Page:The Last Chronicle of Barset Vol 2.djvu/367

Rh word too much might, as she well knew, settle the question against Mr. Crawley for ever. But were she to postpone the word till too late, the question would be settled as fatally.

"I haven't thought about it," he said sharply. "I don't like thinking of such things while the incumbent is still living." Oh, archdeacon, archdeacon! unless that other chronicle be a false chronicle, how hast thou forgotten thyself and thy past life! "Particularly not, when that incumbent is your father," said the archdeacon. Mrs. Grantly said nothing more about St. Ewold's. She would have said as much as she had intended to say if she had succeeded in making the archdeacon understand that St. Ewold's would be a very nice refuge for Mr. Crawley after all the miseries which he had endured at Hogglestock.

They learned as they entered the deanery that Mrs. Baxter had already heard of Mrs. Arabin's return. "O yes, ma'am. Mr. Harding got a letter hisself, and I got another, separate;—both from Venice, ma'am. But when master is to come, nobody seems to know." Mrs. Baxter knew that the dean had gone to Jerusalem, and was inclined to think that from such distant bournes there was no return for any traveller. The east is always further than the west in the estimation of the Mrs. Baxters of the world. Had the dean gone to Canada, she would have thought that he might come back to-morrow. But still there was the news to be told of Mr. Crawley, and there was also joy to be expressed at the sudden coming back of the much-wished-for mistress of the deanery.

"It's so good of you to come both together," said Mr. Harding.

"We thought we should be too many for you," said the archdeacon.

"Too many! O dear, no. I like to have people by me; and as for voices, and noise, and all that, the more the better. But I am weak. I'm weak in my legs. I don't think I shall ever stand again."

"Yes, you will," said the archdeacon.

"We have brought you good news," said Mrs. Grantly.

"Is it not good news that Nelly will be home this week? You can't understand what a joy it is to me. I used to think sometimes, at night, that I should never see her again. That she would come back in time was all I have had to wish for." He was lying on his back, and as he spoke he pressed his withered hands together above the bedclothes. They could not begin immediately to tell him of Mr. Crawley, but as soon as his mind had turned itself away from the thoughts of his absent daughter, Mrs. Grantly again reverted to her news.

"We have come to tell you about Mr. Crawley, papa."