第328章

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.