“What was it all about?” said the policeman.
“I don’t know that I can just tell you,” said Johnny, searching in his pocketbook for half a sovereign which he tendered to the man. “There was a little difficulty, and I’m obliged to you for waiting.”
“There ain’t nothing wrong?” said the man suspiciously, hesitating for a moment before he accepted the coin.
“Nothing on earth. I’ll wait with you, while you have the house opened and inquire, if you wish it. The truth is somebody inside refused to have the door opened, and I didn’t want to stay there all night.”
“They’re a rummy couple, if what I hear is true.”
“They are a rummy couple,” said Johnny.
“I suppose it’s all right,” said the policeman, taking the money. And then John walked off home by himself, turning in his mind all the circumstances of his connection with Miss Demolines. Taking his own conduct as a whole, he was rather proud of it; but he acknowledged to himself that it would be well that he should keep himself free from the society of Madalinas for the future.
LXXXI
Barchester Cloisters
On the morning of the Sunday after the dean’s return Mr. Harding was lying in his bed, and Posy was sitting on the bed beside him. It was manifest to all now that he became feebler and feebler from day to day, and that he would never leave his bed again. Even the archdeacon had shaken his head, and had acknowledged to his wife that the last day for her father was near at hand. It would very soon be necessary that he should select another vicar for St. Ewolds.
“Grandpa won’t play cat’s-cradle,” said Posy, as Mrs. Arabin entered the room.
“No, darling—not this morning,” said the old man. He himself knew well enough that he would never play cat’s-cradle again. Even that was over for him now.
“She teases you, papa,” said Mrs. Arabin.
“No, indeed,” said he. “Posy never teases me;” and he slowly moved his withered hand down outside the bed, so as to hold the child by her frock. “Let her stay with me, my dear.”
“Dr. Filgrave is downstairs, papa. You will see him, if he comes up?” Now Dr. Filgrave was the leading physician of Barchester, and nobody of note in the city—or for the matter of that in the eastern division of the county—was allowed to start upon the last great journey without some assistance from him as the hour of going drew nigh. I do not know that he had much reputation for prolonging life, but he was supposed to add a grace to the hour of departure. Mr. Harding had expressed no wish to see the doctor—had rather declared his conviction that Dr. Filgrave could be of no possible service to him. But he was not a man to persevere in his objection in opposition to the wishes of the friends around him; and as soon as the archdeacon had spoken a word on the subject he assented.
“Of course, my dear, I will see him.”
“And Posy shall come back when he has gone,” said Mrs. Arabin.
“Posy will do me more good than Dr. Filgrave I am quite sure;—but Posy shall go now.” So Posy scrambled off the bed, and the doctor was ushered into the room.
“A day or two will see the end of it, Mr. Archdeacon;—I should say a day or two,” said the doctor, as he met Dr. Grantly in the hall. “I should say that a day or two would see the end of it. Indeed I will not undertake that twenty-four hours may not see the close of his earthly troubles. He has no suffering, no pain, no disturbing cause. Nature simply retires to rest.” Dr. Filgrave, as he said this, made a slow falling motion with his hands, which alone on various occasions had been thought to be worth all the money paid for his attendance. “Perhaps you would wish that I should step in in the evening, Mr. Dean? As it happens, I shall be at liberty.” The dean of course said that he would take it as an additional favour. Neither the dean nor the archdeacon had the slightest belief in Dr. Filgrave, and yet they would hardly have been contented that their father-in-law should have departed without him.
“Look at that man, now,” said the archdeacon, when the doctor had gone, “who talks so glibly about nature going to rest. I’ve known him all my life. He’s an older man by some months than our dear old friend upstairs. And he looks as if he were going to attend deathbeds in Barchester forever.”
“I suppose he is right in what he tells us now?” said the dean.
“No doubt he is; but my belief doesn’t come from his saying it.” Then there was a pause as the two church dignitaries sat together, doing nothing, feeling that the solemnity of the moment was such that it would be hardly becoming that they should even attempt to read. “His going will make an old man of me,” said the archdeacon. “It will be different with you.”
“It will make an old woman of Eleanor, I fear.”
“I seem to have known him all my life,” said the archdeacon. “I have known him ever since I left college; and I have known him as one man seldom knows another. There is nothing that he has done—as I believe, nothing that he has thought—with which I have not been cognizant. I feel sure that he never had an impure fancy in his mind, or a faulty wish in his heart. His tenderness has surpassed the tenderness of woman; and yet, when an occasion came for showing it, he had all the spirit of
