CHAPTER LIII

Conclusion

The end of a novel, like the end of a children's dinner party, must

be made up of sweetmeats and sugar-plums. There is now nothing else

to be told but the gala doings of Mr. Arabin's marriage, nothing more

to be described than the wedding-dresses, no further dialogue to

be recorded than that which took place between the archdeacon, who

married them, and Mr. Arabin and Eleanor, who were married.

"Wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife," and "wilt thou have

this man to thy wedded husband, to live together according to God's

ordinance?"

Mr. Arabin and Eleanor each answered, "I will."

We have no doubt that they will keep their promises, the more

especially as the Signora Neroni had left Barchester before the

ceremony was performed.

Mrs. Bold had been somewhat more than two years a widow before she

was married to her second husband, and little Johnny was then able

with due assistance to walk on his own legs into the drawing-room to

receive the salutations of the assembled guests. Mr. Harding gave

away the bride, the archdeacon performed the service, and the two

Miss Grantlys, who were joined in their labours by other young ladies

of the neighbourhood, performed the duties of bridesmaids with

equal diligence and grace. Mrs. Grantly superintended the breakfast

and bouquets, and Mary Bold distributed the cards and cake. The

archdeacon's three sons had also come home for the occasion. The

elder was great with learning, being regarded by all who knew him as

a certain future double first. The second, however, bore the palm

on this occasion, being resplendent in a new uniform. The third was

just entering the university, and was probably the proudest of the

three.

But the most remarkable feature in the whole occasion was the

excessive liberality of the archdeacon. He literally made presents

to everybody. As Mr. Arabin had already moved out of the parsonage

of St. Ewold's, that scheme of elongating the dining-room was of

course abandoned; but he would have refurnished the whole deanery

had he been allowed. He sent down a magnificent piano by Erard, gave

Mr. Arabin a cob which any dean in the land might have been proud to

bestride, and made a special present to Eleanor of a new pony chair

that had gained a prize in the Exhibition. Nor did he even stay his

hand here; he bought a set of cameos for his wife and a sapphire

bracelet for Miss Bold; showered pearls and work-boxes on his

daughters; and to each of his sons he presented a check for £20.

On Mr. Harding he bestowed a magnificent violoncello with all the

new-fashioned arrangements and expensive additions, which on account

of these novelties that gentleman could never use with satisfaction

to his audience or pleasure to himself.

Those who knew the archdeacon well perfectly understood the causes of

his extravagance. 'Twas thus that he sang his song of triumph over

Mr. Slope. This was his pæan, his hymn of thanksgiving, his loud

oration. He had girded himself with his sword and gone forth to the

war; now he was returning from the field laden with the spoils of

the foe. The cob and the cameos, the violoncello and the pianoforte,

were all as it were trophies reft from the tent of his now-conquered

enemy.

The Arabins after their marriage went abroad for a couple of months,

according to the custom in such matters now duly established, and

then commenced their deanery life under good auspices. And nothing

can be more pleasant than the present arrangement of ecclesiastical

affairs in Barchester. The titular bishop never interfered, and Mrs.

Proudie not often. Her sphere is more extended, more noble, and more

suited to her ambition than that of a cathedral city. As long as she

can do what she pleases with the diocese, she is willing to leave

the dean and chapter to themselves. Mr. Slope tried his hand at

subverting the old-established customs of the close, and from his

failure she had learnt experience. The burly chancellor and the

meagre little prebendary are not teased by any application respecting

Sabbath-day schools, the dean is left to his own dominions, and the

intercourse between Mrs. Proudie and Mrs. Arabin is confined to

a yearly dinner given by each to the other. At these dinners Dr.

Grantly will not take a part, but he never fails to ask for and

receive a full account of all that Mrs. Proudie either does or says.

His ecclesiastical authority has been greatly shorn since the palmy

days in which he reigned supreme as mayor of the palace to his

father, but nevertheless such authority as is now left to him he

can enjoy without interference. He can walk down the High Street of

Barchester without feeling that those who see him are comparing his

claims with those of Mr. Slope. The intercourse between Plumstead

and the deanery is of the most constant and familiar description.

Since Eleanor has been married to a clergyman, and especially to a

dignitary of the church, Mrs. Grantly has found many more points of

sympathy with her sister; and on a coming occasion, which is much

looked forward to by all parties, she intends to spend a month or two

at the deanery. She never thought of spending a month in Barchester

when little Johnny Bold was born!

The two sisters do not quite agree on matters of church doctrine,

though their differences are of the most amicable description. Mrs.

Arabin's church is two degrees higher than that of Mrs. Grantly.

This may seem strange to those who will remember that Eleanor was

once accused of partiality to Mr. Slope, but it is no less the fact.

She likes her husband's silken vest, she likes his adherence to the

rubric, she specially likes the eloquent philosophy of his sermons,

and she likes the red letters in her own prayer-book. It must not

be presumed that she has a taste for candles, or that she is at

all astray about the real presence, but she has an inkling that

way. She sent a handsome subscription towards certain very heavy

ecclesiastical legal expenses which have lately been incurred in

Bath, her name of course not appearing; she assumes a smile of gentle

ridicule when the Archbishop of Canterbury is named; and she has put

up a memorial window in the cathedral.

Mrs. Grantly, who belongs to the high and dry church, the High Church

as it was some fifty years since, before tracts were written and

young clergymen took upon themselves the highly meritorious duty

of cleaning churches, rather laughs at her sister. She shrugs her

shoulders and tells Miss Thorne that she supposes Eleanor will have

an oratory in the deanery before she has done. But she is not on

that account a whit displeased. A few High Church vagaries do not,

she thinks, sit amiss on the shoulders of a young dean's wife. It

shows at any rate that her heart is in the subject, and it shows

moreover that she is removed, wide as the poles asunder, from that

cesspool of abomination in which it was once suspected that she would

wallow and grovel. Anathema maranatha! Let anything else be held as

blessed, so that that be well cursed. Welcome kneelings and bowings,

welcome matins and complines, welcome bell, book, and candle, so that

Mr. Slope's dirty surplices and ceremonial Sabbaths be held in due

execration!

If it be essentially and absolutely necessary to choose between

the two, we are inclined to agree with Mrs. Grantly that the bell,

book, and candle are the lesser evil of the two. Let it however be

understood that no such necessity is admitted in these pages.

Dr. Arabin (we suppose he must have become a doctor when he became a

dean) is more moderate and less outspoken on doctrinal points than

his wife, as indeed in his station it behoves him to be. He is a

studious, thoughtful, hard-working man. He lives constantly at the

deanery and preaches nearly every Sunday. His time is spent in

sifting and editing old ecclesiastical literature and in producing

the same articles new. At Oxford he is generally regarded as the

most promising clerical ornament of the age. He and his wife live

together in perfect mutual confidence. There is but one secret in

her bosom which he has not shared. He has never yet learned how Mr.

Slope had his ears boxed.

The Stanhopes soon found that Mr. Slope's power need no longer

operate to keep them from the delight of their Italian villa. Before

Eleanor's marriage they had all migrated back to the shores of Como.

They had not been resettled long before the signora received from

Mrs. Arabin a very pretty though very short epistle, in which she

was informed of the fate of the writer. This letter was answered by

another--bright, charming, and witty, as the signora's letters always

were--and so ended the friendship between Eleanor and the Stanhopes.

One word of Mr. Harding, and we have done. He is still precentor of

Barchester and still pastor of the little church of St. Cuthbert's.

In spite of what he has so often said himself, he is not even

yet an old man. He does such duties as fall to his lot well and

conscientiously, and is thankful that he has never been tempted to

assume others for which he might be less fitted.

The author now leaves him in the hands of his readers: not as a hero,

not as a man to be admired and talked of, not as a man who should be

toasted at public dinners and spoken of with conventional absurdity

as a perfect divine, but as a good man, without guile, believing

humbly in the religion which he has striven to teach, and guided by

the precepts which he has striven to learn.