THE WARDEN
CHAPTER X
Tribulation
Mr Harding was a sadder man than he had ever yet been when he
returned to his own house. He had been wretched enough on that
well-remembered morning when he was forced to expose before his
son-in-law the publisher’s account for ushering into the
world his dear book of sacred music: when after making such
payments as he could do unassisted, he found that he was a debtor
of more than three hundred pounds; but his sufferings then were as
nothing to his present misery;—then he had done wrong, and he
knew it, and was able to resolve that he would not sin in like
manner again; but now he could make no resolution, and comfort
himself by no promises of firmness. He had been forced to think
that his lot had placed him in a false position, and he was about
to maintain that position against the opinion of the world and
against his own convictions.
He had read with pity, amounting almost to horror, the
strictures which had appeared from time to time against the Earl of
Guildford as master of St Cross, and the invectives that had been
heaped on rich diocesan dignitaries and overgrown sinecure
pluralists. In judging of them, he judged leniently; the whole bias
of his profession had taught him to think that they were more
sinned against than sinning, and that the animosity with which they
had been pursued was venomous and unjust; but he had not the less
regarded their plight as most miserable. His hair had stood on end
and his flesh had crept as he read the things which had been
written; he had wondered how men could live under such a load of
disgrace; how they could face their fellow-creatures while their
names were bandied about so injuriously and so publicly—and
now this lot was to be his—he, that shy, retiring man, who
had so comforted himself in the hidden obscurity of his lot, who
had so enjoyed the unassuming warmth of his own little corner, he
was now dragged forth into the glaring day, and gibbeted before
ferocious multitudes. He entered his own house a crestfallen,
humiliated man, without a hope of overcoming the wretchedness which
affected him.
He wandered into the drawing-room where was his daughter; but he
could not speak to her now, so he left it, and went into the
book-room. He was not quick enough to escape Eleanor’s
glance, or to prevent her from seeing that he was disturbed; and in
a little while she followed him. She found him seated in his
accustomed chair with no book open before him, no pen ready in his
hand, no ill-shapen notes of blotted music lying before him as was
usual, none of those hospital accounts with which he was so precise
and yet so unmethodical: he was doing nothing, thinking of nothing,
looking at nothing; he was merely suffering.
‘Leave me, Eleanor, my dear,’ he said; ‘leave
me, my darling, for a few minutes, for I am busy.’
Eleanor saw well how it was, but she did leave him, and glided
silently back to her drawing-room. When he had sat a while, thus
alone and unoccupied, he got up to walk again— he could make
more of his thoughts walking than sitting, and was creeping out
into his garden, when he met Bunce on the threshold.
‘Well, Bunce,’ said he, in a tone that for him was
sharp, ‘what is it? do you want me?’
‘I was only coming to ask after your reverence,’
said the old bedesman, touching his hat; ‘and to inquire
about the news from London,’ he added after a pause.
The warden winced, and put his hand to his forehead and felt
bewildered.
‘Attorney Finney has been there this morning,’
continued Bunce, ‘and by his looks I guess he is not so well
pleased as he once was, and it has got abroad somehow that the
archdeacon has had down great news from London, and Handy and Moody
are both as black as devils. And I hope,’ said the man,
trying to assume a cheery tone, ‘that things are looking up,
and that there’ll be an end soon to all this stuff which
bothers your reverence so sorely.’
‘Well, I wish there may be, Bunce.’
‘But about the news, your reverence?’ said the old
man, almost whispering.
Mr Harding walked on, and shook his head impatiently. Poor Bunce
little knew how he was tormenting his patron.
‘If there was anything to cheer you, I should be so glad
to know it,’ said he, with a tone of affection which the
warden in all his misery could not resist.
He stopped, and took both the old man’s hands in his.
‘My friend,’ said he, ‘my dear old friend, there
is nothing; there is no news to cheer me—God’s will be
done’: and two small hot tears broke away from his eyes and
stole down his furrowed cheeks.
‘Then God’s will be done,’ said the other
solemnly; ‘but they told me that there was good news from
London, and I came to wish your reverence joy; but God’s will
be done,’ and so the warden again walked on, and the
bedesman, looking wistfully after him and receiving no
encouragement to follow, returned sadly to his own abode.
For a couple of hours the warden remained thus in the garden,
now walking, now standing motionless on the turf, and then, as his
legs got weary, sitting unconsciously on the garden seats, and then
walking again. And Eleanor, hidden behind the muslin curtains of
the window, watched him through the trees as he now came in sight,
and then again was concealed by the turnings of the walk; and thus
the time passed away till five, when the warden crept back to the
house and prepared for dinner.
It was but a sorry meal. The demure parlour-maid, as she handed
the dishes and changed the plates, saw that all was not right, and
was more demure than ever: neither father nor daughter could eat,
and the hateful food was soon cleared away, and the bottle of port
placed upon the table.
‘Would you like Bunce to come in, papa?‘said
Eleanor, thinking that the company of the old man might lighten his
sorrow.
‘No, my dear, thank you, not today; but are not you going
out, Eleanor, this lovely afternoon? don’t stay in for me, my
dear.’
‘I thought you seemed so sad, papa.’
‘Sad,’ said he, irritated; ‘well, people must
all have their share of sadness here; I am not more exempt than
another: but kiss me, dearest, and go now; I will, if possible, be
more sociable when you return.’
And Eleanor was again banished from her father’s sorrow.
Ah! her desire now was not to find him happy, but to be allowed to
share his sorrows; not to force him to be sociable, but to persuade
him to be trustful.
She put on her bonnet as desired, and went up to Mary Bold; this
was now her daily haunt, for John Bold was up in London among
lawyers and church reformers, diving deep into other questions than
that of the wardenship of Barchester; supplying information to one
member of Parliament, and dining with another; subscribing to funds
for the abolition of clerical incomes, and seconding at that great
national meeting at the Crown and Anchor a resolution to the
effect, that no clergyman of the Church of England, be he who he
might, should have more than a thousand a year, and none less than
two hundred and fifty. His speech on this occasion was short, for
fifteen had to speak, and the room was hired for two hours only, at
the expiration of which the Quakers and Mr Cobden were to make use
of it for an appeal to the public in aid of the Emperor of Russia;
but it was sharp and effective; at least he was told so by a
companion with whom he now lived much, and on whom he greatly
depended—one Tom Towers, a very leading genius, and supposed
to have high employment on the staff of The Jupiter.
So Eleanor, as was now her wont, went up to Mary Bold, and Mary
listened kindly, while the daughter spoke much of her father, and,
perhaps kinder still, found a listener in Eleanor, while she spoke
about her brother. In the meantime the warden sat alone, leaning on
the arm of his chair; he had poured out a glass of wine, but had
done so merely from habit, for he left it untouched; there he sat
gazing at the open window, and thinking, if he can be said to have
thought, of the happiness of his past life. All manner of past
delights came before his mind, which at the time he had enjoyed
without considering them; his easy days, his absence of all kind of
hard work, his pleasant shady home, those twelve old neighbours
whose welfare till now had been the source of so much pleasant
care, the excellence of his children, the friendship of the dear
old bishop, the solemn grandeur of those vaulted aisles, through
which he loved to hear his own voice pealing; and then that friend
of friends, that choice ally that had never deserted him, that
eloquent companion that would always, when asked, discourse such
pleasant music, that violoncello of his—ah, how happy he had
been! but it was over now; his easy days and absence of work had
been the crime which brought on him his tribulation; his shady home
was pleasant no longer; maybe it was no longer his; the old
neighbours, whose welfare had been so desired by him, were his
enemies; his daughter was as wretched as himself; and even the
bishop was made miserable by his position. He could never again
lift up his voice boldly as he had hitherto done among his
brethren, for he felt that he was disgraced; and he feared even to
touch his bow, for he knew how grievous a sound of wailing, how
piteous a lamentation, it would produce.
He was still sitting in the same chair and the same posture,
having hardly moved a limb for two hours, when Eleanor came back to
tea, and succeeded in bringing him with her into the
drawing-room.
The tea seemed as comfortless as the dinner, though the warden,
who had hitherto eaten nothing all day, devoured the plateful of
bread and butter, unconscious of what he was doing.
Eleanor had made up her mind to force him to talk to her, but
she hardly knew how to commence: she must wait till the urn was
gone, till the servant would no longer be coming in and out.
At last everything was gone, and the drawing-room door was
permanently closed; then Eleanor, getting up and going round to her
father, put her arm round his neck, and said, ‘Papa,
won’t you tell me what it is?’
‘What what is, my dear?’
‘This new sorrow that torments you; I know you are
unhappy, papa.’
‘New sorrow! it’s no new sorrow, my dear; we have
all our cares sometimes’; and he tried to smile, but it was a
ghastly failure; ‘but I shouldn’t be so dull a
companion; come, we’ll have some music.’
‘No, papa, not tonight—it would only trouble you
tonight’; and she sat upon his knee, as she sometimes would
in their gayest moods, and with her arm round his neck, she said:
‘Papa, I will not leave you till you talk to me; oh, if you
only knew how much good it would do to you, to tell me of it
all.’
The father kissed his daughter, and pressed her to his heart;
but still he said nothing: it was so hard to him to speak of his
own sorrows; he was so shy a man even with his own child!
‘Oh, papa, do tell me what it is; I know it is about the
hospital, and what they are doing up in London, and what that cruel
newspaper has said; but if there be such cause for sorrow, let us
be sorrowful together; we are all in all to each other now: dear,
dear papa, do speak to me.’
Mr Harding could not well speak now, for the warm tears were
running down his cheeks like rain in May, but he held his child
close to his heart, and squeezed her hand as a lover might, and she
kissed his forehead and his wet cheeks, and lay upon his bosom, and
comforted him as a woman only can do.
, My own child,’ he said, as soon as his tears would let
him speak, ‘my own, own child, why should you too be unhappy
before it is necessary? It may come to that, that we must leave
this place, but till that time comes, why should your young days be
clouded?’
‘And is that all, papa? If that be all, let us leave it,
and have light hearts elsewhere: if that be all, let us go. Oh,
papa, you and I could be happy if we had only bread to eat, so long
as our hearts were light.’
And Eleanor’s face was lighted up with enthusiasm as she
told her father how he might banish all his care; and a gleam of
joy shot across his brow as this idea of escape again presented
itself, and he again fancied for a moment that he could spurn away
from him the income which the world envied him; that he could give
the lie to that wielder of the tomahawk who had dared to write such
things of him in The Jupiter; that he could leave Sir Abraham, and
the archdeacon, and Bold, and the rest of them with their lawsuit
among them, and wipe his hands altogether of so sorrow-stirring a
concern. Ah, what happiness might there be in the distance, with
Eleanor and him in some small cottage, and nothing left of their
former grandeur but their music! Yes, they would walk forth with
their music books, and their instruments, and shaking the dust from
off their feet as they went, leave the ungrateful place. Never did
a poor clergyman sigh for a warm benefice more anxiously than our
warden did now to be rid of his.
‘Give it up, papa,’ she said again, jumping from his
knees and standing on her feet before him, looking boldly into his
face; ‘give it up, papa.’
Oh, it was sad to see how that momentary gleam of joy passed
away; how the look of hope was dispersed from that sorrowful face,
as the remembrance of the archdeacon came back upon our poor
warden, and he reflected that he could not stir from his now hated
post. He was as a man bound with iron, fettered with adamant: he
was in no respect a free agent; he had no choice. ‘Give it
up!’ Oh if he only could: what an easy way that were out of
all his troubles!
‘Papa, don’t doubt about it,’ she continued,
thinking that his hesitation arose from his unwillingness to
abandon so comfortable a home; ‘is it on my account that you
would stay here? Do you think that I cannot be happy without a
pony- carriage and a fine drawing-room? Papa, I never can be happy
here, as long as there is a question as to your honour in staying
here; but I could be gay as the day is long in the smallest tiny
little cottage, if I could see you come in and go out with a light
heart. Oh! papa, your face tells so much; though you won’t
speak to me with your voice, I know how it is with you every time I
look at you.’
How he pressed her to his heart again with almost a spasmodic
pressure! How he kissed her as the tears fell like rain from his
old eyes! How he blessed her, and called her by a hundred soft
sweet names which now came new to his lips! How he chid himself for
ever having been unhappy with such a treasure in his house, such a
jewel on his bosom, with so sweet a flower in the choice garden of
his heart! And then the floodgates of his tongue were loosed, and,
at length, with unsparing detail of circumstances, he told her all
that he wished, and all that he could not do. He repeated those
arguments of the archdeacon, not agreeing in their truth, but
explaining his inability to escape from them—how it had been
declared to him that he was bound to remain where he was by the
interests of his order, by gratitude to the bishop, by the wishes
of his friends, by a sense of duty, which, though he could not
understand it, he was fain to acknowledge. He told her how he had
been accused of cowardice, and though he was not a man to make much
of such a charge before the world, now in the full candour of his
heart he explained to her that such an accusation was grievous to
him; that he did think it would be unmanly to desert his post,
merely to escape his present sufferings, and that, therefore, he
must bear as best he might the misery which was prepared for
him.
And did she find these details tedious? Oh, no; she encouraged
him to dilate on every feeling he expressed, till he laid bare the
inmost corners of his heart to her. They spoke together of the
archdeacon, as two children might of a stern, unpopular, but still
respected schoolmaster, and of the bishop as a parent kind as kind
could be, but powerless against an omnipotent pedagogue.
And then when they had discussed all this, when the father had
told all to the child, she could not be less confiding than he had
been; and as John Bold’s name was mentioned between them, she
owned how well she had learned to love him—‘had loved
him once,’ she said, ‘but she would not, could not do
so now—no, even had her troth been plighted to him, she would
have taken it back again—had she sworn to love him as his
wife, she would have discarded him, and not felt herself forsworn,
when he proved himself the enemy of her father.’
But the warden declared that Bold was no enemy of his, and
encouraged her love; and gently rebuked, as he kissed her, the
stern resolve she had made to cast him off; and then he spoke to
her of happier days when their trials would all be over; and
declared that her young heart should not be torn asunder to please
either priest or prelate, dean or archdeacon. No, not if all Oxford
were to convocate together, and agree as to the necessity of the
sacrifice.
And so they greatly comforted each other—and in what
sorrow will not such mutual confidence give consolation!— and
with a last expression of tender love they parted, and went
comparatively happy to their rooms.