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