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

Mr. Quiverful, had not asked for the wardenship; he had not even accepted it till he had been assured that Mr. Harding had refused it. How hard then that he should be blamed for doing that which not to have done would have argued a most insane imprudence!

Thus in this matter of the hospital poor Mr. Quiverful had his trials, and he had also his consolations. On the whole the consolations were the more vivid of the two. The stern draper heard of the coming promotion, and the wealth of his warehouse was at Mr. Quiverful’s disposal. Coming events cast their shadows before, and the coming event of Mr. Quiverful’s transference to Barchester produced a delicious shadow in the shape of a new outfit for Mrs. Quiverful and her three elder daughters. Such consolations come home to the heart of a man, and quite home to the heart of a woman. Whatever the husband might feel, the wife cared nothing for frowns of dean, archdeacon, or prebendary. To her the outsides and insides of her husband and fourteen children were everything. In her bosom every other ambition had been swallowed up in that maternal ambition of seeing them and him and herself duly clad and properly fed. It had come to that with her that life had now no other purpose. She recked nothing of the imaginary rights of others. She had no patience with her husband when he declared to her that he could not accept the hospital unless he knew that Mr. Harding had refused it. Her husband had no right to be quixotic at the expense of fourteen children. The narrow escape of throwing away his good fortune which her lord had had, almost paralysed her. Now, indeed, they had received a full promise, not only from Mr. Slope, but also from Mrs. Proudie. Now, indeed, they might reckon with safety on their good fortune. But what if all had been lost? What if her fourteen bairns had been resteeped to the hips in poverty by the morbid sentimentality of their father? Mrs. Quiverful was just at present a happy woman, but yet it nearly took her breath away when she thought of the risk they had run.

“I don’t know what your father means when he talks so much of what is due to Mr. Harding,” she said to her eldest daughter. “Does he think that Mr. Harding would give him £450 a year out of fine feeling? And what signifies it whom he offends, as long as he gets the place? He does not expect anything better. It passes me to think how your father can be so soft, while everybody around him is so griping.”

Thus, while the outer world was accusing Mr. Quiverful of rapacity for promotion and of disregard to his honour, the inner world of his own household was falling foul of him, with equal vehemence, for his willingness to sacrifice their interests to a false feeling of sentimental pride. It is astonishing how much difference the point of view makes in the aspect of all that we look at!

Such were the feelings of the different members of the family at Puddingdale on the occasion of Mr. Slope’s second visit. Mrs. Quiverful, as soon as she saw his horse coming up the avenue from the vicarage gate, hastily packed up her huge basket of needlework and hurried herself and her daughter out of the room in which she was sitting with her husband. “It’s Mr. Slope,” she said. “He’s come to settle with you about the hospital. I do hope we shall now be able to move at once.” And she hastened to bid the maid of all work go to the door, so that the welcome great man might not be kept waiting.

Mr. Slope thus found Mr. Quiverful alone. Mrs. Quiverful went off to her kitchen and back settlements with anxious beating heart, almost dreading that there might be some slip between the cup of her happiness and the lip of her fruition, but yet comforting herself with the reflection that after what had taken place, any such slip could hardly be possible.

Mr. Slope was all smiles as he shook his brother clergyman’s hand and said that he had ridden over because he thought it right at once to put Mr. Quiverful in possession of the facts of the matter regarding the wardenship of the hospital. As he spoke, the poor expectant husband and father saw at a glance that his brilliant hopes were to be dashed to the ground, and that his visitor was now there for the purpose of unsaying what on his former visit he had said. There was something in the tone of the voice, something in the glance of the eye, which told the tale. Mr. Quiverful knew it all at once. He maintained his self-possession, however, smiled with a slight unmeaning smile, and merely said that he was obliged to Mr. Slope for the trouble he was taking.

“It has been a troublesome matter from first to last,” said Mr. Slope, “and the bishop has hardly known how to act. Between ourselves⁠—but mind this of course must go no further, Mr. Quiverful.”

Mr. Quiverful said that of course it should not. “The truth is that poor Mr. Harding has hardly known his own mind. You remember our last conversation, no doubt.”

Mr. Quiverful assured him that he remembered it very well indeed.

“You will remember that I told you that Mr. Harding had refused to return to the hospital.”

Mr. Quiverful declared that nothing could be more distinct on his memory.

“And acting on this refusal, I suggested that you should take the hospital,” continued Mr. Slope.

“I understood you to say that the bishop had authorised you to offer it to me.”

“Did I? Did I go so far as that? Well, perhaps it may be that in my anxiety in your behalf I did commit myself further than I should have done. So far as my own memory serves me, I don’t think I did go quite so far as that. But I own I was very anxious that you should get it, and I may have said more than was quite prudent.”

“But,”