In these days Mr Harding was keeping his bed at the deanery, and most of those who saw him declared that he would never again leave it. The archdeacon had been slow to believe so, because he had still found his father-in-law able to talk to him; not indeed with energy--but then Mr Harding had never been energetic on ordinary matters--but with the same soft cordial interest in things which had ever been customary with him.
He had latterly been much interested about Mr Crawley, and would make both the archdeacon and Mrs Grantly tell him all that they had heard, and what they thought of the case. This of course had been before the all-important news had been received from Mrs Arabin. Mr Harding was very anxious. 'Firstly,' he said, 'for the welfare of the poor man, of whom I cannot bring myself to think ill; and then for the honour of the cloth in Barchester.' 'We are as liable to have black sheep here as anywhere,' the archdeacon had replied. 'But, my dear, I do not think the sheep is black; and we never have had black sheep in Barchester.'
'Haven't we, though?' said the archdeacon, thinking, however, of sheep who were black of a different kind of blackness from this which was now attributed to Mr Crawley--of a blackness which was not absolute blackness to Mr Harding's milder eyes. The archdeacon, when he heard his father-in-law talk after this fashion, expressed his opinion that he might live for years. He was just the man to linger on, living in bed--as indeed he had lingered all his life out of bed. But the doctor who attended him thought otherwise, as did also Mrs Grantly, and as did Mrs Baxter, and as also did Posy. 'Grandpa won't get up any more, will he?' Posy said to Mrs Baxter. 'I hope he will, my dear; and that very soon.' 'I don't think he will,' said Posy, 'because he said he would never see the big fiddle again.' 'That comes of being a little melancholy like, my dear,' said Mrs Baxter.
Mrs Grantly at this time went into Barchester almost every day, and the archdeacon, who was very often in the city, never went there without passing half-an-hour with the old man. These two clergymen, essentially different in their characters and in every detail of conduct, had been so much thrown together by circumstances that the life of each almost became part of the life of the other. Although the fact of Mr Harding's residence at the deanery had of late years thrown him oftener into the society of the dean than that of his other son-in-law, yet his intimacy with the archdeacon had been so much earlier, and his memories of the archdeacon were so much clearer, that he depended almost more upon the rector of Plumstead, who was absent, than he did upon the dean, whom he customarily saw every day. It was not so with the daughters. His Nelly, as he used to call her, had ever been his favourite, and the circumstances of their joint lives had ever been such, that they had never been further separated than from one street of Barchester to another--and that only for a very short period of the married life of Mrs Arabin's first husband. For all that was soft and tender therefore--which with Mr Harding was all in the world that was charming to him--he looked to his youngest daughter; but for authority and guidance and wisdom, and for information as to what was going on in the world, he had still turned to his son-in-law the archdeacon--as he had done for almost forty years. For so long had the archdeacon been potent as a clergyman in the diocese, and throughout the whole duration of such potency his word had been law to Mr Harding in most of the affairs of life--a law generally to be obeyed, and if sometimes broken, still a law. And now, when all was so nearly over, he would become unhappy if the archdeacon's visits were far between. Dr Grantly, when he found that this was so, would not allow that they should be far between.
'He puts me so much in mind of my father,' the archdeacon said to his wife one day.
'He is not so old as your father was when he died, by many years,' said Mrs Grantly, 'and I think one sees that difference.'
'Yes; and therefore I say that he may still live for years. My father, when he took to his bed at last, was manifestly near his death. The wonder with him was that he continued to live so long. Do you not remember how the London doctor was put out because his prophecies were not fulfilled?'
'I remember it well--as if it were yesterday.'
'And in that way there is a great difference. My father, who was physically a much stronger man, did not succumb so easily. But the likeness is in their characters. There is the same mild sweetness, becoming milder and sweeter as they increased in age--a sweetness that never could believe much evil, but that could believe less, and still less, as the weakness of age came upon them. No amount of evidence would induce your father to think that Mr Crawley stole that money.' This was said of course before the telegram had come from Venice.
'As far as that goes, I agree with him,' said Mrs Grantly, who had her own reasons for choosing to believe Mr Crawley to be innocent. 'If your son, my dear, is to marry the man's daughter, it will be as well that you should at least be able to say that you do not believe that man to be a thief.'
'That is neither here nor there,' said the archdeacon. 'A jury must decide it.'
'No jury in Barsetshire shall decide it for me,' said Mrs Grantly.
'I'm sick of Mr Crawley, and I'm sorry I spoke of him,' said the archdeacon. 'But look at Mrs Proudie. You'll agree that she was not the most charming woman in the world.'
'She certainly was not,' said Mrs Grantly, who was anxious to encourage her husband, if she could do so without admitting anything which might injure herself afterwards.
'And she was at one time violently insolent to your father. And even the bishop thought to trample on him. Do you remember the bishop's preaching against your father's chanting? If I ever forget it!' And the archdeacon slapped his closed fist against his open hand.
'Don't, dear, don't. What is the good of being violent now?'