The archdeacon alone of the attendant clergy had been admitted for a moment into the sick man’s chamber. He had crept in with creaking shoes, had said with smothered voice a word of consolation to the sorrowing daughter, had looked on the distorted face of his old friend with solemn but yet eager scrutinising eye, as though he said in his heart “and so some day it will probably be with me,” and then, having whispered an unmeaning word or two to the doctors, had creaked his way back again into the library.
“He’ll never speak again, I fear,” said the archdeacon as he noiselessly closed the door, as though the unconscious dying man, from whom all sense had fled, would have heard in his distant chamber the spring of the lock which was now so carefully handled.
“Indeed! Indeed! Is he so bad?” said the meagre little prebendary, turning over in his own mind all the probable candidates for the deanery and wondering whether the archdeacon would think it worth his while to accept it. “The fit must have been very violent.”
“When a man over seventy has a stroke of apoplexy, it seldom comes very lightly,” said the burly chancellor.
“He was an excellent, sweet-tempered man,” said one of the vicars choral. “Heaven knows how we shall repair his loss.”
“He was indeed,” said a minor canon, “and a great blessing to all those privileged to take a share in the services of our cathedral. I suppose the government will appoint, Mr. Archdeacon. I trust we may have no stranger.”
“We will not talk about his successor,” said the archdeacon, “while there is yet hope.”
“Oh, no, of course not,” said the minor canon. “It would be exceedingly indecorous; but—”
“I know of no man,” said the meagre little prebendary, “who has better interest with the present government than Mr. Slope.”
“Mr. Slope,” said two or three at once almost sotto voce. “Mr. Slope Dean of Barchester!”
“Pooh!” exclaimed the burly chancellor.
“The bishop would do anything for him,” said the little prebendary.
“And so would Mrs. Proudie,” said the vicar choral.
“Pooh!” said the chancellor.
The archdeacon had almost turned pale at the idea. What if Mr. Slope should become Dean of Barchester? To be sure there was no adequate ground, indeed no ground at all, for presuming that such a desecration could even be contemplated. But nevertheless it was on the cards. Dr. Proudie had interest with the government, and the man carried as it were Dr. Proudie in his pocket. How should they all conduct themselves if Mr. Slope were to become Dean of Barchester? The bare idea for a moment struck even Dr. Grantly dumb.
“It would certainly not be very pleasant for us to have Mr. Slope at the deanery,” said the little prebendary, chuckling inwardly at the evident consternation which his surmise had created.
“About as pleasant and as probable as having you in the palace,” said the chancellor.
“I should think such an appointment highly improbable,” said the minor canon, “and, moreover, extremely injudicious. Should not you, Mr. Archdeacon?”
“I should presume such a thing to be quite out of the question,” said the archdeacon, “but at the present moment I am thinking rather of our poor friend who is lying so near us than of Mr. Slope.”
“Of course, of course,” said the vicar choral with a very solemn air; “of course you are. So are we all. Poor Dr. Trefoil; the best of men, but—”
“It’s the most comfortable dean’s residence in England,” said a second prebendary. “Fifteen acres in the grounds. It is better than many of the bishops’ palaces.”
“And full two thousand a year,” said the meagre doctor.
“It is cut down to £1,200,” said the chancellor.
“No,” said the second prebendary. “It is to be fifteen. A special case was made.”
“No such thing,” said the chancellor.
“You’ll find I’m right,” said the prebendary.
“I’m sure I read it in the report,” said the minor canon.
“Nonsense,” said the chancellor. “They couldn’t do it. There were to be no exceptions but London and Durham.”
“And Canterbury and York,” said the vicar choral modestly.
“What do you say, Grantly?” said the meagre little doctor.
“Say about what?” said the archdeacon, who had been looking as though he were thinking about his friend the dean, but who had in reality been thinking about Mr. Slope.
“What is the next dean to have, twelve or fifteen?”
“Twelve,” said the archdeacon authoritatively, thereby putting an end at once to all doubt and dispute among his subordinates as far as that subject was concerned.
“Well, I certainly thought it was fifteen,” said the minor canon.
“Pooh!” said the burly chancellor. At this moment the door opened and in came Dr. Fillgrave.
“How is he?” “Is he conscious?” “Can he speak?” “I hope not dead?” “No worse news, Doctor, I trust?” “I hope, I trust, something better, Doctor?” said half a dozen voices all at once, each in a tone of extremest anxiety. It was pleasant to see how popular the good old dean was among his clergy.
“No change, gentlemen; not the slightest change. But a telegraphic message has arrived—Sir Omicron Pie will be here by the 9.15 P.M. train. If any man can do anything, Sir Omicron Pie will do it. But all that skill can do has been done.”
“We are sure of that, Dr. Fillgrave,” said the archdeacon; “we are quite sure of that. But yet you know—”
“Oh, quite right,” said the doctor, “quite right—I should have done just the same—I advised it at once. I said to Rerechild at once that with such a life and such a man, Sir Omicron should be summoned—of course I knew expense was nothing—so distinguished, you know, and so popular. Nevertheless, all that human skill can do has been done.”
Just at this period Mrs. Grantly’s carriage drove into the close, and the archdeacon went down to confirm the news which she had heard before.
By the 9.15 P.M. train Sir Omicron Pie did arrive. And in the course of the night a sort of consciousness returned to the poor old dean. Whether this was due to Sir Omicron Pie is a question on which it may be well not to offer an opinion. Dr. Fillgrave was very clear in his own mind, but Sir Omicron himself is thought to have differed from that learned doctor. At any rate Sir Omicron expressed an opinion that the dean had yet some days to live.
For the eight or ten next days, accordingly, the poor dean remained in the same state, half-conscious and half-comatose; and the attendant clergy began to think that no new appointment would be necessary for some few months to come.
Chapter XXXII.
A New Candidate for Ecclesiastical Honours
The dean’s illness occasioned much mental turmoil in other places besides the deanery and adjoining library,