第46章

Eleanor put on her happiest face as she heard her father on the stairs, for she thought she had only to congratulate him; but directly she saw his face, she knew that there was but little matter for congratulation. She had seen him with the same weary look of sorrow on one or two occasions before, and remembered it well. She had seen him when he first read that attack upon himself in the Jupiter, which had ultimately caused him to resign the hospital; and she had seen him also when the archdeacon had persuaded him to remain there against his own sense of propriety and honour. She knew at a glance that his spirit was in deep trouble.

'Oh, papa, what is it?' said she, putting down her boy to crawl upon the floor.

'I came to tell you, my dear,' said he, 'that I am going out to Plumstead: you won't come with me, I suppose?'

'To Plumstead, papa? Shall you stay there?'

'I suppose I shall tonight: I must consult the archdeacon about this weary hospital. Ah me! I wish I had never thought of it again.'

'Why, papa, what is the matter?'

'I've been with Mr Slope, my dear; and he isn't the pleasantest companion in the world, at least not to me.' Eleanor gave a sort of half blush; but she was wrong if she imagined that her father in any way alluded to her acquaintance with Mr Slope.

'Well, papa.'

'He wants to turn the hospital into a Sunday school and a preaching house; and I suppose he will have his way. I do not feel myself adapted for such an establishment, and therefore, I suppose, I must refuse the appointment.'

'What would be the harm of the school, papa?'

'The want of a proper schoolmaster, my dear.'

'But that would of course be supplied.'

'Mr Slope wishes to supply it by making me his schoolmaster. But as I am hardly fit for such work, I intend to decline.'

'Oh, papa! Mr Slope doesn't intend that. He was here yesterday, and what he intends--'

'He was here yesterday, was he?' asked Mr Harding.

'Yes, papa.'

'And talking about the hospital?'

'He was saying how glad he would be, and the bishop too, to see you back there again. And then he spoke about the Sunday school; and to tell the truth I agreed with him; and I thought you would have done so too. Mr Slope spoke of a school, not inside the hospital, but just connected with it, of which you would be the patron and visitor; and I thought you would have liked such a school as that;and I promised to look after it and to take a class--and it all seemed so very--. But, oh, papa! I shall be so miserable if I find that I have done wrong.'

'Nothing wrong at all, my dear,' said he, gently, very gently rejecting his daughter's caresses. 'There can be nothing wrong in your wishing to make yourself useful; indeed, you ought to do so by all means. Every one must now exert himself who would not choose to go to the wall.' Poor Mr Harding thus attempted in his misery to preach the new doctrine to his child. 'Himself or herself, it's all the same,' he continued, 'you will be quite right, my dear, to do something of this sort; but--'

'Well, papa.'

'I am not quite sure that if I were you I would select Mr Slope for my guide.'

'But I have never done so, and never shall.'

'It would be very wicked of me to speak evil of him, for to tell the truth I know no evil of him; but I am not quite sure that he is honest. That he is not gentleman-like in his manners, of that I am quite sure.'

'I never thought of taking him for my guide, papa.'

'As for myself, my dear,' continued he, 'we know the old proverb--"It's a bad thing teaching an old dog new tricks." I must decline the Sunday school, and shall therefore probably decline the hospital also. But I will first see your brother-in-law.' So he took up his hat, kissed the baby, and withdrew, leaving Eleanor in as low spirits as himself.

All this was a great aggravation to his misery. He had so few with whom to sympathise, that he could not afford to be cut off from the one whose sympathy was of the most value to him. And yet it seemed probable that this would be the case. He did not own to himself that he wished his daughter to hate Mr Slope; yet had she expressed such a feeling there would have been very little bitterness in the rebuke he would have given her for so uncharitable a state of mind.

The fact, however, was that she was on friendly terms with Mr Slope, that she coincided with his views, adhered at once to his plans, and listened with delight to his teaching. Mr Harding hardly wished his daughter to hate the man, but he would have preferred that to her loving him.

He walked away to the inn to order a fly, went home to put up his carpet bag, and then started for Plumstead. There was, at any rate, no danger that the archdeacon would fraternise with Mr Slope; but then he would recommend internecine war, public appeals, loud reproaches, and all the paraphernalia of open battle. Now that alternative was hardly more to Mr Harding's taste than the other.