Part 69 (2/2)
”He's a mean chap all the same,” said the footman, ”and it an't along of him that I says so. But I always did admire the missus's sister; and she'd well become the situation.”
While these were the ideas downstairs, a very great difference of opinion existed above. As soon as the cloth was drawn and the wine on the table, Mr. Harding made for himself an opportunity of speaking.
It was, however, with much inward troubling that he said:
”It's very kind of Lord ----, very kind, and I feel it deeply, most deeply. I am, I must confess, gratified by the offer--”
”I should think so,” said the archdeacon.
”But all the same I am afraid that I can't accept it.”
The decanter almost fell from the archdeacon's hand upon the table, and the start he made was so great as to make his wife jump up from her chair. Not accept the deans.h.i.+p! If it really ended in this, there would be no longer any doubt that his father-in-law was demented. The question now was whether a clergyman with low rank and preferment amounting to less than 200 a year should accept high rank, 1,200 a year, and one of the most desirable positions which his profession had to afford!
”What!” said the archdeacon, gasping for breath and staring at his guest as though the violence of his emotion had almost thrown him into a fit. ”What!”
”I do not find myself fit for new duties,” urged Mr. Harding.
”New duties! What duties?” said the archdeacon with unintended sarcasm.
”Oh, Papa,” said Mrs. Grantly, ”nothing can be easier than what a dean has to do. Surely you are more active than Dr. Trefoil.”
”He won't have half as much to do as he has at present,” said Dr.
Grantly.
”Did you see what 'The Jupiter' said the other day about young men?”
”Yes, and I saw that 'The Jupiter' said all that it could to induce the appointment of Mr. Slope. Perhaps you would wish to see Mr. Slope made dean.”
Mr. Harding made no reply to this rebuke, though he felt it strongly.
He had not come over to Plumstead to have further contention with his son-in-law about Mr. Slope, so he allowed it to pa.s.s by.
”I know I cannot make you understand my feeling,” he said, ”for we have been cast in different moulds. I may wish that I had your spirit and energy and power of combatting; but I have not. Every day that is added to my life increases my wish for peace and rest.”
”And where on earth can a man have peace and rest if not in a deanery!” said the archdeacon.
”People will say that I am too old for it.”
”Good heavens! People! What people? What need you care for any people?”
”But I think myself I am too old for any new place.”
”Dear Papa,” said Mrs. Grantly, ”men ten years older than you are appointed to new situations day after day.”
”My dear,” said he, ”it is impossible that I should make you understand my feelings, nor do I pretend to any great virtue in the matter. The truth is, I want the force of character which might enable me to stand against the spirit of the times. The call on all sides now is for young men, and I have not the nerve to put myself in opposition to the demand. Were 'The Jupiter,' when it hears of my appointment, to write article after article setting forth my incompetency, I am sure it would cost me my reason. I ought to be able to bear with such things, you will say. Well, my dear, I own that I ought. But I feel my weakness, and I know that I can't. And to tell you the truth, I know no more than a child what the dean has to do.”
”Pshaw!” exclaimed the archdeacon.
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