At last, sitting before her toilet table, she broke the seal, and turning over the leaf saw Mr Slope’s name. She first felt surprised, and then annoyed, and then anxious. As she read it she became interested. She was so delighted to find that all obstacles to her father’s return to the hospital were apparently removed that she did not observe the fulsome language in which the tidings were conveyed. She merely perceived that she was commissioned to tell her father that such was the case, and she did not realize the fact that such a communication should not have been made, in the first instance, to her by an unmarried young clergyman. She felt, on the whole, grateful to Mr Slope, and anxious to get on her dress that she might run with the news to her father. Then she came to the allusion to her own pious labours, and she said in her heart that Mr Slope was an affected ass. Then she went on again and was offended by her boy being called Mr Slope’s darling – he was nobody’s darling but her own; or at any rate not the darling of a disagreeable stranger like Mr Slope. Lastly she arrived at the tresses and felt a qualm of disgust. She looked up in the glass, and there they were before her, long and silken, certainly, and very beautiful. I will not say but that she knew them to be so, but she felt angry with them and brushed them roughly and carelessly. She crumpled the letter up with angry violence, and resolved, almost without thinking of it, that she would not show it to her father. She would merely tell him the contents of it. She then comforted herself again with her boy, had her dress fastened, and went down to dinner.
As she tripped down the stairs she began to ascertain that there was some difficulty in her situation. She could not keep from her father the news about the hospital, nor could she comfortably confess the letter from Mr Slope before the Grantlys. Her father had already gone down. She had heard his step upon the lobby. She resolved therefore to take him aside, and tell him her little bit of news. Poor girl! she had no idea how severely the unfortunate letter had already been discussed.
When she entered the drawing-room the whole party were there, including Mr Arabin, and the whole party looked glum and sour. The two girls sat silent and apart as though they were aware that something was wrong. Even Mr Arabin was solemn and silent. Eleanor had not seen him since breakfast. He had been the whole day at St Ewold’s, and such having been the case it was natural that he should tell how matters were going on there. He did nothing of the kind, however, but remained solemn and silent. They were all solemn and silent. Eleanor knew in her heart that they had been talking about her, and her heart misgave her as she thought of Mr Slope and his letter. At any rate she felt it to be quite impossible to speak to her father alone while matters were in this state.
Dinner was soon announced and Dr Grantly, as was his wont, gave Eleanor his arm. But he did so as though the doing it were an outrage on his feelings rendered necessary by sternest necessity. With quick sympathy Eleanor felt this, and hardly put her fingers on his coat sleeve. It may be guessed in what way the dinner-hour was passed. Dr Grantly said a few words to Mr Arabin, Mr Arabin said a few words to Mrs Grantly, she said a few words to her father, and he tried to say a few words to Eleanor. She felt that she had been tried and found guilty of something, though she knew not what. She longed to say out to them all, ‘Well, what is it that I have done; out with it, and let me know my crime; for heaven’s sake let me hear the worst of it’; but she could not. She could say nothing, but sat there silent, half feeling that she was guilty, and trying in vain to pretend even to eat her dinner.
At last the cloth was drawn, and the ladies were not long following it. When they were gone the gentlemen were somewhat more sociable but not much so. They could not of course talk over Eleanor’s sins. The archdeacon had indeed so far betrayed his sister-in-law as to whisper into Mr Arabin’s ear in the study, as they met there before dinner, a hint of what he feared. He did so with the gravest and saddest of faces, and Mr Arabin became grave and apparently sad enough as he heard it. He opened his eyes and his mouth and said in a sort of whisper ‘Mr Slope!’ in the same way as he might have said ‘The Cholera!’ had his friend told him that that horrid disease was in his nursery. ‘I fear so, I fear so.’ said the archdeacon, and then together they left the room.
We will not accurately analyse Mr Arabin’s feelings on receipt of such astounding tidings. It will suffice to say that he was surprised, vexed, sorrowful, and ill at ease. He had not perhaps thought very much about Eleanor, but he had appreciated her influence, and had felt that close intimacy with her in a country house was pleasant to him, and also beneficial. He had spoken highly of her intelligence to the archdeacon, and had walked about the shrubberies with her carrying her boy on his back. When Mr Arabin had called Johnny his darling, Eleanor was not angry.
Thus the three men sat over their wine, all thinking of the same subject, but unable to speak of it to each other. So we will leave them, and follow the ladies into the drawing-room.
Mrs Grantly had received a commission from her husband, and had undertaken it with some unwillingness. He had desired her to speak gravely to Eleanor, and to tell her that, if she persisted in her adherence to Mr Slope, she could no longer look for the countenance of her present friends. Mrs Grantly probably knew her sister better than the doctor did, and assured him that it would be in vain to talk to her. The only course likely to be of any service in her opinion was to keep Eleanor away from Barchester. Perhaps she might have added, for she had a very keen eye in such things, that there might also be ground for hope in keeping Eleanor near Mr Arabin. Of this, however, she said nothing. But the archdeacon would not be talked over; he spoke much of his conscience, and declared that if Mrs Grantly would not do it he would. So instigated, the lady undertook the task, stating, however, her full conviction that her interference would be worse than useless. And so it proved.
As soon as they were in the drawing-room Mrs Grantly found some excuse for sending her girls away, and then began her task. She knew well that she could exercise but very slight authority over her sister. Their various modes of life, and the distance between their residences, had prevented any very close confidence. They had hardly lived together since Eleanor was a child. Eleanor had, moreover, especially in latter years, resented in a quiet sort of way the dictatorial authority which the archdeacon seemed to exercise over her father, and on this account had been unwilling to allow the archdeacon’s wife to exercise authority over herself.
‘You got a note just before dinner, I believe,’ began the eldest sister.
Eleanor acknowledged that she had done so, and felt that she turned red as she acknowledged it. She would have given anything to have kept her colour, but the more she tried to do so the more signally she failed.
‘Was it not from Mr Slope?’
Eleanor said that the letter was from Mr Slope.
‘Is he a regular correspondent of yours, Eleanor?’
‘Not exactly,’ said she, already beginning to feel angry at the cross-examination. She determined, and why it would be difficult to say, that nothing should induce her to tell her sister Susan what was the subject of the letter. Mrs Grantly, she knew, was instigated by the archdeacon, and she would not plead to any arraignment made against her by him.
‘But, Eleanor dear, why do you get letters from Mr Slope at all, knowing, as you do, he is a person so distasteful to papa, and to the archdeacon, and indeed to all your friends?’
‘In the first place, Susan, I don’t get letters from him; and in the next place, as Mr Slope wrote the one letter which I have got, and as I only received it, which I could not very well help doing, as papa handed it to me, I think you had better ask Mr Slope instead of me.’
‘What is the letter about, Eleanor?’
‘I cannot tell you,’ said she, ‘because it was confidential. It was on business respecting a third person.’
‘It was in no way personal to yourself then?’
‘I won’t exactly say that, Susan,’ said she, getting more and more angry at her sister’s questions.
‘Well, I m
ust say it’s rather singular,’ said Mrs Grantly, affecting to laugh, ‘that a young lady in your position should receive a letter from an unmarried gentleman of which she will not tell the contents, and which she is ashamed to show to her sister.’
‘I am not ashamed,’ said Eleanor blazing up; ‘I am not ashamed of anything in the matter; only I do not choose to be cross-examined as to my letters by anyone.’
‘Well, dear,’ said the other, ‘I cannot but tell you that I do not think Mr Slope a proper correspondent for you.’
‘If he be ever so improper, how can I help his having written to me? But you are all prejudiced against him to such an extent, that that which would be kind and generous in another man is odious and impudent in him. I hate a religion that teaches one to be so one-sided in one’s charity.’
‘I am sorry, Eleanor, that you hate the religion you find here; but surely you should remember that in such matters the archdeacon must know more of the world than you do. I don’t ask you to respect or comply with me, although I am, unfortunately, so many years your senior; but surely, in such a matter as this, you might consent to be guided by the archdeacon. He is most anxious to be your friend if you will let him.’
‘In such a matter as what?’ said Eleanor very testily. ‘Upon my word I don’t know what this is all about’
‘We all want you to drop Mr Slope.’
‘You all want me to be as illiberal as yourselves. That I shall never be. I see no harm in Mr Slope’s acquaintance, and I shall not insult the man by telling him that I do. He has thought it necessary to write to me, and I do not want the archdeacon’s advice about the letter. If I did I would ask it.’
‘Then, Eleanor, it is my duty to tell you,’ and now she spoke with a tremendous gravity, ‘that the archdeacon thinks that such a correspondence is disgraceful, and that he cannot allow it to go on in his house.’
Eleanor’s eyes flashed fire as she answered her sister, jumping up from her seat as she did so. ‘You may tell the archdeacon that wherever I am I shall receive what letters I please and from whom I please. And as for the word disgraceful, if Dr Grantly has used it of me he has been unmanly and inhospitable,’ and she walked off to the door. ‘When papa comes from the dining-room I will thank you to ask him to step up to my bedroom. I will show him Mr Slope’s letter, but I will show it to no one else.’ And so saying she retreated to her baby.
She had no conception of the crime with which she was charged. The idea that she could be thought by her friends to regard Mr Slope as a lover, had never flashed upon her. She conceived that they were all prejudiced and illiberal in their persecution of him, and therefore she would not join in the persecution, even though she greatly disliked the man.
Eleanor was very angry as she seated herself in a low chair by her open window at the foot of her child’s bed. ‘To dare to say I have disgraced myself,’ she repeated to herself more than once. ‘How papa can put up with that man’s arrogance! I will certainly not sit down to dinner in his house again unless he begs my pardon for that word.’ And then a thought struck her that Mr Arabin might perchance hear of her ‘disgraceful’ correspondence with Mr Slope, and she turned crimson with pure vexation. Oh, if she had known the truth! If she could have conceived that Mr Arabin had been informed as a fact that she was going to marry Mr Slope!
She had not been long in her room before her father joined her. As he left the drawing-room Mrs Grantly took her husband into the recess of the window, and told him how signally she had failed.
‘I will speak to her myself before I go to bed,’ said the archdeacon.
‘Pray do no such thing,’ said she; ‘you can do no good and will only make an unseemly quarrel in the house. You have no idea how headstrong she can be.’
The archdeacon declared that as to that he was quite indifferent. He knew his duty and would do it. Mr Harding was weak in the extreme in such matters. He would not have it hereafter on his conscience that he had not done all that in him lay to prevent so disgraceful an alliance. It was in vain that Mrs Grantly assured him that speaking to Eleanor angrily would only hasten such a crisis, and render it certain if at present there were any doubt. He was angry, self-willed, and sore. The fact that a lady of his household had received a letter from Mr Slope had wounded his pride in the sorest place, and nothing could control him.
Mr Harding looked worn and woebegone as he entered his daughter’s room. These sorrows worried him sadly. He felt that if they were continued he must go to the wall in the manner so kindly prophesied to him by the chaplain. He knocked gently at his daughter’s door, waited till he was distinctly bade to enter, and then appeared as though he and not she were the suspected criminal.
Eleanor’s arm was soon within his, and she had soon kissed his forehead and caressed him, not with joyous but with eager love. ‘Oh papa,’ she said, ‘I do so want to speak to you. They have been talking about me downstairs tonight; don’t you know they have, papa?’
Mr Harding confessed with a sort of murmur that the archdeacon had been speaking of her.
‘I shall hate Dr Grantly soon –’
‘Oh my dear!’
‘Well; I shall. I cannot help it. He is so uncharitable, so unkind, so suspicious of everyone that does not worship himself: and then he is so monstrously arrogant to other people who have a right to their opinions as well as he has to his own.’
‘He is an earnest, eager man, my dear: but he never means to be unkind.’
‘He is unkind, papa, most unkind. There, I got that letter from Mr Slope before dinner. It was you yourself who gave it to me. There; pray read it. It is all for you. It should have been addressed to you. You know how they have been talking about it downstairs. You know how they behaved to me at dinner. And since dinner Susan has been preaching to me, till I could not remain in the room with her. Read it, papa; and then say whether that is a letter that need make Dr Grantly so outrageous.’
Mr Harding took his arm from his daughter’s waist, and slowly read the letter. She expected to see his countenance lit with joy as he learnt that his path back to the hospital was made so smooth; but she was doomed to disappointment, as had once been the case before on a somewhat similar occasion. His first feeling was one of unmitigated disgust that Mr Slope should have chosen to interfere in his behalf. He had been anxious to get back to the hospital, but he would have infinitely sooner resigned all pretensions to the place, than have owed it in any manner to Mr Slope’s influence in his favour. Then he thoroughly disliked the tone of Mr Slope’s letter; it was unctuous, false, and unwholesome, like the man. He saw, which Eleanor had failed to see, that much more had been intended than was expressed. The appeal to Eleanor’s pious labours as separate from his own grated sadly against his feelings as a father. And then, when he came to the ‘darling boy’ and the ‘silken tresses’, he slowly closed and folded the letter in despair. It was impossible that Mr Slope should so write unless he had been encouraged. It was impossible Eleanor should have received such a letter, and have received it without annoyance, unless she were willing to encourage him. So at least Mr Harding argued to himself.
How hard it is to judge accurately the feelings of others. Mr Harding, as he came to the close of the letter, in his heart condemned his daughter for indelicacy, and it made him miserable to do so. She was not responsible for what Mr Slope might write. True. But then she expressed no disgust at it. She had rather expressed approval of the letter as a whole. She had given it to him to read, as a vindication for herself and also for him. The father’s spirits sank within him as he felt that he could not acquit her.
And yet it was the true feminine delicacy of Eleanor’s mind which brought on her this condemnation. Listen to me, ladies, and I beseech you to acquit her. She thought of this man, this lover of whom she was so unconscious, exactly as her father did, exactly as the Grantlys did. At least she esteemed him personally as they did. But she believed him to be in the main an honest man, and one truly inclined to assist her father. She felt
herself bound, after what had passed, to show this letter to Mr Harding. She thought it necessary that he should know what Mr Slope had to say. But she did not think it necessary to apologize for, or condemn, or even allude to the vulgarity of the man’s tone, which arose, as does all vulgarity, from ignorance. It was nauseous to her to have a man like Mr Slope commenting on her personal attractions; and she did not think it necessary to dilate with her father upon what was nauseous. She never supposed they could disagree on such a subject. It would have been painful for her to point it out, painful for her to speak strongly against a man of whom, on the whole she was anxious to think and speak well. In encountering such a man she had encountered what was disagreeable, as she might do in walking the streets. But in such encounters she never thought it necessary to dwell on what disgusted her.
And he, foolish, weak, loving man, would not say one word, though one word would have cleared up everything. There would have been a deluge of tears, and in ten minutes everyone in the house would have understood how matters really were. The father would have been delighted. The sister would have kissed her sister and begged a thousand pardons. The archdeacon would have apologized and wondered, and raised his eyebrows, and gone to bed a happy man. And Mr Arabin – Mr Arabin would have dreamt of Eleanor, have awoke in the morning with ideas of love, and retired to rest the next evening with schemes of marriage. But, alas, all this was not to be.
Mr Harding slowly folded the letter, handed it back to her, kissed her forehead and bade God bless her. He then crept slowly away to his own room.
As soon as he had left the passage another knock was given at Eleanor’s door, and Mrs Grantly’s very demure own maid, entering on tiptoe, wanted to know would Mrs Bold be so kind as to speak to the archdeacon for two minutes in the archdeacon’s study, if not disagreeable. The archdeacon’s compliments, and he wouldn’t detain her two minutes.
Barchester Towers Page 35
