第118章

She also blushed deeply. She could not bring herself to ask him whether he had not spoken of her as another man's wife. 'You know that best yourself,' said she; 'but I ask you as a man of honour, if you have not spoken of me as you would not have spoken of your own sister; or rather I will not ask you,' she continued, finding that he did not immediately answer her. 'I will not put you to the necessity of answering such a question. Dr Grantly has told me what you said.'

'Dr Grantly certainly asked me for my advice, and I gave it. He asked me--'

'I know he did, Mr Arabin. He asked you whether he would be doing right to receive me at Plumstead, if I continued my acquaintance with a gentleman who happens to be personally disagreeable to yourself and to him?'

'You are mistaken, Mrs Bold. I have no personal knowledge of Mr Slope; I have never met him in my life.'

'You are not the less individually hostile to him. It is not for me to question the propriety of your enmity; but I had a right to expect that my name should not have been mixed up in your hostilities. This has been done, and been done by you in a manner the most injurious and the most distressing to a woman. I must confess, Mr Arabin, that from you I expected a different sort of usage.'

As she spoke she with difficulty restrained her tears; but she did restrain them. Had she given way and sobbed about, as in such cases a woman should do, he would have melted at once, implored her pardon, perhaps knelt at her feet and declared his love. Everything would have been explained, and Eleanor would have gone back to Barchester with a contented mind. How easily would she have forgiven and forgotten the archdeacon's suspicions had she but heard the whole truth of it from Mr Arabin. But then where would have been my novel? She did not cry, and Mr Arabin did not melt.

'You do me an injustice,' said he. 'My advice was asked by Dr Grantly, and I was obliged to give it.'

'Dr Grantly has been most officious, most impertinent. I have as complete a right to form my acquaintance as he has to form his.

What would you have said, had I consulted you as to the propriety of banishing Dr Grantly from my house because he knows Lord Tattenham Corner? I am sure Lord Tattenham is quite as objectionable an acquaintance for a clergyman as Mr Slope is for a clergyman's daughter.'

'I do not know Lord Tattenham Corner.'

'No; but Dr Grantly does. It is nothing to me if he knows all the young lords on every racecourse in England. I shall not interfere with him; nor shall he with me.'

'I am sorry to differ with you, Mrs Bold; but as you have spoken to me on this matter, and especially as you blame me for what little Isaid on the subject, I must tell you that I do differ from you. Dr Grantly's position as a man in the world gives him a right to choose his own acquaintances, subject to certain influences. If he chooses them badly, those influences will be used. If he consorts with persons unsuitable to him, his bishop will interfere. What the bishop is to Dr Grantly, Dr Grantly is to you.'

'I deny it. I utterly deny it,' said Eleanor, jumping from her seat, and literally flashing before Mr Arabin, as she stood on the drawing-room floor. He had never seen her so excited, he had never seen her look so beautiful.

'I utterly deny it,' said she. 'Dr Grantly has no sort of jurisdiction over me whatsoever. Do you and he forget that I am not altogether alone in this world? Do you forget that I have a father?

Dr Grantly, I believe, always has forgotten it.'

'From you, Mr Arabin,' she continued, 'I would have listened to advice because I should have expected it to have been given as one friend may advise another; not as a schoolmaster gives an order to a pupil. I might have differed from you; on this matter I should have done so; but had you spoken to me in your usual manner and with your usual freedom I should not have been angry. But now--was it manly of you, Mr Arabin, to speak of me in this way--, so disrespectful--so--? I cannot bring myself to repeat what you said.

You must understand what I feel. Was it just of you to speak of me in such a way, and to advise my sister's husband to turn me out of my sister's house because I chose to know a man of whose doctrine you disapprove?'

'I have no alternative left to me, Mrs Bold,' said he, standing with his back to the fire-place, looking down intently at the carpet pattern and speaking with a slow measured voice, 'but to tell you plainly what did take place between me and Dr Grantly.'

'Well,' said she, finding that he paused for a moment.

'I am afraid that what I may say may pain you.'

'It cannot well do so more than what you have already done,' said she.

'Dr Grantly asked me whether I thought it would be prudent for him to receive you in his house as the wife of Mr Slope, and I told him that I thought it would be imprudent. Believing it to be utterly impossible that Mr Slope and--'

'Thank you, Mr Arabin, that is sufficient. I do not want to know your reasons,' said she, speaking with a terribly calm voice. 'Ihave shown to this gentleman the common-place civility of a neighbour; and because I have done so, because I have not indulged against him in all the rancour and hatred which you and Dr Grantly consider due to all clergymen who do not agree with yourselves, you conclude that I am to marry him;--or rather you do not conclude so--no rational man could really come to such an outrageous conclusion without better ground;--you have not thought so--but, as I am in a position in which such an accusation must be peculiarly painful, it is made in order that I may be terrified into hostility against this enemy of yours.'