Anthony Trollope: Barchester Towers

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

She had not been long in her room before her father joined her. As he left the drawing-room Mrs Grantly took her husband into the recess of the window, and told him how signally she had failed.

'I will speak to her myself before I go to bed,' said the archdeacon.

'Pray do no such thing,' said she; 'you can do no good and will only make an unseemly quarrel in the house. You have no idea how headstrong she can be.'

The archdeacon declared that as to that he was quite indifferent. He knew his duty and he would do it. Mr Harding was weak in the extreme in such matters. He would not have it hereafter on his conscience that he had not done all that in him lay to prevent so disgraceful an alliance. It was in vain that Mrs Grantly assured him that speaking to Eleanor angrily would only hasten such a crisis, and render it certain if at present there were any doubt. He was angry, self-willed, and sore. The fact that a lady in his household had received a letter from Mr Slope had wounded his pride in the sorest place, and nothing could control him.

Mr Harding looked worn and woebegone as he entered his daughter's room. These sorrows worried him sadly. He felt that if they were continued he must go to the wall in a manner so kindly prophesied to him by the chaplain. He knocked gently at his daughter's door, waited till he was distinctly bade to enter, and then appeared as though he and not she was the suspected criminal.

Eleanor's arm was soon within his, and she had soon kissed his forehead and caressed him, not with joyous but with eager love. 'Oh, papa,' she said, 'I do so want to speak to you. They have been talking about me downstairs to-night; don't you know they have, papa?'

Mr Harding confessed with a sort of murmur that the archdeacon had been speaking of her.

'I shall hate Dr Grantly soon--'

'Oh, my dear!'