The Last Chronicle of Barset Part 8

Walker had been very kind both to Mr. and Mrs. Crawley, and argued from this that Mr. Walker must think the man to be innocent. But Henry Grantly, who did not dare to ask a direct question of the solicitor, went cunningly to work, and closeted himself with Mrs.

Walker,--with Mrs. Walker, who knew well of the good fortune which was hovering over Grace's head and was so nearly settling itself upon her shoulders. She would have given a finger to be able to whitewash Mr. Crawley in the major's estimation. Nor must it be supposed that she told the major in plain words that her husband had convinced himself of the man's guilt. In plain words no question was asked between them, and in plain words no opinion was expressed. But there was the look of sorrow in the woman's eye, there was the absence of reference to her husband's a.s.surance that the man was innocent, there was the air of settled grief which told of her own conviction; and the major left her, convinced that Mrs. Walker believed Mr. Crawley to be guilty.

Then he went to Barchester; not open-mouthed with inquiry, but rather with open ears, and it seemed to him that all men in Barchester were of one mind. There was a county-club in Barchester, and at this county-club nine men out of every ten were talking about Mr. Crawley.

It was by no means necessary that a man should ask questions on the subject. Opinion was expressed so freely that no such asking was required; and opinion in Barchester,--at any rate in the county-club,--seemed now to be all of one mind. There had been every disposition at first to believe Mr. Crawley to be innocent. He had been believed to be innocent, even after he had said wrongly that the cheque had been paid to him by Mr. Soames; but he had since stated that he had received it from Dean Arabin, and that statement was also shown to be false. A man who has a cheque changed on his own behalf is bound at least to show where he got the cheque. Mr. Crawley had not only failed to do this, but had given two false excuses. Henry Grantly, as he drove home to Silverbridge on the Sunday afternoon, summed up all the evidence in his own mind, and brought in a verdict of Guilty against the father of the girl whom he loved.

On the following morning he walked into Silverbridge and called at Miss Prettyman's house. As he went along his heart was warmer towards Grace than it had ever been before. He had told himself that he was now bound to abstain, for his father's sake, from doing that which he had told his father that he would certainly do. But he knew also, that he had said that which, though it did not bind him to Miss Crawley, gave her a right to expect that he would so bind himself.

And Miss Prettyman could not but be aware of what his intention had been, and could not but expect that he should now be explicit. Had he been a wise man altogether, he would probably have abstained from saying anything at the present moment,--a wise man, that is, in the ways and feelings of the world in such matters. But, as there are men who will allow themselves all imaginable lat.i.tude in their treatment of women, believing that the world will condone any amount of fault of that nature, so are there other men, and a cla.s.s of men which on the whole is the more numerous of the two, who are tremblingly alive to the danger of censure on this head,--and to the danger of censure not only from others, but from themselves also. Major Grantly had done that which made him think it imperative upon him to do something further, and to do that something at once.

Therefore he started off on the Monday morning after breakfast and walked to Silverbridge, and as he walked he built various castles in the air. Why should he not marry Grace,--if she would have him,--and take her away beyond the reach of her father's calamity? Why should he not throw over his own people altogether, money, position, society, and all, and give himself up to love? Were he to do so, men might say that he was foolish, but no one could hint that he was dishonourable. His spirit was high enough to teach him to think that such conduct on his part would have in it something of magnificence; but, yet, such was not his purpose. In going to Miss Prettyman it was his intention to apologize for not doing this magnificent thing. His mind was quite made up. Nevertheless he built those castles in the air.

It so happened that he encountered the younger Miss Prettyman in the hall. It would not at all have suited him to reveal to her the purport of his visit, or ask her either to a.s.sist his suit or to receive his apologies. Miss Anne Prettyman was too common a personage in the Silverbridge world to be fit for such employment. Miss Anne Prettyman was, indeed, herself submissive to him, and treated him with the courtesy which is due to a superior being. He therefore simply asked her whether he could be allowed to see her sister.

"Surely, Major Grantly;--that is, I think so. It is a little early, but I think she can receive you."

"It is early, I know; but as I want to say a word or two on business--"

"Oh, on business. I am sure she will see you on business; she will only be too proud. If you will be kind enough to step in here for two minutes." Then Miss Anne, having deposited the major in the little parlour, ran upstairs with her message to her sister. "Of course it's about Grace Crawley," she said to herself as she went. "It can't be about anything else. I wonder what it is he's going to say. If he's going to pop, and the father in all this trouble, he's the finest fellow that ever trod." Such were her thoughts as she tapped at the door and announced in the presence of Grace that there was somebody in the hall.

"It's Major Grantly," whispered Anne, as soon as Grace had shut the door behind her.

"So I supposed by your telling her not to go into the hall. What has he come to say?"

"How on earth can I tell you that, Annabella? But I suppose he can have only one thing to say after all that has come and gone. He can only have come with one object."

"He wouldn't have come to me for that. He would have asked to see herself."

"But she never goes out now, and he can't see her."

"Or he would have gone to them over at Hogglestock," said Miss Prettyman. "But of course he must come up now he is here. Would you mind telling him? or shall I ring the bell?"

"I'll tell him. We need not make more fuss than necessary, with the servants, you know. I suppose I'd better not come back with him?"

There was a tone of supplication in the younger sister's voice as she made the last suggestion, which ought to have melted the heart of the elder; but it was unavailing. "As he has asked to see me, I think you had better not," said Annabella. Miss Anne Prettyman bore her cross meekly, offered no argument on the subject, and returning to the little parlour where she had left the major, brought him upstairs and ushered him into her sister's room without even entering it again, herself.

Major Grantly was as intimately acquainted with Miss Anne Prettyman as a man under thirty may well be with a lady nearer fifty than forty, who is not specially connected with him by any family tie; but of Miss Prettyman he knew personally very much less. Miss Prettyman, as has before been said, did not go out, and was therefore not common to the eyes of the Silverbridgians. She did occasionally see her friends in her own house, and Grace Crawley's lover, as the major had come to be called, had been there on more than one occasion; but of real personal intimacy between them there had hitherto existed none.

He might have spoken, perhaps, a dozen words to her in his life. He had now more than a dozen to speak to her, but he hardly knew how to commence them.

She had got up and curtseyed, and had then taken his hand and asked him to sit down. "My sister tells me that you want to see me," she said, in her softest, mildest voice.

"I do, Miss Prettyman. I want to speak to you about a matter that troubles me very much,--very much indeed."

"Anything that I can do, Major Grantly--"

"Thank you, yes. I know that you are very good, or I should not have ventured to come to you. Indeed I shouldn't trouble you now, of course, if it was only about myself. I know very well what a great friend you are to Miss Crawley."

"Yes, I am. We love Grace dearly here."

"So do I," said the major, bluntly; "I love her dearly, too." Then he paused, as though he thought that Miss Prettyman ought to take up the speech. But Miss Prettyman seemed to think differently, and he was obliged to go on. "I don't know whether you have ever heard about it, or noticed it, or--or--or--" He felt that he was very awkward, and he blushed. Major as he was, he blushed as he sat before the old woman, trying to tell his story, but not knowing how to tell it. "The truth is, Miss Prettyman, I have done all but ask her to be my wife, and now has come this terrible affair about her father."

"It is a terrible affair, Major Grantly; very terrible."

"By Jove, you may say that!"

"Of course Mr. Crawley is as innocent in the matter as you or I are."

"You think so, Miss Prettyman?"

"Think so! I feel quite sure of it. What; a clergyman of the Church of England, a pious, hard-working country clergyman, whom we have known among us by his good works for years, suddenly turn thief, and pilfer a few pounds! It is not possible, Major Grantly. And the father of such a daughter, too! It is not possible. It may do for men of business to think so, lawyers and such like, who are obliged to think in accordance with the evidence, as they call it; but to my mind the idea is monstrous. I don't know how he got it, and I don't care; but I'm quite sure he did not steal it. Whoever heard of anybody becoming so base as that all at once?"

The major was startled by her eloquence, and by the indignant tone of voice in which it was expressed. It seemed to tell him that she would give him no sympathy in that which he had come to say to her, and to upbraid him already in that he was not prepared to do the magnificent thing of which he had thought when he had been building his castles in the air. Why should he not do the magnificent thing? Miss Prettyman's eloquence was so strong that it half convinced him that the Barchester Club and Mr. Walker had come to a wrong conclusion after all.

"And how does Miss Crawley bear it?" he asked, desirous of postponing for a while any declaration of his own purpose.

"She is very unhappy, of course. Not that she thinks evil of her father."

"Of course she does not think him guilty."

"n.o.body thinks him so in this house, Major Grantly," said the little woman, very imperiously. "But Grace is, naturally enough, very sad;--very sad indeed. I do not think I can ask you to see her to-day."

"I was not thinking of it," said the major.

"Poor, dear girl! it is a great trial for her. Do you wish me to give her any message, Major Grantly?"

The moment had now come in which he must say that which he had come to say. The little woman waited for an answer, and as he was there, within her power as it were, he must speak. I fear that what he said will not be approved by any strong-minded reader. I fear that our lover will henceforth be considered by such a one as being but a weak, wishy-washy man, who had hardly any mind of his own to speak of;--that he was a man of no account, as the poor people say. "Miss Prettyman, what message ought I to send to her?" he said.

"Nay, Major Grantly, how can I tell you that? How can I put words into your mouth?"

"It isn't the words," he said; "but the feelings."

"And how can I tell the feelings of your heart?"

"Oh, as for that, I know what my feelings are. I do love her with all my heart;--I do, indeed. A fortnight ago I was only thinking whether she would accept me when I asked her,--wondering whether I was too old for her, and whether she would mind having Edith to take care of."

"She is very fond of Edith,--very fond indeed."

"Is she?" said the major, more distracted than ever. Why should he not do the magnificent thing after all? "But it is a great charge for a young girl when she marries."

"It is a great charge;--a very great charge. It is for you to think whether you should entrust so great a charge to one so young."

"I have no fear about that at all."

"Nor should I have any,--as you ask me. We have known Grace well, thoroughly, and are quite sure that she will do her duty in that state of life to which it may please G.o.d to call her."

The major was aware when this was said to him that he had not come to Miss Prettyman for a character of the girl he loved; and yet he was not angry at receiving it. He was neither angry, nor even indifferent. He accepted the character almost gratefully, though he felt that he was being led away from his purpose. He consoled himself for this, however, by remembering that the path by which Miss Prettyman was now leading him, led to the magnificent, and to those pleasant castles in the air which he had been building as he walked into Silverbridge. "I am quite sure that she is all that you say," he replied. "Indeed I had made up my mind about that long ago."

"And what can I do for you, Major Grantly?"

"You think I ought not to see her?"