When Mr Harding reached the parsonage he found that the archdeacon was out, and would not be home till dinner-time, so he began his complaint to his elder daughter. Mrs Grantly entertained quite as strong an antagonism to Mr Slope as did her husband; she was also quite as alive to the necessity of combatting the Proudie faction, of supporting the old church interest of the close, of keeping in her own set much of the loaves and fishes as duly belonged to it;and was quite as well prepared as her lord to carry on the battle without giving or taking quarter. Not that she was a woman prone to quarrelling, or ill inclined to live at peace with her clerical neighbours; but she felt, as did the archdeacon, that the presence of Mr Slope in Barchester was an insult to every one connected with the late bishop, and that his assumed dominion in the diocese was a spiritual injury to her husband. Hitherto people had little guessed how bitter Mrs Grantly could be. She lived on the best of terms with all the rectors' wives around her. She had been popular with all the ladies connected with the close. Though much the wealthiest of the ecclesiastical matrons of the county, she had so managed her affairs that her carriage and horses had given umbrage to none. She had never thrown herself among the county grandees so as to excite the envy of other clergymen's wives. She had never talked too loudly of earls and countesses, or boasted that she gave her governess sixty pounds a year, or her cook seventy. Mrs Grantly had lived the life of a wise, discreet, peace-making woman; and the people of Barchester were surprised at the amount of military vigour she displayed as general of the feminine Grantlyite forces.
Mrs Grantly soon learnt that her sister Eleanor had promised to assist Mr Slope in the affairs of the hospital; and it was on this point that her attention soon fixed itself.
'How can Eleanor endure him?' said she.
'He is a very crafty man,' said her father, 'and his craft has been successful in making Eleanor think that he is a meek, charitable, good clergyman. God forgive me, if I wrong him, but such is not his true character in my opinion.'
'His true character, indeed!' said she, with something approaching scorn for her father's moderation. 'I only hope he won't have craft enough to make Eleanor forget herself and her position.'
'Do you mean marry him?' said he, startled out of his usual demeanour by the abruptness and horror of so dreadful a proposition.
'What is there so improbable in it? Of course that would be his own object if he thought he had any chance of success. Eleanor has a thousand a year entirely at her own disposal, and what better fortune could fall to Mr Slope's lot than the transferring of the disposal of such a fortune to himself?'
'But you can't think she likes him, Susan?'
'Why not?' said Susan. 'Why shouldn't she like him? He's just the sort of man to get on with a woman left as she is, with no one to look after her.'
'Look after her!' said the unhappy father; 'don't we look after her?'
'Ah, papa, how innocent you are! Of course it was to be expected that Eleanor should marry again. I should be the last to advise her against it, if she would only wait the proper time, and then marry at least a gentleman.'
'But you don't really mean to say that you suppose Eleanor has ever thought of marrying Mr Slope? Why, Mr Bold has only been dead a year.'
'Eighteen months,' said his daughter. 'But I don't suppose Eleanor has ever thought about it. It is very probable, though, that he has, and that he will try and make her do so; and that he will succeed too, if we don't take care what we are about.'
This was quite a new phase of the affair to poor Mr Harding. To have thrust upon him as his son-in-law, as the husband of his favourite child, the only man in the world whom he really positively disliked, would be a misfortune which he felt he would not know how to endure patiently. But then, could there be any ground for so dreadful a surmise? In all worldly matters he was apt to look upon the opinion of his eldest daughter, as one generally sound and trustworthy. In her appreciation of character, of motives, and the probable conduct both of men and women, she was usually not far wrong. She had early foreseen the marriage of Eleanor and John Bold; she had at a glance deciphered the character of the new bishop and his chaplain; could it possibly be that her present surmise should ever come forth as true?'
'But you don't think that she likes him,' said Mr Harding again.
'Well, papa, I can't say that I think she dislikes him as she ought to do. Why is he visiting there as a confidential friend, when he never ought to have been admitted inside the house? Why is it that she speaks to him of about your welfare and your position, as she clearly has done? At the bishop's party the other night, I saw her talking to him for half an hour at the stretch.'
'I thought Mr Slope seemed to talk to nobody there but that daughter of Stanhope's,' said Mr Harding, wishing to defend his child.
'Oh, Mr Slope is a cleverer man than you think of, papa, and keeps more than one iron in the fire.'
To give Eleanor her due, any suspicion as to the slightest inclination on her part towards Mr Slope was a wrong to her. She had no more idea of marrying Mr Slope than she had of marrying the bishop; and the idea that Mr Slope would present himself as a suitor had never occurred to her. Indeed, to give her her due again, she had never thought about suitors since her husband's death. But nevertheless it was true that she had overcome all that repugnance to the man which was so strongly felt for him by the rest of the Grantly faction. She had forgiven him his sermon. She had forgiven him his low church tendencies, his Sabbath schools, and puritanical observances. She had forgiven his pharisaical arrogance, and even his greasy face and oily vulgar manners. Having agreed to overlook such offences as these, why should she not in time be taught to regard Mr Slope as a suitor?
And as to him, it must be affirmed that he was hitherto equally innocent of the crime imputed to him. How it had come to pass that a man whose eyes were generally widely open to everything had not perceived that this young widow was rich as well as beautiful, cannot probably now be explained. But such was the fact. Mr Slope had ingratiated himself with Mrs Bold, merely as he had done with other ladies, in order to strengthen his party in the city. He subsequently attended his error; but it was not till after the interview with him and Mr Harding.
