<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN>
<p><SPAN name="v1" id="v1"></SPAN> </p>
<h1>DR. WORTLE'S SCHOOL.</h1>
<h3>A Novel.</h3>
<p> </p>
<h5>BY</h5>
<h2>ANTHONY TROLLOPE.</h2>
<p> </p>
<h4>IN TWO VOLUMES.—VOL. I.</h4>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<h5>LONDON:<br/>
CHAPMAN AND HALL, <span class="smallcaps">Limited</span>, 193, PICCADILLY.<br/>
1881.</h5>
<h5>[<i>All Rights reserved.</i>]</h5>
<h6>LONDON:<br/>
R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS,<br/>
BREAD STREET HILL.</h6>
<p> </p>
<hr class="narrow" />
<p> </p>
<h3>CONTENTS OF VOL. I. </h3>
<div class="center">
<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="1">
<tr><td colspan="3"><b>PART I.</b></td></tr>
<tr><td> </td><td align="right" valign="top">CHAPTER I. </td> <td><SPAN href="#c1" >DR. WORTLE</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td> </td><td align="right" valign="top">CHAPTER II. </td> <td><SPAN href="#c2" >THE NEW USHER</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td> </td><td align="right" valign="top">CHAPTER III. </td> <td><SPAN href="#c3" >THE MYSTERY</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="3"> <br/><b>PART II.</b></td></tr>
<tr><td> </td><td align="right" valign="top">CHAPTER IV. </td> <td><SPAN href="#c4" >THE DOCTOR ASKS HIS QUESTION</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td> </td><td align="right" valign="top">CHAPTER V. </td> <td><SPAN href="#c5" >"THEN WE MUST GO"</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td> </td><td align="right" valign="top">CHAPTER VI. </td> <td><SPAN href="#c6" >LORD CARSTAIRS</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="3"> <br/><b>PART III.</b></td></tr>
<tr><td> </td><td align="right" valign="top">CHAPTER VII. </td> <td><SPAN href="#c7" >ROBERT LEFROY</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td> </td><td align="right" valign="top">CHAPTER VIII. </td> <td><SPAN href="#c8" >THE STORY IS TOLD</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td> </td><td align="right" valign="top">CHAPTER IX. </td> <td><SPAN href="#c9" >MRS. WORTLE AND MR. PUDDICOMBE</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="3"> <br/><b>PART IV.</b></td></tr>
<tr><td> </td><td align="right" valign="top">CHAPTER X. </td> <td><SPAN href="#c10" >MR. PEACOCKE GOES</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td> </td><td align="right" valign="top">CHAPTER XI. </td> <td><SPAN href="#c11" >THE BISHOP</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td> </td><td align="right" valign="top">CHAPTER XII. </td> <td><SPAN href="#c12" >THE STANTILOUP CORRESPONDENCE</SPAN></td></tr>
</table></div>
<p> </p>
<hr class="narrow" />
<p><SPAN name="c1" id="c1"></SPAN> </p>
<p> </p>
<h3><span class="smallcaps">Part I</span>.</h3>
<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
<h4>DR. WORTLE.<br/> </h4>
<p><span class="smallcaps">The</span>
Rev. Jeffrey Wortle, D.D., was a man much esteemed by
others,—and by himself. He combined two professions, in both of
which he had been successful,—had been, and continued to be, at
the time in which we speak of him. I will introduce him to the
reader in the present tense as Rector of Bowick, and proprietor
and head-master of the school established in the village of that
name. The seminary at Bowick had for some time enjoyed a
reputation under him;—not that he had ever himself used so
new-fangled and unpalatable a word in speaking of his school.
Bowick School had been established by himself as preparatory to
Eton. Dr. Wortle had been elected to an assistant-mastership at
Eton early in life soon after he had become a Fellow of Exeter.
There he had worked successfully for ten years, and had then
retired to the living of Bowick. On going there he had determined
to occupy his leisure, and if possible to make his fortune, by
taking a few boys into his house. By dint of charging high prices
and giving good food,—perhaps in part, also, by the quality of
the education which he imparted,—his establishment had become
popular and had outgrown the capacity of the parsonage. He had
been enabled to purchase a field or two close abutting on the
glebe gardens, and had there built convenient premises. He now
limited his number to thirty boys, for each of which he charged
£200 a-year. It was said of him by his friends that if he would
only raise his price to £250, he might double the number, and
really make a fortune. In answer to this, he told his friends
that he knew his own business best;—he declared that his charge
was the only sum that was compatible both with regard to himself
and honesty to his customers, and asserted that the labours he
endured were already quite heavy enough. In fact, he recommended
all those who gave him advice to mind their own business.</p>
<p>It may be said of him that he knew his own so well as to justify
him in repudiating counsel from others. There are very different
ideas of what "a fortune" may be supposed to consist. It will not
be necessary to give Dr. Wortle's exact idea. No doubt it changed
with him, increasing as his money increased. But he was supposed
to be a comfortable man. He paid ready money and high prices. He
liked that people under him should thrive,—and he liked them to
know that they throve by his means. He liked to be master, and
always was. He was just, and liked his justice to be recognised.
He was generous also, and liked that, too, to be known. He kept a
carriage for his wife, who had been the daughter of a poor
clergyman at Windsor, and was proud to see her as well dressed as
the wife of any county squire. But he was a domineering husband.
As his wife worshipped him, and regarded him as a Jupiter on earth
from whose nod there could be and should be no appeal, but little
harm came from this. If a tyrant, he was an affectionate tyrant.
His wife felt him to be so. His servants, his parish, and his
school all felt him to be so. They obeyed him, loved him, and
believed in him.</p>
<p>So, upon the whole, at the time with which we are dealing, did the
diocese, the county, and that world of parents by whom the boys
were sent to his school. But this had not come about without some
hard fighting. He was over fifty years of age, and had been Rector
of Bowick for nearly twenty. During that time there had been a
succession of three bishops, and he had quarrelled more or less
with all of them. It might be juster to say that they had all of
them had more or less of occasion to find fault with him. Now Dr.
Wortle,—or Mr. Wortle, as he should be called in reference to
that period,—was a man who would bear censure from no human
being. He had left his position at Eton because the Head-master
had required from him some slight change of practice. There had
been no quarrel on that occasion, but Mr. Wortle had gone. He at
once commenced his school at Bowick, taking half-a-dozen pupils
into his own house. The bishop of that day suggested that the
cure of the souls of the parishioners of Bowick was being
subordinated to the Latin and Greek of the sons of the nobility.
The bishop got a response which gave an additional satisfaction to
his speedy translation to a more comfortable diocese. Between the
next bishop and Mr. Wortle there was, unfortunately,
misunderstanding, and almost feud for the entire ten years during
which his lordship reigned in the Palace of Broughton. This
Bishop of Broughton had been one of that large batch of Low Church
prelates who were brought forward under Lord Palmerston. Among
them there was none more low, more pious, more sincere, or more
given to interference. To teach Mr. Wortle his duty as a parish
clergyman was evidently a necessity to such a bishop. To repudiate
any such teaching was evidently a necessity to Mr. Wortle.
Consequently there were differences, in all of which Mr. Wortle
carried his own. What the good bishop suffered no one probably
knew except his wife and his domestic chaplain. What Mr. Wortle
enjoyed,—or Dr. Wortle, as he came to be called about this
time,—was patent to all the county and all the diocese. The
sufferer died, not, let us hope, by means of the Doctor; and then
came the third bishop. He, too, had found himself obliged to say
a word. He was a man of the world,—wise, prudent, not given to
interference or fault-finding, friendly by nature, one who
altogether hated a quarrel, a bishop beyond all things determined
to be the friend of his clergymen;—and yet he thought himself
obliged to say a word. There were matters in which Dr. Wortle
affected a peculiarly anti-clerical mode of expression, if not of
feeling. He had been foolish enough to declare openly that he was
in search of a curate who should have none of the "grace of
godliness" about him. He was wont to ridicule the piety of young
men who devoted themselves entirely to their religious offices.
In a letter which he wrote he spoke of one youthful divine as "a
conceited ass who had preached for forty minutes." He not only
disliked, but openly ridiculed all signs of a special pietistic
bearing. It was said of him that he had been heard to swear.
There can be no doubt that he made himself wilfully distasteful to
many of his stricter brethren. Then it came to pass that there was
a correspondence between him and the bishop as to that outspoken
desire of his for a curate without the grace of godliness. But
even here Dr. Wortle was successful. The management of his parish
was pre-eminently good. The parish school was a model. The
farmers went to church. Dissenters there were none. The people
of Bowick believed thoroughly in their parson, and knew the
comfort of having an open-handed, well-to-do gentleman in the
village. This third episcopal difficulty did not endure long.
Dr. Wortle knew his man, and was willing enough to be on good
terms with his bishop so long as he was allowed to be in all
things his own master.</p>
<p>There had, too, been some fighting between Dr. Wortle and the
world about his school. He was, as I have said, a thoroughly
generous man, but he required, himself, to be treated with
generosity. Any question as to the charges made by him as
schoolmaster was unendurable. He explained to all parents that he
charged for each boy at the rate of two hundred a-year for board,
lodging, and tuition, and that anything required for a boy's
benefit or comfort beyond that ordinarily supplied would be
charged for as an extra at such price as Dr. Wortle himself
thought to be an equivalent. Now the popularity of his
establishment no doubt depended in a great degree on the
sufficiency and comfort of the good things of the world which he
provided. The beer was of the best; the boys were not made to eat
fat; their taste in the selection of joints was consulted. The
morning coffee was excellent. The cook was a great adept at cakes
and puddings. The Doctor would not himself have been satisfied
unless everything had been plentiful, and everything of the best.
He would have hated a butcher who had attempted to seduce him with
meat beneath the usual price. But when he had supplied that which
was sufficient according to his own liberal ideas, he did not give
more without charging for it. Among his customers there had been a
certain Honourable Mr. Stantiloup, and,—which had been more
important,—an Honourable Mrs. Stantiloup. Mrs. Stantiloup was a
lady who liked all the best things which the world could supply,
but hardly liked paying the best price. Dr. Wortle's school was
the best thing the world could supply of that kind, but then the
price was certainly the very best. Young Stantiloup was only
eleven, and as there were boys at Bowick as old as seventeen,—for
the school had not altogether maintained its old character as
being merely preparatory,—Mrs. Stantiloup had thought that her
boy should be admitted at a lower fee. The correspondence which
had ensued had been unpleasant. Then young Stantiloup had had the
influenza, and Mrs. Stantiloup had sent her own doctor. Champagne
had been ordered, and carriage exercise. Mr. Stantiloup had been
forced by his wife to refuse to pay sums demanded for these
undoubted extras. Ten shillings a-day for a drive for a little
boy seemed to her a great deal,—seemed so to Mrs. Stantiloup.
Ought not the Doctor's wife to have been proud to take out her
little boy in her own carriage? And then £2 10<i>s</i>. for champagne
for the little boy! It was monstrous. Mr. Stantiloup
remonstrated. Dr. Wortle said that the little boy had better be
taken away and the bill paid at once. The little boy was taken
away and the money was offered, short of £5. The matter was
instantly put into the hands of the Doctor's lawyer, and a suit
commenced. The Doctor, of course, got his money, and then there
followed an acrimonious correspondence in the "Times" and other
newspapers. Mrs. Stantiloup did her best to ruin the school, and
many very eloquent passages were written not only by her or by her
own special scribe, but by others who took the matter up, to prove
that two hundred a-year was a great deal more than ought to be
paid for the charge of a little boy during three quarters of the
year. But in the course of the next twelve months Dr. Wortle was
obliged to refuse admittance to a dozen eligible pupils because he
had not room for them.</p>
<p>No doubt he had suffered during these contests,—suffered, that
is, in mind. There had been moments in which it seemed that the
victory would be on the other side, that the forces congregated
against him were too many for him, and that not being able to bend
he would have to be broken; but in every case he had fought it
out, and in every case he had conquered. He was now a prosperous
man, who had achieved his own way, and had made all those
connected with him feel that it was better to like him and obey
him, than to dislike him and fight with him. His curates troubled
him as little as possible with the grace of godliness, and threw
off as far as they could that zeal which is so dear to the
youthful mind but which so often seems to be weak and flabby to
their elders. His ushers or assistants in the school fell in with
his views implicitly, and were content to accept compensation in
the shape of personal civilities. It was much better to go shares
with the Doctor in a joke than to have to bear his hard words.</p>
<p>It is chiefly in reference to one of these ushers that our story
has to be told. But before we commence it, we must say a few more
words as to the Doctor and his family. Of his wife I have already
spoken. She was probably as happy a woman as you shall be likely
to meet on a summer's day. She had good health, easy temper,
pleasant friends, abundant means, and no ambition. She went
nowhere without the Doctor, and whenever he went she enjoyed her
share of the respect which was always shown to him. She had little
or nothing to do with the school, the Doctor having many years ago
resolved that though it became him as a man to work for his bread,
his wife should not be a slave. When the battles had been going
on,—those between the Doctor and the bishops, and the Doctor and
Mrs. Stantiloup, and the Doctor and the newspapers,—she had for a
while been unhappy. It had grieved her to have it insinuated that
her husband was an atheist, and asserted that her husband was a
cormorant; but his courage had sustained her, and his continual
victories had taught her to believe at last that he was
indomitable.</p>
<p>They had one child, a daughter, Mary, of whom it was said in
Bowick that she alone knew the length of the Doctor's foot. It
certainly was so that, if Mrs. Wortle wished to have anything done
which was a trifle beyond her own influence, she employed Mary.
And if the boys collectively wanted to carry a point, they would
"collectively" obtain Miss Wortle's aid. But all this the Doctor
probably knew very well; and though he was often pleased to grant
favours thus asked, he did so because he liked the granting of
favours when they had been asked with a proper degree of care and
attention. She was at the present time of the age in which
fathers are apt to look upon their children as still children,
while other men regard them as being grown-up young ladies. It
was now June, and in the approaching August she would be eighteen.
It was said of her that of the girls all round she was the
prettiest; and indeed it would be hard to find a sweeter-favoured
girl than Mary Wortle. Her father had been all his life a man
noted for the manhood of his face. He had a broad forehead, with
bright grey eyes,—eyes that had always a smile passing round
them, though the smile would sometimes show that touch of irony
which a smile may contain rather than the good-humour which it is
ordinarily supposed to indicate. His nose was aquiline, not hooky
like a true bird's-beak, but with that bend which seems to give to
the human face the clearest indication of individual will. His
mouth, for a man, was perhaps a little too small, but was
admirably formed, as had been the chin with a deep dimple on it,
which had now by the slow progress of many dinners become doubled
in its folds. His hair had been chestnut, but dark in its hue. It
had now become grey, but still with the shade of the chestnut
through it here and there. He stood five feet ten in height, with
small hands and feet. He was now perhaps somewhat stout, but was
still as upright on his horse as ever, and as well able to ride to
hounds for a few fields when by chance the hunt came in the way of
Bowick. Such was the Doctor. Mrs. Wortle was a pretty little
woman, now over forty years of age, of whom it was said that in
her day she had been the beauty of Windsor and those parts. Mary
Wortle took mostly after her father, being tall and comely, having
especially her father's eyes; but still they who had known Mrs.
Wortle as a girl declared that Mary had inherited also her
mother's peculiar softness and complexion.</p>
<p>For many years past none of the pupils had been received within
the parsonage,—unless when received there as guests, which was of
frequent occurrence. All belonging to the school was built
outside the glebe land, as a quite separate establishment, with a
door opening from the parsonage garden to the school-yard. Of
this door the rule was that the Doctor and the gardener should
have the only two keys; but the rule may be said to have become
quite obsolete, as the door was never locked. Sometimes the
bigger boys would come through unasked,—perhaps in search of a
game of lawn-tennis with Miss Wortle, perhaps to ask some favour
of Mrs. Wortle, who always was delighted to welcome them, perhaps
even to seek the Doctor himself, who never on such occasions would
ask how it came to pass that they were on that side of the wall.
Sometimes Mrs. Wortle would send her housekeeper through for some
of the little boys. It would then be a good time for the little
boys. But this would generally be during the Doctor's absence.</p>
<p>Here, on the school side of the wall, there was a separate
establishment of servants, and a separate kitchen. There was no
sending backwards or forwards of food or of clothes,—unless it
might be when some special delicacy was sent in if a boy were
unwell. For these no extra charge was ever made, as had been done
in the case of young Stantiloup. Then a strange doctor had come,
and had ordered the wine and the carriage. There was no extra
charge for the kindly glasses of wine which used to be
administered in quite sufficient plenty.</p>
<p>Behind the school, and running down to the little river Pin, there
is a spacious cricket-ground, and a court marked out for
lawn-tennis. Up close to the school is a racket-court. No doubt
a good deal was done to make the externals of the place alluring
to those parents who love to think that their boys shall be made
happy at school. Attached to the school, forming part of the
building, is a pleasant, well-built residence, with six or eight
rooms, intended for the senior or classical assistant-master. It
had been the Doctor's scheme to find a married gentleman to occupy
this house, whose wife should receive a separate salary for
looking after the linen and acting as matron to the school,—doing
what his wife did till he became successful,—while the husband
should be in orders and take part of the church duties as a second
curate. But there had been a difficulty in this.</p>
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