Barchester Towers Anthony Trollope (iphone ebook reader .TXT) đ
- Author: Anthony Trollope
Book online «Barchester Towers Anthony Trollope (iphone ebook reader .TXT) đ». Author Anthony Trollope
âFour hundred and fifty,â said she, âinstead of eight hundred! Well, that is rather shabby. But still, Papa, youâll have the dear old house and the garden?â
âMy dear,â said he, âitâs worth twice the money;â and as he spoke he showed a jaunty kind of satisfaction in his tone and manner and in the quick, pleasant way in which he paced Eleanorâs drawing-room. âItâs worth twice the money. I shall have the house and the garden and a larger income than I can possibly want.â
âAt any rate, youâll have no extravagant daughter to provide for;â and as she spoke, the young widow put her arm within his, and made him sit on the sofa beside her; âat any rate, youâll not have that expense.â
âNo, my dear, and I shall be rather lonely without her; but we wonât think of that now. As regards income, I shall have plenty for all I want. I shall have my old house, and I donât mind owning now that I have felt sometimes the inconvenience of living in a lodging. Lodgings are very nice for young men, but at my time of life there is a want ofâ âI hardly know what to call it, perhaps not respectabilityâ ââ
âOh, Papa! Iâm sure thereâs been nothing like that. Nobody has thought it; nobody in all Barchester has been more respected than you have been since you took those rooms in High Street. Nobody! Not the dean in his deanery, or the archdeacon out at Plumstead.â
âThe archdeacon would not be much obliged to you if he heard you,â said he, smiling somewhat at the exclusive manner in which his daughter confined her illustration to the church dignitaries of the chapter of Barchester; âbut at any rate I shall be glad to get back to the old house. Since I heard that it was all settled, I have begun to fancy that I canât be comfortable without my two sitting-rooms.â
âCome and stay with me, Papa, till it is settledâ âthereâs a dear Papa.â
âThank ye, Nelly. But no, I wonât do that. It would make two movings. I shall be very glad to get back to my old men again. Alas! alas! There have six of them gone in these few last years. Six out of twelve! And the others I fear have had but a sorry life of it there. Poor Bunce, poor old Bunce!â
Bunce was one of the surviving recipients of Hiramâs charity, an old man, now over ninety, who had long been a favourite of Mr. Hardingâs.
âHow happy old Bunce will be,â said Mrs. Bold, clapping her soft hands softly. âHow happy they all will be to have you back again. You may be sure there will soon be friendship among them again when you are there.â
âBut,â said he, half-laughing, âI am to have new troubles, which will be terrible to me. There are to be twelve old women, and a matron. How shall I manage twelve women and a matron!â
âThe matron will manage the women, of course.â
âAnd whoâll manage the matron?â said he.
âShe wonât want to be managed. Sheâll be a great lady herself, I suppose. But, Papa, where will the matron live? She is not to live in the wardenâs house with you, is she?â
âWell, I hope not, my dear.â
âOh, Papa, I tell you fairly, I wonât have a matron for a new stepmother.â
âYou shanât, my dear; that is, if I can help it. But they are going to build another house for the matron and the women, and I believe they havenât even fixed yet on the site of the building.â
âAnd have they appointed the matron?â said Eleanor.
âThey havenât appointed the warden yet,â replied he.
âBut thereâs no doubt about that, I suppose,â said his daughter.
Mr. Harding explained that he thought there was no doubt; that the archdeacon had declared as much, saying that the bishop and his chaplain between them had not the power to appoint anyone else, even if they had the will to do so, and sufficient impudence to carry out such a will. The archdeacon was of opinion that, though Mr. Harding had resigned his wardenship, and had done so unconditionally, he had done so under circumstances which left the bishop no choice as to his reappointment, now that the affair of the hospital had been settled on a new basis by act of Parliament. Such was the archdeaconâs opinion, and his father-in-law received it without a shadow of doubt.
Dr. Grantly had always been strongly opposed to Mr. Hardingâs resignation of the place. He had done all in his power to dissuade him from it. He had considered that Mr. Harding was bound to withstand the popular clamour with which he was attacked for receiving so large an income as eight hundred a year from such a charity, and was not even yet satisfied that his father-in-lawâs conduct had not been pusillanimous and undignified. He looked also on this reduction of the wardenâs income as a shabby, paltry scheme on the part of government for escaping from a difficulty into which it had been brought by the public press. Dr. Grantly observed that the government had no more right to dispose of a sum of four hundred and fifty pounds a year out of the income of Hiramâs legacy than of nine hundred; whereas, as he said, the bishop, dean, and chapter clearly had a right to settle what sum should be paid. He also declared that the government had no more right to saddle the charity with twelve old women than with twelve hundred; and he was, therefore, very indignant on the matter. He probably forgot when so talking that government had done nothing of the kind, and had never assumed any such might or any such right. He made the common mistake of attributing to the government, which in such matters is powerless, the doings of Parliament, which in such matters is omnipotent.
But though he felt that the glory and honour of the situation of warden of Barchester Hospital were indeed curtailed by the new
Comments (0)