How beautiful Eleanor appeared to him as she slowly walked into the room! Not for nothing had all those little cares been taken. Though her sister, the archdeacon’s wife, had spoken slightingly of her charms, Eleanor was very beautiful when seen aright. Hers was not of those impassive faces, which have the beauty of a marble bust; finely chiselled features, perfect in every line, true to the rules of symmetry, as lovely to a stranger as to a friend, unvarying unless in sickness, or as age affects them. She had no startling brilliancy of beauty, no pearly whiteness, no radiant carnation. She had not the majestic contour that rivets attention, demands instant wonder, and then disappoints by the coldness of its charms. You might pass Eleanor Harding in the street without notice, but you could hardly pass an evening with her and not lose your heart.
She had never appeared more lovely to her lover than she now did. Her face was animated though it was serious, and her full dark lustrous eyes shone with anxious energy; her hand trembled as she took his, and she could hardly pronounce his name, when she addressed him. Bold wished with all his heart that the Australian scheme was in the act of realisation, and that he and Eleanor were away together, never to hear further of the lawsuit.
He began to talk, asked after her health,—said something about London being very stupid, and more about Barchester being very pleasant; declared the weather to be very hot, and then inquired after Mr Harding.
“My father is not very well,” said Eleanor.
John Bold was very sorry,—so sorry: he hoped it was nothing serious, and put on the unmeaningly solemn face which people usually use on such occasions.
“I especially want to speak to you about my father, Mr Bold; indeed, I am now here on purpose to do so. Papa is very unhappy, very unhappy indeed, about this affair of the hospital: you would pity him, Mr Bold, if you could see how wretched it has made him.”
“Oh, Miss Harding!”
“Indeed you would;—anyone would pity him; but a friend, an old friend as you are,—indeed you would. He is an altered man; his cheerfulness has all gone, and his sweet temper, and his kind happy tone of voice; you would hardly know him if you saw him, Mr Bold, he is so much altered; and—and—if this goes on, he will die.” Here Eleanor had recourse to her handkerchief, and so also had her auditors; but she plucked up her courage, and went on with her tale. “He will break his heart, and die. I am sure, Mr Bold, it was not you who wrote those cruel things in the newspaper—”
John Bold eagerly protested that it was not, but his heart smote him as to his intimate alliance with Tom Towers.
“No, I am sure it was not; and papa has not for a moment thought so; you would not be so cruel;—but it has nearly killed him. Papa cannot bear to think that people should so speak of him, and that everybody should hear him so spoken of:—they have called him avaricious, and dishonest, and they say he is robbing the old men, and taking the money of the hospital for nothing.”
“I have never said so, Miss Harding. I—”
“No,” continued Eleanor, interrupting him, for she was now in the full flood-tide of her eloquence; “no, I am sure you have not; but others have said so; and if this goes on, if such things are written again, it will kill papa. Oh! Mr Bold, if you only knew the state he is in! Now papa does not care much about money.”
Both her auditors, brother and sister, assented to this, and declared on their own knowledge that no man lived less addicted to filthy lucre than the warden.
“Oh! it’s so kind of you to say so, Mary, and of you too, Mr Bold. I couldn’t bear that people should think unjustly of papa. Do you know he would give up the hospital altogether, only he cannot. The archdeacon says it would be cowardly, and that he would be deserting his order, and injuring the church. Whatever may happen, papa will not do that: he would leave the place tomorrow willingly, and give up his house, and the income and all, if the archdeacon—”
Eleanor was going to say “would let him,” but she stopped herself before she had compromised her father’s dignity; and giving a long sigh, she added—”Oh, I do so wish he would.”
“No one who knows Mr Harding personally accuses him for a moment,” said Bold.
“It is he that has to bear the punishment; it is he that suffers,” said Eleanor; “and what for? what has he done wrong? how has he deserved this persecution? he that never had an unkind thought in his life, he that never said an unkind word!” and here she broke down, and the violence of her sobs stopped her utterance.
Bold, for the fifth or sixth time, declared that neither he nor any of his friends imputed any blame personally to Mr Harding.
“Then why should he be persecuted?” ejaculated Eleanor through her tears, forgetting in her eagerness that her intention had been to humble herself as a suppliant before John Bold;—”why should he be singled out for scorn and disgrace? why should he be made so wretched? Oh! Mr Bold,”—and she turned towards him as though the kneeling scene were about to be commenced,—”oh! Mr Bold, why did you begin all this? You, whom we all so—so—valued!”
To speak the truth, the reformer’s punishment was certainly come upon him, for his present plight was not enviable; he had nothing for it but to excuse himself by platitudes about public duty, which it is by no means worth while to repeat, and to reiterate his eulogy on Mr Harding’s character. His position was certainly a cruel one: had any gentleman called upon him on behalf of Mr Harding he could of course have declined to enter upon the subject; but how could he do so with a beautiful girl, with the daughter of the man whom he had injured, with his own love?
In the meantime Eleanor recollected herself, and again summoned up her energies. “Mr Bold,” said she, “I have come here to implore you to abandon this proceeding.” He stood up from his seat, and looked beyond measure distressed. “To implore you to abandon it, to implore you to spare my father, to spare either his life or his reason, for one or the other will pay the forfeit if this goes on. I know how much I am asking, and how little right I have to ask anything; but I think you will listen to me as it is for my father. Oh, Mr Bold, pray, pray do this for us;—pray do not drive to distraction a man who has loved you so well.”
She did not absolutely kneel to him, but she followed him as he moved from his chair, and laid her soft hands imploringly upon his arm. Ah! at any other time how exquisitely valuable would have been that touch! but now he was distraught, dumbfounded, and unmanned. What could he say to that sweet suppliant; how explain to her that the matter now was probably beyond his control; how tell her that he could not quell the storm which he had raised?
“Surely, surely, John, you cannot refuse her,” said his sister.
“I would give her my soul,” said he, “if it would serve her.”
“Oh, Mr Bold,” said Eleanor, “do not speak so; I ask nothing for myself; and what I ask for my father, it cannot harm you to grant.”
“I would give her my soul, if it would serve her,” said Bold, still addressing his sister; “everything I have is hers, if she will accept it; my house, my heart, my all; every hope of my breast is centred in her; her smiles are sweeter to me than the sun, and when I see her in sorrow as she now is, every nerve in my body suffers. No man can love better than I love her.”
“No, no, no,” ejaculated Eleanor; “there can be no talk of love between us. Will you protect my father from the evil you have brought upon him?”
“Oh, Eleanor, I will do anything; let me tell you how I love you!”