The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]

Mr. Harding looked blank and annoyed. But he only said, "Well, well, anything I can tell you I shall be most happy--"

"It's about the accounts."

"Then, my dear fellow, I can tell you nothing, for I'm as ignorant as a child. All I know is that they pay me £800 a year. Go t Chadwick; he knows all about the accounts."

"But, Mr. Harding, I hope you won't object to discuss with me what I have to say about the hospital."

Mr. Harding gave a deep, long-drawn sigh. He did object, very strongly object, to discuss any such subject with John Bold, but he had not the business tact of Mr. Chadwick, and did not know how to relieve himself from the coming evil.

"I fear there is reason to think that John Hiram's will is not carried out to the letter, Mr. Harding, and I have been asked to see into it."

"Very well, I've no objection on earth; and now we need not say another word about it."

"Only one word more, Mr. Harding. Chadwick has referred me to lawyers. In what I do I may appear to be interfering with you, and I hope you will forgive me for doing so."

"Mr. Bold," said the other, speaking with some solemnity, "if you act justly, say nothing in this matter but the truth, and use no unfair weapons in carrying out your purposes, I shall have nothing to forgive. I presume you think I am not entitled to the income I receive from the hospital, and that others are entitled to it. Whatever some may do, I shall never attribute to you base motives because you hold an opinion opposed to my own and adverse to my interests; pray do what you consider to be your duty; I can give you no assistance, neither will I offer you any obstacle. Let me, however, suggest to you that you can in no wise forward your views, nor I mine, by any discussion between us. Here comes Eleanor and the ponies, and we'll go in to tea."

Bold felt that he could not sit down at ease with Mr. Harding and his daughter after what had passed, and therefore excused himself with much awkward apology; and, merely raising his hat and bowing as he passed Eleanor and the pony chair, left her in disappointed amazement at his departure.

III.--Iphigenia

The bedesmen heard a whisper that they were entitled to one hundred pounds a year, and signed a petition, which Abel Handy drew up, to the bishop as visitor, praying his lordship to see justice done to the legal recipients of John Hiram's charity. John Bold was advised to institute formal proceedings against Mr. Harding and Mr. Chadwick. Archdeacon Grantly took up the cause of the warden, and obtained a legal opinion from the attorney general, Sir Abraham Haphazard, that Mr. Harding and Mr. Chadwick being only paid servants, the action should not have been brought against them, but that the defendants should have been either the corporation of Barchester, or possibly the dean and chapter, or the bishop. That all-powerful organ of the press, the daily Jupiter, launched a leading thunderbolt against the administration of Hiram's Hospital, which made out the warden to be a man unjust, grasping--and the responsibility for this attack rested upon John Bold's friend Tom Towers, of the Temple.

Bold kept away from the warden's house, but he met Miss Harding one day in the cathedral close. He tried to explain and apologised.

"Mr. Bold," said she, "you may be sure of one thing: I shall always judge my father to be right, and those who oppose him I shall judge to be wrong." And then, curtsying low, she sailed on, leaving her lover in anything but a happy state of mind.

To her father Eleanor owned that she had loved John Bold once, but would not, could not do so now, when he proved himself the enemy of her father.

But the warden, wretched as he was at the attacks of the Jupiter, declared that Bold was no enemy of his, and encouraged her love, and then he spoke to her of happier days when their trials would all be over.

That night Eleanor decided that she would extricate her father from his misery; she would sacrifice herself as Iphigenia did for Agamemnon. She would herself personally implore John Bold to desist from his undertaking and stop the lawsuit; she would explain to him her father's sorrows, and tell him how her father would die if he were thus dragged before the public and exposed to such unmerited ignominy; she would appeal to his old friendship, and, if need were, kneel to him for the favour she would ask; but before she did this the idea of love must be banished. There must be no bargain in the matter. She could not appeal to his love, nor allow him to do so. Should he declare his passion he must be rejected.

She rose refreshed in the morning, and after breakfast started out, and arrived at Bold's door; where John's sister Mary greeted her warmly.

"John's out now, and will be for the next two hours, and he returns to London by the mail train to-night."

"Mary, I must see your brother before he goes back, and beg from him a great favour." Miss Harding spoke with a solemn air, and then went on and opened to her friend all her plan for saving her father from a sorrow which would, if it lasted, bring him to his grave.