It was more than a week before the archdeacon received a reply from Mr Crawley, during which time the dean had been over to Hogglestock more than once, as had also Mrs Arabin and Lady Lufton the younger--and there had been letters written without end, and the archdeacon had been nearly beside himself. 'A man who pretends to conscientious scruples of that kind is not fit to have a parish,' he had said to his wife. His wife understood what he meant, and I trust that the reader may also understand it. In the ordinary cutting of blocks a very fine razor is not an appropriate instrument. The archdeacon, moreover, loved the temporalities of the Church as temporalities. The Church was beautiful to him because one man by interest might have a thousand a year, while another man equally good, but without interest, could only have a hundred. And he liked the men who had the interest a great deal better than the men who had it not. He had been willing to admit the poor perpetual curate, who had so long been kept out in the cold, within the pleasant circle which was warm with ecclesiastical good things, and the man hesitated--because of scruples, as the dean told him! 'I always button up my pocket when I hear of scruples,' the archdeacon said.
But at last Mr Crawley condescended to accept St Ewold's.
'Reverend and dear sir,' he said in his letter: 'For the personal benevolence of the offer made to me in your letter of the -- instant, I beg to tender you my most grateful thanks; as also for you generous kindness to me, in telling me of the high praise bestowed upon me by a gentleman who is now no more--whose character I have esteemed and whose good opinion I value. There is, methinks, something inexpressibly dear to me in the recorded praise of the dead. For the further instance of the friendship of the Dean of Barchester, I am also thankful.
'Since the receipt of your letter I have doubted much as to my fitness for the work you have proposed to entrust to me--not from any feeling that the parish of St Ewold's may be beyond my intellectual power, but because the latter circumstances of my life have been of a nature so strange and perplexing that they have left me somewhat in doubt as to my own aptitude for going about among men without giving offence and becoming a stumbling block.
'Nevertheless, reverend and dear sir, if after this confession on my part of a certain faulty demeanour with which I know well that I am afflicted, you are still willing to put the parish into my hands, I will accept the charge--instigated to do so by the advice of all whom I have consulted on the subject; and, in thus accepting it, Ihereby pledge myself to vacate it at a month's warning, should I be called upon by you to do so at any period within the next two years. Should I be so far successful during those twenty-four months as to have satisfied both yourself and myself, I may then perhaps venture to regard the preferment as my own in perpetuity for life;--I have the honour to be, reverend and dear sir, you most humble and faithful servant, 'JOSIAH CRAWLEY' 'Psha!' said the archdeacon, who professed that he did not at all like the letter. 'I wonder what he would say if I sent him a month's notice at next Michaelmas?'
'I'm sure he would go,' said Mrs Grantly.
'The more fool he,' said the archdeacon.
At this time Grace was at the parsonage in a seventh heaven of happiness. The archdeacon was never rough to her, nor did he make any of his harsh remarks about her father in her presence. Before her St Ewold's was spoken of as the home that was to belong to the Crawleys for the next twenty years. Mrs Grantly was very loving with her, lavishing upon her pretty presents, and words that were prettier than presents.
Grace's life had hitherto been so destitute of those prettinesses and softnesses which can hardly be had without money though money alone will not purchase them, that it seemed to her now that the heavens rained graciousness upon her. It was not that the archdeacon's watch or her lover's chain, or Mrs Grantly's locket, or the little toy from Italy which Mrs Arabin brought to her from the treasures of the deanery, filled her heart with undue exaltation. It was not that she revelled in her new delights of silver and gold and shining gems; but that the silver and gold and shining gems were constant indications to her that things had changed, not only for her, but for her father and mother, and brother and sister. She felt now more sure than ever that she could not have enjoyed her love had she accepted her lover while the disgrace of the accusation against her father remained. But now--having waited till that had passed away, everything was a new happiness to her.
At last it was settled that Mr and Mrs Crawley were to come to Plumstead--and they came. it would be too long to tell now how gradually had come about that changed state of things which made such a visit possible. Mr Crawley had at first declared that such a thing was out of the question. If St Ewold's was to depend upon it St Ewold's must be given up. And I think that it would have been impossible for him to go direct from Hogglestock to Plumstead. But it fell out after this wise.
