SIR ABRAHAM HAPHAZARD
Mr Harding was shown into a comfortable inner sitting-room, looking
more like a gentleman's book-room than a lawyer's chambers, and there
waited for Sir Abraham. Nor was he kept waiting long: in ten or
fifteen minutes he heard a clatter of voices speaking quickly in the
passage, and then the attorney-general entered.
"Very sorry to keep you waiting, Mr Warden," said Sir Abraham, shaking
hands with him; "and sorry, too, to name so disagreeable an hour;
but your notice was short, and as you said to-day, I named the very
earliest hour that was not disposed of."
Mr Harding assured him that he was aware that it was he that should
apologise.
Sir Abraham was a tall thin man, with hair prematurely gray, but
bearing no other sign of age; he had a slight stoop, in his neck
rather than his back, acquired by his constant habit of leaning
forward as he addressed his various audiences. He might be fifty
years old, and would have looked young for his age, had not constant
work hardened his features, and given him the appearance of a machine
with a mind. His face was full of intellect, but devoid of natural
expression. You would say he was a man to use, and then have done
with; a man to be sought for on great emergencies, but ill-adapted for
ordinary services; a man whom you would ask to defend your property,
but to whom you would be sorry to confide your love. He was bright
as a diamond, and as cutting, and also as unimpressionable. He knew
everyone whom to know was an honour, but he was without a friend; he
wanted none, however, and knew not the meaning of the word in other
than its parliamentary sense. A friend! Had he not always been
sufficient to himself, and now, at fifty, was it likely that he should
trust another? He was married, indeed, and had children, but what
time had he for the soft idleness of conjugal felicity? His working
days or term times were occupied from his time of rising to the late
hour at which he went to rest, and even his vacations were more full
of labour than the busiest days of other men. He never quarrelled
with his wife, but he never talked to her;--he never had time to talk,
he was so taken up with speaking. She, poor lady, was not unhappy;
she had all that money could give her, she would probably live to be
a peeress, and she really thought Sir Abraham the best of husbands.
Sir Abraham was a man of wit, and sparkled among the brightest at
the dinner-tables of political grandees: indeed, he always sparkled;
whether in society, in the House of Commons, or the courts of law,
coruscations flew from him; glittering sparkles, as from hot steel,
but no heat; no cold heart was ever cheered by warmth from him, no
unhappy soul ever dropped a portion of its burden at his door.
With him success alone was praiseworthy, and he knew none so
successful as himself. No one had thrust him forward; no powerful
friends had pushed him along on his road to power. No; he was
attorney-general, and would, in all human probability, be lord
chancellor by sheer dint of his own industry and his own talent. Who
else in all the world rose so high with so little help? A premier,
indeed! Who had ever been premier without mighty friends? An
archbishop! Yes, the son or grandson of a great noble, or else,
probably, his tutor. But he, Sir Abraham, had had no mighty lord
at his back; his father had been a country apothecary, his mother a
farmer's daughter. Why should he respect any but himself? And so he
glitters along through the world, the brightest among the bright; and
when his glitter is gone, and he is gathered to his fathers, no eye
will be dim with a tear, no heart will mourn for its lost friend.
"And so, Mr Warden," said Sir Abraham, "all our trouble about this
lawsuit is at an end."
Mr Harding said he hoped so, but he didn't at all understand what Sir
Abraham meant. Sir Abraham, with all his sharpness, could not have
looked into his heart and read his intentions.
"All over. You need trouble yourself no further about it; of course
they must pay the costs, and the absolute expense to you and Dr
Grantly will be trifling,--that is, compared with what it might have
been if it had been continued."
"I fear I don't quite understand you, Sir Abraham."
"Don't you know that their attorneys have noticed us that they have
withdrawn the suit?"
Mr Harding explained to the lawyer that he knew nothing of this,
although he had heard in a roundabout way that such an intention had
been talked of; and he also at length succeeded in making Sir Abraham
understand that even this did not satisfy him. The attorney-general
stood up, put his hands into his breeches' pockets, and raised his
eyebrows, as Mr Harding proceeded to detail the grievance from which
he now wished to rid himself.
"I know I have no right to trouble you personally with this matter,
but as it is of most vital importance to me, as all my happiness is
concerned in it, I thought I might venture to seek your advice."
Sir Abraham bowed, and declared his clients were entitled to the best
advice he could give them; particularly a client so respectable in
every way as the Warden of Barchester Hospital.
"A spoken word, Sir Abraham, is often of more value than volumes of
written advice. The truth is, I am ill-satisfied with this matter
as it stands at present. I do see--I cannot help seeing, that the
affairs of the hospital are not arranged according to the will of the
founder."
"None of such institutions are, Mr Harding, nor can they be; the
altered circumstances in which we live do not admit of it."
"Quite true--that is quite true; but I can't see that those altered
circumstances give me a right to eight hundred a year. I don't know
whether I ever read John Hiram's will, but were I to read it now I
could not understand it. What I want you, Sir Abraham, to tell me,
is this:--am I, as warden, legally and distinctly entitled to the
proceeds of the property, after the due maintenance of the twelve
bedesmen?"
Sir Abraham declared that he couldn't exactly say in so many words
that Mr Harding was legally entitled to, &c., &c., &c., and ended in
expressing a strong opinion that it would be madness to raise any
further question on the matter, as the suit was to be,--nay, was,
abandoned.
Mr Harding, seated in his chair, began to play a slow tune on an
imaginary violoncello.
"Nay, my dear sir," continued the attorney-general, "there is no
further ground for any question; I don't see that you have the power
of raising it."
"I can resign," said Mr Harding, slowly playing away with his right
hand, as though the bow were beneath the chair in which he was
sitting.
"What! throw it up altogether?" said the attorney-general, gazing with
utter astonishment at his client.
"Did you see those articles in _The Jupiter_?" said Mr Harding,
piteously, appealing to the sympathy of the lawyer.
Sir Abraham said he had seen them. This poor little clergyman, cowed
into such an act of extreme weakness by a newspaper article, was to
Sir Abraham so contemptible an object, that he hardly knew how to talk
to him as to a rational being.
"Hadn't you better wait," said he, "till Dr Grantly is in town with
you? Wouldn't it be better to postpone any serious step till you can
consult with him?"
Mr Harding declared vehemently that he could not wait, and Sir Abraham
began seriously to doubt his sanity.
"Of course," said the latter, "if you have private means sufficient
for your wants, and if this--"
"I haven't a sixpence, Sir Abraham," said the warden.
"God bless me! Why, Mr Harding, how do you mean to live?"
Mr Harding proceeded to explain to the man of law that he meant to
keep his precentorship,--that was eighty pounds a year; and, also,
that he meant to fall back upon his own little living of Crabtree,
which was another eighty pounds. That, to be sure, the duties of the
two were hardly compatible; but perhaps he might effect an exchange.
And then, recollecting that the attorney-general would hardly care to
hear how the service of a cathedral church is divided among the minor
canons, stopped short in his explanations.
Sir Abraham listened in pitying wonder. "I really think, Mr Harding,
you had better wait for the archdeacon. This is a most serious
step,--one for which, in my opinion, there is not the slightest
necessity; and, as you have done me the honour of asking my advice, I
must implore you to do nothing without the approval of your friends.
A man is never the best judge of his own position."
"A man is the best judge of what he feels himself. I'd sooner beg my
bread till my death than read such another article as those two that
have appeared, and feel, as I do, that the writer has truth on his
side."
"Have you not a daughter, Mr Harding--an unmarried daughter?"
"I have," said he, now standing also, but still playing away on his
fiddle with his hand behind his back. "I have, Sir Abraham; and she
and I are completely agreed on this subject."
"Pray excuse me, Mr Harding, if what I say seems impertinent; but
surely it is you that should be prudent on her behalf. She is young,
and does not know the meaning of living on an income of a hundred and
sixty pounds a year. On her account give up this idea. Believe me,
it is sheer Quixotism."
The warden walked away to the window, and then back to his chair; and
then, irresolute what to say, took another turn to the window. The
attorney-general was really extremely patient, but he was beginning to
think that the interview had been long enough.
"But if this income be not justly mine, what if she and I have both to
beg?" said the warden at last, sharply, and in a voice so different
from that he had hitherto used, that Sir Abraham was startled. "If
so, it would be better to beg."
"My dear sir, nobody now questions its justness."
"Yes, Sir Abraham, one does question it,--the most important of all
witnesses against me;--I question it myself. My God knows whether or
no I love my daughter; but I would sooner that she and I should both
beg, than that she should live in comfort on money which is truly the
property of the poor. It may seem strange to you, Sir Abraham, it is
strange to myself, that I should have been ten years in that happy
home, and not have thought of these things till they were so roughly
dinned into my ears. I cannot boast of my conscience, when it
required the violence of a public newspaper to awaken it; but, now
that it is awake, I must obey it. When I came here, I did not know
that the suit was withdrawn by Mr Bold, and my object was to beg
you to abandon my defence. As there is no action, there can be no
defence; but it is, at any rate, as well that you should know that
from to-morrow I shall cease to be the warden of the hospital. My
friends and I differ on this subject, Sir Abraham, and that adds much
to my sorrow; but it cannot be helped." And, as he finished what he
had to say, he played up such a tune as never before had graced the
chambers of any attorney-general. He was standing up, gallantly
fronting Sir Abraham, and his right arm passed with bold and rapid
sweeps before him, as though he were embracing some huge instrument,
which allowed him to stand thus erect; and with the fingers of his
left hand he stopped, with preternatural velocity, a multitude of
strings, which ranged from the top of his collar to the bottom of
the lappet of his coat. Sir Abraham listened and looked in wonder.
As he had never before seen Mr Harding, the meaning of these wild
gesticulations was lost upon him; but he perceived that the gentleman
who had a few minutes since been so subdued as to be unable to speak
without hesitation, was now impassioned,--nay, almost violent.
"You'll sleep on this, Mr Harding, and to-morrow--"
"I have done more than sleep upon it," said the warden; "I have lain
awake upon it, and that night after night. I found I could not sleep
upon it: now I hope to do so."
The attorney-general had no answer to make to this; so he expressed
a quiet hope that whatever settlement was finally made would be
satisfactory; and Mr Harding withdrew, thanking the great man for
his kind attention.
Mr Harding was sufficiently satisfied with the interview to feel a
glow of comfort as he descended into the small old square of Lincoln's
Inn. It was a calm, bright, beautiful night, and by the light of
the moon, even the chapel of Lincoln's Inn, and the sombre row of
chambers, which surround the quadrangle, looked well. He stood still
a moment to collect his thoughts, and reflect on what he had done,
and was about to do. He knew that the attorney-general regarded him
as little better than a fool, but that he did not mind; he and the
attorney-general had not much in common between them; he knew also
that others, whom he did care about, would think so too; but Eleanor,
he was sure, would exult in what he had done, and the bishop, he
trusted, would sympathise with him.
In the meantime he had to meet the archdeacon, and so he walked slowly
down Chancery Lane and along Fleet Street, feeling sure that his work
for the night was not yet over. When he reached the hotel he rang the
bell quietly, and with a palpitating heart; he almost longed to escape
round the corner, and delay the coming storm by a further walk round
St Paul's Churchyard, but he heard the slow creaking shoes of the old
waiter approaching, and he stood his ground manfully.