<p><SPAN name="9"></SPAN> </p>
<h3>Chapter IX<br/> <br/> <span class="smallcaps">The Conference</span></h3>
<p> </p>
<p>On the following morning the archdeacon was with his father
betimes, and a note was sent down to the warden begging his
attendance at the palace. Dr Grantly, as he cogitated on
the matter, leaning back in his brougham as he journeyed into
Barchester, felt that it would be difficult to communicate
his own satisfaction either to his father or his father-in-law.
He wanted success on his own side and discomfiture on that
of his enemies. The bishop wanted peace on the subject; a
settled peace if possible, but peace at any rate till the
short remainder of his own days had spun itself out. Mr Harding
required not only success and peace, but he also demanded that
he might stand justified before the world.</p>
<p>The bishop, however, was comparatively easy to deal with;
and before the arrival of the other, the dutiful son had persuaded
his father that all was going on well, and then the warden
arrived.</p>
<p>It was Mr Harding's wont, whenever he spent a morning at
the palace, to seat himself immediately at the bishop's elbow,
the bishop occupying a huge arm-chair fitted up with
candle-sticks, a reading table, a drawer,
and other paraphernalia, the
position of which chair was never moved, summer or winter;
and when, as was usual, the archdeacon was there also, he
confronted the two elders, who thus were enabled to fight the
battle against him together;—and together submit to defeat,
for such was their constant fate.</p>
<p>Our warden now took his accustomed place, having greeted
his son-in-law as he entered, and then affectionately inquired
after his friend's health. There was a gentleness about the
bishop to which the soft womanly affection of Mr Harding
particularly endeared itself, and it was quaint to see how the
two mild old priests pressed each other's hand, and smiled and
made little signs of love.</p>
<p>"Sir Abraham's opinion has come at last," began the archdeacon.
Mr Harding had heard so much, and was most anxious to know
the result.</p>
<p>"It is quite favourable," said the bishop, pressing his friend's
arm. "I am so glad."</p>
<p>Mr Harding looked at the mighty bearer of the important
news for confirmation of these glad tidings.</p>
<p>"Yes," said the archdeacon; "Sir Abraham has given most
minute attention to the case; indeed, I knew he would;—most
minute attention; and his opinion is,—and as to his opinion
on such a subject being correct, no one who knows Sir Abraham's
character can doubt,—his opinion is, that they hav'n't
got a leg to stand on."</p>
<p>"But as how, archdeacon?"</p>
<p>"Why, in the first place:—but you're no lawyer, warden,
and I doubt you won't understand it; the gist of the matter is
this:—under Hiram's will two paid guardians have been
selected for the hospital; the law will say two paid servants,
and you and I won't quarrel with the name."</p>
<p>"At any rate I will not if I am one of the servants," said
Mr Harding. "A rose, you know—"</p>
<p>"Yes, yes," said the archdeacon, impatient of poetry at such
a time. "Well, two paid servants, we'll say; one to look after
the men, and the other to look after the money. You and
Chadwick are these two servants, and whether either of you be
paid too much, or too little, more or less in fact than the
founder willed, it's as clear as daylight that no one can fall foul
of either of you for receiving an allotted stipend."</p>
<p>"That does seem clear," said the bishop, who had winced
visibly at the words servants and stipend, which, however,
appeared to have caused no uneasiness to the archdeacon.</p>
<p>"Quite clear," said he, "and very satisfactory. In point of
fact, it being necessary to select such servants for the use of the
hospital, the pay to be given to them must depend on the rate
of pay for such services, according to their market value at the
period in question; and those who manage the hospital must
be the only judges of this."</p>
<p>"And who does manage the hospital?" asked the warden.</p>
<p>"Oh, let them find that out; that's another question: the
action is brought against you and Chadwick; that's your
defence, and a perfect and full defence it is. Now that I think
very satisfactory."</p>
<p>"Well," said the bishop, looking inquiringly up into his friend's
face, who sat silent awhile, and apparently not so well
satisfied.</p>
<p>"And conclusive," continued the archdeacon; "if they press
it to a jury, which they won't do, no twelve men in England
will take five minutes to decide against them."</p>
<p>"But according to that," said Mr Harding, "I might as well
have sixteen hundred a year as eight, if the managers choose to
allot it to me; and as I am one of the managers, if not the chief
manager, myself, that can hardly be a just arrangement."</p>
<p>"Oh, well; all that's nothing to the question. The question
is, whether this intruding fellow, and a lot of cheating attorneys
and pestilent dissenters, are to interfere with an arrangement
which everyone knows is essentially just and serviceable to the
church. Pray don't let us be splitting hairs, and that amongst
ourselves, or there'll never be an end of the cause or the cost."</p>
<p>Mr Harding again sat silent for a while, during which the
bishop once and again pressed his arm, and looked in his face
to see if he could catch a gleam of a contented and eased mind;
but there was no such gleam, and the poor warden continued
playing sad dirges on invisible stringed instruments in all
manner of positions; he was ruminating in his mind on this
opinion of Sir Abraham, looking to it wearily and earnestly
for satisfaction, but finding none. At last he said, "Did you
see the opinion, archdeacon?"</p>
<p>The archdeacon said he had not,—that was to say, he
had,—that was, he had not seen the opinion itself;
he had seen what had been called a copy, but
he could not say whether of a whole or part; nor could
he say that what he had seen were the <i>ipsissima
verba</i> of the great man himself; but what he had
seen contained exactly the decision which he had announced,
and which he again declared to be to his mind extremely
satisfactory.</p>
<p>"I should like to see the opinion," said the warden; "that is,
a copy of it."</p>
<p>"Well, I suppose you can if you make a point of it; but I
don't see the use myself; of course it is essential that the
purport of it should not be known, and it is therefore unadvisable
to multiply copies."</p>
<p>"Why should it not be known?" asked the warden.</p>
<p>"What a question for a man to ask!" said the archdeacon,
throwing up his hands in token of his surprise; "but it is like
you:—a child is not more innocent than you are in matters of
business. Can't you see that if we tell them that no action will
lie against you, but that one may possibly lie against some
other person or persons, that we shall be putting weapons into
their hands, and be teaching them how to cut our own throats?"</p>
<p>The warden again sat silent, and the bishop again looked at
him wistfully. "The only thing we have now to do," continued
the archdeacon, "is to remain quiet, hold our peace, and let
them play their own game as they please."</p>
<p>"We are not to make known then," said the warden, "that
we have consulted the attorney-general, and that we are
advised by him that the founder's will is fully and fairly
carried out."</p>
<p>"God bless my soul!" said the archdeacon, "how odd it is
that you will not see that all we are to do is to do nothing:
why should we say anything about the founder's will? We are
in possession; and we know that they are not in a position to
put us out; surely that is enough for the present."</p>
<p>Mr Harding rose from his seat and paced thoughtfully up
and down the library, the bishop the while watching him painfully
at every turn, and the archdeacon continuing to pour forth
his convictions that the affair was in a state to satisfy any
prudent mind.</p>
<p>"And <i>The Jupiter</i>?" said the warden, stopping
suddenly.</p>
<p>"Oh! <i>The Jupiter</i>," answered the other. "<i>The
Jupiter</i> can break no bones. You must bear with that;
there is much, of course, which it is our bounden duty to
bear; it cannot be all roses for us here," and the
archdeacon looked exceedingly moral; "besides, the matter
is too trivial, of too little general interest to be
mentioned again in <i>The Jupiter</i>, unless we stir up
the subject." And the archdeacon again looked exceedingly
knowing and worldly wise.</p>
<p>The warden continued his walk; the hard and stinging
words of that newspaper article, each one of which had thrust
a thorn as it were into his inmost soul, were fresh in his
memory; he had read it more than once, word by word, and
what was worse, he fancied it was as well known to everyone
as to himself. Was he to be looked on as the unjust griping
priest he had been there described? Was he to be pointed at
as the consumer of the bread of the poor, and to be allowed no
means of refuting such charges, of clearing his begrimed name,
of standing innocent in the world, as hitherto he had stood?
Was he to bear all this, to receive as usual his now hated
income, and be known as one of those greedy priests who by
their rapacity have brought disgrace on their church? And
why? Why should he bear all this? Why should he die, for he
felt that he could not live, under such a weight of obloquy?
As he paced up and down the room he resolved in his misery
and enthusiasm that he could with pleasure, if he were allowed,
give up his place, abandon his pleasant home, leave the hospital,
and live poorly, happily, and with an unsullied name, on the
small remainder of his means.</p>
<p>He was a man somewhat shy of speaking of himself, even
before those who knew him best, and whom he loved the most;
but at last it burst forth from him, and with a somewhat jerking
eloquence he declared that he could not, would not, bear this
misery any longer.</p>
<p>"If it can be proved," said he at last, "that I have a just and
honest right to this, as God well knows I always deemed I had;
if this salary or stipend be really my due, I am not less anxious
than another to retain it. I have the well-being of my child
to look to. I am too old to miss without some pain the comforts
to which I have been used; and I am, as others are, anxious
to prove to the world that I have been right, and to uphold
the place I have held; but I cannot do it at such a cost
as this. I cannot bear this. Could you tell me to do so?" And
he appealed, almost in tears, to the bishop, who had left his
chair, and was now leaning on the warden's arm as he stood
on the further side of the table facing the archdeacon. "Could
you tell me to sit there at ease, indifferent, and satisfied, while
such things as these are said loudly of me in the world?"</p>
<p>The bishop could feel for him and sympathise with him, but
he could not advise him; he could only say, "No, no, you shall
be asked to do nothing that is painful; you shall do just what
your heart tells you to be right; you shall do whatever you
think best yourself. Theophilus, don't advise him, pray don't
advise the warden to do anything which is painful."</p>
<p>But the archdeacon, though he could not sympathise, could
advise; and he saw that the time had come when it behoved
him to do so in a somewhat peremptory manner.</p>
<p>"Why, my lord," he said, speaking to his father;—and when
he called his father "my lord," the good old bishop shook in
his shoes, for he knew that an evil time was coming. "Why,
my lord, there are two ways of giving advice: there is advice
that may be good for the present day; and there is advice that
may be good for days to come: now I cannot bring myself to
give the former, if it be incompatible with the other."</p>
<p>"No, no, no, I suppose not," said the bishop, re-seating
himself, and shading his face with his hands. Mr Harding sat
down with his back to the further wall, playing to himself some
air fitted for so calamitous an occasion, and the archdeacon
said out his say standing, with his back to the empty
fire-place.</p>
<p>"It is not to be supposed but that much pain will spring out
of this unnecessarily raised question. We must all have foreseen
that, and the matter has in no wise gone on worse than we
expected; but it will be weak, yes, and wicked also, to abandon
the cause and own ourselves wrong, because the inquiry is
painful. It is not only ourselves we have to look to; to a certain
extent the interest of the church is in our keeping. Should it
be found that one after another of those who hold preferment
abandoned it whenever it might be attacked, is it not plain
that such attacks would be renewed till nothing was left us?
and, that if so deserted, the Church of England must fall to the
ground altogether? If this be true of many, it is true of one.
Were you, accused as you now are, to throw up the wardenship,
and to relinquish the preferment which is your property,
with the vain object of proving yourself disinterested, you
would fail in that object, you would inflict a desperate blow on
your brother clergymen, you would encourage every cantankerous
dissenter in England to make a similar charge against some
source of clerical revenue, and you would do your best to
dishearten those who are most anxious to defend you and
uphold your position. I can fancy nothing more weak, or
more wrong. It is not that you think that there is any justice
in these charges, or that you doubt your own right to the
wardenship: you are convinced of your own honesty, and yet
would yield to them through cowardice."</p>
<p>"Cowardice!" said the bishop, expostulating. Mr Harding
sat unmoved, gazing on his son-in-law.</p>
<p>"Well; would it not be cowardice? Would he not do so
because he is afraid to endure the evil things which will be
falsely spoken of him? Would that not be cowardice? And
now let us see the extent of the evil which you dread. <i>The
Jupiter</i> publishes an article which a great many, no doubt, will
read; but of those who understand the subject how many will
believe <i>The Jupiter</i>? Everyone knows what
its object is: it has
taken up the case against Lord Guildford and against the Dean
of Rochester, and that against half a dozen bishops; and does
not everyone know that it would take up any case of the kind,
right or wrong, false or true, with known justice or known
injustice, if by doing so it could further its own views? Does
not all the world know this of <i>The Jupiter</i>? Who that
really knows you will think the worse of you for what <i>The
Jupiter</i> says? And why care for those who do not know
you? I will say nothing of your own comfort, but
I do say that you could not be justified in throwing
up, in a fit of passion, for such it would
be, the only maintenance that Eleanor has; and if you did so,
if you really did vacate the wardenship, and submit to ruin,
what would that profit you? If you have no future right to
the income, you have had no past right to it; and the very fact
of your abandoning your position would create a demand for
repayment of that which you have already received and spent."</p>
<p>The poor warden groaned as he sat perfectly still, looking
up at the hard-hearted orator who thus tormented him, and
the bishop echoed the sound faintly from behind his hands;
but the archdeacon cared little for such signs of weakness, and
completed his exhortation.</p>
<p>"But let us suppose the office to be left vacant, and that your
own troubles concerning it were over; would that satisfy you?
Are your only aspirations in the matter confined to yourself
and family? I know they are not. I know you are as anxious
as any of us for the church to which we belong; and what a
grievous blow would such an act of apostasy give her! You
owe it to the church of which you are a member and a minister,
to bear with this affliction, however severe it may be: you owe
it to my father, who instituted you, to support his rights: you
owe it to those who preceded you to assert the legality of their
position; you owe it to those who are to come after you, to
maintain uninjured for them that which you received uninjured
from others; and you owe to us all the unflinching assistance
of perfect brotherhood in this matter, so that upholding
one another we may support our great cause without blushing
and without disgrace."</p>
<p>And so the archdeacon ceased, and stood self-satisfied,
watching the effect of his spoken wisdom.</p>
<p>The warden felt himself, to a certain extent, stifled; he
would have given the world to get himself out into the open
air without speaking to, or noticing those who were in the
room with him; but this was impossible. He could not leave
without saying something, and he felt himself confounded by
the archdeacon's eloquence. There was a heavy, unfeeling,
unanswerable truth in what he had said; there was so much
practical, but odious common sense in it, that he neither knew
how to assent or to differ. If it were necessary for him to
suffer, he felt that he could endure without complaint and
without cowardice, providing that he was self-satisfied of the
justice of his own cause. What he could not endure was, that
he should be accused by others, and not acquitted by himself.
Doubting, as he had begun to doubt, the justice of his own
position in the hospital, he knew that his own self-confidence
would not be restored because Mr Bold had been in error as
to some legal form; nor could he be satisfied to escape,
because, through some legal fiction, he who received the greatest
benefit from the hospital might be considered only as one of
its servants.</p>
<p>The archdeacon's speech had silenced him,—stupefied
him,—annihilated him; anything but satisfied him. With the
bishop it fared not much better. He did not discern clearly
how things were, but he saw enough to know that a battle was
to be prepared for; a battle that would destroy his few
remaining comforts, and bring him with sorrow to the grave.</p>
<p>The warden still sat, and still looked at the archdeacon, till
his thoughts fixed themselves wholly on the means of escape
from his present position, and he felt like a bird fascinated by
gazing on a snake.</p>
<p>"I hope you agree with me," said the archdeacon at last,
breaking the dread silence; "my lord, I hope you agree with me."</p>
<p>Oh, what a sigh the bishop gave! "My lord, I hope you
agree with me," again repeated the merciless tyrant.</p>
<p>"Yes, I suppose so," groaned the poor old man, slowly.</p>
<p>"And you, warden?"</p>
<p>Mr Harding was now stirred to action;—he must speak and
move, so he got up and took one turn before he answered.</p>
<p>"Do not press me for an answer just at present; I will do
nothing lightly in the matter, and of whatever I do I will give
you and the bishop notice." And so without another word he
took his leave, escaping quickly through the palace hall, and
down the lofty steps; nor did he breathe freely till he found
himself alone under the huge elms of the silent close. Here he
walked long and slowly, thinking on his case with a troubled
air, and trying in vain to confute the archdeacon's argument.
He then went home, resolved to bear it all,—ignominy, suspense,
disgrace, self-doubt, and heart-burning,—and to do as those
would have him, who he still believed were most fit and most
able to counsel him aright.</p>
<p> </p>
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />