ANOTHER LOVE SCENE
But there was another visitor at the rectory whose feelings in this
unfortunate matter must be somewhat strictly analysed. Mr Arabin
had heard from his friend of the probability of Eleanor's marriage
with Mr Slope with amazement, but not with incredulity. It has been
said that he was not in love with Eleanor, and up to this period
this certainly had been true. But as soon as he heard that she
loved some one else, he began to be very fond of her himself. He
did not make up his mind that he wished to have her for his wife;
he had never thought of her, and did not know how to think of her,
in connection with himself; but he experienced an inward
indefinable feeling of deep regret, a gnawing sorrow, and
unconquerable depression of spirits, and also a species of
self-abasement that he--he Mr Arabin--had not done something to
prevent that other he, that vile he, whom he so thoroughly
despised, from carrying off his sweet prize.
Whatever man may have reached the age of forty unmarried without
knowing something of such feelings must have been very successful
or else very cold hearted.
Mr Arabin had never thought of trimming the sails of his bark so
that he might sail as convoy to this rich argosy. He had seen that
Mrs Bold was beautiful, but he had not dreamt of making her beauty
his own. He knew that Mrs Bold was rich, but he had no more idea of
appropriating her wealth than that of Dr Grantly. He had discovered
that Mrs Bold was intelligent, warm-hearted, agreeable, sensible,
all, in fact, that a man could wish his wife to be; but the higher
were her attractions, the greater her claims to consideration, the
less had he imagined that he might possible become the possessor of
them. Such had been his instinct rather than his thoughts, so
humble and so diffident. Now his diffidence was to be rewarded by
his seeing this woman, whose beauty was to his eyes perfect, whose
wealth was such as to have deterred him from thinking of her, whose
widowhood would have silenced him had he not been so deterred, by
his seeing her become the prey of--Obadiah Slope!
On the morning of Mrs Bold's departure he got on his horse to ride
over to St Ewold's. As he rode he kept muttering to himself a line
from Van Artevelde:-
How little flattering is woman's love.
And then he strove to recall his mind and to think of other
affairs, his parish, his college, his creed--but his thoughts would
revert to Mrs Bold and the Flemish chieftain:
When we think upon it
How little flattering is woman's love,
Given commonly to whosoe'er is nearest
And propped with most advantage.
It was not that Mrs Bold should marry any one but him; he had not
put himself forward as a suitor; but that she should marry Mr
Slope--and so he repeated over and over again:
Outward grace Nor inward light is needful--day by day Men wanting
both are mated with the best And loftiest of God's feminine
creation, Whose love takes no distinction but of gender And
ridicules the very name of choice.
And so he went on troubled much in his mind.
He had but an uneasy ride of it that morning, and little good did
he do at St Ewold's.
The necessary alterations in his house were being fast completed,
and he walked through the rooms, and went up and down the stairs
and rambled through the garden; but he could not wake himself to
much interest about them. He stood still at every window to look
out and think upon Mr Slope. At almost every window he had before
stood and chatted with Eleanor. She and Mrs Grantly had been there
continually, and while Mrs Grantly had been giving orders, and
seeing that orders had been complied with, he and Eleanor had
conversed on all things appertaining to a clergyman's profession.
He thought how often he had laid down the law to her, and how
sweetly she had borne with somewhat dictatorial decrees. He
remembered her listening intelligence, her gentle but quick
replies, her interest in all that concerned the church, in all that
concerned him; and then he struck his riding whip against the
window sill, and declared to himself that it was impossible that
Eleanor Bold should marry Mr Slope.
And yet he did not really believe, as he should have done, that it
was impossible. He should have known her well enough to feel that
it was truly impossible. He should have been aware that Eleanor had
that within her which would surely protect her from such
degradation. But he, like so many others, was deficient in
confidence in woman. He said to himself over and over again that it
was impossible that Eleanor Bold should become Mrs Slope, and yet
he believed that she would do so. And so he rambled about, and
could do and think of nothing. He was thoroughly uncomfortable,
thoroughly ill at ease, cross with himself and every body else, and
feeding in his heart on animosity towards Mr Slope. This was not as
it should be, as he knew and felt; but he could not help himself.
In truth Mr Arabin was now in love with Mrs Bold, though ignorant
of the fact himself. He was in love, and, though forty years old,
was in love without being aware of it. He fumed and fretted, and
did not know what was the matter, as a youth might do at
one-and-twenty. And so having done no good at St Ewold's, he rode
back much earlier than was usual with him, instigated, by some
inward unacknowledged hope that he might see Mrs Bold before she
left.
Eleanor had not passed a pleasant morning. She was irritated with
every one, and not least with herself. She felt that she had been
hardly used, but she felt also that she had not played her own
cards well. She should have held herself so far above suspicion as
to have received her sister's innuendoes and the archdeacon's
lecture with indifference. She had not done this, but had shown
herself angry and sore, and was now ashamed of her own petulance,
and yet unable to discontinue it.
The greater part of the morning she had spent alone; but after a
while her father joined her. He had fully made up his mind that,
come what might, nothing should separate him from his youngest
daughter. It was a hard task for him to reconcile himself to the
idea of seeing her at the head of Mr Slope's table; but he got
through it. Mr Slope, as he argued to himself, was a respectable
man and a clergyman; and he, as Eleanor's father, had no right even
to endeavour to prevent her from marrying such a one. He longed to
tell her how he had determined to prefer her to all the world, how
he was prepared to admit that she was not wrong, how thoroughly he
differed from Dr Grantly; but he could not bring himself to mention
Mr Slope's name. There was yet a chance that they were all wrong in
their surmise; and, being thus in doubt, he could not bring himself
to speak openly to her on the subject.
He was sitting with her in the drawing-room, with his arm round her
waist, saying now and then some little soft words of affection, and
working hard with his imaginary little fiddle-bow, when Mr Arabin
entered the room. He immediately got up, and the two made some
trifle remarks to each other, neither thinking of what he was
saying, and Eleanor kept her seat on the sofa mute and moody. Mr
Arabin was included in the list of those against whom her anger was
excited. He, too, had dared to talk about her acquaintance with Mr
Slope; he, too, had dared to blame her for not making an enemy of
his enemy. She had not intended to see him before her departure,
and was now but little inclined to be gracious.
There was a feeling through the whole house that something was
wrong. Mr Arabin, when he saw Eleanor, could not succeed in looking
or in speaking as though he knew nothing of all this. He could not
be cheerful and positive and contradictory with her, as was his
wont. He had not been two minutes in the room before he felt that
he had done wrong in return; and the moment he heard her voice, he
thoroughly wished himself back at St Ewold's. Why, indeed, should
he have wished to have aught further to say to the future wife of
Mr Slope?
'I am sorry to hear that you are too leave so soon,' said he,
striving in vain to use his ordinary voice. In answer to this she
muttered something about the necessity of her being in Barchester,
and betook herself industriously to her crochet work.
Then there was a little more trite conversation between Mr Arabin
and Mr Harding; trite, and hard, and vapid, and senseless. Neither
of them had anything to say to the other, and yet neither at such a
moment liked to remain silent. At last Mr Harding, taking advantage
of a pause, escaped from the room, and Eleanor and Mr Arabin were
left together.
'Your going will be a great break-up to our party,' said he.
She again muttered something which was all but inaudible; but kept
her eyes fixed upon her work.
'We have had a very pleasant month her,' said he; 'at least I have;
and I am sorry it should be so soon over.'
'I have already been from home longer than I intended,' she said;
'and it is time that I should return.'
'Well, pleasant hours and pleasant days must come to an end. It is
a pity that so few of them are pleasant; or perhaps rather--'
'It is a pity, certainly, that men and women do so much to destroy
the pleasantness of their days,' said she, interrupting him. 'It is
a pity that there should be so little charity abroad.'
'Charity should begin at home,' said he; and he was proceeding to
explain that he as a clergyman could not be what she would call
charitable at the expense of those principles which he considered
it his duty to teach, when he remembered that it would be worse
than vain to argue on such a matter with the future wife of Mr
Slope. 'But you are just leaving us,' he continued, 'and I will not
weary your last hour with another lecture. As it is, I fear I have
given you too many.'
'You should practise as well as preach, Mr Arabin?'
'Undoubtedly I should. So should we all. All of us who presume to
teach are bound to do our utmost towards fulfilling our own
lessons. I thoroughly allow my deficiency in doing so; but I do not
quite know now to what you allude. Have you any special reason for
telling me now that I should practise as well as preach?'
Eleanor made no answer. She longed to let him know the cause of her
anger, to upbraid him for speaking of her disrespectfully, and then
at last forgive him, and so part friends. She felt that she would
be unhappy to leave him in her present frame of mind; but yet she
could hardly bring herself to speak to him of Mr Slope. And how
could she allude to the innuendo thrown out by the archdeacon, and
thrown out, as she believed, at the instigation of Mr Arabin? She
wanted to make him know that he was wrong, to make him aware that
he had ill-treated her, in order that the sweetness of her
forgiveness might be enhanced. She felt that she liked him too well
to be contented to part with him in displeasure; and yet she could
not get over her deep displeasure without some explanation, some
acknowledgement, on his part, some assurance that he would never
again so sin against her.
'Why do you tell me that I should practise what I preach?'
continued he.
'All men should do so.'
'Certainly. That is as it were understood and acknowledged. But you
do not say so to all men, or to all clergymen. The advice, good as
it is, is not given except in allusion to some special deficiency.
If you will tell me my special deficiency, I will endeavour to
profit by the advice.'
She paused for a while, and then looking full in his face, she
said, 'You are not bold enough, Mr Arabin, to speak out to me
openly and plainly, and yet you expect me, a woman, to speak openly
to you. Why did you speak calumny of me to Dr Grantly behind my
back?'
'Calumny!' said he, and his whole face became suffused with blood;
'what calumny? If I have spoken calumny of you, I will beg your
pardon, and his to whom I spoke it, and God's pardon also. But what
calumny have I spoken of you to Dr Grantly?'
She also blushed deeply. She could not bring herself to ask him
whether he had not spoken of her as another man's wife. 'You know
that best yourself,' said she; 'but I ask you as a man of honour,
if you have not spoken of me as you would not have spoken of your
own sister; or rather I will not ask you,' she continued, finding
that he did not immediately answer her. 'I will not put you to the
necessity of answering such a question. Dr Grantly has told me what
you said.'
'Dr Grantly certainly asked me for my advice, and I gave it. He
asked me--'
'I know he did, Mr Arabin. He asked you whether he would be doing
right to receive me at Plumstead, if I continued my acquaintance
with a gentleman who happens to be personally disagreeable to
yourself and to him?'
'You are mistaken, Mrs Bold. I have no personal knowledge of Mr
Slope; I have never met him in my life.'
'You are not the less individually hostile to him. It is not for me
to question the propriety of your enmity; but I had a right to
expect that my name should not have been mixed up in your
hostilities. This has been done, and been done by you in a manner
the most injurious and the most distressing to a woman. I must
confess, Mr Arabin, that from you I expected a different sort of
usage.'
As she spoke she with difficulty restrained her tears; but she did
restrain them. Had she given way and sobbed about, as in such cases
a woman should do, he would have melted at once, implored her
pardon, perhaps knelt at her feet and declared his love. Everything
would have been explained, and Eleanor would have gone back to
Barchester with a contented mind. How easily would she have
forgiven and forgotten the archdeacon's suspicions had she but
heard the whole truth of it from Mr Arabin. But then where would
have been my novel? She did not cry, and Mr Arabin did not melt.
'You do me an injustice,' said he. 'My advice was asked by Dr
Grantly, and I was obliged to give it.'
'Dr Grantly has been most officious, most impertinent. I have as
complete a right to form my acquaintance as he has to form his.
What would you have said, had I consulted you as to the propriety
of banishing Dr Grantly from my house because he knows Lord
Tattenham Corner? I am sure Lord Tattenham is quite as
objectionable an acquaintance for a clergyman as Mr Slope is for a
clergyman's daughter.'
'I do not know Lord Tattenham Corner.'
'No; but Dr Grantly does. It is nothing to me if he knows all the
young lords on every racecourse in England. I shall not interfere
with him; nor shall he with me.'
'I am sorry to differ with you, Mrs Bold; but as you have spoken to
me on this matter, and especially as you blame me for what little I
said on the subject, I must tell you that I do differ from you. Dr
Grantly's position as a man in the world gives him a right to
choose his own acquaintances, subject to certain influences. If he
chooses them badly, those influences will be used. If he consorts
with persons unsuitable to him, his bishop will interfere. What the
bishop is to Dr Grantly, Dr Grantly is to you.'
'I deny it. I utterly deny it,' said Eleanor, jumping from her
seat, and literally flashing before Mr Arabin, as she stood on the
drawing-room floor. He had never seen her so excited, he had never
seen her look so beautiful.
'I utterly deny it,' said she. 'Dr Grantly has no sort of
jurisdiction over me whatsoever. Do you and he forget that I am not
altogether alone in this world? Do you forget that I have a father?
Dr Grantly, I believe, always has forgotten it.'
'From you, Mr Arabin,' she continued, 'I would have listened to
advice because I should have expected it to have been given as one
friend may advise another; not as a schoolmaster gives an order to
a pupil. I might have differed from you; on this matter I should
have done so; but had you spoken to me in your usual manner and
with your usual freedom I should not have been angry. But now--was
it manly of you, Mr Arabin, to speak of me in this way--, so
disrespectful--so--? I cannot bring myself to repeat what you said.
You must understand what I feel. Was it just of you to speak of me
in such a way, and to advise my sister's husband to turn me out of
my sister's house because I chose to know a man of whose doctrine
you disapprove?'
'I have no alternative left to me, Mrs Bold,' said he, standing
with his back to the fire-place, looking down intently at the
carpet pattern and speaking with a slow measured voice, 'but to
tell you plainly what did take place between me and Dr Grantly.'
'Well,' said she, finding that he paused for a moment.
'I am afraid that what I may say may pain you.'
'It cannot well do so more than what you have already done,' said
she.
'Dr Grantly asked me whether I thought it would be prudent for him
to receive you in his house as the wife of Mr Slope, and I told him
that I thought it would be imprudent. Believing it to be utterly
impossible that Mr Slope and--'
'Thank you, Mr Arabin, that is sufficient. I do not want to know
your reasons,' said she, speaking with a terribly calm voice. 'I
have shown to this gentleman the common-place civility of a
neighbour; and because I have done so, because I have not indulged
against him in all the rancour and hatred which you and Dr Grantly
consider due to all clergymen who do not agree with yourselves, you
conclude that I am to marry him;--or rather you do not conclude
so--no rational man could really come to such an outrageous
conclusion without better ground;--you have not thought so--but, as
I am in a position in which such an accusation must be peculiarly
painful, it is made in order that I may be terrified into hostility
against this enemy of yours.'
As she finished speaking, she walked to the drawing-room window,
and stepped out into the garden. Mr Arabin was left in the room,
still occupied in counting the pattern on the carpet. He had,
however, distinctly heard and accurately marked every word that she
had spoken. Was it not clear from what she had said, that the
archdeacon had been wrong in imputing to her any attachment to Mr
Slope? Was it not clear that Eleanor was still free to make another
choice? It may seem strange that he should for a moment have had a
doubt; and yet he did doubt. She had not absolutely denied the
charge; she had not expressly said that it was untrue. Mr Arabin
understood little of the nature of a woman's feelings, or he would
have known how improbable it was that she should make any clearer
declarations than she had done. Few men do understand the nature of
a woman's heart, till years have robbed such understanding of its
value. And it is well that it should be so, or men would triumph
too easily.
Mr Arabin stood counting the carpet, unhappy, wretchedly unhappy,
at the hard words that had been spoken to him; and yet happy,
exquisitely happy, as he thought that after all the woman whom he
so regarded was not to become the wife of the man whom he so much
disliked. As he stood there he began to be aware that he was
himself in love. Forty years had passed over his head, and as yet
woman's beauty had never given him an uneasy hour. His present hour
was very uneasy.
Not that he remained there for half or a quarter of that time. In
spite of what Eleanor had said, Mr Arabin was, in truth, a manly
man. Having ascertained that he loved this woman, and having now
reason to believe that she was free to receive his love, at least
if she pleased to do so, he followed her into the garden to make
such wooing as he could.
He was not long in finding her. She was walking to and fro beneath
the avenue of elms that stood in the archdeacon's grounds, skirting
the churchyard. What had passed between her and Mr Arabin, had not,
alas, tended to lessen the acerbity of her spirit. She was very
angry; more angry with him than with any one. How could he have so
misunderstood her? She had been so intimate with him, had allowed
him such latitude in what he had chosen to say to her, had complied
with his ideas, cherished his views, fostered his precepts, cared
for his comforts, made much of him in every way in which a pretty
woman can make much of an unmarried man without committing herself
or her feelings! She had been doing this, and while she had been
doing it he had regarded her as the affianced wife of another man.
As she passed along the avenue, every now and then an unbidden tear
would force itself on her cheek, and as she raised her hand to
brush it away, she stamped with her little foot upon the sward with
very spite to think that she had been so treated.
Mr Arabin was very near to her when she first saw him, that she
turned short round and retraced her steps down the avenue, trying
to rid her cheeks of all trace of the tell-tale tears. It was a
needless endeavour, for Mr Arabin was in a state of mind that
hardly allowed him to observe such trifles. He followed her down
the walk, and overtook her just as she reached the end of it.
He had not considered how he would address her; he had not thought
what he would say. He had only felt that it was wretchedness to him
to quarrel with her, and that it would be happiness to be allowed
to love her. And that he could not lower himself by asking for her
pardon. He had done no wrong. He had not calumniated her, not
injured her, as she had accused him of doing. He could not confess
sins of which had not been guilty. He could only let the past be
past, and ask her as to her and his hopes for the future.
'I hope we are not to part as enemies?' said he.
'There shall be no enmity on my part,' said Eleanor; 'I endeavour
to avoid all enmities. It would be a hollow pretence were I to say
that there can be a true friendship between us after what has just
past. People cannot make their friends of those whom they despise.'
'And am I despised?'
'I must have been so before you could have spoken of me as you did.
And I was deceived, cruelly deceived. I believed that you thought
well of me; I believed that you esteemed me.'
'Thought of you well and esteemed you!' said he. 'In justifying
myself before you, I must use stronger words than those.' He paused
for a moment, and Eleanor's heart beat with painful violence within
her bosom as she waited for him to go on. 'I have esteemed, do
esteem you, as I never esteemed any woman. Think well of you! I
never thought to think so well, so much of any human creature.
Speak calumny of you! Insult you! Wilfully injure you! I wish it
were my privilege to shield you from calumny, insult, and injury.
Calumny! Ah, me. 'Twere almost better that it were so. Better than
to worship with a sinful worship; sinful and vain also.' And then
he walked along beside her, with his hands clasped behind his back,
looking down on the grass beneath his feet, and utterly at a loss
to express his meaning. And Eleanor walked beside him determined at
least to give him no assistance.
'Ah, me!' he uttered at last, speaking rather to himself than to
her. 'Ah, me! These Plumstead walks were pleasant enough, if one
could have but heart's ease; but without that, the dull dead stones
of Oxford were far preferable; and St Ewold's too; Mrs Bold, I am
beginning to think that I mistook myself when I came hither. A
Romish priest now would have escaped all this. Of, Father of
heaven! How good for us would it be, if thou couldest vouchsafe to
us a certain rule.'
'And have we not got a certain rule, Mr Arabin?'
'Yes--yes, surely; "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us
from evil." But what is temptation? what is evil? Is this evil--is
this temptation?'
Poor Mr Arabin! It would not come out of him, that deep true love
of his. He could not bring himself to utter it in plain language
that would require and demand an answer. He knew not how to say to
the woman at his side, 'Since the fact is that you do not love that
other man, that you are not to be his wife, can you love me, will
you be my wife?' These were the words which were in his heart, but
with all his sighs he could not draw them to his lips. He would
have given anything, everything for power to ask this simple
question; but glib as was his tongue in pulpits and on platforms,
now he could not find a word wherewith to express the plain wish of
his heart.
And yet Eleanor understood him as thoroughly as though he had
declared his passion with all the elegant fluency of a practised
Lothario. With a woman's instinct she followed every bend of his
mind, as he spoke of the pleasantness of Plumstead and the stones
of Oxford, as he alluded to the safety of the Romish priest and the
hidden perils of temptation. She knew that it all meant love. She
knew that this man at her side, this accomplished scholar, this
practised orator, this great polemical combatant, was striving and
striving in vain to tell her that his heart was no longer his own.
She knew this, and felt the joy of knowing it; and yet she would
not come to his aid. He had offended her deeply, had treated her
unworthily, the more unworthily seeing that he had learnt to love
her, and Eleanor could not bring herself to abandon her revenge.
She did not ask herself whether or no she would ultimately accept
his love. She did not even acknowledge to herself that she now
perceived it with pleasure. At the present moment it did not touch
her heart; it merely appeased her pride and flattered her vanity.
Mr Arabin had dared to associate her name with that of Mr Slope,
and now her spirit was soothed by finding that he would fain
associate it with his own. And so she walked on beside him inhaling
incense, but giving out no sweetness in return.
'Answer me this,' said Mr Arabin, stopping suddenly in his walk,
and stepping forward so that he faced his companion. 'Answer me
this question. You do not love Mr Slope? You do not intend to be
his wife?'
Mr Arabin certainly did not go the right way to win such a woman as
Eleanor Bold. Just as her wrath was evaporating, as it was
disappearing before the true warmth of his untold love, he
re-kindled it by a most useless repetition of his original sin. Had
he known what he was about he should never have mentioned Mr
Slope's name before Eleanor Bold, till he had made her all his own.
Then, and not till then, he might have talked of Mr Slope with as
much triumph as he chose.
'I shall answer no such question,' said she; 'and what is more, I
must tell you that nothing can justify your asking it. Good
morning!'
And so saying she stepped proudly across the lawn, and passing
through the drawing-room window joined her father and sister at
lunch in the dining-room. Half an hour afterwards she was in the
carriage, and so she left Plumstead without again seeing Mr Arabin.
His walk was long and sad among the sombre trees that overshadowed
the churchyard. He left the archdeacon's grounds that he might
escape attention, and sauntered among the green hillocks under
which lay at rest so many of the once loving swains and forgotten
beauties of Plumstead. To his ears Eleanor's last words sounded
like a knell never to be reversed. He could not comprehend that she
might be angry with him, indignant with him, remorseless with him,
and yet love him. He could not make up his mind whether or no Mr
Slope was in truth a favoured rival. If not, why should she not
have answered his question?
Poor Mr Arabin--untaught, illiterate, boorish, ignorant man! That
at forty years of age you should know so little of the workings of
a woman's heart!