Part 32 (2/2)

Instead of this, Mrs. Proudie slapped one hand upon the other and declared--not with an oath, for, as a lady and a Sabbatarian and a she-bishop, she could not swear, but with an adjuration--that she ”wouldn't have it done.”

The meaning of this was that she wouldn't have Mr. Quiverful's promised appointment cozened away by the treachery of Mr. Slope and the weakness of her husband. This meaning she very soon explained to Mrs. Quiverful.

”Why was your husband such a fool,” said she, now dismounted from her high horse and sitting confidentially down close to her visitor, ”as to take the bait which that man threw to him? If he had not been so utterly foolish, nothing could have prevented your going to the hospital.”

Poor Mrs. Quiverful was ready enough with her own tongue in accusing her husband to his face of being soft, and perhaps did not always speak of him to her children quite so respectfully as she might have done. But she did not at all like to hear him abused by others, and began to vindicate him and to explain that of course he had taken Mr.

Slope to be an emissary from Mrs. Proudie herself; that Mr. Slope was thought to be peculiarly her friend; and that, therefore, Mr.

Quiverful would have been failing in respect to her had he a.s.sumed to doubt what Mr. Slope had said.

Thus mollified, Mrs. Proudie again declared that she ”would not have it done,” and at last sent Mrs. Quiverful home with an a.s.surance that, to the furthest stretch of her power and influence in the palace, the appointment of Mr. Quiverful should be insisted on. As she repeated the word ”insisted,” she thought of the bishop in his night-cap and, with compressed lips, slightly shook her head. Oh, my aspiring pastors, divines to whose ears _nolo episcopari_ are the sweetest of words, which of you would be a bishop on such terms as these?

Mrs. Quiverful got home in the farmer's cart, not indeed with a light heart, but satisfied that she had done right in making her visit.

CHAPTER XXVII

A Love Scene

Mr. Slope, as we have said, left the palace with a feeling of considerable triumph. Not that he thought that his difficulties were all over--he did not so deceive himself--but he felt that he had played his first move well, as well as the pieces on the board would allow, and that he had nothing with which to reproach himself. He first of all posted the letter to the archbishop and, having made that sure, proceeded to push the advantage which he had gained. Had Mrs. Bold been at home, he would have called on her, but he knew that she was at Plumstead, so he wrote the following note. It was the beginning of what, he trusted, might be a long and tender series of epistles.

MY DEAR MRS. BOLD,

You will understand perfectly that I cannot at present correspond with your father. I heartily wish that I could, and hope the day may be not long distant when mists shall have been cleared away, and we may know each other. But I cannot preclude myself from the pleasure of sending you these few lines to say that Mr. Q. has to-day, in my presence, resigned any t.i.tle that he ever had to the wardens.h.i.+p of the hospital, and that the bishop has a.s.sured me that it is his intention to offer it to your esteemed father.

Will you, with my respectful compliments, ask him, who I believe is now a fellow-visitor with you, to call on the bishop either on Wednesday or Thursday, between ten and one. _This is by the bishop's desire_. If you will so far oblige me as to let me have a line naming either day, and the hour which will suit Mr. Harding, I will take care that the servants shall have orders to show him in without delay. Perhaps I should say no more--but still I wish you could make your father understand that no subject will be mooted between his lords.h.i.+p and him which will refer at all to the method in which he may choose to perform his duty. I for one am persuaded that no clergyman could perform it more satisfactorily than he did, or than he will do again.

On a former occasion I was indiscreet and much too impatient, considering your father's age and my own. I hope he will not now refuse my apology. I still hope also that with your aid and sweet pious labours we may live to attach such a Sabbath-school to the old endowment as may, by G.o.d's grace and furtherance, be a blessing to the poor of this city.

You will see at once that this letter is confidential. The subject, of course, makes it so. But, equally, of course, it is for your parent's eye as well as for your own, should you think proper to show it to him.

I hope my darling little friend Johnny is as strong as ever--dear little fellow. Does he still continue his rude a.s.saults on those beautiful long silken tresses?

I can a.s.sure you your friends miss you from Barchester sorely, but it would be cruel to begrudge you your sojourn among flowers and fields during this truly sultry weather.

Pray believe me, my dear Mrs. Bold, Yours most sincerely, OBADIAH SLOPE

Barchester, Friday.

Now this letter, taken as a whole, and with the consideration that Mr. Slope wished to a.s.sume a great degree of intimacy with Eleanor, would not have been bad but for the allusion to the tresses.

Gentlemen do not write to ladies about their tresses unless they are on very intimate terms indeed. But Mr. Slope could not be expected to be aware of this. He longed to put a little affection into his epistle, and yet he thought it injudicious, as the letter would, he knew, be shown to Mr. Harding. He would have insisted that the letter should be strictly private and seen by no eyes but Eleanor's own, had he not felt that such an injunction would have been disobeyed.

He therefore restrained his pa.s.sion, did not sign himself ”yours affectionately,” and contented himself instead with the compliment to the tresses.

Having finished his letter, he took it to Mrs. Bold's house and, learning there, from the servant, that things were to be sent out to Plumstead that afternoon, left it, with many injunctions, in her hands.

We will now follow Mr. Slope so as to complete the day with him and then return to his letter and its momentous fate in the next chapter.

There is an old song which gives us some very good advice about courting:--

<script>