The Rubbish Cart
Mr. Harding was not a happy man as he walked down the palace pathway
and stepped out into the close. His preferment and pleasant house
were a second time gone from him, but that he could endure. He had
been schooled and insulted by a man young enough to be his son, but
that he could put up with. He could even draw from the very injuries
which had been inflicted on him some of that consolation which we
may believe martyrs always receive from the injustice of their own
sufferings, and which is generally proportioned in its strength
to the extent of cruelty with which martyrs are treated. He had
admitted to his daughter that he wanted the comfort of his old home,
and yet he could have returned to his lodgings in the High Street, if
not with exaltation, at least with satisfaction, had that been all.
But the venom of the chaplain's harangue had worked into his blood,
and sapped the life of his sweet contentment.
"New men are carrying out new measures and are carting away the
useless rubbish of past centuries!" What cruel words these had been;
and how often are they now used with all the heartless cruelty of a
Slope! A man is sufficiently condemned if it can only be shown that
either in politics or religion he does not belong to some new school
established within the last score of years. He may then regard
himself as rubbish and expect to be carted away. A man is nothing
now unless he has within him a full appreciation of the new era, an
era in which it would seem that neither honesty nor truth is very
desirable, but in which success is the only touchstone of merit. We
must laugh at everything that is established. Let the joke be ever
so bad, ever so untrue to the real principles of joking; nevertheless
we must laugh--or else beware the cart. We must talk, think, and
live up to the spirit of the times, and write up to it too, if
that cacoethes be upon us, or else we are nought. New men and new
measures, long credit and few scruples, great success or wonderful
ruin, such are now the tastes of Englishmen who know how to live.
Alas, alas! Under such circumstances Mr. Harding could not but
feel that he was an Englishman who did not know how to live. This
new doctrine of Mr. Slope and the rubbish cart, new at least at
Barchester, sadly disturbed his equanimity.
"The same thing is going on throughout the whole country! Work is now
required from every man who receives wages!" And had he been living
all his life receiving wages and doing no work? Had he in truth so
lived as to be now in his old age justly reckoned as rubbish fit only
to be hidden away in some huge dust-hole? The school of men to whom
he professes to belong, the Grantlys, the Gwynnes, and the old high
set of Oxford divines, are afflicted with no such self-accusations as
these which troubled Mr. Harding. They, as a rule, are as satisfied
with the wisdom and propriety of their own conduct as can be any
Mr. Slope, or any Dr. Proudie, with his own. But unfortunately for
himself Mr. Harding had little of this self-reliance. When he heard
himself designated as rubbish by the Slopes of the world, he had no
other resource than to make inquiry within his own bosom as to the
truth of the designation. Alas, alas! The evidence seemed generally
to go against him.
He had professed to himself in the bishop's parlour that in these
coming sources of the sorrow of age, in these fits of sad regret from
which the latter years of few reflecting men can be free, religion
would suffice to comfort him. Yes, religion could console him for
the loss of any worldly good, but was his religion of that active
sort which would enable him so to repent of misspent years as to pass
those that were left to him in a spirit of hope for the future? And
such repentance itself, is it not a work of agony and of tears? It
is very easy to talk of repentance, but a man has to walk over hot
ploughshares before he can complete it; to be skinned alive as was
St. Bartholomew; to be stuck full of arrows as was St. Sebastian; to
lie broiling on a gridiron like St. Lorenzo! How if his past life
required such repentance as this? Had he the energy to go through
with it?
Mr. Harding, after leaving the palace, walked slowly for an hour or
so beneath the shady elms of the close and then betook himself to his
daughter's house. He had at any rate made up his mind that he would
go out to Plumstead to consult Dr. Grantly, and that he would in the
first instance tell Eleanor what had occurred.
And now he was doomed to undergo another misery. Mr. Slope had
forestalled him at the widow's house. He had called there on the
preceding afternoon. He could not, he had said, deny himself the
pleasure of telling Mrs. Bold that her father was about to return to
the pretty house at Hiram's Hospital. He had been instructed by the
bishop to inform Mr. Harding that the appointment would now be made
at once. The bishop was of course only too happy to be able to be
the means of restoring to Mr. Harding the preferment which he had
so long adorned. And then by degrees Mr. Slope had introduced the
subject of the pretty school which he hoped before long to see
attached to the hospital. He had quite fascinated Mrs. Bold by his
description of this picturesque, useful, and charitable appendage,
and she had gone so far as to say that she had no doubt her father
would approve, and that she herself would gladly undertake a class.
Anyone who had heard the entirely different tone and seen the
entirely different manner in which Mr. Slope had spoken of this
projected institution to the daughter and to the father could not
have failed to own that Mr. Slope was a man of genius. He said
nothing to Mrs. Bold about the hospital sermons and services, nothing
about the exclusion of the old men from the cathedral, nothing about
dilapidation and painting, nothing about carting away the rubbish.
Eleanor had said to herself that certainly she did not like Mr. Slope
personally, but that he was a very active, zealous clergyman and
would no doubt be useful in Barchester. All this paved the way for
much additional misery to Mr. Harding.
Eleanor put on her happiest face as she heard her father on the
stairs, for she thought she had only to congratulate him; but
directly she saw his face she knew that there was but little matter
for congratulation. She had seen him with the same weary look of
sorrow on one or two occasions before, and remembered it well. She
had seen him when he first read that attack upon himself in "The
Jupiter" which had ultimately caused him to resign the hospital, and
she had seen him also when the archdeacon had persuaded him to remain
there against his own sense of propriety and honour. She knew at a
glance that his spirit was in deep trouble.
"Oh, Papa, what is it?" said she, putting down her boy to crawl upon
the floor.
"I came to tell you, my dear," said he, "that I am going out to
Plumstead: you won't come with me, I suppose?"
"To Plumstead, Papa? Shall you stay there?"
"I suppose I shall, to-night: I must consult the archdeacon about
this weary hospital. Ah me! I wish I had never thought of it
again."
"Why, Papa, what is the matter?"
"I've been with Mr. Slope, my dear, and he isn't the pleasantest
companion in the world, at least not to me." Eleanor gave a sort of
half-blush, but she was wrong if she imagined that her father in any
way alluded to her acquaintance with Mr. Slope.
"Well, Papa."
"He wants to turn the hospital into a Sunday-school and a
preaching-house, and I suppose he will have his way. I do not feel
myself adapted for such an establishment, and therefore, I suppose,
I must refuse the appointment."
"What would be the harm of the school, Papa?"
"The want of a proper schoolmaster, my dear."
"But that would of course be supplied."
"Mr. Slope wishes to supply it by making me his schoolmaster. But as
I am hardly fit for such work, I intend to decline."
"Oh, Papa! Mr. Slope doesn't intend that. He was here yesterday, and
what he intends--"
"He was here yesterday, was he?" asked Mr. Harding.
"Yes, Papa."
"And talking about the hospital?"
"He was saying how glad he would be, and the bishop too, to see you
back there again. And then he spoke about the Sunday-school; and to
tell the truth I agreed with him; and I thought you would have done
so too. Mr. Slope spoke of a school, not inside the hospital, but
just connected with it, of which you would be the patron and visitor;
and I thought you would have liked such a school as that; and I
promised to look after it and to take a class--and it all seemed so
very--. But, oh, Papa! I shall be so miserable if I find I have
done wrong."
"Nothing wrong at all, my dear," said he gently, very gently
rejecting his daughter's caress. "There can be nothing wrong in your
wishing to make yourself useful; indeed, you ought to do so by all
means. Everyone must now exert himself who would not choose to go to
the wall." Poor Mr. Harding thus attempted in his misery to preach
the new doctrine to his child. "Himself or herself, it's all the
same," he continued; "you will be quite right, my dear, to do
something of this sort; but--"
"Well, Papa."
"I am not quite sure that if I were you I would select Mr. Slope for
my guide."
"But I never have done so and never shall."
"It would be very wicked of me to speak evil of him, for to tell
the truth I know no evil of him; but I am not quite sure that he is
honest. That he is not gentlemanlike in his manners, of that I am
quite sure."
"I never thought of taking him for my guide, Papa."
"As for myself, my dear," continued he, "we know the old
proverb--'It's bad teaching an old dog tricks.' I must decline the
Sunday-school, and shall therefore probably decline the hospital also.
But I will first see your brother-in-law." So he took up his hat,
kissed the baby, and withdrew, leaving Eleanor in as low spirits as
himself.
All this was a great aggravation to his misery. He had so few with
whom to sympathize that he could not afford to be cut off from the
one whose sympathy was of the most value to him. And yet it seemed
probable that this would be the case. He did not own to himself that
he wished his daughter to hate Mr. Slope, yet had she expressed such
a feeling there would have been very little bitterness in the rebuke
he would have given her for so uncharitable a state of mind. The
fact, however, was that she was on friendly terms with Mr. Slope,
that she coincided with his views, adhered at once to his plans, and
listened with delight to his teaching. Mr. Harding hardly wished his
daughter to hate the man, but he would have preferred that to her
loving him.
He walked away to the inn to order a fly, went home to put up his
carpet-bag, and then started for Plumstead. There was, at any rate,
no danger that the archdeacon would fraternize with Mr. Slope;
but then he would recommend internecine war, public appeals, loud
reproaches, and all the paraphernalia of open battle. Now that
alternative was hardly more to Mr. Harding's taste than the other.
When Mr. Harding reached the parsonage, he found that the archdeacon
was out, and would not be home till dinnertime, so he began his
complaint to his elder daughter. Mrs. Grantly entertained quite as
strong an antagonism to Mr. Slope as did her husband; she was also
quite as alive to the necessity of combating the Proudie faction, of
supporting the old church interest of the close, of keeping in her
own set such of the loaves and fishes as duly belonged to it; and
was quite as well prepared as her lord to carry on the battle
without giving or taking quarter. Not that she was a woman prone
to quarrelling, or ill-inclined to live at peace with her clerical
neighbours; but she felt, as did the archdeacon, that the presence
of Mr. Slope in Barchester was an insult to everyone connected with
the late bishop, and that his assumed dominion in the diocese was a
spiritual injury to her husband. Hitherto people had little guessed
how bitter Mrs. Grantly could be. She lived on the best of terms
with all the rectors' wives around her. She had been popular with
all the ladies connected with the close. Though much the wealthiest
of the ecclesiastical matrons of the county, she had so managed her
affairs that her carriage and horses had given umbrage to none. She
had never thrown herself among the county grandees so as to excite
the envy of other clergymen's wives. She never talked too loudly of
earls and countesses, or boasted that she gave her governess sixty
pounds a year, or her cook seventy. Mrs. Grantly had lived the life
of a wise, discreet, peace-making woman, and the people of Barchester
were surprised at the amount of military vigour she displayed as
general of the feminine Grantlyite forces.
Mrs. Grantly soon learned that her sister Eleanor had promised to
assist Mr. Slope in the affairs of the hospital school, and it was on
this point that her attention first fixed itself.
"How can Eleanor endure him?" said she.
"He is a very crafty man," said her father, "and his craft has been
successful in making Eleanor think that he is a meek, charitable,
good clergyman. God forgive me, if I wrong him, but such is not his
true character in my opinion."
"His true character, indeed!" said she, with something approaching
scorn for her father's moderation. "I only hope he won't have craft
enough to make Eleanor forget herself and her position."
"Do you mean marry him?" said he, startled out of his usual demeanour
by the abruptness and horror of so dreadful a proposition.
"What is there so improbable in it? Of course that would be his own
object if he thought he had any chance of success. Eleanor has a
thousand a year entirely at her own disposal, and what better fortune
could fall to Mr. Slope's lot than the transferring of the disposal
of such a fortune to himself?"
"But you can't think she likes him, Susan?"
"Why not?" said Susan. "Why shouldn't she like him? He's just the
sort of man to get on with a woman left, as she is, with no one to
look after her."
"Look after her!" said the unhappy father; "don't we look after her?"
"Ah, Papa, how innocent you are! Of course it was to be expected
that Eleanor should marry again. I should be the last to advise her
against it, if she would only wait the proper time, and then marry at
least a gentleman."
"But you don't really mean to say that you suppose Eleanor has ever
thought of marrying Mr. Slope? Why, Mr. Bold has only been dead a
year."
"Eighteen months," said his daughter. "But I don't suppose Eleanor
has ever thought about it. It is very probable, though, that he has;
and that he will try and make her do so; and that he will succeed
too, if we don't take care what we are about."
This was quite a new phase of the affair to poor Mr. Harding. To have
thrust upon him as his son-in-law, as the husband of his favourite
child, the only man in the world whom he really positively disliked,
would be a misfortune which he felt he would not know how to endure
patiently. But then, could there be any ground for so dreadful a
surmise? In all worldly matters he was apt to look upon the opinion
of his eldest daughter as one generally sound and trustworthy. In her
appreciation of character, of motives, and the probable conduct both of
men and women, she was usually not far wrong. She had early foreseen
the marriage of Eleanor and John Bold; she had at a glance deciphered
the character of the new bishop and his chaplain; could it possibly be
that her present surmise should ever come forth as true?
"But you don't think that she likes him?" said Mr. Harding again.
"Well, Papa, I can't say that I think she dislikes him as she ought
to do. Why is he visiting there as a confidential friend, when he
never ought to have been admitted inside the house? Why is it that
she speaks to him about your welfare and your position, as she clearly
has done? At the bishop's party the other night I saw her talking to
him for half an hour at the stretch."
"I thought Mr. Slope seemed to talk to nobody there but that daughter
of Stanhope's," said Mr. Harding, wishing to defend his child.
"Oh, Mr. Slope is a cleverer man than you think of, Papa, and keeps
more than one iron in the fire."
To give Eleanor her due, any suspicion as to the slightest
inclination on her part towards Mr. Slope was a wrong to her. She
had no more idea of marrying Mr. Slope than she had of marrying
the bishop, and the idea that Mr. Slope would present himself as a
suitor had never occurred to her. Indeed, to give her her due again,
she had never thought about suitors since her husband's death. But
nevertheless it was true that she had overcome all that repugnance to
the man which was so strongly felt for him by the rest of the Grantly
faction. She had forgiven him his sermon. She had forgiven him
his Low Church tendencies, his Sabbath-schools, and puritanical
observances. She had forgiven his pharisaical arrogance, and even his
greasy face and oily, vulgar manners. Having agreed to overlook such
offences as these, why should she not in time be taught to regard Mr.
Slope as a suitor?
And as to him, it must also be affirmed that he was hitherto equally
innocent of the crime imputed to him. How it had come to pass that a
man whose eyes were generally so widely open to everything around him
had not perceived that this young widow was rich as well as beautiful,
cannot probably now be explained. But such was the fact. Mr. Slope
had ingratiated himself with Mrs. Bold, merely as he had done
with other ladies, in order to strengthen his party in the city.
He subsequently amended his error, but it was not till after the
interview between him and Mr. Harding.