The Last Chronicle of Barset

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"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 quite 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 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."

"Nobody 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 child! 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 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 God 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?"

"I will ask herself, if you please. I have such trust in her judgment
that I should leave her altogether to her own discretion."

The magnificent thing must be done, and the major made up his mind
accordingly. Something of regret came over his spirit as he thought
of a father-in-law disgraced and degraded, and of his own father
broken-hearted. But now there was hardly an alternative left to him.
And was it not the manly thing for him to do? He had loved the girl
before this trouble had come upon her, and was he not bound to accept
the burden which his love had brought with it? "I will see her," he
said, "at once, if you will let me, and ask her to be my wife. But I
must see her alone."

Then Miss Prettyman paused. Hitherto she had undoubtedly been playing
her fish cautiously, or rather her young friend's fish,--perhaps I
may say cunningly. She had descended to artifice on behalf of the
girl whom she loved, admired, and pitied. She had seen some way into
the man's mind, and had been partly aware of his purpose,--of his
infirmity of purpose, of his double purpose. She had perceived that a
word from her might help Grace's chance, and had led the man on till
he had committed himself, at any rate to her. In doing this she had
been actuated by friendship rather than by abstract principle. But
now, when the moment had come in which she must decide upon some
action, she paused. Was it right, for the sake of either of them,
that an offer of marriage should be made at such a moment as this?
It might be very well, in regard to some future time, that the major
should have so committed himself. She saw something of the man's
spirit, and believed that, having gone so far,--having so far told
his love, he would return to his love hereafter, let the result of
the Crawley trial be what it might. But,--but, this could be no
proper time for love-making. Though Grace loved the man, as Miss
Prettyman knew well,--though Grace loved the child, having allowed
herself to long to call it her own, though such a marriage would be
the making of Grace's fortune as those who loved her could hardly
have hoped that it should ever have been made, she would certainly
refuse the man, if he were to propose to her now. She would refuse
him, and then the man would be free;--free to change his mind if he
thought fit. Considering all these things, craftily in the exercise
of her friendship, too cunningly, I fear, to satisfy the claims of a
high morality, she resolved that the major had better not see Miss
Crawley at the present moment. Miss Prettyman paused before she
replied, and, when she did speak, Major Grantly had risen from his
chair and was standing with his back to the fire. "Major Grantly,"
she said, "you shall see her if you please, and if she pleases; but I
doubt whether her answer at such a moment as this would be that which
you would wish to receive."

"You think she would refuse me?"

"I do not think that she would accept you now. She would feel,--I am
sure she would feel, that these hours of her father's sorrow are not
hours in which love should be either offered or accepted. You shall,
however, see her if you please."

The major allowed himself a moment for thought; and as he thought he
sighed. Grace Crawley became more beautiful in his eyes than ever,
was endowed by these words from Miss Prettyman with new charms and
brighter virtues than he had seen before. Let come what might he
would ask her to be his wife on some future day, if he did not so ask
her now. For the present, perhaps, he had better be guided by Miss
Prettyman. "Then I will not see her," he said.

"I think that would be the wiser course."

"Of course you knew before this that I--loved her?"

"I thought so, Major Grantly."

"And that I intended to ask her to be my wife?"

"Well; since you put the question to me so plainly, I must confess
that as Grace's friend I should not quite have let things go on as
they have gone,--though I am not at all disposed to interfere with
any girl whom I believe to be pure and good as I know her to be,--but
still I should hardly have been justified in letting things go on as
they have gone, if I had not believed that such was your purpose."

"I wanted to set myself right with you, Miss Prettyman."

"You are right with me,--quite right;" and she got up and gave him
her hand. "You are a fine, noble-hearted gentleman, and I hope that
our Grace may live to be your happy wife, and the mother of your
darling child, and the mother of other children. I do not see how a
woman could have a happier lot in life."

"And will you give Grace my love?"

"I will tell her at any rate that you have been here, and that
you have inquired after her with the greatest kindness. She will
understand what that means without any word of love."

"Can I do anything for her,--or her father; I mean in the way
of--money? I don't mind mentioning it to you, Miss Prettyman."

"I will tell her that you are ready to do it, if anything can be
done. For myself I feel no doubt that the mystery will be cleared up
at last; and then, if you will come here, we shall be so glad to see
you.--I shall, at least."

Then the major went, and Miss Prettyman herself actually descended
with him into the hall, and bade him farewell most affectionately
before her sister and two of the maids who came out to open the door.
Miss Anne Prettyman, when she saw the great friendship with which
the major was dismissed, could not contain herself, but asked most
impudent questions, in a whisper indeed, but in such a whisper that
any sharp-eared maid-servant could hear and understand them. "Is
it settled," she asked when her sister had ascended only the first
flight of stairs;--"has he popped?" The look with which the elder
sister punished and dismayed the younger, I would not have borne for
twenty pounds. She simply looked, and said nothing, but passed on.
When she had regained her room she rang the bell, and desired the
servant to ask Miss Crawley to be good enough to step to her. Poor
Miss Anne retired discomforted into the solitude of one of the lower
rooms, and sat for some minutes all alone, recovering from the shock
of her sister's anger. "At any rate, he hasn't popped," she said to
herself, as she made her way back to the school.

After that Miss Prettyman and Miss Crawley were closeted together for
about an hour. What passed between them need not be repeated here
word for word; but it may be understood that Miss Prettyman said no
more than she ought to have said, and that Grace understood all that
she ought to have understood.

"No man ever behaved with more considerate friendship, or more like a
gentleman," said Miss Prettyman.

"I am sure he is very good, and I am so glad he did not ask to see
me," said Grace. Then Grace went away, and Miss Prettyman sat awhile
in thought, considering what she had done, not without some stings of
conscience.

Major Grantly as he walked home was not altogether satisfied with
himself, though he gave himself credit for some diplomacy which I do
not think he deserved. He felt that Miss Prettyman and the world in
general, should the world in general ever hear anything about it,
would give him credit for having behaved well; and that he had
obtained this credit without committing himself to the necessity
of marrying the daughter of a thief, should things turn out badly
in regard to her father. But,--and this but robbed him of all the
pleasure which comes from real success,--but he had not treated Grace
Crawley with the perfect generosity which love owes, and he was in
some degree ashamed of himself. He felt, however, that he might
probably have Grace, should he choose to ask for her when this
trouble should have passed by. "And I will," he said to himself, as
he entered the gate of his own paddock, and saw his child in her
perambulator before the house. "And I will ask her, sooner or later,
let things go as they may." Then he took the perambulator under his
own charge for half-an-hour, to the satisfaction of the nurse, of the
child, and of himself.




CHAPTER VIII

Mr Crawley Is Taken to Silverbridge


It had become necessary on the Monday morning that Mrs Crawley should
obtain from her husband an undertaking that he would present himself
before the magistrates at Silverbridge on the Thursday. She had
been made to understand that the magistrates were sinning against
the strict rule of the law in not issuing a warrant at once for Mr
Crawley's apprehension; and that they were so sinning at the instance
of Mr Walker,--at whose instance they would have committed almost
any sin practicable by a board of English magistrates, so great was
their faith in him; and she knew that she was bound to answer her
engagement. She had also another task to perform--that, namely,
of persuading him to employ an attorney for his defence; and she
was prepared with the name of an attorney, one Mr Mason, also of
Silverbridge, who had been recommended to her by Mr Walker. But when
she came to the performance of these two tasks on the Monday morning,
she found that she was unable to accomplish either of them. Mr
Crawley first declared that he would have nothing to do with any
attorney. As to that he seemed to have made up his mind beforehand,
and she saw at once that she had no hope of shaking him. But when she
found that he was equally obstinate in the other matter and that he
declared that he would not go before the magistrates unless he were
made to do so,--unless the policeman came and fetched him, then she
almost sank beneath the burden of her troubles, and for a while was
disposed to let things go as they would. How could she strive to bear
a load that was so manifestly too heavy for her shoulders?

On the Sunday the poor man had exerted himself to get through his
Sunday duties, and he had succeeded. He had succeeded so well that
his wife had thought that things might yet come right with him,
that he would remember, before it was too late, the true history of
that unhappy piece of paper, and that he was rising above that half
madness which for months past had afflicted him. On the Sunday
evening, when he was tired with his work, she thought it best to say
nothing to him about the magistrates and the business of Thursday.
But on Monday morning she commenced her task, feeling that she owed
it to Mr Walker to lose no more time. He was very decided in his
manners and made her to understand that he would employ no lawyer
on his own behalf. "Why should I want a lawyer? I have done nothing
wrong," he said. Then she tried to make him understand that many who
may have done nothing wrong require a lawyer's aid. "And who is to
pay him?" he asked. To this she replied, unfortunately, that there
would be no need of thinking of that at once. "And I am to get
further into debt!" he said. "I am to put myself right before the
world by incurring debts which I know I can never pay? When it has
been a question of food for the children I have been weak, but I will
not be weak in such a matter as this. I will have no lawyer." She did
not regard this denial on his part as very material, though she would
fain have followed Mr Walker's advice had she been able; but when,
later in the day, he declared that the police should fetch him, then
her spirits gave way. Early in the morning he had seemed to assent to
the expedient of going into Silverbridge on the Thursday, and it was
not till after he had worked himself into a rage about the proposed
attorney, that he utterly refused to make the journey. During the
whole day, however, his state was such as almost to break his wife's
heart. He would do nothing. He would not go to the school, nor even
stir beyond the house-door. He would not open a book. He would not
eat, nor would he even sit at table or say the accustomed grace
when the scanty mid-day meal was placed upon the table. "Nothing is
blessed to me," he said, when his wife pressed him to say the word
for their child's sake. "Shall I say that I thank God when my heart
is thankless? Shall I serve my child by a lie?" Then for hours he
sat in the same position, in the old arm-chair, hanging over the
fire speechless, sleepless, thinking ever, as she well knew, of the
injustice of the world. She hardly dared to speak to him, so great
was the bitterness of his words when he was goaded to reply. At last,
late in the evening, feeling that it would be her duty to send to Mr
Walker early on the following morning, she laid her hand gently on
his shoulder and asked him for his promise. "I may tell Mr Walker
that you will be there on Thursday?"

"No," he said, shouting at her. "No. I will have no such message
sent." She started back, trembling. Not that she was accustomed to
tremble at his ways, or to show that she feared him in his paroxysms,
but that his voice had been louder than she had before known it. "I
will hold no intercourse with them at Silverbridge in this matter. Do
you hear me, Mary?"

"I hear you, Josiah; but I must keep my word to Mr Walker. I promised
that I would send to him."

"Tell him, then, that I will not stir a foot out of this house on
Thursday of my own accord. On Thursday I shall be here; and here I
will remain all day,--unless they take me hence by force."

"But Josiah--"

"Will you obey me, or shall I walk into Silverbridge myself and tell
the man that I will not come to him." Then he arose from his chair
and stretched forth his hand to his hat as though he were going forth
immediately, on his way to Silverbridge. The night was now pitch
dark, and the rain was falling, and abroad he would encounter all the
severity of the pitiless winter. Still it might have been better that
he should have gone. The exercise and the fresh air, even the wet and
the mud, would have served to bring back his mind to reason. But his
wife thought of the misery of the journey, of his scanty clothing, of
his worn boots, of the need there was to preserve the raiment which
he wore; and she remembered that he was fasting,--that he had eaten
nothing since the morning, and that he was not fit to be alone. She
stopped him, therefore, before he could reach the door.

"Your bidding shall be done," she said,--"of course."

"Tell them, then, that they must seek me here if they want me."

"But, Josiah, think of the parish,--of the people who respect
you,--for their sakes let it not be said that you were taken away by
policemen."

"Was St Paul not bound in prison? Did he think of what the people
might see?"

"If it were necessary, I would encourage you to bear it without a
murmur."

"It is necessary, whether you murmur, or do not murmur. Murmur
indeed! Why does not your voice ascend to heaven with one loud wail
against the cruelty of man?" Then he went forth from the room into an
empty chamber on the other side of the passage; and his wife, when
she followed him there after a few minutes, found him on his knees,
with his forehead against the floor, and with his hands clutching at
the scanty hairs of his head. Often before had she seen him so, on
the same spot, half grovelling, half prostrate in prayer, reviling
in his agony all things around him,--nay, nearly all things above
him,--and yet striving to reconcile himself to his Creator by the
humiliation of confession.

It might be better for him now, if only he could bring himself to
some softness of heart. Softly she closed the door, and placing the
candle on the mantle-shelf, softly she knelt beside him, and softly
touched his hand with hers. He did not stir nor utter a single word,
but seemed to clutch at his thin locks more violently than before.
Then she kneeling there, aloud, but with a low voice, with her thin
hands clasped, uttered a prayer in which she asked her God to remove
from her husband the bitterness of that hour. He listened till she
had finished, and then he rose slowly to his feet. "It is all in
vain," said he. "It is all in vain. It is all in vain." Then he
returned back to the parlour, and seating himself again in the
arm-chair, remained there without speaking till past midnight. At
last, when she told him that she herself was very cold, and reminded
him that for the last hour there had been no fire, still speechless,
he went up with her to their bed.

Early on the following morning she contrived to let him know that she
was about to send a neighbour's son over with a note to Mr Walker,
fearing to urge him further to change his mind; but hoping that he
might express his purpose of doing so when he heard that the letter
was to be sent; but he took no notice whatever of her words. At this
moment he was reading Greek with his daughter, or rather rebuking her
because she could not be induced to read Greek.

"Oh, papa," the poor girl said, "don't scold me now. I am so unhappy
because of all of this."

"And am not I unhappy?" he said, as he closed the book. "My God, what
have I done against thee, that my lines should be cast in such
terrible places?"

The letter was sent to Mr Walker. "He knows himself to be innocent,"
said the poor wife, writing what best excuse she knew how to make,
"and thinks that he should take no step himself in such a matter. He
will not employ a lawyer, and he says that he should prefer that he
should be sent for, if the law requires his presence at Silverbridge
on Thursday." All this she wrote, as though she felt that she ought
to employ a high tone in defending her husband's purpose; but she
broke down altogether in the few words of the postscript. "Indeed,
indeed I have done what I could!" Mr Walker understood it all, both
the high tone and the subsequent fall.

On the Thursday morning, at about ten o'clock, a fly stopped at the
gate at Hogglestock Parsonage, and out of it there came two men. One
was dressed in ordinary black clothes, and seemed from his bearing
to be a respectable man of the middle class of life. He was, however,
the superintendent of police for the Silverbridge district. The other
man was a policeman, pure and simple, with the helmet-looking hat
which has lately become common, and all the ordinary half-military
and wholly disagreeable outward adjuncts of the profession.
"Wilkins," said the superintendent, "likely enough I shall want you,
for they tell me the gent is uncommon strange. But if I don't call
you when I come out, just open the door like a servant, and mount up
on the box when we're in. And don't speak nor say nothing." Then the
senior policeman entered the house.