第98章

'Mrs Proudie,' said Mr Slope, 'I am quite aware how much I owe to your kindness. I am aware also what is due by courtesy from a gentleman to a lady. But there are higher considerations than either of those, and I hope I shall be forgiven if I now allow myself to be actuated solely by them. My duty in this matter is to his lordship, and I can admit of no questioning but from him. He has approved of what I have done, and you must excuse me if I say, that having that approval and my own, I want none other.'

What horrid words were these which greeted the ear of Mrs Proudie?

The matter was indeed too clear. There was premeditated mutiny in the camp. Not only had ill-conditioned minds become insubordinate by the fruition of a little power. The bishop had not yet been twelve months in this chair, and rebellion had already reared her hideous head within the palace. Anarchy and misrule would quickly follow, unless she took immediate and strong measures to put down the conspiracy which she had detected.

'Mr Slope,' she said, with slow and dignified voice, differing much from that which she had hitherto used, 'Mr Slope, I will trouble you, if you please, to leave the apartment. I wish to speak to my lord alone.'

Mr Slope also felt that everything depended on the present interview. Should the bishop now be repetticoated, his thraldom would be complete and for ever. The present moment was peculiarly propitious for rebellion. The bishop had clearly committed himself by breaking the seal of the answer to the archbishop; he had therefore fear to influence him. Mr Slope had told him that no consideration ought to induce him to refuse the archbishop's invitation; he had therefore hoped to influence him. He had accepted Mr Quiverful's resignation, and therefore dreaded having to renew that matter with his wife. He had been screwed up to the pitch of asserting a will of his own, and might possibly be carried on till by an absolute success he should have been taught how possible it was to succeed. Now was the moment for victory or rout.

It was now that Mr Slope must make himself master of the diocese, or else resign his place and begin his search for fortune again. He saw all this plainly. After what had taken place any compromise between him and the lady was impossible. Let him once leave the room at her bidding, and leave the bishop in her hands, and he might at once pack up his portmanteau and bid adieu to episcopal honours, Mrs Bold, and the Signora Neroni.

And yet it was not so easy to keep his ground when he was bidden by a lady to go; or to continue to make a third in a party between husband and wife when the wife expressed a wish for a tete-a-tete with her husband.

'Mr Slope,' she repeated, 'I wish to be alone with my lord.'

'His lordship has summoned me on most important diocesan business,'

said Mr Slope, glancing with uneasy eye at Dr Proudie. He felt that he must trust something to the bishop, and yet that trust was so woefully misplaced. 'My leaving him at the present moment is, Ifear, impossible.'

'Do you bandy words with me, you ungrateful man?' said she. 'My lord, will you do me the favour to beg Mr Slope to leave the room?'

My lord scratched his head, but for the moment said nothing. This was as much as Mr Slope expected from him, and was on the whole, for him, an active exercise of marital rights.

'My lord,' said the lady, 'is Mr Slope to leave this room, or am I?'

Here Mrs Proudie made a false step. She should not have alluded to the possibility of retreat on her part. She should not have expressed the idea that her order for Mr Slope's expulsion could be treated otherwise than by immediate obedience. In answer to such a question the bishop naturally said in his own mind, that it was necessary that one should leave the room, perhaps it might be as well that Mrs Proudie did so. He did say so in his own mind, but externally he again scratched his head and again twiddled his thumbs.

Mrs Proudie was boiling over with wrath. Alas, alas! could she but have kept her temper as her enemy did, she would have conquered as she had ever conquered. But divine anger got the better of her, as it has done of other heroines, and she fell.

'My lord,' said she, 'am I to be vouchsafed an answer or am I not?'

At last he broke his deep silence and proclaimed himself a Slopeite. 'Why, my dear,' said he, 'Mr Slope and I are very busy.'

That was all. There was nothing more necessary. He had gone to the battle-field, stood the dust and heat of the day, encountered the fury of the foe, and won the victory. How easy is success to those who will only be true to themselves!

Mr Slope saw at once the full amount of his gain, and turned on the vanquished lady a look of triumph which she never forgot and never forgave. Here he was wrong. He should have looked humbly at her, and with meek entreating eye had deprecated her anger. He should have said by his glance that he asked pardon for his success, and that he hoped forgiveness for the stand which he had been forced to make in the cause of duty. So might he perchance have somewhat mollified that imperious bosom, and prepared the way for future terms. But Mr Slope meant to rule without terms. Ah, forgetful, inexperienced man! Can you cause that little trembling victim to be divorced from the woman who possesses him? Can you provide that they shall be separated at bed and board? Is he not flesh of her flesh and bone of her bone, and must he not so continue? It is very well now for you to stand your ground, and triumph as she is driven ignominiously from the room; but can you be present when those curtains are drawn, when that awful helmet of proof has been tied beneath the chin, when the small remnants of the bishop's prowess shall be cowed by the tassel above his head? Can you then intrude yourself when the wife wishes 'to speak to my lord alone?'