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Barchester Towers

by Anthony Trollope · English · Gutenberg #3409 · 1,112,156 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Barchester Towers

Author: Anthony Trollope


        
Release date: September 1, 2002 [eBook #3409]
                Most recently updated: June 26, 2026

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3409

Credits: E-text prepared by David J. Cole and revised by Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BARCHESTER TOWERS ***




BARCHESTER TOWERS

by

ANTHONY TROLLOPE

First published in 1857







CONTENTS

Chapter

      I. Who Will Be the New Bishop?
     II. Hiram's Hospital According to Act of Parliament
    III. Dr. and Mrs. Proudie
     IV. The Bishop's Chaplain
      V. A Morning Visit
     VI. War
    VII. The Dean and Chapter Take Counsel
   VIII. The Ex-Warden Rejoices in His Probable Return to the Hospital
     IX. The Stanhope Family
      X. Mrs. Proudie's Reception--Commenced
     XI. Mrs. Proudie's Reception--Concluded
    XII. Slope versus Harding
   XIII. The Rubbish Cart
    XIV. The New Champion
     XV. The Widow's Suitors
    XVI. Baby Worship
   XVII. Who Shall Be Cock of the Walk?
  XVIII. The Widow's Persecution
    XIX. Barchester by Moonlight
     XX. Mr. Arabin
    XXI. St. Ewold's Parsonage
   XXII. The Thornes of Ullathorne
  XXIII. Mr. Arabin Reads Himself in at St. Ewold's
   XXIV. Mr. Slope Manages Matters Very Cleverly at Puddingdale
    XXV. Fourteen Arguments in Favour of Mr. Quiverful's Claims
   XXVI. Mrs. Proudie Wrestles and Gets a Fall
  XXVII. A Love Scene
 XXVIII. Mrs. Bold is Entertained by Dr. and Mrs. Grantly at Plumstead
   XXIX. A Serious Interview
    XXX. Another Love Scene
   XXXI. The Bishop's Library
  XXXII. A New Candidate for Ecclesiastical Honours
 XXXIII. Mrs. Proudie Victrix
  XXXIV. Oxford--The Master and Tutor of Lazarus
   XXXV. Miss Thorne's Fête Champêtre
  XXXVI. Ullathorne Sports--Act I.
 XXXVII. The Signora Neroni, the Countess De Courcy, and Mrs. Proudie
            Meet Each Other at Ullathorne
XXXVIII. The Bishop Sits Down to Breakfast, and the Dean Dies
  XXXIX. The Lookalofts and the Greenacres
     XL. Ullathorne Sports--Act II.
    XLI. Mrs. Bold Confides Her Sorrow to Her Friend Miss Stanhope
   XLII. Ullathorne Sports--Act III.
  XLIII. Mr. and Mrs. Quiverful Are Made Happy. Mr. Slope Is
            Encouraged by the Press
   XLIV. Mrs. Bold at Home
    XLV. The Stanhopes at Home
   XLVI. Mr. Slope's Parting Interview with the Signora
  XLVII. The Dean Elect
 XLVIII. Miss Thorne Shows Her Talent at Match-making
   XLIX. The Beelzebub Colt
      L. The Archdeacon Is Satisfied with the State of Affairs
     LI. Mr. Slope Bids Farewell to the Palace and Its Inhabitants
    LII. The New Dean Takes Possession of the Deanery, and the New
            Warden of the Hospital
   LIII. Conclusion




CHAPTER I

Who Will Be the New Bishop?


In the latter days of July in the year 185--, a most important
question was for ten days hourly asked in the cathedral city of
Barchester, and answered every hour in various ways--Who was to be
the new bishop?

The death of old Dr. Grantly, who had for many years filled that
chair with meek authority, took place exactly as the ministry of
Lord ---- was going to give place to that of Lord ----. The illness
of the good old man was long and lingering, and it became at last
a matter of intense interest to those concerned whether the new
appointment should be made by a conservative or liberal government.

It was pretty well understood that the outgoing premier had made his
selection and that if the question rested with him, the mitre would
descend on the head of Archdeacon Grantly, the old bishop's son. The
archdeacon had long managed the affairs of the diocese, and for some
months previous to the demise of his father rumour had confidently
assigned to him the reversion of his father's honours.

Bishop Grantly died as he had lived, peaceably, slowly, without pain
and without excitement. The breath ebbed from him almost imperceptibly,
and for a month before his death it was a question whether he were
alive or dead.

A trying time was this for the archdeacon, for whom was designed the
reversion of his father's see by those who then had the giving away
of episcopal thrones. I would not be understood to say that the
prime minister had in so many words promised the bishopric to Dr.
Grantly. He was too discreet a man for that. There is a proverb
with reference to the killing of cats, and those who know anything
either of high or low government places will be well aware that a
promise may be made without positive words and that an expectant may
be put into the highest state of encouragement, though the great man
on whose breath he hangs may have done no more than whisper that "Mr.
So-and-So is certainly a rising man."

Such a whisper had been made, and was known by those who heard it to
signify that the cures of the diocese of Barchester should not be
taken out of the hands of the archdeacon. The then prime minister
was all in all at Oxford, and had lately passed a night at the house
of the Master of Lazarus. Now the Master of Lazarus--which is, by
the by, in many respects the most comfortable as well as the richest
college at Oxford--was the archdeacon's most intimate friend and most
trusted counsellor. On the occasion of the prime minister's visit,
Dr. Grantly was of course present, and the meeting was very gracious.
On the following morning Dr. Gwynne, the master, told the archdeacon
that in his opinion the thing was settled.

At this time the bishop was quite on his last legs; but the ministry
also were tottering. Dr. Grantly returned from Oxford, happy and
elated, to resume his place in the palace and to continue to perform
for the father the last duties of a son, which, to give him his due,
he performed with more tender care than was to be expected from his
usual somewhat worldly manners.

A month since, the physicians had named four weeks as the outside
period during which breath could be supported within the body of
the dying man. At the end of the month the physicians wondered, and
named another fortnight. The old man lived on wine alone, but at the
end of the fortnight he still lived, and the tidings of the fall of
the ministry became more frequent. Sir Lamda Mewnew and Sir Omicron
Pie, the two great London doctors, now came down for the fifth time
and declared, shaking their learned heads, that another week of
life was impossible; and as they sat down to lunch in the episcopal
dining-room, whispered to the archdeacon their own private knowledge
that the ministry must fall within five days. The son returned to
his father's room and, after administering with his own hands the
sustaining modicum of madeira, sat down by the bedside to calculate
his chances.

The ministry were to be out within five days: his father was to be
dead within--no, he rejected that view of the subject. The ministry
were to be out, and the diocese might probably be vacant at the same
period. There was much doubt as to the names of the men who were to
succeed to power, and a week must elapse before a cabinet was formed.
Would not vacancies be filled by the outgoing men during this week?
Dr. Grantly had a kind of idea that such would be the case but
did not know, and then he wondered at his own ignorance on such a
question.

He tried to keep his mind away from the subject, but he could not.
The race was so very close, and the stakes were so very high. He
then looked at the dying man's impassive, placid face. There was no
sign there of death or disease; it was something thinner than of
yore, somewhat grayer, and the deep lines of age more marked; but, as
far as he could judge, life might yet hang there for weeks to come.
Sir Lamda Mewnew and Sir Omicron Pie had thrice been wrong, and might
yet be wrong thrice again. The old bishop slept during twenty of
the twenty-four hours, but during the short periods of his waking
moments, he knew both his son and his dear old friend, Mr. Harding,
the archdeacon's father-in-law, and would thank them tenderly for
their care and love. Now he lay sleeping like a baby, resting easily
on his back, his mouth just open, and his few gray hairs straggling
from beneath his cap; his breath was perfectly noiseless, and his
thin, wan hand, which lay above the coverlid, never moved. Nothing
could be easier than the old man's passage from this world to the
next.

But by no means easy were the emotions of him who sat there watching.
He knew it must be now or never. He was already over fifty, and
there was little chance that his friends who were now leaving office
would soon return to it. No probable British prime minister but he
who was now in, he who was so soon to be out, would think of making
a bishop of Dr. Grantly. Thus he thought long and sadly, in deep
silence, and then gazed at that still living face, and then at last
dared to ask himself whether he really longed for his father's death.

The effort was a salutary one, and the question was answered in a
moment. The proud, wishful, worldly man sank on his knees by the
bedside and, taking the bishop's hand within his own, prayed eagerly
that his sins might be forgiven him.

His face was still buried in the clothes when the door of the bedroom
opened noiselessly and Mr. Harding entered with a velvet step. Mr.
Harding's attendance at that bedside had been nearly as constant as
that of the archdeacon, and his ingress and egress was as much a
matter of course as that of his son-in-law. He was standing close
beside the archdeacon before he was perceived, and would also have
knelt in prayer had he not feared that his doing so might have caused
some sudden start and have disturbed the dying man. Dr. Grantly,
however, instantly perceived him and rose from his knees. As he did
so Mr. Harding took both his hands and pressed them warmly. There
was more fellowship between them at that moment than there had ever
been before, and it so happened that after circumstances greatly
preserved the feeling. As they stood there pressing each other's
hands, the tears rolled freely down their cheeks.

"God bless you, my dears," said the bishop with feeble voice as he
woke. "God bless you--may God bless you both, my dear children."
And so he died.

There was no loud rattle in the throat, no dreadful struggle, no
palpable sign of death, but the lower jaw fell a little from its
place, and the eyes which had been so constantly closed in sleep now
remained fixed and open. Neither Mr. Harding nor Dr. Grantly knew
that life was gone, though both suspected it.

"I believe it's all over," said Mr. Harding, still pressing the
other's hands. "I think--nay, I hope it is."

"I will ring the bell," said the other, speaking all but in a
whisper. "Mrs. Phillips should be here."

Mrs. Phillips, the nurse, was soon in the room, and immediately, with
practised hand, closed those staring eyes.

"It's all over, Mrs. Phillips?" asked Mr. Harding.

"My lord's no more," said Mrs. Phillips, turning round and curtseying
low with solemn face; "his lordship's gone more like a sleeping babby
than any that I ever saw."

"It's a great relief, Archdeacon," said Mr. Harding, "a great
relief--dear, good, excellent old man. Oh that our last moments may
be as innocent and as peaceful as his!"

"Surely," said Mrs. Phillips. "The Lord be praised for all his
mercies; but, for a meek, mild, gentle-spoken Christian, his lordship
was--" and Mrs. Phillips, with unaffected but easy grief, put up her
white apron to her flowing eyes.

"You cannot but rejoice that it is over," said Mr. Harding, still
consoling his friend. The archdeacon's mind, however, had already
travelled from the death chamber to the closet of the prime minister.
He had brought himself to pray for his father's life, but now that
that life was done, minutes were too precious to be lost. It was now
useless to dally with the fact of the bishop's death--useless to lose
perhaps everything for the pretence of a foolish sentiment.

But how was he to act while his father-in-law stood there holding his
hand? How, without appearing unfeeling, was he to forget his father
in the bishop--to overlook what he had lost, and think only of what he
might possibly gain?

"No, I suppose not," said he, at last, in answer to Mr. Harding. "We
have all expected it so long."

Mr. Harding took him by the arm and led him from the room. "We will
see him again to-morrow morning," said he; "we had better leave the
room now to the women." And so they went downstairs.

It was already evening and nearly dark. It was most important that
the prime minister should know that night that the diocese was
vacant. Everything might depend on it; and so, in answer to Mr.
Harding's further consolation, the archdeacon suggested that a
telegraph message should be immediately sent off to London. Mr.
Harding, who had really been somewhat surprised to find Dr. Grantly,
as he thought, so much affected, was rather taken aback, but he
made no objection. He knew that the archdeacon had some hope of
succeeding to his father's place, though he by no means knew how
highly raised that hope had been.

"Yes," said Dr. Grantly, collecting himself and shaking off his
weakness, "we must send a message at once; we don't know what might
be the consequence of delay. Will you do it?'

"I! Oh, yes; certainly. I'll do anything, only I don't know exactly
what it is you want."

Dr. Grantly sat down before a writing-table and, taking pen and ink,
wrote on a slip of paper as follows:--


   By Electric Telegraph.
   For the Earl of ----, Downing Street, or elsewhere.
   The Bishop of Barchester is dead.
   Message sent by the Rev. Septimus Harding.


"There," said he. "Just take that to the telegraph office at the
railway station and give it in as it is; they'll probably make you
copy it on to one of their own slips; that's all you'll have to do;
then you'll have to pay them half a crown." And the archdeacon put
his hand in his pocket and pulled out the necessary sum.

Mr. Harding felt very much like an errand-boy, and also felt that he
was called on to perform his duties as such at rather an unseemly
time, but he said nothing, and took the slip of paper and the
proffered coin.

"But you've put my name into it, Archdeacon."

"Yes," said the other, "there should be the name of some clergyman,
you know, and what name so proper as that of so old a friend as
yourself? The earl won't look at the name, you may be sure of that;
but my dear Mr. Harding, pray don't lose any time."

Mr. Harding got as far as the library door on his way to the station,
when he suddenly remembered the news with which he was fraught when
he entered the poor bishop's bedroom. He had found the moment so
inopportune for any mundane tidings, that he had repressed the words
which were on his tongue, and immediately afterwards all recollection
of the circumstance was for the time banished by the scene which had
occurred.

"But, Archdeacon," said he, turning back, "I forgot to tell you--the
ministry are out."

"Out!" ejaculated the archdeacon, in a tone which too plainly showed
his anxiety and dismay, although under the circumstances of the
moment he endeavoured to control himself. "Out! Who told you so?"

Mr. Harding explained that news to this effect had come down by
electric telegraph, and that the tidings had been left at the palace
door by Mr. Chadwick.

The archdeacon sat silent for awhile meditating, and Mr. Harding
stood looking at him. "Never mind," said the archdeacon at last;
"send the message all the same. The news must be sent to someone,
and there is at present no one else in a position to receive it. Do
it at once, my dear friend; you know I would not trouble you, were I
in a state to do it myself. A few minutes' time is of the greatest
importance."

Mr. Harding went out and sent the message, and it may be as well
that we should follow it to its destination. Within thirty minutes
of its leaving Barchester it reached the Earl of ---- in his inner
library. What elaborate letters, what eloquent appeals, what
indignant remonstrances he might there have to frame, at such a
moment, may be conceived but not described! How he was preparing his
thunder for successful rivals, standing like a British peer with his
back to the sea-coal fire, and his hands in his breeches pockets--how
his fine eye was lit up with anger, and his forehead gleamed with
patriotism--how he stamped his foot as he thought of his heavy
associates--how he all but swore as he remembered how much too clever
one of them had been--my creative readers may imagine. But was he so
engaged? No: history and truth compel me to deny it. He was sitting
easily in a lounging chair, conning over a Newmarket list, and by his
elbow on the table was lying open an uncut French novel on which he
was engaged.

He opened the cover in which the message was enclosed and, having
read it, he took his pen and wrote on the back of it--


  For the Earl of ----,
  With the Earl of ----'s compliments


and sent it off again on its journey.

Thus terminated our unfortunate friend's chances of possessing the
glories of a bishopric.

The names of many divines were given in the papers as that of the
bishop-elect. "The British Grandmother" declared that Dr. Gwynne was
to be the man, in compliment to the late ministry. This was a heavy
blow to Dr. Grantly, but he was not doomed to see himself superseded
by his friend. "The Anglican Devotee" put forward confidently the
claims of a great London preacher of austere doctrines; and "The
Eastern Hemisphere," an evening paper supposed to possess much
official knowledge, declared in favour of an eminent naturalist,
a gentleman most completely versed in the knowledge of rocks and
minerals, but supposed by many to hold on religious subjects no
special doctrines whatever. "The Jupiter," that daily paper which,
as we all know, is the only true source of infallibly correct
information on all subjects, for awhile was silent, but at last spoke
out. The merits of all these candidates were discussed and somewhat
irreverently disposed of, and then "The Jupiter" declared that Dr.
Proudie was to be the man.

Dr. Proudie was the man. Just a month after the demise of the late
bishop, Dr. Proudie kissed the Queen's hand as his successor-elect.

We must beg to be allowed to draw a curtain over the sorrows of
the archdeacon as he sat, sombre and sad at heart, in the study of
his parsonage at Plumstead Episcopi. On the day subsequent to the
dispatch of the message he heard that the Earl of ---- had consented
to undertake the formation of a ministry, and from that moment he
knew that his chance was over. Many will think that he was wicked to
grieve for the loss of episcopal power, wicked to have coveted it,
nay, wicked even to have thought about it, in the way and at the
moments he had done so.

With such censures I cannot profess that I completely agree. The
_nolo episcopari_, though still in use, is so directly at variance
with the tendency of all human wishes, that it cannot be thought
to express the true aspirations of rising priests in the Church
of England. A lawyer does not sin in seeking to be a judge, or in
compassing his wishes by all honest means. A young diplomat entertains
a fair ambition when he looks forward to be the lord of a first-rate
embassy; and a poor novelist, when he attempts to rival Dickens or
rise above Fitzjeames, commits no fault, though he may be foolish.
Sydney Smith truly said that in these recreant days we cannot expect
to find the majesty of St. Paul beneath the cassock of a curate. If
we look to our clergymen to be more than men, we shall probably teach
ourselves to think that they are less, and can hardly hope to raise
the character of the pastor by denying to him the right to entertain
the aspirations of a man.

Our archdeacon was worldly--who among us is not so? He was
ambitious--who among us is ashamed to own that "last infirmity of
noble minds!" He was avaricious, my readers will say. No;--it was
for no love of lucre that he wished to be Bishop of Barchester.
He was his father's only child, and his father had left him great
wealth. His preferment brought him in nearly three thousand a year.
The bishopric, as cut down by the Ecclesiastical Commission, was only
five. He would be a richer man as archdeacon than he could be as
bishop. But he certainly did desire to play first fiddle; he did
desire to sit in full lawn sleeves among the peers of the realm; and
he did desire, if the truth must out, to be called "My lord" by his
reverend brethren.

His hopes, however, were they innocent or sinful, were not fated to
be realized, and Dr. Proudie was consecrated Bishop of Barchester.




CHAPTER II

Hiram's Hospital According to Act of Parliament


It is hardly necessary that I should here give to the public
any lengthened biography of Mr. Harding up to the period of the
commencement of this tale. The public cannot have forgotten how ill
that sensitive gentleman bore the attack that was made on him in
the columns of "The Jupiter," with reference to the income which he
received as warden of Hiram's Hospital, in the city of Barchester.
Nor can it yet be forgotten that a lawsuit was instituted against
him on the matter of that charity by Mr. John Bold, who afterwards
married his, Mr. Harding's, younger and then only unmarried daughter.
Under pressure of these attacks, Mr. Harding had resigned his
wardenship, though strongly recommended to abstain from doing so
both by his friends and by his lawyers. He did, however, resign it,
and betook himself manfully to the duties of the small parish of St.
Cuthbert's, in the city, of which he was vicar, continuing also to
perform those of precentor of the cathedral, a situation of small
emolument which had hitherto been supposed to be joined, as a matter
of course, to the wardenship of the hospital above spoken of.

When he left the hospital from which he had been so ruthlessly driven,
and settled himself down in his own modest manner in the High Street
of Barchester, he had not expected that others would make more fuss
about it than he was inclined to do himself; and the extent of his
hope was, that the movement might have been made in time to prevent
any further paragraphs in "The Jupiter." His affairs, however, were
not allowed to subside thus quietly, and people were quite as much
inclined to talk about the disinterested sacrifice he had made, as
they had before been to upbraid him for his cupidity.

The most remarkable thing that occurred was the receipt of an
autographed letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury, in which the
primate very warmly praised his conduct, and begged to know what his
intentions were for the future. Mr. Harding replied that he intended
to be rector of St. Cuthbert's, in Barchester, and so that matter
dropped. Then the newspapers took up his case, "The Jupiter" among
the rest, and wafted his name in eulogistic strains through every
reading-room in the nation. It was discovered also that he was the
author of that great musical work, _Harding's Church Music_,--and a
new edition was spoken of, though, I believe, never printed. It is,
however, certain that the work was introduced into the Royal Chapel
at St. James's, and that a long criticism appeared in the "Musical
Scrutator," declaring that in no previous work of the kind had so much
research been joined with such exalted musical ability, and asserting
that the name of Harding would henceforward be known wherever the
arts were cultivated, or religion valued.

This was high praise, and I will not deny that Mr. Harding was
gratified by such flattery; for if Mr. Harding was vain on any
subject, it was on that of music. But here the matter rested. The
second edition, if printed, was never purchased; the copies which had
been introduced into the Royal Chapel disappeared again, and were laid
by in peace, with a load of similar literature. Mr. Towers of "The
Jupiter" and his brethren occupied themselves with other names, and
the undying fame promised to our friend was clearly intended to be
posthumous.

Mr. Harding had spent much of his time with his friend the bishop;
much with his daughter Mrs. Bold, now, alas, a widow; and had almost
daily visited the wretched remnant of his former subjects, the few
surviving bedesmen now left at Hiram's Hospital. Six of them were
still living. The number, according to old Hiram's will, should
always have been twelve. But after the abdication of their warden,
the bishop had appointed no successor to him, no new occupants of the
charity had been nominated, and it appeared as though the hospital at
Barchester would fall into abeyance, unless the powers that be should
take some steps towards putting it once more into working order.

During the past five years, the powers that be had not overlooked
Barchester Hospital, and sundry political doctors had taken the
matter in hand. Shortly after Mr. Harding's resignation, "The Jupiter"
had very clearly shown what ought to be done. In about half a column
it had distributed the income, rebuilt the buildings, put an end to
all bickerings, regenerated kindly feeling, provided for Mr. Harding,
and placed the whole thing on a footing which could not but be
satisfactory to the city and Bishop of Barchester, and to the nation
at large. The wisdom of this scheme was testified by the number of
letters which "Common Sense," "Veritas," and "One that loves fair
play" sent to "The Jupiter", all expressing admiration and amplifying
on the details given. It is singular enough that no adverse letter
appeared at all, and, therefore, none of course was written.

But Cassandra was not believed, and even the wisdom of "The Jupiter"
sometimes falls on deaf ears. Though other plans did not put
themselves forward in the columns of "The Jupiter," reformers of
church charities were not slack to make known in various places their
different nostrums for setting Hiram's Hospital on its feet again.
A learned bishop took occasion, in the Upper House, to allude to
the matter, intimating that he had communicated on the subject with
his right reverend brother of Barchester. The radical member for
Staleybridge had suggested that the funds should be alienated for the
education of the agricultural poor of the country, and he amused the
house by some anecdotes touching the superstition and habits of the
agriculturists in question. A political pamphleteer had produced
a few dozen pages, which he called "Who are John Hiram's heirs?"
intending to give an infallible rule for the governance of all such
establishments; and, at last, a member of the government promised that
in the next session a short bill should be introduced for regulating
the affairs of Barchester and other kindred concerns.

The next session came, and, contrary to custom, the bill came also.
Men's minds were then intent on other things. The first threatenings
of a huge war hung heavily over the nation, and the question as to
Hiram's heirs did not appear to interest very many people either in
or out of the house. The bill, however, was read and re-read, and in
some undistinguished manner passed through its eleven stages without
appeal or dissent. What would John Hiram have said in the matter,
could he have predicted that some forty-five gentlemen would take
on themselves to make a law altering the whole purport of his will,
without in the least knowing at the moment of their making it, what
it was that they were doing? It is however to be hoped that the
under-secretary for the Home Office knew, for to him had the matter
been confided.

The bill, however, did pass, and at the time at which this history is
supposed to commence, it had been ordained that there should be, as
heretofore, twelve old men in Barchester Hospital, each with 1s. 4d.
a day; that there should also be twelve old women to be located in a
house to be built, each with 1s. 2d. a day; that there should be a
matron, with a house and £70 a year; a steward with £150 a year; and
latterly, a warden with £450 a year, who should have the spiritual
guidance of both establishments, and the temporal guidance of that
appertaining to the male sex. The bishop, dean, and warden were, as
formerly, to appoint in turn the recipients of the charity, and the
bishop was to appoint the officers. There was nothing said as to the
wardenship being held by the precentor of the cathedral, nor a word
as to Mr. Harding's right to the situation.

It was not, however, till some months after the death of the old
bishop, and almost immediately consequent on the installation of his
successor, that notice was given that the reform was about to be
carried out. The new law and the new bishop were among the earliest
works of a new ministry, or rather of a ministry who, having for
awhile given place to their opponents, had then returned to power;
and the death of Dr. Grantly occurred, as we have seen, exactly at
the period of the change.

Poor Eleanor Bold! How well does that widow's cap become her, and
the solemn gravity with which she devotes herself to her new duties.
Poor Eleanor!

Poor Eleanor! I cannot say that with me John Bold was ever a
favourite. I never thought him worthy of the wife he had won. But
in her estimation he was most worthy. Hers was one of those feminine
hearts which cling to a husband, not with idolatry, for worship can
admit of no defect in its idol, but with the perfect tenacity of ivy.
As the parasite plant will follow even the defects of the trunk which
it embraces, so did Eleanor cling to and love the very faults of her
husband. She had once declared that whatever her father did should
in her eyes be right. She then transferred her allegiance, and became
ever ready to defend the worst failings of her lord and master.

And John Bold was a man to be loved by a woman; he was himself
affectionate; he was confiding and manly; and that arrogance of
thought, unsustained by first-rate abilities, that attempt at being
better than his neighbours which jarred so painfully on the feelings
of his acquaintance, did not injure him in the estimation of his wife.

Could she even have admitted that he had a fault, his early death
would have blotted out the memory of it. She wept as for the loss
of the most perfect treasure with which mortal woman had ever been
endowed; for weeks after he was gone the idea of future happiness
in this world was hateful to her; consolation, as it is called, was
insupportable, and tears and sleep were her only relief.

But God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb. She knew that she had
within her the living source of other cares. She knew that there was
to be created for her another subject of weal or woe, of unutterable
joy or despairing sorrow, as God in his mercy might vouchsafe to her.
At first this did but augment her grief! To be the mother of a poor
infant, orphaned before it was born, brought forth to the sorrows of
an ever desolate hearth, nurtured amidst tears and wailing, and then
turned adrift into the world without the aid of a father's care!
There was at first no joy in this.

By degrees, however, her heart became anxious for another object,
and, before its birth, the stranger was expected with all the
eagerness of a longing mother. Just eight months after the father's
death a second John Bold was born, and if the worship of one creature
can be innocent in another, let us hope that the adoration offered
over the cradle of the fatherless infant may not be imputed as a sin.

It will not be worth our while to define the character of the child,
or to point out in how far the faults of the father were redeemed
within that little breast by the virtues of the mother. The baby, as
a baby, was all that was delightful, and I cannot foresee that it
will be necessary for us to inquire into the facts of his after-life.
Our present business at Barchester will not occupy us above a year
or two at the furthest, and I will leave it to some other pen to
produce, if necessary, the biography of John Bold the Younger.

But, as a baby, this baby was all that could be desired. This fact
no one attempted to deny. "Is he not delightful?" she would say to
her father, looking up into his face from her knees, her lustrous
eyes overflowing with soft tears, her young face encircled by her
close widow's cap, and her hands on each side of the cradle in which
her treasure was sleeping. The grandfather would gladly admit that
the treasure was delightful, and the uncle archdeacon himself would
agree, and Mrs. Grantly, Eleanor's sister, would re-echo the word
with true sisterly energy; and Mary Bold--but Mary Bold was a second
worshipper at the same shrine.

The baby was really delightful; he took his food with a will, struck
out his toes merrily whenever his legs were uncovered, and did not
have fits. These are supposed to be the strongest points of baby
perfection, and in all these our baby excelled.

And thus the widow's deep grief was softened, and a sweet balm was
poured into the wound which she had thought nothing but death could
heal. How much kinder is God to us than we are willing to be to
ourselves! At the loss of every dear face, at the last going of
every well-beloved one, we all doom ourselves to an eternity of
sorrow, and look to waste ourselves away in an ever-running fountain
of tears. How seldom does such grief endure! How blessed is the
goodness which forbids it to do so! "Let me ever remember my living
friends, but forget them as soon as dead," was the prayer of a wise
man who understood the mercy of God. Few perhaps would have the
courage to express such a wish, and yet to do so would only be to
ask for that release from sorrow which a kind Creator almost always
extends to us.

I would not, however, have it imagined that Mrs. Bold forgot her
husband. She daily thought of him with all conjugal love, and
enshrined his memory in the innermost centre of her heart. But yet
she was happy in her baby. It was so sweet to press the living toy
to her breast, and feel that a human being existed who did owe,
and was to owe, everything to her; whose daily food was drawn from
herself; whose little wants could all be satisfied by her; whose
little heart would first love her and her only; whose infant tongue
would make its first effort in calling her by the sweetest name a
woman can hear. And so Eleanor's bosom became tranquil, and she set
about her new duties eagerly and gratefully.

As regards the concerns of the world, John Bold had left his widow
in prosperous circumstances. He had bequeathed to her all that he
possessed, and that comprised an income much exceeding what she
or her friends thought necessary for her. It amounted to nearly a
thousand a year; when she reflected on its extent, her dearest hope
was to hand it over, not only unimpaired but increased, to her
husband's son, to her own darling, to the little man who now lay
sleeping on her knee, happily ignorant of the cares which were to
be accumulated in his behalf.

When John Bold died, she earnestly implored her father to come and
live with her, but this Mr. Harding declined, though for some weeks
he remained with her as a visitor. He could not be prevailed upon to
forego the possession of some small home of his own, and so remained
in the lodgings he had first selected over a chemist's shop in the
High Street of Barchester.




CHAPTER III

Dr. and Mrs. Proudie


This narrative is supposed to commence immediately after the
installation of Dr. Proudie. I will not describe the ceremony, as
I do not precisely understand its nature. I am ignorant whether
a bishop be chaired like a member of Parliament, or carried in a
gilt coach like a lord mayor, or sworn like a justice of peace,
or introduced like a peer to the upper house, or led between two
brethren like a knight of the garter; but I do know that everything
was properly done, and that nothing fit or becoming to a young
bishop was omitted on the occasion.

Dr. Proudie was not the man to allow anything to be omitted that
might be becoming to his new dignity. He understood well the value
of forms, and knew that the due observance of rank could not be
maintained unless the exterior trappings belonging to it were held in
proper esteem. He was a man born to move in high circles; at least
so he thought himself, and circumstances had certainly sustained him
in this view. He was the nephew of an Irish baron by his mother's
side, and his wife was the niece of a Scotch earl. He had for years
held some clerical office appertaining to courtly matters, which
had enabled him to live in London, and to entrust his parish to his
curate. He had been preacher to the royal beefeaters, curator of
theological manuscripts in the Ecclesiastical Courts, chaplain to the
Queen's yeomanry guard, and almoner to his Royal Highness the Prince
of Rappe-Blankenberg.

His residence in the metropolis, rendered necessary by duties thus
entrusted to him, his high connexions, and the peculiar talents and
nature of the man, recommended him to persons in power, and Dr.
Proudie became known as a useful and rising clergyman.

Some few years since, even within the memory of many who are not yet
willing to call themselves old, a liberal clergyman was a person not
frequently to be met. Sydney Smith was such and was looked on as
little better than an infidel; a few others also might be named, but
they were _rarae aves_ and were regarded with doubt and distrust
by their brethren. No man was so surely a Tory as a country
rector--nowhere were the powers that be so cherished as at Oxford.

When, however, Dr. Whately was made an archbishop, and Dr. Hampden
some years afterwards regius professor, many wise divines saw that a
change was taking place in men's minds, and that more liberal ideas
would henceforward be suitable to the priests as well as to the
laity. Clergymen began to be heard of who had ceased to anathematize
papists on the one hand, or vilify dissenters on the other. It
appeared clear that High Church principles, as they are called, were
no longer to be surest claims to promotion with at any rate one
section of statesmen, and Dr. Proudie was one among those who early
in life adapted himself to the views held by the Whigs on most
theological and religious subjects. He bore with the idolatry of
Rome, tolerated even the infidelity of Socinianism, and was hand and
glove with the Presbyterian Synods of Scotland and Ulster.

Such a man at such a time was found to be useful, and Dr. Proudie's
name began to appear in the newspapers. He was made one of a
commission who went over to Ireland to arrange matters preparative
to the working of the national board; he became honorary secretary
to another commission nominated to inquire into the revenues of
cathedral chapters; he had had something to do with both the _regium
donum_ and the Maynooth grant.

It must not on this account be taken as proved that Dr. Proudie was
a man of great mental powers, or even of much capacity for business,
for such qualities had not been required in him. In the arrangement
of those church reforms with which he was connected, the ideas and
original conception of the work to be done were generally furnished
by the liberal statesmen of the day, and the labour of the details
was borne by officials of a lower rank. It was, however, thought
expedient that the name of some clergyman should appear in such
matters, and as Dr. Proudie had become known as a tolerating divine,
great use of this sort was made of his name. If he did not do much
active good, he never did any harm; he was amenable to those who were
really in authority and, at the sittings of the various boards to
which he belonged, maintained a kind of dignity which had its value.

He was certainly possessed of sufficient tact to answer the purpose
for which he was required without making himself troublesome; but
it must not therefore be surmised that he doubted his own power, or
failed to believe that he could himself take a high part in high
affairs when his own turn came. He was biding his time, and patiently
looking forward to the days when he himself would sit authoritative
at some board, and talk and direct, and rule the roost, while lesser
stars sat round and obeyed, as he had so well accustomed himself to
do.

His reward and his time had now come. He was selected for the vacant
bishopric and, on the next vacancy which might occur in any diocese,
would take his place in the House of Lords, prepared to give not
a silent vote in all matters concerning the weal of the church
establishment. Toleration was to be the basis on which he was to
fight his battles, and in the honest courage of his heart he thought
no evil would come to him in encountering even such foes as his
brethren of Exeter and Oxford.

Dr. Proudie was an ambitious man, and before he was well consecrated
Bishop of Barchester, he had begun to look up to archiepiscopal
splendour, and the glories of Lambeth, or at any rate of
Bishopsthorpe. He was comparatively young, and had, as he fondly
flattered himself, been selected as possessing such gifts, natural
and acquired, as must be sure to recommend him to a yet higher
notice, now that a higher sphere was opened to him. Dr. Proudie
was, therefore, quite prepared to take a conspicuous part in all
theological affairs appertaining to these realms; and having such
views, by no means intended to bury himself at Barchester as his
predecessor had done. No! London should still be his ground: a
comfortable mansion in a provincial city might be well enough for
the dead months of the year. Indeed, Dr. Proudie had always felt it
necessary to his position to retire from London when other great
and fashionable people did so; but London should still be his fixed
residence, and it was in London that he resolved to exercise that
hospitality so peculiarly recommended to all bishops by St. Paul.
How otherwise could he keep himself before the world? How else give
to the government, in matters theological, the full benefit of his
weight and talents?

This resolution was no doubt a salutary one as regarded the world at
large, but was not likely to make him popular either with the clergy
or people of Barchester. Dr. Grantly had always lived there--in
truth, it was hard for a bishop to be popular after Dr. Grantly. His
income had averaged £9,000 a year; his successor was to be rigidly
limited to £5,000. He had but one child on whom to spend his money;
Dr. Proudie had seven or eight. He had been a man of few personal
expenses, and they had been confined to the tastes of a moderate
gentleman; but Dr. Proudie had to maintain a position in fashionable
society, and had that to do with comparatively small means. Dr.
Grantly had certainly kept his carriage as became a bishop, but
his carriage, horses, and coachman, though they did very well for
Barchester, would have been almost ridiculous at Westminster.
Mrs. Proudie determined that her husband's equipage should not shame
her, and things on which Mrs. Proudie resolved were generally
accomplished.

From all this it was likely to result that Dr. Proudie would not
spend much money at Barchester, whereas his predecessor had dealt
with the tradesmen of the city in a manner very much to their
satisfaction. The Grantlys, father and son, had spent their money
like gentlemen, but it soon became whispered in Barchester that Dr.
Proudie was not unacquainted with those prudent devices by which the
utmost show of wealth is produced from limited means.

In person Dr. Proudie is a good-looking man; spruce and dapper, and
very tidy. He is somewhat below middle height, being about five feet
four; but he makes up for the inches which he wants by the dignity
with which he carries those which he has. It is no fault of his own
if he has not a commanding eye, for he studies hard to assume it.
His features are well formed, though perhaps the sharpness of his
nose may give to his face in the eyes of some people an air of
insignificance. If so, it is greatly redeemed by his mouth and chin,
of which he is justly proud.

Dr. Proudie may well be said to have been a fortunate man, for he was
not born to wealth, and he is now Bishop of Barchester; nevertheless,
he has his cares. He has a large family, of whom the three eldest
are daughters, now all grown up and fit for fashionable life;--and
he has a wife. It is not my intention to breathe a word against the
character of Mrs. Proudie, but still I cannot think that with all
her virtues she adds much to her husband's happiness. The truth is
that in matters domestic she rules supreme over her titular lord,
and rules with a rod of iron. Nor is this all. Things domestic
Dr. Proudie might have abandoned to her, if not voluntarily,
yet willingly. But Mrs. Proudie is not satisfied with such home
dominion, and stretches her power over all his movements, and will
not even abstain from things spiritual. In fact, the bishop is
hen-pecked.

The archdeacon's wife, in her happy home at Plumstead, knows how to
assume the full privileges of her rank and express her own mind in
becoming tone and place. But Mrs. Grantly's sway, if sway she has,
is easy and beneficent. She never shames her husband; before the
world she is a pattern of obedience; her voice is never loud, nor her
looks sharp: doubtless she values power, and has not unsuccessfully
striven to acquire it; but she knows what should be the limits of a
woman's rule.

Not so Mrs. Proudie. This lady is habitually authoritative to all,
but to her poor husband she is despotic. Successful as has been his
career in the eyes of the world, it would seem that in the eyes of
his wife he is never right. All hope of defending himself has long
passed from him; indeed he rarely even attempts self-justification,
and is aware that submission produces the nearest approach to peace
which his own house can ever attain.

Mrs. Proudie has not been able to sit at the boards and committees
to which her husband has been called by the State, nor, as he often
reflects, can she make her voice heard in the House of Lords. It may
be that she will refuse to him permission to attend to this branch
of a bishop's duties; it may be that she will insist on his close
attendance to his own closet. He has never whispered a word on the
subject to living ears, but he has already made his fixed resolve.
Should such attempt be made he will rebel. Dogs have turned against
their masters, and even Neapolitans against their rulers, when
oppression has been too severe. And Dr. Proudie feels within himself
that if the cord be drawn too tight, he also can muster courage and
resist.

The state of vassalage in which our bishop has been kept by his wife
has not tended to exalt his character in the eyes of his daughters,
who assume in addressing their father too much of that authority
which is not properly belonging, at any rate, to them. They are, on
the whole, fine engaging young ladies. They are tall and robust like
their mother, whose high cheek-bones, and--we may say auburn hair they
all inherit. They think somewhat too much of their grand-uncles, who
have not hitherto returned the compliment by thinking much of them.
But now that their father is a bishop, it is probable that family
ties will be drawn closer. Considering their connexion with the
church, they entertain but few prejudices against the pleasures of
the world, and have certainly not distressed their parents, as too
many English girls have lately done, by any enthusiastic wish to
devote themselves to the seclusion of a Protestant nunnery. Dr.
Proudie's sons are still at school.

One other marked peculiarity in the character of the bishop's wife
must be mentioned. Though not averse to the society and manners of
the world, she is in her own way a religious woman; and the form in
which this tendency shows itself in her is by a strict observance
of Sabbatarian rule. Dissipation and low dresses during the week
are, under her control, atoned for by three services, an evening
sermon read by herself, and a perfect abstinence from any cheering
employment on the Sunday. Unfortunately for those under her roof to
whom the dissipation and low dresses are not extended, her servants
namely and her husband, the compensating strictness of the Sabbath
includes all. Woe betide the recreant housemaid who is found to have
been listening to the honey of a sweetheart in the Regent's park
instead of the soul-stirring evening discourse of Mr. Slope. Not
only is she sent adrift, but she is so sent with a character which
leaves her little hope of a decent place. Woe betide the six-foot
hero who escorts Mrs. Proudie to her pew in red plush breeches, if
he slips away to the neighbouring beer-shop, instead of falling into
the back seat appropriated to his use. Mrs. Proudie has the eyes of
Argus for such offenders. Occasional drunkenness in the week may be
overlooked, for six feet on low wages are hardly to be procured if
the morals are always kept at a high pitch, but not even for grandeur
or economy will Mrs. Proudie forgive a desecration of the Sabbath.

In such matters Mrs. Proudie allows herself to be often guided by
that eloquent preacher, the Rev. Mr. Slope, and as Dr. Proudie is
guided by his wife, it necessarily follows that the eminent man we
have named has obtained a good deal of control over Dr. Proudie
in matters concerning religion. Mr. Slope's only preferment has
hitherto been that of reader and preacher in a London district
church; and on the consecration of his friend the new bishop, he
readily gave this up to undertake the onerous but congenial duties
of domestic chaplain to his lordship.

Mr. Slope, however, on his first introduction must not be brought
before the public at the tail of a chapter.




CHAPTER IV

The Bishop's Chaplain


Of the Rev. Mr. Slope's parentage I am not able to say much. I have
heard it asserted that he is lineally descended from that eminent
physician who assisted at the birth of Mr. T. Shandy, and that in
early years he added an "e" to his name, for the sake of euphony, as
other great men have done before him. If this be so, I presume he
was christened Obadiah, for that is his name, in commemoration of
the conflict in which his ancestor so distinguished himself. All my
researches on the subject have, however, failed in enabling me to
fix the date on which the family changed its religion.

He had been a sizar at Cambridge, and had there conducted himself
at any rate successfully, for in due process of time he was an
M.A., having university pupils under his care. From thence he was
transferred to London, and became preacher at a new district church
built on the confines of Baker Street. He was in this position
when congenial ideas on religious subjects recommended him to Mrs.
Proudie, and the intercourse had become close and confidential.

Having been thus familiarly thrown among the Misses Proudie, it was
no more than natural that some softer feeling than friendship should
be engendered. There have been some passages of love between him
and the eldest hope, Olivia, but they have hitherto resulted in
no favourable arrangement. In truth, Mr. Slope, having made a
declaration of affection, afterwards withdrew it on finding that the
doctor had no immediate worldly funds with which to endow his child,
and it may easily be conceived that Miss Proudie, after such an
announcement on his part, was not readily disposed to receive any
further show of affection. On the appointment of Dr. Proudie to the
bishopric of Barchester, Mr. Slope's views were in truth somewhat
altered. Bishops, even though they be poor, can provide for clerical
children, and Mr. Slope began to regret that he had not been more
disinterested. He no sooner heard the tidings of the doctor's
elevation than he recommenced his siege, not violently, indeed, but
respectfully, and at a distance. Olivia Proudie, however, was a girl
of spirit: she had the blood of two peers in her veins, and better
still she had another lover on her books, so Mr. Slope sighed in
vain, and the pair soon found it convenient to establish a mutual
bond of inveterate hatred.

It may be thought singular that Mrs. Proudie's friendship for the
young clergyman should remain firm after such an affair, but, to
tell the truth, she had known nothing of it. Though very fond of Mr.
Slope herself, she had never conceived the idea that either of her
daughters would become so, and remembering their high birth and
social advantages, expected for them matches of a different sort.
Neither the gentleman nor the lady found it necessary to enlighten
her. Olivia's two sisters had each known of the affair, as had all
the servants, as had all the people living in the adjoining houses
on either side, but Mrs. Proudie had been kept in the dark.

Mr. Slope soon comforted himself with the reflexion that, as he had
been selected as chaplain to the bishop, it would probably be in his
power to get the good things in the bishop's gift without troubling
himself with the bishop's daughter, and he found himself able to
endure the pangs of rejected love. As he sat himself down in the
railway carriage, confronting the bishop and Mrs. Proudie as they
started on their first journey to Barchester, he began to form in his
own mind a plan of his future life. He knew well his patron's strong
points, but he knew the weak ones as well. He understood correctly
enough to what attempts the new bishop's high spirit would soar, and
he rightly guessed that public life would better suit the great man's
taste than the small details of diocesan duty.

He, therefore,--he, Mr. Slope,--would in effect be Bishop of
Barchester. Such was his resolve, and to give Mr. Slope his due,
he had both courage and spirit to bear him out in his resolution.
He knew that he should have a hard battle to fight, for the power
and patronage of the see would be equally coveted by another great
mind--Mrs. Proudie would also choose to be Bishop of Barchester. Mr.
Slope, however, flattered himself that he could outmanoeuvre the
lady. She must live much in London, while he would always be on the
spot. She would necessarily remain ignorant of much, while he would
know everything belonging to the diocese. At first, doubtless, he
must flatter and cajole, perhaps yield in some things, but he did not
doubt of ultimate triumph. If all other means failed, he could join
the bishop against his wife, inspire courage into the unhappy man,
lay an axe to the root of the woman's power, and emancipate the
husband.

Such were his thoughts as he sat looking at the sleeping pair in the
railway carriage, and Mr. Slope is not the man to trouble himself
with such thoughts for nothing. He is possessed of more than average
abilities, and is of good courage. Though he can stoop to fawn, and
stoop low indeed, if need be, he has still within him the power to
assume the tyrant;--and with the power he has certainly the wish. His
acquirements are not of the highest order, but such as they are, they
are completely under control, and he knows the use of them. He is
gifted with a certain kind of pulpit eloquence, not likely indeed
to be persuasive with men, but powerful with the softer sex. In his
sermons he deals greatly in denunciations, excites the minds of his
weaker hearers with a not unpleasant terror, and leaves an impression
on their minds that all mankind are in a perilous state, and all
womankind, too, except those who attend regularly to the evening
lectures in Baker Street. His looks and tones are extremely severe,
so much so that one cannot but fancy that he regards the greater part
of the world as being infinitely too bad for his care. As he walks
through the streets his very face denotes his horror of the world's
wickedness, and there is always an anathema lurking in the corner of
his eye.

In doctrine he, like his patron, is tolerant of dissent, if so strict
a mind can be called tolerant of anything. With Wesleyan-Methodists
he has something in common, but his soul trembles in agony at the
iniquities of the Puseyites. His aversion is carried to things
outward as well as inward. His gall rises at a new church with a
high-pitched roof; a full-breasted black silk waistcoat is with him a
symbol of Satan; and a profane jest-book would not, in his view, more
foully desecrate the church seat of a Christian than a book of prayer
printed with red letters and ornamented with a cross on the back.
Most active clergymen have their hobby, and Sunday observances are
his. Sunday, however, is a word which never pollutes his mouth--it
is always "the Sabbath." The "desecration of the Sabbath," as he
delights to call it, is to him meat and drink: he thrives upon that
as policemen do on the general evil habits of the community. It is
the loved subject of all his evening discourses, the source of all
his eloquence, the secret of all his power over the female heart.
To him the revelation of God appears only in that one law given for
Jewish observance. To him the mercies of our Saviour speak in vain,
to him in vain has been preached that sermon which fell from divine
lips on the mountain--"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit
the earth"--"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy."
To him the New Testament is comparatively of little moment, for from
it can he draw no fresh authority for that dominion which he loves
to exercise over at least a seventh part of man's allotted time here
below.

Mr. Slope is tall, and not ill-made. His feet and hands are large,
as has ever been the case with all his family, but he has a broad
chest and wide shoulders to carry off these excrescences, and on the
whole his figure is good. His countenance, however, is not specially
prepossessing. His hair is lank and of a dull pale reddish hue. It
is always formed into three straight, lumpy masses, each brushed with
admirable precision and cemented with much grease; two of them adhere
closely to the sides of his face, and the other lies at right angles
above them. He wears no whiskers, and is always punctiliously shaven.
His face is nearly of the same colour as his hair, though perhaps a
little redder: it is not unlike beef--beef, however, one would say,
of a bad quality. His forehead is capacious and high, but square and
heavy and unpleasantly shining. His mouth is large, though his lips
are thin and bloodless; and his big, prominent, pale-brown eyes
inspire anything but confidence. His nose, however, is his redeeming
feature: it is pronounced, straight and well-formed; though I myself
should have liked it better did it not possess a somewhat spongy,
porous appearance, as though it had been cleverly formed out of a
red-coloured cork.

I never could endure to shake hands with Mr. Slope. A cold, clammy
perspiration always exudes from him, the small drops are ever to be
seen standing on his brow, and his friendly grasp is unpleasant.

Such is Mr. Slope--such is the man who has suddenly fallen into
the midst of Barchester Close, and is destined there to assume the
station which has heretofore been filled by the son of the late
bishop. Think, oh, my meditative reader, what an associate we have
here for those comfortable prebendaries, those gentlemanlike clerical
doctors, those happy, well-used, well-fed minor canons who have grown
into existence at Barchester under the kindly wings of Bishop
Grantly!

But not as a mere associate for these does Mr. Slope travel down to
Barchester with the bishop and his wife. He intends to be, if not
their master, at least the chief among them. He intends to lead
and to have followers; he intends to hold the purse-strings of the
diocese and draw round him an obedient herd of his poor and hungry
brethren.

And here we can hardly fail to draw a comparison between the
archdeacon and our new private chaplain, and despite the manifold
faults of the former, one can hardly fail to make it much to his
advantage.

Both men are eager, much too eager, to support and increase the
power of their order. Both are anxious that the world should be
priest-governed, though they have probably never confessed so much,
even to themselves. Both begrudge any other kind of dominion held
by man over man. Dr. Grantly, if he admits the Queen's supremacy in
things spiritual, only admits it as being due to the quasi-priesthood
conveyed in the consecrating qualities of her coronation, and he
regards things temporal as being by their nature subject to those
which are spiritual. Mr. Slope's ideas of sacerdotal rule are of
quite a different class. He cares nothing, one way or the other, for
the Queen's supremacy; these to his ears are empty words, meaning
nothing. Forms he regards but little, and such titular expressions
as supremacy, consecration, ordination, and the like convey of
themselves no significance to him. Let him be supreme who can.
The temporal king, judge, or gaoler can work but on the body. The
spiritual master, if he have the necessary gifts and can duly use
them, has a wider field of empire. He works upon the soul. If he
can make himself be believed, he can be all powerful over those who
listen. If he be careful to meddle with none who are too strong in
intellect, or too weak in flesh, he may indeed be supreme. And such
was the ambition of Mr. Slope.

Dr. Grantly interfered very little with the worldly doings of those
who were in any way subject to him. I do not mean to say that he
omitted to notice misconduct among his clergy, immorality in his
parish, or omissions in his family, but he was not anxious to do
so where the necessity could be avoided. He was not troubled with
a propensity to be curious, and as long as those around him were
tainted with no heretical leaning towards dissent, as long as they
fully and freely admitted the efficacy of Mother Church, he was
willing that that mother should be merciful and affectionate, prone
to indulgence, and unwilling to chastise. He himself enjoyed the
good things of this world and liked to let it be known that he did
so. He cordially despised any brother rector who thought harm of
dinner-parties, or dreaded the dangers of a moderate claret-jug;
consequently, dinner-parties and claret-jugs were common in the
diocese. He liked to give laws and to be obeyed in them implicitly,
but he endeavoured that his ordinances should be within the compass
of the man and not unpalatable to the gentleman. He had ruled
among his clerical neighbours now for sundry years, and as he had
maintained his power without becoming unpopular, it may be presumed
that he had exercised some wisdom.

Of Mr. Slope's conduct much cannot be said, as his grand career is
yet to commence, but it may be premised that his tastes will be
very different from those of the archdeacon. He conceives it to be
his duty to know all the private doings and desires of the flock
entrusted to his care. From the poorer classes he exacts an
unconditional obedience to set rules of conduct, and if disobeyed
he has recourse, like his great ancestor, to the fulminations of an
Ernulfus: "Thou shalt be damned in thy going in and in thy coming
out--in thy eating and thy drinking," &c. &c. &c. With the rich,
experience has already taught him that a different line of action is
necessary. Men in the upper walks of life do not mind being cursed,
and the women, presuming that it be done in delicate phrase, rather
like it. But he has not, therefore, given up so important a portion
of believing Christians. With the men, indeed, he is generally
at variance; they are hardened sinners, on whom the voice of the
priestly charmer too often falls in vain; but with the ladies, old
and young, firm and frail, devout and dissipated, he is, as he
conceives, all powerful. He can reprove faults with so much flattery
and utter censure in so caressing a manner that the female heart, if
it glow with a spark of Low Church susceptibility, cannot withstand
him. In many houses he is thus an admired guest: the husbands, for
their wives' sake, are fain to admit him; and when once admitted it
is not easy to shake him off. He has, however, a pawing, greasy way
with him, which does not endear him to those who do not value him
for their souls' sake, and he is not a man to make himself at once
popular in a large circle such as is now likely to surround him at
Barchester.




CHAPTER V

A Morning Visit


It was known that Dr. Proudie would immediately have to reappoint to
the wardenship of the hospital under the act of Parliament to which
allusion has been made; no one imagined that any choice was left to
him--no one for a moment thought that he could appoint any other
than Mr. Harding. Mr. Harding himself, when he heard how the matter
had been settled, without troubling himself much on the subject,
considered it as certain that he would go back to his pleasant house
and garden. And though there would be much that was melancholy, nay,
almost heartrending, in such a return, he still was glad that it was
to be so. His daughter might probably be persuaded to return there
with him. She had, indeed, all but promised to do so, though she
still entertained an idea that that greatest of mortals, that
important atom of humanity, that little god upon earth, Johnny Bold
her baby, ought to have a house of his own over his head.

Such being the state of Mr. Harding's mind in the matter, he did not
feel any peculiar personal interest in the appointment of Dr. Proudie
to the bishopric. He, as well as others at Barchester, regretted
that a man should be sent among them who, they were aware, was not of
their way of thinking; but Mr. Harding himself was not a bigoted man
on points of church doctrine, and he was quite prepared to welcome
Dr. Proudie to Barchester in a graceful and becoming manner. He had
nothing to seek and nothing to fear; he felt that it behoved him
to be on good terms with his bishop, and he did not anticipate any
obstacle that would prevent it.

In such a frame of mind he proceeded to pay his respects at the
palace the second day after the arrival of the bishop and his
chaplain. But he did not go alone. Dr. Grantly proposed to accompany
him, and Mr. Harding was not sorry to have a companion, who would
remove from his shoulders the burden of the conversation in such an
interview. In the affair of the consecration Dr. Grantly had been
introduced to the bishop, and Mr. Harding had also been there. He
had, however, kept himself in the background, and he was now to be
presented to the great man for the first time.

The archdeacon's feelings were of a much stronger nature. He was not
exactly the man to overlook his own slighted claims, or to forgive
the preference shown to another. Dr. Proudie was playing Venus to
his Juno, and he was prepared to wage an internecine war against
the owner of the wished-for apple, and all his satellites, private
chaplains, and others.

Nevertheless, it behoved him also to conduct himself towards the
intruder as an old archdeacon should conduct himself to an incoming
bishop; and though he was well aware of all Dr. Proudie's abominable
opinions as regarded dissenters, church reform, the hebdomadal
council, and such like; though he disliked the man, and hated the
doctrines, still he was prepared to show respect to the station of
the bishop. So he and Mr. Harding called together at the palace.

His lordship was at home, and the two visitors were shown through the
accustomed hall into the well-known room where the good old bishop
used to sit. The furniture had been bought at a valuation, and
every chair and table, every bookshelf against the wall, and every
square in the carpet was as well known to each of them as their own
bedrooms. Nevertheless they at once felt that they were strangers
there. The furniture was for the most part the same, yet the place
had been metamorphosed. A new sofa had been introduced, a horrid
chintz affair, most unprelatical and almost irreligious; such a sofa
as never yet stood in the study of any decent High Church clergyman
of the Church of England. The old curtains had also given way. They
had, to be sure, become dingy, and that which had been originally
a rich and goodly ruby had degenerated into a reddish brown. Mr.
Harding, however, thought the old reddish-brown much preferable to
the gaudy buff-coloured trumpery moreen which Mrs. Proudie had deemed
good enough for her husband's own room in the provincial city of
Barchester.

Our friends found Dr. Proudie sitting on the old bishop's chair,
looking very nice in his new apron; they found, too, Mr. Slope
standing on the hearth-rug, persuasive and eager, just as the
archdeacon used to stand; but on the sofa they also found Mrs.
Proudie, an innovation for which a precedent might in vain be sought
in all the annals of the Barchester bishopric!

There she was, however, and they could only make the best of her.
The introductions were gone through in much form. The archdeacon
shook hands with the bishop, and named Mr. Harding, who received such
an amount of greeting as was due from a bishop to a precentor. His
lordship then presented them to his lady wife; the archdeacon first,
with archidiaconal honours, and then the precentor with diminished
parade. After this Mr. Slope presented himself. The bishop, it is
true, did mention his name, and so did Mrs. Proudie too, in a louder
tone, but Mr. Slope took upon himself the chief burden of his own
introduction. He had great pleasure in making himself acquainted
with Dr. Grantly; he had heard much of the archdeacon's good works
in that part of the diocese in which his duties as archdeacon had
been exercised (thus purposely ignoring the archdeacon's hitherto
unlimited dominion over the diocese at large). He was aware that
his lordship depended greatly on the assistance which Dr. Grantly
would be able to give him in that portion of his diocese. He then
thrust out his hand and, grasping that of his new foe, bedewed it
unmercifully. Dr. Grantly in return bowed, looked stiff, contracted
his eyebrows, and wiped his hand with his pocket-handkerchief.
Nothing abashed, Mr. Slope then noticed the precentor and descended
to the grade of the lower clergy. He gave him a squeeze of the
hand, damp indeed, but affectionate, and was very glad to make the
acquaintance of Mr.--oh yes, Mr. Harding; he had not exactly caught
the name. "Precentor in the cathedral," surmised Mr. Slope. Mr.
Harding confessed that such was the humble sphere of his work. "Some
parish duty as well," suggested Mr. Slope. Mr. Harding acknowledged
the diminutive incumbency of St. Cuthbert's. Mr. Slope then left him
alone, having condescended sufficiently, and joined the conversation
among the higher powers.

There were four persons there, each of whom considered himself the
most important personage in the diocese--himself, indeed, or herself,
as Mrs. Proudie was one of them--and with such a difference of
opinion it was not probable that they would get on pleasantly
together. The bishop himself actually wore the visible apron, and
trusted mainly to that--to that and his title, both being facts which
could not be overlooked. The archdeacon knew his subject and really
understood the business of bishoping, which the others did not, and
this was his strong ground. Mrs. Proudie had her sex to back her,
and her habit of command, and was nothing daunted by the high tone
of Dr. Grantly's face and figure. Mr. Slope had only himself and his
own courage and tact to depend on, but he nevertheless was perfectly
self-assured, and did not doubt but that he should soon get the better
of weak men who trusted so much to externals, as both bishop and
archdeacon appeared to do.

"Do you reside in Barchester, Dr. Grantly?" asked the lady with her
sweetest smile.

Dr. Grantly explained that he lived in his own parish of Plumstead
Episcopi, a few miles out of the city. Whereupon the lady hoped that
the distance was not too great for country visiting, as she would be
so glad to make the acquaintance of Mrs. Grantly. She would take the
earliest opportunity, after the arrival of her horses at Barchester;
their horses were at present in London; their horses were not
immediately coming down, as the bishop would be obliged, in a few
days, to return to town. Dr. Grantly was no doubt aware that the
bishop was at present much called upon by the "University Improvement
Committee:" indeed, the committee could not well proceed without him,
as their final report had now to be drawn up. The bishop had also to
prepare a scheme for the "Manufacturing Towns Morning and Evening
Sunday School Society," of which he was a patron, or president, or
director, and therefore the horses would not come down to Barchester
at present; but whenever the horses did come down, she would take the
earliest opportunity of calling at Plumstead Episcopi, providing the
distance was not too great for country visiting.

The archdeacon made his fifth bow--he had made one at each mention
of the horses--and promised that Mrs. Grantly would do herself
the honour of calling at the palace on an early day. Mrs. Proudie
declared that she would be delighted: she hadn't liked to ask, not
being quite sure whether Mrs. Grantly had horses; besides, the
distance might have been, &c. &c.

Dr. Grantly again bowed but said nothing. He could have bought every
individual possession of the whole family of the Proudies and have
restored them as a gift, without much feeling the loss; and had kept
a separate pair of horses for the exclusive use of his wife since the
day of his marriage, whereas Mrs. Proudie had been hitherto jobbed
about the streets of London at so much a month, during the season,
and at other times had managed to walk, or hire a smart fly from the
livery stables.

"Are the arrangements with reference to the Sabbath-day schools
generally pretty good in your archdeaconry?" asked Mr. Slope.

"Sabbath-day schools!" repeated the archdeacon with an affectation
of surprise. "Upon my word, I can't tell; it depends mainly on the
parson's wife and daughters. There is none at Plumstead."

This was almost a fib on the part of the archdeacon, for Mrs.
Grantly has a very nice school. To be sure it is not a Sunday-school
exclusively, and is not so designated, but that exemplary lady always
attends there for an hour before church, and hears the children say
their catechism, and sees that they are clean and tidy for church,
with their hands washed and their shoes tied; and Grisel and
Florinda, her daughters, carry thither a basket of large buns, baked
on the Saturday afternoon, and distribute them to all the children
not especially under disgrace, which buns are carried home after
church with considerable content, and eaten hot at tea, being then
split and toasted. The children of Plumstead would indeed open their
eyes if they heard their venerated pastor declare that there was no
Sunday-school in his parish.

Mr. Slope merely opened his wide eyes wider and slightly shrugged
his shoulders. He was not, however, prepared to give up his darling
project.

"I fear there is a great deal of Sabbath travelling here," said he.
"On looking at the 'Bradshaw,' I see that there are three trains
in and three out every Sabbath. Could nothing be done to induce
the company to withdraw them? Don't you think, Dr. Grantly, that a
little energy might diminish the evil?"

"Not being a director, I really can't say. But if you can withdraw
the passengers, the company I dare say will withdraw the trains,"
said the doctor. "It's merely a question of dividends."

"But surely, Dr. Grantly," said the lady; "surely we should look at
it differently. You and I, for instance, in our position: surely we
should do all that we can to control so grievous a sin. Don't you
think so, Mr. Harding?" and she turned to the precentor, who was
sitting mute and unhappy.

Mr. Harding thought that all porters and stokers, guards, brakesmen,
and pointsmen ought to have an opportunity of going to church, and
he hoped that they all had.

"But surely, surely," continued Mrs. Proudie, "surely that is not
enough. Surely that will not secure such an observance of the
Sabbath as we are taught to conceive is not only expedient but
indispensable; surely--"

Come what come might, Dr. Grantly was not to be forced into a
dissertation on a point of doctrine with Mrs. Proudie, nor yet with
Mr. Slope, so without much ceremony he turned his back upon the sofa
and began to hope that Dr. Proudie had found that the palace repairs
had been such as to meet his wishes.

"Yes, yes," said his lordship; upon the whole he thought so--upon the
whole, he didn't know that there was much ground for complaint; the
architect, perhaps, might have--but his double, Mr. Slope, who had
sidled over to the bishop's chair, would not allow his lordship to
finish his ambiguous speech.

"There is one point I would like to mention, Mr. Archdeacon. His
lordship asked me to step through the premises, and I see that the
stalls in the second stable are not perfect."

"Why--there's standing there for a dozen horses," said the
archdeacon.

"Perhaps so," said the other; "indeed, I've no doubt of it; but
visitors, you know, often require so much accommodation. There are
so many of the bishop's relatives who always bring their own horses."

Dr. Grantly promised that due provision for the relatives' horses
should be made, as far at least as the extent of the original
stable building would allow. He would himself communicate with the
architect.

"And the coach-house, Dr. Grantly," continued Mr. Slope; "there is
really hardly room for a second carriage in the large coach-house,
and the smaller one, of course, holds only one."

"And the gas," chimed in the lady; "there is no gas through the
house, none whatever, but in the kitchen and passages. Surely the
palace should have been fitted through with pipes for gas, and
hot water too. There is no hot water laid on anywhere above the
ground-floor; surely there should be the means of getting hot water
in the bedrooms without having it brought in jugs from the kitchen."

The bishop had a decided opinion that there should be pipes for hot
water. Hot water was very essential for the comfort of the palace.
It was, indeed, a requisite in any decent gentleman's house.

Mr. Slope had remarked that the coping on the garden wall was in many
places imperfect.

Mrs. Proudie had discovered a large hole, evidently the work of rats,
in the servants' hall.

The bishop expressed an utter detestation of rats. There was
nothing, he believed, in this world that he so much hated as a rat.

Mr. Slope had, moreover, observed that the locks of the outhouses
were very imperfect: he might specify the coal-cellar and the
woodhouse.

Mrs. Proudie had also seen that those on the doors of the servants'
bedrooms were in an-equally bad condition; indeed, the locks all
through the house were old-fashioned and unserviceable.

The bishop thought that a great deal depended on a good lock and
quite as much on the key. He had observed that the fault very often
lay with the key, especially if the wards were in any way twisted.

Mr. Slope was going on with his catalogue of grievances, when he
was somewhat loudly interrupted by the archdeacon, who succeeded
in explaining that the diocesan architect, or rather his foreman,
was the person to be addressed on such subjects, and that he, Dr.
Grantly, had inquired as to the comfort of the palace merely as a
point of compliment. He was sorry, however, that so many things
had been found amiss: and then he rose from his chair to escape.

Mrs. Proudie, though she had contrived to lend her assistance
in recapitulating the palatial dilapidations, had not on that
account given up her hold of Mr. Harding, nor ceased from her
cross-examinations as to the iniquity of Sabbatical amusements.
Over and over again had she thrown out her "Surely, surely," at
Mr. Harding's devoted head, and ill had that gentleman been able
to parry the attack.

He had never before found himself subjected to such a nuisance.
Ladies hitherto, when they had consulted him on religious subjects,
had listened to what he might choose to say with some deference,
and had differed, if they differed, in silence. But Mrs. Proudie
interrogated him and then lectured. "Neither thou, nor thy son,
nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant," said she
impressively, and more than once, as though Mr. Harding had forgotten
the words. She shook her finger at him as she quoted the favourite
law, as though menacing him with punishment, and then called upon him
categorically to state whether he did not think that travelling on
the Sabbath was an abomination and a desecration.

Mr. Harding had never been so hard pressed in his life. He felt that
he ought to rebuke the lady for presuming so to talk to a gentleman
and a clergyman many years her senior, but he recoiled from the idea
of scolding the bishop's wife, in the bishop's presence, on his first
visit to the palace; moreover, to tell the truth, he was somewhat
afraid of her. She, seeing him sit silent and absorbed, by no means
refrained from the attack.

"I hope, Mr. Harding," said she, shaking her head slowly and
solemnly, "I hope you will not leave me to think that you approve of
Sabbath travelling," and she looked a look of unutterable meaning
into his eyes.

There was no standing this, for Mr. Slope was now looking at him, and
so was the bishop, and so was the archdeacon, who had completed his
adieux on that side of the room. Mr. Harding therefore got up also
and, putting out his hand to Mrs. Proudie, said: "If you will come
to St. Cuthbert's some Sunday, I will preach you a sermon on that
subject."

And so the archdeacon and the precentor took their departure, bowing
low to the lady, shaking hands with the lord, and escaping from
Mr. Slope in the best manner each could. Mr. Harding was again
maltreated, but Dr. Grantly swore deeply in the bottom of his heart,
that no earthly consideration should ever again induce him to touch
the paw of that impure and filthy animal.

And now, had I the pen of a mighty poet, would I sing in epic verse
the noble wrath of the archdeacon. The palace steps descend to a
broad gravel sweep, from whence a small gate opens out into the
street, very near the covered gateway leading into the close. The
road from the palace door turns to the left, through the spacious
gardens, and terminates on the London road, half a mile from the
cathedral.

Till they had both passed this small gate and entered the close,
neither of them spoke a word, but the precentor clearly saw from
his companion's face that a tornado was to be expected, nor was he
himself inclined to stop it. Though by nature far less irritable
than the archdeacon, even he was angry: he even--that mild and
courteous man--was inclined to express himself in anything but
courteous terms.




CHAPTER VI

War


"Good heavens!" exclaimed the archdeacon, as he placed his foot on the
gravel walk of the close, and raising his hat with one hand, passed
the other somewhat violently over his now grizzled locks; smoke
issued forth from the uplifted beaver as it were a cloud of wrath,
and the safety valve of his anger opened, and emitted a visible
steam, preventing positive explosion and probable apoplexy. "Good
heavens!"--and the archdeacon looked up to the gray pinnacles of the
cathedral tower, making a mute appeal to that still living witness
which had looked down on the doings of so many bishops of Barchester.

"I don't think I shall ever like that Mr. Slope," said Mr. Harding.

"Like him!" roared the archdeacon, standing still for a moment to
give more force to his voice; "like him!" All the ravens of the
close cawed their assent. The old bells of the tower, in chiming the
hour, echoed the words, and the swallows flying out from their nests
mutely expressed a similar opinion. Like Mr. Slope! Why no, it was
not very probable that any Barchester-bred living thing should like
Mr. Slope!

"Nor Mrs. Proudie either," said Mr. Harding.

The archdeacon hereupon forgot himself. I will not follow his
example, nor shock my readers by transcribing the term in which he
expressed his feeling as to the lady who had been named. The ravens
and the last lingering notes of the clock bells were less scrupulous
and repeated in correspondent echoes the very improper exclamation.
The archdeacon again raised his hat, and another salutary escape of
steam was effected.

There was a pause, during which the precentor tried to realize
the fact that the wife of a Bishop of Barchester had been thus
designated, in the close of the cathedral, by the lips of its own
archdeacon; but he could not do it.

"The bishop seems to be a quiet man enough," suggested Mr. Harding,
having acknowledged to himself his own failure.

"Idiot!" exclaimed the doctor, who for the nonce was not capable of
more than such spasmodic attempts at utterance.

"Well, he did not seem very bright," said Mr. Harding, "and yet
he has always had the reputation of a clever man. I suppose he's
cautious and not inclined to express himself very freely."

The new Bishop of Barchester was already so contemptible a creature
in Dr. Grantly's eyes that he could not condescend to discuss his
character. He was a puppet to be played by others; a mere wax doll,
done up in an apron and a shovel hat, to be stuck on a throne or
elsewhere, and pulled about by wires as others chose. Dr. Grantly did
not choose to let himself down low enough to talk about Dr. Proudie,
but he saw that he would have to talk about the other members of his
household, the coadjutor bishops, who had brought his lordship down,
as it were, in a box, and were about to handle the wires as they
willed. This in itself was a terrible vexation to the archdeacon.
Could he have ignored the chaplain and have fought the bishop, there
would have been, at any rate, nothing degrading in such a contest.
Let the Queen make whom she would Bishop of Barchester; a man, or
even an ape, when once a bishop, would be a respectable adversary,
if he would but fight, himself. But what was such a person as Dr.
Grantly to do when such another person as Mr. Slope was put forward
as his antagonist?

If he, our archdeacon, refused the combat, Mr. Slope would walk
triumphant over the field, and have the diocese of Barchester under
his heel.

If, on the other hand, the archdeacon accepted as his enemy the man
whom the new puppet bishop put before him as such, he would have to
talk about Mr. Slope, and write about Mr. Slope, and in all matters
treat with Mr. Slope, as a being standing, in some degree, on ground
similar to his own. He would have to meet Mr. Slope, to--Bah! the
idea was sickening. He could not bring himself to have to do with
Mr. Slope.

"He is the most thoroughly bestial creature that ever I set my eyes
upon," said the archdeacon.

"Who--the bishop?" asked the other innocently.

"Bishop! no--I'm not talking about the bishop. How on earth such a
creature got ordained!--they'll ordain anybody now, I know, but he's
been in the church these ten years, and they used to be a little
careful ten years ago."

"Oh! You mean Mr. Slope."

"Did you ever see any animal less like a gentleman?" asked Dr.
Grantly.

"I can't say I felt myself much disposed to like him."

"Like him!" again shouted the doctor, and the assenting ravens again
cawed an echo; "of course, you don't like him: it's not a question of
liking. But what are we to do with him?"

"Do with him?" asked Mr. Harding.

"Yes--what are we to do with him? How are we to treat him? There he
is, and there he'll stay. He has put his foot in that palace, and
he'll never take it out again till he's driven. How are we to get
rid of him?"

"I don't suppose he can do us much harm."

"Not do harm!--Well, I think you'll find yourself of a different
opinion before a month is gone. What would you say now, if he got
himself put into the hospital? Would that be harm?"

Mr. Harding mused awhile and then said he didn't think the new bishop
would put Mr. Slope into the hospital.

"If he doesn't put him there, he'll put him somewhere else where
he'll be as bad. I tell you that that man, to all intents and
purposes, will be Bishop of Barchester!" And again Dr. Grantly
raised his hat and rubbed his hand thoughtfully and sadly over his
head.

"Impudent scoundrel!" he continued after a while. "To dare to
cross-examine me about the Sunday-schools in the diocese, and Sunday
travelling too: I never in my life met his equal for sheer impudence.
Why, he must have thought we were two candidates for ordination!"

"I declare I thought Mrs. Proudie was the worst of the two," said Mr.
Harding.

"When a woman is impertinent, one must only put up with it, and
keep out of her way in future, but I am not inclined to put up
with Mr. Slope. 'Sabbath travelling!'" and the doctor attempted to
imitate the peculiar drawl of the man he so much disliked: "'Sabbath
travelling!' Those are the sort of men who will ruin the Church of
England and make the profession of a clergyman disreputable. It is
not the dissenters or the papists that we should fear, but the set of
canting, low-bred hypocrites who are wriggling their way in among us;
men who have no fixed principle, no standard ideas of religion or
doctrine, but who take up some popular cry, as this fellow has done
about 'Sabbath travelling.'"

Dr. Grantly did not again repeat the question aloud, but he did so
constantly to himself: What were they to do with Mr. Slope? How was
he openly, before the world, to show that he utterly disapproved of
and abhorred such a man?

Hitherto Barchester had escaped the taint of any extreme rigour of
church doctrine. The clergymen of the city and neighbourhood, though
very well inclined to promote High Church principles, privileges, and
prerogatives, had never committed themselves to tendencies which are
somewhat too loosely called Puseyite practices. They all preached in
their black gowns, as their fathers had done before them; they wore
ordinary black cloth waistcoats; they had no candles on their altars,
either lighted or unlighted; they made no private genuflexions, and
were contented to confine themselves to such ceremonial observances
as had been in vogue for the last hundred years. The services were
decently and demurely read in their parish churches, chanting was
confined to the cathedral, and the science of intoning was unknown.
One young man who had come direct from Oxford as a curate to
Plumstead had, after the lapse of two or three Sundays, made a
faint attempt, much to the bewilderment of the poorer part of the
congregation. Dr. Grantly had not been present on the occasion, but
Mrs. Grantly, who had her own opinion on the subject, immediately
after the service expressed a hope that the young gentleman had not
been taken ill, and offered to send him all kinds of condiments
supposed to be good for a sore throat. After that there had been no
more intoning at Plumstead Episcopi.

But now the archdeacon began to meditate on some strong measures of
absolute opposition. Dr. Proudie and his crew were of the lowest
possible order of Church of England clergymen, and therefore it
behoved him, Dr. Grantly, to be of the very highest. Dr. Proudie
would abolish all forms and ceremonies, and therefore Dr. Grantly
felt the sudden necessity of multiplying them. Dr. Proudie would
consent to deprive the church of all collective authority and rule,
and therefore Dr. Grantly would stand up for the full power of
convocation and the renewal of all its ancient privileges.

It was true that he could not himself intone the service, but he
could procure the co-operation of any number of gentlemanlike curates
well trained in the mystery of doing so. He would not willingly
alter his own fashion of dress, but he could people Barchester
with young clergymen dressed in the longest frocks and in the
highest-breasted silk waistcoats. He certainly was not prepared to
cross himself, or to advocate the real presence, but without going
this length there were various observances, by adopting which he could
plainly show his antipathy to such men as Dr. Proudie and Mr. Slope.

All these things passed through his mind as he paced up and down the
close with Mr. Harding. War, war, internecine war was in his heart.
He felt that, as regarded himself and Mr. Slope, one of the two must
be annihilated as far as the city of Barchester was concerned, and he
did not intend to give way until there was not left to him an inch
of ground on which he could stand. He still flattered himself that
he could make Barchester too hot to hold Mr. Slope, and he had no
weakness of spirit to prevent his bringing about such a consummation
if it were in his power.

"I suppose Susan must call at the palace," said Mr. Harding.

"Yes, she shall call there, but it shall be once and once only.
I dare say 'the horses' won't find it convenient to come out to
Plumstead very soon, and when that once is done the matter may drop."

"I don't suppose Eleanor need call. I don't think Eleanor would get
on at all well with Mrs. Proudie."

"Not the least necessity in life," replied the archdeacon, not
without the reflexion that a ceremony which was necessary for his
wife might not be at all binding on the widow of John Bold. "Not the
slightest reason on earth why she should do so, if she doesn't like
it. For myself, I don't think that any decent young woman should be
subjected to the nuisance of being in the same room with that man."

And so the two clergymen parted, Mr. Harding going to his daughter's
house, and the archdeacon seeking the seclusion of his brougham.

The new inhabitants of the palace did not express any higher opinion
of their visitors than their visitors had expressed of them. Though
they did not use quite such strong language as Dr. Grantly had done,
they felt as much personal aversion, and were quite as well aware as
he was that there would be a battle to be fought, and that there was
hardly room for Proudieism in Barchester as long as Grantlyism was
predominant.

Indeed, it may be doubted whether Mr. Slope had not already within
his breast a better prepared system of strategy, a more accurately
defined line of hostile conduct than the archdeacon. Dr. Grantly was
going to fight because he found that he hated the man. Mr. Slope
had predetermined to hate the man because he foresaw the necessity
of fighting him. When he had first reviewed the _carte du pays_
previous to his entry into Barchester, the idea had occurred to him
of conciliating the archdeacon, of cajoling and flattering him into
submission, and of obtaining the upper hand by cunning instead of
courage. A little inquiry, however, sufficed to convince him that
all his cunning would fail to win over such a man as Dr. Grantly to
such a mode of action as that to be adopted by Mr. Slope, and then he
determined to fall back upon his courage. He at once saw that open
battle against Dr. Grantly and all Dr. Grantly's adherents was a
necessity of his position, and he deliberately planned the most
expedient methods of giving offence.

Soon after his arrival the bishop had intimated to the dean that,
with the permission of the canon then in residence, his chaplain
would preach in the cathedral on the next Sunday. The canon in
residence happened to be the Hon. and Rev. Dr. Vesey Stanhope, who
at this time was very busy on the shores of the Lake of Como, adding
to that unique collection of butterflies for which he is so famous.
Or rather, he would have been in residence but for the butterflies
and other such summer-day considerations; and the vicar-choral, who
was to take his place in the pulpit, by no means objected to having
his work done for him by Mr. Slope.

Mr. Slope accordingly preached, and if a preacher can have
satisfaction in being listened to, Mr. Slope ought to have been
gratified. I have reason to think that he was gratified, and that he
left the pulpit with the conviction that he had done what he intended
to do when he entered it.

On this occasion the new bishop took his seat for the first time
in the throne alloted to him. New scarlet cushions and drapery had
been prepared, with new gilt binding and new fringe. The old carved
oak-wood of the throne, ascending with its numerous grotesque
pinnacles half-way up to the roof of the choir, had been washed,
and dusted, and rubbed, and it all looked very smart. Ah! how often
sitting there, in happy early days, on those lowly benches in front
of the altar, have I whiled away the tedium of a sermon in considering
how best I might thread my way up amidst those wooden towers and climb
safely to the topmost pinnacle!

All Barchester went to hear Mr. Slope; either for that or to gaze
at the new bishop. All the best bonnets of the city were there, and
moreover all the best glossy clerical hats. Not a stall but had its
fitting occupant, for though some of the prebendaries might be away
in Italy or elsewhere, their places were filled by brethren who
flocked into Barchester on the occasion. The dean was there, a heavy
old man, now too old, indeed, to attend frequently in his place, and
so was the archdeacon. So also were the chancellor, the treasurer,
the precentor, sundry canons and minor canons, and every lay member
of the choir, prepared to sing the new bishop in with due melody and
harmonious expression of sacred welcome.

The service was certainly very well performed. Such was always the
case at Barchester, as the musical education of the choir had been
good, and the voices had been carefully selected. The psalms were
beautifully chanted; the Te Deum was magnificently sung; and the
litany was given in a manner which is still to be found at Barchester,
but, if my taste be correct, is to be found nowhere else. The litany
in Barchester cathedral has long been the special task to which
Mr. Harding's skill and voice have been devoted. Crowded audiences
generally make good performers, and though Mr. Harding was not aware
of any extraordinary exertion on his part, yet probably he rather
exceeded his usual mark. Others were doing their best, and it was
natural that he should emulate his brethren. So the service went on,
and at last Mr. Slope got into the pulpit.

He chose for his text a verse from the precepts addressed by St. Paul
to Timothy, as to the conduct necessary in a spiritual pastor and
guide, and it was immediately evident that the good clergy of
Barchester were to have a lesson.

"Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth
not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." These were
the words of his text, and with such a subject in such a place, it
may be supposed that such a preacher would be listened to by such
an audience. He was listened to with breathless attention and not
without considerable surprise. Whatever opinion of Mr. Slope might
have been held in Barchester before he commenced his discourse, none
of his hearers, when it was over, could mistake him either for a fool
or a coward.

It would not be becoming were I to travesty a sermon, or even to
repeat the language of it in the pages of a novel. In endeavouring
to depict the characters of the persons of whom I write, I am to a
certain extent forced to speak of sacred things. I trust, however,
that I shall not be thought to scoff at the pulpit, though some may
imagine that I do not feel all the reverence that is due to the
cloth. I may question the infallibility of the teachers, but I hope
that I shall not therefore be accused of doubt as to the thing to be
taught.

Mr. Slope, in commencing his sermon, showed no slight tact in his
ambiguous manner of hinting that, humble as he was himself, he stood
there as the mouth-piece of the illustrious divine who sat opposite
to him; and having premised so much, he gave forth a very accurate
definition of the conduct which that prelate would rejoice to see
in the clergymen now brought under his jurisdiction. It is only
necessary to say that the peculiar points insisted upon were exactly
those which were most distasteful to the clergy of the diocese,
and most averse to their practice and opinions, and that all those
peculiar habits and privileges which have always been dear to High
Church priests, to that party which is now scandalously called the
"high and dry church," were ridiculed, abused, and anathematized.
Now, the clergymen of the diocese of Barchester are all of the high
and dry church.

Having thus, according to his own opinion, explained how a clergyman
should show himself approved unto God, as a workman that needeth not
to be ashamed, he went on to explain how the word of truth should
be divided; and here he took a rather narrow view of the question
and fetched his arguments from afar. His object was to express his
abomination of all ceremonious modes of utterance, to cry down any
religious feeling which might be excited, not by the sense, but by
the sound of words, and in fact to insult cathedral practices. Had
St. Paul spoken of rightly pronouncing, instead of rightly dividing
the word of truth, this part of his sermon would have been more to
the purpose, but the preacher's immediate object was to preach Mr.
Slope's doctrine, and not St. Paul's, and he contrived to give the
necessary twist to the text with some skill.

He could not exactly say, preaching from a cathedral pulpit, that
chanting should be abandoned in cathedral services. By such an
assertion he would have overshot his mark and rendered himself
absurd, to the delight of his hearers. He could, however, and did,
allude with heavy denunciations to the practice of intoning in parish
churches, although the practice was all but unknown in the diocese;
and from thence he came round to the undue preponderance which, he
asserted, music had over meaning in the beautiful service which they
had just heard. He was aware, he said, that the practices of our
ancestors could not be abandoned at a moment's notice; the feelings
of the aged would be outraged, and the minds of respectable men would
be shocked. There were many, he was aware, of not sufficient calibre
of thought to perceive, of not sufficient education to know, that a
mode of service which was effective when outward ceremonies were of
more moment than inward feelings, had become all but barbarous at a
time when inward conviction was everything, when each word of the
minister's lips should fall intelligibly into the listener's heart.
Formerly the religion of the multitude had been an affair of the
imagination: now, in these latter days, it had become necessary that
a Christian should have a reason for his faith--should not only
believe, but digest--not only hear, but understand. The words of our
morning service, how beautiful, how apposite, how intelligible they
were, when read with simple and distinct decorum! But how much of
the meaning of the words was lost when they were produced with all
the meretricious charms of melody! &c. &c.

Here was a sermon to be preached before Mr. Archdeacon Grantly,
Mr. Precentor Harding, and the rest of them! Before a whole dean
and chapter assembled in their own cathedral! Before men who had
grown old in the exercise of their peculiar services, with a full
conviction of their excellence for all intended purposes! This too
from such a man, a clerical _parvenu_, a man without a cure, a mere
chaplain, an intruder among them; a fellow raked up, so said Dr.
Grantly, from the gutters of Marylebone! They had to sit through it!
None of them, not even Dr. Grantly, could close his ears, nor leave
the house of God during the hours of service. They were under an
obligation of listening, and that too without any immediate power of
reply.

There is, perhaps, no greater hardship at present inflicted on
mankind in civilized and free countries than the necessity of
listening to sermons. No one but a preaching clergyman has, in these
realms, the power of compelling an audience to sit silent and be
tormented. No one but a preaching clergyman can revel in platitudes,
truisms, and untruisms, and yet receive, as his undisputed privilege,
the same respectful demeanour as though words of impassioned
eloquence, or persuasive logic, fell from his lips. Let a professor
of law or physics find his place in a lecture-room, and there pour
forth jejune words and useless empty phrases, and he will pour them
forth to empty benches. Let a barrister attempt to talk without
talking well, and he will talk but seldom. A judge's charge need
be listened to perforce by none but the jury, prisoner, and
gaoler. A member of Parliament can be coughed down or counted out.
Town-councillors can be tabooed. But no one can rid himself of the
preaching clergyman. He is the bore of the age, the old man whom we
Sindbads cannot shake off, the nightmare that disturbs our Sunday's
rest, the incubus that overloads our religion and makes God's service
distasteful. We are not forced into church! No: but we desire more
than that. We desire not to be forced to stay away. We desire, nay,
we are resolute, to enjoy the comfort of public worship, but we
desire also that we may do so without an amount of tedium which
ordinary human nature cannot endure with patience; that we may be
able to leave the house of God without that anxious longing for
escape which is the common consequence of common sermons.

With what complacency will a young parson deduce false conclusions
from misunderstood texts, and then threaten us with all the penalties
of Hades if we neglect to comply with the injunctions he has given
us! Yes, my too self-confident juvenile friend, I do believe in
those mysteries which are so common in your mouth; I do believe in
the unadulterated word which you hold there in your hand; but you
must pardon me if, in some things, I doubt your interpretation. The
Bible is good, the prayer-book is good, nay, you yourself would be
acceptable, if you would read to me some portion of those time-honoured
discourses which our great divines have elaborated in the full maturity
of their powers. But you must excuse me, my insufficient young
lecturer, if I yawn over your imperfect sentences, your repeated
phrases, your false pathos, your drawlings and denouncings, your
humming and hawing, your oh-ing and ah-ing, your black gloves and your
white handkerchief. To me, it all means nothing; and hours are too
precious to be so wasted--if one could only avoid it.

And here I must make a protest against the pretence, so often put
forward by the working clergy, that they are overburdened by the
multitude of sermons to be preached. We are all too fond of our own
voices, and a preacher is encouraged in the vanity of making his
heard by the privilege of a compelled audience. His sermon is the
pleasant morsel of his life, his delicious moment of self-exaltation.
"I have preached nine sermons this week," said a young friend to me
the other day, with hand languidly raised to his brow, the picture of
an overburdened martyr. "Nine this week, seven last week, four the
week before. I have preached twenty-three sermons this month. It is
really too much."

"Too much, indeed," said I, shuddering; "too much for the strength of
any one."

"Yes," he answered meekly, "indeed it is; I am beginning to feel it
painfully."

"Would," said I, "you could feel it--would that you could be made to
feel it." But he never guessed that my heart was wrung for the poor
listeners.

There was, at any rate, no tedium felt in listening to Mr. Slope on
the occasion in question. His subject came too home to his audience
to be dull, and, to tell the truth, Mr. Slope had the gift of using
words forcibly. He was heard through his thirty minutes of eloquence
with mute attention and open ears, but with angry eyes, which glared
round from one enraged parson to another, with wide-spread nostrils
from which already burst forth fumes of indignation, and with
many shufflings of the feet and uneasy motions of the body, which
betokened minds disturbed, and hearts not at peace with all the world.

At last the bishop, who, of all the congregation, had been most
surprised, and whose hair almost stood on end with terror, gave the
blessing in a manner not at all equal to that in which he had long
been practising it in his own study, and the congregation was free
to go their way.




CHAPTER VII

The Dean and Chapter Take Counsel


All Barchester was in a tumult. Dr. Grantly could hardly get himself
out of the cathedral porch before he exploded in his wrath. The
old dean betook himself silently to his deanery, afraid to speak,
and there sat, half-stupefied, pondering many things in vain. Mr.
Harding crept forth solitary and unhappy; and, slowly passing beneath
the elms of the close, could scarcely bring himself to believe
that the words which he had heard had proceeded from the pulpit of
Barchester cathedral. Was he again to be disturbed? Was his whole
life to be shown up as a useless sham a second time? Would he have
to abdicate his precentorship, as he had his wardenship, and to give
up chanting, as he had given up his twelve old bedesmen? And what
if he did! Some other Jupiter, some other Mr. Slope, would come
and turn him out of St. Cuthbert's. Surely he could not have been
wrong all his life in chanting the litany as he had done! He began,
however, to have his doubts. Doubting himself was Mr. Harding's
weakness. It is not, however, the usual fault of his order.

Yes! All Barchester was in a tumult. It was not only the clergy
who were affected. The laity also had listened to Mr. Slope's new
doctrine, all with surprise, some with indignation, and some with a
mixed feeling, in which dislike of the preacher was not so strongly
blended. The old bishop and his chaplains, the dean and his canons
and minor canons, the old choir, and especially Mr. Harding who was
at the head of it, had all been popular in Barchester. They had
spent their money and done good; the poor had not been ground down;
the clergy in society had neither been overbearing nor austere;
and the whole repute of the city was due to its ecclesiastical
importance. Yet there were those who had heard Mr. Slope with
satisfaction.

It is so pleasant to receive a fillip of excitement when suffering
from the dull routine of everyday life! The anthems and Te Deums
were in themselves delightful, but they had been heard so often! Mr.
Slope was certainly not delightful, but he was new, and, moreover,
clever. They had long thought it slow, so said now many of the
Barchesterians, to go on as they had done in their old humdrum way,
giving ear to none of the religious changes which were moving the
world without. People in advance of the age now had new ideas, and
it was quite time that Barchester should go in advance. Mr. Slope
might be right. Sunday had certainly not been strictly kept in
Barchester, except as regarded the cathedral services. Indeed the
two hours between services had long been appropriated to morning
calls and hot luncheons. Then, Sunday-schools! Really more ought
to have been done as to Sunday-schools--Sabbath-day schools Mr.
Slope had called them. The late bishop had really not thought of
Sunday-schools as he should have done. (These people probably did not
reflect that catechisms and collects are quite as hard work to the
young mind as bookkeeping is to the elderly, and that quite as little
feeling of worship enters into the one task as the other.) And then,
as regarded that great question of musical services, there might be
much to be said on Mr. Slope's side of the question. It certainly
was the fact that people went to the cathedral to hear the music, &c.
&c

And so a party absolutely formed itself in Barchester on Mr. Slope's
side of the question! This consisted, among the upper classes,
chiefly of ladies. No man--that is, no gentleman--could possibly be
attracted by Mr. Slope, or consent to sit at the feet of so abhorrent
a Gamaliel. Ladies are sometimes less nice in their appreciation of
physical disqualification; provided that a man speak to them well,
they will listen, though he speak from a mouth never so deformed
and hideous. Wilkes was most fortunate as a lover, and the damp,
sandy-haired, saucer-eyed, red-fisted Mr. Slope was powerful only
over the female breast.

There were, however, one or two of the neighbouring clergy who
thought it not quite safe to neglect the baskets in which for the
nonce were stored the loaves and fishes of the diocese of Barchester.
They, and they only, came to call on Mr. Slope after his performance
in the cathedral pulpit. Among these Mr. Quiverful, the rector of
Puddingdale, whose wife still continued to present him from year to
year with fresh pledges of her love, and so to increase his cares
and, it is to be hoped, his happiness equally. Who can wonder that
a gentleman with fourteen living children and a bare income of £400
a year should look after the loaves and fishes, even when they are
under the thumb of a Mr. Slope?

Very soon after the Sunday on which the sermon was preached, the
leading clergy of the neighbourhood held high debate together as
to how Mr. Slope should be put down. In the first place, he should
never again preach from the pulpit of Barchester cathedral. This was
Dr. Grantly's earliest dictum, and they all agreed, providing only
that they had the power to exclude him. Dr. Grantly declared that
the power rested with the dean and chapter, observing that no
clergyman out of the chapter had a claim to preach there, saving
only the bishop himself. To this the dean assented, but alleged that
contests on such a subject would be unseemly; to which rejoined a
meagre little doctor, one of the cathedral prebendaries, that the
contest must be all on the side of Mr. Slope if every prebendary
were always there ready to take his own place in the pulpit. Cunning
little meagre doctor, whom it suits well to live in his own cosy
house within Barchester close, and who is well content to have his
little fling at Dr. Vesey Stanhope and other absentees, whose Italian
villas, or enticing London homes, are more tempting than cathedral
stalls and residences!

To this answered the burly chancellor, a man rather silent indeed,
but very sensible, that absent prebendaries had their vicars, and
that in such case the vicar's right to the pulpit was the same as
that of the higher order. To which the dean assented, groaning
deeply at these truths. Thereupon, however, the meagre doctor
remarked that they would be in the hands of their minor canons, one
of whom might at any hour betray his trust. Whereon was heard from
the burly chancellor an ejaculation sounding somewhat like "Pooh,
pooh, pooh!" but it might be that the worthy man was but blowing
out the heavy breath from his windpipe. Why silence him at all?
suggested Mr. Harding. Let them not be ashamed to hear what any man
might have to preach to them, unless he preached false doctrine; in
which case, let the bishop silence him. So spoke our friend; vainly;
for human ends must be attained by human means. But the dean saw a
ray of hope out of those purblind old eyes of his. Yes, let them
tell the bishop how distasteful to them was this Mr. Slope: a new
bishop just come to his seat could not wish to insult his clergy
while the gloss was yet fresh on his first apron.

Then up rose Dr. Grantly and, having thus collected the scattered
wisdom of his associates, spoke forth with words of deep authority.
When I say up rose the archdeacon, I speak of the inner man, which
then sprang up to more immediate action, for the doctor had bodily
been standing all along with his back to the dean's empty fire-grate,
and the tails of his frock coat supported over his two arms. His
hands were in his breeches pockets.

"It is quite clear that this man must not be allowed to preach again
in this cathedral. We all see that, except our dear friend here, the
milk of whose nature runs so softly that he would not have the heart
to refuse the Pope the loan of his pulpit, if the Pope would come
and ask it. We must not, however, allow the man to preach again here.
It is not because his opinion on church matters may be different
from ours--with that one would not quarrel. It is because he has
purposely insulted us. When he went up into that pulpit last Sunday,
his studied object was to give offence to men who had grown old in
reverence of those things of which he dared to speak so slightingly.
What! To come here a stranger, a young, unknown, and unfriended
stranger, and tell us, in the name of the bishop his master, that we
are ignorant of our duties, old-fashioned, and useless! I don't know
whether most to admire his courage or his impudence! And one thing
I will tell you: that sermon originated solely with the man himself.
The bishop was no more a party to it than was the dean here. You
all know how grieved I am to see a bishop in this diocese holding
the latitudinarian ideas by which Dr. Proudie has made himself
conspicuous. You all know how greatly I should distrust the opinion
of such a man. But in this matter I hold him to be blameless. I
believe Dr. Proudie has lived too long among gentlemen to be guilty,
or to instigate another to be guilty, of so gross an outrage. No!
That man uttered what was untrue when he hinted that he was speaking
as the mouthpiece of the bishop. It suited his ambitious views at
once to throw down the gauntlet to us--at once to defy us here in the
quiet of our own religious duties--here within the walls of our own
loved cathedral--here where we have for so many years exercised our
ministry without schism and with good repute. Such an attack upon
us, coming from such a quarter, is abominable."

"Abominable," groaned the dean. "Abominable," muttered the meagre
doctor. "Abominable," re-echoed the chancellor, uttering the sound
from the bottom of his deep chest. "I really think it was," said Mr.
Harding.

"Most abominable and most unjustifiable," continued the archdeacon.
"But, Mr. Dean, thank God, that pulpit is still our own: your own,
I should say. That pulpit belongs solely to the dean and chapter
of Barchester Cathedral, and as yet Mr. Slope is no part of that
chapter. You, Mr. Dean, have suggested that we should appeal to
the bishop to abstain from forcing this man on us; but what if the
bishop allow himself to be ruled by his chaplain? In my opinion the
matter is in our own hands. Mr. Slope cannot preach there without
permission asked and obtained, and let that permission be invariably
refused. Let all participation in the ministry of the cathedral
service be refused to him. Then, if the bishop choose to interfere,
we shall know what answer to make to the bishop. My friend here has
suggested that this man may again find his way into the pulpit by
undertaking the duty of some of your minor canons, but I am sure that
we may fully trust to these gentlemen to support us, when it is known
that the dean objects to any such transfer."

"Of course you may," said the chancellor.

There was much more discussion among the learned conclave, all of
which, of course, ended in obedience to the archdeacon's commands.
They had too long been accustomed to his rule to shake it off so
soon, and in this particular case they had none of them a wish to
abet the man whom he was so anxious to put down.

Such a meeting as that we have just recorded is not held in such
a city as Barchester unknown and untold of. Not only was the fact
of the meeting talked of in every respectable house, including
the palace, but the very speeches of the dean, the archdeacon, and
chancellor were repeated; not without many additions and imaginary
circumstances, according to the tastes and opinions of the relaters.

All, however, agreed in saying that Mr. Slope was to be debarred from
opening his mouth in the cathedral of Barchester; many believed that
the vergers were to be ordered to refuse him even the accommodation
of a seat; and some of the most far-going advocates for strong
measures declared that his sermon was looked upon as an indictable
offence, and that proceedings were to be taken against him for
brawling.

The party who were inclined to defend him--the enthusiastically
religious young ladies and the middle-aged spinsters desirous of a
move--of course took up his defence the more warmly on account of
this attack. If they could not hear Mr. Slope in the cathedral, they
would hear him elsewhere; they would leave the dull dean, the dull
old prebendaries, and the scarcely less dull young minor canons to
preach to each other; they would work slippers and cushions and
hem bands for Mr. Slope, make him a happy martyr, and stick him up
in some new Sion or Bethesda, and put the cathedral quite out of
fashion.

Dr. and Mrs. Proudie at once returned to London. They thought it
expedient not to have to encounter any personal application from the
dean and chapter respecting the sermon till the violence of the storm
had expended itself; but they left Mr. Slope behind them nothing
daunted, and he went about his work zealously, flattering such as
would listen to his flattery, whispering religious twaddle into the
ears of foolish women, ingratiating himself with the few clergy who
would receive him, visiting the houses of the poor, inquiring into
all people, prying into everything, and searching with his minutest
eye into all palatial dilapidations. He did not, however, make any
immediate attempt to preach again in the cathedral.

And so all Barchester was by the ears.




CHAPTER VIII

The Ex-warden Rejoices in His Probable Return to the Hospital


Among the ladies in Barchester who have hitherto acknowledged Mr.
Slope as their spiritual director must not be reckoned either the
Widow Bold or her sister-in-law. On the first outbreak of the wrath
of the denizens of the close, none had been more animated against
the intruder than these two ladies. And this was natural. Who could
be so proud of the musical distinction of their own cathedral as
the favourite daughter of the precentor? Who would be so likely to
resent an insult offered to the old choir? And in such matters Miss
Bold and her sister-in-law had but one opinion.

This wrath, however, has in some degree been mitigated, and I regret
to say that these ladies allowed Mr. Slope to be his own apologist.
About a fortnight after the sermon had been preached, they were both
of them not a little surprised by hearing Mr. Slope announced, as the
page in buttons opened Mrs. Bold's drawing-room door. Indeed, what
living man could, by a mere morning visit, have surprised them more?
Here was the great enemy of all that was good in Barchester coming
into their own drawing-room, and they had no strong arm, no ready
tongue, near at hand for their protection. The widow snatched her
baby out of its cradle into her lap, and Mary Bold stood up ready to
die manfully in that baby's behalf, should, under any circumstances,
such a sacrifice become necessary.

In this manner was Mr. Slope received. But when he left, he was
allowed by each lady to take her hand and to make his adieux as
gentlemen do who have been graciously entertained! Yes, he shook
hands with them, and was curtseyed out courteously, the buttoned page
opening the door as he would have done for the best canon of them
all. He had touched the baby's little hand and blessed him with a
fervid blessing; he had spoken to the widow of her early sorrows, and
Eleanor's silent tears had not rebuked him; he had told Mary Bold
that her devotion would be rewarded, and Mary Bold had heard the
praise without disgust. And how had he done all this? How had he so
quickly turned aversion into, at any rate, acquaintance? How had
he over-come the enmity with which these ladies had been ready to
receive him, and made his peace with them so easily?

My readers will guess from what I have written that I myself do not
like Mr. Slope, but I am constrained to admit that he is a man of
parts. He knows how to say a soft word in the proper place; he knows
how to adapt his flattery to the ears of his hearers; he knows the
wiles of the serpent, and he uses them. Could Mr. Slope have adapted
his manners to men as well as to women, could he ever have learnt the
ways of a gentleman, he might have risen to great things.

He commenced his acquaintance with Eleanor by praising her father.
He had, he said, become aware that he had unfortunately offended the
feelings of a man of whom he could not speak too highly; he would
not now allude to a subject which was probably too serious for
drawing-room conversation, but he would say that it had been very far
from him to utter a word in disparagement of a man of whom all the
world, at least the clerical world, spoke so highly as it did of Mr.
Harding. And so he went on, unsaying a great deal of his sermon,
expressing his highest admiration for the precentor's musical talents,
eulogizing the father and the daughter and the sister-in-law, speaking
in that low silky whisper which he always had specially prepared for
feminine ears, and, ultimately, gaining his object. When he left, he
expressed a hope that he might again be allowed to call; and though
Eleanor gave no verbal assent to this, she did not express dissent:
and so Mr. Slope's right to visit at the widow's house was established.

The day after this visit Eleanor told her father of it and expressed
an opinion that Mr. Slope was not quite so black as he had been
painted. Mr. Harding opened his eyes rather wider than usual when he
heard what had occurred, but he said little; he could not agree in
any praise of Mr. Slope, and it was not his practice to say much evil
of anyone. He did not, however, like the visit, and simple-minded as
he was, he felt sure that Mr. Slope had some deeper motive than the
mere pleasure of making soft speeches to two ladies.

Mr. Harding, however, had come to see his daughter with other purpose
than that of speaking either good or evil of Mr. Slope. He had come
to tell her that the place of warden in Hiram's Hospital was again to
be filled up, and that in all probability he would once more return to
his old home and his twelve bedesmen.

"But," said he, laughing, "I shall be greatly shorn of my ancient
glory."

"Why so, Papa?"

"This new act of Parliament that is to put us all on our feet again,"
continued he, "settles my income at four hundred and fifty pounds per
annum."

"Four hundred and fifty," said she, "instead of eight hundred! Well,
that is rather shabby. But still, Papa, you'll have the dear old
house and the garden?"

"My dear," said he, "it's worth twice the money;" and as he spoke he
showed a jaunty kind of satisfaction in his tone and manner and in
the quick, pleasant way in which he paced Eleanor's drawing-room.
"It's worth twice the money. I shall have the house and the garden
and a larger income than I can possibly want."

"At any rate, you'll have no extravagant daughter to provide for;"
and as she spoke, the young widow put her arm within his, and made
him sit on the sofa beside her; "at any rate, you'll not have that
expense."

"No, my dear, and I shall be rather lonely without her; but we won't
think of that now. As regards income, I shall have plenty for all I
want. I shall have my old house, and I don't mind owning now that I
have felt sometimes the inconvenience of living in a lodging. Lodgings
are very nice for young men, but at my time of life there is a want
of--I hardly know what to call it, perhaps not respectability--"

"Oh, Papa! I'm sure there's been nothing like that. Nobody has
thought it; nobody in all Barchester has been more respected than
you have been since you took those rooms in High Street. Nobody! Not
the dean in his deanery, or the archdeacon out at Plumstead."

"The archdeacon would not be much obliged to you if he heard you,"
said he, smiling somewhat at the exclusive manner in which his
daughter confined her illustration to the church dignitaries of
the chapter of Barchester; "but at any rate I shall be glad to get
back to the old house. Since I heard that it was all settled, I
have begun to fancy that I can't be comfortable without my two
sitting-rooms."

"Come and stay with me, Papa, till it is settled--there's a dear
Papa."

"Thank ye, Nelly. But no, I won't do that. It would make two
movings. I shall be very glad to get back to my old men again.
Alas! alas! There have six of them gone in these few last years.
Six out of twelve! And the others I fear have had but a sorry life
of it there. Poor Bunce, poor old Bunce!"

Bunce was one of the surviving recipients of Hiram's charity, an old
man, now over ninety, who had long been a favourite of Mr. Harding's.

"How happy old Bunce will be," said Mrs. Bold, clapping her soft
hands softly. "How happy they all will be to have you back again.
You may be sure there will soon be friendship among them again when
you are there."

"But," said he, half-laughing, "I am to have new troubles, which will
be terrible to me. There are to be twelve old women, and a matron.
How shall I manage twelve women and a matron!"

"The matron will manage the women, of course."

"And who'll manage the matron?" said he.

"She won't want to be managed. She'll be a great lady herself, I
suppose. But, Papa, where will the matron live? She is not to live
in the warden's house with you, is she?"

"Well, I hope not, my dear."

"Oh, Papa, I tell you fairly, I won't have a matron for a new
stepmother."

"You shan't, my dear; that is, if I can help it. But they are going
to build another house for the matron and the women, and I believe
they haven't even fixed yet on the site of the building."

"And have they appointed the matron?" said Eleanor.

"They haven't appointed the warden yet," replied he.

"But there's no doubt about that, I suppose," said his daughter.

Mr. Harding explained that he thought there was no doubt; that the
archdeacon had declared as much, saying that the bishop and his
chaplain between them had not the power to appoint anyone else, even
if they had the will to do so, and sufficient impudence to carry out
such a will. The archdeacon was of opinion that, though Mr. Harding
had resigned his wardenship, and had done so unconditionally, he had
done so under circumstances which left the bishop no choice as to his
reappointment, now that the affair of the hospital had been settled
on a new basis by act of Parliament. Such was the archdeacon's
opinion, and his father-in-law received it without a shadow of doubt.

Dr. Grantly had always been strongly opposed to Mr. Harding's
resignation of the place. He had done all in his power to dissuade
him from it. He had considered that Mr. Harding was bound to
withstand the popular clamour with which he was attacked for
receiving so large an income as eight hundred a year from such a
charity, and was not even yet satisfied that his father-in-law's
conduct had not been pusillanimous and undignified. He looked also
on this reduction of the warden's income as a shabby, paltry scheme
on the part of government for escaping from a difficulty into which
it had been brought by the public press. Dr. Grantly observed that
the government had no more right to dispose of a sum of four hundred
and fifty pounds a year out of the income of Hiram's legacy than of
nine hundred; whereas, as he said, the bishop, dean, and chapter
clearly had a right to settle what sum should be paid. He also
declared that the government had no more right to saddle the
charity with twelve old women than with twelve hundred; and he was,
therefore, very indignant on the matter. He probably forgot when so
talking that government had done nothing of the kind, and had never
assumed any such might or any such right. He made the common mistake
of attributing to the government, which in such matters is powerless,
the doings of Parliament, which in such matters is omnipotent.

But though he felt that the glory and honour of the situation of
warden of Barchester Hospital were indeed curtailed by the new
arrangement; that the whole establishment had to a certain degree
been made vile by the touch of Whig commissioners; that the place,
with its lessened income, its old women, and other innovations, was
very different from the hospital of former days; still the archdeacon
was too practical a man of the world to wish that his father-in-law,
who had at present little more than £200 per annum for all his
wants, should refuse the situation, defiled, undignified, and
commission-ridden as it was.

Mr. Harding had, accordingly, made up his mind that he would return
to his old home at the hospital, and, to tell the truth, had
experienced almost a childish pleasure in the idea of doing so. The
diminished income was to him not even the source of momentary regret.
The matron and the old women did rather go against the grain, but he
was able to console himself with the reflection that, after all, such
an arrangement might be of real service to the poor of the city. The
thought that he must receive his reappointment as the gift of the
new bishop, and probably through the hands of Mr. Slope, annoyed
him a little, but his mind was set at rest by the assurance of the
archdeacon that there would be no favour in such a presentation. The
reappointment of the old warden would be regarded by all the world
as a matter of course. Mr. Harding, therefore, felt no hesitation in
telling his daughter that they might look upon his return to his old
quarters as a settled matter.

"And you won't have to ask for it, Papa?"

"Certainly not, my dear. There is no ground on which I could ask for
any favour from the bishop, whom, indeed, I hardly know. Nor would I
ask a favour, the granting of which might possibly be made a question
to be settled by Mr. Slope. No," said he, moved for a moment by
a spirit very unlike his own, "I certainly shall be very glad to
go back to the hospital; but I should never go there if it were
necessary that my doing so should be the subject of a request to Mr.
Slope."

This little outbreak of her father's anger jarred on the present tone
of Eleanor's mind. She had not learnt to like Mr. Slope, but she had
learnt to think that he had much respect for her father; and she
would, therefore, willingly use her efforts to induce something like
good feeling between them.

"Papa," said she, "I think you somewhat mistake Mr. Slope's
character."

"Do I?" said he placidly.

"I think you do, Papa. I think he intended no personal disrespect to
you when he preached the sermon which made the archdeacon and the
dean so angry!"

"I never supposed he did, my dear. I hope I never inquired within
myself whether he did or no. Such a matter would be unworthy of any
inquiry, and very unworthy of the consideration of the chapter. But I
fear he intended disrespect to the ministration of God's services, as
conducted in conformity with the rules of the Church of England."

"But might it not be that he thought it his duty to express his
dissent from that which you, and the dean, and all of us here so much
approve?"

"It can hardly be the duty of a young man rudely to assail the
religious convictions of his elders in the church. Courtesy should
have kept him silent, even if neither charity nor modesty could do
so."

"But Mr. Slope would say that on such a subject the commands of his
heavenly Master do not admit of his being silent."

"Nor of his being courteous, Eleanor?"

"He did not say that, Papa."

"Believe me, my child, that Christian ministers are never called on
by God's word to insult the convictions, or even the prejudices of
their brethren, and that religion is at any rate not less susceptible
of urbane and courteous conduct among men than any other study which
men may take up. I am sorry to say that I cannot defend Mr. Slope's
sermon in the cathedral. But come, my dear, put on your bonnet and
let us walk round the dear old gardens at the hospital. I have never
yet had the heart to go beyond the courtyard since we left the place.
Now I think I can venture to enter."

Eleanor rang the bell and gave a variety of imperative charges as to
the welfare of the precious baby, whom, all but unwillingly, she was
about to leave for an hour or so, and then sauntered forth with her
father to revisit the old hospital. It had been forbidden ground to
her as well as to him since the day on which they had walked forth
together from its walls.




CHAPTER IX

The Stanhope Family


It is now three months since Dr. Proudie began his reign, and changes
have already been effected in the diocese which show at least the
energy of an active mind. Among other things absentee clergymen have
been favoured with hints much too strong to be overlooked. Poor dear
old Bishop Grantly had on this matter been too lenient, and the
archdeacon had never been inclined to be severe with those who were
absent on reputable pretences, and who provided for their duties in a
liberal way.

Among the greatest of the diocesan sinners in this respect was Dr.
Vesey Stanhope. Years had now passed since he had done a day's duty,
and yet there was no reason against his doing duty except a want
of inclination on his own part. He held a prebendal stall in the
diocese, one of the best residences in the close, and the two large
rectories of Crabtree Canonicorum and Stogpingum. Indeed, he had
the cure of three parishes, for that of Eiderdown was joined to
Stogpingum. He had resided in Italy for twelve years. His first
going there had been attributed to a sore throat, and that sore
throat, though never repeated in any violent manner, had stood him
in such stead that it had enabled him to live in easy idleness ever
since.

He had now been summoned home--not, indeed, with rough violence, or
by any peremptory command, but by a mandate which he found himself
unable to disregard. Mr. Slope had written to him by the bishop's
desire. In the first place, the bishop much wanted the valuable
co-operation of Dr. Vesey Stanhope in the diocese; in the next, the
bishop thought it his imperative duty to become personally acquainted
with the most conspicuous of his diocesan clergy; then the bishop
thought it essentially necessary for Dr. Stanhope's own interests
that Dr. Stanhope should, at any rate for a time, return to
Barchester; and lastly, it was said that so strong a feeling was
at the present moment evinced by the hierarchs of the church with
reference to the absence of its clerical members, that it behoved Dr.
Vesey Stanhope not to allow his name to stand among those which would
probably in a few months be submitted to the councils of the nation.

There was something so ambiguously frightful in this last threat
that Dr. Stanhope determined to spend two or three summer months at
his residence in Barchester. His rectories were inhabited by his
curates, and he felt himself from disuse to be unfit for parochial
duty; but his prebendal home was kept empty for him, and he thought
it probable that he might be able now and again to preach a prebendal
sermon. He arrived, therefore, with all his family at Barchester,
and he and they must be introduced to my readers.

The great family characteristic of the Stanhopes might probably be
said to be heartlessness, but this want of feeling was, in most of
them, accompanied by so great an amount of good nature as to make
itself but little noticeable to the world. They were so prone to
oblige their neighbours that their neighbours failed to perceive how
indifferent to them was the happiness and well-being of those around
them. The Stanhopes would visit you in your sickness (provided it
were not contagious), would bring you oranges, French novels, and the
last new bit of scandal, and then hear of your death or your recovery
with an equally indifferent composure. Their conduct to each other
was the same as to the world; they bore and forbore; and there was
sometimes, as will be seen, much necessity for forbearing; but their
love among themselves rarely reached above this. It is astonishing
how much each of the family was able to do, and how much each did, to
prevent the well-being of the other four.

For there were five in all; the doctor, namely, and Mrs. Stanhope,
two daughters, and one son. The doctor, perhaps, was the least
singular and most estimable of them all, and yet such good qualities
as he possessed were all negative. He was a good-looking rather
plethoric gentleman of about sixty years of age. His hair was
snow-white, very plentiful, and somewhat like wool of the finest
description. His whiskers were very large and very white, and gave to
his face the appearance of a benevolent, sleepy old lion. His dress
was always unexceptionable. Although he had lived so many years in
Italy it was invariably of a decent clerical hue, but it never was
hyperclerical. He was a man not given to much talking, but what
little he did say was generally well said. His reading seldom went
beyond romances and poetry of the lightest and not always most moral
description. He was thoroughly a _bon vivant_; an accomplished judge
of wine, though he never drank to excess; and a most inexorable
critic in all affairs touching the kitchen. He had had much to
forgive in his own family, since a family had grown up around him,
and had forgiven everything--except inattention to his dinner. His
weakness in that respect was now fully understood, and his temper but
seldom tried. As Dr. Stanhope was a clergyman, it may be supposed
that his religious convictions made up a considerable part of his
character, but this was not so. That he had religious convictions
must be believed, but he rarely obtruded them, even on his
children. This abstinence on his part was not systematic, but very
characteristic of the man. It was not that he had predetermined
never to influence their thoughts, but he was so habitually idle that
his time for doing so had never come till the opportunity for doing
so was gone forever. Whatever conviction the father may have had,
the children were at any rate but indifferent members of the church
from which he drew his income.

Such was Dr. Stanhope. The features of Mrs. Stanhope's character
were even less plainly marked than those of her lord. The _far
niente_ of her Italian life had entered into her very soul, and
brought her to regard a state of inactivity as the only earthly good.
In manner and appearance she was exceedingly prepossessing. She had
been a beauty, and even now, at fifty-five, she was a handsome woman.
Her dress was always perfect: she never dressed but once in the day,
and never appeared till between three and four; but when she did
appear, she appeared at her best. Whether the toil rested partly
with her, or wholly with her handmaid, it is not for such a one as
the author even to imagine. The structure of her attire was always
elaborate and yet never over-laboured. She was rich in apparel but
not bedizened with finery; her ornaments were costly, rare, and such
as could not fail to attract notice, but they did not look as though
worn with that purpose. She well knew the great architectural secret
of decorating her constructions, and never descended to construct
a decoration. But when we have said that Mrs. Stanhope knew how to
dress and used her knowledge daily, we have said all. Other purpose
in life she had none. It was something, indeed, that she did not
interfere with the purposes of others. In early life she had
undergone great trials with reference to the doctor's dinners, but
for the last ten or twelve years her elder daughter Charlotte had
taken that labour off her hands, and she had had little to trouble
her--little, that is, till the edict for this terrible English
journey had gone forth: since then, indeed, her life had been
laborious enough. For such a one, the toil of being carried from the
shores of Como to the city of Barchester is more than labour enough,
let the care of the carriers be ever so vigilant. Mrs. Stanhope had
been obliged to have every one of her dresses taken in from the
effects of the journey.

Charlotte Stanhope was at this time about thirty-five years old, and
whatever may have been her faults, she had none of those which belong
particularly to old young ladies. She neither dressed young, nor
talked young, nor indeed looked young. She appeared to be perfectly
content with her time of life, and in no way affected the graces of
youth. She was a fine young woman, and had she been a man, would
have been a very fine young man. All that was done in the house, and
that was not done by servants, was done by her. She gave the orders,
paid the bills, hired and dismissed the domestics, made the tea,
carved the meat, and managed everything in the Stanhope household.
She, and she alone, could ever induce her father to look into the
state of his worldly concerns. She, and she alone, could in any
degree control the absurdities of her sister. She, and she alone,
prevented the whole family from falling into utter disrepute and
beggary. It was by her advice that they now found themselves very
unpleasantly situated in Barchester.

So far, the character of Charlotte Stanhope is not unprepossessing.
But it remains to be said that the influence which she had in her
family, though it had been used to a certain extent for their worldly
well-being, had not been used to their real benefit, as it might
have been. She had aided her father in his indifference to his
professional duties, counselling him that his livings were as much
his individual property as the estates of his elder brother were the
property of that worthy peer. She had for years past stifled every
little rising wish for a return to England which the doctor had
from time to time expressed. She had encouraged her mother in her
idleness, in order that she herself might be mistress and manager of
the Stanhope household. She had encouraged and fostered the follies
of her sister, though she was always willing, and often able, to
protect her from their probable result. She had done her best, and
had thoroughly succeeded in spoiling her brother, and turning him
loose upon the world an idle man without a profession and without a
shilling that he could call his own.

Miss Stanhope was a clever woman, able to talk on most subjects, and
quite indifferent as to what the subject was. She prided herself on
her freedom from English prejudice, and, she might have added, from
feminine delicacy. On religion she was a pure free-thinker, and with
much want of true affection, delighted to throw out her own views
before the troubled mind of her father. To have shaken what remained
of his Church of England faith would have gratified her much, but the
idea of his abandoning his preferment in the church had never once
presented itself to her mind. How could he indeed, when he had no
income from any other source?

But the two most prominent members of the family still remain to be
described. The second child had been christened Madeline and had
been a great beauty. We need not say had been, for she was never
more beautiful than at the time of which we write, though her person
for many years had been disfigured by an accident. It is unnecessary
that we should give in detail the early history of Madeline Stanhope.
She had gone to Italy when about seventeen years of age, and had been
allowed to make the most of her surpassing beauty in the salons of
Milan and among the crowded villas along the shores of the Lake of
Como. She had become famous for adventures in which her character
was just not lost, and had destroyed the hearts of a dozen cavaliers
without once being touched in her own. Blood had flowed in quarrels
about her charms, and she had heard of these encounters with
pleasurable excitement. It had been told of her that on one occasion
she had stood by in the disguise of a page and had seen her lover
fall.

As is so often the case, she had married the very worst of those who
sought her hand. Why she had chosen Paulo Neroni, a man of no birth
and no property, a mere captain in the Pope's guard, one who had come
up to Milan either simply as an adventurer or else as a spy, a man of
harsh temper and oily manners, mean in figure, swarthy in face, and
so false in words as to be hourly detected, need not now be told.
When the moment for doing so came, she had probably no alternative.
He, at any rate, had become her husband, and after a prolonged
honeymoon among the lakes, they had gone together to Rome, the papal
captain having vainly endeavoured to induce his wife to remain behind
him.

Six months afterwards she arrived at her father's house a cripple,
and a mother. She had arrived without even notice, with hardly
clothes to cover her, and without one of those many ornaments which
had graced her bridal trousseau. Her baby was in the arms of a poor
girl from Milan, whom she had taken in exchange for the Roman maid
who had accompanied her thus far, and who had then, as her mistress
said, become homesick and had returned. It was clear that the lady
had determined that there should be no witness to tell stories of her
life in Rome.

She had fallen, she said, in ascending a ruin, and had fatally
injured the sinews of her knee; so fatally that when she stood, she
lost eight inches of her accustomed height; so fatally that when she
essayed to move, she could only drag herself painfully along, with
protruded hip and extended foot, in a manner less graceful than
that of a hunchback. She had consequently made up her mind, once
and forever, that she would never stand and never attempt to move
herself.

Stories were not slow to follow her, averring that she had been
cruelly ill-used by Neroni, and that to his violence had she owed her
accident. Be that as it may, little had been said about her husband,
but that little had made it clearly intelligible to the family that
Signor Neroni was to be seen and heard of no more. There was no
question as to readmitting the poor, ill-used beauty to her old
family rights, no question as to adopting her infant daughter beneath
the Stanhope roof-tree. Though heartless, the Stanhopes were not
selfish. The two were taken in, petted, made much of, for a time all
but adored, and then felt by the two parents to be great nuisances
in the house. But in the house the lady was, and there she remained,
having her own way, though that way was not very conformable with the
customary usages of an English clergyman.

Madame Neroni, though forced to give up all motion in the world,
had no intention whatever of giving up the world itself. The beauty
of her face was uninjured, and that beauty was of a peculiar kind.
Her copious rich brown hair was worn in Grecian bandeaux round her
head, displaying as much as possible of her forehead and cheeks. Her
forehead, though rather low, was very beautiful from its perfect
contour and pearly whiteness. Her eyes were long and large, and
marvellously bright; might I venture to say bright as Lucifer's, I
should perhaps best express the depth of their brilliancy. They were
dreadful eyes to look at, such as would absolutely deter any man of
quiet mind and easy spirit from attempting a passage of arms with
such foes. There was talent in them, and the fire of passion and the
play of wit, but there was no love. Cruelty was there instead, and
courage, a desire of masterhood, cunning, and a wish for mischief.
And yet, as eyes, they were very beautiful. The eyelashes were
long and perfect, and the long, steady, unabashed gaze with which
she would look into the face of her admirer fascinated while it
frightened him. She was a basilisk from whom an ardent lover of
beauty could make no escape. Her nose and mouth and teeth and chin
and neck and bust were perfect, much more so at twenty-eight than
they had been at eighteen. What wonder that with such charms still
glowing in her face, and with such deformity destroying her figure,
she should resolve to be seen, but only to be seen reclining on a
sofa.

Her resolve had not been carried out without difficulty. She had
still frequented the opera at Milan; she had still been seen
occasionally in the salons of the noblesse; she had caused herself to
be carried in and out from her carriage, and that in such a manner
as in no wise to disturb her charms, disarrange her dress, or expose
her deformities. Her sister always accompanied her and a maid, a
manservant also, and on state occasions, two. It was impossible that
her purpose could have been achieved with less; and yet, poor as she
was, she had achieved her purpose. And then again the more dissolute
Italian youths of Milan frequented the Stanhope villa and surrounded
her couch, not greatly to her father's satisfaction. Sometimes his
spirit would rise, a dark spot would show itself on his cheek, and
he would rebel, but Charlotte would assuage him with some peculiar
triumph of her culinary art and all again would be smooth for awhile.

Madeline affected all manner of rich and quaint devices in the
garniture of her room, her person, and her feminine belongings. In
nothing was this more apparent than in the visiting card which she
had prepared for her use. For such an article one would say that
she, in her present state, could have but small need, seeing how
improbable it was that she should make a morning call: but not such
was her own opinion. Her card was surrounded by a deep border of
gilding; on this she had imprinted, in three lines


   La Signora Madeline
   Vesey Neroni.
   --Nata Stanhope.


And over the name she had a bright gilt coronet, which certainly
looked very magnificent. How she had come to concoct such a name
for herself it would be difficult to explain. Her father had been
christened Vesey as another man is christened Thomas, and she had no
more right to assume it than would have the daughter of a Mr. Josiah
Jones to call herself Mrs. Josiah Smith, on marrying a man of the
latter name. The gold coronet was equally out of place, and perhaps
inserted with even less excuse. Paulo Neroni had had not the
faintest title to call himself a scion of even Italian nobility. Had
the pair met in England Neroni would probably have been a count, but
they had met in Italy, and any such pretence on his part would have
been simply ridiculous. A coronet, however, was a pretty ornament,
and if it could solace a poor cripple to have such on her card, who
would begrudge it to her?

Of her husband, or of his individual family, she never spoke, but
with her admirers she would often allude in a mysterious way to her
married life and isolated state, and, pointing to her daughter,
would call her the last of the blood of the emperors, thus referring
Neroni's extraction to the old Roman family from which the worst of
the Caesars sprang.

The "signora" was not without talent and not without a certain sort
of industry; she was an indomitable letter-writer, and her letters
were worth the postage: they were full of wit, mischief, satire,
love, latitudinarian philosophy, free religion, and, sometimes,
alas, loose ribaldry. The subject, however, depended entirely on the
recipient, and she was prepared to correspond with anyone but moral
young ladies or stiff old women. She wrote also a kind of poetry,
generally in Italian, and short romances, generally in French. She
read much of a desultory sort of literature, and as a modern linguist
had really made great proficiency. Such was the lady who had now
come to wound the hearts of the men of Barchester.

Ethelbert Stanhope was in some respects like his younger sister,
but he was less inestimable as a man than she as a woman. His great
fault was an entire absence of that principle which should have
induced him, as the son of a man without fortune, to earn his own
bread. Many attempts had been made to get him to do so, but these
had all been frustrated, not so much by idleness on his part as by a
disinclination to exert himself in any way not to his taste. He had
been educated at Eton and had been intended for the Church, but he
had left Cambridge in disgust after a single term, and notified
to his father his intention to study for the bar. Preparatory to
that, he thought it well that he should attend a German university,
and consequently went to Leipzig. There he remained two years and
brought away a knowledge of German and a taste for the fine arts. He
still, however, intended himself for the bar, took chambers, engaged
himself to sit at the feet of a learned pundit, and spent a season
in London. He there found that all his aptitudes inclined him to the
life of an artist, and he determined to live by painting. With this
object he returned to Milan, and had himself rigged out for Rome.
As a painter he might have earned his bread, for he wanted only
diligence to excel, but when at Rome his mind was carried away by
other things: he soon wrote home for money, saying that he had been
converted to the Mother Church, that he was already an acolyte of the
Jesuits, and that he was about to start with others to Palestine on a
mission for converting Jews. He did go to Judea, but being unable to
convert the Jews, was converted by them. He again wrote home, to say
that Moses was the only giver of perfect laws to the world, that the
coming of the true Messiah was at hand, that great things were doing
in Palestine, and that he had met one of the family of Sidonia, a
most remarkable man, who was now on his way to western Europe, and
whom he had induced to deviate from his route with the object of
calling at the Stanhope villa. Ethelbert then expressed his hope
that his mother and sisters would listen to this wonderful prophet.
His father he knew could not do so from pecuniary considerations.
This Sidonia, however, did not take so strong a fancy to him as
another of that family once did to a young English nobleman. At
least he provided him with no heaps of gold as large as lions, so
that the Judaized Ethelbert was again obliged to draw on the revenues
of the Christian Church.

It is needless to tell how the father swore that he would send no
more money and receive no Jew, nor how Charlotte declared that
Ethelbert could not be left penniless in Jerusalem, and how "La
Signora Neroni" resolved to have Sidonia at her feet. The money was
sent, and the Jew did come. The Jew did come, but he was not at all
to the taste of "La Signora." He was a dirty little old man, and
though he had provided no golden lions, he had, it seems, relieved
young Stanhope's necessities. He positively refused to leave the
villa till he had got a bill from the doctor on his London bankers.

Ethelbert did not long remain a Jew. He soon reappeared at the villa
without prejudices on the subject of his religion, and with a firm
resolve to achieve fame and fortune as a sculptor. He brought with
him some models which he had originated at Rome and which really
gave such fair promise that his father was induced to go to further
expense in furthering these views. Ethelbert opened an establishment,
or rather took lodgings and a workshop, at Carrara, and there spoilt
much marble and made some few pretty images. Since that period, now
four years ago, he had alternated between Carrara and the villa, but
his sojourns at the workshop became shorter and shorter and those at
the villa longer and longer. 'Twas no wonder, for Carrara is not a
spot in which an Englishman would like to dwell.

When the family started for England, he had resolved not to be left
behind, and, with the assistance of his elder sister, had carried his
point against his father's wishes. It was necessary, he said, that
he should come to England for orders. How otherwise was he to bring
his profession to account?

In personal appearance Ethelbert Stanhope was the most singular
of beings. He was certainly very handsome. He had his sister
Madeline's eyes, without their stare and without their hard, cunning,
cruel firmness. They were also very much lighter, and of so light and
clear a blue as to make his face remarkable, if nothing else did so.
On entering a room with him, Ethelbert's blue eyes would be the first
thing you would see, and on leaving it almost the last you would
forget. His light hair was very long and silky, coming down over his
coat. His beard had been prepared in holy land, and was patriarchal.
He never shaved and rarely trimmed it. It was glossy, soft, clean,
and altogether not unprepossessing. It was such that ladies might
desire to reel it off and work it into their patterns in lieu of
floss silk. His complexion was fair and almost pink; he was small
in height and slender in limb, but well-made; and his voice was of
peculiar sweetness.

In manner and dress he was equally remarkable. He had none of the
_mauvaise honte_ of an Englishman. He required no introduction
to make himself agreeable to any person. He habitually addressed
strangers, ladies as well as men, without any such formality, and
in doing so never seemed to meet with rebuke. His costume cannot
be described because it was so various, but it was always totally
opposed in every principle of colour and construction to the dress
of those with whom he for the time consorted.

He was habitually addicted to making love to ladies, and did so
without any scruples of conscience, or any idea that such a practice
was amiss. He had no heart to touch himself, and was literally
unaware that humanity was subject to such an infliction. He had not
thought much about it, but, had he been asked, would have said that
ill-treating a lady's heart meant injuring her promotion in the
world. His principles therefore forbade him to pay attention to a
girl if he thought any man was present whom it might suit her to
marry. In this manner his good nature frequently interfered with his
amusement, but he had no other motive in abstaining from the fullest
declarations of love to every girl that pleased his eye.

Bertie Stanhope, as he was generally called, was, however, popular
with both sexes--and with Italians as well as English. His circle of
acquaintance was very large and embraced people of all sorts. He had
no respect for rank, and no aversion to those below him. He had lived
on familiar terms with English peers, German shopkeepers, and Roman
priests. All people were nearly alike to him. He was above, or
rather below, all prejudices. No virtue could charm him, no vice
shock him. He had about him a natural good manner, which seemed to
qualify him for the highest circles, and yet he was never out of
place in the lowest. He had no principle, no regard for others, no
self-respect, no desire to be other than a drone in the hive, if
only he could, as a drone, get what honey was sufficient for him. Of
honey, in his latter days, it may probably be presaged, that he will
have but short allowance.

Such was the family of the Stanhopes, who, at this period, suddenly
joined themselves to the ecclesiastical circle of Barchester close.
Any stranger union it would be impossible perhaps to conceive. And
it was not as though they all fell down into the cathedral precincts
hitherto unknown and untalked of. In such case, no amalgamation
would have been at all probable between the new-comers and either
the Proudie set or the Grantly set. But such was far from being
the case. The Stanhopes were all known by name in Barchester, and
Barchester was prepared to receive them with open arms. The doctor
was one of her prebendaries, one of her rectors, one of her pillars
of strength; and was, moreover, counted on as a sure ally both by
Proudies and Grantlys.

He himself was the brother of one peer, and his wife was the sister
of another--and both these peers were lords of Whiggish tendency,
with whom the new bishop had some sort of alliance. This was
sufficient to give to Mr. Slope high hope that he might enlist Dr.
Stanhope on his side, before his enemies could outmanoeuvre him. On
the other hand, the old dean had many many years ago, in the days of
the doctor's clerical energies, been instrumental in assisting him
in his views as to preferment; and many many years ago also, the two
doctors, Stanhope and Grantly, had, as young parsons, been joyous
together in the common-rooms of Oxford. Dr. Grantly, consequently,
did not doubt but that the newcomer would range himself under his
banners.

Little did any of them dream of what ingredients the Stanhope family
was now composed.




CHAPTER X

Mrs. Proudie's Reception--Commenced


The bishop and his wife had spent only three or four days in
Barchester on the occasion of their first visit. His lordship had,
as we have seen, taken his seat on his throne, but his demeanour
there, into which it had been his intention to infuse much hierarchal
dignity, had been a good deal disarranged by the audacity of his
chaplain's sermon. He had hardly dared to look his clergy in the
face, and to declare by the severity of his countenance that in truth
he meant all that his factotum was saying on his behalf; nor yet did
he dare to throw Mr. Slope over, and show to those around him that he
was no party to the sermon, and would resent it.

He had accordingly blessed his people in a shambling manner, not at
all to his own satisfaction, and had walked back to his palace with
his mind very doubtful as to what he would say to his chaplain on
the subject. He did not remain long in doubt. He had hardly doffed
his lawn when the partner of all his toils entered his study and
exclaimed even before she had seated herself:

"Bishop, did you ever hear a more sublime, more spirit-moving, more
appropriate discourse than that?"

"Well, my love; ha--hum--he!" The bishop did not know what to say.

"I hope, my lord, you don't mean to say you disapprove?"

There was a look about the lady's eye which did not admit of my
lord's disapproving at that moment. He felt that if he intended to
disapprove, it must be now or never; but he also felt that it could
not be now. It was not in him to say to the wife of his bosom that
Mr. Slope's sermon was ill-timed, impertinent, and vexatious.

"No, no," replied the bishop. "No, I can't say I disapprove--a very
clever sermon and very well intended, and I dare say will do a great
deal of good." This last praise was added, seeing that what he had
already said by no means satisfied Mrs. Proudie.

"I hope it will," said she. "And I am sure it was well deserved.
Did you ever in your life, bishop, hear anything so like play-acting
as the way in which Mr. Harding sings the litany? I shall beg Mr.
Slope to continue a course of sermons on the subject till all that is
altered. We will have at any rate, in our cathedral, a decent, godly,
modest morning service. There must be no more play-acting here now;"
and so the lady rang for lunch.

The bishop knew more about cathedrals and deans and precentors and
church services than his wife did, and also more of a bishop's
powers. But he thought it better at present to let the subject drop.

"My dear," said he, "I think we must go back to London on Tuesday.
I find my staying here will be very inconvenient to the Government."

The bishop knew that to this proposal his wife would not object, and
he also felt that by thus retreating from the ground of battle the
heat of the fight might be got over in his absence.

"Mr. Slope will remain here, of course?" said the lady.

"Oh, of course," said the bishop.

Thus, after less than a week's sojourn in his palace, did the bishop
fly from Barchester; nor did he return to it for two months, the
London season being then over. During that time Mr. Slope was not
idle, but he did not again essay to preach in the cathedral. In
answer to Mrs. Proudie's letters advising a course of sermons, he had
pleaded that he would at any rate wish to put off such an undertaking
till she was there to hear them.

He had employed his time in consolidating a Proudie and Slope
party--or rather a Slope and Proudie party, and he had not employed
his time in vain. He did not meddle with the dean and chapter, except
by giving them little teasing intimations of the bishop's wishes
about this and the bishop's feelings about that, in a manner which
was to them sufficiently annoying, but which they could not resent.
He preached once or twice in a distant church in the suburbs of the
city, but made no allusion to the cathedral service. He commenced the
establishment of two "Bishop's Barchester Sabbath-day schools," gave
notice of a proposed "Bishop's Barchester Young Men's Sabbath Evening
Lecture Room," and wrote three or four letters to the manager of the
Barchester branch railway, informing him how anxious the bishop was
that the Sunday trains should be discontinued.

At the end of two months, however, the bishop and the lady reappeared,
and as a happy harbinger of their return, heralded their advent by
the promise of an evening party on the largest scale. The tickets of
invitation were sent out from London--they were dated from Bruton
Street, and were dispatched by the odious Sabbath-breaking railway,
in a huge brown paper parcel to Mr. Slope. Everybody calling himself
a gentleman, or herself a lady, within the city of Barchester, and a
circle of two miles round it, was included. Tickets were sent to all
the diocesan clergy, and also to many other persons of priestly note,
of whose absence the bishop, or at least the bishop's wife, felt
tolerably confident. It was intended, however, to be a thronged and
noticeable affair, and preparations were made for receiving some
hundreds.

And now there arose considerable agitation among the Grantlyites
whether or no they would attend the episcopal bidding. The first
feeling with them all was to send the briefest excuses both for
themselves and their wives and daughters. But by degrees policy
prevailed over passion. The archdeacon perceived that he would be
making a false step if he allowed the cathedral clergy to give the
bishop just ground of umbrage. They all met in conclave and agreed
to go. They would show that they were willing to respect the office,
much as they might dislike the man. They agreed to go. The old dean
would crawl in, if it were but for half an hour. The chancellor,
treasurer, archdeacon, prebendaries, and minor canons would all go,
and would all take their wives. Mr. Harding was especially bidden to
do so, resolving in his heart to keep himself far removed from Mrs.
Proudie. And Mrs. Bold was determined to go, though assured by her
father that there was no necessity for such a sacrifice on her part.
When all Barchester was to be there, neither Eleanor nor Mary Bold
understood why they should stay away. Had they not been invited
separately? And had not a separate little note from the chaplain,
couched in the most respectful language, been enclosed with the huge
episcopal card?

And the Stanhopes would be there, one and all. Even the lethargic
mother would so far bestir herself on such an occasion. They had
only just arrived. The card was at the residence waiting for them.
No one in Barchester had seen them. What better opportunity could
they have of showing themselves to the Barchester world? Some few
old friends, such as the archdeacon and his wife, had called and had
found the doctor and his eldest daughter, but the _élite_ of the
family were not yet known.

The doctor indeed wished in his heart to prevent the signora from
accepting the bishop's invitation, but she herself had fully
determined that she would accept it. If her father was ashamed of
having his daughter carried into a bishop's palace, she had no such
feeling.

"Indeed, I shall," she had said to her sister who had gently
endeavoured to dissuade her, by saying that the company would consist
wholly of parsons and parsons' wives. "Parsons, I suppose, are much
the same as other men, if you strip them of their black coats; and as
to their wives, I dare say they won't trouble me. You may tell Papa
I don't at all mean to be left at home."

Papa was told, and felt that he could do nothing but yield. He also
felt that it was useless for him now to be ashamed of his children.
Such as they were, they had become such under his auspices; as he
had made his bed, so he must lie upon it; as he had sown his seed,
so must he reap his corn. He did not indeed utter such reflexions
in such language, but such was the gist of his thought. It was not
because Madeline was a cripple that he shrank from seeing her made
one of the bishop's guests, but because he knew that she would
practise her accustomed lures, and behave herself in a way that
could not fail of being distasteful to the propriety of Englishwomen.
These things had annoyed but not shocked him in Italy. There they
had shocked no one; but here in Barchester, here among his fellow
parsons, he was ashamed that they should be seen. Such had been his
feelings, but he repressed them. What if his brother clergymen were
shocked! They could not take from him his preferment because the
manners of his married daughter were too free.

La Signora Neroni had, at any rate, no fear that she would shock
anybody. Her ambition was to create a sensation, to have parsons at
her feet, seeing that the manhood of Barchester consisted mainly of
parsons, and to send, if possible, every parson's wife home with a
green fit of jealousy. None could be too old for her, and hardly any
too young. None too sanctified, and none too worldly. She was quite
prepared to entrap the bishop himself, and then to turn up her nose at
the bishop's wife. She did not doubt of success, for she had always
succeeded; but one thing was absolutely necessary; she must secure
the entire use of a sofa.

The card sent to Dr. and Mrs. Stanhope and family had been so sent in
an envelope having on the cover Mr. Slope's name. The signora soon
learnt that Mrs. Proudie was not yet at the palace and that the
chaplain was managing everything. It was much more in her line to
apply to him than to the lady, and she accordingly wrote him the
prettiest little billet in the world. In five lines she explained
everything, declared how impossible it was for her not to be desirous
to make the acquaintance of such persons as the Bishop of Barchester
and his wife, and she might add also of Mr. Slope, depicted her own
grievous state, and concluded by being assured that Mrs. Proudie
would forgive her extreme hardihood in petitioning to be allowed to
be carried to a sofa. She then enclosed one of her beautiful cards.
In return she received as polite an answer from Mr. Slope--a sofa
should be kept in the large drawing-room, immediately at the top of
the grand stairs, especially for her use.

And now the day of the party had arrived. The bishop and his wife
came down from town only on the morning of the eventful day, as
behoved such great people to do, but Mr. Slope had toiled day and
night to see that everything should be in right order. There had
been much to do. No company had been seen in the palace since heaven
knows when. New furniture had been required, new pots and pans, new
cups and saucers, new dishes and plates. Mrs. Proudie had at first
declared that she would condescend to nothing so vulgar as eating
and drinking, but Mr. Slope had talked, or rather written her out
of economy. Bishops should be given to hospitality, and hospitality
meant eating and drinking. So the supper was conceded; the guests,
however, were to stand as they consumed it.

There were four rooms opening into each other on the first floor
of the house, which were denominated the drawing-rooms, the
reception-room, and Mrs. Proudie's boudoir. In olden days one of
these had been Bishop Grantly's bedroom, and another his common
sitting-room and study. The present bishop, however, had been moved
down into a back parlour and had been given to understand that he
could very well receive his clergy in the dining-room, should they
arrive in too large a flock to be admitted into his small sanctum. He
had been unwilling to yield, but after a short debate had yielded.

Mrs. Proudie's heart beat high as she inspected her suite of rooms.
They were really very magnificent, or at least would be so by
candlelight, and they had nevertheless been got up with commendable
economy. Large rooms when full of people and full of light look
well, because they are large, and are full, and are light. Small
rooms are those which require costly fittings and rich furniture.
Mrs. Proudie knew this, and made the most of it; she had therefore a
huge gas lamp with a dozen burners hanging from each of the ceilings.

People were to arrive at ten, supper was to last from twelve till
one, and at half-past one everybody was to be gone. Carriages were
to come in at the gate in the town and depart at the gate outside.
They were desired to take up at a quarter before one. It was managed
excellently, and Mr. Slope was invaluable.

At half-past nine the bishop and his wife and their three daughters
entered the great reception-room, and very grand and very solemn
they were. Mr. Slope was downstairs giving the last orders about the
wine. He well understood that curates and country vicars with their
belongings did not require so generous an article as the dignitaries
of the close. There is a useful gradation in such things, and
Marsala at 20s. a dozen did very well for the exterior supplementary
tables in the corner.

"Bishop," said the lady, as his lordship sat himself down, "don't sit
on that sofa, if you please; it is to be kept separate for a lady."

The bishop jumped up and seated himself on a cane-bottomed chair.
"A lady?" he inquired meekly; "do you mean one particular lady, my
dear?"

"Yes, Bishop, one particular lady," said his wife, disdaining to
explain.

"She has got no legs, Papa," said the youngest daughter, tittering.

"No legs!" said the bishop, opening his eyes.

"Nonsense, Netta, what stuff you talk," said Olivia. "She has got
legs, but she can't use them. She has always to be kept lying down,
and three or four men carry her about everywhere."

"Laws, how odd!" said Augusta. "Always carried about by four men!
I'm sure I shouldn't like it. Am I right behind, Mamma? I feel as
if I was open;" and she turned her back to her anxious parent.

"Open! To be sure you are," said she, "and a yard of petticoat
strings hanging out. I don't know why I pay such high wages to Mrs.
Richards if she can't take the trouble to see whether or no you are
fit to be looked at," and Mrs. Proudie poked the strings here, and
twitched the dress there, and gave her daughter a shove and a shake,
and then pronounced it all right.

"But," rejoined the bishop, who was dying with curiosity about the
mysterious lady and her legs, "who is it that is to have the sofa?
What's her name, Netta?"

A thundering rap at the front door interrupted the conversation.
Mrs. Proudie stood up and shook herself gently, and touched her cap
on each side as she looked in the mirror. Each of the girls stood on
tiptoe and rearranged the bows on their bosoms, and Mr. Slope rushed
upstairs three steps at a time.

"But who is it, Netta?" whispered the bishop to his youngest
daughter.

"La Signora Madeline Vesey Neroni," whispered back the daughter;
"and mind you don't let anyone sit upon the sofa."

"La Signora Madeline Vicinironi!" muttered to himself the bewildered
prelate. Had he been told that the Begum of Oude was to be there,
or Queen Pomara of the Western Isles, he could not have been more
astonished. La Signora Madeline Vicinironi, who, having no legs to
stand on, had bespoken a sofa in his drawing-room! Who could she
be? He however could now make no further inquiry, as Dr. and Mrs.
Stanhope were announced. They had been sent on out of the way a
little before the time, in order that the signora might have plenty
of time to get herself conveniently packed into the carriage.

The bishop was all smiles for the prebendary's wife, and the bishop's
wife was all smiles for the prebendary. Mr. Slope was presented and
was delighted to make the acquaintance of one of whom he had heard so
much. The doctor bowed very low, and then looked as though he could
not return the compliment as regarded Mr. Slope, of whom, indeed, he
had heard nothing. The doctor, in spite of his long absence, knew an
English gentleman when he saw him.

And then the guests came in shoals: Mr. and Mrs. Quiverful and
their three grown daughters. Mr. and Mrs. Chadwick and their three
daughters. The burly chancellor and his wife and clerical son from
Oxford. The meagre little doctor without incumbrance. Mr. Harding
with Eleanor and Miss Bold. The dean leaning on a gaunt spinster,
his only child now living with him, a lady very learned in stones,
ferns, plants, and vermin, and who had written a book about petals.
A wonderful woman in her way was Miss Trefoil. Mr. Finnie, the
attorney, with his wife, was to be seen, much to the dismay of many
who had never met him in a drawing-room before. The five Barchester
doctors were all there, and old Scalpen, the retired apothecary and
tooth-drawer, who was first taught to consider himself as belonging
to the higher orders by the receipt of the bishop's card. Then came
the archdeacon and his wife with their elder daughter Griselda, a
slim, pale, retiring girl of seventeen who kept close to her mother,
and looked out on the world with quiet watchful eyes, one who gave
promise of much beauty when time should have ripened it.

And so the rooms became full, and knots were formed, and every
newcomer paid his respects to my lord and passed on, not presuming
to occupy too much of the great man's attention. The archdeacon
shook hands very heartily with Dr. Stanhope, and Mrs. Grantly seated
herself by the doctor's wife. And Mrs. Proudie moved about with
well-regulated grace, measuring out the quantity of her favours to
the quality of her guests, just as Mr. Slope had been doing with the
wine. But the sofa was still empty, and five-and-twenty ladies and
five gentlemen had been courteously warned off it by the mindful
chaplain.

"Why doesn't she come?" said the bishop to himself. His mind was so
preoccupied with the signora that he hardly remembered how to behave
himself _en bishop_.

At last a carriage dashed up to the hall steps with a very different
manner of approach from that of any other vehicle that had been there
that evening. A perfect commotion took place. The doctor, who heard
it as he was standing in the drawing-room, knew that his daughter
was coming, and retired into the furthest corner, where he might not
see her entrance. Mrs. Proudie perked herself up, feeling that some
important piece of business was in hand. The bishop was instinctively
aware that La Signora Vicinironi was come at last, and Mr. Slope
hurried into the hall to give his assistance.

He was, however, nearly knocked down and trampled on by the cortège
that he encountered on the hall steps. He got himself picked up, as
well as he could, and followed the cortège upstairs. The signora was
carried head foremost, her head being the care of her brother and an
Italian manservant who was accustomed to the work; her feet were in
the care of the lady's maid and the lady's Italian page; and Charlotte
Stanhope followed to see that all was done with due grace and decorum.
In this manner they climbed easily into the drawing-room, and a broad
way through the crowd having been opened, the signora rested safely
on her couch. She had sent a servant beforehand to learn whether it
was a right- or a left-hand sofa, for it required that she should
dress accordingly, particularly as regarded her bracelets.

And very becoming her dress was. It was white velvet, without any
other garniture than rich white lace worked with pearls across her
bosom, and the same round the armlets of her dress. Across her
brow she wore a band of red velvet, on the centre of which shone a
magnificent Cupid in mosaic, the tints of whose wings were of the
most lovely azure, and the colour of his chubby cheeks the clearest
pink. On the one arm which her position required her to expose she
wore three magnificent bracelets, each of different stones. Beneath
her on the sofa, and over the cushion and head of it, was spread a
crimson silk mantle or shawl, which went under her whole body and
concealed her feet. Dressed as she was and looking as she did, so
beautiful and yet so motionless, with the pure brilliancy of her
white dress brought out and strengthened by the colour beneath it,
with that lovely head, and those large, bold, bright, staring eyes,
it was impossible that either man or woman should do other than look
at her.

Neither man nor woman for some minutes did do other.

Her bearers too were worthy of note. The three servants were Italian,
and though perhaps not peculiar in their own country, were very much
so in the palace at Barchester. The man especially attracted notice
and created a doubt in the mind of some whether he were a friend or
a domestic. The same doubt was felt as to Ethelbert. The man was
attired in a loose-fitting, common, black-cloth morning-coat. He
had a jaunty, fat, well-pleased, clean face on which no atom of
beard appeared, and he wore round his neck a loose, black silk
neck-handkerchief. The bishop essayed to make him a bow, but the man,
who was well trained, took no notice of him and walked out of the
room quite at his ease, followed by the woman and the boy.

Ethelbert Stanhope was dressed in light blue from head to foot. He
had on the loosest possible blue coat, cut square like a shooting
coat, and very short. It was lined with silk of azure blue. He
had on a blue satin waistcoat, a blue neck-handkerchief which was
fastened beneath his throat with a coral ring, and very loose blue
trousers which almost concealed his feet. His soft, glossy beard was
softer and more glossy than ever.

The bishop, who had made one mistake, thought that he also was a
servant and therefore tried to make way for him to pass. But
Ethelbert soon corrected the error.




CHAPTER XI

Mrs. Proudie's Reception--Concluded


"Bishop of Barchester, I presume?" said Bertie Stanhope, putting out
his hand frankly; "I am delighted to make your acquaintance. We are
in rather close quarters here, a'nt we?"

In truth they were. They had been crowded up behind the head of the
sofa--the bishop in waiting to receive his guest, and the other in
carrying her--and they now had hardly room to move themselves.

The bishop gave his hand quickly, made his little studied bow, and
was delighted to make--He couldn't go on, for he did not know whether
his friend was a signor, or a count or a prince.

"My sister really puts you all to great trouble," said Bertie.

"Not at all!" The bishop was delighted to have the opportunity of
welcoming La Signora Vicinironi--so at least he said--and attempted
to force his way round to the front of the sofa. He had, at any
rate, learnt that his strange guests were brother and sister. The
man, he presumed, must be Signor Vicinironi--or count, or prince, as
it might be. It was wonderful what good English he spoke. There was
just a twang of foreign accent, and no more.

"Do you like Barchester, on the whole?" asked Bertie.

The bishop, looking dignified, said that he did like Barchester.

"You've not been here very long, I believe," said Bertie.

"No--not long," said the bishop and tried again to make his way
between the back of the sofa and a heavy rector, who was staring over
it at the grimaces of the signora.

"You weren't a bishop before, were you?"

Dr. Proudie explained that this was the first diocese he had held.

"Ah--I thought so," said Bertie, "but you are changed about
sometimes, a'nt you?"

"Translations are occasionally made," said Dr. Proudie, "but not so
frequently as in former days."

"They've cut them all down to pretty nearly the same figure, haven't
they?" said Bertie.

To this the bishop could not bring himself to make any answer, but
again attempted to move the rector.

"But the work, I suppose, is different?" continued Bertie. "Is there
much to do here, at Barchester?" This was said exactly in the tone
that a young Admiralty clerk might use in asking the same question of
a brother acolyte at the Treasury.

"The work of a bishop of the Church of England," said Dr. Proudie
with considerable dignity, "is not easy. The responsibility which he
has to bear is very great indeed."

"Is it?" said Bertie, opening wide his wonderful blue eyes. "Well, I
never was afraid of responsibility. I once had thoughts of being a
bishop, myself."

"Had thoughts of being a bishop!" said Dr. Proudie, much amazed.

"That is, a parson--a parson first, you know, and a bishop afterwards.
If I had once begun, I'd have stuck to it. But, on the whole, I like
the Church of Rome the best."

The bishop could not discuss the point, so he remained silent.

"Now, there's my father," continued Bertie; "he hasn't stuck to it.
I fancy he didn't like saying the same thing over so often. By the
by, Bishop, have you seen my father?"

The bishop was more amazed than ever. Had he seen his father? "No,"
he replied; he had not yet had the pleasure: he hoped he might; and,
as he said so, he resolved to bear heavy on that fat, immovable
rector, if ever he had the power of doing so.

"He's in the room somewhere," said Bertie, "and he'll turn up soon.
By the by, do you know much about the Jews?"

At last the bishop saw a way out. "I beg your pardon," said he, "but
I'm forced to go round the room."

"Well--I believe I'll follow in your wake," said Bertie. "Terribly
hot--isn't it?" This he addressed to the fat rector with whom he had
brought himself into the closest contact. "They've got this sofa
into the worst possible part of the room; suppose we move it. Take
care, Madeline."

The sofa had certainly been so placed that those who were behind
it found great difficulty in getting out; there was but a narrow
gangway, which one person could stop. This was a bad arrangement,
and one which Bertie thought it might be well to improve.

"Take care, Madeline," said he, and turning to the fat rector, added,
"Just help me with a slight push."

The rector's weight was resting on the sofa and unwittingly lent
all its impetus to accelerate and increase the motion which Bertie
intentionally originated. The sofa rushed from its moorings and ran
half-way into the middle of the room. Mrs. Proudie was standing
with Mr. Slope in front of the signora, and had been trying to be
condescending and sociable; but she was not in the very best of
tempers, for she found that, whenever she spoke to the lady, the
lady replied by speaking to Mr. Slope. Mr. Slope was a favourite,
no doubt, but Mrs. Proudie had no idea of being less thought of than
the chaplain. She was beginning to be stately, stiff, and offended,
when unfortunately the castor of the sofa caught itself in her lace
train, and carried away there is no saying how much of her garniture.
Gathers were heard to go, stitches to crack, plaits to fly open,
flounces were seen to fall, and breadths to expose themselves; a long
ruin of rent lace disfigured the carpet, and still clung to the vile
wheel on which the sofa moved.

So, when a granite battery is raised, excellent to the eyes of
warfaring men, is its strength and symmetry admired. It is the work
of years. Its neat embrasures, its finished parapets, its casemated
stories show all the skill of modern science. But, anon, a small
spark is applied to the treacherous fusee--a cloud of dust arises to
the heavens--and then nothing is to be seen but dirt and dust and
ugly fragments.

We know what was the wrath of Juno when her beauty was despised. We
know to what storms of passion even celestial minds can yield. As
Juno may have looked at Paris on Mount Ida, so did Mrs. Proudie look
on Ethelbert Stanhope when he pushed the leg of the sofa into her
lace train.

"Oh, you idiot, Bertie!" said the signora, seeing what had been done
and what were to be the consequences.

"Idiot!" re-echoed Mrs. Proudie, as though the word were not half
strong enough to express the required meaning; "I'll let him
know--" and then looking round to learn, at a glance, the worst, she
saw that at present it behoved her to collect the scattered _débris_
of her dress.

Bertie, when he saw what he had done, rushed over the sofa and threw
himself on one knee before the offended lady. His object, doubtless,
was to liberate the torn lace from the castor, but he looked as
though he were imploring pardon from a goddess.

"Unhand it, sir!" said Mrs. Proudie. From what scrap of dramatic
poetry she had extracted the word cannot be said, but it must have
rested on her memory, and now seemed opportunely dignified for the
occasion.

"I'll fly to the looms of the fairies to repair the damage, if you'll
only forgive me," said Ethelbert, still on his knees.

"Unhand it, sir!" said Mrs. Proudie with redoubled emphasis, and all
but furious wrath. This allusion to the fairies was a direct mockery
and intended to turn her into ridicule. So at least it seemed to
her. "Unhand it, sir!" she almost screamed.

"It's not me; it's the cursed sofa," said Bertie, looking imploringly
in her face and holding up both his hands to show that he was not
touching her belongings, but still remaining on his knees.

Hereupon the Signora laughed; not loud, indeed, but yet audibly. And
as the tigress bereft of her young will turn with equal anger on any
within reach, so did Mrs. Proudie turn upon her female guest.

"Madam!" she said--and it is beyond the power of prose to tell of the
fire which flashed from her eyes.

The signora stared her full in the face for a moment, and then
turning to her brother said playfully, "Bertie, you idiot, get up."

By this time the bishop, and Mr. Slope, and her three daughters
were around her, and had collected together the wide ruins of her
magnificence. The girls fell into circular rank behind their mother,
and thus following her and carrying out the fragments, they left the
reception-rooms in a manner not altogether devoid of dignity. Mrs.
Proudie had to retire and re-array herself.

As soon as the constellation had swept by, Ethelbert rose from his
knees and, turning with mock anger to the fat rector, said: "After
all it was your doing, sir--not mine. But perhaps you are waiting
for preferment, and so I bore it."

Whereupon there was a laugh against the fat rector, in which both the
bishop and the chaplain joined, and thus things got themselves again
into order.

"Oh! my lord, I am so sorry for this accident," said the signora,
putting out her hand so as to force the bishop to take it. "My
brother is so thoughtless. Pray sit down, and let me have the
pleasure of making your acquaintance. Though I am so poor a creature
as to want a sofa, I am not so selfish as to require it all."
Madeline could always dispose herself so as to make room for a
gentleman, though, as she declared, the crinoline of her lady friends
was much too bulky to be so accommodated.

"It was solely for the pleasure of meeting you that I have had myself
dragged here," she continued. "Of course, with your occupation, one
cannot even hope that you should have time to come to us, that is,
in the way of calling. And at your English dinner-parties all is so
dull and so stately. Do you know, my lord, that in coming to England
my only consolation has been the thought that I should know you;" and
she looked at him with the look of a she-devil.

The bishop, however, thought that she looked very like an angel and,
accepting the proffered seat, sat down beside her. He uttered some
platitude as to his deep obligation for the trouble she had taken,
and wondered more and more who she was.

"Of course you know my sad story?" she continued.

The bishop didn't know a word of it. He knew, however, or thought he
knew, that she couldn't walk into a room like other people, and so
made the most of that. He put on a look of ineffable distress and
said that he was aware how God had afflicted her.

The signora just touched the corner of her eyes with the most
lovely of pocket-handkerchiefs. Yes, she said--she had been sorely
tried--tried, she thought, beyond the common endurance of humanity;
but while her child was left to her, everything was left. "Oh! my
lord," she exclaimed, "you must see that infant--the last bud of a
wondrous tree: you must let a mother hope that you will lay your holy
hands on her innocent head and consecrate her for female virtues. May
I hope it?" said she, looking into the bishop's eye and touching the
bishop's arm with her hand.

The bishop was but a man and said she might. After all, what was it
but a request that he would confirm her daughter?--a request, indeed,
very unnecessary to make, as he should do so as a matter of course if
the young lady came forward in the usual way.

"The blood of Tiberius," said the signora in all but a whisper; "the
blood of Tiberius flows in her veins. She is the last of the Neros!"

The bishop had heard of the last of the Visigoths, and had floating
in his brain some indistinct idea of the last of the Mohicans, but to
have the last of the Neros thus brought before him for a blessing was
very staggering. Still he liked the lady: she had a proper way of
thinking and talked with more propriety than her brother. But who
were they? It was now quite clear that that blue madman with the
silky beard was not a Prince Vicinironi. The lady was married and
was of course one of the Vicinironi's by right of the husband. So
the bishop went on learning.

"When will you see her? said the signora with a start.

"See whom?" said the bishop.

"My child," said the mother.

"What is the young lady's age?" asked the bishop.

"She is just seven," said the signora.

"Oh," said the bishop, shaking his head; "she is much too young--very
much too young."

"But in sunny Italy, you know, we do not count by years," and the
signora gave the bishop one of her very sweetest smiles.

"But indeed, she is a great deal too young," persisted the bishop;
"we never confirm before--"

"But you might speak to her; you might let her hear from your
consecrated lips that she is not a castaway because she is a Roman;
that she may be a Nero and yet a Christian; that she may owe her
black locks and dark cheeks to the blood of the pagan Caesars, and yet
herself be a child of grace; you will tell her this, won't you, my
friend?"

The friend said he would, and asked if the child could say her
catechism.

"No," said the signora, "I would not allow her to learn lessons
such as those in a land ridden over by priests and polluted by the
idolatry of Rome. It is here, here in Barchester, that she must
first be taught to lisp those holy words. Oh, that you could be her
instructor!"

Now, Dr. Proudie certainly liked the lady, but, seeing that he was a
bishop, it was not probable that he was going to instruct a little
girl in the first rudiments of her catechism; so he said he'd send a
teacher.

"But you'll see her yourself, my lord?"

The bishop said he would, but where should he call.

"At Papa's house," said the Signora with an air of some little
surprise at the question.

The bishop actually wanted the courage to ask her who was her
papa, so he was forced at last to leave her without fathoming the
mystery. Mrs. Proudie, in her second best, had now returned to the
rooms, and her husband thought it as well that he should not remain
in too close conversation with the lady whom his wife appeared to
hold in such slight esteem. Presently he came across his youngest
daughter.

"Netta," said he, "do you know who is the father of that Signora
Vicinironi?"

"It isn't Vicinironi, Papa," said Netta; "but Vesey Neroni, and
she's Doctor Stanhope's daughter. But I must go and do the civil to
Griselda Grantly; I declare nobody has spoken a word to the poor girl
this evening."

Dr. Stanhope! Dr. Vesey Stanhope! Dr. Vesey Stanhope's daughter, of
whose marriag

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