CHAPTER LII

The New Dean Takes Possession of the Deanery,

and the New Warden of the Hospital

Mr. Harding and the archdeacon together made their way to Oxford, and

there, by dint of cunning argument, they induced the Master of Lazarus

also to ask himself this momentous question: "Why should not Mr.

Arabin be Dean of Barchester?" He, of course, for awhile tried his

hand at persuading Mr. Harding that he was foolish, overscrupulous,

self-willed, and weak-minded; but he tried in vain. If Mr. Harding

would not give way to Dr. Grantly, it was not likely that he would

give way to Dr. Gwynne, more especially now that so admirable a scheme

as that of inducting Mr. Arabin into the deanery had been set on foot.

When the master found that his eloquence was vain, and heard also that

Mr. Arabin was about to become Mr. Harding's son-in-law, he confessed

that he also would, under such circumstances, be glad to see his

old friend and protégé, the fellow of his college, placed in the

comfortable position that was going a-begging.

"It might be the means you know, Master, of keeping Mr. Slope out,"

said the archdeacon with grave caution.

"He has no more chance of it," said the master, "than our college

chaplain. I know more about it than that."

Mrs. Grantly had been right in her surmise. It was the Master of

Lazarus who had been instrumental in representing in high places the

claims which Mr. Harding had upon the Government, and he now consented

to use his best endeavours towards getting the offer transferred to

Mr. Arabin. The three of them went on to London together, and there

they remained a week, to the great disgust of Mrs. Grantly, and most

probably also of Mrs. Gwynne. The minister was out of town in one

direction, and his private secretary in another. The clerks who

remained could do nothing in such a matter as this, and all was

difficulty and confusion. The two doctors seemed to have plenty to do;

they bustled here and they bustled there, and complained at their club

in the evenings that they had been driven off their legs; but Mr.

Harding had no occupation. Once or twice he suggested that he might

perhaps return to Barchester. His request, however, was peremptorily

refused, and he had nothing for it but to while away his time in

Westminster Abbey.

At length an answer from the great man came. The Master of Lazarus had

made his proposition through the Bishop of Belgravia. Now this bishop,

though but newly gifted with his diocesan honours, was a man of much

weight in the clerico-political world. He was, if not as pious, at any

rate as wise as St. Paul, and had been with so much effect all things

to all men that, though he was great among the dons of Oxford, he

had been selected for the most favourite seat on the bench by a Whig

prime minister. To him Dr. Gwynne had made known his wishes and his

arguments, and the bishop had made them known to the Marquis of

Kensington-Gore. The marquis, who was Lord High Steward of the Pantry

Board, and who by most men was supposed to hold the highest office

out of the cabinet, trafficked much in affairs of this kind. He not

only suggested the arrangement to the minister over a cup of coffee,

standing on a drawing-room rug in Windsor Castle, but he also

favourably mentioned Mr. Arabin's name in the ear of a distinguished

person.

And so the matter was arranged. The answer of the great man came, and

Mr. Arabin was made Dean of Barchester. The three clergymen who had

come up to town on this important mission dined together with great

glee on the day on which the news reached them. In a silent, decent,

clerical manner they toasted Mr. Arabin with full bumpers of claret.

The satisfaction of all of them was supreme. The Master of Lazarus had

been successful in his attempt, and success is dear to us all. The

archdeacon had trampled upon Mr. Slope, and had lifted to high honours

the young clergyman whom he had induced to quit the retirement and

comfort of the university. So at least the archdeacon thought; though,

to speak sooth, not he, but circumstances, had trampled on Mr. Slope.

But the satisfaction of Mr. Harding was, of all, perhaps, the most

complete. He laid aside his usual melancholy manner and brought forth

little quiet jokes from the inmost mirth of his heart; he poked his

fun at the archdeacon about Mr. Slope's marriage and quizzed him for

his improper love for Mrs. Proudie. On the following day they all

returned to Barchester.

It was arranged that Mr. Arabin should know nothing of what had been

done till he received the minister's letter from the hands of his

embryo father-in-law. In order that no time might be lost, a message

had been sent to him by the preceding night's post, begging him to be

at the deanery at the hour that the train from London arrived. There

was nothing in this which surprised Mr. Arabin. It had somehow got

about through all Barchester that Mr. Harding was the new dean, and

all Barchester was prepared to welcome him with pealing bells and full

hearts. Mr. Slope had certainly had a party; there had certainly been

those in Barchester who were prepared to congratulate him on his

promotion with assumed sincerity, but even his own party was not

broken-hearted by his failure. The inhabitants of the city, even

the high-souled, ecstatic young ladies of thirty-five, had begun to

comprehend that their welfare, and the welfare of the place, was

connected in some mysterious manner with daily chants and bi-weekly

anthems. The expenditure of the palace had not added much to the

popularity of the bishop's side of the question; and, on the whole,

there was a strong reaction. When it became known to all the world that

Mr. Harding was to be the new dean, all the world rejoiced heartily.

Mr. Arabin, we have said, was not surprised at the summons which

called him to the deanery. He had not as yet seen Mr. Harding since

Eleanor had accepted him, nor had he seen him since he had learnt his

future father-in-law's preferment. There was nothing more natural,

more necessary, than that they should meet each other at the earliest

possible moment. Mr. Arabin was waiting in the deanery parlour when

Mr. Harding and Dr. Grantly were driven up from the station.

There was some excitement in the bosoms of them all, as they met and

shook hands; by far too much to enable either of them to begin his

story and tell it in a proper equable style of narrative. Mr. Harding

was some minutes quite dumbfounded, and Mr. Arabin could only talk in

short, spasmodic sentences about his love and good fortune. He slipped

in, as best he could, some sort of congratulation about the deanship,

and then went on with his hopes and fears--hopes that he might be

received as a son, and fears that he hardly deserved such good

fortune. Then he went back to the dean; it was the most thoroughly

satisfactory appointment, he said, of which he had ever heard.

"But! But! But--" said Mr. Harding, and then, failing to get any

further, he looked imploringly at the archdeacon.

"The truth is, Arabin," said the doctor, "that, after all you are not

destined to be son-in-law to a dean. Nor am I either: more's the

pity."

Mr. Arabin looked at him for explanation. "Is not Mr. Harding to be

the new dean?"

"It appears not," said the archdeacon. Mr. Arabin's face fell a

little, and he looked from one to the other. It was plainly to be

seen from them both that there was no cause of unhappiness in the

matter, at least not of unhappiness to them; but there was as yet no

elucidation of the mystery.

"Think how old I am," said Mr. Harding imploringly.

"Fiddlestick!" said the archdeacon.

"That's all very well, but it won't make a young man of me," said Mr.

Harding.

"And who is to be dean?" asked Mr. Arabin.

"Yes, that's the question," said the archdeacon. "Come, Mr. Precentor,

since you obstinately refuse to be anything else, let us know who is

to be the man. He has got the nomination in his pocket."

With eyes brim full of tears, Mr. Harding pulled out the letter and

handed it to his future son-in-law. He tried to make a little speech

but failed altogether. Having given up the document, he turned round

to the wall, feigning to blow his nose, and then sat himself down on

the old dean's dingy horsehair sofa. And here we find it necessary to

bring our account of the interview to an end.

Nor can we pretend to describe the rapture with which Mr. Harding was

received by his daughter. She wept with grief and wept with joy--with

grief that her father should, in his old age, still be without that

rank and worldly position which, according to her ideas, he had so

well earned; and with joy in that he, her darling father, should have

bestowed on that other dear one the good things of which he himself

would not open his hand to take possession. And here Mr. Harding again

showed his weakness. In the _mêlée_ of this exposal of their loves and

reciprocal affection, he found himself unable to resist the entreaties

of all parties that the lodgings in the High Street should be given

up. Eleanor would not live in the deanery, she said, unless her

father lived there also. Mr. Arabin would not be dean, unless Mr.

Harding would be co-dean with him. The archdeacon declared that his

father-in-law should not have his own way in everything, and Mrs.

Grantly carried him off to Plumstead, that he might remain there

till Mr. and Mrs. Arabin were in a state to receive him in their own

mansion.

Pressed by such arguments as these, what could a weak old man do but

yield?

But there was yet another task which it behoved Mr. Harding to do

before he could allow himself to be at rest. Little has been said in

these pages of the state of those remaining old men who had lived

under his sway at the hospital. But not on this account must it be

presumed that he had forgotten them, or that in their state of anarchy

and in their want of due government he had omitted to visit them. He

visited them constantly, and had latterly given them to understand

that they would soon be required to subscribe their adherence to a

new master. There were now but five of them, one of them having been

but quite lately carried to his rest--but five of the full number,

which had hitherto been twelve, and which was now to be raised to

twenty-four, including women. Of these, old Bunce, who for many years

had been the favourite of the late warden, was one; and Abel Handy,

who had been the humble means of driving that warden from his home,

was another.

Mr. Harding now resolved that he himself would introduce the new

warden to the hospital. He felt that many circumstances might conspire

to make the men receive Mr. Quiverful with aversion and disrespect;

he felt also that Mr. Quiverful might himself feel some qualms of

conscience if he entered the hospital with an idea that he did so in

hostility to his predecessor. Mr. Harding therefore determined to walk

in, arm in arm with Mr. Quiverful, and to ask from these men their

respectful obedience to their new master.

On returning to Barchester, he found that Mr. Quiverful had not

yet slept in the hospital house, or entered on his new duties.

He accordingly made known to that gentleman his wishes, and his

proposition was not rejected.

It was a bright, clear morning, though in November, that Mr. Harding

and Mr. Quiverful, arm in arm, walked through the hospital gate. It

was one trait in our old friend's character that he did nothing with

parade. He omitted, even in the more important doings of his life,

that sort of parade by which most of us deem it necessary to grace

our important doings. We have house-warmings, christenings, and gala

days; we keep, if not our own birthdays, those of our children; we

are apt to fuss ourselves if called upon to change our residences and

have, almost all of us, our little state occasions. Mr. Harding had

no state occasions. When he left his old house, he went forth from

it with the same quiet composure as though he were merely taking his

daily walk; now that he re-entered it with another warden under his

wing, he did so with the same quiet step and calm demeanour. He was

a little less upright than he had been five years, nay, it was now

nearly six years ago; he walked perhaps a little slower; his footfall

was perhaps a thought less firm; otherwise one might have said that he

was merely returning with a friend under his arm.

This friendliness was everything to Mr. Quiverful. To him, even in

his poverty, the thought that he was supplanting a brother clergyman

so kind and courteous as Mr. Harding had been very bitter. Under his

circumstances it had been impossible for him to refuse the proffered

boon; he could not reject the bread that was offered to his children,

or refuse to ease the heavy burden that had so long oppressed that

poor wife of his; nevertheless, it had been very grievous to him to

think that in going to the hospital he might encounter the ill-will

of his brethren in the diocese. All this Mr. Harding had fully

comprehended. It was for such feelings as these, for the nice

comprehension of such motives, that his heart and intellect were

peculiarly fitted. In most matters of worldly import the archdeacon

set down his father-in-law as little better than a fool. And perhaps

he was right. But in some other matters, equally important if they be

rightly judged, Mr. Harding, had he been so minded, might with as much

propriety have set down his son-in-law for a fool. Few men, however,

are constituted as was Mr. Harding. He had that nice appreciation of

the feelings of others which belongs of right exclusively to women.

Arm in arm they walked into the inner quadrangle of the building, and

there the five old men met them. Mr. Harding shook hands with them

all, and then Mr. Quiverful did the same. With Bunce Mr. Harding shook

hands twice, and Mr. Quiverful was about to repeat the same ceremony,

but the old man gave him no encouragement.

"I am very glad to know that at last you have a new warden," said Mr.

Harding in a very cheery voice.

"We be very old for any change," said one of them, "but we do suppose

it be all for the best."

"Certainly--certainly it is for the best," said Mr. Harding. "You

will again have a clergyman of your own church under the same roof

with you, and a very excellent clergyman you will have. It is a great

satisfaction to me to know that so good a man is coming to take care

of you, and that it is no stranger, but a friend of my own who will

allow me from time to time to come in and see you."

"We be very thankful to your Reverence," said another of them.

"I need not tell you, my good friends," said Mr. Quiverful, "how

extremely grateful I am to Mr. Harding for his kindness to me--I must

say his uncalled-for, unexpected kindness."

"He be always very kind," said a third.

"What I can do to fill the void which he left here I will do. For your

sake and my own I will do so, and especially for his sake. But to you

who have known him, I can never be the same well-loved friend and

father that he has been."

"No, sir, no," said old Bunce, who hitherto had held his peace; "no

one can be that. Not if the new bishop sent a hangel to us out of

heaven. We doesn't doubt you'll do your best, sir, but you'll not be

like the old master--not to us old ones."

"Fie, Bunce, fie; how dare you talk in that way?" said Mr. Harding;

but as he scolded the old man he still held him by his arm and pressed

it with warm affection.

There was no getting up any enthusiasm in the matter. How could five

old men tottering away to their final resting place be enthusiastic

on the reception of a stranger? What could Mr. Quiverful be to them,

or they to Mr. Quiverful? Had Mr. Harding indeed come back to them,

some last flicker of joyous light might have shone forth on their aged

cheeks; but it was in vain to bid them rejoice because Mr. Quiverful

was about to move his fourteen children from Puddingdale into the

hospital house. In reality they did no doubt receive advantage,

spiritual as well as corporal, but this they could neither anticipate

nor acknowledge.

It was a dull affair enough, this introduction of Mr. Quiverful, but

still it had its effect. The good which Mr. Harding intended did not

fall to the ground. All the Barchester world, including the five

old bedesmen, treated Mr. Quiverful with the more respect because

Mr. Harding had thus walked in, arm in arm with him, on his first

entrance to his duties.

And here in their new abode we will leave Mr. and Mrs. Quiverful

and their fourteen children. May they enjoy the good things which

Providence has at length given to them!