
his leave, escaping quickly through the palace hall, and down the
lofty steps, nor did he breathe freely till he found himself alone
under the huge elms of the silent close. Here he walked long and
slowly, thinking on his case with a troubled air, and trying in
vain to confute the archdeacon’s argument. He then went home,
resolved to bear it all—ignominy, suspense, disgrace,
self-doubt, and heart-burning—and to do as those would have
him, who he still believed were most fit and most able to counsel
him aright.