CHAPTER XXV
FOURTEEN ARGUMENTS IN FAVOUR OF MR QUIVERFUL'S CLAIMS
We have most of us heard of the terrible anger of a lioness when, surrounded by her cubs, she guards her prey. Few of us wish to disturb the mother of a litter of puppies when mouthing a bone in the midst of her young family. Medea and her children are familiar to us, and so is the grief of Constance. Mrs Quiverful, when she first heard from her husband the news which he had to impart, felt within her bosom all the rage of a lioness, the rapacity of the hound, the fury of the tragic queen, and the deep despair of a bereaved mother.
Doubting, but yet hardly fearing, what might have been the tenor of Mr Slope's discourse, she rushed back to her husband as soon as the front door was closed behind the visitor. It was well for Mr Slope that he had so escaped,—the anger of such a woman, at such a moment, would have cowed even him. As a general rule, it is highly desirable that ladies should keep their temper; a woman when she storms always makes herself ugly, and usually ridiculous also. There is nothing so odious to man as a virago. Though Theseus loved an Amazon, he showed his love but roughly; and from the time of Theseus downward, no man ever wished to have his wife remarkable rather for forward prowess than retiring gentleness.
Such may be laid down as a general rule; and few women should allow themselves to deviate from it, and then only on rare occasions. But if there be a time when a woman may let her hair to the winds, when she may loose her arms, and scream out trumpet-tongued to the ears of men, it is when nature calls out within her not for her own wants, but for the wants of those whom her womb has borne, whom her breasts have suckled, for those who look to her for their daily bread as naturally as man looks to his Creator.
There was nothing poetic in the nature of Mrs Quiverful. She was neither a Medea nor a Constance. When angry, she spoke out her anger in plain words, and in a tone which might have been modulated with advantage; but she did so, at any rate, without affectation. Now, without knowing it, she rose to a tragic vein.
'Well, my dear; we are not to have it.' Such were the words with which her ears were greeted when she entered the parlour, still hot from the kitchen fire. And the face of her husband spoke even more plainly than his words:—"E'en such a man, so faint, so spiritless, So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone, Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night."
'What!' said she,—and Mrs Siddons could not have put more passion into a single syllable,—'What! Not have it? Who says so?' And she sat opposite to her husband, with her elbows on the table, her hands clasped together, and her coarse, solid, but once handsome face stretched over it towards him.
She sat as silent as death while he told his story, and very dreadful to him her silence was. He told it very lamely and badly, but still in such a manner that she soon understood the whole of it.
'And so you have resigned it?' said she.
'I have had no opportunity of accepting it,' he replied. 'I had no witnesses to Mr Slope's offer, even if that offer would bind the bishop. It was better for me, on the whole, to keep on good terms with such men than to fight for what I should never get!'
'Witnesses!' she screamed, rising quickly to her feet, and walking up and down the room. 'Do clergymen require witnesses to their words? He made the promise in the bishop's name, and if it is to be broken I'll know the reason why. Did he not positively say that the bishop had sent him to offer you the place?'
'He did, my dear. But that is now nothing to the purpose.'
'It is everything to the purpose, Mr Quiverful. Witnesses indeed! And then to talk of your honour being questioned because you wish to provide for fourteen children. It is everything to the purpose; and so they shall know, if I scream it into their ears from the town cross of Barchester.'
'You forget, Letitia, that the bishop has so many things in his gift. We must wait a little longer. That is all.'
'Wait! Shall we feed the children by waiting? Will waiting put George and Tom, and Sam, out into the world? Will it enable my poor girls to give up some of their drudgery? Will waiting make Bessy and Jane fit even to be governesses? Will waiting pay for the things we got in Barchester last week?'
'It is all we can do, my dear. The disappointment is as much to me as to you; and yet, God knows, I feel it more for your sake than my own.'
Mrs Quiverful was looking full into her husband's face, and saw a small hot tear appear on each of those furrowed cheeks. This was too much for her woman's heart. He also had risen, and was standing with his back to the empty grate. She rushed towards him, and seizing him in her arms, sobbed aloud upon his bosom.
'Yes, you are too good, too soft, too yielding,' she said at last. 'These men, when they want you, they use you like a cat's-paw; and when they want you no longer, they throw you aside like an old shoe. This is twice they have treated you so.'
'In one way this will be for the better,' argued he. 'It will make the bishop feel that he is bound to do something for me.'
'At any rate, he shall hear of it,' said the lady, again reverting to her more angry mood. 'At any rate he shall hear of it, and that loudly; and so shall she. She little knows Letitia Quiverful, if she thinks I will sit down quietly with the loss after all that passed between us at the palace. If there's any feeling within her, I'll make her ashamed of herself,'—and she paced the room again, stamping the floor as she went with her fat heavy foot.
'Good heavens! What a heart she must have within her to treat in such a way as this the father of fourteen unprovided children!'
Mr Quiverful proceeded to explain that he didn't think that Mrs
Proudie had anything to do with it.
'Don't tell me,' said Mrs Quiverful; 'I know more about it than that. Doesn't all the world know that Mrs Proudie is bishop of Barchester, and that Mr Slope is merely her creature? Wasn't it she that made me the promise just as though the thing was in her own particular gift? I tell you, it was that woman who sent him over here to-day because, for some reason of her own, she wants to go back on her word.'
'My dear, you're wrong—'
'Now, Q, don't be so soft,' she continued. 'Take my word for it, the bishop knows no more about it than Jemima does.' Jemima was the two-year old. 'And if you'll take my advice, you'll lose no time in going over and seeing him yourself.'
Soft, however, as Mr Quiverful might be, he would not allow himself to be talked out of his opinion on this occasion; and proceeded with much minuteness to explain to his wife the tone in which Mr Slope had spoken of Mrs Proudie's interference in diocesan matters. As he did so, a new idea gradually instilled itself into the matron's head, and a new course of action presented itself to her judgement. What if, after all, Mrs Proudie knew nothing of this visit of Mr Slope's? In that case, might it not be possible that that lady would still be staunch to her in this matter, still stand her friend, and, perhaps, possibly carry her through in opposition to Mr Slope? Mrs Quiverful said nothing as this vague hope occurred to her, but listened with more than ordinary patience to what her husband had to say. While he was still explaining that in all probability the world was wrong in its estimation of Mrs Proudie's power and authority, she had fully made up her mind as to her course of action. She did not, however, proclaim her intention. She shook her head continuously, as he continued his narration; and when he had completed she rose to go, merely observing that it was cruel, cruel treatment. She then asked if he would mind waiting for a late dinner instead of dining at their usual hour of three, and, having received from him a concession on this point, she proceeded to carry her purpose into execution.
She determined that she would at once go to the palace; that she would do so, if possible, before Mrs Proudie could have had an interview with Mr Slope; and that she would be either submissive, piteous and pathetic, or indignant violent and exacting, according to the manner in which she was received.
She was quite confident in her own power. Strengthened as she was by the pressing wants of fourteen children, she felt that she could make her way through legions of episcopal servants, and force herself, if need be, into the presence of the lady who had so wronged her. She had no shame about it, no mauvaise honte, no dread of archdeacons. She would, as she declared to her husband, make her wail heard in the market-place if she did not get redress and justice. It might be very well for an unmarried young curate to be shamefaced in such matters; it might be all right that a smug rector, really in want of nothing, but still looking for better preferment, should carry out his affairs decently under the rose. But Mrs Quiverful, with fourteen children, had given over being shamefaced, and, in some things, had given over being decent. If it were intended that she should be ill used in the manner proposed by Mr Slope, it should not be done under the rose. All the world would know of it.
In her present mood, Mrs Quiverful was not over careful about her attire. She tied her bonnet under her chin, threw her shawl over her shoulders, armed herself with the old family cotton umbrella, and started for Barchester. A journey to the palace was not quite so easy a thing for Mrs Quiverful as for our friend at Plumstead. Plumstead is nine miles from Barchester, and Puddingdale is but four. But the archdeacon could order round his brougham, and his high-trotting fast bay gelding would take him into the city within the hour. There was no brougham in the coach-house of Puddingdale Vicarage, no bay horse in the stables. There was no method of locomotion for its inhabitants but that which nature had assigned to man.
Mrs Quiverful was a broad heavy woman, not young, nor given to walking. In her kitchen, and in the family dormitories, she was active enough; but her pace and gait were not adapted for the road. A walk into Barchester and back in the middle of an August day would be to her a terrible task, if not altogether impracticable. There was living in the parish about half a mile from the vicarage on the road to the city, a decent, kindly farmer, well to do as regards this world, and so far mindful of the next that he attended his parish church with decent regularity. To him Mrs Quiverful had before now appealed in some of her more pressing family troubles, and had not appealed in vain. At his door she now presented herself, and, having explained to his wife that most urgent business required her to go at once to Barchester, begged that Farmer Subsoil would take her thither in his tax-cart. The farmer did not reject her plan; and, as soon as Prince could be got into his collar, they started on their journey.
Mrs Quiverful did not mention the purpose of her business, nor did the farmer alloy his kindness by any unseemly questions. She merely begged to be put down at the bridge going into the city, and to be taken up again at the same place in the course of two hours. The farmer promised to be punctual to his appointment, and the lady, supported by her umbrella, took the short cut to the close, and in a few minutes was at the bishop's door.
Hitherto she had felt no dread with regard to the coming interview. She had felt nothing but an indignant longing to pour forth her claims, and declare her wrongs, if those claims were not fully admitted. But now the difficulty of her situation touched her a little. She had been at the palace once before, but then she went to give grateful thanks. Those who have thanks to return for favours received find easy admittance to the halls of the great. Such is not always the case with men, or even women, who have favours to beg. Still less easy is access for those who demand the fulfilment of promises already made.
Mrs Quiverful had not been slow to learn the ways of the world. She knew all this, and she knew also that her cotton umbrella and all but ragged shawl would not command respect in the eyes of the palace servants. If she were too humble, she knew well that she would never succeed. To overcome by imperious overbearing with such a shawl as hers upon her shoulders, and such a bonnet on her head, would have required a personal bearing very superior to that which nature had endowed her. Of this also Mrs Quiverful was aware. She must make it known she was the wife of a gentleman and a clergyman, and must yet condescend to conciliate.
The poor lady knew but one way to overcome these difficulties at the very threshold of her enterprise, and to this she resorted. Low as were the domestic funds at Puddingdale, she still retained possession of a half-crown, and this she sacrificed to the avarice of Mrs Proudie's metropolitan sesquipedalian serving-man. She was, she said, Mrs Quiverful of Puddingdale, the wife of the Rev. Mr Quiverful. She wished to see Mrs Proudie. It was indeed quite indispensible that she should see Mrs Proudie. James Fitzplush looked worse than dubious, did not know whether his lady were out, or engaged, or in her bed-room; thought it most probable that she was subject to one of these or to some cause that would make her invisible; but Mrs Quiverful could sit down in the waiting-room, while inquiry was being made of Mrs Proudie.
'Look here, man,' said Mrs Quiverful; 'I must see her;' and she put her card and half-crown—think of it, my reader, think of it; her last half-crown—into the man's hand, and sat herself down on a chair in the waiting-room.
Whether the bribe carried the day, or whether the bishop's wife really chose to see the vicar's wife, it boots not now to inquire. The man returned, and begging Mrs Quiverful to follow him, ushered her into the presence of the mistress of the diocese.
Mrs Quiverful at once saw that her patroness was in a smiling humour. Triumph sat throned upon her brow, and all the joys of dominion hovered about her curls. Her lord had that morning contested with her a great point. He had received an invitation to spend a couple of days with the archbishop. His soul longed for the gratification. Not a word, however, in his grace's note alluded to the fact that he was a married man; and, if he went at all, he must go alone. This necessity would have presented an insurmountable bar to the visit, or have militated against the pleasure, had he been able to go without reference to Mrs Proudie. But this he could not do. He could not order his portmanteau to be packed, and start with his own man, merely telling the lady of his heart that he would probably be back on Saturday. There are men—may we not rather say monsters?—who do such things; and there are wives—may we not rather say slaves?—who put up with such usage. But Dr and Mrs Proudie were not among the number.
The bishop with some beating about the bush, made the lady understand that he very much wished to go. The lady, without any beating about the bush, made the bishop understand that she wouldn't hear of it. It would be useless here to repeat the arguments that were used on each side, and needless to record the result. Those who are married will understand very well how the battle was lost and won; and those who are single will never understand it till they learn the lesson which experience alone can give. When Mrs Quiverful was shown into Mrs Proudie's room, that lady had only returned a few minutes from her lord. But before she left him she had seen the answer to the archbishop's note written and sealed. No wonder that her face was wreathed with smiles as she received Mrs Quiverful.
She instantly spoke of the subject which was so near the heart of her visitor. 'Well, Mrs Quiverful,' said she, 'is it decided yet when you are to move to Barchester?'
'That woman', as she had an hour or two since been called, became instantly re-endowed with all the graces that can adorn a bishop's wife. Mrs Quiverful immediately saw that her business was to be piteous, and that nothing was to be gained by indignation; nothing, indeed, unless she could be indignant in company with her patroness.
'Oh, Mrs Proudie,' she began, 'I fear we are not to move to
Barchester at all.'
'Why not?' said the lady sharply, dropping at a moment's notice her smiles and condescension, and turning with her sharp quick way to business which she saw at a glance was important.
And then Mrs Quiverful told her tale. As she progressed in the history of her wrongs she perceived that the heavier she leant upon Mr Slope the blacker became Mrs Proudie's brow, but that such blackness was not injurious to her own cause. When Mr Slope was at Puddingdale vicarage that morning she had regarded him as the creature of the lady-bishop; now she perceived that they were enemies. She admitted her mistake to herself without any pain or humiliation. She had but one feeling, and that was confined to her family. She cared little how she twisted and turned among these new-comers at the bishop's palace as long as she could twist her husband into the warden's house. She cared not which was her friend or which was her enemy, if only she could get this preference which she so sorely wanted.
She told her tale, and Mrs Proudie listened to it almost in silence. She told how Mr Slope had cozened her husband into resigning his claim, and had declared that it was the bishop's will that none but Mr Harding should be warden. Mrs Proudie's brow became blacker and blacker. At last she started from her chair, and begging Mrs Quiverful to sit and wait for her return, marched out of the room.
'Oh, Mrs Proudie, it's for fourteen children—for fourteen children.' Such was the burden that fell on her ear as she closed the door behind her.
CHAPTER XXVI
MRS PROUDIE TAKES A FALL
It was hardly an hour since Mrs Proudie had left her husband's apartment victorious, and yet so indomitable was her courage that she now returned thither panting for another combat. She was greatly angry with what she thought was his duplicity. He had so clearly given her a promise on this matter of the hospital. He had been already so absolutely vanquished on that point. Mrs Proudie began to feel that if every affair was to be thus discussed and battled about twice and even thrice, the work of the diocese would be too much even for her.
Without knocking at the door she walked quickly into her husband's room and found him seated at his office table, with Mr Slope opposite to him. Between his fingers was the very note which he had written to the archbishop in her presence—and it was open! Yes, he had absolutely violated the seal which had been made sacred by her approval. They were sitting in deep conclave, and it was too clear that the purport of the archbishop's invitation had been absolutely canvassed again, after it had been already debated and decided on in obedience to her behests! Mr Slope rose from his chair, and bowed slightly. The two opposing spirits looked each other fully in the face, and they knew that they were looking each at an enemy.
'What is this, bishop, about Mr Quiverful?' said she, coming to the end of the table and standing there.
Mr Slope did not allow the bishop to answer, but replied himself. 'I have been out to Puddingdale this morning, ma'am, and have seen Mr Quiverful. Mr Quiverful has abandoned his claim to the hospital, because he is now aware that Mr Harding is desirous to fill his old place. Under these circumstances I have strongly advised his lordship to nominate Mr Harding.'
'Mr Quiverful has not abandoned anything,' said the lady, with a very imperious voice. 'His lordship's word has been pledged to him, and it must be respected.'
The bishop still remained silent. He was anxiously desirous of making his old enemy bite the dust beneath his feet. His new ally had told him that nothing was more easy for him than to do so. The ally was there now at his elbow to help him, and yet his courage failed him. It is so hard to conquer when the prestige of the former victories is all against one. It is so hard for the cock who has once been beaten out of his yard to resume his courage and again take a proud place upon a dunghill.
'Perhaps I ought not to interfere,' said Mr Slope, 'but yet—'
'Certainly you ought not,' said the infuriated dame.
'But yet,' continued Mr Slope, not regarding the interruption, 'I have thought it my imperative duty to recommend to the bishop not to slight Mr Harding's claims.'
'Mr Harding should have known his own mind,' said the lady.
'If Mr Harding be not replaced at the hospital, his lordship will have to encounter much ill will, not only in the diocese, but in the world at large. Besides, taking a higher ground, his lordship, as I understood, feels it to be his duty to gratify, in this matter, so very worthy a man and so good a clergyman as Mr Harding.'
'And what is to become of the Sabbath-day school, and of the Sunday services in the hospital?' said Mrs Proudie, with something very nearly approaching to a sneer on her face.
'I understand that Mr Harding makes no objection to the Sabbath-day school,' said Mr Slope. 'And as to the hospital services, that matter will be best discussed after his appointment. If he has any personal objection, then, I fear, the matter must rest.'
'You have a very easy conscience in such matters, Mr Slope,' said she.
'I should not have an easy conscience,' he rejoined, 'but a conscience very far from being easy, if anything said or done by me should lead the bishop to act unadvisedly on this matter. It is clear that in the interview I had with Mr Harding, I misunderstood him—'
'And it is equally clear that you have misunderstood Mr Quiverful,' said she, not at the top of her wrath. 'What business have you at all with these interviews? Who desired you to go to Mr Quiverful this morning? Who commissioned you to manage this affair? Will you answer me, sir?—who sent you to Mr Quiverful this morning?'
There was a dead pause in the room. Mr Slope had risen from his chair, and was standing with his hand on the back of it, looking at first very solemn and now very black. Mrs Proudie was standing as she had at first placed herself, at the end of the table, and as she interrogated her foe she struck her hand upon it with almost more than feminine vigour. The bishop was sitting in his easy chair twiddling his thumbs, turning his eyes now to his wife, and now to his chaplain, as each took up the cudgels. How comfortable it would be if they could fight it out between them without the necessity of any interference on his part; fight it out so that one should kill the other utterly, as far as the diocesan life was concerned, so that he, the bishop, might know clearly by whom it behoved him to be led. There would be the comfort of quiet in either case; but if the bishop had a wish as to which might prove the victor, that wish was certainly not antagonistic to Mr Slope.
'Better the devil you know than the devil you don't know', is an old saying, and perhaps a true one; but the bishop had not yet realised the truth of it.
'Will you answer me, sir?' she repeated. 'Who instructed you to call on Mr Quiverful this morning?' There was another pause. 'Do you intend to answer me, sir?'
'I think, Mrs Proudie, that under all the circumstances it will be better for me not to answer such a question,' said Mr Slope. Mr Slope had many tones in his voice, all duly under his command; among them was a sanctified low tone, and a sanctified loud tone; and he now used the former.
'Did anyone send you, sir?'
'Mrs Proudie,' said Mr Slope, 'I am quite aware how much I owe to your kindness. I am aware also what is due by courtesy from a gentleman to a lady. But there are higher considerations than either of those, and I hope I shall be forgiven if I now allow myself to be actuated solely by them. My duty in this matter is to his lordship, and I can admit of no questioning but from him. He has approved of what I have done, and you must excuse me if I say, that having that approval and my own, I want none other.'
What horrid words were these which greeted the ear of Mrs Proudie? The matter was indeed too clear. There was premeditated mutiny in the camp. Not only had ill-conditioned minds become insubordinate by the fruition of a little power. The bishop had not yet been twelve months in this chair, and rebellion had already reared her hideous head within the palace. Anarchy and misrule would quickly follow, unless she took immediate and strong measures to put down the conspiracy which she had detected.
'Mr Slope,' she said, with slow and dignified voice, differing much from that which she had hitherto used, 'Mr Slope, I will trouble you, if you please, to leave the apartment. I wish to speak to my lord alone.'
Mr Slope also felt that everything depended on the present interview. Should the bishop now be repetticoated, his thraldom would be complete and for ever. The present moment was peculiarly propitious for rebellion. The bishop had clearly committed himself by breaking the seal of the answer to the archbishop; he had therefore fear to influence him. Mr Slope had told him that no consideration ought to induce him to refuse the archbishop's invitation; he had therefore hoped to influence him. He had accepted Mr Quiverful's resignation, and therefore dreaded having to renew that matter with his wife. He had been screwed up to the pitch of asserting a will of his own, and might possibly be carried on till by an absolute success he should have been taught how possible it was to succeed. Now was the moment for victory or rout. It was now that Mr Slope must make himself master of the diocese, or else resign his place and begin his search for fortune again. He saw all this plainly. After what had taken place any compromise between him and the lady was impossible. Let him once leave the room at her bidding, and leave the bishop in her hands, and he might at once pack up his portmanteau and bid adieu to episcopal honours, Mrs Bold, and the Signora Neroni.
And yet it was not so easy to keep his ground when he was bidden by a lady to go; or to continue to make a third in a party between husband and wife when the wife expressed a wish for a tete-a-tete with her husband.
'Mr Slope,' she repeated, 'I wish to be alone with my lord.'
'His lordship has summoned me on most important diocesan business,' said Mr Slope, glancing with uneasy eye at Dr Proudie. He felt that he must trust something to the bishop, and yet that trust was so woefully misplaced. 'My leaving him at the present moment is, I fear, impossible.'
'Do you bandy words with me, you ungrateful man?' said she. 'My lord, will you do me the favour to beg Mr Slope to leave the room?'
My lord scratched his head, but for the moment said nothing. This was as much as Mr Slope expected from him, and was on the whole, for him, an active exercise of marital rights.
'My lord,' said the lady, 'is Mr Slope to leave this room, or am
I?'
Here Mrs Proudie made a false step. She should not have alluded to the possibility of retreat on her part. She should not have expressed the idea that her order for Mr Slope's expulsion could be treated otherwise than by immediate obedience. In answer to such a question the bishop naturally said in his own mind, that it was necessary that one should leave the room, perhaps it might be as well that Mrs Proudie did so. He did say so in his own mind, but externally he again scratched his head and again twiddled his thumbs.
Mrs Proudie was boiling over with wrath. Alas, alas! could she but have kept her temper as her enemy did, she would have conquered as she had ever conquered. But divine anger got the better of her, as it has done of other heroines, and she fell.
'My lord,' said she, 'am I to be vouchsafed an answer or am I not?'
At last he broke his deep silence and proclaimed himself a
Slopeite. 'Why, my dear,' said he, 'Mr Slope and I are very busy.'
That was all. There was nothing more necessary. He had gone to the battle-field, stood the dust and heat of the day, encountered the fury of the foe, and won the victory. How easy is success to those who will only be true to themselves!
Mr Slope saw at once the full amount of his gain, and turned on the vanquished lady a look of triumph which she never forgot and never forgave. Here he was wrong. He should have looked humbly at her, and with meek entreating eye had deprecated her anger. He should have said by his glance that he asked pardon for his success, and that he hoped forgiveness for the stand which he had been forced to make in the cause of duty. So might he perchance have somewhat mollified that imperious bosom, and prepared the way for future terms. But Mr Slope meant to rule without terms. Ah, forgetful, inexperienced man! Can you cause that little trembling victim to be divorced from the woman who possesses him? Can you provide that they shall be separated at bed and board? Is he not flesh of her flesh and bone of her bone, and must he not so continue? It is very well now for you to stand your ground, and triumph as she is driven ignominiously from the room; but can you be present when those curtains are drawn, when that awful helmet of proof has been tied beneath the chin, when the small remnants of the bishop's prowess shall be cowed by the tassel above his head? Can you then intrude yourself when the wife wishes 'to speak to my lord alone?'
But for the moment Mr Slope's triumph was complete; for Mrs Proudie without further parley left the room, and did not forget to shut the door after her. Then followed a close conference between the new allies, to which was said much which it astonished Mr Slope to say and the bishop to hear. And yet the one said it and the other heard it without ill will. There was no mincing of matters now. The chaplain plainly told the bishop that the world gave him credit for being under the governance of his wife; that his credit and character in the diocese was suffering; that he would surely get himself into hot water if he allowed Mrs Proudie to interfere in matters which were not suitable for a woman's powers; and in fact that he would become contemptible if he did not throw off the yoke under which he groaned. The bishop at first hummed and hawed, and affected to deny the truth of what was said. But his denial was by silence and quickly broke down. He soon admitted by silence his state of vassalage, and pledged himself with Mr Slope's assistance, to change his courses. Mr Slope did not make out a bad case for himself. He explained how it grieved him to run counter to a lady who had always been his patroness, who had befriended him in so many ways, who had, in fact, recommended him to the bishop's notice; but, as he stated, his duty was now imperative; he held a situation of peculiar confidence, and was immediately and especially attached to the bishop's person. In such a situation his conscience required that he should regard solely the bishop's interests, and therefore he had ventured to speak out.
The bishop took this for what it was worth, and Mr Slope only intended that he should do so. It gilded the pill which Mr Slope had to administer, and which the bishop thought would be less bitter than that other pill which he had been so long taking.
'My lord,' had his immediate reward, like a good child. He was instructed to write and at once did write another note to the archbishop accepting his grace's invitation. This note Mr Slope, more prudent than the lady, himself took away and posted with his own hands. Thus he made sure that this act of self-jurisdiction should be as nearly as possible a fait accompli. He begged, and coaxed, and threatened the bishop with a view of making him also write at once to Mr Harding; but the bishop, though temporarily emancipated from his wife, was not yet enthralled to Mr Slope. He said, and probably said truly, that such an offer must be made in some official form; that he was not yet prepared to sign the form; and that he should prefer seeing Mr Harding before he did so. Mr Slope, might, however, beg Mr Harding to call upon him. Not disappointed with his achievement Mr Slope went his way. He first posted the precious note which he had in his pocket, and then pursued other enterprises in which we must follow him in other chapters.
Mrs Proudie, having received such satisfaction as was to be derived from slamming her husband's door, did not at once betake herself to Mrs Quiverful. Indeed for the first few moments after her repulse she felt that she could not again see that lady. She would have to own that she had been beaten, to confess that the diadem had passed from her brow, and the sceptre from her hand! No, she would send a message to her with the promise of a letter on the next day or the day after. Thus resolving, she betook herself to her bed-room; but here she again changed her mind. The air of that sacred enclosure restored her courage, and gave her some heart. As Achilles warmed at the sight of his armour, as Don Quixote's heart grew strong when he grasped his lance, so did Mrs Proudie look forward to fresh laurels, as her hey fell on her husband's pillow. She would not despair. Having so resolved, she descended with dignified mien and refreshed countenance to Mrs Quiverful.
This scene in the bishop's study took longer in the acting than in the telling. We have not, perhaps, had the whole of the conversation. At any rate Mrs Quiverful was beginning to be very impatient, and was thinking that farmer Subsoil would be tired of waiting for her, when Mrs Proudie returned. Oh! Who can tell the palpitations of that maternal heart, as the suppliant looked into the face of the great lady to see written there either a promise of a house, income, comfort, and future competence, or else the doom of continued and ever increasing poverty. Poor mother! Poor wife! There was little there to comfort you!
'Mrs Quiverful,' thus spoke the lady with considerable austerity, and without sitting down herself. 'I find that your husband has behaved in this matter in a very weak and foolish manner.'
Mrs Quiverful immediately rose upon her feet, thinking it disrespectful to remain sitting while the wife of the bishop stood. But she was desired to sit down again, and made to do so, so that Mrs Proudie might stand and preach over her. It is generally considered an offensive thing for a gentleman to keep his seat while another is kept standing before him, and we presume the same law holds with regard to ladies. It often is so felt; but we are inclined to say that it never produces half the discomfort or half the feeling of implied inferiority that is shown by a great man who desires his visitor to be seated while he himself speaks from his legs. Such a solecism in good breeding, when construed into English means this: "The accepted rule of courtesy in the world require that I should offer you a seat; if I did not do so, you would bring a charge against me in the world of being arrogant and ill-mannered; I will obey the world; but, nevertheless, I will not put myself on an equality with you. You may sit down, but I won't sit with you. Sit, therefore, at my bidding, and I'll stand and talk to you."
This was just what Mrs Proudie meant to say; and Mrs Quiverful, though she was too anxious and too flurried thus to translate the full meaning of the manoeuvre, did not fail to feel its effect. She was cowed and uncomfortable, and a second time essayed to rise from her chair.
'Pray be seated, Mrs Quiverful, pray keep your seat. Your husband,
I say, has been most weak and most foolish. It is impossible, Mrs
Quiverful, to help people who will not help themselves. I much fear
that I can now do nothing for you in this matter.'
'Oh! Mrs Proudie—don't say so,' said the poor woman, again jumping up.
'Pray be seated, Mrs Quiverful. I much fear that I can do nothing further for you in this matter. Your husband has, in a most unaccountable manner, taken upon himself to resign that which I was empowered to offer him. As a matter of course, the bishop expects that his clergy shall know their own minds. What he may ultimately do—what we may finally decide on doing—I cannot say. Knowing the extent of your family—'
'Fourteen children, Mrs Proudie, fourteen of them! and hardly bread—barely bread! It's hard for the children of a clergyman, it's hard for one who has always done his duty respectably!' Not a word fell from her about herself; but the tears came running down her big coarse cheeks, on which the dust of the August road had left its traces.
Mrs Proudie has not been portrayed in these pages as an agreeable or amiable lady. There has been no intention to impress the reader much in her favour. It is ordained that all novels should have a male and female angel, and a male and female devil. If it be considered that this rule is obeyed in these pages, the latter character must be supposed to have fallen to the lot of Mrs Proudie. But she was not all devil. There was a heart inside that stiff-ribbed bodice, though not, perhaps, of large dimensions, and certainly not easily accessible. Mrs Quiverful, however, did gain access, and Mrs Proudie proved herself a woman. Whether it was the fourteen children with their probable bare bread and the possible bare backs, or the respectability of the father's work, or the mingled dust and tears on the mother's face, we will not pretend to say. But Mrs Proudie was touched.
She did not show it as other women might have done. She did not give Mrs Quiverful eau-de-Cologne, or order her a glass of wine. She did not take her to her toilet table, and offer her the use of brushes and combs, towels and water. She did not say soft little speeches and coax her kindly with equanimity. Mrs Quiverful, despite her rough appearance, would have been as amenable to such little tender cares as any lady in the land. But none such was forthcoming. Instead of that, Mrs Proudie slapped one hand upon the other, and declared—not with an oath; for as a lady and a Sabbatarian and a she-bishop, she could not swear,—but with an adjuration, that 'she wouldn't have it done.'
The meaning of this was that she wouldn't have Mr Quiverful's promised appointment cozened away by the treachery of Mr Slope and the weakness of her husband. This meaning she very soon explained to Mrs Quiverful.
'Why was your husband such a fool,' said she, now dismounted from her high horse and sitting confidentially down close to her visitor, 'as to take the bait which that man threw to him? If he had not been so utterly foolish, nothing could have prevented your going to the hospital.'
Poor Mrs Quiverful was ready enough with her own tongue in accusing her husband to his face of being soft, and perhaps she did not always speak of him to her children quite so respectfully as she might have done. But she did not like to hear him abused by others, and began to vindicate him, and to explain that of course he had taken Mr Slope to be an emissary of Mrs Proudie herself; that Mr Slope was thought to be peculiarly her friend; and that, therefore, Mr Quiverful would have been failing in respect to her had he assumed to doubt what Mr Slope had said.
Thus mollified Mrs Proudie again declared that she 'would not have it done,' and at last sent Mrs Quiverful home with an assurance that, to the furthest stretch of her power and influence in the palace, the appointment of Mr Quiverful should be insisted upon. As she repeated that word 'insisted', she thought of the bishop in his night-cap, and with compressed lips slightly shook her head. Oh! my aspiring pastors, divines to whose ears nolo episcopari are the sweetest of words, which of you would be a bishop on such terms as these?
Mrs Quiverful got home in the farmer's cart, not indeed with a light heart, but satisfied that she had done right in making her visit.
CHAPTER XXVII
A LOVE SCENE
Mr Slope, as we have said, left the palace with a feeling of considerable triumph. Not that he thought that his difficulties were over; he did not so deceive himself; but he felt that he had played his first move well, as well as the pieces on the board would allow; and that he had nothing with which to reproach himself. He first of all posted the letter to the archbishop, and having made that sure he proceeded to push the advantage which he had gained. Had Mrs Bold been at home, he would have called on her; but he knew that she was at Plumstead, as he wrote the following note. It was the beginning of what, he trusted, might be a long and tender series of epistles.
'My dear Mrs Bold,—You will understand perfectly that I cannot at present correspond with your father. I heartily wish that I could, and hope the day may be not long distant, when mists shall have cleared away, and we may know each other. But I cannot preclude myself from the pleasure of sending you these few lines to say that Mr Q. has to-day, in my presence, resigned any title that he ever had to the wardenship of the hospital, and that the bishop has assured me that it is his intention to offer it to your esteemed father.
'Will you, with my respectful compliments, ask him, who I believe is a fellow visitor with you, to call on the bishop either on Wednesday or Thursday, between ten and one. This is by the bishop's desire. If you will so far oblige me as to let me have a line naming either day, and the hour which will suit Mr Harding, I will take care that the servants shall have orders to show him in without delay. Perhaps I should say no more,—but still I wish you could make your father understand that no subject will be mooted between his lordship and him, which will refer at all to the method in which he may choose to perform his duty. I for one, am persuaded that no clergyman could perform it more satisfactorily than he did, or than he will do again.
'On a former occasion I was indiscreet and much too impatient, considering your father's age and my own. I hope he will not now refuse my apology. I still hope also that with your aid and sweet pious labours, we may live to attach such a Sabbath school to the old endowment, as may, by God's grace and furtherance, be a blessing to the poor of this city.
'You will see at once that this letter is confidential. The subject, of course, makes it so. But, equally, of course, it is for your parent's eye as well as for your own, should you think it proper to show it to him.
'I hope my darling little friend Johnny is as strong as ever,— dear little fellow. Does he still continue his rude assaults on those beautiful long silken tresses?
'I can assure your friends miss you from Barchester sorely; but it would be cruel to begrudge you your sojourn among flowers and fields during this truly sultry weather.
'Pray believe me, my dear Mrs Bold Yours most sincerely, 'OBADIAH
SLOPE. 'Barchester, Friday.'
Now this letter, taken as a whole, and with the consideration that Mr Slope wished to assume a great degree of intimacy with Eleanor, would not have been bad, but for the allusion to the tresses. Gentlemen do not write to ladies about their tresses, unless they are on very intimate terms indeed. But Mr Slope could not be expected to be aware of this. He longed to put a little affection into his epistle, and yet he thought it injudicious, as the letter would he knew be shown to Mr Harding. He would have insisted that the letter should be strictly private and seen by no eyes but Eleanor's own, had he not felt that such an injunction would have been disobeyed. He therefore restrained his passion, did not sign himself 'yours affectionately,' and contented himself instead with the compliment to the tresses.
We will now follow his letter. He took it to Mrs Bold's house, and learning there, from the servant, that things were to be sent out to Plumstead that afternoon, left it, with many injunctions, in her hands.
We will now follow Mr Slope so as to complete the day with him, and then return to his letter and its momentous fate in the next chapter.
There is an old song which gives us some very good advice about courting:—
"It's gude to be off with the auld luve
Before ye be on wi' the new."
Of the wisdom of this maxim Mr Slope was ignorant, and accordingly, having written his letter to Mrs Bold, he proceeded to call upon the Signora Neroni. Indeed it was hard to say which was the old love and which was the new, Mr Slope having been smitten with both so nearly at the same time. Perhaps he thought it not amiss to have two strings to his bow. But two strings to Cupid's bow are always dangerous to him on whose behalf they are to be used. A man should remember that between two stools he may fall to the ground.
But in sooth Mr Slope was pursuing Mrs Bold in obedience to his better instincts, and the signora in obedience to his worse. Had he won the widow and worn her, no one could have blamed him. You, O reader, and I, and Eleanor's other friends would have received the story of such a winning with much disgust and disappointment; but we should have been angry with Eleanor, not with Mr Slope. Bishop, male and female, dean and chapter and diocesan clergy in full congress, could have found nothing to disapprove of in such an alliance. Convocation itself, that mysterious and mighty synod, could in no wise have fallen foul of it. The possession of L 1000 a year and a beautiful wife would not al all have hurt the voice of the pulpit character, or lessened the grace and piety of the exemplary clergyman.
But not of such a nature were likely to be his dealings with the Signora Neroni. In the first place he knew that her husband was living, and therefore he could not woo her honestly. Then again she had nothing to recommend her to his honest wooing had such been possible. She was not only portionless, but also from misfortune unfitted to be chosen as the wife of any man who wanted a useful mate. Mr Slope was aware that she was a helpless hopeless cripple.
But Mr Slope could not help himself. He knew that he was wrong in devoting his time to the back drawing-room in Dr Stanhope's house. He knew that what took place would if divulged utterly ruin him with Mrs Bold. He knew that scandal would soon come upon his heels and spread abroad among the black coats of Barchester some tidings, some exaggerated tidings, of the sighs which he poured into the lady's ears. He knew that he was acting against the recognised principles of his life, against those laws of conduct by which he hoped to achieve much higher success. But as we have said, he could not help himself. Passion, for the first time in his life, passion was too strong for him.
As for the signora, no such plea can be put forward for her, for in truth, she cared no more for Mr Slope than she did for twenty others who had been at her feet before him. She willingly, nay greedily, accepted his homage. He was the finest fly that Barchester had hitherto afforded to her web; and the signora was a powerful spider that made wondrous webs, and could in no way live without catching flies. Her taste in this respect was abominable, for she had no use for the victims when caught. She could not eat them matrimonially as young lady-flies do whose webs are most frequently of their mother's weaving. Nor could she devour them by any escapade of a less legitimate description. Her unfortunate affliction precluded her from all hope of levanting with a lover. It would be impossible to run away with a lady who required three servants to move her from a sofa.
The signora was subdued by no passion. Her time for love was gone. She had lived out her heart, such heart as she ever had ever had, in her early years, at an age when Mr Slope was thinking of his second book of Euclid and his unpaid bill at the buttery hatch. In age the lady was younger than the gentleman; but in feelings, in knowledge of the affairs of love, in intrigue, he was immeasurably her junior. It was necessary to her to have some man at her feet. It was the one customary excitement of her life. She delighted in the exercise of power which this gave her; it was now nearly the only food for her ambition; she would boast to her sister that she could make a fool of any man, and the sister, as little imbued with feminine delicacy as herself, good naturedly thought it but fair that such amusement should be afforded to a poor invalid who was debarred from the ordinary pleasures of life.
Mr Slope was madly in love, but hardly knew it. The signora spitted him, as a boy does a cockchafer on a cork, that she might enjoy the energetic agony of his gyrations. And she knew very well what she was doing.
Mr Slope having added to his person all such adornments as are possible to a clergyman making a morning visit, such as a clean neck tie, clean handkerchief, new gloves, and a soupcon of not necessary scent, called about three o'clock at the doctor's house. At about this hour the signora was almost always in the back drawing-room. The mother had not come down. The doctor was out or in his own room. Bertie was out, and Charlotte at any rate left the room if any one called whose object was specially with her sister. Such was her idea of being charitable and sisterly.
Mr Slope, as was his custom, asked for Mr Stanhope, and was told, as was the servant's custom, that the signora was in the drawing-room. Upstairs he accordingly went. He found her, as he always did, lying on her sofa with a French volume before her, and a beautiful little inlaid writing case open on her table. At the moment of his entrance she was in the act of writing.
'Ah, my friend,' said she, putting out her left hand to him across the desk, 'I did not expect you to-day and was this very instant writing to you—'
Mr Slope, taking the soft fair delicate hand in his, and very soft and fair and delicate it was, bowed over it his huge red head and kissed it. It was a sight to see, a deed to record if the author could fitly do it, a picture to put on canvas. Mr Slope was big, awkward, cumbrous, and having his heart in his pursuit was ill at ease. The lady was fair, as we have said, and delicate; every thing about her was fine and refined; her hand in his looked like a rose lying among carrots, and when he kissed it he looked as a cow might do on finding such a flower among her food. She was graceful as a couchant goddess, and, moreover, as self-possessed as Venus must have been when courting Adonis.
Oh, that such grace and such beauty should have condescended to waste itself on such a pursuit!
'I was in the act of writing to you,' said she, 'but now my scrawl may go into the basket;' and she raised the sheet of gilded note paper from off her desk as though to tear it.
'Indeed it shall not,' said he, laying the embargo of half a stone weight of human flesh and blood upon the devoted paper. 'Nothing that you write for my eyes, signora, shall be so desecrated,' and he took up the letter, put that also among the carrots and fed on it, and then proceeded to read it.
'Gracious me! Mr Slope,' said she. 'I hope you don't mean to say that you keep all the trash I write to you. Half my time I don't know what I write, and when I do, I know it is only fit for the black of the fire. I hope you have not that ugly trick of keeping letters.'
'At any rate I don't throw them into a waste-paper basket. If destruction is their doomed lot, they perish worthily, and are burnt on a pyre, as Dido was of old.'
'With a steel pen stuck through them, of course,' said she, 'to make the simile more complete. Of all the ladies of my acquaintance I think Lady Dido was the most absurd. Why did she not do as Cleopatra did? Why did she not take out her ships and insist on going with him? She could not bear to lose the land she had got by a swindle; and then she could not bear the loss of her lover. So she fell between two stools. Mr Slope, whatever you do, never mingle love and business.'
Mr Slope blushed up to his eyes, and over his mottled forehead to the very roots of his hair. He felt sure that the signora knew all about his intentions with reference to Mrs Bold. His conscience told him that he was detected. His doom was to be spoken; he was to be punished for his duplicity, and rejected by the beautiful creature before him. Poor man. He little dreamt that had all his intentions with reference to Mrs Bold been known to the signora, it would only have added zest to that lady's amusement. It was all very well to have Mr Slope at her feet, to show her power by making an utter fool of a clergyman, to gratify her own infidelity by thus proving the little strength which religion had in controlling the passions even of a religious man; but it would be an increased gratification if she could be made to understand that she was at the same time alluring her victim away from another, whose love if secured would be in every way beneficial and salutary.
The signora had indeed discovered with the keen instinct of such a woman, that Mr Slope was bent on matrimony with Mrs Bold, but in alluding to Dido she had not thought of it. She instantly perceived, however, from her lover's blushes, what was on his mind, and was not slow in taking advantage of it.
She looked at him full in the face, not angrily, nor yet with a smile, but with an intense and overpowering gaze; and then holding up her forefinger, and slightly shaking her head she said:- 'Whatever you do, my friend, do not mingle love and business. Either stick to your treasure and your city of wealth, or else follow your love like a true man. But never attempt both. If you do, you'll have to die with a broken heart as did poor Dido. Which is it to be with you, Mr Slope, love or money?'
Mr Slope was not so ready with a pathetic answer as he usually was with touching episodes in his extempore sermons. He felt that he ought to say something pretty, something also that should remove the impression on the mind of his lady love. But he was rather put about how to do it.
'Love,' said he, 'true overpowering love, must be the strongest passion a man can feel; it must control every other wish, and put aside every other pursuit. But with me love will never act in that way unless it is returned;' and he threw upon the signora a look of tenderness which was intended to make up for all the deficiencies of his speech.
'Take my advice,' said she. 'Never mind love. After all, what is it? The dream of a few weeks. That is all its joy. The disappointment of a life is its Nemesis. Who was ever successful in true love? Success in love argues that the love is false. True love is always despondent or tragical. Juliet loved. Haidee loved. Dido loved, and what came of it? Troilus loved and ceased to be a man.'
'Troilus loved and he was fooled,' said the more manly chaplain. 'A man may love and yet not be a Troilus. All women are not Cressids.'
'No; all women are not Cressids. The falsehood is not always on the woman's side. Imogen was true, but now was she rewarded? Her lord believed her to be the paramour of the first he who came near her in his absence. Desdemona was true and was smothered. Ophelia was true and went mad. There is no happiness in love, except at the end of an English novel. But in wealth, money, houses, lands, goods and chattels, in the good things of this world, yes, in them there is something tangible, something that can be retained and enjoyed.'
'Oh, no,' said Mr Slope, feeling himself bound to enter some protest against so very unorthodox a doctrine, 'this world's wealth will make no one happy.'
'And what will make you happy—you—you?' said she, raising herself up, and speaking to him with energy across the table. 'From what source do you look for happiness? Do not say that you look for none? I shall not believe you. It is a search in which every human being spends an existence.'
'And the search is always in vain,' said Mr Slope. 'We look for happiness on earth, while we ought to be content to hope for it in heaven.'
'Pshaw! you preach a doctrine which you know you don't believe. It is the way with you all. If you know that there is no earthly happiness, why do you long to be a bishop or a dean? Why do you want lands and income?'
'I have the natural ambition of a man,' said he.
'Of course you have, and the natural passions; and therefore I say that you don't believe the doctrine you preach. St Paul was an enthusiast. He believed so that his ambition and passions did not war against his creed. So does the Eastern fanatic who passes half his life erect upon a pillar. As for me, I will believe in no belief that does not make itself manifest by outward signs. I will think no preaching sincere that is not recommended by the practice of the preacher.'
Mr Slope was startled and horrified, but he felt that he could not answer. How could he stand up and preach the lessons of his Master, being there as he was, on the devil's business? He was a true believer, otherwise this would have been nothing to him. He had audacity for most things, but he had not audacity to make a plaything of the Lord's word. All this the signora understood, and felt much interest as she saw her cockchafer whirl round upon her pin.
'Your wit delights in such arguments,' said he, 'but your heart and your reason do not quite go along with them.'
'My heart!' said she; 'you quite mistake the principles of my composition if you imagine that there is such a thing about me.' After all, there was very little that was false in anything the signora said. If Mr Slope allowed himself to be deceived it was his own fault. Nothing could have been more open than her declarations about herself.
The little writing table with her desk was still standing before her, a barrier, as it were, against the enemy. She was sitting as nearly upright as she ever did, and he had brought a chair close to the sofa, so that there was only the corner of the table between him and her. It so happened that as she spoke her hand lay upon the table, and as Mr Slope answered her he put his hand upon hers.
'No heart!' said he. 'That is a very heavy charge which you bring against yourself, and one of which I cannot find you guilty—'
She withdrew her hand, not quickly and angrily, as though insulted by his touch, but gently and slowly.
'You are in no condition to give a verdict on the matter,' said she, 'as you have not tried me. No; don't say that you intend doing so, for you know you have no intention of the kind; nor indeed have I either. As for you, you will take your vows where they will result in something more substantial than the pursuit of such a ghostlike, ghastly love as mine—'
'Your love should be sufficient to satisfy the dream of a monarch,' said Mr Slope, not quite clear as to the meaning of his words.
'Say an archbishop, Mr Slope,' said she. Poor fellow! She was very cruel to him. He went round again upon his cork on this allusion to his profession. He tried, however, to smile, and gently accused her of joking on a matter, which was, he said, to him of such vital moment.
'Why—what gulls do you men make of us,' she replied. 'How you fool us to the top of our bent; and of all men you clergymen are the most fluent of your honeyed caressing words. Now look me in the face, Mr Slope, boldly and openly.'
Mr Slope did look at her with a languishing loving eye, and as he did so, he again put forth his hand to get hold of hers.
'I told you to look at me boldly, Mr Slope; but confine your boldness to your eyes.'
'Oh, Madeline,' he sighed.
'Well, my name is Madeline,' said she; 'but none except my own family usually call me so. Now look me in the face, Mr Slope. Am I to understand that you say you love me?'
Mr Slope never had said so. If he had come there with any formed plan at all, his intention was to make love to the lady without uttering any such declaration. It was, however, quite impossible that he should now deny his love. He had, therefore, nothing for it, but to go down on his knees distractedly against the sofa, and swear that he did love her with a love passing the love of man.'
The signora received the assurance with very little palpitations or appearance of surprise. 'And now answer me another question,' said she; 'when are you to be married to Eleanor Bold?'
Poor Mr Slope went round and round in mortal agony. In such a condition as his it was really very hard for him to know what answer to give. And yet no answer would be his surest condemnation. He might as well at once plead guilty to the charge brought against him.
'And why do you accuse me of such dissimulation?'
'Dissimulation! I said nothing of dissimulation. I made no charge against you, and make none. Pray don't defend yourself to me. You swear that you are devoted to my beauty, and yet you are on the eve of matrimony with another. I feel this to be rather a compliment. It is to Mrs Bold that you must defend yourself. That you may find difficult; unless, indeed, you can keep her in the dark. You clergymen are cleverer than other men.'
'Signora, I have told you that I loved you, and now you rail at me?'
'Rail at you. God bless the man; what would he have? Come, answer me this at your leisure,—not without thinking now, but leisurely and with consideration,—are you not going to be married to Mrs Bold?'
'I am not,' said he. And as he said it, he almost hated, with an exquisite hatred, the woman whom he could not help loving with an exquisite love.
'But surely you are a worshipper of hers?'
'I am not,' said Mr Slope, to whom the word worshipper was peculiarly distasteful. The signora had conceived that it would be so.
'I wonder at that,' said she. 'Do you not admire her? To my eyes she is the perfection of English beauty. And then she is rich too. I should have thought she was just the person to attract you. Come, Mr Slope, let me give you advice on this matter. Marry the charming widow! She will be a good mother to your children and an excellent mistress of a clergyman's household.'
'Oh, signora, how can you be so cruel?'
'Cruel,' said she, changing the voice of her banter which she had been using for one which was expressively earnest in its tone; 'is that cruelty?'
'How can I love another, while my heart is entirely your own?'
'If that were cruelty, Mr Slope, what might you say of me if I were to declare that I returned your passion? What would you think if I bound you even by a lover's oath to do daily penance at this couch of mine? What can I give in return for a man's love? Ah, dear friend, you have not realised the condition of my fate.'
Mr Slope was not on his knees all this time. After his declaration of love he had risen from them as quickly as he thought consistent with the new position which he now filled, and as he stood was leaning on the back of his chair. This outburst of tenderness on the Signora's part quite overcame him, and made him feel for the moment that he could sacrifice everything to be assured of the love of the beautiful creature before him, maimed, lame, and already married as she was.
'And can I not sympathise with your lot?' said he, now seating himself on her sofa, and pushing away the table with his foot.
'Sympathy is so near to pity!' said she. 'If you pity me, cripple as I am, I shall spurn you from me.'
'Oh, Madeline, I will only love you,' and again he caught her hand and devoured it with kisses. Now she did not draw from him, but sat there as he kissed it, looking at him with her great eyes, just as a great spider would look at a great fly that was quite securely caught.
'Suppose Signor Neroni were to come to Barchester,' said she, 'would you make his acquaintance?'
'Signor Neroni!' said he.
'Would you introduce him to the bishop, and Mrs Proudie, and the young ladies?' said she, again having recourse to that horrid quizzing voice which Mr Slope so particularly hated.
'Why do you ask me such a question?' said he.
'Because it is necessary that you should know that there is a
Signor Neroni. I think you had forgotten it.'
'If I thought that you retained for that wretch one particle of the love of which he was never worthy, I would die before I would distract you by telling you what I feel. No! were your husband the master of your heart, I might perhaps love you; but you should never know it.'
'My heart again! How you talk. And you consider then, that if a husband be not master of his wife's heart, he has not right to her fealty; if a wife ceases to love, she may cease to be true. Is that your doctrine on this matter, as a minister of the Church of England?'
Mr Slope tried hard within himself to cast off the pollution with which he felt that he was defiling his soul. He strove to tear himself away from the noxious siren that had bewitched him. He had looked for rapturous joy in loving this lovely creature, and he already found that he met with little but disappointment and self-rebuke. He had come across the fruits of the Dead Sea, so sweet and delicious to the eye, so bitter and nauseous to the taste. He had put the apple to his mouth, and it had turned to ashes between his teeth. Yet he could not tear himself away. He knew, he could not but know, that weakness of his religion. But she half permitted his adoration, and that half permission added such fuel to his fire that all the fountain of piety could not quench it. He began to feel savage, irritated, and revengeful. He meditated some severity of speech, some taunt that should cut her, as her taunts cut him. He reflected as he stood there for a moment, silent before her, that if he desired to quell her proud spirit, he should do so by being prouder even than herself; that if he wished to have her at his feet suppliant for his love it behoved him to conquer her by indifference. All this passed through his mind. As far as dead knowledge went, he knew, or thought he knew, how a woman should be tamed. But when he essayed to bring his tactics to bear, he failed like a child. What chance has dead knowledge with experience in any of the transactions between man and man? What possible between man and woman? Mr Slope loved furiously, insanely, and truly; but he had never played the game of love. The signora did not love at all, but she was up to every move on the board. It was Philidor pitched against a school-boy.
And so she continued to insult him, and he continued to bear it.
'Sacrifice the world for love!' said she, in answer to some renewed rapid declaration of his passion, 'how often has the same thing been said, and how invariably with the same falsehood!'
'Falsehood,' said he. 'Do you say that I am false to you? Do you say that my love is not real?'
'False? Of course it is false, false as the father of falsehood—if indeed falsehoods need a sire and are not self-begotten since the world began. You are ready to sacrifice the world for love? Come let us see what you will sacrifice. I care nothing for nuptial vows. The wretch, I think you were kind enough to call him so, whom I swore to love and obey, is so base that he can only be thought of with repulsive disgust. In the council chamber of my heart I have divorced him. To me that is as good as though aged lords had gloated for months over the details of his licentious life. I care nothing for what the world can say. Will you be as frank? Will you take me to your home as your wife? Will you call me Mrs Slope before bishop, dean, and prebendaries?' The poor tortured wretch stood silent, not knowing what to say. 'What! You won't do that. Tell me then, what part of the world is it that you will sacrifice for my charms?'
'Were you free to marry, I would take you to my house to-morrow and wish no higher privilege.'
'I am free;' said she, almost starting up in her energy. For though there was no truth in her pretended regard for her clerical admirer, there was a mixture of real feeling in the scorn and satire with which she spoke of love and marriage generally. 'I am free; free as the winds. Come, will you take me as I am? Have your wish; sacrifice the world, and prove yourself a true man.'
Mr Slope should have taken her at her word. She would have drawn back, and he would have had the full advantage of the offer. But he did not. Instead of doing so, he stood wrapt in astonishment, passing his fingers through his lank red hair, and thinking as he stared upon her animated countenance that her wondrous beauty grew more and more wonderful as he gazed on it. 'Ha! Ha! Ha!,' she laughed out loud. 'Come, Mr Slope, don't talk of sacrificing the world again. People beyond one-and-twenty should never dream of such a thing. You and I, if we have the dregs of any love left in us, if we have the remnants of a passion remaining in our hearts, should husband our resources better. We are not in our premiere jeunesse. The world is a very nice place. Your world, at any rate, is so. You have all manner of fat rectories to get, and possible bishoprics to enjoy. Come, confess; on second thoughts you would not sacrifice such things for the smiles of a lame lady?'
It was impossible for him to answer this. In order to be in any way dignified, he felt that he must be silent.
'Come,' said she—'don't boody with me: don't be angry because I speak out some home truths. Alas, the world, as I have found it, has taught me bitter truths. Come, tell me that I am forgiven. Are we not to be friends?' and she again put her hand to him.
He sat himself down on the chair beside her, and took her proffered hand and leant over her.
'There,' said she, with her sweetest, softest smile—a smile to withstand which a man should be cased in triple steel, 'there; seal your forgiveness on it,' and she raised it towards his face. He kissed it again and again, and stretched over her as though desirous of extending the charity of his pardon beyond the hand that was offered to him. She managed, however, to check his ardour. For one so easily allured as this poor chaplain, her hand was surely enough.