Barchester Towers, Anthony Trollope [top business books of all time .txt] 📗

sound the bishop that very afternoon. He was to start on the following morning to London, and therefore not a moment could be lost with safety.

He went into the bishop’s study about five o’clock and found him still sitting alone. It might have been supposed that he had hardly moved since the little excitement occasioned by his walk to the dean’s door. He still wore on his face that dull, dead look of half-unconscious suffering. He was doing nothing, reading nothing, thinking of nothing, but simply gazing on vacancy when Mr. Slope for the second time that day entered his room.

“Well, Slope,” said he somewhat impatiently, for, to tell the truth, he was not anxious just at present to have much conversation with Mr. Slope.

“Your lordship will be sorry to hear that as yet the poor dean has shown no sign of amendment.”

“Oh⁠—ah⁠—hasn’t he? Poor man! I’m sure I’m very sorry. I suppose Sir Omicron has not arrived yet?”

“No, not till the 9:15 p.m. train.”

“I wonder they didn’t have a special. They say Dr. Trefoil is very rich.”

“Very rich, I believe,” said Mr. Slope. “But the truth is, all the doctors in London can do no good⁠—no other good than to show that every possible care has been taken. Poor Dr. Trefoil is not long for this world, my lord.”

“I suppose not⁠—I suppose not.”

“Oh, no; indeed, his best friends could not wish that he should outlive such a shock, for his intellects cannot possibly survive it.”

“Poor man! Poor man!” said the bishop.

“It will naturally be a matter of much moment to your lordship who is to succeed him,” said Mr. Slope. “It would be a great thing if you could secure the appointment for some person of your own way of thinking on important points. The party hostile to us are very strong here in Barchester⁠—much too strong.”

“Yes, yes. If poor Dr. Trefoil is to go, it will be a great thing to get a good man in his place.”

“It will be everything to your lordship to get a man on whose cooperation you can reckon. Only think what trouble we might have if Dr. Grantly, or Dr. Hyandry, or any of that way of thinking were to get it.”

“It is not very probable that Lord ⸻ will give it to any of that school; why should he?”

“No. Not probable; certainly not; but it’s possible. Great interest will probably be made. If I might venture to advise your lordship, I would suggest that you should discuss the matter with his grace next week. I have no doubt that your wishes, if made known and backed by his grace, would be paramount with Lord ⸻.”

“Well, I don’t know that; Lord ⸻ has always been very kind to me, very kind. But I am unwilling to interfere in such matters unless asked. And indeed if asked, I don’t know whom, at this moment, I should recommend.”

Mr. Slope, even Mr. Slope, felt at the present rather abashed. He hardly knew how to frame his little request in language sufficiently modest. He had recognized and acknowledged to himself the necessity of shocking the bishop in the first instance by the temerity of his application, and his difficulty was how best to remedy that by his adroitness and eloquence. “I doubted myself,” said he, “whether your lordship would have anyone immediately in your eye, and it is on this account that I venture to submit to you an idea that I have been turning over in my own mind. If poor Dr. Trefoil must go, I really do not see why, with your lordship’s assistance, I should not hold the preferment myself.”

“You!” exclaimed the bishop in a manner that Mr. Slope could hardly have considered complimentary.

The ice was now broken, and Mr. Slope became fluent enough. “I have been thinking of looking for it. If your lordship will press the matter on the archbishop, I do not doubt but I shall succeed. You see I shall be the first to move, which is a great matter. Then I can count upon assistance from the public press: my name is known, I may say, somewhat favourably known, to that portion of the press which is now most influential with the government; and I have friends also in the government. But nevertheless it is to you, my lord, that I look for assistance. It is from your hands that I would most willingly receive the benefit. And, which should ever be the chief consideration in such matters, you must know better than any other person whatsoever what qualifications I possess.”

The bishop sat for awhile dumbfounded. Mr. Slope Dean of Barchester! The idea of such a transformation of character would never have occurred to his own unaided intellect. At first he went on thinking why, for what reasons, on what account, Mr. Slope should be Dean of Barchester. But by degrees the direction of his thoughts changed, and he began to think why, for what reasons, on what account, Mr. Slope should not be Dean of Barchester. As far as he himself, the bishop, was concerned, he could well spare the services of his chaplain. That little idea of using Mr. Slope as a counterpoise to his wife had well nigh evaporated. He had all but acknowledged the futility of the scheme. If indeed he could have slept in his chaplain’s bedroom instead of his wife’s, there might have been something in it. But⁠—And thus as Mr. Slope was speaking, the bishop began to recognize the idea that that gentleman might become Dean of Barchester without impropriety⁠—not moved, indeed, by Mr. Slope’s eloquence, for he did not follow the tenor of his speech, but led thereto by his own cogitations.

“I need not say,” continued Mr. Slope, “that it would be my chief desire to act in all matters connected with the cathedral as far as possible in accordance with your views. I know your lordship so well (and I hope you know me well enough to have the same feelings) that I am satisfied that my being in that position would add materially to your own comfort, and enable you