THE BISHOP OF BARCHESTER
Bold at once repaired to the hospital. The day was now far advanced,
but he knew that Mr Harding dined in the summer at four, that Eleanor
was accustomed to drive in the evening, and that he might therefore
probably find Mr Harding alone. It was between seven and eight when
he reached the slight iron gate leading into the precentor's garden,
and though, as Mr Chadwick observed, the day had been cold for June,
the evening was mild, and soft, and sweet. The little gate was open.
As he raised the latch he heard the notes of Mr Harding's violoncello
from the far end of the garden, and, advancing before the house
and across the lawn, he found him playing;--and not without an
audience. The musician was seated in a garden-chair just within the
summer-house, so as to allow the violoncello which he held between his
knees to rest upon the dry stone flooring; before him stood a rough
music desk, on which was open a page of that dear sacred book, that
much-laboured and much-loved volume of church music, which had cost so
many guineas; and around sat, and lay, and stood, and leaned, ten of
the twelve old men who dwelt with him beneath old John Hiram's roof.
The two reformers were not there. I will not say that in their hearts
they were conscious of any wrong done or to be done to their mild
warden, but latterly they had kept aloof from him, and his music was
no longer to their taste.
It was amusing to see the positions, and eager listening faces of
these well-to-do old men. I will not say that they all appreciated
the music which they heard, but they were intent on appearing to
do so; pleased at being where they were, they were determined, as
far as in them lay, to give pleasure in return; and they were not
unsuccessful. It gladdened the precentor's heart to think that the
old bedesmen whom he loved so well admired the strains which were to
him so full of almost ecstatic joy; and he used to boast that such was
the air of the hospital, as to make it a precinct specially fit for
the worship of St Cecilia.
Immediately before him, on the extreme corner of the bench which
ran round the summer-house, sat one old man, with his handkerchief
smoothly lain upon his knees, who did enjoy the moment, or acted
enjoyment well. He was one on whose large frame many years, for he
was over eighty, had made small havoc;--he was still an upright,
burly, handsome figure, with an open, ponderous brow, round which
clung a few, though very few, thin gray locks. The coarse black gown
of the hospital, the breeches, and buckled shoes became him well; and
as he sat with his hands folded on his staff, and his chin resting on
his hands, he was such a listener as most musicians would be glad to
welcome.
This man was certainly the pride of the hospital. It had always been
the custom that one should be selected as being to some extent in
authority over the others; and though Mr Bunce, for such was his name,
and so he was always designated by his inferior brethren, had no
greater emoluments than they, he had assumed, and well knew how to
maintain, the dignity of his elevation. The precentor delighted to
call him his sub-warden, and was not ashamed, occasionally, when no
other guest was there, to bid him sit down by the same parlour fire,
and drink the full glass of port which was placed near him. Bunce
never went without the second glass, but no entreaty ever made him
take a third.
"Well, well, Mr Harding; you're too good, much too good," he'd always
say, as the second glass was filled; but when that was drunk, and the
half hour over, Bunce stood erect, and with a benediction which his
patron valued, retired to his own abode. He knew the world too well
to risk the comfort of such halcyon moments, by prolonging them till
they were disagreeable.
Mr Bunce, as may be imagined, was most strongly opposed to innovation.
Not even Dr Grantly had a more holy horror of those who would
interfere in the affairs of the hospital; he was every inch a
churchman, and though he was not very fond of Dr Grantly personally,
that arose from there not being room in the hospital for two people
so much alike as the doctor and himself, rather than from any
dissimilarity in feeling. Mr Bunce was inclined to think that
the warden and himself could manage the hospital without further
assistance; and that, though the bishop was the constitutional
visitor, and as such entitled to special reverence from all connected
with John Hiram's will, John Hiram never intended that his affairs
should be interfered with by an archdeacon.
At the present moment, however, these cares were off his mind, and he
was looking at his warden, as though he thought the music heavenly,
and the musician hardly less so.
As Bold walked silently over the lawn, Mr Harding did not at first
perceive him, and continued to draw his bow slowly across the
plaintive wires; but he soon found from his audience that some
stranger was there, and looking up, began to welcome his young friend
with frank hospitality.
"Pray, Mr Harding--pray don't let me disturb you," said Bold; "you
know how fond I am of sacred music."
"Oh! it's nothing," said the precentor, shutting up the book and then
opening it again as he saw the delightfully imploring look of his old
friend Bunce. Oh, Bunce, Bunce, Bunce, I fear that after all thou art
but a flatterer. "Well, I'll just finish it then; it's a favourite
little bit of Bishop's; and then, Mr Bold, we'll have a stroll and
a chat till Eleanor comes in and gives us tea." And so Bold sat
down on the soft turf to listen, or rather to think how, after such
sweet harmony, he might best introduce a theme of so much discord, to
disturb the peace of him who was so ready to welcome him kindly.
Bold thought that the performance was soon over, for he felt that
he had a somewhat difficult task, and he almost regretted the final
leave-taking of the last of the old men, slow as they were in going
through their adieux.
Bold's heart was in his mouth, as the precentor made some ordinary but
kind remark as to the friendliness of the visit.
"One evening call," said he, "is worth ten in the morning. It's all
formality in the morning; real social talk never begins till after
dinner. That's why I dine early, so as to get as much as I can of
it."
"Quite true, Mr Harding," said the other; "but I fear I've reversed
the order of things, and I owe you much apology for troubling you on
business at such an hour; but it is on business that I have called
just now."
Mr Harding looked blank and annoyed; there was something in the
tone of the young man's voice which told him that the interview was
intended to be disagreeable, and he shrank back at finding his kindly
greeting so repulsed.
"I wish to speak to you about the hospital," continued Bold.
"Well, well, anything I can tell you I shall be most happy--"
"It's about the accounts."
"Then, my dear fellow, I can tell you nothing, for I'm as ignorant
as a child. All I know is, that they pay me £800 a year. Go to
Chadwick, he knows all about the accounts; and now tell me, will poor
Mary Jones ever get the use of her limb again?"
"Well, I think she will, if she's careful; but, Mr Harding, I hope
you won't object to discuss with me what I have to say about the
hospital."
Mr Harding gave a deep, long-drawn sigh. He did object, very strongly
object, to discuss any such subject with John Bold; but he had not the
business tact of Mr Chadwick, and did not know how to relieve himself
from the coming evil; he sighed sadly, but made no answer.
"I have the greatest regard for you, Mr Harding," continued Bold; "the
truest respect, the most sincere--"
"Thank ye, thank ye, Mr Bold," interjaculated the precentor somewhat
impatiently; "I'm much obliged, but never mind that; I'm as likely to
be in the wrong as another man,--quite as likely."
"But, Mr Harding, I must express what I feel, lest you should think
there is personal enmity in what I'm going to do."
"Personal enmity! Going to do! Why, you're not going to cut my
throat, nor put me into the Ecclesiastical Court!"
Bold tried to laugh, but he couldn't. He was quite in earnest, and
determined in his course, and couldn't make a joke of it. He walked
on awhile in silence before he recommenced his attack, during which
Mr Harding, who had still the bow in his hand, played rapidly on an
imaginary violoncello. "I fear there is reason to think that John
Hiram's will is not carried out to the letter, Mr Harding," said the
young man at last; "and I have been asked to see into it."
"Very well, I've no objection on earth; and now we need not say
another word about it."
"Only one word more, Mr Harding. Chadwick has referred me to Cox and
Cummins, and I think it my duty to apply to them for some statement
about the hospital. In what I do I may appear to be interfering with
you, and I hope you will forgive me for doing so."
"Mr Bold," said the other, stopping, and speaking with some solemnity,
"if you act justly, say nothing in this matter but the truth, and use
no unfair weapons in carrying out your purposes, I shall have nothing
to forgive. I presume you think I am not entitled to the income
I receive from the hospital, and that others are entitled to it.
Whatever some may do, I shall never attribute to you base motives
because you hold an opinion opposed to my own and adverse to my
interests: pray do what you consider to be your duty; I can give
you no assistance, neither will I offer you any obstacle. Let me,
however, suggest to you, that you can in no wise forward your views
nor I mine, by any discussion between us. Here comes Eleanor and the
ponies, and we'll go in to tea."
Bold, however, felt that he could not sit down at ease with Mr Harding
and his daughter after what had passed, and therefore excused himself
with much awkward apology; and merely raising his hat and bowing as he
passed Eleanor and the pony chair, left her in disappointed amazement
at his departure.
Mr Harding's demeanour certainly impressed Bold with a full conviction
that the warden felt that he stood on strong grounds, and almost made
him think that he was about to interfere without due warrant in the
private affairs of a just and honourable man; but Mr Harding himself
was anything but satisfied with his own view of the case.
In the first place, he wished for Eleanor's sake to think well of
Bold and to like him, and yet he could not but feel disgusted at the
arrogance of his conduct. What right had he to say that John Hiram's
will was not fairly carried out? But then the question would arise
within his heart,--Was that will fairly acted on? Did John Hiram mean
that the warden of his hospital should receive considerably more out
of the legacy than all the twelve old men together for whose behoof
the hospital was built? Could it be possible that John Bold was
right, and that the reverend warden of the hospital had been for the
last ten years and more the unjust recipient of an income legally and
equitably belonging to others? What if it should be proved before
the light of day that he, whose life had been so happy, so quiet,
so respected, had absorbed eight thousand pounds to which he had no
title, and which he could never repay? I do not say that he feared
that such was really the case; but the first shade of doubt now fell
across his mind, and from this evening, for many a long, long day,
our good, kind loving warden was neither happy nor at ease.
Thoughts of this kind, these first moments of much misery, oppressed
Mr Harding as he sat sipping his tea, absent and ill at ease. Poor
Eleanor felt that all was not right, but her ideas as to the cause of
the evening's discomfort did not go beyond her lover, and his sudden
and uncivil departure. She thought there must have been some quarrel
between Bold and her father, and she was half angry with both, though
she did not attempt to explain to herself why she was so.
Mr Harding thought long and deeply over these things, both before he
went to bed and after it, as he lay awake, questioning within himself
the validity of his claim to the income which he enjoyed. It seemed
clear at any rate that, however unfortunate he might be at having been
placed in such a position, no one could say that he ought either to
have refused the appointment first, or to have rejected the income
afterwards. All the world,--meaning the ecclesiastical world as
confined to the English church,--knew that the wardenship of the
Barchester Hospital was a snug sinecure, but no one had ever been
blamed for accepting it. To how much blame, however, would he have
been open had he rejected it! How mad would he have been thought had
he declared, when the situation was vacant and offered to him, that he
had scruples as to receiving £800 a year from John Hiram's property,
and that he had rather some stranger should possess it! How would Dr
Grantly have shaken his wise head, and have consulted with his friends
in the close as to some decent retreat for the coming insanity of the
poor minor canon! If he was right in accepting the place, it was
clear to him also that he would be wrong in rejecting any part of the
income attached to it. The patronage was a valuable appanage of the
bishopric; and surely it would not be his duty to lessen the value
of that preferment which had been bestowed on himself; surely he was
bound to stand by his order.
But somehow these arguments, though they seemed logical, were not
satisfactory. Was John Hiram's will fairly carried out? that was the
true question: and if not, was it not his especial duty to see that
this was done,--his especial duty, whatever injury it might do to
his order,--however ill such duty might be received by his patron and
his friends? At the idea of his friends, his mind turned unhappily
to his son-in-law. He knew well how strongly he would be supported
by Dr Grantly, if he could bring himself to put his case into the
archdeacon's hands and to allow him to fight the battle; but he knew
also that he would find no sympathy there for his doubts, no friendly
feeling, no inward comfort. Dr Grantly would be ready enough to take
up his cudgel against all comers on behalf of the church militant,
but he would do so on the distasteful ground of the church's
infallibility. Such a contest would give no comfort to Mr Harding's
doubts. He was not so anxious to prove himself right, as to be so.
I have said before that Dr Grantly was the working man of the diocese,
and that his father the bishop was somewhat inclined to an idle life.
So it was; but the bishop, though he had never been an active man, was
one whose qualities had rendered him dear to all who knew him. He
was the very opposite to his son; he was a bland and a kind old man,
opposed by every feeling to authoritative demonstrations and episcopal
ostentation. It was perhaps well for him, in his situation, that his
son had early in life been able to do that which he could not well do
when he was younger, and which he could not have done at all now that
he was over seventy. The bishop knew how to entertain the clergy
of his diocese, to talk easy small-talk with the rectors' wives,
and put curates at their ease; but it required the strong hand of
the archdeacon to deal with such as were refractory either in their
doctrines or their lives.
The bishop and Mr Harding loved each other warmly. They had grown old
together, and had together spent many, many years in clerical pursuits
and clerical conversation. When one of them was a bishop and the
other only a minor canon they were even then much together; but since
their children had married, and Mr Harding had become warden and
precentor, they were all in all to each other. I will not say that
they managed the diocese between them, but they spent much time in
discussing the man who did, and in forming little plans to mitigate
his wrath against church delinquents, and soften his aspirations for
church dominion.
Mr Harding determined to open his mind and confess his doubts to
his old friend; and to him he went on the morning after John Bold's
uncourteous visit.
Up to this period no rumour of these cruel proceedings against the
hospital had reached the bishop's ears. He had doubtless heard that
men existed who questioned his right to present to a sinecure of £800
a year, as he had heard from time to time of some special immorality
or disgraceful disturbance in the usually decent and quiet city of
Barchester: but all he did, and all he was called on to do, on such
occasions, was to shake his head, and to beg his son, the great
dictator, to see that no harm happened to the church.
It was a long story that Mr Harding had to tell before he made the
bishop comprehend his own view of the case; but we need not follow
him through the tale. At first the bishop counselled but one step,
recommended but one remedy, had but one medicine in his whole
pharmacopoeia strong enough to touch so grave a disorder;--he
prescribed the archdeacon. "Refer him to the archdeacon," he
repeated, as Mr Harding spoke of Bold and his visit. "The archdeacon
will set you quite right about that," he kindly said, when his friend
spoke with hesitation of the justness of his cause. "No man has got
up all that so well as the archdeacon;" but the dose, though large,
failed to quiet the patient; indeed it almost produced nausea.
"But, bishop," said he, "did you ever read John Hiram's will?"
The bishop thought probably he had, thirty-five years ago, when
first instituted to his see, but could not state positively: however,
he very well knew that he had the absolute right to present to the
wardenship, and that the income of the warden had been regularly
settled.
"But, bishop, the question is, who has the power to settle it?
If, as this young man says, the will provides that the proceeds of
the property are to be divided into shares, who has the power to
alter these provisions?" The bishop had an indistinct idea that
they altered themselves by the lapse of years; that a kind of
ecclesiastical statute of limitation barred the rights of the twelve
bedesmen to any increase of income arising from the increased value of
property. He said something about tradition; more of the many learned
men who by their practice had confirmed the present arrangement;
then went at some length into the propriety of maintaining the due
difference in rank and income between a beneficed clergyman and
certain poor old men who were dependent on charity; and concluded his
argument by another reference to the archdeacon.
The precentor sat thoughtfully gazing at the fire, and listening to
the good-natured reasoning of his friend. What the bishop said had a
sort of comfort in it, but it was not a sustaining comfort. It made
Mr Harding feel that many others,--indeed, all others of his own
order,--would think him right; but it failed to prove to him that he
truly was so.
"Bishop," said he, at last, after both had sat silent for a while, "I
should deceive you and myself too, if I did not tell you that I am
very unhappy about this. Suppose that I cannot bring myself to agree
with Dr Grantly!--that I find, after inquiry, that the young man is
right, and that I am wrong,--what then?"
The two old men were sitting near each other,--so near that the bishop
was able to lay his hand upon the other's knee, and he did so with a
gentle pressure. Mr Harding well knew what that pressure meant. The
bishop had no further argument to adduce; he could not fight for the
cause as his son would do; he could not prove all the precentor's
doubts to be groundless; but he could sympathise with his friend, and
he did so; and Mr Harding felt that he had received that for which he
came. There was another period of silence, after which the bishop
asked, with a degree of irritable energy, very unusual with him,
whether this "pestilent intruder" (meaning John Bold) had any friends
in Barchester.
Mr Harding had fully made up his mind to tell the bishop everything;
to speak of his daughter's love, as well as his own troubles; to talk
of John Bold in his double capacity of future son-in-law and present
enemy; and though he felt it to be sufficiently disagreeable, now was
his time to do it.
"He is very intimate at my own house, bishop." The bishop stared. He
was not so far gone in orthodoxy and church militancy as his son, but
still he could not bring himself to understand how so declared an
enemy of the establishment could be admitted on terms of intimacy into
the house, not only of so firm a pillar as Mr Harding, but one so much
injured as the warden of the hospital.
"Indeed, I like Mr Bold much, personally," continued the disinterested
victim; "and to tell you the 'truth,'"--he hesitated as he brought out
the dreadful tidings,--"I have sometimes thought it not improbable
that he would be my second son-in-law." The bishop did not whistle:
we believe that they lose the power of doing so on being consecrated;
and that in these days one might as easily meet a corrupt judge as a
whistling bishop; but he looked as though he would have done so, but
for his apron.
What a brother-in-law for the archdeacon! what an alliance for
Barchester close! what a connection for even the episcopal palace!
The bishop, in his simple mind, felt no doubt that John Bold, had he
so much power, would shut up all cathedrals, and probably all parish
churches; distribute all tithes among Methodists, Baptists, and other
savage tribes; utterly annihilate the sacred bench, and make shovel
hats and lawn sleeves as illegal as cowls, sandals, and sackcloth!
Here was a nice man to be initiated into the comfortable arcana of
ecclesiastical snuggeries; one who doubted the integrity of parsons,
and probably disbelieved the Trinity!
Mr Harding saw what an effect his communication had made, and almost
repented the openness of his disclosure; he, however, did what he
could to moderate the grief of his friend and patron. "I do not say
that there is any engagement between them. Had there been, Eleanor
would have told me; I know her well enough to be assured that she
would have done so; but I see that they are fond of each other; and
as a man and a father, I have had no objection to urge against their
intimacy."
"But, Mr Harding," said the bishop, "how are you to oppose him, if he
is your son-in-law?"
"I don't mean to oppose him; it is he who opposes me; if anything is
to be done in defence, I suppose Chadwick will do it. I suppose--"
"Oh, the archdeacon will see to that: were the young man twice his
brother-in-law, the archdeacon will never be deterred from doing what
he feels to be right."
Mr Harding reminded the bishop that the archdeacon and the reformer
were not yet brothers, and very probably never would be; exacted from
him a promise that Eleanor's name should not be mentioned in any
discussion between the father bishop and son archdeacon respecting the
hospital; and then took his departure, leaving his poor old friend
bewildered, amazed, and confounded.