“But you do,” said she. “Nothing is too bad for him. Give me that letter, if you please;” and she stretched out her hand and took it from him. “He has been doing his best to serve Papa, doing more than any of Papa’s friends could do; and yet, because he is the chaplain of a bishop whom you don’t like, you speak of him as though he had no right to the usage of a gentleman.”
“He has done nothing for your father.”
“I believe that he has done a great deal; and, as far as I am concerned, I am grateful to him. Nothing that you can say can prevent my being so. I judge people by their acts, and his, as far as I can see them, are good.” She then paused for a moment. “If you have nothing further to say, I shall be obliged by being permitted to say good night—I am very tired.”
Dr. Grantly had, as he thought, done his best to be gracious to his sister-in-law. He had endeavoured not to be harsh to her, and had striven to pluck the sting from his rebuke. But he did not intend that she should leave him without hearing him.
“I have something to say, Eleanor, and I fear I must trouble you to hear it. You profess that it is quite proper that you should receive from Mr. Slope such letters as that you have in your hand. Susan and I think very differently. You are, of course, your own mistress, and much as we both must grieve should anything separate you from us, we have no power to prevent you from taking steps which may lead to such a separation. If you are so wilful as to reject the counsel of your friends, you must be allowed to cater for yourself. But, Eleanor, I may at any rate ask you this. Is it worth your while to break away from all those you have loved—from all who love you—for the sake of Mr. Slope?”
“I don’t know what you mean, Dr. Grantly; I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t want to break away from anybody.”
“But you will do so if you connect yourself with Mr. Slope. Eleanor, I must speak out to you. You must choose between your sister and myself and our friends, and Mr. Slope and his friends. I say nothing of your father, as you may probably understand his feelings better than I do.”
“What do you mean, Dr. Grantly? What am I to understand? I never heard such wicked prejudice in my life.”
“It is no prejudice, Eleanor. I have known the world longer than you have done. Mr. Slope is altogether beneath you. You ought to know and feel that he is so. Pray—pray think of this before it is too late.”
“Too late!”
“Or if you will not believe me, ask Susan; you cannot think she is prejudiced against you. Or even consult your father—he is not prejudiced against you. Ask Mr. Arabin—”
“You haven’t spoken to Mr. Arabin about this!” said she, jumping up and standing before him.
“Eleanor, all the world in and about Barchester will be speaking of it soon.”
“But have you spoken to Mr. Arabin about me and Mr. Slope?”
“Certainly I have, and he quite agrees with me.”
“Agrees with what?” said she. “I think you are trying to drive me mad.”
“He agrees with me and Susan that it is quite impossible you should be received at Plumstead as Mrs. Slope.”
Not being favourites with the tragic muse, we do not dare to attempt any description of Eleanor’s face when she first heard the name of Mrs. Slope pronounced as that which would or should or might at some time appertain to herself. The look, such as it was, Dr. Grantly did not soon forget. For a moment or two she could find no words to express her deep anger and deep disgust; indeed, at this conjuncture, words did not come to her very freely.
“How dare you be so impertinent?” at last she said, and then she hurried out of the room without giving the archdeacon the opportunity of uttering another word. It was with difficulty she contained herself till she reached her own room; and then, locking the door, she threw herself on her bed and sobbed as though her heart would break.
But even yet she had no conception of the truth. She had no idea that her father and her sister had for days past conceived in sober earnest the idea that she was going to marry this man. She did not even then believe that the archdeacon thought that she would do so. By some manoeuvre of her brain she attributed the origin of the accusation to Mr. Arabin, and as she did so her anger against him was excessive, and the vexation of her spirit almost unendurable. She could not bring herself to think that the charge was made seriously. It appeared to her most probable that the archdeacon and Mr. Arabin had talked over her objectionable acquaintance with Mr. Slope; that Mr. Arabin in his jeering, sarcastic way had suggested the odious match as being the severest way of treating with contumely her acquaintance with his enemy; and that the archdeacon, taking the idea from him, thought proper to punish her by the allusion. The whole night she lay awake thinking of what had been said, and this appeared to be the most probable solution.
But the reflexion that Mr. Arabin should have in any way mentioned her name in connexion with that of Mr. Slope was overpowering; and the spiteful illnature of the archdeacon in repeating the charge to her made her wish to leave his house almost before the day had broken. One thing was certain: nothing should make her stay there beyond the following morning, and nothing should make her sit down to breakfast in company with Dr. Grantly. When she thought of the man whose name had been linked with her own, she cried from sheer disgust. It was only because she would be thus disgusted, thus pained and shocked and cut to the quick, that the archdeacon had spoken the horrid word. He wanted to make her quarrel with Mr. Slope, and therefore he had outraged her by his abominable vulgarity. She determined that at any rate he should know that she appreciated it.
Nor was the archdeacon a bit better satisfied with the result of his serious interview than was Eleanor. He gathered from it, as indeed he could hardly fail to do, that she was very angry with him, but he thought that she was thus angry, not because she was suspected of an intention to marry Mr. Slope, but because such an intention was imputed to her as a crime. Dr. Grantly regarded this supposed union with disgust, but it never occurred to him that Eleanor was outraged because she looked at it exactly in the same light.
He returned to his wife, vexed and somewhat disconsolate, but nevertheless confirmed in his wrath against his sister-in-law. “Her whole behaviour,” said he, “has been most objectionable. She handed me his love-letter to read as though she were proud of it. And she is proud of it. She is proud of having this slavering, greedy man at her feet. She will throw herself and John Bold’s money into his lap; she will ruin her boy, disgrace her father and you, and be a wretched miserable woman.”
His spouse, who was sitting at her toilet-table, continued her avocations, making no answer to all this. She had known that the archdeacon would gain nothing by interfering, but she was too charitable to provoke him by saying so while he was in such deep sorrow.
“This comes of a man making such a will as that of Bold’s,” he continued. “Eleanor is no more fitted to be trusted with such an amount of money in her own hands than is a charity-school girl.” Still Mrs. Grantly made no reply. “But I have done my duty; I can do nothing further. I have told her plainly that she cannot be allowed to form a link of connexion between me and that man. From henceforward it will not be in my power to make her welcome at Plumstead. I cannot have Mr. Slope’s love-letters coming here. Susan, I think you had better let her understand that, as her mind on this subject seems to be irrevocably fixed, it will be better for all parties that she should return to Barchester.”
Now Mrs. Grantly was angry with Eleanor—nearly as angry as her husband—but she had no idea of turning her sister out of the house. She therefore at length spoke out and explained to the archdeacon in her own mild, seducing way that he was fuming and fussing and fretting himself very unnecessarily. She declared that things, if left alone, would arrange themselves much better than he could arrange them, and at last succeeded in inducing him to go to bed in a somewhat less inhospitable state of mind.
On the following morning Eleanor’s maid was commissioned