The Last Chronicle of Barset

CHAPTER LXXXII

THE LAST SCENE AT HOG­GLE­STOCK

The fort­night fol­low­ing Mr Hard­ing’s death was passed very qui­et­ly at Hog­gle­stock, for dur­ing that time no vis­itor made an ap­pear­ance in the parish ex­cept Mr Snap­per on the Sun­days. Mr Snap­per, when he had com­plet­ed the ser­vice on the first of these Sun­days, in­ti­mat­ed to Mr Craw­ley his opin­ion that prob­ably that gen­tle­man might him­self wish to re­sume his du­ties on the fol­low­ing Sab­bath. Mr Craw­ley, how­ev­er, cour­te­ous­ly de­clined to do any­thing of the kind. He said that it was quite out of the ques­tion that he should do so with­out a di­rect com­mu­ni­ca­tion made to him from the bish­op, or by the bish­op’s or­der. The as­sizes had, of course, gone by, and all ques­tion of the tri­al was over. Nev­er­the­less–as Mr Snap­per said–the bish­op had not, as yet, giv­en any or­der. Mr Snap­per was of the opin­ion that the bish­op in these days was not quite him­self. He had spo­ken to the bish­op about it, and the bish­op had told him pee­vish­ly–’I must say quite pee­vish­ly,’ Mr Snap­per had said–that noth­ing was to be done at present. Mr Snap­per was not the less clear­ly of the opin­ion that Mr Craw­ley might re­sume his du­ties. To this, how­ev­er, Mr Craw­ley would not as­sent.

But even dur­ing this fort­night Mr Craw­ley had not re­mained al­to­geth­er ne­glect­ed. Two days af­ter Mr Hard­ing’s death he had re­ceived a note from the dean in which he was ad­vised not to re­sume the du­ties at Hog­gle­stock for the present. ‘Of course you can un­der­stand that we have a sad house here for the present,’ the dean had said. ‘But as soon as ev­er we are able to move in the mat­ter we will ar­range things for you as com­fort­ably as we can. I will see the bish­op my­self.’ Mr Craw­ley had no am­bi­tious idea of any com­fort which might ac­crue to him be­yond that of an hon­ourable re­turn to his hum­ble prefer­ment at Hog­gle­stock; but, nev­er­the­less, he was in this case mind­ed to do as the dean coun­selled him. He had sub­mit­ted him­self to the bish­op, and he would wait till the bish­op ab­solved him from his sub­mis­sion.

On the day af­ter the fu­ner­al, the bish­op had sent his com­pli­ments to the dean with an ex­pres­sion of a wish that the dean would call up­on him on any ear­ly day that might be con­ve­nient with ref­er­ence to the po­si­tion of Mr Craw­ley of Hog­gle­stock. The note was in the bish­op’s own hand­writ­ing and was as mild and civ­il as a bish­op’s note could be. Of course the dean named an ear­ly day for the in­ter­view; but it was nec­es­sary be­fore he went to the bish­op that he should dis­cuss the mat­ter with the archdea­con. If St Ewold’s might be giv­en to Mr Craw­ley, the Hog­gle­stock dif­fi­cul­ties would all be brought to an end. The archdea­con, af­ter the fu­ner­al, had re­turned to Plum­stead, and thith­er the dean went to him be­fore he was the bish­op. He did suc­ceed–he and Mrs Grant­ly be­tween them–but with very great dif­fi­cul­ty, in ob­tain­ing a con­di­tion­al promise. They had both thought that when the archdea­con be­came ful­ly aware that Grace was to be his daugh­ter-​in-​law, he would at once have been de­light­ed to have an op­por­tu­ni­ty of ex­tri­cat­ing from his pover­ty a cler­gy­man with whom it was his fate to be close­ly con­nect­ed. But he fought the mat­ter on twen­ty dif­fer­ent points. He de­clared at first that as it was his pri­ma­ry du­ty to give the peo­ple of St Ewold’s the best cler­gy­man he could se­lect for them he could not give the pref­er­ence to Mr Craw­ley, be­cause Mr Craw­ley, in spite of all his zeal and piety, was a man so quaint in his man­ners and so ec­cen­tric in his mode of speech as not to be the best cler­gy­man whom he could se­lect. ‘What is my old friend Thorne to do with a man in the parish who won’t drink a glass of wine with him?’. For Ul­lathorne, the seat of that Mr Wil­fred Thorne who had been so guilty in the mat­ter of the fox­es, was sit­uat­ed in the parish of St Ewold’s. When Mrs Grant­ly pro­posed that Mr Thorne’s con­sent should be asked, the archdea­con be­came very an­gry. It was his spe­cial du­ty to the best he could for Mr Thorne, but it was spe­cial­ly his du­ty to do so with­out con­sult­ing Mr Thorne about it. As the archdea­con’s ob­jec­tion had been ar­gued sim­ply on the point of a glass of wine, both the dean and Mrs Grant­ly thought that he was un­rea­son­able. But they had their point to gain, and there­fore on­ly flat­tered him. They were quite sure that Mr Thorne would like to have a cler­gy­man in the parish who would him­self be close­ly con­nect­ed with the archdea­con. Then Dr Grant­ly al­leged that he might find him­self in a trap. What if he con­ferred the liv­ing of St Ewold’s on Mr Craw­ley and af­ter all there should be no mar­riage be­tween his son and Grace? ‘Of course they’ll be mar­ried,’ said Mrs Grant­ly. ‘It’s all very well for you to say that, my dear; but the whole fam­ily are so queer that there is no know­ing what the girl may do. She may take up some oth­er fad now, and refuse him point blank.’ ‘She has nev­er tak­en up any fad,’ said Mrs Grant­ly, who now mount­ed al­most to wrath in de­fence of her fu­ture daugh­ter-​in-​law, ‘and you are wrong to say that she has. She has be­haved beau­ti­ful­ly:–as no­body knows bet­ter than you do.’ Then the archdea­con gave way so far as to promise that St Ewold’s should be of­fered to Mr Craw­ley as soon as Grace Craw­ley was in truth en­gaged to Hen­ry Grant­ly.

Af­ter that, the dean went to the palace. There had nev­er been any quar­relling be­tween the bish­op and the dean, ei­ther di­rect or in­di­rect;–nor, in­deed, had the dean ev­ery quar­relled even with Mrs Proudie. But he had be­longed the an­ti-​Proudie fac­tion. He had been brought in­to the dio­cese by the Grant­ly in­ter­est; and there­fore, dur­ing Mrs Proudie’s life­time, he had al­ways been ac­count­ed among the en­emies. There had nev­er been any re­al in­ti­ma­cy be­tween the hous­es. Each house had al­ways been asked to dine with the oth­er house once a year; but it had been un­der­stood that such din­ings were ec­cle­si­as­ti­co-​of­fi­cial, and not friend­ly. There had been the same out­side dioce­san ci­vil­ity be­tween even the palace and Plum­stead. But now, when the great chief­tain of the palace was no more, and the strength of the palace fac­tion was gone, peace, or per­haps some­thing more than peace–ami­ty, per­haps, might be more eas­ily ar­ranged with the dean than with the archdea­con. In prepa­ra­tion for such ar­range­ments the bish­op had gone to Mr Hard­ing’s fu­ner­al.

And now the dean went to the palace at the bish­op’s be­hest. He found his lord­ship alone, and was re­ceived with al­most rev­er­en­tial cour­tesy. He thought that the bish­op was look­ing won­der­ful­ly aged since he last saw him, but did not per­haps take in­to ac­count the ab­sence of cler­ical sleek­ness which was in­ci­den­tal to the bish­op’s pri­vate life in his pri­vate room, and per­haps in a cer­tain mea­sure to his re­cent af­flic­tion. The dean had been in the habit of re­gard­ing Dr Proudie as a man al­most young for his age–hav­ing been in the habit of see­ing him at his best, clothed in au­thor­ity, redo­lent of the throne, con­spic­uous as re­gard­ed his apron and out­ward signs of epis­co­pal­ity. Much of this was now ab­sent. The bish­op, as he rose to greet the dean, shuf­fled with his old slip­pers, and his hair was not brushed so be­com­ing­ly as used to be the case when Mrs Proudie was al­ways near him.

It was nec­es­sary that a word should be said by each as to the loss which the oth­er had suf­fered. ‘Mr Dean,’ said his lord­ship, ‘al­low me to of­fer you my con­dole­ments in re­gard to the death of that very ex­cel­lent cler­gy­man and most wor­thy gen­tle­man, your fa­ther-​in-​law.’

‘Thank you, my lord. He was ex­cel­lent and wor­thy. I do not sup­pose that I shall live to see any man who was more so. You al­so have a great–a ter­ri­ble loss.’

‘Oh, Mr Dean, yes; yes, in­deed, Mr Dean. That was a loss.’

‘And hard­ly past the prime of life!’

‘Ah, yes;–just fifty-​six–and so strong! Was she not? At least ev­ery­body thought so. And yet she was gone in a minute;–gone in a minute. I haven’t held my head up since, Mr Dean.’

‘It was a great loss, my lord; but you must strug­gle to bear it.’

‘I do strug­gle. I am strug­gling. But it makes one feel so lone­ly in this great house. Ah me! I of­ten wish, Mr Dean, that it had pleased Prov­idence to have left me in some hum­ble par­son­age, where du­ty would have been eas­ier than it is here. But I will not trou­ble you with all that. What are we to do, Mr Dean, about this poor Mr Craw­ley.’

‘Mr Craw­ley is a very old friend of mine, and a very dear friend.’

‘Is he? Ah! A very wor­thy man, I am sure, and one who has been much tried by un­de­served ad­ver­si­ties.’

‘Most severe­ly, my lord.’

‘Sit­ting among the pot­sherds, like Job; has he not, Mr Dean? Well; let us hope that is all over. When this ac­cu­sa­tion about the rob­bery was brought against him, I found my­self bound to in­ter­fere.’

‘He has no com­plaint on that score.’

‘I hope not. I have not wished to be harsh, but what could I do, Mr Dean? They told me that the civ­il au­thor­ities found the ev­idence so strong against him that it could not be with­stood.’

‘It was very strong.’

‘And we thought that he should at least be re­lieved, and we sent for Dr Tem­pest, who is his ru­ral dean.’ Then the bish­op re­mem­ber­ing all the cir­cum­stances of that in­ter­view with the Dr Tem­pest–as to which he had ev­er felt as­sured that one of the re­sults was the death of his wife, where­by there was no longer any ‘we’ left in the palace of Barch­ester–sighed piteous­ly, look­ing at the dean with a hope­less face.

‘No­body doubts, my lord, that you act­ed for the best.’

‘I hope we did. I think we did. And now what will we do? He has re­signed his liv­ing, both to you and to me, as I hear–you be­ing the pa­tron. It will sim­ply be nec­es­sary, I think, that he should ask to have the let­ters can­celled. Then, as I take it, there need be no resti­tu­tion. You can­not think, Mr Dean, how much I have thought about it all.’

Then the dean un­fold­ed his bud­get, and ex­plained to the bish­op how he hoped that the liv­ing of St Ewold’s, which was, af­ter some ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal fash­ion, at­tached to the rec­to­ry of Plum­stead, and which was now va­cant by the demise of Mr Hard­ing, might be con­ferred by the archdea­con up­on Mr Craw­ley. It was nec­es­sary to ex­plain al­so that this could not be done quite im­me­di­ate­ly, and in do­ing this the dean en­coun­tered some lit­tle dif­fi­cul­ty. The archdea­con, he said, wished to be al­lowed an­oth­er week to think about it; and there­fore per­haps pro­vi­sion for the du­ties of Hog­gle­stock might yet be made for a few Sun­days. The bish­op, the dean said, might eas­ily un­der­stand that, af­ter what has oc­curred, Mr Craw­ley would hard­ly wish to go again in­to that pul­pit, un­less he did so as re­sum­ing du­ties, which would nec­es­sar­ily be per­ma­nent with him. To all this the bish­op as­sent­ed, but he was ap­par­ent­ly struck with much won­der at the choice made by the archdea­con. ‘I should have thought, Mr Dean,’ he said, ‘that Mr Craw­ley was the last man to have suit­ed the archdea­con’s choice.’

‘The archdea­con and I mar­ried sis­ters, my lord.’

‘Oh, ah! yes. And he puts the nom­ina­tion of St Ewold’s at your dis­po­si­tion. I am sure I shall be de­light­ed to in­sti­tute so wor­thy a gen­tle­man as Mr Craw­ley.’ Then the dean took his leave of the bish­op–as we will al­so. Poor dear bish­op! I am in­clined to think that he was right in his re­grets as to the lit­tle par­son­age. Not that his fail­ure at Barch­ester, and his present con­scious­ness of lone­ly in­com­pe­tence, were main­ly due to any pos­itive in­ef­fi­cien­cy on his own part. He might have been a suf­fi­cient­ly good bish­op, had it not been that Mrs Proudie was so much more a suf­fi­cient­ly good bish­op’s wife. We will now say farewell to him, with a hope that the lopped tree may yet be­come green again, and to some ex­tent fruit­ful, al­though all its beau­ti­ful head and rich­ness of wav­ing fo­liage have been tak­en from it.

About a week af­ter this Hen­ry Grant­ly rode over from Cos­by Lodge to Hog­gle­stock. It has just been said that though the as­sizes had passed by and though all ques­tion of Mr Craw­ley’s guilt was now set aside, no vis­itor had of late made his way over to Hog­gle­stock. I fan­cy that Grace Craw­ley for­got, in the full­ness of her mem­ory as to oth­er things, that Mr Hard­ing, of whose death she heard, had been her lover’s grand­fa­ther–and that there­fore there might pos­si­bly be some de­lay. Had there been much said be­tween the moth­er and the daugh­ter about the lover, no doubt all this would have been ex­plained; but Grace was very ret­icent, and there were oth­er mat­ters in the Hog­gle­stock house­hold which in those days oc­cu­pied Mrs Craw­ley’s mind. How were they again to be­gin life? for, in very truth, life as it had ex­ist­ed with them be­fore, had been brought to an end. But Grace re­mem­bered well the sort of com­pact which ex­ist­ed be­tween her and her lover;–the com­pact which had been made in very words be­tween her­self and her lover’s fa­ther. Com­plete in her es­ti­ma­tion as had been the heav­en opened to her by Hen­ry Grant­ly’s of­fer, she had re­fused it all–lest she should bring dis­grace up­on him. But the dis­grace was not cer­tain; and if her fa­ther should be made free from it, then–then–then Hen­ry Grant­ly ought to come to her and be at her feet with all the ex­pe­di­tion pos­si­ble to him. That was her read­ing of the com­pact. She had once de­clared, when speak­ing of the pos­si­ble dis­grace which might at­tach it­self to her fam­ily and to her name, that her pover­ty did not ’sig­ni­fy a bit’. She was not ashamed of her fa­ther–on­ly of the ac­cu­sa­tion against her fa­ther. There­fore she had hur­ried home when that ac­cu­sa­tion was with­drawn, de­sirous that her lover should tell her of his love–if he chose to re­peat such telling–amidst all the poor things of Hog­gle­stock, and not among the chairs, and ta­bles and good din­ners of lux­uri­ous Fram­ley. Mrs Ro­barts had giv­en a true in­ter­pre­ta­tion to La­dy Lufton of the haste which Grace had dis­played. But she need not have been in so great a hur­ry. She had been at home al­ready above a fort­night, and as yet he had made no sign. At last she said a word to her moth­er. ‘Might I not ask to go back to Miss Pret­ty­man’s now, mam­ma?’ ‘I think, dear, you had bet­ter wait till things are a lit­tle set­tled. Pa­pa is to hear again from the dean very soon. You see they are all in great sor­row at Barch­ester about poor Mr Hard­ing’s death.’ ‘Grace!’ said Jane, rush­ing in­to the house al­most speech­less, at that mo­ment, ‘here he is!–on horse­back.’ I do not know why Jane should have talked about Ma­jor Grant­ly as sim­ply ‘he’. There had been no con­ver­sa­tion among the sis­ters to jus­ti­fy her in such a mode of speech. Grace had not a mo­ment to put two and two to­geth­er, so that she might re­alise the mean­ing of what her moth­er had said; but, nev­er­the­less, she felt at the mo­ment that the man, com­ing as he had done now, had come with all com­mend­able speed. How fool­ish she had been with her wretched im­pa­tience!

There he was cer­tain­ly, ty­ing his horse to the rail­ing. ‘Mam­ma, what am I to say to him?’

‘Nay, dear; he is your own friend–of your own mak­ing. You must say what you think fit.’

‘You are not go­ing?’

‘I think we had bet­ter, dear. Then she went, and Jane with her, and Jane opened the door for Ma­jor Grant­ly. Mr Craw­ley him­self was away, at Hog­gle End, and did not re­turn till af­ter Ma­jor Grant­ly had left the par­son­age. Jane, as she greet­ed the grand gen­tle­man, whom she had seen and no more than seen, hard­ly knew what to say to him. When, af­ter a minute’s hes­ita­tion, she told him that Grace was in there–point­ing to the sit­ting-​room door, she felt that she had been very awk­ward. Hen­ry Grant­ly, how­ev­er, did not, I think, feel her awk­ward­ness, be­ing con­scious of some small dif­fi­cul­ties of his own. When, how­ev­er, he found that Grace was alone, the task be­fore him at once lost half its dif­fi­cul­ties. ‘Grace,’ he said, ‘am I right to come to you now?’

‘I do not know,’ she said. ‘I can­not tell.’

‘Dear­est Grace, there is no rea­son on earth now why you should not be my wife.’

‘Is there not?’

‘I know of none–if you can love me. You saw my fa­ther?’

‘Yes, I saw him.’

‘And you heard what he said?’

‘I hard­ly re­mem­ber what he said;–but he kissed me, and I thought he was very kind.’

What lit­tle at­tempt Hen­ry Grant­ly then made, think­ing that he could do no bet­ter than fol­low close­ly the ex­am­ple of so ex­cel­lent a fa­ther, need not be ex­plained with minute­ness. But I think that his first ef­fort was not suc­cess­ful. Grace was em­bar­rassed and re­treat­ed, and it was not till she had been com­pelled to give a di­rect an­swer to a di­rect ques­tion that she sub­mit­ted to al­low his arm round her waist. But when she had an­swered that ques­tion she was al­most more hum­ble than be­comes a maid­en who has just been wooed and won. A maid­en who has been wooed and won, gen­er­al­ly thinks that it is she who has con­quered, and choos­es to be tri­umphant ac­cord­ing­ly. But Grace was even mean enough to thank her lover. ‘I do not know why you should be so good to me,’ she said.

‘Be­cause I love you,’ said he, ‘bet­ter than all the world.’

‘By why should you be so good to me as that? Why should you love me? I am such a poor thing for a man like you to love.’

‘I have had the wit to see that you are not a poor thing, Grace; and it is thus that I have earned my trea­sure. Some girls are poor things, and some are rich trea­sures.’

‘If love can make me a trea­sure, I will be your trea­sure. And if love can make me rich, I will be rich for you.’ Af­ter that I think he had no dif­fi­cul­ty in fol­low­ing in his fa­ther’s foot­steps.

Af­ter a while Mrs Craw­ley came in, and there was much pleas­ant talk­ing among them, while Hen­ry Grant­ly sat hap­pi­ly with his love, as though wait­ing for Mr Craw­ley’s re­turn. But though he was there near­ly all morn­ing Mr Craw­ley did not re­turn. ‘I think he likes the brick­mak­ers bet­ter than any­body in the world, ex­cept our­selves,’ said Grace. ‘I don’t know how he will man­age to get on with­out his friends.’ Be­fore Grace has said this, Ma­jor Grant­ly had told all his sto­ry, and had pro­duced a let­ter from his fa­ther, ad­dressed to Mr Craw­ley, of which the read­er shall have a copy, al­though at this time the let­ter had not been opened. The let­ter was as fol­lows:-

‘PLUM­STEAD REC­TO­RY, May, 186- ‘MY DEAR SIR,

‘You will no doubt have heard that Mr Hard­ing, the vicar of St Ewold’s, who was the fa­ther of my wife and of Mrs Ara­bin, has been tak­en from us. The loss to us of so ex­cel­lent and so dear a man has been very great. I have con­ferred with my friend the Dean of Barch­ester as to a new nom­ina­tion, and I ven­ture to re­quest your ac­cep­tance of the prefer­ment; if it should suit you to move from Hog­gle­stock to St Ewold’s. It may be as well that I should state plain­ly my rea­sons for mak­ing this of­fer to a gen­tle­man with whom I am not per­son­al­ly ac­quaint­ed. Mr Hard­ing, on his death-​bed, him­self sug­gest­ed it, moved there­to by what he had heard of the cru­el and un­de­served per­se­cu­tion to which you had been sub­ject­ed; as al­so–on which point he was very ur­gent in what he said–by the char­ac­ter which you bear in the dio­cese for zeal and piety. I may al­so add, that the close con­nec­tion which, as I un­der­stand, is like­ly to take place be­tween your fam­ily and mine has been an ad­di­tion­al rea­son for my tak­ing this step, and the long friend­ship which has ex­ist­ed be­tween you and my wife’s broth­er-​in-​law, the Dean of Barch­ester, is a third.

‘St Ewold’s is worth 350 pounds per an­num, be­sides the house, which is suf­fi­cient­ly com­modi­ous for a mod­er­ate fam­ily. The pop­ula­tion is about twelve hun­dred, of which more than a half con­sists of per­sons dwelling in an out­skirt of the city–for the parish runs al­most in­to Barch­ester.

‘I shall be glad to hear your re­ply with as lit­tle de­lay as may suit your con­ve­nience, and in the event of your ac­cept­ing the of­fer–which I sin­cere­ly trust that you may be en­able to do–I shall hope to have an ear­ly op­por­tu­ni­ty of see­ing you, with ref­er­ence to your in­sti­tu­tion to the parish.

‘Al­low me al­so to say to you and Mrs Craw­ley that, if we have been cor­rect­ly in­formed as to that oth­er event to which I have al­lud­ed, we both hope that we may have an ear­ly op­por­tu­ni­ty of mak­ing our­selves per­son­al­ly ac­quaint­ed with the par­ents of a young la­dy who is to be so dear to us. As I have met your daugh­ter, I may per­haps be al­lowed to send her my kind­est love. If, as my daugh­ter-​in-​law, she comes up to the im­pres­sion which she gave me at our first meet­ing, I, at any rate, shall be sat­is­fied.–I have the hon­our to be, my dear sir, you most faith­ful ser­vant,

‘THEOPHILUS GRANT­LY’

This let­ter the archdea­con had shown to his wife, by whom it had not been very warm­ly ap­proved. Noth­ing, Mrs Grant­ly had said, could be pret­ti­er than what the archdea­con had said about Grace. Mrs Craw­ley, no doubt, would be sat­is­fied with that. But Mr Craw­ley was such a strange man! ‘He will be stranger than I take him to be if he does not ac­cept St Ewold’s,’ said the archdea­con. ‘But in of­fer­ing it,’ said Mrs Grant­ly, ‘you have not a said a word of your own high opin­ion of his mer­its.’ ‘I have not a very high opin­ion of them,’ said the archdea­con. ‘Your fa­ther had, and I have said so. And as I have the most pro­found re­spect for your fa­ther’s opin­ion in such a mat­ter, I have per­mit­ted that to over­come my own hes­ita­tion.’ This was pret­ty from the hus­band to the wife as it re­gard­ed her fa­ther, who had now gone from them; and, there­fore, Mrs Grant­ly ac­cept­ed it with­out fur­ther ar­gu­ment. The read­er may prob­ably feel as­sured that the archdea­con had nev­er, dur­ing their joint lives, act­ed in any church mat­ter up­on the ad­vice giv­en to him by Mr Hard­ing; and it was prob­ably the case al­so that the liv­ing would have been of­fered to Mr Craw­ley, if noth­ing had been said by Mr Hard­ing on the sub­ject; but it did not be­come Mrs Grant­ly even to think of all this. The archdea­con, hav­ing made his gra­cious speech about her fa­ther, was not again asked to al­ter his let­ter. ‘I sup­pose he will ac­cept it,’ said Mrs Grant­ly. ‘I should think that he prob­ably may,’ said the archdea­con.

So Grace, know­ing what was the pur­port of the let­ter, sat with it be­tween her fin­gers, while her lover sat be­side her, full of var­ious plans for the fu­ture. This was his first lover’s present to her;–and what a present it was! Com­fort, and hap­pi­ness, and a pleas­ant home for all her fam­ily. ‘St Ewold’s isn’t the best house in the world,’ said the ma­jor, ‘be­cause it is old, and what I call piece­meal; but it is very pret­ty, and cer­tain­ly nice.’ ‘That is just the sort of par­son­age that I dream about,’ said Jane. ‘And the gar­den is pleas­ant with old trees,’ said the ma­jor. ‘I al­ways dream about old trees,’ said Jane, ‘on­ly I’m afraid I’m too old my­self to be let to climb up them now.’ Mrs Craw­ley said very lit­tle, but sat with her eyes full of tears. Was it pos­si­ble that, at last, be­fore the world had closed up­on her, she was to en­joy some­thing again of the com­forts which she had known in her ear­ly years, and to again sur­round­ed by those de­cen­cies of life which of late had been al­most ban­ished from her home of pover­ty!

Their var­ious plans for the fu­ture–for the im­me­di­ate fu­ture–were very startling. Grace was to go over at once to Plum­stead, whith­er Edith had been al­ready trans­ferred from Cos­by Lodge. That was all very well; there was noth­ing very startling or im­prac­ti­ca­ble in that. The Fram­ley ladies, hav­ing none of those doubts as to what was com­ing which had for a while per­plexed Grace her­self, had tak­en lit­tle lib­er­ties with her wardrobe, which en­abled such a vis­it to be made with­out over­whelm­ing dif­fi­cul­ties. But the ma­jor was equal­ly ea­ger–or at any rate im­pe­ri­ous–in his req­ui­si­tion for a vis­it from Mr and Mrs Craw­ley them­selves to Plum­stead rec­to­ry. Mrs Craw­ley did not dare to put for­ward the plain un­adorned rea­sons against it, as Mr Craw­ley had done when dis­cussing the sub­ject of a vis­it to the dean­ery. Nor could she quite ven­ture to ex­plain that she feared the archdea­con and her hus­band would hard­ly mix well to­geth­er in so­ci­ety. With whom, in­deed, was it pos­si­ble that her hus­band should mix well, af­ter his long and hard­ly-​tried seclu­sion? She could on­ly plead that both her hus­band and her­self were so lit­tle used to go­ing out that she feared–she feared–she feared she knew not what. ‘We’ll get over all that,’ said the ma­jor, al­most con­temp­tu­ous­ly. ‘It is on­ly the first plunge that is dis­agree­able.’ Per­haps the ma­jor did not know how very dis­agree­able a first plunge may be!

At two o’clock Hen­ry Grant­ly got up to go. ‘I should very much like to have seen him, but I fear I can­not wait any longer. As it is, the pa­tience of my horse has been sur­pris­ing.’ Then Grace walked out with him to the gate and put her hand up­on his bri­dle as he mount­ed, and though how won­der­ful was the pow­er of For­tune, that the god­dess should have sent so gal­lant a gen­tle­man to be her lord and her lover. ‘I de­clare I don’t quite be­lieve it even yet,’ she said, in the let­ter which she wrote to Lily Dale that night.

It was four be­fore Mr Craw­ley re­turned to his house, and then he was very weary. There were many sick in these days at Hog­gle End, and he had gone from cot­tage to cot­tage through the day. Giles Hoggett was al­most un­able to work from rheuma­tism, but still was of the opin­ion that dogged­ness might car­ry him on. ‘It’s been a deal o’ ser­vice to you, Muster Craw­ley,’ he said. ‘We hears about it all. If you hadn’t a been dogged, where’d you a been now?’ With Giles Hoggett and oth­ers he had re­mained all the day, and now he came home weary and beat­en. ‘You’ll tell him first,’ Grace had said, ‘and then I’ll give him the let­ter.’ The wife was the first to tell him of the good for­tune that was com­ing.

He flung him­self in­to the old chair as soon as he en­tered, and asked for some bread and tea. ‘Jane has al­ready gone for it, dear,’ said his wife. ‘We have had a vis­itor here, Josi­ah.’

‘A vis­itor–what vis­itor?’

‘Grace’s own friend–Hen­ry Grant­ly.’

‘Grace, come here, that I may kiss you and bless you,’ he said very solemn­ly. ‘It would seem that the world is go­ing to be very good to you.’

‘Pa­pa, you must read this let­ter first.’

‘Be­fore I kiss my own dar­ling?’ Then she knelt at his feet. ‘I see,’ he said, tak­ing the let­ter; ‘it is from your lover’s fa­ther. Per­ad­ven­ture he sig­ni­fies his con­sent, which would sure­ly be need­ful be­fore such a mar­riage would be seem­ly.’

‘It isn’t about me, pa­pa, at all.’

‘Not about you? If so, that would be most un­promis­ing. But, in any case, you are my best dar­ling.’ Then he kissed her and blessed her, and slow­ly opened the let­ter. His wife had now come close to him, and was stand­ing over him, touch­ing him, so that she al­so could read the archdea­con’s let­ter. Grace, who was still in front of him, could see the work­ing of his face as he read it; but even she could not tell whether he was grat­ified, or of­fend­ed, or dis­mayed. When he had got as far as the first of­fer of the pre­sen­ta­tion, he ceased read­ing it for a while, and looked round about the room as though lost in thought. ‘Let me see what fur­ther he writes to me,’ he then said; and af­ter that he con­tin­ued the let­ter slow­ly to the end. ‘Nay, my child, you were in er­ror in say­ing that he wrote not about you. ‘Tis the writ­ing of you that he has put some re­al heart in­to his words. He writes as though his home would be wel­come to you.’

‘And does he not make St Ewold’s wel­come to you, pa­pa?’

‘He makes me wel­come to ac­cept it–if I may use the word af­ter the or­di­nary and some­what faulty par­lance of mankind.’

‘And you will ac­cept it–of course?’

‘I know not that, my dear. The ac­cep­tance of a cure of souls is a thing not to be de­cid­ed on in a mo­ment–as is the colour of a gar­ment or the shape of a toy. Nor would I con­de­scend to take this thing from the archdea­con’s hands, if I thought that he be­stowed it sim­ply that the fa­ther of his daugh­ter-​in-​law might no longer be ac­count­ed poor.’

‘Does he say that, pa­pa?’

‘He gives it as a col­lat­er­al rea­son, bas­ing his of­fer first on the kind­ly ex­pressed judg­ment of one who is no more. Then he refers to the friend­ship of the dean. If he be­lieved that the judg­ment of his late fa­ther-​in-​law in so weighty a mat­ter were the best to be re­lied up­on of all that were at his com­mand, then he would have done well to trust to it. But in such a case he should have bol­stered up a good ground for ac­tion with no col­lat­er­al sup­ports which are weak–and worse than weak. How­ev­er, it shall have my best con­sid­er­ation, where­un­to I hope that wis­dom will be giv­en to me where on­ly such wis­dom can be had.’

‘Josi­ah,’ said his wife to him, when they were alone, ‘you will not refuse it?’

‘Not will­ing­ly–not if it may be ac­cept­ed. Alas! you need not urge me, when the temp­ta­tion is so strong!’