第42章

SLOPE VERSUS HARDING

Two or three days after the party, Mr Harding received a note, begging him to call on Mr Slope, at the palace, at an early hour the following morning. There was nothing uncivil in the communication, and yet the tone of it was thoroughly displeasing.

It was as follows:

"My dear Mr Harding, Will you favour me by calling on me at the palace to-morrow morning at 9.30am. The bishop wishes me to speak to you touching the hospital. I hope you will excuse my naming so early an hour. I do so as my time is greatly occupied. If, however, it is positively inconvenient to you, I will change it to 10. You will, perhaps, be kind enough to give me a note in reply.

"Believe me to be, My dear Mr Harding, Your assured friend, OBH. SLOPE"The Palace, Monday morning, "20th August, 185-"Mr Harding neither could nor would believe anything of the sort;and he thought, moreover, that Mr Slope was rather impertinent to call himself by such a name. His assured friend, indeed! How many assured friends generally fall to the lot of a man in this world?

And by what process are they made? And how much of such process had taken place as yet between Mr Harding and Mr Slope? Mr Harding could not help asking himself these questions as he read and re-read the note before him. He answered it, as follows:

"Dear Sir,--I will call at the palace to-morrow at 9.30 AM as you desire.

"Truly yours, S. HARDING"

And on the following morning, punctually at half-past nine, he knocked at the palace door, and asked for Mr Slope.

The bishop had one small room allotted to him on the ground-floor, and Mr Slope had another. Into this latter Mr Harding was shown, and asked to sit down. Mr Slope was not yet there. The ex-warden stood up at the window looking into the garden, and could not help thinking how very short a time had passed since the whole of that house had been open to him, as though he had been a child of the family, born and bred in it. He remembered how the old servants used to smile as they opened the door to him; how the familiar butler would say, when he had been absent for a few hours longer than usual: 'A sight of you, Mr Harding, is good for sore eyes;'

how the fussy housekeeper would swear that he couldn't have dined, or couldn't have breakfasted, or couldn't have lunched. And then, above all, he remembered the pleasant gleam of inward satisfaction which always spread itself over the old bishop's face, whenever his friend entered his room.

A tear came into his eyes as he reflected that all this was gone.

What use would the hospital be to him now? He was alone in the world, and getting old; he would soon, very soon, have to go, and leave it all, as his dear old friend had gone;--go, and leave the hospital, and his accustomed place in the cathedral, and his haunts and pleasures, to younger and perhaps wiser men, in truth, the time for it had gone by. He felt as though the world were sinking from his feet; as though this, this was the time for him to turn with confidence to others. 'What,' said he to himself, 'can a man's religion be worth, if it does not support him against the natural melancholy of declining years?' and, as he looked out through his dimmed eyes into the bright parterres of the bishop's garden, he felt that he had the support which he wanted.

Nevertheless, he did not like to be thus kept waiting. If Mr Slope did not really wish to see him at half-past nine o'clock, why force him to come away from his lodgings with his breakfast in his throat? To tell the truth, it was policy on the part of Mr Slope.

Mr Slope had made up his mind that Mr Harding should either accept the hospital with abject submission, or else refuse it altogether;and had calculated that he would probably be more quick to do the latter, if he could be got to enter upon the subject in all ill-humour. Perhaps Mr Slope was not altogether wrong in his calculation.

It was nearly ten when Mr Slope hurried into the room, and, muttering something about the bishop and diocesan duties, shook Mr Harding's hand ruthlessly, and begged him to be seated.

Now the airy superiority which this man assumed, did go against the grain of Mr Harding; and yet he did not know how to resent it. The whole tendency of his mind and disposition was opposed to any contra-assumption of grandeur on his own part, and he hadn't the worldly spirit or quickness necessary to put down insolent pretensions by downright and open rebuke, as the archdeacon would have done. There was nothing for Mr Harding but to submit and he accordingly did so.

'About the hospital, Mr Harding,' began Mr Slope, speaking of it as the head of college at Cambridge might speak of some sizarship which had to be disposed of.

Mr Harding crossed one leg over the other, and then one hand over the other on the top of them, and looked Mr Slope in the face; but he said nothing.

'It's to be filled up again,' said Mr Slope. Mr Harding said that he had understood so.

'Of course, you know, the income is very much reduced,' continued Mr Slope. 'The bishop wished to be liberal, and he therefore told the government that he thought it ought to be put at not less than L 450. I think on the whole the bishop was right; for though the service required will not be of a very onerous nature, they will be more so than they were before. And it is, perhaps, well that the clergy immediately attached to the cathedral town should be made comfortable to the extent of the ecclesiastical means at our disposal will allow. Those are the bishop's ideas, and I must say mine also.'

Mr Harding sat rubbing one hand on the other, but said not a word.

'So much for the income, Mr Harding. The house will, of course, remain to the warden as before. It should, however, I think be stipulated that he should paint inside every seven years, and outside every three years, and be subject to dilapidations, in the event of vacating either by death or otherwise. But this is a matter on which the bishop must yet be consulted.'

Mr Harding still rubbed his hands, and still sat silent, gazing up into Mr Slope's unprepossessing face.