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 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 for his wife to be; but the higher were her attractions, the greater her claims to consideration, the less had he imagined that he might possibly 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,1
‘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 Mr Slope 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 anyone but him; he had not put himself forward as a suitor; but that she should marry Mr Slope – and so he repeated 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 his 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 everybody 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 everyone, 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 come might, nothing should separate him from his younger 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 every now and then some little soft words of affection, and working hard with his imaginary fiddle bow, when Mr Arabin entered the room. He immediately got up, and the two made some trite remarks to each other, neither thinking of what he was saying, while 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 to 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’m sorry to hear that you are to leave us 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 Bar-chester, and betook herself most 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 out of 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 here,’ 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,’ said she; ‘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 to 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 Or 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 acquain-tance 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 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 me as 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 aloud, 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 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 Or 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 my banishing Or 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 half 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 the 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 fireplace, 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 commonplace civility of a neigh-bour; 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 declaration 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.
Barchester Towers Page 37
