“Certainly not, my dear. Nothing I can assure you is less probable. But still, Mr. Slope may be useful in finding how the wind blows, and I really thought that if we could give something else as good to the Quiverfuls—”
“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Proudie; “it would be years before you could give them anything else that could suit them half as well, and as for the press and the public and all that, remember there are two ways of telling a story. If Mr. Harding is fool enough to tell his tale, we can also tell ours. The place was offered to him, and he refused it. It has now been given to someone else, and there’s an end of it. At least I should think so.”
“Well, my dear, I rather believe you are right,” said the bishop, and sneaking out of the room, he went downstairs, troubled in his mind as to how he should receive the archdeacon on the morrow. He felt himself not very well just at present, and began to consider that he might, not improbably, be detained in his room the next morning by an attack of bile. He was, unfortunately, very subject to bilious annoyances.
“Mr. Slope, indeed! I’ll Slope him,” said the indignant matron to her listening progeny. “I don’t know what has come to Mr. Slope. I believe he thinks he is to be Bishop of Barchester himself, because I’ve taken him by the hand and got your father to make him his domestic chaplain.”
“He was always full of impudence,” said Olivia; “I told you so once before, Mamma.” Olivia, however, had not thought him too impudent when once before he had proposed to make her Mrs. Slope.
“Well, Olivia, I always thought you liked him,” said Augusta, who at that moment had some grudge against her sister. “I always disliked the man, because I think him thoroughly vulgar.”
“There you’re wrong,” said Mrs. Proudie; “he’s not vulgar at all; and what is more, he is a soul-stirring, eloquent preacher; but he must be taught to know his place if he is to remain in this house.”
“He has the horridest eyes I ever saw in a man’s head,” said Netta; “and I tell you what, he’s terribly greedy; did you see all the currant pie he ate yesterday?”
When Mr. Slope got home he soon learnt from the bishop, as much from his manner as his words, that Mrs. Proudie’s behests in the matter of the hospital were to be obeyed. Dr. Proudie let fall something as to “this occasion only” and “keeping all affairs about patronage exclusively in his own hands.” But he was quite decided about Mr. Harding; and as Mr. Slope did not wish to have both the prelate and the prelatess against him, he did not at present see that he could do anything but yield.
He merely remarked that he would of course carry out the bishop’s views and that he was quite sure that if the bishop trusted to his own judgement things in the diocese would certainly be well ordered. Mr. Slope knew that if you hit a nail on the head often enough, it will penetrate at last.
He was sitting alone in his room on the same evening when a light knock was made on his door, and before he could answer it the door was opened, and his patroness appeared. He was all smiles in a moment, but so was not she also. She took, however, the chair that was offered to her, and thus began her expostulation:
“Mr. Slope, I did not at all approve your conduct the other night with that Italian woman. Anyone would have thought that you were her lover.”
“Good gracious, my dear madam,” said Mr. Slope with a look of horror. “Why, she is a married woman.”
“That’s more than I know,” said Mrs. Proudie; “however she chooses to pass for such. But married or not married, such attention as you paid to her was improper. I cannot believe that you would wish to give offence in my drawing-room, Mr. Slope, but I owe it to myself and my daughters to tell you that I disapprove of your conduct.”
Mr. Slope opened wide his huge protruding eyes and stared out of them with a look of well-feigned surprise. “Why, Mrs. Proudie,” said he, “I did but fetch her something to eat when she said she was hungry.”
“And you have called on her since,” continued she, looking at the culprit with the stern look of a detective policeman in the act of declaring himself.
Mr. Slope turned over in his mind whether it would be well for him to tell this termagant at once that he should call on whom he liked and do what he liked, but he remembered that his footing in Barchester was not yet sufficiently firm, and that it would be better for him to pacify her.
“I certainly called since at Dr. Stanhope’s house, and certainly saw Madame Neroni.”
“Yes, and you saw her alone,” said the episcopal Argus.
“Undoubtedly, I did,” said Mr. Slope, “but that was because nobody else happened to be in the room. Surely it was no fault of mine if the rest of the family were out.”
“Perhaps not, but I assure you, Mr. Slope, you will fall greatly in my estimation if I find that you allow yourself to be caught by the lures of that woman. I know women better than you do, Mr. Slope, and you may believe me that that signora, as she calls herself, is not a fitting companion for a strict evangelical unmarried young clergyman.”
How Mr. Slope would have liked to laugh at her, had he dared! But he did not dare. So he merely said, “I can assure you, Mrs. Proudie, the lady in question is nothing to me.”
“Well, I hope not, Mr. Slope. But I have considered it my duty to give you this caution. And now there is another thing I feel myself called on to speak about: it is your conduct to the bishop, Mr. Slope.”
“My conduct to the bishop,” said he, now truly surprised and ignorant what the lady alluded to.
“Yes, Mr. Slope, your conduct to the bishop. It is by no means what I would wish to see it.”
“Has the bishop said anything, Mrs. Proudie?”
“No, the bishop has said nothing. He probably thinks that any remarks on the matter will come better from me, who first introduced you to his lordship’s notice. The fact is, Mr. Slope, you are a little inclined to take too much upon yourself.”
An angry spot showed itself on Mr. Slope’s cheeks, and it was with difficulty that he controlled himself. But he did do so, and sat quite silent while the lady went on.
“It is the fault of many young men in your position, and therefore the bishop is not inclined at present to resent it. You will, no doubt, soon learn what is required from you and what is not. If you will take my advice, however, you will be careful not to obtrude advice upon the bishop in any matter touching patronage. If his lordship wants advice, he knows where to look for it.” And then having added to her counsel a string of platitudes as to what was desirable and what not desirable in the conduct of a strictly evangelical unmarried young clergyman, Mrs. Proudie retreated, leaving the chaplain to his thoughts.
The upshot of his thoughts was this, that there certainly was not room in the diocese for the energies of both himself and Mrs. Proudie, and that it behoved him quickly to ascertain whether his energies or hers were to prevail.
Chapter XVIII.
The Widow’s Persecution
Early on the following morning Mr. Slope was summoned to the bishop’s dressingroom, and went there fully expecting that he should find his lordship very indignant and spirited up by his wife to repeat the rebuke which she had administered on the previous day. Mr. Slope had resolved that at any rate from him he would not stand it, and entered the dressingroom in rather a combative disposition; but he found the bishop in the most placid and gentlest of humours. His lordship complained of being rather unwell, had a slight headache, and was not quite the thing in his stomach; but there