'But why did you think about it, bishop? How could you think of making such a creature as that Dean of Barchester?—Dean of Barchester! I suppose he'll be looking for bishoprics some of these days—a man that hardly knows who his father was; a man that I found without bread to his mouth, or a coat to his back. Dean of Barchester indeed! I'll dean him.'
Mrs Proudie considered herself to be in politics a pure Whig; all her family belonged to the Whig party. Now among all ranks of Englishmen and Englishwomen (Mrs Proudie should, I think, be ranked among the former, on the score of her great strength of mind), no one is so hostile to lowly born pretenders to high station as the pure Whig.
The bishop thought it necessary to exculpate himself. 'Why, my dear,' said he, 'it appeared to me that you and Mr Slope did not get on quite as well as you used to do.'
'Get on!' said Mrs Proudie, moving her foot uneasily on the hearth-rug, and compressing her lips in a manner that betokened such danger to the subject of their discourse.
'I began to find that he was objectionable to you,'—Mrs Proudie's foot worked on the hearth-rug with great rapidity,—'and that you would be more comfortable if he was out of the palace,' Mrs Proudie smiled, as a hyena may probably smile before he begins his laugh,—'and therefore I thought that if he got this place, and so ceased to be my chaplain, you might be pleased at such an arrangement.'
And then the hyena laughed loud. Pleased at such an arrangement! pleased at having her enemy converted into a dean with twelve hundred a year! Medea, when she describes the customs of her native country (I am quoting from Robson's edition), assures her astonished auditor that in her land captives, when taken, are eaten. 'You pardon them!' says Medea. 'We do indeed,' says the mild Grecian. 'We eat them!' says she of Colchis, with terrible energy. Mrs Proudie was the Medea of Barchester; she had no idea of not eating Mr Slope. Pardon him! merely get rid of him! make a dean of him! It was not so they did with their captives in her country, among people of her sort! Mr Slope had no such mercy to expect; she would pick him to the very last bone.
'Oh, yes, my dear, of course he'll cease to be your chaplain,' said she. 'After what has passed, that must be a matter of course. I couldn't for a moment think of living in the same house with such a man. Besides, he has shown himself quite unfit for such a situation; making broils and quarrels among the clergy, getting you, my dear, into scrapes, and taking upon himself as though he was as good as bishop himself. Of course he'll go. But because he leaves the palace, that is no reason why he should get into the deanery.'
'Oh, of course not!' said the bishop; 'but to save appearances you know, my dear—'
'I don't want to save appearances; I want Mr Slope to appear just what he is—a false, designing, mean, intriguing man. I have my eye on him; he little knows what I see. He is misconducting himself in the most disgraceful way with that lame Italian woman. That family is a disgrace to Barchester, and Mr Slope is a disgrace to Barchester! If he doesn't look well to it, he'll have his gown stripped off his back instead of having a dean's hat on his head. Dean, indeed! The man has gone mad with arrogance.
The bishop said nothing further to excuse either himself or his chaplain, and having shown himself passive and docile was again taken into favour. They soon went to dinner, and he spent the pleasantest evening he had had in his own house for a long time. His daughter played and sang to him as he sipped his coffee and read his newspaper, and Mrs Proudie asked good-natured little questions about the archbishop; and then he went happily to bed, and slept as quietly as though Mrs Proudie had been Griselda herself. While shaving himself in the morning and preparing for the festivities of Ullathorne, he fully resolved to run no more tilts against a warrior so fully armed at all points as was Mrs Proudie.