Anthony Trollope: Barchester Towers

28. CHAPTER XXVIII: MRS BOLD IS ENTERTAINED BY DR AND MRS GRANTLY AT PLUMSTEAD

It will be remembered that Mr Slope, when leaving his billet doux with Mrs Bold, had been informed that it would be sent out to her at Plumstead that afternoon. The archdeacon and Mr Harding had in fact come into town together in the brougham, and it had been arranged that they should call for Eleanor's parcels as they left on their way home. Accordingly they did so call, and the maid, as she handed to the coachman a small basket and large bundle carefully and neatly packec, gave in at the carriage window Mr Slope's epistle. The archdeacon, who was sitting next to the window, took it, and immediately recognised the hand-writing of his enemy.

'Who left this?' said he.

'Mr Slope called with it himself, your reverence,' said the girl; ' and was very anxious that missus should have it to-day.'

So the brougham drove off, and the letter was left in the archdeacon's hand. He looked at it as though he held a basket of adders. He could not have thought worse of the document had he read it and discovered it to be licentious and atheistical. He did, moreover, what so many wise people are accustomed to do in similar circumstances; he immediately condemned the person to whom the letter was written, as though she were necessarily a particeps criminis.

Poor Mr Harding, though by no means inclined to forward Mr Slope's intimacy with his daughter, would have given anything to have kept the letter from his son-in-law. But that was now impossible. There it was in his hand; and he looked as thoroughly disgusted as though he were quite sure that it contained all the rhapsodies of a favoured lover.

'It's very hard on me,' said he, after a while, 'that this should go on under my roof.'

Now here the archdeacon was certainly the most unreasonable. Having invited his sister-in-law to his house, it was a natural consequence of that she should receive her letters there. And if Mr Slope chose to write to her, his letter would, as a matter of course, be sent after her. Moreover, the very fact of an invitation to one's house implies confidence on the part of the inviter. He had shown that he thought Mrs Bold to be a fit person to stay with him by his making her to do so, and it was most cruel to her that he should complain of her violating the sanctity of his roof-tree, when the laches committed were none of her committing.