The bishop was sitting listlessly in his study when the news reached him of the dean’s illness. It was brought to him by Mr. Slope, who of course was not the last person in Barchester to hear it. It was also not slow in finding its way to Mrs. Proudie’s ears. It may be presumed that there was not just then much friendly intercourse between these two rival claimants for his lordship’s obedience. Indeed, though living in the same house, they had not met since the stormy interview between them in the bishop’s study on the preceding day.
On that occasion Mrs. Proudie had been defeated. That the prestige of continual victory should have been torn from her standards was a subject of great sorrow to that militant lady; but, though defeated, she was not overcome. She felt that she might yet recover her lost ground, that she might yet hurl Mr. Slope down to the dust from which she had picked him, and force her sinning lord to sue for pardon in sackcloth and ashes.
On that memorable day, memorable for his mutiny and rebellion against her high behests, he had carried his way with a high hand, and had really begun to think it possible that the days of his slavery were counted. He had begun to hope that he was now about to enter into a free land, a land delicious with milk which he himself might quaff and honey which would not tantalize him by being only honey to the eye. When Mrs. Proudie banged the door as she left his room, he felt himself every inch a bishop. To be sure, his spirit had been a little cowed by his chaplain’s subsequent lecture, but on the whole he was highly pleased with himself, and he flattered himself that the worst was over. “Ce n’est que le premier pas qui coûte,” he reflected, and now that the first step had been so magnanimously taken, all the rest would follow easily.
He met his wife as a matter of course at dinner, where little or nothing was said that could ruffle the bishop’s happiness. His daughters and the servants were present and protected him.
He made one or two trifling remarks on the subject of his projected visit to the archbishop, in order to show to all concerned that he intended to have his own way; the very servants, perceiving the change, transferred a little of their reverence from their mistress to their master. All which the master perceived, and so also did the mistress. But Mrs. Proudie bided her time.
After dinner he returned to his study, where Mr. Slope soon found him, and there they had tea together and planned many things. For some few minutes the bishop was really happy; but as the clock on the chimneypiece warned him that the stilly hours of night were drawing on, as he looked at his chamber candlestick and knew that he must use it, his heart sank within him again. He was as a ghost, all whose power of wandering free through these upper regions ceases at cockcrow; or, rather, he was the opposite of the ghost, for till cockcrow he must again be a serf. And would that be all? Could he trust himself to come down to breakfast a free man in the morning?
He was nearly an hour later than usual when he betook himself to his rest. Rest! What rest? However, he took a couple of glasses of sherry and mounted the stairs. Far be it from us to follow him thither. There are some things which no novelist, no historian, should attempt; some few scenes in life’s drama which even no poet should dare to paint. Let that which passed between Dr. Proudie and his wife on this night be understood to be among them.
He came down the following morning a sad and thoughtful man. He was attenuated in appearance—one might almost say emaciated. I doubt whether his now grizzled locks had not palpably become more grey than on the preceding evening. At any rate he had aged materially. Years do not make a man old gradually and at an even pace. Look through the world and see if this is not so always, except in those rare cases in which the human being lives and dies without joys and without sorrows, like a vegetable. A man shall be possessed of florid, youthful blooming health till, it matters not what age—thirty; forty; fifty—then comes some nipping frost, some period of agony, that robs the fibres of the body of their succulence, and the hale and hearty man is counted among the old.
He came down and breakfasted alone; Mrs. Proudie, being indisposed, took her coffee in her bedroom, and her daughters waited upon her there. He ate his breakfast alone, and then, hardly knowing what he did, he betook himself to his usual seat in his study. He tried to solace himself with his coming visit to the archbishop. That effort of his own free will at any rate remained to him as an enduring triumph. But somehow, now that he had achieved it, he did not seem to care so much about it. It was his ambition that had prompted him to take his place at the archiepiscopal table, and his ambition was now quite dead within him.
He was thus seated when Mr. Slope made his appearance, with breathless impatience.
“My lord, the dean is dead.”
“Good heavens!” exclaimed the bishop, startled out of his apathy by an announcement so sad and so sudden.
“He is either dead or now dying. He has had an apoplectic fit, and I am told that there is not the slightest hope; indeed, I do not doubt that by this time he is no more.”
Bells were rung, and servants were immediately sent to inquire. In the course of the morning the bishop, leaning on his chaplains arm, himself called at the deanery door. Mrs. Proudie sent to Miss Trefoil all manner of offers of assistance. The Misses Proudie sent also, and there was immense sympathy between the palace and the deanery. The answer to all inquiries was unvaried. The dean was just the same, and Sir Omicron Pie was expected down by the 9.15 P.M. train.
And then Mr. Slope began to meditate, as others also had done, as to who might possibly be the new dean, and it occurred to him, as it had also occurred to others, that it might be possible that he should be the new dean himself. And then the question as to the twelve hundred, or fifteen hundred, or two thousand ran in his mind, as it had run through those of the other clergymen in the cathedral library.
Whether it might be two thousand, or fifteen, or twelve hundred, it would in any case undoubtedly be a great thing for him, if he could get it. The gratification to his ambition would be greater even than that of his covetousness. How glorious to out-top the archdeacon in his own cathedral city; to sit above prebendaries and canons and have the cathedral pulpit and all the cathedral services altogether at his own disposal!
But it might be easier to wish for this than to obtain it. Mr. Slope, however, was not without some means of forwarding his views, and he at any rate did not let the grass grow under his feet. In the first place, he thought—and not vainly—that he could count upon what assistance the bishop could give him. He immediately changed his views with regard to his patron; he made up his mind that if he became dean, he would hand his lordship back again to his wife’s vassalage; and he thought it possible that his lordship might not be sorry to rid himself of one of his mentors. Mr. Slope had also taken some steps towards making his name known to other men in power. There was a certain chief-commissioner of national schools, who at the present moment was presumed to stand especially high in the good graces of the government bigwigs, and with him Mr. Slope had contrived to establish a sort of epistolary intimacy. He thought that he might safely apply to Sir Nicholas Fitzwhiggin, and he felt sure that if Sir Nicholas chose to exert himself, the promise of such a piece of preferment would be had for the asking.
Then he also had the press at his bidding, or flattered himself that he had so. “The Daily Jupiter” had taken his part in a very thorough manner in those polemical contests of his with Mr. Arabin; he had on more than one occasion absolutely had an interview with a gentleman on the staff of that paper who, if not the editor, was as good as the editor; and he had long been in the habit of writing telling letters on all manner of ecclesiastical abuses, which he signed with his initials, and sent to his editorial friend with private notes signed in his own name. Indeed, he and Mr. Towers—such was the name of the powerful gentleman of the press with whom he was connected—were generally very amiable with each other. Mr. Slope’s little productions were always printed and occasionally commented upon; and thus, in a small sort of way, he had become a literary celebrity. This public life had great charms for him, though it certainly also had its drawbacks. On one occasion, when speaking in the presence of reporters, he had failed to uphold and praise and swear by that special line of conduct which had