with his arm round her, had fate and Mr. Thorne permitted it. Each moment she crept nearer to his bosom and felt more and more certain that there was her home. What now to her was the archdeacon’s arrogance, her sister’s coldness, or her dear father’s weakness? What need she care for the duplicity of such friends as Charlotte Stanhope? She had found the strong shield that should guard her from all wrongs, the trusty pilot that should henceforward guide her through the shoals and rocks. She would give up the heavy burden of her independence and once more assume the position of a woman and the duties of a trusting and loving wife.
And he, too, stood there fully satisfied with his place. They were both looking intently on the fire, as though they could read there their future fate, till at last Eleanor turned her face towards his. “How sad you are,” she said, smiling; and indeed his face was, if not sad, at least serious. “How sad you are, love!”
“Sad,” said he, looking down at her; “no, certainly not sad.” Her sweet, loving eyes were turned towards him, and she smiled softly as he answered her. The temptation was too strong even for the demure propriety of Mr. Arabin, and bending over her, he pressed his lips to hers.
Immediately after this Mr. Thorne appeared, and they were both delighted to hear that the tail of the Beelzebub colt was not materially injured.
It had been Mr. Harding’s intention to hurry over to Ullathorne as soon as possible after his return to Barchester, in order to secure the support of his daughter in his meditated revolt against the archdeacon as touching the deanery; but he was spared the additional journey by hearing that Mrs. Bold had returned unexpectedly home. As soon as he had read her note he started off, and found her waiting for him in her own house.
How much each of them had to tell the other, and how certain each was that the story which he or she had to tell would astonish the other!
“My dear, I am so anxious to see you,” said Mr. Harding, kissing his daughter.
“Oh, Papa, I have so much to tell you!” said the daughter, returning the embrace.
“My dear, they have offered me the deanery!” said Mr. Harding, anticipating by the suddenness of the revelation the tidings which Eleanor had to give him.
“Oh, Papa,” said she, forgetting her own love and happiness in her joy at the surprising news. “Oh, Papa, can it be possible? Dear Papa, how thoroughly, thoroughly happy that makes me!”
“But, my dear, I think it best to refuse it.”
“Oh, Papa!”
“I am sure you will agree with me, Eleanor, when I explain it to you. You know, my dear, how old I am. If I live I—”
“But, Papa, I must tell you about myself.”
‘Well, my dear.”
“I do so wonder how you’ll take it.”
“Take what?”
“If you don’t rejoice at it, if it doesn’t make you happy, if you don’t encourage me, I shall break my heart.”
“If that be the case, Nelly, I certainly will encourage you.”
“But I fear you won’t. I do so fear you won’t. And yet you can’t but think I am the most fortunate woman living on God’s earth.”
“Are you, dearest? Then I certainly will rejoice with you. Come, Nelly, come to me and tell me what it is.”
“I am going —”
He led her to the sofa and, seating himself beside her, took both her hands in his. “You are going to be married, Nelly. Is not that it?”
“Yes,” she said faintly. “That is, if you will approve;” and then she blushed as she remembered the promise which she had so lately volunteered to him and which she had so utterly forgotten in making her engagement with Mr. Arabin.
Mr. Harding thought for a moment who the man could be whom he was to be called upon to welcome as his son-inlaw. A week since he would have had no doubt whom to name. In that case he would have been prepared to give his sanction, although he would have done so with a heavy heart. Now he knew that at any rate it would not be Mr. Slope, though he was perfectly at a loss to guess who could possibly have filled the place. For a moment he thought that the man might be Bertie Stanhope, and his very soul sank within him.
“Well, Nelly?”
“Oh, Papa, promise to me that, for my sake, you will love him.”
“Come, Nelly, come; tell me who it is.”
“But will you love him, Papa?”
“Dearest, I must love anyone that you love.” Then she turned her face to his and whispered into his ear the name of Mr. Arabin.
No man that she could have named could have more surprised or more delighted him. Had he looked round the world for a son-inlaw to his taste, he could have selected no one whom he would have preferred to Mr. Arabin. He was a clergyman; he held a living in the neighbourhood; he was of a set to which all Mr. Harding’s own partialities most closely adhered; he was the great friend of Dr. Grantly; and he was, moreover, a man of whom Mr. Harding knew nothing but what he approved. Nevertheless, his surprise was so great as to prevent the immediate expression of his joy. He had never thought of Mr. Arabin in connexion with his daughter; he had never imagined that they had any feeling in common. He had feared that his daughter had been made hostile to clergymen of Mr. Arabin’s stamp by her intolerance of the archdeacon’s pretensions. Had he been put to wish, he might have wished for Mr. Arabin for a son-inlaw; but had he been put to guess, the name would never have occurred to him.
“Mr. Arabin!” he exclaimed; “impossible!”
“Oh, Papa, for heaven’s sake don’t say anything against him! If you love me, don’t say anything against him. Oh, Papa, it’s done and mustn’t be undone — oh, Papa!”
Fickle Eleanor! Where was the promise that she would make no choice for herself without her father’s approval? She had chosen, and now demanded his acquiescence. “Oh, Papa, isn’t he good? Isn’t he noble? Isn’t he religious, high-minded, everything that a good man possibly can be?” She clung to her father, beseeching him for his consent.
“My Nelly, my child, my own daughter! He is; he is noble and good and high-minded; he is all that a woman can love and a man admire. He shall be my son, my own son. He shall be as close to my heart as you are. My Nelly, my child, my happy, happy child!”
We need not pursue the interview any further. By degrees they returned to the subject of the new promotion. Eleanor tried to prove to him, as the Grantlys had done, that his age could be no bar to his being a very excellent dean, but those arguments had now even less weight on him than before. He said little or nothing but sat, meditative. Every now and then he would kiss his daughter and say “yes,” or “no,” or “very true,” or “well, my dear, I can’t quite agree with you there,” but he could not be got to enter sharply into the question of “to be, or not to be” Dean of Barchester. Of her and her happiness, of Mr. Arabin and his virtues, he would talk as much as Eleanor desired — and to tell the truth, that was not a little — but about the deanery he would now say nothing further. He had got a new idea into his head — why should not Mr. Arabin be the new dean?
CHAPTER L
The Archdeacon is Satisfied with the State of Affairs
The archdeacon, in his journey into Barchester, had been assured by Mr. Harding that all their prognostications about Mr. Slope and Eleanor were groundless. Mr. Harding, however, had found it very difficult to shake his son-inlaw’s faith in his own acuteness. The matter had, to Dr. Grantly, been so plainly corroborated by such patent evidence, borne out by such endless circumstances, that he at first refused to take as true the positive statement which Mr. Harding made