When the dean and Mrs Arabin had first talked of going abroad for a long visit, it had been understood that Mr Harding should pass the period of their absence with his other daughter at Plumstead; but when the time came he begged Mrs Arabin to be allowed to remain in his old rooms. 'Of course I shall go backwards and forwards,' he had said. 'There is nothing I like so much as a change now and then.' The result had been that he had gone once to Plumstead during the dean's absence. When he had thus remonstrated, begging go be allowed to remain in Barchester, Mrs Arabin had declared her intention of giving up her tour. In telling her father of this she had not said that her altered purpose had arisen from her disinclination to leave him alone; but he had perceived that it was so, and had then consented to be taken over to Plumstead. There was nothing, he said, which he would like so much as going over to Plumstead for four or five months. It had ended in his having his own way altogether. The Arabins had gone upon their tour, and he was left in possession of the deanery. 'I should not like to die out of Barchester,' he said to himself in excuse to himself for his disinclination to sojourn long under the archdeacon's roof. But, in truth, the archdeacon, who loved him well and who, after a fashion, had always been good to him--who had always spoken of the connexion which had bound the two families together as the great blessing of his life--was too rough in his greetings for the old man. Mr Harding had ever mixed something of fear with his warm affection for his elder son-in-law, and now in these closing hours of his life he could not avoid a certain amount of shrinking from that loud voice--a certain inaptitude to be quite at ease in that commanding presence. The dean, his second son-in-law, had been a modern friend in comparison with the archdeacon; but the dean was more gentle with him; and then the dean's wife had ever been the dearest to him of human beings. It may be a doubt whether one of the dean's children was not now almost more dear, and whether in these days he did not have more free communication with that little girl than with any other human being. Her name was Susan, but he had always called her Posy, having himself invented for her that soubriquet. When it had been proposed to him to pass the winter and spring at Plumstead, the suggestion had been made alluring by a promise that Posy also should be taken to Mrs Grantly's house. But he, as we have seen, remained at the deanery, and Posy had remained with him.
Posy was now five years old, and could talk well, and had her own ideas of things. Posy's eyes--hers, and no others besides her own--were allowed to see the inhabitant of the big black case; and now that the deanery was so nearly deserted, Posy's fingers had touched the strings and had produced an infantine moan. 'Grandpa, let me do it again.'
Twang! It was not, however, in truth, a twang, but a sound as of a prolonged dull, almost deadly, hum-m-m-m-m! On this occasion the moan was not entirely infantine--Posy's fingers having been something too strong--and the case was closed and locked, and grandpa shook his head.
'But Mrs Baxter won't be angry,' said Posy. Mrs Baxter was the housekeeper in the deanery, and had Mr Harding under her especial charge.
'No, my darling; Mrs Baxter will not be angry, but we mustn't disturb the house.'
'No,' said Posy, with much of important awe in her tone; 'we mustn't disturb the house; must we, grandpa?' And so she gave in her adhesion to the closing of the case. But Posy could play cat's-cradle, and as cat's-cradle did not disturb the house at all, there was a good deal of cat's-cradle played in those days. Posy's fingers were so soft and pretty, so small and deft, that the dear old man delighted in taking the strings from them, and in having them taken from his own by those tender little digits.
On the afternoon after the conversation respecting Grace Crawley which is recorded in the early part of this chapter, a messenger from Barchester went over to Plumstead, and part of his mission consisted of a note from Mrs Baxter to Mrs Grantly, beginning 'Honoured Madam,' and informing Mrs Grantly, among other things, that her 'respected papa', as Mrs Baxter called him, was not quite so well as usual; not that Mrs Baxter thought that there was much the matter. Mr Harding had been to the cathedral service, as was usual with him, but had come home leaning on a lady's arm, who had thought it well to stay with him at the door till it had been opened for him. After that 'Miss Posy' had found him asleep, and had been unable--or if not unable, unwilling, to wake him.
'Miss Posy' had come down to Mrs Baxter somewhat in a fright, and hence this letter had been written. Mrs Baxter thought that there was nothing 'to fright' Mrs Grantly, and she wasn't sure that she should have written at all only that **** was bound to go over to Plumstead with the wool; but as **** was going, Mrs Baxter thought it proper to send her duty, and to say that to her humble way of thinking perhaps it might be best that Mr Harding shouldn't go alone to the cathedral in the morning.
'If the dear reverend gentleman was to get a tumble, ma'am,' said the letter, 'it would be awkward.' Then Mrs Grantly remembered that she had left her father almost without a greeting in the previous day, and she resolved that she would go over very early on the following morning--so early that she would be at the deanery before her father should have gone to the cathedral.
'He ought to have come over here. And not stayed there by himself,' said the archdeacon, when his wife told him of her intention.
'It is too late to think of that now, my dear; and one can understand, Ithink, that he should not like leaving the cathedral as long as he can attend it. The truth is that he does not like being out of Barchester.'
'He would be much better here,' said the archdeacon. 'Of course you can have the carriage and go over. We can breakfast at eight; and if you can bring him back with you, do. I should tell him that he ought to come.'